Category: August 2017

The Life Electric

Recalling encounters that were too close to Nature’s fury

 

By Tom Bryant

In the far distance, down around Camp Mackall, I could hear thunder boomers, or maybe troops practicing with their howitzers. Our weather had been unseasonably cool for a couple of days as a Canada cold front brought in lower humidity and temperatures. I was backed up in the pines bordering a milo field, kicked back on the tailgate of the Bronco at the little farm in the southern part of the county that I lease for bird hunting. It’s one of my favorite spots. Linda, my bride, calls it my escape place.

Thunder became more prevalent, and I watched as giant cumulus clouds rose skyward at a storm’s pace. They were outlined in white from the sun but were an ominous grey, almost a black color deep in the interior. This is going to be some gale, I thought as I watched the clouds become wider and more pronounced. Lightning was skittering across the top, adding a real threat to the storm. It was too late to head home, so I decided to ride it out away from the taller trees and moved the Bronco back in a stand of smaller pines.

The whole southern sky was now a boiling grey mass of rolling clouds, moving north. I had just enough time to roll up the windows and close the back gate before big drops of rain splattered the little vehicle. I climbed in the passenger’s side and had just shut the door when a huge lightning strike illuminated the shadows of the pines like a flash bulb. It was almost simultaneously followed by thunder that seemed to rock the truck. That was too close, I thought, and I watched as a dark grey sheet of rain headed my way, shutting down visibility. From then on, it was a thunder and lightning show.

I’ve had some close calls with thunderstorms and have been extraordinarily lucky a couple of times, so no one respects the power of lightning more than me. As rain hammered the little Bronco, I thought back to a narrow escape I had several years ago. It was the early part of dove season, and I was hunting along a tobacco field where I noticed birds that were picking up sand grit for their craw. I parked the Bronco on a small hill overlooking the area and walked around the tree line to a wooded point anchored by a giant white oak. The spot was bordered on both sides by tobacco and gave me a great view of both fields.

It was a little after 2 o’clock, and I had promised Linda that I’d be home in plenty of time to get ready for a dinner invitation that evening. Over the hills toward the north, I could hear the first ominous sounds of thunder, so I decided to skirt around the closest field to see if I could jump a few birds before calling it a day. A pond anchored the south side of the farm, and my plan was to make a circle around the field, starting at the pond, ultimately ending my walk back at the truck.

A dirt road a little wider than a car bisected the two fields and I came out on the south end, about a mile from my vehicle. Black clouds outlined the northern tree line, and I could see flashes of lightning and hear thunder as the storm headed my way. I decided to cancel the hunt and picked up my pace as I walked toward the Bronco. A few drops of rain hurried me along.

Suddenly, a dove jumped up in the field on my left and I dropped it in the tobacco. Paddle, my little yellow Lab and long-time hunting companion, had died the winter before at the age of 14. I missed her tremendously. She would have found the bird and had it back to me in no time, but now I had to be the retriever. I angled in the field to look up and down the rows of head-high tobacco.

I spotted the dove and hurried to it so I could hopefully beat the storm to the truck. I had just picked up the bird when I had the weirdest sensation. Hair on my arms and the back of my neck seemed to stand up, and the sky became bright under the lowering clouds. Instinctively, I knelt and laid my shotgun down as if I knew what was coming. The gun and I had just hit the ground when a deafening crash of lightning and thunder shook the field. For a second, I was stunned, and then I grabbed the gun and the bird and hustled to the truck in a downpour that drenched me as if I had jumped in the pond.

The next day I rode back out to the farm and found that the white oak tree on the point of land where I began the dove hunt was where the lightning hit. There was a strip down the tree about a foot wide where bark had been slashed in the lightning strike. The spot where I knelt down in the tobacco field was about 90 paces from the tree.

Another run-in with lightning occurred when a good friend and I were paddling the Haw River right below the new dam that would eventually back up waters to form Jordan Lake. It was the beginning of an epic adventure; but as they say, that’s another story for another time. We had just portaged around the dam and were heading down river to where the Deep and the Haw rivers form the Cape Fear River. Right beyond the dam, the banks of the Haw were steep from lake construction, and we were in a hurry to get where we could exit the river because a storm was coming. We didn’t make it. We were on the river in a Grumman aluminum canoe when thunder and lightning began in earnest. It was raining so hard we had to bail water every now and then. Lightning was striking all around us and all we could do was hold on to the brush on the side of the bank and keep our fingers crossed. It worked. Mother Nature decided to let us make it through the storm and continue our trip.

That was close call number two. I hope I don’t have a number three.

In a bit, I drove out to one of the old barns on the farm to use the shed for a refuge. I got a drink from the cooler and a pack of nabs and my dove stool and found a dry corner. It was comfortable under the barn overhang, and I watched as the grey clouds seemed to be getting lighter. Thunder grumbled to the north of the little farm as the storm moved and a steamy haze rose off the fields, promising a return to summer heat. I decided to pack it in for the day. I put my stuff in the truck and fired her up.

The U.S. has a yearly average of 47 fatalities of people struck by lightning. I’m lucky not to have added to that statistic, and I think about that every time I hear the distant rumble of thunder. PS

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

A Meandering Mind

A smell of pine and men at work

 

By Bill Thompson

I tend to meander through the past sometimes — more as I get older. Meandering is the perfect word for my thought process since it means there is no obvious direction involved, nothing of substance happening, and no specific goal in mind. Just about anything can set off my meandering. Just the other day, a log truck tried to turn the corner too short as it came out of the woods just down the road from my house. As a result, the trailer overturned and deposited about 20 pine logs on the road. Traffic was held up in both directions. As is the Southern custom, when traffic stops anywhere for more than five minutes, you get out of the car and walk to wherever the source of the holdup is. Part of that effort is to determine what caused the holdup, but the most important element is to tell whoever is in charge of clearing up the situation how to do it.

It was the smell of the pine logs that set off my meandering that day. When I was growing up in the little hamlet of Hallsboro, the lumber industry and farming were the main sources of income for the inhabitants. Even if your primary occupation was farming, you had to cut some of the trees on the farm to either clear the land for planting or provide some cash to tide you over until the crops came in.

Cutting timber assaulted and embraced the senses. Not all the woodland where I grew up was in the swamp, but it was usually wet nonetheless. So when folks went in to cut the trees, the traffic of tractors and trucks created a muck that not only made maneuvering difficult, but also generated a smell of mud and oil and rosin unique to that activity. Combine that with the smell of burning debris created by trimming the trees and clearing the brush, and you have an aroma that lingers and resurfaces in the meandering mind of an old man long after the scene has disappeared from the landscape.

The dormant odor of the woods at the site of the log truck accident stimulated not only my memory of the smells associated with a long-ago time and place, but also made me recall the sounds as well. There was the ringing thud of an ax; the regular, sharp, scrapping sound of the cross-cut saw as two men rhythmically cut through a towering tree; the shout of “Timber!” to warn of the impending crash of the falling arbor; and the powerful silence that followed: a quiet reverence.

Settled in among those old sounds, like the notes of a music chord, is the laughter of the men. Sometimes that laughter was shaded by some rough language that just provided a background like timpani to the brass and strings of the conversation. There were young men learning from old men, learning how to accomplish a job none of them could do alone, a job replete with traditions that could only be passed from person to person, traditions as old as the need for men to provide shelter for their families. Neighbors “swapped work,” assisting each other when none of them could afford to hire help. They were glad for the help and loved the fellowship of labor. It was hard, dirty, back-breaking work, but it was honest work and generated a pride among the loggers, a pride that came from doing a job well.

Out of my memory of those nascent sights and smells emerged a scene that refocused in my meandering mind. There were men in overalls and long denim jackets, wide felt hats, and brogan shoes. They toiled in the mud under tall pine trees. They pulled the newly fallen logs to the loading dock with an old tractor, loaded the logs on old trucks using giant cant hooks and chains to secure the load. They were black men and white men: dressed the same, did the same work, bought their clothes and food at the same store, shared life together. They worked side by side, not because they wanted to but because they had to.

It’s amazing what a meandering mind can conjure. Sometimes it might be real and sometimes it might be imagination or dreams. And sometimes, as my Grandmother Council once told me, “Sometimes the mind wanders just for the sake of wanderin.’” I agree with that.  PS

Bill Thompson is a regular Salt contributor. His newest novel, Chasing Jubal, a coming of age story in the 1950s Blue Ridge, is available where books are sold.

All the World’s a Stage…

Or at least a House of Cards

 

By Deborah Salomon

Our PineStraw banner reads “Art and Soul of the Sandhills.” However, social media, SNL, magazine covers, cartoons and late-night comedians have made politics an art form demanding the same attention as a Broadway play, a concert or TV mini-series. Surely, it’s no coincidence that Veep and Madame Secretary take top honors, following the venerable West Wing and House of Cards. Here, art imitates life inside the Beltway, where satire practically writes itself. Politicians have become, if not rock stars, at least matinee idols. Most agree this obsession began with the Kennedys — Jackie’s style, John’s hair/smile/philandering. Nobody gave a fig what Eleanor Roosevelt and Mamie Eisenhower wore or that their husbands had “close” female assistants. Americans over 70 remember Kennedy-impersonator Vaughn Meader, whose The First Family album sold faster than The Beatles — until it wasn’t funny anymore.

The style part lived on in Nancy Reagan and Michelle Obama. Soirees featuring Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman have long graced the White House calendar, usually when foreign dignitaries visit. Otherwise the best of folk, bluegrass, even pop. Rumor is the only soloist during this administration will be Wynton Marsalis, the jazz, uh, Trumpeter.

Let’s play around with other artsy connections.

Whodunits: Jason Bourne, 007, Inspector Clouseau and those cute NCIS guys would understand secret documents delivered, after hours, to the White House. Amnesiac witnesses, clandestine tapings, secret back channels funneled through foreign embassies. Undisclosed meetings between trusted advisers and dubious operatives.

Wouldn’t Shakespeare have a blast?

The villains: A shifty-eyed former general who, for a fee, dined with (Ras)Putin. A presidential spokeswoman with straggly blonde locks, bony fingers and over-glossed lips mouthing “alternate facts” and “fake news.” Did we ever find out who leaked that Access Hollywood tape?

The costumes: Look, I don’t mind if the First Lady owns a $50,000 Dolce & Gabbana jacket. But does she have to wear it at a photo-op seen by Americans who earn half that — in a year? Then, of course, the emperor’s new clothes consisting of many voluminous dark blue suits (Brioni, $10K), always-white shirts and b-o-o-ring ties. However, sartorial Oscars go to the supporting cast of senators for custom-tailored jackets, pressed trousers, well-fitting shirts, interesting ties and good haircuts.

Make-up/hair: Must be Creamsicle-hued Pan Stik topped by L’Oreal’s Buttercup Cotton Candy.  Ombre hair shading suits Mrs. T Number Three. I can’t picture that on Pat Nixon.

The music: True, many politicos appear to be living in la-la-land minus the film’s exquisite score. No. 45 won’t mess with Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” accompanying Independence Day fireworks, although the composition celebrates a Russian military victory. Damn, that Russia thing again. Look for Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” campaign anthem to remain atop the presidential playlist. Otherwise, per the inaugural ball, expect “My Way” all the way.

Script: Credit a gaggle of writers holding Ph.D.’s in teleprompter lit from a now-defunct eponymous online university.

Set decoration: Each First Family receives 100,000 taxpayer dollars to redecorate the living quarters. Talk about chump change. That amount doesn’t go far toward solid gold faucets, silk sheets, alpaca blankets and carpets arriving via AladdinAir.

On location: Our commander-in-chief’s favorite movie is Citizen Kane, where the unhinged zillionaire womanizer played by Orson Welles repairs to Xanadu, his Florida castle. Is Mar-a-Lago just a coincidence? Factor in a Fifth Avenue triplex, a vineyard estate in Virginia, a manse in Bedford, New York, digs on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, a golfing pied-à-terre in New Jersey and, of course, that rustic little cabin called Camp David. Heavens to Betsy! POTUS owns more bathrooms than Howard Johnson had ice cream flavors.

Family ties: Children frequently follow their entertainment-industry parents: Kirk and Michael Douglas, Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, Tom and Colin Hanks, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli. No wonder DJ installed Ivanka just down the corridor. For the Paris Climate Accord he needs the expertise gained during Fashion Week in the French capital. Her forecast: rainy April. Bring umbrellas. Preferably Hermès. 

Last, but not least —

Cast of characters: Jeff Sessions by Tennessee Williams. Mike Pence by Sinclair Lewis.  Steve Bannon by Truman Capote. FLOTUS by Jacqueline Susann. James “Cat in the Hat” Comey by Dr. Seuss. Trumpty Dumpty by Lewis Carroll. Kellyanne Conway by Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King or whoever wrote Zombieland.

I knew that English major would pay off, eventually.

But, should this administration ever be made into a movie, who would play the president now that Philip Seymour Hoffman is gone? John Goodman, perhaps? I can see Cindy Crawford pulling off First Lady with Gwen Stefani vamping Ivanka. Jared eludes me, except perhaps a grown-up Haley Joel Osmet from, fittingly, Artificial Intelligence: A.I. or, at best, a Stepford husband.

Finally, the art part: Gilbert Stuart did George Washington’s official portrait. John Singer Sargent painted Theodore Roosevelt. Who, then, will immortalize the current Oval Office occupant?

Doesn’t really matter when the canvas is black velvet.  PS

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

Poolside

Where one hears the darnedest things

 

By Renee Phile

I remember watching my boys swim at a local pool a few summers ago. David, then 10, is wearing his big honkin’ green goggles that cover his entire face, well, at least his eyes and his nose. His mouth is still exposed. He reminds me of a huge green bug. Kevin, then 5, still won’t put his face all the way under the water. “Blow bubbles!” I say. He won’t. He whimpers a bit, then shoots other people with his water gun. Kids squeal. Adults express mixed reactions. Some smile and splash back. Others look annoyed. Some glare. Kevin does not have his water gun etiquette down yet. I make a note to work on that with him.

The coconutty smell of sunscreen wafts through the humid North Carolina air. Heads bob up and down in the clear water. The sun scorches my shoulders. I mentally calculate the last time I sprayed my boys down with SPF 50. It is time again, probably. Sweat beads on my forehead and drops down on the pages of my David Baldacci novel. I think of how refreshing it will be to jump into the water.

The lifeguards gaze lazily over their sunglasses, every now and then glancing down at the phones in their laps. Texting, playing Candy Crush (yes, I know Candy Crush is sooooo five years ago . . .)

A dad with his two girls, probably ages 3 and 4, sit to my left underneath their own umbrella. He coerces them to eat strawberries, or how about a banana?

“No, you can’t have a cookie until you eat your fruit. Don’t make me call your mom.”

He takes a swig of his beer, stands up, hands on his waist.

“But daddy! Strawberries make me feew sick!” One wails. He takes another drink. Sighs.

Stay consistent, I think. You can do it. I send him mental energy. Words are unnecessary. You are the adult. Don’t be manipulated by their adorableness.

I smirk to myself as if I am always consistent with my own kids. As if I didn’t just give in earlier today when they begged me for leftover pizza and Sunkist for breakfast. Then doughnuts on the way to pool. As if I don’t say things like, “Fine! Eat the cookie! Eat all the cookies! Make yourself sick! I don’t care!”

“Whatever, eat the cookies. Just don’t tell your mom you didn’t eat your fruit.” The dad sighs. The girls jump up and do some kind of happy sister cookie dance. Then the next thing I know their faces are smeared with chocolate. Dad tells them to go jump into the water to clean their faces, and he settles down in his pool chair with a magazine.

At this point David is playing sharks and minnows in the deep end —  basically a game of tag — and Kevin is still shooting people with his water gun, turning around quickly as if the victim will have absolutely no idea what happened.

I stand up, stretch, and walk on the hot pavement to the deep end to watch the game. Two boys, probably around David’s age, are playing. They may have been brothers or friends, or neither, or both. The boys climb out of the water, dripping, panting, among a dozen other kids.

Boy 1: “Oh man! We’re screwed!”

Boy 2: “Dude, I think you can come up with a more appropriate description of our situation. How about, ‘We’re currently disadvantaged’?”

My English teacher heart grins so big I quickly skip back to my pool bag. I pull out my little notebook and jot down the dialogue I just heard that simply locks this pool experience into the books.

“Hey! No running ma’am!” the lifeguard shouts from across the pool, Candy Crush on pause.

I give him the thumbs up sign.  PS

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

The Landing

An innovative outdoor learning environment launches on a local farm

 

By Jan Leitschuh

A tiny girl in a charming red, white and blue dress toddles over to a raised vegetable bed, green bucket in hand. There, magically, a ripening tomato spills over the side, conveniently at “wee-one” hand-height. To us, it’s a green tomato with a slight blush.

To her, it’s a moment of wonder.

Other children navigate the nearby obstacle course or balance beams, ask questions about cucumbers or basil, eat green beans off the bush. They shriek and run and play in the tepee village, cook wood-chip “cookies” in the outdoor kitchen, navigate the tires or construct towers in the  “workshop,” plant seeds and smell marigolds planted to keep the deer away.

Welcome to the opening of The Landing, a new outdoor learning environment for children at Eagles Nest Berry Farm in Jackson Springs.

“We’re attempting to get more families out and away from electronics, and enjoying the outdoors, to see how food is grown,” said Elaina Williams, the driving force behind The Landing. “We have raised beds with vegetables. We have a tepee and a noise room. We have outdoor and active things for children to do and use their imagination.”

Situated a dozen or so miles west of Pinehurst, lovely Eagles Nest Berry Farm is a family farm project that began with blueberry bushes. Owned by Williams, Karyn and Todd Ring, Chuck Richardson and Martha Richardson, that simple beginning was plotted by their father, carefully matched to the farm’s soils best suited to a delicious and fruitful blueberry crop.  Though their father died before his thoughtful plan got planted, the children decided to enact his vision. Now, many years later, that legacy of four beautiful acres of pick-your-own blueberries, and an acre of blackberries draws fruit lovers, buckets and appetites in hand.

The farm also grows some vegetable produce, such as basil, tons of tomatoes, potatoes, onions, cucumbers, okra, kale, Swiss chard and more, after sister Karyn got a grant to implement low tunnels to further lengthen the Sandhills’ long growing season.

All that N.C. growing goodness draws families away from the air conditioning and into the outdoors.

And with them come their children.

“We have kids come out with their parents to pick, all the time,” says Williams. “They usually come back out of the field covered in blackberry and blueberry juice. It is cute.”

But youthful attention spans often wander. Enter The Landing.

“We wanted to get more families outside, and out here on the farm,” says Williams. “To do that, we needed an area for the children, something that would engage them. It’s kind of a no-brainer.” She had an ally in Brittany Martin Mays, a friend from Jackson Springs, who works at Partners for Children and Families. “She does this kind of thing, helps set up playgrounds at child-care centers, that sort of thing. She gave us lots of great ideas, really encouraged us because there isn’t a lot of that right around here.”

Writing up her vision, Williams was awarded a Golden Leaf Tobacco Fund grant last fall, through the University of Mount Olive, to help farmers transition out of tobacco and into something else. 

Another friend, David Shannon, helped set up the master plan, constructing the play elements. “He’s been a big help on setting this up,” says Williams. “He’s going to stay on and help with the farm, especially since we discovered he has a green thumb.”

First came the raised beds. Built from rough-cut, untreated 2x10s, the beds topped out at a low 20-inches tall.  “We wanted to make sure the kids could see everything. We put sand in the bottom for drainage, then we mixed together good compost, garden soil and eggshell compost,” she says.

The rich beds were planted with appealing produce, as well as a drift of marigolds to keep the deer away. 

“The kids especially like the purple bumble bee and chocolate cherry tomatoes. We have customers that eat them like candy,” says Williams. “We also had quite a few children interested in eating the green beans right off the bush.  We planted larger tomatoes and cucumbers too, so one week kids could see the bloom, the next they could come and see the fruit.

“They showed a lot of interest, asking questions. We hope that they keep coming out and checking things out. I think we might have encouraged the next generation of farmers, with the questions they were asking. They wanted to pick everything that was on there. If there was even a little bit of color on it, they wanted to pick it.”

Besides the raised beds, a few pear trees, wild flowers and blueberry bushes were planted just for children.

Next, Shannon built a little obstacle/balance beam course with logs, stumps, tires and sand-filled structures. Big tractor tires, donated by T.H. Blue, stick halfway in the ground for roughhousing and climbing.  Carolina Car Care donated some other tires of the right size. “We stacked and filled them in with pure white sand, for climbing. The kids love it. We put mulch all around it for soft landings. My grandsons tried it out first,” giving it their seal of approval.  A 10×10 hole was dug down a foot for a sandpit. Convenient log stumps surround the build for people to sit on and watch the action.

Shade was another consideration. A neighbor with bamboo in his yard donated some long poles for a tepee. Brittany helped set up a village — three tepees with bamboo poles lashed together with wire. The crew put painters cloth around the poles and during the grand opening on June 20, children dipped their hands in washable paint and made prints on the cloth for decoration. “We will probably try some half-runners up the poles next year,” says Williams.

Other outdoor play spots seeing big action were a play kitchen, an architectural center and a music room.

Full of cookware, the play kitchen is a fenced 10×10 foot area with a tin roof. The floor is a soft wood chip mulch. “We made it kid-sized. David built a little kitchen counter, painted burners on it, put in a little sink and we stocked it with old pots and pans,” says Williams. “They like to cook with those. Wood chip cookies. They pretended really well.  Even the boys were in there.”

An additional kingdom for the imagination, the architectural center, forms another 10×10 foot area, this one with an orange builders fence around it called the TPT Construction Area, in honor of Ty Parker Tindell, a brother who passed away 10 years ago. “It’s stocked with blocks, 2×4 chunks, cylinders, pieces of wood, plywood, a few PVC pieces. They are going to have to use their imagination. And they did. Girls and boys. They built huge structures, towers, other items. No hammers. Just imagination,” says Williams.

Finally, the music room. “We also call it the noise zone,” says Williams with a chuckle.  “We made a xylophone out of bamboo. Then we made a wall and took old aluminum cake pans, pots and pans, and we hung wooden spoons so the kids can beat on them. The kids love that. We did hang them on the side of the wall away from the berry pickers. “Kids can bang away to their hearts’ content, working off their energy and disturbing no one on the spacious farm.

Though only open four days during the harvest weeks, The Landing will offer engaging projects and events.  “We have a cousin that’s a retired science teacher,” says Williams.  “We have several activities she’s going to do, like building a worm farm and an ant farm. She has all kinds of snakeskins and bird nests that she’s going to tell us about. She’s going to do a weather day, and there’s a tornado thing she wants to do.”

Future plans include a larger wildflower patch, more fruit trees and permanent deer fencing. An expanded garden is on the agenda. As a bonus, Mom and Dad get to pick their blueberries and blackberries in peace in the main field while the kids play with new friends nearby.

“We’re trying to give back to the community,” says Williams. “We’ve had such great customers over the years. And we’re hoping to inspire some young farmers. And I think we inspired a few at our opening, especially the girls.”  PS

Want to visit? Call first to check, at (910) 639-3966. Normally open Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., same hours as the adjacent Eagles Nest Berry Farm. 

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

An Honest Day’s Pay

And a friendship for the ages

 

By Jan Wheaton

My first summer job was the brainstorm of my best friend, Sheila. She came up with it as we were lying on the deck of her parents’ house, catching some rays before a trip to Ocean City with my mother, a friend of hers and her kids.

“We need to make some money,” Sheila said, drumming her fingers.

“Money for what?”

“For the beach — we might want to buy some stuff.”

“OK. How?”

We were too young to get real jobs and had long ago made a pact never
to babysit.

“We’ll wash cars,” she said and frowned back at my frown.

I had met Sheila the previous September on the first day of our freshman year in high school. We were both new, military kids, and we knew how to pick and make friends fast. Sheila flounced into English class two minutes late, her yellow-blond hair flipped at her shoulders and her cat-green eyes lined like Brigitte Bardot’s. “Sorry,” she said in a low, breathy voice. “I couldn’t get the combination on my locker to work.”

She ducked her chin over the pile of books she clutched to her chest, hiding her face behind her cascade of hair as she headed for the back of the room, the heels of her white boots clicking on the linoleum floor. As she slid into a seat next to mine she dropped her purse. Two pens and a package of peppermints skidded across the floor, a lipstick rolled under my desk. There was a titter of laughter and two boys jumped to the rescue. I picked up her lipstick and set it on her desk.

Sheila shot me a sideways glance of gratitude that invited complicity. A few minutes later she passed a note to me that read, “You have the greenest eyes!”

I wrote back to her: “Contacts.”

After class I helped her with her locker, which turned out to be at the opposite end of the building. By the time we got there and opened it I had decided she was going to be my new best friend and invited her to come over to my house Saturday afternoon. We sat on the floor of my bedroom and exchanged critical teenage information. Favorite bands (hers was the Doors, mine was the Monkees). Most revered top models (hers, Veruschka, mine, Jean Shrimpton). Historical trivia (she’d been a cheerleader at her last school; I’d been sergeant of the School Safety Patrol.) She taught me to apply eyeliner. I introduced her to the poetry of Dorothy Parker.

We became inseparable at school, except for the rare class we didn’t share, and spent much of our weekend afternoons at shopping malls trying on cool clothes our mothers would never buy us, taking black and white pictures of ourselves in photo booths and shopping for albums at the record store, which we would later play in her basement rec room while we go-go danced on a piano bench. On days when we couldn’t get a ride somewhere, we took walks in the Virginia woods adjacent to our neighborhood and talked about all the really heavy stuff, like what a drag our parents were and what a downer the suburbs were.

On Saturday nights, we often went to hear bands at the Legion hall — dropped off and picked up by a parent. Boys lined up to dance with Sheila, and while they waited, they danced with me. But many a Saturday night there was no dance, and not being allowed to date, we hung out in her parents’ rec room, creating fictitious boyfriends we gave code names like Babe Blue and Tall Slim, and spinning long, complicated stories full of intrigue and heartache.

After being friends for almost a year, I knew if Sheila said something would be cool, it would be cool. So the following Saturday, wearing two-piece swimsuits under our shorts and T-shirts, we set off down the street, dragging a red wagon laden with soaps, glass cleaners, chrome polishers, upholstery cleaner, paper towels and rags, a cooler with snacks and drinks, and a transistor radio. The first two doors we knocked on were answered by housewives, who turned us down flat. The third woman assured us her husband washed the cars. When she closed the door, Sheila and I exchanged a nod and headed off down the sidewalk, looking for signs of a husband at home.

“Bingo,” Sheila said as we approached a house with a dusty, white 1965 Ford Mustang in the driveway and a man in the open garage pouring gasoline into a lawnmower. He appeared to be about 40 and came out into the sunlight, wiping his hands on a rag, as we wheeled up our wagon. He had nice eyes, somewhat creased and shadowy, and his belted blue jeans hung just below a still definable waistline. He smiled as Sheila described our special deluxe treatment, and it occurred to me that he could have once been a Babe Blue.

“Five bucks, huh? And I guess you girls are working for a good cause?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. We’re going to the beach,” Sheila said, flashing her wide smile.

He pushed out his lower lip, dimpling his chin.

“I think I can support that.”

Just sitting in the shade watching us wash his car could’ve alone been worth $5 to this guy, but Sheila and I took our jobs seriously. We pulled our hair back with rubber bands, turned on our radio and went to work. Sheila climbed in the front with Babe Blue’s vacuum cleaner and I took the back — emptying ashtrays, wiping down the red vinyl seats and cleaning the hand-crank windows.

By the time we got the interior done, we were sweating pretty good in the early afternoon sun, so when we got out to do the exterior, we peeled down to our swimsuits and sudsed, sprayed and scrubbed every square inch of that little car. We sang “Summer in the City” with The Lovin’ Spoonful and belted out “It Ain’t Me, Babe” with The Turtles over the roof, trunk and hood as we wiped and buffed till our arms felt like they were going to fall off. We didn’t toss our rags in the wagon until every inch of that car was pristine. The paint glistened, the chrome sparkled, and the white walls would glow in the dark. Our client, who had continued to putter in his garage most of the time we worked, gave his white Mustang a close inspection and blew a satisfied whistle through his teeth. “Nice work,” he said and handed us a $10 bill.

Word spread, and we had no trouble finding cars to wash for the next three days.

On our first evening at the beach, Sheila and I ditched the adults and headed down to the water in front of our hotel. We kicked off our sandals and sat cross-legged in the sand. A trio of boys wandered down from the boardwalk and tried to join us, but we waved them off. Sheila was in one of her existential moods, talking about the ocean, its primordial energy, the eternal rhythm of the waves and inevitability of the tides. I pulled up my knees and locked my hands around them. Listening to the sound of those waves and her low, breathy voice, I felt a degree of contentedness I’ve found hard to replicate in life. I was 15, tanned and at the beach with the coolest best friend in the world. A new pair of silver earrings, purchased with car-wash money, dangled from my pierced ears.

A fresh wave swirled up under us and left a pool of froth where we sat. I felt the sand slip away as the water retreated, and I dug my toes in, trying to hold back the grains. Sheila looked over her shoulder. “Those guys are coming back,” she said.  PS

Jan Wheaton is a Pinehurst resident, native North Carolinian, unpublished novelist, and the compiler of PineStraw’s calendar.

By Tony Cross

Every now and then, I’m asked to create a drink for a special occasion, whether it be someone’s birthday, anniversary, or a corporate event/fundraiser that has a theme. The challenge of inventing something unique for someone, or a lot of people, has always been fun. One of the first drinks that I made for a large number of people was requested from this very magazine, back before I started this column. I was excited and very nervous and, though the drink came out great, I would definitely go back to the drawing board now to make the cocktail a bit simpler. Finding inspiration for a cocktail can come in many ways, e.g., a particular ingredient or spirit, the season, a color, or even a song or movie. This month I’ll discuss a few that I’ve done over the past year.

Half-Jack
For Fair Game Beverage Company in the Abundance.org Bereavement Ball

So, if you didn’t know, I’ve got a huge crush on this distillery. I’ve done a few events with the folks from Fair Game, and I’ve always had a blast. This time, distiller Chris Jude hit me up to create a cocktail with one of his spirits for this “interesting little themed party.” He wasn’t kidding. On their Facebook page The Bereavement Ball (Dead Pets & Onions) is, “An Evening of Exquisite Misery. Under the full moon, we gather to wallow in collective melancholy, celebrate our impermanence and revel in life’s slow unraveling.” What? I dug further into the theme of the event and found that it’s based on a play, The Onion Cellar. The play debuted in 2006, and was written by Amanda Palmer. She “based the title of the production on a chapter from Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum. In the novel, The Onion Cellar is a bar in post-war Germany where people go to share painful memories and cry. While drinking and talking, the clients peel onions, both to make crying easier and to lessen the shame for those afraid to express their feelings openly.” Thank you, Wikipedia. OK, so maybe something with onions? Eh. I wasn’t really thrilled about that. Then, through more digging, I found out that Palmer is one half of the band The Dresden Dolls, and she used one of the band’s songs, “Half-Jack,” in the play. There we go. I decided to use Fair Game Apple Brandy. Apple brandy is sometimes referred to as “applejack.” Both are made with apples, but true applejack is blended with neutral grain spirit, and must be aged four years in used bourbon barrels. The cocktail I came up with has 2 1/2 ounces of liquid, half of it apple brandy.

Half-Jack

1 1/4 ounces Fair Game Beverage Company’s Apple Brandy

3/4 ounce Cynar

1/2 ounce Dolin Dry Vermouth

1 dash celery bitters

Combine and build ingredients in a rocks glass with ice. Stir until desired dilution. Express the oils of a lemon peel over the cocktail before placing it in the glass.

Finders Keepers
For Patrica (located at 280 NW Broad St.)

Trish Deerwester, owner of Patricia, has been a staunch supporter of Reverie Cocktails from the get-go. Trish’s business, as well as a few others (I’m looking at you, Louise and Betsy of Eloise), really helped get the word out about my new venture. I’ve been asked to do a couple of pop-ups at Patricia, and this drink is the first one that I did last spring. Talking with Trish, I discovered that in addition to our shared love for the classic Manhattan cocktail, she also is a big fan of tequila. We agreed that we wanted to keep the cocktail simple, but with a spin. A few weeks prior, I messed around with an apricot liqueur when making margaritas. I poured them over crushed ice, and they tasted amazing. Apricot it was, sans the apricot liqueur. Instead, I set out to make an apricot jam. I ordered apricots through Nature’s Own, and gave it a whirl. I got lucky, and the jam came out great. Now, for the name: Patricia’s website is www.patriciafinds.com. I joked with Trish that this drink came out so well, that she wouldn’t want to share it with anyone else . . . and there it was, “Finders Keepers.”

1 1/2 ounces Don Julio Blanco Tequila

Scant 1/2 ounce Del Maguey Vida Mezcal

3/4 ounce lime juice

Heaping teaspoon apricot jam

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and add ice. Shake vigorously for 10 seconds and pour everything into a rocks glass. No garnish.

Apricot Jam

1/2 pound dried apricots

3 cups water

1 pound sugar

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 ounce cognac

Dice apricots, and place in a pot with water. Refrigerate and leave overnight. The next day, bring the water to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes. Keep the heat on low, add sugar and lemon zest/juice. Stir until the sugar is dissolved completely. Bring back to a boil and start to test the jam after the 15-minute mark. When it starts to stick ever so slightly to the spoon, turn off the heat. Be careful, this can go from “jam” to “adhesive” in a minute’s time. Add cognac when heat is off.

Zero F#%$
For Me, Myself, and I

Sometimes what inspires can be found right under your nose. That says a lot for me, since I have a big schnoz. One night I came home tired and aggravated. I wanted some of my favorite spirits mixed together. I grabbed a few bottles, juxtaposing them on my counter. I wasn’t sure it would work but luck was on my side. It came out way better than I expected. I liked it enough to write down the specs in my little black book.

1 ounce Mezcal Alipús Santa Ana

1 ounce Flor de Caña Extra Dry

1/4 ounce Campari

1 ounce lime juice

1/2 ounce simple syrup (2:1)

2 dashes Angostura Orange Bitters

Combine all ingredients in a shaker, add ice,
and shake it like it owes you money. Double strain into a chilled coupe glass. Express the oils of an orange peel before placing it in the glass. Now chill out.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender who runs cocktail catering
company Reverie Cocktails
in Southern Pines.

Drink Naked

The unoaked revolution

 

By Robyn James

When ancient Rome first started making wine, their preferred vessels were clay pots. Breakage during shipping became a problem, and they experimented using big wooden barrels and vats. Not only was this a sturdier method, but they discovered that the porous wood imparted some favorable qualities to the wine, and it also allowed it to age gracefully.

It became particularly popular to use oak influence on the noble grape, chardonnay, and by the 1990s winemakers were making the heavy, oaky, buttered-toast, style that in many cases was used to mask inferior fruit. Some wineries, in an effort to save money, would just dump oak chips into cheap chardonnay, stir it up and soak it, then filter them out.

Although it is the most widely planted white grape in the U.S., Europe, Australia and South America, consumers revolted and adopted the battle cry of ABC — “Anything But Chardonnay.” Winemakers listened and the movement began to improve the quality of chardonnay fruit and back off on the oak influence. The always-irreverent Australian winemakers coined the phrase “Drinking Naked” for chardonnay minus oak.

This past decade efforts have been made to produce chardonnay that is balanced between fruit and acidity. Planting in cooler areas and giving the grapes less hang time produce crisper, more refreshing versions of this versatile grape.

All wines go through a primary fermentation that converts the sugars into alcohol, but winemakers have the option of inducing or spontaneously allowing the wine to go through a secondary, malolactic fermentation. Tart tasting, green apple-like, malic acid is naturally present in wine, and this process turns it into lactic acid, the same acid in butter. Thus the wine takes on a richer, creamy, buttery character.

Kim Crawford Unoaked Chardonnay from New Zealand is a tasty example of this process. Their fruit comes from vineyards in Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay, where the canopies of the vines are managed to allow the fruit to ripen slowly. Completely devoid of oak, this chardonnay has gone through malolactic fermentation, and the winery describes their wine as “ripe tropical fruit — pineapple and ripe melon — with hints of butterscotch. Shows great length uncluttered by oak. Secondary malolactic fermentation gives nuttiness and generous mouthfeel.” You can usually find this gem in the market for around $16.

Louis Jadot, one of Burgundy’s largest producers, makes a delicious chardonnay from the Maconnais region cleverly branded “Steel Chardonnay” that sells for about $17. Like Crawford’s chardonnay, this wine is completely unoaked, aged in steel vats. But, unlike Crawford’s, it does not go through any part of malolactic fermentation. Described by the winery as having “high toned aromas of citrus, mandarin orange, white flower, pear and apple, with flinty minerality. Retains a fresh, crisp character.” A perfect match for summertime fish and shellfish dishes.

The Donati Estate, the only winery located in the Paicines wine-growing region of California, produces a tasty unoaked chardonnay for about $13. Branded “Sisters Forever” by winemaker Briana Heywood, this sustainably farmed wine is a tribute to women.

Winery tasting notes claim that the wine has “tropical aromas of melon, pineapple, banana and apricot. Lush mouthfeel with crisp and marvelous acidity on the finish.”

These wines are prefect warm weather selections, so go ahead — drink naked!  PS

Robyn James is a certified sommelier and proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at robynajames@gmail.com.

Writing My Way Home

Finding one’s place in a wide literary landscape

 

By Wiley Cash

It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me

at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what

I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.

Langston Hughes wrote these lines and the poem “Theme for English B,” from which they’re taken, in 1951, when he was nearing 50 years old. I first read the poem as a 20-year-old college sophomore. I’ll turn 40 in a few months, and I can honestly say I’ve thought about this poem almost every day since I read it.

In the poem, the speaker’s college composition teacher has asked the students to go home tonight and compose a page about themselves, and whatever results from this assignment will speak to something about who the students are, where they’re from, and what they’re made of. The idea is that what comes from you speaks to what there is of you.

As I mentioned, I was a college sophomore when I encountered “Theme for English B.” I had enrolled at the University of North Carolina-Asheville because the English major featured a track in creative writing, and a writer was what I had decided to be. I was a little unclear as to how this would be accomplished, but I was there to learn, and learn I did. But looking back, the best thing I learned about writing was that I wasn’t the kind of writer I wanted to be, meaning I wasn’t someone who wrote like Raymond Carver, Anton Chekhov or Toni Morrison, nor did I write about the things these authors wrote about. I had never visited Carver’s Great Northwest. I couldn’t imagine the lives of Chekhov’s peasants. I couldn’t speak to the African-American experience in Morrison’s Ohio. These people lived interesting lives of conflict and history and culture, and they hailed from interesting places.

I was from Gastonia, North Carolina, raised Southern Baptist, loved basketball with all my heart, and spent my summers lifeguarding and my free time reading the masterworks of authors whose lives were more curious than mine, and whose literary voices were more distinct and powerful as a result. But I kept writing. In my little campus dorm room I locked my eyes on the monitor while my fingers pecked away at the keyboard of an enormous, ancient computer. Not once did I lift my gaze to look at the world around me, not once did I dare look back at the world from which I’d come. As a result, the stories that spun from my fingers were regionless, devoid of place, meaning they were almost wholly devoid of life. I refused to acknowledge that any place I was from could be interesting enough to warrant representation, and I also refused to acknowledge the fact that I couldn’t write well enough to make up for the “placelessness” of my fiction.

In the fall of 2003, I left North Carolina at the age of 25 and lived outside the state for the first time in my life. I had enrolled in a Ph.D. program in English and creative writing at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, which is in the heart of Acadiana, more commonly known as Cajun country. Soon, I found that I missed fresh water. I missed the gentle swell of the Piedmont hills as they rose toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. I missed cold winters and mild summers. I missed the good, clean smell of mud that wafts up from a trickling stream as you draw closer to the water. I missed ferns. I missed the music, accents and cuisine I’d always known as comforts without ever realizing the emotional tether they had on my heart. In short, I missed home.

I had chosen this particular graduate program in this particular state because a particular author served as the university’s writer-in-residence. Ernest J. Gaines had long been my literary hero, and I still believe he’s one of the finest writers our nation has ever produced. He’d grown up on a plantation just west of Baton Rouge, the same plantation on which his ancestors had been slaves and later sharecroppers, but he hadn’t begun to write about the place he knew until he joined his mother and stepfather in California when he was 15 years old. He wrote about southwest Louisiana because it was inside him largely because it was no longer outside him, and he longed for it. He began writing about Louisiana while he lived in California, and it led to some of the most important literature in American history: The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men and A Lesson Before Dying.

Ernest J. Gaines and Thomas Wolfe are perhaps the greatest influences on my writing life, and I took a page from each. From Gaines I learned to write about what I know and where I’ve been, and from Thomas Wolfe, especially Wolfe’s autobiographical hero Eugene Gant in Look Homeward, Angel, I decided to turn my eyes “to the distant, soaring ranges.” My first novel is set in the mountains of western North Carolina, where I’d made the decision to become a writer. My second is set in my hometown of Gastonia, as is my third novel, The Last Ballad, which will be released this fall.

A few months ago I returned to Louisiana to spend a few days with Gaines and his wife, Dianne, where they purchased land and built a home on part of the plantation where Gaines was born and raised. One evening around dusk, I was standing on the banks of the False River across the street from the Gaineses’ home when I recalled a line from Hughes’ poem: I guess I’m what I feel and see and hear. I could feel the old dock beneath my boots, every creak as the water lapped against it. I could see the sun fading in the trees across the river, could see the lights winking on at homes on the other side of the water. I could hear the trucks and cars pass on the road behind me, the occasional motor of a boat that passed along the darkening water, the flip of a fish as it broke the surface and then fell beneath it. At that moment, I had no doubt that what I was feeling and seeing and hearing had turned me toward the writer I’ve become, but the things that surrounded me at that moment were not the things that made me the writer I am. Those things rested farther north in the hills and mountains of the Old North State, hidden along creek beds and gurgling streams. Shaded beneath towering maples and sweet gums. Pressed into the rich earth beneath a blanket of ferns.

I often wonder about the things that will make up my daughters’ lives, as they will not be the things that have made up my own. They were both born only a few miles from the ocean, and they will both be raised in a landscape that is flat and in air that is humid and tinged with salt. Will they know the magic of the place from which they’ve come? Or, like me, will they have to leave home to find it?  PS

Wiley Cash lives in Wilmington with his wife and their two daughters. His forthcoming novel The Last Ballad is available for pre-order wherever books are sold.