The State You're In

It’s like Homer’s the Odyssey, but it’s mini golf at an old K Mart and all the sirens are pregaming Glenwood Ave.

(also a major missed opportunity to not have a blue light special hole)

Mythic Mini Golf 🦄
Raleigh, NC 🧚

This is wayyy better than hamburger helper.

If someone named a🍺 after this page...

“is made in North Carolina, with fresh pork and spices by people who know what sausage is suppose to taste like” 🤣

Is Neese’s Country Sausage no longer made in North Carolina?

We finally got our hands on some of the newly returned Neese’s and noticed something interesting on the package.

It says “Distributed by Neese Country Sausage, LLC, Raleigh, NC.”

They say it's made in a "New Modern Facility" but do not say where.

But along the side is USDA establishment number M-9065.

That number belongs to Wampler’s Farm Sausage Company in Lenoir City, Tennessee.

If that establishment number indicates where this particular sausage was produced, it would mean one of North Carolina’s most beloved breakfast brands is now being made across the state line in Tennessee.

We’ve reached out for clarification because there could be more to the story.

But M-9065 certainly raises one very big question:

Is Neese’s still North Carolina-made?

Talkin Tar Heel: A County by County Guide to North Carolina's Axcents & Dialects

Best late night grub spots in NC…

Right before Trace sang American Made tonight, he told us his family roots go back 11 generations, to two Adkins brothers who came to North Carolina.

260 years later, he’s standing on a stage in North Carolina singing about being American Made.

That’ll make a Carolina boy stand a little taller.

There’s an old rule about cowboy hats that says the good guy wears white and the bad guy wears black.

Then there’s Trace Adkins.

Trace has been wearing a black cowboy hat so long I’m fairly certain if he ever put on a white one, half of Nashville would call somebody to make sure he was alright.

He’s also about 6’6”, which means when a man that size walks onstage wearing all black and starts singing in a voice about three floors below everybody else’s, you tend to pay attention.

And then there are the songs. Trace has been doing this for 30 years, and you don’t really appreciate what that means until he starts going through them. Every Light in the House, Songs About Me, You’re Gonna Miss This, Ladies Love Country Boys. Songs you haven’t thought about in years, but somehow you still know every word. That’s a pretty good measure of a career.

One thing I’ve come to love about Weldon Mills Theatre is every time we go now, we see several folks we know. It was a little slow catching on for us, but somewhere along the way it quit feeling like a place we were going to see a show and started feeling like a place we go.

We usually get there early enough to catch the opener. Always have. I figure if somebody got invited to open for Trace Adkins, somebody oughta be sitting there listening.

Tonight we just couldn’t make it happen.

We got there about 15 minutes before Trace came on, got ourselves situated, and Will sat down about the same time that big fella in the black hat started singing.

Which is cutting it closer than I prefer.

But technically, we were on time.