You ought to get down here:ON EAST MARKET STREET….

When you look up and down on the East side you may not see it. You have to look real close and you may have to step inside a few of the businesses. There’s talent down here and where it all might end up some day is anybody’s guess!

What I’m talking about can be seen at the Sprinkle #1 where they do oil changes only these days. Tim Rich runs the show and he works outside in the 95 degree temperatures with the heat and humidity bearing down on him. The crazy thing is, here’s a man working like a greasemonkey(a Northeast Guilford grad at that) and he has a son who is one of the best hockey players in the state of North Carolina. TJ Rich is one the best and he has traveled all up and down the eastern seaboard and up into Canada and over to Detroit to play to hockey with some of the best players in the world.

This all coming from down on East Market Street and if you look close each day on East Market you’ll see a man driving a van with Atkins’ Heating and Air Conditioning on the side. Bobby Atkins is the owner and his son Mitch Atkins(another Northeast Guilford grad) is just one step away from the Chicago Cubs pitching staff as he works with the Triple-A Iowa Cubs. Here are the most recent stats on Atkins after his team’s 12-7 win over Las Vegas on July 29:
M. Atkins (W, 4-0) 5.0 IP, 4 HITS, 4 RUNS, 4 ER, 4 BB’s, 5 K’s, 1 HR, 4.50 ERA

And it’s all happening down on East Market.

There’s a kid at West Point from Grimsley HS and he was All-American as a freshman for the Black Knights of Army and he was also named the top freshman in the Patriot Conference. This kid is shortstop Clint Moore and Grimsley needs to bring this kid back to Whirlies’ house and have him speak to the other kids over on Westover Terrace and see if he can’t get a few of them to follow in his footsteps. His sister Megan is doing just that very thing. She will attend the West Point Preparatory Academy down in Alabama this fall and head on up to West Point in the fall of 2009. She is a very attractive young red-head with excellent people and communication skills and who knows, she might be a politician one day and her brother Clint might end with a professional baseball team.

Their father Kevan Moore, like his parents before him, Larry and Patsy Moore, have worked hard down on East Market Street at the Thrifty Market for many, many years. Their’s is a trusted and respected business in the community. West Point, All-Americans, politicians, and it’s all coming from down on East Market Street.

Rico Garner is man that I met way back in 1986 when he had his had automotive garage on High Point Road. I found a piece of paper blowing across the ground and down the street last Saturday morning and it was hailing the 2008 Bike Rally at the Piedmont Dragway and the rally was being promoted by Extreme MotorSports. Rico Garner now owns and runs Extreme MotorSports down on East Market Street. The Bike Rally promotional picture-card talked of 10,000 attendees in 2007 so I stopped in this week to ask Rico how the 2008 event turned out, it was held back about two weeks ago, again at the Piedmont Dragway. “We did over 10,000 fans at $20.00 a pop”, not too shabby for the guy down on East Market Street where you find the UPS man can hardly get into the lot because the streets are so crowded with cars waiting to be fixed. The people line up to have Rico work on their vehicles.

Again, it’s all going on down here, ON EAST MARKET STREET…

Our last stop would be at either the John’s Curb Market or the Food Rite Market and Deli where brothers Essa and Fareed Abuzuwaiter are a couple of Middle Easterners that have found a way to help put East Market Street on the map. Look at the sign still hanging up at John’s Curb Market and you will see Essa’s wife MariKay who finished fourth in the most recent City Council Race and missed a seat in the council’s chambers by one spot. Essa and MaryKay’s sons played football at Dudley and Page and later on at Greensboro College. Not too bad at all for those folks that are gettig the job done down on East Market Street.

Our final look today would be a glance at what came from the News and Record down on East Market Street back on Wednesday. They did a story on the upcoming Black World Series baseball tournament that started today down in Columbia, South Carolina. Unlike Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show when they were trying to get on the cover of the Rolling Stone Magazine back in the 70’s, Derrick Johnson the head baseball coach at Smith High School and one of the men taking a team down to SC this week, well DJ made it.

Derrick Johnson made it to the cover of the N&R sports section on Wednesday and he was also on the front page at www.news-record.com. When I spoke to DJ at the local Colt tournament last night at War Memorial Stadium, it was this was the biggest day of Johnson’s life. He made it to the cover of the N&R.

Ray Sawyer and Dr. Hook and the Medicne Show had their tune back in the 70’s about trying to get to the cover of the Rolling Stone Magazine with lines like, “We keep getting richer but we can’t get our picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone”. Another part of the song read, “It’s all designed to blow our minds, but our minds won’t ever be blown, like the blow that will get ya, when you get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone”. And the kicker line was, “We take all kind of pills that give us all kind of thrills, but the thrill we’ll never know, is the thrill that will get ya when you get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone”.

Well Derrick Johnson got his picture on the cover of the N&R’s web site and in the News and Record sports section all in the same day, and that’s the way it goes ON EAST MARKET STREET.