Identifying with North Carolina's Culture

I. North Carolina Wineries and Vineyards.

A.       PRODUCT: North Carolina Wineries and Vineyards. Wineries make distilled drinks, undistilled juices, jams and sauces from their vineyards' abundance. The fruit is also popular to use for pies. It is said that in 1584 Sir Walter Raleigh ,a founder of what would become North Carolina, spotted the Mother Vine on Roanoke Island (still growing and producing scuppernong grapes, a type of muscadine grape), and later settlers planted cuttings from this parent vine in the Washington County town of Scuppernong.

This native grape vine has a high tolerance to pests, diseases and other threats that enables the grapes to thrive in North Carolina's warm climate.

B.       PERSPECTIVES: With the prohibition established by Congress on 1919, products from distilleries were packaged in jars rather than bottles. There were often high speeds pursuits at moonlit, leading to midnight chases across the countryside, making way to a motorized pastime that became a sport called NASCAR.

C.       COMMUNITIES: Today there are not only samplings of wine alone, but wine with festivals, with arts and crafts, with local music and culture. The aroma of muscadines is related to nostalgic feelings to who grew up within sight of the vines. North Carolina's wine from native grapes has become the rave among health-conscious wine drinkers.

D.       PEOPLE: The people who grow the vineyards are pioneers, farming families and chance-takers, wanting to return to old customs. In 1957 the North Carolina General Assembly officially adopted a poem, written by Leonora Martin and Mary Burke Kerr in 1904, as the official toast to the state or also called "The Tar Heel Toast".

The North Carolina State Toast

“A Toast” to North Carolina

Here's to the land of the long leaf pine,

    The summer land where the sun doth shine,

    Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great,

    Here's to "Down Home," the Old North State!

    Here's to the land of the cotton bloom white,

    Where the scuppernong perfumes the breeze at night,

    Where the soft southern moss and jessamine mate,

    'Neath the murmuring pines of the Old North State!

    Here's to the land where the galax grows,

    Where the rhododendron's rosette glows,

    Where soars Mount Mitchell's summit great,

    In the "Land of the Sky," in the Old North State!

    Here's to the land where maidens are fair,

    Where friends are true and cold hearts rare,

    The near land, the dear land, whatever fate,

    The blest land, the best land, the Old North State!

II.                  The Moravian Star

A.      PRODUCT: The star originated in the church's schools as a geometry lesson, it was soon adopted throughout the Moravian Church as an Advent symbol. For Moravians Everything was considered worship. It did not take long for the stars to go from a pastime for children to an occupation for the congregation.

B.      PERSPECTIVES: For the Moravian congregation Daily life was centered on their Christian faith and there was no distinction between the secular and the sacred, even in their daily activities.

C.      COMMUNITIES: The city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, founded by Moravians in 1766, uses the Moravian star as their official Christmas street decoration. In addition, a 31-foot Moravian star, one of the largest in the world, sits atop the North Tower of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center during the Advent and Christmas seasons.

D.      PEOPLE: Today people consider the star to be other than a pretty decoration; but believers still consider the Star the hope of Advent. On Christmas Eve, and on the day of our Lord’s birth, the Star takes on added significance, for then it becomes a symbol of Christ the Lord most glorious, Christ, the light of the world. Stars are displayed beginning the first Sunday in Advent through Epiphany (January 6).

Morning Star, O cheering sight!
Ere thou camest how dark earth's night!
Jesus mine, in me shine; In me shine, Jesus mine.