A special tribute to Nelson Bland

Published in the Wednesday, Aug. 26 issue of the Mount Olive Messenger.
(Award-winning newspaper reporter, photographer and columnist Nelson Bland died Monday afternoon, Aug. 24 following a period of declining health. Bland, 70, spent more than 40 years in the newspaper business, the last seven as a columnist for the Messenger, a publication of the Goldsboro News-Argus. The following column was written by Messenger Editor Steve Herring who had worked with Bland for 38 years)

The phone call I had been dreading for nearly two weeks finally came just before 3:30 p.m. Monday.

I knew what the message would be before the tear-choked voice told me that Nelson Bland, a friend and colleague of nearly 40 years, had succumbed after two weeks in the Wayne Memorial Hospital ICU.

With his passing, Mount Olive, Wayne County and the state have lost the voice of a master storyteller and the vision of a master photographer.

Nelson was also one of Mount Olive’s resident characters and a vast source of information about the Mount Olive of his youth in the 1950s and 1960s.

He has told me more than once that he could write a book about all he had witnessed growing up and as a reporter, but that he would have to leave town.

I probably could write a book on the many stories he told me or the ones I witnessed him in firsthand. There are many others that he knew who could write that same book.

He gave equal voice to the big stories and those of the everyday people that he met.

Or as Nelson would often say, “stories from the outhouse to the courthouse to the White House.”

He knew that the secret to good community journalism could be found in the local names in his stories and the local faces in his photos, particularly children.

Nelson was probably best known for his love of fire, police and rescue as well as his Notes column he wrote for the Mount Olive Tribune and then his Rambling column for the Messenger.

No matter the time or weather conditions, he would often arrive at the scene before, or at the same time as, fire, rescue or police personnel.

He took great pride in his columns, which were very popular and well-read.

He would often ask me why it is so popular. I secretly suspected he knew the answer, but I would tell him anyway because I knew he took great pride that it was so well-received by such a diverse readership.

I would tell him he was writing about things people could relate to and that it was like he was talking to them face to face.

He loved a telephone and once he got something in his head he would call anyone — night or day or weekend. He hated computers and never did remember how to use programs we used for decades.

For him it was just simpler to call me to talk him through it for the millionth time.

Nelson was an expert button pusher and reveled in getting people stirred up. He loved practical jokes but threatened bodily harm to anyone who might try to throw a mouse on him as a joke.

I recall us being in the darkroom after processing film when a very small mouse ran across the floor.

Nelson screamed like a little girl and, despite his size, he jumped straight up and onto a chair.

He would tell you in a minute that he had a short fuse, and as friend and former co-worker Jackie Hough once told him, “it is soaked in gasoline.”

It was, and I was on the receiving end more than once, but we’d both get over it and move on to taking a ride over to a camera store or heading up to the old Mary’s Drive-In on Ash Street in Goldsboro for steak sticks and onion rings.

He was a friend that I knew I could always count on.

It was Nelson who called me in January 1977 and asked if I would be interested in working at the Tribune.

Not knowing any better, I said OK.

We have worked together since that time, and that is why I know that St. Peter had a rough day at the pearly gates Monday.

I can just imagine Nelson asking a million questions and St. Peter checking to make sure Nelson was not trying to slip his pistol into heaven.

He had suffered from several health problems over the last 10 years or so. But when people would ask me how he was doing, I would tell them his body was in bad shape, but that his mouth was working just fine.

To say he loved to talk would be an understatement, and he would go off on a tangent or tirade at a moment’s notice.

I used to tell him he could save a lot of wear and tear on his tongue and vocal cords if he would simply number his many tangents.

I told him he would simply have to say the number and we all would know what he was talking about — saving us all a lot of time.

He never took me up on that idea.

You learn a lot being around somebody for 40 years, especially with the odd and many hours spent working at a newspaper.

I learned early on not to show up unannounced when he was home — particularly after he nearly shot one of his brothers who thought it would be funny to knock on the door and then hide.

That was further reinforced the night Nelson got into a shootout at his home.

He happened to look out a back window and saw what appeared to be someone in the shadows.

Knowing Nelson, his greetings and threats to the shadow were laced with some colorful adjectives.

After a couple of challenges, the shadow did not respond, so Nelson fired off a few rounds.

Fortunately the bush that he shot at in the shadows was not injured.

Then there was the time the gun went off in the darkroom putting a hole through the trash can.

When I pulled into his yard, I either blew the car horn or called ahead so as to not get shot.

Nelson always carried a .38 snub-nosed pistol in his camera bag.

It was probably close to 30 years ago we were at a North Carolina Press Association banquet held, I think, in the Carolina Inn, on the UNC campus.

Nelson was sitting next to me and less than 30 feet away the governor was speaking. Two rather beefy-looking men, who I took to be security, were behind him.

I looked over as Nelson opened his camera bag and the first thing to catch my eye was that .38 resting on top of the camera.

He quickly closed the bag, but I still knew we were going to jail that night.

Years later Nelson dodged a trip to federal prison when the Secret Service failed to notice the pistol in his camera bag as he walked with President Jimmy Carter at a Wilson tobaccomarket.

Nelson said low friends in high places had secured him a spot in the press pool that walked with the president.

He went through all of the background and security checks just fine, but forgot to leave the gun at home.

Riding with him could be an adrenaline-inducing experience as well.

We were in the mountains once, I don’t recall if we were covering anything or just decided to take a trip.

We were headed down a mountain with Nelson driving. Looking out the passenger window I saw mountain. Looking out the driver’s window all I saw was a lot of empty space.

Nelson rolled down the window to throw out chewing gum.

It stuck on the window and to my horror Nelson took both hands off the wheel to get the gum off the glass.

I am pretty sure I screamed, not sure what, as I grabbed for the wheel just knowing I was about to die.

I was riding with him again in 1984 on that Wednesday night when tornadoes laid waste to a large portion of eastern North Carolina.

We were headed, rather quickly, down Rones Chapel Road.

We were almost on top of the toppled utility pole hanging at an angle across the road before we saw it.

I think I yelled again as we did a Dukes of Hazzard jump across the pole.

But the night wasn’t over. Just minutes later heading down another street a cable struck the windshield in front of me.

After those two things, I wasn’t as scared that the tornado might come back.

All those stories, and more, are what made Nelson so unique — and so special.

Rest easy, my friend, there are no more deadlines.

Published in Editorials on August 31, 2015 8:37 AM