Greensboro Daily Photo

F is for Fitness

Above we see a photo of Workout Anytime, located between Cook-out, Krispy Kreme, and Maxie B's on Battleground Avenue. Workout Anytime is one of those stores catering to the latest fitness trend of working out anytime; that's 24/7-- 365 days a year. Regardless of what time you go to or leave work, you can stop and exercise. On their website, this franchise doesn't say how long they have been in business, but they do mention their owners have a combined 40 years of experience in the industry.

According to the state data on death rates from heart disease, Guilford County fares pretty well. The state rate is 439 deaths annually related to heart disease per 100,000 people; the county rate is 368-411 per 100,000. Except for neighboring Caswell County, counties in the Piedmont/triad/triangle area are heart healthier than the North Carolinians living in the he coastal region. Perhaps we are more diligent about exercising; perhaps we eat less fried foods. At any rate, we seem to be doing something right.

Today is ABC Wednesday and for this round, we're featuring causes. Today's cause is F, for fitness. If you want a non-profit related to fitness, there is always the option to join the YMCA. Additionally, on Saturday, March 31, 2012, Greensboro will have a great health and fitness event, a 5K charity walk/run where participants get to raise money for their favorite charity. You get to work on your heart health at the Human Race event while your favorite non-profit gets a little money for their coffer. How do you keep your heart healthy? What do you do to help others stay healthy? Remember, February is National Heart Health month and F is for fitness!

E is for the Environment

The vacant 1.3 acre lot at the corner of East Lee and Arlington Streets is a diamond in the rough, waiting to become a park under the dutiful watch of the Piedmont Land Conservancy. Musikgarten founders, Lorna and Herman Heyge donated the land to Greensboro's Parks and Recreation Department. You see the Musikgarten building peeking out in the upper right corner. An easement to Piedmont Land Conservancy will ensure that the park remains a natural setting with paths, benches, and a children's garden with a water feature. 

While the land looks a little scruffy in its "limbo" state, at least it has been cleared and is ready to be converted into a park. If you are local, perhaps you recall the time an old gas station was located here. D.H. Griffin helped clear the land by hauling away 80 dump-truck loads of old concrete and road material from the property (for free!). We hope the park will become a reality soon. Perhaps the pink survey strips surrounding the property are a sign that something is about to be done with the property. When this property becomes a park, the entrance into Ole Asheboro will have quite a facelift and the environment will be improved aesthetically and conserved in a way that benefits all of Greensboro's citizens. 

Today is ABC Wednesday and E is for Environment and an organization helping with that effort if the Piedmont Land Conservancy.

D is for Dogs, People and Paws for Hope

In the above photo, we see the building that formerly housed the Central Carolina Convalescent Hospital at 710 Huffine Mill Road, between Summit and Bessemer Avenues. We drove by this weekend to see the former hospital again because there was a question about its location during Eugene Pfaff's recent book talk about the Civil Rights Movement in Greensboro. During the sit-ins, the above facility served as a place to detain protestors. However, it was initially built in 1948 to quarantine and treat polio victims.* One woman vividly remembered it was "somewhere out off of East Market Street" said when her parents drove her past this facility, she held her breath for fear of catching polio. 

This facility is so important to the history of Greensboro, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Great Mid-Century Polio Epidemic. It is always larger in our memory than it is when we actually visit it in person.** Surprisingly, nobody has pursued getting it on an historic registry. While, a few years ago, it appeared to be abandoned and deteriorating, there is hope for its upkeep, however.

On Sunday's visit, we learned that the facility currently houses People and Paws for Hope. This non-profit organization helps youth between the ages of 5-18 with Animal Assisted Therapies and Activities. They also help dogs be socialized with humans so that they can be adopted into forever homes. So, as serendipity would have it, our trip to the polio hospital brings us in a round about way to today's ABC Wednesday cause: D is for dogs, our canine companions. As People and Paws for Hope reminds us, we need dogs and dogs need us! Good luck to this organization. Good luck to 710 Huffine Mill Road!

*read an interesting article about the polio hospital (here).

**Last time we were there it was painted blue. 

February 1st is for Civil Rights........

Today is February 1st, the start of African American History Month. Greensboro is has much to celebrate with respect to civil rights. First, we have the International Civil Rights Museum on Elm Street. We have two historically black institutions of higher education. One of our crowning contributions to the civil rights movement in the 1960's was the Greensboro Sit-ins, which took place at the lunch counter at Woolworth's Department Store, downtown on Elm Street. Fifty-two years today, four freshmen at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro sat down and asked for a cup of coffee at the lunch counter at the Woolworth's Department Store. These four African-American college students, featured above in this order-- David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and Joseph McNeal-- refused to leave the "whites-only" lunch counter. Their peaceful, but tenacious, actions helped spark a movement that spread to other southern cities (read more here).

We feature this statue/monument at least once a year; however, one needs only to step foot on the NCA&T campus and look at this statue to realize the importance of the actions of these men.  From this vantage point, the four figures are imposing and make us realize just how small we are in comparison to their contribution of making the United States a more just and civil place. 

Today is ABC Wednesday and our cause for this round is civil rights. "C" is for CIVIL RIGHTS.

B is for Blindness

Today's photo takes us to the Industries of the Blind (IOB), Inc. on West Lee Street. This building houses a stalwart group of people committed to being self sufficient and having a good quality of life even with being visually impaired. In our recent post, we mentioned that IOB has been doing great work in Greensboro for over seven decades. The above photo, taken with the bright, end-of-day sun behind us, contrasts greatly with our previous glaring, night shot. Above, a woman is turning because something caught her eye. We could tell by the pace at which she was walking and her quick, furtive look that she could see.

If you are reading this post without an adaptive device, count your blessings. If you are reading this with an adaptive device, count your blessings! According to the National Federation of the Blind, 1.3 million Americans are blind, 93,600 of whom are school-aged children. Over 20 million Americans have cataracts; 9 million have age-related macular degeneration; and over two million have glaucoma (reference). For Round 10 of ABC Wednesday, GDP us featuring A-Z causes; this week is B for blindness. In the previous post on the topic, Janis (of Southern California) typed a testimonial for the important work of IOB. CA Janis says........

"For each of the people IOB employs, a bucket full of self esteem is brought home. A productive job means the world to their well being. I know this for a fact because my Dad was almost totally blind. Since this was the result of a baseball injury at age 17 he knew what it was to work, to drive,to go to the movies on a Saturday night. First he groomed race horses and took them for their cool down walks at Santa Anita, later he was a Taxi cab dispatcher which was really perfect work for him since he knew the town well and everybody who lived here, after that he worked at a mobile home factory and the local school district.

His blindness was a gift to me. I learned to read aloud before I ever entered Kindergarten by reading him the sports pages and local news. He would tell me what to look for and sound out words with me. I learned geography and to love travel even though we rarely left California because he would pull out the big Map Book from Rand McNally and we would take armchair trips all over the world, gauging mileage, times, what to see, where to dine-- every little detail was planned. I was probably the only second grader who could navigate the way to Ames, Iowa but could not find the restrooms for the upper playground at lunch."