20 The Tar Heel Thursday, August 4, 1977
Uurnam
apel
Lo
no love lo
By WILLIAM H. WILLIMON
It's that time of year again. We in the
Durham-Chapel Hill area are in the
midst of our annual "unexpected"
drought. An absence of rain is becoming
predictable in our area, as predictable as
the annual earnest appeals from our
neighbors over in Chapel Hill for water
in their time of need. "Can you spare
500.000 gallons, pal?"
N ow, I am pleased that we in Durham
have enough water to spare, and I am
pleased that we are helping Chapel Hill
through another dry spell. But our
Chamber of Commerce is teaching me
to think "Durham First," so, along with
that lone protesting city council
member. 1 have some nagging questions
in the back of my mind about the
wisdom of our annual show of
beneficence toward Chapel Hill. Should
the citizens of Bull City keep our weaker
neighbors afloat through another
summer? I ask this question because I
am tired of having my beloved city put
down by neighbors who would be high
and dry except for our neigborliness.
We moved to Durham a little over a
year ago. Before we had even taken up
residence, it soon became apparent that
we were entering a city in the grip of a
vast inferiority complex. "Durham is
O.K.," one of my colleagues on the
Duke faculty begrudgingly admitted,
"but you would like living in Chapel Hill
much better. It is so much more
civilized."
When we were wined and dined by my
new colleagues, where did we go for
dinner? Durham? Are you kidding? We
drove bumper-to-bumper down a
dangerous stretch of four-lane suicide to
Chapel Hill ("the only place where you
can find a good restaurant in this area")
where we paid a large price for small
portions of wilted broccoli and "beef
stroganoff which looked vaguely like
something we used to eat out of a can in
the Army. We followed dinner by a
stroll along Chapel H ill's shops where
we soaked in culture and sophistication
and tried not to be goggle-eyed at the
prices, were hooted at by three
undergraduates in a light blue pickup
truck, festooned with subversive
bumper stickers, and then returned to
dear old drab Durham. I for one was not
impressed by the self-effacing attitude of
many Durham residents in the presence
of the self conscious, belligerent
snobbishness of that little town to the
south.
Personally this Durham citizen has
had all the condescending, ungrateful,
hypocritical slurs from Chapel Hill that
I plan to endure. No more fawning over
and covetous longing for Chapel Hill
Chic to replace Durham Drab. Citizens
of Durham unite! Durham first!
What is this chic culture and
sophistication with which Chapel Hill
seeks to intimidate us? It is mostly the
pseud o sophistication of an effete
intelligentsia who have cloistered
themsellelves in an academic ghetto of
reactionary romanticism. Chapel Hill
chic is wearing shoes which make the
A grocery shopping tradition in Chapel Hill i ...
featuring a variety of merchandise from
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an old-fashioned service meat cotiriter ...
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human foot look like a duck and hurt
like the devil unless you sit at a school
desk all day. Chapel Hill chic is driving
an old gray Volvo (in bumper-to-bumper
traffic behind 2,000 other old
gray Volvos mired in the congestion of
Chapel Hill's narrow streets) while
munching a yogurt-wheat germnung
bean candy bar.
Chapel Hill chic is the courage of
marching in a protest demonstration in
front of the Chapel Hill Post Office in
bold support of a cause which everyone
else in Chapel Hill is in favor of except
for one aging professor emeritus.
Chapel Hill chic is fighting any city
expansion or modernization and then
driving over to Durham for a job or
every time you have to buy a
toothbrush. Chapel Hill chic is buying
old, worn-out, used buses when mass
transportation is all the rage (even if
everyone already drives a Volvo) rather
than building an adequate town
reservoir.
In place of this so-called "chic," give
me good old drab Durham any day.
Here is a no-nonsense, strictly
utilitarian, no-frills town without
pretense and presumption. We are what
we are. We would rather eat fried
chicken with the Colonel here than
French cuisine in Chapel Hill. Our
problems match those of some of the
greatest cities in the world. Our crime
rate is as high as any major metropolitan
. area in the country. Our city council has
more important things to argue about
than the height of city buildings and
how to make downtown look quaint.
Intelligence and sophistication here are
measured by one's ability to get from
one end of downtown Durham to the
other without onece going the wrong
way down a one-way street. And I ask
you, name me one place in Cahpel Hill
where one can buy.
1. a good hot dog with lots of chili.
2. a current issue of Hot Rod
magazine.
3. a large strawberry artificially
flavored and colored soft drink.
Everytime I step out of my house and
catch the aroma of freshly cured
tobacco gently hovering over Bull City,
or pull my Dodge Dart over to the side
of the street to let two police cars trailing
three fire trucks trailing one ambulance
scream past me, or spend half a day
hunting a book in our downtown library
(who says we in Durham don't honor
the past), I know I live in a great city.
Durham first!
Last August, during the last water
crisis, the very friends of mine from
Chapel Hill who made such derogatory
remarks about my town, who flaunted
their abrasive "I'd rather be in Chapel
Hill" bumper stickers and complained
about feeling uneasy when they left their
car parked in front of my house; were
the very same people who drank nine
glasses of water at a dinner at our home
and ended the evening by asking to take
a bath in out tub because such acts were
against the law in Chapel H ill. This year,
1 for one am putting my foot down. You
don't drink my water if you don't love
my town. It is as simple as that. Let's see
how romantic and sophisticated Chapel
Hill feels when it becomes a capital
offense to flush a toilet.
These days, when everything down
there seems to be a lovely Carolina Blue
except the town reservoir, Durham drab
is looking better all the time! Let's all
drink (water) to that! Durham fWi
William H. Willimon is an assistant
professor of worship and liturgy in the
Duke Divinity School. This column
originally appeared in the Durham
Morning Herald on July 24, 1977.