That’s a Lotta Bull...part i.
- Michael Jay Tucker's explosive-cargo
- Sep 28
- 5 min read
Okay, last time, I had eating at Cafe Ferdosi during our visit to Durham and Raleigh. As you’re probably have guessed, we are now coming close to the end of this particular series. In fact, I’m going to rush forward a little bit. But before I go I need to talk about ...the Bull.
So, the following morning (March 10), we had breakfast and then joined Vincent at his house. Martha and Vincent had a chat while I took a quick walk on a path in the woods near his house. Durham is a surprisingly wooded city.
Then, I came back, and it was time for lunch. Vincent took us a sandwich shop which he raves about -- Ideal Sandwiches.(1) Of course, he’s met the owners. Vincent knows...well, not everyone. But a surprisingly large number of people, particularly those involved with restaurants. There’s much to be said for being both just a bit of extrovert and also gourmet.
ABOUT THE PHOTOS: First, a shot of Martha and Major in downtown Durham. Second, some of the flowers in Vincent’s neighborhood. I believe this is Weeping Forsythia. Third, a mysterious structure along a path just down from Vincent’s house.
Anyway, Ideal Sandwiches is *relatively* new business, and Vincent has been eating there since it opened. (The founders are from New York and Boston. And Vincent has links in both places as well. So it was a natural connection.)
We arrived and found a great long line stretching out of the restaurant and into the street. He’d told us to expect that. It’s a popular place and there is very limited seating. You buy your meals and eat them elsewhere. We stood in the line and had a nice conversation with a couple of the folks around us. Then, in a surprisingly short time, we were inside. We ordered. I got the Prosciutto & Mozzarella sandwich. Word of warning. The full sized version of the sandwiches are huge. If you go, and you aren’t feeding an army, consider one of the smaller portions.
We took the sandwiches back to Vincent’s and ate. Then, it was time for us to consider ice cream.
Vincent took us to downtown Durham. He parked, but before consider anything else, we *had* to visit “Major The Bull.” This is an enormous bronze statue of, well, a bull in Durham’s Central Park. It’s rather impressive, really. Quite big (ten feet tall, I’m told) and quite handsome...or as handsome as bulls go. I’m not an expert judge in the matter.
Why “Major?” Because it was named after a local grandee, George Watts Hill (1901 – 1993), who was a banker, businessman, hospital administrator, and general good guy in the city’s history.(2) Other than his own personal success, he has two other claims to fame. First, he was heavily involved in efforts to desegregate the city. Second, and far less well known, he was a spook. That is, he early on realized that Hitler was a deadly threat to Western Civilization and helped organize the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the espionage and covert warfare office that bedeviled the Axis throughout the war.(3) It was in that way that he got the rank of “Major.”
So that’s why the Bull is named Major. “Okay,” you say, “but why a Bull at all?” “Well,” I respond, “because the symbol of the city is a bull.” To which you reply, “Yeah, but why is the city mascot a bull? Particularly as this isn’t beef country.” “Ah,” I say, “how clever of you. Very insightful. I do admire your intelligence.”
To which you say, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Stop stalling and answer the question.”
Okay, I say, with a sad sigh...you remember the last time I wrote about our trips to Durham I said that after the Civil War the city made its money by selling “Bright Leaf Tobacco,” which is dried with a blast of fire rather than being simply being left in the sun, or smoke cured, which were the usual practices of the day.(4)
Bright Left Tobacco, I’m told, produces a milder and sweeter smoke than does sun-dried tobacco. I wouldn’t know. I don’t smoke. And after watching a couple of people I knew die of lung cancer, I don’t think I’m going to be starting anytime soon. But, suffice to say that Bright Leaf was popular and several Durham-based entrepreneurs made small fortunes providing it.
One of these was a local tobacco merchant named John Green. Just after the Civil War, he was making good money selling Bright Leaf. (5) But he had the feeling he could make more if he invested time and energy into packaging, plus a logo...something to give a bit of image to his product. The story (true? false?) goes that he was having lunch with a friend at a local restaurant when he noticed a tin of mustard on the table. It was Colman’s Mustard, to be precise, and the can was bright yellow with the picture, in red, of a bull on it. And not just any bull. A bull of the breed known as...wait for it...Durham.(6)
History does not record whether, like Archimedes, he shouted Eureka! and dashed naked through the streets of Syracuse. But, for Mr. Green’s dignity, that’s probably a good thing.
In any case, Bull Durham was about to be born.
More to come.
Footnotes;
1. Ideal Sandwiches has a website here: https://idealsdeli.com/
2. His entry in Wikipedia is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Watts_Hill
3. See “A Tar Heel in Cloak: George Watts Hill, Interventionism, and the Shadow War Against Hitler,” by Rorin Platt, North Carolina History Project, https://northcarolinahistory.org/commentary/a-tar-heel-in-cloak-george-watts-hill-interventionism-and-the-shadow-war-against-hitler/
4. See “Bright Leaf Tobacco,” Anchor, A North Carolina History Resource, https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/bright-leaf-tobacco
5. The story goes that Mr. Green had a warehouse full of bright leaf tobacco. But it was looted by a band of Union soldiers. He thought he was bankrupted, but it turned out that the Union troops took their ill-gained tobacco back to the north, where it caught on. Soon he was besieged with orders for more. Thus his “disaster” turned out to be brilliant advertising.
6. Katie Saintsing, “How the Bull City Got Its Bull,” Our State, January 9, 2019, https://www.ourstate.com/how-the-bull-city-got-its-bull/
Copyright©2025 Michael Jay Tucker
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That was interesting
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco use is responsible for over 7 million deaths worldwide each year. This includes both active smokers and people exposed to secondhand smoke.
In the United States, smoking is the leading preventable cause of death, claiming over 480,000 lives annually. This number is expected to increase as the smoking rate remains high in certain populations.