You knew thatsooner or later, there’d be a column on dogs. March may seem a strange choice, but when it comes to my dog — a black Lab named Babe — it’s appropriate.March may be unpredictable, freezing one day, frying the next, but there is one thing about Babe that is a constant — she’s always outside, no matter the weather. Listen, you strollers and walkers and joggers and drive-bys: She is an outside dog.
My husband and I had a knockdown drag-out about this years ago, with a different Lab, named Sis; so much so that I called the vet to find out the facts. “A Lab is made for cold weather,” he said. “They can go down to 2 degrees.”
We’ve tried, I promise. We’ve had the wooden doghouse, with the cedar shavings inside. We’ve bought the expensive plastic “Igloo” house, outfitted it with towels and more cedar shavings, pitched bones and peanut butter-coated chew toys inside. We’ve put a fluffy bed inside the tool shed, next to the water heater, and left the door open so she can come and go. We’ve tried dragging her indoors by her collar.
But . . . no dice. Babe has extreme canine FOMO. Babe is like Ariel in The Little Mermaid: She wants to be where the people are. The mailman. The UPS guy. The garbage men. The yard armies. And especially the dog walkers. They know her by name. They bring treats. They let their dogs off leashes so they can rodeo around the front yard with Babe. One dog walker, whose name I’ve never known, moved from the neighborhood but still drives over weekly and brings her French bulldog specifically to hang out with Babe.
Babe has more friends than I do. I have to give them Christmas presents. My husband’s daily walk with her around a six-block radius is so regular, making Babe so familiar, that when he’s out of town, and I’m left with the walking task, people stop and ask me if my husband is sick. Babe doesn’t want to go to the dog Hilton if we go out of town. Besides, a legion of neighborhood kids have depended on Babe’s needs for adolescent income.
Of course, having an outside dog, especially if the dog is a will-eat-anything Lab, has its problems. Collateral damage, if you will. The French drains, chewed to plastic bits, piled in the monkey grass? Dog. The screen door whose lower half is brown from fur dirt? Dog. The terrace furniture cushions, whose corners are raveled and spilling upholstery guts? Dog. The dirt clods scattered all over the driveway/front walk from a recent dig? Dog. The Pieris japonica shrub in death throes with a hollowed-out cavity at its root base? Dog, seeking shade from the summer sun. The multitude of slobber-encrusted, thread-dangling knotted ropes and bristle-bones and otherwise unrecognizable pet toys in the natural area/driveway/patio? Dog. Never mind the ruined hoses, which look like 20 yards of bubblegum to an outside dog. Because you can have a decent yard, or you can have an outside dog, but not both.
Same applies to packages. A neighbor called to report that the front yard was dotted with scraps of blue fabric and bubble wrap. That was my Rent-the-Runway dress for a black tie party. (Despite a dangling cap sleeve, I wore it anyway.) The teeth marks all over the $2-per-card stationery. The borrowed-and-returned books with no covers left on them — hardback and paperback. I need a delivery drone that aims for chimneys instead of doors. And if you are delivering, watch where you place your feet, because . . . dog. Go, Dog, Go.And they do. Anywhere. Everywhere.
Through five decades of dogs, I’ve always wanted one that, like Lassie, would put its head on my lap and do that “I love you” whine. I’ve finally got one. Babe is such a people-person dog that I can no longer sit on the (raveled, ruined) terrace furniture with a (coverless, chewed) book because she’s got her head in my lap, doing the “I love you” whine and jiggling my arm, and therefore my glass, and I’ve got a half-dozen wine-stained shirts to prove it. It’s been said before in this column but bears repeating: Be careful what you wish for.
Still, she’s perfectly happy to gobble down all my boiled peanut shells. She’s perfectly happy to gobble ice cubes, for that matter. And I have a yard full of birds who feel perfectly safe raising their young in my pyracantha and wisteria vines because Babe in the yard means no cats or snakes in their nests.
You know those T-shirts that say my parents went to wherever and all I got was this lousy T-shirt? My Master of Fine Arts cost $20,000 and the only thing I really learned or remember is this advice from a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor: No one wants to read about dreams, dogs, or how you lost your virginity.
Well. Two out of three’s not bad.
By the way, did you accidentally drop your white, knitted toboggan in my yard? Here it is, resembling Swiss cheese. Because . . . (outside) dog.PS
Susan S. Kelly is a blithe spirit, author of several novels, and a proud grandmother.
They were two good-looking guys peddling Lincolns for Van Etta Motors in San Francisco in the mid-1950s. But to label Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi car salesmen would be like saying Elvis Presley was a soldier. In 1956, Ward, age 30, and Venturi, 24, were better known as the two finest amateur golfers in America.
Like many leading amateurs of the day, Ward and Venturi were disinclined to pursue the grueling life of a touring professional. The thought of driving bone-numbing distances to far-flung tournaments playing for paltry prize money offered little attraction. Far better to enter an occasional tournament while still earning $35,000 a year at the dealership, working mornings and playing afternoon matches at California Golf Club, Cypress Point or San Francisco Golf Club. According to Venturi, “If you weren’t going to buy a car from us by noon, you weren’t going to buy a car from us that day.”
The convergence of these two stars at the dealership was no coincidence. It was engineered by Van Etta Motors’ wealthy and flamboyant owner, Eddie Lowery, a noteworthy figure in golf for nearly half a century. It was pint-sized Eddie who, at age 10, caddied 20-year-old Francis Ouimet to a playoff victory over Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in the 1913 U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, kickstarting America’s love affair with golf.
The diminutive Lowery became a fine player in his own right, capturing the 1927 Massachusetts Amateur. After moving from the right coast to the left, he partnered with Byron Nelson to win the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am in 1955. Capitalizing on his associations with Ouimet and others in the USGA hierarchy, he was appointed to various golf administrative posts, including the powerful USGA Executive Committee.
Lowery was not merely a golf Brahmin, but a business mogul, too. He built Van Etta Motors into the largest Lincoln-Mercury dealership in the country. Lowery carried a soft spot for the Bay Area’s talented young players and, in 1952, he arranged for Venturi to play with Nelson, a five-time major champion. After Venturi graduated from college in 1953, Lowery hired him to join the dealership’s sales force. Months later, figuring the presence of two star golfers working the showroom would draw car-buying sports fans in droves, Lowery enticed Ward to quit his stockbroker position in Atlanta and come west with his wife, Suzanne.
The easygoing Ward possessed salesmanship skills that would have brought success if he had never picked up a club. He seemed to like everybody, and everybody liked him — male and female. With his sweet Eastern Carolina drawl, the preternaturally relaxed Harvie was the smoothest of smooth talkers, melting buyer resistance with gentle humor.
Lowery was justifiably proud of his two employees, and bragged they could beat any two players in the country — amateur or pro — in a four-ball match. His bet was called in February 1956 by oil and mining tycoon George Coleman at a Pebble Beach soiree prior to Bing Crosby’s annual “clambake.” Coleman and Lowery each ponied up $5,000. The slick oilman had persuaded a pair of Texans to oppose the two salesmen: Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson.
Arrangements were hastily made for the match to be played the following morning at Cypress Point. Ward and Venturi, both bleary-eyed, barely made it to the first tee to face their idols. The game featured a blizzard of birdies by all participants. Hogan, who purportedly muttered on the final green that he was “not about to be tied by a couple of damn amateurs,” holed his birdie putt to win the match 1 up. The Hogan-Nelson team shot a collective 57, besting Ward-Venturi by one shot. It was the only time the car guys ever lost.
Their great play in the historic encounter seemed to inspire both Ward and Venturi to greater heights in ’56. In August, Ward successfully defended the U.S. Amateur championship he had won in dominating fashion in ’55. His resume already included the NCAA individual title in ’49 when he was an undergrad at the University of North Carolina, the British Amateur in ’52, and the Canadian Amateur in ’54. Venturi, a Bay Area product who had twice won the prestigious California State Amateur, would finish runner-up in that April’s Masters and later beat Ward 5 and 4 in front of 10,000 spectators in the finals of the San Francisco City Championship. Ward was the defending champion, having assumed the title while Venturi (who previously had won the championship twice) was away fulfilling his military obligation. When they shook hands on the first tee Venturi said, “Harvie, I’ve come to take my City back.”
Venturi’s heartbreaking final round of 80 in the ’56 Masters dashed his golden opportunity to capture the green jacket as an amateur. He abruptly turned pro and left the dealership at the end of the ’56 season and enjoyed immediate success on the PGA tour, winning twice in his rookie year and three more times in ’58. Adamant about retaining his own amateur status, Ward remained with Van Etta Motors and looked forward to the ’57 season, hoping to become the first player to win three consecutive U.S. Amateur championships.
But first, Ward would make his April pilgrimage to Augusta to compete in the Masters. In his initial appearance in 1948, he had conspicuously pulled onto Magnolia Lane with a string of tin cans trailing his tan Ford convertible and a painted sign on its side reading “Masters or Bust.” Despite this prankish debut, the event would come to hold special significance for Ward. During his stockbrokering days in Atlanta, Ward forged a relationship with Augusta National’s chairman and founder Bobby Jones, whose law firm was located in the downtown building next door to the one where Ward read the stock ticker. Ward often stopped by to talk golf with the legendary Grand Slam champion and they became good friends.
Having never turned professional during his own playing days, it was Jones’ fondest wish that an amateur might win the Masters. During the mid ’50s, among those who stood a chance were Ward (who finished eighth in 1955), Venturi, and Billy Joe Patton, another North Carolina product who narrowly missed winning in 1954. Ward later told a friend that Jones, whose debilitating spinal disease claimed his life in 1971, once intended to appoint the first of those three to win the Masters to be his successor as Augusta National club chairman.
Ward had his best opportunity in the ’57 Masters. Through three rounds, he stood just one shot behind tournament leader Sam Snead, tied with Arnold Palmer. On Sunday he was paired with short game wizard Doug Ford, who went on a sensational run, vaulting to the lead. Ward was still near the lead with four holes to play. On the 15th, Ford, the former pool hustler, went for the green with his 4-wood second. The shot smashed into the bank of the fronting pond and popped onto the putting surface. Ward’s attempt to reach the green found the water, drowning his hopes. His fourth place finish, behind Ford, Sam Snead and Jimmy Demaret, further cemented his standing as one of the game’s premier players.
Ward anticipated more highlight reel achievements to come. He was frequently mentioned as one of the favorites in the upcoming U.S. Open at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio. He stood a good chance of being named the U.S. Walker Cup captain for the ’57 matches — a rumor that USGA President (and Pinehurst friend) Richard Tufts did nothing to dispel. And he liked his chances for a three-peat in the U.S. Amateur in August at Lowery’s old stomping ground, The Country Club.
UNC students and Ward celebrate his victory in the ‘48 North and South
Arriving in San Francisco after visiting Hogan’s Fort Worth, Texas, clubmaking facility, Ward found himself surrounded by a pack of frenzied reporters. Someone showed him a newspaper headline, “Harvie Ward’s Amateur Status Questioned.” Blindsided, Ward struggled to make sense of it. Was he in trouble?
He was. And so was Lowery.
The state of California had indicted Lowery for tax evasion, and it had been established in grand jury testimony that the auto dealer had claimed business deductions for reimbursing Ward’s expenses at tournaments like the Masters and Canadian Amateur. The USGA’s rules of amateurism prohibited a player from accepting help with tournament expenses from anyone outside his own family. It was further alleged Lowery had funded Ward’s overseas excursion to the 1952 British Amateur, well before the latter had moved to San Francisco.
The rules did provide a potential safe harbor. If a player could demonstrate that his tournament play was coupled with a legitimate business trip, he could accept reimbursement of expenses provided those related to the golf part of the trip were borne personally.
Many amateurs drove through this loophole as if it were the size of the Holland Tunnel. For years, Frank Stranahan, son of the owner of Champion Spark Plugs, received reimbursement by Champion while competing in far-flung golf events by scheduling visits to local auto repair shops. Golfers holding licenses to sell insurance were particularly well positioned. A sales pitch or two to a fellow player or official could arguably merit reimbursement for a lengthy hotel stay and more than a few good meals.
Since the rule had been honored more in its breach than in its observance, Ward assumed nothing too serious was going to happen at the USGA board hearing set for June 7 in Golf, Illinois. Furthermore, he had conducted business at tournaments. “Wherever I went I met with businesspeople and usually sold them a few cars,” he later said. “That was, after all, my job.” In addition, Lowery, a USGA board member, had regularly assured Ward the reimbursements were proper. Even if a technical violation had occurred, how could Ward be blamed for trusting his employer — a revered member of golf’s establishment?
Ward’s friend and mentor Richard Tufts was rumored to be sympathetic and would preside at the hearing. When the proceedings got underway, Harvie sensed he was in for a rough ride when Tufts failed to look him in the eye. His premonition proved correct. The board categorically rejected Ward’s arguments and ruled that his receipt of Lowery’s payments violated the USGA rules governing amateur status.
Ward later acknowledged he was “numb with disbelief” that Tufts had failed “to speak up on my behalf.” But in retrospect, it was probably naïve for him to assume that Tufts would be lenient. As author of The Creed of the Amateur, Tufts supported an idealistic (and perhaps unrealistic) vision of how amateur golfers should conduct themselves. Though undoubtedly saddened by the whole affair, Tufts never wavered from wholehearted endorsement of the board’s finding.
Ward was suspended from USGA amateur competitions for one year. His quest for a third consecutive U.S. Amateur victory had, by fiat, met a premature end. The board did not vacate Ward’s previous victories in the championship, reasoning that his reliance on Lowery’s advice, while misplaced, mitigated his offense. Still, Ward felt singled out for punishment. “If I wasn’t the amateur champion at the time, it would have gone right by the boards,” he later said. “Nobody would have cared.” Had he followed Venturi’s path and joined the play-for-pay ranks, Ward would likely have circumvented the entire debacle. Why didn’t he turn pro? “To come anywhere near what I was making,” he said, “I would have had to finish in the top five money winners.”
Many observers thought the outcome unjust. Absent outside help, how could any top-ranked amateur — except the wealthiest — afford the travel and other costs attendant in playing prestigious events around the country? In an effort to douse the firestorm, USGA Executive Director Joe Dey authored an opinion piece in the USGA Journal that struck some as breathtakingly sanctimonious. “If a young man can’t afford to play tournament golf,” wrote Dey, “he is better off not living beyond his depth. Prominence in sports can be a false god.” Tufts’ effort to clean up the amateur game actually resulted in its diminishment. The best young players, golfers like Jack Nicklaus, began vacating the amateur ranks in droves immediately after college.
Ward’s amateur status was reinstated in 1958, but he clearly was not the same player. Though he managed to present his usual blithe front, his zest for the game had waned. The stigma of the suspension had taken its toll. In ’58, Ward played poorly in the Masters and got knocked out of the U.S. Amateur in the third round. He fared little better in ’59 but did manage to squeeze onto the U.S. Walker Cup team, which included Nicklaus. Competing over The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers’ majestic Muirfield links, Ward prevailed in both of his matches against the home team. Those wins were the 33-year-old’s last hurrah on the big stage.
After 1962, Ward drifted away from competition altogether. He declined to enter the U.S. Amateur and rejected several Masters invitations. “Basically, I said, ‘To hell with it,’” he told Golf World’s Dick Taylor. “I sort of said that I’d show those guys by not playing anymore. Kind of silly, I guess. I took up tennis, played some social golf, and went about making a living.”
Following the suspension, Ward and Lowery (who was ultimately acquitted of the tax evasion charges) started an auto leasing company together. It lasted five years. “Lowery made me a partner, gave me shares in the company, did a lot of things to sort of make up for what happened,” recalled Ward. After Lowery and Ward’s partnership ended, Harvie formed another leasing company with Bob Varner, but that broke up as well. Ward’s golf decline and business misfortunes were accompanied with, and probably exacerbated by, heavy drinking and a roving eye. After he and Suzanne divorced, he blitzed through relationships, eventually marrying five times.
In 1972, when Ward was 47, friends from San Francisco G.C. persuaded him to, at long last, turn professional and try his hand on the minor league mini-tour in Arizona. “I couldn’t beat those kids,” he said. “I made some money . . . but I wasn’t going to beat anybody.” In 1973, Ward entered the PGA Tour’s qualifying school, but it was too late for a comeback. He came nowhere close to getting his card. Later competitive efforts on the Champions Tour were similarly unsuccessful.
North and South champion Harvie (left) is congratulated by Henry Cotton. Runner-up Frank Stranahan (right) looks on
Ward was reduced to working in a San Francisco shipyard and teaching in a downtown sporting goods store. Mired in increasingly dire circumstances, he reached out to old UNC buddy Harvey Oliver for help. Oliver put Ward in touch with entrepreneur Dan Thomasson, one of the developers of the Foxfire Golf and Country Club near Pinehurst, who offered a lifeline by hiring Ward as Foxfire’s director of golf. The West Coast transplant, son of a Tarboro, North Carolina, pharmacist, returned to his native state.
The Pinehurst area held fond memories for Ward. He had played golf there frequently while a student at UNC and later, during his first post-graduation job selling insurance in Greensboro. Ward’s sensational performance in the 1948 North and South Amateur Championship, contested over Pinehurst No. 2, had brought the happy-go-lucky college senior his first dose of national attention. Entering the event on a whim, the unknown 22-year-old surprised himself by reaching the final, dispatching Wake Forest’s Arnold Palmer along the way.
Ward faced an uphill battle against the “Toledo Strongman” Frank Stranahan, who’d been runner-up in both the Masters and the British Open in ‘47. His secret weapon was the Zeta Psi fraternity, whose members scattered throughout the campus the night before the 36-hole final, spreading news of the match, urging students to head to Pinehurst to root for their fellow Tar Heel. Hordes of them showed up. An exuberant crowd of 2,000 overwhelmingly supported Ward. “Every time Frank would miss a shot or miss a chip, they’d cheer,” remembered Ward. “Anytime I’d get the ball airborne, they’d go nuts. You’d thought they were in Kenan Stadium at a football game.”
Ward’s stupefying avalanche of holed putts annoyed Stranahan more than the boisterous students. When he rammed home one final dagger on the 36th hole to close out his frustrated opponent, the elated Zetas celebrated by hoisting the winner to their shoulders and carrying him off the course.
Now, approaching middle age, Ward arrived at Foxfire to labor as a club teaching pro, instructing duffer and scratch player alike. His gentle manner and uncomplicated instructional method worked wonders for his pupils. When he wasn’t on the lesson tee, Ward kept his game sharp in afternoon money games with the area’s better players. The action honed his game to a semblance of its old form. At age 51, he won the North Carolina Open.
In Jim Dodson’s book A Son of the Game, Ward said that Foxfire was “where I began to finally discover what I may have been put on Earth to do. I was here to have fun playing golf with my buddies and teach others how to play this crazy game. I was here to pass the game along.”
Ward brought his charming rogue persona with him to Foxfire. Tony McKenzie, an occasional golf partner, recalls the time Ward — who was either between marriages or about to get out of one — showed up at McKenzie’s printing business asking that a batch of cards be made up reading something to the effect of, “Hello, I’m Harvie Ward. You look adorable. I’d like to get to know you better.”
After 10 years at Foxfire, Ward was hired by Nicklaus to be the director of golf at Jack’s Grand Cypress Resort, where he became Payne Stewart’s instructor. A couple of years later, Ward moved across town to Interlachen Country Club. It was in Florida where he met the woman destined to become his fifth (and final) wife, Joanne Dillon. After the couple married, they contemplated relocating. “Harvie suggested we go to either the West Coast or North Carolina,” remembers Joanne. “I said no to the West Coast. We’ll go to North Carolina.”
The couple moved to Pinehurst in 1989, settling in a spacious home on Blue Road in the village’s Old Town section. Peter Tufts (Richard’s son) constructed a par 3- hole on the property, where guests at Ward cocktail parties invariably gravitated with wedges in hand. Joanne bought her husband a 1967 Silver Shadow Rolls Royce, which he happily motored to his newest teaching gig at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club. He taught female attendees at Peggy Kirk Bell’s Golfaris and gave individual lessons, too. A young Webb Simpson was a pupil.
Ward’s growing reputation as a teaching pro culminated in the PGA of America naming him “Teacher of the Year” in 1990. Ward explained that the combination of Joanne and Pinehurst finally brought him peace. “That turned out to be the smartest decision I ever made,” he confided to Dodson. “Without Joanne, see, none of this would have happened. I would have been dead years ago.”
And Ward was having more fun playing golf than he had since his championship days, hooting and bantering with a disparate band of playing partners including local pros Andy Page, Bill Clement, Buck Adams and Waddy Stokes. Much of it was played at his new club, Forest Creek Golf Club. Usually, Ward took Page, the retired Southern Pines Country Club pro, as his partner. The duo would take on all comers provided that both men, sliding into their 70s, were allowed to play from the middle tees. With that advantage, they seemed as unbeatable as Hogan and Nelson. “We would make a birdie and were sure we had the hole won when either Harvie or Andy would chip in,” reflects Chris Israel, Forest Creek’s assistant pro at the time, shaking his head in disbelief. “They would drive to the next tee cackling and giggling with each other, and say loud enough for us to hear, ‘They really thought they had us. They should know better!’”
Old partners Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi
Notables from far and wide journeyed to Forest Creek to play golf with Ward. Dick LeBeau, one of pro football’s greatest defensive minds and a near-scratch player, was among them. The coach admired Ward’s ever-keen competitive nature. “He had that gleam in his eye. He knew he was going to beat you; you knew he was going to beat you; and it was fine because it was such a privilege to play with him,” reflects LeBeau. Watching ‘Ol’ Harv’ hit an iron shot was a mesmerizing experience. “It was the timing of his swing, and the sound,” marvels LeBeau. “So flush, and the ball never left the pin.”
By 2003 Ward’s freewheeling younger days had taken their toll. Diagnosed with cancer, his prognosis was not good. When asked by a friend how he was doing, Ward replied, “I’m on the back nine and I can see the clubhouse.” Several of his concerned golfing friends arranged for him to make a few sentimental journeys to golf meccas like Pine Valley and Seminole.
Jeff Dawson, a young Forest Creek member, escorted Ward to historic Merion Golf Club, where Ward’s friend Bob Jones had completed his Grand Slam. Ward was playing miserably and laboring in Philadelphia’s summer heat when the twosome reached Merion East’s 14th tee. A flock of members had come from the clubhouse to watch him play. Ward came alive, blasting a drive. That was followed by a laced 3-wood to the green and a holed birdie putt.
“What came over you?” asked Dawson.
The winking champion responded, “Those folks just wanted to see Harvie Ward.”
With just a few months to live, Ward and three friends (including Dawson and Ward’s personal physician) flew to the West Coast for a last golf trip. Tee times were scheduled at two of his favorites, San Francisco Golf Club and Cypress Point, where he and Venturi had carved out a portion of golfing lore 47 years earlier. On the way back East, the men stopped in Palm Springs to visit his old partner and friend, Venturi, in his desert home.
The 1964 U.S. Open champion’s den was loaded with trophies from his playing days. The one Venturi chose to place front and center was from the 1956 San Francisco City Championship, causing a flurry of good-natured teasing. Venturi took Dawson aside and said, “Do you know how good he was? I never saw him hit a 4-wood outside 10 feet!”
When it was time to leave, neither of the old running mates displayed out-of-the ordinary emotion as they hugged their goodbyes, but both realized they would not see one another again. Ward would pass away on Sept. 4, 2004. Furman Bisher, the dean of Atlanta sportswriters and a fellow UNC alumnus who covered the Masters 62 times, summed it up this way: “Harvie never lived an unpleasant day in his life or, if he did, he didn’t show it.”
Not long after returning from his final California trip, Ward played the last nine holes of his life with Dawson at Forest Creek. He shot 34 and called it a day.
“You can’t quit. You’re two under,” Dawson said.
“Yeah,” replied the rueful champion, “but nobody cares.”
His friends did.PS
Pinehurst resident Bill Case is PineStraw’s history man. He can be reached at Bill.Case@thompsonhine.com.
How Raleigh’s bold investment in sculptor Jim Gallucci’s art led to a revitalization of the city’s urban center
By Wiley Cash • Photographs by Mallory Cash
In 2007,just as the world was spiraling toward financial ruin, Greensboro sculptor Jim Gallucci received the largest commission of his career. The city of Raleigh selected him to construct four light towers to sit on either corner of downtown’s City Plaza in an attempt to redefine the empty space in front of the old Civic Center.
“It started out as a $65,000 project,” Gallucci says. “We kept saying, ‘You know, guys, we can do more with this,’ and they said, ‘Really? You got any ideas?’ These towers were going to be 65 feet tall. The next thing you knew it turned into a $2.5 million project.”
However, as the reality of the global financial crisis set in, Gallucci was certain the project would be pulled; but leaders in Raleigh decided to move ahead. In the fall of 2009, City Plaza, complete with Gallucci’s four 65-foot light towers bedecked in steel oak leaves, opened to the public. City officials hoped the plaza would serve as a “public living room” that would host concerts and events while attracting organizations from around the country that were searching for event and reception space. The plaza project was part of the now completely revitalized area of Raleigh’s Fayetteville Street, and towering above all the new businesses, concertgoers and tourists are Jim Gallucci’s glowing behemoths.
Raleigh proved that an investment in the arts could lead an economic revitalization. Gallucci was not surprised that the city’s bet paid off. “The arts are always the catalyst,” he says. “We’re the stick in the stream. Next thing you know there’s a leaf that’s caught by the stick, and before long the stick has gathered an entire island around it.”
Jim Gallucci’s enormous studio — which he admits to thinking of less as a studio and more as a tool that assists in his art — sits just south of downtown Greensboro. Going off Gallucci’s own metaphor, his studio could be described as an island that has gathered things over the years: sculptures of dizzying heights and varying colors; scraps of metal from local salvage yards; beams from the World Trade Center; and people from around the state interested in anything from sculpture to metalworking to glassblowing to having a cup of coffee and chatting. This is exactly what Gallucci hoped this space would become after opening the studio in 2006, not only for him but for the collective community of local and statewide artists of which he is part.
***
Gallucci’s collective approach is quickly made apparent when you spend time discussing art with him; you will discover that he consistently speaks in the collective first person we.
“We’d been in the old Civil War rifle factory on East Washington in downtown Greensboro for 21 years,” he says. “There were holes in the ceiling. The floors weren’t strong enough to hold the sculptures we were making.” He smiles, takes a sip of his coffee. “We knew we needed four things from a studio: We needed plenty of space. We needed heat. We needed an office. And we needed a bridge crane.”
That checklist — especially plenty of space and the bridge crane — came in handy as the full lengths of the six-story Raleigh towers were being fabricated inside the studio. Gallucci had plenty of hands on deck as the towers were lifted by the bridge crane and prepared for transport.
You would not know it now, but there were times when Jim Gallucci felt more like that single stick in the stream than the island that would gather around it. As a working artist, he had spent years teaching at the college level, but that came to a halt in 1986, when the University of North Carolina Greensboro did not renew his teaching contract after nine years in the classroom. He had a decision to make: Should he and his family leave Greensboro in search of another teaching job, or should they stay in the community, where they had forged relationships for nearly a decade?
He and his wife made the conscious decision to stay. “We’d made a lot of friends,” he says. “We had a community. We knew a lot of people in the fabrication business, and we’d trade sculptures for steel. You don’t buy those relationships; you assemble them during your life.”
After leaving the classroom, Gallucci decided to put his faith in his local community, and he decided to keep his faith in his art. “I took unemployment for six months, and I called it my arts grant. I went in my studio every day like a worker at 8 a.m., and I’d work until 4 p.m. I worked every day in that studio, and we were able to trade for steel, and we made three good sculptures during that six months and tried to get into shows.
“Those three pieces we made? All of them were sold, and two of them ended up in Brisbane, Australia. I suddenly went from an unemployed art teacher to an international sculptor.”
***
Gallucci’s sculptures began to pop up around Greensboro, then around the state, then around the country. He is perhaps best known for his gates and arches, especially the Millennium Gate in Greensboro’s Government Plaza, a project that found 17 artisans creating 106 icons that represent major figures, moments and movements from American history. The icons are affixed to the enormous arch and comprise the gate at its center. Viewers are able to both witness history and pass through it, and that interaction is vital to Gallucci’s vision.
“With gates, it’s easy to get into the art,” he says, “literally and figuratively. I try to get people to enter the work, to engage with it.”
Gallucci also gives people the opportunity to engage with their own artwork several times a year when he opens his studio to host a public iron pour. Hundreds of people show up in the early afternoon, many of them with small sand casts on which they will use any number of tools to etch a symbol or a name or an image that will then be cast in iron later in the day.
People come not only to pour iron, but to work with blacksmithing tools or to try their hand at glassblowing. Others come for the live music or the hot food that is served. The noise of the conversations and music and hammers rises into a pleasing din that fills the enormous studio space and pours outside, where men and women in masks and leather gloves and aprons are stoking the foundry and melting metal into what looks like bright orange lava. Jim Gallucci is there, talking to old friends, making new ones, offering words of encouragement to someone who is trying their hand at metal casting for the first time.
As the sky tips toward dusk, the scene is otherworldly. Sparks fly. Flames reach into the air. Metal is turned into liquid. The vague notions of creativity that people arrived with are slowly hardening into shape.
“Creativity happens when you experience something you’ve never experienced before,” Gallucci says. “The elements: the sand, the dirt, the heat; it’s almost primordial. People may not become iron casters after this, but that’s not the point. It’s igniting other things, inviting other ways to look at the world. That’s what art inspires.”
***
What does Jim Gallucci hope his art inspires? He thinks for a moment, the light from sparks and flames glinting in his safety glasses, which he wears casually, the way other people wear sunglasses or bifocals. “I hope I’m perpetuating ideas, goodwill, community, sense of purpose, reflection. If you’re doing that with a piece of art, you’re doing OK.”
No man is an island, right? Well, perhaps Jim Gallucci is.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.
On the cusp of spring, when the weather swings wildly between balmy hope and savage bluster, every kitchen gardener senses a good pot of soup is warranted.
A well-made soup is fine home medicine to chase off the crud. The ultimate comfort food, a big pot of soup can nourish an ailing body for days. It goes down easy. It’s a spring tonic and a spring cleanse all in one.
“My European mother would make soups and it would fill us up,” says Goldie Toon, former chef and owner of Goldie’s Gourmet in West End. Among her loyal patrons, Toon was known as the Soup Queen for her popular, bubbling pots of specialty soups. “People would order quarts of it at a time,” she recalls.
Soup is efficient. A well-balanced soup is a meal in itself; just add a crust of bread, a jug of wine and thou. Stuff veggies, protein, flavorful stock and spices — everything you need — in a pot and heat ’er up! Invite friends.
Say you can’t cook? Au contraire. You can make soup. Everyone can make soup. And with a Crock-Pot, the soup hardly needs watching.
“Last night’s leftovers make the next day’s soup,” says Toon. “In fact, that’s probably how soup got started.” Her cafe’s three most popular soups were a luxurious shrimp and crab bisque, a hearty beef barley, and a gingered curried carrot.
After a couple of hours turning up the spring soil in anticipation of planting lettuces, radishes, spinach, beets, carrots, kale, arugula and other crops that germinate in cold soil, a body craves soup for lunch. A hearty cup will take the chill off those “in like a lion” March days. It’s a cozy accompaniment to seasonal seed catalog perusal.
With the new planting season commencing, it’s time to clean out the freezer and canning jars of last year’s bounty anyway. Toss in those last two jars of canned green beans. Dump the frozen sweet corn into a bacony chowder or a Brunswick stew. You’ll need the room; by the end of the month, the fresh asparagus will be arriving.
Crafting a batch couldn’t be easier. It can be a recipe-free, creative endeavor.
Start with stock. It’s the “juice” in which you will simmer the remaining ingredients; it’s the element that ties it all together.
All grandmas know chicken soup is good for the crud, as well as the soul. Purists will want to simmer chicken thighs until the meat is falling off the bone, then strain and pick the meat, returning it to the pot. Simmering the bones gets tissue-building collagen and minerals into your home medicine. Same with a meaty beef bone, turkey carcass or ham hock. Others may opt to simply open a quart of chicken or beef broth. Bone broth is increasingly available in cartons these days, too. Vegans can opt for a rich vegetable stock. You can even use plain water, although the richness factor is harder to re-create.
Now, chop up a batch of onions — the more the better. Is there any savory recipe that doesn’t begin with “sauté an onion?” It is our flavor bass note. Packed with nutrients, full of the kinds of elements our healthy gut biome loves, onions also have antibacterial properties. Sauté in butter or olive oil. A little browning increases the flavor profile of your upcoming soup.
What next?
Though you will add many of them a little later, consider: What do you enjoy most? Italian spices? Curry flavors? A spicy Mexican soup? An Asian twist? Simple meat-and-potatoes salt and pepper?
Whatever you choose, think about adding multiple cloves of garlic. Used medicinally for 5,000 years, garlic has antibiotic, atherosclerotic and anti-cholesterol properties. It helps lower blood pressure. Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, prescribed garlic for respiratory problems, parasites, poor digestion, and fatigue. It tastes good. It runs off vampires. I rest my case.
You might choose to add sinus openers such as cayenne pepper or fresh ginger. Cayenne warms things up and juices the winter-sluggish metabolism. Besides its wonderful bite and zing, ginger is anti-inflammatory and wards off nausea and muscle aches. Gingerol, the bioactive substance in fresh ginger, can help lower the risk of infections and inhibit the growth of many different types of bacteria. Ginger has been shown to speed up emptying of the stomach in people with indigestion.
You might toss in a little turmeric, another potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, especially with a chicken soup base.
As for vegetables, it depends on what you have on hand or can pick up easily. Here is a free-form “recipe” we make several times each winter because it’s cheap, easy, tasty and a wholesome meal in itself — chicken garlic cabbage soup, with lots of garlic.
In a big Crock-Pot, dump in sautéed onion, chicken and stock. Cabbage is inexpensive and nutritious, so it forms the bulk. I like to chop it fine, as if I was making spring rolls or coleslaw, but anyway you hack into a head is OK.
Start tossing in what you have or what you like: sliced mushrooms, those baby carrots that are so convenient, lots of celery, that cauliflower “rice” you find in the stores these days, chopped asparagus, perhaps some broccoli florets, and, of course, more garlic. Season with salt and pepper, a teaspoon or more of curry powder, a pinch of cayenne, a little ginger. Heat until carrots are softened (microwaving them first is a trick that speeds up cooking time). Just before eating, we’ll add a little soy sauce and a dash of toasted sesame oil. It will make you sit up and bark for joy.
Remember all those little tubs of kale you froze when it was in season? Use them up. If you didn’t, there is plenty of fresh kale in the market now. That leads us to another fine winter soup, a simple white bean, sausage and kale. This soup starts out much the same: Sauté some onions in olive oil or butter. Throw in lots of garlic. Chop up the kale and sauté briefly. How much kale? Dial your dose. Italian sausage is a good addition. Dump it in the Crock-Pot (or a soup pot, but beans love to burn in a soup pot, so watch closely). Add a quart or more of chicken stock, depending on how many you plan to feed. Dump in a can or two of white (cannellini) beans. A trick for a thick, chowdery bean soup is to hold back some beans and process them in a blender, adding the bean slurry back into the soup. Season with salt and pepper, perhaps some Italian spices.
A good, all-American corn chowder could be your third free-form option. Chowder is a classic cold-weather soup. Sauté up some bacon, then remove from the pan and sauté some onions in the drippings. In the pot, throw in some small-diced potatoes, chopped celery, some chopped carrots for color, and several cups of sweet corn kernels. Add three or four cups of milk, though a vegan friend does hers with almond milk (she also skips the bacon, sautéing in olive oil). Take care not to boil the milk. Soup is ready when the potatoes soften. To give it a nice thickness, mash some of the potatoes. Add lots of salt and pepper.
And, if you prefer a more formal recipe . . .
Goldie’s Curried Carrot Soup
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 pounds carrots, peeled and chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 tablespoon shredded ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 cups water
1/2 cup orange juice
Juice of one lime
Can of coconut milk
In a large pot, sauté onion in olive oil until soft. Stir in carrots, ginger, curry powder, salt. Add water, bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer 20 more minutes until carrots are soft. Add in orange juice, lime and coconut milk. Purée, then return to pot. Check for seasoning. Serves 6-8. Can be served hot or cold.PS
Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and co-founder of Sandhills Farm to Table.
By Deborah Salomon•Photographs by John Koob Gessner
Lac Enfin.
The sign over the door echoes Leigh Morgan’s sentiment about her new waterfront home:
Finally, the lake
What she might add is c’est moi — meaning inside and out, floorplan, colors and furnishings, this house is me: designed to be lived in by me and Jake, my dog.
The 1,800-square foot cottage in modern farmhouse style, an architectural dernier cri, has only one bedroom, although the loft (now her office) soaring over the living area could be converted.
For sure, with its stark white exterior, black accents and Juliet balcony, Morgan’s lake villa stands apart from its neighbors, built in Whispering Pines ranch-style, circa 1970s.
People walk by, wave and shout, “Nice house!”
Vive la difference.
Now try this one, in English: A change is as good as a rest.
For 30 years Morgan lived quite happily in a charming renovated cottage in the downtown Southern Pines historic district. Her décor: charming renovated cottage-style. Then one morning she woke up and said something like . . . I’m outta here.
“I made an announcement to my family that I was going to sell my house.”
Ah, but why . . . and where would she relocate, they wondered?
“I love the water. I’ve always wanted to live on the water.”
Morgan was familiar with lakeside properties in gated golf communities. No. She wasn’t familiar with Whispering Pines until a business errand took her there. Imagine . . . water, water everywhere. Not only water, but a perfect little building lot on Shadow Lake opposite protected wetlands, assuring forever greenery. She bought the lot a week later, in September 2018. Because a proper “me” house, like a good chocolate cake, must be scratch-made.
Morgan’s business is screen printing logos on T-shirts and promotional material, not drawing plans for a house. Luckily her stepfather, Larry Best, is a retired landscape architect with adjunct skills.
“We had a hurricane that September.” So she, her family and their iPads holed up for two days and designed the shell.
“I picked out everything myself,” Morgan says, beaming with pride. “I read a lot of magazines. So many choices.” Her criteria: “Something I won’t get tired of in five years.”
Once a builder was found, the work went fast. They broke ground in January, moved in by July. “Everything went right. It was a great process,” she says. Even the stark white wide-board exterior doesn’t compete with surrounding nature.
Of course Morgan drove out almost every day, with Jake, to monitor progress.
“He got to know the place gradually,” so the move wasn’t upsetting. Now, Jake has commandeered the Juliet balcony as a snooze spot/lookout.
Inside the black front door, one word says it all.
Magnifique! A 40-foot-long wall of soaring windows, which round the corners at each end, maximizes views of that coveted water. No blinds, no shades, no obstructions. Just a concrete terrace furnished for year-round outdoor cooking and living. Closer to the lake itself, another table for dining.
But what’s that faint whooshing sound?
Immediately inside the front door Morgan positioned an unusual wall-mounted fountain, with a sheet of water falling over a sheet of slate into a narrow trough, where it is sucked upward to fall again. To Morgan, the sound represents serenity.
“When you walk past the fountain it takes negative energy away,” she says. “It’s the first thing I turn to in the morning.”
Except for the bedroom, dressing room and bath, the entire main floor with its 30-foot ceilings is one space with white walls and dark-stained floors, divided only by furnishings. A contemporary sectional sofa the color of beach sand sprawls in front of the fireplace; a more formal settee with carved wood frame, also vanilla, faces the lake. The dining room table, vaguely Parsons, is darkly speckled metal — something she found abandoned in an office. Around it, black-lacquered Windsor chairs, others rawhide-covered; along one side, a bench. Tall bird of paradise and fiddle leaf fig plants help delineate areas.
Abstracts and animal art dominate the walls, splashes of color in this black-and-gray-and-white environment. Morgan is a lifelong horsewoman. Her parents have homes in Southern Pines Horse Country, also in Montana. Animal skin rugs and throws (a steely-eyed badger, perhaps?) come from a veterinarian-pathologist friend who practices taxidermy.
The kitchen borders the great room, suggesting the epithet: Know a woman by her kitchen.
“I’m a minimalist,” Morgan states. Every utensil, every appliance has its place, mostly out of sight. A microwave is not among them. “No, never had one, never liked them,” she says. “I boil water in a kettle.” She chose cabinetry with care to match the living space it is part of: deep charcoal, matte finish instead of hard-edged glossy. Practical white ceramic tile forms the backsplash
A sliding black barn door separates the only bedroom from the great room. On display here, her boldest acquisition: the headboard, a massive, mottled gray metallic panel mounted on a charcoal wall. She found it in a warehouse. “It’s from a tin ceiling,” Morgan explains, with glee. Yet she integrated this and a hulking 9-foot armoire, painted black, with several traditional chests from her grandmother’s house.
The en suite oversized bathroom is splashed with sun beaming through high windows. Half walls protect an integrated shower fitted out with a teak bench, for a Scandinavian effect. Instead of a multi-sink vanity, Morgan chose to place two free-standing ones at opposite sides of the room.
The loft satisfies Whispering Pines’ minimum square footage requirement. Building up was cheaper than building out. Climbing the steep steps is a workout, but once up, the view through the window wall and across the lake is spectacular, even at night, with twinkling lights strung over the veranda. Another requirement, an attached garage, gave her the idea for connecting the two with a mud room.
First-time homebuilders travel a rocky road even when assisted by architects and interior designers. Leigh Morgan, Jake trotting close behind, seems to have avoided the potholes. The only glitch, she laughs, was having the right refrigerator delivered: a stainless steel two-door model (one over one, not side by side) with no exterior ice maker or water dispenser. On the fourth attempt she got what she wanted.
“The whole idea behind this house was to bring the outside in,” Morgan says. “I’m pretty content with life, but this was the icing on the cake, a healing place, calming and peaceful.
“Sometimes I want to pinch myself.”
Jake, an equally mellow fellow, concurs, as he begs a biscuit, then settles down into a faux fur dog blanket spread over the sectional and falls asleep.PS
Hold on, St. Patrick. Your day’s coming. But before you pass the corned beef and cabbage, offer a blessing for the Emerald Isle’s favorite veggie — the holy spud. And while you’re at it, give thanks for those crispy, fried, paper-thin rounds, America’s favorite snack, the potato chip.
Potatoes have been fried up for centuries, a staple in European as well as South American cultures, but the earliest written recipe for “crisps,” the English version of our potato chip, dates back to 1817, to a cookbook written by a British doctor and part-time chef, William Kitchiner. Obviously not a cardiologist, Kitchiner suggested frying thin, round shavings in lard or fat drippings.
You can thank George “Crum” Speck (or urban legend) for inventing the American version, originally referred to as “Saratoga chips.” Crum and his sister, “Aunt Kate,” worked as cooks for the Lake Moon House in Saratoga Springs, New York, until he opened his own restaurant, “Crum’s,” in nearby Malta.
Whether truth or tale, the story goes that a diner (some say Cornelius Vanderbilt) who visited the lake house’s popular restaurant in 1853 complained about his order of fried spuds. The discriminating guest sent the side back several times. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. Striving for quality service, or maybe just aggravated at a picky customer, George fried and salted a batch of thinly sliced potatoes that, evidently, pleased the chap.
Crisps or chips. Call ’em what you will. William and Crum (in my opinion) were geniuses.
When I was a boy, a bag of plain Lay’s always sat next to our breadbox. Barbeque flavor was a special treat, but Sour Cream and Onion made for stinky breath. We were never fans of Ruffles. Probably the ridges. Pringles debuted in the late ’60s but I’m guessing they were too newfangled for my traditionalist mom. Tom’s Chips, still available, were an OK substitute. Tom’s, plus a pack of Nabs, made for a perfect snack for a day of hunting or fishing.
A childhood neighbor, who moved south from Michigan, had Charles Chips delivered to her home. She’d offer me a handful on a paper towel. Pretty good, tasted like Lay’s. And how cool to have chips delivered to your door, just like the Pine State Dairy guy brought milk. The company, named for Charles Street in Baltimore, where Effie Musser started the business out of her kitchen, packaged their chips in gold and brown tins and advertised “free delivery.” Mom loved her neighbor but thought chips in a tin coupled with the convenience of delivery was “too much.” The company ended home delivery in the ’70s, but Charles Chips are still sold in those iconic tins.
Potato chips are my go-to snack. Traditional with burgers and dogs but try them crumbled up in a peanut butter sandwich, on wheat bread, with a glass of milk. Heavenly.
Adulthood brought testing the boundaries outside Lay’s yellow and white bag. A New Orleans friend introduced me to Zapp’s. Packaged in Gramercy, Louisiana, Zapp’s kettle-fried chips are cooked in peanut oil, thick and crispy. Kettle-cooked chips differ from regular in cooking method but in the end, a kettle chip, though darker and more irregular in shape, is still a potato chip. Zapp’s first brand? A spicy Cajun version. If you’re a Zapp’s fan, Wedgies, a sandwich shop off Morganton Road in Southern Pines, carries them.
I didn’t give up Lay’s. Sour Cream and Onion or Barbeque rank as favorites, but Dill Pickle or Salt-N-Vinegar? Pass. And Lay’s, like other snack brands, ventured into boutique flavors like Kettle-Cooked Jalapeño and Simply Sea Salted. For the health-conscious, Lay’s offers Baked or Lightly Salted.
Current favorite? Carolina Kettle — flavorful, crispy kettle chips produced by 1 in 6 Snacks, a company in Raleigh, created by 2017 N.C. State grad Josh Monahan. The company’s name is rooted in America’s food insecurity: the fact that 1 in 6 people aren’t sure where they’ll find their next meal. Motivated to produce a quality product and address hunger, Josh donates to local food banks — 5 cents for every 2-ounce bag and 10 cents for every 5-ounce bag sold. Flavors include Outer Banks Sea Salt, Down East Carolina BBQ, Bee Sting Honey Sriracha, and Sir Walter Cream Cheese and Chive. I’m still noshing on bags my kids gave me for Christmas. Great chips fund a good cause. Buy them locally at Southern Whey in downtown Southern Pines.
So grab a bag of your chip of choice. Toast the day with a glass of milk or a bottle of Mountain Dew. St. Patrick’s Day always falls during Lent, a season when some of the faithful choose to give something up. I’ll pass on corned beef, Fridays or any day, but the good Lord knows, I do love my chips.PS
Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.
It is that time of the year again: calls and emails asking what the nondescript little light-brown birds might be that are suddenly flocking to seed feeders. Believe it or not, they are actually our familiar American goldfinches.
Goldfinches are not migratory, but they do engage in a disappearing act of sorts. This species is one of scores that lose their breeding colors in late summer and take on a muted plumage for the colder months of the year. We think this is simply a matter of being camouflaged during months when life is more challenging and breeding finery is unnecessary. From October through April these birds have no need for bright colors. As we get into February, you may begin to see some splotchy yellowish individuals as the increase in the length of daylight hours triggers the hormones responsible for feather molt.
Bright yellow male goldfinches are easy to identify, sporting black wings and a black topknot. The females, however, are a muted yellow; no doubt a better camouflage while incubating in dense shrubby cover. The female goldfinches take care of early nesting duties but may abandon the young a week or so after hatching to the males’ care, especially if the eggs were laid early in the period. She will then search out a new mate and hurriedly begin a second brood before the shorter days of early fall arrive.
Male Goldfinch in spring
It will not be until summer winds sweep down across the Piedmont and Sandhills that the family life of this eye-catching species will finally hit high gear. Then it will be time for American goldfinches to begin raising a family. They breed much later than other songbirds, producing one and in some cases two sets of young from mid-August to late September. The delay in breeding is likely related to the fact that they feed exclusively on small seeds. It is then that grasses and other herbaceous vegetation are finally producing an abundance of seed. Food for a growing family has finally become plentiful. It is also not until late summer that the pods of native thistle have burst open and, in addition to the energy-rich seeds being exposed, the down is also available as nesting material. Males may have been singing their melodious song from the treetops since May.Any associating pairs have simply been loafing, waiting for the time to be right to get down to business.
Goldfinches have a very large range nationwide and can actually be found across our state year round. They are highly nomadic during the cooler months and tend to flock together in search of food. In early February, they are very numerous at bird feeders. In some years, when the native seed sources are depleted or scarce, hundreds may be found taking advantage of sunflower hearts or nyger thistle seed. However, their winter plumage is once again very drab. Males and females alike are a dull brown and, as a result, often cause a good bit of confusion for backyard bird enthusiasts. If there is any doubt, their frequent “potato chip” call always gives them away.PS
Susan would love to hear from you. Send wildlife sightings and photos to susan@ncaves.com.
Planned obsolescence is one thing. That’s when manufacturers have a better mousetrap on the boards while still promoting its predecessor. iPhones, maybe? My problem is different: appliances that don’t last long enough to be obsolete.
The toaster received as a wedding gift used to last a lifetime.Read on . . .
This downward slide started in August, when my mobile landline phone died. Probably the battery, but I wasn’t up for ordering a new one for this cheap model. I’m a recalcitrant landline-lubber who leaves cell in purse unless needed to call my landline to find the misplaced receiver.
I bought a new phone, same model, for $14. Where electronics are concerned, familiarity breeds confidence. Besides, I can read the buttons on this one. Now I’m all set for about three years, the life of its predecessor.
In September, my microwave went dark at the ripe old age of 10 which, since I’m alone, equals about four years of a typical lifespan. Speaking of use-age, I’m still smarting from the washing machine that stalled after only eight years, three use-age. Fault the computer, the repairman said. Can’t be fixed. A previous sans-computer model from the same manufacturer was still agitating when I moved, after 15 years of cleaning up after four.
Why, pray, does a washing machine need a computer? Maybe because the new ones look like Lexuses and belong in the living room.
I considered not replacing the microwave, which I use to heat up, not cook. That would free up a hunk of counter space. Then I thought about the big dish of cornbread I “bake” for the birds, in six minutes. And the mug of tea that has gone tepid.
Off to Walmart . . .
On the other hand, I’m till using my original cheapest-model KitchenAid mixer. Humming along after 20 years, I’ve tacked on another 10 use-years in banana breads and chocolate chip cookies.
Occasionally these devices give some warning. All of December, my heavy, powerful blender with glass carafe which I bought in 2008 began sounding like a helicopter in distress. I said a prayer to Saint Oster and kept going. It died just after all the Christmas specials had expired.
Part of the problem may be that I don’t always buy the most costly model, or best brand. Sure, I’d like a Robot Coupe processor; they start at $550 and end at $5K. My Cuisinart’s OK except for one thing: Its feather-light plastic workbowl lid just cracked. OK, I dropped it on the floor. But plastic should bounce. This was my second bowl. Pieces fell off the others. Workbowls aren’t cheap, even on Amazon. This time I stuck a piece of super-duper clear tape over the crack and wash carefully.
Speaking of materials . . . what genius makes a toaster out of plastic?
In contrast, I own a Hamilton Beach electric meat grinder made of some substance heavier than steel reinforced with lead, then encased in enamel. It was old when my mother-in-law gave it to me as a bride, 60 years ago. She had used it to make chopped liver. This job/appliance came along with her son, I figured. The grinder has to be at least 70. I had the motor tuned up 20 years ago. Still going strong, although I no longer grind sirloin for the world’s best burgers.
The breakdowns I dread the most have never happened: dishwasher demise on Thanksgiving, and hair dryer fizzle an hour before a big event. To prevent the latter, I keep a spare.
The worst breakdown I can hardly verbalize. Too emotional. I have an old computer with outdated software on which I am totally dependent. I’m not sure which of us will outlast the other. The slightest hiccup (from the computer, not me) and I panic.
“Such a fuss . . . they’re only things,” yawns Rip Van Winkle. True. Life was just fine before the mixers, the fixers, the grinders and toasters.
But one does get spoiled.PS
Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.
In Poland, as World War II rages, Róza and her daughter Shira are hiding from German soldiers in a barn loft. Having to be very quiet, Róza makes up a story about a yellow bird that is free to go out and sing and make noise while they must be quiet. Separated when they have to leave the barn, mother and daughter remain attached through their musical abilities and the story of the bird, but wonder if they will ever see each other again. A mesmerizing story.
The Pride of Eden, by Taylor Brown
Anse Caulfield is a life-toughened Vietnam veteran and former jockey who, for reasons of his own, uses an ill-gotten windfall to establish Little Eden, a wildlife sanctuary on the coast of Georgia. Here, a collection of unforgettable mavericks, living on the periphery of society, wage an unofficial war of their own to rescue exotic animals from the hands of greed and cruelty. Brown has the rare ability to place his readers into the minds of his characters, allowing them to inhabit their skin. We can tap into their senses, passions and motivations. Every page explodes, and every line is pure poetry. Pride of Eden is original, sensitive, and unsparing.
The New Life of Hugo Gardner, by Louis Begley
Hugo is in his 80s, his wife has just left him for a younger man, and he’s lonely. With a plan to end his life should it become necessary (he doesn’t want to be a burden), he tries to find a way to be happy. In the past this has always included sexual intimacy, so why should that change?
Blackwood, by Michael Farris Smith
The thing about the invasive kudzu vine is that it is unstoppable. Nearly impenetrable, it harbors and smothers its secrets. The countryside around the dead-end town of Red Bluff, Mississippi, is filled with the encroaching vine and the sad stories it keeps. That peace is shattered when a vagabond family lands in the town, along with an artist whose family met with tragedy there when he was a boy. A disturbing chain of events follows in this tense, breathtaking novel.
The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel
A Ponzi scheme collapses, obliterating lives and fortunes, and a woman mysteriously disappears from the deck of a container ship at sea. These seemingly disparate events converge in a glass-fronted hotel on Vancouver Island in this story of crisis and survival. An exquisite, character-driven novel that will haunt the reader for days after the last page.
A Good Neighborhood, by Therese Anne Fowler
It began with a tree, a wonderful, massive oak in a modest, diverse neighborhood, with small, modest homes, and close-knit neighbors. The tree is a treasured part of a property owned by a widowed black college professor and her talented teenage son. The tree is put in peril and the serenity of the neighborhood is disrupted when a gargantuan home is built on a razed lot next door by a wealthy businessman who does little to hide his contempt for his neighbors. This man has a beautiful young daughter, and as fate would have it, the two teens fall in love, setting the course for heartbreak and disaster. This tale will provide fodder for book clubs and community discussions for years to come.
My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell
It was love. It was real. She may have been only 15 years old, and he was her teacher, but nobody understands the depth of their connection. Yes, it was love, because if it wasn’t love then it was something else, something ugly, something unspeakable. And now, 16 years later, she is still not ready to face that possibility, not ready to label him a monster and herself a victim. It’s not necessary for you to be the judge, just accept the journey through Vanessa’s memories as she tries to make peace with who she is today.
Writers and Lovers, by Lily King
Not since Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels has a character so vividly, brilliantly and quietly risen off the page as has Casey Peabody in Writers and Lovers. Seamlessly crafted by a master of literary fiction, King’s novel of fear, bravery, chance, silliness, disappointment and deep fortitude is absolutely impossible to put down.
The Operator, by Gretchen Berg
Vivian is a telephone operator in a small town in the 1950s and listens in on the conversations. One night she hears a secret about her family that upends her life and, of course, leads to other secrets coming to light. A humorous story of small-town life that is loosely based on the author’s grandmother.
Valentine, by Elizabeth Wetmore
In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, 14-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager has been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field — an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, a local woman decides to take matters into her own hands, setting the stage for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences. Valentine is a haunting exploration of the intersections of violence and race, class and region in a story that plumbs the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into beauty and hope.
NONFICTION
House Lessons, by Erica Bauermeister
This book is a joy to read. Be prepared to underline insights on every page. House Lessons is a meditation that takes place over two decades. This memoir in essay form fuses thoughtful perceptions with practical information about how we consider spaces and how people inhabit them. A quiet delight.
Pearls of Wisdom: Little Pieces of Advice (That Go a Long Way), by Barbara Bush
At the end of the day, she taught all of us some valuable lessons. As First Lady, she made a point of cuddling a baby with AIDS and hugging a young man who was HIV positive and whose family had rejected him, showing us by example the importance of compassion and the myth of fear. As a mother, she made sure we all knew that your children must come first, and one of the most important things you can do is to read to them. As a friend and mentor, she showed that you had to be true to yourself, and even at the end of her life, she taught us how to die with grace.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
The Imaginaries: Little Scraps of Larger Stories, by Emily Winfield Martin
Beautiful, whimsical, and ethereal are the thoughts and illustrations that make up the “Imaginaries.” A book of story starters and idea encouragers, The Imaginaries could also serve as a most intriguing coffee table art book. Martin never disappoints! (Ages 6-10.)
The Girl and the Dinosaur, by Hollie Hughes
On a beach in a town not so very far from here, a girl and a dinosaur find each other and, with spirits wild and free, explore the night together. Dinosaur lovers and dreamers alike will adore this stunningly illustrated lyrical tale of fun, fantasy and flight. (Ages 3-6.)
No More Naps, by Chris Grabenstein
No kid ever wanted to take a nap, but what if, when that kid finally does get drowsy and cave, all the naps had been taken by everyone else in the neighborhood — even the dog! A cautionary tale with a little sleepy time silliness that will certainly stay on top of the “read it again” stack. (Ages 2-4.)
Nesting, by Henry Cole
From the first dry grass and small twigs gathered to build a perfect, comfortable nest, to the warm summer day when the independent babies fly away on their own, this simple sweet picture book chronicles a season in the life of a robin family. Young ornithologists and nature lovers will enjoy learning more about the wild, wonderful world. (Ages 3-6.)
American Royals, by Katharine McGee
If George Washington had been named king instead of president, America may very well have been naming a new queen instead of a new president in 2020. The author of The Thousandth Floor brings that scenario to life and, with Harry and Meghan stepping down from their royal duties and moving to North America, this fun book couldn’t be more timely. (Ages 14 and up.)PS
