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Roy Rudd on N. Lumina
in the 1950s.
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
I
t was a tumultuous era, to
say the least, which got its
start on the morning of
October 15, 1954, when
Hurricane Hazel made US landfall
about midway between Myrtle
Beach and Wilmington. Its path of
destruction would eventually end
in Toronto and lend Hazel the distinction
of being North Carolina’s
benchmark hurricane, against
which all future storms would be
measured.
In 1955, Burlington native Roy
Rudd, a clothing salesman for The
Friendly Tailors and Young Men’s
Shop in downtown Wilmington,
transformed a laundromat at 22
North Lumina Street into a bar and
restaurant called “The Spot.” By all
accounts, it was a tiny place, with its
bar up front and the small restaurant
facility toward the back, serving (among
other things) what became known as legendary
Pepper Burgers.
“Roy Rudd was the straw that stirred
that milkshake,” says current Wilmington city
councilman Charlie Rivenbark. “I worked at The
Spot, and Roy was just the funniest guy in the world.
He’d speak in initials all the time, and he could spit them
out fast, too. In fact, when you put this together and want to think
of a headline for it, make sure whatever it is, you put BYKT in there
at the end. Everybody who remembers that place will know what it
means.”
It means “But You Knew That,” and would get tagged in at the
end of any news Roy Rudd (or anyone else) felt compelled to impart
to the patrons of the establishment or visitors to the beach. “I see old
so-and-so’s got a new girlfriend,” they’d say, “BYKT.”
Or they’d park themselves down on a stool and let everyone
know that they were BITSA — back in the saddle again. Instead
of whistling at a pretty new girl in the place, they’d turn to each
other and say “NAY NAT” — a rather imprecise means of transmitting
the information that “none ain’t as nice as that.” All of
this, of course, was decades ahead of the now familiar texting
language, which has given us LOL (laugh out loud) and BFF (best
friends forever).