WENDALL EXPERIENCES WENDELL on his way to Elizabeth City

The time has passed with a fluidity to it I honestly forget time has.  One day, trouble and dire circumstances haunt me with my car; the next day, possible answers to prayer gently push me into directions of discovery and great elation.  Does the time actually go somewhere?  Or do we try and stop, thus allowing time to continue along the journey without us?

Maybe it never stops.  Perhaps it is always with us.  As with the fallacy of judging truth and what is real through the faulty lens of any TV camera's non-objective view...  

Does anyone ever realize people in different parts of the county live lives different to people in other parts of the country, and yet they only learn of each other and their differing lives through the insular study of the aristocratic class of people in the metropolises and their monopoly on the camera lens to, and of, the American populace as a whole?

Sorry to divert into this realm, but it is becoming gradually apparent the reality of any part of the country is not the reality painted for other parts of the country through the media.  How can people in New York or Los Angeles tell people in my state of Kansas what people in North Carolina are like?  Does that make any sense?  To know what North Carolinians are like, one needs to speak to North Carolinians.

Okay, back to my week.  When last you heard from me, I believe, I was on the move from my campgrounds outside of Raleigh North Carolina into my next - and undetermined - place of stay in Elizabeth City.  Elizabeth City is the seat of Pasquotank County, the area which boasted the most prominent record for my ancestors, prior to their residency in Wake County, which preceded Tennessee, which preceded Illinois, which preceded Kansas.

I found a place - miraculously - called the Beechtree Inn.  It is located just outside the county seat for the adjoining county to Pasquotank, Perquimons County, roughly twenty miles southwest of Elizabeth City.

I was minutes away from checking into a disastrous stay at a local hotel, when I tried the number for the Beechtree Inn.  It is a bed & breakfast, which I love far superior to the cloistered atmosphere of the sheltered hotel rooms, but at a hundred dollars a night, it was outside of my budget.  Yet, for some reason, I asked of renting for the week.

The cost I was quoted, while not the $200 I was searching to find, was something I felt I could afford.

Since it is a week later, and I am still here, I guess you know how that came out. 

Before I proceed any further to detail my week, I should remark on an enjoyable little side diversion which occurred between my trip from Raleigh to Elizabeth City.  Along the road, I came upon this sign...


How interesting.  A town with my name attached to it.  Could it be they knew I would be heading that way?  Would they honor me with parades?  And floats?  A grand marshal with a key to the city?  Would a regal status be bestowed upon my shoulders as if I were some long-searched-for royal lineage to the town's ancient past?


Uh, since the community was founded only in 1903; and since this was rural America, and not medieval Europe; and since it was intended as an honor to Oliver Wendell Holmes - rather than Wendall Paul Sexton - the answer to all those inane questions would probably be no.


Nevertheless, it beckoned me, and I had to check it out.  How often does one come across a community with one's own name?

Venturing down Main Street, I discovered a place that was not ashamed to proclaim who they were.  "Experience Wendell" might be a good campaign slogan - if I ever decided to throw my hat into the 'political ring'.  If not, perhaps, I could use this as my next Facebook picture.


Or even better snapshot might be myself standing out front of my very own library.  One of the cardinal truths I adopted back in first grade (when every kid knew everything about everything) was when your name is on it, you own it.  

 So, go figure.  Wendell has his own branch library.  Not everyone could make such a daring claim.  






Perhaps, such is the reward for any soul who broaches that century mark in life.  After Willard Scott retired...  didn't he?

What would you rather prefer: a town with your name?  Or your face on a jar of jelly?  Not that jelly is all that bad.  My mother love grape jelly toast in the morning.  For my taste, though, my  name on every store and every sign, that might trumped the jar of jelly.


The question of how the town got its name (as much as my ego might have wished it was named after yours truly, reality often impedes the regressive progress of such inflated fantasies of self-importance) was the main thrust for my entering 'my' library.  The library is where all the answers are supposed to be kept; it is where all the secrets are meant to lie open for view.  While the librarian who greeted me warmly (obviously recognizing my aura as a true 'Wendell' stepping into the town's circle) first spouted the tride-and-true line of it being named for Oliver Wendell Holmes, a differing tale of origin spoke out clear from the town's own official history...