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In 1771, an armed rebellion of backcountry farmers called Regulators battled with royal governor William Tryon's militia, looking for economic independence and political liberty. The spark for this conflict was growing resentment in the Carolina colony against the taxes, dishonest sheriffs, and illegal fees imposed by the British Crown and political and economic elites in the colony. In response, the Regulators were formed and began to fight back. (The term Regulators meant “reformers”. Part of the conflict was religious as most of the Regulators were Protestant radicals–Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers–while the elites were Anglican. The Regulators had come to view agrarian reform as a moral right, consistent with their religious faith.)
On May 16, 1771, a colonial militia unit of about 1,000 men quickly defeated 2,000 armed but disorganized farmers in a battle near Hillsborough, NC. Following the battle, the victorious troops marched through Regulator settlements and Regulators and their sympathizers were forced to swear allegiance to the government. Seven farmers were hanged.
Though the rebellion was crushed, some think that this battle amounted to the first shots of the Revolutionary War. We had a few minutes on our way back from Wentworth Monday afternoon (May 23rd) and spent a few minutes at the battle site, which is about 10 miles south of Burlington and the I-40 route back to RDU. This was a historical site we had wanted to visit while on our mission.
We got home last evening about 10 pm 
after spending a week in North Carolina. This visit really put a capstone on our mission. The high-light of the week was joining Todd and Tabatha Harrell on Wednesday for their sealing in the Washington DC temple.
Tabatha was also sealed to her parents, Jeff and Debbie Pierce. (Jeff and Debbie received their sealing in the Raleigh temple last fall.) There were a lot of joyful tears shed.
Wendy treasured her invitation to be an escort for Tabatha, her first such opportunity. Beside ourselves, persons at the sealing were Todd and Tabatha, Jeff and Debbie, Branch President Danny Henderson and his wife Sherry, Theron and Shirley Shepard, and Ethelene Pierce.
(Pictured: Tabatha & Todd; Jeff, Tabatha, Todd, & Debbie; Wendy, Tabatha, Todd & me; Theron, Shirley, me, Wendy, Sherry, Pres. Danny, Bailie Henderson (who came along), Tabatha, Todd, Ethelene, Jeff, Debbie, Tabatha's sister Anita Whitman and her son Zachary)
We flew SW Air to Raleigh, flying out at 6 am our time Tuesday morning May 17th. (We had to leave home about 3:30 am.) The Shepards picked us up at RDU and we headed with them for Washington DC. They drive a nearly new Lincoln sedan that has a very comfortable ride. We got to the motel about 10:30 pm after our GPS (Gertie) took us on a scenic tour of the main part of Washington (Washington and Jefferson memorials, capitol, etc.–not our desire, but interesting). All of us were in the same motel and we saw all of the party, then went to bed.
In the morning, we left for the temple about 8am with the Shepards. We had a little trouble finding our way, but managed to arrive at about the scheduled time (8:30 am). We beat Todd and Tabatha, who also got lost. (Washington traffic and streets are difficult.) We were with them in the preparatory meetings with temple leaders, and attended the 10 am session. The sealing was at 12:30. First the officiator performed the sealing for Todd and Tabatha and then sealed her to her parents. We took time for a little visiting with all the group outside the temple and for pictures. Then we with the Shepards headed back for NC.
Shepards took us back to RDU where we
picked up our rental car. It was a Ford Escape with about 9000 miles on it and a lot of fun to drive. For old times sake, we went by our favorite Andy’s in Apex, near the temple, for our dinner. It was 9:01 pm when we came in the door and they ha
d just closed. But the manager, who was our old buddy, agreed to served us anyhow. (We went there almost weekly.) We had our favorite cheeseburgers, fries, and strawberry cheesecake frozen custard. He told us that Andy’s has decided to expand nationwide and for $200,000 someone could become a franchisee and open an Andy’s in Utah. Could that really happen–they’re so much better than In-and-Out. We got to Shepard’s place about 11:30 pm and arranged to sleep in the next morning. Tuesday and Wednesday had been very long days.
After a very late breakfast, Wendy and I sat down and made a list of everyone we wanted to see. First, we called and visited Randall and 
Karen Brown. There we learned that Riley Gore was in the Pitt Memorial Hospital in Greensville with heart and breathing problems. We visited Randall’s turkey barns while there. We stopped at Nethercutts (she has been ill), then went out to Jeff and Dorothy Futreals. Dorothy had been receiving more treatment for cancer that morning and he had a long seige of illness through the winter. We were glad to they were feeling up to visit with us. While there we also saw Daryl as he stopped in to pick up Cade who was there with his grandparents. We were impressed with how personable and expressiver Cade was with us, and were glad that Daryl seems happy ion his new marriage. While in the area we also stopped to see James and Hannah Batts, who insisted that we again accompany them to lunch Saturday at the Wallace Western Sizzlin’.
On Friday we went first to see Riley Gore, who we had learned had returned home from the hospital the previous afternoon. He seemed pretty good and Judy was quite animated and excited to visit. Their son Lenny was also there. We spent some time with James and Connie and Chris Whaley. In the evening we drove with the Shepards to dinner at the River Front restaurant down on the coast at Snead’s Ferry.
On Saturday, we saw Linen Elston, and went to lunch with the Batts. We visited with Carl and June Owen who were helping Travis get ready for Jr.-Sr. Prom, then drove out to Kenansville to a party for the 6th birthday for Christian, a boy that Todd and Tabatha are preparing to adopt. The party was at Todd’s parents place. We met the older brother Joshua also, and saw many Pierce and Harrell relatives and friends, ate a barbecue dinner, watched Christian open presents (It might have out-done Christmas). After leaving we visited Startas and got reports on their missionary son and their daughter at West Point.
On Sunday we attended church at the Branch (more on that later), went out to the Whaleys where we ate and saw Connie and James, Maria and June-bug and most of their kids, Chris, and Connie’s sister Carol. We then dropped in on the Hendersons, and finaly Jason and Erin Kokinda and their kids and baby. We spent our last evening with the Shepards.
Monday morning we left for Raleigh where we dropped in at the Mission Office. We saw both President and Sister Cotterells, and Sister cooper, and met the new mission office staff and APs. President Cotterell invited us to sit in on the start of the weekly office meeting and to bear our testimonies. Leaving the Office, we drove to Wentworth to the Community College Library. Arriving about 1:30 pm, We saw Bob Carter, presented him with a copy of a Table of Contents for the Guy Lewis materials we had shared with the library and reviewed a five volume set of books on Lewis genealogy that Fred and Dorothy Lewis had given the library. We had planned on seeing Fred and Dorothy, but Fred was sick so we didn’t go there. Having a little time, we drove to the site of the Battle of Alamance, saw a movie abouit the battle, walked around the grounds and saw a 225 year old restored cabin. We drove back toward the RDU and got a room in Chapel Hill for the night.
On Tuesday, dropped off our car and boarded our plane at about 1:30 pm for Phoenix, flying by and over the midwest storms that have spawned so many tornados. The flight into Salt Lake at sundown was extraordinarily pretty, with the green valley, and snow covering the top halves of the mountains. We arrived home about 10 pm and all was well.
Wendy brought a house plant to our marriage. We don't know its name--maybe Matilda. She got it as a start from a friend at work a little before we met, so it is about 6 years since it was potted. It lives inside our living room bay window.
It has grown a lot and appears healthy. A few days ago, hidden down among the shiny green leaves, we were surprised and excited to find a bloom on the plant, perhaps a once in a lifetime occurrence.
See the little pink flowers about a centimeter across.
We also got our garden planted this week. We attended a class sponsored by our Relief Society on "square foot" gardening and planted beets, lettuce, Swiss chard, spinach, kohlrabi in foot-square blocks, also beans and peas, and one Zucchini plant, according to "square foot" gardening rules.
We also put in 13 tomato plants. The plants from the nursery were very leggy, 16-18 inches long, and bent over sidewise. We were instructed to dig on elongated hole and lay the plant in sidewise. The store-person promised that in short order the parts of the plants that were above ground would straighten up to face the sun. It was amazing. Within just a few hours all but about two of the plants had vertical stems.
We got lots of help and could not have done this without this help. Scott helped me move the three panels that had been toppled over, out of the way, so that we could come up with a plan for doing the fix. There was quite a lot of engineering involved. We had to decide whether we could keep the panels intact or take them apart and start the rebuilding from scratch. The former seemed much simpler and offer a better looking finsihed product. However, being able to keep the panels intact and reinstall them “as is” would depend whether we could get the cement bases for the two old posts out so as to be able to reinstall new posts in the same holes.
I thought that this was worth a try. Then we had about a week of rain. When the ground had dried out I dug around the concrete and discovered that they were wedge-shaped, and larger at the top. I discerned that it might be possible to dig to the base of the concrete (about 24") on the garden side and undercut the concrete blocks so as to be able to tip them to the east, then to slip a heavy rope or chain around the block just below the widest part and lift or pull them out of the holes. I was also hoping that the holes would not have to be enlarged so much that the concrete for the replacement posts could be contained in a small sized hole.
On Thursday evening, May 5th, Andrew was here and he helped me finished the digging the holes on the east side of the concrete. Then we were able to loosen the blocks and tip them partly over into the holes, using a pry-bar.
The next day using a heavy rope from Vic Hansen, we got it around the tops of the blocks of concrete in a sort of slip-knot fashion. We thought that we could leverage the blocks out of their holes with a long bar inserted through a loop in the rope just above the slip-knot. It tuned out however that our two muscle guys, Andrew and Travis Reynolds (just-returned missionary and former SF High football player), holding each end of the bar, hefted the concrete blocks right out of their holes and out to the street, without any prying or leveraging or any other help. Vic (who is about 80 years old) and I were glad to stand back and admire their strength and our engineering prowess.
In preparation for a work session on the next day (Saturday), I purchased the two replacement posts, 12 new brackets to attach the stringers for the panels to the new posts (the existing ones had been twisted), 3 bags of sackrete, and a couple of 8 foot 2x4s to use as braces while the concrete was setting. On Saturday morning, Andrew and I removed the cedar slats on the fence panels that were next to the posts so that the panels could be reattached and attached the new brackets in their right positions on the new and remaining posts. Because the post holes had become quite enlarged, Scott and I came up with a strategy to use buckets around the posts and just fill the insides of the buckets with concrete. I found two 5 gallon plastic buckets (paint and detergent) and removed the bottoms and handles, leaving only a cylinder.
On Saturday afternoon May 7th, Brad and Travis Bates and Scott came over to help. We put the bucket cylinders into the two holes then dropped in the posts. Using a chalk line and level we positioned the posts and three panels and attached the stringers to the brackets on the posts, then braced the posts in their correct positions using the 2x4s attached on the other ends to garden grow-box frames. We positioned the bucket cylinders and replaced the dirt in the holes up to the outside top of the cylinders, then mixed the concrete in a wheel-barrow and filled up the inside of the cylinders next to the posts. It took less than 90 minutes for this crew to put the fence back in position.
Work stopped again as we had more rain in the next few days. On Friday, May 13th I removed the two braces and replaced the remaining cedar slats that were next to the posts. Then I repainted the whole west side of the fence. [Picture of the finished product]
