Frozen in Place

When the best tool is the telephone

By Jim Moriarty

I’m not handy. Not to make excuses, but I come by this naturally. As my mother, who suffered from dementia at the end of her days, once explained to me in a depressingly lucid moment, “Your father couldn’t put up a stepladder.”

So, the prospects for the successful completion of virtually any gender-stereotypical task around my house were dismally low. Yet, hope sprung eternal in my wife, the War Department. This was an expectation I viewed with roughly the same enthusiasm the nail has for the hammer. Which brings me to the case of the frozen pipes.

The kitchen in our previous home was added on to the original building. Beneath this one-room expansion was a crawl space. Well, not exactly a crawl space, more like a duck-walking stoop space. And, underneath the floor of this one-room expansion were water pipes, water being a desirable element in almost any kitchen.

Though winters here tend to be blessedly mild, there was a certain inevitability that at some point we would endure a brief snap of weather bitter enough to cause the exposed pipes under this one-room expansion to freeze as solid as the Athabasca Glacier. It was equally predictable that I would be dispatched by the War Department to this version of the Russian front.

A friend of mine, who truly ought to be in witness protection, built the house he lives in near Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan with his own two hands. Where he got the knowledge to do all this wiring and plumbing and hammering was as confounding to me as molecular biology. His father couldn’t put up a stepladder either. Anyway, this person — a card-carrying member of the cult of the handy who was held up to me at every turn as the quintessential model of the serviceable American spouse — instructed me on the ins and outs of fixing frozen pipes. How could you go wrong with advice from someone who lives where winter is so snappy you can get Manolo Blahnik snowshoes?

He told me about the butane torch. The flux. The sandpaper. The solder. All of it. He assured me the flux would suck the solder into the newly fashioned pipe joint like smoke out of a hookah in a Paris opium den. Then, in a hushed tone as if the phone line was tapped by Local 421 of the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union, he revealed the secret of a successful watertight seal. Bread. “Bread?” I asked. I could hear him nod.

So, off I went. Equipped with a pipe cutter, my flux, my fire, my sandpaper, my solder and two slices of Bunny Bread, I duck-walked into the Valley of Death. I confess, the actual order in which events transpired over the next several hours remains muddled. I do recall it beginning with the removal of the diseased and fractured section of copper tubing which, if I do say so myself, was accomplished with the skill and precision of a vascular surgeon. Thereafter, things went downhill.

The bread, it had been explained to me, would sop up any excess moisture. I had been properly cautioned that moisture was the Achilles heel of a tight seal. I stuffed the bread into the pipe with my finger like I was packing a charge of black powder into a Civil War howitzer. The pipes were appropriately sanded and fluxed. At the moment of truth, however, when I fired up the torch and applied the solder, the pipe spit at me like an enraged camel.

So, I started over. Same. I started over again. Same. I got more bread. Same. And again. More bread to the front, dammit! And again. And again. Did I already say that the crawl space under the kitchen was at something of an awkward height? It was too high to kneel and reach the pipes but too low to stand. In short, I was frozen, as it were, in what could only be described as a diabolical stress position. Had the War Department piped in Bee Gees music at sufficient decibels I would have confessed to the Ripper murders. Of course, with every aborted attempt and subsequent pipe trimming, the copper tubes got just a wee bit shorter. This resulted in my yanking on the pipes, first to my left, then to my right, in a kind of tug of war to make the ends meet. Still no luck. So often did I stretch the pipes, bread them, sand them, flux them and fire them that I used all the white bread in the house and resorted to wheat. That was when the War Department called our plumber.

Did I mention we had a plumber?

When Jim showed up — the irony that his name was the same as mine didn’t escape me — he looked through the tiny door into my kitchen crawl space where I was crouched, hunks of white and brown bread scattered about my feet, bolts of pain shooting through my lower back and hamstrings, and said, “You havin’ a picnic in there?”

No.  PS

Jim Moriarty is senior editor of PineStraw and can be reached at jjmpinestraw@gmail.com.

Magna Carta Man

“Little old bookbinder” Don Etherington held — and preserved — history with his hands

By Jim Moriarty

Photographs by John Gessner

Surrounded by thickheaded hammers, scalpels that look like they’ve escaped from an operating theater and a cast iron vice, Don Etherington sits on a stool in his bookbinding workshop and talks about the heart attack that led to his quadruple bypass surgery as if it was a trip to the Circle K. It was a delightful, warm November day a little over a year ago. He had turned 80 a few months before. He felt a sharp pain in his chest, took a nitroglycerin pill, waited five minutes and took another. The pain didn’t go away so he called 911. His house is four from the corner. By the time the paramedics got him to the end of the road, he was gone.

From the other side of the studio, his wife, Monique Lallier, a designer of artistic book covers as highly prized as Etherington’s own, picks up the narrative. “He said, ‘You know this nurse in the ambulance, she was sooo nice,’” she says, her French-Canadian accent making the encounter in the rear of a rescue vehicle sound just slightly naughty. “I said, ‘Of course she was nice, she was happy to see that you came back.’”

Etherington laughs. “So,” he says, “this is my second time around, actually.”

The first one wasn’t half bad.

“I’m just a little old bookbinder,” Etherington says. Indeed, he is. One who has laid his hands on the 1297 Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, to name just two. And it all started with a pair of dancing shoes.

Born in 1935, living in a Lewis Trust building — flats for the poor — in central London, Etherington was a child of the Blitz. His mother, Lillian, cleaned houses. His father, George, was a painter by trade who’d been a prisoner of war for four years during the War to End All Wars and came home a changed man. “He was a hard guy,” Etherington says.

With the exception of roughly half a year when Etherington was evacuated to a house in Leeds that lacked indoor plumbing, buzz bombs and shelters were what passed for a routine childhood. “I used to roam the streets with a bunch of guys,” he says. “I’d go around at night — I can’t believe this myself — with a shopping bag and pick up all the pieces of German shrapnel. I’m, what, 5? It’s beyond imagination. The Blitz, the only time it really affected me, was when the flats got bombed. That night 73 of my school chums got killed in that one air raid. I think it was a doodlebug (a V-1 bomb). It hit the corner of our apartment block, skidded into the shelters, where a lot of people got killed, and it bounced off there into the school.

“It was like part of life. You’d hear the drone coming over and then all of a sudden, it would stop. We could tell where it was going to hit. We’d say, ‘Oh, that’s going to hit Hammersmith or that’s going to hit Kensington.’ We didn’t have that feeling that it was awful and depressing. It was our life. When you go through that, certain things don’t affect you as much. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that we were very resilient and resourceful.”

After the war, barely into his teens, Etherington did two things that would change the trajectory of his life, and he doesn’t know why he did either one. First, at 13, given a list of potential fields of study at the Central School, he ticked off bookbinding, jewelry making and engraving. He was chosen for bookbinding and off he went, still in short trousers. “I came away that first day knowing I loved it,” he says. “From that day on, nearly 70 years, I’ve been happy doing what I’ve been doing, which is very special.”

The second was those shoes.

“I took myself off the streets,” he says. At 14, he bought a pair of dancing shoes, marched into a studio in what was, to him, the fancy Knightsbridge section of London, and took up ballroom dancing. Medals and jobs came his way. He met his first wife, Daisy, when he helped open a dance studio in Wimbledon. “To this day, I don’t know how I went from strolling the streets, getting into all sorts of stuff, from that to doing dancing. The only thing I could say is when I went to Saturday cinema, I loved watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I got enamored and thought, boy, I’d love to go to America.” Etherington danced his way into his 80s, including at Green’s Supper Club in Greensboro.

After a seven-year apprenticeship in binding at Harrison and Sons in London, followed by a brief stint restoring musical scores at the BBC, Etherington took a position as an assistant to Roger Powell, the man who bound the illuminated manuscript The Book of Kells into four volumes in 1953. “I went to Roger. He said, ‘What do you know about bookbinding?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely everything.’ For the next few years he showed I didn’t know a damn thing,” says Etherington. His work with Powell and his partner, Peter Waters, was followed by a position at Southampton College of Art, where Etherington developed a bookbinding and design program in addition to producing his own designs, the artistic covers he’s created throughout his life.

In the first week of November 1966, after a period of prolonged rain and threat of the collapse of several dams on the Arno River, a release of floodwater hit Florence, Italy, traveling nearly 40 miles an hour. The Biblioteca Nazional Centrale, virtually under water, was cut off from the rest of the city. The damage was incalculable. Powell and Wright asked Etherington to join the British team being dispatched to Italy to help. “They had 300,000 books floating in the water. Before we got there these student volunteers got them out of the water, out of the mud, out of the oil and put them on a truck to be dried in tobacco kilns up in the mountains. Not to blame them because nobody knew, but it was the wrong technique. Here you’ve got covers floating all around and you’ve got books floating all around. In those days, they weren’t titled. All these scholars were having to try to match up that cover with that book with no indication other than size.”

Out of this disaster, the field of book conservation was born. “We started to talk to German, Danish, Dutch bookbinders and restorers for the first time. We started talking about different techniques. Never would anybody share secrets — including England. All of a sudden, we’re talking together around coffee or whatever. It was just a whole different mindset,” says Etherington.

For two years, he spent between six and eight weeks in Florence teaching conservation techniques to the Italians. His first trip to Italy, at the age of 31, was the first time he’d ever been on an airplane. Etherington stayed in a pensione on the Arno River whose owner looked like Peter Sellers, and his fellow lodgers included two bankers from Milan, a prostitute who didn’t talk much, and a countess who had been married to a high ranking German general in the Weimar Republic who delighted in regaling her dinner companions with personal recollections of the Aga Khan.

Etherington would, himself, hit on a previously untried technique, using dyed Japanese rice paper in mending leather bookbinding to add strength unachievable with the leather alone, an approach that’s still used. “People give him a lot of respect for being one of the early conservators,” says Linda Parsons, who joined Etherington at the founding of what would become known as the Etherington Conservation Center (now the HF Group) in Browns Summit.

Four years after the Florence flood, Etherington was asked by Wright to join him at the U.S. Library of Congress as a training officer. He spent a decade in D.C. in various capacities. Among the projects he consulted on were teaching FBI agents about printing techniques, typefaces and paper characteristics to help them reassemble shredded documents found behind the Democratic party offices at the Watergate Hotel — some of which related to the scandal itself — and preparing Lincoln’s manuscript of the Gettysburg Address for display at the Gettysburg National Military Park. As if he had nothing else to do, Etherington penned a full-blown dictionary, Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books, listing every tool, material and technique related to the field he’d help create.

From the Library of Congress, Etherington was hired to launch a conservation program at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas in Austin. There he was asked by Ross Perot to supervise the care and transportation of the 1297 version of the Magna Carta.

“There’s about 17 versions in existence. The 1297 one was the version the Founding Fathers used to write the Constitution of the United States. Ross is a big collector of Americana. He bought it for $1.5 million, which was pretty cheap at the time. It was found in the archives of a family in England. I was very surprised that England allowed it out. When I saw it, it was in really, really good shape. The ink was very black. There was question whether it was legitimate. Many scholars looked at it and authenticated it but, boy, it was questionable at the time.

“When you have an early document, you have a seal — I think it’s Edward I — and a silk strap. Because of maybe packing it or making sure it didn’t hang loose, someone turned the tie and put it on the back and stuck Scotch tape on it. I know it sounds stupid but it was that way. At some point, it went up for sale. This guy bought it for $22 million so Ross didn’t do too bad.”

By 1987, Etherington had fallen in love with Monique on a trip to Finland. His sons, Gary and Mark, were grown, and he decided to rearrange his life and leave Austin. He and Monique moved to Greensboro to begin a for-profit conservation company in association with Information Conservation, Inc. It would morph into the Etherington Conservation Center. The company performed the conservation and display preparation for the Constitution of Puerto Rico. They prepared and conserved the Virginia Bill of Rights. And Etherington was asked to work on the Charters of Freedom exhibit — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — for the National Archives as the parchment consultant on the Declaration of Independence, helping to design how the badly faded document was to be displayed. Like a sure-handed heart surgeon, one concentrates on the process, not the patient.

“A lot of people who are not in this business, they think it’s a little bit scary,” he says. “I try not to think too much about the importance of it to history or to our country or whatever, because once you start doing that, instead of treating it with surety, you’re treating it with tentative hands, and that’s the worst thing that could ever happen to you.”

Etherington’s archive resides at the Walter Clinton Jackson Library at UNCG. “He’s internationally known,” says Jennifer Motszko, the library’s manuscript archivist. “He basically was there at the founding of his field where they started to come up with systemizing ways to preserve and conserve materials. But then he’s become a well-known entity in fine arts binding. You mention him in that circle, he and Monique define that area.”

In celebration of artists and their craft, the UNC Wilmington Museum of World Cultures has designated Etherington and Lallier North Carolina Living Treasures. Etherington has worked on everything from family Bibles to a 14th century Haggadah, from first century Chinese papyrus rolls to a rare copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses, from personal treasures to national ones. Still, every day at 5 p.m., studio work ceases. It’s time for the Etherington Cocktail. One part gin. Two jiggers of sweet Vermouth and a splash of tonic water.

“I’ve been very lucky doing things,” says Etherington.

Now he gets to toast a second go-round.  PS

Positive Outlook

Preston McNeil met Don Etherington when the family’s Chi-Poo, Mali, a Chihuahua/poodle mix, gnawed the edges of the study Bible belonging to his wife, Brenda. McNeil, who moved to North Carolina from New Jersey in 1988, has owned businesses ranging from carpet cleaning to cookie stores, and dabbled in jewelry design. He decided he could add bookbinder to the list by taking the chomped-on Bible apart and putting it back together again.

“So, I did,” he says. “It was a book that worked.” All the new binding lacked was lettering. McNeil found a place where he could have it imprinted. When the man behind the counter made out the invoice he noticed McNeil’s address. It was the same street Etherington lived on. “He said, ‘Take this book and show Don what you’ve done,’” says McNeil. “So, I took it to Don and he goes, ‘Uh, I see some mistakes but you did pretty good.’ He invited me in. And I’ve been going to him from that point on.”

After a couple of years studying with Etherington, McNeil felt confident enough to redo a friend’s Bible. “Then I began to buy my own equipment. Now, I have a full studio downstairs,” he says. And another business, Gate City Binding. “I wish I had learned to do this when I was 36,” says McNeil, who’s actually three decades older than that. “I love it so much.”

His seven-year apprenticeship with Etherington and his new skill set led to a delicate and difficult commission, rebinding the volumes of the Pinehurst Outlook, the newspaper that published continuously from 1897 to 1961, that reside in the Tufts Archives at the Given Memorial Library. The project is being paid for entirely with donations designated for that purpose.

“The majority of the Outlooks I’ve worked with are fully separating from the original binding,” he says. “The spine is deteriorating. Everything is dry-rotting on the interior. The books are all newspapers. If they need to be restitched, they’ll be restitched. If they need to be reglued, I reglue them. Then rebuild the whole spine. It goes from individual papers to a book again. It’s building a book from scratch, essentially.”

Just like his new career is built from scratch. “I take from his mind, put it into my mind,” says McNeil of his mentor, Etherington. “I take from his hands, and I hope it’s coming out of my hands.”

A Good Fit for the Goodmans

A Pinehurst family grows into well-planned home

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

On the border dividing Generation Xers from millennials sits a beautiful house occupied by a matching family: young(ish), sociable, fit, bright, busy.  The house is stylish yet comfy, practical and pretty — an heirloom-free zone in Pinehurst, better known for senior(ish) CEOs, globetrotters and generals, now attracting this new demographic that enjoys walking or jogging to the village after shooting hoops in the driveway.

Meet the Goodmans: Laura, from New England-prim Wellesley, Massachusetts; Kenny, whose roots extend deep into Tar Heel textile and furniture industries; Cate, 15, an avid participant in Odyssey of the Mind; and sports enthusiast Matthew, 12.

Golden retriever Ruby, and Ollie, a sweet Corgi-blend rescue, complete the portrait.

Kenny (N.C. State) and Laura (Vanderbilt) met in Raleigh. They decided on Pinehurst when Kenny returned to the family business, located in Ellerbe. Laura found the public schools fine and the village friendly: “Here, you walk into a store and everybody says hello, knows your name. That wouldn’t happen in Wellesley.”

They built an 1,800-square-foot house with white vinyl siding, green shutters and a front porch overlooking Pinehurst No. 6, where they were bombarded with stray golf balls. This didn’t work with a new baby. Time to build a forever house, designed to their specifications by Pinehurst architects Stagaard & Chao, known for parabolas and arches, niches, vaulted ceilings and the Fair Barn renovation.

But, Laura maintains, with off-white shingles, and paneled front door flanked by benches, the look combines New England with Old Town cottages commissioned by the Bostonian Tufts family.  Yet those very cottages, many enlarged and restored beyond their original glory, were oblong or square. The Goodmans chose an L-wing, which creates a front courtyard, giving the house on a corner lot facing a well-traveled street more of a manor appearance. Multiple high roof pitches impart the illusion of a second story when there is none, except for an attic playroom.

* * * * * *

Whatever generational banner they hoist, the Goodmans were forward-thinkers when laying this footprint during the great Great Room Era. “I wanted three separate living spaces,” Laura says, “so when the kids want to watch TV we can close the door.” True prescience, considering the house was built in 2002, when Cate was a toddler and Matthew not yet born. Ditto placing the children’s quarters in the L-wing (with its own entrance), the master suite at the opposite end.

The smiling Goodmans welcome friends through a wide front door, into a wider foyer, then straight into the living room overlooking terrace and garden, where father and son throw a baseball. Even the living room is divided by furniture placement into two conversation areas. Architectural niches show off a pair of small antique chests, while the peaked ceiling is softly illuminated by rope lighting tucked into a cornice molding.

Opposite the living room, sunlight streams through bare windows in the dining area, where a wall indentation frames a tall red-lacquered Chinese armoire topped with oversized black ginger jars. Unobstructed access between the two rooms allows setting up long tables for holiday gatherings

Many furnishings came from a family-owned business that closed, other pieces from Pinehurst village boutiques. A velvet slipper chair in the master bedroom originated with Laura’s grandparents. Laura cannot find a word that encompasses their decor style, from a massive drum coffee table to Asian bamboo, sleigh beds and carved French provincial settees, only that the pieces relate beautifully.

“We like clean lines, no clutter,” Kenny adds.

* * * * * *

A guest bedroom in the master suite wing — now Kenny’s home office — highlights a recent palette reversal. Its unusual teal walls set off the white sleep sofa (just in case), a set of Chinese prints illustrating silk-making, bamboo blinds, a retro leather club chair, and a framed newspaper story about his grandfather, who served as Richmond County sheriff for 44 years.

“We never used this room; now we use it every day,” Kenny says.

In a daring move, they painted the wall of wood cabinetry in the master bathroom, also the dark kitchen cabinets, an unusual and soothing dove gray, adding a granite countertop pattern that swirls rather than spatters. Kitchen layout and size is a paradigm of restraint. The island expands counter space, nothing else. “I’m an electric girl,” Laura says, explaining her choice of a smooth cooktop and built-in ovens instead of an industrial gas range. She has a coffee nook and wine rack but no pastry area, refrigerated drawers or wine cellar. The chrome yellow Dualit toaster — a British award-winner used by fine restaurants — stands, statuesque, against the white ceramic tile backsplash.

On one side of the kitchen is a “sitting room” similar to one Laura remembers from an aunt’s house. Upholstery fabric there and elsewhere comes from Goodman textile manufacturing. On the other side of the kitchen, a charming corner breakfast nook with upholstered banquettes and beyond that, the TV room. With door. Family dinner is obligatory, with no electronic distractions. Off to one side, a screened gazebo awaits fine-weather dining.

Whimsy trumps classic in the guest powder room, wallpapered in ragged blue spots on white, straight off a Dalmatian.

In the teens’ wing, a long wall of built-in bookshelves serves Cate’s passion for reading. Matthew likes his room, “because I have a basketball hoop on the wall.” Cate selected colors for her sitting-bedroom, a bright turquoise that compliments her long red hair.

By sizing rooms moderately, the 4,000-square-foot total does not overwhelm, as it might if allocated to a cavernous great room or huge master suite.

“I just like how inviting and warm and light and well-laid-out my house is,” says Cate.  Indeed, gleaming hardwood floors, Persian runners and area rugs, interesting architectural details, fresh colors, a convenient location with other millennials nearby,  backdrops the lifestyle and leisure of a new Pinehurst demographic exemplified by the Goodmans, for whom life certainly seems good.  PS

Splish Splash!

Winter waterbirds have arrived

By Susan Campbell

The arrival of cold weather in the Sandhills means that our local ponds and lakes will become the winter home to more than two dozen different species of ducks, geese and swans. Over the years, as development has added water features both large and small to the landscape, the diversity of our aquatic visitors has increased significantly. Although we are all familiar with our local mallards and Canada geese, nowadays from November through March, observant bird watchers can expect to see ring-necked duck, buffleheads, loons, cormorants, pied-billed grebes and American coots, to name a handful.

Certainly, the most abundant and widespread species is the ring-necked duck, flocks of which can be seen diving in shallow ponds and coves for aquatic invertebrate prey, dining on everything from leeches to dragonflies, midges to mosquitoes, water bugs to beetles. They obviously get their name from the indistinct rusty ring at the base of their necks.  Also look for iridescent blue heads, black sides and gray backs on males. The females, as with all of the true duck species, are nondescript: light brown all over but, like the males, have a distinctive grayish blue bill with a white band around it.

Perhaps the most noticeable of our wintering waterfowl would be the buffleheads. They form small groups that dive in deeper water, feeding on vegetation and invertebrates. The males have a bright white hood and body with iridescent dark green back, face and neck. They also sport bright orange legs and feet that they will flash during confrontations. The females of this species are characteristically drab, mainly brown with the only contrast being a small white cheek patch. Interestingly, the bufflehead is the one species of migratory duck that actually mates for life. This is generally a trait found only in the largest of waterfowl: swans and geese.

There are several types of aquatic birds, similar to ducks, that can be identified if you’re lucky enough to spot them; you’ll likely need a pair of binoculars. Common loons can occasionally be seen diving for fish on larger lakes in winter, and even more so during spring and fall migration. Their size and shape are distinctive (as is their yodeling song; unfortunately, they tend not to sing while they are here). It is important to be aware that we have another visitor that can be confused with loons: the double-crested cormorant, which is actually not a duck at all. This glossy dark swimmer, along with its cousin the anhinga, is more closely related to seabirds (e.g., boobies and gannets), and is a very proficient diver with a sharply serrated bill adapted for catching fish. It is not uncommon to see cormorants in their “drying” pose, when their wings are almost fully extended. (It’s the slight droop that makes them look sort of comical.) Since their feathers are not as waterproof as those of diving ducks, they only enter water to feed and bathe. Most of their time is spent sitting on a dock or some sort of perch trying to dry off.

Two other species of waterbirds can be found regularly at this time of year: pied-billed grebes and American coots. Pied-billed grebes are the smallest of the swimmers we see in winter, with light brown plumage, short thick bills and bright white bottoms. Surprisingly, they are very active swimmers. They can chase down small fish in just about any depth of water. American coots — black, stocky birds with white bills — are scavengers, feeding mainly in aquatic vegetation. They can make short dives but are too buoyant to remain submerged for more than a few seconds. Given their long legs and well-developed toes, they are also adept at foraging on foot. You might see them feeding on grasses along the edge of larger bodies of water or even on the edge of golf course water hazards.

In the coming weeks, if you find yourself in Lakeview, near the dam at Thagard Lake in Whispering Pines, or at a good vantage point along Lake Pinehurst, scan the surface for rafts of floating waterbirds. Of course, you will most likely need your binoculars in order to better make out the shapes and color patterns. But if you can get a good look, take the time to enjoy some of these wonderful, web-footed winter visitors from the far North. PS

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

Two Gents on a Porch

Another overheard conversation at Rosehaven Assisted Living in rural North Carolina

By Clyde Edgerton

“How do you control the climate, anyway?”

“That’s simple: The more you run air conditioning, the colder it gets. Air conditioning controls the climate indoors. That has an overall cooling effect out of doors too, because people used to keep their windows open and now they can’t. So now the air that used to cool houses can be used to cool the climate. It’s figured out with a climate formula. I think Ben Gore came up with it.”

“But I keep hearing ‘global warming.’”

“Very true, but air conditioning has been going on for what, over 60, 70 years. Cars heated up the air for about 50 years before air conditioning ever got started and then the climate started cooling down the Earth’s surface, especially in America. Air conditioning has now cooled down the early hot effect from cars.”

“But they say that temperatures are hotter than ever.”

“That’s because of airplanes. They started building great big airplanes with jet engines in the middle of the last century. Big engines spew out a lot of heat.”

“What do the scientists say? I heard they were saying something.”

“You mean ‘what do weathermen say?’ Those are the ones who know about how hot or cold it is. Scientists know about rocks and trees and chemicals and are usually just professors. I mean, why would you go to anybody but a weatherman to learn about the weather? It’s like why would you go to anybody but a cook to learn about how to cook? Common sense stuff.”

“I guess if you did away with cars and airplanes, then the air conditioning could make global cooling. Yes, common sense. Maybe we can move into an era of common sense.”

“Which had you rather have? Global warming or global cooling? Since we have a choice now.”

“I don’t know. I don’t get around much anymore, so I guess I’d rather keep air conditioning and cut back on cars and airplanes.”

“You know, I remember the times before air conditioning.”

“Oh, yes. Me too. It’s hard to remember how we kept cool.”

“You’d sweat, you’d get damp, and then the air from a fan would cool you down. Before electricity, my mama had a great big hand-held straw fan. You don’t see them anymore.”

“You don’t see a lot of things anymore.”

“Those were the good old days. No erectile dysfunction commercials.”

“No commercials at all. I mean, you had commercials on the radio, maybe for Tide, but they were only every half hour or so.”

“Yeah. Those were the good old days. I remember in our little house we had this big old window fan planted in a window so that it sucked air out instead of blowing it in, and on hot summer nights you’d close every window in the house except for windows beside a bed, and that window fan would pull in cool night air, gentle like, and you’d sleep in just your underwear without a sheet. You’d have that cool night air gently pulled in, keeping you nice and cool, and you’re sleeping with night sounds instead of air conditioning sounds. Before morning, you’d need a sheet. I woke up more rested than I have since.”

“I understand that President Trump is going to recommend opening up houses with the air conditioning on so that we can cool down global warming.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Oh yeah. It was on the news. That’s what he’s hearing from his advisers.”

“I’m glad Trump doesn’t drink like Bill Clinton did. Remember what Clinton’s nose looked like?”

“You mean ‘looks like.’”

“Yeah. My Uncle Pierce had a nose like that and he drank like a fish. But remember, we said we were not going to discuss politics.”

“Sure. Right. But I’m not so sure letting air conditioning out of your house will stop global warming.”

“But you can. I promise. Think about it. And there are all kinds of benefits. If we go that route, we burn more electricity; if we burn more electricity, we use up more coal, and that gives us more coal mining jobs, which means more coal transportation jobs, which means more jobs making soap. Presto. You kill several birds with one stone.”

“Soap?”

“You handle coal, you get dirty hands.”

“What about a high electricity bill from all that air conditioning?”

“That’s easy. You pay for your air conditioning with the money you save on taxes. It’s called the clean energy credit. Air conditioned air has all the nasty stuff conditioned out of it. It’s clean. Clean energy. Come on, man.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

“The future is so bright I have to wear sunglasses.”

“I never thought about it that way. I don’t have any sunglasses.”

“Well, you better get some.”  PS

Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir and most recently, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

Saving George

An anchor of enchantment in the front yard

By Jim Dodson

His name is George. That’s what we’ve taken to calling him, at any rate. George is old and bent, weathered by age. We think he might be pushing 100 years old.

I’ve known George most of my life. Grew up just two doors from down from where he lived but I never paid him much notice until recently.

That’s because George is an old tree, Crataegus phaenopyrum, we think, based purely by his leaf pattern and bark. His common name is a Washington hawthorn — hence the nickname we’ve bestowed on him.

But here’s where the sweet mystery deepens.

According to my tree identification book, Washington hawthorns are relatively small flowering trees — in some cases, shrubs — that produce early and abundant white flowers in the spring and vivid red berries that last into winter, a bounty for winter birds, especially cedar waxwings. They’re also reportedly poisonous to dogs, which could be a problem, since Ajax, our shameless golden retriever, will eat anything put before him. On the other hand, he’s one lazy brute, unlike his Greek namesake, and not much for climbing trees. So Ajax is probably safe.

We moved into the neighborhood just before Thanksgiving. On our first day in the Corry house, I stopped to admire George. He was magnificently arrayed with gold and crimson leaves, like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The neighborhood is famous for its old graceful hardwoods, many of them well over a century old. George is clearly one of the neighborhood patriarchs. That’s why I paused to admire him the afternoon we moved in, suddenly remembering him from my childhood, making a mental note to free him from the tangle of English ivy vines that had grown around him like something from a fairy tale.

In a year of small wonders, it seemed wonderfully providential that we were moving into the Corry house, 100 feet from where I grew up. The Corry boys were my pals growing up. Their parents, Al and Mama Merle, were my parents’ good friends. Big Al was one of Greensboro’s leading builders, and the house he built for his wife and four kids — a gorgeous wooden bungalow with flowing rooms, parquet floors and host of innovative design touches — was one of the first houses built in Starmount Forest after the war.

For more than a year, my wife, Wendy, and I had quietly scouted houses throughout Greensboro. Then one Sunday after I heard the Corry house was for sale, we went for a look. I didn’t let on that the Corry house was always my favorite in the neighborhood. But after she walked through it, on the drive home to the Sandhills, Wendy quietly announced, “I think that’s the house. It just feels like us.”

The Corry kids, all four of them, were thrilled to hear their homeplace was being purchased by a Dodson.

Each quickly got in touch to offer their enthusiastic congratulations. The  Corrys were the most self-sufficient clan I ever knew, natural builders and people full of life. Chris, the oldest boy, actually lived in a tepee with his bride as they built their own dream home west of Greensboro. The Corry boys hunted, fished and could build anything with their hands. They were also crazily musical, playing stringed instruments of every sort. In 1969, son Craig and I made the Greensboro Teenage Talent Show playing guitars and singing Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice.” We called ourselves Alfred and James.

Big Al informed us that Alfred and James needed something “extra” to win. “You boys need a shtick to impress the judges,” he said.

I asked him why we needed a stick on stage.

Big Al laughed. He hailed from Buffalo, New York. “That’s a Yiddish word,” he explained. “It means a comic gimmick, something to make people laugh. First rule of vaudeville — always leave ’em laughing.”

He suggested that we add kazoos to the act. We thought that was the silliest thing we’d ever heard, but Mama Merle bought us a couple anyway.

The director of the show asked us to play a second song while the judges made up their minds. So we did an encore — with guitars and kazoos. The audience gave us a standing ovation. We wound up in third place. I still have the program. TV host Lee Kinard invited Alfred and James to come on his Good Morning Show at Christmas. We worked up a couple of Christmas carols and did the second one with kazoos. The shtick worked wonders.

Craig grew up to marry Marcy Madden, his first girlfriend from just down the block. He became a veterinarian. Britt, his little brother, was a musical prodigy who became a music teacher and recently signed on to direct the music for Horn in the West. Ginger, the oldest and only girl, became a lawyer.

Like his papa, Chris was a jack-of-all-trades, a born builder of almost anything. He now sports a full-grown gray beard and knows his late mama’s house better than anyone alive because he built much of it with his father and took care of the place until Merle passed away a year or so ago. His wife, Fenna, told me in an email that Mama Merle and Big Al would both be so happy that a Dodson kid had come home again to purchase their house. From faraway California, Ginger wrote that she hoped we would have many happy years living there.

Which brings me back to George.

A week after we got settled, we took ladders, handsaws and a hatchet and liberated George from those wretched English ivy vines. The job took two afternoons, but George looked considerably more at ease, maybe even grateful. My nephew came and helped me clean out the area around his base, where I’ll soon plant Spanish bluebells and English daffodils for the spring.

I also planted six young trees, three Japanese maples I’d raised from sprouts and a trio of river birches like the three I planted once in Maine.

They stood in front of the post and beam house I built on a forested hilltop surrounded by birch and hemlock. The beams were rough-sawn Northern fir, with pegged heartwood pine flooring salvaged from a 200-year-old New Hampshire barn. On cold but sunny winter days, whenever the sun streamlining through that house’s large south-facing windows warmed the beams, you could hear gentle sighs and faint cracking sounds as the wood relaxed, expanded, exhaled.

That peaceful sound told me something I guess I’ve always known. That wood — trees — are something more than just fellow living and breathing organisms.

They are enchanted.

Maybe this explains why one of my first memories of life is of sitting on a low limb in a sprawling live oak next to our house by Greenfield Lake, in Wilmington, waiting for my father to come home from the newspaper where he worked. I was forever climbing trees, much to my mother’s chagrin, and sometimes falling out of them. My dad liked to call me Mowgli, the orphaned boy from Kipling’s Jungle Book, one of the first books I ever read on my own.

Come to think of it, the books I loved early on all seemed to have extraordinary trees in them — Greek and Roman mythology, the Tarzan books, almost every fairy tale I ever read contained forests that were either forbidden or simply enchanted, home to magic creatures, wizards, evil queens and noble woodsmen.

And why not? Plato and the ancient Greeks believed souls resided in sacred groves of trees, and the Buddha found enlightenment sitting beneath a fig. The Egyptian Book of the Dead mentions groves of sycamores where the departed find eternal bliss, and the Bible speaks of a Tree of Knowledge that altered paradise. The Irish word “druid” derives simply from a Celtic word for oak, while in India to this day people seeking miracles hang family rags on trees to make shrines to the gods. My Baptist grandmother always insisted that the dogwood tree with its perfect white petals and crimson heart was a symbol for Christ’s resurrection, and showed me the old Appalachian story to prove it.

The Glastonbury thorn, holds English lore, is a hawthorn tree that is said to have sprouted miraculously from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea when he traveled to Britain after Jesus’ crucifixion. The hawthorn blooms at Christmas, and the queen is traditionally brought one of its blooms with her tea on Christmas morning. In broader English lore, wherever hawthorns and oaks reside together, kindly fairies supposedly live as well.

I do hope that much holds true even if, come springtime, the old tree I liberated turns out to be something quite different.

There’s an old saying that an optimist is someone who plants a tree he may never live long enough to sit under.

That’s probably true for the six young trees I planted around George.

But come spring, home at last, I plan to sit under George when those bluebells and daffodils bloom.  PS

Contact editor Jim Dodson at jim@thepilot.com.

Rocking Porch Resolutions

Even the Romans knew not all change is good

By Tom Bryant

“January,” Bubba said, “was named after the god Janus by the Romans for their ancient calendar. He was supposedly the god of beginnings or transitions. I’m probably telling you something you already know, though. Right, Coot?”

It was early January of a brand new year, and we were kicked back in a pair of rocking chairs in a sunny spot on the wraparound porch of Slim’s country store enjoying the warmth of the mid-afternoon sun. Bubba had his legs stretched out and a steaming, freshly poured mug of hot coffee resting on the arm of his rocker. We had been in the woods early that morning squirrel hunting, a sport Bubba swears was regulated to the back corner by a bunch of yuppies who only enjoy the great outdoors so they can buy more spiffy clothes.

I was halfway dozing and really didn’t pay a lot of attention to what Bubba was saying. He was often coming up with some kind of off-the-wall information. He had bestowed the nickname Cooter on me years ago and it stuck. “Seems like I remember some of that stuff, Bubba. Maybe that’s why a lot of folks make New Year’s resolutions. That’s one type of new beginning, don’t you think?”

“You’re right,” he replied. “But I think you and I fall into the category of transitions. We’re too old for beginnings.”

“Nope, speak for yourself. I don’t consider myself old, maybe slowing down a little, but I can still do about as much as I could a few years back.”

“You don’t get it, Coot. I don’t mean that we can’t start a new beginning; but hey, I’m still working on some I started years ago. I just try to transition them every now and then. That way they feel like a new beginning.”

“So you’re saying some of the New Year’s resolutions you made long ago have just transitioned into things you are doing today? I’m gonna think about that for a minute while I freshen up my coffee. You want some?”

“No thanks, but you can bring me one of those ham biscuits that Leroy made this morning.” Leroy is Slim’s cousin and worked for him part time. He now manages the ancient store after Bubba bought the place when Slim died. The old store didn’t make too much money, but Bubba said it was a deal at any price. He needed a place to get away from too much civilization. It worked out well for both of them. Bubba had his place to go, and Leroy had a job he was familiar with.

I went into the store and said hey to a couple of the regulars who had just arrived. H.B. Johnson was dragging a slat-back chair from the corner to a spot in front of the woodstove. “You and Bubba outside? I saw him when I drove up. He looked like a sleepy old hound dog resting in the sun.”

“You’re not far wrong, H.B. He sort of favors a few hound dogs that I’m familiar with.” The guys laughed, and I poured more coffee before going back outside.

“Take Falls Lake,” Bubba said as I closed the side door and moved to my rocker. We hunted there last week and it’s nothing like what it was on our first visit, remember?” Bubba was on a roll. When he gets on a topic, he chews it front ways, sideways, upside down and backward, like a bulldog with a new ham bone.

“What’s that got to do with resolutions?” I responded.

“Well, the first time we hunted there they had just finished the dam, and we were some of the first to try the spot for ducking. It turned out to be one of the best in the area, and then here came the troops, more duck hunters than you could shake a stick at. Then the dam was closed and the lake filled and pleasure boaters came out all over the place, and duck hunting went south. Now that there aren’t so many hunters, ducks have rediscovered the lake and hunting is getting better. You might say the place has transitioned and we have along with it, thus proving that old Janus wasn’t far wrong.”

“As old as we are, we could probably use that analogy in many of our hunting spots,” I replied. “Take the Sartin farm, for example. Four hundred acres of some of the finest wild habitat in the whole county. Everything from ducks to turkeys and doves, deer and otter and beaver, even good fishing on the creek. All that is gone now, transitioned to 10-acre mini-farms owned by city folk who like to pretend they’re farmers. No new beginnings there. In that case, our good place to hunt and enjoy nature was transitioned slam out o’ business.” I could see Bubba literally chewing that over as he took a bite of his ham biscuit.

“You’ve got a point there, Coot. I guess that situation goes with the territory of living a long time and watching the dubious benefits of progress. Sometimes I think maybe we were born a little too late. Another good example of how progress has done us in would be duck hunting at Currituck. Remember when we would go every winter to hunt with the Whitsons? I think that old crowd there has died off, and the hunting is now so bad that hardly anyone hunts there anymore. Another sign of growth and the ‘benefits’ of development.”

Our conversation continued for a while until we decided to head home in time for our naps. I had a way to drive, so I bade the boys inside goodbye and told Bubba that I’d give him a call later in the week so we could plan our hunt to Mattamuskeet.

On the way home, I mused over our talks about resolutions and New Year’s in general. Bubba and I have seen a bunch of Januarys roll around, and for better or worse, we’ve made the best of whatever came. We’ve still got our health, and in the woods, we’re able to do about anything we want. As Bubba says, we’ve learned to walk around it rather than climb over. A certain amount of wisdom does come with age. I often wonder, though, what will the next generation experience? Will they be able to see tundra swans rafted up by the thousands on Lake Mattamuskeet, or even a wild squirrel scurrying around a giant oak as Bubba and I did that morning?

Time changes a bunch of stuff; and as the ancient Roman god Janus probably knew, not every new beginning is a good thing.  PS

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

Sweet Joy Ride

Champange wishes, cavier dreams and the chicken dance

By Astrid Stellanova

Oh, what a good time to be a Capricorn! Money! Fun! Champagne on a beer budget!
You bask in the sunshine of a benevolent Universe. And . . . If you don’t go broke trolling the racks at Victoria’s Secret, you will have one fine time with all things sensual and pleasurable and dee-lightful. Actually, with the Sun in your money house, this is when you bank a lot of cash and good times keep rolling. For the rest of the sun signs, we just hope we are in the back seat for this oh-so-sweet joy ride. Ad Astra — Astrid

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

Now, Astrid is not always right about everything, but I’m going to mix my metaphors because I feel oh-so-very right on this star call: If you don’t make the best of this astrological joy ride then you sure have missed the bus. Given all the good fortune you enjoy in January, take some time for an attitude of gratitude and pay some of that forward, Birthday Child.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

Since the year’s end, you’ve been locked in a dilemma. And Honey, one is right and the other one is you. It won’t take you more than a hot minute to figure out for yourself exactly what ole Astrid means. The jury is still out on whether you will get away with something you know was dicey. Not too late to renege, sweet thing, and set it right.

Pisces (February 19–March 20)

When things get rough, some of us run and hide. Some, like you, know how to let loose and be hopeful even when they feel the bus tires are bearing down and about to roll over them. They don’t feel sorry for themselves — no, baby, they feel a chicken dance coming on. This is the beauty of your true self. Dance that chicken dance, Child.

Aries (March 21–April 19)

If you struck gold, why would you look for brass? Somebody you admire has put that question to you about a choice you made. That choice is going to be one of the most important ones you will make. If you feel you cannot choose, then don’t. Sit on your hands. Wait. If your first choice won’t fit, don’t force it.

Taurus (April 20–May 20)

You have the constitution of an ox, and when you get sick, you get mad. Consider your choices. Consider you haven’t necessarily done a healthy thing in too long to remember. And the health nuts don’t mean an apple a day will keep the doc away — but only if you aim it right.

Gemini (May 21–June 20)

Sugar, you’ve been through a lot of challenge. How much of that was your durn fault? Did you show your appreciation when somebody gave you a helping hand? Did you repay the favor? Try remembering to dance with the one who brought you to the dance and get back out there.

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

It is true you got some bad blowback. It may be because a confidant of yours uses a phone like a DustBuster, just to get the dirt. Take a good look at who you trust and be sure they are worth all the fuss. Then sweep up the mess and move on, Sugar.

Leo (July 23–August 22)

Recent events have left you upside down and bassackwards. You don’t know whether to scratch your watch or wind your backside. Will it help you if I tell you this is good training for you? Despite always giving the appearance you are the One in Charge, you have bluffed and someone called it. Fix it.

Virgo (August 23–September 22)

Ever notice that the people who ought to be running things are either driving for Uber or giving manicures? Wisdom is going to find you in the most unlikely places. If you are wiser, you are going to keep an ear cocked for insights from people you might oughta listen to before you make that big decision.

Libra (September 23–October 22)

Well, hello, Sassy Pants! You put some steel in your backbone and stood up to somebody who needed it. Pushing back may just become one of your favorite activities this year, after a long standoff. You are going to find it easier to be true to your own ideas, and don’t worry if it alienates your Mama.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21)

Big ole changes are in the chart for you, and despite all the secret nail biting you have done, it is going to be just fine, Sugar Pie. If you only knew how many helping hands are making good things possible, you would sleep better at night. You would also sleep better if you stopped sleeping with your cell phone.

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)

The rumor is, you have finally broken off with the lunatic fringe and found yourself. Or was it that you found religion? Whatever you found, don’t forget where you put it. You have an easy transition into the New Year, and an easy opportunity to renew some old acquaintances. They didn’t forget you.  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.

American Ulysses

Finding the uncommon in a common man

By Stephen E. Smith

We’ve grown infamous for what we should know but don’t. What’s more distressing is our proclivity for spouting “factoids,” assumptions that are repeated so often they become accepted as truth. Ask a reasonably well-educated person what he or she knows about Ulysses S. Grant and you’ll probably hear that Grant was a drunken Civil War general and a president whose administration was tainted by scandal. Beyond that, you’re not likely to get much in the way of revelatory information.

Certainly we’re suffering no dearth of sources. Curious readers have access to Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant — one of the finest memoirs written by an American — and recent biographies include Jean Edward Smith’s 2002 Grant and H.W. Brands’ 2013 The Man Who Saved the Union, lesser volumes which have done little to compensate for the general lack of knowledge regarding a man who rose in seven years from a clerk in a leather goods store to commander of all Union forces in the Civil War to a two-term president of the United States. As president, Grant may not be as obscure and maligned as James Buchanan or Andrew Johnson, but he has nonetheless slipped from memory, and most of what remains in our collective awareness are vague misconceptions and flawed characterizations.

With American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant, Ronald C. White offers new insights into the life of the 18th president of the United States. Whereas Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer William McFeely stated emphatically in his 2002 biography of Grant: “I am convinced that Ulysses Grant had no organic, artistic, or intellectual specialness,” White finds much to admire, basing his observation on Grant’s interior life, his intense love for his wife and children, his fondness for the theater and novels, and his loyalty to his friends, not a few of whom led him into the ill-conceived schemes that tarnished his second term as president. “I discovered that Grant’s life story has so many surprising twists and turns, highs and lows, as to read like a suspense novel,” White writes. “His nineteenth-century contemporaries knew his story well. They offered him not simply admiration but affection. In their eyes he stood with Washington and Lincoln.”

Indeed, Grant was held in high regard by his countrymen — and by ordinary people around the world. But McFeely’s critical judgment of Grant as an unexceptional man isn’t without justification. White’s account of Grant’s early life reveals no hint of exceptionalism, and his years as a young Army officer and his subsequent sojourn as a hardscrabble farmer offered no indication that he’d rise to general of the Army of the United States, the first non-brevet officer to hold the rank since Washington. Moreover, his terms as president were marked by the best of intentions regarding Reconstruction, civil rights and Native American assimilation. By contemporary standards, dismal though they may be, Grant’s presidential years were only vaguely tarnished by the misconduct of trusted associates.

Readers who believe themselves schooled in the facts of Grant’s life will encounter the occasional surprise. Grant, the general who would destroy the Southern economy and social construct, was, for a brief period, a slave owner. White points out the general’s views on “the peculiar institution” were pragmatic and demonstrate evolution of thought. In a letter to his abolitionist father, Grant wrote: “My inclination is to whip the rebellion into submission, preserving all constitutional rights. If it cannot be whipped in any other way than through a war against slavery, let it come to that legitimately.” A year later he would write to Elihu Washburne, a Republican congressman from Illinois and Lincoln supporter: “I was never an Abolitionist, not even what could be called anti-slavery, but I try to judge fairly & honestly and it became patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North & South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without slavery.”

Other miscalculations would prove to be more damaging to Grant’s wartime reputation, such as his General Order No. 11: “The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department . . . are hereby expelled . . . ” Although he claimed that a member of his staff had written the order, Grant was, according to White, solely responsible for an order that threatened to alienate the 7,000 Jews who served in the Union Army.

The most oft-repeated factoid regards Grant’s alcohol consumption. (There’s no hard evidence that Lincoln ever said that if he knew Grant’s favorite brand of whiskey he’d send barrels of it to his other commanders.) White attributes rumors of Grant’s intemperance to jealous fellow officers. “Few had ever met Grant — but no matter. Once the label ‘drunkard’ became affixed to a man in the army, it could seldom be completely erased.” He also rejects the notion that Julia Grant was the “balm” for her husband’s drinking, citing evidence to support the claim that Grant rarely over-imbibed.

Grant’s Civil War successes, from Fort Donelson to Appomattox, are adequately reprised in White’s narrative, and for hard-core Civil War enthusiasts there’s a plethora of histories that cover Grant’s military career in more exhaustive detail. Where White’s biography shines is in evaluating Grant’s post-war conduct, falling decidedly on the side of Grant’s defenders.

As president, Grant worked tirelessly for Native American assimilation and black civil rights. And he was temporarily successful in crushing the Ku Klux Klan, but was, in the long run, unsuccessful in changing attitudes that ruled the hearts and minds of Americans, especially Southerners. White also focuses on the Gold standard, the Annexation of Santo Domingo, the Virginius Affair, and the scandal surrounding the Gold Ring. Grant’s second term was dominated by economic upheaval, and White’s analysis of the Panic of 1873, precipitated by the failure of the brokerage house of Jay Cooke & Company to sell bonds issued by the Northern Pacific Railway, is thoroughly researched and placed in perspective.

Unfortunately, Grant’s grasp of economics, on a personal level and as head of the federal government, was a weakness that plagued him into his old age when he was bankrupted by a smooth-talking swindler. But Grant always rallied when he found himself in difficult circumstances, and his finest achievement occurred when, suffering from incurable throat cancer, he transformed himself into a man of letters and wrote his two-volume personal memoir, restoring his family’s fortune. After Grant’s death, Julia received royalties amounting to $450,000 ($12 million in today’s dollars).

The overriding value of White’s biography is in deepening our knowledge of a controversial American leader and the machinations that shaped his presidency. Forget about the notion that history repeats itself. It doesn’t. But an accurate understanding of the past is necessary to place the present in context. We have an obligation to possess more than a muddled, haphazard knowledge of the events that have shaped the moment.

Given the tenor of the times, White probably won’t succeed in bringing “the enigmatic, inspiring, and complex story of American Ulysses . . . to the wider audience he deserves,” but if McFeely’s 2002 psychological appraisal of Grant leaves us with a decidedly negative impression — “. . . he (Grant) had forced himself out of the world of ordinary people by the most murderous acts of will and had doomed himself to spend the rest of his life looking for approval for having done so” — White instills in the reader a sense of pride in the political system that nurtured a leader possessed of uncommon tenacity and persistent moral courage.  PS

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

Toast of the Town

How the custom got its beginning

By Robyn James

Beginning a new year is a classic time for a toast. So are weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and basically any occasion for a social gathering of family and friends.

But where did the custom of clinking glasses come from? There are many theories of the origination of the toast, but the most common is attributed to the Greeks in sixth century B.C. when deliberately poisoning people was a frighteningly common practice.

Sick of your spouse, neighbor or politician? Just a pinch of hemlock and be done with it. So, in order to convince people that you didn’t intend to off them, the Greeks would pour the wine from a common jug, then clink glasses together. By clinking, the wine would slosh back and forth between glasses, demonstrating that the host was willing to drink what everyone else was drinking and the wine was untainted.

The Greeks made a practice of offering libations to the gods and toasting to each other’s health. The Romans took it a step further by actually passing a law that everyone must drink to Emperor Augustus at every meal. Apparently, the wine was of such poor quality that the Romans discovered if they placed a piece of stale bread in the jug it would not only absorb some of the acidity, making the wine more palatable, but the bread would become edible again. Hence the name “toast.” 

In the 1800s, the Toastmasters Clubs were founded to practice the art. Supposedly they became the referees of toasting, making sure participants kept it simple and civil. It was common then to toast beautiful women, which coined the expression “toast of the town.” One famous toastmaster compared a good toast to a short skirt: “It should be short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover the essentials.”

Here’s mud in your eye? Why would you wish that on anybody? OK, two theories exist on the origin of this common British toast. The first is a reference to horse racing, since this was a popular toast in fox hunting circles. The winning horse in a race is kicking mud into the eyes of the spectators, so it was a desirable thing. The second, and probably more common, theory is a biblical one where Jesus spat on the ground and rubbed the mud into a blind man’s eyes, restoring his sight.

“Cheers” is a term associated with toasting, and is believed to have originated from the French word “chiere,” meaning “face.” By the 14th century it was interpreted as a mood on the face, and by the 18th century it became the term it is today, a show of support and encouragement.

Here are some of the more popular and clever toasts of our times:

Here’s to Champagne, the drink divine,

That makes us forget our troubles;

It’s made of five dollars’ worth of wine

And twenty dollars’ worth of bubbles.

***

Here’s to the nights we’ll never remember with the friends we’ll never forget.

***

May the friends of our youth be the companions of our old age.

***

May we live as long as we want, and never want as long as we live.

***

May misfortune follow you the rest of your life but never catch up.

***

Here’s to mine and here’s to thine!

Now’s the time to clink it!

Here’s a flagon of old wine,

And here we are to drink it.  PS

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