From Winston-Salem Journal
Everyone knew him as “Babe.”
And every day in his wheelchair, Babe, or Vernon Tyrone Thompson, independently went from his apartment complex on Chestnut Plains Court in northeastern Winston-Salem to the AZ Patterson Grocery store about a block away to talk with friends and score a cigarette.
“Everything was good about him,” said Hassan El Manadely, the store manager. “He was friendly to everybody.”
Saturday 9:25 p.m., Thompson died near the corner of 14th Street and Patterson Avenue, hit head-on by a car while heading home on 14th Street in his wheelchair from the grocery store, relatives said. There is no sidewalk on the short stretch of road that Thompson used daily.  He was 57. The driver, James E. Williams, didn’t stop, city police ….MORE