Stem, NC

With Mary out of town with friends, I canvassed solo yesterday for Brian Cohn for NC House and Terrence Everitt for NC Senate in the town of Stem, NC. Home to all of 960 residents, Wikipedia tells me that Stem is famous for having its high school basketball team beat UNC sometime in the 30s when they went down to Chapel Hill as spectators but then the opponent, maybe Davidson, was unable to get there because of snow. So the boys from Stem (including apparently a 22-year old ringer) took on the Tar Heels and won.

There is no official record of this having happened. Certainly the university did not send its crack archivists to ensure that the memory of this was preserved for all of eternity.

Honestly I read about this when I got home but I really wish I had known about it so I could have asked some of the older people about it, especially the old white guy who was offended that I had made him interrupt his Sunday afternoon NFL watching just so he could slough off an annoying Democrat. Then again, that guy had no interest in discussing the fact that the road that he lived on was named after his family, and he lingered at the door and watched as I got in my Prius and drove off, so he might no have been drawn out by any topic of conversation whatsoever.

Other than that, amongst the 960 residents of Stem were a surprising assortment of different folx, including transplanted Yankees. One woman was from Nutley, NJ. Her daughter had worked for Trump and she swore he was a good man who cared about people, having been a "good husband to three women," despite cheating on them. Beyond that she was very open to hearing about Democratic candidates and certainly wasn't going to vote for Mark Robinson. Really a lovely woman in her own way.

Then there was the Jehovah's Witness who summed up their theology as not even trying because the Lord would sort it all out in the end. An interesting spin on the school of though ushered in first by Parmenides, that since all is One change is impossible.