Good ol’ Pat
A recent death moved Gene Upchurch, a retired Progress Energy executive, to write this tribute:
When I read the N&O’s obituary of Pat Taylor, the former lieutenant governor who died Sunday at the age of 94, it occurred to me that I might be the only person in the state who was actually hypnotized by him.
It’s a long story, but I was his golf partner and failing badly to meet his expectations, so it made sense to him to do an Anson County incantation on me to see if it would help. I don’t remember it helping at all, but I also don’t remember that he undid it, so it might explain a lot that I’ve been under his spell for the last 25 years.
Perhaps that explains why his style of moderate, genteel politics always appealed to me. He was a Democrat, but I was always struck by his understanding of other points of view and acknowledgment that there were always two sides and that both sides ought to get something of what they need as long as the state, the university, etc., was moving forward.
I heard him give many speeches, all of them unscheduled, unplanned and unscripted in the elegant dining room at the Country Club of North Carolina to a Friday-night audience which was there for a quiet dinner and unprepared for a speech from a little man they didn’t know. He would clink his glass for attention, and then give the captive and polite audience a five-minute political science lesson and comedy routine. It was quite a scene as diners placed their forks on the table as their food slowly cooled, and servers stood at ease against the wall. Everyone learned something, and he was always applauded, then worked the room like he was running for office.
His 2005 book, “Fourth Down and Goal to Go” is a good history lesson and offers some great perspective on state politics, especially the sections on redistricting (some things never change!) where Pat remembers the General Assembly’s refusal in 1951 and 1961 to redistrict at all when the motto was, according to Pat: “Don’t rock the boat, because somebody might fall off, and it might be me!”
Pat was part of the Greatest Generation, not just as a US Marine, but as a dignified politician who led with balance and perspective, and who loved his state.
Good ol’ Pat
A recent death moved Gene Upchurch, a retired Progress Energy executive, to write this tribute:
When I read the N&O’s obituary of Pat Taylor, the former lieutenant governor who died Sunday at the age of 94, it occurred to me that I might be the only person in the state who was actually hypnotized by him.
It’s a long story, but I was his golf partner and failing badly to meet his expectations, so it made sense to him to do an Anson County incantation on me to see if it would help. I don’t remember it helping at all, but I also don’t remember that he undid it, so it might explain a lot that I’ve been under his spell for the last 25 years.
Perhaps that explains why his style of moderate, genteel politics always appealed to me. He was a Democrat, but I was always struck by his understanding of other points of view and acknowledgment that there were always two sides and that both sides ought to get something of what they need as long as the state, the university, etc., was moving forward.
I heard him give many speeches, all of them unscheduled, unplanned and unscripted in the elegant dining room at the Country Club of North Carolina to a Friday-night audience which was there for a quiet dinner and unprepared for a speech from a little man they didn’t know. He would clink his glass for attention, and then give the captive and polite audience a five-minute political science lesson and comedy routine. It was quite a scene as diners placed their forks on the table as their food slowly cooled, and servers stood at ease against the wall. Everyone learned something, and he was always applauded, then worked the room like he was running for office.
His 2005 book, “Fourth Down and Goal to Go” is a good history lesson and offers some great perspective on state politics, especially the sections on redistricting (some things never change!) where Pat remembers the General Assembly’s refusal in 1951 and 1961 to redistrict at all when the motto was, according to Pat: “Don’t rock the boat, because somebody might fall off, and it might be me!”
Pat was part of the Greatest Generation, not just as a US Marine, but as a dignified politician who led with balance and perspective, and who loved his state.