Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Feb. 19, 1969, edition 1 / Page 3
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Tted t my not new lout here only )rm ill’t nks ies, ain led rhe ter. tin, :ive by lot ige >ng the rgo ills list lat ust eld iire nd me :es he an up lie vil . i th II as Oh Yeah? by F.N. Stewart Page 3 The Carolina Journal, February 19, 1969 Freshmen Suggestions Miami Bound Bill’s parents had moved to Miami in the winter before he graduated from Garinger, so he lived with his cousin Tommy to be able to graduate here in Charlotte. He and I talked about Florida as we sat in Tomy’s living room watching American Bandstand. I had been playing with the bongo drums I gave Bill for his birthday and talking about hitchhiking to Florida. It was late June, Bill had just had a birthday and turned eighteen. 1 was still seventeen and had another year of high school so 1 thought hitchhiking to Florida just to spend the summer would be a great idea. Bill was beginning to take to the idea when his face lit up like a 400 watt bulb. He just remembered that his step-father had given him an old car for graduation and the thought hit him that we could take that car and DRIVE to Florida like real travelers. The car, when we found it parked in an auto storage lot, wasn’t really pretty to look at. There were some corrections to be made before it went anywhere. It had six flat tires (two in the trunk), grass and vines growing in the engine (?) compartment, one dead rat on the floor board (the rat had been dead a long time), no battery and a rusted out place where it was supposed to be, one door which wouldn’t close, one window which wouldn’t open, and grass (live grass) GROWING on the back floor board. 1 saw it and wanted to go home. Bill looked at that green 1950 Chrysler and to him it looked like a brand new dirty Cadillac. Ilookedat it again and really felt kinda bad on my stomach. I told Bill that the trunk had enough stuff in it to become an excellent used junk store. Bill really liked good junk, so that impressed him all the more. The lot attendant told us as he was putting in a battery and pumping up four of the tires that the car had been confiscated in a liquor raid and had been sold at a police auction. He had wondered if theywould ever come get it. Bill had not had enough money to buy insurance so he had not picked up the car. Bill had to have insurance in order to get a tag. Bill took the keys from the attendant like he had just bought a new car. I thought that a car which had been sitting as long as this one had could not possibly start. 1 was right. The engine didn’t even turn over. Bill poured in several quarters of oil, put back three of the six spark plugs, hooked up the battery cable, cleaned the cobwebs, and dirt out of the distributor, and slipped behind the wheel again. This time the car made sounds and scared the hell out of me. 1 started to run with the lot attendant and thought 1 had seen the last of my friend Bill. When the smoke cleared, Bill was still sitting behind the wheel - scared silly. After three more hours of working on the car, we pulled it back to Tommy’s place. Valuable Junk Tommy’s mother didn’t want it near the house. Tommy’s grandmother said the car stunk. Tommy’s little brother (who now goes to College here at UNC-C) climbed in the trunk and started examining the valuable junk. Tommy’s father took it all quietly. Tommy didn’t know what to think. Bill was beaming like a new father. A loud noise came from within the car. Tommy’s little brother had turned on the radio. Once it was put on a station and turned back down to a normal range, it played like a new stereo console. Something about the car worked, which was a real surprise to me. The first thing we did to the car after it was home was to wash it-inside and out. Bill wanted to wax it with the canned wax he had found in the trunk. 1 was able to talk him out of that. The trunk had some stuff in it, and 1 mean SOME STUFF. There were two tires, three innertubes, a half-dozen burlap bags, two jacks, two jack lug wrenches; assorted tools, some like the screwdriver, worked; a carton of drinks, an empty whiskey bottle, a can of car wax, sparkplugs; fan belt, complete with fan; and other things. We put all the stuff back into the trunk, closed the lid and washed it. We worked on the car until about four in the morning, then 1 went home and had bad dreams. At nine the next morning. Bill was pounding on my bedroom door, saying something about the day being half wasted. I put on my tennis shoes and blue jeans with grease on them and went back over to Tommy’s. By afternoon the engine would turn over under Its on power. It wouldn’t start but it would turn over. Bill had just about worn out the ignition switch trying to start the car. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong, so we pulled the car across town to a friend who had a small garage. He opened the hood of the car and before it was all the way up told us that the cable on the positive side of the battery which was supposed to go to the distributor wasn’t there. We connected a cable. The car started. 1 knew a little bit about engines, and that engine made noises like no other engine I had ever heard. The mechanic shook his head, like a cowboy does for a dying horse. Towards evening the engine had been tuned and one of the tires went flat. The engine was now beginning to make noise similiar to those of an automobile engine. My mechanic friend gave us a license tag which had come off a wrecked car to go on that green wreck Bill was going to drive home. That worried me a little because that Chrysler had a semi-automatic transmission. That is, it had drive, neutral, and reverse; only you had to push a clutch in whenever the car came to a stop or when you shifted gears. It took Bill an hour and a half to make a drive that took me and my ‘58 Ford only twenty minutes. Talking Car Talk Wltile eating supper at Tommy’s and talking about the day’s events, the water ran out of the radiator, one tire went flat, the battery died, and one ignition key stuck in the ignition. After supper we corrected all the deficiencies. After Tommy’s family went to sleep we borrowed a headlight, battery cable and part of a windshield wiper from Tommy’s ‘51 Packard which was parked in the garage with a busted motor block. We replaced the items with parts from Bill’s bomb. After all that I went home again and had bad dreams. Bill was determined 1 wasn’t going to waste my young life sleeping, so he woke me at eight the next morning. By noon we had waxed that damn green thing. The ignition had gotten to such a point that you really had to work with it to get the key to turn. A tire went flat again. And again the water ran out of the radiator. I was really starting to dislike that pile of machine. We started the car and drove around town for a while. Two hours after that we had packed the car with necessary items: blanket, pillow, clothes, sandwiches, drinks, bongo drums and sweatshirts. And in the afternoon rush hour traffic we started to Miami, Florida. Columbia, South Carolina is about two hours driving time south of Charlotte. It didn’t take us but five hours to drive that distance. 1 drove for several more hours or until about two in the morning. Then 1 crawled into the back seat and went to sleep. 1 awoke about five o’clock because my head kept bouncing on the car window. It was bouncing so that there was a knot on my head. The car was rolling from side to side like a ship in a bad storm. Bill was driving at eighty miles an hour. It was pitch-black dark and there was a swamp growing close to both sides of the road. 1 found out that Bill was driving fast because he was afraid of the swamp and wanted to get out of it. He also had not seen a town for a couple of hours, the car was running out of gas, and we were lost. 1 put the pillow against the window so that the knot wouldn’t bump against the glass and I went back to sleep. (Continued on Page 4) In a recent questionnaire, conducted by the Freshman Class Officers, Freshmen were given a chance to contribute ideas and criticisms about their class and the campus in general. In matters concerning their class, there were suggestions of putting a 49’er on the empty cafeteria wall, erecting a small park with benches or a fountain, and charity projects such as the United Appeal Drive, which was chaired by members of the Freshman Class. A majority of Freshmen were very displeased with registration procedures and orientation. Many felt they were not given sufficient knowledge of procedures and activities on our campus. Some reasons given for this “lack of knowledge” were uninformed advisors and a confusing catalogue. One suggestion for improvement was having a forum of school clubs during orientation which would explain their activities and membership UNC-C to Play in NAIA Tourney The University of North Carolina at Charlotte basketball team has accepted an invitation to play in the NAIA District 26 tournament on March 4 at Winston-Salem coach Harvey Murphy announced Monday. UNC-C will play with three other District 26 teams for the honor of competing in the national NAIA tournament to be held in Kansas City. At the present time only two other teams have been selected to play in the tourney with UNC-C. High Point College receives a spot as having the best record in District 26 along with North Carolina A&T. Originally, UNC-C was not slated to be invited to the tourney. Greensboro College, a fellow Dixie Conference team, had a better District 26 record than UNC-C by a scant seven percentage points. But at an NAIA meeting, Greensboro College deferred its spot in the tournament to UNC-C, a team that they believed would be a better representative since it had won the conference tournament. The fourth team for the tournament will be picked after the conclusion of the Carolinas Conference tournament. If High Point wins the tournament, the next highest NAIA district 26 team in the Carolinas Conference will be selected. If High Point does not win the tournament they will still retain their position in the tournament off their regular season record. The tournament, sponsored by the Winston-Salem Jaycees, will kick off with a 7:30 meeting between the number two and three seeded teams, N.C. A&T and the team to be decided. Following that game will be a meeting between UNC-C, seeded fourth in the tourney, and High Point, seeded first at 9:30. Tickets are currently on sale at the Student Union Desk. For students general admission seats cost $1.00 apiece. If students want to reserve seats they can procure them by writing to the W—S Jaycees and enclosing $3.00 a ticket. In other sports news. Dr. Harvey Murphy, athletic director and basketball coach, was elected to the AAU national Olympic basketball committee. Murphy was one of five out of 72 elected to the prestigious position. requirements. Other suggestions were individual advising for entering Freshmen, more than one social event during Orientation, and better informed Freshman Advisory Committee members. A major issue seemed to be the lack of communication concerning meetings and activities, with the Student Legislature being no exception. It was suggested that the Student Legislature minutes be published in the JOURNAL soon after the meetings. Also, many students desired a week-end musical program of some type. More specific criticisms were the high price of books, the lack of a good keypunch machine, the lack of a journalism course, high cafeteria prices, and the late hours of labs. The Freshman Class will hold a meeting today at 11:30 in the Parquet Room for the purpose of discussing a Freshman banquet since many replied that they would support it. Also, due to a vacancy, a new Freshman Representative will be elected. A Representative must be taking at least nine hours and shall not have completed more than eighteen hours. The Freshman Class officers would like to thank the Freshman Class and the English department for their cooperation with the questionnaire. I I'm DiseiucHANreo ujim , , THE ESTASUSHMEWr X QOD WieSrASU SHEO ) uuirn ■ . £jOCHAMTMEJOr UIHERE to I GO FRoaa Hootnanny 12:00 Friday Near Game Room in Union B. S. U. sponsored
University of North Carolina at Charlotte Student Newspaper
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Feb. 19, 1969, edition 1
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