By Mike London [email protected] SALISBURY — Growing up in Kannapolis in the 1960s and early 1970s, the newspaper arrived like clockwork, tightly wound, rubber-banded and flung casually from the window of a passing car.
It landed with a comfortable thump in the family driveway, although occasionally in wet grass, five afternoons per week, plus Sunday morning. The Daily Independent it was called. Every day but Saturday.
I have fond memories. California may have fallen into the ocean the night before, but my young eyes would have overlooked that rather sizable headline, because I tore open the paper, ignored the news of the day and went straight to the sports section. The wizard of sports in Kannapolis then was The Daily Independent sports editor Frankie Patterson.
His “Frankly Speaking” column was pure magic, especially on Fridays when he endeavored to pick the winners for all of the weekend’s high school and college football games. Frankie was a magnificent homer and would have picked the local heroes, the A.L.
Brown High Wonders, to crush Paul Hornung, Bart Starr and the rest of the Green Bay Packers, even if that matchup was scheduled for the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. Never mind that the Wonders were having their struggles with Concord just about every year. As he picked winners, Frankie displayed a vast vocabulary, like he’d been born with a thesaurus attached to his right arm.
He demonstrated in print every Friday for all the world to see that .
