Summer Well

Must reading for your craft cocktail enjoyment

By Tony Cross

The craft cocktail movement has been in full effect for well over a decade now, yet a Moscow Mule is still foreign to a majority of locals in the Sandhills. I’ll admit that we’re slow to catch up on what’s happening in bigger cities; I had no clue about such cocktails until three years ago. When I started to delve into the world of balancing drinks, there was already so much information out there to give me a head start: I would watch videos on YouTube, check out menus from bars and restaurants across the globe, and, of course, study books from respected and famous bartenders. There are so many great reads, but I’ve picked three that have inspired me when I’ve prepared menus and drinks for events, and friends.

Speakeasy, by Jason Kosmas and Dushan Zaric

Written by the guys that started up Employees Only, one of the first craft cocktail joints that started the movement at the beginning of the millennium, Speakeasy was the first book I read when I became serious about making drinks. I first discovered Employees Only in a small New York Times article about a bar that sold their homemade grenadine and other syrups to guests and surrounding bars. Needless to say, that article piqued my interest and got the ball rolling on my curiosity for cocktails and the fancy establishments that perfected them. Ice is discussed in one of the first chapters; this may seem pretentious at first, but ice is a crucial ingredient to any good cocktail. Classics are covered, as well as many signature drinks that found their way onto the EO menu over the years.

Billionaire Cocktail

2 oz Baker’s 7 Year Old Bourbon

1 oz lemon juice

½ 1/2 oz simple syrup

½ 1/2 oz grenadine

¼ 1/4 oz absinthe bitters (or substitute Pernod)

1 lemon wheel

Combine bourbon, lemon juice, syrup, grenadine and bitters into a mixing glass. Add ice and shake like hell for 10 seconds. Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon wheel.

Bitterman’s Field Guide to Bitters and Amari, by Mark Bitterman

This one isn’t even a year old yet, but has been a staple at my home. Mark Bitterman has two shops (New York City, and Portland, Oregon) called The Meadow, which sells salts, chocolates and bitters. I was lucky enough to step into The Meadow a few years ago, and I was quickly overwhelmed by the large selection of tonics and bitters. Having this book on hand would’ve been a godsend. It’s only fitting that Bitterman’s passion is also part of his last name; his attention to detail goes above and beyond when describing amari and bitters. When breaking down the various brands of bitters, Bitterman uses a rating system from 1 (least) to 5 (most) on aromatics, bitterness and sweetness levels. There are also tasting notes to describe each product, along with the types of drinks that each one pairs with well. The same rating system and descriptions are used in his “Amari” section. In addition to describing practically every bitters on the planet, there are also recipes for making your own bitters (with a sitting time of less than a week!), cooking with bitters, and, of course, making cocktails with bitters. Bitterman gives plenty of examples of how switching up your bitters arsenal puts a great twist on the classics.

This recipe comes from Kirk Estopinal, bartender at Cure in New Orleans, and his now nowhere to be found Rogue Cocktails book (I borrowed it from a friend last year). Bitterman published this in his Field Guide, and it’s absolutely delicious.

Angostura Sour

3/4 oz lemon juice

1 egg white*

1 1/2 oz Angostura bitters

1 oz simple syrup (1:1)

Dry-shake the lemon juice and the egg white. (Put both ingredients into a shaker, and shake without ice. We do this to break up the protein bonds in the egg white; the result is a frothy, velvety texture in your cocktail.) Add the bitters, syrup, and ice and shake hard for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe.

*Largely misunderstood, using egg whites in cocktails has been common practice since cocktails were created way back when. Many people are concerned about the risk of salmonella, but as long as you’re using organic/cage-free eggs (with the combination of high-proof alcohol), you’ll be good to go.

Death & Co. Modern Classic Cocktails, by David Kaplan, Nick Fauchald, Alex Day

The hype behind this book before it came out was all over the internet. I ordered it as soon as it became available, and was blown away on my first read. This is definitely, IMO, the best cocktail book out there. Death & Company opened in 2006 in New York City, making its mark in the craft cocktail movement. They’ve won awards at the annual Tales of the Cocktail convention in NOLA (Best Cocktail Menu, and Best American Bar), and with 500 cocktails to look over, it’s easy to see what a creative force this bar has been with bartenders from past and present. Death & Co. has a section on every spirit, including brand recommendations; sections on juicing, ice and tools; how to taste-evaluate cocktails, and even pages here and there devoted to their regulars telling fond stories about their first or favorite times at the bar with their favorite cocktail and its recipe on the side page. Too much to say about this work of art.

Shattered Glasser by phil Ward, 2008

“I love it when one of our regulars asks us to create a cocktail on the spot based on crazy criteria — and it’s even better when we can pull off a decent drink on the first try. One night Avery Glasser, the man behind Bittermens bitters (no relation to Mark Bitterman) and one of the bar’s original regulars, asked me to make him a drink that contained all of his favorite ingredients. The problem was that he likes a lot of weird shit. But, I gave it a shot, splitting both the base spirit and its modifiers, and it resulted in a surprisingly balanced drink.” — PW

1 oz El Tesoro Reposado Tequila

½1/2 oz Los Amantes Mezcal Joven

3/4 oz Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth

1/2 oz Van Oosten Batavia Arrack

1/4 oz St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram

1/4 oz Benedictine

2 dashes Bittermens Xocolatl Mole Bitters

Stir all ingredients over ice, then strain into a coupe. No garnish. PS

Tony Cross is a bartender who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern pines. He can also recommend a vitamin supplement for the morning after at Nature’s Own.

Kidding Around

How U.S. Kids Golf conquered the world

By Lee Pace

Dan Van Horn was coaching his sons’ youth league baseball teams in the mid-1990s when he noticed the quality and variety of baseball bats being manufactured to address the youth market. Versions in aluminum and carbon fiber polymers with narrow barrels, lighter weights and nuanced weight distribution helped kids take a healthy cut and develop their form without being burdened with weights their small limbs and core couldn’t handle.

It occurred to Van Horn, a lifelong golfer, former mini-tour player and a father with an interest in his children learning the game, that the golf industry did a poor job addressing adolescent golfers in a similar fashion.

“You could find junior sets with a 3-wood, 5-, 7- and 9-irons that were essentially adult clubs, sawed off and a ‘junior’ label slapped on,” the Atlanta businessman says of his 1995 “ah-ha” moment. “The clubs were too heavy, the kids didn’t hit many good shots, and they didn’t have any fun. I sensed there was an opportunity there.”

The first domino fell one year later when he incorporated U.S. Kids Golf with the idea of manufacturing “ultra-light” clubs for kids based on their body heights with shaft flexes and swing weights geared to each length. The next domino fell in 1997 when the first club rolled off the assembly line.

“It was all about having fun,” Van Horn says. “If you play well, you’ll have fun. If you’re having fun, you might buy in for a lifetime.”

The dominoes kept falling through the years — establishing competitions for kids on local, regional, national and worldwide stages; setting junior-oriented tee markers so a 9-year-old could hit a driver and 6-iron on a par-4 like his dad does; coming to Pinehurst in 2006 for world championships that have become staples in the local golf scene; and creating coaching programs to help PGA of America members learn how to better teach and connect with kids and sell their memberships on the value of drawing children into golf.

In 2015 one of the most interesting dominoes yet fell: the purchase of a struggling club in the Sandhills, and the establishment of a working “golf laboratory” with a mission of teaching and growing the game among juniors and families. U.S. Kids Golf Foundation, established in 2000 as a supplement to the U.S. Kids equipment business, bought Longleaf Golf & Country Club in April 2015 and renamed it Longleaf Golf & Family Club.

“We’d been coming here for ten years and kept seeing Longleaf slide a little bit,” Van Horn says. “We wanted to have a presence in the community. We felt very welcome here, very supported by the community. The synergies around the Pinehurst/Southern Pines area as a golf capital, a golf mecca, have been important to us. It seemed like a great place to layer in more of the idea of kids golf, family golf.”

Van Horn and his Atlanta-based company knew what it was like to be a vendor to the golf industry. They understood managing and running tournaments. But there was one key perspective they lacked in the daunting task of expanding a game that is difficult to learn, time-consuming to play, requires considerable financial investment and is fraught with timeless traditions and oftentime stodgy attitudes.

“We wanted to experience the ‘other side of the track,’” Van Horn says. “We wanted to see the challenges in the golf shop on a real-time basis, understand the hindrances in running kids’ golf. We wanted a working laboratory where we could practice our vision of growing the game among kids and families while not disrupting traditional men’s play and club play.”

Van Horn smiles and acknowledges there is a certain dog-catches-the-car-now-what element to the foundation’s fourteen months running Longleaf, a Dan Maples-designed course that opened in the late-1980s golf boom but has struggled amid the early 2000s recession and 2008 financial collapse. Eighty of the course’s sprinklers quit working last summer, and the new owners invested in a new computerized switching and monitoring system to better manage the flow of water around the course. But the sprinklers still didn’t work properly.

“We eventually figured out the original lines ran under Midland Road, and over time the road sank and collapsed the pipes,” Van Horn says. “We wanted to learn the golf operations business. And we’re getting a full education.”

The club facility at Longleaf is teeming this July morning with kids, parents, volunteers and U.S. Kids staff descending here and at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club three miles away for the Red White & Blue Invitational, one of a series of regional competitions leading to the U.S. Kids World Championships spread across ten Sandhills area clubs in early August. This year’s competition is expected to bring nearly 1,600 golfers from more than fifty nations.

The Sandhills wasn’t quite sure what to expect in 2005 when the first U.S. Kids event was held and thousands of visitors from three dozen counties staged a parade through the middle of Pinehurst. All of a sudden, 8-year-olds were playing hide-and-seek in the halls of the venerable Carolina Hotel. Kids hit shots from sand traps by day, sneaked back in to build sand castles by twilight. Kitchen staffs learned to make pigs-in-a-blanket and were ready for French toast orders en masse in the breakfast buffet lines. The 2012 championship was the subject of a 100-minute documentary, The Short Game, that still runs on Netflix and profiles eight youngsters from around the world and their quest to win a world championship.

“I have never seen anything like these kids,” says lifelong Pinehurst resident Marty McKenzie. “These are the highest quality youth on the planet participating in the greatest sport on the planet, and it all takes place in our beloved Pinehurst.”

One initiative from Van Horn and his company that affects not only kids but women, seniors and men whose egos will allow them to stray from the traditional blue-white-red tee system is the implementation of a seven-tee configuration that puts golfers at the correct length of course based on their average driving distance. The practice ground at Longleaf is arrayed with a series of brightly colored stakes numbered one through seven, the closest stake colored blue and located 100 yards away, the middle stake orange at 175 yards and the farthest colored red and set 250 yards off.

A golfer’s average carry dictates which of the seven sets of tees he uses when he gets to the first tee of the course, with the tees at Longleaf ranging from 3,200 to 6,600 yards. The system is clearly explained in colorful signage on the practice tee and first tee. U.S. Kids is working with the American Golf Course Architects Society to educate the industry on setting up courses in this fashion, and the Longleaf staff has entertained emissaries from clubs such as Medinah in Chicago who are interested in making their clubs more welcoming to juniors and newcomers.

“You hear jokes in the industry about three million golfers a year in, three million out,” Van Horn says. “No one has done anything to help people get over what it’s like to be a newcomer in golf. That’s what Longleaf is all about.

“Now we have women playing a course 3,200 yards. It’s faster and more fun. They’re making pars and some birdies. Now they can actually reach a par-4 in regulation. Before they didn’t stand a chance.”

When Pinehurst hosted the 2014 U.S. Open and Women’s Open, Van Horn and his staff counted 26 competitors in the two fields combined who were U.S. Kids alumni, among them Justin Thomas, Patrick Reed, Lexi Thompson, Beau Hossler, Smylie Kaufman and Mariah Stackhouse.

Van Horn is asked if he could ever have envisioned the empire he’s created over two decades when he wanted better junior clubs for his kids.

“I have a lot of dreams, but I try to be faithful to the vision,” he says. “I take dreams one day at a time and try to be the best every day with it. You always can hope and have grandiose plans. I’m honestly frustrated that it’s not bigger than it is. I didn’t get into this for financial gain. I am doing it because I felt called spiritually and I feel like it’s my life’s mission. Maybe my entire life, I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. Now I do and here I am.”  PS

Chapel Hill-based writer Lee Pace is the author of a dozen books on golf history, including The Golden Age of Pinehurst—The Story of the Rebirth of No. 2.

Travels With My Plant

Wherever I’ve lived, a geranium in a pot welcomes me home

By Deborah Salomon

One geranium, pink or red, in a clay pot.

Wherever I have lived, for more than fifty years, this has stood near the front door — a symbol, but of what? Geraniums in pots or window boxes remind me of photos and paintings of the French countryside I long to visit. The look is simple, elemental, classic, right.

When giving directions, I’d say, “The house with the geranium on the stoop.” This worked since neighbors chose pre-planted urns or hanging baskets.

My geranium owns a backstory.

The first I positioned by the door of an ugly house on an even uglier street where for fifteen summers I kept my eyes on the pot when walking up the front steps, to soften the blow. Those geraniums were always red, never salmon. My mother preferred concrete urns overflowing with salmon-colored geraniums; my dislike for the color was complicated, mirroring our relationship.

Several moves later found me in an adorable cottage, in a small but perfect Vermont city overlooking mountains and lake. The front stoop barely had room for the pot, but we managed.

Geraniums are annuals; they don’t overwinter indoors. In September I would bid farewell to the bloomed-out plant, dump the soil, wash the pot and, come spring, start anew.

I can’t remember why I brought this one inside, sometime in the early 1990s. My cottage was built against a hill, which allowed an above-ground basement. A previous owner had made the basement into a studio apartment with kitchen area and bathroom — convenient when the kids and their friends visited, otherwise unused.

The apartment door opened onto a wooded backyard. Beside the door was a covered area where I kept lawn furniture and planters. Except something about this clay pot with its spent stem made me set it on a basement windowsill.

I closed the café curtains — and forgot.

Those years are still a blur. My daughter, Wendy, died in 1991, changing everything; sunlight looked different, food had no taste, I couldn’t bear music, especially the folk songs she played on her guitar. I craved invisibility. Except I had an exhausting (and visible) job as features/food reporter at a good newspaper. Work must continue.

Winters are long in Vermont — long, cold and dark. Snow covers the ground from Thanksgiving until late March. That first winter without her was especially cold and snowy, which reminded me how much Wendy loved fresh powder. An accomplished ski racer, at 14 she trained with the Canadian National Junior Ski Team at their summer camp, in Argentina.

By April the sun was higher, stronger, illuminating winter dirt. I lugged the mop and vacuum to the basement, pulled aside the café curtains to open the window and let in fresh air.

There, on the sill, shrouded with dust, stood the forgotten clay pot. Miracle of miracles, from the withered stem erupted a green shoot, with two tiny leaves. From bone-dry soil a germ of life, sensing spring, had burst forth.

Neglected, against all odds . . . survival.

“It happens, sometimes,” a gardener friend told me.

My feelings were intense. I wanted to document the experience. The short column — barely 400 words — was the first in a weekly series on life’s vagaries that ran for more than a decade.

I have endured other losses and moved three times since that spring. In the Sandhills, with sun, heat and rain aplenty, geraniums grow into bushes. This year, mine — purchased at the farmers’ market — is a stunning purplish-pink, quite an Impressionist image with Lucky, my velvet-black cat, lying beside it.

This desire for a solo geranium in a basic clay pot remains strong. Was the tiny green shoot a sign that life survives circumstance? That a single flower can mitigate ugliness? I’m not a believer in mysteries or miracles. But I do know this: When I drive up and see that bloom, no matter locale or climate, house or apartment, I’m home. PS

Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

Rediscovering a North Carolina Treasure

The works of John Ehle

By Gwenyfar Rohler

“We’re bringing John Ehle’s books back into print,” explained Kevin Morgan Watson, gesturing to Press 53’s display at the North Carolina Writer’s Conference. I nodded knowingly and inwardly hoped that my confusion didn’t show on my face. I was too embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t familiar with John Ehle or his work. To remedy my chagrin, I sought out Ehle’s The Land Breakers, and I was stunned that it had taken me until the age of 36 to discover his work.

The Land Breakers begins Ehle’s seven-book series exploring the settlement and development of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina. It opens in 1779 and primarily traces the journey of Mooney Wright, a Scots-Irish orphan who has recently completed his indentured servitude in the New World. Wright buys a piece of land, 640 acres of good, “bottom land.” When he and his young wife finally arrive after a perilous journey to this promised, much-dreamed-of prize, Ehle captures their rapturous disbelief and elation with honest realism. Reading it doesn’t so much remind one of being young, in love and filled with dreams and wonder, but actually takes one back to inhabiting that space in a way few writers can.

Ehle’s family history on his mother’s side can be traced to one of the first three families to settle Appalachian North Carolina, the frontier that The Land Breakers and its six companion novels chronicle. Throughout his adult life, he continued to live in the western part of the state (when not in New York or London for his wife, Rosemary Harris’, acting career), with homes near both Penland and Winston-Salem. From his author’s bio: “His interest in the folkways of the past . . . is an interest in the present, in where we are all going, what we are leaving, and what we will need to find replacements for.” Perhaps that is part of what makes The Land Breakers so compelling. On the surface, it appears to be a book about man versus nature and the insurmountable opportunities around him, but it is so much more.

In The Land Breakers, as each new family moves into the valley Mooney Wright has settled, Ehle introduces their strengths and weaknesses and the impact they will each have on the collective survival of the settlement. None of the characters are merely two-dimensional parodies of an idea; rather, they are all flawed yet desirable human beings struggling with their own mortality against a wilderness far more powerful than they are. The journey the characters make toward understanding what is essential for their survival and success is so captivating I could not put the book down. Ehle explores both life’s beauty and horror. Spoiler alert! The scene involving the snake attacks at night might be the most frightening three pages I have read in years. Forget the bogeyman and the phantoms of Stephen King — these snakes left me white-knuckled and twitching.

In 1967, John Ehle married Tony Award–winning English actress Rosemary Harris. With a film résumé that includes Beau Brummell, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, George Sand in Notorious Woman, Desdemona in Othello, Tom & Viv, and even Spider-Man, Harris has a career of legend built on a solid foundation of craft. Perhaps inspired partly by witnessing Harris’ film experiences, in 1974 Ehle released The Changing of the Guard, a book that chronicles the production of a big-budget biopic of Louis XVI. Were it not for the intensity of the writing and skillful use of metaphor that slowly overtakes the action of the book, it would be hard to believe the same man wrote both novels.

The Changing of the Guard is a prismatic display of storytelling. On the surface it tells the story of an aging British actor who sees himself as a contemporary of Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier, making his last big picture: a beautiful, sweeping costume drama of the last days of Louis XVI during the French Revolution. His real-life wife is cast to play his mistress, and her best friend is to be Marie Antoinette. From the outset the power struggle appears to be between the actor and the brash young director that the studio insisted upon. But slowly, the book evolves into Ehle’s retelling of the private life of Louis during the revolution, serving as both a metaphor for the war waged on set and the changes in the actor’s private life. The line between art and reality is crossed so frequently and subtly — almost a form of magical realism — that, in the hands of a lesser writer, the story line and conceit would be hokey and hard to follow. But from Ehle’s pen, it is completely believable. The part that makes the book painful to stomach is the needless human cruelty we are capable of inflicting upon each other — which Ehle demonstrates in broad strokes through the French Revolution and very pointedly with exquisite, tearing saber thrusts in the personal interactions between the actors and director.

Where The Land Breakers is about man versus nature and forces greater than man could comprehend, The Changing of the Guard takes on the inevitable autumn of life that comes to all of us and the painful battle with a world that no longer needs us. At their core both books explore the experience of giving yourself wholly to something bigger, greater than yourself. Be it art or the development of a farm, both are about legacies and leaving some sign that you passed through this world.

Similarly, Kevin Morgan Watson has dedicated himself to the enterprise of publishing and creating an outlet for work he believes in (and I am forever grateful to him for bringing Ehle’s books back into print). Ehle manages to look at very specific stories: the settlement and growth of the Appalachians, the transition in the film world from beautiful, bright costume dramas with stylized performances to dark, realistic depictions of life before electricity, a world of people who talk to each other like real people instead of caricatures. Ehle finds the universal struggle that speaks to readers, even if you have never built a log cabin or operated a guillotine.

Many people are preoccupied with their legacy; few people understand that legacy is something we begin creating every morning when we wake up, before we understand our own mortality. Perhaps Mooney Wright put it best: “A person becomes part of what he does . . . grows into what grows around him, and if he works the land, he comes to be the land, an owner of and slave to it.”  PS

Gwenyfar Rohler spends her days managing her family’s bookstore on Front Street.

Catching Lightnin’ Bugs

By any descriptive name, they’re pure summer evening magic

By Ray Linville

I never heard the word “firefly” until I was an overgrown adult. When I was living in the North, someone in the winter mentioned that he missed seeing fireflies.

I don’t understand why anyone would want to refer to a lightnin’ bug by any other name. The term “lightnin’ bug” is so descriptive (even if it is a beetle, not a bug — but certainly not a fly). It’s one of the few names that perfectly describes the creature.

You can say “lightnin’ bug” only once to a 2-year-old, and she will immediately know what you’re talking about. “There it is,” my granddaughter said when I asked, “Where’s the lightnin’ bug?” without any explanation.

It’s a familiar sight on summer evenings at dusk as small children marvel at the blinking lights that slowly fly above the ground to heights where they disappear from sight. In a less gentle world, children once even captured these critters to make a lantern. It would be the only light permitted in a dark room and provided the perfect setting for telling tall tales, particularly ghost stories.

When I was growing up, catching lightnin’ bugs was the summer sport of my neighborhood. From older kids, I learned early that using a Mason jar was the perfect way to catch them. The glass jar showed the evening’s collection as it increased and also let the blinking lights harmonize in a silent rhythm. It’s hard to imagine that simply staring into a jar could be so entertaining.

The lesson of catching lightnin’ bugs was not complete until we agreed to release them into the air before we went inside our houses at bedtime. It was the first way that generations of future anglers learned a “catch and release” policy before holding a rod and reel. Even though a lightnin’ bug has a life span of only two months, as kids we were convinced that it would live forever if we didn’t harm it.

As parents, when you think your kids are ready for a “birds and bees” discussion, just remember the lightnin’ bugs. All that summer magic that they produce is simply flashy flirting — males flash their lights to attract the ladies, who reply with their own flashes.

More than half of the people in North Carolina use “lightnin’ bug” exclusively as the name in contrast to about 6 percent who use only the term “firefly.” (The others use both names interchangeably.) In western parts of our country, firefly is exclusively used. Of course, they’re confused because fireflies, er, lightnin’ bugs, that live in California and places in the West don’t light up like the species in our area.

If you want to catch a flashing bug, use a Mason jar, and be sure to call it a lightnin’ bug. Just don’t call it a firefly.  PS

Ray Linville writes about Southern food, history, culture and, sometimes, Mason jars.

Small Town Talk

There’s meaning beneath and beyond the words we speak. And something in the silence between them

By Clyde Edgerton

When I was growing up, most of the men in my family — a dozen or so uncles and older cousins — didn’t talk much. A conversation on the porch on a Sunday afternoon among, say, a couple of older cousin men, my daddy, Big Clyde (my namesake uncle) and Uncle Clem would go something like this:

“I’ll tell you one thing . . . that was a big tree they cut down over there.”

Silence. Maybe four, five seconds. “Yeah . . . sure was.”

More silence. A full minute.

“Did Benny buy that sitting lawnmower?”

“Don’t think so.”

Three minutes of silence. A car comes by.

Uncle Clyde sucks on one end of a toothpick while holding the other end, making a little noise between his teeth. Then he lowers the toothpick. “I don’t think I’d want one.”

“One what — big tree?”

“Sitting lawnmower.”

Somebody yawns.

“Me neither.”

More silence.  A car comes by.

That’s pretty much it, folks.

It was different with my mother and a couple of her sisters at the grocery store or during lunch at the Golden Corral. But here’s the deal: Not only did they talk to each other, it seemed like they talked to everybody else — mostly about family, people known in common, maybe what was on the news, but also about cooking, flowers, furniture refinishing, family history, family stories, gardening, misbehavior and more family stories. I think they automatically saw strangers as interesting.

That talk from the women in my family gave me a grounding I didn’t recognize, a grounding I didn’t feel in full until adulthood. Recently, I have realized that this talk was, in a sense, important and precious.

With them, I’d walk up to a young man tending the vegetable section at the grocery store. “Oh, my goodness,” my mother or an aunt would say to the young man, “these tomatoes look almost good enough to buy. What’s your name?”

“Robert.”

“Robert what?”

“Robert Wright.”

“The Lowe’s Grove Wrights or the Oak Grove Wrights?”

“Oak Grove.”

“I’ll bet you know Harvey, Dudley’s son.”

“Yes, ma’am. He’s my uncle.”

“No! Really? I haven’t seen him in six or eight years. Did his eyes ever get OK?”

“Oh, yes ma’am. They’re all healed up now.”

“[To another aunt] Didn’t Mildred used to date him?”

“No. She dated Simon. Robert, you have an Uncle Simon?”

“Yes, ma’am. He was in here yesterday.”

And so on.

I’d be standing there. “Clyde,” my mother would say, “this nice man takes care of the vegetables.”

I grew up believing that it was OK to approach people and ask them questions, to have faith that people would more likely answer than turn back to the tomatoes.

I’m glad that as a child I spent a lot of time with these women in my family and that I wasn’t raised mainly by men who didn’t talk much. Because as in so many things, how you start out eventually comes back to either comfort or haunt you. And more and more I see the advantages of looking into another person’s face, say, sitting or standing across from me, and surfing the channels of info behind their eyes, info that’s likely to come to me in words. It’s great research for writing novels, for learning about how things work — whatever the topic might be. There is meaning in such talk. Meaning found beneath and beyond the words. Such talk is somehow connected to the way we ought to be — approaching each other, without fear, just to talk a little bit.  PS

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

Auspicious August

Have your cake — and half the icing too

By Astrid Stellanova

I’ve always gotten a kick out of how August-born Leos are creative types —extroverted and full of drama. But August-born Virgos are analytical types, who like working hard and being of service. This explains how come August is a lot of things to a lot of people: the month, for instance, we celebrate National Golf, Picnics, Peaches and, last but not least, Romance Awareness Month — with something for both sides of the spectrum to get a big old kick out of, Star Children. Ad astra — Astrid

Leo (July 23–August 22)

Gluttony is still a character defect, last time I checked. And when someone brings you a birthday cake, that does not mean you can scrape all the icing off, eat it till your stomach hurts and leave the plain old bald cake sitting there for everybody else. You know what you like, and once you’ve gone after it, you don’t care one iota if that sticks in someone’s craw as you swallow the last bite.  Celebrate yourself, Honey Child, but remember that might mean you leave at least half the icing on the cake for your friends.

Virgo (August 23–September 22

There was a time when being retro wasn’t cool. You missed that memo. Now you’ve grown into yourself and the time is finally right. Just keep that chin up and let everybody think you were simply way too cool to ever give a fiddle-fart what everybody else thought. Then become that person, Sugar.   

Libra (September 23–October 22)

Somebody ought to thank you, Captain Obvious. You have mastered the finer points of things that most people might think everyone sees. But they don’t, and you know it. So be true to yourself, Child, and let the jokes roll off your straight back. Busting out with a cuss word is not a good way to exercise your vocabulary.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21)

It has been an uphill climb for you, you’re hot and bothered, and your brain is as fried as a pork rind. Just when one weight rolls away another seems to find you. It’s easy to be you, because nobody else would take the job.  But it sure is going to have its perks; be patient.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21)

Some think you are too big for your britches and have nowhere to hide.  Maybe you are. But maybe you have the right to stand up for yourself and not be overlooked or miss being counted. Everything sure isn’t what it appears. Like my bumper sticker says, honk if you love a good argument.

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

You are still standing back, still wondering if you have what it takes.  Seriously? Does Dolly Parton let a bad hair day keep her off the stage? No, Honey. Your life didn’t start yesterday and leave you behind. It starts this very second so don’t miss it.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

What’s keeping you from the greatness you are born to enjoy? One degree of separation, my sweet pea. Only one. If you still want it, go for it. Unseen hands are reaching to help, and even if they are calloused, take them and dance.

Pisces (February 19–March 20)

Your honor student and your dog may be smarter than everybody else. But, Child, does that mean you are — all the time?  Don’t confuse pity with understanding. Also, don’t waste your last dime buying them lottery tickets, either.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Are pork and beans your two major food groups? Is Pigeon Forge your idea of heaven? Don’t apologize. Are you sure you want to be someone other than who you really are?  Bless your heart. You are just fine as you are, and pass me the Texas Pete. 

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Your reasoning lately makes no kind of sense. That’s like confusing collards with grits. When the whole mess in front of you is over and the collard stink clears from the room, the good news is your mind is going to clear, too. Blue skies are coming.

Gemini (May 21-–June 20)

Does your heart go pitter-patter when you hear a Harley? Is there a part of you that won’t be tamed? You let loose with the national anthem like you wrote it and make everybody smile. These passions are what make others love you, Sugar. Live your life out loud.

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

There’s a fine line between speaking your truth and using it like a blunt object. You scared your friends and neighbors, hollering as if that makes your argument one bit stronger. Sugar, it didn’t. Elvis died in August. The Mona Lisa was stolen in August more than a century ago — and it took two years to recover. It’s a tricky month ahead. But you don’t have to take that long to get a grip.  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.

Summer Postcards from The Edge

It’s been such a long, hot summer, we couldn’t resist the temptation to invite ten of our favorite contributing writers to uncage their overheated imaginations and tell us what’s really going on in the original photographs submitted by ten of our favorite photographers. The results, we think, are like fictional summer postcards from the edge . . .

Our Photographers:

When Tim Sayer graduated from the College of Charleston with a theater degree, he did what all promising theater majors do — he waited tables. That was until he took a surfing trip to Costa Rica with some buddies and fell in love with photography. Self-taught, Sayer has had a studio in Southern Pines for twelve years. He captured performer Raquel Reed, kind of a Lady Gaga before Lady Gaga came along, in a New York City apartment.

Andrew Sherman is a freelance photographer specializing in architecture, food and lifestyle. A Maryland native and Wilmingtonian at heart, he moved away to get his MFA in photography at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) but returned after finishing because there’s no place like Wilmington. He believes in the power of collaboration and works closely with his clients to produce clean, graphic, upbeat imagery. Find him roaming the city he loves with camera or cocktail in hand.

A Greensboro native, Lynn Donovan has been a swimmer, coach, actor, singer, dancer, pianist, accordion player, scuba diver and community volunteer. Starting out with a Brownie camera in the 1960s, she graduated to an SLR in the 1970s and continued shooting throughout her 30- year career with Greensboro Parks & Recreation’s City Arts/Community Services, as well as for pleasure. After retiring Donovan opened her own photography business.

Ginny Johnson has been photographing since college and remembers the good old days of developing her own film and printing images in a darkroom. She loves to shoot just about anything but has recently turned her camera lens to storm-chasing. The image used in this feature is from a tour in 2015. A Colorado native, Johnson has lived in North Carolina since 1982 and currently resides in Greensboro with her dog, Blackie, and cat, Rascal, and two horses.

Sam Froelich is a professional photographer and an award-winning independent film producer, whose films, such as Cabin Fever and George Washington, have been distributed worldwide. His best three productions all came in on time but way over budget — son Jake is currently senior at NC State, son Harrison a freshman at UNCC, and daughter Lucy a sophomore at Page High School. Froelich, born and raised in High Point, married a Greensboro girl, who made him move to the “big” city and for that he is eternally grateful.

You might as well say John Gessner got his start in photography on his paper route. Growing up in the Lake Region of upstate New York, one of his customers had been a still photographer during the silent movie era. Helen Hayes had a house down the street. As a boy Gessner met the famed portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh. He was hooked. He discovered a fortune-telling machine in one of the ancient arcades in Mrytle Beach.

The Tufts Archives in the Given Memorial Library is the custodian of the rich history of Pinehurst. In addition to original Donald Ross golf course plans and numerous Tufts family artifacts, the archives’ collection includes 80,000 photographic negatives by John G. Hemmer spanning over 40 years of Pinehurst history. Hemmer photographed celebrities, golfers and the unique — and sometimes fanciful — life of a thriving resort, including the occasional aquatic balancing act.

Ned Leary retired from the corporate world in 2003, bought a camera at the local Best Buy and hasn’t looked back. Self-taught, he learned the basics via endless hours of internet tutorials and numerous landscape photography workshops in America’s national parks. His portfolio has evolved from fine art landscapes to include family portraits and most recently videography, where the balance of his time and pension are currently devoted.

Mark Steelman is a full-time professional photographer and works hard to ensure anyone or anything looks its absolute best. Recalling a recent stop at the convention center, he says he took a photo of a group of women. One was particularly stressed about her photo and pleaded, “You be sure to Photoshop me.” He replied, “Ma’am, I don’t mess with perfection.” Her face beamed and she gave him a kiss right in the middle of the ballroom. What’s not to love?

Laura L. Gingerich is an award-winning freelance photographer. Her talent and gritty spirit have led her to the far corners of the world documenting relief and disaster assistance, and providing images that tell a story when words simply can’t. When she’s not on assignment, Gingerich’s popular photography workshops inspire beginners to advanced enthusiasts. You can contact her by sending an email to stoptime325@gmail.com.

Our Writers:

Virginia Holman writes both feature stories and her column “Excursions” for Salt. Her passions include kayaking, birding, teaching creative writing at UNCW and conjuring the siren songs from our salty marshlands. Her memoir of her mother’s untreated schizophrenia during the 1970s, Rescuing Patty Hearst, won a National Alliance on Mental Illness Outstanding Literature Award. She’s also been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship, and a Carter Center Mental Health Journalism Fellowship.

Maggie Dodson is the eldest and wisest child of James Dodson. She’s a reluctant New Yorker, avid biker, terrible photographer, stinky cheese lover, Stevie Nicks enthusiast, and aspiring film writer. Currently, she is copywriting her heart out for a large Manhattan-based PR firm, making short movies in her spare time, and tending to every need and want of her cinnamon-colored beagle, Billie Holiday.

Billy Ingram is OG, Original Greensboro, but spent one of his lifetimes as a movie poster designer in Beverly Hills, California. A frequent contributor to O.Henry, Ingram has written about popular culture, art and Greensboro history. His latest book, Hamburger(squared), is a collection of short essays about the city he grew up in. The volume is available at the Greensboro Historical Museum, Amazon.com and your favorite bookstore.

Ross Howell Jr. published the historical novel Forsaken with NewSouth Books of Montgomery, Alabama, in February 2016. The novel was selected as an “Okra Pick” by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA), was called “superior historical fiction detailing a cruel national past,” in Forward, and noted by Southern Living as “a solid entry into the Southern canon.” Howell is currently at work on a new novel and writes regularly for O.Henry.

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. Since the magazine’s founding five years ago, she has written humor columns and feature stories. A native of Kentucky, Johnson moved to North Carolina for a newspaper job in 1983. She has won several state and national awards for her journalism. She and her husband have called Greensboro home for more than 30 years.

Jim Moriarty is the new senior editor at PineStraw and an old golf writer. Author of two golf novels, he traveled the PGA Tour for thirty-five years writing and taking photographs for Golf World and Golf Digest. His most recent book of essays, “Playing Through,” will be released in October. He can be found at his favorite public house, affectionately referred to by at least one patron as the Bitter and Twisted.

Stephen Smith is a retired professor, a current poet and graceful voice from PineStraw’s earliest days to now. His poems, stories, columns and reviews have appeared in many periodicals and anthologies. He is the author of seven previous books of poetry and prose and is the recipient the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry, and four North Carolina Press awards.

Until this summer Serena Brown was living in Southern Pines, where she worked as senior editor of PineStraw magazine. Prior to that she was part of the award-winning team at the BBC’s prestigious arts documentary series Arena. A native Briton, Brown returned recently to the misty shores of her home country. She is now unpacking and trying very hard to remember which box contains an umbrella.

Gwenyfar Rohler is a prolific writer, reader and archivist. Her writing can be found on the pages of Salt in her column“Stagelife / Screenlife” and “Omnivorous Reader.” As a founding member of Luddites United for Preservation, she spends her days managing her family’s bookshop on Wilmington’s Front Street and in her spare time, restoring two pre-computer-age cars. She wrote this bio by lantern and sent it by pigeon.

Mark Holmberg is a writer who splits his time between Wilmington and Richmond, Virginia, where he writes for The Richmond Times-Dispatch and WVTR.com. He enjoys roaming with a camera in hand or surfing and fishing in coastal Carolina. He believes there’s some room for good ol’ printed words about believers and strays and adventurers who know anger and division make us weaker and easier to control, and that love is stronger than fear.

 

ps-feature10x10-4-8-16

Play Again

Story by Jim Moriarty   •   Photograph by John Gessner

Vickie Wilkes was a summer girl.

The Smith brothers, Billy and Er-Er, knew when to expect her the way water knows when to boil. She was from Lake City, not Gypsy, where they lived. Just like a lot of people from across the water, she spent the hot months in a cottage on the shore, building fires on the beach and Saturday nights at the amusement park. Every summer Vickie Wilkes got a little taller, a little blonder and a little, well, bigger. This escaped the notice of exactly no one, in particular Billy and Er-Er, a set of twins so similar the only way to tell them apart was because one of them had trouble pulling the starting cord on his sentences and no one liked the name Um-Um.

They watched each other eat cherry sno-cones, biting off the tips at the bottom of the paper holders to suck out the last drops. They rode three abreast on the old wooden roller coaster that moaned so badly it sounded like it was about to die of exhaustion. And they ran for the new attraction, the bumper cars with the tall poles that had floppy metal tongues on top that licked the ceiling and gave off sparks. Billy and Er-Er believed they’d scouted out which cars were the fastest ones and made straight for them the second the gate opened to make sure Vickie Wilkes got trapped in one of the slow jobs they could bang into over and over again.

“Hey,” Billy said when the three of them came stumbling out of the cage of cars. “Look at that.” He pointed at Madam Magian, the fortune telling machine straight across the midway.

Billy and Er-Er traded elbow jabs. They looked at Madam Magian. They looked at Vickie Wilkes. The Madam. The girl. They couldn’t believe they hadn’t seen it before.

“What?” Vickie asked.

“Um, um, you’re just alike,” Er-Er said.

Now, whether Vickie Wilkes had grown into it over the winter or Madam Magian had been refurbished in the off-season, there was no denying the blonde in the glass case looked as close to a dead ringer for the girl from Lake City as Billy looked like Er-Er.

“Do not,” Vickie protested in defense of her humanity.

“Do, too,” Billy said.

“Why, why don’t we ask her?” Er-Er said. They ran to Madam Magian. Billy put a quarter in and cranked the handle, two turns, like a gumball machine. The crystal ball glowed from underneath. Gears meshed deep inside like a gastrointestinal disorder. The fortune-teller’s satin-covered arm hovered above the magic cards in front of her, moving back and forth until it clunked into place. The forefinger of fate with its red nail polish — for that was the color fate always came in — stabbed the Queen of Wands. A small card appeared in the slot below. Vickie used both hands to pinch the corners and pull it out.

The crystal gazer sees a great deal

of happiness in store for you. Twice

as much to look at, twice as much to love.

PLAY AGAIN!

All summer. And maybe, um, um, forever.

ps-feature10x10-5-8-16

The Mother of Invention

Story by Stephen E. Smith   •   photograph from the Tufts Archives

Lacey Pekerman, Reliable Used Autos’ Salesman of the Month for August 1933, was seeking inner peace. He’d just sold fourteen rusty rattletraps, surpassing his nearest competitor, salesman Inky Chavis, by five clunkers, and achieving an all-time monthly record for the dealership. A drink or two and he’d be free of the karmic guilt that accompanies the sale of a used car of questionable dependability to an unsuspecting rube. Or, in this instance, fourteen unsuspecting rubes. As soon as the whisky buzz hit his prefrontal cortex, he planned on kicking back and doing what he liked to do best — float in cool water and guzzle hooch nonstop.

The Twenty-first Amendment would soon repeal Prohibition and Pekerman would no longer have to do his drinking alone on a scum-covered pond, but for now he was content to lull away the hours without the annoyance of unwanted company or a surprise visit from Eliot Ness and the Untouchables. To that end, his agile mind, always quick to grasp the possible, had conceived a means by which he could avoid leaving the water to refill his glass with moonshine or grab his favorite chaser, a lukewarm Coca-Cola.

A man of greater ambition and lesser intelligence might have constructed a small raft from an inner tube and a few stray boards and placed his drinks and chaser on top. But that option would have required effort, a commodity which Pekerman never expended without discomfort. No, he’d come up with a better plan. If he did not have access to a bar he could belly up to, he would turn his belly into a bar. After all, a man of his bulk was as buoyant as a blimp and could bob effortlessly in calm water for hours on end.

Had Pekerman been familiar with the principles of Archimedes, he might have cried “Eureka!” as he slipped off his clothes, reclined in the cool water and began balancing the first two brimming tumblers on his knobby knees. From there the plan evolved of its own volition. He placed the cola bottle on his forehead, two more glasses balanced themselves nicely on his slightly distended belly, and the remaining tumblers he held in his open palms. Flexing his ample buttocks, he propelled himself gently into the center of the pond where he floated languidly, sunlight reflecting off the glistening glassware — and for a moment, one blessed moment, he achieved a state of Nirvana-like tranquility.

Then he heard a car pull off the road and the driver and passenger scramble down the embankment to the edge of the pond. “Who’s there?” Pekerman asked.

“It’s Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker,” a man’s voice answered. “What the hell are you doing?

“I’m balancing glasses of whisky,” Pekerman yelled back.

“Do what?” Bonnie asked. “Don’t you have a job?”

“Yeah,” Pekerman answered, “I’m a crackerjack used car salesman.”

“Well,” Clyde said, “this calls for a little target practice.”

That’s when Lacey Pekerman recognized the unmistakable click-clack of a pump-action shotgun.

ps-feature10x10-7-8-16

Silence of the Frogs

Story by Serena Brown   •   Photograph by Ned Leary

“Hello?”

“Oh, Shelby, hi, it’s Beth. Thank goodness you’re there. Will you do me a big favor?”

“Of course. What do you need?”

“Will you run out and look at the end of our drive? We left a load of stuff out there for the trash men, well, anyone really, to pick up. Can you see if we left a white, stuffed dog? If it’s still there?”

“Yep. No problem. Let me just pick up a flashlight and I’ll walk down there now. You still on the road?”

“No. We pulled off for the night about an hour ago. Yes, honey, I’m talking to her right now. Mommy will be off the phone in just a minute. No. No Dora now, it’s too late. OK, one episode. Just one. Excuse me, Shelby, yes, we’re in a motel. The Star Mountain one.”

“Which now?”

“Oh, no, sorry Shel, not us. I was talking to Jennifer. Star Mountain’s in her TV show. We’re somewhere in Georgia, I think. Maybe Tennessee. There was a state line we crossed round about dark. Then Jennifer started fussing. It wasn’t but ten minutes ago but it feels like ten hours. Oh, I can hear the frogs at your end. I miss them already.”

“You don’t have frogs there?”

“I don’t know. Not where we are right now anyway. All I can hear is Nickelodeon. Ow!”

“Sorry love, I was whistling for Boyce. Damn dog’s made a break for the Stevens’ trash. Boyce!”

“Did it stop raining?”

“Yeah. Pretty soon after you left. BOYCE!”

“Shel?”

Rustle shuffle rustle. “BOYCE!” Shuffle rustle rustle. “BOYCE! Get your ass back here!”

“Shel. Are you there?”

“Yeah. Hi. The Stevenses throw out a lot of food.”

“Oh.”

“What else do you need?”

“When you get to our house, can you go round to the dog kennel?”

“Did y’all forget the dog?”

“I think we’ve got him. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know why we had a kennel, he never went in there.  Anyway, on the tree behind it there’s a birdhouse. There’s a keepsake box inside it. Please, will you take it out and burn it?”

“BOYCE!”

“Shelby?  There’s a box in the birdhouse. Please burn it.”

“Surely.”

“Thank you, Shel. Thank you. I’d better go. I need to work out where we’re heading tomorrow.”

“Your stuffed animal’s here. Boyce has got it now. BOYCE! Drop it!”

“It’s OK. He can keep it.”

“Thanks. His tail’s wagging. Boyce, not the animal. But he looks pretty happy too.”

“Good. Thanks, Shel.”

“Anytime. I’ll say goodbye now, but I’m going to hang up back at the house so you can hear the frogs, OK?”

“Yeah. Bye, Shel.”

“Goodbye, Beth. Send a postcard. Here are the frogs.”

ps-feature10x10-6-8-16

Brand New Me

Story by Maggie Dodson   •   Photograph by Tim Sayer

Dear Rob,

I got your postcard from rehab. It looks like a very restorative location. I suppose it makes sense that sweeping views of the ocean and 24-hour hot yoga have incredible healing properties. I sure do wish you’d send some of those properties my way to repair the hole you punched in my wall.

Gratefully no longer yours,

Penny

 

Dear Karen,

Operation self-love is in full effect. Yesterday I burned all of Rob’s old shirts and ate not one — but four brownies. They were divine. On Mom’s advice I took up Web therapy and started chatting with a woman named Promise. She seems promising. And expensive.

Later, on a drive through the south side of town, the sun was shining, Jimmy Buffett was on the radio, and I stopped by a garage sale and picked up a box of dumbbells. Maybe my dream of becoming a weightlifting, buff-goddess is in my future after all. Who knew?

Give Jo-Jo a kiss for me.

Xo

Penny

 

Dear Amazon Customer Service,

I wanted to reach out and say “thank you” to Joyce, the woman who answered my phone call on Sunday evening and endured the gruesome details of how my relationship ended in what can only be described as a fiery ball of hell. I didn’t mean to break down over my purchase of bedazzled magenta curtains, but Joyce met my sobs with patience, kindness and wisdom. She offered advice, noting that the healing process takes time, comes in many shapes and forms and that there’s always solace in a big piece of apple pie. Human kindness can be hard to come by these days, especially in the world of online shopping, but Joyce’s sweetness will stick with me. You’ve got a great woman on your
customer-care team.

Also, thank you for the full refund. On further thought, plain white curtains were better suited to my tastes and less glaring.

A satisfied customer,

Penny

 

Dear Application Manager,

I am writing in relation to the two cats up for adoption on the Furry Friends website, Betty Friedan and Judy Bloom. I’m in the midst a personal journey and though I’ve taken it in stride — new job, new hair color, new mindset — I find nights get lonely when adopting a new world philosophy. I feel two felines are the purrfect pair for my progressive lifestyle.

As I mentioned, I’ve just begun a new job and I’m thriving. Outside of work, I bake, garden, get tattoos I don’t tell my mother about and recite poetry at a coffee shop downtown. I excel at feeding animals on time and letting go of things that aren’t good for me. Some say I’m a force to be reckoned with but my sister says I’ve got a good heart . . . I just need to find a person to nurture it.

So while I’m searching for Mr. Right, Betty and Judy would bring me comfort and provide me with cuddles when I need them most.

Eagerly awaiting your response,

Penny

ps-feature10x10-1-8-16

Black Limbertwig

Story by Virginia Holman   •   Photograph by Andrew Sherman

Each Sunday, Great Grandmother Zelia, propped in her wingback chair, declared she wished to see one place before she died, her old farm. No one could bear to tell her it was gone, sold by her great nephew soon after she’d moved to assisted living. Her facility was good and the staff generous, but it took a lifetime’s assets and her monthly Social Security check to secure good care.  Mother politely entertained the notion of a trip to the farm, so as not to crush Zelia’s spirit, but not for too long, because that would raise her hopes. Zelia was easily distracted, so in that way, the conversation was deferred.

Two years before Zelia died, she offered me her sturdy 1971 Buick Estate station wagon as a sixteenth birthday present. For two decades she’d driven it to the holy trinity: Safeway, the post office, and the Caledonia Methodist Church. 23,000 miles. Mint, except for some rust, and free, or so I thought.

Soon, I was called upon to run small errands. In time, my duties grew. One morning, I was summoned to take Zelia to her cardiology appointment. Patsy, her nurse at assisted living, wheeled her to the wagon, and tucked her into the passenger’s seat.

“See you at supper, Mrs. Woods,” she said and patted her hand flat against the window to say good-bye.

Patsy had sprayed Zelia’s hair a bit, which looked odd, like a fluff of cotton candy. Usually, Zelia wore it parted simply on the side with a tidy row of bangs. Teased up like this, her scalp shone through, pink and alive.

“Thank you for taking me to the farm, dear,” Zelia said with a sigh.

“The farm?” I said. Sly old Zelia. Her face was mapped with creases so deep you had to study her features to see what she used to look like. Her eyes were the color of new leaves. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. Zelia and I were now both too old for my mother’s scoldings. I’d languished that summer, bored to a stupor. I earned some money babysitting for women in Forest View who dressed in silk shantung to play bridge and drink with one another. Absurd. The world was absurd, my new favorite word, and I pronounced the s like a z, which I’d picked up from plump Mrs. Sterling, who’d once lived in Stockholm for an entire year, and seemed impossibly sophisticated.

“All right, Zelia,” I said. What were forty miles and a missed appointment?

As a child, the farm seemed remote, an interminable journey from rolling green field to rolling green field. Now it was traffic and stores and fumes. The farms were gone, subdivided and replaced with houses so close together you could almost pass the sugar from one kitchen window to another.

Along the way to her old farm, Zelia told me of her marriage to Henry Woods, and of their glorious month-long honeymoon across the Southeast. Henry had arranged to stop at successful farms along the way to learn from more experienced farmers. Some gave him seeds, which he labeled and placed in coffee cans. At the end of the final visit, an old farmer and his wife dug up a sapling from their orchard as a wedding gift, a Black Limbertwig apple tree.

Henry, she said, tended that tree as if his success as a farmer depended upon it. He picked a spot somewhat sheltered from the wind, dug the hole, softened the soil, then gently flayed the roots with his thumbnail. Their soil wasn’t rich, so when the limbs seemed to droop as it grew Zelia was concerned, but not Henry. By the second winter, it had fruit buds. The third summer, it fruited. That fall he took a photo: his lovely Zelia with a perfect Black Limbertwig apple, the first ever in Caledonia. Eight months later their first girl, Rose, was born.

I started to tremble as Zelia and I got closer to the old Woods’ farm, until I understood that my mother’s persistent refusals were generous. What good could come from replacing Zelia’s cherished memories with the terrible fact of its ruin? I pretended to be lost, killing time until I became so turned around I had to stop for directions at a small, two-pump general store on the outskirts of town. Beside the store was a field that needed bush-hogging. Orange daylilies ran wild in the ditches. There was a derelict barn, and beyond it, like a blessing, a small orchard, the trees gnarled and blighted, but still fruiting.

“Look, Zelia,” I said. “Limbertwigs.” I couldn’t walk her to the trees, so she waited in the wagon as I trudged through the field, trespassing. I picked as many apples as I could carry in the front of my untucked shirt. Her old Estate smelled of cider the whole drive back.

When I returned to assisted living with Zelia, my mother was waiting outside beside Patsy. She flew out to the parking lot in a purple-lipped fit, but when she saw Zelia dozing with the unripe apples in her lap, she quietly opened the back door and slid in behind me. We shared one of those tart, rough-skinned apples right there, while Zelia snored and the engine ticked in the heat. Tears poured down my mother’s face. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them.

I saved those seeds and used them over the years to start three separate orchards. Are they Henry’s Black Limbertwigs? Why, they must be, for when I gather those apples and close my eyes, there’s my mother and there’s Zelia — conjured clearer than any memory — almost close enough to touch.

ps-feature10x10-8-8-16

Catamount

Story by Ross Howell Jr.   •   Photograph by Lynn Donovan

Whit added honey to the chai, tapped the spoon on the sink and carried the mug to the glass doors overlooking the gorge.

His wife sat on the deck in a chair by the railing. She was wearing his wool coat and cap with earflaps from his years at Bowdoin. Her pink bandanna peeked from under the cap.

He cracked the door.

“Robyn?” he said. “Won’t you come in? It’s cold as the bejesus.”

Her face was pale.

“No,” she said. “I like it.” The mug steamed the glass.

He stepped outside and handed her the tea.

“See if it’s all right,” he said.

She took the mug and sipped, then smiled and nodded.

“Perfect,” she said. She pointed to the sky. Her mitten looked like a big paw.

“See the belt?” she asked.

He saw three stars in a row.

“Yes,” he said. “Orion, the hunter.”

She sipped, cradling the mug with her mittens.

“I heard it again,” she said. “Just now.”

“Maybe it was the windmill,” he said. “Thing’s rusty as hell.”

“No wind,” she said. “Still as the grave. I’m just telling you.”

“Sweetie, there haven’t been panthers in these mountains for generations.”

His ears stung. He rubbed his hands together.

“I’m freezing,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”

“In a little,” she said.

She turned as he opened the door. Her eyes were bright.

“Funny how it can come back,” she said.

“You’re doing great,” he said. “All the doctors say so. Don’t freeze out here.”

She smiled.

“All right,” she said.

He went to the sink and rinsed the spoon. He put the chai and honey in the cabinet. He went to the fireplace, poked the embers, and added two split pieces of oak. Splinters crackled. Sparks glittered as they rose from the hearth.

He looked out the glass doors. The mug was sitting on the rail. The chair was empty.

“Jesus,” he said. He grabbed a wool cap and threw on his down vest. He flung open the door.

“Robyn?” he called. “Robyn?”

He trotted down the stairs of the deck, stumbled on a root at the base of the steps. He’d forgotten the damn flashlight.

“Robyn?”

Then he heard it. In the gorge, the mewling of a child.

“Jesus,” he said. He started to run. Briars tore at his fingers and vest. Branches whipped his face. He burst through a thicket into a clearing.

Robyn stood in the middle, her back to him. She clutched his cap and the bandanna in a mitten. Her bare pate undulated in the moonlight.

Beyond her, he saw darkness crouched. The evanescence of breath. Pure white fangs.

“Robyn!” he shouted.

The big cat vanished.

She turned to him, her face the one he’d fallen in love with when she was a girl.

“Did you see, Whit?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“I wasn’t afraid,” she said. “I wasn’t afraid at all.”

ps-feature10x10-9-8-16

Come Saturday Morning

Story by Billy Ingram   •   Photograph by Ginny Johnson

They say before death, life passes before your eyes. So it was for William Binder Batson II as he dismissed well-meaning hospice workers in order to leave this world on his own terms.

Breathing reduced to a death rattle, William reflected on what had been a hardscrabble existence from the very beginning. Orphaned as a toddler, he went to work while still in elementary school, hawking newspapers on one of Manhattan’s busiest intersections. Hardly his fault when the naive youngster was lured by a shadowy figure into a dark, deserted portion of the nearby subway station where he was met by six wise and powerful men who were well-meaning in their generosity but the out-of-body experience left him confounded and conflicted.

The incident that followed left the boy with what might charitably be called the most severe case of split personality imaginable. He escaped into a world where jungle cats spoke to him in aristocratic English; a warped consciousness in which even a tiny earthworm was perceived as a dire threat with malevolent intent.

It wasn’t until he turned 15 that William’s life took a turn for the better after he met a kindly older gentleman who offered the troubled teen his tutorage, teaching him how to trust again. They spent the better part of the 1970s traveling country backroads in a custom Winnebago; at each stop they found a way to enrich the lives of strangers. This impressed the young man who also appreciated that this unlikely patron called him by his boyhood nickname, “Billy.” Anthropomorphic animals and insects no longer plagued his mind.

The two eventually settled into a farmhouse outside a small town in Kansas, the older man tilling soil while William took a job at a family-owned hardware store. Townfolk admired the clean-cut lad who, they noticed, never cursed; closest he ever came was referring to “the ‘S’ word,” one that will never pass from his lips again. How respectful, everyone thought. Why, then, was it he never found the right girl or never managed to have any close relationships? Almost as if there was a secret held close, one so awesome he dare not share it with anyone other than the elderly man that took him in and accepted, without judgment, what he was capable of.

It was barely six months ago that William (nobody had called him Billy since his mentor passed away) was given the terrible diagnosis: terminal cancer of the liver. With health rapidly deteriorating, he began to confront the reality of his tenuous mortality and consider what life after death might entail.

So it came to be that, with no more than a few breaths remaining, William Batson spoke that word he had avoided since his teen years. In an instant, thunder rumbled the floorboards beneath his bed, a bolt of lightning sent down by the gods pierced the ceiling and the dying man vanished, in his place stood a virile collegiate athlete in a bright red bodysuit.

Ironically, this revitalized individual can never speak “the ‘S’ word” William ended his life with. For if Captain Marvel ever utters the word “Shazam” he’ll revert back to Billy Batson and Billy Batson is dead.

ps-feature10x10-10-8-16

Soup’s On

Story by Maria Johnson   •   Photograph by Sam Froelich

Clear down to the river, Ashe could hear the public radio talk show wafting from the mountain cabin that his family rented every summer.

A radio-show caller was talking about how she’d a picked a peck of peaches, which was more than she bargained for. She wanted the show’s host, a lady with a rich deep voice that reminded Ashe of his pillar-like Aunt Terry, to tell her what to do with the remainders.

“Do you know what would be really good?” the Aunt Terry
soundalike said.

“What?” said the caller.

“Peach soup,” said Aunt Terry.

“Peach soup?” said the caller. “I’ve never heard of peach soup.”

“THAT’S BECAUSE NO ONE EATS PEACH SOUP!” hollered Ashe’s mother, who was up in the cabin. The Aunt Terry impostor went on about the peach soup.

“You don’t see it very much. But I once had it in Savannah, and it was out of this world,” she said. “So go to your refrigerator and get some coconut water and some fresh ginger, then take your food processor and . . .”

“OH! OH! COCONUT WATER AND FRESH GINGER! WELL, JUST LET ME LOOK IN THE CRISPER! HONEST TO GOD. . .” hollered Ashe’s mother.

Ashe knew that, as much as she protested, his mom would be asking if they had any coconut water and fresh ginger when she went down to the Food King this afternoon. He smiled to himself. His chin rested on his knees. His knees rested over his spongy green Crocs, which had taken on the funky metallic smell of the lake.

He and his older brother Hoke had crewed their new rubber raft all along the shore until two days ago, when a neighbor’s Fourth of July bottle rocket had landed, still glowing, on the raft while it was dry-docked on a picnic table.

The boys’ father was determined to mend the wound. He and Hoke had gone to the marina store in search of a patch kit. Ashe took the opportunity to go fishing by himself at the river that hooked around the cabin and emptied into the lake.

Folded up on a concrete finger that had braced a long-gone pier, Ashe cradled his grandfather’s old Zebco rod and reel in front of him. A ragged mound of mosquito bite itched the back of his left hand. He scratched it with his right hand and waved off a fly.

Presently, his thoughts stilled, and particles of the present sifted down to the bedrock of memory. Cicadas thrummed the rhythm of summer. In the river’s still places, Jesus bugs walked on the water. A swarm of gnats hovered over ripples. Minnows huddled on the shady side of the concrete bar. A breeze slid through the leaves. Even the air had a distinct character.

A voice popped the bubble.

“Catch anything?”

“No,” said Ashe.

“Toldya,” said Hoke. “C’mon, we found a patch. You can blow up the raft.”

Ashe stood to reel in his line. The wet cricket at the end had stopped kicking. Ashe gently removed it from the hook.

The cricket would not die in vain, Ashe decided. It would find new life when Hoke unearthed it in a bowl of peach soup tonight.

ps-feature10x10-3-8-16

Spinnin’ Platters

Story by Gwenyfar Rohler   •   Photograph by Mark Steelman

“I’m worried about your father.” My mother didn’t even let me get inside the kitchen door before she rounded on me with a spatula in her hand. The unmistakable rhythm of the opening chords of “Peggy Sue” vibrated through the walls. Mom flipped a pancake in the cast iron skillet. It was breakfast-for-dinner-night — which meant she was really worried about Daddy. “He’s been playing those records all day.” Buddy Holly’s guitar was turned up at top volume, a shock in a house where one could pinpoint each family member by the sound of their footsteps.  Her normally domineering voice was almost drowned out, and I wondered if part of her annoyance wasn’t just that for the first time in my memory she wasn’t the most powerful sound at home. She shook her head again, this time with a jerk of impatience. “This has something to do with his ex-girlfriends.” She picked up a paring knife and began slicing peaches to go on top of the pancakes.

“Haven’t you guys been married for like forty years?” I asked. “What do his ex-girlfriends have to do with this?” I snagged a piece of bacon from the plate on the center of the stove. “Are they even still alive?”

“Go check on your father.” She swatted my hand away from the plate. “Go.” She gestured with the knife down the hallway.

One does not argue with a well-armed matriarch.

I went.

In the living room my father was sprawled across his favorite upholstered chair with the carelessness of late adolescence: limbs floppy and akimbo, still-shod feet up on the coffee table. His eyes were closed singing along with the music, periodically directing part of the band with one hand in the air. Two speakers, like obese standard poodles, had been hauled down from the attic. They were still covered in dust — except for his handprints — and connected by huge loops of new speaker cord to the record player and amplifier that had materialized from some place of hiding.

“Hi Daddy . . .” I ventured. Somehow this didn’t look like something that I should interrupt.

“Hi Kitty.” He hit a few drumbeats in the air. “Have you met Buddy? Buddy, this is my daughter, Kitty.” He opened his eyes and looked straight at me. “Do not ever get on a non-commercial flight in an ice storm.” He stared at me intensely and with deep meaning. “Do you hear me? Not ever.” He underscored this last point with a finger slash through the air.

“OK . . . I promise.”

“Good.” He closed his eyes again. I backed out of the room feeling that I was somehow intruding on a world that I could never understand.

Back in the kitchen Mom asked me what I had learned. Were the ex-girlfriends, in fact, at the root of this?

“Um, no, apparently this is about non-commercial aviation and ice storms,” I reflected. “So I think this is about Howard Hughes.”

“Alan Fried, you mean. And no, don’t be fooled by that. This is about more than just an isolated incident.” She cocked her head to listen to the sudden silence. Daddy’s shaking hand scratched the record a bit when he tried to drop the needle on the next disc, then a groovy guitar pierced the air with a slight cymbal and the unmistakable wail of Janis Joplin.

“Oh, no, he didn’t!” Mom looked toward the living room. You know you got it, oooh wooaaoh  if it makes you feel . . . Janis crooned. Mom ran a hand through her hair, then turned back to me. “You should go spend the night at a friend’s house tonight.”

ps-feature10x10-2-8-16

Connected

Story by Mark Holmberg   •   Photograph by Laura Gingerich

It was a short, hand-written letter that marched right into Margie’s soul with each neatly penned word.

I was on Bus 28, it said. It was me who was with you that day, who left you the note with the ring at the hospital. I read of your husband’s death last year, and I hoped you might meet me so I can share something that has long been on my heart.

The letter was signed Tony Pyanoe, and listed a date, time and, surprisingly, she and her late husband’s favorite Italian restaurant.

Margie knew right where that old mysterious note was. She found her J.T. Hoggard class of ’71 yearbook filled with heartfelt and tearful messages written by virtually all of her classmates.The folded note slid easily out from under the cover. It had come to her hospital room forty-five years earlier in an anonymous envelope with a simple, wedding band-like ring.

I have long admired you and am so glad you survived. We had nothing in common at school, but our blood mixed on the bus that day. I wish you a long life and I will always love you.

She put down the strange note and thumbed to the Ps in her yearbook.

Ahh, that Tony, she thought, looking at the stamp-sized photo.

They had shared a few classes. He was a quiet, awkward boy, his hair already thinning. One of the nerds, she recalled. He was the son of Italian immigrants — working class. Far from rich, unlike her family, who owned big chunks of Wilmington real estate. And Margie had been as beautiful and popular as she had been rich. She had been the Homecoming Queen. Her boyfriend was the star of the lacrosse and football teams. Her boyfriend . . .

He had been sitting next to her on Bus 28 during a senior field trip when the bus driver apparently suffered a heart attack and drove through the College Road intersection. They were T-boned by a tractor-trailer.

Her boyfriend was killed instantly, along with three other students. It was the worst school bus crash in North Carolina history.

She woke up in the hospital with no idea what had happened. Along with several broken bones she had suffered a deep laceration to her neck that left a long, high-ridged scar that she looked at every day.

Her doctors had told her one of her fellow students apparently kept her from bleeding to death, but the rescue scene was so chaotic, no one really knew exactly what had happened.

Margie went to her jewelry box and found the ring. She had worn it for years, imagining a hero student and remembering how lucky she was. When she got married, she took the ring off, but noticed it frequently while getting dressed.

She slid it on her right ring finger and decided to go.

Tony had gone to Vietnam a year after the crash and had eventually become an engineer, he told Margie at the restaurant. He had married and raised a family. His wife had died of cancer two years earlier.

He looked like a much-older version of the nondescript boy in the yearbook. But there was kindness and strength in his eyes.

“I never forgot you,” he told her as they ate their entrees.

Like many boys at Hoggard, he had idolized her, he said, not because she was beautiful, but because she was kind.

“When the bus crashed, my first thought was of you,” he told her, his brown eyes gazing into hers.

“Both my arms were broken,” he said. “I couldn’t feel my hands. But I crawled over to you and blood was pumping out of your beautiful neck.”

Subconsciously, she lifted her hand and felt her scar — something she did a dozen times a day.

“So I lay down beside you and kissed your neck. I used my lips to draw the wound together and put enough pressure to keep the blood from spurting until the medics came.”

He reached out his hand and Margie took her hand from her neck and put it in his.

“I know how crazy this sounds,” he continued, “but in the midst of that crazy disaster, all I could think about was how beautiful you smelled, how wonderful it was to be that close.”

Margie could hardly believe what she was hearing.

“Why didn’t you tell me this back then?” Margie asked. “Why the anonymous note?”

“I knew you were destined for better things,” Tony said. “By the time I got my engineering degree and a decent job, you were already married.”

She looked at the simple ring — it still fit nicely — as the waitress brought their dessert. Such an odd thing, the way this virtual stranger was making her feel. So comfortable, so protected, so cherished. And so not alone. And there was this powerful feeling of an old, nagging mystery being solved at last.

“All these years I’ve dreamed of being this close to you again,” he said, leaning across the table.

“I’ve seen your face, smelled your hair in a thousand dreams. For so long I desperately wanted to kiss you again, even if for just one moment.”

Margie found herself leaning across her coffee. His fingers gently touched that scar on her neck, and then they were in her hair as he pulled her close for the kiss that would change the rest of their lives — forever.

Dawn Patrol

Look for the common nighthawk at sunup or sundown

By Susan Campbell

Common nighthawks can be found all across the Sandhills and throughout Piedmont North Carolina, but they are neither “common” nor are they “hawks.”

For one thing, nighthawks feed exclusively on insects, which they dine on mostly during the night. Nor do they grab their prey using their talons as true hawks do. Instead they use their oversized mouths to snap up beetles and other insects in mid-air.

Nighthawks take to the skies mainly at dawn and dusk when insects are most active. Given their aerodynamic prowess, though, nighthawks are very successful predators at any hour. Due to their terrific night vision, they’re able to hunt quite effectively in total darkness. It is not, however, unusual to see them feeding during daylight hours, especially when they have young to feed. Look for them in early summer, when cicadas, grasshoppers, larger wasps and other bugs are especially abundant. Their characteristic low “peee-nt” call and erratic moth-like flight is unmistakable.

Common nighthawks spend much of their day perched on pine branches. Invisibility is the goal, and it is easily attained with their mottled black, gray and white feathering. Their nests also are well camouflaged. On the forest floor, females simply scrape out a spot to lay their speckled egg, which blend in well with the mineral soil and miscellaneous debris typical of native arid terrain. Females perform a feeble “broken wing” display when disturbed. This is the only defense they have to draw potential predators away from the eggs or young.

A great place to encounter a nighthawk is at an airport or any other large open area. There, you’ll likely hear the unmistakable “booming” of males during the early morning. The unique noise is not a vocalization but comes from air passing over the wing feathers of breeding males as they dive through the air.

Unlike some other species, the urbanization of the Triad and Sandhills has not taken a big toll on nighthawks. For instance, the abundant insects drawn to floodlights at the Piedmont’s many athletic fields and other outdoor venues provide nighthawks with excellent habitat to support their families. And nighthawks are one of only a handful of bird species that seem perfectly at home nesting on flat rooftops. It is not unusual to see or hear nighthawks at summer baseball games or early fall football games throughout the region.

Found in so many open areas in the Eastern United States in summer, common nighthawks begin to move south in early fall — often in large flocks. They migrate long distances to winter destinations in Central America and northern South America. But all across Piedmont North Carolina during August and September, you can spot them just before dark in the evening or early in the morning. So you have lots of time left to spot a nighthawk this season — keep an eye out! PS

Susan would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted by email at susan@ncaves.com or by phone at (910) 695-0651.

August

One for the Kids

This month, as part of the popular Movies by the Lake series, The Aberdeen Parks and Recreation Departments and sponsors will show The Good Dinosaur, a Disney/Pixar film that follows a young Apatosaurus named Arlo and his unlikely friend, a feral cave boy named Spot. On Friday, August 12, from 8:15–9:30 p.m., bring the whole family along to experience this Jurassic adventure on the big screen. Free admission; concessions available for purchase. Aberdeen Lake Park, 301 Lake Park Crossing, Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-7275 or townofaberdeen.net.

Band Together

On Sunday, August 7, 3 p.m., Weymouth Woods Nature Study features Hummingbird Banding with Ornithologist Susan Cambpell. Witness the delicate process of handling these tiny birds, collecting data, and banding and releasing them — a rare and specialized activity that will render you absolutely spellbound. And if you get a chance to explore a longleaf trail, who knows what other wild things you’ll encounter? Weymouth Woods-Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

General Admission

Join Retired Maj. Jason Hawk for In & Out at the Outpost on Thursday, August 25, at 7 p.m. This free lecture will focus on the life and legacy of Gen. George C. Marshall, the soldier and statesman whom Winston Churchill called “the last great American.” Marshall had a home on Linden Road from 1944 until his death in 1959. Learn more about Marshall’s life and connection to Pinehurst during this summer evening program. Given Outpost, 95 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-7002.

Banjo-ification

On August 5, 5–8:30 p.m., First Friday presents Parsonsfield, a five-piece alt/folk band from Northampton, Massachusetts. Think: banjo in the park with a rowdy, rock ’n’ roll spirit that stomps out all the rules. Chris Freeman (vocals, banjo), Antonio Alcorn (mandolin), Max Shakun (vocals, pump organ, guitar), Harrison Goodale (bass), and Erik Hischmann (drums) recorded their debut album in 2013 under the moniker Poor Old Shine, but changed their name in July 2014 following their inspired experiences recording two albums in Parsonsfield, Maine, at producer Sam Kassirer’s farmhouse studio/retreat. Rain or shine, First Friday concerts are free and open to the public. Food and beverages available for purchase. Alexandra King opens. The Preservation Green (grassy lot) adjacent to the Sunrise Theater, 250 Northwest Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8501 or firstfridaysouthernpines.com. 

Frank Admiration

On Thursday, August 18, beginning at 7:30 a.m., golf professional Scott Holmes will attempt to play one-hundred holes of golf in 12 hours as a tribute to his late uncle, Frank Smither. Frank lived with a developmental disability and was an active member of The Arc of Moore County and the community for many years. Pledges per hole and flat donations will benefit The Arc’s social and recreational programs, which Frank loved. “Fore For Frank” will take place on Course #4 at Pinehurst Resort. Friends of The Arc who sponsor or contribute $100 or more will be invited to an evening celebration and entered into a raffle to win two tickets to “An Evening With David Feherty,” a benefit for the Linden Lodge Foundation on Friday, August 19. For more information or to volunteer, please contact The Arc of Moore County at (910) 692-8272. Donate here: www.foreforfrank.com.

Pop Goes the Matrix

The Dancing Dream is a professional ABBA tribute band based in New York City and so close to the real deal that watching them will feel like experiencing a glitch in the matrix. And you’ll love it. On Sunday, August 28, at 3 p.m. Vision 4 Moore presents “A Tribute to ABBA”, a high-energy concert that benefits Meals on Wheels of the Sandhills and The Linden Lodge Foundation. In 2012, this sparkling tribute band appeared on The Colbert Report. Don’t miss the chance to see them play in the Pines. Tickets: $25 (general admission); $30 (day of show); $35 (center orchestra). Robert E. Lee Auditorium, 250 Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 365-9890 or www.vision4moore.com.

Making Paper

On Tuesday, August 16, from 9:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., artist Kathy Leuck will lead “Playing with Paper”, a crafty workshop for students of all levels. Alter paper in ways you’ve never imagined. Use a sewing machine and Gelli printing plate, make your own rules, and create one-of-a-kind note cards and collages that will change the way you look at paper evermore. Cost: $50; $45 (associate members); $40 (members). Includes lunch. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange Street, Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979 or www.artistleague.org.

Carolina Chronicles

In Slave Escapes & the Underground Railroad in North Carolina, authors
J. Timothy Allen and Steve M. Miller use harrowing first-hand accounts to investigate how African Americans escaped oppression in a dark chapter of Tarheel State history. Hear them discuss Quaker safe houses and freed slave communities on Saturday, August 27, 4 p.m., at this free Meet the Author event. The Country Bookshop, 140 Northwest Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

Bosom Buddies

Three words: Sugar Kane Kowalczyk. On Thursday, August 4, at 7:30 p.m., Sunrise Theater Summer Classic Series presents Some Like it Hot (1959), the  Billy Wilder film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. When two Chicago musicians witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Joe and Jerry flee town (in drag!) as Josephine and Daphne, the newest members of an all-female band fronted by a ukulele-playing blonde named Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Monroe). Mayhem and hilarity ensue. Screening sponsored by Whit Lauter. Tickets: $6. Sunrise Theater, 250 Northwest Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8501 or sunrisetheater.com. 

Planting Happiness

Lunch and Learn in the Gardens with Master Gardener Bruce Fensley will ready you for Mama’s spicy collards. On Monday, August 22, learn when to plant which root and leaf crops and how to plan for fresh veggies all fall and winter. Free one-hour workshop begins at noon. Bring your own lunch; drinks provided. Ball Visitors Center, Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Register by email: landscapegardening@sandhills.edu. Info: (910) 695-3882 or sandhillshorticulturalgardens.com.  PS