The Pleasures of Life Dept.

The Sunfish

Too small to keep. Too big to forget.

By Ashley Walshe

This isn’t a big fish story. Quite the opposite, actually. And it starts right here on Lake James, the massive hundred-year-old reservoir lapping the eastern edge of our state’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

It’s the pinnacle of summer. High on a red clay ridge, the whip-poor-will, whose incessant chanting often stretches well into the balmy morning, has gone silent. The red dog is weaving among windswept pines, and I am sitting on the wooden deck of a Coachmen RV, a sparkling sliver of lake visible a half-mile in the distance.

My grandparents used to live here. Not in this 32-foot travel trailer, home to my husband, the dog and me for a warm and watery season. But on down the meandering shoreline, in the brick and stucco home with the vaulted ceiling, lakeside gazebo and sweeping view of Shortoff Mountain.

Papaw kept his pontoon at a nearby marina. If I close my eyes, I can almost see two kids swinging their legs at the edge of his boat slip. I’m the little girl with the auburn curls and wild swath of freckles. My younger brother, all blue eyes and dimples, is perched beside me. Neither of us have fished before.

On this day, Papaw is cradling a box of live crickets, and Dad is showing us how to hook them. The black and silver schnauzer, whose feet and beard are permanently stained from the red earth, is barking at the wake as a neighboring boat glides up to dock.

Once we cover the basics (don’t snag your sibling or grandpa), we cast a few lines, jiggling the rod to make our crickets dance.

Papaw watches from the captain’s chair as Dad teaches us a ditty from his own childhood. The song changes based on who’s singing it. Mine goes like this:

Fishy, fishy in the lake, won’t you swim to Ashley’s bait?

I sing incessantly. And guess what? In no time, I feel the coveted tug of what must be a whopper at the end of my line.

I squeal. I reel. And up shimmies the smallest sunfish you’ve ever seen. A bluegill, I think. No bigger than my tiny, freckled hand.

“Can we keep it?” I ask, twitching with excitement. 

“If he’s long enough,” says Papaw. Gripping my whopper in his leathery hands, he gently slides out the hook then slips the fish into a shallow bucket of water. “We’ll measure him later.” 

My brother and I cast several more lines — first at the boat slip, then out in a quiet cove on the water. Although the song appears to have stopped working, that doesn’t deter us from our fervent chanting. We sing until the crickets are spent, my sunfish our singular catch of the day.

I know now that we had no business keeping that tiny sunfish. But it was never about the fish for Papaw.

Peering down into the bucket, my grandpa announces that the bluegill is “just big enough,” then gives me one of his signature winks. I wink back from my seat outside the camper, smiling through time at a proud little girl and her very first fish.

That night, while the rest of the family ate crappie from a previous haul, I savored every bite of my pan-fried sunfish. It didn’t look like much on the plate, but the memory has fed me for a lifetime. PS

Ashley Walshe is a former editor of O.Henry magazine and a longtime contributor to PineStraw.

Pleasures of Life

Mom the Pathfinder

Have kids, will hike

By Katie Begley

North Carolina is home to some of the most peaceful hikes in the South. I’ve also gone hiking with my kids. The experiences are, well, a bit . . . different.

Hiking with young children generally begins with some crying. Whether it was overshoes that are too tight, naptimes that are too close, or just emotions that are too big, I’m not sure. A single mom with three kids, ages 5, 4, and 2, in tow, I wondered what I had been thinking as we all climbed out of the car at Weymouth Woods. This was supposed to be a relaxing morning on one of my favorite local trails. A tranquil time for us all to connect to the Earth just as it had been for me, by myself, so many mornings before.

We had all been cooped up in the house with positive COVID tests, and now that we were cleared to rejoin the world, I wanted to get some real dirt on the soles of my boots. Instead, someone stepped on the instep of my foot in the parking lot, and I had to fight back the four-letter word that popped into my head, knowing that my kids would take it up as a rallying cry if given the chance.

As soon as we settled on a direction — no small feat given the strong opinions held by each young hiker — the spirit of the hike started to weave its magic through our little group. Our lungs felt a little bit fuller. Our faces, turned up to the late morning sun, felt a little bit warmer. Our nerves, at least mine, started to uncoil. A few leaves crunched under our feet, and sand kicked up behind my kids as they ran, laughing, down the trail.

I was laughing with them, not even thinking about the cubic feet of sand we would all bring back into the car in our shoes, when the boys, 5 and 4, suddenly stopped. They’d discovered a mysterious set of tracks on the trail. A strenuous debate followed about what kind of animal it could be. They ruled out deer because the tracks were too big. A bird of some sort was the top contender for a while until they realized that the clearest of the tracks was a semicircle and didn’t have any claws. My 5-year-old used his preschool powers of deduction to suggest that it may have been a horse, given that we had seen a sign designating this as a horse-friendly path. Always the proud mama, I beamed at what I knew were signs that my kids were destined to be geniuses, possessed of both logic and reason. I had reached peak motherhood.

“No, it’s a velociraptor track,” my 4-year-old announced confidently, followed by what he imagined the velociraptor sounded like at the very instant it swooped into Weymouth Woods and touched down. My 2-year-old fell back onto her bottom, startled by the wild noise, and began crying. My oldest rolled his eyes, said, “Whatever,” in a voice that sounded way too much like a teenager and took off in the opposite direction. I looked around us, silently praying that no one was in earshot of the party of four disturbing the peace.

Having narrowed our choices to either a prehistoric beast or a large hooved mammal, we circled back to the car. It may not have been the tranquil morning that I envisioned but, glancing in the rearview mirror as we pulled back onto the road, I saw my kids nodding off in their car seats, and smiled.  PS

Katie Begley is a freelance writer and executive director at The Wilds Writer’s Studio. You can follow her writing on social media @katiebwriter and learn about The Wilds resources for young writers @thewildswritersstudio or www.thewildsstudio.com.

Pleasures of Life

Egg-Dyeing for Empty Nesters

An Easter without kids brings
a basketful of memories

By Tom Allen

I’ve never been sure when a parent qualifies as an “empty-nester.” Maybe when the only, or last, child has his or her place, when their delivery and return address changes.

The younger of our two daughters officially fledged in June of 2020 when, like her sister, she married just out of college. But from March until her wedding day, June 20, courtesy of a pandemic, the last half of her senior year at Meredith College was virtual.

With campus housing closed and classes moved online, Sarah packed up and came home. We loved it. During the day, she continued her student teaching, online, with 20-plus kindergartners. After school, we cooked, ate supper together, played board games, and during visits from her fiancé, planned for a COVID wedding, with 15 guests instead of 250.

Her presence also meant she was home at Easter, specifically, the Saturday before Easter, which in our family is egg-dyeing day. We, like many, have specific holiday traditions. Fewer, by far, at Easter than Christmas, but nonetheless beloved. Until last year, one or both daughters were home for the annual ritual. No fizzy tablets and water for us. The real deal — the sound of boiling eggs bumping against a pot, the pungent aroma of hot water and vinegar, and McCormick’s “Assorted Food Color and Egg Dye.”

Four little vials — red, yellow, green, blue. The back of the box provides instructions for classy colors like “orange sunset” and “dusty rose.” When the girls were old enough to read, we challenged them to follow directions for other hues — 24 drops of red and 16 of blue make “pretty purple”; nine of green and three of yellow give you “mint green.” Or just squeeze this many drops of whatever and this many drops of whatever and see what happens.

Traditions die hard. Soon-to-be-graduated and married Sarah, along with Mom and Dad, spread newspapers on the kitchen table. My wife boiled a dozen Dollar Tree eggs, their shells dinging against the pan when it hit that rolling boil. Sarah boiled the egg-dyeing water. Odd how the smell of boiled eggs and a teaspoon of White House Apple Cider Vinegar, like cinnamon at Christmas, becomes the smell of Easter. Lilies, boiled eggs, and vinegar. Who knew?

We mixed the vinegar and water in glass ramekins, the same ones used for years. I know. They make plastic cups for those kinds of things, but again, traditions die hard. Like a hot potato, gotta wait for the eggs to cool a bit, but soon, with newspapers spread, water and vinegar mixture ready, spoons out, the time for dunking and dying came.

I’m a McCormick purist — red, yellow, green, blue. Sarah and her mother live on the edge, mixing this with that. No matter. There was laughter and joy, the essence of Easter. We left our creations to dry in the empty Dollar Tree carton. Then, as in years past, we placed the colored eggs in a basket of plastic grass. This would be the centerpiece on our kitchen table for the next couple of weeks.

Last year, my wife and I found ourselves alone on the Saturday before Easter — empty nesters with a dozen cheap eggs.

“You wanna dye eggs?” Beverly asked.

“Sure,” I responded, admittedly without much enthusiasm. She boiled the eggs, but only six. I laid out newspapers. She heated the water. I added the vinegar. Same ramekins. Same McCormick colors. I dipped my three in red, yellow, green. She went for half-and-half colors with hers. Finally, our six dry eggs were placed in the centerpiece basket with plastic grass. We smiled. Traditions die hard.

The saying goes, “We give our children two things — roots and wings.” Roots keep them grounded; wings give them freedom to be themselves. I’ve seen the cliché attributed to Goethe, Jonas Salk and the ubiquitous “unknown.” Their words convey wisdom and truth, but watching them fly can be bittersweet. New families are formed, new traditions are established. Some holidays the house is full. Others, the nest is empty.

Fortunately, our daughters and their husbands live an hour north. The oldest is expecting our first grandchild, a boy, at the end of April. Even with an early arrival, he’ll be too young for egg-dyeing this year. Ah, but next year, sometime before Easter, we’ll probably cover a kitchen table with newspapers, boil some eggs, bring out the ramekins, vinegar, and McCormick “Assorted Food Color and Egg Dye.” Who cares what colors he chooses?  Traditions live on, like Easter’s joy and laughter.  PS 

Tom Allen is a retired minister living in Whispering Pines.

Pleasures of Life Dept.

Reconsidering a White Christmas

Perfection isn’t what it’s cracked up to be

By Tom Allen

The chances of a white Christmas in the Sandhills of North Carolina are slim to none. Even if a few flurries put folks in the holiday spirit, the National Weather Service defines a white Christmas as having at least 1 inch of snow on the ground the morning of December 25. But a couple of inches on December 22 that hang around for a few cold days would make the cut, right? Liturgically speaking, Christmastide is 12 days, so more days equals a greater probability, correct?

Dreaming of a white Christmas, where the treetops glisten? Bing crooned the iconic song, first heard in Irving Berlin’s classic, Holiday Inn, then later in the eponymous motion picture. It continues to be the bestselling Christmas song of all time.

The concept is lovely, but when it actually happens, the dream, more often than not around here, becomes a nightmare — wind, cold, ice, cars off the road, and sundry other unpleasantries. In our part of the world the three French hens wouldn’t have electricity.

Aside from a couple of Christmas day dustings, I’ve only experienced one white Christmas, in Louisville, Kentucky, the winter of 1990. One front after another brought several inches of snow, starting the first week of December, continuing, almost weekly, for the next three months. Snow and a couple of ice storms kept the frozen stuff on the ground until early March.

Western Kentucky is well-equipped for these seasons, unlike the more temperate parts of the South, where a couple of inches brings life to a standstill. Roads and parking lots stayed pretty clear. Even the apartment complex where I lived kept the sidewalks and entryways clean. But dirty, piled-up snow, gray mush and salty slush made for a depressing winter. And even with salt trucks and snowblowers, I often found myself waddling on an icy sidewalk or gingerly taking baby steps, hoping not to fall, which I did on a few occasions, bruising my ego more than other bodily parts.

On Christmas Eve 1990, my then-fiancée, Beverly, and I headed out to a service at the church we attended. The night was cold, raw, with just enough flurries to slow driving. Inside, the setting was beautiful, traditional, candles and crèche, and “Silent Night” to wrap things up. Heading out to my car after the service I noticed a grey Buick sedan had skidded on an icy patch into the front door panel on the passenger side of my red Toyota. Before I could yell, “Hey, hold on,” the car was gone. The dent was minor; I’d like to believe the chap driving the grey Buick had no idea he bumped my car. After all, it was Christmas — peace on Earth, goodwill to men, even the ones who dent your red Toyota. My instinct was to run, to catch the fella’s attention, to wish him a “Merry Christmas” before I pointed out we needed to talk. But another patch of ice brought me down, making me wonder just how merry and bright this Christmas would be.

As I recall, other than the dent — which I never got repaired — and a sore backside, it was a pretty good holiday. Oddly, the fact that our Christmas was white mattered little. I’ll take a chilly morning, clear roads, whatever family is gathered, and a snuggle with my dog. Because the perfect Christmas, like the perfect marriage or kids or job or church, really doesn’t exist.

So, consider letting go of that perfect holiday. Substituting canned biscuits for yeast rolls that failed to rise isn’t the end of the world. What if the recycled Dollar Tree bag you had to use because you forgot that pretty roll of paper had someone else’s name on it? Don’t sweat it. Kids wiggly at Christmas Eve services? Baby starts crying during “Silent Night”? What better night to hear an infant cry?

The probability of a white Christmas here is low. Chances of a 70-degree day are the same as a 40-degree day. So be thankful for whatever’s on your table — and the people around it. Be civil. Be kind. Be glad.

Just watch out for that guy in a grey Buick sedan.  PS

Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.

Character Study

Broadway on Broad Street

All dressed up and on the go

By Jenna Biter

“Scarves, shawls, black and white for My Fair Lady when they do the Ascot scene.” Mary McKeithen points to one garment, then the next. “And purses from all eras.” Storage bins mound with handbags and clutches. “Black gowns.”

She cruises down the aisle past clothing rack after clothing rack, then stops. “I cover these up to keep the sun from fading them through the window.” She pulls the corner of a cherry-red dress out from beneath a drop cloth. “Right here is more Renaissance. And, of course, shoes, shoes, shoes.” Vintage heels vie for cubby space on a far wall.

She reaches the end of the first aisle, already whirling and grabbing at garments in the next — dresses for Oklahoma!, sequins, and turn-of-the-century chiffons for the song “Shipoopi” in Music Man. “Right here is all of the Jackie Kennedy era. I’ve done shows mostly at colleges with these,” she says, waggling a skirt suit back and forth. “See the Jackie suits? And then here are more sequin things and we start back at the ’50s . . . ” She advances a rack, passing through time as she goes, “ . . . ’40s . . . ” and then “ . . . ’30s.” She points at a group of white and trills, “Here are the angels and ghosts.” Fa la la. A few swollen aisles and hundreds of costumes later, she laughs. “And this is only half.”

Only half of the upstairs! Costume jewelry, wedding dresses, men’s suits and tuxedos in all sizes, and band and military uniforms fill the rest of the upstairs of Showboat Costumes and Collectibles in Southern Pines. For the most part, McKeithen stores all things theater on the second floor of her shop, and the Halloween costumes, Santa suits, mascots — all the stuff that can be rented à la carte — on the first. She ballparks the building: “I think it’s about 11,000 square feet.”

Showboat Costumes and Collectibles at 712 S.W. Broad St. in Southern Pines, is McKeithen’s shop and warehouse, but it’s also her studio. “These are all ribbons and bows and cloths and sequins and trims and everything,” she says, fingering the drawers that edge a well-loved worktable. “I have a little room back here, this office, because sometimes about 4 o’clock in the morning, I’ll get an idea.” She points to a full-sized bed in the corner. “I get something in my head, and I’ll get up and come to work and then get tired.”

But not that tired — she’s embellished, reconstructed or made ex nihilo many, if not most, of the costumes in Showboat. For the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences’ production of From the Mountains to the Sea, she magicked up convincing turtle, catfish and salamander costumes. And with the help of her husband, Jere, and a professional upholsterer, she even made Madame Garderobe, the wardrobe in Beauty and the Beast, with a set of fully functional drawers.

“I kind of do more of the design,” McKeithen says. “My daughter Marcie is real meticulous, and she always dots the i’s and crosses the t’s for me. Makes sure everybody’s got shoes, everybody’s got socks, everybody’s got . . . ” She trails off. “I couldn’t do it without her.”

If it weren’t for Marcie, McKeithen wouldn’t even be a costumer. “My daughter was in a Madrigal dinner at Pinecrest High School, and her costume was better than the other kids’,” she says, thinking back to 1993. “They called me and asked if I would embellish some of the other costumes, and I said, ‘Sure, I’ll have a go at it.’ And then they started getting me to do their plays.”

Before that, McKeithen’s only experience with theater was as a high schooler. She grew up in Carthage with her parents and five siblings in the house that used to share property with the jail. “My daddy was the chief of police until I was in my mid-teens,” she explains. McKeithen attended Carthage High, and, as a junior, she got the lead in the school’s production of Mama’s Baby Boy.

“My boyfriend at the time gave me a million-dollar check for a contract to Hollywood when the show was over as a joke,” she adds, laughing. Then, as a senior, she got the lead again, but the school’s auditorium burned down before they could perform the play. “Other than that, I never knew or cared anything about theater at all. I didn’t care about theater until Marcie started. Amazing how one little thing can change everything,” she says.

“Then I got hired by the Temple Theatre — I did them for 12 years  —  and I did Pembroke, Campbell, all the high schools around here. I’ve done shows in Washington, New York. Let’s see, I worked for the Highlands Theatre, and I did an outdoor drama in Kenansville.” McKeithen has been bringing Broadway to the Sandhills and beyond for nearly three decades. She juggles between 12 and 15 shows a year, about eight of them in the spring, and the rest in the fall and winter. When asked how she balances them all, she says, “If I read a book, I have to complete it. I mean, I just can’t wait; I have to read it all. But, when it comes to a project, I’m able to say, ‘OK, I’ll do this a little bit over here and then this a little bit over there.’ I can do projects in stages.”

McKeithen applies her multi-tasking mentality to life writ large — not in a stressed-out-frazzled kind of way, but in a how-much-life-can-I-take-in kind of way. She’s had photography and cross-stitching hobbies and became an auctioneer and appraiser, along with Jere. “He said it was cheaper for me to go to auctioneer school with him than for me to have two weeks to shop,” she says. They collected a whole houseful of colored glass, instruments, copper cookware, opera glasses and dolls for their two granddaughters who live next door.

“Oh, and when we were young, we had a band. We sang music and played up in Greensboro,” she says. “That’s how we earned money to go on vacations.” She still emcees at a bluegrass festival near Raleigh.

McKeithen has been a Moore County commissioner, president of the Moore County Hospital Auxiliary, and served on the FirstHealth Board of Directors. Until recently, she and Jere both had pilot’s licenses — they even have a 900-foot runway on their farm. “We live on a farm that’s not really a farm,” she says. “We’re not trying to raise anything but pine straw.”

She’s a bit of a comedian, too. “But my favorite thing to do,” she admits, “is I have two John Deere tractors, and I mow the farm. Relax on my tractor, mow the grass.”

Mind you, the farm/not-farm is about 175 acres, but she mows in stages, too.  PS

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

Pleasures of Life Dept.

A Southpaw’s Lament

On the wrong side of history

By Scott Sheffield

It’s high time somebody spoke up for us. We have been neglected and marginalized for far too long. We, the people of the left-handed persuasion. Depending on your source, left-handed people comprise roughly 10 percent of the world’s population. Nobody knows the troubles we’ve seen — unless you’re one of us. Try walking a day in our gloves.

It started during the Roman Empire. The Latin word for right was “dexter” and the word for left was “sinister.” As time went on, dexter started taking on the connotation of “proper” and “correct,” while sinister became synonymous with “unlucky” and even “evil.” This perception of the word sinister, and by extension the people who were left-handed, reached a pervasive level during the Middle or Dark Ages, when belief in the existence of sorcery and black magic was at its peak. Abnormalities were viewed as vile, even dangerous. Because only a small percentage of the population was left-handed or “sinistral,” left-handedness was considered an abnormality, and those who exhibited the trait were shunned and vilified.

A negative view of left-handedness persisted into the 20th century. A couple of my elementary school teachers tried to get us left-handed kids to write with our other (wrong, right?) hand by scolding, or worse, a rap on the knuckles. No amount of chastisement was sufficient to compel me, or many of the other brave resisters in my class, to change hands.

As time went on, the slights piled up. I was dismayed to learn that “left-handed compliment” basically meant an insulting statement disguised as praise. I discovered that many ordinary consumer products were made specifically for righties, or “dextrals.” Scissors, for example. The blades are fiendishly aligned to benefit the right-handed. If you doubt me, trying using your left. How does that make your thumb feel? And what about the common soup ladle? The lip is always on the left side, the way a right-hander would pour. If left-handed folks do that they end with untidy consequences. Manual can openers are right-hand, too. In yet another power move the handle must be held in the left hand while the user turns the crank with the right.

How about clothes? Belts, for example. I once bought a belt with a decorative buckle, but if I slid the belt strap through the pant loops to the right, which is the natural way for a left-hander to put on a belt, when I got around to fastening the belt to the buckle, the design was upside down. The belt was meant to be put on from right to left. And shirts. A standard man’s shirt has its buttons on the right, buttonholes on the left. It’s designed to be buttoned from the right. Trying to button my shirt with my left hand ties my fingers in knots. That goes for suit jackets, too. Yes, yes, standard women’s shirts have their buttons on the left, but that’s not to help out left-handed ladies, it’s just tradition.

Tools, machines and even some weapons are configured for the dextrals. Not long ago, when I was checking out my order at the grocery store and when the payment device asked me to sign my name, my hand bumped into the plastic COVID shield that separates shoppers from the clerk. It was nearly impossible to write my signature. Was this a plot hatched by Apple Pay?

There have been some bright spots for me as a left-hander. On a business trip to San Francisco many years ago, one of my co-workers and I went to Fisherman’s Wharf for a seafood dinner. Afterward, we attempted to walk off our sumptuous meals by strolling around the piers. At Pier 39 I noticed a sign written in bright yellow script that said “Lefty’s.” Below the name, in somewhat smaller, bright purple block print, were the words “San Francisco Left Hand Store.” Everything in the store, EVERYTHING, was left-hand oriented. It was the materialization of Homer Simpson’s neighbor, Ned Flanders’, Leftorium.

I was like a kid in a candy shop. I had to be dragged out of the store by my right-handed friend. While surfing the net recently, I was happy to see that Lefty’s is still there.

Of course, we were thrown a bone with International Left-handers Day. It was originally observed in 1976 to celebrate the uniqueness and differences of left-handed people. You 90-percenters may not celebrate it, but it’s a national holiday in my house.

In fairness, I have to give grudging credit to this right-handed world for one thing — out of necessity I’ve become quasi-ambidextrous. But let’s hope that the only left-handers who are considered vile or dangerous today are the ones who are, well, vile or dangerous.  PS

Scott Sheffield is a contributing writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. He may be reached at ssheff@nc.rr.com.

Pleasures of Life Dept.

The First Time I Saw Paris

A young man’s trip of a lifetime

By Tom Allen

April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom

Holiday tables under the trees

April in Paris, this is the feeling

No one can ever reprise

In the spring of 1975, I was there. April, in Paris, though I had never heard Yip Harburg’s lyrics to the hit song composed by Vernon Duke for the 1932 Broadway musical Walk a Little Faster. Wouldn’t have known a chestnut tree if I saw one. But the feeling that “no one can ever reprise?” That, I remember; yet my sojourn to the City of Lights almost didn’t happen.

The only foreign language offered at my high school in the ’70s was French. Not a lotta takers. Why I signed up escapes me. Perhaps I thought a language might look good on a college application. By the time I graduated, after three years studying French, I could conjugate verbs, sing a few Christmas songs, and even read a little Victor Hugo.

During my junior year, Madame Arnold, our teacher whose slow, Southern drawl made the language easier to hear and understand, organized a weeklong trip for members of our French Club. The trip would take place over Easter break. 

I wanted to go. More than anything, more than ever, I wanted to go. My parents’ initial response was “no.” It wasn’t the cost as much as the fact I was 16 and had never been out of North Carolina, much less the country. And I’d never flown. My dad was concerned the plane might crash, a carryover from his Army days in Europe 30 years earlier. My mom worried I might wander off, get lost, be kidnapped. My paternal grandmother, who lived next door, shared Dad’s concern. A farm wife who’d never seen the ocean, she questioned why anyone would want to fly across that ocean to someplace where “you can’t understand a word they say.” My maternal grandmother, on the other hand, thought it was a great opportunity: “You can bring me back a bottle of French wine.”

I recall pleading for days, a form of manipulation that rarely worked in my family. I would help pay my way, I promised. My meager checking account still had money from summer tobacco work. I think I even cried, just like I cried the year my buddy got a motor scooter for Christmas and I didn’t. Those tears, I recall, were wasted.

Eventually, my dad caved. Reluctantly, my mother agreed. One grandmother immediately started praying for safety. The other gave me cash for that bottle of wine.

On Easter Monday, five of us, under the watchful eye of Madame Arnold, departed Raleigh-Durham for New York, then an overnight flight to Paris. I savored every moment of the trip, from the plane ride and its preheated meals to the beauty of Paris by night from atop the Eiffel Tower. I was especially proud that I understood the language and happy the French could understand my Southern accent, even when I had to ask, many times,“Parlez plus lentement, s’il vous plaît.” Please speak slower.

We visited sites seen only in classroom film strips or 16 mm movies — the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées, the beaches of Normandy and Mont Saint-Michel, the Palace of Versailles, and the château of Chambord. I remember the grandeur of Notre Dame, still heavy with the scent of lilies and incense from Easter Masses, and the taste of éclairs and macaroons from hole-in-the-wall pâtisseries.

Our last night in Paris, we attended dinner and a show at the Moulin Rouge, its cabaret and can-can dancers immortalized on canvas by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Only after pages of permission slips our parents had to sign, were we allowed to see the possibly provocative performances, accompanied by a half-glass of champagne with dessert. But the night was less risqué than we imagined, a classy and colorful evening of great food and lots of laughter.

When I returned from our grande soirée, I packed the small bottles of perfume and lace handkerchiefs I purchased for my mom and grandmothers, a wallet for my dad, and that bottle of Vouvray for Granny Pate. The only souvenir I bought for myself — my caricature by a street artist in Montmartre.

The next day I bid adieu to what had been the trip of my young lifetime. Others would follow — a summer in England during seminary, a honeymoon in Bermuda, a pilgrimage to Israel. But my taste for travel was sparked by that high school journey to République Française, a taste we encouraged in our daughters, both of whom studied abroad during college.

My own college days included more French because I simply loved the language. Sadly, I’ve had few opportunities to converse since. Like anything else, use it or lose it. Two occasions in ministry afforded me the opportunity to say the Lord’s Prayer in French. One was a small, private wedding for a lovely couple, the bride and her family from Québec. The other, the funeral of a parishioner, also French-Canadian, a friend with whom I occasionally conversed. The prayer, in the language of his childhood, was his request, and one I was honored to fulfill.

Every year, the week before Easter, I visit my parents’ graves. Sometimes I stand in silence, but other times I speak. Words of gratitude are always expressed, for their lives, their love, their generosity. And for the gift of giving into my pleas and sending their only kid to the other side of the world.  PS

Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.

Pleasures of Life Dept.

How I Learned to Skate

By Nancy Roy Fiorillo

One night not too long ago, I dreamed I was roller skating. The rink was big, and I was all alone except for my dad. He was standing at the railing. I tried a difficult jump and fell, not once but three times. Then my dad said, “Hold your head up — that will help you keep your balance.”

I tried again and mastered the jump. It was a dream that came from long ago, before I really grew up, before high school and boyfriends and life.

I grew up in a small town in New England. Famous for the manufacture of Frye Boots, Marlborough was an unremarkable haven for first generation immigrants — French, Italian, Irish, Greek and more. I was third-generation French Canadien, my antecedents hailing from Prince Edward Island and Toronto. My parents met at a St. Mary’s Catholic Church youth group and later dated as the King and Queen of the Mardi Gras. I was told the priest attended the crowning of the “royalty,” but the dancing could start only after he made his exit.

Our modest two-bedroom house sat on 12 acres with enough room for two parents, one sister, batches and batches of kittens and me. My paternal grandfather lived two houses away, and both he and my dad raised chickens. Often I accompanied my dad to the chicken coop to feed the squawking birds, eagerly plunging both of my hands down into the mash we mixed for their dinner, and more often than not coming up with nothing much more than an itchy nose. Dad always kept one hand out of the feed, free to scratch my little nose for me.

Receiving the fluffy, yellow chicks we called peepers and putting them in the little room with the bright warming light was a cozy act of faith. On Saturdays my dad was the egg man, and I rode the route with him. His regular job was at a General Electric facility called Telecron. When I asked him what he did, he told me he put faces on clocks. And indeed he did, on an assembly line.

My sister and I walked to school and back. Summertime was a flight of imagination in the large woods behind our house. We buddied up with a couple of kids from across the street and built a bike trail, including jumps. One summer we put together a three-room house with bundling sticks and string. We discovered a pond that we named Crystal Lake and told imaginary stories about who drowned there and who drew their drinking water from this little muddy lagoon. We built a 9-hole cement miniature golf course complete with twists and turns and waterfalls. The architect was the boy across the street (who would become an engineer), and we were his crew. We dug holes, moved rocks, poured cement and cleared paths. We made sandwich signs for our bikes and rode all over town advertising a round of miniature golf, 5 cents. We made enough money that summer to go to the finest amusement park in New England — my dad drove four of us as if he were delivering eggs and we stayed all day.

In the winter we’d sling our ice skates over our shoulders and walk to Lake Williams, as frozen as the concrete we poured. We changed into our skates near the warmth of the burn barrel and stayed on the ice until we couldn’t feel our feet, then returned to the barrel to change into our frozen boots and head home.

Just before fourth grade we found out I needed allergy shots and special shoes. My mother was offered the entire vial of medicine for $85, or we could pay $5 per shot. She took the installment plan and then declared she would be going to work at a factory in Sudbury. My sister and I left public school to attend St. Anne’s Academy adjacent to our church. The academy was both a school and a novitiate, run by the Sisters of St. Anne. Most of the students were boarders, and my sister and I joined the ranks of the day students. School started at 8 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m. We had a half day of French and religion and the other half of the day was for everything else our nuns knew. We diagrammed sentences ad nauseam but learned little history, geography or science. To fill the full day we had 2 1/2 hours for lunch, time used in the winter for skating on Lake Williams, a group of wobbly young girls led by penguins on ice. Our nuns were strict and unyielding, but they could skate like Boston Bruins, gliding along with their hands behind their backs.

My dad eventually closed down the egg business and, with help, dismantled the chicken coop. I remember them removing the baby chick room, then pulling off sides of the troughs. The roof was still standing when they pulled up the floor. Underneath was beautiful hardwood, perfect for roller skating. Our neighborhood engineer was no skater, so he rigged up a bowling alley, too.

One day after watching us, my dad announced that we were good enough skaters to go to the real roller rink, named Lyonhurst, up on the hill above Lake Williams. In earlier days the Big Bands, even some famous ones, performed there. When the music died out, a couple bought it and turned it into a skating rink with smooth flooring, organ music, dances and games. My first Saturday afternoon was pretty scary, but Dad stayed close by leaning against the rail to give me confidence. The rented skates were big and heavy on my skinny legs, and I didn’t have a skating skirt like most of the older girls, but I rolled on, weekend after weekend.

Soon my dad presented me with a used pair of excellent skates — Douglass-Snyder’s — with toe stops. My mom knitted skating skirts for me and bought the panties that go underneath. I took lessons and became a real skater. I won some games and learned some jumps and danced, going over the steps before I slept just to make sure I knew every single one.

Then it happened. I woke one Saturday morning to the news that Lyonhurst, my skating rink, had burned to the ground during the night. I was heartbroken! Other skating rinks were too far away to even think about.

We still ice skated on Lake Williams when it froze over in the winter, but as we grew older, the woods held no interest for us. Our backyard rink was gone and high school was ahead. I was forced to give up my skating and learn to do more grown-up things. But sometimes, even now, I dream about mastering a jump with someone standing against the rail with a free hand.  PS

Nancy Roy Fiorillo, a former mayor of Pinehurst, loves reading and occasionally a little writing.

Pleasures of Life Dept.

Flowers for Mama

Beauty floating in a coffee mug

By Katherine Smith

It was 3 a.m. on Mother’s Day. I was 19, driving home from a night walking through Weymouth with a certain boy my parents didn’t know about. On my lap, I balanced a bouquet of sunflowers, picked up from a 24/7 grocery store, hoping that my mom would be so delighted to discover them in the morning that she would forget to ask me where I had been.

I parked a block away from home, tiptoed down the driveway, and carefully pulled on the squeaky kitchen door. It was locked. The noise alerted my mom’s huge German shepherd, who was even more anxious than usual with my dad working out of town. Hoping to quiet Zulu before she woke everyone up, I ran around to the back porch doors, which were indeed open, and met my mom in her camo pajamas, holding a rifle. Despite my shielding myself with her favorite flowers, Mom did indeed ask me where on earth I had been.

These days, while I still often find myself driving to my parents’ house in the middle of the night, Zulu now sleeps in their closed bedroom, and I have a front door key. Somewhere between Interstate 40 and the back roads of Seagrove, I will stop to pick up flowers for my mama. Dogwood twigs, half a dozen daffodils, or a single magnolia blossom float intoxicatingly beside me in an unwashed coffee mug on the console the whole way home.

Beauty is my mom’s love language. We five kids were raised with climbing roses, azalea coves leading to white wicker dreaming chairs, beefsteak tomatoes bursting from their cages and onto our dinner plates, antique furniture refinished from someone’s roadside trash pile, and living room walls revived each year by fresh buckets of goldenrod, sienna and merlot paint. When Mom left her only home in Moore County to follow my dad to his new job in Texas a few years back, it was with wrought-iron hanging baskets of ferns, seed packets of kitchen herbs, and buttercups hand-painted on thrifted plates. We all knew Mom was terribly homesick, but she resolutely held beauty close, and it fed her straight from her senses to her marrow.

Only when I moved thousands of miles away to Alaska did I understand this necessity of homegrown beauty. All winter, I walked in circles around the garden section of Lowe’s Hardware, just for the home smell. I bought a new houseplant nearly every weekend, ordered more seeds than I’d ever be able to plant, built a growshelf from recycled shop lights, and a small greenhouse out of PVC pipe.

In the place where stark independence met the nostalgia of being cared for, I grew my first garden. Along with hardy Swiss chard and kale, I planted the marigolds I grew up with, trained sugar snap peas up willow tepees, and, against all odds, grew a few small tomatoes and jalapeños in my little greenhouse. When my first zucchini bulged from its papery yellow blossom and into my palm, my life was changed. I saw, as my mother must have years ago, that flowers are a necessary beauty, the archetype of potential, the very perpetuation of new, green, life. I saw my mother, just as she must have seen hers, in a pregnant bloom.

This Mother’s Day finds Mom and me both back in our Carolina home soil. In my small garden, I am growing up again, reared by the beauty that is my mother’s literal namesake. Motherwort spreads its bitter calm with blessed mint-family invasiveness. Matricaria chamomilla grows tall and feathery, “the herb for babies of all ages,” as my teacher likes to say. And when I get on the highway in the middle of the night to drive a few short hours into her arms, my mama no longer asks me where I’ve been. She just embraces me, as we have both learned to do with perennials on the first day of summer, and says, “I’m so glad you came.”  PS

Katherine Smith grew up swinging from ivy vines and hunting water lilies in Pinebluff, N.C. She’s returned to North Carolina to study clinical herbalism at the Eclectic School of Herbal Medicine in Lowgap, calling Ireland and Alaska home in the interim.

Pleasures of Life Dept.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Chips

Snag a bag on National Potato Chip Day

By Tom Allen

Hold on, St. Patrick. Your day’s coming. But before you pass the corned beef and cabbage, offer a blessing for the Emerald Isle’s favorite veggie — the holy spud. And while you’re at it, give thanks for those crispy, fried, paper-thin rounds, America’s favorite snack, the potato chip.

Potatoes have been fried up for centuries, a staple in European as well as South American cultures, but the earliest written recipe for “crisps,” the English version of our potato chip, dates back to 1817, to a cookbook written by a British doctor and part-time chef, William Kitchiner. Obviously not a cardiologist, Kitchiner suggested frying thin, round shavings in lard or fat drippings.

You can thank George “Crum” Speck (or urban legend) for inventing the American version, originally referred to as “Saratoga chips.” Crum and his sister, “Aunt Kate,” worked as cooks for the Lake Moon House in Saratoga Springs, New York, until he opened his own restaurant, “Crum’s,” in nearby Malta.

Whether truth or tale, the story goes that a diner (some say Cornelius Vanderbilt) who visited the lake house’s popular restaurant in 1853 complained about his order of fried spuds. The discriminating guest sent the side back several times. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. Striving for quality service, or maybe just aggravated at a picky customer, George fried and salted a batch of thinly sliced potatoes that, evidently, pleased the chap.

Crisps or chips. Call ’em what you will. William and Crum (in my opinion) were geniuses.

When I was a boy, a bag of plain Lay’s always sat next to our breadbox. Barbeque flavor was a special treat, but Sour Cream and Onion made for stinky breath. We were never fans of Ruffles. Probably the ridges. Pringles debuted in the late ’60s but I’m guessing they were too newfangled for my traditionalist mom. Tom’s Chips, still available, were an OK substitute. Tom’s, plus a pack of Nabs, made for a perfect snack for a day of hunting or fishing.

A childhood neighbor, who moved south from Michigan, had Charles Chips delivered to her home. She’d offer me a handful on a paper towel. Pretty good, tasted like Lay’s. And how cool to have chips delivered to your door, just like the Pine State Dairy guy brought milk. The company, named for Charles Street in Baltimore, where Effie Musser started the business out of her kitchen, packaged their chips in gold and brown tins and advertised “free delivery.” Mom loved her neighbor but thought chips in a tin coupled with the convenience of delivery was “too much.” The company ended home delivery in the ’70s, but Charles Chips are still sold in those iconic tins.

Potato chips are my go-to snack. Traditional with burgers and dogs but try them crumbled up in a peanut butter sandwich, on wheat bread, with a glass of milk. Heavenly.

Adulthood brought testing the boundaries outside Lay’s yellow and white bag. A New Orleans friend introduced me to Zapp’s. Packaged in Gramercy, Louisiana, Zapp’s kettle-fried chips are cooked in peanut oil, thick and crispy. Kettle-cooked chips differ from regular in cooking method but in the end, a kettle chip, though darker and more irregular in shape, is still a potato chip. Zapp’s first brand? A spicy Cajun version. If you’re a Zapp’s fan, Wedgies, a sandwich shop off Morganton Road in Southern Pines, carries them.

I didn’t give up Lay’s. Sour Cream and Onion or Barbeque rank as favorites, but Dill Pickle or Salt-N-Vinegar? Pass. And Lay’s, like other snack brands, ventured into boutique flavors like Kettle-Cooked Jalapeño and Simply Sea Salted. For the health-conscious, Lay’s offers Baked or Lightly Salted.

Current favorite? Carolina Kettle — flavorful, crispy kettle chips produced by 1 in 6 Snacks, a company in Raleigh, created by 2017 N.C. State grad Josh Monahan. The company’s name is rooted in America’s food insecurity: the fact that 1 in 6 people aren’t sure where they’ll find their next meal. Motivated to produce a quality product and address hunger, Josh donates to local food banks — 5 cents for every 2-ounce bag and 10 cents for every 5-ounce bag sold. Flavors include Outer Banks Sea Salt, Down East Carolina BBQ, Bee Sting Honey Sriracha, and Sir Walter Cream Cheese and Chive. I’m still noshing on bags my kids gave me for Christmas. Great chips fund a good cause. Buy them locally at Southern Whey in downtown Southern Pines.

So grab a bag of your chip of choice. Toast the day with a glass of milk or a bottle of Mountain Dew. St. Patrick’s Day always falls during Lent, a season when some of the faithful choose to give something up. I’ll pass on corned beef, Fridays or any day, but the good Lord knows, I do love my chips.  PS

Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.