The Playhouse

The Playhouse

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Fiction by Max Steele
Illustration by Mariano Santillan

The professor was standing now before the doors of the American Embassy. He was early for an appointment with an old frat brother, a legal attaché who would help him procure a fast Mexican divorce. There was no urgency really in getting a divorce. It was simply that he could not concentrate on a permanent separation. When he tried he would end up in a hot soapy shower thinking about putting on freshly starched cotton clothes. Someone should have warned him in Raleigh not to drink on the plane. Here he was in Mexico City, a mile high, still a bit dazed.

Three blond children, not more than five or six years old, obviously embassy kids, a little girl and two little boys, were playing house in and around a sort of blueprint design of squares and rectangles drawn with green chalk on the sidewalk. A solid block of taxicabs, more than the professor had ever seen, was passing on the Paseo de la Reforma.

Something about the broad boulevards and the taxi horns reminded him strongly of Paris, where twenty years ago he had spent his one sabbatical. The next year he had met his wife, who often reminded him that he had never taken her to Paris as he had promised. Or done any fun things. There was never enough money on his salary, she accused him, to do any fun things. In the late autumn air the feeling of déjà vu was so strong that he felt it was a dream, or a forgotten passage from a novel he was living through.

The two boys were now standing near him whispering, and the little girl was in the chalk-line house, busily sweeping, putting things on shelves, getting pots out of a stove only she could see, and washing dishes in the silent sink.

At a signal he did not notice, the small boys, giggling and full of themselves, marched slowly to the front of the house and knocked on the door. “Knock. Knock.”

The little girl seemed genuinely surprised. She came through the house, untying her apron and opened the door, drying her hands on the apron.

“Oh, there you are!” She was quite annoyed. “Late again, as usual. And furthermore you have brought a perfect stranger home to dinner.” Oh, she was vexed. “Without even asking. Without even calling!”

“Yes, my dear,” the little husband said proudly, full of his secret. “I would like for you to meet the man who owns the merry-go-round.”

As the boys entered the house, the professor glanced at his watch. He was still five minutes early. Enough time to walk to the far corner.

As he strolled up the dark gusty boulevard, he could still hear the high laughter of the children, and at the sound of their thin, excited voices his heart almost broke. After all, how were they to know (for they were still children), how could he have known she would run off with the man who owned the merry-go-round?  PS

Summer Shorts

Summer Shorts

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Summer Shorts

August is more than sweet tea, watermelon and air conditioning. At PineStraw, it’s our Summer Reading Issue. This year’s selections are drawn from the collection of stories  entitled “Long Story Short” published in 2009 by the  University of North Carolina Press. The volume showcases the writing of 65 well-known North Carolina authors working in the genre called “flash fiction.” In Japan these short-shorts are called  “palm-of-the-hand” stories. Here are five easy pieces to enjoy on a hot day under a beach umbrella.

Our Writers

RANDALL KENAN (1963-2020) was a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and the John Dos Passos Prize.

Katherine Min (1959-2019) received an NEA grant, a Pushcart Prize, a Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award, two New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Fellowships, and a North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship.

SHELIA MOSES was raised in Rich Square, N.C., the ninth of 10 children. She is a writer, director, producer, poet and playwright. She has been nominated for the National Book Award and named a Coretta Scott King Honoree.

DAVID ROWELL was born and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the deputy editor at the Washington Post Magazine for nearly 25 years.

MAX STEELE (1922–2005) directed the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Creative Writing Program for 20 years before he retired in 1988. He was an editor at Paris Review and Story Magazine and the recipient of two O.Henry Awards.

 

and Illustrators

RAMAN BHARDWAJ  is an international muralist, illustrator, fine artist, and graphic designer. Born in Chandigarh, India, he has had solo exhibitions in India, Norway and the USA, has painted more than 50 murals in North Carolina and illustrated 16 books.

KEITH BORSHAK has worked in advertising and design as a graphic designer, art director and creative director, receiving dozens of Addy Awards over his 30-year career. His illustration and design work has been recognized by Communication Arts Advertising Annual, The One Show, and the Graphis Design Annual.

GARY PALMER graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design. His work has been published in Wildlife in North Carolina, Ducks Unlimited, Shooting Sportsman, Better Homes and Gardens and Texas Monthly in addition to commissions for The North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, The Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service.

MARIANO SANTILLAN is a contractor for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command where he works as a web developer and illustrator. His “other” clients include Ohio State University, Fayetteville State University, The Washington Post, Cricket Magazine, and The Atlanta Journal- Constitution.

JESSE WHITE is an illustrator, author, and muralist. She graduated with a BFA in studio art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her master’s in art education from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Poem August 2024

Poem August 2024

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Steadfast

A lone tree fell in my woods

But it didn’t hit the ground

Or make that debated sound

It fell into the steadfast embrace

of another tree

With its outstretched branches free

They lean into each other

The broken and the strong

The living and the gone

It’s only with a passing breeze

And a creaking, crying bough

That they make sure we hear them now

    — Kayla Stuhr

Kayla Stuhr is a Scottish visual artist, writer, and award-winning filmmaker.

A Visit from the King

A Visit from the King

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Arnold Palmer’s sentimental journey

By Bill Case

Feature Image: Stephen Boyd with the King (Photograph courtesy of Stephen Boyd)

There is no denying he was a magnificent player. Arnold Palmer’s glistening record of 62 PGA tour victories, including seven major championship titles, unquestionably ranks him in the highest echelon of golf’s greats. But it would be a stretch to place him at the top of that elite list. Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead all outperformed Palmer in terms of winning tournaments. And though there was a period when the Latrobe, Pennsylvania, native was the game’s best player, his dominance was relatively short-lived. Arnold won all seven of his major championships from 1958 to 1964.

But even if he was not the greatest golfer of all time, Palmer achieved unique success in the sport in other ways. From his emergence as a superstar in 1958 until his death in 2016, he reigned as the most beloved figure in the game; a man whose endorsement of a product, be it motor oil or an eponymously named beverage, ensured its success. Palmer’s enduring marketability brought him wealth far beyond that of any player preceding him. According to a Forbes magazine article some years ago, Palmer earned an estimated $875 million in endorsements, appearances, licensing agreements and golf course design fees. And golf prospered with him.

Timing was a factor. The televising of golf was gathering steam just as Palmer arrived. Blessed with loads of charisma, Arnold’s good looks, blue collar background and go-for-broke approach exuded a telegenic presence that appealed to men and women alike.

Arnold Palmer and his father, Deke (middle back row), and friends at The Manor (Photograph courtesy of Tufts Archives)

Thrilling come-from-behind triumphs in two 1960 majors, the Masters and U.S. Open, enhanced his mystique. The “charge” to victory at Cherry Hills Country Club was particularly sensational. Palmer lagged seven strokes back after 54 holes. Prior to the final round, sportswriter-confidant Bob Drum (later a Pinehurst resident) told Arnie he had no chance, that he was “out of it.” Defiantly, an enflamed Palmer drove the green on the opening hole, and with a deluge of early birdies, mounted a historic comeback to capture his only National Open.

Even before this triumph, his ever-expanding legion of adoring followers was mustering to form “Arnie’s Army.” Whether he won or lost, his troops whooped, hollered and cheered Palmer whenever he hitched his pants or tilted his head. And they never stopped.

Doc Giffin, Arnold’s longtime friend and personal assistant, succinctly explained Palmer’s magnetic appeal. “Arnold liked people, and people liked him because they knew he liked them.” His broad smile when photographed with fans was genuine; he never rejected an autograph request, painstakingly signing with a crystal-clear signature. “No shortcuts, no scribbling,” Palmer admonished many a fellow professional. “Look everyone in the eye and take the time to thank them.” This fastidiousness extended to fan mail, which he never threw away. With Doc’s assistance, the appreciative Palmer answered every letter.

Palmer was the King, but no life is without its hardships. In 1997, then 68, Palmer was diagnosed with prostate cancer. On the same day in 1998 that he received a final dose of radiation, he learned that Winnie, his wife of 45 years, had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. He would call it the worst day of his life. Winnie died in 1999.

By the time Palmer played in the 2004 Masters tournament — his 50th appearance — he grudgingly acknowledged it was time to start saying goodbye. “I’m through. I’ve had it. I’m done, cooked, washed up, finished, whatever you want to say,” he said. “It’s time.” It would be his final appearance in a regular Tour event.

Palmer was not, however, the sort to do nothing. He spent considerable time and treasure in the fight against cancer, funding hospital facilities in Pennsylvania and Orlando, Florida. He thrust himself into his multifarious business ventures with renewed vigor, attending engagements throughout the country. To reach far-flung destinations, Palmer, an accomplished and passionate aviator, piloted his own plane — a Cessna Citation X.

And he still played frequently, almost daily, at Orlando’s Bay Hill Golf Club, rounds featuring good-natured teasing between the King and his playing partners. Most importantly, he found a new love, Californian Kathleen “Kit” Gawthorp. Winnie and Arnold had become friends with Kit and her first husband, Al Gawthorp Jr., when Arnold competed in tournaments at Pebble Beach. Palmer and Gawthorp would later become involved in Pebble’s ownership group. Kit and her husband would subsequently divorce, and following Winnie’s death, Arnold and Kit began seeing one another. The couple announced their engagement on Oct. 16, 2003.

“Kit loves to watch sports, she loves to be at home, and I think that’s really what my dad needs,” observed Arnold’s daughter Amy Saunders. “I think he needed someone who enjoys the things he enjoys, and I think that everybody embraced Kit.”

During Kit’s visit to Latrobe in early May 2004, Arnold suggested they fly south to Pinehurst for an overnight sojourn. Palmer revered Pinehurst and wanted to show it off. Spur-of-the-moment travel was not unusual for them. With co-pilot Pete Luster manning the right seat, Palmer could fly his Citation X to the Moore County Airport in just over an hour.

For arrangements at the Pinehurst end, Arnold turned to his jack-of-all-trades assistant Giffin. The former Pittsburgh Press writer and press secretary of the PGA Tour started working for Palmer in 1966 and would continue to do so until Palmer’s death in 2016. Described in Kingdom magazine (a Palmer enterprise), Doc’s wide-ranging responsibilities included dealing “with everyone: writers, broadcasters, paupers, pretenders, potentates and presidents, including Eisenhower, Clinton and George W. Bush, to name three.” When in Latrobe, the two men typically gathered around 5 p.m. at Palmer’s home for what Giffin puckishly referred to as a “debriefing” — the mutual imbibing of a cocktail or two.

Doc knew the person to call in Pinehurst was Stephen Boyd, the resort’s manager of media relations and special services. Boyd joined the resort’s employ in the mid-1990s, after departing a similar position with American Airlines. Giffin asked him if he could arrange to have Arnold and his fiancée met at the airport, and if he could make hotel and dining reservations for the couple.

“Of course,” replied Boyd. “When are they coming?”

“Tomorrow,” Doc said.

This was no problem for Boyd, who was used to last-minute requests. He asked which hotel the couple would prefer while in town and whether or not they wanted to play golf.

“I’ll let Arnold answer those questions.” Doc said. “He’s right here. I’ll put him on.”

Palmer told Boyd he had no intention of playing golf. “Arnold said he’d like to take Kit on a tour of Pinehurst,” recalls Boyd. “He wanted to share with her the things he had experienced here that meant so much to him.” He wanted to stay in the Manor Inn, a choice that surprised Boyd. At the time, the hotel was rather threadbare, lagging well behind the Carolina Hotel and the Holly Inn in the resort’s lodging offerings.

Arnold Palmer and Harvie Ward (Photograph courtesy of Tufts Archives)

(Photograph courtesy of Stephen Boyd)

Palmer had a sentimental reason for his selection. The Manor was where he, his father, Milfred “Deke” Palmer and his dad’s buddies bunked on their golf vacations in Pinehurst during the 1940s and early ’50s. Those visits became a lifelong source of fond memories for the King.

The first occurred when Palmer was 18, and he was immediately smitten. “I loved Pinehurst. I thought it was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. It was heaven, really,” said Palmer. Pinehurst’s No. 2 course bowled him over, too. It was “the best golf course I had ever played,” he said. “And this was in December, and it snowed about 6 inches. We had to go home because it was snowing so heavily.”

When Bud Worsham, Arnold’s close friend from junior golf, urged his buddy to consider joining him on Wake Forest University’s golf team, the young Palmer was all ears. Worsham persuaded Wake’s athletic director to grant Palmer a full scholarship, employing the clinching argument “Arnold’s better than me!” The two would transform Wake’s golf team into a national powerhouse, with Palmer carrying off two NCAA individual titles.

With Pinehurst little more than an hour’s drive away, team excursions to play No. 2 were frequent. Arnold won his conference’s individual championship on the storied Donald Ross layout, though he was less fortunate in the annual North and South Amateur, where his best finish was a 5 and 4 semifinal loss to a UNC star named Harvie Ward.

When Worsham was killed in a car accident in October 1950, the devastated Palmer dropped out of school and joined the Coast Guard. Following a three-year stint, he returned to Wake Forest for an additional year. After leaving college for good, Palmer won the 1954 U.S. Amateur, turned pro later that year, and joined the PGA Tour.

The tour did not hold events in Pinehurst during the first 17 years of Palmer’s professional career but, when it returned to the resort in 1973, Palmer was invariably in the field. And, in September 1974, he was inducted into the new World Golf Hall of Fame in a ceremony behind No. 2’s fourth green.

Thirty years later, Palmer and his fiancée weren’t coming to Pinehurst for a ceremony — they just wanted to experience the town’s unique atmosphere. Boyd selected a suitable room at the Manor and ordered it stocked with Ketel One vodka and Rolling Rock beer, both Palmer’s favorites.

The next day Arnold, Kit and co-pilot Luster took off for the Moore County Airport. Kit relished flying with Arnold in the Citation X, even toying with the idea of obtaining a pilot’s license herself. She recalled a moment during one of their early flights together when Palmer pointed out the curvature of the Earth. “That was so neat,” Kit said. “The sun was setting, and it created a mystical picture.”

Boyd already enjoyed a favorable impression of the man. In 1994, while at American Airlines, Boyd was invited by Pinehurst CEO Pat Corso to attend a match between Palmer and Jack Nicklaus on course No. 2 for Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf. On the evening prior to the match, Boyd attended a reception where he marveled at how Palmer painstakingly greeted and chatted with each guest as if there was nothing he would rather do and no place he would rather be.

After Palmer’s Cessna touched down at Moore County Airport around 1 p.m., as they exited the plane, he asked Kit to take a picture of him posing with Boyd. Giffin had arranged for Palmer to have a Cadillac available (another Palmer endorsement) on the airport tarmac. “My car was in the airport parking lot,” says Boyd. “I told Arnold what I was driving, and that he should just follow me into Pinehurst.” But Palmer had other ideas. “Stephen, you get in with us and sit up with me. You can show us around,” directed the King. 

As the luggage came off the plane, Boyd saw a set of golf clubs. “Mr. Palmer,” he said, “I thought you weren’t going to be playing golf on this trip.”

“I’m not,” replied Palmer with a broad smile, “but you don’t come to Pinehurst without your clubs.”

After first checking on the precarious state of the Carolina Golf Club, located near the airport, a course he had designed with associate Ed Seay in 1997, Palmer turned the Cadillac in the direction of Pinehurst and asked Boyd to provide an impromptu tour for Kit’s benefit. “I talked about the Tufts family, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the history of the village,” says Boyd. “I pointed out homes belonging to Annie Oakley, the Fownes family, Admiral Zumwalt, and others — just a quick historic overview.”

Palmer pulled up to the front door of the Manor by 2 p.m. He asked Boyd for a recommendation on a place to have a glass of wine. Stephen suggested the Pine Crest Inn, just a 200-yard walk from the Manor. “Of course,” responded the pleased Palmer, remembering the establishment. “That’ll be perfect.”

It was early in the afternoon, and the Pine Crest was empty of patrons except for Arnold and Kit, who sat at the bar. Andy Hofmann, wife of proprietor Bob Barrett, remembers their visit. The three chatted for a bit before Andy asked how Ed Seay was doing, knowing he was having health issues. Seay, Arnold’s course architecture partner, had stayed at the Pine Crest while designing Pinehurst Plantation, now Mid-South Country Club. The beefy former Marine had become a popular presence. Rather than answering Hofmann directly, Arnold looked to Kit to respond. “She shook her head,” says Andy. “I already knew Ed had cancer.”

Palmer took note of three stools at the bar displaying name tags of three renowned golf writers who had been entrenched regulars at the Pine Crest: Bob Drum, Dick Taylor and Charley Price. Palmer picked up his cellphone and called Giffin to inform him he was at the Pine Crest bar, sitting with Drum, Price and Taylor. “Doc knows those guys are long gone, and he thought I’d lost my mind,” Palmer told Boyd.

It was a beautiful spring day, and Boyd had arranged for the couple to have dinner around 5:30 p.m. on the outdoor patio at the Holly Inn. The Holly didn’t accept dining reservations on the patio — not even for a king — so Boyd stood in line for a table.

“I was watching for Arnold and Kit, who I assumed would walk up the hill from the Manor,” says Boyd. He caught sight of them right at 5:30, holding hands, as they rounded the corner of Cherokee Road with Palmer sporting his customary look — loafers without socks and a cashmere sweater, loosely tied around his neck.

Once the couple was seated, Boyd told them to have a wonderful evening and began stepping away. “Sit down!” Palmer ordered. “Have dinner with us.” Boyd stayed, but only for a drink.

Corso and his wife, Judy, happened to be dining on the patio that night as well. “What was remarkable is that everyone knew it was him, but no one chose to disturb them,” says Corso. Following dinner the couple continued their sightseeing. Among the stops was Taylortown, home of the resort’s African American caddies, several of whom — including the legendary Willie McRae — had carried Palmer’s bag over the decades.

Boyd joined them for breakfast the following morning at the Carolina Hotel, and afterward, the three sauntered slowly down the halls off the hotel lobby. Palmer inspected the historic photographs hanging on the walls as if they were treasured Rembrandts. Near the Cardinal Ballroom, one photo in particular caught his attention. “Come here, Kit,” he said. “That’s the guy.” He pointed to a picture of Arthur Lacey, the official involved in the most controversial rules dispute of Palmer’s career. 

Lacey had been the captain for the Great Britain and Ireland side in the 1951 Ryder Cup at Pinehurst and became a resident of the village after marrying a local woman he met during the matches. In the 1958 Masters, he was the rules official at the 12th green when Palmer’s ball became partially imbedded. Lacey denied Palmer relief. Annoyed, Palmer made a double bogey with that ball but also played a second ball with which he made a par. Tournament chairman Bobby Jones overruled Lacey, concluding that the score on Arnold’s second ball was the one that should count. Jones’ ruling proved crucial to Palmer winning his first Masters. Nevertheless, debate swirled for decades.

On the patio of the Holly the evening before, Boyd had mentioned to Palmer that his old friend Harvie Ward was a Pinehurst resident. Not only had Ward been a golfing rival, he’d dated Winnie before she and Arnold married in 1955. Boyd passed along Ward’s contact information and Palmer did, indeed, reach out, visiting Ward at his home on Blue Road. It would be their final meeting. Ward died four months later.

After he and Kit left Pinehurst, Palmer sent a message to Boyd, telling him their visit “brought back a lot of old memories for me and reminded me how much Pinehurst has always meant to the Palmer family.”

Three months later, at the U.S. Senior Open at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Boyd was assisting in the media center. The USGA assigned him to accompany Palmer’s group, keeping photographers at a proper distance and otherwise making sure that the King could get from point A to point B without too much difficulty.

It was uncomfortably warm in St. Louis, and the 74-year-old-Palmer and his aching back felt the heat’s effects. At one point, he began veering off to the right of center. Boyd asked him if he was OK. Palmer assured him everything was fine. He’d spotted an old friend in the gallery and wanted to say hello. That old friend was baseball great Stan Musial.

Palmer’s trips to Pinehurst weren’t at an end after 2004, and every time he visited, Boyd was his man on the ground. On one trip, at Boyd’s request, Palmer recorded a video expressing his heartfelt feelings about the No. 2 course. When the King returned to Pinehurst in June 2007, for his induction into the North Carolina Golf Hall of Fame, Boyd’s connection with him deepened further. Palmer’s thank-you message was profuse in its praise. “Thanks for all you did from touchdown to takeoff for Doc, Pete (co-pilot Lustek), and me,” he wrote.

“Arnold went out of his way to make me his friend, not just someone who met him at the airport,” says Boyd. “For that I will always be grateful.”

Before passing away in 2016, Palmer made one final pilgrimage to Pinehurst during the 2014 U.S. Open. Reiterating his affection for the town and No. 2, he vowed, “I’m going to come back and play it again before I give up the game.”

The King would have if he could have.  PS

Pinehurst resident Bill Case is PineStraw’s history man. He can be reached at Bill.Case@thompsonhine.com.

Ice Cream & Company

Ice Cream & Company

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Scooping out the world of frozen treats

Story and Photographs by Rose Shewey

Ice cream is by far the most enticing frozen dessert on hot summer days — no argument here. But Southern summers are long, and even the most lickable scoop can taste flat after months of indulgence. Why not shake things up a little and expand your freezable repertoire? For a simple icy cold treat, try granita — even the fanciest kind requires little more than a flavorful liquid and a freezer. Or dive into the world of sorbets — add a scoop of berry sorbet to your Prosecco and call it a float. For the youngest (and young at heart), coconut water turned into popsicles will not only cool you down but replenish and nourish your body. Get the scoop on how to add variety to your frozen dessert spread. Brain freeze guaranteed!

Apricot Honey Gelato

If you thought gelato was just a ritzy name for ice cream, you would be (mostly) wrong. While gelato literally means “ice cream” in Italian, American ice cream and gelato aren’t made the same way, and as a result, differ in texture and density. To make a no-churn gelato at home, prepare a custard, chill, and fold in whipped cream. Freeze for about one hour and stir; repeat this twice more before allowing the gelato to fully freeze. For a seasonal fruit take, mix in fresh apricot compote and drizzle with honey.

Strawberry Sorbet with Pink Pepper

If you’re new to making sorbet — which, in essence, is pureed fruit and sugar — start with strawberries. With lots of pectin acting like a thickener, strawberries will make an exceptionally creamy sorbet, reminiscent of regular ice cream. For an out-of-the-ordinary twist, fold in pink pepper, which adds a spicy, citrusy note. To make an instant, no-churn sorbet, try this: Add 4 cups of frozen fruit with 1/4 cup honey and a dash of lemon juice to a food processor (not a blender) and mix until creamy.

Cold Brew Frozen Yogurt
with Cacao Nibs

Cold brew coffee, yogurt and hazelnuts, sweetened with honey and a sprinkling of chocolate, is practically breakfast — and a healthy one, at that. Take your favorite frozen yogurt recipe (no-churn recipes are a good option if you don’t have an ice cream maker) and add a dash of cold brew coffee. Sweeten with honey instead of granulated sugar, and fold in dark chocolate chips or cacao nibs for a little crunch. It’s a fine way to start your day or a welcome pick-me-up in the afternoon. 

Coconut Water Popsicles

Get your dose of electrolytes on hot, sweaty summer days with coconut water popsicles. Add fresh or frozen fruit, such as pineapple, berries or kiwi; mix with a dash of fruit juice (lemon juice works well) for more flavor; add edible flowers for a whimsical touch. Coconut water is an excellent substitute for sports drinks, minus the added sugars and synthetic ingredients, and will keep you hydrated all summer long. These pops are even kid-approved — mix in a little honey if your babes have a sweet tooth.

Pink Grapefruit Aperol Granita

Granita is likely one of the most under-appreciated frozen treats outside of Sicily. This glittering, icy snow doesn’t require any special equipment — all you need is a shallow tray, a fork and a freezer. For a Grapefruit Aperol Granita, heat 1 cup of water with the zest of a grapefruit and about 1/2 cup sugar until the sugar dissolves. Chill, mix in 5 cups grapefruit juice and 1/2 cup Aperol, and freeze in a tray for about 1-2 hours, then start scraping with a fork from the edges to the center. Repeat every 30 minutes until the mixture has turned into sequined ice flakes.  PS

German native Rose Shewey is a food stylist and food photographer. To see more of her work visit her website, suessholz.com.

Flowers of Freedom

Flowers of Freedom

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The patriotism of petals

By Emilee Phillips
Photographs by John Gessner

A rose is a rose is a rose.
And a flag is more than dyed fabric.
Together they can evoke emotions filled with
symbolism, lifting and carrying their
message with it.

“I wanted to show the strength of an American flag but in a softer, more feminine way,” says Katie Tischler, a military spouse with a love of the outdoors who creates botanical art she dubs “Blossoms of Patriotism.”

The idea wasn’t born overnight. An old scrapbook filled with papers, photos and a single rose cemented itself in Tischler’s childhood memories. Puzzled at first by their commonplace nature, it took her a moment to realize it was a flower her dad had given her mom, kept as a memento of love. “It was brown by the time I saw it,” says Tischler, “but it was sweet when I saw it as a young girl, to see that they kept that.”

Now a card-carrying, certifiable, sentimental romantic, Tischler’s trade elevates pressed flowers to an art form. Her business, Pine Pressed Flowers, preserves flowers from any occasion. She began the business in 2019 preserving bouquets from weddings, funerals or any milestone with deep, personal meaning. Some of her work is simply for aesthetic purposes, but roughly 90 percent of her business consists of custom orders arising from these watershed events.

“Life is short, and there are only so many big days,” says Tischler. Her philosophy: If you want to preserve a memory, just do it.

The process is simple. You pick your frame size and floral layout, be it bouquet style, deconstructed or abstract, then in a few months, voilà, you’ll be met with a work of art. “I love the less literal, more organic look,” says Tischler.

The craft of pressing flowers demands four to six weeks of careful handling and rotating. In a world of instant gratification, the slow, precise technique adds to its charm.

Tischler’s floral flags take months to construct, between scavenging for the perfect assortment of flowers, pressing them and delicately arranging them. Each part of the flag, like a flower, serves its purpose. Each has its meaning. Tischler is mindful in her construction and searches for flowers that are local, typically trying to add dogwoods — the North Carolina state flower — to her flags.

Start to finish, flowers undergo subtle color transformations in the pressing process, rendering the creation of her floral flags particularly challenging. Tischler doesn’t use dyes to achieve her red, white and blue hues. To date she’s made five flags, the first of which was donated for a charity gala for the nonprofit Shields & Stripes.

“Each of the flags are all so different, if you look closely,” Tischler says. Staring at one is like staring at a mesmerizing kaleidoscope and spotting something new each time you come back to it.

A typical week begins with the more mundane routines of processing flowers, documenting, collecting and labeling. But, later in the week, her creative headspace kicks in. Tischler doesn’t do layouts prior to constructing. She adopts the organized chaos of nature and just begins gluing. “I feel more free without a roadmap,” she says.

The routine in her home studio begins with a hot cup of herbal tea and noise-canceling headphones. The workspace is filled with hundreds of handmade wooden flower presses. “My husband cut wood for weeks,” she says with a laugh. The walls are adorned with glass panes of clients’ memories filled with every type of flower imaginable. Each flower takes time to deconstruct, keeping in mind it will need to be reassembled later on.

Tiny, delicate frames adorn one of the walls of the sunroom, each cradling a single pressed flower from a distant land. “Every time my husband deploys he brings me back a flower,” Tischler says, smiling. One of those “contraband” flowers found its place between the pages of a medical book that he had tucked away beneath his mattress until he returned. “He claims not to be sentimental,” she says. But the flowers say otherwise.

Thrifted books have become a favorite way for Tischler to press flowers, especially for personal projects, as the sturdy old pages drink in the essence of the blooms with their superior absorbency.

Each piece she makes includes a certificate of authenticity and a “best practices” guide for preservation — it’d be a shame for your art to brown from overexposure to direct sunlight. On the back of the guide is an Aristotle quote she includes with every keepsake: “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

Included with each floral flag’s certificate of authenticity is a detailed list of all the flowers the frame holds. “I think it’s important to show your patriotism,” Tischler says. “I wanted to do it in a way that was my own.”  PS

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

Poem July 2024

Poem July 2024

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Cicada Rondeau

They don’t so much sing as plead

In their droning sound stampede.

I hope they find the love they need —

Something more than meet-and-breed.

Can that even be with insects —

To have sensations beyond touch?

Do they know joy as well as sex?

They don’t so much.

        — Paul Jones

Paul Jones is a professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of the collection Something Wonderful.

Little Gem

Little Gem

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Good things come in small packages

By Deborah Salomon  

Photographs by John Gessner

“Perfect” is an imperfect word when applied to houses. But once in a blue moon, it fits: A small dwelling that, through careful staging, appears larger; a historic Pinehurst property neither castle nor Tara; furniture of several different periods and provenances that hangs together harmoniously; a hydrangea-lined walkway and a garden surrounded by a wrought iron fence, designed for sitting and sipping tea with neighbors.

The finishing touch is a sweet black Lab named Ritter, same as a Pinehurst street. Most mornings Ritter walks Judy Davis to The Villager Deli, where the owner enjoys breakfast and the dog greets friends, old and new.

Above: Photographs of pre-renovation

They live in a cottage, circa 1,500 square feet, on the outer ring surrounding the estates Pinehurst is famous for. These cottages, built for teachers, shopkeepers, resort employees in the 1920s — later rented to military personnel -— are, one by one, being renovated as mini-showplaces for golf-loving retirees in search of mild winters, upscale amenities and likeminded neighbors.

Davis grew up in Virginia and South Carolina, worked in marketing in Ohio until retirement in 2013. Along the way she discovered Pinehurst while attending a Peggy Kirk Bell “Golfari” at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club. What followed became an odyssey of purchasing, renovating and moving out of several properties in this outer ring until she found her historic gem.

“You could call me a serial renovator,” Davis says with a laugh.

Beside the front door hangs a plaque proclaiming Sally House 1927, named after A.B. Sally, its builder.

This time the youthful grandma and former Pinehurst Village Council member had a new objective: aging in place. It meant two showers but no tub — no sills to trip over. Instead of a conspicuous ramp out front, an attractive brick version slopes off the back porch. Topping her list of practicalities is a generator powerful enough to keep the whole house humming if Duke Power can’t.

Realtors recognize the aha moment when a client walks into the just-right house. Davis experienced hers when she noticed the door that separates the public area from bed and bathrooms. She saw beyond the dark, geometric wallpaper and a kitchen devoid of personality. With the assistance of architect Christine Dandeneau, familiar with the area from living a few blocks away, Davis assumed the task. “I didn’t want an open floorplan,” she says.

Since the house has no family room, great room or, in ’60s-speak, den, the living room is lived in. A scaled-down sofa is upholstered in a neutral toile print. The area rug is grasscloth, the side chairs comfortable, and the coffee table a contemporary Plexiglas over wicker. Press a button on the long console chest and a TV screen rises from its depths.

“I don’t like to look at a blank screen all the time,” Davis explains.

Topping it off while adding height and volume is an inverted hip ceiling done in a textured pattern. A variation of this mode appears on the dining room ceiling over an oval table with an unusual rough finish, where Davis holds meetings as well as dinner parties.

Beyond the lived-in room, Dandeneau enclosed a narrow porch for an office, with window seat and built-in bookcases displaying a first glimpse of Davis’ McCoy pottery, a prized American collectible from the mid-1900s, appearing throughout the house as vases, pitchers, mugs, teapots. This pottery, along with paintings depicting fruit, flowers and dogs, provides bursts of color against French vanilla walls uniting the rooms, as do original floorboards whose imperfections add character. Davis is particularly fond of stylized canine art by Stephen Huneck, an internationally recognized Vermont folk artist and creator of children’s books featuring, coincidentally, his black Lab named Sally.

Dandeneau agrees that working with a small space requires ingenuity. Davis looked at a shallow closet in the dining room and saw a bar/storage nook. Off came the doors, in went cabinetry, a counter, unusual lighting fixtures wired into the sidewalls, the entirety painted a rich aubergine. She keeps the everyday dishes there, since the kitchen has only one wall-hung cabinet, back-lit to display fine china.

By some sleight-of-hand that kitchen — with exposed brick, multi-angled ceiling, wall-mounted shelves, footed cabinets and splashy art — does not feel cramped despite the gas range and refrigerator. Instead of an island, Davis placed an antique school desk and chair on a small rug, decorative and useful. Extending beyond the kitchen, an addition to the house provides space for stacked laundry equipment, a window and storage.

The result: European flair, American practicality.

Two bedrooms, also modest in size, prove that queen-sized beds fit just fine if other pieces are kept to a minimum. Two large and thoroughly modern bathrooms plus an adorable powder room might have surprised A.B. Sally in an era when nobody gilded the loo.

Who would know better than Ann Dixon, Mr. Sally’s granddaughter, who lives nearby in a similar cottage? The two met while dog walking. Dixon recalls visiting Davis’ cottage as a child and provides town history so important to its new owner/curator.

The result?

Adorable. Charming. Traditional yet trendy. Practical, personal and innovative. In a word . . . perfect.

“And the best part is I get to live here,” Davis says.  PS

Upstaging Summer

Upstaging Summer

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Beating the Heat at Judson Theatre’s Summer Festival

By Jenna Biter

Sunshine streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows like a spotlight.

“We do have a star in the Summer Theatre Festival this year,” Morgan Sills says from a bench just inside the lobby of the Sandhills Community College Bradshaw Performing Arts Center. Sills, the executive producer and co-founder of Judson Theatre Company, the professional theater company in residence at BPAC, pauses for a second, then smiles.

“Linda Purl is coming back,” he says.

The name bursts into the room. Baby boomers and millennials — perhaps even Gen Z cinephiles — recognize Purl, either as Henry Winkler’s girlfriend in Happy Days; Andy Griffith’s daughter, Charlene, in Matlock; or Jenna Fischer’s mom/Steve Carell’s love interest in The Office.

Regulars at Judson’s productions will also remember Purl from The Year of Magical Thinking, the one-woman Joan Didion play that ran for two weekends last August in BPAC’s McPherson Theater, in the company’s second annual summer series.

“I loved it,” Sills says, reflecting on Purl’s powerful performance of Didion’s masterpiece about loss and grieving. The material deviated from Judson’s typical summer formula: a bright and fun musical, followed by a comedy — “hopefully one that people haven’t seen,” says Sills — and finishing with another musical.

This year’s summer series returns to that original, lighter formula, with a boredom-busting lineup beginning July 19 and ending Aug. 25. Each show will run for two long weekends, for a total of six straight weeks of air-conditioned entertainment when you need it most.

As always, all three plays will be performed in the McPherson black box theater, a stage-less, intimate chameleon of a venue that can be configured to suit the production. It seats a maximum of 80 and, without traditional sets, asks the audience to use its imagination on the canvas of the four black walls.

“The middle’s back to comedy,” Sills says, describing Purl’s encore in an Emily Post-approved two-person play, Mrs. Mannerly, sandwiched between two musicals. “It’s a two-hander about a small-town, charm school teacher with a past, and the young man whose life she changes for the better.”

Purl performs opposite Jordan Ahnquist, known for his lead in New York’s production of Shear Madness, the interactive whodunit that holds the record for the longest-running nonmusical play in America.

“We’re opening with They’re Playing Our Song,” says Sills. The Neil Simon play, written with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager and composer Marvin Hamlisch, is loosely based on Sager and Hamlisch’s real-life romance and ran for more than 1,000 performances in Broadway’s Imperial Theatre. “It’s never not a hit,” says Sills.

The Emmy-Grammy-Oscar-Tony, or EGOT, award winner Hamlisch, who died in 2012, would have turned 80 this year, so Judson’s production is a tip of the cap.

“When you’re not laughing, you’ll be tapping your toes,” Sills says. “That score is so wonderful. It’s so late ’70s and rhythmic and catchy. There’s a whole lot of . . . Tell it to me, Mama! Listen to me, Baby! Huh. Huh. Huh,” he says, breaking into song.

Sills punctuates his rendition with Elvis flair, though a different Pressley — Jacob, with one more ‘s’ — will be playing the musical’s leading man, Vernon Gersch. Like Purl, Pressley is a Judson series veteran. This year marks the actor’s third straight season flying south for the summer.

Last year, Pressley belted his way through the rise and fall of a marriage in The Last Five Years and the year before saw his Sandhills debut in Gutenberg! The Musical!, a romp about two playwrights of a farcically inaccurate historical play about the inventor of the printing press.

“This show kind of marries the two,” Pressley says of this summer’s selection. “They’re Playing Our Song is a relationship show. It’s touching and sensitive and personal at times, but also the book is written by Neil Simon, so it’s witty, it’s clippy.

“It’s a fun read because of all the quippy little Neil Simon-isms,” Pressley says of the great American playwright who created classics like The Odd Couple and The Sunshine Boys. “At the same time, I’m reading through thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to remember all of this.’”

While Sills will direct Mrs. Mannerly, Daniel Haley, Judson’s artistic director and other co-founder, will reclaim his usual seat in the director’s chair for They’re Playing Our Song, as well as Tell Me on a Sunday, the festival’s final show.

“This is another little gem people don’t know about,” Haley says. “The music is by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and I think it would be difficult to find someone who doesn’t know who that is, right?”

Like Hamlisch, Webber, the Englishman responsible for classics like The Phantom of the Opera and Cats, also has an EGOT. Tell Me on a Sunday is a one-act, one-woman musical about a Brit who journeys to America in search of love. Like many of Judson’s summer picks, it has slipped the greater limelight. “You find these little gems that people don’t know about, and it’s really such a pleasure to bring them to people,” Haley says.

Selecting shows for the summer series that aren’t widely known or shown isn’t accidental, but it has been mildly prophetic. “I feel like we have our finger on the pulse because Gutenberg! was on Broadway this past year,” says Sills. Similarly, tick, tick… Boom! — another former Judson summer selection — was recently directed by Neil Patrick Harris at the Kennedy Center, in Washington, D.C.

Purchase tickets to the 2024 Summer Theatre Festival by visiting ticketmesandhills.com or going to Judson’s website, judsontheatre.com.  PS

Jenna Biter is a writer and military wife in the Sandhills. She can be reached at jennabiter@protonmail.com.

Once in a While-Away

Once in a While-Away

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Historic home comes full circle

By Deborah Salomon  

Photographs by John Gessner

In the late teens and early roaring twenties, society hostesses planned guest lists around the comings and goings published in The Pinehurst Outlook.

December 15, 1923: “Most of the regular colony came down earlier than usual, with practically every cottage in the village occupied. Mr. James Barber has opened up Thistle Dhu . . . Mr. S.B. Chapin came down and opened While-a-Way (sic) but had to go back to New York on a business trip.” In New York, the Chapins — engaged in finance, the stock market and real estate — lived in one of the last private homes on Fifth Avenue to survive the Gilded Age.

Old money. Big money.

“Chapin wouldn’t be able to find his way around (While-Away) if he came back now,” says Kevin Drum, who with his wife, Dr. Jennifer Stoddard, bought the cottage in 2014. For Drum, owner of the Drum & Quill — the name a tip of the cap to his golf journalist father, Bob Drum — who has served on the Pinehurst Village Council and run for mayor, ownership of this historic property completes a circle.

Left: Tufts Archives

Right: Kevin Drum, Jennifer Stoddard and Kevin Klenzak 

“My mother told us kids not to play over here,” meaning the exclusive Old Town side of the village. He gestures beyond The Carolina Hotel: “We lived over there.”

Stoddard, a UNC Medical School alumna from Potsdam, New York, returned to North Carolina to join Pinehurst Nephrology Associates. After Drum and Stoddard married, they went house hunting. “I made the Realtor crazy,” Stoddard says. She wanted a historic property, as did Drum. While-Away was close enough to Jennifer’s office and the hospital, and easy walking distance to the Drum & Quill for Kevin. Plus, at 6,000 square feet, it was roomy enough for her three school-age children.

“When you walk into a house, you get a feeling,” Stoddard says. “It was so comfortable, not anything tangible, just the smell, the feeling. I knew this is the house I wanted.”

She researched While-Away and Chapin at the Tufts Archives, discovering the wealthy philanthropist credited with developing Myrtle Beach to be “a good Great Gatsby.”

“But it wasn’t on the market,” Drum adds. Obviously, the story has a happy ending. “I looked at Jennifer and realized she wouldn’t be happy until we bought this house,” he says. Mission accomplished.

Previous owners had performed renovations, but the exterior was about to undergo a transformation, beginning at the recessed front door. A document filed with the village soon after construction was completed in 1917 describes While-Away as “a one-and-a-half story frame house of asymmetrical design . . . and no clearly identifiable façade.” Perhaps the main entrance faced away from the road, as with other cottages built during the infancy of motor transportation, with its fumes and noise.

That was fixable. Designer Mark Parsons and builder Jeremy Strickland added a veranda stretching across the entire front, a brick patio across the back, a portico defining the front door, a garage, plunge pool, adorable pool/guest house, new roof and landscaping. The house, brightened from grayish shingles to gleaming white, is now approached by a circular drive, with the pool and pool house perpendicular to the well-defined front.

The interior retains a whiff of bygone days, more comfy-homey than formal or exotic, beginning in a living room proportioned for Pinehurst society soirees. The main floor layout — cross-hall with the living room and dining room on either side of the foyer — flows in a circle from foyer into dining room, butler’s pantry, kitchen, den and back into the living room with its gleaming wood floors which, if cleared out, could be a dance floor. In place already, a grand piano.

The classic floor plan pleased the new owners. “I don’t like open concepts,” says Stoddard, who chose soft pastels, a pale olive and watery blue, for the public rooms. Bathrooms go rogue with fanciful wallpaper. Some furnishings suggest the genteel 1950s, while others are secondhand “finds,” reproductions and family heirlooms that integrate well with High Point’s finest. Drum stands by a bedroom armoire: “It was my grandmother’s, from Pittsburgh. It stood in my room as a kid.” The dining room table owns the same provenance.

Stoddard admits the butler’s pantry, virtually untouched, sold her on the house. Drum sounds partial to the finished basement with wine cellar, pool table, movie room, bedroom and bath. The surrounding acre is divided into an expanse suitable for a lawn party plus a secret garden where Stoddard is “working on peonies.” The rear patio encompasses a meal preparation area with a pizza oven and separate grills for meat and vegetarian dishes.

The jewel in most renovations is usually the kitchen. While-Away’s, redone by a previous owner, is neutral in hue, Shaker in simplicity but equipped with a large Sub-Zero. “I like it the way it is,” Stoddard says. She and Drum both cook, “but at different times,” she says.

The only walls that needed moving were for upstairs bathrooms, some with marble tiles and oversized showers, featuring built-in rather than clawfoot tubs. In one upstairs bathroom a stacked washer-dryer combo — one of three laundry areas — is handy for towels and bed linens.

On the staircase landing hangs a large, stylized painting created from a photo of golfing great Babe Zaharias. Upstairs hallways are lined with paintings of famous golf courses. Golf hats and bar paraphernalia fill Drum’s “cave.” Stoddard, president of the Moore County Medical Society, also has a home office.

As the children grow and strike out on their own, their bedrooms will become guest quarters or perhaps, one day, nurseries. “We’re about to become empty-nesters,” Stoddard says, as she prepares for guests attending her daughter’s graduation from UNC-Chapel Hill. “This has been my dream house, a labor of love, the perfect family home for us.”

Simeon Chapin built While-Away and five other cottages in Pinehurst. He died suddenly in one of them, the Albemarle, in 1945. At his funeral in The Village Chapel he was celebrated as Pinehurst’s “first citizen.” The house remained in the family until 1952. Chapin lives on in the charitable foundations established in every city where he maintained a residence: Pinehurst; New York; Chicago; Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Now, more than 100 years after the Chapins “arrived for the season,” a rejuvenated, still genteel but mercifully air-conditioned residence earned Pinehurst Historic Plaque certification in 2023. It hangs by While-Away’s main door, now proudly facing front.  PS