A Haunting Tune

A country music star’s harrowing memoir

By Stephen E. Smith

If a memoirist’s job is to make sense of the raw, shifting facts of the past in order to instruct the future, country music singer-songwriter Allison Moorer, best known for having composed and performed the Academy Award-nominated “A Soft Place To Fall,” has a new calling. Her first literary publication, Blood, has the potential to change lives for the better.

This sometimes poetic but more often bitter memoir is no sob story about the hardships of being a celebrity. It’s about the brutal, cold facts of real life. On an August morning in 1986, Moorer, who was 14 at the time, had her world upended when her abusive alcoholic father murdered her mother and then committed suicide in the front yard of their home in Mobile, Alabama.

The expected response to such an intensely traumatic experience might be to distance oneself from these horrifying memories, and Moorer’s older sister, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne, has downplayed this life-altering event by fending off interviewers’ constant questions, claiming to have come to terms with the family ghosts. Moorer has chosen to directly confront the past, and she begins her memoir with a detailed recounting of the murder-suicide.

Although her recollection is sometimes sketchy and often confused by the fact that she was awakened by the gunshots that took her parents’ lives, she relentlessly investigates, ruminating on forensic reports, death records, and by interviewing relatives and friends. Much of what she writes is suggested by personal items and family mementos — photographs, random notes penned by her father, his song lyrics, a coffee cup and keepsakes such as her mother’s ring, which she wears always, and her father’s Gibson guitar, which she continues to play in recording sessions. These items are talismans which Moorer employs to reveal, bit by bit, the terrible events of her childhood, and to demystify the details of the murder/suicide in order to assuage the grief and guilt surrounding her mother’s final moments.

“I hope she didn’t hear me call for her,” she writes. “If I were shot in the chest and in the process of bleeding out in my front yard and heard my child call for me from the side door of the house, I can’t imagine I would die peacefully. The idea that Mama might’ve known I was looking for her haunts me. The idea that she might’ve died hearing me call for her, that my voice might’ve been the last thing she heard and that might’ve served as a terrible torment for her last conscious seconds, brings me indescribable sadness.”

Old photographs foreshadow the tragedy. A 1975 snapshot taken in a chicken coop outside the family home suggests that her mother’s despondency was present early in her marriage. Her posture seems to indicate that clinical depression had “grabbed her around the throat and started slowly choking the life out of her . . . She just looks sad. Resigned. Older than thirty-one.”

In a photo taken in Nashville 10 years later, Moorer detects the same forlorn look as her mother stands beside a display case filled with antique rifles: “. . . the look of ‘I wish I could disappear’” is even more obvious.

Moorer doesn’t employ the customary chronological structure for her storytelling. Chapters jump from one disconnected episode to another, and short lyrical passages are interspersed with the narrative, mimicking the pattern of obsession the author experiences.

“There are things that require no recalling,” Moorer writes. “They are here in the morning, they are here in the evening, they are here in my chest. They are knocked loose and into my mind by a stack of magazines on the floor beside my reading spot, the crossword puzzle in the newspaper, the color of an eggplant, the smell of morning on a work coat . . . ” Still, the narrative progresses in a timely and engrossing fashion, and the final effect is to bring the depth and detail of the story into full, horrifying focus.

Blood is a memoir of despair, the story of a family tiptoeing around unpredictable behavior, drunken abuse and needless cruelty, all of which might have been avoided if Moorer’s father had received treatment for alcohol abuse and depression. She acknowledges his alcoholism but doesn’t offer it as an excuse for his behavior. And she can only wonder about his mental state: “Was he bipolar? I know he was depressed. He was unpredictable. He did dangerous things. I’m pretty certain he didn’t care if he lived or died.”

She speculates that he may have been schizophrenic or suffered a personality disorder, but her judgment is necessarily simplistic and straightforward. Her father was “mad about what he didn’t do with his life” — which is, of course, a common affliction in a society that touts unobtainable goals. Alcohol abuse and mental illness remain constants in American life; the CDC reported more than 47,000 suicides in 2017.

The value of Moorer’s memoir is twofold. First, it is an unburdening, a release for the writer. Committing her past to paper has no doubt forced Moorer to confront her demons and relegated them to a permanent and peaceful place in her life. More important, her storytelling may act as a wake-up call for those who live with physical and emotional abuse, a signal for victims to get out of dangerous relationships — and perhaps the memoir will serve as an eye-opener for those caught in the grip of alcoholism and mental illness, encouraging them to seek treatment, which would be no small accomplishment in a culture plagued by despair, anger and violence.  PS

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

The World After Rain

A good soak is the gift that keeps on giving

By Jim Dodson

Every year about this time, as another summer’s lease expires, I remark to anyone who will listen (i.e. mostly my dog Mulligan) that we’ve survived the hottest summer ever.

Unfortunately, this year I turned out to be right. According to the National Weather Service, the months of June and July logged their hottest temperatures on record, symptomatic of a year forecasters predict will be hottest in history — for the third summer in a row.

If misery does indeed love company, at least we weren’t sweating it out alone.

In England, suffering through its own record heat wave, jurors weighing evidence in a sensational murder trial in Oxford were dismissed after complaining to the judge of being unable to concentrate due to intense heat. The case involved a church warden and a magician who allegedly conspired to murder a famous Oxford lecturer and his headmistress neighbor in a scheme to steal their pensions and wills, a plot line worthy of Dame Agatha Christie.

The judge halted the proceedings and sent everyone home to rest and cool off. At last check, the jury was still out. But stay tuned for the blockbuster movie.

Across the Channel in France, meanwhile, where dozens of meteorological records suffered heat stroke due to weeks of three-digit temperatures, maps of the country’s hottest zones at one point eerily resembled a human skull, reminding some of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream.

As you may have guessed by now, I’m no fan of summer. Perhaps this is because I am a child of winter, reportedly born in the midst of a snowstorm.  Or possibly it’s because I lived on the coast of Maine for more than two decades and grew accustomed to summers that are short but cool affairs, ruining me for increasingly hot Southern summers.

Curiously, when I think back on my boyhood — a kid growing up in three different small towns of the deep South — summer heat never seemed to get under my collar the way it does now.

In Mississippi, a beautiful state beach lay just across the highway from our house. There was always an evening breeze off the water, and my mother and I used to go there in late afternoon to wade in the tranquil surf of the Gulf of Mexico to hunt for interesting wash-ups. Someone at the weekly newspaper my father owned told me that the Gulf offered the widest variety of shells in the world, an idea that inspired me to mount dozens of beautiful sea shells — striped turbans, Scotch bonnets, false angel wings — on a pair of lacquered pine boards.

The pressman at the newspaper also informed me that we lived in the heart of “Hurricane Alley,” which prompted me to begin watching for signs of gathering thunderstorms that boiled up far out over the Gulf and swept ashore with curtains of wind and rain. Secretly, I confess, I hoped a real hurricane might blow ashore, having no clue what might have resulted. A few years ago, the town where we lived was almost erased from the map by just such a September storm.

The next stop in our family odyssey was a small South Carolina town that could have been the setting for To Kill a Mockingbird. Save for a beautiful African-American lady named Jesse who nursed my mom back to health after a pair of late-term miscarriages and taught me to “feet dance” to the gospel music she played from a transistor radio in the open kitchen window, my long summer days were spent either in a wicker chair on a wide side porch reading my first chapter books or — like smart dogs across the sultry South — burrowing into the cool dirt beneath the house, where I played for hours with my painted Greek and Roman soldiers.

The days I liked best were those soothing gray affairs when a soft, steady rain fell all day and into the night, refreshing a parched world with its soothing music. Today, whenever I see the TV spot for the popular Calm app — featuring a full minute of nothing but gentle rain dripping from leaves  — I’m reminded of something Miss Jesse liked to say. “Slow rain is a gift, child. This tired old world is like new after a good rain.”

In Wilmington, the next stop on our Magical Mystery Tour of Southern newspapers, we joined the Hanover Seaside Club on Wrightsville Beach, where after a long day on the searing beach I liked to sit in a big rocking chair on the club’s open-air porches, slugging down ginger ale as I eavesdropped on grown-up cocktail chatter about politics and weather. On at least two occasions a hurricane was in the vicinity.

Small people have big ears, as my mother liked to remind my father at such times. But I remember a few of his corny summer heat jokes to this day.

It was so hot today I saw a dog chasing a cat and they both were walking.

Did you hear? It was so hot today, why, the chickens were laying omelets and cows were giving powdered milk.

These days, of course, owing to global warming, rising seas and other factors, ordinary thunderstorms seem more menacing than ever, and hurricanes have become even more lethel.

Last September the citizens of Wilmington were marooned by a lady named Florence that dumped catastrophic amounts of rain on the coastal Carolina region, killing 51 people and doing a record amount of damage to property.

A month later, tropical storm Michael turned into the most powerful hurricane ever to hit the Florida panhandle, obliterating Mexico Beach and adjacent communities before churning up through the Carolinas and knocking over record numbers of trees and power lines across the Piedmont. Four huge oaks went down on our street alone, which left us in the dark for over a week. At least two of our neighbors’ houses were severely damaged, but thankfully nobody was killed or injured.

In Michael’s wake, however, tree crews began combing the neighborhood, playing on people’s fears as they went door to door.

For the moment at least, we are willing to accept the risk of living in an urban forest beneath stately century-old white oaks, if only for the kindness of shade they offer in summer and cathedral-like beauty they present come fall.

Besides, at the start of the summer just ending, I made my wife smile by claiming that I was going to fully embrace the heat of this summer the way I did as a boy — with grace and a true sense of wonder, and absolutely no grumbling about the horrible heat.

“Oh, nice. Are you planning to spend the summer in Sweden?” came the cheeky reply

I suppose she knows me all too well. For a while, at least, I gamely managed to live up to this impossible goal, as abundant rain in May and half of June made my garden flourish and the staff gardener smile.

Then came July and someone thoughtlessly turned off the great spigot in the sky —  turning yours truly into Edvard Munch’s Scream.

Despite heavy watering by hand — city water is no match for the kind that comes from the clouds — my garden withered during a solid month of relentless 90-plus days of heat and sunshine. Every little pop-up thunderstorm on my weather radar app, alas, seemed to just miss our little patch of earth, a personal affront that soon had me swearing an oath that next summer, “Stockholm here I come!” One afternoon when I least expected it, burrowed away in my air-conditioned tree-house office, my wife phoned to report that a cold front was bringing a series of thunderstorms our way.

I told her that I would believe it when I smelled it.

Not 10 minutes later, I heard the thunder and stepped outside.

Ten minutes after that it was raining gloriously. I actually stepped out into my garden with my arms outstretched, savoring the smell and feel of summer-ending rain like the character Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption who, after he finds his way to freedom by crawling through a prison sewer pipe to a rain-swollen creek, strips off his clothes and stretches out his arms to embrace the water of heaven. I’ve watched that movie half a dozen times and never fail to find that scene deeply moving, a metaphor for the power of love and a tired old world washed clean.  b

Contact Editor Jim Dodson at jim@thepilot.com.

Cape of Good Wines

A feast of South Africa’s finest

By Angela Sanchez

South Africa is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited, full of dichotomies, and singular in the world of wine. Whenever I mention its wines to people I get two types of responses — either they are excited to talk about South Africa and already love the wines; or they look confused and have no point of reference for either. But South Africa is near to my heart, and the wines are a great way to talk about the place, its people, its beauty and its history.

The Dutch brought vines to the Cape of South Africa in 1655, making it the oldest New World wine-growing region (North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa making up the New World). It’s a long history but not always a great one.

During apartheid, the country was shut off from exchanging ideas, vines and modern innovations with other wine-producing countries. During that time, not only did South African vintners and growers miss out on a time of intense modernization and progress in the industry, many of their vines were diseased. Unable to bring in new, healthy vines to graft from or plant they often produced wines from diseased vines, resulting in inferior quality and taste.

Once apartheid ended, producers were able to travel, host and network with other vintners and producers around the world to replant their vines and modernize their facilities and winemaking techniques. It brought them not only into the modern age but also, in many ways, into a leadership role in the industry. Today South African growers and vintners partner with the government to ensure that not only are the wines and vineyards managed properly, fitting designated quality standards, they ensure that workers in the vineyards and wineries are treated fairly, with equal pay and protection. It’s a higher ethical standard than any other wine-producing country.

People are often shocked to find out that the Cape growing region has almost 550 active wineries. Of those, about 200 are registered to produce estate bottled wines, meaning the winery will be producing wines that come solely from their own vineyards — nothing will be purchased from other producers for those bottlings marked “estate.” A much smaller percentage, closer to about 50 wineries, actually produce wine that is truly estate bottled.

This is not to say that only a handful of wineries are producing good, or even great, bottles of wine. Many wineries and co-ops in the Cape are today producing some of the best values in the wine world. Chenin blanc, or “steen” in the Cape, is the most widely planted white grape varietal, and cabernet sauvignon is the most highly planted red. If you’re looking for fresh, easy-drinking styles that retail under $15-20 a bottle, seek these out.

For something truly unique, try a bottle of pinotage. It is a hybrid cross of pinot noir and cinsault created in South Africa, and can be a wonderful representation of place — earthy, smoky and jammy. Spice route pinotage is a generous style of this varietal. Dry farmed (without irrigation) in an arid and tough terrain from old vines, it produces a wine with briar fruit and dusty, peppery notes.

Each Cape growing region, or ward, is vastly different, one to the other. Drastic changes in elevation and topography make the wines and their characteristics as diverse as the regions themselves. One of the largest and best-known growing regions is Stellenbosch. The wines of this “district” are marked by the wide diversity of styles, driven by the different of types of soil, ranging from sandstone to granite. Two of my favorite producers for quality and value in the region are Neil Ellis and Man Vintners. Neil Ellis Stellenbosch Cabernet and Man Coastal Chenin Blanc are two great examples of amazing wines, showing distinct characteristics true to Stellenbosch while balancing a world-class line of quality between old and new world.

Another one of my favorite growing areas is Walker Bay, located in the Cape Overbay Region. Running along the “whale coast,” where the Southern right whale comes to mate, it’s a breathtakingly beautiful region. With a higher elevation and cooler climate than Stellenbosch, Walker Bay produces world-class chardonnay and pinot noir, especially from the area of Hemel-en-Aarde, meaning Heaven and Earth in Afrikaans. There are a few small estate producers in this highly distinctive region that are unlike any others in the Cape or the world. Cool Atlantic breezes and a fog that lingers over the vineyards keep the heat away, and the moisture around the vines helps produce the beautiful grapes that become such remarkable wines like those of Hamilton Russell Vineyards.

There are more growing regions in the Cape than I can possibly mention here. It’s home to species of flora and fauna that are not found anywhere else in the world, some of the oldest soils on the planet, and people determined to treat their land and people with respect, making it a dynamic place for growing grapes and producing wines — truly the best (blend) of Old and New World styles.

Welcome South African wines into your life and enjoy the diversity.  PS

Angela Sanchez owns Southern Whey, a cheese-centric specialty food store in Southern Pines, with her husband, Chris Abbey. She was in the wine industry for 20 years and lucky enough to travel the world drinking wine and eating cheese.

Photograph by John Koob Gessner

Good Ol’ Rittenhouse

Rye whiskey that was love at first sip

By Tony Cross
Anyone in the bar business is well aware of Rittenhouse Rye. It is, without a doubt, the best bang for your buck mixing rye whiskey on the market. Rittenhouse’s popularity comes with a price (and not attached to a dollar sign); it’s hard to find. Granted, it’s currently sitting on the shelf of the closest ABC to me. The question is: For how long? If you’re a fan of anything from old-fashioneds to Sazeracs, drop what you’re doing and call your local ABC right away and have them hold a bottle for you. Chances are, they’re already sold out.
I became familiar with Rittenhouse almost a decade ago when I first dived into the world of making drinks. A couple of recipes from well-known bartenders called for Rittenhouse when a rye was needed. Our ABC wasn’t carrying it at the time, and never had. The only way for me to get my hands on it was by ordering a case. I was managing a restaurant at the time, and had just become the main bartender. A case of rye that I never had before was a little risky, especially with a $360 price tag. Luckily for me, it was love at first sip, and before I knew it, that first case was almost gone! It was a few cases later when my local ABC hub informed me that they were going to stock the rye. The combination of my case orders and myriad customers (that frequented my bar) requesting the whiskey seemed to get the ball rolling. Not that I’m responsible for Rittenhouse having a (semi) permanent spot on my local store’s shelf . . . I’m just saying.
Rittenhouse Rye was founded in 1934 in Philadelphia, and was started after Prohibition ended in December 1933. It was named after the American astronomer, mathematician, inventor (and on, and on), David Rittenhouse. Originally titled “Rittenhouse Square Rye,” it was named after one of William Penn’s squares in Philly that was originally called “Southwest Square” but later renamed “Rittenhouse Square” as a tribute to David. It is currently produced in Kentucky by Heaven Hill Distillery.
Rittenhouse is a bonded rye; you’ll see “Bottled in Bond” on the label. At the end of the 19th century, there were a lot of distillers popping up everywhere that were selling, well, crap hooch. Bankers and other higher-ups with money started lobbying Congress; they wanted a law that guaranteed that their spirit was of high quality. Thus, the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897 was born. Whiskey from there on out was to come from one distillery during one distilling season, and had to be aged in a federally bonded warehouse for at least four years, and bottled at 100 proof. I’m sure that most politicians sent this bill through quickly for personal reasons as well. Not complaining. The tradition continues, as every bottle of Rittenhouse is bottled in bond.
Today, we are lucky to have a huge selection of rye whiskeys to choose from. Even if our local ABC store doesn’t have a great offering, you can always explore other state’s liquor stores, and/or shop online. With that being said, you can never go wrong with Rittenhouse. It’s great neat, on the rocks, or in classic cocktails.
Personally, I’ve always gravitated toward rye whiskies when it came time to make most whiskey forward cocktails. The first proper cocktail I ever made was a Manhattan. When I was behind the stick, no matter what time of year, I always had a Manhattan on my menu. And it was made with Rittenhouse. It’s spicy, but not over-the-top. It’s got a touch of sweetness, but nothing compared to a bourbon. It’s the best. There are other ryes that I love, but Rittenhouse will always be a staple in my bar.
When I was sitting on my first case of Rittenhouse, I had at least three or four cocktails on my menu with rye. I was trying to get our guests to give classic cocktails with whiskey a shot. This was at a time when neon-colored drinks were popular and every other menu had “tini” printed on it with vodka as the spirit. I wanted people to understand why classics are just that. Rittenhouse helped, from our Sazeracs to our sours. “I never liked whiskey drinks, but this one is delicious!” was starting to become common buzz. If memory serves, we added a New York Sour to the menu the first fall that I was behind the bar. Off the bat, it was aesthetically appealing, which usually got a group of our guests talking when someone from the table ordered it. After sharing a few sips, more orders would follow suit.
New York Sour
2 ounces Rittenhouse Rye
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup (2:1)
1 egg white (optional)
1/2 ounce red wine (I used malbec)
Lemon peel to garnish
Combine rye, lemon juice, simple syrup (and egg white if you choose) into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake hard for 10 seconds (longer with egg whites) and strain into a rocks glass with ice. Using the back of a bar spoon, slowly float the red wine atop the cocktail. Garnish with a swath of lemon peel. PS
Tony Cross is a bartender who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

Blue Streak

Listen for the sound of the blue grosbeak’s loud “chip” call this time of year

By Susan Campbell

’Tis the season for the annual appearance of blue grosbeaks! Begin spotting this handsome, medium-sized songbird any day now along fencerows and on electric wires in rural areas throughout the Piedmont. Returning to the United States in April after long winter stays in Central America and the Caribbean, blue grosbeaks breed across much of America, from central California throughout the Plains states and up into Virginia. And now, ahead of migration southward to tropical wintering grounds, these chunky songbirds seek out easy seed sources in order to bulk up before the long journey south.

Although this bird is common throughout the Piedmont during the breeding season, it is often missed by casual observers. It is a bird of both pine and mixed forest, often encountered along edges associated with farming. Blue grosbeaks’ large silvery bill is what really makes this bird distinctive. The sexes are quite different, with males a dark blue. Also look for a small black mask around the bill and eyes, as well as chestnut wing bars.  Females are more of a cinnamon hue than blue, with rusty wing bars and a bit of blue on the rump extending into the tail. Immature females have plumage very much like their mothers’.

Plumage counts. Some males in their first spring will not breed successfully because they do not have the extensive blue of fully mature males and are not able to attract mates in order to start a family.  However, after a full year of singing, fighting and extensive experience foraging, they will become excellent prospects come their second spring as long as they survive the winter.

The blue grosbeak’s song is a rich warble, and their call a loud, metallic “chip.” Hearing these vocalizations is the best way to find them, given their propensity for spending a lot of time in thick vegetation. They prefer shrubbery for breeding, look for nests low in thick vegetation and viny tangles. The nest is a compact cup-shaped affair comprised of twigs, grasses, leaves and rootlets, often studded with paper, string or other litter. Blue grosbeaks are one of only a few migrant species that raise not just one, but two broods of between three and five young in a season.

Unfortunately blue grosbeaks all too often end up unwittingly raising the young of parasitic brown-headed cowbirds. Cowbird females are experts at laying eggs in the nests of other species found in open or semi-open habitat. The eggs, which are larger, generally hatch ahead of the hosts’ brood.  They produce young that then grow larger and faster, oftentimes outcompeting the nestling grosbeaks.

Like most of our songbirds, this species feeds heavily on insects in the summer months.  Caterpillars make up a significant portion of the diet. But blue grosbeaks also will hunt for food at or near ground level, collecting adult grasshoppers and crickets as well as other large insects. Their outsized bills are effective at breaking up prey items as well as large seed, such as sunflower kernels. Expect individual blue grosbeaks to show up at feeding stations soon — but they do not congregate the way other finches do.  So keep an eye out if you live on the edge of town or in a more rural location. Spotting one of these distinctive birds is quite a treat!  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).