News-Record.com

Things got pretty noisy yesterday evening in our normally quiet, northwestern Greensboro neighborhood.

Normally you hear fireworks on New Year's Eve, but the neighbors decided to wait this time around. Then about 8 p.m., bang. Then bang again. Then bang again, one right after the other, for about 15 minutes.

There's another sound in the far off distance: the ca-ching of South Carolina cash registers selling these things since you can't buy them here legally - at least the potent ones that drown out the sound of your TV.

I was amused at Christmas at how my kids handled the issue of the big man -- Santa, that is. They are 10 and 8, and that's plenty old enough to have doubts. But it's also young enough not to want to voice them, just in case.

So we did a little dance. They insisted on checking out the NORAD site that tracks Santa as we do every year, but they couldn't resist discussing how it looks fakey, and suggested that maybe their younger cousins would be better viewers. They insisted on leaving out milk and cookies, while at the same time marveling at the possiblity of Santa fitting down our chimney, in that wink-wink kind of way. And the next morning, when I asked if they'd heard any sleigh bells or thuds on the roof, they allowed that, yes, perhaps they had.

Some people say that kids act like this because they don't want to risk not getting presents. I don't know. I'd like to believe that my kids want to hold onto the magic -- and to their childhood -- for as long as possible. I'm all for it.

For Christmas, my wife bought me a turntable. It's black, sleek and simple; four buttons on the front and two of them I'm never supposed to touch. I admit it: I'm old school on the topic of stereo equipment.

I haven't had a turntable that works in 15 years, maybe longer. That means that the five crates of albums dating back to the '60s were ignored, and, frankly, neglected for years. They've been in attics and basements and general storage places as we've carted them around from home to home. Sad. I've replaced some with CDs, but not many. I just assumed they had been warped beyond decent playability. (The scratches pretty much date back to abuse during college and post-college parties.)

Anyway, I hooked it up to the computer today. Pulled out an album. Actually, I pulled out three -- their covers were stuck together -- Two of Bonnie Raitt's and the one that is playing right now: John Prine. It is playing cleanly without the pops and cracks that I expected. I had written on the back cover: "Christmas 1972." It's like I got the present again, 35 years later.

On Green Street, the hand-written sign taped to a parking meter Tuesday afternoon needed no elaboration: "Meter maid is heartless."

On Market Street, the same could be said Wednesday for the plea scribbled on the back of a business card and pinned under a car's windshield wiper: "Don't have change! Back in 5 minutes! Promise!"

Here's hoping the heartless meter maid has Wednesdays off.

Submitted by reader Betty Holland

I so enjoyed your article "Christmas Coincidence -- Something to Cherish" in the Triad Diary appearing in your paper on Dec 28.

Something similar happened to a friend and me in 2005. My brother and his wife were serving as missionaries in Trinidad. We went for a visit. My friend, Pamela, was a member of mine and my brother's home church. We arrived on Saturday and were up bright and early on Sunday to attend the local church service where my brother and sister-in-law went.

Upon entering, one of the young girls was passing out hymnals. She stopped in front of each of us and handed us one personally. Pamela opened hers to the front and immediately was unable to speak, but sat pointing to the book plaque in front of the hymnal.

It was noted as being given to her home church by her parents in memory of her grandparents, all of which are now deceased. She was so surprised that she took out her camera so I could take a picture of her holding the hymnal showing the inscription. It turns out, a few years before, the church bought new hymnals and packed up the old ones and shipped them to Trinidad to be distributed by my brother to the local churches.

We could not believe what happened, especially since the books were handed out individually and not passed along the pew.

We all decided it was truly "a God thing," which also made that service, in a little church in Trinidad, miles away from home, special to us also.

Coincidences do happen, whether at Christmas, or in October in tropical Trinidad.

If you order take-out from a nice restaurant, are you supposed to tip the person who delivers your food? If so, how much?

I've never known the answers to those questions, so when I picked up some Asian food at a nice place on Friday night I went ahead and asked. The waiter said that some folks tip the full 15 percent, while many tip nothing at all. He suggested that he'd be happy with a buck or two, which seemed reasonable.

So that's my plan from now on. (Except if it's a freezing cold night and someone delivers a warm dinner right to my car -- they'll get more.)

My fiancé is from the big city of Charlotte. I'm from the small town of Reidsville. But all it takes is one establishment good at its craft to get hometown bragging rights.

We were in Reidsville this weekend, meeting with florists as part of our wedding planning. When our stomachs started to rumble, I laid out the lunch options: We could grab something fast at a national chain, like McDonalds or Subway. Or we could visit one of the places that puts Reidsville on foodies' maps -- Short Sugars.

He chose the latter -- and he chose wisely. When we entered Reidsville's barbecue landmark, we were greeted by the sweet, smoky smell of pork that had been cooked just right. We both ordered chopped barbecue plates with buns, which held enough meat to have a hefty sandwich with pork to spare paired with tangy coleslaw and crisp, golden hush puppies.

After my fiancé finished his sandwich, I asked him what he thought. "That's some good barbecue," he said, a look of pure contentment on his face.

Of course it is. Score one for the small town.

The scene: The school playground at recess
The temperature: Freezing
My role: Prevent chaos and injury

We're almost through the 30-minute recess and so far, so good. No skinned knees, no broken bones, no whiners who can't take the cold. Then, the dreaded thing happens -- a little girl runs toward me, breathlessly reporting that her friend is crying. I get pulled to the other side of the playground where the girl is hunched up in a ball, sobbing, surrounded by three classmates.

"Are you hurt?" I ask worriedly. She's not talking, but her friends assure me the answer is no. It's her feelings that are hurt, they explain.

Uh oh. One of those.

It's tough to figure out what happened because the little girl is still balled up, not talking. The friends take over.

Friend #1, to me: "She thinks I said something mean but I didn't know what I was saying."
Friend #2, to her: "She didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
Friend #3: "I know, we can be your waiters! What would make you feel better?"
Friend #1: "I can scratch your back."
Friend #2: "Would you like some ice cream?"

At that, the girl with the hurt feelings rallies, stands up and wipes her eyes. They run off to find some pretend ice cream on the other side of the playground. The wind chill hovers at 32.

I know it's time to put away Christmas things, but there's one item I can't give up just yet. It's a little snowman made by my 6-year-old, Camille. He has a green bow around his neck, a black top hat and curly arms made of bronze wire. Though his buttons are distinctly off center and he has dried glue on his top hat, there's just something about him that makes me smile.

I liked him so much, I brought him to work and put him on top of my computer monitor. And there he sits, with his big smile and carrot nose, reminding me of my youngest daughter and her sunny personality every time I look at him. We have reams of drawings and boxes of crafts that the kids made at school and after-school, and eventually, we throw all but the best of them away -- otherwise, we'd have to buy a bigger house.

But I have a feeling this is one snowman who's going to last through the summer -- and beyond.

-- Submitted by Life editor Susan Ladd

Near the scene of this morning's fire in Greensboro was a police officer standing next to his cruiser. It was parked at an angle so motorists would know that stretch of road was closed.

But just in case you couldn't figure that out, he had placed orange cones across the road for good measure. Most drivers got it. But not this particular motorcyclist, who decided he'd weave between the cones and pass on through, apparently oblivious to all the fire and rescue equipment and smoke.

The cop watched in disbelief and raised his arms, as if to say, "hey buddy, are you blind?" But the motorcyclist continued on his merry way.

The officer resumed keeping an eye on nearby traffic, perhaps wondering if he needed bigger cones.

Driving into town during morning rush hour on West Market Street is normally tense enough as drivers late for work or class consider the 35 mph speed limit as a guideline to be openly mocked. Driving into town during morning rush hour on West Market Street on Thursday during the "wintry mix event" was perilous.

At Market and McIver -- where Market is four lanes one way eastbound -- a minivan pulled out of McIver into the far left lane of Market, going west. That is, the wrong direction. There was no traffic coming; the light at the Market/Friendly crossover was red. I flashed my lights at the minivan, to no avail. The driver was on the phone. Perhaps she thought I was a gang member. More likely, she was too engaged in her conversation to notice me.

About 50 yards down the road, the light at Market/Friendly turned green and a wave of traffic came upon the minivan. She tried dodging the traffic for a few moments, wondering, I suppose, why all these drivers were on the wrong side of the road. In her wake, she left cars askew across four lanes of traffic.

Finally, the minivan pulled into a convenient driveway, out of the traffic. No accidents. I couldn't tell if she got off the phone.

Another day navigating the friendly streets of Greensboro.

It was as if it had planned its moment of escape.

After free falling from the sky during the night, the accumulation of ice and sleet clung to the car traveling in front of me this morning. Then, with all the grace of Nadia Comaneci, the ice sheet flipped off the body of the vehicle, somersaulting in the air before landing on the asphalt of Friendly Avenue as a cold, wet splat.

If it was the Ice Sheet Winter Olympics, I would have given it a perfect 10.

We had some visitors in the woods behind our house in northwestern Greensboro yesterday.

I was out jogging before sunrise this morning. Normally, it's a quiet, peaceful time before most of the rest of the world awakens. Not today. You see things in the dark you don't normally see in the daylight.

At one home, the outside light alarm was flashing yellow. I saw a light inside and nothing appeared amiss outside. We have an alarm system, and the light occasionally goes off without anything wrong, I thought. I kept running.

Three doors down, a car's interior light was on. The house was dark. Normally, I would have tried the car door to try to turn the light off, but not this morning. Not with the car up in the driveway, and it pitch black outside. I kept running.

On the next block, I smelled wood smoke. Someone's up early with their fireplace roaring, I thought. Then I remembered those frequent stories about passersbys smelling smoke and calling the fire department. I could see no real signs of life in any of the houses -- it was very early -- I scanned the rooftops for chimney spouting smoke. Nothing. Nope. No. Ahh, yes, there's one. I kept running.

Toward the end, I passed a police car, dome light on, stopped at the end of a street. Inside the officer was filling out paperwork. He didn't notice me, but it made me feel better.

I kept on running.

The timing is a bit fuzzy at this point, but it was one of those pre-Christmas December days a few years back when you feel the approaching holiday as though Santa's very sack were upon your back. It was cold, overcast, a forecast of snow on the airwaves, the bustle of the holiday.

My wife had been to Learning Express a day prior and saw the store putting out those pretty saucer sleds. The clerks there were even hand-lettering kids' names on them. I was dispatched to come home with said sled.

I was a bit dubious about the name-lettering part; our daughter's name has nine letters, and the dang thing wasn't but maybe two feet wide. But the clerk lettered a nice yellow one -- twice actually, having misspelled the first one. So I brought it home and waited for the snow to blow.

And waited.

And waited.

You get the point; if you have kids at home, their sleds too probably have accumulated more crust and corrosion from leaning up against fertilizer bags than street salts. At first, everytime the forecast called for snow, out I would traipse to the shed to recall the sled and snow shovel. I settled them on the front porch, well covered from the weather but handy for immediate use.

Inevitably, the precipitation failed to solidify or even materialize.

This past weekend, both sled and shovel remained quartered in the shed, perhaps daring the cursed clouds to catch them asnooze. Alas, the sled's slumber went undisturbed.

So here we sit again on the precipice of precipitous ice. But I will not go home, clomp to the shed, shove aside the chain saw and tarp and paint buckets and saw horses to pull out that sled. No, the sled in the shed is firmly abed.

Until later this summer. I think we'll take it to the lake and tow it behind a boat.

As a little girl, my grandmother would sometimes buy scallops to accompany our weekly Friday night dinners of fish, hushpuppies, cole slaw, and vegetables of my choosing. My grandmother casually put one on my dinner plate one night. The round disk had been pan-fried and was the same shape, size, and color of the hash browns we used to get at the Hardee's restaurant down the street. The crispy, golden outside encased a piping hot, farinaceous inside that was always a special morning treat. I was amazed that grandma had taken the time to make hash browns for our sea-fare. I popped the "hash brown" into my mouth and was greeted with the bitter, fishy taste of a scallop. I immediately cried foul, and my grandmother explained to me that it was a scallop. Seafood. I was mad at grandma. At the scallop. And my dinner.

Hardee's restaurants are far and few between these days. So are good hashbrowns. I just read a press release about how Hilshire Farms is now teaming up with Hardee's for a brand-new biscuit. I haven't stepped inside a Hardee's for years. I hope they still have those good hashbrowns.

"Who says water cannot flow uphill?" That's the title of my 5th-grade daughter's science project -- about siphons -- and the reason we spent most of Saturday at High Point University. She was one of a dozen students selected from her school to compete at the county non-public science fair, which was a grand -- and lengthy -- event. (Parents who've been there, you know what I mean.)

The projects were amazingly creative, answering questions you never even knew you wondered about. For example, what kind of bird seed do birds prefer, and what time of day do they eat the most? Can you clone a cabbage? Does exercise increase recall about chores? Does the type of music affect a person's blood pressure?

A highlight of the day was a physics and chemistry demonstration by two High Point University professors, who entertained the crowd with experiments that had liquids turning colors and hair standing on end. The kids loved it, and some future scientists were probably born.

At the end of the long day my daughter won an honorable mention, but wasn't chosen to compete at the next level. You've never seen such a happy kid. And I must admit I was happy about the outcome too.

A black SUV with an Alaska license plate wound its way through downtown Greensboro this morning. Attached to the back windshield was a blizzard of snowflake static clings.

If you can't get snow from the sky, get it from the store.