Teaching a class, reading at StorySlam!

Just wanted to let everybody know about a couple of events coming up:

-- I'm teaching another writing class at Queens University... it's the "Writing in 3-D" class that I've done a couple times already this year. I'll be teaching it over two Saturday mornings, Dec. 4 and Dec. 11. We've had good crowds for this class so far, and I think people have learned a little bit. I've definitely had fun. Here's how to sign up. Holler if you have questions.

-- I'm also reading some of my work at StorySlam! Charlotte at 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 12. The other guests that night are poet/novelist/raconteur John Hartness and lawyer/writer/rock 'n' roll demon David Childers. I had a ball reading with John the last time I did StorySlam!, and I've admired David pretty much ever since I set foot in Charlotte. Here's some info about StorySlam! -- we're not on the calendar for some reason, but I'm told it's a go. Come check it out.

Last call for Why I Vote

We've gotten a few good submissions for the Why I Vote project, but I'd love to see some more before Election Day next Tuesday. The idea is to send me a photo of yourself, with a card or caption or something explaining why you vote.

Here's a great example from David Bayer:


You can e-mail the photo to me, ttomlinson@charlotteobserver.com. If you have any questions about how to do that, holler.

As we all know, voting increases your sex appeal, makes hair grow back and causes your stocks to increase in value. But you probably have your own reasons. Let's hear 'em.

Sausage-making and CMS

In one sense, this is exactly how government is supposed to work. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system put forth plans, citizens spoke out, the plans changed, people reacted to the changes. Yes, protesters disrupted the school board meeting Tuesday night. But they left quietly, and then they were let back in, and the meeting finished up.

CMS could have handled this better. They could have given the public more time to digest the ideas. But the problem is not the process. The problem is the product. There are no good solutions that come out of closing schools and moving kids around. There are just various versions of awful.

Everything has collided. Charlotte's growth has slowed, so some schools haven't filled up as expected. The economy is still limping, so government has to cut. All that is overlaid on the long-term problem of underachieving schools. And all THAT is overlaid on race, class, the role of parents, the role of government, merit, fairness, justice: basically, the history of America.

The old line says you don't want to see the making of laws or sausages. But this is more like scrapple. We're watching lips and snouts and hooves fly into the grinder, and nobody wants to taste what comes out the other side.

Few people grasp the big picture, or want to. Parents, naturally, fight for their kids' schools -- even if those schools are failing. You always think that with a few more good teachers, a little extra attention, a school can turn around. Some charter schools (but not all) have shown that poor and minority kids can do just as well as other kids in the right environment. CMS has even had some success at places such as Harding University High.

But Harding is now scheduled to close because of the brutal math that faces CMS: Every open school must be filled to the brim to make sure the money's not wasted. Harding is only about half full. So other students have to come fill it up, or Harding's kids have to go somewhere else.

This is the bill the poorest kids in our schools have always paid. They've always had the longest bus rides, the fewest good teachers, the least support from their parents. (As many have pointed out, those crowds at the CMS meetings would be something nice to see at PTA meetings.)

But the moves also affect middle-class families who can't afford private schools, and magnet-school kids who might show some special talent, and gifted kids in International Baccalaureate programs.

Why not spread the pain into all public schools? Two reasons, one academic and one political. Most of the schools in Charlotte's wealthiest neighborhoods are doing fine. And if they take any major cuts, parents have the means to pull their kids out and put them in private schools. They're a mousetrap CMS can't touch.

So here's the bottom line: Too much space, not enough money, lots of parents motivated by change, not enough parents motivated before the change was necessary, the kids who need stability most will get the least.

Put yourself in the chair of a school board member. Try to make that work. See how long before your head explodes.

Blanche Penn, one of the protesters Tuesday night, said this afterward: "It's like they're playing some kind of game with us, like we're all just pieces of a puzzle."

She was half right. It's a puzzle. But it's no game.

The Friday Wrap

I've got a story scheduled for Sunday's paper on how the lack of political experience might be a virtue in this election season. Look for it in the Big Picture section. Here's some of the other stuff I was up to this week:

Projects for you

This week I launched a new project, Why I Vote. Send in your photo with a sign saying why you vote. Here's an example from David Bayer:


David did a fancy-schmancy computer caption, but all you really need to do is hold up a sign. Get your photos in and we'll put up a gallery.

I'm also still taking entries for the At First Sight project -- tell me a story about when you knew something at first sight.

On the blog and in the paper

I let you know I was going to be on TV.

Then, surprisingly, they actually put me on TV.

Links on Twitter

Here are some links I posted during the week from my Twitter account, @tommytomlinson:

Man eats half-stick of butter every day, solves problems faster. http://bit.ly/bBmWtR So shouldn't Paula Deen be Stephen Hawking by now?

Very cool CNN project: 50 choirs, 1 song. http://bit.ly/dnDvBS

A great gambling story that makes me not want to gamble ever again. http://bit.ly/do3mtf

Thinking about moving to France. Worst comes to worst, would still get to retire at 62. charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/19/177… via @AddThis

New York has its own Alvin Greene, except even more awesome. The rent is too damn high! http://bit.ly/9Do47u

Coming up

If you've been interested in the writing classes I've been teaching at Queens University, but you haven't had a chance to take one yet... I hope to have some news for you next week.

And the Panthers are playing! Against a team almost as bad as they are! If the home team does end up going 1-15, you really don't want to miss the 1.

(By the way, not to brag or anything, but my Panthers' season pick looks like a better bet than the ones by either of our official sports columnists. Although I'd be thrilled to be wrong.)

Have a great weekend, everybody.

TV clip from "Charlotte Today"

So here's my segment on "Charlotte Today" this morning. Should have gone with better shoes... didn't know my sneakers were gonna make it on TV.

When you hit play you'll see a commercial... after it's over, hit pause and then hit play again to get the clip. At least that's how it worked for me.

Thanks to Colleen Odegaard, Rob Tanner, all the crew, and the kids from Pinewood Elementary who were in the studio and stayed quiet the whole time.




FYI, here's the project I mentioned in the segment... and here's that wedding column.

Project #6: Why I Vote

Our new project is tied to Election Day. We hear every year about how people are more disillusioned about politics than ever. This project is designed as an antidote. It's called Why I Vote, and the idea is simple:

Send in a photo of yourself with a sign that answers this question: Why do you vote?

What we're looking for in the photo is kind of a Bob Dylan "Subterranean Homesick Blues" feel:

Except you can smile. Smiling is encouraged.

It doesn't have to look exactly like that, either. Be creative! Although your answer also needs to be brief.

BECAUSE IT IS A CORNERSTONE OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC FORM OF GOVERNMENT WE HAVE CHOSEN IN THIS COUNTRY might not work.

BECAUSE I COLLECT THOSE 'I VOTED' STICKERS probably would.

Be funny, be serious, be sarcastic, be heartfelt... be whatever you like. Make sure your face is in the photo. And be partisan if you want, but just know that I'm more inclined toward nonpartisan answers. (You could write in red or blue marker to show your colors.)

E-mail me your photo (with your name and town) to ttomlinson@charlotteobserver.com. (You can also mail it to PO Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230... but if you don't know how to e-mail a photo, just ask the nearest 12-year-old.)

I'm hoping we'll end up with a motivational slideshow for these last few weeks before Election Day.

Thanks for contributing!

On TV tomorrow

DVR alert: If you have a DVR, you should probably unplug it so you don't accidentally record my appearance on WCNC's Charlotte Today at 11 a.m. Wednesday. If you do decide to watch, I'll do my best to make lovely host Colleen Odegaard glad she asked me to come, instead of bringing on a monkey juggler or something. Although I would totally watch a monkey juggler. By which I mean a monkey that juggles, instead of a guy juggling monkeys. Although, come to think of it, that would be even more cool.

This is the kind of stuff that runs through my head. Let's all just hope I don't ramble like that on the air.

By the way: New project coming tomorrow. It requires cameras. So make sure your batteries are good, and get ready.

The Friday Wrap

Y'all are busy people, so I'm going to take this spot on Fridays to collect all the reportage, bloggage, tweetage and other blurtage I put out during the week.

Projects for you

There's a new reader project called At First Sight -- I'd really like to hear your stories about one of those moments.

I'm also thinking about doing a local version of this very cool CNN video project where people send in videos of their favorite walk. Would y'all do something like this if I put out the call? http://bit.ly/ciPjk8

On the blog and in the paper

Here's a few thoughts on the Chilean miners.

I watched the documentary "Waiting for 'Superman'" with four people invested in education in Charlotte; if you're interested in the future of our public schools, go see it.

There was a little NFL talk on the Gold Rush bus, and the home team didn't come off well.

Speaking of that, you can still take the Panthers QB poll. Here's how bad it is: We want Jake back. (And my bad for not putting Armanti Edwards in there.)

My links on Twitter

This showed up in the paper right after Dylan came to town. I'm just sayin'. http://bit.ly/cpIzHC

Gene Payne, longtime Observer editorial cartoonist, died today (Thursday). He made this list in 1968. http://bit.ly/b1IDu5

The Alvin Greene Performance Art Project continues. Makes Joaquin Phoenix look like an amateur. http://bit.ly/bUUIYy

Mike Harden, a great columnist I'd never known, remembered by @NNall. http://bit.ly/bZzQmq

RIP, General Johnson. charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/14/176… via @AddThis Here's the brilliant "Give Me Just a Little More Time": http://bit.ly/d3fbdq

My bud @jposnanski on the 32 greatest calls in sports. Brilliant stuff, altho Larry Munson is WAY too low :) http://bit.ly/9BobNM

Diamonds aren't really forever. But Happy Meals apparently are. http://bit.ly/bZZEGU

My favorite new correction ever. http://tbd.ly/9fz2FV (via @NNall )

Hey, I'm quoted in an ESPN story on Julius Peppers. http://es.pn/bf5v9q

Very cool crowdsourced video by the great @kimrichey. http://bit.ly/cYRcVX

Coming up

Unless they come to their senses, I'm supposed to be on WCNC's Charlotte Today on Wednesday. Just remember, the cameras add 100 pounds.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Project #5: At first sight

I ran across a beautiful little movie the other day. It was one of the finalists in the narrative division of the Vimeo Awards for short films. Go to the site and you can get lost in there for hours -- I did -- but one film, less than 5 minutes long, has stuck with me ever since.

It's called "Nuit Blanche" (literally "white night," but the French use it to mean "sleepless night") by Arev Manoukian. Watch it first, and then I have a project for you.

What this film made me think about, as you might imagine, is the idea of love at first sight. But love isn't the only thing we feel at first sight... sometimes you know a house is the place you want to live when you pull into the driveway, or you know one dog in the litter is the one meant for you. And we also feel the opposite of those things -- sometimes we DON'T like or DON'T want something as soon as you give it a glance.

So here's the assignment: Tell me a story about a moment when you knew something at first sight.

You can leave it here in the comments or send me an email at ttomlinson@charlotteobserver.com. I'll also post this on my Facebook page. If you have photos or anything else that helps tell your story, send those along too.

We'll compile the best and publish them. So let's hear your story.

The Chilean miners

It looked like giving birth. The miner rose from the belly of the cave, and came up through the tunnel, and when he finally emerged there were tears, because we had seen a miracle.

And then another came. And then another.

Seventy days ago the copper mine in Chile had collapsed, leaving 33 men trapped 2,000 feet down. For more than two weeks most experts assumed they were dead. But no one knew for sure, and one day a drill made it into an open area, and when the drill bit came back up there was a note attached, written in red.

Estamos bien en el refugio los 33. The 33 of us are fine in the shelter.

The challenge became how to get them out. Drilling experts from a dozen countries pitched in. NASA designed the escape pod. It took nearly two more months to drill a hole big enough and safe enough. In the meantime crews sent down food and water and a video camera.

And that is how the world got to watch from inside the mine on Tuesday night as the first miner rode to the surface, a slow rocket to heaven.

His name is Florencio Ávalos. He hugged his family and the Chilean president. The next one to surface, Mario Sepúlveda, threw up his arms and roared as if he had just scored the goal to win the World Cup.

The third one got me.

His name is Juan Illanes. He's in his early '50s, with a thick mustache, and in the dark shades he wore to help his eyes adjust, he looked a little like Richard Petty.

He got out of the pod, and his wife was standing a few feet away, but they couldn't embrace just yet -- workers were removing some of his gear. While that happened, the CNN camera showed her face. She wasn't crying. She wasn't beaming with joy. She had this little half-smile that every spouse in the world has seen on the back side of hard times, that look of Thank God, and I love you, and we just barely dodged that one.

(As I post this 12 miners have made it out, and if the plan continues to work, they should be all on the surface in the next day or two.)

We live in such an angry and fearful time. But sometimes it all falls away, and for a brief moment you can believe like a child, because at 1 in the morning on an ordinary weekday, we make miracles: A man rises from the tomb, steps out into the world, hugs his wife, and they are born again.

Watching "Waiting for 'Superman'"

They gathered in a row at the Manor Theatre, talking about a movie that hurts your heart and makes you think.

It's a documentary called "Waiting for 'Superman,'" and it's causing buzz in education circles nationwide. It tracks five kids who are trying to get out of the public school system and into charter schools -- publicly funded schools that don't report to local districts and have freedom to try different approaches.

The people in the audience are invested in education. Nancy Guzman, principal of Sterling Elementary in Charlotte, has a history of turning around troubled schools. Randolph Frierson is a counselor who works with kids in high-poverty schools. Keith Burnam founded KIPP Academy Charlotte, part of a national network of successful charters. Marvin Hamilton is president of the parents' organization at KIPP Academy; his daughter, Rebekah, is in eighth grade there.

We get together Tuesday for a press screening (the movie officially opens at the Manor on Friday). Together we watch. The kids flounder in struggling public schools. Their families fight to help. Statistics show how bad schools defeat bright children, and how bad teachers are almost impossible to get rid of. Finally, the kids apply to charter schools, where so many people apply that the schools hold lotteries to get in. The movie implies that winning the school lottery might be the best chance these kids have to make it.

There was sniffling in the theater.

Afterward, the group talked about what they saw -- and didn't see.

"I thought it was powerfully moving, and extremely accurate," Guzman said. "One thing that impressed me was the passion those parents had. I wish we had that for all our children."

"All those kids (in the movie) had an involved parent," Frierson said. "That's just not the reality in the populations that we serve. In a lot of cases, that natural support isn't there. In those cases we have to beat the bushes -- volunteers, extra teacher help, trying to get some community support. It's hard to count on that."

"What jumped out at me was the importance of teachers," Burnam said. "At our school 70 percent of our staff is Teach for America. But with a lot of work and coaching and support, we've been able to create a setting where teachers are motivated to get better. And then they motivate the students."

"When Rebekah was in public school, one time she had 50 students in one class," Hamilton said. "She always wanted to just go to school and learn. But all this other stuff got in the way."

The movie is hardest on teachers' organizations; it shows a battle in Washington, D.C., over a plan to reward high-performing teachers and deny rewards to the worst teachers. The union wouldn't even let it come to a vote.

In Charlotte, Supt. Peter Gorman gives incentives to teachers who transfer to academically suffering schools, and he is installing a pay-for-performance plan for all teachers. But Frierson said that can cause resentment at schools.

"You get a teacher coming into your school making $5,000 more than you're making, and you're teaching the most difficult students..." he said. "In this economy, that's a hard pill to swallow."

"But if it's done correctly --" Guzman said.

"Sure, if it's done correctly," Frierson said. "But that doesn't always happen. I've seen it go wrong."

Everybody agreed on some fundamentals. Teachers ought to be paid more. Parents need to be more involved. The community as a whole needs to see education as an investment -- one that's a lot cheaper than supporting uneducated adults, or building jails.

The movie describes giving kids a great education as a series of simple steps that are hard to take.

"Great teachers, coming from great principals, can accomplish almost anything in a classroom," Burnam said. "Every child can learn if we provide the right setting."

"We know what works," Guzman said. "Why are we not doing it?"

CLT snapshot: Football talk

On the Gold Rush bus uptown, 1:30 p.m. Three banker types get on. Two guys in the back, Dallas Cowboys fans, are ripping their (1-3) team. The bankers start laughing.

GUY IN BACK: Who's your team, then?

BANKER #1 (sheepishly): The 49ers. (That would be the 0-5 49ers.)

BANKER #2: That's not MY team! My team is across the bay.

GUY IN BACK: San Diego? No, wait... Oakland?

BANKER #2 (sheepishly): Yeah. (That would be the 2-3 Raiders.)

It's quiet for a second. The bus stops and the bankers start to get off.

GUY IN BACK: Well, at least we ain't Panthers fans!

Everybody laughs.

Ray Charles, John Wayne, and America

Years ago -- at least five addresses and six computers ago -- my buddy Joe and I got the idea to write a book about the 100 greatest things in America. They could be places (Mount Rushmore, Key West) or events (the Kentucky Derby, the ringing of the bell on Wall Street). We'd take the giant advance that we would (obviously) get for the idea, and go around the country to see or do all these things. We really got into it -- we made up separate lists, argued about it over the phone, e-mailed revisions that took several hours to send (at least it seemed) on our dial-up connections.

Somewhere along the way the idea faded. I don't even have my list anymore. It's probably on a floppy disk in a landfill. But I remember we were certain about one thing: Ray Charles singing "America the Beautiful" was one of the 100 greatest things in America.

We figured we'd end the book by going to see him somewhere on July 4 with Ray swaying and stomping his feet and fireworks going off. We couldn't imagine anything more American.

So on Thursday I went to a rally in North Charleston for Nikki Haley, the Republican candidate for governor in South Carolina. (As I mentioned the other day, I'm working on a profile of her and I'm interested in your ideas.) This rally had a sound system playing patriotic songs while everyone waited for Haley to arrive. Most of it was the same playlist I've heard at all of these things -- Toby Keith, Billy Ray Cyrus' "Some Gave All," stuff like that.

But then, out of nowhere, John Wayne started saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

I vaguely remembered hearing it before, as part of a track where he goes on to riff a little bit about what each line means. But I don't think they played that part at the rally. It was just John Wayne and the Pledge of Allegiance. It could not have been more American if he had popped out of an apple pie.

Ray Charles had a challenger.

And to hammer the point home, the very next thing that came up on the sound system was Ray's "America the Beautiful."

So maybe this is for we the people to decide, in the Saturday Night Live "Quien es mas macho?" tradition. (I couldn't find that SNL clip online... help out if you know where it is.)

Here's John (with the extra stuff after the pledge):



And here's Ray (from the Dick Cavett Show in the '70s):



My fellow Americans, we can be proud of either one. But you have to pick. Who you got? Or is there some other performance even more American than these? If there is, I'm not sure we can take it... but throw it out there anyway.

UPDATE: Joe comes back with a poll about the most quintessentially American recording. Go see what you think.

Thoughts on Nikki Haley?

So I'm getting ready to spend a few days on the road, in preparation for a profile on Nikki Haley (the Republican candidate for governor in South Carolina, and the favorite to win).

Sometimes I go into this type of story with a particular angle in mind -- although often the reporting in the field leads me in another direction. This time, though, I'm pretty wide open. So I'd love to hear your thoughts.

What have you read about Haley (or the governor's race) that you'd like to know more about? What would like to know LESS about? And what do you think her candidacy says about politics in general, and South Carolina politics in particular?

Let me know what you think. And if you're interested in seeing Haley for yourself, she'll be at a rally in Rock Hill on Friday.

Photo in need of a caption

Taken at the Habitat ReStore on Wendover Road. Only $1 apiece (assuming you still have a VCR).

Sorry for the lack of posting... I've had a bad case of the crud for the last week, and it hasn't quite gone away yet. I'm stumbling through on orange juice and CVS cold medicine. But I've got a bunch of posts in the hopper -- and I think I'm going to be hitting the road soon for a profile of a Carolinas politician. I'll be asking for your help if that turns out to be a go.

I've also got a poll up there in the top right corner... I'll have new polls up there every few days, but this first one is about Twitter and Facebook. Just curious as to which one(s) you use. I'm trying to figure out how to use both a little better.

In the meantime, add your photo caption in the comments...

The Penguin, version 1.0

Our friend Diane Suchetka was in town over the weekend, and we had to spend some time at the beginning catching her up on the drama over the Penguin. (The great Helen Schwab has Chapter 37 here.)

Most people in Charlotte, if they know the Penguin, know it as the hip burger joint in Plaza-Midwood, the place with fried pickles and long waits at lunch. But the Penguin had a life long before that as a neighborhood bar -- a true dive, but a place where everybody really did know your name.

Diane is now a prize-winning reporter at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, but she wrote for the Observer for 19 years and I think she's the best who ever worked here. Back in 1995, she wrote about the Penguin. Here's her story about what it used to be.


Camaraderie's on tap at Penguin

By Diane Suchetka
Dec. 23, 1995

Her name was Margaret and every Saturday night she'd wiggle into one of her long evening gowns, clip huge rhinestones to her ears, fix her rouge and lipstick to hide the years and tuck her bleached blond hair up under one of her fancy hats. Then she'd grab the camellias or gardenias she'd picked from her yard and walk to the bar at the end of her street.

Like most of the regulars at The Penguin, she didn't mind that the words had nearly worn off the rusty sign on the roof, that at least one window always seemed to be broken, that the message on the front door was losing its meaning.

"Welcom to The Peng i "

"Good ood"

"Cold Drinks"

"Boiled Peanuts"

She would arrange her flowers in vases on the tables or hand them out to whoever was around the smoky pine-paneled bar.

She did not come so much to be seen as she did to see. She'd find a seat, order a beer from Jim, listen to the jukebox - it worked back then - and watch.

The place'd be packed with locals, guys from the boarding houses across the street, a painter or two who would come after work and stay into the night. Of course, there'd always be some guy in khakis, maybe a tie, and a few women - but none like her.

Then one Saturday - just after Thanksgiving - she didn't show up. It wasn't long before everybody heard what happened, that she just died one day.

Jim passed the hat just like he always did. He sent flowers to the funeral home, with a note, "From Your Friends at The Penguin."

There are people who think the old flat-topped building at Thomas and Commonwealth - with its Dumpster out front and burned-out neon signs - is just another dive.

But they haven't been coming since Jim bought the place back in 1954, they haven't stopped in on an afternoon and met Harry and Pat and Gene and the rest of the gang, they never talked to Margaret and they certainly never happened by on Christmas Day, when Jim gives Charlotte a gift just by opening up.

You could smell burgers and fries, hear "Earth Angel" or "Hound Dog" blasting out of convertibles and pickup trucks, see the teen-agers hanging out before you ever pulled into the parking lot of The Penguin.

That's how it was in the years after the soft-spoken Jim Ballentine bought the old ice cream shop, when kids respected a guy who was 28, who had fought in World War II at the Battle of the Bulge with the 101st Airborne when he was only 18, who had earned a Purple Heart and Soldier's Medal and who spent all day, seven days a week, cooking for them.

"It was just like Happy Days,' " says Betty "Ziggy" Ziegler, who grew up right down the street on Commonwealth Avenue, and graduated from Central High in 1952. She hung out there in the '50s. Now she owns Bride's House of Originals across the street from The Penguin.

Back then, Otto and Wiley curb-hopped - running orders out to cars while the neighborhood gang hung out and cruised around Charlotte, stopped back to hang out again and then cruised some more.

"If you were all dressed up," Ziggy says, "you'd have to stop by and let everybody see you.

"And it was always the last place you stopped on your way to the beach - tell everybody you were going."

It was Ziggy's mom who nicknamed the place - she always mixed up names and was always trying to get Ziggy to come home from that dang Bird. Then Ziggy and her friends started calling it The Bird and pretty soon everybody was.

Everybody started coming by for beer too, back then. Jim started selling it not long after he bought the place and by 1956 or '57 he was selling so much Schlitz - 10,000 cases a year - the company sent some guys over from the head office to figure out how he was doing it.

But he never allowed trouble.

"If y'all are going to fight, you've got to go over in the field - get off my lot," he'd yell to guys who'd start roughhousing.

It was like your dad was yelling at you, says Pat Mulligan.

"He was the boss. Everybody knew that. If you did wrong, you weren't coming back. You were banned. That's why he's lasted 41 years."

Jim's wife, Jean, will tell you that Pat's come to The Penguin every day of every one of those years. Pat shakes his head no.

"There were those four years I was in the service," he says, " '56 to '60. But even when I was on leave, I'd come back here. And I came right back here in the '60s. The Penguin was still the same."

*

Trouble in the night

But over the years the neighborhood changed.

Sure, the old gang still came around, but mixed in with it was trouble, some nights.
There were so many break-ins in the late '80s that Jim started calling home before he left. Jean would answer and they'd both set down their receivers so they could listen for strange noises at The Penguin on their phone at home. It was a baby monitor for a bar.

Then one night in 1990, just a week before Christmas, Jim locked up. It was 1:30 in the morning. He was about to drive away when he remembered he'd left the heat on. He went back. He opened the door and a guy came at him. Jim fired the pistol he keeps to protect himself - hit the guy in the shoulder. He still got away.

When the police picked him up later, they charged him with breaking and entering and larceny and told Jim he was the man who'd broken into The Penguin 15 times in 15 weeks. They never charged Jim.

A regular was found dead behind the building, hypodermic needles around him, and some kids stole Jean's purse this May, as she left the grocery store two blocks away.

One of them slammed her into the pavement and broke her hip. Jean still needs a cane to get around. So Jeannie, their oldest daughter, works in her place.

And just a few weeks ago one of the guys from the boarding house got mad, came over and busted out nearly every one of Jim's windows.

But Jim keeps opening, seven days a week, doesn't matter that he's 69 now.

"I ain't got nothing else to do - nowhere else to go," Jim tells you, shrugging and rubbing his hand over his short white hair.

But if you stop in The Penguin, you'll see for yourself what really keeps him coming back.

*

Characters at the bar

It's Friday night at 7. The gang at the end of the bar is flipping quarters to see who'll win the privilege - as they put it - of buying the rest a beer.

There's Lucky Larry - he never wins - and The Buddhas of the Bar - Eric and Mark - who show off their matching bellies in one synchronized move.

Actually, there are four Marks, they tell you. "Just call us a dog with a harelip," one of them yells. "Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark" and the whole gang laughs even though they've all heard it 100 times.

All night long, they're telling stories and buying beers - even for people they've never seen before. Jeannie's handing out cans and bottles as fast as she can. And Jim's in the back, cooking, never saying a word.

Even when he comes up front to take an order, he just points at a customer, nods, peers over his reading glasses and waits for them to ask for a Bud or a draft or a Miller Lite.

Ask him a question and he smiles and waits and rubs his hand over his head and then answers in a voice so quiet, you can barely hear him over the crowd.

So you've got to count on the regulars - the stockholders, they call themselves - to tell you about Jim.

"He don't put up with no trash," says Gene, who's 91-1/2. "He knows where the door is."

"He runs the place with an iron fist," says Ray. "He always has."

"I just feel safe coming in here," says Larry.

"Everybody's the same here, I don't care who you are," says Harry. He's 79, comes every day between 2:20 and 2:45, has a stool reserved for him at the end of the bar.

They're all afternoon regulars, in flannel or blue work shirts, who'll tell you it's a family place and point to the "No Profanity Please" sign or tell you it's got a heart and show you the collection box packed full of Christmas toys for needy kids.

The stockholders know who comes to The Penguin. They spend their afternoons with all of Jim's customers - painters whose faces are splattered, businessmen in suits, south Charlotte women who've read that Jim makes the best hot dog in town, drug addicts, the homeless, men dressed as women, poor people who buy a pack of cigarettes so Jim will cash their $20 checks from the Plasma Alliance around the corner.

And they all know the joke - the first place guys come when they get out of jail is The Bird.

They also know what happens at The Penguin when the holidays hit.

Pat Mulligan will finish dinner at his mom's, then drive down to see if Denny McKinnon or L.D. Weeks or Jerry Gerard or any of the rest of the old gang is home for the holidays. If they are, they'll stop by The Bird. Everybody does at Christmas.

Ziggy'll be there. She comes almost every year.

There'll be the guys who don't have family or a place to live, who know there isn't much open on Christmas and certainly no place where you can get a burger for 85 cents, a draft for 90 cents, a spaghetti dinner for $3 - including tax.

They're the reasons Jim gets up every Christmas after breakfast and says "I've got to go."

"There are people depending on me to be there," he tells Jean and their five daughters and five grandchildren.

Sometimes they're depending even more than Jim realizes, like the guy who came in a couple of years ago from out West.

*

Honoring a family member

Jean was working up front then. It was a Saturday night. The booths were full.

She had never seen the guy who took Harry's stool on the end and ordered a beer.

He was quiet, didn't talk to anyone but her.

"Seems like everyone here knows everybody else - like a bunch of friends getting together," he said.

"That's about what it is."

"Well, give everyone what they're drinking. Set the house up."

Jean thought it was weird, a stranger buying a round especially when so many people were there, but she handed out cans and bottles and drew drafts and didn't think anything more of it - until he did it again.

After Jean made sure everybody had the second free drink, she went back to talk to the stranger.

"Do you know anybody here?"

He shook his head no. "I just wanted to do this for my mom. She used to come here. She loved this place.

"Maybe you remember her," he said. "Her name was Margaret."

Woody Cooper, a brave man

Woody Cooper made himself part of Charlotte history, first for what he didn't do, and then for what he did.

He was a good man who died Thursday at age 70, after fighting off cancer for almost two years, and I want to tell you about him.

Woody was in the crowd at Harding High School on Sept. 4, 1957, when a 15-year-old black girl named Dorothy Counts integrated the school. The white kids taunted her, spit on her, threw things at her. The abuse continued for four days, until her parents pulled her out of school.

That moment -- and especially a photo taken that day by Observer photographer Don Sturkey -- became news around the world. The great writer James Baldwin, who had moved to France to escape racism, saw Dorothy's photo and decided he had to come back home to fight.

Over the years the story would come up from time to time, or the paper would publish the photo again, and it always haunted Woody. He wasn't one of the people who insulted or threw things at Dorothy that day. But he didn't try to protect her, either. And he came to decide that there wasn't much difference between hurting and failing to help.

One day in 2006 -- 49 years after that day at school -- Woody showed up for his regular Sunday-school class at Assurance United Methodist. That morning the lesson was about sins of omission. The teacher, Sam Smith, asked if anybody had a sin of omission to talk about.

Woody raised his hand and said: Dorothy Counts.

Smith happened to have a book with him -- Frye Gaillard's "The Dream Long Deferred," a history of school integration in Charlotte. Don Sturkey's photo of Dorothy was on the cover.

Woody pointed to a boy in the photo and said: "That's me."

And the very next day, the Observer ran a story catching up with Dorothy Counts.

Woody saw this as a sign. He got an e-mail address for Dorothy, who now goes by Dot Counts-Scoggins. He sent her a letter that said in part: God works in mysterious ways. It was the first time any of the other students had tried to contact her.

The next year, I wrote a story on the 50th anniversary of that day in 1957, looking at it through that famous photograph. I set out to find some of the white kids who were in the photo, and of course Woody's name came up right away.

He and Dot had been corresponding. She had been upset at first that Woody waited so long to contact to her. But she saw that he was genuine. What she had done as a 15-year-old took tremendous courage. But when he reached out nearly 50 years later, that took some courage, too.

After my story, and Steve Crump's documentary on that day at Harding, Dot and Woody became close friends. They spoke at churches and schools together, talked by e-mail or on the phone.

"It made him feel so good to make that connection after all those years," says Woody's wife, Judy.

Woody had been in and out of hospitals, had multiple bouts of chemo and radiation, and finally last weekend went into hospice. Wednesday, the night before he died, Dot came to see him.

"He didn't know I was there," she says. "But we spent two and a half hours together. He and I became such good friends. I loved him and I know that he loved me."

Woody Cooper's funeral is 11 a.m. Saturday at Assurance United Methodist. Judy is going to try to speak. And Dot will be there, in the crowd.

Woody Cooper (2007 staff file photo, GARY O'BRIEN - gobrien@charlotteobserver.com)

Video of the day: Bat vs. centipede

Via the great kottke.org, this is like seven bad dreams rolled together. It could also be a great Metallica video.



And to think we freak out at a roach.

The lady and the gator

I keep going back and looking at the picture. The gator is so huge it doesn't look real. It's like a plaster caricature in the dinosaur exhibit at a museum. But it is real and very dead. The blond woman crouching in the back killed it.


Her name is Maryellen Mara-Christian, she lives in Massachusetts, and hunting is her hobby. Her husband is a bear-hunting guide. They hunted gators in Louisiana on their honeymoon. But she didn't get one then. They came to South Carolina looking for a gator to kill.

They found it at Lake Moultrie, one of the two Santee Cooper lakes between Columbia and Charleston. The lakes are known for great fishing, underwater stumps that can wreck a boat, and a healthy population of gators.

Here is how you legally kill a gator in South Carolina. You can't just shoot one swimming free. You have to hook it, usually with a stout fishing rig. They hooked this gator several times. Then you're allowed to shoot it, but this gator was so big, a shot from a .22 didn't do the job. But by then, pierced and shot, the gator was weak enough for Mara-Christian to finish it off. She took a knife to the back of its neck and cut its spinal cord.

The great hunter is 5-5, about 120 pounds. The gator was 13 1/2 feet, 1,025 pounds. It's the biggest one I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of gators.

My dad used to bass fish with a guy named Nick who was a little crazy. They'd come around a bend in the river and run up on a bunch of gators on the bank. Nick would cut off the motor, flick his fingers in the water and make a little clicking sound in his throat. Sure enough, one or two of the gators would slide off the bank and head their way.

My dad would say, "Nick, that motor better crank." But most of the time the gators lost interest. They don't mess with you unless you mess with them.

I don't get the point of hunting one down and killing it just to say you did.

Hunting to feed your family is fine, even honorable, considering how most of our meat gets to the table. I don't hunt, but most of the men in my family have at one time or another, and we all fish. But taking a big, magnificent animal off the books, just for the thrill of it, seems worse than cruel. It's a false show of dominance. It's ending a life just because you can.

Or maybe it's so you can get on TV.



It's been a week since the woman killed the gator, but I keep going back and looking at that picture. I watch a lot of nature documentaries, and the common theme is that the natural world is ruthless. To survive the first day out of the nest is a tremendous lucky break. To make it to old age, for most animals, is beating lottery odds.

Alligators live to be about 50 on average. Scientists know of a few that made it to 70 or more. They can be vicious, of course, but only when feeding or protecting their turf. This gator was so old and fat that only 40 pounds of its meat was worth saving. It survived for decades in the wild only to be killed for a trophy. Human nature can be ruthless, too.

Video of the day: It's the dad life

You know you're bad when you find something to rhyme with "ornamental turtles." And the brief Disney interlude is priceless.