As you may or mayn’t recall from last week‘s ThrowBack Thursday (TBT), I took a weekend trip to Roanoke, Virginia in late January 2019. And, as you may or mayn’t know, my web browser’s spell checker says that “mayn’t” is a perfectly cromulent word. (As is the word “cromulent”.) I took the long way home from Roanoke, making my first ever visit to downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. I had heard that downtown Greensboro has a nice selection of old-school architecture, and I wanted to check it out for myself. But I didn’t wander aimlessly, as I had done in Roanoke. Before this trip, I did some web searchin’ and found an informative ‘self-guided’ walking tour, which I printed and took with me. (I would provide you the link to this walking tour, but, as with the Asheville post a few weeks ago, I am unable to find it in the present. I’m beginning to think I’ve forgotten how to use a search engine.) The pics below are of downtown Greensboro; the pic above is a historical marker I encountered on the drive from Roanoke to Greensboro – I just wanted to share the placename Maggoty Gap.
As I’ve said before, in North Carolina, a city just isn’t a city without an old Kress store. Here’s Greensboro’s:
Greensboro is home to what was once the tallest and largest office building in the south: the Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company building. Completed in 1923, the original structure had 18 floors. It only held the top spot for four years though, as it was surpassed in 1927 by new buildings in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Winston-Salem. Here’s the former champ now:
And now I bring to you: The Guilford Building. Well, not literally. It’s probably pretty heavy. Probably even heavier than when it was still the Greensboro Bank and Trust Company.
If this building has a name, I missed it. When I was there, it was occupied by a business called Meyers:
Look! Another art deco Woolworth! I’m beginning to think these things are mandatory for cityhood (recent TBT posts have shown art deco Woolworth stores in Asheville, NC and Roanoke, VA).
Our last stop in Greensboro is the L. Richardson Preyer Federal Building / Courthouse. Here I had an interesting encounter with an FPS officer. FPS is the Federal Protective Service. They are responsible for security at Federal courthouses and other buildings housing U.S. government agencies. As I was standing on the grass outside this Federal Courthouse, an FPS officer emerged from the building and began interrogating me. I explained that I was just an art deco fan and wannabe photographer. He asked why I was shaking. A fair question under the circumstances, and I gave him the up-front answer that I have Parkinson’s. He looked me over for a moment before accepting my story, then laid down the law. He said that taking photographs on the courthouse property is forbidden, but that taking photographs of the courthouse property is allowed. Come again? He explained further: the building and the grass surrounding it are Federal property, and photography is not permitted by the Feds. BUT, the sidewalk (a mere five feet from where I had been standing on the grass) was city property, and therefore out of the jurisdiction of FPS. And the city government apparently doesn’t care about people photographing the Federal government’s building. So, here are the pictures I got from the sidewalk:
After getting the above pics, I laid down in the grass and went to sleep. I woke up three months later, in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). This time, I was here for the annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage, so I focused on photographing wildflowers. Lemme tell ya…most of the wildflower species in these mountains are freakin’ tiny. I had a hard time photographing subjects that are so small, and so close to the ground. Here are some of my halfway decent attempts from Day One of two (note that I’m not including the names of any of these flowers because I don’t remember what they are):
I spent the next day at Cades Cove. For those of you who are unfamiliar with GSMNP, Cades Cove is a large flat valley surrounded by mountains. Much of it was farmed prior to the formation of the national park; now it’s mostly wide-open meadows. For my readers from Colorado specifically, Cades Cove is basically the Tennessee version of South Park. Take a look:
Since Cades Cove was mostly farmland before the national park came into being, there were scattered houses, barns, etc. Many of these are maintained for their historic value and are open to the public. This includes a cabin that is believed to have been built in the early 1820’s by John Oliver to house himself and his wife, Lucretia. Is it just me, or does “Lucretia” sound like a good brand name for a laxative? Anyway, the Oliver family lived in this cabin for over a century. Here’s a few pics of it:
And finally, I few things I saw on the way out of the park:
That’s about it, folks. A quick glance forward tells me that next week’s TBT may be the most hodgepodgery to date. Won’t be long before I get to the trip that the pandemic cut short.
Voyages with Parkinson's 