Category: July 2025

Hometown

HOMETOWN

Up to Speed

Adventures behind the wheel

By Bill Fields

My birthday came and went this spring without much fanfare, but not before I remembered that it marked 50 years of driving.

These days, not all teenagers are eager to get behind the wheel upon turning 16. That wasn’t the case in North Carolina half a century ago, when obtaining one’s driver license was a rite of passage that preceded the right to vote or buy a beer.

Of course, we were well prepared for the road test and written exam at the police station in Aberdeen because we had taken driver’s education in high school, where for decades instructor Otis Boroughs taught the course with the tenacity of a drill sergeant and the thoroughness of a graduate-level professor. Boroughs had intense eyes, a buzz cut, and his tone was as serious as the 16-mm films about the perils of drinking and driving that he showed during class.

When you were out in the training car with him, Boroughs rode shotgun. He was watchful and wary, making sure your hands were on the steering wheel at 10 and 2 o’clock, and that you were keeping the proper distance from the car ahead (a car length for each 10 miles per hour of speed). There was usually a second student, in the backseat, waiting for his or her turn to be scrutinized. I can still sense my right foot trembling over the pedals when Boroughs had me pull over on a quiet side street in Southern Pines to demonstrate whether I knew how to parallel park.

Mr. Boroughs died last year, at 87, but I believe he would be pleased that his favorite mantra still comes to me as easily as my Social Security number: “Keep your eyes on the road and your mind on the job of driving.”

Plenty of people driving these days never heard that slogan, or if they have, don’t follow it.

I was reminded of that recently when I drove from Connecticut to North Carolina and spent a couple of weeks in Southern Pines before returning north. On interstates, the lane drifters and weavers were many. For lots of drivers, a turn signal is merely a suggestion to be ignored. Tailgating is common.

The day after I got to town, while stopped at a red light on U.S. 15-501, a car hit my small SUV from behind.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” the young driver, a man who appeared to be in his 20s, admitted as we spoke before pulling into a parking lot to exchange information. It’s clear he wasn’t following either tenet of Mr. Boroughs’ frequent classroom admonition.

Fortunately, the damage to my vehicle — and his — was very minor. And hopefully, he learned a lesson.

I certainly was taught something a decade after getting my license, in what has been my closest call on the road. I was hurrying to Newark airport to catch a flight to Raleigh after the conclusion of the 1985 U.S. Amateur at nearby Montclair (N.J.) Golf Club. It had been raining, and I was going too fast on the exit ramp when I lost control. My rental car skidded sideways for what seemed like the length of a football field but probably traveled half that distance. I didn’t hit anything. After catching my breath, I continued — slowly — to the rental car return.

My other near misses have been because of others. I’ve dodged steel beams falling off a flatbed truck in Memphis, a car barreling through a red light in High Point, and a motorcyclist darting through traffic as if it was a death wish on I-85 in southern Virginia.

Perhaps owing to part of a semester spent with Otis Boroughs, along with my personality, I don’t have a lead foot. One time, however, early one morning on a long, lonely stretch of straightaway in rural Nebraska, driving a rental car that possessed some pep, I decided to see what it felt like to travel over 100 mph. Just once.

I topped out at 107 in my Don Garlits moment, keeping my eyes on the road and my mind on the job of driving all the while.

Dissecting a Cocktail

DISSECTING A COCKTAIL

Ranch Water

Story and Photograph by Tony Cross

One of the simplest cocktails to make was also one of the most popular during the pandemic. Ranch water is the drink, and it hails from West Texas, though the precise regional claim to fame is debated.

There are Texas natives who say they grew up drinking the tequila, lime juice and mineral water highball, but the late Kevin Williamson, chef and founder of Ranch 616 in Austin, takes credit for its creation. Their website describes how Williamson used to “sneak” the mix into his water bottle while hunting with his father. The importance of using Topo Chico mineral water is key to this cocktail, which helped make the brand so popular there were nationwide shortages in 2021-22.

Regardless of the drink’s origin, everyone can agree that this is one of the most refreshing cocktails to beat the summer heat. There are two ways I enjoy Ranch waters: in a glass with ice or built in a Topo Chico bottle.

Specifications

2 ounces blanco tequila

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

Topo Chico sparkling water

Execution

In a glass: Add tequila and lime juice in a rocks or highball glass with ice. Top with Topo Chico.

In a Topo Chico bottle: Drink 3 ounces from the bottle and add tequila and lime juice. Put your thumb over the top and slowly turn bottle upside down to integrate ingredients. Don’t shake. Turn the bottle right side up and slowly remove thumb from the top. We’re not spraying Champagne in a locker room here.

2025 Department Dissecting a Cocktail

Birdwatch

BIRDWATCH

Call of The Wild

The summer sound of the Eastern forests

By Susan Campbell

It is the sound of summer: You may not be paying attention, but it’s there. The slurring “pee-a-wee” of the eastern wood-pewee is echoing all over central North Carolina at this time of year. On the hottest of afternoons this bird continues to call even though its brethren are now quiet. The spring cacophony of breeding birds may have been replaced by the buzzing of cicadas and chirping crickets, but the pewee continues making his trademark vocalization. The species has long been considered a hallmark of Eastern forests. Although not as plentiful as it was before humans began altering the landscape, it can still be found widely throughout the region.

Eastern wood-pewees are flycatchers: carnivorous birds that have the talent for snapping insects out of midair. They are acrobatic fliers that use a perch to scan for large, winged insect prey such as dragonflies, butterflies, moths and beetles. As a result of this foraging strategy, pewees spend much of their time in the open during the warmer months. However, if it were not for their loud calls, these little birds would be easily overlooked. Both males and females are a drab gray-brown above, dusky below, and have buff barring on their wings.

Flycatchers found in the Eastern United States are, as a whole, not a colorful bunch. They tend to be brownish with subtle differences in bill shape, tail length or the color of the small feathers on the wing or around the eye. Habitat may lend a clue, since they have preferences for different types of vegetation. When they vocalize, however, it is a different story. In fact, the eastern wood-pewee has virtually indistinguishable plumage from the western wood-pewee, which is found closer to the West Coast. The western wood-pewee makes a nasal “bree-urr” call that has a much rougher quality in tone. These birds may give a thin, whistled “peeaa” as well. Generally, the quality of the vocalizations is very different from that of our Eastern birds.

Given their diet, the eastern wood-pewee is not likely to appear at a feeder. However, this species may frequent birdbaths or water features within their territory. Also, individuals tend to use the same perches for foraging and can be found predictably in an area. They prefer forest edges so they’re easier to spot than their forest-dwelling cousins, such as the Acadian or willow flycatcher. Pewees also hover for very short periods to catch prey, and will actively move through the vegetation in search of caterpillars and slower moving insects in the canopy. They tend to utilize the midstory in locations where there are deciduous trees. As a result, it is believed that their occurrence in some areas of the Northeast has been affected by the over-grazing of white-tailed deer. The loss of smaller trees and shrubs has eliminated not only pewee perches but the necessary vegetation for their prey species.

Female eastern wood-pewees build a shallow cup nest of woven grasses lined with plant fibers, animal fur and/or moss. It’s well camouflaged on the outside with lichens and blends in with the horizontal limb that it is built on. Pewees have a limited ability to defend their eggs and young, so invisibility is the name of the game.

These little birds are migratory, spending the winter months in South America, where prey is abundant. Eastern wood-pewees can be found through Peru down into Brazil during the non-breeding season. They become active, solitary hunters that pursue prey in a variety of habitats that time of the year.

Before they begin to head south in August, see if you can spot one of these vocal, talented fliers. You may have to look closely to find this familiar summer friend motionless on a favorite perch.

2025 Birdwatch Department

Focus on Food

FOCUS ON FOOD

Lowcountry Culture

Bringing summer to a boil

Story and Photograph by Rose Shewey

Lowcountry boil is a culinary tradition I like to show oﬀ to trans-Atlantic friends and family that visit us in North Carolina. It’s American food culture few people abroad know exists — and it’s a showstopper. The moment you spread out a stockpot full of seafood, sausages and corn on the dinner table, conversations halt, anticipation rises, and strangers become instant friends digging into this delicious feast.

Surprisingly, though, Lowcountry boil doesn’t go back as far in history as I had expected. In the 1960s, a young chap named Richard Gay joined the South Carolina National Guard, where he cooked for his mates at the Beaufort Armory during weekend drills. On one such occasion, he gathered up chow hall leftovers, threw them in a large pot together with fresh shrimp he had sourced from his father’s seafood company, and began cooking. Once finished, he spread out the meal across the tables of the banquet hall — and the legendary low country boil was born.

While most folks call it Lowcountry boil these days, it was originally known as “Frogmore stew.” Frogmore, which technically doesn’t exist anymore, was part of St. Helena Island, near Beaufort, South Carolina — Richard Gay’s hometown community. Perhaps the name Frogmore stew fell out of favor because, well, it’s not really a stew. All liquids are drained oﬀ. But don’t get hung up on names. Give this one-of-a-kind Lowcountry feast recipe adapted from The Food, Folklore and Art of Lowcountry Cooking, by Joseph E. Dabney, a try this summer.

Lowcountry Boil

(Serves 6)

Ingredients

4 tablespoons Old Bay seasoning (or make your own, see notes)

1/4 pound (1 stick) butter

4 tablespoons salt

2 pounds kielbasa sausage, cut into quarters

1 large onion, roughly diced

2 pounds small new red potatoes, cut in half

6 ears fresh corn, cut in half

3 pounds peeled deveined shrimp (with tail on)

Fill a large pot (6-quart or bigger) two-thirds full of water and bring to a rolling boil. Add Old Bay seasoning and reduce heat to a simmer. Next, add butter, salt, sausages, onion and potatoes and simmer for about 15 minutes. Add corn, cook for an additional 3-5 minutes then add shrimp. Cook shrimp for roughly 3-6 minutes, until they turn pink and white (instead of opaque). Turn oﬀ the heat and allow ingredients to set for a few minutes, drain liquid and serve with more seasoning, cocktail sauce, melted butter dip and coleslaw, if desired.

To make your own Old Bay seasoning, combine 1 tablespoon celery salt; 1 tablespoon hot paprika; 1 tablespoon smoked paprika; 1 1/2 teaspoons mustard powder; 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper; 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper; 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper; 1/4 teaspoon ground bay leaves; and a pinch each of ground cinnamon, ground cloves and ground nutmeg. Store in an airtight container.

2025 Department Focus on Food

Southwords

SOUTHWORDS

The Hot Dog Rule

Cutting food down to size

By Jim Moriarty

Some years ago I tried to convince the editor of Coastal Living to do a story on the search for the ultimate beach hot dog. He looked at me as if I’d suggested he commit hari-kari with a shucking knife. If Coastal Living was going to talk about food, he said, that food was going to come out of the ocean one way or the other. I felt like a one-eyed king in the land of the blind.

This is not uncommon for those of us who consider the hot dog to be the most highly evolved of all God’s consumables. I came by this understanding as a mere child when dinner on humid summer nights often consisted of a hot dog and a refreshing pint of cold root beer at the B&K drive-in. Slather on the mustard. Dish on the relish. Sprinkle on the onion. No ketchup, please. We weren’t heathens, after all.

Later, as I matured, hot dogs purchased on sweltering afternoons at Wrigley Field from ballpark vendors singing “red hots, get yer red hots” as if it was Verdi’s Rigoletto only served to enhance my belief in the lofty place occupied by the hot dog in the hierarchy of all food. Passing hot dogs, slathered in mustard and chased by an Old Style, down a row of Cubs fans like a bucket brigade putting out a four alarm fire was its own rite of passage. No ketchup, of course. We weren’t savages, you know.

I have a friend at my pub, the Bitter and Twisted, who is as committed to the noble hot dog as anyone I’ve ever known. He is widely traveled, worldly beyond my comprehension, and he claims, with apologies to his West Texas roots, that the very best hot dog he’s ever had was in Reykjavik, Iceland, at Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, which translates to “The Town’s Best Hot Dogs.” People line up down the block and around the corner to get them, he says. They sell 1,000 a day. If it’s not the town’s best dog I can’t imagine what is.

Hot dogs are beyond utilitarian. They are civilized — yet another reason why they reign supreme — which brings me to The Hot Dog Rule. I don’t mean to cast aspersions at Michelin and all its fancy-schmancy stars, but The Hot Dog Rule is as basic to the laws governing human behavior as not wearing a white shirt when you eat spaghetti. In sum, no sandwich should be more difficult to eat than a hot dog.

When it becomes necessary to deconstruct a sandwich as tall and as vertical on the plate as the leaning tower of Pisa, layered with slabs of tomato, piles of pickles, heads of lettuce, pounds of processed deli meats, mountains of kale, all held together with plastic picks the size of the Excalibur, such a sandwich must be found to be in violation of The Hot Dog Rule. If you have to break your sandwich down into all its component parts as though you’re rebuilding an automobile transmission before you can think about managing a bite, such a sandwich must be found to be in violation of The Hot Dog Rule.

I admit, there are gray areas. For one thing, there is the matter of spillage. But to be perfectly honest, a snippet or two of diced onion or a soupçon of relish falling overboard is hardly the same thing as needing a forceps to pry your jaw open wide enough to take a bite of a sandwich the size of a MINI Cooper.

As for chili dogs, I’m going to have to plead the fifth.

2025 Department Southwords

Almanac July 2025

ALMANAC

Almanac July 2025

By Ashley Walshe

July is a backyard safari, dirt-caked knees, the heart-racing thrill of the hunt.

Bug box? Check. Dip net? Check. Stealth and determination? Check and check.

Among a riot of milkweed, blazing star and feathery thistle, the siblings are crouched in the meadow, waiting for movement.

“There,” points one of the children.

“Where?” chimes the other.

“Follow me!”

As they slink through the rustling grass, playful as lion cubs, life bursts in all directions. Monarchs and swallowtails stir from their summer reverie. Dog-day cicadas go silent. A geyser of goldfinches blast into the great blue yonder.

“He’s right there!” the child whispers once again, inching toward a swaying blade of grass.

At once, the black-winged grasshopper catapults itself across the meadow, popping and snapping in a boisterous arc of flight. The children scurry after.

On and on this goes. Hour by hour. Day by day. Grasshopper by grasshopper.

Or, on too-hot days, tadpole by tadpole.

“Race you to the creek!” chime the siblings.

Shoes are cast off with reckless abandon. Bare feet squish into the cool, wet earth. Laughter crescendos.

The whir of tiny wings evokes an audible gasp.

“Hummingbird!” says the younger one, scanning the creekbank until a flash of emerald green catches their eye.

As hummingbird drinks from cardinal flower after vibrant red cardinal flower, the children, too, imbibe summer’s timeless magic.

Finally, awakened from their fluttering trance, the children bolt upright.

“Race you to the wild blackberries!” they dare one another.

Such is the thrill of wild, ageless summer.

Mythical Creature Alert

What in all of Gotham City was that? Eastern Hercules beetles are in flight this month. Should you spot one of these massive rhinoceros beetles — native wonders — keep in mind that their larvae grub on rotting wood, breaking down organic matter to enhance our soil and ecosystems. As their name suggests, they’re sort of like superheroes without the lion skin or triple-weave Kevlar suit.

Life's a Peach

As burlesque icon Dita Von Teese once said, “You can be a delicious, ripe peach and there will still be people in the world that hate peaches.”

Oh, really? Who?

Peach season is in full swing. Dare you to drive past a local farm stand without braking for a quarter-peck or more. Kidding, of course. One should always make the pit stop.

True homegrown peach enthusiasts know that the annual N.C. Peach Festival takes place in Candor — Peach Capital of N.C. — on the third weekend of July. Get the sweet (and savory) details at ncpeachfestival.com.=

2025 Almanac Department

Bookshelf

BOOKSHELF

July Books

Fiction

Necessary Fiction, by Eloghosa Osunde

Across Lagos, Nigeria, one of Africa’s largest urban areas and one of the world’s most dynamic cities, Osunde’s characters seek out love for self and their chosen partners, even as they risk ruining relationships with parents, spouses, family and friends. As the novel unfolds, a rolling cast emerges — vibrantly active, stubbornly alive, brazenly flawed. They grapple with desire, fear, time, death and God, forming and breaking unexpected connections, in the process unveiling how they know each other, have loved each other, and had their hearts broken in that pursuit. As they work to establish themselves in the city’s lively worlds of art, music, entertainment and creative commerce, we meet their collective and individual attempts to reckon with the necessary fiction they carry for survival.

The President’s Hat, by Antoine Laurain

Dining alone in an elegant Parisian brasserie, accountant Daniel Mercier can hardly believe his eyes when French President François Mitterrand sits down to eat at the table next to him. Once the presidential party has gone, Daniel discovers that Mitterrand’s black felt hat has been left behind. After a few moments of soul-searching, Daniel decides to keep the hat as a souvenir of an extraordinary evening. It’s a perfect fit, and as he leaves the restaurant Daniel begins to feel somehow . . . different. Has he unwittingly discovered the secret of supreme power? Over the course of the next two years the iconic item of headgear brings success to the men and women who wear it. As it makes its way from head to head, the wearers find themselves acting with more confidence, decisiveness, authority and panache. Written with a delicious, wicked sense of humor, this delightfully quirky novel is a vivid re-creation of 1980s Paris, and an enchanting exploration of life’s possibilities.

Beneath the Moon and Long Dead Stars, by Daniel Wallace

In this dazzling collection of short fiction lives are altered in what appear to be minor moments: an unlatched lock, an old photo, a light left on too long. With Wallace’s masterful touch, those details transform into something mysterious and magical. His characters, hungry for connection, often find that everything hangs on a gust of wind or a single word.

Nonfiction

Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution,
by Molly Beer

Few women of the American Revolution have come through 250 years of U.S. history with such clarity and color as Angelica Schuyler Church. She was Alexander Hamilton’s “saucy” sister-in-law, and the heart of Thomas Jefferson’s “charming coterie” of artists and salonnières in Paris. Her trans-Atlantic network of important friends spanned the political spectrum of her time and place, and her astute eye and brilliant letters kept them well informed. Angelica was at the red-hot center of American history at its birth: in Boston, when Gen. Burgoyne surrendered to the revolutionaries; in Newport, receiving French troops under the command of her soon-to-be dear friend the Marquis de Lafayette; in Yorktown, just after the decisive battle; in Paris and London, helping to determine the standing of the new nation on the world stage. She was born as Engeltje, a Dutch-speaking, slave-owning Colonial girl who witnessed the Stamp Act riots in the Royal British Province of New York. She came of age under English rule as Angelica, raised to be a domestic diplomat responsible for hosting indigenous chiefs and enemy British generals at dinner. She was Madame Church, wife of a privateer turned merchant banker, whose London house was a refuge for veterans of the American war fleeing the guillotine in France.

Children's Books

Inside Your Brain: Ten Discoveries that Reveal How the Brain Works, by Lucy Ann Unwin, Caswell Barry, María Jesús Contreras

The human brain is famously complex and difficult to understand. Inside Your Brain takes young readers on an irreverent gallop through history to uncover 10 groundbreaking discoveries that have led to our current understanding of how the brain works. The ancient Egyptians discovered in battle that the brain was more important than they’d thought; Luigi Galvani sent electric shocks through the legs of dead frogs and uncovered how brain cells work; Phineas Gage’s unfortunate accident on the railroads revealed that you can survive a metal rod through the head; and some unwitting kittens helped us understand how our brain develops. This entertaining and engaging deep dive into the most mind-boggling area of science is sure to fascinate and delight young readers. (Ages 8 – 12.)

Toes, Teeth, and Tentacles: A Curious Counting Book, by Steve Jenkins, Robin Page

From the two-tongued loris to a scallop’s 200 eyes, readers will find joy in numbers with this latest book by the Caldecott Honor-winning team of Jenkins and Page. Toes, Teeth, and Tentacles celebrates and highlights the numerous unusual and strangely fascinating features and appendages of all kinds of animals, from horns to toes and stomachs to hearts. While not a counting book in the traditional sense, readers will enjoy learning all kinds of fun facts from the animal world as they look for fingers and fins! (Ages 4 – 8.)

Not a Spot to Spot: The True Story of Kipekee, the Giraffe Born without Spots, by Elizabeth Weiss Verdick

It’s summertime at the Brights Zoo, and something very special is due . . . a new baby giraffe. And this giraffe is extra extraordinary. She is all one shade — not a spot to spot! Mama loves her baby unconditionally and knows she is perfectly herself, but will everyone else see it, too? Based on the true story of Kipekee, a rare, reticulated giraffe born without spots who captured the world’s heart, this adorable and uplifting picture book celebrates the joys of being unique. (Ages 4 – 8.)

2025 Bookshelf Department

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

Cancer

(June 21 - July 22)

It’s your party and you’ll cry if you want to. We know, we know. We’ve all heard the song. That said, with Venus in Taurus until July 22, get ready for more emotional stability than you know what to do with. On the other hand, with Mercury going retrograde on July 17, a hiccup in communication could lead to a bit of a misadventure. The good news: Your intuition will guide you from here. The better news: There’s no going back.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Replace the filter.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Dare you to dance in the rain.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Butter the toast.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Stop and smell the sweet pea.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Hint: Take five.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

The “Hot Light” is on.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Start labeling the leftovers.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Bring a book along.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Three words: Lose the ’tude.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Put your phone down.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Let your actions speak for themselves.

2025 Department Tea Leaf Astrologer

The Road to the House in the Horseshoe

THE ROAD TO THE HOUSE IN THE HORSESHOE

The Road to the House in the Horseshoe

A Revolutionary tale of murder, survival and derring-do through the Sandhills

By Bill Case | Photograph by John Gessner

The skirmish at Col. Philip Alston’s home had raged for over three hours without any definitive result. But when an oxcart was discovered in Alston’s barnyard, an end to the stalemate appeared to be at hand. The leader of the attacking Loyalist Militia, 26-year-old Col. David Fanning, ordered his men to bed the cart with hay, set it afire, and wheel it ablaze into the two-story frame house. Col. Alston, inside with wife, Temperance, their six children, and around twenty Patriots under his command, recognized this dilemma had no ready solution. If he and his militia members ventured outside, they would be sitting ducks for Fanning’s sharpshooters. Staying inside a burning tinderbox meant certain death for all.

Fanning and Alston had taken turns chasing each other through the Sandhills during the month of July, 1781. Now Fanning was the pursuer and Alston was his prey. The news that Alston’s forces had killed non-fighting Loyalist supporter Kenneth Black had sent the irascible Fanning over the edge, and revenge was foremost on his mind. When Fanning found out the Patriot leader and a number of his men had retreated to Alston’s “House in the Horseshoe” (so named because of its location within a bend of the Deep River) 10 miles north of Carthage, he resolved “to make [an] [e]xample of them for [what] . . . they had done to one of my pilots by name Kenneth Black.”

Alston, Fanning and Black: The convergence of this trio in July 1781 yielded compelling though oft-overlooked Revolutionary War history. Local history buff Paula Caddell finds the contrasts in the backgrounds of the three protagonists fascinating. “Philip Alston was born with a silver spoon in his mouth as the privileged son of a plantation owner. David Fanning was something of an abused child indentured to a man who forced David to live mostly outdoors in the woods attending cattle. This neglect caused an unsightly condition known as ‘scald head,’ which permanently took all the hair off Fanning’s head. Kenneth Black, a Scottish Highlander, emigrated here from Jura, an isle in the Hebrides, seeking a better life.”

Black was among thousands of Highlanders impacted by the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite Army at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. To punish the rebels, the crown disbanded the centuries-old Scottish clan system. Many were driven off their land. Those remaining were forced to pay exorbitant rents. Facing starvation, a large proportion of Highlanders sought a fresh start in America. And the king, desirous of encouraging settlement in the colonies, was willing to pardon past offenses and permit the Highlanders to leave provided they pledged an oath of allegiance vowing never to take up arms against the sovereign. Those signing acknowledged that breach of the oath would cause them to be “cursed in all . . . [their] undertakings and family.” Abiding by the oath was considered a religious necessity. In his 1854 treatise, “The Old North State in 1776,” Rev. Eli Caruthers remarked that most Scots’ mindset was that “they must not violate their oath, for that would be giving themselves to the devil at once.”

The trickle of Scots immigrating to this region was accelerating rapidly when Kenneth Black arrived sometime around 1765. He and wife Catherine settled on a 100-acre allotment near the Little River just south of Carthage. Sometime after 1772, he acquired a 50-acre plot near present-day Southern Pines and constructed a home where the Residence Inn is now located. Residing nearby were several brothers with the surname of Black who likewise migrated from Jura. There is disagreement among historians regarding the relationship of the brothers to Kenneth, but they were certainly kin in some way and good friends. Other Scottish- born families like McNeill, Buchan, Paterson, Buie, Blue and Stewart soon arrived in the area. Descendants of these families still populate Moore County today.

The most celebrated arrival was undoubtedly Flora MacDonald. She achieved everlasting fame after the Culloden debacle, when she aided Bonnie Prince Charlie’s escape to the Island of Skye by disguising him as an Irish spinning maid. She paid for her assistance to the Jacobite cause with imprisonment in the Tower of London for several months. In 1750, she married Allan MacDonald, ironically a captain in the British Army. They lived on Skye until emigrating to North Carolina in 1774.

The Highland Scots destined for North Carolina assumed they were leaving behind a civil war that had rendered their lives unbearably difficult. It must have been alarming to arrive here to find rebellion in their midst once again. They wanted no part of it. Aside from their irrevocable oaths to King George III, other practicalities mitigated against supporting the cause of independence. England had easily crushed the Jacobites at Culloden. What would prevent the greatest military power on Earth from quelling an American rebellion? There was commerce to consider too. Many of the Scots, like Kenneth Black, had become successful farmers. The longleaf pines on their estates produced naval stores of pitch and turpentine marketed to the mother country. And there was cotton. War would interrupt that trade. Why rock the boat?

Once the “Shot Heard Round the World” was fired in Lexington on April 19, 1775, war was suddenly at hand. One month later, patriots (also known then as Whigs) in the Charlotte area adopted the Mecklenburg Declaration, which is said to be the first formal action by any group of Americans to declare independence from Great Britain. When word reached Royal Gov. Josiah Martin that the Whigs’ Safety Committee in New Bern was poised to seize him, he fled the Royal Palace and took refuge in a British ship offshore. With astonishing alacrity, the Whigs orchestrated a takeover of the reins of government.

In August 1775, a convocation of Whigs was held at the “Hillsborough Provincial Congress.” This assembly took up the question of raising troops to defend the colony against an anticipated British invasion. Two regiments were authorized (known as the “Continental Line”) , but lack of funding meant that the majority of Patriot fighters during the war were militia members.

While those favoring independence in North Carolina were in the majority, the Highland Scots provided a formidable counterweight favoring allegiance to the king. They were joined by remnants of the Regulators movement. The Regulators were western North Carolina settlers who had rebelled against the fraudulent imposition of fees and taxes by conniving public officials. This brouhaha had led to the Battle of Alamance in 1771 — a devastating defeat for the Regulators. The movement collapsed, and its surviving members were forced to swear their own oaths of allegiance to the king.

In the early stages of the Revolution, the Whigs sought to lure the Highland Scots and Regulators (collectively referred to as “Tories”) to the revolutionary cause with various inducements. But when those offers were rejected, the Whigs resorted to coercion in the form of arrests, banishments, estate confiscations and tax penalties. Seeking to restore royal rule, the embattled Gov. Martin made his own overtures to recruit the Highlanders to join the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment (“the Highland Regiment”), promising 200-acre grants to all who enlisted. Martin, not above threatening reprisals against recalcitrant Scots, proclaimed those refusing service risked having “their lives and properties to be forfeited.”

Martin’s recruitment efforts met with some success. On February 2, 1776, 1500 Highlanders and a smaller number of Regulators gathered at Cross Creek near Fayetteville to join the Highland Regiment led by Gen. Donald MacDonald. Flora MacDonald’s husband, Allan, served as an officer in the Regiment. Flora herself is said to have made a fiery oration urging valor in upcoming battles to her fellow Highlanders. The plan was to march the Highland Regiment to Wilmington to link up with British forces led by Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis, who was scheduled to be arriving shortly by sea. But Patriots led by Col. James Moore and Richard Caswell rushed to block the Regiment at Moore’s Creek, eighteen miles north of Wilmington. Realizing that the Regiment would be crossing Moore’s Creek Bridge, Moore and Caswell removed most of the bridge’s planking, greased its support rails with tallow, and awaited the Regiment’s appearance. When the Highlanders arrived and attempted a charge across the bridge, they were welcomed with deadly cannon and rifle fire.

It was a rout. Fifty Scots perished on the bridge, and the majority of the Regiment was captured and imprisoned. Allan MacDonald was among them. Those that escaped hastened back to their farms and laid low. When Cornwallis finally arrived in Wilmington in May 1776, there were no Highlanders to greet him, only a chagrined Gov. Martin, whose foolproof plan to take back North Carolina had backfired. With no fighting Tories around to augment his own army, Cornwallis chose to sail for Charleston with the intent of attacking the Patriot stronghold of Fort Moultrie. With the Tories in disarray, armed resistance to the Patriots in North Carolina melted away. In short order, the Whigs cemented their hold on government by adopting a new constitution, electing Richard Caswell as governor of the new state, and levying property taxes.

While there was a hiatus on military engagements in the state, the Highlanders’ troubles continued. Flora MacDonald’s home at Cheek’s Creek was ransacked and seized. Poor Flora! Once again, she had cast her lot with the losing side. Now age 54, homeless, separated from her husband, and a pariah, she appealed to Kenneth Black for help. He allowed Flora to hide at his Little River property, where she remained until reuniting with Allan after his release in a prisoner exchange. In 1779, the couple left America and returned to Skye.

Kenneth Black himself ran afoul of the four-fold tax that the authorities imposed on those who refused to take an oath to the new state. This led to an altercation reported by Caruthers in his treatise. In the fall of 1778, an unintimidated Black rebuffed the efforts of two tax collectors for the county who came to his home.

Subsequently the taxmen brought in reinforcements, who promptly seized “a negro man, a stud horse, and a good deal of other property, amounting in all to seven or eight hundred dollars.” Black offered no resistance. Caruthers offered the view that given the rough treatment afforded Black, “a man in good circumstances, and of much respectability in his neighborhood . . . we may suppose it was worse with men of less property and influence in the community. During this period the Scots complained bitterly of such military officers as [Philip] Alston [and others] . . . for carrying away their bacon, grain, and stock of every description, professedly for the American army, but without making compensation, or even giving a certificate, and thus leaving their families in a destitute and suffering condition.”

Labeled by local historian Rassie Wicker as a “swashbuckling, aristocratic rascal,” Philip Alston wore many hats during the Revolutionary years: tax assessor, justice of the peace, and member of the legislature. And he was certainly a man of means. His wife, Temperance Smith, came from a wealthy family. Alston’s land holdings — mostly in the Deep River area, and including the House in the Horseshoe, totaled nearly 7,000 acres, and he owned slaves. But Alston sensed that the best way to further his emerging political career would be to lead his men into battle. Eager to join the revolutionary fray, he sufficiently impressed his Patriot superiors to be named First Major of the Cumberland County Militia. But after heading south, his regiment was mauled in the Battle of Briar Creek, Georgia, a stinging defeat for the Patriots. Alston was taken prisoner, but later escaped. As he made his way back to North Carolina, Cornwallis’ army was finally gaining a solid foothold in the South, having overrun Savannah and Charleston by May 1780. Moreover, British Maj. James Craig successfully occupied Wilmington in January 1781, so Cornwallis now had available a North Carolina sea coast supply base and garrison.

With Patriot prospects in the South on the downslide, Gen. Horatio Gates, the victorious American leader at the Battle of Saratoga, was placed at the helm of the Patriots’ “Southern Department.” But Gates suffered a humiliating defeat after marching his troops, including 1,200 North Carolinians, into the jaws of a surprise attack by Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina.

Gates’s failure at Camden caused George Washington to replace him with Gen. Nathaniel Greene. Intent on demolishing the new leader’s troops, Cornwallis re-entered North Carolina and pursued Greene northward through the Piedmont. In the process of fording a stream, Cornwallis’s troops discovered that Greene had dumped tar in the stream’s bed to hinder the British crossing — one of a couple derivatives for the nickname “the Tar Heel State.” The adversaries met in battle on March 15, 1781, at Guilford Court House near Greensboro. While the engagement was declared a British victory, it was a Pyrrhic one. The heavy casualties on both sides hurt Cornwallis far more than Greene. With his army depleted and running low on supplies, a frustrated Cornwallis abandoned his pursuit of Greene and marched to Wilmington for refitting. He then departed that city with his army for Virginia on April 25.

While Cornwallis’ forays into North Carolina failed to subdue the Patriots, his presence nonetheless reignited Tory resistance. Young David Fanning emerged as a resourceful and ferocious leader of guerrilla-fighting Tories who terrorized the countryside in 1781. Much had happened to Fanning in his 10 years since leaving home at age 16 to escape the cruel treatment he endured as a child. After a period of wandering, he was rescued in Orange County by the O’Deniell family. The O’Deniells restored Fanning to health and cured him of the “tetter worm” disease that had caused the loss of his hair. They taught him to read and write. At age 19, Fanning settled in South Carolina, and traded with the Catawba Indians. When the Revolution came, Fanning favored the Whigs’ cause. However, according to Caruthers, everything changed when, “. . . on his return from one of his trading expeditions, he was met by a little party of lawless fellows who declared themselves Whigs, and robbed him of everything he had . . . [H]e at once changed sides and in the impetuosity and violence of his temper swore vengeance on the whole of the Whig party.” He then joined a Tory group of militants in South Carolina, until returning to North Carolina in tandem with Cornwallis’s army in early 1781.

Though not receiving any formal command from the British, Fanning nonetheless became a feared foe of the Patriots. Caruthers reports, “He was often upon his enemies when they were least expecting it, and having accomplished his purpose of death or devastation, he was gone before their friends could rally. Often when supposed to be at a distance, the storm of his presence in a neighborhood was communicated by the smoke of burning houses, and by the cries of frightened and flying women and children.”

While both Patriot militia and Tory guerrillas committed atrocities during the conflict, one incident really inflamed passions on both sides, and it stemmed from a seemingly inconsequential event. A member of a Patriot militia led by Col. Thomas Wade stole a poor servant girl’s piece of cloth. Her ensuing complaint was communicated to Tories who discovered that Wade was camped nearby at Piney Bottom Creek, where Fort Bragg is today. The Tory band launched a surprise attack on Wade before daybreak, quickly killing six of his men. A young camp-following boy who was a favorite of Wade begged for his life only to have an attacker split the boy’s skull in two with a swipe of the sword.

The massacre sent the Patriot militia into a paroxysm of rage. Retributions against the Tories increased dramatically. One retaliatory raid by Wade and company targeted Kenneth Black. Wade’s men rode horses into Black’s house and gathered 51-year-old Black and his family into the chimney. Wade intended burning the house, but decided to search it first. After finding two chests belonging to British army officers who had left the chests with Black, the militiamen broke them open and dumped the contents on the floor. By unhappy coincidence, two daughters of Flora MacDonald arrived to visit the Blacks out of concern for a bout of smallpox the family had endured and weathered. According to Caruthers, the militiamen “took the gold rings from their [the MacDonald daughters] fingers and the silk handkerchiefs from their necks; then putting their swords into their bosom, split down their silk dresses and, taking them into the yard, stripped them of all their outer clothing.”

Wade’s men were preparing to leave with their plunder when Catherine Black exclaimed, “Well, you have a bad companion with you!” When the men apprehended she meant smallpox exposure, they immediately threw down their booty. Wade and his men took old Kenneth along to guide them out of the area. But “probably thinking that there might be danger of getting the smallpox from him, they told him he might return home.” A gunshot fired with bad intentions whizzed by Black’s head as he departed his captors to return to his devastated family. His fellow friends from Jura were not so fortunate. Wade’s men killed Alexander Black and Archibald Black was badly injured. Thus, Kenneth Black, though not himself a fighting man, nevertheless had a score to settle with the Patriots.

Of course, violence begets violence, and David Fanning had no inclination to be gentle with Patriots he encountered. The British commander in Wilmington, pleased with Fanning’s success in engendering panic and dread among the Patriots, appointed him colonel of the Loyalist Militia on July 5, 1781. Proud of his new status, the vainglorious Fanning donned the British army redcoat, and looked for a bold strike that would further impress his superiors. He found it at the Chatham County Courthouse in Pittsboro. Caruthers recounts that on July 16 or 17, Fanning and about 35 men “. . . dashed into Pittsboro when the county court was in session . . . and captured the lawyers, justices and other officers of the court, with such of the citizens and prominent men in the place as he wanted . . . [H]e swore the rebels should never hold court there again.” Fanning then proceeded to transport 14 of the captured to Wilmington, where Maj. Craig had erected a stockade prison.

While en route to Wilmington with his prisoners, Fanning stopped for the night (probably July 20) at Kenneth Black’s farm. Fanning probably was unaware when feasting at Black’s that Philip Alston, newly appointed to colonel in the militia, was trailing him in hot pursuit less than a day behind. After breakfast the following morning, Fanning resumed his journey to Wilmington. Kenneth Black accompanied Fanning’s band for a few miles “as a pilot.” But after the ride began, Fanning’s horse, Red Doe, a celebrated and normally lightning-fast steed, became lame. Fanning and Black swapped their rides. Black said his goodbyes and — astride his friend’s lame horse — turned back toward home.

Unfortunately for Black, his path home ran smack into the pursuing Alston at Ray’s Mill Creek, where Southern Pines Golf Club is now located. According to Caruthers, “As soon as he [Black] saw them he turned up the creek and attempted to escape on Fanning’s foundered horse. They discovered and pursued him, shot and wounded him; but he went on some two hundred yards further, into the edge of the swamp, and then fell with his face on the ground. When they came up they smashed his head with the butt of his gun, and when begging for his life [killed him].”

Alston ultimately abandoned his chase of Fanning and retreated north toward the Deep River. When passing by the Black homestead, Alston called on Catherine Black and “expressed much regret” that his men had killed her husband.

After Fanning dropped off his prisoners in Wilmington, he headed back the way he came. While en route to his headquarters at Coxes Mill, he stopped by the Blacks’ farmstead, where Catherine Black informed him of her husband’s death. Enraged, Fanning headed for the House in the Horseshoe to seek revenge. On the way, he learned Alston’s militia “had separated into small parties thinking I should never return from Wilmington.” Fanning wrote that he and his men “marched all that day and that night following and just as the day [sometime from July 29 to August 5 — accounts differ] [d]awned commenced firing on Alston and his reduced force.”

As musket balls smashed through the windows, Temperance Alston protected her two smallest children “by putting a small table . . . in the fireplace, for them to stand on, and thus they were entirely beyond the reach of the bullets.” Temperance, clutching her 6-month-old daughter, scurried beneath her bed for protection. Alston’s two teenage sons probably were among the defenders returning fire. Caruthers reported that there was “among the assailants, a lieutenant from the British army by the name of McKay . . . and he told Fanning that if he would give him [McKay] the command he would take the house in a few minutes.” Fanning consented, and McKay promptly led a “pell-mell” rush toward the house. But as soon as McKay started his charge by jumping a rail fence, “a rifle ball entered his head and he fell dead on the spot.” Those following McKay retreated back behind the fence. Fanning then “bribed a free negro to set the house on fire at the far side where it was supposed he could do it without being observed.” However, Alston got wise to the scheme and shot the man as he was about to torch the house.

By noon, “one or two had been killed in the house and four or five wounded; but Fanning’s loss in killed and wounded was more than double.” It was then that Fanning conjured up his end-game strategy of propelling the fire-laden oxcart into the house. “In this perilous and critical moment, Mrs. Alston came out of her bedroom . . . and with perfect composure, requested them to commit the business to her.” Temperance volunteered to venture outside with a raised white flag. All the men, and Alston particularly, objected. They thought it “very improbable that Fanning, under all the circumstances, would respect even a lady of her standing.” But Temperance would not be denied, and she courageously walked out on the step. Rather than shoot down the unarmed woman, Fanning “called to her to meet him half-way, which she did.” Then Temperance calmly announced her message: “We will surrender, sir, on condition that no one shall be injured; otherwise we will make the best defense we can; and if need be, sell our lives as dearly as possible.”

Fanning agreed to her proposal, provided that Alston and his men agreed firstly not to venture more than five miles from their homes for the duration of hostilities, and secondly to swear oaths not to take up arms against the king or “cause anything to do or be done prejudicial to the success of His Majesty.” The terms were agreed upon and the lengthy skirmish was over. It appears that Alston and his men abided by their oaths throughout the rest of the war.

Thereafter, Fanning continued his guerrilla raids. His most spectacular maneuver involved capturing Gov. Thomas Burke and 200 other Patriots in Hillsborough on September 12. While en route to Wilmington to incarcerate his prisoners, Fanning was attacked by Patriots at Lindley’s Mill. Numerous dead and wounded resulted on both sides. But Fanning succeeded in delivering Gov. Burke to Maj. Craig for imprisonment.

While Fanning was terrorizing North Carolina as the bloody summer of 1781 came to a close, Gen. Cornwallis found himself check-mated in Yorktown, Virginia. Surrounded by American and French armies, and the French navy preventing his rescue by sea, Cornwallis surrendered to Gen. George Washington on October 19, 1781, and the British began vanishing from the South. Maj. Craig evacuated Wilmington on November 18. For a time, Fanning continued his reign of terror, but he too ultimately fled Wilmington for Charleston — still holding on as a British bastion — in May 1782. But then that city was abandoned by the English on December 14 and Fanning, along with his new 16-year-old bride departed as well. He ultimately settled in New Brunswick — a haven for exiled Loyalists.

The end of the war still left unresolved what the state should do with the Tories and their confiscated property. The Black farm apparently escaped seizure as wife Catherine resided there for many years after Kenneth’s death. In 1783, the state legislature passed a measure pardoning all Tories and permitting some restoration of confiscated properties. There were three named exceptions to the pardon, one of whom was David Fanning.

Both Alston and Fanning led controversial lives after the war. After the southern half of Cumberland County became Moore County in 1784, Alston held various positions in county government. But he made political enemies, and they sought to eliminate him as a foe by causing his indictment for murder arising out of the aforementioned killing of Thomas Taylor when Alston was trailing Fanning in July 1781. Alston ultimately received a pardon for this offense, but other scrapes followed.

George Glascock, Alston’s principal political nemesis, was murdered in 1787. Alston’s slave Dave was accused of the crime. Alston, who was hosting a party at the time of the murder, was charged as an accessory. Records of the disposition of the charges are sketchy, but it appears that Alston was confined for a time, but later escaped to Georgia, where he owned property. In 1791, he was assassinated by an unknown killer.

Fanning faced his own charge of criminal conduct while in New Brunswick. In 1800, he was convicted of the rape of a neighbor’s young daughter. Fanning received the death sentence but managed to avoid this punishment by receiving a pardon through appeal. The pardon was conditioned on Fanning’s exile from the province, so he sailed to Nova Scotia, where he enjoyed success in shipbuilding until his death in 1825.

The Moore County Historical Association (MCHA) was involved in efforts to preserve the graveyard of Kenneth Black and family, located between Hwy. 15-501 and Morganton Road across from the Target shopping center in Southern Pines. For decades, the unmaintained graveyard was forgotten as vandals decimated gravestones and rock walls collapsed.

In the 1960s, Tony Parker, a local history writer and devotee of ancient graveyards, rediscovered the Black family burial ground. Black descendants and brothers Bill and Nolan Moran got local media interested in the site and convinced a local bank to place a new marker over Kenneth’s grave.

Over a decade ago, the Moran family requested that MCHA serve as an agent to oversee the cemetery. MCHA’s volunteers sprang into action to restore the burial ground by unearthing buried stones and rebuilding a fallen wall. Money was raised to pay for ground-penetrating radar to identify the specific locations of all 34 graves in the cemetery to ensure their nondisturbance. Impressed by MCHA’s restoration efforts, Vince Viscomi, the Tennessee physician who owned the property at the time, made known his desire that any development of the property would preserve and protect this historic burial ground.

Had Kenneth Black sided with the Patriots and been killed by the British under similar circumstances, he likely would be remembered as a martyr and hero of the Revolution. John Brown of Roanoke, Virginia, another Black descendant who succeeded the Morans as a family representative for the cemetery, agreed. Though his ancestor was not on the winning side, preserving the story of his role in the Revolution is important.

“The work by MCHA and the Black family descendants to maintain the cemetery shows that people sill care about history. Today, too many people don’t care,” Brown said. In 2020 a development plan by Mid-Atlantic Properties for the 100-acre site that included the cemetery was approved contingent on the cemetery’s preservation. According to MCHA, “GPS recordings of the gravestones and rock walls were recorded and then the objects placed in storage. Approximately 17 feet of soil was then placed over the cemetery as part of the grading process. The stones were then returned to the GPS recorded locations. A sturdy white picket fence was erected around the cemetery, and a pair of brick columns were constructed to mark two entrances of paved walkways to the cemetery.”

MCHA also helped preserve the House in the Horseshoe itself by acquiring it in the 1950s from a private owner and restoring the house to close to its original condition. MCHA subsequently conveyed the property to the state of North Carolina. The state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources welcomes thousands of visitors annually who examine numerous bullet holes still visible from the desperate fight that took place 244 years ago. The site’s low-key operation, coupled with its splendid, isolated setting, do much to help a visitor visualize the time when a courageous woman emerged from the House in the Horseshoe to confront hostile attackers long ago.

2025 Feature The Road to the House in the Horseshoe

Cold and Crisp and Sweet

COLD AND CRISP AND SWEET

Cold and Crisp and Sweet

Fiction by Clyde Edgerton Illustration by David Stanley

This happened a long time ago. I was seven years old.

Aunt Rosa raked off some seeds from the watermelon slice and then sliced the watermelon out of the rind and cut it up, removing some more seeds. This was back when watermelons had black seeds only. The big food companies, nowadays of course, have pretty much deleted any personality from fruits and vegetables.

I’d walked down to Aunt Rosa’s from my house because my grandma was sick in bed and I was told I needed to give her a visit and to do what Aunt Rosa told me to do.

Grandma lived with Aunt Rosa. “If she talks,” said Aunt Rosa, “she might talk a little out of her head. Sit in that green chair where she can see you with that watermelon. Just go on in there.”

I remember very little about the visit, but I do remember thinking that talking out of her head meant talking out of her nose and ears, and that scared me, as I recall.

***

My name is Flossie. I’m walking into the room where Grandma is sick and I have some watermelon in a plate and a fork and napkin. I know some things: I know Grandpa made coffins in his funeral home, and Grandma kept the books that were in a back room at his funeral home. And there was a fireplace in there, and Grandpa had some long black cars that carried dead people in the back. I could go in there until Grandpa died.

I’m in the room now. Grandpa’s first name was I.O. and that is printed on a long board in Aunt Rosa’s garage: “The I.O. Walker Funeral Home” and some other long words. They took it down and put it in there because Grandpa died, and Mr. Gibby took over.

I heard Daddy talking to Mr. Abernathy at the grocery store and they didn’t know I was listening, and Daddy said that Grandpa used to pull gold teeth out of dead people before he got caught. He said Grandpa made them into wedding rings and bracelets, and he made them into these money pieces like pennies and dimes that he said were a thousand years old and he said Grandpa put scratches in the money things and then rubbed in black ashes that had got wet and that made them look real, like they were from some country far away.

And Grandpa and some other people started a Mule Funeral Militia a long time ago, too. They buried mules just like in a funeral because people loved mules more back then. They cut the head off a mule one time and buried that because of some reason. The mule was dead, though. But Grandpa just died not long ago and there was a big funeral for him, and now Grandma is down here sick at Aunt Rosa’s house. Mama told me I had to walk down here for a visit.

I take the watermelon on into the room where she is laying in a big bed, and there is that green chair beside her bed and she is under the covers and her head turns toward me on her pillow when Aunt Rosa says, “Mama, here’s Flossie,” and Grandma stares at me kind of hard. Her face is skinny. It used to be kind of fluffy and puffy. Her eyes have got these red lines under them and her hair is in these patches kind of. She seems real little. She won’t that little before she got sick. Mama told Mrs. Tally that Grandma was “wasted away,” but she hasn’t wasted away. She’s still there — right there in the big bed.

She says, “Hey there, Barbara.”

“This is Flossie,” says Aunt Rosa and now Aunt Rosa leaves and I’m a little bit afraid.

Grandma says, “Hey there, Flossie. I’m sorry, Honey. I get everybody mixed up. You come on and sit in that green chair. You are so pretty. Are you married yet?”

“No ma’am,” I say.

“That’s okay. You’ve still got some time. Can you eat some watermelon for me? I used to grow watermelons.”

“Yes, ma’am.” And I fork me some watermelon and take a bite.

It gets quiet. She is looking at me, smiling a little bit. Mama’d told me to talk to her, so I say, “Where’d you grow them?”

“In my garden,” she says. “Me and I. 0. always had the biggest garden you ever seen, but you stand up straight and you won’t have to go far before you can get married if the right beau comes along. Could you take another big bite?” and I do and she says, “Ain’t it good?” and I say, “Yes ma’am.”

I look through the door into the middle room to see if I can see Aunt Rosa, but she’s not in there.

“Would you go ahead and eat it all?” Grandma says, and she reaches up and puts her hand behind her head so that her head tilts up a little. Her arm has saggy skin. She’s looking right at me. “It’s good, ain’t it?” she says.

“Yes ma’am,” I say.

“You’re the one likes cornbread so much, ain’t you?” she says.

“Yes ma’am.”

I keep eating the watermelon. It’s cold and crispy and sweet. I want to ask her about the gold teeth, but I don’t know if that was a sin, and I think I will not ask her, because I am a little bit afraid, but anyway I go ahead and say, “Did Grandpa pull gold teeth out of people’s mouths?” and she says, “Why, who told you that?” And I say, “Nobody,” and she says, “He’d use a set of needle nose pliers and pull ’em out and find somebody down in Baldwin to make whatever you want out of that gold. A ring, a coin. ’Course they probably ain’t still over to Baldwin — fellow named Swanson. I.O. got that fella to make some mighty fine gold coins that looked like they come right out of Mexico, right out of that city of gold that that explorer looked for. Did you learn about that in school?”

“No ma’am.”

She rubs one of her eyes, then looks at me again. “Go ahead and take another bite,” she says.

I do.

***

I was probably fourteen when we were taking a trip to Florida — me, Mama, Daddy, and my little brothers when Mama told me about that visit with Grandma and the watermelon — and the meaning behind it all, the big story behind it all: Not long after Grandpa died, Grandma got real sick, and she told Dr. Gibson that on account of Grandpa being gone she didn’t want to live anymore, but she didn’t want to take any poison, so what would happen if she just went to bed and didn’t eat anything or drink anything like she’d heard about old Miss Cain doing back a long time ago? And Dr. Gibson told her she would likely live no more than a couple of weeks. So Grandma decided not to drink or eat so that she could die, and she went to bed at Aunt Rosa’s where she was living. She lived two weeks and one day. And then Mama said, “She loved to eat watermelon, so she asked Aunt Rosa to get one of her grandchildren down there in that green chair every day to eat some watermelon in front of her, so she could watch.”

I wish I could remember more about that visit. I only remember going into her bedroom and eating some watermelon in front of her, and it seemed to make her happy.

2025 Cold and Crisp and Sweet Feature