I could not believe my eyes when Barbara and I went to the UNC-Miami game at Kenan Stadium recently at Chapel Hill.

In fact, I’m still amazed. I don’t recognize anything.

We were most fortunate to be invited by Bill and Elizabeth Sanders of Tot Hill Farm to attend the game with them. T

hey had two tickets for us, provided us with transportation to UNC and back home at MountainTop Apartments and gave us a most wonderful day.

And Carolina won the game! We owe Bill and Elizabeth more than just the sandwich I paid for them on our trip home.

But back to the point of this epistle. I didn’t recognize Chapel Hill of old.

Of course I was just a little country boy from Laurinburg, Scotland County, N.C., when I enrolled in the summer of 1944. We had only 11 grades in North Carolina schools back in those days.

I went to summer school because I wanted to get some time in grade before having to join Uncle Sam’s forces during World War II.

So, I got my freshman credits before I had to volunteer for the U.S. Navy as a Seaman Recruit. I was an adept sailor and soon became a Seaman First Class and then a Yeoman third class before I was mustered out and returned to Chapel Hill.

After graduating from UNC with a degree in Journalism, I then accepted a position as a reporter at the Winston-Salem Journal and in short order I became night news editor and then was actually night news editor two nights each week before resigning to become editor-publisher-owner of The Randolph GUIDE. Now let me get back to Chapel Hill.

When I was at Chapel Hill and a student at UNC, it was a town-and-gown community. When arrived there World War II was on. It was a military campus.

The dorms were filled with would-be Naval, Marine or Army officer candidates. There were only a few females on campus.

I soon joined Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. It’s beautiful “house” was on the main drag but was leased to a sorority.

ATO was located at that time in a small house on a side-street in downtown Chapel Hill.

There was room for only a few guys and Brothers had to eat wherever.

I lived in Steele Dorm, the only dorm available to non-military guys, during these war days.

So, the UNC-Chapel Hill community I came to love was that street from my dorm to the downtown Chapel Hill.

I walked wherever I went. There were no cars on the streets. There were some bicycles and roller skates. Not even motorcycles. We were a walking bunch of civilians!

But there was another reason, rather than my desire to attend one of the most prestigious universities in the country.

I am here today because my mother and father met there on a blind date on the UNC campus.

It was in the summer. Mother, during the school year, was a student at Sweet Briar College in Virginia.

She wanted to get a broader vision of the world by attending Carolina during a summer school. There she met my father. It happened this way.

My Dad’s roommate was a rounder! He had a bit too much to drink the night before and was unable to keep his date with a young female, Elizabeth Mae Pickett, from Madison, N.C.

So my father was asked to fill in for the recovering roommate. A marriage between the two soon developed.

The “drunk” who couldn’t keep his date with Elizabeth Pickett later became a newspaper editor. May the Lord help me!

When Bill and Elizabeth escorted us to Kenan Stadium I became lost in the maze of streets, twists and turns to get there.

Every inch of land is covered, it seemed to me, with tall buildings – dorms, classrooms, recreation facilities, eating places, etc.

Goodness, I’m sure that my jaws were open and my eyes blinking in disbelief.

Wow! It ain’t the place I remember going to college.

Of course, the small campus I remember consisted of a few dormitories, only one of which contained females, tennis courts, a hockey field, basketball arena, Memorial Hall, several campus dining facilities, and classrooms.

There were no high-rise dorms. Today there are many! There were no parking places.

We didn’t need them, except for our bikes. We didn’t have the many curriculums that are provided today.

But let me advise everyone. UNC is still a wonderful place. It’s big, but it’s a good place to get a well-rounded education.

If you go there with a determination to learn, rather than to party!

Barbara and I would like to publicly thank Bill and Elizabeth Sanders for a wonderful day in at UNC.

We didn’t get to see the old Chapel Hill I so fondly remember.

But perhaps this 82-year-old guy will get a chance to take his great-grandchildren there to see the sights.

After all, my father lived to be 91 and was looking for his fourth wife when he passed away at 91. But such is life.



Barron Mills is a former editor and publisher of The Randolph Guide. He lives in Asheboro.