Don't have a cow, Homeland Security!



Or: "I'm not a terrorist. I just play one for the Army."
I've worked as a civilian role-player for U.S. Army exercises at Fort Bragg. Some of us play middle-eastern insurgents. We all wear the clothes of Middle East civilians. I'm wielding an AK-47 that shoots blanks, without the magazine. Behind me is one of the other so-called COBs (civilians on the battlefield). Ideal for an actor between shows.

Fred Morsell, the venerated actor who goes round the country playing Frederick Douglass in a one-man play, came to Sandhills Community College. He was another one of the top acts I saw. I got some people sore at me, including him, when my cell phone went off, playing that stupid ice-cream truck tune that I eventually changed. There's another one in this post, of Morsell with my old friend Mitch Capel.



Prize-winning novelist Jill McCorkle, in the red dress, with her sister, came to her birthplace in Lumberton in May.

Frances "Bunny" Wilson, longtime music instructor at Sandhills Community College. One of the most popular instructors in the school, and one of the best I've ever had. I love you, babe!

Here are some of the performances I covered in 2007. Among them are Barry Saunders at Sandhills Community College; Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and Percy Sledge at Pembroke, seen with local divas Charly Lowery, left, and Erin White, center.

I call this picturesque scene Lowery's Pond. I was on the property, getting standalone photos for the Robeson Journal. Then I spotted the name Lowery on it, with a no trespassing sign. I thought better of putting it in the newspaper, but not of saving it to this blog.