PinePitch January 2026

PINEPITCH

January 2026

Between the Covers

Enjoy a trio of January book talks beginning at noon on Thursday, Jan. 8 when Jack Kelly discusses his book Tom Paine’s War: The Words That Rallied a Nation and the Founder for Our Time virtually with Kimberly Daniels Taws at The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines. Then, at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 14, Ford S. Worthy will talk about his book In Search of a Boy Named Chester, also at The Country Bookshop. Last, but certainly not least, Donna Everhart will engage in a discussion about her book Women of a Promiscuous Nature, in the Boyd House at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. For information and tickets for all three events go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

A World of Magic

Erikson Herz knew from the age of 12 that magic was his calling, but the journey is about more than just tricks and illusions — it’s about connecting with people through wonder and imagination. You can catch his act at BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst, at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 30. For information and tickets go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

It’s Baaack!

OK, maybe it’s still winter, but the Sandhills Woman’s Exchange will warm things up when it reopens for the spring season beginning on Wednesday, Jan. 28. The gift shop hours are from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the cabin café will be serve up lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. For information go to www.sandhillswe.org.

Send in the Symphony

The North Carolina Symphony will perform A Little Night Music on Thursday, Jan 29, at 7:30 p.m., in BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. The Stephen Sondheim musical, originally performed on Broadway in 1973, includes the popular song “Send in the Clowns,” written for Glynis Johns. For more information go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Strawberry Fields Forever

“Yesterday and Today: The Interactive Beatles Experience” returns to BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst, beginning at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 16. The band, anchored by brothers Billy, Matthew and Ryan McGuigan, performs as themselves and leave the song choices completely up to the audience. The set list is created as the show happens, and the songs make up the narrative for the evening. Every show is different, every show proves that The Beatles’ music truly is the soundtrack to our lives. For tickets and information go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Ruth Pauley Lecture Series

The always thought-provoking Ruth Paul Lecture Series continues with Dr. Deigo Bohórquez, an associate professor of medicine and neurobiology at Duke University, delivering a presentation on “The Gut-Brain Connection and Neuropods” on Tuesday, Jan. 20 at 7 p.m. in BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. A pioneer and leader in the field of gut-brain biology, Bohórquez focuses on how the brain perceives what the gut feels, how food in the intestine is sensed by the body, and how a sensory signal from a nutrient is transformed into an electrical signal that alters behavior. In 2025, he was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Joe Biden, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding early-career scientists and engineers. For tickets and information go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

Experience a world where film and music become one when The Carolina Philharmonic, under the direction of Maestro David Michael Wolff, performs the iconic Wizard of Oz soundtrack live-to-picture in two performances — at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. — on Saturday, Jan. 24, in BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. For further information go to www.carolinaphil.org. or call (910) 6897-0287.

Reelin’ in the Years

Get swept up in a night of smooth rock at 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 23, when Dirty Logic, the Steely Dan tribute band known for its impeccable musicianship and faithful recreations of the Donald Fagen and Walter Becker jazzy grooves, lush harmonies and razor-sharp lyrics, takes the stage at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Tickets are as affordable as $39 to get through the door, up to $139 for the VIP, dinner, drinks and premier seating treatment. For more information and tickets go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Meet the Met

The Met has assembled a world-beating quartet of stars for the demanding principal roles in Vincenzo Bellini’s 1835 opera I Puritani on Saturday, Jan. 10, at 1 p.m. at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St. Southern Pines. Soprano Lisette Oropesa and tenor Lawrence Brownlee are Elvira and Arturo, brought together by love and torn apart by the political rifts of the English Civil War. Baritone Artur Ruciński plays Riccardo, betrothed to Elvira against her will, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn portrays Elvira’s sympathetic uncle, Giorgio. For info and tickets go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Simple Life

SIMPLE LIFE

My Own Soulful Green Books

Food for the journey ahead

By Jim Dodson

I’m often asked by readers where I find my ideas to write about each month.

“It’s simple,” I reply. “Life.” Hence the title of this column.

It helps, however, that I also have what I call my “Green Books.” Not the historic Green Book that served as a guide to safe places for accommodations and food for traveling African Americans in the mid-1900s South.

Mine are something very personal: four leather journals, several with cracked bindings from age, that I began half a century ago. In their pages, I’ve recorded memorable quotes, funny observations and the wisdom of others who graciously provided food for the journey ahead.

Today, four such books anchor my writing desk and library shelves, crammed full of helpful words — some famous, others anonymous, comical, spiritual or plain common sense — a resource I turn to when life seems out of whack, or I simply need a shot of humor or optimism to face the moment.

A new year strikes me as the perfect time to share some of my all-time favorites.

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world, as a result, will have a generation of idiots.” – Albert Einstein

OK. Had to put this one out first because I’m a confirmed Luddite who writes his books with an ink pen and can only function on a computer with proper adult supervision, meaning my wife, Wendy, a techno-whiz. Recently heard a “Super” AI “expert” warn that “living authors” will eventually be a thing of the past. That’s a world I don’t wish to live in.

“I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen.” – from Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

This gem hung with an illustration of Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore on my childhood bedroom wall. Stop and think for a moment about the amazing people you didn’t know until they unexpectedly, perhaps miraculously, stepped into your life — and a new adventure began.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your wild and precious life?” – From “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

This timeless poetic question hung on a banner over my daughter Maggie’s beautiful autumn wedding three years ago at her childhood summer camp in Maine. It’s one we all must invariably answer, even late in life. Especially late in life.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” – from Walden: or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau, poet, naturalist, Transcendental rock star.

I discovered — and memorized — this stanza in Miss Emily Dickenson’s English Lit class in 1970 (by the way, her real name). So moved by it, I vowed to someday retreat to the northern woods. Looking back, I think it partially explains why I built my house on a forested hilltop in Maine. That gold-and-green woodland enchanted my children and their papa, a would-be transcendentalist who has learned more from the solitude of the forest than in any city on Earth.

“There will be a time when you think everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” – Louis L’Amour, Western novelist

Useful advice for those of us anxious about the fate of American democracy.

“Solvitur ambulando.” Translation: It is solved by walking. –
St. Augustine

Amazing what a good walk around the block or hike through the woods can do to calm the mind, work out a solution or simply remind one how life’s ever-changing landscape can clear away the cobwebs.

“Stop looking at yourself and begin looking into yourself. Life is an inside job.”

Someone once said this to me, but I can’t remember who. I sometimes remind myself of this when I’m shaving in the morning and see myself in the mirror, often followed by a second observation: I thought getting older would take more time.

“If something is lost, quit searching for it. It will find its way back to you.”

Sage advice passed along from a longtime golf pal’s mama. I’ve found it works splendidly with misplaced car keys, eyeglasses, wallets, (most) golf balls and missing Christmas candy. Not so much with politics or old romances.

“The meal is the essential act of life. It is the habitual ceremony, the long record of marriage, the school for behavior, the prelude to love. Among all peoples and in all times, every significant event in life — be it wedding, triumph, or birth — is marked by a meal or the sharing of food and drink. The meal is the emblem of civilization.” – James and Kay Salter, from Life Is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days

A well-loved book in our household, one every food lover should own, a gloriously entertaining volume chock full of quirky, fun and extraordinary gems about the origins and traditions of food, drink and fellowship at the table.

“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing could feel more luxurious than paying attention. And, in an age of constant motion, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.” – from The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere by Pico Iyer

This note from this wise little book pretty much summarizes my personal ambition for 2026 — to go slower, to pay closer attention, to sit still as often as possible.

“Modern American society is marked by a high degree of mobility, a decline in voluntary civic activities, and an emphasis on rights (i.e. what others owe me). The result is rootlessness and detachment from family and friends. Higher crime rates, chiefly among youth, show a strong statistical correlation with lack of self-control. And moral disputes are often marked by dogmatism, the inability or unwillingness to see the moral force behind another point of view. In response, the possibilities for improvement include (1) reinvigorating our civic associations, (2) developing and inculcating self-control, and (3) demanding higher levels of mutual respect and tolerance in the way we speak to and treat one another.” – from Civility & Community by Brian Schrag

May you all have a safe and much more civil New Year. I leave you with one of my favorite wisdoms from my books:

“Do not be afraid, for I am with you. From wherever you come, I will lead you home.” – Isaiah 43:5

2026 Department Simple Life

Crossroads

CROSSROADS

The Pink Ballerina Room

A taste of independence

By LuEllen Huntley

I am the new girl, a late enrollment. My parents and I are ushered into an expansive office with heavy drapes for an interview. They sit in the back on a plush couch, me up front in a straight-back chair across a hefty desk from the assistant headmistress, a smallish woman with thick oval glasses. She begins, “What have you read, Miss Huntley?”

I stare at her owlish face and freeze, incapable of telling her about our smalltown library a half block from my house. Ever since fourth grade I’d been allowed to walk there on my own and stay as long as I liked. The two librarians, Ms. Shep and her sister, allowed me access to all the rooms, even the attic that housed the Civil War archive, where they let me wander among the armed and uniformed manikins. Other days I pore over articles and discover Seventeen in the magazine alcove. Somehow I pass the interview. I tell my parents goodbye.

Most of the dorm rooms are doubles but, because I’m late, I’m assigned the single the other girls call “the pink ballerina room.” It’s a small room down a cornered hallway with an exterior window ledge almost large enough to crawl onto. I’m happy to have ballerinas dancing on the walls in pink tutus and toe shoes, reminding me of the program in third grade when I wore a ballet costume borrowed from a girlfriend. In the short tulle skirt, a sequined top and matching tiara, I played a wood fairy and learned a poem by heart. My mother pin-curled my hair the night before the performance, and I got to wear lipstick.

I play my music in the ballerina room, a collection of 45’s that includes Motown, The Doors, Johnny Rivers, The Beatles, James Taylor, Bread, The Guess Who and Carole King. Some of the other girls ask to borrow them. Weeks after moving in, one classmate in particular keeps dropping by. She’s the first person I know who wears round John Lennon glasses, setting off naturally curly hair, a sly grin and quirky laugh. I find out she’s a cartoon artist.

She starts chatting about her roommate, making it sound like I’m missing out. She says if I want a roommate, she has the best; and I can trade places with her, move to a double on a main hall. This way, she promises me, I’d have a roommate. I won’t be alone anymore. I fall for it and we swap, privacy for friendship. But the thought of the pink ballerina room never fully goes away. Like time alone in the town library, I enjoy solitude, the space to think. The girl with the John Lennon glasses finagled this gift for herself.

But I do like having a fun-loving roommate. After dinner we hold “dance-outs” in our room to my 45’s. It becomes the place to be, the place where 16-year-old ballerinas truly come to life, in the bargain of a lifetime. And I say this now because the new girl then did not know when she landed the private room tucked down the small hallway, off to itself, it was just the sort of place that fit the person she would become. The way of the universe was to give her a smalltown library and a few weeks in the pink ballerina room as a taste of independence. Each left its imprint.

2026 Crossroads Department

Bookshelf

BOOKSHELF

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.)

2026 Bookshelf Department

Southwords

SOUTHWORDS

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.

2026 Department Southwords

Focus on Food

FOCUS ON FOOD

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.

2026 Department Focus on Food

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

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.

2026 Department Omnivorous Reader

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

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.

2026 Department Tea Leaf Astrologer

Dissecting a Cocktail

DISSECTING A COCKTAIL

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.

2026 Department Dissecting a Cocktail

Hometown

HOMETOWN

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.

2026 Department Hometown

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