The Holy Grail of LeConte's Centennial

Orpheus Schantz
 (University of Waterloo)

 Orpheus Schantz was one of the first Smoky Mountain tourists and is remembered as the first paying guest at LeConte Lodge. His 1951 obituary in The New York Times described him as "one of the group instrumental in establishing the Old Smoky Mountain National Park."
 As Mike Hembree and I researched our book, LeConte Lodge, I contacted Schantz's institutions in a quest for his journals, letters, or photographs. I even considered a wild-goose-chase road trip to Chicago.
 I had no luck before the book was published in January. Then I stumbled across Schantz's old scrapbook right here where I live in Boone, North Carolina—in the library at Appalachian State University. I'd spent days in the special collections there, dredging up LeConte material and helping Mike research the university's NASCAR collection for his book, Petty vs. Pearson.
 Meanwhile, the Holy Grail of LeConte Lodge, acquired by App State in 2021, was keeping Schantz's secrets in an adjacent room.
 Schantz was a native of Canada who was raised on the shores of Lake Huron. He made his first pilgrimmage from Chicago to the Smokies in 1918, and was widowed in 1922. He and his son set up a travel agency and advertised "Springtime in the Smokies" to nature-loving friends from Chicago. Over the years, he climbed Le Conte at least 10 times. 

 In the book, we documented how Schantz met Paul Adams in 1924. Both were members of the Audubon Society, and they met at a scientific convention in Nashville. Adams gave a presentation from his August 1924 climb with the Southern Appalachian National Park Commission: "Trips with the National Park Commission and Bird Check Lists Obtained." 

 The Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association had chosen Adams to operate a guest camp atop Mount Le Conte. Now that we know Schantz had been there in 1923, they would have had plenty in common. 

 In June 1923, Wiley Oakley guided Schantz, Frank Freels, Gertrude Schwass, and Jennie Russ up Mount Le Conte. Schantz, 49, wrote:

This is the tale of the jolly four
who spent the night on a balsam floor
on top of Leconte in Tennessee
above the clouds 'neath a balsam tree.

 They might have camped in the same lean-to that Adams and the federal commission occupied in August 1924.

Hikers at the lean-to used by the 1924 federal national park commission (Photo by Dutch Roth)

 When I first read Schantz' description of the balsam bedding, it sounded so much like Adams' cabin that I wondered if Schantz might have gotten the year wrong in his scrapbook. But the fact that he doesn't mention Adams indicates that these are two separate trips.

 On July 16, 1925, Schantz led a larger group up to Adams' brand-new tent camp, paying $36 for 12 guests and two guides (Oakley and Will Ramsey) to spend two nights on the mountaintop.

This July 1925 photo probably includes Schantz and his group. Paul Adams is holding the ax. (Jim Thompson photograph)

 The lodge's Centennial celebration will be low-key. The national park has not announced any plans for ceremonies at the lodge. I am planning to visit on July 17 (which will correspond to the second night of Schantz' 1925 trip), and we'll celebrate with guests and crew. 

Schantz signed the lodge logbook after his 10th climb in 1938.
 Notice how many of the early guests were from the Midwest.

Remember Craig Kimbrel's ghostly home run?

Craig Kimbrel's 2015 Topps baseball card was his last in a Braves uniform. Saves were not a priority for the rebuilding Braves, so they traded him to the Padres on Opening Day.

 When Craig Kimbrel was a hot-shot kid and I was a rookie blogger, I posted that he might become the first Hall of Famer who never batted in a big-league game.
 Despite his inglorious exit from the Atlanta Braves a few days ago, Kimbrel might yet make the Hall of Fame. He ranks fifth all-time with 440 career saves. Three of the men ahead of him have plaques in Cooperstown: Mariano Rivera with 652 saves, Trevor Hoffman with 601, and Lee Smith with 478. The only active player with more saves is Kenley Jansen, 461. Kimbrel does have more saves than six Hall of Fame relievers: Billy Wagner, Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter, and Hoyt Wilhelm.

 As a closer—a game-ending relief pitcher—Kimbrel's job description did not require him ever to come to bat. But he actually batted twice in his career, missing his opportunity to be Cooperstown's version of Moonlight Graham, who played only half an inning in 1905. Dr. Graham, the sage of the movie Field of Dreams, never fulfilled his dream to stare down a big-league pitcher, nor to "feel the tingle in your arms as you hit the ball."

 Kimbrel batted for the Padres in 2015 and for the Cubs in 2021 (the year before the National League instituted the designated hitter). Both times, he entered the game in the next-to-last inning, and then took his turn at bat so he could finish the game in the bottom of the inning. (Whatever happened to the double switch?) 

 As I researched this, I googled "Craig Kimbrel" "plate appearance" and look what AI came up with: 

 What in the name of Rick Camp? or Bartolo Colon? 

 AI's source was a Red Sox notebook story from the 2018 World Series. The lead item was an accounting of Kimbrel's doomed season, and the second section discussed Mookie Betts' first home run in 98 post-season plate appearances. 

 Whiff! AI can't read subheads, nor tell Mookie from Craig. 

 I googled "Hall of Fame pitcher with fewest at-bats" and discovered that the record-holder is actually Jack Morris, who batted just once in a DH swap-out in 1987. At least he didn't strike out. He hit a foul ball that was caught by the right fielder. 

 Morris (elected to the Hall of Fame in 2017, 23 years after his retirement) and Rivera (who went 0-for-3) are tied for the lowest batting average in the Hall of Fame. 

 Morris did make his mark in some box scores as a pinch runner. Though he never made a hit, he scored four runs over the course of his career.

Memoirs: Three-Score and 10 Blessed Years

I found this viewpoint on my 11th climb on Mount Le Conte in 2024. 
Daredevils sometimes pose on the ledge behind me.

My daring friends,
Bernie and Dewey

 Having completed my 70th year, I'm dwelling on the 90th Psalm, a prayer of Moses, where the 10th verse declares, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their boast is only labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."
 Moses finished strong, and at age 120 he climbed Mount Pisgah, where the Lord showed him the Promised Land and then laid him to rest.
 At 70, I haven't had much toil or trouble—never a headache nor a heartache, even my heart attacks were painless—but the years are rolling up on my odometer. After 25 years in the newspaper business and 26 years at Samaritan's Purse, I'm contemplating retirement at the end of 2025.

 Lest all my lessons, adventures, puns, and Dad jokes pass away with me, I've jotted down these memories, on the chance that someone someday might wish they had asked me.

 Before we get into the chronology, I should deal with eternity and share my Christian testimony. When I was growing up, I wasn't sure where I stood with God. I knew that some of my friends had been baptized as babies, and I didn't know if that applied to me, and I was too terribly shy to ask.
 When I was about 11 years old, my Sunday School class made a field trip to the Anderson County jail. While we were there, in a stark chapel with wooden benches, a preacher gave a scared-straight sermon, and I remember being terrified by the prospect of hell. I remember that someone led me in the sinner's prayer, then told me to tell my parents when I got home. I assume my Sunday School teacher told them, but shy Tommy never did.
 Our family regularly attended Sunday School, though we didn't often stay for "big church." One night in November 1972, we went to a revival service at Concord Baptist Church, where the evangelist warned us that this might be our last chance. He used the illustration of a mountain climber who had reached an overhanging ledge, only to see his rope swing away from him. As it swung back, he knew he would have to make the leap, because the lifeline would never get any closer. (Of course it took a mountain-climbing example to move my heart.)
 I didn't have a load of sins to confess, but on the last stanza of Just As I Am (No. 240 in the Baptist Hymnal) I walked the aisle to "join the church," as we described it back then. Nov. 15, 1972, was my born-again birthday. My little sister Martha Ann also came forward at that revival, and we were baptized on the same day.

 If you are like I was, and not sure where you stand with God, I want you to know how dearly He loves you (John 3:16), and how you can know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Here is how Billy Graham explained it. 

How about that Olde English typewriter font?

1955: I was expected in 1954 but tarried until Jan. 18—costing my parents a tax deduction. I was 20 inches long, although Grandmama Essie (who worked at the hospital) proudly told everyone I measured 20 feet. We Layton kids were among 10,509 babies delivered by Dr. Anne Young, who was one of the first female doctors in South Carolina. Mama's baby book says I was adventurous: "Walked out the back door at 9½ months, received bad bump, skinned place, and a scare!" At age four, I fell and knocked out my two front teeth. I'm told my first words were "Mama" at 7½ months, followed by "Da-Da," "Bye-bye," and "Patty-cake." 

My book! And a library of friends

 For years, I said I didn't have a book in me, but along came the centennial of LeConte Lodge, which my colleague Mike Hembree recognized as a fine story-in-waiting. We collected the tales and photos, found a publisher (McFarland Books), and jumped through the editorial and licensing hoops. 

My only previous book

 On Jan. 10, just before my 70th birthday, I received my "author copies"—just in time for the Lodge centennial in this summer. (If you bought a 100th season T-shirt last year, then you should read how the 100th birthday comes after the 100th season.) Hundreds of our books were aboard the 2025 airlift in March, so that lodge guests can buy a copy. 

 I've been blessed to know dozens of authors in my journalism career. Off the top of Google's head, I came up with close to 200 books written or edited by friends and acquaintances. 

 Following is a catalogue of authors whose paths I have crossed. The bibliography says a lot about me and my circle of friends. My little library has shelves for baseball, biography, the Civil War, Clemson, history, Jesus, mountains, and NASCAR, not necessarily in that order. It includes two books titled Rebel With A Cause, as well as the synonymous Intangiball and The Intangibles; not to mention Chasing Moonlight and Chasing the Smokies Moon.

 If I have overlooked your book, please let me know so I can add it. One good thing about a blog is the ink never dries.
 Here they are, arranged alphabetically by author:

JERRY ALEXANDER (1937-2018): Jerry manned our Oconee-Pickens bureau at the Anderson Independent and knew those storied hills better than anybody else.

• 2004: The Cateechee Story
• 2006: Where Have All Our Moonshiners Gone? 
• 2008: Antebellum: Old Pickens District S.C., 1828-1868
• 2009: Blood Red Runs the Sacred Keowee

DR. FRANK AYCOCK: Frank teaches electronic communications at Appalachian State University. If you wonder why your TV won't function like a wall-sized iPhone, join us on Wednesday morning for bagels, and Doc can explain it to you.

• 2012: 21st Century Television: The Players, the Viewers, the Money 
• 2014: Television in the Cloud 

 
BILLY BAKER: We share a deep appreciation for high school sports in South Carolina. I burned out after a decade of statewide coverage for The Greenville News, but Billy's High School Sports Report is about to turn 30 and still thriving. He wrote the book on the granddaddy of them all:

• 1993: John McKissick: Called to Coach

PETER BARR: I had the honor of welcoming Peter to the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain in Rutherford County, N.C., when he became just the second man to reach the highest point in all 100 counties in North Carolina; and he was on Mount Guyot to welcome me when I became the fourth member of the club:

• 2008: Hiking North Carolina's Lookout Towers
• 2021: Exploring North Carolina's Lookout Towers

Elk Knob in Bloom

Last Gray's lily of the season (6/26/2024)

Same plant (2023)

 Elk Knob is a mile-high mountain in Watauga County, North Carolina, just 15 miles from my doorstep in Boone. It's been a state park since 2003, and for several years in my 50s I volunteered to help build the hiking trail to the summit. I try to hike at least once a month, often after work on summer evenings.

 The masthead of this blog shows the sun rising over Elk Knob, with a photo taken from adjacent Snake Mountain.  

 In 2024, my 70th year, my goal was to "hike my age"—70 trips to the summit. I was on pace to make it until Hurricane Helene struck and closed the state park for six weeks. In December, I hit 65, but the mountain and I were under the weather for the rest of my 70th year.

 This goal put me on the trail several times a week, so to keep the trips from getting tedious, I given them a purpose—this wildflower journal. I'm no authority on wildflowers, just learning on the way.

 The big show on Elk Knob is in June. In 2024, flame azalea bloomed June 6-20 and Gray's lilies June 8-26. These quickly dried up, and by the end of the month, pollinators were grazing on the drooping leftovers.

 Turk's Cap lilies were in bloom through July, along with coneflowers and turtleheads and the relentless purple Angelica. 

 Elk Knob is one of the few places in the world where you can see Gray's lily. They are named for Harvard botanist Asa Gray, who happened to be on Roan Mountain when they bloomed in 1840. 

 My experience is that if you're a day early or a day late, you may miss them. These perennials are also ephemerals. 

 For the past three years, I've taken an informal census of the Gray's lilies on Elk Knob. This year, I found 17 plants and 18 blossoms (plus more than a dozen lilies that never blossomed). Last year, 10 plants and 17 blossoms. In 2022, I did not count plants but found 12 blossoms. These are just plants I find along the trail, plus a couple of off-trail locations that I know. Certainly, there are many more elsewhere on the mountain, but this trailside sample gives me an indication that the population on Elk Knob is stable.

 As perennials, Gray's lilies can be found in the same place year after year. Also, wildlife scatter the seed to new locations. We evidently lost one lily, which had six blossoms last year but did not reappear in 2024. It was in the midst of the blighted beech forest, so it might have been crushed by a falling tree or nibbled by a deer. 

 Almost all these lilies were above 5,000 feet in elevation. There is one outlier at 4,600 feet, but it is too close to the trail and lost its bud to a broken stem for the second year in a row.

June 2024 was unusually cool and dry, though we were in the clouds on 6/17.

Seed capsule from the above flower (7/23/2024, later mowed down by trail workers)

What ESPN missed in Boone

 When ESPN brought their #GameDay show to Boone on September 17, 2022, we were suddenly the center of the college football solar system. 

 Welcome to the Town of Boone, as the signs say. We are incorporated as a town (kinda like Clemson) because we're not comfortable being a city. (Gameday was in Clemson Oct. 1, so ESPN may need an alternate version of their theme song: "We're coming ... to your cit-ay!") We are home to 20,000 students and roughly the same number of townies and snowbirds. We ain't as quaint as we used to be, but we're more than a craft brewery with a vexxing football team.

 Clemson has Howard's Rock. Boone has Howards Knob (which would have amused the not-so-bashful baron of Barlow Bend). Clemson had Chase Brice. Now, we do.

 As ESPN sought flights to Boone (you're not from around here, are you?), GameDay commissioned an introductory video essay by Wright Thompson, a sportswriter who graduated from the Missouri J-school a generation after me. It went like this:

 Welcome to Boone, North Carolina.
 Welcome to a post-card, hippy, outdoorsy, football town.
 Welcome to, "This town is nuts." My kind of place—I don't ever want to leave town, "I need a miracle" ... mountain-bike, parking lot, French-bread pizza town.
 Eric Church Town, Class of 2000.
 Welcome to Giant-Slayer Town. Cold-beer, thin-air, Gameday town. Cameron Peoples' town.
 Ask Michigan about the real victors? [Clip from 2007: "The Mountaineers of Appalachian State have just beaten the Michigan Wolverines!"]
 Ask the Aggies? [Clip from last week: "Appalachian State has done it again!"]
 Have you ever seen the Blue Ridge Mountains, boy? And the Chattahoochee? And the honeysuckle blue?"
 Welcome to Boone, North Carolina. Upset town, USA.

 I don't know Wright Thompson. He was born in 1976, the same year I enrolled at Mizzou. Wikipedia tells me that he grew up in Clarksdale, Mississippi (home of the Delta blues), was a sportswriter for the Kansas City Star and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and is a senior writer for ESPN.com. Folks in Ireland criticized him for stereotyping Dublin in a story on fighter Conner McGregor.
 I enjoyed his book, The Barn, which deals the lynching of Emmett Till and the birth of the Civil Rights movement. Growing up nearby in the Mississippi Delta, Thompson went to a white-flight segregation academy.
 I'll extend him some grace, just as he writes of how Till experienced God's grace. In this case he demonstrates only a superficial acquaintance with the town of Boone (as opposed to Boone County, where we both went to college).
 Fact-check: The Chattahoochee is a river in Atlanta, far-far from Boone. Thompson may have been thinking of the Chattooga, based on the video clip of whitewater rafters, but that's another remote corner of the North Carolina mountains, a long drive from Boone. The next-to-last paragraph is a verse from a Drivin' N' Cryin' song called Honeysuckle Blue. Jason Isbell once performed the song in Boone, but otherwise it doesn't speak for us.
 Here's how this Mizzou writer might have put it:

 Welcome to Boone, NC, 3333.
 Welcome to a town that's been center-stage before. Have you forgotten that we had our own Super Bowl commercial? We're the home of Foggy Pine Books: "Between the Baptist Church and the Boone Saloon." Thanks, Tom Hanks, Stephen Colbert, and Sam Elliott!*
 Did you assume we had an airport? You're not from around here, are you? Looking for a Home Depot, the sponsor of GameDay? Sorry, but you'll have to go off the mountain. Looking for a Pizza Hut, the official pie of GameDay? We lived without a hut for years, but we opened a take-out location just in time for GameDay. Nor do we have a Target, nor a corporate steakhouse.
 We're glad we put in the four-lane highway a few years ago, so the GameDay bus could get here.
 Stop by the Chamber of Commerce. The director is the guy who brought you the call from the Big House. Moonlighting for ESPN3, he was also on the call for the Miracle on the Mountain II.
 You do remember the original Miracle on the Mountain, don't you? It involved a goof-up by the current Florida coach, Billy Napier, the lead singer for Needtobreathe, Bear Rinehart (named for Bear Bryant), and a little overthinking by Furman coach Bobby Lamb (who was raising a future Appalachian quarterback, Taylor Lamb, who nearly slayed Tennessee).
 We're not just a beer-swilling hippy town, boy. This is God's country. We're home to world-changing charities: Samaritan's Purse, World Medical Mission, and Wine to Water. GameDay actually had a campfire sound-byte from the co-founder of World Medical Mission, but they seemed not to realize that his world is far bigger than football.
 The real miracle on the mountain is that about 200 million children worldwide have gotten Christmas gifts via Operation Christmas Child from right here in Boone.
 You do know the riddle of 3333, right? At the top step of the Watauga County Courthouse, the elevation above sea level is 3,333. The altitude of the field at Kidd Brewer Stadium is actually about 3,250, which gives us the highest football field in the east (except for Avery County High School, 3,760). That accounts for the thin air Thompson mentioned. We put up the 3333 signs to intimidate our short-winded guests. Bobby Cremins, who used to coach basketball up here, once brought a team from Charleston to Boone and told his players not to worry about the thin air, since they were playing indoors!
 As you leave the mountain today, please choose and cut your own Christmas trees.
 If you call us App-Elation, mean it like this.

*Appalachian State also had a video of infamy back in 2005, back when Armanti Edwards was just a twinkle in our eye. He could have been a defensive back at South Carolina, but instead he chose a place that was HOT-HOT-HOT!

 Here's a list of Gameday locations since the show premiered in 1993 at South Bend, Indiana. Notable campuses that have never hosted GameDay: Illinois, Maryland, Rutgers, Virginia, and Syracuse. Back in 1869, Rutgers staged the very first college football game, but ESPN wasn't around then.
 Duke missed its chance in 1942, when the Rose Bowl was played in Durham, but marked GameDay off its bucket list in 2023. Other Johnnies-come-lately are Kansas and Montana State in 2022, James Madison in 2023, and Cal in 2025.

The postman rings 100!

Tom Griffin carrying his RFD route

 Dec. 27, 2022, marks the 100th anniversary of my grandparents' wedding. Thomas Jackson Griffin and Macie Sherard were married Wednesday, Dec. 27, 1922, at the parsonage of the First Baptist Church in Anderson.
 He was 37 and she was 35. They were late to the courtship, because they were both busy taking care of elderly parents. They were married 29 years before he died of a heart attack.
 Tom and Macie met when he delivered mail to the office of Dr. J.O. Sanders, where she worked. Dr. Sanders delivered my mom on Sept. 8, 1925.
 Mom and Dad also had a Christmas wedding at First Baptist on Saturday, Dec. 26, 1953. Dr. Anne Young expected me to be born around Christmas 1954, but I tarried until Jan. 18, 1955. Mom and Dad were married 63 years before his death in 2017.

William Sherard was my
 third great grandfather

 I come from a long line of postmen. Macie's uncle, great-uncle, and great-grandfather were postmasters of the Moffettsville Post Office near Iva in southern Anderson County. Tom Griffin's dad, Pierce Butler Griffin, also served as the postmaster of the Crayton post office in the Craytonville community. Tom Griffin carried one of Anderson's early RFD routes in the Hopewell community north of Anderson.

 William Bratton, my fourth great-uncle, was postmaster at Brattonsville, S.C. His father, my fifth great-grandfather, Col. William Bratton, was a hero in the American Revolution. 

 Warren Harding was serving as the 29th president when Macie and Tom were married.

My grandfather's pocket watch, monogrammed TGJ on the back (Thomas Jackson Griffin). It still runs!

Best is the standard ... right?

 The old sportswriter in me erupted when I heard Dabo Swinney describing Clemson’s gritty but clumsy victory Saturday against Florida State as one of the top five of his career. 

 With greatest respect for what Dabo has done in Clemson: C’mon, man!  You're the one who always preaches, "The best is the standard."

 We can assume that the two “natties” vs. Alabama would be top-2 on Dabo's list. But those two plus Florida State would leave room for only two other victories in his Top Five.

 Off the top of my head, with a little help from Wikipedia, I came up with this list of Dabo's greatest wins, as ranked in order of consequence from my perspective. Which ones would you omit to make room for Florida State?

1. 2018: 44-16 vs. #2 Alabama. Bougie like natty #2.
   
2. 2016: 35-31 vs. #1 Alabama. The night DeShaun Watson declared, "Let's be legendary."
3. 2008: 31-14 vs. South Carolina. Without this victory, the Dabo era probably ends with “interim.”
4. 2016: 31-0 vs. #3 Ohio State. Can’t spell Ohio without a zero."First team from the state of South Carolina to win a BCS game," Dabo reminded us.
   
5. 2012: 25-24 vs. #8 LSU. Anything is possible, even fourth-and-16. Thanks, Tajh Boyd and Nuk Hopkins.
6. 2013: 36-35 vs. #5 Georgia. Ask a Clemson fan—would you rather beat Georgia or South Carolina?
   
7. 2014: 34-17 vs. South Carolina. Exorcising five years of Steve Spurrier.
   
8. 2018: 30-3 vs. #3 Notre Dame in a playoff semifinal.
9. 2011: 38-10 vs. Virginia Tech, the first ACC championship in 20 years. That one was probably wiped from the memory banks by what happened in the Orange Bowl against West Virginia.
10. 2011: 38-24 vs. Auburn, dethroning the national champs and atoning for the "snap infraction" of 2010.
11. 2015: 37-17 vs.Oklahoma. Two straight wins vs. a benchmark program.
12. 2016: 56-7 vs. South Carolina.
13. 2020: 34-10 vs. Notre Dame, sixth straight ACC championship.

 Sorry, but I don't see a place on that list for Saturday against Florida State. This is a team that lost to the other Gamecocks (Jacksonville State, whose quarterback Zerrick Cooper, is a former Dabo recruit. He's had a nice season, but he threw a couple of pick-sixes Saturday against Central Arkansas). 

 The one possible explanation for Dabo's comment is that there was something going on behind the scenes that we don't know. Was there an ultimatum to win or fire somebody? That doesn't sound like Clemson, and as feebly as the team has played, it's not like the season is lost. This isn't Florida. 

 By the way, give Dabo and Clemson credit for a nice tribute to Bobby Bowden in Death Valley, including a long-deserved welcome home for Tommy Bowden. I watched every punt with anticipation that somebody might run an honorary puntrooskie.

 Speaking of Tommy Bowden, I'm reminded of the upcoming home game Nov. 20 against undefeated Wake Forest. It was a Thursday night loss to Wake Forest in 2008 that doomed Bowden's tenure at Clemson and opened the door for Dabo. And it was a home loss to Wake in 1993 that sent the dominoes tumbling for Ken Hatfield. 

 In fact, the last four Clemson coaches who lost to Wake Forest have not survived. Dabo, to his credit, is 12-0 against Wake Forest. 

Once Upon a Time, Fake News Was Fun

 Friends know how nostalgic I am about newspapers and how sorry I am about what has become of them. I am a proud heir of the Fourth Estate, an ink-stained wretch who had a hand in writing the first draft of history in my corner of South Carolina.

 Back then, we could trust newspaper editors to filter out "fake news."

Asheville Citizen, March 27, 1911

  Nowadays, I get my newspaper fix from newspapers.com. It's not cheap, but it's no more expensive than an online subscription to my old newspaper. There's almost no local news in The Greenville News anymore—so either way, I'm missing last night's scores, the obituaries, and any news I can use. If I'm going to get outdated news either way, give me the classic version.

 Newspapers.com is an electronic archive of newspapers going back more than a century. It's way deeper than Google. Newspapers.com was a fountain of information when I was publishing The Stoneman Gazette, and was a rich resource for my centennial history on LeConte Lodge.

 And it occasionally reminds me of days when newspapering was fun. Such as this "Prize Lie of the Year" recently posted by my friend Terry Harmon.

 Sounds like a mountain yarn spun by by our beloved Ray Hicks. As much as I enjoy tales of old Boone, what caught my eye was the reference to the Mendacity Medal. Mendacity is one of my favorite words. Call someone mendacious, and there's a chance they might feel flattered. So what if they don't know that mendacity is lying? 

 I had never heard of the Mendacity Medal, so I looked it up on newspapers.com. The award was given tongue-in-cheek by the North Carolina Press Association to recognize creative fiction that was published as news. Evidently, it was intended to be presented over 10 years, but the only references I could find were in 1910 and 1911. The award medal, appropriately, included a "lyre."

 The Boone story was evidently written in response to the original Mendacity Medal winner: 

Durham Herald-Sun, June 11, 1910

 Here's another nominee from the Oxford (N.C.) Banner, July 29, 1911:

 I was glad to see the name Grit. When I was a kid, I remember ads for a national newspaper called Grit, "America's Greatest Family Newspaper," which thrived on far-fetched stories. I have to presume the Siler City Grit was born of the same spirit. Though that paper died long before Andy Griffith made Siler City famous, it was ahead of its time in terms of reporting fake news.

 The Siler City Grit won the 1911 medal for this story, which somehow defeated the Boone windpipes story. Evidently, the Grit editor, Isaac London, was the son of the Chatham Record editor.

 The Grit editor deserves bonus points for the clever line about pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6), though he missed an opportunity to invoke honey-glazed ham:

  Here's a 1910 clipping from The Greensboro Record. Who knows if the second item about the Wilkesboro man is mendacious? I think it is healthy to encourage readers to be skeptical. 

 These dubious stories appeared on the same page. The first of these might even have been a wink at the competing paper, the Greensboro Sun: 

Looking homeward through the eyes of Wolfe

 My brother-in-law Greg Gambrell wrote a fine story in the Electric City News that described our hometown of Anderson through the words of Thomas Wolfe, the author of Look Homeward, Angel.

 Wolfe (1900-1938) was raised in Asheville, N.C., and his older sister Effie married Fred Gambrell, a grocer in Anderson, S.C. Effie (1887-1950) and Fred (1884-1952), portrayed as Daisy and Joe in the book, were Greg's grandparents. Anderson is named Henderson in the book, and Asheville is Altamont. 

 Wolfe evidently made several trips to Anderson, at a time when it was becoming known as The Electric City, thanks to the genius of William C. Whitner, an electrical pioneer associated with inventor Nikola Tesla. By the time Wolfe visited, our forefathers had electric streetcars and other conveniences. 

 Yet Wolfe did not see Anderson as a shining city on a hill. In his book, he described "Henderson" as:

"a haven of enervation, red clay, ignorance, slander, and superstition,
in whose effluent rays he (Fred) has been reared."

 I had to look up enervation. I hoped it was a deferential compliment to Mr. Whitner's energy and innovations. Instead, Mr. Webster defines enervate as a verb that means "to reduce mental or moral vigor."

 Ouch! That's my homefolks you're talking about, mister!

 On the other hand, I knew Wolfe didn't mind stepping on toes of those who recognized themselves in his thinly veiled fiction. In Look Homeward, Angel, he also insulted some of his old neighbors in Asheville—to the point that the city library banned his book for several years.

The Electric City (described by Wolfe as enervated) was enlightened through power generated by this hydroelectric plant that William Whitner built at Portman Shoals in 1897. As a boy, I remember visiting this dam and watching as it was inundated by Lake Hartwell.

 After learning that my hometown had caught the harsh gaze of Thomas Wolfe, I started to wonder: What other writers have left us impressions of primordial Anderson?

 The first who came to mind was Hannibal Johnson (1841-1913), who commanded the Union troops who occupied Anderson in 1865 and 1866. In 1905, Lt. Johnson returned to Anderson, which he described warmly in his memoir, The Sword of Honor. I encountered his book while researching my Civil War newspaper, The Stoneman Gazette. 

 With a 40-year perspective, Lt. Johnson described Anderson as "an obscure village ... grown into a thriving city." Johnson solicited the governor of Maine to support an Anderson teacher named Lenora Hubbard, who graciously tended for the graves of three Union soldiers in Anderson. Johnson's book includes letters from Miss Hubbard where she describes the hardships of life in Anderson in the Reconstruction era. 

 I will be on the lookout for other authors' impressions of Anderson. One I need to re-read is Clemson native Ben Robertson (1903-1943), author of Red Hills and Cotton: An Upcountry Memory. Robertson was a contemporary of Wolfe and wrote a sympathy letter to his mother, Julia Wolfe, after Tom died of tuberculosis at age 38. Robertson (a journalism graduate of Missouri like yours truly) died in a plane crash in Portugal while serving as a World War II correspondent. 

 Robertson's family homeplace is the Bowen House on Ireland Road, between Pickens and Easley, 30 miles north of Anderson. In an online search of his book, I found a passage referring to an 1876 parade in Anderson by the Red Shirts (a militant white supremacist group associated with Gov. Wade Hampton): "My father rode in the Red Shirts parade at Anderson in 1876, sitting in the same saddle with my Great-Uncle Alf, and ever since that time we have been very positive about the subject of the white and colored races."

 Atlanta author Lewis Grizzard visited Anderson in 1983 to speak to the Touchdown Club. I can't find any record of his comments, though he might have been in a sour mood, considering that he was going through a divorce from his third wife. Grizzard called Clemson "Auburn with a lake," so it would have been up his alley to describe Anderson as "Clemson without a college."

 If you know of other authors who have written of Anderson's formative years, please leave a comment.