State

When Mr. Brown’s Around Something’s Happening Fish bite, hurricanes come, bathing beau¬ ties pass, and strange lights glow for the typewriter anil camera of the coast's best- known press agent. Bi # CHESTER DAVIS In 1927 Charles Brantley Aycock Brown went to work on the Durham Herald as a proofreader. Aycock. who spells by car and with a tin car at that, went from proofreader to cub reporter in one night. Duke University held its first com¬ mencement in 1927 and the Herald sent its police reporter to the campus to cover the academic event. The po¬ lice reporter turned in one story that night. Aycock, who had filled in on the police beat, turned in 32 separate reports on what since has been de¬ scribed as "Brown's one-night crime wave." In a way that anecdote slips a pin in two of the characteristics which make Aycock Brown the rather strange and really wonderful person that he is. He is a jack of all trades, journa¬ listic and otherwise, and wherever he goes a story is sure to follow. Ncwspapering. they say. is a career that will broaden a man. In Avcock's case you suspect that "flatten" is a more likely word. Over the past 30 years he has worked as a printer’s devil ( Orange County News), proofreader and reporter, col¬ umnist (“Covering the Waterfront"), editor (Beaufort News) and publisher of the Ocracoke Beacon. In that same period Aycock has ( 1 ) sought journalistic work in many places and (2) ended doing many things; Charlotte (house to house ped¬ dling of telephone gadgets), Wilming¬ ton (working on a Cape Fear dredge). New York (magazine subscriptions), Florida (chauffeuring) and West Vir¬ ginia (pick and shovel man on a con¬ struction gang). In view of that vocational history you certainly are entitled to a suspi¬ cion that Aycock Brown must be poor¬ ly equipped as a journalist. It is true that Aycock is not a sen¬ sational literary light. He is a man Agile of foot as he Is of tongue, Aycock Brown seeks any old perch to get an unusual angle for his photo¬ graphs. — (Photo by Bugs Barringer). of unbelievable enthusiasm. In his conversation, that enthusiasm heats his thinking to a point where words steam out of his mouth with a hiss and a sizzle. In writing, Aycock has a ten¬ dency to fire words so fast that they climb up on one another’s back and ride piggy-back. During the early part of his career, therefore, newspaper editors, with their warped blue-pencil minds, were in¬ clined to judge Aycock Brown solely by his copy. This was a monumental mistake, as may be judged from the fact that Mr. Brown’s rocky copy now regularly finds its way into type, where¬ as. some mighty fine prose carpets the untidy floors of many a newsroom. But it did frustrate Aycock. and for many years he could hardly decide whether he wanted to be known as the Horace Greeley of the coast or the high-riding hellion of Hatteras. the hail fellow for every moist visitor to the coast. The truth of the matter is that Ay¬ cock literally was driven into press agentry. He worked with incredible zeal to sell Al Smith to North Caro¬ lina voters. His belief in his client caused him to bet his poke that Can¬ didate Smith would carry North Caro¬ lina. That done. Aycock naturally was delighted to accept Captain Bill Gas- kill's invitation to come to Ocracoke for a two-week vacation. In turn. Aycock was to write seductive copy about Ocracoke and Captain Gas- kill’s Pamlico Inn. Aycock stayed on Ocracoke for six long, lean years. While he was there he wrote of Ocracoke — the people, the sand, the sky, the water, the fish and the fishermen who caught them — until there were editors who on open¬ ing their daily mail, got the impression that North Carolina’s hottesl news spot was located 30 miles due cast of the mainland. During World War II Aycock be¬ came a civilian agent for the United States Navy and he bombarded his superiors with miles of copy reporting talcs of German submarines, strange 16 THE STATE. September 6. 1952