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MAGAZINE
voLume 15, no. 12
“I have a fancy that every city has a voice.” www.ohenrymag.com
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Predictably Perfect
A Hallmark moment to remember forever
by Cassie bustamante
Let’s face it, the market of cheesy holiday romance films — à la Hallmark — is oversaturated. But I recall when just one or two would be released each year, and you had to pay attention to when they aired, even if you recorded them with TiVo. My daughter, Emmy, and I would dive under the plush, down cover of my cozy bed and snuggle together as a string of lights twinkled on the wall above my headboard and a Christmas tree glimmered in the corner of the room. Emmy’s interest in watching holiday films while cuddling with her mom has inevitably declined. Anyhow, this year, she’s away at her first year of college, leaving me on my own while Netflix drops a barrage of Hallmark-adjacent films. And while I know within the first five minutes of viewing how the next 90 or so will unfold, I still adore these movies. The plot line is as comforting as my morning cup of coffee, filling me with a familiar, nostalgic warmth.
tree farm, owned by a flannel-wearing stud named Nick, by setting up a pop-up bake sale where she sells cookies using her late mom’s cherished, handwritten recipe. Naturally, Holly and Nick fall in love and open a bakery named “Pining for Sweets” on the farm property and live happily ever after, selling Christmas trees and confections.
And while Emmy’s no longer into the yearly ritual, last Thanksgiving I discovered that I need not watch the 32 Hallmark “Countdown-to-Christmas” films all by my lonesome self.
Each one goes something like this: Big-city lawyer Holly ventures to a small, snowy town named Hope Falls — with a gazebo in its town center, of course — to visit her newly widowed father for the holidays. There, she inevitably saves the local Christmas
And so it was that one late November evening, we arrive home from my parents’ house, stuffed and sleepy. Our oldest, Sawyer, heads immediately to his lair to play video games. Emmy retreats to the warmth of her own bed. My husband, Chris, turns the family-room television on to whatever college football game is being played. Our youngest, 6-year-old Wilder, builds a Pokémon puzzle on the coffee table with Chris. Taking inventory of the situation, I decide I could use a quiet, little lie-down myself.
I turn on the Christmas lights already strung over my bed
(confession — we keep them up year round because I love their glow), flop myself down and grab the remote.
Netflix tells me that Lindsay Lohan’s latest, Our Little Secret, is today’s top film. I love a good comeback story and applaud Lohan for finding her way back to the screen in a healthy, wholesome manner. And, to be fair, this movie is a level up from Hallmark. Kristin Chenoweth, Tim Meadows and Ian Harding, the dude who played Ezra Fitz in Pretty Little Liars, a show that Emmy and I watched together in its entirety? Yes, please.
With 30 minutes left in the movie, Wilder, wearing his Super Mario pajamas and Santa hat that he hasn’t taken off all day, wanders in to ask if I’d like to watch a Peanuts movie with him and Dad.
“Of course, I’d love to,” I say. “But lemme just finish watching this first. OK?”
He peers curiously at the screen and spies glimmering Christmas decorations adorning a large, twinkling, light-covered home. Instead of leaving, he hops on the bed and nestles into me. While the movie is rated PG-13, I decide it’s tame enough for him to stay. Plus, a lot of the inappropriate content will fly right over his Santa-capped head.
As the ending draws close and the love interest makes his grand, sweeping gesture to finally win over Lohan, Wilder says, “This is making me feel like I am going to cry.”
After a moment, Lohan and her beau embrace and seal it with a kiss. “See,” I say to Wilder, “It’s a happy ending.”
He hugs me tighter as he says, “Yes, but it’s just so beautiful that I want to cry.”
So, this year, I’m ready. The lights are twinkling above the bed. Soon I’ll be cuddling up with my new romance-loving partner in crime. And when Emmy comes home for her Christmas break, we’ll just squeeze in tighter and make room for her, too. That is, if she wants to join us. OH
Cassie Bustamante is editor of O.Henry magazine.
THIS YEAR, STIR UP SOME NEW HOLIDAY MEMORIES.
All throughout the holiday season, you’ll find holiday cheer in great abundance everywhere you turn in Alamance County.
Picture postcard sights, sounds and celebrations immerse you in a magical backdrop that transports you to another place and time.
Savor holiday treats, discover unique gifts and decorations, and experience the magic.
Save the Date:
Mebane’s Nutcracker Stroll – Thru 12/31 Burlington’s Holiday Magic – 12/13 Christmas in the Park – 12/22 Saxapahaw Holiday Market – 12/6 & 12/7
You’ll find small surprises lead to big memories in Alamance County.
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by Jim DoDson
If Wishes Were Wheelbarrows . . .
Then babies would ride
Twenty years ago, as part of our move home to North Carolina from Maine, I gave my beloved Chevy truck to a local kid who thought Christmas had come early. “Old Blue,” as I called her, was getting on in years and prone to stalling out from time to time. But, oh, how I loved that lady truck. She gave our tribe many fine memories, including a 6,000-mile camping-and-fly-fishing trip across the golden West with my 7-year-old daughter, Maggie, and our dog, Amos, that became the premise for a bestselling book and even a modest little film.
Last Christmas, friends may recall, still pining for Old Blue, I jokingly wished that Santa would bring me a shiny new Chevy pickup truck. To help the old fella out, I even began scouting local Chevy dealers, hoping to find a deal on a nice new or used
pickup truck that had my name on it. Unfortunately, the trucks I liked had eye-popping price tags, bad news for a recessionary Santa.
On one level, I’m glad my truck wish failed to come true. On another, everywhere I went in the city over the following year, I seemed to see fancy pickup trucks with old, white dudes like me behind the wheel, an unnaturally cruel sight for a fellow quietly suffering from years of truck lust.
So, I asked myself: What the heck does an old dude like me who lives and gardens in a quiet suburban neighborhood really need with a shiny new pickup truck?
The answer is nothing. Or pretty much nothing.
On the other hand, if Santa had indeed brought me the shiny, new pickup I’d wished for, this year I could have impressed my neighbors by hauling home the largest Christmas tree ever in the back of my truck, a Currier and Ives scene for the age of consumer excess.
Instead, as usual, we purchased a lovely little fir tree at the roadside lot where we’ve found the “perfect” holiday tree for many years and drove it home on the roof of my elderly Outback. It looked sensational with its tiny lights glowing from our den’s picture window on a deep December night.
simple life
Still, old wishes die hard.
During an afternoon trip to the grocery store the other day, just when I thought my truck lust finally a thing of the past, a white-haired fellow about my age parked beside me and climbed out of a beautiful, cobalt-blue Sierra Denali 1500. It was a real beauty, and for a crazy, covetous moment, I wished I had one just like it.
“How do you like your rig?” I cordially asked.
He beamed. “It’s absolutely fantastic Gave it to myself when I retired last year. One of the new self-driving models with four-wheel drive and a crew cab that’s perfect for hauling our four grandkids around town.” He added it had all the latest high-technology toys plus real leather seats and a super sound system.
“Feel free to take a seat in it, if you’d like,” he graciously offered.
I thanked him but declined the offer and wished him happy grandkid-hauling, then went on my way, realizing that I evidently hadn’t quite gotten my yen for a shiny new pickup truck completely out of my system.
Fortunately, my next stop was Lowe’s Home Improvement, which brought me back to Earth. As I loaded 10 bags of mulch and a hundred pounds of organic garden soil plus several bags of dried manure into my trusty old Outback “garden car,” I realized some things are simply never meant to be.
Besides, suddenly I spotted something by the store’s front doors that I truly wanted and needed more than a fancy new pickup truck.
A row of shiny new wheelbarrows.
•
The act of making wishes is as old as the invention of the wheel.
In ancient European folklore, wishing wells were places where any spoken wish — often accompanied by a coin tossed into the water — was thought to be magically granted. The ritual itself was a means of connecting with the divine and requesting blessings or favors. Wishing wells, in fact, exist in the lore of almost every world culture and still have a place
in modern society, often found in spiritual and historic gardens, and even used in contemporary fundraising campaigns. And don’t forget, as Jiminy Cricket pointed out, when you wish upon a star, your dreams may come true.
In the modern context, however, the word “wish” simply means “a desire or hope for something to happen,” which makes me hear my late papa’s voice on the subject.
He was something of an armchair philosopher. One of his favorite expressions was “Whatever is worth wishing for, son, is worth working for.”
Probably because I was such a wishful kid, I heard this pithy bit of armchair wisdom dozens of times while growing up.
As an early reader of adventure books, for example, I wished and dreamed to someday be another Rudyard Kipling or Edgar Rice Burroughs, maybe even Jules Verne. Later, my literary wish grew into being the next T. H. White or Ernest Hemingway.
None of these wishes came true.
Or did they? Fueled by such youthful desires, I grew up to become a newspaper reporter like my father and found that I was even more drawn to stories about real people, history, nature, poets and things that make dreamers wish for a better world. Along the way, I’ve also built five landscape gardens and even designed a popular golf course.
In short, I’ve lived long enough to know the old man was right — that if we wish for anything, including a better world, we all must work to make it happen.
So, whether by starlight or ancient wishing well, this Christmas I’m wishing for a couple very special things: More goodwill and kindness to each other in our troubled human family, and a safe and happy delivery for my daughter’s baby girl, due to arrive on Christmas Eve.
As a new grandpa, I can’t wait to tool my first grandchild around in my shiny new wheelbarrow. OH
On another front, because I was a kid who was happiest in nature, in a garden or on a golf course, I wished to someday be either a forest ranger or someone who built beautiful gardens for a living, maybe even a golf course designer.
Jim Dodson is founding editor of O.Henry magazine. His 17th book, The Road That Made America: A Modern Pilgrim Travels the Great Wagon Road, is available wherever books are sold.
Sazerac
"A spirited forum of Gate City food, drink, history, art, events, rumors and eccentrics worthy of our famous namesake"
Making a Mark
After graduating from Savannah College of Art and Design May 31, 2015, Blythe Leonard turned down an offer to work with Ralph Lauren, despite her background in fashion. Instead, she made a beeline back home to Thomasville.
By June, she had created her own brand of handcrafted leather goods and opened shop April 1, 2016. “I placed an order for my sewing machine before I even graduated.”
The other part of her plan was to support other “makers.”
“I wanted to uplift locals. I have a service heart; I’m always hoping to help people up.” Blythe smiles. “It is Hallmark-y.”
Today, Blythe Leonard Leather at 606 Davidson St. features her hand-crafted goods. Miranda Kerr and the late Diane Keaton are among celebrities who have owned her handbags. Her second location, 12 East Guilford St., was once headquarters for Lambeth Furniture Company, precursor to giant Thomasville Furniture.
She bought the 1898 building on October 1, 2020. With support from entrepreneurial parents Jane and Mark Leonard, third-generation owners of Hill Spinning Mill in Thomasville, and a slew of paid and volunteer labor, a spiffy remodel resulted in the perfect showcase for one-of-a-kind items. Leonard transformed the down-on-its-luck building during the pandemic, stocking two stories with the work of 100 artists.
Maker’s Market opened on May 29, 2021.
Now, nearly 350 “makers” produce wares sold in artful displays: handmade jewelry, pottery, gardening tools, specialty food items and artwork — all using American materials. “If they make candles, even the glass they pour the candles into has to be made in the U.S.,” says Blythe. Her wood -
worker brother, Nick, creates cutting boards and 16 other woodworkers sell everything from spoons to ornaments.
Blythe considers the quality, pricing and work of friendly makers. “I won’t work for or with anybody that’s rude,” she insists.
Come the holidays, Blythe casts a wider net for those who cannot make the trek to historic Thomasville.
“We are always looking for avenues to bring customers to our makers so that they are successful. So, we reached out to Piedmont Crossing [a Thomasville retirement community] to see if we could set up a tour bus to come visit the store.”
On-site pop-up shops have grown popular.
Maker’s Market recently co-hosted a pop-up at Pennybyrn, extending invitations to other retirement communities.
Blythe says the residents appreciated the opportunity to shop where they live since many use walkers, canes or wheelchairs.
Meanwhile, Blythe’s writing about how she got here. Her working title, “A Whole Lot of Faith and a Whole Lot of Crazy,” looks back on the exciting past decade.
“I tell people I must be crazy to have opened a second business during COVID.” — Cynthia Adams
For more information, visit blmakersmarket.com.
Unsolicited Advice
In 2021, PBS declared, “The misunderstood fruitcake has a magnificent shelf life — and history.” In fact, it dates back to ancient times. Perhaps the one your neighbor brought you last Christmas was, in fact, a relic of the past. Antiquated or not, we’ve got some alternative uses for that unwanted fruitcake your family is likely to forgo in favor of snowman-shaped sugar cookies.
Small and dense, it’s practically a brick, making it a perfectly weighty doorstop — though we don’t endorse building your home from fruitcake. Great for holding the door while you hustle through with present-laden arms, we recommend changing it out before spring and the onset of ants, though we cannot confirm that they’ll even eat it.
Sliced, you can take out some of that holiday angst on the ice with a family-friendly game of fruitcake hockey. Need a moment of om? Maybe a little hip release? Stretch yourself into the pigeon, a yoga pose that opens up those
flexors and glutes, and rest your forehead on the next best thing to a yoga block — Aunt Helen’s fruitcake.
When all else fails, listen to the advice of your old buddy, Sam-I-Am. Don’t be a fruitcake Grinch. Try it! Try it! And you may . . . actually like it. Especially after a festive meal of Green Eggs and Ham.
Just One Thing
Every year, Greensboro’s GreenHill Center for NC Art gathers the works of over 70 artists state-wide in one glorious, two-month-long exhibit. Winter Show, now in its 46th season, has become a Gate City staple for both art connoisseurs and those who believe in supporting local artists. No matter where you land, you’ll find something unique that grabs your attention — perhaps one of Asheville creator Heather Divoky’s crowns. Divoky, who describes herself as “an artist, designer, and sometimes-poet,” utilizes marker and ink on paper, copper wire, and beads to fabricate these one-of-a-kind fashion statements. Divoky draws “in all sorts of fantastical, deeply detailed ways” to create vibrant, fanciful crowns, allowing you to wear her wildest whimsies — everything from moths and possums to celestial bodies and flora. Pictured here is Pride I, a royal rainbow of blooms. While we’re told this specific crown won’t be at Winter Show, we do know that ones similar will be on display in all their crowning glory. Want a head start? Don’t miss Winter Show’s First Choice event from 5:30–7:30 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 4, or Collector’s Choice from 7–10 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 6. The Public Opening follows from 1–3 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 7. Info: greenhillnc.org/winter-show-2025
Window on the Past
Many of the traditions we have in Greensboro have stayed the same, including holiday storytelling. Pictured is Elizabeth Holder, a volunteer at the Greensboro History Museum during the 1990s, using miniature figurines to relay the Moravian settlers' history to Global Studies Magnet School students. Some things never change — like the snap of the perfect Moravian cookie.
QW HAPPENINGS & NEWS
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• O.Henry LIVE Jazz! Every Thursday from 6-9 PM and Select Saturdays from 7-10 PM in the Social Lobby. See the schedule at ohenryhotel.com
• LIVE Music Every Wednesday at Lucky 32! AM rOdeO (Jessica Mashburn & Evan Olson) 6-9 PM lucky32.com
• Artist-in-Residence Chip Holton at L32! Live painting Wednesday – Sunday 12-2 PM and 6-8 PM. Stop by!! lucky32.com
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There’s a fine — and in your case, blurred — line between passionate and possessive. When Venus struts into Scorpio on Nov. 6 (where she’ll glamp out until month’s end), that line is primed to become a short leash if left unchecked — and nobody wants to be on the other end of that. A word of advice: Don’t smother the fire. Tempted as you may be to cling fast and tight, a little space will keep the coals glowing red hot.
Tea
leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:
Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)
Go easy on the eggnog.
Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)
Keep a knuckle of ginger on standby.
Pisces (February 19 – March 20)
Add a splash of maple syrup.
Aries (March 21 – April 19)
Fold in a little extra sweetness.
Taurus (April 20 – May 20)
Reshuffle the deck.
Gemini (May 21 – June 20)
Dress for an adventure.
Cancer (June 21 – July 22)
Make way for true romance.
Leo (July 23 – August 22)
Use your mulligan.
Virgo (August 23 – September 22)
Stretch those hip flexors.
Libra (September 23 – October 22)
Try not to overextend yourself.
Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)
Serve yourself the first slice. OH
Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since the Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla.
ESTHER in the Age of REMBRANDT Book of The
On view through March 8, 2026
The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt is co-organized by the Jewish Museum, New York, and the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.
In Raleigh the exhibition is made possible, in part, by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources; the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc.; The Slomo and Cindy Silvian Foundation, Inc.; Samuel P. Mandell Foundation; Lisa and Michael Sandman; Lisa and Steven Feierstein; Dawn F. Lipson; Marion MeyerRobboy and Stanley Robboy; Dutch Culture USA, a program of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United States; and the William R. Kenan Jr. Endowment for Educational Exhibitions. Research for this exhibition was made possible by Ann and Jim Goodnight/The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund for Curatorial and Conservation Research and Travel.
Gerrit van Honthorst, Elizabeth Stuart as Esther (detail), circa 1632, oil on canvas, 28 × 227/16 in., Private collection, by courtesy of the Hoogsteder Museum Foundation, The Hague
Prescription for Success
Summerfield native Patrick Ball was born to play his hit TV role
by m aria Johnson
This holiday season, if you’re ambling the trails around Greensboro’s Lake Brandt and you think you’ve just passed the dimpled Dr. Frank Langdon from hit TV series The Pitt, you’re probably right.
That is, you’ve likely seen Patrick Ball, the Guilford County native who plays Langdon on the Emmywinning HBO Max medical drama, soon to be in its second season.
Patrick, 36, plans to spend Christmas with his parents, Lee Ann and Jim Ball of Summerfield.
“Every time I go home, I run these trails,” Patrick says in a telephone interview. “I’ve run them in different chapters of my life. Returning to a familiar place, it becomes kind of my yardstick for growth.”
Since he left home, Patrick has done a heck of a lot of growing as an actor and as a person.
“He has integrity,” says his dad, proudly.
“He has found his way,” says his mom, relief audible in her voice.
As an actor, Patrick has experienced freakish success in the past year.
The one-in-a-million odds of any actor striking it big are very much like those of becoming a professional athlete.
Patrick’s newborn celebrity is astonishing, too, because the role that vaulted Patrick from dramatic obscurity to A-list luster so closely parallels the real-life careers of his parents.
Patrick plays the chief resident in a gritty Pittsburgh emergency room.
Lee Ann, now retired, was a registered nurse for Cone Health for almost 44 years, half of them spent in the emergency room.
“It was my passion,” she says.
Jim, also retired, worked for 40 years as a paramedic for Guilford County Emergency Medical Services. In the early 2000s, he held the record for saves in the field, meaning he basically brought 79 people back to life.
At home, when their kids were young, Jim and Lee Ann never talked about their high-stakes work, and Patrick, the oldest of three, had no interest in following their footsteps.
But he had a taste for high-risk/high-reward situations, a flair for the dramatic and a way of making his presence known.
“He was born with a big voice,” says Lee Ann, laughing. “He was louder than any other child, and he boomed at you if he had something to say.”
Energetic and adept at expressing himself physically, Patrick played recreational sports in Summerfield.
At Northwest Guilford High School, he was a member of the wrestling, basketball, baseball and football teams — briefly.
“We had him grounded the entire four years,” says Lee Ann, adding that she spent many hours praying for her oldest child.
“He was a pill,” says his nurse-mom, intending no pun.
“Patrick liked to test his boundaries,” adds Jim.
Later, on the phone, Patrick is more direct.
“I was a problem child,” he says, recalling how his parents stayed on him about sloughing off homework and smoking weed.
All they wanted for him, he says, was to find a constructive pursuit that he was passionate about and apply himself.
A possibility glimmered in high school.
Patrick and a couple of friends auditioned for an honors
drama class because some older guys they admired took the class.
“They listened to Radiohead and Death Cab for Cutie,” Patrick says. “We thought they were the coolest guys in the world.”
The class was something of a dud, covered by a disinterested coach after the usual teacher went on maternity leave.
After a month of watching movies, Patrick and his pals started producing their own shows. They performed scenes from Tennessee Williams plays. They organized a school-wide variety show.
“That was a really cool feeling — to collaborate with a group of friends and make something out of nothing,” Patrick says.
“It was crucial to my formation as an actor because nobody was telling us we had to do it . . . we were able to follow our own curiosity and our own initiative and develop our own hunger.”
Opportunity winked again during Patrick’s freshman year at UNCG, where he enrolled in media studies, hoping to get into broadcast journalism.
A theater friend asked Patrick to help him out by appearing in a 10-minute scene for class. John Gulley, the head of UNCG’s theater studies, caught Patrick’s turn and urged him to join the program.
He did and won the lead role of Jack Tanner in Man and Superman, a dense George Bernard Shaw play.
Patrick, who had kicked off college with a couple of alcoholrelated arrests, saw the role as a make-or-break moment.
“I focused for the first time in my life,” says Patrick, who
describes himself as having ADHD.
He memorized his lines — a skill that comes easily to him — and showed up for rehearsal ready to go “off book,” without a script.
The late Josh Foldy, a UNCG theater professor who’d studied acting at Yale, thought Patrick could make it as a professional actor.
He wasn’t the only one. When Patrick and his senior classmates traveled to New York City for a showcase in early 2013, industry pros urged Patrick to move to the city immediately. He hesitated because he planned to perform with the N.C. Shakespeare Festival in High Point that spring. The work would land him a union card with the Actors’ Equity Association, a rite of passage for stage actors.
When the ailing festival canceled the spring show, Patrick jetted to New York a few credit hours short of his undergraduate degree.
“The iron is hot. I’m going now,” he says.
More than a decade of journeyman acting followed. Patrick crisscrossed the country to do regional theater. Back home in New York, he worked a slew of odd jobs: tearing tickets for the East River Ferry; driving a moving truck; working on a paint crew; handing out promotional cell phones at New York Fashion Week; serving at restaurants, bars and coffee shops.
His income and career path were all over the place. He consid-
ered teaching drama for stability.
At the urging of his childhood friend James Mieczkowski, now an Emmy-winning producer for PBS North Carolina, Patrick detoured to Yale, where he took a Certificate in Drama in 2022. The certificate converted to a Master of Fine Arts degree when Patrick finished his UNCG bachelor’s degree online later that year.
He taught a couple of summer classes at Yale. He landed a bit part on Law & Order It wasn’t enough.
He was done with acting, he told his parents.
He came home, ran the trails around Lake Brandt and interviewed for a fund raising position at High Point University.
He waited for an answer.
In the meantime, Moisés Kaufman, an acclaimed director who wrote the movie The Laramie Project, asked Patrick to do a play in Miami.
Dramatic tension mounted when HPU offered Patrick the job.
Patrick asked if he could start in three months, after the play wrapped. HPU said OK.
In a reversal worthy of the big screen, Patrick did the Miami play, met his girl friend, actress Elysia Roorbach, declined HPU’s offer and moved back to New York.
That spring, in 2024, he did three Zoom auditions for the L.A.-based pro ducers of The Pitt.
Patrick visited his parents in May.
He ran the trails.
The producers called. Could he get to L.A. for a screen test in two days?
Give me three, and I’ll be there, said Patrick.
The producers agreed.
Patrick showed his parents the pilot script.
“They said, ‘This checks out. This is real medicine,’” he remembers.
In L.A., Patrick mentioned to the show’s producer and star Noah Wyle that he’d read Wyle’s mom was a nurse and added that his mom was, too.
“‘Oh, so you get it,’” said Wyle.
Patrick explained how he understood the character of Langdon.
L et the
SeasonCelebration begin!
With the Holidays upon on us, I want to celebrate all my wonderful clients who made 2025 such a great year! I wish everyone and their families the Happiest of Holidays!
And remember there is no better reason for a celebration than when you decide to…
Close with Craig
CASS
A Family Caring for Families
life’s funny
“I said, ‘I’m not here to play Hot Doctor. I know for a fact that working in an ER is blue-collar work. It’s ditch digging, and that’s how I’m gonna play it.’”
He got the part.
Fifteen episodes later, he’s a bona fide star, and, like it or not, fans regard him as a hot doctor — with his vivid blue eyes, hank of dark hair and a punctuated chin reminiscent of Kirk Douglas.
A hot doc who knows his stuff.
Patrick says he has been inundated with emails from medical professionals thanking him and his castmates for accurately portraying life in the emergency room.
The intensity, the procedures, the variety of cases, the physical demands, the emotional whipsaws — all of it rings true to them, including the episode in which Langdon gets caught stealing drugs from the hospital’s pharmacy.
It’s a legitimate issue in the medical community, says Patrick, and it’s a situation that resonates with him personally.
Almost four years sober, he knows very well the subtle ways of addiction.
“I want to tell that story as responsibly as possible,” he says.
Which brings us back to the holidays, a time of gifts and gratitude.
Patrick Ball will come home to celebrate both.
He’ll hold his new baby niece.
He’ll sit on the back porch and talk with his dad.
He’ll thank his mom for her continued prayers and patience.
And he will run the trails, taking measure of his life, which, he says, seems like a miracle.
“I spent 15 years auditioning for film and TV and traveling across the country doing theater, and waiting, and getting close to life-changing opportunities,” he says.
“Then the thing that comes through is telling this story that’s so close to home? It really does feel . . .”
He reaches for the right word.
“Providential.” OH
Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail.
Finding Everyman
Breaking a 19th century code
By A nne Blythe
Anybody who delights in being an attic archaeologist and parting the curtains of cobwebs in dim, dank corners to excavate layers of dust and forgotten family history will find much to like in Cipher: Decoding My Ancestor’s Scandalous Secret Diaries.
Jeremy B. Jones, an associate English professor at Western Carolina University, was digging around in boxes at his grandmother’s house one day when he came across a newspaper clipping that proved to be a golden ticket taking him back in time to the 19th century and the fascinating life of an ordinary man.
That man was William Thomas Prestwood, Jones’ greatgreat-great-great-grandfather, who had traveled many of the same lands and roads Jones has. Learning the details of his kinsman six generations removed was anything but typical family lore handed down from one generation to the next. Prestwood, as the newspaper clipping from 1979 revealed, had been a prolific diarist, but not the kind of journal keeper who seemed intent on preserving his life story beyond his death 166 years ago.
The details of the daily life of this militia man, Appalachian farmer, teacher, philosopher and prolific philanderer might have been lost to the annals of time had a man not salvaged a stash of Prestwood’s hand-sewn journals from a Wadesboro house scheduled for demolition in 1975. Those notebooks weren’t filled with the elegant and elaborate penmanship of the 19th century. They were written in code, a series of shapes, numbers and symbols that added an element of intrigue that eventually landed them on the desk of a state archivist.
Unable to solve the mystery of what the journals’ author had written, the archivist copied a few pages and sent them off to a National Security Agency cryptanalyst who had retired in the Appalachian Mountains. The expert in encryption and decryption quickly cracked the code, eventually transcribing the
journals’ pages, revealing the many brief but telling details of an Everyman’s life in the Carolinas.
Prestwood wrote about collecting turkey eggs, hunting for a horse on the loose, farming, visiting neighbors, drinking rum, eating watermelon, playing music, strife with his father, the births of his children, deaths in the family, dreams, and his many sexual conquests and unrequited longings worthy of Tom Jones. He gives a glimpse of a public hanging and even the eclipse of 1821 — not with the flourish of a wordsmith but in the short sentences or fragments of an ordinary person.
“In 1859, a forgettable man died,” Jones writes in the opening sentence of Cipher’s first chapter. “He left behind bedclothes, a spyglass, cooking pots and an umbrella. He left history books and algebra books and mineralogy books and Greek grammar books and astrology books.” He lists the daughters and sons who preceded Prestwood in death and the debt he left behind, a sum that his “landholdings and scattershot of personal property — sold for a total of $11.94” didn’t cover. Prestwood, Jones writes, “entered the ground penniless.”
The journals he left behind, the treasure trove that Jones learned about from the yellowed 1979 newspaper article in The Asheville Citizen-Times — have proven to be priceless, though. They give a glimpse, as the codebreaker wrote, “of the very essence of Everyman’s life from the cradle to the grave.”
Jones toggles between Prestwood’s life and his own, turning to archives, property records and other historical accounts to help flesh out his ancestor’s story. Occasionally, he fills in gaps with
his own imagination and hypotheticals to further a narrative that includes slave ownership and womanizing.
Jones struggled with whether he should lay bare the details of a long-dead man’s thoughts and his comings and goings. After all, those specifics were cloaked in a code cracked more than a century after the last journal entry.
“He’d blanketed his shin-skinning and corn-planting and woman-laying in code
for a reason, and what right did I have to come along two hundred years later and run my fingers along the edges of his life in a library in the middle of the state?” Jones asked himself while viewing the diaries in a special library collection in Raleigh. “Was I shrinking his life by bringing it out into the open, making him smaller than he ever was, less of a man?”
In Cipher, Jones not only has brought Prestwood to life again — scandalous warts and all — he has created a memoir of sorts, a depiction of his own everyday life exploring today’s connection to this country’s complicated past. Jones has given us yet another chapter in Everyman history, an interesting read for anyone who likes to look at what America once was and has become. OH
Anne Blythe has been a reporter in North Carolina for more than three decades covering city halls, higher education, the courts, crime, hurricanes, ice storms, droughts, floods, college sports, health care and many wonderful characters who make this state such an interesting place.
DENNIS
Pete Sack’s Second Act
Taking a turn as community leader
By liz A RoBeRts
A successful painter for nearly 30 years, Pete Sack has work featured in several corporate collections, including SAS Institute and Duke University Hospital. His resume includes dozens of prominent solo and group exhibitions and he’s currently got a waiting list for commissions.
Known for paintings that feature finely nuanced portraiture through an abstracted lens, Sack often obstructs faces with shapes and colors, combining pencil drawings with watercolor and, finally, oil paint. Sometimes two or three portraits of the same person are layered on top of each other, just enough expertly wrought detail to recognize who it is.
His completely abstract paintings are no less contemplative. Thought Patterns is a series “created with the premise that we begin every day as a new person,” he says. Depicted as layers of spheres and ovals of various hue, some are cool and moody, others buoyant, a few bright and jangled. The resulting paintings reflect the moods and thoughts of the days he made them. “Each day we are reacting to fresh thoughts, actions and environments,” he says. With a limited palette and the self-imposed requirement that he complete each piece within a single day, the works are “fully representative of a particular moment in time and take into account the deeply layered experience each individual has with the present moment.”
Sack’s path began at the Visual Art Exchange — a nonprofit hub for nurturing, connecting and showcasing artists — when he landed in Raleigh in 1988 after earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at East Carolina University. “When I moved here, the VAE was where you learned how to be an artist in this area,” Sack says. It’s also where he and many others had their art exhibited publicly for the first time. “It was where you got your pieces on the wall.”
An emerging artist residency at Artspace and a full-time studio there followed, which further engaged him with the downtown art community. When the creative space Anchorlight opened
The Discarded Masks (count as carry on baggage) - Oil and watercolor on paper, 40 x 30, 2024
on S. Bloodworth Street, he moved his practice there. Then he spent nearly five years as an artist in residence at SAS Institute in Cary, where he made as many as 150 works of art for the growing software company’s walls. These days, Sack has a studio on Hargett Street and a dedicated roster of collectors.
None of it happened by sitting back and waiting for things to come to him. For years, Sack worked to create opportunities for himself, finding creative ways to get his work seen outside the gallery system, including working with real estate developers and interior designers making art that he could be proud of while still suiting their purposes.
The spirit of those efforts expanded to the wider community in 2023 when he and three other established Raleigh artists, Jean Gray Mohs, Lamar Whidbee and Daniel Kelly, began convening groups of fellow artists to discuss the declining number of exhibition opportunities and spaces to gather and experiment downtown. The result was the creation of The Grid Project, an art collective focused on mounting pop-up exhibitions. With the long-term loan by ceramic artist Mike Cindric of his former studio (now called Birdland), The Grid Project has mounted 10 shows in the last two years, exhibiting work by 25 artists. Those exhibits spawned the creation of what Sack and Mohs call the Boylan Arts District.
The calling on everything Sack’s learned over the last 27 years
about what it means to be an artist in his community.
In an unexpected turn of events, Sack was tapped last spring to co-direct the Visual Art Exchange with Mohs. The two aim to revive the 45-year-old institution, bringing it back to its roots as a resource for artists, a place for them to learn the practical business of being an artist, connect with other artists, and show their work.
A rebirth is in order, because among other challenges, the pandemic hit the VAE hard. By one estimate cited by Sack, the nonprofit gave out as much as $300,000 in funds directly to support artists during that time. The financial hit proved significant, and the organization moved out of its brickand-mortar home in late April as a cost-saving measure. Sack and Mohs were recruited by the board and
took the reins in June.
“As we move into this new chapter, our immediate focus will be on strengthening the internal structure of the organization,” the co-directors said in an October email to stakeholders. At the time, they were fulltime volunteers; the VAE had just $7,000 in the bank. They have since held a series of listening sessions to gather input about the organization’s future direction.
“We need to temper expectations,” Sack says, “and let people know that this is the reality. But we aren’t going anywhere. We’re going to see this through.”
In the meantime, they’re doing what they can, where they are, with what they’ve got. In October, they filled the empty windows of the former CVS at the corner of Hargett and Fayetteville streets with art by Renzo Ortega and Lee
Nisbet, working with Empire Properties to turn what was a dark corner into an art beacon. VAE is providing small stipends for the artists and calling the effort “StreetFrame.” Sack says they hope to replicate it in other empty downtown storefronts.
In October, under the VAE banner, the duo opened Echoes of Modernism, an exhibition examining how modernist architecture shapes our political, social and economic lives. Curated by artist Sam van Strein, it included work by Amba Sayal-Bennett, Daniel Rich, Frances Lightbound and van Strein.
Meanwhile, Sack’s art has its own demands. Last year, he had back-to-back shows for six months at a stretch and worried about “saturating” the market.
The demands of his work with VAE have given him time to “take a step back, to recalibrate” his art, and to think about where to take it next. “My
sketchbook is filling up, I am building up the reserves, and I’m excited to see where the work goes,” he says. “Toggling between the figurative and the abstract is still something that I’m pushing. At the end of the day, I’m always going to be an artist. I’m building up to something bigger.”
And despite the obvious challenges, that same spirit is fueling his work with VAE. Sack says he’s determined to make it indispensable to the next generation of Raleigh artists.
“Years ago, I would never have thought I’d be in this position, just because it’s not something I ever wanted to do,” he says. “But the writing is on the wall that nobody’s coming to save us. We have to save ourselves.” OH
This is an excerpt from Art of the State: Celebrating the Art of North Carolina, published by UNC Press.
Origins II - Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36
Photo by Liz Grogan Courtesy of Scout Guide Triad
Making Magic
Thomas Dambo’s installation of seven giant trolls across North Carolina is the biggest in the United States
By Ayn-Monique K l AhRe
At the edge of the woods, the troll peeks out: a baby by the standards of her kind, but, at over 12 feet tall, she’s giant to most of us humans. In one hand, she’s holding onto her mother’s tail, which winds deep into the trees — all the way to the hidden spot where Mom sleeps with one eye open, attentive to her children. This baby troll’s siblings have gone further afield to play, and their father is foraging nearby.
Find Little Sally in High Point at trollmap.com.
These trolls are not alive, of course, but a multifigure sculpture called The Grandmother Tree from Danish artist Thomas Dambo. There are five of these trolls in Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Park, one in the Southwest Mill District of High Point and another at the Crescent Communities River District Community in Charlotte. Taken together, The Grandmother Tree is the largest permanent installation of Dambo’s trolls in the United States.
The idea to bring the trolls to North Carolina came when Dix Park Conservancy Art Task Force chair Marjorie Hodges and her husband, Carlton Midyette, visited the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. There, they came across a Dambo troll installation called Guardians of the Seeds. “We saw the trolls and it took us 30 seconds to say, We need these for the park,” says Midyette. He worked with philanthropist Tom Gipson to lead a campaign to finance a project of that scale for Raleigh. Visit High Point spearheaded bringing its troll, Little Sally, to the area, working with the David R. Hayworth Foundation and DRIVE High Point Foundation for fundraising, with the Southwest
Renewal Foundation facilitating the site selection. In Charlotte, developer Crescent Communities saw its troll, named Pete with the Big Feet, as a natural extension for its vision of the River District, which is in a mixed-use town center called Westrow, bordering the Airline Bike Park. “Big Pete is more than just a striking public art piece,” says Rainer Ficken, senior managing director of The River District. “He’s an invitation for Charlotte and its visitors to engage with the land in a new way, to explore our public trails and to reflect on the impact each of us has on the environment.”
Part of what attracted Dambo to this project was the way his installations would be part of reinventing and reengaging with these urban spaces. The 308-acre Dix Park, for example, was a longtime site of a state psychiatric hospital. “I loved the story about how this park used to be something else,” he says. “It’s a land of reinvention and restoration,” says Kate Pearce, executive director of Dix Park for the City of Raleigh.
For each of his installations, Dambo crafts a narrative around the trolls that offers a sustainability lesson and a little mystery, too. In his telling, the North Carolina trolls are all protecting the Grandmother Tree, the oldest and wisest tree in the forest, who is hidden in another forest in the area, disguised as a regular tree. Each of the seven trolls wears a medallion around its neck that contains pieces of the same heritage tree. Taken together, they share the location of the Grandmother Tree. (We’ve been told it’s
CHRISTMAS CANDLELIGHT
in Raleigh, but that’s as much of a hint as we got.) The medallions were made by Billy Keck and Melody Ray of Raleigh Reclaimed, a company that makes furniture using salvaged woods.
In part of the poem that tells this story, Dambo says:
But one species, all trolls, has learned to fear through evolution Invasive, a pollution, you must never trust a human
A human seeks the oldest trees, to kill and cut them down and chop it up in tiny pieces, haul it, burn it in their town
And so the trolls have cast a spell, enchanted the grandmother tree
So no human can find her; now she looks like any other tree
But every time the moon is dark, the red wolves howl and bark
This is the sign that sparks the start, the trolls to search the park
Each of the trolls came together through a robust community effort. Dambo and his team of professional troll-makers designed the creatures and built the frames, then used local volunteers to build the trolls on site. In Raleigh, Habitat for Humanity Wake County used a mix of staff and skilled volunteers, plus a wider volunteer effort to do the rest. When the signup to volunteers opened, there was so much interest that the server crashed. (“It was like buying a Taylor Swift ticket,” laughs Midyette.) “We rotated our entire construction staff to work on the project,” says Patricia Burch, CEO of Habitat Wake. “It was unique, exciting and a lot of fun — so cool to have a hand in building them.” In Charlotte, Crescent Communities solicited volunteers from their own staff, as well as nonprofit partners including Daniel Stowe Conservancy, Catawba Lands Conservancy, Sustain Charlotte and the Tarheel Trailblazers.
Dambo’s team also worked with local organizations to source the reclaimed materials to build the trolls. In High Point, materials were provided by Wise Living, Reliance Timber, Triad Timber & Millworks, Hood Distribution and Southwest Renewal
Foundation. In Charlotte, Crescent Communities used its own construction waste, as well as recycled material donations from D.H. Griffin and She Built This City. In Raleigh, Habitat Wake and its ReStores donated much of the material, as did Raleigh Reclaimed, which sourced rot-resistant woods such as cedar, oak and locust for the project. “We use materials that otherwise would go into landfills or the waste stream, so we had a built-in process for collecting these materials,” says Ray. “It just made sense to partner on the project.” Additionally, Kentucky Bourbon Barrel chipped in 17 tons of old bourbon barrels (most of which went into making Raleigh’s mama troll’s 620-foot tail), and Midyette donated the remains of a fallen-down barn and about a mile of old fencing he had on his property.
In Raleigh, it took about 400 volunteers and three weeks to build the five trolls (not including work Dambo and team had done in Denmark ahead of time). “Every single stave was put in by a volunteer,” says Midyette. A lot of volunteer work went into the making of the more than 300 sections of the mother’s tail, for which the bourbon barrels were completely disassembled and reassembled to fit the landscape. “This was great for the community volunteers, since it was safer than being up on scaffolding,” says Dambo. “The trolls are not meant to be perfect — I always like to see the dents and cracks — because when you zoom out, you don’t see the imperfection.” In the end, it took more than 24 tons of lumber and 50,000 screws to make those five trolls.
The goal with The Grandmother Tree is to draw visitors to these natural areas — and for these visitors to experience the same sense of magic and wonder as Dambo did going into the forest as a child, he says. “Bringing Little Sally to life reinforces our focus to create experiences that blend creativity, sustainability and community pride,” says Melody Burnett, president of Visit High Point. Agrees Pearce: “It’s about bringing magic back into spaces.” OH
Ayn-Monique Klahre is editor of our sister publication in Raleigh, WALTER magazine.
2025 Weymouth Wonderland: Gifts of the Garden
SATURDAY, DECEMBER
6:
Wonderfest & Market
10:00am - 4:00 pm
Tour the Boyd House decorated for the holidays, buy vintage holiday decor in the Holiday Shoppe, grab a treat and a warm drink from our Bake Shoppe, take a photo with Santa, shop local vendors and artisans, enjoy popular area food trucks, watch live performances from local musicians and dancers. Fun for the whole family! Entry by donation.
Chamber Sessions
Join us on Sunday, December 14, at 2:00 pm:
NC Harp Ensemble at Emmanuel Episcopal Church
The Boyd House will be open to the public for self-guided tours and to view the holiday decorations during regular hours, Monday–Friday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., from December 8 through December 26.
We will also be open on Saturdays, December 13 and 20!
Scan the QR code for tickets and additional information!
555 East Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines, NC
At AudioNova | Doctors Hearing Care, better hearing is always our focus. Dr. Amy Kirkland, Au.D. and Dr. Eneida Agolli, Au.D. are committed to provide each patient with an exceptional level of care and attention. Together, they have been the triad’s leaders in hearing technology for over 28 years. Call today to schedule your free hearing screening.
Susie Baby and Teddy
Long gone but never forgotten
By Cynthi A A dAMs
My elegant
friend, Dixie, a former model, once dressed for the office in Ferragamo heels and sleek skirts.
Heads swiveled whenever she glided past, a study in grace. But it was her kindness that drew us to her.
As a native Charlestonian, Dixie remains the closest thing I have known to gentility. Her historic apartment contains finely curated antiques, textiles and books, both inherited and found heirlooms. She calls it “the Nest.”
Now, a health issue keeps her mostly Nest-bound. Still, she spends her days staying current, reading poetry, clipping items from The New Yorker, which she sends to friends, and dispensing small gifts to the postman and neighbors.
Dixie asked me to bring chocolates, her favorite thing in all the world, to enjoy and share as COVID raged. Standing at a careful distance outside on the fire escape, I made the delivery as she shared news about a newborn great-grandaughter.
We were both introspective. Undone by the anxieties of a pandemic, we moved to parenting, especially in such a time, and how easily parents inflict injuries. Moldering injuries too easily retrieved.
Dixie quietly mentioned Susie Baby, her doll. In her child’s mind, Susie Baby was real, beloved.
When Dixie was a small child, her strict parents firmly enforced bedtime. Once tucked in, she was not allowed to get up. During a lashing storm, Dixie searched among the blankets to reassure Susie Baby.
Susie Baby was not there.
Dixie lay abed, remembering that she’d played with Susie Baby outside before dinner, bath and bedtime, before the violent storm struck. She could not go to Susie Baby’s rescue.
At daybreak, she flew outside and found Susie Baby.
“Her face was disfigured, and I think part of it was in fragments.” Dixie recalled, her voice tremulous. She felt as shattered as her doll. As if it were a death.
A tear glimmered at the memory.
Perhaps a better, more restrained listener than I would have waited, letting Dixie’s story — and its obvious pain — settle there. But my mind had traveled back, too.
Despite myself, I began talking about Teddy, a bear I much preferred to dolls as a child. A bear who had grown smelly and tattered.
To me, though, Teddy was perfect, even more perfect than my shape-shifting, carefree, imaginary friend Pixie. After all, he was tactile, soft and worn.
Whereas Pixie rambled the world seeking adventure, Teddy was a constant. Never far from my side, Teddy was an anchoring source of comfort, especially at night when all manner of monsters lurked. Nor did Teddy judge whenever I had, as actress Catherine O’Hara called it, a nighttime “oopsie daisy.”
My germophobic mother decided the bear was dangerously unhygienic. While I was out playing with a friend, she tossed Teddy in the trash.
Like Dixie’s loss of Susie Baby, I traced the loss of Teddy.
Dixie quietly listened, allowing a second tremulous tear to fall without wiping it away.
Afterward, I waved goodbye to her where she waited on the fire escape, Dixie’s pale, elegant hand raised in farewell.
With the world roiling with the terror of a plague, we had summoned up our oldest friends, our first comforters. Susie Baby. Teddy.
Memoirist Alexandra Fuller writes, “sit still and observe what disturbs you.”
There is remembering, but then there is the harder thing, the only thing left.
Since I can’t summon forgetfulness, could I forgive? OH
Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.
Watching Big Red
A glimpse of a magnificent hawk
By susA n CAMpBell
Now that the leaves
are off the trees, certain wildlife is a lot easier to spot. Without the cover of dense vegetation, birds in particular are more obvious, and larger birds, such as hawks, can be truly eye-catching. Of these, the largest is the red-tailed hawk. Just about everyone has at least glimpsed one of these magnificent individuals on a large branch of a dead tree, a fencepost or a power pole.
Red-tailed hawks are the largest species in the genus Buteo that breeds in the eastern United States. Although they are not a common sight, they can be found across North Carolina yearround. In the winter, red-taileds may be joined by migrants from points north. These big hawks are found in any type of open habitat — from mountain balds to open parkland, agricultural fields and more.
Identifying adult birds is not too difficult if you can get a good view of their namesake reddish tails. Otherwise, the species has a dark brown back, a streaked bellyband and a pale breast with a dark head. Juvenile birds will not sport the colorful tail, but they will still have dark streaks on the belly and a dark head. Both have long, wide wings that they tend to hold in a slight “V,” or dihedral, when soaring. Being birds that hunt by sight, they spend a lot of time either perched from an elevated vantage point or soaring at great heights looking for prey.
Red-taileds catch mainly mammals but are not very picky eaters. They will grab anything, from mice to rabbits. Sometimes they will eat a snake and even catch a bird or two. Also, they may take advantage of carrion.
Breeding for these birds is a major undertaking. Red-taileds
require a sturdy nest each spring. It will be several feet across and at least a couple of feet deep in order to keep the young family safe. The adults will frequently reuse a nest from a prior season (if nesting was successful there), adding a few new sticks to the exterior as well as strips of bark and dried vegetation to the cup. Typically, the nest is in the very top of a large tree, although they may use a rock ledge or even a man-made structure such as a billboard or stadium lighting. Brood size is typically one to five young that hatch following three to four weeks of incubation. It will be another nine weeks or so before they are ready to leave the nest.
There is a famous red-tailed pair that has been raising a new family on the Cornell University campus for 10 years. The nest site, located adjacent to buildings I frequented for classes during my undergrad days, is equipped with the most high-tech spyware on the market. It is under surveillance from the time the pair return in early spring through fledging of the year’s youngsters via a Cornell Lab of Ornithology webcam. The female, not surprisingly dubbed “Big Red,” has raised numerous youngsters with the assistance of two different mates over the past decade. “Arthur” succeeded “Ezra” as her mate a couple of years ago. Each year these birds have produced one or more successful youngsters under the sharp watch of lab researchers, as well as to the delight of local birders. Tune in to the webcam in early March, when the pair are expected to return for the 2026 breeding season. I promise that it will be educational, fun — and very addictive. OH
Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted by email at susan@ncaves.com.sightings and photos. Her email is susan@ncaves.com.
- Jayson N.
Do You Hear What We Hear?
It’s all about knowing where to listen
By Billy ingRAM
“Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.” ― Sarah Dessen
This Christmas Eve yule find me swinging and swaying on Summit Avenue when the world-renowned Sam Fribush Organ Trio unfurls their firehose of funky jazz gyrations at Flat Iron.
Fribush has proven to be a truly transcendent analog-tronic trouper luxuriating in that funky Philly sound of the ’60s and ’70s with no hint of nostalgia. Nimble fingers soulfully sweep across the keys of antiquated electric Hammond organs, manifesting sounds soaring with vibrant verve typified by Booker T. and the M.G.s’ Green Onions or Billy Preston’s organic tracks, “Outa-Space” and “Will It Go Round in Circles.” In my estimation, Sam Fribush promises to be the most exciting musical talent to surface from our city in this century. Back on American soil after touring Europe, this melodic maestro originally graced our pages in September 2024, you may remember.
in spectacular fashion to become a live music venue in 2019. Josh King and his wife, Abby Spoon, took over three years ago.
Additionally, there’s an embarrassment of musical riches downtown this December at Flat Iron, a rousing roster of folk performers with deep Southern roots dabbling in a variety of genres. Fribush and company aren’t the only confirmed crowdpleasers at Flat Iron delivering some sizzle to this time of tinsel and tensile kinfolk.
Originally an A&P grocery store in the late 1920s, the Flat Iron building was a derelict by 1997 prior to being done-over by developer Dawn Chaney, who told me, “It was boarded up when I bought it.” For a decade or so, The Flatiron (one word back then) served, and famously overserved, as a dive bar for day drinkers and clipped-winged nighthawks. After a dormant period, Common Grounds’ Dusty Keene resuscitated this space
Over a couple of decades, Josh King established himself as a distinguished, singularly gifted local singer-songwriter. When very few area bands were attracting national attention, King and cohorts scored successfully with House of Fools, formed in 2004 after a demo he and Matt Bowers recorded on the fly landed them a deal with California-based Drive-Thru Records. “They had some bigger pop-punk bands on the label and we weren’t that at all.” King confesses he reluctantly hopped on board. “We took the opportunity and ran with it and were able to do some cool stuff.”
That eponymously titled album’s reception, coupled with criss-crossing the country DIY style, resulted in Alternative Press magazine declaring House of Fools one of the “100 Bands You Need To Know in 2006.” Band lineup musical chairs and label leaving preceded House of Fools’ self-released second album in 2011, Versus the Beast. Subsequently, members have since migrated over to other projects.
As for owning a club, that was a concept confined to dinnertime discussions,“not something we actually thought would happen,” King admits somewhat sardonically. “The timing just
sort of lined up.” A notion not so far-fetched, given his wife’s years of experience bartending, followed by a considerable career in mental health, both indispensable skills handy for
Small, intimate performance spaces like this, geared toward local and touring up-and-comers, constitute the core of any city’s musical milieu. Flat Iron is where our indie scene beats best. A few December bookings on my list to check off:
sponsors a night of full-throated folk on December 11, headlined by Bob Fleming and The Cambria Iron Co. One of my favorite singer-songwriters of all time, Fleming’s solo strumming of his punkish confessions caught my ear and eye a decade ago. He possessed a stage presence shrouded with uncharacteristic shyness, a charismatic reluctance belying his Bukowski-esque runes. Now content sharing the spotlight, Fleming is decidedly more relaxed, jaunty even, since settling in with his muse (my supposition, anyway), co-vocalist Dawn Williams, and three fellow travelers. He’s a vocal powerhouse, pouring forth electrified, country-fried, soulful Southern rock. Raised in Appalachia, Cliff B Worsham opens the evening. A founding member of Asheville metalcore sensation Secret Lives of the Freemasons before launching RBTS WIN, his hip-hop-inspired melodies were once vaguely reminiscent of Elliot Smith. “Then he got sober,” Coleman confides about Worsham’s return to his folk-music roots, “and he’s been doing his Appalachian Americana thing for a couple of years now.” Sandwiched ’twixt those two will be Johnson City’s Jacob Danielsen-Moore, strumming the style of porch music Andy and Opie might be relaxin’ to until Aunt Bee gets wind of his lyrics and chases that stranger back into the hills. Through darkly personal and occasionally twisted scenarios, for the last several seasons, he’s enthralled audiences on the Old Gods tour. “He’s just authentic when it comes to his music,” Coleman rightly declares. “There’s an honesty to what he does that you can connect with.” He’s right.
proclaimed Greensboro’s own Abigail Dowd’s “eager vocals are accompanied by toe-tapping instrumentals that create a package of sonic warmth. It’s a friendly reminder that life’s blessings are happening in the here and now.” Dowd’s monthly Singer-Songwriter Series happens every third Tuesday, a fortuitous occasion for those interested in exploring the creative process by sitting in on conversations between working, folk-oriented tunesmiths.
King says Dowd, a self-described “song catcher,” is “bringing in artists she meets out on the road or at conferences. Top-notch talent, they’ll drive here just to do this with her.” Past participants The Liberated Women’s Songbook), Ordinary Elephant, Demeanor, and Gold- and Platinum-record-selling artist Jason Adomo. On December 16, it will be Josh King joining
Dowd on stage. “I was writing songs as soon as I learned my first two chords on guitar, in fourth grade,” says King. For an example of his resonate recordings, visit Youtube: Josh King’s Into the Blue
áThe aforementioned funktastic Sam Fribush arrives on December 23, chock full of Chuck Pinckney’s dynamic drum beats bolstering Will Darity’s spellbinding guitar flourishes, all three freestyle jazz masters. This triumphant triumvirate just returned after 16 packed performances barnstorming across 27 European and U.K. cities. Thanks to Vince Guaraldi, over the last 60 years, jazz has become sonorously synonymous with our holiday soundtrack, on par with Dean and Bing, so the lucky 100 or so attendees can expect a funk-infused feast casually wrapped in rapturous ribbons of radiant tonality. Tickets for this will sell faster than a 1999 Furby.
áThis year, Flat Iron landed a grant from Live Music Society, a nonprofit providing support for smaller venues — “also giving North Carolina artists an opportunity to obtain free assets like a new bio, photo shoots, and live audio and video recording,” Spoon explains. Everything is produced on-site, “so they can do as many takes as they want and both of our engineers are really good at mixing.”
As for Josh King’s extracurricular activities, he recently hosted a House of Fools reunion and periodically jams with The Finns, a highly sought after wedding and corporate confab party band cultivating a sizable fan following.
On the flip side, despite an ideal location and enthusiastic following, that thin line between thriving and barely surviving is minuscule but crucial. Flat Iron would undoubtedly benefit from a benefactor with business bonafides. Leaping into the exciting, every once in a while profitable world of live music? Discuss over dinner.
For other events, visit flatirongso. com. OH
Billy Ingram is O.G. — Original Greensboro.
December 2025
A Christmas Night
It was a cold night
And there was ice on the road,
Our car started to slide
As it moved up the small hill, And the headlights caught the old man
In a thin jacket
Pushing a cart filled with sticks. There were some bundles and a package
Piled on top, and the old man
Grinned and waved at us
As he pushed the cart
Into the yard of the little house
Where a single light shone.
The tires gripped the road
And we drove on into the darkness,
But suddenly it was warm.
— Sam Ragan
Sam Ragan, often referred to as North Carolina’s “literary godfather,” is a former North Carolina poet laureate and a member of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. He was editor and publisher of The Pilot from 1969 until his death in 1996.
You can always count on a blueheaded vireo to make sure you don’t miss your morning alarm. After all, the early bird gets the worm.
Lynn Donovan focuses on our bright-beaked buddies
By Joi Flyod
With the brisk, wintry temperatures approaching and the holidays in full swing, you’re sure to hear about the partridge in a pear tree — over and over again. But the real tweet of the town comes from our favorite chirping, warbling friends. Though most birds of a feather flock together, you’re bound to find one or two different breeds cozying up next to each other for warmth. Whether gathering leaves and tiny twigs for nesting or feasting on tasty nuts and seeds, these sweet tweeties stick close together. Photographer Lynn Donovan captures our precious woodland buddies in action as they face the snowy — we can hope — season.
This red-shouldered hawk ruffles some feathers as it swooshes in on his prey.
Considered to bring good luck, a red cardinal shows off surrounded by heaps of frosty snow.
A Cooper’s hawk keeps a keen eye on his surroundings.
This female northern cardinal, though not as vibrant as her male counterpart, is unmissable with a beak as bright as hers.
A creature stirring? Something has piqued this cedar waxwing’s interest and made it peer over the end of the branch.
There’s nothing stronger than a pileated woodpecker’s beak — except maybe the urge to dye our hair red.
A red-tailed hawk nestles on a branch as the winter season draws closer.
What could bring more winter wonder than a white-breasted nuthatch playing in the snowfall?
It’s hard to miss this American crow as he trots through the pure white snow.
A brown-headed cowbird hunkers down as sleet falls from the sky.
Two turtle doves? These are two mourning doves and two is always better than one.
In a wintry world of gray, brown and white, a bright eastern bluebird is sure to catch your attention.
This raging turkey vulture is hard to miss as it confidently stretches its wings post-landing.
GOING
A family strives to protect a way of life
in Julian
By Ross Howell JR. • PHotogR aPHs By lynn donovan
TO SEED
The first thing you’ll likely notice when you pull up to the rambling, wood-and-corrugated facade of the Julian Milling Company on Old 2nd Street is the cats.
They’re parti-colored and striped, light-colored and dark. They’re napping under a tree, they’re lolling on the loading dock — some perched primly on upturned buckets. There’s even a cat peering down from high up in the rafters.
Here’s the irony.
I’ve driven out to rural Julian to speak with Eric Horney, purveyor of the mill’s most popular product these days — Beardo’s Birdseed.
A little history.
The Julian Milling Company is a landmark. It’s been around since 1895, first milling flour and, later, cornmeal. The first machines were powered by steam — the facility converted to electric-
ity with mills to grind livestock feed in the 1940s. Generations of Guilford and Randolph county farmers have hauled grain — hundreds of thousands of tons — to this very spot, where it has been ground into feed for horses, cattle, swine and poultry.
I can’t tell you how many feline generations have protected the mill, but I can tell you that the Horney family has been involved with the business for three.
Eric’s grandfather, J. Davis Horney, who began working at the mill in 1935, purchased the operation a decade later and was joined by his son James Davis Jr. — nicknamed Jimmy. The two of them worked together, growing the production of the mill, for more than 50 years.
Jimmy, Eric’s father, who is now 83 years old, emerges from back in the mill as Eric gently encourages a couple of cats to make room for me to step up onto the dock.
We shake hands and they invite me to sit a spell.
Jimmy and Eric are big, genial, country men. Jimmy is cleanshaven, but Eric, who is 53 years old, sports a thick beard that would be the envy of any Civil War general you can think of.
These men have seen many changes in agriculture over the years.
Growing up, Eric split his time between Greensboro and Julian after his parents divorced.
“I went to Page High School,” Eric says. “But on weekends, I’d come out to Julian to work with my dad and granddad.”
After graduating from Lees-McRae College with a degree in business administration, Eric returned to work at the mill in Julian.
The period of the 1960s through the 1990s was a prosperous time for Julian Milling Company. The business had not only its milling operation, but also a garden center. People could walk around and buy plants and shrubs while their grain was being milled.
Many of its biggest feed customers were dairy farms.
The mill owned and operated two trucks, each with a capacity of eight tons. Some of the dairies were so large that they received a truckload of feed each day.
“We’d mill the grain, add ingredients like protein, molasses and minerals, and haul it out to a farm,” Eric says.
In 1997, the year his grandfather died, Eric worked full time at
the mill, along with two other full-time employees.
But many of the dairy farms were shutting down. And Eric noticed another change.
Saturdays were always the busiest day for grinding livestock feed. When the mill opened at 7 a.m., there would already be a long line of trucks and pickups outside loaded with grain, waiting.
“So one day, I said to my Dad, ‘Now wait, all these people here on a Saturday morning, what do they do all week?’”
Jimmy nods, remembering the conversation.
“And I said, ‘Well, they have full-time jobs,’” Eric continues. “‘They aren’t farmers, they’re weekend farmers.’”
Over time, even the ranks of the part-time farmers diminished.
“The children of the weekend farmers, they didn’t usually go into farming,” Eric says. “They’d take a job, sell the land off to developers.”
We pause for a moment, watching as a Mustang convertible pulls up in front of the mill.
“That’s my brother, Neil,” Eric says.
A couple of the cats move over to the shade of Neil’s car as he makes his way up the steps to the dock.
“Neil’s a full-time pilot for NetJet,” Eric says. “He comes in on his days off and helps out.”
“We’re all part-timers,” Jimmy laughs.
“Yeah, I got my licenses to sell health and life insurance last summer,” Eric says. “But I haven’t sold any policies. I keep hanging onto a dream.”
The dream is to earn a living with his work at the mill.
Yes, for decades the old mill has survived trying times — but maybe the biggest challenge yet lies just half a mile down the road.
The new Toyota Battery Manufacturing Plant.
To see it emerge from the trees and fields while you’re driving in this rural area is surreal.
A campus of 2,200 acres. A capital investment of $13.9 billion. Employment for 5,000 souls. Building restrictions on nearby properties because of the accident risks in lithium battery manufacturing.
“It’s changed the whole world around here,” Jimmy says, shaking his head. “It’s crippled our walk-in traffic.”
“Anybody who lives close by has a ‘for sale’ sign in front of their house,” Neil adds.
Eric nods his head.
“The future is online,” he says. “If no one ever walks through the front door of the mill again, we can still make it.”
Eric has a strategy.
At the Julian Milling Company location, you’ll still find packets of vegetable and flower seeds, hand implements, fertilizers and weed killers — some on the shelves for so long that they’re practically relics. There are also bags of “sweet feed” for goats, cows and horses, chicken feed for laying hens, “scratch” (a mixture of grains and seeds) for chickens, pigeon feed and birdseed.
Eric has focused on his bestselling birdseed for the past couple of years, marketing it online through Etsy and Amazon along with placing it with selected retailers and farmers markets.
“We’ve already shipped our birdseed to all 50 states, Guam and Puerto Rico,” Eric says.
During this time, he’s concentrated on finding local, highquality suppliers of his ingredients to enhance the freshness of his product. Plus, the mill is a participant in the Got To Be NC initiative with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services.
And Eric has just launched an online platform selling — remember the beard I told you about? — Beardo’s Birdseed.
Eric takes me back to the oldest part of the building, where one of the electric mills is located. This is the machine he uses to mix the ingredients for Beardo’s Birdseed.
“There’s not a blade inside cutting anything — there’s an auger,” he says. “It’s funnel-shaped, gravity-fed, so it just mixes the ingredients over and over.”
“This is basically just like the mixer on the kitchen counter in your house,” Eric says. “But this one holds a thousand pounds.”
He points out the grill opening on the floor where he pours the various grains and seeds into the mill. Once mixed, the birdseed is bagged right on the spot.
Beardo’s is available online by individual order or by subscription and can also be purchased by nonprofits for fundraising purposes.
Dusk is approaching, so Eric takes me back out onto the loading dock, where I say my goodbyes to Jimmy and Neil. Some of the cats stand and take a stretch.
Eric looks up in the rafters.
“Ellie,” he says, “get on down here.”
The cat makes her way gracefully to the dock.
Eric tells me that the rafters are Ellie’s favorite spot. To his knowledge, she’s the eldest of the cats at age 12.
“Someday, she’s going to doze off up there and fall and hurt herself,” he mutters.
All the cats, of course, are just doing their jobs, protecting the mill — as they’ve done for generations.
And that’s something the old mill needs right now.
I think the birds will understand. OH
For more information, visit https://beardosbirdseed.com or follow the mill on Facebook at the handle Julian Milling Co.
Ross Howell Jr. is a contributing writer. His recent story, “Profiles in Courage,” was honored by the North Carolina Press Association.
Since the 1800s, America has been sending the very best
By CyntHia a dams
ale Kearns, a Greensboro postal carrier, is accustomed to the crushing volume of holiday cards mailed out each and every year by well-wishing Americans — the annual estimate exceeds 1.3 billion.
“One customer on my route sent over 100 Christmas cards last year,” says Kearns, with a business-as-usual shrug.
New Year greetings — which are hardly a new concept, by the way — escalate that figure higher. In local designer Todd Nabor’s private collection of vintage cards, shown here, there are as many New Year greetings as Christmas ones, dating from the late 19th to the early 20th century in age.
Long before the advent of folded cards tucked inside an envelope, a postcard — cheaper and vastly easier to send than a personal letter — changed the game in the late 1800s.
But don’t think that postcard messages were necessarily short.
A 1918 postcard to Mrs. Adeline Shoppell in Greencastle, Ind. wished “Many Happy Days in your New Year,” with the sender squeezing a long message into the cramped space on the reverse side that promised a letter soon.
In 1924, Larisse Justice mailed a poinsettia-embellished postcard to Miss Hazel Hill in Greensboro. “Flowers will early fade away/But my wishes will last for many a day.”
And what a bargain! Holiday postcards cost only a penny to mail in early-20th-century America, equivalent today to about $.18.
Seems the whole notion of personal greetings even predates the Egyptians and Romans, who dispatched letters (especially on birthdays) written on papyrus and scrolls via fleet-footed couriers.
The sending of New Year’s greetings is attributed to China’s
Emperor Taizon, who inscribed messages on gold leaves to his ministers during the Tang dynasty. The idea caught on with the general population, who wrote messages on rice paper. The practice of holiday messaging slowly crossed cultures and continents.
While the Romans may have left Britannia, the custom of letter writing remained. Over the centuries, rice paper, papyrus and scrolls gave way to stationery and envelopes.
By the Victorian era, posting personal greetings was what well-mannered folk did come the holidays. But Henry Cole, the busy founder of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, faced a dilemma. Having neither time nor personal couriers to deploy a holiday scroll to his hundreds of admiring friends, he innovated.
Wishing to avoid a social faux pax — failing to send a cheery gift or letter in reply was bad form — Cole, in 1843, conceived of a standardized postcard greeting. As the British “penny post” made holiday communiques cheap and more popular than ever, he had a Christmas greeting postcard designed and printed for his own use, hoping to keep himself in good social standing.
In time, Brits took to the idea, which further spread throughout Europe. Eventually, German immigrant Louis Prang migrated to America, bringing the concept with him.
In 1875, Prang printed a simple postcard featuring roses and “Merry Christmas.” Americans embraced the concept with gusto. By the early-20th century, postcards were a craze.
The Hall Brothers postcard presses began rolling in 1910. By the 1920s, folded Christmas cards in envelopes had grown in popularity. In 1928, the brothers embossed the “Hallmark” brand on the envelope flap — an idea borrowed from minting gold.
“When you care enough to send the very best,” the slogan we’ve all come to know, debuted in 1944. In the same timeframe, Hanukah cards emerged as options expanded. Slowly, too, Americans began sending personalized cards featuring family photos or supporting a favorite charity — a concept that quickly crossed the pond back to the U.K.
Today, Hallmark alone offers more than 2,000 designs and hundreds of boxed sets. At least 2,500 other American businesses compete for their market share of the greeting card business.
Yet there were greenbacks still left on the holiday table. What said you cared even more than the Hallmark logo?
A holiday-themed stamp.
By 1962, the United States Postal Service debuted holiday stamps — lagging far behind in recognizing another way to commodify the holidays. Seems Austria lapped us by 25 years, debuting holiday stamps in 1937.
Canada introduced holiday stamps in 1939 and Cuba in 1951.
Today, stamps commemorating Diwali, Hanukah and Kwanza reflect a diverse range of holiday traditions.
Hewing to tradition, this year’s “Holiday Cheer” stamps feature a Whitman’s chocolates style assortment of all-inclusive images: amaryllis, cardinals, fruit on a branch and a wreath.
This year, too, philatelists can scoop up re-released favorites “Holiday Elves” and “Winter Whimsy” — miniature pieces of artwork to adorn each and every letter.
But in an era of hastily composed texts and digital greetings, do recipients still care about receiving old-school, holiday snail mail?
Overwhelmingly, yes. Online surveys strongly indicate the majority still prefer receiving a paper greeting card, including the younger demographics — who understand digital fatigue as well as anyone.
Bad news, perhaps, for USPS’s hard-working Dale Kearns.
But good tidings for those who trouble themselves to find, write, address, stamp and post those millions and millions of cards he and his colleagues deliver to each and every door across the land.
Seems the very act of putting pen to paper, extending good wishes to one and all, is an act of engagement — of personal connection. For the faithful senders of greetings and recipients alike, a gift. OH
Lowe and Behold
A Greensboro home sparkles from a dash of family tradition with a merry-making twist
By Cassie Bustamante • PHotogR aPHs By a my FReeman
The stockings on Charlie and Linda Lowe’s mantel are hung by the chimney with care. But they aren’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill stockings.
Nope, these five-of-a-kind stockings, in a soft, gold tone, are shaped whimsically, curved like an elf’s boot, trimmed and monogrammed in an orange-coral. And let’s not forget the pleated, black-and-white striped cuff.
The gold stocking fabric came from a Greensboro Symphony Guild Super Sale, back when they were held at Printers Alley. “I went with a friend of mine,” says Linda, “and there was a pair of drapes for next to nothing, like 20 bucks, and it was that beautiful, quilted fabric.” She snagged the deal, knowing she
could Maria von Trapp those curtains and give them new life somehow. “It had all the trim and everything.”
“That is how an artist shops,” says Charlie. “They see other things in things.” His blue eyes twinkle proudly. And the beard on his chin? Well, it’s as white as the snow, naturally. Though Charlie, Linda’s jolly little helper elf and husband of 39 years, wears his a little more closely cropped than Saint Nick’s.
More symphony drapery panels surround the base of the couple’s Christmas tree, serving as a make-shift skirt. Mercuryglass beads in red and silver swag from bough to bough. The beads, purchased sometime in the 1960s from Friendly Shopping Center’s Woolworth’s, which Linda and her mom frequented, are
a glimmering reminder of childhood Christmases. Linda says she inherited her love of Christmas decorating along with the beads from her mother, who passed away 30 years ago.
“My mom always played the organ in the living room where the tree was,” says Linda, “and she said I would just lie down under the tree and look up at the lights.” Her mom also told her how she’d cry at the first signs of the tree’s imminent death as it dropped needles on her.
Of course, some mementos are perhaps better cherished only once a year. A bell, also from 1960s Woolworth’s, plays — very annoyingly, says Linda — “Jingle Bells” when you pull its chain. As the keeper of the family bell, to this day, she calls her older brothers on Christmas and plays it over the phone as a prank. “Sixty plus years of doing that!”
Charlie, too, has fond memories of his boyhood Christmas tree. His parents both grew up on farms without much else to their families’ names, so when it came time to celebrate the holidays with their only son, Charlie recalls the tree overflowing with gifts for him. “My parents lavished me,” he says. But his
mom brought one of her favorite farm traditions with her into her young family — a fresh cedar tree.
His mother, who passed away in 2016, regaled him with stories from her own childhood about cutting and hauling the chosen tree straight from the family’s farmland. “She and her sister finally got to the age to be trusted with an axe,” says Charlie, “and they would go out on the farm, and find the tree that they loved, and down it went.” And how old did one have to be to wield an axe?
“Oh, they were probably 6, 7 or 8.”
“I saved all of her — what’s now vintage — Christmas stuff,” says Linda of Charlie’s mom’s decorations, everything from plastic candelabras with red bulbs to ornaments.
Linda and Charlie have been celebrating Christmas together for almost four decades. Married since 1986, they have, between them, three grown children — Alex, Rebecca and April — four grandchildren and one great-grandson. Linda was a customer at the camera shop where Charlie worked as a sales associate. He’d ask her out and she’d say no, but, eventually, as with the film in the lab, a romance developed.
After a quick courtship, the couple married and began their lives together. Both are retired now. “I retired early because of Mom and Pop,” says Charlie, who cared for his parents in their final years. Linda retired from a long career as a graphic designer that included 20-plus years with the News & Record.
But, as young parents, they were always on the go. Dropping their young children off with the grandparents, they’d haul cameras, lighting and lenses to shoot weekend weddings together. “I don’t know how we did it, but we did,” says Linda.
They worked long hours, but still found the energy to infuse some holiday magic into their own children’s memories. Before the internet even existed and clever Christmas ideas were easily found, Linda’s mother was making Santa’s boot prints on the hearth by setting down a pair of boots, sprinkling something white — perhaps confectioner’s sugar or flour — around them, lifting them off and leaving behind evidence that the jolliest elf had, in fact, been there. Linda took a cue from her mom and did the same for her kids using sprayable fake snow.
Plus, Linda decked the halls of their home and did the holiday shopping for the kids and extended family. “I look back and I am like, good grief.”
Charlie looks at his wife knowingly. “That’s what moms do,” he says. “They fill in the space.”
But Linda doesn’t just fill in the space. Her decorations, especially the ones she’s made herself, are over the top, and changed out year after year. As she unboxes her attic-full of holiday decor each year, she says, “I just pick things up and reinvent the wheel.”
In fact, when Linda sees something she likes, she wonders how she can recreate it in her own unique way. One item she knocked off her to-do-my-way list? A fox doll. Linda, who used to horseback ride, has collected hunt scenes and equestrian decor for years, and had always coveted a fox dressed for the hunt. When she couldn’t find exactly what she wanted — “they always look like bears or something” — she set her mind to making one by needle felting, something she’d never done before.
“Of course, I jump right into things,” she says. “I don’t start small.” She made one tiny bird as practice and then went full speed into crafting her fox, who sits on her entry bench for the holidays, greeting guests. He’s a few feet tall and his face is expertly crafted with a naturally sly expression. A riding helmet sits atop his head
and, of course, he’s wearing a red riding jacket with gold buttons, all of it needle-felted. No small feat for her first foray into the craft.
Upon the encouragement of a friend, Linda, who used to belong to Daughters of the American Revolution, decided to enter her fox into their annual D.C. craft show in the doll category. “And it won best of show,” she says, as in winner of the whole shebang.
“Another art form that she dabbled in. She has the touch,” says Charlie. Whereas in the North Pole, Santa gets all the credit, Charlie simply can’t resist touting his own “Mrs. Claus’s” talents.
There is also the large painting in her kitchen nook. She’d gone to High Point Market with a friend and spotted a heron painting. “Gosh, I could do that,” she recalls thinking, and set up an easel right there in her kitchen to get the lighting just right as she painted. To add a touch of Linda Lowe signature whimsy, she put the bird in a blue-and-white basin, bubbles pouring out.
“But you know, in reality, they’re tromping around in mud all day,” muses Charlie. “They have got to do something! You gotta get that goop off somehow.”
A footbridge in the background of the painting is coral, a color Linda particularly loves. To set her kitchen table for the holidays, she used festive wrapping paper as a runner, edging it with scalloped, peach-colored ribbon she scored at Anthropologie. “Of course, I bought every roll!”
In the dining room, swags of greenery and blush-colored faux pomegranates adorn an unsigned vintage painting of, they’re guessing, George Washington. The fruit picks up on the colors in Linda’s custom cornices, though they weren’t custom built for this space, and — this should come as no surprise — were found at an estate sale, Parker Washburn’s to be exact. She, of course, Linda bubbles, was the daughter of Leon Oldham, founder of Leon’s Beauty School, and Aileen “Mrs. Leon” Oldham, and the estate sale was located inside the old, stone home the couple once lived in on Elm Street.
They’d need new side panels to work for Linda’s purposes, so Charlie suggested he could just make new ones. In his years of working at the camera shop, he’d honed his own carpentry skills by building store walls and fixtures. Plus, Linda recalls at their former home, “He made an amazing gate and fence for our patio.” Charlie, ever so humble about his own accomplishments, says, “I used to like to piddle a little bit with woodworking and things like that.”
Linda knew Charlie could build her whatever she wanted,
but what she wanted was to reuse something with history from an iconic Greensboro home. New side panels in place, thanks to Charlie, she recovered the cornices in a soft blue, floral fabric, piped in red. The blue blends into the Benjamin Moore Gossamer Blue on the walls.
In the living room, the mantel is decked out in nontraditional holiday colors — chartreuse and orange. The built-in bookcases that flank it feature books, blue-and-white transferware and white foo dogs that once belonged to Linda’s mom. But on the white mantel, orange foo dogs stand out and stand guard on either side, swags of greenery draping down with orange ribbon and chartreuse ginkgo leaves interwoven. “I have a thing about things being symmetrical,” she says.
The tree, however, remains traditional. And, she quips, “I only put up one big tree!” For as long as she can remember, she’s decorated the tree by herself. “It’s not a theme tree. It’s always got the same ornaments, same beads.” She especially loves a tree that’s covered in glass baubles reflecting the shine of her rainbow lights.
Did the kids help when they were little? “I would let them hang
their stuff along the bottom,” says Linda, then, under her breath adds, “Then I’d go back and fix them.”
“My job is to hand them to her,” notes Charlie.
For years, the couple purchased a real tree, usually from Wagoner’s tree lot. But sometimes, Linda notes, the family would take off for West Jefferson, on a quest for that quintessential Currier and Ives moment, “which never went quite that smoothly!”
After Charlie’s mother, who still loved the smell of fresh cedar in the home, passed, Linda caved and bought an artificial tree. The one she wanted came prewired with white lights, so Linda figured out how they were attached and painstakingly rewired it with her own strings of colored lights. “A big operation,” notes Charlie.
“I still haven’t found the right topper,” notes Linda. “I’ve never had one that’s like, ‘That’s it!’” An angel, a bow, a star — you name it — nothing has hit that high note. Once, they even hung a Moravian star from the ceiling above the tree.
“And then we just adjusted the tree under it,” says Charlie. “That was a collaborative idea.”
Linda walks into a room featuring four corner cabinets, each cabinet filled to the brim with vintage cameras Charlie has collected, mostly Nikons, but Canons and other models as well. The cabinets, mostly scored at estate sales, are by Greensboro’s iconic Benbow Furniture, now closed.
Does she decorate inside these cabinets at Christmas, too? Nope. “Don’t touch my stuff,” Charlie says with a smirk.
Charlie points to a particular black-and-silver Nikon. “This is [from] like 1951, something like that. This was occupied Japan, after WWII. Nikon started out making telescopes and microscopes, and then went into cameras because that was something you could sell,” he says. “And we were trying to make their industry work so they could support themselves.”
“I figured I have the rest of the house, I can let him have this room,” she says with a chuckle.
“You’re not going to open that door, are you?” Charlie asks Linda teasingly as they approach the first-floor bedroom, which now serves as Linda’s craft room.
“Yeah, I am,” she says. “You know I am.”
What they both assume is a cluttered mess is actually an artist’s treasure box, overflowing with tools and materials a creative person would have a field day with. One very tall wall is piled high with various small, handmade shelving units, including one her brother made as well as her grandfather’s old shaving stand. Her vision for it? “The Harry Potter wand shop, where everything was just stacks of books.” Fitting, as this, indeed, is where the magic happens. Paints, colored pencils, glues, markers, ribbons, brushes and all sorts of crafting supplies line the shelves. An old, wooden spoon rack holds wax seal molds.
On another wall hangs a gallery of paintings and sketches from throughout the years — some by Linda, some by her mom, who was also an artist — and even a floral painting that’s been in the family for years. Linda also spent time during COVID organizing her family’s history and has rows and rows of photo albums dated by year. In fact, during that time, Linda created two round family “trees,” one for her family of origin and one for Charlie’s. Never
one to follow the beaten path, hers are more garden than tree. The names, arranged in a circle, form a sort of labyrinth of hedges that resembles an English boxwood garden. They now hang in the dining room.
On the project table in the middle of her craft room sits a current project — a mirror adorned with shells she’s been collecting for years.
“If I can spill the beans a little bit,” says Charlie, “we’re trying to get a beach house.” The couple has spent the last few months searching for a property on Sunset Beach or perhaps Ocean Isle, something they can vacation at with their family but also rent out.
“I’ve been beach-deprived my whole life and I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m going to the beach!’” Linda says. “I’ve got so much stuff piled up back there!”
“I have always said about Linda,” quips Charlie, “too much is never enough.” OH
ALMANAC
December
By a sHley walsHe
December is a skein of yarn, a simmering stockpot, a cat curled by the fire. Cast on. Breathe in the warming spices. Listen to the wisdom of gently crackling oak.
Wood and wool hold memories of winters past: silver storms; frost-laced mornings graced by tender sunbeams; resplendently starry nights.
You study your hands, slightly dry, recalling all they have held this year; all they have released. They tucked seeds into dark earth, plucked wildflowers, cupped sun-ripened berries, healed wounds, watered plants, wiped tears, prepared meals, gathered kindling.
Knit one, purl one; repeat.
When the fire pops, the cat unfurls like a spring fern, stretches out its toes, then drifts again into dream world.
Knit one, purl one; repeat.
As the cat stalks summer crickets and field mice behind closed eyes, you lay down your craft, stoke the fire, head for the stovetop. Lifting the lid, you unlock memories of winters past, mashing the now-soft apples as you inhale the spicysweet amalgam.
Back at the fire, you cradle a mug of homemade cider, watching the steam dance as whiffs of cinnamon and allspice ignite your senses. You look at your hands again, marvel at how they’ve been shaped by nature and time; at their wisdom, softness and resilience; at what they might yet hold.
The cat yawns. You set down the cider, pick up the yarn. Knit one, purl one; repeat.
If cold December gave you birth — The month of snow, and ice, and mirth — Place on your hand a turquoise blue, Success will bless whate’er you do.
— Author unknown, A Gem for Every Month, c.1883
Winter’s Deep Sleep
For the natural world, life is slowing down. Honeybees are clustered in their hives. Box turtles are burrowed in shallow soil. And black bears — over 20,000 of them in our mountain and coastal regions — amble to their dens, where cubs will be birthed in the heart of winter, during mama’s deep, long sleep.
When life feels busy, lean into the wisdom of our animal kin. Slow down. Get cozy. Remember that rest is a gift you can give yourself.
Homemade with Love
The holidays are upon us. Flickering candles and flashing lights spell Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas and Yule. But what of the lesser-known holidays? The weird and downright wacky ones?
Take Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day, for instance, celebrated on Dec. 8. National Cat Herders Day (Dec. 15). Or National Ugly Sweater Day (the third Friday of December). There’s a day for roasting chestnuts (Dec. 14), regifting (Dec. 18) and swapping homemade cookies (Dec. 22).
And here’s one that might prove fun and fruitful: Make a Gift Day, on Dec. 3. Get creative. Let go of perfectionist tendencies. Pure and simple is part of the charm. OH
WELCOME TO
STYLE
We’ve lined up 12 of the most wonderful businesses for this most wonderful time of the year. When planning your holiday shopping, please remember to Buy Local!
You know Dasher and Dancer, but do you recall the Most Famous Cookie of All®? Wilkerson Bakery brings joy to your holiday season with nearly a century of tradition. Enjoy six Moravian Cookie flavors, including the Original Wilkerson Spice, Sugar, Lemon, Candied Ginger, Butter Rum aka “Blackbeard’s Cookie” and Orange Brandy, plus fresh Sugar Cake and Cheese Straws. Each treat tells a story! Shop holiday gift sets online at WilkersonBakery.com or in-store, and contact us for bulk orders.
Taste Tells the Truth®
With love, The Wilkerson family—transporting you back in time with every bite!
High Points largest antique and consignment mall. Over 59k square feet of Antiques, collectibles, vintage, advertising, gifts, handcrafted items, furniture, primitives, farmhouse, cottage, retro, boho, Mid Century Modern and more Something for everyone!
Hanes Lineberry Funeral Services in Greensboro, North Carolina, has helped families honor and celebrate their loved ones with respect and dignity for more than a century. We provide the compassionate care, personalized service and expertise needed to create thoughtful, unique memorials that you and your guests will cherish for year to come.
4 DAYS OF ENDLESSCOMFORT ANDCHEER
Our new, expanded location and showroom offers upholstery and reupholstery services featuring designer fabrics with thousands of choices. Make your house feel like a home with our unique home decor, including antiques, lighting, accessories and local artwork. Throwing a party? W-o-w your guests with our elevated entertainment products, custom printed stationery, napkins and cups. We offer an exclusive selection of gift items, including candles, linens, collectibles and holiday decor that can’t be found anywhere else. Let Murphy’s Upholstery help you create the look you’ve always wanted for your home.
For generations, Schiffman’s Jewelers has helped families across the Triad mark life’s defining moments. From milestones celebrated to memories made, we take pride in knowing your story — and helping you honor it with intention, care, and craft. Because at Schiffman’s, it’s never just about the jewelry. It’s about marking what matters most.
5SHINY RINGS
6TIMELESS TREASURES
the 6th day of Christmas, your true love gave to you . . . timeless treasures! From beautiful furniture and accessories to heirloom ornaments, discover the gift that tells ory
n us for a festive Holiday Open House December 13th. Step into a world of nosia and charm as you explore our curated collection of antiques and vintage your list. Celebrate the season with us - where every piece has a story, and every y becomes a memory Visit us today and make this Holiday one to remember!
8 DAYS OF HAPPYPETS
On the 8th day of Christmas, we celebrate the Humane Society of the Piedmont’s Full-Service Veterinary Clinic — where compassion meets care! ��������ur dedicated team provides affordable, high-quality medical services that keep pets healthy and families together. From wellness exams to life-saving treatments, every visit helps support the Humane Society of the Piedmont’s mission to end animal suffering and promote responsible pet ownership. This season, give the gift of health and hope — because every pet deserves comfort and care!
Become a member of the North Carolina Zoo to experience a full year of encounters with animals from North America and Africa – Asia coming soon! The world’s largest natural habitat zoo celebrates nature and allows the animals plenty of room to roam. A dedicated team of experts provide exceptional, compassionate care to more than 1,700 animals that call the North Carolina Zoo home. Leading efforts locally and globally to protect wildlife is critical for our collective future. Your membership to the zoo supports efforts to protect endangered species and habitats. Memberships vary in pricing and benefits.
Rare garnet, luminous pearl & sparkling gingerbread crayons bring new meaning to the Season of Sticks. Light up the holidays with rich, versatile color and sheer candy shine.
There’s no place like home - especially during the holidays. At A Shade Better, it is our pleasure helping our clients transform their homes into havens of comfort and style with custom window treatments designed to delight all year long.
From elegant draperies to timeless shutters, sleek shades and classic blinds, A Shade Better can provide the perfect finishing touch for every window and vision.
This holiday season, we extend our heartfelt gratitude for your trust and partnership. From our A Shade Better family to yours, may your home be filled with warmth, joy and light.
11WINDOWS GLOWING
12 DAYS OF BLOOMING JOY
At Guilford Garden Center, holiday magic blooms bright. Each year, the center’s two locations become winter wonderlands of twinkling lights, festive trees and vibrant poinsettias. Discover unique gifts, home decor and expert gardening advice from a friendly, knowledgeable staff. Beyond the holidays, landscape, container and “greenterior” designs keep spaces thriving year-round. Families enjoy hands-on workshops and shelves filled with plants and treasures for every gardener - making Guilford Garden Center a cherished community gem.
December 2025
Before attending any event, it’s best to check times, costs, status and location. Although we conscientiously use the most accurate and up-to-date information, the world is subject to change and errors occur!
December 1-31
PATTERN RECOGNITION. Explore the power of pattern in this exhibit featuring works from the Weatherspoon collection. Free. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: weatherspoonart.org/ exhibitions/current-exhibitions.
PIEDMONT WINTERFEST. Times and days vary. Glide, twirl or stumble your way across the ice rink with friends and family at its new location. Tickets: $15. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: piedmontwinterfest.com.
WINTER WONDERLIGHTS. 5:30–10 p.m. Greensboro Science Center’s holiday light display opens for the season. Tickets: $16+; under 3, free. Greensboro Science Center, 4301 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro. Info: greensboroscience.org/winterwonderlights.
December 1–21
CHRISTMAS ON THE ALPACA FARM. 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Tuesday–Saturday; 1:30-6 p.m., Sunday. Bring your family and friends to meet gentle alpacas and peruse the farm shop for gifts. Free. Rainbow Magic Alpaca Farm, 3628 Lewiston Road, Greensboro. Info: gsoalpacas.com.
December 1–20
HOLIDAY MARKET. 9 a.m. – 5 pm. Closed Sundays. Shop from thousands of h.andmade blown glass ornaments plus holiday decor. Free. Starworks Exhibition Gallery, 100 Russell Drive, Star. Info: starworksnc.org/ starworks-events.
December 1–13
CONVERSATIONS IN BLACK. Take a walk through historical photographs and ephemera submitted by long-time Black residents of Greensboro. Ultimately, they will be digitized and made widely available, broadening access to the city’s rich heritage. Free. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: weatherspoonart.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions.
December 1–6
MAKING CONNECTIONS. This installation of works from the Weatherspoon’s attic showcases the gallery as an academic museum with abiding connections to its campus, Greensboro and broader communities. Free. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: weatherspoonart.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions.
In The Garden With Santa
December 6 & 7
December 3
READING THE WORLD. 7-8 p.m. Discuss the translation of an award-winning novel from one of Ukraine’s most prolific contemporary authors, Tanja Maljartschuk. Forgottenness tells a spellbinding story of belonging and uprootedness, as understood by two exiles across time. Free. Online. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/events/calendar.
AMYTHYST KIAH. 7:30 pm. Enjoy an evening of live tunes from Amythyst Kiah’s new album, Still+Bright, exploring her deep-rooted affinity for Eastern philosophies and spiritual connections. Flat Iron, 221 Summit Ave., Greensboro. Tickets: $28. Info: flatirongso.com.
December 3–20
CAROLINA CHRISTMAS TRAIN. 5:30 & 7:15 p.m. Climb aboard and take a festive, sparkling journey that winds through the heart of the state, complete with holiday songs, twinkling lights and a visit from Santa. Tickets: $49+. Starworks, 100 Russell Drive, Star. Info: acwr.com/excursions.
December 4–31
WINTER SHOW. GreenHill Center for NC Art’s annual Winter Show returns, featuring North Carolina artists’ works for purchase and viewing. Tickets: Dec. 4 First Choice VIP Experience, $1,000; Dec. 6 Collector’s Choice opening gala, $140; Dec. 7 public opening, free. Greensboro Cultural Center, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org/ winter-show-2025.
December 4-7
DISNEY ON ICE. Times vary. Mickey and Minnie Mouse rock the DJ turntable as a cast of boogying Disney characters glides through a disco-worthy adventure. Tickets: $28.45+. First Horizon Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: gsocomplex.com/events.
SCI-FI BOOK CLUB. 5:30–6:30 p.m. Join other sci-fi lovers to discuss Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel, The Left Hand of Darkness. Free. Scuppernong Books. 304 S. Elm st. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/events.
December 4
UNCG SPARTAN JAZZ COLLECTIVE. 7:30 p.m. The next generation of jazz talent from UNC honors legendary trumpeter, Roy Hargrove. Tickets: $7+. The Carolina Theatre. 310 S Greene Street. Info: carolinatheatre. com/events.
December 5
FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS. 5:30–9 p.m. Enjoy live entertainment — from carolers to Santa — and food-vendor treats along Elm Street as you await the community tree lighting. Free. Center City Park, 200 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: downtowngreensboro.org.
December 5
WRAPPED IN BRASS. 7:30 p.m. The North Carolina Brass Band plays hits of the holidays. Tickets: $5+. Dana Auditorium at Guilford College, 710 Levi Coffin Drive, Greensboro. Info: ncbrassband.org.
December 5–7
NUTCRACKER. Times vary. UNCSA students dance the classic holiday ballet. Tickets: $39+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: uncsa.edu.
SEAGROVE OPEN HOUSE. Weekends only, visit various Seagrove area potters to shop and enjoy special events during the three weekends leading up to Christmas. Free. Seagrove area. Info: discoverseagrove.com/events-all.
December 6 & 7
IN THE GARDEN WITH SANTA. Noon–4 p.m. Evergreen is one of Santa’s favorite colors, so why not get a family or pet photo taken with the big guy among the greens during the Greensboro Council of Garden Clubs’ annual event? Plants, gardening gloves and pecans will also be available for purchase. Photos: $25 for first ticket, $5 for additional tickets. 222-4 Swing Road, Greensboro. Info: email g cgclubs@triad.twcbc.com or call 336-282-4940.
December 6
HOLIDAY PARADE. Noon–2 p.m. A parade featuring holiday and character balloons floats through Downtown Greensboro. Free. Church, Market and Greene streets, Greensboro. Info: downtowngreensboro.org/ downtown-in-december.
AN APPALACHIAN CHRISTMAS. 7:30 p.m. Mark and Maggie O’Connor perform bluegrass, folk and Americana arrangements for the holiday season. Tickets: $30+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.
LEE ROY PARNELL’S TEXAS FLAVORED CHRISTMAS. 7:30 p.m. Grammy- nominated
Lee Roy Parnell plays his long list of hits plus Texas-spiced holiday classics. Flat Iron, 221 Summit Ave., Greensboro. Tickets: $28. Flat Iron info: flatirongso.com.
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. 9:30 a.m. Celebrate the holiday season with Choral Arts Collective’s annual family holiday concert. Free. Carolina Theatre, 310 S Greene St., Greensboro. Info: choralartscollective.org.
December 7
THE NUTCRACKER BALLET. Times vary. The Dance Center of Greensboro presents its telling of the classic holiday story. Tickets: $31. High Point Theatre, 220 E. Commerce Ave., High Point. Info: highpointtheatre.com/events.
HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE. 1–4 p.m. Celebrate the season at the Annual Holiday Open House with music, cookies, demonstrations and a Santa visit. Free. High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org.
JINGLE JOG. 2 p.m. Do your holiday shopping and run in the 5K (or shorter) fun run through Downtown Greensboro. Start at 117 W. Lewis St., Greensboro. Info: runsignup.com/Race/ NC/Greensboro/DowntownJingleJog5K.
December 7 & 8
CURRIER & IVES. Times vary. Bel Canto Company and Gate City Voices come together to wrap you in the cozy nostalgia of holiday classics. Tickets: $5+. Christ United Methodist Church, 410 N. Holden Road, Greensboro. Info: choralartscollective.org.
December 9-14
THE OUTSIDERS. Times vary. “Stay Gold” and enjoy the Tony-award winning musical The Outsiders. $53+. Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts. 300 North Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.
December 9
HANDEL’S “MESSIAH”. 7 p.m. The Choral Society of Greensboro delivers its annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. Free. Odell Memorial Building, Greensboro College, 815 W. Market St., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc. gov./departments/creative-greensboro.
December 11-21
A CHRISTMAS CAROL . Times vary. Enjoy Winston-Salem’s Charlie Lovett’s theatrical adaptation of Charles Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol. 419 N. Spruce St., Greensboro. Info: ltofws.org.
December 11–14
NUTCRACKER. Times vary. The Greensboro Ballet presents its annual production of the classic holiday ballet. Tickets: $25+. Carolina
Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: greensboroballet.org/the-nutcracker.
December 12–14
A CHRISTMAS CAROL: THE MUSICAL. Times vary. High Point Community Theatre presents its 10th annual musical retelling of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic. Tickets: $26+. High Point Theatre, 220 E. Commerce Ave., High Point. Info: highpointtheatre.com/events.
December 12
JAZZ, BLUES AND HOLIDAY GROOVES. 7 p.m. Broadway singer and actress Jayne Trinette moves you with a night of blues and jazz grooves for the holiday season. Tickets: $25+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.
December 13
CHRISTMAS COOKIE SALE. 9 a.m.– 2 p.m. or until sold out. Enjoy holiday tunes and fresh, free coffee while you peruse and purchase sweet treats baked at Christ Lutheran Church’s fifth annual Christmas Cookie Sale supporting Greensboro Urban Ministries. Christ Lutheran Church, 3600 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro. Info: christlutherangso.com.
KERNERSVILLE YULETIDE. Celebrate at this all-day, city-wide, family-friendly event, which includes Victorian holiday tours at Körner’s Folly; a hometown Christmas, holiday village and ice skating at the Kernersville Museum. And consider sticking around for an evening display of lighted blooms at the Paul J. Ciener Botanical, Kernersville. Info: kornersfolly.org/events/ kernersville-yuletide-2025.
CHRISTKINDLMÄRKT. 1–5 p.m. Step into the magic of a German-style Christmas market featuring unique vendors, seasonal fare and the state’s most authentic German lager at this annual Christkindlmärkt. The Griffin Museum at Red Oak Brewery, 6905 Konica Drive, Whitsett. Info: redoakbrewery.com.
WHERE THE LIGHT BEGINS. 3:30 p.m.
The Choral Arts Collective brings hope and light to the holiday season with lullabies, carols and spirited songs of winter. Free. Tew Recital Hall, UNCG School of Music, 100 McIver St., Greensboro. Info: choralartscollective.org.
KENYON ADAMCIK. 8 p.m. After realizing his true calling early on in high school, this comedian launched his stand-up career and has been featured at the New York Comedy Festival. Tickets: $18.71. The Idiot Box, 503 N. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: idiotboxers.com.
CANDLE DIPPING. Noon.–4 p.m. All ages are welcome to drop in to learn the antiquated art of candle dipping. Free. Historical Park at High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org.
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december calendar
RUNNING OF THE BALLS. 6 p.m. “The Greatest 5K(ish) in the History of the World” runs or walks beneath the glittering globes illuminating Sunset Hills. Registration: $55; youth, $25. Start at the intersection of Rolling Road and the Sunset Hills Greenway, Greensboro. Info: therunningoftheballs.com.
December 13 & 14
TEA WITH CLARA. Times vary. Complete your Greensboro Ballet Nutcracker experience by sipping tea or punch, munching on treats, grabbing a goody bag and posing for pics with the one-and-only Clara. Tickets: $35. Renaissance Room at the Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: greensboroballet.org/tea-with-clara.
December 14
MADE 4 THE HOLIDAYS. 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Shop a juried show of makers and artisans selling handmade wares such as jewelry and pottery. Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville St., Greensboro. Info: facebook.com/ gsofarmersmkt/events.
December 16
JIM BRICKMAN LIVE. 7:30 p.m. Jim Brickman performs Christmas hits for the holiday season. $71+. Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts. 300 North Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.
December 16–23
HOLIDAY MOVIES. 7 p.m. From classics including White Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life to not-so-old and maybe not-so-holiday hits such as Gremlins, enjoy an array of films on the big screen. Tickets: $9. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.
December 17
DOLLY PARTON’S SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS CAROL . 8 p.m. Tap your feet to a one-of-a-kind musical featuring songs by Dolly Parton. $40+. Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, 300 North Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.
December 19
A VERY CAGLE CHRISTMAS. 8:30 p.m. From ho-ho-ho to ha-ha-ha, you’ll crack up at this comedy show full of laughs and cheer for the season. $18.71. The Idiot Box, 503 N. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: idiotboxers.com.
CHAD EBY AND FRIENDS. 7:30 p.m. Enjoy a seasonal mix of holiday classics performed by this cross-generational band. Tickets: $15+. In the Crown at the Carolina Theatre. 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.
December 19-21
HIGH POINT BALLET. Times vary. Enjoy seasonal classic The Nutcracker or the designed-forkids, The Land of the Sweets. Tickets: $20+. High Point Theatre, 220 E. Commerce Ave., High Point. Info: highpointtheatre.com/events.
December 20
SCOTTISH FAIRE. 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Dress in costume and learn how to traditionally prepare for the Scottish New Year’s Eve, aka Hogmanay. Free. Historical Park at High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org.
DAILEY & VINCENT CANDY CANES
AND COAL. 3 p.m. Grammy winners Jamie Dailey and Darren Vincent offer a unique spin on American music. Tickets: $30+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.
December 31
NEW YEAR’S EVE COMEDY. Times vary. Ring in 2026 with great standup comedy and drink specials all night. Tickets: $22.78. The Idiot Box, 503 N. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: idiotboxers.com.
WEEKLY HAPPENINGS
WEDNESDAYS
LIVE MUSIC & PAINTING. 6–9 p.m. Evan Olson and Jessica Mashburn of AM rOdeO play covers and original music while artist-inresidence Chip Holton paints. Free. Lucky 32. 1421 Westover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: lucky32.com.
FAMILY NIGHT. 5–7 p.m. Enjoy an art-driven evening with family and friends in the studios. Free. ArtQuest at GreenHill Center for NC Art, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org/events.
MUSIC IN THE PARK. 6–8 p.m. Sip and snack at LeBauer Park while grooving to local and regional artists. Free. Lawn Service, 208 N. Davie St, Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.
THURSDAYS
JAZZ AT THE O.HENRY. 6–9 p.m. Sip vintage craft cocktails and snack on tapas while the O.Henry Trio performs with a different jazz vocalist each week. Free. O.Henry Hotel Social Lobby, 624 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: ohenryhotel.com/o-henry-jazz.
THURSDAYS & SATURDAYS
KARAOKE & COCKTAILS. 8 p.m. until midnight, Thursdays; 9 p.m. until midnight, Saturdays. Courtney Chandler hosts a night of sipping and singing. Free. 19 & Timber Bar at Grandover Resort & Spa, 1000 Club Road, Greensboro. Info: grandoverresort.com.
SATURDAYS
HISTORIC WALKING TOURS. 1 & 5 p.m. Take a guided walking tour through the history of downtown Greensboro at 1 p.m. or, if you’re into true crime, stroll through The Gate City’s darker side, covering 1953–1997, at 5 p.m. Tickets: $14. The Bodega, 313 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: trianglewalkingtours.com/ book-online.
BLACKSMITH DEMONSTRATION. 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Watch the sparks fly and red-hot iron turn into farm implements as the past is recreated under the able hands of a costumed blacksmith. Free. Historical Park at High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org. OH
To submit an item for consideration, please email ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com by the first of the month prior to the month of the event.
Consult these businesses for retirement planning or senior living choices
Blue Denim Real Estate l BrightStar Care
Carolina Pines Retirement Community l First Choice Home Care
Fund Direct Advisors l Hallmark Homecare l Seabolt Upholstery
Senior Resources l The Shoe Market l Sports Medicine & Joint Replacement
Stitch Point on Friendly l Twin Lakes Community l WhiteStone l Working Decor, LLC
As we approach the holiday
To make a donation, there are multiple convenient options available. You can simply scan the QR code provided or visit our website at https://www.senior-resources-guilford.org/ to make an online donation. If you prefer to donate by cash or check, you can mail it to the following address: Senior Resources of Guilford
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Twin Lakes Community is a neighborhood where longtime friends are as important as longterm care. Where independence is treasured. And where the transition isn’t about what you give up, but what you’ve gained. You’ll discover we’re more than a Continuing Care Retirement Community. Twin Lakes is a place where you can live life how it matters to you.
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Cruise, mingle, & maybe roll straight into someone’s heart at Singles-On-Segways! 176 Ywca Way - Multiple Dates
THEATRE EVENT
The
Ringers The Raleigh Ringers is an Emmy-nominated, internationally-acclaimed concert choir. Virginia Somerville Sutton Theatre
HOLIDAY EVENT
Gingerbread House Competition Get into the Holiday Spirit with our Annual Gingerbread House Competition. Grandover Resort & Spa
GreenScene
Hirsch Wellness
Art Lives Here Gala
Revolution Mill
Saturday, September 27, 2025
Photographs by Louisa Dang & Kelly Joel
Michelle Owens, Tricia Brassel
Clay Thornton, Brownlee Bryant
Mark & Lynn Smith
Warren Moses Daris Garnes, Benda Olds Carter
Julie Knight, John Kamalipour, Ann Steighner, Marilyn Harris
Bob Nordbruch, Rod Bruckdorfer
Louise Grape, Shashi Sethi, Mohan Sethi, Deepi Sethi, Molly Haile
Deveta Glenn, Edie Sylveri
Dalene Johnson-Lowery
Cheryl Swain, Kelly Joel
Debbie & Bert Fields
Jessica Ulrich Robin McCraw, Kim Cuny, Emily Pazur
John Foreman
Xin Roberson
GreenScene
Triad Retirement Living Association Halloween Party The Clubhouse
Anita Brock-Carter, Alyssa Geary, Jennifer Graves, Barbara James
Jared Bradshaw, Lindsay Northen Bradshaw, Chris Ray’s
The Light That Binds Brightly Reflections on traditions
By Ivan Saul Cutler
With warm, fond memories, I cherish my youth, especially those sweet middle childhood years in Compton, the vibrant working-class suburb of L.A. My family, the Cutlers, was the only Jewish family on McDivitt Avenue. We lived happily among many wonderful neighbors and friends.
Religious differences — Catholics, Protestants and Latter Day Saints — made no difference because Jimmy McAuley, Jimmy Hoffman, Craig Lee and Wayne Stiglbauer were my friends, my buddies. Yes, in those halcyon days of my youth, all of us guys were typical boys, doing what boys did together — playing sports, having newspaper routes, riding bikes, goofing off.
On one late-1950s, sunny, Southern California Christmas Day, I arose early. Of course, I knew what day it was. Even though no gift-bearing Santa Claus ever visited my home, my vicarious thrill to see and share their gifts was real, and my friends knew it.
Yes, I couldn’t wait to see what gifts they’d received and join in playing with their new toys and games, while righteously dismissing clothes as a real present.
Just as I was ready to dash out the door, Dad gestured gently with his hand to stop. “Son,” he said in his thick Lithuanian accent, “today is a special holiday for our Christian friends. Your buddies need to be with their families now.”
He was right. Thanks, Dad, for forever imprinting that lesson on my heart that’s been guiding me in life. Respect and honor are the Cutler holiday traditions and best gifts instilled by my immigrant father, Harry.
Now, almost 70 years later, Dad’s no longer here, but I’ve embraced those enduring values and then some. Back then as the Jewish kid in the neighborhood, I could rejoice in the distinct year-end holiday differences of Hanukah and Christmas, yet savor the exhilarating similarities of the radiating light of my heirloom Menorah (an eight-branch candelabra my Grandfather Meyer Cutler handmade in 1936 for my father and his two brothers) and my friends’ glowing Christmas trees, which I
helped decorate every year.
My father’s respect-honor ethos teaching remains bright, illuminating and enhancing my diverse relationships with all people I encounter. It’s my father’s enduring gift of wisdom — the presents of presence — that keeps on giving all year.
Hanukah (dedication in Hebrew), the bright eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights, commemorates the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple in 165 B.C.E. (before the common era) by the Maccabees after its desecration by the Syrian Greeks.
Hanukah’s brightness usually occurs in late November or December, depending on its coincidence on the Hebrew lunar calendar, 25 Kislev, corresponding this year to December 15 to 22, with the first candle kindled on December 14.
Although Hanukah is a post-Hebrew-Bible (Torah) holiday, the metaphor of bright light in the year’s shortest days warrants sharing and receiving its fortified reflection in Christmas brightness. For years, a joy of the season has been kindling the Hanukah candles with non-Jewish friends, especially when the leader candle (Shamash) and all eight candles are burning brightly on the eighth night. The glow from everyone’s eyes confirms the warmth of engaged humanity.
Again, this Hanukah, I happily return to that Christmas Day on McDivitt Avenue, when I couldn’t wait to check out the new toys under my friends’ trees. I can still hear Dad’s voice echoing clearly in my mind, even though he’s been gone for more than 46 years: “Wait until this afternoon or tomorrow to be with your friends. You have plenty of time.”
I did then and will continue to. OH
Ivan Saul Cutler is focused, as a busy photographer always about town getting into Good Trouble whenever possible.
