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August Books

By Kimberly Daniels Taws

FICTION

Flickerstate, by F.A. Davidson

In this debut YA fantasy written by a young North Carolinian, Norah Sullivan has just discovered she’s a navigator: a person who can manipulate probability. The same day Norah’s navigation manifests, she and her father are swarmed by flickerbeasts. When a flickerbeast bites you, your risk of death skyrockets. And pretty soon, her father gets sick. Desperate to find a cure, Norah applies to the Academy of Navigation, where there are rumors of restricted information on beast bites hidden in research archives. Once on campus, Norah learns that only senior research assistants are allowed in the archives — and you can only become one by winning a team trial designed to push your navigation abilities to the brink. She’ll need to rely on her roommates, as well as her peer mentor, the handsome Vik Souza, to win the competition. But trouble arises at every turn. There are tensions in the group, romantic complications, and unexplained student disappearances. As Norah gets deeper into the competition, she realizes not everything is as it seems, and the stakes are much higher than she ever could have imagined.

Fallen for France, by Elizabeth Letts

Beddou is 6 years old when he is sent off to apprentice far from his High Atlas village in Morocco. His mother gives him six amber beads to help him find his way home. That same month, a magnificent filly is born in Fes, in the splendor of the sultan’s palace. For a brief, golden time, the mare belongs to the boy. But Beddou’s heart is broken when a soldier steals his horse and disappears into France just as the Great War roars to a start. Finding her seems impossible, but he vows to try. Estelle, a young woman in France, finds a distressed Arabian mare wandering alone in the meadow behind her house. She is determined to look after this radiant creature just as tenderly as she cares for her vulnerable younger brother. But soon her world is torn apart, and she loses both the horse and her brother. She will spend the rest of the war searching for both. Thomas is an Englishman hardened by his experience as a wartime veterinarian in France. He finds the mare and promises to protect her — and the woman who once loved her — but he doubts his own ability to keep anyone safe. As the pathways of the unforgettable mare and the boy’s desperate search intertwine, the separate strands of these strangers’ journeys converge, propelling them to make momentous choices that will change the course of their lives.

Etna, by Paul Yoon

After surviving years of a devastating war, ex-military dog Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home — to the place where he was taken from when he was young. Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are attempting to figure out how to start again. What makes a life when there is no home to go back to? How do we begin to trust each other again after such profound loss? This is a story about the power of an idea, about never giving up, and ultimately about finding hope in the most dire of times.

 

NONFICTION

 

Great and Unfortunate Things, by Jason Arday

Jason Arday was born the second youngest of three boys and grew up in a colorful and lively section of South London. At 3 years old, he was diagnosed with autism and development delays. Experts told his parents that he would never be able to speak, write or live independently. An institution would best serve his needs, it was suggested. His parents would have none of it. Instead, thinking outside the box and drawing on her faith, his extraordinary mother, Giff, embraced his neurodivergence and fiercely dedicated herself to helping her son realize a potential few others believed was possible. Giff drew on proverbs from her West African culture, popular music by the likes of Enya, and comedic television shows and movies to help Jason make sense of the world. In Great and Unfortunate Things, we see how Arday went from being nonverbal until he was 11 and illiterate until 18 to becoming a professor at Cambridge. Without romanticizing the struggle, it’s a story of a son’s determination against insurmountable odds and how his family and a band of ordinary people with extraordinary compassion joined forces to encourage Jason to believe in himself and maximize his capabilities.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

If The Moon, by Matthew Burgess, Illustrated by Matthew Forsythe

The perfect lyrical bedtime book, If the Moon is a visual poem that soothes and smooths the transition from waking to sleeping. If the Earth and if the moon, if the whistling of a tune. If you drift, if you dream, into space, into streams . . . Softly step on tender feet, come and lift the latch of sleep. (Ages 3-7.)

The Hungry Forest, by Kaela Rivera

Ryan’s dad had a lot of rules: Never let others see you cry; never let other people hear you speaking Spanish; work extra hard; make sure you always succeed. But the most important of all: Never go into the forest. Too many kids have disappeared there. Since Dad’s death, Ryan’s been following those rules to be the kind of man his father would be proud of. But his anger has been getting stronger lately, and he finds himself fighting with his little brother, Teddy, who constantly embarrasses Ryan. When Teddy hears their father calling them from the forest, he ventures inside. Ryan follows to save his brother and finds that the place is as cursed as the legends say. And if he can’t find his brother and escape the forest before sunrise, they’ll be trapped there forever. (Ages 9-14.)

The Magic Library of Waterfall Way,
by Julie Abe

The Alterran Empire hasn’t had an Unremarkable born in centuries . . . until Lyra Hunt. All Lyra wants is a guild to call home — preferably one with a library full of storybooks — but because of her cursed fate, nearly everyone has rejected her. Then Lyra stumbles upon the secretive Guild of Scholars in the cozy little village of Waterfall Way. With their tight-knit community and magical Library, this might finally be the perfect place for her. To be accepted, though, she must recover the Scholars’ crystal, the source of their magic that was lost in a terrifying fire. With the help of a mischievous new furry friend, Lyra must brave the Library’s cursed halls. Lyra may have an Extremely Unremarkable past, but she’ll do whatever it takes to find a guild — and a home — where she belongs. (Ages 8-11.)

Billy and the Hole, by Jessica Goecke

One day, Billy found a hole. It wasn’t there yesterday. But there it was, right in his favorite spot, under his favorite tree. This hole in the ground is no ordinary hole in the ground. It speaks to Billy with a voice that’s cold and hard, like ancient stone. At first, the hole in the ground is polite and kind, and tells Billy how clever he is. And, well, Billy just can’t resist his new odd friend and its nice words. But when the hole’s requests grow more extreme, and Billy can’t always meet them — Billy will have to take matters into his own hands before his new friend takes matters into its. (Ages 4-8.)

Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

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School Bell

From uniforms to hall passes

By Deborah Salomon

Back to school: three little words, tons of emotion. The event remains fresh and sharp — but not always idyllic — eight decades later.

I started kindergarten in a Manhattan family neighborhood, at a progressive all-girls school with small classes and an interesting curriculum. The poems we memorized were in French. To this day I remember one about “la maison de Madame Souris” being “tres jolie.”

Madam Souris was a mouse.

We learned addition and subtraction with big, natural wood building blocks.

Cartoon characters did not invade our learning space.

We visited museums en masse, dressed in navy blue jumper uniforms with plain white blouses and, ugh, brown lace-ups.

This school believed in streaming quick learners into a higher grade. I was a quick-learn reader, so at the end of second grade I got skipped to fourth. Nobody noticed that I struggled with multiplication “tables.” Administration thought that since my mother had been a high school math teacher with an M.A. from Columbia University her daughter wouldn’t stumble on 12 x 9. So they gave her a pile of flash cards to wear out during summer vacation.

Another weak point: telling time, since at home we had the first electric digital clock, with numbers that clicked into place.

That mid-1940s summer was spent in back-to-school dread. Even now, in a digital world, I wear only a clock-face watch lest I forget.

That resolved, I loved fourth grade and especially fifth grade where my teacher, Miss Parrot, lived up to her name by wearing jungle prints in neon colors.

We moved to Asheville at the beginning of sixth grade. I was enrolled in public school, about 30 students per class, including boys, with their “best” teacher — a lovely, kind, welcoming woman who spoke more Tennessee than French. I couldn’t understand a word she said.

Dungarees were for weekends only. Here, the “uniform” was a plaid cotton dress and saddle shoes from Sears. My mother had other ideas. So did the teaching staff. “Move her up to seventh grade,’’ they recommended.

Seventh grade was in another building, where students changed classes every hour. Remember, I was already a year younger than my classmates. Junior high is no place for a terrified 11-year-old whose knowledge of the South came from reading Gone with the Wind.

Thank goodness I wasn’t forced.

So I spent sixth grade — still shaky on multiplying 12s — learning about schoolgirl cliques formed in utero. Back-to-school meant so much more than blue cloth-covered ring binders and No. 2 lead pencils. The squeals of best-friend reunions, for the most part, left me out.

Eventually I achieved “in” but that’s another story. I’m still shaky on multiples of 12. No problem since every electronic device includes a calculator.

Free public education is a many-splendored thing. Pre-Google students learned how to research a subject, sometimes for a “project,” which sent us running to encyclopedias and old Life magazines. Artificial intelligence was as foreign a concept as walking on the moon.

True, a few hallmarks of back-to-school haven’t changed: Some kids will sport braces, others will have grown tall. There will always be the right shoes or sweater, but by 11th grade that nerdy little Yankee who knows a smattering of French will succeed — or get even — by making cheerleader.

Newspaper photographers regularly cover back-to-school, looking for an apprehensive first-grader who clings to Mommy — or Daddy —  which makes the nostalgic me want to whisper in his/her ear, “Don’t worry, sweetie. Just hang in there. Life’s not all multiplication tables.” 

Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

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The Survivor

A little geranium that could

By Deborah Salomon

Of all the things I wanted in vain, the most poignant is a garden. Not that I had gardening parents or the proper geography. My first 11 years were spent in a New York City apartment. However, the seed was planted, so to speak, during summers spent with my grandparents in Greensboro, where Granddaddy had a huge plot. Early mornings and late afternoons (after returning from hours of laying bricks in the scorching sun), he grew vegetables for the family table. I trailed along behind . . . “helping.”

Ah, the tomatoes, their shiny skin bursting with juice. The okra, beans, “English” peas. The heavenly corn. The “greens.”

Nanny’s zinnias, equally amazing.

I marveled that every one started as a tiny seed. How did that happen, deep beneath the sodden earth?

My adult years were spent in less garden-worthy climates, part of a family committed to sports, not prized roses. Besides, I had hayfever, made worse by sticking my face into a flower bed. I didn’t derive pleasure from fighting bugs or pulling weeds. They always win.

Still, every spring I would buy a big geranium, which I “planted” in a clay pot and set on the front steps. Driving directions always ended with, “Ours is the house with the red-pink-violet-white geranium on the steps.”

Never orange. Orange-ish geraniums lack elegance.

We moved several times as the children grew up, then left. The late ’80s found me in a little house in Vermont built against a steep hill, which meant an aboveground walk-out basement, with windows and wide sills, finished off as a guest bedroom. At the end of October I brought the geranium in, cut down the stem, put the pot on the sill, closed the curtains and forgot about it.

The basement bedroom got little use that winter. By May it needed a good cleaning. I pulled up the shade . . . and gasped. Out of the shriveled stalk grew a tiny green shoot with one mini-leaf. The soil was dry, hard after no water for six cold, dark months. Only now the sun streaming through the window promised warmth, longer and better days. This tiny kernel of life had received the message and responded.

I recall shedding a tear, then consulting a garden-club friend for instructions on how to proceed: Don’t flood it, she said. Just a spoonful of warm water near the stem, every day — and don’t move it. Nature has found a way.

I was touched and, once again, saddened that I hadn’t made growing part of my life, not because I wanted a house full of fresh flowers, or white eggplant for supper. Rather, to see what a tiny seed can do to survive.

Up North, folks plant or put out flowers around Memorial Day. My geranium, relocated to the front steps, was coming along but nothing like the MiracleGro specimens from the nursery.

A neighbor asked why I hadn’t replaced the scrawny survivor.

No, no, I responded, anthropomorphically. I like this one’s spirit.

I have told the geranium story before, when times were tough. This past winter brought some health challenges that linger. Adjusting isn’t easy. Then, seemingly out of nowhere the spunky little geranium came to mind, symbolizing the garden I never had but also suggesting resilience. 

I haven’t had a front stoop geranium for a while. The clay pot kept getting knocked over by a Southern Pines raccoon. Geraniums are expensive. Ditto clay pots. But, given the mess the world is in, maybe I should head over to the farmers market for a little encouragement.

Dissecting a Cocktail

DISSECTING A COCKTAIL

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Paloma

By Tony Cross

When it comes to tequila cocktails, there are none that come close in popularity to the margarita. Though not nearly as popular, the cocktail that is next in line is the paloma. A very simple drink to make, the paloma is light, refreshing, and perfect for hot weather sipping.

Spanish for “the dove,” the paloma was supposedly created by bartender Don Javier Delgado Corona (more names than ingredients in the drink) in Tequila, Jalisco — though I’ve read that Corona has denied that claim. The easiest, and most probable, story is that the drink was created when the grapefruit soda, Squirt, was popularized in Mexico in the 1950s. Tequila over ice, topped with the sweet carbonated beverage seems like a no-brainer.

That’s one way to make a paloma, but there are others. Regardless of the version you choose, you’ll want to be sure to use a blanco tequila — it has all of the flavor you’ll want that hasn’t been adulterated with notes of vanilla or cinnamon. And by all means, save the aged agave for imbibing neat or in stirred cocktails. The paloma also requires fresh grapefruit, lime, a sweetener and sparkling water.

If there is a cocktail that has anything carbonated in it, I want the whole thing carbonated. Mixing a carbonated liquid and a still liquid quickly flattens whatever bubbles existed in the first place. For me, it’s all or nothing. To achieve this, I clarify the grapefruit and lime juices using a centrifuge, then add the juices to a stainless steel keg with sugar, water and tequila. I carbonate everything in the keg for 24 hours and then pour on draught.

There is, of course, the question of salt. Yes, you can add it to the rim of your glass à la a margarita, but I would suggest adding it to the cocktail itself. The addition amplifies the citrus flavors. Making a 4:1 (water: salt) saline solution is the easiest way for me to stay consistent (I use 80 grams of water to 20 grams of Celtic salt). Try a paloma with Squirt and then try making it from scratch with the recipe on the right, and decide which one you prefer. I guarantee either one will help beat the summer heat.

Specifications

2 ounces blanco tequila

1½ ounces grapefruit juice

½ ounce fresh lime juice

½ ounce simple syrup

5 drops saline solution

1½ ounces sparkling water

 

Execution

Add all ingredients (sans sparkling water) into a cocktail shaker and add ice. Shake hard and strain into a Collins glass over ice. Top with sparkling water. Stir briefly. Garnish with grapefruit or lime wedge, grapefruit peel or nothing at all.

Golftown Journal

GOLFTOWN JOURNAL

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Thirty Something

Standing the test of time

By Lee Pace

Photographs by Ryan Montgomery

In the decade that Bob McCann has been the owner of Forest Creek Golf Club, he’s developed a deep respect for the position the club’s South Course holds in the minds and hearts of its members.

“There is something about the South Course that is so special,” McCann says. “People get romantic about it. They like the North Course. But they really love the South Course.”

Both courses are the work of noted golf architect Tom Fazio, the South opening in 1996 and the North following in 2005 as the lynchpins of a club and residential community just northeast of the village of Pinehurst. Terry Brown, the original developer, hired Fazio to design both courses and gambled that one man could create two vastly different experiences on the same piece of property.

“I can certainly argue that we created two contrasting styles at the same address — as much as if we’d done one course and someone else had done the other,” Fazio says. “The South Course has an Augusta look and feel with gently flowing lines, wintertime overseeding and big, white-splashed bunkers. The North favors a course like Pine Valley with lots of sand, irregular boundaries and native grasses popping through wide expanses.”

The South was named one of the top three Best New Residential Courses of 1996 by Golf Digest. Mike Keiser, the developer of golf destinations such as Bandon Dunes in Oregon and Cabot Links in Nova Scotia, ranks Forest Creek as No. 5 in a personal list of the best private clubs in the United States with two or more courses, following Winged Foot, Baltusrol, Olympia Fields and Monterey Peninsula.

“I am such a fan of Forest Creek,” Keiser says. “Both courses are so well done. They were built as golf first, clubhouse and residential second. That shows you where the focus was, and it’s certainly worked out. They have two wonderful courses. Tom Fazio is brilliant. He made them look so different, and that’s hard to do.”

Now 30 years into its existence, the South Course is closed and is getting a major overhaul, and will reopen in October. Green complexes and bunkers are being rebuilt to modern maintenance and playability standards. The irrigation system will be brand new. Select trees are being culled to help with sunlight and air flow, particularly around the greens. And the original bent grass greens are being replaced with hybrid Bermuda.

For years, Forest Creek prided itself on having Bermuda greens on the North and bent on the South, with one of the two courses being in perfect condition at any given point in the year — the Bermuda surfaces on the North being healthy during the dog days of August, and the bent of the South playing firm and quick during the height of the spring and fall Sandhills golf seasons. But the summer heat extremes as the 21st century evolved made that too challenging on the South Course.

“We studied the green complexes very closely for many years,” McCann says. “We knew that with changes in climate, we had to go with Bermuda on the South. But there are no architectural changes. Some bunkers will be a little smaller and a little easier to get in and out of for our older members. But the original design has stood the test of time. I love that about what Tom created 30 years ago.”

In a perfect what-goes-around-comes-around moment, the same man who spent a year in Pinehurst in 1995 and into 1996 directing the construction of the course is now Fazio’s construction representative on the restoration job. It was Ron Smith’s first golf course building job in the mid-1990s when he worked for Central Florida Turf, the contractor on the first course at Forest Creek. He’s built golf courses all over the world in the three decades since and in 2016 went to work for Fazio Design.

“The pressure here now is this course has got to be better,” Smith says. “That sets a pretty high standard to begin with. The great thing is, I know the history at Forest Creek. It’s exciting to be back here again. We’ll get this golf course back to the standards we set 30 years ago.”

Smith grew up in Ohio, and his father was in the coal mining industry. He learned to use a bulldozer at age 12 and started playing golf at 20. When the coal business went bust across the Rust Belt in the early 1990s, Smith pivoted to building golf courses.

“Forest Creek was the first job I had as a project manager,” he says. “It just happened to be a Tom Fazio golf course. I was a nervous wreck the first time I met him. But he was a great guy and so talented. We’ve done a lot of work together over many years.”

Fazio was working in Pinehurst at the same time building Pinehurst No. 8, and neither Brown at Forest Creek nor Pinehurst owner Bob Dedman Sr. had a problem with Fazio designing two courses just 2 miles apart as the crow flies. Forest Creek would be a private club within a residential community and No. 8 was a resort course — ergo two separate marketing pools. Blake Bickford was Fazio’s associate designer on both jobs in the mid-1990s and is again involved in the Forest Creek restoration.

“This site is tremendous, and it’s always been one my favorites,” Smith says. “It’s got the lakes, the sand, the big pines. It’s pretty easy to build a great golf course on that piece of land, particularly when you’ve got someone like Tom directing you. People always ask me, ‘What’s your favorite course you’ve built?’ I always put Forest Creek in my top three. When this job is done and it reopens, it will definitely still be there.”

The South Course overhaul will be the crowning achievement for McCann, the Pittsburgh native and retired Wall Street executive who has had an ownership interest in Forest Creek dating to 2011, when the members bought the club from the original developers. McCann was the majority owner of a group that bought the club in late 2017 and since has become the sole owner.

“When the South Course reopens in October, it will be quite a milestone for Forest Creek,” McCann says. “We’ve been working toward this point for eight years. There was a time 10 years ago when the members were scared we were going to go under. We’ve had a solid business plan and a lot of great people working together to get Forest Creek back on firm footing.”

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

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The Skill of Perseverance

The remarkable second act of John Quincy Adams

By Jim Moriarty

If your American history IQ, like mine, falls somewhere between Animal House’s Flounder — “fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son” — and the great David McCullough, you’ll find America’s Founding Son both an enlightening and rewarding portrayal of our sixth president, John Quincy Adams.

It’s written by Bob Crawford, something of an oddity in itself given he’s the upright bass player for The Avett Brothers band. “For more than two decades, I’ve studied American history while rambling up and down the interstates, freeways, and back roads of America,” Crawford writes in his introduction. While not exactly an autodidact, his lifelong fascination, beginning as a kid collecting fliers about historic landmarks at highway welcome centers, places him in the company of another member of the band, Scott Avett, who has a side hustle as an admired visual artist.

With the recent passing of Ted Turner, one is reminded of the quote he often attributed to his father, “Be sure to set your goals so high that you can’t possibly accomplish them in one lifetime.” This is, in fact, the crux of Crawford’s thesis about Adams and the goal was, or became, the abolition of slavery. His primary source is Adams’ own diaries, written faithfully on a daily basis, that illuminate the arc of JQA’s understanding of how America must eventually, and tragically, cope with its most egregious and contradictory failing.

Jimmy Carter is often extolled as a man who, in the modern age at least, made the most of his post presidency, but he was a piker compared to John Quincy, who, after losing the presidential race of 1828, briefly considered retiring from public life but instead won election to the U.S. House of Representatives. He served the citizens of Massachusetts in that capacity from 1831 until his death in 1848, when he collapsed at his desk in the House chamber and died two days later on a couch in the Speaker’s Room in the Capitol building. During those 17 years, Adams became a formidable opponent of slavery, argued the Amistad case before the Supreme Court, defeated the “gag” rule designed to muffle anti-slavery petitions, and outmaneuvered efforts, led by representatives of the “slavocracy,” as Crawford calls it, to censure him.

“John Quincy Adams may not have been an extraordinary president like Washington and Lincoln, but he is our most extraordinary ex-president. A maverick. A public servant. An American hero,” Crawford concludes.

Adams’ opposition to slavery was never in question, but his theories on what exactly to do about it evolved over time, a transition Crawford illustrates through Adams’ diary and speeches. “America’s founding son had reached the end of his patience,” Crawford writes of an 1844 clash on the House floor. “He shuddered in 1820, when he prophesied a violent dissolution of the Union, but all he had experienced in the nearly twenty-five years since proved to him that the South would never, ever, voluntarily or otherwise, give up being the enslavers.”

Crawford’s fascination with the period of American history between the War of 1812 and the Civil War came into focus after reading Sean Wilentz’s The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. His own study of John Quincy is divided into three acts. The first begins with Adams’ appointment as secretary of state under James Monroe, covers his election to the presidency in the House of Representatives in 1824 (the second time the young republic picked a president in that manner), his loss to Andrew Jackson in their rematch in 1828 and concludes with the voters of Plymouth, Massachusetts, sending him to the House as their representative. In act two Crawford does an admirable job of setting the table. “In 1835, the slavery issue was tearing the fabric of the nation apart. Its threads tossed into a smoldering furnace of bigotry and hate. And there was Adams. A witness to all of it. Sitting on the fence. Waiting for his moment.” That moment builds to a crescendo in act three.

The political figures of the day — Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren — are carefully drawn, as are the central issues of nullification (What if the federal government says one thing and a state refuses?) and what to do about Texas. Of equal, or even greater, interest are the abolitionists: Benjamin Lundy, Charles Finney, Theodore Weld, Arthur Tappan (full disclosure, the square at my alma mater is named Tappan Square), William Lloyd Garrison and the writings of David Walker.

When Crawford first pitched the idea of America’s Founding Son to his agent, he thought he’d be paired with a writer to produce the final work. Instead, he was left to his own devices. The result is highly readable, no small feat when you’re bound to be leaning on quotes written in the first half of the 19th century. If there is any complaint — and it is admittedly minor — it’s that on a rare occasion or two he strays too far into the vernacular of his own day, seemingly trying a bit too hard to prove that history doesn’t have to be tedious and dense. This is, perhaps, an innocent byproduct of cohosting his history podcast, “The Road to Now.”

Where Crawford ends up is in praise of a historical figure most of us, I’d venture to say, don’t often associate with greatness. “Adams brought the issue of slavery out of the darkness and into the light of the center of politics in the United States — the People’s House. John Quincy Adams preserved and protected the American democracy established by the founding generation — his father’s generation,” writes Crawford. “As the man standing in the breach, Adams passed the aspirations of the Declaration of Independence on to the next generation. With one hand reaching back to the founding and the other reaching forward toward the Civil War, John Quincy Adams is a bridge and perhaps the best representation of America’s tortured adolescence.”

If, in reading Founding Son, you see traces of modern America — our deeply flawed and fractured America — so does Crawford. “I can’t say for sure whether history repeats or rhymes, but I do notice echoes from the past in our present. That’s because history is driven by people — and people haven’t changed since 1776,” he writes. “Truth be told, people haven’t changed since Adam and Eve, or however you signify the beginning of time (or should I say history?). Spend a little time reading about the 1830s and 1840s, and you’ll encounter figures who feel eerily familiar. They dressed differently, used different slang and communicated via what now seem like antiquated technologies — but in a very real sense, we are them and they are us.”

Hometown

HOMETOWN

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Over There

A wee bit of wonderful

By Bill Fields

Like many Americans, I first experienced the British Open — what most in the United States called that golf major championship during the 1970s — through television. ABC Sports broadcasts weren’t long by today’s dawn-to-dusk standards but were revealing: the rumpled landscape, khaki-colored turf if it had been dry, and shorter-than-usual flagsticks. Slacks billowed in the wind. Balls finished in precarious lies in steep-faced bunkers. I learned a new word: firth.

When I watched those Opens, the links seemed a faraway golf universe that were out of reach, places I would only ever see on TV.

Happily, I was wrong. If my addition of all the jet lag, stunning skies, spitting rain, lager shandies, breakfast beans, roundabouts, mysterious shower controls and BBC Radio news is correct, this month’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale will be my 22nd time at golf’s oldest tournament.

Getting to see a lot of the U.S. and a little of the world is not something I was counting on as a child. An annual vacation to North Myrtle Beach this time of year was about the extent of my family’s travels. I didn’t fly until I was of voting age and certainly couldn’t have anticipated making a couple of dozen trips to the British Isles covering golf in one fashion or another across four decades, whether for an Open, Ryder Cup or Solheim Cup.

I’ve been to The Open in various roles: photographer, reporter and, more recently, television researcher for NBC Sports. For me, there haven’t been as many trips to The Open as to the three American-based men’s majors, but the trips abroad stand out, beginning with the first one in 1988, at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.

The wind was howling in what felt like gale force when I walked outside my bed and breakfast in Blackpool the first morning in England. I heard an elderly man on the sidewalk describe the wind to his companion as a “wee breeze.” I’m no stranger to pushing drives far to the right without meteorological influence, but while I was playing a local course later that day, the wind carried one of my tee shots farther offline than any before or since. That ball might still be on its errant journey.

By the weekend, rain was the story. It came down so hard on Saturday that multiple greens were flooded, the third round was abandoned, and a rare Monday finish was in the cards. That extra day turned out to be memorable, with Seve Ballesteros shooting 65 to win his fifth — and final — major over Nick Price and Nick Faldo.

An Open in St. Andrews stands out. I’ve been fortunate to work four at the Home of Golf. Faldo outdueled Greg Norman over the weekend in 1990. John Daly defeated Costantino Rocca in a playoff in 1995. Louis Oosthuizen got a favorable late-early draw and avoided a beastly Friday afternoon wind on his way to a seven-shot win in 2010. Cameron Smith prevailed in the 150th Open in 2022, when Rory McIlroy couldn’t buy a putt on Sunday.

On my 2010 visit to the “Auld Grey Toun,” I spent some pleasant idle hours, camera in hand, on the West Sands, the wide, 2-mile stretch of beach featured in the opening scene of the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. As at many Scottish locales, the sky there can change moods in minutes, going from angry to serene.

Whatever has transpired during the day while on assignment at an Open, après-work can soothe the soul when you’re with colleagues whose company you enjoy having a couple of pints or a good curry — or better still, a couple of pints with a good curry. Just remember, discretion is the better part of valor over there when a server in an Indian restaurant asks you how spicy you want your meal. Years ago, I witnessed a vindaloo in Troon cause more pain than a pot bunker ever could.

I’ve held on to plenty of tournament press badges issued to me over the years — the collection maps where I’ve been and what I’ve done — but my favorites are ones from my first decade going to The Open. They’re simple paperboard credentials with a short loop of string — a style long since replaced by larger ones with a head shot, bar code and lanyard — and they have stories to tell.

Bookshelf

BOOKSHELF

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July Books

By Kimberly Daniels Taws

FICTION

 

Man Overboard! by Kathleen Rooney

Patrick “Kick” Kilpatrick, a former college swimmer, hates the ocean. Has always been terrified of it. And now he’s in a real pickle. Drifting alone in the sea after falling (or jumping?), Kick must survive. Breath by breath, hour by hour in the lonely sea. As the waves crash over him, so do the thoughts and memories of just how he got there. A Thanksgiving cruise with an obnoxious brother-in-law; a father who gives the Great Santini a run for his money; and a mother who already left the family boat, so to speak, a long time ago. His family may be complicated, and the pains of life may seem unbearable — infuriating enough to leap from the deck — but maybe the will to survive is stronger. Inventive and slyly hilarious Man Overboard! is about what keeps us going no matter how choppy the waves of our journey become.

 

Habits of the Sea, by Shea Ernshaw

The night Clay Lockhart’s wife dies, a violent storm tears their home — and the eight hectares of land beneath it — away from the Scottish coast, sending it adrift into the Atlantic. Thirty years later, 12-year-old Ellie Mills discovers the fabled floating island off the coast of Nova Scotia and finds Clay still living in the weatherworn farmhouse perched on its highest hill. When the island vanishes overnight, Ellie is left questioning whether it ever existed at all. Decades later, the island resurfaces, and Ellie, now in her 30s, returns, determined to uncover the truth. What she finds is even stranger: Clay hasn’t aged a single day. Faced with the impossible, Ellie learns that some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved, and that a life shaped by wonder may hold more promise than one bound by certainty.

NONFICTION

 

All That’s Unseen: An Appalachian Memoir, by Emilee Hackney

Born and raised deep in the hollers of the Appalachian Mountains, Emilee Hackney knew little beyond the ridgelines and coalfields of southwest Virginia. As an eighth-generation Appalachian, her childhood was steeped in the stories of her grandparents — tales of the coal mines’ brutal grip and the way the land, both beautiful and unforgiving, never quite let anyone go. At 14, Emilee meets Sam, a senior at her high school, who offers her a glimpse at a promising future together. But as they begin attending services at Deliverance Christian Church as a couple, Emilee is thrust into the radical realm of Pentecostalism. In a culture where marriage at 19 isn’t uncommon, Emilee is engaged to Sam. Eager to make her relationship work, she embraces the extremist doctrines of the religion, submitting herself fully to God, to Sam, and to a life of repentance. But what she doesn’t yet know is the man she plans to marry is not who he claims to be. Years later, Emilee finds herself isolated from friends, family and her own sense of truth. Wracked with shame and self-doubt, she reaches a breaking point. On the verge of spiraling out of control, in a stunning act of defiance and hope, she applies to Harvard; against all odds, she is accepted. From the magisterial mountains of Tazewell to the halls of Cambridge, Emilee begins the arduous process of reinventing herself and her relationships with her home, faith and values.

 

Utopia for Our Century: A Manifesto of Hope, by David Albertson and Jason Blakely

In Thomas More’s Utopia, a traveler from the New World delivers a shocking message: On a lost island beyond the horizon, people live far better lives than in Europe. More, a leading intellectual of his day, was murdered by Henry VIII in 1535 for refusing to sign a loyalty oath, but his utopian vision inspired some of the most consequential movements in the modern world. In their provocative manifesto, Albertson and Blakely retrieve More’s insights and apply them to our moment.

 

Lost in Curiosity: Field Notes from Scientists’ Adventures into the Unknown,
by Roberta Kwok

The real story of science isn’t a triumphant breakthrough. It’s messy, mysterious and deeply human. Chronicling researchers’ struggles and hopes in the field and lab, Kwok documents it all: fending off relentless snowfall on a remote Greenland glacier; desperately searching for an elusive frog in the rainforests of Borneo; and scrambling to capture fleeting signals of a faraway moon outside our solar system. These are the untold stories of devoted young scientists and restless minds chasing nature’s riddles. From enigmatic fossils and mind-bending physics to the puzzling behavior of wild animals, Lost in Curiosity is a journey through the questions that keep scientists up at night.

 

The Secret World of Twilight: A Natural History of Dusk and Dawn, by Sally Coulthard

Every day, in the brief stretch of time just before sunrise and soon after sunset, magic happens. Twice a day the atmosphere is partially illuminated by a sun that’s hiding below the horizon, creating a sky that glows with soft, diffused light — opening the secret world of twilight. Circadian rhythms affect almost all living things, including animals, plants and even microbes. They, of course, profoundly affect us too. In a world when so many of us live according to rhythms defined by artificial light, or in spaces that remove any connection with the outside, the need to understand and celebrate twilight has never been greater. Coulthard celebrates 30 iconic and often surprising animals and plants that thrive in this liminal, otherworldly space.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Weaver and the Web, by Chris Baker

A long night ahead means plenty of time for web-making and bug-catching for this meticulous orb-weaver spider in this non-fiction picture book that captures the spider’s point of view. With gentle text and arresting art, this read-aloud leads you through the ups and downs of one orb-weaver spider’s night. From making her web, re-making her web, and eventually ensnaring some succulent moths, this moonlit adventure encourages you to see the world from a spider’s perspective. (Ages 4-8.)

Yeti Is Not Ready for Game Over, by Leigh Anne Carter

It is time to take a break from screens, but Yeti is NOT ready. She is so close to winning this fun game on her tablet! She doesn’t have time for chores, lunch or even friends! Can Yeti put the tablet down? Or will she find a way to stay glued to her screen? With a little compassionate help from Dad, Yeti Is Not Ready shows just how hard it can be to get off the screen — and how good for our bodies, brains and ideas taking a break can be. (Ages 3-7.)

Pleasures of Life

PLEASURES OF LIFE

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My Sunbeam

A boy and his car

By Ron Johnson

During my junior year of high school, my dad brought home a brand-new Carnival Red 1969 Sunbeam Alpine GT, manufactured by Rootes Motor Company of Coventry, England. The Alpine was assembled under the auspices of Chrysler UK at the Ryton-on-Dunsmore plant in Warwickshire, a former aircraft engine plant. The original beloved and much coveted Sunbeam Alpine roadster was also born and eventually died there.

Even though my dad grew up in a strict GM culture, he eventually became a devout Chrysler-Mopar guy. He was a bit like Henry Hill’s mother in Goodfellas. She didn’t care that Henry’s employers were mobsters; all that mattered was that they were from the same part of Sicily. There was not much information available on the ill-conceived 1969 Sunbeam, but all my dad needed to know was that it was a Chrysler product.

The deal was that I would pay him as much as I could toward the $2,535 price (plus tax and tags, of course) whenever I could, until he was satisfied that I was substantially paid up. Considering my menial and short-lived jobs at Burger Chef, Tony’s Hardware and the New Orleans riverfront, among other places, it would take some time.

This was not the Sunbeam Alpine roadster of James Bond, Arnold Schwarzenegger or even Grace Kelly. It never appeared in any movie. It was a car that was hastily conceived and designed to be sold by Dodge dealers in the U.S. as nothing more than a cute, entry-level economy car — a captive import aimed poorly at Japanese and German imports, like Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen. It was actually a very attractive little fastback coupe — not accidentally reminiscent of the iconic Plymouth Barracuda — and the idea could have worked well for Chrysler Corporation but, for reasons that would soon become obvious, only a handful were sold in North America.

My bright red Sunbeam was an instant standout, mostly because it was flashy and unique. I doubt 20 were sold in my hometown of New Orleans, but it was an attention-grabber. Unfortunately, most of that attention was afforded by the service department at Gentilly Dodge. Before we got the car on semi-solid footing, many significant components had already failed and had been replaced. If I chose to operate the manual windows, I was likely to come away with the crank in my hand. The side windows would also fall out of their flimsy channels on their way up or down.

The build logic on the car was amazingly inept. It had obviously been rushed to market and possessed the worst traits of any English car ever built, which was a powerful statement. It was naturally air-conditioned by the hot and humid nights of South Louisiana, and there was no radio until I installed an aftermarket Telefunken. The car was full of devilment.

Many of the problems presented themselves before 12,000 miles, which was the extent of a new car warranty in those days. Common replacement parts were largely unavailable from the dealer, or anywhere else, and techs resorted to cannibalizing new car inventory to honor warranty commitments.

The pillarless coupe was vastly different from the typical car produced in the U.K. It was said to replicate a cabriolet with a hardtop attached. If anyone had been honest, they would have admitted the two-door “fastback” design was just another way to save costs. It was neither water- nor airtight. The Lucas electrical system was quirky and inept. In fact, Lucas was said to be part of the reason English cars once had a reputation for poor reliability. Amusingly, car enthusiasts referred to Lucas as “the Prince of Darkness” for its alleged propensity to leave drivers stranded in the dark. Rocker Ozzy Osbourne, another “Prince of Darkness,” once worked for Lucas and was believed by some to have stolen his famous nickname from his infamous employer.

The Alpine GT was not without beauty and character, however. It was much like an attractive and temperamental actress, with excellent makeup and great hair color, but was flawed in almost every other way, often requiring a high level of maintenance. All the misery was transpiring while the outside world was saying, “Isn’t that a pretty little car.”

On one Saturday afternoon just before our high school graduation, the late David Peralta and I decided to take two of our more adventurous female friends on a 300-mile road trip to visit a college that had a reputation for being a party school. The plan was to party into the evening with older kids we knew, and then drive back home, getting the girls safely back into their front vestibules in time to honor their strict 1 a.m. curfews.

On our way back to New Orleans, along highway 190 near Krotz Springs, Louisiana, I heard a loud thumping sound coming from the engine compartment. Upon inspection, we saw a broken and frayed fan belt lodged near the water pump pulley. Naturally, it was a Lucas-supplied part. Help was unavailable. After sitting in the driver’s seat for 30 minutes, on a shoulder made of oyster shells, pondering how we were going to explain being stranded in the middle of Cajun nowhere, I had an idea. Could we fashion a pair of pantyhose into a makeshift fan belt?

Fortunately, both girls were wearing replacement parts. I did my best to replicate the belt in terms of length, doubling the nylons for strength. The first pair lasted about 30 miles. The second and stronger pair got us into Baton Rouge, where we were able to find an Esso station (before it was rebranded Exxon) on Airline Highway that had some belts hanging in the back of their service bay. The young attendant let us do some experimenting until we found a $6 Atlas V-belt that did well enough to get us back to New Orleans. While the two fathers were not happy we busted curfew, my dad praised me for my out-of-the-box thinking.

A lot happened in and around that little coupe. Money was exchanged when a good friend, Jay Whittington, was able to lift the rear end of the car clear off the ground. On another occasion, my 18 year-old girlfriend learned the basics of driving a stick shift in the Alpine while I pushed her out of the sand along Lake Pontchartrain in Slidell. It got me to Superbowl IV, where a $7 ticket allowed me admittance into the North End of Tulane Stadium to watch the Chiefs beat the Vikings 23-7, before 80,000 fans.

The car could frequently be seen in the parking lot of the Rockery Inn, where bellhops would deliver, without the presentation of an ID, cocktails or beer to a tray hanging on the driver’s side window, regardless of whether food had been ordered. And, amazingly, it also got me back and forth to college without incident, more times than not.

The car also gave life and was perfectly capable when it was most needed. Early in my freshman year of college, it reliably transported my roommate and his girlfriend, who had hidden her pregnancy, to the hospital an hour before she delivered a beautiful baby girl. Their plan was to give the baby up for adoption and never tell their parents. They had everything carefully mapped out. And they would have gotten away with the ill-fated plan had the hospital not hunted the new mother down through the university for a $29 payment and mailed the bill to her parents’ home. I don’t know what happened to either of them, or the baby, who would be in her mid-50s now, but I am grateful the fickle Sunbeam started that night.

In 2009, I visited Birmingham in the U.K. for a conference. Driving back to Heathrow, I took a detour and stopped in Coventry to gaze at where that old Sunbeam had been produced some 40 years earlier. The vintage Rootes factory had been demolished. Adjacent buildings were in ill repair. There was nothing romantic about it. I didn’t know what to think or how to react. Should I pray, shake my fist, or just quietly walk away? After all, an important piece of my personal history started there. I simply bowed, smiled, and got back into a comfortable rental car, built by Rover.

I once told my dad, not long before he died, that I was inclined to find another Sunbeam like the one we had and restore it. He just looked down at me over his reading glasses, in a way only he could, and simply said with a half-smile, in his clear trademark baritone, “Are you crazy?”

State of Mind

STATE OF MIND

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Doing the Wave

From Ocracoke to Rockingham

By Tommy Tomlinson

Illustration by Gary Palmer

Summer comes in waves.

Many years ago I went through a rough stretch, mostly of my own making, and ended up needing to clear my head for a while. I drove to the Outer Banks, traveling alone. I took the ferry from Swan Quarter to Ocracoke, piddled around in the village for a couple of hours, then aimed the car for Hatteras.

Ocracoke tapers to a thin strand that can be secluded even in high season. I found a spot to pull over and stepped between dunes onto an empty beach. Not a soul in either direction. The only sounds were the wind and the waves. Those waves: calm and steady, a wet metronome. I got in and rolled in the warm ocean like an otter. Every so often a wave would give me a gentle slap. Snap out of it, son. Everything’s going to be fine.

The waves are even milder on rivers and lakes, at least usually. When you see whitecaps on fresh water you know a storm is coming. That’s when you pull up anchor and gun the outboard and hope you get back to the landing before the sky breaks open. Waves can be a warning, too.

They can also be a mirage. When I was a kid I was mesmerized every summer by the shining puddles that always appeared up ahead on the road, only to disappear when we got close. Much later I found out it’s called heat shimmer, and it happens when a surface like asphalt gets much hotter than the air just above it, refracting the light in between. The same thing on sand creates a false oasis — the thing that drives desert wanderers crazy in the movies.

That road shimmer was my introduction to the idea that some things in life are always dancing just out of your reach, and that maybe they were never really there in the first place.

It takes time to learn some lessons. For example, when waves of heat are rising from a car, it’s not a good time to sit on the hood wearing shorts. The backs of my thighs learned that one the hard way.

It also took time to learn that people in other places don’t wave the way we do in the South. This especially applies to what I think of as the two-lane wave — the wave you give somebody when you’re slowly passing them in a car. To me, there are a couple of times when that wave is mandatory. One, if you’re out in the country and drive by somebody on the side of the road. Two, if you’re on a narrow street or at a four-way stop and somebody lets you through. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of narrow streets, and my experience is that you get the wave about half the time. Every time I don’t get the wave, I always wonder where up North the driver came from. This is not fair. But barring any proper research I’m gonna roll with it.

You might know about the debate over exactly what Bruce Springsteen sings in the first line of “Thunder Road.” The screen door slams / Mary’s dress . . .  What’s the next word? On the record it’s hard to tell. I have always heard it as Mary’s dress sways. Springsteen’s manager has said that it’s definitely “sways.” It feels to me like the most poetic word, the most evocative. But many other Springsteen fans — including my dear friend Joe Posnanski, a fellow Charlottean — swear that the line is, or at least should be, Mary’s dress waves. Joe has written thousands of words about this over the years. It is one of those debates that means everything and nothing, much the same way that it means everything and nothing to argue about the greatest baseball player of all time. (Joe, who wrote an entire book called The Baseball 100, says Willie Mays; the correct answer is Henry Aaron.) Joe has not convinced me on “waves” and probably never will. But when I play “Thunder Road,” I always listen close to that first line. I kind of want to hear “waves,” at least one time. Not because I want Joe to be right, but because you should try, when you can, to feel what someone else feels.

I had a neighbor one time who loved to listen to NASCAR on the radio. Every Sunday afternoon in the summer he would take his old AM/FM portable out to the patio behind his trailer and turn on the race from Rockingham or Martinsville or wherever. This was back in the ’70s, when Richard Petty won most of the time, Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison occasionally gave him hell, and David Pearson lingered at the back of the pack, waiting to strike. I wasn’t much of a fan of racing, but I was a fan of my neighbor. So sometimes I’d go over there and we’d drink cold Cokes and listen to the howling engines, those sound waves traveling from the track through the radio to our ears in ways that I still do not fully understand.

The one thing waves have in common is that they carry energy. Something desires to get from one place to another and a wave is the vehicle. That can be a pulse from somewhere deep in the ocean or the attraction from someone who caught your eye across the room. We are out more this time of year, exposed to the energies of the universe, and open to the waves that life brings our way.

Sometimes they are so powerful they can knock you sideways. But most of the time they’re just a pleasant ride, carrying us through the shimmer of a summer day and the promise of a summer night.