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Places
is Places
A
Visit to New Bern, North Carolina
By
Mary Phillips-Sandy
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January
1, 2000 | Page 1
Do you like Pepsi? I don’t, but that didn’t stop me from visiting
the very place where this world-famous beverage was born. I am referring,
of course, to New Bern, NC.
My visit to New Bern was the direct result of my cousin Charles’
decision to get married. The parents of the bride live in a New
Bern retirement community, and I guess they’re so happy there they
couldn’t imagine leaving, not even for a weekend, so my cousin and
his fiancee and family from all sides converged on New Bern.
I knew only one interesting New Bern fact when I boarded my flight
out of Boston: it is, according to Time magazine, the #1 retirement
destination in the country. When I got off the plane in the muggy
Carolina afternoon, I was prepared for a bucolic, immaculate town
full of slow drivers and antique shops.
And indeed, as my fun-loving cousins and I explored the main drag,
all was as I expected. Little art galleries selling prints of sailboats
nestled beside the ubiquitous antique shoppes, with an upscale toy
store (for the grandkids, natch) across the street. The storefronts
were clean, brick, and similar. Tasteful banners on the streetlamps
welcomed us to New Bern... Birthplace of Pepsi-Cola.
Chewing on this tidbit of local lore, we began to notice that New
Bern was just a tiny bit odder than it seemed at first glance. For
example, why was there an electric guitar store in the midst of
the antique places? And why on earth was there another electric
guitar store directly across the street? Were the retirees hosting
jam sessions in between rounds of shuffleboard?
Slightly more explicable (but far more surreal) was the nearby Wig
Shoppe, which seemed sprung from a David Lynch movie. Its windows
were dark, but hundreds of plastic heads wearing wigs stared out
at us. Through the early-evening shadows, I thought I saw one blink.
We walked on, quickly.
Not three yards past the wig shop we stumbled upon Bear Square,
a tiny grassy area between stores. Can you guess why it was called
Bear Square? I’ll tell you. Because there was a really huge statue
of a bear rearing up on its hind legs on the grass. No explanation.
Just a giant, carved-wood bear with claws extended
I know you’re dying to know this, so I’ll answer the obvious question.
Yes, it is possible to get a Coke in New Bern, but only from the
back cooler in the drugstore by the park. None of the restaurants
or hotels offer it, and you’d better not ask the waiter for it,
because they’ll punch your lights out. There were posters for the
upcoming Pepsi Festival all over town.
We wound up having a mediocre dinner at a hole-in-the wall restaurant
and went back to the hotel. If there is nightlife in New Bern, it
keeps a low profile.
The next day, well, Charles got married and I’ll skip the details
because family weddings are always full of hilarious stories, but
no one outside the family ever wants to hear them. The reception
was at a country club, with lots of dancing and talking and photographing
and such. Waitresses carried platters of fancy hors d’oeuvres, and
of course the bar was well-stocked with Pepsi products.
I came to realize something during my time in New Bern, and please
forgive me if I sound naive, but I hadn’t thought North Carolina
was the south. I mean, obviously it’s south of Maine - but then
again, everything is south of Maine. What I hadn’t known was that
North Carolina was really truly the South, with the accent and everything,
the biscuits and gravy and billboards, and my personal favorite,
the Piggly Wiggly chain stores.
Despite that exciting revelation - or perhaps because of it - I
was disappointed. For all its Southernness, there was something
depressingly familiar about New Bern. I guess small, sleepy, pretty
towns give off the same vibrations whether they’re north or south
of the Mason-Dixon line. If it weren’t for the Pepsi banners, drawling
citizens, and menus featuring grits - New Bern could have just as
easily been on the coast of Maine.
A drive along the Maine coast would take you through plenty of tiny
New Bern-esque Main Streets with their antique shoppes, sailboat-oriented
art galleries, and such. Maybe you’d wind up in Livermore Falls,
birthplace of Moxie. Maybe you’d get back in your car and laugh
helplessly as you tried to perfect that Downeast accent ("Ayehhh!
Ayyuhhhh! Ayyahhh!") You’d wonder what the hell a frappe is, or
why people were eating the green stuff that oozes out of the lobster’s
middle. And then you’d have to hit the brakes to avoid slamming
into a white-haired couple wearing matching pink polo shirts.
I had plenty of time to ponder all this during the two-hour drive
back to the airport. If you pick any two towns of roughly the same
size, from anywhere in the world, will you find that they have more
in common than not? The local details would vary, but aren’t details,
well, just details?
The epiphany presented itself with shocking clarity, somewhere on
the North Carolina highway. Yes, of course the details are just
details, but the details are what make life worth living and travel
worth packing for. "Peoples is peoples," says Rizzo the Rat in The
Muppets Take Manhattan, and he’s right. Peoples is peoples and places
is places, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not plenty to be entranced
or amused by, whether you’re five miles from home or five time zones
from home. Familiarity does not necessarily rule out the possibility
of adventure.
Seen in this light, New Bern was a pretty fine adventure. I still
tell people about the electric guitar store mystery, and yes, I
did photograph the Wig Shoppe. It wasn’t an adventure on par with,
say, canoeing the Nile, but not bad at all for a family wedding
weekend. Some adventures come big. Some come small.
One final note, if you’re ever in the greater New Bern area: make
sure you visit the Nahunta Pork Center. I made my family turn the
car around when I saw the billboard for it on the highway; tragically,
the Nahunta Pork Center is closed on Sundays, so I’ll never know
what pleasures lie there.
Unless, of course, I go back.
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Author Profile:
Mary
Phillips-Sandy is a PopPulse editor. She's also the Assistant Director
of the Maine International Film Festival.
E-mail: mary@poppulse.com
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