Poem

Advice on Nighttime Caregiving

Know the bulk of night

will be sleepless and embrace it

with the weariest part of yourself.

 

Nothing but bitter tea will do,

steeped too long as you pour

another glass of water

 

another mouth will drink,

as you console another crying

child who values sleep

 

on different terms,

as you — deep in the black

hour when familiar constellations

 

wend into a strange topography —

walk the dog who will thank you

without language: she who eats

 

white clover by night,

sniffling through dark

grass sweetened with dew.

 

Now sleep or wake — let go

of what you hold. The untouched

tea is as cool as morning.

— Benjamin Cutler

Benjamin Cutler is the recipient of the Susan Laughter Meyers Poets Fellowship and the author of The Geese Who Might be Gods.

Simple Life

The Last Ride

A legendary car, two old dogs and the end of the road in sight

By Jim Dodson

I knew this day would eventually come.

In recent years, I’ve pushed the thought to the back of my mind that it might be time to say goodbye and hand her off to someone who can restore her to her glory.

But every time I take her for a spin, by Jove, The Pearl works her automotive magic on me, riding like a dream, cruising the world on eight cylinders and a Corvette engine. With her roomy leather seats and patented “Dynaride” suspension system, she’s still like driving in your living room. We’ve been together a dozen years, almost half The Pearl’s life and almost one-sixth of mine. We survived the Great Recession, the end of cassette players and four teenagers. My dog Mulligan has spent most of her long life riding shotgun in The Pearl. Oh, the places we’ve been together up and down the highway!

The Pearl is a 1996 Buick Roadmaster estate station wagon, reportedly the last true production wagon that General Motors made before switching to prissy little SUVs.

The mighty Roadmaster is an American automotive icon, introduced in 1936 as the nation began to crawl out from under the Great Depression. Its creators had this nutty idea that Americans getting back on their feet might want to take the family on a road trip to see the land of the free and the home of the brave. With its oversized windows, sleek lines, wide chassis, faux wooden siding, “vista roof” and proverbial third seat facing backwards, the versatile Roadmaster wagon was just the ticket for seeing America from ground level.

The end of the Roadmaster line came in 1996 when 22,989 models rolled off the assembly line for the last time.

Mine entered the life of a nice gentleman from New Jersey who loved the car so much he kept the dashboard covered with protective felt and put only 60,000 miles on its odometer over 12 years.

Fate and quiet desperation brought us together when my children began stealing the Volvos and Subarus to go off to college. I wrote a newspaper column joking that I was shopping for a car like the one my old man drove when I was a kid — a gas-guzzling monster of the American highway that no enlightened, environmentally-minded Millennial would be caught dead riding in around town. It turns out, that car was a Buick Roadmaster wagon.

Not two days after the column appeared, a woman phoned to say, “Mr. Dodson, I am here to make you a happy man.”

Her father and mother were residents of a local senior living community. They owned a 1996 Buick Roadmaster station wagon that the daughter had fooled her father into giving up, lest he injure himself or someone else due to his declining driving habits.

“My father bought the car new and absolutely adores it,” she explained. “We all loved it. It took me off to college and helped me move several times. She has a few dings but still runs like a dream. But it has to go.”

She explained that a vintage car buff out West was interested in buying it — Roadmasters were apparently big with car collectors — but if I wanted to check it out at a local garage, she would consider selling it to me.

“If you don’t buy this car,” said the mechanic, handing me the keys for a test drive, “I probably will. They don’t make cars like this anymore.”

I purchased it an hour later. My wife laughed when she saw it pull into the driveway. “Oh my,” she said. “That really is your father’s Buick.”

No. 1 son — the Subaru thief — asked if he could take the car off to college. Not a chance, I told him.

No. 2 son pointed out that my Roadmaster model was ranked No. 7 on the “official list of Best Cars to Own in the Event of a Zombie Apocalypse.” He wondered if he could take it for a spin.

“Maybe after the zombie apocalypse,” I said.

I had, after all, my own big plans for this oversized jewel of the 20th Century American highway.

For many years — decades, actually — I’d dreamed of finding and traveling the Great Wagon Road of Colonial America, the famous backcountry highway that brought thousands of Scots-Irish, German and other European immigrants to the American South during the 18th century, including my own English and Scottish forebears.

Historians and old road experts had recently determined the Great Road’s original path from Philadelphia to Augusta, Georgia — an 850-mile land route that passed through some of the most historic battlefields, towns and sacred landscapes of early America.

Dan’l Boone and his family traveled it from Pennsylvania to the banks of the Yadkin River. The most pivotal battles of the Revolutionary War were fought along the highway, including engagements at Cowpens, Kings Mountain and Guilford Courthouse, leading to the British surrender at Yorktown. 

America’s first immigrant highway also bisected the killing fields of the American Civil War at Antietam and Gettysburg, where Abraham Lincoln — whose grandfather lived on the Great Road in Virginia — gave the Gettysburg Address on a hill just above the highway. By my count, in fact, no less than seven U.S. presidents were either born directly on or traveled the Great Wagon Road most of their lives. The Scots-Irish brought their balladry, fiddle music and God-given talent for fighting (and making corn whiskey) down the road, giving birth to Bluegrass in the hollers of Appalachia.

Four summers ago, after years of research and planning, my dog Mulligan and I set off along the road in our own Great Wagon, which a colleague at work nicknamed The Pearl, hoping to travel the entire route in two or three weeks.

Silly me. It took a month just to get out of Pennsylvania. The abundance of great stories and memorable people we met along the road turned an 800-mile road trip into a three-year, 3,000-mile odyssey of discovery that recently drew to a close, including a year of travel lost due to COVID.

Though she is showing her age and is more dinged up than ever, The Pearl managed to make the entire journey and then some. She brought us home with an engine that still runs like a dream.

Along the way, she provided absolute strangers with fond memories of their own childhood. “My father had a car just like that,” they would say with a note of pure wonder. “It was my favorite family car.” A man in the parking lot at Gettysburg actually offered to buy The Pearl. “How much do you want for her?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I replied. “But I might someday give her to the right person.”

He handed me a card, which I promptly lost.

Since finishing the road last autumn, The Pearl has mostly been my gardening car, hauling shrubs and mulch, though Miss Mulligan and I go out for a spin every now and then.

Mully is now 16, The Pearl is pushing 25. The last ride can’t be far away.

But what a time we’ve had, what a sweet journey it’s been. PS

Jim Dodson can be reached at jwdauthor@gmail.com.

In the Spirit

Apples to Autumn

Leaf-fallin’ brandy cocktails

By Tony Cross

Over the summer, I read about a 50/50 cocktail that intrigued me. The drink is simply an “equal parts” cocktail, and this one had applejack in it. Admittedly, it has been at least a full minute since I’ve had anything with applejack or Calvados in it, so I thought it was the perfect time to dust that bottle off and give it a go. The drink was so good, I ordered more of the brandy online.

Brandy is Dutch for “burned wine.” It’s a spirit distilled from wine or fermented juice from apples, pears, plums and so on. In the case of apple brandy, cider apples usually supply the juice. Jim Meehan’s Bartender Manual says: “Today, brandy is produced all over the world, but the world’s most prized bottlings — barrel-aged Cognacs and Armagnacs from wine, Calvados from cider, and clear eau de vie and schnapps from ripe berries and tree fruit — are all produced in the European Union.”

Before we get into the cocktails, let’s do a quick breakdown of the categories of apple brandy. My trusty Death & Co. cocktail book has this to say:

Calvados: This French apple brandy, produced in the Calvados region, is defined by production and aging regulations similar to those for Cognac and Armagnac. It tends to have crisp apple flavor with loads of barnyard funk.

Straight apple brandy: This term refers to American apple brandy. Laird’s bonded apple brandy adheres to the same set of standards required for bonded whiskey, yielding a rich, deeply aged, spicy spirit.

Applejack: Though traditionally produced by freezing distillation (a process known as jacking), modern applejack is typically a combination of apple brandy and a neutral grain spirit (30 and 70 percent, respectively).

With Calvados, you have categories defined by minimum years in oak casks:

• Fine, Trois Etoiles (three stars), VS: 2 years

• Reserve/Vieux: 3 years

• Vieille Reserve, VO, VOSP: 4 years

• XO, Tres Vieux, Extra, Hors d’Age: 6 years

The first time I had apple brandy was from Laird’s, which uses pressed Golden Delicious and Red, Fuji, Gala, Jonathan, Stayman and Winesap apples. I’ve only eaten (to my knowledge) four of those seven varieties. What I love about their bottled-in-bond straight apple brandy is the higher proof. It gives cocktails a little more oomph from the spiciness courtesy of the ABV. The classic Jack Rose cocktail was my first love affair with apple brandy, and it goes a little something like this:

Jack Rose

2 ounces Laird’s Bottled-in-Bond Straight Apple Brandy

3/4 ounce lemon juice

3/4 ounce grenadine

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. No garnish.

(Grenadine: Combine equal parts raw or demerara sugar with POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. Stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. You may add a touch of pomegranate molasses for depth.)

The following drink is courtesy of Meehan, who added it to his menu when Brooklyn cocktails (rye whiskey, dry vermouth, Luxardo and Amer Picon — a bitter orange liqueur from France) were all the rage. “We looked across the river for inspiration, and came up with this New Jersey apple brandy-based twist, which substituted Fernet-Branca for Amer Picon. Boozy and bitter, it was, we felt, worthy enough to be Newark’s namesake.”

Newark

2 ounces Laird’s apple brandy

1 ounce Vya sweet vermouth (or Cocchi Vermouth di Torino)

1/4 ounce Fernet-Branca

1/4 ounce Luxardo maraschino liqueur

Stir all ingredients with ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. No garnish.

Coming full circle, let’s talk about that 50/50 cocktail I embraced over the summer. I read about it in Punch magazine. While Seattle bar consultant Lindsay Matteson says the 50/50, “should always be a shot, room temperature and two ounces,” I pour mine over a rock at the casa. The CIA (Cynar in applejack) is a delicious pairing. A dash of Angostura bitters brings the drink all together for this simple sipper. It’s the creation of New York City bar owner Sother Teague, who keeps a batched bottle (at room temperature) on hand, making it simpler yet. Cynar is a low ABV, artichoke-based Italian liqueur; slightly sweet, slightly bitter. Every now and then I’ll add a quarter- to a half-ounce of rye whiskey to give this a little more fuel. Keep in mind, with any of these cocktails you can swap out Laird’s for Calvados to give your cocktail a slightly different profile.

CIA

1 ounce Cynar

1 ounce Laird’s apple brandy

1 dash Angostura bitters

Two ways to mix: Pour into a shot glass at room temperature and imbibe or build the drink in a rocks glass with one large cube and stir briefly. No garnish is needed, but every now and then, I’ll add an orange or lemon peel.  PS

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

PinePitch

Book Bonanza

October 6: Sharon Granito talks about her new children’s book, The True Story of Elmo, at The Pilot, 145 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines.

October 7: Louise Marburg, author of No Diving Allowed, has a conversation with Katrina Denza at The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines.

October 12: Lee Pace discusses his new book, Good Walks: Rediscovering the Soul of Golf at Eighteen of the Carolinas’ Best Courses, with Jim Moriarty at The Country Bookshop.

October 13: Pinehurst author Tony Rothwell appears at the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., to talk about his new book, Love, Intrigue and Chicanery, inspired by the work of English satirist James Gillray.

October 20: Walter Bennett discusses his new book, The Last First Kiss, at The Country Bookshop.

October 24: Elizabeth Emerson talks about her new historical biography, Letters from Red Farm: The Untold Story of the Friendship between Helen Keller and Journalist Joseph Edgar Chamberlin, at The Country Bookshop.

October 28: Michael Almond shares his debut novel The Tannery at the Country Club of North Carolina.

November 4: Kristy Woodson Harvey returns with her book Christmas in Peachtree Bluff at The Country Bookshop.

For information and tickets about all of the above, go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Everything That’s Old Is New Again

The 2021 Fall Street Fair in Cameron, featuring the town’s rich antique marketplace, begins at 9 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 1, and ends on Saturday, Oct. 2. There will be food, fun, and lots and lots of old stuff for sale. Wander the streets of downtown Cameron, N.C. 24-27. For information visit www.townofcameron.com.

Satire on Parade

The Country Bookshop is hosting an event at the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines, on Oct. 13, where Pinehurst author Tony Rothwell will discuss his new book, Love, Intrigue and Chicanery, and share a selection of the prints by the English satirist James Gillray that inspired it. You can pre-register at www.ticketmesandhills.com.

On Sunrise Square

October’s First Friday, which for the impatient among us happens to be Oct. 1, features the Sam Fribush Organ Trio with Charlie Hunter. All the usual accoutrements apply: food trucks, sponsors, stuff to eat and drink, and beer from the Southern Pines Brewery. No rolling, strolling, jogging or jumping coolers allowed. And please leave Cujo at home. The square is adjacent to the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. For information call (910) 692-3611 or go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Heritage Fair and Fundraiser

The 13th Annual Shaw House Heritage Fair and Moore Treasures Sale takes place Saturday, Oct. 9, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Shaw House, 110 Morganton Road, Southern Pines. The all-day event benefits the nonprofit Moore County Historical Association and offers baked goods, live music, and demonstrations of old-time crafts. There are farm animals for petting and American Revolution War re-enactors for learning. For more information call (910) 692-2051 or visit www.moorehistory.com.

Home Again

The Carolina Philharmonic will open its 13th season on Thursday, Oct. 7, at 7:30 p.m. at BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. For its return to live performances Maestro David Michael Wolff has planned a high-energy celebration featuring Broadway’s Catherine Brunell and James Moye. Then, on Friday, Oct. 29, at 6:30 p.m., the Philharmonic will hold its annual gala fundraiser at the Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Road S., Pinehurst, in support of its music education programs. Hors d’oeuvres and wine pairings will be accompanied by the delightful jazz songstress Hilary Gardner. For additional info call (910) 687-0287 or visit www.carolinaphil.org.

Live After Five

Get your shag on with beach music by The Sand Band from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 8, at Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road, Pinehurst. Eryn Fuson is the opening act for this family-friendly evening of music, dancing, food and beverages — adult and otherwise. No outside alcohol allowed, but bring your lawn chairs and your dancing shoes. For more information go to www.pinehurstrec.org.

Boo Ya’ll!

Children 12 and under can trick-or-treat at the downtown businesses in Southern Pines, then gather for Halloween-themed games, crafts, activities and a best-dressed dog costume raffle at the Downtown Park, 145 S.E. Broad St., Southern Pines, on Friday, Oct. 22. Don’t forget to bring a carved pumpkin to enter in the pumpkin carving contest. Stay for SCOOB! starting at 7 p.m. For information call (910) 692-7376.

Tickling the Ivories

Renowned concert pianist Solomon Eichner, who made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 2016, will be performing selections of romantic music and jazz-influenced compositions in the Great Room of the Boyd House at the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines, on Sunday, Oct. 24. Tickets are $25 for members and $35 for non-members. For information and tickets go to www.weymouthcenter.org or www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Up in the Air

The Festival D’Avion, a celebration of freedom and flight, returns for 2021 on Friday, Oct. 29, at 5 p.m. at the Moore County Airport, 7425 Aviation Blvd., Carthage. The band On the Border — The Ultimate Eagles Tribute will perform. The festival continues Oct. 30 at 10 a.m. with the aircraft flyout from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. For information and tickets go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Boiled Over

Enjoy a low country boil catered by Giff Fisher’s White Rabbit Catering from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 27, with the proceeds benefiting the Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. For more information call (910) 295-3642 or visit www.giventufts.org.

Jazz on the Grass

Enjoy live jazz with Al Strong and the “99” Brass Band and a boxed brunch by Baton Rouge Cuisine for a Mardi Gras-inspired Halloween celebration at the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. For information and tickets go to either www.weymouthcenter.org or wwwtickemesandhills.com.

Barney, Floyd, Otis, et al.

Few things have the ability to tug at North Carolina heartstrings like The Andy Griffith Show, an imaginary land where everything, it seems, is a morality play. Independent filmmaker Chris Hudson, born in Moore County and raised in Charlotte, recently released a 90-minute documentary, The Mayberry Effect, a project five years in the making that sees the fictional Mayberry through the eyes of those who never left it — the re-enactors who inhabit the characters, quote their lines and stroll down to the ol’ fishing hole in the land of nostalgia. The film is distributed digitally in the U.S. and Canada by Gravitas Ventures. The link on iTunes is https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-mayberry-effect/id1584316675. You can learn more by visiting Hudson’s website, www.TheMayberryEffect.com.

The Creators of N.C.

Time Capsule in Jazz

Whether you know him as Dr. Martinez or Marty Most, you know The Big Easy is alive in his heart and his photos

By Wiley Cash    Photographs by Mallory Cash

Nestled in a patch of pine woods just south of Wilmington, Dr. Maurice Martinez, New Orleans’ first beat poet, is sitting in a favorite chair in his sunlight-flooded living room. At his feet are several crates of black-and-white photographs, carefully encased in plastic sleeves. He bends down to pick up an image, staring at it for a moment before gesturing toward the subject — a Black man in a suit playing a soprano saxophone. The man’s eyes are closed in concentration.

“John Coltrane was the most serious musician I’ve ever met,” says Martinez. He looks back down at the photograph with such intensity it’s as if he’s traveling back in time, peeling back the years and the stories that led him from a childhood in New Orleans to the halls of American academia by way of a barnstorming concert tour across Brazil. Photograph in hand, Martinez’s mind and memory are focused on the string of shows Coltrane played when he came to New Orleans in 1963. Martinez and his camera were there to capture it. He presented a composite of several of the photos he took to the jazz musician. “When he saw it, he got warm and opened up,” Martinez says. “He could see that I was serious about music, too.”

Maurice Martinez has been serious about many things over the course of his life — music, education, social justice, documentary filmmaking, plus Creole heritage and history — but jazz and photography have been lifelong staples. His two passions have recently come together in A Time Capsule in Jazz, an exhibit on display at the Genesis Block Gallery in downtown Wilmington until October 20.

Martinez was a college student at Xavier University in Louisiana when he first began to take photography seriously. His early steps were tentative, but experimental.

“It was a little black box, and it only had one speed on the shutter,” he says. “But it also had a way that you could do a time exposure by disengaging the automatic shutter.”

And so he did just that, then put the camera on the desk.

“It came out like a Rembrandt.”

He soon moved on to Instamatics and 35mm cameras, experimenting with various lenses before graduating to better and more advanced equipment. After starting a wedding photography business with a buddy, he soon learned that the best photographs came at what he calls “the peak moment of joy,” such as when the newlyweds are seated in the limousine and the wedding and all its fuss is behind them. Only then do you see the couple relax, he says.

Martinez saw that those moments of joy were also evident in the jazz musicians who brought their soulful music to New Orleans in the 1960s. Music had always been a passion for Martinez, and his parents recognized his talent when he was young. A local university offered a junior school of music, so Martinez began piano classes there when he was 9 years old with his buddy Ellis Marsalis. Martinez would eventually step away from the piano and pick up the bass, purchasing what was reportedly the first electric bass played in New Orleans. Along with his photography business, he founded a jazz quartet that played gigs for fraternities at Tulane.

When he finished college at Xavier, one of his professors encouraged him to apply to graduate school at the University of Michigan. While segregation ensured that state universities in Louisiana were closed to people of color, $750 grants were available to Black students who sought degrees outside the state. But by the time Martinez had been granted admission to Michigan, the December deadline to apply for the Louisiana grant had passed. His father, who had made a career as a master bricklayer and stonemason, reached out to one of his wealthy patrons, and the $750 needed to enroll at Michigan was secured. Martinez packed up his camera and headed north, bringing his love for jazz with him.

At Michigan, he found himself as the music curator for a creative arts festival, and while many of the students wanted to invite The Who and other rock’n’roll bands, Martinez invited Miles Davis.

After finishing his M.A. in education at Michigan, Martinez returned to New Orleans and followed in the footsteps of his mother by teaching math in the local public schools for six years. His mother taught in the local schools before opening a private school that first catered to Creole children and educated some of the city’s most exceptional Black citizens, including Wynton Marsalis, a former mayor and a former chief of police.

But Martinez felt himself floundering after returning home. People encouraged him to leave the city and make a name for himself, so he returned to the University of Michigan for a doctorate in education. It was there, while studying Portuguese, that he discovered a Ford Foundation grant that was sending students on internships in Latin America. After landing a grant, he lived in Brazil for two years, studying the ways in which tradition and modernity affect life in urban and rural cities. He was also taking photographs and playing jazz. Along with another American and three Brazilians, he formed a quintet called Grupo Calmalma de Jazz Livre, and they went on to play a 14-city tour sponsored by the U.S. Embassy.

It was after returning to Michigan to complete his Ph.D. that Martinez met Marjorie, the woman who would become his wife of 48 years. After graduating, the couple moved to New York City, where Martinez spent 24 years teaching in the education department at Hunter College, taking students and professors into some of the city’s most challenging schools in order to gain a clear perspective on the profession that he was preparing students to pursue.

The experience was fraught with issues of race, class and caste, but coming-of-age in New Orleans assured that he was familiar navigating that terrain.

By the early ’90s, Martinez had grown weary of life in New York, and when he was invited to join the faculty in the UNC-Wilmington’s Watson College of Education as a visiting professor, he jumped at the chance. He joined the full-time faculty the following year, spending 20 years as a professor in the Department of Instructional Technology, Foundations and Secondary Education.

But no matter where he has lived, New Orleans has always been alive in his heart. After all, he is known as Marty Most, Jazz Poet and credited as the first person to put the words “The Big Easy” in print:

Have you ever been to an old time jazz man’s funeral in my hometown?

Put on your imagination, baby, and come on down

To an old time jazz man’s funeral in my hometown.

It’s called the Big Easy, way, way down.

What’s the biggest difference he sees between Wilmington and the Big Easy?

“Wilmington was settled by the British,” he says. “So we have the Azalea Festival. But things would be different if it had been settled by the French.” He leans forward, a smile playing across his face, a light twinkling in his eye. “Because then we’d have Mardi Gras.”  PS

Wiley Cash is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, was released last month.  

The Naturalist

Ghosts Among the Pines

The white squirrels of Rockingham

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

Hop on U.S.  in Aberdeen and take it south, out of town. Cross over the floodplain of Drowning Creek at the Richmond County line and continue through the small hamlet of Hoffman, past the majestic stands of longleaf pine and wire grass of the Sandhills Game Land, and the old NASCAR motor speedway. Approaching the city limit signs of Rockingham, take a right turn into any of the suburban neighborhoods bordering the road and keep your eyes peeled. Among the patchwork of ranch-styled houses, manicured lawns and forest edges, you might just see a ghost.

It was my late uncle, Lamar, who first told me about them. The ghosts in question are part of a unique population of the grey squirrels that call this Sandhills town home. The squirrels here are not your average run-of-the-mill bushy-tailed rodents that are the bane to backyard gardeners and bird feeders everywhere. Many, instead, sport unusual, brilliant, snowy white fur coats and feature dark blue eyes.

I first set out to see the white squirrels of Rockingham one cold December day over 12 years ago. About a mile off U.S. 1, along a small section of road bordered by large oak trees and old homes, I counted a dozen white squirrels scattered here and there among the grassy yards. One yard in particular, with a large birdfeeder mounted atop a wooden pole next to a window of a single-story brick home, held four individual white squirrels.

After I stopped and rang the doorbell of the house, a kind, soft-spoken elderly man met me at the door. When I requested permission to photograph the white squirrels in his yard, his eyes lit up. He remarked that the white squirrels held a special place in his heart, reminding him of his late wife, who had filled the birdfeeder next to their living room window with sunflower seeds every day just so she could watch their antics. It was a tradition he had continued long after her passing, and it thrilled him that someone else had taken an interest in “her” squirrels.

“You go ahead and photograph the squirrels to your heart’s content,” he said.

With that, I lugged my camera gear out of the car, sat down quietly at the edge of the yard, and waited. Cardinals and chickadees, typical yard birds for the area, flew back and forth from the birdfeeder to a hedgerow, their incessant calls breaking the silence of an otherwise quiet winter’s day.

Before long, a luminescent white squirrel emerged from a hollow cavity 20 feet off the ground in a robust oak tree along the edge of the driveway in the front yard. Walking out onto a long vertical limb, it made a flying leap onto a nearby powerline that stretched across the width of the front yard. Like a miniature tightrope walker, the squirrel nimbly ran the length of the powerline and jumped off onto a pine tree. Scampering down the trunk, it hopped to the ground and raced over to the birdfeeder next to the window.

Watching it reminded me of another, more celebrated North Carolina population of white squirrels. Each spring, Brevard, a quaint town nestled within the mountains of Transylvania County, holds a weekend-long “White Squirrel Festival,” attracting thousands of tourists from across the state. The town is so enamored with their white squirrels that it created a sanctuary for the pale mammals, making it illegal for anyone to hunt, trap or kill one within city limits.

Stark white animals have captured the imagination of mankind for millennia, and figure prominently in myth and legend. Many Native cultures across the globe view albino animals as deities or omens of good luck. Albino animals feature prominently in popular culture as well, perhaps none more so than the great white whale pursued by the obsessed Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s literary classic Moby Dick.

The white squirrels in both Rockingham and Brevard are not actually albinos, but are what biologists refer to as leucistic animals. Like albinos, leucistic animals lack pigment in their skins but retain small amounts in certain parts of their bodies, especially the eyes. Both albino and leucistic animals are rare in nature. Their stark white coloration makes them especially vulnerable to predators, and logic dictates that populations of white squirrels should remain low in areas where foxes, red-tailed hawks and feral cats are common. However, the populations of white squirrels in both Carolina towns appear to be thriving.

Back in Rockingham, a normal-colored grey squirrel came bounding across the yard and hopped up onto the bird feeder across from the white one. Together, they enjoyed mouthfuls of sunflower seed as the afternoon sun drifted across the Carolina blue sky. The yin and yang contrast between the two provided a wonderful photo opportunity, and I raised my camera. Framing the two squirrels in my viewfinder, I noticed the elderly man sitting quietly inside the nearby window admiring them. He was smiling.

Pressing the shutter, I smiled back. PS

Naturalist and photographer Todd Pusser works to document the extraordinary diversity of life both near and far. His images can be found at www.ToddPusser.com.

BATwatch

Going Batty

Flying friends of the night

By Susan Campbell

Fall is not only migration time for a large percentage of the bird species found across our state, it’s also when another group of fancy fliers are winging their way southward: bats!

Although we are rarely aware of it, each evening individuals or small groups of these little creatures leave their daytime roosts and, after a short period foraging, move out, headed to warmer — and hence buggier — surroundings for the cooler months. For individuals of certain hardier species, such as red, big brown, hoary and evening bats, central North Carolina may be their winter home.

Bats represent one-quarter of all mammal species worldwide. Like us, they give birth to live young. Bats are relatively long-lived mammals and can survive 20 to 30 years in the wild. Of the 17 bat species that occur in North Carolina, three are listed as federally endangered, and one is listed as federally threatened. Bats are primarily nocturnal, though they also forage in the early evening and early morning hours. Although most bats have relatively good eyesight, they primarily use echolocation to navigate and locate prey. Their maneuverability is phenomenal — bats can avoid objects as small as a string in total darkness.

Bats mate in the spring or fall and usually produce one pup per year. Many species form maternity colonies in the summer to raise their young, while others are solitary roosters. Some bat species migrate south for the winter, and others find local hibernation areas, called hibernacula. Bats prefer caves or mines for hibernacula, though they have also been known to use buildings and bridges, and they usually return to the same site every year. By educating the public, monitoring populations and protecting bat habitat, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) is working to sustain bat populations in our state.

Bats are integral to ecosystems worldwide. Tropical bats disperse large amounts of seed and pollen, enabling plant reproduction and forest regrowth, and are especially important in the pollination of cocoa, mango and the agave plant, which is used to produce tequila. North American bats have a major impact on controlling insect populations that are considered agricultural pests. They save the corn industry over $1 billion annually in pest control. A nursing female bat may consume almost her entire body weight in insects in one night. Recently a protein found in vampire bat saliva has been used to develop clot-busting medication to aid stroke victims.

Many bat populations in the United States have declined in recent years. Pesticides, persecution, and human disturbance of hibernacula and maternity colonies may have contributed to this decline. Furthermore, an emergent fungal disease called white-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed more than 5.7 million bats since its discovery in New York in 2006. This disease spread to North Carolina in 2011 and continues to spread to new states each winter. It is now found in 30 states.

To determine bat distribution and hibernation sites in North Carolina, track the spread of WNS and estimate population trends for certain species, our state biologists conduct intensive monitoring across the state. Through a variety of methods (including mist netting, trapping, banding, acoustic recording, roost monitoring and radio telemetry), NCWRC biologists, in cooperation with several partners, have surveyed and banded thousands of bats in North Carolina. All of this work helps to inform management and, in turn, conservation priorities.

There are several things you can do for bats on your property. An ever more popular endeavor is installing a bat box or two. Also plant native plants that attract insects that bats (as well as the birds) eat. It is very important to limit the use of insecticides and herbicides whenever possible.

Also avoid disturbing bat hibernation areas and maternity colonies. And you might want to consider joining a conservation organization to remain updated on bat conservation efforts such as Bat Conservation International (www.batcon.org).

Last, but not least, educate others regarding the importance of bats and why they are so beneficial.  PS

Susan Campbell would love to hear from you. Feel free to send questions or wildlife observations to susan@ncaves.com.

Out of the Blue

Falling for October

And putting the summer behind us

By Deborah Salomon

At last. . . October!

The word, hardly mellifluous. The image, glorious, when oaks and maples flame yellow, orange and red before browning and blowing away. The chill of an October morning washes away the humid, fetid air of summer like a wave upon the Maine seacoast.

I fell in love with October at age 5, maybe 6, when my parents took the train from Manhattan, where we lived, to a dude farm in southern Vermont. Here, post-harvest, the Jones family rented out one-room log cabins to city folk hungry to pet a pig, pick a pumpkin, milk a cow, feed a chicken, skip a stone across the pond and eat at a long communal table in the farmhouse.

Heaven, especially breakfast, served farmer-early: pancakes drenched in local maple syrup, maybe fried apples from trees bordering the meadow.

My parents weren’t big on vacations. This is the only one I remember, ever.

The cabins had neither electricity nor running water. Every morning a metal bucket appeared on the tiny front porch, with a skim of ice around the edges.

Good thing we brought flannel pajamas.

How humans are wired into cycles of the sun and the seasons never fails to amaze. All I know is the images and flavors of this weekend left an imprint, which may explain why, for a lifetime, I have risen before dawn and gloried in October.

For me, the rapture of April and May signal only hay fever . . . and dreaded summer. September . . . unpredictable.

This summer wasn’t too bad, weather-wise, until August’s last gasp of 90-plus degree days. But it was a disturbing summer, almost too disturbing for October to erase. The COVID’s welcome slide became a surge, especially among children. Images of families — hot, hungry, unwashed, desperate — waiting for evacuation from Afghanistan led every newscast. I can’t erase from my memory the infirm grandma being pushed down a dusty road in a wheelbarrow. Leaders proved that common sense is not necessarily taught at Harvard and Yale. Katrina’s cousin Ida struck New Orleans with a vengeance. Providing near-comic relief, the royal family bickered and whined while Ben Affleck, to the paparazzi’s delight, rediscovered J-Lo.

Is that Shakespeare rewriting himself, “This was the summer of our discontent . . . ” from his grave?

Octobers of yore meant watching my son score touchdowns, a pot of homemade veggie-beef soup in the fridge, McIntosh apples and corduroy. As a child I wore corduroy overalls, jackets and hats, as did my children. Their navy blue became faded and soft from many washings.

Whatever happened to corduroy?

Any day now the air will feel scrubbed clean in the low afternoon sun. Temps and humidity down, bugs (except yellow jackets) almost gone. AC off, windows open. True, fall foliage is not a Sandhills’ forte. For that, plan a brewery-crawl in Asheville. But October still imparts not only beauty but relief . . . summer is over, winters here are nothing to dread.

October is the dividing line. I’m oh-so-ready to hop across.

Welcome, October. And thanks.  PS

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

Almanac

October Almanac

By Ashley Wahl

October is the language of crows: playful, dark and mysterious.

On a crisp, gray morning, swirls of golden leaves dance round like Sufi mystics and a plump squirrel quietly munches seeds beneath the swinging feeder. The air feels charged — electric — and from the silver abyss, a crow caws five times, the staccato rhythm stabbing the ether like a haunting, dissonant chord. 

Caw. Caw. Caw. Caw. Caw.

In the crooked branches of a distant tree, a council of crows rattles back and forth as if casting their clicks and grumbles into an invisible cauldron. Their crude chatter grows louder and increasingly harsh, escalating until it reaches a roiling cackle.

The coven has spoken.

One by one, the black birds take wing, flashing across the sky in glorious and raucous splendor.

Below, asters spell out messages on the leaf-littered lawn. Only the crows can read them. And when they chant the words aloud — their many raspy voices one — you are equal parts delighted and disturbed.

Ca-caw! Ca-caw!

A single crow descends upon the wrought iron fence, pivots round in three slow circles, then cocks its head in silence.

The squirrel has scurried off.

A flurry of leaves jumps as if spooked by wind.

The crow tilts back its head and lets out three chilling squawks.

Trick-or-treat?

There is a bird who by his coat,

And by the hoarseness of his note,

Might be supposed a crow.

— William Cowper

Let’s Grow Together

Everyone who’s tried to grow them knows: Tulips are deer candy. But if you haven’t tried planting them alongside grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) — deer and rabbits don’t like them — there is hope for your spring garden yet.

The ideal companion for tulips (and daffodils, which said critters also avoid), grape hyacinths protect and complement this bright and showy bloomer. Think about it: waves of vibrant purple flush against rows of red, orange and yellow blossoms. The treasure is the rainbow itself. Come spring, the deer can admire it from afar. And you, the deer. But it’s time to plant the bulbs now.

Autumnal Brew

The full Hunter’s Moon rises on Wednesday, October 20. Autumn has settled in. As you begin to do the same, here’s an herbal tea redolent with spices that could rid you forevermore of your pumpkin-spiced neurosis.

Star Anise Tea

Ingredients:

1 cup water

1 bag green or black tea

2 pods star anise

1 stick cinnamon

Honey or agave to sweeten (optional)

To brew a cup, bring water to a boil. In a favorite mug, pour hot water over tea bag, star anise and cinnamon stick. Let steep for five minutes. Add sweetener or not. Enjoy the glory of autumn sip by sip.  PS