Gettysburg reunion

The plan was to get the five original Civil War Institute roommates back together again.

The last time all five of us were together was 22 years ago. That was back in 1995, so long ago that it seems like a different lifetime.

We didn't know then that it would be the last time all five of us would get together for another week of rather intense Civil War studies on the campus of Gettysburg College. But Jay was starting a young family and it was evident even then that he couldn't drop everything to go away for a week.

From left, Paul, Jay, Rich, myself and Chris storm the Gettysburg battlefield.

 Well, he could have. But to his credit, he didn't. That tuition money helped raise and educate a couple of kids instead. Chris and myself still came up each summer from Lexington in early July to attend the CWI, while Paul, from Chicago, and Rich, from New Jersey, would converge with us. We always asked to be the same roommates year after year.

Over the years, Paul from Chicago became Paul from Arkansas, while Rich from New Jersey became Rich from Pennsylvania, but the friendships never diminished. Several years ago, when the Davidson County Civil War Round Table took an extended weekend to Chickamauga and Chattanooga, Paul met up with us. Last year, Jay and Rich made it to Gettysburg with us while Paul stayed home.

But this year was different. This year, the five roommates finally got their calendars to sync. We blocked off four days last week, made our plans, and finally assembled in the hotel by Thursday afternoon. Amazingly, everybody looked pretty much themselves, even though ages ran the gamut from late 50s to mid 70s. If nothing else, we are well preserved.

The highlight of our weekend was Friday morning, when we hired out Licensed Gettysburg Battlefield Guide Charlie Fennel. We've known Charlie for years. We actually met him when he gave a tour for the CWI all those 20 or 30 years ago, and have almost always made arrangements for him to give us personal tours ever since.

Consequently, we end up studying portions of the battlefield not as well known to the general public. This year, we followed Anderson's Division, wondering why Posey and Mahone didn't provide support for Wright's near breakthrough on the second day. That's all I'm going to say about that. Take your own tour to form an answer.

Anyway, we were on the field for more than three hours before the tour ended. Then, in the afternoon, as a heavy rain fell, we took in the movie "Dunkirk." We can never get enough history.

As it turned out, we had such a great time that we decided to make this an annual thing. We decided that we can do just as good a job as the CWI in studying the field, just as long as we have Charlie with us. So we're already making plans for next summer.

Next summer can't get here fast enough.

Moonlighting

Earlier this week we celebrated the 48th anniversary of a human being setting foot on the moon.

I thought that was at once both peculiar and amazing. I mean, a 48th anniversary isn't exactly a milestone commemoration, like, say, a 50th would be. Wait two more years and see what I mean.

On the other hand, it was the first moon landing. Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong. Tranquility Base. The Eagle has landed.

Why not celebrate?

I was 18 years old at the time. This is what I think I remember: It was late at night, approaching 11 p.m. Pennsylvania time. I'd been curious about space travel ever since Sputnik scared the beejeezus out of us, so I wasn't going to miss this moment. It was going to be on TV. I'd invested too much time following the Mercury, Gemini and now the Apollo programs. I'd watched all those Wonderful World of Disney's concerning the future.

Telstar, Teflon, Tang and AstroTurf were byproducts of space research. We were so moving forward as a species. Star Trek was real.

We were gathered around the TV, a grainy black-and-white picture that was positively amazing. We were watching live pictures from the moon. Hey, I was still getting used to watching live baseball broadcasts from San Francisco. Are you kidding me?

When Armstrong purposefully came down Eagle's steps I was praying that he wouldn't accidentally rip his space suit on something sharp and go spinning crazily off into space like a burst balloon. That was an actual concern of mine, as if the project scientists had never considered this possibility. OSHA was still two years away, for crying out loud. Anything could have happened.

But Armstrong successfully took his giant leap for mankind (I held my breath) and I was thrilled. I think I stayed up for another hour or so before going to bed, content with American exceptionalism.

Now, 48 years later, I can't believe this all happened 48 years ago. Two months later the Beatles were singing "Here Comes the Sun." Go figure.

The moon is about to come into play again. We're all getting primed for a potentially spectacular solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 90 percent of it to be total right here in North Carolina (if it doesn't rain).

The moon. Again. I feel like I'm being followed:

Up and running

I don't know why it took us so long to get this thing done.

I think basically it's because, as a board of directors, we're probably dinosaurs. At least one of us still uses a flip phone. Another one of us doesn't have a personal email account (meaning he's the only person on the planet who's never been hacked). One or two of us might not use debit cards. Yikes.

But here we are, the board members for the Davidson County Sports Hall of Fame (I am the board's secretary) — and we just walked into the 21st century.

We finally created a Web site. Or, more precisely, Deb Watson of Business Marketplace in Sapona, created and maintains the site for us. Here it is: (see here)

It's finally up and running. And it's easy to find. Isn't it great? Thanks, Deb.

As a board, we came to the conclusion that a Web site was necessary because we physically don't have a place to display 15 years of information about our inductees. No wall to hang pictures. No place to store documents or biographies. The only thing we had prior to the site was a plaque full of names hanging in a dusty corner of the Old Davidson County Court House. It wasn't sufficient.

In essence, we didn't have a hall for our Hall.

The Web site takes care of all of that. Right there on the home page is a list of all the inductees, grouped by the year in which they were inducted. All you have to do is click (I find it amusing that "click" is such an ancient word for such a modern function) on an inductee's highlighted name and, Presto!, that person's biography is right there for you to read, complete with pictures.

It's a cyber Hall of Fame. It's a virtual hall that extends from here to infinity. For eternity.

Another great feature on the home page is a link to an inductee nomination form that anybody can fill out and submit. This means if the average citizen has a name he wants the board to consider for induction, all he has to do is fill out the form and "click." Instructions are included. Easy.

We actually considered taking this step years ago and had an exploratory meeting or two with potential site developers, but noting came of it until Watson entered the picture. Then we somehow moved with warp speed.

It's no doubt that other halls of fame are cyber connected. But I wonder. Maybe it's only us. Maybe we're the trend setters now.

Dinosaurs indeed.

WD-40 to the rescue

We weren't having a great day.

Little things kept popping up unexpectedly just enough times to be annoying. We'd no sooner resolve one issue and then another would appear to take its place. Ever have days like that?

But it was getting to be late afternoon. We'd gone, what, five, 10 minutes without a problem? I thought we'd finally turned a corner.

Until Kim wailed "Bruuuuuuce."

Uh-oh. I know that wail. It's not good.

Kim was in the kitchen working on a hashbrown casserole to take to the annual family reunion. I'd been playing a mindless computer game on our laptop in the next room, because I needed to do something mindlessly for a few minutes. But I got up and went into the kitchen.

"I messed up," said Kim. I thought she meant the casserole. But then she pointed to the stove.

"I put the (plastic) bag of hasbrowns on the burner and forgot that it was still hot," she said.

One of the burners on the ceramic range was covered in melted plastic. Kim was beside herself.

"I don't have time for this," she said. "I still have to make the baked beans. Check the computer and find out how to clean this up."

That was a great idea. I googled "melted plastic on glasstop stove" and found any number of possibilities. One was to take a butter knife and carefully scrape off the plastic. Tried it. Nope. Another was to take baking soda and pour vinegar over it. So we did. I liked the reaction that resulted. It looked like it would take paint off a battleship when it bubbled up. But in the end, no dice.

Then I tried WD-40. I knew this stuff had a lot more uses than quieting squeaky hinges. You can use it to slide rings off swollen fingers or to take gum out of your hair (how does that happen?), among other things. So after cleaning off the baking soda/vinegar science project, we tried the WD-40.

After a few minutes to soak, I took a sharp knife and began edging the melted plastic off the flattop burner. It was working.

"Go fix your baked beans," I said. "I got this."

Within 15 minutes, the burner was clean, although it smelled a little bit like an oily bicycle repair shop. And as far as I could tell, I hadn't scratched the surface of the stove or done any collateral damage. So I went back to my computer game.

About 10 minutes later, I heard, "Bruuuuce."

Now what?

"The cat missed her litter box..."

Cinnamon girl knows how to roll

The first thing that I had to understand was that this was pretty much just a test run.

I mean, when I first saw her post on Facebook a couple weeks ago announcing that she was back making cinnamon rolls to sell as special orders, I could hardly contain myself.

"Hmmm," I said to me. "Not a good time to be on a diet. I wonder if she'll come back to the Farmers' Market?"

Not so fast, Bucky.

Pam Spach sells me a dozen of her cinnamon rolls.

 "Not at this time," said Pam Spach, whose baked goods business, "'Tis So Sweet," was nearly legendary at the Farmers' Market (located in the restored railroad freight depot in Lexington) more than half a decade ago. Especially her cinnamon rolls, which just might be the best anywhere on the planet. Maybe even in the solar system. They are that good.

"But I am thinking about it," said Pam. "I went to the Farmers' Market on opening day this year to shop, and after being gone five years, I don't know how many people came up to me and said 'We miss you. We miss your cinnamon rolls.'"

Pam got out of the baking business after several years because it was getting to be too much like work and not enough like fun. Not only was she making cinnamon rolls, but breads, cookies, cakes, pies — the whole gamut. The baking was bumping heads with raising a young family, so she unloaded all her commercial kitchen supplies and became a fulltime teacher/tutor at Union Grove Christian School.

Then, earlier this year, her son volunteered her to make cinnamon rolls as part of a bake sale to help a fifth-grade classmate who is fighting cancer.

Turns out, the cinnamon rolls sold like hotcakes (so to speak).

"People started talking about them (the cinnamon rolls), saying 'Please, please, please come back,'" said Pam. "I said, 'Fine. How much will you pay?' So I decided to see what happens."

That's pretty much where we are right now. So far, Pam has been baking 20 to 24 dozen cinnamon rolls to sell as special order each Friday. It takes her about 10 hours of labor to make that many, and she sells them for $20 a dozen. She's currently lining up customers for the next four Fridays through July.

"Sometimes I think about the people I'm baking for," said Pam, "and what they're going to do with the cinnamon rolls. Are they gifts? Are they for birthdays? For neighbors, or for church? For somebody who is not feeling well?"

She is caught somewhat off guard by how much she enjoys being back in the baking business.

"I am a little surprised," said Pam. "I love what I do. I love pleasing people with the cinnamon rolls. I'm just amazed that after all these years people are still so excited about it."

So there is hope that she'll return to the Market one of these days. Only this time, it'll be exclusively cinnamon rolls.

And that will be more than enough.

 •  •  •

Interested in putting in an order? You can contact Pam at pamspach@gmail.com