The Name, The Picture

The Persimmon and Union County have a long and storied mutual history. I would like to hear some of that history from those of you who have persimmon stories. The persimmon tree grows wild here and its fruit is very bitter until it is completely ripe. I have one in my back yard, a volunteer, and it has a good crop of persimmons every year.
Some people would say, back long ago, that you always knew when you had reached Union County because there was a persimmon tree in every yard. That was not far from the truth.
The picture is my two oldest sons and the son of a fellow teacher and neighbor on Wilson Drive in Dallas, North Carolina. The picture was taken by a student, Mike Snider, who took pictures for the Gaston Gazette as a high school senior. Sooner or later, I will write Mike's story because it is very interesting.
I received the picture through the mail a few years back from an old friend who had kept it all these years. It ran on the front page of the Gaston Gazette about 1976. I unfortunately have not heard from Mike in many years. He was a very special young man.