September O.Henry 2021

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September 2021 DEPARTMENTS 11 The Nature of Things

By Ashley Wahl

15 Simple Life

By Jim Dodson

18 Short Stories 20 Tea Leaf Astrologer

By Zora Stellanova

25 Life’s Funny

By Maria Johnson

26 The Creators of N.C.

By Wiley and Mallory Cash

29 The Omnivorous Reader

FEATURES 53 Skipping

Poetry by Michael McFee

54 No Place Like Home

Photo essay by Amy Freeman You’ve heard of the colorful doors of Dublin. But have you noticed the bold and vibrant doors sprinkled throughout the Triad?

58 The Healing Gardeners

By Ross Howell Jr. Thanks to a grand vision and several helping hands, Cone Health Cancer Center’s Healing Gardens offer space for transformation — within and without

64 Living in Service

By Cynthia Adams Lisa Hawley is grateful for her elegant new home. But her soul mission — feeding the hungry — is what continues to bring her deep and lasting fulfillment

By Stephen E. Smith

32 Scuppernong Bookshelf 35 Home by Design

By Cynthia Adams

36 The Hot List

By Jason Oliver Nixon and John Loecke

39 Short & Sweet

By Cynthia Adams

41 The Curio Corner

By Maria Johnson

44 Botanicus

By Ross Howell Jr.

47 Birdwatch

By Susan Campbell

49 Wandering Billy

By Billy Eye

76 Events Calendar 88 O.Henry Ending

By Cassie Bustamante

75 Almanac

By Ashley Wahl

6 O.Henry

Cover photograph and photograph this page by Amy Freeman

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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M A G A Z I N E

Volume 11, No. 9 “I have a fancy that every city has a voice.”

336.617.0090 1848 Banking Street, Greensboro, NC 27408 www.ohenrymag.com PUBLISHER

David Woronoff Ashley Wahl, Editor awahl@ohenrymag.com Jim Dodson, Gardener-at-Large Andie Rose, Creative Director andie@thepilot.com Lauren M. Coffey, Art Director Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer DIGITAL CONTENT

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8 O.Henry

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An impressive number of corporate and industrial parks await new tenants, while the Gateway Research Park has leasing space and shovel ready pads with infrastructure and free parking.

Second Harvest Food Bank Second Harvest Food Bank is investing in community by addressing food insecurity at its new satellite site on Phillips Avenue, providing healthy food in East Greensboro.

The Nature of Things

Smells Like Home Or maybe it’s more of a feeling

By Ashley Wahl

Back in July, while our good friends

were visiting family in Vermont, we opened our home and hearts to Tibbs, their adorably puckish boxer mix.

After not having seen him for nine days, the first thing Ellen did when Tibbs jumped in her car was press her face into his soft black fur and inhale.

“Awww,” she said, “he smells just like your house.”

I’m guessing she meant that he smelled like our favorite incense, the hand-rolled sticks of frankincense and honey that we light each dawn.

But I wondered. What does our house actually smell like?

If we make it to the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market on Saturday morning before Shirley Broome sells out of flowers, then a rustic bouquet in the den enlivens our home with intoxicating sweetness.

Did we harvest fresh herbs this morning? Perhaps you smell the peppery warmth of basil. The crisp earthiness of rosemary. The minty coolness of garden sage, which the neighbor snips from our yellow planter for her pasta nights.

In the evenings, when we make chai on the stovetop, an amalgam of spices wafts from the kitchen — cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom and cloves — as music drifts through the wireless speakers.

Home is a sensory experience.

I think of takeout dinners with my sweetheart and how, although we love our dining table (a small drop leaf that belonged to my Mimi), we’d rather eat samosas on the living room floor. I spread out a picnic blanket over the blue boho rug. Alan lights tea candles. Flames flicker behind gold-speckled glass as we break warm naan.

Years ago, before Alan and I started dating, I decided to rid my life of unnecessarily dense furniture or belongings. Anything that might weigh me down, physically or emotionally, had to go.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Thankfully Alan shares my “room to breathe” aesthetic, so if a friend or relative offers a well-built or heirloom piece of furniture, we only proceed with utmost caution.

Earlier this year, when a friend was downsizing, she ached at the thought of parting with her grandma Claire’s antique pedestal table.

But she didn’t have space. Did we want it?

I loved the ornate wooden inlay, and the story of how, when Nana Claire damaged the surface by watering a plant, she cut a hole in the center of the table and mended it with fabric from a pair of leather pants. (She could also spot a four-leaf clover any time she walked into a field, which felt like good juju.) I did some measuring. The table fits as if it’s always been here.

When Tibbs was with us, we were amazed by how naturally “at home” he seemed. Never bothered, never wanting. Just sprawled out and belly-up at any given moment.

It took Durga, our own rescue queen, months to fully settle in.

Then again, when we take her out to a quiet woodland trail — some natural oasis where she’s free to run off leash yet always stays close — we witness a soul in complete and absolute harmony with us, her surroundings and herself.

Now that’s what it’s like to be home, I think to myself. Or at least that’s how it should be.

On a recent late summer night, we powered down the TV to listen to a passing storm, drawing back the curtains to watch lightning animate a purple sky. Durga, who isn’t exactly a lap dog, twisted herself into a pretzel knot between us.

Rain pelted the windows. Thunder rattled the house. Shadows flickered across the moss green walls.

Resting my head on Alan’s shoulder, I closed my eyes and inhaled.

“Mmmm,” I chimed. “You smell just like home.”

At this, the sleepy dog lifted her head, wet nose gently flaring as if in agreement. OH Contact editor Ashley Wahl at awahl@ohenrymag.com.

O.Henry 11

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Simple Life

Golf and Marriage True love and harmless fun on the links

By Jim Dodson

Not long ago,

my wife, Wendy, and I were discussing our 20th wedding anniversary.

“So, Old Baggage,” I said, affecting the accent of a toffee-nosed English aristocrat. “Where exactly would you like to go? SkyMiles and hotel points are the limit!”

“Oh, no,” she came back with feigned horror. “I thought we’d seen the last of that old boy!”

Needless to say, I was pleased when madam suggested motoring down to a lovely old hotel and sporty golf course in South Carolina where we celebrated our 15th anniversary.

But first, friends, a word of caution.

Referring to your dearly beloved as “Old Baggage” does not come without certain risks to domestic harmony, though in this instance it was one of those affectionate inside jokes that long-married couples share to remind themselves of their matrimonial journey through the fairways and thickets of life.

At any rate, while participating in a mixed foursomes tournament during the annual Royal & Ancient Golf Club autumn meetings some years ago, we got paired with an elderly English couple straight from the pages of P.G. Wodehouse — a crusty old RAF Colonel and his long-suffering wife, Edyth, who spent an entire trip around the Duke’s Course in St. Andrews tossing colorful insults at each other.

“Alright, Old Baggage, put your considerable rump into this shot!” he urged his bride. “No half-way measures, girly! Give the old wedge a solid knock!”

“Sod off,” she muttered as she settled over the ball. “How about I give you a solid knock instead?”

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Round they went, hole after hole.

He grumbled about everything from “elephants buried in the green” to his wife’s choice of exotic leopard-print golf trousers, giving unsolicited advice on almost every shot.

“Try and roll this one close to the hole for a change. Remember, never up, never in!”

“You would know about that,” she snipped. “Perhaps you’d enjoy a nice nap in the bunker?”

Over drinks afterwards, we were surprised to learn they’d been married for 40 years, and that their entertaining Tracy-Hepburn routine was designed to amuse themselves and startle unsuspecting playing partners.

“Lovely way to relieve the marital tensions,” Edyth advised matterof-factly over her raspberry gimlet.

“Just a bit of harmless fun to keep mixed opponents off balance,” Lionel chortled. “Never fails to put them off their game.”

“It keeps both golf and marriage interesting,” she added coyly.

“True, Baggage,” he rumbled. “Damned shame, though, about that easy 10-footer for the win you missed on 17.”

“Ah, well.” She gave us an unconcerned smile. “Maybe next time you should hit the ball where you were instructed.”

To paraphrase our late friend John Derr, the CBS Sports broadcaster who worked with the inimitable Henry Longhurst for years (and quoted him frequently), the institution of marriage is only slightly older than the game of golf and not quite as fun. Golf has probably saved at least as many marriages as it’s ruined — and vice versa.

“Blessed be the man or woman who enjoys their spouse’s company on the golf course,” the ageless “One Derr” — as Wendy O.Henry 15

Simple Life

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16 O.Henry

and I called him — declared at our supper table one evening after we told him about our encounter with the English aristos. “For theirs is a shared adventure of fond memories and pleasant disasters, an unbreakable bond of friendship forged by generous mulligans and preferred lies in a game that cannot be beaten — only endured.”

With his next breath, Derr glanced at me, smiled and added, “You’re a fortunate man to have a beautiful golfing wife, James.

But I am placing you on notice that if you pre-decease me, I’m moving in on Wendy.”

He’d recently turned 96.

But John’s point was well-taken. Like many couples who share a love of the game and each other, golf has been a feature of our romance almost since our first hours together.

The day after meeting Wendy at a dinner party thrown in honor of my first golf book, we took a casual Sunday drive that took us to one of Robert Trent Jones’ early golf course designs in upstate New York.

It was there — upon the discovery that she once played in an after-work golf league and had a germ of interest in the game — that I stole my first kiss and Wendy Ann Buynak stole my heart.

The last two decades have indeed been a shared adventure of bogeys and birdies, colorful characters and memorable places, beginning with our first trip out West after we got engaged at The Lodge at Sea Island, where I threw her into the breach at Pebble Beach with a new set of Callaway golf clubs. It was her first full 18 holes of golf, as she later pointed out.

Her caddie that morning had eyes like a roadmap from hell due to an all-night bachelor party. He and half a dozen Japanese gentlemen with video cameras bore witness as Dame Wendy teed up her ball and made a fierce swing. The ball trickled a few feet off the tee.

Without hesitation, she fetched her ball and tried again. This time the ball rolled 10 feet.

“Listen, ma’am,” groaned her suffering caddie, massaging his pink eyes. “Let’s just pick it up and go.”

She blissfully ignored him, teed up again, took dead aim, and calmly swatted her drive to the heart of the fairway. The Japanese

gentlemen broke into applause, and I realized this was true love on the links.

The first time my bride broke 100 was on a work trip to France. It happened at the elite Golf Club de Chantilly, a famous old Tom Simpson layout. Nary a soul was visible that drowsy summer afternoon following a leisurely lunch of crusty bread, foie gras and considerable sparkling wine.

The girl in the golf shop — buffing her nails with exquisite boredom — waved us out to an utterly empty course, cuckoos calling dreamily from the surrounding forest.

Somewhere on the back side of the masterpiece, after all that wine and no relief station in sight, nature summoned me into the forest, after which I joked that the lone advantage God gave man over woman at the dawn of creation was the ability to make water on an empty golf course, if need be.

A few holes later, I heard someone call my name and turned to see my new wife squatting behind a clump of bushes, grinning like a schoolgirl. “What was that about man’s advantage on the golf course, monsieur?” she teased.

I had to laugh. “Monsieur is certainly enjoying the view,” I pointed out.

Through a gap in the foliage directly behind her, an elderly gentleman in a blue beret was raking out his veggie garden. He was grinning like a teenager, too.

“Bon soir!” he called out, waving.

“Wee wee,” I replied in the American vernacular.

We’ve had many memorable golf journeys since that incredible week of our early married days, but that time in France ranks atop both our lists of favorite moments.

Which is why it was no surprise that our anniversary interlude in South Carolina was such a quiet success, a reflective moment that scored well under par as both a golf getaway and a marriage milestone.

The only “baggage” we brought with us was a dozen new golf balls, 20 years of great memories — and a hope for 20 years more of the same. OH Jim Dodson is O.Henry’s founding editor and ambassador-at-large.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Short Stories Close your eyes . . . listen. Can you feel that? How the beat of the drum has somehow become a part of you? The Guilford Native American Association hosts its 44th annual Pow Wow on Friday, September 17, through Sunday, September 19, at Greensboro Country Park. Historically, pow wows were ceremonial gatherings centered around drumming, dancing, chanting, food and healing rituals. This pow wow will feel a bit more like a festival, yet all will be invited to experience the Native American traditions that have been practiced, honored and nurtured for thousands of years. “Many Nations . . . Building Community” includes spirited dance and drum competitions, colorful regalia, arts and crafts, plus traditional Native American food (like fry bread, for example). Host drum Ottertrail (an intertribal southern style powwow singing group) will set the jubilant tone and J.D. Moore (Waccamaw/Siouan) will emcee. It’s pow wow time in the city, folks. Admission: $7. Weekend pass: $18. Free for children 6 and under; discounts for seniors and children 12 and under).

Complete schedule: guilfordnative.com.

Funny Business

Fresh New Look

Want to breathe new life into your garden? How about an outright redesign? On Saturday, October 16, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., The Greensboro Council of Garden Clubs will deliver some fresh inspiration at its Garden Designs and Plants for 2021 symposium. Featured speakers include landscape designer Lee Rogers (“Landscape Design Concepts and Principles”), Reynolda Gardens’ director Jon Roethling (“A Vision for Reynolda Gardens”) and Christina Larson of Guilford Garden Center (“Native Plants for Birds”). Bring your garden design questions to the experts and, with a little luck, vision and time, your future garden will thank you. Tickets: $20. Greensboro Science Center, 4301 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro.

Info: www.thegreensborocouncilofgardenclubs.com.

18 O.Henry

A comedian walks into a bar.

And a brewery. And The Idiot Box Comedy Club. No, really. The 2021 NC Comedy Festival will tip the funny scale in Greensboro this month when, from September 3–12, literally hundreds of comics will roll up their sleeves and hit us with their best medicine. (Is this thing on?) Sponsored by The Idiot Box Comedy Club, this year’s festival features headliners Laura Kightlinger (yep, Nurse Sheila from Will & Grace) and Brian Kiley (head monologue writer for Conan O’Brien). If you want to catch back-to-back shows opening weekend at the festival’s home base (The Idiot Box, duh), snag the Improv Sketch Pass. And for the complete list of comics and participating venues (including Next Door Beer Bar & Bottle Shop, CTG’s Starr Theatre and Little Brother Brewing) plus tickets, visit nccomedyfestival.com.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

PHOTOGRAPHS (TOP RIGHT) COURTESY OF GUILFORD NATIVE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION

Pow Wowed

Ogi Sez Ogi Overman

Born This Way

Ready to paint the town red? And yellow? Orange, green, blue and violet? When the Greensboro Pride Festival returns on Sunday, September 19, prepare to experience South Elm Street in its full, prismatic glory. Imagine a rainbow sea of vendors flanking the sidewalks (11 a.m. – 6 p.m.); live entertainment strutting and shimmying across the main stage (noon until 5 p.m.); and a palpable spirit of love, harmony and pride pulsing throughout downtown Greensboro. Presented by Alternative Resources of the Triad (ART), this family-friendly celebration is open to all in support of the LGBTQ community. Now crank up the Lady Gaga and put your most fabulous foot forward. Info: GreensboroPride.org.

Shakespeare + Music

How do we like it? With singing and dancing, please.

If you’re into iambic pentameter and magical stories of transformation, don’t miss the UNCG Theatre perform a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery, this dramatic comedy was named one of the best shows of 2017 by The New York Times.

It’s full of surprises (like gender swapped rolls and folk-pop scores). And given that the tale is a celebration of community and acceptance, it couldn’t be timelier.

Show times: September 24 and 25 (7:30 p.m.); September 26 (2 p.m.); September 29 through October 2 (7:30 p.m.) at Taylor Theatre (406 Tate Street, Greensboro). Ondemand streaming: October 14–16.

For tickets, call the UNCG Theatre Box Office at (336) 334-4392 or visit www.uncgtheatre.com.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

If August reopened the door to live music in all its glam and glory, then we can only hope that September will blow the doors off and smash them into oblivion. Indeed, this month’s scheduled events signal the return of real touring acts on real stages in real venues. So long, Zoom — and good riddance.

• September 1, Ramkat (Winston-Salem): It is no coincidence that the term “Americana” was coined almost simultaneously as the artist Todd Snider burst upon the scene in the mid-’90s. In fact, one could make the case that the idiom was formed to describe the music that Snider and a handful of other not-country-not-rocknot-pop artists made. A songwriter in the John Prine/Jerry Jeff Walker vein, Snider is The Man. • September 2, Tanger Center: When Rhiannon Giddens appeared at the N.C. Folk Festival year before last, a couple to my right came from Atlanta to see her and a couple to my left came from Kentucky. Both raved about how lucky we were that she was from Greensboro. Yep, we knew her when she was playing the Church of the Covenant and Lucky 32. And we agree that all the success and accolades that have come her way couldn’t have happened to a nicer and more deserving person.

• September 10 & 11, The Crown at The Carolina Theatre: I hate to use the phrase, “You had to be there,” but, well, you would’ve. Millennials have no clue about the local stir created in the ’90s by Bus Stop, Evan Olson and Athenaeum. The buzz started local and went international, and they still have fans overseas today. This one-time reunion deserves two nights, with Athenaeum frontmen Mark Kano and Mike Garrigan opening for Olson, Britt “ Snüzz” Uzzell, Chuck Folds and Eddie Walker.

• September 18, Greensboro Coliseum: I have to admit I’m not too keen on contemporary country music. Give me some Merle, George, Conway and Reba any day of the week. But I also have to admit that Dan + Shay have forced me to reassess my negativity over Nashville yadda yadda.

This über talented duo is nearing the top right now and will soon be up there with whats -his-name from The Voice.

• September 26, Haw River Ballroom: This lovely Saxapahaw venue may seem off the beaten path, which makes it the perfect spot for the legendary Ani DiFranco. Years ago she told the label vultures to stick it up their mercenary bee-hinds and charted her own course. And that course has made her a goddess with the largest and most loyal cult following imaginable. She takes no prisoners.

O.Henry 19

w r i g h tsvi l l e

bea c h

Tea Leaf Astrologer

endless

SUMMER

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

You’ve seen the cymbal-banging monkey — eyes bulging while relentlessly slamming brass cups together. Virgos are wound tighter than most. And when you consider that they are, indeed, Earth signs, you begin to realize what an enigma these strong-willed, tragically tender creatures actually are. This month, astrologically, is a bit of a perfect storm for you, Virgo. But here’s a mantra that might help: I control nothing. Try repeating this silently to yourself throughout the day, especially when you feel the overwhelming desire to fix what’s not yet broken.

There may be a gift in it for you.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you: Libra (September 23 – October 22) Perspective is everything. You’re only a fish out of water until the rain starts. Think about it.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21) Spoiler alert: The world won’t end. It’s time to stop banking on it.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21) There’s a Bill Withers’ song that comes to mind. You know the one.

And you know just what to do.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19) A ghost from the past wants your attention. But what do you want? Focus on that.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18) Things are in motion this month. Like, warp speed. Try sitting still.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20) No need to reshuffle the deck. Just play the cards.

Aries (March 21 – April 19) Radical trust. You don’t have it. But do you actually want it?

Taurus (April 20 – May 20) You can’t have the sweetness without the sting. And you wouldn’t appreciate it otherwise.

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20 O.Henry

Gemini (May 21 – June 20) Ever tried talking to the moon? Good.

Now try listening.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22) What is meant for you will come to you.

You’ll be ready — but not a moment too soon.

Leo (July 23 – August 22) “No mud, no lotus.” You’ve heard that before, right? Keep the faith. 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.

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Life's Funny

A Visit to the iDoctor The genius will see you now

By Maria Johnson

I sigh as I pull into the

crowded parking lot. Everyone is here because they have reached a critical juncture in their lives.

Somewhere behind these walls, we hope, there is someone with enough wisdom and compassion to guide us through an important passage: the birth of the next generation, the patching of the broken, or the saving of the acutely ill.

That’s right. I’m at an Apple store.

I take a deep breath and check my cute coral iPhone XR one more time. Maybe her symptoms have miraculously disappeared?

No such luck. Her camera screen is dark, and I’ve tried all of the home remedies. I need help.

I pry open the front door, a heavy glass slab that announces I’m entering a cultural institution.

Inside, the air and the environs are undeniably cool.

A muscular iBouncer awaits.

“What can we do for you today,” he says through a mask. It’s not really a question.

I explain the problem and he points me to the next stop, a young woman who’s wearing a bucket hat and wielding a tablet. I wade through the nursery, where they keep the new phones. So bright and unscratched and full of unused storage.

This phone here? Why, it could shoot and edit an Oscarwinning movie.

And this one? It could discover and model the Grand Unified Theory.

Such promise.

I check in with Ms. Bucket Hat, who walks me, tap by tap, through a number of settings.

Her diagnosis: I need an appointment at the hallowed Genius Bar. How long will it take to get in? Hours? Days? Weeks?

Twenty minutes??!!! I fairly jump for joy. I’m a walk-in, and the docs will see me in 20 minutes!

I prop myself on a stool in the waiting area. Everyone looks nervous. Some of us cradle our loved ones. Can they be restored to what they were? Can we go home today, or will this require an admission?

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

“Mara?” a voice asks gently.

Close enough.

I turn.

“My name is Ahmad” — of course it is; Ahmad is a cool name — “and I’m here to be the nurse to your doctor.”

I swear on a stack of iPhone 12 minis that he says these words.

“Can you tell me what the problem is?”

I spill the symptoms again, as one must do in these situations. He gently removes my phone from her OtterBox and runs some diagnostics. The results appear, wirelessly, on his tablet. He furrows his brow.

What? What?!

He tells me to wait for the doctor, who breaks the news that my phone will have to be admitted, though hopefully as an outpatient.

“This is more than a software issue . . .” he says gently. “It’s a hardware problem.”

“But I didn’t even drop her,” I protest. “OK, once. Last week. But she didn’t crack, and she took pictures after that!”

He nodded patiently. He’s heard this all before.

I return later that evening to pick her up.

She looks so thin and vulnerable when they bring her out.

But she powers up immediately. That’s my girl!

They have performed a total camera replacement.

But for some mother-boardin’ reason that Phillip, the discharging doc, attempts to explain, her back camera (the one I use to take pics) will work but the front camera (the one that handles facial recognition and selfies) will never be the same.

Do I want to trade her in?

Hmm. I don’t take many selfies, and I really don’t like the idea of facial recognition anyway.

Thanks, but no thanks.

It’s dark when I throw my weight against the heavy glass door for the last time.

It’s slightly chipped around the edges, I notice.

One day, it’ll be replaced.

But for now, it’s still formidable. And functional. And cool . . . enough. OH Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

O.Henry 25

The Creators of N.C.

Moving On Up

By Wiley and Mallory Cash

In 1994, Oscar Wong began brewing beer

in the basement of Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria in downtown Asheville. Wong, the son of Chinese immigrants, grew up in Jamaica and moved to the states to study civil engineering at the University Notre Dame. After forging a successful career in nuclear engineering, he would later create an innovative nuclear waste disposal company and then go on to found Highland Brewing Company, Asheville’s oldest independent brewery. As the first legal brewery in Western North Carolina following the repeal of prohibition, you can imagine its allure. Still, it took Wong eight years to break even.

Why? Because he was determined to produce a high-quality product on a consistent basis. He invested in his vision. While that superior quality persists, little else remains from those early days in the basement.

In 2011, Wong’s daughter, Leah Wong Ashburn, officially joined the team at Highland Brewery. More than a decade earlier, Ashburn had applied for a position with her father’s company after graduating

26 O.Henry

with a degree in journalism from UNC-Chapel Hill, but her father turned down her application. He wanted her to find her own way, he told her. And so she did.

Years later, after Ashburn built a thriving career in sales and marketing with a yearbook publisher in Charlotte, her father actually recruited her for a position at Highland, but in the intervening years, the tables had turned: He could no longer afford her.

But blood is thicker than water, and, apparently, so is beer.

“Other things became more important and the brewery was one of those more important things,” Ashburn said in a 2018 interview with Business North Carolina. “It was about being part of the community.

You can’t put a value on that.”

Leah Wong Ashburn is now Highland’s president and CEO, and her tenure has marked an era of rapid change, both for the company and the city of Asheville. In 2011, Highland opened a tasting room at their mountaintop manufacturing facility in east Asheville, which has now grown to 70,000 square feet and offers complimentary tours of their onsite brewery, a lively taproom with ample seating, a performance stage, a rooftop garden bar and an indoor event space.

According to Brock Ashburn, Leah’s husband and the company’s vice president, “We built the taproom to accommodate the throngs of people who were showing up, part of an ever-increasing interested public who wanted to drink our beer where it was made.”

Over the past decade, a lot of people have — as Brock Ashburn puts it — “shown up” in Asheville, and the city is now an international destination for foodies, beer connoisseurs and outdoor enthusiasts. “There’s always been a soul and a spirit in Asheville,” Leah says, “and Highland got to join up with other people who The Art & Soul of Greensboro

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MALLORY CASH

History is brewing again in downtown Asheville

The Creators of N.C.

believed in the potential for Asheville. Great beer is a complement to great food and quality of life.”

Community and regional pride are more than just branding tools; Highland is a company whose culture is built on stewardship and community responsibility, tenets made apparent in their practices of reducing or reusing waste, partnering with local nonprofits and embracing solar power. The company also collaborates with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, naming seasonal beers after unique regional landscapes. Ashburn has always made clear that she intends to keep the company concentrated on regional endeavors and has no plans to ship beer across the country, choosing instead to focus the company’s efforts within the confines of the Southeast.

This comes as no surprise for a brewery that has spent two and a half decades fostering a regional brand in a region that has quickly gained international attention.

Today, Leah and Brock are sitting at the brewery’s new downtown taproom in the old S&W Building, a quintessential example of Asheville’s stunning 1920s Art-Deco architecture. Late morning sunlight pours through tall windows that look out on Pritchard Park, illuminating the gold-plated fixtures and ceiling tiles, the two-story marble columns and tiled floors in a glowing aura that sweeps visitors back into the roaring ’20s. You can almost sense what Asheville must have been like a century ago, when it was first known as a destination for Hollywood stars, politicians and titans of industry. Highland anchors the new S&W Market’s downstairs dining area with a taproom, along with several local restaurants that provide counter service. Upstairs, on the mezzanine level, Highland has opened a full bar and tasting room with ample space for guests to relax over a pint.

One can only imagine what it must mean to Leah for Highland to The Art & Soul of Greensboro

return to downtown, where it all started from such humble beginnings over a quarter century ago.

“As a second-generation owner, I was encouraged to make the brewery my own,” she says. “That did not feel safe to me at first because of the long history of Highland, but my father’s sentiment was honest, and he’s let us create our own vision.” That meant changing the beer portfolio and re-envisioning the brand. She says it also meant improving the property: “We started as a manufacturing company, but Brock’s an engineer and a builder, and I’m a marketer,” Leah says.

Combining all of those interests and backgrounds led to a complementary hospitality component. “It appeals to tourists because it highlights some of the great things about Asheville in one location.”

Outside, people are waiting for the S&W Market’s doors to be unlocked for the day’s business. A line of tourists and downtown office workers in business attire snakes down the sidewalk. Leah and Brock look out the window and pause for a moment, perhaps recalling the throngs of beer enthusiasts who showed up the minute the first taproom opened at Highland’s manufacturing site a decade earlier.

“This is an opportunity to tell our story downtown and also attract people to come out to East Asheville to visit our brewery,” Brock says.

“It’s a great opportunity to get our brand out there and let people know where this all started.”

From a downtown basement to a mountaintop in East Asheville to the second floor of one of the city’s most iconic downtown buildings, Highland has come a long way. But whether it’s the quality of the beer or the family name, some things never change.

Wiley Cash is the writer-in-residence at the University of North CarolinaAsheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, will be released this month. Mallory Cash is an editorial and portrait photographer.

O.Henry 27

23RD ANNUAL

ARTSTOCK

STUDIO TOUR

IS ALMOST HERE!

During the second weekend of October, meet Carol and other artists from the Greater Greensboro area. Participating artists will display their work in their own studios as well as at group and gallery locations.

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I have the privilege of owning a Kaminski original - European Bee-Eater - and it adds warmth, color and is a happy addition to my home. Much like Carol herself, her artwork is a fascinating mix of structured realism with a touch of whimsy. Carol is a talented artist experienced in multiple art forms.

I thoroughly enjoy her creative versatility and the special excitement her work in resin exudes.

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704-608-9664 Hours by appointment Classes available www.resinateart.com The Art & SoulO.Henry of Greensboro 28

Overseeing the Evil and the Good

Omnivorous Reader

Wiley Cash’s new novel weaves a tale of mystery

By Stephen E. Smith

It will come as no surprise to any-

one who’s read Wiley Cash’s previous bestselling novels — A Land More Kind Than Home, This Dark Road to Mercy and The Last Ballad — that his latest offering, When Ghosts Come Home, is a sophisticated, skillfully rendered mystery that focuses, despite being set in late October and early November 1984, on the personal, societal and racial conflicts that trouble Americans in the moment.

Cash, like most accomplished writers, is attuned to the environment from which he’s writing (even if the events he’s describing occurred decades ago), and he has, with good reason, consistently drawn on North Carolina as his setting of choice: He was born and raised in Gastonia, teaches at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and lives in or around the Wilmington/Oak Island area, the region of the state that serves as the locale for his latest mystery.

The coastal setting may be familiar to many North Carolina readers, but the story that unfolds has nothing to do with a family outing at the beach. If the region suggests tranquility, it’s also the source for the grisly ingredients that make for a good whodunit, and Cash’s leap-frogging narrative continually moves forward with an economy of style and structural tension that’s a balance of the familiar with the unexpected. Despite numerous twists and turns, Cash is always the consummate craftsman; not a word or gesture or errant piece of information proves irrelevant.

Moreover, the characters he creates aren’t easy Southern stereotypes; they may live in an atmosphere troubled by shifting notions of race and social standing, and they are almost always dangerous to themselves and each other, but their view of the world is more comprehensive, more contemporary, than those of the usual Faulknerian rabble. If his characters exhibit anger, bigotry and violence — all in plentiful supply in the South — Cash never displays contempt for the foolish and unwashed, never sets himself up as arbiter. He simply oversees the evil and good, and allows his readers to make their final judgments based on their view of the available world.

The mystery opens with 63-year-old Winston Barnes, the Brunswick County sheriff and the novel’s protagonist, awakening to the roar of a low-flying aircraft approaching a little-used local airport on Oak Island. Barnes is at a crisis point in his life: His wife is being The Art & Soul of Greensboro

treated for cancer; his daughter’s marriage is failing after the loss of a child; and he’s up for re-election in a few weeks. He knows that the disturbance created by the aircraft is reason for concern, and that the publicity generated by his handling of any criminal activity on the island could be crucial to remaining in office.

Cash’s strong sense of place is apparent when Barnes leaves home to investigate the downed aircraft, and his use of detail and small observations deftly and beautifully brings the moment into focus: “Winston watched the light from the Caswell Beach lighthouse at the far eastern end of the island strafe the waterway in perfect increments. It flashed in his rearview mirror, and for a moment he could both see and feel its light in his eyes. . . . He had been at this exact spot on the bridge at night what must have been a million times over the years, and each time he felt like he was leaving the bright gleam of the lighthouse for the tiny spot of the beacon light, a light that was overwhelmed by the darkness of the mainland that waited for him in the woods across the water.”

As a young man, Cash took in those same sights on mornings when he drove to catch the ferry to Bald Head Island, where he worked as a lifeguard. “I made this same drive every morning before dawn during the summer of 1998 when I was 20 and my parents had first moved to Oak Island,” Cash revealed in a recent pandemic/email interview. “I had to leave my parents’ house to catch the ferry to make it to a shift that began at 7 a.m. It was summer, and the island was incredibly busy, but I was always struck by how those pre-dawn hours were so still and haunting. I was observing as an outsider because I didn’t belong to it, and neither does Winston.”

When he arrives at the airstrip, Barnes discovers an abandoned DC-3 with its cargo hold empty. Not far from the plane, he happens upon the body of a local Black man, Rodney Bellamy, who has been shot in the chest.

The essential characters are quickly introduced — Colleen, Barnes’ daughter; Jay, Rodney Bellamy’s teenage brother-in-law; Ed Bellamy, Rodney’s father and a former Marine sharpshooter; Deputy Billy Englehart, a furtive white supremacist; Bradley Frye, Barnes’ opponent in the upcoming election and the obvious antagonist; and FBI agents Roundtree, Rollins and Grooms, who have ostensibly been assigned to investigate any drug connections with the case. Add to these a cast of cameo characters who agitate the subplots and there’s much to consider by way of human imperfection — race, class, jealously, betrayal, old aniO.Henry 29

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30 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Omnivorous Reader

mosities, personal history — all of it churning up a jumble of possible suspects.

When Cash digs deep into his characters, he reveals the secrets that shape their prejudices, and the straightforward structure of the traditional mystery assumes a vaguely parabolic intent. Set in a time when, believe it or not, racial attitudes were less obvious, readers will sense that Cash is addressing the present racial tensions that plague America. This is no more apparent than in a scene that plays out between Barnes and Vicki, a long-time receptionist at the sheriff’s office. She’d received a deputy’s report concerning Klan members who have been cruising a Black neighborhood brandishing weapons and a Confederate flag, but she’d failed to pass this information on to Barnes, and he’s forced to confront her.

“She hesitated. Winston looked into her eyes, imagined her mind tossing around words and phrases she’d grown up hearing, long-held beliefs that she insisted on holding against Black men like Ed Bellamy and his dead son. Asking her to work against suspicions and beliefs so deeply held as to seem intrinsic to life was like asking Vicki to attempt the impossible task of separating her skin from her own skeleton.”

This epiphany must be similar to what many Americans have experienced in recent years. In a country divided against itself, we are suddenly forced to confront the frightening truth that underlies the attitudes and beliefs of once-trusted friends and acquaintances.

When Ghosts Come Home is a mystery that’s compelling in its suspense and topical intrigues. Cash creates a wealth of fully dimensional characters, and he permeates the novel with a melancholy that will leave readers wondering about an open-ended denouement that invites them, via a gentle authorial nudge, to participate in fleshing out the novel’s most brutal and unexpected consequence, an act of dehumanizing violence and betrayal that could only occur in the frightening world in which we now find ourselves. OH 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.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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O.Henry 31

Scuppernong Bookshelf

For the Love of Folk

Musical reads inspired by the return of the N.C. Folk Festival

Compiled by Shannon Purdy Jones

Culturally speaking, perhaps

no loss in the pandemic has been as marked as the eclipse of live musical performance.

Something indescribable happens when people come together to make and witness music, a joyous spark that cannot be replicated even on the most well-executed Zoom concerts. Which is why we at Scuppernong Books are thrilled about the return of the North Carolina Folk Festival. We will never again take for granted coming together to enjoy live music with our community. September 10 – 12, we’ll see you downtown, where we’ll be masked up and singing off-key. Until then, get inspired by these musical reads that span the gamut from folk to pop, to rock and beyond.

Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk by David Menconi (UNC Press, $30) David Menconi spent three decades immersed in the state’s music, where traditions run deep but the energy expands in countless directions. Menconi shows how working-class roots and class rebellion tie North Carolina’s Piedmont blues, jazz and bluegrass to beach music, rock and hip-hop. From mill towns and mountain coves to college-town clubs and the stage of American Idol, from Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk, Step It Up and Go celebrates homegrown music as indigenous to the state as barbecue and basketball. Spanning a century of history from the dawn of recorded music to the present, and with sidebars and photos that help reveal the many-splendored glory of North Carolina’s sonic landscape, this is a must-read for every music lover.

Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary by Sasha Geffen (University of Texas Press, $18.95) Why has music so often served as an accomplice to the transcendent expressions of gender?

Why is music so inherently queer? For Sasha Geffen, the answers lie

32 O.Henry

in music’s intrinsic ability to express the subliminal, which, through paradox and contradiction, allows rigid gender roles to fall away in a sensual and ambiguous exchange between performer and listener.

Glitter Up the Dark traces the history of this gender fluidity in pop music from the early 20th century to present day. Starting with early blues and the Beatles and continuing with performers such as David Bowie, Prince, Missy Elliott and Frank Ocean, Geffen explores how artists have used music, fashion, language and technology to break out of the confines mandated by gender essentialism and to establish the voice as the primary expression of gender transgression.

Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967–1975 by Richard Thompson with Scott Timberg (Algonquin Books, $27.95) In this moving and immersive memoir, international music legend Richard Thompson recreates the spirit of the 1960s, where he found — and then lost, and then found! — his way again. Known for his brilliant songwriting and haunting voice, Thompson is also considered one of the top 20 guitarists of all time. In his long-awaited memoir, the British folk musician takes us back to a period of great change and creativity, both for himself and for the world at large.

During the pivotal years of 1967 to 1975, just as he was discovering his passion for music, Thompson formed the band Fairport Convention with some schoolmates and helped establish the genre of British folk rock. That led to a heady period of songwriting and extensive tours, where he crossed paths with the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix. But those eight years were also marked by upheaval and tragedy. Then, at the height of the band’s popularity, Thompson left to form a duo act with his wife, Linda. And as he writes revealingly here, his discovery and ultimate embrace of Sufism dramatically reshaped his approach to music — and, of course, everything else.

The Mbira: An African Musical Tradition by Māhealani Uchiyama (North Atlantic Books, $14.95) In this accessible overview steeped in history and tradition, teacher and student Māhealani Uchiyama offers insights for learning all about the mbira, a wooden soundboard with hammered metal keys. In traditional Zimbabwean culture, playThe Art & Soul of Greensboro

Scuppernong Bookshelf ing the mbira is a spiritual practice that bridges worlds. Supplemented with 32 images and a glossary of terms, this book covers, among other things: codes of conduct for respectfully playing the mbira and for taking it up as a practice; how the mbira can connect people severed from their African roots; and how appropriation and commodification have contributed to the mbira’s popularization around the world.

Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting by Mary Gauthier (St. Martin’s Essentials, $27.99) Mary Gauthier was 12 years old when she was given her Aunt Jenny’s old guitar. Music gave her a window into a world where others felt the way she did. Songs became lifelines. One day, she told herself, she would write her own songs. Sadly, Gauthier’s dream faded, overshadowed by her struggle with addiction for a decade. It wasn’t until she got sober that her purpose became clear: not only did she still want to write songs, she needed to. Today, Gauthier is a decorated musical artist with numerous awards and recognition for her songwriting, including a Grammy nomination. In Saved by a Song, Gauthier pulls the curtain back on the artistry of songwriting.

Part memoir, part philosophy of art, part nuts-and-bolts of songwriting, her book celebrates the redemptive power of song to inspire and bring seemingly different kinds of people together.

Bessie Smith: A Poet’s Biography of a Blues Legend by Jackie Kay (Vintage, $16.95) Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and orphaned by the age of 9, blues singer Bessie Smith sang on street corners before becoming a big name in traveling shows and eventually catapulting into fame. Known for her unmatched vocal talent, her timeless and personal blues narratives, her tough persona and her ability to enrapture audiences, this blues Empress remains both a force and an enigma. In this remarkable book, Scotland’s National Poet Jackie Kay blends poetry, prose, fiction and nonfiction to create a unique biography and a personal story about one woman’s search for recognition. OH Shannon Purdy Jones is store manager and children’s book buyer at Scuppernong Books.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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O.Henry 33

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The Knife at Rest

It’s the little things — and sometimes the finer things

By Cynthia Adams

We were lunching in rare style.

Good food, good company, a splendid table before us — and everyone was in excellent spirits.

The table? It looked like a page torn from Architectural Digest: heirloom china, delicate crystal and antique French silverware on creamy linens.

An artist and her close friend paused mid-sentence, suddenly noticing a set of what turned out to be silver knife rests.

The artist’s mouth opened, then closed.

What are those? She pointed to the elegant silver rectangles positioned above the antique table knife.

Our host, an enthusiastic collector, explained: they were, quite simply, a resting place for a used knife, which kept linens safe from the greasy slurry on the plate.

The artist began to speculate about tired knives requiring rest.

“Too weary to cut it!”

“Lying down on the job!”

“Stop me before I cut in again.”

She held a handsome knife up for inspection. “After they rest, then what?”

“They obviously move in for the kill,” she quipped.

We laughed ourselves silly, enjoying the word play.

The fun added to a good meal at a great table. As the conversation evolved, someone mentioned how we, after all, eat with our eyes. True, yet times have changed.

There’s always fashion and history at work in our kitchens and dining rooms, as good ideas come and go from favor. A knife rest is straight out of an Edith Wharton setting: a classic remnant of fine dining.

What other objects are from tables past, things once used and now idling in the drawer?

Those who love Wharton will reel from the pronouncements of Bob Vila, a former Sears’ pitchman who rose to fame with This Old House.

Despite This Old House, Vila has very modern opinions.

Here’s a short list on his outmoded and, therefore, verboten picks: fancy forks — including oyster forks, fish forks, salad forks, pickle forks and dessert forks. All out.

Other things deemed pointless by Vila: butter picks. (The butter pick is used for choosing/skewering single pats of butter.)

Napkin rings are also a thing of the past, Vila insists. I am glad

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

my mother did not live to read this. If she were not dead already, this news would doubtless kill her.

Dedicated stemware is also outmoded, he claims. He says that it is completely modern to use a stemless glass for all wines. In fact, one multipurpose glass twill suffice. Even, dear God, a Mason jar.

To all my friends and family, I am sorry to convey this, not only because we are all stemware-struck, but because I personally own tons of outmoded glassware by Vila’s standards, including champagne coupes.

I shudder to imagine the Queen being served her beloved Bollinger in a pickle jar. The mind reels.

Also, Vila says egg cups are déclassé.

If you followed The Crown, you already know the Queen takes a morning egg in an egg cup and toast in a proper toast rack.

Jelly spoons are another fatality of Vila’s list, and so he would banish little Lilibet from taking her marmalade with a proper jelly spoon. (BTW, did you know that the British call congealed salads and gelatins like Jell-O “jelly”?)

Table runners, something many of us have clung to long after parting with other life niceties, are vile to Vila. Try telling that to Williams-Sonoma.

The shocker on Vila’s list may require sitting down (in the event you prefer to read standing): wedding china. He deems it outmoded. Dated. Unnecessary. He asserts that we are a nation of casual diners who no longer eat off of fancy plates.

But any Southerner with a thimble full of sense knows there is no separating a Southern gal from her wedding china. His claim is a step too far.

Like our grandmother’s Blue Willow, we know and love it from the mists of time. We eat off our ancestral plates, even if chipped.

We stand in line to admire the White House china patterns.

When the late Julia Reed was promoting the entertaining guide, Julia Reed’s South, she talked about using antique wine rinsers for flowers and old silver ashtrays for salt cellars. “Use everything,” she said. If it chips, it chips.

And the unpretentious Reed added something worth noting: “What I love about the South in general is that there is nothing too small to celebrate, and if you’re really lucky you learn about grace and small joys, which are, after all, what make up big lives.”

The clincher? “Keep the beautiful things alive.”

Long live the knife rest. OH Cynthia Adams, a contributing editor of O.Henry, is looking for a set of antique knife rests.

O.Henry 35

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O.Henry 37

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Short & Sweet

The Powder Room It may be small, but the vision should be grand

By Cynthia Adams

After 21 years,

PHOTOGRAPH BY GRACE AND CARY KANOY

Whitsett resident Sharon James decided her powder room deserved better than the wallpaper and finishes she loved in 1999.

The powder room dates to Prohibition, when women “powdered their noses” in hastily constructed “ladies’ toilets” sometimes built under speakeasy stairways. Once barely adequate, today, they are hardworking half-baths.

Given the small size, powder room renos average $2,000. That is, unless you are designer Miles Redd, who says “powder rooms should be outrageous.”

As in, they’re the “one space you want to take people’s breath away.”

That notion got James’s attention. She wanted something breathtaking.

Inspired by a traditional mirror spotted while antiquing at Carriage House — “one that had been spray painted with white automotive paint to give it a high sheen” — James found what she needed to get revved up. “Falling in love with that mirror, and loving blue-and-white, is what started the project.”

The mirror, it turns out, wouldn’t fit, but it did inspire an all blueand-white redo.

In 2016, James reached out to local muralist Dana Holliday after reading about her in O.Henry.

“Dana had been schooled in painting in a grisaille [painting executed entirely in shades of gray or neutral, grayish colors],” shares James. “And she had a history of painting large murals.”

While the Jameses were, in fact, in France, Holliday painted French scenes in their dining room, making it their favorite room.

Now, would she paint a custom mural in the powder room?

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Scenes from the Cotswolds?

James provided pictures from their travels.

“You must be agile — and supple enough to straddle a toilet and do the ‘in-and-outies,’” jokes Holliday. “Up and over, over and under . . . I was in that little room. Sometimes I laid on my side to reach something. Thank God I do yoga!”

Holliday laughs, “I felt like Toilet Tina.”

Afterward, James sourced lighting specific to the scale of the space that wouldn’t compete with the artwork.

“Sometimes it’s almost harder to do a small room given the scale. You can find a lot of what you like but you must narrow it down to size.”

Scale and color ruled.

“When you have a small room,” says James, “measurements count.”

The homeowner continues: “It was fun finding all the little things to complement a pretty little bathroom. I had two beautiful aged brass sconces I intended to use; except, when I went to a very pale palette, it made the brass look dirty and destroyed the look of a light and airy room.” Crystal sconces came to the rescue. “And I had parchment shield-shaped shades (made in Venice, Italy,) to complement the blue-and-white walls.”

James sourced rugs from Dash & Albert, towels from Matouk and ordered simple Delta taps.

A vision for the artist proved key.

“Don’t do it unless you have it nailed down,” agrees Holliday, who works with encaustic and acrylic paintings in addition to her commercial faux painting.

(Holliday is currently providing art demonstrations at Zimmerman Vineyards in Trinity.) OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor of O.Henry.

O.Henry 39

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The Curio Corner

Behind the Faces

A few moments with portrait artist Suellen McCrary

Subjects standing with their portraits on opening night

By Maria Johnson

PHOTOGRAPH (RIGHT) COURTESY OF SUELLEN MCCRARY PHOTOGRAPH (LEFT) BY JOEY SEAWELL

They look like they’re fixing to

talk, the 24 people whose spirits were gently snared and then brushed onto birch panels that will hang in the Central Gallery of Greensboro’s Revolution Mill until October 1.

Portrait artist Suellen McCrary is responsible for the catch-andrelease operation, a project called The Faces of Revolution.

Everyone she painted is connected, one way or another, to Revolution Mill, which wove downy flannel for Cone Mills Corporation from 1898 to 1982. The reclaimed complex, which blankets the hill where North Buffalo Creek slides under Yanceyville Street, now functions as a hip hub of live-work-play.

Funded by a grant from the property’s current owner, Self-Help Ventures Fund of Durham, McCrary mostly painted people who worked in the factory, folks who grew up in the mill village and their descendants. A few of her subjects currently labor — in lightflooded, ergonomically correct offices — in the latest incarnation of the brick, steel and maple behemoth.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

McCrary herself leased a space there until last summer, when she moved back into her High Point home studio.

In mid-October, the oil portraits will move into the main building’s Textile Hall of Fame, where they will appear with biographical sketches.

McCrary, a Greensboro native and Appalachian grad who worked as a graphic artist before settling into portraiture, agreed to sit for a Q&A in the spirit of the word “portrait,” which is derived from the Latin verb “portrahere,” meaning to reveal or expose.

Was there anything that struck you in the stories of the people you painted?

Almost to a one, the running theme was friendship and community. It sounds corny, but it’s true. They were like family.

They worked together. They lived together. They went to church together. They were on baseball teams. There was a real sense of community. There still is. There’s a Facebook page, Cone Mills Villages — My Family’s Heritage.

How many hours did you spend on each portrait?

You know everybody asks me that. It varies. Some just flowed and O.Henry 41

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

The Curio Corner some took a lot longer. Many, many hours, we’ll just put it that way.

Aside from the commercial viability, why do you paint portraits, as opposed to, say, landscapes or still lifes?

Gosh, I don’t know if I can describe why. I’ve just always been drawn to drawing people. It’s just what interests me. I love landscapes. I appreciate other people’s landscapes, and I keep thinking I’ll try my hand at it, but I keep painting people.

Do you remember the first portrait you painted?

Probably my kids — and those weren’t very good.

Did they tell you that?

No. I look back on them, and I can tell that they weren’t very good.

It’s like anything else, practice makes better, not perfect.

What are you after when you’re painting someone’s portrait?

Their likeness, obviously. I want to put them in their best light because that’s how I’d want someone to do me. I always find something that I love about every person that I’m painting. I try to play that up.

It could be a look in their eye, a slight expression of their mouth.

Would you glean that from a conversation?

It helps. I love to talk to them while I’m painting, and then I’ll take lots of photos, 50 to 100 maybe. I’ll flip through them and come to one, and it’s “That’s the one.”

Who’s your favorite portrait painter?

John Singer Sargent is the first one that comes to mind. With just a few brushstrokes, he’s able to capture the essence of a person. You know he labored, but he makes it look easy. If I’m in a museum, and they have a Sargent, I’m bee-lining.

Have you ever done a self-portrait?

Yeah. I was in college. It was OK. The guy I was dating at the time said he didn’t think it looked like me.

What did he mean by that?

I’m hoping he meant I didn’t do myself justice! OH For more information about artist Suellen McCrary, visit suellenmccrary.com.

Contact O.Henry’s contributing editor Maria Johnson at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

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O.Henry 43

Botanicus

Goldenrod

Behold the flaming yellow glory of this native flowering plant

By Ross Howell Jr.

A native plant I love

to see this time of year is Solidago, from the Latin solidare — “to make whole” — which suggests the medicinal powers sometimes attributed to the genus.

Commonly called “goldenrod,” it’s a perennial that bursts into magnificent yellow fireworks across the mountains, piedmont, sandhills and coastal plains of our Old North State.

At least a dozen varieties are found regionally in the wild, according to the North Carolina Native Plant Society.

I’m not alone in my admiration for goldenrod. My neighbor, Steve Windham, native plant specialist and founder of Root & Branch Gardens, tells me why he enjoys hiking the Appalachian Trail as summer turns toward fall.

“If you’ve ever walked out into a mountain meadow under a blue autumn sky with goldenrod in bloom,” Windham says, “you’ll know how truly spectacular it is.”

I remember just such a sight on the farm where I grew up, a fallow field resplendent with goldenrod, joe-pye weed, milkweed and ironweed. On that brilliant palette danced flights of butterflies — monarch, red admiral and tiger swallowtail — plus a host of skippers, cobalts and other beetles, bumblebees and metallic green flies. It was a sight wonderful to behold.

So why not replicate it in your home landscape?

Enterprising growers and nurseries have expanded the number of goldenrod varieties available for your yard or garden to more than 200.

“I use goldenrod in my garden and in my landscape designs because it’s so tough, so easy to grow and attracts so many pollinators,” Windham says. He tells me that, in his own backyard, he

44 O.Henry

has a perennial border featuring a goldenrod cultivar called “Skyrocket,” which stands about three feet tall. Lower-growing dwarf cultivars can also be planted.

Windham, who helped install the ornamental grasses and pollinator meadow at the Greensboro Arboretum, recommends adding to your goldenrod native grasses such as little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) or big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), joe-pye weed (Eupatorium fistulosum), ironweed (Vernonia glauca), phlox (Phlox carolina), asters (Aster paten) and bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana). Even after the flowers’ colors have faded, you’ll have a garden or border featuring interesting foliage that lasts into the winter months.

Those of you who suffer from fall allergies may think that Steve and I have lost our minds when we recommend goldenrod for your home garden.

Well, the goldenrod is not likely responsible for your runny nose and itchy eyeballs.

The culprit is another N.C. native perennial in the genus Ambrosia, from the Latin “food of the gods.”

Maybe the botanist responsible for giving this plant a name had a wicked sense of humor, but poor Ambrosia artemisiifolia is commonly called “ragweed.” It also bursts into bloom across the mountains, piedmont, sandhills and coastal plain of our Old North State in about the same habitats and at the same time of year as goldenrod.

Ragweed produces green, unremarkable blooms that release vast numbers of small, lightweight granules of airborne pollen that can be spread for miles by the wind. By contrast, goldenrod draws pollinators to its brilliant yellow flowers with nectar, relying on the pollinators to spread the relatively heavy pollen granules that glom onto their bodies and legs.

So plant beautiful Solidago. And forgive pesky Ambrosia.

If you were a plant and somebody called you “ragweed,” you’d probably have a vengeful attitude, too. OH Ross Howell Jr. is a freelance writer in Greensboro.

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Birdwatch

Swirling Birds

The return of the chimney swifts

By Susan Campbell

The approach of fall means many

things to many people: cooler days, longer nights, the smell of pumpkin spice — all things that I love. But the much anticipated evening congregations of chimney swifts is also near the top of the list. Swirls of these long-distance migrants form at dusk for several weeks as the birds pass through North Carolina on their way south.

If during the warm weather you have seen small, twittering, fast-flying birds wheeling about high overhead, you are likely seeing chimney swifts. These “flying cigars” can be observed across the state, but given their affinity for human habitation, they are more abundant where people, buildings and, as their name implies, chimneys are found.

Chimney swifts are known to breed throughout North Carolina from the mountains to the coast. Historically, they were undoubtedly sparsely distributed, nesting in big hollow trees in old growth forests in the eastern two-thirds of the United States. But as settlers spread across our state and provided abundant nesting cavities in the form of chimneys, swifts became more common. Today they are virtually dependent on humans for their reproductive success. But, unfortunately, most modern chimneys with caps or extensive lining are unsuitable for the birds. If they can enter a newer chimney, the smooth substrate within the brick or stone prevents the birds from clinging and, furthermore, does not allow adhesion of the nest (built with small sticks and saliva) to the wall. As a result, recent declines in the chimney swift population have been documented across the species range.

Without a doubt, these small birds are incredible fliers, more so

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

than swallows and martins. They spend the vast majority of their waking hours on the wing, except while nesting. Even courtship and copulation occur in mid-air. Only at night do they descend to rest in a protected spot — which is almost always a chimney of some sort.

By late July, flocks of swifts begin congregating, feeding on abundant aerial insects, and roosting together in larger chimneys.

These aggregations begin to move southward in August on prevailing northerly air currents to wintering grounds in the tropics. You may find hundreds swirling around in the vicinity of older schools, churches and office buildings that still retain substantial brick chimneys. Such chimneys are more spacious and year after year provide critical staging grounds for generations of swifts. It is an awesome sight to see thousands of individuals pouring into a roost site at dark.

Unfortunately, these unique birds have been misunderstood at this time of year and are often thought to be disease-carrying bats.

As a result, significant numbers of sites have been capped for fear of being a human health hazard. Big old chimneys are lost across our state each year to such misunderstandings.

Additionally, changes in modes of heating result in large chimneys being retired: usually covered and rendered unavailable to swifts. Quite simply, there is a general lack of awareness of the structures as an important biological resource. Furthermore, across most of our state, we are still in the process of identifying major roost sites.

During the winter months, chimney swifts are found in loose aggregations throughout the upper Amazon basin of South America.

There they loaf and feed on an abundance of flying insects until lengthening days urge them northward again. The return trip brings individuals, swirling and darting, back to their summer homes by early April. OH Susan Campbell would love to hear from you. Feel free to send questions or wildlife observations to susan@ncaves.com.

O.Henry 47

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Wandering Billy

The Noise is Back in Town As in glorious live musical performances

By Billy Eye With so many ways to communicate at our disposal, we must not forget the transformative power of a live music experience and genuine human exchange.

— Jon Batiste

Now that live musical

PHOTOGRAPH BY JIYOUNG PARK

performances are returning to the Gate City in a big way, we could almost rename this town Gig City. Not only can you catch live music at the usual suspects — Flat Iron, Oden Brewing Company, White Oak Amphitheatre and The Blind Tiger — but also at Center City Park and LeBauer Park, both of which hosted amazing local performers all summer.

But are today’s audiences receptive to live events?

“Folks turned out for the Dance From Above parties in their new space by the airport,” YES! Weekly’s music scribe, Katei Cranford, tells me. “Strictly Social’s downtown block parties sold out at, like, $20 a ticket. At the end of the day, musicians wanna get back to melting faces, audiences wanna get back to getting down and bars wanna make money.”

And from the musicians’ perspective?

“We started back as soon as we could,” says Josh Watson, lead vocalist/composer of Grand Ole Uproar, a band whose kaleidoscopic, psychotomimetic musings have been captivating music-lovers up and down the east coast for over a decade.

Emily Stewart, Watson’s former bandmate in Our Horse Jethro, recently joined Grand Ole Uproar on banjo and vocals. “The band would get together once a week, outdoors, during the pandemic,” Watson says. “We were writing new tunes and Emily’s vocals really strengthened the songs while also giving the music more momentum with her banjo.”

As a solo artist, Stewart’s melodic intonations mesh brilliantly with her cornbread-and-collards lyrics, an easily traversed minefield of dreams, spotlighted recently on a mesmerizing “Tiny Stage Concert,” (check it out on YouTube).

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Grand Ole Uproar is continually adding tunes to their live set, developed during “The Great Lull,” during which Watson occasionally performed online from Tom Troyer’s Black Rabbit Audio studio. “It’s strange playing to a camera,” Watson reflects.

On September 11, Grand Ole Uproar will rock the rafters at Bull City Ciderworks. Then, on October 10, they’ll redefine afternoon delight at Double Oaks Bed & Breakfast as part of the Charlie’s Angels for Rett Research fundraiser — a rollicking afternoon not to be missed.

*** In 2019, Viva la Muerte was voted “Triad’s Best Original Band” by

readers of YES! Weekly. Eye would agree. “We call [our sound] psychedelic Americana,” singer/songwriter Matt Armstrong tells me. “That place where roots and instrumentation meet not just the electric, but blurs boundaries with all kinds of genres.” I forgot: Artists always serve up the most mouthwatering word-salads when you ask them about their work.

VLM was MIA for a year. “I think our first gig back was at Oden in March,” Armstrong says. “It’s a wonderful place. It’s like our home base.” Oden Brewing Company doesn’t have a built-in sound system, “So you do your own sound,” he tells me. “It’s kind of a crapshoot, but lately we’ve had Tom Troyer mixing our sound and he’s just nailing it.”

Produced by the aforementioned Troyer, Viva la Muerte’s third album, Storm Country, drops October 29 — Halloween weekend. Don’t miss the album release concert that night at Oden.

It was truly a journey, Armstrong tells me. But they needed to connect with the right producer to get the balance right.

“We asked Dan Morgan at Leveneleven Brewing if there was anybody local that he would recommend,” Armstrong recalls.

Enter Troyer of Black Rabbit Audio.

“The best guy in town,” Dan told him.

Word on the street is that Troyer’s not just an accomplished audio engineer, but a talented musician in his own right. “Tom is constantly composing as he’s listening,” Armstrong says. “On a good day, if you’re humble and you listen to his compositional ideas, you say, ‘Oh yeah, let’s go with that.’ He offers lots of input.”

O.Henry 49

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Wandering Billy Viva la Muerte’s locomotive musical muscularity will flex and perhaps enlighten the minds at Center City Park on Saturday, September 4, at 7 p.m. You can also catch the band at Oktoberfest at SouthEnd Brewing on Saturday, October 2.

***

Jeepers gee willikers . . . who is this Tom Troyer fellow that I keep hearing about? I wandered over to Black Rabbit Audio in the Woodlea Lakes neighborhood to find out.

Besides producing other artists, Troyer is the singer/songwriter of his own band, Farewell Friend, which just released a third album in August. Each of Farewell Friend’s mellifluous compositions are autobiographical excavations into Troyer’s past. According to their liner notes, the band’s 2019 release, Glenwood & Gomorrah, is “both a question and a prayer for the neighborhood he [Troyer] grew up in.” Farewell Friend’s latest release, Samson, “has a lot more to do with understanding what I was going through in my 20s, as the son of a pastor,” Troyer says. As for his audiences? “Facebook tells me they’re over 60. I do connect more with people over the age of 45.”

Farewell Friend will be giving a daytime acoustic show at Center City Park (sponsored

by Well Springs) on September 17. “We’re actually going to set up as a complete brass band with bare instrumentation,” Troyer says. “Our bass player, Evan Campfield, and his friend Caleb Baer formed a [Punch Brothers cover] band called Balboa Park.”

Caleb will join Farewell Friend on mandolin, violin and viola for the show. A scrumptious recipe if I ever heard one.

Troyer will also be handling sound for the not-to-be-missed, all-star benefit party for Matty Sheets on Saturday, September 25.

The musical lineup features local sensations Modern Robot, Emily Stewart, Laura Jane Vincent, and Squatch and Soda, among others. That’s at The Green Bean downtown, where Matty is drawing the area’s most talented individuals for his decades-long running Tuesday night Open Mic Night. OH

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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August O'Henry 3.875x9.625_2.indd 1

8/10/21 10:27 AM

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

September 2021

Skipping Walking my heart (good boy!) after lunch,

suddenly my bored step hitches, stutters, propels me firmly up and forward, and look,

I’m skipping, I’m skipping, I’m skipping like I haven’t in over half a century, one foot

then the other bouncing lightly on its ball, springing my dull earthbound body along

like a rock across water, lightly touching down, like a cantering horse on the verge of a gallop,

a syncopated gait that swings my arms out for balance like the girls’ when I was a kid

but so what, I let hands and hips sashay, lost my partner, what’ll I do, skip to my Lou,

my darling heart leaping in my lifted chest as I dance on down the sidewalk, double-time.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

— Michael McFee O.Henry 53

No Place Like Home Photo essay by Amy Freeman

You’ve heard of the colorful doors of Dublin. But have you noticed the bold and vibrant doors sprinkled throughout the Triad? We have. And, frankly, we’re inspired.

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The Tanger Labyrinth Lee Hinshaw, Kestrel Imaging

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

The Healing Gardeners Thanks to a grand vision and several helping hands, Cone Health Cancer Center’s Healing Gardens offer space for transformation — within and without

By Ross Howell Jr.

T

hursday morning in July — another workday for the Healing Gardeners, a band of volunteers providing care for a 2-acre sanctuary next to the Cone Health Cancer Center at Wesley Long Hospital.

The Healing Gardeners start early, tending to their assigned tasks before the heat becomes oppressive.

It’s a race with the sun.

I squint at the glaring concrete sidewalk as I make my way toward the hospital from the multilevel parking deck down the hill.

Ahead I spot a woman in a sun hat seated on a bench. She waves at me and stands. I glance to my left. Young oak trees rise just on the other side of the sidewalk’s aluminum handrails, and beyond I see raised walkways curving into an expanse of shrubs and trees.

At the bench I’m greeted by K. Porter Aichele. A petite woman with sandy blonde hair, she’s a retired professor from UNCG, where she taught art history and museum studies.

Not only does Aichele help with the care of the gardens, she also volunteers at the cancer center’s front desk.

“For a lot of patients, I’m the face of recovery,” Aichele says.

Is she ever.

Aichele’s about 10 years out from being treated at the center herself — first, for breast cancer and later, for skin cancer.

“It was so depressing during my chemo,” Aichele says. “There was nowhere you could walk, unless it was among the cars.”

She gestures toward the garden.

“This was all riprap and poison ivy then,” Aichele says. She has a pleasantly deep voice and measures her words when she speaks. She gazes into the garden and nods.

“You know, Mary and I are both former patients,” Aichele continues, “so we know what this garden can mean to people.”

As if on cue, Mary Magrinat, head of the Healing Gardens, rounds the walk. She’s fair, with dark hair and pale blue eyes. There’s a quality in her face that’s radiant.

Magrinat’s a driving force behind the creation of the Healing Gardens. She seems to have been destined for it.

Half a lifetime ago, at age 36, Magrinat was diagnosed with an aggressive stage one

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Meditation Terrace and Arbor Daniel Ray Photography

form of breast cancer. Treatment saved her, and she was able to continue her professional career.

But not long after selling her financial services business, Magrinat and her husband, Gus, an oncologist with the Cone Health Cancer Center, were introduced to landscape designer Sally Pagliai, who had recently lost her husband, Stefano, to stomach cancer.

“You’ll be meeting her in a bit,” Magrinat says.

The boardwalk we start along is wide enough for a wheelchair.

Magrinat tells me that we’re entering the Wetland Garden.

“Cone Health wanted to put a parking lot here or expand the cancer center,” Magrinat says, “but they determined that it’s absolutely not buildable.”

Protecting such a “biocell” is required by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. In addition to providing food and shelter for wildlife, the wetland also filters impurities from drainage water before it flows into Buffalo Creek on the northern border of the garden.

That side of the garden is separated from Wendover Avenue by the creek and the north end of Lake Daniels Greenway.

After Magrinat and others were successful raising private funds and lobbying for help from the City of Greensboro, a committee in 2013 had the space surveyed, cleaned up some debris and the Healing Gardeners undertook their first big project — planting 234 nondeciduous trees as a visual and sonic buffer between Buffalo Creek and Wendover Avenue.

Then Magrinat and others turned their attention to the wetland.

With the construction of a nearby parking garage, drainage runoff into the area had become even more dramatic.

“In 2014–2015, we did a lot of planning and fundraising,” Magrinat says. Then the Healing Gardeners set to work in earnest.

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Magrinat explains that everything I’m seeing — steps, walkways, benches, stonework, birdhouses, flowering plants, trees and shrubs — was paid for with private contributions.

“There was nothing here,” Margrinat says. Her smile brightens.

“It’s completely transformed isn’t it?”

Yes, it is.

Magrinat describes the loop path we’re on. It goes all the way around the garden. If someone prefers a shortcut, there’s a boardwalk across the center. All the walks are wheelchair-accessible and enter the garden on the side that backs up to the hospital.

Vegetation abounds.

“Mostly we’ve tried to plant things that will thrive and take over,” Magrinat says, “but as you see, some cattails just showed up on their own.”

Trees planted by the Healing Gardeners include 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.

“We’ve done a lot of tree planting,” Magrinat continues. “We planted 353 trees within this garden in addition to the 234 along Wendover.”

Among the native shrubs planted by the Healing Gardeners are yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria), red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) and bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora) — important food sources for wildlife. Wetland flowering plants include buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), marsh hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos) and swamp sunflower (Helianthus angustifolius).

With her usual command of numbers, Magrinat notes, “And we’ve planted more than one thousand ferns,” not to mention the scores of hellebores and hostas I’ve seen during our walk.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Gateway Arches with trumpet vine in Bloom Mary Bernard Magrinat, Photographer The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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We pass lovely white hydrangea bushes and a patch of joe-pye weed.

“We love those kaleidoscope abelias,” Aichele says, pointing them out. “They have such wonderful color.”

We pass a curved arbor. Though its springtime blooms are gone, Mary tells me the arbor is planted with trumpet vine on one side and Carolina jasmine on the other. There’s more sunlight in this part of the garden.

“I want you to meet Richard Mansell,” Magrinat says.

At age 84, Mansell is the senior Healing Gardener. He lived in Florida for 50 years and is a retired botany professor. A lanky, genial man, Mansell takes care of the succulent garden, the newest addition to the Healing Gardens.

Pagliai designed the rock garden that’s home to 75 succulent varieties, each one provided from Mansell’s home garden.

He tells me that after he moved to Greensboro, he first tried to grow flowers.

“My hose never was long enough to water them,” he chuckles, “so I said this is crazy, I’m going to grow something that doesn’t need water and is cold hardy.”

His favorites are sedums — blooming succulents often used as ground covers — along with sempervivums — low-growing succulents with rosette shapes, popularly known as hen and chicks.

Mansell points out sedums with interesting modulations of color and sempervivums of varying rosette shapes and pigments.

When I ask him about some prickly pear cactus volunteers in my yard, he tells me all about how he saw some mules eating cactus in a Florida pasture. We have a good laugh.

Aichele intervenes, teasing Mansell about weeds she’d noticed among his sedums.

“Get back to work, Richard,” she says, and we move along.

Next, Aichele introduces me to Healing Gardener Gerry Alfano.

“Here’s our coordinator,” Aichele says. “She calls us to arms every Thursday.”

Alfano laughs.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

LEFT: WOODLAND GLADE, MARY BERNARD MAGRINAT, PHOTOGRAPHER, RIGHT: STONE FOUNTAIN, DANIEL RAY PHOTOGRAPHY

“The hostas are from Porter’s garden,” Magrinat says.

“I wish my Solomon’s seal looked a little better,” says Aichele. “And I have to tell the story behind the hellebores.”

Aichele tells me that they were a gift from the original garden of the late Dr. Jean Brooks.

“It’s a wonderful story,” Magrinat adds, “because she was the first female gynecologist in Greensboro.”

“It couldn’t have been a colder day in February when we moved the plants,” Aichele continues. “Every single one of these hellebores we brought over and planted here that day.”

Along the boardwalks, wooden benches invite quiet meditation, as do smooth boulders. When I comment on one of the stones, Magrinat and Aichele decide to show me the source of much of the Wetland Garden’s moisture.

We walk to the towering parking deck. Just visible behind boulders skillfully placed to obscure them are the enormous concrete culverts that drain the foundations of the deck. More stones are placed along the stream flowing from the culverts into the garden, naturalizing its appearance.

“This was one of the ugliest places in the garden,” Magrinat says.

“Sally Pagliai and I had 65 tons of boulders brought in.

“Sally laid them out here and throughout the garden,” she continues.

“There were guys with forklifts setting the boulders,” Aichele adds.

“Now they look like they’ve always been here.”

We approach a grassy spot with chairs alongside Buffalo Creek.

Brightly colored ceramic butterflies are mounted on black metal posts at the edge of the grass.

“This is the one place where we added a little bit of color,” Magrinat says. “For the most part, nature is the star here and provides all the color, texture and sound.”

“Oh, there’s one of our gardeners,” Aichele says, pointing out a man on his knees in what looks to be a soupy patch of wetland. He waves happily and continues with his weeding.

LEFT: BUTTERFLY ON TARTARIAN ASTER, DANIEL RAY PHOTOGRAPHY. RIGHT: A QUIET PLACE TO COMMUNE WITH NATURE, DANIEL RAY PHOTOGRAPHY

“Mary’s very convincing,” Alfano says. After Magrinat spoke at her garden club, Alfano ran into her at a neighbor’s Christmas party.

“When Mary found out I loved gardens,” Alfano continues, “and had worked with volunteers, she got me corralled.”

She explains that Healing Gardeners have a wide range of experience. Some are self-taught but have been gardening for years. Some are Master Gardeners. And some volunteers are complete novices.

“Those who don’t have any experience get paired with a Master Gardener,” Magrinat interjects.

“It’s a great way to learn,” Alfano concludes. “We all share a great love of the garden.”

Now we’re standing near a grove of Japanese maples in the shade of the cancer center. I look up at a balcony that juts out from the second floor, where patients receive treatment and therapy. New earth lies in mounds by the building.

Nearby, in the Meditation Garden, a woman carefully weeds a bed of herbs by a stone fountain. Closer, a woman guides a wheelbarrow loaded with shrubs by a stone labyrinth. The labyrinth is an original feature the Healing Gardeners have embellished with new plantings.

I hear the rattling of garden tools and the murmur of voices from a shed not far away. Birdsong and the drone of cicadas fill the air.

Even in the shade, I can tell the sun is getting hotter.

A tall, fit woman with shoulder-length brunette hair tucked under a hat is digging with a long-handle shovel.

“Sally?” Magrinat calls.

Healing Gardener Pagliai, a native Californian, is the owner of Studio Pagliai Landscape and Garden Design. She’s built gardens as far away as Florence, Italy and Singapore. She noses her shovel in the earth.

We greet each other, and Pagliai introduces the young woman working alongside her.

“This is Ali Brown,” Pagliai says. “She started with us a long time ago and she’s our little hardworkin’ Healing Gardens angel.” Brown smiles shyly and falls back to her task.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Magrinat, Aichele and Pagliai begin to apologize for the appearance of this section of the garden. They explain a construction company’s equipment tore up the landscape during the balcony renovation.

“Much to my chagrin we had to dig up all these trees,” Pagliai says, indicating a group of Japanese maples. “First I said no, but Mary said, yes, we will.”

Magrinat takes up the story.

“The construction people said we’re going to cut these trees down and I said excuse me, you’re not cutting them down.”

“So we moved them under that tree and filled in with dirt,” Magrinat continues. “They were there for four months.”

“And they made it,” Pagliai smiles. “They made it.”

“We’re trying to start things back, but it’s messy,” Magrinat says.

“In another couple weeks, they’ll be beautiful,” Aichele assures her.

By the time I’m leaving, the sun is high in the sky as the Healing Gardeners continue with their tasks.

Some are people from the neighborhood. Others simply enjoy being outside, digging in the dirt. Some, like Magrinat and Aichele, are cancer survivors. Others, like Pagliai, have lost a loved one. Some just want to help.

In the end, aren’t we all in a race with the sun?

Sometimes I think about my own life. I wonder if I’ll leave anything beautiful or useful behind.

What a magnificent legacy will remain for every Healing Gardener working here today. OH The Healing Gardens of the Cone Health Cancer Center at Wesley Long Hospital are open to the public year-round. The hours are dawn to dusk. And the Healing Gardeners can always use more hands, regardless of your garden knowledge or experience. To learn more about volunteering, email Gerry Alfano at mtisdel@att.net.

Ross Howell Jr. is a freelance writer. Contact him at ross.howell1@gmail.com.

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Living in Service

Lisa Hawley is grateful for her elegant new home. But her soul mission — feeding the hungry — is what continues to bring her deep and lasting fulfillment

By Cynthia Adams • Photographs by Amy Freeman

H

er sea-blue eyes crinkling into a smile, Lisa Hawley opens the door of her new town home and tells me that only recently did she get around to painting the front door charcoal-gray. She concedes that settling into a newly built home in March of 2020 — the midst of a pandemic — “was a little unusual.” But so was having her much-loved Jamestown restaurant, Southern Roots, forced into a COVID hiatus.

With clear, if sometimes teary eyes, Lisa keeps perspective on what is merely inconvenient and what truly matters. The finishing touches do not worry the hard-working philanthropist.

Hunger, however, does.

Having watched children wrap portions of their school lunch in napkins to take home is what drove her to establish a volunteer organization called Feeding Lisa’s Kids in 2015. (At that time, she points out, High Point ranked second in the nation for food insecurity. Now it ranks seventh.)

“I’m kind of loud and like to dance — all that stuff. But when my children were in school, it led me to feel the pain from other children.”

Those children were often hungry. She had to feed them.

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“I have way too much energy for most people to be around me for long,” she jokes, padding through her serene home wearing a blue linen shirt she never irons. Her short blonde hair is unstudied and tousled.

For someone who is obsessed with tackling hunger — whether in her restaurant, with charitable works or entertaining in her new home — it makes perfect sense for her to start the tour in the kitchen.

Sunny, uncluttered and fastidious, the space contains a professional series Frigidaire and commercial Blue Star range.

“I didn’t put any upper cabinets in the kitchen,” she says with a smile. “It’s not normal. But I’m not normal.” An island, custom-built by Jamestown craftsmen with repurposed barn wood, is one of her favorite features.

“You can see all the imperfections,” Lisa says, running her hand over the whitewashed wood. It is topped with clipped topiaries and a basket filled with neatly folded linen napkins.

The cooking areas are dominated by art rather than lots of showy cooking paraphernalia. A well-used gas grill is outside, ready to be fired up for company. Lisa maintains a strictly organic and vegan diet. As she ticks off the list of things she avoids: gluten, chocolate, coffee, sugar, she adds, “I cook every meal.”

Outside in the drive is Lisa’s white van with a vanity plate reading “Let’s Eat.” Yes, she has a brand new, elegant home, but she knows where her true values lie: “I am Southern Roots. I am Feeding Lisa’s Kids.” Then, eyes welling — perhaps a mix of gratitude with struggle — “I am not about this house.”

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Now, Lisa has weathered the storms of change, pandemic-driven upheavals that temporarily shuttered the restaurant industry where she has worked for over 40 years.

“I’m this crazy, ADD girl who loves cooking and loves to help others,” she explains. “I come from hard-working people.”

She adds how grateful she is for sanctuary.

Lisa sinks into a generous white sofa in the sunroom. Sofas and chairs are slip-covered in white, inviting deep relaxation and calm. “I just like how peaceful it feels,” she says.

Serenity reigns.

“That piece of coral over there? It just makes me happy to look at it.”

The home’s overriding design scheme is pared-down, elegant simplicity, which looks easy, but requires studied mastery.

A fragrant elixir of seagrass, orange, clove and eucalyptus infuses the rooms. Lisa discovered that aromatherapy helps when the world beyond jangles the nerves.

Here, Lisa and husband, Faison, a former fabrics salesman, battened down. “Faison helps at the restaurant,” she adds.

Their town home, light and calm, provides an inland harbor. Set

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in a new community tucked outside High Point’s metro area, it is far away enough to be accessible, yet removed from the fray.

She is making departures from the past. Friends say their former bungalow brimmed with antiques and color. She says it was layered with 32 years of meaning, rearing a family and giving birth to a restaurant and charity. This new home is different — she repeats again.

She has shed her old skin, feels less attached here.

The visual changes are radically simple in the Hawley’s new residence, which by every measure, is a spare beauty. The builder created archways, opening spaces and deviating from the standard plan.

“We took down the walls; it’s not like any of the other ones.” Some of the art displayed is Lisa’s own watercolors — she paints things found in nature, like oyster shells, and pushes herself, painting over canvases, to get it right.

Sea grass rugs, baskets, whitewashed furniture, conch shells, plants, nubby textures and light wooden floors — everywhere she has curated the most peaceful colors of nature, layering tone upon tone.

She isn’t finished. But as she pads around, suddenly stops. “It’s a mess,” Lisa insists. There are stacks of books, some piled in chairs The Art & Soul of Greensboro

and atop furniture, which she is rearranging. Whereas their Triangle Park home was traditional and steeped in memory, here the mood is deliberately artsy and open.

For three years before the move, she cleared the attic and prepared.

“I got rid of a lot.”

A purge was purposeful, a reinvention. What she wanted, first and foremost, was to ready a downstairs space for her mother. At nearly 900-square-feet larger than their 1928 Triangle Park house, the new home can accommodate her mom, whom she hopes will move in, and also provide room for their “newest” son, Ty, 20, whenever he visits from his job in Reidsville. “His family struggled with homelessness,” she explains. “He always has a place with us.” The Hawley family have known and loved Ty since he was 8.

In 2020, the family lost their three aging dogs, which only added angst and sorrow to a deeply trying year. Daughter Olivia, 32, came home from Charleston, S.C. (where she works in the film industry) during the lockdown for several months. “She saved me,” says Lisa.

“She kept me busy.” Their oldest son, Sam, is 27 and works in sales in Wilmington.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Yet last year also meant recalibrating Southern Roots, the Jamestown restaurant she first opened in 2000 in High Point’s J H Adams Inn. It closed for three months during the pandemic.

Work beyond these walls, especially Feeding Lisa’s Kids, “is painful,” admits Lisa. The pandemic exacerbated food insecurities and created new homelessness. More than 190 area families receive boxes of donated food each week. This all rushes out of her.

People, not things, matter — which Lisa feels needs punctuating.

And this: “I love to feed people.”

Lisa satisfied the most exacting of hard-working mentors while catering. She got to work with Martha Stewart at Market Square when Stewart was food editor for House Beautiful.

There were other mentors, too, especially Grace and A. B. Henley (former owners of the Adams Inn), who encouraged her when she feared her restaurant would fail.

So many helping hands, she marvels.

Last March, the Rotary Club of High Point presented a check in the amount of $10,424 to Feeding Lisa’s Kids. The pandemic stretched the limits of those with the fewest resources.

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

A number of Rotary clubs, civic and community groups help raise money for FLK. One hundred percent of money donated to them goes directly towards the purchase of food.

Lisa received an award for her efforts from the City of High Point this spring.

“It’s difficult,” she says, as tears reappear.

“I see so much that is painful. That is hard to look at. I just know God has given me a heart, to look at it.”

Lisa nonetheless struggles with the fact that she has had lucky breaks while many do not.

Yet she was one who has always worked, always made her luck. Both of her parents thought nothing of working second, even third jobs, and she washed dishes at a rest home as a teen from 5 in the morning until midafternoon on the weekends and before school. “I liked it,” she insists. Since then, Lisa has logged countless hours inside kitchens, long before she became a restaurant owner.

She has catered, opened Southern Roots market on Main Street, and a restaurant by the same name. Lisa had a formula. Work. Then work harder.

“I showed up. And I never gave up. I would show up at 6 in the morning and I’d still be there at 10 o’clock at night. There were so many times in the last 20 years of owning Southern Roots that I thought I’d go out of business. But I kept showing up.” So did her chef, J.C., who remains with her 19 years later. “I found my tribe,” she says about Southern Roots. “I love the people who work for me.”

She no longer worries about the restaurant, which is thriving with a staff so rock-solid she can take a sabbatical by the sea. A group of volunteers is committed to Feeding Lisa’s Kids.

“I love to help others,” she says. “But I know for sure that God put me on this Earth to do one thing, and that is to feed people, whether they can pay for it or not.” OH

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O.Henry 73

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D OW N TOW N G R E E N S BO R O . O R G

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

A L M A N A C

September n

The goldenrod is yellow; The corn is turning brown; The trees in apple orchards With fruit are bending down.

— Helen Hunt Jackson, “September”

By Ashley Wahl

Harvest Season

S

eptember is deliciously subtle. Like a sly smile in a moment of silent recognition.

The last wave of swallowtails graces the garden. Dinner plate dahlias resemble colorful mandalas and sun-dappled muscadines spill from the vine.

Life hums along. Hummingbirds drink from red spider lilies. The air, too, is like nectar — sweet as it’s been all summer — but something is different. Something not yet palpable.

The trees know, leaves whispering ancient incantations to merge with root and earth. The first to surrender glow with radiant splendor. They cling to nothing, unattached to their green summer glory or the luminous journey to come.

Weeks from now, tree swallows will gather by the hundreds at dusk, swirling across the sky like cryptic, flickering apparitions. But today, sunlight kisses goldenrod. Robins dip and shimmy in warm, shallow water.

Plump bees float in endless circles.

By evening, the air is slightly cooler, or so it seems.

And at twilight, when shadows dance in the periphery, a mourning dove cries out.

Coo-OO-oo.

Beyond a wild tangle of late summer flowers and grasses, a red fox flashes past, here and gone with the last whisper of golden light.

As darkness falls, all at once it’s clear: Elusive autumn has returned, creeping into consciousness like an impish melody — a dark, playful secret on the tip of your tongue.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

The Autumnal Equinox occurs on Wednesday, September 22. The days are growing shorter. As for the glorious bounty of summer? It’s harvest time.

Praise for the apples, pears and figs. Cucumbers, peppers and eggplant.

As the garden gives and gives, offer thanks for the tender young salad greens; the last plump tomatoes; the earliest pumpkins and winter squashes.

And don’t forget the edible flowers.

Like lavender (sweet and minty), marigold (transform your stir fries) and snapdragons (bitter, perhaps, but they sure are gorgeous).

The Meadow Queen

If you’re wondering where that faint yet lingering vanilla fragrance is coming from, stop and smell the purple joe-pye weed — unless you’re allergic.

As the story goes, Eupatorium purpureum received its common name — joe-pye — after a gentleman of the same name presumably used the wild plant to cure typhoid fever. An herbaceous perennial of the sunflower family, joe-pye is a native species that blooms in later summer and attracts a host of bees, butterflies and moths.

Also known as kidney-root, feverweed and Queen of the Meadow, when this towering beauty begins to bloom — clusters of pinkish-purple flowers exploding from 7-foot stalks — watch and listen closely: Summer’s swan song is nigh.

O.Henry 75

September 2021 Ode to O. Henry

Worldwide Beautiful

2

3

9/

Although conscientious effort is 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.

September 1 WALKING TOUR. 6:30–8 p.m. Explore the grounds of Guilford Courthouse National Military Park though the lens of a bona-fide historic preservationist. Walking shoes recommended. Tickets: $5. Corner of New Garden and Old Battleground roads. Info/registration: preservationgreensboro.org.

READ ALOUD. 7–8:30 p.m. Free public reading of Convenience Store Woman, a novel by Sayaka Murata. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info/registration: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

September 2 PEN PALS. 2–3:30 p.m. Writers and lovers of free expression: join the Piedmont Chapter of PEN Across America Prompt Party, a collaborative writing experience. Free. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info/registration: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

76 O.Henry

9/

ODE TO O. HENRY. 7–8:30 p.m. Join author Ben Yagoda and O.Henry’s founding editor, Jim Dodson, at Scuppernong Books for a free and engaging evening about America’s master storyteller, William Sidney Porter, better known as O. Henry. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info and registration: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

GIDDY FOR GIDDENS. 8 p.m. Acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops performs; Grancesco Turrisi opens. Tickets: $25+. Steven Tanger Center, One Abe Brenner Place, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro.

Info: tangercenter.com/events.

Tom Petty Tribute

9/

17

WORLDWIDE BEAUTIFUL. 7 p.m. Country music star Kane Brown with special guests Chris Lane and Restless Road. Tickets: $35+.

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

PERCUSSION! STRINGS! 7:30–9 p.m. The JD Allen Quartet has been called a “bright light in today’s international jazz scene.” Find out why.

Tickets: $6–$12. Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St., Greensboro. Info: vpa.unc.edu.

SPARTAN MUSICALS. World premiere of musical short film, One Week at Woolworths, streams on-demand. Info: uncgtheatre.com.

STILL ROCK & ROLL. 8 p.m.

Greensboro Symphony Orchestra presents Michael Cavanaugh: The Music of Billy Joel.

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

September 3

September 3–12

READY TO ROCK. 7–8:30 p.m. Gary Kenton and Parke Puterbaugh discuss Transmission and Transgression: The History of Rock ’n’ Roll on Television. Free. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/ event.

KNOCK KNOCK. Who’s there? The NC Comedy Festival! Three hundred comics from across the United States bring standup, sketch and improv comedy to Greensboro venues. Sponsored

by The Idiot Box Comedy Club. Tickets, venues and schedule: nccomedyfestival.com.

September 2–4

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

September 4 & 5 SUNFLOWER MAGIC. Nothing like a backdrop of sunflowers for your next family photo op. Book private photo sessions at $50/ hour (photographer not provided) or join the crowd. Sunflowers also available for purchase.

General admission: $12; free for children under 2. McLaurin Farms, 5601 N. Church St., Greensboro. Info: mclaurinfarms.com.

September 4 WORDS WITH FRIENDS. 7–8:30 p.m. N.C. authors Krystal A. Smith and Isaac Hughes Green read excerpts from their latest works. Free.

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

Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

September 8

BEHIND THE ART. 4–6 p.m. Gallery hours with Rebecca Fagg and Jack Stratton, the artists behind Two Retrospectives. Green Hill Center for NC Art, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org/two-retrospectives.

September 9

HOW DO I LOOK? 4–4:45 p.m. Faculty from

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

the UNCG School of Music help attendees uncover new ways of viewing Art on Paper at the Weatherspoon. Free virtual event; registration required. Info: weatherspoonart.org

September 10 MUSICA VILLA TOSCANA. 6:30–8 p.m.

Chamber music concert featuring UNCG School of Music student Stephanie Schmidt on Blandwood’s restored pianoforte. Blandwood Mansion, 447 W. Washington St., Greensboro. Tickets: preservationgreensboro.org.

TIGHT-LIPPED. 7 p.m.

Master ventriloquist Darci Lynne brings her talent to the stage.

Tickets: $25+. Steven Tanger Center, One Abe Brenner Place, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro.

Info: tangercenter.com/ events.

Calendar

September 10–12 & 16–19

LITTLE THEATRE. The Little Theatre of Winston-Salem opens their 87th season with A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia. Tickets: $12+. Hanesbrands Theatre, 419 N. Spruce St., Winston-Salem. Info: LTofWS.org.

September 10–12 COOL AS FOLK. The NC Folk Festival returns

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O.Henry 77

shops • service • food • farms

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Need Fall Color?

Shop our Online Store at guilfordgardencenter.com

We specialize in unique, native, and specimen plants.

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FIND YOUR NEXT TREASURE! Sometimes it’s smarter to lease than to sell your home.

Call us when you think you’re there!

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

“I couldn’t be happier with my renters, or my rental income” Tom Arevian Burkely Rental Homes client

Carriage House Antiques & Home Decor 336.373.6200 • 2214 Golden Gate Drive

78 O.Henry

Monday-Friday 10-5 • Saturday 10-4 The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Join the effort. Visit www.triadlocalfirst.com.

shops • service • food • farms to the Triad. Free admission. Full schedule: ncfolkfestival.com.

September 10–19 CENTRAL CAROLINA FAIR. Fair rides, funnel cake and fun. Greensboro Coliseum Parking Lot, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

September 11 RAINCHECK. 7 & 9:30 p.m. Comedian Nate Bargatze, the “greatest average American,” on tour. Tickets: $31+. Steven Tanger Center, One Abe Brenner Pl., 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro.

Info: tangercenter.com/events.

September 14 COMPETITION FOR A CAUSE. 5:15–8:45 p.m. Future Fund 10 LIVE is an innovative philanthropy pitch competition that gives 10 nonprofits a stage to present their program ideas for a chance to win a grant from the Future Fund Endowment. Think Shark Tank meets American Idol. Tickets: $35; includes refreshments. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

support locally owned businesses

September 17 PREMIER PERFORMANCE. 7–9 p.m.

Immerse yourself in the personal stories of the history and impact of the Eugenics program in North Carolina with the premier performance of A Wicked Silence. Free. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar.

TEX-MEX MUSIC. 8 p.m. Intocable is described as a fusion of Tejano conjunto music, Norteño folk rhythms, pop ballads and rock. Tickets: $49.50+. Steven Tanger Center, One Abe Brenner Place, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

TOM PETTY TRIBUTE. 8 p.m. Petty lovers: Full Moon Fever will blow you away. Tickets: $44+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

September 17–18 GET UP AND DANCE. Interactive performances and activities in celebration of International Dance Day. Free. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St.,

Calendar

Greensboro. Full schedule and info: greensborodowntownparks.org.

September 17–19 POW WOW. The Guilford Native American Association hosts its 44th annual Pow Wow. Free admission. Greensboro Country Park, 3808 Jaycee Park Drive, Greensboro. Info: guilfordnative.cm.

September 18 VIVA LA LATIN. Noon–7 p.m. Veinte Veinte Latin Festival honors National Hispanic Heritage Month with live entertainment, dancing and food. Free admission. Barber Park Amphitheatre, 1500 Barber Park Dr., Greensboro.

Info: rosa-foundation.org.

ALL ABOUT THAT BRASS. 3 p.m. Brass at the Movies: the Music of John Williams features favorite scores from Star Wars, Harry Potter and more. Tickets: $20 (student discount and free admission under 12). Reynolds Auditorium, 301 N. Hawthorne Rd., Winston-Salem. Info: ncbrassband.org.

O.Henry 79

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Join the effort. Visit www.triadlocalfirst.com.

L AW N DA L E SH OP P ING CENTE R • IRVING PARK

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80 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Calendar GOOD THINGS. 7 p.m. The (Arena) Tour featuring Dan + Shay with special guests The Band CAMINO and Ingrid Andres. Tickets: $39.50+.

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

MONSTER NATION. 8:30 p.m. Big Head Todd & the Monsters celebrate 30 years together with the release of their eleventh studio album, New World Arisin’. Tickets: $40/advance; $45.

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

THIS SWEET DAY. 8 p.m. The Greensboro Symphony Orchestra presents Boyz II Men, aka B2M, and their sweet vocal harmonies. Tickets: $45+. Steven Tanger Center, One Abe Brenner Place, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

DAY AT THE MUSEUM. Celebrate the final day of Pieces of Now, an exhibit featuring summer protest street art. Free. Greensboro History Museum, 130 Summit Ave., Greensboro. Info: greensborohistory.org.

September 19

September 22

BORN THIS WAY. 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Celebrate the LGBTQIA community with a variety of family-friendly activities and vendors along South Elm Street in Downtown Greensboro at the 15th annual Greensboro Pride Festival. Info: GreensboroPride.org.

BEHIND THE BEAUTY. 4 p.m. Author Jan Bardsley presents “The Story Behind the Beauty: Geisha, New Women and Social Reformers.”

Free virtual event; registration required. Info: weatherspoonart.org.

WRITERS UNITE. 2–3:30 p.m. The North Carolina Writers’ Network of Greater Greensboro presents sci-fi author Jorge Cortese. Free.

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

Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

BRASS ENCORE. 3 p.m. Brass at the Movies: The Music of John Williams round two. UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: ncbrassband.org.

LABELLE LIVE. 7:30 p.m. Experience one of contemporary music’s living legends, Patti LaBelle. Tickets: $35+. Steven Tanger Center, One Abe Brenner Place, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

September 23 ENCHANTED. 7–8:30 p.m. A reading of Under the Spell, the first novel by Benjamin Hardin.

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

September 24 ON THE RUNWAY. 6:30 p.m. Triad boutiques and retailers showcase their fall fashions.

Show begins at 8:15 p.m. Tickets: $60+; $40 (virtual). Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

SHE CAN, WE CAN. 8 p.m. UNCG’s Concert and Lecture Series features author Margaret Atwood. Program includes collaborative art inspired by Atwood’s writing and a conversation

LADIES CLOTHING, GIFTS, BABY, JEWELRY, GIFTS FOR THE HOME, TABLEWARE, DELICIOUS FOOD

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

O.Henry 81

L AW N DA L E SH OP P ING CENTE R • IRVING PARK

DOVER SQUARE • WESTOVER GALLERY OF SHOPS

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boutique boutique OCTOBER 2, 2021 11AM-4PM CHARITY: (Bath salt given at checkout. Limit 1 per customer please) Triad Pink Heals look for the pink firetruck!

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82 O.Henry

1819 Pembroke Road | Greensboro, NC 27408 | 336-763-4666 Gift cards available at

www.saltandsoulgso.com

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Calendar

Life & Home

with the author. Tickets: $60+; $5-10/students.

UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate St., Greensboro.

Info: vpa.uncg.edu/all-events.

BACK TO ABNORMAL. 8 p.m. The Daily Show host and comedian Trevor Noah stops in Greensboro. Tickets: $65+/reserved, $35/lawn.

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

September 24 – 26 & 29 – October 2 SHAKESPEAREAN SONG. 7:30 p.m. The 90-minute musical adaptation of As You Like It. Taylor Theatre, 406 Tate St., Greensboro.

Tickets and Info: (336) 334-4392 or vpa.uncg. edu/theatre.

September 25 KEY PERFORMER. 8 p.m. Russian-American pianist Olga Kern performs Tchaikovsky and Beethoven favorites. Tickets: $35+. Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, One Abe Brenner Place, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: greensborosymphony.org/events.

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W W W . A G I N G W E L LT R I A D . C O M

Paul J. Ciener

Botanical Garden John and Bobbie Wolfe Concert Series Presents

CONCERT ON THE LAWN Celebrating 10 Years

6:30 pm • Gates Open at 5 pm Tickets $15 in advance - $20 at the door

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

To purchase tickets, call 336-996-7888 or visit the Garden Events Tab at www.cienerbotanicalgarden.org

O.Henry 83

BEER SALES THROUGH GYPSY ROAD BREWERY. WINE, WATER AND SOFT BEVERAGE SALES THROUGH PJCBG. FOOD TRUCKS -ROCKIN MOROCCAN, GATHER AND GRAZE. PRODUCTION BY VINTAGE. SOUND & LIGHT

O.Henry 83

Arts & Culture LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH

LIVE ARTS

MARGARET ATWOOD SEPTEMBER 24

SPHINX VIRTUOSI OCTOBER 8

SHANA TUCKER

KELLI O’HARA

GEENA DAVIS

MALPASO DANCE COMPANY

OCTOBER 29

FEBERUARY 26

JANUARY 14

APRIL 23

FOR TICKETS VISIT UCLS.UNCG.EDU

84 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Calendar September 26

September 29

September 30

SWEET SERENADE. 4 p.m. Rice Toyota/ Sitkovetsky & Friends Chamber. That means a Beethoven Serenade, a Debussy String Quartet and a Beethoven Sonata. Tickets: $32. UNCG School of Music, Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St., Greensboro.

Info: greensborosymphony.org/events.

IN THE FORECAST. 1 p.m. The Greensboro Council of Garden Clubs hosts WXII 12 Chief Meteorologist Lanie Pope. Free. Greensboro Science Center, 4301 Lawndale Dr., Greensboro.

Registration: thegreensborocouncilofgardenclubs.com.

POETRY DOUBLE FEATURE. 7–8:30 p.m.

Readings by poets Sam Barbee and Michael Gaspeny. Free. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event.

September 28

NO ROLE MODELZ. 8 p.m. J. Cole and 21 Savage perform with special guest Morray.

Tickets: $29.50+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro.

Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

ONE CROW, TWO CROW . . . 7 p.m.

Counting Crows perform live. Tickets: $85+/ reserved; $35/lawn. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro.

Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

STRATTON SPEAKS. 5:30–6:30 p.m. Artist talk with Jack Stratton. Green Hill Center for NC Art, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org/two-retrospectives.

IN THEIR ELEMENT. 8 p.m. World-renowned band Earth, Wind & Fire performs. Tickets: $59.50+/reserved; $32.50/general admission.

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

SCANDALOUS. 7:30 p.m. Greensboro College presents School for Scandal, a comedy in five acts.

Free; tickets and masks required. Gail Brower Huggins Performance Center, 815 W. Market St., Greensboro. Info: greensboro.edu/theatre.

MUSIC AT THE CROWN. 7:30 p.m. The Pinkerton Raid is joined by Colin Allured and Migrant Birds. Tickets: $10/advance; $12. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

To add an event, email us at ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com by the first of the month ONE MONTH PRIOR TO THE EVENT.

GlassPumpkinPatch In Person October 2 - 23 · RSVP required for Saturdays Shop online beginning October 4 3,000 handblown pumpkins in all colors available 100 Russell Drive, Star, NC 910.428.9001 • www.STARworksNC.org

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 85

Business & Services Practicing Commercial Real Estate by the Golden Rule Bill Strickland, CCIM Commercial Real Estate Broker/REALTOR 336.369.5974 | bstrickland@bipinc.com

www.bipinc.com

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86 O.Henry

2201 Patterson Street, Greensboro, NC (2 Blocks from the Coliseum) Mon. - Fri.: 9:30am - 5:30 pm Sat. 10 am - 2 pm • Closed Sunday

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 87

O.Henry Ending

Home is Where the Hen Is

By Cassie Bustamante

Tap, tap, tap!

The sound of someone rapping on our storm door echoed through our modest Cape Cod. I got up to answer, but no one was there.

“Must be the wind,” I thought. After all, our cozy home sat atop an endlessly gusty hill.

I turned back to my steaming mug of coffee.

Tap, tap, tap!

Nope, not the wind. Too rhythmic and persistent. Someone — or something — was definitely there. Alone in the house, I felt a slight chill run up my back. I peered through the front door’s glass panes. Once again, no one. Nothing. But when the tap, tap, tap rattled a third time, I took a deep breath, swallowed and opened our door. On the other side of the glass storm door, just a step down, was Squeakers.

She peered up at me with an expression that said, “Finally! Do you know how cold it is out here?!”

Squeakers was not, as you might have guessed, a beloved family pet or some neighbor’s wayward child. She was a hen — a Rhode Island Red — and I wasn’t about to invite her in for a late morning cuddle by the fire. There was a perfectly good coop awaiting her outside. I should know: my husband and I constructed it. And while its roof may have been lopsided, it had thick, sturdy walls and a cobalt blue door accented by a wreath. Honestly, it was adorable. And it seemed to be good enough for the five other ladies.

But Squeakers was different.

On warm nights, when we sat on our wraparound porch for family meals, Squeakers would appear. Thinking she was one of us, the hen would hop up onto someone’s shoulder or plop onto the middle of our table to examine the spread. When she begged like a dog —

88 O.Henry

sometimes worse — we’d place her, clucking and clueless, back on the floor with a firm, “No.” But that hardly discouraged her. On pesto chicken nights, we used to threaten her. “Jump up on this table one more time, Squeakers, and we’ll marinate you next!”

After supper, we’d toss her the scraps, which only encouraged future begging – I know. But we never fed her meat of her own kind. We aren’t monsters! You should have seen that bird gobble down vegetables and rice.

When we first brought our brood home, friends who were veteran chicken keepers warned us: Don’t treat them like pets.

While I tried to listen, bucolic fantasies whirled through my head.

They would frolic through sun-drenched fields with me. Surely they would follow me everywhere — and joyfully. Think Anne of Green Gables meets Snow White.

But, as anyone who has raised chickens knows, their lives are often cut short and it’s best not to get attached. The circle of life and all that jazz. As new owners, we went through several hens, many lost to hawks and stealthy raccoons. Squeakers outlived them all.

One day, however, she disappeared. Poof. When she didn’t return after a couple of days, we figured she’d made it to the great hen house in the sky. The one with the pearly door and perfectly symmetrical roof.

Several weeks later, we were out on the porch when a flash of red caught my eye in the woods beyond our yard.

“Is that? Could it be? Squeakers?”

My husband and I exchanged befuddled glances.

Squeakers emerged from the grass and bounded onto the porch.

She looked at us as if nothing had happened. As if to say, Hey guys, what’s for supper? OH Cassie Bustamante is O.Henry’s digital content creator. For some reason, she no longer eats chicken.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR

How a chicken named Squeakers stole dinners — and then our hearts

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