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January Books

FICTION

The Infamous Gilberts, by Angela Tomaski

Thornwalk, a once-stately English manor, is on the brink of transformation. Its keys are being handed over to a luxury hotelier who will undertake a complete renovation but, in doing so, what will they erase? Through the keen eyes of an enigmatic neighbor, the reader is taken on a guided tour into rooms filled with secrets and memories, each revealing the story of the five Gilbert siblings. Spanning the eve of World War II to the early 2000s, this contemporary gothic novel weaves a rich tapestry of English country life. As the story unfolds, the reader is drawn into a world where the echoes of an Edwardian idyll clash with the harsh realities of war, neglect and changing times. The Gilberts’ tale is one of great loves, lofty ambitions and profound loss.

Meet the Newmans, by Jennifer Niven

For two decades, Del and Dinah Newman and their sons, Guy and Shep, have ruled television as America’s “Favorite Family.” Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch them play flawless, black-and-white versions of themselves. But now it’s 1964, and the Newmans’ idealized apple-pie perfection suddenly feels woefully out of touch. Ratings are in free fall, as are the Newmans themselves. Del is keeping an explosive secret from his wife, and Dinah is slowly going numb, literally. Steady, stable Guy is hiding the truth about his love life, and the charmed luck of rock ’n’ roll idol Shep may have finally run out. When Del is in a mysterious car accident, Dinah decides to take matters into her own hands. She hires Juliet Dunne, an outspoken, impassioned young reporter, to help her write the final episode. But Dinah and Juliet have wildly different perspectives about what it means to be a woman, and a family, in 1964. Can the Newmans hold it together to change television history or will they be canceled before they ever have the chance? 

NONFICTION

The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII,
by Mark Braude

In 1925, Indianapolis-born Janet Flanner took an assignment to write a regular “Letter from Paris” for a lighthearted humor magazine called The New Yorker. She’d come to Paris with dreams of writing about “Beauty with a Capital B.” Her employer, self-consciously apolitical, sought only breezy reports on French art and culture. But as she woke to the frightening signs of rising extremism, economic turmoil and widespread discontent in Europe, Flanner ignored her editor’s directives and reinvented herself, her assignment and The New Yorker in the process. While working tirelessly to alert American readers to the dangers of the Third Reich, Flanner became gripped by the disturbing crimes of a man who embodied all of the darkness she was being forced to confront: Eugen Weidmann, a German conman and murderer, and the last man to be publicly executed in France mere weeks before the outbreak of WWII. Flanner covered his crimes, capture and highly politicized trial, seeing the case as a metaphor for understanding the dangers to come.

Opera Wars: Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for Its Future, by Caitlin Vincent

Drawing on interviews with dozens of opera insiders — as well as her own experience as an award-winning librettist, trained vocalist, opera company director, and arts commentator — Vincent exposes opera’s internal debates, never shrinking from depicting the industry’s top-to-bottom messiness and its stubborn resistance to change. Yet, like a lover who can’t quite break away, she always comes back to her veneration for the art form and stirringly evokes those moments on stage that can be counted on to make ardent fans of the most skeptical.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World, by Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price

This engaging guide is packed with surprising facts, a graphic novel, interactive challenges, secrets that tech leaders don’t want kids to know, and real-life anecdotes from young adults who regret getting smartphones at a young age and want to help the next generation avoid making the same mistakes. It’s a bold, optimistic, and practical guide to growing into your most authentic, confident, and adventurous self. (Ages 9 – 12.)

The Wildest Thing, by Emily Winfield Martin

What would you do if you let the wild in? With gorgeous illustrations, this book is the ideal addition to any bedtime reading routine or read aloud. The Wildest Thing beautifully expresses a timeless message about little ones unleashing their inner “wild” and encouraging their budding imagination and unique individuality. (Ages 3 – 7.)

Rock and Roll, by Ruby Amy Thompson

A laugh-out-loud story of friendship that reminds readers that first impressions can be deceptive. Rock is strong, and Roll is soft. Rock hates attention. Roll loves it. But they are both team players; they are able to handle pressure; and they LOVE to get dressed up. Maybe they’re not so different after all! This sweet story reminds readers that first impressions can be deceptive. (Ages 3 – 7.)

No Day at the Beach

NO DAY AT THE BEACH

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No Day at the Beach

George Washington’s 1791 Southern Tour

By Warren L. Bingham

As the hero of the American Revolution and a man of action, George Washington knew his presence mattered. Shortly after becoming president, he planned to visit all 13 states, “to see and be seen” while promoting the new Constitution and the federal government.

By 1791 Washington had made trips to the Middle and Northern states. That spring he would conduct the Southern Tour, traveling to Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. Except for brief visits in the 1760s as a landowner in North Carolina’s Great Dismal Swamp, Washington had never been south of Yorktown.

The Southern Tour was the most challenging of Washington’s journeys. The president would leave from the nation’s temporary capital, Philadelphia, and be away over three months to reach the farthest points in South Carolina and Georgia. Roads were bad. Crossing water was often an adventure. Inns were few and far between, and the standard unreliable. Horses required proper provisions. Bad weather, clouds of dust and even highway robbery loomed as threats — though one supposes the prospect of holding up Washington and his traveling party would have required an extraordinarily witless band of criminals.

Nonetheless, the 59-year-old Washington and eight traveling companions embarked on the Southern Tour on the first day of spring of 1791. Cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Henry Knox escorted the entourage from Philadelphia to Delaware. Washington left a detailed itinerary with Vice President Adams and his cabinet members if they sought to get mail or messages to him.

Washington was paid a whopper of a salary as the first president, $25,000, but he covered his own expenses for his residence, office and presidential duties, including travel. He paid his household staff and secretaries from his earnings.

The presidential entourage included seven servants from his Philadelphia home, two of them enslaved men on loan from Mount Vernon. William Jackson, a longtime secretary of Washington’s, served as top aide on the trip. Jackson, an officer during the Revolution and a Charlestonian, was young and single, making him ideal to take along on the journey. The trip was considered too arduous for a lady, so first lady Martha Washington remained at home, even though she was a veteran of some wartime camps.

Transportation included the president’s own cream-colored coach and four, a baggage wagon pulled by two horses, and a few extra saddle horses. Washington’s personal mount, Prescott, a tall white parade horse, made the trip. Quite aware of looking presidential, Washington, who stood 6 feet, 2 inches tall, made a dashing impression riding high in Prescott’s saddle. Folklore suggests that a greyhound named Cornwallis accompanied the travelers, but alas, the presence of the hound is likely a myth.

Washington was a planner, and he immersed himself in the journey’s details. He consulted with his secretaries and gentlemen travelers to understand the roads and inns of the South. The president decided to go south along the fall line and the Coastal Plain and to make the return north through the Piedmont, the higher land between the Lowcountry and the mountains. He charted a route that gave him a good feel for the region, though he specifically wanted to visit Charleston, South Carolina, then the fourth-largest city in the country and a place of influence and affluence. Georgia’s two notable places were Savannah and Augusta, so he was going no farther south than those towns. Atlanta didn’t yet exist.

The trip from Philadelphia to North Carolina was a memorable one. The travelers endured near-calamities while crossing both the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis and the Occoquan River in Virginia. Stops in Fredericksburg, Richmond and Petersburg went well, however, and represented Washington’s typical reception. The president was feted by dinners, dances and cannon salutes. Upon his arrival, parades ensued, church bells rang and choirs sang. Eighteenth century drinking was impressive and many toasts were offered — usually 13 (one for each state, of course) with a few more thrown in for good measure.

Hosts dressed up in their finest clothes, and women wore sashes adorned with words of tribute such as “Long Live Washington!” Some towns were lit up with torches, candles and bonfires, a prospect that would have alarmed any self-respecting fire marshal, had such public safety civil servants existed then.

Elected officials, Masons, ministers and veterans of the Revolution were received by the president. He sometimes attended church services and occasionally had the luxury of riding Prescott around town simply to see who he might see.

Traveling between the larger towns wasn’t easy. Local militias often escorted the president, stirring up a choking dust. The inns along the road were often “indifferent,” a term Washington used to politely describe barely acceptable accommodations for man and beast.

On Saturday, April 16, 1791, nearly four weeks after leaving Philadelphia, wind, rain and lightning filled the air as the president and his party made their way into North Carolina. Washington wrote:

The uncomfortableness of it, for Men and Horses, would have induced me to put up; but the only inn short of Hallifax having no stables in wch. the horses could be comfortable & no rooms or beds which appeared tolerable, & every thing else having a dirty appearance, I was compelled to keep on to Hallifax.

At the end of this stormy day, Washington crossed the Roanoke River, arriving in Halifax around six in the evening for his first true taste of North Carolina. Any visit Washington had previously made to the Great Dismal Swamp hardly counts — it’s like saying you’ve been to Dallas after changing planes at DFW.

It’s not certain where Washington lodged during his two-night visit to Halifax, but it was probably Eagle Tavern. As much as practicable, he refused private lodging during his presidential journeys, either paying his way or agreeing to stay in community-provided accommodation. At times during the Southern Tour, however, there simply wasn’t a suitable public place available. Of course, the horses had to be properly cared for and fed — and some public houses weren’t even reliable enough for that.

Halifax was home to several notable North Carolinians, among them, Congressman John Baptist Ashe, future Gov. William R. Davie, and Willie Jones, who had led North Carolina’s opposition to the Constitution and was no fan of the federal government. Indeed, Jones suggested he would receive Washington as a great man — but not as president of the United States.

Though Washington was greeted politely and treated respectably in Halifax, there’s no doubt that the presence of Jones tempered the enthusiasm. After all, Washington was in town for only two days, but the locals had to live with Jones long after the president was gone.

Samuel Johnston, an Edenton lawyer and the squire of Hayes Plantation, wrote in a late-May letter to James Iredell that “the reception of the president in Halifax was not such that we could wish tho in every other part of the country he was treated with proper attention.” In 2011 — with the specter of Jones long dead and buried — Halifax commemorated the Southern Tour on Historic Halifax Day.

When he reached Tarboro, Washington was impressed by the bridge — a rarity in 1791 — over the Tar River. Apparently, the number of cannon in Tarboro was in agreement with the number of bridges. Washington wrote, “We were received at this place by as good a salute as could be given with one piece of artillery.” Reading Blount, a veteran of the Revolution and a member of the state’s prominent Blount family, led the president’s entertainment.

Washington made his way from Tarboro to Greenville along roads that no longer exist, but his route probably tracked near today’s Route 33. In Greenville, the president, ever a farmer, was pleased to learn about local crops, including tobacco, and was intrigued by tar-making and its commercial value. Nonetheless, Washington wrote that Greenville was a trifling place. Greenvillians shouldn’t fret; the president would say the same thing about Charlotte.

After a night near present-day Ayden, during which Washington worried about the horses going uncovered without stables, the travelers passed near Fort Barnwell en route to New Bern. Likely edging out Wilmington as the largest town in North Carolina in 1791, New Bern turned out smartly for Washington. Mounted militia and town leaders met the president’s party several miles outside town to act as escort. The city provided a new but never occupied home for the president’s stay, the John Wright Stanly home, which still stands and is part of today’s Tryon Palace complex.

On his second night in town, Washington was entertained at a gala at Tryon Palace, and his dance card was full. In recent years, a yellow gown worn that evening by Mrs. Ferebe Guion was shown and evaluated on PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow.” The dress, value unknown, remains in the hands of Guion descendants.

In an age of slow and unreliable mail, Isaac Guion, Ferebe’s husband, took advantage of the presidential traveling party and their Southern passage to send a letter to a friend in Georgia via the president. Imagine the conversation. “Uh, Mr. President, as long as you’re going . . .” I suspect William Jackson, the secretary, handled it, but indeed the letter was carried to Georgia and ultimately delivered.

In the 1940s, A.B. Andrews Jr., a Raleigh lawyer and history buff, came across the letter, acquired it, and presented it to the town of New Bern. It’s kept in the archives in the Kellenberger Room, a wonderful collection of local, regional and state history and genealogy at the New Bern-Craven County Public Library. With all these ties to the Southern Tour, New Bern held major commemorations of Washington’s visit in 1891 and again in 2015.

A cannon salute roared as Washington left New Bern, and the presidential party traveled through Jones County, a namesake of Halifax’s Willie Jones. Longtime Pollocksville mayor and avocational historian Jay Bender wonders why Washington stayed so far inland as he went south from New Bern. The old King’s Highway, the post road that went from Boston to Charleston, came through New Bern and tracked more directly to Wilmington. The reason might have been lodging and services for man and horse, since Shine’s Tavern in Jones County, where Washington put up for the night, enjoyed a good reputation.

The travelers arrived at the coast, a few miles from Topsail Beach, on Saturday, April 23. By late afternoon they linked up with present-day Holly Ridge and the King’s Highway, today’s U.S. 17. Washington lodged at Sage’s Inn, one of the establishments he labeled as “indifferent,” though another traveler of the era described the proprietor, Robert Sage, as a “fine jolly Englishman.”

On Easter Sunday, the presidential party followed the King’s Highway toward Wilmington, resting in Hampstead. Some claim that Hampstead takes its name from Washington requesting ham instead of oysters for his breakfast that morning. There is a large live oak hard by U.S. 17 in Hampstead that supposedly is where the travelers rested. A local DAR chapter has kept the tree marked as the Washington Oak for a century or more.

At some point on Easter, Washington wrote a long diary entry in which he observed that the land between New Bern and Wilmington was the most barren country he ever beheld. The travelers had gone through a vast longleaf pine savanna, and Washington had never seen anything like it.

While Washington attended church services several times during the Southern Tour, he made no mention of Easter or attending a service in Wilmington. The Port City’s streets were lined with people to catch sight of America’s hero as Washington was led to his lodgings, a home on Front Street provided by the widow Quince, who gave up her home for the president while she stayed with family elsewhere in town.

Historian Chris Fonvielle, an emeritus professor at UNC Wilmington, says that Wilmington entertained Washington lavishly, and that it was evident that the president “enjoyed the attention from the ladies and drinking with the gentlemen.” Indeed, Washington’s diary indicates there were 62 ladies at the ball. Fonvielle confirms that Washington spent time at two taverns, Dorsey’s and Jocelyn’s. Tavern keeper Lawrence Dorsey famously told the president, “Don’t drink the water!”

Washington’s party continued south on Tuesday the 26th with several stops in Brunswick County. The president met with Benjamin Smith of Belvidere Plantation. Smith was prominent in many ways, a future governor and large landholder, and an officer under Washington’s watch at some point during the Revolution. Southport was originally named Smithville in Benjamin Smith’s honor as he donated the land for the town. Bald Head Island is still known to some as Smith Island, as its original owner was Benjamin Smith’s grandfather, Thomas Smith.

After a night at Russ’ Tavern, about 25 miles south of Wilmington, the travelers stopped at William Gause’s Tavern on the mainland side of what’s now Ocean Isle Beach. Local lore says that the group took breakfast there and went for a swim in the swash, waters that are now the Intracoastal Waterway. The story goes that the president hung his clothes to dry in a large live oak by Gause’s that still stands. Washington crossed into South Carolina early on the afternoon of April 27.

The president continued his travels through South Carolina and Georgia and returned north to North Carolina in late May with stops in Charlotte, present-day Concord, Salisbury, Old Salem and Guilford Courthouse. Washington moved fast on the northbound return. His departures were often at four and five a.m. after one-night stays. In Charlotte, the president was hosted by Thomas Polk, a former officer during the Revolution and the great-uncle of future president James K. Polk. Washington lodged at Cook’s Inn on the corner of Trade and Church Streets where reportedly he left behind his powder box — not gunpowder but powder for body and hair.

Washington enjoyed two nights in Old Salem. Though he planned to spend only one evening, the president agreed to spend another day upon learning that North Carolina governor Alexander Martin was on the way to meet him but wouldn’t arrive until the next day. The president was impressed by the Moravians’ “small but neat village” and their ingenuity, having devised a clever water distribution system.

Before the creation of Greensboro, the county seat of Guilford was Guilford Courthouse, the site of a significant battle of the Revolution just 10 years earlier. Throughout the Southern Tour, Washington enjoyed seeing the battlegrounds that he had long read about. This was no different. “I examined the ground on which the action between Generals Greene and Lord Cornwallis commenced,” wrote Washington.

His last stop in North Carolina was an overnight stay with Dudley Gatewood in Caswell County, just south of the Virginia line. Gatewood’s home was disassembled and moved to Hillsborough during the 1970s, where it was reassembled and served many years as a Mexican restaurant. Sadly, the home gradually fell into disrepair and was torn down in 2024.

The travelers continued north through Virginia, spending time at Mount Vernon and in Georgetown, Maryland, where the president met with area residents to make plans and arrangements to create the new federal capital on the Potomac. Washington celebrated July 4 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and the travelers arrived back in Philadelphia on July 6. Church bells pealed to honor his return. The odometer had turned nearly 1,900 miles and Washington noted that he had gained flesh while the horses had lost it.

America’s first president never again went south of Virginia, but his visit to North Carolina and the South in 1791 was a great success. The Stanly House in New Bern and Salem Tavern in Old Salem are the only extant places where the first president slept, but the legacy is alive and well. The journey was a remarkable physical feat, and politically, Washington’s presence among the citizens and leaders of the nascent United States created considerable good will and acceptance of the new federal government, helping to cement the legacy of 1776. 

Southwords

SOUTHWORDS

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Auld Lang…Humbug

By Jim Moriarty

I confess to being a New Year’s Scrooge. To those of us whose passing will be marked by the screwing of a brass plate into a particular spot at the end of a bar, the shenanigans and tomfoolery of the evening was commonly dismissed as “amateur night.” There is, however, one New Year’s Eve that I’ll not soon forget, and I’ve forgotten a lot of them.

I was married in an honest-to-God church during the fertile days between Christmas and New Year’s. Contrary to rumors, widespread at the time, this was not entirely done because the Methodist church was already decorated to the rafters, thus sparing the happy couple, i.e., me, any expense sprucing the joint up. Not entirely, that is.

Once all the stammering (me again) and vowing was over and done with, the War Department and I lit off on our honeymoon adventure like the giddy misfits we were. We actually had not intended on having a honeymoon. The ceremony fell smack in the middle of the Arab oil embargo. Lines at the gas pump resembled particularly slow-moving queues for particularly boring Disney rides, and the national posted speed limit might just as well have featured a drawing of a slug as the number 55.

My mother, however, had seen an advertisement for a steeply discounted weekend at a posh Indiana resort hotel. She tore it out of the newspaper and booked it for us as a wedding present. We were off to French Lick — the honeymoon destination that launched a thousand jokes. It should be pointed out that French Lick’s most famous citizen, Larry Bird, was a teenager at the time.

We were driving in the first automobile I ever owned outright, a severely oxidized white Volkswagen Beetle that may well have rolled off the production line the same year Khrushchev threw up the Berlin wall. As was typical of the model in those days, nothing functioned quite the way it was supposed to. The heater worked, for example, but only in the summer. It was definitely not summer.

When we pulled up to the grand hotel in our coach (rust bucket), we were met by a sharply dressed valet attendant. To my everlasting regret, it was years too soon to be able to quote Eddie Murphy from Beverly Hills Cop. If ever there was an opportunity to utter the line “Can you put this in a good spot ’cause all of this shit happened the last time I parked here,” this was it.

Our glorious weekend began with bowling in the hotel’s basement and finished in a New Year’s Eve celebration that, much to the War Department’s indifference, revolved almost entirely around the Sugar Bowl, which was the national championship game between undefeated and No. 1-ranked Alabama and unbeaten and No. 3-ranked Notre Dame, the university that was a mile or two north on Eddy Street from our apartment. We had found ourselves in South Bend that fall because she was a highly employable teacher and I was a decidedly unemployable English major and a kept man — which, come to think of it, hasn’t changed all that much in the last 52 years.

Be that as it may, that particular New Year’s Eve was not so much memorable because on a third and 10 from their own 1-yard line, Notre Dame quarterback Tom Clements hit back-up tight end Robin Weber for a 35-yard gain that allowed the Irish to run out the clock and win an 11th national championship. No, no. It was memorable because the War Department had developed an abscessed tooth, and while I had one eye on Ara Parseghian and Bear Bryant, the other eye could only sit there and watch as her face and jaw swelled like a Jiffy Pop aluminum balloon. Oh, my God, I thought, her father is going to kill me when he sees her.

The next morning, New Year’s Day, we drove home in a snowstorm as the War Department, cradling her throbbing jaw in a gloved hand, stuffed dirty socks into the heating vents to stem the polar vortex blasting through them, whilst riding with her feet propped against the dash because of the two inches of watery slush that had been strained through the Swiss cheese wheel well behind the right front tire.

So, yes, I’m no fan of the ghost of New Year’s past.

Focus on Food

FOCUS ON FOOD

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Rooted in Flavor

Frost-sweetened parsnip soup

Story and Photograph by Rose Shewey

If January feels dull and bleak, you’re not tackling it right. I’ll grant you this — the lack of snow around here, which could turn a gray landscape into a twinkling fairy tale, isn’t helping. Nonetheless, there is much beauty to be found and discovered around us, inside and out.

A drop in temperature offers us a unique chance to embrace the season’s quiet rhythm. It’s a good time of year to take stock, look inward, and find stillness. Even in the dead of winter — snow or no snow — January shines bright because the kitchen takes center stage for many of us and cooking with local winter crops is a celebration in itself.

Root vegetables have historically been a staple of a cold weather diet. Parsnips in particular have great timing: They are peaking around the holidays and last into the winter months. As an added bonus, parsnips get better with the cold. When a frosty night hits the root, the plant converts starch into simple sugars, like a natural antifreeze. The side effect is a noticeable boost in sweetness.

Also known as “white carrots,” parsnips lend a deep, earthy-sweet foundation to any soup. Achieving harmony is everything, though: the bright acidity of the wine, the sharp tang of Stilton, and the saltiness of pancetta all fuse to create a balanced flavor profile in this wintry soup. 

Wintry Parsnip and Pear Soup with
Pancetta and Stilton

(Serves 4)

Ingredients

1 pound parsnips (about 2 large), peeled and cut into big chunks

2 pears, such as Bartlett or Bosc, cored and sliced into wedges

1 onion, sliced

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

3 tablespoons olive oil

8 ounces pancetta, chopped

1 celery stalk, sliced

1/2 leek spear, halved lengthways and thinly sliced

2-3 garlic cloves, crushed

3/4 cup white wine

4-5 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2 bay leaves

1/2 cup heavy cream (optional)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Crumbled Stilton cheese, for serving

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, toss parsnips, pears, onion and thyme with the olive oil and spread out in a roasting pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover with a lid or foil and bake for about 30 minutes. Remove lid or foil, add veggies and pears, then continue roasting for an additional 30 minutes. Heat a large pot over medium heat and cook pancetta for about 5 minutes. Drain off excess fat, if needed. Add celery and leek and cook for 2-3 minutes, then add garlic and cook for another 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently. Pour in wine and cook until the liquid is reduced by about half. Add 4 cups broth and roasted veggies together with the bay leaves. Allow the soup to simmer for 20-25 minutes — add more broth if liquid cooks down too much. Remove bay leaves and blend or pulse in batches. Add the soup back to the pot and stir in cream, if desired. Taste soup and adjust seasoning. Serve with crumbled Stilton or any other soup toppings you enjoy.

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

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Sense of Urgency

The stories that need telling

By Stephen E. Smith

It happens to every writer. The moment comes, sometimes sooner than later, when it’s clear that he or she won’t live long enough to write every story that needs telling. The unwritten stories can be offered as spoken anecdotes, which, of course, vaporize the moment they’re uttered, so getting the stories down in print becomes a source of energy and inspiration. Pat Riviere-Seel’s collection, Because I Did Not Drown, derives its urgency from her desire to have the stories remembered — and to be remembered herself. “How long will the work of art last? Who will remember the artist . . . ?” she writes in her essay, “Unknown Artist.”

Reviere-Seel is the author of four poetry books, most notably the well-received The Serial Killer’s Daughter, which was published in 2009 by Charlotte-based Main Street Rag Press. Because I Did Not Drown explores both the exceptional and mundane — “kitchen talk,” the need for perseverance, the joy of pets (in this case cats), a stray fig plant growing by the back stoop, gun control, the loss of old friends, food lovingly prepared, an enthusiasm for jogging, “disenfranchised grief,” extraterrestrials, etc. Each prose chapter is written in straightforward journalistic prose and intended to convey helpful insights into contemporary life.

She begins her collection by recounting her personal experience with the COVID shutdown. She ends the book by detailing the ill effects of the pandemic’s aftermath, topics few writers have tackled (Sean Dempsey’s A Sad Collection of Short Stories, Cheap Parables, Amusing Anecdotes, & Covid-Inspired Bad Poetry is an amusing exception). This reluctance to write about the COVID experience can be attributed to what readers and writers might perceive as proximity aversion: the shock of COVID is still too much with us, and we’ve yet to sort out its spiritual and political implications. Reviere-Seel takes up the subject head-on: “But as the pandemic stretched into a second year, I became more frustrated, angry, and cranky. I missed my poetry group. I missed my friends. . . . We stayed home. We wore masks. We stayed six feet apart. We were grateful to be alive. . . . What had begun as a public health issue became a political issue. The usual anti-vaccine talk mingled with the talk of ‘the government can’t tell me what to do.’” Her concluding essay, “After the Pandemic,” suggests that kindness is the only possible remedy for a virus that continues to mutate: “Be kind. Most of us did not want to infect our family, our friends, our neighbors, or the checkout clerk at the grocery store who showed up for work every day. Genuine kindness is a balm, a gift, a grace.”

In her chapter “Talking About It,” she is straightforward about her struggles with breast cancer. “I didn’t talk about my experience with breast cancer,” she writes, but the death of an aunt who ignored a lump in her breast inspired her to share her experience. “Early detection and medical advances in treatment have meant that breast cancer is no longer the death sentence so many feared fifty years ago.” Her interaction with the medical community will be of particular interest. When she was denied an immediate needle biopsy, she reacted appropriately. “Nice was not working so I threw a fit, a nice-woman-goes-feral southern ‘hissy fit.’ A redhead-gone-rogue tantrum . . .  I was paying for a service, medical care, and I wanted — no, demanded — a say in when and how that service was delivered.” Her story is a paradigm for all women and men who find themselves caught up in our often lethargic and convoluted medical system.

The course of her disease followed a predictable path, but she made the necessary decisions to preserve her life. The description of her battle with breast cancer is timely, honest, reassuring and possibly lifesaving.

Following each of the prose passages, a poem explicates or explores the theme of the preceding chapter. The poems are well written and could stand on their own as a chapbook. “After the Diagnosis,” for example, follows the chapter on breast cancer:

There are nights — more

than you ever thought you could endure —

when sleep will not come

your thoughts — no, not thoughts —

the deep well of unknowing appears

endless. You try summoning

visions of sunrise, a shoreline, bare feet

running across packed sand. But morning

fog covers this foreign landscape.

Everything you knew for sure yesterday

washed away with the tide, predictable

too the magical thinking, maybe. Abandon

the dock, row your way into the nightmare, further

out is the only way back.

The use of verse to add emotional impact to the short personal essays may strike some readers as unnecessary. At the very least, the transition from journalistic prose to poetry is complex, requiring a complete shift in sensibility and focus. Nevertheless, she forces readers to grapple with many of our most vexing problems. 

All the Right Moves

ALL THE RIGHT MOVES

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All the Right Moves

When downsizing is the perfect choice

By Deborah Salomon  
Photographs by John Gessner

Residential downsizing for senior couples can be a challenge. Cherished possessions may be dispersed, gardens and neighbors left behind. Creating a rewarding life with curated furnishings, new fabrics and colors requires time, expertise, motivation and energy. That calls for a Cynthia Birdsall. “I ran the renewal. I was the architect, general contractor, interior designer,” says Cynthia of the Birdsalls’ move from Dunross, a 9,000 square foot, six bedroom, 10 bathroom, three-story castle with workshops and outbuildings built for Donald Ross in Knollwood, into a 4,500 square foot single-story two-bedroom 1970s “ranch” in an over-55 development. Finding that size house on one floor took two years.

The Birdsalls maintain an active social life. “We weren’t ready for assisted living. We still wanted a neighborhood,’’ says Cynthia. She hired the painter, the cabinetmakers and electrician. “The guys trusted me.” Bruce Birdsall’s health and mobility was an impetus for change. Cynthia’s renovation not only included friendly doorsills but space suitable for resident caregivers, if needed in the future for either of them. During the transition the couple moved into an apartment for two years. Furnishings that could not be used were stored.

Two bathrooms were gutted. “We had to take out a wall to build a shower in one,” Cynthia says. While designing space for their new lifestyle, Cynthia did not ignore their enthusiasms. “I’m all about wine,” she says. Several temperature-regulated “wine rooms” store and display her collection. Bruce has a coffee station, stockpiles single malt Scotch and keeps a stable of vintage cars and motorbikes. The couple entertains, thus the bar with refrigeration, icemaker and tools to suit a professional bartender. Against an exterior wall they added an adorable, enclosed garden with a wrought iron gate and a variety of surfaces including grass, concrete, pebbles and water where two elderly miniature French bulldogs hang out, weather permitting.

Frequent guests may remember leather-upholstered chairs and a stretch sofa that survived the move from Dunross. Cynthia is a seventh-generation Texan comfortable with fur, skins and leather, which appear throughout. In contrast, over the simple, 12-seat dining room table — made from a single mesquite tree — hangs an ornate, sparkling chandelier. More Paris than Dallas. She doesn’t assign a period or style to her furnishings. “It’s just what I’ve collected over many years because I love it.”

Cynthia chose an interesting black-coffee hue for the engineered flooring, an ideal background for light-colored area rugs. The sparsely furnished two-part living room and oversized Carolina room illustrate a concept originating in the foyer: space as a décor element. The foyer contains only a table. But what a table it is.

“We wanted our guests to have room to move around,’’ Cynthia explains.

Walls are a soft vanilla throughout. Woodwork, including crown moldings, is finished in light-reflecting semi-gloss. Paintings hang singly rather than in groups, creating drama. Windows are shaded by white venetian blinds, never drapes.

This absence of “stuff” conveys calm, something uber-active Cynthia seeks and appreciates.

Exceptions exist, particularly in the kitchen, where Cynthia had some wall cabinets removed to create a pantry and transformed the island base into shelves for her cookbook collection. A quartz countertop splattered in bright blue adds pop. Meal prep becomes happy time.

“When we cook for the family (with children and grandchildren) we cook as a group, and dance around,” she says.

Perhaps the most interesting space is the master suite with seating area, an impressive 18-foot-by-28 foot corner room furnished in custom-made pieces designed by Cynthia. Their shapes suggest frill-free Scandinavian modes popular in the early 1950s. In contrast, the showstopper is a cabinet from Bruce’s family that contains Cynthia’s perfume bottle collection.

The AARP reports that downsizing can have both positive and negative effects on seniors. A survey found that 75 percent of Americans ages 50 and over have a strong preference for staying in their longtime family home. The Birdsalls have had other homes and lived at Dunross only a few years, lessening the emotional attachment to any one place. Their upscale downsize happened under favorable conditions with enviable results: familiar neighborhood, same friends, comfortable furnishings, safe environment. They even have worked out sleeping arrangements for visiting children and grandchildren since the house has only two bedrooms — option one: rent the Pinehurst church that is now a residence.

Downsizing wears many faces, from worry to acceptance and relief. This face, thank goodness, is smiling. “This was the right decision for us,” Cynthia says. 

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

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Capricorn

(December 22 – January 19)

Having been in “go” mode since birth, you may not understand the degree to which your natural drive and goal-crushing prowess triggers those around you. This isn’t to say you should play small (you’re incapable) or slow down (hoofers gonna hoof it). Rather, when the shade-throwers cast their slights and snubs, try not to adopt their perceived failures as your own. This month, with Saturn in Pisces amplifying your softer side, embrace it. 

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Now, think bigger. 

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Cancel the membership. 

Aries (March 21 – April 19) 

Consider a new deodorant.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Your cuticles require some attention. 

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Try subbing sugar for dates. 

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Baby steps, darling. 

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Make time for a morning stretch. 

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)  

Keep the receipt. 

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Two words: wardrobe overhaul.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Ever heard of a dry brush? 

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Dance like nobody’s gawking.

Dissecting a Cocktail

DISSECTING A COCKTAIL

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100 Year Old Cigar

Story and Photograph by Tony Cross

Let’s start 2026 off with a bang, or the strike of a match, if you will. The 100 Year Old Cigar was created by Maks Pazuniak at the bar Jupiter Disco in Bushwick, New York. Carey Jones includes it in her book Brooklyn Bartender: A Modern Guide to Cocktails and Spirits published in 2016.

One of the qualities of Pazuniak’s creations is how well he blends myriad spirits that might intimidate others. He showcased those skills in Beta Cocktails (the book he cowrote with Kirk Estopinal) and again with his 100 Year Old Cigar cocktail. The backbone of this drink is an aged rum — I use Ron del Barrilito’s 3 Star — that has more body and depth than the typical light rum. The modifiers are Laphroaig 10 Year Scotch, Cynar and Benedictine. On paper, this cocktail looks intense — indeed, these flavors are juxtaposed: Laphroaig is very peaty, Cynar is savory and bitter, and the French liqueur, Benedictine, is sweet with notes of baking spices and honey. Throwing them together with an aged rum lets the ingredients shine while the rum still holds its own without overpowering the modifiers. After stirring this and pouring it into a coupe, give a few spritzes of absinthe over the cocktail. The result is richly boozy, with layers of flavor that echo the notes of a fine cigar. It makes a great nightcap or perhaps a celebratory toast for surviving another year. 

Specifications

1 3/4 ounces aged rum

1/2 ounce Benedictine

1/2 ounce Cynar

1/4 ounce Laphroaig 10 Year

Absinthe

Execution

Combine all ingredients, sans absinthe, in a chilled mixing vessel. Add ice and stir until cocktail is ice-cold and properly diluted. Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe. Using an atomizer, spritz absinthe over the cocktail a few times. 

Poem January 2026

POEM

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The Other Side of the Mirror

“Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze . . .
And certainly the glass was beginning to melt away,
just like a bright silvery mist.”

    — Lewis Caroll, Through the Looking Glass

 

There’s always a reason I’d rather stay home,

as I brush my hair, gaze into my reflection, sit

before the dresser where I combed my curls

as a girl, forever getting ready for the life

that hadn’t arrived yet. Mirrors remained

unfazed, as I exchanged one image for another,

changed my hairstyles and hats, traced fingers

along a scar, abandoned myself for imperfections.

I have come close to escaping into another world,

always about to leave or about to live, my eyes

child-like, clear as glass, considering what time

it must be . . . to keep from disappearing

into my own unbreakable stare.

— Linda Annas Ferguson

Hometown

HOMETOWN

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Grit and Grace

Remembering a boyhood hero

By Bill Fields

This college basketball season is hitting me in a different way, and I can’t blame it on the transfer portal or other tradition-wrecking aspects of the current era, as dispiriting as they might be.

Larry Miller died last May, at 79, and it felt as if an important piece of my childhood went with the legendary Tar Heel, who starred for coach Dean Smith in the 1960s and led Carolina to two straight Final Fours.

I read something not long ago that one’s deepest bonds with sports are rooted in associations which date to elementary and middle school days. Sports certainly have never been a bigger passion for me than they were when I was that age and beginning to play as well as becoming a devoted fan.

About the time I was just starting to digest the daily sports section, three players in three sports were drawing my fullest attention: Willie Mays, Sonny Jurgensen and Miller. As much as I loved the star centerfielder who could do it all for the San Francisco Giants and the pure-passing quarterback of the Washington Redskins, Miller captivated me most of all.

Playing on the other side of the country, Mays was mostly a name in a box score. If the rooftop antenna was doing its job, Jurgensen regularly showed up on our television on Sunday afternoons in the fall. But during the three seasons he was on the UNC basketball team — freshmen weren’t allowed to compete on varsity teams until the early 1970s — Miller was a more frequent presence in my sports universe. I read about him in the paper, watched him on TV, and listened to his exploits on radio.

Miller filled gyms across Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley as a prep star. His hometown, Catasauqua, was one of the first far-flung locales to stick in my mind. Convincing Miller to come to Chapel Hill after he graduated from high school in 1964 was vital to Smith, whose early years at the helm were rocky. More than a hundred colleges had offered scholarships to the 6-foot-4 forward, whose jumping ability allowed him to play bigger.

To the coeds who flooded the UNC Sports Information office with fan mail for their handsome favorite, Miller was a matinee idol. For a young boy who couldn’t get enough basketball and loved the Tar Heels, Miller suited up on the Carmichael Auditorium hardwood at the perfect time to fuel my hoops obsession. I would root hard for other Carolina stars, from Charlie Scott to George Karl to Phil Ford, but Miller stood alone as my first basketball crush.

The Tar Heels didn’t have their names on the back of their jerseys in those days, but there was no mistaking No. 44 in light blue and white. Miller was an effective blend of grit and grace on the court, an excellent outside shooter who also had a crafty way of driving to the basket and scoring on scoop-style layups after faking out the opposition with his creative moves. Being a righty, I couldn’t emulate Miller’s left-handed shots, but I otherwise tried to be him around our rickety backyard goal or in Saturday morning youth-league games in the Southern Pines gym. There were thousands of other kids in their Converses or Keds around North Carolina just like me.

As a junior, Miller made 13 of 14 shots in a win over Duke in the final of the 1967 ACC Tournament, and the Tar Heels became the first Smith-coached team to reach the Final Four, losing to Dayton in the semifinals. ACC Player of the Year in 1967 and ’68, Miller was a consensus first-team All-American in 1968, when Carolina repeated as conference champs and again advanced to the Final Four, losing badly in the championship game to Lew Alcindor-led UCLA.

The Tar Heels’ 23-point loss to the Bruins didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for wanting to see Miller in person later that spring at an exhibition game of barnstorming college seniors at the Pinehurst gym. Not only did my dad take me to the game, but at halftime he also bought me an autographed 8-by-10 glossy of Miller at the souvenir stand. I’ve held on to that $3.00 picture all this time, and when I heard Miller had died, I retrieved it from a box and looked at it for a good long while, remembering.