Tag: Department

Southwords

A Taste for Golf

Sometimes it just comes naturally

By Emilee Phillips

Golf and I go way back. My earliest memory of a golf ball was at my uncle’s wedding. It was held at a country club somewhere in Iowa. I assume it was flat and kind of cornfieldy. I was 4 and given the honor of being one of the flower girls.

During the rehearsal dinner, we were in one of the many swanky dining rooms in a confusing maze of swanky rooms that I’m still not sure were all dedicated exclusively to our party. Nonetheless, little ol’ me scouted out the place. After all, there were three flower girls, surely they didn’t need all of us.

Central to the decorating theme, there were golf balls on every table — but not just any golf balls. These were regulation-sized, pure white chocolate golf balls. There was one at each place setting in the room.

I’m not sure if someone suggested the idea, as kids do, or if I arrived at it all on my own, but I decided to lick one. Having once discovered the delectable goodness — of which there seemed to be an unlimited quantity — I made it my mission to taste as many as I could.

Seeing teeth marks sunken into a golf ball may be something out of the fever dream of a high handicapper, but to my young eyes, the sight of my teeth carving a smooth path out of the dimpled outer shell was mesmerizing.

The trance was broken when my mother ripped a golf ball, a mere shell of its former self, out of my hand. By that point it was too late. I don’t know how many I had already bitten into, but I can tell you I know what it’s like to overindulge at the 19th hole. My “hangover” may have been sugar induced, but my head felt it all the same.

Looking out on the golf course the next day, I naturally associated feeling like garbage with the little white balls people seemed to take such delight in striking. Fists clenched, I said to myself, So that’s why they hit them so hard. And, yes, I still hate white chocolate.

My next run-in with a golf course wasn’t until high school, when I moved to Pinehurst. Like Starbucks in Manhattan, there seemed to be a golf course on every corner.

While I still don’t know much about golf, I am learning. I know that there are 18 holes in a standard game of golf, and that the term “birdie” has nothing to do with fingers. Peak season in North Carolina is spring and fall, presumably because it’s not too hot or too humid. I’m also told that the tiny craters on a golf ball serve more than an aesthetic purpose and actually have aerodynamic properties to make the balls travel faster or farther, or whatever, through the air.

I’m aware that being on a golf course is like being in a theater after the curtain has gone up. One should be mostly quiet and mostly respectful of those trying to focus on the task at hand. I’ll likely never understand what goes into a perfect swing. But I know it’s supposed to be repetitive, like eating every bit of chocolate in sight. PS

Emilee Phillips is PineStraw’s director of social media and digital content.

Simple Life

Poorman’s Guide to Domestic Bliss

Even unconditional love has its conditions

By Jim Dodson

Wives, does your husband suffer from RRBS, also known as Recurring Refrigerator Blindness Syndrome?

The symptoms are relatively easy to diagnose. Your husband is making himself the first locally-grown tomato sandwich of the season and opens the refrigerator in search of Duke’s Mayonnaise. He scans the refrigerator shelves for three full minutes, increasingly agitated as he shifts jars of pickles, and containers of mystery meat and cottage cheese hither and yon.

Finally, after shifting the contents of the entire refrigerator around and even checking the vegetable and meat bins for the missing mayonnaise, he straightens up and loudly declares one of two things:

“This is ridiculous! I know we have mayonnaise! I saw it in here yesterday!”

Or, alternatively, with a wail of wounded resignation, “Honey, where’s the G#%@* mayonnaise? You said you just bought a brand-new jar this week. Someone must have taken it!”

Commonly, what happens next is the victim’s wife calmly appears, opens the refrigerator, and, within seconds, presents the aggrieved spouse with a fresh new jar of Duke’s Mayonnaise. Turns out, the mayonnaise was partially hidden behind a carton of orange juice last used by said victim, apparently in plain view only to the average female person.

If you live in my house, this happens on an almost daily basis.

Yes, I suffer from Recurring Refrigerator Blindness Syndrome.

But I am not alone.

There are untold millions of us out here who suffer instantaneous blindness whenever we open the refrigerator in search of condiments, cold pizza, leftover mac-and-cheese or the last piece of chocolate meringue pie.

Moreover, according to the National Association of Endangered Domestic Tranquility, refrigerator blindness isn’t the only condition that strikes the average married American male, placing undue stress on relations with wives, visiting mothers-in-laws and elderly aunts.

Tranquility experts cite a commonly related condition known as DAS or Dishwasher Avoidance Syndrome that afflicts an estimated 87 percent of men married an average of 10 years or more. DAS is defined as a chronic inability to correctly load and unload (much less operate) a German-built dishwasher without proper supervision by someone familiar with the machine’s standard operating procedures, typically a married person of the female persuasion.

Sufferers generally avoid this normal everyday household task by poorly hand-washing dirty dishes and used glassware whenever the domestic partner is out of the house, not only resulting in suspiciously spotted dishware, but unnecessary use of precious water. A related inability to operate the average clothes washing machine and reach into a clogged garbage disposal have also been documented in some cases.

In addition, studies conducted on the average suburban American male reveal at least two other common stress-inducing habits that take place outside of the home.

The first is LGLP or Lost Grocery List Phenomenon, generally affecting mature to elderly husbands who volunteer to go to the store for their wives with a list of a dozen essential items and return hours later with chips, salsa, three or more frozen pizzas, a six-pack of craft beer, the wrong dishwasher liquid, a set of half-price blinking Christmas lights, four Tahitian patio sconces, a tub of rainbow sherbet, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Guide to Home Auto Repair (sixth edition) and only four of the 12 items on the original list, which was somehow lost in transit to the store. An unsupervised return to the store is sometimes undertaken with a revised shopping list safety pinned to the sufferer’s sweater.

Finally, there is the all-too-common domestic problem of UHIC, better known as Unfinished Home Improvement Complex, an affliction in which various do-it-yourself home projects have been sitting idle, unfinished or simply forgotten since the first Obama administration. This includes, but is not limited to, half-tiled bathroom walls; toilets that don’t properly flush; mountains of pricey hardwood mulch left in the backyard so long they’re sprouting young trees; doors that never quite close; suspicious sounds beneath the house; the broken doorbells; half-installed home security systems; and driveway sinkholes.

Curiously, in the interest of saving time and money, the typical victim of UHIC routinely stalks the aisles of Lowe’s or Home Depot, dreaming up ambitious new home improvement projects that will make home life easier but don’t stand a chance of ever being completed.

Yes, wives, you know these conditions all too well.

Sadly, there’s no known cure for any of these domestic maladies just yet. But there is hope in the form of a newly created self-help grassroots organization called Building Better Husbands, designed to afford hard-working wives like you the opportunity to network and share creative ideas on how to make their homes happier places and spouses more thoughtful and responsive. Look for chapters forming in your neighborhood soon. BYOB (or two).

A final word to my fellow sufferers.

This Mother’s Day, fellas, let’s give the little lady of the house a break by picking up the slack on normal domestic duties, finishing those pesky home projects, even reading the appliance operating instructions and learning to go to the grocery store only once without a list pinned to your golf shirt.

Meantime, it’s probably best to avoid calling your wife “the little lady” or, for that matter, never ever asking me to put my hand in a clogged garbage disposal.

Some old habits die hard, I guess. PS

Jim Dodson can be reached at jwdauthor@gmail.com.

2024 Department Simple Life

Bookshelf

May Bookshelf

FICTION

Rednecks, by Taylor Brown

Brimming with the high-stakes drama of America’s West Virginia mine wars of 1920-21, Rednecks tells a powerful story of rebellion against oppression. In a land where the coal companies use violence and intimidation to keep miners from organizing, “Doc Moo” Muhanna, a Lebanese-American doctor (inspired by the author’s great-grandfather), toils amid the blood and injustice of the mining camps. When Frank Hugham, a Black World War I veteran and coal miner, takes dramatic steps to lead a miners’ revolt with a band of fellow veterans, Doc Moo risks his life and career to treat sick and wounded miners, while Frank’s grandmother, Beulah, fights her own battle to save her home and grandson. The real-life, fiery Mother Jones, an Irish-born labor organizer once known as “The Most Dangerous Woman in America,” struggles to maintain the ear of the miners amid the tide of rebellion, while the sharp-shooting police chief, Smilin’ Sid Hatfield, dares to stand up to the “gun thugs” of the coal companies. Rednecks is a propulsive, character-driven tale that’s both a century old and blisteringly contemporary.

Summers at the Saint, by Mary Kay Andrews

Everyone refers to the hotel St. Cecelia as “The Saint.” Traci Eddings was one of those outsiders whose family wasn’t rich enough or connected enough to vacation there, but she could work there. One fateful summer she did — and married the boss’ son. Now, she’s the widowed owner of the hotel, determined to see it returned to its glory days, even as staff shortages and financial troubles threaten to ruin it. Enlisting a motley crew of recently hired summer help, including the daughter of her estranged best friend, Traci has one summer season to turn it around. New information about a long-ago drowning at the hotel threatens to come to light, and the tragic death of one of their own brings her to the brink of despair. She has her back against the pink-painted wall of her beloved institution, and it will take all the wits and guts she has to see wrongs put right, to see guilty parties put in their place, and maybe even to find a new romance along the way.

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, by Helen Simonson

It is the summer of 1919, and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas. Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies’ motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s recalcitrant but handsome brother, a fighter pilot wounded in battle, who warms in Constance’s presence. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

NONFICTION

The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, by Zoë Schlanger

It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit — to name just a few remarkable talents. In this eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life, and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency and consciousness.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Ahoy! by Sophie Blackall

Throw the phones in the surf and the interrupters into the brig. Then join the Captain and the Kid for a wild adventure on the high seas (well, the living room) in this rollicking romp from a Caldecott Medalist-winning author that celebrates family, fun and together time. (Ages 3-6.)

If You Want to Ride a Horse, by Amy Novesky

Step on up. Hold the reins firmly, but loosely; settle in the saddle, spine to spine; and breathe. Because . . . if you want to ride a horse, you have to be willing to fly. This lovely picture book anthem is a must for horse lovers everywhere. (Ages 4-7.)

A Rose, a Bridge and a Wild Black Horse, by Charlotte Zolotow

Spare and stunning, this reimagined classic highlights the depths of a daughter’s love for her mother. Racing the fastest cars, building the biggest castle, finding the perfect rose — they’re all symbols of honor — but taming the wildest horse and then leaving it to keep Mom company, that’s real daughter love! A Mother’s Day delight. (Ages 3-7.)

Greenwild: The World Behind the Door, by Pari Thomson

Going green gets a whole new meaning in this botanical fantasy where a stray cat, a missing mother and a dandelion paperweight are Daisy Thistledown’s ticket into a world of green magic . . . even without a grassport. Perfect for fans of Morrigan Crow, Keeper of Lost Cities or The Marvellers. (Ages 9-13.) PS

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally.

2024 Bookshelf Department

Omnivorous Reader

Sweet Memories

A year on the journey to adulthood

By Jim Moriarty

My freshman year in college was nothing like the one Stephen E. Smith writes about in his memoir The Year We Danced. And yet it was exactly the same.

For any memoir to rise above the level of that dusty old book sitting on the mantel in your grandchildren’s house, it has to reach a level of universality — no easy feat — and The Year We Danced does it without breaking a sweat. Except on the dance floor, that is.

Written with a touch of humor and a bit of heartache by one of North Carolina’s finest poets, Smith’s tale of his freshman year at, then, Elon College in 1965-66 is sweet without being sentimental, poignant without being preachy. While simultaneously being tethered to and free from his family back in Maryland, and with the escalating war in Vietnam a kind of constant buzz in the background, The Year We Danced is nothing less than the launchpad of a life, a survey course in Adult 101 — complete with its own soundtrack. Along the way we’re introduced to an endlessly entertaining cast of characters, drawn by Smith in distinctive, rich detail.

Smith’s father, the boxing coach at the U.S. Naval Academy, had taken control of his son’s college admission process in March and delivered the results in June like an uppercut:

“We were devouring Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks and oven-baked frozen French fries smothered in Hunt’s ketchup, our standard Wednesday evening fare, when he stared at me across the dinner table and stated matter-of-factly, ‘You’re going to North Carolina in the fall.’

“I froze in mid-bite, a flaky chunk of trans-fat-engrossed fish stick balanced on my fork. ‘I am?’

“‘Yeah, you’re going to Elon College,’ he continued. ‘It’s far enough away that you won’t be running home every fifteen minutes.’”

We are introduced to Grandma Drager, who “never forgave her wayward first husband and never passed up a chance to deliver a sermon on the evils of drink,” who travels 350 miles by bus to hand-deliver to a young man about to venture forth into the world a baffling bit of wisdom in six words, memorable only in their towering insignificance — “Promise me you’ll wear tennis shoes.”

Once at Elon, where Smith’s father delivers both him and the message that he doesn’t expect his son to make it through the first semester, Stephen meets his roommate, Carl, who has arranged his shoes in the closet alphabetically by brand and has a pricy collection of 30 or 40 bottles of men’s cologne in parade formation on top of his dresser. “Unfortunately, Carl was the loquacious sort. He was going to sign up for physics and run for class president in addition to majoring in German. Then he started in on his personal life. I had no choice but to lie there in the dark and listen to him brag about his girlfriend, who was a freshman at a college in Virginia, and how they were going to get married before the year was out, a notion that struck me as utterly demented.”

As it turns out, it becomes clear rather quickly that Carl could have benefited from one, or several, of Grandma Drager’s exhortations on demon rum. “In the time we shared room 218, Carl never once exchanged his sheets for clean ones, and the pile of dirty laundry on his desk had spilled onto the floor beside his bed and included many of the garments he’d so neatly arranged in the closet on the first day of orientation. He’d sold off most of his bottles of cologne for beer money, and, as nearly as I could determine, he’d quit going to class altogether.”

On the plus side, Carl became the subject of an essay written by Smith for the spine-chilling professor of English 111, Tully Reed. Smith picked a subject he knew and wrote the hell out of it. When the “The Making of a Derelict,” with copy as clean as anything that ever ran in The New Yorker, gained nothing better than a C– (the highest grade in the class), Smith screwed up the courage to find Tully in his office and ask the fearsome man why.

“‘It’s not A or B work,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘not for a college freshman.’ He handed me my essay, took a drag on his Lucky Strike and returned to slinging red ink.”

Smith’s dance partner, and surely one of the first honest loves of his life, is Blondie, an upperclassman (they weren’t gender neutral in 1965), who can power drink a PBR and dance until curfew, if not dawn. At their favored club, the Castaways, she takes flight. “As I watched, the simple truth dawned on me: We might be at a club where there was only one acceptable dance step, but if Blondie didn’t want to dance the Shag, she didn’t have to. She was beautiful, unique, and she didn’t give a damn about attracting undue attention. She wasn’t there to prove herself to anyone; she was there to have a good time, and she intended to do just that.”

Also unique, and on the other end of the spectrum from the fearsome Tully, was another English professor, Manly Wade Wellman, a prolific author who would eventually call the Sandhills home, just as Smith would and does. “Wellman was barrel-chested and wide-shouldered, his graying hair combed back from his broad forehead. His round, open face was accentuated with heavy eyebrows and a prominent nose below which was cultivated a tweedy, slightly skewed Clark Gable mustache. What was immediately appreciable was the peculiar way in which his eyes reflected light. The very tops of his dark irises flickered, suggesting an inner illumination. . . . If Wellman was insistent, he was also endearing. I was immediately convinced that this guy had a sincere interest in who I was and what I thought. He wanted to know about my latest writing project as if it were of immense concern to the literary community. ‘What are you working on?’ he asked.”

In a few short months, Smith had met both the carrot and the stick.

In the end, Blondie moves on. As all of our Blondies do. Then Smith gets the news that a boyhood friend has been killed in combat. “The spring of ’66 was early in the war, and although the weekly casualties were the highest since our involvement in Vietnam, I doubted anyone at Elon could name a friend who’d died in that distant war. I kept the news to myself.”

But not the sense of helplessness and futility. “I reviewed the times Barrie and I had spent together, my memory sliding from one image to another in no particular sequence — the hours playing hide-and-seek on dusky evenings in the little town of Easton, Maryland, the summer days I visited with him in Salisbury, where we skipped stones from the banks of the Wicomico. But what I remembered most vividly was a summer afternoon in 1957 — we were both eleven — when Barrie and I were singing our favorite top ten rock ‘n’ roll songs and I mentioned that I was fond of a country song, ‘The Tennessee Waltz.’ ‘I can teach you how to play it on the piano,’ he said, and then he sat down at the family’s upright Baldwin and with uncharacteristic purposefulness showed me how to pick out the melody on the white keys. It was a good moment to hold in memory, affirmative and focused, his casual smile, his fingers walking along the ivories.”

Smith’s memoir, to be released this month by Apprentice House Press, is packed full of good moments. If you know someone who is going to be a college freshman — or if you were ever young once yourself — this trip down memory lane is well worth taking. PS

Jim Moriarty is the Editor of PineStraw and can be reached at jjmpinestraw@gmail.com.

2024 Department Omnivorous Reader

In the Spirit

Dissecting a Cocktail

By Tony Cross

Its origin dates to the early 1900s, and its recipe was first printed in the 1920s. I’ve found various sources that have differing opinions on which bar and what bartender had the first recipe, but many agree that the mojito we all now love and cherish was the drink famously served at Sloppy Joe’s in Havana, Cuba.

There are different ways to attack the execution of this cocktail — some bartenders prefer to build this drink in the glass that they are serving it in, while others employ tins to shake the mint, lime, sugar and rum. I’ve practiced both methods, and I prefer the former. No matter which one you choose, one thing should not be overlooked: Do not annihilate your mint.

Mojito

Specifications

3/4 ounce fresh lime juice

1/2 ounce rich simple syrup (or 1 tablespoon organic cane sugar)

8-12 mint leaves

2 ounces white rum

2-3 ounces club soda

4 drops salt solution (optional)

Mint sprig for garnish

Execution

Combine lime juice, syrup or sugar and mint leaves in a Collins glass. Gently press and twist to express mint oils. (If you’re using cane sugar, you can mix with lime juice before adding mint to dissolve. Bartender and author Garret Richard has a great hack: Use a milk frother — it’s perfect.) Add rum and cracked ice. Gently stir. Top with more cracked or crushed ice and garnish with mint sprig. PS

Tony Cross owns and operates Reverie Cocktails, a cocktail delivery service that delivers kegged cocktails for businesses to pour on tap — but once a bartender, always a bartender.

2024 Department In the Spirit

Hometown

Quiet Time

A tranquil week at Weymouth

By Bill Fields

It’s always great to come to Southern Pines, but a return last fall was special. I’d passed the hounds on Ridge Street marking the entrance to the Boyd House many times — walking, on my bike or in a car — going back to when I started elementary school in the mid-1960s. In November, though, I drove up Vermont Avenue, crossed Ridge and went through the stone canines.

For the first time, I wasn’t just passing by; I was arriving to settle in for a week at Weymouth as a writer-in-residence. My writing chops pale in comparison to some of the authors who have graced the estate going back more than a century, but I was certain no visitor had closer roots given that I’d grown up only three blocks away. Not only was I excited to see what I could get done over seven days in an inspiring environment, I was proud to be there.

I was booked to bunk in a room named for Max Perkins, the legendary book editor who helped shape 20th-century American literature with his vital ties to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and North Carolinian Thomas Wolfe, among others. The room assignment pleased me. As I unpacked, I recalled reading A. Scott Berg’s 1978 biography Max Perkins: Editor of Genius while in college. Given that typing a high school hoops gamer on deadline in the sports department of the Durham Morning Herald was the big time at that point in my life, discovering Perkins’ New York world was a revelation.

By week’s end — when two fellow resident writers and I celebrated with a lovely dinner at Ashten’s and afterward shared aloud samples of what we’d produced while at Weymouth — I’d written thousands of words for what I hope will someday be a memoir. My output, in longhand (I was reminded of the pleasure of a fountain pen) and on my laptop, didn’t quite reach the five-figure goal I’d set for myself. Yet as I waved goodbye to the dogs as I left the property and began the long drive home to Connecticut, I realized that my time at Weymouth shouldn’t be measured by word count alone.

If I’m not careful, I watch too much television and spend too much time on social media. While staying in the Boyd House, I watched no TV and paid scant attention to what was being said online. In that small bedroom and in those large common rooms alike, I had time to think.

I’m not nearly as plugged in as some people, and my texting thumbs will never reach warp speed. Stepping out of a normal routine for a week, however, and holing up in a place where the point is to get away from everything, made it easier to realize just how much sway technology holds over us.

It was quiet at Weymouth. The lack of noise took me back to late night studying in an unlocked classroom building not far from Old West dormitory, or the hours in a lonesome carrel in the Wilson Library stacks. I’ve written plenty of stories over the years in crowded press rooms, and there is satisfaction in tuning out the surroundings and turning out smooth copy in time to make an editor happy.

But I think my best work has come in quiet hotel rooms after golf tournaments, when Sunday night has turned into Monday morning and, somehow, a couple of thousand words were on the page by dawn and by deadline, in an order that mostly made sense.

Months after my peaceful week at Weymouth, I don’t get the message on my smartphone that my screen usage has been up as often as it used to. Not only did I write something there, I learned something too. PS

Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent.

2024 Department Hometown

Birdwatch

The Hidden Hawk

Looking for the elusive broad-winged

By Susan Campbell

All of us are aware of hawks in the landscape — no matter where in North Carolina we may be. We are fortunate to have a diversity of raptors in our state. These birds are formidable hunters that use their talons to grab unsuspecting prey of varying kinds. The most noticeable are larger species such as red-tailed hawks that sit in the open on stout branches or snags, and in the absence of natural perches, can be seen on fence posts or telephone poles. But there are hawks that are more secretive and spend most of their time hidden. One of these is the broad-winged hawk. This species is smaller in size and is more likely to be found in swampy woods. Happily, they are now returning from their wintering grounds in Central and South America.

These birds seem to enjoy the diversity of prey in wetter habitats. Mind you, I do not see these diminutive but magnificent birds regularly but, as with so many species during the breeding season, I hear them advertising their presence. Their call is a high-pitched whistle, unlike any other bird in our area. Being heard and not seen may be a strategy for these birds, given their smaller size: close to that of a crow. Often living within the boundaries of other, larger hawks — such as a red-shouldered — being less visible is a distinct advantage.

Not surprisingly, given their size, broad-wingeds often go unnoticed. They are birds of the forest and, given their dark coloration, blend in well with their surroundings. But that doesn’t mean they’re drab. These stocky little hawks have reddish heads and handsome barred underparts that match their boldly barred tails. Only the keenest of birders will likely spot them unless they’re migrating, when they congregate in large numbers (even into the thousands) in certain locations. At these raptor “hot spots” the birds can be seen soaring in circles, forming large “kettles” on updrafts, gaining altitude early in the day. Broad-wingeds, like many other hawks, use upper air currents to make their long journey a bit easier. Unlike most of our local hawk species, these birds move back and forth between the eastern United States and central to northern South America during the year.

In the Piedmont, the species can be found in hardwood or mixed pine/hardwood forest. The courtship ritual is breathtaking, involving “skydiving” — circling high in the sky followed by a rapid dive. The pair will nest in the lower limbs of a mature tree, usually close to water or some sort of opening in the canopy. The parent hawks will feed their young everything from mice to frogs, lizards to large insects. Since broad-winged hawks are easily disturbed, they are rarely seen outside of rural areas.

Should you be out hiking at Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve in Southern Pines or at, say, Haw River State Park in Browns Summit, keep an eye out — as well as an ear — you just may spot an elusive broad-winged. PS

Susan Campbell would love to hear from you. Feel free to send questions or wildlife observations to susan@ncaves.com.

2024 Birdwatch Department

Southwords

“I See Great Things in Baseball”

The boys of spring, summer and fall

The first time I saw Jim “Catfish” Hunter up close was during spring training in the late ’70s. The New York Yankees, who trained in Fort Lauderdale, were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates, who called Bradenton their winter home. We drove south all night and managed to get to Florida in time to see a game — we didn’t care which one, we were on vacation. I believe, though I can’t swear to it, that this was the year my wife, the War Department, who was educated at a fine Midwestern university famous for its engineers and astronauts, looked around the stands at the great number of people wearing black baseball caps with a gold ‘P’ on them and said, “This must be some kind of Purdue alumni society.” Of course, she hadn’t slept in 24 hours.

Anyway, we saw Hunter outside the ballpark. Like us, he was just arriving. Fueled by caffeine, we were wearing T-shirts and sunscreen. He was wearing a powder blue leisure suit and the easygoing demeanor of a man who would be spending the day lounging in the bullpen. Catfish was looking stylish — I said it was the ’70s, right? — but he had nothing on Willie Stargell, who was often seen driving around Bradenton in his Rolls-Royce.

For those who don’t remember Hunter, he won 224 games in his Hall of Fame pitching career for the A’s and the Yankees. He was an eight-time All Star and pitched for five World Series champions. Though it was Curt Flood who led the charge to overturn baseball’s reserve clause (it finally happened in 1975), Hunter became the game’s first million-dollar free agent when Charles O. Finley, owner of the A’s, failed to live up to the terms of Hunter’s contract. It was Finley who, after drafting the promising prospect from the bucolic eastern outposts of North Carolina, decided the young man with a bum foot needed a nickname. How he lit on Catfish, I have no idea. Hunter, weakened by diabetes and plagued by arm trouble, retired at the end of the ’79 season at the age of 33. He remains the last pitcher in Major League baseball to throw 30 complete games in a season. Twenty years after hanging ’em up, he died at age 53 of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The next, and last, time I saw Hunter up close was when I was sent to his home in Hertford, North Carolina — where everyone knew him only as Jimmy — to take his photograph along with his son, Todd, and his brother, Peter. Todd was 14 years old and hitting .444 for the Pirates of Perquimans County High School. Peter was the team’s coach. He was also, incidentally, the brother involved in the hunting accident that cost Jim a toe and embedded buckshot in his right foot.

Jimmy was 39, plus or minus, the day I showed up to take his picture. His most recent appearance on the mound had been in a Perquimans alumni game, where he hung a curve ball that Todd pulled down the left field line for a double. The next batter homered. Catfish did have a knack for giving up the long ball.

While Peter and I waited for Jimmy to join us for the photo shoot — it was a working farm and he was on a tractor plowing the fields behind his house — Peter was throwing a little batting practice for Catfish’s youngest son, Paul, who was maybe 6 at the time. Make no mistake, athletic genes are real. Peter would throw the ball (a regulation baseball) underhand to Paul, who kept hitting frozen ropes right back through the box. Bam. Bam. Bam. When Jimmy finally arrived, he watched his son’s hitting exhibition for a few moments in silence, then looked at his brother and said, “Throw it overhand.” With that, he went inside to clean up.

After taking a couple of photos, one with Catfish and the two Pirates posed in front of a sign painted on the side of a barn that said “The Pride of Perquimans,” Jimmy invited the War Department (my assistant) and me into his house. The balusters supporting the railing going upstairs were made completely of baseball bats. More impressive was the silver replica of the World Series trophy on the table next to the stairs.

“Reggie Jackson had this made for me,” Jimmy said. It was by way of saying thanks. Mr. October telling a teammate that, if it wasn’t for him, they never would have gotten that far.

It may only be April, but fall is always in the air. PS

Jim Moriarty is the Editor of PineStraw and can be reached at jjmpinestraw@gmail.com.

2024 Department Southwords

Simple Life

The Ever-Changing Garden

May the work never be done

By Jim Dodson

The spring gardening season officially got underway this year with the necessary removal of a 70-year-old red oak tree that threatened to fall on my garage office. Being a confirmed tree hugger and septuagenarian myself, I felt for the old boy having to come down. But I’d probably have felt worse — perhaps permanently — had the old fella decided to fall on my office with me in it.

Such is the fate of an ever-changing garden, which is a redundant phrase since every garden everywhere is ever changing, if only by a matter of degrees. Any gardener worth his mulch will tell you that the work is never finished. There’s always some new problem to contend with or a fresh inspiration incubated over dark winter days to finally put into motion. We are, as a result, forever incomplete gardeners, revising and learning as we go.

In my case, this year has been all of the above — new problems, fresh inspiration and learning as I go. As the result of the day-long operation to remove “Big Red,” as I called the elderly oak, half a dozen young plants just awakening from their winter nap had to be dug up and set aside so the crane removing the tree could navigate a path across my backyard garden, churning the ground up as it went.

I took this as a sign from on high that it was time to make several big changes in paradise. The first move came on the east side of our house where a trio of formerly well-behaved crape myrtle bushes were suddenly running amok and threatening to blot out the sun. The task of digging them out of the cold January ground proved the wisdom of Robert Frost’s elegant aphorism that the afternoon knows what the morning never suspected — i.e. that some tasks that were easy in the morning of youth prove to be monstrously difficult in the afternoon of age.

Still, I’m nothing if not a committed bugger when it comes to getting my way in a garden. After several hours of intense work with pick and shovel, all under the watchful eye of Boo Radley, the cat who suns himself in that particular part of the estate on winter days, the monstrous shrubs finally came out and I went in for a much-needed lunch break, muddy but triumphant.

“My goodness,” said my wife, stirring soup. “Who won the fight?”

You see, back in the “morning” of my gardening years — that’s five different gardens ago, by my count — Dame Wendy always found it highly amusing that I treated garden work like a full-contact sport, where blood of some sort was inevitably shed. In those days, I was so into clearing trees and rebuilding the ancient stone walls of a vanished 19th century homestead that once existed where our new post-and-beam house stood, I rarely noticed cuts, bruises or even gashes that needed a stitch or two. In those faraway days, all I needed was a long hot soak in our 6-foot Portuguese clawfoot tub, plus a couple cold Sam Adams beers to put things right.

These days, in the metaphorical “afternoon” of life, the cuts and bruises are fewer and the cure for sore muscles comes via a hot shower, a change of clothes and a nice afternoon nap with the dogs — though I have been known to wander outside just before the dinner guests arrive and get myself dirty all over again.

I think my sweet gardening obsession comes from a long and winding line of family farmers and gardeners, abetted by a childhood spent in several small towns of the South where I stayed outside from dawn till dusk, building forts in the woods, climbing trees, damming creeks and digging earthworks under the porch for my toy armies. More than once, I had to be hauled out from under the porch for church with my “good” Sunday pants streaked with red clay.

My mother, poor woman, nicknamed me “Nature Boy” and “Angel with a Filthy Face.” Worse than death was having her spit on a handkerchief to wipe a smudge of soil off my cheek as we entered the sanctuary.

Despite the damage from removing Big Red and heavy winter kill in both my side and backyard gardens this spring, I’m always nicely surprised by the resiliency of my suburban patch. One day, I’m looking at a bare perennial bed and the next, dozens of green shoots are coming up. The daffodils never fail to rise nor the cherry trees bud. The hosta plants miraculously return. The dogwoods burst into bloom and the azaleas erupt in technicolor glory.

This annual choreography of springtime is a nice reminder that we human beings do the very same thing. Nobody escapes hard winters, actual or metaphorical. The weather of life beats everyone down at some point or another. But slowly and surely, we re-emerge as the days lengthen and the sun grows warmer. Soon the sheer abundance of blossom and green makes a body forget the cold months of unseen struggle to get here.

Though I am an unapologetic fan of winter — my best season for writing, thinking and planning new adventures in the garden — the happiest time for this incomplete gardener comes when I see what managed to survive the winter and has come back with new vigor and surging optimism. Such sights make my old fingers itch to get gloriously dirty.

This spring, there will probably be a new garden shed surrounded by ferns where Big Red once stood, and old Boo Radley will have a new perennial garden full of flowers in which to sun himself on cool summer mornings. I may even finally finish the cobblestone pathway I started last year.

The job in a garden, you see, is never done. And that’s just the way I like it. PS

Jim Dodson can be reached at jwdauthor@gmail.com.

2024 Department Simple Life

Golftown Journal

A Love Affair

Payne and Pinehurst

By Lee Pace

Another U.S. Open in the offing.

And this one just so happens to roll around one neat quarter-century after one of the most famous strokes in Open history — Payne Stewart’s 20-foot putt on the final green to edge Phil Mickelson by a shot in June 1999. Three months later, Stewart was gone, the victim of a mysterious airplane malfunction that took his life and five others on a planned flight from Orlando to Dallas.

The “Payne Pose” statue sits today by the 18th green of No. 2 and is the most photographed visual in Moore County. Stewart’s spirit remains strong in other corners of town, among them at the Pine Crest Inn.

Stewart was just out of Southern Methodist University in the summer of 1979 and was preparing to compete for his PGA Tour playing privileges in the tour’s twice-a-year Qualifying School, the next one to be held in November at Waterwood National Country Club near Houston. He traveled to Pinehurst in mid-September to enter a series of four mini-tour events run by the National Golfers Association. Seventy-two hole tournaments were scheduled for Whispering Pines, Seven Lakes, Pinehurst No. 4 and Hyland Hills. The players put up their own money and competed for purses between $30,000 and $40,000 per tournament. A handful of players stayed at the Pine Crest Inn, where proprietor Bob Barrett gave them a generous price on room and board.

“It was like golf camp for a month,” remembers Peter Barrett, one of Bob’s two sons. “Payne was the funny guy of the bunch. He had control of the whole group. There were a lot of different personalities there. They were on a mission. They all had their eyes on the big-time, and they were playing with their own money. They were pretty serious, but they still had some fun.”

After the four tournaments — two won by Scott Hoch, one by Kenny Knox and one by Mike Glennon — Stewart packed up his car and was saying goodbye to Barrett in the parking lot. There he offered a marketing deal to Barrett: Stewart would put the Pine Crest’s name and logo on his bag for $500 a year. Barrett said he’d pass. Stewart had talked about a potential trip to Asia if he didn’t get through the upcoming Tour Q-School (he did, in fact, miss qualifying and go to Asia), and Barrett didn’t figure the Pine Crest needed exposure in the Far East. And $500 in 1979 was a lot of money.

“What an investment that would have been, huh?” Barrett says ruefully.

Stewart became smitten that fall with the personality of the Pine Crest, its homey feel and the ebullience of “Mr. B’s Old South Bar,” a renowned watering hole. Whenever the PGA Tour returned to Pinehurst over the years — for the Hall of Fame Classics in the early 1980s or the Tour Championships of the early 1990s — Stewart returned to the Pine Crest, if not to bed down at least to eat and drink. In the early 1990s, he negotiated his NFL clothing deal over dinner in the Crystal Room, an adjunct of the main dining room. He sang and hung out with his buddies and bet on NFL football in the bar. He also ate a lot of banana cream pie. Marie Hartsell, a cook in the inn’s kitchen for some 35 years until her retirement in 2010, prepared one of the inn’s signature desserts, and whenever Stewart visited over the years, he’d dive into a banana cream pie.

“He’d eat a whole pie by himself,” says Barrett.

Stewart rented a house on Pinehurst No. 6 during the 1999 Open but visited the Pine Crest early in the week to see his old friends. He signed his name in huge script letters on the wallpaper of the men’s rest room (an iteration of that signature is framed and hangs in the lobby today). Stewart also told Barrett he was playing quite well.

“Pete, I think I can win this thing,” he said.

Stewart spent a few minutes that evening talking to Patrick Barrett, the 9-year-old son of Bob Barrett Jr., also a son of the longtime owner of the inn. Patrick had shrugged off his introduction to golf two years earlier, primarily because it had been forced upon him by his grandfather. But now that the youngster was making his own connection to the game, golf seemed like something that might be fun to pursue. Stewart made quite an impression.

“They connected because Payne sat down, looked Patrick in the eye and made him feel special,” says Andy Hofmann, the boy’s mother. “Patrick spent the entire Open week following Stewart.”

Patrick is now 34 years old. After graduating from the University of North Carolina and playing on the Tar Heel golf team, he entered medical school and today is a surgical resident at a hospital in Seattle. Like all of us who were there somewhere along the 18th hole on June 20, 1999, he marvels that blink — 25 years are gone.

“Grandpa knew a lot of players,” Patrick says. “He knew them before they were famous because they’d stayed at the Pine Crest. The only golfers I knew then were Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. He called Payne over and introduced me. Grandpa said, ‘This guy is going to win it.’ Payne shrugged it off and said good to meet you, made a fuss over me. It was kind of embarrassing thinking back on it. I didn’t even stand up.

“He signed a piece of paper for me. It said, ‘To Patrick, keep swinging, Payne Stewart.’ I’ve got that piece of paper somewhere. Now all of a sudden golf was cool. My mom gave me lunch money and turned me loose every day that week.

“I was so short, I couldn’t see much of the action, but I could feel the energy. I was more interested in autographs and celebrities than the golf. But that week I decided I wanted to play golf, to learn the game. I was absolutely golf-obsessed from then on out. I started to play with a real purpose.”

The dominoes fell that week for Stewart. He was a “feel player” competing on a golf course that rewarded right-brained tendencies. He’d missed the cut at Memphis the week before and got to Pinehurst five days early to map out his game plan. He was playing clubs and a ball suited to his skills after a half-decade of chasing endorsements with ill-fitted implements. He had matured from his younger, petulant ways, losing on the final day of the Open at the Olympic Club in 1998 with grace and composure.

And Stewart was confident and comfortable in Pinehurst.

He made eye contact and smiled at the locals in the grocery store. He joked with the ladies at check-in on Sunday when asking for scissors to cut off the sleeves of his rain jacket (starting a new fashion trend, by the way). He had a heartfelt reunion with old friend and instructor Harvie Ward before he took off for the final round in his navy plus-fours, red/navy striped shirt, navy tam, and white socks and shoes.

“I think it’s safe to say I love Pinehurst,” Stewart said when it was over. “This is a special place. It was a perfect way to win. I think everyone in the field will attest to how great No. 2 is and what a special place this is. To win here means a lot to me. This place is a gem. It’s beautiful. It’s phenomenal. We never see a golf course like this on the tour. It’s a refreshing change of pace.”

Needless to say, the echoes from ’99 will reverberate through the pines over the coming months. PS

Author Lee Pace chronicled Payne Stewart’s magical week in 1999 in his book The Spirit of Pinehurst, published in 2004.

2024 Department Golftown Journal