A4 I DECEMBER 13,2017
BERTIE LEDGER-ADVANCE
Opinion
Good books
for the folks
I you forgot
The fabric of Bertie County since 1832
m m
5 You forgot somebody, didn’t you?
iiS Somebody who is expecting a present
"from you? And now, remembering, you
have no idea what to give, do you?
: Here are some thoughts from my recent
'Reading.
1 At the top of your list of books for your
ifriends who are public policy or history
nerds should be two North Carolina au
thors whose books recently made the
dist of The New York Times’s 100 Notable
Books of 2017.
Charlotte native Graham
Allison’s “Destined for War;
Can America and China Es
cape Thucydides’s Trap?’’
puts the dangers in the U.S.-
China dynamic relationship
in understandable language.
Duke Professor Timothy Ty
son’s “The Blood of Emmett
Till” revisits the 1955 kidnap-
D.G. ping and brutal killing of Till,
- Martin a 14-year-old black youth
One On from Chicago visiting rela-
3 One tives in Mississippi.
Other books for such seri-
^ ous readers include “Julius
rhambers: A Life in the Legal Struggle for
:Xivil Rights” by Richard A. Rosen and Jo-
M^ph Mosnier. Their account of North Caro-
1 na’s leading civil rights attorney and hero
persuaded me that a statue of Chambers
belongs on the courthouse lawn of every
North Carolina County.
Similarly, Kenneth Janken’s “The Wilm
ington Ten: Violence, Injustice, and the
Rise of Black Politics in the 1970s” deals
with unhealed wounds of racial turmoil.
If you think these books are too serious
for holiday gifts, how about ones that deal
with food?
For example, “Deep Run Roots” by TV
star and Kinston chef, Vivian Howard, is
a story-filled book of recipes and descrip
tions of great North Carolina foods. It is
destined to be a classic.
In “Foster’s Market Favorites: 25th An-
jjiversary,” another North Carolina food
hero, Sarah Foster, shares recipes and tells
how her Durham market came to be and
"came to thrive.
New Bookwatch guest host Randall Ke
nan’s “The Carolina Table: North Carolina
Writers on Food” includes his and other
North Carolina writers’ food memories and
images.
“Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North
Carolina Barbecue” by John Shelton Reed,
Dale Volberg Reed and William McKinney,
was recently re-issued in paperback and
is a surefire successful present for anyone
who loves North Carolina barbecue.
If there is anything more important to
North Carolinians than food, it is basket
ball. Some recent books could be answers
to your gift-giving needs.
Veteran sports journalist Art Chansky’s
“Game Changers; Dean Smith, Charlie
Scott, and the Era That Transformed a
Southern College Town,” tells how a junior
high school kid in Harlem became a North
Carolina legend.
" John Feinstein’s “The Legends Club: Dean
Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and
an Epic College Basketball Rivalry” shows
how college basketball became a part of
our culture.
Scott Ellsworth’s “The Secret Game: A
Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and
Basketball’s Lost Triumph” uses a forbid
den game between a team from North Car
olina College for Negroes and an all-white
team from Duke in 1944 to help us under
stand radical transformations of the sport
and our culture.
If you need even more ideas, visit your
local bookseller of take a look at the books
listed on the Bookwatch web page at
http;//www.unctv.org/watch/unctv-orgin-
als/nc-bookwatch/
D.G. Martin hosts “North Carolina Book
watch,” which airs Sundays at noon and
Thursdays at 5 p.m. on LJNC-TV.
Lettersto^he^ditor
Email Letters To: twhite@ncweeklies.com
Mail Letters to: P.O. Box 69,
Windsor, NC 27983
MA(?(?WJ6S
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1^:
5
CLASS^
Will it ever snow in eastern N.C.?
The snow missed us again. We
must live in some type of weird
vortex that heats the air just
enough for precipitation to stay
just barely above 32 degrees.
As soon as all chances of snow
are gone, the temperature drops.
Has anyone else noticed this? It
happens. Every. Single. Time.
Less than an hour and a half
away, friends were
frolicking in the
snow, while we
had a never-ending
cold, cold rain.
My youngest and
I headed out in this
messy, driveling
wetness to do some
Christmas shop
ping for his friends.
Christmas mu
sic was playing on
the stereo in the
car and we could almost imagine
what it would look like if it were
snowing. Our mood was light.
That is, until the “Twelve Pains
of Christmas” came on.
I used to think the song was
pretty funny. By the time.the song
L
Deborah
Griffin
Farmlife
Wife
was over and we hit Greenville
holiday traffic, I was ready to turn
the car around and head home
to hide under the covers until
Christmas was over.
If you have never heard the
song, consider it a blessing. If you
have heard it, you know exactly
what I am talking about. It ruins
any warm, fuzzy feelings you have
about Christmas.
It also validates all the Ebenezer
Scrooges out there.
I didn’t realize how negatively
the song had affected me until it
was over. I had a headache and
was extremely grumpy.
In Elena Mannes book the “Pow
er of Music” she states that music
stimulates more parts of the brain
than any other human function.
She sees the potential in music’s
power to even change the brain
and affect the way it works.
From now on I will be more care
ful to what I listen to before enter
ing the holiday hustle in frightful
weather.
For the most part. I’ve been do
ing all my Christmas shopping on
line. No crowds, no bad mpsic, no
tempting treats to derail my diet.
That was all well and good un
til a large chain, who shall remain
unnamed, shipped a Black Friday
gift to my house in the original
packaging.
I naively assumed they would
package it with some other things
I ordered in one big, plain brown
box.
It was going to be a huge sur
prise- for my chef-in-training,
13-year-old.
He was the only one at home
when the delivery was made.
Eyes wide with a smile strug
gling not to spread at the corners
of his mouth, he told me he had
no idea what was in the box.
Who knew Santa wears a brown
shirt and pants and drives a big,
brown enclosed sleigh these
days?
Deborah is Staff Writer for the
Bertie Ledger-Advance. She wish
es all the Ledger readers a Merry
Christmas and Blessed New Year.
She can be reached at dgriffin®
ncweeklies.com.
Answers to your questions
«■ ■
Over the course of five years
leading the Bertie Ledger-Ad
vance, and now almost three edit
ing the Martin County Enterprise
& Weekly Herald, I’ve been asked
a treasure trove of questions.
Today, I’ll attempt to answer
some of them.
1. We recently participated in
the Christmas pa
rade/tree lighting/
social. Why wasn’t
our picture in the
newspaper?
The short answer
is we have lim
ited space, and we
simply choose the
best photos to run
in the newspaper.
The long answer is
it depends on a va
riety of things,
thing is, if we are
article and photos
celebration.
Thadd
White
Out Here In
Left Field
The first
printing an
about a Christmas
the best photos are those where
people look like they’re celebrat
ing - smiling, happy and friendly.
Those photos will be our go-to ev
ery time.
2. Church A has a lot of news
in the church news section. Why
isn’t our church there?
The answer to this one is sim
ple. We print the news we are pro
vided. If a church has a special
service planned, we’ll be glad to
publish it if we are afforded the
details.
Priority will always go to
churches in Bertie County, but
we occasionally print services
for churches in Chowan, Martin,
Hertford and Northampton coun
ties, as they border ours.
3. While on the subject of
church, 1 see pastors in the coun
ty writing an article, but never my
pastor. Why is that?
Over the course of five years,
we’ve had a number of pastors
write columns for our newspaper.
Some have moved on, some have
died and others continue their
work now. We appreciate all their
efforts.
The answer may be as simple
as I don’t know your pastor. I’ve
worked hard as I can to diversify
the church columns with pastors
of different denominations, races
and beliefs, but by-and-large they
are men and women I know or
have met.
If your pastor is interested in
writing for us, I encourage him or
her to contact me because we’re
always looking for new voices for
our church page.
4. How do I get information from
my group or organization into the
newspaper?
We welcome submissions to
the newspaper, and we hope to
continue to get more from our
community. The long and short is
that we accept submissions in the
ways you’d expect; mail, email,
fax and by dropping it off in the
office..
5. When will what I submit run?
The short answer is as soon as
we have space. The long answer
is that may be quick or it may take
a bit. As much as possible, we try
to run things in the order they
were submitted to make it as fair
as possible to everyone bringing
things to the newspaper.
That isn’t always possible be
cause we may have a small space
in a certain edition and the older
items are all longer. We do the
best we can to do it as fairly and
as quickly as possible.
6. Do you mind if I contact and
remind you about my article?
Absolutely not. We do have
times when articles are submitted
and for some reason they don’t
get to us either because of hu
man or computer error. If you’re
not sure, always feel free to call
or email.
Thadd White is Editor of the Ber
tie Ledger-Advance and the Martin
County Enterprise & Weekly Her
ald. He can be reached via email
at twhite@ncweeklies.com.
Bertie
Ledger-Advance
The fabric of Bertie County since 1832
The Behtie Ledger-Advance was established in 1928 through the
HERITAGE OF THE WINDSOR LEDGER AND THE AuLANOER ADVANCE.
The newspaper traces its history to 1832 when it was first published
AS the Windsor Herald and Bertie County Register
Kyle Stephens
Group Publisher
kstephens(a>ncweeklies.com
Angela Harne
Group Editor
ahame(|)ncweekiiea,com
Thaad White
Editor '
rwhiEe@ncweeUies.com
Deborah Griffin
Sti^ Writer
c%tiffin@ncweekhes.com
l.eslie Beachboard
Staft Writer
iheachhoard@ ncweekhes-cdm
Jim Green
Sporti Editor
jgteen@ncweeklies.com
Michelle Leicester
Creative Servkes
mleicester@ncweeklies.com
Jessica Mobley
Advertising Manager
jmobley@ncweeklies.com
Lanny Hiday
Copy Editor
bertienews@ncweeklies.com
The Ber-
(ISSN 051-700) IS published
EACH Wednesday for $26.69
(plus tax) per year (n Bertie,
Hertford, Martin, Northamp
ton, Chowan and Washington
counties) by Cooke Communica
tions North Carolina, LLG,
109 S. King St., Windsor, NC
27983. Periodicals postage paid
AT Windsor, NC and entered at
additional mailing OFFices.
Postmaster:
address changes to the
Bertie Ledger-Advance,
P.O. Box 69, Windsor,
NC 27983.
Contact Us:
Bertie LedqerAovance
P.O. Box 69.
Windsor, NC 27983.
Phone: (252)794-3185
Fax: (252) 794-2835