Pendulum Articles My first taste of real publishing
There really isn’t much of an interesting story behind my writing for Elon’s school newspaper, the Pendulum. I basically just decided I wanted to start doing it and that was that. Like most people with such an option, I tried to stick with topics I was interested in, and when I got the chance to do those, the articles basically wrote themselves. I also make sure that everything I write sounds like me. I want people to be able to read the paper and come up to me later and say “I knew that article was yours before I read who wrote it. I felt like I could hear you talking to me.” I have selected the three articles that I think best represent what I mean when I say they sound like me. The first article, “Break into Burlington: Pete’s Grill”, was actually a suggestion I came up with. Pete’s is a local cafeteria basically which serves up down-home Southern food, and a place that I have become quite fond of. I was excited about getting the chance to learn more about the history of the place, and talking to the owner proved to be a great learning experience. “Barefoot Running” was a joy to write. Maybe it was because I had a good knowledge base on it already, so I was able to bring a lot more to the article than many others would, but it was one of my favorite articles to write. Sadly my editors chopped it to pieces before they printed it (and left it full of grammatical errors, I might add), which is the reason I am including my original article in “Cedarock Park” was also a pleasure. Cedarock is a beautiful park near Elon’s campus, and getting to go there and interview people who worked there to see what they had been doing over the years was fascinating. I have seen the “living history” before, but getting the history behind the living history was something I never thought I would be able to do. There isn’t a whole lot to say about writing for the school paper because there were rarely any real challenges, aside from unreliable sources and editors cutting up my articles, same thing that happens everywhere. But it was the perfect place to test the waters, and to find out that tracking down sources, fact checking, and writing articles is some of the most fun I have ever had.
Break into Burlington – Pete’s Grill 1:45 pm. Thursday afternoon. The door to Pete’s Grill swings open, revealing a man in cowboy boots, a tall hat, and a leather coat. Somewhere off in the distance, Clint Eastwood’s theme plays. Then plays again. The third time, the man reaches into his pocket and pulls out his cell phone. I think I was the only person in the crowd of Pete’s who found this remarkable. Pete’s Grill, located about 2 miles from Elon down West Haggard, has been a staple of life in Gibsonville for 60 years. Though the original owner, Pete, died a long time ago, and ownership of the place has changed many times, its current owner, Kostas, operates it with the same Southern feel that has made it famous throughout the years. “There’s too many generations, you know?” Kostas says. “The dad brings the boy, then the boy brings his boy, and on down.” Kostas believes it’s that family tradition, and not so much the food, that brings people back to Pete’s. But there is definitely something to say about the food. Pete’s has a menu, which offers such traditional diner fare as hamburgers, grilled chicken, and meatloaf, but it is largely ignored in favor of the cafeteria-style line offerings. “99% of people come down through the line. I could make them something on the grill, but by the time it comes out they could have been already through the line and out the door.” And with a selection like Kostas’, why not? For $7.00, you can get meat and 3 vegetables on a plate. Fried chicken, potatoes, corn, and green beans. Beef stew, rice, collard greens, and grilled onions. Each plate served with a biscuit and cornbread, and a tall glass of sweet tea. And don’t forget to finish off your meal with a delicious piece of homemade peach cobbler, voted #1 peach cobbler in the south. When asked about how the food got to be so good, Kostas said “the lady who cooks for us, she’s been here for 25 years. She’s learned some things as she’s been here.” Like to put sugar in the cabbage for a special, Pete’s signature taste. Pete’s Grill is open 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday, for breakfast and lunch. Lunch is the main draw during the week, so get there early for the best food. Saturday is breakfast day, however, and lunch is rarely very crowded. Though rarely visited by Elon students, Kostas says that faculty often come down, as well as the Elon baseball team. He says the students that do come, however, always come back. “Pete’s Grill is pretty much the most American place in the world, save for, like, the White House.” Says junior Evan Dempster. Evan discovered Pete’s in 2007, where it was an item on the Phoenix Phind Scavenger Hunt. He says he’s been going there ever since, and has no plans to stop in the near future. Evan says Kostas knows him by name. When I was there, he greeted a number of people by name. I guess generations of devotion to your customers does that to you.
Is the Newest Exercise Fad a Blast from the Past? People are weird. We spend years developing the perfect running shoes, with arch support, air springs, unique contours, and then a new fitness fad comes in – barefoot running. The premise couldn’t be simpler – it is a return to the days of prehistoric man, who had to run miles a day hunting down (or being hunted by) that saber tooth tiger with not even so much as thong sandals. Even today, members of a tribe in Mexico called the Tarahumara run multiple marathons a day, even well into their 80s and 90s, almost entirely barefoot. And it makes sense- our feet were designed by evolution to support us exactly as we need to be; the contours and springs are all already in place, so who says we ever needed shoes in the first place? Aside from the people who don’t enjoy things like stepping barefoot on anthills and broken glass. Because that happens sometimes. Fancy running shoes did not come about until the 1970s, when jogging became a national craze, and along with them came a host of running related injuries not seen before. Shoes allowed for elongated strides at the cost of proper running form, and people started landing heel first with every step, as opposed to their ancestors who would land on the balls of their feet. Running on the balls of your feet is so much better for your legs, in fact, that some scientists have suggested that running with high heels is better for preventing injury than running with highly technical running shoes. They made no comment on potential bone injuries sustained from tripping and falling on the concrete in high heels. Landing heel first, according to a recent article in Popular Science magazine, puts a shock of up to 3 times the person’s bodyweight on their legs with each step, tearing up ligaments and cartilage in ways people had never faced. The article goes on to say that though running barefoot could eliminate most if not all injuries sustained while running, many people are still skeptical, especially about running on things like asphalt. But according to Harvard professor Dan Lieberman, who headed the study, “ you can run barefoot on the world’s hardest surfaces without the slightest discomfort and pain." People who are really worried about stepping on a sharp rock can take heart in knowing that the body has ways of toughening itself up: in just a few short weeks, calluses will form and further adapt feet for running barefoot. Luckily, there are solutions for people who want to try running barefoot without the risk of stepping on something and getting hurt. A company called Vibram has created a shoe it calls the “five fingers” which is designed to fit the human foot exactly, from the shape of the heel to the five toe holes. According to their website, the shoes provide “an increased sense of balance, greater agility, and visibly improved posture.”
But barefoot running still has a way to go before it becomes popular on campus. Elizabeth Anderson, head coach of the women’s tennis team, says she has “not experimented with barefoot running.”
Back to the Basics: Local park offers insight to life in the old days Chester Bennet is a man with expensive time. “It’ll cost you $1500 an hour for an interview,” he told me. Better keep this short then, I thought. Mr. Bennet works mostly as a caretaker at Cedarock park. But every other Saturday during the spring, his job gets a lot more interesting. Bennet is also an accomplished blacksmith who works with a group of 4 volunteers in a living history tour at the park. During this tour, all of the volunteers dress up in 1800s garb and perform various activities that would have been commonplace 200 years ago. Activities such as tending to the garden, cooking over a wood stove, and, of course, blacksmithing. Cedarock Park has a history to it that makes these events even more relevant. In the 1830s the property was owned by the Garrett family, who built a large farmhouse and all of the now historical buildings in the facility. The large farmhouse, which now has a kitchen and bedroom, originally had an additional wing, but by the time the property was adopted by the county, the wing was in such disrepair that it was more feasible to knock it down and bury it in the basement. Plans for an additional wing, though not a restoration of the original, are in the works. As the farm’s blacksmith, Bennett creates a variety of traditional farm implements – meat forks, door handles and latches, etc. He uses a coal forge with a hand crank to allow air in, which is appropriate to the time period, but he says he is thinking of switching to a hand bellows (the big air pouch). The bellows is not quite historically accurate, he says, but it is what people expect when they come to see a blacksmith. Bennett hopes to someday be able to teach blacksmithing to someone well enough that they can go on and teach somebody else. Right now he has a 19-year-old apprentice who is heading off to college this year, but will be back as often as he can. But Bennett does more than just blacksmithing. “There are days when its 90 degrees outside,” he laughed. “I wouldn't be caught dead in front of a furnace on those days.” On days when it’s just too hot to blacksmith, Bennett does other period activities, including chair caning, weaving the seats of chairs and attaching them to the frames. “We try to cover everything on the agriculture end of life. We want to show folks how people lived in those days, basic stuff they would do – cooking on a wood stove, gardening, etc. We want to demonstrate all of it.” And the performance is pretty popular. In the beginning of the season the show attracts about 35 – 40 people, usually families. As the weeks go by, however, they’ll get upwards of 80 – 90 people. During the week, groups of 12 or more can also sign up for guided tours of the facility. Though the living history is not always going on, they can still visit the old farmhouse, see the gardens and the blacksmith shop, and get a history lesson from the tour guides. Self-guided tours are also available, and sign boards at the
various sites can provide all of the information. Since the work is mostly volunteer, and Cedarock gets all of its money in the form of grants from the county, all of the activities are free to the public. Cedarock park is open from 8AM until sunset every day, and guided tours run Monday through Friday from 8AM – 5PM. The living history events take place every other Saturday (the next one is March 20) from 10AM to 3PM.