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Edward R. Murrow wouldn't want to "See It Now."

At least not the wretched way his southeast Guilford County birthplace looks.

In a baritone voice packed with passion, the CBS commentator virtually destroyed red-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy. During the early years of World War II, Murrow made live radio broadcasts from London as German bombs exploded.

His TV news shows, "See It Now" and the lighter, "Person to Person"; his radio essays, "This I Believe"; and his documentaries, including "Harvest of Shame," about migrant workers helped him earn Peabody awards and a salary of $200,000 to $300,000 a year in the 1950s.

More recently, George Clooney directed a movie about Murrow called, "Good Night, and Good Luck,'' for the broadcaster's nightly sign-off. Murrow died in 1965 at age 57.

"There ought to be something here to let you know Ed Murrow was born here,'' says Barry Miller, director of communications and external relations for UNCG Libraries. Miller was gingerly stepping onto 3 uninviting acres at N.C. 62 and Davis Mill Road.

Once part of a 750-acre farm owned by Joshua Murrow, the broadcaster's grandfather and a former state senator, the remaining land amounts to tick town and copperhead corner.

On April 25, 1908, Murrow was born there in a house now partially collapsed.

"My daddy rode a mule to Pleasant Garden to get the doctor to come deliver Edward R. Murrow,'' says Gertrude Murrow Sillmon of Greensboro, a cousin of Murrow's.

Her father, Joshua Edgar Murrow, was a teenager then. Until Joshua's death in the 1980s, he loved telling tales about his famous kin.

This October, UNCG will sponsor three events as part of "The Edward R. Murrow Centennial Celebration: Guilford County Remembers Its Native Son."

A new state highway historical marker about Murrow is almost certain to replace one stolen from in front of the homeplace in 1990. Mike Hill, who directs the highway marker program, says the new sign could go at N.C. 62 and old U.S. 220 or close to new U.S. 220 - for safety's sake and for increased visibility. Both are near the Murrow homeplace.

There's a possibility for more honors. A recently passed bond referendum calls for three new schools. Joe Stafford, a public-school advocate and southeast Guilford resident, has long sought to have a school named for Murrow. Stafford says he hopes this renewed interest in Murrow will help his cause. Adding to his chances is that the fact that the school board has ended its policy of naming rural schools for directions.

School board Chairman Alan Duncan says a Murrow school would depend greatly on public response. He's not saying he's for it or against it, but he adds, "If you want to name a school for a person, Edward R. Murrow is certainly deserving."

There's even talk of making the site, cleaned up of course, into a park honoring Murrow, if money should become available.

"Oh, I think that would be a wonderful idea,'' says Gertrude Sillmon, whose only conversation with Ed Murrow was late in his life when her husband was a medical student in Chapel Hill. Murrow called to ask about UNC-Chapel Hill. She thinks he was considering sending his only child, son Casey, there. (Casey went elsewhere.)

"He said, "This is Edward R. Murrow,'" Sillmon recalls, "and I remember saying to myself, "Right, and I'm Lucille Ball."

The Murrow birth site borders the amusingly named Polecat Creek. Nearby, there is a beautiful rock dam that Gertrude Sillmon believes was built by her father and Ed's dad, Roscoe. Also nearby is another creek retreat, The Big Rock, where Ed Murrow and other rural children swam.

Miller says the Murrow centennial will attempt to inform and to remind the public that "someone of this stature was born in Guilford County."

Another goal, Miller says, will be to encourage the community to consider "the nature of the press in the current era by examining how this pioneer in broadcasting communications dealt with conflict and issues of his time."

Miller speculates that Murrow's Quaker heritage in the Centre Friends Church community (the meeting house is next to the birthplace) influenced his moral convictions. Murrow himself once said, "The Carolinas still have an emotional and sentimental pull."

Murrow, his two brothers and his parents, Roscoe and Ethel Murrow, moved to Washington state when Ed was 5 or 6.

Murrow returned occasionally to visit relatives, including his aunt and uncle, Hazel and Edgar Murrow, who lived in the house where Murrow was born.

He always smoked a cigarette, even while on the air, and wherever he went, the tall, dignified Murrow wore Savile Row suits made in London. Even his green correspondent's uniforms were from Savile Row.

His wife Janet Murrow, who met Ed on a train that he boarded in Greensboro, donated one of his uniforms to the Greensboro Historical Museum. She also gave the museum one of Murrow's Peabody Awards, the broadcasting equivalent of the Pulitzer in the print media.

UNCG is a fitting location for the centennial celebration. Murrow spoke there as a young man after he graduated from Washington State College and served as president of the National Student Federation of America. Another speech, in Aycock Auditorium, was made in 1942 when he was already famous for his war broadcasts from London and Europe.

Murrow assembled for CBS a talented corps of correspondents, including fellow North Carolinian Charles Kuralt, who once said: "Wherever men cherish freedom and dignity, Ed Murrow's spirit will stand."

Murrow's birthplace fell into ruins after his uncle died and his aunt, Hazel, moved to Friends Homes. She sold the land to a relative in High Point, and it became littered with abandoned vehicles and debris. After a fire nearly destroyed the house, the property became vacant.

The late Greensboro attorney Neil Daniels, a Murrow admirer, visited the site in 1990.

"It was a very depressing and distressing to see it," Daniels said afterward. "It looked like an 18-wheel tractor-trailer salvage lot. There were seven or eight tractors on it and several old cars."

Today, vines, wild trees and undergrowth obliterate the landscape. Barely visible are the remains of the house with its brick chimney. Out buildings are visible, including what may have been Joshua Murrow's loom and blacksmith shops.

Another Ed Murrow cousin, Mary Murrow Hamilton, who lives behind the old homeplace, once visited him in his New York City home.

"I call him Egbert, that's his real name,'' she says. "He was very nice."

She and her sister, Gertrude Sillmon, are powerless to restore the tract. It belongs to Murrow relatives in High Point, who are unable to agree on what to do with the land next to Polecat Creek.

Don't think Ed Murrow was embarrassed to be reminded he was born beside a creek branded with polite name for a skunk.

Kuralt once said, "He loved to refer to his upbringing on Polecat Creek."

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net