Cottage Comforts

Respectful renovation with a story to tell

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

What happens when a real-life Mad Men ad man jumps the rat wheel, takes up home restoration, moves to Nantucket, reconnects with an architect friend at his daughter’s wedding — and marries her?

The obvious answer: They move to Southern Pines, buy a moldering cottage built in 1910, rip it apart and put it back together (she designs, he hammers) to resemble a period residence with tiny rooms, dark woods, deep green/barn-red/aubergine walls swallowed up by paintings, prints, memorabilia and collections. Modernity is limited to recessed lighting, radiant heat in the sunroom floor, Wi-Fi and AC. However, being practical, Scott and Francy Samuel rearranged space and added a sunken living room which, given its beams, wood-burning fireplace and antique furnishings (recliners notwithstanding) melts into the theme.

In contrast, a rear deck overlooks an acre of putting green grass bordered by 30-foot crape myrtles. Beyond that, a 20-by-40-foot pool. The contrast between recreated old and glamorous new . . . shocking, thrilling.

If ever a cottage required a docent — a catalog, at least — it is Cosmo, named for cosmopolitans, the Samuels’ favorite cocktail.

Francy, Scott and two Cavalier King Charles spaniels settle into chairs in the living room addition to relate their journey.

In the 1960s Scott pursued a career with top-drawer Madison Avenue ad agencies: expense accounts, martini lunches, other trappings of the trade as portrayed on Mad Men. He lived in a 20-room Tudor in Bronxville, a fashionable Manhattan suburb, and produced commercials for Mercedes, Nationwide and Maxwell House. Francy, who studied architecture after raising a family, designed high-end housing and residential projects for battered women, other special needs clients, in Boston. For each, the fast lane got too fast: “You get so embroiled in meetings, city permits,” Francy says. “I was relieved to come down here.” Scott: “Things started to change (in the ad world). Computers took over. Clients were merging. You could hear young footsteps closing in. The fun was gone.”

Scott discovered Southern Pines in the late 1990s, when he came down to help a friend convert a Knollwood mansion into a B&B. During a subsequent New England winter, Scott asked himself, “What am I doing here?” Francy had never been to North Carolina. “I expected to see lots of Taras.” Scott brought her down in June; they stayed at the renovated B&B. Late spring flowers bloomed everywhere. “People were so friendly,” she remembers. Taras were scarce, thank goodness.

They bought the cottage on Vermont Avenue in September 2001. After 9/11 small-town life seemed even more attractive. New construction wasn’t an option. Too many old houses in need of rescue, they decided.

Except this one was, Scott recalls, overrun with critters and falling apart; when a train roared by plaster fell off the walls. Architect Francy recognized good bones. “The house sat well on the property,” Scott noticed. Their hands-on reclamation took about a year.

Cottages built early in the 20th century between the tracks and the hotels housed support staff and merchants who served the affluent resort community. Little is known of Cosmo’s history except during World War II the owner’s wife made the second floor into an apartment with small kitchen, which Francy left intact, as part of her office. Surprisingly, the house had a basement — where Scott builds the Waldorf-Astoria of birdhouses — and a narrow garage, which they moved into the backyard, as a studio.

If the heart of a home really is the kitchen then the Samuels’ is well-placed in the middle, along an artery leading from front door to back wall. What a homey, cooked-in kitchen this is, since Scott and Francy share meal preparation. Light comes through transom windows placed ceiling-height. Scott constructed the beadboard cabinets painted a soft, archaic green. Washer and dryer are built into a divider separating the green slate counter from the pathway. Nearby, more beadboard conceals a fold-away ironing board common to homes of the era. Although smallish by contemporary standards, this carefully planned kitchen accommodates tandem cooking. When the meal is ready, Scott and Francy sit down at the dining room table, “like grown-ups,” Francy says, or eat on trays in the living/family room under the watchful portrait of an 18th century granny in bonnet peering down from the mantel. “Aunt Bertie” has become both friend and icon for their project, which had Francy coming down from Boston on weekends to draw plans for Scott to execute during the week.

The master bedroom tucked in a corner of the main floor barely holds a poster bed and antique case pieces. Francy converted a small second bedroom into dressing/closet space. The adjoining bathroom breaks from cottage classic with a wide-board floor splatter-painted by Scott, à la Jackson Pollock, against a black background.

At Cosmo, one word demands a thousand pictures — that word being collections.

Examples: A dining room wall covered with 24 framed prints by a 19th century British aristocrat/caricaturist known as Spy. His exaggerated figures of notables, valued by collectors, were published in Vanity Fair.

Old checkerboards hang in the basement stairwell.

Ships galore — paintings, drawings, postcards and models, including a table-top sized schooner made by a prison inmate; these remind Scott of sailing his own, off Nantucket, as does a framed map of the island, dated 1824.

Carved figurines include multi-national Santas and gyrating African forms, some brought back by Francy’s daughter, an anthropologist.

A huge assortment of rusty antique food tins crowd a kitchen shelf.

Family photos; between them, Francy and Scott have five daughters and four grandchildren.

Carpets, some shipped back after attending a wedding in Turkey, followed by a sailboat cruise through the Mediterranean and Aegean. One was woven in Russia, a century ago.

The crown jewel of collections would be Scott’s Victorian mercury glass, displayed in a corner cupboard. This technique practiced in Bohemia, Germany, England and Boston in the 1800s requires blowing double-walled goblets and other objects, then filling the space with a liquid silvering solution and sealing with a metal disk. Silvered and mercury glass became the first art glass forms meant for display, not table use.

Typical of second-time-around couples, Francy and Scott brought to their new home furnishings they couldn’t live without. Every piece has a story. A light fixture has propellers that spin like a fan. The rough-hewn coffee table was a kitchen table, in Nantucket, before legs were shortened. Many formal antiques descend from Francy’s Ohio lineage, where her father — according to the stately portrait in the dining room — was a bank chairman. Fold-down desks, electrified cranberry glass oil lamps, sea chests, display cabinets, a bentwood high chair and a few curiosities, like a post they found buried under the front porch, inscribed H.A. & E.E. Jackman, perhaps long-ago residents.

Despite gutting the house and rearranging space, the effect — excluding the glamorous grounds — seems as much preservation as renovation, with a nod to Williamsburg. Coincidentally, “They were my clients,” Scott says.

To protect the integrity of their own home, the Samuels carried out a “grand plan” to purchase and renovate the cottages flanking Cosmo, creating a pocket neighborhood which received a Spruce Up award from Southern Pines in 2014.

Now, the design-build team of Francy and Scott Samuel has “sort of retired.” Looking back, Scott’s only regret is not making the move sooner. “It didn’t feel strange or different,” he muses, with surprise. After 16 years the trains don’t bother any more. They enjoy walking to the library, farmers market, Sunrise Theater and restaurants. Scott continues, “Every time I pull out of the driveway I feel I never want to leave this house. I want to stay here forever.”

Spoken like a true ad man.  PS

The Beginning of the End of the World

The tournament that took a fortnight to finish

By Bill Case   •   Photographs from the Tufts Archives

The Diamondhead Corporation’s 1970 acquisition of the Pinehurst Resort complex, hotels and 6,700 undeveloped, mostly wooded acres from the Tufts family brought about a dramatic transformation of the entire community. To replace the Tufts family’s vision of Pinehurst as an idyllic and peaceful New England-style community where the elite from the North golfed and hobnobbed with one another for months at a time, Diamondhead instituted a new go-getter business model, which executives imported by the company from the West Coast fondly called “California brass.”

Diamondhead spent millions updating the venerable Carolina Hotel, rechristening it the Pinehurst Hotel. A hard push began to attract conventions, an approach the Tufts family had historically disfavored, fearing it would drive away valued longtime patrons. Huge chunks of forested acreage were subdivided for sale as residential lots and condominiums. Like spring dandelions, new homes bordering golf course fairways appeared overnight. The properties were marketed with such frenzy that a writer for The Pilot observed that Diamondhead’s sales force clustered on the prime lots “with the intensity of ants on a piece of picnic pie.” Pinehurst’s old guard residents, including the Tufts family, were mostly appalled. The perceived arrogance of cocksure Diamondhead executives, inclined to adorn themselves in California-cool gold chains and leisure suits, exacerbated the friction.

The man overseeing this metamorphosis of everything Pinehurst was Diamondhead’s president, Bill Maurer. The dour, hard-driving former golf pro had been selected as front man for the operation by Malcolm McLean, the mega-wealthy tycoon financing the Diamondhead purchase. Keenly aware that Pinehurst was America’s foremost golfing Mecca, Maurer believed dramatic steps were in order to ramp up the resort’s identification with the game.

Maurer could not be faulted for failing to aim high. He envisioned a modernized Pinehurst firmly branded in the public’s mind as the undisputed “Golf Capital of the World.” He convinced McLean to invest $2,500,000 for establishing a hall of fame for golf behind the fourth green of the No. 2 course. Explaining his thinking in an interview with Country Club Golfer, Maurer said, “I’ve read for 20 years about all these different plans to build one (a golf hall of fame). None of them has ever come to a hill of beans, and I don’t mean that unkindly. It’s just a lot of conversation and lip service. I think if we own and operate the World Golf Hall of Fame, it would not only be good for Diamondhead’s image and its place in the golf world, but also it would be a real good attraction for golf and Pinehurst.”

Pinehurst had not hosted any professional golf tournaments since 1951, when Richard Tufts became disenchanted by the behavior of the U.S. team in that year’s Ryder Cup matches played over Pinehurst No. 2. Tufts canceled the prestigious North and South Open. Maurer considered Richard’s banishment of the pros a tragic mistake and decided that, given the fast-growing popularity of the PGA Tour, pro golf should return to the resort. But Maurer had no interest in hosting just any tournament. As he put it, “If it is the golf capital of the world, let’s really make it that. Let’s have . . . the World Championship.”

Maurer persuaded McLean that to hold a true world championship, prize money commensurate with that title should be part of the package. McLean agreed to bankroll the largest purse the game had yet seen — $100,000 to the winner and $500,000 total prize money. But Maurer needed to convince Joe Dey, executive director of the Tournament Players Division, that his audacious proposal was viable. Complicating matters was his desire that the World Open be contested over eight rounds, twice the customary number. Two weeks would be necessary. Maurer also sought the inclusion of numerous foreign players to underscore the tournament as a truly worldwide championship.

A year of sporadic discussions with Dey ensued before Diamondhead’s president finally made headway. In January 1973, it was announced that the World Open Championship would be played in Pinehurst, commencing Nov. 5 and ending the 17th. While concerned that Pinehurst’s late autumn weather could pose a problem, Maurer liked the idea of crowning the “world champion” at the tail end of the season.

Maurer contemplated a gigantic field of 240 players. After an 18-hole celebrity pro-am, the first four rounds of the tournament would be contested over No. 2 and No. 4 with competitors making two circuits of each. After completion of Sunday’s fourth round, the field would be trimmed to the low 70 players and ties. Contrary to usual tour practice, players falling short of the cut line would be paid $500. The survivors would take a two-day break before resuming play on Wednesday. Course No. 2 would serve as the exclusive venue for the final four rounds, culminating in an unusual Saturday finish.

Mindful that Pinehurst had not hosted a pro tournament in over two decades, Maurer assembled a new team for the task. Likeable and garrulous Tennessean Hubie Smith, 1969’s Club Professional of the Year, came on board as tournament director. Another club pro, Don Collett, was hired as president of Pinehurst, Inc. That post involved an imposing array of duties that included managing all operations of the Pinehurst Country Club and jumpstarting the embryonic Hall of Fame.

It was determined that Course No. 4 should be toughened to pose a challenge for the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and other tour stars. Diamondhead retained famed architect Robert Trent Jones Sr. to perform an overhaul of the course. With Jones swiftly working in tandem with club superintendent Dick Silvar, the updating was completed in only 90 days. A pleased Jones expressed satisfaction with his handiwork, proclaiming that No. 4 would soon be recognized as “one of the great courses of the world.”

Diamondhead enticed baseball great Joe DiMaggio to serve as celebrity host for Wednesday’s “Joe DiMaggio World Celebrity Pro-Amateur.” Accepting invitations to join Joltin’ Joe on the tee were A-list celebrities like Bing Crosby, James Garner, Fred MacMurray and Stan Musial. Licking their respective chops at the opportunity to take down the tour’s largest-ever payday, the circuit’s rank-and-file sent in their entries faster than the deal at a Vegas blackjack table. As tour mainstay Miller Barber put it, “nearly everybody who can hit the ground with a golf club” was headed to Pinehurst. This included a number of players a decade or more past their primes who nonetheless looked for a last hurrah.

Assuming that the combination of record prize money, an impressive-sounding title and Pinehurst No. 2 would prove irresistible to the tour elite, Maurer failed to take into account that the players most likely to be unimpressed would be the upper crust champions whose winnings and endorsement income had already placed them in a position where they could afford to say no. Jack Nicklaus, winner of the ’73 PGA Championship, sent his regrets. He wanted to spend time with his family and rest up for the World Cup in Spain, where he would pair with Johnny Miller as the American team. Miller had planned to compete in Pinehurst, but ultimately withdrew. The ’73 British Open champion, Tom Weiskopf, begged off, opting to hunt for big game. England’s Tony Jacklin, a two-time major champion, couldn’t come because of a scheduling conflict in Japan. Trevino expressed a lack of interest for playing in a two-week tournament in chilly weather. Still, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Billy Casper, Hubie Green, the ageless and still competitive Sam Snead, Masters champion Tommy Aaron, and rising stars Tom Watson and Ben Crenshaw were all entered. But the absences of Nicklaus, Miller, Weiskopf, Jacklin and Trevino doomed hopes of a nationally televised World Open, a big blow to the Diamondhead execs.

Though Maurer couldn’t hide his disappointment, the absence of a few champions worked in favor of the remaining players who descended upon the area for their Monday and Tuesday practice rounds. The hotels and inns received plenty of patronage. Players with limited budgets sought more cost-effective arrangements. Tour newbies Don Padgett Jr. and Andy North arranged affordable lodgings outside Pinehurst, finding an inexpensive condominium adjacent to the Hyland Hills golf course, then nearing completion. The owner let the rookies practice on the range of the unopened course. Padgett and North shagged their own balls.

Some lucky young competitors benefited from free housing. Peter Tufts, Richard’s son, resided on Fields Road less than 200 yards from the second hole of No. 2. As the builder and course architect for the nearly completed Seven Lakes Country Club, Peter was a respected force in golf. He possessed a soft spot for young players trying to make their way, and opened up his home to four of them, none older than 25: John Mahaffey, who had won the Sahara Invitational the previous month and would five years hence become PGA champion; Pensacola’s Allen Miller, who would win once on tour; Eddie Pearce, predicted by many knowledgeable insiders to be the “next Nicklaus”; and 21-year-old Texan Ben Crenshaw, a three-time NCAA individual champion from the University of Texas who had turned pro shortly before the World Open and immediately made hurricane-force impact. He emerged from the grind of the PGA Tour’s qualifying school as its runaway winner by 12 shots, then captured his first tour event, the San-Antonio-Texas Open, shooting 14 under par. If Crenshaw won in Pinehurst, he would become the first player ever to win his first two tour events.

Peter Tufts’ wide-eyed 14-year-old son, Ricky, was excited these young golf stars were bunking at his home. They were funny, teased each other and laughed so loudly that Pete implored them to keep the noise down. Rick Tufts, now a retired firefighter, recalls that the young pros included him in their hijinks, considering the pros his big brothers for the fortnight.

One subject of their banter was Ricky’s predicament in obtaining transportation to his part-time job in Seven Lakes. The teenager wanted a motorbike, but Dad was unwilling to spring for its purchase. That brought about a chorus of guffaws from the houseguests who kiddingly razzed “Tightwad Pete.” Finally, Crenshaw promised that if he should win the World Open, he’d buy the motorbike for Ricky himself. Thus, Ben’s “little brother” became an avid cheerleader for a Crenshaw triumph.

A minor kerfuffle occurred when DiMaggio arrived. Thinking his name would be associated with the main tournament (something like the Joe DiMaggio World Open) instead of just the pro-am, Joltin’ Joe was quite put out after learning of this misunderstanding. The Yankee great could be glowering and sullen when angry, and that was the last thing Maurer needed to kick off the festivities. Concerns about DiMaggio’s reaction were heightened by the presence of the foreboding fellows accompanying him, both of whom could have been typecast as Corleone button men in The Godfather. But if Joe was upset, he managed to hide his displeasure interacting with Crosby, Garner and comedian Foster Brooks.

Frigid weather descended on Thursday’s first round with temperatures in the 30s and ice visible in the bunkers. Spectators stayed away in droves. Padgett, who years later served as Pinehurst Country Club’s president and chief operating officer, felt like a sled dog in the Iditarod. One of the early starters, when he reached his opening drive, he recalls, “There was so much ice on the ball, it looked like a snow cone.” Padgett implored a rules official for relief but was denied. Bob Goalby, then 44, still remembers the miserable weather. “It was thermal gloves off for your shot and then on again as quickly as possible — anything to stay warm,” recollects the 1968 Masters champion.

Starting off both nines of two different courses caused confusion for several players. Eddie Merrins never left the starting gate, having appeared for his tee time on the wrong course, he was disqualified, retreating to the warmth of the clubhouse. A few players seemed unaffected by the conditions, most notably Gibby Gilbert. Playing with Snead on the back nine of No. 2, the Chattanooga product birdied two holes and chipped in for eagle on 16 for an eye-popping 32. A remarkable string of five birdies on the front nine brought Gilbert in with a 62, shattering Ben Hogan’s course record of 65. The astounding round gave Gilbert a 5-shot lead over his closest pursuer (and one of Ricky Tufts’ buddies) Allen Miller, whose 67 came on No. 4.

Despite this stellar round, Miller leveled sharp criticism of the recently renovated No. 4. “The course scares me,” he confided to Golf World editor-in-chief Dick Taylor. “It’s harder than No. 2. I don’t cherish playing it. No. 4 is tougher in an unfair way.” Miller was not alone in this view. There was “almost unanimous chorus of dissent over Trent Jones’ remodeling,” wrote Taylor.

Meanwhile, two of Miller’s three housemates finished respectably with Mahaffey and Pearce carding 72s. Lagging was a frustrated Crenshaw, who opened with a desultory 75. One tour veteran — chilled to the bone and disgusted with his awful round — sought a way to pocket the $500 missed-cut stipend without completing the four rounds officials expected. He found a previously overlooked loophole in tournament rules that permitted an early escape. A player needed only to start the tournament to be entitled to the $500 for non-qualifiers. Once this information became common knowledge in the locker room, withdrawals by players off to poor starts flooded in. In all, 41 players said early goodbyes.

After an even chillier round two, Gilbert still led but had come back to the field some with a 74. Ron Cerrudo and Miller lurked two shots back. Crenshaw improved with a 71, but still trailed Gilbert by 10. Gilbert kept his nose out in front through Sunday’s fourth round. His 280 total at the endurance test’s mid-point led the field by 5. Al Geiberger and Tom Watson surfaced as the closest challengers, with Watson crafting a couple of rare sub-70 rounds of 69 and 68 over the weekend. Among those surviving to play week two were Palmer, Player, Goalby and the amazing Snead, guided by caddie Jimmy Steed, unfailingly employed by Snead whenever he was in Pinehurst. Miller’s housemates all made the cut, but were too far back to harbor realistic hopes of victory. Crenshaw’s 294 trailed by 14. Ricky Tufts’ hopes for his motorbike seemed irretrievably dashed.

No logistical reason existed for the World Open’s two-day layoff. Peter deYoung (then the assistant tournament director and still a Pinehurst resident active in organizing youth golf tournaments) remembers that the only thing the committee needed to do during the break was move a bank of port-o-potties and a lone concession stand from No. 4 to No. 2. The departure from the pros’ normal tournament routines perplexed some of them. Crenshaw says that the mid-tournament delay “was surreal. We weren’t sure what to do.” Crenshaw, Pearce and Mahaffey wound up playing Pine Needles with Golf World writers. The 61-year-old Snead, who liked nothing better than hitting golf balls, practiced both days. A few players visited the temporary home of the World Golf Hall of Fame on West Village Green Road, now occupied by a Bank of America branch. Miller remembers a nighttime visit to Pinehurst’s Dunes Club, which featured unauthorized drinking and gambling in the back room. Miller was among those forced to vacate when management was tipped off to an imminent raid.

As temperatures warmed for the fifth round, the tournament leader’s game plunged into a deep freeze. No. 2 exacted its revenge on Gilbert, who shot 82 — 20 strokes higher than his round one course record. Broadcaster and Pinehurst sage John Derr had predicted that Gilbert’s scintillating opening 62 “would never be duplicated” on No. 2, but just six days later, Watson proved him wrong. Canning lengthy putts from outrageous distances, Watson vaulted to a commanding lead with his own 62. Tied for second, but nine strokes back, were Bobby Mitchell and 42-year-old veteran Miller Barber. Allen Miller fell to 14 shots behind, but still led Crenshaw whose 71 kept him in the tournament’s backwater, a seemingly insurmountable 18 strokes behind Watson.

Despite high winds in round six, Crenshaw roared back from oblivion. Striking his irons so solidly that his shots never wavered in the gale, he carved out a 64 that some observers deemed superior to the 62s of Gilbert and Watson. Crenshaw, twice a Masters champion, still considers this one of his greatest rounds. News of the fantastic score rapidly circulated all over the course. Not only had he bypassed his fellow houseguests, he leapfrogged all but Watson, joining Jerry Heard and Barber in second. Watson delivered a wobbly 76 but remained six shots ahead. After another unsteady 76 by Watson in the seventh round, his challengers loomed closer with Barber and Mitchell poised only two back and the resurgent Crenshaw three.

It felt to players teeing off in the eighth and final round, that they had been competing in the World Open for months. According to Golf World’s Taylor, Al Geiberger kidded his playing partners on one hole, “If I remember correctly, I hit a 4-iron here in April during the 23rd round.” Exhausted tournament volunteers couldn’t wait to attend “End of the World” parties to celebrate Saturday’s finish.

 

Watson promised Pinehurst friends he would throw a party himself if he won, but a disappointing 77 would drop him into a fourth-place tie. It looked as though the winner would emerge from the Crenshaw/Barber pairing. Twice Crenshaw’s age, the balding, paunchy Miller outweighed his young rival by nearly 50 pounds. The svelte Crenshaw with his long blonde locks had already become a charismatic heartthrob. An odd couple then, Crenshaw recalls Barber, who died in 2013, with deep respect and affection. “I loved that man,” he says. “He was one of those guys who was funny without trying to be.” With his dark sunglasses, his steadfast refusal to reveal his nighttime whereabouts and his parabolic backswing, “The Mysterious Mr. X” acquired a colorful mystique that belied his unprepossessing personal appearance.

Barber and Crenshaw dueled back and forth exchanging birdies and bogeys until Mr. X birdied the 14th to take a one-shot lead. At the par-5 16th Crenshaw swung out of his shoes and pulled his tee shot far left into the woods. Unable to recover, he bogeyed the hole to fall two back. According to Crenshaw, golf writer and Pinehurst bon vivant Bob Drum later asked him, “What were you trying to do, drive the green?”

After Barber laced an iron into the heart of the green on the par-3 17th, he turned to rotund caddie Herman Mitchell (who would become better known in coming years as Trevino’s caddie) and exclaimed, “That’s it!” He parred that hole, and then put the icing on the cake by rolling in a closing birdie on 18 to defeat Crenshaw by three.

One would think Barber would pause at least for a moment to bask in triumphant glory. According to deYoung, however, he had another agenda. “Peter, come here,” commanded Barber. “I’m not going to the pressroom. Get me a bourbon and one writer and I’ll give him 20 minutes.” He needed to catch a plane to Dallas for a Cowboys game the next day. With the hasty interview concluded and desperate to flee the place he’d been for almost two weeks, Barber waited in the parking lot for his caddie. Ladened with golf equipment, a harried Mitchell lost control of the shag bag and the balls spilled out, running to the far corners of the parking lot like a pack of children playing hide-and-seek. “Forget them, Herman,” ordered Barber. “Let’s go!” So exited golf’s inaugural world champion.

Crenshaw’s disappointment was salved by his $44,175 second-place check. “All of a sudden I had some money,” he says. “And every bit of success helps a player searching for confidence.”

Forty years later Crenshaw would return, along with his partner, Bill Coore, to restore No. 2. His 1973 World Open experience “stimulated my love for Pinehurst,” which, as he sees it, “came full circle.” Rick Tufts may have been forced to finance his motorbike, but he gained a lifetime friend. He still exchanges Christmas cards with Crenshaw and enjoyed a sentimental reunion with him during the 1999 U.S. Open.

Downbeat over low attendance and the absence of stars, Maurer had nonetheless committed to host the World Open for two years. The tournament was shortened to 72 holes with a commensurate reduction in prize money. The PGA Tour granted Pinehurst a more hospitable week in September to coincide with the opening of the new World Golf Hall of Fame building and the Hall’s induction ceremony. September 11, 1974 marked one of the most memorable days in Pinehurst’s golfing history with Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Patty Berg all on hand for their respective inductions and President Gerald Ford was in attendance as well. Johnny Miller won that year’s tournament. Nicklaus would capture the event in 1975. Diamondhead would sign Colgate as the corporate sponsor beginning in 1977 and the event was renamed the Colgate Hall of Fame Golf Classic. Colgate dropped its sponsorship after 1979. Pinehurst ended its 10-year run as an annual tour stop after the 1982 event. Born as a marathon, conceived as a curiosity, it became a 144-hole footnote to the history yet to come.  PS

Pinehurst resident Bill Case is PineStraw’s history man. He can be reached at Bill.Case@thompsonhine.com.

Rooted in Love

Sandhills Community College’s Landscape Gardening program, the ever-evolving classroom we all get to enjoy, celebrates 50 years

By Ashley Wahl   •   Photographs by John Gessner

In Japan, there’s an expression you might find brushed on a hanging scroll in any given tea room that speaks to the notion of holding each meeting as sacred:

Ichi-go ichi-e.

One time, one meeting.

This is the phrase that comes to mind when witnessing Sandhills Community College (SCC) Landscape Gardening professor and garden director Jim Westmen explore the Sandhills Horticultural Gardens.

On a sweltering summer afternoon, the air pregnant with the amalgam of fragrant ginger lilies and the electric hum of cicadas, Westmen takes a walk through the 32-acre gardens and reflects on the journey he started as an SCC Landscape Gardening student in 1978. Renowned for its hands-on approach to learning and its prestigious crop of alumni — two White House groundskeepers and the former director of gardens at Monticello among them — the Landscape Gardening program at SCC recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. As is the case for many who have been a part of the SCC program, Westmen’s story is deeply interwoven with its history. Imagine the wild tangle of azalea and rhododendron roots beneath the floor of the Hackley Woodland Garden, or that of the pine and tulip poplar along the Desmond Native Wetland Trail. The roots aren’t separate from the gardens. They’re one with it.

Westmen intimately recalls the installation of SCC’s first official garden — a sundry collection of hollies donated from Pinehurst resident Fred Ebersole when Westmen was a first-year student — and has had two dirt-laced hands in the beautification and development of the horticultural gardens since he was hired as faculty in 1988. But somehow, perhaps even mysteriously to him, Westmen continues to experience the campus grounds as if seeing them for the first time.

“I never get tired of being out here,” he says. And as the smiling professor winds along the garden paths, it’s obvious that this ever-evolving landscape serves as the fertile ground and classroom from which the program and its students continue to blossom.

—

Jim Westmen grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, mowing lawns for chump change and helping his dad install and tend to a backyard greenhouse where wandering Jew and spider plants spilled from hanging baskets, and flower and vegetable seeds were germinated for the home garden.

By 17, he knew what he loved (horticulture), but Sandhills wasn’t on his radar.

“I was looking at N.C. State,” says Westmen, when a friend who had gone through SCC’s Landscape Gardening program told him about a community college in Pinehurst that he might want to check out.

A trip to campus included a two-hour talk with the program’s then-coordinator, Fred Garrett, and the rest is part of SCC history.

“It was the hands-on learning that most excited me about this program,” said Westmen. “I wanted to do it, not just talk about it.”

The small class sizes were also appealing. Although numbers are lower now than in years past (less than 20 are currently enrolled; the program can accept up to 35 students), Westmen is hopeful for the next green movement. 

“Today’s society . . . when people walk by a beautiful landscape, maybe they can appreciate beauty, but many think it just happened. But somebody designed it, somebody grew it, somebody installed it.”

Prior to 1978, SCC’s Landscape Gardening students had to travel to the Boyd estate (Southern Pines) and local nurseries for in-the-field experience, but during Westmen’s freshman year, with the establishment of the Ebersole Holly Garden, the program as we know it really started to take shape. 

Flash forward 40 years and see the history of the Sandhills Horticultural Gardens meticulously displayed on the walls of the G. Victor and Margaret Ball Garden Visitors Center.  Open to the public year-round, this 32-acre classroom includes 14 themed gardens planned, designed, constructed and maintained by the college’s Landscape Gardening staff and students. This kind of application is what Fred Huette must have envisioned when he proposed a horticulture curriculum like that of the renowned European garden training schools. And this is what makes SCC’s program a national institute.

Just outside the visitor center, beyond the dwarf spruces and Chantilly lace hydrangea, a young woman is photographing a stunning display of Fantasia Hibiscus, whose cheerful pink faces resemble a scene from the Lollipop Guild. A short walk toward the main campus brings us to Steed Hall, where Westmen spent the balmy morning indoors teaching his Arboriculture Lab students how to safely operate a chainsaw.

“First they learn how to turn it off,” he says, smiling yet completely serious. Same goes for mowers, blowers, tractors, weed-eaters, skid-steers, utility carts, and all other equipment the students might use to help manage the campus grounds during their Work-Based Learning residencies. Westmen gestures back toward Steed Hall from the Conifer Garden, a miniature evergreen forest made enchanted with its dwarf varieties and collection of rare weeping spruces. Named for the late Warren Steed, longtime benefactor of SCC’s Landscape Gardening program known for his excessively gracious nature and accidental discovery of the Little Gem magnolia — “You couldn’t leave his nursery without him gifting you a plant,” says Westmen — the building houses modern offices, classrooms and a small dormitory where students take turns living on-campus and applying their knowledge to the program’s greenhouses and the SCC gardens for two-week shifts.

“This puts them in the position of being responsible and practicing time management while they’re taking classes,” says Westmen. And it helps build their confidence.

Dee Johnson, who succeeded founding program coordinator Fred Garrett and served as such for the past 17 years, says that the students of SCC are among the most sought-after in the landscape gardening industry.

“I got calls every week from all over the country,” says Johnson, who, like Westmen, is a graduate of the two-year program. “We’re not typical of a community college system. Here, you’re learning how to drive a skid-steer and install irrigation. Most four-year degree programs don’t offer that kind of experience.”

When asked to share some of the highlights of the program’s history, Johnson is quick to mention Dr. Ebersole’s collection of hollies, which the students dug up from his property on Midland Road and transplanted. She’s not so quick to mention that, 40 years ago, like Westmen, she was one of those students.

“Do I have to show my age?” asks Johnson, whose subtle humor underlies her no-nonsense nature. 

“We had 383 species of holly,” she continues. “That was the beginning of the gardens.” 

At the program’s 50th anniversary celebration in June, Johnson was presented with a bronze “Dog Ate My Homework” statue in honor of her recent retirement.

“I’m a stickler about getting things done on time,” says Johnson. “My colleagues thought the statue was very appropriate.”

In August, following Johnson’s official retirement, former SCC Landscape Gardening graduate Hilarie Blevins took the reins as program coordinator.

Seeing a theme here?

Given the close-knit atmosphere of the program and its symbiotic relationship with the gardens, it’s no surprise that past graduates feel drawn to return as faculty.

The same is true for instructor Johanna Westmen, who, yes, happens to be Jim Westmen’s wife.

While the mind is quick to imagine young Jim and Johanna sharing their first kiss beneath the lush canopy of what’s now the fringe of the romantic Atkins Hillside Garden, theirs is a fairytale of a different variety.

The Westmens didn’t meet here as students. They were already married and had started a local landscape business and nursery when Johanna decided to go through the program.

“It was interesting,” says Johanna of being her husband’s student. “But I could not have asked for a better teacher.” 

She graduated from the program, and when a teaching position opened up, Johanna joined the faculty.

“That’s one reason it’s such a joy to be here,” says professor Westmen of working with his wife. “We’re best friends.”

But ask either Westmen to tell you what they love most about the program and they will both say the same thing.

“Absolutely, hands down, it’s the students,” says Johanna. “Getting to be part of the lives of so many diverse and interesting people in the years I have been here is what keeps me going every day. The relationships you form with these students is everything.”

—

Westmen’s keys jingle against his hip as he makes his way toward the Sir Walter Raleigh Garden, a formal English-style garden where Bengal tiger cannas look like brilliant flames against a muted yet stunning backdrop of white-flowering crape myrtles trained into the form of single-trunk trees towering at 15 feet.

“They must have been about 6 feet tall when I started teaching here,” says Westmen, who paints the scene of students pruning them each February with four words: “Little birds in nests.”   

Beyond the Atkins Hillside Garden, where swallowtails light on flowering butterfly bushes and tiny frogs squeak from lily pads to water as visitors cross bridges over the winding rock-lined stream, Westmen guides his guest to one of his favorite places on campus: the Ambrose Japanese Garden. Here, his passion and appreciation for creating a sense of place comes alive.

“Japanese gardens have a particular look,” says Westmen. “You can’t just take those components, plop them on the ground, and call it a Japanese garden. It has to evolve from the location.”

Designed by one of the program’s former students, the garden feels completely natural in longleaf pine turf. 

Westmen points out the textures, the low-intensity colors, the various shades of green, the material used for the hardscape and meandering path, the wabi-sabi aesthetic of the moss-covered rocks, and the naturalistic features such as the arched bridge and azumaya.

“It’s more about the feeling you get as you move through this garden,” says Westmen, who pauses to admire the wavy pattern raked into the dry (Zen) garden. From the looks of it, the students in living quarters must have just completed it. 

Westmen has a naturally laid-back vibe, but he is noticeably more tranquil here. He studies the pattern in the crushed stone with the knowledge that he has never seen anything like it.     

Ichi-go ichi-e.

“The time it takes to rake a pattern like this in here is kind of what I want them to get out of it,” he says. “It’s somewhat of a meditation.” 

He then describes the effect this assignment continues to have on some of the “big-belt-buckle-kinda-boys” he sees come through the program.

“They get so excited about doing this. That excitement was the whole point . . . to see that change in them.”

—

After walking through the Fruit and Vegetable Garden, where a gray squirrel snags an under-ripe apple and a red-headed woodpecker raps on a nearby longleaf pine, Westmen heads for the Hoad Children’s Garden behind the Visitors Center, the newest addition to the gardens.

“Our current students worked their butts off to have the drip irrigation ready for the program’s 50th  anniversary celebration,” says Westmen. “They’re an incredible bunch.”

On June 9, upward of 300 guests attended the party. Among them were over 100 alumni, many of whom were amazed by the evolution of the gardens, and how the work and care they put into it so many years ago still lives and breathes with the landscape.

“There’s this dedication, this love for what the program created for us,” says Westmen. “We want to see that continue, hopefully for another 50 years at least.”

The professor playfully sniffles as if getting sentimental, but behind the joke is undeniable sincerity.

“I’m proud of the program and I’m proud of what the students have produced,” he says, eyes sparkling as he takes in the handiwork of his current students. “In a way, the program has offered me a career and a life.”  PS

Ashley Wahl is the former senior editor of Salt Magazine. She currently writes, sings, and plays among the trees in Asheville, North Carolina.

Almanac

September is the golden hour of summer.

Soon, the squash blossoms will disappear. Ditto fresh okra, watermelon, sweet corn and roadside stands. The crickets will grow silent, and the black walnut will stand naked against a crisp winter sky.

But right now, in this moment, everything feels soft, dreamy, light.

In the meadow, goldenrod glows brilliant among Joe-Pye and wild carrot.

In the garden, goldfinches light upon the feeder, swallowtails dance between milkweed and aster, and just beyond the woodland path, the hive hums heavy.

September is raw honey on the tongue.

I think of my Devon Park rental, retrieving the old push mower from the woodshed and discovering a colony of honeybees busy beneath the creaky floorboard. In the space between the floor joists: 40 pounds of liquid gold. Gratitude arrives with the scent of ginger lilies. I exhale thanks to the apiarist for transporting the bees to his own backyard — and for leaving just a taste of their honey for me.

September is master of subtly. Satiety following an electric kiss; anticipation for the next one. Delight in this golden hour, this taste of sweet nectar, this gentle reminder to be here now.

‘Tis the last rose of summer,

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone.

— Thomas Moore, The Last Rose of Summer, 1830 

Pecan Harvest

Yes, the time has come. If you’re lucky enough to have one or more pecan trees growing in your backyard, then you know that the earliest nuts fall in September. And those who are lucky enough to know the ecstasy of homemade pecan pie will tell you that the efforts of the harvest are worth it. Or just ask one of the neighborhood squirrels.

Here’s a trick. If you’re wondering whether a pecan is fit to crack, try shaking a couple of them in the palms of your hands first. Listen. Do they rattle? Likely no good. Full pecans sound solid, but the way to develop an ear is trial and error. You’ll catch on.

And in the spirit of Mabon, the pagan celebration of the autumnal equinox, consider offering libations to the mighty pecan tree. My bet is they’ll relish your homemade mead as much as any of us.

Sweet and Good

September is National Honey Month. According to the National Honey Board (exactly what it sounds like: a group dedicated to educating consumers about the benefits and uses of all things you-know-what), the average honeybee produces 1 1/2 teaspoons of honey over the course of its entire life. Here’s another nugget that might surprise you: A typical hive can produce between 30 to 100 pounds of honey a year. To produce just one pound, a colony must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers. Think about that the next time you hold in your hands a jar of this pure, raw blessing.

Wish to make mead? Honey, water, yeast and patience.

But if pudding sounds more like your bag, here’s a recipe from the National Honey Board:

Honey Chia Seed Pudding

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

2 cups coconut milk

6 tablespoons chia seeds

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons honey

Fresh berries

Granola

Directions:

Combine coconut milk, chia seeds, vanilla and honey in a medium bowl. Mix well until the honey has dissolved. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight.

Stir well and divide the pudding into individual portions.

Serve with fresh berries. Add granola, if desired.

(I recommend adding a few organic cacao nibs too.)

As the Wheel Turns

The autumnal equinox occurs on Saturday, Sept. 22, just two days before the full Harvest Moon. Speaking of, if you’re gardening by the moon, plant annual flowers (pansies, violets, snapdragons and mums) and mustard greens during the waxing moon (Sept. 9–21). Onion, radish, turnip, and other vegetables that bear crops underground should be planted during the dark (aka waning) moon. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, old-time farmers swear this makes for a larger, tastier harvest.

The breezes taste

Of apple peel.

The air is full

Of smells to feel –

Ripe fruit, old footballs,

Burning brush,

New books, erasers,

Chalk, and such.

The bee, his hive,

Well-honeyed hum,

And Mother cuts

Chrysanthemums.

Like plates washed clean

With suds, the days

Are polished with

A morning haze.

— John Updike, September

And the Winner Is

Sports gambling, coming to a state near you

By Jim Moriarty

It’s that time of year when, at long last, the heat breaks. Geese check out of their quaint Vermont inns and follow their GPS to Currituck Sound. Hordes of unruly monarch butterflies make a thunderous racket flapping off to Mexico. And, inevitably, the mind turns to the gimlet-eyed assessment of point spreads.

Thanks to a 6-to-3 United States Supreme Court ruling last May, the legality of sports wagering has devolved to the states, as the Founders no doubt intended. It was George Washington, after all, who covered the spread against Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Though hard evidence is scant, rumors of gambling in our part of the world predate the Supremes. There is some suggestion that games of chance took place at the infamous Dunes Club and that, in that bygone era, the local constabulary was in the habit of placing phone calls to various establishments around the county to give advance warning of police raids. A few decades ago there was a private club on Broad Street in Southern Pines where it was possible to get those old-timey, pre-internet football betting cards. I know this only because my wife got them every week, inexplicably circling the exact opposite of my own picks while looking over my shoulder. Her winning streak remains unparalleled in the annals of wagering.

Charles Price, the great golf writer, spent his final years in Pinehurst and brought with him the memory of his father, who had been something of a professional at it. “He was acquainted with every notorious hood, cheat and racketeer on the East Coast, and he was afraid of none of them,” wrote Charley. “He was accustomed to being entrusted with large amounts of other people’s money. He always kept his mouth shut about other people’s affairs. And he was scrupulously honest. These were the qualities which set him apart from ordinary gamblers and which enabled him to walk the underworld, if need be, with no more armor than his pin-striped suit and the incongruously flamboyant neckties he always wore.”

When it came to gambling Price’s father played off scratch. We are not all so genetically favored. I, myself, inherited what can only be described as the chump gene, a marker of utter futility in anything involving wagering. I once bet on a horse at the Stoneybrook Steeplechase that decided, rather than gallop along with the crowd, to take off in the exact opposite direction, settling peacefully in the infield as if he was a late-arriving guest delivering Swedish meatballs to a tailgate party.

The worst of it is that there is an element of contagion associated with my particular affliction, a fact that became glaringly obvious to Dick Altman. When I met Alty he was one of the instructors in the Golf Digest Schools. He’d also been one of the magazine’s editors in its early days. It was more than hearsay that Dick enjoyed placing the occasional bet. Sometimes using bills of impressive denominations.

In 1989, in addition to taking photographs and writing stories for Golf Digest, I shot home football games for Clemson University. One of the games that year was Clemson vs. N.C. State. I remember that Saturday as a sunny day. Certainly it was sunnier for me than for Dick Altman.

N.C. State was coached in those years by Dick Sheridan. The Wolfpack was unbeaten, 6-0, and Sheridan’s teams had defeated Clemson three straight times. Clemson was 5-2 at that point. They’d been shellacked at home by Georgia Tech the previous week. Their other loss was to Duke. Yes, that Duke. Can you see where this is going?

Terry Allen was Clemson’s star running back. He may be the toughest running back I ever watched up close. I once saw him get hit high, low and in-between, simultaneously, by three guys near the Clemson sideline, crawl off the field on his hands and knees, puking his guts out, and come back in the game two plays later. For other unrelated reasons, it looked very much like Allen was going to be sitting out the N.C. State game.

Here’s the kicker: State was the underdog. I forget the actual point spread but it wasn’t insignificant. Five or six. “Alty,” says I, “it’s the lock of the century.”

Well, Clemson came bounding down the hill that sunny day in all orange, top of the helmet to tip of the toe, and ran N.C. State right out of the other end of Death Valley. It felt like the Tigers were ahead 56-0 by the end of the first quarter. In reality, they won 30-10 but the game wasn’t remotely as close as even that lopsided score would indicate.

It’s fair to say that if Facebook had existed in 1989, I’d have been on the fast track to a fuming unfriending. Had Alty been able to take our case all the way to the Supreme Court, I’m pretty sure I would have ended up on death row.  PS

Jim Moriarty is the Senior Editor at PineStraw and can be reached at jjmpinestraw@gmail.com for anything except gambling advice.

Southern Pines in Bloom

An award-winning orchid honors the old hometown

By Amy Griggs 

At first blush, Jason Harpster’s greenhouse is unremarkable. It’s smallish, with opaque siding, exhaust fans whirring, and a door not visible streetside. Inside is another story.

Enter Harpster’s world.

His West Broad Street greenhouse is populated solely by orchids, well over 100 plants mostly being coy with their blossoms on a warm summer morning. Species native to nearly all continents of the world hang vertically from a series of parallel horizontal rods lining the walls of the greenhouse, remarkable in their mounts using materials that mimic their natural habitat, like bark, sphagnum moss and coconut matting.

Inconspicuously nestled against a hedgerow mere steps across the asphalt parking lot of his family’s business, Central Security Systems, the greenhouse is Harpster’s other office, designed and built by his father, Dick, and him. Sporting a ubiquitous resort-casual look in khaki shorts and, appropriately, an orchid polo shirt, sipping a late breakfast concoction of spinach, bananas and seasonal fruit in his favorite beer mug, the orchidist’s scientific bent takes over. Sounding professorial, he naturally uses the Latin-based language of orchid nomenclature, even after acknowledging layman’s terms would be easier for most to process.

This is the steamy place where Harpster makes pollination magic and begins the expectant watch for plants’ ovaries to swell, a bulge in the flower stem indicating that fertilization has taken place and seeds are on the way. Harpster snips and ships ovaries ready to burst forth to a lab that will harvest the tiny seeds. Given the life cycle of a typical orchid from seed to blooming plant, it will take five to seven years to see its first bloom.

This was the process, he explains, that resulted in a new hybrid orchid that honors the very town in which it was conceived, Catyclia Leaf Hopper “Southern Pines” HCC/AOS, which in June made its showy green and fuchsia debut, earning a highly commended certificate at Greensboro’s Carolinas Judging Center, sponsored by the prestigious American Orchid Society.

The inspiration for assigning the common name for his hybrid creation came on a trip he and his wife, Keely, a horticulturalist at Sandhills Community College, took to the International Lady-Slipper Symposium in Florida in 2012. “I met an idol there,” he says of symposium speaker and botanist Franz Glanz. Harpster learned why the name “Wössner” appeared in dozens of Glanz’s hybrid orchids, many of which Harpster counts among his favorites.

“I loved that he named the plants after the region that he came from (in Germany), rather than naming them after himself,” he says. By honoring his hometown of Southern Pines in his hybrid’s name, Harpster is acknowledging the support he has felt here since childhood. “Being part of the community and giving back is a big deal for me,” he says.

Harpster is active in the Southern Pines Business Association (past president), Rotary Club, and the Eagle Scout review board, the latter a position he was recruited for by mentor Don McKenzie, one of the leaders who facilitated the young Harpster’s earning his Eagle Scout award at age 17. “One of the things I love about Southern Pines is that the mentors who guided me are still here, literally across the street,” he says, pointing to McKenzie Photography just across Vermont Avenue.

“I do remember he was always very focused,” McKenzie says of Harpster. “Every rank in Scouting involves service to others, as a troop and as an individual.” The philosophy germinated along with Harpster’s interest in plant identification. He realized, “Hey, I’m good at this. I had a knack for it, and I enjoyed it more than almost anything else in Scouts. It got me outside and taught me a lot of passions.”

Harpster’s greenhouse treasures carry monetary value, but he has no interest in selling orchids, content with his avocation remaining just that. The greater value is his attachment to the plants, as passionate as if they were his pets. In fact, another of Harpster’s fascinations is breeding tropical fish.

In the lobby of Central Security, visitors are treated to a stunning 300-gallon aquarium full of dozens of African Cichlids, vibrant yellow fish and blue fish in various sizes swimming against a dark backdrop. The lighting is dramatic; the look theatrical. And like the orchids, they prove to be a science-begets-art exemplar.

Harpster points out matter-of-factly, “They are maternal mouthbrooders. The female scoops up her fertilized eggs in her mouth and then in about three weeks, out swim the babies.”

It’s an interest dating back to a childhood job cleaning the family aquarium. In college, he was once presented with the choice of purchasing an aquarium or a television for a new apartment — he came down squarely on the side of the fish. “It became the centerpiece of my apartment.”

While not disparaging anyone who does talk to their fish or plants, Harpster is clinical and scientific in all things flora and fauna, lightheartedly explaining, “I don’t talk to plants or fish. I don’t name the fish. They have proper taxonomic names that they should be called, darn it!” Never content to rest on his laurels, Harpster is engaged in the arduous accreditation process to become a judge within the American Orchid Society, a leader in the kingdom of orchids since 1924 — a process he likens to adding another degree to his MBA.

Some of Harpster’s orchids have found a summer home off Young’s Road in the horse farm setting of Jason and Keely’s backyard, where an awning diffuses light over a series of terra cotta plant holders, repurposed utility pipes where the plants thrive as though they were summering in the tropics.

But then, that’s Harpster’s world.  PS

Amy Griggs has worked as a community journalist and middle school teacher. She lives in Wake County and counts the Sandhills as her second home.

My New Food Home

By Clyde Edgerton

This is a story about a way to get healthier without medicine, through food. No, don’t stop reading, please.

I had 20 migraines between October 2016 and April 2017. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about hitting myself in the head with a hammer, then decided to see my doctor. She gave me a prescription for migraines. One pill made me feel so bad I decided I’d rather have the headaches. I checked in with a neurologist, who basically told me he didn’t know what I should do, beyond keeping a migraine diary to discover my “triggers.” I envisioned a life of diary writing with continued migraines. I wanted quick relief — I wanted a relief app.

A friend suggested a book: The Migraine Brain. I read it. It had a bunch of “Don’t Eat This” lists, and while the lists didn’t always agree, they did overlap on certain foods. I was desperate. I went cold turkey and stopped eating or drinking anything beyond veggies, brown rice, fruit, and water — with beans for protein, and sparkling water for some pizzazz in my life.

I admit that I’ve silently looked down my nose at vegetarians. I once wrote in a book that when new parents get the baby seat all situated and fastened into the car, a cousin is going to come along, say it’s not put in right and then call the authorities. That cousin, I said, will be a vegetarian. If that’s funny, I’ve told folks, it’s because it’s true. Now I are one myself. (From that old joke: “I always wanted to be a grammarian and now I are one.”)

Here I was looking to become not only a vegetarian, but also a vegan — somebody I once visualized as soft-spoken and polite, wearing flip-flops, apt to be found sitting in a dark back room, listening to a podcast about . . . oh I don’t know — animals. 

I was willing to sit anywhere and drink spinach smoothies and listen to even classical music if that would help stop the headaches. I would become a veggie vegan spokesperson. A veggie vegan warrior, maybe — if by chance the headaches stopped.

I cut out all gluten, sweets, dairy products, alcohol, soy, bananas (the only fruit on most all the no-eat lists in the book I read), eggs, coffee and meat. I was that desperate.

Beans and rice, with sautéed onions and peppers, became my first island of refuge — my first meal friend.

This meat/potato/biscuit puppy was surprised that the world didn’t collapse. My fresh food list led to a new — I’ve got to say it — happiness. Because the migraines stopped cold — as if a miracle had descended — and a respite from the pain of migraines made up for any initial worry about food.

During the first month of different eating habits, I discovered excellent gluten-free breads in the freezer section at the grocery store while rediscovering simple cornbread (no gluten), corn chips, oatmeal, and ah . . . homemade granola. Refried beans became a favorite — and in any Mexican restaurant I could find a friendly meal. (Hold the cheese, please.)

More and more restaurants are catering to people who eat the way I now eat. You might be surprised. I’ve found great sushi. Sometimes with sushi I cheat a tad with a little white fish meat, as in the “Lean Queen” specialty roll at Yoshi Sushi Bar in Wilmington. I’ve called for it for takeout so many times — they see the incoming number and answer with, “Got it.”

When you are somehow restricted, a result may be liberation. Narrowed choices may bring greater enjoyment.

I discovered a bean burger cut up on a salad at PT’s.

I started satisfying my sweet tooth big time with cantaloupe, honeydew melons, and sweet potatoes — two in the oven on aluminum foil, hit 350 degrees and the timer for 1:37. And a rice cake with almond butter and honey is succulent.

And, listen . . . ice cream. I’ve screamed for it all my life. Several non-dairy, non-sugar (or very low sugar) ice creams are out there. Try it before knocking it. I make a tiny milkshake several times a week: a few ounces of almond milk and with a couple scoops of Nada Moo or S.O. ice cream substitute.

I lost 20 pounds in three weeks — and a year later, I’m still down 20. It helps that I’m walking two miles a day.

Narrowed choices have forced my finding really good recipes. I look forward to breakfast like never before: a layer of frozen blueberries, a layer of gluten-free granola with a few roasted pecans or maybe some trail mix for crunch, then a layer of a favorite in-season fruit with a dash of salt. Top off with ice cold almond milk (or hemp milk or flax milk). A dessert for me is often pecans and strawberries with strong decaf coffee. My old molecules have accepted new molecules coming through the door. Did I mention homemade granola? Or toast, avocado and fresh tomato? Gluten free pizza crust — served in many pizza parlors now?

I did try one steak a couple months ago. It landed in my stomach like a hiking boot.

My last physical exam showed lower cholesterol than ever, lowest weight in 50 years (by 20 pounds), and lower blood pressure than ever. You are what you eat.

My impetus to change my eating habits was 20 migraines in a few months. I’ve heard that a new habit materializes in two weeks to a year. I’ve passed the one-year mark. And yes, I’ve adjusted a bit: I’m back on an occasional egg and a serving of fish. But there are many reasons not to yield — not to return to my old-food home. I have a new new, better, tastier food home.

If you think you could feel better — consider cutting the gut-makers. Go lean. At least don’t scoff at us vegetarians, vegans, and hybrids. Consider joining us. Try it for one month.  PS

Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir and most recently, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

Ask Me Another, Please

Here are a few of the usual suspects

By Angela Sanchez

Being a sales person in the wine industry for almost 20 years, and now working with my own wine program, I have fielded quite a few questions over the years. Here are a few of the most common:

What is your favorite wine?

I almost always drink rosé, almost every day, all year long. Mostly because, to me, it is the perfect balance between red and white wine and goes with just about anything you want to eat. My favorite red varietal is grenache. Whether it’s full-bodied, deep and full of the aromas of pencil lead from Priorat in Spain or blended to give Southern Rhône wines roundness, fruit forwardness and generosity on the palate, I love it. Anytime I am in the mood for a red wine to have with a nice steak or lamb dinner or just to have a nice glass, following rosé, I choose a nice grenache or a wine blended with it. Also, I always drink bubbles on Sunday. If not Champagne then something more budget-friendly, like Italian Prosecco or Cremant from France or dry styles of California sparking. Look for them to say brut on the label. I do have my favorite producers and regions for my favorite wine styles, but I always keep an open mind and eye to try new ones.

What wine should I serve at my party?

I like parties and wine and fun and, together, parties and wine are fun. I suggest wines that are crowd pleasers, that don’t need a lot of discussion and are easily enjoyed. Keep it simple. You want guests to have something they can feel comfortable with. Something sparkling because nothing says party, or fun, like bubbles. A red and a white. For the white, I recommend an easy drinking style with little or no oak used to age the wine. My favorites come from regions where you can find great value these days, like sauvignon blanc from South Africa or Chile, or a nice blend, usually grenache blanc and viognier, from the South of France. As far as red goes, I prefer something that has not seen a lot of oak aging. Great value areas where you get a lot of bang for your buck are Chile, Argentina and Spain. Try an Argentinian malbec, Chilean cabernet or Spanish grenache. For bubbles, the best bets for quality and price come from Prosecco from Italy and Cava from Spain. Also a nice choice, but a bit higher priced would be a sparkling wine from Napa, California, made using the traditional méthod champenoise.

How long will my wine last?

Are we talking about the bottle you just opened; the bottle your boss gave you for your birthday; or that bottle of 1996 Screaming Eagle Cabernet? If it’s the bottle you just opened, in my case, it wouldn’t last past tonight. If it’s the bottle your boss gave you as a gift and you aren’t familiar with the name, Google it. The winery will have a description and most likely tell you if it’s ready to drink now, within the next year, or hold, and for how long. If it’s a bottle of 1996 Screaming Eagle, it’s ready to drink, so drink it. If it is another bottle worthy of aging and collecting, please make sure to keep it somewhere cool, dry and out of direct sunlight. Aging times vary based on the varietal, style, vintage and producer. Some varietals naturally need longer to develop their full potential — think cabernet and merlot-based Bordeaux. The vintage and producer usually dictate aging. A great producer makes good wine even in a bad vintage, but a bad vintage can make lesser producers struggle to make a wine that can last over time and, as a result, it would need to be consumed young, or as a critic might say, now.

I am always happy to answer questions. I ask a lot of them myself. These are just a few of the frequent flyers. They have one common theme — drink what you like, when you like, and you won’t be disappointed.  PS

Angela Sanchez owns Southern Whey, a cheese-centric specialty food store in Southern Pines, with her husband, Chris Abbey. She was in the wine industry for 20 years and was lucky enough to travel the world drinking wine and eating cheese.

A Whole New World

It was a marvel when the pros came to town

By Bill Fields

Seeing the U.S. Open played at Pinehurst No. 2 three times in the last 20 years — and the U.S. Women’s Open, too, in 2014 — has been wonderful. For many years the prospect of holding the national Open here was as unlikely as landing an NFL franchise. The negative chorus was loud: too small, too remote, too you-name-it. But the championships went off without hitches, and a fourth Open is already penciled in for 2024.

My best memories of elite competition on No. 2, though, pre-date the majors and are of a time when people didn’t go to golf tournaments to shop or drink, when “corporate hospitality” was not yet a glint in a marketer’s eye, when knuckleheads weren’t shouting inanities after someone’s shot. 

I didn’t know then, more than four decades ago, that Donald Ross’ masterpiece design had lost its way architecturally, with acres of Bermuda rough, soft putting surfaces and love-to-hate grass planted in all the wrong places. If you were a young, aspiring golfer — and there weren’t a lot of us around in those days, Mecca of the game or not — it seemed just shy of magical that the PGA Tour came to town.

Arnie. Jack. Lee. Raymond. Chi Chi. Even Sam, more than 30 years since the first of his three victories in the North and South Open on No. 2, the golf gods having given him not only glorious tempo but the gift of time.

And there were the tour rabbits that came out of the Monday qualifying hat to fill the field in a given season, players such as George Cadle, Bunky Henry, Lyn Lott, Ed Sabo, Curtis Sifford and Alan Tapie.

All ours for a week — or two, in the case of the inaugural World Open in 1973, which copied the State Fair without the cotton candy and candy apples. But to a local golf-loving teenager who knew the difference between Terry Diehl and Terry Dill, even though their surnames sounded the same in our accent, the tournament was plenty sweet.

Watching the pros in the flesh, particularly while carrying a scoring standard on weekends at the World Open from 1974-76, was inspiring but also sobering, like seeing my swing for the first time on our Super 8 movie camera. What they (best in the world) and I (decent high school golfer) were capable of seemed galaxies apart. Everything looked orderly, coordinated, purposeful. Putting a cabretta glove in a back pocket before putting was origami. No one got grass stains, even on dewy mornings. The sound of their spikes on a hard concrete path even played a different tune.

Tom Watson was a decade older than me, but he and caddie Bruce Edwards looked impossibly young the several times I drew a grouping that included the rising star who fearlessly made his way around No. 2. Stray tee shot? No problem. Missed green? No worries. Almost every time I thought I was going to have to denote a dropped shot on my standard, he holed a putt. That this par-saving machine went on to win at Pinehurst in consecutive years (1978-79) was no surprise.

Before or after my volunteer shifts inside the ropes, or after school on Thursday or Friday, it was never hard to see the action in the low-key atmosphere so different from the gallery choke points during the Opens when so many spectators made roomy No. 2 seem claustrophic in places. In 1975, late on Sunday afternoon, I hustled back to the 15th hole for the start of a playoff between eventual winner Johnny Miller, Frank Beard, Bob Murphy and Jack Nicklaus. I was sitting so close to the players I felt like I could reach out and grab Murph’s long iron when he made his signature pause at the top.

Some of my friends picked up work with ABC Sports when the Pinehurst stop got televised, one of them dispatched to a drug store to buy hair spray for Jim McKay. My paying gig was limited to the Mondays after the World Open when our golf coach would get us out of school.

For $20 and a sandwich apiece, a handful of us would collect the gallery stakes and ropes, somehow managing to avoid hurting ourselves and invariably pausing on a couple of tees to make air swings, the only times I never missed a fairway.   PS

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

Here Today, Gone Tomato

Nothing says Southern cooking more than a plate of fried green tomatoes

By Jane Lear

The tomato is a tropical berry — it originated in South America — and so it requires plenty of long, hot sunny days to reach its best: the deep, rich-tasting, almost meaty sweetness many of us live for each summer. When September rolls around, though, it’s a different story. It’s not that I’ve gotten bored with all that lush ripeness, but I develop a very definite craving for fried green tomatoes.

If you grow your own backyard beefsteaks, unripe tomatoes are available pretty much all summer long, but this is the time of year they start getting really good. In the early autumn, the days are undeniably getting shorter, and thus there are fewer hours of sun. That and cooler temperatures result in green tomatoes with a greater ratio of acid to sugars.

And my cast-iron skillet, which tends to live on top of the stove anyway, gets a workout. Fried green tomatoes, after all, are terrific any time of day. In the morning, they are wonderful sprinkled with a little brown sugar while still hot in the skillet, right before you gently lift them onto warmed breakfast plates. If you’re a brunch person, serve them that way, and you’ll bring down the house. At lunchtime, embellishing BLTs with fried green tomatoes may seem like a time-consuming complication, but those sandwiches will be transcendent, and you and yours are worth it.

When it comes to the evening meal, fried green tomatoes are typically considered a side dish, and there is nothing wrong with that. But in my experience, they always steal the show, so I tend to build supper around them. I rely on leftover cold roasted chicken or ham to fill in the cracks, for instance. Or I make them the center of a vegetable-based supper in which no one will miss the meat. They play well with corn on the cob or succotash, snap beans or butter beans, ratatouille, grilled zucchini and summer squash with pesto, or grits, rice, or potatoes. Pickled black-eyed peas (aka Texas caviar) are nice in the mix, as are sliced ripe red tomatoes, which, when served alongside crunchy golden fried green tomatoes, add a great contrast in texture and flavor.

If you are fortunate enough to have a jar of watermelon rind pickles in the pantry, my Aunt Roxy would suggest that you hop up and get it. I ate many a meal in her cottage on Harbor Island, and early on I learned watermelon and tomatoes have a curious yet genuine affinity for one another. I imagine Aunt Roxy would greet today’s popular fresh tomato and watermelon salads with a satisfied nod of recognition.

We always had a difference of opinion, however, over cream gravy, a popular accompaniment for fried green tomatoes. It’s not that I am morally opposed to lily gilding, but I have never seen the point in putting something wet on something you have worked to make crisp and golden. A butter sauce on pan-fried soft-shelled crabs, chili or melted cheese on french fries, a big scoop of vanilla on a flaky double-crusted fruit pie: I don’t care what it is, the result is soggy food, and I don’t like it.

When it comes to the actual coating for fried green tomatoes, the most traditional choice is dried bread crumbs. I sometimes use the crisp, flaky Japanese bread crumbs called panko, but like Fannie Flagg, I am happiest with cornmeal. It can be white or yellow, fine-ground or coarse. It doesn’t matter as long as it is sweet-smelling — a sign of freshness. And if you happen to have some okra handy, you may as well fry that up at the same time. Trim the pods, cut them into bite-size nuggets, and coat them like the tomato slices. Although rule one when frying anything is not to crowd the pan (otherwise, the food will steam, not fry), there is always room to work a few pieces of okra into each batch of tomatoes. And whoever you are feeding will think you hung the moon and stars.

Fried Green Tomatoes  (Serves 4)

When cutting tomatoes for frying, aim for slices between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick. If too thin, you won’t get the custardy interior you want. And if the slices are too thick, then the coating will burn before the interior is softened.

About 1 cup of cornmeal

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

1 large egg, lightly beaten with a fork

4 extremely firm (but not rock-hard) large green tomatoes

Vegetable oil or bacon drippings (you can also use a combination of the two)

Preheat the oven to low. Season the cornmeal with salt and pepper and spread in a shallow bowl. Have ready the beaten egg in another shallow bowl. Cut the tomatoes into 1/2-inch slices (see above note).

Pour enough oil or drippings into a large heavy skillet to measure about 1/8 inch and heat over moderate heat until shimmering. Meanwhile, working in batches, dip one tomato slice at a time into the egg, turning to coat, then dredge it well in the cornmeal. As you coat each slice, put it on a sheet of waxed paper and let it rest for a minute or two. (This is something I remember watching Aunt Roxy do. It must give the cornmeal a chance to absorb some moisture and decide to adhere.) By the time you coat enough slices to fit in the skillet, the fat in the pan should be good and hot.

Carefully, so as not to dislodge the coating, slip a batch of tomato slices into the hot fat (do not crowd pan) and fry, turning as necessary, until golden on both sides. Drain the slices on paper towels and transfer them to a baking sheet; tuck them in the oven to stay warm and crisp.

Coat and fry the remaining tomato slices in batches, wiping out the skillet with a paper towel and adding more oil or drippings as needed. Be patient and give the fat time to heat up in between batches. You may find yourself eating the first slice or two while alone in the kitchen, but be sweet and share the rest.  PS

Jane Lear was the senior articles editor at Gourmet and features director at Martha Stewart Living.