Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

California Dreamin’

The princess of Montecito

By Deborah Salomon

Once upon a time, an attractive young woman from a Los Angeles neighborhood described as “modest” and “interesting” decided to become a princess.

Duchess, actually. Still impressive.

Sure, hon. Don’t we all.

Only two methods work: Be born into a royal family or, more likely, marry a prince. Hey, movie star Grace Kelly did it.

Never mind that this prince has wiry red hair and a wild streak. Its story line echoes those found in literature pre-dating the pyramids, the Bible, the tabloids.

So the presumption is that current maiden with the alliterative name took the same yellow brick road to fame: wrangle an introduction, hang around, smile a lot.

She met her prince, Harry by name, on a blind date — yeah, really — arranged by a mutual friend whose identity has been kept secret. Within weeks the smitten kittens were off on a camping trip to Botswana while the British press panted at the fence. The royal family managed smiles in public, gnawed their nails over tea and crumpets (biscuits passing as English muffins).

American! Actress! Divorced! Black! was whispered at polo matches. But to their credit, the royals stiffened those upper lips and, in true British style, carried on.

And carried on, to co-habitation, then marriage, sealing the deal with the birth of red-haired Prince Archie, followed by Princess Lilibet, strategically named for her great-granny, the Queen.

Thus ensconced, our American TV actress Meghan pulled off her biggest coup, many years in the planning: relocate from smoggy London to a sunny California neighborhood where her $20 million estate felt comfier than Buckingham Palace.

But beware, fair lady: Your glamour is shrinking while the bills, they groweth apace. The tennis court needs resurfacing. And the guesthouse could use a rainforest shower head. Oprah can’t dig you out of this one.

Then, a brotherly plot . . . er, feud . . . escalated over security during a planned trip to introduce grandkids to King Charles, who is ill. He received them at one of his country estates, more suitable than having the monarch show up at a bouncy-house birthday party. Can’t you just see Camilla in face paint?

All the while, Prince Harry was being ripped from the bosom of his bloodline, with sweet Kate (from non-royal mercantile wealth) doing most of the ripping, or so the press chatters. Otherwise a cold shoulder here, an unkind remark there, with little to no brotherly love emanating from William, whose frown shouts “off with his head.”

Reconciliation? Fat chance, shared the California fashionista who can hardly pay the pool boy.

What a kettle of Dover sole, fast becoming rather tiresome, enlivened only by a parade of glossy TV specials à la Diana and Charles, JFK Jr. and wife Carolyn, with subheads proclaiming Americans “can’t let go the monarchy.”

Yet every little girl dreams of being a princess. At least a Duchess, dressed to kill, who still calls the shots.

Hometown

HOMETOWN

Back to School Daze

Ticonderoga and a crew cut, too

By Bill Fields

Summer moved slowly, like a bunted ball unsure if it was fair or foul, but once the dog days had come and gone, the pace quickened. Little League was over. The beach was a pile of Polaroids, a stray Skee-Ball ticket and a chipped conch shell that looked a lot bigger on the Strand.

By the time I rode shotgun with my two-pack-a-day father to a tobacco auction in Fairmont or Whiteville, the strong smell and strange sounds within the vast warehouse signaled that September — and a new school year — loomed. This reality tended to hit me on the drive home as I attempted an annoying imitation of the auctioneer’s rhythmic chant, which usually got Dad to buy me some crackers so I would shut up.

Even a boy who loved those lazy summer days knew there was such a thing as too much watermelon and horseshoes. After a couple of idle months, I looked forward to seeing a new Currier & Ives scene on our wall calendar (an annual freebie from Hobbs Insurance) and returning to the classroom.

Preparation for the first day of school felt like its own season, about which I had mixed feelings. Since I kept my hair closely cropped by getting a crew cut every few weeks, timing a visit to Billie Hill’s Broad Street barbershop certainly was no hardship. I loved the ritual: waiting for my turn, magazine in hand, listening to the adults’ conversation; settling into the chair, smock clipped on and paper band secured around the neck; calming whir of the clippers; a powdered brush when her work was done. After paying Mrs. Hill $1.75 for my haircut, I left ready to take on the world.

Being obsessed with school supplies, stocking up on them was far from a chore even though my mother kept a close eye on the bottom line. We read the “Back to School” ads in The Pilot closely. Valu-Mart might have Flair pens on sale for 39 cents apiece, but they could be three for 99 cents at Mann Drug. I had to be at my persuasive best to get Mom to spring for Ticonderoga pencils instead of a less expensive variety but had better luck with that than I did lobbying each August for a pair of Converse All Star sneakers instead of the brand’s slightly cheaper Coach model.

Mostly, back to school in the late 1960s and early ’70s meant going back to Collins, which had been situated on Main Street in Aberdeen, “the shopping center of the Sandhills,” since the 1930s. It was part of a regional chain of about 30 department stores founded by William Augustus Collins, who opened his first location, in Conway, South Carolina, in 1927. The Collins Co. boasted it was “A Good Place to Shop for Nice Things” while emphasizing its mid-priced mindset that suited folks on a budget. One of its early advertisements said, “Stars in the skies are like bargains at Collins, too thick to be counted.” Another said Collins was “where quality is never expensive.”

Deals on dungarees notwithstanding, my enthusiasm for clothes shopping didn’t come close to matching my gusto for pens, pencils and paper. Although I could play outside for hours in the heat sustained by a few gulps from the garden hose, I tired easily on those annual excursions to Collins, with little patience for changing room visits to see if I fit in regular or “husky” pants. Regardless of the size Mom paid for, it wouldn’t be too long until I’d worn a hole in a knee. She would have to apply an iron-on patch, making me resemble a repaired old tire on one of our well-used cars.

The Collins chain lasted another decade or so, until I had the survived the fashions of the 1970s and was about to graduate from college. Its dozen surviving stores were bought in 1981 by the Peebles Department Stores. William Collins died the following year. “He was a man that never quit dreaming,” Raymond Collins, one of his children, told the Charlotte Observer. “But he believed in backing up your dreams with elbow grease.”

2026 Department Hometown

From the Archives

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Pinehurst Cigarettes

The taste that refreshes

By Audrey Moriarty

Photographs by Tufts Archives

Did you know that the resort founded on healthful living once had its own brand of cigarettes?

The R.W. Swain Tobacco Company of Danville, Virginia, introduced the “Milder Smoother Smoke” on Nov. 19, 1940. The cigarettes were a short (70 mm), soft pack, with 20 cigarettes. The first pack was presented to Richard S. Tufts, grandson of Pinehurst founder James Walker Tufts, at a formal launch and luncheon at the Pinehurst Country Club. In attendance were more than 50 people, including Donald J. Ross, manager of the club; Robert J. Harlow, of the Pinehurst Press Bureau and founder of Golf World magazine; Harris Norris, manager of the Carolina Hotel; and Edward Horne, manager of the Holly Inn. According to R.L. Swain, president of the tobacco company, Pinehurst brand cigarettes contained a new ingredient never before used in the manufacture of cigarettes. That ingredient, Panax Quinquefolium — from the plant commonly known as American ginseng — was tasteless and produced a milder, smoother smoke. It was a humectant, a substance that attracts and holds onto water molecules providing hydration, such as aloe vera, glycerin or hyaluronic acid. Due to this humectant, according to the product information, there was “an amazing lack of sore or raw throat after smoking many of them.” In the tobacco company’s search for a name for the new brand of cigarettes, “Pinehurst” was chosen due to its association with outstanding quality and pleasurable satisfaction.

2026 Department From the Archives

Bookshelf

BOOKSHELF

September Bookshelf

By Kimberly Daniels Taws

FICTION

Ply, by Hernan Diaz

Centuries from now, at the dawn of a historical epoch filled with both uncertainty and promise, an orphan is adrift in a city on the brink of a great transformation. The state has been dismantled, and humans are reinventing social bonds and learning new ways to coexist with nature. Following a childhood defined by loss, survival and found family, the orphan grows up to become a “pincher,” someone who steals electricity from the grid to sell on the black market. It’s a high risk life, one that brings her into a rich art and music scene, using her stolen electricity to power underground concerts. It also leads her to a colossal scientific invention that could change the very fabric of reality. Ply questions the place of technology in the American experiment with a plot that grabs both heart and mind, combining Dickensian odyssey and family drama.

Dodge City, by Patrick deWitt

It’s 1967 in Los Angeles, and Lee Clarke has received his draft notice, calling him up to fight in the Vietnam War. A straitlaced, apolitical 23-year-old from Concrete, Washington, Lee is studying at UCLA until a fistfight leads to his expulsion — and his removal from the deferment list. The draft notice forces him to make the first political decision of his life, and though he’s happy in California and loves his girlfriend, he will leave the country and head for Canada. He signs up at a car-delivery service, chancing into a showroom-new Jaguar bound for the East Coast. Bringing only a single suitcase and a bag of amphetamines, he makes his stimulated progress against the width of the country, pining for the life he’s left behind and wondering what his decision will mean for his future. In four different towns strung out along the northern United States, Lee visits each member of his immediate family: his father, a World War II veteran in a state of degradation; his mother, engaged in a buoyantly manic and never-ending performance with her shut-in sibling; his heartbroken, misanthropic brother, Harry; and finally his twin sister, Grace, a brash young nurse-in-training mired in romantic drama at a Manhattan psychiatric hospital.

NONFICTION

An Unexpected Life: A Memoir, by Gloria Steinem

Before she became a feminist leader, Gloria Steinem was a curious child: going on road trips with her itinerant father, caring for her mother, and devouring every book she could find. In An Unexpected Life, Steinem reflects on the unlikely experiences and pivotal moments — from a childhood rat bite that opened her eyes to the dangers of poverty to the 1970 Women’s March honoring the right to vote — that shaped the visionary woman she would become. She shares her years living in India, learning from the nonviolent movement there, and her travels around the world advocating for women’s rights. Along the way, she honors the people who influenced her most, including trailblazers, writers and thinkers who expanded her understanding of power, community, justice and solidarity. Moving between past and present, Steinem examines the progress and setbacks of six decades of activism. As she reflects on the movements she helped build and the victories won for women’s and human rights, she also looks ahead, urging new generations to imagine bolder, more inclusive paths forward.

An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America, by Keri Leigh Merritt

After teaching school in China in the early 1920s, Lillian Smith (1897-1966) moved to a small rural town in northeast Georgia. Along with her lover, Paula Snelling, Smith began running a socially progressive summer camp for girls in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Together the couple created and published a magazine devoted to creating a new vision of the former Confederacy that passionately championed equality and integration. They were the first white Southerners to publish Black writers, and Smith wrote articles instructing white Southerners to stop supporting the dictates of Jim Crow. In 1944 she published a bestselling novel, Strange Fruit, which became a national sensation and was banned in Boston and Detroit. She went on to publish six more books, both fiction and nonfiction, exploring topics ranging from racism and human suffering to sexual repression and Freudian psychoanalysis. Because of Smith’s provocative work, the FBI spied on her for decades, she received countless death threats, and her home was burned three times by angry racists, resulting in the loss of multiple works-in-progress. Undaunted, she continued her ardent fight against segregation, maintaining friendships with some of the great leaders of her day, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr, W.E.B Dubois, Paul Robeson and Pauli Murray.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Be the Acorn, by Jason Douglas Griffin

There’s a hole in the ground where the squirrel family tree used to be, and so they set out on a hunt to find a new home. Choko Choko, the smallest squirrel, is determined to help . . . but he’s told he’s too little to join. Luckily his grandma, Great Haha, always knows just what to say. “Like an acorn, you may be small, but you have big possibilities . . . Be the acorn.” When Choko Choko discovers the largest acorn he has ever seen, he remembers Great Haha’s wise words, and he realizes that although he’s small, he can dare to dream big. In this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed story about a valiant squirrel, young readers learn that, with patience and time, they too can grow into something beautiful. (Ages 4-8.)

Horizontal Crocodile, by Scott Rothman

In a nice, loooooooong swamp, lives a nice, loooooooong Horizontal Crocodile whose loooooooong lost best friend is coming over . . . but Horizontal Crocodile’s nice, loooooooong house is one HUGE mess! Can he get it cleaned up in time for his best buddy’s visit? See the lengths Horizontal Crocodile goes to in the name of being a caring and considerate friend in this hilarious and heartwarming read-aloud. (Ages 4-8.)

Socks & Secret Quests, by Triona Murphy

Peri has been waiting for her magic to show up, but there’s been no sign of it since she was chosen as an Apprentice Shopkeeper a year ago. Now she travels with a magical shop that equips adventurers for their quests, unsure if she’ll ever do more than stock shelves, mend mittens, and knit non-magical hats that don’t do anything but keep heads warm. Then a dark wizard kidnaps the Master Shopkeeper, intent on using her power to create an unstoppable army. To save her master, Peri must leave the cozy shop and seek help from the closest adventuring party, who is really good at arguing and really bad at working together. As Peri’s magic unexpectedly begins to show itself in the items she’s knitting, it’s up to her and her team to stop the dark wizard before war breaks out — or it won’t be just her shop at stake but the entire kingdom. (Ages 10-13.)

2026 Bookshelf Department

Golftown Journal

GOLFTOWN JOURNAL

The Spirit of ’76

When the “World” came to Pinehurst

By Lee Pace

A quarter-century before Payne Stewart dropped his 20-foot putt for birdie to win the 1999 U.S. Open, there was another dramatic and electrifying moment on the 18th hole of Pinehurst No. 2. A PGA Tour event was hanging in the balance. A popular golfer crouched behind his ball, some 15 feet to the right of the cup, to get the proper read. Record crowds circled the green.

Ray Floyd struck his putt and the ball hung on the edge of the cup for a millisecond. Some in the gallery thought it had stopped for good, the first strains of “Awwww . . . ” rising in their throats.

Finally, the putt had just enough juice left to tumble over the edge. Floyd balled his fist and thrust it above him. The crowd erupted in celebration. Over to the side, Jerry McGee winced.

“I was positive in my mind I could birdie 18,” Floyd said. “I’d made only one birdie all day. I was playing too well to just make one birdie.”

McGee thought he’d won the tournament only moments before when he made a 25-foot putt for birdie to go up by one stroke on Floyd, the 34-year-old who was a leading contender for 1976 PGA Tour Player of the Year.

“Somehow that ball fell uphill,” McGee noted incredulously.

Floyd and McGee proceeded to the first tee for a playoff in the 1976 World Open. Floyd, the Fayetteville native who helped draw a record gallery of some 24,000 spectators on the final day, drove his ball into the rough to the right of the fairway. McGee was comfortably in the middle of the fairway. The advantage appeared solidly in McGee’s favor.

But Floyd caught a good lie and stuck his approach to 4 feet, and McGee missed the green on his second shot. Floyd rolled his birdie putt into the cup and collected the $40,000 first prize.

“I was lucky,” Floyd said. “I drew a good lie from the rough and hit a terrific shot.”

That was 50 years ago. Pinehurst was six years into a new ownership regime, with the Diamondhead Corporation led by Maxton native Malcom McLean having bought the resort, club and five golf courses from the founding Tufts family at the end of 1970.

It was halfway into a decade of having a regular PGA Tour event and wrestling (as it would for many years) to find the proper strain of grass for its greens — bent grass to be pure and smooth during the resort high-seasons of spring and fall, or Bermuda to hold up during hot Southern summers? At that moment in 1976, the greens were bent after a 1972 conversion. But these PGA Tour events were held in late August or mid-September, and the putting surfaces were left defenseless. Players like Hale Irwin said the greens “were like sponges” when he shot a 62 in 1977.

The victory in 1976 for Floyd, the reigning Masters champion, was his eighth on the PGA Tour but his first significant triumph in the shadow of his hometown. Floyd was born in Fayetteville in 1942, and his father, L.B., was a career Army man and in charge of Stryker Golf Course, the Fort Bragg course used by enlisted men. Floyd was more of a baseball fan growing up and even played the game in the minor leagues. He never had an amateur career to speak of and retains only spotty memories of traveling to Pinehurst as a boy to play golf on No. 2.

“I remember my first trip was in the winter and the grass was dormant,” Floyd says. “And I remember how tough it played, especially the front nine. I was excited because it was a treat to be leaving town to play another golf course, but I wasn’t even aware of the history or tradition. Back then, there was no such thing as rough. There was sand and pine straw, and the natural environment was the rough.”

The big names in pro golf in the mid-1970s were Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf and Tom Watson. The 1976 competition was significant because it marked the end of Nicklaus’ streak of 105 consecutive PGA Tour events without missing a cut. He had last missed the 36-hole cut in October 1970 and was bearing down on Byron Nelson’s run of 113 straight made cuts set in the 1940s. Nicklaus shot rounds of 72-74 for a 146 total, missing by one shot.

“The record had been brought to my attention — weekly,” Nicklaus said. “Sure, I’m disappointed I didn’t get it, but the streak is over.”

The ’70s were a decade of change around Pinehurst — some for the good, some for the bad — and after that 1976 World Open there was another interesting development.

When the PGA Tour returned in 1977, it was no longer the World Open. It was now the Colgate Hall of Fame Classic.

There were only a few corporate names attached to tournaments on the PGA Tour in the ’70s. The 1976 schedule included events named for Eastern Airlines, Mutual of New York, Kemper Insurance and Buick. It was star power that ruled the day, with other tournaments named for entertainers or star golfers like Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Glen Campbell, Andy Williams, Jackie Gleason, Byron Nelson, Danny Thomas and Sammy Davis Jr.

David Foster was the president and chairman of Colgate-Palmolive and in the early 1970s recognized the marketing power of golf. He partnered with actress and singer Dinah Shore in 1972 to launch the Colgate Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle at Mission Hills with an unheard-of purse for the time of $110,000. His company’s investment in golf led Foster to a seat on the board of directors of the World Golf Hall of Fame, which was launched in Pinehurst in 1974 — ergo Foster’s connection to Pinehurst and his decision to have Colgate as a title sponsor for Pinehurst’s PGA Tour event from 1977-79.

The pro tour wasn’t long for Pinehurst, though, fizzling out in the early 1980s amid bad dates, a soft golf course and Diamondhead’s financial struggles that led to losing the resort to a consortium of banks. The table was being set for the resurrection that began when Robert Dedman Sr. of Dallas bought the resort in 1984.

After his win at Pinehurst in 1976, Floyd would collect 10 more titles in six years and be a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame when the Tour Championship visited Pinehurst in 1991 and ’92. He failed to qualify among the top 30 players for the 1991 competition, but he was a contender in 1992 and tied for fifth place. Two years later, Floyd had turned 50 and was among the favorites for the 1994 U.S. Senior Open at Pinehurst.

“I was really impressed with the course in the 1994 Senior Open because it was in such great condition,” Floyd says. “Among the players, No. 2 was known as a great golf course, maybe top five or top 10 in the world, but that wasn’t for its conditioning. It was just such a great layout.

“But the week of the Senior Open, the course was in superb condition. I had never seen it like that.”

2026 Department Golftown Journal

Southwords

SOUTHWORDS

Deer Me

Our inconvenient guests

By Jim Moriarty

Illustration by Campbell Pringle

“You’re prancing along, you get thirsty, you spot a little brook, you put your little deer lips down to the cool clear water . . . BAM! . . . Now I ask ya. Would you give a f*** what kind of pants the son of a bitch who shot you was wearing?”

Cousin Vinny, we got trouble right here in River City.

Most days the War Department goes to her gym, the Petri Dish, before sunrise. She’s greeted on these mornings by a deer who, if it was wearing a chauffeur’s cap, would open the car door for her. It might just as well be an Uber driver. You don’t need to order a bunch of camouflage gear from Cabela’s to stalk these deer. Bozo the Clown could sneak up on them. You could play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 on a klaxon horn and they’ll stand there and stare at you like they’ve got orchestra seating.

Sure the fawns are cute in their little spotted outfits, but the bad news is that they grow into eating machines. Going all leafy and pastoral in our neighborhood is something of a fool’s errand. You might just as well pile the whole herd into a Suburban and drive them to Ruby Tuesday for the salad bar. Hostas in the front? Magnifico. Our compliments to the gardener. In the backyard they ate the oakleaf hydrangeas down to the toothpicks. They never met an azalea they didn’t like. And camellia blossoms? It’s like Cool Hand Luke eating hardboiled eggs.

In addition to the buffet, we may have attracted our four-legged buggers with, of all things, a birdbath. The bluebirds, finches, sparrows, robins and whatnot do a lot of sipping and a fair amount of flapping around in it but, for the most part, they behave themselves. The deer, on the other hand, hang on it like drunks down at the end of the bar in the Bitter and Twisted. I’m pretty sure the head deer put both his/her front hooves up on it and tried to lick it dry, because one morning the whole thing was dumped over. This isn’t some lightweight birdbath, either. It’s solid Lake Superior stone. But what do they care?

We’re pretty sure they’re targeting us because there have been off-property incidents as well. You know the way World War II aces put little decals on their Spitfires to represent downed enemy aircraft? My son has three Bambis on his bumper. The only thing is, he didn’t run into them, they ran into him. Same thing happened to the War Department one night when she was on her way home from a Bruce Springsteen concert and a deer ran full throttle, Kamikaze-like, into the passenger side rear door. Truly Born to Run.

One year a friend of ours thought it would be a splendid idea to make life-sized plywood deer using a jigsaw. The body and head were the largest piece. It settled into notches carved into the front and rear legs. There were a couple of ears to stick on and, of course, a tail. All of it was painted bright white and begging to be draped with festive lights, a perky red nose and wreaths for the Christmas season. The neighbors across the road and up the hill just happened to be bowhunters, and the morning after we proudly displayed our white Christmas deer in the front yard, we arose only to find that they’d been massacred with crossbows. Maybe our current deer are, at this very moment, massing to exact their revenge.

I’m a believer in going green — wind, solar, the lot — and I’m convinced that the ultimate fossil fuel solution may in fact be right under our feet. Pretty much everywhere you look in our yard there are little black piles of deer poop. In the garden. By the birdbath. Everywhere. If there was some way to convert all that poop into energy, I’m pretty sure we could be the Saudi Arabia of scat. It helps to look on the bright side.

2026 Department Southwords

Pleasures of Life

PLEASURES OF LIFE

Hello, Muddah. Hello, Faddah.

Here we are at Camp Grenada

By Peter Doubleday

Illustration by Miranda Glyder

Every summer my thoughts meander to the summers that were like no other. Sure, I had great friends and schoolmates at home in Syracuse, New York, but my special buddies were all heading for Brentwood Camp, a three-hour drive to the southwestern part of the state, in Angelica.

Before leaving, my mother helped me organize my clothing list — the prime directive came in the mail from the camp like an astronaut’s checklist. I identified each pair of shorts, underwear, T-shirts, bathing suit and jeans with my initials in indelible Magic Marker. Laundry was done once a week. Even after this meticulous exercise in labeling, when I was 10 I got a bra back in my laundry the first week.

The drive to Angelica — could it have had a more perfect name? — cut through rural countryside and the Finger Lakes. For a city boy, it was like leaving planet Earth for six weeks. Cabin assignments and bunk positions — upper or lower — were doled out on arrival. There were 80 kids at these summer reunions, 40 boys and 40 girls, with the cabins segregated by sex and separated by a giant stream that ran through the middle of the camp. Ages ranged from 10 to 17, and kids came from all over the country.

Trunks, with all your personal possessions, were positioned at the foot of each bunk. The toilet experience was rustic, to say the least, with limited hot water in the shower building. Bathing suits that never seemed to dry hung on the lines outside each cabin, perfuming the air.

The camp’s specialty was horseback riding. I learned a lifetime of equestrian skills but not without some challenges. One year a female instructor asked me to jump a few obstacles in the ring. I did but got “left” in the saddle (not moving forward with the horse) and came down in a very uncomfortable way for a boy. Sick to my stomach, the instructor insisted I try again. “Can we wait just a couple of minutes?” I begged.

I became one of the leaders in the barn, mucking stalls, cleaning tack and saddling up for others. I learned to drive the tractor, a mower and the camp pickup. Trail rides were highly anticipated, especially when we passed the abandoned house on the railroad bed supposedly occupied by a mean old hermit who loved to scare passersby. Curiously enough, we never saw him. Once every two weeks a chosen few would trail-ride to an area for an overnight campout, just like on TV’s Rawhide or Gunsmoke. It was the first time I sampled coffee. Yuck. And, of course, when I was 13, I fell in love with one of my instructors.

Camp days were divided into four periods, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Along with the horses, we had a daily swimming session, a 90-minute arts and crafts period where I fashioned one boondoggle after another, and a final period devoted to baseball, kickball, etc. I learned to shoot a .22 rifle and a bow and arrow. After dinner, we had a giant campfire, scary stories and, naturally, a weekly snipe hunt.

The mess hall was our meeting place. A large bell called everyone together. When someone had a birthday “around the mess hall you must go” was sung, and everyone celebrated. After dinner we stopped by the commissary for a treat — candy, ice cream or a Popsicle. It took me a while to figure out why everyone snickered when someone ordered a Hershey’s candy bar and the counselor would ask, “Male or female?”

The summer was not without an occasional romance. Don’t tell anyone, but there were the late night “sneak-overs” to the girls’ side of the stream. If the camp owners found out, you could face the ultimate punishment — expulsion. But it was worth it.

At the end of each summer, as Labor Day loomed, it was invariably a sad day when we were fetched by our parents and returned to the real world. But oh, the memories. I still run into a fellow camper once in a while and all we can do is smile.

2026 Department Pleasures of Life

Almanac September 2026

ALMANAC

Almanac

September

By Ashley Walshe

Here it comes, that slow, sweet kiss. That luscious ache. That dance that leaves you breathless.

September is a fleeting lover. You know in your bones that she’ll leave you wanting, but you’re here for it. Agony and ecstasy are intertwined.

The light has washed everything golden. In the garden, long-tailed skippers flit from ironweed to aster; butterfly pea to goldenrod; late-summer bloomers to early autumn wildflowers. Never mind that the zinnias are fading. Coneflower skeletons whisper of what’s to come.

At the forest edge, muscadine vines drip with fruit, dark and plump. You pluck one, sun-warmed and pungent, and hold it in your palm. Can you feel the wild pulse of summer? Allow it to sync with your own beating heart.

You don’t yet know that the whippoorwill has departed for warmer climes; that the mantis has released her mass of eggs and, in her final act as mother, swaddled them in a papier-mâché womb. The bees are humming tunes of natural wonders, and you’ve anchored yourself here in this sun-soaked moment.

Indulge your senses. Press the warm grape to your eager lips. Sink your teeth into its tart, leathery skin. Taste the bitter punch, the earthy musk, the pleasant burst of sugary-sweetness.

When you open your eyes — no, you hadn’t realized you’d closed them — a tidal wave of swallows casts a shadow on the quiet earth. This is the moment you remember: summer is slipping from sight.

You reach for another muscadine, willing time to slow. Let the bitter punch linger as summer fades. Let the juicy pulp sweeten the sudden ache. Let it all be true at once.

Apple Season

Galas, Honeycrisps and Ginger Golds. Red and Golden Delicious. Cortlands and Crispins. Jonagolds.

When life gives you ripe local apples by the bushel and peck, bust out the cinnamon for sauces, pies and chutneys. And when it comes to cooking with your favorite autumn fruit, keep in mind: Not all apples are created equal. As their names suggest, some stay firm and crisp (essential for baking), while others cook down quick for bright and smooth sauces (Golden Delicious, Cortland and Jonagold).

Experiment with firm-and-soft combos to up your pie game, but save Red Delicious for snacks and fresh salads, as the heat will make flavorless mush of them.

All the months are crude experiments, out of which the perfect September is made.

— Virginia Woolf

Goodbye, Hello

Summer farewell is blooming in the pinelands and coastal plains. Bull elks are bugling in Cataloochee — a quiet valley nestled in our state’s Great Smokies. And somewhere between them — perhaps your own garden — a praying mantis has just devoured her mate. Such is the season of endings and beginnings. Farewell, summer. Welcome, wild and whistling autumn.

2026 Almanac Department

Dissecting a Cocktail

DISSECTING A COCKTAIL

Manhattan

By Tony Cross

Like most classic cocktails, there are a couple of theories about the creation of the Manhattan. The truth is rarely, if ever, clear. In the case of the Manhattan, one thing is certain: It was definitely created in New York (and probably by a Manhattanite). But who? One theory suggests that it was launched at The Manhattan Club in the late 19th century by bartender Iain Marshall at a banquet held by Lady Randolph Churchill (Winston Churchill’s mother). Another points to bartender George Black, who had a bar on Broadway called The Manhattan Inn. Regardless of its origin, there’s no mistaking that this is one of the most classic cocktails of all time.

The first time I made a proper drink, it was a Manhattan. I had to special-order a case of rye whiskey from our ABC because it wasn’t on our shelves . . . yet (after a few more orders it became a staple). After that I made a trip to our local wine shop to purchase a bottle of vermouth. Rittenhouse was the rye, and Carpano Antica was the vermouth. The drink forever changed the way I viewed cocktails.

There are two camps when it comes to which type of whiskey to use: bourbon or rye. In my opinion, it should always be rye, and I’ll debate anyone who says otherwise. When the Manhattan was created, rye was definitely the whiskey used. Post-Prohibition might be a different story.

The drink itself isn’t hard to make and keeping Manhattan’s original area code, 212, in mind helps you remember the specs. Two ounces of rye whiskey, one ounce of sweet vermouth, and two dashes of Angostura bitters. You won’t see too many variations of this cocktail, but I do like to add orange Curaçao or chocolate bitters to mine from time to time. The addition of Grand Marnier is something I learned from a New York City bar years ago.

Specifications

2 ounces Rittenhouse rye

1 ounce Carpano Antica sweet vermouth

1/4 ounce orange Curaçao

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Lemon peel or brandied cherry (or both!)

Execution

Combine all ingredients, sans garnish, in a mixing vessel with ice. Stir until cocktail is cold and proper dilution has occurred. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. If garnishing with a lemon peel, express lemon oils over cocktail and then place peel in glass or discard. To add a cherry carefully place in glass after pouring cocktail.

2026 Department In the Spirit

PinePitch September 2026

PINEPITCH

PinePitch

September 2026

Stevie Nicks. Enough Said

The tribute band Tell Me Lies — the Fleetwood Mac Experience! performs in the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad Street, Southern Pines, on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 3 p.m., and again in the evening at 7:30 p.m. If we said we’re Never Going Back Again we’d be lying. For information go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Live After 5 and Beyond

Gary Lowder and Smokin’ Hot bring a beach music vibe to the Village Arboretum, 375 Magnolia Road, Pinehurst, on Friday, Sept. 11, from 5:15 p.m. and on into the night. Food trucks? Yep. Kids’ stuff? Yep. Admission? Nope. Outside alcohol? Never. For more information go to www.vopnc.org.

If It’s Friday . . . It’s a First

The Jon Stickley Trio takes the First Bank Stage from 5 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. on the greenspace next to the Sunrise Theater for First Friday on — you guessed it — Friday, Sept. 4. The ensemble from Asheville combines Stickley’s rapid-fire guitar picking with the melodies of Lyndsay Pruett on violin and the groove of Patrick Armitage on drums. All the usual rules apply — anything with a snout needs to stay at home, and don’t even think about smuggling in that flask. Food and drink are available on-site. For information go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

They’re Baaaaaack!

The Sandhills Woman’s Exchange, 15 Azalea Road, in Pinehurst, reopened for the fall and winter on Tuesday, Sept. 1. The café serves lunch Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the gift shop is restocked with goodies, all to keep the little historic cabin up and running. For more information go to www.sandhillswe.org.

Wide Open Art

The opening reception for “Into the Woods,” featuring the work of Venessa Grebe, begins at 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4, at the Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. For more info go to www.artistleague.org. And a mere 5 miles away, the Arts Council of Moore County presents “Quiet Dialogues with Canvas & Paper,” featuring the art of Sharon Ferguson and Merilyn Vendemia, beginning Sept. 4 at 6 p.m., at the Campbell House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. For more info go to www.mooreart.org. Both exhibits hang through Sept. 25.

Party Like It’s 1941

The Sunrise Theater has been a beloved Sandhills institution for 85 years. Celebrate and support it at the Sunrise 1941 Charity Gala beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 18, at the Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Rd. S. Pinehurst. Single tickets are $150 with a full table going for $1,500. Miss Candace, the “International Champagne Chanteuse,” and her band provide the 1940s jazz. The plated dinner is by Elliott’s on Linden. There will be both live and silent auctions, all going to support the ever-widening range of entertainment provided by the Sunrise, from touring concerts to Broadway productions, ballet, first run and independent films, tribute bands and on and on. For more information go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Books and Such

David Dockery will discuss his book I Am the Night: The Ultimate Unauthorized History of Batman: The Animated Series, from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 9, at The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Then, beginning at 10 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 28, hang out at the bookshop for the highly anticipated midnight release of the Empyrean Series latest, Threshing Day, by Rebecca Yarros. There will be themed activities to get everyone in the mood. For tickets and information for both events go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

We Need Details

Tom Arnold is a single dad with a 12-year-old son, a 9-year-old daughter and four ex-wives. He’s been stabbed, arrested naked and charged with kidnapping a Peter Criss impersonator. There might a story there. You can hear it from 7 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 18, when he brings his stand-up comedy routine to BPAC’s Owens Auditorium at Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. For tickets and information go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Autumnfest

Come for the crafts, stay for food, the fun and the entertainment. The Arts Council of Moore County and Southern Pines Parks and Recreation host the annual arts and crafts festival from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3, in the Downtown Park, 143 S.E. Broad Street, Southern Pines. For more information go to www.mooreart.org.

Heritage in the House

The Shaw House Heritage Fair & Moore Treasures Sale kicks off with the free-to-all pre-sale beginning at 9 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 11, at the Shaw House, 110 W. Morganton Road, Southern Pines. The festivities crank up on Saturday, Sept. 12, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $2 and includes a raffle ticket. There will be vendors, food, music, pottery, jewelry, art, books, toys and just about anything you can walk away with in exchange for U.S. currency. For more information go to www.moorehistory.com.

Monarchs on the March

Interact with and feed hundreds of newly emerged monarch butterflies in the Magical Monarch Tent at the seventh annual Flutterby Festival on Saturday, Sept. 26, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Village Arboretum, 375 Magnolia Road, Pinehurst. Hosted by the Village Heritage Foundation and the village of Pinehurst, this family-friendly event celebrates butterflies and other pollinators. There will be crafts, food trucks, educational exhibits, native plant demonstrations and sales. The event is free of charge, but tickets are required and can be obtained at www.ticketmesandhills.com.

2026 Department PinePitch

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