Farmington’s Feed Bag, the restaurant with the horsey name, made this month’s prestigious Southern Living magazine as an eatery worth a side trip off Interstate 40. The restaurant is 4.2 miles off exit 174. In its article, “The South’s Best Road Food,” the magazine describes The Feed Bag: “Located in a former general store down a leafy rural road, this simple country restaurant serves up fresh, local food with no pretension and zero gimmicks.”

Farmington may never be the same.

 

Remembering His Titans

 Basketball NBA pro Chris Paul hasn’t forgotten his roots — especially West Forsyth High School. The Los Angeles Clippers point guard Tweeted the following after the Titans recently beat Mt. Tabor in football: “All is right in the world…my High School WEST FORSYTH beat @jada_ap high scool Mount Tabor 2nite!!! #TitanPride.”

 

Sailor Taught Blue Words

 My exotic uncle, Johnny Smoot, died last week at age 94 at his home in Florida. He left the tobacco fields of Davie County for the Navy during World War II. He sailed to Antarctica in 1959 when I was a little boy.

My mother always looked forward to — and dreaded — her brother’s rare visits home during his career.

Uncle Johnny taught his young nephews words we had never heard before. He talked Navy.

It took weeks for my mother to de-program us after he left.

 

Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football

 To treat his asthma, young Theodore Roosevelt’s desperate parents tried anything to help the sickly lad, including this quack remedy: Making him smoke cigars.

It didn’t work, but sports did, especially the newly emerging game of football.

John J. Miller, a University of Michigan graduate and author of “The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football,” documents the president’s love for sports as a way to keep American men manly.

In a Hillsdale College publication, Imprimis, Miller notes the stark difference of Teddy Roosevelt with President Obama, who said recently he would have to think long and hard about letting his son play football, if he had a son.

Love for a college football team, no matter what the college, is almost tribal, Miller notes. A Michigan alum would feel that way. So would Appalachian graduates, who must be reeling this season with the Mountaineers’ cliff dive from the ranks of the best football teams among small colleges.

It couldn’t have happened at a better time. My own Western Carolina is scheduled to play Appalachian in a few weeks, perhaps for the last time since the Boone school is moving up to a Division I football. There was a time when the Catamounts and Mountaineers were tightly competitive, but not lately. Boone has dominated. Perhaps this year, Western can finally claim ownership to the Old Mountain Jug which they play for each fall. Claim it and keep it.

Author Miller notes that the president of Harvard tried to squash football in the early 20th century as a game for boors and ruffians. True gentlemen, he noted, wouldn’t require a referee. Football games then were notoriously violent.

Teddy Roosevelt helped intervene, urging leading coaches to eliminate the brutality. They did, and the sport’s popularity has soared. Go Catamounts!

— Dwight Sparks