TCB Jan. 6, 2016 — Citizens of the Triad Issue

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com January 6 – 12, 2016

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ID switcheroo PAGE 8

New Year’s purge PAGE 21

Dark Water Rising PAGE 22

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January 6 — 12, 2016

Around the horn

by Brian Clarey

26 UP FRONT 3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 6 Commentariat 6 The List 7 Barometer 7 Unsolicited Endorsement

NEWS 8 A legal ID drive 10 Police files illuminate unit 12 HPJ: Trouble at Rich Fork Preserve

OPINION 13 Editorial: Drama in undercard

13 Citizen Green: Open space legacy 14 It Just Might Work: Look at that S Car Go 14 Fresh Eyes: Pondering Trump

GAMES

COVER

28 McGee Street, Greensboro

15 Citizens of the Triad 2016

ALL SHE WROTE

CULTURE

30 Southern Zodiac

27 Jonesin’ Crossword

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

20 Food: Korean food impresses 21 Barstool: New years fool 22 Music: Native sounds 24 Art: The immigrant’s mosaic

FUN & GAMES 26 A mermaid’s tale

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

It may make the difference between someone getting a citation and someone having to go to jail. Trying to make neighbors out of strangers to develop trust between law enforcement and people that are new to this country, not just Hispanics, is what this is all about.

— Forsyth County police attorney Lonnie Albright, in News, page 8

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I came up with the term “citizen of the Triad” a few years ago when, in my travels between the three cities I cover, I’d encounter folks out of their element: Greensboro drinkers in a Winston-Salem bar, High Point musicians playing gigs in downtown Greensboro, Winston-Salem people… well, Winston-Salem people don’t venture out much.

It’s not their fault that our three cities backed into each other 150 years ago, or whenever it all began, that Winston-Salem faces west and Greensboro faces east and that very little connective tissue has formed between us.

Back in the early days of regionalism, I was part of a small corps that sought to knit these cities together. Under the hand of Jeri Rowe, I along with cohorts Nicole Crews, Allison King, Tim Dineen, Kim Thore and dozens of others filled the pages of Triad Style with news of the burgeoning cultural scenes percolating in our downtown districts.

I came late to the party, just a couple years before the News & Record folded Triad Style into the main paper’s operations and called the small staff from their outbuilding in the parking lot into the Big House. I stayed on for another year at the new publication, GoTriad, writing about bars and nightlife before moving on.

I’m not sure, but it’s possible that I’m the longest tenured journalist covering the entire Triad. Rowe’s been out for a couple years now, and the rest of the Style crew have long since found respectable work. Crews might challenge me on longevity, if I could ever get her out to Winston-SaThat road becomes lem, and Mark more traveled as the Sutter at the Triad Business Journal population shifts tomight come close. wards those who don’t Ogi Overman, a mind driving 24 miles towering figure in local A&E for work, or a date, or journalism, probeven a quick lunch. ably deserves the crown — he’s been making the trip on Business 40 since it was a dirt wagon path.

That road becomes more traveled as the population shifts towards those who don’t mind driving 24 miles for work, or a date, or even a quick lunch. There are more citizens of the Triad now than ever before — I know because I’m still out there, bouncing between Greensboro and Winston and even High Point, and I see them all the time: others like me, deliciously out of context, making connections where none existed before.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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January 6 — 12, 2016

CITY LIFE January 6 – 12

by Daniel Wirtheim

WEDNESDAY

Greensboro Jaycees membership meeting @ Jaycees Office (GSO), 6:30 p.m.

Learn how young people are transforming the city. The Greensboro Jaycees call on young, civically engaged citizens to become leaders in the community. More information at jaycee.org.

THURSDAY First Toast @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), 5:30 p.m.

It was 75 years ago on this exact day that the Weatherspoon Art Museum opened its doors and to celebrate the museum’s organized this night of swing dancing and drinks. Folk musician Martha Bassett plays, and the Piedmont Swing Dance Society swings their stuff. Visit weatherspoon.uncg.edu for more information.

Emily Yacina & More @ Revolution Cycles (GSO), 8:30 p.m.

Four music groups from Virginia, New York and across North Carolina meet up in the bike shop for a night of especially fine post-CD internet-indie music. Emily Yacina, growing in popularity after her collaborations with Alex G, headlines. Find the event page on Facebook for more information.

Lunch & Learn @ Action Greensboro Office (GSO), noon SynerG, Greensboro’s civically active group of young professionals, hosts an information session about healthcare access in Greensboro. The meeting is an overview of the partnership between Guilford County nonprofits under the Affordable Care Act and everything else a young professionals needs to know about health insurance. Find more information at synerg.org Photography workshop @ Sawtooth School for Visual Art (W-S), 5:30 p.m.

For those who have a camera but haven’t quite grappled the process of picture taking the Sawtooth hosts a photography workshop. Both DSLR’s and point-and-shoots are welcome. Visit sawtooth.org for more information.

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‘The Slow Loss of the Foods We Love’ @ Temple Emanuel (W-S), 6:30 p.m.

Journalist and environmentalist Simran Sethi discusses her book Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of the Foods We Love. Sethi’s book chronicles the major agricultural changes that are homogenizing foods throughout the world. Search for the event on co.forsyth.nc.us for more information.

Wicked Weed tap takeover @ Beer Co. (GSO), 6 p.m.

Wicked Weed Brewing makes a coup d’état on the taps of the downtown craft beer store. They pour some favorites and some new ones. There’s a couple of sour ales, the Puer Green Tea Saison (new) and more. Find the event page on Facebook for more information.

SUNDAY Obnox @ the Garage (W-S), 9 p.m.

Cleveland’s Bim Thomas delivers some real heavy hip hop-punk as his one-man project, Obnox. It’s grungy, driving and has plenty of rhythm. Cleveland art punks X _X headlines this show, which also gets support from Greensboro dreampunk band Cucumbers.

Visit the-garage.ws for more information.

triad-city-beat.com

FRIDAY

The Pope, Paris and Climate Change @ Scuppernong Books (GSO), 3 p.m.

As a journalist Justin Catanoso has covered the last two UN climate change summits.

And as a Catanoso he is related to Saint Gaetano Catanoso, which is the focus of his book My Cousin the Saint. Both of these topics and more intersect in this discussion.

Visit scuppernongbooks.com for more information.

Monster Jam @ Greensboro Coliseum (GSO), 7:30 p.m.

The biggest names in monster trucking rip up a custom-designed course. Some would say it’s cathartic to watch these giant colorful trucks smash things. Visit greensborocoliseum.com for more information.

2016 Golden Globes @ Geeksboro Coffeehouse Cinema (GSO), 8 p.m.

Geeksboro hosts a screening of the Academy Awards ceremony. Ridicule the absurdity or appreciate the show. Comic-heavyweight Ricky Gervais hosts the awards ceremony. Find the event page on Facebook for more information.

SATURDAY Alice in Wonderland @ Hanesbrands Theatre (W-S), 11 a.m.

It’s been 150 years since little Alice first tumbled down the rabbit hole. To commemorate the journey Winston Salem Ballet is throwing Alice in with their Fairy Tale Series. This one-act production features fairy tale giants like The Tortoise and the Hare and The Ugly Duckling.

Visit winstonsalemfestivalballet.org for more information.

Art Show and Life Celebration @ Urban Grinders (GSO), 5 p.m.

When Chris Lubinski passed away, he left behind a legacy of photographic history and memories. Lubinski took it upon himself to document musicians and performers in Greensboro. Tonight Lubinski’s work and life is remembered with live music and his own photos and art. Find the page on Facebook for more information.

Piedmont Blues Preservation Society @ the Blind Tiger (GSO), 7 p.m.

North Carolina musicians call on the community to support a trip to Memphis to compete in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge. It’s a fundraiser featuring winners of the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society’s solo, duo, band and youth categories. Visit theblindtiger.com for more information.

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January 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games

The Triad 100

I really enjoyed reading this article… all the “tea” of the past year compiled into one great article [The Triad 100; Dec. 30, 2015]. I’m printing this out as a reference so I can keep up with some of these scandals and political players in the year to come.

K. Wing, via triad-city-beat.com

Calling bias

I believe it would be worth the effort of writing an unbiased article (if that was the intention) to have also cited that many city and county law enforcement agencies across the US have trained civil emergency units [“Protesters mourn Sandra Bland, Elisha Walker in midnight march”; Jan. 2, 2016; by Daniel Wirtheim and Joanne Rutter]. These are not readily available just for violent, reckless protests that may pose a danger to the community but for disaster management as well. It is also important to have noted that perhaps the officers “flanked” and “followed” the protesters in order to keep them safe as they were walking in the middle of the street. To have omitted this not only entices public anger towards law enforcement but is also indicative of your lack of (combined) journalistic experience. Lastly, but certainly not less important, it is refreshing to see members of the community exercise their right to protest something they feel is unjust in a civil and peaceful manner as it is also refreshing to see law enforcement officers exercising the oath they swore to upon graduation. libertygirl76, via triad-city-beat.com

All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

Food in the mail

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This is a good idea [“IJMW: Produce at the bus depot”; Dec. 30, 2015; by Daniel Wirtheim]. I like the idea of pop-up produce markets at bus depots. I have a different, complementary idea. I don’t like the way food pantries work. They’re dominated by churches. Why do the food insecure poor have to go to churches to get the food they need?

Churches have baggage. Go to church if you want to get right with God. But if you’re food insecure, the government

should bring the food to you. We should have a more efficient way for someone in need to access food. Instead of a patchwork system of churches that are currently relied on, we could do better.

I’d like to see the postal service deliver food to people who really need it. This would professionalize emergency supplemental food delivery to the poor. It would bring food to the people who need it. They wouldn’t have to devote their time to going to individual churches to get food, the food would come to them.

The postal service can’t afford to do this. The USPS is billions of dollars in debt. They can’t make money delivering mail and packages as the volume of mail continues to decline. But we need a good, reliable mail service. We should expand the scope of the USPS (and the federal government should assume it’s debts), instead of cutting or privatizing it.

Sure, the USPS loses money, but so does practically everything else that the government does. That’s a luxury that the government has. They can lose money and it’s acceptable as long as public service is provided.

The USPS has been a source of good, solid jobs that don’t require a college degree for many decades. We need more jobs like this. Jobs where workers can start at an entry level and work their way up into a solid, middle-class career. Continued layoffs at the USPS are unacceptable.

Having the USPS deliver food staples and potentially even fresh fruits and vegetables would professionalize emergency food delivery. Let the pastors preach. Let the USPS deliver food to the poor!

All we have to do is start trying. There are tangible ways to help people in need in substantive ways.

Once the USPS successfully implements an emergency food assistance program for the poor. The USPS can expand into other services. For example, several countries have post office banks. This would be a simple solution to help poor, unbanked people (that are of little value to traditional banks) to have access to a bank account.

Winston Watchman, via triad-city-beat. com

11 easy New Years resolutions

by Eric Ginsburg

1. Korean food

Seriously, if you haven’t already, you’re cheating yourself. Fix this immediately.

2. Plan day trips

Go to the Eden Drive-In theater, tube the Dan River, drive to Lexington for some barbecue, take your dog to Pilot Mountain… I don’t care what you do, as much as that you do it. There’s too much within an hour’s drive not to regularly make excursions out of the Triad, and the best way to succeed repeatedly is to plan ahead.

3. Unwind with a record instead of a show

Like many of you, my go-to is to head for Netflix or Hulu after work to decompress. Too often, I only listen to music in the background. But if you’re able, try cranking up an album and actually immersing yourself in the music to chill while your screens are out of sight.

I recommend the blues, or something from high school.

4. Keep your resolutions

Whether you call them resolutions or just plans or goals, write down whatever else you come up with on your own and maybe share them with someone else to help hold yourself accountable.

5. But allow yourself some flexibility

… Because life happens, and you can only control so much. Bend when you must so that you don’t break.

6. Go to High Point

Seriously. Schedule at least one afternoon in the Third City. Scour our archives for a reason or keep an eye on the paper until something jumps out. Brown Truck Brewing will open soon, I’ve highlighted Penny Path Café creperie and my colleague’s written extensively about the Rich Fork Preserve.

High Pointers, you’ve got a head start on completing this list.

7. Watch an entire city council meeting

Just one. I recommend trying this at home with a friend, tuning into the public access channel, and making it a drinking game. You could start by taking a sip every time a council member is clearly off topic, but you’ll quickly come up with better ideas.

8. Join the club

Doesn’t matter if it’s a book club, intramural sport, an arts organization or something you dream up. The idea is to carve out dedicated time to try something new that involves other people, preferably that includes meeting new folks. Extra points for anything that meets more than once a month.

9. C ooking a new dish each month

The trick to learning to cook more things is to create a habit, I’m convinced, and one thing a month seems like a feasibly low bar. Pick a recipe to try on the first of the month and try to schedule a night to go for it.

10. Go to a protest

Regardless of whether you participate, go witness a protest firsthand.

If you’ve never attended one it might seem intimidating, but you can watch from across the street or from a nearby storefront. Hear people air their grievances firsthand rather than via Facebook or an intermediary (such as TCB). Maybe you used to be a regular but haven’t attended a protest in a while, or maybe this is a learning moment and you could bring your kids along. If you disagree with the message, focus on the act of witnessing rather than arguing.

11. Chill

This could mean a variety of things, and I intend all of them. But in particular, try to remember it when you’re mad, taking a moment to collect yourself, if only slightly, before reacting. Sometimes it can save you a world of anguish later.

The window seat

ets, including myself, seems to get exactly 13 stings.

The Charlotte Hornets announced that its development league team in Greensboro will be named the Swarm. Whaddya think?

New question: Did you know that Business 40 is closing this year? Vote at triad-city-beat.com.

90

60 50

20

10

Yes

20% No

7%

Unsure/Maybe

All She Wrote

73%

Shot in the Triad

30

Games

40

Fun & Games

70

Culture

80

Cover Story

Jordan Green: Yes, it’s badass. And fitting a fitting name for the Charlotte Hornets. Although, if you want to get technical about it, I’m not really sure that hornets swarm. I can say, based on a traumatic experience in Vermont when I was 6, that yellowjackets swarm. If one goes after you, the whole family wants to mess with you. Everyone I know who’s been stung by yellowjack-

Opinion

Readers: Our readers did right by us on this one — not because of your votes, but because of your comments, which are sometimes lacking. Tyler Jeffreys wrote, “I wanted ‘Greensboro Biscuits,’” and Camilo Perdomo said, “I’m all for it; that means ‘Biscuitville Ballers’ is still up for grabs J.” Someone said it’s better than the Winston-Salem Dash and another said it’s better than the Greensboro Grasshoppers, while Brittney May simply responded, “No.” Calder Preyer said that the name is fine “but the logo is a bit [poop emoji],” and Greensboro Councilman Tony Wilkins asked if the Pavilion (where the team will play) will be known as “the Beehive.” In the poll, 73 percent said yes and 20 percent said no while the remaining 7 percent said unsure/maybe. Z Crow explained the support: “It’s unique and a feeder team for the Hornets. What’s not to like?”

News

Brian Clarey: I can live with the name Swarm, because it would have taken too much foresight and faith to take the name Buzz. In a few more years, when marijuana becomes legal nationwide (just 30 states or so to go), the Triad will be at the epicenter of the movement. I’ve explained this before: The names Greensboro and High Point lend themselves to this sort of green marketing. And Winston-Salem’s history with combustibles will give the whole thing a nice throwback touch. When that happens, we’re gonna need a team named the Buzz, be it arena football, women’s rugby or ultimate Frisbee. Until then, the Swarm is just fine.

by Daniel Wirtheim A man with two dogs and a walking cane stops to speak with a passerby whom he greets cordially. Two young smokers light up right in front of me. I can only see the backs of their heads but I’m pretty confident that they’re smiling. After all, it’s 50 degrees on a Sunday afternoon in January and Greensboro’s Tate Street is a lazy little oasis from the work week. There’s a smile working its way across my lips, too, because I’ve got the window seat.

I don’t come to Tate Street Coffee often, not since the generation of baristas whom I had come to know moved on.

There was Spencer who moved to Firestorm Café & Books in Asheville, and Arthur who moved to Urban Grinders on Elm Street. It just doesn’t feel right to learn the names and qualities of a new generation. But the window seat is sort of its own space, separate from therest of the coffee shop.

There’s a single step up that leads to a table with two cushioned chairs. There’s a potted plant and about four feet of guard railing on one side of the entrance space that form a type of threshold and make the window space feel appropriately cut off from the greater room. And the entrance is set back just a few feet from the window, making the window seat feel like a capsule without being claustrophobic. The window seat does have its cons, though.

I feel entitled to watch the outside world from the window seat, but I myself am a sitting spectacle. So there’s an awkward moment of eye contact with nearly every passerby. And if an acquaintance passes, you’re definitely obliged to chat. The window seat can be stressful for those who just want to sit on this Sunday afternoon.

Like anything, it should be enjoyed in moderation. It’s the perfect space for a quick shot of espresso and two newspaper articles — really no more than three. And it’s respectful to limit your time in the window as well. To sit in solitude is selfish, since it is obviously a space for two — the perfect place for a game of Scrabble or checkers. It’s a place for friends and it’s also a place for those who just need a break.

Up Front

Eric Ginsburg: Absolutely. Side note: I really can’t wait for the inaugural season.

triad-city-beat.com

Do you like the ‘Greensboro Swarm’ name?

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January 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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NEWS

FaithAction holds ID drive in Winston-Salem

by Jordan Green

The FaithAction ID program is expanding from Greensboro to Winston-Salem despite a restrictive bill signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory in October. The agency has continued partnerships with local police departments thanks to an obscure legislative maneuver that provides an exception allowing law enforcement to accept the IDs as a last resort.

ford County Sheriff BJ Barnes during a ceremony at Barnes’ office on Oct. 28. Rep. Debra Conrad, a Republican from Winston-Salem, was one of the four primary sponsors of the bill, which declared that an identity document “issued or created by any person, organization, county, city, or other local authority” without express authorization FaithAction, the Greensboro-based by the state is not acceptable for use in nonprofit responsible for issuing an ID determining a person’s actual identity or used by undocumented immigrants to residency” by a law enforcement officer identify themselves to law enforcement or other government official. The bill officials, is expanding the program into also outlawed the use of the matricula Winston-Salem. consular for official use in determining a The agency is hosting an ID drive at person’s identity.

SouthEast Plaza Shopping Center, an“We cannot allow our local officials chored by Que Pasa Media Network, on and towns and cities throughout North Friday. Both the Winston-Salem Police Carolina to make up their own rules Department and the Forsyth County that conflict with our nation’s laws and Sheriff’s Office confirmed that they will our nation’s values,” the governor dehave representatives on hand. clared before signing the bill into law.

Despite a controversial bill signed Proponents of the FaithAction ID

by Gov. Pat McCrory that limited how program saw the governor’s decision local governments can recognize the to sign the law in Greensboro — an identification cards, commonly known unusual move — as a slap in the face of as FaithAction IDs, the local ID efforts that had Greensboro agency has included Greensboro Pocontinued to expand its lice Department support.

WANT TO GO? The program. A community It’s been an open secret dialogue between police for months — publiFaithAction ID and members of the cized by FaithAction and drive starts at 9 Latino community drew Spanish-language media 500 people in Asheboro outlets — that a key proa.m. on Friday at in late November, and vision of the legislation SouthEast Plaza the agency conducted its had already been effecShopping Center, largest ever drive, with tively nullified even before 375 people signing up, in the signing ceremony in located at 3025 Greensboro just before Greensboro occurred.

Waughtown St. in Christmas.

Rep. George CleveAmong other uses, land, a Jacksonville ReWinston-Salem. the IDs are sometimes publican who sponsored presented to law enforcethe bill with Conrad, filed ment officers during an amendment in a septraffic stops by undocumented imarate so-called “technical corrections” migrants who have no other form of bill that provides that law enforcement identification. officers may accept community IDs Spokesperson Susan Danielsen after all, but only “when they are the confirmed that the Greensboro Poonly documents providing an indication lice Department is still accepting the of the identity or residency available FaithAction IDs. to the law enforcement officer at the Gov. McCrory came to Greensboro time.” Since the IDs are already a last to sign the Protect North Carolina resort, effectively the new law makes no Workers Act while seated next to Guilchanges in how law enforcement officers

FaithAction signed up 375 people for it community ID during a drive in Greensboro last month.

should treat people who present the IDs during traffic stops.

Cleveland filed the amendment on Sept. 29, the day the Protect North Carolina Workers Act passed its third reading in the House. The day before, Greensboro police Chief Wayne Scott and Burlington police Capt. Jeff Wood had joined a clergy and others for a press conference expressing support for the FaithAction ID. David Fraccaro, the executive director of FaithAction, said his agency has maintained a partnership with the Greensboro Police Department for more than three years, logging hundreds of hours of dialogue between residents and police officers. The Burlington Police Department later signed on with the program, and since then the cities of Raleigh, Durham, Asheville and Cincinnati have also expressed interest.

“Over the last several years we’ve been working hard to build relations with that community, and we feel like the FaithAction ID has helped,” Wood said during the press conference. “If they limit the kind of IDs we can accept, we’re going to have a whole lot more people arrested and thrown in jail tying up our law-enforcement resources.”

Fraccaro said he believes lobbying by law enforcement officials played a critical role in getting the exception included in the technical corrections bill.

“Thankfully, when it came to the ID provision piece, some of the law

COURTESY PHOTO

enforcement led by folks in Burlington and Greensboro — who I think with other departments basically understood the value of the program — spoke up,” he said. “They understood that that trust has truly led to greater cooperation and reporting of crimes. Recognizing that, they spoke up for it and got it in the [corrections] bill. I don’t think that would have happened without their advocacy.”

Fraccaro noted that the bill still prohibits judges, clerks, magistrates and other government officials from accepting the IDs, making them useless for a woman attempting to obtain a 50B domestic violence restraining order, someone seeking a marriage license or a person who needs to activate a municipal water account.

Fraccaro emphasized that the ID is available to all residents.

“There are some elderly residents who needed to have some emergency health procedures and they couldn’t get all their documentation together who have used it,” he said. “There are homeless individuals who may have lost their ID and can’t get a driver’s license.

We’ve had clergy and city council members who have come through and love getting an ID. While the vast majority happen to be immigrants, we are stressing that the more we can get people who are willing to stand in line and stand side by side with our newest neighbors, the better.”

Fraccaro said he expect 200 to 300

Opinion

may be a tax receipt or a water bill or a lease agreement where they’re leasing an apartment. It has to be an original document — no photocopies. There’s a lot of different agencies that are doing this — Greensboro Police Department, Burlington Police Department, Graham, Elon, Mebane and lots of other departments. Statesville’s looking at it, along with Asheboro, Raleigh and Durham.”

Albright indicated the sheriff’s office is looking at the program as an opportunity to avoid locking people up for minor infractions.

“It may make the difference between someone getting a citation and someone having to go to jail,” he said. “Trying to make neighbors out of strangers to develop trust between law enforcement and people that are new to this country, not just Hispanics, is what this is all about.”

News

“I can’t speak for every officer,” he said. “If one of our officers is out in the field and they stop someone and they don’t have the driver’s license and they don’t feel like during their investigative stop they can ascertain the individual’s identity with confidence, they can make a physical arrest, detain them an take them downtown.”

Lonnie Albright, the police attorney for the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office, indicated that the IDs inspire confidence, although sheriff’s deputies, like their counterparts in the police department, will have the discretion to determine how to proceed after being presented with the IDs. “These FaithAction IDs are not just given away willy-nilly,” he said. “Folks that obtain them are identified and they have to bring documentation. They pay a fee of $10 and it has a current photograph, and it’s only good for a year. It

Up Front Cover Story

Phelps said the police department supports the ID drive, although he said the department cannot endorse the IDs themselves.

“We support the ID drive because it’s another way for us to build positive community relationships,” he said. “We support the ID card because we would rather someone have ID than not. However we can’t endorse the ID cards as fact because it’s not government issued, as in it’s not coming from a city, state or county agency. Our officers will use it as a first step or a starting point. They will compare it to information we have in our database already and they will use interviewing skills to learn more.”

Phelps said the Winston-Salem Police Department is training officers to use their discretion when presented with a FaithAction ID, adding that the ID won’t give motorists any special privileges. Advocates have long raised the issue that undocumented immigrants who cannot legally obtain a state-issued drivers license may fear the police because a traffic stop for a simple equipment violation can lead to deportation.

Phelps said that’s still an option for Winston-Salem police officers.

triad-city-beat.com

people to show up to obtain the IDs during the drive in Winston-Salem on Friday. Representatives of the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office and the Winston-Salem Police Department attended a training on Dec. 4 with local volunteers to prepare for the rollout.

Lt. Tyrone Phelps confirmed that the Winston-Salem Police Department will have representatives on hand at the ID drive on Friday “for support and to answer questions.”

FaithAction will have photographic and ID-making equipment available on site.

“Once everybody is seated and has a document, we’ll start with an orientation, including some of the history of the program,” Fraccaro said. “After that is the dialogue with the police department and the sheriff’s department. We only take 10 people at a time, so you have 200 people listening to the police department, asking questions, and engaging in dialogue back and forth.

We try to do it in English and Spanish.

French tends to be the third most requested language. The first half is about getting the ID. The second half is about dialogue and building trust.”

Culture Fun & Games

(336)618-PITS

All She Wrote

www.themeritpitbullfoundation.com

Shot in the Triad

Photography by Sara Lyn

Games

The Merit Pit Bull Foundation strives for a compassionate world where pit bull type dogs live in responsible homes and where owner education, training and anti-cruelty legislation support all pet owners regardless of breed.

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January 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Police files illuminate unit; activists want it gone

by Eric Ginsburg

Additional documents obtained by Triad City Beat confirm the connection between the quiet assembly of a police “civil emergency unit” and the 2012 Democratic National Convention and shed some light on the cost of the unit. Meanwhile, activists call for the team to be disbanded at a midnight march.

The decision to staff and train a police civil emergency unit that is “well prepared to respond to civil emergencies” came after the Greensboro Police Department assisted with the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, department spokesperson Susan Danielsen said.

But the idea also made sense because police personnel received specific gear and equipment associated with the convention that could be put to use, police emails from the time show.

Triad City Beat uncovered the existence of the department’s civil emergency unit in December, about a year after the police department assembled a team of up to 90 officers. Two Greensboro City Council members, who act as chair and vice chair of the council’s public safety committee, said they had either no knowledge of or recollection of being briefed on the unit. (The council committee formed in September, but both council members have served since before the unit’s assembly.)

After discovering the unit through documents obtained in a public-records request, Triad City Beat filed additional requests. Several internal police department emails confirm that the Democratic National Convention played a significant role in the assembly of the civil emergency unit.

In a Sept. 29, 2013 email from Capt.

Joel T. Cranford to then-Deputy Chief Wayne Scott — now the police chief — sought approval for the unit. In a draft memorandum, Cranford wrote: “The equipment provided to the department’s personnel during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte will serve as the initial allotment of gear for the newly constituted unit. At present, the department should have approximately 59 complete sets of field force gear for re-issue. Additionally, the department has an adequate amount

of bicycles and protective bike gear in its current inventory to support the creation of the mobile bicycle component of the CEU.” Almost a year later, Capt. John Wolfe sent out an email with a survey for those interested in joining the unit that also confirms the role of the Democratic National Convention in the unit’s formation.

The application, due by Sept. 17, 2014, only asked a few questions of officers. After asking for their names, ranks and current assignments, the survey said: “Were you deployed to Charlotte to assist with the DNC?” followed by, “If you were deployed to the DNC, what was your role?” The only additional questions asked for any special certifications officers held, if they were members of a special team and if so what, and whether the officers taught “in the PBIC or during in-service training” and if so what.

In the aftermath of the convention, starting a civil emergency unit in Greensboro also seemed like an attractive prospect from a financial perspective.

“Since a large majority of unit personnel will be outfitted with the uniform and protective gear provided through our participation in the Democratic National Convention, the initial start-up expenses relating to equipment are considered cost neutral,” Cranford wrote in the same September 2013 memorandum.

However, the unit would involve internal costs due to training. Based on the proposed configuration of 10 sergeants and 80 officers, and using the 2013 average costs for those ranks, Cranford estimated the total expense.

“Utilizing the current staffing levels and hourly rates the department can expect to incur 2,880 hours of training time away from their primary assignments, which equates to $65,177 in personnel costs associated with the creation of the unit,” he wrote.

He based the figure on “4 eight-hour training days per calendar year,” noting that “the cost figures could fluctuate depending on changes associated with scheduled and pre-event training needs

Greensboro police monitor a Black Lives Matter protest on Jan. 1

identified by the organization.”

Cranford’s memorandum had proposed “quarterly training sessions” for the civil emergency unit — thus the four trainings a year mentioned in costing estimates. But the unit ended up training on a monthly instead of a quarterly basis, Danielsen said. It is unclear what if any impact the increased training regimen has on the overall cost of the unit.

Danielsen provided answers to some but not all questions about the cost of the unit via email on Dec. 31 and Jan. 5.

“We have not yet set about establishing a budget or reviewing the cost of training,” she wrote in her first email.

“As the SOP requires a percentage of attendance based on available training days, that number is fluid. Otherwise there are some start-up costs that we have yet to receive. In the long term, the greatest expense will be training time.

Funds are most likely from the general budget.”

In response to questions about how the start-up costs are deferred, whether average costs for sergeants or officers has changed since 2013 and questions about the overall cost of the unit, Danielsen wrote: “No additional personnel

CALEB SMALLWOOD

costs are incurred as a result of training. Officers called out for an event or scheduled to work an event may be entitled to overtime. This cost varies based on the length of the assignment, the number of people dedicated to the event, and their salaries.”

In his 2013 memorandum, Capt.

Cranford pointed out the ability to deploy the unit outside of the city.

“The benefits associated with having an organized and trained civil emergency unit is the department will have a standing unit readily deployable in the event of localized civil unrest and disobedience,” Cranford said. “Furthermore, it provides a unit that can deploy and represent the organization at major functions such as the presidential inauguration, as well as the political conventions occurring regionally and nationally if request [sic] to assist.”

But Danielsen said the unit has only been used locally so far — “to keep the peace a dozen times in 2015” — and said that those instances “were partial activations, meaning only a portion of the team was used each time.”

Revelations about the unit’s existence frustrated some residents, who argue

At a midnight march on Jan. 1, not long after Triad City Beat discovered the civil emergency unit, Greensboro Black Lives Matter participants including organizer April Parker issued a list of demands that included the dissolution of the unit.

DISTINGUISHED LEADERSHIP LECTURE SERIES

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that it contradicts the public image the Greensboro Police Department is trying to project with things like the new Community Engagement Office and a traffic-stop reform in the wake of the October 2015 New York Times investigation into disparate policing practices in Greensboro.

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January 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

12

HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Mountain biking proposal gets complicated at Rich Fork Preserve

by Jordan Green

The fate of mountain biking at Rich Fork Preserve remains undecided, but the logistics of the concept are becoming increasingly difficult as opposition mounts.

height is precisely what makes it attractive to mountain bikers. In the past, neighboring residents have hauled out ramps built by the mountain bikers after the previous owner, Dr. Donald DougPlans by Guilford County to allow lass, told them they didn’t have permisrecreational biking in High Point’s Rich sion to ride on his property. Marshburn Fork Preserve continues to encounter acknowledged that the illegal course sharp resistance from conservationists. installed before the county acquired the Members of the defunct open space property features “a lot of cut up and committee and members of a local subdown trails.” committee set up to guide plans for the Douglass sold the property to the stewardship of the preserve have long county at a price below market value opposed mountain biking, which they through a conservation easement. The see as incompatible with the guidelines agreement binds the county to maintain of the 2004 bond that financed acquisi“conservation of natural areas.” tion of Rich Fork and other properties “This is where the illegal mountain across the county. During a meeting at bike trails, the ramps, the jumps and the High Point Museum on Monday, everything were on,” said Anne Hice, a Parks Director Thomas Marshburn former member of the open space comsought to allay conservationists’ conmittee who lives in Pleasant Garden. cerns by telling them the activity in “To put bikes back on that trail in my the preserve would be gentler than opinion is unacceptable.” previously understood. Meanwhile, the Bo Rodenbough, a Greensboro lawlogistics of recreational cycling in the yer who represents an unincorporated preserve appear increasingly difficult association called Guilford County Citibecause of the various concerns of a zens for the Preservation of Open Space wide range of constituencies. that is made up of former members of A new map distributed by Marshburn the open space committee, told county at the meeting shows a “hike/bike trail commissioners in December that they area” at the southern end of the precouldn’t legally transfer the property to serve near Northwood Elementary. the YMCA of High Point because of “People keep talking about the mounthe conservation easement. But during tain bikes; I want to make one thing a phone interview on Monday he said clear,” Marshburn said. he believes the conser“The mountain bikes vation easement would here on a passive park allow trail riding, The Guilford County is not like the mounwhich he described as tain bikes you would a “passive recreation Commission holds have at a park. This is use.” a meeting to gather more trail-bike riding.

Even if the bikpublic input on the It’s riding on whatever ing area passes legal ground is there. You’re Rich Fork Preserve at muster, access remains not coming in there a challenge. County the High Point Public and building jumps. commissioners nixed a You’re not making cuts Library on Jan. 13 from previous plan to put in into dirt. It’s the earth trailhead at Homestead 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. that is there. You’re not Avenue in response going in cutting out to vocal objections by trees.” neighbors. Marshburn Some residents who live in adjoining said he is meeting with the school leadneighborhoods expressed skepticism, ership at Northwood Elementary to try noting that the uneven topography of to negotiate access. As he was leaving the area with dramatic variations in the meeting on Monday, he disclosed

Guilford County Commission Chairman Hank Henning speaks to conservationists at High Point Museum on Monday.

that there’s no alternative access point if school officials don’t agree to the plan, although he said the biking area could potentially go in a different section of the preserve.

Hice said she likes the idea of eventually paving the main trail, conceived as running north to south from the YMCA to the elementary school, as a multi-use path wide enough to accommodate cyclists, along with walkers and runners.

Rodenbough said a paved linear trail would likely meet the legal requirements of the conservation easement, comparing it to the Price Park Greenway, maintained by the Greensboro Parks & Recreation Department in the northwest part of the city on property donated by Kathleen Bryan Edwards.

Tempers flared at the meeting on Monday as Hank Henning, chairman of the Guilford County Commission, attempted to leave so that he could make another meeting. Several of the people bombarded Henning and Marshburn with questions, and became increasingly frustrated when they didn’t receive the responses they wanted.

Under withering questioning, Marshburn admitted to instructing a subordinate to call the Fat Tire Society, a group of mountain-biking advocates, to alert them to a Survey Monkey electronic poll to gather public input on what types of activities should take place in the preserve. He said he also instructed the employee to alert a horseback riding

JORDAN GREEN

group, Northwoods Elementary and members of the preserve’s local stewardship committee. Dot Kearns, who chairs the local stewardship committee, complained that there was no effort to contact the neighbors.

“When a city has a rezoning, they send out a notice to all the people who live contiguous to the property,” she said.

Henning agreed that the poll was flawed.

“Survey Monkey is not a scientific way,” he said. “It’s not the best.”

Kearns asked Henning why in every iteration, the county commissioners and staff insist on including biking: “Why is it essential to have that in this fragile place?”

Henning said that considering that the land belongs to all the county’s taxpayers, he feels obligated to listen to all sides, while acknowledging that some of his colleagues on the county commission strongly favor mountain biking.

“We’re gathering the facts and trying to find a compromise and trying to make all parties happy,” he said. “And as I said, that’s often just not possible.

We may end up allowing mountain biking, and we may not. I appreciate all the hard work that you folks have put in this. I’ve heard from just as many folks from around the county who want it as who don’t. I wish there was a clear-cut opinion one way or the other.”

EDITORIAL

Drama in the undercard

Open space program leaves a lasting legacy

Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

on the trail.

found a tree that had been felled by a beaver, although it was pointing away from the stream and not close enough to collect any water. There were geese clamoring on the water, and hawks flying overhead.

It’s thrilling to see the preserve open to the public. Six years ago, I hiked the land with John Young and Jack Jezorek of the Guilford County Open Space Committee just a month before the county commission voted to purchase the 250-acre tract. The county acquired the property from the Richardson family, heirs to the Vicks VapoRub fortune, for $2.6 million, at 60 percent of its appraised value through a 2004 bond raised for the preservation of open-space land.

Let’s forget for a moment the controversy over whether the Guilford County Commission acted appropriately by disbanding the open space committee, or whether mountain biking should be allowed in the Rich Fork Preserve in High Point. (Okay, I’ll get political just for just a moment to say I was relieved during our hike in the Richardson-Taylor Preserve to not encounter any mountain bikers barreling down the trail, although I was happy to see people walking dogs and a runner nimbly bouncing over the terrain.)

But the main takeaway is that the residents of Guilford and visitors to the county are incredibly lucky to have this place of respite and wonder to get away from the bustle of city living and reconnect with nature. What a great asset, as not only a setting for recreation and education, but also a protective buffer for the watershed of Lake Townsend — which supplies drinking water to the city of Greensboro. And for a parent, you can’t do much better than a place like this for instilling a sense of curiosity and respect for nature in a small child.

At risk of seeming to take a side, the volunteers on the now-dismantled open space committee who scouted this and other properties and the members of the county commission who voted to acquire the land demonstrated great foresight.

They made an important investment by acquiring properties, many of them at a discount, during the economic downtown to preserve undeveloped land for generations to come.

I wouldn’t want to see mountain bikes on this tract of land. But even if they were allowed, the most important thing is that the gentle hills flanking the wetlands of the Richardson-Taylor Preserve won’t be carved up for a new subdivision of McMansions or leased out to wealthy visitors to hunt deer.

LAMAR GIBSON The preserve belongs to the public, now and forevermore.

News

During the Season of Reflection — humor me as I merge the Christian tradition of advent with the secular holiday of New Year’s Eve — I’ve resolved to spend more time visiting with friends and hiking.

by Jordan Green The state parks service has been promoting a tradition of New Year’s Day hikes for the past couple years, and the Greensboro Parks & Recreation Department hosted a Jan. 2 hike at Lake Brandt so clearly others are feeling the seasonal spirit, too.

My friend Lamar had told me about the Osprey Trail, which is managed by the city of Greensboro and winds along Lake Townsend. He suggested that we hike it together and I eagerly agreed, but for months I let the busyness of life prevent me from following through.

On the Sunday after Christmas — no church! — I took my 2-year-old out to the trail, and she seemed to take to it pretty well. She examined leaves and seed spores with the rapt attention of a scientist, and ran along the trail while shrieking with delight. Although she wanted to jump puddles where the rain had collected on the trail, luckily there were enough other objects of fascination to distract her.

That seemed like a pretty good test run, so on the second day of the new year, I messaged Lamar and persuaded him to join us on another hike that I’ve been itching to do — the Richardson-Taylor Preserve.

It’s a magnificent tract of woods bisected by a wetland stream bed that opened to the public in October. There’s a trailhead near Lake Townsend with a footpath running about four miles northward to Northern Middle School.

The trail network will eventually continue on and connect with Haw River State Park at the Rockingham county line.

Barely a mile outside of the city limits, the preserve is a sanctuary of natural beauty largely untouched by development, although the calm was interrupted by the sound of a twin-prop puttering in the sky near the landing strip on Air Harbor Road.

The trail follows the natural contours of the terrain, switching back and forth to accommodate small streams and ravines. The gullies look like the space between splayed fingers as they spread delta-like towards the floodplain. The generous expanse of wetlands holds standing pools of waFather and ter crisscrossed with beaver dams. We daughter

Up Front

Of all the elections slated for this November, perhaps the most bizarre — and certainly the most spiteful — is the race for the Guilford County School Board.

Under a law passed in 2013, new districts were drawn to parallel those the Republican-controlled General Assembly created for the Guilford County Commission in 2011. The pattern is and was calculated to favor GOP representation.

The new map double-bunks eight sitting board members, guaranteeing that at least four of them will not return.

Further stacking the deck, the restructuring reduces the number of at-large seats from two to one.

And to twist the screw even more: All races will now be partisan, an abandonment of any pretense that the education of our children be free from political maneuvering.

It should surprise no one that the bill shaking up the school board was written by state Sen. Trudy Wade, whose interest in things that seem beneath her station go back at least this far.

And like Wade’s Gambit — her attempt to pull a similar caper on the Greensboro City Council — this one is rife with unintended consequences.

Byron Gladden, a genuine activist who goes by the moniker Bishop Dean, has already locked down District 7, which runs along the entire east side of Greensboro, by virtue of no one else showing up to run against him. Districts 1, 4 and 8 will be settled in the primary, two going Democrat and one going Republican. District 2’s chances with the GOP benefit from the High Point Hook, incorporating the white, affluent rim of the city. The architects of the redistricting likely feel that District 6 will likely follow suit.

GOP candidates have an edge in each remaining district, large swaths of rural areas that burrow into small slivers of the progressive parts of the Greensboro.

The numbers become particularly important when we consider that the current school board — the one that is largely on the way out — voted to sue the state of North Carolina in 2014 over the issue of teacher tenure, which sunsets in the Old North State in 2018. The lawsuit is pending.

They say the statute, like many others our General Assembly has passed since 2010, violates federal law.

Mo Green, the superintendent when the lawsuit was filed, has already moved on to head the Z Smith Reynolds Foundation. If enough school board incumbents get knocked out, the suit could be quashed in the time it takes to call a meeting.

This little storyline might get lost come election time, with the presidential race sucking up most of the oxygen and so much on the line in the General Assembly. But all seasoned election watchers know that there’s lots of drama in the undercard if you know where to look.

CITIZEN GREEN

triad-city-beat.com

OPINION

13

January 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

14

IT JUST MIGHT WORK

Look at that S Car Go

by Brian Clarey

It started as a conversation with my cousin Mary Kate and her gentleman caller friend over Christmas; they had recently returned from France and we were talking about food — specifically escargot, which everybody knows is snails,

right?

Not everybody like the slimy little buggers, but I do, especially when prepared with a thick brown sauce with lots of garlic.

“I order them every time I see them on a menu,” my Uncle Tom said.

Me too.

“They have them everywhere in France,” Mary Kate told us. “There was even a guy making them in a booth at a farmers market we went to.”

And that’s when inspiration struck.

We’ve got food trucks with crepes and dumplings.

We’ve got taco trucks and ice cream trucks and sandwich trucks. I’m hard-pressed to find an open niche in the sector.

But I’m pretty sure there are no food trucks in the entire state of North Carolina serving an escargot-based menu.

Snails are an extremely versatile foodstuff, high in protein and completely boneless; they pop right out of their shells, which can also be collected. And I’m reasonable certain they are plentiful in the Old North State.

And the best part about it is the name, based on an old joke that describes a snail buying a Cadillac and demanding the dealership paint a giant letter S on the hood and the doors, setting up the punchline.

“I want everybody to say, ‘Look at that S car go!’”

FRESH EYES

Pondering Trump Insanity is often defined as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. It can be said to be one of the reasons Donald J. Trump has so much appeal to voters for the upcoming 2016 presidential race for the United

by Valencia Roner States.

Seemingly — as with every major election — people are looking for the new and different to address and solve the nation’s ills. I get it. I hate taking the same route to and from work. I’m attracted to the idea of discovering something new and exciting, particularly if it results in my being more efficient, functioning smarter and allowing me a better quality of life. Therefore, it would only make sense to believe that a new kind of leadership will result in new outcomes. The question becomes, at what cost are these outcomes achieved?

The craving for the new and different seems to the appeal of Trump.

One of the many aspects of being an American that I appreciate is having freedom of choice. I can shop where I want, live where I want and vote how I want. I’m acutely aware that such luxuries exist at a price to those who came before me, and I’m grateful every day. Therefore, far be it from me to tell others how to vote. Live and let live is my personal credo. It’s up to the candidate to convince me why he or she deserves my precious vote.

With that said, an awful lot goes into my choice for president. I sort of view this decision for president like a temporary marriage that can have horrific consequences if I fail to choose wisely. My vote for president affects the country economically. It affects the efficiency and productivity of the federal government, educational quality, healthcare accessibility, foreign affairs and a host of other issues.

Here are a few characteristics I consider when casting my vote for president: Competent leadership This is big. When choosing a president I look for a demonstrated track record of effective, competent leadership. One’s ability to get things done with beneficial outcomes for all concerned is very attractive. The ability to convene, access and consult the best and the brightest minds with a diversity of perspectives gives me comfort in a politician’s decision-making and problem-solving capacity.

Diplomatic consensus builder The reality is that we live in a democracy. However painstaking, a system of checks and balances masked in bureaucracy is often the price of admission to ensure quality distribution of services intended to benefit American citizens. Those at the bargaining table rarely get every-

thing they want. An effective president must possess the tools to communicate a mutually beneficial value proposition when negotiating terms of agreements both on a national and international level.

Temperament It’s important to me that an effective and competent leader talks and carries him or herself as an effective and competent leader. In a world where a mere sneeze has a chance of “going viral,” a leader needs the discipline and self-control that says he or she is presidential. The president of the United States has always been considered a model of excellence in which future leaders — namely our children — could aspire to and emulate. America is viewed as the crown jewel in the world’s crest of freedom.

It’s important that our leadership reflects this standard.

Strength James Brown said it best: “Papa don’t take no mess!”

I look for a president who exudes strength. He or she doesn’t necessarily have to tell me how strong he or she is because the track record speaks for itself. War is ugly and brutal and should never be entered into lightly or unadvisedly. Being strong is about more than just beating one’s chest and issuing a round of threats. Strength is demonstrated in one’s ability to balance communication with action, with significant regard for the short- and long-term consequences of proactive and reactive strikes. The president should have as much of a commitment to combating domestic terrorists as well as international terrorists. I want to feel safe everywhere with everyone under a leader who is recognizable as one of the good guys.

Emotional and professional maturity You can’t win them all. Expecting to win all the time is unrealistic. While I expect the president to lead us in a series of far more wins than losses, I’m interested in a leader who knows how to lose. No one likes to lose — I hate losing. However, the law of averages indicates that losing is inevitable. Connected to temperament, my president has to be the adult when everything and everyone around him or her is coming undone. Someone who is steadfast in a crisis and possesses the capacity and maturity to execute focused precision in resolving complex problems with the skill of a political surgeon is what I require in a president.

So, as I consider Trump along with the host of other candidates, this is the combination of qualities I need for a candidate to successfully win-over my vote for president of the United States. History illustrates that these are the characteristics of the world’s most effective, successful and beloved leaders. It’s the only recipe for leadership to make America the best it’s ever been.

Valencia Roner is the author of Chasing Joy: Principles for Making Joy a Core Life Value. She lives in Greensboro.

Lives in: Greensboro • Travels to: Winston-Salem and High Point

by Brian Clarey, Jordan Green, Eric Ginsburg and Daniel Wirtheim

It’s a simple fact: Small cities like ours, with populations below 300,000, are invisible. Plano, Texas. Fort Wayne, Ind. Gilbert, Ariz. This is the company we keep in terms of population.

But more than 1.6 million souls call the Piedmont Triad home, the 33rd largest metro area in the country, sandwiched by the Jacksonville, Fla. area and Virginia Beach, and just a few hundred thou behind the Triangle.

That most of the world thinks the word “Triad” refers to a transnational Asian criminal operation — drugs, counterfeiting, trafficking, extortion, a little white-collar fraud, the whole deal — is another matter entirely.

The point is that our cities are tied together by more than

geography, that our fates are entwined. Winston-Salem wouldn’t be Winston-Salem without Greensboro just a piece down the road. And the biannual furniture markets in High Point, the Third City, are the two most important events in the state in terms of economic activity and longevity. It may not be enough to entice people to live there, but the Furniture City brings a lot of heft to the table.

Strange, then, that we are not all citizens of the Triad. But for now, the mantle goes out only to a select few: those who make their home in more than one of our big cities, able to leap Business 40 in a single bound.

And this much is true: There are more of us every year.

Owning a food truck changed everything.

Lina Fleihan Urmos spent a chunk of time — about 15 years — living in DC, New York and LA, far away from her hometown Greensboro, but she moved back around 2005. She could see the city changing on visits to see her family, and Urmos was growing tired of getting lost in huge cities. She thought that maybe here she could make a difference.

She didn’t immediately jump into the family business running Ghassan’s, but made the transition over time. And when the restaurant launched a food truck in August, she started traveling to Winston-Salem for various events, including Wake Forest football.

Urmos had some familiarity with Winston-Salem already — she attended Bishop McGuinness High School in Kernersville, among other things. And Ghassan’s already traveled to High Point for the biannual Furniture Market. But now, Urmos’ time in Winston-Salem has risen sharply thanks to the truck.

“I think we’re really lucky to have the Triad here because we’re not only having to focus on Greensboro,” she said. “We can tap into High Point and Winston-Salem and I don’t think a lot of other cities have that ability.”

But it isn’t just convenient for business; Urmos said she’s started spending more time in downtown Winston-Salem, frequenting places like Tate’s, Single Brothers and Ziggy’s.

“It’s nice to get a change,” she said.

— EG

Kendall Doub: Itinerant muralist

Lives in: Winston-Salem • Travels to: Greensboro and High Point scene in Winston-Salem, Muralist Kendall Doub leaving his mark on numerwants to spread his “artistic ous walls including a section fairy dust” as far as he can. along the edge of the new Lately, that’s meant increasArtivity on the Green art ingly frequent trips from park downtown.

Winston-Salem to Greens“Winston seems to be boro. really leading the way in Doub kicked off 2016 by that regard, but Greensboro beginning a new mural in is starting to catch up and downtown Greensboro, one there’s a lot of kinetic energy that picks up a visual thread there,” Doub said. he started with a painting He’s hopeful that High of a cardinal in High Point Point — which he described as more conin mid-2014. He’s been working with servative and cautious — will start to see Jeff Beck, one of the folks behind the the benefit of public art and murals once new Urban Grinders coffee shop and art it’s demonstrated in both other Triad cities. gallery, and idea man Ryan Saunders on Artists, Doub said, are the most likely the duo’s No Blank Walls project. The one to bridge divides between the area’s urban Doub began this week will be his third centers, recognizing the potential of in Greensboro, including an installation nascent cities that can be molded “like a inside Urban Grinders that Beck originally pile of wet clay.” He just hopes that others planned to be temporary but that everyfollow that lead. one liked too much to scrap.

— EG Doub is actively involved in the arts

BY AUSTIN JOFFE

2016

Lina Fleihan Urmos: Food-truck traveler

triad-city-beat.com

CITIZENS OF THE TRIAD

15

January 6 — 12, 2016 Cover Story

Joy Cook: Inter-city strategist Lives in: Greensboro • Travels to: wherever

Since launching her public relations firm in 2010, Joy Cook has looked beyond Greensboro to build her client base.

Doing business in each city in the Triad means navigating unique social and professional networks that are sometimes difficult for an outsider to break into.

Building from her home base, Cook volunteered on the UNCG Alumni Association Board of Directors and

helped found the Spartan Legislative Network, while also serving on the Guilford College Board of Visitors.

She expanded her client base in Winston-Salem and High Point around 2012 and 2013. Joining the North Carolina chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, which held its yearly kickoff meeting in Winston-Salem, and attending graduate school at High Point University were critical steps. Cook managed Bernita Sims’ successful mayoral candidacy in High Point in 2012, following suit with DD Adams’ successful reelection campaign to Winston-Salem City Council in 2013.

“Once I started working with Bernita and DD, it definitely opened up more opportunities,” she said. Cook also worked on LaWana Mayfield’s successful campaign for Charlotte City Council, and is managing Adams’ reelection campaign in Winston-Salem again this year.

Expanding her public relations practice into politics is a natural move for Cook, who graduated from the NC Institute of Political Leadership in 2012. Her interest in politics also manifested in organizing candidate forums through the Spartan Legislative Network in 2011 and 2013.

“In my public-relations work I’m organically transformed into a strategist,” Cook said. “It takes real strategy to work. In DD’s case, she was up against pretty solid tea party opposition. There’s a very thin line between public relations and political strategy. It was telling the stories of DD’s work; her story is much bigger than what is going on with Herbalife. It’s about making sure their social media

reflected who [the candidates] are. And it’s also about making sure they’re accessible to their constituents.”

Working with Adams, an inveterate networker who is active in her sorority and who enjoys a statewide political profile thanks to attending the 2012 Democratic National Convention as a delegate, opened a lot of doors for Cook.

“DD introduced me to her network,” Cook recalled. “It was smooth sailing after that.”

Cook wound up facilitating a training session for the Alliance of North Carolina Black Elected Officials, thanks for Adams’ introduction.

“She has been instrumental in helping some other politicians understand social media strategies for constituent engagement,” Cook said. “She has connected me with these organizations that have supported my business and become customers.”

Much of the Cook’s front-end work with clients takes place online, but at some point she usually ends up meeting them face to face. She either commutes to see them or they come to her office. The geographical distance is the least significant of the barriers between the three cities.

“I’ve been fortunate: My whole career at UNCG I commuted from Mebane,” Cook said. “Being in Greensboro is exciting; everything’s 30 minutes away, so it’s not a big deal.”

– JG

to hang out at places like the Green Bean and Crafted in downtown Greensboro.

It should come as no surprise that as a chef, a lot of Pierce’s experience of High Point’s cultural life centers around food.

“I love to eat at any of Paul Riggan’s restaurants,” he said. “Blue Rock Pizza is my favorite. You can get pizza and beer, and there are vegetarian options. A friend of mine just took over as executive chef at Blue Water Grille who used to work for me at Lucky 32. Paul Riggan is the shining light of High Point. Roma Pizza is really good. It’s a decent walk, but my son and I have walked to the Dog House. The Dog House is a really cool hidden gem.”

He acknowledged that a couple times a year he considers moving to Greensboro. Both of his children attend schools in Greensboro, and he wants them to be able to hang out with their friends more easily.

And yet, as a self-proclaimed “citizen of the Triad,” Pierce sees engagement with the region expanding rather than contracting.

“High Point is the sleeping giant,” he said. “I could just

as easily be working in Winston-Salem; I can get from my home to downtown Winston-Salem quicker than Greensboro. Since it’s a different county, it doesn’t have quite the same pull on my kids. My son takes trumpet lessons n Winston-Salem. On Sundays, my wife and I go to Winston-Salem. As the kids get older, I think we’ll be in three cities more than two cities.”

— JG

Jay Pierce: The wandering chef Lives in: High Point • Works in: Greensboro

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When Jay Pierce moved with his wife and two children to Greensboro in 2006 so he could take the job of executive chef at Lucky 32, they looked at houses in the Lake Daniel and Sunset Hills neighborhoods.

They wanted to live in an old, established community with large trees, but they found themselves priced out of the market in Greensboro.

Ultimately, they found what they were looking for in Emerywood, High Point’s elite, old-money neighborhood.

“I like to tell people I have the smallest house in the nicest neighborhood in High Point,” said Pierce, who now holds the position of executive chef at Marshall Free House. “I chose it for the neighborhood. I chose it for the street. We have pecan trees in the front yard, so I’m constantly picking up kindling. My dad tells me it’s the biggest pecan tree he’s ever seen.”

Having previously lived in Orlando, Fla. and New Orleans, where hour-long commutes are common, the drive from High Point to Greensboro didn’t seem daunting.

“It takes you 30 minutes to drive to work,” he said. “The hours I work, I don’t drive in rush hour. I listen to loud music and get amped up. At the end of the day I get to check out and leave work behind.”

The tradeoff is that he misses out on the opportunity

Works in: Winston-Salem • Plays in: Greensboro

Her fashion career began in Greensboro, where she studied apparel and marketing at UNCG and managed a store for Ivy & Leo boutique. It was at Ivy & Leo, Morgan South said, that she got her first big break.

“The guys from Greensboro Fashion Week came into the store, and they asked how we could be a part of Fashion Week,” she remembered. “And I asked them how I could be a part of Fashion Week.”

Now, after two productions, South is the administrative coordinator for the Gate City’s autumn event, which kept her in town until she took a job at Hanesbrands in Winston-Salem and moved to Forsyth County.

“I was a Greensboro girl,” she said. “I never went to Winston-Salem. Literally never. I had no idea about anything.

I would go to Raleigh or Durham all the time, but I never came to Winston-Salem.”

She’s lived outside the city since May and is still finding her feet.

“I still don’t know anything about Winston,” she said.

“Every place I’ve heard about, I’ve learned through work functions and lunches.”

She likes the Porch Cantina, she said, and everything else

in the West End Mill Works.

Her daughter Chloe, 2, likes the children’s museum. And she liked downtown from the moment she saw it.

“I feel like Winston-Salem’s downtown is a little more advanced than Greensboro’s downtown,” she said. “It’s more unique and artsy.”

Even so, old habits die hard. She’s in Greensboro several days a month for Fashion Week, and finds that her social life has not moved across the Triad with her.

“It’s weird,” she said. “When I’m looking for something to do I automatically look for Greensboro. That’s what happened on the Fourth of July.

“All of my friends are in Greensboro,” she continued, “and it’s like I don’t know how to make friends in Winston-Salem.”

— BC

Justin Catanoso: One good journalist Lives in: Greensboro • Works in: Winston-Salem Justin Catanoso is doing what he’s always wanted to do. He’s a foreign correspondent on the climate-change beat and the director of journalism at Wake Forest University.

With support from the school, he’s covered the two most recent UN Climate Summits in Lima and Paris, and every summer he takes students to Rome for a course in travel journalism. And Catanoso said that it was only possible because he stayed in the Triad.

When he moved to Greensboro with his wife in 1987, Catanoso had no intention of staying. The young reporter wanted to make it big in Washington, New York or Philadelphia. But he knew he had to start out small so he took a reporter’s job at the News & Record, which assigned him to its Winston-Salem bureau.

“When we moved to the Triad in 1987, both downtowns were dead,” Catanoso said. “They were scary dead… There were no businesses, it was unbelievable.”

He covered the first layoffs at RJ Reynolds Tobacco, among other stories relecting the city’s painful transition from manufacturing. It was a far cry from Philadelphia or any of the places where he truly wanted to be. But as Catanoso made sense of the city through storytelling, he realized that what the Triad needed as much as anything was a good journalist.

In 1999, Catanoso assumed the position of the Triad Business Journal’s first executive editor, and moved to Greens-

boro’s Westerwood neighborhood.

As his résumé grew, so did the cities around him. Investors were taking chances on downtown businesses and coalitions were formed in both Winston-Salem and Greensboro to urbanize their respective downtowns. And now that he was raising children, the once ready-to-leave Catanoso realized that the Triad might be a more comfortable place to live than Philadelphia.

He continued to work two jobs — at the Triad Business Journal and as an adjunct professor at Wake Forest — before he assumed the role of director of journalism at the university. It was there that he met a tropical biologist who took him to Peru and persuaded him to write about climate change.

Catanoso said that staying in the Triad and building meaningful connections were more important to his success than being where many of the nation’s esteemed journalists were.

“I loved the stories that I got to tell as a journalist in the Triad,” Catanoso said. “I loved them and I thought they were just as important as they were in any city in America…

We believe in the place we live. Every community needs a good journalist.”

Follow Justin Catanoso’s coverage of the issues affecting climate change at Mongabay.com.

— DW

Lonnie Albright: The cops’ barrister Lives in: Greensboro • Works in: Winston-Salem As police attorney for Forsyth County, Lonnie Albright appreciates the benefits of living next door in Greensboro. Specifically, it’s nice to avoid the awkwardness of encountering adverse parties at the grocery.

During his 26-year career as an attorney in private practice in Greensboro, those kinds of run-ins would occur periodically.

“I was at Bestway a couple years ago,” he recalled.

“This immigrant from Russia was in line with a bottle of wine. I had represented her husband in a divorce. I reasonably ascertained that she did not hold me in high esteem. I wondered if I would be wearing that bottle of wine. I bid her a quiet baka and left the store.”

Both Lonnie and his younger brother Clyde live in Greensboro and commute to other jurisdictions to practice law for county governments; Clyde is the county attorney in Alamance.

Lonnie Albright has an ideal background for a police attorney. For starters, he knows from firsthand experience what it’s like to wear a badge: As a former deputy sheriff, Albright and future sheriff BJ Barnes worked together on the vice-narcotics squad of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office. As an attorney, he practiced nearly every kind of law, from family and criminal defense to personal injury litigation. He sued the highway patrol and represented bank-robbers as a member of the federal defense bar, which gave him the opportunity to appear in the federal court in Winston-Salem.

“For eight years I was a sworn deputy sheriff,” he remarked. “That’s given me an appreciation for what these young men are going through and will have to go through. I have no idea why anyone would want to be in law enforcement today. They’re underpaid and underappreciated.”

He holds the same respect for the detention officers who staff the Forsyth County jail. “I do legal updates for the detention officers, and I’m their in-house counsel,” Albright said. “They’re getting updates a lot quicker than they would in other counties. They all are good people. They want to do a good job.”

After experiencing what he considers a mid-life crisis at the culmination of 26 years in private practice, Albright was hired on with Forsyth County in January 2013. He immediately liked the change of scenery.

“I get to listen to music; I listen to public radio,” he said. “Occasionally the traffic is a little jacked up.” ­— JG

triad-city-beat.com

Morgan South: Commuting for fashion

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January 6 — 12, 2016 Cover Story

Sarah Hinson: Boomeranger

Lives in: Winston-Salem • Dates someone in: Greensboro Despite growing “Thirty to 40 minutes seemed totally up in Clemmons doable,” she said, “Especially [because] the and moving back gay community is of course even smaller than to Winston-Salem the single, straight community, so I definitely after a several year wanted to be a little more open-minded for absence to attend the locations I was willing to meet people.

UNC Asheville “Winston is a small community,” she added, and Savannah noting that it could be awkward to run into College of Art someone if things didn’t work out and might & Design, Sarah lead her to avoiding certain places. She went Hinson didn’t realon dates with a few different people, all of ly ever spend time whom were coincidentally from Greensboro, in Greensboro. before meeting her current girlfriend who also “We would go lives in the Gate City. to like, College The two are about to celebrate their oneHill [Sundries bar] year anniversary. on Saturdays to do karaoke and just be around There are some downsides to dating somedifferent people,” she said of her friends, but it one in a different city of the Triad, Hinson didn’t extend beyond there. said.

And for the most part, she didn’t have a “If we want to just hang out and watch a problem with that. movie, it’s complicated,” she said, adding She’d moved back to the Camel City that her girlfriend has a dog, which requires shortly after finishing graduate school in 2014 additional planning. to take a job as a copywriter at Wildfire. She But it’s really not a significant barrier, Hinson still works there, and lives in West End. For the said, adding that she appreciates the time most part her orbit kept her around downtown once or twice a week in the car that allows her Winston-Salem, despite occasional trips to to catch up on podcasts or listen to a playvisit a coworker who commutes from Greenslist. She’s grateful for all the new places she’s boro. experienced that she wouldn’t ordinarily go, But when Hinson started online dating, she and dating someone in Greensboro gives her set her radius to include Greensboro, figuring a nice break from Winston-Salem, too. that’s the farthest distance she’d consider.

— EG

Patrick Lui: Straight outta Hong Kong

Lives: Winston-Salem • Works: Greensboro Patrick Lui was just lured back to the City 23 years old when he of the Arts & Innovacame from Hong Kong, tion. one of the most urban “A few of my friends environments in the talked me into performworld, to Winston-Saing with their guitar lem where he would be trio,” he said. “We did studying classical guitar that for a while, and at the UNC School of since then they have the Arts. both gone off and I am It was 1988, and the still stuck here.”

Triad bore even less He’s stayed for the resemblance to Hong fertile arts scene, and Kong than it does now. because he bought a “I kept asking the bus driver: ‘Are house 11 years ago near Hanes Mall we there yet?’ I was like a little kid,” that he’s pretty sure he won’t be able he remembered. “In Hong Kong, you to sell for a while. But really, he said, don’t drive 45 minutes for anything.” the job is what keeps him here.

He had been told that Winston-SaJust before he bought the house, lem was one of the largest cities in the Lui took a job running the guitar proAmerican South, but when he finally gram at Weaver Academy, Greenssaw it, he had trouble getting his head boro’s arts high school. [Disclosure: around his new environment.

My son is in that program.] And there “I thought, This couldn’t be it,” he he’s stayed. said. “Winston-Salem is a city.

“I have thought about moving to “Think about this boy from Hong Greensboro,” he said. “But the thing Kong,” he continued, “landing at that about being from Hong Kong — to excuse for an airport at 1 a.m. I was get three miles might take 20 minutes freaking out.”

— in terms of an actual commute it’s After completing his undergrad, he not that bad. And like all Americans, I finished his masters at Arizona State love my car.”

University and then found himself — BC

Lee & Loring Mortensen: Local tourists Live in: Greensboro • Play in: Winston-Salem

18

Their day-to-day lives are completely ensconced in the Gate City. Lee spent time at Downtown Greensboro Inc. before becoming executive director of the Greensboro Farmer’s Curb Market. Loring is the public and community relations officer for UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum.

They’re long-term residents — she came in from Washington, DC in 1990; Loring dates back to 1982.

But they both have a taste for city life, and at least a couple times a month that means shooting down Business 40 to Winston-Salem, their 15-year-old daughter Skye in tow.

“We always forget how quick it is to drive there,” Loring said.

“Traffic here is nothing like DC,” Lee added.

It’s far enough away from home to be different, yet close enough for spontaneous day trips.

“It gives you a different perspective,” Lee said. “The sense of place is a little bit different. The topography is just interesting.”

They like Hoots Flea Market, Hoots Roller Bar, and pretty much anything at the West End Mill Works.

“The Olio is a standout,” Lee said.

Lately they’ve been getting into Small Batch brewery and are ticking other restaurants off their list one by one.

“We also like to go spelunking around the vintage shops,” Lee said.

“We’ll pick an event,” Loring said, “and then just drop three other things into it.”

“If you approach it as an adventure,” Lee said, “as if you’re a tourist, then you can have a lot of fun in a few hours.”

Loring documents these trips on his Instagram: portraits and moments and meals instead of couch time, Netflix and chill.

“We don’t watch a lot of TV,” Loring said. “We’d rather drive to Winston-Salem. “We like to go out and experience something real.”

— BC

Lives in: Winston-Salem • Works in: Greensboro There are multiple benefits to being a city employee and living outside of the municipality where you work, Reggie Delahanty said, and he’s far from the only city employee to realize it. In fact, he said, it’s a trend.

Delahanty, the small business coordinator for the city of Greensboro, moved to Winston-Salem from New York City — where he grew up — to attend Wake Forest University, and only left briefly to attend grad school Georgia Tech and live briefly in Atlanta. He returned to manage field operations for the Census in Forsyth, Stokes and Rockingham counties and held a few “random” local gigs, but working for the city of Greensboro was his first Gate City job.

The downside of living in a different city is that he only experiences Greensboro between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., and misses out on daytime life in Winston-Salem.

“That’s challenging because you kind of feel like you’re left out of the whole of the city,” he said.

But there are perks.

Several actually.

For one, Delahanty said he is able to approach the position more objectively, with no personal stake in a specific neighborhood and to maintain a social network that is largely disconnected from Greensboro. The lack of a vested interest coupled with his outsider’s perspective and knowledge of what’s happening in Winston-Salem makes him better at his job too, Delahanty said.

Plus, it allows him to separate his personal and professional lives, meaning that people don’t approach him in the grocery store and ask work-related questions.

Living in Winston-Salem while working in Greensboro actually lets Delahanty clock out.

— EG

Gail Bretan: Interfaith networker

Lives in: Greensboro • Works in: Winston-Salem NPR. But the longer rides are When Gail Bretan became also time for her to privately the director of Jewish life at reflect.

Wake Forest University, her Bretan has considered engagement with Winmoving to Winston-Salem, ston-Salem didn’t stop at the and said if she won the borders of the campus, or lottery she’d buy a second even the workday. home near Wake Forest so Bretan is now involved with she could host people for several interfaith groups in Shabbat or spend nights in Winston-Salem beyond the either city easily. But for now, scope of her job, including she owns a house in walking an interfaith panel at Brenner distance to a grocery store Children’s Hospital and a and is content to stay put. book club. Plus, she’s on a Novant Health She worked in Winston-Salem before, ethics committee and has attended Temlong ago as the director of an occupationple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, too. al health clinic, but working in an academ“For being there less than two years, I ic rather than an industrial environment is really have been involved in a lot of things, an entirely different experience. This time and I’m still very involved in Greensboro,” around, Bretan said she’s happy to benefit Bretan said. from nice communities in both cities.

She’d grown used to her seven-minute The biggest drawback, she said, is that commute to Jewish Family Services in Greensboro, but doesn’t mind the trek to there are “so many wonderful things” to Winston-Salem. As soon as she started in do in Winston-Salem and Greensboro her current role, Bretan had a radio with that sometimes, two things she’d like to Bluetooth and a CD player installed in her attend are held in each city concurrently. car so she could listen to audio books and — EG

Rachel Walker: New regular

Lives in: Greensboro • Works in: Winston-Salem Rachel Walker started to feel like she belonged in Winston-Salem when the coffee shop near her office started recognizing her and knowing her drink order, and it helped when she finally learned her way around without relying on Siri.

Walker, who works at marketing and advertising agency Common Giant, moved to Greensboro as a transfer student at UNCG. She stayed in the Gate City after graduating, lives downtown and commutes to Winston-Salem.

“I love being connected to Winston-Salem and Greensboro,” she said. “The benefit is having more of an appreciation of the Triad.”

Walker’s growing connection to the Camel City doesn’t negate her between the two cities, and [I] can see a connection to the city she lives in — she’s near future of the two working in tandem involved with Preservation Greensboro towards a more creative and communiand the Guilford Green Foundation, ty-friendly Piedmont between businesses among other things. and neighbors,” she said.

“I love the relationship that is growing — EG

triad-city-beat.com

Reggie Delahanty: City guy

Luke Whitten: Coffee-culture keeper Lives in: Greensboro • Works in: High Point

When Melissa Michos, the manager of Spring Garden Bakery & Coffeehouse near UNCG, approached Luke Whitten about managing a new location in High Point, it felt like a natural fit.

Whitten operated Greensborough Coffee on State Street in Greensboro in his mid-twenties, and after the business went under during the recession, he worked for Fortuna Coffee and Whole Foods. Just as important as his business background, Whitten, a Greensboro resident, was

familiar with High Point.

“I grew up in Thomasville and came to High Point to hang out at the mall,” he said. “I know it pretty well. I have friends who live in High Point.”

He’s noticed subtle differences between the clientele at the two coffee shops. The mannerisms of many of his customers at the old Greensborough Coffee reflected the store’s proximity to the elite Irving Park neighborhood.

“High Point’s a little more homier; it has more of a small-town feel,” Whitten said.

“There’s a lot of regulars. Greensboro is a little more spread out. There’s a lot more space and people come in from different parts of town.”

The downside of managing a store in a different city from where he lives is being dependent on a car for transportation, but the time on the road could be worse.

“I wish we could get to work a lot easier,” Whitten said. “I wish we could bike or take public transportation. Having to be on the road, people go really fast.

Otherwise it’s not that bad.”

— JG

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January 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

20

CULTURE Korean shines the second time around

by Eric Ginsburg

t only seemed fair, after declaring 2015 the for a grill table. year of Korean food, to revisit Seoul Garden.

A friend and regular I first showed up at the longstanding Koreat Seoul Garden an restaurant — it opened in 2005 — in west Greensrecommended the jjol boro in 2014. With practically no knowledge of the myun (spicy cold nooregion’s food and an overzealous sense of adventurism dles with cabbages, coupled with unexpected complementary sides, I left bean sprouts, cucumfeeling underwhelmed. My stomach may have been bers and egg) and the mildly displeased. pricier sam kyup sal I’d grown up with two close friends who are Korean, (grilled pork belly with which makes it a little more embarrassing that I didn’t mushrooms, onions try the cuisine until age 25, at one of those places in and a spicy soybean Manhattan with grills embedded in the table; Picture paste stew). But at a toned-down, DIY version of hibachi restaurants like least for this trip, I Kabuto, sans onion volcano. wanted to play it safe, The New York experience thrilled me, but I chalked it avoiding seafood and up to the sort of thing I’d have to do without at home pretty much anything I in the Triad. The Seoul Garden experience proved unrehadn’t tried before. markable, disappointing even. (Insert mental image of Yeah I know: boring. the Charlie Brown-style, head-bowed, sad-shuffle bit But I wanted to estabin “Arrested Development.”) lish a sort of control, In 2015, I realized the error in my ways, gravitating a test by which I could towards the Korean barbecue beef (bulgogi), breaded compare to the limited ERIC GINSBURG Dishes at Seoul Garden, like this bibimbap in a hot stone bowl, pork chops (don katsu) and mixed rice and veggies other Korean dining come with an assortment of free sides. with egg (bibimbap) at Don Japanese Ishiyaki & Ramen experiences I’d had restaurant in Greensboro. I found myself fiending, in order to hopefully Thumbs up on the dumplings, especially the fried ordering takeout to eat home alone at times and conbring Seoul Garden back into my personal fold. ones (predictable, I know). And as for the bulgogi, the vincing friends to try it with me on occasion.

And it worked. beef, rice and vegetable dish that comes in a hot stone And then came the gigantic kimchi pancake and the The bulgogi dubbab — pretty comparable to the bulbowl, it’s an honest toss-up between Seoul and Don. Korean steamed buns with pork and chives at Da Sa gogi don at Don Japanese — ranked highest, the thin Ideally, I might switch between the two variations Rang, a Korean restaurant near Super G Mart, which slices of marinated beef and vegetables served with every time I eat the dish.

I learned about in separate trips with friends more rice in a hot stone bowl.

A lighted sign by the door at Seoul Garden advereducated than I. Next up, the bulgogi burrito at El To some, the sizzling stone bowls at a place like Don tises that the restaurant will begin serving ramen — a Nuevo, a Mexican restaurant downtown run by three are too hot; if you aren’t careful it will start to burn the Japanese dish that’s increasingly in vogue in the United Koreans who fused the two nations’ cuisines. I’ve been rice at the bottom, requiring quick mixing upon the States — as a special soon, which could mean chooshopelessly in love with those burritos ever since, pining dish’s arrival. Sometimes, it’s almost too hot to eat. ing between the two venues will grow all the more for them during the last few weeks as El Nuevo closed That isn’t the case at Seoul Garden, making it more challenging. around the holidays. approachable to some, though it’s still possible to But while the ramen might compel me, it’s really I also tried the bulgogi burrito at Urban Street Grill singe your hand if you accidentally bump the bowl’s the possibility of grill-it-yourself Korean barbecue, the — a food truck that frequents placexterior. bulgogi bowl and a curiosity about other dishes like the es like Gibb’s Hundred Brewing — in I’m more partial to the don katsu pork belly with mushrooms that will bring me back.

2015, though I haven’t had a chance Visit Seoul Garden at 5318 at Don — as part of the appetizer Good thing I gave Seoul Garden another shot. to sample the bulgogi cheesesteak here it came with a marinara-esque W. Market St. (GSO) or at yet. sauce and almost tasted like mozPick of the Week seoul-garden.com.

It only seemed appropriate then, zarella sticks. (Translation: this is a in my continued adoration of Kogreat way to introduce a picky child More foods, less flavor rean fare, that I give Seoul Garden to Korean food, if you’re looking for ‘The Slow Loss of the Foods We Love’ @ Temple another shot. After all, I didn’t know squat on my first a window!)

Emanuel (W-S), Thursday, 6:30 p.m. time in.

It wouldn’t be fair to compare the bibimbap; both Essentially, food is growing tasteless. At least, I realized soon after sitting down to dinner there a are enjoyable and similar enough while bringing slightthat’s the argument of journalist and environmencouple nights ago just how clueless I’d been. A table ly different flavors to bear, though it’s hard to pinpoint talist Simran Sethi. Her recent book Bread, Wine, nearby sported the embedded grill allowing patrons the differences without each in front of you. But Seoul Chocolate: The Slow Loss of the Foods We Love to cook their own meat, a feature I’d missed entirely Garden boasts a bunch of vegetarian options including chronicles the homogenization of the food indusand hadn’t found elsewhere since. Not noticing it until the default position for the bibimbap — I added bultry, which leads to bland, and boring foods. This is after ordering an appetizer — the hot combo sampler gogi to the dol sot bibim bap, a few dollars extra but an interesting discussion for anyone who wants to with fried and boiled veggie dumplings and don katsu well worth it. Vegetarians wouldn’t feel like the dish is taste more. Search for the event on co.forsyth.nc.us — I vowed a third trip with a few friends where I’d ask lacking without it, though. for more information.

I

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Subconsciously I probably put myself on a pedestal. But public transit wasn’t really to blame, though the Triad really needs it — I am.

Spending the morning throwing up and occasionally feeling like I was dying wasn’t the way I wanted to kick off 2016, and it ruined plans I had to host a New Years Day brunch with a larger group of good friends. I didn’t feel fully right again until the following morning. But even as I lay there, holding a wet washcloth to my forehead and trying not to think about the trashcan a foot from my head, I had already discerned some meaning in it all.

It’s hard to feel self important or infallible when there’s puke in your beard and the color leaves your face. I’d planned to launch 2016 with a raucous welcome, but instead I accidentally forced myself to take a more humble approach. And while I don’t intend to repeat the experience, I appreciate the humility it provided.

I won’t stop drinking this year, but I do plan to tone it — and my ego — down.

Fun & Games

take over a beer pong table and danced until standing up seemed like a bad idea.

I drank probably 16 cups of water before bed, a portion of it straight from the faucet I’m told, and woke up in the morning with my head throbbing.

This time around, six of us crowded into oversized Ubers, the only form of reliable and convenient transit for those of us too smart to drink and drive in the Triad but who still want to party uninhibited.

When I woke up on Jan. 1, I felt like I could still be drunk. We’d put back champagne at home before going out, where I’d switched to gin with the house ginger syrup, and I think a friend behind the bar might’ve been generous with his pours. I’d slept for a reasonable amount of time, maybe seven hours, but soon after climbing out of bed, the puking began.

The kind that comes out your nose too, burns your throat and returns unexpectedly for several hours.

I’d never before puked from drinking, a point I prided myself on, considering it a sign of self-awareness and responsibility.

ERIC GINSBURG

Culture

How badass are these Uno cards? The answer is “very.”

Cover Story

by Eric Ginsburg The first four hours were the worst, but I didn’t feel like myself again until the next day.

By most metrics, I’d ushered in the new year in the right way — a little dressed up, several drinks in, surrounded by a couple close friends and at a small bar that I love.

Better yet, we had champagne, sparklers, found a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed deck of Uno cards and shortly after midnight, my girlfriend and I grabbed a pair of microphones for a Backstreet Boys karaoke duet.

When I went to bed that night on a borrowed air mattress in a friend’s Winston-Salem apartment, I felt pretty victorious, despite the fact that someone else in our party had thrown up twice from drinking too much.

I blame what happened next on the Triad’s lack of public transit.

I’ve spent all of my drinking years living here, which generally means that since graduating college, I very rarely drink heavily. Minimal public transportation means that after meeting friends at bars, I’m generally forced to drive home. I became a master of buzz management, meeting at venues with food, drinking quickly early before switching to water and limiting my intake so that a few hours later, I’m sober.

I don’t flirt with drunk driving, like far too many people I know, in part because a childhood friend died as a passenger in a drunk driving accident. Likewise, I’d prefer to be in control, and even when I’m not the designated driver, I often end up cutting myself off early to take over for a driver who’s enjoying the party a little too much.

So when the infrequent opportunity to go out and revel with friends when nobody is driving arises, I seize it. Especially if it’s New Year’s Eve. A few years ago in Manhattan, my sister and I welcomed the new year at a friend’s apartment, knowing we’d be taking the train home later. Someone puked, and it wasn’t me, but I still felt drunk as we sat on a bench awaiting the subway sometime after 4 a.m. Last year, I walked to a friend’s house and passed out on the couch after a new year’s house party where I’d helped

triad-city-beat.com

New years fool

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January 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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CULTURE With third album in the works, Dark Water Rising surges into new year

by Jordan Green

t wasn’t until the fourth or fifth song, a cover of the 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up,” that a handful of fans rose from their seats at the bar tables and ventured haltingly towards the stage during Dark Water Rising’s Jan. 2 set at the Blind Tiger in Greensboro.

A man in his fifties, muscular with a tight, military-style haircut, raised a fist as Charly Lowry’s voice hit a crescendo of ache and melodrama: “And I pray, omigod do I pray, I pray every single day for rev-o-lution.” A woman standing beside him snapped a couple photos on her phone and then raises both hands in a halo of supplication and release.

A blast of early ’90s nostalgia had them on their feet. But a righteous dose of indigenous pride kept them dancing and cheering.

“I was born in Robeson County as a member of the Lumbee tribe,” Lowry said, introducing the next number.

“We know,” someone shouted from the audience, and whooping could be heard in the gallery.

“Most of us are from there,” she continued. “It’s a predominantly indigenous community. At each show we like to share bits and pieces of our culture.”

With the guitar player and bassist resting, Lowry led the band through a rendition of “Mahk Jchi,” a stirring spiritual accompanied by percussion that was written

by North Carolina Tuscarora singer-songwriter Pura Fé.

“Our hearts are full and our minds are good,” Lowry translated. “Our ancestors come and give us strength.

Frontwoman Charly Lowry led Dark Water Rising through a spirited set at the Blind Tiger on Jan. 2. JORDAN GREEN Stand tall, sing, dance and never forget who you are, or where you come from.”

Lowry’s piercing wail, with her own accompaniment songs. Charly will do fancy dancing sometimes. We Typically, Emily Musolino’s bluesy bravado compleon hand drum, along with Pam McCarthy on djembe don’t want to be known as a Native American band.” ments Locklear’s more introspective textures. and Aaron Locklear on percussion, commanded the Lowry, Aaron Locklear and Corey Locklear — the The band opened their Jan. 2 show with “Medicate,” room. two are not related — were new to their instruments a song from the forthcoming album that exemplifies Lowry broke from singing and exhorted: “In 2016, we when they started playing together about eight years the band’s growing harmonic complexity. It’s also an need to learn to live in peace and harmony and uplift ago. Consequently, they influenced each other as their excellent snapshot of Lowry’s inestimable talent as a each other, and support each musicianship improved, and vocalist working in the breach between alt-rock and other. The world needs it. We the band developed a singular soul. Her gutsy instrument is able to capture despair, Dark Water Rising performs need it.” style that doesn’t reveal obvious tenderness and determination within a single measure. at Muddy Creek Café in WinThen, following a song dedicatprecedents. After recording two If any comparisons come to mind, it would be Johnette ed to women called “Brown Skin” albums, their 2010 self-titled deston-Salem on Jan. 30. Visit that projects a similarly embut and Grace & Grit: Chapter 1 in darkwaterrising.net or mudPick of the Week powering message, guitar player 2013, Dark Water Rising relocated dycreekcafe.com for more Corey Locklear and bassist Tony A siren, or something similar from Fayetteville to Chapel Hill. information.

Murnahan rejoined the mix, and Emily Yacina & more @ Revolution Cycles (GSO), Emily Musolino, a guitarist and they shifted back to the more Thursday, 8:30 p.m. vocalist trained at Berklee School conventional instrumentation A collaborator of bedroom-indie-pop star Alex of Music, joined later and is mixthat girds the unique sound they call “rocky soul.”

G, Emily Yacina is a musical gem. She’s soulful and ing the group’s forthcoming third album.

After the set, relaxing in the green room with his felpensive, playful with the dusty backlog of music Musolino wasn’t present at the Jan. 2 Blind Tiger low bandmates, Aaron Locklear said that Dark Water history. Calling her music “indie” would carry all show — she had a gig with another band — but her Rising didn’t set out to create an indigenous sound. the wrong connotations. And to call her another brother, John, sat in on percussion for a song called “When we first started out, all the members were acoustic, electronically overlaid Brooklyn-based “Trees.” With Corey Locklear handling guitar duties Lumbee or Native American,” he said. “We didn’t try to songwriter is to miss the point entirely. Yacina plays alone, the band’s melodic DNA coalesced around the infuse that into our music. We were six individuals trya spellbinding songs. Find the event page on Facesoulful restraint of his playing with a spare and lovely ing to play music together. We embraced it on certain book for more information. sound that doesn’t quite capture the band’s power.

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guitar and take-no-prisoners vocal suggests a holy alliance between the Alabama Shakes and Rage Against the Machine.

But with Musolino in absentia and Corey Locklear the sole keeper of guitar responsibilities on Jan. 2, the song roused the audience at the Blind Tiger with a sound that was closer to a primitive gospel number or Mississippi hill country stomp.

“When things don’t go your way, you can’t tuck your tail and hide,” Lowry sang. “Gotta have a backbone, backbone.”

During a break, the band members chant in unison: “What about Martin?

What about Franklin? What about Henry Bear?” The lyrics refer to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Benjamin Franklin and Henry Berry Lowry. The latter is a Tuscarora free man of color who was a Robin Hood-type figure in Robeson County after the Civil War, and who is possibly a distant cousin of Charly Lowry.

It might be the new anthem of the Moral Monday movement, or at least a potent antidote to North Carolina’s deepening conservative malaise.

triad-city-beat.com

Napolitano from Concrete Blonde.

Lowry’s impressive vocal range and stylistic breadth places a signpost for her bandmates to take the music in wildly variant directions. Behold the double helix of McCarthy and Aaron Locklear’s percussion work, or Corey Locklear’s soulful lead guitar, flitting with birdlike dexterity at one moment and then dispatching a trenchant, Latin-inspired chord run the next. Or the classic beach-music groove, languorous and sensual, laid down by bassist Murnahan on “Sweet Carolina.”

As the set drew to a close, Lowry asked if there was time for one more song before Dark Water Rising turned over the stage to the show closer, Asheville’s funky Get Right Band.

“I can’t leave the stage without doing ‘Backbone,’” Lowry said.

Dark Water Rising has been performing the song — slated to be the first single on the new album — for at least a year but it already sounds like the band’s credo. A YouTube video submitted for the NPR Tiny Desk Concert Contest that showcases Musolino’s blues-inspired shredding has raised the song’s profile considerably with more than 4,000 views to date. The heavy

10/8/14 11:47 AM

Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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January 6 — 12, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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CULTURE The immigrants’ mosaic

by Daniel Wirtheim

commuter rail rattles across the skyline of a bustling neighborhood as the camera jumps closer, then finally to streets teeming with life and the sound of 167 different languages spoken all at the same time.

From the streets to the offices of its city council representative, Frederick Wiseman’s 2015 documentary film In Jackson Heights is a meditation on one of the nation’s thickest melting pots, the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, NY. Wiseman, who’s directed 40 documentaries, kicks the armchair anthropologist from his La-Z-Boy and hits the streets to let this neighborhood speak its own truth.

Within an overwhelming three hours and 10 minutes of run time, In Jackson Heights never establishes an emotional theme. Instead Wiseman edits scenes of life with the urge to contradict in such a way that carries this behemoth of a documentary at a brisk and exciting pace.

Street signs, produce vendors and storefronts flash by the screen as the camera swings from one shop to the next like a wild-eyed ape of the urban COURTESY PHOTO Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman’s latest creation is an exciting crawl through one of the nation’s thickest melting pots. jungle harboring an insatiable appetite for stories.

A woman stops a group of volunteers from laborator John Davey is no novice when it comes to Alabama who are picking up trash to ask them to setting up a pleasingly composed establishing shot, pray for a loved one. Customers at a Laundromat but he thrives on faces and capturing emotional sit down for a music show. And the general impresreactions. This tendency, to focus on the eyes, gives sion is that this is all happening yards away from a In Jackson Heights an incredibly clean and emotive street vendor or Indian beauty parlor. Wiseman also look. spends a substantial part of the film behind closed When a person speaks, as in one scene in which a doors: in the meeting of an LGBT advocacy group, woman stands up before a group to tell the riveting a nightclub, synagogue, and a city council office. tale of her daughters crossing the US-Mexican borThis largely immigrant neighborhood is connected der, stoic reactions are the focal point. The diversity through these segmented communities, all seemof the faces is mesmerizing as ingly committed to upholding well — until it becomes tiring. diversity.

Beyond the two-and-a-half There are a few escapades In Jackson Heights plays hour mark, In Jackson Heights with Daniel Dromm, the openly at A/perture Cinema in can become a tedious, if not gay NYC council member whose Winston-Salem through excruciating film to watch. The district includes Jackson Heights. discomfort begins shortly after Thursday.

The film follows Dromm as he the aforementioned meeting of discusses a possible redistricting the business owners. Enough and prepares for the Queens tension is released here for the credits but Wiseman Pride Parade and Festival, which is held annually in cannot quit adding characters, adding story. the neighborhood.

Like one scene where the focus is on a group of The most disparaging elements are a series of Pick of the Week holocaust survivors, Wiseman seems to reinforce protests, which Wiseman tells through the recurring the sad truism that life goes on, even beyond the character of a transgender Latina woman.

Birthday wishes artificial construct of the film.

Perhaps the most poignant narrative of the First Toast @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), 5:30 p.m.

It is excruciating, but mostly genius, film. And film is a collection of scenes in which a group of With it’s gorgeous rotunda and generous staff, not unlike Yasujiro Ozu’s meditation on the city — small-business owners come to comprehend the any event at the Weatherspoon is a success. This one Tokyo Story — Wiseman bookends the excitement gentrification that has made its way from Mancelebrates the museum’s 75th birthday, which calls for with another passing train. And In Jackson Heights hattan to Jackson Heights. But the film does not swing dancing and drinks. Folk musician Martha Basset leaves an audience with the feeling that they’ve hold onto one narrative, it simply meditates in the and the Piedmont Swing Dance Society are the night’s just taken one deep meditation session on a city of melting pot. performers. Visit weatherspoon.uncg.edu for more immigrants.

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FUN & GAMES he mermaids and mermen sat in the shallows, splishing and splashing water with their hands as well as their agile, colorful tails. They laughed and talked amongst themselves, then slid beneath the

by Anthony Harrison clear, blue waters and dove deep into the pool, swimming with the grace of dolphins.

This wasn’t on some far-off Caribbean shore. Nor was it in Neverland.

It was during MerMania at the Greensboro Aquatic Center on Jan. 2 and 3.

Also, I am not insane.

When I go to the beach, you cannot get me out of the water. I love swimming, and ocean swimming in the pull of the tide is the best it gets. I enjoy swimming so much, when I visited San Diego in February 2014, I swam in the Pacific Ocean for 15 minutes, until I thought I’d go into shock.

But the women and men participating in MerMania took that love of the water to a completely different level.

“This started out as a few friends nerding out over pizza in our tails,” event organizer Shannon Rauch told me. “Now, we’ve got mermaids from all over the world sitting in this pool.”

Rauch, a resident of Charlotte, got into mermaiding two years ago while preparing her costume for Halloween.

“I found out you could swim in [the tail], so I took it to the pool,” Rauch said. “You get into the tail, go to the pool and people take pictures, because they’ve never seen anything like it.”

Rauch started driving up to the Greensboro Aquatic Center due to their “mermaid-friendly” attitude.

“I went from lake and pool swimming to doing aquarium shows,” Rauch said. “I can’t believe I wake up in the morning and there’s money in my bank account from being a mermaid. Childhood me would be so jealous of adult me.”

Rauch stressed that it’s not all about the attention, though.

Along with festivals, corporate galas and — of course — kids’ birthday parties, many professional mermaids also use their draw to serve the community.

Nicole Colchiski, also known as Lotus, teaches not only safety and swim skills in her mermaiding class at an Idaho Springs, Colo. pool, but also conservation efforts.

“Sometimes, I’ll take some students out and we pick up trash together at the river,” Colchiski said. “I try to teach kids it’s not just going out and playing in a tail.”

But the fun and artistry of it brings people together.

Professional scuba divers Erin Gallagher and Mike Sistrunk of the Tampa Bay, Fla. Area founded MerNation, Inc., a company that makes mermaid and

T

A mermaid’s tale merman tails, to “help make dreams come true,” according to Gallagher.

“Our tails are made of special effects-grade silicone, all custom-made, custom-fit and airbrushed to any color scheme, whether it’s a favorite color or favorite fish,” Gallagher said.

While the monofins weigh between 35 and 50 pounds, their silicone construction makes them weightless and neutrally buoyant underwater.

Still, getting into them on dry land seems quite a process.

The wearer must fold the tail’s torso over the lower portion of the fin, then stick their legs in, stand up and finally fold the torso back up over their own trunk. It’s a two-person job for the uninitiated, but once under the surface, the wearer maneuvers in the fin like… well, a fish in water.

“We’ve never seen an accident — knock on wood — but we stress the need for strong ANTHONY HARRISON Real-life mermaids, sort of, took to the aquatic center swimming skills and parental last week. guidance,” said Venessa Lewis staring at O’Brocki. of Baton Rouge, La., known appropriately enough as “What’s your name?” he asked. the Louisiana Mermaid.

“Emma,” she replied shyly.

It doesn’t take much training to navigate in the tail: “I have a friend named Emma, but she’s a human,” Swimming with a dolphin kick, using legs and core O’Brocki said, in the act. muscles to propel forward, accomplishes the most “You’re not pretty like the mermaids,” Emma stated efficiency and speed in the water. after a beat.

Anyone can do it; you don’t need to be a profession“Well, why should the girls have all the fun?” al, and not every mermaid there was a professional.

O’Brocki said.

Ashley Mayumi Wolf of Oklahoma, for example, Emma’s mother hustled her along, and O’Brocki couldn’t be a professional, considering her “mersona”: smiled smugly.

She cosplays as Ariel from The Little Mermaid.

“You’ve gotta be ready for anything,” he said, “but “Since I was little, I’d pretend I was a mermaid,” I love it. I could never let anything keep me out of the Mayumi Wolf said. “I’ve always been a mermaid in my water. It keeps me sane.” heart.”

A military brat, she spent the first 14 years of her life in Japan before her family moved to the Sooner State.

Pick of the Week “I went from all ocean to no ocean,” she said, laughKickass Quakers ing.

Eastern Mennonite University Royals @ Guilford Owing to her appearance, children and adults College Quakers (GSO), Saturday surrounded Mayumi Wolf most of the time, asking for The Lady Quakers basketball team (9-1) have pictures. The attention can seem slightly suffocating. become a dominant force in the Old Dominion “When I started three years ago, I had to appeal to Athletic Conference. The EMU Royals (8-2) have all aspects: Working with children, animals, doing phofallen upon similar good times, looking to extend to shoots,” said Baltimore, Md. native Chris O’Brocki, their five-game winning streak in a late-afternoon mersona Merman Christian, of initial challenges. “And matchup.

The men’s squads for both schools will I had to start promoting myself to be the face for guys, begin playing at 2 p.m., and the ladies play at 4:30 merman awareness and acceptance.” p.m.

As we talked, a little blonde girl sat down beside me,

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‘Let Free Entertain You’ you know the freestyle drill.

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61 “Desperate Housewives” actress Hatcher 62 Summer dress uniform component, maybe 63 Cut down to size

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1 Brand in the frozen breakfast section 2 Go from gig to gig 3 They’re represented by fingers in charades 4 Conn. school 5 Half of the ‘80s synth-pop duo Yaz 6 Comedian Minchin 7 Savion Glover’s specialty 8 PPO alternative 9 ___ START (Tobias’s oft-misinterpreted license plate on “Arrested Development”) 10 Highest Scrabble tile value 11 Animal in a Dr. Seuss title 12 “Chronicles of Narnia” lion 13 Adult Swim fare, for short 14 “Lord of the Rings” tree creatures 20 Ancient Greek portico 23 Place to keep your Tetleys and your Twinings 24 “Mrs. Murphy Mysteries” author ___ Brown 25 Simile segment, maybe 26 Annoys by staying outside the lines?

27 NYSE symbol for the company that keeps going ... and going ...

28 “Support Your Local Sheriff!” actor Jack 29 Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname 33 Full of memorable lines 34 “Gold”-en role for Peter Fonda 35 Paul of “Anchorman” 40 Weight training partner 41 Bargain-basement unit 42 “The Memory of Trees” Grammy winner 46 1990 NBA Finals MVP ___ Thomas 47 Nutcase 48 Give a long-winded talk 49 Sgts.’ underlings 51 Edible seaweed used for sushi 52 Roasting device 54 “Was ___ das?”

55 Treasured document?

56 “A Kiss Before Dying” author Levin 57 California red, briefly 58 Suffix with winning

Up Front

1 DIY handicrafts site 5 “If things were to continue like so ...”

15 “The Clothed Maja” painter 16 “Taken” guy 17 Beach bird 18 Tow-away zone destination 19 “10 Items ___” (checkout sign that drives grammarphiles nuts) 21 Ardent admirers 22 They may be collateral when buying new wheels 28 Recede gradually 30 Long-hitting clubs 31 Word before Jon or Wayne 32 No pro show, yo 36 Vigoda who’s still alive 37 Big name in toothbrushes 38 Vaccine target 39 Chuck an attempted three-pointer into the stands, e.g.

43 Former British Poet Laureate Hughes 44 Multi-layered dessert popularized in 2015 45 Abbr. after a proof 46 “Go ahead, don’t mind me” 49 11th-graders’ exam (abbr.)

50 Carter and Spelling, for two 53 Cheat 59 Lying over 60 Gambles

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The Southern Zodiac

Cover Story

Opinion

News

by Nicole Crews

Many are familiar with the Chinese Zodiac, known as Sheng Xiao. Literally “birth likeness,” it is calculated in 12-year cycles based on the Chinese lunar calendar and each year in the cycle relates to an animal. It is believed that each animal sign reflects the character of the individual associated with the sign.

Most, however, are probably unfamiliar with the Southern Zodiac. If you were born below the Mason Dixon line you fall under the Southern Zodiac. Allow me to enlighten you.

Year of the Cooter: 1900-2020 — Attractively adorned, this cold-blooded critter may look pretty but it is hard shelled and stubborn and will snap your toe off if you get too close.

Famous North Carolina Cooter — Born in New Garden, this First Lady Dolley Madison helped establish American political traditions and etiquette.

Year of the Black Bear: 1902-2022 — Regal and gorgeous, this is a dangerous beast that both defends its young and its kind.

Famous North Carolina Black Bear — Civil rights activist and musician Nina Simone is from Tryon.

Year of the Catfish: 1903-2023 — Whiskered and wily, the catfish is an athletic and prehistoric beast with an elusive nature.

Famous North Carolina Catfish — Baseball player and Hertford native Catfish Hunter.

Year of the Beaver: 1904-2024 — These creatures enjoy both procreating and nesting in their complex and multilayered homes.

Famous North Carolina Beaver — Ava Gardner, who hails from Grabtown, was a Hollywood femme fatale who married Frank Sinatra, Artie Shaw and Mickey Rooney.

30

Year of the Weasel: 1905-2025 — Small but active predators, these tiny terrors are able to get into just about anything.

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Year of the Raccoon: 1901-2021 — Nocturnal by nature, this masked creature is scrappy and a born survivor.

Famous North Carolina Raccoon — Blind singer and pianist Ronnie Milsap hails from Robbinsville.

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Culture

e (at a Chinese restaurant): Mother did you know that you were born in the Year of the Horse?

Mother: Well that explains how hard I’ve had to work.

Me: And all the s*** you’ve had to put up with.

Mother: And all of the asses around me.

M

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C r i mi n a l • Tra ffi c • DW I Famous North Carolina Weasel — National Security Agency subcontractor Edward Snowden of Elizabeth City leaked NSA surveillance activities.

Year of the Bobcat: 1906-2026 — An adaptable predator, bobcats are excellent for controlling pest populations and known for hunting anything.

Famous North Carolina Bobcat — Raleigh native and first US president to be impeached Andrew Johnson.

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Year of the Ginger Squirrel: 1907-2027 — An excellent sense of vision and versatile claws characterize these tree dwellers who are very adept at adopting new environments.

Famous North Carolina Ginger Squirrel — Chapel Hillian Clay Aiken became a singing sensation on American Idol and later ran for Congress.

Year of the Feral Swine: 1908-2028 — Also known as the wild boar, these ancient creatures are deadly and capable of widespread devastation.

Famous North Carolina Feral Swine — Current North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory is one.

Year of the Bald Eagle: 1909-2029 — Noble yet opportunistic, these birds possess a large wingspan and keen ability to zero in on their prey.

Famous North Carolina Bald Eagle — Greensboro-born Howard Coble who served in the US House of Representatives from 1985 to 2015.

Year of the Crappie: 1910-2930 — Considered a tasty yet somewhat generic freshwater game fish, the crappie is ubiquitous throughout the South.

Famous North Carolina Crappie — Limp Bizkit frontman and Gastonian Fred Durst.

Year of the Cottonmouth: 1911-2031 — A black water viper, this venomous snake is capable of delivering painful and potentially fatal bites, and well known for standing its ground.

Famous North Carolina Cottonmouth — La Grange native and notorious drug dealer and gangster Frank Lucas.

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