Gayle, My parents lived on Peachtree Street when I entered the world at Goldsboro Memorial Hospital on August 10 1948. The family moved to 1008 East Walnut when I was about three. I grew up two blocks from the Boy Scout hut at the intersection of Walnut and Evergreen streets. My father Ralph Lee Kornegay (1919-1993) was born and raised in Mt. Olive. Dad was a salesman for Wayne Feed & Seed Co. His territory was the hog, chicken and turkey farms of Eastern NC. I was named for my paternal grandfather who was an accountant with Mt. Olive Pickle Co. and mayor of Mt. Olive before he died in 1931. I remember driving through the country on Sunday afternoons being shown the boundaries of the old Mt. Vernon farm, where my grandfather grew up. My great-grandfather was Caleb Foreman Randolph Kornegay and served as sheriff during the Reconstruction period. I sure wish I had paid more attention to the old stories of slavery, King Cotton and the War of Northen Aggression... My mother was Janet Winslow Rutledge (1920-1982) and my grandmother was Juanita Claire Hunt (1898-1975?). The Rutledge line is from South Carolina via Alabama and includes Edward, who signed the Declaration of Independence, and brother John, governor of SC and signer of the US Constitution. The old Hunt house is still on Williams Street down near the Cemetery. I am very familiar with the area of Goldsboro you lived in. A summer treat was riding my bicycle to the old Ashe Cash drug store for a cherry coke or a fresh-squeezed lemonade. I remember the Odd Fellows Home as an off-limits place (mother's instructions) on my way to the tennis courts at Herman Park. My summers were spent between the pool and the tennis courts. I don't think there was much contact between us locals and the kids in the Home. A dedicated Tarzan fan, I often played "jungle" with friends in the ditch between the IOOF and the Park. After school and on the weekends we played touch football in the yards of the churches around the IOOF. I remember we would have the "Toilet Bowl" in the yard of the big Baptist church where my Boy Scout troup sometimes met. I went to primary school at Walnut Street School, elementary at Williams Street School, and junior high at, well, the Junior High. In 1962 (I was 14) my father built a home on Bogue Sound in Carteret County, but we didn't move until after I completed the Earthquake's J-V football season. I was big, awkward and shy growing up but I bloomed in the non-cliche atmosphere of the laid-back coastal community. I also fell in love with the sea and have been involved with boats ever since. Mt Olive and Goldsboro became places we occassionally visited to see family and old friends. I graduated from West Carteret High School in 1966 and attended NC State University. We still have our home on the White Oak River near Swansboro. Robert -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert L. Kornegay | kornegar@mercyships.ch | Work: 41.21.654.32.10 V.P.-Director | rkornegay@compuserve.com | Home: 41.21.654.32.50 Mercy Ships-Suisse | http://www.mercyships.org | Fax: 41.21.654.32.20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------