May O.Henry 2022

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MADE IN USA

May 2022 FEATURES 45 46 52

Forgetting Age Poetry by Paul Jones

DEPARTMENTS 9 Simple Life

By Jim Dodson

12 Short Stories 15 Tea Leaf Astrologer

Spring Forth, Greensboro!

By Zora Stellanova

Arboreal Awakening By Ross Howell Jr.

By Maria Johnson

Get outside and enjoy the lusty month of May In a city of trees, spring heralds a rhapsody of foliage and hope

17 Life’s Funny

21 The Omnivorous Reader

By Stephen E. Smith

58

Don’t Try It ’til You’ve Nocced It By Maria Johnson

63

Greensboro’s Johnny Appleseed By Cynthia Adams

By Wiley Cash

66

House of Prayer By Maria Johnson

By Cynthia Adams

77

Growing your own mushrooms gets a boost in Saxapahaw

The green thumb of Bill Craft

High Point restaurateurs Tu and Todd Sen revere the history of their Johnson Street home

Almanac By Ashley Walshe

Cover photograph by Amy Freeman

25 Bookshelf 29 The Creators of N.C. 33 Home by Design

35 Pleasures of Life Dept.

By Cassie Bustamante

37 Birdwatch

By Susan Campbell

39 Wandering Billy

By Billy Eye

92 Events Calendar 104 O.Henry Ending

By Mary Best

4 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Fine Eyewear by Appointment 327 South Elm | Greensboro 336.274.1278 | TheViewOnElm.com Becky Causey, Licensed Optician

M A G A Z I N E

Now Showng & Under Contract

Volume 12, No. 5 “I have a fancy that every city has a voice.”

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David Woronoff david@thepilot.com Andie Rose, Creative Director andiesouthernpines@gmail.com Jim Dodson, Editor jwdauthor@gmail.com Cassie Bustamante, Managing Editor cassie@ohenrymag.com Miranda Glyder, Graphic Designer DIGITAL CONTENT

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6 O.Henry

OWNERS Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels Jr., Frank Daniels III, Lee Dirks, David Woronoff © Copyright 2022. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

O.Henry Magazine is published by The Pilot LLC

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Simple Life

The Kindness of Strangers And the strangeness of some kinds of people

By Jim Dodson

The other

ILLUSTRATION BY GERRY O'NEILL

afternoon I was making a pleasant run to the garden center during early rush hour when I saw something I’ve never seen on a busy North Carolina street.

While waiting for the light to change at one of the busiest intersections in the city, a woman next to me in a large, luxury SUV began edging out into the heavy stream of traffic crossing in front of us.

At first, I thought she might simply be unaware of her dangerous drift into moving traffic. She was, after all, visibly chatting on her phone and apparently oblivious to blaring horns of those who were forced to stop to avoid a collision. Within moments, however, traffic in both directions had halted. One man was actually yelling at her out his window, shaking a fist.

But on she merrily went, indifferent to the automotive mayhem left in her wake, the first red light I’ve ever seen run in slow motion.

For an instant, I wondered if I might have somehow been teleported to Italy or France where motorists seem to regard traffic lights and road signs as simple nuisances, a quaint if daunting European tradition of civil indifference to les autorités that evolved across the ages.

Having motored across all of Britain and most of France, Italy and Greece, I long ago concluded that driving there is both a blood sport and national pastime, an automotive funhouse to be both enjoyed and feared. When in Italy, for instance, my operational motto is: drive like the teenage Romeo with the pretty girl on the back of his Vespa who just cut you off in the roundabout with a rude gesture insulting your heritage. It’s all part of the cultural exchange.

But here in America, at least in theory, most of us grew up respecting traffic laws because we were force-fed driver’s education since early teen years, programs designed to make us thoughtful citizens of the public roadways. (Quick aside: I have a dear friend whose teen-

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

age son has failed his driver’s license test — God bless his heart — for the fifth time, which must be some kind of statewide record; I’ve helpfully suggested she immediately ship him off to Sorrento, Italy, where he’s bound to find true and lasting happiness, a pretty girl, a nice Vespa scooter and no annoying driver’s test to complicate his life, rude gestures optional.)

All fooling aside, in cities across America, officials report that traffic accidents and automobile fatalities are approaching record levels. Some blame the COVID pandemic that has had the world so bottled up and locked down, presumably entitling folks behind the wheel to make up for lost time by driving like there’s no tomorrow — or at least no traffic laws.

In my town and possibly yours, is it my imagination or do more folks than ever seem to be blithely running stop signs, ignoring speed limits and driving like Mad Max on Tuscan holiday. Running a red light in slow motion may be the least of our problems.

The armchair sociologist in me naturally wonders if America’s deteriorating driving habits and growing automotive brinksmanship might simply be a symptom of the times, part of a general decline of public civility and respect for others that fuels everything from our toxic politics to the plague of violence against Asians.

Whatever is fueling the road rage and social mayhem, the remedy is profound, timeless and maddeningly elusive.

I saw the fix written on a sign my neighbor planted in her yard the other day.

Spread Happiness, it said.

I found myself thinking about my old man, an ad-man with a poet’s heart who believed kindness is the greatest of human virtues, a sign of a truly civilized mind. My nickname for him was Opti the Mystic because he believed even the smallest acts of kindness — especially to strangers — are seeds from which everything good in life grows. “If you are nothing else in life,” he used to advise my older brother and me, “being kind will take you to wonderful places.”

This from a fellow who’d been in the middle of a World War and experienced first-hand the worst things human beings can do to each other. He became the kindest man I’ve ever known.

O.Henry 9

Simple Life In any case, Opti would have loved how a timely reminder of his message came home to me during another challenging automotive moment.

On a recent Saturday morning, after setting up my baker wife’s tent at the weekend farmers’ market where she sells her sinfully delicious cakes and such, I set off in my vintage Buick Roadmaster wagon to a landscape nursery on the edge of town to buy hydrangeas for my Asian garden.

On the drive home, however, I blew a front tire and barely made it off the highway into a Great Stops gas station before the tire went completely flat. I had no spare. To make matters worse, my cell phone had only one percent of a charge left — just long enough to leave a quick desperate voicemail on my wife’s answering service before the dang thing went dead. The old Buick, of course, had no charger.

I walked into the service shop whispering dark oaths under my breath at such miserable timing, asking the personable young African American clerk if she could possibly give my phone a brief charge. I even offered to pay her for the help.

Her supervisor emerged from the office. When I explained that I was running errands for my wife when my day suddenly went flat, she gave me a big grin. “Bless your heart, child! Give me that phone!”

I handed it over. She shook her head and laughed. “You’re just like my husband. I can’t let that man go anywhere without him gettin’ into trouble! That’s husbands for you!”

Just like that, my good mood returned. Outside, a few minutes later, the tow truck arrived. The driver was named Danny

10 O.Henry

Poindexter, a big burly white guy. He was having a long morning too. We dropped off my car at the auto service center and he graciously offered to drive me home to get my other car. It was the second surprising act of kindness from a stranger that morning. As we approached my street, I saw my neighbor’s pink Spread Happiness for the second time.

“What kind of cake do you like?” I asked Danny.

“Carrot cake,” Danny replied. “I love carrot cake.”

He dropped me off at home and I drove over to the farmers’ market and picked up a piece of my wife’s amazing carrot cake, phoned Danny and met him at a Wendy’s parking lot near his next job. He was deeply touched by the gesture. “This just makes my day,” he said, diving straight in.

I then drove back to the service station across town to pick up my phone — now fully charged — that I’d managed to forget in all the unexpected mayhem of the morning. I even offered to pay the ladies for their kindness to a stranger.

They simply laughed. “Oh, honey, that’s why we’re here!” said the manager. “I’m just glad you remembered to come back for your phone, so I didn’t have to chase your butt all over town!”

I drove home to plant my new hydrangeas in a happy state of mind, making a mental note to take the kind ladies of Great Stops my wife’s famous Southern-style caramel cake just to say thanks to strangers who are now friends. OH Jim Dodson is the founding editor of O.Henry.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

WINSTON DUKE

JOSHUA BELL

SHAUN LEONARDO

URBAN BUSH WOMEN

AUGUST 26, 2022

OCTOBER 13, 2022

OCTOBER 3, 2022

OCTOBER 14, 2022

INDIGO GIRLS WITH THE GREENSBORO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

JANUARY 13, 2023

SERAPH BRASS MARCH 24, 2023

TH

YEAR A N N I V E R S A RY

3

For tickets visit UCLS.UNCG.EDU

3

Short

Stories Intentional Eating

At O.Hey, our diet is omnivorous and philanthropic. If eating our way through a cross-section of Greensboro’s culinary offerings is what it takes to support the N.C. Folk Fest, we will do what needs to be done. From 6–8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 11, at Elm & Bain, stuff yourself silly with a diverse array of savory delights from 13 of Greensboro’s eateries while mingling with the Triad’s talented chefs. Anyone know how many empanadas can fit in a pair of carpenter joggers?

Asking for a friend. Info: NCFolkFestival.com; to subscribe to receive weekly happenings in the O.Hey voice, visit oheygreensboro.com.

12 O.Henry

Over and Dunleath

They’re not old — they’re gracefully aged. Throughout the month of May, Preservation Greensboro’s Twelfth Annual Tour of Historic Homes & Gardens will focus on the architecture, gardens and history of one of Greensboro’s oldest neighborhoods. Dunleath, home to World War Memorial Stadium and the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market, features a range of traditional vintage American homes built in the 19th and early 20th century by middle- and upperclass residents — from sprawling Victorians to modest Craftsman bungalows. It is also known for its eclectic mix of creative residents as well its annual Porchfest, scheduled for June. This year, the tour — Preservation Greensboro’s flagship fundraiser — will include both in-person and virtual elements so you can visit while either strolling or scrolling. Info: PreservationGreensboro.org.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Ogi Sez Ogi Overman

Ain’t No Cure

Forget about the summertime blues. The Piedmont Blues Preservation Society’s Carolina Blues Festival returns this spring for its 36th year with Young, Black & Blues, a celebration of young Black musicians. This year, the longest-running blues festival in the Southeastern United States delivers a full lineup of seven talented acts, including storytelling through smooth instrumentals and lyrics. Follow the sounds of soulful vocals and riveting guitar riffs to LeBauer Park from 3–11 p.m. on Saturday, May 21. Info: PiedmontBlues.org.

May might be one of two months, weatherwise, that needs no hype. (October being the other.) It’s like Little Red Riding Hood’s bowl of porridge: Not too hot, not too cold, but just right. The outdoor concerts and festivals are cranking up, the big bands are touring, al fresco dining is in, the flowers are blooming. Oh, I could go on, but my favorite juke joints await, and it’s time to let the fish fry proceed.

• May 15, Ziggy’s Space: If you regularly peruse these

ramblings, you know I’m a big fan of Americana music. And there is no more talented Americana artist than Darrell Scott.

Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/storyteller, he does it all and does it better than most.

• May 20, Tanger Center: Exactly 50 years ago — I don’t think

it was the Fourth of July — a carload of us traveled to Charlotte to see Chicago. The band was great, the acoustics were horrible.

Thanks to Cliff Miller and SE Systems’ sound, and the Tanger designers, we won’t have to worry about that this time.

• May 21, Truist Field (Winston-Salem): Just as May needs no hype, neither does Paul McCartney. This is a major coup for us and the Triad, as the legend of legends only scheduled 13 stops, and we “Got Back” to where we once belonged.

In His Jeans

The Cone family was not one to just mill about. The iconic dynasty, known for its entrepreneurship and contributions to Greensboro’s economy and civic life, made it big in the textile industry in the late 1800s. The Denim King: The Moses Cone Story, based in part on the book A Mansion in the Mountains by Phil Noblitt, weaves a spirited musical tale — with little fabrication — of Moses and Ceasar Cone while giving a peek inside life at their family residence, Flat Top Manor in Blowing Rock. The show runs May 12–16 at the Virginia Somerville Sutton Theatre at Well·Spring.

Info: ticketmetriad.com.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

• May 22, Doodad Farm: Each spring, my heroes, Dean and Laurel Driver, host a tribute/fundraiser for a local nonprofit.

This year they appropriately chose the New Arrivals Institute, which serves as a bridge for local refugees and immigrants getting acclimated to a new culture. The all-day show is titled Legends of NC and features no fewer than 18 of our finest: Sam Frazier, Laurelyn Dossett, Graymatter, Jon Shain, Abigail Dowd … you get the picture.

• May 25, White Oak Amphitheatre: Nineties icons

Smashing Pumpkins officially broke up in 2000, but eventually regrouped — with Billy Corgan still fronting — and put out a killer double album in 2020. After COVID interruptions (including a show here), they’re touring relentlessly again, “like a rat in a cage.”

O.Henry 13

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Tea Leaf Astrologer

Taurus

(April 20 – May 20)

Sometimes you’ve got to know when to fold. This is especially true for those born under the Earth sign of Taurus. But when the cosmos deals you a humdinger — and, this month, that does appear to be the case — raise ’em, baby. (Ahem: This is about your standards.) They say we can only love others as deeply as we love ourselves. On that note, have you ever tried mirror gazing? In the buff?

These are rhetorical questions.

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Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you: Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Making risotto? Stir frequently. Otherwise, don’t.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Hint: raw oysters.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

At a certain point, bending the rules becomes the game itself.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Shake before opening.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

You’re looking for more depth. How do you feel about wetsuits?

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Coffee will only get you so far.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Don’t mistake peace for boredom.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Enough is enough. Read that again.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Start by rolling up your sleeves.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Your gut is trying to tell you something. Best to listen.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Make the first move. OH

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since 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.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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O.Henry 15

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Life's Funny

How an online game catches fire one green tile at a time

By Maria Johnson

I start with goodbye.

A-D-I-E-U. It’s a good opener because it contains so many vowels.

Yes, I’m talking about the web-based game Wordle, which gives you six chances to guess a five-letter word.

And yes, I’m hooked, just like the many millions of people who’ve glommed onto the game since it appeared online last fall and became a viral sensation over the winter.

I heard about the puzzle from my elder son’s girlfriend, who made a custom Wordle-like game for them to play virtually on his birthday as they sat on different coasts.

Each of them supplied five words for the other to guess.

I was charmed that she would, and could, create such a smart and intimate gift.

I wanted to know more. So I sniffed out the real Wordle and gave it a try.

I couldn’t get the hang of it.

Then some friends brought up the puzzle in a group text. One pal compared it to the 1970s board game Mastermind, a codebreaking challenge based on colors.

“It’s the same concept, but with letters,” she wrote.

Now I was intrigued.

The next time my younger son was home, I cornered him.

“Do you Wordle?”

“Yep.” “Will you show me how?”

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

“Sure.”

A couple of days later, I texted him.

“I got Wordle in two tries.”

“Two?! That’s the white whale.”

Welp, there’s nothing like a little success to spark an obsession.

I dived into the history of the game and found out it was invented by a Brooklyn software engineer named Josh Wardle. Get it? Wordle. Wardle.

Anyway, Wardle, who’s originally from Wales and used to work for the social-news aggregator Reddit, had been noodling with game-making for about 10 years. During COVID, he decided to create a game that he and his partner could play together.

God bless the game-loving lovers of the world.

Eventually, after refining the game with family and friends, the couple decided to put Wordle on their own website with no pay walls and no ads because as Josh Wardle has told several interviewers, they wanted to give people a simple, fun, relatively quick game to play for free.

Do you love these folks or what?

The first Wordle appeared in October 2021.

The number of players grew exponentially. In January of this year, The New York Times Company bought the game for a sum “in the low seven figures.”

For now, Wordle is still available for free, and it has spawned spin-offs galore. Wardle, the inventor, hosted an in-person competition of Wordle, the game, at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, Connecticut, in April.

Every day, players share their Wordle triumphs and defeats on O.Henry 17

Life's Funny

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18 O.Henry

social media, often with green-and-gray grids representing their attempts in a nonspoiler way.

A player who goes by @iSlutsky recently tweeted, “It’s with great disappointment & sorrow that I inform you of my loss in todays [sic] Wordle. I am heartbroken to have my streak broken and [am] currently entering a dark period of the day. Please send cookies.”

I get it. I have a streak going myself.

Twenty-seven games.

I take a sip of coffee and a deep breath.

A-D-I-E-U. Enter.

The “A” turns olive green, meaning it’s in the word somewhere, but not in the first slot.

I go to the second line, where I’ll get another chance, planning to use the “A” in a different place while trying new letters and fishing for an “O.” F-L-O-A-T. The “F” and the “A” turn bright green.

Yay. They’re in the right spot. The “O” is olive green, so I need to move it.

On my third opportunity to nail it, I type “X’s” to visualize possibilities.

F-X-X-A-X. Focal?

Foray?

You could say it’s a toss up. But I’m guessing that “R” is more common in the English language than “C.” F-O-R-A-Y. Enter.

Green-green-green-green-green.

Bingo! With three tries to spare.

I wallow in a squirt of self-esteem and a sliver of hope that some mysteries are solvable.

Today, anyway.

And for those that aren’t, there’s always tomorrow.

According to the website, the next Wordle drops in 18 hours, 13 minutes and 24 seconds. OH To play today’s Wordle, go to nytimes. com/games/wordle/index.html.

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. You can reach her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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Omnivorous Reader

Generational Trials and Trauma Can the genetic past also be prologue?

By Stephen E. Smith

Is it possible to predict and thereby

alter an individual’s spiritual destiny by analyzing emotional frailties that are inherited genetically from long-forgotten ancestors? That’s the question at the heart of Jamie Ford’s novel The Many Daughters of Afong Moy.

Afong Moy was the first known Chinese woman to immigrate to the United States. In 1834, she arrived in New York City and was exhibited as “The Chinese Lady.” Americans, most of whom had never seen a person of Asian heritage, had immense interest in her language, her clothing, and her 4-inch bound feet. She toured widely in the United States, appearing on stages in major cities on the East Coast. She met President Andrew Jackson and was employed for a time by P.T. Barnum. But her popularity waned in the 1840s, and there’s no record of Moy after the 1850s. She was, however, the first Asian woman that many Americans had seen in the flesh, and her appearances influenced perceptions of Chinese women and culture long after her disappearance from the American theatrical scene.

Ford fleshes out the unknown details of Moy’s life, and although there’s no evidence that she had children, her fictional descendants and their trials and traumas are the subject of his novel. Their stories, especially their emotional sufferings, are explained by using the

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

theory of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, which is, simply stated, the transmission of epigenetic information through the germline — a theory which will, for most readers, immediately beg the question: Do the emotions we feel influence our genes and those of our descendants?

Online sites explicating transgenerational epigenetic inheritance abound, but Ford offers his own simplified explanation in his Author’s Note (which conveniently relieves him of having to craft an awkward explanation in the text of the narrative): “Take a moment and think about your own family, their joys and calamities,” Ford writes. “Do you see similarities? Do you see patterns of repetition? Rhythms of good and bad decision making? Cycles of struggle and triumph?”

It’s a tenuous thread upon which to base a novel. While the inheritance of epigenetic characteristics may occur in plants and even in lab mice, the extent to which it occurs in humans remains unclear, and readers are likely to harbor doubts as to the theory’s validity. Might not the transgenerational theory be an attempt to escape our problems in the present by blaming them on distant ancestors? What could be easier than attributing our personal troubles to the dead? And how far into the past might this psychological necrophilia extend?

Nevertheless, Ford has crafted an intriguing novel that’s contingent on the reader’s acceptance of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, a term which surely sounds impressive and therefore has enough intellectual import to entice the curious. If the novel is a protracted exercise

O.Henry 21

Omnivorous Reader itance, “How each generation is built upon the genetic ruins of the past. That our lives are merely biological waypoints. We’re not individual flowers, annuals that bloom and then die. We’re perennials.”

And so it goes with Afong’s “daughters”: in 1927 Zoe Moy is a student in England at a school run as a pure democracy; Lai King Moy is quarantined in San Francisco in 1892 during a plague epidemic and a great fire; Greta Moy is a contemporary tech executive who creates a multi-million-dollar dating app, etc. These narrative transpositions culminate when Dorothy overcomes her psychological inheritance via a plot twist that borders on science fiction/fantasy.

If this seems confusing, well, it is, and readers will be required to focus their full attention on a plotline that is crowded with characters and frustrating complexities. When the episodic storylines finally come together, readers who have bought into the transgenerational epigenetic inheritance theory will likely experience a sense of completion. Skeptical readers might well feel they’re the victims of a 350-page shaggy dog story.

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy will be in bookstores in June. OH

in illustrating by use of example, there are interesting stories to be told, and Ford does a workmanlike job of telling those stories.

He explores the lives of six generations of the Moy family — Afong Moy, Lai King Moy, Fei-jin “Faye” Moy, Zoe Moy, “Greta” Moy and Dorothy MoyAnnabel — and although each character is adequately developed and the narratives interestingly interrelated, the two primary storylines involve Afong and her mid-21st century descendant Dorothy, Washington state’s former poet laureate, who is channeling dissociative episodes that are affecting her mental health.

The novel opens with Faye Moy, a nurse working with the Flying Tigers in China in 1942, who unsuccessfully attempts to save the life of a wounded pilot. After his death, she examines his personal belongings, which include a pocket watch with a newspaper article that features a photo of her — a photo she’s never seen and has no memory of having been taken. On the back of the newspaper article are written the words “FIND ME.” Moving forward from that intriguing clue, the narrative jumps to 2045 and Dorothy’s life in Seattle, where the city is besieged by the adverse consequences of climate change. The world of the future, for better or worse, manifests itself all around her, as when a computergenerated elevator voice chats with her: “Good morning, Ms. Moy. You’re up awfully early. Might I offer you direction to a nice coffee shop or patisserie? I could summon a car for you”; or when Dorothy recalls her doctor’s explanation of transgenerational epigenetic inher-

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Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press Awards.

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Bookshelf

May Books

Compiled by Shannon Purdy Jones

At Scuppernong Books, May

means one thing: the flurry of organizing and last-minute preparations for the annual Greensboro Bound Literary Festival. We’re so thrilled to have the festival back in-person after two long years, and the lineup is better than ever before.

More than 60 authors will participate in panels, talks and signings May 19–22 in downtown Greensboro, including Nikole Hannah-Jones, Amor Towles and Jason Mott just to name a few. The festival also hosts workshops for aspiring authors (advance registration required) and this year will feature a special screening of the documentary film Fred Chappell: I Am One of You Forever on Sunday, May 22.

Showcasing everything from literary novels to poetry, romance to memoir, and everything in between, the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival has something to entice every bookish mind. You’ll definitely see me there, sprinting manically between selling books, moderating the Afternoon Delight romance panel, and sitting in on every single panel I possibly can. We’re so lucky to have this festival to bring nationally renowned authors and foster our literary community. Be sure to head over to www.greensborobound.com to plan your festival experience and register for free ticketed events. Then check out a small taste below of the many amazing books featured at this year’s fest. Scuppernong hopes to see you there!

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones

In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of 20 to 30 enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.

The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning 1619 Project issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together 18 essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with 36 poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle and resistance. The essays show how the repercussions of 1619 reach into every part of contemporary American society, from politics to music, from diet to traffic, from citizenship to capitalism, from religion to our democracy itself.

This book reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation’s founding and construction — and the way that the aftermath of slavery did not end with emancipation but continues to shape contemporary American life.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towlew

In June 1954, 18-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served 15 months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his 8-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California, where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether differ-

O.Henry 25

Bookshelf ent plan for Emmett’s future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction — to the City of New York.

Spanning just 10 days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’ third novel will satisfy fans of his multilayered literary style while providing readers with an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters and themes.

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

In Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book, a Black author sets out on a cross-country publicity tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives Hell of a Book and is the scaffolding of something much larger and more urgent: Mott’s novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.

As these characters’ stories build and converge, they astonish. For while this heartbreaking and magical book entertains and is at once about family, love of parents and children, art and money, it’s also about the nation’s reckoning with a tragic police shooting playing over and over again on the news. And with what it can mean to be Black in America.

Who has been killed? Who is The Kid? Will the author finish his book tour, and what kind of world will he leave behind?

Unforgettably told, with characters who burn into your mind and an electrifying plot ideal for book club discussion, Hell of a Book is the novel Mott has been writing in his head for the last 10 years.

And in its final twists, it truly becomes its title.

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendon Slocumb

Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. If he’s lucky, he’ll get a job at the hospital cafeteria. If he’s extra lucky, he’ll earn more than minimum wage.

But Ray has a gift and a dream — he’s determined to become a worldclass professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.

When he discovers that his great-great-grandfather’s beat-up old fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach. Together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition — the Olympics of classical music — the violin is stolen, a ransom note for $5 million left in its place. Ray will have to piece together the clues to recover his treasured Strad . . . before it’s too late.

With the descendants of the man who once enslaved Ray’s greatgreat-grandfather asserting that the instrument is rightfully theirs, and with his family staking their own claim, Ray doesn’t know who is trustworthy — or whether he will ever see his beloved violin again. OH Shannon Purdy Jones is store manager and children’s book buyer for Scuppernong Books.

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The Creators of N.C.

A Shared Life Judy Goldman looks back on the Jim Crow South

By Wiley Cash Photographs by Mallory Cash

I first met author Judy Kurtz Goldman

in the summer of 2013 when we were seated beside one another at a dinner sponsored by a local bookstore in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Of that evening, I can remember Judy’s elegant Southern accent, her self-deprecating humor, and her teasing me that my calling her “ma’am” made her feel old.

But Southerners like Judy know that the conventions you were raised under are hard to buck, regardless of whether they are based on something as benign as manners or as oppressive as prejudice.

According to the late Pat Conroy, Judy Goldman is a writer of "great luminous beauty," and I happen to agree with him. She's published two previous memoirs, two novels, two collections of poetry, and she has won the Sir Walter Raleigh Prize for fiction and the Hobson Award for Distinguished Achievement in Arts and Letters. In her new memoir, Child, Judy confronts the horrible legacy of the Jim Crow South while coming to terms with the fact that the The Art & Soul of Greensboro

customs and laws born from Jim Crow delivered one of the most meaningful and long lasting relationships of Judy’s life. The memoir explores the life she shared with her family’s live-in domestic worker, a Black woman named Mattie Culp, who came to live with and work for the Kurtz family in Rock Hill, South Carolina, when she was 26 and Judy was 3. From the moment of Mattie’s arrival, she and Judy were close physically and emotionally. They shared a bedroom and a bed. (Mattie shared the single bathroom with Judy’s parents and two older siblings.) Judy and Mattie also shared one another’s love, and that love would cement their indescribably close bond up until Mattie’s death in 2007 at age 89.

“Our love was unwavering,” Judy writes in the book’s prologue.

“But it was, by definition, uneven.”

There is an old saying that writers write because we have questions, and while Judy has no questions about the depth of her love for Mattie or the depth of Mattie’s love for her, she has spent much of her adult life pondering questions about the era and place in which she was raised. Judy came of age in the 1940s and ’50s, and although she has spent decades living and raising a family in Charlotte, Rock Hill is the defining landscape of her literature.

“Rock Hill is in every book I’ve ever written,” she tells me one morning in early March. “It’s a love affair.”

But love, as Judy makes clear in writing about her relationship with Mattie, is a complicated emotion. While Judy’s childhood in Rock Hill was blissful on the surface, as an adult she looks back on her life with a discerning eye that is able to appraise the dichotomy of the Southern childhood. This act of remembering and then re-seeing brings a whiplash of honest realizations to the memoir’s pages.

For example, as a child, Judy was proud of the beautiful school with the new playground that she and other white children attended. She did not know that Mattie, who regularly walked Judy to school, walked her home and took her to play on the playground, had attended a Rosenwald School built for Black children in 1925 in the countryside 10 miles outside of Rock Hill. Judy only learned this information while writing her memoir, and she was able to find old photographs of the school: a two-room wood frame building with an outhouse, a far cry from where Judy had spent her school days.

As she grew older, Judy would wonder why Mattie and her boyfriend would sit in his car in the Kurtzes’ driveway and chat instead of going out on dates like regular couples did. “I wondered why they never went anywhere,” she writes. “I know now there was no place for those two Black people to go in Rock Hill.”

Life was good in the Rock Hill of Judy’s youth, but it was not always good to everyone. In one reminiscence, she recalls the lush gardens in her neighborhood where blossoms and blooms aboundO.Henry 29

The Creators of N.C. ed in manicured yards. But when she would least expect it, a snake could slither free from the grass and cross her path on the sidewalk where she and Mattie walked together. “Camellias and snakes,” Judy writes. “The particulars of our lives. The irregular ground on which our life stories were built.”

The irregular ground of Judy’s childhood was laid by her parents.

Her father owned a clothing store and went against local custom in the 1950s by hiring a Black saleswoman named Thelma to serve the all-white customers. (In one of the memoir’s most harrowing scenes, a white saleswoman’s husband shows up in the middle of the night at the Kurtz home and drunkenly demands that Thelma not be allowed to use the one restroom available to the store’s staff. Her father refused the request and sent the man on his way.) Judy’s mother kept the books at the store, and while Judy claims that her mother “couldn’t boil water,” she never missed an opportunity to celebrate, meaning that the Jewish Kurtz family hid Easter eggs and put up a Christmas tree every year.

These irregularities — going against local custom and religious practice — are somewhat easy to explain, considering that Judy describes her father as fair and her mother as someone who loved joy.

But there were other, harder to explain inconsistencies. The Kurtzes were a progressive family, so how could they employ a live-in domestic worker who never shared meals with them? Judy, the youngest child in the family, was being raised by a Black woman who, when just a child herself, had given birth to a daughter of her own named

Minnie. Why wasn’t Mattie raising her? Judy has spent much of her life pondering these questions, and she decided that taking them to the page was the best way to try to answer them, but the answers would not be easy to find, and even if Judy found them, could she trust how she had arrived there?

“Can we trust anything inside the system we were brought up in?” she writes.

Judy and I are standing at the dining room table in the third floor apartment she shares with her husband, Henry, near Queens University in Charlotte. Family photographs are scattered on the table in front of us. In the living room, my daughters Early and Juniper peck away at the piano while Mallory breaks down light-

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The Creators of N.C. ing equipment and talks to Henry. He stands with the cane he has used since recovering from what was supposed to be a routine back surgery that ended up briefly paralyzing him, resulting in years of physical therapy just to be able to stand and walk again.

Judy’s last memoir, Together, which was published in 2018 and received lavish praise, including a starred review from Library Journal, is about Henry’s surgery and its aftermath, but it is also about their long and loving marriage. I look down at the photos of Mattie and recognize her from the photograph on the cover of Together. In that photo, a newly married Henry and Judy are coming down the steps of her parents’ home while smiling friends toss rice into the air.

Mattie stands in the background, smiling as if her own youngest child has just gotten hitched.

I ask Judy, after a lifetime of knowing Mattie, what made her want to publish a memoir about her now.

“I think it felt right to publish it when I turned 80,” she says. “I thought, if I don’t do it now, I’m not going to do it, it won’t get done.”

She pauses, looks down at the photographs. One of them, a black and white portrait of Mattie taken around 1944, which was when she came to work for the Kurtz family, stares back at us. “I never thought I had the right to tell this story,” she says. “A privileged white child in the Jim Crow South talking about her Black live-in maid. The more details you hear, the worse it sounds.”

But over the years Judy came to understand that her and Mattie’s story differed from the stories some of Judy’s friends and acquain-

tances would tell about the hired women who had raised them. Judy often came away from those conversations with the full understanding that many of those people had not truly examined the inequity of those childhood relationships, choosing instead to focus only on the love Black women had shown their white charges, not the full scope of what the price of that love might have been.

“I don’t want to join them in that,” Judy says. “If my book did not really examine that situation with Mattie and me, then I wasn’t going to publish it.”

Child is full of Judy asking tough questions of herself, her family, and the place she has always called home. “How do I cross-examine the way it was?” she asks in one scene. “Can we ever tell the whole truth to ourselves?” she asks in another.

Child shows that truth — at least truth of a sort — can be found.

When she was a teenager, Mattie’s daughter Minnie learned that the woman she had long assumed was her aunt was actually her mother, and Mattie eventually put Minnie through college. She would end up earning a master’s degree, as would Mattie’s three grandchildren. The irregular ground of life’s stories. Camellias and snakes. Jim Crow and a lifelong connection that endures beyond death. As Judy writes in her closing lines, “It is possible for love to co-exist with ugliness.” OH Wiley Cash is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, is available wherever books are sold.

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O.Henry 31

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Home by Design

House Proud, Hard Core They don’t want your stuff

By Cynthia Adams

It took a pandemic to convince my

friends that their kids didn’t want their stuff.

Which is especially cruel, knowing what we have learned lately thanks to millennials out there in increasingly nostalgic Internet Land.

Sequestered at home — albeit beautiful ones — the house proud of a certain age dusted, cleaned, preened their gardens and behaved like the house-proud people they are. House proud in Southern-speak means those who don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink for tomorrow. They buff lipstick marks off wine glasses. They vacuum under the fridge.

But mortality was breathing down our necks during what a writer friend calls “the late unpleasantness,” lingering like an unwelcome houseguest.

Raising the question: When the house proud decamped to Valhalla, who would want their stuff? (In the South, there’s always a lot of stuff: china sets, crystal, flatware, porcelains and photographs.

Also, treasured oddities like Grandpa Bingo’s wooden radio.) As it happened, nobody belonging to their family tree agreed. Grasping this truth, my friends nearly fell off a branch.

Three of them persisted. Two kept storage units (!) to store things they no longer displayed. Another tried her ever-loving best to beg her offspring into accepting antique furniture and art.

Still no takers.

Personally, it hadn’t taken a Swedish death cleanse to convince me of the hard facts, having floated the “Interested, anyone?” question when good friend and attorney Charlie Younce updated our will.

Would anyone want our nostalgic curiosities?

True to the cliché, our loved ones’ silence was deafening.

Seemed minimalism was their new thing. Closets curated by Chairman Mao containing 10 white shirts and 10 black pants.

Mine bulged.

Nevertheless, I purged, stopping far short of becoming a minimalist. Minimalism forms a disconcerting void.

One reforming pack rat friend reported he wanted to cry after all but emptying his home after staging it for sale. “It’s just awful,” he moaned. “It echoes when I walk across the floor.” This was too much to bear. He yanked it off the market and restocked his bookshelves.

Writers wrote and bloggers posted about people like us using derisive terms. “Maximalism,” a recurring euphemism, barely hid disdain for “brown” furniture, chintz, wallpaper, valances and draperies. If attempting to be kind, they dubbed it “Bohemian.”

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Yet Bohemian conjured up tacky bead curtains and tie-dye bedspreads.

That was last year.

Without warning a worse décor term popped up, making me cringe: “granny chic.” Turned out, it was code for a maximalist revival. The young suddenly embraced old fashioned style with a strange fervor, even macrame and spider plants.

Then dropped another term: “millennial chic.” It looked, at least to my eye, exactly like “granny chic,” but, seems it was only a trend if millennials were in on it.

Nobody actually photographed grannies in busy chic interiors — only hipsters doing macrame.

And then this appeared: “grand millennial” style. Which means — well, I am not exactly sure. It seemed maximalism was being rebranded, better suiting the aesthetic of hip young art directors.

Granny chic didn’t quite do the job.

Hence a new moniker started popping up in design pubs and blogs: not old fashioned.

Bold fashioned!

Gah. Suddenly, millennial designer Rudy Saunders promoted all things prep, crazy for needlepoint and Lilly Pulitzer. He loved colorsaturated, Dorothy Draper/Greenbriar resort interiors.

Which leads to another, stupendous, design trend: cottagecore.

(Also, I fear, known as grandmacore. Sigh. Seems millennials love their grandmas. And British style.)

Cottagecore, or grandmacore, is what designer Brit Rachel Ashwell dubbed Shabby Chic. Which is what Brit Laura Ashley of twee prints and a lifestyle brand owned for decades, from 1954 until her untimely death.

Now Brit Paula Sutton, a charming British Hill House blogger, is coming on like a freight train, and her Georgian dream of a house made me tear up with, well, happiness.

Best of all? She’s middle aged.

With “brown” antiques and cushy pillows and china! And nary a word uttered about grandmas, nor cottagey porn.

It’s simply beautiful and cozy.

And, so sorry, kiddos, but it’s too late. The will is already written. OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor to O.Henry.

O.Henry 33

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The Pleasures of Life Dept.

Third Time’s the Charm Writing life into existence

By Cassie Bustamante

We sat at our homemade paver firepit,

the flames tickling the late spring sky as our tweens tossed a frisbee nearby and the dog licked any remaining bits of melted marshmallow from the grass.

My husband, Chris, looked at me nervously and said, “OK, I’m going to give you what you want.”

“Right now? The kids are right over there,” I giggled, knowing exactly what he meant. After all, we’d been discussing it for months.

And by discussing it, I mean I’d continued to badger him relentlessly with no plans to concede.

After our first attempt — not in front of the kids, mind you — two pink lines appeared on our pregnancy test. In awe, I showed Chris the evidence of our success. “We’ve still got it,” I gloated as we exchanged high fives.

Sadly, a week later, that new life slipped away as quickly as it had begun. I’d had two healthy pregnancies in my 20s. A miscarriage had always felt like something that happened to other people — not me.

Over the next year and a half, we continued to try for a third child, with the same outcome each time. Finally, we met with a specialist to get to the root of the problem, and I was put on a new prescription. I left her office confident that the next pregnancy would be ours to keep.

That summer, while my kids volunteered at a local vacation Bible school not far from my favorite bike trail, I pedaled along the dirt path that bordered the canal, listening to a favorite podcast that featured Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, as a guest.

At that moment, if someone had suggested I could find valuable life lessons from a popular cartoonist, I probably would have laughed. But I was a desperate woman on a mission. After listening to his incredible tale of using affirmations to manifest his heart’s desires, I decided to give it a go. At this point, what did I have left to lose?

When those two pink lines teased me yet again, I practiced what I’d learned. In my mind, I pictured myself holding my newborn baby, who’d be due in early April, and imagined how he would feel, warm and snuggly against my chest. I saw Chris standing next to the hospital bed as we basked in the glow of parental love. In my journal, an entire page was filled over and over with the words, “I will hold my baby in April.”

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

But it wasn’t meant to be. Frustrated by my foolish desire to believe simple affirmations could work maternal magic, I permitted myself to have a major cat-5 emotional meltdown over the cruelty of the universe.

My doctor pointed out there was another route we could take, but I had reached my limit. Mentally exhausted, I made an appointment with her just so that I could thank her and feel at peace with my decision to move on. I threw myself back into creativity and running, activities that had made me who I was before grief had cast its dark shadow.

Not long afterward, during a long run with a close friend, a wave of nausea hit me as we reached the summit of a challenging hill.

Assuming I was simply out of shape after taking so much time off, I brushed it off and kept moving. Back at home, I washed the salt of sweat and tears down the drain, allowing my body to cool down, but that queasiness continued.

Ironically, Chris and I hadn’t been “trying” this time around. We’d just found a moment to comfort each other in our heartache and it had led us here — to the earliest stages of pregnancy again. Instead of feeling overcome with joy, I actually feared this was just going to be another baby I’d never get to hold.

As it turned out, my farewell appointment with the specialist happened to already be on the calendar. With Chris by my side, we shared the news and told her we would be going ahead with the next type of treatment — blood thinners — after all. She showed us how to perform my daily injections, wrote me a new prescription and sent us on our way with a due date: May 12, 2018. One day before Mother’s Day. Nervous weeks turned into hopeful months as my stomach swelled with our growing baby boy. As I lay on the doctor’s table one afternoon in late February, watching my son kicking away on the monitor, she said, “We’re going to have to schedule you to be induced a couple weeks early. Since you’re on blood thinners, we need you to be off them for 24 hours before delivery. Let’s get you down for the end of April.”

I will hold my baby in April.

On April 27, 2018, our family was made complete. Wilder is everything we’d hoped for wrapped up into a feisty, yet adorable, sandyhaired, blue-eyed package that lets him get away with way too much.

As for me, I’m a changed woman, a believer in the power of affirmations after receiving my greatest gift from the universe. And on the days when Wilder challenges me — he’s a Taurus, after all — I come back to this story and give thanks for my stubborn little miracle who was meant to be mine all along. OH Cassie Bustamante manages O.Henry’s digital content and writes and creates our weekly digital newsletter, O.Hey.

O.Henry 35

Home is a huge part of your life journey. We’re with you every step of the way.

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36 O.Henry

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Birdwatch

A Rare Bird

Searching for the Bachman’s sparrow

By Susan Campbell

Although

PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL MILLER

unquestionably the most soughtafter bird species in North Carolina, the Bachman’s sparrow does not, at first glance, seem very special. But once you search for this incredibly adapted little bird, you will realize how special it is. One of a handful of endangered species in our state, you will have to find the right spot to get a glimpse of this cryptic little creature.

Endemic to pine forests of the southeastern United States, Bachman’s sparrows are only found in the frequently burned, open understory of the Sandhills and inner coastal plain. The best time to locate one is to visit in the spring, when males spend much of their time singing from low perches. Otherwise, the birds are down low, foraging in the groundcover and virtually invisible. A local species, Bachman’s sparrows do not migrate in the fall but rather become even harder to find. As insects become scarce, they subsist on a variety of seeds during the colder months.

Bachman’s sparrows are bland-looking brown and white with just a splash of yellow at the bend of the wing (which you will miss unless you are looking carefully with binoculars). Their song is a

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

beautiful trill preceded by a single note. It carries a long way and is hard to pinpoint, in spite of the volume. And the nest, which is carefully constructed by the female, is an intricate cup of grasses at ground level. Often they will incorporate vegetation over the nest, creating a dome to protect the eggs and young from predation.

These birds are also unique in that they run, not fly, to evade potential threats. They will disappear into thick vegetation and have also been known to evade predators by diving into burrows dug by gopher tortoises — another species restricted to the sandy pine forests a bit farther south. More than anything, they are closely associated with longleaf pine and wiregrass, a plant community type that has become very rare over the last century. Habitat conversion and fire suppression have reduced the forests that they commonly inhabited by over 90 percent.

The individuals of the species were first noticed by one of the country’s most famous early ornithologists, John James Audubon.

He chose to give them the name Bachman’s sparrow after his local host for the expedition, South Carolina clergyman John Bachman (pronounced BACK-man). Indeed, many birders have followed in Audubon’s footsteps, searching for this unique, secretive little survivor. Should you do the same, you just might be rewarded with a brief look at one of our state’s most prized inhabitants. OH Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife photos and reports.

She can be reached at susan@ncaves.com.

O.Henry 37

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Wandering Billy

Hair-raising Adventures

Mullets, hawks and pomps, oh my!

By Billy Eye “For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.”

— Johnny Carson

Sixty years ago, when I was a wee

Rock’s Hair Shop

“If Hair Is Cut Well It Grows Out Well” was Lawndale’s slogan where, above the silver-capped jar of combs soaking in bright blue Barbicide, was a mounted metal sign from a decade earlier displaying all of polite society’s approved Red Blooded American Boy hairstyles: Flattop, Butch, Crew, College Contour, Little League or Ivy League. There were other, more adventuresome options like the Forward-Combed Boogie, Flattop Boogie and the Hollywood — no way my old man was going to allow any of that city slicker nonsense atop his upstanding offspring. (Although it should be noted that dear ol’ Dad wore his hair Flattop Boogie style.)

Considered a sort of golden age for barbering, in 1962 Lawndale was one of around 70 similar shops dotting the city, 13 downtown.

Keep in mind, the population of Greensboro was less than half of what it is today. Four years ago, I counted two dedicated barber

shops downtown. Today, as part of a nationwide cultural shift, there are at least seven barber shops concentrated in the center city.

On South Elm, just shy of Lewis Street, is Rock’s Hair Shop, where I spoke with their mane man Grey Dominguez. “When I was growing up we had some of the worst haircuts,” Dominguez recalls of the 1990s. “I don’t think our parents really cared what we looked like. I ultimately ended up going to those Sport Clips types of places.” Nowadays parents are more circumspect when it comes to their child’s appearance. “There are some 10-year olds who walk out of here with better haircuts than I’ve had in my adult life.”

Open in Greensboro since 2018 and offering a wide-open, casual environment, Rock’s delivers what you might call masculine grooming services, plus complimentary craft beer or other beverages with your cut. Your traditional experience with a twist, where they take a much more detail oriented approach to haircutting, along with old school straight razor shaves, beard trimming, vivid or permanent color, and everything else one thinks of from a traditional barber, only with an ABC permit so you don’t have to go looking around for a bottle shop or beer bar to celebrate having your ears lowered.

Rock’s is a “very inclusive and affirming shop” with clients all over the gender spectrum, all races. “We have clients that will bring their laptops and work at the bar,” Dominguez says. “Don’t tell their bosses but they’ll be sipping a beer on a conference call while they’re here.”

While Dominguez is a licensed cosmetologist, “I realized pretty early on into my education that I should have gone to barber school.

I guess I really cared about short hair, specifically men’s hair.”

Dominguez sees his shop as somewhere “between traditional barber

young’un entering first grade, every couple of months or so, like when a holiday was approaching, my father marched my younger brother and me up to Lawndale Barber Shop to have our heads reshaped, curls cascading to the linoleum in piles, hair buzzed into distant memory on the sides, leaving slightly longer flops on top. Ed Jones was lead barber at this particular clip joint consisting of three chairs inside a glass storefront at the tip of a strip of shops in front of the railroad tracks directly across from Plaza Shopping Center.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 39

Wandering Billy

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40 O.Henry

Gene’s Styling & Barber Service shops and modern salons. We’re sort of a fusion of the two. I actually hear a lot from clients, this is the place they didn’t know they needed.”

While most folks are looking for a practical hairstyle they can dress up or down, some more extreme looks from the distant past are unexpectedly rearing their not-sougly heads again. “Mullets, pompadours and hawk styles have snuck back as common trends for sure,” Dominguez notes.

“We started seeing a handful of requests for them as early as three or four years ago with a big uptick in the past year or two.”

Granted, they’re not the most common style requested, “but they’re frequent enough to not be surprising when someone wants it done.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum there’s Gene’s Styling & Barber Service on Spring Garden, across from Scrambled.

Frank Dorrity has been stylin’ and profilin’ in Greensboro for 65 years now, 61 of those revolutions around the sun in the same spot at Gene’s, back when a haircut cost a buck and a quarter. “I came here as the fifth barber in 1961,” he says. Gene’s, he says, has been open since 1957: “The tremendously amazing thing is this little 20 x 35 foot room, the entire world has come through here. Every denomination in the world has been through that door right there. And that’s the original door!”

Dorrity is a proud graduate of WinstonSalem Barber School, after 87 years still the area’s finest academy for learning the disciThe Art & Soul of Greensboro

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O.Henry 41

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Wandering Billy pline. As to why he chose to become a follicle butcher, “Well, it was cotton mills, mines or barbering,” he confides. Half joking.

The heyday for straight edge barbering was the early 1960s. “We were doing a lot of business then,” Dorrity says. “A lot of flattops and different kinds of buzz cuts.” In 1964 The Beatles burst on the scene, and over the next decade men’s hairstyles went from styled to wild.

“We called it the hippie days, the long hair days,” Dorrity recalls of the mad, mod late ’60s. “We lost a great portion of our barbers across the whole country, most did not know how to cut long hair and we didn’t have anyone to instruct us, to show us how. When we finally figured it out, we put up a sign that said, ‘Leave it long but let us shape it.’”

Of course, Dorrity and the crew at Gene’s routinely clip kids’ hair, women as well, same as it ever was. Business remains brisk. When I dropped by on a Friday afternoon, chairs were swiveling, phones ringing constantly. “These years have been a real blessing,” Frank says. “I’ve made some wonderful friends and I still have one or two original clients.”

That’s no exaggeration, if anything an understatement. What are the odds? I actually know one of those loyal customers that keeps coming back decade after decade.

“I’ve been going to Gene’s since my first haircut, before Frank came to work there in 1961,” local raconteur Randy Barnes tells me. “I remember having to sit on the board they used to put across the arms of the barber chair. Back then Charlie Sneed ‘Sneedy’ cut my hair.” Barnes also points out that while the sign on the front window was freshly painted a couple of years ago, the building itself hasn’t been refurbished since the Eisenhower administration.

When I spoke with Frank Dorrity about the new trend in chop shops like Rock’s downtown where you can get cropped, coiffed, then leave half crocked, Dorrity confesses, “We would not want customers to be drinking beer in our place ’cause we want ‘em to make it out the door.” The original door from 1957 mind you. OH Billy Eye cuts his own hair as is fairly obvious if you’ve ever met the guy.

42 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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44 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

May 2022 Forgetting Age

Has the age of forgetting just begun?

I'm glad to forget some things but others I want to hold on to as if they’ve begun, as if they’re new, yet familiar, like dawn.

Here comes the age of where-has-it-all-gone, when I wonder what may have been before: the color of someone’s eyes, someone who lived nearby, someone whose name I once knew, the certain way a dark cloud haunts the sky.

But like the cloud, they’re wisps and mist and last only long enough to become heavy, to fall into unknowing. Sweet and small.

I grasp at them. I know they will be missed, as memory, like soft rain, starts to fall.

— Paul Jones

Paul Jones is the author of Something Wonderful.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 45

SPRING FORTH

Greensboro!

Get outside and enjoy the lusty month of May

O

ne of the things we love most about life in the Gate City is the abundance of fantastic outdoor activities four seasons of the year. We confess, however, a slight but delicious prejudice in favor of springtime in The Boro — especially cometh the lusty month of May, when we find ourselves involuntarily and shamefully warbling bits of Frederick Loewe’s sensuous anthem to the month from the musical Camelot: It’s May, it’s May . . . the lusty month of May! That darling month when everyone throws self control away It's time, to do, a wretched thing or two And try to make each precious day, one you'll always rue It's May, it's May, the month of yes you may The time for every frivolous whim, proper or imThe lusty month of May! With lusty apologies to Queen Guinevere for such wretched singing, you probably get the point. It’s time to join the amorous birds and bees, ye old (and young) fellow citizens of the Camelot of the Triad. In order to soak in the glories of springtime in the city, we put our heads together and came up with nine of our favorite outside pursuits when spring is in the air!

— The musical cast of O.Henry

46 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Strut Your Stuff in The Neighborhood

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BERT VANDERVEEN

We maintain that the glory of G’town is the supreme walkability of our beautiful neighborhoods. Is there a better place on the planet to stroll with family or friends and Fido than on a perfect spring morning or late afternoon in the neighborhood you call home? We think not.

Multitudes of joggers, walking groups, solo hikers, health nuts, senior hoofers and a half a million pooches walking their pampered owners agree. Frankly, we can’t think of a better way to finally meet your neighbors and learn what’s really happening just around the block.

Outdoor Market

Follow your nose and BYO bag to the corner of Kensington and Market, where the air is lush with the smell of spring veggies and blooms, plus freshly baked bread, bagels and confections. The Corner Farmers Market features an array of vendors peddling produce and hand-made artisanal goods. Info: www.cornermarketgso.com/ The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 47

Sip ’n Cycle with Lawn Service

48 O.Henry

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF LAWN SERVICE

Parenthood is a walk in the park now that Lawn Service is at LeBauer Park. Sip wine, beer or caffeinated beverages while refueling the littles with ice cream after a romp on the playground. Plus, ride like the wind — or a gently blowing spring breeze — every Thursday during cycle club. Info: www.littlebrotherbrew.com/lawnservicegso

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

High Time to Get Moving

PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF GET:OUTDOORS; SKYWILD

Summon your inner George or Jane of the Jungle and hit SKYWILD’s treetop course at the Greensboro Science Center. Nervous?

Don’t be — a guide will show you the ropes.

Info: www.skywild.org

Women on the Water

Don’t flip your lid — or your kayak.

GetOutdoors Women on the Water — a.k.a GO WOW — is WOWing those who want to learn what you can do with a paddle and a kayak by offering classes and special events. Info: www.shopgetoutdoors.com

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 49

Diamonds Are for Summer

50 O.Henry

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GREENSBORO GRASSHOPPERS

Play ball! Or — better yet — sit back, have a beer and watch the Greensboro Grasshoppers cover all the bases at a home game. And if the crack of the bat isn’t explosive enough for you, don’t miss Friday and Saturday night fireworks.

Info: www.milb.com/greensboro

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANN VANSANT; COURTESY OF GREENSBORO PARKS & RECREATION

Everyone Can Play at Keeley Park

Come one, come all to the Up in the Air inclusive playground at Keeley Park, where everyone can get in on the action, thanks to accessibility ramps galore. Also at this park, play a full 18-hole disc golf course and cool off on the refreshing spray ground. Truly something for everyone. Info: www. greensboro-nc.gov/

Watch the Birdie

Because of the city’s unique location in the busy Southern migratory flyway, Greensboro has been a designated wild bird sanctuary for many decades, a distinction earned in large part by the efforts of the Piedmont Bird Club, one of the oldest such clubs in the state. Founded by UNCG bird lovers in February 1938, the club runs regular field trips and a host of educational programs throughout the year. PBC members are knowledgeable and super friendly — always welcoming newcomers. Info: www.piedmontbirdclub.org OH

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 51

Arboreal Awakening

In a city of trees, spring heralds a rhapsody of foliage and hope

By Ross Howell Jr. • Photographs by Mark Wagoner When is the best time to plant a tree? Twenty years ago. When is the next best time? Now. — Chinese saying, in The Overstory, a novel by Richard Powers

L

ately on walks with our rescue dog, Sprinkles, I’ve been thinking about the trees in Fisher Park, the neighborhood where my wife, Mary Leigh, and I live.

Enormous willow oaks, maples, big pecan trees and Southern magnolias line our streets and yards, shading dogwoods, redbuds and crape myrtles. Thick beeches guard the park’s tributary of Buffalo Creek, and tall gums scatter walkways with their prickly, annoying balls.

The trees are serene and magical.

And old.

A quality I share with the trees. We’re approaching the end of our natural lives, becoming unsteady and expensive to maintain.

Being a 2-year-old dog, Sprinkles devotes no attention to the passage of time — the present moment suiting her just fine. She heeds the trees not at all unless a squirrel happens to scramble up one.

But in the 12 years Mary Leigh and I have lived in Fisher Park, thunderstorms have brought down enormous willow oaks, one crashing on the property owner’s car and splintering a neighbor’s redbud tree. Old age has claimed splendid white oaks. Disease has laid low big maples and dogwoods. Ice storms have wreaked havoc, uprooting oaks, gums, beeches, hemlocks and ash trees and shattering magnolias in the park.

Circle of life, right? What can you do?

Turns out, a lot.

Sally Pagliai is the owner of Studio Pagliai Landscape and Garden Design in Greensboro. A native Californian, she holds a degree in landscape architecture from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

Not long ago, she was hired for a project in the Montibello neighborhood, located off Horse Pen Creek Road.

“While there were strict rules about landscaping, the homeowners weren’t abiding by them — some had placed garden gnomes, whirligigs or pink flamingos in front of their houses,” Pagliai says. The homeowners’ association brought her in to review the situation and

52 O.Henry

to make recommendations for rules that would improve neighborhood aesthetics.

It was a hot July day when Pagliai first visited Montibello. As she drove in, she was impressed with how attractively the entrance was landscaped with trees and shrubs.

“But once I got inside the development,” she says, “it was like a moonscape. The landscape was bleached, scorched by the summer heat. There was no canopy of trees.”

Pagliai knew what Montibello needed wasn’t another set of rules.

What it needed was a forest.

But how could she convince them?

“When I was growing up in California, we used to visit Carmel,” Pagliai says. “There were all these funky little houses.” She explains that as the town grew, homeowners made the decision to preserve the trees, even ones growing in the middle of some of the streets.

“Now the trees make the place unique, and those same funky little houses today are remarkably expensive,” Pagliai says.

She would make an economic argument to Montibello’s homeowners, demonstrating how trees can increase home values, augmented by information about the value of trees environmentally.

Trees clean the air. They significantly reduce summer temperatures in urban areas and lower electrical bills. They absorb runoff from streets and sidewalks, reducing flooding.

And they’re beautiful.

“When you consider their majesty, their sculptural and textural complexity,” Pagliai says, “trees represent the very best of nature.”

Pagliai presented a comprehensive design plan that explained the economic and aesthetic benefits of planting hundreds of trees — evergreen and deciduous — that was reviewed by a neighborhood committee. They approved.

“Montibello ended up spending more than $100,000,” Pagliai says.

Trees were planted in stages at different times of year when various species enjoyed optimal chances of survival. The added benefit? The economic impact on individual homeowners was spread out over time.

Improvement in property values and quality of life in the neighborhood has been profound.

A more recent Pagliai project also involved the planting of hundreds of trees.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

“The Healing Gardens at Cone Health Cancer Center are really the work of my heart,” Pagliai says. “I lost both my father and a husband to cancer.”

When her father was being treated at the Stanford Cancer Institute in California, Pagliai could find solace outside the facility in a garden with trees.

“That was real salvation,” Pagliai says. “Trees are so life-giving.”

But at the time Pagliai’s husband, Stefano, was being treated at Cone Cancer Center, there was no garden at all.

“The earth next to the facility was barren and toxic, with rainwater flooding from the parking garage into Buffalo Creek,” she says. Worse, the area was laden with trash and concrete construction debris.

“I’d be in a room with my husband, who was just so sick,” Pagliai continues, “and there was no place outside where I could find any peace.”

Volunteering her own time, Pagliai began sketching out plans for the Healing Gardens and fund-raising began.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

The first garden installation was a barrier of 234 trees planted along Wendover Avenue. The trees muffle traffic sounds from the busy highway and provide a living green wall for the sanctuary just beyond Buffalo Creek.

Within the Healing Gardens, volunteers have planted more than 350 additional trees, including native river birch (Betula nigra), bald cypress (Taxodium distichum), sweet bay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana), tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica), red maple (Acer rubrum) and a variety of wax myrtles and cedars.

At the entrance to the gardens, Pagliai created a row of columnar English oaks (Quercus robur), compact trees that grow narrow and upright — excellent for tight spaces. Entering the garden, the oaks offer separation from the concrete parking lots and sidewalks.

“Trees are some of my best friends,” Pagliai concludes. “They’ve brought me peace. They bring me joy.”

Randal Romie, president of Designature, Landscape Architects ASLA, is a resident of Sunset Hills.

“People forget that the 100-year-old willow oaks falling over in O.Henry 53

our neighborhood were once the woods that drew people here to build houses,” Romie says. He explains that with more roadways and sidewalks and the increased number of houses, the oaks’ broad root systems no longer have access to the abundance of nutrients available in natural woodlands.

“They’re not going to be 200-year-old trees,” Romie says. “And when we lose them, we’re losing a sense of time.”

But Romie and other Sunset Hills residents now have money in their neighborhood association to buy new trees for homeowners who want them and are willing to pay a small deposit to the fund. So far, the association has supplied residents with some 30 native trees.

North Carolina native trees are a passion for Romie. For him, they’re an essential element in a millennia-old ecosystem of plants and creatures always held in spiritual reverence by Native American cultures.

“We’re part of nature,” Romie says. “When we connect with nature, we feel better. It’s like home.”

In Romie’s experience, people find neighborhoods with a canopy of trees more attractive than neighborhoods without them.

54 O.Henry

“All we’re doing is getting back to what Greensboro is famous for — neighborhoods like Fisher Park, Lindley Park, where there are trees in every yard,” Romie says. “They’re what make Greensboro green.”

Beyond his efforts in Sunset Hills, Romie has devoted some 30 years of volunteer work to Greensboro Beautiful and has served as co-chair of the urban forestry committee. Urban forestry is a relatively new concept, where trees are seen as critical elements of a healthy urban environment. In some North Carolina cities, urban foresters plant and maintain trees, support appropriate tree selection and forest preservation, and conduct research and education, promoting the benefits trees provide.

Greensboro Beautiful is a nonprofit organization supported by private funds from individuals, corporations and foundations. Its budget assists public gardens like the Greensboro Arboretum and supports a variety of tree-planting and education programs, like NeighborWoods. Through the parks and recreation department, the city of Greensboro provides full-time staff, office space and equipment.

In this public-private partnership, the city field operations departThe Art & Soul of Greensboro

ment typically digs the holes for tree planting and the planning department provides the expertise of city arborist Judson Clinton to select proper varieties and coordinate with public utilities.

“I may be the planning force behind a project,” says Clinton, who studied forestry, natural resources and silviculture at Purdue University, “but Greensboro Beautiful is really the driving force.”

Greensboro Beautiful provides volunteers, supplies and plant material, while master gardeners help with instruction. As many as 300 volunteers may show up for a planting program — people from all walks and stages of life.

Past special events include an Arbor Day celebration, when Greensboro Beautiful organized more than 250 volunteers to plant 150 trees in the Warnersville neighborhood, the oldest African American community in Greensboro.

After a 2018 tornado cut a path of destruction through the Kings Forest neighborhood and its park, Greensboro Beautiful awarded the area with a 2019 NeighborWoods community tree planting.

Volunteers replanted trees throughout the neighborhood and park, supplying additional trees to property owners who requested them.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

In 2021 the Audubon Society teamed up with the NeighborWoods program to plant 150 canopy and understory trees in the Friendly Homes neighborhood and surrounding park, and along the Benjamin Parkway Greenway. Many ash trees in the area had been killed by the emerald ash borer, and other canopy trees had suffered dieback due to age and drought.

A new planting initiative was announced March 1, when the United Way of Greater Greensboro opened its centennial celebration by planting a tree at its Yanceyville Street headquarters.

“We’ve partnered with Greensboro Beautiful and Greensboro Housing Authority to plant 100 trees,” says Michael Cottingham, United Way’s vice president, marketing and communications. “In addition to our continued work to help people leave poverty, we hope these trees will serve as a symbolic reminder of the lasting impact we create when we work together to help others.”

Another friend of trees is Elizabeth Link, a manager in the planning department of the city of Greensboro. Among her responsibilities is administering tree planting regulations for new commercial and multifamily residential construction. She holds a landscape O.Henry 55

architecture degree from North Carolina A&T State University.

She’s also a 25-year resident of Lindley Park.

“We’ve had many old willow oaks die or get knocked down in storms,” Link says.

At her house two old oak trees came down, especially significant because they shaded the house’s southern exposure.

“Our summer electric bills went up,” Link says. And she noticed more standing water after rainfall because the root systems no longer absorbed it.

Link and her husband subsequently replanted trees — a white oak and a red oak. But it will take 30 years for their effects to be felt.

“That’s why it’s so important for neighborhoods to protect their trees,” Link says.

When people ask her about trees, she says she often finds herself telling them what not to do.

“Don’t use herbicides of any kind. Don’t pile up mulch around the trunk of a tree. Don’t let vines climb it. Don’t drive your car over its roots,” Link says.

“But there’s one thing I always tell them,” she adds. “Trees are good.”

She pauses, then repeats, “Trees are good.”

Still, for all their benefits, trees make some homeowners anxious.

“I understand the concern people have with big trees around the house,” says Drew Horne, manager at Guilford Garden Center.

56 O.Henry

“There’s debris and sometimes fallen branches after a storm.”

“But that’s just part of the risk,” Horne continues. He believes that whenever people coalesce with nature, there’s risk.

“When you plant a tree, you’re not planting it for yourself,” Horne says. “It’s like a gift you make to the future.”

One evening when I was doing research for this piece, Sprinkles and I took another walk in Fisher Park. We were emerging from the woods’ edge, and I notice lights in the windows of the Julian Price house.

Movement catches my eye. A red-shouldered hawk settles on the limb of a dogwood just feet away. I stop in my tracks.

The hawk scans the ground, then drops to the forest floor right next to us.

Even Sprinkles stands still.

The hawk cocks its wild, pitiless head and looks right at me.

Then it lifts its wings, snagging with its talons a vole that had been invisible till that moment, and flies off.

With the hawk now in past tense, Sprinkles tugs at her lead, ready to move on.

But I linger for a moment, in a cathedral of trees. OH Ross Howell Jr. is a freelance writer. For information on the gardens, activities and volunteer opportunities at Greensboro Beautiful, visit www.greensborobeautiful.org.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Treasure Trees

I

n the past, Guilford County established a Treasure Tree Program to recognize the largest, rarest and oldest tree specimens in the area. The purpose was to raise public awareness of these valuable and irreplaceable living things, increase owners’ awareness of their importance and encourage good stewardship. The program was also designed to help protect all trees in our region from indiscriminate removal or damage due to development and urbanization.

Here are examples. You might want to check trees in your own neighborhood. You may discover a treasure of your own.

American Beech (Fagus grandiflora), North Oaks Subdivision, 126 feet tall, crown spread 75 feet, trunk diameter 43 inches.

American Elm (Ulmus americana), Forest Valley Drive, 126 feet tall, crown spread 45 feet, trunk diameter 26.9 inches.

Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum), Twin Lakes Park, 98 feet tall, crown spread 26.6 feet, trunk diameter 34.6 inches.

Bottlebush Buckeye (Aesculus parviflora), Kello Drive, 18 feet

spread 112.5 feet, trunk diameter 43.25 inches.

Post Oak (Quercus stellata), Cypress Street, 84 feet tall, crown spread 84.5 feet, trunk diameter 50 inches.

Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum), West Friendly Avenue, 82.5 feet tall, crown spread 67.25 feet, trunk diameter 50.4 inches.

Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), Guilford College Road, 148 feet tall, crown spread 71 feet, trunk diameter 63.9 inches. Called “The Underground Railroad Tree,” it may date from the year 1713.

Weeping Willow (Salix babylonica), Twin Lakes Park, 60 feet tall, crown spread 54 feet, trunk diameter 50.4 inches.

White Oak (Quercus alba), North Church Street, 135 in height, crown spread 90.5 feet, trunk diameter 62.5 inches.

Willow Oak (Quercus phellos), Cypress Street, 138 feet tall, crown spread 84 feet, trunk diameter 62.5 inches.

Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis), Trosper Road, 40 feet tall,

For the complete Treasure Tree list, go to www.greensboro-nc.gov/ departments/planning/learn-more-about/trees-and-urban-forestry/ treasure-trees-program.

A convenient place near downtown Greensboro to see trees is Green Hill Cemetery. Walking tours are available through Friends of Green Hill Cemetery, a non-profit group that has identified some 700 tree varieties in the cemetery’s 51 acres. According to www.monumentaltrees.com, you’ll come across these big specimens, and more.

Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica), Twin Lakes Park, 103 feet tall,

years old.

Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda), High Meadows Court, 110 feet in

feet tall.

tall, crown spread 18 feet, trunk diameter 8.3 inches.

Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica), Twin Lakes Park, height of 87 feet,

crown spread 55 feet, trunk diameter 39.5 inches.

Dogwood (Cornus florida), Woodvale Drive, 28 feet tall, crown spread 23 feet, trunk diameter 23 inches. crown spread 9 feet, trunk diameter 9 inches.

crown spread 35.8 feet, trunk diameter 36.8 inches.

height, crown spread 40.3 feet, trunk diameter 40.3 inches.

Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra), North Church Street, 133

feet tall, crown spread 87.5 feet, trunk diameter 55.2 inches.

Pecan (Carya illinoensis), Williams Dairy Road, 94 feet tall, crown The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Shortleaf Pine (Pinus echinata), 78 feet tall and more than 85

Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), more than 50 Bigleaf Magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla), estimated to be 32 feet in height.

Northern Catalpa (Catalpa speciosa), height of about 66 feet, trunk diameter of nearly 48 inches. OH O.Henry 57

Don’t Try It

’til You’ve Nocced It

Growing your own mushrooms gets a boost in Saxapahaw

By Maria Johnson

58 O.Henry

W

earing the knit headband and sun-kissed cheeks of an avid outdoorswoman, Jeanne Verrecchio traces her mushroom obsession to the COVID pandemic.

Last summer, she spent some of her down time watching the Netflix documentary Fantastic Fungi.

“I said, ‘This is what I want to do. I want to learn about mushrooms,’” says Verrecchio, her Brooklyn accent underlining her earnestness.

She slipped down the fungal slope quickly. She read up on edible mushrooms.

A friend up the street gave her a growing kit for Christmas.

In January, when Verrecchio retired from her job as an oncology nurse at Duke University Medical Center, her colleagues threw her a going-away party in The Art & Soul of Greensboro

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARIA JOHNSON

a conference room. They hung paper mushrooms from the ceiling.

They gave her an accent pillow covered with a charming mushroom print. They decorated her cake with little plastic mushrooms. They presented her with gold-plated mushroom earrings.

Wait. There’s more.

In February, Verrecchio took a mushroom foraging class led by an expert in Durham.

And now, on a nippy Saturday morning, Verrecchio and 15 others stand in a semicircle in a barnyard at Haw River Mushrooms, in the Alamance County community of Saxapahaw, using battery-powered drills to poke holes in logs perched on sawhorses in front of them.

In a few minutes, the students will begin noccing — short for inoculating and pronounced “knocking” — their logs with cultures that will grow into mushrooms. (In the first version, I spelled the word ‘noccing, but I nosed around on the internet and apparently in mushroom circles the slang word is spelled noccing, with no apostrophes and an extra “c”, so I guess we should spell it that way. If we were spelling a true contraction of inoculating, it would have one “c” and two apostrophes — `noc`ing — and that seems ungainly.)

Prepandemic, more than 200 people a year signed up for Haw River’s noccing classes, which were designed to make participants more fungi friendly.

“We want mushroom gardening to be as common as tomato gardening in North Carolina,” says Laura Stewart, who owns the farm with husband Ches. “Mushrooms grown on logs are about the most laid-back product you can add to your garden. They’re very resilient.”

COVID halted the noccing classes in 2020 and 2021, and the term inoculation took on a different meaning. But earlier this year, as the pandemic subsided in this country, the Stewarts and their employees resumed their noccing events, as well as mushroom foraging on the property.

Participants popped out like shiitakes after a rain.

Stewart attributes the burgeoning interest in mushrooms to several longstanding trends: A concern about the environment and a push for sustainable agriculture. A growing number of vegetarians in this country. An interest in the medicinal qualities of mushrooms, especially as anticancer agents.

The pandemic helped the fungal cause too.

Fantastic Fungi, the Netflix doc, sparked a wave of interest, she The Art & Soul of Greensboro

says. And some people started growing mushrooms as a socially distanced hobby. Count 14-year-old Alex McPherson in their number.

“I looked it up during quarantine,” she says. “I was bored, so I thought, ‘Mushrooms. Sure, why not?’”

Her father, Heath, followed her lead. They ordered a growing kit and marveled at the fungi that sprouted in Heath’s office in their north Raleigh home.

“It’s kind of like growing flowers,” says Heath. “There’s an aesthetic to it. The colors, the textures. It helps us to try different foods, too.”

Alex enjoys mushrooms with pasta. “Anything pasta,” she says.

For noccer Adam Dovenitz, who lives in Durham, pizza is a powerful motivator. He once grew blue oyster mushrooms and put them on a pie.

“They were amazing,” says Dovenitz, long a devotee of edible fungi. When he was 10, he experimented with inoculating logs and nearly caught his parents’ home on fire while melting wax to plug the nocc holes.

“I learned you don’t put out a wax fire with water,” Dovenitz says, throwing his hands apart with an explosive “PSHHHH!” to communicate the idea of “wax fire.”

“Now, I actually have good instruction.”

And how. The Stewarts have been full-time mushroom farmers for five years.

In March 2020, they moved to a 17-acre spread where they expanded their operation to several outbuildings, including an old railroad shipping container, two repurposed truck trailers and a new barn.

Their yield: 30 tons of mushrooms a year.

More than half the haul goes to 10 farmers markets in the Triangle and Triad.

Restaurants get the next biggest slice, about six tons.

The rest goes to subscribers of Community Supported Agriculture.

Eric Dragone and Susan Pizzuti of Carrboro buy the Stewarts’ O.Henry 59

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charges with a couple of nocc talks.

The Log Talk: You will select four logs of freshly cut oak, which is the best host for mushrooms. Other types of logs will work, but don’t use dead wood because it’s already growing stuff.

The Spawn Talk: You will receive cups of cultures — mashed mycelium — and an inoculator resembling a big brass syringe to inject the cultures into the log holes. You will have a choice of blue oyster, shiitake and lion’s mane mushrooms, but jab each log with only one variety of mushroom. More than one culture guarantees fungal war.

The pupils get to noccing.

Amber Brothers who runs Elijah’s Farm in the Rougement, hopes to add more mushrooms to the produce she sells at the Black Farmers’ Market in Durham, at another market in Henderson, and — one day, she hopes — at a market-on-wheels that she will drive into poor communities.

“I want to teach low-income kids about sustainability,” she says.

Already, she has converted part of her home into a mushroom growing center.

“My living room is covered in plastic, with vents out the windows,” she says.

Lori and Dan Seiler of Burlington are interested in the marketability of mushrooms as well.

Prepandemic, they enjoyed a special all-mushroom dinner prepared by a chef in Raleigh. When COVID dinged their janitorial business, they warmed to the idea of growing mushrooms as a side hustle on their five-acre place.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAM FROELICH

mushrooms at their local farmers’ market. They’re fond of the lion’s mane variety, which has a flavor similar to crab meat.

“She’s replaced most of the meat in our diets with mushrooms.” says Dragone, nodding proudly to Pizzuti.

Hoping to grow their own fungi, the young couple have signed up for the noccing class, which begins with a tour of the farm.

Stepping around cats, chickens and an Australian shepherdLabrador retriever mix named Isaac, students learn the basics of mushroom cultivation.

They see how the Stewarts make their own growing medium from locally sourced oak sawdust and soybean hulls. They hear how the Stewarts pasteurize and inoculate the medium with a rainbow of oyster mushrooms, cinnamon caps, black pearls, lion’s mane, shittake and the medicinal reishi.

They step into the earthy air of a trailer and witness how the cultures colonize — in plastic bags on racks made from metal pipes — into masses of white mycelium, the brainlike motherships of mushrooms.

Students then dip their feet into an anti-fungal bath and enter misty grow rooms, where scores of plastic bags have been slit open to reveal the fruit of the mycelium— plump buttons, domes, ruffles and fingers of mushrooms in luscious shades of blue, gray, rust, gold and cream.

“They’re beauuuuutiful,” coos Verrecchio, the former nurse.

Outside, after breaking for a cup of soup made from lemon grass, lion’s mane and coconut milk — “Do you have, like, six more gallons of this soup? It’s incredible,” says Dragone — Laura Stewart preps her

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARIA JOHNSON

“We said, ‘Why don’t we try it?’ We have trees that need to be cut,” says Lori.

To that end, they’re inoculating their logs with shiitake, lion’s mane and blue oyster cultures and daubing the holes with paraffin, while gently shooing a tabby cat who keeps jumping aboard to investigate.

Laura wraps up the class with a final address.

The Care Talk: Don’t let your logs get dirty. Don’t let them dry out. Set them in a shady spot out of the wind. Don’t worry if the paraffin peels off your nocc holes. And don’t worry about the myth that you should seal the ends of the logs, too.

“I think that’s a conspiracy spread by Big Wax,” Laura says with a grin, her blond ponytail protruding from the backside of her trucker hat.

Within a year, she advises, you should see mushrooms growing from your logs. Check them frequently.

“It’s a good experience to go out after a rainy day and realize, ‘Oh, I just made myself a meal,’” she says.

If your nocc is a bust, she counsels, contact the farm. She’ll give you another log.

“I want you to be successful,” says Laura, who, like her crop, is pretty laid back.

“Anything with farming pushes you into more systems thinking,” she says. “You realize, ‘OK, everything is related,’ and if that’s your thinking from the get-go, it makes you a little more empathetic.” OH Learn more at hawrivermushrooms.com.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Greensboro’s Johnny Appleseed The green thumb of Bill Craft

B

By Cynthia Adams • Photographs by Mark Wagoner

ill Craft, head of Craft Insurance and self-styled nature lover, could have spent his dollars on selfaggrandizing gestures.

But no. Over 81 years, Craft expended resources and muscle making Greensboro better, more colorful and definitely greener.

Wearing old shorts and battered sneakers, Craft took to the creek banks near the family home on Dover Road, rousing a few of his nine children to weed and play, creating a naturalized woodland “creek park.”

He toiled there and at other public spaces for 50 years until the end of his life.

Craft’s headstone at Forest Lawn Cemetery simply reads “Greensboro’s Johnny Appleseed.” Yet, according to a horticultural inventory, Craft planted almost everything but apples in the public spaces he beautified.

He singlehandedly planted and maintained more than 100 species of trees, shrubs and rare plantings in his pet project — a namesake park in Old Irving Park just south of Greensboro Country Club — Bill Craft Park. The “creek park” he created was a perfect backdrop for his father’s labors, says Daniel Craft. “He kind of had a blank slate. . . . Nobody [else] looked after them.” Worn, meandering and unpaved paths seemed perfect for walkers and children at play.

Nothing overly manicured.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

He invited others to fall in love with the great outdoors, as he had.

Adding dollops of color through plantings and taming overgrowth was enough; Craft knew when to step back from the canvas.

Resident Ann Robinson says the idea was “to create a walk in the woods.”

Her sons Will and Patrick Robinson spent hours playing there when young, making forts from culled bamboo and splashing in the creek with their dog, Nipper.

Craft was restless, possessing an unusual amount of energy. As an only child, he inherited his father’s business, dutifully leading it from 1954 until 1996 when his children took over. But he bolted outdoors as often as possible on a dizzying mission: beautifying grounds at St. Francis and Holy Trinity Episcopalian churches, as well as at St. Pius and Brightwood Christian Academy.

He also turned his attentions to Fisher Park, the Greensboro Science Center and Irving Park School.

Craft even kept a garden for seniors at Evergreens Nursing Center and took them flowers.

After graduating from Carolina, he served in the Coast Guard before marrying Joanne Brantley. They had six sons and three daughters. Craft’s Chevy S-10 pickup’s tag read: “9Younguns”.

David still has it.

Daniel recalls being “dragged to parks, to a playground or Scouts” on Saturdays. Craft led Boy Scout Troop 216 for years; all six sons O.Henry 63

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHELTON STYERS

earned their Eagle badge, like their dad.

David says their colorful father, turbocharged with energy, “didn’t like sitting around talking about things.” An understatement.

His favorite expression was, “Okey-doke.”

Robinson, whose family moved to Blair Street 25 years ago, soon encountered Craft’s energy. Despite his thatch of white hair, he carried buckets and buckets of water, tending plants.

“When we first moved to Blair Street,” Robinson remembers, “I ran into Bill in the park — working, planting as usual . . . and I told him that I had two boys who could help out if needed. He kind of nodded and pointed to our house on the corner to say, ‘Is that where you live?’” That Saturday morning, the doorbell rang, “and there was Bill with buckets and shovels. I opened the door and he said, ‘Where are those boys?’” Robinson woke her sons, and they returned exhausted.

The Craft boys related.

Equally fond of hiking and biking, Craft volunteered on Greensboro’s network of bike trails, which eventually extended through Lake Daniel, Latham Park and Lake Daniel Greenway, on the Benjamin Parkway.

Indefatigable and upbeat, Craft was “kind of a dreamer,” once driving a few of his children to Morehead City in search of Spanish Moss. He stuffed the station wagon, returning home the same day.

“The moss didn’t make it in our climate,” adds Daniel, “but it got us out of the house.”

Stories about Craft tumble out of family and friends.

After years of his beautification endeavors, the Chamber honored him in 1974. A comical exchange with philanthropist Joe Bryan became his favorite story.

“He got the Dolley Madison award the same night Joe Bryan got an award,” Daniel recalls.

“They both lived in Irving Park — knew each other. Dad started talking to him, and said, ‘I’m getting an award for my park.’ Joe says, ‘I’ve got a park named after me, too. But they don’t make me work in it.’”

The Bill Craft Park grew as colorful as its namesake. Craft’s sons estimate there are easily “l00 azaleas and camelias alone — his favorites.”

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Daniel mentions a 1990 summer date with his later wife, Kathy.

They were cycling toward Greenhill Cemetery and spotted a man working. “I think I said, ‘Oh, s—t,’” he spluttered.

“Kathy said, ‘What?’ ’’ Daniel recognized the unmistakably tan, wiry figure of his father.

“There he is, tennis shoes, no shirt, and a black Speedo bathing suit, planting a tree! That’s how she met him.”

David groans at the Speedo story, saying, “Dad was just living.

Didn’t care about judgment . . . I thought he was a kind of a nut when I was a teenager.”

But they admired how their father juggled a vocation and fatherhood with many interests, never missing dinners. He watched no television, and read with the same fever that he brought to gardening.

His sons say he took pleasure “in very basic things.”

Sons No. 9 (Daniel) and No. 8 (David) remained in Greensboro as adult siblings scattered.

If there is an apple tree, seems the Craft sons did not fall far from it. Daniel also likes to do his own thing. “I don’t need validation for what I do.”

He points out that David has been instrumental in building trails and creating the Haw River State Park. David points out Daniel’s devotion to the Bill Craft Park auxiliary.

Ann and Russ Robinson were also among original members.

“The auxiliary started after Mr. Craft passed away . . . We were in the group that got it going with the Crafts and other neighbors — many of whom were friends and contemporaries of Bill’s,” she recalls.

A dozen or so auxiliary members meet twice annually at the Bill Craft Park sign, sharing donuts and coffee the Robinsons bring before weeding, pruning and clearing.

Years ago, Styers helped with an inventory that totaled 117 plantings. The inventory documented varieties of dogwoods, hollies, birches, buckeyes, elm, redwood, magnolias, cherries and fruit trees, plus nut trees, hemlock, pines, persimmon, sweet gum, oaks, spruces, cedars, maples, cypress, and even unusual palms, roses, jasmine, lilac and anise.

Shelton Styers documents images on the Bill Craft Park Auxiliary Facebook page (www.facebook.com/groups/164265200263243/).

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

On workdays, stories emerge about the man who inspired it all.

“We control the invasives. Prune some things here and there,” Daniel says. “One of Dad’s biggest regrets was planting bamboo there.” He tackles the dreaded bamboo first.

For the Robinsons, the park became important to their sense of community. “Our most recent park project has been very fun,” says Ann. “There was a really big Ash tree that came down in front of our house in the park. It was during COVID. I’d been involved in a fundraiser in the mountains that involved making wood-turned bowls from a tree that came down and thought we could perhaps do the same for Craft Park.”

Woodworker, Rick Andrews made wooden bowls and ornaments that were sold last year.

“We even had one bowl that we gave to Rip Bernhardt — an old friend of Bill’s who, although he lives at WellSpring now, always tries to come at least for the coffee before the clean-up and visit. He was very touched by the bowl we gave him and to have a ‘piece of the park’ and asked me to take his picture on the stump of the old Ash tree to send to his friends.”

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

David adds, “One of his buddies, probably 20 years ago, said, one of your dad’s greatest skills was he can talk to the janitor of the company and the CEO of the company and make them feel equally important.”

In 1991, the Greensboro Interclub Council recognized Craft’s outstanding civic leadership: a Jaycee, and a Red Cross and Kiwanis member, he served on most all the civic organizations. He joined nearly every outdoor group, including the Piedmont Appalachian Trail Hikers, the Guilford Wildlife Club and more.

David muses. “Dad used to say that being in the insurance business made him a good living and enabled him to do what he wanted to do . . . but if he could have been something else, he would have been a college professor.”

No doubt, a botanist. OH Adopt a Park Adopting a park helps keep public parks beautiful.

Contact Alex Alexandra Zaleski, the city’s volunteer coordinator, at (336)–373–7507.

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House Of Prayer

High Point restaurateurs Tu and Todd Sen revere the history of their Johnson Street home

By Maria Johnson • Photographs by Amy Freeman

66 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

T

he real estate listing popped up on Tu Sen’s Facebook page around midnight.

She went running to find her husband, Todd, who was minding a backyard fire pit with the couple’s daughter Tiffany Vanhpraseuth and godson Christian Thomas.

The family had just gotten home from working at their restaurant, 98 Asian Bistro in High Point.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, Todd, my dream house is for sale! We have to see it!’” Tu remembers.

Todd knew which house she meant, a wide-set Prairie-style gem that would fit right into Oak Park, Ill., where famous architect Frank

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Lloyd Wright lived and worked.

Built in 1910, Tu’s dream house sat squarely in High Point’s Johnson Street Historic District on the eastern edge of downtown.

Officially, the place was called the Burnett-McCain House, after the structure’s first two owners.

A century later, whenever Tu and Todd passed the house at the corner of Johnson Street and East Farriss Avenue, Tu would ask Todd to put on the car’s emergency flashers and stop at the curb so she could get out, jab a couple of incense sticks in the corner of the yard, light them and pray to the house, asking permission to live there and take care of the structure some day.

Todd knew that Tu loved the house because it looked Asian, with O.Henry 67

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its simple horizontal lines and deep front porch.

He knew, too, that she thought it would be a good home for the many Buddha statues that she kept in her prayer room, a shrine she created inside a storage shed at their suburban High Point home.

But even in the face of Tu’s excitement about the historic property, Todd was overcome by worries about money — and by an unspoken feeling that people like him and Tu, who came to this country as child refugees from war-torn Southeast Asia in the 1970s, shouldn’t, and couldn’t, live in a big house like that.

“We can’t afford it,” he told her that night. Undaunted, Tu made an appointment to see the house the next morning. After the showing, she called Todd. “We have to make an offer,” she said.

The house was charming and sophisticated, she reported. It was full of modern furniture and — although the owners weren’t Buddhists — it contained several Buddhas already. “I said, ‘No wonder I liked it,’” she recalls.

The owners were asking $350,000. They had three offers already.

Tu — who had a good idea of what she and Todd could afford — wanted to offer $358,990. Cash.

Todd knew how determined his wife could be when she wanted something. Usually, he was happy with the outcome. “OK,” he said. “Do it.”

They made an offer.

A few days later, Tu toured the house again. This time, she took fresh fruit as an offering, spread it on a white sheet in the foyer, lit 10 white candles and The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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had a chat with the house.

“I said, ‘I’m here. You already know me. If you want me to be your next caretaker, choose me. If you feel I’m not the right person, I will accept it.’”

Two weeks later, the agent called. The owners had taken their offer.

The Sens moved into their new-old home in November 2019.

Sitting in the front room, on a plush beige sofa that matches the couple’s blond Yorkshire terriers, Bang and Blue, Tu explains why she believes the former owners accepted their offer.

“The house talked to them” she says. Todd chuckles and points out that Tu talked to the house first.

“I’ve been with my wife 29 years and let me tell you,” he says, “I’ve seen miracles around her when she prays.”

Tu nods, adding that she prays for many things: family, friends, her hometown.

By hometown, she means High Point, not the U.S. military base in Laos where she was born 48 years ago. A lot has happened between then and now. “I pray for healing,” Tu says. “For what I went through.”

She remembers the sound of helicopter rotors slapping the air. Then a toddler, Tu was strapped to her mother’s chest with a bed sheet. Her mother had one foot in a Black Hawk helicopter and was telling Tu’s father to come on. Because Tu’s father had worked for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in Laos during the Vietnam war, the Americans offered to evacuate the family as Vietnam and neighboring Laos fell to Communist forces. If you stay, they will kill you, her mother told her father.

I’ll be fine, he said. Tu’s mother stepped out of the helicopter. Laotian of-

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ficials arrested her father and threw him in jail, where he was chained in a dark basement. Tu, her mother and two sisters lived nearby. Her mother cooked and kept house for her husband’s captors. Gradually, they trusted her enough to release her husband. But he wasn’t the same when he got home.“He was broken,” says Tu. Her mother, who was Thai, decided the family should risk an escape to Thailand. One night, when Tu was about 8, her family and a few others boarded canoes to paddle across the Mekong River to Thailand. Rain lashed the canoes. Thunder rattled their already raw nerves. Lightning strobed, exposing their location to Thai soldiers, who shot at them. “My mom told all of us to lie down,” Tu says. They made it.

A couple of days later, Thai police picked up the group, soaked and traveling on foot. Eventually they were taken to a refugee camp.

The family stayed in camps for about four years. Tu remembers room dividers made of newspaper and bamboo. She remembers getting one fish, one bowl of rice and a five-gallon bucket of water every day. She remembers Thai vendors selling apples outside a barbed wire fence.

“I wished I could taste that apple,” she says.

Once her family was cleared for green cards because of her father’s service to the U.S., camp officials asked her mother where they wanted to go. Her mother pointed to a post card of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

“She said it was the land of gold,” Tu says. “My father said the Americans would never leave us. He believed that.”

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

The family lived in Jersey City, N.J., for several years, then followed their middle daughter, Mary, to Greensboro.

Tu’s parents worked in a mattress factory in Asheboro. Mary worked at a sock factory and grocery store in Greensboro. Tu waited tables in a Chinese restaurant, Empress Garden, in Greensboro.

“I did so well I had people waiting to sit in my section,” she says.

“All my customers were elderly. They tipped me really well. They knew I was a single mom.”

Years later, when Mary and her husband, James, opened Thai Chiang Mai, a restaurant in High Point, Tu and her second husband, Todd, joined them in the family business.

Born in Cambodia, Todd also had lived in a Thai refugee camp — though not the same one as Tu — before his family immigrated to South Bend, Indiana. One spring weekend Todd came to a friend’s wedding in Lexington, N.C. His parents saw photos of him wearing shorts in North Carolina while they still wore coats in Indiana.

They saw the red clay soil, which promised a longer growing season for their garden.

They were sold on the South. The family relocated to the Piedmont, worked in furniture factories, and planted a huge garden.

“I think my mom has never bought a vegetable,” Todd jokes. “For the older generation, they grow stuff to connect them to the old country. Myself, I go fishing because that’s what I did when I was younger, in Cambodia, for food.”

His fish-grilling skills came in handy when he and Tu opened their own place, 98 Asian Bistro, in 2015. The upscale restaurant, which occupies part of a former Chevrolet dealership on Main Street in High Point, memorializes the year Tu’s father died, 1998.

Tu and Todd insist on honoring those who have paved the way for them.

In their home, they have set aside the master bedroom to venerate the home’s second owner, physician H.W. McCain, whose family lived there more than 40 years. No one sleeps in the king-size bed, which is strewn with photos and write-ups about the home.

Another bedroom is Tu’s prayer room, which twinkles with banks of metallic figures representing both sides of her family: Buddhist and Thai cultures for her mother; Hindu and Indian cultures for her father. Fresh flowers, fruit, candy, bottled water and sweet drinks welcome the spirits. Incense perfumes the air.

A third bedroom serves as a closet for Tu and Todd.

The couple sleep in a modest fourth bedroom. It’s the only room that they have furnished themselves.

The home’s former owners, Michael and Patricia Bellocchio, who own a furniture manufacturing company, left behind many sleek pieces — the armless sofas in the front room, the minimalist dining room table and chairs — as well as carved Spanish Mission-style chests, sideboards and armoires that harmonize with Eastern flavors.

A pair of decorative wooden doors — supposedly from an Asian temple — are set into the wall of a professional kitchen that sports a six-burner gas stove, a concrete-and-mahogany topped island, an extra-wide refrigerator and freezer, a double oven and walls textured with stacked quartz stone.

Other than painting the home’s interior walls gold and green, the Sens have done very little updating. They’ve filled in the gaps between furnishings with a bevy of treasures, many of which have O.Henry 73

been given to them or sold at a discount by friends in the furniture industry.

The faux pink cherry blossoms that fill giant metal vases on either side of the fireplace? A customer ordered them for her daughter’s wedding and gave them to Tu afterward.

The bronze Chinese lions in front of the house? Tu saw them in a High Point store more than 10 years ago. “I said, ‘If you stay here, I’ll come back for you,’” she says. When she returned, the big cats were waiting at a fraction of the original price. She took them home and draped them with red strings of Buddhist prayer beads.

The burbling orb fountain with water slipping down the sides? A gift from the owners of the Phillips Collection, who are Tu’s customers.

The house-warming gift that she wanted the most — an American flag — came from the High Point Chamber of Commerce, which named her Businesswoman of the Year in 2016.

“I always said I wanted to have a piece of America,” says Tu. “Owning this home is a piece of America.”

The house continues to inspire dreamers, Todd says.

“Every once in a while somebody will stop their car in front of this house, get out and take a picture.” OH

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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Arts & Culture

Gate City Voices A NEW CHORAL ARTS COLLECTIVE ENSEMBLE

The Choral Arts Collective presents

together with Gate City Voices in their inaugural performance.

SATURDAY, MAY 21 · 8 PM | MONDAY, MAY 23 · 7:30 PM FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHRUCH, 617 N ELM ST, GREENSBORO

Messe solennelle - Louis Vierne | Passover Psalm - Erich Korngold Credo - Margaret Bonds

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

A L M A N A C

May

By Ashley Walshe

M

ay is the daughter of dandelions, queen of the daisies, the giggling maiden of spring.

In a sunny meadow, where the soft grass glitters with morning dew, she is gathering wild violets, singing the blue into each petal.

One handful for candy.

Two handfuls for syrup.

A heaping third for tea.

She moves like water, stirring swallowtails and skippers as she drifts from flower to quivering flower. Constellations of buttercups manifest before her.

A choir of bluebirds twitters in her wake.

Her gaze is tender. Her presence full. Everything she touches seems to blush.

The Southern magnolia offers its first fragrant blossom.

The tulip poplar blooms in boundless rapture.

An oxeye daisy sings out: She loves me. She loves me lots. She loves me. She loves me lots.

No flower is forsaken.

A sweep of dandelion brightens beneath her feet, yellow blossoms plump as field mice. There is nothing to do but bask in the playful light of spring.

As the maiden lowers herself onto the lush and golden earth, one hundred songbirds pipe her name. The mockingbird repeats it.

May is here! May is here!

All hail the giggling maiden of spring.

A flower blossoms for its own joy.

— Oscar Wilde The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Flowers for Mama Mother’s Day is celebrated on Sunday, May 8. Not that the garden would let you forget. (Read: Bring her flowers.)

Sometimes simple is best. A sprig of dogwood. A vase of bearded iris. A single magnolia blossom.

Or get creative. Wildflower bouquets. Pressed flower notecards. Wild violet jelly.

If she’s the “roses only” type, you know what to do.

But if your mama’s busy scratching and clawing around in her own garden, perhaps you can glove up and join her.

Prune the hedges if she’ll let you.

Since May is the month to plant summer annuals, plant them together.

In July, when her prismatic zinnias are the crowning glory of the block, she’ll surely be a happy mama still.

The Night Sky

According to Smithsonian magazine, two of this year’s most “dazzling celestial events” happen this month: a meteor shower and a lunar eclipse.

If you haven’t yet downloaded an astronomy app, consider doing so before the Eta Aquariids peak on May 5. Why? So you can locate Aquarius, the faint yet richly fabled constellation on the Eastern horizon. If conditions are favorable, and you are, in fact, gazing toward that water-like configuration of stars, then you may catch up to 20 meteors per hour beginning around 4 a.m. What you’re actually seeing? Debris from Halley’s Comet, of course.

A total lunar eclipse will paint the moon blood-red in the wee hours of Monday, May 16. The moon begins entering Earth’s shadow on Sunday, May 15, around 9:30 p.m. Totality occurs around midnight when, for 84 glorious minutes, the moon will appear to glow like a sunset. Dazzling indeed. OH

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MADE 4 THE MARKET ARTS, CRAFT, POTTERY SHOW Sunday, May 1 • 11am to 4pm Great gifts for every occasion + you!

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WEDNESDAYS MINI MARKET 8 am to 12 noon Pick up fresh veggies, meats, seafood, honey, baked goods, flowers, dairy and more now twice a week Sign up for email or check social media for kids events, Activities on the every Saturday Lawn for kids of all ages (hoola hoops), music, fresh sampling, new vendor arrivals and more.

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Chicago

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6–15

Although a conscientious effort has been made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, all events are subject to change and errors can occur. Please call to verify times, costs, status and location before planning or attending an event.

WEEKLY HAPPENINGS MONDAYS : YOGA SERIES. 6–7 p.m. Reset and recharge with Cheri Timmons as you explore the physical, mental and emotional benefits of yoga. Free; Read BYOmats. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/ calendar.

TUESDAYS: NIA DANCE. 9:30–10:30 a.m. Join NIA Greensboro for a low impact cardio dance class incorporating movements inspired by martial arts, yoga and different dance styles. Free.

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20

LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

ART IN THE PARK. 1–2 p.m.

Children ages 2–12 are invited to join artist-instructors from GreenHill Center for NC Art for a hands-on visual arts program.

Free. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

WEDNESDAYS: MUSIC IN A BOTTLE. 5–7 p.m.

Lawn Service invites everyone to eat, drink and listen to free, live music.

LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

SEVILLANA. 5:30–6 p.m. Learn to dance the four Sevillana, Spanish style dances, with Velmy Liz Trinidad.

Free. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St.,

Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

MOVE & GROOVE. 6:30–7:30 p.m.

Dance Project presents a program to enhance your musicality and physical fitness through street jazz and hip-hop.

Free; 13 and older. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

FRIDAYS: SWEAT THE TECHNIQUE.

6:30–7:30 p.m. Join Dance Project for a freestyle hip-hop and break jam in the park. Free. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

SATURDAYS: RUNTHEBORO. 7 a.m.

RunnerDude’s Fitness hosts an eightweek “field trip” for runners and walkers to explore the city on foot. Free. Info: runnerdudesruntheboro.com.

Kendra Adachi

5/

26

SUNDAYS: KARAOKE & DANCE. 4–7 p.m.

Kickback after work and enjoy DJ Energizer laying down the tracks.

Free. Center City Park, 200 N. Elm St. Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

May 1–31 PLAY BALL! The Gate City’s own minor league baseball team, the Greensboro Grasshoppers, is back in action. Full schedule: milb.com/ greensboro/schedule.

H2O GREENHILL. Visit the gallery for an ambitious, multimedia exhibit highlighting novel approaches to environmental stewardship. Free. GreenHill Center for NC Art, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org. #H2O STUDENT. A statewide virtual exhibit with submissions from middle and high school artists on their interThe Art & Soul of Greensboro

Calendar pretation of water is open to the public.

Free. Info: greenhillnc.org.

May 1 ELM STREET RUN. 8 a.m. (10-miler) & 8:10 a.m. (1-miler). Trivium Racing invites runners to the first annual Elm Street Run, a one-mile or ten-mile course; proceeds benefit the local charity TriadBeHeadStrong, which supports the region’s brain and spine tumor patients and providers. Registration: $25/1-miler; $50+/10-miler. 336 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: triviumracing.com/event.

MADE 4 THE MARKET. 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Shop local artisans’ handmade art, crafts, pottery and more. Free admission. Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville St., Greensboro. Info: gsofarmersmarket.org.

UNITE DGSO. 1–4 p.m. Join this annual downtown community celebration and resource fair for families of individuals with special needs.

Free. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

ABBAFAB. 7 p.m. Enjoy a multimedia tribute to the music of ABBA. Tickets: $45+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

May 2 NATURE CRAFTS. 4–5 p.m. Join in a family-friendly program where participants create Mother’s Day crafts with items found in nature. Free. Kathleen Clay Edwards Family Branch Library, 1420 Price Park Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

WWE RAW. 7:30 p.m. WWE returns to the Gate City for the first Monday Night Raw in over four years. Tickets: $20+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro.

Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

May 3 SHINEDOWN. 7 p.m. Shinedown is joined by special guests The Pretty Reckless and Diamonte for their Revolution’s Live Tour. Tickets: $39.50+.

Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

May 4 FF10LIVE. 5:15–8: 45 p.m. Attend Future Fund 10 Live, an innovative philanthropy pitch competition that gives ten nonprofits a stage to present their modern program ideas; audience members vote to award grants up to $20,000. Tickets: $35; reception and refreshments included.

Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre. com/events.

READING THE WORLD. 7 p.m.

Scuppernong Books discusses this month’s International Book Club pick, Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila. Free virtual event; registration required. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

May 4, 11, 18 & 25 DUNLEATH TOUR. 6:30 p.m.

Preservation Greensboro’s Tour of Historic Homes & Gardens will feature vintage homes in the Dunleath neighborhood via walking tours and internet content during May, National Historic Preservation Month. Swann Middle School, 811 Cypress St., Greensboro. Info: preservationgreensboro.org/events.

May 4–5 ZINE WORKSHOP. 10–11 a.m. (5/4) & 6–7 p.m. (5/5). Learn the history behind zines and how to make your own short, hand-made, published works with a free zine kit. Free. McGirtHorton Branch Library, 2501 Phillips Ave., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc. gov (click on “events”).

May 5 DOWNTOWN GREENWAY TOUR. 5:30–7:30 p.m. Dabney Sanders, Downtown Greenway Project Manager, takes participants on a 4-mile walking tour of the Downtown Greenway while sharing information on its history and public art along the way. Free; reservations required. LoFi Park, 500 N. Eugene St., Greensboro.

Info: downtowngreenway.org.

JOSEPH BATHANTI. 6 p.m. A reading and discussion of North Carolina poet Joseph Bathanti’s latest work, Light at the Seam, an exploration of mountaintop removal in southern Appalachian coal country. Free. Scuppernong Books,

304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

FULL CIRCLE. 7:30 p.m. R&B icon KEM performs The Full Circle Tour alongside Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds.

Tickets: $58+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

May 5–7 DANCE MARATHON. Dance Project hosts their fifth annual Dance Marathon, a community event and fundraiser with three days of dance activities for everyone to enjoy either virtually or in person. Free; donations accepted. Greensboro Cultural Center, 220 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: artsgreensboro.org/event.

May 6 ART PARK. 6:30–8:30 p.m. Creatives from Art Alliance lead demos and hands-on projects for First Friday.

Free. Center City Park, 200 N. Elm St. Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

DRUM CIRCLE. 6:30–9 p.m.

Everyone is invited to join in the First Friday Drum Circle led by Healing Earth Rhythms. Free. Center City Park, 200 N. Elm St. Greensboro.

Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/ calendar.

GREEN QUEEN BINGO. 7 p.m.

Join the Green Queen and her girls for a night of bingo, drag and comedy and a chance to win cash prizes. Tickets: $20 advance; $25.

Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

OPUS. 7:30 p.m. The Choral Society of Greensboro presents the final spring Opus concert: Mozart’s Requiem. Free; donations accepted.

Christ United Methodist Church, 410 N. Holden Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

May 6–15 DREAMGIRLS. 7 p.m. CTG performs the rags-to-riches story of a 1960s Motown girl group, and the triumphs and tribulations that come with fame and fortune. Tickets: $15+. Community Theatre of Greensboro, 520 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: ctgso.org.

May 7 MAY THE COURSE BE WITH YOU. 8:00 a.m. (10k), 8:30 a.m. (5k) & 8:45 a.m. (Fun Run). In the spirit of May-the-4th-Be-With-you, kick it into hyper-drive for this fourth Annual Star Wars-themed 10k, 5k and Fun Run. Registration: $45+/10k; $35+/5k; $15/ Fun Run. Lawndale Baptist Church, 3505 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro.

Info: maythecourserace.com.

ART-I-FACTS. 10 a.m.–Noon. The Winston-Salem Writers invites Rebecca McClanahan to lead a multi genre writing workshop via Zoom on the theme “Shaping the Raw Material of Family History.” Register by May 5th: $15/ members; $25. Info: wswriters.org.

WHEELS ON THE GREENWAY. 10 a.m.–1 p.m. Bring a bike, trike, board or skates and ride part or all of the four-mile loop on the Downtown Greenway, then enjoy activities and food vendors.

Free. Woven Works Park, 401 Cumberland St., Greensboro. Info: downtowngreenway.org/events.

ONLINE POETRY WORKSHOP. 4–5:30 p.m. Benjamin Bard leads a discussion-based online workshop for poets of all skill levels from teens to adults every first Saturday of the month. Free; registration required. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

MOTHER’S DAY CELEBRATION. 7 p.m. Celebrate mom with Marvin Sapp, Kierra Sheard, Regina Belle, J.J. Hairston & Youthful Praise, Canton Spirituals and Pastor Mike Jr. Tickets: $49+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro.

Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

STILL WEARING YOUR NAME. 7 p.m. Enjoy Daniel Barksdale’s newest stage play, Still Wearing Your Name. Tickets: $25+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

STRING SPECTACULAR. 8 p.m.

GSO presents A String Spectacular beginning with Richard Strauss’ Don Juan and closing with Brahms’ Double Concerto for Violin and Cello.

Tickets: $35+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

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Calendar May 7–8 THE PLANTS & THE PLANTED. 11 a.m.–Noon (5/7) & 2–4 p.m.

(5/8). Enjoy a springtime walking tour of the Green Hill Cemetery.

Free; donations accepted. 901 Wharton St., Greensboro. Info: friendsofgreenhillcemetary.org.

May 8 ALWAYS. 3:30 p.m. Always…Patsy Cline is a musical based on the true story of one fan’s meeting with the country star.

Tickets: $29.50+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

May 9 NATURE AS YOUR CLASSROOM. 7–8 p.m. Shannon Earle, founder and managing director of Forest Explorers LLC, hosts a Zoom program for children to explore the basic elements of science through observations, questions and interests. Free; registration required. Kathleen Clay Edwards Family Branch Library, 1420 Price Park Road,

Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

May 10 CANASTA FOR LIT LOVERS. 2–4 p.m. Learn how to play canasta, a vintage card game played in teams.

Free; registration required. Glenn McNairy Branch Library, 4860 Lake Jeanette Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

May 11 FOLK A’FARE. 6–8:30 p.m. Meet the chefs who are shaping the international culinary landscape of the city, sample their signature dishes and enjoy drinks and live music, all while supporting the NC Folk Festival. Tickets: $100. Elm & Bain, 620B S. Elm St., Greensboro.

Info: artsgreensboro.org/event.

May 12 BIKE & TRIKE DECORATION. 4–4:45 p.m. Celebrate National Bike Month by making crafts to decorate a bicycle or tricycle. Free; registration required. Glenn McNairy Branch

Library, 4860 Lake Jeanette Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

BABY SHARK LIVE. 6 p.m. Splash and sing along with Baby Shark and Pinkfong as they journey into the sea.

Tickets: $25+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

TAZEWELL & GROVER. 7 p.m.

A reading and discussion of two authors’ works: Anne E. Tazewell’s A Good Spy Leaves No Trace and Sami Grover’s We’re All Climate Hypocrites Now. Free. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

May 13–14 SUMMERFIELD FOUNDERS’ DAY. 6–10 p.m. (5/13) & 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

(5/14). Join in the Annual Founders’ Day celebration with carnival rides, inflatables, live music, food, vendors, a parade and more. Free admission. Fire Station 9, 7400 Summerfield Road, Summerfield. Info: summerfieldnc.org.

May 14 DECLAN’S DASH. 8:30 a.m. (5k) and 9:30 a.m. (Fun Run). Participate in either a 5k or Fun Run with proceeds benefiting the Declan Donoghue Foundation (Building playgrounds throughout Greensboro, High Point and Kernersville in memory of Declan Donoghue). Registration: $30/5k; $15/Fun Run. Harmon Park, 152 S. Main St., Kernersville. Info: triviumracing.com/event.

FROM WRITER TO AUTHOR. 10 a.m.–Noon. The Winston-Salem Writers hosts Whitney Scharer via Zoom as she leads a writing workshop on “Making the Transition from Writer to Author.” Discussion topics include: preparing manuscripts, querying agents, working with editors and more. Register by May 12: $15/members; $25. Info: wswriters.org.

WORLD BINTURONG DAY. 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Join in a celebration of the binturong, a unique and exotic animal nicknamed the “bearcat.”

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94 O.Henry

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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336.656.3361 The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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Calendar Tickets: $14+. Animal Park at the Conservators Center, 76 E. Hughes Mill Road, Burlington. Info: animalparknc.org/events.

FUN WITH FLOWERS. 2–3 p.m.

Families can drop in and make flower crafts or take home free flower seeds to grow. Free. Kathleen Clay Edwards Family Branch Library, 1420 Price Park Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

May 14–15 KILN OPENING. 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

(5/14) & 1–5 p.m. (5/15). Guests are invited to celebrate the spring kiln opening and shop local wares. Free admission. Curry Wilkinson Pottery, 5029 South N.C. Highway 49, Burlington.

Info: currywilkinsonpottery.com.

May 15 DORI FREEMAN. 7:30 p.m. Bonafide Appalachian artist Dori Freeman serenades visitors in The Crown. Tickets: $15/advance; $20. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

May 16 HERPETOLOGY NIGHT. 6:30–8 p.m. Join members of the NC Herpetological Society as they show off local and exotic amphibians and reptiles, then learn how citizens can help the habitats of local species.

Free. Kathleen Clay Edwards Family Branch Library, 1420 Price Park Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

POETRY BOOK CLUB. 7 p.m.

Join the Neither Rhyme Nor Reason Poetry Book Club for a Zoom discussion of Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky. Free; registration required.

Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

May 17 CAFFÉ YA. 7–8:30 p.m. Teen and adult fans of Young Adult novels join in a Zoom discussion of Dig by A.S. King. Free; registration required. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

RITA MORENO. 7:30 p.m. Bryan Series presents Rita Moreno, a celebrated performer and rare EGOT (Emmy,

Grammy, Oscar and Tony) award winner. Tickets: $51+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro.

Info: tangercenter.com/events.

May 19 ASIAN HEROES IN COMICS. 2–3:30 p.m. Celebrate the life and works of Jim Lee, DC Comics’ chief creative officer, in a screening of a discussion on Asian American Superheroes.

Free; registration required. Glenn McNairy Branch Library, 4860 Lake Jeanette Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”) CHELCIE LYNN. 7 p.m. Outback presents comedian, actress and internet personality Chelcie Lynn for The Tammy Tour; adult audiences only.

Tickets: $29.50+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

POETRY IN-PERSON. 7–8:30 p.m.

Benjamin Bard leads an in-person discussion-based workshop for poets of all skill levels from teens to adults every third Thursday of the month.

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Free; registration required. Benjamin Branch Library, 1530 Benjamin Parkway, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

May 20 CHICAGO. 7:30 p.m. The legendary rock’n’roll band with horns performs live. Tickets: $45.50+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro.

Info: tangercenter.com/events.

CLRTHRY. 9 p.m. Drew Shamir presents CLRTHRY Live Playlist in The Crown, a celebration of hip-hop music and culture including Stan the Man, Antion Scales, SkyBlew, The Social Contract and DJ Karolina. Tickets: $10/advance; $15. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

May 20 & May 22 NCBB GOES WEST. 7:30 p.m.

(5/20) & 3:30 p.m. (5/22). The North Carolina Brass Brand invites guests to enjoy a concert filled with music celebrating the American Old West.

Tickets: $5/student; $20. R.J. Reynolds

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96 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Auditorium, 301 Hawthorne Road , Winston-Salem (5/20) and UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate St., Greensboro (5/22). Info: ncbrassband.org.

May 21 OPEN NC ART REVIEW. 10 a.m.– Noon. North Carolina artists present their work to Edie Carpenter, director of artistic and curatorial programs, in Pecha Kucha format, where each will present 10 images during a three-and-ahalf-minute slide show. Free. GreenHill Center for NC Art, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org.

AFRICAN AMERICAN BOOK CLUB. 2–3:30 p.m. A book club focused on works by African American authors featuring An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon this month. Free; registration required for virtual or in-person. Benjamin Branch Library, 1530 Benjamin Parkway, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

BLUES FESTIVAL. 3–11 p.m.

Piedmont Blues Preservation Society

presents the 36th Annual Carolina Blues Festival: Young, Black & Blues featuring Mr. Sipp, Vanessa Collier, Jontavious Willis, TC Carter Band, Jay Hopp, Sean “Mack” McDonald and Stephen Hull, plus food vendors and refreshments. Tickets: $10+. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro.

Info: piedmontblues.org.

ASKING ALEXANDRA. 7 p.m.

Asking Alexandra performs with special guest Atreyu. Tickets: $32.50/ advance; $35. Greensboro Coliseum Complex. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum. com/events.

BANDA MS. 8 p.m. Mexican music sensation Banda MS performs their #GraciasaTi Tour. Tickets: $49+.

Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

KENNY G. 8 p.m. Presented

by GSO, relax to the mellow sounds of the GRAMMY Award-

Calendar

winning saxophonist. Tickets: $35+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

First Presbyterian Church, 617 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: belcantocompany.com/events

PAUL MCCARTNEY. 8 p.m. The legendary Paul McCartney performs his Got Back Tour. Tickets: $39.50+. Truist Field at Wake Forest University, 475 Deacon Blvd., Winston-Salem. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

BLUES & FOOD MARKET. 1–5 p.m. Piedmont Blues Preservation Society hosts a free music event to raise awareness for equity in terms of food and the arts. Free admission; food and market vendors on-site. Center City Park, 200 N. Elm St. Greensboro. Info: piedmontblues.org.

May 21–22 WET N’ WILD. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. The water park opens for the season with limited weekend hours. Wet n’ Wild Emerald Pointe, 3910 S. Holden Road Greensboro. Info: emeraldpointe.com.

May 21 & 23 GATE CITY VOICES. 8 p.m.

(5/21) & 7:30 p.m. (5/23). Bel Canto Company welcomes Gate City Voices, a newly auditioned, volunteer choir that will perform with the company, as they present expansive choral works composed for large choirs. Tickets: $30.

May 22

CAMINANDO. 3–4:30 p.m. In this month’s Outdoor Adventurers of Color, participants learn about the famous El Camino de Santiago trail and walk the “first leg” of a Spanish-English walking adventure in Price Park. Free; registration required. Kathleen Clay Edwards Family Branch Library, 1420 Price Park Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

May 23 ROMANCE BOOK CLUB. 7 p.m.

This book club discusses contempo-

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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Downtown Greensboro

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98 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Calendar

&

rary, historical and LGBTQ+ adult romances; this month’s book is Happy Endings by Thien-Kim Lam. Free online event; registration required. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

May 25 ARTIST TALK. 5:30–6:30 p.m. Join artist Barbara Tyroler in the gallery for a discussion of the current exhibit, H2O. Free. GreenHill Center for NC Art, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org.

SMASHING PUMPKINS. 8 p.m. The American alternative rock band performs their Rock Invasion Tour. Tickets: $35+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro.

Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

May 26 KENDRA ADACHI. 6 p.m. A discussion and reading of The Lazy Genius Kitchen by bestselling author Kendra Adachi. Free. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

SCI-FI BOOK CLUB. 7 p.m. Free. Join in a discussion of Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. Free.

Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro.

Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

May 27 NATURE CREATIONS. 5–6 p.m. Children under the age of 10 let their creative spirits shine through arts and crafts while learning about gardening.

This month’s featured topic: butterfly baths. Free; registration required. Xperience @ Caldcleugh, 1700 Orchard St., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

ERYKAH BADU. 7:30 p.m. Comedian A-Train hosts artists Erykah Badu, Ja Rule, Musiq, and Goodie Mob, with poetry by Moses West.

Tickets: $59+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

Now with locations in High Point and Winston-Salem!

May 29–September 11 BLOWING ROCK ART. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Meet the 25 artists in residence at Edgewood, Elliott Daingerfield’s restored historic cottage; featured artists change weekly. Free. Main Street and Ginny Stevens Lane, Blowing Rock. Info: aristsatedgewood.org. OH

To add an event, email us at

ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com

by the first of the month

ONE MONTH PRIOR TO THE EVENT.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

High Point Studio 2513 Eastchester Drive High Point, NC 27265 336-967-0500

Winston-Salem Studio 1247 Creekshire Way Winston-Salem, NC 27103 336-422-0626

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LAWNDALE SHOPPING CENTER • IRVING PARK

DOVER SQUARE • WESTOVER GALLERY OF SHOPS

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www.randymcmanusdesigns.com @randymcmanusdesigns @randymcmanusevents 1616 Battleground Avenue, Suite D-1 • Greensboro, NC 27408

Our customers are young and the young at heart. They are the classic American beauty or those looking for Threads that are uniquely on trend.

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100 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

LAWNDALE SHOPPING CENTER • IRVING PARK

DOVER SQUARE • WESTOVER GALLERY OF SHOPS

SweetTreats

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Mother’s Day 1738 Battleground Ave • Irving Park Plaza Shopping Center • Greensboro, NC • (336) 273-3566

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

A small batch bakery with fresh batches every day. From cake pops, brownies, cupcakes, and much more, we’re happy to satisfy your sweet tooth.

1616 Battleground Ave, Greensboro, NC (336)306-2827 Order by email! easypeasydnd@gmail.com

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Life & Home

This Mother’s Day give her the gift of staying home.

Quality Care, Kindness & Affordability.

All while staying at home.

1515 W Cornwallis Drive, Suite 100 Greensboro, NC 27408

Phone: 336.285.9107 Fax: 336.285.9109

email: info@1stChoiceHomeCareInc.com

State Street

This month we celebrate Mr.Y’s 80th birthday and his 53rd year in business Please stop by the 9th through the 12th for cake and cookies.

501 State Street Greensboro, 27205 •336.274.4533 • YamamoriLtd.com 10:00-5:30 Monday-Friday • 10:00-3:00 Saturday and Sunday by Appointment

102 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

shops • service • food • farms

Sometimes it’s smarter to lease than to sell your home.

support locally owned businesses

TREAT MOM RIGHT WITH LOCAL GIFTS! AND BRUNCH!

Call us when you think you’re there!

I will be pleased to discuss how Burkley Rental Homes can help you.

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Find your local shops at

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Join the effort. Visit www.triadlocalfirst.com.

O.Henry Ending

Splash or not Splash?

By Mary Best

As the youngest of five dangerously

independent — and always mischievous — children of a couple of educators in the Greensboro school system, I weathered many storms as a toddler. Don’t get me wrong: I grew up in a loving home with devoted parents. But being the runt of the litter, I suffered a disadvantage — the last to receive nourishment at mealtime, endless ribbing about my clothes and toys, relentless teasing about being “sweet.” Why were my three brothers so different from me? They didn’t play with dolls, for heaven’s sake.

Who doesn’t play with dolls? And don’t even get me started about Barbie.

When I wanted to play with the “big kids,” I sometimes bit off more than I could chew. For example, my family belonged to Lawndale pool, and for hours I would watch my brothers climb to the top of the high dive and plunge into the deep end.

Effortlessly. Joyfully. Thoughtlessly.

So, when I was about 3 or so — younger than I could count my years on one hand — I decided to follow in their footsteps and jump off the high diving board. I had watched them master it many times. If they could do it, I thought, how hard could it be?

Fearlessly, I climbed the ladder to the top of the diving board.

As I neared the end of the board, lifeguards, pool members and my poor parents froze and watched as a kid who couldn’t recite the alphabet was about to take a death-defying leap.

Up until then, my greatest adventure had been getting lost in Meyer’s downtown. Oh, and that misadventure in

104 O.Henry

Franklin Drugs, when I had to go to the restroom but couldn’t read the signs on the door. Yikes, I chose the wrong door.

But I digress. Back to the pool.

My father quietly ascended the ladder, and when he reached the top, he gently, calmly, called my name. “Mary Frances,” he nearly whispered, “I’d like for you to come to me. I have something I want to tell you.”

I frowned. “But I want to show my brothers I’m as tough as they are.”

“They know, Sweetheart,” he replied. “I was the youngest too.

And I endured my share of teasing.”

I never thought about other kids being teased. I had assumed it was some unique, degenerative condition from which only my brothers suffered. I had no idea their ceaseless mocking could be a sign of a pandemic, an epidemic or — even worse — ubiquitous.

The pool crowd silenced. Swimmers, sunbathers and hungry patrons in line at the concession stand held their breath as my father coaxed me toward him.

“Can you make them stop picking on me?” I pleaded. Why the hell not? I wasn’t exactly a prosecutor or defense attorney, but I felt pretty darn powerful for someone who only recently had mastered 4 + 4 = 7, right?

“I can’t promise you that,” my dad said. “But I can promise this: I will never let anyone hurt you. I know your brothers don’t show it because they are knuckleheads, but they love you, and they will always be there for you.”

Convincing. Plus, the water seemed much farther away than it did a few minutes ago.

As my father shepherded my descent from the ladder, I saw my brothers surrounding the area around the foot of the diving board. As sentinels. At that point, I knew they loved me — as protectors, friends, brothers. The teasing didn’t stop, but I knew that day at the pool they loved me. OH Mary Best is a freelance writer living in Greensboro. Contact her at marybest04@gmail.com.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR

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