October 11, 2026
Keith Parker
Parker on the Past
In the 1950s, Brevard High School and its adjacent athletic field were located about where the library is now.
Broad Street was closely watched for high school kids who were learning to drive and testing the traditional driving rules, especially the ones that had to deal with speed.
Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library
In those days, we either brought a bag lunch, crossed Broad Street to Ye Ole Chatterbox for lunch, or went uptown to a nearby drug store or another place to eat lunch.
The city had one policeman then who had been terminally assigned to parking meter duty, but somehow that local law enforcement official had finally been promoted and given permission to drive a car during daylight hours for downtown Brevard patrol duty.
One day as two buddies and I were walking uptown for lunch, he caught us jaywalking across Broad Street when there was not a single automobile in sight.
His patrol car was parked, but nevertheless his hot and holy sermon to us was a firm warning that if he ever caught us crossing any Brevard street where there was not a painted crosswalk, he would “run us in.”
We promised that would forever be the case, but not before hearing a lot more from him about how the breaking of minor traffic rules was just the first of many downward spiral steps on the road ahead of criminally illegal activities and eventual lifelong ruin and imprisonment.
Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library
Then one day Cousin Walter Cantrell and I were walking up Broad Street about to cross Morgan Street where the Brevard Post Office was (it is now the Transylvania County Administration offices) when our previous police tutor was stopped at the last minute by a red light and his four-door police car sat across the crosswalk, totally blocking it!
We both waved, opened the back door of his squad car, traversed its backseat, opened the other back door, and then merrily went out the other side leaving both doors open.
As dutifully instructed, we had met the letter of the law.
He was confused and embarrassed as cars all across downtown blew their horns and their drivers laughed at the patrolman’s predicament.
He never corrected us after that.
Dr. Keith Parker is a pastoral counselor, Jungian analyst, and local historian who lives in the Dunn’s Rock community of Transylvania County. His column appears on BrevardBeagle.com when he can find time to write his thoughts down.
Click here to visit the archive of previously published Parker on the Past columns.