Hip Hop for White Folks: Doo Wop (That Thing)

Hip Hop for White Folks: Jersey Yo!

Hip Hop for White Folks: Crazy

Hip Hop for White Folks: Ms. Jackson

Hip Hop for White Folks: Wish You Were Here

Hip Hop for White Folk: Straight Up Menace

Hip-Hop for White Folks: Hey Ya!

UNC Chapel Hill, 1968

 

A musical series selected by best pal & crime novelist Wallace Stroby. For staying alive during the most depressing time of the year. I just love green and orange. Series yearbook photos sourced from Yackety Yack

Easter Chicks: UNC 1967

Happy Easter

1960's Chicks - UNC 1968

Road Trip to UNC

Ten years of Yackety Yack

Last week I stopped by the year book office of UNC Chapel Hill for some extensive research regarding college apparel from 1960 through 1969. The "Yackety Yack" must mean something to me. I live in NYC and could easily have driven an hour south to Princeton for some time with their yearbook, the Bric a Brac. But UNC Chapel Hill still connects to me through amazing childhood memories visited here.

After some business around Charlotte, Concord and Winston Salem, I was reminded that fast food restaurants in NC share a similarity with full service gas stations in New Jersey in that neither are very accurate descriptions. I will admit to becoming a new fan of the Hardee's Country Ham Biscuit. Buy two and throw one of the biscuits out while adding the ham to the other and creating a double-ham biscuit. Sweet mother of God they are good.

1969 Yackety Yack

I was always curious when the transition from Trad to the more relaxed manner of dress (Hippie?) was made. Like flying from New York City to Florida in January...I'm always looking out the window in hopes of seeing that line separating cold from warm. I know it's not there but I can't stop looking for it. I do think I found the line at UNC.

Trad and Hippie -- this picture has it all in one place. The beginning of the end. Before you know it American apparel takes a nose dive for cheesy designers, rust colored shirts and ties as wide as the Jersey Turnpike. Nic Nic polyester shirts and Pierre Cardin polyester suits. You look back and wonder how it happened. I think everybody was having sex and didn't care what they wore. I feel the same way today but that's another post.

1967 Yackety Yack

She looks like a lot of fun. There's something about her that speaks to the change coming. She looks so 70's with the blouse and hair compared to the 60's hair spray and whoosh curl. When I was in the Army we would drive to Chapel Hill from Ft Bragg and try to pick up girls in the, "He's not here..." We'd explain our short hair by telling them we were Naval ROTC students. It never worked.

1962 Yackety Yack

You see what I mean about the hair? I apologise for all of these pictures. When I spoke to Michael in the Yackety Yack office he gladly took me into their archives and offered to scan anything I wanted. I felt like I was imposing and took pictures instead. Except when I saw this one. I told him I only wanted one scan and he advised me he could only scan in B&W.

I think Julian's has been in this location since the 40's. I admit, I'm not a fan of Alexander or the store. First impressions die hard. In 1977 or '78, I ambled into Julian's and asked to try on a shirt. I was told, "No." "How do I know it'll fit?" I asked. The salesman replied, "If you don't know your shirt size I can't help you." I didn't buy anything this trip either.

Competition? I doubt it. Julian's does have some nice stuff related to the university. Bill's khakis with Carolina Blue and White edging sewn on the rear pocket opening with brass buttons from the sleeve of a Blazer. How cool is that? Still, it looks like Joseph Abboud has made his way into the front room. A shame really. But they're still there and that's certainly saying something in today's economic climate. No doubt supported by all those wonderful people in the yearbooks. Beat Duke.

The Trad Line

From the 1968 Yackety Yack.

1965 Southern Trad - The Yackety Yack

The best thing the Army ever did was kick my family off post. My father had left Ft. Bragg and was bound for Vietnam. Procedure back then was the family had to leave. We moved to Chapel Hill, NC sometime in 1966.

It was the first time I lived in a civilian town. It was the first time I lived in a college town. And I've never forgotten it. Ivy League in the south has some major differences from her cousins in the north. Casual, slow, friendly, warm and much more Madras.

Despite her Yankee origins -- Roxanne has adapted well to North Carolina. I learned many years ago to stay away from girls who owned and knew how to operate guns. That looks like a Browning Automatic 12 gauge. You do not want to piss off a girl with a shotgun.

This is the Interfraternity Council. 1965 really nails it for me when it comes to the Trad element. Earlier college images and especially those in the 40s and early 50s didn't seem to be quite there. I'm not sure when it happened but I know it was banging 12 on the Trad meter in '65. Not too early and not to late. By 1968 this apparel was, if not a memory, something that kept you from getting laid.

And who wouldn't want to get to know these folks better. A beautiful group of girls, Fair Isle, Shetlands, cardigans, headbands and pearls. According to a poll conducted by Glamour Magazine only 3% of men favor the "Preppy" look today. Count me in the minority.

Ray Bans seem at home here...with the Weejuns and a gentle laid backness. Grass was about sitting on and not smoking.

They're all 62 to 65 now. Retired for the most part. Parents. Grandparents. Puttering around a beach house somewhere on the Outer Banks - - if they didn't invest with Bernie Maddoff.

A lot of drinking at UNC in 1965. A lot of parties. I remember we lived in the country but still close to a number of small houses like our own. Some of our neighbors were graduate students and professors. Late one night my mother watched a Sheriff's deputy as he drove up our drive. By the time he opened our door she was in tears. He asked what was wrong and she said, "My husband is in Vietnam. Aren't you here about..." My mother told me his face turned white, "Dear, God. I'm sorry." He said. "I'm looking for a house where there's a complaint about noise from a party."

The noise is what I miss when I look at these pictures. The southern racket above Motown. The "bee-ahh," "darlins," "bless his little heart" and, "...should I call you for breakfast, shugah, or just nudge you?"

God, how I envied them when I was a kid. And I didn't know the half of it.

But I do now. There's that girl with the shotgun again.

I hope he went to Med School.

Anyone got a light?

The captain of the basketball team went on to some big things.

This is for my family. It's an odd thing to look through a yearbook and find your next door neighbor. I understand he's doing pretty well.