Tag: 2024

Sun-Raised Sheep

Farming at the bleating edge

By Jenna Biter

Photographs by John Gessner

Peafowl nap high in the rafters of a classic red barn. One bird, awakened by a buzz buzz buzzing, pecks a housefly out of the air like Mr. Miyagi with chopsticks. And the buzzing stops.

Now, the peacock is presumably less irritated, as well as less hungry, and the fly can’t buzz down to the wobbly-legged lambs, whose developing immune systems are better off without whatever infections the insect might be spreading.

The lambs’ young stomachs aren’t even strong enough to digest what will become their steady diet of grass. When they do grow strong enough, at a couple of months old, they’ll leave the red barn to join the flock munching its way across a quilt of pastures tucked down a gravel drive beside a flea market in Biscoe.

A few westward turns out of Moore County and into Montgomery, the 500-head Katahdin flock grazes beneath the shade of solar panels, where the Old World meets the Ewe, uh, New.

“They use this word ‘agrivoltaics,’” says Joel Olsen, a Charlotte native who owns the Montgomery Sheep Farm, with his wife, Tonje, “which doesn’t mean anything to most people.” That’s something the couple seems on a mission to change.

To people who do know, agrivoltaics is a techy sort of twofer: It’s when a solar farm moonlights as a traditional crop farm or, as with the Olsens, a livestock farm.

“The power here at the farm goes into the local grid, and this . . . ” Joel trails off in search of the right explanation. “Right now,” he says, “we’re powering all of Biscoe and Star — every single home, school, business, factory.”

He looks out at the gleaming fields of silvery tech, more than 100,000 solar panels in all.

“It’s a ton of power, 28 megawatts,” he says, delight warming his Carolina accent. While the solar panels stare up at the sun, quietly collecting golden rays to redistribute as green energy, the flock, unbeknownst to them, is on the clock.

With each happy chomp, the sheep mow the grass beneath and between the panel rows, so the greenery doesn’t shoot up and disrupt the solar harvest.

“When you get shade, it reduces your output, it reduces your income,” Joel says. Despite the clear cause and effect, during the early days of O2 — the name of his N.C. solar development company — he learned that solar farm groundskeeping was often overlooked, low budget, and the first thing to go wrong.

In 2012, the Olsens set out to change the status quo.

With a nostalgia for the lamb dishes of her childhood in Norway — where country sheep, geolocated by bells tinkling on their collars, foraged freely in the summertime — Tonje created Sun Raised Farms, a matchmaking agribusiness that pairs solar farms with ovine maintainers.

“We try to find the best sheep farmers in the area, so they can get free pasture for their lambs on the solar farm, and then we pay them to maintain it,” Tonje says. What can’t be grazed due to natural or technological terrain, Sun Raised Farms hires a human crew to care for.

“It’s kind of a win-win for the farmers,” Tonje says with a smile.

In the next instant, Joel flashes back in time to the beginning of their hike up agrivoltaics’ steep learning curve, a path that originally rejected them like Sisyphus.

“We had a local 21-year-old who bought 13 sheep to put on our first solar farm, and after two weeks, the neighbor’s hunting dogs got out, went right through a hole in the fence, and killed them all,” he says with a disapproving cluck. “That was step one.”

Joel guesstimates that now — with nearly two dozen solar parks under the management of Sun Raised Farms and more than a decade into the learning curve — the Olsens are about 17 steps into their agrivoltaics project. Since 2016, the endeavor has included the Montgomery Sheep Farm, what the Olsens view as a sort of research hub to establish best practices for their farming partners.

Cursed with what Joel characterizes as chalky, inhospitable soil, the century-old property began as a failed farm called the Tobacco Stick Ranch, and then transitioned into a hunting preserve. Its five minutes of fame came in 2006 when The Daily Show’s Nate Corddry used the name and the grounds in a sketch poking fun at then-Vice President Dick Cheney for blasting fellow quail hunter Harry Whittington with birdshot — an incident that actually happened in Texas.

Now the tobacco barn, workshop, farmhouse — all of the compound’s eight or so buildings — have been rehabilitated into a working farm wired into its own private solar microgrid, independent from the panels that feed the community grid.

Via a network of electrical boxes, a solar carport and four Tesla Powerwall 2 batteries hidden away in a mudroom, the farm powers itself most of the time.

“It’s one of the first off-grid farms in the country,” Joel says. “It demonstrates that farms can not only raise their own food, but also generate electricity for their own operations.”

In the distance, the techno-farm’s big power plant is a metallic patchwork that blankets 120 of the property’s 200 sprawling acres. Amidst the panels, inverters and breakers, a labyrinth of thigh-high electric fencing partitions the sheep into 28 micro-pastures, so they don’t overgraze any one section.

Though divided into smaller flocks, the sheep bleat back and forth in a never-ending game of barnyard Marco Polo. White-blond dogs stand watch nearby, wagging their tails. They don’t seem to speak sheep.

By day, the dogs live up to their gentle names like Elsa, Casper and Luna, politely asking for pats with their heads lowered in obeisance. By night, these Great Pyrenees protectors channel their pedigree to fend off coyotes and foxes lurking just beyond the chicken-wire fence.

Across a dirt road, back inside the red barn, the peafowl, some doves and a turkey dutifully continue their watch over the 100 young lambs. At the far end of the barn, a barrel-chested rooster seems preoccupied. He perches self-importantly on the back of a ewe, as if he’s directing a barnyard rehearsal for one of the farm tours that roll through every spring and fall.

Like the circle of life, the tours always end in dinner: a sun-powered, four-course, farm-to-table meal featuring the Montgomery Sheep Farm’s lamb by way of Sun Raised Foods, the Olsens’ avenue for bringing their farmers’ stock to market.

“A lot of the criticism solar farm developers received was because they took farmland away from the community,” Tonje says. “With this model, they kind of give back.” PS

Jenna Biter is a writer and military wife in the Sandhills. She can be reached at jennabiter@protonmail.com. You can purchase tickets for a Montgomery Sheep Farm tour and dinner at sunraisedfoods.com.

2024 Feature

The French Connection

The heroic life and death of James McConnell

By Bill Case

He was shot out of the sky over the French countryside more than a century ago, but for residents of Carthage, North Carolina, the presence of James Rogers McConnell endures. Memorials to the fallen World War I aviator can be found in nearly every corner of the Moore County seat. A highway marker on McReynolds Street explains that McConnell “flew for France in (the) Lafayette Escadrille,” a legendary unit of pilots serving under the French flag though hailing from America.

Fronting the Moore County courthouse is a Washington Monument-style obelisk. Its inscription says McConnell “fought for humanity, liberty and democracy, lighted the way for his countrymen, and showed all men how to dare nobly and die gloriously.”

Diners at the Pik N Pig restaurant adjacent to Carthage’s airport will find a massive bronze and granite plaque dedicated to McConnell near the barbecue’s front door. Gifted by a grateful government of France, its text is engraved in French. Alongside is another plaque translating the tribute into English. Planes landing in Carthage do so at the Gilliam-McConnell Airfield. The facility’s founder and owner, Roland Gilliam, jokes that his name is first only because “G comes before M in the alphabet.”

In September 2023, Gilliam paid further homage to Carthage’s favorite son by opening (together with curator Debby Campbell) the James Rogers McConnell Air Museum near the airfield. Among the treasured artifacts on display is a slightly smaller than full-scale replica of a similar model of the Nieuport biplane McConnell flew in dogfights against the Germans.

Motorists on N.C. 24 can’t miss the magnificent 20-foot-high mural painted by renowned North Carolina artist Scott Nurkin. It depicts a uniformed McConnell, his biplane and the phrase Flying for France, referring to the title of the aviator’s book, published by Doubleday, Page & Co. in 1917 — a stirring account of McConnell’s time with the Lafayette Escadrille. Visitors at the Carthage Museum on Rockingham Street view an exhibit honoring the flier that includes several of his personal items. A commemorative edition of Flying for France can be purchased there.

McConnell lived in Carthage for only two years before heading to France in 1915. Following his move to Carthage from New York City in 1912, he worked as the land and industrial agent for the local Randolph & Cumberland Railway — something of a family business since his father, Samuel Parsons McConnell, served as superintendent and part owner of the railroad after health concerns precipitated his move south.

In addition to his job with the railroad, James McConnell moonlighted with the Sandhill Board of Trade, an organization dedicated to the promotion of area agriculture and other business activities. As board secretary, he ingratiated himself with area farmers, wrote pamphlets and sought new uses of the Sandhills’ natural resources, including whether or not the smooth red clay underlying the Randolph & Cumberland railroad tracks might prove suitable for making bricks.

What motivated James McConnell to involve himself in World War I? Frank C. Page’s introduction to Flying for France provides a clue. In a chance meeting in January 1915 outside the county courthouse McConnell had surprising news. “Well, I’m all fixed up and am leaving on Wednesday,” he told Page.

“Wherefore?” asked Page.

“I’ve got a job driving an ambulance in France,” responded the 27-year-old.

World War I was raging across Europe, and the bloodbath was intense in the trenches of the French countryside. As a volunteer ambulance driver with the American Field Service, McConnell would transport wounded French soldiers from the front to the American Ambulance Hospital in Neuilly, France. It promised to be gruesome and dangerous work.

Privately funded, the AFS had no relationship with the American government. The U.S. was sitting on the sidelines, adhering to President Woodrow Wilson’s policy of strict neutrality toward the combatant nations. (Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia and Serbia were fighting Germany, Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.) Employing the catchphrase “He kept us out of war,” Wilson had just been re-elected to a second presidential term. America would not declare war against Germany until April 1917.

With America steadfastly neutral, Page wondered why his friend was intent on risking his life in a foreign war, leaving behind his business career, his father and numerous friends. McConnell had an answer. Imagining The Great War as an event of historical importance, he felt he would be missing the opportunity of a lifetime if he failed to get involved. “These Sandhills will be here forever, but the war won’t, so I am going,” he told Page. Then he added, “And I’ll be of some use, too, not just a sightseer looking on; that wouldn’t be fair.”

McConnell was just one among many idealistic young men, often from affluent backgrounds, who volunteered their services as ambulance drivers during the war. The AFS targeted upscale undergrads and alumni of prestigious universities, including the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, McConnell’s alma mater. Though he never graduated, it is no exaggeration to say that he became as legendary a figure at UVA as he is today in Carthage. Enrolling in 1908, he studied two years at the College of Arts and Sciences, and then one year at the law school. One law professor, observing his pupil’s restlessness, remarked that McConnell exhibited “hatred of the humdrum, an abhorrence of the commonplace, and a passion for the picturesque.”

Left: McConnell and his mécanicien pose beside his Nieuport 11, bearing footprint that represented the University of Virginia’s ‘Hot Foot Society’

Middle: Nieuport 11 N1292 of Sgt. James R. McConnell

Right: James R. McConnell

McConnell thrust himself into UVA’s social whirl, joining a plethora of campus organizations, fraternities and secret societies. He became a cheerleader, editor-in-chief of the campus yearbook and, presaging later activities, founded the Aero Club. Clad in Highland clan finery, McConnell played bagpipes to entertain well-lubricated friends. Named king of the outrageous “Hot Foot Society” (both the king and queen were males), he led a procession of raucous fellow jesters in medieval dress throughout the campus.

McConnell’s most spectacular prank was the furtive attachment of a chamber pot atop the head of a statue of Thomas Jefferson, about to be unveiled in a public ceremony attended by President William Howard Taft. A plumber discovered the pot barely in time to save UVA embarrassment and probably McConnell’s expulsion.

Practical jokes were in McConnell’s rear-view mirror by the time he joined Section 2 of the AFS at Pont-a-Mousson in northeastern France on Feb. 11, 1915. “Tomorrow, I am going to the front with our squad and 12 ambulances,” he wrote a friend. “I am having a glorious experience.” He quickly made his presence felt, bravely rescuing wounded French soldiers while under fire. The French military awarded him the Croix de Guerre.

McConnell also impressed his AFS ambulance team members, including Henry Sydnor Harrison, a writer for Collier’s magazine. “I took note of my driver (McConnell),” recalled Harrison. “He gave me at once a sense of mature responsibleness above his years and inspired confidence.” McConnell, he wrote, was “boyishly delighted by the discovery I was a writer” and thereafter, the two men’s conversations centered around books.

Harrison left the AFS after four months service but continued to correspond with McConnell. “There came a long letter from him written in the first flush of his contact with the front,” reported the Collier’s scribe, “and I had not gone far with it before it came over me like a discovery: Why, hang it, the fellow can write!”

Yes, he could. And when New York-based publishers got wind of McConnell’s talent, they sought firsthand accounts of his experiences at the front. He wrote vividly. A piece in the September 1915 issue of Outlook transports the reader into McConnell’s rattling Daimler ambulance: “The work at night is quite eerie, and on moonless nights quite difficult. It is only in the dazzling light of the illuminating rockets that shoot into the air and sink slowly over the trenches that one can see to proceed with any speed. It is night, too, that our hardest work comes, for that is usually the time when attacks and counterattacks are made and great numbers of men are wounded . . . men with legs and arms shot away, mangled faces, and hideous body wounds. It is a time when men die in the ambulances before they reach the hospital.”

Driving an ambulance in a war zone not only provided writing grist for McConnell but other literary talents too. An extraordinary cadre of famed writers attended to wounded soldiers during World War I , including Ernest Hemmingway, John Dos Passos, W. Somerset Maugham, Dashiell Hammett, Southern Pines’ own James Boyd, E.E. Cummings, Louis Bromfield, Archibald MacLeish, Gertrude Stein and Robert W. Service.

During his time with the AFS, McConnell, who never married, befriended a young nurse at the hospital, Mademoiselle Marcelle Guérin. Their relationship appears to have been a passionate one, at least at first. Writing Guérin from the field, he proclaimed, “You are everything to me over here or elsewhere, for that matter.” Later correspondence, though always amicable, suggests the romance had cooled. Marcelle commenced a romance with a Russian while McConnell chattily enlightened her about his flirtations with a beautiful barmaid named Rosa.

After 10 months transporting the wounded, McConnell got directly into the fight. “All along I had been convinced that the United States ought to aid in the struggle against Germany,” he explained in Flying for France. “With that conviction, it was plainly up to me to do more than drive an ambulance. The more I saw the splendor of the fight the French were fighting, the more I felt like an ‘embusque’ — what the British call a ‘shirker.’ So, I made up my mind to go into aviation.” He quit the AFS.

McConnell joined the French Foreign Legion on Oct. 1, 1915, plunging into flight training in Pau, France. “My elation at arriving there was second only to my satisfaction at being a French soldier,” McConnell wrote. “It was a vast improvement, I thought, to the American ambulance.”

By the spring of 1916, McConnell had achieved proficiency in piloting a Nieuport biplane. He described the aircraft as the “smallest, fastest rising biplane in the French service. It can travel 110 miles an hour and is a one-man apparatus with a machine gun mounted on its roof and fired by the pilot with one hand while with the other and his feet he operates the controls.”

France was in the midst of forming an aviation squadron consisting of pilots from the United States. The French government hoped the exploits of the new unit would push the U.S. into taking up arms against Germany. On March 16, 1916, the director of French aeronautics announced the formation of the N-124 American Escadrille.

The Escadrille’s initial roster listed seven pilots: McConnell; William Thaw from Pittsburgh; Norman Prince from Boston; New Yorkers Elliott Cowdin and Victor Chapman; Texan Bert Hall; and, Kiffin Rockwell from Asheville, North Carolina. The majority came from well-educated and wealthy backgrounds. All except McConnell, Prince and Cowdin had fought in the trenches with the Foreign Legion before opting to join the Escadrille. French Capt. Georges Thenault was placed in charge of the group. Thirty-eight Americans and four Frenchmen would ultimately fly for the unit.

Germany protested that the name of the squadron, American Escadrille, violated America’s neutrality toward the belligerents. Thus, the unit was rechristened the Lafayette Escadrille, honoring the memory of Marquis de Lafayette, the Frenchman who nobly aided the patriots’ cause during the American Revolutionary War.

On April 16, 1916, the American aviators were ordered to join the Escadrille at Luxeuil in the Vosges Mountains. McConnell endured spartan conditions during his flight training, but facilities at the new location were grand. Each pilot had his own private quarters at a villa adjacent to the town’s hot baths. The men dined with the officers at the best hotel in town, and an automobile was available at their beck and call. McConnell felt like a “summer resorter rather than a soldier,” until reflecting on “the ancient custom of giving a man selected for the sacrifice a royal time of it before the appointed day.”

And the possibility of a fiery death for N-124 Lafayette Escadrille aviators was not remote. Missions (two-hour sorties, two to three times daily) were seldom routine. William Sydnor Harrison pointed this out in his tribute to McConnell: “The pilots of N-124 are not ordered for routine observation work; they are not asked to carry messages or take photographs, or regulate artillery fire, or bring up planes from Paris,” he wrote in the Sandhill Citizen. “They are fighters pure and simple, and their place in the air is where the danger is thickest.”

While romance and adventure were attached to being a World War I aviator, flight in an open cockpit could be a harrowing experience. “Mere words are difficult to describe the pure agony of mind and body,” wrote Escsadrille member Laurence Rumsey. “The sub-zero temperature permeated the very marrow of your bones. Despite three or four pairs of gloves, fingers coiled around the stick would be paralyzed in five minutes.”

McConnell’s first sortie on May 13, 1916, produced anxious moments along with his aerial “baptism of fire.” Having never previously flown above 7,000 feet and shivering in the cold, he climbed in his Nieuport up over a cloudbank to an altitude of 14,000 feet, losing contact with his fellow pilots. “Not a single plane was visible anywhere, and I was growing very uncertain about my position,” he recounted in Flying for France. “My splendid isolation had become oppressive, when, one by one, the others began bobbing up above the cloud level, and I had company again.”

On the heels of that scare, enemy shrapnel suddenly enveloped McConnell’s biplane. “It was interesting to watch the flash of the bursting shells, and the attendant smoke puffs — black, white, or yellow, depending on the shrapnel used . . . Strangely enough, my feelings about it were wholly impersonal.”

Four days later, McConnell’s fellow North Carolinian Kiffin Rockwell scored the Escadrille’s first aerial victory, shooting down a German LVG two-seater. According to McConnell, Rockwell closed within 30 yards, “pressed on the release of his machine gun, and saw the enemy gunner fall backward and the pilot crumple up sideways in his seat,” before their plane crashed to the earth.

The Escadrille and everyone in Luxeuil, “particularly the girls” (according to McConnell), celebrated Rockwell’s accomplishment. According to Jon Guttman, author of SPA 124 Lafayette Escradrille, Kiffin’s brother Paul, “who was in Paris when he heard the news, rushed to Luxeuil with an 80-year-old bottle of bourbon whiskey. After drinking a shot, Rockwell offered one to (Victor) Chapman, but he declined, suggesting that each pilot be entitled to one slug of the ‘Bottle of Death’ every time he shot down an enemy aeroplane.”

Other squadron aviators would achieve victories, including Chapman, Thaw, Cowdin, Prince, Hall, and the incomparable Raoul Lufbery, whose 16 kills would make him one of the Allies’ foremost aces. Despite once causing an enemy plane to careen hopelessly out of control McConnell was not credited with any confirmed victories, since no one observed the near-certain crash.

Soon after Rockwell’s victory, the Escadrille was ordered to the Verdun sector. “A commodious villa halfway between the town of Bar-le-Duc and the aviation field had been assigned to us,” wrote McConnell, “and comforts were as plentiful as at Luxeuil.” But he sensed a “gigantic battle” in the offing, given “the endless convoys of motor trucks, the fast-flowing stream of troops, and the distressing number of ambulances.”

Left: The pilots of N124 pose at Luxeuil in May 1916. From left to right: Cpls. Chapman and Cowdin, Sgt. W. Bert Hall, Sous-Lt. Thaw, Capitaine Georges Thenault, Lt. Alfred de Laage de Meux, Sgt. Prince and Cpls. Rockwell and McConnell. Sitting before Thenault and de Laage is Thenault’s dog Fram.

Right: Mural of James McConnell in downtown Carthage

The Battle of Verdun was the longest and bloodiest of the war. Combined Allied and German casualties tallied over 700,000. The Escadrille was not immune from the carnage. Clyde Balsey suffered a severe wound to his thigh from an explosive bullet. He managed to land his plane in a meadow and was taken to a field hospital, where he lingered for an extended period before dying.

While hospitalized, Balsey developed an intense thirst. To quench it, Victor Chapman commandeered two bags of oranges he intended to deliver to the hospital following his final sortie of the day. It would prove to be Chapman’s last flight. He was killed in a dogfight just after shooting down an enemy plane. McConnell described the Escadrille’s reaction in Flying for France: “We talked in lowered voices after that; we could read the pain in one another’s eyes. If only it could have been someone else, was what we all thought . . . I kept thinking of him lying over there, and the oranges he was taking to Balsey.”

To cope with their grief, Escadrille aviators sought distractions. Consumption of alcohol topped the list. The squadron’s carousing while on leave in Paris reportedly reached epic proportions. McConnell wrote of other pastimes. “At the big table, several sportive souls start a poker game, while at a smaller one, two sedate spirits wrap themselves in the intricacies of chess. Captain Thenault labors away at the messroom piano, or in lighter mood plays with Fram, his police dog. A phonograph grinds out the ancient query, ‘Who Paid the Rent for Mrs. Rip Van Winkle,’ or some other ragtime ditty.” On a Paris sojourn, the flyers bought a lion cub, Whiskey, and adopted the feline as the squadron mascot.

Another diversion for the Americans was decorating their aircraft. All the Nieuports displayed the unit’s insignia — a Sioux warrior chief in full headdress. The pilots added their own personal touches. McConnell put the moniker “MAC” on his biplane. He later switched to a white “Hot Foot,” recalling his collegiate merrymaking.

McConnell avoided serious aerial mishaps until late August 1916, when a crash caused him a debilitating back injury. He initially denied being in pain, but Capt. Thenault saw through the ruse and ordered him to the hospital at Vitry-le-Francois. The flier spent most of his 45-day recuperation in the Paris home of Mrs. Alice Weeks, who had lost a son in the war. During his convalescence, McConnell worked on his writings for his publisher, Doubleday, Page & Company.

On Sept. 23^,1916, Kiffin Rockwell, one of McConnell’s best friends in the unit, was shot down and killed. A crestfallen McConnell wrote, “No greater blow could have befallen the Escadrille. Kiffin was its soul. He was loved and looked up to by not only every man in our flying corps but by everyone who knew him.”

In early October, Norman Prince, an original N-124 member, also perished. Seemingly on the road to recovery from an injury suffered in a landing accident, Prince expired after a blood clot developed on his brain. Four of N-124’s first nine pilots perished in six months.

On Oct. 16, 1916, N-124 was deployed to Cachy, France, to fight in the Battle of the Somme. McConnell, though still suffering from his injury, rejoined the unit. The new encampment was a rude awakening. “Instead of being quartered in villa or hotel, the pilots were directed to a portable barracks newly erected in a sea of mud,” wrote McConnell. Damp cold “penetrated through every crack.” Under-equipped in their new surroundings, the pilots begged for blankets from neighboring escadrilles.

McConnell’s gloomy ennui with the situation is evident in a Dec. 11, 1916, letter. “Have done little on the article. I’ve felt on the bum and Whiskey (the lion cub) chewed my fingers so it’s hard to hold a pen,” he confided. “Only flown once since my return.”

McConnell was not the only Escadrille member hurting. In a subsequent letter, he referred to N-124 as a “great aggregation of cripples.” In late January 1917, the Escadrille was redeployed to take part in a spring offensive. But another malady put McConnell back on the disabled list. In February, he wrote Mademoiselle Guérin to inform her he was back in the hospital due to “the itch,” a near-intractable form of dermatitis plaguing many in the Escadrille. McConnell would not exit the infirmary until early March.

He wrote Guérin numerous letters during this stay and following his return to duty with N-124. The correspondence suggests the rekindling of their dormant romance. He tells the young nurse that her letters are “like water to a man dying of thirst.” He acknowledges enjoying a visit with her more than any in his entire life.

McConnell’s final letter to Guérin, written March 16 , three days before his death, concludes, “Thank your mother for being so very nice to me, and give her my love, and keep some for yourself.” Decades later, Guérin would confide that McConnell was the great romance of her life.

On March 19, 1917, McConnell, together with fellow aviators Edmond Genet and Edwin Parsons, took off on patrol from an airfield in Sainte Juste, France. Still dogged with relentless back pain, McConnell had to be maneuvered by his mechanics into the bucket seat of his Nieuport 17. After the three aviators were aloft, a clogged oil line caused Parsons’ motor to malfunction, and he returned home.

Continuing the sortie, Genet and McConnell encountered two German two-seaters and separately attacked them. Jon Guttman’s book describes the dogfight: “The gunner of Genet’s opponent shot away his main upper wing support and wounded him in the left cheek. Recovering, (Genet) closed until the two aeroplanes nearly collided, but failed to bring down his quarry. He then searched for McConnell for 15 minutes, until enemy anti-aircraft fire and the increasing likelihood of losing his upper wing convinced him to head home. To his horror, he learned that McConnell had not returned.”

It was not until March 24 that McConnell’s death was confirmed. Two German planes that had been observed close on McConnell’s tail fired on him. After a “desperate fight,” McConnell had crashed. Several bullets were found in his body. His ailing back may have played a role in his death, since he could not turn to spot enemy aircraft to his rear. McConnell’s crumpled Nieuport was found in full throttle. He likely died before hitting the ground.

McConnell may have had a premonition of his impending death. He left the following instructions with the Escadrille: “My burial is of no import. Make it as easy as possible for yourselves. I have no religion and do not care for any service. If the omission would embarrass you, I presume I could stand the performance. Good luck to the rest of you. God damn Germany and vive la France.”

In the end, he did in fact “stand the performance.” Three women, all claiming to be McConnell’s fiancée, attended his memorial service at the Escadrille’s base. The French military awarded him a second Croix de Guerre. Initially buried in the meadow where he crashed in Flavy-le-Martel, France, at his father’s request McConnell was later reinterred at the Lafayette Escadrille memorial near Paris.

The U.S. Congress declared war against Germany 18 days after McConnell’s death. The Escadrille’s remaining American pilots were promptly transferred to a U.S. Army aviation unit. McConnell was the last American pilot killed in the conflict prior to the U.S. entry into the war.

The editor of the Sandhill Citizen, H.E. Foss, gave credit to McConnell for seeing what was at stake in the war long before the government and most Americans. “Democracy and autocracy were face-to-face on the soil of France, and Jim was a democrat,” Foss opined. “He saw early and clearly, what we have been slow to discover, that in this struggle our future is at stake scarcely less than that of England and France. Thus, he was not only ‘Flying for France,’ but for the land of his birth.”

Carthage held its own memorial service. It was announced at the ceremony that the new county hospital about to open 6 miles from Carthage would be named the James R. McConnell Hospital. Following its shipment from France to North Carolina, the French-language plaque honoring McConnell was displayed at that hospital. It would be the tablet’s first home but not its last. After that hospital closed, the plaque was moved in 1929 to the new Moore County Hospital in Pinehurst. Then, in 1940, the Carthage Chamber of Commerce persuaded the hospital to send the tablet to the county seat. Positioned near the old town hall, the plaque remained there until 2011, when Roland Gilliam convinced the city that it should be displayed at the airport.

Nor did UVA forget McConnell, its first alum killed in the war. The university commissioned Mt. Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum to create a statue in memory of the flier. Dedicated in 1919, “The Aviator” depicts a winged and leather-helmeted McConnell soaring Icarus-like in the air. Today, the statue rests on the plaza of the university’s Clemons Library.

And despite the passage of a century, the French continue to venerate McConnell and the N-124 Lafayette Escadrille. In 2016, airport founder Roland Gilliam, and fellow Carthage fliers Jim Wiltjer and Felice Schillaci, received invitations from French officials to attend the 100th anniversary of the founding of N-124. An unforgettable part of their pilgrimage was attending a ceremony held at James McConnell’s original gravesite, still lovingly maintained and covered by flowers, alongside a Flavy-le-Martel cornfield. The tribute was not extravagant — about 25 attended and the French and American national anthems came from a boom box. It was precisely the sort of performance McConnell would be happy to stand. PS

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

2024 Feature

Crossroads

History Finds a Home

Taylortown museum preserves town’s heritage

By Audrey Moriarty

It took almost two decades to get there, but in October of 2023, the Taylortown Museum celebrated its one-year anniversary. According to Nadine Moody, volunteer at the museum and a former Taylortown council member, the house where the museum is located — 8263 Main St., in Taylortown — was originally the home of Demus Taylor’s great-granddaughter, Margaret Mangum. Demus Taylor is the founder of Taylortown, and Margaret worked as a teacher at the Academy Heights School, where she taught Moody in third grade. The Mangum home was purchased roughly 20 years ago, when Ulysses Barrett was the town mayor. While the building was intended all along to house a museum, bringing the plan to fruition took time.

If the museum had a little trouble getting off the ground, the house was always busy, serving as a venue for various community events. In the interim a handful of dedicated volunteers decided to begin recording and preserving Taylortown’s history. The group consisted of various members of the community: Gail McKinnon, president of the Historical Society; Jef Moody, vice-president of the Historical Society; Wendy Martin, of the Beautification Committee; Nadine Moody (Jef’s wife); and several others.

Inside the museum are exhibits of old tools, a display of images of the mayors of Taylortown, photos of local church dignitaries, information on the Academy Heights School, and a large “Welcome to Taylortown” banner, featuring Demus Taylor and some local historic sites.

According to McKinnon one of the ongoing projects the volunteers have begun is an “obituary book” listing the names of spouses, siblings and children, helping community members fill out family trees. They are hoping to get more input from family members of deceased residents to add to their book and family records. “What I wish we could do is to get each Black community to give us a brief history, because we all know each other and are related somehow,” says Nadine Moody.

Gary Brown, another volunteer, is working on a gravesite webpage, identifying and documenting local graves. High on the list of the museum’s current needs is a computer to house the information they’re compiling. The hope is that visitors to the museum will one day be able to search the collection and family data base. Brown, with Martin’s help and donations from Food Lion and local churches, also operates a food bank every Tuesday at Johnny Boler Park in Taylortown.

Recently the museum had a surprise visit from Paula Hall, Demus Taylor’s great-great-granddaughter. The museum is looking for more items to add to its exhibits, and hopes to get a few old canvas and leather carry bags and wood-shafted clubs — an homage to the work Taylortown residents, especially Demus Taylor, did caddying at the Pinehurst Resort. They’re also in search of a closet or curio cabinet for displays. Nadine Moody says 99 percent of their current exhibits were donated by local citizens and businesses. Homewood Suites donated some tables and chairs after a recent renovation and the museum repurposed them, some for workspace, while others are attractively set with dishes and stemware.

Current plans call for expanding the exhibition space to the upstairs portion of the house. “We are so excited,” says Nadine Moody. “We’re busting at the seams.” PS

The Taylortown Museum is open to the public on Wednesdays and the first Saturday of the month, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and on Thursdays for groups, by appointment. You can reach the Taylortown Museum at (910) 215-0744, or by calling the Town Hall at (910) 295-4010.

Audrey Moriarty is the Library Services and Archives director for the village of Pinehurst.

2024 Crossroads Department

Focus on Food

A Missing Delight

The case for mousse au chocolat

Story and Photograph by Rose Shewey

I recently came across a clip of Arnold Schwarzenegger making a protein shake. I watched with intrigue as he cracked a raw egg into his shake and, for good measure, threw in the shell, too! For extra calcium, he said. What a savage move! I know most people wouldn’t go near his concoction because of the raw egg in it, which prompted me to take a quick mental inventory of other foods we eat regularly, perhaps unwittingly, that call for glibbery whites and runny yolks.

On the top of my list: traditionally prepared ice cream, followed by tiramisu and mayonnaise (all of which can relatively easily be made egg free), and lastly, mousse au chocolat, which seems to have gone missing — it’s virtually absent from every dessert menu I have laid my eyes on recently.

So, why is mousse au chocolat not as popular as it used to and deserves to be? Could it be the raw eggs? It stands to reason. Raw eggs have most certainly acquired a bad rap over the past couple of decades. On top of that, a large number of mousse au chocolat recipes in the U.S. call for whipped cream to be folded into the melted chocolate as opposed to peaky egg whites (in fact, the original recipe does not contain cream at all). The result is something between a chocolate ganache and chocolate pudding, at best — tasty, but nothing to write home about. It’s the glossy, whipped egg whites that create the unique frothy texture in mousse au chocolat, which is paradoxically rich and airy at the same time. So, this missing delight finds itself between a rock and a hard place; it’s either made poorly or, evidently, not at all.

The decision is yours, of course. I have safely (but also cautiously) prepared and eaten raw eggs my whole life. Beyond that, I have experimented for over a decade with substituting plant-based whole food ingredients for animal-derived ones and have had great success with a lot of dishes. However, mousse au chocolat is not one of them. As much as I enjoy some avocado or aquafaba “mousse,” they are not a match for the centuries-old original; lacking in structure, like a cheap wine. So, if you have access to fresh, quality eggs, skip all the mousse imposters and make this confection just as people have for over 200 years, with satiny egg whites and creamy yolks for the most extraordinary results.

Mousse au Chocolat

(Serves 4)

200 grams semi-sweet chocolate (12 percent sugar)

50 grams butter

200 milliliters heavy cream

3 eggs

30 grams granulated sugar

In a double boiler, slowly melt chocolate and butter. Whip cream and set aside in the refrigerator. Separate eggs and beat egg whites (with clean beaters) until they form stiff peaks. In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks with sugar until the mixture turns light in color, stir in chocolate-butter mixture, and immediately fold in egg whites and whipped cream, using a spoon or spatula. Do not over-mix to avoid deflating the mousse, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Serve with whipped cream and chocolate shavings or any toppings of your choice. PS

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

2024 Department Focus on Food

Naturalist

Tale of the Whitetail

The adaptable deer among us

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

This past November, on a bright, sunny morning, I made a drive from Eagle Springs up to Raleigh. Just a quarter-mile into the journey, I spied a young doe lying motionless on her side, just off the shoulder of the road, a victim of a collision with an automobile from the previous night. “That’s a pity,” I said to myself, not giving it much more thought. Roadkill is an all-too-common sight these days.

Turning onto N.C. 211, I spotted another deer, this time a small buck, crumpled into a lifeless heap, its head lying just a few yards off the edge of the pavement, it too the victim of a car strike. A pair of black vultures stood nearby, cautiously eyeing a prospective meal.

Fifteen miles down the road, this time along U.S. 15-501 just north of Carthage, I spied yet another road-killed deer. Then another. Along U.S. 1, between Sanford and Cary, I counted four more. Later, driving back to Eagle Springs in the early evening, I counted another three, bringing the total to 11 dead deer for the day, all victims of hit and runs.

November is the peak of the white-tailed deer breeding season in this part of the state, and the large ungulates are on the move during most hours of the day, especially so once the sun goes down. Still, the volume of carnage seemed unusually high.

It was not that many years ago when seeing a white-tailed deer anywhere in the Sandhills was a rare treat. In fact, the only time I recall seeing any deer as a kid was when my parents made their annual holiday shopping trip to Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville. Our route took us through the rural backroads of what is now Fort Liberty. From the back seat, I would strain my eyes looking up ahead, into the darkness, for the distinctive eyeshine of deer reflected in the high beams of our old Toyota Corolla. It was practically a given to find one or two standing along the shoulder of the road eating grass at some point during the drive, right in the heart of the military installation.

While deer were certainly around my hometown of Eagle Springs throughout the 1970s and ’80s, they were elusive and rarely seen by anyone other than hunters. Those roaming about the landscape tended to favor denser patches of forests bordering creeks and farm fields.

As a preteen, I recall being enthralled with the taxidermy mount of a large 8-point buck taken by a family friend during the fall hunting season along Drowning Creek, not far from our house, its large, symmetrical antlers appearing much too big for its head.

It was not until my college days of the early 1990s that I really began to notice a significant increase in the number of deer, not just in the Sandhills but throughout the state. During the occasional weekend drive from Chapel Hill to Eagle Springs for a home-cooked meal, I regularly saw deer dash across the road, day and night, especially along the edge of Jordan Lake.

Today, white-tailed deer are ubiquitous, roaming across North Carolina from the Outer Banks to our westernmost mountains, in numbers exceeding those seen by this country’s first European colonists.

Not long after my Raleigh outing, I ventured out under a bright moon, to drive the 4 miles of road bordering my childhood home. This stretch of asphalt traverses a series of large open fields, patches of longleaf pine forest, and the occasional manicured yard.

Rolling down the window to savor the unseasonably mild air, I set about the task of trying to accomplish my goal for the evening, which was to simply count the number of deer I could see in the 15 minutes it took to slowly drive the road. With no other cars out, I could easily stop and scan the fields and forests with my new thermal imaging scope. This high-tech piece of kit is able to detect the heat emitted by warm-blooded animals, allowing me to see in the dark.

Pulling up to my first stop, I raised the scope to my eye and turned it on. Instantly, I could see a large herd of deer grazing about 100 yards away, their distinctive bodies glowing like living Christmas tree lights scattered about the field. A quick count produced 18 deer. A quarter-mile down the road, I counted another eight. Then five more. By the time my informal survey was over, I had tallied a remarkable 53 deer, likely exceeding the total number of deer I had seen throughout the entirety of my childhood.

With the number of dead deer that litter our highways today, or that rummage through backyard gardens and local fairways, it might be hard to imagine that just a century ago, whitetails were wiped out of many areas of the East Coast (North Carolina included) by uncontrolled hunting. That they have bounced back in such a relatively short period of time is remarkable. The reasons for this are complicated and well beyond the scope of this short column. Suffice to say, white-tailed deer are among the few species that have readily adapted to a human-dominated landscape and are viewed by many as beacons of the American wilderness and by others as long-legged nuisances.

Pulling back into the driveway, I hop out of my car and start walking to the front door. A rustling of leaves in the turkey oaks bordering the yard catches my attention. Raising the thermal scope up to my eye, I see a doe bounding off into the forest in a series of high arching leaps, tail held high. PS

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

2024 Department Naturalist

Art at Heart

An invitation to Sandhills artists to get creative never goes unanswered. Here are a few special valentines from their imaginations.

A native of Dunkirk, New York, Jodi Ohl is a bestselling author and award-winning mixed media artist known for the distinctive texture and bold color combinations of her often whimsical or abstract compositions. She now resides in Aberdeen, N.C.

The sister team of Dominique Wilbur and Natalia Voitek curate elegant fine art stationary, bespoke calligraphy and art in their shop Thoughtfully Yours in Pinehurst, N.C., where the New Jersey natives now live.

Cara Mathis is a self-taught pen-and-ink line artist drawn to vintage illustrations and architectural sketch work. A resident of Pinehurst, N.C., she teaches plein air drawing through the Parks and Recreation department.

Before retiring to her home studio in Whispering Pines, Denise Baker taught art at Sandhills Community College for 25 years. She continues the labor-intensive art of printmaking, including creating valentines every year for her family and friends.

Captivated by the elegance of horses and the serene beauty of the natural world, Larissa Ann grew up in Pennsylvania and now lives in Vass with her husband and rescue dog. Last year she was the artist-in-residence at the Carolina International CCI & Horse Trial.

Julie Borshak is a native of Moore County. Her unique designs utilize vintage North Carolina-made furniture that is deconstructed and reimaged along with custom-designed stamping and hand stitching.

2024 Feature

February Bookshelf 2024

February Books

FICTION

The Women, by Kristin Hannah

Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, 20-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets — and becomes — one of the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America.

After Annie, by Anna Quindlen

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. Ali, the eldest of Annie’s children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father, and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life. Over the course of the next year what saves them all is Annie, ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody’s fool, a voice in their heads that is funny and sharp and remarkably clear.

The Atlas Maneuver, by Steve Barry

In the waning months of World War II, Japan hid vast quantities of gold and other stolen valuables in booby-trapped underground caches all across the Philippines. By 1947 some of that loot was recovered, not by treasure hunters, but by the United States government, which told no one about the find. Instead, those assets were stamped classified, shipped to Europe, and secretly assimilated into something called the Black Eagle Trust. Fast forward to the 21st century, when a retired Justice Department operative, Cotton Malone, is in Switzerland doing a favor for a friend. What was supposed to be a simple operation turns violent, and Cotton is thrust into a war between the world’s oldest bank and the CIA, a battle that directly involves the Black Eagle Trust. He quickly discovers that everything hinges on a woman from his past, who suddenly reappears harboring a host of explosive secrets centering around bitcoin. Cotton has to act. But at what cost?

NONFICTION

Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment, by Allen C. Guelzo

Abraham Lincoln grappled with the greatest crisis of democracy that has ever confronted the United States. While many books have been written about his temperament, judgment and steady hand in guiding the country through the Civil War, we know less about Lincoln’s penetrating ideas and beliefs about democracy, which were every bit as important as his character in sustaining him through the crisis. Guelzo, one of America’s foremost experts on Lincoln, captures the president’s firmly held belief that democracy was the greatest political achievement in human history. He shows how Lincoln’s deep commitment to the balance between majority and minority rule enabled him to stand firm against secession while also committing the Union to reconciliation rather than recrimination in the aftermath of war.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

This Book Will Make You an Artist, by Ruth Millington

Art can be intimidating, but fret no longer. With an insider’s look at 25 artists and creators including Hilma af Klint, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Claude Monet and Yayoi Kusama, plus DIY project starters, this book will make anyone both an artist and an art appreciator. (Ages 7-10).

All of Those Babies, by Mylisa Larsen

Pufflings, peeps, poults and colts, baby animals are just so darn cute. Celebrate those newborns and watch as they grow in this rhyming read-together perfect for young animal lovers. (Ages 3-6).

Love, Escargot, by Dashka Slater

Oooh la la! Escargot, the adorable French gastropod, is back for another adventure. Today is Snailentine’s Day, and Escargot is (slowly) on the way to a très bonne fête with canapés, crudités, dancing and beautiful cards to exchange with the one who makes you feel magnifique! Silly, fun and just a little French, Escargot is sure to be a giggle-inducing read-together favorite. (Ages 3-6).

Kin: Rooted in Hope, by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrations by Jeffrey Boston Weatherford

North Carolina author Carole Boston Weatherford’s books have been awarded the Newbery Medal, Caldecott Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award. Now, Weatherford and her equally award-winning son have collaborated on this stunning collection of poems unfolding the narrative of their family over five generations. (Ages 10 and up). PS

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally.

2024 Bookshelf Department

Birdwatch

A Rare Winter Visitor

Keep an eye out for the snow bunting

By Susan Campbell

No bird in North America conjures up an image of midwinter like the snow bunting. These open country birds of the North are well adapted to cold and snow, as their name implies. The species is migratory and so may be found in the northern half of the U.S. in winter. Individuals are not at all a common sight this far south. However, they may show up here and there during the colder months. So, it is good to be aware — and know what to look for.

Snow buntings breed in rocky areas on the tundra during the late spring and summer. They nest in crevices between rocks, using moss and down to create a soft cup. In the fall, when temperatures plummet and the days shorten, these birds take off in a southerly direction for more hospitable locations. Typically, they show up in weedy fields and along lakeshores, but they can also be found at the coast on sandy beaches.

These birds typically have more white plumage in the summer — especially the males. This is the result of feather wear (not different feathers) during the cooler months after a post-breeding-season molt. Males are white with black backs, wingtips and tail tips. Females are grayish but even they have white bellies and flanks. In winter, their plumage contains brownish hues such that they blend in well with the vegetation, as well as the sand or soil in their preferred feeding habitat. They are truly birds of the ground and so are rarely seen perched in trees or on wires. In flight, they are quite distinctive year-round with large white wing patches and white rumps. And if traveling with others, they will produce an array of odd, loud noises: They may rattle, buzz and/or twitter.

Single snow buntings may be easily overlooked. They do not tend to flush until the last second. Between the fact that they are so well camouflaged and that they tend to be silent, they are often missed even at close range. Furthermore, they are not typically found at feeding stations, preferring larger natural areas to backyards.

Although there have been no reports of these special little birds sighted in central North Carolina yet this season, there has been a flock of up to two dozen on the Outer Banks this winter. They have been observed feeding on the seeds of sea oats and other dune grasses since early December on the south side of Oregon Inlet. If you happen to be out that way in the next several weeks, you may be able to find them. Flocks may move around frequently, leapfrogging over one another as they search for their next meal. Simply stroll the dunes watching for movement around the vegetation, and be sure to listen for their raspy calls. The group sticks together by frequently vocalizing. Keep an ear out and you may be rewarded with a glimpse of this rare winter visitor. PS

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

2024 Birdwatch Department

Pleasures of Life Dept.

Landing a Zinger

By Jim Moriarty

Butterflies of a particularly glamorous variety usher in an early spring when the Judson Theatre Company presents Morgan Fairchild headlining Leonard Gershe’s play Butterflies Are Free at BPAC’s Owens Auditorium. There will be five performances beginning Thursday, March 7, and concluding with a Sunday matinee on March 10.

Fairchild’s credits in film and television in a career stretching from the 1960s to today are far too numerous to list here. Her resume includes nominations for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe. She starred last year in the Lifetime holiday movie Ladies of the 80s: A Diva Christmas. She is known for her work as Chandler’s (Matthew Perry) mom on Friends and as the character Jordan Roberts on Falcon Crest in the ’80s. She played the “cougar” stalking Charlie Harper (Charlie Sheen) on Two and a Half Men. Her film career began in 1967 at the age of 16 when she was asked if she wanted to be in a movie and found herself doubling for Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde, a film classic nominated for 10 Academy Awards.

“I wasn’t exactly a stunt double or body double. Whenever they needed a long shot of Faye where you couldn’t be sure it was her, they put in a double. I ended up doing a lot of the driving scenes,” says Fairchild. “They drove us out to the middle of nowhere Texas. I have no idea what I’m doing. I said to somebody, ‘What do we do?’ And they said, ‘Why don’t you take a look at the set.’ So I start walking down this dirt road and I’m not seeing anything that looks like a set. I’m in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of open fields. I see this guy in silhouette coming toward me in the dawn, kind of hunched over and I said, ‘Excuse me, do you know where the set is?’ And he looks up and he smiles. It was Warren Beatty. And Warren Beatty at 28 with the sun coming up behind him is the most gorgeous man you’ve ever seen. Anyway, that was my introduction to movies. It was a great learning experience for a kid. It made me fall in love with movies.”

As well-known as Fairchild is for her work on television and in film, she has managed to make room for live theater. “I started in the theater when I was 10, so I grew up in the theater before I got into any kind of television or film,” she says. “There’s just something about the feedback of a live audience — you’re out there and you’re all in it together.” In 2004-5 she did a national tour playing Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. And last fall she played the role of Monette in Always a Bridesmaid at the New Theatre in Kansas City.

“Morgan Fairchild is the ultimate pro as Monette,” wrote BroadwayWorld.com of her appearance. “It is a pleasure to see her.”

In Butterflies Are Free, Fairchild plays the role of the over-protective mother Mrs. Baker. “Of course Morgan is so glamorous, which is one of the things that really suits her well to Mrs. Baker,” says Morgan Sills, Judson Theatre Company’s executive director, who will be directing the play, a first for him at Judson though far from a career first. Previously, he directed shows at Millbrook Playhouse and the Shawnee Playhouse, both in Pennsylvania, and at the Artistree Music Theater Festival in Vermont. “The role of Mrs. Baker has always attracted these larger-than-life star ladies who can really, really act. Gloria Swanson. Ann Sothern. Eve Arden. So many different women have played this role. I can’t wait to see what Morgan brings to it because she knows how to land a zinger, but she also has the warmth and the heart and the technique as a stage actor to do it justice.”

Judson’s artistic director, Daniel Haley, typically directs the company’s productions. This one is different because Sills knew the playwright, Leonard Gershe. While Butterflies Are Free is easily Gershe’s most successful play, enjoying a three-year run on Broadway (he also adapted it for the screen in the 1972 movie of the same name starring Goldie Hawn), his extraordinary career included bringing Cole Porter’s Silk Stockings to the screen, writing the second book for Destry Rides Again on Broadway and, along with his writing partner, Roger Edens, writing the screenplay for Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. “He was an excellent problem-solver,” says Sills. “He knew how to look at something and take it from where it was to where it needed to be.”

It was Sills’ work on a show of his own about Edens that brought him and Gershe together. “Part of my primary research was to write everybody at MGM who was still alive to see if they would talk to me. I saw Leonard’s email address in the AOL member directory, and so I wrote him,” says Sills. “We started emailing and talking on the phone. I visited his home in Beverly Hills. We went to Roger’s grave. Then he agreed to edit the script of the show I was writing. It was all of Roger’s songs, including the ones he and Leonard wrote for Funny Face.”

Butterflies Are Free opens with a revelation and closes with the three primary characters arriving at their own personal revelations. Along the way it’s a witty, coming of age rom-com. “The play straddles two eras of playwriting,” says Sills. “There is sort of the old school, well-made play and these late ’60s newer ideas. The play is like Leonard’s still alive because so many of his values are in it. His sense of humor is very much in it. His warmth is in it. So, this is a full circle moment for me.”

The performance schedule opens on Thursday, March 7, at 7 p.m. at BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. There is a Friday, March 8, evening performance at 8 p.m. On March 9, Saturday’s 2 p.m. matinee includes a post-show talk-back session with the actors. There is a second Saturday performance at 8 p.m. The run concludes with a matinee at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 10. Tickets can be purchased at judsontheatre.com or through ticketmesandhills.com. PS

Jim Moriarty is the Editor of PineStraw and can be reached at
jjmpinestraw@gmail.com.

2024 Department Pleasures of Life

A Walk on the Beach

Fiction by Daniel Wallace

We went out in the morning for one last walk together on the beach. I took his hand to steady him, to steady both of us, really. Knees are the first to go, they say, but the rest was not far behind. It was early, almost no one was there, and if you turned away from the rickety beach houses and sad hotels you could pretend you were on a deserted island.

“Isaac,” I said, jostling his hand to get his attention. “Do you remember you told me once that when you were a kid you always wanted to live on a deserted island because you thought that meant it was just chockfull of desserts?”

The sun was rising behind a sheet of thin clouds, but a ray slipped through and made our morning shadows. Even his face — the dried crevassed creases like a rain-starved plain — brightened into a darkness.

“Remember, honey?”

He was looking down at his bare feet for some reason, but I knew he had heard me and was thinking about it, trying so hard. There was always a lag now between a question and an answer, like the delay on a long-distance call. For 50 years he was the sharpest tack I ever knew. Now he needed me just to find his shoes in the morning, to explain to him the subtle differences between a fork and a spoon, to double-lock the doors at bedtime so he couldn’t escape into the night. It had become too much for me. Rather, he had become too much for me.

“I don’t remember that,” he said.

“It was nothing,” I said, giving his hand a little squeeze. “Just funny is all.”

“It does sound like something a kid would say, though.” He looked at me and smiled, friendly but guarded, as if we’d been talking just for the last few minutes instead of the last 50 years. “And I was never a good speller. I let other people do the spelling for me.”

“You hired the best spellers in the business.”

“That’s right.”

Now a laugh from him, and a laugh from me. I wanted to tell him how happy it made me that he’d kept his sense of humor, but then he would ask what I meant. Tell me about the things I’ve lost. So I didn’t say anything and just listened to our laughter carried away by the wind.

The water lapped at our ankles and so I led us a little ways away from the surf for more solid ground. Everything in the world conspired to knock you over.

He kept staring at his feet. They looked like blue-veined sea creatures, the kind that lived miles beneath the water, the kind that sometimes washed ashore and made you wonder how such a thing could ever even be in the world. And why.

“I could live in this town,” he said, “if it weren’t for the earthquakes and fires and floods, and pestilences.”

“You do live here, silly.”

“Well, then, wish me luck!”

“Oh, you’ve always been lucky.”

He snuck a shy glance at me. Tentative, searching.

“And you. You live here too?”

“I do,” I said.

“But we don’t live together.”

“No. Not anymore. Not like we used to. But I’ll be there so often you’ll think we did.”

He nodded, as if this were an acceptable answer.

We kept walking, and he looked down again and for some reason it irritated me.

“Why in the world do you keep looking at your feet?”

“My feet?” No pause this time. His fog was lifting. “Ha! I’m not looking at my feet. I’m looking for a shark’s tooth. I’ve been hoping to find a shark’s tooth every time I come to the beach for, I don’t know, 65 years? But I never have.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know that, for some reason. “Another regret?”

“No, no,” he said. “No. I’m glad I’ve never found one. Hoping is better. You know, because when you do find it — presto-change-o! — you’re hopeless.”

“Then you just have to hope for other things.”

“Like what?”

He was right. The list of things to hope for was getting shorter, almost every day.

A woman in an unfortunate bathing suit, a sunburned man with a beach chair on his back, two boys running into the surf screaming like Maori warriors attacking the whole ocean, a jogger and her snow-white poodle. Life was coming back to life. We had not walked far, but I didn’t know how much farther we should. Going out was the easy part, but then we’d have to go back and that was so much harder. My hip was throbbing already. I wish we had a limo following behind us at just a bit of a distance so that we could get into it when we wanted to. With a limo driver named Norman. That was something to hope for, I suppose.

“I don’t think there’s a God,” he said out of nowhere, “but if there were all I would want from him or her is just a little direction. Hints. Like, Warm, warmer, warmer – you’re burning up! Or, say you’re about to quit your job and he says, Cold! Cold! Just that, a couple of words. That would be nice, right?”

“That would be ideal,” I said.

He stopped and turned to me and took both of my hands in his, and if you were looking at us from a distance you’d swear this old man was about to propose.

“That place looks like an elementary school with a shitty cafeteria,” he said.

“I tried to get you a room in the Taj Mahal, but they were full up.”

“Don’t be a bitch,” he said. “Don’t be a real bitch.”

He loved that word now. I don’t know why. I had to just let it go.

“Do you have a cigarette?”

“Cold,” I said, shaking my head. “Really cold. You quit in 1995.”

“I never quit, I just stopped. I have pursued second-hand smoke for years.”

He winked at me. This man. We kept walking. I untwined my fingers from his to brush the hair from my face and it freaked him out, and he pulled my arm down until he found my hand again and held it like a vise.

“Marriage vows should be different than they are, I was thinking,” he said. His voice rose a bit and shook. “Not until death do us part. Just until the other loses his mind. Only then may you leave.”

These moments of perfect clarity, of understanding, they astonished me and made me sadder than almost anything else.

“I am not leaving you.”

“One of us is leaving the other. And it’s not me.”

No, I thought, a thought that was truer than I wanted it to be: It’s you, it’s definitely you. I didn’t say it. But there were so many things I couldn’t say anymore. I listened to the static of the frosted, frothy waves instead. He stopped and turned to the horizon, where there was nothing to see except the place where everything disappeared.

“I want a Viking funeral. Set me on a wooden raft, float me out to sea.”

“But you’re not dying, Richard. Not. Dying.” Sometimes he drove me insane. “You were a kind of Viking, though. Brave, strong, a good breadwinner, but also plundering and burning stuff down.”

“Plundering,” he said, and shook his head, as if it were a riddle he couldn’t figure out. “Are you sure? I don’t remember any plundering, Sara. Not a bit of it. I’m sorry.”

And then just like that we found ourselves stuck calf-deep in the stealthy rising tide. We couldn’t move for a second. He gripped my hand and he looked at me with such helplessness, his eyes as scared and wild as a child’s. Then the ocean disappeared, and we were free.

I felt the sun starting to burn. It was time. I led him back to the dunes where we’d left his shoes, but they weren’t there. I scanned the beach. All the dunes looked the same now, graves for ancient mariners with the sea oats waving in the wind.

“I can’t find your shoes,” I said.

“You can’t find my shoes? That’s new.”

“It’s just, I thought they were right here. But maybe they’re up the beach a little.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”

His eyes were swimming, all the maybes and maybe-nots bouncing around in his brain.

“I guess this means we can’t go now,” he said, grinning at me like a little boy, my lifelong conspirator, my partner in crime.

But that’s not what it meant. I saw them down the way. PS

Daniel Wallace is the author of six novels. His memoir, This Isn’t Going to End Well, was published by Algonquin Books in April, 2023. He is the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his alma mater.

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