SMOKING OUT THE MOSQUITOES

In the hard-times days, the '30s, we didn't have electricity in our neighborhood, but folks still liked to enjoy the outdoors after the sun went down.

They would take an old chamber-pot, fill it with kerosene-soaked rags and light it. Then they'd take the chamber-pot top and snuff out the flames, leaving the rags to smolder and smoke.

The men, sitting around the smoke-pot on chairs, benches and the ground, would take out their pipes and cigars and light up, and discuss the major issues of the day.

They said the smoke kept the mosquitoes away.

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DIPPIN' CHEWIN' AND SPITTIN'

Cigarettes were not the "smoke of choice" in tobacco-farm country in the '30s, probably because you couldn't exhale enough smoke from a cigarette to bother a mosquito.

For their nocturnal smoke-pot bull sessions, the men preferred a heftier (and more economical) smoke, such as a pipe filled with Prince Albert from a can, or an occasional cigar, either of which combined with the smoldering chamber pot could make any mosquito take notice.

In between pipes and cigars, the men liked an occasional "cut" from a plug of Red Apple chewing tobacco, and the smoke-pot was handy when it came time to spit.

Practically no ladies of the time smoked, but many of them had occasion to spit because they were fans of Tube Rose snuff, dipped "straight" from the little can with a "swiggum stick."

The ladies, who didn't mix too much with the men in public, kept their own "spit cans," usually old Luzianne coffee cans.

~~~
Special shelf for dip, smoke and chew
at Brinkley's Country Market
near Ahoskie, 2001

~~~
Old curing barn, discarded reminder
of tobacco's heyday, sags in a field
green with diversified 2001 crop

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CIGARETTES AND BASEBALL

Cigarettes for smoking pleasure weren't frowned on by doctors and surgeon generals in the 1930s.

In fact, most of them -- backed up by famous athletes of the day -- enthusiastically endorsed cigarettes as something that would soothe your throat, calm your nerves, improve performance and generally deliver almost unbelievable ecstasy.

We had a barn, one whole side of which was filled by a gigantic billboard showing Gabby Hartnett, the famed major league catcher, behind the plate in full gear.

He was holding his face protector in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

The huge legend flowing from the pack of cigarettes above his head proclaimed that Gabby would "walk a mile for a Camel."

~~~
That's a cigarette in Gwendolyn's hand
after the game, c. 1944

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DICK NEWSOME AND JOE DIMAGGIO

Baseball was a big thing in country life in Northeastern North Carolina in the '20s and '30s.

For adolescent males down on the farm, there wasn't much else in the way of recreation. Some of them became good enough at the sport to play professionally, and several made it to the major leagues.

Probably the most noted baseball player from Ahoskie was Heber (Dick) Newsome.

Heber Dick, as he was called back home, pitched practically all the 1930s for Sacramento, Calif., in the Pacific Coast League. The Coast was one step below the "big leagues," but it was generally conceded that they had some of the best players in the country under the "farm system" operated by the majors at the time, when the young men had to sign themselves into a lifetime of servitude to one team.

Around 1941, Heber Dick, despite getting along in age for a baseball player after all those years in the minors, went "up" to the Boston Red Sox, where he posted a respectable record for several years.

His name really was put into the record books, however, by Joe DiMaggio.

When "Joltin' Joe" was slamming his way toward his 56 straight games of hitting safely, he had to pass an earlier record held by Wee Willie Keeler.

Keeler had hit safely in 44 consecutive games, and Joe had to hit safely in his 45th to become the new record-holder.

The pitcher that day for the Red Sox against the Yankees, who held Joe hitless until the ninth inning and then let him get a hit in his last at-bat?

Right.   Heber Dick.   You could look it up.

~~~

DICK NEWSOME AND BURGESS WHITEHEAD

The following items, from the Bertie Ledger-Advance of May 1941,
were researched by Neil Baker

Ahoskie's Dick Newsome, in his American League debut Friday, did his Ahoskie admirers proud as he delivered a five-hit performance for the Boston Red Sox for a 3-1 victory over Connie Mack's Athletics at Boston.

Newsome was a surprise starter. Manager Joe Cronin had planned to offer the veteran Lefty Grove for pitching duty against the A's, but a sudden cold snap caused Cronin to switch his plans and Newsome got the opportunity to show his wares ...... and he had plenty to offer.

Until the ninth inning, the 185-pound righthander from Ahoskie yielded only two hits, widely separated. In the ninth, however, he lost his effectiveness momentarily and three Athletics batsmen hit successive singles, filling the bases. Ahoskie breathed easier when Newsome mastered the situation again. The best Hal Wagner could do was a grounder which forced a man at second. Then Chubby Dean was set down on strikes, and Eddie Collins Jr. grounded out to end the game.

~

While one Roanoke-Chowaner turned in a sparkling performance in his big league debut, Burgess Whitehead of Lewiston continued the sparkling play he started early in the spring for the New York Giants. In addition to batting a healthy .300 plus, Burgess has been showing fans of the National League the famed fielding prowess that has earned him the reputation of being one of the majors' leading infielders. Metropolitan sportswriters are confident this will be one of Whitehead's best years.

~~~

MEMORIES OF A BIG-LEAGUER

By Don Upchurch

I grew up playing baseball on Dick Newsome's vacant lot beside his house on West Street in Ahoskie. At the age of 12, I had no idea of his fame, and neither did most of my buddies.

In spite of an occasional broken window, he always encouraged the neighborhood boys to play ball there. He had a picnic table behind his house and would come out at times and watch us play. I guess he may have seen a little of himself in us. We never realized that had it been anyone else's lot, we surely would have been chased away.

We called the place "Dickie's Lot," and many times we would say to each other, "Let's go play baseball at Dickie's Lot." We never knew the origin of the name, except that we called it that. I guess it was named for his son Dickie.

One day we were playing and Mr. Newsome ~ as we called him ~ came out with a cardboard box full of shellacked baseballs.

We gathered at the picnic table as he showed us the signatures on the balls ~ some signed by entire teams, some signed by individuals. I still can see the names as he pointed them out ~ names like Babe Ruth ~ Joe DiMaggio ~ Willie Mays ~ and many more that I can't remember. I was familiar with those names and to say the least I was impressed.

I also remember when he died in an automobile wreck on Highway 11, between Murfreesboro and Ahoskie.

I remember being very upset that such a wonderful man would lose his life in such a manner ~ one of the first adult friends to me and my buddies.