Out of the Blue

Out of the Blue

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

There’s Always Chocolate

Nothing else even comes close

By Deborah Salomon

November: Gateway to “the holidays,” a warm, happy time of family togetherness, good will to all. Except the world faces a mess. Santa is overdrawn at the bank, and the flotilla of Christmas toys hasn’t arrived from China. So, beyond the religious significance, let’s think of something cheery. It may not be tinsel and colored lights, the must-have electronic gadget or the trendiest cowboy boots. How about a whole-family gift like an SUV or a trip to DisneyWorld?

Forget it. Hiring Santa’s sleigh would be cheaper.

My unlikely suggestion is chocolate. Everybody loves chocolate despite its unpopular color. Solid brown as opposed to brown print/plaid found on sofas, rugs, sweaters, dresses, ties doesn’t pop. Black may be elegant, but brown’s a drag. Even high-fashion TV news anchors wouldn’t chance a chocolate-brown suit. Yet the joy of chocolate overwhelms any negative. Picture little Halloween ghosts picking through the candy basket for Hershey Kisses and Miniatures. Easter means brown eggs and bunnies.

Chemistry may play a part. Chocolate triggers the release of endorphins, the “happy hormones.” Americans, however, seem to prefer heavily sweetened/diluted “milk” chocolate. Law regulates percentage of cacao present in some products. Watch out for “chocolatey” on cookie labels . . . not a good sign.

Depending on the source, cacao beans have been identified in Spain and South America from 3-to-5,000 B.C., mainly as a beverage. Weather and disease decimated a recent cocoa harvest in Ghana, the major African producer of the cocoa plant, precipitating a worldwide shortage, hence price increases.

I adore chocolate. This adoration evolved from deprivation. My mother disallowed “candy’’ because I was a problem eater. I love dairy products but wouldn’t drink milk. She wouldn’t count chocolate pudding as milk. So, at about age 7, I approached her with a treaty: one square Hershey’s for one glass of milk. My absolute favorite, however, was the Good Humor (white truck, jingling bells) bittersweet chocolate sundae cup, scooped up with a little wooden “spoon.’’

As an adult I discovered dark, “bittersweet” chocolate bars, preferably imported. Now, in old age, every evening I put one square under my tongue and let it melt . . . slowly.

Never two, just one.

I once purchased a Toblerone bar the size of a baseball bat at the Zurich airport.

Many decades ago I added a “blackout” sour cream chocolate layer cake to my baking repertoire . . . indescribable. I’m working on chocolate cheesecake. A European friend taught me to put a square of top-quality imported chocolate in a warmed cup and pour steaming black coffee over it. Stir until the chocolate begins to melt. Sip slowly; scrape up remnants with a spoon.

So grown-up. So addictive, but that’s another story.

I am not advocating an unhealthy diet. How could anything so pleasurable be unhealthy, in moderation, during challenging times? I remember World War II, when “care” packages sent to troops contained Hershey bars, not broccoli. Even now, after a distressing day I know chocolate is waiting should I need it.

So why not add chocolate to Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Kwanzaa? At Hanukkah children are traditionally showered with gold foil-covered chocolate coins.

I’m not suggesting chocolate will ever replace pumpkin pie or peppermint, turkey stuffing or cranberry sauce. But remember — when discouragement happens, there’s always chocolate.  PS

Deborah Salomon is a contributing writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

Out of the Blue

Out of the Blue

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

Color Me October

A delicious chill in the air

By Deborah Salomon

The seasons — and their respective colors — have long influenced my life.

Unlike most Americans, spring is not my favorite. I love daffodils, tulips, iris, budding trees. The birds I fed all winter have a spring in their chirp, now that plump bugs replace their diet of sunflower seeds and peanut butter sandwiches. But spring spreads an ominous prescience: summer. Muggy heat, damaging storms, huge electric bills, mosquitoes, hay fever.

Summer belongs at the ocean, with a cool breeze and water lapping my feet. Summer thrives at the farmstand, where the farmer’s daughter sells prize tomatoes and hours-old corn, blueberries begging pie crust, fragrant melons.

Anywhere else summer, in my book, is to be endured, nothing more.

Color summer fiery orange from sun-up to sunset.

September is a pass-through. Color it undecided.

Then comes October, which I adore. It is the yellow month, when trees positively glow. Early October offers a delicious chill tamed by fleece or corduroy.

Coffee smells and tastes better on an October morn, ditto eggs and bacon, shunned during summer. True, the sun is noticeably lower, the days shorter. But October offers renewed energy, football, cider doughnuts, long walks, a comfy month despite looming November.

Well, nothing good lasts forever.

Paint November a dreary khaki. The sky is gray, the air damp. Once-fiery leaves turn crinkled and brownish, like cornflakes. They fall and must be raked. Coats appear, although Southerners resist winter wardrobes, preferring to scurry from car to office or store in shirtsleeves. For me, November’s redeeming icon is cornbread turkey stuffing, perfumed with sage from the patio herb pot.

December has to be red and green and sparkly silver, representing holidays meant to cheer, affirm, inspire, this year challenged by worldwide messes and climate change. Will there be frost . . . or dandelions? A roast of beef or ribs on the grill?

January, definitely blue and white — the cold colors. After living most of my life far north I’ll never get used to a warmish January. I still crave soup and stew, strong tea spiked with a drop of brandy, a real fire in the fireplace. I want twinkling stars against a velvet sky, icicles on the lilac bush, enough snow to mask the dirt, and never mind if rosy-cheeked kids track it inside on their boots.

February is pink and strewn with holidays, most boasting a celebratory food, from decadent Valentine chocolate to heart-month healthy kale. The days stretch longer. Winter grows tired, soggy. Around here you can almost feel the trees shoring up strength to bud, then blossom.

March could be anything, a blizzard or a heat wave to confuse wildlife. April is spring fashion month — the good, the bad, the laughable. Will jeans continue to widen or remain stovepipe? Will the middle-part hairstyle (think Mona Lisa with a much-needed shampoo) have survived winter? Will the fellas on TV still wear running shoes with business suits?

I’ll give April purple, a color with limited applications. I don’t see many purple sofas or jackets. Maybe a blouse or two. Or a tie, if the gentleman dares.

Summer commences in May, stretches on and on. To which I will raise a drippy cone of black raspberry or peach and be thankful that, eventually, October will return.  PS

Deborah Salomon is a contributing writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

The Naturalist

The Naturalist

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

Ticked Off

Something wicked this way comes

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

Vampires are real, though they look nothing like the Hollywood stereotypes who wear dark capes and speak in strange European accents. True vampires possess eight legs as adults (six in larval form) and are not much bigger than a peppercorn kernel. An estimated 900 species can be found crawling the globe, primarily in warm, humid forests across every continent except Antarctica. Some specialize in sucking the blood of rabbits. Others prefer the blood of bats. One species only laps up blood from the inner ears of cows. A surprising number are cold-blooded connoisseurs, preferring the taste of turtles and the occasional snake. And yes — a very small percentage of species bite humans and suck their blood from time to time.

I am speaking, of course, of ticks, the bane of hikers, dog walkers, campers, hunters, gardeners and outdoor enthusiasts everywhere. Despite ticks’ notoriety for sucking blood, most of the general public know very little about them.

Here’s a little factoid to tuck into your memory rolodex — it may be of use the next trivia night down at the local pub. Ticks are not insects. They are arachnids, most closely related to spiders and scorpions, and have been sucking blood for over 120 million years. While T. Rex was chowing down on a Triceratops, chances are good that ticks were chowing down on it.

That’s all well and good. Everything has a right to make a living.

However, it’s what ticks carry in their saliva that make them public enemy number one. Tick spit can harbor a smorgasbord of pathogens — everything from bacteria and protozoa to viruses. The list of diseases that ticks can transmit to humans is fuel for nightmares and fodder for medical journals. Typhus. Rickettsialpox. Q fever. Colorado tick fever. Babesiosis. Hemorrhagic fever. Tick-borne meningoenchephalitis. Bourbon virus (definitely not a disease that causes one to crave Jack Daniels). Tick paralysis. Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Ehrlichiosis. Tularemia. Lyme disease. Heartland virus. Anaplasmosis. The list goes on and on.

One in particular, a strange disease known as Alpha-gal syndrome, has been dominating news headlines of late, due to its rapid spread across the eastern half of the United States. The syndrome, transmitted through the bite of a lone star tick, causes an allergic reaction to a sugar molecule that is found in the red meat of mammals, like cows and pigs. For those unlucky enough to acquire it, the simple act of eating a cheeseburger or a sausage biscuit can trigger an outbreak of itchy skin, bad heartburn, vomiting and shortness of breath. A severe reaction can even result in death. The disease seems to affect people differently. Some have mild reactions to meat. Others are so allergic that even drinking a glass of milk can cause life-threatening anaphylaxis. Some carry the allergy for the remainder of their lives. Others may completely lose the allergy after a few months.

“I woke up in the middle of the night covered in hives,” former Dismal Swamp State Park ranger Tony DeSantis recently told me by phone. His experience was back in 2008, well before Alpha-gal syndrome was mentioned in the news media and on the radar of most clinical physicians.

“It was bizarre,” continued DeSantis. “I could not figure out if I had bug bites or if it was some other rash. It happened a couple of times, and I could not piece it together.” Eventually, he realized that the rash would develop only after eating beef.

“Every time that I ate beef, several hours later, I would break out from head to toe in intense hives,” he said. “It was bizarre. I never had any issues with eating beef before.” Why the sudden change?

The breakthrough came a few months later, when a fellow park ranger pointed DeSantis to a scientific paper linking the bites of lone star ticks to an allergy of the sugar molecule, alpha-galactose, found in the meat of mammals. “That’s when it clicked for me,” DeSantis said. “I knew my rash was the result of a tick bite.” Working at the state park for six years, pulling ticks off clothing and skin while walking the trails, had become a daily routine — just part of the job. DeSantis recalled one researcher, who had visited the swamp years before, remarking that “it was the tickiest place that they had ever seen.” Lying along the border of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, the state park is nestled within the Great Dismal Swamp, an enormous wilderness area of nearly 150,000 acres. It is the largest remaining swamp in the Eastern United States.

Finally linking tick bites to his beef allergy gave DeSantis some peace of mind, but it required making a committed lifestyle change. “Since 2008, I have just avoided beef and have never had a problem,” DeSantis said.

This past summer, I ventured onto a friend’s property bordering the Great Dismal Swamp with Maurice Cullen, a retired Virginia Beach science teacher and amateur lepidopterist. Our goal that evening was to find and photograph caterpillars and moths. Over six hours, we documented dozens of species. Returning home late that night, I jumped into the shower before bed and immediately discovered three lone star ticks, easily recognized by the large white dot on their abdomen, embedded deep in my skin. One was attached to my shoulder, another to the back of my neck at the edge of my hairline, and the third  . . . well, let’s just say it was somewhere less pleasant.

I texted Maurice warning him about the ticks. He replied that he had not found a single one on his clothes or skin. Lucky me. I guess I am a tick magnet.

With tweezers, I carefully removed each one and flushed them down the toilet. I have been bitten by dozens of ticks in my lifetime, and thus far, I have yet to experience any serious reactions to their bites. Knock on wood. Still, over the following weeks, I paid close attention to what my body was telling me, constantly checking for weird rashes and noting any feverish symptoms. As someone who relishes a good cheeseburger, I am not sure I have enough willpower to change my diet like DeSantis.

While tick diseases are certainly scary, there is no need to fear the outdoors. It is important to understand that not every tick carries a disease. If you do find a tick crawling on you, remember that it needs to bite you in order to transmit disease. Even then, research suggests that a tick needs to be attached for at least 24 to 48 hours to transmit most diseases. Checking your body thoroughly soon after each outing is the most effective defense against the little vampires.

So go on that hike. Take the dog for a walk. Take your kid camping. The wonders of the outdoors far outweigh the risks.  PS

Naturalist and photographer Todd Pusser grew up in Eagle Springs. He works to document the extraordinary diversity of life both near and far. His images can be found at www.ToddPusser.com.

Golftown Journal

Golftown Journal

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

Get a Grip

Connecting you and the club

By Lee Pace

Sam Snead struggled with putting yips for over half a century, trying side-saddle and mallet putters. Ernie Els suffered a horrific six-putt from 2 feet at the 2016 Masters, later blaming performance anxiety. And who around Pinehurst will ever forget Rory McIlroy missing two putts from inside 4 feet in the final three holes of the 2024 U.S. Open on Pinehurst No. 2?

Who knows? Maybe a Reverse Taper Grip from Golf Pride, invented and designed in a lab on the outskirts of Pinehurst, might have helped.

Since 2019, Golf Pride has operated out of its Global Innovation Center on land next to Pinehurst No. 8 that was conceived and shepherded from soup to nuts by company CEO Jamie Ledford. The company was founded in Akron in 1949 by a golfer named Thomas Fawick, who believed that molded rubber would offer better traction and durability than traditional leather. Fawick soon introduced the slip-on grip, revolutionizing the industry and creating the modern regripping market.

The company was acquired by Eaton in 1968 and moved to North Carolina a year later, with operational headquarters in Southern Pines and a manufacturing plant in Laurinburg. The latter shut down in the early 2000s, and now some 50 million grips a year are produced out of company facilities in Thailand and Taiwan.

Ledford, a golfer since his boyhood days in the Pacific Northwest, had a decade of experience as director of consumer products for Starbucks Coffee Company and in business development with Callaway Golf. Among his priorities on taking the Golf Pride presidency was to find a better home for the business, which operated out of a nondescript commercial structure off U.S. 15-501 in Southern Pines. Word got around town, and one day he got a phone call from an executive at Pinehurst Resort suggesting that some unused land along the entry road to Pinehurst No. 8 north of the village might be an idea for Golf Pride.

The 36,000-square-foot facility combines traditional Pinehurst brick and wood architecture with a modern open-office interior, with plenty of natural light and graphics displays that tell the company’s history. There are offices in one wing and a manufacturing operation in another, where ideas for new grips can be turned into workable prototypes within days. Most significantly to the public, there is a “retail lab” where golfers can bring their clubs and get fitted for new grips and watch as they’re installed.

The company sought to make the process as easy and expedient as going to the barbershop and getting a haircut.

“We’re here to innovate and create new grips,” Ledford says. “We built this facility as a bit of a statement of purpose for Golf Pride in the future. We’re 77 years old this year. But it’s really easy for a brand that’s 77 years old, that’s been number one for a long time, to just kind of focus on the past and lose its way. And this place is really built on what our future is. I’ve been pleased how it has rejuvenated Golf Pride and given us a whole new boost of energy.”

Much of that energy has revolved around Ledford and his team energetically proselytizing on the marriage of hands and clubs, and expanding its product line with cutting-edge ideas. Its Align Technology uses ridges on the underside of the grip to help lock your hand placement for consistency. The MCC Grip is a hybrid that fuses moisture-wicking brushed cotton cord in the upper hand area for all-weather traction with high-performance rubber in the lower area for feel and responsiveness.

“We just wanted it to be the single best place in the world to get your clubs regripped,” Ledford says. “Grips matter. The industry is built around clubheads and shafts and balls. But the grip is our only physical connection to all this other gear. It’s the most overlooked and unappreciated equipment category in golf. Golfers are making choices about what grips they want, much like running shoes for your feet.”

The putter comes in at the finish line.

Rolling a golf ball 8 feet on slippery grass with a slight break down a slope is the most sensitive action in the game. It’s where the marriage of hands and club is most important.

“Putting is 100 percent feel,” says Bruce Miller, Golf Pride’s putter grip product manager. “The putter grip is your only connection. Putting is like a surgeon with a scalpel. It’s all about slow, smooth, deliberate motions and pace of stroke. The grip shape, size and taper absolutely have an effect.”

The Reverse Taper grip is the company’s best answer so far. The grip is thicker on the bottom, the concept being that the thicker lower area prevents the bottom hand from squeezing too tightly and leading to a wrist breakdown at impact. That taper configuration is opposite from a popular putter grip that is thicker at the top, thinner below.

The research generated by Miller and his team showed that a high percentage of players isolated the issue to the lower hand, the one farthest from the shoulders. Feedback from golfers tested and quizzed was that the lower hand invited the most “flipping” or “yippyness,” and it was the lower hand that would misbehave and decelerate or “give it the gas” through impact.

“We tried to zero in on the hands and think about the role that each of your hands plays in a good putting stroke,” Ledford says. “That led us to this counterintuitive place of making the bottom of the grip bigger, reversing the taper. Initially, we were a bit concerned about flipping convention on its head, but the user testing was so strong, we had to go with it, and it has been steadily building a following.”

“By providing the player with more ‘meat on the bone’ in the lower part of the putter grip, it assisted them in evening out their hand pressure and avoiding the lower hand jumpiness,” Miller adds.

You have to wonder what old Sam Snead would have made out of the Reverse Taper Grip. His putting woes were so gnarly he took to hitting a putt like you would a croquet ball — straddling the line of the putt (which led the USGA to outlawing that down-the-line stance in 1968).

“I’ve gotten rid of the yips four times, but they hang in there,” Snead said. “You know those 2-foot downhill putts with a break? I’d rather see a rattlesnake.” PS

Lee Pace has written about golf in the Sandhills for more than three decades from his home in Chapel Hill. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

California Dreamin’

The princess of Montecito

By Deborah Salomon

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

Duchess, actually. Still impressive.

Sure, hon. Don’t we all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

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

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

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.

Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

Hang 'em High

And to their best advantage

By Deborah Salomon

My reputation as an anti-tech — or at least a suspicious subscriber — is well-documented. My computer, a desktop, has a tower, a monitor, a printer and a big-button keyboard. The buttons are yellow. I adore it. My new TV streams but I don’t, although I have listened to a few podcasts, previously known as radio. The horror on colleagues’/friends’ faces when they learn the only apps on my simple cellphone are for airlines is almost comical. Like, if I want to watch Duke basketball, it won’t be from the dentist’s waiting room or a park bench. Ditto a movie.

I’d look silly laughing at Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire on a 3-inch screen. Marlon Brando doesn’t shrink well either. Nor does Kindle own the right heft.

Cellphones are magical inventions that have revolutionized communication. Their tendency, however, to fill every minute of our waking hours with some fact or sound or image leaves me exhausted. Several years ago, I encountered the ultimate: “fine art” channels that stream paintings into and out of a TV hanging over the mantelpiece. They appear, pause, then march off.

That reminded me of how important backgrounds are when “hanging pictures.” Also, the subjects of wall art whether paintings, photos, collections, artifacts. After 17 years of profiling Moore County’s most stunning homes, let me pass along display methods shared by interior designers and homeowners:

Don’t crowd. Give a big piece its own wall, which can be small, to accentuate the painting’s bigness.

Try leaning small frames against the wall, from a narrow shelf.

In a grouping, vary the size of individual pieces.

Think twice before displaying nudes or dead animals, especially with children in residence.

Go 3-D with baby dresses, costumes, dolls enclosed in a deep frame or shadowbox. No better place for a Japanese kimono than a living room wall.

Save family photos for a hallway, to encourage up-close viewing. Number the photos and post identification at the end: “Mom and Dad do a London pub, circa 1985.”

A bathroom is perfect for cartoons or old magazine covers. One homeowner plastered her entire guest powder room with New Yorker covers, which she had saved for the purpose. Another had a life-sized cardboard President George W. Bush welcoming guests. The replica of a dear departed cocker spaniel curled up in his wire crate seemed a bit much.

Before selecting a wall, sit down on nearby chairs and sofas to check line of sight. Same for shafts of sunlight. 

Art in the kitchen is uber-trendy, especially flowers and vegetables, like a basket of shiny purple eggplants or a sliced tomato oozing juice. You can’t go wrong with grazing Holsteins. Antique kitchen implements suspended from pegs work. Use metal or glass pitchers, a blue enamel campfire percolator for vases. I have seen a pizza-shaped clock.

Frame or dry-mount a favorite recipe in Granny’s handwriting. Hang a small blackboard near the back door for messages that won’t fit into a text.

But back to the fine art slide show continuing its march over the mantel, the paintings colorful as pastries in a cafeteria line — I’ll take the apple crumb pie, please, with a scoop of vanilla.

Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

Old-Fashioned Flick

Laugh out loud or shed a tear

By Deborah Salomon

I didn’t watch the Academy Awards. I knew that I hadn’t seen a single nominated film. Nor were more than a few actors’ names familiar. Their outfits indicated star quality more than their names. Names of the designers, that is. I felt a pang, especially since most gowns/jumpsuits/pant outfits were downright ugly.

Then, on a wave of “background” music, I was transported to the days when most movies were entertainment, not films or art — when Wednesday night “dinner and a movie” became a ritual for parents who could get a babysitter. When the experience was a rite of passage — a first date for 10th-graders. Will he hold your hand? Will it be slick from buttered popcorn? Remember, no mammoth soda or you’ll be running to the little girl’s room.

All gone with the wind, so to say.

Technology has enriched our lives in so many ways that I feel guilty dumping on it. Still, it has also taken away certain events including . . . the movies. When coming attractions were announced in full-page ads in Life magazine, which revealed a classification, be it Western, comedy, mystery, war, romance, thriller, history, cartoons. Animal stories were always tearjerkers. You could count on a two-hour duration. Four-letter words, absolutely not. Same for nudity.

The theater would be on the main drag, with a marquee protruding from the entrance like the Sunrise Theater. On it, the movie title, maybe a descriptive adjective. “Blockbuster” comes to mind, attached to James Bond flicks released in the 1960s.

On weekends get there early, stand in line and hope for two seats together. If you missed the first 10 minutes no problem, because with run-on showings you could see the beginning two hours after the ending.

First off the newsreel, the coming attractions, hopefully a cartoon, often Roadrunner. Some big cities had all-newsreel theaters popular during pre-TV World War II.

The ticket booth was free-standing, stranded in a covered space where the line formed. Cash was the only tender, and kids got in for a dime.

The larger Southern theaters wafted an aroma that wasn’t just popcorn. Once through the set of doors into the lobby we were hit by a blast which, pre-residential AC, seemed reason enough to watch a mediocre flick. In fact, on an especially steamy day, management hung a “COOL INSIDE’’ banner from the marquee, sometimes obstructing John Wayne or June Allyson, Doris Day or Burt Lancaster.

Ah . . . movie stars. Teenage girls had faves. Most of these glamour pusses, postmortem, are memorialized in a concrete Hollywood sidewalk. Mine was Gregory Peck: looks, talent, intelligence, charisma, he was the total movie star package. As an adult I shifted to Daniel Day-Lewis after a regrettable fling with James Bond.

DDL brings up the maturation of movie — sorry, film — plots. Sure, films outgrew the “movie’’ definition long before Lewis copped the 1989 Academy Award. But My Left Foot was different, as were “foreign film” think pieces unrelated to an IMAX sensory overload.

A movie with a strong and relevant plot plus solid acting doesn’t need too many frills. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest comes to mind. I know every word of The Godfather.

Oops. I’ve gone uppity when all I mourn is a midweek movie preceded by the Wednesday meatloaf special. I want to laugh out loud or shed a quiet tear. I want to forget my troubles and be transported, with the transit mode being an 8-cylinder rig with whitewall tires. Leave out the bare bits and gimme a gritty story, something I can relate to.

Because when the water gets too deep I just want to buy a little pink ticket . . . and watch a movie.

Out of the Blue

OUT OF THE BLUE

Home
Tag Archives: Out of the Blue

Drama! Stat!

Blood on demand

By Deborah Salomon

A man clutches his throat and falls to the floor of the church/theater/stadium. “Is there a doctor in the house?”

You bet. He/she, almost life-sized, hangs on the family room wall, surrounded by hospital personnel and patients in various stages of maladies du jour.

Long live the medical drama!

Google, er, cough up Marcus Welby, Ben Casey, Doc Martin, Doogie Howser, Dr. Quinn operating on Chicago Med, Chicago Hope, Brilliant Minds, Nip/Tuck, St. Elsewhere, New Amsterdam and dozens more. Some mildly entertaining, slightly informative. Others silly and manipulative. Now, the genre has come full circle led by — yes! — Noah Wyle, who earned his TV-MD as Dr. John Carter on ER.

Now, Wyle’s back as Dr. Michael Robinavitch, the bearded, graying chief resident at a busy Pittsburgh hospital known only as The Pitt, hence the name of the show. Meek ’n’ mild Carter, now irascible, overplays every emotion. He hugs, he storms, he whines, he cries and comforts for which he cleaned up at the Emmys, both as an actor and as a producer/director.

Never mind that the jargon is spit out faster than viewers can absorb, let alone comprehend.

Each episode covers a shift, 8 a.m. till whenever. The cases, mostly emergencies, vary: a snatched-from-the-headlines mass shooting, to an autistic young man’s ankle broken while playing Ping-Pong, to a fistfight (two women) in the waiting room, to a cringe-worthy birth and several deaths. Lots of profanity, of course (cable On Demand), but how about this foray during opening credits — “nudity in a medical setting.”

Fear not, there’s nothing erotic about watching a corpulent lady soak in an ice bath.

The only familiar face is Wyle’s. None of his fellow actors suffered carryover from lawyer shows. But they did display diversity: Latino, Indian, Asian, Black, Caucasian, young, ripped, paunchy, bald, beards and assorted ethnic head coverings.

The hour raced by. I loved it.

My primary bone to pick, so to speak: blood everywhere. On the injured, of course, but spilling off the gurneys onto the floor, running down white fabric and clear plastic gowns, soaking through bed linens? The janitor mopping it up reminded me of the gravedigger scene from Hamlet.

Then, the soundtrack is loud and mostly jargon. I missed many words but, oh, the rolling eyes, the knowing looks. The scary part, assuming situations are realistic and thoroughly vetted, is outcome uncertainty in a busy teaching hospital.

By now you’ve guessed that I’m still a cable subscriber so I endure the ads for prescription drugs. The list of contraindications, it seems, is longer than the benefits, and sometimes ends in death. Yet the medication itself is described in glowing terms by happy, healthy actors. Recently 150-year-old Eli Lilly spent a bundle reimaging itself as “a medicine company” with the m-word replacing scarier “drug.’’ Their TV spokespeople are more likely dairy farmers than stockbrokers. Their profits, just imagine.

I asked a local physician about the dire tech stuff. He said it’s for protection in court proceedings.

“You were warned!”

Another warning: I’m not sure The Pitt will survive many seasons . . . too much medical, not enough drama. Although to its credit, the hour left me with a splitting headache.