Radio Free Rock Hill

One of the most memorable lines in the musical Jersey Boys is in Bob Gaudio’s soliloquy at the end. Describing his lack of nostalgia and affection for the old neighborhood, he adds

“I’m from wherever I happen to be.”

Though I admire the Zen of that sentiment, that is not me.

I’m from Rock Hill, South Carolina.

My family’s roots in York County date back to the 1700’s. I can show you where my mother was born at home on Main Street. I can name the sites which have housed the 3 locations of Rock Hill High School. I can spin you a yarn about the time someone thought it was a good idea to put a roof over Main Street and call it a mall.

I live at the river, not the lake and the graves of my ancestors are scattered over York County like confetti.

If anything happened in Rock Hill of importance, you read about it in the paper. We got two papers at my house. Before daylight, a morning paper, the Charlotte Observer appeared in our paper box. In the afternoon, the paperboy delivered the Evening Herald from his bike, rolled up and secured with a rubber band. Paperboy was cute, and a bit older than me. I think he was about 11 or 12. Sometimes I would wait for the paper out in the front yard, just to get a wave or a smile from him, and if the doorbell rang and he was there to collect for our subscription, I was quick to answer the door.

My parents read both papers from cover to cover. My late father would clip and save interesting articles and columns. When we settled his estate, my oldest sister gave me a notebook in which he had pasted his favorite pieces.

Just about everyone got “the paper”. In addition to news, we read to find out who died, who had been born, who got married, who got a divorce, who was arrested, who wanted to sell a car, who was having a yard sale, what movies were playing, and so on and so on.

Before we could go gawk at the Moss Justice Center website, we had the blotter. Before we had Craig’s List, Facebook and Fandango, we had the paper. Am I right? 

For a good part of my adult life, we took the local newspaper. As our sons got older, free time was scarce and was rarely spent reading local news. It would find its way into the recycling bin, sometimes without being opened. More and more, we turned to online sources for news. When we moved to a new home, our subscription was cancelled. There was no time, and there was no space for a stack of papers to accumulate.

I miss the local news. I think our existing paper does the best they can with current resources, but I think the decline of local news in general has been at the detriment to our community, and to sense of community- that is “a social state or condition” in general. Rock Hill just grows and grows, but as we become siloed in our own little tribes, our world somehow becomes… smaller.

Local photographer and nationally and internationally known playwright, Terry Roueche recently retired and closed his studio.

“I want to start an online newspaper.”

The last time Terry said he wanted to do something it was “I want to set up my studio as a black box theatre and produce plays there.”  The next I knew, I was helping move walls to build said black box and went on to see my writing workshopped and produced there, something many playwrights are never fortunate enough to see.

Terry Roueche, in addition to being a writer and photographer, is a teacher and mentor. Once as a director, he told me to “do something different.” Sigh. Acting. I forgot to mention, as a writer in Terry’s Main Street Theatre stable, sometimes we had to help as needed in other ways. If a show needed an actress, occasionally I had to get onstage to bring someone else’s character to life.  Fair is fair. If Terry is being tasked to direct, then I can be troubled to act. So, when Terry told me to “do something different”, I asked “Like what?”

“I don’t know. But not that.”

Now it seems he wants to cast me as a writer, and not of plays.

Do you have that person that you cannot say no to? I have two people. One is a work mentor and I suspect we will get to him eventually. The other is Terry.

I like news, see the need for more local news options and Terry is inviting me along for another joy ride. Seems like a no brainer.

And very much like his direction and my acting, he is vague about what he wants me to write.

“…we always love what you write… I want your views. The subject does not matter.”

When asked his vision of Radio Free Rock Hill, Terry says he is not looking to replace what the Herald once was. Initially, he plans to focus on the arts, as that is what he likes.

Arts. In Rock Hill. Awesome, perhaps he can answer the question of why we have a BMX track and a Velodrome, a brand-new sports event center, but we don’t seem to be able to get a dang dedicated performing arts space.

In 2003, when I, as a full-grown tax paying adult with a young family and a big girl job returned to Rock Hill, it had changed much from the one-horse Charlotte bedroom which I had left to go to college, and to which I had sworn never to return, at least as a resident. Things change, however. Rock Hill did. I did too. After living in eastern NC for 4 years, Rock Hill seemed like a cultural mecca, and it turns out you can go home again.

Imagine my surprise when I rolled up to the local community theatre to see a production of School House Rock, Live, Junior to find it housed in a hundred-year-old church in front of a homeless and hunger ministry. The building was without indoor plumbing. That’s right. Anytime there was a show, a porta-pot was parked on the side street. Classy. But the show must go on.

And when that building burned down a few years later, the theatre found out that being in a building with no toilet is better than being homeless. Which is an apt metaphor for the value which has traditionally been afforded the performing arts in Rock Hill.

But what am I saying? This community gestated a playwright turned columnist out of a gynecologist. There is plenty of talent locally. Though it was frustrating as a producer of local theatre, I understood driving to Charlotte to see Wicked or Miss Saigon. You likely don’t get to see your banker or your nephew onstage in Charlotte, however.  

So even if this platform just brings attention to the local arts scene, that will be something.

We are hoping to be more and thank you, dear reader for coming along on this adventure.

About what do I plan to write? We will see where the wind takes us. I suspect it will be eclectic.

Kind of like Rock Hill.

One of the things I love about this town- it is named descriptively and not for some European town somewhere else. If you can find a map of the US, you can point to it, within a few miles. It’s the little notch west of the big notch in the piece of pie. That little notch is pointing at us. That hook in the Catawba River points right at us too.

And is it a town or is it a city? It will always be a town to me. Even if it grows up to have a taller skyline.

Hopefully Radio Free Rock Hill will become a source of news, entertainment and community. You may even see some health content. Join the fun and enjoy the ride.