Birdwatch

PinePitch January 2023

A Winter Wonder

Evening grosbeaks visit the Sandhills

By Susan Campbell

Evening grosbeaks are a most unexpected surprise in North Carolina during the winter months. Last month I made a similar claim about purple finches, explaining that food shortages further north would bring these raspberry-colored songbirds our way in numbers over the coming months. In fact, much to my delight, that has already happened at our feeders in Apex. But evening grosbeaks, which could be found reliably here in our state every few years, are nowhere as numerous as they were just a couple of decades ago. Therefore, they are far less likely to appear even when seed resources plummet across southern Canada and the northern United States.

Evening grosbeaks are robin-sized birds with a distinctive heavy white bill and varying amounts of yellow feathering, depending on the bird’s age and sex. All individuals have white and black wings as well as a gray crown and nape. Adult males with their yellow eyebrows and bellies are hard to miss. Immatures as well as adult females are more muted, having limited yellow feathering above with gray underparts.

Being larger, grosbeaks’ songs and calls can carry a good distance. Furthermore, they are almost always found in flocks during the colder months. So they are likely to vocalize a good bit throughout the day. You may be startled by the cacophony of warbling songs or hear their buzzy chips as they keep track of one another.

These big birds have a broad diet. As with most songbirds, evening grosbeaks feed heavily on insects and insect larvae during the spring and summer. But beginning in early fall they seek out berries, not as much for the fruit but for the seeds contained within. With their large bill and strong tongue, they can easily manipulate these sizable morsels to get at the protein in the middle. During the colder weather they can be found foraging on seeds from maple, ash, tulip poplar and pine. It is likely that a combination of a better-than-average breeding season with a poor mast crop is causing their winter range expansion. Individuals and small groups have already been spotted in our state — all the way to the coast. I was startled to hear one calling a couple weeks ago from high in the forest along the creek at Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve in Southern Pines. And I expect it is not the only encounter I will have this season.

Laying out the welcome mat for these handsome birds is not complicated. Of course, your odds of attracting evening grosbeaks are better if you have the native vegetation they favor. Commonly cultivated apples, cherries and Russian olives will also get their attention. Feeding stations with sunflower seeds will be a draw, of course — especially if the seeds are hulled. Additionally, they will consume peanuts and other larger nuts like pecans and even walnut pieces.

Given the size of a grosbeak, you can imagine that the amount of seed they consume on a winter’s day is not insignificant. But folks lucky enough to host them are usually willing to provide as much seed as the birds will eat. Paying the price for such special guests is worth the investment, especially if you are a Southern birdwatcher who likely will only have such an incredible opportunity once in a lifetime.  PS

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

Sporting Life

Sporting Life

Called to Order

The gang gathers for good times

By Tom Bryant

The best friends in the world are the ones you don’t need to meet every day. Whether it’s been a day or 10 years, the conversation is the same.  — Anonymous

 

Left: Dell Meekins

Right: Tom Bryant

The members of the old Sleeping Black Duck Order were falling by the wayside. The organization, started many years ago on a brant goose hunt on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, was still honored by what was left of the active members, but probably on a much more sedate level than those early years.

The club was created after a successful day’s duck shoot on the Chesapeake Bay. The group was sitting in front of a blazing fire talking about the day’s events, who did what, good-naturedly ragging missed shots and bragging about good ones. There were seven in the party, good friends all, having known each other for years, hunting together most of them. Idiosyncrasies, good and bad, were acknowledged and overlooked when needed. In essence, they were more than friends; they were a lot like family.

The conversation drifted here and yonder, mostly about how great the day was and how the hunt was over too soon. The gang was to load up the next morning and head home. Jim, the sport who had organized the hunt, was talking about hunting over the hand-carved black duck decoys provided by the guide and how well they worked.

“Just look how beautiful that black is on the mantel.” He pointed to a sleeping black duck decoy that our guide, Grayson Chesser, had carved. Chesser is famous on the Eastern Shore of Virginia for his carved decoys.

“I’ve got a great idea,” Jim continued. “Let’s buy that decoy. We’ll take yearly turns keeping it, celebrating at the end of every duck season with a dinner, passing the decoy on to the next member in line. If we miss a year’s duck hunt, the decoy remains with the preceding associate until the next season.”

That’s what we did. Over the years, the sleeping black duck decoy became the starting point of many conversations, even though time and infirmities slowed down many hunts and even canceled a few. We grew older and the glory days of the group drifted away like a migrating duck. We’d known for a while that our best days together were gone, but just like that wandering duck, we hoped those good days would show up again in the near future.

Art called me early in the fall. “Hey. Tom, I’ve talked to John and Jack about a trip to Mattamuskeet, maybe in the early winter. You know, just to get together, hash over a few memories and maybe do some fishing. Remember the last time we were there, Dell said he would take us if we wanted and if it worked in his schedule.”

Dell and Karen Meekins are the owners of the Hyde County Lodges, beautiful cabins sitting on pilings right on the Pamlico Sound. We used their facilities several times in the past when we were actively pursuing the noble waterfowl and even a time or two when all we did was get together and, as Art so aptly put it, “hash over old times.”

Jack, the guy who arranges reservations and details whenever the group decides to take a road trip, put everything together with Karen, and we were scheduled to meet at the Lodges for four days of good times. Best of all, Dell agreed to take us fishing.

The trip to Hyde County is a pleasure in its own right. The county’s motto is “The Road Less Travelled,” and it lives up to that. Once you cross the Pungo River, you’ll meet a few cars, but very few. And the ones you do meet wave as they drive by. Hyde County is a friendly place.

Art, John and Jack arrived a little before I did, even though they stopped at Whole Foods in Raleigh for some needed supplies. The lodges are extremely comfortable, decorated in an outdoor motif that would make any sportsman happy, and we were in the two side-by-side units. The guys were already unloading food and coolers where we would headquarter and cook and have all our meals. John, being the head chef, called out marching orders on where things went. In no time we were relaxing on the big front porch.

John and Jack decided not to fish, but Dell agreed to take Art and me the next morning. The plan was for us to meet him at 7 a.m. at the little canal behind the lodges where he docks his skiff. Art handled all the particulars of the trip for the following morning; and that evening, after John had put together a fantastic meal, we kicked back comfortably enjoying a glass of wine that our connoisseur, Jack, selected. When a special wine is needed, we always consult him.

Art and I were up early the next morning to meet Dell at the dock. He breaks the mold when you think about a Down East waterman, although that’s how he grew up. He had all the gear needed so all we had to do was show up. Talk about a Hyde County success story, Dell and Karen Meekins could write the book. Both grew up there, fell in love and married early. They built the lodges in 2012, and their bookings have been growing steadily. Dell says that Karen handles all the reservations, and he does the mechanics and upkeep. Dell, a North Carolina State graduate, is also part owner of Engelhard Seafood, a wholesale supplier to restaurants.

A beautiful sunrise met us as we motored out of the canal into the Pamlico Sound. Dell was in a jovial mood and kept talking about how we might not catch anything, but probably would. I was sitting next to him as he kicked the motor into high gear and we roared out into the bay. A slender, tall man, he moves with the confidence of an athlete, handling the boat effortlessly.

I’ve not fished with many guides, usually doing it on my own. And, in all honesty, Dell is not a guide — he just loves to fish and loves to take people fishing. It’s not his profession, but he is good. That morning we caught between 30 and 40 fish, everything from flounder to red fish. It was a catch-and-release morning, except Art and I decided to keep a couple of redfish and trout. All and all, thanks to Dell, it was a wonderful morning on the sound.

Before we could blink, the three days on the Pamlico went into the journal and it was time to load up and head home. We hadn’t done much, fished a little and rode around to visit spots where we used to hunt, but we accomplished the purpose of the get-together with flying colors, and that was to enjoy each other’s company.

We had to leave early the final morning. John had a meeting at his law firm that afternoon, so we were awake at sunrise. Loaded up and ready to move, we stood around in the parking area and watched the day come alive over the sound. Clouds banked before the sun and looked like another horizon. Goodbyes were said, and I watched as the crew motored down the driveway heading home.

Each lodge sits up high on pilings and I sat on a swing located  in the below deck parking area, determined to catch the first rays of the morning. The sun slowly came visible over the clouds, and I watched as it rose majestically over the Pamlico. The Sleeping Black Duck Order has been whittled down a little, but we’re strong where it counts. Good friends and good times. I fired up the little Cruiser and headed home. What a pleasure.  PS

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

Hometown

Hometown

Toying Around

The oldies but goodies

By Bill Fields

For adults, the first month of the year is a time when we tend to take stock of ourselves and make resolutions on a host of fronts in the name of self-improvement, even though sometimes vows are gone quicker than the crispy tree put by the curb. But when I was a kid — back when a pressing concern was trying to convince my mother to splurge on a half-gallon of name-brand ice cream instead of store-label ice milk — January was perfect for another kind of inventory.

On the heels of Christmas, it was natural to consider the toys and games that you had — not just what a generous Santa Claus might have recently delivered, but diversions that stuck around season after season.

For staying power and hours of enjoyment, my Monopoly game was hard to beat. It brought the family together at the dining room table for years, my relatives tolerating my absurd early desire to be allowed to improve properties before owning all the properties in a color group. (I matured and played by the rules.) After many years of action, we had missing hotels, dog-eared money, Pepsi-stained Chance and Community Chest cards, and my mother, a teller by day, still detested being the banker or being stuck with the iron token.

In contrast to Monopoly’s time-tested appeal that made me love it from Day One, whatever initial excitement that came with receiving Lite-Brite and Etch A Sketch dissipated quickly. As for the former, when you start out with two misspellings in your name, how good can you really be? I would much rather watch Mickey Mouse on television than attempt to create his likeness by punching translucent, colored plastic pegs through a sheet of black paper illuminated from behind. When it came to Etch A Sketch, the detailed scenes said to be possible on the mechanical drawing screen by turning the two knobs weren’t in my wheelhouse. A crappy-looking mountain range was about the best I could muster. It never brought any cheer to realize that Lite-Brite and Etch A Sketch were in the recesses of my closet.

Then there were toys such as Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots and Electric Football that were much loved until fun turned into frustration. The heads of boxers Red Rocker and Blue Bomber were supposed to be knocked off with a powerful pushbutton punch. Over time, though, the heads would develop a mind of their own and occasionally raise from the shoulders without a hit, just from moving around the ring. Electric Football had a lot going for it — I don’t agree with author Bill Bryson’s contention that the game was “possibly the worst toy ever built” — but the vibrating players too often did want to spin around in circles as if drunk around a maypole instead of making forward progress. This was a reality regardless of how much surgery you’d done on their brushes that touched the metal field. And the tiny felt football utilized for passes and kicks was hard not to lose even with the excellent eyesight of youth. It was easy pickings for the Electrolux.

Just as a pet cat can enjoy an empty cardboard box more than an expensive “home” purchased by its owner, so it was with simple toy and game options growing up.

My plastic army soldiers fought multiple battles on hardwood, carpet or dirt, undeterred by bent bayonets or broken bazookas. A yo-yo was fun despite mastering a limited repertoire of tricks. Hot Wheels cars largely performed as advertised. Matchbox vehicles punched above their weight; opening and closing the doors to the ambulance shouldn’t have been fascinating but it was.

And there were the hours playing with things that didn’t cost a dime. While watching the Sunday afternoon NBA game on TV, by the second quarter I would have fashioned an indoor goal out of a clothes hanger on a door frame, convinced that neither Hal Greer nor Jerry West could fill up the hoop with a crumpled ball of tin foil better than I could.

A paper football was the only origami I was interested in, the finished product a much better use of a sheet of loose-leaf paper than multiplication tables. The thrill of having flicked a long touchdown by getting the triangular “ball” to hang over the table’s edge was only slightly less than scoring a TD out in the yard. If no corneas were scratched in the kicking of field goals, everybody was happy until next time.  PS

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

Towering Inferno

Towering Inferno

Sixty years ago a wildfire ravaged the Sandhills

By Bill Case

The day dawned brilliant and balmy at Tom and Nancy Howe’s Aurora Hills farm in Pinebluff, North Carolina. It was a gorgeous spring morning on Thursday, April 4, 1963, except for the gusty winds that would blow throughout day. Tom finished breakfast with Nancy and the couple’s two young boys, Tommy Jr. and John, climbed into his pickup truck and drove to Pinehurst, where he worked at Clarendon Gardens, owned and operated by his father, Frank Howe.

Today, Clarendon Gardens is an upscale neighborhood off Linden Road, but in 1963, it was a magnificent, nationally acclaimed 160-acre botanical garden, attracting thousands of tourists who marveled at Frank Howe’s vast array of azaleas, rhododendrons and hollies. Springtime was Clarendon Gardens’ high season, and Tom Howe anticipated a busy day. The 25-year-old could never have foreseen the harrowing, grueling hours he and other Moore County residents were about to endure. 

Two miles down Linden Road, west of Clarendon Gardens, lies the nearly 2,000-acre Sandy Woods Farm. Owners Mr. and Mrs. Q.A. Shaw McKean (Shaw and Katharine), having just arrived from Europe, were experiencing a bit of jet lag that morning. Their 6-year-old son, David, was playing in the McKeans’ rambling brick house while his three older brothers — John, Tom and Robert — were away at boarding school in the family’s home state of Massachusetts.

Shaw, a 1913 Harvard University grad and standout polo player, had amassed his fortune in banking and investments. His wife, the former Katharine Winthrop, was descended from Puritan John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She’d been a top-ranked tennis player during the late 1930s and early ’40s, winning the 1944 United States Indoors title.

Active participants in big-time Thoroughbred racing, the McKeans maintained an impressive stable of two dozen horses at Sandy Woods. The most prized was Polylad, winner of several important races including the 1961 Massachusetts Handicap in which the 5-year-old horse was spurred to a photo-finish victory by Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Arcaro. With major summer races upcoming, Shaw and Katharine would have been eager to catch up with head trainer John Donahue regarding the fitness of Polylad and his stablemates.

At around 10:30 a.m., when Donahue knocked on the McKeans’ front door, he was carrying more pressing news. A forest fire was burning several miles west of the farm. The operator of a small sawmill in West End had left a saw running while taking a water break. The unattended equipment threw off a spark, which in turn ignited a small brush fire. Before anyone knew what was happening, flames began spreading through the pine forest, supercharged by the wind and tinder box-dry conditions.

There was the prospect that intervening county roads could provide an effective firebreak, keeping the blaze away from Sandy Woods and populated areas. Given the prevailing wind, even if the fire leapfrogged the roads, it seemed likely to follow a path that would keep it north of the farm. While not an immediate threat to Sandy Woods, the situation was worrisome enough that Donahue and the McKeans considered the steps necessary to protect the property and themselves if the fire headed their way.

Meanwhile, Moore County forest ranger Travis Wicker was growing increasingly alarmed. He feared the exceedingly dry conditions, coupled with high winds (gusts between 40-50 miles per hour), were a recipe for disaster. Later, Wicker said the danger became magnified when the towering flames “jumped the old Jackson Springs Road. It got hot (out of control), and we knew we had a monster on our hands.”

It seemed nothing could stop or slow the fire. According to The Pilot, the blaze “skipped over roads and fields as if they weren’t there.” Driven by the wind, long prongs of intense flames licked out in multiple directions. The monster became multi-headed, and it was difficult to predict its precise path. There were fears the fire would strike downtown Pinehurst, then vault into the area’s other populated communities. Moreover, three lesser (albeit substantial) fires were burning in other parts of the county.

Fire departments from Moore County and elsewhere were dispatched to far-flung areas of the Sandhills. Coordinating them presented an organizational nightmare. The emergency code 911 didn’t yet exist, and radios didn’t link the volunteer fire departments to a central command center. “When we needed a rural fire truck to do a particular job, we had to send out another truck to hunt him up and give him the instructions,” said Wicker.

When the wind abruptly swung 45 degrees south, the path of the blaze shifted away from Pinehurst and straight in the direction of Sandy Woods’ stables and kennels. The McKeans and Donahue were suddenly faced with a worst-case scenario. But help was on the way, not only from local fire departments but also the McKeans’ friends and neighbors. Among them was Tom Howe, who hauled Clarendon Gardens’ spraying equipment to the scene.

He and other volunteers endured treacherous drives to the farm, blindly feeling their way down Linden Road through intense, spark-bearing black smoke. Given the near-zero visibility, they risked driving right into the inferno. Two brave responders were forced to dive under their truck and lie flat on the pavement until surrounding flames passed by them.

Donahue’s first priority was the evacuation of the horses. Using Sandy Woods’ own horse trailer along with another furnished by legendary harness racing great Octave Blake, Donahue transported 10 of the McKeans’ 24 horses, including Polylad, to safety. But before the trailers could return for a second load, the flames had reached the paddock area. Donahue faced an intractable dilemma. The remaining horses were doomed if he turned them out into the now fiery paddock. Hoping against hope that the blaze would skirt the stables, the trainer decided holding the frightened horses in their stalls was their best bet for survival.

Tragically, they were doomed. The Pilot reported that “with the gale shifting winds, there was no safety anywhere. In a second’s time, it seemed, the stables were ablaze from heat and flying sparks as well as the kennels, and all were engulfed in the inferno.” 

The wildfire now loomed within striking distance of the McKeans’ brick home, a half-mile from the stables. Responders feverishly dug a firebreak trench around the periphery of the house while Howe, horseman Pappy Moss, and firefighters from Vass and Pinehurst drenched the structure and surrounding vegetation.

David McKean, now 65, has vivid recollections of his mother appearing at the back of the house and telling him, “We have to leave right now!” The anxiety in her voice was in such marked contrast to her usual unflappable demeanor that 6-year-old David realized the situation was gravely dangerous.

The McKeans hustled to the family car. On their way out the door, they managed to grab a silver trophy commemorating one of Polylad’s victories and a cherished 18th century oil painting by English artist George Morland.

Exiting the farm proved more perilous than it would have been to sit tight at the house. The farm’s mile-long drive to Linden Road had become impassable due to the fire at the stables, so Shaw and Katharine chose a seldom-used back way through the property that led to Roseland Road. David recalls that as his mother drove down the remote path, “there was a burning tree in front of the car — I don’t remember if it fell as we were driving, or if it was already there — and she attempted (unsuccessfully) to drive over it.” With the fire spitting at the McKeans from the rear, it was impossible to back the vehicle out of danger. David and his parents abandoned the car and ran to an adjacent field.

They were spotted by Pinehurst Harness Track veterinarian Dr. John Peters, who came to their rescue and transported them to safety. The McKeans’ house, though scorched in places, escaped serious damage, but their automobile was burned to a crisp. Also destroyed were Polylad’s trophy and the Morland painting, both left behind in the trunk.

Returning home from Chapel Hill in the early afternoon, Pinebluff Mayor E.H. Mills noticed black smoke in the sky west of Pinehurst. Mills followed the smoke to its source at Sandy Woods. Arriving at the farm, the mayor witnessed the frenzied efforts of volunteers to create firebreaks and he, too, pitched in to help until he was met by reporter Valerie Nicholson, covering the disaster for The Pilot.

“Mayor,” she said, “you better get to Pinebluff. The fire is headed there. Your town could burn up.” Mills ran to his car and drove through the haze toward home. On the way, he pondered how his community of 600 could marshal the resources to repel the fire. Tom Howe, concerned with the safety of his wife, children and farm, also rushed home after the blaze at Sandy Woods was under control.

As the fire moved south toward Pinebluff, it caused considerable damage. According to the Sandhills Citizen, it “licked out a vicious tongue at the farming community of Roseland, two miles from Aberdeen, gobbling up two homes and nearly all outbuildings with some 10,000 chicks in two farmyards.” At the Country Acres subdivision off Sand Pit Road (then Gravel Pit Road), it consumed a house and trailer. “With the fire burning right into the yards,” reported the Citizen, “the homeowners watched in an anxious group from the highway intersection.” Several houses caught fire and responding firefighters beat out the flames.

Howe’s route home brought him within sight of Country Acres but, as Tom turned off Route 5 onto Sand Pit Road, he noticed something else. A herd of clearly distressed cows, enveloped by smoke, were straining at the fence alongside the road. A former dairy farmer himself, Tom stopped his truck, cut the fence and freed the cows, who meandered down Route 5 toward Aberdeen.

Back in his pickup, Howe was unable to proceed further because firetrucks blocked progress down Sand Pit. Desperate to assist his family, he maneuvered around the trucks by ramming his pickup through the fence where he’d just freed the livestock, flattening it.

Meanwhile, the fire near Sand Pit Road was bearing down on Elmore Smith’s small dairy operation located off West Baltimore Street just outside Pinebluff. Riding his tractor, Smith, 61, caught sight of approaching dense smoke. Since the blackness seemed far off, he assumed there would be time to take any necessary precautions. Comforted by the fact that his farm and outbuildings were surrounded by open fields and pasture — the woods were 500 feet away — Smith expected his operation would escape serious damage.

Within minutes, a breathtaking tornado of fire catapulted over Smith’s field and came down on his farm. “The sky was filled with fire, boiling in the air, an inferno 100 yards high,” said Smith. The gusty wind had caused the fire to crown, rocketing immense flames skyward a half-mile or more ahead of the heart of the blaze. According to The Pilot, Smith turned out his mule and seven cattle, “smacking them to run off and save themselves.” Elmore’s wife and 18-year-old son ran from the house. The family escaped, but the Smiths’ house, barns, chicken houses, two autos and two pickup trucks were consumed.

After wreaking havoc at Smith’s farm, the fire roared toward downtown Pinebluff. Fire Chief W.K. Carpenter, Jr. sounded the siren. Around 5 p.m., the flames crossed over U.S. 1 at the approximate location of today’s Dollar General Store. It had taken only seven hours for the fire to cover the 14 miles from West End to Pinebluff. According to the Sandhills Citizen, it “leapfrogged from tree to tree and crept relentlessly on the ground through thick pine needles from yard to yard.” A separate prong of the fire jumped the highway south of town.

A veritable army of firefighters from far and near, the District Forester’s office headed by Chief J.A. Pippin, members of rescue squads, as well as ordinary citizens, were poised to fight the blaze in Pinebluff. So, too, were soldiers. It was Tom Howe’s mother, Mary, who persuaded Fort Bragg military brass to authorize aid to the town.

Back at the Howe’s Aurora Hills farm, Nancy was unaware of these happenings when sister-in-law Susan Howe Wain began pounding on her door and shouting, “I need to get on your roof with the garden hose!” According to her memoir titled Dear Owie, when Nancy went outside and looked up, she was aghast to see hot burning embers “falling and dancing on the roof, bouncing up and down, and sailing through the air like they were dissatisfied with my roof and were looking for a better place to land.”

When Tom pulled in the driveway and jumped from the truck, his face, recalled Nancy, was completely blackened and covered with soot, “except for his eyes that peered out from his glasses, like a frog looking for a fly to eat.”

Howe gave urgent instructions, detailed in Dear Owie. “I want you to pack up important papers and a few clothes, food, and water, and be ready to leave. If it gets bad, you all get in the car and drive as hard as you can into the middle of the plowed field across from the house.” Nancy wound up huddled in the field with her boys. While the fire would miss them and their home, Tom’s work was far from over. He rushed to assist others in town where the battle to contain the fire had become a house-by-house struggle.

Hot embers relentlessly dripped from neighborhood pines onto homeowners’ roofs, igniting scores of little fires. Many houses caught fire “again and again only to have the flames put out by workers converging solidly upon them,” wrote the Citizen. Not all the proliferating fires could be extinguished in time to save homes. The residences of Richard Graham and Cad Bennett were destroyed, and countless others sustained severe damage.

Pinebluff’s town council had been scheduled to meet the evening of April 4. Madeline Charles, the town clerk, took the town’s books to her home so she would have them ready for the meeting. The Citizen reported that when the fire jumped the highway, “right in front of the Charles’ home, she searched wildly for a safe place to stash the books.” She wound up stuffing them in the family freezer before running off to fight the fire raging on her lawn.

With a second swath of the blaze threatening the south end of town, the Robbins Rescue Squad and several Fort Bragg soldiers, as a precautionary measure, moved to evacuate residents of the Pinebluff Sanitarium, now long gone. That second swath fortunately failed to reach either the sanitarium or residential areas. Farther south down U.S. 1, David Spence, a machinist whose unique enterprise involved the specialized forging of horseshoes for harness racing horses, was not so lucky. His building and equipment were totally wiped out, causing an estimated loss of $40,000. The Addor area also was hit hard.

So much water was thrown on the fire that the Pinebluff water tank ran dangerously low, and Chief Carpenter ordered his trucks to start drafting from the lake. “We have a fine water system,” said the chief, “but no small town is prepared for a thing like this.”

   

Those residents not involved in fighting the fire contributed in other ways, manning the Red Cross food station or retrieving lost pets. Carpenter’s own children, Cathy, 13, and Billy Jr., served food past midnight. “They wanted to help,” remarked their mother, Marion, “and I let them stay up even though they are so young. After all, this is their town.”

By 11 p.m. the danger to the town and Moore County was over as the fire blew farther south, ravaging acreage in Camp Mackall before finally petering out at Drowning Creek. The final toll was staggering: 26,000 acres burned, two-thirds of them woodlands; 5,000 acres of planted areas lost; engagement of 4,000 firefighters; the razing of 14 dwellings, 25 barns, two business buildings, and the death of an untold number of animals. Fortunately, no human lives were lost.

The nightmare wasn’t over for Tom Howe. Katharine McKean asked him to bury the horses destroyed at Sandy Woods. Howe told his wife it was the most gut-wrenching experience of his life.

Howe eventually started a nursery business at Aurora Hills, which he operated until his death in 2015. His two sons still run the business. Nancy continues to live in Moore County, as does Susan Howe Wain.

The McKean family still owns Sandy Woods, though the stables no longer house racehorses. Shaw and Katharine have long since passed on. Son John lived at the farm until his death in 2019. His brother Tom, a retired Massachusetts attorney, now looks over the property. Brother David, who escaped the fire that day, became a diplomat, serving as ambassador to Luxembourg and director of policy planning for the Department of State. He’s a successful author of books about 20th century American history.

Could the wildfire of 1963 happen today? One factor that reduces the chances of a similar catastrophe is the increased use of controlled burning. Forest fires require fuel to accelerate and, especially in a longleaf pine forest, much of that fuel comes from the wiregrass and scrub oak underlying the trees. Jesse Wembley of West End, whose mission locally is educating area landowners and farmers about the benefits of controlled burning, says, “We have to learn to live with fire. Particularly here in the Sandhills, it is part of the natural process. With it, we get an improved ecosystem and peace of mind.”

There was little piece of mind that day in April. Lifetime Pinebluff resident John Mills, son of the former mayor, says, “It is a miracle the fire missed Pinehurst and a double miracle it didn’t burn all of Pinebluff to the ground.”  PS

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

Poem January 2023

Change this heading to match Post Title

Talking in the Dark

Talking in the dark can be a way to begin

falling in love or becoming friends

again after a difficult day

in summer when late light walks away,

when the kitchen knives splayed on the table

hold galaxies that remind us to be playful

despite the sharp edges that the sun showed us.

Paired in the dark, in passion, night knows us

in ways we don’t know ourselves.

Something in us — coded into our cells? —

goes back to the time of sleeping in caves

when words were made to be believed,

where the walls were painted for dreams, for magic,

for hunts with spears, daggers, and hatchets.

The people on the walls are working together.

They have no anger. They have only hunger.

  Paul Jones

Paul Jones’ most recent book is Something Wonderful.

Shooting the Stars

Shooting the Stars

Spacing out with a Sandhills photographer

By Jenna Biter   

Photographs by Larry Pizzi

Feature photograph: The Western Veil Nebula or Witch’s Broom is the remains of a star that exploded more than 10,000 years ago

     

Left: Comet NEOWISE C/2020 F3 over Lake Auman in Seven Lakes

Right: NGC 1499 the California Nebula is shaped like the Golden State. It’s a nearby neighbor — only 1,000 light years from Earth.

 

At the end of another day, the Earth turns its face from the sun, and dusk stretches its long arms over the horizon, tucking half of the globe under the heavy blanket of night. In the thick of North Carolina pine country, drowsy towns go dim but not yet dark, like fires burnt to embers.

Somewhere in Seven Lakes, on a wide corner lot occupied by an agreeable yellow house, one Northerner-come-south seems immune to the lullaby of night.

As a neighbor’s kitchen light goes out, the yellow house stirs. Its garage door rolls up, and a man dressed in a vacation-style shirt fit for Georges Seurat’s La Grande Jatte steps onto his driveway under the purple fresco of Starry Night. He pushes a tripod fixed atop caster wheels into the middle of the blacktop, then steps back to eye the mechanical spider. It has one oculus instead of eight, a 21st-century Cyclops capable of probing the heavens.

Larry Pizzi rolls the telescope forward and back, left to right, manually repositioning the tripod before fine-tuning the focus and field of view with swipes on an iPad.

“My telescopes, you don’t look through them,” Larry explained earlier in the living room inside the agreeable yellow house. Antique clocks chattered from the walls, their pendulums tick-tocking as they waved hello and goodbye. Like a chorus of teakettles whistling with steam, the clocks burst into chirps and chimes and dings at set intervals — like clockwork.

Left: SH2-275, the Rosette Nebula, is a star incubator. Its gasses and dust allow stars to form in it.

 

“Sorry about that,” Larry said.

“That’s his other hobby,” his wife, Wendy, said, seated on the floor. Beside her, their small pooch, Dibley, champed at a stuffed alligator. He ripped with such enthusiasm that he seemed to understand the irony.

“There are a hundred clocks here, and a hundred still in storage in the garage,” Larry said, then returned to his other passion. “My telescopes, they’re like really big camera lenses.”

Larry’s dad, Joe, surprised him with his first telescope when he was in fourth grade. He didn’t get his first camera until a year later. Of course, Larry unscrewed screws and peeled back metal housings to investigate both gadgets, as little boys are prone to do.

“I was good at taking things apart, not really great at putting them back together,” he admitted. “I ruined that camera.” His tone sagged with momentary regret.

“God bless digital cameras,” Wendy cracked, bringing her husband back.

He grinned. “I had to know how it worked, you know?”

Left: M33, the Triangulum Galaxy

Right: M45, the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters is easy to spot with the naked eye in the constellation Taurus, the Bull.

 

Larry kept up with photography through three careers and the lion’s share of his almost 70 years, focusing mostly on eye-level wonders, from the covered bridges of Pennsylvania Amish country to Appalachian waterfalls. It was almost as though he had forgotten to look up.

“It was in high school that I really got into astronomy and started a little bit of astrophotography,” Larry said. “But then life intervened for about 40 years.”

It wasn’t until 2018, when the Pizzis moved south to the Sandhills, that Larry resurrected a telescope from the bowels of his garage and days gone by.

“Clear skies,” he said. “We came from New Jersey.”

“Plus, you were retired when you moved here,” Wendy pointed out. “You no longer had your day job.”

After serving in the Army for 21 years and working with nonprofits for another decade, Pizzi retired from his third and favorite career in 2016. A classics major, he taught English and Latin for a dozen or so years in the part of New Jersey that thinks it’s Philadelphia.

Back outside, Larry, though no longer a teacher, diagrams his telescope with the quiet confidence of a veteran professor lecturing on the human skeleton. “This is the main camera,” he says, pointing to a cylinder at the butt of the telescope’s yard-long tube where the eyepiece would normally seat. “This is the guide telescope, and this is a guide camera.” He finishes the anatomical tour before gazing up at the now-black sky.

“Tonight’s target is a nebula,” he says. Like many of the clouds swirling with cosmic dust and gas, this nebula located deep within the Cepheus constellation, beyond the reaches of the naked eye, has no name, only a designation: NGC 7822. Nebulae reveal the life cycle of the gods. Either they’re the birthplaces of the stars, like this night’s target, or they’re like overturned funeral urns, spilling the ashes of luminescent giants into the void. On this particular night, this particular nebula arcs through the band of sky perfectly visible — between rooflines and the crowns of longleaf pines — to the Cyclops in the middle of Larry’s blacktop.

   

Left: Part of a large complex of nebulae in the constellation of Orion. Upper left is the Flame Nebula. The dark formation is the Horsehead Nebula. The largest is M42, the Great Orion Nebula.

Right: A part of NGC 7000, the North America Nebula. The bright part is called the Cygnus Wall, a formation of very hot gasses and dust actively giving birth to stars.

 

“Taking the pictures is actually the easiest part,” Larry says. Once the telescope locks onto its target, the oculus, like a landbound guardian angel, watches the cosmic traveler move through the sky, snapping photos all the while.

“When you’re taking a picture, you don’t take a picture,” he says, hanging onto the ‘A.’ “You take dozens if not hundreds of short exposures.” Larry usually shoots 100 to 150 frames in a session. “And sometimes, you do it over multiple nights, the same target.”

After shooting, Larry stacks the frames on top of each other like a digital layer cake. Then he attends to each frame individually, checking them for the taillights of stray aircraft or the glow of the neighbor’s kitchen, before combining the unflawed frames into the final photo.

“It’s at least eight to 12 hours to process the photos,” he says. The process happens on a pair of computer monitors at a corner desk in a corner room that Larry dubbed “the digital darkroom.” Of course, a clock chatters happily from the wall behind.

“The way I take pictures is the exact same way the James Webb Telescope takes a picture,” Larry says. “Webb is just a little more sophisticated.”

Once the telescope finds its target, Larry turns away. He wheels around shooting a green laser into the dark and circles constellations. There’s Draco, Cygnus the Swan, and the W-shaped Cassiopeia. He points out stars like a maestro lost in the music of space and time, conducting the celestial orchestra.

“I think the reason he’s rekindled this passion is that retirement is a challenging season in life, and I think that this has made retirement a plus instead of a minus,” Wendy says.

“This is a great outlet,” Larry says. “I think I’m a frustrated artist.”  PS

Jenna Biter is a writer and military wife in the Sandhills. She can be reached at jennabiter@protonmail.com.

In the Spirit

In the Spirit

To Drink or Not to Drink

A recipe for both worlds

If you’re one of the few who have started January dry this year, my hat’s off to you. It’s very easy to start — you know, with all the gluttony that came and went with the holidays — but it’s not quite as easy to finish. After a couple of weeks without alcohol (especially if your diet is back on track), you start feeling much better after the punishment you put your liver through, and you might start thinking, “Gee, maybe it’s time I treat myself.” And off you go.

To cover all the bases, here is a low ABV cocktail for those who might slip up from time to time, and a non-alcoholic recipe for those who go all the way without a drop of spirit. Either way, both are delicious.

Strawberry-infused Campari and Soda

This is a very simple cocktail; the only catch is waiting a few days for your Campari to infuse. Campari is a bitter liqueur, an aperitif that is low in alcohol, and known by most for the part it plays in the Negroni, a cocktail classic.

To infuse your Campari, wash and slice 1 quart of strawberries and mix them in a container with 750 milliliters of Campari. Let sit for 3-4 days. Strain through a cheesecloth into a glass container when ready.

Put 2 ounces of your strawberry-infused Campari into a tall (highball) glass, add ice, and top with sparkling water. Stir slightly for a few seconds. Garnish with a lemon twist and strawberry.

Hay Is for Horses

This one, from The Aviary: Holiday Cocktails, is a bit elaborate, but you’re not drinking this month, so you’ll have plenty of free time to put it together.

Grapefruit ice

2 1/2 ounces juniper hay stock

3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice

3/4 ounce maple syrup

1 bar spoon rice wine vinegar

1 1/2 ounces grapefruit-flavored sparkling water (Fever Tree makes a great one)

1 grapefruit peel

Place 3 cubes of grapefruit ice into a medium serving glass. Combine all ingredients (except sparkling water and grapefruit peel) with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously until chilled and diluted, then strain through a fine mesh strainer into glass over ice. Gently add the sparkling water. Express the grapefruit peel over the glass. Discard the peel.

 

Grapefruit Ice

400 grams horseradish stock

200 grams fresh grapefruit juice

104 grams simple syrup

46 grams fresh lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl, whisking to mix thoroughly. Fill a 1 1/4 inch (3.2 centimeters) square ice mold with mixture. Freeze into cubes until completely solid. Reserve.

 

Simple Syrup

60 grams sugar

60 grams water

Combine sugar and water into a medium bowl. Stir with a spatula to completely dissolve the sugar. Transfer to a glass bottle or other airtight container and reserve in the refrigerator.

Horseradish Stock

400 grams hot water

100 grams prepared horseradish

Place the water and horseradish in a medium bowl, whisking to combine. Allow the mixture to steep for 1 hour. Strain through a mesh strainer, discarding solids and reserving the liquid.

 

Juniper Hay Stock

40 grams fresh hay*

5 grams cinnamon sticks, crushed/broken into small pieces

5 grams coriander seeds

4 green cardamom pods, crushed

15 grams juniper berries

650 grams water

Peel from 1/2 lime (about 5 grams)

Peel from 1/2 orange (about 13 grams)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread the hay onto a cookie sheet or sheet tray. Toast the hay in the oven for 1 hour. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, toast the cinnamon, coriander, and cardamom over medium heat until fragrant. Let cool completely.

In a medium saucepan, combine the toasted hay, spices, and juniper with the water. Bring this to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from the heat, add lime and orange peels, cover, and let steep for 1 1/2 hours. Strain this mixture through a mesh strainer, discarding solids. Transfer the liquid to a glass bottle or other non-reactive container and reserve.

*If you have trouble finding hay, you can substitute rolled oats, or omit it completely . . . the final drink will still be tasty.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

Tea Leaf Astrologer

Tea Leaf Astrologer

Capricorn

(December 22 – January 19)

Here’s what they don’t tell you about goat yoga: You become the mat. “What’s the harm in a bit of hair nibbling?” you might wonder. “Even the droppings are kind of cute.” When you’re accustomed to being the goat, it’s easy to see the world in this way. Others are less amused. This month, as you deftly scale whatever obstacles might arise on your path, try not to step on your allies’ toes. Honoring boundaries will get you further. 

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Wear your sunglasses.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

The remedy is within you.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Check the mailbox.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

You’ve made your own bed.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Go for the twin pack.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

The eagle has landed.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

You’ll know the red flag when you see it.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Rule of thumb: Rinse before use.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Move the plot forward.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Someone needs a hug.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Just take the stairs.  PS

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla. 

The Omnivorous Reader

The Omnivorous Reader

Finding Dylan

A riddle wrapped in a rhyme

By  Stephen E. Smith

I lied to my mother, told her I was spending the night with a friend, and at 3 p.m. I climbed into a VW bug with two high school buds and blasted up the 200-plus miles of interstate to New York City’s Greenwich Village. We’d been listening to “Like a Rolling Stone” that summer, and we were determined to find Bob Dylan. We were confident he’d be hanging out in the Village, and as we milled about on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal, I asked a bohemian passerby where Dylan was performing. He laughed in my face. “Good luck finding that guy,” he said.

Like most of my generation, I’ve been half-heartedly looking for Dylan ever since.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? Who is Bob Dylan, and why have we been talking about him for the last six decades? I’ve listened to most of his recordings, watched Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home multiple times and read books by and about him. I’ve even seen him in concert. Now there’s a new book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, supposedly penned by the man himself, and the search continues.

Since Dylan is credited as the author, The Philosophy of Modern Song is an instant bestseller, and there are reviews galore in magazines, newspapers and online that will tell you exactly what you want to hear about the enigmatic songwriter’s literary efforts. But before committing myself to read all 350 pages, I had to be convinced that it was written by Dylan. After all, the guy has been known to mess with us. There were accusations that he borrowed lines in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech from Melville and a brouhaha about autopen-signed copies of the new book. So I plowed through the first five chapters, reread parts of Dylan’s Chronicles and watched the Scorsese film, paying attention to Dylan’s language patterns. And, yeah, what’s written in the book sounds like Dylan. His name is on the dust jacket. I trust Simon & Schuster. Dylan wrote the book.

Here’s what you need to know. First, there’s not an iota of philosophy in The Philosophy of Modern Song. If you’re looking for philosophical thought, pick up a copy of The Essential Kierkegaard. Dylan is all about pop music, and in this latest offering, he’s simply chosen songs about which he’s passionate and written semi-expository/semi-poetic essays (I use the terms “essay” and “poetic” loosely) to accompany the songs. He’s no great shakes as a prose stylist, but he makes up for his lack of finesse with unbridled enthusiasm. He’s fervent about the songs he likes (or loves) and he tells the reader why in a torrent of bewildering but compelling prose.

Dylan has chosen more than 60 popular songs, and in chapters ranging in length from a few hundred to 3,000 words, he lauds the composers, singers and musicians who created the recordings.

It’s impossible to identify a dominant musical style in Dylan’s selection — pop, rock, country, R&B, folk, jazz, soul, rockabilly, gospel, etc. — all are represented. And there’s a mishmash of performers — Bing Crosby, The Fugs, Elvis Presley, Perry Como, Webb Pierce, Tommy Edwards, Vic Damone, Dean Martin, Little Walter, Ernie K-Doe, Charlie Poole, Ricky Nelson. He is, as pop-culture aficionados are wont to say, all over the musical map.

Dylan’s essays follow no discernible pattern. He’s occasionally analytical but more often gushes torrents of expressionistic prose that imperturbable readers are left to interpret. Uncle Dave Mason’s enchanting “Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy,” originally released as a single almost a century ago, is typical of Dylan’s approach to explicating a song.

“In this song your self-identities are interlocked, every one of you is a dead ringer for the other. You’re the Dalai Lama, the Black Monk and the Thief of Baghdad all rolled into one, and the whole world is your city. You’re prowling and shoplifting, going down the East End, back where you came from, to the wilderness and brush — back to Chinatown and Little Italy — saddlebags full of barley and cornbread, rosemary and ivy, and sides of bacon in your pocket. You’re unmuzzled and unleashed, nightwalkin’ up the crooked way, the Royal Road, stealing turkey legs and anything sweet and spicy, roaming through the tobacco fields like Robin Hood, broiling and braising everything in sight.”

Occasionally, Dylan steps from behind his curtain of words and lapses into playfully preposterous insights. He claims Marty Robbins’ classic “El Paso” as a song about genocide; he attacks the divorce business; and he lauds Nudie Suits and the supernatural powers of blue suede shoes.

When explicating Waylon Jennings’ “I’ve Always Been Crazy,” he dredges up a piece of history as a metaphor: “. . . and the individual peculiarities of the human condition are sliced as thin as a serving of potato during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. Which some people will, no doubt, also view as politically incorrect caricature even though the potato was a cheap staple of the Irish population and was decimated by a fungus that destroyed half the crop in 1845.”

This didactic passage isn’t necessary — anyone who reads Dylan is probably familiar with the Irish Potato Famine — but Dylan can’t abandon his clever illustration and goes on to mix the metaphor with drugs, rabbit meat and buckshot: “People try different ways to insulate themselves as their nerves are rubbed raw — there are various mood-altering substances, some self-prescribed, others classified by the government and only available by prescription. None of these are precise — they are more akin to buckshot than to a sniper’s bullet. And though they can be helpful, anyone who has hunted with a shotgun will tell you, you might enjoy the rabbit but you’re gonna spend a certain amount of time biting down on buckshot.” It’s difficult to imagine Dylan taking time from his “Never Ending Tour” to hunt rabbits, and we’re left to wonder if he’s taken to heart the chorus of Jennings’ song regarding his status as popstar: “I’ve always been crazy but it’s kept me from going insane.”

In the final analysis, we should simply step back and consider Dylan’s jumbled Kerouac-ish prose as one might behold Picasso’s Guernica, not so much as individual lines of text but as a holistic composition, an attempt to transfer emotion and energy without the encumbrance of form.

Even if you’re not a Bob Dylan fan — and there are a lot of you out there — you can make The Philosophy of Modern Song an entertaining and enlightening read. Here’s what you should do. Make sure your smart speaker has a subscription to a streaming music service such as Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, etc., then kick back in your easy chair and start reading Dylan’s chapter on Bobby Bare’s “Detroit City.” Call up the song on your speaker. Read along to the music. If much of what you read strikes you as nonsensical, Dylan’s wry, incongruous humor will nonetheless impregnate your cerebrum. Expect the unexpected. As Dylan sang so many years ago: “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.”  PS

Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press Awards.