4/25/2020 My first summer (1969) at Town Creek Indian Mound in North Carolina was an exciting beginning of responsibility for me as an archaeologist. We had completed the UNC Cherokee Project the year before; and my mentor, Dr. Joffre Coe, had promoted me from crew member, to field director, with an unexpected new responsibility: Before our crew…
4/2020: Stanley South, my mentor in historical archaeology, at work at the Gaston Site, Roanoke River, northeastern NC. Stan wrote his master’s thesis at UNC-Chapel Hill on this prehistoric project. Archaeologist Lewis Binford helped Stan in the field and ended up writing his dissertation at University of Michigan on another aspect of the project—Nottoway and Meherrin…
Posted April 7, 2020. Good News: This year wild Atamasco lilies are more abundant and widespread along Cedar Creek than anytime in more than 45 years of my walking these woods. I suppose our wet winter and several floods are responsible for this explosion of beauty. Nevertheless, we’ve had wet years and floods before, but…
Posted April 5, 2020 This is a piece I posted on Face Book, December 14, 2016, a little more than four years ago. I hope it may bring a little smile to your face: As of today, I have been living 75 years, and this is a good time for telling a story. When I…
Posted April 3, 2020 With dark, cowlicked hair and big brown eyes, Charles Wesley Watkins was a lively 5 ½ year old, almost six. I was a little beyond seven, and we were fast friends. John Wesley specialized in talking, especially in telling colorful stories of how he would avoid catastrophic events. The tale I remember most…