True South

Reminders

A milestone birthday

By Susan S. Kelly

This is the month that I turn 65. I suspect I’ll have a breakdown.

I don’t put much store by birthdays typically. As a child, a July birthday meant that my friends were away on family vacations, so no one was around for a party. A summer birthday meant no cupcakes in elementary school, or care packages from Hickory Farms — the standard-but-thrilling gift — at boarding school. As an adult, I seem often to be at the beach, where my mother annually suggests that we have a “nice piece of fish” to celebrate my birthday — a roll-eye refrain the entire family now uses whenever we’re referring to celebrations of any kind.

My sister has a breakdown every time we leave the beach, crying and honking the car horn until she’s out of sight. She’s worried that by the next time we’re all together again, someone will have died, divorced or been irreparably altered in some way.  Cheerful, no? I made her a Breakdown CD full of mournful songs from James Taylor, Pachelbel’s Canon, the themes from To Kill A Mockingbird and The Thorn Birds, so she’ll have background music to wail with during the four-hour drive home.

The last time I had a breakdown birthday was 3 1/2 decades ago, when I turned 30. I was waiting at a stoplight and was suddenly just  . . .  overcome. I bowed my heard and laid my forehead against the hard, ridged, steering wheel and wept. I did not want to be 30 with children and a mortgage and a yard. I wanted to be a sorority girl wearing Topsiders and drinking beer at The Shack with my hair pulled back in a grosgrain ribbon on a Thursday afternoon. There was nothing for my despair but for my husband to take me to Chapel Hill for the weekend. But The Shack was a parking lot. Beers at the gleaming wood bar in Spanky’s didn’t cut it.

The good part about A Big Birthday year means that my friends are turning 65 too.  Bridge buddies, hiking homies, college pals, boarding school classmates — all of us. Meaning that every day brings a veritable blizzard of emails filled with dates, pleas, opinions, rebuttals, suggestions, complaints, reminders, asides, and the occasional joke, all in the service of organizing what I term Girl Gigs. Girl Gigs deserve a column of their own, but I’ll give you a teaser: One friend, for a Girl Gig in the mountains every January, flies in from Greenwich, Connecticut, and brings nothing but a mink coat and 3 pairs of pajamas. Stay tuned.

I don’t care a whit about getting old, or dying (proved by my Funeral File, a topic addressed earlier in these pages). I’ll admit to a fear of my house smelling like old people, and wondering whether it’s time to go ahead and lock into what one friend calls a “terminal hairdo,” the one you wear to the grave. And I drive a Mini Cooper, which seems to be the universally acknowledged car for females of a certain age. But otherwise, nope. No fear, no dread, no anxiety.

I also have zero regrets about those things in the past that I’ve done or left undone, or shoulda, woulda, coulda. Furthering my career? More me time? Taken that trip, accepted that offer? No, no, and no. Do-overs don’t interest me.

Wherefore the melancholy, then?  Just this: 1,277 photographs — give or take a couple dozen travel pictures — on a digital frame. A New Year’s resolution labor of love with a scanner that rotates continuously all day, every day, showing me 1,277 times what I cannot have back. That summer twilight evening of my oldest in his tacky polyester pajamas blowing dime-store bubbles in the driveway before bedtime. That child wearing a mask while he watches television, oblivious that he’s even wearing a mask. That child blowing out candles on what is surely the most hideous homemade birthday cake ever, shaped and iced like a sharpened pencil. The grin the day the braces came off. A husband mowing the lawn with a toddler draped around his neck like a pashmina.

What was I doing during these ordinary, everyday moments?  What was I saying, thinking, hoping, cooking, even?  I don’t want to time travel, to swallow a magic youth pill, to go back and re-live. What stops and saddens me is the simple yet incontrovertible fact that, no matter what, I cannot get that Tuesday morning in that picture, where the child with the trike, or the new backpack for the first day of school, or that Sunday afternoon when a young husband tosses free throws at the driveway basketball goal — long since vanished — back. Not a single, commonplace, inconsequential second of them. Nothing I can do will return them to me. No begging. No money. No who-you-know. No good deeds. No nothing.

Thornton Wilder knew the kind of grief I’m talking about, and in his play, Our Town, has Emily Webb, who’s dead, ask the Stage Manager, “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it . . . every, every minute?”

“No,” the Stage Manager replies. “Saints and poets maybe . . . they do some.”

And I’m neither.

So, this July, if you see someone pulled over with her head against the steering wheel, it’s just me, in my Mini, in the breakdown lane.  PS

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

When the West Was Really Wild

Annie Oakley’s path to Pinehurst

By Michael Smith

William Frederick Cody, aka “Buffalo Bill” Cody, rode for the Pony Express when he was only 14. We have his word on that. And that’s the trouble — we only have his word. There is no independent verification. But then it was not unusual for Wild West show characters to embellish their persona to embellish their income.

We are left with apocryphal accounts that weaved and embedded themselves as facts. Yet, Bill was pretty much a straight shooter. In a freelance gig following the Civil War, he shot 4,382 buffalo to feed cross-country railroad workers, thus the “Buffalo Bill” moniker.

During the Civil War, Cody had served the Union Army routing out Confederate guerrillas. (Jesse James did the same thing for the Confederate Army, but there’s no record of Bill and Jesse ever bumping heads.) Cody earned the recognition and respect of his officers, and that would serve him well after the war.

One of those officers was George Armstrong Custer, for whom Cody served for a brief period as a civilian scout. Another was General Phil Sheridan, under whom Cody served as chief scout and engaged in 16 battles against American Indians, distinguishing himself in such a manner that President Ulysses S. Grant awarded Cody the Medal of Honor. One year after Cody’s death, the Medal of Honor Review Board revised the guidelines for receiving the medal to require recipients to have been members of the military. So, among other recipients, Cody’s medal was rescinded, as he had been a civilian scout, working for the military. President Ronald Reagan rebalanced the scales when he restored Cody’s medal in 1989.

And so, after all the treaties were broken, Buffalo Bill Cody did his bit to help confine the Indians that hadn’t died of gunshot, disease or broken heart to “reservations.” Here is what Cody had to say: “Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government.”

After the West was no longer wild, Cody took what was the Wild West to the western world — virtually all of America and, on eight separate trips, all over Europe. He did that from 1883 until 1913 in a show he put together called, ta da, the Wild West Show.

According to Legendsplay, the show’s cast and staff totaled 500-plus, and, of course, all manner of animals, including hundreds of horses and 30 buffalo. Along with people and animals went grandstand seating, with canvas covering for 20,000 spectators. The show generated its own electricity and had its own fire department.

Cast, staff and animals had to be fed and provided places to sleep. Travel was by train, which in one year covered over 11,000 miles in 200 days, giving 341 performances in 132 cities (including Charlotte, North Carolina) across the United States. Daily expenses were about $4,000 ($91,000 and change in 2019 money). Cody insisted that all, including women and Indians, receive equal pay.

 

The logistics of keeping things together, planning for the next location, paying, feeding, etc., were mind-boggling. And while Buffalo Bill Cody was an excellent showman with a reputation that attracted folks like Annie Oakley, Lillian Smith, Sitting Bull and Calamity Jane, Cody was a dud at logistics. For that, he took a silent partner, named Nate Salsbury.

Salsbury was a recognized logistical genius at organizing large productions, and for as long as he lived, Cody prospered. But Salsbury’s death in 1902 marked the beginning of the road toward the show’s 1913 bankruptcy and Cody’s own death in 1917.

Salsbury maintained manuscripts on his relationship with Cody. They provide interesting insight into Cody’s character, at least according to Salsbury. In manuscripts housed in Yale University’s library, Salsbury characterized Cody as “a dishonest drunkard whose only loyalty was to his incompetent cronies.”

In Historynet.com we find Salsbury’s account of Cody’s conduct on a European trip where, returning from a visit to the home of a dignitary, Cody was so besotted, “he could hardly get into his carriage, with a lady who was manifestly not Mrs. Cody.” (After the Civil War Cody had married Louisa Frederici.)

Yet crowds couldn’t get enough of Cody. According to one newspaper, he had pitch black eyes, flowing hair, and an impressive mustache: “Everybody is of the opinion that he is altogether the handsomest man they have ever seen.”

There were few forms of entertainment in those days, and Cody’s Wild West Show strove to fill that gap. There were re-enactments of historical events, e.g., Custer’s Last Stand, rodeos, shooting competitions, bronco busting, horse racing, buffalo hunts and the like. In a word — huge!

The biggest crowd-pleaser (and money-maker), though, was diminutive Phoebe Ann Moses, aka Annie Oakley, who probably took her stage name from the town of Oakley in Ohio, her home state. Five-foor-tall Annie and show-shooter husband Frank Butler joined the show two years after it began. Annie was such an instant sensation that Frank stopped performing and began serving as Annie’s manager.

Shooting matches and events in those days were enormously popular, and that’s precisely where Annie shone the brightest. But then Lillian Smith came on the scene. Lillian, a California shooting star, was as brassy and devoid of formality as you’d expect a Californian to be. And not given to understatement, upon first arriving at the show, Lillian told the press to forget about the competition: “Annie is done for.”

That sort of trash talk failed to play well with Annie, creating bad blood from the get-go. Lillian did, in fact, challenge Annie’s shooting prowess. Yet the persona contrast was the thing. Annie was conservative, formal and married. Lillian was flashy, flirty, used coarse language, and worst of all, she was younger than Annie. Aware that the press gave younger shooting contestants better press, Annie, born in 1860, somehow became Annie born in 1866, tightening the age gap with Lillian.

One of the show’s European tours illustrates well the distinction between the two. When the show performed in England before Queen Victoria, Annie curtsied politely and addressed the queen properly. Lillian, on the other hand, made a half-curtsy and fell right in chatting with the queen as if they were old chums catching up on old times.

Annie found Lillian a tart. Fact is, Lillian did leave a bit of a trail. First, she secretly married Jim “Kidd” Willoughby, which abruptly ended when her dalliance with half-Caucasian, half-Indian Bill Cook came to light. Then came a new marriage partner, saloon owner Theodore Powell. Next up, lawman Frank Hafley. Lillian then unmarried Hafley and married Wayne Beasley. And finally — well, finally, as far as we know — she got rid of Wayne and married German-born Emil Lenders, who additionally had a wife and child back in Philadelphia.

On returning from the European tour where they met the queen, tension between Annie and Lillian had grown so that Annie and Frank quit the Wild West Show. Then, for whatever reason, Lillian quit, so Annie and Frank rejoined Cody.

Lillian set about transforming herself into an American Indian princess. Princess Wenona darkened her skin, wore only Indian clothes, and joined Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show. Some accounts indicate that she actually came to honestly believe she was a true Indian princess.

While married to Emil Lenders, she moved to Bliss, Oklahoma. But Lenders soon left and moved to Ponca City, about 15 miles away. For Lillian, it marked the start of a downhill trip to oblivion.

Historynet.com says “Lillian continued to care for her dogs and chickens and became a familiar sight in Marland and Ponca City, shuffling along on foot or riding in an old buggy with some of her faithful hounds trailing behind.” Princess Wenona died dead broke in 1930. She had requested to be buried in her Indian clothes. The good people of Ponca City complied.

Shortly after a devastating head-on train wreck in October 1901 involving Cody’s Wild West Show, Annie retired from the troupe. She spent the next few years giving solo exhibitions, including one in Pinehurst in 1908. The Butlers began wintering at the Carolina Hotel in 1915, quickly becoming the toast of the village. “In the gun room or on the sunny terrace they talked about guns, golf and game birds with John Philip Sousa, John Bassett Moore, Walter Hines Page, John D. Rockefeller,” wrote Oakley biographer Walter Havinghurst.

In the autumn of 1922 the Butlers were involved in a car accident near Daytona, Florida. Annie’s hip was crushed, forcing her to wear a leg brace for the remainder of her life. She never returned to Pinehurst, moving instead to a niece’s farm in Greenville, Ohio. She passed away in 1926. Leonard Tufts saw her obituary and immediately wrote to Frank, “I have just learned from the morning paper of the death of Mrs. Butler in Greenville, Ohio, and I am sincerely sorry to learn of this sad event. Annie Oakley’s memory will always be a kindly one to us at Pinehurst, and we feel that we are better for having known her.” Frank died 17 days after Annie. They were buried side by side in Greenville.

As for Cody’s Wild West Show, silent movies and then “talkies” were all the rage, and somehow Indians and cowboys seemed more real on the screen than up close. Bill tried to hang on by adding this and that — particularly different types of horsemen: South American gauchos, Arabs, Mongols and Turks, etc. But it was no good. The West had become yesterday’s news and Bill did, too, passing away at age 70 at his sister May’s home in Denver, Colorado.   PS

Michael Smith lives in Talamore, Southern Pines, with his wife, Judee. They moved here in 2017 and wish they had moved here years earlier.

Hometown

The Gift of Years

A farewell to Mother Fields

By Bill Fields

When I saw that a voicemail from one of my sisters had landed in the middle of the night, I didn’t have to call her back to know what had happened.

Our mother’s long, largely happy and healthy life had come to an end less than two months from her 96th birthday. The day we laid Juanita Henderson Fields to rest was sunny and warm, much different from our father’s burial on a chilly spring forenoon nearly 40 years ago, when it was hard to tell the tears from the rain.

Different weather seemed appropriate, because a life that is over at 95 is not the same as a life cut short at 59. That gift of years also was our present.

How lucky I was to be able to go home for so long — much longer than most folks can — to East New Jersey Avenue and those familiar rooms and all those memories, of cookouts and penny poker games, giddy Christmas mornings and sunny Easter afternoons, looking for dyed eggs in the yard, one inevitably hidden in a hydrangea.

My sisters always called her “Mother,” and she was “Mom” to me. After becoming a grandmother, in the early 1970s, she also was “Mother Fields.” That sounded like a gospel singer on tour through the South, but it fit. By any name, she was a good wife, mother, daughter, sibling, aunt and friend. She was good, in the broadest definition of that short word. Someone who came by the funeral home called her classy. Mom was that too, along with being well-dressed, sneaky-funny, generous and, especially in her last decade, stubborn as a tight jar lid.

I’m convinced part of Mom’s stubbornness to leave her home, to stay a couple of innings too long there, was rooted in her desire for us to have that home to return to as long as possible because it was something she could do for us. Once we had finally gotten her into assisted living, we had to tackle cleaning out the house. By the end of that week, our backs were sore but our souls were full, having gotten to explore Mom’s life as we dealt with the many possessions.

We found out our mother really, really liked clothes. We discovered she was Most Improved in the Tar Heel Bowlerettes in the 1964-65 season, wearing the white and green shirt of Citizens Bank. We found autograph books and a West End High School diploma, in the days when she was a raven-haired beauty, and a steno pad of tender notes Dad wrote to her as he recovered from an operation that temporarily stilled his voice.

She let us learn from our mistakes when we were kids, and she respected our decisions when we were adults — even those she didn’t agree with. The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve appreciated that aspect of her parenting because not all mothers are that way.

Women had just gotten the right to vote a few years before Mom was born in Jackson Springs. She lived through the Great Depression, a world war, profound technological and societal change. About half of her life was lived in a segregated South. But in 2008, when she was recuperating from a back injury and was allowed to vote curbside from a car I was driving, I got to see her vote for our country’s first African-American president. Eight years later, she voted for a woman for the same office.

I got Mom an iPad for Christmas when she was 90, and teaching her the basics wasn’t easy. Despite the steep learning curve, she got the hang of it well enough to check email and check The Pilot’s website, although she still bought a print edition downtown on Sundays as long as she was able. Smartphones amazed her the most, all the things those tiny devices can do.

As private as she was, I think Mom might be happy I used mine to slyly record a voice memo of a conversation with her in December of 2016. According to the wizard inside the phone, it’s 10 minutes and 33 seconds long. One day, I’ll listen to it.  PS

Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent.

The Accidental Astrologer

Grins and Giggles

Cancerians bring light and light-heartedness to the darkness

By Astrid Stellanova

A whole lot of July Star Children are born with a funny streak, and live for shenanigans. One is that high-larious actor Ken Jeong, the doctor and comedian who just so happens to be a Page High School alum. Recently he revisited his local roots to deliver the commencement at UNCG — and delivered the grads from taking themselves too seriously.

The fun and fabulous Sofia Vergara, Will Farrell and comic genius Robin Williams were born under the sign of Cancer. How ironic that the sign of the crab should produce so many big wits and comedians. Like the stars, they light the darkness.

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

That double-dang double-crosser who broke your trust will get theirs, and you won’t have to lift a pinky. Not to worry one second. Let’s put it this way: If you were a comic book hero, you’d be known for your super power of . . . judgey-ness. You have super powers you have never even explored. Like an incredible talent for sussing up a situation and knowing when to hightail it outta Dodge.

Leo (July 23–August 22)

While you were busy monkey-branching like you were Tarzan, you forgot to look down. If you had, you would have noticed some circling hyenas waiting for you to slip and fall. Those are some of the pack you used to run with, and now, Sugar, you need to outrun them. Put your past waay behind you.

Virgo (August 23–September 22)

This is classic you: not exactly inclined to give a rat’s you-know-what or a gnat’s little patootie for status or approval. And Honey, you get a lotta lovin’ for that! Next up: letting down the old guard and making yourself vulnerable. Trust ain’t just a banking term.

Libra (September 23–October 22)

You didn’t just lose touch with reality. Sugar, you broke the whole handle off things trying to get a grip. A new work opportunity is golden, but your domestic situation is suffering. Take care of those who tend to the hearth and home.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21)

The tee-nine-sy part of you that likes approval took over your whole world. If you want to win friends, Darling, let’s put your “I Know It All” merit badge away in a drawer. Sure you earned it. But it has not helped your sex life or friendships one bit.

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)

The juice just ain’t worth the squeeze, Sugar. You have worked hard to make good on a promise to yourself and another. Now you have a significant situation that has escaped you and is calling your name. Time to squeeze and release.

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

By the time you can say tickety-boo you let the cat out of the bag. Not your fault; a trickster you know so well made you spill. No worries. There is time to clean up the mess on Aisle Five before anybody’s the wiser.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

Rinse and repeat. Words to live by. Works real good for stains and also works good for self-love and redemption. Forgive yourself, Darling, for letting a situation get a little gray and a whole lot dingy. It will all come out in the wash.

Pisces (February 19–March 20)

Fireworks don’t have a place in your life except for Independence Day. Dial back emotions, and just recognize somebody set a tripwire for you because they are more volatile than a pig in a hailstorm. They only wish they had your self-control. 

Aries (March 21–April 19)

Looks like you stuck the baster in the wrong end of the chicken, Honey. You have been in such a dizzy place that you forgot your purpose and dang near lost your marbles. Recalibrate. Breathe. Meditate. Honey Bun, just do anything but knit your brows.

Taurus (April 20–May 20)

Pigs were flying when you (praise Jesus) decided to zip it and keep the peace just when your nemesis made a total jerk out of himself. Take a bow. You have just zoomed to the front of the astral line for having passed a major spiritual challenge.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Sometimes you open your mouth and your Mamma falls out. Life has been a little too boring for your tastes, so you decided to pull the plug on a very good idea and watch it all go right down the dang drain. It will not be boring to reconnoiter.  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.

PinePitch

Compiled by Haley Ledford

Fourth of July

Take your pick of freedom festivities! Fourthfest on Wednesday, July 3, at the Pinehurst Harness Track, 200 Beulah HIll Road S., Pinehurst, begins at 6 p.m. with a free concert and fireworks. Gates open at 4 p.m. and fireworks begin at 9:15 p.m. For more information, call (910) 295-1900 or go to www.vopnc.org. If you’re closer to Aberdeen, check out the July 4th celebration at Aberdeen Lake Park, 301 Lake Park Crossing, Aberdeen, from 5 –10 p.m. Celebrate America with live entertainment, food and vendors. Entertainment begins at 6 p.m. and fireworks begin at 9:15 p.m. For more information, call (910) 944-7275 or go to www.townofaberdeen.net.

Abe and Mary: Courtship and Murder Mystery

Join author and Lincoln scholar Jonathan F. Putnam at The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines, on July 17 at 5 p.m. to discuss the courtship of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and the murder mystery at the heart of Putnam’s newest release, A House Divided. Delve into this historical mystery highlighting this famous but misunderstood romance. For more information, call (910) 692-3211 or go to www.thecountrybookshop.biz/event.

An Evening with General Cornwallis

Step, into history on Thursday, July 25, at Pinehurst Country Club, 1 Carolina Vista Drive, for a dinner and lecture benefit to preserve the chimneys at the House in the Horseshoe, a Colonial-era North Carolina State Historical Site, to preserve the chimneys. Tickets are $100 at ticketmesandhills.com. For more information, call (910) 315-2152.

Sunday Exchange Concert: The Tams

Come listen to The Tams on Sunday, July 14, in downtown Aberdeen at The Exchange Place Lawn, 129 Exchange St., as part of The Sunday Exchange Concert Series. The event is free and open to the public, with food trucks on-site and a BYOB option. Music begins at 6 p.m. For more information, call (910) 944-4506.

Summer Classic Movie

Experience a classic movie, Ghost, at a classic theater, the Sunrise, 244 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines, on Wednesday, July 10, at 7:30 p.m. For more information, call (910) 692-3611 or go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Where’s Waldo?

Join the search for Waldo in downtown Southern Pines from July 12 – 22, by looking in participating downtown stores for a chance to win exclusive prizes. First, go to The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., to get your Waldo passport. For more information, go to www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

First Friday

The July 5 edition of First Friday features The Travers Brothership on the First Bank Stage at the Sunrise, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Music begins at 5 p.m. with food trucks and alcohol for purchase. For more information, call (910) 692-8501 or go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Christmas in July

Visit Seagrove on Friday July 19, for a gallery crawl from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., celebrating “Christmas in July.” Mr. and Mrs. Claus will be present at the shops on North Broad Street, Seagrove, all day. For more information call (336) 707-9124.

An Evening with General Cornwallis

Step, into history on Thursday, July 25, at Pinehurst Country Club, 1 Carolina Vista Drive, for a dinner and lecture benefit to preserve the chimneys at the House in the Horseshoe, a Colonial-era North Carolina State Historical Site, to preserve the chimneys. Tickets are $100 at ticketmesandhills.com. For more information, call (910) 315-2152.

The Rooster’s Wife

Wednesday, July 3: Michaela Anne. An introduction to Michael Daves changed this songwriter’s path from jazz to the more traditional sounds of bluegrass and folk. Yep, rock artist Micheala Anne makes her Aberdeen debut celebrating Independence Day early. Cost: $15.

Sunday, July 7: Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley. This unique collaborative effort between two gifted musicians is bound to be a revelation to traditional music fans. Ickes is a longtime, well-established instrumental giant, and Hensley is newly arrived in Music City, bursting with talent both as a vocalist and guitarist. Cost: $20.

Saturday, July 13: Amythyst Kiah. Blending masterful blues guitar skills with a deep knowledge and scholarship of African-American roots music, Kiah’s repertoire runs from old-time music through classic country to contemporary R&B. Cost: $15.

Thursday, July 18: Open mic with the Parsons. Free to members.

Sunday, July 21: The Shakedown. Nothing beats the thrill of live music. The Shakedown brings people together in the seats and on the dance floor. Join us for a fabulous party. Cost: $10.

Thursday, July 25: Mike Farris, Jeanne Jolly. There aren’t many singers who use their voices to soar, float and deliver material with the spiritual commitment of Grammy winner Mike Farris. Singer-songwriter Jeanne Jolly brings the earthiness of American roots music with a hint of jazz sophistication to her opening set. Cost: $27.

Saturday, July 27: Dawn Landes, Sinner Friends. Disciples of vintage country and old-time gospel music, Sinner Friends tread their own path to confront the contradictions that dwell in the space between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Landes has released five full-length albums, touring extensively in the U.S., Europe and around the world. Her songs have been featured in popular films and TV shows, including The Good Wife, Bored to Death, Skins, House, Gossip Girl and United States of Tara. Cost: $10.

Tuesday, July 30: Sand Band Birthday Bash. Celebrating the end of the summer season for the Rooster’s Wife with our favorites, beach music with a whole lot of soul! Cost: $10.

Unless otherwise noted, doors open at 6 p.m. and music begins at 6:46 at the Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Prices above are for members. Annual memberships are $5 and available online or at the door. For more information, call (910) 944-7502, or visit www.theroosterswife.org or ticketmesandhills.com.

The Kitchen Garden

Sandhills Berries, Part 3

It’s blueberry pickin’ time

By Jan Leitschuh

We are in it now, the thick of summer.

Our Sandhills area is so horticulturally blessed. We have been celebrating the stellar trio of local berries available in the Sandhills, and our last berry star is the rabbiteye blueberry so abundant this month of July.

Go on, sprinkle blueberries over everything you eat. You know you want to. Your taste buds — and health — will thank you.

True, local blueberries have peeped forth in June. Those were the Southern highbush (SHB) blueberry bushes. Now, I love those early berries, and seek them out at farmers markets. But as a kitchen gardener, I have never had terrific luck harvesting a large crop from my 15-year-old SHBs.

Perhaps, since they bloom earlier, they’ve been nipped by our increasingly erratic spring temperature swings. I’ve heard SHBs need an even lower pH than the rabbiteye varieties and that I could add a little sulfur to the soil, though my leaves are nice and green (as opposed to yellowing), indicating happiness. I’ve heard the “Legacy” variety of SHB is more forgiving.

However, since local blueberry professionals seem to do just fine, in the future, I’ll leave the SHBs to the pros and enjoy their precocious products at the you-picks and farmers markets. I sure do like nibbling those early highbush berries. But in my garden, I’ll focus on rabbiteye blueberries.

Blueberry quality and flavor from the supermarket is unpredictable and often terrible. That’s why I prefer to grow my own — plus, I know they are organic because I grew them that way.

I have long said that the rabbiteye blueberry is the ideal Sandhills edible landscaping shrub. I know some mighty fancy places in Pinehurst and Southern Pines that have rabbiteye blueberries gracing their property, quietly incorporated into their overall landscape plan. Unless one knew where and when to look, they might never be noticed.

First of all, rabbiteyes are easy. They need little effort and maintenance to thrive well in a home garden or landscape. Rabbiteyes bloom later, so are less susceptible to damaging late frosts, and they tolerate higher pH and mediocre soil conditions. They tolerate a little shade.

Native to our region, Vaccinium ashei loves our hot, humid Carolina summers and easy winters. It makes a nice, head-high shrub over time, although if pruned right after the berries have been picked, you can keep the bush height lower.

Besides being a food source for man and bird, the rabbiteye blueberry shrub has four-season landscape interest.

In spring, when rabbiteyes flower as the nights shift between frosty and mild, we enjoy seeing the delicate white blueberry flowers being worked by the harmless and workaholic solitary Southeastern blueberry bees, as well as honeybees, bumblebees, even carpenter bees. Come summer, rabbiteye bushes will produce buckets of sweet, crazy-healthy, edible berries for years to come — with little effort. Their bright cool green spring and summer foliage is an attractive foil to darker plants.

Come fall, the rabbiteye turns a beautiful reddish-burgundy color that persists somewhat into winter, where the shrub’s sculptural framework also adds textural interest.

Rabbiteye blueberry is a plant which benefits from cross-pollination and will produce more berry crops when at least two varieties are planted near each other. Don’t be impatient to pick. They may look blue and ready, but sample a few first before picking your winter freezer supply. Rabbiteye blueberries need to ripen awhile on the bush. Wait until the berries are fully ripe before you pick them or the fruit will not be very sweet, even bitter. If you let the rabbiteyes hang on the bush long enough, they really do taste good. The problem is, they turn that beautiful blue color before they are really ripe.

Then the birds come eat them. Some people use that nasty plastic netting, and we did too. But after tangling with the lawnmower blades and finding the occasional snared bird, we abandoned that. We have so many berries, we generally just share with the local songbirds that give us much pleasure (although I have swathed a particularly late bush in tulle fabric just before harvest to extend my season).

If you choose to plant your own, stick with the rabbiteyes to start. Avoid completely the Northern highbush varieties grown in Maine and Vermont. Here in mid-North Carolina, they will be a disappointing and expensive waste of space, producing little. Rabbiteyes are embarrassingly productive, and after eating your fill and filling your freezer, you’ll have some leftover to take to friends.

If you want to put some rabbiteye bushes in, consider selecting your site now and digging in some peat moss or decomposing pine bark. Chances are, you won’t add lime but gypsum can supply both calcium and sulfur, and not raise the pH like lime will. Blueberries need a pretty acid soil, a pH of 4.0 to 5.3, more so than even azaleas. Your soil may be fine, or you may need to add sulphur; testing is better than guessing for this long-lived and generous perennial shrub. Moore County Cooperative Extension can guide you in testing your soil and selecting proven varieties like Climax, TiffBlue, Premier, Onslow, Columbus and Powderblue.

That makes a pretty happy base for a shallow-rooted blueberry. Then, come late fall or winter, you can plant a couple of varieties of dormant plants on a slight mound or hill — it’s counterintuitive, but those shallow roots like to be a little higher than the surrounding soil. Mulch well with shredded leaf mulch or aged pine bark (not fresh). I beg my landscaper husband to bring home bags of fallen crape myrtle and Japanese maple leaves, since these small leaves decompose into a terrific mulch, and eventually enrich the soil. I would use the tougher oak leaves if they were well shredded.

That first summer, keep an eye on watering these new sets well, and you’ll be rewarded with future blueberry pies, cobblers and pancakes. We used to say that the rabbiteyes were basically pest-free, but in recent years there has been evidence of damage from an invasive little pest, the spotted wind drosophila. Again, Extension can advise you on management if this pest is an issue.

If blueberry Belgian waffles are on the menu this weekend, rest assured that blueberries are the healthiest part of the recipe. An entire cup contains only 84 calories, with 15 grams of carbohydrates. Calorie for calorie, this makes them an excellent source of fiber, vitamin C and vitamin K.

High in anthocyanin — the antioxidant that paints blueberries their namesake color — they offer powerful inflammation-fighting and cell-protecting properties. Besides containing the same resveratrol as red wine, blueberries contain another, similar compound, pterostilbene — which displays many of the same properties as resveratrol. It not only acts as an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, but it also has anti-diabetic, cardio-protective, neuro-protective (good for the brain and eyes) and anti-cancer properties.

One study has shown that once absorbed, pterostilbene may hang around our bodies offering its many health benefits up to five times longer than resveratrol. Few commonly eaten foods are as rich in pterostilbene as blueberries, so we may be looking at a fruit that is even more unique than previously believed in terms of its ability to support our health.

And a recent study on rheumatoid arthritis reports that the one food that best relieved inflammatory autoimmune symptoms was simple and delicious blueberries.

So we know you’ll get your health on when you spoon these over pound cake, or whip up a batch of blueberry-lemon muffins. But what else can you do with these sweet puppies?

Given that June’s tender baby zucchini have by now mutated into green baseball bats and you are making zucchini bread, toss generous handfuls of blueberries into the batter to up the flavor and health benefits. July’s morning smoothies demand blueberry nutrition — and for a beach afternoon or evening, search out online recipes for boozy blueberry floats, or icy sips like blueberry-basil-infused vodka. If you’re feeling too slowed by the summer heat to make jams, or even pie, search out a Blueberry Crumb bar recipe.

Blueberries play well with chocolate, so chunk some into your summer brownies. A savory blueberry-onion jam or blueberry-chicken mole may intrigue you. Too hot for even that? Churn up some blueberry-lemon ice cream, or spoon out some chilled blueberry soup for starters.

Blueberry Summer Soup (or Sauce)

3 cups fresh blueberries (frozen, if you must)

1 cup water

2 tablespoons sweetener — honey, sugar or substitute

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 cinnamon stick, optional

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon lemon zest

Yogurt, crème fraîche or whipped cream for serving, if desired

Toss all ingredients  but the cornstarch and lemon zest into a pan and bring to a gentle boil. Stir the cornstarch into 1 tablespoon of warm water to make a slurry, then stir this into the cooked berries. Bring back to a very gentle boil and cook, stirring, until sauce starts to thicken, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon zest.  Serve warm over pound cake, pancakes, cheesecake or waffles. Or chill and serve later as a cold soup with a creamy garnish.  PS

Call Moore County Cooperative Extension for a list of local You-Pick berry farms: 910-947-3188.

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

Simple Life

The Road to Happiness

It’s an upward climb filled with twists and turns, but joy is in the journey

By Jim Dodson

A dear friend phoned the other day just to say hello, a gifted young poet I hired many years ago as our organization’s first staff writer, who went on to become the senior editor of this magazine. I always knew the time would come when Ashley would fly away to new horizons, which she did after many years of our working together, moving to the mountains where she became a teacher, artist and musician. Lucky for us, her soulful perspective continues to grace the magazine’s pages.

As old friends do, we spent a full half hour catching up on each other’s lives.

I was pleased to learn about her current boyfriend and their travels to art festivals across the Southeast, where they sell handmade crafts created from sea glass, answering the muse and enjoying life on the road.

“You sound pretty happy,” I ventured at one point.

“I am. Maybe never happier. How about you?”

I replied that I was happy at that moment because I was talking to her while sitting in a well-worn Adirondack chair on the lawn where I begin and end most of my day in quiet reflection, watching the dawn arrive and the day depart, usually with Mulligan the dog and Boo the cat by my side. When she called, my companions and I happened to be watching the first fireflies of the season dance in the dusk.

During our years working together, Ashley and I often fell into lengthy conversations about life, love, matters of faith and favorite poets. Among other things, we share an Aquarian sensibility about the future and how we must spiritually evolve in order to get there in one piece as a race of scattered and fractured human beings.

I wasn’t surprised when she asked what things make me happy these days.

I gave her my short and simple list: rainy Sundays, walks with my wife and our dogs, working in my garden, driving back roads, early church, books and movies that stir the heart, phone calls from my grown children and suppers on the porch with friends.

“What about writing?” she asked.

“Cheap therapy.”

She laughed.

“Maybe you should write a book about happiness.”

This notion made me laugh.

Somewhere I’d read that there are more than 500 books on the subject of happiness in print, proving happiness is purely in the eye — or soul — of the beholder.

Besides, I confessed, my kind of happiness was increasingly fueled by things I’d given up or simply no longer needed for the journey, a list that included, but was not limited to, late-night fears of failure, desires for wealth or fame, judging other flawed human beings, even my once all-consuming love of sports was practically gone.

True to the spirit of our talks, I turned the question around on her. Ashley didn’t hesitate.

“I think happiness comes when you are following your heart and doing good things for others.”

Her prescription reminded me of something I’d just read in commentator David Brooks’ outstanding new book The Second Mountain — The Quest for a Moral Life.

“Often,” Brooks writes, “we say a good life is a happy life. We live, as it says in our founding document, in pursuit of happiness. In all forms of happiness we feel good, elated, uplifted. But the word ‘happiness’ can mean a lot of different things.”

Brooks makes an important distinction, for instance, between things that make us happy — a good marriage, a successful career, a sense of material achievement — and the rarer experience of joy.

“Happiness involves a victory for the self, an expansion of self. Happiness comes when we move toward our goals, when things go our way. You get a big promotion. You graduate from college. Your team wins the Super Bowl. You have a delicious meal. Happiness often has to do with some success, some new ability, or some heightened sensual pleasure.”

Joy, on the other hand, he posits, has to do with some transcendence of self, comes almost unbidden when “the skin barrier between you and some other person or entity fades away and you feel fused together. Joy is present when mother and baby are gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes, when a hiker is overwhelmed by the beauty in the woods and feels at one with nature, when a gaggle of friends are dancing deliriously in union. Joy often involves self-forgetting.

”We can help create happiness,” Brooks concludes, “but we are seized by joy. We are pleased by happiness, but we are transformed by joy.”

The day after catching up with Ashley, I was on a winding road deep in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, chasing pieces of Wagon Road history and human stories for my next book — something that always makes me happy — unable to get our conversation about happiness out of my head.

The art of happiness, if there is such a thing, my version of it anyway, seems to be about an inward journey cultivated by intentionally making room in life for small restorative acts and daily rituals that invite you to step out of your hectic, overscheduled life into what Irish mystics called a thin space, a place where duty and obligation are put on hold and deeper mindfulness is possible. Without my early morning communion with the stars and the grateful prayers I send up like sparks from a signal fire to the gods, my day is curiously never fully complete.

For what it’s worth, I also agree with Ashley the poet and Brooks the wise counselor that service of the smallest order to others in a world where there is so much isolation, loneliness and suffering may be the truest pathway to a happier, more meaningful life, a true “Second Mountain” existence.

Since most of my days are spent in quiet working isolation — Hemingway, not a happy camper, called writing the “loneliest art” — I find myself these days almost unconsciously seeking out opportunities to commit some kind of tiny random act of kindness to a fellow stranger in need. The other day, I chased down a harried mother’s runaway grocery cart in the parking lot of Harris-Teeter. She had an infant on her hip and was struggling to unlock her SUV. Her grateful smile and warm thanks were like a liberating breeze to a weary brain that had been arm-wrestling words and sentences onto the page most of that day.

During our pre-dawn walks around the neighborhood each day, my wife began stopping by the house of an elderly shut-in lady to walk her newspaper from the curb to a chair by her front door. We’ve never seen our neighbor’s face. But the dogs insist on stopping to deliver her paper the final 50 feet. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis on prayer, this minuscule act of neighborliness may do nothing whatsoever for God, but it sure makes us all feel a tiny bit happier.

The 17th-century Buddhist monk Gensei wrote, “With the happiness held in one inch-square heart, you can fill the whole space between heaven and Earth.”

Sometimes, we need to be reminded of this fact. A friend who works with the homeless explained to me that perhaps the hardest things homeless people deal with on a daily basis is a feeling that they are not worthy of noticing or speaking to — are, in effect, invisible travelers in our midst.

This prompted a change a shift in my awareness and behavior, from that of feeling uneasy and even slightly resentful whenever I reach into my pocket to offer whatever modest sum may be there, to making a point of looking in the eyes and sharing a few words of ordinary greeting or simple recognition, maybe even learning a name and sharing mine. We are, after all, all traveling the same road between Earth and heaven.

It’s a lesson I seem destined to repeatedly learn. Watching Notre Dame cathedral in Paris burn live on CNN back in the spring, I was suddenly transported to a rainy July day 18 years ago when my son, Jack, then 10, and I were coming out of the famous cathedral in a thunderstorm. Surrounded by a swarm of tourist umbrellas dashing for cover, as we hurried past a lone ragged man with blind eyes standing in the downpour, simply holding out an upturned palm, a character straight from Victor Hugo, a dignified beggar for God.

No one was stopping. But when I saw my son glance back, something stopped me. I gave my son 100 francs and asked him to go and give it to the man. Without hesitation, he threaded back through the on-rushing umbrellas and placed the folded money into the man’s outstretched hand.

What happened next still gives me goose bumps of unexpected joy — the kind of self-forgetting transcendence David Brooks speaks of.

The blind man placed his free hand gently on Jack’s head, as if bestowing a blessing. Watching, my eyes filled with tears, or maybe simply rain. Or both. “What did he say to you?” I asked as we hurried off to find a dry lunch in a cozy Left Bank bistro.

“I don’t know,” he said with a happy smile. “But it was in French and it sounded nice.”

Last summer, at the end of a walking pilgrimage across Tuscany with my wife and 30 other pilgrims, I skipped the private tour of the Vatican’s famous Sistine Chapel in favor of climbing a leafy Roman hill to a small Greek Orthodox Church where I sat on a simple wooden pew for God knows how long listening to morning prayers being sung in Greek by three exquisite voices.

Save for an elderly woman manning a small stand at the rear entrance of the church, I was the only worshipper in the building, sitting beneath the tiny dome of a stunning blue ceiling painted with stars, angels and saints.

Time completely vanished, taking my weary feet with it.

Unexpectedly, it was the happiest moment of my long journey that week.

On the way out, the old woman smiled and waved me over to her stand, handing me a small gilt-framed portrait of an Eastern Saint. I’m still not sure which one.

When I reached into my pocket to pay, she gave me a gentle smile and nod, waving me on with gentle words.

I have no idea what she said to me. I believe it was in Greek and it sounded nice.  PS

Contact Editor Jim Dodson at jim@thepilot.com.

The Omnivorous Reader

Ferlinghetti’s Torrent of Words

Little Boy offers little wisdom

By Stephen E. Smith

Here’s the theory: If a writer drags his audience into unknown intellectual territory — even if the journey’s destination is an unpleasant one — he’s lifted his readers out of the familiar and allowed them to perceive the world from a new and revelatory perspective. Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind did that for a generation of poets, and the book remains one of the best-selling collections with over a million copies in print.

Ferlinghetti also achieved literary fame by publishing and defending in federal court Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. The lengthy First Amendment trial became a literary cause célèbre, and in the years since the Howl controversy, Ferlinghetti has continued to support leftist social and political causes while producing his own volumes of poetry and prose.

His latest book, Little Boy, was published on the author’s 100th birthday and immediately climbed the best-sellers list. Billed by its publisher as “a novel” and “last will and testament,” the book isn’t a novel, not in the traditional sense, and it isn’t the last word on anything. Call it bait and switch or simple misrepresentation, but Little Boy is, for better or worse, an adventurous, effusive, stream-of-consciousness rant that begins promisingly as a memoir complete with punctuation, plot and character development, and lapses almost immediately into an unpunctuated acerbic toxic word dump that occasionally sweeps up the reader in its rebellious energy.

If the designation “novel” is misleading, Ferlinghetti manages to hide a cursory explanation deep in his tangled text: “Ah yes indeed I must revert instead to the recounting and accounting of my own fantasies my ideas and agitations and dumb contemplations of the workings of the mind and heart  . . .  And so do I return to the monologue of my life seen as an endless novel simply because I don’t know how to end any life.”

The opening 15 pages of Little Boy recount how Ferlinghetti was separated from his mother shortly after birth, grew up in both privilege and poverty, and eventually graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, completing his doctoral study in comparative literature in France — all of which is conveyed in straightforward third-person prose.  Then the structure of the narrative abruptly transforms, launching into a torrent of words sans grammatical niceties, e.g.: “ . . . the Greeks really all gone now down the drain And shall we tally it up now and see what’s left after capitalism hits the fan But in any case now it’s time it’s high tide time to try to make some sense or cents of our little life on earth and is it not all a dumb show of mummery a blindman’s bluff a buffoon’s antic asininities with clowns in masks jumping over the moon as in a Chagall painting or as if we each were dropped out of a womb into this earth so naked and alone we come to this world and blind in our courses, where do we wander and know not where we go nor what we do, with no assigned destinies . . . .”

There’s nothing new about this narrative technique (Joyce gave us Molly Bloom’s monologue more than a century ago), and Ferlinghetti’s deluge of words wears thin with surprising alacrity.

With the exception of an occasional brief interlude of traditional storytelling, he continues in this vein for the remainder of the novel. Since the monologue is essentially plotless, he rails again about global warming, capitalism, fascism, socialism, people with cellphones — “can you imagine millions of them a whole new generation on earth computing their lives in pixels” —  and the world in general: “. . . it’s all like the old film The King of Hearts in which the inmates of an asylum consider themselves the only sane people in the world, while the people outside go forth every day to murder their dreams and ecstasies in the general conflagration of everyday life in the twenty-first century . . . .”

Allusions abound, most of them employed as similes or used as foils or objects of derision as in “‘Tea Ass’ Elliot” or twisted into puns as in “Let’s not fall deep into romanticism again for the warming world is too much with us late and soon . . . .” And there are literary references galore, if you can identify them: “Let us go then you and me-me-me . . .” “Drive she said,” or “a tale of sound and furry animals.”

And the name-dropping goes on ad nauseam: Thorstein Veblen, Nelson Algren, Louise Brooks, Mikhail Lermontov, J. M.W. Turner, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sri Aurobindo, Giacometti, Edward Bellcamp, etc., personages with whom most readers are probably unfamiliar. Unfortunately, Ferlinghetti makes no use of these allusions. He’s in a position to supply important scholarly insights into Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso, Beckett, Kerouac, Sartre, etc., but the mention of literary celebrities has all the intellectual import of the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s or an academic adaptation of Where’s Waldo? Readers can research the luminaries Ferlinghetti mentions — how likely is that? — or they can let the allusions ride and go plunging through the text, which is, of course, the more likely scenario.

Readers might presume, given Ferlinghetti’s appetite for social and political causes, that he’d have something to say about the political state of the country in which he’s lived for a century. It’s not unreasonable, after all, to expect a little wisdom from our elders, but Ferlinghetti disappoints on this count. Perhaps he’s correct when he writes: “. . . so I am just an onion peeling myself down to the core to find there is nothing there at all. . . .” The opening lines of his Coney Island poem “I Am Waiting”— “. . . and I am waiting/for the American Eagle/to really spread its wings/and straighten up and fly right . . .” — has more political oomph than all the words in Little Boy, and the sum of all the complaints and observations spewed forth in the novel tell us little more than we learned in A Coney Island of the Mind. 

Ferlinghetti’s longevity and literary reputation have earned him the right to offer a parting public thought. For better or worse, this might be it: “. . . so bye-bye civilization as we know it and should I just let everybody else die as long as I got my piece of prime cheese oh man it’s all beyond me-me-me . . . .”  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.

Starting Over

A new look for a couple . . . and a neighborhood

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by Amy Freeman & John Koob Gessner

Old Town Pinehurst suggests cottages — likely sizable vacation homes — built in the early 1900s, first by James Tufts, then by wealthy Northeastern families eager to populate the newly chic golf resort. Those still standing have been restored and modernized to the nines. Most are furnished in antiques, Persian rugs, period pieces, family portraits, golf or equestrian art. Behind every armoire door and over every carved mantel hangs the latest in flat-screen technology.

When the cottages ran out, people who desired strolling distance to the village began buying land and building. Some new construction followed classic styles. Other homes veered afar, like an asymmetrical front with interior half-story facilitating a balcony overlooking the family room; an intimate living room with four armchairs around a low table but not much else; and a breezeway into a mud wing with direct access to the rear deck and gardens so guests on their way to the (not yet built) pool or cookout would avoid traipsing through the house.

New ideas, indeed, just what Elizabeth “Cissy” Beckert and her husband, Bruce, wanted. So new that when they found this house built in 2007 they decided to purge their furniture circa big-dogs-sleeping-on-the-couch and start fresh.

“It’s something Cissy always wanted to do,” Bruce says.

What fun for a couple who had worked in the High Point furniture industry. They hired designer/friend Leslie Moore, whose motto is “perfectly imperfect,” and, after Market closed, walked through the showrooms selecting pieces that fleshed out their ideas. Many came from Hickory Chair, a century-old North Carolina furniture manufacturer that still crafts 90 percent of its products in-state.

The Beckerts’ purpose was born far, far away.

“Six years ago we took the family to Puako, Hawaii, and stayed in a VRBO on the Maui Channel,” Cissy begins. “We loved how the house allowed the outside to come in — every window framed a view. We returned to Pinehurst wanting to find a home with the same feel except instead of the ocean, the views would be magnificent magnolias, gardenias, hydrangeas, daylilies and Carolina jasmine.”

To illustrate, Cissy points to a tall, paned powder room window draped on the outside with jasmine vines resembling a drawn-back curtain.

The house they found had been designed sans cookie cutter. It required no structural changes. High ceilings throughout are delineated by simple, elegant crown moldings. The unusual floorplan (four bedrooms, six bathrooms and an attached garage tucked around back, accessed by an alley) suited their purposes: children grown and gone who visit occasionally. Now Cissy could select rugs and furniture to fit room dimensions.

Bruce reacted immediately. “As soon as I walked in the door I said, ‘I can live here.’”

The foyer opens into a longitudinal layout featuring a spacious open core encompassing kitchen, vaulted family room with skylights, and a dinette devoid of table and chairs.

“We eat at the bar or (for events like Thanksgiving) in the dining room,” maybe outside under a vine-covered pergola, Bruce says. He repurposed the dinette as a plant gallery — tall ones, in attractive ceramic pots, with matching rug.

“We’re outdoors people,” Bruce continues. “I like plants — they scrub the air.”

But wait: Outdoors, especially Hawaiian, means sun-splashed color. Yet beyond the handsome arched front door the walls and many furnishings hum Zen gray.

“I shy away from bright colors that assault the eye,” Cissy explains. “Gray is peaceful.” Then, thinking deeper, “I was the middle child. Gray is between black and white.” She tempers the gray with several shades of blue, mostly in fabrics: “A blue sky mesmerizes me, especially the turquoise from New Mexico.”

About that tiny monochromatic living room: “We have our morning coffee there,” Cissy says. Or sit with a few friends, sipping wine by the fire. Contemporary architecture often shrinks this traditional gathering place, adding space elsewhere. The dining room is also smallish, intimate, and gray, which suits Cissy.

“When we close the curtains we’re enveloped. I’m a high energy person. This calms me down.”

However, tall ceilings suggest a spaciousness that allows large pieces, like the massive bed of dark woods in the master bedroom — the only piece retained from their previous home. Here, minimalism rules. No clutter, just a few pieces with clean lines to foil the decorative bed frame.

“Don’t be fooled; I like sturdy furniture,” Cissy says, pointing to a heavy rustic coffee table in the family living area.

Don’t be fooled by all the grays and neutrals, either, not even one upstairs bedroom with a beach sand-colored coverlet where lies Ted, their matching sandy-hued rescue kitty with a lion’s face. Also upstairs, besides guest bedrooms and many bathrooms, a huge “bonus” room over the garage, with café au lait walls and marshmallow-soft cocoa carpeting, which they use for watching movies.

For Cissy, this house became a place to express her newfound interest in art, particularly contemporary and abstract paintings done by Southern women. The gray walls come alive with Picasso-esque faces by Windy O’Connor of Charlotte; other artists represented live in Atlanta, Charleston and Athens. Trish Deerwester of Southern Pines created three abstracts in, no surprise, gray, blue and white, while Cissy commissioned Becky Clodfelter of Greensboro to create a large abstract for the foyer, which introduces the palette continued through the house.

Over the clawfoot tub, a seated nude. Dominating the stairwell, a 10-foot geometric canvas found rolled up in the corner of a High Point showroom corner.

Yet Cissy’s favorite is a portrait of a cow. “They’re gentle, they give milk.”

Bruce leans another way. “I’m an Ansel Adams, Ben Ham (black and white photography) kind of guy,” as represented in the mix.

Taken together, Cissy dubs the look she and Moore created “polished casual,” to which Bruce adds “comfortable, not too pretentious.”

Landscaping is another story. “Some people have a boat. We have a garden,” Bruce says. From the looks of it, both boast green thumbs plus green fingers. A few magnolias and other trees came with the house. They have added a dense wall of greenery to screen the house from a moderately trafficked street. Cissy reels off the names with expert familiarity: tea olive bush, loropetalum, butterfly bush, viburnum, nandina, lavender, rosemary, aucuba and enormous blue hydrangeas framed by the windows.

Starting over, as the Beckerts have done, seems unusual except after fire or flood. Bruce reasons differently: “People have too much stuff. I don’t want my stuff to dictate my life.” This should be easier with new stuff that lacks an emotional attachment to heirlooms.

Cissy sums up their effort. “This house is who were are and what we love.”   PS

Sporting Life

Keepin’ It Cool

Fans, porches and a visit to the ice plant

By Tom Bryant

Good night nurse, it was hot! Fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk kind of hot, and I was in the woods at a little farm pond trying to fish. The morning had started off pleasant enough. I was up and at ’em early, anticipating the scorcher promised by the Weather Channel, another of their disaster predictions, and I hoped to catch a mess of bream before the sun could cook my brain.

Fishing was slow, as I knew it would be, and I was going at it the lazy way. I cast a couple of lines baited with night crawlers, anchored the rods securely on the bank, and looked for some shade. The tree line was too far from the pond, so I pulled the old Bronco close to my set and kicked back on a camp chair in her shade. That made it right tolerable.

Growing up when air-conditioning meant an opened window and, if we were lucky, a strong window fan, I think people knew how to handle the scorching summer heat. As kids, we would head to Pinebluff Lake. It was fed by springs and a little creek, and I can still remember swimming into a cool spot created by one of the natural springs. We spent hours in the little lake, devising all kinds of games to play in the naturally cool water.

Probably one of the reasons I don’t like swimming pools today is that I feel like I’m cooped up in an oversized bathtub.

I was also fortunate that my dad ran the massive ice plant located next to the railroad tracks in Aberdeen, and if the summer temperatures got completely out of hand, I could always cool down in one of the storage rooms that were wall-to-wall with ice. Typically, I didn’t stay long. The average temperature in those rooms was about 28 degrees. It’s a pretty good shock to your system when it’s summer outside and, all of a sudden, you’re freezing.

We kids had a routine: Pinebluff Lake in the morning, home for lunch and a nap, and back to the lake in the late afternoon. It was not just a normal nap. Dad had installed a window fan in my sisters’ bedroom, the kind of fan that had four speeds and was reversible, and I knew exactly how to make that thing work. My little brother and I had the bedroom right across the hall from our sisters. We were upstairs so I could close the door at the bottom of the stairs, open our bedroom doors, put the fan blowing out, switch it to “high,” and stand back. That fan would have the curtains in my bedroom standing straight out from the window, and the cool breeze was constant. The sound of the fan and the cool air wafting through the room were almost hypnotic, and in no time I was in the midst of a great nap. I think that’s the reason I nap today and have a sound machine nearby.

I was jolted out of my reverie by the zinging of one of my rods as the line was being pulled in the lake. I raced to catch it and yanked to set the hook. Nothing. Whatever was on it was gone. I reeled in, rebaited the hook and went back to the Bronco. The sun had angled around the corner of the truck, so I rearranged the chair and kicked back again.

The lake, naps and ice plant weren’t the only ways we had to cool down. Most of the Aberdeen downtown businesses were just beginning to install air-conditioning, and the movie theater was one of the first. The mothers in Pinebluff alternated carpooling us kids to the theater on Saturday afternoons. It was 15 cents to get in, 5 cents for a drink and 10 cents for popcorn; and we really got our money’s worth when there was a double feature. The cowboys — Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Lash LaRue and Rex Allen — reigned supreme in those early movies. Air-conditioning, a novelty at first but soon to become a necessity, made for a kid’s great afternoon of fun.

My ancestors in the 1800s weren’t so lucky. A South Carolina low country summer could be unbearable. Our old family home place was built to provide a little relief from the heat.

First, there’s a rain porch that stretches across the entire front of the house with columns to the ground. The roof’s overhang is far out from the edge of the porch so that during a storm, a person won’t get wet while relaxing in the swing. Next, a long entrance hall runs the length of the house to the back door that opens onto a screened sleeping porch. The house also faces east to catch the prevailing breezes, and the foundation pillars are about 4 feet tall and connected with latticed skirting, allowing air to flow beneath the house. Big rooms with 14-foot tall ceilings and 8-foot windows also helped.

All of these features were great in the summer, but winter was another story. Every room has a fireplace, and in those days, using them kept at least one person busy hauling wood. I guess those early relatives thought that frostbite was preferable to heat stroke.

I checked the lines on the fishing rods to make sure they still had bait, went to the back of the truck for a cool libation, moved my chair to the diminishing shade, and sat back down. The ride home was going to be a hot one because the Bronco doesn’t have air-conditioning.

That thought got me thinking about our first air-conditioned car, a 1969 Buick LeSabre. Prior to that, I thought air-conditioning a car was an expensive add-on that we could do without. Needless to say, after a couple of summer trips to Florida in our un-air-conditioned 1962 MGB, my bride, Linda, helped me to think otherwise. So, along came car air-conditioning.

The sun was now almost directly overhead, so I decided to give up the fishing expedition and try again in a few days when it got a little cooler. I felt a little like a wimp, though, as I loaded the gear in the back of the Bronco. Back in the day, I would have stuck it out till dark, and did that many times. It made me wonder if the reason we suffer so much from the heat is that, as a general population, we’ve become softer and more acclimated to modern conveniences.

That observation needs more study, I thought, something to think about when I take my afternoon nap. I hope Linda turned down the air-conditioning. I fired up the Bronco and headed home.  PS

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