Crashin’ the Club

An adventure gone wrong turned into the night of their lives

By Bill Case

The white pages listing is for Richard Wayne Penniman. If you dial it the first thing you’ll hear is programmed classical music. Elevator stuff. If you’re lucky, it’s followed by Mr. Penniman himself. There was a time when talking directly with this man took more than a phone call. That was when Richard Penniman — aka Little Richard — rock and rolled the national music scene of the 1950s along with Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino. His monster hits like “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally” and “Lucille” became rock ’n’ roll anthems.

Now 86, Little Richard no longer keeps an entourage, living quietly far from the limelight in Lynchburg, Tennessee, the home of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. My call had nothing to do with his mega-hit celebrity. I was interested in his hardscrabble days performing in African-American roadhouses of the South during the late ’40s and early ’50s — the far-flung network of nightclubs informally dubbed the Chitlin’ Circuit and one place in particular, the Ambassadors Club.

Penniman, once the most flamboyant and attention-seeking of all rock ’n’ roll performers, wasn’t interested in “any of that.” He thanked me for calling and promptly hung up. Little Richard had no desire to remember a part of his life that one Pinehurst boy would never forget.

After World War II Sam Arnette opened the Ambassadors Club hard by the railroad track on Rt. 5 in Jackson Hamlet, a small African-American enclave bordering Pinehurst. It was home to the cooks and maids and caddies — the flesh and bone — of the grand resort. Both the club and Sam are long gone now, but in 1950 it was a hoppin’ place for rhythm and blues and dancing late into the night. Denied access to whites-only venues by the Jim Crow laws of the day, artists including Ray Charles, Ruth Brown, Fats Domino and James Brown mounted the Ambassadors Club’s stage, performing for sums barely sufficient to get them and their bands to the next town.

Tony McKenzie, born in 1936, and his five brothers of Scottish stock grew up in a home adjacent to the Pinehurst Race Track. In those days, the Oldtown area of Pinehurst was almost totally cocooned by a vast pine forest that provided a wondrous environment for Tony and his two older brothers — Fred, four years older, and Gene, two years Tony’s senior — to explore. The boys could virtually guide themselves blindfolded through the forest, blazing shortcut trails to the Pinehurst Dairy, Chalfonte Hotel, Watson’s Lake, Southern Pines, Aberdeen and Jackson Hamlet. They often pitched a tent and slept under the stars. One favorite campsite was the sand pit located, as Tony puts it, “a few skips and a hop or two” from Jackson Hamlet and the Ambassadors Club.

As the three brothers and their friend, Sherrill Cole, lolled around their campfire at the sand pit one Saturday night in 1950, they could hear the pulsating boom of a double bass along with the shockingly loud singing of a high-registered voice that periodically rose two octaves into a spine-tingling falsetto. They’d seen the Ambassadors Club posters tacked to utility poles along the highway advertising the appearance of Buster Brown’s rhythm and blues band, featuring lead vocalist Little Richard. The McKenzie boys had recently seen a movie preview at the Sunrise Theater featuring an unidentified preteen African-American who sang and played the boogie woogie number “Caldonia” on the piano with his hands and elbows to the astonishment and delight of the movie’s star, Van Johnson. The boys assumed (mistakenly) that the child musician on the silver screen had to be the same Little Richard who was now singing his heart out a stone’s throw from their camp.

As he listened to Little Richard’s mesmerizing voice piercing the stillness of the night, the boys’ self-appointed leader, Fred McKenzie, considered how they could get closer to the music. Tony recollects that his older brother “always had a plan, and on the evening of the performance, he put his plan into action.” The plot involved sneaking up to an unlit exterior window of the club, where they would take turns peering inside. Though normally game to participate in Fred’s sometimes misbegotten high jinks, Tony, then 13, remembers cringing a bit at this particular scheme. What would happen if these white boys got caught sneaking around this African-American club? Might they be thrashed by security? Would they be reported to the police? Worse yet, what if their parents found out? Tony’s imagination ran wild at the potential repercussions. Despite his misgivings, the only thing worse than following the plan was being left out of it, so he and his three “accomplices in crime” stealthily approached the club like the army commandos of their imagination.

When the boys reached the window, they discovered it was too high off the ground to get a look inside. But Fred, with the sort of improvisational thinking that would later land him the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army, saw the solution nearby. A pile of empty wooden drink crates was confiscated and stacked together to serve as a perch for the boys. Tony had just mounted the viewing stand and was poised to look inside when a stentorian and commanding voice of authority shouted out, “What are you boys doing out here?” Terrified, Tony froze. On the ground, brother Gene escaped, hightailing it into the woods. Fred began to flee, but after a few steps, he stopped, deciding he couldn’t leave his helpless younger brother stranded on top of a pile of wooden crates. Sherrill also held his ground. Tony remembers the overwhelming dread he felt at the moment when he, Fred and Sherrill had to “face the music.”

To their relief, the moonlighting security guard who caught them was a man the McKenzie brothers knew well. Tom Dawkins was a jack-of-all-trades and had a friendly relationship with the boys. “You boys have no business sneaking around like that,” observed Tom. “If you really want to watch Little Richard, I’ll see if Sam will let you in.”

Dawkins hauled the three boys inside the club into the presence of the imposing Sam Arnette. The boys were acquainted with Sam, having traded empty bottles for candy and soda at Arnette’s small store across the road. After hearing about the drink crates and the window, Sam chuckled, nodded his head, and told Tom to find the young interlopers seats near the stage. Sam reached into his pocket and gave each of the bewildered boys two pennies to buy soft drinks.

Tony did not know what to expect. They were the only whites in the building and young kids to boot. He remembers how spiffily the patrons were dressed — the men attired in double-breasted zoot suits with tightly creased pants, the women in colorful finery — all dancing to the rhythm and blues music of the Buster Brown band.

Of course, the main attraction was Little Richard. Tony recalls being startled that Richard was not all that little, standing 5 feet, 10 inches — too tall to have been that tiny piano player he had just seen in the movie preview at the Sunrise Theater. Just five years older than Tony, Little Richard had not yet adopted the flamboyant makeup and outrageous stage outfits that would mark his later performances. And Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” had yet to be written and recorded. Though his greatest success was years away, Richard Penniman gave a rousing performance that long ago Saturday night at the Ambassadors Club, hitting the high notes that Tony can hear today.

Wrung out by the dazzling Little Richard and the up-and-down emotions of their escapade, the boys headed to the exit after the performance, escorted by Arnette himself. Before they hit the door, Sam took them aside and in a manner pleasant yet stern, said, “Boys, thanks for coming. I hope you enjoyed the show. But don’t come back!”  PS

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

(In a previous version of this story Tom Dawkins was misidentified as Heck Dawkins.)

Out of This World

But coming to a neighborhood near you?

By Michael Smith

It happened on Sunday, October 30, 1938, at 8 p.m., a time to kick back and listen to a favorite radio program. Many had tuned their radio to an anthology series, The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Suddenly the music on that station was interrupted. There was an announcement about a large metal cylinder from outer space, perhaps Mars, which had crashed in a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey. A Professor Farrell of Mount Jenning Observatory was said to have lately detected explosions on Mars.

Now this radio announcer had begun describing what he said appeared to be a Martian exiting the cylinder that had just crashed:  “Good heavens, something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here’s another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me . . . I can see the thing’s body now. It’s large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it . . . it . . . ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it’s so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.”

Naturally, the public soon learned that it was nothing more than Orson Welles’ radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. A ruse. Still, it was reported that the announcement caused widespread panic from fear of an extraterrestrial invasion. Naiveté? Perhaps. But what if a similar credible-appearing deception were perpetrated today? Would you panic?

Perhaps not; most folks today probably doubt the existence of extraterrestrial beings and roll their eyes at those that don’t. Then again, what to make of a 2005 Gallup poll showing that fully a fourth of Americans thought outer space beings had already visited Earth; and a 2015 poll which revealed that 54 percent believe there is extraterrestrial intelligent life?

What do you believe?

Many have hedged their bets. More than 40,000 Americans have forked over $19.95 to Florida’s UFO Abduction Insurance Company for $10 million of protection against alien abduction. Elizabeth April should have paid for a policy, but it’s too late now. Elizabeth’s already become a UFO “abductee” or “experiencer,” as they’re called.

The “Tall Whites” beamed her up to their ship when she was only 18, implanted something in her ear and returned her unharmed. Soon after, she came to understand that in a previous life she was a Tall Grey from the 6th or 8th dimension. UFO enthusiasts pay to hear Elizabeth speak at conferences for believers. She says in her present life, she exists as an interdimensional being or “energetic hybrid.”

David M. Jacobs isn’t buying it. Jacobs, a bona fide Ufologist, has explained that though Elizabeth was possibly abducted, there is absolutely no way she is a hybrid. “Hybrids can control humans neurologically, and we cannot control them. True hybrids use abductees to help them blend into regular society.” Jacobs says Elizabeth is confused. As to Jacobs, himself, he is a former American history professor at Temple University. According to Jacobs, he had tenure so they couldn’t get rid of him, as his colleagues had fervently wished.

It’s also too late for Susan Stockton to apply for abduction insurance. Susan’s trip up to a space ship came in 1989. After swirling straight up, she “went through this opening, and all of a sudden I was in this room. I was medically probed by two beings.” Susan says her abductors were green in color. “Do you know Gumby? They were that color green. They had no hair, or genitalia, but I knew immediately that one was a woman and one was a man. The woman communicated with me telepathically the whole time. She said, ‘Don’t worry.’ She told me to eat chicken livers.” The Eat Mor Chikin cows would undoubtedly agree.

David Huggins takes issue with Susan’s claim about the absence of genitalia. Rightly so, as he lost his virginity to a female extraterrestrial. David’s close encounter of a different kind materialized in the woods near his rural Georgia home. It was 1961 “when an alien woman appeared and seduced him.” Since, life has been good for him. At 74, he wrote in his book, Love and Saucers, “these visits from extraterrestrials, and sexual relationship(s) with them, continued into adulthood.” David says he’s fathered hundreds of alien babies.

John Mack has studied about 200 cases of people claiming to be experiencers and found them “of sound mind, they ask many questions, they doubt themselves. They describe a seemingly real, intense experience, a light, something happening to their bodies.” John knows a sound mind when he confronts one. Dr. Mack is a former psychiatrist and Harvard professor. Nonetheless, as with most folks afflicted with this or that nowadays, there are help sources for experiencers.

CERO-France is one such source. Myriame Belmyr heads up CERO, an organization devoted to helping abductees. She easily relates to experiencers experiences, as she, herself, claims to have been abducted in 1987. According to Ms. Belmyr, extraterrestrial Earth visits are “definitely for genetic engineering.” Also, “they are particularly intrigued by our emotions and our art. They don’t know about any of that.”

An excellent candidate for CERO’s ministrations might be Ms. Jo Ann Richards, who says her husband, now in jail for 30 years, was falsely convicted of masterminding a murder. Says Jo Ann, “We know that the shadow government just wants him out of their hair. My husband’s been around aliens ever since he was a kid. He was trained in the U.S. military and the Raptor military.”

Obviously, Jo Ann suspects the United States government of suspect behavior regarding UFOers. So do many others. In 1955 President Dwight Eisenhower approved adding “Area 51” to the Nevada Test Site, located about an hour’s drive from the Las Vegas strip. There, the government tested secret aircraft and other military weapons. And there the government consciously fanned the fires of doubt as to what exactly was going on in Area 51. For starters, it denied the area even existed. Then, as is most frequently the case, that lie led to another lie, one many believe is perpetrated to this very day — that the government stonewalled about debris one William “Mac” Brazel had previously discovered.

Mr. Brazel, a farmer near Roswell, New Mexico, discovered a miscellany of metal rods and such that he could not identify. One thing led to another till the military arrived and carted the stuff away. Many years later the government announced that the debris was nothing more than a crashed weather balloon. Trouble was, pictures had been taken of the debris and published in newspapers, and the objects in no way resemble parts of a weather balloon.

UFOers think the articles found during the Roswell “incident,” as it is now famously known, were really the remnants of a crashed flying saucer that wound up in Area 51 where experiments on aliens and their accoutrements are secretly conducted. The government dismissed all this and did nothing to dispel the characterization of UFO believers as tin-hat flakes.

In December 2017 the Washington Post published a story about the government’s secret Advanced Threat Identification Program. (That’s government speak for “Pentagon Alien Program.”) Apparently the government had blown through $22 million from 2007 to 2012 to study what else but “anomalous aerospace threats.” (That’s government speak for UFOs.)

Funding for that particular government SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) program dried up in 2012. What didn’t dry up is speculation about the results of the program. As recently as December 2017, Luis Elizondo, the fellow that served as head of the secret Pentagon program, said the existence of UFOs had been firmly established. Elizondo said, “In my opinion, if this was a court of law, we have reached the point of ‘beyond reasonable doubt.’ I hate to use the term UFO but that’s what we’re looking at,” he added. “I think it’s pretty clear this is not us, and it’s not anyone else, so no one has to ask questions where they’re from.”

It turns out that there have been numerous secret government SETI programs: Project Sign, in the 1940s, succeeded by Project Grudge, then Project Blue Book, which ran from 1952 to 1969. Edward J. Ruppelt, first head of Project Blue Book, is on record as saying that UFOs reported in the study were estimated to have been “interplanetary.”

So what do we have here? For certain, there are tin-hat flakes among us. Equally certain is that there are too many credible reports to lightly dismiss. A former Georgia peanut farmer turned POTUS comes to mind. In 1969, Jimmy Carter and 10 to 12 other people stood and watched a UFO for 10 to 12 minutes, as he later reported. Like President Carter, most credible UFO reports have come from current or former military officers or civilian airline pilots.

Such men are not given to glibness. Nor was the man who was inadvertently responsible for the term “flying saucer.” Civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold is widely credited with having reported the first credible sighting of unidentified flying objects in the United States. On June 24, 1947, he reported seeing, while flying, nine objects, glowing bright blue-white, flying in a “V” formation over Washington’s Mount Rainier. He estimated the objects’ flight speed at 1,700 mph and compared their motion to “a saucer if you skip it across water.” Newspaper reports of Arnold’s sighting mistakenly interpreted Arnold’s account to mean that the objects were shaped like saucers, thus, flying saucers.

As far as the public knows, the U.S. government presently has no SETI program. Of course NASA is still about, blasting off to hither and yon, but presumptively has no SETI. Not to fear, however, private interests are taking up the slack. The biggie effort to find aliens is the $100 million project called Breakthrough Listen. The program was spearheaded by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and the late Stephen Hawking. How’s that for creds?

Beyond the Milky Way, Breakthrough Listen “listens for messages from the 100 closest galaxies to ours. The instruments used are sensitive enough to hear a common aircraft radar transmitting to us from any of the 1000 nearest stars. Spectroscopic searches are being conducted for optical laser transmissions. They could detect a 100 watt laser (the energy of a normal household bulb) from 25 trillion miles away.”

P.S. In case you missed it this year, you might want to plug in to next year’s World UFO day. It is celebrated by believers on June 24, the date of Arnold’s UFO sighting, or on July 2, the date of the Roswell incident. Live long and prosper.  PS

Michael Smith lives in Talamore, Southern Pines, with his wife, Judee. They moved here in 2017 and wish they had moved here years earlier.

Golftown Journal

Yogis of the Fairways

A few poses could add a few yards

By Lee Pace

The thought of twisting one’s self into a pretzel while wearing leotards and listening to wind chimes and Tibetan cymbals would send most macho golfers into a rubber room. Downward facing dogs? Just some birdies with a side of fries, ma’am.  

“One of my biggest challenges early on was fighting the perception that in yoga, you sit with one leg behind your head, staring into a candle while chanting,” says Katherine Roberts. “I set out to bring yoga to a demographic of people who otherwise would never step foot in a yoga studio.”

Roberts was living in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1998 when she first took a yoga class and soon quit her job with a Fortune 500 company to teach yoga full-time. She was a 16-handicap golfer when the light bulb popped, illuminating the connections between yoga and golf. And thus the concept of “Yoga for Golfers” was hatched. Today her methodology is taught in 20 countries around the world, and she has co-authored a book with noted golf instructor Hank Haney called Swing Flaws and Fitness Fixes. She appears on Haney’s syndicated radio show each Friday to talk about melding golf and yoga.

“Gary Player, Tiger Woods and David Duval were the only people in the late ’90s in golf talking about fitness or yoga being beneficial to your game,” Roberts says. “People looked at me like,  ‘Are you crazy?’”

Breathing, flexibility and core strength are among the building blocks to a yoga practice that can apply not only to golf but other sports as well. Roberts has developed a niche in Major League Baseball and has been a consultant with the Chicago Cubs, including during their 2016 World Championship season.

“It all starts in the feet and travels up the through the torso, hips and shoulders and arms and out to a club or a ball or a bat,” Roberts says. “The methodologies are very similar. All great athletes, whether it’s a Major League Baseball player or a golfer, understand how to use the ground. It starts with the feet and feeling the connection to the ground.

“Breath is so important for all elite athletes. If you’ve got 70,000 people in the stands, you need to breathe. We teach how to use the breath to bring your mind to what is called ‘one point of concentration.’ You focus on that one shot, one pitch, one breath.”

On a January afternoon in Pinehurst, Robyn Humphrey could be seen taking the tenets Roberts organized into her “Yoga For Golfers” program and applying them to a group of Pinehurst Country Club members. Certified in Roberts’ protocol, she has been teaching her golf-oriented yoga class since 2016. It meets twice a week and the studio can hold 14 people.

Humphrey began practicing yoga about a dozen years ago while living in the District of Columbia area to help her recover from injuries sustained in her career as an elite distance runner — she has run in multiple New York and Boston Marathons and won frequently in Mid-Atlantic competitions. She enjoyed the practice of yoga and its benefits and then began teaching it to others.

“There’s no better way to improve your skills in something than by teaching it,” she says. “You’re forced to break it down to the basics to help someone else understand it and master it. That can only help you.”

Humphrey and her husband, Chris, and son Michael moved to the Sandhills in 2014 and joined the club at Pinehurst. She found the nine courses and all of the golfers in town motivation to improve her own game. It made sense in a golf-centric town to take her yoga teachings geared toward runners and redirect them toward golfers.

“I can’t tell you how strong some of these people have gotten,” Humphreys says. “Some came in with no core strength at all. Now their balance is better and they can turn into positions they couldn’t reach before. Imagine how that translates to their golf game.”

Among the exercises she puts the class through are “crescent poses” where the yogi stands in a split stance, then balances on the forward leg and moves the other leg forward slowly and into a right-angle with the standing body. Another routine evolves from that same split stance with the yogi leaning forward and rotating the upper body first to one side and then the other. Floor work involves core strengthening and stabilization and more flexibility circuits. Hip flexibility and stability is important in the golf swing, and one way to address that is to hit the ground in a “table-top” position and, with both hands and one knee on the ground, rotate the other leg slowly and fully in clockwise and then counterclockwise directions.

“First and foremost, you think flexibility,” Humphrey says. “Almost everyone can use more. You build on that. You build strength. When you’re doing standing yoga postures, you’re developing a lot of lower body strength. You need lower body strength to generate power in the golf swing.”

Humphrey was a mid-30s handicap when she moved to Pinehurst and now is close to a 20-handicap and plays four times a week. “I actually have an OK swing and I’m pain-free and take very good care of myself, so I should play golf for quite some time,” she says. “My students identify with me. I have the same ups and downs in golf they have.”

So she understands, for example, how the kind of breathing that is bedrock to yoga can also help on the golf course — long, slow, deep nasal breaths.

“Many of my clients tell me they’ve gotten good results from thinking about the breath over the ball,” she says. “You inhale slowly in the backswing and then exhale, and that force that comes from the core when you make that exhale can actually add power to your swing.

“I make enough parallels like that that they feel really comfortable that they are in a class that’s especially for them. Because I think that gets people in a yoga room that normally wouldn’t come into a yoga room.”

One of Roberts’ most gratifying stories is of a 67-year-old doctor in Scottsdale who lamented his own doctor telling him to quit golf because his back was so bad.

“I did some basic testing and saw he had a lack of mobility in all his muscles and no strength in his core,” she says. “I gave him some exercises to do, and he did them religiously five days a week. In three and a half months, he was playing golf pain free.

“So many of my clients come back and say, ‘My back’s not hurting on the 14th hole,’ or ‘I’m more focused’ or ‘I’m hitting the ball farther.’”

Katherine and Robyn both came to yoga because it improved their overall health, both physical and mental, and now have found their niches in golf — Roberts on an international stage and Humphrey in the Sandhills.

“Golf is a mind-body sport and everything starts in the mind,” Roberts says. “If the body can’t perform the way you need it to perform, you’re not going to enjoy the game as much. Yoga touches your mind, your body and your breath and brings them all together.”

Humphrey enjoys a reciprocal relationship with her students — she helps them with balance and flexibility and they help her with the nuances of learning the swing and course management.

“I came to Pinehurst as a runner, but now I’m playing more golf than I ever have,” she says. “If you come to Pinehurst, you have to play golf, right? It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I have a great appreciation for the challenge.

“What I’m trying to do through yoga is make it maybe a little bit easier — for me and my students.”  PS

Chapel Hill-based writer Lee Pace never set foot in a yoga studio until January 2018 and has found his decidedly unlimber body and cluttered mind benefit from the experience.

Arts and Flowers

Exploring nature’s creative connection

By Jan Leitschuh

Springtime is a celebration of creation. The birds and the bees get that.

So do artists — and florists.

Got a bad case of spring fever? Looking for a vernal vibe? Seeking some free flower arranging inspiration for your home, or maybe some centerpiece ideas for your next bash?

You can inhale a little color and beauty at the end of March with “Blooming Art,” the inaugural Sandhills festival of art and flower arrangements, at the Campbell House in Southern Pines, March 30-31, with a special gala reception the evening of the 29th.

The creative premise is simple: Take a piece of art, any art — painting, pottery, sculpture, even a hanging quilt — and use that as a jumping-off point for an arrangement, floral interpretation and inspiration.

Sponsored by the Garden Club of the Sandhills, over 20 floral masterpieces will be displayed. “The Garden Club of the Sandhills looks forward to our exhibit of ‘Blooming Art’ as an opportunity to share with the community a passion for horticulture in the form of interpretative floral designs,” says club President Linda Lindsey.

While the interpretive florals are inspired mainly by the works of predominantly local artists, a few interesting pieces from private collections will be featured. Taking their inspiration from their particular assigned piece of art, the florists represent both top area design professionals as well as talented area garden club members. Once assigned a piece of art, the flower arrangers fashion their vision of the artwork in natural materials.

“This is not a professional show and will not be judged, but is rather an expression of our love for nature in its many forms, and an opportunity to share this passion with the community,” says Lindsey.

Interpreting art via flowers is a growing gallery trend because, let’s face it, who couldn’t use a little lift of beauty at winter’s end? Come springtime, art galleries worldwide sponsor similar floral interpretive exhibits, both to highlight their collections and draw visitors.

“Blooming Art” is the local Sandhills twist. While the Campbell House exhibit echoes the enormously popular “Art in Bloom” annual event at Raleigh’s North Carolina Museum of Art, there’s one essential difference: intimacy.

While the Raleigh exhibits are often wonderfully vast, fantastical, museum-scale and institutionally grand, the Campbell House’s “Blooming Art” program will feature many intimate pieces that might actually find themselves onto one’s dining table or front hall entrance.

“We hope that people attending will be inspired to create arrangements for themselves, after seeing what others do with simple greens from the garden, natural materials like sticks or pods, and flowers you might get at the supermarket or farmers market,” said Hartley Fitts of the “Blooming Art” steering committee.

The florists use the assigned art as a springboard for an arrangement. “You start by getting to know the art you are going to interpret,” says Carol Dowd, a member of the American Institute of Floral Designers, owner of Botanicals, and a five-year veteran of the prestigious Raleigh museum show. Dowd’s work will also be featured in the Campbell House program. “You ask yourself questions about the art such as color, lines, shapes and theme, do some research on the artwork. This may inspire you to look at the artist and artwork differently than you had originally thought. In a museum or gallery, you also need to know the parameters that you will be designing under, such as, what size does this need to be, what flowers can I use that will last as long as it is on display?”

Ultimately, the florists create their own story reflecting the art. “All these different elements need to be worked out, but doing interpretive design is so enjoyable,” says Dowd. “From the discovery of the art to working out the final design, it challenges you as a designer, and it is always fun to share your designs and your joy of flowers with the public.”  PS

“Blooming Art” will open with an evening reception at the Campbell House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave, Southern Pines, on March 29, 6-8 p.m. The open exhibition is Saturday, March 30, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and Sunday, March 31, from 1-4 p.m. Tickets are $50. To purchase tickets contact Marilyn Grube at (910) 420-2062.

Mom, Inc.

Notes from the Edge

Too old for the mom club, but with the best of intentions

By Renee Phile

Oh, I had such wonderful intentions.

At 7 years old, I am sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor in Memphis, Tennessee, the sun streaming through the window, writing with my sparkly purple pen on white computer paper stapled into a “book.” I write the book first, and then I go back and illustrate later.

I published masterpieces like:

Anna Chokes on Broccoli

and

The Dog Who Saved a Little Kid Who Was Walking Across the Street without Mommy.

After I published my books, I called my siblings and a few of the neighborhood kids, assigned each one a role, and made them act out the book for my parents. They begrudgingly took their parts as a hero dog or a choking girl, and my parents clapped and smiled and laughed when the play ended.

I was seriously on fire! I wanted nothing more than to be a writer.

Twenty-some years later, nothing has changed. I write every single day, and if I don’t hit at least 1,000 words a day, I start to feel itchy. I carry around my notebook and pen. Writers know what I mean.

Sometimes I sit in random places — Java Bean Plantation, Mean Bean, the emergency waiting room at the hospital (yes, I have gotten a ton of material from that room) — and write what I see.

Sometimes it looks like:

A short, bald man, probably in his ’50s, is lying on his side on the hard blue bench of the ER waiting room, a hospital blanket covering him. He is accompanied by his service dog, a German shepherd. The dog sits quietly on the floor by the man. The man snores, then wakes up, then snores some more. The dog doesn’t move.

I imagine what he is doing in the ER. I think about the dog and the man’s relationship. I wonder what happened before this hour in the ER, and what will happen after. I wonder . . . I wonder . . . I wonder . . .

Or, maybe:

I am sitting at my favorite coffee shop in Moore County, Java Bean Plantation, sipping my peppermint latte and watching the mom club at the table next to me. There are three of them. They look like they just walked out of a yoga class, hair pulled up, jacket over their yoga tops, latte in hand, kids, probably around the ages of 3 or 4, playing with iPads by their feet on the floor. They laugh and giggle about something that I can’t hear, and I wonder what it is. One says her husband is deployed. The other two look at her with concern, ask if there is anything they can do to help. One kid, a girl, decides she wants to put together a puzzle, and reaches for one from her mom’s bag. The other two kids decide puzzles trump iPads and I smile at that.

I wonder how long they have been in their mom club. I wonder if they would let me in, even though my kids are older. I wonder . . . I wonder . . . I wonder . . .

My boys, David, 15, and Kevin, 10, are among my very favorite topics with subjects like, “Why must you wait until hours before your band concert to tell me that you need black dress pants and black shoes?” and, “You announced what to your teacher? Really?” Nothing is off limits, except what he said to his teacher. That’s too awful.

On the way home from school, Kevin asked me if I had been practicing the “Dab.” As I understand it, the Dab, is a type of dance move where a person drops his or her head into the bent crook of a slanted, upwardly angled arm, while raising the opposite arm out straight in a parallel direction.” (Google said that.)

I have tried to Dab, I really have, but my progress hasn’t been good enough for Kevin.

“Uh . . . Mom, you’re going to need to practice more. I don’t get it. I taught you how to do it a hundred times, and you still can’t do it right.”

So, I write. And I Dab. And I wonder . . . I wonder . . .  PS

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

Drinking with Writers

The Art of Civil Discourse

A little healthy organic juicing with Rachel Lewis Hilburn

By Wiley Cash   •   Photographs by Mallory Cash

Last year I attended a literary event with some of the best known writers in the country, but as soon as the event began it became clear that the crowd was more interested in seeing emcee Rachel Lewis Hilburn, a woman whose disembodied voice had been speaking to them for years from the studios of WHQR Public Media. She joined the station in 2011, and she was named news director in 2012. A year later she anchored the pilot episode of CoastLine, a show that focuses primarily on local and statewide issues and the people they affect. Over the past six years, Rachel and her guests have discussed issues as diverse as gun control, water quality, film incentives and Thanksgiving recipes. No matter what the topic, Rachel always finds a fascinating angle. I will admit that I once sat in my driveway for 15 minutes and listened as Rachel and a county official discussed recycling. Like her voice, Rachel’s questions are direct and smooth. Her interactions with people are civil and genuine, and she gives her guests an opportunity to tell their stories as well as the expectation that they will be held accountable for the stories they tell.

This is not to say that Rachel does not ask hard questions. I sat for a CoastLine interview when my last novel was released, and at one point Rachel read a quote from a terrible review I had received in a major newspaper. Then she asked, “How do you keep that dagger from staying inside you?” Ouch! No one had ever asked me how I recover from bad reviews, and that question forced me to be honest about the vulnerability of artists. I look back on that hour I spent on-air with Rachel as perhaps the best interview experience I have ever had.

I took an opportunity to ask Rachel a few questions of my own one chilly morning in late January. We met at Clean Juice in downtown Wilmington on the corner of Grace and North Front Street. I ordered the Immunity One, an organic blend of carrots, lemons, oranges, pineapples and turmeric. Rachel ordered the Glow One, a mix of organic apples, cucumbers, kale and spinach. We found seats by the huge windows that look out on Grace Street. While I serve on the board of directors at WHQR and have known Rachel for several years, there was one question I had never asked her.

“What was your path to public radio?”

“I started life thinking I would be an actor,” Rachel said. “And I went to the North Carolina School of the Arts, and then I moved to New York and L.A. and did some theater.”

“Acting?”

“Yes,” she said. “At one point, when I was in L.A., I decided I wanted to have a steady income and see what other things I could do.” She laughed and took a sip of her juice. “So I became a financial adviser, but only for about two years.”

“How did you get to Wilmington?”

“I knew people in Wilmington, and I loved the East Coast,” she said. “I was tired of the desert in Los Angeles, and I just loved the texture of the weather here. I came to Wilmington and embarked on a process of finding the next version of myself.” During that process Rachel wrote and produced television news broadcasts for WWAY; she wrote and produced a documentary about the 1898 Wilmington race massacre; and she served as the executive director of the homeowners association at Bald Head Island.

When you stack all these jobs together — financial adviser, news writer, producer, documentarian and executive director of a homeowners association — it becomes clear that Rachel has been perfectly prepared for a career in public radio. Over the course of her diverse work history she has managed personalities, produced content, sought facts, and listened closely to people’s concerns and this is exactly what she is doing with an exciting new serialized program called CoastLine: Beneath the Surface.

According to the description on the program’s website, the community members who will participate in Beneath the Surface are “thoughtful and engaged listeners who’ve agreed to be part of a yearlong conversation. They are black and white, youngish and older. Their politics cover the spectrum left, right and center.”

In this politically charged environment, what happens when you put a group of diverse strangers in a room? Rachel has the answer: She assembled the group for a meet and greet a few days before their first on-air discussion.

“I thought I would have to do some goofy icebreaker,” Rachel said. “But no icebreaker was needed. People freely went around the room introducing themselves. They seemed really enthusiastic about being there, and they didn’t want to leave!”

Rachel said that, at least initially, conversations on Beneath the Surface will focus on local issues because she believes that is the place where people who are sitting together in the same room can achieve some level of civil discourse. Hopefully, that civility will trickle up.

“I happen to think the political dynamic, that super division and vitriol on Capitol Hill, and even at the state level, isn’t going to change until regular folks change,” Rachel said. “Public radio can pull back the curtain and introduce you to a situation in its context. It can introduce these whole human beings, and it makes it hard to put them in a box.”

In keeping with Rachel’s history of discussing timely topics and asking hard questions, the first topic broached on Beneath the Surface was the issue of Wilmington’s Confederate monuments. I listened to the show, and I could hear the strain in people’s voices, their discomfort in defending positions that may not be popular. But I could also hear other things: the click of boxes opening as people grew comfortable with one another; the sound of voices speaking calmly while sharing ideas and experiences. These were the sounds of whole human beings coming together and being civil.  PS

Wiley Cash lives in Wilmington with his wife and their two daughters. His latest novel, The Last Ballad, is available wherever books are sold.

Southwords

PSD

Poor squirrel decision

By Beth MacDonald

My neighbor across the street is a pleasant woman, friendly, funny, the likeable sort you’d want to have as a neighbor. Her husband went away on a business trip, so she was going to take the kids to go see family for a few days. She asked me to grab her mail and packages while she was gone. My husband parked his truck in her driveway to make it look like someone was home. The day she got back, I didn’t expect to look out my kitchen window and see her storming, angrily, toward my house. I went outside to greet her, but before I could say anything, she screamed, “Something trashed my house!”

“Let me get my shoes.” Maybe some of those slip-on footies the Terminix man wears when he comes in the house. And, of course, my phone. For posterity.

It was a “squirrelapocalypse.” I stood there with my mouth open, taking in the destruction. Every single windowsill on the first floor was chewed up — not just a little, almost clean though. The teeth marks stretched edge-to-edge like it was eating corn on the cob. There were bloody paw prints and droppings from the terrified creature everywhere, windows, the sofa, the blinds. Table lamps were turned over, smashed on the floor. I felt like a detective in CSI-Woodland Creature Edition. This squirrel knew how to party.

We looked all over for the dear departed, but came up empty so we began to clean up. She ordered a pizza. I went home and a few minutes later got a videotext message with the words, “What the bleep do I do now?” In the video, a squirrel was trapped in her fireplace, caged by the screen.

Naturally, I sent my husband over. 

Mason was only too happy to help. His friend Win, who was over for dinner, eagerly begged to go, too. Hemingway didn’t fancy a bullfight this much. The two men took a large Tupperware storage container from the basement and proceeded across the street like giddy children. I hollered after them to take video. This reeked of viral potential. The pizza delivery lady met them in the driveway.

“There’s a squirrel in there,” they warned her.

“They love peanut butter,” she said. “Make it a sandwich.”

Mason and Win cocked their heads and thanked her. They knew good advice when they heard it.

As they prepared to enter the house, the pizza lady drove off screaming out her car window, “CRUNCHY, SQUIRRELS LOVE CRUNCHY!”

Armed with this knowledge, they entered my neighbor’s house. They put a peanut butter sandwich in the Tupperware bin and tried to lure the squirrel into it. The rodent took the bait, literally, and scooted back up the chimney.

Plan B.

Mason came back to our house to grab a wire dog crate and a Duraflame log. I didn’t want to know the new plan.

Back at ground zero, the men set a fire, and placed the crate so they would catch the fleeing rodent, no doubt coughing and wheezing. Smoking the culprit out worked too well. Rather than depriving it of air, they filled it with adrenaline. The squirrel shot into the crate, with the sandwich, out the back of the crate, and into the kitchen presumably on a quest for a crunchier variety of peanut butter.

Screams could be heard for miles.

My neighbor started tossing her kids out of the house like luggage, except for the one clapping. That one wanted to stay.

“Fine! You can get rabies. I’m saving the others.” She no longer cared. With three  children saved, she was in good shape. She could spare one.

The guys were now trying to trap the terrified squirrel raging through the kitchen. Now would be a good time to describe a small, well-appointed kitchen, with two men, both bodybuilders, one standing 6-feet-2-inches and one 6-feet-6-inches, knocking everything over, doing a great deal more damage than the squirrel, who stood 10 inches tall, tail not included, and never lifted anything heavier than a crunchy peanut butter sandwich.

Finally, the two managed to get the squirrel into the Tupperware container and close the lid. The plan was to bring it outside. My neighbor wanted it exiled.

They took it down the street to the yard of another neighbor, who appeared to have picked the wrong time to go to the grocery store. As soon as the lid opened the squirrel, shot out like it was in a potato cannon.

“He’s your problem now!” Win shouted to no one on the other side of the fence.

“Did you take video?” I asked.

“No. Even if we did it would look like the Blair Witch Project but with a squirrel.”

It would have killed at the Sundance.  PS

Beth MacDonald is a Southern Pines suburban misadventurer who likes to make words up. She loves to travel with her family and read everything she can.

To Thine Own Self Be True

Designer expresses her many loves in Pinehurst cottage

By Deborah Salomon   

Photographs by John Koob Gessner

A perfect and very personal renovation is a hard act to follow . . . unless motivated by the heart.

Residential perfection is what interior designer/tennis ace/gardener/artist/yoga practitioner Julie Sanford achieved a decade ago when she resurrected a modest Pinehurst cottage to reflect her background, her foreground, her tastes, philosophies and talents. This woman has sailed across the Atlantic in a 42-foot sloop; climbed partway up Machu Picchu; snorkeled black holes of the Caribbean. She has furnished Nantucket compounds and Manhattan condos for clients; a pied-à-terre in Paris and a Newport, Rhode Island, showplace. Julie’s achievements have reached The New York Times Magazine and Country Living. Her recent projects include collages crafted from leftover wallpaper, as well as further adapting her Pinehurst gem where the sign over the front door reads “Craven Cottage.” 

Julie’s approach: “I like the integrity of real. Edit out the junk. Keep the things that motivate you, that make you feel good,” which in her case would be living by the sea. Notice oceanscapes, beaches and ship art. She isn’t shy with color, either subtle or primary: bedroom walls suggest a pineapple daiquiri. A ripe-tomato red lamp jumps off its table. Her kitchen, void of Sub-Zero and Viking, glows pale apricot set off by cream cupboards and a khaki tile backsplash.  “People spend a fortune on the kitchen. It’s not my thing. I’m a good cook but I don’t need the (mega-appliances).” What she does need is open shelving stacked with blue English Transferware, which she uses daily.

Pervading all, aquamarine, the watery hue Julie used for vestibule floor tiles and living room upholstery. “My spiritual home is the Caribbean,” she admits.

Whimsy — of course. Who else covers a seat cushion with fabric picturing giant insects or runs a row of buttons down a dining room chair? That pink “thing” resembling Valentine lollipops standing at attention on a textured rose Parsons’ table in the otherwise classic living room is an antique balloon mold. Julie favors sculptures of hands which reach out, armless, from shelves and tables. To her, they represent “lending a hand” to someone in need.

Craven and four sister cottages were built in 1921 and sold to Pinehurst resort as rental properties. According to records at the Tufts Archives, seasonal rental was $1,500. The façade is particularly notable, with a broad gable facing the street, an English country porch and Tudor-arched front door — a feature Julie repeated between the living and dining rooms, and the family room and kitchen. Alice Craven, proprietor of a village knitting shop, occupied the house in the 1930s, followed by John Thomas Craven in the 1950s. Post-Cravens, the cottage was renamed generic Longleaf, but Craven remains over the door.

Julie, raised in New England, found Pinehurst during a visit to Fayetteville, where her mother was being cared for. The village resembled familiar ones in Vermont and on Cape Cod but with a milder climate. Most important, a tennis community thrived here. The cottage she found, drowning in ’60s décor, mandated a major renovation, a welcome challenge for this experienced designer who appreciated the era it represented, especially the narrow-board floors, elaborate crossbeam door and window frames, and light streaming in on all sides — plus a rare full basement. Julie found its modest size (then barely 2,000 square feet) appealing. She believes people relate better in intimate settings.

“The house just sang to me from the get-go.”

And then, renovation and furnishing accomplished, part-time occupancy achieved, life shifted.

“I met a man, George Lynch, the love of my life.”

After living single for 25 years, Julie realized modifications would be necessary. Her low-ceilinged bedrooms were in the finished attic, accessed by a steep, narrow staircase. The large main floor room Julie had added as a yoga studio became a master bed-sitting room painted yellow, her “happy color.” Its bathroom has dizzying black polka-dot wallpaper punctuated with French Gien plates, each decorated with a cartoon. “A bit extreme, but it makes me laugh,” Julie says. She built a family room with cathedral ceiling off the kitchen because, “My husband is a big man. We have four dogs. There wasn’t room anywhere for me to sit.” Original wood floors, except in the dining room, have been pickled (whitewashed), rendering the rooms light and summery, reminiscent of Martha’s Vineyard.

Completing the enlargement is a deck, covered and open, overlooking the garden. A self-described passionate gardener, Julie recalls how caring for geraniums figured in meeting the love of her life.

An organic, zen-calm separates Julie’s space from houses bustling with décor trends. She has achieved a new, fresh feeling using antiques of different periods and provenance that hang together like old friends. The almost monastic absence of clutter gives each piece — whether a marble-topped side table or an inlaid bureau — room to shine. The same with paintings, some she did herself, mounted singly rather than in groups.  Themes and colors (especially green, representing nature) flow from room to room, as do objects like Staffordshire figurine lamps and animal art.

Perfect as this home is, Julie and George have another, equally unusual: a 19th century mobile chapel used by itinerant New England preachers. The 20-by-28-foot wheeled structure was pulled from town to town by oxen. Now, the couple has moored it in Jamestown, Rhode Island, within sight of the sea, from whence Julie came.

“My home is my sanctuary,” Julie says. And, in this case, a self-portrait.  PS

Bookshelf

March Books

FICTION

Daisy Jones and the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

An impossible-to-put down story of fictional rock musicians and their path to new heights of musical creativity and mega stardom in the 1970s. Written in an interview format, each character tells the unvarnished side of the group’s tangled and talented rise. Juxtaposed to allow for multiple perspectives at the same time, the story comes alive in this riveting piece of writing. This is the most fun, must-read book of spring and summer.

A Woman Is No Man, by Etaf Rum

With tremendous empathy, insight and unflinching honesty, Rum gives voice to a silenced and powerless group of modern women living in a strict Arab world. The novel follows the lives of a family of Palestinian immigrant women over the span of a few decades in Brooklyn. The only options in their limited lives are to marry, to hopefully bear sons, to know their place, while withstanding abuse and the repetitive drudgery of work within the confines of the male world. A remarkable novel with a hauntingly unforgettable first line.

Queenie, by Candice Carty-Williams

She is frustrating, misunderstood, lonely, lovable, over-the-top dramatic, funny, filled with good and bad intentions, but above all, so very human. Queenie Jenkins is 25 years old and a journalist of Jamaican heritage in London trying to understand it all. Her white boyfriend wants to take a break and she attracts all the wrong sorts of men from online dating sites. Mistreatment, race and a troubled past can paralyze her, but somehow, she keeps going. Candice Carty-Williams has created an incredibly unforgettable character with an incredibly unforgettable cast of family and friends.

Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, by Dana Reinhardt

Two families, longtime friends and business partners, gather at one of Puerto Vallarta’s most luxurious villas to celebrate a 50th birthday. Meticulously planned and engineered well in advance by Jenna, the wife of the birthday boy, this is to be a seamlessly perfect vacation. Nothing is as it seems despite the best efforts to have a hand on all the controls. When it rains in paradise it pours, and the foundations upon which life is built can crack. Dana Reinhardt projects a smart, wry tone in this entertaining and engrossing novel.

Supermarket, by Bobby Hall

Flynn is stuck, depressed, recently dumped, and living at his mom’s house. The supermarket was supposed to change all that. An ordinary job and a steady check. Work isn’t work when it’s saving you from yourself, but things aren’t quite as they seem in these aisles. Arriving at work one day to a crime scene, Flynn’s world begins to crumble as the secrets of his tortured mind are revealed. Flynn doesn’t want to go looking for answers at the supermarket because something there seems to be looking for him. A darkly funny psychological thriller, Supermarket is a gripping exploration into madness and creativity. Who knew you could find sex, drugs and murder in aisle nine?

NONFICTION

Secret Wisdom of Nature, by Peter Wohlleben

The acclaimed author of the international best-sellers The Hidden Life of Trees and The Inner Life of Animals takes readers on a thought-provoking exploration of the vast natural systems that make life on Earth possible. Wohlleben describes the fascinating interplay between animals and plants and answers such questions as: Do life forms communicate across species boundaries, and what happens when this finely tuned system gets out of sync? By introducing us to the latest scientific discoveries and recounting insights from decades of observing nature, one of the world’s most famous foresters shows us how to recapture our sense of awe.

See You in the Piazza, by Frances Mayes

The Roman Forum, the Leaning Tower, the Piazza San Marco: These are the sights synonymous with Italy. But landmarks only scratch the surface of this magical country’s offerings. In See You in the Piazza, Mayes introduces us to the Italy only the locals know, as she and her husband, Ed, eat and drink their way through all 20 regions — from Friuli to Calabria. Along the way, she seeks out the cultural and historic gems not found in traditional guidebooks.

Madame Fourcade’s Secret War, by Lynne Olson

The best-selling author of Citizens of London tells the story of a 31-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, who became the leader of a vast resistance organization. Her group’s name was Alliance, but the Gestapo dubbed it Noah’s Ark because its agents used the names of animals as their aliases. The name Fourcade chose for herself was Hedgehog: unthreatening in appearance, yet a tough little animal, that, as she put it, “even a lion would hesitate to bite.” No other French spy network lasted as long or supplied as much crucial intelligence as Alliance.

An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System, by Matt Richtel

A groundbreaking exploration of the human immune system — the key to our health and longevity — from the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and acclaimed author of A Deadly Wandering. In this vivid narrative, Richtel builds on his acclaimed Times stories on immunotherapy, combining the latest science with interviews and engaging anecdotes from the world’s leading researchers to reveal how the body marshals its forces to fight bacteria, viruses, parasites and tumors. He also explains how, sometimes, this wondrous system can become a threat, attacking our organs and other systems.

Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World, by Clive Thompson

Thompson unpacks the surprising history of the coding field and introduces us to modern crypto-hackers; artificial intelligence engineers building eerie new forms of machine cognition; teenage girls losing sleep at “hackathons”; and unemployed Kentucky coal miners learning a new career. The book illustrates how programming has become a marvelous new art form — a source of delight and creativity, not merely danger. Coders ponders the morality and politics of the field, including its implications for civic life and the economy and how programmers shape our everyday behavior.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Backpack Explorer:  On the Nature Trail

With longer light and warmer days, kids and their special adults will soon be wandering outside to the trails in Weymouth Woods or the Southern Pines Greenway.  On the Nature Trail is the perfect guide to identifying birds, clouds, flowers and small critters seen along the way.  Super-interactive, outdoorsy fun. (Ages 6-10.)

The Perfect Horse, by Elizabeth Letts

A young readers adaptation of Letts’ New York Times best-seller, The Perfect Horse chronicles the bravery of American troops as they venture to save the lives of some of the world’s most precious horses during the final days of World War II. (Ages 10-14.)

Riding Lessons and Saddles & Secrets, by Jane Smiley

Two books in the delightful Ellen & Ned series about a young girl and the ex-racehorse who captures her heart.  From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and perfect for that young rider. (Age 8-12.)

Because, by Mo Willems

The multi-talented author of such children’s classics as Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and the Elephant and Piggie series offers his ode to artists, creators and music lovers everywhere.  “Because a man named Ludwig made beautiful music, a man named Franz was inspired to write his own.” And because of them, a young music lover is inspired to write and play and share her music.  A touching story that shows how a spark of kindness can awaken a passion in others and help them discover their own special gifts. (Ages 3-7.)  PS

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally

Sporting Life

Wisdom of the Porch

A rocking chair, fireflies and the future

Most of the world is covered by water. A fisherman’s job is simple: Pick out the best parts.  — Charles Waterman

By Tom Bryant

It was early summer and I was kicked back in the swing on the front porch enjoying the end of a Sandhills day. A whip-poor-will was calling in the woods behind our house, and I could hear the early sounds of a barred owl as he prepared for his evening hunt. A yapping dog barked from up the street. He sounded a little like Johnny Mill’s terrier, probably chasing a squirrel or maybe a rabbit. The moon was waxing and was half full, already beginning to light up the night as the sun set, and a welcome coolness seemed to settle over the pines.

I could hear Mother through the screen door. She was in the kitchen frosting a cake she had made to take to church on Sunday. There was to be a celebration of some sort; I didn’t hear what, or probably did and just wasn’t paying attention; but I did remember there was to be a covered dish lunch. Dad was working late at the ice plant. A train, on its way north and loaded with vegetables, came in early that afternoon, and the bunkers on the cars had to be iced and salted so the cargo wouldn’t spoil.

I was kinda at loose ends, having fished the headwaters of Pinebluff Lake most of the day, catching one little bream I threw back along with a lake turtle that ate my worm. I had to cut the line at the hook to let him go; and since I wasn’t really in the mood to fish, I put the rod and reel down, found a restful place against a leaning pine and took a little nap. You might say it was a laid-back kind of day.

Aberdeen High School class of 1959, of which I was a lucky member, had just celebrated its graduation. The whole year had been geared to that great day when we would be out of school; but after it actually happened and all the ceremonies were over came the reality. A special era was gone, and it was a different day.

My plan was that I would take three or four days off after graduation, maybe go to the beach like a lot of my friends, or just do nothing, which I decided was the best thing. Then I would go to work at the ice plant to build up my college fund. I was lucky enough to be accepted at Brevard College, a little private school located right next to the Pisgah National Forest. Pisgah was famous for being a great place to hike, camp and explore, and the mountains also had great trout fishing streams.

I was kind of numb with the end of high school and the beginning of the future and college. It was as if I was having a severe bout of nostalgia and wasn’t really ready for all the new challenges that waited in September when I headed off to school.

Mom came to the screen door, looked out and said, “It’s time for your dad to get home. Tell him his dinner is on the stove. I’m going to take a shower.”

In just a few minutes Dad’s car headlights illuminated the drive, and he parked by the porch rather than pull down to the garage. That meant he was going back to the plant after he ate supper.

“Hey, Buddyro,” he said as he walked up on the porch steps. “I thought you’d be out with some of your buddies still celebrating your graduation.”

“Nope, most of the crowd’s gone to the beach. I didn’t feel like going. Maybe I’ll join ’em this weekend. Don’t know yet. Mom’s taking a shower. She said your supper’s on the stove.”

Dad sat in the rocker close to the swing and lit a cigarette. He was quiet as he puffed a couple of times and then said, “Pretty night. The fireflies are beginning to light up.” We were both silent as we watched the evening lightning bugs show off and flicker in the blackjack oaks by the house. “Remember when you kids used to catch them in jars?”

“Yes sir, it seems like that was a hundred years ago.”

Dad laughed, ”Just wait, son. The older you get, the faster time goes.” He slowly rocked back and forth. “You got something on your mind, son? Wanna talk about it?”

“I don’t know, Dad. I kinda feel out of sorts, being out of school and college coming and friends going away and me going to a strange place without any friends. I don’t know if I can handle all that change.”

He chuckled as he put his cigarette out in the ashtray on the table next to his chair. “Son, that’s what life is all about. Somebody a lot smarter than me once said, ‘The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself.’ As far as your friends are concerned, I think you make friends quicker than anyone I know. You have a real talent for that, and it’ll take you far in life. And you’ve got your family, always a plus. I’m gonna grab a bite to eat and talk to your mom a bit, then I’ve got to go back to the plant and check on some things.”  He went inside, careful not to let the screen door slam.

I watched the fireflies and thought about my high school friends who were also getting ready for the future. When Dad said I have my family along with my friends, it brought to mind some of my good buddies at old AHS. A lot of us literally grew up together. This was before school consolidation and “bigger is better.” Our high school numbered about 300 students, and those times were before our society became so transient. Several of the students and I were together from the first grade through graduation. They were like a second family.

After a bit, Mother and Dad came back to the porch and relaxed in the two rockers. I could hear my brother and sisters inside laughing at a television show. “Tom,” Dad said, “why don’t you get up early in the morning and join your friends at the beach? You can take the station wagon, and I’ll drive your old clunker for a couple of days.” The station wagon was the family car, and my transportation was a 1940 Chevrolet Dad bought me when I became old enough to drive.

“I don’t like to see you so down,” Mom said. “It’s not like you. You’re getting ready to enter the most exciting time of your life. You’ll make hundreds of friends, establish your career, and if you’re lucky, start your own family with a beautiful girl.”

“Yeah,” Dad chuckled, “maybe a girl as pretty as your mom. And you know what? I bet you’ll be able to fish and hunt at all kinds of places. Places you only dream about now.”

We sat silently watching the shadows and the fireflies. “Well, Sport, I’ve got to go back to the plant. I’ll take your car so you can get the station wagon ready for the beach tomorrow. See you in the morning.”

Dad drove off in the old ’40, the name my friends gave my ancient ride. Mom didn’t say anything, just continued rocking. “I don’t like to see him working so hard,” she said. “He loves his family, and if you grow up to be as good a man as your daddy, you’ll be successful in life.” She sighed and stood and watched the taillights of my car disappear up the road.  “I’m going to make sure the laundry is done so you’ll have clean clothes for your trip.”

Mom went back inside and I heard the kids getting ready for bed. I continued to rest in the swing, listening to the night sounds and wondering about the future and what it held for me.

Turns out my mom and dad were right those many years ago when we enjoyed that beautiful early summer evening on the porch in Pinebluff. I’ve made friends, had a great career, married a beautiful girl, and we have a fantastic son. I’ve camped, fished and hunted all over the country. I’ve done every thing my folks predicted except maybe becoming as great a man as my daddy. I don’t think there’s a soul alive who could reach that lofty goal.  PS

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