A Delicious Mystery

What’s really in the basement of the Amish house we rent every Christmas?

By Sara Phile

A three-story white renovated 19th century farmhouse sits on over 100 acres of rolling hills in Geauga County, Ohio. When you walk into the entryway of the farmhouse, you will see around six pairs of assorted snow boots to the left, a closet on the right, and a small bathroom straight ahead. Walk a few more feet and you will turn left into a small kitchen with deep white sinks. After walking through the kitchen you will enter the dining room, with a large Amish-style table, not with chairs, but benches, lined on each side, a bedroom straight ahead, and a narrow set of wooden stairs that lead to three additional bedrooms and another bathroom. My favorite room, the glassed-in porch, complete with a porch swing, is to the right, and faces the front of the house. A large piano and fireplace decorate the living room. Its assorted bookshelves with a hodgepodge of books line various walls. Murder mysteries, gardening books, histories of the First World War, and even a three-ring binder with around 40 typed pages of the history of the farmhouse all contribute to the quaint, cozy place.

The last two Christmases my husband, boys and I spent a week in the farmhouse, just a few miles from where my in-laws live. We rented the house, and my in-laws came over to eat, play board games, eat, watch movies, eat, open presents, and eat some more. My husband grew up among the Amish, so he is used to the horses and buggies on the roads, the large Amish farms, and the Pennsylvania Dutch language. I, on the other hand, along with my boys, remain fascinated.

When my youngest son was around 3, he would yell out, “Look! Cowboys!” whenever he saw Amish men. Over the years our interest in the Amish people and their lifestyle hasn’t waned. The farmhouse is maintained by an Amish family across the road, and during our holiday stays at the house, they have checked in with us periodically. The first time they appeared at the front door, I was so startled that when my sister-in-law asked who it was, I just motioned for her to come quickly. She scurried over, opened the door, laughed at me, and Fanny and Jeremiah stomped snow off their boots on the entryway rug and said they needed to get something out of the basement. The door to the basement is on the left side of the kitchen. After disappearing for a few minutes, they trudged back up the creaky stairs with a few gallons of Neapolitan ice cream.

“Thank you! Enjoy your stay!” they said, as they smiled and left.

It was then that I noticed the sign.  It was handwritten in black Sharpie on a piece of white printer paper and taped to the door to the basement. “Don’t go downstairs, private.”

David, my oldest son, and I saw it at the same time. His eyes widened, and I knew what he was thinking.

“You want to go down there, Mom, don’t you?”

“Yes. Do you?” 

“Yes, can we?”

“I don’t know. We may get in trouble.”

“What do you think is down there?”

“I don’t know. Ice cream, for sure. But I don’t know what else.”

“Can we see?”

We discussed the ramifications. What if there were people actually living down there? Now that we thought about it, we had been hearing strange sounds in the farmhouse. Some scuffling around and it sounded like it was coming from downstairs. Hmmmm . . . What if there were dead bodies down there? What if what we found scared us forever?  Or maybe there was nothing but freezers of ice cream. But if that was the case, why the sign? Maybe the Amish family was comprised of ice cream addicts who just needed a place for their stash and didn’t want anyone else eating it. Or, maybe there was a whole new world down there.

Maybe . . . Maybe . . . Maybe . . .

We wanted to check it out when no one else was around because certainly others would disapprove of our plan. We made an appointment to meet in the kitchen one night after every one else went to bed. Except that particular night we both fell asleep early. We tried a few more times, but our plans were halted by nosy family members. We left the farmhouse that year with no answers.

As the following year passed, maybe once a month I thought of the farmhouse. I smiled at the fun memories we had there. But then that nagging question reappeared, what is in that basement?

I thought David had forgotten about it, but one night in June, as he was getting ready for bed, he asked, “What do you think is in the basement in that Amish house? Want to see next time we go?”

At the farmhouse last Christmas, the sign was still there, black letters formed into words: “Don’t go downstairs; private.” The sign looked more intense, more pronounced that year. Was it the same sign? Or did someone rewrite it? David’s and my discussion continued. Should we check it out or not? We debated. We planned. But we never actually followed through. Something kept coming up. 

A few days ago mom-in-law called and asked about our Christmas plans. There’s a really good chance this will be our third annual year at the Amish farmhouse.  When I told the boys, David smiled and his eyes twinkled.

“Mom, do you think . . . ?” he trailed off, but raised an eyebrow. 

“Maybe.”  PS

Sara Phile teaches English composition at Sandhills Community College.

The Gray and the Brown

All morning long the gray and the brown

lower their tapered heads, nibble

 

grass covered in mud from a recent rain.

It is warm for winter, but horses know

 

nothing of seasons save the sun

is a weightless rider and needs no saddle.

 

Come noon, they canter around the field

in tandem, carrying

 

nothing but light. Then they halt

like a horse and its shadow, motionless

 

as Paleolithic paintings in a cave —

a moment so fleeting and perfect, clouds

 

form in the shape of horses, gallop across

the sky in homage.

—Terri Kirby Erickson

The Gift of Garden

Presents for the kitchen gardener in your life

By Jan Leitschuh

Gardening is like any passion — it comes with snazzy and useful accoutrements.

If you are gifting someone with a kitchen gardening passion, your selections range from stocking stuffer to “oh, honey!” Dial your appropriate dose.

Anyone who grows vegetables loves fresh food, and handling the fruits of one’s labors is more a pleasure than a chore. Chopping, scraping, dicing, peeling, julienning — all render the raw garden product into components for a terrific meal. So, I’d put a great kitchen knife for food prep right up there with the garden hoe.

My go-to tool in a kitchen full of expensive, passed-down Henckels knives is a simple and lightweight ceramic paring knife. It’s sharp as hell, lightweight, handy and nimble, has a great feel in the hand, is tough enough to halve a squash or fine enough to peel an apple. It makes vegetable prep a delight. It’s inexpensive.

Ceramic knives are fashioned from a zirconia powder, and then fired and sharpened. If a diamond is a 10 on the hardness scale, then a ceramic knife is an 8.5. Ceramic knives don’t corrode, and they keep an edge longer than steel. Nor do they react to fruit acids. Beyond that, the indefinable, tactile pleasure of dicing an eggplant or a tough-skinned tomato with a sharp ceramic is the element that keeps me reaching for my light, white-bladed knife over and over again.

Gardener’s hands are hard-working tools, too. Exposure to mud, cold and sand is rough on hands, cuticles and nails, drying them ragged. Thorns and stickers poke holes in our tender epidermis, forcing us to get a tetanus booster (yes, it’s possible to get tetanus from a thorn stick). So, gloves are always a thoughtful gift, even as we lose the last pair in the junk drawer and wear a mismatched glove on our right hand to pull the spiny okra or cut free a thorny eggplant.

You could have a fight on your hands. A true gardener loves the feel of good soil — cool, fluffy, rich and free of rocks, sifting through the fingers. It’s an aesthetic pleasure. Unfortunately, the practice is rather hard on the hands. Most gardeners compromise, starting out in their gloves and then shucking the right one the moment a delicate task such as tying twine is required. The discarded glove lies hidden under the peppers, getting rained on and baked, until discovered, ruined, in the fall when pulling up the plants. So, the timing is right for a new pair.

A simple cotton pair from the hardware store is the first option. They are, er, dirt cheap and work for general use. They help prevent the worst effects, but can quickly become sodden when transplanting in damp spring soil. If you choose these, be rash, buy a half-dozen for cycling through the wash.

The more useful sort of glove has a waterproof barrier that keeps hands dry. The palms and fingers of a cotton glove are dipped in some sort of rubbery compound, usually nitrile, and function as a pretty good barrier. They look cool, grip quite well, and since the back of the hand is cotton and not smothered in nitrile, breathe fairly well. They also come in candy colors — turquoise, bright yellow, purple, pink, etc. — so you can buy several pairs for a stocking effect.

The most luxurious gloves are goatskin leather. For some reason goatskin is popular as a garden glove material, perhaps because it is both thin enough to be useful, soft enough to be comfortable, and tough enough to allow one to pull weeds or clip thorny things. It breathes better than the rubbery gloves. Extra little luxuries are a cotton lining, which the Brits favor, and a little drawstring adjustment at the wrist for best fit. They are still fairly cheap, $20 to $30.

A padded kneeling bench is a terrific gift, also around $20 to $30. A good one has handholds on the side to assist those trick knees in rising. Once up, you can flip it over as a little padded sitting bench.

A gift certificate to a seed company will ensure a pleasant January, flipping through seed catalogs by the fire compiling the shopping list. Sniff around to discover their favorites.

Moving up the gift scale, every gardener would find a pruner handy for snipping tough stems like eggplant, pruning grape vines or fruit trees and the like, besides general home landscape use. The gold standard here is the Swiss-made Felco 2 bypass pruners. Hardened steel, with the classic red handle, these pruners are endlessly handy. There is a notch for cutting wire. They can be kept super sharp, and clean cuts help wood heal. This is a professional grade tool. Get a hip holster while you are at it, so your gardener can feel like a boss and never be at a loss.

What Sandhills gardener wouldn’t welcome a load of really good compost? We’re not talking the “topsoil” sold in bags at the discount store but real, honest-to-goodness eggshell compost. I’ve used Brooks Contractor of Goldston, and split a dumptruck load with a friend. T. H. Blue may also have something for your giftee. But know what you are getting into. The truck needs access to your garden to dump, and you’ll need some energy to spread it and till it in.

Come to think of it, renting a strong body with a tiller for a day is not a bad idea for a welcome gift.

But back to compost. There are other businesses and barns in the area that may have compost. Call around to locally owned garden centers, ask friends, ask N.C. Cooperative Extension. And if you don’t want to deal with a large pile, it’s perfectly fine to gift a few bags of mushroom compost to dig at leisure.

Finally, we come to the “oh, wow!” gift for any gardener. That would be a small walk-in greenhouse. I’ve seen them as inexpensive as $100 (JCPenney, out of plastic) and you go up from there. My little pleasure was a sturdy plastic house called The Germinator (about $300), and it tucked into a sheltered nook with the garage on the north and the house on the west.

Because it was sheltered, it required only a few nights of supplemental heat from a portable heater with an extension cord to keep things from freezing. Black 50-gallon pickle barrels filled with water were the pillars of my back shelves and offered thermal mass. They released heat at night and absorbed it during the day. My husband gifted me a remote thermometer with a readout I put in the kitchen window so I always knew when things were too hot or too cold.

A greenhouse really needs flat ground to perform well. You also need to monitor temperature and adjust manually on these simple structures. Fancier models offer sturdier walls and more automated temperature controls.

These are the gifts that keep on giving. And, best of all, you may be the recipient next summer of some mighty fine produce. Visions of sugarplums don’t hold a candle to that first homegrown tomato. Win-win!  PS

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

Merry, White-Breasted and Bright

For the white-breasted nuthatch, there’s no nut too tough to crack

By Susan Campbell

What is that little bird scrambling, upside down along that branch — or hanging wrong-side-up from the suet feeder?  A nuthatch of course! Take a closer look. If it is a mixture of gray, black and white, it is likely a white-breasted nuthatch. This handsome bird’s bright white breast contrasts with a gray back and wings — capped off with a black nape, neck and crown. Males and females, young and older birds — they all look identical.

White-breasteds, with their distintive “yank, yank, yank” calls, can be commonly found throughout most of the United States. The name “nuthatch” is derived from “nut hack,” which describes the way they often feed. Watch how these birds wedge potential food items into crevices in the tree bark and use their powerful bills to work their way into the fleshy, oily tidbits. These energetic little birds may also cache seeds (feeder seeds in particular) during colder weather by jamming dozens into the furrows of the bark of nearby trees.

Nuthatches just like their cousins the titmice and chickadees, are cavity dwellers. They love nest boxes and use them not only during the nesting season but for roosting. Family groups of up to six individuals remain together both day and night until early spring. And as a result, they can be quite noisy as they call repeatedly to keep track of one another as they move across the landscape. Furthermore, during the nonbreeding season, they will flock up with titmice and chickadees. There is certainly safety in numbers for all of these small birds. And the more eyes there are, the more likely they’ll find food.

These little birds not only eat a variety of seeds but caterpillars during the warmer months.  They can readily be attracted to the all-around favorite black-oil sunflower seed at feeding stations.  But they also love suet: high protein food that was once made with the fat that surrounds the kidneys of cows after it’s rendered. The irresistible “no melt” suet I offer is a homemade mix of lard and peanut butter studded with grains. Nuthatches cannot get enough of it – any day of the year!

During the winter months, there are actually three species of nuthatches you might expect in our region of the state. The smaller brown-headed nuthatches are also year-round residents of pine forests here, but the more northerly red-breasteds may appear as well. Red-breasted nuthatches only move in our direction in years of poor northerly cone production. This is looking to be one of those years! I have already heard one in Southern Pines and several folks have reported them at their feeders in central North Carolina in recent weeks. These little birds, which are intermediate in size between white-breasteds and brown-headeds, have a white eye line and rosey chests. Red-breasted nuthatches love black-oil sunflower seeds as well as suet. They can be quite feisty and frequently dominate any feeders they take a liking to. Until one or two red-breasteds make an appearance, enjoy the antics of our local nuthatches scrambling around, often upside down, on the oaks and pines!

No Melt Suet Recipe:

1 cup lard or bacon grease

1 cup peanut butter

Melt together and add:

1 cup flour

2 cups uncooked oatmeal or other grain

2–4 cups yellow cornmeal depending on desired consistency — less for pouring into a mold to slice for suet cages in cold weather or more crumbling onto a platform feeder. PS

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

December’s Stars

By Astrid Stellanova

In the interest of the season, this is a good time to say something nice. (Long overdue, you might be thinking?) Sagittarius qualities make those born under the sign naturally accomplished, because they have energy and curious minds. They travel through life believing the best is possible. They want to know the meaning of life and will travel far to find it no matter what kind of crazymaking place it might take them. Adventure is their drug and so is challenge. Sagittarians are destined for fame: Miley Cyrus. Andrew Carnegie. John Kennedy Jr. Charles Schultz. Tina Turner. Winston Churchill (And so, in the interest of the season, I left out Sagittarian Ted Bundy.) Merry, Merry, Star Children, till next year! Ad Astra — Astrid

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)

Despite your still having your right mind, it sometimes freezes up on you like Grandpa Hornblower’s hip. You’ve been having some abada-dabada moments that leave you wondering if you need help. Sugar, you are fine in the head department. Just focus on opening up your heart and this will be a holly, jolly month. Give yourself a trip somewhere you haven’t been — you just need a new horizon.

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

Somebody surprised you with their idea of a gift that looked more like your idea of short-shrift. Do you retaliate? Nooooo, Sugar. You just thank them for the used grill and act like you are thrilled slap to death. Social grace ain’t something you just mumble before a meal.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

Would it kill you to act enthused over the new book club’s affection for trashy novels? Well, actually, it just might. You are a closet intellectual, or think you are, but actually, everybody knows you are a Brainiac. You have been outed. We like you just the same, Sweetie Pants.

Pisces (February 19–March 20)

Old age sure is coming at a bad time, ain’t it? You worry about keeping enough money in your oatmeal and granola fund. You worry about keeping your teeth. You worry about keeping your sweetheart from paying too much attention to the neighbor. Well, the good news is, your gums are healthy.

Aries (March 21–April 19)

Nobody likes a hot mess. Actually, they like a cold mess even less. Embroider that on your pillow and remember to just learn this: Saying please and thank you doesn’t just work for first graders. The whole wide world could use more of that. It was your good fortune to get pulchritude in your DNA. (Look it up.)

Taurus (April 20–May 20)

Here’s a snapshot of your month: You joined a support group for procrastinating but haven’t gone to a meeting yet. What gives with all this putting things off? You know you are usually impulsive, but your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went. No more shoulda woulda coulda. Snap out of it, Sugar.

Gemini (May 21–June 20)

People around you cannot quite believe how nice you’ve been lately. Whether it is medication or just an attitude adjustment, let’s say it was just in the nick of time. You have gotten a little bit of dispensation, Honey, but you can’t pretend you didn’t need to check your bad self. There are still bridges to mend.

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

Even skanks say thanks. At least, that’s what we say when we gather around for a special occasion like a hog-killing or a reunion. (We are nothing if not proud of certain traditions.) Say thanks to somebody for something and try and act like you mean it, will you?

Leo (July 23–August 22)

There’s truth, and then there’s something truthy that you have held onto about yourself. You ain’t exactly fooling anybody who knows you. Sugar, just own it. You have a new chance opening up that is going to require some very vigorous self-examination.

Virgo (August 23–September 22)

Somebody you like made you play two-truths-and-a-lie and you held your breath, didn’t you? You revealed a deep dark something nobody knew. Well, la-di-da. The moment came and went and nobody fell outta their seat. See? Now move on.

Libra (September 23–October 22)

Here’s a confession: you were switched at birth. With an alien. And it is really you who designed the pyramids in another life. And you were also Queen Nefertiti in another incarnation. Did you buy any of this? Well, I hope not, because it is all hooey. What you actually are is some kind of wonderful, all on your own.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21)

If only you received the same pleasure from giving that you do from getting. The fact is, you don’t. So, perhaps this month you can rehearse not putting moi first. It’s the right season, Child, to grow up and be selfless. Then, for heaven’s sake, allow yourself a whole lot of credit for finally owning up to it.  PS

For years, Astrid Stellanova owned and operated Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon in the boondocks of North Carolina until arthritic fingers and her popular astrological readings provoked a new career path.

A Time of Light and Latkes

A Hanukkah Story

By Amy Lyon

At my fifth-grade winter assembly we lined up single file, each with a candle in an aluminum holder, and walked through the darkened auditorium singing, “When you walk through a storm hold your head up high and don’t be afraid of the dark.” At 10 years old I was awed to be entrusted with a live, yellow flame, especially since it was a dark time for me. It was my first year at a new school, and a few classmates, who I thought were new friends, were bullying me.

We sang, “Though your dreams be tossed and blown, walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone.”

This reflects the essence of Hanukkah — hope, light and renewal.

The Jewish holiday Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days, lighting up the darkest time of the year. During each night at sundown, we light one candle of the eight-pronged candelabra called a menorah, until the eighth night, when all the candles blaze bright. We do this to remember the miracle that happened in Jerusalem 2,200 years ago when the ancient Hebrews, led by Judah the Maccabee, reclaimed the temple in Jerusalem from their enemy. When it was time to light the menorah, the eternal flame, there was only enough oil to last for one night, but instead it lasted for eight.

When I was growing up, my family numbered into the dozens, and we’d all gather at my grandparents’ home to light the menorah, exchange gifts, play the holiday game called dreidel and eat special foods. Dreidel is a four-sided spinning top, and on each side is a Hebrew letter that is an acronym for “a great miracle happened here.” The side where the top lands dictates how much of the pot of candy or pennies the spinner gets to take out or put in: all, half, none or the dreaded put one back in.

No one goes hungry on Hanukkah, because this is the holiday of the latke, the famed potato pancake. It’s the latke, that is, if you are descendant of the Ashkenazi and trace your roots to Eastern Europe, as does my family. Or, if you’re from the Sephardim branch, who long ago migrated south from the Middle East through the warmer Mediterranean countries, then your family fries up doughnuts, called sufganiyot. One way or another the holiday is a deep-fried affair.

That winter I was surely in my grandmother’s kitchen helping make the latkes, since her kitchen was the center of my universe and — in essence — still is. Nana was always putting on, wearing or taking off an apron, and there was always a kind, accepting smile on her face. On Hanukkah everyone wanted to be in the kitchen, if not as a self-anointed latke maker, then hanging out at the threshold to snatch one of the sizzling pancakes fresh from the pan. 

Latkes are a simple affair I learned to make by watching Nana’s hands as she laboriously grated potato and onion, delicately broke open the eggs and — with practiced elegance — flicked just enough leavening agent, sprinkled snowflakes of flour, added a pinch of salt and flaked in black pepper. She’d cup just enough batter in the palm of her hands, squeeze out excess liquid, and drop it into the pan of hot oil. Then she’d watch and wait. At just the right moment, when edges began to brown, she’d pat the pancake once or twice with her spatula. Then, when she knew it was right, she’d flip it over, pat it again and let the other side get crispy. And from there to the platter with the topping of choice. There are two camps when it comes to latke toppings, the savories who enjoy sour cream, or the sweeties who prefer applesauce. I fall into the applesauce group, preferably homemade.

In my 20s I opened Amy Cooks for You, a specialty food store and catering company, and for Hanukkah we turned out scores of latkes, of course my Nana’s recipe. In the years when my son, Max, was growing up, we started the tradition of having our own Hanukkah party for friends and family. Along the way, the simple brass menorah that I received as a bat-mitzvah gift the year I turned 13 was joined by a paper doll of Judah the Maccabee, the warrior-hero with honeycombed pants, shield and a long sword. One year the guests numbered close to 50, which made it a 250-latke occasion. It isn’t Hanukkah unless the aroma of fried onions and potatoes soak into the furniture and draperies, emanating for days.

This year I’m in particular need of the warmth and inspiration of the gleaming brass menorah, of traditions and remembrance of miracles. In February my mother died and my internal light is dimmed by a rendering sadness. I look forward to placing the tattered-but-persistent paper Judah the Maccabee on my table, spinning the dreidel and grating, flicking, sprinkling just the right amount to make the latkes. And when we light the candles of the menorah, once again, the darkness will be dispelled. PS

Amy Lyon is the author of The Couple’s Business Guide, How to Start and Grow a Small Business Together and In A Vermont Kitchen, Foods Fresh From Farms, Forests, and Orchards. She’s lived in Wilmington for ten years and can be reached at amylyon@gmail.com.

The Amazing Mr. Whittle

Keeping memories for two

By Jim Moriarty

Near the end of the day, on the top floor at St. Joseph of the Pines, a man who spent much of his working life in a research laboratory places his wheelchair directly behind the wheelchair of his wife, whose mind has wandered into the mists of age, and puts to fair use the laws of force and motion. With him supplying the force and her the motion, they roll in tandem down the hallway to the sunroom, where he parks them side-by-side so they can look through the broad windows at sunset.

Robert Lamar Whittle — “Just like whittling a stick,” he says as if he was saying it for the first time — turned 99 in October. He goes by Lamar because his father had a prior claim on Bob. Edna, his wife, is 97. They met at a church Christmas party in Sylvester, Georgia. So far it’s lasted 74 years.

Mr. Whittle remembers his father’s sawmill near Cedar Key on Florida’s Gulf Coast and the springs near the mouth of the Suwannee River. “The water was so clear you could see the white sand in the bottom 50 feet from the shore,” he says. The lumber business went bust in 1929, sending the family north into Worth County, Georgia.

Mr. Whittle remembers for two now, and he remembers pretty much all of it. He worked his way through Berry College in Rome. “It’s still there,” he says. “Still functioning.” When World War II began, the War Manpower Commission put his name on a list of scientific and technical people. “When the Manhattan Project was begun, I was sent down to Columbia University and I spent the rest of the war years there,” he says. “The only uranium we had was in some barrels that were stored on Staten Island. The British had collected that uranium ore in the Congo. I don’t know if they were afraid the ship was going to be sunk by submarines, but they docked it there on Staten Island and unloaded the uranium. I didn’t play much part in the development of the bomb. I worked mostly on magnetic detection of submarines.”

After the war, Mr. Whittle worked with ITT laboratories in Nutley, New Jersey. He and Edna, the dedicated gardener, had three daughters, who all live in North Carolina now. When the researching days were done, they retired to Georgia to raise peaches. But, the next time your commercial airliner drops out of the clouds and touches down on a wet runway like a butterfly, remember Mr. Whittle. “One of the developments that I think was most important was the instrument landing system for aircraft,” he says. That came shortly after the war, 1946 or so. It’s one of the few details he can’t quite lay his hands on. “That became the worldwide standard for blind landings of aircraft. I participated in the demonstration of that in Indianapolis.”

One of the researchers Mr. Whittle worked with at Columbia was Gene Fubini. “He was scientific adviser to Jack Kennedy when Kennedy was president,” says Mr. Whittle, and then for President Johnson, too. His father was the Italian mathematician Guido Fubini, who has his very own theorem. “I’ve been with a lot of really first-class people. We were sitting around the table one time discussing a project the military wanted us to do and Gene said, ‘Fellas, before we take on any other projects, it ought to meet three criteria. The first is, is it a job that needs to be done? Some of these are just trivial and a waste of time. Number two, are we the ones to do it? Maybe there’s somebody else better equipped than we are. And third, and most important, is there going to be any fun in it? If there’s not going to be any fun in it, don’t do it.’

“So,” says Mr. Whittle, “I remembered that. If there’s not going to be any fun in it, don’t do it.”

Time is the gift wrapped in uncertainty, that we make of what we can. He takes Edna’s hand because hers shakes. “It’s been a good life, I’ll tell you.”  PS

Jim Moriarty is Senior Editor of PineStraw and can be reached at jjmpinestraw@gmail.com.

A Christmas Tale

By Sam Walker

Before Chaptico, Maryland, became a quaint village amid old manor houses and rich farmland, it was a gathering spot for Native Americans to hunt and fish the waters of a tributary of the great river that flows southeast from what would become the nation’s capital.

On high ground beyond the water a church was built in 1640. Fields were cleared and planted as stalwart people began to work the land and waters. They still do. This tract of Lord Proprietary acreage was overseen by High Sheriff Sir Philip Key, great-grandfather of Francis Scott Key, who emigrated from England in 1726. Ten years later the “old” church was replaced with a handsome brick structure designed by Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul’s in London, or so the story goes. The front porch beneath the steeple and belfry led to high arched 10-inch-thick doors that opened to reveal rows of boxed pews and a raised altar at the east end. The bell tolled each Sunday calling folks to worship. It still does.

The churchyard holds the remains of both gentry and scoundrels, including the pirate Gilbert Ireland, who was buried according to his wishes in the upright position. A wrought iron chair rests beside a family headstone awaiting the ghost of a woman who comes to keep watch. The British savaged the town on their way to burn the capital during the War of 1812, stabling their horses inside the church. During the Civil War a Confederate spy was granted sanctuary there by a church lady from a nearby manor.

Gradually, homes framed the village side roads, a post office opened, and later a country doctor began his practice. The village market, a way station for locals and travelers, justifiably boasted about its fried chicken. One year the doctor organized a way to mark the holiday season by lighting a large evergreen at the main crossroads. Folks gathered for carols and to swap stories, but none better than the time the little church decided to revive the Christmas pageant.

Costumes were sewn. Children cast for parts — though some balked at their assigned role. Rehearsals commenced. The simple design of a narrative accompanying the Nativity tableau, with the organ leading familiar carols, promised all would come off without a hitch.

The steeple bell rang out the Sunday welcome and the church was jam-packed. Lights dimmed and quiet settled in. “O Come, All Ye Faithful” boomed forth. Heads turned and necks craned as angels in white holding tobacco sticks affixed with large glittering stars crowded into the altar area.

Another carol welcomed all sizes of shepherds. The disgruntled one, who had wanted to be Mary, chose that moment to express creative differences and walked out in a huff. While angels and shepherds jostled for position during yet another carol and some reverent narration, the audience beamed as Mary and Joseph arrived. She cradled a swaddled doll to be gently laid in a straw-filled milk crate set between two chairs that ordinarily held the posteriors of clergy, or a visiting bishop.

Even before the three kings finished their march, things began to unravel. It seems Mary had been up all night with a fever and was now falling asleep at her post, nearly dropping the unraveling baby. Ever alert, Joseph snatched the child by one arm then poked Mary with the other to wake her up. She, at that point, simply left. Dismayed, Joseph took this as his cue to follow her, leaving the baby face down in the bishop’s chair.

When the tiniest shepherd loudly appealed — “Daddy, I’ve got to pee!” — all the heavenly host and abiding shepherds came undone and so did the audience.

Everyone stood for a heartfelt “Joy to the World.” The narrator wished all a Merry Christmas, and the little church exploded into thunderous applause with hugs all around as Santa arrived at the top of a ladder on a firetruck. PS

Sam Walker, a retired minister, maintains a curiosity about life and is an old friend of PineStraw.

Legend of the Working Class

When M, a cross-species monster, moves from N.C. to Pennsylvania, the plot thickens

By D.G. Martin

In his insightful review of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis in this magazine last month, Stephen Smith questioned whether that book explains the unexpected success of Donald Trump’s campaign for president.

Meanwhile, I have been thinking that another new book might give us insight into the white male blue-collar world where Trump’s appeal rang loud and clear. North Carolina native Steven Sherrill’s The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time tells how a fictional and Greek legendary half-bull, half-man called the Minotaur adapts to life in a modern white working-class community.

In case you do not remember the Minotaur, he was the offspring of a queen of Crete, who, subject to a curse from a vengeful god, fell madly in love with her husband’s prize bull. The resulting offspring grew up to be a feared monster that devoured children. In the Greek legend the Minotaur was killed to end his evil ways.

But, in Sherrill’s story, the Minotaur has survived and lived for thousands of years, roaming from place to place. He is immortal and destined to struggle forever to live as an outsider alongside fully human colleagues.

Back in 2000, in his novel, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, Sherrill brought the fictional Minotaur to our state as a line cook in a seedy restaurant called Grub’s Rib just off the interstate near Charlotte. The Minotaur lived in a mobile home in a rundown trailer park. His co-workers called him M and got used to his bullhorns, funny-looking face, and tortured way of speaking. They had their own set of challenges, not unlike those described in Hillbilly Elegy.

Just as his co-workers adapted to M and accepted him as a fellow-worker, readers set aside disbelief, identify with the creature, and observe the world of a struggling working class through his eyes. Still, M is destined always to be something of an outsider, a condition that painfully troubles and enriches his story and his relationships with the blue-collar characters that surround him.

This September, 16 years after The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, its sequel, The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time, hit bookstore shelves. Sherrill, who now lives in Pennsylvania, teaches at Penn State-Altoona. M has moved up there, too. He is now a professional Civil War re-enactor in a tourist-centered “historic village.” Every day M puts on his Confederate uniform and goes out on the field to do his job. He dies. Over and over again.

In the rustbelt around the village and battlefield near Altoona in central Pennsylvania, M observes and interacts with the struggles of the working and out-of-work people he encounters. Almost all are at the edge. One broken car away from a financial crisis. One lost job away from disaster.

M’s struggles are special. Only half-human, he still has fully human desires and aspirations. He is lonely and longs for companionship. He is helpful and considerate. He adapts to disappointment. But, as Sherrill leads us to understand in this, his second Minotaur masterpiece, M is always going to be “other.” Always an outsider.

M lives at the Judy-Lou Motor Lodge, a shabby motel just off a busy highway and within walking distance of the historic village and battlefield. The motel owner, Rambabu Gupta, gives M a place to stay in return for M’s handyman repair work. M can fix almost anything, including automobiles.

When a dirty, filthy, broken down Honda Odyssey van careens into a parking lot near the motel, an attractive redheaded woman and her wild, brain-damaged brother get out, and a weird love story begins. M sets about to fix the car. He wanders through his favorite places, auto junkyards, to find the right parts. As he fixes her car, the appreciative redhead and M begin to develop feelings for each other.

Could a cross-species friendship work into something more? Sherrill uses his great storyteller gifts to make his readers wonder, and maybe hope. But the poignant climax is dark and sad.

Back to the recent election, M seems to have no interest in politics, but his desperate, disillusioned, and angry co-workers and neighbors in Pennsylvania’s rustbelt could understandably have found hope in Donald Trump’s message. If they had made it to the polls on November 8, their votes would almost certainly have helped Trump steal Pennsylvania from the Democrats and Hillary Clinton.  PS

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

The Fazio Tradition

North Carolina’s dean of golf course architects reflects on his very productive life

By Lee Pace

To an 18-year-old in the summer of 1975, Hendersonville was Hicksburg USA and a town lacking any distinction beyond having an excellent high school basketball team (the Bearcats bounced Pinecrest High, yes, that Pinecrest High, in the 1972 state 3-A title game in Durham) and a convenience store on Sixth
Avenue quite liberal in dispensing beer to minors. We’d stock up on Budweiser and Slim Jims and cruise up and down Main Street between a city recreation park on the north and the Hardees on the south. I was off to Chapel Hill in the blink of an eye.

“I couldn’t get out of this town fast enough,” I told one of its newer residents some years later.

“And I couldn’t get here fast enough,” the fellow replied.

It was the early 1990s and golf architect Tom Fazio was showing me around the office he’d opened in Hendersonville in 1985 when, after discovering the appeal of the western North Carolina mountains in designing Wade Hampton in Cashiers in the mid-1980s, he and his wife, Sue, decided the environment was better suited to raise their six children than their previous home in the Palm Beach area of South Florida. Fazio looked out his office window to the west toward the crest of Laurel Park Mountain, golden-tinged on this particular autumn afternoon.

“Main Street with a view,” he mused. “What more could you want?”

As I mellowed and matured over the years and returned to visit my mother and marvel over the evolution of downtown Hendersonville — with its serpentine traffic pattern, ceramic bear statues, meticulous landscaping and neat confluence of restaurants and antique shops — I had to admit that Fazio had a point.

Often I’d work in a trip back home with a visit to Fazio’s golf architecture firm. Things were so flush as the 1990s golf boom evolved and Fazio had become arguably the world’s foremost modern architect that in 1998 he bought an entire four-story, 1923 neo-classical building at the corner of Main Street and Fourth Avenue and moved his firm’s headquarters to the top floor.

I witnessed Fazio Golf Course Designers’ operation in thick and thin. One afternoon in the mid-1990s, Fazio and his staff worked furiously to get some design drawings and documents printed and packaged in time to ship overnight.

“Everything builds to a climax waiting for the FedEx guy to come,” Fazio said.

And a dozen years later I sat with him in a quieter environment, the golf design business slowing to a crawl during the 2008-09 recession and his staff being lopped off in the aftermath.

“What’s different?” he asked rhetorically, cocking his head as if to listen. “The phones aren’t ringing.”

On my most recent trip to Hendersonville, on the last Friday of October, I found Fazio in his office signing copies of his 2000 book, Golf Course Design, and minding one of his granddaughters and one of the family dogs. He spoke of the annual winter sojourn to Florida planned for the following week now that all six children are grown and he’s semi-retired — but not until after Halloween night.

“Two of my daughters and four grandkids are here,” says Fazio, who lives nearby in Lake Toxaway at least half the year. “We’ll be on Main Street on Halloween night. They block off the streets and have games, trick-or-treating, music, lots of stuff for the kids. The kids have a blast.”

Exactly four decades ago, Fazio and his uncle and golf-design mentor, former PGA Tour player George Fazio, were trying to jump-start a struggling architecture business that had been relegated to remodeling jobs for U.S. Open courses during the early 1970s recession. They were asked to design Pinehurst No. 6 — the resort’s first course away from the village proper — and that course opened in 1979. Soon after Tom took on an ambitious project on the South Carolina coast near Charleston. Wild Dunes was a major success and, presto, his solo career (with George now in retirement) was off and running.

On this afternoon, Fazio is ruminating about one simple question: Where have all the years gone?

“You blink and all of sudden, your life’s flown by,” he says.

He nods toward Nina, his granddaughter. “Just yesterday I was rushing home to see a dance recital. Now that little girl has grown up and has children of her own.”

It pains him to look around his universe of friends and clients and see some of his favorites having passed, among them William McKee, the founder of Wade Hampton, dying in 2014 at the age of 62, and Billy Armfield, the founder of Eagle Point in Wilmington, passing this July at the age of 81.

“One of my fun jobs over so many years was helping people fulfill their dreams,” Fazio says. “A golf course is a dream for them. We literally build their dreams. It’s really tough for me when we lose guys like this. Every day I go to Wade Hampton, and I can’t believe William McKee is not there. He was younger than me. There’s a vacuum with him not there.”

Fazio’s oldest son, 39-year-old Logan, is now leading the design efforts on much of the firm’s work, and long-time associate Tom Marzolf is in charge of a new course at Adare Manor in Ireland, a job where the client essentially has instructed Fazio and Marzolf to build “the Augusta National of Ireland.” Fazio continues as a consulting architect at Augusta National and Pine Valley, and the firm has just completed a course at Davant Plantation near Ridgeland, S.C., and one called Silo Ridge Field Club two hours north of Manhattan. Construction is continuing on The Summit, a high-end residential community outside Las Vegas, and two courses that will occupy the firm in 2017 are set for Long Island and the Abaco Islands in the Bahamas.

Logan recently supervised a major renovation to Kasumigaseki Country Club’s East course, the host layout for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. The course opened for play in 1929 and was designed by one of the Golden Age’s leading architects, Charles Hugh Alison.

Now at the age of 71, Fazio talks with wide-eyed amazement at the next chapter in travel, technology and the business of designing golf courses. Years ago he refused to travel beyond the boundaries of getting back home for dinner; now he views drone clips from Logan of ongoing construction work from far-flung locales.

“I show my phone to Sue and say, ‘Can you imagine this? This is live, this is Logan sending us this. We’re looking at a golf hole,’” Fazio says. “He’s showing me how he’s shaping a bunker or moving a tree. Look at this big tree going across the stream, that’s live. It’s unbelievable the technology available. You don’t have to travel as much and go as often.”

Fazio has long cast a huge design shadow in the Carolinas and certainly in the Sandhills. There are 18 courses across North Carolina and 22 in South Carolina with the Fazio shingle. In Moore County he’s designed Nos. 4, 6 and 8 at Pinehurst, and 36 holes at Forest Creek Golf Club.

“You could take the courses we’ve done in North Carolina or those in South Carolina, and either list would be a nice career for someone,” he says.

Next year is going to be an interesting one for Fazio’s North Carolina portfolio as Eagle Point, his 2000 design in Wilmington, will be the site of the Wells Fargo Championship in May, and Quail Hollow in Charlotte, where he has done significant remodeling over the last two decades, will be the venue for the PGA Championship. Then the U.S. Amateur comes to Pinehurst in 2019, with stroke play qualifying being split on Nos. 2 and 8. The latter opened 20 years ago this fall and was dubbed “The Centennial Course” to celebrate Pinehurst’s 100th anniversary.

“I was at the Masters one year and I called the office for messages,” Fazio says. “I had a note to call (Pinehurst owner) Bob Dedman. I called him and he asked if I’d be interested in designing No. 8. I was sitting there in one of the great places in golf, Augusta National, and got a call to do a course in another great place in golf, Pinehurst. It was like I had won the Masters. It was a great feeling.”

Grandkids, playing golf, some design consultations — it’s a busy life even today for Tom Fazio. We say so long and on my way out of town, I drive past the sprawling Boys & Girls Club complex on Ashe Street, just east of downtown. Over two decades, Fazio has funneled untold dollars into the facility and recently wrote a check toward a new gymnasium. Fazio’s interest piqued in the mid-1990s when he noticed bored teenagers loitering on street corners after school. The clubs touch thousands of youngsters annually with tutoring, arts classes, recreation, athletics and mentorship.

“It’s an unbelievable place,” Fazio says. “Of all the things I’ve ever done, nothing comes close to that. Some people have boats and hobbies. I have golf, which is my business. Then I have my kids and the kids of the Boys & Girls Clubs. That’s been plenty for me.”  PS

Hendersonville native, Chapel Hill resident and longtime golf writer Lee Pace has contributed to PineStraw since 2008.