I was thinking about the inaugeration as I got up this morning, pondering what it might mean over time and how the world might look four years from now.  Today is packed with activities -- as usual on a spooky trip -- but I planned to listen to the inaugeration live, and watch it tonight on TV.  Some things, you just have to be a part of. 

In my email last night was a nice note from the Director of Sale with more details on the ghost story she told me yesterday, and asking me if I lost a white scarf which she found on the floor near the table where I had eaten breakfast. (No, I hadn't lost a scarf.)  As I was getting ready for bed, the Night Manager called me to ask me if I'd lost a white scarf. (Thanks so much for calling, but I still hadn't lost a scarf.)  In the elevator going down to breakfast, the Day Manager asked me if I had lost a white scarf.  I showed him the white shawl I always wear with my coat -- which was still attached to me.  (How kind of you to ask, but really, I hadn't lost a scarf.)  I think I almost convinced him that I really didn't need two scarves.  At breakfast, the Director of Sales came bursting into the dining room with a white scarf clutched in her hands.  It was a real pretty scarf too, but it still wasn't mine.  (Really.  I mean it.  I HAVEN'T LOST MY SCARF!)  Just goes to show how kind and friendly folks in Charlotte can be.  In New Jersey, where I really did lose my blue scarf, no one handed it in to lost and found, no one asked me about it.  I'm assuming someone is now enjoying that blue scarf -- but it isn't me.  Next time I lose a scarf, I plan to do it in Charlotte.   

I drove to Winston-Salem after breakfast and stopped in the parking lot of the Salem college to listen to the inaugeration on the radio.  At the conclusion of new President Barack Obama's speech, I took my camera and went for a stroll through Old Salem.  What a beautifully perserved old Moravian town.  There were a large number of brick buildings - especially in the college, lovely clapboard houses with steeply pitched roofs, a few log cabins -- including an old church in the far corner were standing side by side along the quiet streets.  The brick sidewalks were a herring bone pattern and were uneven and sometimes difficult to walk upon without tripping.  (A fact I demonstrated at least four times!)  Man of the lovely old houses had white picekt fences surrounding yards full of lovely plants.  A picturesque old barn with a woodpile at one side and large wooden barrells peeking out of the loft.  You could easily picture the Moravian's living and working in this setting.  The men and women lived separately until marriage.  Young people left home at 14 years and lived in dormitories, learning a trade.  Marriage united men and women into families, but after death, men were buried in one part of the cemetery and women in another. 

I had a traditional Moravian lunch of chicken pie and vegetables at the preserved Salem Tavern -- a lovely old building with high ceilings, creaky floors and spooky shadows.  Then I strolled through the rest of the town, snapping photographs of the houses, the unique fences and buildings along the street, and of course the giant coffeepot which stands on the line where Old Salem meets Winston-Salem.  The large coffeepot is seven feet three inches tall (and then they stuck it on top of a metal pole!)  It is made of tin by the Moravian brothers Samue and Julius Micceky in 1858, presumably as an advertising ploy for their tinmaking business (either that or they just couldn't get enough of their morning coffee!) 

There's an interesting ghost story associated with Old Salem.  On the square -- viewable from the place where I parked my car to listen to the inaugeration -- there is a house known as the Single Brothers house that used to be the dormitory for unmarried men in the community.  On a March evening in 1786, a shoemaker named Kresmer perished while excavating a new foundation for an addition to Brother's house.  Caught beneath a collapsing bank of earth, he died within a few hours, red cap still askew on his head.  For many years thereafter, a red-capped little man would be see under the house or on the grounds of the Brother's house, and folks would hear the tap-tap-tapping sound of a shoemaker's hammer. 

Late that afternoon, I drove to my hotel in Greensboro.  After taking a cat-nap in the sun for half an hour, I headed to the local Walmart to stock up on supplies and then had a lovely steak dinner at Outback before returning to the hotel to watch the inaugeration on TV. 

Instead of a novel, I chose a book of North Carloina ghost stories for my bedtime reading.  Big mistake.  I am not often freaked-out by ghost stories these days (I've seen, read and experienced too much myself to be bothered by manyreports.)  But this particular Piedmont ghost really freaked me out.  Apparently, there is a house in Forsyth County, North Carolina, that is haunted by the ghost of a young girl.  The child would sit in the downstairs window each evening holding a candle and watching for her father to come home from work.  One night, the sparks from the candle ignited the curtains at the window and the house went up in flames.  The father died trying to rescue his wife -- the girl's stepmother, who for some reason was locked in her room.  The child and her step-mother went to live in a small house adjacent to their estate, and the step mother, who didn't get along with the daughter, left as soon as the girl was old enough to live on her own.  The daughter lived all her life in that little house, always mourning for the home she had lost and the father she had inadvertantly killed.  Long after the daughter had passed on, her spirit whispered in the ears of people living in the small home where she had lived and died.  Always, she wanted to go home.  One day, an  artist moved in, and the ghost persuaded her through a series of dreams to paint a picture of the old mansion where she once lived with her father.  After the painting was complete, the artist hung it over the mantle piece and proudly showed it off to friends and neighbors who came to visit.   As she showed it off to a neighbor who had known the daughter who died, both women suddenly realized that the face of a child holding a candle had mysteriously appeared in the downstairs window of the old mansion -- right where the daughter always waited for her father to come home.  The ghost had gone home at last.