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Proof That We Had Escaped

Bank of America Stadium
Bank of America Stadium

After the NFL awarded a pro football franchise to Charlotte in 1993 Brother Dave bought two Permanent Seat Licenses and season tickets to Carolina Panther games.

He took me to several games at Ericsson Stadium after it opened in 1996 — it’s now called Bank of America Stadium.

Dave  had good seats.  They were on the 40–yard line, under the edge of the upper deck, so when it rained, and most other folks got wet, he and his guest stayed dry.

Permanent Seat License holders had exclusive access to a nice restaurant — think white tablecloths and roast beef — on an upper level of the stadium and he took me there, too.

The restaurant
The restaurant

The outer wall of the restaurant was glass and while we ate I could look down on Graham Street, on the very spot where Dave and I had worked summers when we were in junior high and high school making syrup and, later, clothes hangers in my Dad’s sweat shop.  I had worked like a dog  there for 50 cents an hour.

When we finished with dessert we would walk a short distance to Dave’s seats and watch the Panthers play football.

I can’t tell you how good that felt.  We had escaped.

Coming Monday:  Whose Fault Was It?

Pat The Rat

If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out, I guess that’s the lesson.

Entrance sign
Entrance sign

In 1970’s I wrote  stories critical of Soul City, a federally funded “new town” in Warren County, about 50, 55 miles northeast of Raleigh.

The March 1975 stories led to an audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The GAO said “the physical development of Soul City was essentially on target” but it raised “serious questions” about federal expenditures and recommended that various federal agencies recover “all unallowable expenditures” and institute tighter controls over future expenditures.

In May 1979, I reported that Soul City was years behind schedule  –it had achieved less than 10 percent of it’s housing, employment and population goals — and was drowning in red ink.  Six weeks later an agency of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development  announced that it had decided to pull the plug — no more federal aid.

I don’t remember if it was after the first bunch of stories or the second that  WTVD in Durham televised a skit featuring a rat that was trying to tear down Soul City.

The villain’s name? “Rat Slith.”

NOTE: A WTVD news reporter was, indirectly, on the Soul City payroll.  He had been hired by a Soul City contractor to make a movie about the new town.  I never learned what, if anything, he had to do with the skit.

Coming Friday: Proof That We Had Escaped