Tag: Department

Southwords

SOUTHWORDS

Sticky Fingers

Confessions of a cookie dough thief

By Emilee Phillips

Around the holidays, my mother is known for baking her days away. Even with all of her kids grown and (mostly) gone she still churns out the sugary treats as if Bobby Flay were going to walk in at any moment to pass judgment on the selection.

Like most master chefs, she had specific dishware for specific things. Regular plates versus fancy plates, plastic cups versus glassware, and a collection of mixing bowls as stackable as Russian nesting dolls. There was one item, however, that came with spoonfuls of family chronicles — the granddaddy of them all — the cookie dough bowl.

When that heavy beige and blue ceramic bowl came out, we knew a spread of precisely shaped and elegantly frosted sugar cookies was on its way. But that wasn’t the best part. Oh, no. The best part was the dough.

All of us — and by us I mean her feral children — stuck our grubby fingers in that dough at least once a day, for as long as it sat in the fridge, before any of it ever landed on a cookie sheet. We weren’t afraid of salmonella, we were afraid of not seeing the bowl in time. It’s a good thing we didn’t have many guests during the holidays — it’s doubtful their constitutions would have been as hardy as ours.

My mother always wondered why her recipes never produced quite the cookie count she thought they should yield. We did our best to be discreet but eventually, my mom put two and two together and came up with three — children, that is. In the end we were betrayed by the aluminum foil that never seemed to go back as snugly as it went on and, of course, the fistful of finger divots.

Not that my brother and I were entirely innocent, but my sister, Megan, was the main culprit. And yes, that matters. The year Megan came home from college on Thanksgiving break is the year “the incident” happened. Whether or not it was on purpose has yet to be discovered.

It was late in the evening and Megan was loitering in the light of the fridge in search of a midnight snack. I can only imagine her delight when she saw the bowl. Not that I was on a cookie dough prowl myself — I have always been something of a night owl — but when I walked into the kitchen, my timing couldn’t have been better. I witnessed Megan popping a dough-laden finger into her mouth. Or so we both thought.

“Blech!” she exclaimed. Her head shook and her body shivered as she stuck out her tongue in disgust. I could see her mentally wrestling the urge to summon our mother at the top of her lungs to get to bottom of this vile pile. But of course, that would have given her up as the main cookie dough thief. Hoisted on her own petard, she couldn’t say a word.

Megan looked at me, confused. I calmly, and innocently, surveyed the scene. The cookie cutters weren’t out on the counter. Conspicuous by their absence, I knew what had happened. I reached past my sister and peeled back the foil. The bowl — not just any bowl but THE bowl — was full of potato salad.

It was as though our mother had defied the laws of nature that night. “It was even on the right shelf,” Megan whispered as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and trudged up to her room. I was just glad it wasn’t me.

The next morning at the breakfast table, Mom asked no one in particular, “So, how was the cookie dough?”

My sister lifted her gaze from her plate of pancakes with the look and sting of betrayal. To this day she swears I gave her up, but I think Mom saw the once smooth foil rumpled and decided to run with it, regardless of who the actual victim was. They exchanged a quick look full of mental gymnastics.

“That was cold,” said Megan, eyes narrowing. I was holding my breath waiting for Mom’s comeback — a lecture, or perhaps a revenge story.

Instead, the corners of her mouth turned upward as she stood to clear the breakfast plates. “Well, yeah,” she said on her way out of the room, “it was in the fridge.”

Almanac November 2024

ALMANAC NOVEMBER 2024

Almanac November 2024

By Jim Dodson

Generations of Americans who were schoolchildren during the Ozzie and Harriet years from the 1950s through 1960s have keen memories of singing an ancient hymn long associated with Thanksgiving titled “We Gather Together.” In fact, the hymn had nothing to do with the mythologized first Thanksgiving held by the Pilgrims in November 1621. Based on a Dutch folk tune, the hymn was written in 1597 to celebrate the Dutch victory over the Spanish forces at the Battle of Turnhout. Prior to that, Dutch protestants were forbidden to gather for religious observances. It first appeared in American hymnals around 1903 and rapidly gained popularity as the Thanksgiving hymn sung at church services and in public schools during the week of the November holiday. In 1992, comedian Adam Sandler performed his own mocking version of the holiday standard on Saturday Night Live that more or less coincided with “We Gather Together” being removed forever from public schools and gatherings. The hymn is still a staple in churches across America at Thanksgiving.

The holiday itself has something of a checkered and violent history. The highly mythologized account of the first Thanksgiving “harvest feast” shared by English Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people in 1621 generally ignores the fact that disease brought by the colonists to North America wiped out 90 percent of New England’s native populations. Following a major Patriot victory in the Revolutionary War, George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide Thanksgiving celebration in America, marking Nov. 26, 1789, “as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” He was then upstaged by Abraham Lincoln 74 years later, who formally established the national holiday when he issued a proclamation for a National Day of Thanksgiving in October 1863, following the Battle of Gettysburg, in which 50,000 soldiers died. In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt moved the Thanksgiving holiday one week earlier than normal to the second-to-last Thursday in November, believing that doing so would help bolster retail sales during the final years of the Great Depression.

Regardless of these inconvenient truths — and Adam Sandler’s buffoonery — the overwhelming majority of us in a wonderfully diverse America embrace Thanksgiving as a welcome opportunity to gather with family and friends and celebrate however we see fit with food, football and a nice afternoon nap.

“Let us give thanks for this beautiful day.
Let us give thanks for this life. Let us give thanks for the water without which
life would not be possible.
Let us give thanks for Grandmother Earth,
who protects and nourishes us.”

— Traditional daily prayer of the American Lakota people

When the Year Grows Old

By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old —
October — November —
How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.

And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,

She had a look about her
That I wish I could forget —
The look of a scared thing
Sitting in a net!

Oh, beautiful at nightfall
The soft spitting snow!
And beautiful the bare boughs
Rubbing to and fro!

But the roaring of the fire,
And the warmth of fur,
And the boiling of the kettle
Were beautiful to her!

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old —
October — November —
How she disliked the cold!

2024 Almanac Department

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

Scorpio

(October 23 – November 21)

Nothing like an old sweater, huh? So comfy and familiar. But so not doing you any favors. This month, self-worth is the name of the game. And here’s the thing: You’re destined to win. It’s simply a matter of ditching the security blanket — be that a threadbare sweater or an outdated (read, self-effacing) MO. Oh, and when Juno enters your sign on Nov. 3, get ready for a next-level soul connection. We’re talking oceanic depths. How do you feel about whale songs?

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Throw out the candy.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Get ready for a boon.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Turn the dial just a hair.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

More root vegetables.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Try softening your gaze.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Just ask for directions.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Lay off the caffeine for a bit.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Someone’s got your back.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Get cozy with the silence.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Worrying won’t help.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Don’t be a doormat.

2024 Department Tea Leaf Astrologer

NC Surround Sound

NC SURROUND SOUND

A Giant Legacy in a Small Town

Nina Simone, Crys Armbrust and Tryon

By Tom Maxwell

At first glance, Tryon isn’t too different from most small North Carolina towns: Its people are genuinely friendly instead of merely polite; a snug line of mostly brick buildings make up its diminutive downtown; residential housing is a typical mix of stately homes on one side of town and forgotten shacks vanishing into the encroaching kudzu on the other. It’s the kind of place real estate agents describe as “nestled,” situated as it is at the southernmost edge of Polk County, where the great Blue Ridge begins to rise like a crumbling wall. But culturally, the town has distinguished itself in ways that have put a brighter shine on North Carolina’s starry crown.

In 1939, you probably wouldn’t have taken a second look at 6-year-old Eunice Waymon as she walked across the railroad tracks along Trade Street, unless you thought it unusual to see a poor Black kid heading to that part of town. Most everybody in Tryon knew Eunice as a child prodigy, on her way up the hill to Glengarnock Road to take piano lessons from Muriel Mazzanovich, better known as Miss Mazzy. In every sense, Eunice was headed for big things.

Even though many Tryon townsfolk — white and Black — recognized and contributed to Eunice’s artistic development, racism was baked into the Jim Crow South. Before a recital at Lanier Library, a teenaged Eunice saw her parents quietly ushered to the back of the room so white people could take their place in the front row. The young pianist refused to perform until her mother and father were returned to their rightful place.

If systemic racism wasn’t enough to drive ambitious young musicians of color out of the South, professional necessity was. Opportunity was located where the music industry was largely based, either New York or Los Angeles. As her journey into adulthood began, Eunice first attended Asheville’s exclusive Allen Home School, where she befriended Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes. Then it was on to New York’s Juilliard School of Music, and after that, a failed audition for a scholarship to Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. This was an experience that Eunice remembered for the rest of her life with some bitterness.

Denied a career in classical music, Eunice took a nightclub gig in Atlantic City, where she was informed that she would have to be the featured vocalist as well as the piano accompanist. Soon afterward, she adopted the stage name Nina Simone to protect her family’s reputation. The artist’s new identity and career path would go on to change the world of popular music in ways that defy description: Nina Simone’s music contains elements of jazz, gospel, rock and roll, and rhythm and blues — and still the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

“Nina Simone was one of the key artists who grew up here and fled at the earliest opportunity,” David Menconi says. “But North Carolina left a mark, as it does.” Menconi has spent a lifetime writing about music — first as a critic who spent a couple of decades at Raleigh’s News & Observer; now as an editor and author, most recently of Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music.

The list of North Carolina-based musicians who joined that Jim Crow-era Black diaspora is extraordinary: jazz legends John Coltrane, Max Roach, Thelonious Monk; soul singer Roberta Flack; and funk pioneers George Clinton, Maceo Parker and Betty Davis comprise only a partial list.

“Branford Marsalis told me that people like Nina Simone and Thelonious Monk, who left here at a young age, are still identifiable as Southern because of just how deep a mark church puts on everybody,” Menconi says. “That’s what all these artists have in common: They’re not playing gospel, but church is what’s in there if you dig deep enough.”

In 1996, when Crys Armbrust’s dad told him that Nina Simone was born in Tryon, he was met with disbelief. “I actually stood him down for a liar,” Armbrust said when I met him in 2019. “Because any other town in the world that could claim Nina Simone as a local daughter would have it plastered on every building — on every street — in order to build the reputation of that community.” But this was the mid-1990s, and North Carolina had yet to publicly embrace most, if not all, of its distinguished African American sons and daughters. Armbrust, a fan of Nina Simone since his teenage years, spent much of the rest of his life correcting that mistake.

Dr. Joseph Crystal Armbrust was born and raised in South Carolina but summered in Tryon for 45 consecutive years before making it his home. Precious few people can legitimately be called a polymath, but Crys Armbrust is near the top of the list. After earning two Ph.D.s in literature at the University of South Carolina, he taught English literature and in the school of business, later serving as assistant principal at USC’s prestigious Preston Residential College. Once ensconced in Tryon, Armbrust served as the town’s economic development director, commissioner and mayor pro tempore emeritus. As a musician, he performed recitals at Kings Oxford and Westminster Abbey, while serving back home as master of choristers and music director for Tryon’s Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross. An accomplished composer, Armbrust was commissioned to write several works for eminent clients like Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Vatican.

“My parents wanted a Renaissance man,” Armbrust said, “and they made one.”

None of this would have been immediately obvious to somebody like Menconi if he happened to see Armbrust puttering in the yard of Nina Simone’s birthplace — which he often did. Menconi visited Tryon in 2017, a year before Simone was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Everyone in town told him he had to talk to Crys Armbrust. “I discovered that he was the guy who knew everything about everyone, but especially her and the cabin where she grew up,” Menconi says. “He was the on-site caretaker of the place.”

The Nina Simone House, saved from obscurity or destruction by a group of artists in 2017, was declared a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation a few years later. One of the groups the trust worked closely with when crowdsourcing funds for the house’s rehabilitation was Crys Armbrust’s Nina Simone Project.

“I knew I had the skill set to make a pretty strong impact with respect to creating the Nina Simone Project, so I began in earnest after my father’s death in 2008,” Armbrust said. He conceived a three-phase nonprofit, incorporating a statue, a scholarship and a music festival. When I met Armbrust in 2019, the Nina Simone Project had already bestowed over a dozen general scholarships to local kids.

Despite the economic crash of 2008, Armbrust and the NSP were able to raise enough money to create a statue honoring Simone. It’s situated in a little park on Trade Street, near the railroad tracks Eunice used to cross on her way to take piano lessons. The statue, of Simone seated at a floating, undulating keyboard, contains some of the musician’s ashes in its bronze heart. It was conceived and created by Zenos Frudakis, the same sculptor who did the Payne Stewart likeness behind Pinehurst No. 2’s 18th green.

According to Armbrust, Simone often returned to Tryon. “She left at about 15 and came back quite often,” he told Menconi. “Early on, any and all hours of the day — usually later at night with no fanfare so she wouldn’t have to deal with people. My friend James Payne — who lives a block up the road — would pick her up at the airport, whisk her back here, the door would open, and in she’d walk.” Simone’s last visit to Tryon was to attend her mother’s funeral in 2001.

Crys Armbrust died in August. The Nina Simone Project appears to have gone dormant with his passing, but both he and Simone are very much woven into the fabric of modern-day Tryon. Through his relentless advocacy, Armbrust contributed to a new wave of cultural recognition and reconciliation across the state. In 2006, High Point erected their own bronze statue to “distinguished citizen” John Coltrane. Now there’s a highway marker in the tiny Yancey County seat of Burnsville celebrating Lesley Riddle, an African American native son who, along with the Carter family, helped invent country music. Legendary Piedmont blues artist Elizabeth Cotten is featured in a large mural in her hometown of Carrboro. That list, happily, expands with each passing year.

Hurricane Helene wreaked unimaginable destruction across all of Western North Carolina. Tryon wasn’t spared. The day after, her people did what all tight-knit communities do: They came together. While dazed residents checked in on neighbors and loved ones, the Trade Street Diner set up a generator and offered free coffee and Wi-Fi to all — including evacuees sheltering in Polk County High School. Nearby, at 54 N. Trade St., there’s a bench in Nina Simone Plaza where those who need a break can sit across from the statue of Tryon’s most famous daughter and rest before continuing the work of saving their town. Like a simple act of recognition, a moment’s respite is a small thing that can make a huge difference.

2024 Department NC Surround Sound

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

After the Amber

A novel of disappearance and guilt

By Stephen E. Smith

A startling buzzing blasts from your phone or TV, followed by a high-pitched whine, and a detailed description of a missing child inching across the screen. It’s an active Amber Alert — a child abduction emergency. We experience these alerts too often, but we rarely learn what becomes of the missing child or how such a disappearance affects the child’s family, friends and the community in which the child lives.

Marybeth Mayhew Whalen’s 10th novel, Every Moment Since, is a fictional exploration of the emotional forces that wear on those who knew and loved 11-year-old Davy Malcor, who went missing for over two decades. The narrative opens with an early morning phone call informing Sheriff Lancaster that Davy’s favorite jacket was found in an abandoned building near the small North Carolina town of Wynotte. The burden of Davy’s disappearance is still very much in the public consciousness, fixed there by a bestselling memoir written by Davy’s older brother, Thaddeus, who had been responsible for watching over Davy on the night he vanished. On that tragic evening, Davy’s parents were attending a cocktail party, and Thaddeus ditched Davy so he could drink beer with his buddies. Davy wandered in the darkness with a mysterious new friend until headlights flickered through the neighborhood and Davy was gone. What happened that night transformed the characters’ lives and, years later, one question haunts them all: What might I have done differently?

Whalen has provided an intriguing cast of characters. Tabitha, Davy’s mother, is divorced (a byproduct of her son’s disappearance) and lives alone in the house where Davy was raised. She devotes her time to advocating for the families of missing children. Thaddeus is profiting from his family’s misfortune with a bestselling memoir. Aniss Weaver, the last person to see Davy alive, works as a public information officer for the local police. Gordon Swift, a local sculptor, is the prime suspect in Davy’s disappearance, although there has never been adequate evidence to bring charges against him. We have all the ingredients for a suspenseful mystery.

But Every Moment Since isn’t your typical whodunnit. The plot is a trifle too straightforward: a boy goes missing, his family suffers, the community agonizes, a body is eventually found, and the mystery, albeit a slight one, is solved. There are too few plot twists or complications in the early stages of the narrative, and much of the expository information in the first 180 pages of the 363-page novel focuses on the minutia of the characters’ day-to-day lives. Throughout the story, there is a nagging need to “bring on the bear.”

Whalen’s focus, the moving force in the novel, is guilt, which the characters suffer to various degrees. Tabitha rebukes herself for having left Davy in Thaddeus’ care so she could spend an evening socializing. Aniss Weaver is troubled by her specific knowledge that Thaddeus is blameless. And Thaddeus, more than any of the characters, is troubled by the financial success of his memoir about his brother’s disappearance. Gordon Swift, although innocent, suffers from doubts about his sexuality and the community’s suspicion that focuses on him as the likely culprit.

Whalen employs various third-person points of view that are not arranged chronologically (think Pulp Fiction). And the chapters range from excerpts taken from Thaddeus’ memoir to Tabitha’s daily bouts of regret to pure narrative segments that nudge the story forward. Even Davy, who has long since disappeared from the immediate action, has a third-person limited view in parts of the novel.

If this sounds like a lot to keep straight, it is, and the reader is required to focus his or her attention on what is happening to whom and when. The only question that needs answering is why the narrative is presented in this disjointed fashion, which becomes apparent in the novel’s final chapters.

The reader might reasonably conclude that the novel was written with the audiobook in mind (available as a digital download through Kindle). Chapters featuring the various personas written in the limited third person achieve degrees of separation and distinction when read by voice actors representing the various characters. For example, book chapters about Tabitha contain too few distinctive hooks that the reader can employ to establish an ongoing connection with the character, and one’s attention must remain fixed on who is doing what and when. Read aloud, the connection is immediate and continuous.

Every Moment Since is not recommended for anyone suffering from ADHD or for casual readers who will likely put the novel aside for days and expect to pick up the narrative line without rereading. The shifting points of view will not detract from the novel’s impact if the reader remains focused.

Whalen creates believable characters and has a true talent for dialogue — and she is to be congratulated for taking on a challenging and complex subject. The disappearance of a child is a horrifying possibility for any parent, and the crippling emotions suffered by a family that has experienced such a loss are almost inconceivable. Every Moment Since is a reminder that we should take careful notice of the Amber Alerts that come blaring across our TVs and phones. They aren’t works of fiction.

2024 Department Omnivorous Reader

Simple Life

SIMPLE LIFE

The Sacred Month

A time to go inside

By Jim Dodson

Long ago, I decided that November is the most sacred month.

To my way of thinking, on so many levels, no other holds as much mystery, beauty and spiritual meaning as the 11th month of the calendar.

The landscape gardener in me is always relieved when the weather turns sharply cooler and there’s an end to the constant fever of pruning and weeding, plus fretting over plants struggling from the heat and drought of a summer that seems to grow more punishing each year.

Once the leaves are gathered up, and everything is cut back and mulched for the winter, not only does my planning “mind” kick in with what’s to be done for next year, but the beautifully bare contours of the earth around me become a living symbol — and annual reminder — of life’s bittersweet circularity and the relative brevity of our journey through it.

The hilly old neighborhood where we reside is called Starmount Forest for good reason, owing to the mammoth oaks and sprawling maples that kindly shelter us with shade in summer and stand like druid guardians throughout the year, season after season. Beginning this month, the skies become clearer and the nighttime stars glimmer like diamonds on black velvet through their bare and mighty arms, hence the neighborhood’s name: a “mount” where the “stars” shine at night.

Of course, there is risk living among such monarchs of the forest. Every now and then, one of these elderly giants drops a large limb or, worse, topples over, proving their own mortality, sometimes taking out part of a house or a garage, or just blocking the street until work crews arrive with chainsaws. As far as I know, no one has ever been seriously injured or killed by our neighborhood trees, though the growing intensity of summer storms seems to elevate the danger. Lately, some neighborhood newcomers, prefiguring catastrophe, have taken to cutting down their largest oaks as an extra measure of security in a world where, as actuaries and sages agree, there really is no guaranteed thing. In the meantime, the rest of us have made something of a Faustian bargain with these soulful giants for the privilege of living among them. We care for them and (sometimes) they don’t fall on us.

Speaking of “soul,” no month spiritually embodies it better than November.

All Souls’ Day, also called The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, comes on the second day of the eleventh month, a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed observed by Christians for centuries. The day before All Souls’ is All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day or the Feast of All Saints, a celebration in honor of all the saints of the church, whether they are known or unknown.

Every four years, the first Tuesday that follows the first Monday of November is our national Election Day, a day considered sacred by citizens who believe in the right to vote their conscience and tend the garden of democracy.

Congress established this curious weekday of voting in 1845 on the theory that, since a majority of Americans were (at that moment) farmers or residents of rural communities, their harvests would generally have been completed, with severe winter weather yet to arrive that could impede travel. Tuesday was also chosen so that voters could attend church on Sunday and have a full day to travel to and from their polling place on Monday, arriving home on Wednesday, just in time for traditional market day across America.

Like daylight saving time (which, by the way, ends Sunday, Nov. 3) some critics believe “Tuesday voting” is a relic of a bygone time, requiring modern voters to balance a busy workday with the sacred obligation of voting. For what it’s worth, I tend to fall into the camp that advocates a newly established voting “holiday weekend” that would begin with the first Friday that follows the first Thursday of November, allowing three full days to exercise one’s civic obligation, throw a nice neighborhood cookout and mow the lawn for the last time.

While we’re in the spirit of reforming the calendar, would someone please ditch daylight saving time, a genuine relic of the past that totally wrecks the human body’s natural circadian rhythms? Farmers had it right: Rise with the sun and go to bed when it sets.

Next up in November’s parade of sacred moments is Veterans Day, which arrives on the 11th, a historic federal holiday that honors military veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, established in the aftermath of World War I with the signing of the Armistice with Germany that went into effect at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. In 1954, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day at the urging of major U.S. military organizations.

November’s gentler sunlight — at least here in the Northern Hemisphere — feels like a benediction falling across the leafless landscape, quite fitting for a month where we go “inside” literally and figuratively to celebrate the bounty of living on Earth. In the Celtic mind, late autumn is the time of the “inner harvest,” when gratitude and memory yield their own kind of fertility.

“Correspondingly, when it is autumn in your life, the things that happened in the past, the experiences that were sown in the clay of your heart, almost unknown to you, now yield their fruit,” writes the late Irish poet John O’Donohue.

First shared by Squanto and the pilgrims in 1621, Thanksgiving was decreed “a day of public Thanksgiving and Prayer” on November 26, 1789, by George Washington. Then it was proclaimed a national holiday on the last Thursday of November by Abe Lincoln. Finally, during the Great Depression in 1939, it was moved to the third Thursday of the month by Franklin Roosevelt to extend Christmas shopping days. But for most folks, the observance of Thanksgiving embodies, I suspect, many of the things we hold sacred in life:

The gathering of families, memories of loved ones, lots of laughter, good food and friendly debates over football and politics.

I give extra thanks for Thanksgiving every year, especially the day after when some who hold bargain-hunting on “Black Friday” a sacred ritual thankfully disappear and I am free to enjoy my favorite “loaded” turkey sandwich and take a nice long afternoon nap by the fire to celebrate my favorite holiday.

2024 Department Simple Life

Hometown

HOMETOWN

It Still Stings

Stuffed and trimmed on Thanksgiving

By Bill Fields

Inundated as we are with sports on television these days, it’s easy to forget that wasn’t always the case. Prior to cable television, college football teams weren’t playing on multiple nights of the week. Until Monday Night Football debuted in 1970, NFL games were, with rare exceptions, only on Sunday.

Thanksgiving was a longtime exception. Turkey Day college games were popular in the 19th century and have been a staple of the National Football League since its founding in 1920. When I was a sports-loving kid in the 1960s and ’70s, having a holiday football game to watch on TV was almost as big a treat as getting to eat my mother’s once-a-year dressing that went with the bird.

Fifty years ago, though, the pleasure of a big game on the tube gave way to the pain of its outcome. Thinking about the events of that Thanksgiving still gives me indigestion.

By 1974 I had been a Washington Redskins (now Commanders) fan — there were a lot of us in North Carolina back then — for about a decade, a period marked mostly by frustration. My football hero, quarterback Sonny Jurgensen, was great, and so was his favorite receiving target, Charley Taylor. But the team from old D.C. always seemed to be missing some puzzle pieces. Things seemed poised for change when Vince Lombardi became coach in 1969, but the former Green Bay mastermind died just a year later. It would be up to George Allen, who came east from the Los Angeles Rams in 1971, to build on Lombardi’s positive impact. The Redskins made it all the way to Super Bowl VII after the 1972 season, losing to the undefeated Miami Dolphins.

Through wins and losses, the common thread for Washington players and supporters was disdain for the Dallas Cowboys, our opponent on Thanksgiving Day 1974. The Cowboys had been NFC East champions for five straight years until Washington dethroned them in 1972 on the way to the Super Bowl. Dallas was back on top in 1973.

Prior to the Washington-Dallas Thanksgiving tilt at Texas Stadium, which came 12 days after the Redskins beat the Cowboys 28-21 in D.C., Redskins defensive end Bill Brundige summed up the rivalry this way: “They hate our guts, and we hate theirs.”

One of Brundige’s comrades on the defensive line, Diron Talbert, was particularly salty in talking about the Cowboys’ star quarterback, Roger Staubach. “If you knock him out,” Talbert said, “you’ve got that rookie facing you. That’s one of our goals. If we do that, it’s great. He’s all they have.”

“That rookie” was strong-armed Clint Longley from Abilene Christian University, who hadn’t taken a snap all season but was thrust into action after Staubach was knocked out (literally) early in the third quarter and Washington was ahead 16-3. With such a lead and a seeming liability behind center for Dallas, the visitors were in an enviable spot. “Get in,” Cowboys coach Tom Landry told the 22-year-old after he found his helmet. “Good luck.” But as Staubach sat dazed on the bench, Longley was dazzling on the artificial turf.

Longley led one scoring drive, then another. Still, Washington led 23-17 with time running out. It looked like the dreaded Cowboys were going down despite the admirable efforts of the backup QB, and my Thanksgiving night turkey sandwich was going to be a celebratory meal.

Then, with only 28 seconds left, given lots of time in the pocket, Longley threw a 50-yard strike to wide receiver Drew Pearson, who had streaked past defensive backs Ken Stone and Mike Bass to get wide open to catch Longley’s perfect pass and glide into the end zone. Efren Herrera’s extra point made it Dallas 24, Washington 23.

As Washington frantically tried to move into position to give Mark Moseley a field goal attempt, quarterback Billy Kilmer was hit by Jethro Pugh and fumbled. That Jurgensen, in his final season, wasn’t in the game to have a chance for his golden arm to pull off a miracle made it even worse for a devotee of Number 9 in burgundy and gold.

“I don’t know what to say,” Allen said. “It was probably the toughest loss we ever had.”

A half century later, you’ll get no argument from this fan.

2024 Department Hometown

PinePitch

PINEPITCH

PinePitch

Sound and Swagger

The high octane swing band Good Shot Judy pumps up the jazz on Friday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m., at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. A Good Shot Judy show offers all those tunes you can hum along to, if you don’t know most of the words. But the music itself is only part of the allure. Tickets are $27. For information call (910) 692-3611 or go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Hail the Sugar Plum Fairy

Gary Taylor Dance presents that family holiday tradition like no other, Tchaikovsky’s timeless ballet The Nutcracker, at BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 29. Join Clara on her magical journey to escape the Battle of the Toy Rats and Soldiers and travel through the Land of Snow to the Land of the Sweets. There will be additional matinee performances on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at 2 p.m. For information go to
www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Wave a Flag. Thank a Veteran.

The annual Veterans Day Parade up and down Broad Street in downtown Southern Pines begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 9. It may not be exactly the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month — it’s not 1918 either — but the meaning remains exactly the same. For additional information visit www.southernpines.net.

BYO Pepcid

Come for the chili. Stay for the heartburn. The annual SoPines Chili Cook-Off supporting the Special Forces Association Chapter 62 and sponsored by O’Donnell’s Pub, 133 E. New Hampshire Ave., closes down a city block in front of the pub on Sunday, Nov. 10, from noon to 3 p.m. A pinch of this, a dash of that, and pretty soon you got a three-alarm fire in your mouth.

Et Tu, Puccini?

Torture, murder and suicide during the Napoleonic Wars with some of Giacomo Puccini’s best-known arias. What’s not to love? Tosca, Puccini’s opera in three acts, comes to the screen at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines, on Saturday, Nov. 23, beginning at 1 p.m., courtesy of the New York Metropolitan Opera. For additional info call (910) 692-3611 or go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

The Guitar Man

World-renowned guitarist Lukasz Kuropaczewski will appear in the Bradshaw Performing Art Center’s McPherson Theater, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst, from 7 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 7. Kuropaczewski, who started playing the guitar at the age of 10, has toured in Europe, the United States, Canada, South America and Japan, giving solo recitals in London’s Royal Festival Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Warsaw’s National Philharmonic Hall, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and New York’s Carnegie Hall. He was a member of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 2008-2010, and is currently on the faculty of the Academy of Music in Poznan, Poland, and the Kunst University Graz, Austria. For tickets and information visit www.ticketmesandhills.com.

A Little Ludwig

One of the most distinctive artists of his generation, Sir Stephen Hough, will join the North Carolina Symphony, led by music director Carlos Miguel Prieto, in a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 on Thursday, Nov. 14, beginning at 7:30 p.m., at BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. A true polymath, Hough was the first classical performer to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Additional selections include Gibson’s warp and weft and Brahms Symphony No. 1. For further information visit www.ncsymphony.org

Meet and Greet

The opening reception for a unique exhibition presented by the Arts Council of Moore County, “Healing Through the Arts,” will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 1 at the Campbell House Gallery, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. The show features the life experiences of military veterans and spouses, and encompasses painting, photography, printmaking, jewelry, pastels, poetry and music. The artists represented include Ashleigh and Carlin Corsino; Richard Davenport; Corrie Dodds; Enrique Herrera; Kenny Lewis; Jason and Michelle Howk; Linda Nunez; Franklin Oldham; Amy Parks; Roger Price; Douglas and Maria Rowe; and Rollie Sampson. The show runs through Dec. 18. For information call (910) 692-4356

2024 Department PinePitch

Sporting Life

SPORTING LIFE

Leroy’s Send-off

Farewell to the last of the Slims

By Tom Bryant

It was about bedtime when my phone rang. “Honey, your phone’s ringing.”

“Let it ring, it’s bedtime.”

I heard Linda as she answered it anyway. “Yeah, he’s right here. I’ll get him.”

I grimaced as she handed the phone to me. “Hello.”

“Cooter!” Bubba had bestowed the nickname early in our friendship and has continued using it to this day. “It’s too early to hit the hay. Boy, what’s wrong with you. Getting old?”

“About the same age as you,” I replied. “Maybe a little smarter when it’s time for bed. What’s up?”

“You coming up for Leroy’s doings on Friday?”

“That’s my plan. The funeral is at 3, right?”

“Yep, and here’s the scoop. Some of us are gonna meet at the old store and Ritter’s gonna cook up some venison steaks. Then we’ll have sort of a wake for Leroy, then head up to the family graveyard right before 3, honor Leroy, and then back to the store to finish all the remembrances and finally shut down. Why don’t you plan on spending the night at my place and then in the morning after breakfast you can head home?”

“Sounds like a good idea,” I replied. “I’ll see you Friday.”

I hung up the phone and explained to Linda what Bubba had cooking. She said, “I thought the old store was closed.”

“It is, but Bubba is opening it for this occasion.”

Later, as I was trying to go to sleep, I remembered all the history of Slim’s country store. Actually, Slim’s grandfather opened the store around the turn of the century. It ran successfully for many years, then fell into disrepair after the old man died. Slim made his fortune out West in the real estate business, then returned home, retired, restored and opened the old store, and ran the place, as he said, “so all my reprobate friends would have a place to go.”

Leroy, Slim’s only heir, inherited the store after Slim went to that always-stocked filling station in the sky, and promptly sold it to Bubba, who kept it open with Leroy running it until the economy tightened and they decided to close. Leroy wanted to retire and do more fishing, and Bubba said it was one more thing he didn’t have to worry about.

Leroy passed away after a short illness, and the graveside service was to be at the family graveyard about a mile from the old country store. Thus the reason Bubba had put together the event, as he put it, to celebrate the history of Slim’s grandfather (also named Slim), Leroy and the legacy of the now obsolete, retired country store.

Friday rolled around fast, and I decided to drive the Cruiser up the road to see Bubba and friends and pay my respects to the last of the Slims. Wiregrass had grown up in the gravel lot where folks used to park while shopping, or just holding forth. Several pickups were in the front, and I saw Bubba’s Land Rover nosed in on the side. Chairs had been moved from the inside to the wraparound porch.

Ritter’s portable cooker was near where the old horseshoe pit used to be and was smoking with smells good enough to make my mouth water. I walked up on the porch side-stepping some decaying boards. H.B. Johnson was leaning against a support column with an ever-present half-chewed cigar in his mouth.

“H.B.,” I asked. “Where’s Bubba?”

“Inside behind the counter. He’s putting the finishing touch on the words he has to say about Leroy.”

“That’s right,” I responded. “He’s the preacher today.”

I walked on inside, and after Bubba and I had insulted each other sufficiently, we laughed and settled down to the doings of the day.

“You ready to say grace over Leroy?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, that is after I have another couple glasses of Ritter’s apple brandy. Come on, let’s see if the chow is ready.”

It was, and it was outstanding. Ritter had made his famous smoked briskets along with barbecue pork shoulders and all the fixin’s. In no time we had finished the preliminary part of Leroy’s funeral, kind of a pre-wake, and prepared to move on to the family plot to finish with the early ceremony.

Bubba did a fantastic job with his good words about Leroy, and I noticed many eyes watering and lots of sniffling going on.

Later that evening, after we again gathered at the store and celebrated Leroy’s life, more of the folks started drifting off, other things to do. Bubba and I were left on the porch by ourselves. All the chairs were put back in the store with the exception of our two favorite rockers.

“You did a good job, Bubba.”

“It was harder than I thought it would be. We’re gonna miss old Leroy.”

“Yep,” I replied. “The last of Slim’s lineage.” The moon was rising over the tree line, and we could hear a barred owl calling back toward the graveyard.

“Must be looking for its mate,” Bubba said.

“Or maybe a mouse for dessert.”

We were quite deep in our own thoughts. Nothing emphasizes one’s mortality more than a funeral.

“So what’s gonna happen to the store now that Leroy’s gone?”

“Why, I’m thinking about giving it to you. Give you something to do.”

“No, thanks. I’ve got enough going on now.”

“Well, there is some good news. Johnson expressed an interest in buying it. He’s going bonkers since he sold the farm and doesn’t have anything to do.”

“It would be good for him. I’d love to see the old place reopen.”

“Well, you know what the Bible says,” Bubba replied. “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh. So says Ecclesiastes, I think.”

Bubba’s Biblical knowledge always impressed. The moon was over the tree line now, and we heard the owl’s mate call right behind the store.

“How about Leroy’s marker stone? I asked. “And what’s gonna be on it?”

“I think, just dates, you know, birth and death. What’s gonna be on yours when its time?”

“I haven’t a clue. Never thought about it.”

“Look at you, Cooter. Hunted and fished and camped all over the country from the Everglades in Florida to the mountains of Alaska and you don’t have a clue. I’ve got a good one for you, though, that will cover all the bases. ‘I married the perfect lady.’”

“Good,” I replied. “It would work for you, too.”

The good friends sat slowly rocking, watching the moon continue to rise slowly through grey-white clouds, and thinking of their futures that stretched away like an unmarked trail.

“The heck with this. Let’s go home,” Bubba said. “How about some fishing in the morning? I noticed bream rising to the hatch in the pond in front of the house before I left this morning.”

“Sounds great. I’ll call Linda and tell her I’ll be late. Good old Bubba, always a plan.”

The moon was fully up now and the guys laughed at an old joke Bubba told, then loaded the trucks and headed home. It had been a good day.

2024 Department Sporting Life

Passages

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Day of the Dead

Party like it’s forever

By Tom Allen

Several months ago, while perusing the aisles of Home Goods, I noticed a discreet display of party items for el Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, observed annually on Nov. 2. If Hobby Lobby can haul out the holly in July, why not Day of the Dead decor at the end of August? Funky, multicolored skulls, brightly colored tissue paper banners, marigold-embossed plates, napkins and cups, and scented candles made up the display. Small because, with the exception of Latino friends, most folks in the Sandhills have little to no idea what the day is about, much less the importance of the celebration in other cultures.

El Dia de los Muertos coincides with, and finds its roots in, the Christian observance of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day, the days following Halloween or All Hallows’ Eve. My only experience growing up, and into adulthood, was with the latter. The candy and costumes of childhood morphed into teenage mischief and pranks, which got me grounded on two occasions — once for shooting off bottle rockets in a cemetery, where family members were buried.

The Day of the Dead, like Christmas and Easter, has ancient European pagan origins, with some traditions eventually Christianized and (reluctantly) allowed by the Roman Catholic Church. Spanish conquistadors brought the faith and corresponding traditions to the New World. Short life spans, made even shorter by bubonic plague, perhaps instilled a desire to find some glimpse of hope and joy after such a dark and deadly season.

Those of Mexican ancestry brought Day of the Dead celebrations to the United States. Observances grew over the years, with homes, graves and even some churches displaying “altars” adorned with pictures of deceased loved ones, colorful banners, crosses, candles, decorative skulls and chrysanthemums (the aroma is supposed to help the deceased spirits find their way back to Earth, if only for a day). Bread, or pan de muerto, along with the departed’s favorite foods, are also offered.

Growing up in the South, and in eastern North Carolina, I was taught cemeteries were hallowed ground. When you visited, you were quiet, reverent, trod gingerly. “Don’t step on that grave,” my mother chided. (How can you not step on a grave in a graveyard?) My dad was a member of a Ruritan club, the affiliate of a national, rural civic club. Ruritans made sure our two community graveyards were mowed, at times even restoring aged, broken gravestones. Lovingly, they still do.

My mom brought flowers to decorate the graves of family members at Christmas and Easter, their plastic or silk petals eventually blistered by the sun or blown away by storms. But the point was to remember, to leave some visible symbol that someone who cared had been there, to simply honor the fact the deceased lived and loved and mattered.

But I’m not sure Mom would have embraced el Dia de los Muertos. Those who observe the tradition, mostly friends of Latino ancestry, descend on family cemeteries to clean graves and scour headstones. Some remain to pray in silence, but many, after the cleanup, do anything but mourn and remain silent. They bring flowers, sing, dance, eat and drink (cue the mariachi music). They tell stories. They laugh. They acknowledge that death is a part of life, but affirm that heaven might be a little closer to Earth than others might realize, and that the deceased may come to visit, if only for a while.

After my parents died and their house was emptied and readied for the young couple who would purchase it, my wife, two daughters and I gathered one more time, in that empty house. We spread one of my mom’s crazy quilts and had a meal of hot dogs and fries from The Grill across from my folks’ house, a beloved community kitchen that my parents patronized frequently. We cried a little, laughed a lot, then shut the door, one final time, on that space and its memories. We stopped by the cemetery and visited their graves, recalling long lives and a deep love, especially for their two granddaughters. No surprise that when our girls married, they asked that their bouquets be left at their grandparents’ graves.

While Day of the Dead rituals may not be how many choose to remember the departed during the first days of November, I do wonder if the occasional celebration of lives past but absent, whenever and wherever it takes place, might cushion our sadness and buoy our spirits. I think my mother would scowl at shagging to beach music on her grave, but she loved a good glass of champagne. I don’t think she’d mind a toast to her good life. And my dad? A gardener, he would smile if someone enjoyed a homegrown tomato sandwich at his final resting place, especially a Purple Cherokee, from that last plant to squeeze out fruit before the first frost.

Who knows? Someday, you may find me sitting by their graves, noshing on an “all the way” hot dog, smiling over the memories, singing their favorite hymns. If you do, don’t think me daft. Come, sit down and join the party.

2024 Department Passages