Where the Two Rivers Meet

"It appeared from nowhere...."

"If you come to New Bern make sure to notice about the Monsignor who is buried in the front yard of his home on Middle St. Evidently, he liked to sit on the porch and watch the sunsets, so when he died in 1952 they buried him right there in the front yard--a step away from his porch.

Even for as many, many days and times that I have walked down the sidewalk by the Catholic Charities, I have never noticed that tabletop marker before. And then, on that day, it just seemed to appear from nowhere.

That's the way it is in New Bern. You may walk the neighborhood a thousand times in your lifetime, but on any day (it's usually the evening walks) you will see something that you've never seen before, although it has been sitting right there for a hundred years."

Rosemary Osterhus to a friend -- 2010

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Old Kitchen Quarters; Setting for Mark Twain sketch on East Front Street, New Bern, NC

The kitchen quarters

Mark Twain. The Atlantic
"Twain submitted the manuscript for this piece with the following note: “I enclose … a ‘True Story,’ which has no humor in it … I have not altered the old colored woman’s story except to begin at the beginning, instead of the middle, as she did—and traveled both ways.” The woman in question was Mary Ann Cord (rechristened “Aunt Rachel” here), the cook at his sister-in-law’s farm in Elmira, New York."

"Sometime later, during or immediately after the Civil War, Rachel comes to work as a cook for a group of Union Army officers in New Bern, North Carolina. One Friday night, a platoon of black Union soldiers enters her kitchen "a-waltzin' an a-dancin'!" Shortly thereafter, she sees a familiar face: "an' de pan begin to tremble, an' all of a sudden I knowed!" Rachel is reunited with her son Henry, which inspires her to praise the "Lord God ob heaven" (p. 594). Rachel ends by answering with a double irony the question that prompted her tale: "'Oh, no, Misto C----, I hain't had no trouble. An' no joy!"

docsouth UNC