Month: September 2017

Silver Pride

Airstreams have gone mainstream

 

By Tom Bryant

Joel Kilby is exactly the All-American, clean-cut individual I would expect to be managing the Out-of-Doors-Mart, just off Interstate 40 in Colfax, a mile or so from the Piedmont Triad International Airport. His is one of the oldest Airstream dealers in the country. I was in his office on a whim recently, talking to him about his operation and Airstream travel trailers in general.

“Our business is actually one of the leading RV dealerships on the East Coast and, as a matter of fact, we’ve been selling and servicing Airstreams longer than any dealership in the world.”

That got my attention. We were in Joel’s office, and like any busy executive in the country today, his phone was ringing and computers were beeping. It seemed that a lot of business was going on that required his time.

“In the world?” I questioned.

“Yep, Airstreams have become popular all over the world — Japan, France, all of Europe. It seems that everybody wants to own what has become an icon in the travel trailer industry.”

The Out-of-Doors-Mart is truly a family affair. Grady Kilby, Joel’s father, who turns 86 in November, started working with the existing company in 1962. Later, he and a partner bought the operation and brought it to where it is today.

Joel said, “Dad comes in three or four times a week. He’s what I call my watchdog.”

“When did you get started with the company?” I asked.

“I was just a youngster and would work after school and weekends washing trailers and cleaning up. Anything my dad would let me do. I graduated from UNC Wilmington in ’92 and came to work full time after that.”

Joel and his wife, Alyson, have two daughters, who are now in college. “The business is really a family affair. Speaking of that, you’re going to have to talk to Ben, our parts guy. He’s almost family.”

At that point, we took a break so Joel could send off an email, and I walked over to see Ben Goslen, the parts manager. He has been with the company for 33 years and is a fixture in the business. He has the “aw shucks” personality of the actor Jimmy Stewart, and I could tell he was proud of the part he has played in the company’s success.

“We have one of the best and most fully stocked Airstream parts departments in the country. If we don’t have it, we can get it in a day or two.” I told him it was a pleasure seeing someone who really liked his job.

“After 33 years, I’d better,” he replied, laughing.

I went back over to Joel’s office to finish our conversation before getting a photo of the three: Joel, Grady and Ben. “You’ve got quite a number of Airstreams on the lot,” I said as I pulled up a chair in front of his desk.

“That has become something of a problem,” he replied. “Not our Airstreams, but getting more. They’re producing them in Ohio as fast as they can and can’t make enough because the demand is so strong. When the big recession hit back in ’07, Airstream had only 189 employees. Today, there are over 800 workers at the plant in Jackson Center (Ohio), working as hard as they can. Something else has changed since you bought your little Bambi. The demographics of Airstream buyers have turned around dramatically. Once it was mostly older, retired folks or people trading up who would buy a unit, but now over 50 percent of our customers are first time buyers and are relatively young.”

I’ve been an Airstream fan for many years, having been first introduced to the travel trailer in the 1950s, when my grandfather bought a small one to use as a base camp when he fished in Florida. He parked it on land he owned on the St. Johns River, and he and my grandmother lived in it during the colder months. When the winters, even that far south in Florida, got too frosty for him, he pulled up stakes and towed the Airstream farther south to Everglades City. Again, it was home for him as he fished Chokoloskee Bay and the Ten Thousand Islands.

Later, Granddad bought a big 32-foot Airstream and parked it semi-permanently on his land on the St. Johns. He added a front screen porch and outbuildings with storage for boats and fishing gear. All of this was good for early in the winter months, but he still had the little Airstream to use in the Everglades when it turned colder.

Those early days when I would camp with him on his fishing expeditions reinforced my desire to someday own an Airstream; and the year I retired from my day job, Linda and I drove up to the Out-of-Doors-Mart, looked at a spanking brand new Bambi and bought it.

The folks at the shop did everything to get us hooked up and rolling. I dealt with Jason, a super salesman and, of course, the ever-present Grady overlooked the sale. It was a pleasurable experience. Our first major trip in the Bambi was from Southern Pines to Alaska. It took us two months up and down the Alaska Highway, and we drove over 11,000 miles with only one punctured tire on our towing vehicle. The trip was a real testament to the reliability of the Airstream.

Joel and I rounded up Grady and Ben for a photo outside the building in front of a new Airstream for sale.

Grady, always the salesman, said, “I remember you. Aren’t you that newspaper guy from Southport?”

“No, Grady. I’m from Southern Pines.” I replied.

“Oh yeah, I remember, got the little Bambi. You ready for a new one?”

“It would be like getting rid of one of the family,” I said.

We went out to the front of the building, where I made my photo, said goodbye, then walked past a big new Airstream on my way to the car, where Linda, my bride, was waiting.

“You know,” I said to her as I fired up the Cruiser, ready to leave. “That big new one sitting right there would look great in our backyard.”

“Only if we can keep the Bambi,” she replied, smiling.  PS

Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist.

Fast and Furious

In spite of its name, the nimble American redstart usually appears as a flash of orange

 

By Susan Campbell

What’s in a name? For one, misleading descriptors, especially where bird names are concerned. Take, for instance, the American redstart. Although it is indeed found in the Americas, it is hardly red. Nor is it related to redstarts found in other places across the globe. The adult male is mostly black with splashes of orange on its breast, wings and tail. Females and young birds have corresponding yellow patches but are a more muted olive and gray. Both males and females blend in well against the foliage of the hardwoods they frequent in spite of their striking plumage, it can be quite tricky to spot the males. Their rapid movement, as they flit to and fro after insects, certainly adds to the challenge.

American redstarts have an unusual strategy for finding food. These tiny insectivores display what appears to be nervous fanning of their tail and wings. But the flash of color is apparently an effective means of startling prey, which they will then swiftly lunge at and consume with incredible speed and precision.

Redstarts are common migrants through the Piedmont and Sandhills of our state. The rare redstart that breeds in North Carolina can be found as early as the first week of August. Migrants on their long way to Central America will still be trickling through in late October. 

You can spot them clustering in small groups or mixed with migrant vireos, tanagers or other species of warblers. As with so many of our songbirds that winter in the tropics, these birds follow the southern coast of the United States down into Mexico in the fall. However, come spring, they head out and cross the Gulf of Mexico on their journey back north. They need to almost double their weight to survive the trip. Twelve or more hours of nonstop flying over open water is certainly a grueling test. Although they may alight briefly on ships or oil rigs along the way, it is a long haul.

Interestingly, some American redstarts breed as far south as in the bottomlands of the Sandhills. But they are more likely to be found in open woodlands north of the clay line. In the United States, they prefer larger wooded tracts, which are increasingly harder to find. So it is no surprise that the bulk of pairs nest well to the north nowadays, across much of Canada. Another noteworthy detail: Some males of this species are polygamous, which means a lot of extra work since they may fly as much as a quarter mile between families during spring and early summer.

This species is one of a handful in which males do not attain adult plumage until the end of their second summer. Although they do sing prolifically their first spring, it is unlikely they will succeed at attracting a mate until they acquire the distinctive black and orange feathers of maturity.

So should you hear a high, squeaky chip note or catch sight of a tiny flash of color high in the trees this fall, take a closer look. It just might be an American redstart.   PS

Susan would love to receive your wildlife observations and photographs at susan@ncaves.com.

Paper Tiger

A most uncommon household appliance

 

By Renee Phile

I hadn’t seen her for a few days, which was weird, since she has been a constant in my life ever since my (now) ex-husband surprised me with her for my birthday 10 or so years ago. Yes, I know that this type of gift may be more functional than fun, but it (she) worked for me. Sometimes, she and I would visit multiple locations in a single day. I confess, there were other times I neglected her, but never for long now that the black hairs from my 65-pound Rottweiler form clumps in the corners of every room in the house.

On this particular day, though, I could hear her, which was strange.  She was gurgling from my 8-year-old Kevin’s room.

“Bev! Where are you?”

“Life sucks, Renee.” She seemed despondent.

“Bev, that doesn’t sound like you. Besides, life is supposed to suck. That’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

“You don’t need me.”

“What the hell, Bev? I always need you! Didn’t I empty you out three times last Saturday? All that dog hair. And remember those Legos?” We both grimaced.

“You used to use me every day.”

“I still use you a lot and you know it. The boys aren’t as messy as they used to be, and Bailey isn’t shedding as much since the weather is cooling off. Plus I’m taking her to get those de-shedding baths, remember?”

“I just don’t feel well, Renee. Not at all. I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

“I’m sorry, Bev. I do need you, though, and you know it. You’ve always been there for me.” I searched for the right thing to say. “I thought you would appreciate a break here and there.”

“You shoved me in Kevin’s room last week and left me there.”

“I didn’t mean anything by that. I have just been a little lax these days. I will work on that. Promise.” It’s not you, it’s me.

We talked about her and me over the years. Us. She’s been my right hand girl at five different houses in the past 10 years. While others her age have passed on, she hasn’t stopped moving. She’s so strong and I had taken her for granted. I thought she was feeling better, when she coughed another gurgled cough.

“Bev, you don’t sound good. What the . . . ”

“Help me, Renee!”

I mashed down her “off” button but it wouldn’t work. I unplugged her. She groaned and nearly passed out.

I opened her up as I had done thousands of times over the years, and other than some dirt and dog hair, the usuals, I saw nothing that would be causing her such distress.

“Further down.” Her voice was weak, almost a whisper.

“Hold on, Bev, hold on.”

I reached down into her and my hand skimmed over a crumpled paper. I pulled gently, and the paper ripped, but I pulled it out in three parts.  I pieced together some of the words. “Welcome to the third grade. I am glad to be teaching your child this year . . . ”

“Oh great, so here is where that paper went. He needed it signed yesterday and we couldn’t find it.”  It was nearly unrecognizable.

“There’s more,” she coughed.

I moved my hand around some more and felt something else.

“Stay still. I’ve almost got it.”

I pulled out one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup wrappers. A record.

“How did these get in here?”

“The younger one . . . he . . . did this.”

“Kevin? When was this?”

“Yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think I would feel this bad, Renee. And I didn’t want him to get in trouble. He’s kind of cute.”

“Well, you just ate seven Reese’s cup wrappers and a ‘welcome back to school’ form, Bev. That’s not good for anyone.” I pulled something else out of her. Another wrapper.

“Make that eight.”  PS

Renee Phile loves being a mom, even if it doesn’t show at certain moments.

Walking the Line

Cafeterias evoke mixed feelings

 

By Deborah Salomon

I was standing in line at Aldi when the man behind me held out a box of frozen White Castle burgers and said, “I can’t believe that these taste the same as when I was growing up on Long Island.”

How did he figure I’d know what he was talking about?

My instant response: “My mother wouldn’t let me eat hamburgers out. But do you remember Chock Full o’Nuts (luncheonette chain) frankfurters with the fancy mustard?” Those she allowed, probably because they weren’t called hot dogs.

After writing about food for 30-plus years I can attest to its deep, sometimes bittersweet impression on our psyches. Mine go beyond New York bagels and Carolina biscuits. The location holds sway: cafeterias, especially the S&W in Asheville, and many Horn & Hardart Automats in Manhattan. I’ve seen grown men cry at the mention. 

Besides, cafeterias taught people-watching, a skill that has served me well.

In the line of duty I have eaten at four-star restaurants in the U.S. and abroad. What, I don’t remember. But if I could resurrect anything it would be baked beans, liverwurst on rye, scallops, Harvard beets, chicken a la king and huckleberry pie from the Automat, especially the one across from Radio City Music Hall, the one with the hot chestnuts vendor outside the glass front.

Second best, S&W of the 1950s, a bastion of Southern manners and cuisine. The Asheville location, famous for Art Deco architecture, eventually made the National Register of Historic Places. I knew it well, since my mother shirked cooking. She’d use any excuse to hit the S&W — also because she loved pie, especially pecan, but never baked and couldn’t bring herself to buy a whole one. However, with it right there, flanked by lemon meringue and apple . . .

At breakfast, John Grisham attorneys and wheeler-dealers let busboys carry their trays upstairs to “reserved” balcony tables, soon engulfed in Lucky Strike smoke. They tipped 50 cents instead of the customary quarter. Smiling women traybearers —  “Hi honey, how’re you doin’ today?” — wore starched yellow uniforms with hankies fanned out like flowers growing from their pockets.

I shudder, then blush to recall that these polite, cheerful employees were the only African-Americans visible.

Round family tables filled fast on “maids’ night out” Wednesdays.

The best part was seeing the food arranged on steam tables, under bright lights, which made it glisten. What you saw was what you got. Customers slid trays along a shelf made from chrome pipes. Cutlery came wrapped in cloth napkins. First the salads (mostly tossed and gelled), then the meats, the vegetables, desserts, cornbread, biscuits and tea over crushed ice. Breaded fish and Salisbury steak never tasted so good. Creamy mashed potatoes, fluffy rice, stewed tomatoes and okra, shiny beans, fried chicken, carved roast beef (for special occasions), limp greens preceded achingly sweet caramel layer cake.

True, you had to stand in line, so little old ladies wearing flowered cotton dresses and sometimes hats arrived “before the rush.”  Nobody wanted to sit at tables along the line where standees stared down hungrily.

Then, everything changed: fast food, pizza, all-you-can-eat buffets, “family restaurant” chains. The Asheville S&W closed in 1974 to reopen as an uppity steak house, which faded fast. Other locations operated until the mid-1990s.

I’ve tried J&S in Asheville, K&W in Chapel Hill. The fish is tasty, the cornbread hot and authentic, the desserts tempting. But there’s a microwave to warm things up and hot sauce in the condiments rack. Old folks still arrive early, “to avoid the rush.” Most succumb to dessert. The modus may be intact but, sad to say, the esprit is gone.

When Mellow Mushroom closed on U.S. 15-501 I imagined a K&W —  great idea given the demographics. On second thought, probably not. Some institutions cannot be resurrected. Better they survive only as aromatic memories.

I still appreciate a sum-of-its-parts cafeteria meal. Nothing fancy, just plain Southern food typical of an era when restaurants advertised “home cookin’” because home cooking was the gold standard. When folks ate dinner at noon. When country-fried steak meant smothered in cream gravy and nobody ate kale raw. When every table had an ashtray and desserts weren’t shared.

When cholesterol was for spelling bees and doctors advertised Camels. Gone forever. But once in a while, I sure could use a sliver of pecan pie.  PS

Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

Strawberry Fields October

Getting a jump on your shortcake

By Jan Leitschuh

Strawberries? Now? The first fruit to ripen . . . in spring?

Yes, even though our seasonal taste buds are turning toward crisp fall apples, your local farmers are busy planting strawberries right now through mid-October.  Come next April, they will be enjoying the fabulous, juicy, shortcake-making sweetness of the tender Sandhills strawberry —  hardly a cousin to those sturdy but bland California strawberries, bred for shipping great distances rather than for taste.

Of course, come spring you can buy their berries at local farm stands, markets and co-op boxes, and I hope you do — who ever gets enough strawberries in spring?

But you, passionate kitchen gardener, lover of the soil and connoisseur of the freshest homegrown tastes, can do the same as your local farmers. The strawberry is one of the easiest fruits to grow. And like your fellow producers, now is the best time to put a patch in your garden.

In September, your local strawberry growers prepped their soil, throwing up raised rows that were then covered with plastic. The strawberry plugs they buy get planted in holes punched through the plastic at regular intervals. This keeps the weeds down and makes for a very clean bed for You-Pick operations. 

“We’ll go until about mid-October with the planting,” says Steve McNeill, a Lemon Springs farmer who not only plants several acres of strawberries for fresh production but runs a strawberry nursery. He is one of four N.C. farmers growing “tips,” or runners rooted in plug trays for sale to other large-scale producers.  After planting, the plastic-covered rows are then watered and fertilized — “fertigated” in the lexicon — through special drip tape under the plastic.

But the home gardener, with no need to bet the farm on a crop, can pull this off much more simply. Commercial growers tear out their strawberry beds each year and plant anew each fall to prevent disease. “One disease can mess you up for the season,” says McNeil, ruefully.  “For the farmer, it’s a high-risk crop.”

Home gardeners need not tear out their beds until year three or four, nor do they need plastic and drip tape. You can consider your original berry plant purchase an investment in the future. You can let them run.

The kitchen gardener, pursuing ease of culture and ambrosial taste, may do better going with a “matted row” system. That is where the original plants go right into the garden bed (no plastic) and are allowed to “set” the “runners” the mother plants make after their first spring. These runners will form new strawberry crowns for the following year. Along with the original plants, these new free plants continue to increase your harvests. Indeed, 25 original plants, allowed to run and fill out, can produce up to 25 quarts of ripe, juicy berries for the happy gardener, and do it for a couple of years. At supermarket prices, that’s a good payback on your investment.

You can buy your plants online, shipped as bare-root plants, or perhaps luck into a farmer with some extra plugs. Friends often trade extra plants, but that can spread disease if the patch is infected. Home gardeners also want June bearers — save the ever-bearing varieties for Northern gardens.

While local farmers are planting varieties like Chandler, Camarosa and Sweet Charlie, specially adapted for plasticulture, home gardeners aiming for a matted row might try Atlas, Earliglow, Titan, Tribute, Apollo and Earlibelle. The early-bearing Sweet Charlie would also work in a matted row.

Have a sunny, weed-free area of the garden, accessible to the hose? A raised bed? That’s your potential patch. Strawberries love a sandy loam with a good amount of organic matter. A strawberry plant loves good drainage, and that is what the Sandhills possess in spades. New plants are happiest when evenly moist — not too soggy, but not extended dry periods that let these shallow-rooted plants wither. 

Till in some well-rotted manure, near-composted straw, old sawdust or decaying, chopped leaves to improve the organic part of your sand. Mix in a little slow-release organic fertilizer or 10-10-10 to help your young plants get a jump start, and of course, adjust pH according to your soil test — you did test, didn’t you? (Soil test kits are available from the N.C. Cooperative Extension in Carthage.) Chances are, you need a little lime, so toss some in when tilling. A 5.8 to 6.2 pH is ideal for peak production.

One farmer I know waters his plants with a little well-diluted epsom salts from time to time. Apparently, the magnesium therein makes for the sweetest-tasting berries. You could also include Sul-Po-Mag in your prep and tillage for not only magnesium but also essential potassium and sulfur.  

When your plugs or bare root plants come, give them a good soaking so they are well-equipped for the rigors of transplanting. If they are moldy, take pictures and call the company at once for replacements.

Cut a stick about 18 inches to use as a marker for spacing. Plant the crowns at the soil line, no deeper. The crown is the place where the top and the roots come together, and you don’t want to bury it.  Water in well, and then keep the soil evenly moist but not soggy.

You’ll see your new plants leaf out nicely and grow. Then, wham, a cold snap will seem to kill them off. Never fear, your plants may look dead, but they are just near-dormant, slowing down on top while continuing to strengthen underground. Keep them well-watered during dry spells.

I like to drift some chopped leaves lightly over my beds after the first frosts have knocked back growth. Crape myrtle and maple leaves are my favorites. I don’t know if it helps in the winter, but it does offer a little weed-suppressing mulch and adds to the soil’s organic matter. Don’t smother them, just a light drift.

Come spring, flowers can pop as early as February here if the weather is unseasonably warm. Last winter, farmers were picking a few strawberries in a warm December /January. It is probably best to pick off the earliest blossoms. This saves the young plant’s energy, and the earliest berries, if they survive the cold, are not the best. 

In mid-April to early May, depending on what variety you chose, your efforts should, literally, bear fruit.  Don’t fertilize while they are fruiting. Too much nitrogen will make soft, mushy berries and too much leaf growth at the expense of a crop. 

You may want to keep picking off blossoms to further boost the future crop, letting the energy go toward strengthening the original plant and letting it put out runners, a drain on a plant’s resources. After all, this first year you’re establishing a multi-year planting, unlike our farmers. But if you’re like me, you’ll eventually let some first-year berries come to fruition, because, well . . . strawberries.

Birds may peck a few, but at our house deer are the worst. Same goes for producer McNeill: “Deer are a problem. They will eat the plant in the winter.” He uses an electric fence to deter Bambi’s strawberry depredations.

About June, your original plants will start sending out runners to make daughter plants. Feel free to engineer these, directing the daughter to likely bare spots in your bed. Continue the even moisture throughout the summer, and you will be rewarded with an even better second harvest the following spring. Stress times will be the hot, dry July/August time periods, so a little attention to watering them can increase your flower buds, and thus fruit, for next spring.

Your matted row can grow into a third year, but you may want to renovate it, removing plants to about a 6-inch spacing. Some folks till all but a 12-18 inch strip in the middle, letting the bed fill out again. Others mow the bed, setting the blades high at 4 inches. Fertilize at this point, brush the fertilizer off the leaves with a broom, and then water deeply.

Keep your bed going as long as you can, three years, four years. Weed control will probably be the deciding factor. When you notice your patch losing vigor, it’s time to tear it up and start a new one in another area of the garden. 

Besides being delicious, strawberries are among the healthiest of fruits. Ten berries offer 130 percent of your daily vitamin C requirement. A whole cup of berries contains only 55 calories. In addition to their abundant vitamin C, strawberries also offer thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, folate, vitamin B12, vitamin A and vitamin E.

So, enjoy your cinnamon-spiced apple pies, your ginger-apple-butternut soups. Just spare a thought for the spring right now to cultivate your very own strawberry field — if not forever, at least for a few years.  PS

Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and co-founder of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative.

Zombie

Quick history on a walking dead classic

By Tony Cross

In my selfish quest to explore the myriad rums out there — drink the myriad rums out there — I’ve actually figured out a way to tie it into October with a brief history lesson on the Zombie cocktail and its original 1934 recipe. There have been many different specs for this drink, and many bartenders (myself included) have built and served it incorrectly. That’s all changed now, thanks to one man, and his never-ending search for the earliest recipe.

I first read about Jeff “Beachbum” Berry years ago when my newfound love for rum began. His recipes were in Imbibe magazine, and I’d seen his name pop up in references from other bartenders across the U.S. Berry graduated from UCLA film school but, after minimal success, found himself committing full time to bartending and uncovering lost recipes from the early to mid-1900s. He’s opened a bar, Latitude 29 in New Orleans, and written a handful of books with extensive coverage on beach drinks. And if that’s not enough to make you break out in a hula, he recently developed an app for your phone, Total Tiki, that makes cocktailing easier, especially when you’re on the fly.

Berry’s search for the authentic, original Zombie recipe began with the man responsible for its creation, Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt, otherwise known as Donn Beach. In 1934, Beach opened up Don the Beachcomber’s in Hollywood. The tiki craze began. All of Beach’s creations were the real deal: fresh juices, intricate syrups, and different rums. Fifty-plus years later, Berry was having quite the time hunting down the Zombie ingredients. Apparently, Beach kept his creations a close secret, and it seemed next to impossible for Berry to unearth the original specs.

Beachbumberry.com recalls:

“In 1994 the Beachbum began a quest to track down Donn’s original Zombie recipe. Ten years and several blind alleys later, he was still none the wiser. But then the gods finally took pity on him. In 2005 their messenger, in the form of Jennifer Santiago, appeared with the drink recipe notebook that her father, Dick, had kept in a shirt pocket during his 15 years at Don The Beachcomber’s. Several of the notebook’s recipes had been reworked, renamed, or cut altogether from the Beachcomber’s menu by 1940 — proving that Dick’s notebook dated from the 1930s, possibly 1937, the year he was hired. Which meant that the notebook’s Zombie could very well be the original 1934 version.

“O cruel Fate! But there, on the last page of the notebook, scribbled in Dick’s own hand, was a recipe for New Don’s Mix: two parts grapefruit juice to one part . . . Spices #4″? Another code name!

“Bowed but not broken, the Bum asked Mike Buhen of the venerable Tiki-Ti bar if he’d ever heard of Spices #4. Since Mike’s dad, Ray, was one of the original Beachcomber’s bartenders in 1934, if anyone knew, Mike would. ‘Ray would go to the Astra Company out in Inglewood to pick up #2 and #4,’ Mike told the Bum. ‘A chemist would open a safe, take out the ingredients, and twirl some knobs in a big mixing machine, filling up a case while Ray waited. Then they’d close up the secret stuff in the safe. Ray took the bottles — marked only #2 and #4 — back to Don The Beachcomber’s.’ All well and good, but what did #4 taste like? ‘I have no idea,’ Mike shrugged. ‘Astra was owned by a guy named John Lancaster, who died of cancer in the ‘60s. The company’s long-gone.’

“And so the original Zombie Punch recipe sat, Sphinx-like, the solution to its riddle so close we could almost, well, taste it. Months went by. A year went by. And then the Bum made the acquaintance of a veteran Tiki bartender named Bob Esmino. Did he know what #4 was? ‘Oh, sure, from John’s old company,’ chuckled Bob, who hadn’t thought about the stuff in 40 years. ‘It was a cinnamon syrup.’”

Berry used to say that he’d never serve his guests more than two of his prized prescriptions at a time. That’s marketing at its finest, true or not. Though there’s more than one way to create this cocktail (Total Tiki has six different recipes that range from the 1930s to 2007), I’ll leave you with the original. You’ll see that a few of these rums are hard to obtain here in Moore County. May I suggest ordering online? As for glassware, there’s always cocktailkingdom.com. More recently, I stumbled upon a shop in Oregon that creates unique and beautiful tiki mugs: munktiki.com. The Zombie is a high-test treat; imbibe responsibly, and be even more careful if you’re playing host. Playing babysitter shouldn’t have to be a prereq in your party syllabus. 

Zombie

1 1/2 ounces Gold Puerto Rican Rum (I use Bacardi 8, flavors of tropical fruit and spice)

1 1/2 ounces Gold or Dark Jamaican Rum (I use my trusty Smith & Cross. That being said, Smith & Cross is Navy Strength, clocking in with a 57 percent ABV. I use 1/2 ounce. Otherwise, I’d use Appleton Estate Reserve.)

1 ounce Lemon Hart 151-proof Demerara Rum (distilled in Guyana, this big boy is a must-have ingredient for this cocktail; flavors of vanilla, caramel, and dried fruits)

1/2 ounce Falernum (a syrupy, very low-proof liqueur with flavors of clove, lime,and almond)

3/4 ounce fresh lime juice

1/2 ounce Don’s Mix (two parts white grapefruit juice and one part cinnamon syrup*)

1 teaspoon grenadine (Rose’s Grenadine is not grenadine, it’s corn syrup — Google it)

6 drops pernod or absinthe (I opt for the latter)

1 dash Angostura Bitters

3/4 cup crushed ice

*Cinnamon syrup: Create a simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar) and add 10 ounces of syrup to a blender along with 8 grams of cinnamon sticks. Blend on high for 20 seconds. Pour into a container, sealing it, and leaving in the fridge over night. The next day, fine-strain out bits of cinnamon. Keep refrigerated.

Blend all ingredients for 3-5 seconds. Pour into a tall glass (again, very cool Zombie chimney glasses that Berry created are available online), and add ice if needed. Garnish with mint. Put on a “Cramps” record, and go to town.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

My 15 Minutes

Glory came, and then it went

 

By Bill Fields

During a boyhood in which sports attracted and held my attention like nothing else, I was not the best or the worst, neither star nor scrub. Girls did not give me Valentines because I was the strongest or the fastest, but I wasn’t the last one picked when shirts met skins either.

Like most kids, I was athletic filler, my standard of play seldom matching my passion for anything that involved a ball.

Once, I won.

In the fall of 1967 I was 8 years old, a third-grader learning to write cursive when a bully named Billy wasn’t giving me a hard time. I liked school but loved football — playing touch or tackle in the neighborhood or watching the East Southern Pines Blue Knights on Friday nights and the Washington Redskins on Sunday afternoons.

Participating in Punt, Pass & Kick, now that I was of minimum age, was as natural as eating grits for breakfast.

Ford sponsored the skills competition, so that meant a visit to the local dealer, Jackson Motors, to sign up. Entrants received a comics-styled booklet with rules, inspiration and pointers. National Football League commissioner Pete Rozelle and Chicago Bears owner/coach George Halas offered introductions, the latter holding the large spoils for a grand prize.

“How’s THIS for a trophy?” Halas said in his strip. “It’s one of six national PP&K Champion Awards that SOME youngster will cart away from the Playoff Bowl in Miami January 7th. Look close — it might have YOUR NAME on it!”

It would be a long and difficult road from the Sandhills to South Florida. Local, Zone, District, Area and Division contests preceded the big day in the Orange Bowl, where six finalists would be sporting uniforms like the pros. We had help, though, from reading the life stories of, and tips from, three NFL standouts: punter Dave Lee of the Baltimore Colts, quarterback Bart Starr of the Green Bay Packers, and kicker Bruce Gossett of the Los Angeles Rams.

“Ankle should be stiff as ball hits instep slightly back of ball’s center,” Lee wrote. “Don’t curl toes . . . stretch them forward.”

“Wrist action!” urged Starr. “Don’t ‘push’ the ball! A good wrist snap and finger action will provide needed spiral.”

“Stand relaxed 8 or 9 yards behind ball with shoulders square to intended line of flight,” Gossett said. “ . . . Your kicking toe should point directly downfield.”

The Gogolak brothers were having sidewinding success by this point, but touting soccer-style kicking must have been too revolutionary an idea for the NFL. Gossett’s biography noted that his father was a weekend soccer player but discouraged his son from following suit. “All you’ll do is ruin your legs for other sports!”

Leading up to the Saturday afternoon of the Local competition at Memorial Field, I tried to apply the expert instruction. (Starr’s wisdom was harder to take because I was a Sonny Jurgensen guy.) I punted over our clothesline, passed to buddies and kicked through barked goal posts, imagining a crossbar. When the time came, there was no room for error: one punt, one pass and one kick, with the amount off-line subtracted from how far the ball went in each skill.

I’d like to believe there is a typo in the yellowed clipping from The Pilot about that day, because the story says my total distance was only 106 1/2 feet. But the paper reported my puny number because it was tops among the 8-year-olds, and I left the ballpark with, as the literature had promised, a “distinctively designed, handsomely crafted PP&K metal trophy.”

If the Ford folks didn’t loosely model the prize after an Oscar statuette, then there’s no sand in Southern Pines. The figure is holding a ball, not a sword, and standing on a football-shaped pedestal instead of a film reel. It is gold paint, not 24-carat and sure doesn’t weigh 8 1/2 pounds like an Academy Award. But it has some heft and a regal look.

I would not make it to Miami until I was grown man. The next round was in Asheboro, and despite new confidence and a new white sweatshirt, I flubbed my punt and finished near the bottom. My PP&K glory was fleeting. The gold man, though, has survived the decades, a shiny reminder of my win.  PS

Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent.

Writing The Last Ballad

The story behind the story, and an excerpt

 

By Wiley Cash

When I began writing my new novel The Last Ballad, an excerpt of which is printed here, my wife and I were living in Morgantown, West Virginia. It was the fall of 2012. My first novel, A Land More Kind Than Home, had been published in April, and I had recently completed the manuscript for my second novel, This Dark Road to Mercy. I had two novels behind me, but that fall I was staring down a story that I did not believe I had the talent or the heart to tackle. That story was the story of the Loray Mill strike, which unfolded over the spring and summer of 1929 in my hometown of Gastonia, North Carolina.

Although I grew up in Gastonia, I never heard a word about the strike or about the young woman who became the face of it. Ella May Wiggins was 28 years old when the strike occurred. She had given birth to nine children, but only five of them survived poverty-related illnesses. Her husband had abandoned her for what looked to be the final time. She earned $9 for a 72-hour workweek in a mill in Bessemer City, North Carolina. Like many people on the eve of the Great Depression, Ella and her children were barely hanging on. After learning about the strike at the nearby Loray Mill, Ella joined the National Textile Workers Union and wrote and sang protest ballads that were later performed by Woody Guthrie and recorded by Pete Seeger. She traveled to Washington, D.C., and confronted senators about working conditions in Southern mills. She integrated the labor union against the will of local officials. But these bold actions that Ella took were not without consequence. The decisions she made would alter the course of her life and affect her family for generations.

I first learned of the strike and the story of Ella May Wiggins after leaving North Carolina for graduate school in Louisiana. I considered writing about her over the years, but each time I sat down to write I struggled to tell Ella’s story for two reasons. First, not much is known about her. She was born in east Tennessee in 1900. She lost her parents and married young and had children with a no-good man. She left the mountains for the good life promised by the mills in the South Carolina upstate and North Carolina piedmont. She lost children. Her husband disappeared. She joined the strike. Then her tragic life spiraled further toward tragedy. Details of her life are scant, and I knew that if I were going to write about Ella I would have to be comfortable telling a story that I could not learn. But that is what writers do: We allow the germ of an idea, be it the idea of a story or the idea of a person, to infiltrate our minds, and we attempt to meet that idea with our own creations. I was prepared to do that.

What I was not prepared to do was face the second thing that made writing about Ella’s life so difficult: How could I possibly put words to the tragedies in her life and compress them on the page in a way that allowed readers to glean some semblance of her struggle?

I began working on the novel in earnest in the spring of 2013, and then my own life got in the way. My wife and I left West Virginia and returned to our beloved North Carolina after being away from home for 10 years. We had a daughter in September 2014, and then another daughter in April 2016. I lost my father a month a later.

While attempting to chronicle the tragedies, as well as the many triumphs, of Ella’s life, I was blind to the goings-on in my own. When my wife and I returned to North Carolina it gave me the chance to revisit the sorrow of my leaving it a decade earlier, and I thought about Ella leaving the Tennessee hills, a place she would never see again, for the linty air of a mill village. Unconsciously, each time I held one of my newborn daughters in my arms I wondered how Ella had managed to continue on after losing four children. When I lost my father at 38 I found myself wondering how Ella had weathered the deaths of both parents before even turning 20. While I knew I could never understand the power of Ella’s life, perhaps I could harness it by exploring the depths and pinnacles of my own.

In the following excerpt, which opens the novel, you will meet a young woman named Ella May Wiggins who is still reeling after leaving home over a decade ago. She has lost a child, and she fears she may lose more. She is struggling to survive and keep her children alive. But she is tough, tougher than me for sure, probably tougher than anyone I have ever known. It was an honor to write about her and put words to a story that has been untold for far too long.

*  *  *

Ella May knew she wasn’t pretty, had always known it. She didn’t have to come all the way down the mountain from Tennessee to Bessemer City, North Carolina, to find that out. But here she was now, and here she’d been just long enough for no other place in her memory to feel like home, but not quite long enough for Bessemer City to feel like home either.

She sat on the narrow bench in the office of American Mill No. 2 — the wall behind her vibrating with the whir of the carding machines, rollers, and spinners that raged on the other side, with lint hung up in her throat and lungs like tar — reminding herself that she’d already given up any hope of ever feeling rooted again, of ever finding a place that belonged to her and she to it. Instead of thinking thoughts like those, Ella turned and looked at Goldberg’s brother’s young secretary where she sat behind a tidy desk just a few feet away. The soft late-day light that had already turned toward dusk now picked its way through the windows behind the girl. The light lay upon the girl’s dark, shiny hair and caused it to glow like some angel had just lifted a hand away from the crown of her head. The girl was pale and soft, her cheeks brushed with rouge and her lips glossed a healthy pink. She wore a fine powder-blue dress with a spray of artificial, white spring flowers pinned to the lapel. She read a new copy of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and she laughed to herself and wet her finger on her tongue and turned page after page while Ella watched.

How old could that girl be? Ella wondered. Twenty? Twenty-five? Ella was only twenty-eight herself, but she felt at least two, three times that age. She stared at the girl’s dainty, manicured hands as they turned the pages, and then she looked down at her own hands where they rested upturned in her lap, her fingers intertwined as if they’d formed a nest. She unlocked her fingers and placed her palms flat against her belly, thought about the new life that had just begun to stir inside her, how its stirring often felt like the flutter of a bird’s wing. She didn’t know whether or not what she felt was real, so she’d decided not to say a word about it to Charlie, not to mention a thing to anyone aside from her friend Violet.

Charlie had blown into Bessemer City that winter just like he’d blown into other places, and Ella knew that one day he’d eventually blow out the same way he’d come in. He didn’t have children or a family or anything else to tether him to a place where he didn’t want to be.

“I hadn’t never wanted a child,” he’d said after they’d known each other for a month. “I just never found the right woman to care for a child the way I want it cared for.” He’d come up behind Ella and spread his palm over her taut belly as if trying to keep something from spilling out. She’d felt his hand press against the hollowed-out space between her ribs and her hips. She was always so racked with hunger that she found it hard to believe that her body offered any resistance at all. “But who’s to say I’m always going to feel that way?” he’d said. “I might want a family of my own just yet.” Maybe he’d meant it then, and, if so, she hoped he still meant it now.

Perhaps it was the soft thrash of wings against the walls of her belly that made Ella think further of birds, and she considered how her thin, gnarled hands reminded her of a bird’s feet. She placed her palms on her knees, watched her knuckles rise like knobby mountains, saw her veins roll beneath her skin like blue worms that had died but never withered away. What was left of her fingernails were thick and broken, and it was laughable to imagine that someone like Ella would ever spend the time it would take to use a tiny brush to color such ugly things.

She resisted the urge to lift these awful hands to her face and allow those fingers to feel what waited there: the sunken, wide-set, dark eyes; the grim mouth that she imagined as always frowning because she did not believe she had ever smiled at herself when looking into a mirror, and she had only seen one photograph of herself in her lifetime, and she was certain that she was not smiling then. She recalled the photograph of a younger version of herself taken more than ten years ago; she and John and baby Lilly posing for a traveling photographer inside the post office down in Cowpens, South Carolina. John with his arm thrown around Ella’s shoulder, his face and eyes lit with the exaltation of the gloriously drunk, Lilly crying in her arms, what Ella knew to be her own much younger face blurred in movement as it turned toward Lilly’s cries at the exact moment of the camera’s looking. John had purchased the photo, folded it, and kept it in a cigar box that rattled with loose change and the quiet rustle of paper money when and if they had it. Ella had removed the photograph and gazed upon it from time to time over the years, but never to look at her own face. She’d only wanted to see the face of her firstborn, the girl who was now a tough, independent young lady who mothered her little sister and brothers more than Ella had the time or the chance or the energy to. John had left her — left them all, for that matter — over a year ago, and Ella assumed that he’d taken the cigar box with him because Lord knows he’d taken all that money, but the only thing that Ella missed now was the photograph.  PS

Wiley Cash lives in Wilmington with his wife and their two daughters. His forthcoming novel The Last Ballad is available for pre-order wherever books are sold.

October Books

Fiction

The Last Ballad, by Wiley Cash

The author of the celebrated best-seller A Land More Kind Than Home returns with a new novel. Set in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina in 1929 and inspired by actual events, it chronicles an ordinary woman’s struggle for dignity and her rights in a textile mill.

Origin, by Dan Brown

A new Robert Langdon thriller that takes him to a location he’s never been before — Bilbao, Spain. On a trail marked by modern art and enigmatic symbols, Langdon uncovers clues that ultimately bring him face-to-face with a shocking discovery
. . . and the breathtaking truth that has long eluded us. 

Manhattan Beach, by Jennifer Egan

From one of the greatest novelists of our time, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award, a National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize and best-selling author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, comes a stunning new novel set in Brooklyn in the years before and during World War II. With the pace and atmosphere of a noir thriller and a wealth of detail about organized crime, the merchant marine and the clash of classes in New York, Egan’s first historical novel is a masterpiece.

Stolen Marriage, by Diane Chamberlain

In 1944, 23-year-old Tess DeMello abruptly ends her engagement to the love of her life when she marries a mysterious stranger and moves to Hickory, North Carolina. Strangeness ensues . . .

Rules of Magic, by Alice Hoffman

From beloved author Alice Hoffman comes the prequel to her best-selling novel, the classic Practical Magic, taking us inside the lives of Jet and Frances Owens before Sally and Gillian came along. While this new novel connects her older fans to the previous book, Rules of Magic stands on its own as a marvelous work in Hoffman’s canon.

Seven Days of Us: A Novel, by Francesca Hornak

A warm, wry, sharply observed debut novel that portrays what happens when a family is quarantined together over the holidays — and when keeping secrets is no longer an option.

The Rooster Bar, by John Grisham 

Mark, Todd and Zola came to law school to change the world, to make it a better place. But now, as third-year students, these close friends realize they have been duped. They all borrowed heavily to attend a third-tier, for-profit law school so mediocre that its graduates rarely pass the bar exam, let alone get good jobs. And when they learn that their school is one of a chain owned by a shady New York hedge fund operator who also happens to own a bank specializing in student loans, the three know they have been caught up in The Great Law School Scam.

The Power, by Naomi Alderman

When an unknown charge begins to emerge in teenage girls the power dynamics of men and women change until the novel reflects our world in a mirror. 

Nonfiction

Leonardo da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson

This is the fourth of Isaacson’s acclaimed biographies of geniuses who joined the disciplines of art and science: Benjamin Franklin, Einstein, Steve Jobs, and now “the greatest genius of all time,” Leonardo da Vinci.

We Were Eight Years in Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The narrative is bookended by two new essays that look back at the Obama era, and forward to what’s coming next. Each essay includes a new, short introduction detailing how Coates’ thoughts have evolved, and why it reflects significantly on the Obama era.

Grant, by Ron Chernow

The Pulitzer Prize-winner and biographer of Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and John D. Rockefeller, Chernow returns with a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most complicated generals and presidents, Ulysses S. Grant.

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II, by Liza Mundy

Washington Post reporter Liza Mundy reveals the previously hidden history of the women who worked in secrecy to defeat the Axis forces in WWII. Using recently declassified government documents and interviews with the surviving women, Code Girls unveils their efforts to invent new technologies and techniques that helped win the war. Many of the women never broke their vow of secrecy and hadn’t revealed their heroics to their own families until Mundy called.

Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend, by Meryl Gordon

With access to all of her papers, Gordon chronicles Bunny Mellon’s life throughout the 20th century. 

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, by Caitlin Doughty

Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a story about the many fascinating ways people everywhere have confronted the very human challenge of mortality.

David Sedaris Diaries: A Visual Compendium, by David Sedaris

Discover dimensions of David Sedaris even his devoted fans haven’t seen. Jeffrey Jenkins compiled ephemera stuffed into decades of Sedaris’ diaries to make this coffee table collection.

Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life, by Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush

An American story unlike any other: Jenna and Barbara Bush share essays about growing up not just in the public eye, but in the White House, first as grandchildren and then the children of the president. Theirs is not a political book. Barbara runs a health nonprofit in Africa, and Jenna works in the media. It’s a celebration of sisterhood and true patriotism.

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West, by Nate Blakeslee

A riveting multi-generational wolf saga that tells a larger story about the clash of values in the West (and the nation as a whole) between those fighting for a vanishing way of life and those who believe a more diverse world is a richer one.

The Origins of Creativity, by E.O. Wilson 

The most famous and important evolutionary biologist since Darwin brings us a book about the origins of creativity, the defining role of our species, highlighted by the Third Enlightenment when science and the humanities merge.

The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition, by Linda Gordon 

By legitimizing bigotry and redefining so-called American values, a revived Klan in the 1920s left a toxic legacy that demands reexamination today. This book has impeccable scholarship, obvious relevance and has a state-by-state analysis including a long chapter set in Oregon.

Children’s books

The Antlered Ship, by Dashka Slater

“Do islands like being alone? Do waves look more like horses or swans?  And what’s the best way to find a friend you can talk to?”  Marco the fox has so many questions.  So when the brilliant Antlered Ship anchors in the harbor, he sets off to check it out.  Reminiscent of vintage Chris Van Allsburg, this gorgeous book illustrated by the Fan Brothers, Terry and Eric (The Night Gardner), is sure to get Caldecott nods this award season. Ages 4-8.

Princess Truly: I am Truly, by Kelly Greenwalt

Whether it’s tying a shoe, taming a lion, learning Japanese or becoming an engineer, this powerful little book truly does encourage girls to set their personal goals high.  Whether for graduation, birthday or just an ordinary day, I Am Truly is the perfect way to tell an amazing young woman just how awesome she is. Ages 4-8.

Superbat, by Matt Carr

Pat is an ordinary bat who wants to be a superhero, but having the ability to fly, amazing hearing and being able to locate things in the dark are not enough to make him super in a colony where everyone else has the same talents. Just as Pat is pondering, “What is a superhero anyway?” the opportunity arises to find out.  With fun bat facts and the recognition that everybody is somebody, Superbat is a great choice for fall. Ages 3-6.

Snow and Rose, by Emily Winfield Martin

An unusually large gentle bear, a strange little man, a boy who lives in a world filled with mushrooms, a mother who knits while she waits and two very special sisters come to life in this wonderfully told tale by the amazingly talented Emily Winfield Martin.  Sure to become a classic, Snow and Rose is the perfect read-aloud for long winter nights. Ages 7-10.

Warcross, by Marie Lu

Warcross is all the rage.  Absolutely everyone plays this virtual reality game where the commonplace becomes spectacular, the flawed made perfect, and where advanced players are practically gods.  So when almost-homeless hacker Emika Chen takes advantage of a glitch and finds herself invited to the championship game, she is thrown into a world of glitz, glam, challenge and intrigue like she could never have imagined. This fast-paced gem of a gamer-thriller will keep readers on the edge of their seats with twists and turns.  Ages 12 and up.

Invictus, by Ryan Graudin

From the very first page, readers will find themselves buried in this fascinating book. A genre-bending time travel adventure for young adults and sci-fi/fantasy loving adults alike, Invictus keeps the reader enthralled until the last page.  Age 12 and up. PS

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Talley

Martin’s Mixture

A former two-time governor argues that science points to God

 

By D.G. Martin

What would be rarer than a total eclipse of the sun?

My answer: a serious book about science or religion written by a former governor of North Carolina or any other state.

We had our solar eclipse in August, and our former two-term governor Jim Martin has given us a serious book on both science and religion.

As the son of a Presbyterian minister and a Davidson College and Princeton University trained chemist, Martin is a devoted believer — in both his religion and the scientific method. His book Revelation Through Science: Evolution in the Harmony of Science and Religion is his effort to show that the discoveries of science pose no threat to Christianity or any other religion.

He is a champion of the scientific method and, without apology, endorses the discoveries his fellow scientists have made, including the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe and basics of the Theory of Evolution.

But, as a lifelong Christian, he believes the Bible is “the received word of God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and of any life it holds, on Earth or elsewhere. I believe the Bible is our best guide to faith and practice.

“I believe there is, and can be, no irreconcilable conflict between science and religion, for they are revealed from the same God. Even more than that, as a Christian, I believe that God is most clearly revealed in the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, I firmly believe that a loving God intended us to have the capacity to observe and interpret nature, so that we would grow in understanding the majesty and mystery of His creation and all that followed.”

How can Martin reconcile his scientific truths with the biblical account of a six-day creation or with the related belief that the Earth was created about 6,000 years ago?

He admits that has not always been easy. When he was active in politics and serving as governor from 1985 through 1993, he would sometimes avoid discussion of these questions. For instance, once during his time as governor he visited the small town of Hobucken on Pamlico Sound. He stopped at the local fishing supply store at R. E. Mayo Fish & Supply and saw a “monstrous skeletal whale head standing right outside the store.”

Martin remarked to some of the local people, “Wow! That whale must have lived and died there millions of years ago!”

In his book, Martin writes that everything got quiet. Then, one person responded, “No, sir, we reckon she couldn’t have been there more’n six thousand years!”

Martin admits, “I did not stand my ground and debate the age of the Earth with these fine gentlemen. I knew what I knew, part of which was that they knew what they knew, and this debate was not winnable.”

Now Martin is ready, not to debate, but to explain that science’s conclusions about the time of creation (13.7 billion years ago) and the age of the Earth (4.5 billion years ago) are firmly based. More importantly for him, they are not in conflict with religion, including the creation accounts in the Book of Genesis.

In his 400-page book he lays out a seminar for the “educated non-scientist,” explaining the awesome complexities and orderliness of our world. He gives details of the sciences of astronomy, physics, biology, evolution, geology, paleontology, organic chemistry, biochemistry and genomics, including efforts to spark living organisms from inert chemicals.

With every scientific advance or explanation of how the world came about and works now, Martin says there is a further revelation from the Creator.

Does he assert that these advances prove the existence of God?

No, but throughout the book he points out what he calls “anthropic coincidences” that made for a universe that “was physically and chemically attuned very precisely for the emergence of life, culminating thus far in an intelligent, self-aware species.”

Recently he explained to me the importance of the power of gravity or the “gravity constant.” “If the pull of gravity were slightly stronger,” he said, “the universe would’ve collapsed. If it was slightly weaker, there’d be no stars, the same, because it had to be precisely balanced with the energy and power of that burst of expansion from the beginning, so astronomers therefore conclude that there was a beginning, just as in Genesis 1:1, In the beginning, Pow.”

Martin explained that, like gravity, “there are a number, about a half dozen, physical constants, all of which are precisely balanced for us to be here. One astronomer said, ‘It’s as if the universe knew we were coming.’ All of this implies purpose, and science cannot ask questions about purpose. Science cannot get answers about purpose, but that doesn’t mean there’s no purpose. It’s clear from this evidence that we didn’t get here by unguided chance. In that way, science points to God. In that way, science tells us that God is. Science does not tell us who God is. It doesn’t differentiate between different denominations, different theological traditions, or insights, or reasonings, but it does support all of them in that sense.”

If these discussions of science and religion are too complicated for readers, they should not put down the book before reading its final chapter in which Martin describes his personal journey of faith, study, service, and tolerance and respect for the opinions of those who see things differently.

As a political figure and former Republican governor, does Martin share his thoughts on science and politics? 

He asks his readers, “Which political party is anti-science?”

Their answer, he says, would likely reveal their political orientation.

Martin agrees with Alex Berezow, founding editor of the “RealClearScience” website. Berezow asserts that partisans in both parties are “equally abusive of science and technology, albeit on different topics and issues.”

Martin confesses that several positions held by many Republicans are unsustainable in light of the findings of science. He notes that some Republicans believe global warming is a myth.

But, he writes, “Denial is indefensible.”

He continues, “Instead of futile denial that excessive carbon dioxide from combustion of coal and oil contributes to global warming, Republicans should let science be science.”

Anyone who thinks this statement represents Martin’s complete acceptance of a liberal environmentalist position on clean energy would be misled. His response to the carbon crisis is increased reliance on nuclear power because wind and solar alternatives can only make minor contributions to our energy needs. In bold print he asserts, “If we cannot accept nuclear power as an irreplaceable part of the solution, how serious are we about the problem?”

Whether or not you agree with Martin’s views on religion, science or politics, his book is a welcome gift to a country that is in great need of what his book gives us: clear, thoughtful, and respectful discussion of important, misunderstood, and controversial topics.

Too bad such books are as rare as a total solar eclipse.  PS

D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch, which airs Sundays at noon and Thursdays at 5 p.m. on UNC-TV.