CityView Magazine

12 | October/November • 2009 Publisher's Note M y brother Eddie and I have vivid memories of 1954. Three major events changed our young lives that year: our grandfather died, Hurricane Hazel hit the North Carolina coast, and we lost Galumph. Galumph was a Fayetteville legend. Somewhere between a Saint Bernard and a sheep dog, he was the smartest and wiliest dog most people had ever met. He was also one of the biggest. His paws were so huge and his penchant for jumping fences so well-known, Mother named him Galumph. The word found its way into our literary world via one of Mother's famous crossword puzzles. Writer Lewis Carroll used it to describe the way elephants "galumphed" along. The name stuck. Back then, my parents lived on Hay Street where Freedom Memorial Park is located now, and most everyone downtown knew Galumph. He hung around Ned Grady's and June Williams' gas stations and knew all the customers. He was best friends with the taxi cab drivers who made bets with newcomers about the time it would take Galumph to climb the fences behind the gas stations. What the newbies didn't know was that Galumph could climb out on the first try. There are not many people today who still remember Galumph except Maness Adcox, a retired business executive in Fayetteville. Maness is in his late 80s now, and whenever I see him he will mention Galumph to me, even after all these years. THE GREAT GALUMPH Galumph could con people into thinking he was hurt when he was perfectly fine. The tenderhearted gave him exactly what he wanted: food, usually. Galumph could certainly take care of himself – he even waited at street crossings for the light to change. No one ever saw a dog waiting for a street light, except Galumph. Mother told us boys a funny story about Galumph, years after he was gone. There was a certain wealthy family in town with a purebred female dog. But the family did not want to breed her the first time she came into heat so they put her behind a 12-foot fence at their cotton plant. When the family returned home from a trip out of town, there was Galumph camped out with their precious dog. The 12-foot high fence could not deter him. Even a family move from Hay Street to Pilot Avenue in Haymout did not stop Galumph's trips downtown to visit his friends. The taxi cab drivers simply brought him home perched in the back seat just like a customer. The drivers would say he was just like a person. To us, he truly was a member of the family. And that's what this issue is all about: family and pets. They seem to go together. For me, they are wrapped up in a treasure of memories growing up in Fayetteville. CV Marshall Waren, Publisher

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