Out of the Blue

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

And do you know what it’s worth?

By Deborah Salomon

Back in the early ’70s, ABBA sang this catchy tune:

Money, money, money

Must be funny

In the rich man’s world

That, as I recall, was when a dollar was “worth a dollar.”

When kids saved pennies in piggy banks.

When a birthday card from Granny might contain “folding money.”

I never recall seeing a $100 bill until I graduated from high school, in 1956, and received one from family friends, whose children I had babysat, free, since ninth grade. My parents wouldn’t allow me to accept payment. Grrrr.

These days a $100 bill won’t fill a grocery cart.

Not that many people pay with cash. Because money has not only been devalued, but the physical specimens have all but disappeared. I don’t have any statistics on payment methods other than anecdotal. Don’t need any. Just observe at the grocery store or Walmart.

Ever try to buy gas with cash? What a hassle.

The psychology behind this is to encourage spending money you don’t have, since doling it out on the spot isn’t required. Then the card company charges usurious interest on unpaid balances.

I have never paid interest on my two credit cards. The debit card is self-regulating. But I miss seeing money, touching it, counting it out. Like Coke, it’s the real thing.

But, also like Coke, the real thing is changing. I visit my grandsons in Canada often. Their money is a whole different ball game. Years ago, one- and two-dollar bills were eliminated in favor of coins, called loonies and toonies after the bird emblazoned thereon. The success: mixed. The coins — bigger and heavier than a quarter — weigh down purses and pockets. The mentality: a coin isn’t worth that much, therefore thrown around, especially for tips. Pennies were also phased out. Canadian folding money (different colors per amount) doesn’t fold as easily, since it’s made of a polymer that feels slippery-weird but lasts longer.

Even that evokes a pang. Remember the silky texture of a worn-out dollar bill, resembling the thin, crinkled skin on an old person’s hand? Likewise, the newness of a freshly minted $20 bill, so crisp it might be counterfeit? Remember counting out pennies, enclosing them in paper sleeves, which the bank exchanged for dollar bills? Now a machine at the supermarket does the counting.

About stimulus funds. Mine will be direct-deposited and used to pay bills, online. I will never see or touch it, which is par for the course, since I use a debit card for everyday expenses and a credit card for bigger stuff.

This absence has affected phrases like “found money.” How can I forget checking the zipper compartment in a purse headed for Goodwill only to find a bank envelope containing ten $10s? I have no idea the circumstances, or how I could misplace such a sum. But I did. One December I found a card in a parking lot with a $50 bill enclosed, probably a Christmas bonus. I felt terrible, called the police, who told me that without a name or anything to identify the owner, nothing could be done. Advertising would only bring a slew of nuisance, perhaps dangerous calls.

“Keep it,” they told me.

Sorry, I got so wound up in the missing money mystery that I forgot to reference what triggered it. A million dollars used to be the ultimate before millionaires became a dime a dozen. Now, every newscast speaks of billions, even trillions. I learned to respect a $100 bill but have no idea how much a billion of anything is. For perspective, Earth-to-sun is 93 million miles; to Mars, 119 million; to Jupiter, 463 million.

Still haven’t watched the TV show titled “Billions.”

The point — if there be one — is that money has not only lost its value, but its presence. Same for records, books, photographs. Yet there’s hope. Think what a Roman coin is worth to collectors. A papyrus scroll from ancient Egypt. Photos taken during the Civil War. Millions have been made from nickel comic books. Even Mantovani long-plays are, once again, spinning on turntables.

I like ABBA better.  PS

Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

Good Natured

Immune Health Basics

Help yourself help yourself

By Karen Frye

All of us are now clearly aware of the importance of maintaining a very healthy immune system. It is the body’s defense against invading germs, viruses, bacteria and other pathogens that we are constantly exposed to every day.

Some people have a healthier immune system than others. It’s hard to say why. Is it simply the hand you were dealt when you came into this world? Maybe so. But even if you were born with a less robust immune system, you can make it stronger and more dependable by having a healthy lifestyle.

A healthy diet is a key element in preventing, and recovering from, any disease. Sugar and refined carbohydrates contribute to obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, arthritis and many other issues. Sugar can deplete nutrients and disrupt hormones, increasing the risk of degenerative diseases. When you crave something sweet, go for some fruit or a bite of dark chocolate. One of my favorites is a small dark chocolate honey mint.

Spring and summer are great times of the year to improve your diet by adding more fresh fruits and vegetables to your meals. Many of us have planted gardens. The farmers markets will be filled with a beautiful bounty of berries, melons and vegetables. The prices can’t be beat, and you’ll find the freshest produce around in them.

The convenience of fast food (and other poor food choices) has made nutritional deficiencies common among our population. Many of the vital nutrients our bodies need aren’t contained in these foods. Instead, we are ingesting chemicals, preservatives and unwanted hormones that can undermine our health.

There is a lot to be said for taking supplements to keep the immune system healthy. Vitamin C has outstanding benefits, and vitamin D is another common nutrient that many people may need to supplement. Try to get out in the sunshine for 10-20 minutes a day to increase vitamin D levels. Choose a time of day like the morning or late afternoon to reduce skin damage. Go for a walk and enjoy nature. The mineral zinc has become a key nutrient because of its ability to reduce the risk of susceptibility to viruses and ease the recovery from them.

Do your research. Eat well. Sleep well. Think positive thoughts. Don’t be afraid; fear weakens your immune system.  PS

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

Bookshelf

June Books

FICTION

Friends and Strangers, by J. Courtney Sullivan

From the best-selling author of Maine and Saints for All Occasions comes this insightful, hilarious and compulsively readable novel about a complicated friendship between two women who are at two very different stages in life. Elisabeth, an accomplished journalist and new mother, is struggling to adjust to life in a small town after nearly 20 years in New York City. Alone in the house with her infant son all day (and awake with him much of the night), she feels uneasy, adrift. Enter Sam, a senior at the local women’s college, whom Elisabeth hires to babysit. Sam is struggling to decide between the path she’s always planned on and a romantic entanglement that threatens her ambition. She’s worried about student loan debt and what the future holds. In short order, they grow close. But when Sam finds an unlikely kindred spirit in Elisabeth’s father-in-law, the true differences between the women’s lives become starkly revealed, and a betrayal has devastating consequences. A masterful exploration of motherhood, power dynamics and privilege in its many forms, Friends and Strangers reveals how a single year can shape the course of a life.

Mother, Daughter, Widow Wife, by Robin Wasserman

Who is Wendy Doe? The woman, found on a Peter Pan Bus to Philadelphia, has no money, no ID, and no memory of who she is, where she was going, or what she might have done. She’s assigned a name and diagnosis by the state: dissociative fugue, a temporary amnesia that could lift at any moment, or never at all. When Dr. Benjamin Strauss invites her to submit herself for experimental observation at his Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research, she feels like she has no other choice. To Dr. Strauss, Wendy is a female body, subject to his investigation and control. To Strauss’ ambitious student, Lizzie Epstein, she’s an object of fascination, a mirror of Lizzie’s own desires, and an invitation to wonder: Once a woman is untethered from all past and present obligations of womanhood, who is she allowed to become? To Alice, the daughter she left behind, Wendy Doe is an absence so present it threatens to tear Alice’s world apart. Through their attempts to untangle the mystery of Wendy’s identity — as well as Wendy’s own struggle to construct a new self — Wasserman has crafted a jaw-dropping, multi-voiced journey of discovery, reckoning and reclamation.

Super Host, by Kate Russo

Bennett Driscoll is a Turner Prize-nominated artist who was once a rising star. Now, at age 55, his wife has left him, he hasn’t sold a painting in two years, and his gallery wants to stop selling his work, claiming they’ll have more value retrospectively . . . when he’s dead. So, left with a large West London home and no income, he’s forced to move into his artist’s studio in the back garden and list his house on the popular vacation rental site, AirBed. A stranger now in his own home, with his daughter, Mia, off at art school, and any new relationships fizzling out at best, Bennett struggles to find purpose in his day-to-day. It all changes when three different guests — lonely American Alicia; tortured artist Emma; and cautiously optimistic divorcée Kirstie — unwittingly unlock the pieces in him that have been lost for too long. Warm, witty and utterly humane, Super Host offers a captivating portrait of middle age, relationships and what it truly means to take a new chance at life.

NONFICTION

Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life, by Brigitte Benkemoun

Merging biography, memoir and cultural history, this compelling book traces Maar’s life through a serendipitous encounter with the artist’s address book. In search of a replacement for his lost Hermès agenda, Brigitte Benkemoun’s husband buys a vintage diary on eBay. When it arrives, she opens it and finds inside private notes dating back to 1951 — 20 pages of phone numbers and addresses for Balthus, Brassaï, André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Paul Éluard, Leonor Fini, Jacqueline Lamba and other artistic luminaries of the European avant-garde. After realizing that the address book belonged to Dora Maar — Picasso’s famous “Weeping Woman” and a brilliant artist in her own right — Benkemoun embarks on a two-year voyage of discovery to learn more about this provocative, passionate and enigmatic woman, and the role that each of these figures played in her life. Longlisted for the prestigious literary award Prix Renaudot, Finding Dora Maar is a fascinating and breathtaking portrait of the artist.

The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir, by Wayétu Moore

When Wayétu Moore turns 5 years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big birthday party at their home in Monrovia, Liberia, but all she can think about is how much she misses her mother, who is working and studying in faraway New York. Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai. Finally, a rebel soldier smuggles them across the border to Sierra Leone, reuniting the family and setting them off on yet another journey, this time to the United States. The Dragons, the Giant, the Women is a deeply moving story of the search for home in the midst of upheaval. Moore shines a light on the great political and personal forces that continue to affect many migrants around the world, and calls us all to acknowledge the tenacious power of love and family.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Ocean! Waves for All, by Stacy McAnulty

Home to the world’s biggest animal, longest mountain range, and largest living structure, the ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface, holds a wealth of riches, and is the ultimate melting pot because the waves are for all, man! In this latest fun fact-filled STEM title (as told by Ocean — his salty self), engineer-turned author McAnulty once again brings science to life for the youngest readers. (Ages 4-7.)

Grow Kind, by Jon Lasser

Everyone wants their child to grow up to be kind, but how do you grow a kind child? In this sweet story of sisterhood, friendship and neighborly love, Keiko shares the bounty of the garden she has lovingly tended and finds extra special joy in the delight of others. Grow Kind is the third book in a series that also includes Grow Happy and Grow Grateful. (Ages 3-7.)

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by Suzanne Collins

Hunger Games fans have been anxiously awaiting this new title, a prequel focusing on the early life of Hunger Games villain Coriolanus Snow, the tyrannical president of Panem. It’s set on the morning of the reaping that will begin the 10th annual Hunger Games, 64 years before the events in the first three books. This is likely to be the hottest book of the summer season. (Ages 14 and up.)

Nowhere on Earth, by Nick Lake

Emily is struggling to find a break. Struggling in school and struggling with her parents. She wants to leave her Alaskan village, but when suspicious men start following her brother, Emily has to make sure he is OK. Things quickly take a turn for the worse and she is stuck on a mountain with her brother, finding that all she wants is to go home. A suspenseful and thrilling read for teens. Recommended by teen review by Sarah McIntosh. (Ages 14 and up.)  PS

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally.

In the Spirit

Home Alone

Lost in quarantine

By Tony Cross

Welcome back for another installment of Solitary Confinement. I’ll be your host.

As I type, I’m still locked down, but it seems some restrictions will be lifted soon with three or four phases gradually reopening different types of businesses. If all goes exactly as planned, restaurants should be allowed to let guests come in and dine sometime early this month. That’s a big “if.” Since, realistically, we could still be fending for ourselves well into mid-June, I’m going to recommend a few more drinks that you can make at home with your spouse, or by yourself.

Please remember that our ABC stores are open, and they carry many local distilleries’ spirits. Although I’m only naming two for the recipes below, also look for the following: Durham Distillery, Instill Distillery, Fair Game Beverage Company, Fainting Goat Spirits, Doc Porter’s Distillery, Crude Bitters (available in Nature’s Own and Triangle Wine), Muddy River Distillery, and many more. They thank you. I thank you.

Negroni

I’ve probably mentioned before about my first interaction with Campari. It didn’t go well. “That’s freaking gross,” I’m sure I said. Well, what the hell did I know? I was still smoking a pack a day, I flipped my hair (which I still had) up in the front like Tin-Tin, and fast food was dinner five or six nights a week. When I got my act together and started taking better care of my body (the hair was a lost cause), a few things happened: I felt better, and my palate expanded like you wouldn’t believe. I fell in love with certain vegetables that I never enjoyed before and started to fall in love with all things bitter. Bitter foods, bitter beer, bitter women, and yes, bitter spirits, especially amari.

Author Brad Thomas Parsons says in his book Amaro that “the ingredients of Campari, one of the world’s most famous amari, remain a closely guarded secret, with the only two known ingredients being alcohol and water. Beyond that, the recipe is based on an ‘infusion of herbs, aromatic plants, and fruit in alcohol and water.’”

I think you either love Campari or you don’t. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that’s in the middle. My favorite cocktail to make with Campari is the Negroni. In my opinion, it’s one of the best cocktails to have before dinner. It really wakes up the palate. This is an extremely easy cocktail to make. You’ll need three ingredients: gin, Campari and sweet vermouth. Four, if you count ice. For the gin, I stand by Sutler’s Spirit Co. out of Winston-Salem. I’ve written about Sutler’s a bunch, so take my word for it, it’s a lovely gin that’s not juniper-forward. For the sweet vermouth, I recommend Carpano Antica from Italy (also available at Nature’s Own). Traditionally, the recipe calls for equal parts of all three ingredients, but I like to up the gin a touch, so here we go:

Take 1 1/4 ounces of gin, and put it into your rocks glass (yes, we’ll be building this cocktail). Add 3/4 ounce of Campari, and 3/4 ounce of the sweet vermouth. Add ice, and stir until the cocktail is nice, cold, and properly diluted. All that’s left is the garnish. You can take an orange wedge and drop her in, or you can take the peel of an orange and express its oils over the cocktail and discard the peel into the drink. Either way, it’s one helluva way to start the evening. Or afternoon. Or morning (you know who you are, quarantine champs).

Westside

This is one of the first cocktails I learned how to make when I was trying to make heads or tails of the cocktail business. Also extremely easy to make, it just has a few more ingredients. This drink is a spin on the classic Westside, subbing vodka for gin. The Westside was created at the bar Employees Only, in New York City. My first crush was with these folks — their whole ideology of creating drinks, setting the mood, etc. Anyway, before I start getting too awkward, here’s the drink:

The original recipe calls for a Meyer lemon-infused vodka, but this will definitely work with TOPO vodka (out of Chapel Hill). You’ll also need cold sparkling water (Mountain Valley or die), mint, a lemon, rich simple syrup, ice, and a cocktail coupe (or martini glass). Before you start making this drink, place your coupe glass in your freezer, so it’s nice and cold by the time you’re ready to pour. Take 4-5 mint leaves, and break them in half, putting them into a cocktail shaker. Next, add 1/2 ounce of rich simple syrup (two parts sugar, one part water). You’ll take 3/4 ounce of fresh squeezed lemon juice, and finish with 1 1/2 to 2 ounces of vodka. Add ice to your shaker, seal it up, and shake hard for about 10 seconds. Take your coupe glass out of the freezer and place it on the table. Before you strain this cocktail into the glass (or double strain if you want to keep as much mint from entering the glass as possible), you want to add a splash of the sparkling water to your shaker. Bubbles! OK, now strain. You can garnish this drink with a very thin slice of lemon, or nothing at all. These go down pretty quick, so imbibe responsibly. Just kidding, you’re grown up; you’re in own house; the world is set on “virtual.” What have you got to do? Go to town.  PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

The Kitchen Garden

Return of the Victory Garden

Idle time can lead to busy hands

By Jan Leitschuh

Got time on your hands? Matt and Betty Kuhn did.

They tired of a patch of overgrown blackberries at their Whispering Pines home. They were planning to “do something with it” — someday.

“Then, COVID came along,” recalls Matt. “Betty and I were cocooning at home, and the garden project just popped right up.”

Out came the blackberry tangle. In went, not shrubbery, but garden produce — six varieties of tomatoes, green beans, okra, several kinds of peppers, onions, herbs and garlic.

“Our little COVID-19 Victory Garden,” he says.

In these slower, socially-distanced times, many of us find ourselves sticking closer to home. And suddenly, little produce gardens are popping up where before there were none.

It makes sense for spring 2020. In a flash, we had extra time on our hands. We boned up on simple ways to strengthen our immune systems, from vitamin D to eating a healthy, whole-food diet. The siren call of spring drew us into the sun. We found a renewed enjoyment in going outside, even if it was the backyard. We eyed a sunny spot and began to muse about ripe tomatoes and crisp cukes, pungent basil, watermelon, beets and beans.

At the same time, we were seeing headlines highlighting incredible waste — dumped dairy, produce rotting in the fields, meat-packing plants shutting down, supply chains upended due to the global coronavirus pandemic. Going to a grocery store became an undertaking requiring masks and disinfectants.

We found ourselves ordering seeds and produce plants. Not to replace the grocery store. A little plot of land in the backyard, that’s something we could control in unsettled times. A distraction that could land on a plate.

These and other factors are at play this year, creating what some news reports are calling “the return of the Victory Garden.” National online retailers are reporting seed sellouts and up to a 300 percent increase in sales, with local sellers mirroring that demand.

Food. It’s not just for farmers anymore.

Making light of that which unsettles, one social media meme goes: “We are thinking of planting a garden in case of food shortages. Anybody have any Snickers or Cheetos seeds?”

Despite stores nationally keeping plenty of food on the shelves, runs on certain items may have spooked a few consumers. “I think there are a few people who worry about there being enough in the grocery store — in case the trucks can’t get through or the farmers can’t make do,” says manager Dawn Bowden of Sandhills Feed Supply of Southern Pines. “So they are trying to do a little of their own.”

Backyard produce is nothing new. During World War I, when a severe food crisis emerged in Europe, American citizens were asked to help by growing and preserving some of their own produce. The National War Garden Commission was organized to encourage Americans to contribute to the war effort by planting, fertilizing, harvesting and storing their own fruits and vegetables — that way, more food could be exported to our hungry allies.

No longer confined to rural fields, a kitchen garden habit took root in towns across America.

Victory gardens resurfaced again in World War II. With commercial crops sent to the military overseas, and the 1942 introduction of food rationing, Americans were once more urged to grow their own fruits and vegetables. My parents never lost the habit of those war years, and passed their love and knowledge of kitchen gardening along to me. Naturally, I applaud the recent enthusiasm to stick a tomato or three in the ground.

While there is no government campaign for Americans to utilize idle land to grow produce for themselves, an increased interest in food gardening has emerged again, just as it did in the tough economic times between 2008 and 2009.

Locally, the kitchen garden trend is booming.

“Our veggie plant sales have increased dramatically, and seeds have sold more than ever this year,” says Megan Gulley of Gulley’s Garden Center in Southern Pines. Popular sales include “lots of tomatoes, of course, but also peppers,” she says. “Cucumbers are flying out. Cantaloupe and watermelon are popular, especially for the kids.”

Plant and seed sales at Aberdeen Supply Garden Center have also been “through the roof,” says manager Brian Smith. “We cannot keep everything that everybody wants in stock,” he says. “We’re just selling our stuff so fast.”

The garden story is the same everywhere. “Sales have, I’d say, doubled,” says Bowden. “We’re already at what we’d sell for the year, and its only April.”

The local response doesn’t seem to be some homesteading survivalist urge so much as simply “time on their hands at home,” says Gulley — and pursuing that craving for the taste of fresh produce. Sure, people may have been a little spooked by empty supermarket shelves early on, but taste and time seem to be leading this resurgence.

“We’ve been thinking about this for some time,” says gardener Kuhn, “but never got around to it. You can’t beat the taste of a vine-ripened, homegrown tomato, period. “

That gift of time led to their garden. “We were comfortably and happily ensconced here,” says Kuhn. “COVID came along and gave us the added incentive and time to do it.”

And, with lots of family togetherness, parents and grandparents are looking for projects to share. “We are seeing people bringing their kids in,” says Gulley. “Parents who want to show kids how to grow their own food.”

Bowden agrees: “We’ve seen a lot of grandparents who are keeping grandchildren, so they are buying seeds to show the kids this is where food comes from, so they learn it doesn’t just show up in the grocery store magically.

Most noticeable is the uptick in newbies.

“We are seeing a lot of first-time vegetable growers,” says Gulley. “People approach us and say, ‘I have no idea how to grow a tomato.’ And they are doing it right, too, using good soil and mushroom compost, and starting small, maybe a 4 x 12 area, so as not to get overwhelmed.”

Aberdeen Supply’s Smith agrees: “We’ve had a number of people who say it’s their first time planting a garden.”

Bowden, of Sandhills Feed Supply, says that “with people who have never planted in their life, we try to guide them through it. We have a lot of people just trying out a tomato or a cucumber. And they are planting flowers too, because they want something cheerful to go along with it.”

Smith likes the raised bed kits because they are simple and manageable. “I think it’s the easiest to start with,” he says. “It’s neat, and contained.”

While he’s not a first-timer, Gabe Nickle of Southern Pines hasn’t grown produce in a long while. He chose to set up a raised bed in the backyard. “I haven’t had a vegetable garden for years. Since I had time around the house, I set one up.”

In his 6 x 8-foot raised bed, he first limed the acidic ground beneath, then filled the frame with mushroom compost. In went four tomatoes, two zucchinis, a cucumber, a jalapeño, eggplant and some beans: “I’m looking forward to a Mr. Stripey tomato in a few months,” he says.

For those without a garden, a few large 5-gallon pots, carefully watered and fertilized, could house tomatoes. Cucumbers or even cantaloupe could trail around deck railings. A sunny window box could hold a pungent and antioxidant-rich mix of herbs such as thyme, basil, sage and oregano, or even host a crop of green beans.

Come fall, crops can be switched to collards, onions, arugula, carrots, chard, bok choy, cabbage and lettuces, and to planting garlic, spinach and strawberries like Chandler and Sweet Charlie for harvest the following spring.

But for now, the simple pleasures of working in the summer garden may be enough. “It’s a fun pastime for me,” says Nickle.

Kuhn is thinking of issuing a tomato challenge to his friends and family. “We expect our Virus Victory garden to bring us much joy through summer,” he says.  PS

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

Almanac

June is the ink that flows from the poet’s pen — sweet as gardenia and ephemeral as a dream; the fountain of everlasting passion.

If ever you have read the love letters from John Keats to Fanny Brawne, the girl next door who was to Keats “so fair a form” he yearned for finer language, then you can understand.

“I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair,” Keats wrote his dearest girl one long-ago summer morning. And then, the famous line:

“I almost wish we were butterflies and lived but three summer days — three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”

Imagine landing love-drunk in the thick of glorious June:

The ecstasy of a world bursting forth with fragrant blossoms.

The sweet nectar of each inhalation.

The utter intoxication of existence.

June is a medley of aliveness — brighter than bright, fairer than fair, and butterflies in all directions.

Be still in the June garden, where love letters between hummingbird and trumpet creeper flow like honey, and you will learn the language of the heart. 

June is the poet and the muse. Keats and Fanny.
Butterfly and bloom. 

Suppose you lived but three June days as rose, coneflower, poppy or phlox.

What you might receive as the giver of such resplendence . . . the true delight of life.

Pick (and Fry) You Some

Something about edible flowers feels both deliciously wild and, well, just plain fancy. And since that bumper crop of zucchini comes with a holy explosion of yellow flowers, it seems fried squash blossoms are what’s for dinner — or at least the first course.

If you’re a squash blossom newbie, here’s one thing to keep in mind: There are he-blossoms and she-blossoms. The male blossoms, which grow on long stalks, don’t produce fruit; they pollinate. Female blossoms grow closer to the center of the plant; you’ll spot them by their bulbous stems (they’re sitting on fruit). Leave them to grow. Pick the male blossoms but leave enough so that the harvest may continue.

Another tip with the blossoms: Pick ’em the day you want to fry ’em. Check the petals for bugs and bees before removing the stamen or — if you picked a she-blossom — pistils. Wash, dry, and sauté or fry. Or if you want to take your summer dish to the next level, Google stuffed squash blossom recipes and see what happens next.

The Victory Garden

Among the positive effects of stay-at-home orders, at least in this neck of the woods, is that more people are growing their own food. Raised beds built from scrap wood and old pallets in late March are now turning out sweet peppers and pea pods, zucchini and summer squash, green beans, cukes, melons, eggplant, you-name-it.

Haven’t started your own kitchen garden? It’s not too late. This month, sow bush, pole and lima beans; plant cukes, corn, okra, eggplant, peppers, basil and — your sandwiches and neighbors will thank you — tomatoes. Start Brussels sprouts and collards for mid-July transplant, and don’t forget flowers to call in the pollinators. 

When your bumper crops arrive — you’ll know when you can’t pick ’em fast enough — find ways to share and save the summer harvest.

Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly. — Pablo Neruda

Blueberries

Blueberry juice is not blue — it’s purple. I recall making this casual discovery on a summer day in my youth when, not sure why, I smooshed a plump one into the page of one of my journals. But that isn’t the only magical quality contained within this wonder berry. They are slam-packed with antioxidant health benefits, for starters. One handful contains 10 percent of your daily-recommended vitamin C, and did you know that a single bush can produce up to 6,000 blueberries a year? That’s 153 heaping handfuls.

Among the many health benefits associated with eating blueberries (lower blood pressure, reduced risk of cancer, increased insulin response, reversal in age-related memory loss), they’re also known to brighten your skin. I’m not surprised that Native American indigenous peoples called these scrumptious berries “star fruits.”

Father’s Day lands on Sunday, June 21 — the day after official summer. Consider planting a bush in Pop’s honor. Container; moist soil; full sun. Two or more bushes are better than one.  PS

The Accidental Astrologer

The Accidental Astrologer

Ground Control to Major Tom: Control Yourselves! June’s stars encourage restraint

Gemini (May 21–June 20)

Sugar, you really oughta seal those lips. You cannot stop yourself, and impulse control is the thing you need most. Try a glue stick instead of ChapStick. Itching to take a frying pan to your lover’s noggin? Pop some bubble wrap instead.

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

Aunt Tipsy and Uncle Toasted have not exactly modeled good behavior for you. Bonkers, Baby. So now that you’re all grown up, you are finding your own way. You are wiser and stronger than you know. 

Leo (July 23–August 22)

Just ’cause you’re a jungle cat, don’t mean you need to act like a house cat in the litter box. Right about now, you have dropped something stinky right in the midst of a situation that needs some air. Restrain from adding one more thing to a volatile mix, Pretty Kitty. 

Virgo (August 23–September 22)

What was it, Honey? A sugar rush to the brain? Did you two have a magical connection over Cinnabons? Sugar and cinnamon are sheer bliss together, but not much more than a passing fancy that will melt away.

Libra (September 23–October 22)

It ain’t all that deep, Sweet Pea. Truly, all who wander are not lost. Some are just looking for the restroom. It is not a month for you to play traffic cop and be a master of the universe. It’s a month for you to just master yourself.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21)

Sugar, don’t be so judgy. Grandpa Hornblower used to say that even the good Lord had a great fish story. Someone close tells a lot of tall tales, but let it slide. They just want you to believe they’re worthy.

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)

Cornbread ain’t square unless it’s store-bought, and best made in a seasoned cast-iron skillet. You’re as country as hominy grits but nobody knows because you polished all the rough corners and are seasoned just right.

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

Let’s pretend you go to McDonald’s for the carrot sticks. That you like dressing up for church. And that you love being a grown-up. Stop pretending. Time to kick a can, twirl a hula hoop, be a kid, and get down and dirty.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

Slim chance, fat chance, pick the difference, Sugar. It don’t matter. Do the thing that is true, and stop the BS.  If the virus taught us anything, it taught us that time is too precious to deceive ourselves. Risk something.

Pisces (February 19–March 20)

You’ve made yourself humorless with rule-keeping. Lighten up! A balanced diet is chocolate in both hands. Honey, cut yourself some slack because the one who needs to control themselves ain’t affected when you don’t.

Aries (March 21–April 19)

If you could make everyone happy in life, you’d be a wine box. But what you are is not exactly an endless fountain of joy juice. Baby Doll, sometimes you get so intractable that you lose yourself in the argument.

Taurus (April 20–May 20)

That thing that someone did really scrambled your eggs, didn’t it?  They messed in your business and you don’t know if you can forget it. Sugar Booger, let it go. You have a much bigger surprise coming.  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.

Golftown Journal

Trolley Line

The push and pull of golf

By Lee Pace

They are known as push carts, pull carts, caddie carts and trolleys. They are revered in some locales (e.g., the United Kingdom) and sniffed upon at others (many high-brow American clubs). They began as simple devices made of lawn mower tires mounted on a steel chassis and have evolved into high-tech gadgets powered by batteries and in some models with hands-free remote control.

But these gizmos that allow a golfer to walk the course but not have to carry his bag or employ a caddie are a key part of the walking landscape.

“At many clubs, players choose the carts because they are annoyed by the kid who smirks when a shot is missed,” noted a 1941 issue of Golfdom magazine.

“Caddies are scarce. Caddies are small. Caddies are arrogant,” noted another article.

Advertisements in Golfdom prove that these carts were available in the late-1930s and into the World War II years, when labor for caddies was restricted. One of the early models was dubbed the Kaddie Kart. Another early cart was conceived by Bruce Williamson in Portland, Oregon, in 1945, and evolved into the company that manufactured the Bag Boy Cart, which is still in existence though under a different owner.

“First a player will timidly try one and may feel a little self-conscious rolling the little cart along the fairways, but then he finds himself fresher and feeling better after his exercise,” a 1947 Golfdom article noted. “His shoulder does not ache and his scorecard shows better results.”

Sunningdale Golf Club outside London is a bucket list course for me, and a couple of years ago I noticed a Tweet from noted golf photographer David Cannon that showed Ernie Els and three golfers posing under a big tree outside the Sunningdale clubhouse. What caught my eye was the background — easily two dozen trolleys with bags on them idling between the building and the golf course. That’s the United Kingdom for you.

They hate “buggies,” as they call motorized carts. But they love “trolleys.”

“I don’t accept this stigma that a push cart is beneath a private club, because you go to Scotland and Ireland and Australia and all the top clubs have them,” says architect Gil Hanse.

“You can take a trolley at probably every course on the British Open rota, but you can’t at many of our top clubs in the States,” says former USGA Executive Director David Fay. “Something doesn’t add up.”

Trolleys are generally lumped into two categories: push carts have three wheels and pull carts have two. They are allowed today at top-rung golf destinations like Pinehurst, Bandon Dunes, Cabot Links and Streamsong, though policies vary on whether you can bring your own or use/rent one provided by the club. 

Through the 1970s and ‘80s, as batteries and gas overtook the human gait as the preferred means of traversing a course, Pinehurst Resort and Country Club remained true to its traditional roots by offering a “Walking Club” to members who gathered in the afternoons to walk and carry their bags on No. 2. Fay used the program as a template for a similar program the USGA instituted in the 1990s to encourage walking across the nation.

Thankfully, the walking tradition has been healthy at most courses in the Sandhills. Pinehurst maintains a thriving caddie program, and certainly a popular bucket list item for many golfers is to play No. 2 with a caddie. Members have been allowed for quite a while to walk any course at any time, and the resort in 2017 green-lighted hotel guests the option to walk and carry as well. Now push carts are available on all courses, including No. 2 and the recently redesigned No. 4. 

“We felt like walking is an important tradition in golf and something we should support,” says Director of Golf Ben Bridgers. “The trend has really changed the last few years. We’re seeing a lot of people grabbing their bag, throwing it over their shoulder or taking a pull cart. It’s pretty awesome. I played No. 4 recently, and that day you saw people carrying, taking a pull cart and taking caddies. Not many people walked No. 4 before the restoration. It’s going back in time; it has more of an old-time Pinehurst feel.”

Trolleys have become more prevalent in junior golf and college golf since 2008, when the American Junior Golf Association announced it would allow them in its competitions. Research by noted golf training entities such as the Titleist Performance Institute has revealed concerns about the constant grinding on the back and shoulders of golfers who carry their bags. 

“Carrying your clubs not only places a huge amount of compressive force on your spine, but also causes lactic acid buildup in the surrounding muscles, causing fatigue and injuries,” says Dr. Josh Nelson, a sports chiropractor and TPI consultant. 

Stanford University men’s golf team proved that push carts were here to stay on the collegiate golf level in the 2014 NCAA Championships when four of five Cardinal golfers used them. Stanford’s Cameron Wilson won that year’s individual title pushing a trolley. 

At the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando in 2018, I met Thomas Reiter, who formed a company called Big Max Golf in 1994 at first to service golfers in Germany and Austria and then expanding across Europe. Reiter named the company after his first-born son, Max, and started with a two-wheel pull cart. But he soon noted the stress that the pulling motion placed on the arm and shoulder. 

“We were the first to weld a third wheel onto the two-wheel cart and turn it around,” Reiter says. “It was a simple change, but one that nobody had ever done before. It was less stressful on the arm, and it was easier to direct with the cart in front of you. We’d created the first three-wheel folding push cart.”

I tested the company’s flagship cart, the IP Blade, on several rounds in July 2019 and came away impressed with the engineering and the benefits of pushing a cart. The IP Blade fits compactly in the trunk of a car, folding to roughly 3-feet long by 2-feet wide by 3-inches deep. You take it from the car, and the three wheels fold out and the center console pops up. You adjust one lever to lock the console and you’re ready to go. The cart holds golf bags of any size with attachments high and low to keep the bag secure. There is an attachment for an umbrella and places to hold scorecards, tees, a GPS device and water bottle.

The cart pushes smoothly and can go almost anywhere you want to walk, though certainly not through traps or across greens. After 18 holes, my lower back wasn’t as sore nor my right shoulder stressed.

The company has been the leading trolley manufacturer for two decades now in Europe, where Reiter estimates 95 percent of golfers walk, and is gaining traction in the United States after opening a facility in Tacoma, Washington, in 2014. 

“We are trying to get golfers to realize that carrying your golf bag is bad for your body and your game,” Reiter says. “You don’t see Tour players carrying their bags around, do you?  By pushing a cart, you have time to contemplate your next shot, and you have more energy left over the closing holes. If you want a long, good golf career, you need to take good care of your body.”

The trolley has become more relevant in the golf world today in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged life in general and the golf universe in specific over the spring of 2020. Many of the courses that remained open restricted use of motorized carts, acknowledging that “social distancing” is more easily practiced by golfers walking a fairway. Forest Creek Golf Club, for example, remained open but required golfers to walk, and many members embraced the use of a push cart, which had previously not been allowed at the 36-hole facility 3 miles northwest of the village of Pinehurst. Coming out of the quarantine, the club is now allowing permanent use of push carts. 

And Big Max Golf saw a remarkable 800 percent jump in year-over-year unit sales of its Fold Flat push carts in March in states where golf was allowed during the pandemic. 

“One of the things I hope comes out of this is that more people will enjoy the walking game,” says Pinehurst President Tom Pashley. “I think that can be a nice outcome — more people walking the golf course.”  PS

Chapel Hill-based writer Lee Pace has written a book about the joys of walking some of the top courses in the Carolinas; the book is due out in 2021 from UNC Press. 

The Omnivorous Reader

An Honest Day’s Storytelling

Finding truth in Lee Smith’s fiction and nonfiction

By D.G. Martin

Some North Carolina writers say that it is easier for them to tell the truth in fiction than it is in nonfiction. In nonfiction, the facts can bind up authors so tight that it is hard for them to deliver the truth.

The two most recent books by North Carolina’s beloved novelist Lee Smith give us a chance to compare her “truth-telling” strengths in her fiction versus her nonfiction writing. Her most recent book, Blue Marlin, which came out in April, is fiction, while her memoir, Dimestore: A Writer’s Life, was published in 2016.

The main character and narrator of Smith’s Blue Marlin is a young teenage girl dealing with growing up, religion, boys and the troubled mental health and marital problems of her parents. Much of Dimestore, Smith’s only nonfiction book, deals with the same topics in the context of the real life experiences of Smith and her parents. 

Blue Marlin is short, about 120 pages, each filled with Smith’s warm and sympathetic storytelling gifts and characters who reach out and remind us of people we knew growing up. 

In the book, the Lee Smith-like character, Jenny, age 13, discovered her beloved small-town lawyer dad was having an affair. Soon everybody in town knew. Her dad moved out of their home. Her depressed mom sought treatment at a hospital in Asheville. After a time, her parents decided to try to put their marriage back together on a trip to Key West, Florida, with Jenny.

Riding to Key West in the back seat of her dad’s new Cadillac, Jenny began a list of good deeds she would do on each day of their trip, “which ought to be enough,” she thought, “to bring even Mama and Daddy back together.” But, will the time in Key West do the job?

Their motel, the Blue Marlin, was a positive, not just because of its swimming pool and waterslide. The motel was occupied by a movie crew, including actor Tony Curtis. Jenny and her mom were big movie fans and read the fan magazines together. They “squealed together” over Curtis. Things were off to a good start.

Jenny settled into Key West. She walked the streets, visited the sites, made friends with the locals, and did her good deeds every day. But she’s not sure her good deeds are working. “My parents were endlessly cordial to each other now, but so far they had never slept in the same bed. I knew this for a fact. I checked their room every morning.”

To find out whether Tony Curtis’ help and Jenny’s good deeds could bring about real marital reconciliation, you will have to read the book, but Smith leaves clues in the afterword.

Following a real family trip to Key West to help her real parents’ troubled marriage, Smith writes that the Key West cure worked. “Mama and Daddy would go home refreshed, and stay married for the rest of their lives.” She writes that of all the stories she has ever written, “this one is dearest to me, capturing the essence of my own childhood — the kind of unruly, spoiled only child I was; the sweetness of my troubled parents, and the magic essence of Key West, ever since January 1959, when these events actually occurred.” Smith cautions her readers that not all the events in her book happened, describing it as “autobiographical fiction, with the emphasis on fiction.” 

She explains, “I can tell the truth better in fiction than nonfiction.”

A few years ago when I read Dimestore, I thought her memoir’s real stories were, in some respects, even better than the wonderful ones she had told in her novels and short stories. 

Her descriptions of the real characters in her life were, like her fictional characters, compelling. Dimestore opened the door for her many fans to know her as well or better than her good friends do. 

It gave clues about how growing up in a small Appalachian coal mining town and spending most of her life working, writing and raising a family here in North Carolina have influenced her writing.

We learned that her seemingly idyllic childhood, with devoted parents, surrounded by loving members of an extended family, was also full of challenges.

In a chapter titled “Kindly Nervous,” Smith described the “immense anguish” her beloved father felt during his bouts of bipolar mania. 

But for Smith there was a bright side to her father’s condition, which he described as “kindly nervous.” When her father could not sleep, he would work all night at the dimestore he owned in downtown Grundy, Virginia. Smith often accompanied him to the store and slept on a pallet under his desk. In the morning, he took her to breakfast. “How I loved those breakfasts! I got to have my scrambled eggs and my own big white china cup of sweet, milky coffee alongside early-morning truckers and the miners who’d just worked the graveyard shift, their eyes rimmed with coal dust like raccoons.”

Her mother suffered, too, and was frequently hospitalized for depression and anxiety.

But, again, Smith emphasizes the bright side. “This is my story, then,” she writes, “but it is not a sob story. Whenever either of my parents was gone, everybody — our relatives, neighbors, and friends — pitched in to help take care of me, bringing food over, driving me to Girl Scouts or school clubs or whatever else came up.”

One time, both parents were hospitalized, her mother in Charlottesville. Her mother’s doctor invited the 13-year-old Lee to have lunch with him. “Our luncheon,” she writes, “remains one of the most memorable occasions of my youth.”

After a long formal lunch with lots of conversation about Smith’s love of literature, the doctor asked her if, because both parents were ill, she was worried about getting sick herself.

Smith replied, “You mean, if I am going to go crazy, too.”

When the doctor said, “yes,” Smith thought, “How did he know? Because that was exactly what I thought about, of course, all the time.”

The kindhearted doctor assured her that he was a good doctor and she seemed to be “a very nice, normal girl, and I am here to tell you that you can stop worrying about this right now. You will be fine.”

She was fine, and explains how such events can be blessings for an author.

“This is an enviable life, to live in the terrain of one’s heart,” she writes. “Most writers don’t — can’t — do this. Most of us are always searching, through our work and in our lives: for meaning, for love, for home. Writing is about these things. And as writers, we cannot choose our truest material. But sometimes we are lucky enough to find it.”

Is Smith’s “truest material” in her fiction or her memoir? I am not sure I know the answer. But one thing is certain, whenever she puts pencil to paper, the result is going to be moving, and honest.  PS

D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch Sunday at 3:30 p.m. and Tuesday at 5 p.m. on UNC-TV. The program also airs on the North Carolina Channel Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. and other times. To view prior programs: http://video.unctv.org/show/nc-bookwatch/episodes.

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Discovering the basement treasures of Southern Pines

By Bill Case     Photographs by John Gessner

Around 1952, my mom found a tiny, tarnished silver coin in a dark, recessed area of our home’s basement floor. The ancient “half-dime” bore the date 1846.

It was hard to fathom how the 106-year-old piece had made it to our basement. Perhaps the coin dropped out of a worker’s pocket when the basement foundation was poured — a remote possibility, since few coins of that vintage would have been in circulation when our Hudson, Ohio, house was constructed in the 1920s. The half-dime puzzle was one our family never solved.

My mother gave me the mysterious half-dime after I began collecting coins as a pre-teen in 1960 but, over time, my interest in numismatics fell away, and I lost track of the coin. Perhaps it has been rediscovered by another mother in some other dark basement, launching a whole new family puzzle.

Thoughts of the half-dime returned when a Southern Pines restaurant server told me about her own belowground discovery at the Belvedere Hotel. She said the basement of the structure contained an iron-barred cell rumored to have once been a town jail facility. What other treasures might lurk in underground Southern Pines? Catacombs? The Phantom of the Opera’s dungeon? Or maybe just Al Capone’s vault?

With thoughts of Geraldo Rivera dancing in my head, I started my prospecting by following up on the server’s jail cell tip. According to a spokesman for the police department, there was no record of any jail having ever been located at the Belvedere Hotel. Undeterred, and with time on my hands until the afternoon four-ball, I contacted Melissa McPeake, a member of the family that owns the Belvedere building and several other area hotels. When asked about the supposed jail, Melissa responded, “Well, I’ve never heard that before. But there is an iron-bar door that provides an entry point to a room in the basement, and we’ve always wondered about it. Maybe it was a jail door. You’re welcome to check it out.” Ah-ha.

When Melissa and I descended the very steep basement steps (approximately the width of an iPhone 6), we came upon an iron-barred arched door in a remote area of the basement. The door looked like something out of an English castle dungeon in the Middle Ages. The only thing missing was Errol Flynn. But the absence of any actual jail cells cast considerable doubt on whether the forbidding door had ever served a role in incarcerating prisoners. It seemed unlikely that the space had ever been a black site interrogation room used by Andy Taylor and Barney Fife. Perhaps the iron bars guarded the hotel’s wine cellar, or served as a barrier protecting mail for the U.S. post office that had occupied a portion of the building long ago. But, no jail.

Tips regarding the whereabouts of buried treasure often lead to less than satisfying ends. But once on the hunt, you gotta keep looking. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I was contemplating my next move when I spotted two men doing rehab work on the roof overhang of the old Carolina Theatre (most recently an antique store). I shouted up to inquire whether there was anything of note left in the venerable theatre’s basement. One of the workers, Bob Greenleaf, shook his head, but offered a helpful observation. “I’ve been in just about every basement in the downtown,” he said. “Right across the street in the Citizens Bank and Trust building, there’s a vault in the basement that wasn’t removed when they closed the bank.” Agile for a person with so much basement spelunking experience, Bob hopped off the roof to point the way.

In short order, I was across the tracks and inside the Pinehurst Resort store, appropriately called “The Vault.” On the first floor of the store is a 22-inch-thick concrete walled vaulted area that has been incorporated into the store’s sales area. But I was more interested in the basement. As Carl Reiner says in Ocean’s Eleven, “The house safe is for brandy and grandmother’s pearls.”

Store sales clerk Heather Shaffer confided that employees consider the belowground vault to be spooky. Ah-ha. “I’ll go down there and the vault door is closed,” she said. “Next time, it’s open even though no one has been downstairs since me.” Heather permitted me to take a look-see. This time, the formidable vault door was open. It appeared that the room it guarded could have been used to store safe deposit boxes. It seems these mammoth doors rarely get removed from a structure even after a change of occupants renders them superfluous. Such indestructible behemoths may outlast everything else in our civilization, like multi-ton cockroaches or Woody Allen’s Volkswagen in Sleeper. Or Woody Allen.

Undaunted, my next stop was The Country Bookshop, housed in the McBrayer Building. The store’s manager, Kimberly Daniels Taws, was unable to access the building’s basement, but she put me in touch with the man who could, Hans Antonsson, the building’s owner. Hans advised that there was an old treasure stored in the basement: a discarded cash register of indeterminate age left over from bygone days when the building housed either Pope’s department store, or, prior to the 1960s, Lee’s.

Iron bars, a bank vault and a cash register are all well and good, but I was hoping to discover treasures of a more unique nature. It was rumored that the basement wall of the Denker Dry Goods dress shop at 150 N.W. Broad contained a mural painted by Glen Rounds, the Southern Pines artist of national renown. The prospect of finding a “forgotten” work by the legendary Rounds was exhilarating.

Born in 1906 inside a sod house in the Badlands of South Dakota, Glen Rounds grew up on Western ranches. As an adult, he took various turns as a mule skinner, cowpoke and carnival medicine man. He developed a talent for drawing minimalist sketches of animals and depictions of humorous experiences from his cowboy life. Combining his artistic skill with innate storytelling ability, Rounds became a pre-eminent writer and illustrator of award-winning children’s books — 103 in all over a six-decade career. Recurring figures in his comical yarns included Paul Bunyan; Whitey, the pint-sized cowboy; Mr. Yowder, the sign painter; Beaver; and the “Blind Colt.”

After his military hitch was over in 1937, Rounds moved to Southern Pines and resided there until his death at age 96 in 2002. The town’s most illustrious man of the arts also ranked as one of its greatest characters. On his daily Broad Street treks, the peripatetic raconteur would buttonhole unsuspecting pedestrians and regale them with mesmerizing, albeit long-winded, fables. The bearded Rounds also delighted in sharing bits of his prolific artwork with friends and strangers, a trait described by writer Stephen E. Smith as follows: “Without warning . . . minimalist sketches of high-stepping hounds, plump wayward women, and skinny wranglers would appear in mailboxes or stuffed in door jambs. Many of them were signed: ‘The Little Fiery Gizzard Creek Land, Cattle & Hymn Book Co.’”

It was with high anticipation that I introduced myself to Denker’s owner, Kara Denker Hodges. I was gratified that Kara was able to corroborate the fact that the store’s basement wall did, indeed, contain a mural painting believed to be the work of Glen Rounds. “One problem,” she noted, “is that we have no electricity running in that area of the basement. It’s completely dark, so you’ll need a flashlight to see it.” After haplessly fiddling with the flashlight feature on my iPhone, the more tech-savvy Hodges took pity on me and activated her own.

Picking our way through cave-like darkness, Kara’s flashlight revealed a 25-foot-long mural of a train with its chugging locomotive and boxcars displayed in bright primary colors. The quirky, madcap choo-choo seemed the perfect artwork for a toy store. The mural certainly had the look of an illustration by “the last of the great ‘ring-tailed roarers’” but I had to be sure. Even archaeologists uncovering ancient hieroglyphics in the great pyramids of Egypt performed outside research. I needed to do the same.

Extensive review of The Pilot’s archives from 70 years ago, together with interviews of individuals who could recall that time, helped me piece together the train mural’s story. The structure housing Denker’s was once called the Hayes Building. Prior to June 1948, Claud L. Hayes and his wife, Deila, operated side-by-side retail establishments there. Deila, like Kara Hodges now, ran a dress shop while Claud was the proprietor of the Hayes Book Store. Indiana native Claud had sold books in the community since his arrival in 1895. The establishment was typically laden to the rafters with magazines, books and newspapers. The Pilot described the store as being filled with “cheerful clutter.”

It was just the sort of place that appealed to Rounds, who, comfortably ensconced in the shop’s friendly confines, dispensed to all comers his “special brand of philosophical banter defying classification.” The newspaper advised its readers, “You haven’t started the day off right until you’ve exchanged greetings with Glen at Hayes over the morning papers.”

Claud Hayes died in 1948, and Col. Wallace Simpson acquired the bookstore from Hayes’ estate in June of that year. Simpson envisioned a new concept for the basement section of the store, focusing on children’s books and toys. The colonel set about making the necessary renovations. A November 12, 1948 article in The Pilot revealed that an artistic work, painted by the store’s most omnipresent visitor, would be transforming the children’s section into something special.

“A privileged few who have seen the mural painted by Glen Rounds in Hayes’ new basement say that it is his masterpiece,” effused the newspaper. “Even if he had never written all those books and illustrated them . . . they say this one great work alone would make him immortal.”

While Rounds’ fanciful choo-choo hardly ranks with DaVinci’s The Last Supper, it stands as a fine example of his work and apparently jump-started a fervent desire on his part to paint far larger murals, including a dream of adorning an 800-foot space with, The Pilot suggested, “a serpent left over from his carnival posting days.”

Discovery of Rounds’ train painting spurred me to look for more hidden artwork. After getting wind of my search, local Realtor Chris Smithson put me on a promising path. He had heard that the unfrequented basement area under the west side of Ashten’s restaurant also contained unusual decorative work on its walls. Owner Ashley Van Camp confirmed the report.

“Oh, it’s unusual, all right. It’s of a foxhunt scene, and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever laid eyes on,” she said.

I joined Ashley and her husband, Charlie Coulter, behind Ashten’s and we negotiated the exceedingly narrow steps to the basement of the 118-year-old structure. Did all the early builders of Southern Pines have Lilliputian-sized feet? The area at the bottom of the stairs is not much more than 100 square feet but, just as Van Camp advertised, the mural displayed over three of its walls was anything but ordinary. In this depiction of a “running of the hounds,” the would-be quarry turns the tables on his pursuers. A grinning Mr. Fox, certain he faces no danger, speeds away atop a tricycle. Behind him, horses and riders topple like tenpins. An actual hole in the wall draws the attention of several hounds as a potential escape hatch for the fox. The overall effect is hilarious. The piece, terrifically illustrated in brown, black, and red tones, is an impressive and painstaking work of art.

I asked Ashley the standard reporter questions: “Who did it? When did the artist do it? Why was it done?” She pointed to a signature on one wall of the mural with the name “Mayo,” dated 1940. The name rang no bell with any of us. As to the circumstances that led to the painting, Ashley said that the basement is thought to have housed a small speakeasy during Prohibition, making the hounds of ’40 something of an homage to the dry days.

Ashley had long contemplated rehabilitating this forgotten area and incorporating it into the restaurant. The idea of installing a small, intimate bar and reprising the basement’s speakeasy legacy appealed to the owner. The work would require the eradication of a nest of dangling wires, restoration of faded portions of the mural, and the removal of three panels separating various portions of the paintings. The project was something of a pipe dream until COVID-19 hit and the resulting statewide restrictions changed everything for restaurant owners and their employees. Ashten’s chef, Matt Hannon, suddenly had time on his hands. Van Camp asked him to get started on the rehab.

Suspecting that additional “Mayo” artwork might be hidden beneath the panels, Ashley had video equipment poised to record the unveiling. Voila! More comical illustrations appeared, all in excellent condition — inebriated hounds careening down a staircase; happy canines dancing and hoisting their glasses in toasts; and a hound prancing atop a whiskey keg with the words “Boomps a daisy” inscribed below. Mayo’s zany mural will eventually be on display for Ashten’s diners, perhaps in the “Boomps a daisy” room.

All that remained was to chase down and confirm the identity of the artist. Through her equestrian connections, Ashley learned that one Newton Mayo painted a portrait of the late Pappy Moss, benefactor of the Walthour-Moss Foundation and former master of the Moore County Hounds. Today, that painting hangs at the Full Cry horse farm of Mike and Irene Russell. According to a 2003 obituary in Virginia’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, Newton T. Mayo, who passed away at the age of 92, was “a retired horseman who earned a national reputation for his pastel portraits of Thoroughbreds and canines.” He raced Thoroughbreds up and down the East Coast and visited the Sandhills on several occasions. In its March 8, 1940 edition, The Pilot reported that Mrs. Newton T. Mayo won the fifth race of a steeplechase — approximately 1 mile on the flat — aboard Ever Ready.

While the middle of Mayo’s working life was devoted to training and racing horses, he was known for his artwork both as a young man (he would have been 29 when he painted the murals in Ashten’s basement) and when he returned to it in his later years. His commissions included equine paintings for President Ronald Reagan and a portrait of Barbara Bush’s springer spaniel. Displaying something of the same playful nature as his Ashten’s paintings, Mayo is quoted as saying that he preferred drawing pictures of animals “because they are less critical and ask for no flattery at all.”

And so, one thing leads to another. A half-dime to a haunted vault to Glen Rounds’ immortal choo-choo to a speakeasy fox and over-served hounds. Treasure, it seems, is in the flashlight of the beholder.  PS

Pinehurst resident Bill Case is PineStraw’s history man. He can be reached at Bill.Case@thompsonhine.com.