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Editor's note: The following piece recounts Carol Pardun's impressions of the 1998 Tar Heel Bus Tour. Pardun, assistant professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, joined the University in August 1997. Born in Schenectady, N.Y., she has called many places home, including California and Atlanta. Pardun came to Carolina from Kansas State University, where she taught advertising and general mass communications courses. She earned a doctorate in mass communication from the University of Georgia, a master's degree in communication from Wheaton College Graduate School and a bachelor's degree in English literature from Wheaton College. Her academic and research interests include teens and movies, religious and sexual images on music videos, product placements in film and the impact of architecture on TV viewing. Of Carolina, she says, "I love it here and hope to stay for my entire career."
By Carol Pardun,
Assistant professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication
The instructor calmly says "just step off." I want to obey, but my feet have
cemented themselves to the ledge. Still, I don't want the others to think I'm
afraid, and so I do the unthinkable. I walk into thin air believing that the
Fort Bragg Master Jumper is telling the truth when he says the harness will
break my 34-foot fall. And so, the official Tar Heel Bus Tour has begun.
Okay, I'm afraid of heights. I also tend toward motion sickness. So by noon of
Day 1, I'm wondering if signing up for a 1,200-mile bus tour was smart. But I'm
enjoying my bus colleagues. For the most part, we're relatively new to the
University and relatively unfamiliar with North Carolina. And I must admit that
jumping from the paratrooper training tower has provided an instant bond ("Hey,
we're alive!") with the rest of the bus tour participants.
Plus I've had a lengthy conversation with Jerry Lucido, director of
undergraduate admissions, to bend his ear about how to get my children into the
University. Maybe these long hours on the bus aren't such a bad idea.
We end the day at the North Carolina Estuarium with a soft-shell crab dinner
("You really eat the whole thing?") by Pamlico Sound as we watch a glorious
sunset melt into the fog-rising sound. Not bad for a day's work.
Day two
An early theme emerges on this trip. I'm amazed at the intellectual energy my
bus mates have. I've already dubbed Tim Bukowski, medical director, department
of urology, the perfect participant. Tim makes the most of every stop. He's
taking pictures of everything, he's asking questions of everyone and he's
smiling every step of the way. I learn more about historic Edenton (our fifth
stop) by listening while Tim asks questions. (We're all intrigued to learn
about the 1774 Tea Party with 51 politically active Edenton women.) If I had to
have an operation, I've decided I'd want to see if Tim could do it.
After a seafood dinner on the 16-century replica Elizabeth II in Manteo, we
try out our voices by bellowing old sea chanties with the help of Bob Zentz,
who looks to me like he just returned from a far-away voyage. Together we work
the imaginary ropes and sing "Way, haul-away, we'll haul-away Joe!" I gaze
across the room at my colleagues and realize that we are more like each other
than I thought just a day-and-a-half ago. The chancellor, the Wall Street
Journal reporter, the research librarian, the editor, the professor. Right now,
we're all just old sea wayfarers winding down for the evening.
Day three
I'm not so eager to get on the bus today. I'm sitting on the deck of The
Tranquil Inn, savoring my morning coffee contemplating the hazy bay teeming
with bobbing sail boats. Just a few more minutes, please? Mary Beth Foster,
Community Relations, one of the trip's organizers and our fearless Keeper of
the Schedule, says the bus leaves at 7:10 a.m. And sure enough, it does.
Somerset Place, our first stop, breaks all sorts of stereotypes I carry of
southern plantations. While certainly set in an idyllic location on the water
in Creswell, this is no Tara. I can feel the planters' life here. And did I
hear Dorothy Spruill Redford, whose great-great grandfather lived as a slave at
Somerset, correctly? How could 23 slaves possibly have lived in the cabin whose
foundation remains, reminding me of the ease and the over-abundance of my own
life? Reluctantly, I step out of history and back into the present by climbing
aboard the bus for three more stops before the day will end.
Day four
We head toward Seagrove and watch a father and son throw some pots the way
they were taught by their father, their father's father and the grandfather's
father. Sid Luck applies his chemistry degree to creating original glazes,
including a rare one he calls "tobacco spit." Jason, Sid's son and a computer
science student at Carolina, clearly has pottery in his veins. Typically, our
little band of academics ask so many questions and purchase so many pots, we
are warned that we're behind schedule and are hustled back onto the bus. It's
still morning and we're heading to the mountains.
We climb Grandfather Mountain, and we walk across the Mile High Swinging
Bridge in 50 mile per hour winds. I'm only a little miffed when Dean Duncan,
assistant professor of social work, swings the bridge to see if I'll scream. I
don't disappoint.
Although my brain is in danger of spontaneously combusting from conversation
overload, I enjoy dinner and listening to Orville Hicks tell Jack tales, but at
the first hint of "it's okay to leave," I run pell-mell to my hotel room.
Day five
Although it's the last day, our trip planners have wisely figured out a way to
squeeze every minute from it. We go to a high school and meet some soon-to-be
Carolina students. We get hustled back on the bus for a short ride to Unifi,
where we see more robots than employees. Some of my colleagues seem troubled by
this, and the chancellor leads a hearty discussion on the bus about the dilemma
of "faster, better, cheaper," but I think it's pretty cool.
We roll into Fiddler's Grove just in time for the Ole Time Fiddler's and
Bluegrass Festival. We have an hour to walk around. It's pretty obvious that
we're not fiddlers, but Lisa Smith, cataloger in Wilson Library, and I decide
we'll try to blend in. We buy some just-picked strawberries and sit down with
two musicians who enthusiastically volunteer to play for us to send us on our
way. It's a small event, but a gracious offer. And at that moment, swinging my
legs over the old porch, I think I've connected with North Carolina.
It's the last two hours on the bus. Chancellor Hooker stands up and lets us
ask him questions. He tells us the amazing story of how his parents placed the
mantle of higher education upon his shoulders. I decide we are in capable
hands.
At the beginning of the week, we were reminded of our job as ambassadors for
the University. But it turns out that the people of North Carolina have been
the ambassadors to us. After 1,200 miles on the road, I now know that we share
the University of North Carolina with a whole host of fellow sojourners. And,
I'm profoundly grateful that I get to travel the road with all of them.
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