Focus on Furmint

From Hungary comes a white wine to savor

By Robyn James

Sometimes in the world of wine geeks, the hot new thing on the scene turns out to be the oldest. Such is the case with the dry white wine, furmint, from the ancient Hungarian region of Tokaj. Presented with a sample bottle of Evolúció a few weeks ago, I was fascinated to taste and learn about the furmint grape finished dry. Never an expert in Hungarian wine throughout my career, I always had a vague perception of their incredibly sweet, beautiful dessert wines that came from the region of Tokaj. Louis XIV of France declared the wines “Vinum Regum, Rex Vinorum” (Wine of Kings, King of Wines). They were labeled with a number of “puttonyos” measuring the degree of sweetness and quality.

Tokaj is geographically located between two rivers, the Danube and the Tisza. In the fall, the fog influence from the rivers creates the perfect dampness for the “noble rot” to occur on the furmint grapes, resulting in their super sweet famous dessert wines.

However, if you harvest the furmint early, before noble rot occurs, you come up with a delicious mineral-driven white wine that is a fabulous alternative to sauvignon blanc, pinot gris and chardonnay.

Hungarian winemakers in the Furmint Society visited Napa Valley recently, wowing California winemakers who likened the wines to Chablis, stating, “I would put them against the great whites of Friuli, Bordeaux and Burgundy.”

Located on the same latitude as Alsace, France, the Hungarian native grape derives its name from the French word “froment” for the wheat gold color of the wine.

The Evolúció that I tasted is fermented in all stainless steel, and is described by the winery as, “Intense aromas, ripe peach and floral. Elegant, rich and mineral, great balance between (the) intense acidity and discreet residual sugar, it is pleasing and refreshing. Some summer fruits with white pear, citrus and hints of almond.”

Retailing for around $12, Evolúció’s high acidity would pair well with fish and chicken dishes or even beef short ribs.

Furmint also makes a delicious sparkling wine. Affinitas makes a methóde traditionnelle (same painstaking method as French Champagne with the secondary fermentation in the bottle) that sells for around $18, a bargain. Another Hungarian grape, harslevelu, is blended into this sparkler that the winery describes as “clear with a fine mousse. Citrus blossoms, grapefruit and crisp apple. Fresh acidity, it is precise without being austere. Rich backbone, exotic fruits and brioche, great acid and mineral.”

Furmint is grown in other European countries and blends well with other grapes. The Dveri-Pax Winery in Slovenia makes a $15 “Yanez” that is 40 percent furmint, 40 percent pinot gris and 20 percent riesling. Scoring 87 Points from The Wine Advocate, it is described as “fresh, clean and perky, refreshing demeanor and very enticing.” The Boutique Wine Collection out of Philadelphia is one of the main importers of furmint and I love their logo, a little heart on top of a dollar sign with the statement, “Love Over Money.” I guess you won’t get rich importing furmint, but it sure is fun to try.  PS

Robyn James is a certified sommelier and proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at robynajames@gmail.com.

Dark Clowns

By Jim Dodson

I was deep in the country at twilight, heading home with the radio on when I heard about the dark clowns. The BBC presenter sounded skeptical, even amused by reports out of Greenville, South Carolina, where people dressed as clowns were reportedly trying to lure children into the woods with candy and money.

“So . . . is this just a hoax or something people there are really concerned about?” the host asked a local reporter covering the story, his tongue half in cheek.

“I can’t say it’s a hoax,” she replied, “because the police are taking this very seriously. They have warned parents and doubled patrols. This really has a lot of people freaked out.”

So-called “after-dark clowns” have been spooking America quite a bit lately, it turns out, most recently in Winston-Salem and Green Bay, Wisconsin, where a photograph of a dark clown roaming early morning streets carrying black balloons set the Internet on fire. Two Octobers ago residents of Bakersfield, California, were spooked by photographs of “evil after-dark clowns” roaming their streets after hours, showing up under lampposts and frequenting kiddie rides. Since then, reports of dark clowns have cropped up in a dozen other places around the country.

“The police don’t know whether the stories are coming from the imaginations of children or something sinister is afoot, but panicked residents seem to be taking the law into their own hands,” The New York Times noted about this latest outbreak of clowns in South Carolina, adding that shots had been fired into wooded areas where the sightings occurred.

Whatever else may be true, clowns occupy a peculiar space in American popular culture, somewhere between what’s perfectly innocent and downright terrifying. My September issue of Smithsonian notes that clowns have been with us since man’s earliest days in the guise of everything from mythologized tricksters to painted medicine men. Pygmy clowns entertained bored Egyptian pharaohs, and medieval court jesters were entitled to thumb their oversized noses at the king without fear of losing their heads. Ancient Rome had professional clowns whose job it was to pacify unruly crowds at festivals, peacekeepers who kept an eye out for troublemakers. “Well into the 18th and 19th century,” writes Smithsonian’s Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, “the prevailing clown figure of Western Europe and Britain was the pantomime clown, who was sort of a bumbling buffoon.”

Once, standing in a crowd of camera-wielding tourists next to my young daughter on the main drag in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, awaiting a parade of local rodeo riders, I spotted a mime working the crowd and approaching us. My daughter was delighted. But I wasn’t.

Mimes have always made me uncomfortable, a modest phobia I trace to a powerful moment in my early childhood in Mississippi, where my father briefly owned a small newspaper. One evening in the late fall he took my brother and me to a political rally in a cornfield just outside town where a group of strange people showed up wearing white robes and hoods and stood around a bonfire. We didn’t stay long, just long enough for our father to get a quote or two from the mayor and the hooded figures and to frighten the bug juice out of his sons. We asked our dad why those men wore hoods. “Because people who wear masks are weak people often up to no good,” he replied. Our mother gave him holy hell when she found out where he’d taken us just to harvest a quote.

Forty years later, picking up on my post-Klan jitters, the mime paused right in front of us and attempted to make me smile. He made a huge happy face followed by a tragic sad one, rubbing away imaginary tears when I wouldn’t yield. The crowd ate it up.

“Thanks,” I said through gritted teeth. “Feel free to move along now.”

Clowns were everywhere in the America where I grew up. Most were fun-loving and perfectly innocent in those faraway days — Clarabell the Clown on Howdy Doody and Bozo the Clown with his internationally syndicated show — which according to Smithsonian had a 10-year waiting list for tickets.

There was even a clown I liked on my favorite weeknight TV show, Red Skelton’s alter ego Clem Kadiddlehopper, a bumbling painted-up fool who was tolerable only because he often broke up halfway through his skits. In my bedroom I even had a harlequin desk lamp. I attended Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus about that time, exactly once, on the other hand, feeling bad for the animals and truly bothered by the clowns. Only the acrobats appealed to me.

“So the question is,” Smithsonian’s McRobbie wonders, “when did the clown, supposedly a jolly figure of innocuous, kid-friendly entertainment, become so weighed down by fear and sadness? When did clowns become so dark?”

The truest answer is, long ago and far away.

Classical operas and Shakespearean dramas, after all, have long used clown figures as sinister messengers of mystery and intrigue. But in the modern American context it may well have been an evil clown named Pogo who established the motif of the dark clown around town.

His real name was John Wayne Gacy Jr., a friendly chap who entertained children in the Chicago suburbs for years during the middle 1970s before he was arrested, tried and convicted of killing 33 young men. “You know,” he reportedly told investigators, “a clown can get away with murder.” Before Gacy faced execution in 1994, America’s Crown Prince of Killer Clowns spent his time in his cell painting pictures of clowns and self-portraits of himself as Pogo the clown.

After seven years of writing about dark things for my magazine in Atlanta, I officially swore off watching horror films after writing a piece for Boston magazine about a reclusive teen in western Massachusetts whose mother allowed her son to gorge himself on the Friday the 13th films only to have her troubled son don a hockey mask one Halloween night and slash several kids before hanging himself in the woods. The psychologist who’d been treating him for years told me “his identification with Jason seemed pretty harmless.”

A toxic flood of even more ghastly films continues to flow into your local Cineplex, feeding our insatiable desire to terrify ourselves. Heath Ledger’s brilliant if disquieting Joker in the 2008 Batman remake The Dark Knight seemed almost too real and sadly prefigured the gifted actor’s own demons rising to the surface when he shortly died of an accidental drug and alcohol overdose.

I sometimes wonder if we aren’t simply hardwired to value a good harmless scare in a world that appears damaged beyond repair and full of very real dangers, providing new purpose to whatever bogeyman has always lurked beneath the bed. In another age, after all, fairy tales and fables of trolls loitering beneath bridges and witches in the woods were meant to instruct children on the dangers of straying too far beyond the light or down a road of ruin, real or imagined. “Always keep a-hold of Nurse,” goes a famous ditty by a French writer, Hilaire Belloc, “for fear of finding something worse.”

Once upon a time, Madge the beautician and Speedy Alka-Seltzer were icons of commercial television spots. They’ve given way to pharmaceutical companies peddling expensive drugs for maladies whose side effects may kill you, security firms eager to surveil your home against intruders who are just waiting to pounce, identity theft, and internet investment firms that torched your 401-K plan a few years back while reminding you that you haven’t put aside nearly enough for a “happy” retirement.

Perhaps this explains why Americans can’t seem to get enough of Halloween’s faux gore and fright wigs, projected to shell out a record $7 billion or $75 per ghoul among those celebrating the holiday this year — rivaling Christmas retail.

It’s all part of the funhouse ride that thankfully isn’t real, and every town larger than the hips on a snake seems eager to cash in on the phenomenon with its own haunted corn maze or woods of terror peopled by chain saw–wielding psychos and evil clowns, bless their dark little hearts.

In a broader context, all our lives are challenged by Dark Clowns of one kind or another and things that go bump in the night — a sick child, a worrying diagnosis, a lost job. The worry list is endless.

Maybe the way to fight back is to simply make light of such darkness the way John Candy did in the 1989 John Hughes’ classic Uncle Buck. In one of my favorite scenes in the movie, a drunken clown shows up to entertain at a children’s birthday party where Uncle Buck Russell, good-natured loser — played to perfection by the late great Candy — is babysitting his nephew and two nieces. Upon discovering that the clown is drunk from an all-night bachelorette party, Uncle Buck suggests the clown’s behavior is inappropriate for children. Offended, the clown snarls, “In the field of local live home entertainment, I’m a god.” At which Uncle Buck points to the clown’s rodent-eared VW and firmly says, “Get in your mouse and get out of here,” and proceeds to flattens the clown’s big fat rubber nose to drive home the point.

According to Smithsonian, only 2 percent of grown-ups suffer from excessive fear of clowns, technically a phobia called coulrophobia.

But don’t try telling that to the anxious parents of Green Bay, Bakersfield and Greenville anytime soon.

Truthfully, I’m more worried about some of the dark clowns we’ll have to decide between in the voting booth a few days after Halloween. Bottom line, if a dark clown is foolish enough to show up at my door on Halloween night, don’t be surprised if I give him a shot of John Candy to remember me by.  PS

Contact editor Jim Dodson at jim@thepilot.com.

On the Lookout

A fascinating first novel, a talk of ecological disaster

By Gwenyfar Rohler

Upstairs in the UNC Wilmington Creative Writing Department is the publishing laboratory, where the literary magazine Ecotone matured, and a small press, Lookout Books, refines their books into existence like an oyster begetting a pearl. Until recently, Lookout’s carefully curated and award-winning catalog included two collections of short fiction, a memoir and even a book of poetry, but no novel. But now, Lookout and writer Matthew Neill Null have both dipped their proverbial toes in the water of novel-writing by debuting their first novel, Honey From The Lion, last year.

In the book, set in and around a logging camp in West Virginia at the turn of the 20th century, Null brings us characters that many people would cross the street to avoid. He slowly pulls back the curtains and, with a flickering gaslight, breathes life into these unwashed, violent and desperate people who then become the source of great empathy.

Honey From The Lion is not a hymn to strong men who control other people’s destinies, though the first chapter and the title (an allusion to Sampson from the Bible) might hint at that. For Null, the real story is the struggle of the hundreds of working men to realize their own destinies within their private lives and a system with the singular purpose of exploitation of resources — natural and human. He takes a microscope to look as closely as possible at individuals who, in most circumstances, would never be anything more than statistics: ledger columns, payroll, accident reports. These moments, teasing out the backstories of each character, no matter how minor, are reminiscent of David Foster Wallace.

Echoes of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove reverberate as well. The introduction and development of the uber macho world are built around a strict code and the appearance of outsiders unprepared to understand the code. But where McMurtry’s men have developed their own code and live outside the dictates of a world they reject, Null’s are trapped inside the code as the least powerful players in their ecosystem.

The care and adoration lavished on a Lookout book is obvious. The physical product is a beauty to behold in an age where book design and production are sidelined for bargain prices and expedient content delivery. Not at Lookout. French flaps, beautiful graphic design and tailored page layouts are the hallmarks of a book that someone cares about. (On the rare occasions that you see a book this carefully created from a big publisher, you know it was the pet project of someone in the office who went the extra mile.) At Lookout, each book radiates that level of care. Perhaps that is the best argument for smaller presses: Because each book takes so much time and effort, they put out few in a year (Lookout produces only one or two annually), and each book is almost a sacred experience. Any author would swoon to have his or her work treated with such reverence, especially for one’s debut novel.

Curious about the selection process for Lookout’s first novel, I reached out to Emily Smith, publisher and co-founder of Lookout. Smith writes, “Null evokes the virgin forest as a fully realized character we grieve deeply by the end of the novel. He implores us to care about the ecological tragedy in West Virginia through story . . . it presented a rare opportunity for our publishing entities to better align our missions and to showcase a book in which place and the natural world feature prominently.”

Ecotone, the sister imprint, place-centric magazine, published Null’s story “The Island in the Gorge of the Great River” in the spring 2014 issue. Null, the then-emerging writer, had not published a book, which appealed to Lookout, whose mission states “seeks out emerging and historically underrepresented voices, as well as overlooked gems by established writers.” In manuscript form, Smith was attracted to this novel’s “nuanced and lyrical descriptions of the natural world, its expansive and cinematic pace.”

Lookout has enjoyed success with previous publications, like their first one, Edith Pearlman’s story collection Binocular Vision, a finalist for the National Book Award in 2011. The following year, Lookout published Steve Almond’s story collection God Bless America: Stories, which won the Paterson Fiction Prize. They know how to pick a winner and how to present one.

I can only imagine the stunned grin that must have spread across Null’s face the moment he received his first novel in Lookout-form. But, from reading Honey From The Lion, I am certain he would recreate the moment in stunning, captivating, undulating prose, drawing the experience out for paragraphs if not pages, intensifying the moment to something epic in contrast to the momentary sensation of pages in hands.

A part of the Creative Writing program at UNC Wilmington, Lookout ensures that the art of bookmaking continues to live hand-in-hand with the art of writing. It may be one of the most valuable lessons to impart on to the next generation of writers. Because, as in Lookout’s new novel, each page holds moments experienced in-depth that draw and enlighten the darkened corners of each character’s soul. Value the written word (and the well-designed book) as something sacred, for it will outlive all of us.  PS

Gwenyfar Rohler spends her days managing her family’s bookstore on Front Street.

The Cruds

The sacred golf buddy trip reaches 100

By Lee Pace

There’s nothing quite like the golf buddy trip: escape, golf, drinking, golf, gambling, golf, cigars, merciless razzing and needling, hangovers, golf and a special brand of childishness among grown men that few other venues can generate. Some guys are skilled players with deep pockets who play the British Open courses from the tips with a trip concierge. Others are 18-handicappers in cargo shorts who make a beeline from the 18th green to a Myrtle Beach honky-tonk.

In February 1967 a group of eight members at Hope Valley Country Club in Durham discovered that particular elixir of adventure and camaraderie that is the golf buddy trip. They ventured to Myrtle Beach when it was a sleepy town with three golf courses, enjoyed the occasion and decided to take another in the fall. Two more, spring and fall, followed in 1968. Ditto 1969, ad infinitum, and since the sixth trip, each has been a 54-hole weekend.

And so this October, this same group of men, certainly with some additions and subtractions over half a century, will travel to The Dunes Club for another 54-hole event — its 100th trip.

“This piece of paper goes back to the very beginning,” Russell Barringer Jr. is saying in his office at his Durham building supply company as he looks at a faded ledger pad. Across it are pencil notations with names, dates, hotels and golf courses dating back to that first trip when LBJ was president and the Super Bowl had just one Roman numeral.

“If you do the math, we’ve played 307 rounds of golf, with three of them on a special trip we made to Scotland in 1974. That’s 304 days of golf in Myrtle Beach, and we’ve missed eight days to weather. That’s remarkable — only eight of 304 rained out.”

He continues.

“Two hundred and twenty-five rounds have been at The Dunes Club.

“Forty-four men have been in our group. Eleven are dead. Three have resigned. Nine are inactive. That leaves 21 active Cruds left.”

Cruds? What’s a Crud?

Barringer relishes telling the story. The original eight golfers — all of them with handicaps of seven or less — enjoyed the trip so much they decided to expand the group and were talking the trip up to other Hope Valley members. The wife of one prospective member overheard a conversation and interjected: “Who’s going on this trip?”

The names were rattled off — all of them up-and-coming businessmen, doctors, lawyers and stockbrokers in their early 30s — and the woman sniffed, “My husband’s not going out of town with those cruds.”

“The name stuck. We’ve been the Cruds ever since,” Barringer says.

Barringer missed the first trip because he and his wife had a previously scheduled trip to Jamaica planned, but he was on the second trip and has not missed one since. The trip to the beach Oct. 13-16 will be his 99th consecutive, longest by a large margin over Bob Baker’s 80-some straight trips.

“Mr. Barringer’s been talking about number 100 for several years now,” says Dennis Nichol, director of golf at The Dunes Club. “That seemed to be his finish line. He’d say, ‘I’m hanging on for a hundred.’

“This is quite a remarkable group. I’ve known of groups coming to the beach for 20, 25 years, but nothing as long as this group. He runs a tight ship. Some groups are a cluster. They’re hung over, no one’s in charge, and sometimes they’re not even at the right golf course. Mr. Barringer is a stickler for the details, and his guys have such a good time and enjoy each other’s company.”

The Cruds did their share of barhopping in the early days, but no one ever got into serious trouble. One Crud was convinced he was beaten up in the bathroom on the back nine at The Dunes, when in truth he was so hungover his cleats tripped him entering the building and he took a nasty fall. And there was an over-served Crud who one year threw some furniture off the second floor balcony of the motel and resorted to putting the damage charge of $365 on his company credit card. That prompted one member to pen a poem by the next trip that opened:

Twas the second of October at Myrtle Beach shore;

The Cruds were assembled for a weekend galore.

Graciously received by the St. John’s Inn;

If only they’d known of the forthcoming din.

“There’s been a lot of teasing and razzing going back and forth,” Barringer says. “Guys will jump your ass over the smallest thing, but it’s never hateful or serious.”

Barringer assumed the role of secretary/treasurer from that fall trip in 1967 and since then has juggled raising three children, running his business and myriad other commitments with operating a taut Cruds ship. He spent 12 years in active Reserve, and eight others of the early Cruds had some military or service background, so it’s no surprise letters to the members might begin, “You will report to the Thunderbird Motel, 73rd Avenue North, no later than 2300 hours,” and “Officers” were appointed for such responsibilities as handicaps, Bloody Marys and even “regrets & remorses.”

The Cruds stayed mostly at the St. John’s Inn in the early days, sometimes at the Thunderbird, and the charge per man in 1968 was $14 per person per day, including room, breakfast and golf. Barringer joined The Dunes Club in 1974 and later bought a condominium and then a single-family home in the neighborhood, so now eight golfers each year can stay in his homes, and several other members have second homes at the beach as well. Most of their golf has been played at The Dunes, but in the early days they ventured out to courses like The Surf Club. Barringer says none of the Cruds have been heavy gamblers, so they put up $25 per man per day for various competitions.

The Saturday night dinner this October promises to be an emotional one. They’ll take a group photo on the 13th hole at The Dunes, each Crud wearing a navy blazer, off-white slacks and the matching shirts that Barringer has custom-ordered every five trips. The usual table will be set in the dining room for the 11 deceased members, with a photo of each golfer at his place setting, and after the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance, each fallen Crud will be recognized and toasted. It will pain Barringer to see two Cruds with medical attendants nearby, one having suffered a stroke and another needing dialysis four days a week.

“I’m going to make a prediction,” Barringer says. “This 100th trip will be the last by the Cruds as we know them. Four or five years ago, I proposed the idea that we think of turning the group over to our sons. I think the group will go in that direction after 100.

“We’ve really been bonded by golf. The Cruds have been such a part of my life, I don’t want to just let it go. That’s one of the reasons I want to perpetuate the group. I want my kids, now grown adults, to enjoy what I’ve had for so many years.”

Enjoy, indeed: the elegance of The Dunes Club and Robert Trent Jones’ 1948 masterpiece. The scent of the salty air off the Atlantic. A Bloody Mary at the turn. A crisp 7-iron and a good pal ready to giggle if you catch it the slightest bit fat.  PS

Lee Pace’s first book on Pinehurst, Pinehurst Stories, was released just weeks before the 1991 Tour Championship.

October Books

By Kimberly Daniels Taws

Sirius: The Little Dog Who Almost Changed History, by Jonathan Crown (Oct. 4)

Sirius, a very smart fox terrier, takes a circuitous route from Germany to America and back to Germany during the 1930s and ’40s. Having been a movie star in Hollywood, then taken in by Hitler, he realizes he misses his family and escapes to await his reunion with them. A delightful story of a dog that “almost changed history” and learned that home is where your heart is.

El Paso: A Novel, by Winston Groom (Oct. 4)

The author of Forrest Gump returns with his first piece of fiction in 20 years. El Paso expands the classic Western into epic historical fiction. An aging American tycoon and his son race to the desert to find their ranch destroyed and his grandchildren abducted by Pancho Villa. Yankee money and political clout mean nothing against the harsh climate of Mexico. The father and son nearly lose all hope until a twist of fate connects them with a matador in search of his wife, also abducted by Villa. This book is sure to be the hit of the fall.

Bolshoi Confidential: Secrets of the Russian Ballet from the Rule of the Tsars to Today, by Simon Morrison (October/November)

Music historian Simon Morrison presents an enthralling and definitive history of the Bolshoi Ballet, where visionary performances onstage compete with political machinations backstage. A fun and sophisticated read.

Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Forces Unit that Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War, by Ben Macintyre (Oct. 4)

The author of A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal returns with this story of the group that forever changed the rules of war, using unconventional tactics to sabotage the German war machine. Most interesting is the mastermind behind the Special Air Service, David Sterling.

Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk: A Visual Guide, by Josh Katz (Oct. 25)

Fantastic graphs show patterns of speech in the United States, including linguistic discrepancies like “lightning bug” or “firefly” and varying terms for BBQ and lawn care. It’s a beautiful package, sure to be an entertaining gift for friends and family members across the country.

Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects, by Richard Kurin (Oct. 25)

This is a well-priced hardcover full of pictures revealing who we are by what we leave behind.

The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill, by Greg Mitchell (Oct.18)

In the summer of 1962 West Berliners risked everything to dig tunnels under the wall and provide dangerous escape routes for East Berliners. Eager to report on the story, CBS and NBC both sponsored a tunnel in exchange for the ability to film the escapees. In the end, JFK and Secretary of State Dean Rusk stopped the documentaries. This book is a riveting look at the people creating and surrounding this moment in time.

Cooking For Jeffrey: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, by Ina Garten (Oct. 25)

The Barefoot Contessa returns with a unique cookbook reinforcing her no fuss, no problem cooking that has served as a guidebook for home cooks of all ages. This book is a culinary love letter to her husband of more than 40 years and tells the story of their courtship and life together. It’s full of new recipes for the home cook to prepare for any loved one.

We Show What We Have Learned, by Clare Beams (Oct.25)

This collection of short stories is the latest book from Lookout Press, a small press tied to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington’s Creative Writing Department. The stories are tinged with other-worldliness as ingénues at a boarding school bind themselves to their headmaster’s vision of perfection; a 19th-century landscape architect embarks on his first major project, but finds the terrain of class and power difficult; a bride glimpses her husband’s past when she wears his World War II parachute as a gown; and a teacher comes undone in front of her astonished fifth-graders. This collection of short stories is an accomplished delight and sure to appeal to the literary reader.

The General vs. The President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War, by H.W. Brands (Oct. 11)

Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the contest of wills between these two historic figures, unfolding against the turbulent backdrop of the Korean War and terrors conjured at home by Joseph McCarthy. From the drama of Stalin’s blockade of West Berlin to the daring landing of MacArthur’s forces at Inchon to the shocking entrance of China into the war, The General and the President vividly evokes the making of a new American era.”

The Mothers, by Brit Bennett (Oct. 11)

This literary coming-of-age novel begins with a secret in the teenage years and asks the question if we ever truly escape the decisions of our younger selves, the communities that parented us, and the choices that shape our lives forever.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

By Angie Tally

One More Dino on the Floor, by Kelly Starling Lyons. Budding paleontologists will enjoy hip-hopping, foot-stomping, hand-clapping, finger-snapping and counting one to 10 as the dinosaurs get their groove on in this delightful counting book. With bright colorful illustrations and fun rhythmic text, young readers will be tapping their feet to the Jurassic beat. Dinosaur lovers age 3-8 and their families are invited to meet the author, Kelly Starling Lyons, and celebrate National Fossil Day with an afternoon of dinosaur and fossil fun Tuesday, Oct. 11, at 4 p.m., at The Country Bookshop.

Gertie’s Leap to Greatness, by Kate Beasley. It is the first day of fifth grade and Gertie Reese Foy is 100 percent excited! She has two best friends (Genius Jean and sweet kind Junior), she has an amazing summer story to tell, and best of all, she has a plan for greatness that she is sure will bring her long-lost mother back into her world. But when all the things she holds dear are threatened by new girl Mary Sue Spivey, beautiful daughter of a Hollywood movie producer, Gertie must decide what is really important. With the pluck of Ramona Quimby, the cleverness of Mo LeBeau and the stick-to-it-ness of a Penderwick sister, Gertie will charm her way into the hearts of readers. (Age 8-12.)

Projekt 1065. Award-winning, critically acclaimed, North Carolina Battle of the Books author Alan Gratz, author of the powerful WWII historical fiction novel Prisoner B-3087, returns with another gripping World War II story, this time about Michael O’Shaunessey, the son of the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany who served as a spy in the Hitler Youth. Despising everything the Hitler Youth stood for, from book burning to horrific games, O’Shaunessey was charged with delivering insider information to his parents and the British Secret Service, but when tasked to find out more about Projekt 1065, a secret Nazi mission, O’Shaunessey must prove his loyalty to the Hitler Youth even if it risks the lives of those he loves. Gratz will be at The Country Bookshop Friday, Oct. 7, at 4 p.m., to discuss Projekt 1065 as well as The League of Seven, Gratz’s Steampunk fantasy adventure series, which is on the North Carolina Elementary Battle of the Books list for 2016-17.  PS

A Letter from My 93-year-old Self

By Sara Phile

Dear Renee,

Here I am, and there you are. You have always had a problem with just being, and you still do. Could you just be for a minute, though? Try.

Your best friends at 33 are still your best friends at 93. What a gift. Cherish every talk, every coffee date, even every argument. They aren’t going anywhere. Your are lucky.

You will never make much money, but you are OK with that. You are pretty smart with money, and will continue to be. In a few years he will want to go to Alaska. You will say no, that you can’t afford it, and while it may seem like you can’t, just go. Go.

Speaking of him, he is one of the best friends I just mentioned. You and he will finally agree on that 10-year-long discussion that keeps coming back. It will be resolved. However, that other one?  The one that you can’t even think about right now or you will go into a hysterical fit, it won’t be resolved, but you will learn to just let it go, and you will be OK.

Your kids will be OK. Stop worrying about where they will end up, what they will do or not do. Let them be, please. Also, don’t be too quick to give your opinions on well . . . you’ll see. But for now, be stingy with your opinions. It’s hard for you, I know, but if you hold back, you will have more peace, and peace is always your goal.

You think you love your boys, and you do. You truly love them the best you can. Just wait until you meet your grandkids, though . . .

Right now, you think you have known grief and pain, and you have. You really have. Later, you will know it even deeper. You will have tools though, that you didn’t have at 33. You will be stronger.

I know it’s cliché, and you aren’t big on clichés, but the things you worry about now — past failures, future potential failures, what others think or don’t think, simply aren’t worth your time and energy. I know it’s easier said than done (again, sorry about the cliché), but you need to let go.

Your body will hurt like hell some days, especially your back. Keep practicing yoga and remember that you don’t have to run faster or lift more weight than the person next to you. Why must you always think that you are in a competition?

You love the Shakespeare quote “To thine own self be true,” but at this point in your life, you haven’t fully grasped the meaning and application. You think you know yourself, but you still have some weeding out and ironing to do. You will know soon, though.

As soon as you are able to realize and accept that your self-worth isn’t wrapped up in others’ acceptance or rejection of you, you will start to be at peace. And peace, my friend, is your goal. Once you find peace, you won’t want to let it go, and you will wish you had grasped onto it much sooner.

Today, this very day, is a Saturday in August and you are living in humid North Carolina. Your boys are 12 and 7. They are still in bed right now, but go wake them up with a water gun. They hate it when you do this, but deep down they think it’s funny too. Ask them what they want to do today, and do it. Even if, especially if, it costs money. Don’t analyze. Just go with it. You won’t get these years back.

Love and peace,

Your 93-year-old self

P.S. Extra pieces of red velvet cake aren’t going to kill you. Worrying about it just might.  PS

Sara Phile teaches English composition at Sandhills Community College.

Take a Chill Pill

In September, nothing succeeds like . . . moderation

By Astrid Stellanova

Summer’s end is here, Star Children. Mercy be, Astrid is relieved, as so many star charts are running hot and boiling over, like my Cadillac’s overheated radiator. Cool off, cool down, top off your tank with some nice cool water, and find whatever tickles your pickle. — Ad Astra, Astrid

Virgo (August 23–September 22)

When you celebrate the date of your birth, you don’t have to bake your own cake. You don’t have to apologize for wanting a party. You don’t even have to second-guess what is everybody else’s favorite cake. Sometimes you know what you want, but you find yourself worrying about what others want. Take yourself on a different kind of birthday trip this year, and I don’t mean you have to actually put on your shoes and go anywhere — just get outside of your comfort zone.

Libra (September 23–October 22)

Excess is not your friend this month. The definition of forklift isn’t about putting more on your fork than you can lift. Temperance and a little patience will help you overcome some of the challenges in your personal life and also make you find other outlets for all those frustrations taking residence in your psyche.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21)

Your silence is often mistaken for your possessing great depths. Dare I just flat-out say it, Sugar? It’s often you trying to be mysterious but even more, it is you refusing to commit what you truly think. There’s nothing much wrong in your life right now that a good flat-iron and a cocktail couldn’t fix right up.

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21)

Imagine you are Lank Lloyd Wright, younger brother of Frank. Or Willy the Kid, the distant cousin of Billy. You feel like you have grown up in the shade. Born into the unfortunate ranks of shadow siblings, not has-beens but never-weres, you don’t like that you never have gotten your due. Honey, all of those feelings are going to dissipate this very summer when fame comes knocking.

Capricorn (December 22–January 19)

You and a certain troubled someone go together like drunk and disorderly. They are the flip to your flop. They are also reliably a lot of fun and a lot of trouble. Their draw has been irresistible for so long you cannot imagine a month without their talking you into something you would never do without their goading. This would be a good month to try.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18)

Say what, Honey? Your belt won’t buckle but your knees do? This is a good time to hit the gym, hit the road, hit a ball . . . just don’t hit the pantry. You love to entertain and you know how to set up a moveable feast. But it is exactly the right time to hit the salad bar and the garden patch and say “no” to anything that doesn’t look like cream, butter or a heaping spoon of sugar, Sugar.

Pisces (February 19-–March 20)

Summer started off with you acting like some kind of genuine crazy person. Thelma and pleaaaaaaaaaaaase! Now that you’ve been there and done that, come on back to reality, Child. Take charge of your inner GPS and find a detour around Crazy Town, USA.

Aries (March 21–April 19)

It has been a redneck picnic this summer for you, and you enjoyed every last bite. Now on to your next phase. You are known for episodes of sanity, and one is coming up. Grown-up time for you, Sugar Pie. It may read as mind-numbing and boring to you, but just give it a test drive.

Taurus (April 20–May 20)

You have a will, and that will has been more or less focused upon figuring out how to get your way. Always. Hmmm, hit a roadblock recently, didn’t you? Now you have some explaining to do if you want your beloved to forgive and forget. That’s all I’m saying.

Gemini (May 21–June 20)

Contrary to what you believe, you have a tendency to show your emotions all over your face. And what you have been showing lately is the meanest-looking doll face since Chuckie’s. Tempers have been flaring, you got into the middle of a ruckus, but you can do better.

Cancer (June 21–July 22)

This month is going to be a breeze compared to the hot mess you endured last month. There is every indication you can borrow anything — a cuppa flour, a little time — but don’t borrow any more trouble. There are more important things to attend to right now.

Leo (July 23–August 22)

Go ahead, Leo, roar. You’ve got a splinter in your paw and it hurts like the dickens. Actually, it’s more like you have a splinter wedged in your heart. The wedgie from Hell. It is going to require some time to find the relief you are seeking. Meantime, do what you can to find an outlet — and I don’t mean Tanger’s.  PS

For years, Astrid Stellanova owned and operated Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon in the boondocks of North Carolina until arthritic fingers and her popular astrological readings provoked a new career path.

The First Domino

Big time tournaments return to Pinehurst No. 2

By Lee Pace

The phone rang in the office of Pinehurst Director of Golf Don Padgett Sr. one day in the summer of 1990. On the line was Deane Beman, the commissioner of the PGA Tour and a longtime brother with Padgett in the fraternity of golf administrative insiders.

“Padge, we’d like to bring our Tour Championship to Pinehurst next year,” Beman said of the season-ending “Super Bowl” of golf that in its first three years of existence had been played at Oak Hill, Pebble Beach and Harbour Town. “It will only cost you half a million dollars.”

“Thanks,” Padgett said. “As much as we’d love to have you, we’re not in a position to spend that kind of money.”

Padgett was three years into his tenure running the golf operations at Pinehurst, and owner Robert Dedman Sr. was six years into his initiative to rebuild what he called “a fallen angel,” a bastion of American golf history that had stumbled on hard times in the early 1980s and even been run by the bank for two years. Padgett’s charge from resort President and CEO Pat Corso was to “bring championship golf back to Pinehurst,” and the club in the previous three years had hosted a successful PGA Club Pro Championship and a U.S. Women’s Amateur.

But a half-million dollars to get the PGA Tour to town? That was beyond the pale.

A week later, Beman called back.

“OK, we’ll forgo the fee,” Beman said. “But we want to come the first week in October.”

Padgett and Corso conferred. Padgett told Corso he didn’t think the resort could afford to give up a prime fall weekend. Corso agreed, and Padgett told Beman he was sorry, but the dates were bad.

Beman called a third time.

“OK, when the hell can we come?” Beman asked.

“How about the last weekend in October?” Padgett answered. “Our peak season will be over, and the golf course and the greens will still be in good shape.”

“Deal,” Beman said.

And thus fell the first domino in what is now de rigueur around Pinehurst and the state of North Carolina — major championships on the No. 2 course. Since that Tour Championship (won by Craig Stadler on Nov. 3, 1991), Pinehurst No. 2 has been the venue for the U.S. Senior Open, three U.S. Opens, one U.S. Amateur and one U.S. Women’s Open. On the schedule are three more USGA events, including the 2024 Open.

“We could hardly have written a better script,” Corso says. “The weather was great. The golfers loved No. 2. The crowds were huge. It was everything we could have hoped for.”

“That Tour Championship was very important,” former USGA Executive Director David Fay says. “David Eger, as a former North & South Junior champion, and an unabashed fan of No. 2, did a masterful job in setting up the golf course. As it had been a few years since the ‘regular tour’ players had competed at No. 2, the Tour Championship confirmed — resoundingly — that No. 2 remained a great championship test.”

And it’s been 25 years.

“Wow — 25 years,” Corso muses today. “Where does the time go?”

I remember a snippet from the twilight hour on Monday, three days before the tournament commenced. The shadows of the towering pine trees were creeping across the fairway and green of the eighth hole as reigning British Open champion Ian Baker-Finch made his way around the course with Corey Pavin. They putted out on the eighth green and walked to the ninth tee. Baker-Finch nodded toward a couple of acquaintances standing nearby.

“This golf course is great,” he said. “I’m only halfway around and it’s one of the five best I’ve seen in this country. Maybe the world.”

Baker-Finch played that evening until it was pitch dark. “I haven’t been this excited since the British Open,” he said.

Stadler shot a 5-under-par score of 279, and only four players broke par for four rounds that week. Eger, a Charlotte native and former PGA Tour player then on the tour’s administrative staff, looked at the leader board on Sunday afternoon and noted that only Stadler and Russ Cochran were in red figures. “Two players under par,” Eger mused. “That looks like a U.S. Open.”

“I admit I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect,” Padgett said years later. “I had some concern that modern equipment and length would render some of the shorter holes defenseless. My son, Don II, told me, ‘Dad, don’t worry. That golf course will hold up fine.’ Don had played several years on the tour in the early 1970s and kept his finger on the pulse of the tour. He also played here frequently on his visits with the family. So I trusted his view and, sure enough, he was right.”

Everything worked well that week in late October and early November of 1991. The galleries were substantial. There was plenty of parking outside the village and a good shuttle system to get people to the golf course. The golf course stood up to the game’s top players, who relished the old-style challenge of Donald Ross’ design. That week led to Pinehurst getting the Tour Championship for the following year, won by Paul Azinger (only six players besting par for the championship). The USGA was watching closely as well, and since the week was an overwhelming success, it soon awarded Pinehurst the U.S. Senior Open for 1994.

“I have talked to every player, and there is nobody disappointed in having Pinehurst No. 2 back in the world of golf in the way it has been through its history,” Beman said. “This is a very special place. It is not going to disappoint anyone. It is an absolute delight to be here.”

The golf media waxed poetically on regional and national levels about the singular atmosphere of Pinehurst, the direction the club seemed to be headed under Dedman’s leadership, and the appeal of championship golf on a classic Ross-designed course. Corso still gets chills 25 years later remembering Jack Whitaker waxing poetically on ABC-TV and saying the golf tour was richer for having been to Pinehurst.

Ron Green Sr. in The Charlotte Observer hooked onto the Friday evening unveiling ceremony of a statue of Donald Ross as a watershed kernel.

“For an old hanger-around who happens to think this village is a little patch of heaven, there was a sense that it was more than an unveiling of the great architect’s likeness, that it was also an unveiling of Pinehurst today,” Green wrote.

Golf Digest’s Jaime Diaz, a New York Times correspondent then but a Moore County resident now, put Pinehurst in perspective in tying up a year in golf that saw the four majors contested on Augusta National, Hazeltine, Royal Birkdale and Crooked Stick, and the Ryder Cup on the Ocean Course at Kiawah.

“If the Tour Championship proved anything definitive, it is that Pinehurst No. 2 was the most evocative tournament arena of the year and should continue to have a major presence in American golf,” Diaz offered.

Throughout the two weeks of the 1991 and ’92 Tour Championships, the themes of introduction and renewal emerged.

Old fans of Pinehurst returned:

“I don’t know how they played this course in the early 1900s with hickory shafts,” said Chip Beck, a Fayetteville native and winner of the Donald Ross Memorial as a teenager. “Donald Ross must have been the toughest, hard-nosed architect in the world, because this course has stood the test of time.

“A course like this puts golf in perspective. It has maintained its history and tradition for so long. It’s like Fenway Park or Wrigley Field. It’s a standard to judge by.”

And new fans were born:

“This is the type golf course I could play every day of my life,” Greg Norman said.

“There is so much emphasis today on hitting balls 250 yards over water,” Baker-Finch said. “But this was how golf was meant to be played, the old style.”

“The whole experience is awesome — the village, the hotel, the golf course,” said Lee Janzen. “This is a golf town, all the way. It’s a great place to come, and I wish we’d play here every year.”

One of the most attentive spectators in 1991 was the USGA’s Fay. In the two years since the USGA had brought its Women’s Amateur to Pinehurst, USGA and Pinehurst officials had begun serious conversations about Pinehurst hosting a U.S. Open at some point in the late 1990s. Pinehurst, in fact, would make an official presentation in June 1992 to the USGA’s Championship Committee. The group voted in that meeting at Pebble Beach that an Open would, in fact, be set for Pinehurst, provided the club would rebuild what were considered substandard greens for elite competition in the summer, and the 1999 Open was announced the following June.

“I was very interested to see how the course would play for the Tour Championship,” Fay said. “I was interested to see if people would get romantic about a course. I was curious to see if time had passed it by. It hadn’t.”

The dominoes have been falling for quarter of a century.  PS

Lee Pace’s first book on Pinehurst, Pinehurst Stories, was released just weeks before the 1991 Tour Championship.

Safe at Any Speed

A road trip in an old Bronco travels a well-worn path

By Tom Bryant

Summer had been as promised — hot, hot and hotter. Now, September is here with shorter days and cooler nights, a blessing to those of us who think a half-day bottled up in the house to escape the blistering afternoon heat is some kind of imprisonment.

Linda, my bride, was off to the beach with some of her old college friends and I was hanging around the homestead, trying to put my hunting gear in some semblance of order. Dove season came in on Saturday, and as expected, it was hot and dry with just a few birds flying. Die-hard hunters sat in the middle of the field and sweated, hoping an unsuspecting wayward dove would come within range. A few of us old-timers knew better and found shade in the tree line. No self-respecting dove would be flying in this heat in the middle of the day. Late that afternoon, I was lucky, though, and able to get four big doves.

When the hunt was over I went home, cleaned the birds and grilled them for supper. There was a quarter moon that evening and a fleeting breeze ruffled the dogwood leaves, giving a false sense of coolness. After supper, I kicked back on the porch, enjoyed a nightcap and listened to the evening sounds. Cicadas were calling in earnest, trying to make up for, in a few days, what they had missed by living underground for seven years. A hound dog bayed in the distance, complaining about being cooped up while coons and coyotes roamed about. I was hot and tired and needed a bath but decided to have another little libation before retiring for the evening. Sunday I planned to ride up to Slim’s Country Store, one of my very favorite places, and visit with my longtime friend and hunting buddy Bubba.

For some reason, it was a restless night, so rather than tossing and turning anymore, I got up early, put on a pot of coffee and made a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. I had loaded my ancient Bronco with some provisions the evening before: a cooler, my gunning bag, an old shotgun and a pistol just in case I ran into some hostiles on the way. The old truck is not air-conditioned, so I thought an early start would be advisable before the sun really went to work. There was a gray tint in the dawning sky as I pointed my trusty steed north, and we drove a quiet, lonesome road heading out of town.

The Bronco and I go way back. If I could remember all the adventures I’ve had with her, I could write a book. She’s slow, geared for the backcountry, not the breakneck speed of major highways; consequently, I just drive her on country roads, top speed 55. She’s a meanderer, but off the road she can’t be beat. She has never stranded me in the backwoods.

Very few people were up and about on this lazy Sunday morning, and we had a restful ride. Country farming in early fall is sort of halfway. Harvesting is just getting started, with acres of corn still to be combined, and I noticed that a lot of soybean fields were still green, just beginning to turn brown around the edges.

Moving out of the longleaf pine belt into hardwoods of oak, maple and hickory is like visiting another country. Rolling hills with cut hayfields and pastures with Black Angus cattle resting nose-to-nose next to a shaded creek is something that most folks don’t see that often. My affinity for country air started when I was a youngster, and if I don’t get a whiff of it every now and then, I can become as surly as a saddle bronc that hasn’t been ridden in a while.

I had all the windows down in the Bronco and the back gate fully up, so the ride north to Slim’s was pleasant and a little windy. The sun was steadily climbing and bearing down, promising another stifling day. The country store that was my destination was only about an hour away, and I looked forward to seeing all the good old boys and again listening to some tall tales that the old place seemed to generate. I hadn’t been in this part of the state in a while and was excited about prospects for the day. Bubba was supposed to meet me about 9, and we were going to ride out to check on one of our duck hunting spots from long ago.

Bubba and I are longtime friends. I first met him when he was a fledging executive with his family’s textile manufacturing company. I was just out of the Marine Corps, newly married and just starting my newspaper career after finally finishing college. We were like most young adults that age, ready to make our mark on the world, with a couple of exceptions. I had been given a real dose of reality with the Marines, and Bubba also had to grow up fast. Textiles were just beginning to leave the country. Mexico and China were making inroads into what had once been the South’s major manufacturing asset. Bubba and his other executives had all they could do to keep the plant productive and profitable. The years plowed on, though, and we remained close friends, as they say, through thick and thin.

Slim’s place, an old family country store, is a rarity in this age of big box giant retailing businesses, where big is supposedly automatically better. At Slim’s, a customer gets more than just goods. There is a camaraderie that you will not find at Wally World. Everybody knows everybody and is actually concerned with the well-being of neighbors. I’m afraid that when these old places are finally history, part of the backbone of country living will also be gone.

Bubba was standing on the steps of the store when I pulled into the gravel parking lot. He hasn’t changed much over the years, a rangy white-headed fellow now with a mustache to match. He would have been comfortable riding with Stuart during the Big War, or pushing cattle across the Red River in Texas. He’s the kind of guy everybody wants in their foxhole.

“Hey, Coot,” he exclaimed as I climbed out of the Bronco. “That old truck is still getting you around. Good to see you.” Bubba gave me the nickname Cooter years ago and refuses to let it drop. As far as he’s concerned, I’ll be Cooter as long as we’re on this Earth. Maybe even St. Peter knows me by that name now.

“Yeah, Bubba, she’s like us, old and slow, but the motivation is still there.” I went up the steps and Bubba grabbed me around the shoulders.

“Come on in, Coot. I just made a new pot of coffee and I got some of Ritter’s famous apple brandy sweetener just for you. We need to talk about the coming duck season. I have some good spots lined up.”

We went on in through the double screen doors and I greeted some of the regulars. I got a mug from the coffee bar, poured it about half full and said, “All right, Bubba, where is that famous sweetener?” He grinned, reached in his ever-present gunning bag, and pulled out a flask.

Yes, sir, it’s going to be a good day. PS

Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist.

Woman in the Garden

Mother was a city girl who became a whiz at making things grow

By Joyce Reehling

The last time I pulled a weed in a vegetable patch was somewhere in the ’60s, and I don’t mean my age. Our family lived in a rural part of Maryland, and we always had a vegetable garden. We had tomatoes of several varieties, corn, lettuces and other things that came and went. Some vegetables got kicked off the list if we didn’t like them, or they didn’t grow and can well.

My mother was a city girl from Baltimore, and the idea that she ended up plunked down in a rural county and adapted so well to the life is nothing short of a miracle. She had my twin sister and me, which was enough to kill some women right there. She learned to can or, as a friend always said, “put up,” tomatoes — stewed and otherwise — green beans, corn and I don’t know what all. She did it to save money, which our little family needed.

Our beloved neighbor, John Howard, came down our long gravel drive with his team of horses and a plow to churn up our back garden area. There was plenty of room for long rows of corn and tomatoes, beans and what you will. John loped down the lane and set to work while we twins badgered him with questions about the horses.

Once done, we waited for Dad to return from some sales trip. Now, this was not your semi-glamorous business trip. Dad drove a 1953 Chevy, his car of choice until he threw her over for a Fiat and its scarce spare parts — another story and another reason my mother showed restraint. His territory meant days, and sometimes weeks, on the road. No fancy hotels for him, just clean, humble motels. It sounded like a great life to us as kids. Now, I know better.

He took great joy in the garden planting. When he left on his next trip, it was Mom and her child laborers who watered, weeded and harvested. Mainly weeded. We were told to weed in the early morning but, to our eternal regret, always put it off. There is no joy in weeding — not no way, not no how.

But, the perfect joy of playing in the hot sun and grabbing a ripe tomato, washing it off under the hose with cold water pumped from our well cannot be equaled. There is something about the heat of the sun in the tomato, and the cold of the well water on the skin. Delicious and pristine in flavor.

The canning would begin, and the heat in the kitchen was nearly unbearable. Air conditioning was years in the future. My mom, slight as she was, was lifting big pots of water and bunches of hot jars. My ears still ring with, “You get away from there while I do this,” words spoken only around the hot water. I can see her still with her hair plastered against her head, red-faced and determined. Gardening was not for the faint of heart, then or now, if you are not blessed with a cool place to “put up.”

Mom had more gardens than I can count. She put up tons of food and managed not to kill anyone while she did it. Nor did she take to drink or drugs which, given the heat, a set of twins and, later, two other girls 18 months apart, tells you a lot about inner strength.

My father took charge of the garden when he was home. A Marine in World War II, he assumed control — if not expertise — and ran us like a little battalion. It’s true, we did not always cry when his car pulled out of the drive. Weeding can do that to you.

The year my father planted enough potatoes to feed all of Maryland was almost the end. We had potatoes piled so high in the dirt cellar you couldn’t see a 12-year-old child on the other side. Rebellious cries of “not more potatoes” began to be heard at dinner in our home.

It is only a strong woman who doesn’t either leave or take up a gun after a summer like that. Women have the strength of 10 when it comes to the must-dos of life. Stand back and bet on ’em each and every time. Or starve.  PS

Joyce Reehling is a veteran actor of stage and screen and an old friend of PineStraw.