Simple Life

SIMPLE LIFE

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Sweet September Lessons

From freshman tomfoolery

By Jim Dodson

Illustration by Gerry O’Neill

During the years we lived on the coast of Maine, I was always amused by the visible relief and joy locals expressed over the arrival of September.

Every year like clockwork, it marks the departure of summer tourists in Maine when tens of thousands of vacationers pack up and head home to the lower 48, leaving Maine bank accounts flush and pockets of local merchants brimming with cash.

With Labor Day weekend done and dusted, the annual sight of the Maine Turnpike backed up for 25 miles — folks “from away” creeping through the southbound tolls in vehicles loaded down with suitcases, bicycles and kayaks —  is a sign of liberation to many Mainers.

Within days of the annual exodus, the price of the average shore dinner drops by at least 30%, town traffic returns to its sleepy pace, and locals begin to venture out from their hiding places to shop and greet neighbors and friends they haven’t seen since Memorial Day.

Up on our forested hill west of town, I had my own way of welcoming September. Afternoons were visibly shorter and the abundant wildlife around us — like their counterparts in town — became much more visible and active. A herd of white-tailed deer and a lady porcupine that terrified our dogs never failed to waddle into my garden, finishing off my daylilies, hosta plants and ostrich ferns. And almost every time I walked down our long, gravel lane to pick up the mail, a gorgeous ring-necked pheasant or a congregation of wild turkeys would cross my path, unconcerned by my presence in our peaceable September kingdom.

Down here in North Carolina, the autumnal equinox that arrives around September 22 is a far more subtle affair, as white bucks and seersucker are put away even before the intense heat of summer begins to fade. Swimming pools close for the year, and the young ones — to mom’s delight — go back to school while the older kids trek off to college.

Last September, a former university suite-mate passing through town invited me for coffee. His grandson was headed off to college. With a smile, he reminded me of my chaotic start as a freshman at East Carolina in 1971. It briefly became something of a freshman dorm legend.

My folks dropped me off at my College Hill dorm with a window fan, my bicycle and 50 bucks for the student dining program. The first thing I did was hop on my bike and follow a winding country road to New Bern, mesmerized by the flat green landscape of eastern North Carolina. I had no idea that it was a 40-mile trip each way, however, and it wore me out like an old shoe. As a result, I slept through the first day of mandatory freshman orientation.

A few days later, I foolishly allowed new friends in the dorm to convince me to try out for the school’s club football team. There was a rumor that incoming football coach Sonny Randle was looking to find a handful of walk-ons to use as practice squad dummies. In a galaxy long ago and far away (junior high days), I’d been the starting cornerback on a city-league championship team. Foolish sports dreams die hard.

Not 10 minutes into tryouts, I stepped on a rubber kicking tee and tore the cartilage in my right knee. One of Randle’s highly regarded recruits on an adjacent practice field helped me hobble to the fieldhouse. His name was Danny Kepley. The coaches were already taking notice of him. We chatted a bit and he wished me well.

I returned to school on crutches after Labor Day, just in time to commit my third stupid act that faraway September. A pair of friends from back home and I met a trio of cute girls at Greenville’s (in)famous Elbow Room that Friday night, and they invited us to a party down the road in Little Washington. Freshman couldn’t have cars at school in those days, but these girls had a new VW Bug because they were sophomores. 

On the way to Little Washington, our “dates” demanded beer. So, we purchased a couple six-packs and wound up at a gorgeous house overlooking the Pamlico River. My date’s name was Trisha. Suspiciously, her parents, who owned the home, were away. As my buddies and their dates wandered off to other parts of the house, Trisha and I settled on the couch, my sore leg propped up, to watch the Miss America Pageant. Suddenly, Trisha’s annoying little brother appeared, announcing, “Trisha, Jerry is outside. And he’s really mad!”

Jerry turned out to be Trisha’s boyfriend. She hadn’t lied. She was indeed a sophomore — in high school. Jerry had brought along half a dozen beer-buzzed pals to defend his girlfriend’s blemished honor. Having realized our horrible mistake, I hobbled out on crutches, hoping to smooth things over. The negotiations did not go well and took a worrying turn when Jerry snapped the antenna of Trisha’s VW Bug and waved it at me. At that point, my college buddies appeared and Trisha burst into tears, wailing that her daddy was going to murder her when he got home.    

Mercifully, a police car rolled up. When the officer learned that we were just a trio of stupid college freshmen, he ordered us into his car, probably saving us from getting murdered.

He drove us to the edge of town and put us out. It was a nice September night and only 23 miles back to campus. We walked for several hours until the sun began to come up. Somewhere after sunrise, a drunk in a weaving Cadillac picked us up and dropped us at the bottom of College Hill. I got back to my dorm as my new roommate was heading out for breakfast. He wondered where I’d been all night.

“Learning I’m not a good party guy,” I said. A few days later, I swore off beer, joined the school newspaper and soon became The Fountainhead’s columnist and features editor.

Forty years later, on another memorable September Southern evening, I was about to give a fundraising speech at Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, when my host said, “There’s a guy who wants to say hello to you.”

It was Danny Kepley. During his playing years at ECU, Danny became an All-American linebacker known for crushing tackles, earning the nickname “Captain Crunch.” Drafted by the Dallas Cowboys, Danny chose to join the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League and went on to lead them to six Grey Cup championships as MVP of the league.

I asked him if he remembered helping a foolish fellow freshman off the practice field way back when.

“I think so,” he replied, pointing out that his memory was a bit foggy from a career of issuing crushing hits. “What I remember most is your stories in the school paper. I liked them. And now, you are a famous sportswriter about golf.”

And then Captain Crunch added with a smile, “So, we both did kinda OK, I guess.”

“Yes, we did,” I agreed.

Birdwatch

BIRDWATCH

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An Unexpected Guest

The wandering little blue

By Susan Campbell

Late summer can be an especially exciting time for birders — we need not travel far to find unexpected visitors. Sometimes weather events cause individuals to be blown off track and show up in the neighborhood. These lost birds may stick around for mere hours but, in other instances, it may be a more deliberate response to environmental conditions that brought them our way.

One bird that frequently appears in wet areas later in the summer is the little blue heron. And it may be more than one who show up. Furthermore, they’re not usually blue. Young of the year, which these inland wanderers almost always are, are actually white. Except for the very tips of the wing feathers — usually a challenge to make out — these birds are covered with white feathers. Unlike the great or snowy egret, which also may turn up in the Piedmont or Sandhills this time of year, the bill of these small herons is pinkish or grayish, and the legs are greenish.

All of these white waders may be spotted in shallow wet habitats: streams, small ponds, water hazards, retention areas, etc. Little blue herons may be by themselves, mixed in with other white, long-legged waders, or even seen with the much larger great blue heron. Little blues can be identified by their more upright foraging posture, their slow, deliberate movements, and a downward angled bill as they stalk prey. Unlike other smaller waders, they will hunt in deeper water, often all the way up to their bellies. Little blues watch not only for small fish but frogs and crayfish as well as large aquatic insects. It is thought that their coloration allows them to blend in inconspicuously with similar white species, allowing the association to provide protection from predators. Also, it has been found that little blues are significantly more successful predators when foraging alongside great egrets. These larger birds are likely to stir up the water as they move after underwater prey, which can flush a meal in the direction of nearby little blues.

It takes these herons at least a year to develop adult plumage — not unlike white ibis, which also breed along our coast (but who sport dark plumage their first summer and fall). They may have a pied appearance for a time in late winter or early spring. By April they will be a slatey blue-gray all over with a handsome bluish bill. Unlike our other wading birds, they lack showy head or neck plumes. They are also unique in having projections on their middle toes that form a comb, which is used as an aid when grooming.

Unfortunately, this species has experienced an alarming drop in population numbers over the past half-century across North America. Loss of coastal wetland habitat, continued declines in water quality, as well as being eliminated as a nuisance in fish hatcheries, all are thought to contribute to the decline. So, be sure to stop and appreciate these stately birds should you come across one.

State of Mind

STATE OF MIND

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Our Unique Beauty

The greening of home

By Tommy Tomlinson

Illustration by Gary Palmer

This year my wife and I drove to Michigan for summer vacation. (July is way cooler up there than down here.) One day we were cruising on a highway somewhere south of Mackinaw City, headed for the Upper Peninsula. We rolled through mile after mile of farmland and trees. There was no way to count every shade of green.

In some ways it felt familiar. I’ve been down similar roads all over North Carolina. But it wasn’t . . . quite . . . right, like a picture that had been run through the copier one too many times. The shades of green up there weren’t the shades of green back home. My GPS — not the one on the screen, the one in my gut — told me I was somewhere else. I would’ve known that even if I had just awakened from a Rip Van Winkle nap.

It got me to thinking: What makes a landscape distinctive? And in particular, what makes North Carolina’s landscape distinctive? What are the clues that tell us where we are?

I’m not really thinking about pride of place, although maybe that’s part of it. I grew up in Georgia, down on the coast. When we go back to visit, and we cross the Savannah River coming down from South Carolina, I look over at Alix and say: Ahhhh. We’re in God’s country.

(Sometimes I say it if I’m the only one in the car.)

But the North Carolina marsh is different than the Georgia marsh — and the South Carolina marsh, for that matter. North Carolina marshes, to me, feel smaller and more scattered. They play peek-a-boo with you as you drive down toward the coast. They even smell different. Every marsh has a salty funk — it comes from dead plants and animals decaying in the mud and washed by the tides. North Carolina’s marshes smell a little cleaner somehow. Maybe it just feels that way to me because I grew up near pulp mills in Georgia. Millworkers like to say it’s the smell of money. I guess that’s possible, if money smelled like rotten eggs.

North Carolina beach sand is its own thing, too. The sand on the Outer Banks is what I think of as sandbox sand — tan and clean. Georgia sand is grayer and a little muddier. Florida Gulf Coast sand, down around Panama City, is sugar-white and crunches under your feet. I would not bet money on this, but part of me thinks that if you put me on one of those beaches blindfolded, my toes would be able to figure out where I was.

(FYI, the Michigan beaches were nicer than I expected . . . they reminded me of North Carolina’s. Lots of rocks in the water, though.)

Coming off the coast, the natural feature I think about most in North Carolina is the longleaf pine forest. The strands we have in the Sandhills and down toward Wilmington are the northern edge of the longleaf habitat (it stretches south and west in scattered spots all the way to Texas).

Most of the woods we see from the highway are dark and thick. A longleaf pine forest feels like a planned community. The trees are spaced wide, giving one another room to grow. The wiregrass underneath is a tasteful carpet. That orderly design depends on fire to come through every so often — a spring cleaning of sorts. When the natural cycles line up, what’s left is astonishing.

Years ago, a guide walked me a mile or so into a longleaf pine forest down in the southeast corner of the state. We were looking for Venus flytraps. You might know that a little circle down there — maybe a 75-mile radius from Wilmington — is the only place on earth where Venus flytraps grow naturally in the wild. We got to a tiny pond — no more than a big puddle, really — where clumps of flytraps grew a few yards off the bank. Not too dry, not too wet. If all you know of flytraps is Little Shop of Horrors, you might walk right past one without ever seeing it. They’re small and close to the ground. In the wild, most of the traps are no bigger than dimes.

You might also know that the tiny pond I described was probably a Carolina bay — one of thousands of shallow depressions strung along the East Coast all the way up to Delaware and New Jersey. Most of them are ovals aligned northwest to southeast. There are many scientific theories about how they came to be; the most intriguing theory is that they’re the result of a long-ago meteorite shower.

Of course, those are the scientific theories.

But when you’re standing next to one, surrounded by Venus flytraps, inside a longleaf pine forest that looks like it was designed by an interior decorator . . . your mind does start to wonder if North Carolina is some sort of Del Webb development for future retiring aliens.

I realize, at this point, that we have wandered far afield. This started out being about what makes North Carolina’s natural splendor distinctive, and ended up being about what might make us the next Area 51.

Let’s just leave it here for now: Our beauty is unique. If you’ve lived in North Carolina long, you can smell it and feel it and taste it. It doesn’t mean we’re better than everybody else — although if you want to claim that, go ahead. It just means that there are some things our bodies just know. And when we’re in North Carolina, we’re someplace special.

I hope the human race is not the only one to have figured this out.

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

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Seeing Spirits

And the decisions that haunt us

By Jim Moriarty

Let’s dispense with the easy part. “Gram calls photographs paper ghosts. She says they’re the only ghosts everyone can see.” So says Willamena Wester — Wills to her friends — the central character of Sarah Addison Allen’s new novel, Paper Ghosts. The real apparitions show up later.

Gram is Alice Wester, the dowager of Hen Town. Nothing escapes Alice’s ability to know it or divine it in some quasi-mystical way. “Rewind,” the first of the novel’s three parts, takes place in 1976. Wills is a teenager, and her posse is known as The Feathers, named for their teased-to-the-max hairstyle. “By the time the bell rang, Wills had managed to get Dorothy’s feathers back in place, though she’d used so much hair spray that Dorothy was now combustible,” writes Allen.

We meet Andy Smooth, the head of a traveling musical group, and Jack Vaughn, the band’s youngest member and the person Wills falls desperately in love with. “He was quoting Shakespeare again, while dancing to a song no one could hear under an umbrella when there wasn’t a storm, with his hand to her waist as if it was meant to be there.” Ratted out by one of The Feathers — with a Polaroid, of course, of the young clandestine couple — Gram is determined to keep Willamena in Hen Town and tries to buy off young Jack, who accepts the money as a get-out-of-town stake, then tries to convince Wills to go with him.

“And I lie awake at night thinking about a beautiful girl I just met whose grandmother has made her believe that she can only exist here, that she will vanish like magic if she steps outside of this place, so she’s afraid to leave. And I can’t stay,” says Jack.

A tussle ensues in Gram’s “redbrick, federal-style home . . . three stories tall and imposing with more windows to see what was going on than any other house in town.” Jack tumbles down a flight of stairs — perhaps or perhaps not helped along by Gram — and dies. He’s buried in the basement but his ghost remains.

And so does Wills. We “Fast Forward” in part two, and Wills, who married (and outlived) the man she was supposed to marry before Jack came along, has remained in Wester House and, in almost every respect, morphed into her grandmother. Her nickname, to the living, has morphed, too, into Mim. At the door are her widower son, Tug (Terrance), and her granddaughter Bailey, who are moving in. “‘You’re a remarkable woman, Wills, but even you can’t open a door without turning the knob first,’ she heard Jack say from behind her.”

Tug gives Bailey the tour. “For the next half hour, the presence in the house followed them as Tug made sure Bailey knew every nook and cranny, most of it off-limits due to what he called the Wester Rules,” writes Allen. “The Wester Rules weren’t actually his rules. They were Mim’s. And they weren’t made up on the spot, either. They’d been around for a long time.” Those rules included no visitors, no music and a double-lock on the basement door.

Bailey, it turns out, can see Jack if Jack wants to be seen. “To her astonishment there was now a handsome young man standing next to the piano. He looked like someone from decades ago with his dark hair touching his shoulders and a shaggy mustache shaped like a horseshoe. His jeans had bell bottoms so long they touched the floor, and the snaps of his shirt were undone nearly to low-rise at this hips. There was a yellow rose pinned to the wide collar. He seemed so happy to see her that he didn’t know what to say. Or maybe he was just happy for her to finally see him.”

Mim becomes as protective of Bailey as her grandmother had been of her, a choice that leads to a different kind of disaster when Bailey is accosted, not by a true love like Jack, but by a thug of a man named Clutch, which calls for a different kind of accident altogether. Let’s just say, Clutch gets his — another mystery solved in the end. “I know I made you dependent on only me and your father for companionship, but I thought it was the one thing that would keep you safe until you could make your own decisions,” says Mim. “But what really happened was you grew up desperate to feel connection, which led you to Clutch. If I had just told you this story of the man I fell in love with, instead of imposing on you something you didn’t understand, things would have ended differently.”

Allen writes in the opening of her epilogue, “Once upon a time, there was a family of witches. But witches, it turns out, are sometimes only women who have been hurt, and are determined not to be again.” The toing and froing through the generations can get a bit confusing at times, but the trip is worth it. The great fiction writer Raymond Chandler once counseled others to try to put three things on every page that mean something to you as a writer. A sentence, a description, maybe just a word. The cumulative effect will be quality. Allen’s ability to turn a phrase is a fine example of it.

Of Jack: “It was such a vulnerable moment, his guard down, loneliness beaming through the cracks.”

Of Mrs. Orr, the housekeeper: “. . . taking every smudge on the furniture as a personal insult . . .”

On Jack: “It was Jack. Her beautiful Jack. He looked so out of place, a wildflower in a manicured garden.”

On Wester House: “This was an old house and the floorboards creaked like knee joints.”

On the neighborhood in Hen Town: “There was a curious element of the unseen, like if money could haunt you, it would haunt you here, where the air was as soft and cottony as a veil.”

When Mim leaves the house: “People immediately got on their phones and called their neighbors, tracking her movements across town the way they might have tracked a grizzly bear that wandered out of the woods.”

On Bailey: “Every time she colored her hair, she liked this moment best — looking in the mirror and seeing someone she didn’t recognize, hoping it was someone she finally wanted to be.”

And so on. They were among the many little treats that made Paper Ghosts a pleasure to read.

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

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Gearing Up

September, a personal new year

By Tom Bryant

You could feel it coming in late August, when the shadows grew longer and the dogs were not digging in the shrubbery, trying to find some cool. And sometimes early in the evening, a soft breeze would settle in for a spell, making everything a little cooler. September was about here, and my new year was about to start.

Most folks I know celebrate their new year the first of January. A new start, in with the new, out with old. Good for them. I used to be like that, but the older I got and the more time I spent in the great outdoors, September became my renewable time. Mornings were brisker. The warm, misty grayness was gone from the atmosphere, replaced by a little crispness in the air and a promise of things to come. It was a time to get out surf fishing gear, pull out the shotguns and rifles, and make sure everything was in order for the busy, exciting times ahead.

Late August was kinda like the first days of December. The real fun time was ahead, but planning all the fun things was as important as celebrating the actual event. Dove season was the kickoff, usually beginning the first Saturday before Labor Day. Good time things got started and didn’t slow down until the end of January, when duck season expired.

Even going back to school in September had a few redeeming values. The new jeans and crisp shirts and even sometimes a brand new pair of leather shoes eased the pain of school regimental requirements. You got to see old friends you hadn’t seen since June and make friends with the newcomers, sometimes even a pretty girl or two. Football practice was cranking up; a sense of excitement prevailed those first few early days of September school.

Before I had a summer job and the beginning of responsibilities, probably about the ripe old age of 13, I’d spend the last couple of weeks in August down in the Low Country of South Carolina on my granddad’s farm. Now Granddad was a stickler for work when the time was ripe for it, but he was also just as enthusiastic for a good time when the work was done. His idea of a good time was fishing on the Little Pee Dee River. And when he went fishing, he went fishing. None of this afternoon, or just a day, of the sport. He would go for a week or 10 days. I was fortunate at a young age to go with him on these long fishing forays.

Granddad had a fish camp on the river, nothing fancy, a one room shack built with rough boards and a salvaged tin roof, a makeshift bed on one side of the little space and a counter on the other. There was an old aluminum sink that drained into the side yard. The counter had open shelves where the cast iron skillets were stored. Put it all together and you had a kitchen. Shelves were built on the back wall to store gear, and there was one screened-in window over the bed. An outdoor privy was about 40 yards behind the compact camp. A watchful eye for snakes was required if you had to venture to the facility in the dark.

I never knew when Granddad would pull the plug on work. Late August and early September were the money months. All the spring and summer plantings held forth for harvest, predicting a good or bad year, a time of celebrating, or a time to batten down the hatches and survive to another planting season. Even though modern farming has more up-to-date information and science to help forecast a successful crop, it’s still a gamble. I reckon most folks who make their living successfully from the fields are good poker players.

My last late summer and early fall weeks spent on the farm came during a breathing space for farmers. A record tobacco crop promised happy times along with a good crop of corn, soybeans and milo.

Granddad was a smiling man when we loaded the pickup for our trek to the river. We’d get to the camp a little before dark, and he would check out the little cabin before we carried all our gear inside. “Let me go in first, son. After being away from here for a while, I’ve found a snake or two lying about in the shack. They like to get out of the heat in the middle of the day.”

I was perfectly willing to let him go right ahead. The Little Pee Dee grew some mighty big cottonmouths.

After we unloaded all the gear, it was time for supper. Granddad was a stickler for good eats, and eggs usually played a big part in his menus. He had a small two-burner Primus gas stove that had almost a permanent home in the pickup. It was his favorite tool for cooking and on any outing that required his country culinary art, it was right there. We carried mostly fixin’s: eggs, bacon, ham, beans, grits, bread, homemade butter, a can of Crisco and coffee. Sometimes Grandma would bake us a pound cake to tote along for dessert. As for the rest of our meals, we lived off the land, and that meant fish, mostly fried.

“The menu tonight, son, is ham and eggs and grits and toast and a little red-eye gravy. What do you think?”

I’ve had the opportunity in my lifetime to eat at some of the finest restaurants all across this country, and I have never found one to beat those simple meals cooked on the banks of that blackwater river.

Cooking aside, the next day we got down to business and some serious fishing. That summer of my 13th year went by too fast, and it was the last I would spend fishing with my granddad.

In those early days of my outdoor learning, I didn’t think much about time passing. It just seemed I was always in a hurry, wishing for one season or another. In the fall, dove shooting and surf fishing. Winter ushered in duck and deer hunting. In spring, there was camping and pond and river fishing. Summer opened a plethora of outdoor fun and adventures, mostly camping and river fishing. As a youngster, all those good times rolled around pretty fast.

Now in fall, winter, spring and summer, when I really think about the seasons and my time of life, every month is a blessing and the dawn of good times ahead.

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

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Virgo

August 23 — September 22

We all know you’re good at putting things in tidy little boxes. But not everything is meant to fit. Let things get a bit messy this month. The world won’t end. In fact, with the new moon in your sign on Sept. 10, get ready for a system reboot sure to reveal a higher perspective. Control is an illusion. Pump the breaks on the color-coded spreadsheets and take inventory on what really matters. You’ll be delighted by an unexpected shift of priorities.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

 

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Take the back roads.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

It’s time to get your groove back.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Loosen your grip, darling.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Hint: Ace of Base.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Keep them guessing.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Step away from your comfort zone.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Experiment with box breathing.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Just put yourself out there.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Double the recipe.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Stop hitting replay 

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Stop thinking the fun out of it.

Simple Life

SIMPLE LIFE

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Life in Rabbit Land

Hare, There and Everywhere

By Jim Dodson

Illustration by Gerry O’Neill

Is there anything nicer than a summer evening after a surprise rain shower cools off the world?

I think not. Of course, being in the “evening of life” myself, I am perhaps not an entirely objective source on the matter.

On the other hand, Homer’s grandkids seem to agree with me. Homer is the rabbit that has made my yard his home for several years. Or, at least, that’s what I nicknamed him.

I was sitting here quietly by myself moments ago beneath Old George, our elderly maple tree at the garden’s edge, enjoying the cooler air and an evening drink, when they suddenly appeared — three young rabbits racing directly past me into the front yard, chasing, tumbling and hopping joyfully over each other like a circus troupe of acrobats entering the center ring. I watched them race around until they settled down to nibble grass in the newest section of the yard.    

I call them Homer’s grandkids because young kits appear every spring from the burrow where they reside beneath an ancient oak stump near my east garden gate, a well-protected enclave. I have no idea if Homer was the original patriarch (or, for that matter, matriarch) of the burrow, but a decade or so ago he captured our affections by showing up every morning and evening like clockwork to hang out with our old, gray tiger cat, Boo Radley. The two would often sit together in the garden as evening fell, just watching the day’s peaceful end. Theirs was an improbable “friendship” that went on for several years until Boo passed on and Homer went, well, wherever aging eastern cottontail rabbits go. I was inspired to write a whimsical book for my own grandkids, wondering at the time if I would ever have some. My artist friend, Harry Blair, drew the illustrations.

We live in Starmount Forest, so-named because its former wealthy owner was determined to keep the old-growth hardwoods intact — until he built a country club in the middle of it and passed the forest on to other owners, whose heirs — legend holds — began turning the forest into a postwar neighborhood of attractive suburban houses.

Fortunately, it still retains some of its character as an urban forest of mighty oaks and maples, and remains one of the oldest and most popular neighborhoods in the city. Growing up in Starmount, I have a keen boyhood memory of the abundant rabbits in the yards and gardens of the neighborhood half a century ago. They clearly preceded humans in lovely Starmount Forest. And will likely outlive us all.

My mom, a dedicated gardener, liked to say that we were the “newcomers to Rabbit Land,” hence their natural “nibbling rights” in a special section of her backyard garden she set aside for them. She planted things rabbits love to eat — snapdragons, morning glories, daisies and black-eyed Susans — thereby keeping them away from her beloved peony border and roses. Decades later, I adopted a version of her strategy when I built a large woodland garden in Maine and included a huge patch of hosta plants at the back of our property, designed to keep the whitetail deer out of my flower beds. It worked like a charm. 

Like my mom, I find something comforting and even magical about our neighborhood rabbits. They’re all around us and simply part of daily life here, a reminder that nature is never far away. On an average morning or evening walk around the block, you’re liable see at least a couple dozen of them feeding peacefully in yards or resting under shrubs from the heat of a long summer day.

I’m sure part of my affection for them stems from growing up in a generation of kids weaned on Beatrix Potter’s beloved Tale of Peter Rabbit, the classic 1902 children’s book about a mischievous young rabbit who disobeys his mother and gets into big trouble in Mr. McGregor’s vegetable garden. It ends with Peter making a wild escape during which he loses his clothes and is put to bed with chamomile tea while his sisters, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail, enjoy a nice supper. It was a fable meant to remind young ones to always mind their mama. I still own my childhood copy of the book, which I plan to soon pass along to my new granddaughter, June Bug. The wee book on Homer and Boo will soon follow.

Another book that will wend its way to her is a beautifully illustrated first edition of Richard Adams’ Watership Down, an allegorical adventure story about a group of brave rabbits who set off to find a safe haven after their rural Hampshire warren is slated for destruction and development — a tale that holds echoes of today’s headlines about immigrants.

Critics uniformly hailed Watership Down as a modern classic by comparing its epic motifs of spiritual faith, flight and survival to Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s The Aeneid. Adams himself described it merely as simple tales he improvised during a long family road trip to entertain his young daughters, Juliet and Rosamund. They pestered him to write down the story, which he eventually did, reading each bit as he finished it to his daughters. Rejected by seven major publishing houses before London-based, independent press Rex Collings published it in 1972, Watership Down quickly became a runaway bestseller in both Britain and America.

I read it the summer before my sophomore year in college and still rank it among my favorite books.

•

It’s no surprise that rabbits have a magical presence across mythology and human culture. The science, lore, mystery and magic of what some believe to be the world’s most misunderstood herbivore have been an integral part of our own evolution as a species.

Rabbits, either hunted or raised domestically, have been revered for ages for their meat and fur. They are also held in high regard for their prodigious reproductive abilities — averaging four to 12 kits per year. Rabbits reportedly flourish on every continent save for Antarctica.

Seen around the world as symbols of fertility, cunning and innocence, they also appear in the mythology of nearly every human society, from ancient Aztec to Asian. Native American peoples regarded the “Great Rabbit” to be the creator of the world. The rabbit is also one of the 12 celestial animals of the Chinese zodiac, where it is the symbol of longevity, peace and prosperity. Someone born under the sign of the rabbit is believed to be vigilant, witty, quick-minded and ingenious.

In Western society, the Easter Bunny evolved from German folklore. It joins Br’er Rabbit, Alice’s White Rabbit and the immortal Bugs Bunny as iconic figures in our narrative lore. In his unpublished memoirs, Bugs’ creator, Friz Freleng, claimed to have modeled Bugs Bunny on Clark Gable’s wily, fast-talking character in the 1934 hit comedy film It Happened One Night.

This may explain why my neighbors in the old Starmount Forest seem to share my affinity for our ever-present rabbits.

Life in Rabbit Land is good. 

In a current world that lately seems out of balance and frequently beyond our daily comprehension, the presence of peaceful cottontails at dawn and dusk reminds us of life’s beauty, brevity and sweet hope of renewal.

 

Hometown

HOMETOWN

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A Fish Tale

And a queasy oceangoing interview

By Bill Fields

It’s prime bluefish season in my adopted home state of Connecticut, where anglers pursue the aggressive and toothy species in Long Island Sound. Our now-defunct local minor league team, the Bridgeport Bluefish, had a fitting name. Its logo — cartoon fish with baseball bat — wasn’t in the legendary graphic-design class of another long-gone franchise, the Hartford Whalers, but was very good.

I still remember the fight put forth by a blue I reeled in some years ago when a friend’s father took us out on his boat. It weighed about 10 pounds, the biggest fish I’d ever caught. Because of their strong flavor and oily nature, blues aren’t the best eating. But my host kindly cleaned my catch, and I was determined to have it for dinner.

Although my girlfriend was a good sport and cooked it, the kitchen reeked for hours after a meal that neither of us wanted to replay. We agreed if there were any more bluefish in my future that a catch-and-release policy would be in effect.

My most memorable — and unexpected — fishing experience had taken place a decade earlier on the other side of the country in the company of one of the 20th century’s finest golfers.

In advance of the 1998 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, I was writing an in-depth feature for Golf World recalling the leading characters in a previous Open at Olympic: 1966, when Billy Casper defeated Arnold Palmer in a playoff after trailing him by seven strokes with nine holes left in the fourth round. It was Palmer’s most heartbreaking attempt in his unrequited quest to add a second U.S. Open title to his dramatic 1960 victory.

Understandably, Palmer wasn’t eager to rehash the details of 1966, but he agreed to a short interview, which took place in the parking lot of a Senior PGA Tour event as he regripped his clubs with fresh leather wrapping. Casper, on the other hand, whose 51 PGA Tour wins are the seventh-most all time, welcomed a visit.

I had arranged to meet Casper at his San Diego home, but when I phoned to touch base on the day I was traveling west, he called an audible. “Let’s go fishing,” he said, before telling me where to meet him on the waterfront that evening. I assumed we would be going out in the Pacific Ocean on his boat. Upon arriving, however, I discovered Casper and I were among half a dozen passengers on a charter vessel motoring about 50 miles overnight and fishing for yellowtail the next day.

I settled into my bunk excited at the prospect of a captive interview subject. I woke up with a queasiness I’d never experienced as the boat rocked back and forth, minor movements that were causing major motion sickness. Shortly after sunrise, it was all I could do to make it to the galley, where I found Casper.

“They make a great breakfast burrito,” he said.

As Casper chowed down, I nursed a ginger ale. Another fisherman, seeing that I was hurting, said he had an extra anti-nausea wristband for which I would have emptied my wallet. I put on his gift and soon rallied enough to start interviewing Casper, who was friendly but clearly more interested in fishing than talking: There wasn’t going to be much on my microcassette tape to transcribe.

There was little action once we were outside with rod and reel. I was excited to catch a 30-inch barracuda, but the deckhand, viewing it as a nuisance, took it off the hook and threw the thrashing fish back in the ocean before I had a chance to get someone to snap a photo of me with my catch.

Eventually, as the afternoon went on, Casper and someone else landed a few nice yellowtail. The trip wasn’t a shutout. My appetite having returned in the fresh air and sunshine, I enjoyed the deckhand’s offering of the freshest sashimi I’ve ever had.

When we got back to land 20 hours after heading out, Casper and I said our goodbyes. Walking a couple of blocks to my rental car after my first ocean excursion, my legs felt as wobbly as Palmer’s game had been that fateful final nine in 1966.

Southwords

SOUTHWORDS

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The Self Checkout

When daughter becomes Mom

By Ashley Harris

Illustration by Campbell Pringle

My 76-year-old mother, recovering from a hip replacement, steered her cart toward a cashier at Walmart. A line of five carts snaked ahead of us, overflowing with groceries and restless toddlers. This could take an hour. No, I decided. It was time.

I gently took command of the cart and circled back to the spacious and orderly self-checkout section. Here patrons circulated freely, checked out quickly and marched out the door, smiling into the sunshine. Mom deserved this. “Let’s use the self-checkout.”

“No,” she said, her navy eyes widening with resolve, reminding me of the theory that all blue-eyed people shared one common ancestor, undoubtedly a stubborn soul who insisted on making her spears solely from the gingko tree.

I knew she was scared. Of the scanning and the codes. Of setting off some alarm that brought managers. I understood.

“This is exactly how I felt before I jumped off the high dive,” I reminded her. In her prime, Mom had been an expert swimmer, famous for her beautiful swan dives while I preferred to splash around in the kiddie section. “But you coached me through it. Remember?” At just 8 years old, I held my nose, dutifully stepped off the board, and much to my relief, bobbed right back up and doggie-paddled to her welcoming arms. That’s why I knew she could survive the self-checkout. I would be there for her. Still, she glared at me.

I sighed, moved by the gravitas of this moment. There comes a time in the life of every adult child when you realize that you must become the parent of your own parent. Today was the day I would take the bull by the horns. Or, in this case, the heifer by the hair.

“It’s so easy,” I said, rolling over to an empty register. “And there are friendly people here to help.” Sandra, one of my favorite clerks, chit-chatted with an elderly man while they weighed his avocados, the atmosphere lightened by laughter.

“OK,” Mom grumbled, realizing it was too late to protest.

“Watch this,” I said, grabbing a tub of potato soup and rolling it over the screen. A reassuring ping confirmed a successful scan. “Your turn.”

But when she tried the same thing with a box of coffee pods, nothing happened. “Here,” I said, grabbing the box and bouncing it definitively against the glass, which triggered the ping. “You must scan with authority. Show the scanner that you mean business.”

She nodded, and went for the next item, a box of tissues. This time she scanned it with a little more finesse, and the scanner obligingly pinged. Then she followed with a box of crackers. Ping. Shampoo. Ping. More soup. Ping, ping, ping. Suddenly there was no stopping the blue-eyed woman whose callused-kneed ancestor foraged through the forest every day until she found enough berries and nuts to feed her family.

“You’re getting good at this,” I said. “I’m proud of you.” But now it was time for the final exam — a bag of six oranges, which would require a code. It was time for the pro to step in.

“Weighing produce is fun,” I reassured her, picking up the bag. Suddenly, the thin cellophane split, and those six oranges rolled in six different directions. The serenity of the self-checkout devolved into utter chaos, as patrons shuffled and hopped, dodging oranges or trying to catch them. Some were returned to us, and some were never seen again. My face burnt with embarrassment as we paid and walked out.

“You’re probably never going to do that again, are you?” I asked her.

Mom shook her head, treating me to the stare of a woman whose bloodline stood down a woolly mammoth outside the cave.

“Let me ask you something,” she said. “Did you ever jump off the high dive again?”

I never did, and she knew perfectly well I never did.

“It’s OK, honey,” she said, softening. And Mom became Mom again. “With some things, once is more than enough.”

Sandhills Photo Club

SANDHILLS PHOTO CLUB

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Trains, Planes & Automobiles

Would you like to have fun expanding your photography skills through programs, outings, competitions, and workshops? We welcome you to learn more about our club and inquire about membership. For meetings and information visit www.sandhillsphotoclub.org.

Tier 3 Winners

Tier 3, 1st Place: Hogwarts Express by Pat Anderson

Tier 3, 2nd Place: Zoom Zoom by Neva Scheve

Tier 3, 3rd Place: Lean, Mean, Fighting Machine by Joshua Simpson

Tier 2 Winners

Tier 2, 1st Place: 500 mph Fly By by Michael Sassano

Tier 2, 2nd Place: May All Your Dreams Come True by Sue Lyons

Tier 2, 3rd Place: A Little Vintage Charm by Cathy Locklear

Tier 1 Winners

Tier 1, 1st Place: Captain’s Seat by Kim Butler

Tier 1, 2nd Place: In My Dreams by David Kiner

Tier 1, 3rd Place: The Getaway Car by Jean Antholzner