“Together again, my tears have stopped falling. The long, lonely nights are now at an end.”
Emmylou Harris, “Together Again”
Made it. Eight days, two time zones and 3,191 miles after leaving Oakland, California, here we are, Stella and I, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
People who know us and may have been following along or checking in on this cross-country journey may be curious as to the whereabouts of Lovely Leigh, tlw (the little woman) to use her self-description.
Why didn’t she come along? Did she send me packing? Tell me to hit the road and not come back, Jack?
Perish the thought. She simply opted to go on ahead in one of those airplane things. It way my crazy idea to do the road trip, take the dog, have an adventure, come what may.
There she was, of course, outside her folks’ place here in Wintson-Salem. Waiting arms. Together again. It’s true what they say, by the way, about homecoming being the best part of a long trip.
Although this one went really well. Interesting sights and stop-overs, friendly encounters, plenty of time to putter and ponder. And no car trouble or rough weather, no getting lost (except on purpose), no untoward or unsettling incidents.
Once on the road (only once, surprisingly) I was asked for a handout. A brother-can-you-spare-a-dime scene at a filling station in Deming, New Mexico. A gaunt guy with tied-back long hair and no visible teeth, looking older than he probably was, rolled up to the pumps in a battered camper van and politely asked for a couple of bucks to help buy gas. Called himself a freelancer and said he’d never seen times this bad, meaning the lack of odd jobs to be had. Handout received.
About Winston-Salem:
A group of Pennsylvania Moravians settled the area in the mid-1700s. The settlement prospered and became a trading and crafts center. In 1766 Salem (from Shalom, Hebrew for “peace”) was established nearby as the Moravians’ permanent settlement. The Moravian religion, a welcoming and pleasing offshoot of Catholicism, is practiced commonly here today and Old Salem has been preserved and restored as a local attraction
Winston, founded in 1849, grew rapidly due to the success of the textile and tobacco industries. The two towns consolidated in 1913, forming Winston-Salem, whose current population numbers about 186,000.
Tobacco is still harvested and produced near here, but not like the boom days, and buildings, streets and landmarks bear the name of tobacco baron R.J. Reynolds. The company is headquartered in Winston-Salem and once provided a major source of employment for generations. Also based here, and another economic resource, is the Hanes company, the underwear people. An outlet in town is always worth a visit.
Another notable economic (or gastronomic) force is, or was, Krispy Kreme. The donut empire was founded in Old Salem around the 1920s by Vernon Rudolph; Leigh’s dad Jack remembers delivering the morning paper to the Reynolds home. The company is based here and the first chain outlet does a brisk business, but overall Krispy Kreme has fallen on hard times, what with competition, stock losses and the shenanigans — in the news just last week — of company execs.
A rich academic environment here. Winston-Salem is home to Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem State University — which was founded in 1892 and was the first African-American institution in the country to award degrees in elementary education — and Salem College, founded in 1772 and still operating in Old Salem. Lots of green and open space here, too — the city has 75 park with 16 miles of greenways for walking, jogging and cycling.
In closing, let’s not overlook that Winston-Salem is the stronghold of the Trivette family, Leigh’s people, and the place of her birth. They’re quite a group, these Trivettes, as told in other tales on these pages. You’d be hard pressed to find a family so large that gets along so well. Never a cross word and always an open door, usually the one at Jack and Treva’s house here on Lullington Drive.
Together again.