Chapter XIII: A Bit of Magnification

As I reread my last piece it occurred to me that I had failed, and quite miserably.  I had tried to sum up the entirety of my farewell tour and, in so doing, had neglected to highlight the place that has become a second home to me; North Carolina.

Oh sure, I mentioned that it was my “adoptive home state” but that was about as far as it went.

It should have gone much farther.

I love North Carolina.  Love it.  I love her endless sand beaches and her rolling hills and mountains.  I love her cities and her rural areas.  I love her food and, most of all, I love her people.

I landed in NC in March of 199… well, something, (again, there is no need to get TOO into specifics, now is there?) and, for reasons that I didn’t fully understand at the time, immediately became a Wake Forest and an East Carolina University fan.  I had absolutely no connection to either school, I had never seen a game never seen the campus, didn’t own any of either school’s swag… yet, I was die hard.

As I have gotten older I have come to realize that the reason that I loved Wake and ECU was, primarily, because they WEREN’T Duke or Carolina.

I’ll explain.

For those of you that haven’t been to NC (you poor souls) there is a… thing… that exists there.  NC is the very heart of the Atlantic Coast Conference and, despite the conference’s success on the football field, the very heart of the ACC is basketball.  One does not simply live in NC and not be immersed in collegiate basketball culture.  In so doing, of course, one ends up making a choice: Duke or Carolina, the two perpetual basketball powerhouses.

In this I had several advantages.  The first was that I grew up in the state of hockey.  If you look at the college hockey rankings you will see that, at least at the time of this writing, 3 of the top 10 schools are from Minnesota, so I had a certain understanding of the whole in state rivalry, divided house thing.  The second is that, honestly, I really didn’t give much of a shit about basketball… still don’t.  I care about it more now than I did then, you can’t live in the heart of college basketball and not be somewhat affected, but I don’t pay much attention to it until March.  The third is that I am a bit of a contrarian.  I know… I know…that may be hard to believe, but I promise you it’s true.  So, true to all of those things, when I was offered the choice between Duke or Carolina (and again, for those of you who haven’t been, when someone says “Carolina” they are talking about the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) I chose Wake and ECU.

I digress…

Where was I?

Oh yes, I had just landed in NC.

I will admit that my first brush with NC was hardly favorable… Fayetteville, especially then, was… awful.  They have done a wonderful job of revitalizing parts of down town but then… it was terrible.

I did get out to the beach a lot, however and it was there, in Kill Devil Hills, NC, that the salt water got into my veins.

I have never been the same since.

I left NC and went to Alaska, which also changed my life, but found myself missing the warm waters and sandy beach of NC… I would dream about it… when I found out that I was headed back to NC, it was the only place I wanted to go.  I actually entertained the idea of living there and commuting… not for very long, mind you, it’s a 5 hour drive each way, but for a bit.

It wasn’t until my 3rd exposure to NC that I truly fell in love with it, however.  Maybe more accurately, the seed had been planted but it was missing items that kept it from blossoming.

These items were people.  Friends from NC that I finally met who could show me the state, not just the touristy parts of it, but all the parts of it, and show me the non-touristy parts of the touristy parts.

I saw small town NC, and big city NC.  I saw costal NC beyond what I had experienced at the beach and I saw how that salt water was in the blood of everyone from that part of the state.  I saw historical NC and mountainous NC. I experienced vinegar NC and tomato NC and learned to love them both. I finally saw the Wake Forest and East Carolina University campuses.  I found a place where I felt at home.

To quote one of my dearest, most treasured friends’ grandmother: “You’re not a Yankee, you’re one of us.”

And so, I became one of them, or, to anyone who may be reading this from NC, I became one of y’all.

As I mentioned in my opening, what makes NC so special isn’t just the varying terrain, it isn’t just the college campuses, or the cities or the beach; it is the people.  It is one of two places that I have been, my own home state of Minnesota is the other, where random people having simple, superficial conversations with strangers, say in the waiting room of a car dealership or in line at the grocery store, will say things like “I’m so glad that I live here” or “Well, you’re in NC so you’re already doing pretty well.”

I loved that.  Even before I knew that I did, I loved that.  I needed it, even though I didn’t really understand that until very recently.

So, thank you, North Carolina, for taking me in.  Thank you for showing me so much of what you have to offer and thank you for sharing with me your people.  I am forever in your debt.

Esse Quam Videri.