Tag: 2024

Focus on Food

Spill It!

Berry-infused herbal iced tea

Story and Photograph by Rose Shewey

This summer, I plan on adapting the most iconic of all Southern traditions. My goal is to have a jug of iced tea chilling in the fridge at all times, ready to be served to anyone knocking on the door of my screened-in porch, honoring that Southern hospitality I’ve come to appreciate so much.

As someone who is notoriously sensitive to substances of any kind (kombucha on an empty stomach has me buzzed), I had to lay off the caffeine recently which, naturally, disqualifies coffee, but also caffeinated teas. So, black tea is out for me. While everyone’s favorite champagne of teas — Darjeeling — or any of the other black tea varieties have never been my top choice to begin with, I do enjoy caffeine-free herbal teas with a glowing passion. Not only have herbs helped me heal a number of ailments throughout my life, many herbal teas have the most delightful aroma and are just plain delicious in all their earthy, sweet goodness.

While tea — black, herbal or otherwise — isn’t for everyone, even the staunchest tea opponents (mainly devoted coffee drinkers) will come around to it when tea is served the Southern way: ice cold with a hint (or heaps) of sugar, preferably on a hot summer’s day. If the conditions are right, it doesn’t even matter what variety of tea is served. As long as ice cubes chink and tumblers glisten, bottoms will go up.

Apart from using the best quality leaves available to you, there is one other significant way to elevate your tea-brewing game: collecting water from a pristine source. My mom, to this day, will hike into the woods outside the village where I grew up to bottle the purest mountain spring water that comes spluttering down between moss-covered rocks. In lieu of that, filtered water will do the job. The bottom line is, quality ingredients will make a quality product. Whether you prefer a hot brew, cold brew or whimsical “sun tea,” pour it over ice, add seasonal fruit and enjoy a quintessential part of Southern living.

Strawberry Hibiscus Iced Tea

(Makes 2 servings)

Ingredients

1 quart filtered water

5-6 teaspoons dried hibiscus flowers

200 grams (roughly 1 cup) frozen strawberries

Sweetener of choice, such as honey, granulated sugar or maple syrup, to taste

Ice and fresh strawberries, for serving

Bring water to a boil. Place dried hibiscus flowers and frozen strawberries in a large jar (bigger than a quart). Remove water from heat and pour over hibiscus and strawberries. Mash strawberries and allow to steep for 6-8 minutes, then strain liquid into a pitcher. Refrigerate and serve over ice with sweetener of choice and fresh strawberries.

For a more intense strawberry flavor, steep the tea without strawberries for 6-8 minutes, strain, then add strawberries, mash and infuse for several hours or overnight, and strain one final time before serving. PS

German native Rose Shewey is a food stylist and food photographer. To see more of her work visit her website, suessholz.com.

Wild and Wonderful

Pinehurst No. 2 prepares to test the best

By Lee Pace

Feature Photo: 2014 U.S. Open Photograph by Joann Dost

A December day in 1935. A man approaches the house at 120 Midland Road in Pinehurst, notices the Scottish-style stonework and arches of Dornoch Cottage, and rings the bell.

Donald Ross opens the door and greets A.W. Tillinghast.

What a meeting of the minds of the early days of golf course architecture.

Ross, 63, the son of a Scottish stonemason, apprentice in his 20s to legendary pro Old Tom Morris at St. Andrews, an immigrant to the United States who set up shop in Pinehurst in 1900 and designed notable courses across the eastern United States — from Seminole Golf Club in Florida to Inverness Club in Ohio to Oak Hill Country Club in upstate New York. His tour de force, Pinehurst No. 2, sits just behind his house.

And Tillinghast, 59, the son of a wealthy rubber goods magnate in Philadelphia, who grew up playing cricket and fell under the spell of golf on a visit to St. Andrews in 1896 where he established a mentor-mentee relationship with Morris. Tillinghast’s design acumen was on display across the land as well — from San Francisco Golf Club on the West Coast to Winged Foot Golf Club and Baltusrol Golf Club in the shadows of the New York City skyscrapers.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall, to hear these friends and sometime competitors talk about their shared experiences — their formative years at St. Andrews, their design philosophies, the challenges of maintaining businesses and servicing clients when travel was by train and communication by post.

Surely Tillinghast espoused, to some degree, his belief that “a round of golf should present eighteen inspirations, not necessarily eighteen thrills.”

And no doubt Ross would have looked at the 72-hole facility at Pinehurst Country Club and talked about how it had become the epicenter of golf in America. “I wholeheartedly believe in golf,” Ross once said. “A country which gets golf-minded need not worry about the honor, the integrity and the honesty of its people.”

Tillinghast’s visit came at the behest of the PGA of America and his role as a consultant with the organization which in 11 months would conduct its flagship competition, the 1936 PGA Championship, on Pinehurst No. 2. They carried their golf clubs past Ross’ masterful rose garden in the backyard, through the wrought-iron gates and onto the third green.

Ross showed his guest the green complexes that he had just converted, with the help of green superintendent Frank Maples, from their previous flattish sand/clay structure to undulating Bermuda grass, shaping the sandy soil around them into a cacophony of dips and swales. He noted the roll-offs around the greens, how they penalized shots even slightly mishit and propelled balls into the hollows nearby.

Ross led Tillinghast to the fourth tee and explained how he had just added that hole and the fifth to the routing, taking them from a previous employee-only nine holes, and had arrived at the final (and current) configuration after originally unveiling the course in 1907.

They felt the taut turf under their feet, reveling in how the drainage qualities of the sandy loam made for the ideal golf playing surface. As they went, Ross explained the choices golfers had off the tee — on the par-4 second, for example — showing his friend what a lovely view it was into the green from the left side of the fairway but pointed to the gnarly bunker complex a player had to flirt with to get there. Ross nodded to the native wiregrass that grew in profusion along the fairways and how it reminded him of the whins of his native Scotland.

Did the man known in the business as “Tilly” dip into his bag for a flask and a wee snort as he was wont to do? Did Ross grouse that this new and improved No. 2 was better than any new-fangled effort from Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie down in the red clay of north Georgia?

All of this, we’ll never know. What we do know is what Tillinghast said after his visit.

“Without any doubt Ross regards this as his greatest achievement, which is saying a great deal,” Tillinghast offered. “Every touch is Donald’s own, and I doubt if a single contour was fashioned unless he stood hard by with a critical eye. As we stood on hole after hole, the great architect proudly called my attention to each subtle feature, certain that my appreciation of his artistry must be greater than that taken in by a less practiced eye. Nothing was lost on me, and after our round together, I told him with all honesty that his course was magnificent, without a single weakness, and one which must rank with the truly great courses in the world today.”

And, 89 years later, the show goes on.

Pinehurst No. 2 would continue to be the site of the North & South Open on the PGA Tour through 1951, with Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Ross himself among the winners. It would host the 1936 PGA (won by Denny Shute) and the 1951 Ryder Cup (won by the Americans, 9 1/2to 2 1/2, over the team from Great Britain and Ireland).

But it wasn’t in the mix to host a U.S. Open.

Through the 1970s that union was simply impossible because Pinehurst shut down for the summer (the founding Tufts family and the staff went to Linville or Roaring Gap in North Carolina or traveled north to Maine), and the American national championship was played always in June.

When the resort went to air-conditioning and a year-round operating calendar, the idea was still problematic because of the USGA’s preference for playing courses with firm and fast greens, a challenging task on Southern courses during hot weather months. The U.S. Open was not played in the muggy Southeast until venturing to Atlanta Athletic Club in 1975, though it had already visited hot spots in Houston, St. Louis, Dallas and Fort Worth.

About the time Jerry Pate was winning in Atlanta, officials at Pinehurst Country Club began floating the idea of an Open for No. 2. The Diamondhead Corporation was five years into its ownership of Pinehurst after purchasing it in 1970 from the Tufts family, whose patriarch, James W. Tufts, launched the town and resort in 1895 as a refuge from the cold winters of New England. The Diamondhead president, Bill Maurer, conceived the World Open on the PGA Tour and the World Golf Hall of Fame in the early 1970s and wanted all the traffic, attention and accolades he could muster for Pinehurst and its No. 2 course.

It took two more decades to figure out how to bring the National Open there.

First, there was the dodgy financial bona fides of the resort and club, which eventually went bankrupt and was taken over by eight banks for two years beginning in March 1982. Robert Dedman Sr. and his Club Corporation of America bought the facility in 1984 and provided what has turned into four decades of stability, innovation and financial security, with Robert Dedman Jr. taking the baton after his father died in 2002.

Second, there was the issue of the playing surfaces.

Pinehurst and other golf courses in the Mid-Atlantic, or so-called “transition zone,” have forever been vexed over the choice for their putting surfaces between Bermuda grass, the de facto choice for Florida and warm weather climes, and bent grass, which thrives in the North. Pinehurst officials experimented with new strains of both over the 1970s and ’80s, walking that tightrope between offering smooth and playable greens for members and resort guests for 12 months of the year, and yet having the ability to get them lightning-quick while not dying in the summer for an elite competition. Pinehurst old-timers still remembered Hale Irwin and Johnny Miller taking dead aim at flagsticks during PGA Tour competitions on No. 2 in the late summer and their approach shots going splat and stopping mere feet from the hole (Hale Irwin shot 62 and Johnny Miller 63 in mid-1970s birdie-fests).

Donald Ross must have raged in his grave.

By the early 1990s, the USGA and Pinehurst officials agreed that advances in grass technology and green foundation construction would allow them to rebuild the greens and have them stand up to the world’s best players on a 90-degree day in June. The USGA announced in June 1993 that it would conduct the 1999 Open at Pinehurst. The competition was a rousing success from the perspective of ticket sales, corporate support, traffic ebb and flow, housing and, certainly, the golf course itself.

Left: Donald Ross. Courtesy Tufts Archives

Middle: The Ninth hole of Pinehurst No. 2 Copyright USGA/Fred Vuich

Right: A.W. Tillinghast. Courtesy USGA Archives

“It’s the most draining course I’ve played in a long time,” said European Ryder Cup team member Lee Westwood.

“People sometimes ask what’s the hardest course I’ve ever played,” said two-time U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen. “Now I know.”

The Open has been contested on No. 2 twice more, and the course has played as a par-70 for each championship. The scores validate that what Ross completed in 1935 stands in fine fettle in the next century.

Payne Stewart was 1-under in winning the Open in 1999, Phil Mickelson was even-par, and Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods were 1-over. Michael Campbell won with an even-par total in 2005, with Woods at 2-over. Martin Kaymer has been low man in the three Opens, shooting 9-under in 2014, but his nearest competitors were a mile back, with Ricky Fowler and Eric Compton tied for second at 2-over.

The firm greens, the delicate chipping areas, the flow of the holes and the strategic nuances led Tom Weiskopf to venture in a 1995 conversation that Pinehurst No. 2 is a better year-round test than Augusta National Golf Club.

“Augusta National is good one week a year,” Weiskopf said. “I’ve played Augusta two or three weeks before (The Masters) and it’s a piece of cake — a piece of cake. Pinehurst No. 2 is never a piece of cake.”

The 2024 Open at Pinehurst will be the first played on the Champion Bermuda greens installed after the 2014 Open and the second of the Coore & Crenshaw restoration era. Bill Coore, a native of Davidson County who played No. 2 often during his boyhood summers, and Ben Crenshaw, the two-time Masters champion, coordinated an extensive makeover in 2010-11 that included stripping out hundreds of acres of Bermuda rough, recontouring fairways and bunkers to Ross’ design, and rebuilding the perimeters with firm hardpan sand dotted with wiregrass, pine needles and whatever natural vegetation and debris might accumulate.

“In the early days, this golf course was disheveled and brown, and the ball rolled and rolled and rolled,” Coore says. “That’s what gave it its character. There was width here, the ability to work your ball to get the best angles. Over time, that was lost. It was too green and too organized.”

“Bowling alley fairways,” Crenshaw adds. “Straight and narrow, just like a bowling alley.”

Don Padgett II was the Pinehurst president and chief operating officer from 2004-14 and the man who convinced Dedman that hiring Coore & Crenshaw and taking No. 2 back to its “golden age” from 1935 through the 1960s was the correct move. Padgett is a “golf guy,” in industry parlance, coming to the resort with a background as a PGA Tour player in the early 1970s and a longtime club professional. His father, Don Sr., was director of golf at Pinehurst from 1987-2002.

One March afternoon a decade into his retirement, Padgett is sitting in a rocking chair on the porch overlooking the 18th green of No. 2. It’s sunny and 55 degrees. The tee sheet on No. 2 is full.

“I think this is what the Tufts envisioned,” Padgett says. “If you’re from Boston, this is balmy. My dad used to say if you’re in the golf business, stand here because everyone will come to see you.”

The world of golf is coming to Pinehurst in June, and the game’s top players will find the 18 holes that so impressed A.W. Tillinghast in 1935 and will vex them in 2024.

“I think the golf course today probably presents itself as the best it ever has,” Padgett says. “It’s Ross’ concepts with modern maintenance behind it. I think he would look at this golf course and say, ‘Wow, I wish I’d had the ability to grow grass like this.’ These are his concepts with modern turf. It’s not distorted, it’s enhanced. I think he would bless it.” PS

Chapel Hill-based writer Lee Pace has authored four books about golf in Pinehurst, including “The Golden Age of Pinehurst — The Rebirth of No. 2.” Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

2024 Feature

Creators of N.C.

The Late Drive Home

The music of David Childers

By Wiley Cash

Photographs By Mallory Cash

One chilly evening in early March, I parked in front of WiredCoffeeEspress in Kannapolis, North Carolina. I waited in the car for a few moments, wondering if I had the right place. The coffee shop sat in a strip mall between a discount store and a supermercado, and it seemed like a surprising spot to find one of my favorite living musicians on a Tuesday night. But then I remembered that I was there to see Mount Holly native David Childers, a universally beloved songwriter who is as at home sitting in on an intimate showcase of local musicians in front of a weeknight crowd as he is performing with the Avett Brothers in the Greensboro Coliseum.

Inside I found Childers already seated on the small stage, tuning his acoustic guitar and adjusting the harmonica holder around his neck. He and two other men about his age spent the next hour-and-a-half taking turns playing original songs, each performing five or six numbers. I knew most of the songs Childers played, but I couldn’t help but be struck by their beauty and nuance, how he was able to create rich tension between two lines that revealed a complicated duality that most songwriters aren’t capable of reaching for, much less grasping.

“There are moments of greatness,” he sang during his last song of the evening, “but this ain’t one of those.”

He could’ve fooled me.

By 10 p.m. Childers and I were sitting at a table on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop as patrons loaded into their cars and trucks to head home for the evening, but not before several of them stopped by our table to say hello. One of them offered Childers condolences on the recent passing of Malcolm Holcombe, a singer/songwriter from western North Carolina whom Childers knew for years and who recently lost a long battle with cancer. Childers had honored his friend that evening by performing one of Holcombe’s songs.

“I’m sorry we lost Malcolm,” the man said.

“Yeah,” Childers responded, “but I think Malcolm’s in a better place.” He smiled a sly smile. “We’ll probably run into him.”

Holcombe and Childers came up together in the North Carolina music scene, two literary singer/songwriters who both seemed haunted by the South, its religious iconography, its mystery, and its hardscrabble economics. Both men released their debut albums in 1999 and spent the years before and after touring incessantly, making regular jaunts across Europe.

“I couldn’t get a gig around here in Charlotte,” Childers said, referring to a time when most bars wanted cover bands, not poets with guitars singing blue collar stories about mill closures and lost souls. “I was pretty much by myself, although I would get these bands together and eventually started getting gigs. One place was Dilworth Brewing. That let me get some experience because I started late.” Childers, in his mid-60s now, was around 38 years old when he began performing publicly while he and his wife, Linda, raised a young family, all while Childers worked 50 and 60 hours a week as an attorney in Mount Holly.

In 2007 he looked around and decided that life on the road wasn’t for him, especially when he realized that by the end of November he’d only spent four weekends at home during the entire year. There were things he wanted to do in Mount Holly: spend time with his wife and kids, work in the yard, paint.

“I’d been playing overseas, and there had been some good things, but there was a lot of disappointment, a very mixed bag. And I just realized, I don’t want to be in an airplane all the time or in strange hotels or riding in buses and cars. And Charlotte was changing, North Carolina was changing. The music scene was opening up, and I was getting more of a name, so I had more opportunities. Why fly all over the place if you can stay here and make a living?

“I don’t have the wanderlust anymore,” he said. “I don’t really want to go anywhere.”

And that makes sense if you listen closely to Childers’ more recent music, almost all of which is firmly grounded in the Mount Holly soil that rests along the Catawba River dividing Gaston and Mecklenburg counties. The songs from The Next Best Thing (2013), Run Skeleton Run (2017), Melancholy Angel (2023), and especially 2020’s Interstate Lullaby play like soundtracks of mill culture, zeroing in on the hope born in the post-war years of the 1950s and the despair felt once the lifeblood of local industries began to seep away.

“It’s there in those songs,” he said. “Those two emotions — hope and despair — they give you a conflict, and that’s a good thing to have in a song.”

A young man was standing nearby, and Childers looked up and saw him.

“Hey, man,” Childers said. He shook the young guy’s hand. “I’m glad you came out. I’ve seen you play.”

The guy seemed surprised and genuinely touched, and before walking toward the parking lot he invited Childers to an upcoming show. Childers promised to try and make it.

“That boy’s a hell of a songwriter,” Childers said.

We talked for a few more minutes, and then it was time for Childers to step inside the coffee shop to pack up his gear. I asked him how long the drive home to Mount Holly would take.

“It’s about 40 minutes,” he said. He stood from his chair and stretched his back.

I apologized for keeping him so long after the show ended.

“It’s OK,” he said. “It was a good show, and it was nice to chat.”

“I hope it was worth the late drive home on dark roads,” I said.

He smiled. “Hope and despair,” he said. PS

Wiley Cash is the executive director of Literary Arts at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and the founder of This Is Working, an online community for writers.

2024 Department The Creators The Creators of N.C.

Tea Leaf Astrologer

Taurus

(April 20 – May 20)

While it’s true you tend to be a bit self-absorbed, who can blame you? Ruled by the planet of love, money, romance, art and beauty, your sensual nature is part of what makes you so utterly magnetic. This month, both Venus and Jupiter will amplify your charm factor, creating a “golden ticket” effect in relation to your wildest longings. Here’s the catch:
You’ve got to be willing to ditch your plans.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Choose a focal point.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

One word: hummingbird.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Just take the ride.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Step away from your comfort zone.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Expect a miracle.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Try slowing down.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Mind your tone.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Read the care instructions.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Find your true north.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Dust the fan blades.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Let the butterfly come to you. PS

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla.

2024 Department Tea Leaf Astrologer

Hooked Up to History

Skydiving with Bush 41

By Amberly Glitz Weber

Photograph by John Gessner

“Sir.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Mr. President?”

No answer.

Time is very important. We’re losing time and altitude. I’m, like, is he dead? Everything’s going through my head right now.

“Sir?”

“Yeah?”

“Sir, you gotta help me get your legs up.”

It was the morning of June 12, 2014. Former President of the United States George H.W. Bush is floating toward the Earth from approximately 8,000 feet over his home of Kennebunkport, Maine, strapped to the chest of retired Sgt. 1st Class Mike Elliott, a former Golden Knight and founder of the independent skydiving team All Veteran Group. The panoramic view of St. Anne’s Episcopalian Church and the Atlantic Ocean stretch out below them. And the side pinnings that allow for a flexible landing position will not loosen.

Maine is a long way from Linden, North Carolina, a little town 45 minutes north of Fayetteville, where Mike Elliott was born and raised. “I had four uncles who were all in the military. My grandfather was a veteran of World War II. I was the only grandchild for many, many years, and my uncles were more like my big brothers. They loved the military, which led to me loving the military,” Elliott says. “My grandfather just had that military soul. He always had the high and tight haircut, the perfect mustache. He was a book of knowledge.”

Working part time at a grocery store in Spring Lake during high school, Elliott saw soldiers walking in and out, pulling on their berets. “Whether it was the green beret or the maroon beret, I knew my destiny was to join the military,” he says. He enlisted after high school and spent a year in Baumholder, Germany, in the mechanized infantry, a titanic change for a kid from North Carolina. “It was white and snowy and I think it stayed that way the entire year.”

His first encounter with the open skies was when he was sent to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne Division. He became an air assault instructor and stayed in that position until war broke out, deploying as a scout in Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm. No parachutes there. Instead, he spent his time “doing reconnaissance on a dirt bike in the desert.”

At war’s end Elliott returned to Fort Campbell and secured a post as driver to Gen. John M. Keane, then commander of the 101st. “He always called me ‘good sergeant’ and after 14 months he asked me, ‘What’s next for you, good sergeant?’ I told him I wanted to jump out of airplanes.” In 1991, Keane sent Elliott to Fort Bragg (now Liberty) and the 82nd Airborne Division, where he became a squad leader. Even now he calls it the “toughest job in the military.” After four years, he was transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia, as an airborne instructor. His skydiving destiny was coming closer.

“Walking out onto Fryer Drop Zone I see these four specks with blue parachutes come out of an aircraft,” he says. He watched them land to a precision point in the field. The specks were members of the Golden Knights, the U.S. Army’s parachute team. “I said to myself, there are people in the Army who do that, jump out of airplanes and tell people about the Army? Man, I want to do that.” Determined to get there, Elliott began the process. First he was named Instructor of the Year, an honor that gained him entry to the Fort Benning parachute team, the Silver Wings, a demonstration team that feeds applicants to the Golden Knights. Then he met a challenge he couldn’t muscle through.

“At the time I was really big into weightlifting, just a musclehead. This should have been easy stuff, but I spent 30 jumps trying to relax and get stable. I would flip through the air over and over, and right at pull time I would flatten out on my belly, and deploy my parachute, and that kept me in the program . . . that and I was Instructor of the Year,” he says with a wink.

How does a guy who can’t get stable in the air become team leader of the Silver Wings? “Finally, I realized I couldn’t fight the air. I had to take muscles out of the equation.”

Eight years into his military career he was a sergeant first class and where he wanted to be. “I was living and breathing my dream, which was to become a Golden Knight,” he says. He returned to Fort Bragg and the 82nd as a platoon sergeant, a position he held for two years under a division command sergeant major who didn’t want to lose him to the “pretty boy” parachute team. What began as a stumbling block in his path to the Golden Knights became “the greatest job ever, taking care of 30 kids,” he says. He continued to jump part time with the All American Free Fall team, the 82nd Airborne’s demo team, where he also was appointed team leader.

In 2000 Elliott finally had his chance to try out for the Golden Knights. “I thought I’d done some pretty cool things in the military, but tryouts was an eye-opener. I went in at 205 pounds and came out 185. With 15 to 20 jumps a day, you’re running and you’re rolling, and the attrition was so high.” He shakes his head. “That was one of the happiest moments of my life, getting jacketed as a Golden Knight.”

During his career with the parachute team, Elliott fostered its burgeoning tandem program. “Being able to share my passion for free fall with someone else and see that excitement in their first jump was absolutely amazing. That first year we did a lot, a lot, of tandems. The program really launched and, to this day, I think it is probably the most important element of the Golden Knights,” he says. “When you can take an educator, or a first responder, or a celebrity on a tandem jump, representing the Army in that way, and they see it through our eyes, and get a chance to enjoy that sensation and that passion. It spreads the knowledge about what we do as Golden Knights, but more importantly what we do as soldiers.”

Elliott spent 11 years as a Golden Knight. In 2007, he was the most experienced tandem instructor on the team when he got a call that would alter the trajectory of his life.

“My boss calls me in, and says, ‘C’mon in, close the door. Former President Bush wants to do another jump and we want you to be his tandem instructor.’” Of course, Bush’s first parachute jump was in 1944 during World War II as a Navy pilot shot down on a bombing raid over Japanese-occupied Chichi Jima. He’d gone on to conduct skydives and tandems with both the Golden Knights and the U.S. Parachute Association, marking every fifth birthday after his retirement by strapping on a parachute and jumping from a plane.

“So I walk out of the office, close the door, and it hits me, you’re gonna get to jump with a former president and leader of the free world. One of those moments where you know you can’t screw this up, the whole world’s going to be watching.” The mission had one more twist — it was a secret.

“No one knew. Not even the Secret Service,” Elliott says. “So we have this closed office call. I’m sitting in there, drinking coffee, eating doughnuts with the 41st president. He said, ‘Here’s the deal guys, we’re gonna keep this thing a secret.’ No one knows but Jean Becker (former Chief of Staff).”

They don’t tell Barbara Bush until the day before the jump. “I’m getting ready to do a teleconference with the 41st president. Once I’m done, they say, ‘Mrs. Bush wants to come meet you and the guys who are going to be jumping her husband tomorrow.’ So I’m standing out in front of the team and I see Mrs. Bush coming down the stairs. She had such elegance about her, just gliding down the stairs. She’s tiny, probably 4 foot 2.” He grins at the recollection. “I’m thinking she’s gonna give me a hug, say thank you for taking care of my husband kind of thing. So she walks over, I got this big, cheesy smile on my face. I was looking down at her, and she’s looking up at me. She had no smile on her face whatsoever.

“They introduce us, ‘Mrs. Bush, this is Sgt. 1st Class Elliott, he’s going to be jumping your husband tomorrow.’ And again, I’m sort of pushing my face forward a little bit, still thinking she’s gonna be giving me this big hug right? And she looks up at me and says these exact words: ‘If you hurt him, I will kill you.’ And I chuckled a little bit — she did not chuckle. She turned and walked away.”

Elliott bursts out laughing. “Turned and walked away! And I’m thinking, ‘Wow!’”

The jump was flawless. “I remember he was coming out of the crowd, waving . . . a beautiful landing. I was so grateful to say that I was a member of the U.S. Army, of the Golden Knights, at that moment; to give him that jump, something he loved. He ended up writing me a letter afterward, and he said ‘You made an old man feel young again.’ So that was just the icing on the cake, to have the opportunity to be with such an iconic figure, the 41st president, head of the CIA, world’s youngest Navy pilot shot down in World War II, and I just jumped him out of an airplane in front of a thousand people. Every network in the world was there . . . and I didn’t hurt him, so I didn’t have to face Mrs. Bush.”

Years passed, when Elliott heard from the president again. “He wanted to jump for his 85th birthday, and he requested me by name,” says Elliott. Together with the Golden Knights tandem coordinator Dave Wherley, “my best friend, airborne buddy, my little brother,” Elliott traveled to Kennebunkport for a survey of the jump site. He remembers with perfect recall the time he and Wherley spent with “41.”

“We’re walking around with the president at Walker’s Point, and this guy’s just so humble, you don’t think you’re talking to a former world leader, because he’s just such a nice guy,” says Elliott. After the survey, the president invited the two to join “him and Barbara” for dinner.

“We go into the sunroom, overlooking the water, Dave and me. Soon as we walk in, the president goes, ‘You guys want a drink?’ This is all happening in slow motion. He pours two cocktails out, so we sit there, and we’re talking to Mrs. Bush and the president about jumping. He’s telling us about being shot down, and it’s just one of those moments, where I’m like, wow.”

The next day’s jump came off perfectly. “It was just an amazing feeling to give that to him in front of the world. It wasn’t just me, it was the entire team that made the mission happen. But it was my second successful jump with the president, and after each jump, he writes me a letter. ‘Thanks for carrying all the weight, you’re the best ever. Let’s get working on my 90th birthday jump.’”

Three years later, after more than a decade as a Golden Knight, Elliott was preparing to retire. “The tandem team had been successful and I noticed that a lot of guys would leave the Golden Knights with great skill sets as far as performers in the air, as skydivers, but they wouldn’t jump anymore. They would leave the Golden Knights and just stop jumping.” He shakes his head. “I get it. It’s not the same, but myself and Dave, we were like ‘Man, there’s such potential out there. Let’s start our own team.’”

Together, the two best friends began making their dream a reality. Elliott found sponsors and office space in downtown Fayetteville. A year later, Wherley retired and came on board full time. “I was waiting on Dave to retire,” Mike says. “He was going to be the coordinator, making phone calls and getting us locked in doing shows.” Then, 28 days later, on January 31, 2013, tragedy struck.

Elliott found his friend in his apartment having taken his own life. “It put a hole in my heart,” says Elliott, “but it also put the wind in my sails to stand this team up. This veteran suicide thing is out of control. So if we can do something positive, if we can save one life a month, one life a year, then what we do is a great thing.”

The loss of his friend redefined the mission and goal of the team. By raising awareness about veteran suicide Elliott hoped to build a legacy for his friend and brother. “Dave, he gave us our purpose for the All Veteran Group. When you have a passion for something, and that passion turns into a drive for other reasons, it’s a fusion that’s immeasurable. You know we do this out of passion, but we do it because there’s a possibility it’s going to motivate someone else, give them the strength and courage to say, ‘You know what, I’m gonna continue to live my life. There are veterans out here doing great things who love me. Why should I not want to be here?’”

Moving out to XP Paraclete, a Raeford drop zone, Elliott established new operating headquarters in the freshly dedicated Wherley Building. “I was riding the ebbs and flows of starting a parachute team,” when he got a call from Jean Becker. The same Jean Becker. The former president, now turning 90, had not forgotten his “airborne buddy.” Despite a plague of health concerns, 41 wanted to jump again — and he wanted to do it with Mike and the All Veteran Group.

“Ms. Becker calls me, she says, ‘Mike, you’re not going to believe this, his doctor is saying no, his wife is saying no, 43 (George W. Bush) is saying no, but he is determined.’”

And so Elliott launched six months of preparation, designing specially constructed heavily padded harnesses for the wheelchair-bound president, rigged to carry supplemental oxygen. The All Veteran Group’s plane at the time was a King Air 90, “a great plane, but a tiny door,” not suitable for this jump. Reaching out to the CEO of Bell Helicopter, a veteran and former Army Ranger, Elliott got a “brand-spanking new Bell 429,” transported from Texas to Maine, ready to land on the president’s front yard. “All the moving parts were coming together.”

Until the day before the jump, when Elliott received another call from Becker.

“Mike, we have a problem,” she says. “Mrs. Bush doesn’t want the jump to happen.”

Elliott shakes his head, remembering. “I’m thinking about everything we have done to get to this point but also, ‘I’m gonna kill you’ is in the back of my mind. If Mrs. Bush doesn’t want it to happen we might as well pack up.”

Jean Becker wasn’t finished. “No, no, no, we want you to go and talk to Mrs. Bush,” she said.

“All these people around — two former presidents, a former governor — and you want me, the person she threatened to kill, to talk to her and get her approval to jump her husband tomorrow?”

Becker replied, “Yeah, that’s what we want.”

They left the office together and headed to the main house overlooking the water where they explained the situation to 41. The president interrupted, “I thought we had that all figured out.” The nonagenarian looked at Elliott and said, “Do we both have to go up and talk to her?”

It was then that George W. Bush, “43,” walked out from one of the smaller lodges. “He’s been painting, got paint all over his hands, hair looking all crazy,” says Elliott, “and Ms. Becker says to him, ‘Sir, Mike’s going to go talk to Mrs. Bush and persuade her,’ and he says, ‘Mmmm, I don’t know about that.’ Not much confidence from 43 because Mrs. Bush, she’s the head honcho. What she says is the final answer.”

Becker went in first to prepare Barbara, leaving a disconsolate trio outside on the porch.

“So here I am,” Elliott says, “a little soldier boy from North Carolina, standing here with two former presidents, waiting to go in and get clearance from a former first lady, and I was just like, ‘Man, I can’t believe this is happening.’”

Jean Becker stepped back onto the porch. “Mrs. Bush was looking out the window at all you guys, and she says, ‘I don’t want to talk to any of you.’

“Is she pissed?” 43 asked Becker.

“No, she just doesn’t want to talk to you.” The former first lady was, reluctantly, on board. George W. Bush turned and said, “Mike, you are the man.” He gives Elliott a high-five and went back to his easel.

The weather was marginal the next morning as a team of four people helped lift the 6-foot, 2-inch former president into the helicopter. At 8,000 feet the tandem jumped. “I remember the parachute opening, and once you get the parachute open, you have to loosen things up,” says Elliott. “You’re hooked up to each other at four attachment points, and the two at the hips are really important, because if you don’t get them loose, you won’t have the mobility to lean back and get that perfect landing position.”

With time going by quickly and Bush “not acknowledging anything — I didn’t even know if he was still breathing,” Elliott had only moments to prepare.

“Never got the side connections undone, so now we’re coming in hot. We’re tight together, so I roll over my shoulder onto the ground.” Straightening into position, Elliott aligned himself to take the brunt of the landing with Bush positioned on top of him, Elliott’s body acting as a buffer with the ground.

“I was thinking, I just hurt the president. I say ‘Sir, you OK?’ and then I see, he’s giving me the thumbs up, waving at the crowd. Man, it was the best feeling you could have.” Elliott smiles. “I know that day I made a 90-year-old former world leader happy.”

Another chapter with the Bush family complete, Elliott returned to leading the All Veteran Group. “That jump gave us news on a national level,” he says. It brought badly needed publicity in a niche industry, and the team has continued to maintain a tight schedule. With each year, they add more shows, more jumps, raising awareness for veterans’ issues. For a team composed of more than 80 percent former Golden Knights, they maintain their connection via train-the-trainer exchanges and internships for soldiers in need of extra support.

The All Veteran Group conducts an annual Toys for Tots event at its home base in Raeford and travels the country supporting the home-building nonprofit U.S. Veterans Corps on ceremony days. Today, their sponsor is American Airlines, and they are the official skydiving team of the Carolina Panthers.

It’s the 11th year of the team, and the schedule is relentless. “It’s demanding but I enjoy it so much. It’s relaxing — I don’t like sitting at home,” says Elliott. “I’m comfortable in this environment because I understand why we do what we do, and this passion is real and I love it and I’ll do everything that I can and continue to do it for as long as I can.”

Last year saw the All Veteran Group jump at 137 shows. The 2024 schedule has been filled with cross-country and international flights, from Texas in March jumping a 102-year old World War II veteran, to Normandy in June for a landing on Omaha Beach. He’ll be back to Texas in mid-June for another special celebration for what would have been George H.W. Bush’s 100th birthday.

Though 41 has passed on, this party will be special for Elliott, as he conducts tandem skydives with the Bush grandchildren, honoring their late grandfather. “They’re super nice people. They treat everybody the same. That’s how I remember the 41st president,” Elliott says.

So, what is it about the 60 seconds in free fall that makes it so alluring, particularly to veterans? Is it just the airborne legacy or is there something more? Elliott eyes the mementos of a long career spent in service to others, memorabilia from 41, and his best friend David Wherley’s life-sized cutout standing guard by the front door of his Raeford office. He thinks about his final jump with a president.

“It was a picture perfect moment, in between St. Anne’s Church and Walker’s Point overlooking the water, and I think at that moment, he was just kind of doing an internal shot of his life. He was just so calm and at peace.”

The stillness in that stretch between sea and sky can offer a few seconds of reflection for us all. PS

Aberdeen resident Amberly Glitz Weber is an Army veteran and freelance writer.

2024 Feature

PS Women In Business 2024

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Golftown Journal

Saving a Soul

Defending the identity of Pinehurst

By Lee Pace

Feature Photo: John May, James Van Camp and Bruce Cunningham

At 83 years of age, Jim Van Camp rises every morning, puts on a dress shirt and necktie, and goes to work in one of the oldest buildings in the village of Pinehurst. He takes the elevator to the third floor of the Theatre Building, which opened in 1923 and for decades was the hot spot for evening entertainment. Now his law firm leases an office complex at the top of the hexagonal structure conceived in the fertile mind of architect Aymar Embury II, and Van Camp settles in each morning with three other attorneys and seven paralegals at his disposal, not to mention a black Lab named Tweed and a Löwchen named Mr. Pringle.

“At my age, I should be retired, but I don’t know what the hell I’d do,” Van Camp says. “I’m not a big gardener, I don’t like mowing grass, I’m not married so I don’t have a bunch of honey-do lists. I like getting up in the morning and knowing I have something to do.

“I love the practice of law. I love the challenge. I love helping someone save time, save money, save their lives if we’re talking a capital case.”

Or in one very special case, save a town, a golf course and a way of life.

Pinehurst existed for 75 years beginning in 1895 as a “benevolent dictatorship” under the auspices of the founding Tufts family. The specter of needing to make major capital improvements and potential inheritance taxes for the generations after patriarch James W. Tufts prompted the family in the late 1960s to look to sell the resort, five golf courses and an entire town with commercial buildings, a police and fire department and all the infrastructure, and thousands of acres of undeveloped land.

The buyer in December 1970 was the Diamondhead Corporation, which was founded by Maxton native Malcom McLean, a former truck driver who made a fortune in the 1950s and ’60s creating a new industry — the container shipping business. Diamondhead had resort and residential development operations in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, and moved quickly into Pinehurst, bringing bulldozers and carpenters by the dozens.

“Diamondhead sold dirt, that’s what they did,” Van Camp says. “They bought 8,000 acres. Their plan was to sell the dirt, make a profit and get out. There was no municipal government back then, no restrictions on them at all.”

Diamondhead built condos within 15 feet of some of the fairways of the No. 3 and No. 5 courses on the west side of N.C. 5, some of them octagonal-shaped units derided then as now as looking like little spaceships. The company was encroaching on Marshall Park, a circular preserve in the middle of the village named in honor of Gen. George Marshall, who lived in Pinehurst following World War II. And it had plans to build condos in a triangle of pine forest between the first, 17th and 18th holes of No. 2, and to erect more commercial structures along the fourth fairway.

A Pinehurst Country Club member and resident named Stuart Paine said enough. He formed a group called “Concerned Citizens of Pinehurst” and looked for a lawyer to challenge Diamondhead’s aggressiveness in court.

That’s where Van Camp, 32 at the time and a partner in the law firm of Seawell, Pollock, Fullenwider, Van Camp and Robbins, entered the picture.

“I have no idea why Stuart hired me,” Van Camp says. “I had had some successes at trial, but I was young. I’m not sure he didn’t talk to other people, and they said, ‘Forget it.’ He was probably working down his list. He said, ‘I have $10,000. What can you do?’”

Van Camp and a team that included attorneys John May and Bruce Cunningham, each of them 26 and one year out of law school, set off over the next year to build a case, which was tried in Moore County Superior Court in Carthage in September 1973.

“The sense of the case was there was a culture here, an environment that was unique,” Van Camp reflects today. “Pinehurst has always been unique. No. 2 was part of that culture. As a matter of fact, it was one of the reasons there was a culture. To destroy that element of the culture would have destroyed the culture and the environment of the village. I did not have a lot of case law, but the argument sounded good.”

Among the exhibits Van Camp produced were aerial photos of the development around the No. 3 and No. 5 courses, and photographs capturing the history and ambience of a village designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted, the “father of American landscape architecture.” Van Camp was heartened that the judge, the Honorable A. Pilston Godwin, was a strict traditionalist, a man who chided attorneys if they were not dressed properly and could accurately ascertain by hearing a man’s surname if his ancestors were from England or Scotland.

“I really tried to sell the ambience of this place,” Van Camp says. “That was my argument. ‘Your honor, this just can’t happen. We need your help. This is what you’re being asked to destroy.’ The judge bought into it. He told their lawyers, ‘You better meet with Mr. Van Camp, because you’re not going to like my ruling.’”

Van Camp and the defendant’s attorneys worked out a settlement that prevented Diamondhead from building any structure along No. 2 with the exception of the already planned World Golf Hall of Fame headquarters, which would sit to the east side of the course’s fourth green and fifth tee and open in the fall of 1974. In addition, Diamondhead could not build more than 11 condominiums per acre on land adjoining a golf course; could not build any dwelling within 30 feet of a golf course; and could never use Marshall Park for any purpose beyond recreation.

Imagine the ramifications had No. 2 been blasphemed with goofy condos and 1970s-style commercial structures. Could that look have infected the village itself? Where would it have stopped? What would have been left when Diamondhead eventually lost the club and the resort to the banks in 1982? Would there have been enough for a resurrection project of a “fallen angel,” to use the words of Robert Dedman Sr., who bought Pinehurst in 1984 and revived it with the help of son Robert Jr. into the golfing colossus that will host its fourth U.S. Open Championship in June?

We’ll never know. But you want the odds?

“There’s no telling what this place would look like,” Van Camp says. “It was a time and place, and something tragic was going to happen. We had the right cause from Stuart, some smart young attorneys in John and Bruce, we had the right judge. I was just the mouthpiece at the hearings. And it worked. It kept what was important about this place. The whole character of this town would have changed.”

With that, Jim Van Camp turns back to his legal pad and briefs, rubs Mr. Pringle’s head and plows through his afternoon. Outside the Village Theatre, the carillon in The Village Chapel peals out as it does at the top of every hour. It’s just another beautiful day in Pinehurst. PS

Author Lee Pace chronicled Payne Stewart’s magical week in 1999 in his book The Spirit of Pinehurst, published in 2004.

2024 Department Golftown Journal

Sporting Life

Trouble at Slim’s

Change at the old country hideout

By Tom Bryant

It was one of those early spring Sundays when the weather was doing its North Carolina thing, frosty in the morning, heading toward summer by sundown. Dogwoods were almost clear of their blooms, and the leaves on the hardwoods were about as full and green as they can be in what my grandma used to call God’s time.

I was still kinda out of sorts, tired of nursing along a knee replacement and ready for a road trip but knowing that it was still too early to hook up the little Airstream and head to the beach. I can take house arrest for a short time, but after a while I begin to get a little restless. Just ask my bride and caretaker, Linda. She jokingly said, “Why don’t you go somewhere, sit in the sun, find some of your good buddies to talk to?”

There. I had as good an excuse as I’ve had in a while to set forth on a little adventure. But where to go? Slim’s Store, if it’s still there, would be something I could handle, decrepit knee and all. The problem was I hadn’t visited my old country hangout in a couple of years, and it might not be the same as it used to be.

Located in the north central part of the state, Slim’s Store was almost a household name among the folks in that part of the country who are partial to the outdoors. Hunters, fishermen, campers or farmers, everyone was welcome at Slim’s.

Slim’s grandfather built the store in the early part of the last century, and it almost immediately became a huge success. Like stores at that time all over the country, it was a meeting place, a place to see what your neighbors were up to, and the place to buy the goods you needed around the homestead. Everything was there from a barrel of tenpenny nails to a pair of boots or coveralls. If it wasn’t in the store, you probably didn’t need it. It was also where local farmers could sell their goods, like H.J. Johnson’s Angus steaks and roasts, and fresh corn and collards from Aunt Mary’s garden. These amazing country stores came along way before the A&P or the city hardware store appeared downtown.

Eventually Slim’s grandfather passed away, and the store declined. It sat in disrepair for years until Slim made his fortune out West and decided to revive the business. He did it, as he put it, so all his “reprobate” friends would have a place to go.

It was more like a hobby than a place to make money, although I later found out that it did break even. More importantly, it did give his friends a place to go and be recognized, a place where everybody knows your name.

It became a proper store with everything that an enterprise of its day had. There were barrels of hardware stuff from nails to door hinges. Overalls, jeans and work shirts hung from racks toward the back of the open space. On the right as you entered were the counter and cash register. The glass-fronted counter displayed all the knickknacks, everything from pocket knives to reading glasses. On top of the counter were big gallon jars of pickled eggs, sausages and pigs’ feet, a gourmet’s delight.

A good example of the stock in the store was the white rubber boots, the kind coastal commercial fishermen wear. Slim had four or five pairs lining the top shelf behind the counter. We were a couple hundred miles from the coast, and when I asked Slim why in the world he stocked something he probably would never sell, he replied, “You never know when a fishery worker might show up and need a pair of boots.”

Nothing stays the same, though, and when Slim went on to join his grandfather at that Heaven’s gate store that never needs restocking, we regulars of the old country emporium were afraid we had outlived a favorite way of life. But thankfully, along came Bubba.

Bubba and Slim had a lot in common. They both had a lot of money. Slim made the store a hobby. Bubba, who bought the store from Slim’s cousin Leroy, who had inherited it and didn’t have a clue what to do with it, kept it going because he said, “I like the people, my favorite rocking chair, and the coffee. As far as I’m concerned that’s enough to be successful.” Leroy stayed on as manager.

That afternoon I gave Leroy a call at the store to alert him that I might pay him a visit and to see if he could round up some of the other regulars.

Leroy has never been very loquacious on the phone, so I was ready for a one-way conversation. “Hello,” he answered on the second ring. That alone was a surprise. Usually the phone will ring off the hook before someone, usually a customer, answers.

“Hey, Leroy. It’s Tom Bryant. How you doing?”

“OK, I guess.”

“I’m thinking on riding up your way this Friday and hoped you could call a few of the old-timers and we could have sort of a reunion.”

“Mr. Tom, I’ll try, but most of the old customers are dead or maybe dying.” If nothing else, Leroy always cut to the chase.

“How about Bubba? Is he back from Costa Rica yet?” Bubba had been saltwater fly-fishing in Central America.

“No, sir. I think he’s supposed to come back any day now. I do remember he said before he left that he wanted to talk to you.”

“Leroy, what’s the matter? You don’t sound like your usual cheerful self,” I said jokingly.

“Naw sir, things are pretty much a mess around the old ’stablishment. You’ll see when you get here.”

“Now you got me worried. I’ll see you Friday. Try and round up a few of the live ones.”

“Yessir.” He hung up leaving me wondering what was going on in Leroy’s environs. Friday couldn’t come soon enough.

About mid-week, before I was to head out to the old store, Bubba called. I could tell by his clipped conversation that he was in a disgruntled mood. It seems that a problem had developed with one of his businesses, and he had to make a fast trip to New York.

“Bryant, Leroy said you were coming up here Friday. Do me a favor. Check out things and when I get back from New York, we’ll get together up here with the girls for a steak dinner and talk about what you saw. I don’t know if I’m going to keep the place open.”

“OK, Bubba.” I had a thought that perhaps the ancient business wasn’t long for this world. We hung up after a short conversation with Bubba lambasting everything from the state of the dollar to the mess with foreign imports of every kind.

I told Linda about the conversation and she said Bubba was probably just tired from all his travels. “Yep,” I said, “but you know what? When I go up there this Friday, I’m gonna buy me a pair of those vintage white fishing boots and eat a pickled egg and maybe a pig’s foot while I still can. It’d make Slim proud.”PS

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

2024 Department Sporting Life

PinePitch

PinePitches

Come and Go, Talk of Michelangelo

Even if they’re not J. Alfred Prufrock, May is a busy month for authors at The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St. in Southern Pines. Cheryl L. Mason, Stephen E. Smith, Mary Kay Andrews, Max Braillier, Tommy Tomlinson, Kristen Harmel and Mesha Maren will all be discussing and signing their books. For specific dates, times and titles go to www.ticketmesandhills.com or visit www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

A Night to Behold

Do yourself, and your community, a favor by attending the one-night only performance of seven-time Grammy Award nominee Nnenna Freelon for a concert benefiting the Southern Pines Land & Housing Trust on Friday, May 17 at 7 p.m. at the West Southern Pines Center, 1250 W. New York Ave., Southern Pines. The incredible jazz vocalist recently starred in the show “Georgia on My Mind: Celebrating the Music of Ray Charles.” She has toured with Charles, performed at the White House, and appeared with talents like Ellis Marsalis, Al Jarreau, George Benson, Earl Klugh and others. For tickets and information go to weblink.donorperfect.com/nnenna. (Photograph by Samantha Everette)

Garden Party

The Village Heritage Foundation hosts its Spring Garden Party on Tuesday, May 7, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Timmel Pavilion, 105 Rassie Wicker Drive, in the Village Arboretum in Pinehurst. There will be wine, hors d’oeuvres and refreshments. Guests will receive updates on the Woodland Garden design, one of the earliest developments in the park, and the dedication of the new Jim and Elizabeth Fisher Gathering Place. Tickets are $30. In the event of rain, the location will move to the Fair Barn. For further information go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

A floral arrangement donated for the 2023 Spring Garden Party

A Touch of The Grape

The Women of Weymouth will hold their annual happy hour on Wednesday, May 15, beginning at 5:30 p.m. on the Boyd House grounds at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. There will be appetizers and desserts by Scott’s Table, a wine bar, a wine tasting by Standing Room Only, music by Sam Thomas, raffles and more. Tickets are $55 for members, $60 for non-members. If you’re still thirsty the Farm Fresh Spring Wine Walk on Saturday, May 18, in the village of Pinehurst features 12 boutique locations offering spring wine and tapas. Tickets are $45 and start times are 3:30, 4:30 or 5:30 p.m. For info and tickets got to www.eventbrite.com.

Somebody Had to Do It

Release your inner Wookie at The Tyson Sinclair, 105 McReynolds St., Carthage, the planetary location for a “May the Force Be With You” costume party beginning at 6 p.m. on — what else? — Saturday, May the Fourth. There will be food, drinks and games. All you Lukes and Leias must be 21 or over to attend. That shouldn’t be a problem since Star Wars premiered 47 years ago. For more information go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

First Friday, 2024 Edition

Come one, come all on May 3 to the first First Friday of 2024 to enjoy the music of The Wilson Springs Hotel, a Virginia-based band with a honky-tonk, folk rock sound, on Sunrise Square next to the theater at 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. We know y’all remember the drill — bring blankets, lawn chairs, dancing shoes, flowers for your hair and kids, but leave Cujo at home. Beverages are meant to be purchased, not smuggled. For additional info go to firstfridaysouthernpines.com, www.sunrisetheater.com or call (910) 420-2549.

The Phil

Maestro David Michael Wolff and the Carolina Philharmonic will be joined by the husband and wife duo of Josh Young and Emily Padgett-Young in a performance of “Broadway Brilliance: A Symphony Pops Spectacular” on Saturday, May 18, at 7:30 p.m. at BPAC’s Owen’s Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Tickets range from $10 (students) to $60 (VIP). For more information call (910) 687-0287 or go to www.carolinaphil.org.

Sunrise Live

There will be six live performances of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple (Female Version) beginning Friday, May 10, and concluding on Sunday, May 19, at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. For information on show times call (910) 420-2549 or visit www.sunrisetheater.com.

2024 Department PinePitch

Southwords

A Taste for Golf

Sometimes it just comes naturally

By Emilee Phillips

Golf and I go way back. My earliest memory of a golf ball was at my uncle’s wedding. It was held at a country club somewhere in Iowa. I assume it was flat and kind of cornfieldy. I was 4 and given the honor of being one of the flower girls.

During the rehearsal dinner, we were in one of the many swanky dining rooms in a confusing maze of swanky rooms that I’m still not sure were all dedicated exclusively to our party. Nonetheless, little ol’ me scouted out the place. After all, there were three flower girls, surely they didn’t need all of us.

Central to the decorating theme, there were golf balls on every table — but not just any golf balls. These were regulation-sized, pure white chocolate golf balls. There was one at each place setting in the room.

I’m not sure if someone suggested the idea, as kids do, or if I arrived at it all on my own, but I decided to lick one. Having once discovered the delectable goodness — of which there seemed to be an unlimited quantity — I made it my mission to taste as many as I could.

Seeing teeth marks sunken into a golf ball may be something out of the fever dream of a high handicapper, but to my young eyes, the sight of my teeth carving a smooth path out of the dimpled outer shell was mesmerizing.

The trance was broken when my mother ripped a golf ball, a mere shell of its former self, out of my hand. By that point it was too late. I don’t know how many I had already bitten into, but I can tell you I know what it’s like to overindulge at the 19th hole. My “hangover” may have been sugar induced, but my head felt it all the same.

Looking out on the golf course the next day, I naturally associated feeling like garbage with the little white balls people seemed to take such delight in striking. Fists clenched, I said to myself, So that’s why they hit them so hard. And, yes, I still hate white chocolate.

My next run-in with a golf course wasn’t until high school, when I moved to Pinehurst. Like Starbucks in Manhattan, there seemed to be a golf course on every corner.

While I still don’t know much about golf, I am learning. I know that there are 18 holes in a standard game of golf, and that the term “birdie” has nothing to do with fingers. Peak season in North Carolina is spring and fall, presumably because it’s not too hot or too humid. I’m also told that the tiny craters on a golf ball serve more than an aesthetic purpose and actually have aerodynamic properties to make the balls travel faster or farther, or whatever, through the air.

I’m aware that being on a golf course is like being in a theater after the curtain has gone up. One should be mostly quiet and mostly respectful of those trying to focus on the task at hand. I’ll likely never understand what goes into a perfect swing. But I know it’s supposed to be repetitive, like eating every bit of chocolate in sight. PS

Emilee Phillips is PineStraw’s director of social media and digital content.

2024 Department Southwords