DavidsonNews.net

At Restaurant X this month, Christina Phillips will hand you a menu and a poem.

Read on for the latest in our occasional series capturing scenes from life in our small town. This edition: Restaurant X adds poetry to the menu, a Griffith Street speed trap nets a NASCAR driver, more proof that some of us consider stop signs as merely a suggestion, and who’s up for the next honorary degree at Davidson College. Got an idea for a future column? Email us.

HAVE A POEM WITH LUNCH

Think of it as food for thought, or perhaps as an appetizer of words to go along with your entree. Restaurant X, at 408 S. Main St., is celebrating April’s National Poetry Month by offering locally grown, seasonal selections of well-crafted words. They’re in the form of a laminated poem by a local writer on each table.

“People have been taking them home with them,” said Christina Phillips, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Chris. “It’s something different. Everybody likes poems.”

The poems on display have been contributed by a variety of writers, from teenagers to retirees, who range in their writing experience from nationally-recognized authors to new kids on the block. For a selection of three poems, by professor emeritus Tony Abbott, North Meck freshman Cameron Langford, and author Lou Green, click here.

And if you visit Restaurant X this month, be sure to check out your table’s poem along with the daily special.

- Laurie Dennis

TRAFFIC REPORT 1: KEEP IT ON THE TRACK

The following appeared in a recent Davidson Police Department blotter:

3/29/08, Joseph F. Nemechek III, DOB 9/26/63, Male/White, Griffith St., Speeding

Wait a minute. Isn’t that the Joe Nemechek, driver of NASCAR’s No. 78 car? You betcha.

Police Chief Jeanne Miller said Mr. Nemechek was stopped at 3:41 p.m. that day for going 51 miles an hour on Griffith, where the speed limit is 25 mph.

Judging from recent speeding ticket statistics, we’ve got plenty of amateur speeders in town. But it’s not often we get a professional speeder like Mr. Nemechek.

Chief Miller said the traffic stop was routine and she hadn’t spoken to the arresting officer about it. “I don’t know if he even recognized the name and put it with occupation,” she said.

- David Boraks

TRAFFIC REPORT 2: WHAT STOP SIGN?

April 3 notice from the town: “Please be advised that effective immediately, three-way stop signs have been installed at the Lorimer/College intersection. Please remember the speed limit in the Town of Davidson is 25 MPH. Police are aware of the new intersection and will be checking to ensure drivers are respecting the new signs. Thank you.”

At the March town board meeting, College Drive resident George Guise argued for a new stop sign near his house, at the intersection of Lorimer Road. He complained about speeding drivers on Lorimer and said his daughter had almost been run down while bicycling.

Within a couple of weeks, town officials had put up signs, making Lorimer and College a three-way stop.

Planners say stop signs don’t always do what they’re supposed to, and this one seems a case in point. One recent afternoon, we watched as a neighborhood resident in a small pickup plowed right through the intersection, oblivious to the sign.

What shall we try next George?

- David Boraks

AN AWARD FOR A CHURCH LEADER

Spring is the season for showers and flowers - and for colleges it’s the time for honorary degrees. To that end, Davidson College’s Spring Convocation April 30 will include the awarding of an honorary degree to the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick. This will not be his first degree from Davidson, as Dr. Kirkpatrick is a Class of 1966 Davidson graduate.

More famously, though, he is clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. He is also the co-author, with William Hopper, of “What Unites Presbyterians: Common Ground for Troubled Times.”

- Laurie Dennis

Filed under: Life in Davidson, Links