August 2nd, 1981

Norwood E. Jones circa 1950, in front of
Mingo School in Sampson County,
his first principalship

If memory serves, my high school girlfriend Dana and I went to Raleigh for a Saturday night out on the first day of August, 1981. We probably ate at Darryl's but we also went to Nowell's in the mall, where I was still slight enough to pay kids prices for the largest size of a boy's polo shirt: a pretty bold golden yellow, I believe. Our movie that night was Superman II. Home and bed after midnight, but then awakened somewhere around 4 am, at which time my mother told me my father had had a massive heart attack while down at an antiques show in Greenwood, South Carolina, and he did not survive. It boggles the mind that it has been forty years.