Pull My Frank

Francis Arthur Norton IV

"A lifetime of global observation grounded locally in the colloquialisms of central North Carolina"

FRANK TALK

My frank is out! As of yesterday!

A Linotype machine. The newsroom: where confidence is manufactured daily.

If the Wall Street Journal were a person, it'd be that cousin who got rich and forgot where he came from. I used to admire the prose. Now I just admire the audacity.

The press rolls. The record bends.

The New York Times thinks it understands the South. Bless their hearts.

Clara Bow, c.1925. Society dressed up for posterity. Posterity dressed down.

Vanity Fair is the only magazine that makes you feel underdressed while reading it on the toilet.

Main Street, Fowler, Colorado. Saturday afternoon on the square. Most things worth knowing were settled here.

Every small town in North Carolina has a man who knows everything. He's usually wrong, but he's never boring. I should know. I am that man in at least three towns.

Wisdom has a particular way of sitting still.

The difference between wisdom and a bumper sticker is about twenty years and a bad marriage.

Every departure is a theory. Every arrival is the correction.

They say travel broadens the mind. After forty-seven countries I can confirm: it mostly broadens the waistline and the credit card bill. The mind was already broad enough — it just needed a window seat.

A map from 1920 North Carolina. The Economist measures the world. The map shows where it should be.

The problem with reading The Economist is you start thinking in graphs. The problem with living in Chatham County is you start thinking in stories. I recommend the stories. The graphs lie more often.

A barbershop in Key West, 1938. The razor and the red pencil. Both require a steady hand.

My barber in Siler City makes more sense than the entire New York Times editorial board. And he charges less for the haircut.

A crossroads in Monroe County, Alabama. Trust, before the lawyers arrived.

I read somewhere that Americans trust journalists less than they trust used car salesmen. In Chatham County, that's always been the case. But the car salesman never pretended to be objective.