24 | October 2020
fascinating fayetteville
Faces of Friendship
True Friends are Like Brothers
S
ometime this month, the eggs will be scrambled,
the cards will be shuffled and dealt, hooks will be
baited and cast over the side of the Topsail Island
Pier. It's a tradition between retired Seventy-First High
School principal Gerald Patterson, his brothers and other
family members. And right there in the middle of it all will
be Bernie Poole, who became an honorary member of the
family a long, long time ago.
Aer all, if Bernie Poole has said it once, he's said it 100 times.
"If I could go some place and pick a brother, I'd want it to
be you," he says of Patterson.
To which Patterson replies, "If I picked out a brother,
I'd pick one out like Bernie. If he called me today and said,
'Gerald, I need thus and such,' I feel like it would be done."
e two bonded long ago when Patterson was principal at
Anne Chesnutt Middle School and hired Poole as a teacher.
Like brothers: Gerald Patterson, le, enjoys a laugh with
longtime friend Bernie Poole
