The Accidental Astrologer

Heavens Above

Action-packed planets rule the July Sky

By Astrid Stellanova

Mother Nature provides far more reasons than fireworks on the Fourth to look skyward, Star Children! Come July 15, a crescent moon meets Venus in a swoon-worthy event. That will be followed by a total lunar eclipse on July 27. And then, on the same date, Mars will be ready for its close-up when Earth passes between the Sun and Mars. This will be our biggest, closest and best encounter with Mars — an event that won’t happen again for 17 years.

Should you miss this, optimists and health nuts can mark their Daytimers for July 2035. Ad Astra — Astrid

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

Birthday Child, you’ll be sopping up praise like King’s Syrup on a biscuit this month. There will be plenty of cake, candles, razzle, dazzle and enough sizzle to make this one of your best celebrations ever. In the fullness of time, another side of your life came to life, and it was a beautiful secret modestly kept from many. Your selfless acts have been revealed, and people are wowed by your big ole generous heart.

Leo (July 23–August 22)

Maybe the best thing you can do is to launch a charm offensive, because being defensive just ain’t working for you, Honey. One thing you keep forgetting is how your long trust in an old acquaintance just isn’t working for you as well as it is for them. Speak your truth and let the cards fall slap on the table.

Virgo (August 23–September 22)

Sugar, as irresistible as you are, nobody’s liable to want to steal your blood and sell it. It’s true your sweat tastes like nectar but the skeeters are the only ones that know it. Mix and mingle. Stop being afraid of stranger danger, because you are safe and loved, and attractive to the single and solvent.

Libra (September 23–October 22)

You might as well live in the moment ’cause you might not get into the next one given how badly you’ve been navigating. Your emotional GPS has gone kerflooey and needs resetting. And despite your photographic memory, you seem a tee-ninesy off in your ability to remember where you put your keys or glasses.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21)

A friend will help you move; but a real friend will help move and hide the body. Was there ever a friend who was there no matter what? You know who’s been there for you, and they need you now in their worst hour. Call them, thank them, and show up. If you’re lucky, there won’t be any corpses involved.

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)

You might be surprised just how far you can stretch one good yarn. The ability to turn everything into a great story is one of your super powers. Work it, Baby! It turns out that everything is useful in this big ole schoolhouse of life, even in the darkest hours. Reuse, recycle, reframe the past and share it.

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

In the past, you didn’t exactly reach for the stars, Sugar. Some of your extra special powers included Jolly Rancher Jell-O shots, quick quips and sarcasm. It’s your fallback under pressure, and you have sure felt the pressure. Use new muscles. Sarcasm can be inverted into a form of sharp insight — not a bite.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

You really tried to fit in, but left others wondering if you are a Southern belle or a dumbbell. The truth is you’re neither. Your good mind and instincts are going to be needed in the latter part of the month when someone near and dear is challenged. Don’t be demure, and don’t play dumb. Step up!

Pisces (February 19–March 20)

If you only knew how long I looked for Mr. Wrong, you might not expect I ever found Beau. For ages I wanted a bad boy, becoming an expert bad girl to match, specializing in seeking rebels without a cause. Being bad never felt as good as the day I woke up and recognized my true love was hiding in plain sight.

Aries (March 21–April 19)

You may have to declare your wild self a disaster area. You are close to qualifying for federal assistance given the way you cut a path of destruction last month. Sugar, your idea of escape since that fiasco has involved a gravy bowl and comfort food. Don’t fall prey to one more ramen noodle or wild whim.

Taurus (April 20–May 20)

Sugar, you got good ammo but bad aim. Your intended target didn’t take a hit, but an innocent did. They are the forgiving type, so if you own and iron things out you won’t feel like such a dip wad. Meanwhile, a dream you pushed aside could happen for you and deserves to be re-examined.

Gemini (May 21–June 20)

That hurt, Sugar. You swallowed your pride and tried to reconnect with an old pal. You felt about as welcome as a yellow jacket in an outhouse or a skeeter in a pup tent. They know they behaved badly; just step back and resolution will come. Meanwhile, a very welcome surprise is on its way. 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.

Sporting Life

Beach Music

Grand memories buried in the sand

By Tom Bryant

When the July sun is almost directly overhead and the dogs are digging in the shrubbery looking for some cool and the humidity is thick enough to cut with a kitchen knife and the air conditioner is working overtime, relief is two words away . . . THE BEACH!

We always called it that, simply the beach. Other people from around the country refer to it in different ways. Some folks call it the shore or the coast; but down South, it is always known as the beach. And in South Carolina, the beach means Ocean Drive or Cherry Grove or Windy Hill or Crescent or Myrtle or Pawleys or Litchfield, but always it’s the beach.

The tradition of going to the beach began early in our family. My grandfather, a tobacco farmer in the low country, would load my grandmother and all eight kids, along with Shep, a farm hand and cook when needed, in one of his 2 1/2-ton farm trucks and tote them to the beach. The old farm vehicle would be loaded with a crate of live chickens, dozens of eggs, country ham, watermelons, cantaloupes and bushel baskets of Grandma’s garden vegetables. Enough food to feed an army, and with eight hungry kids, it almost was.

There they would remain for a month, glowing brown from the summer sun and almost growing gills, they were in the water so much. Mom often said that the good Lord looked after them because they survived swimming out so far in the ocean that the beach house back on land looked like a miniature reproduction, and in those days lifeguards were nonexistent.

My grandfather disliked the beach and thought it was a serious waste of energy. He often said the family could spend their time more wisely working in the crops that were in full summer bloom. Jokingly, he would threaten to cancel the coastal expedition; but secretly, he really did enjoy the fishing and laid-back times spent in the porch swing. He would carry the family and the cook to the beach and drop them off, and then he would return on weekends or when the farm crops would let him.

There is an old family story about him and the beach, and if it’s true, what a story. It seems that a land salesman from Myrtle Beach made an appointment to see Granddad on the farm right before the family’s summer outing. Grandma always rented the same beach house, a big rambling two-story affair right on the oceanfront. The old house, made of heart pine, had been there for years and had survived storms and hurricanes and seemed to grow stronger every summer. Mom remembers that the ancient beach house had two screened porches, one on each floor, and was the only house for several miles.

The beach salesman showed up at the farm early one evening just as Granddad was coming in from the fields. Granddad, who was a big landowner, didn’t suffer fools lightly; and unfortunately, sales people, according to him, fit that category. However, he begrudgingly agreed to listen to the gentleman’s spiel.

The story goes that Granddad sat in the big front porch swing and the real-estate expert sat opposite in a rocker. The salesman opened his briefcase, drew out maps and charts of the beach and the house where the family always spent summer vacations. Now Granddad was a gentleman. He was tired from his day in the fields, but he let the salesman go through his material, pointing out the maps and extolling the potential of the beach house and surrounding area. He said that the whole plot was for sale at a depressed price because the banks were going to foreclose. The original owner had passed away, and the heirs didn’t want to keep the place and would let it go at the tax value, which in those days was next to nothing.

Granddad listened politely, and Grandma went inside to the kitchen to get some iced tea. When she came back, Granddad stood up, walked over to the wide steps of the porch and said, “Come here, mister, I want to show you something.” He pointed to the cotton field across the road.

“See that? That’s 200 acres of the finest cotton I’ve ever grown. And look over there.”

He pointed to the field across the fence adjacent to the ancient plantation house. “That’s about a hundred acres, give or take an acre or two, of good corn, excellent corn if we get rain at the right time. Behind the house and over toward Black Creek is some of the prettiest tobacco I’ve ever raised. And last week, I closed the deal on land down toward the creek that has some outstanding second-growth timber. So, mister, you can see I’m pretty well occupied, and like everybody else in this country, I’m waiting out this blame Depression with my fingers crossed.”

They both sat back down and my grandfather continued, “I appreciate your effort and sorry you drove here from the beach, but I’ve looked at your maps and prices, and the family dearly loves visiting the old house and our summers there, but my major problem with what you’re offering,” and here he paused for effect, “I don’t know of a thing I can grow in all that sand.”

The story continued that the salesman was invited for supper and did stay and enjoyed my grandmother’s good cooking and the restful time on the porch afterward. He later left for home and the beach, and I don’t think he made any more overtures to Granddad to buy beach property. The beach outings went on for a few more years until the children got older and times changed.

Years later, my dad and mother continued the tradition, and our family spent time every summer at the beach. After Linda and I were married, we joined them, and my sisters and brother and their children did the same. We would all gather at Ocean Drive, Garden City, Pawleys Island or Litchfield, and we did this until the families got so large that one house couldn’t handle us and we had to rent two. Finally, the logistics and other distractions interfered, and our summer family gathering fell by the wayside.

Linda and I and sometimes our son, Tommy, still make summer excursions to the beach with our little Airstream trailer. We camp at Huntington Beach State Park, famous for its 3 miles of pristine oceanfront. The park and surrounding area remind me a lot of the descriptions my mother remembers of the early outings with Granddad and the family. We love it there and try to go as often as we can.

The other evening I was looking at some old photos of the family when everyone gathered and had fun at the beach. They were grand times, and if I have one regret, it’s this — I sure wish Granddad could have figured out something he could have grown in all that sand.  PS

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

Southwords

Hit the Highway

An ode to the road

By Susan S. Kelly

It’s a universal truth of summer in North Carolina, when the beach and the mountains become our magnetic poles, that sooner or later you’re going to be traveling on Interstate 40. Or “Forty,” as its fans and its haters call it.

I’m a fan.

You can have your backroads. How can a pastoral scene compare with the racetrack of 423.6 miles that (somewhat) horizontally slices the state? Every mile is pure entertainment. Sure, the “Bridge Ices Before Road” signs get boring, but the stuff people are hauling more than compensates. Where else but on I-40 in North Carolina can you find Christmas trees and golf carts and watermelons and boats? Plus, skis, surfboards, bicycles, kayaks, coolers, tobacco, cotton, horses, coonhound cages, Airstreams, and the requisite pickup or two hauling a chest, a mattress, a La-Z-Boy, and a fake tree, tarp a’ flappin’. It must be admitted that when I pass one of those silver-slatted semis, I strain to see if there are hogs inside, just before I avert my eyes and try not to think about their ultimate destination. Same for the vanilla-colored school bus whose sides read “Department of Prisons.” Don’t tell me you haven’t tried to peer into those windows crisscrossed with wire. I grew up with a father who always pointed out the guy with the rifle on his shoulder while inmates worked on the roadsides. Don’t see that much anymore, or those silvery mud flaps sporting silhouettes of naked ladies. Now the rigs are hot pink, for breast cancer. Progress.

I’m not the slightest bit offended if a rig driver honks at me as I pass. If someone still finds my 63-year-old knees attractive, I ain’t complaining.

How does a town get a name like Icard?

I particularly like those lead drivers with flashing head and taillights that warn of “Wide Load.” What a cool job. Like Dorothy Parker, who famously said that she’d never been rich, but thought she’d “be darling at it,” so would I in one of those cars. Think of the books-on-tape you could finish.

The amazing variety of stuff dangling from rearview mirrors — sunglasses, leis, air fresheners, Mardi Gras beads — all give a glimpse into a driver’s personality, like bumper stickers. (Question: How did so many Steelers fans wind up in North Carolina?) And while Virginia holds an unofficial record for vanity tags, I-40 is no slouch in that department, either. PRAZGOD. KNEEDEEP. IAMAJEDI. JETANGEL. Hair seems to be an ongoing tag topic: HAIRLOOM. NOHAIR. And this: SPDGTKT. Seriously, why not just call the cops instead of advertising?

I do not understand convertibles on interstates.

Do not fret yourself over aliens and vampires: If I-40 traffic is any indication, white pickup trucks are far more likely to take over the world.

You can’t fail to notice, while the Athena cantaloupes you bought at the state farmers market are growing more and more fragrant in the backseat, that, let’s face it, the flowers and trees planted in medians around Raleigh are way more attractive than anywhere else in the state. Harrumph. Near Fayetteville, D.C. license tags get more numerous, just as around Asheville, the Tennessee tags multiply, and around Benson, the New Yorks and Floridas proliferate.

Granted, I’d swap a few Bojangles and Cracker Barrel signs for South of the Border and Pedro puns on I-95, but that Mobile Chapel — a permanent trailer in the parking lot of a truck stop near Burlington — never fails to intrigue. As does Tucker Lake, a Johnston County curiosity with a fake beach and so kitted out with rope swings, slides, ski jumps, cables and random docks that you can scarcely see the water. Moreover, a stretch of I-40 around Greensboro has its own ghoulish nickname — “Death Valley” — for its unfortunate statistic of wrecks. And how about those cell towers disguised as pine trees? Come on. The “trees” are so spindly that they look like they belong, well, somewhere near the actual Death Valley.

So much to see from mountains to coast. What you won’t see, though, is the sign where I-40 begins, in Wilmington, that reads “Barstow, California 2,554 miles.” It was stolen so often that the DOT got tired of replacing it. Meanwhile, if you happen to have a list of locations for the elusive Dairy Queens along I-40, please text me. Calories don’t count when you’re a friend of Forty.  PS

Susan Kelly is a blithe spirit, author of several novels, and proud grandmother.

Birdwatch

Little Brown Bird How I Love Thee!

In search of the rare grasshopper sparrow

By Susan Campbell

One of the rarest breeding birds here in the Piedmont is the grasshopper sparrow. This diminutive, cryptically colored bird can only be found in very specific habitat: contiguous, large grassland. Such large fields are increasingly hard to find across our state these days. And even if you seek out the right habitat, seeing an individual, even a territorial male, is not very likely because they are so secretive and well camouflaged. But if you persist, you might hear one of them. Their voices are quite characteristic: a very high-pitched buzzy trill. It is the combination of their call and the typically grasshopper-rich areas in which they are found that gives them their name.

Nowadays these birds are only found in manmade grasslands. In the Sandhills, the only location where they breed is at the Moore County Airport. I have identified as many as 12 grasshopper sparrow territories between the runway and Airport Road. I suppose some birds may use what are called drop zones, areas targeted for paratrooper operations at Fort Bragg. However, these typically have a variety of plants — not ideal territory for these birds. Up around Greensboro, I hear that they can be found scattered among the agricultural fields along Baldwin Road. If you make the trip, also be on the lookout for a dickcissel, a fairly, large, yellowish sparrow-like individual that is even, an even rarer find.

Grasshopper sparrows return from their wintering grounds in Mexico and the southeastern coastal plain of the United States by mid-March.  Males spend much time singing from taller vegetation, often beginning their day well before dawn. They use short, low fluttering flight displays to impress potential females. Eggs are laid in cup-shaped nests in a slight depression, hidden by overhanging grasses, containing four or five creamy-colored eggs that are speckled reddish-brown.

Habitat loss has certainly affected the small local populations of these birds, plus routine mowing of these fields usually destroys nests. But the birds stay and attempt to nest again. In shorter grass, their nests are easily detected by predators, such as foxes and raccoons. Therefore, breeding success tends to vary greatly from year to year in these types of locations. If the habitat remains unaltered from May through August, grasshopper sparrow pairs can produce two (and sometimes three) families in a year.

But these birds are also vulnerable to the effects of pesticides. Although they do eat small seeds associated with the grasses that grow around them, they also rely upon significant numbers of insects, especially when they are feeding young.

Grasshopper sparrows are surely not easy to observe in summer but, in winter, they are even harder to find. They mix in with other sparrows that frequent open spaces and seldom sing. But for those experienced birdwatchers who enjoy the challenge that comes with sorting through “little brown birds,” (like me!), their flat foreheads, large bills and buffy underparts are a welcome sight.   PS

Susan would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted by email at susan@ncaves.com.

The Cake Lady’s Best

By Jim Dodson     Photograph by Mark Wagoner

Before our second official date two decades ago, my wife-to-be Wendy put me to work boxing up wedding cakes.

Please note that I said “cakes.” For there were more than 100 of them — perfect little wedding cakes meant for two, gorgeously decorated confections created for a Bridezilla who believed all guests deserved their own personal wedding cake.

“She saw it in a magazine and went to all the local bakeries but nobody wanted to take on the job,” Wendy explained with a laugh as we set about carefully boxing up the baby bridal cakes. Once they were packaged, they were ferried into the kitchen by various neighbors in her cul-du-sac in Syracuse, N.Y., who’d graciously offered their refrigerators for storing the miniature works of art.

Following the delivery, she even rewarded me for my assistance with a cake that didn’t make the final cut. It was spectacularly good, some kind of buttery white cake with a raspberry filling. The bride, for the record, was over the moon with the diminutive delicacies.

Over dinner later that night, I asked Wendy how she had developed her cake-making chops. She explained that she’d always been the natural baker in her family of three daughters, but really found her footing when Karen, her middle sister (Wendy is the eldest) needed a wedding cake. Wendy offered to make it, expertly copying an elaborate cake fromMartha Stewart’s 1995 bible on nuptials, Weddings.

The cake apparently was a big hit and word quickly circulated. Within a relatively short time Wendy had developed a cottage industry she called The Cake Lady and saw a steady stream of folks wanting cakes for all occasions showing up on her suburban Syracuse doorstep. By then she had deepened her considerable knowledge of cake-making by taking an advanced course in the craft and by devouring every classic and modern book she could find on the subject of making cakes.

One afternoon not long after my serious courtship of her commenced, I breezed into her kitchen and saw a large wicker basket filled with fresh-popped popcorn sitting on her kitchen counter. I blithely grabbed a handful of it, discovering, to my horror and embarrassment, that I was holding a gooey glob of icing. The cake was actually a groom’s cake, meant for a fellow whose favorite snack food was popcorn.

I was caught literally licking my fingers — the icing was excellent — when my own unflappable girlfriend entered the kitchen, took one look at my boneheaded gaffe, laughed it off and got to work repairing the damage. Soon that basket of “popcorn” was as good as new — and I knew without question this gal was the one for me.

Two years later, she made our own stunning wedding cake crowned by a bouquet of beautiful summer flowers for the rowdy lobster bake and reception we threw under a harvest moon on our forested hilltop in Maine. A crowd of 100 was expected. A crowd at least half again that size showed up.

The cake was gone within minutes after we cut the first piece, which I never even got a taste of (only the remnant cake tops saved in the refrigerator), an indication not only of how beautiful Wendy’s cakes typically are but — far more important in her view — how delicious.

Over the next decade, as the schoolteacher, wife and part-time baker made cakes for every sort of occasion for friends, co-workers and relatives — rarely charging anything save for major wedding cakes — I was often pressed into service as the cake delivery man and general factotum.

There were some memorable near disasters — like the three-pedestal all-butter cream wedding cake some mad bride in love with the fountains of Versailles ordered for the hottest summer day in Maine. As it sat in an unair-conditioned alumni house on the Bowdoin College campus, there was an interminable delay during which the butter cream began to melt and the entire back of the cake ran downhill. I received a remarkably calm telephone call from Wendy asking me to bring several of our children’s wood alphabet blocks, a screwdriver and some shims to the alumni house. By the time I got there, she’d managed to somehow recreate the back of the cake and soon stabilized the pedestals with the aforementioned blocks. Talk about grace under fire — or heat wave, as it were.

Then there was the wedding party where, moments after we delivered the cake, the groom’s auntie slapped the bride’s mother and all hell broke loose — almost taking Wendy’s beautiful cake with it.

After that, Wendy more or less hung up her wedding cake apron and concentrated simply on making outstanding cakes for friends and family. In our household, the joke is that mama’s cake tops — the portion sliced off the top of a baked cake to allow a flatter surface for decorating — are works of art in and of themselves and never fail to disappear to the last crumb.

Requests for her cakes always seem to surge at the holidays and in summer, when friends are going away and need something special for family dinners.

These two summer standouts are my favorites: a spectacular coconut cake and a strawberry-whipped cream cake that never fails to set picky brides aswoon.

Like all gifted bakers, the former Cake Lady is happy to share her favorite recipes — especially since her husband no longer has to worry about delivering them.

Coconut Cake

Icing:

6 cups confectioners’ sugar

6 sticks (1/2 cup each) of unsalted butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/4 cup coconut milk

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on high for 10 minutes.

Cake:

2/3 cups of unsalted butter

2 1/2 cups of sifted cake flour

1 2/3 cups of sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 cup coconut milk

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

One large bag of unsweetened, grated coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly butter and flour the bottom and sides of two 9-inch cake pans (or use Baker’s Joy spray).

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Mix for 30 seconds.

Add the remaining butter and 1/4 cup milk and coconut milk and start beating. While beating, add another 1/2 cup milk.

Add eggs, the remaining 1/2 cup milk and vanilla. Beat 2 minutes longer. Pour equal amounts into each pan and bake 35 to 40 minutes.

Let pans stand for 5 minutes and then remove cakes to cooling racks.

To Assemble:

Set one layer on a cardboard round. Spread one cup of icing on the top of the first layer and generously sprinkle grated unsweetened coconut on top. Place second layer on top and ice the top and sides with the coconut icing. Sprinkle coconut on top and sides of cake, pressing coconut into sides as you go. Serve!

Whipped Cream Strawberry Cake

Icing:

6 cups confectioners’ sugar

6 sticks (1/2 cup each) of unsalted butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/4 cup heavy cream

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on high for 10 minutes.

Remove 1 1/2 cups of icing and beat in 1/3 cup of strawberry purée (recipe below)

Strawberry purée:

2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries (if using frozen store-bought strawberries, use unsweetened)

1 teaspoon sugar

Combine and purée in the bowl of a food processor.

Cake:

2 cups sifted cake flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

3 egg whites

1 cup (1/2 pint) heavy cream

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup cold water

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter and flour the bottom and sides of two 8-inch cake pans (or use Baker’s Joy spray).

Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together three times and set aside. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Whip cream until stiff and fold into eggs. Add sugar gradually and mix well, folding in with a rubber spatula. Add dry ingredients alternately with water in small amounts, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Blend well. Pour equal amounts into the pans and bake until the center is set, about 30–40 minutes. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes and then remove to cooling racks.

To Assemble:

Spread the strawberry icing in the middle. Top with second layer and cover the entire cake with the vanilla frosting. Add decorative boarders on top and bottom. Fill in top with fresh strawberries. Serve with additional strawberry purée on side.  PS

Kings of the Castle

An architect out to conquer the world blazes a trail through Vineland

By Deborah Salomon     Photographs by John Gessner

North Page Street has a certain aura, a whiff of bygone times — a neighborhood apart from elegant Weymouth a few blocks east. The faded houses sit back aways, sheltered by towering magnolias. Even the ones in disrepair appear family-friendly, with wide porches where kids played on rainy days. Residents once strolled down these streets of an evening. Yards twinkled with fireflies, waiting to be caught in Mason jars.

Children skipped up to Broad Street for ice cream.

Back then, time was marked by passing trains. Now, the early summer haze is shattered by hammers and saws wielded by sweating hard-hatters working for Dean King: architect, developer, builder, entrepreneur, businessman, preservationist. A boyish 40, Dean exudes the enthusiasm of a teenager out to conquer the world.

“I want to build for myself. I want to take risks, flip houses, make money,” he says.

Not only does he walk the walk and talk the talk . . . he lives the life. Dean, his beautiful wife, Tori, and adorable children, Levi and Josie, occupy, for now at least, half of a rambling Southern Victorian guest house — Magnolia Lodge — which he bought, tore down to the studs and built back as a duplex, which he will eventually rent, as he does the other half, probably to military families.

Annie Oakley slept here. So did Al Adams, whose mother operated the guest house with nine units beginning in 1936.

“It was a wonderful house to grow up in,” says Al, who lived there from age 4 to 19. He recalls climbing the magnolia tree to eat scuppernong grapes from the arbor — and getting cornered by a wasp. At mealtime, he rang a bell calling boarders, mostly retired Northern ladies, to the table. After dinner, they would play croquet on a court where the garage now stands.

Much as they love millennial transformation, the Kings will move when Dean finishes renovating the rambling classic a few hundred yards away. Tori’s on board; in 11 years they have moved nine times, saving thousands by taking advantage of the two-year tax deferment.

How so, these urban nomads?

Dean grew up in Rockingham. His talents surfaced early. “I was always artistic, liked to build stuff,” meaning a kids’ hideaway and a two-story tree house constructed with scrap lumber. He parlayed his skills into a degree in architecture, from UNC Charlotte, then lived high in North Carolina’s largest city. By day, he worked for a company that designed hotels. By night, “I enjoyed myself like a young man living downtown and making good money should.”

Not good enough. “I didn’t want to sit in an office — and hotels didn’t excite me.”

A friend who started Pinnacle Development Design Build in Southern Pines suggested he move. Dean knew the area, realized the potential. Tori, a high school teacher and photographer from Ohio, supported the idea.

They relocated in 2005. With partners and associates, Dean designed several projects, including The Pinnacle Lofts on West Pennsylvania Avenue and Broad Street Lofts, both examples of the urban redevelopment trend which entices people to live downtown, or nearby, in new units or repurposed buildings, with services within walking (or biking) distance. The concept took hold in the ’90s as decaying factories in Manhattan’s Soho, Tribeca and Meat Packing District became fashionable condos. Abandoned tobacco warehouse and textile mill residential developments in Durham and elsewhere followed suit.

Dean was convinced: “Urban density is the way to go.” A younger demographic was discovering downtown Southern Pines, one that could afford west of the tracks (formerly Vineland) but not the historic district, where “cottages” designed in the Roaring Twenties by Aymar Embury have been rebirthed as mini-mansions.

Building Pinnacle Lofts was straightforward new construction, but buying an entire block of North Page Street (with a partner) in 2014 seemed risky, since 100-year-old structures like the Magnolia are usually money pits.

“I was scared to death,” Dean admits. Removing asbestos alone cost $25,000.

The house had stood vacant for half a dozen years. Dean describes the interior as “gross,” which actually proved inspiring. Since nothing but the bones and chimneys were salvageable, he could follow his imagination.

Because “imaginative” best describes the interior.

But first, the porch — 48 feet long, with a slanted ceiling and original posts and floorboards that Dean labored to preserve. Before social media, people connected on porches. Here, Tori and Dean sit for hours on rockers and a church pew they salvaged from a fire pit. “I like to think how many people have sat on this front porch in the last 100 years,” Tori says. The porch is especially useful, since the house has no conventional living room. Instead, just beyond the front door, what Adams remembers as Magnolia Lodge’s lobby became the foyer and family dining area with a sloping ceiling, built-in shelves under the stairs and a bay of paned windows. Tori’s office with separate entrance, formerly Al’s bedroom, is off to the right.

Front, center and open stands the kitchen — something that would have been hidden out back in the early 1900s when the house was new. A massive butcher block from White’s Grocery in Rockingham, a business run by Dean’s family, represents the past, along with simple cabinetry, exposed shelving, an oxen-yoke pot rack, ceramic tile backsplash, a bank of brightly painted school lockers, original doors and windows with wavy glass. Tori has brightened snow-white walls, moldings and columns with faux antique signs and vivid pottery. The original floorboards, some approaching 20 feet, must have been milled from tall local heart pine. Exposed brick chimneys, board-and-batten walls, panel doors and moldings provide texture.

Off the kitchen is a narrow sitting room — more TV den than parlor — which suits the young family. Bath and powder rooms, none quite the spa variety, were wedged into the tight layout.

“Dean is good at maximizing space,” Tori says.

Wall décor is limited to poster-sized art photos of the children.

A narrow flight of stairs with original banister and newel posts leads to the bedrooms — adequate but not huge. “People don’t spend time in the master bedroom anymore,” Dean reasons. But he did provide a dressing room and closets, often tiny in even spacious Southern Victorians.

At the top of the stairs a sunroom with original stained glass panels and a low table and chairs is where Levi and Josie draw and play games. “My mother used to grow flowers there,” Al says as he points to where the bedrooms had been, even remembering names of the boarders.

The house has a third floor with more bedrooms, but given its condition, Dean “left it for the ghosts.”

Except for a few old pieces, the furnishings throughout pit Ikea against Pottery Barn — sleek, tasteful, utilitarian, perfectly suited to a young family on the move. Tori boldly mixes formal upholstered dining room chairs with a rough picnic table and benches. An old railroad trolley serves as a coffee table in front of a modern sectional sofa with a side table painted pastel turquoise. Woven rugs in geometric patterns complete the casual look.

An attached double garage is, Dean admits, a necessary anachronism. He will tuck one around back, out of sight, in their next address, just down the street.

“But I’m not sure we’ll ever have a forever home,” Dean admits. Until then, “We’re living in a brand new 100-year old house . . . with good vibes.”  PS

Love Your Skin

And be careful what you put on it

By Karen Frye

Nature’s Own recently enjoyed a milestone birthday. When our health food shop turned
30 this past April, nothing in the store was mainstream. Not even soy milk.

Over the past 10 years, information about eating healthy and reading labels has reached more and more people. Folks have discovered that the foods they eat affect how they feel and that many conditions may even disappear by a change in diet. Grocery stores have expanded their inventory to meet the growing demand for fresh and organic foods. But while we’re paying more attention to what we put in our bodies, not as much notice is given to what we put on our bodies. Our skin is our largest organ. Would you really consider slathering toxic lotion on your liver?

The Enviromental Workers Group is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to educate consumers about the products we buy: if they’re safe; if they’re environmentally friendly; and more. Their website is a reliable source of research and information. When it comes to body care, EWG has rated many of the top brands for safety.

The body care industry has few guidelines, and often there are inert ingredients in products not listed on the label. Some can be harmful, especially with long-term use. Parabens, phythalates, formaldehydes, triclosan and synthetic colors are prevalent in nearly all creams, lotion, lipstick, makeup, shampoo, nail polish, etc. They are typically filled with petroleum by-products as well.  There is a cascade of symptoms that can stem from the toxins you use on your skin daily, including hormone imbalances and premature aging of the skin.

Even sunscreen can be problematic. Most agree that sunscreen use is important to prevent sunburn and skin cancer. We think we are doing the right thing by daily applying sunscreen to protect ourselves from sun damage, and dutifully apply it to our children as well. But some chemicals pose risks of their own. Shop for a sunscreen that is made without oxybenzone and petroleum by-products.

The supplement astaxanthin — the pigment responsible for the reddish color in salmon and trout — is particularly useful in skin and eye health due to its powerful ability to absorb ultraviolent rays, especially UVB rays. It acts like an internal sunscreen, reaching all the layers of the skin. It also slows down the aging of the skin, reducing wrinkles and fine lines. The antioxidant activity of astaxanthin is 6,000 times greater than vitamin C.

Aloe is what we think of for sunburn relief, but my favorite remedy is calendula (a resin from calendula flowers). Bodyceuticals create an excellent calendula, aloe, coconut and kukui nut oil and spray for skin discomfort like sunburn and to relieve itching and redness, diaper rash and windburn. This nourishing oil will help to maintain your tan and minimize peeling. After your long summer days working or playing in the sun, be careful what you put on the beautiful skin you’re in.  PS

Karen Frye is the owner and founder of Natures Own and teaches yoga at the Bikram Yoga Studio.

A Reunion of Memories

The beach brings them all back

By Tom Bryant

Over the last 10 years I’ve become somewhat of a specialist in setting up our little Airstream in preparation to camp. I don’t care how many times I’ve done it, I still have to refer to my mental checklist or I could leave out something important, and invariably, it will come back to bite me. It’s fun, though, and sometimes I remind myself of the dad in the holiday classic A Christmas Story, when he was timing himself while changing a tire on the old family Dodge. My record, from start to finish, including connecting to electric and water and lowering the stabilization jacks, is 20 minutes. I’ve yet to break that record, but every new campground offers me a new challenge.

On our last early summer trip to Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina, I thought I’d broken the record, but Linda, my bride, reminded me that the awning wasn’t out, and in the summer, that’s part of the contest. So the 20-minute record still stands. We were camped on a site right across from a huge grassy field surrounded by live oaks. The sites along the edge of the field were filled to the brim with four large tow-behind campers surrounded by a bunch of kids who appeared to be from 6 to 12 years of age, all supervised by young parents. After I put the awning out, I grabbed a couple of folding chairs from the Cruiser and a cold drink from the fridge and kicked back to watch the doings right across the campground road.

They were having fun. The kids were running from here to yonder, riding bikes, pulling wagons and, in general, having a great time. I called to Linda, who was still inside sorting stuff that we had let ride on the bed coming down from Southern Pines. “Hey, Babe, come on out here and watch this. See what it reminds you of.”

Linda made herself some lemonade and joined me under the awning. “Wow, look at all those kids,” she exclaimed.

“I tried to count them, but the way they’re moving, it’s like trying to count new puppies in a box. What does it remind you of?”

“When we were young and used to rendezvous at the beach with your family.”

I agreed, and we watched for a while as the adults restored some order, and they all packed up and headed to the beach. They had a little convoy of youngsters and wagons packed with beach umbrellas, games, snacks and a couple of the youngest children.

“There was a bunch of us, but I don’t believe we ever had as many as those folks across the road.” We talked and reminisced about the vacations when we would meet at the beach with my mother and dad, brother and sisters and all our children. We did that for years until the kids got married and started having their own children. Eventually, the numbers became unmanageable, even with two houses. Nowadays when we get together we do so in a more sedate fashion.

“I miss our family beach trips,” Linda said. “I wish we could do it again, but I know it’s impossible. Everybody’s spread out all over the country.”

“Yeah, I even miss the big family reunions we used to have on the farm. Do you remember the year we had the last one?”

“No, it was so long ago. It’s getting late. I guess I’d better start supper. How about tuna salad?”

“That’s good for me. Can I help?”

Linda replied that she had it under control and went into the little Airstream. I sat and watched as sea gulls soared at treetop level out toward the ocean. I tried to remember the last big family get-together on the old plantation and couldn’t. When my grandparents were alive, we had them every five years.

After our last reunion, I put together a few observations of the extended family gatherings, and Mom used them on the back of a brochure she had printed with the addresses of relatives. Those descriptions from long ago help me remember those wonderful times:

— Cars with license plates from all over the country parked in the front yard.

— Everyone greeting one another and trying to talk at once.

— Older folks trying to figure out whose son or daughter you are.

— Kids running through the big house, slamming the front screen door.

— Brothers, sisters and cousins remembering past reunions when Uncle Jim and Uncle Fred played tricks on each other.

— New babies showing up every year. Older faces missing.

—The old house reverberating with laughter from family members who have been separated too long.

— Kids swinging each other in the long rope swing that’s tied to the ancient pecan tree.

— Different members of the family setting up lawn chairs under the huge oaks trying to catch the noon breeze, while a few diehards suffer the heat on the long rain porch.

— Ladies in the kitchen preparing food for the buffet tables in the dining room, and people everywhere catching up on family news.

— And at last, dinner, after a blessing thanking the Almighty for everything that’s good.

— Relatives trying to eat a little of everything from Uncle Tom’s barbecue to Aunt Sylvia’s pound cake. Covered dishes everywhere with food galore.

— Babies and old folks napping in the shade of the giant oak trees after a memorable old-fashioned dinner and more talking about family and friends and family history.

— And as the day slowly wanes, family members gather children and belongings, and after hugging and kissing everybody, climb into their cars and head back home. 

— Finally, the house grows quiet again, and it seems as if the ghosts of reunions past walk the old halls smiling.

A strong breeze came off the ocean and I could smell rain. Cumulus clouds inland began to grow darker, and faraway grumbles of thunder could be heard. I began to batten down chairs and tables in anticipation of a summer storm. Down the little camp road, I spotted the folks from across the way coming back from the beach. They were laughing and shouting to one another and as happy as only a young energetic bunch can be.

It was catching. I smiled as I watched the adults herd the children to where they needed to go, then take a much needed breather in chairs pulled into a circle around a fire ring. It was a pleasure watching them have fun.

Good folks, I thought. They’ve got a lot of living to do.  I wish them well.  PS

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

PinePitch

Carolina Peach Festival

The 21st Annual N.C. Peach Festival begins Friday, July 14, in Candor at 6:30 p.m. with the Peachy Feet 5K. On Saturday, July 15, at 8:30 a.m. there’s a peach-cooking contest at Town Hall before lining up for the parade at 10 a.m. on Main Street. Then take a helicopter ride for an overview of beautiful Montgomery County. With your feet back on the ground, move to the music of Jim Quick & Coastline, the Sand Band, Rockin’ Acoustix, and Big Bang Boom. Take part in fun activities for all ages — everything from camel rides to karaoke, bungee trampoline, miniature train rides, petting zoo and more. And don’t miss meeting the 2017 Peach Queen. Admission is free. Fitzgerald Park, Candor. Info: (910) 974-4221 or ncpeachfestival.com.

Fireworks, Festivals, and Fun for All on the 4th of July

The Village of Pinehurst offers a daylong celebration, starting with its annual Independence Day Parade at 10 a.m., followed by the patriotic pet contest, an antique car display and Sandhills Farmers Market in the Pinehurst Village Center and Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road W. At 2 p.m., slip into the Grand Ballroom of the Carolina Hotel, 80 Carolina Vista Dr., for the Moore County Concert Band’s rousing and entertaining performance of Sousa marches and patriotic favorites. And, at 6 p.m., the fun continues at the Pinehurst Harness Track, 200 Beulah Hill Road S, with a free concert, children’s activities and fireworks celebration.

The Town of Aberdeen is also offering an evening of live entertainment, food vendors, and activities including a rock climbing wall, an inflatable slide and bounce houses. Something for all ages, starting at 5 p.m. at Aberdeen Lake Park, 301 Lake Park Crossing.

Fort Bragg celebrates with musical acts, parachute free-fall demonstrations, a flag ceremony, fireworks, food and beverages from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Main Post Parade Field 11, 25 Capron St., on the base.

For information on all of these events, visit www.explorepinehurst.com or consult your PineStraw Arts and Entertainment Calendar.

Tea with Trigiani

On Monday, July 17, The Country Bookshop invites you to Thyme and Place Café for tea, tiramisu and to visit with New York Times best-selling author Adriana Trigiani, whose previous books include The Shoemaker’s Wife. She will be discussing her new book, Kiss Carlo, the epic story of an Italian-American family in 1949 in South Philadelphia, whose peace and prosperity is threatened by a decades-long feud. At the story’s center is young Nicky Castone and his struggle to fulfill his dreams while holding on to the family he cherishes.

This ticketed event will be at the Thyme and Place Café, 155 Hall Ave., Southern Pines, from 3 to 4:15 p.m. The cost is $42, which includes an autographed copy of the book, tea, and treats. Tickets are available online and at The Country Bookshop. For more information, call (910) 692-3211.

Something Moore

On Friday, July 14 and Saturday July 15, The Arts Council of Moore County will be holding its popular Arts Council Treasure Chest Sale and Fundraiser. Come and find a treasure among the antiques, art, jewelry, pottery, china, silver, furniture and other collectibles featured this year. When you purchase your special item, you’ll be supporting Arts Council’s programs throughout Moore County.

You can donate items until July 13, so there’s still time to let one or more of your old treasures become someone else’s new treasure. The sale will be held 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday at the Campbell House Galleries, 482 E Connecticut Ave. in Southern Pines. For more information and pickups, call (910) 692-2787 or email katherine@mooreart.org.

First Friday

You just might feel like you’re in New Orleans when you come downtown on Friday, July 7, as First Friday welcomes The New Breed Brass Band. This 9-man, New Orleans band blends funk, rock, jazz, and hip-hop with the second-line, brass band tradition, a style that has been called the quintessential New Orleans art form. Enjoy good food, beverages and entertainment at this family-friendly event, beginning at 5 p.m. It is free and open to the public, but please don’t bring your dogs. The First Bank Stage at the Sunrise is located at 250 NW Broad St. in Southern Pines. For more information call (919) 692-8501.

Interpreting the Qur’an

On Thursday, July 13, at 3:30 p.m., retired U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer Jason Criss Howk will be at The Given Memorial Library, at 150 Cherokee Road in Pinehurst to talk about Islam, Islamism and the contents of the holy book of Islam. Howk is the author of the recently released book, The Qur’an: A Chronological Modern English Interpretation. Much of Howk’s career focused on South Asia and the Middle East, and he teaches courses and leads discussions about Islam across the country. This presentation will be repeated at 7 p.m. at the Outpost/Given Book Shop, 95 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Both are free and open to the public. For more information, call Lisa at (910) 295-7002.

The Rooster’s Wife

Sunday, July 2: Shawn Camp, preeminent Americana and country songwriter and lead singer of the Earls of Leicester, is bringing his full band. $20.

Sunday, July 9: The Sunday Exchange presents I Draw Slow, Ireland’s answer to Americana. This five-piece, Dublin roots string band finds new, folksy grooves in old-time Appalachian song. Admission is free to this event, next door to the Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., in Aberdeen.

Sunday, July 16: The Sam Frazier Band performs stellar guitar licks and funky bluesy songs for listening and dancing. Poet, songwriter, and journalist Molly McGinn opens the show in a big way. $10.

Sunday, July 23: The Brother Brothers and Che Apalache perform. The Brother Brothers really are brothers, and their familial connection comes through in the music. Rich harmonies and thoughtful songs accompanied by guitar, cello, violin and banjo. $15.

Friday, July 28: The Louisiana Soul Revival delivers the soul, blues and funk music of Louisiana with a 6-piece band fronted by National Blues Hall of Fame and Louisiana Music Hall of Fame inductee, Doug Duffey. This is a Friday Night Dance Party. $20.

Sunday, July 30: The Rooster’s Wife celebrates the end of the season with a special appearance in honor of a milestone. Patrick Fuller and his dad, Craig, of Pure Prairie League and Little Feat fame, open the show. They are followed by Wild Ponies, featuring the magnetic chemistry of husband-and-wife duo Doug and Telisha Williams. $20.

Ticket prices listed above are in advance. All shows are at 6:46 p.m. and, except for the Sunday Exchange, take place at The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St. in Aberdeen. For more information call (910) 944-7502.

Revenge of the Lawn

Covet not thy neighbor’s grass. Just go hire the right organic lawn care specialist

By Wiley Cash

I’m standing on my lawn in Wilmington, North Carolina, recalling the time I heard a mindfulness teacher condense the many years of the Buddha’s teachings into one sentence: Cling to nothing as I, me, or mine. That’s good advice, life-making or life-changing advice depending on when you receive it, but it’s hard advice to follow in my neighborhood, especially as my gaze drifts from the weed-choked, shriveled brown grass at my feet to the lush, pampered golf course-green of my neighbors’ lawns. All around me are weeds I don’t understand, things I’ve never seen before, things I never could have imagined: monstrous tendrils that snake into the air in search of something to strangle; vines covered in thorns and bits of fluff that cling to the skin like the pink fiberglass insulation your dad always warned you not to touch in the attic; scrubby pines no taller than 6 inches with root systems as long as my legs and twice as strong.

Roughly 250 miles west sits the city of Gastonia, where I was raised in a wooded suburb that always felt to me as if the houses in the neighborhood of my youth had been forged from the landscape. In my memory, dense forests loom in our backyard, the smell of wood smoke curls through the air, grass looks like grass: thick blades that grow up toward the sun instead of clumping and crawling like desperate snakes wriggling toward prey.

Another 100 miles west, nestled in the cradle of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is the city of Asheville, where I grew into adulthood and made the decision to become a writer. This meant I worked odd jobs and lived in relative — if not romantic — poverty throughout my 20s. I inhabited a slew of rental houses with friends of similar ages and similar interests, each house having one thing in common: a wild expanse of unkempt lawn where nature grew in a heady, beautiful containment — variegated hostas, blue and pink and purple hydrangeas, English lavender and flame azalea. We didn’t water anything or spread fertilizer. The only people who ever cut the grass were the landlords, and that was done sporadically with the weather and season. Yet, it seemed that we could have dug our heels into the black earth and something beautiful would have sprung forth.

Down here on the coast my lawn is nothing but sand with a thin skin of sod draped over it. I live in a region where if you buy plants at the garden store, you’d better buy the soil to plant them in. Nothing but the most tenacious, native weeds can survive in this boggy, sandy soil. Some days I have doubts about my own survival. It too often feels like I don’t belong here, but then again, my lawn doesn’t belong here either. Just a few months before we moved in, this landscape was marked by piney swamps dotted with ferns, maples and the occasional live oak. Not long ago, bulldozers plowed through and pushed over all but a few of the pines. Then dump trucks flooded the wet spots with tons upon tons of fill dirt. The developer carved out streets, piled the dirt into 1/4 acre squares, and called them lots. The builder began constructing houses. Finally, landscapers rolled out strips of St. Augustine, punched holes in the ground and dropped cheap shrubs into the earth.

My wife and I bought one of the first lots, and there were only a handful of houses in the development when we built ours. We moved in just in time to watch nature attempt to reclaim its domain. We’ve been here almost four years. Now, the streets bubble where swamp water pulses through cracks in the asphalt. The drainage ponds are full of alligators that behave more like residents than those of us who have built homes. At dusk, tiny bloodthirsty flies, what the locals call “no-see-ums,” dance in the night like specters, biting your ears, eyeballs and neck.

And then there are the weeds. The canopy of trees is gone now, and the weeds have ample sunlight and plenty of room to spread.

I lie in bed at night pondering the use of industrial-strength fertilizers and weed killers, and I weigh their environmental destruction and the health risks they pose my children with the possibility of having a lawn of which I can be proud. I begin to empathize with companies responsible for accidental coal-ash spills (Everyone wants electricity!) and incidental pesticide contamination (Everyone wants bananas in January!).

Deciding to forgo potential carcinogens, at least for now, I appeal to someone who seems expert in all things related to lawns and manhood. Tim lives three houses down and has the most perfect yard in the neighborhood. He’s tan and tall and lean. He could be 40 or 65, the kind of guy who rides his road bike to the beach each day at dawn with his surfboard strapped to his back, the kind of guy who looks like Lance Armstrong or Laird Hamilton, depending on whether he’s wearing spandex or board shorts.

I find Tim watering his lawn with a garden hose. The rest of us turn on our irrigation systems and hope for the best. Not Tim; he waters like a surgeon. He’s barefoot, and I wonder what it feels like to be able to walk shoeless in one’s yard without feeling the sharp crinkling of dead grass blades beneath your feet. I explain my lawn problems to him, at least insofar as I understand them. He listens with patience, perhaps even sympathy.

“Fertilize,” he finally says. “Organic. Commercial. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. And then wait until it rains.” He turns off his garden hose and finds the one weed in his yard that’s apparent to the naked eye: a dandelion that looks more like a flower than any flowers I’ve planted in the past year. Tim reaches down and plucks the dandelion from the earth with the ease of lifting it from a vase. “They come up easier when the ground’s wet,” he said. “Roots and all.”

So, early in the spring, I fertilize the yard with liquid corn gluten meal. The air smells like a combination of popcorn and barnyard, but it seems to have enough nitrogen in it to green up the grass. And, after the next rain, I pull weeds. For hours. It works. By early summer my lawn is green and nearly weed-free, but I never get too comfortable.

I’m out of town one morning when I text my wife and ask for an update on our lawn. I receive a photo reply within a few minutes. I hesitate to open it the way young people hesitate to open report cards, the way old people hesitate to open medical tests: There’s nothing I can do about it now, I think. To my surprise the photo my wife sent shows a vibrant green lawn dappled with early morning dew. I can’t help but wonder if she’s walked up the street and snapped a picture of Tim’s grass. Regardless, I allow relief to wash over me: The C- I’d been expecting has become a B, the heart disease diagnosis I knew awaited me has ended up being indigestion. Life can go on as long as it rains — but not too much — and the sun keeps shining, but not on the west side of the lawn because there is no shade there, and if we don’t get enough rain the grass will crisp up pretty quick.

Late in the summer the grass begins to turn brown in strange semicircles, and when I look closely I can see the individual blades stirring. I kneel down and spot a tiny worm at work. I look closer, spot hundreds, no, thousands more. Our neighborhood has been invaded by armyworms. Instead of spending my time on the novel that’s months overdue, I spend a small fortune coating the grass in organic neem oil. To make myself feel better about not writing I listen to podcasts about writing, but my attempt to stave off writer’s guilt is just as futile as my attempt to fight the armyworms. Our green grass is eaten away within a matter of days; my soul follows suit, and I can only hope both will re-emerge come spring.

But that spring, something else happens instead. In May, my father is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and the lawn and its calendar of fertilizing and hydrating slips from my mind. He passes two short weeks later, and as I ease into grief the summer spins away from me, and I don’t even look around until August, when my yard comprises more weeds than grass. I’ve missed the opportunity to fertilize, and there’s no amount of safe weed killer that’s going to make a dent.

I wait for it to rain. Then I fall to my knees, and I pick weeds.

My 2-year-old daughter joins me. Sometimes she’ll yank up fistfuls of grass because it comes up easier than the weeds. I don’t have the heart to correct her, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s on to something. How long would it take us to tear out all this grass and start over? I look at my neighbors’ thriving lawns, and I assume that the pain of death or responsibilities for children or work-related obligations have not touched their lives in the ways they’ve touched mine. If only my life could be as clear and clean and healthy as their lawns appear to be. 

This year, I decide that I don’t have the patience, the faith, the head space, or the heart space to battle my lawn, and I call a local company that specializes in organic lawn care. I’m surveying the yard when the technician arrives. His name is Steve, and he’s actually the owner, which puts me at ease. He’s middle-aged, clean-shaven with glasses and silvery hair. He speaks quietly, confidently. I can’t help but think that he senses something about me. Perhaps he knows that I’m embarrassed to admit that I can’t do something as simple as grow grass, that I’ve put too much pressure on myself, that things have gone too far, that I’m clinging to something that does not deserve my clinging.

In my recollection, he puts a hand on my shoulder. Maybe he even takes my hand. He leads me around the yard, whispering the names of the weeds he finds, the ways in which he can stop them. He tells me it’s not my fault. It’s hard to grow grass in this environment, especially in new neighborhoods like mine where the sod hasn’t had time to take root or an existing organic structure to give it life. And my ground is too hard, he says. It needs to be aerated. It needs to be softened.

We agree on a treatment regimen. They’ll start next week, provided it doesn’t rain.

“You’re going to have a beautiful lawn,” he says. “You’ll be happy.”

“I appreciate that,” I say. “But it’s all yours now.”.  PS

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