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Oddly, back in 1906 when downtown was at its livest,the place emptied July 4th.

It's just the opposite in modern times. Today, downtown will fill up, as in past years, with with activities of the Fun Fourth Festival.

A 100 years ago, people by the hundreds strolled down West Market Street to the rail crossing at the foot of the Greensboro College campus. They took trains to what's now called Guilford Courthouse National Military Park. It those days, it was simply called Guilford Battleground.

A make-shift station was created at the crossing and every 30 minutes a train left filled with people eager for a day-long Independence Day six miles out in the country.

The 1906 celebration was extra special. Two giant arches - big enough for cars to pass through - were unveiled in the park. One was called the Nash Arch, honoring Gen. Francis Nash of Hillsborough, killed at the Battle of Germantown in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. The other, the Davidson Arch, saluted Gen. William Davidson, who died fighting the British in 1781 at Cowan's Ford near Charlotte.

Congress gave the battleground the stone arches. In 1917, Congress presented another gift, the equestrian statue of Gen. Nathanael Greene, the hero of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, fought in 1781 atthe battleground site.

The Greene monument became an instant symbol of the city and remains such today.

The two arches, on the other hand, are seen only on old post cards. They came down in the summer of 1937.

Road builders wanted to widen New Garden Road, which at the time ran west to east through the park and the arches. The arch openings were only 12 1/2 feet wide, not enough to accommodate two cars coming in the opposite directions.

John Durham, park historina at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, says the arches stood slightly more than 30 feet high and made quite a statement.

"It was a sad day for the park when they were taken down," he says.

He wonders why New Garden wasn't rerouted around the arches.

The decision was also was dubious because New Garden Road eventually was removed through the park.

At least the namesakes of the arches had other honors. Nash and Davidson counties are named for the two generals, and Davidson College takes it name from William Davidson.

Other red, white and blue events took place outside downtown that 4th 100 years ago. In the mill villages, the Cone family, owners of what became Cone Mills Corp., held its annual Independence Day picnic on for mill workers and their families on the grounds of the Ceasar Cone Mansion on Summit Avenue.

Across Summit, at Cone Athletic Park, the mill's Proximity Spinners played a team of Greensboro all-stars in a holiday baseball game.

The man who would be elected mayor the following year was at the ball park at 5 p.m. The game couldn't begin without Leon Brandt.
He was the umpire, a function he performed at minor, semi-pro and and amateur league games for years.

The mill boys, by the way, showed up the city boys. Final score: 7 zip in favor of the Spinners.

As reported in a recent story, friends and family of the late Bill Taylor Jr. and his still-living former wife, whose nickname was “Buzz,’’ believe Andy Griffith named Sheriff Andy Taylor and Aunt Bee for the two on the “Andy Griffith Show.”

Griffith was a friend of the couple and stopped by occasionally to visit them at their stage decoration business near the UNCG campus.

Now, comes Lee Kinard, the legendary retired WFMY-TV broadcaster, with yet another theory.

Kinard says the word around the station was that Andy “cropped the named Gomer (Pyle) from Gomer Lesch.”

Lesch was the station’s program director during the 1950s, “during the period,’’ Kinard says, “Andy would have been interviewed while playing the Plantation circuit with “What It was, was football.’’’

Griffith performed the funny monologue about football on a record but in nightclubs such as the old Plantation Club on the High Point Road.

Of course, the answers to all this speculation could easily be answered by Griffith, who maintains his ties to North Carolina through his home in Manteo.

But some say the Andy of young isn’t the Andy of old. Bill Taylor Jr. reportedly had a fallen out with Griffith in the 1980s when Griffith said he didn’t have time to talk to him on the phone. Taylor took it as a snub.

Kinard said Channel 2 tried to get questions answered about Griffith’s show, which ran from 1960-68.

“We just could never,” Kinard says, “break through his shield to get an interview and heaven knows we tried.”

Regarding last Monday's News & Record feature about Carole Boston Weatherford's new book about the extinct Carolina parakeet, Dr. George Swan of N.C. A&T State University raised this point.

"Why not push right now for the Carolina parakeet to fly again, someday" Swan said in an email.

He wondered how far off is the day when stuffed Carolina parakeets - various museums have specimens - can be cloned using their DNA?

Ken Reininger, curator of birds at the N.C. State Zoo, while stressing he's no genetist, said he doesn't believe the technology to dowhat Swan suggests is there.

Besides, if you revive Carolina parakeets - last seen alive in the 1920s or possibly the 1930s - what would you do with them?

Hunting them for their valuable and beautiful green and yellow plumage was one reason the once plentiful bird declined during the 19th century. But loss of habitat was another reason North America lost its only native parot.

"This presumes the habitat is there to put them back out,'' Reininger said.

He says it's doubtful if a bird gone that long could easily adapt to old habitate - even if that habitate should still exist.

"Many times animals go extinct because their environment disappears," he says.

If brought back to life, they might disappear again for the same reason.

A researcher at N.C. State University referred questions on the subject to Jorge Piedrahita of the university's school of veterinary medicine, but he didn't respond to an email.

The researcher, while reluctant to give an authoritative opinion, said in the case of the Carolina parakeet the material might be too old for cloning.

Maybe someday the technology will be available, she said, but right now, "I don't think it is on the horizon."

It's been 19 years since Curt Schilling led the South Atlantic League with 189 strikeouts for the season while playing for the old Greensboro Hornets, which became the Bats and now the Grasshoppers.

He averaged about one whiff an inning. Yet, he was playing for a team that finished last in the league. His personal record was eight wins and 15 loses.

That was 1987. Neary age 40, Schilling remains on the mound, pitching for the Boston Red Sox. He's sending opposing batters back to the dugout with lumber on their shoulders. His record as of Friday was 12 wins and three loses.

No Grasshopper will probably match Schilling's Greesnsboro strike-out mark this season.

And Clay Parrish can rest in peace where ever he's buried. His homerun record appears immortal, although you'll find no mention of it in the banners around First Horizon Park.

The banners trace the history of minor league ball in Greensboro starting in 1902, when local businessmen brought the pro game to the city.

The banners mention such players as Don Buddin, who hit 25 homers in 1953, before going on to a career with the Boston Red Sox, and Guy Morton on the same team, who knocked 32 out of the park. Jason Kinchen in 2001 hit 30 homers, according to the banners.

And the late Emo Showfety, who many remember as the muscular salesman at old Wright's Clothing Co. downtown, hit 80 homeruns during the 1947, 1948 and 1949 seasons with the Patriots. His 1949 total of 35 was thought to be a team record.

But that apparently belongs to Parrish, even though his name doesn't appear on the banners. He played for the Greensboro Patriots when the team played its home games at Cone Athletic Park.

In 1929, during the team's last season at Cone before moving to War Memorial Stadium (where it remained until 2004), Parrish clouted 50 homeruns, according to news stories from the time.

Little is remembered about Parrish. Ralph Hodgin, 91, of Greensboro, who played for six Major League seasons in the 1930s and 1940s, played games as a boy in Cone Park and attended Patriot games. He only vaguely remembers the name Parrish.

But he says 50 homers wouldn't have been unbelievable, not at Cone.

"I could hit 'em out of there before I was out high school," says Hodgin, who remembers not much distance between home plate and the outfield fences.

Hodgin's close friend, Jim Evans, 92, of Kernersville, says he may have played against Parrish in the industrial leagues of High Point in the 1920s. He remembers a Moose Parrish, who Evans believes went on to play minor league ball.

"I remember he was a heavy hitter," he says. "He really could hit the ball a long way."

Despite First Horizon Park being friendly to long-ball hitters, Grasshopper sluggers want catch Clay Parrish this season. Kris Harvey leads the team in home runs with 15.

As for Schilling, his strikeout mark seems safe, too, at least for this season. With more than a month to go, Aaron Thompson of Greensboro has 98.

Considering today's hurlers pitch only every fifth day (compared to four in the past) and most don't pitch a complete nine-inning game, it would be difficult for any league pitcher to match Schlling
'87 record.

Or for that matter his 2006 mark. The old player already has whiffed 126 batters, fourth in the American League. The league leader is Joe Santana of Minnesota with 152.

Downtown Greensboro is filled with "ghost signs." These are advertisements on buildings for businesses that departed ages ago.

Two examples are Silver's dime store, which must have closed 50 or 60 years ago. Yet, the store's sign stands out on the side of its former building at the southwest corner of South Elm and Washington streets.

Across the street, on the Guilford Building, the name Greensboro Bank & Loan Co. remains etched across two sides.

In 1933, the bank went bust during the Great Depression. Subsequent banks in the building's lobby covered up the old sign. Those banks later disappeared in mergers. When the current owners started restoring the building, they exposed the old sign.

The story behind ghost signs are easily explained. An old timer is usually around who remembers the business or knew of it.

But a sign that poses a mystery has been uncovered above the entrance at 356 S. Elm St. It says "tires, batteries."

For nearly 79 years, starting in 1926, 356 and 358 S. Elm combined to form Blumenthal's, a landmark downtown stores that specialized in jeans and work clothes. Blumenthal's closed in late 2005 and moved to Price Place Shopping Center on West Market Street.

The Schwarz family of Randolph County is transforming the block that included Blumenthal's with new and renovated structures. A rehab taking taking place at 356 uncovered the auto products sign.

Bob Blumenthal, son of Blumenthal's founder, Abe Blumenthal, who died in 1993, saw the old sign the other day and was baffled.

"As far as I know we never sold tires and batteries," he says.

He had heard a blacksmith shop may have once been in part of the store building, but nothing that pertained to autos.

A random search of old city directories yielded no clues. Before Blumenthal's, a tailor shop and Wright's Clothing Store, later moving to the 200 block of South Elm, occupied 356. Before that, West's Place, an ice cream parlor, was there, and as far back as 1913the site was a dry goods store operated by Jacob Samet.

Todd Schwarz, who belongs to the family developing he block, could not be reached for comment about whether a title search of the Blumenthal property turned up an auto parts store there.

If anyone has any information that would help make the sign less ghostly, please let us know.

For 50 years, William Agapion has fought city building inspectors and his tenants when they complained about the upkeep of his enormous rental property holdings.

Agapion was the in the news last week when the city began tearing down eight Agapion apartments on Guerrant Street. Apapion had failed to meet deadlines for making repairs.

But in a switch, the city's Department of Housing and Community Development says Agapion has shown cooperation in repairing an old rental apartment house at 112 E. Hendrix St. in the Fisher Park Historic District.

Mike Cowhig, who advises the Greensboro Historic Preservation Commission about properties in Fisher Park and the other two local historic districts, says Agapion has appeared at commission meetings about the property "and he has been good to work with."

Cowhig says the house has some unusual architectural features, and Agapion has tried to repair them with historical accuracy. He also has matched the old brick on the house.

Of course, the city had to force Agapion to make the repairs. But at least he did it, instead of having the city do it for him and billing him the cost. Cowhig said the apartment house was in deplorable condition. Neighbors complained.

The city invoked an ordiance that applies only to the historic districts. It's called "Demolition by Neglect," but which city officials say it really should be called "Prevention of Demolition of Neglect.''

When a property becomes rundown and the owner refuses to make repairs, the city can hire a contractor to do the work and bill the owner. The rest of the city is governed by an ordinance that requires a building or house to be demolished if the owner fails to do a timely rehab.

The preservation commission is expected to receive a final progress report on the Hendrix Street apartment house at its next meeting in late August.