Mixing It Up

Sagittarius brings a merry, motley crew

By Astrid Stellanova

Happy Holidays, Star Children! December births make me think of Forrest Gump’s good ole chocolate-box. Born in December: Crooners Frank Sinatra, Britney Spears and Taylor Swift; politicians and criminals, like Winston Churchill and drug lord Pablo Escobar. Then, everybody else that is waaaay outside the box: Pope Francis and Walt Disney, Larry Byrd and Mary Queen of Scots. Stephen Spielberg and Richard Pryor. Beethoven. Nostradamus and Bruce Lee. Woody Allen and Samuel L. Jackson. Keith Richards and Jamie Foxx. Joseph Stalin and Benjamin Disraeli. . . Ad Astra — Astrid

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)

There ain’t nothing old about you but your money! And Honey, you know you are feeling the rush of being flush since a minor crisis passed this year. You escaped just fine with your wallet, hair and teeth intact. Now, the cake is ready, friends are gathering and birthday wishes are all coming true. Have faith. Your life is the sum of a lot of struggle but nothing was wasted — not even your dryer lint. (We can talk about that hoarding thing another day.)

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

You don’t need to keep looking in the rearview mirror. All good things lie ahead, Sugar. Memory lane is closed. And what you have lying straight before you is worth focusing on. Meanwhile, there is a great opportunity for investing in yourself and a new idea in the new year. Don’t let that escape you — take the off ramp!

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

Well, look at you social caterpillar! You have broken into a tough circle of friends that only took about a thousand forevers. But you were patient and they finally saw that one of you was worth ten of a lot of people.  You’re well loved, Honey Bun.

Pisces (February 19–March 20)

You sayin’ your Jaguar can’t make it up the driveway at your mountain place? Or you’re allergic to all metals but platinum? Sugar, that is something called a humblebrag. Nobody else has told you, so I have to. It is true you have been prosperous. And that you have especially fine taste. Just say a little bit less about it.

Aries (March 21–April 19)

Somebody bamboozled you pretty good. Looked like you couldn’t tell a skunk from a Billy goat. Well, they reckoned wrong. You’ll get your chance to settle the score but don’t let it concern you. The view ain’t worth the climb, Honey Bunny. 

Taurus (April 20–May 20)

There is one somebody who gets under your skin and makes you lose your ever-loving mind. You know who and when. You have got to stop the blame game, hurling insults faster than Kim Jong-un. It might be a game to them but it is bad for your constitution, Sugar.

Gemini (May 21–June 20)

You’ve been showing too many teeth. Makes people nervous, and that completely undermines you. Stop trying so hard to be liked. You don’t have to work that angle. If you can stand in your truth, they will admire you, anyhow. You are likeable enough, Sally Field.

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

Let’s get some lumbar support for you, since you’re having a lot of trouble with your backbone. The thing is, you let a situation get out of control because you felt a lot of misplaced sympathy. But what they need from you is leadership. That might require you to be a lot firmer than your Beautyrest mattress.

Leo (July 23–August 22)

Yep, your little plan fell into place, which either puts you in the catbird seat or the litter box. You were cunning and scored a win. But is this a game you really want to win? Ask that question. Also, a friend from your past needs a pal. It would be good karma just to let them know you remember them.

Virgo (August 23–September 22)

Can’t never could, Sugar, but don’t kill yourself. It is also true that flop sweat ain’t becoming. During the holidays you may be asked to step up and take on a social role that you have never especially wanted. But it will be growth for you. And a toehold inside a door that has been closed for a very long time.

Libra (September 23–October 22)

You speak Southern? Then you know not to look over yonder for something right under foot. Focus is all you need to find your heart’s desire. And even though you feel like you have given all you have for a mighty big goal, you have something important and don’t even recognize it.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21)

Hunh? Darling, you brought a cup of Ramen noodles to a knife fight? I don’t know what got into you lately, but you have had this idea that life is a spectator sport. Well, what are you planning to do with the rest of this special life? This month is a good time to ask yourself if you are going to keep chasing after unicorns.  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.

Have Yourselfie a Merry Little Christmas

In search of a family tradition

By Wiley Cash

Our oldest daughter was only 2 months old the first time we made her cry while showing her the importance of family traditions. It was a chilly late afternoon on the day after Thanksgiving in 2014, and my wife and I had already unloaded all the Christmas decorations from the attic while our daughter napped. Now we sat on the living room sofa in nervous silence, watching the daylight slip away and wondering if we should dare commit the cardinal sin of waking a sleeping baby. After all, we were going to get our first Christmas tree as a family, and we needed high-quality photos to prove that a tradition had been forged.

I cannot quite remember what my wife or I were wearing, but in my memory it seems that we were decked out in our winter, Christmas tree-searching finery. I picture myself in a red flannel shirt with one of those leather hats with the flaps folded down over my ears, and I imagine my wife was wearing a cream-colored sweater with a beret that matched, but these are just bits of speculation. I do, however, remember our daughter’s outfit, can still picture it where it was laid out on the coffee table: a white onesie with a Cubist-inspired Christmas tree on it and, of course, a tiny red Santa hat that we planned to perch perfectly atop her bald baby head.

At the first sound of her stirring, we flew upstairs. We slipped her out of her non-holiday clothes and into the Christmas tree onesie with ease, but we hit a serious speed bump once the Santa hat was installed on her head. She shook it loose, and when we put it back on she actually reached for it and removed it. My wife did her best to distract our daughter while I fumbled with the tripod so we could snap a few casual photos in front of our garlanded, lit fireplace before setting out in search of a tree. By the time the camera was ready, our daughter was in tears. The photos show our strained faces, her tear-stained cheeks and a tiny Santa hat that is alternately atop her head, in midair as it falls toward the floor, then absent altogether. 

With dusk coming on and our normally relaxed newborn newly fitful, we made a dash for the closest Christmas tree lot we could find, which, unfortunately, sat on a narrow strip of grass between the fire department and a busy road.

The sun had sunk below the tree line and an icy chill had settled over the late afternoon by the time we arrived at the lot. We immediately set about the task of having and photographing our tree-hunting experience instead of actually hunting for a tree. Our daughter showed no more interest in wearing her Santa hat than she had shown at home, and the cars and trucks that sped past us only a few feet away did not assist us in our attempts to keep the hat on her head. However, what the speeding automobiles did do well was force the cold air deep into our eyes so that tears streamed down all our faces.

After we had taken all the pictures the three of us could stand — none of which actually featured the three of us together — we realized that we had not yet spent a moment considering any trees on the lot. We made a hasty selection, tied a tree to the top of the car and headed home.

We got the tree inside and set it up in its stand, but we did not decorate it that evening. We did not decorate it the next day either. Perhaps we were not yet in the Christmas spirit. Perhaps we were busy decorating other parts of the house. But what is most likely is that we were silently pouting due to the fact that the experience of getting the tree had not been captured in a way that felt sufficient to memorialize it as a family tradition.

A few nights later, after an early dinner, I found my wife going through a box of ornaments. Many of them had been given to us while we were dating or during the first year of our marriage. We considered each ornament, talked about the people who had given it to us, recalled the first Christmas tree we decorated as a couple when we were living in the northern panhandle of West Virginia in 2009.

That year, my wife had come home late from work, and snow had begun to fall. It was early December, and there was already a thin layer of snow on the ground. Both of us being Southerners, we were excited by the idea of getting a Christmas tree in the falling snow. Although we had not yet unpacked ornaments or even considered decorating our tiny apartment, we set out on the dark, snow-covered roads that wound through our mountain village and headed for the small town of Wellsburg, on the banks of the Ohio River.

The only Christmas trees we could find were in the parking lot of a Rite-Aid, and there were only a few trees available. But we took our time, imagining each one crammed inside our living room in front of the window that looked out on the main street of the village. We talked about how high our ceiling was, what kind of tree topper we would buy, which ornaments would hang where. The snow kept falling, and I have vivid memories of seeing flakes caught in my wife’s dark hair. I can remember reaching out and touching the pine boughs on the various trees where the soft snow had settled.

We finally agreed on a short, fat tree, and as we paid for it and loaded it onto the roof of our car we discovered that the owner of the tree lot knew some friends of ours. We had only recently moved to West Virginia, and we were thrilled by the knowledge that we had just met someone who was friends with our friends. We felt like we belonged in this distant place that was so far from our lives back home in North Carolina. We were forging a life together.

Five years later we stood in a new house with a new baby and looked through old ornaments. I opened a few boxes of lights and began snaking them through the tree. We made a fire and hung our old ornaments one by one. We were so caught up in our decorating that we did not notice that our daughter had fallen asleep on the little pillow where she often rested, the light from the fire and the light from the tree causing her soft baby face to glow. I looked at my wife. She reached for her cellphone, and I reached for our daughter’s tiny Santa hat and, as carefully as I could, placed it on her head. We knelt behind her, gazed down upon her with all the love one could ever feel for such a sweet, innocent thing. And then we looked up at my wife’s cellphone and snapped a selfie.

That night, I knew that we were a family with a Christmas tradition. But I also knew something else: We always had been.  PS

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

A Bitter Little Christmas

Treat your cocktail enthusiast to the perfect stocking stuffer

By Tony Cross

I first met Craig Rudewicz two years ago at Fair Game Beverage Company’s spirit release party. Craig and I (along with two other bartenders from Raleigh) were asked to create cocktails with FG’s Apple Brandy and Sorghum Rum. Craig was in his third year running Crude Bitters, North Carolina’s first cocktail bitters company. We briefly chatted, and he sent me off with his staple bitters to see what I thought. Since then, we’ve both been busy boys, but finally reconnected at this year’s Pepperfest in Chapel Hill. A few weeks later, I was able to drive up to Raleigh, and check out his new facility, as well as his new cocktail supply shop and classroom, The Bittery.

Craig and his wife moved to Raleigh six years ago from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He spent the next few years slinging behind a few restaurant bars, while managing as well. “It was a wonderful way to associate cocktails with food and the relationships with the kitchen,” Craig says about how he gained inspiration for coming up with his first bitters recipes. You see, bitters is usually an enigma to those that aren’t into cocktails, or are just learning. It’s pretty simple, actually. Bitters is to a cocktail like salt and pepper are to food. Bitters can also bring cocktail ingredients together that, without it, wouldn’t be a perfect fit. Bitters is used in food too, but I’ll save that for when I start a food column. In addition to creating bitters at the restaurant bar he managed, Craig and his wife started making their own syrups and extracts at home. “To get away from using products with high fructose corn syrup, chemicals and preservatives,” he says. “We appreciate a good cocktail, and wanted our drinks to be just as great as our meals . . . so Crude grew from that. I wanted bitters to be appreciated as a craft product just as much as spirits and beer.”

Crude Bitters was launched in 2012 while Craig was still working his restaurant gig; he started selling his homemade bitters at local farmer’s markets. If you head over to their website, www.crudebitters.com, you’ll see that Craig takes every step to make sure his bitters are as authentic as possible. “Our bitters are crafted in small batches from 100 percent maceration in organic, non-GMO alcohol, with no glycerin, chemicals or dyes,” he says. “Glass pots or wood barrels are used exclusively in the storage and aging of our products.” His attention to detail on all fronts hasn’t gone unnoticed. He’s won many awards, including the Good Food Award (twice) and the Southern Living Food Award. His bitters also found its way into Mark Bitterman’s Field Guide to Bitters and Amari that came out in 2015. In it, Craig explains the origin of his company’s name. “The name is in reference to the rudimentary origins of bitters. Exotic (and undocumented) roots, herbs, and spices were aged in various liquids and beneficial (and unverified) claims attached to them. Hence, crude,” he says.

When Craig is coming up with a new elixir, he focuses more on what blend of flavors will work with a certain spirit or cocktail than narrowing in on a single flavor of bitters. “It can be difficult putting the right blend of flavor and aroma together,” he says, “but I always start with what spirit I would like the bitters to be used in.” This shows in his Rizzo bitters, with flavors of citrus, pepper, and rosemary — perfect for a gin and tonic, or even someone who is cutting calories with a vodka soda. Personally, I love adding his Sycophant Orange & Fig bitters to my Old-Fashioned. It pairs well with an aromatic bitter, giving the cocktail a slight candied orange and vanilla undertone.

Crude is the first North Carolina bitters company, but Craig foresees growth from other businesses with bitters and mixers on the horizon. “There is not much competition (at the moment). There are a couple of small companies around the state, and bars/restaurants always have great bar programs that produce their own house bitters,” he says. “I expect there to be a boom of cocktail bitters and mixers soon.”

You don’t have to drive up to Raleigh to grab a bottle — or multiple bottles — of Crude Bitters. Stop into Nature’s Own and ask about which bottles are currently being represented. You can also check out the new whiskey bar, The Leadmine, and ask Orlando to concoct a cocktail with the local bitters. It’s amazing what bitters can do for a cocktail, and the more you understand this, the better you’ll appreciate Craig’s passion. Don’t take my word for it, stop into his new space and take a cocktail class. In addition to being educated on bitters, and doing tastings, Craig will guide you on how to use his bitters in cocktails, and why different ones work better with different spirits. You can go online and subscribe to his mailing list, where you’ll be privy to Crude’s up and coming classes. PS

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

The Fabric of Life

In room 104 at the Pinehurst Resort, seamstress Wanda Capel holds forth, one stitch at a time

By Haley Ray

In the Carolina Hotel, on the ground floor of the east wing, a sewing machine clatters. The hum comes from room 104, the last stop at the end of a hallway full of guest accommodations. It’s the office where hotel seamstress Wanda Capel holds court daily with fabrics that need her mending.

She’s saved weddings like Cinderella’s fairy godmother from bridesmaids dresses gone bad and put more stitches in golfers’ pants than there are range balls on Maniac Hill. Boxed in by three sewing machines, surrounded by spools of colorful thread and cloth, Capel has spent 26 years working at the Carolina. An Employee of the Month trophy sits high on a shelf among pictures of her children and grandchildren. She grasps a piece of fabric with a fashionably gloved right hand. More utilitarian than stylish, the glove helps manage the pain in her palm, the arthritic remnant of a car accident.

Capel nonchalantly explains the quick fix for the pain. “I just put some numbing medicine on it because it hurts right there, and the more I cut the worse it feels,” she says, pointing to her palm. “So, I just put the glove on there and the medicine to work my hands. Just the sewing is OK, but it depends on how much cutting I do. Sometimes at night my hands will ache and I know it’s nothing but arthritis. But once I get them going in the morning they’ll last all day. I refuse to let them shut down on me.”

Before taking over room 104, Capel had a gig at Quality Mills in Carthage, drove a school bus, picked up the odd sewing job here and there, and taught an evening sewing class at Sandhills Community College. “I had a girlfriend who worked here . . . and she kept telling me that the lady they had was leaving and they were looking for somebody,” says Capel. “She kept telling me to go and apply. I said, ‘I’m not going over there. I won’t get that job.’ I was in one of those times where you don’t think anything is going to work out for you.” Finally, frustrated with her daytime boss, one Friday afternoon she plucked up the nerve to submit an application at the Carolina. Four days later she had the job.

Flying solo on a sewing machine is about as far from workplace drama as a human being can get. Capel mends alone and couldn’t be happier. “When I came here it was like the best thing that could have ever have happened to me,” she says. “Now I don’t have to concentrate on nothing but what I’m doing. I don’t have to worry about anybody that don’t like me, because it don’t even matter.”

Peaceful surroundings are not all Capel gained from the job. She also found her husband, Walter. He was working in transportation at the hotel and needed his uniforms fixed. After bringing them to room 104, he kept pestering her for a date. “I wouldn’t talk to him, though,” Capel remembers with a smile. “I don’t date people I work with.” He quit his job to work elsewhere, and before long they were married.

Capel mends and cares for family members as carefully as she stitches a frayed collar, working through personal tragedy and long-term illnesses. It was a car accident in 2000 that left her with a broken arm, a broken pelvis and the injuries to her skilled hands that would eventually turn arthritic. Recovering at home, in traction, Capel stubbornly refused to miss the high school graduation of her daughter, Alycia. Her doctor told her she wouldn’t be able to attend the ceremony unless she obtained the proper medical transportation.

Talk about an entrance. “My youngest sister, she got up with the rescue unit and she got me a rescue squad,” she says. “The nurses came out and showed her how to take me out of traction and put me back. So that graduation morning she came and she got me dressed and everything. The rescue unit came to get me, and I went to the graduation by ambulance. They rolled me out on the ball field and that’s where I watched her graduate.”

While the accident forced Capel out of work for a time, not much else has. A two-year battle with an illness required her to take a handful of pills a day and have a shot once a week. One of the medications caused memory loss and Capel still feels the effects, admitting to randomly forgetting names or stories she’s known her whole life.

In 2005, Capel lost one of her three children, the daughter whose graduation she rode in an ambulance to watch, when 22-year-old Alycia McKinnon was babysitting at her half-sister’s home. A vengeful boyfriend hired a man to kill the sibling that night. Neither the boyfriend nor the hit man had accounted for Alycia’s presence, and she was the one murdered. The killer was sentenced to life in prison. Only months before the tragedy, Capel’s mother had succumbed to cancer.

To cope with the twin losses, she turned to her work, making the mends and alterations of a hotel seamstress. “I worked through the whole time,” she says. “It’s like, after I lost my daughter, all I could hear her saying was, ‘Mama, you know you gotta work. You know you gotta work.’ From that point on, I have needed something to keep my mind occupied because I don’t need to think about certain things. Concentrating on my work is like my way out.”

So Capel stitches a life together, clattering away at her machine in room 104, fixing what others cannot. PS

Haley Ray is a Pinehurst native and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate, who recently returned from the deserts of Southern California.

Fruit of the Gods

December pomegranates

By Jan Leitschuh

Ruby red
pomegranates are starting to appear in groceries now as a seasonal item. Their cheerful rosy husks evoke a sense of Yuletide feasting and decoration. Their origins are Mediterranean, and exotic. 

Pomegranate fruits are actually berries, filled with hundreds of jewel-like seeds, usually dark red. The sweet, fleshy, juicy coating surrounding each seed, often referred to as the aril, is the edible portion. 

Are you surprised to learn that these juicy, seedy delights are not only wildly healthy — more so than red wine or green tea — and have even been grown in our area by devoted gardeners? Who knew? That info sent me scurrying to research.

Generally thought of as a fruit of hot, dry climates, I was excited to learn of certain specimen pomegranates growing in our area. While no farmer would undertake to push the envelope on a marginally hardy and less-than-productive Mediterranean fruit, lots of backyard gardeners might want to experiment with a lovely and exotic “pet” that actually produces fruit and gorgeous flowers.

An old pomegranate used to grace the Southern Pines backyard of Beth Carpenter, local resident and North Carolina native. “We live on Orchard Road, and we had an old pomegranate and a big fig tree on our property when we bought the house 30 years ago,” said Carpenter. “Someone told us this is called Orchard Road because it was the orchards of the old Boyd estate. It makes sense. Who else would have done it?”  The Boyds were noted for their interest in local agriculture, and horticulture.

Local gardeners wishing to experiment, as the Boyds did, may not get the heavily laden crops found in Mediterranean climes. Carpenter said, “It was a normal pomegranate, and had fruit just like you find in the store. But not many, only one or two a year.” The best chance for fruit production and ripening is in areas south and east of Raleigh.

Though this old tree had weathered many a Sandhills season, it is no longer. A winter storm got it.

A wonderful fruit-bearing specimen continues to thrive in the slightly colder climate in Raleigh at the North Carolina State Arboretum. Though pomegranates often take the shape of a large shrub, this one is trained into a small tree shape, well over 8 feet tall. It blooms with exotic, hibiscus-like red flowers before setting fruit. Hummingbirds and butterflies love the highly attractive, open red flowers. There are even double-flowering varieties that resemble carnations.

A third pomegranate specimen has grown on the farm of my friend Linda Fisher of Red Oak, near Tarboro. She remembers the bush — likely planted by her mother or aunt in the ’50s — from her childhood and says it still produces a few fruits every year. Fisher told me it gets no care, water or attention, lives in dry, poor soil, and still thrives. She said they have a little year-end ritual, eating a few of the seeds every winter “like the Greeks.” 

In Greece, the fruit is closely associated with winter and the Demeter myth. Persephone, Demeter’s daughter, was captured by Hades and stolen away to the Underworld. Demeter, goddess of agriculture and spring, begged for her daughter’s return. Alas, Persephone had been tricked into eating six pomegranate seeds in the land of the dead and was permitted to come back for only part of the year, in spring and summer. The quiescence of fall and winter is recalled in the ritual of the seed eating.

Many pomegranate varieties can tolerate temperatures as low as 10 degrees Fahrenheit, which certainly makes growing in the Sandhills a possibility. Timing of the hard freeze is critical, though — if they are in the stage of producing new growth, a frost can kill them. Some cultivars are specifically bred to cope with this possibility of late spring frosts. Plants are not uncommon in South Carolina, often found around old home sites and plantations, especially in the Midlands and Coastal Plain. While they grow and flower well there, just like in North Carolina they tend to fruit poorly in our humid climate.

Pomegranates (Punica granatum) have been popular fruit throughout human history. They are experiencing a surge in popularity now due to the health benefits associated with their juice. Pomegranates, high in vitamin C, also produce a unique and powerful antioxidant called punicalagin. There are also several useful phytochemicals in pomegranates. 

The juice has been shown to have greater antioxidant capacity than such common health beverages as green tea, red wine, grape juice, cranberry juice or acai juice. If you want your own pomegranate “pet,” there are internet sources for plants. I’d suggest calling the company to discuss your growing conditions. Ask for a cultivar recommendation. I planted the variety “Wonderful” when we began our cottage garden, and while it did not survive that first hot summer, it may have not had optimum attention and water to establish it. In good conditions a mature tree can grow approximately 10-15 feet tall and 5-10 feet wide. Pomegranates love to sucker with slender, thorny stems, but could also be trained into a tree like the North Carolina State Arboretum specimen.

First, the growing basics. Your tree will need at least 8 hours of direct sun in the growing season (and more is better) in well-drained soil and a sunny area. You’ll probably need to add lime, phosphorus and potassium to your soil. A pH of 6.5 is about perfect. Pomegranates are self-pollinating, so you only need one, but fruit production is greater with two plants.

You could also grow one in a pot like your pet citrus, or in a sheltered area. Inquire about the more compact forms, if a pot is the ultimate home. Growth is moderate, and should bear well three years after planting. While some European pomegranates are over 200 years old, vigor may decline into the second decade.

In the fall during years that climatic conditions allow good fruit set, the globe-shaped fruits can be striking, resembling Christmas ornaments.  Fruit typically ripen in September to November. Pomegranate plants are said to be well-suited for the shrub border. They make a great backdrop for small shrubs and perennials and good screens. They benefit from a 2-to 3-inch layer of organic mulch.

If fruit production is desired, irrigating to provide even soil moisture will reduce fruit drop and prevent fruit splitting. Additionally, fertilizing plants in March and July with 1 pound of 10-10-10 for every three feet of plant height will aid in fruiting.

Or, you could just buy the attractive fruits in stores right now, and enjoy their sweet health benefits yourself.

The pomegranate season is short, so grab them this month while you see them.

Pomegranate and Pear Salad

3 cups green leaf lettuce, rinsed and torn

1 Bartlett or Anjou pear

1/3 cup pomegranate seeds

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon pomegranate juice

1/2 tablespoon honey

Fresh-ground black pepper, to taste

Divide the lettuce between two bowls. Halve and core the pear, then cut each half in slices. Divide the pear slices and pomegranate seeds between the two bowls and mix gently. Combine the vegetable oil, pomegranate juice, lemon juice, mustard, honey and pepper in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until the dressing thickens slightly, about 2 minutes. Pour the warm dressing over the salads and serve.  PS

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

Trial by Bottle Cap

Now opening — or not — near you

By Joyce Reehling

Eyes open and all the thoughts that start the day begin a race in her brain to see which will get there first. She will stumble in a fog of sleep with a hint of a dream. And thus it begins, a series of questions and answers and challenges.

Up she gets to wash hands and face and brush her teeth. An almost ridiculous task as she will have tea and toast or cereal and have to brush all over again. It’s a ritual — to be followed by the ceremony of opening things.

At the intersection of age and the half-life of jars, boxes of tea, bandages and condiments, there have been developments — no, conspiracies — to demonstrate that youth has taken a bus out of town.

Twice a week the day begins with replacing her hormone replacement patch. The “glue” that will attach to her skin has a cover on it which must be removed. A glue that will, before the next time it is to be replaced, not fully adhere to her body like it stubbornly adheres to that cover now. She takes a deep breath and tries not to scream.

Padding down the hall and into the kitchen, there is a new box of tea to open. Such boxes have a “Tear Here” tab with the vague promise that it will actually tear here or somewhere near the line of the cutout guides. It almost never happens that way. No, she must first put her finger on either side of the “guides” in the hope that the tab will begin to tear at least a little, then reroute her efforts down that line. This never works. And it is now that her first thoughts of murder, or at least a tribunal to try, convict and sentence the designers of these tortuous schemes, takes hold.

Perhaps death by perforation.

Somewhere, leading otherwise innocent lives, are the people who devised the “Push Down and Turn” tops of this world, the ones that never quite catch correctly. Or the bandage string that she is convinced was never intended to really work. Or the tiny tops of small objects that are screwed on so tight that she dreams of having a tiny vice for them in the garage.

Perhaps death by vice.

Tea brewed, she must now confront the milk carton plug with a circle on top that would cut the finger off a Navy SEAL. She reaches for the chopstick that has become her way of wrenching this diabolical thing off. And she hasn’t even had her first sip of tea.

FedEx has left a small box, probably sometime yesterday, but they never seem to ring the bell anymore, so she discovers it through the kitchen window. Again the dreaded “Tear Here.”

This tab, obviously designed by a particularly malevolent person, always breaks off and never goes beyond the first 1/8 of an inch. Screwdrivers or a box cutter must be carefully employed. With the box finally open, there is a plastic bag with no visible way to open save cutting it. Should she need to return the object they will tell her that it must be returned as shipped. They never say how, since it will never fit back into the bag or into the box. They have, it would seem, developed packing methods similar to sea monkeys, starting tiny and then exploding.

Perhaps death by shrinking.

No sip of tea has been had, nor toast, but by now she is boggled in the brain and her blood is running hot. Others must surely feel these frustrations but the fact that she is not alone is, oddly, no comfort.

She looks out the window for her reset button or a “Push Down and Turn” to begin this day all over again. And then she sips her tea. And sighs with dreams of a courtroom with these designers at the defense table and a jury of women over 50.

Finally, a smile. PS

Joyce Reehling is a frequent contributor and good friend of PineStraw.

Sacred Spaces

Across life — and death — the places where we connect

By Tom Allen

What makes a place sacred is often a matter of experience and memory.

Our daughter married this summer, in a historic Raleigh church, repurposed earlier as a bluegrass venue, then restored, once again, as a church. The founding congregation moved to a suburban location in 2001. Religious-themed, Tiffany-styled stained glass windows traveled with them. Simpler patterns remained. When a developer purchased the building, he filled the empty spaces with stained glass fitting a more secular venue — a colonial-era vineyard, a maestro conducting a symphony.

When a new congregation purchased the building, they set out to restore the space to its original intent as a house of worship. Some rooms were left open for artists’ displays. The church also agreed the sanctuary could be used occasionally for concerts. They’ve done an amazing amount of work in a short time — updating antiquated HVAC systems, refinishing hardwood floors, and preserving decades-old pews. Finding a new home for the current windows and replacing them with stained glass depictions of the faith is planned but costly.

So when I walked Hannah down the aisle on August 19, instead of depictions of the Good Shepherd or the Christmas story, a couple, straight out of Colonial Williamsburg, was strolling through a vineyard. Above a wooden cross a conductor raised his baton, ready to give the downbeat. Although some of the visuals seemed to contradict the setting, the day, we all agreed, was a high and holy occasion, a pull-out-all-the-stops celebration with lots of grand memories.

For many, a church, a synagogue, a temple, is sacred space. The words and rituals echoing there connect people to something beyond themselves, something transcendent, mysterious, yet something very real. Babies are baptized, vows are spoken, the sick are anointed, the dead are remembered. Some spaces house relics and saintly figures. Holy books, altars, and tables become enshrined. Whether an upright piano donated in memory of a dear granny or the tomb of a beloved saint buried for centuries in an undercroft, crypts and crevices enhance the sacredness of these spaces. Westminster Abbey, a simple rural sanctuary or an outdoor chapel canopied by oaks — all places where sacred spaces abound.

But people need not enter a temple or church to feel the holiness. The delivery rooms where my children were born, occasions that took my breath away, became sacred places. The room in a nursing center, where I held my parents’ hands as they breathed their last, was just as sacred as the churches where I embraced a belief that something was beyond those final breaths.

I know a couple in their 80s who have walked the same path, weather permitting, every afternoon since they retired. She is stooped. He holds her hand. The path has grown shorter and the walk takes longer, but that trail is, for them, a sacred and holy space.

Places of horror can be sacred as well. Sites of the unfathomable — Ground Zero in Manhattan, Dachau, Auschwitz, the Killing Fields of Cambodia — these places, where innocents were slaughtered, become shrines to the sanctity of life and the hope that “never again” will prevail.

You probably have personal sacred places, beyond walls and steeples. The space might be the chair where loved ones used to sit, a car they drove, a garden they once tended, a kitchen table where life was shared, or a grave that confirms that they lived and loved and mattered.

Sometimes I fear we’ve lost our capacity to see wonder where true wonder lies, to see the sacred in the everyday, the holy in the mundane. Perhaps the story of the first Christmas — the birth of a baby in a cow stall — reminds us all, whether we embrace the story as our own or not, that beauty and wonder often come to us simply, quietly and in the most unexpected times and places.

For one and all, may these days be merry and bright, blessed with peace and graced with wonder. And may you find a place, a time, or just a moment, that simply takes your breath away.  PS

Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.

 

December Books

Our Town 

Southern Sunrises, by Tom Bryant

An endearing collection of Bryant’s “Sporting Life” columns, originally appearing in PineStraw magazine, captures what it is to be Southern and true in these stories of fishing, bird hunting, friends and family. 

The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government and Cheap Lives, by Bryant Simon

A look at the 1991 fire at the Imperial Foods processing plant in Hamlet reveals much about the state of the food industry in America. The investigative reporting by Simon suggests local lore surrounding the tragic fire is incorrect. Worth a read. 

Spiderella: The Girl who Spoke with Spiders, by Romey Petite and Laurel Holden 

This is a surefire gift for little ones of all ages. A collaboration of two Southern Pines artists and storytellers, it’s a modern version of the Cinderella theme with illustrations and costumes that stay with you long after the book is closed.

Coffee Table

The Authentics: A Lush Dive Into the Substance of Style, by Melanie Acevedo and Dara Caponigro

The best coffee table book of the year by the founding editor of Domino magazine. The photographs of the graceful spaces and the people who inhabit them are beautiful, but this book is made readable by the interviews with each “Authentic.” A wonderful addition in your living room. 

Vogue Living: Country, City, Coast edited, by Hamish Bowles and Chloe Malle

This collection of Vogue homes from 2008 to 2016 showcases the magazine’s brilliant and varied photography. Similar to the Vogue Weddings: Brides, Dresses, Designers from 2012, this is sure to be a staple for appreciators of elegance. 

Stocking Stuffers

You Look Better Online: Your Life in 150 Unfiltered Cartoons, by Emmet Truxes 

This stocking-sized book is full of truths about modern life that will have adults, young and old, giggling through Christmas morning and beyond.

365 Days of Firsts: A Daily Record of Baby’s First Year 

A little book to help new parents record each memorable milestone. Attractive, with quick dates and a few lines to fill in as the newborn grows up, this is a fantastic (and easy) way to chronicle the treasures of life. 

Biography 

Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend, by Meryl Gordon

The story of the trendsetting Bunny Mellon, the designer of the White House Rose Garden, is full of family secrets, politics, art and fashion among America’s 20th century elite.

Churchill and Orwell: The Fight For Freedom, by Thomas E. Ricks

A dual biography of Winston Churchill and George Orwell, two of the most important people in British history who shared the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and in deeds, against the totalitarian threat from both the left and the right.

Leonardo Da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson 

The author of Steve Jobs and Einstein takes a spellbinding look at history’s most creative genius, weaving a narrative that connects Da Vinci’s art to his science. He shows how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy.

Sisters First: Stories from our Wild and Wonderful Life, by Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush 

Much more than a tale of politics, the girls who saw both their grandfather and father serve as President of the United States co-author a thoughtful memoir about their lives and American history over the last 30 years. 

Grant, by Ron Chernow

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Washington and Alexander Hamilton delivers a brilliant account of Ulysses S. Grant’s life. Chernow provides a deeper understanding of the often misunderstood and frequently caricatured Civil War general and post-war president.

Nonfiction

Overload: Finding the Truth in Today’s Deluge of News by Bob Schieffer

The legendary television broadcaster examines today’s journalism and those who practice it. Based on interviews with over 40 media leaders from television, print media, and the internet, Schieffer surveys the perils and promises of journalism’s rapidly changing landscape.

The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, by Masha Gessen

A brilliant book by the biographer of Vladimir Putin, Gessen follows the lives of four people to chart the path of a Russia from the doorstep of democracy to a virulent autocracy.


The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home, by Denise Kieran

The fascinating true story behind the magnificent Gilded Age mansion Biltmore — the largest, grandest residence ever built in the United States. The story of Biltmore spans world wars, the Jazz Age, the Depression, and generations of the famous Vanderbilt family, and features a captivating cast of real-life characters including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton.

Fiction

The Last Ballad

by Wiley Cash

The chronicle of an ordinary woman’s struggle for dignity and her rights in a textile mill, The Last Ballad is a moving tale of courage in the face of oppression and injustice. Cash tells the story of Ella May Wiggins and brings to life the heartbreak and bravery of the labor movement in 20th century North Carolina, paying tribute to the thousands of heroic women and men who risked their lives to win basic rights for all workers. 

Cookbooks

The Farmhouse Chef: Recipes and Stories from My Carolina Farm, by Jamie DeMent

From the owner of Piedmont Restaurant in Durham.

Cúrate: Authentic Spanish Food From an American Kitchen, by Kate Button

From the owner of Cúrate in Asheville.

Poole’s: Recipes and Stories from a Modern Diner, by Ashley Christensen

From the owner of Poole’s Downtown Diner in Raleigh.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Brinkley Boyd of Weymouth, by Annie Hallinan

From the author of the Sandhills best-selling title The Sweetest Christmas Eve comes this new tale of Brinkley Boyd. A small, quiet mouse, Brinkley enjoys living at the Boyd House at Weymouth. There are rooms to explore, animal friends to make, stories to hear, and adventures to be had. This special edition of Brinkley Boyd also includes a Weymouth Center guided scavenger hunt and special photographs from James and Katharine Boyd’s wedding. Ages 4-9.

The Very Very Very Long Dog, by Julia Patton

Bartelby is a very long and lovable dachshund who lives in a bookstore. He has a lovely set of friends who take him for walks through the city, but he has no idea that his bumbling backside leaves a trail of destruction and accidents behind him. Embarrassed that he has no control over his back end, Bartelby vows to never leave the cozy bookstore again. Can his friends help him find a way to help himself? Ages 3-7.

Top Elf, by Caleb Huett

Ollie and Celia think they know what the life of an elf is supposed to be like: make toys; help Santa; make more toys; help Santa; try out a new icecream flavor; help Santa. However, after 20 years, the current St. Nick is ready to pass the torch to the next Santa who will be chosen in a rather unusual way — a contest! Let the Santa trials and the fun begin. Ages 7-12.

Nyxia, by Scott Reintgen

Nyxia — an amazing substance that can be transformed into a ring, a sword, a life-saving vest, a wall. Nyxia — sought out by the Babel Corporation. Nyxia — the thing that just might transform Emmett Atwater from an underprivileged teen into a millionaire if only he can earn a spot on the team traveling to the planet Eden to extract more Nyxia. Hunger Games meets Enders Game, this first installment of the Nyxia trilogy leaves the reader begging debut author Scott Reintgen to hurry please with book two. Ages 14 and up. PS

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Talley.

Northern Bobwhite

Diminished in number, the bird with the distinctive call is making a comeback

By Susan Campbell

For those fortunate enough to live in open piney woods or adjacent to large farm fields, the whistled call of the bobwhite quail may be a familiar sound. But, as with so many of our bird species, this once prolific songster has diminished in the Piedmont. And anyone in search of winter partridge for the table is increasingly likely to be disappointed.

Bobwhite quail measure between 8 to 11 inches beak-to-tail and have very cryptic brown, black and white markings that make them all but impossible to see in the grassy habitats they call home. The male has a bright, white eye-stripe and throat marking, and is the one who announces his territory through a repeated “bob-white” call. The female is not only smaller but drabber, with an eye-stripe and throat that are a buffy color. This stout bird’s short sharp bill, strong legs and feet with sharp claws, make it well adapted to foraging at ground level for insects, berries and soft vegetation.

Northern bobwhite males attract a mate using their loud repetitive calls in the spring. The female will reply with a four-syllable whistle of her own. Following breeding, the pair creates a domed nest concealed in tall grasses, and the hen lays up to 20 pure white eggs. It takes about 25 days of incubation for the young to hatch. Hens will renest if the eggs are eaten or destroyed. Upon hatching, the chicks will immediately follow their parents, learning how to hunt bugs and which shoots are the most nutritious.  As a group they are referred to as a covey.  They will stay together through the winter and may join other families to form coveys of thirty or more birds. When alarmed at an early age, the young will scatter and freeze to avoid predators. Once they can fly, they will take to the air in a loud blur of wings if they are startled by a potential predator.

Quail were a very popular game bird throughout North Carolina until not that long ago. Since the 1980s, when their numbers began to decline, they’ve been much harder to find. A combination of factors is believed to be responsible. Not only have open woodlands and agricultural fields with hedgerows become more scarce but ground predators such as foxes, coyotes, raccoons and free roaming cats have increased. Also, the timing of rainfall can significantly affect breeding productivity. Too much rain too early may inundate nests and dry conditions when chicks hatch may result in insufficient food.

These days, hunters search for coveys in the forests and fields that comprise the patchwork of Game Lands in our portion of the state or they go to private game reserves. Their pursuit requires a well-trained bird dog and a good deal of patience. However, active quail management is occurring locally. Two strategies are at work: opening up forested habitat using prescribed burning and replanting undesirable vegetation with quality cover.  Recent efforts by biologists with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and at Fort Bragg (along with assistance from local Quail Unlimited chapters) are resulting in gradual increases in northern bobwhite. We certainly hope this trend continues so that in the not too distant future, sightings of winter coveys will be once again commonplace throughout central North Carolina and the song of the bobwhite will return to the South.  PS

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

A Carolina Classic

Revisiting Cold Mountain

By D.G. Martin

Charles Frazier’s classic novel, Cold Mountain, was published 20 years ago and more than three million copies have been sold. The book inspired a popular epic film and an opera staged in Chapel Hill in September. As North Carolina’s most admired work of literary fiction since, perhaps, Look Homeward Angel, it should be on the bookshelf of every home in our state.

The book’s great success has made its story and its characters familiar and memorable. When the name of Inman is mentioned, we think of a tired, war-worn, wounded Civil War soldier walking across the Piedmont and foothills determined to make his way back home to Cold Mountain and to Ada, the lovely Charleston-reared Ada, whom he hardly knows, but deeply loves. She is out of place, struggling, and starving on a mountain farm. Ruby, an uneducated mountain girl, full of energy and grit, rescues and restores Ada and the farm, where the two women await Inman’s poignant return and the accompanying tragedy.

As in Homer’s Odyssey, the returning soldier’s travel toward home provides the framework for a series of adventures and contacts with a variety of compelling characters. The book opens with the battle-wounded Inman recovering in a Confederate hospital in Raleigh. Outside the hospital a blind man is selling boiled peanuts. When Inman asks what he would give for just a few minutes of sight, the peanut man replies, “Not an Indian head penny.” He explains there are things he would never want to see. Inman understands, because he remembers vividly the horrors of war and the battles he experienced and wishes he had never seen them.

As Inman’s condition improves, he resolves to desert, leave the hospital, and begin his walk toward Cold Mountain. Not long after his trek begins, in the woods near a river, he sees a fallen preacher bent on killing a woman he has impregnated. Inman rescues the woman and brutally punishes the preacher.

Soon afterwards, he encounters and angers some armed and dangerous locals. They follow him to a river crossing. As he canoes across the swollen river they fire a barrage of bullets that destroy the canoe and almost kill him.

After Inman’s escape, he meets a deceitful redneck named Junior, a farmer and bawdyhouse keeper, who drugs Inman and sells him out to the Home Guard. After marching its prisoners in chains for several days, the Home Guard loses patience and executes its captives. Inman survives miraculously and goes on the road again, but only after returning to extract vicious revenge on Junior, whom he finds salting ham in his smokehouse.

Frazier describes the brutal details. “Junior raised up his face and looked at him but seemed not to recognize him. Inman stepped to Junior and struck him across the ear with the barrel of the LeMat’s and then clubbed at him with the butt until he lay flat on his back. There was no movement out of him but for the bright flow of blood which ran from his nose and cuts to his head and the corners of his eyes. It gathered and pooled on the black earth of the smokehouse floor.”

The fight with Junior is only the beginning. Along the way to Cold Mountain are encounters at every stop, many of them bloody. Inman’s travel home, like the Civil War battlefields, is marked by violence and death.

Frazier writes, “He could not even make a start at reckoning up how many deaths he had witnessed of late. It would number, no doubt, in the thousands. Accomplished in every custom you could imagine, and some you couldn’t come up with if you thought at it for days. He had grown so used to seeing death, walking among the dead, sleeping among them, numbering himself calmly as among the near-dead, that it seemed no longer dark and mysterious.”

But Inman has another, softer side. He loves nature and carries with him Bartram’s Travels, William Bartram’s description of his travels in the American South in the 1770s. In Inman’s view, “the book stood nigh to holiness and was of such richness that one might dip into it at random and read only one sentence and yet be sure of finding instruction and delight.”

Bartram’s description of a mountain scene that reminded Inman of Cold Mountain was his favorite selection. “Having gained its summit, we enjoyed a most enchanting view; a vast expanse of green meadows and strawberry fields . . . companies of young, innocent Cherokee virgins, some busy gathering the rich fragrant fruit, others having already filled their baskets, lay reclined under the shade of floriferous and fragrant native bowers of Magnolia, Azalea, Philadelphus, perfumed Calycanthus, sweet Yellow Jessamine and cerulean Glycine frutescens, disclosing their beauties to the fluttering breeze, and bathing their limbs in the cool fleeting streams; whilst other parties, more gay and libertine, were yet collecting strawberries, or wantonly chasing their companions, tantalising them, staining their lips and cheeks with the rich fruit.”

When Inman read this passage aloud to Ada at their reunion, “he could not wait to reach its period for all it seemed to be about was sex, and it caused his voice to crack and threatened to flush his face.”

Alternating with the chapters describing Inman’s travels are reports of Ada’s and Ruby’s growing friendship and success in managing the farm together.

The superstitious Ruby gives us a picture of farm life 150 years ago. Frazier writes, “The crops were growing well, largely, Ruby claimed, because they had been planted, at her insistence, in strict accordance with the signs. In Ruby’s mind, everything — setting fence posts, making sauerkraut, killing hogs — fell under the rule of the heavens . . . November, will kill a hog in the growing of the moon, for if we don’t the meat will lack grease and pork chops will cup up in the pan.”

Inman finally makes his way back to Cold Mountain. His homecoming and reunion with Ada are joyful, but short lived, as Inman dies in a firefight with the Home Guard.

Giving away the closing is not a spoiler. After 20 years in print, the book’s ending is no secret. But people still ask Frazier, why didn’t you let Inman live and make a happy ending?

Frazier explained to me that the real Pinkney Inman died in a gunfight with the Home Guard. Therefore, he said, “having that knowledge in my mind, I wrote the character to go with that ending without really fully accepting it. But at that point, where I had to decide, then I realized, it’s going to feel fake if I come up with a way for him to survive this.”

Frazier continued, “I got to the point toward the end of the book where I had to decide. And I drove all the way from Raleigh up to Haywood County. There’s a cemetery there, in a little town called Clyde, where Pinkney Inman is buried, but there’s not a marker. And I just walked around, looked at the view, and I just thought, you know, there’s only one way to end this, that I knew what happened from the first page of writing this book, to the real character, and it’s built in.”

Frazier’s decision resulted in the classic that has stood the test of time. Reading it cover to cover is still a moving experience.

But also, like Bartram’s Travels for Inman, we can pick up Cold Mountain and “read only one sentence and yet be sure of finding instruction and delight.”  PS

Charles Frazier tells much more about Cold Mountain and his experiences writing the book in his interview on UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch at: https://video.unctv.org/video/3004954333/

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