So Much for Durham and NC

The joy of being able to reunite in different parts of the country and spend time with almost life long friends is a blessing we cannot take for granted.  Still, we are both unenamored with this Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Raleigh, etc. area of North Carolina. Jerry pegged it right, the roads are such as were designed by the early bootleggers to hide from 'de Revnooers'  back in the woods when they made and ran White lightning'.  Trees and forests all over disclose one development from another or it would resemble the waste land of California.  The forests hide that from view so for a time, inhabitants can delude themselves that they live in rural areas.  Go no further than the nearest road or street intersection where all meet in their cars, traffic on the interstates is just like California.  Too much and too many. We laughed that at least in CA there seemed to be an engineered design to roads and  freeways, not so here; we find ourselves going in circular routes and  cork springs because that is the road design.  "Hey we already passed the Apex exit,"  "OMG there is another one"  as we watch the signs on our way to our friends and then back home to the RV.  "Are we going round in circles?"

I spent two days, Tuesday and Wednesday confined to quarters in the motor home, taking lots of vitamin C, sipping plenty of hot tea with honey and just resting between reading and stitching to get rid of the yucks.  My throat is still slightly sore today, Saturday but that is from the bout of coughing that stirred up last night which also  left me with sore sides.  I wonder if my theory that every so many years one has to get sick to develop immunity from colds and the like holds true.  I have not had anything since January 2009 after we returned from Steve's funeral and I wondered if I would ever be well again.  Though that I am sure was from the stress of grief that left me depleted and unable to ward off anything.  I do not like to take all these various cold and cough medicines, which have terrible aftertastes and generally make me feel worse, but I did resort to DayQuil tablets so we could get back with our friends on Thursday. 
They settled in Cary, NC because that is where their son and family fled to from CA.  While their address is Cary, they live south of Cary between Cary and Apex in an area designated something or other Hills.  I had a JCPenney's gift certificate that would expire on October 30, which was burning a hole or two in my purse, so the four of us journeyed to the local mall near them and while we women  shopped, our husbands entertained themselves at the food court, and awaited us.  I don't know why we dragged the men along, that was at her insistence.  I told her to let them stay home, after all, I never drag Jerry along shopping nor would he agree to accompany me.    But certificate successfully spent plus additional on my  credit card, we were returned to their home.
There was an incidence at JC's that reminded me of how my friend can behave when she starts to ride what my grandma would have called her "high horse."  You see Alicia is Panamanian and was raised with servants, maids, etc.  While she and Nevin were in the US Army ambassador corps in Guatemala, they also had house servants.  Evidently she became very accustomed to talking down to these servants and being what I consider downright rude and demanding.  I cannot understand this, because although I have been known to lose my temper when not treated well, I see no reason to be discourteous to someone working in a store, nor to talk down to  others.   
We were at the jewelry counter in JC's where the sales clerk had graciously agreed to ring up my purchases.  This was also strange, most JC's have central check out registers these days but not this one; registers are in the individual departments, but that assumes one can find a sales clerk working in that department to ring up purchases.   After my purchase, Alicia inquired about the class rings displayed and the cashier explained that those were special order, etc.  To which Alicia popped off from high on her horse to the sales lady.  I explained to Alicia that what she was asking for was something only a  full scale jeweler would do, replacing a stone in a ring and the sales lady echoed that.  Alicia was badgering and at first I walked away, wondering to myself, "why does she do that?"  Then something snapped in me and I turned back quickly, "Please excuse my friend, she's from Panama" as if that excuses such behavior.  Alicia looked sheepish because she realized the tone she had been using.  After all, that sales lady had been gracious and she did not deserve such a tongue lashing over nothing in her control.    As we left, my friend who was not even a paying customer, just asking for information that was not there in that place, and I talked about this behavior, , which she just slips into, especially when she sees herself above others.  I suppose at 75 years of age behavior will not change, but the first step to remedy is identification.  The episode reminded me of how perhaps one cannot overcome environment and I suppose if one is raised to talk down to others that behavior becomes natural.  Incomprehensible to me. But we are friends and that is that.

We did have a delightful day seeing all the local commercial developments, hidden amongst tall pines, visiting and then their son and family, two little girls ages 6 1/2  and 8 joined us for dinner at their home while the daughter who lives in VA called long distance and we all talked on speaker phone, a grand reunion.  Our next visit to these parts will not involve motor home, we will avail ourselves of our friends' offer to stay in their guest bedroom and just drive our vehicle.  Because they live in one of those development community with home owner association fees, we could not even park our motor home in their driveway, such activity prohibited and enforced.  Anything they do to their homes must first be approved by the community association.  That does not appeal to either of us.  Why own a home and be  overseen?  It was a dark ride  back tot he motor home though.  Even the interstates are not lit down here in the moonshine country.  Traffic makes plenty of lights but even in MN and WI  where winters are dark as well as cold, the interstate and high way signs are visible with lighting. 

  Yesterday we went to the Duke Homestead and Tobacco Museum only six miles from here,  where I relearned again the huge influence the tobacco industry had on the south and the Industrial revolution era.  Jerry enjoyed close up looks at all the gears, etc. and intricacies of the machinery used in the factories.  I had never seen tobacco seeds which look like pepper, so fine that only an ounce seeds many acres.  The crop takes 13 months and can be grown in sandy poor soil.  We both enjoyed the old advertising signs and the like and even saw relics, the cigarette machines.

I am not a smoker and am forever thankful that it is a diminishing phenomena, even here in NC there is no smoking in the restaurants.  But that has affected the southern economy which thrived on tobacco a great deal.  This Duke museum is small, staffed by Duke University students and free admission, while donations are accepted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Homestead_and_Tobacco_Factory   Wikipedia shows the original homestead building and where George Duke began the American Tobacco company drying leaves in a small shack. http://www.nchistoricsites.org/duke/

Very interesting especially the philanthropy of the  Duke family donating the land and building  what is now world famous Duke University, Duke Medical center and even building schools, churches, clinics, etc.  The buildings in Durham were far ahead of their time, structures reminiscent of the grand style of Europe.  This same philanthropy happened in the Winston Salem area with the Reynolds tobacco family.   Actually the Dukes were the first to get into advertising spending lots of money at a time such activity did not happen.  I learned that collectible  baseball cards are descendants of early cigarette package cards.  At first the Duke family included cards of women vaudeville acts or acrobats with the cigarettes, but after a minister wrote to complain about the "lascivious women cards" they switched to sports figures, precursors to  modern day sports football and baseball cards.  I also learned that the "bull pen" in baseball on our minds now as the World Series has been played, came from tobacco,  Bull Durham no less.  I also learned that as far back as the  1600"s  there was controversy about the affect of and the desirability of smoking tobacco. 

The temperature had dropped 30 degrees from the day before and it was feeling cold and drizzly so we did not wander outside long to explore the old homestead building. Today it is off to a big local farmer's market and Hillsboro a historic settlement,.  After coughing most of last night, I slept in very late but this is our last day here and at least I out waited the rain.  It is to clear up as now  and though it will not be the high  70 degrees we enjoyed the rain has receded, moving north east, the same storm that brought an early "onion snow" to Pittsburgh area at home in PA. This is too early for snow!  Not even Halloween.  We have not had that dusting in MN and for that I am thankful, will it be a long hard winter?