January PineStraw 2011 by PineStraw Magazine

Discover how to

Live the Life you Want in 2011

Imagine the epitome of gracious, carefree living. Belle Meade invites you to celebrate fulfilling days inspired by our luxurious environment, attentive services and stimulating leisure choices such as swimming, tennis, croquet, bocce ball and golf at seven premier courses. Peace of mind is paramount at Belle Meade, as evidenced by the community’s many services and its commitment to excellence.

If you’re interested in relaxed, comfortable living with wonderful services and ready access to a rich world of social, cultural and recreational opportunities, Pine Knoll may be your ideal choice. Embrace the quiet opulence of the Overlook while dining in the Pub, do some shopping in the historic village of Southern Pines, play a round of golf at one of seven premier courses or entertain new friends in your home. Whether you prefer a Villa, an Overlook apartment or a cottage, please take a closer look at Pine Knoll, and see how well it may fit your lifestyle.

Enjoy golf privileges at 7 premier courses!

Please explore our wonderful lifestyle – including the advantages of our spacious homes, superlative clubhouse and rewarding activities.

910.246.1008 Call today for lunch & a tour! St. Joseph of the Pines is the leading provider of senior living and healthcare serving the Sandhills region since 1948.

www.sjp.org

Nationally Accredited

PineStraw M A G A Z I N E Jim Dodson, Editor

910.693.2506 • jim@pinestrawmag.com

Andie Stuart Rose, Creative Director 910.693.2467 • andie@pinestrawmag.com

Kathryn Galloway, Graphic Designer Ashley Wahl, Editorial Assistant Editorial

Deborah Salomon, Staff Writer Stephen E. Smith, Staff Writer Sara King, Proofreader Mary Novitsky, Proofreader Photographers

Glenn Dickerson Laura Gingerich Jeanne Paine Tim Sayer Hannah Sharpe Contributors

Tom Allen, Cos Barnes, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Geoff Cutler, Al & Annette Daniels, Frank Daniels III, Mart Dickerson, Jack Dodson, Kay Grismer, Robyn James, Pamela Powers January, Jan Leitschuh, Dale Nixon, Lee Pace, Ed Peele, Noah Salt, Astrid Stellanova, Angie Tally

David Woronoff, Publisher Advertising Sales

Ginny Kelly, 910.693.2481 • ginnykelly@thepilot.com Terry Hartsell, 910.693.2513 Marty Hefner, 910.693.2508 Peggy Marsh, 910.693.2516 Darlene McNeil-Smith, 910.693.2519 Johnsie Tipton, 910.693.2515 Karen Triplett, 910.693.2510 Perry Loflin, 910.693.2514 Pat Taylor, Advertising Director 910.693.2505 • pat@thepilot.com Advertising Graphic Design advertise@thepilot.com

Kathryn Galloway, B.J. Hill Mechelle Wood, Scott Yancey Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488 • dstark@thepilot.com PineStraw Magazine 910.693.2467 145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue Southern Pines, NC 28387 pinestraw@thepilot.com • www.pinestrawmag.com ©Copyright 2011. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. PineStraw magazine is published by The Pilot LLC

January 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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January 2011 Volume 6, No.1 Departments

7 10 15 16 21 25 27 29 31 35 36 39 41 45 108 117 123

Sweet Tea Chronicles Jim Dodson PinePitch Cos and Effect Cos Barnes The Omnivorous Reader Stephen E. Smith Bookshelf PineBuzz Jack Dodson Hitting Home Dale Nixon Vine Wisdom Robyn James The Kitchen Garden Jan Leitschuh Spirits Frank Daniels III Pleasures of Life Ed Peele Birdwatch Susan Campbell The Sporting Life Tom Bryant Golftown Journal Lee Pace Calendar SandhillSeen Thoughts from the Man Shed

PineNeedler 128 SouthWords

51 The Great Trek

Four teams in search of Moore County

52 True North: A World Away Jim Dodson/Laura Gingerich 58 Wisdom of the East: Life is Short, Be Happy

Stephen E. Smith/Glenn Dickerson 64 Goinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; South: Three for the Road 70 Into the West Ashley Wahl/Tim Sayer 77 Everyday Hero: George Atherholt

Jack Dodson/Hannah Sharpe

A big man with an even bigger heart

78 Story of a House

Deborah Salomon

Insude the MCHBA remodeled home of the year

86 The Garden Path

Noah Salt

A secret garden diva offers her manifesto

89 Moore County Home

Builders Association

Home of the Year Awards Cover Photograph by Tim Sayer Photograph this page by Glenn Dickerson

Geoff Cutler

125 The Accidental Astrid Stellanova 127

Features

Astrologer

Mart Dickerson Tom Allen

NatioNal

121 St. Mellions Drive – 4 BR / 3.5 Ba / Golf Front

SeveN lakeS WeSt

236 Longleaf Drive – 3 BR (plus office) / 3.5 BA

This gorgeous custom home overlooks the 1st green with a view of the 2nd green and Doon Pond. Professionally landscaped and decorated, this home is a must see. Custom features include crown molding, a gourmet kitchen with Kitchen Aid stainless steel appliances, built-in entertainment center, Hurd casement windows and much more! $689,000 Code 719

This desirable golf front home has many appealing features: split floor plan, large kitchen with granite counters, vaulted ceilings, hardwood and tile floors, Palladium windows, 2 car garage and irrigation system just to name a few. Don’t forget the great deck along with the golf views. What a lovely home with easy access to the country club and all it’s amenities! $349,000 Code 546

www.121StMellions.com

www.236longleafDrive.com

WhiSpeRiNG piNeS

piNehuRSt

1 Goldenrod Drive – 3 BR / 2.5 Ba / open Floor plan

535 St. andrews Drive – 3 BR / 3 Ba / Golf Front

SeveN lakeS WeSt

105 Banbridge Drive – 4 BR / 3.5 Ba / Golf Front

This spectacular home is golf front with a pond view that you can enjoy from the spacious deck. Once inside, you’ll find a bright and open floor plan. The desirable kitchen has great wood cabinets along with tile counters and hardwood floors. The split bedroom plan is ideal for a good night’s sleep. In addition to 2 bedrooms on the upper level, you’ll also find lots of storage! $339,500 Code 559

www.105BanbridgeDrive.com

SeveN lakeS WeSt

156 Simmons Drive – 3 BR / 3 Ba / Water Front

Beautifully built custom home with attention to every detail. The main level features a well designed kitchen, a fabulous master suite with private bath, an open living room, dining room and 2 guest bedrooms along with a full second full bath. On the lower level you’ll find an oversized rec room and lots of storage. Don’t forget the water views, irrigation system, fenced backyard, large deck area, covered patio and the 2 car garage! $385,000 Code 698

This elegant golf front home is located on the 8th fairway of Pinehurst golf course # 3. This is a one of a kind property which features an open floor plan and great golf views! You will appreciate the spacious rooms, the updated kitchen, the private master suite and rec room. This home has been beautifully renovated by the current owners including extensive hardwood flooring and fresh paint! $349,800 Code 720

This warm and inviting water front home is lake living at its best! It’s spacious floor plan is sure to please everyone with it’s formal dining room, Carolina room, living room and study. The master suite is found on the main level while the guest bedrooms are found on the upper level. Enjoy the sights and sounds of the water from the deck or boat dock! $629,000 Code 609

www.1GoldenrodDrive.com

www.535StandrewsDrive.com

www.156SimmonsDrive.com

FoxFiRe

WhiSpeRiNG piNeS

SoutheRN piNeS

20 Cardinal Drive – 3 BR / 2.5 Ba / Cul-de-sac location

114 S. lakeshore Drive – 2 BR / 2.5 Ba / Water Front

109 Rob Roy Road – 3 BR / 3.5 Ba / 2 Story

Lovely all brick custom home on quiet cul-de-sac with a very open floor plan. Heavily treed and landscaped yard backs up to a nature preserve for wonderful privacy. The living room has a fireplace, skylights and hardwood floors. The Carolina room has three walls of windows and the kitchen is very spacious. Additional features of this home include two guest bedrooms, a second full bath, generous laundry room with half bath, covered front porch and a side loading two car garage! $225,000 Code 693

This Thagard Lake ranch style home has wide open water views. The home has been beautifully maintained and offers an open floor plan. You’ll enjoy the Carolina room with it’s views, the great kitchen with custom cabinets and the living room with stone fireplace and built-ins. The master bedroom features a private bath, walk-in closet and lake views. Don’t forget the den, workshop and private boat dock! $325,000 Code 631

This custom built home is located on a private lot in Highland Trails. Features include: hardwood floors, built-in cabinetry, granite kitchen counters, stainless steel appliances, crown molding, ample living and storage space on both levels, lots of privacy, chandelier lighting, workshop and 4 car garage. The floor plan is bright and open. This home is a must see! $435,000 Code 721

www.20CardinalDrive.com

www.114lakeshoreDrive.com

www.109RobRoyRoad.com

piNehuRSt

SoutheRN piNeS

piNehuRSt

60 pinewild Drive – 3 BR / 2.5 Ba / Golf Front

A private winding driveway leads to this unique contemporary home which has a great location and panoramic views of the 13th hole of the Magnolia course in Pinewild. This home has a cozy fireplace, hardwood flooring, a well designed kitchen, and a master suite on the main level. The upper level has 2 guest bedrooms, a full bath, bonus room and landing area. This home is immaculate and well kept! $409,000 Code 725

www.60pinewildDrive.com

120 W. Chelsea Court – 2 BR / 2 Ba / Golf view

This beautiful Canterbury model at Camden Villas in Mid South Club features wonderful golf views. The ranch style floor plan offers easy living with elegant touches such as a vaulted ceiling, wall of windows, fireplace, inviting kitchen and a split bedroom plan. Also included is a Holly membership to Mid South and Talamore Golf Clubs. Enjoy a maintenance free lifestyle! $309,900 Code 727

www.120ChelseaCourt.com

11 Grayson lane – 4 BR / 3 Ba / Cul-De-Sac

This lovely home is located at the end of a quiet street and is welcoming inside and out. Outside you will find a partially fenced private backyard, mature plants and large patio. Inside you will love the bright and open floor plan, vaulted ceiling, terrific master suite, nice sized kitchen, the guest bedrooms and the attic storage. This home has a lot to offer and is a must see! $241,000 Code 724

www.11Graysonlane.com

View Floor Plans and Virtual Tours of Our Listings and See ALL Moore County Listings and Community Information at

www.MarthaGentry.com

sweet tea chronicles

The Empty House

By Jim Dodson

On days

I choose to walk to work, there’s a house I walk by that never fails to catch my attention and fire my imagination. I judge it to be forty or fifty years old at most, a typical American ranch style house dating from the late 1950s, with some good soul’s vision of a rustic great room tacked on to one end. It nestles in the pines on a beautiful corner lot in the heart of Weymouth, nicely landscaped but slowly receding beneath the advance of wild bamboo and vines. The house has been empty for more than three years. Despite unmistakable signs of age — a roof darkened by time, windows that appear to be ill-fitting and faded — it strikes me as a happy house, someone’s former dream home perhaps, a place where families grew up and parents grew older and life played out in a million ordinary ways only its inhabitants will ever recall. More than once, I’ve peeked through the smudgy windows at silent rooms that once must have clattered with feet and reverberated with voices. The kids are grown, the parents gone. The rooms look pretty much unchanged save for the dust the revenants kick up in their wake. Every time I walk past it, I find myself thinking of two things. The first is Walter de la Mare’s poem “The Empty House.” See this house, how dark it is Beneath its vast-boughed trees! Not one trembling leaflet cries To that Watcher in the skies – ‘Remove, remove thy searching gaze, Innocent of heaven’s ways, Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright, On secrets hidden from sight,

The second irresistible and entirely implausible thought: I could rescue that place and make it, really make it, something, turn that old abandoned house into a home again. It’s a wildly romantic thought, I grant you that. But fifteen years ago I built my own house in Maine — helped the housewrights raise the rustic beams, and personally laid and pegged the wide plank pine floors, raised the Sheetrock walls, built the kitchen cabinets and living room bookcases, finished off the windows and varnished the stairs — creating a house I thought I would own forever, until “forever” came just before the nation’s housing crisis and we were forced to sell the house to an elderly couple from Massachusetts. I still have vivid dreams about my one and only house in which I wander from room to room looking at tiny marks on walls and door frames, marking such things as children’s growth and Christmas trees that bumped into walls. I find myself wondering how it’s fared since we sold it two years ago, unable to make myself go back and have a genuine look. Whenever I see a majestic old house sitting abandoned across a field — still a fairly common sight in rural America these days, particularly here in the South — long vacated and peeling in the seasons, silvered by time and neglect, I’m also powerfully reminded of my family’s own abandoned homeplace off the old Buckhorn Road west of Chapel Hill. My dad and I always intended to save the place and restore it, but never quite did. The farm and house belonged to my great-grandfather, the original Jimmy Dodson, a gentleman farmer and something of a charming n’erdo-well who raised horses and played the fiddle and favored a faded blue serge suit with shiny elbows, a dandy’s black bowler hat jauntily perched on his graying head. A picture of him has hung in our house for years. He married my great grandmother Emma when she was still in her teens. She was the adopted daughter of a prominent Hillsborough polymath named George Washington Tate who first surveyed the modern boundaries of a dozen counties in central North Carolina before the Civil War. Tate also made the bell in Hillsborough Courthouse and served as an itinerate Methodist minister to a string of jackleg Methodist churches strung across the piney

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2011

sweet tea chronicles

Now Exclusively…

Located in Pinehurst, 585 Hwy 5 | 295-2293

woods from Mebane to Seagrove. During one of his trips to the untamed western portion of the state during Andy Jackson’s brutal removal of the native Cherokees from their homeland to Oklahoma, Tate brought home an orphaned Indian baby girl who grew up to become Jimmy Dodson’s bride. Aunt Emma, as everyone around Dodson’s Crossroads simply came to know her, was a natural healer and marvelous cook known for her vast vegetable garden and generosity. My dad spent most of his boyhood summers at her place off the Buckhorn Road, learning about the creeks and hills and natural world at his Indian grandmother’s skirts. After Aunt Emma passed on, Uncle Jimmy lived on there alone for several years, letting the place go to seed around him. One evening as he was sitting with a relative from just down the road, complaining of a sudden cold in his chest, he politely excused himself and went up to bed and never came down again. The house was soon empty. Other family members, I was told by my father, tried living there off and on, but the house never quite recovered its human equilibrium. The seasons claimed it as their own. By the time my dad and brother and I used to go there in early December to shoot mistletoe out of the oak trees and gather holiday greens, the old place was a silver ruin, with a sagging porch and partially collapsing roof. My father used to say his one genuine regret in life was that we somehow let the old place slip through our fingers. According to the latest figures from the U.S. Census, owing to the global banking crisis and a severely contracting real estate market, an estimated 18.9 million houses were sitting empty or abandoned in America at the start of last summer. Home ownership had officially taken its largest dip in more than two decades, a serious sideswipe of the American Dream. Since that time, the general economy has improved slightly and home sales are marginally beginning to tick upward again as a fragile recovery perhaps begins to take root. Though the Sandhills have been spared many of the worst effects of severely collapsing real estate markets in places like Florida, California and Arizona, homebuilders and real estate brokers here will tell you we have a long way to go just to get back to where we were a handful of years ago. And yet, in the next breath, they’ll point out that there are signs of new growth and positive movement in the housing market that bodes well for coming days. A friend who works as a real estate broker told me not long

sweet tea chronicles

ago that she went almost fourteen months without selling a house — but has sold four “very nice” houses in just the past six weeks alone. “Houses,” says she, “are a major emotional event for most people — tied directly to how they feel about their work and their lives in general. When people feel good about their prospects, they feel good about buying and owning a home. The first sign of an improving home market is the public mood. We’re starting to see the mood change for the better.” It’s in this spirit of renewed optimism that PineStraw is pleased to welcome the Moore County Home Builders Association’s “Home of the Year” and its 16-page supplement of outstanding homes to the pages of our magazine, an annual event that showcases the best of our region’s new home designs and construction. New this year, reflecting the tenor of the times, is the MCHBA’s “Remodel of the Year,” which we highlight in our popular “Story of a House” department, written by the incomparable Deb Salomon. Every house, as Deb will tell you, has a story all its own. I think of that every time I’m driving through the countryside and find my eye drawn to a proud old structure sitting off by its lonesome under a Walter de la Mare sky. I also think of that when the holidays come, and I remember traipsing through the woods to my great-grandfather’s abandoned farmhouse. And I think of it when I walk to work and pass the empty house in the heart of Weymouth. The scuttlebutt around the neighborhood is that a woman from New York bought the property and intends to raze the house and build a more ambitious structure on the site. They call these “tear downs” in the trade. My hope is that since she hasn’t moved on the project yet, perhaps owing to the uncertain economy and second thoughts, she’ll reconsider and simply restore the house. If she chooses to build, I hope she uses one of our talented Moore County builders and creates a house that will stand for generations. Not long ago, a thoughtful fellow named Jim Sessoms got in touch with me to convey some deeply heartening news. It seems Jim’s in-laws purchased the “old Dodson home place” in the crossroads west of Chapel Hill back in 1983 — maybe five years after my dad and I shot our last mistletoe out of the trees on the property. The place, turns out, had burned to the ground, but the couple who bought the land built their dream house on the site of Uncle Jimmy Dodson’s abandoned farmhouse. Jim and his wife built their own house on a tenacre parcel carved from the original property along Buckhorn Road. Then my college girl daughter phoned to let me know that during her recent Thanksgiving break, she’d taken herself up to look at the house I built — just to see what “horrible things” the new owners had done to it. “Dad,” said she, sounding pleased, “they haven’t done a thing to it! The gardens and house look exactly the way you left them. It looked beautiful. Just the way I remembered it.” She’ll never know how happy and sad this news made her old man feel. PS

...but the house never quite recovered its human equilibrium. The seasons claimed it as their own.

The Magic Number

Sugar-free Sweets

Eric Ton of DeviantArt describes his mode as figurative drawings, photography and digital art. His purpose: to provide a release from the burden of everyday life. Indeed, Candyland, The Art of Play is a wonderland of scrumptious, dimensional cartooning that would amaze even Alice. Candyland will be on display from Jan. 13 to Feb. 25 at Hastings Gallery/Boyd Library at Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst. Opening reception: 4-6 p.m. Jan. 13. Cop a preview at http://eccoton.deviantart.com

On the Twelfth Night of Christmas, maestro David Michael Wolff will lead musicians from the Carolina Philharmonic in a harmonic recreation of the Three Kings’ visit to the stable in Bethlehem. Wolff’s mastery has been praised at Carnegie Hall and beyond. Concert at 4 p.m. Jan. 6 at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Pinehurst. General admission: $25; senior/ military $20. Tickets and information: (910) 687-4746 or www.carolinaphil.org

Sea to See

The North Carolina Symphony Orchestra presents Debussy’s dreamy La Mer (The Sea) at 8 p.m. Jan. 6 at Pinecrest High School Auditorium in Southern Pines, conducted by William Henry Curry. Program also includes works by Strauss, Sibelius and Chabrier. Tickets and information: (877) 627-6724.

January 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Let Your Eyes Do the Walking…

Pinehurst Village is steeped in history. Nobody knows the details better than Audrey Moriarity, Executive Director of the Given Memorial Library and Tufts Archives. Moriarity will present a pictorial history of the buildings and cottages with then-and-now images from the walking tour book at 3:30 p.m. on January 6 at the library. Admission free. Information: (910) 295-6022.

Met Goes West

The Met at the Sunrise presents a live simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City of Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West (Girl of the Gold West)” at 1 p.m. on Jan. 8. On the occasion of the opera’s centennial, American diva Deborah Voigt will sing the title role, opposite Marcella Giordani. Tickets: $22. Information: www.sunrisetheater.com

Bring on the Hankies

Visionaries

Campbell House Galleries in Southern Pines presents Of Similar Vision featuring photographs by Rick Smith and paintings by Richard Oversmith. Opening reception: 6-8 p.m. Jan. 7. Exhibit continues through Jan. 29. Information: (910) 692-2787.

Argentineans cried for their First Lady but Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber (and Madonna) immortalized the charismatic Madame Eva Peron. MooreOnStage brings the award-winning popera “EVITA” to Pinecrest High School Auditorium in Southern Pines at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2,3,4,5 and 2 p.m. Feb. 6. Broadway performers Jose Restrepo and Rebecca Jones lead a cast of 30, directed by Patrick Michael Wickham. Tickets: $15-$22. Information: (910) 692-7118.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2011

Just Keeps on Crowing Through the Roof

Raising the Roof 10, a SunEvent at the Sunrise Theater in Southern Pines, celebrates its 10th outing at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 29. This predictably sell-out concert features an assortment of regional/local bands and talent. Information and tickets: (910) 692-3611.

The Rooster’s Wife winter concert series at Poplar Knight Spot in Aberdeen continues, every sunday evening starting at 6:45 p.m. Buy a January four-concert pass for $40, ticket prices for individual shows are listed below. For more information: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org Jan. 9 - The April Verch Band; $15 in advance, $18 at the door. This highly accomplished trio of young musicians is in great demand for their energetic performances featuring breathtaking instrumentals, captivating vocals and spectacular Ottawa Valley Stepdancing. Jan. 16 - The Harris Brothers, and Joe Craven; $10 in advance, $12 at the door. The Harris Brothers draw from a vast repertoire of American traditional music — “Americana” is often used to describe their style. It’s blues mixed up with traditional Appalachian music, jazz, country, bluegrass and rock n’ roll. Folk Alliance FAR West Performer of the Year Joe Craven returns to the Sandhills to bring his special brand of musical mayhem. Joe and the Harris Brothers together! Oh man.... Jan. 23 - Craicdown; $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Combining a technical mastery of their instruments with a passion for their playing, Craicdown performs acoustic roots music with a high-energy, rock inspired flare. The band’s repertoire draws from many sources, including the jigs and reels of the Celtic cultures, Brazilian choros, the swing musettes of Paris, American roots, and original compositions. Jan. 30 - Al Petteway an Amy White; $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Grammy Award-winning, critically acclaimed, passionate and playful, Al and Amy are an acoustic music duo that draws inspiration from musical traditions across the globe and distills these myriad styles into a rich and unique voice.

C o s a n d E f f ect

You Talk— I LISTEN!

When Farm Boys Get Bored

Working together we can make your dreams a REALity.

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We Believe: By Cos Barnes

omeone sent me an e-mail recently, titled “When the Farm Boys Get Bored.” It showed pictures of bales of hay stacked up to make a castle. It depicted the bales arranged as windmills and ferris wheels, and the ends of many were colorfully painted with pig faces and jack o’ lanterns. Mounds of straw were arranged in a labyrinth. These designs were humorous, although they made you wonder if any farmers ever had that much free time. I married a man who was one of six and was raised on a farm. The three girls had to help their mother in the house; the three boys had all outdoor chores to attend. Being an only child, I was bemused when they talked of having to get the two fields of hay up with pitchforks and being paid a penny a row by their father for cutting the stalks of corn across the road at Halloween time. They stored potatoes in the hen house and on rainy days, they had to sort potatoes and bring in the ones closest to spoiling. They never ate a good potato, I assume. And speaking of the hen house, these young lads had 100 chickens to feed and clean up after. The poo poo had to be spread in the garden for fertilizer. They had five acres of garden and grew everything. Always mercenary, the boys gathered plums and sold them at five cents a basket. They kept four or five cows and had to milk them — before school — and churn and sell the butter. They gathered apples for their mother’s delicious pies. She made two each meal, they said, and she and the children shared one and their father ate the other one. I doubt this is true, but that’s what they said. They did get to play. In summer, they would spend the day at the creek and wonder how their mother always knew unless they sat on the top of the chicken house and dried their hair. And they could go to the movies each Saturday for twelve cents apiece. On weeknights they had two tables of bridge as both the adults and children were experts. They argued and picked on each other. Any one of them would take either side of an argument and argue vehemently. Each had a distinct personality. One brother was so peculiar he would not let anyone else cook his eggs. He said they had scabs on them if not turned just right. All six were college graduates, all but one succumbed to cancer. One has some of his ashes scattered where the cows were milked. PS Cos Barnes, we’re thrilled to say, lives and writes in Southern Pines. She is a longtime contributor to PineStraw magazine.

That our technology will set you apart! Who you are in business with does matter! In team work and sharing ideas! Would you like to find out about local Short Sale and Foreclosure listings? Call me! 910-690-8480 LauRIe DavIS, SFR buyeR SpecIaLIST

The Tammy Lyne Team www.TammyLyne.com

If you build, buy or sell, Emmy can help you do it well! caLL emmy webSTeR 910-639-3520 emmywebSTeRSeLLS.com

InTeRnaTIonaLReaLTySpecIaLISTS.com

560 SE LakE ForESt DrivE, PinEhurSt, nC

Lake front property with inground pool, 4 bedrooms, updated kitchen, dock and gorgeous views! $485,000

caLL peGGy FLoyD 910-639-1197 www.pInehuRSTLuxuRypRopeRTIeS.com

To See My Featured Listings and All Listings in Moore and Scotland County, go to

www.WomanWithVision.com and click on Market Snapshot for more information.

“YOUR WELCOME HOME TEAM” LauRene STubbS, bRokeR, abI, GRI 910-318-1869 LauReneSTubbS@aTT.neT

To learn more about me and my company go to:

www.TammyLyne.com www.WhyILoveMyCompany.com

Tammy Lyne, ReaLToR 910-235-0208

ThE omnivorouS rEAdEr

Gone Coastal

Photographs by Scott Taylor

A place not so much haunted as enchanted

By sTePHen e. sMITH

The tag “coffee-table book” is, for most read-

ers, a pejorative term describing an outsized publication that’s abundant in photos or illustrations but slight in literary content. Plethoric images notwithstanding, reviewers tend to ignore such books, preferring instead to focus their criticism on publications whose literary content is more challenging. The Coasts of Carolina: Seaside to Sound Country, with text by Bland Simpson and photographs by Scott Taylor, rises far above the better-than-average coffee-table book, and it will no doubt bring pleasure and inspiration to any reader who appreciates the state’s Outer Banks, its seaside sanctuaries and sound-side estuaries, marshlands, etc. What elevates Simpson and Taylor’s collaboration above the ordinary is their thorough knowledge of and their intense appreciation for their subject matter, their shared affection for the places and people of the region, and their remarkable abil16

ity to transmit their artistic energies. For more than fifty years the state’s resident writer on North Carolina’s eastern environs was historian and folklorist David Stick, who wrote, among other books, the Graveyard of the Atlantic, The Outer Banks of North Carolina, The Ash Wednesday Storm, Roanoke Island: The Beginnings of English America, and An Outer Banks Read — books that are as fresh and readable today as when first published. With Stick’s death in 2009, the mantle of coastal writer in residence passed immediately to Bland Simpson, who has brought his own poetic vision to documenting our coastal history, its abundant wonders, and fragile future. Simpson earned the coastal laureate designation. For many years, while he taught creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he wrote prolifically, producing a shelf of coastal books — The Inner Islands, Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoal: The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering, The Great Dismal: A Carolinian’s Swamp Memoir, The Inner Islands: A Carolinian’s Sound Country Chronicle, and Into the Sound Country, all published by the University of North Carolina Press. Moreover, his reverence for all things coastal has grown more intense with each new publication. It will be immediately obvious to readers that Simpson has found

T h e O m n i v o r o u s Rea d e r

(by design or by accidently stumbling upon it) the subject that fires and liberates his imagination. This love affair with the coast began when Simpson was a child wandering the winter beach alone. Those early adventures shaped his imagination, and the adult Simpson remains a restless seeker whose incantatory prose is visually alchemical, as when he recalls the Algonquians, Spanish, English, and pirates who preceded him on the Carolina beaches: “Though they were all now but wayward, flickering spirits, all these and so many more had once known these sands that I now strode, had seen the million diamonds of sunlight that I saw on the morning seas, the endless ribbon of

moonlight on the ocean waters by night. On these winter days, besides the percussive knocking of my father’s tools, no other sound reached me save the never-ending surf, and those hammer taps I can still hear through time like distant drumming delight.” Simpson goes on to chronologically detail his growing familiarity with the creeks and islands, the beaches and sounds — a region not so much haunted as enchanted — and each description is an engrossing tale of discovery. Simpson and his wife Ann, a nature child herself, explored the towns, bays, and islands of the Carolina coast on their honeymoon (my God, what courage and confidence that must have taken). For six days they saw no one — “If these were not PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2011

T h e O m n i v o r o u s Rea d e r

adventures, what were they, and if we were not thoroughly alive out in the thick of them, what were we?” There was a “Huck Finn Trip” with their fourteen-year-old son Hunter and Simpson’s exploration of Traners Creek, a tributary of the Tar River and the site of a Civil War battle — “When they fled under heavy rifle and cannon fire, the Confederates left behind muskets, shot guns, sabres, three dead, and pools of blood in the dust of the road.” At its best, Simpson’s prose exceeds in power the much admired and maligned syntactical monsters penned by Thomas Wolfe. But Simpson is passionate without allowing the words to get in the way of

the images. His prose moves effortlessly forward without the wasted motion of self-conscious showboating, and the effect is immediate. Careful readers are likely to find themselves entranced by passages that are taut, swiftly paced, and profoundly evocative — and they will likely be inspired to retrace Simpson’s coastal adventures. And if readers experience a moment’s hesitation, Scott Taylor’s gentle but dramatic photographs will likely spur them on. He surely has an artist’s eye for the memorable. Taylor is a 1978 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He’s worked as a photographer for the Duke University Laboratory in Beaufort and is currently a freelance photographer whose photographs have appeared in many local, state, regional, and national publications and galleries. The 145 color photographs included in The Coasts of Carolina speak for themselves. PS Stephen Smith’s most recent book of poetry, “A Short Report on the Fire at Woolworths,” is available at The Country Bookshop. He can be reached at travisses@hotmail.com.

Bookshelf

New Releases For January By Kay Grismer and Angie Tally for The Country Bookshop FICTION – HARDCOVER CLARA AND MR. TIFFANY by Susan Vreeland. The author of The Girl In Hyacinth Blue paints the portrait of Clara Driscoll, Tiffany’s lead designer who developed the iconic lamp, who struggled with her desire for artistic recognition and romantic love. A CUP OF FRIENDSHIP by Deborah Rodriguez. In her fiction debut, the author of Kabul Beauty School tells the story of a remarkable coffee shop in the heart of Kabul and the women who meet there. THE CYPRESS HOUSE by Michael Koryta. The author of So Cold The River (now in paperback) returns with a new supernatural thriller about a young man marooned in an isolated Gulf Coast boarding house in the path of a hurricane, who sees death in the eyes of men before it strikes. THE INNER CIRCLE by Brad Meltzer. A young archivist makes an astonishing discovery in the secret vault of the National Archives, and becomes entangled in a web of deception, conspiracy, and murder that will reveal the best-kept secret of the U.S. presidency. THE LAKE OF DREAMS by Kim Edwards. A woman returns home to Japan only to find herself haunted by her father’s unresolved death when she discovers a collection of objects that reveal a complex family past in the new novel by the author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. LEFT NEGLECTED by Lisa Genova. Neuroscientist and author of Still Alice returns with the story of a vibrant young woman who suffers a traumatic brain injury that leaves her “Left Neglected,” where everything on her left side no longer exists. THE LONELY DEATH by Charles Todd. Scotland Yard Inspector Rutledge, haunted by his own horrors from WWI, must investigate the murders of four soldiers who each meet a ghastly end in a quiet Sussex village. THE LOST GATE by Orson Scott Card. The creator of Ender Wiggin returns with a new hero in an urban fantasy series about a clan of mages in exile in our world, living in uneasy truce with other clans until Dan North’s birth brings the flames of open war back to life. THE OUTLAWS by W.E.B. Griffin and William Butterworth. After Castillo’s secret unit is disbanded, he has to find the location of barrels of the most dangerous biohazard materials on earth.

TICK-TOCK by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. A rash of horrifying crimes tears through New York City, leading Det. Michael Bennett to a shocking discovery that exposes the killer’s pattern and the earth-shattering enormity of his plan. WHAT THE NIGHT KNOWS by Dean Koontz. Two decades after the murder of four families and his parents and sisters, a homicide detective fears his own family is being targeted by the “ghost” of their slayer — the man he killed that fateful night when he was 14. YOU KNOW WHEN THE MEN ARE GONE by Siobhan Fallon. Through a series of interconnected stories, Fallon takes readers into the homes, marriages, and families who live at Fort Hood, where a sign over the gate warns, “You’ve Survived the War, Now Survive the Homecoming.” FICTION – PAPERBACK THE BELL RINGERS by Henry Porter. In near future England, where life has become Orwellian with its top-secret data-mining system known as Deep Truth, a woman who inherits the dangerous secrets and unfinished business of the murdered head of intelligence is helped by a secret resistance group known as the Bell Ringers. BENEATH THE LION’S GAZE by Maaza Mengiste. Revolutionary Ethiopia in the 1970s is the backdrop for Mengiste’s story of a prominent doctor and his sons, one moderate, one mutinous, undone by war. BLIND YOUR PONIES by Stanley Gordon West. West offers a feel-good story about a small Montana town down on its luck, its inept high school basketball team and their long-suffering coach, and two potential hoop stars who give the town and the team something to believe in. THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY by Heidi W. Durrow. The daughter of a Danish mother and black GI confronts her identity as a biracial woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white. THE MUSIC LESSON by Katharine Weber. A woman with a stolen Vermeer flees America to Ireland, where she begins a passionate love affair with a member of a violent splinter group of the IRA that has surprising consequences. ROSES by Leila Meacham. Spanning the 20th century, Roses is a multigenerational epic set in a small East Texas town against the backdrop of the powerful timber and cotton industries controlled by the scions of the town’s founding families.

THE RED GARDEN by Alice Hoffman. Hoffman offers a glimpse into small-town America, presenting 300 years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption.

THE SHEEN ON THE SILK by Anne Perry. A young woman disguises herself as a eunuch in order to prove her brother innocent of a crime she knows he didn’t commit in Perry’s first stand-alone book set in 13th century Constantinople.

TEXAS! SAGE by Sandra Brown. In the final novel in Brown’s Texas! Trilogy, the youngest daughter of the Tyler clan teams up with a stranger to keep her family’s business afloat.

THIS BODY OF DEATH by Elizabeth George. When a woman’s body is found in an isolated London cemetery, Inspector Lynley is persuaded to return to work from compassionate leave after the murder of his wife.

Bookshelf

VENETIA KELLY’S TRAVELING SHOW by Frank Delaney. In Delaney’s coming-of-age novel set in the politically tumultuous decade of 1930s Ireland, a boy embarks on a Homeric journey to find his father, who abandoned his family to follow a circus troupe’s magnetic headliner. VENUS IN COPPER by Lindsey Davis. Things go from bad to worse for Marcus Didius Falco when a group of nouveau riche ex-slaves hire him to outwit a fortune-hunting redhead in a tale of skullduggery, murder, and real estate woes set in 71 AD Rome. THE WAY HOME by George Pelacanos. Notions of revenge, redemption, and justice fuel this thriller, set in Washington, D.C., about a rebellious young man trying to turn his life around, and his father who tries to help him overcome his demons. NON-FICTON – HARDCOVER BATTLE HYMN OF THE TIGER MOTHER by Amy Chua. In an eye-opening exploration of the differences in Eastern and Western parenting, Chua chronicles her iron-willed decision to raise her daughters the Chinese way, an exercise in extreme parenting that has its rewards as well as its costs. BROTHERS, RIVALS, VICTORS by Jonathan W. Jordan. For the first time, relationships between three legendary fighting men — Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley who engineered Allied victory in Europe—are explored, showcasing the personal side of life at the summit of raw, violent power during WWII. KNOWN AND UNKNOWN by Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld’s memoir is filled with unique and often surprising observations on eight decades of history, including previously undisclosed details and insights about the Bush administration, 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. NEPTUNE’S INFERNO by James Hornfischer. Hornfisher chronicles the three-month campaign for the vital island of Guadalcanal, America’s first offensive of the Pacific war, where the Navy and Marines first took the fight to the enemy and learned how to win a new kind of war. SHAH by Abbas Milani. Iranian scholar Milani offers the saga of the last Shah of Iran — his life, legacy, and role in the creation of the modern Islamic republic.

TWELVE STEPS TO A COMPASSIONATE LIFE by Karen Armstrong. The author of A History Of God outlines concrete ways of putting compassion into action in our everyday lives. TOWARD THE SETTING SUN by Brian Hicks. Charleston journalist Brian Hicks, author of Raising The Hunley, returns with the compelling story of Chief John Ross, one-eighth Cherokee, who for four decades led his people against white encroachment until their forced migration on the Trail of Tears. NON-FICTION – PAPERBACK 13 BANKERS by Simon Johnson and James Kwak. The authors examine how Wall Street’s ideology, wealth, and political power among policy makers in Washington led to the financial debacle of 2008, and what the lessons learned portend for the future. THE FOSSIL HUNTER by Shelley Emling. Mary Anning was 12 years old when she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton in England in 1811. She is probably the most important unsung collecting force in the history of paleontology whose finds helped lay the groundwork for Darwin’s theory of evolution. LITTLE BOY BLUES by Malcolm Jones. Jones offers a memoir about growing up in NC in the 1950s and 1960s, played out against his parents, disintegrating marriage, the consequences of desegregation, and a popular culture that threatened the church-centered life of his family. ONE L by Scott Turow. Turow, author of Presumed Innocent, chronicles his first year at Harvard Law School, a year of terror and triumphs, depressions and elations, compulsive work, pitiless competition, and mass hysteria. THE POWER OF HALF by Kevin and Hannah Salwen. Father and daughter tell the story of how their family sold their large home, moved to a house half as big, and donated half of the sale price to help alleviate poverty in one of the neediest corners of the planet. THE QUANTS by Scott Patterson. In his narrative of hubris and brilliance, Patterson follows the rise of “The Quants,” 1950s-era math geniuses let loose on Wall Street, who set in motion ever widening market catastrophes. SADDLED by Susan Richards. Richards, author of Chosen By A Horse, shares the story of her spirited Morgan who carried her through the toughest time of her life — recovery from alcoholism — and taught her the importance of constancy and steadfast love.

Bookshelf

CHILDREN’S BOOKS: SEND SIGN AND SEAL: I Like You; Everywhere Babies; No Matter What; Won’t You Be My Kissaroo by Debi Gliori. Stop by The Country Bookshop and check out these fabulous new mailable versions of four classic children’s books, just perfect for letting those far-away grandchildren just how much they are loved. Ages 2-6 MY FARM FRIENDS by Wendell Minor. Everyone enjoys visiting the farm to touch the velvety nose of a cow, the prickly bristles of the pig’s back, or the soft ear of a kitten, but few also know the cow drinks a bathtub’s worth of water every day, the barn cat often naps on other animal’s backs, and the pig rolls in the mud to stay cool because he can’t sweat. With fun facts, rhyming verse, and illustrations by the fabulous Wendell Minor, young ones will delight cuddling with someone while reading this picture book again and again. Ages 2-5. UNLEASHED: The Lives of White House Pets; Teddy Roosevelt and the Treasure of Ursa Major, and Chasing George Washington, by The Kennedy Center. Explore the White House with Teddy Roosevelt’s children, join a tour of the grounds with George Washington as your personal guide, and learn about some unusual White House pets including John Quincy Adams’ pet alligator, in this series of chapter books based on plays performed at the Kennedy Center. Ages 7-10. ALEX RIDER: Scorpia Rising, by Anthony Horowitz. Alex Rider, the wildly popular hero of this “James Bond Junior” series, faces Scorpia, the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization, as they threaten an already volatile land: the Middle East. With intense chases and unthinkable risks, young adventurers will be on the edge of their seats during Alex’s final mission. Ages 12 and up. PS

PRESENTING OUR FIFTH ANNUAL

CULINARY CURES FOR THE WINTER BLUES. Come join us for these dining Events:

SPICE TRAIL: SOUTHEAST ASIAN, MALAYSIAN, THAI Thursday January 20th TOUR OF SPAIN CATALAN CLASSIC Tuesday, January 25th CLASSIC : BEER AND RIB NIGHT Sunday, January 30th

(910) 215-0775

Mon-Sat-Lunch 11:30am to 2:30pm Dinner 6pm to 9:30pm • Sun Dinner 6pm to 9:30pm

Stay in touch for upcoming events at:

www.elliottsonlinden.com

TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2011 5:30pm Cooking Class Hearty Cuisine Germane. TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2011 5:30 pm Cooking Class Hungary No More! For more upcoming events:

Call 910-255-0665 or Visit www.kitchenessence.com

Uncorked Events

The First & Third Fridays of each month 5:30-7 Come learn, taste, enjoy and make new friends.

January 7th

North Carolina Wines

Over the last couple of years I have tried many wines from North Carolina and they have definitely improved. Come taste four North Carolina wines that I find worthy. No Muscadine wines approved.

January 21st

The Four Regions of Grenache

I truly love this grape. Mainly because in each of the main regions in which it is grown it shows different variations of flavor. The four main regions are southern Rhone, California, Australia and Spain.

Call 910-295-3663 for more upcoming events All businesses located at 905 Linden Road • Pinehurst

APPAREL

SALONS & SPAS

BOUTIQUES

RESTAURANTS & INNS

CoolSweats Gentlemen’s Corner Putter Boy Shop The Faded Rose

Eye Max Optical Boutique Green Gate Olive Oils Le Faux Chateau Lyne’s Furniture Gallery Old Sport & Gallery Old Village Golf Shop The Potpourri The Village Wine Shop and Wine Bar

FINE JEWELRY

Gemma Gallery Appraisals & Repairs Jewels of Pinehurst

Elaine’s Hairdressers Taylor David Salon

Lady Bedford’s Tea Parlour & Gift Shoppe Pine Crest Inn Restaurant & Pub Poppy’s Cafe & Sundry The Darling House Pub & Grill Ten-Ya Japanese & Sushi Bar The Magnolia Inn Restaurant & Bar

SERVICES Brenner Real Estate Village of Pinehurst Rentals & Golf

PinEBuZZ

The new media: A few multimedia projects to inspire your new year By JaCK DoDson

A lot of times when people talk about

the future of media, they talk about it being converged mediums. Words, sounds, visuals and Web pages all packaged together to create something more powerful than traditional “old” media.

But the fact is, the future is already here. Tomorrow already exists. Here’s to a new year and all the new media that will come with it. The Creators Project - www. thecreatorsproject.com You start by clicking on the short documentary about the Indie band Phoenix and their lives as artists. Then you see there are links to other videos that are examples of the band’s work. Soon enough you’re watching a knockoff of the “Breakfast Club” dance sequence set to Phoenix’s “Lisztomania.” It’s all part of The Creators Project, a website aimed at showcasing some of the best and most interesting art and artists from around the world, an ongoing series of documentaries that includes interviews with the artists, and shows examples of their works and some behind-thescenes aspects. The website’s “About Page” lists two mandates for its content: “On one hand it’s a modern day media channel that will continually identify and celebrate the work of visionary artists wherever they are. On the other hand it is also a content creation studio, an arts foundation of sorts that will facilitate the production and dissemination of new work with these artists and their collaborators.” So it’s somewhere between a Web curation and a foundation for the arts. Perhaps that’s what makes it so interesting. Because it is both established and new art at once — the perfect place to browse and learn and have some enlightening fun. Levi’s ‘Go Forth’ Campaign - www.goforthnow.com/newamerican Documentaries have been combined with many things. There’s the docudrama, the spoofy mockumentary, docufiction and even the biopic. All of these are based, to varying extent, on providing the audience relative facts and information on their given topic — except for the mockumentary, which is rarely an authentic representation of the fact but usually played for laughs. Until recently, the “documerical” was a thing unheard of. The very concept of this hybrid of the commercial and documented material is a strange marriage verging on the unethical, some might argue — to combine advertisements with a journalistic approach, tarnishing the value of truth by adding a message, perhaps. Yet such an approach often produces brilliant advertising, you have to give them that. Don Draper himself would be proud. But listen up, journalists. This is one way newspapers can make money, if they’re smart.

So the Levi’s “Go Forth” campaign started as a series of convoluted advertisements that seemed to be a call to action. Set to Walt Whitman’s “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” and suggesting youthful rebellion and carelessness, the commercials hoped to define the “new Americans.” And at first, it was a little bit over-worked and ridiculous. But, when you see the final product — a website decked out with flash, videos, writing and photos all posted by the people the campaign is aimed at — then it becomes something completely different, and maybe a notch elevated above the standard blue-jean pitch. Capturing the true spirit of the advertisements, displayed in gallery form on the website, it’s a concept that really works — and just may be the wave of the advertising future. Imagine a call to action if Whitman or Eliot worked with multimedia and created a Web page. Of course, it’s really just jeans. But that’s the beauty of it. FeedJournal - www. feedjournal.com/index.html For pure print hounds, RSS isn’t an ideal form for getting the news. Some people just love to hold a piece of paper in their hands and read their news the traditional way. (I happen to be one of those people, considering ink basically runs in my blood.) In any case, if you can’t get used to reading RSS feeds all the time to stay on top of your favorite news sources and blogs, then FeedJournal can be a quick, easy and interesting solution. The website takes your RSS feeds — for example, the day’s top stories on NPR and The New York Times, the newest posts on Hyperbole and a Half, and recent articles, say, on Foreign Policy — and puts them all into a PDF that eerily resembles a newspaper. You can change the setup so that text is justified or unjustified, or even change the size of the paper. When it’s downloaded — in about 10 seconds — you can print it, and read it with your coffee. Presto — old media meets new! Made in California - www. californiaisaplace.com/cali/ The title of this video series seems to be stating the obvious. California is, indeed, a very real place, America’s fabled Left Coast. That means it’s a noun, right? But the artistically-shot mini-documentaries they create make up for it by focusing on the vast array of people, places and things that happen every moment in California. There’s a washed up car salesman who used to be a local celebrity. A group of teenage skateboarders who skate in swimming pools left vacant in the wake of the collapsing housing market. Then there’s the sex doll maker who creates such realistic dolls people buy them as actual “companions.” The Mexican trumpet player who makes his living playing with mariachi bands. These rather slow-paced mini-docs are beautiful and somewhat sad, but they attempt to capture the elusive and complex spirit of perhaps America’s most mythic state. The result is not just good multimedia journalism, but good filmmaking. And for that, the title is passable. PS Jack Dodson can be reached at jdodson4@elon.edu.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2011

h i tt i n g h o m e

Pardon My French

Give me a restaurant I can pronounce, s’il vous plait By Dale Nixon

I made a landmark deci-

sion last week. I decided that if I couldn’t pronounce the name of a restaurant, I had no business eating there. I made the decision after my husband, Bobby, took me to a French restaurant by the name of Cuisine de la Francais (or something like that). I knew I was out of place the minute I walked in the front door and spied a woman sitting in a closet. “Bob, there’s a lady sitting in a closet.” “Ssshhh…” he said. The woman looked me up and down, so I looked her up and down. Then she said, “May I check your coat, please?” “Check my coat? For what?” I wanted to know. I assured the woman that I had packed it in mothballs over the summer and just recently had had it dry-cleaned. My coat did not need checking. Some guy approached us, by the name of… I don’t know what he said his name was, but it wasn’t Billy Bob or Bubba. He looked me up and down, so I looked him up and down. (There was a lot of looking up and down going on.) Then he said, “Madame, follow me.” I told this fancy-talking person with the fancy-sounding name that I would prefer to follow my husband. Bob said, “Ssshhh…” and steered me by the arm as we were led to our table. After we were seated, I surveyed the surroundings. The décor was fancy, I’d give ’em that. There were cherubs, fountains, velvet and gold leaf everywhere I looked. Out of nowhere, a man approached our table and flicked a Bic. He startled me; I jumped. I jumped so violently that the lighter singed my bangs. I scooted my chair back as he lit our candles. Yet another man appeared at our table and announced that he was our waiter. He grabbed my napkin, placed it in my lap (I was getting around to that) and handed us our menus. I opened my menu. I couldn’t read one word on the menu, and the prices weren’t printed. I kicked Bob under the table. “Bob, my menu doesn’t have prices on it. How will I know what to order?” Bob said, “My menu has the prices on it. Don’t worry. I’ll order for you.” I said, “Fine. Order me the cheapest item on the menu.” Bob said, “Ssshhh…” Our waiter glided to our table to take our order. (French waiters do not walk; they glide.) I tried to ask him a couple of questions about the menu. I couldn’t understand one word he said. I gave Bobby the go-ahead to order for me. When the appetizers arrived, Bobby explained that he had ordered something called escargots. I took a tiny bite. “Hey, this is pretty good, Bob. What is it?”

“Snails.” “Pardon me?” “It’s snails.” The tiny bite was now a big bite and growing bigger all the time. Finally I was able to swallow. I pushed my plate back. Bobby explained to me that they weren’t the kind of snails you poured salt on in the backyard. That didn’t make me feel any better. I’d just be durned if I was going to eat snails, even French ones. Soup would be served next. I like soup. Surely I couldn’t go wrong with soup. A bowl of something called vichyssoise (doesn’t that word just roll right off your tongue?) was placed in front of me. Feeling confident with soup, I took a big gulp. It was cold. I motioned the waiter over and said, “Sir, my soup is cold.” “Mais, oui, ze soup, eet ees sairved cold. “I like my soup served hot. I refuse to eat cold soup. Could you please warm it in the microwave for a few minutes?” The waiter testily replied, “Non,” and removed my soup. Bobby said, “Ssshhh…” Two plates of food had been set before me, and I was still starving. I decided to eat the next plate of food I received, no matter what. Our main course arrived. I got steak de veau (pretty good if you don’t mind eating a baby cow), pommes purée (mashed potatoes), haricots verts au citro (crunchy green beans someone had seasoned with lemon instead of fatback) and purée de carottes (something that should have gone into a baby food jar). The rolls were hard. I couldn’t bite them, cut them or tear them apart. I asked for a piece of light bread. I had spent three hours in a restaurant being introduced to food I never wanted to meet again. When we finally finished our meal and Bobby was presented with the check, he made little choking sounds. The waiter glided quickly to his side and asked if he needed a glass of water. Bob said, “No, thank you. All we want is to go home.” Home! How good that sounded! Home, with cabinets full of pork ’n’ beans, Spam, dried pinto beans, tomato soup that could be heated and snails in the backyard; the kind you could pour salt on. A place where I could light my own candles, seat myself and talk out loud. And last, but not least, a place where the restaurants have names I can pronounce, like Fried Green Tomatoes, the Red Pig, Rhett’s, Mama’s Kitchen, or Chick-fil-A. N’est-ce pas? (Translation: Ain’t that so, Bubba?) PS Columnist Dale Nixon resides in Concord but enjoys a slice of heaven (disguised as a condominium) in the village of Pinehurst. You may contact her by e-mail at dalenixon@carolina.rr.com.

Vine Wisdom

A Toast to the Sandhills Stars Ginger Rogers with a Latin beat

By Robyn James

I’ve been in the wine business more

years than I care to admit, obtained various levels of industry certification and I suppose I should be happy that our community philanthropists recognize that all this study and hard work has qualified me to... dance. My friend Kristen Palmer was a contestant of Dancing With The Sandhills Stars in 2009, it’s inaugural year. As friends will, I ribbed her about her 70’s hustle dance from time to time. She paid me back by suggesting that I would be a great contestant for this year. At first, I waivered, and then caved because when it comes to children and animals, I can be a soft touch. This event benefits Communities In Schools and Moore Buddies, undeniably two of our most dynamic programs in this county. I am especially proud of the IBM Mentor Place in Robbins since my son works for IBM in Texas. I figured, how hard can this be? I must admit, I was not the girly-girl growing up. My mother never pointed me toward ballet, tap dancing or even cheerleading. No, she plopped me on horses, threw a basketball in my hand and cheered me on during track meets. However, I did graduate from East Carolina, and it’s impossible to do that without shagging a time or two. It took me a while, but I convinced my friend, Phil, that he should dance with me for this incredible cause. Although re-

luctant at first, now Phil is a regular Ricky Ricardo and I’m still Lucille Ball. But, he’s doing a great job coaching me and counting us through the steps. The Fred Astaire Studio in Pinehurst is a huge sponsor of this event and we ventured there for our lessons to prepare for the big day. What an awesome place! The studio is teeming with incredibly talented and patient instructors transforming people like us into fledgling dancers. Bruce, one of the owners is our teacher and he is the quintessential optimist! He showed us all the moves, including a dip that sent me to the chiropractor the next day. Just kidding. We chose a Latino dance and after four lessons, practicing every night, we finally memorized what we had learned and timed our new routine. It was one minute. I couldn’t believe it, only one minute. Oh well, thank goodness the routine only has to be 90 seconds. I thought that sounded short, but now it seems like a lifetime. There are 16 couples competing at the Carolina Hotel on Sunday, January 30 beginning at 5 p.m. This event has become not only their biggest fund raiser, but a hugely popular event in attendance, it sold out early last year. Of course, I could be Ginger Rogers on the dance floor and still lose. This event is all about THE MONEY!! The couple that wins is the one that raises the most money for these incredible causes, so please help us out. Go to www.sandhillsstars.com and vote for Robyn and Phil, or heck, vote for anybody. It’s a great cause and a fun event! PS Robyn James is proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at winecellar@ pinehurst.net.

T h e k i t c h e n g ar d e n

From Italy With Love Winter thoughts on a backyard garden

For years, I’ve tried to

tease out the “why” of kitchen gardens.

In this era of relative abundance, why would people take the time to grow a little bit of fresh food in their yards? Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve always grown produce, even if just a tomato plant or two — and there are others like me. (And to grow things in this sand and heat — truly heroic!) For all my digging in the dirt, I could never quite get to the meat of my “why,” and no one else could offer a complete explanation either, so I always let the puzzle drop like an unfinished sentence. Due to recent overseas travel, this subject was again in some forward compartment of my mind — further egged on by PineStraw’s Andie Rose. “Write about Italy,” she urged, as if two late-October weeks exploring the agricultural highways and byways of “Upper Thigh Italia” made one an expert worthy of expounding on things herbaceously Italian. Yet, due to an interesting phone call, the gardens of home were on my mind. And as memory cast backward, certain images emerged ...

The Italian countryside flashed past. Towns, villages, suburbs, rural areas. From the Alps to the Mediterranean Sea, the one striking feature was the abundance of backyard kitchen gardens — gardens grown for fruits and vegetables. Kindred spirits! The first “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto” moment was, OK, in Venice, in a pigeon-filled cobbled square where an overwhelming church-bell cacophony rang in dusk throughout the city, with nary a vegetable in sight. But a second, quieter awareness was the common and frequent agricultural use of small scraps of backyard in everyday residences — not for manicured show or touch-football games, but for simple food and the celebration of it. Plump savoy cabbages, salad greens, beets, green carpets of low-growing mache, broccoli rabe, rows of radishes and, yes, even collards sprouted in the mountainous backyard terrain near the Swiss border. Trees behind garden walls were more likely to be edible than not: hazelnuts, chestnuts, pears, plums. In the warmer upper Mediterranean zone of the Italian Riviera (still in the “boot top”), one could walk narrow cobbled lanes and peek into backyards sporting lemon trees, ancient backyard olives, monstrous figs and romantic, grape-covered arbors with well-used tables and chairs beneath. An Italian convent we visited had its own citrus grove behind high walls. The owner of an international show stable grew cabbages and peppers behind the barn. Small greenhouses and slot gardens crawled up the steep terraced slopes. The populace seemed garden-mad. It didn’t seem like a recent trend.

A bit of background on the Italy trek. Our brand-spanking-new community enterprise, Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative, was chosen on the basis of its 2011 work in community building and local food to be a conferenceexpense-paid delegate to “Terre Madre 2011” in Turin, Italy, this October. Who could say no? Held every two years by Slow Food International, Terre Madre is a meeting of the world’s food communities, a celebration of food, food culture, regional tastes and the power of community. The “Slow Food” movement be-

gan in Italy as a response to a growing devour-inthe-car, fast-food culture, and its erosion of the joys of communal eating. For a counterpoint, think home-cooked family suppers, long dinners with friends, intimate romantic meals, baking cookies with children, exchanging a long-gone parent’s special recipes with siblings and cousins. Different feeling from “grabbing a bite,” yes? Think “Eat, Pray, Love” with an enthusiastic emphasis on “Eat.” Slow Food gradually came to embrace the food traditions of all cultures, those unique tastes that make a region memorable. And it formed an idea that food should be three things: good, clean and fair. It had the brilliant idea of bringing together those of like mind. Over 8,000 farmers, fisherfolk, community-builders, students, agricultural workers, food entrepreneurs and teachers from 160 countries turned up to network, learn, gather strength from each other — and visit the Salone del Gusto, of course. Held in conjunction with Terre Madre, the Salone del Gusto is an epic love song to those culinary gems that are fast disappearing in a homogenized fast-food world — quality, small-scale regional tastes and heritage agricultural products. Over 200,000 people attend, a third from elsewhere in the world. This is a world-class food festival, “to present foods which are at risk of extinction, such as Ethiopian mountain honeys, Brazilian Baru nut and Indonesian pepper,” noted one website, “with emphasis on raising awareness and stimulating debate about the future of food production.” A person could fill up on just nuts or cheeses from around the world, or olive oils, or pickled vegetables, or salamis, or fruit preserves, or exotic coffees, or salsas. Certainly, some jars of Sienese elderberry jam (contettura di sambuco), Sicilian olive tapenade, Tuscan rosemary aspic and blood-orange marmalade found their way into my overloaded homebound bags. Plenty of fruity gelato found its way down our gullets, too. But beyond the crowded conference halls of Turin, we traveled by car, bus, train and foot to several areas in northern Italy. And it struck me deeply that, outside the concrete-bound cities, so many bits of backyard were pressed into service as gardens for fresh fruits and vegetables. Why was that so strong a feature there? You’ll see a few vegetable or herb gardens here and there in American towns, more in the country, but nowhere near the degree I was seeing in Italy. Certainly, in a culture that revered freshness and taste, a delectable, garden-plucked zucchini or arugula could go right into the saute pan (bring fingers to lips and make kissing sound). Yet excellent corner markets were filled with local fresh fruits and vegetables. In fact, in Venice we even saw a farmer’s market in a gondola, people buying fresh produce right off the canal boat. Access to “fresh” was easy. So why? It was a puzzle.

The phone rang a few weeks after my return to Moore County. “You don’t know me,” the gracious Southern voice began, “but I just read your article in the November PineStraw on collards, which I enjoyed very much. And I want to thank you for asking, ‘Who said Southerners eat an unhealthy diet?’ You know, I was raised in Robeson County, and we grew up eating very well, eating a whole, whole lot of vegetables. We raised a lot of our food. We ate an organic diet when we were children, and we didn’t even

T h e k i t c h e n g ar d e n

know it. We never used chemical fertilizers or pesticides; we used animal manures. Nothing got sprayed. We ate meat maybe twice a week, and it was beef, pork, poultry, game. “Thank God for collards and sweet potatoes. Mama used to say the sweet potato got them through the Depression! She made a persimmon pudding as a treat, and back then, a treat was a treat — not for every day. If you don’t fry things, our food is very nutritious. We just ate a lot of fresh, unprocessed food.” Her Carolina recollections were powerful ones, enchanting. Memories of home, family and good fresh, seasonal eating. Memories of the land. An insight began forming.

“Why is it, “ I quizzed my Scottish-born friend Andrea, “that some people value a kitchen garden so much? It takes some effort.” I asked because Andrea has a dandy one, with plenty of fruit trees, blackberries, blueberries, herbs and grapes, and it’s right out front of her Whispering Pines house, extremely well-designed and integrated into the landscape. “It’s the taste!” said Andrea. “But you could go to the farmers market or farm stands and get that, with less trouble and expense,” I countered. We were dining in an area restaurant with her visiting mother. “I want plums from my plum tree,” added Andrea’s mum in her charming accent. I imagined her in her garden tending her Scottish plum tree, making jam and tarts from the sweet fruit. “Yes, it’s control of our food,” said Andrea, warming to the subject. “We want to know what goes into it.” But it was more than that. As they set to the task of teasing out their motives, they related memories of getting their hands in the dirt, working in the garden with parents and grandparents, of special dishes connected to those activities.

i n i n g

Hmmm, yes. I recalled how my love of vegetable gardening was also nurtured — by puttering nearby as my Wisconsin mother sowed peas or staked tomatoes. One year she tilled under the Jerusalem artichokes she used to pickle, and they sprang up everywhere — how we laughed, and cursed their light green multitude. Dad always hovered over the early lettuce and sweet corn. My great-aunt would come to harvest from our champion stands of rhubarb. They could have bought the rhubarb from which my mother made her famous annual spring pies. But they didn’t; they preferred to raise their own. My parents would speak of their parents’ gardens, next to the house where the old chicken yard had been, or behind the now-sagging back porch. “It’s a connection to our ancestors!” said Andrea’s mum, with a cry of triumph and recognition. “To the land!” Yes. I could see it. Truly almost taste it.

From the gardens of Italy to the gardens of home. Perhaps, I pondered, a seasonal kitchen mirrors our heritage, from a time when almost all lived on the land and drew sustenance from it. Yes, a kitchen garden can be about taste, economy, nurture, recreation, spiritual renewal, food quality control, self-reliance, health and green ideas about bringing food production closer to where it’s consumed. Yes, and the miracle of a tiny seed sprouting into table bounty. But I suspect — and I will get back to you on this — that most every patch of homegrown produce is linked to a powerful memory of good food pulled from the earth, the sharing of it with loved ones, and the bountiful good land itself. Of purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain, a gutlevel response that transcends borders. Be it ever so humble, of home. Maybe that’s “why.” Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and cofounder of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative.

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S p i r i ts

A Cure for the Winter Blues The pleasures of blueberry tea

By Frank Daniels III

One evening in Calgary, Alberta,

at the phenomenal Ranche restaurant in North America’s largest urban park, Fish Creek Park, I was treated to one of the best surprises in my spirit quest — blueberry tea.

My wife asked the waiter for blueberry tea, and I ordered a glass of vintage port to cap off an excellent meal. The Ranche is a beautiful old home on the Bow River that runs through Calgary and serves as the central feature of the park. Sitting in the restaurant you can often see elk, deer and the occasional jackrabbit grazing through the property. Sitting in the dining room of this old house, nestled at the bottom of a cliff and overlooking the Bow Valley, you can easily transport yourself to the 19th century. On this winter evening, unusually large, fluffy snowflakes were falling, adding their silent charm to the evening. All in all, an incredibly romantic and wonderful place to spend an evening, and not the place you would expect surprises. My port arrived and then the waiter placed a brandy snifter, on a snifter warmer, in front of Carol. “I thought you ordered tea?” I asked. “I did,” she said with a smile. “I think you’ll like this.” She is Canadian, and this was very early in our relationship, so I was still unsure of her humor, but I’d had sufficient wine at dinner to be tolerant. Into her snifter the waiter poured Grand Marnier and amaretto; he then poured steaming tea. Almost immediately, the aroma of fresh blueberries wafted across the table. I was stunned, and intrigued. My excellent port seemed so pedestrian and unimaginative. Graciously, Carol shared a sip of her tea. The aroma of blue-

berries gave way to a rich mellow flavor of almond and orange that you’d expect from Grand Marnier and amaretto. The tea was transformed into a smooth blend of flavors that had no resemblance to its origins. Light and flavorful, this variation of the hot toddy is an excellent way to warm up a chilly evening, end a meal, or enjoy a late night blaze. Our family has adopted blueberry tea as our toddy of choice during the cold months of the year. There are several variations that I’ve run across on the Web. My research shows that generally orange pekoe tea is the base, and that adds more fruit to the nose of the toddy. We are partial to Earl Grey tea. Outside of western Canada, I have not found a bar or restaurant that has ever heard of blueberry tea, but the recipe is simple and they have no problem making one up. Ordering a blueberry tea is also a great way to bring an unruly table back to order, creating a central topic of discussion, and getting everyone’s attention so you can direct the end of the evening to your desired conclusion. Enjoy.

Blueberry Tea 2 oz. 1 oz. 1 oz.

Fresh brewed Earl Grey tea Grand Marnier Amaretto Disaronno

In a warmed brandy snifter, pour the Grand Marnier and amaretto. Gently add the hot tea. This recipe easily tolerates additional tea to govern your desired strength. Serve with dark chocolate squares. PS Frank Daniels is an editor and writer living Nashville, Tenn. fdanielsiii@mac.com

P l e as u r e s o f l i f e D e pt.

Puzzled

In our family, working puzzles was a contact sport

By Ed Peele

Last winter, my wife and I joined some

friends in the mountains for a quiet weekend. No big activities were planned, just a few of us oldsters getting together away from home where we could have an extra glass of wine and who knows, maybe even stay up till 11:30. When we got to the house we set our bags in the bedroom and joined our hosts downstairs. The weather and the views seemed to draw the most attention as everyone relaxed and fell into simple conversation. As I am apt to do, I was wandering around the house by myself for a minute when I spied something I had not seen in many years and hardly expected to see this weekend. In front of the picture windows in the great room was a table about six feet long and three feet wide. It was not so different from so many other tables except for the fact that it was covered from end to end with tiny little pieces of cardboard, exactly 1,000 of them, as the box said. This was the puzzle table, and from the moment I saw it I was drawn in and hooked. All those 1,000 pieces were supposed to come magically together to create a beautiful coastal village shown on the box top, but from my vantage point I was sure there were at least 500 extra pieces, and all of them were either blue like the sea or blue like the sky — there was very little difference. In any case, I was ecstatic. Puzzles are my thing. The sight of the puzzle laid out took me back to the trips my family used to take to the beach at Nags Head on the coast of North Carolina. We lived just a three hour hop, skip and jump through the swamps of eastern N.C. from Nags Head. Two ferry rides and a non-air-conditioned Chevy drive later we would be at my grandmother’s cottage, “Mamadear,” as we called her. After the mandatory run to the water to verify that the ocean was still there, Mamadear would shower all of us young cousins with hugs, kisses and cookies. We ate, visited and walked on the beach until the sun was just an orange sliver barely visible across the Roanoke Sound in the West. Back in the day, which this was, there was very little to do once the sun set. We played cards but only for toothpicks. We played Chinese checkers, but that usually ended when the board got upended and the marbles rolled under the couch and were out of reach. But the most constant form of entertainment was the puzzle that was out when we got there and demanded

at least a passing interest from all those family members present. It was in these early days that I recognized puzzling as an all out, full contact indoor sport with techniques and strategies developed by each individual puzzler. It might have looked like the most passive family-style entertainment since Mother Teresa played “go fish,” but just underneath the surface loomed a competitive current that pitted brother against brother, cousin against cousin, child against adult. Putting a puzzle together has of course one overriding goal, to simply make the pieces look like the picture on the box. That said, there are also extra points awarded for the style and difficulty with which a person adds to the end result. With a large family there were plenty of opportunities to observe how everybody contributed one piece at a time. My daddy was a mild-mannered man who rarely took center stage. He liked to wander around the puzzle table in a seemingly uninterested way, then walk over and put in two or three pieces, then retreat, happy to have helped the cause. My mother, on the other hand, was a little more competitive. She was known to hover over the table for what seemed like hours putting together as many of the most obvious pieces as possible. The number of pieces joined together counted as a way to keep score. My two uncles were at different ends of puzzledom’s assembly line. One liked to stand at the table searching for that one elusive piece that finished the red sailboat’s mast or anchor or some such minor detail. After days of searching for that piece, and only that piece, he would eventually find it and scream “Aha” in theatrical volume. He would then proceed to announce to everyone in Dare County that he had no doubt salvaged the family vacation by putting in the critical piece. The other uncle attacked the puzzle with tenacious concentration. He would pick apart the picture and make it his mission to work on that particular element until it was finished. Each piece had to be picked up and turned at least four times to see if it fit the previous piece. It didn’t seem to matter to him that he was trying to tie green grass together with the star field of the American flag over the Capitol. And when he finally found a piece that worked, the proverbial “blind hog,” he would put it in and give it an annoying double tap with his index finger as if to say, “There you are, little buddy, just stay put until I can find your neighbor.” As for the kids, we were largely responsible for nothing at all related to the puzzle. When it first came out of the box we were invited to help Mamadear turn all the pieces so that the picture was up. We older children might be allowed to put in one or two pieces until the younger kids began to clamor for a chance to play. Once they were at the table there would invariably be a spilled glass of Kool-Aid or dropped open-face pea-

nut butter sandwich at which time the attending adult would scream as if their hair was on fire and run to the kitchen for a towel to salvage this work of art destined for the national art gallery. This offense usually meant that anyone under the age of the oldest cousin was banished to the back porch and ordered to feed the mosquitoes until we were pale from the loss of blood. But without a doubt the points for the most style went to Mamadear. She would help from a distance, allowing everyone in the crowd to feel like they were finding the rarest piece of the puzzle. She turned the pieces over at first or got down on her knees to retrieve the pieces under the couch next the marbles and the dust bunnies. When no one was looking, she would put in her fair share of pieces to further the cause. As anyone who has ever put together a puzzle knows, the most important piece is the very last piece. It is the one that gives credibility to days of effort, vindicates obsession, and verifies that large numbers of family members can work together peacefully. That one piece is the Holy Grail, held up above all others, and the person who puts that piece in is exalted and elevated to the status of high saint of the puzzle. On one vacation I remember vividly how the puzzle of the week had vexed each and every family member regardless of age. It was a picture of a polar bear in a blizzard at the North Pole, and it had successfully led to at least one hospitalization for hypertension and several other long walks on the beach to relieve frustration. With time running out there was only one piece of the white-on-white picture left to insert. But where was it? The box was checked and double-checked. Then the couch was moved out but there were still only Chinese checkers marbles under it. Trash was emptied and pockets were turned out. Someone was holding out, no doubt a misguided effort to gain stardom in our small puzzled universe. Someone even suggested we contact the company and have them send us the piece because it was obviously left out. Then, with little fanfare and certainly no regret for her maneuver, Mamadear made her way from the kitchen to the center of the living room and cleared her throat. Slowly, teasingly, she slid her hand into the front pocket of the green and white checked apron she had tied around her matronly waist. She withdrew her hand and held it in the air above her head so that all could see what she held between thumb and index finger. After a brief parade lap around the room she ceremoniously walked to the table and put the final piece in its place. Her smile was warm but triumphant. We officially anointed her the Queen of the Puzzle. PS Ed Peele last wrote about preparing his garden for fall in September’s PineStraw.

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B i r d wat c h

Fox Sparrow

Photograph by Michael McCloy

When the snow flies, keep an eye out for this powerful, handsome bird

By Susan Campbell

Sparrows are a common Sandhills

sight in winter. Historically, eight different species can be found in a day across most of the region. Add to that the gregarious, prolific and very adaptable house sparrow, which was added to the mix in the 1800s. Early settlers yearned for a familiar bird from the Western Hemisphere as well as a means to control insect pests associated with human habitation.

At this time of year, the largest and most handsome of the sparrows is inarguably the fox sparrow. However, it happens to be one of the hardest species to find. Perhaps because of its modestly large size and brighter coloration, it is frequently hidden in the vegetation. It is typically over eight inches in length and very stocky, with bold rufous streaking on its underparts. The head down the back to the tip of the tail is a more “foxy” reddish in color. Several races of the fox sparrow exist in the US and Canada, with those found farther west being browner all over. The fox sparrows that we see in winter breed from northern Ontario east to Newfoundland and south into parts of Nova Scotia. They move south in fall and start to appear in North

Carolina in October. They seem to flock loosely with other sparrows and finches during the colder months. They prefer habitat immediately adjacent to water. Although they eat mainly insects during the summer, during the winter, seeds and berries tend to make up the majority of their diet. Most consistently, fox sparrows can be found in expanses of bottomland forest, kicking up vegetation and debris for food. However, there are lucky backyard birdwatchers who regularly observe them taking advantage of millet and other small seeds under their feeders. During very cold and wet weather, they may move further into drier areas in search of a meal. I do not usually see them where I live unless it snows. Our lakeside property is too open to appeal to them. However, we have wet woods with dense tangles of evergreen vegetation not too far away — ideal for sparrow habitat. Because of their size, fox sparrows are quite strong. As a result, they can uncover food that is buried deep in the forest floor. They will actually use both feet together to scratch and dig beyond the reach of other small birds. So keep your eyes peeled if you are out in wet habitat or under your feeders after a mid-winter snowfall — you may be treated to a glimpse of one of these handsome and powerful birds. PS Susan would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted by email at susan@ncaves. com, by phone at (910) 949-3207 or by mail at 144 Pine Ridge Drive, Whispering Pines, NC 28327.

T h e sp o rt i n g l i f e

Advice to a Young Hunter

Leave the big boats to friends, but you can never have enough shotguns

By Tom Bryant

It had been a

ho-hum kind of early duck season, so I decided to head home from our duck impoundments at Lake Mattamuskeet and catch up on some writing that I had delayed too long. I usually do most of my creative stuff up in the Roost, the upstairs apartment above our garage. I can get out of my wife’s way and away from distractions that might cause me to procrastinate the inevitable even longer.

While I was sitting at my desk, waiting for the elusive muse to strike, I decided to check the 384 emails I had received while pursuing the noble waterfowl. Most of my electronic mail concerns such fascinating items as where to vacation in the Russian steppes, or something even less important to me, and I usually delete them pretty quickly. There was a message, though, from a young fellow that really got my attention. It went something like this: Mr. Bryant, My uncle took me duck hunting last winter out on the Chesapeake Bay. We were hunting with a guide who had all the gear so we were just participants. My question to you is, since I plan to become a real duck hunter, what gear do I need to do an adequate job hunting waterfowl? I love your writing and read your columns every chance I get. Oh, by the way, I’m fourteen years old. Thanks for your help. Jack. Hmmm, I thought. Smart kid with excellent taste. I’ll see if I can’t lend him a little of my expertise. Jack, oh how I envy your early start in accumulating the necessary accouterments to make you a successful waterfowler. You are entering an almost mystic endeavor which, I’m sure, during your lifetime will be obstructed by such things as work, money and women. The lady you choose as a partner can overcome those temporary bumps in the road. I was fortunate in that my bride, Linda, chose me and all my hunting paraphernalia and has looked over my few misadventures in the field.

One such event occurred when I went woodduck hunting on opening day of the season. Unfortunately, that was the same Saturday we were moving to a bigger house and my mother, my son and a good friend and his father were there to help Linda. I wasn’t. Enough said about that. I don’t want to open old wounds. After a few months, my bride forgave me and let me live to hunt another day. Therefore, the single most important item you must consider when setting out on this noble adventure is the lady you will live with through many duck seasons. When you get closer to that magic day and are looking for a bride, I’ll send you a form letter that a couple of buddies and I put together for a friend who was interested in a young lady from New York City. The letter included a little quiz about things concerning efforts in the field. For example, how long should it take you to clean a Canada goose? What’s the best water repellent to use on your husband’s boots? Easy questions like that. So what if it didn’t work for Bob. I think it’s a pretty good quiz and could help you later. Let me know when you need it. Shotguns. I believe in your case, I would get a Remington 870 twenty gauge. This is a pump gun that chambers 2¾-inch as well as 3-inch ammunition. Of course, as you get older and more fluid in the money department, I would look at the autoloaders such as Browning, Winchester and Remington. And you could always throw in a superposed Ruger. Remember, there is no such thing as too many shotguns. Boats. I leave the big boats to friends, which brings another point. A good duck-hunting friend is hard to find. A good duck-hunting friend with a big boat is to be cultivated and cherished. I personally have a little Widgeon duck skiff with a 10-horse kicker for lakes and back waters, a 16-foot johnboat for rivers and bigger lakes, and a couple of canoes for jump shooting wood ducks on driftable rivers. Don’t worry, the boats will come as you grow into the sport. Decoys. Try to collect all the old L.L.Bean decoys you can find, not only great to hunt over, but as you get older, their presence will help you remember all the good times on those cold, snowy February and March days when the season is over. A good bet on utilitarian decoys would be the Green Head brand. I would get a dozen each of mallards

T h e sp o rt i n g l i f e

and widgeons, a half dozen black ducks and a few teals. Decoys, like shotguns, will grow in number. Duck calls. A duck call can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I hunted with folks, not lately mind you, who would begin blowing a call the minute they were in the blind. These people should be avoided at all cost, primarily to save your hearing. Learning to blow a call takes time and practice, but be careful where you make the effort. When I first started blowing a call, a next-door neighbor thought a fox had gotten into her chicken coop. It caused quite a bit of consternation. Retriever dogs. This will be the most important decision you make in your duck-hunting career, second to who you choose to be your bride. I highly recommend yellow Labradors,

When I first started blowing a call, a next-door neighbor thought a fox had gotten into her chicken coop... but that is just my personal preference. There are many good choices: goldens, Labs, spaniels. I even have a friend who duck hunts with an English setter, but that’s a rarity. Also, very important to remember is that the cheapest money spent is on the purchase of a puppy. A good dog can teach a youngster a few tricks; but a bad dog, one without good genes, can only get worse. Duck-hunting friends. I hope you will be as fortunate as I was in acquiring good buddies to share fun with in the field. My hunting partners go back over thirty years, and we have shared many unforgettable experiences, some that haven’t passed the statute of limitations, unfortunately, so enough said about that. So, Jack, this should help you get started. Read all you can about the sport. The old timers like Havilah Babcock’s My Health Is Better In November, Nash Buckingham’s De Shootinest Gent’man, and the Bible for youngsters your age, Robert Ruark’s Old Man and the Boy. These are books you will read and reread in your duck-hunting career; and hey, old Tom Bryant will even throw in an effort every now and then. PS Tom Bryant is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist. PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2011

G o lft o w n J o u r n al

The Maples Museum Among artifacts that tell a tale from Donald Ross to now, Pinehurst’s first family of course design is passing the torch — and going strong

Oyster Bay By Lee Pace

A shattered water line beneath the

streets of Pinehurst flooded the basement of Dan Maples’ office building on Cherokee Road recently, forcing Maples and staff to scurry to move stacks and boxes of drawings, photographs, blueprints, correspondence, clippings and artifacts to drier ground on the main floor. Maples apologizes for the mess one November afternoon, but the disarray provides an ideal venue to poke around and tour nearly a century’s worth of Pinehurst and golf design history.

Here’s a poster from 1950 announcing a golf exhibition at Raleigh Country Club with tour pros Sam Snead and Lloyd Mangrum facing club pros Ellis Maples and Orville White. This was when Ellis, the son of former Pinehurst greenkeeper and course construction chief Frank Maples, was plying his trade as an amalgam of pro, builder, superintendent and designer before focusing full-time on golf course architecture. “Daddy was a super player, a super teacher,” Maples says. “He once shot a 62 at Raleigh Country Club. He shot a 68 on No. 2 in 1930 back when it played long, when you were hitting woods and long irons into greens. That’s why his golf courses were so good. He brought such a great all-around foundation in the game to his work.” Maples has a scorecard from his dad’s 1930 round handy and delights in pointing out the ace that Ellis made on the 215-yard fourth hole (which became the sixth hole in Donald Ross’ 1935 reconfiguration).

“A 215-yard hole eighty years ago was a pretty strong hole,” Maples marvels. “From as far back as I can remember, Daddy had a Spalding four-wood that absolutely cost a lot of people a lot of money over a lot of years. I suspect that’s what he hit.” Over on a work table are computer generated drawings of the greens complexes at Grandfather Golf & Country Club, a 1968 Ellis Maples design considered, along with the Dogwood Course at the Country Club of North Carolina, among his finest works. Maples returned to the Linville club in the early 1990s to rebuild the greens and nip and tuck the winsome mountain layout where needed. He holds a sheet for the fifteenth green and runs his finger along the original green perimeters. Then he notes another line for the green dimensions that had evolved over some two decades of weather, maintenance and golfer traffic. The original size was 5,648 square feet, the latter size 3,841 square feet. “Imagine that,” he says. “That green shrank by a third. All of them did. It happens everywhere. They were down to having five pin placements on that green. We took the greens back to where they were originally. Now that hole has eleven pin placements.” Maples moves to an array of construction photos from Gates Four Golf & Country Club in Fayetteville, a Willard Byrd design from the late 1960s that Maples renovated 30 years later. A series of photos show trucks with freakish looking tires — two feet wide at least. “Because Daddy was a superintendent, we grew up growing grass and moving dirt so we can do just a lot of different things,” Maples says. “But we designed these trucks — see how wide those tires are? We can drive those trucks across a green and not hurt it.” On a wall to Maples’ right is an aerial photo of one his best designs, Marsh Harbor Golf Links on the North Carolina coast near Calabash. The late 1970s course opened to critical acclaim, and golfers visiting all quarters of the Grand Strand from just below the state line proved willing to make a slightly longer drive

G o lft o w n J o u r n al

up Hwy. 17 to play a course perched along the Intracoastal Waterway. Soon the Myrtle Beach golf boom ensued with developers and designers banging out new courses in every nook and cranny of Horry and Brunswick counties. Sadly, the course closed in 2003 when course operator Larry Young couldn’t reach a new lease agreement with the land’s owners. “It’s just sitting there, overgrown with weeds right now,” Maples says. “I built most of that course myself. I remember going in there one day and building the eleventh green. It had so many

“Brad was riding around with me, playing in the dirt while I floated out greens at The Pit and Longleaf, just tagging along like I did with my dad.” beautiful big old oak trees around the green as I had drawn it. But when you got on-site, the green and the trees just wouldn’t fit. So I went in and made up a green as I went, something that fit and looked natural and preserved the trees.” Of more recent note are architectural drawings of a redesign of the 27-hole complex at Emerald Greens in Tampa, Fla. The course is landlocked with dense residential and commercial development on all sides, and its drainage system was antiquated and ineffective. “That project was so cool,” Maples says. “The storm waters, the drainage along the periphery of the golf course was already set. We couldn’t change any of that. This was an engineering challenge. We did work on the computer here, sent it to the engineer down there, he would make changes and send it back here. It was new-age technology supplementing what we were doing in the field.” Maples finds a DVD prepared by the marketing staff at Olde Mill Golf Club, located in the Virginia mountains just north of Mt. Airy. Ellis designed the course in the early 1970s, and Dan worked on it just out of college at the University of Georgia. Now his son Brad, a landscape ar-

G o lft o w n J o u r n al

chitect from N.C. State University, has joined Maples Design and is working with Dan on a project at Olde Mill. “That was one of the first projects I worked on with Daddy, and that was one of the first projects that Brad was working on with me,” Maples says. “Brad was riding around with me, playing in the dirt while I floated out greens at The Pit and Longleaf, just tagging along like I did with my dad.” Olde Mill is routed around a 54-acre lake beneath a backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Much of the current project involves moving cart paths to make them less visible from the tee and allow the paths to fade into the golfers’ subconscious. “What is neat about Olde Mill was that Donald Ross could have routed the golf course because it followed the natural lay of the land and you could minimize the amount of earth you moved,” Maples says. “I’m not sure what you would call the job we’re doing there — it’s certainly not a ‘remodeling’ as the golf course is fine. Maybe you call it an ‘enhancement.’ At Grandfather, when we went back in the early nineties, we spent a lot of time making the holes prettier by taking the cart paths out of it. It’s not a real playability thing, but it’s part of the experience.” Nearly every appendage of the Maples family tree touches some form of the golf business — from design to maintenance, from administration to marketing. It’s been that way since Frank and brother Angus worked alongside Donald Ross in building four courses at Pinehurst Country Club and two more down Midland Road at Mid Pines and Pine Needles. “Four generations of Maples and more than a hundred years — I think that’s pretty cool,” Maples says. Their services have been in demand during the boom times. And the family has been creative to stay busy and develop niches during fallow periods. The broad array of skills Dan learned from Ellis, who learned from Frank — construction, grass growing, course grooming, land planning ad infinitum — holds Maples Design in good stead during a period when the game of golf remains popular with its core but the industry of golf is suffering. “Nowadays, if you want to make a living designing golf courses, you’ve got be willing to live out of an airplane,” Maples says. Then he finds another golf artifact that’s worth explanation, and the stories continue. PS Lee Pace, author of “Pinehurst Stories,” is an award-winning sportswriter and a longtime resident of Chapel Hill.

“

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Instead of England’s early Sunday dinner, a postchurch ordeal of heavy meats and savory pies, why not a new meal? By eliminating the need to get up early on Sunday, brunch would make life brighter for Saturday night carousers. It would promote human happiness in other ways as well. Brunch is cheerful, sociable and inciting. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.

”

– Guy Beringer

The man knew back in 1895 that Sunday brunch is one of life’s finest simple pleasures. See you Sunday at The Fox.

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Tea We come home and what we left is still there, the last thing our hands touched familiar as our fingers. Our going, returning to a place we know that knows us. Days unique as flowers ... one, then another opening out to let in and let go light that pours into our hands like warm milk yellow with cream. These books, this chair, this pink glass dish we have been given. Blue cups with gold rims and violets for tea sweetened with cinnamon and honey. Invite those the soul selects let them stay take their coats, hang up their hats seat them on cushions round in the windows before the colored afternoon. Light becomes dark and the white silk of day sifts over us soft as morning thin as afternoon pulled like gauze across the sky a drape of day threaded with gold shadows tress silhouettes a city of clouds. In this room we keep the night at bay. - Ruth Moose

January 2011

n a world simpler and much closer to nature than our own, the native peoples who first occupied the ancient Uhwarrie Hills that frame the western boundary of the Sandhills believed cardinal directions were sacred symbols of life. The ancient wisdom traditions of other cultures — the Chinese, for instance, and the mystical Celts — shared a similar belief that each primary direction on the compass held special meaning. A birth at sunrise in the east, a marriage at sunset in the west, ancient mariners navigating by the position of northern stars, the seasonal clockwork of a southern migration — all were shaped and influenced by the cardinal directions of this world. One thing every wisdom tradition agrees upon: The journey of a single day and a chosen direction can yield uncommon gifts of sudden insight, beauty, chance encounter, and heightened awareness of life’s brief passage. One merely needs to observe and record to find grace in the momentary gift of the now. With such a timeless objective in mind, on a perfect late Indian summer Saturday not long ago, we dispatched four teams of writers and photographers from the geographical heart of Moore County — one of the Old North State’s largest and most culturally diverse counties — to follow their chosen cardinal direction for a single day. We reverently called it the “Great Trek.” And we invite you to come along to see what interesting things, and people, we found.

Photograph By Bob Biamonte PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2011

True North A World Away By Jim Dodson Photographs By Laura Gingerich

orth tugs at my soul. Though Southern born and bred, perhaps this explains why I spent two very happy decades of life in rural northern New England. If nothing else, I developed a taste for Yankee winters and clear cold Arctic nights. Perhaps this even explains why I’m so powerfully drawn to the northern reaches of Moore County, too, to the small rural towns and peaceful crossroads that seem a distant world away from the prosperous world-famous wintering playgrounds of Pinehurst and Southern Pines, a soulful rolling landscape that marks the dramatic boundary between Sandhills and Piedmont, sand to clay, pinewood to hardwood forest, present to past. Whatever the source of attraction, following a robust breakfast at The Country Kitchen in Carthage, photographer Laura Gingerich and I set off on our Great Trek to first investigate a literary mystery — to try to find “Mary Anne,” the famous steam shovel of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel fame, the famous children’s book from 1939 that every male child of a certain age in America grew up reading. Facing a wave of modern diesel-powered shovels, to briefly review, Mike Mulligan moves Mary Anne to a small town, promising to dig the cellar of the new town hall in a single day. Could Carthage have been that town? Very possibly. At one time, reportedly, to Carthage’s pre-eminence as a carriage maker, Henry Ford

contemplated building his first major car factory here. A steam shovel would have been handy around 1904, and Carthage is the classic “small town.” Mystery abounds. There are rumors of wild buffalo still roaming north of town and a defunct gold mine somewhere off the Plank Road near Robbins. “A beautiful silver steam shovel sits just off Carthage-Niagara Road,” provided Laura, who opened this intriguing can of literary worms. So we went to see for ourselves, indeed found a beautiful old silver steam shovel that resembled the aforementioned Mary Anne, and spent nearly an hour wandering around the grounds of Ken and Patti Eder’s living museum of antique steam-operated mechanical engines. Weeks before, something like 10,0000 visitors had showed up to swarm over the acres of vintage machines and steam engines. We found the steam shovel in question, glinting silver in the morning sun, which jived with my boyhood memory of Mary Anne, though a lone worker on the grounds couldn’t confirm her identity. “You’ll have to come back and ask Ken,” he explained with a shrug. So on we trekked.

HHH An American flag snapped patriotically in a chill morning breeze at Veterans Memorial just off Highway 15-501, where the redoubtable Union Pines High School band was warming up as several hundred war veterans and local patriots gathered to observe the festivities, and Joanna and Leon Moncure Jr. were waiting for the annual Veterans Day service to begin. Their son Matthew was playing tenor sax in the band. “My father, J.D. Moncure, did three tours in Vietnam,” Leon explained. “And I was born and raised here and simply can’t imagine living anyplace else.”

“This is a place where being a neighbor is the most important thing,” agreed Annie Page, who ran the beauty parlor in Lobelia for many years and helped get this annual Veterans Memorial event started. “When there is a death in the family in these parts, everyone feels it. And the same is true for our service people. They give so much to keep America the beautiful place it is.” As she said this, aptly, the Union Pines band began playing “America the Beautiful.” “That ought to be our national anthem,” an elderly WWII veteran observed, wiping a teary eye.

HHH Along Glendon Road, we stopped to poke around a beautiful abandoned farm house. “All Persons Are Hereby Forbidden” read a faded sign tacked to the door, which pretty well told the tale. Ruins, if you listen, speak. This house was made from pure heart of pine and looked as if it had stood well preserved against the elements for a long time. There were even fancy curtains hanging in the windows, though none matched. They looked as though my grandmother could have made them. She grew up in a farm house north of Raleigh that looks almost identical and still stands, loved and painted white. “What do you suppose this one whispers?” I asked Laura. “Please paint me,” she said with a laugh. Down the road a few miles, the land began to buckle into soulful hardwood ridges, disrobed starkly by late November’s cold and wind, and gave us sight of a lone ancient oak tree and open pastures and eventially a golden beech forest where a lane disappeared downhill into the woods. A pair of horses, one brown, one paint, watched us, only mildly interested, from across the road. I immediately thought of Frost, the bitter New England sage, gazing down that bright yellow funnel, and two old forgotten paths diverging in a yellow wood. For a lovely instant, I felt like a traveler with a foot in two places, happy to be here but missing my land in Maine. A country Zen koan came to me: Do old roads lead somewhere, even if nobody remembers them? HHH A beautiful bottle tree stood by the tracks in the golden silence of Glendon Junction. A white cat, still as a sphinx, studied us from the porch of a handsome brick building by the railroad tracks, a former store perhaps, half-dozing in a warm patch of sun. No other living thing appeared to be about. I went up on the porch and knocked and no one answered. Inside the building I saw antique bottles on shelves, a table, a few chairs. An uncle of mine owned a junction store like this once. “Maybe they’re down at the Veterans event in town,” Laura suggested. I asked the cat, but the cat, silent as a sphinx, wouldn’t say.

January 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

HHH Roland and Roger Phillips, on the other hand, were happy to briefly chat on a very busy Saturday. They were bringing a hay wagon through a fence on their beautiful rolling 1,600-acre dairy farm on the north side of the Deep River. “The truth is, thanks to that tough summer we had, hay is in short supply,” noted Roland, 64, the younger of the brothers, from the seat of his 830 John Deere tractor. “Don’t know if we’ll even have enough hay for the winter, especially if it’s a cold one,” Roger, 68, chimed in. “That’s why we’re going to get two loads of silage before dark comes. You don’t get many nice days like this one this time of year, so we’re going sunup to sundown.” Roland invited us up the road to watch him load silage, which was stored in giant conical plastic tubes that looked like mutant white earthworms pushed to the surface of the earth from their snug holes beneath the pastures. HHH Vernon Chriscoe, 72, feared we might be from the state — revenuers eager to collect tax on the beautiful handmade slingshots he was selling to folks outside Southern Supreme confectionary store in Bear Creek. Susie Jordan, the daughter-in-law of Southern Supreme matriarch Bertha Scott — who employs 130 people at the height of the season, selling more than 200,000 pounds of her famous fruitcake — was also out front selling her lovely hand-made baby quilts. Tour buses disgorged eager shoppers in the company parking lot and Vernon had a sack full of slingshots made from beech and willow and dogwood forks he collects from local woodlands. “Time was,” he declared, “every kid had to have a good slingshot. So I figured maybe folks would like to relive their childhood. I was forever in trouble with one of these.” I quickly plunked down my $5 for a large model, and tested it out by firing a small pebble at a road sign just across the street. On my second shot, I nicked the sign. As shoppers followed past us into the crowded store, Vernon rewarded me with a free hand-carved “corn shucker.” “Take that with you,” he said cheerfully. “You won’t see many of them around, neither.” An easy bet.

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HHH Calvin Powers and wife Peggy were working in the golden light of afternoon. Peggy was picking mustard, kale and collard greens, Calvin was spading up the summer garden to get a jump on spring. Apples, peaches and muscadine grapes were already gone for the year. “My ancestors settled this place in the 1700s,” Calvin explained, pausing on his garden tractor. “And except for when I went away to Wake Forest and UNC to college, I was never away from here myself. That makes us kind of unusual, I suppose.” Calvin served as the principal of High Falls School and later as assistant superintendent of Moore County Schools during a particularly robust period of growth. Now they enjoy a quiet farming life in the country north of Robbins, following the seasons in their garden, never missing a Sunday at Beulah Baptist Church. “We get at least 500 every Sunday,” Calvin explained. “Even 250 for the Sunday night services.” “Real God’s country,” I said. “You bet,” he agreed, nodding. Peggy had tied a beautiful red bow on their mailbox, a touch of red cheer for the season.

HHH Our part of the Great Trek ended in Larry Moore’s silent, warm pottery shop in Jugtown, the world-famous pottery community that defines the upper half of this soulful landscape called northern Moore County. Larry was making, of all things, an elephant and a face jug. He worked in a hosiery mill in Star for 18 years before the clay beckoned him for good. “I love doing this work,” he told us plainly. “It’s nice to make something with your hands that gives people pleasure. Folks come from everywhere.” Just across the quiet country road, as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen and a glorious Indian summer afternoon faded, two cars turned into Jugtown Pottery and one turned into Larry Moore’s place, a small family house where he, in fact, grew up. He thanked us for stopping by, and I thanked him for making such outstanding face jugs. I wondered if my mother-in-law might like one for Christmas. “I model them after myself,” Larry quipped, holding one up to his shoulder and grining. The resemblance, I must say, was earthy and uncanny.

Wisdom of the East Life is Short, Be Happy By Stephen E. Smith Photographs By Glenn Dickerson

verywhere along old US 1 between Vass and Sanford there are signs of the Great Recession. The Short Shop is boarded up, a hand-lettered cardboard sign, teased by the wind and weather, is nailed to a tree — “I need work/maintenance and repairs/call….” — and the occasional vegetable stand is abandoned for the winter, maybe forever. The tiny town of Cameron, former mainline whistle stop and erstwhile dewberry capital of the world, has seen hard times before — and it’s survived. But like the old highway, there’s no denying the effects of a listless economy. A few of the antique shops are empty. For sale signs dot the Historic District. But at the Cash Mart, the local hangout for folks bent on solving the world’s problems — economic and otherwise — Yonas Badi, a 27-year-old native of Ethiopia and the proud owner of the Cash Mart, is prospering. He’s working the register, checking out cold six-packs of Bud Light, Slim Jims, and punching in codes on the self-service gas pumps. His English is broken, his accent thick, but there’s no mistaking his message. “I was 20 when I came to America,” he says, flashing a broad smile. “I came on a student visa. I went to Indiana State and I study. My family couldn’t help me anymore and I can’t go back, you know, I have trouble with government so I moved to DC and got my green card and drove taxi while I wait for it.” Yonas has an old friend who owns a convenience store in Carpenter, and he told Yonas about the store for sale in a place called Cameron. Yonas headed south and bought the place. Now he owns a second store on 15-501. “I love Cameron and the people,” Yonas says. “All I miss from home is how they greet over there. Nobody knows a strange person there. When they say ‘Hello,’ they say, ‘Praise the Lord!’ Because everyone is happy to have a little something.” Yonas explains that in Ethiopian culture everything is shared. “You see, we don’t have separate plates to eat from; we eat togeth-

er, five, six people sit together and we have a big plate with bread called injera. That’s what I like about Cameron, too. Everyone cousins.” Ethiopia has been Christian since the time of the Bible and the Queen of Sheba, Yonas carefully explains. The country has a sizable Muslim population, but Christians and Muslims live in peace. “I try to encourage people not to complain,” he says. “You don’t have to have a lot of things to be happy. Life is short; you have to enjoy every day. We’ve all got something to give. I’ve been blessed. I just open my second store three months ago. You come to this country to live a better life, you should love the country and the people; otherwise, you should stay back home because you can’t just love half and hate the other half. You should love everything.” Yonas smiles, “You please to correct my English in the PineStraw?” Wisdom well spoken needs no correction. Louise McCrimmon lingers shyly near the door of the Cash Mart. Her husband, Joe, befriended Yonas when he came to town three years ago. “He’s just such a likeable person,” she says. “He’s nice to everyone who comes in the store. We see Yonas at least once a week, and he’ll be at our house outside Vass on Christmas Eve. We like having him over. Everybody likes Yonas; it’s just impossible not to.”

HHH Bill Thomason, Cameron’s former postmaster, has coffee at the Cash Mart every weekday morning. Lately, he’s been tinkering with his ’47 Dodge pickup and its ’54 Chrysler 331 hemi-head, an industrial engine that once powered an irrigation pump on a tobacco farm. “I told them I wanted the engine when they were finished with it,” he says. And sure enough, he purchased the old engine and dropped it in a conglomeration that’s all his own making — the truck cab he purchased at a salvage yard, the fenders from an old school bus, and the truck bed he fashioned himself after the original bed rusted away in his backyard. Bill is well known among local vintage car and truck enthusiasts for his loving restoration of a ’56 Dodge La Femme Custom Royal, Chrysler’s long-ago attempt to appeal to women car buyers by including an umbrella that matched the car’s upholstery. The La Femme has long

been a favorite at local car shows, but Bill’s truck, the ’47 Dodge cab and attached automotive detritus, is his everyday driver and his special pride, an entirely original creation. Sort of. “The gas gauge and amp meter are original to the truck, but I had to rework the speedometer so it would work with the new engine and transmission,” he says. “I had to convert the electrical system from six to twelve volts, and I installed new windshield wiper motors after boring out the holes. The new headlights are halogen and the brake lights have been reworked to make them brighter. I had the new tinted glass installed in Southern Pines.” Thomason has furnished the truck’s interior with seats and floor pedals from a ’78 Plymouth Volare, and, miracle of miracles, he’s installed heated seats, although he hasn’t yet hooked up the heating units. “I’ve been working on the truck since ’99. I got it on the road in April of ’08 and have been driving it ever since.” He’s justifiably proud.

HHH At the Market at Muse Brothers, an antique shop next to the Cash Mart, a young woman waits on the porch for the store to open. She’s here to buy two church windows — they match exactly the gable window in Grant Wood’s American Gothic — for the new home she and her husband are building. She’s scratching a gray tabby cat on the chin. “His name is Pickles,” she says. “He lives here.” She’s not in uniform today, but the young woman is in the Navy, stationed aboard a destroyer where she specializes in some sort of “electronics stuff.” She’s on leave and back in Cameron visiting her grandmother. “I used to come here when I was a child, and I’d stay for a couple of weeks in the summertime,” she says. “I love Cameron.” Inside the shop, David Hemby has discovered a 1915 high school yearbook from Michigan. Pressed between the pages is a letter plaintively scrawled in cursive using a fountain pen with a fine nib. The letter is addressed to Mr. Miles Standish Slocum, Pasadena, California, and was posted from Babylon, New York. It’s dated 1933, the low point of the Great Depression. The writer has lost his job and is attempting to sell a rare book of poetry to Mr. Slocum. The volume is valued at $1,000, but the writer is willing to “let it go” for $100. And although he doesn’t profess despair in the letter, there’s a sad hint of desperation apparent between the lines of staid prose. “It must have been a pretty rough time,” says Hemby. HHH A few miles east of the Cash Mart, new US 1 is all concrete over- and underpasses and easy dual-lane asphalt whisking travelers past the Cameron exit with little more than an obligatory wink. The gently undulating countryside is dotted with neglected tobacco barns and stagnant farm ponds — but the highway to anywhere is wide open.

Goin’ South Three for the Road By Jack Dodson

Photographs By Hannah Sharpe

o there at the corner of U.S. Route 1 and Addor Road, 68-year-old Melvin sat in an old metal folding chair by his green Ford F-150 pickup truck, which was overflowing with fruits and vegetables. On a side table were plastic sunglasses being sold for a few dollars, and next to them were lighters in the shape of cruise ships. I tried a lighter but it didn’t work. Melvin wore his “Jesus is my BOSS, 1 Peter 2:25” hat. Our approach to the Great Trek was slightly different from the other team’s. Our aim on this southern slant from the center of the county was to find those small, ordinary moments and people that define daily life and most visitors to the world-famous resorts of Pinehurst and Southern Pines never even see. For that reason we chose to go as far south as possible in Moore County on that quiet sunny Saturday morning, to the rural junctions above Drowning Creek, and work our way back to civilization. We were three for the road, I might add — photographer Hannah Sharpe, my girlfriend Claire, and me, all of us nonSandhills natives, so anything south of Aberdeen was new and unexplored territory. Unfortunately the quiet roads of the lower county were exceptionally quiet that morning, so when we saw Melvin, we stopped immediately and tried to strike up a conversation. He seemed suspicious of our intent but after a few minutes admitted that business wasn’t great. He’d had a few customers from Pinebluff and Addor that morning but not much else. The growing season was at its end. “I’m not here for the money, ’cause you can’t make no money,” he said. “I’m doing this to keep myself from doing nothing. I do meet a lot of good and interesting people, though.” Melvin even had a system to keep himself from getting bored. It seemed oddly appropriate for a vegetable seller in a county known for its transient golfers. “Sometimes I hit a few golf balls out across the woods,” he admitted with a low grin. “It keeps me from going to sleep.”

HHH Just up the road, we found a small Mexican restaurant huddled on the side of U.S. 1, somewhat out of place and easy to miss, a cheerful orange box building stuck between trees. It was too early for lunch still, but it looked too interesting to pass up. At first, nary a soul was visible on the premises. Just an empty shop, though a Latin radio station was blaring. The place was authentic Mexican — bright primary colors all around, the relaxed look of a small dining room, brands of food with Spanish names, DVDs for sale by the counter. It could have been a shop picked up from the side of the road outside Mexico City and dropped in Pinebluff, North Carolina. The restaurant was owned by the Delgados family, and this was their story, as told to us through various translations: Seven years ago, they came here from Mexico. At first, the family sold tacos but figured out pretty quickly that American people also liked quesadillas. So now they offer a full menu they claim is as authentic as you can get around Moore County. “You go to another restaurant and they sell frozen food, Texas food, but this is authentic Mexican,” said Estella, the daughter. I wished it was time for lunch, made a note to come back and try their food. Estella gave us free Cokes and sent us on our way.

HHH One VHS was simply called “Jesus.” Another, “The Gods Must Be Crazy II: Everybody’s Going Crazier.” A rusty workout machine stood nearby, forlornly glinting in the parking lot. A mid-morning train passed slowly through town, a freight covered with graffiti. We were in pretty downtown Aberdeen, which was just showing signs of commercial life, stores opening up, people about, sifting through piles of old videos, random clothes, and beat-up appliances at the Calvary Chapel yard sale. Yard sales are an American Saturday tradition. Part of the charm, I suppose, is not knowing what you’ll find — a little like our southerly trek, come to think of it. A coffee mug I picked up read “Freedom is NOT free.” I put down the mug and walked over to a woman apparently running the show. “Usually we have this sale to raise money for Haiti or India or something,” she told me. Her name was Lindsay. She explained that she and other volunteers were starting a new ministry in the church, which she said was a movement in and of itself — “a different feel in the Bible Belt.” The ministry was called “Do Something,” and for her, she said, the mission was pretty simple. “You see projects that need to be done, and instead of complaining about it, you decide to do something,” Lindsay declared. So after the organizers had us try Frito Pie in their coffee shop — which was prety tasty — we took her advice and set off to do something else.

HHH The religious theme seemed to be following us up from the south that sun-splashed Saturday. From Melvin’s hat to the Calvary Chapel to ending up in Southern Pines’ Christian Bookstore, it was hard to ignore the evolving theme after a while. Southern Pines was having a festive chili cook-off two blocks away but we chose to slip into the Creation Museum instead at the Christian Bookstore and see what there was to see. Part of the allure of this trek was to skip the obvious points of interests and take a “snapshot,” to pause and take note of things others might miss. The Creation Museum didn’t disappoint. My raw notes looked something like this: “Mountain lion w/ human hand underneath. Giant scissors. NC flag. Giant fly swatter. ‘What happened to evolution? The creatures featured on these top two shelves FORGOT TO EVOLVE!’ Shark, king crab, alligator, nautilus… ‘In this case, we have displayed all the credible evidence of evolution.’ It’s a snake and an apple.” This goes on for something like three pages. On the way in, a clerk handed me a flyer explaining that a fellow named Kelly from the Southwest collected all the rustic implements and tools on display. But it didn’t elaborate much beyond this fact, like telling us the how and why Kelly felt compelled to fill a commercial basement with tools and huge glass cases depicting elaborate scenes with taxidermy animals or why they were particularly relevent to the unmistakable political messages scattered about the museum, signs that read “We vote pro-life,” license plates and a section discussing the sins of Harry Potter, marijuana, rock music.

BRIDGE LESSONS

Learn New Tricks. Start the New Year Right by Learning the World’s Greatest Game!!! EZ Bridge for Beginners with Marcia Bryant starts Monday, January 10th, 2011. Intermediate and Advanced Classes also beginning. Sandhills Bridge Studio • David Rogers 367 N. Bennett St , Southern Pines NC 28387 910-987-7098 • (910) 692-4188 www.sandhillsbridge.com

American Contract Bridge League

HHH It was almost sunset when our threefor-the-road crew reached horse country. On a beautiful farm north of Southern Pines, tucked between May Street and US 1, we found a friendly middle-aged man named Matt finishing up his day, fixing a broken wheelbarrow while NPR played behind him in a barn, flies buzzing all around. I asked if he was from around these parts, the usual opener. “Nope,” he replied with a smile. “Is anybody?” Matt explained to us that he owned the farm but didn’t ride himself; he rented space in his stable to others for their horses. He got into this business, he said, because when his son was young, he loved riding. “I just like being around the horse farm. If somebody asks me, this is my horse,” he explained, pointing at a large orange Kubota tractor. Claire was in heaven; she grew up riding. The trek had brought her someplace she felt at home. Over the final hour of the day, while Hannah took a few more pictures in the golden light, I learned a good bit about horses. I also played with Matt’s dog, Blue, who had two different colored eyes.

Into The West

A Quiet Earth and Nest of Kitty-Chicks By Ashley Wahl Photographs By Tim Sayer

ith full bellies and hungry souls, photographer Tim Sayer and I head west with the rising sun on a search for God knows what. “Maybe we can find a mineral spring to drink from,” I suggest. “I hear Jackson Springs used to attract visitors from all over, something about the medicinal qualities of the water. We could try it out.” Tim laughs. “You can drink the water,” he says. “I’ll cleanse my hands and feet in it.” From Courthouse Square, we take Dowd Road and follow the slow, winding path past a herd of black cows grazing in the grassland. The aroma of manure mingles with the morning air. The trees seem to be losing grasp of autumn’s foliage. We continue west. HHH Beyond the north gate of Seven Lakes at Johnson Point, we watch the sunlight shimmy across Lake Auman’s surface. Boats are bound to their places at the dock. Sandcastles on the shore are the only signs of life here this early in the morning. HHH A woman is selling antiques at a tag sale off NC 211. “My garage is full of old stuff like this,” says Katie, a fourth generation farmer whose mother once owned an antique store to supplement a simple way of life. Her family has made a living here by means of everything from “pigs to pine needles.” “Grandpa ran the store, we farmed tobacco in the mornings, and Daddy worked for the railroad in the afternoons,” she remembers, “That’s how it was.” Without makeup, Katie is radiant. Hard to believe she has a grown son; he and his wife are helping with the sale. Come spring, they’ll sell produce. “It’s a different kind of life,” she says, “but it’s fulfilling.” We ask what’s west of here worth checking out. “Ben’s Ice Cream is usually a happening place,” she offers. “It’s just down the highway.” After thanking Katie, we fiddle with a few antiques. A fireplace lighter starter pot and wand date back a century at least.

HHH Just past Dead Man’s Curve, a teenager walks the open stretch of train tracks running alongside Hwy 211. Canteen is a freshman at Pinecrest. “I’m walking to a friend’s house,” he says. “He lives up there near Dead Man’s Curve.” What do boys do for fun in Eagle Springs? “We play basketball and video games. I’m trying to get the new ‘Call of Duty.’” After high school, Canteen plans to go the University of Hawaii, “to study engineering or marine biology.” We laugh. He’s serious. “The only problem with Hawaii is that I might not have time to study.” HHH Across the road, a man named Thomas sits on the steps of his home watching the cars pass by. He has dark brown skin and piercing blue eyes and looks to be near 80. If he has teeth, he isn’t wearing them. “I’ve lived here 15 years,” he says. “Moved here from Rockingham.” We inquire what brought him to Eagle Springs. “A lady,” he says with a sly laugh, followed by the kind of silence that often precedes sadness. “She passed away about four years ago.” Still, he seems in good spirits. “It’s peaceful,” he says of life on his stoop. “I like it real good.” Before retirement, Thomas worked on a farm picking cotton. “I’m 56,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Are you sure you’re not flubbing us a little?” Tim asks. Thomas responds with a smile so broad it reveals his gums. “I’m 56,” he repeats. Goodbyes over, Thomas says to visit any time we’d like. “Mostly I’ll be sitting right here.”

HHH At Kalawi Farms, Bridgett is making cones at Ben’s Homemade Ice Cream stand. The Pinecrest teacher works weekends and summers here. “This summer I spent a lot of time out here,” she says. “I don’t know what the draw is, I just like it. I grew up in Cincinnati. I’m not a city person.” She tells us the story of Art and Jan Williams, owners of Kalawi Farms. “Jan’s father was in the peach business, and Art’s family owns this land,” she explains. “Kalawi farm was named after their children: Katie, Laura and Will.” The year Ben was born, Ben’s Ice Cream was too. Ben’s is a happening place today. Two hunters stop to buy cob corn to lure deer. A woman holding Molly, a schnauzer pup, walks past the last of this season’s sweet potatoes. Her mother, Phyllis, makes her order. “My husband picked Molly up,” Jennifer says. The pink collar was Jennifer’s choice though, she assures. Phyllis grew up in Eagle Springs. “My brother lives on Eagle Branch Road,” she says. “They named that road after a branch of the creek down there.” “Know anything about the nearby springs?” we ask. Phyllis’ sister-in-law Ethel does. “Let me get my phone, I’ll ask her.” Not a minute later, Phyllis offers to take us to her brother’s house — Ethel said she’d show us a spring. We order two peach ice creams to go. They taste like summer.

HHH Wearing overalls and a smile, Ethel brushes off her hands to shake ours. “I’ve just been chopping wood.” Her husband of 53 years, James, sits quietly on the porch beneath a row of birdhouse gourds. He lets Ethel speak for him. “My dad was a dairyman at Samarcand,” she says, referring to the nearby campus for troubled children. “That’s where I was born.” James grew up on the other side of the tracks. “We considered it the right side of the tracks,” Ethel says, “because when we’d have a storm, they’d have snow on his side. We had ice over here!” “She wouldn’t let me read her funny books at school,” says James. That may be how their romance sparked. The Freemans have lived in the same house for 50 years. “You must love it here,” I say to Ethel of her quiet slice of earth. “Honey, I do love it,” she says. “We like being selfsufficient.” The furnace in the backyard shed keeps the house warm and the water hot. A brood of hens keep egg cartons full. The fruits of the garden are canned and eaten year-round. “We can our deer too,” Ethel says. We ask and she tells us how. Hambone, a curious rooster, stretches his head around the pokeberry bush for a look at us before scuttling away. He’s not allowed in the henhouse, Ethel explains. “I’m not going to hatch any biddies right now,” she says. “Plus, he’s too rough on the hens.” Chicken talk sparks a story of “kitty-chicks.” “We had a cat that hid her litter of kittens in a hen’s nest,” Ethel says. “I went to move an old hen off of the nest so she’d quit setting, and when I reached under her, there were kittens!” Phyllis and James lead us up the road to the Methodist church. A trail in the back woods leads down to a mineral spring. “You can see the minerals floating on the top,” Ethel says. “This is the same kind of mineral water you’d find at Jackson Springs.” Before I can ask, Ethel says she wouldn’t drink the water, although her son’s survived a few sips. I take her word. Ethel reflects on life while watching the branch flow toward Drowning Creek. “James and I started out with nothing. If you start at the top, you don’t know the thrill of having anything. We appreciate the little things.” Back up at the church, a woman pulls up with a truck full of lilies. “That’s Anne,” Ethel says, waving to her daughter. What was life like growing up with James and Ethel? “I couldn’t have asked for better parents,” Anne says. “We have down to earth values. I’ve been blessed.” Tim and I are exploring the western part of the county, I explain. “Your parents have been kind enough to show us around.” “Oh, y’all found God’s country,” she says. We think so too. PS

E v e r y d a y H e r o es

Big Man, Big Heart The first in an ongoing series Photograph by Laura Gingerich

t six-foot-six, big George Atherholt is hard to miss – and foolish to get in front of when he’s on a mission to help others. PineStraw recently stopped by his cozy Pine Knoll apartment and found Atherholt just home from a trip up to Cameron, where he delivered Rotary dictionaries to third-graders, busily stacking large plastic sacks packed with thousands of aluminum can drink tabs near his front door, preparing to ship them off to a recycled life of higher service. “They’re going to a Shrine hospital down in Greenville, where they’ll be made into hypodermic needles,” the seemingly indefatigable 92-year-old explained. “Some great groups of kids and Scouts here helped collect them for me. The tab is the one part of a can, see, that’s pure aluminum, so it can be recycled into a needle. Neat, huh?” he demanded with a booming grin. Come to think of it, just about everything George Atherholt does is, well, big and neat. Twelve years ago the longtime steel executive from Ardmore, Pennsylvania, packed in his successful career as a senior vice president for one of the nation’s top steel companies, purchased an Airstream trailer, and hit the road for two years with his wife, Judy, traveling from Alaska to Central America — speaking at Rotary clubs along the way. “It was great fun. We were on the road for two years, visiting just about every state, every Canadian province, and most of Central America. It’s a big world out there.” Big George recently marked his 49th year as a Rotarian, having served as both a regional governor and past president of two different clubs. But his ardent love of Rotary International simply scratches the surface of this Serve-o-holic nonagenarian. During his career before the Sandhills, he served as president of the Salvation Army and as a board member of various Chambers of Commerce. He’s also a Mason and Shriner of 53 years, and works as a volunteer for Meals on Wheels, Highway Clean Up, and is actively involved in teaching self-esteem and good business principles to teenagers in Junior Achievement. In addition to serving on three different boards of the Moore Regional Hospital, chairing the hospital’s important institutional review board, he oversees the security and grounds at Community Presbyterian Church and works closely with the Boy Scouts of Troop 7 in Pinehurst, advising and serving as merit badge counselor on half-a-dozen badges. Troop 7 is one of the state’s oldest and most active Scout troops, currently with 44 kids and a long history of producing Eagle Scouts. “I never made Eagle,” he likes to joke. “But I’ve been in Scouting at least 80 years.” Not long ago, he was given both the Silver Beaver and Silver Antelope awards for his long services to Cubs and Boy Scouts. Not surprisingly, given the example he’s set, two of George’s four sons, George Jr. and John, reached Eagle status, and George himself got as far as Life Scout. “That was a million years ago,” he quips. “Back before I failed at basketball and had to take up swimming.” For the record, in 1939 or thereabouts, shortly before entering college and the Army, George set the competitive backstroke record for both Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Atherholt shows no indication of slowing down anytime soon. “Keeping up with George is a challenge because he’s always on the go with some kind of project or another,” confirms his new wife of two years, Sheila — who works as a busy organist at St Anthony’s. “Why would I slow down now?” he asks, genuinely puzzled. “I’m having so much fun.” Or in his case, Big Fun. - JWD PS

S t o r y o f a h o u se

A massive granite slab with flecks of garnet — one of the many fine details in the kitchen at Marilee Farm.

It Takes a Village… By Deborah Salomon

Photographs By Glenn Dickerson

arilee Farm in the heart of equine Southern Pines begins at the turreted archway. Beyond it, by mid-morning, Pablo, the stable hand, will have turned out eight horses into 10 acres of pasture. Barn cats cross the courtyard, which looks like a town square. The 5,000-square-foot manor house fronted by a wicker-perfect veranda stretches from stalls to silo, now a guest cottage. Trailers, trucks, carts and assorted vehicles form a neat line in the distance. This is Linda McVicker’s village. She is mayor, chatelaine, designer, curator, horsewoman, carriage driver and chamber of commerce. “Marilee is named for my parents (Marie and Lee) and built around the things I love,” Linda says. Her favorite things do not include raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens. The great room was designed around her grandmother’s 9-foot drop-leaf harvest table. Over it hangs a life-sized portrait by local artist Meridith Martens of Silver, one of Linda’s two miniature horses — sweet things she calls “lawn ornaments.” A Victorian hall tree in the dressing room made the journey from Ohio atop a station wagon.

Above: A truly great room, part of the addition, houses equine art and a mix of family antiques and farm-style furnishings. Far left: An antique beam from a mill near Asheville separates kitchen from dining areas. Left: The great room was built around McVicker’s ancestral banquet table, with life-sized portrait of miniature horse “Silver.”

Top: Horizontal wall boards from the original stalls were left intact when the stable became a cottage, in the 1950’s. Above: The sunroom features a porch swing, where Linda enjoys having her morning coffee.

The list continues: A sunroom with porch swing; a secret walled garden where geraniums bloom into December; three dishwashers, a microwave drawer and 5-by-10-foot kitchen island made from a single granite slab with garnet flecks, imported from Brazil. Light fixtures fashioned from buckets. An underused Wolf industrial range with overhead pot-filler faucet. Classic and contemporary equine/hunt art appears on almost every wall. Antique chests and armoires may chronicle the family history, but Linda gleefully shows off her new toy: a closet fitted with a motorized drycleaner’s carousel. Push a button and vests appear. Push again for blouses, pants, jackets and skirts to rotate into view. Still, Marilee is the house that horses built — and, for many years, occupied. Master of Moore County Hounds Dick Webb stabled his horse here during a weekend show in 1948. “It was the only (stable) on Young’s Road,” Webb says. About 1950, end stalls were converted into a two-story cottage, with an addition tacked on behind. The stall walls made from horizontal boards remain part of the dining room Linda McVicker, a registered nurse, brings an equally solid horse history to the premises. Her father, grandfather and great-grandfather were veterinarians and riders. “Everyone on my father’s side was horsey,” Linda says. By age two Linda, then living in Atlanta, had a Shetland pony. “He was mean as a snake,” she recalls. Undaunted, she progressed to jumping and hunting. Her father bartered his services for lessons. Then, during eight years at school, Linda forsook riding — a hardship for a woman who calls the sport “a part of my life — like eating.” Life took her north to Chicago, where she rode daily indoors, then to a 6,000-square-foot log house on a 320-acre horse farm in Wisconsin, where a riding accident left her with broken bones and different ideas. “The accident slowed me down,” Linda says. “That’s when I started driving (carriages).” In 1998 she sought a climate warmer than Wisconsin. Virginia, she decided, was still too cold. Linda knew Southern Pines as a place of kindred souls, a community where she could ride to a friend’s house and talk shop.

Top: The bed purchased by Linda McVickerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mother is a focal point. Her luxurious dressing room has a granite-topped island. Linda McVickerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dressing (above) and guest rooms (right) reflect her taste for sunny florals and heritage pieces. The ornate hall stand arrived from Ohio strapped to her car. PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2011

The move was accomplished but in 2008, Linda, who had never built or renovated a house, dived headstrong, headfirst into both. The farm that became Marilee was on the market; Linda remembered it, vaguely, from a party. “This place drew me,” she says. “I saw I could fix this, do that. Things were rolling in my mind.” She appreciated stalls close to the house. “That way I don’t have to do night check in bad weather.” She picked up a piece of paper and started sketching. The small addition out back had to go, as did all the systems. “I wanted to keep the main part of the house as it was; it had good bones. But I needed a first-floor bedroom,” as well as a dressing room of equal size, Linda decided. Besides renovating what was salvageable, she planned a spacious addition plus a new wing for horses and carriages. Linda drives one of seven magnificently restored carriages several times a week. Enter John Wiedmer of Jay-Kar Contracting in Southern Pines. “I scratched my head and thought, ‘Can we really make this happen?’ The work took more than two and a half years to complete. “Linda is well-versed in what she wants so I didn’t try to talk her out of anything,” Wiedmer says. Details like the oversize granite kitchen island rather than construction per se presented the greatest challenges: Linda also wanted a massive framed mirror attached to her carousel-closet door. “I had to think hard about that one,” Wiedmer recalls. The outside walls of the origi-

Horses are the central factor at Marilee; McVicker owns eight — plus seven restored carriages, some from the early 20th century.

Photographs this page by Cathy Marion

Front veranda and stables are separated only by an archway.

Stables, now and then.

Side entrance, after and before restoration.

Silo/guest house, now and then.

S t o r y o f a h o u se

nal barn-turned-cottage were red clay tile, with no insulation — another challenge. Wiedmer planned space around Linda’s furniture. The unusual layout features several porches, a formal dining room but no parlor, only the seating area adjoining the kitchen in the addition, which also houses her master suite. “I like to come out of the bedroom and be in the center of everything,” Linda says. Upstairs bedrooms in the old section are furnished in charming bed-and-breakfast style for visiting grandchildren. The outbuilding with attached silo a few steps from a side door are now guest quarters, with kitchenette. Linda frequently hosts judges who come to Southern Pines for riding events. Throughout, Linda integrated chintzes, hooked and woven area rugs, family memorabilia, art and collections with farmhouse and formal pieces. She remembers going with her mother to purchase a massive antique bed, now in her own bedroom. “My mother bought it in the ‘60s for $300. Now it’s worth over $5,000.” The stables, which open out into the courtyard, form part of the landscape. Her tack room doubles as a heated house for the barn cats, who enter through a pet door. The new stable wing has a laundry facil-

ity, a harness room fitted with an antique cabinet from a racing stable, and carriage garages — all with residential-quality finishing. Harley, Linda’s chestnut mount, the Welsh carriage ponies and the miniatures (who share a stall, companionably) poke out their heads, in greeting. This village scene appears idyllic, a credit to Linda’s foresight and determination implemented by Wiedmer’s skill. Marilee Farm was nominated and was selected as a winner of the Moore County Homebuilders’ Association Remodel of the Year in the over $400,000 category. Linda McVicker feels comfortable in an oversized house because she is accustomed to space. “I had all this stuff and needed a place to put it,” she says. “Horses have been the one constant in my life” — a life that has reached the point where Linda no longer desires adventure. “There’s no reason to leave. As I get older and creakier I want my horses right outside the door,” she explains. “Now that I have Lily (a perky Pomeranian) I just want to stay home, doing things I want to do.” Which include hosting luncheons in the field attended by ladies in hats, carriage parades and, especially, lounging in front of the fireplace with a lapful of purring cat while surveying, through French doors, the lovely home she has created. PS

This village scene appears idyllic, a credit to Linda’s foresight and determination...

Edwards

Real Estate & Forestry Consulting

HomeStyles

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HomeStyles Fort Bragg Military Relocation Specialist Got orders? Let Elaine make your buying or selling transition simple. Call today.

Elaine Rios 910-528-2204

Elaine@FortBraggRelocations.com www.FortBraggRelocations.com

SPECIAL OLD TOWN WITH HISTORY This jewel on the Village Green near the chapel has charm, history and great potential. Loved and cared for by owners, “The Juniper” has high ceilings, 2001 roof, new heat pump, 2 sitting rooms, 2 BR, 2.5BA, sun room and Pinehurst Membership. Must see with new price of $485,000!

A Real

Gardeners’ Manifesto A

By Noah Salt

good woman and crack gardener of long experience and happy acquaintance recently got in touch via an old-fashioned handwritten note to convey her affections — and concerns — about the unique characteristics of gardening in the Sandhills. Think Vita Sackville-West meets Martha Stewart. Suffice it to say, whenever this talented garden diva speaks, many listen — and those among us who are wisest pay close attention to her astute and spirited reflections on a range of related gardening topics. Admittedly, our favorite portion of her letter came at the end when she charmingly presented her spirited thoughts — a kind of gardener’s manifesto, if you will — on what constitutes a “Real Gardener.” As a New Year dawns and the gardening catalogs begin to arrive in a blizzard of glossy spring perfection, we thought it both fitting and fun to share her lively thoughts on the subject of what constitutes a “real gardener.” “Real Gardeners,” writes she ….

* Know where every (new) bird’s nest is.

m Mass plant for greatest effect. They order or buy at least a dozen of cultivars.

f Suffer the same depression their plants do during an eight-week spring drought.

i Can be seen in their pajamas every morning sipping a second cup of coffee, eyes cast downward, oblivious to rain or humidity, strolling garden paths and never missing the curled-leave housing of a newborn caterpillar and/or other predators.

s Leave their dirty shoes by the door. , Wage war on carpenter bees — and keep a body count! l Don’t feed the birds. They let the birds eat their insects instead. q Brake for wildflowers — redirecting some seeds or roots to a new address.

g Make their own compost and mulch and use both prolifically. k Weep over losses the way others mourn thinning hair or a failed birthday cake. w Shoot deer. And capture (trap, smaller beasts) — which they take on vacation up north.

z Understand that judicious thinning and pruning maintain the health of their plants. y Have pine straw up their pants legs and sand in their shoes. d Live long and mostly virtuous lives — envy of another’s garden being the only real challenge they face day to day. s Have fingernails that are always short or broken because they never wear gloves except for pruning. f Move plant material the way other people move furniture — for best effect. h Avoid trendy plants that promise to “live and bloom forever” with minimal effort. l Keep Ziplock bags and water in their car for roadside foraging opportunities. i Buy lime, phosphate and other fertilizers in super-size bags from farm-supply firms. r Own SUVs and station-wagons with moss growing on their carpet and new sprouts in the cracks of the upholstery. a Never stop reading garden books, attending lectures, visiting gardens and going on house tours. u Get skin cancer and finally learn to respect the power of the sun. b Believe in nature’s God. z Above all are extraordinarily generous – sharing their gardens and plants with all who drop by and comment on their work.

q Generally neglect their own physical appearance. l Often impoverish themselves giving into their obsession even as others do. f Admire form, texture, good scale, and line even more than color. s Keep detailed notebooks, plans, seed labels and waxed string — even if they forget where they keep them. j Treasure good old tools (repair, sharpen and clean them often) and excellent quality new ones when needed, no matter what they cost. * Have learned all of life’s lessons — or they just give up gardening. y Are dreamers who go to bed early and rise with birdsong. g Are eternal optimists — always sure that next year they’ll get the garden right! PS

Go from Dixieland to Broadway without leaving Pinehurst. Simone

V a l e n t i n e ’ s

D a y

W e e k e n d

Start your Valentine’s Day weekend off on a high note with performances by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and Simone, Broadway star of “Rent” and daughter of legendary musical artist Nina Simone. It’s the perfect way to celebrate your love for each other, the best in jazz or just your love of music.

Or i g i n a l Di x iela nd Ja zz Ba nd

February 1 1 Original Dixieland Jazz Band February 12 Simone Individual Tickets $65 or $110 for Both Concerts Pre-concert dinner in the Carolina Dining Room, $40 for ticket holders. Includes post-concert Meet-The-Artist Dessert Reception.

Overnight Packages start at $189* Tickets . Accommodations . Dinner . Breakfast Purchase tickets at ShopPinehurst.com Presented by Pinehurst Resort and the Arts Council of Moore County.

Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina • 910.235.8415 • pinehurst.com

Sponsored by Progress Energy, American Airlines, BB&T, King Fisher Society and Pinehurst Resort. Door prizes and reception sponsors include Wachovia and Lyne’s Furniture Gallery. *Overnight packages are per person, based on double occupancy. Valid 2/11/11-2/12/11 only. Subject to tax and resort service fee. Performances begin at 8pm. © 2010 Pinehurst, LLC

Special Advertising section

Awards

merging from a time of economic hardship and an unsettled housing market, PineStraw magazine is pleased to present the winners of the Moore County Home Builders Association’s (MCHBA) annual Home of the Year Contest for 2010. For two decades, the nonprofit trade association has recognized the innovation and accomplishments of the building industry in the Sandhills, and remains the go-to resource for the region’s homebuilders. Last year, candidate homes were submitted by builders, categorized by price, and judged by a diverse panel of industry experts, including real estate agents, product suppliers, general contractors and builders. As in years past, the competition was stiff. But we think you’ll agree that the 16 beautiful and innovative homes selected for the 2010 gallery of winners are very special, a true sign of early spring and good things to come.

SPeciAl AdverTiSing SecTion

101 Cook Point, Seven Lakes Bolton Builders Roger & Cathy Smith Home of the Year $1.2M - $1.8M

Designed by Imperial Design Studios, this 7,612-square-foot masterpiece is complemented by shimmering Lake Auman. An open floor plan, detailed trim work, coffered ceilings and a doorless master shower are a few among many desirable details boasted by the home. Energy efficient features include R-19 insulation in the walls, R-38 insulation in the attic, a Dencor Energy Savings System, and Energy Star rated windows, doors and appliances. The home has 3 1/2 baths, with custom painted murals adorning the walls of the powder bath, and an elevator for the convenience of homeowners. The main-level fireplace was custom-trimmed with granite surround to match the granite in the kitchen. Cabinets are painted in a French country glaze with a warm travertine backsplash. Outdoor living areas include a large screen porch off the walkout basement and an open deck off the main level. Glass railings ensure lake views are unobscured. The basement level was designed to make lake entertainment an optimal experience for guests. Cabinetry features rough honed granite, while a custom stone fireplace, exercise room and a beautiful view of the water complete the package.

Y79 Cypress Point Drive, CCNC Pinehurst Homes, Inc. Award of Excellence $1.2M - $1.8M

Grandiose columns and elegant arched entries make this 10,207square-foot home an architectural gem. For the owners, it’s a dream come true. The home’s exterior features a new product consisting of standard red brick coated in a pastel paint. A walk-in wine cellar with a custom iron entry door, a suspended staircase, custom tile and mantels, and high, coffered ceilings exude a stately interior to boot. The kitchen features two Sub-Zero refrigerators, while the master suite contains a walk-in shower accessible from the exercise room and bathroom. There’s a playroom for the children, and guest quarters located above the four-car garage. Green Build products include two geothermal heat pump systems, a generator system, irrigation well and additional insulation. Slate mined within 40 miles of the site was installed on the entrance and patios. The house also features low E argon gas windows, energy efficient appliances and brick manufactured in Sanford. If Progress Energy has an outage, the home has the capacity to be totally selfsufficient. Anderson Nichols Design translated the homeowners’ ideas into a stellar design. The finished product is remarkable.

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58 Plantation Drive, Mid-South Bartlett Construction Co. LLC Marcel & Francoise Trepanier Home of the Year $900-1.1 M

The exquisite details of this 6,938-square-foot home demand a second look, starting with the bold stone inlay in the driveway. Blending traditional and contemporary styles, each room of the home is enhanced with custom trim work. The kitchen features custom cabinetry, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The great room lives up to its name, and a three-car garage provides ample storage space for the homeowners. Brick veneer on the homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exterior creates a warmth equaled by the hardwood floor coverings inside. A screened porch and upper and lower decks offer plenty of space for hosts and guests to enjoy a beautiful view, while the near symmetry of the homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exterior is a stunning effect from the outside looking in.

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177 Ellen’s Point, West End McLendon Hills Construction Tom & Nancy Seitz Award of Excellence $900-1.1 M

Offering stunning views of Lake Troy Douglas, the placement of this contemporary Craftsman home is just one of the facets that merit its Award of Excellence. A stucco and stone exterior complemented with stained wood trim, wood garage doors and matching columns puts this 7,892-square-foot home in a league of its own. Interior features include stained wood trim, ceramic tile, hardwood floors, granite countertops and a private theater. The home is insulated with Icynene foam and has a state-of-the-art geothermal HVAC system. The main level and basement hold a three-car garage. The home also boasts a spacious deck equipped with a fireplace and outdoor kitchen; an additional patio below has a fireplace too. No matter the season, the owners of this striking home can enjoy their beautiful vista.

26 Lochdon Court, Pinehurst Yates Hussey Construction Diane Anello & Lloyd Allen Judges’ Choice $900-1.1 M

“Always Proud To Say It's Harris Built”

Would Like To Congratulate Our Winners in the Home of the Year Contest Best Whole House Renovation “Judges Choice” McGuirt Residence

Best Whole House Renovation “Award of Excellence” Welch Residence Best Kitchen Remodel Under $30,000 Harris Residence 6511 Seven Lakes Village, West End • 910-673-3387 harrisandson@embarqmail.com • www.harrisandsonconstrucion

Nestled among the trees in Pinewild Country Club, this traditional home, at 5,272 square feet, is a classic beauty. The exterior of the home features painted brick and Hardie material used for accents and trim. All interior floor coverings are hardwood or ceramic tile. The great room is particularly impressive, offering a coffered ceiling, stone fireplace, large windows and doors that lead out to a spacious screened porch overlooking a lovely patio in a private backyard. Vinyl bead board ceilings accent front and back porches. Granite countertops and a wood bar area are complemented by new appliances. Gas lines were installed for outdoor grill, fireplace and emergency generators. Other facets of the home include a conditioned crawl space, hot water circulating pump and tech-shield reflective roof sheathing. Since the homeowner is in the plumbing supply business, beautiful fixtures adorn the master bath, as well as the private baths for each bedroom. The master bath also features a tiled floor heated electrically.

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K4 Pine Valley Circle, CCNC Huntley Design Build, Inc. Matt & Amy LaFrenz Home of the Year $700-800k

Fit for a family of four, this traditional one-and-a-half story home features hints of European flair. Louvered shutters and arch-like detail above windows complement the dramatic angles of the home’s exterior. In matching hues, an artful combination of brick, siding, Hardie board paneling and a cultured stone base creates a subtle yet pleasing visual effect; a bright red door is the perfect accent. A wide-open floor plan includes a dining room and a study on each side of the foyer, a central family room flowing from the kitchen with a kids’ TV room directly adjacent. The master suite is on one end of the first floor, while the three-car garage and laundry room flank the right side. Many green features were incorporated in the construction of this Energy Star certified home, including a sealed crawl space, full open cell foam insulation, and a tankless water heater with recirculation system. Other energy efficient factors include low VOC paints and sealants, low E windows and home automation. “The [6,916-square-foot] house was totally completed within six months from the time we broke ground,” notes Huntley Design Build, Inc. “This was a very rewarding project for the team.”

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118 Jonathan’s Drive, West End McLendon Hills Construction Terry Julius & Michelle Mehler Home of the Year $500-600k

Shake siding and a cultured stone veneer exterior make this traditional Cape Cod home, positioned on the beautiful Lake Troy Douglas, a real charmer. This 4,528-square-foot home includes foyer, great room, recreation room, master suite, two guest bedrooms and two fully screened porches, one with a built-in grill and outdoor fireplace, for residents to enjoy the fresh air and magnificent views. The home also has an enormous storage area off the finished basement. Ceramic tile, granite countertops and hardwood floors create a warm and inviting interior to match its outward appearance.

6 Scarborough Place, CCNC Pinehurst Homes, Inc. Glenn & Brenda Thomas Award of Excellence $500-600k White brick and mortar, combined with stone, brick and shake siding, complement the aesthetic appearance of this traditional 5,540square-foot home, designed by Anderson Nichols Design, to enhance the view of the nearby golf course. The kitchen, breakfast area, dining room and screen porch offer pleasant views of the golf course while the rear of the home enjoys the privacy provided by its wooded surrounding. Features of the home include abundant storage, private baths in every bedroom, an office with its own bathroom and hidden Murphy bed, and a workshop with a private side entrance. Custom cabinets with soapstone granite tops are striking visual amenities while a solid poured concrete foundation provides the integrity of superior construction and ensures no water penetration in the lower level of the home. Several Green Build features are also found in the home, such as additional insulation, concrete foundation, an energy management system, low VOC paints and energy efficient appliances. Pinehurst Homes, Inc. said, “The best part of [the process] was enjoying the excitement of a new home with our customers.”

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52 Abbottsford Drive, Pinewild Bartlett Construction Co. LLC Home of the Year $400-500k

An elegant, open floor plan — and striking design details — are why this Pinewild home takes the prize. Space isn’t an issue for the owners of this 4,068-square-foot home, demonstrated by the three-car garage, 10- to 12-foot ceilings, front porch and spacious back deck. The dining room and study are on either side of the foyer, and the floor plan also includes a great room, kitchen with breakfast nook, master suite, laundry room and two guest bedrooms. Upgraded custom trim work provides a beautiful finish to each room, elegant tile work dazzles in the master bath, and sanded finished hardwood floors flow throughout the entire home.

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155 Eagle Point, Mid South Club Masters Properties Bob & Betsy Roman Award of Excellence $400-500k

Gorgeous hardwood floors create an inviting entry into the home, continuing throughout the open living areas on the first floor. The luxurious master suite features a cozy sitting area with a golf course view; whirlpool tub and separate shower are highlights of the master bath. Custom cabinetry, granite countertops and a custom tile backsplash are amenities of the large, gourmet kitchen. The eating area leads into a hearth room with a stone fireplace, while a beautiful oak staircase ascends to a large bonus room, two bedrooms, a buddy bath and walk-in attic access. Subtle details dazzle, from concrete stamping on the floor of the covered front porch to the decorative ceiling in the dining room. The screened-in back porch offers a place to enjoy warm days and escape the sun.

110 Josephâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Point, Seven Lakes Bolton Builders Terre Currie Judgesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Choice $400-500k

With a plan that focused on the view of Lake Auman, the construction of this 5,733-square-foot home was a colossal success. Three bedrooms, three baths and a screen porch and deck are included in the upper-level open plan with split bedrooms. The spacious, open living room and dining room, accented with custom trim and a trey ceiling, are visible from the foyer. The living room features a fireplace with marble surround. Maple cabinetry, granite countertops and a tile backsplash create a warm ambience in the kitchen, with an adjacent breakfast nook. Two guest suites have full baths with marble countertops. The master bedroom includes a large walk-in custom tiled shower. The lower level includes a recreation room, and a large patio area for lakeside entertainment.

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3 Wake Forest Court, Mid-South Bartlett Construction Co. LLC Spencer & Rita Roberts Home of the Year $300-400k

Energy efficient and fit for today’s modern couple, this 3,148-squarefoot home, nestled among pine trees, defines functionality. A sealed crawl space, tankless water heaters and upgraded windows provide a low energy cost for the home while traditional stained trim, found throughout the majority of the interior, unifies the rooms of the home and creates a unique showing. Features include a two-car garage, two covered porches, a study, kitchen, breakfast nook, dining room, master suite, two guest bedrooms and a laundry room.

229 Christy’s Circle, West End McLendon Hills Construction Award of Excellence $300-400k

A Southern Living design, this traditional Craftsman style farmhouse provides a small floor plan that offers the feel and refinement of a larger estate home. Located on two acres, this 3,485-square-foot show home is highlighted by several environmentally friendly aspects, including a 1,500gallon storm water collection tank for irrigation. Special features include cathedral ceilings, etched concrete front floor and sidewalk, ceramic master bath with whirlpool, oversized shower and granite countertops, custom cabinets throughout, ceramic tile with stone countertops, vintage hardwood floors and a finished bonus room. An easy-grow greenhouse, beautiful landscaping, an orchard and access to over eight miles of bridle trails make this beauty all the more appealing.

H7 Ponte Vedra, CCNC Bill Reaves Construction Cecil & Cater Neville Judges’ Choice $300-400k

With a design based on a beach house the owners resided in years ago, this 3,416-square-foot home is perfect for low-maintenence living and easy entertaining for a couple enjoying life post retirement. A split bedroom plan offers a study and easy access to the master bedroom. The home is Energy Star rated, registered with NAHB as a certified Silver Level Green Home, and received a 69 HERS rating. The exterior of the home is low-maintenance Hardie plank siding, while all paints on the interior and exterior are low VOC paints. Windows are Low E insulated glass. Although Green Building was not an initial priority for the couple, they are reaping the benefits on a daily living basis, from lower energy and water bills in addition to a healthier interior environment.

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33 Princess Gate, Whispering Pines Jarrett Deerwester Construction Maj. Mike & Ellen Kloepper Home of the Year Under $250,000

This Whispering Pines gem “proves all houses can be green and still offer value to a homeowner,” maintains Jarrett Deerwester Construction. Drafted and designed with the homeowners to fit their lifestyle and family needs, the 2,913-square-foot finished product is certified to Bronze NAHB Green standards and EPA Energy Star certified, all while providing an open floor plan with great views. Features of the home include an atrium free-floating staircase connecting the lower level to the main house, maximized light and openness throughout the home, five bedrooms, advanced framing techniques and insulated headers, intricate wainscoting, two-piece crown molding, and a custom designed kitchen.

17 Minikahada Trail, Pinehurst Pandich Construction Company Jim & Amanda Taft Award of Excellence Under $250,000

The architectural detail of this 2,969-square-foot cottage delights and intrigues, beginning with the brick and stone accents, twin dormers and cedar shutters. Arched and barreled entries and intricate millwork accent the formal dining room. The great room is open to the kitchen, boasting soaring ceilings and ample natural light. “The biggest challenge of building this home was developing a house plan that incorporated unique architectural details and maximized allowable living space,” says the homebuilder. Nothing worthwhile comes easy, or so the saying goes.

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n addition to the Home of the Year Awards, for the second year, the Moore County Home Builders Association distributed awards to the Sandhills homes that illustrated excellence in the fine art of home remodeling. Whether renovations included one room or the whole house, it’s easy to see why this group of 19 remodeled homes deserve a hearty show-out for a job well done!

207 Firleigh Road, Southern Pines Jay-Kar Construction Linda McVicker Remodel of the Year Whole House Renovation — Over $400k

Awards

Converted from an open shed equestrian stable, this Southern Pines farmhouse is enchantment defined, beginning with its towering porte cochere — a stately entrance to the beautiful property. The existing living area was renovated but left structurally sound. Additions include a first-floor master suite with large dressing room, stunning kitchen, great room, laundry room and attached garage. Classic stucco exterior and slate roofing are a perfect match to the original buildings. Little evidence remains that this property’s renovated guest cottage was once a storage building for grain; an old silo is part of the kitchenette in the cottage. The nearby stable also underwent a complete renovation. A 608-square-foot screened porch overlooks the beautifully landscaped backyard, while a walled private garden is accessible from the master bedroom. The vanity area was duplicated from the cover of the 2008 Beautiful Baths Magazine, and behind the mirror in the dressing area, a large closet contains a conveyor system operated by a footpad. A natural stone double-sided fireplace is an added feature for both the great room and screened porch. Pennsylvania Field Patterned Bluestone flooring from the front and rear patios to the vestibule and foyer continue the stone theme. Equine-inspired architecture combined with modern luxuries makes this home a winner. (See Story of a House on page 78 to read more.)

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D6 Apawamis Circle, CCNC

Harris & Son Construction Award of Excellence Whole House Renovation — Over $400k A major renovation transformed this CCNC home into a work of art, starting with the mahogany front door. Approximately 5,000 square feet of stucco was removed. A prep kitchen, screen porch, powder room, left side hallway, elevator, butler pantry, beverage area, library, fireplace, new stairway and railing, and prefinished cedar shakes on all exteriors were new additions. Aztec trim and overhang complement cedar shakes. Red oak hardwood floors were installed in first level bedroom, foyer, butler’s kitchen, and upstairs offices and exercise room. Antique heart pine adorns library floors, while copper is used on all flashing. Travertine tile was added on pool deck and slate on front porch and walk. The entire house features Weathershield windows and doors. New kitchen features include granite countertops and stainless steel appliances were added on the screen porch as well as two new rear porches.

L15 Southern Hills Place, CCNC Harris & Son Construction Wyman & Courtney McGuirt Judges’ Choice Whole House Renovation — Over $400k

A renovated kitchen plus new additions make this old house new — and simply stunning. Additions include a new garage bay, bedroom with walk-in closet, family room, mud room, laundry, pantry, recreation room, two baths and an office. New features include clear cedar trim and overhang, five-inch white oak quarter sawn floors, Pella windows, Hardie siding, mahogany ceilings in the porches, and custom antique heart pine doors at the mud room and front entry. A beautiful glazed custom kitchen was provided by Locklear Cabinetry complemented by granite from Blarney Stoneworks, a stunning backsplash from Meadow Creek Tile, and stone added on the kitchen fireplace.

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January 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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3091 Lake Bay Road, Vass

Pinehurst Homes Inc. Lisa Taylor Remodel of the Year Whole House Renovation — $200-$400k

Nestled on a 15-acre tract of land in the heart of Horse Country, the existing ranch style 1950s all-brick home needed a new barn and a new look. Prior to the home renovation, the new barn was designed, permitted and constructed of wood and block with Hardie siding. The design accommodates two stalls, wash area, office, tack room, hay storage area and covered parking for a horse trailer. Owners provided a wish-list consisting of sizes for new and existing rooms. Because the existing home was constructed on a slab, electrical, plumbing and HVAC access to the attic was limited. New additional space on the main level was also on slab. The project was designed to make 100 percent use of existing space to accommodate the new and existing work, and make the project both an economical and aesthetic success. Consideration was given to demolish the entire home and start over, but estimates determined a combination of demolition and renovation would be more feasible. Thus, roughly 65 percent of the home was demolished, in addition to the entire roof structure. Three bedrooms and baths remained after demolition. The new design incorporated the use of existing fireplace modified to a seethrough from the breakfast area and den. The kitchen was enlarged and relocated. Dining room and den were enlarged. A new two-car garage with a bonus room above was constructed, in addition to a utility room in the garage. A new screened porch was constructed over the rear overlooking seven acres of staged horse jumps and a pond. The home was positioned to offer optimal morning light and afternoon shade. Removing the existing roof allowed a vaulted ceiling design in foyer, great room and dining room, in addition to 9-foot walls. Changing roof pitches and adding dormers dramatically transformed the home’s exterior, which was trimmed and painted to match the barn. Voila! A beautiful country traditional home place.

O M E

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PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . January 2011

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Youngs Road, Southern Pines

Bowness Construction Award of Excellence Whole House Renovation - $200-$400k With a beautiful setting and nice features, this 1985 home, inherited from the owner’s parents, is now comfortable and efficient. The existing kitchen, laundry, master bath and guest bedrooms illustrated inadequate use of space by today’s standards. Existing windows and sliding glass doors were repositioned to improve light flow throughout the home. A brand new, user-friendly kitchen was built in the former storage area. The laundry space was made more efficient. The master bathroom was gutted and redone, and the two guest bedrooms were significantly brightened. Heart pine flooring was extended to the kitchen/family room, halls and master bedroom, further enhancing the continuity of the home.

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388 Loblolly Drive, Woodlake

Brown & Son Construction Wallace Wilson Award of Excellence Whole House Renovation — $200-$400k Originally built in 1985, the square footage of this Woodlake home has more than doubled. Originally 2,200 square feet, the existing house was gutted to the outside stud walls, including insulation and mechanicals. Original footers, foundation and floor system were kept in place. The garage was enlarged, adding laundry room, mud room, and a second floor featuring a large bonus room. A master bedroom wing was added, including a master bath. A second story was added for two additional bedrooms and a full bath. Additions make the new house approximately 4,720 square feet. The existing screened porch was converted to a Carolina room. The kitchen features maple cabinets, granite countertops and high-efficiency GE appliances. Baths have maple cabinets with cultured mable vanity tops.

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114 Butterfly Court, Seven Lakes West Harris & Son Construction Remodel of the Year Best Kitchen — Under $30k

The owners of a charming home in Seven Lakes loved the beautiful wood found in the rest of their house and wanted their kitchen cabinetry to correspond. Mission accomplished. Knotted pine cabinets and lavender Silestone countertops were replaced with custom-made antiqued, glazed cabinets and a warm, Baltic brown granite. A radius was also added to the countertops, and a ceramic tile backsplash installed to protect the drywall. Unfinished pine floors were sanded and stained to complement the linen-colored cabinetry. “What a difference,” say the homeowners. “We love entertaining at the lake house, mainly because of our kitchen.”

520 Fairway Drive, Southern Pines Bill Reaves Construction Kelly Philpot Award of Excellence Best Kitchen — Under $30k

When the new owners of this 1930s cottage home decided to update their kitchen, it was out with the old and in with the new. Aside from broadening the wall opening to the breakfast nook area, removing a storage closet and opening as many doorways as possible, the kitchen’s existing footprint was unchanged. Old cabinets were removed, existing plumbing and electrical wire were reworked, and pull-chain operated light fixtures were upgraded. A new tile backsplash provides a stylish accent and complements the cabinetry, which was chosen to match the style of the home’s existing doors. Opening up the area between the kitchen, nook and dining area created a welcoming vibe, better flow and unity among the rooms.

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520 Burning Tree Road, Pinehurst Travis Alfrey Construction Chris & Helena Miller Remodel of the Year Best Kitchen — $30-75k

Modernity meets functionality in this remodeled Pinehurst kitchen. Removal of main-level walls significantly increased the size of the existing kitchen, and allowed the addition of a mudroom, laundry room and pantry. New hardwood was laced into existing floors where walls were removed. All hardwood flooring throughout the first floor of the home was sanded and refinished for consistency. Appliances, granite countertops, lighting and plumbing fixtures are all new. “Our entire team, including the homeowners, created a warm and updated space with modern touches,” says Travis Alfrey Construction.

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Youngs Road, Southern Pines Bowness Construction Award of Excellence Best Kitchen — $30-75k

Natural-stained fir cabinets, beautiful soapstone countertops and heart pine flooring create a warm, inviting ambience while new appliances bring this 1980s kitchen to date. But a masterful layout is what makes this contemporary kitchen such a treasure. Poorly placed within the home, this old kitchen needed a new plan. After kitchen cabinets, countertops, appliances, plumbing fixtures and existing board paneling were donated to Habitat for Humanity, the kitchen area was moved. Relocation significantly increased the size of the kitchen and allows the vista to be shared by both the kitchen and the family room, bringing the outside in. And that has made all the difference.

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4 Driving Range Road, Pinehurst

Pinehurst Homes Inc. Billy & Judy Henshaw Remodel of the Year Best Bathroom — $30-50k For a Pinehurst couple, this bathroom used to be too small. Now it’s built for two. Expansion of the master bath included utilizing unused space in the home’s front foyer — relocating walls and creating a new entry to the master bedroom. The plan included removing the tub, creating his and hers separate vanities, and designing a larger, walk-in shower. Natural light now brightens the bath through two new windows. The new master bedroom is now spacious and features new cabinets, countertops, tile flooring and a large walk-in closet. Since the floor heights in the existing bathroom were higher than the master bedroom, custom transitions slips were used to create a more friendly entry into the bathroom and closets.

90 Midland Road, Pinehurst Bowness Construction Bill & Jane Coley Remodel of the Year Best Outdoor Living

A leaky ceiling wouldn’t do. Prone to flooding, this first floor porch received some much needed love. Now it’s in better shape than ever. Brick flooring and wood joists were removed. To give proper structure for the new slab and brick pavers, the perimeter seating wall was adjusted to receive the slab. At that stage, removing the balance of the seating wall became a desirable option; it had always cut off the golf course view from the living area and made the porch space seem smaller. The shallow cavity was filled with compacted fill dirt and a concrete slab and brick pavers were installed. Porch ceiling and new balcony railing received repair work.

1825 E. Indiana Ave, Southern Pines Bowness Construction Lucille Humphrey Award of Excellence Best Porch

12 Masters Ridge, Southern Pines Bowness Construction Mort & Barbara Miller Remodel of the Year Best Porch

Wide windows let this sunroom live up to its name. Although the existing porch had a beautiful stone fireplace and chimney, cathedral ceiling and tiled floor, the plastic windows were too small for adequate light. Existing windows were removed and stucco walls cut open to the maximum width and height that the structure would allow. Full-sized picture windows were installed over matching witch awning windows to generate a flood of new light. Miniature heating and air system left behind by previous owner allows this sunroom to be used to entertain year-round.

The owners of this quaint screen porch have reclaimed a long-lost friend. A leaking flat roof on the existing 25-year-old porch caused a series of problems: a bulging ceiling, deteriorated wood trim and framing, frayed carpet, and a screen door that needed to be retired. Stripped down to the basics, a new roof was installed, the ceiling framing was augmented, and new screen walls and door were installed. To complete the project, the porch was painted, and new outdoor carpet was installed.

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12 Masters Ridge, Southern Pines

P-16 Linville Drive, CCNC

Bowness Construction Mort & Barbara Miller Award of Excellence Best Room Renovation

Bowness Construction Bill & Ruby Sledge Remodel of the Year Best Room Renovation

This average master bedroom was transformed into a terrific master suite. The sunroom, with its beautiful golf course view, became the new entrance to the bedroom. The previous walk-through bedroom entrance became a large, spacious walk-in closet featuring a custom shelving system. To address the overly tight master bath, two small closets in the bedroom were cannibalized to allow expansion. The bathroom now features two generous vanity areas and a spacious walk-in shower and toilet area. The bed now faces the sunroom entrance and view, but did not allow space for the fireplace. Ultimately, the bed was more important.

3 Sherwood Court, Pinehurst Bowness Construction George & Moira Bussey Remodel of the Year Best Basement

Although the owners were pleased with most amenities upon purchasing their new home, a second-floor guest room wouldn’t do for a father with limited mobility. Despite the challenge of installing an elevator in an existing home, a plan was designed that would complement the general flow of the home: going through the roof. A new roof protrusion would be tied into an adjoining second floor dormer, creating a “double dormer.” Although one half of the dormer would be false, from an outside perspective, the finished product would look perfectly normal. Thanks to an off-beat plan, the owner’s father can now visit with ease.

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A few tweaks transformed this basement mini-kitchen, featuring a stunning lake view, into a true treasure. Designed for the home’s previous owners, outdated cabinetry and appliances did not match the needs of the current owners. Poor lighting was another failing. After cabinets and plumbing fixtures were removed, the sheetrock soffit was raised 10 inches, giving the kitchen wall a larger visual effect. Taller stained cabinets and new granite countertops were installed, along with a few well-placed small recessed can lights. Now, the kitchen-basement is inviting and a delight for the homeowners and their guests.

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130 Penn Carol Lane, Southern Pines

12 Masters Ridge, Southern Pines

Bill Reaves Construction Alison McCormack Remodel of the Year Best Room Addition — $75-150k

Bowness Construction Mort & Barbara Miller Remodel of the Year Best Room Addition — Under $75k

With no office space and limited storage, the owners of this Southern Pines home used their spacious master suite to help fulfill their needs. His and her desk units were installed along one of the walls of the master bedroom, divided by a newly installed fireplace and flat screen TV above the mantel. His side features a full-height cabinet to store the printer, fax and TV equipment. Her side includes dressing and makeup area. To unify the room, existing stained trim was painted and new hardwood flooring was added. In the master closet, hardwood flooring was added and existing stained trim was painted. To take advantage of the 12-foot ceilings, 9 feet of hanging was installed with a spring-loaded bracket that brings the clothes to eye-level.

For a family that entertains, this new addition wasn’t just fitting — it was necessary. After removal of the existing deck, a covered porch was built, including a storage area underneath, and a second covered porch was added, giving access from the new utility room and hall area. A new kitchen was added, and the existing kitchen was removed to create a nook area, pantry and butler’s pantry. The new kitchen features a country sink, a bar sink on the island, and a new gas stove with an attractive and functional hood. The addition gives owners room to cook; the converted nook provides space to entertain. Window area was maximized for light flow and viewing purposes.

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April Verch Band. Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen. (910)944-7502 or visit www.theroosterswife.org.

Tuesday

MEET THE AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Journalist Steve Bouser, “Death of a Pinehurst Princess”. Reservations required. The Country Bookshop, Southern Pines (910) 692-3211.

Spring Semester 11 10 begins at Sandhills Community College. SENIOR ACTIVITY. Douglas Community Center. (910)692-7376. SANDHILLS HARMONY CHORUS. 7 p.m. Brownson Memorial Presbyterian Church, Southern Pines.

MEET THE AUTHOR. 5 p.m. Gary Pearce will discuss “Jim Hunt: A Biography.” Reservations required. The Country Bookshop. (910) 692-3211.

Wednesday

Storytime. 3:30 - 4 p.m. The Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut (910)6928235.

Thursday

Friday

MEET THE ARTIST. 7 SENIOR EVENT. Elvis Presley’s Birthday. 1 6 Hollyhocks Art Gallery. 11 p.m. Douglas Community Center, (910)692-7376. a.m. - 2 p.m. NC SYMPHONY. 8 p.m. Pinecrest High School. GATHERING AT GIVEN. 3:30 p.m. Given Memorial Library. THE 12th NIGHT OF CHRISTMAS. 4 p.m. Sacred Heart Church.

ART EXHIBIT OPENING RECEPTION. 6 - 8 p.m. Arts Council of Moore County presents an opening reception for Rick Smith’s photography and Richard Oversmith’s oil paintings. (910)6922787. ART TUTORIAL SERIES. 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Artists League of the Sandhills presents June Rollins, teaching how to use watercolors. (910)944-3979 or www.artistleague.org.

STORYTIME. 3:30 - 4 p.m. Bring infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years) for stories, songs, and fun, and then stay for playtime. The Southern Pines Public Library, (910)6928235 or go to www.sppl. net.

OLDIES & GOODIES FILM SERIES. 2:30 4:30 p.m. The Southern Pines Public Library. ART EXHIBIT RECEPTION. 4 - 6 p.m. “Candyland-the Art of Play.” Hastings Gallery, Sandhills Community College.

JAZZ CONCERT. 8 p.m. The Heart of Carolina Jazz Society presents Contemporary Jazz Star, Tom Browne. Tickets $15/adult and $10/students and children. Box Office: (919)774-4155. Temple Theatre, 120 Carthage St., Sanford.

THE ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:45 p.m. The Harris Brothers and Joe Craven. Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen. (910)944-7502 or visit www. theroosterswife.org.

SENIOR ACTIVITY. Glaucoma Awareness. 11:30 a.m. Douglas Community Center. (910)692-7376.

STORYTIME. 3:30 - 4 p.m. Bring infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years) for stories, songs, and fun. The Southern Pines Public Library, (910)692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net.

MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.(910)2550665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. BOOK CLUB. 5:30 p.m. No preregistration is required. The Southern Pines Public Library, (910)692-8235.

SANDHILLS HARMONY CHORUS. 7 p.m. The Sandhills Harmony Chorus. Brownson Memorial Presbyterian Church.

MEET THE 25 ARTIST. Hollyhocks

THE ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:45 p.m. Craicdown. Poplar Knight Spot, Aberdeen. (910)944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org.

MEET THE AUTHOR. 2 p.m. Poets Anthony (Tony) Abbott, John Balaban and Stephen E. Smith. The Country Bookshop. (910) 692-3211.

30 THE ROOSTER’S

WIFE. 6:45 p.m. Al Petteway and Amy White. Poplar Knight Spot, Aberdeen. (910)944-7502 or visit www.theroosterswife.org.

DANCING WITH THE STARS. 5 p.m. Carolina Hotel.

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ART TUTORIAL Art Gallery. 11 a.m. - 2 SERIES. 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. p.m.(910)255-0665 or www. Artists League of the hollyhocksartgallery.com. Sandhills. $35 members/$45 nonmembers. PIZZA NIGHT. 5 - 6 p.m. Southern Pines Public (910)944-3979 or www. artistleague.org. Library. (910)692-8235. STORYTIME. 3:30 - 4 p.m. Southern Pines Public Library.

MEET THE AUTHOR. 3:30 p.m. Juliette Fay will present her new novel, Deep Down True. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Souther Pines. For more information call (910)692-3211 or www.thecountrybookshop.biz

SANDHILLS HARMONY CHORUS. 7 p.m. Brownson Memorial Presbyterian Church, Southern Pines. For more information, please call Emmie at (910)255-6350 or Carole at (910)944-1458.

January 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Saturday

January

Arts & Entertainment Calendar December 31 - January 2

MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Carolyn Rotter. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. THE MET LIVE IN HD: La Fanciulla Del West. 1 p.m. The Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad St, Southern Pines. www.sunrisetheater.com. AFTERNOON MOVIE. 2:30 p.m. Kids in grades 3-5 and their parents are invited to a free Sunday afternoon movie. The Southern Pines Public Library, (910)692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net.

MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Jane Casnellie. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30-9:30 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www. hollyhocksartgallery.com.

GOLF TOURNAMENT. Pine Needles and Mid Pines are hosting a parent-child golf tournament. Children of all ages are invited to experience the thrill of tournament golf. Tournament entry fee is for two days of competition on Donald Ross courses. For more information please call Pine Needles, (910)692-8611.

January 4 MEET THE AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Journalist Steve Bouser returns for an encore presentation of his new book, “Death of a Pinehurst Princess: The 1935 Elva Stalter Davidson Mystery”. Reservations required. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Information: (910) 6923211 or www.sppl.net.

January 5 STORYTIME. 3:30 - 4 p.m. Bring infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years) for stories, songs, and fun, and then stay for playtime. The Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave. For more information, please call (910)692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net.

January 6

MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Diane Kraudelt. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30-9:30 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. DRESSAGE EVENT. The Pipe Opener I Dressage and combined test. NCDCTA recognized. Carolina Horse Park, just off Hwy 211, between Aberdeen and Raeford. (910)875-2074 or www.carolinahorsepark. com.

ART TUTORIAL SERIES. 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. A class for beginners, taught by Diane Kraudelt, to learn how to draw with oils. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. SUNEVENTS. Raising the Roof 10. 7:30 p.m. The tenth year of this popular concert which showcases a variety of amazing regional talent. Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Box Office: (910)692-3611. www.sunrisetheater.org.

Class registration begins at Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Rd, Southern Pines. MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Jane Casnellie. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30-9:30 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. NC SYMPHONY CONCERT. 8 p.m. The North Carolina Symphony will be performing Debussy’s La Mer. William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor. Robert E. Lee Auditorium, Pinecrest High School, 100 Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines. For tickets and additional information, call the NC Symphony Box Office, (877)627-6724. GATHERING AT GIVEN. 3:30 p.m. Audrey Moriarty will present a pictorial history of some of the earliest buildings and cottages in the Village, with then and now images based on the Historic Walking Tour book. This event is free and open to the public. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Rd, Pinehurst. For more information, please call (910)295-6022. THE TWELFTH NIGHT OF CHRISTMAS. 4 p.m. Maestro David Michael Wolff will lead a group of musicians from the Carolina Philharmonic in a joyful celebration of the Three Kings’ arrival at the stable in Bethlehem. Come experience their wonder as never before. $25/General admission, $20/senior/military. Sacred Heart Church, 300 Dundee Rd, Pinehurst. (910)687-4746 or www.carolinaphil.org.

January 7

Key: Art Music/Concerts Dance/Theater Film Literature/Speakers Fun History Sports

SENIOR EVENT. Elvis Presley’s Birthday. Elvis Presley will be honored by watching one of his most popular movies while enjoying popcorn and drinks. 1 p.m. The cost is $1r/$2nr. Please sign up by December 31. Douglas Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. (910)692-7376. ART EXHIBIT OPENING RECEPTION. 6 - 8 p.m. Arts Council of Moore County presents an opening reception for Rick Smith’s photography and Richard Oversmith’s oil paintings which will be on display at the Campbell House Galleries. Monday - Friday from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. (910)692-2787. ART TUTORIAL SERIES. 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Artists League of the Sandhills presents Come Test the Waters with June

Rollins, teaching how to use watercolors. $50 members/$60 nonmembers. 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. (910)944-3979 or www.artistleague.org.

January 7 - 28 ART EXHIBIT. Rick Smith’s photography and Richard Oversmith’s oils will be on exhibit Monday - Friday from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. (910)692-2787 or www.mooreart.org.

January 8 MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Carolyn Rotter. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30-9:30 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. THE MET LIVE IN HD: La Fanciulla Del West. 1 p.m. Puccini’s wild-west opera had its world premiere in 1910 at the Met. Now the all-American diva Deborah Voigt sings the title role of the “girl of the golden west,” starring opposite Marcello Giordani. Nicola Luisotti conducts. The Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad St, Southern Pines. www.sunrisetheater.com. AFTERNOON MOVIE. 2:30 p.m. Kids in grades 3-5 and their parents are invited to a free Sunday afternoon movie. The animated feature, based on the popular fantasy series by Kathryn Lasky, concerns a young barn owl that goes in search of a legendary band of winged warriors known as the Guardians of Ga’Hoole. The Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave. For more information, please call (910)692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net.

January 9 THE ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:45 p.m. The April Verch Band. $15 in advance, $18 at the door. This highly accomplished trio of young musicians is in great demand for their energetic performances featuring breathtaking instrumentals, captivating vocals and spectacular Ottawa Valley Stepdancing. Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen. For more information, please call the Rooster’s Wife at (910)944-7502 or visit www.theroosterswife.org.

January 10 Spring Semester begins at Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Rd, Southern Pines. SENIOR ACTIVITY. Join us on a special mystery trip departing from the Campbell House. Be prepared for cool weather. Lunch and transportation are included. The cost is $4r/$8nr. Please sign up and pay by January 5. Douglas Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. (910)692-7376. SANDHILLS HARMONY CHORUS. 7 p.m. The Sandhills Harmony Chorus, member of Sweet Adelines International, invite all women to their guest nights. Brownson Memorial Presbyterian Church, 330 S. May St., Southern Pines. For more information, please call Emmie at (910)255-6350 or Carole at (910)944-1458.

January 11 MEET THE AUTHOR. 5 p.m. Former News & Observer reporter and editor Gary Pearce will discuss his new book about NC’s longest-serving governor, “Jim Hunt: A Biography”. Pearce, who served the Governor’s chief speechwriter and political and policy adviser, will be joined by Governor Jim Hunt. Reservations required. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Information: (910) 692-3211.

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Resale Retail Retail Resale

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January 12 STORYTIME. 3:30 - 4 p.m. Bring infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years) for stories, songs, and fun, and then stay for playtime. The Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave. For more information, please call (910)692-8235 or go to www. sppl.net.

January 13 MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Carolyn Rotter. 11 a.m. to - 2 p.m., 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. - 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30 - 9:30 p.m. (910)2550665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. OLDIES & GOODIES FILM SERIES. The 1934 biopic of Catherine the Great starring Marlene Dietrich on 2:30 - 4:30 p.m. Enjoy a classic film and a cup of hot tea! The Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave. For more information, please call (910)692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net. FAn Evening of Beauty. Discover the lateset in plastic surgery, skin care procedures and beauty products. 6-8 p.m. Pinehurst Surgical Clinic. For more information, please call (910) 235-9759. ART EXHIBIT RECEPTION. 4 - 6 p.m. Opening reception for “Candyland-the Art of Play.” This show features traditional, digital and photographic imges by Eric A. Ton. Hastings Gallery, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Rd, Southern Pines. Live Music. 6 p.m. Pinehurst Forum presents Cabaret. An evening with Baxter Clement. Carolina Hotel at Pinehurst Resort, 80 Carolina Vista Drive, Pinehurst. (910)235-8507.

January 14 - 31 ART EXHIBIT. “Candyland - the Art of Play.” This show features traditional, digital and photographic images by Eric A. Ton. Hastings Gallery, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Rd, Southern Pines.

January 14 JAZZ CONCERT. 8 p.m. The Heart of Carolina Jazz Society presents Contemporary Jazz Star, Tom Browne, and Alexander Brower will be the performing. Gregg Gelb directing. Tickets $15/adult and $10/students and children. Box Office: (919)774-4155. Temple Theatre, 120 Carthage St., Sanford.

January 15 MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Jane Casnellie. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30-9:30 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com.

January 16 THE ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:45 p.m. The Harris Brothers and Joe Craven. $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Joe Craven and the Harris Brothers together! Oh man.... Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen. For more information, please call the Rooster’s Wife at (910)944-7502 or visit www. theroosterswife.org.

January 17 SANDHILLS HARMONY CHORUS. 7 p.m. The Sandhills Harmony Chorus, member of Sweet Adelines International, invite all women to their guest night. Brownson Memorial Presbyterian Church, 330 Key: Art Music/Concerts Dance/Theater Literature/Speakers Fun History Sports

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Film

ca l e n d a r S. May St., Southern Pines. For more information, please call Emmie at (910)255-6350 or Carole at (910)944-1458.

January 18 SENIOR ACTIVITY. Glaucoma Awareness. 11:30 a.m. A guest speaker from Carolina Eye will present information about glaucoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness. Please sign up by January 11. Douglas Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. (910)692-7376.

January 19 STORYTIME. 3:30 - 4 p.m. Bring infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years) for stories, songs, and fun, and then stay for playtime. The Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave. For more information, please call (910)692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net.

January 20 MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Jane Casnellie. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30-9:30 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. BOOK CLUB. 5:30 p.m. Start something new this New Year - like a book club! The first book selection is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. No preregistration is required. Please inquire at the desk if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to reserve a copy. The Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave. For more information, please call (910)692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net.

January 22 MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Diane Kraudelt. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30-9:30 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. DRESSAGE EVENT. The Pipe Opener I Dressage and combined test. NCDCTA recognized. Carolina Horse Park, just off Hwy 211, between Aberdeen and Raeford. (910)875-2074 or www.carolinahorsepark.com. Key: Art History

Music/Concerts Sports

Dance/Theater

Film

Literature/Speakers

Fun

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January 23 MEET THE AUTHOR. 2 p.m. Poets Anthony (Tony) Abbott, author of “New & Selected Poems 1989-2009”; John Balaban, author of “Path, Crooked Path” and “Like Family”; and Stephen E. Smith, author of “A Short Report on the Fire at Woolworths: Selected New and Old Poems”, will present a reading of their works. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Information: (910) 692-3211. THE ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:45 p.m. $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Combining a technical mastery of their instruments with a passion for their playing, Craicdown performs acoustic roots music with a high-energy, rock inspired flare. The band’s repertoire draws from many sources, including the jigs and reels of the Celtic cultures, Brazilian choros, the swing musettes of Paris, American roots, and original compositions. Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen. For more information, please call the Rooster’s Wife at (910)9447502 or visit www.theroosterswife.org.

January 25 SENIOR ACTIVITY: Australia. 12:30 p.m. In 1978 the first British Colony was established in Australia. It was a prison at Botany Bay. A guest speaker will be here to tell about the history of Australia. Also play “Pin the Kangaroo on Australia.” Please sign up by January 19. Douglas Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. (910)692-7376. PIZZA NIGHT. 5 - 6 p.m. Kids in grades 6-8 are invited to Pizza with Pizzazz: Game Night. Play Xbox and PlayStation 2 with friends while eating free pizza! The Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave. For more information, please call (910)692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net. STORYTIME. 3:30 - 4 p.m. Bring infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years) for stories, songs, and fun, and then stay for playtime. The Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave. For more information, please call (910)692-8235 or go to www.sppl.net. MEET THE ARTIST. Hollyhocks Art Gallery. Beverly Brookshire. 11 a.m. - 2 p.m., 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30-9:30 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com.

January 26 ART TUTORIAL SERIES. 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Artists League of the Sandhills presents The Landscape in Pastel with Betty Hendrix. This class will emphasize capturing light and creating depth, two critical elements to successful landscape painting. Plan to bring a few photos of your choice. $35 members/$45 nonmembers. (910)944-3979 or www.artistleague.org.

January 26 - 27 ART TUTORIAL SERIES. 6 - 8 p.m. Artists League of the Sandhills presents Drawing from the Line Up with J.J. Love. Learn the basic drawing exercises that artists have used for years to improve their skills. $30 members/$40 nonmembers. (910)944-3979 or www. artistleague.org.

January 28 MEET THE AUTHOR. 3:30 p.m. Juliette Fay will present her new novel, Deep Down True. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Souther Pines. For more information call (910)692-3211 or www.thecountrybookshop.biz Key: Art Music/Concerts Dance/Theater Literature/Speakers Fun History Sports

Film

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the

Market Place

2160 Midland Rd • Southern Pines

THE MARKET PLACE RESTAURANT Where we’ve been serving mouth-watering sandwiches on warm crosissants for 30 years! - Coming February 2011:

“Muffins at the Marketplace” One of a kind homemade muffins and our own “Gourmet Coffee” served Mon-Sat 8am til 10am Serving Lunch Mon.-Sat. 10:30-2:30 Inside the Marketplace Building

910.295.1160

www.themarketplaceonmidland.com Find us on Facebook

January 29 ART TUTORIAL SERIES. 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. A class for beginners, taught by Diane Kraudelt, to learn how to draw with oils. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road next to Elliotts on Linden restaurant. Open daily 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Sundays 5:30-9:30 p.m. (910)255-0665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. WHISPERS SILENT AUCTION. 5:30 p.m. Whispers, the philanthropic women’s organization of Whispering Pines, is holding a Silent Auction and Dinner, to be held at the Country Club of Whispering Pines. The bidding and cocktails start at 5:30 p.m., with dinner being served at 7 p.m. Cost per person is $25 inclusive and 100 percent of the proceeds will go to the Good Hands Gang, a local charity. Reservation checks made out to “Whispers” may be sent to Gail Frazer, 225 Midland Trail, Pinehurst, NC, 28374. For more information contact Gail Frazer, (910)295-2273. SUNEVENTS. Raising the Roof 10. 7:30 p.m. The tenth year of this popular concert which showcases a variety of amazing regional talent. Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Box Office: (910)692-3611. www.sunrisetheater.org.

January 30 THE ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:45 p.m. $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Award-winning, critically acclaimed, passionate and playful, Al Petteway and Amy White are an acoustic music duo that draws inspiration from musical traditions across the globe and distills these myriad styles into a rich and unique voice – a timeless recipe for healing, heartfelt music. During an Al and Amy performance, the audience is treated to a variety of acoustic stringed instruments and percussion with a dash of pristine vocals. Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen. For more information, please call the Rooster’s Wife at (910)944-7502 or visit www.theroosterswife.org. DANCING WITH THE STARS. 5 p.m. The Grand Ballroom, Carolina Hotel, Pinehurst. Local leaders in the community will compete for your vote on the dance floor to raise awareness of mentoring and the impact it has on helping children reach their potential and become successful in school and in life. This evening of dining, dancing and FUN will benefit our two mentoring programs – Communities In Schools and Moore Buddies. Both are local non-profit United Way agencies. Information: www.sandhillsstars. com.

January 31 SANDHILLS HARMONY CHORUS. 7 p.m. The Sandhills Harmony Chorus, member of Sweet Adelines International, invite all women to their guest night. Brownson Memorial Presbyterian Church, 330 S. May St., Southern Pines. For more information, please call Emmie at (910)255-6350 or Carole at (910)944-1458.

February 2 - 6. EVITA. Argentineans cried for their First Lady but Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber (and Madonna) immortalized the charismatic Madame Eva Peron. MooreOnStage brings the award-winning popera “EVITA” to Pinecrest High School Auditorium in Southern Pines at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2,3,4,5 and 2 p.m. Feb. 6. Broadway performers Jose Restrepo and Rebecca Jones lead a cast of 30, directed by Patrick Michael Wickham. Tickets: $15-$22. Information: (910) 692-7118.

Art Galleries

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Broadhurst Gallery, 2212 Midland Rd., Pinehurst, showcases works by nationally recognized artists such as Louis St. Lewis, Lula Smith, Shawn Morin, Rachel Clearfield, Judy Cox and Jason Craighead. Meet-the-artist opportunities are available. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday, 1-4 p.m. (910)295-4817, www.broadhurstgallery.com. Art Gallery at the Market Place, 2160 Midland Road, Pinehurst, features original art by local artists Joan Williams, Deane Billings, Jeanette Sheehan, Mike D’Andrea, Janet Burdick, Nancy Yanchus, and Cele Bryant. Meet one of the artists Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. (910)215-5963. Artist Alley features juried art and fine crafts from local and regional artists, 167 E. New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910)692-6077. Artists League of the Sandhills, located at 129 Exchange St. in historic Aberdeen. Exhibit hours are noon-3 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910)944-3979. The Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines, is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday, and every third weekend of the month from 2-4 p.m. (910)692-4356, www.mooreart.org. The Gallery at Seven Lakes, a gallery dedicated to local artists. The Gallery is open on Wednesday and Thursday each week from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. 1145 Seven Lakes Drive, The St. Mary Magdalen building. Just 9 miles from the Pinehurst Traffic Circle up 211. Hastings Gallery is located in the Katharine L. Boyd Library at Sandhills Community College, Pinehurst. Gallery hours are 7:45 a.m.-9 p.m., Monday-Thursday; 7:45 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday; and 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst, features original artwork by local

ca l e n d a r artists Diane Kraudelt, Carol Rotter, Doris Smith, Jean Frost, Beverly Brookshire, Sandy Scott and artist/owner Jane Casnellie. Daily 10:30am to 9:30p.m. and Sunday evenings 6p.m.-9:30p.m. (910)255-0665, www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. The Old Silk Route, 113 West Main St., Aberdeen specializes in Asian original art, including silk paintings, tapestries, Buddhist Thangkas and Indian paper miniatures. Open Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. (910)295-2055. Seagrove Candle Company, 116 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines, showcases the arts and crafts of the Sandhills and Seagrove area. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday, WednesdaySaturday, (910)695-0029. SKY Art Gallery, 602 Magnolia Dr., Aberdeen, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. (910)944-9440, www.skyartgallery.com. White Hill Gallery, 407 U.S. 15-501, Carthage, offers a variety of pottery. (910)947-6100. The Downtown Gallery (inside Flynne’s Coffee Bar)is located at 115 NE Broad St. in downtown Southern Pines. Ever-changing array of local and regional art, pottery and other handmade items. (910)693-1999. Lady Bedford’s Tea Parlour, located at 25 Chinquapin Road in Pinehurst, is featuring local artist Nancy Campbell. Original oil and watercolor paintings are on display inside the tea shop. Open Tuesday - Saturday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. (910)255-0100, www.ladybedfords.com.

Nature Centers Sandhills Horticultural Gardens (32 acres of gardens). The Sandhills Horticultural Gardens are handicapped-accessible. Daylight hours year-round. (910)695-3882. Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve (898 acres). 1024

Ft. Bragg Road, Southern Pines. (910)692-2167.

Historical Sites Bethesda Church and Cemetery. Guided tours for groups by appointment. 1020 Bethesda Road, Aberdeen. (910)9441319. Bryant House and McLendon Cabin. Tours by appointment. (910)692-2051 or (910)673-0908. Carthage Historical Museum. Sundays, 2-5 p.m. or by appointment. Located at Rockingham and Saunders streets, Carthage. (910)947-2331. House in the Horseshoe. Open year-round. Hours vary. 288 Alston House Road (10 miles north of Carthage), Sanford. (910)947-2051. Malcolm Blue Farm and Museum. 1-4 p.m. WednesdaySaturday. Group tours can be arranged by appointment. (910)944-7558 or (910)603-2739. North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Monday-Friday, at the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. (910)692-6261. Shaw House Property. Open 1-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. (910)692-2051. Tufts Archives. 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday, and 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Saturday. (910)295-3642. Union Station. Open 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Located in downtown Aberdeen. (910)944-5902. Sandhills Woman’s Exchange Log Cabin Open 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. (910)295-4677 To add an event, send us an e-mail at pinestraw@thepilot. com by the first of the month prior to the event.

PineNeedler Answers From page 127

Solution:

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SandhillSeen Moore County Hounds Opening Meet Thanksgiving Day Photographs by Jeanne Paine Dick Moore

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   Fayetteville

T h o u g h ts f r o m T h e Ma n S h e d

Those Were The Days

Of skitchers, window-washers and other fruitcakes

By Geoff Cutler

e were sitting around the outside fire one night — it’s been a tradition with my family to build stone campfires wherever we live — and all was proceeding in the bucolic manner we’d come to expect when enjoying our friends and beverages around an open flame. Earlier, we’d cooked steaks over it and had just banked the fire back up. We had an impressive blaze going and all reported from their respective lawn chairs that between the drink and the fire, they were quite comfortable indeed. The next thing, there was a terrible wailing of sirens moving in our direction, and sure enough, the Watertown fire department — a couple of trucks strong — pulled up in front of our house. Around back they came, hoses in tow. The crew chief said to us in what I believe was the Boston Irish dialect, “Faw the luv of gawd, what du-yaa all think yaw doin heah, don’t yaa know you caan’t have open fias inside city limits?” I was somewhat surprised that this was the first time our gang had drawn the attention of the authorities. That’s because during college, I lived in something of an Animal House. Though not nearly as lunatic as the Delta Tau Chi fraternity brothers from that immortal 1978 movie, we had our moments. A buddy of mine and I found the place and rented it. It was half of a three story duplex. I took the top floor with two small bedrooms, my buddy took the bedroom on the back part of the second floor, and my older brother, who owned a tree care company that we all worked for when we weren’t in school, took the front bedroom on the sunny side with his three dogs. The first floor comprised a living room, dining room and the one bathroom in the house, which was right off our kitchen. The first floor was singularly unattractive, but we didn’t give a hoot. Most afternoons, when the tree trucks came rolling up the driveway and we’d come back from school, we’d gather on the front porch in the remaining sun. Across the street, there lived a widow who owned a window-washing company. As tenants, she housed her son and all the other window-washers who came down from Canada to wash the area’s dirty windows during the spring and summer months. They didn’t get the afternoon sun on their side of the street, so it was only natural that we all got to know one another. They came over with assorted leather-clad, tattoo-inked motorcycle-riding pals of theirs, and we’d also befriended the kids who lived on the other side of our duplex. So there was a whole mish-mash of us who could usually be found outside soaking up the sun and fair quantities of liquid refreshment.

Eventually, we’d all get hungry and someone would pass a strainer around and we’d all throw in a few bucks and some would wander down to the market while others built the fire or went inside to start up games of darts, cribbage, poker and Trivial Pursuit. These games tended to go long into the wee morning hours. So here we were this one fine evening and the fire department was about to extinguish our blaze when one of the firemen says to us, “So… ah… what a you guys drinkin theah?” And the one holding the hose says to the crew leader, “Bobby, ya know, this is kinda nice heah, and I don’t really see how their hurtin nothing as long as laita on they put the thing out.” The one called Bobby says, “Why don’t yaa hose down the perimeta faw safety?” So they turned on the hose and flooded everything in the backyard except for our fire and then sat down with us for a few minutes before returning to the station. The next time we ran up against the authorities, we weren’t as well accommodated. It was one frigid winter night and there’d been a twenty-four hour blizzard. We had a good foot of snow on the ground, and after sitting inside all day twiddling our thumbs, someone yelled out, “Skitching!” So we shoveled the snow off one of the tree trucks and tied off a couple of 15-foot pieces of climbing line to the rear end of the thing. We stuffed three or four people in the cab, and another handful in the covered box of the truck, and my brother and I, the first skitchers of the night, got into crouch position. Holding onto the ropes, the truck took off down the snow-covered road with us skiing behind. The snow was perfect and we were skitching like a couple of pros from Cypress Gardens. All the way into town we went when up behind us comes a police cruiser with chains on his tires, and the blue lights are flashing. The tree truck stops and the officer gets out of his car and we stand up. Still holding onto our ropes, now lying limp in the snow, the policeman is holding his ticket book and pen and he’s staring at us and shaking his head and looking kind of dumbstruck. Finally, he gets hold of himself and says to us, “What do you two morons think this is, some kind uv a ski rezawt aw something? We gawt municipal plows out hea tryin to clea the snow and they caan’t be lookin out faw a pack of idiots like you. I don’t even know how to write this up. Coil yaw ropes, get in yaw truck, and get outta my sight!” So we did, but the thing was, only two of us had skitched. And that didn’t seem fair to the truckload of fruitcakes who hadn’t yet. Ropes stowed, we drove a couple of towns over to where we grew up. There were still nice quiet roads over there that the plows wouldn’t be likely to get to until they’d finished the larger municipal thoroughfares. Everybody got a turn, and frozen stiff as boards, we headed back to the house for more cribbage, poker and darts. Lawd luv-a-duck! Those were the days! PS Geoff Cutler is owner of Cutler Tree LLC in Southern Pines. He is a regular contributor to both The Pilot and PineStraw. He can be reached at geoffcutler@embarqmail.com.

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Capricorn (Dec. 22 – Jan. 20)

Graced by the new moon on the 4th, get ready for an ego boost that’s bigger than Ron Jeremy’s better half. Although Neptune may have you more bent out of shape than a plastic spoon after a trip through the steam cycle by the middle of the month, Jupiter will give you the juice you need to pave your path to sweet redemption. Alas, when Saturn turns retrograde on the 26th, try not to let it wilt your spirits like another one of your so-called New Year’s resolutions. The cock doth crow this month, Sweetie. Just don’t count your biddies before they hatch. Aquarius (Jan. 21 – Feb. 19)

Cancer (June 22 – July 23)

Hot-ma-Gandhi! After sucking on the hind teat last month, good luck feels about as foreign as fair food to the queen of France. Live it up, Buttercup! When the new moon opens a new door on the 4th, proceed at full speed, even if you find yourself in a situation that’s dicier than a game of Yahtzee Deluxe. P.S. Prepare to be hotter than Grandma’s eggplant curry on the 20th. Although you’ll be in a position of authority, plan before you execute. You know what they say: Cut the thistles in May and they’ll grow in a day.

Old chestnut or not, when then new moon tickles your fancy on the 4th, get ready for a journey that’s bolder than a birthday suit in the bosom of winter. Fish or cut the bait on the 13th, Sweet Pea. That said, I highly suggest the latter. When you’re moodier than a dried up she-cow on the 17th, keep bitter comments to yourself or life will be rougher than tree bark body scrub.

Pisces (Feb. 20 – March 20)

Although the solar eclipse will slam a door in your face faster than Jackie Chan can chop suey, keep your eyes peeled for an unexpected opportunity to reveal itself. Take it and don’t look back, Honey! It was high time to shoot crow anyway. On the 19th, you’ll face a situation that’s harder than an oak toilet seat — take time and space to think before you go leaping, Sweetheart. As Mama always said, when there’s a will, figure out a way to be in it.

Knick, knack, paddy whack, give yourself a break, would you? On the 2nd, Neptune will have you in a situation as appealing as a glimpse of Michael Moore’s midriff. I say work your way out of there faster than a French fry through a field mouse, Sweet Cheeks. Consider setting a few goals come the 10th, even if they’re loftier than Barack Obama’s rhetoric. Life without dreams is as pointless as a conversation with a wheel of cheese. Oh, and don’t sweat the small stuff on the 17th. You’ll bring the cat to water, no doubt. Aries (March 21 – April 20)

I don’t know how to say it any other way: Pee or get off the pot, Cakeface. In conjunction with the new moon solar eclipse on the 4th, a relationship with someone your respect is in more jeopardy than Alex Trebek’s mustache to a pair of left-handed scissors. Try eating a slice of humble pie or prepare for a shoulder that’s colder than fish blood in a frozen pond. Although emotional tides may rock you like a Gibson guitar toward the middle of the month, don’t get all lily-livered on me. Remember, the cheese stands alone. Taurus (April 21 – May 21)

Listen up, Pumpkin. Change bigger than Mel Gibson’s slush fund is heading your way fast — and you’d be greener than pickled pork hocks to resist it. Although a situation dicier than a side dish of pico de gallo is looming on your mind on the 19th, sit back and let the stars work their magic, Sweetie. Saturn will encourage you to tap into an old keg of emotion on the 26th when she turns retrograde until June. Tighten up loose screws. After all, the writing’s on the wall. Gemini (May 22 – June 21)

Wrap me in jerky and call me a steak — good things come to those who wait. Although you’re flakier than a buttermilk biscuit when it comes to following through with plans, Saturn will encourage you to live up to the expectations others set for you, even if they’re higher than Willie Nelson on Earth Day. Don’t let Mars cook your goose mid-month when an event as unexpected as a sequel to Titanic interrupts a creative endeavor. Be persistent, Sugar Muffin. You’ll be sorrier than the fifth Beatle if you don’t.

Leo (July 23 – Aug. 23)

Virgo (Aug. 24 – Sept. 23)

Coo coo cachoo, Child! You’re sizzling like a skillet-full of scalloped potatoes this month! Don’t be afraid to follow your heart on the 4th, even if it feels like you’re trying to seize the moon with your teeth. With the aid of magical Mars, you could pull a rabbit out from where the sun don’t shine on the 12th. Just keep in mind: There’s no need to reheat old cabbage. By the 25th, you’ll know what you want. You’d be wise as a slab of rubber meat to seek it. Libra (Sept. 24 – Oct. 23)

Bless your little ticker. Playing things safe is about as useful as instructions on a can of minestrone soup! Encouraged by the new moon on the 4th, get ready for a journey that’s bolder than a Starbucks barista armed with a frothy Venti Macchiato. You’ll lift the spirits of those around you on the 7th once you start releasing your inhibitions from that kung fu grip of yours. As for the rest of the month: Pucker up, Doll Face. The universe is about to lay a fat one on you. Scorpio (Oct. 24 – Nov. 22)

Looks like Scorpios and Libras are two birds of a feather this month, Child… only your story doesn’t end so well. In conjunction with the saucy solar eclipse on the 4th, prepare to bust a move that’s bolder than Lady Gaga’s fashion accessories. Just because an opportunity comes a-knocking on the 19th, doesn’t mean you necessarily have to take it. As Daddy Foote used to say, “It’s lonely on the top, but you can eat better.” A good sport must lose to prove it. Sagittarius (Nov. 23 – Dec. 21)

As if your thoughts weren’t wacky enough, Neptune is about to inspire an idea as complex as polysaccharides. By the middle of the month, you can start to feed off of your own creative juices. Impulsive decisions are usually no brighter than the red bulbs on a cathouse. That said, good luck on the 22nd. You’re liable to find yourself in a situation stickier than day-old grits.

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What can bring back the dead; make us cry, make us laugh, make us young; born in an instant yet lasts a lifetime?

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53 Prayer 57 ___! (call attention) 59 Greek god of war 60 Not these 62 Ma 66 Floor covering 67 Civic 68 Greenish-blue color 69 Wily 70 Cache 71 Visionary

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southwords

Snowy Sabbath By Tom Allen

nowfalls in the Sandhills are serendipitous events. The perfect winter storm occurs when a blast of Arctic air plunges into Dixie and converges with a moistureladen low rising from the Gulf of Mexico. When that happens, school’s out, businesses close, and for a day or two, folks seem to catch their breath and a few more hours of sleep. A previous winter saw one such snowfall. Forecast to come in on Friday, warm, wet air stalled over the Deep South, then pushed its way north into the Carolinas. The system merged with some cold, Canadian air and by early Sunday morning several inches of snow brought the cancellation of most church services, including the one I serve. The call came before six that morning. “No church,” I told my wife, Beverly, then rolled over, knowing I had a day off from work. Most of the time, when I wake up that early, I can’t go back to sleep, but that morning was different. In no time, I was sawing logs, content with the fact I was in for a no-agenda day. About an hour later, Hannah, our oldest and fifteen at the time, came bounding into the bedroom. “Dad, you’ve gotta get up and look outside at the birdfeeder. There’re bluebirds all over the place. Come on, get up!” My initial response was confusion. Like their mother, neither Hannah nor her younger sister, Sarah, had shown much interest in my birdfeeding hobby. Attempts to educate about backyard wildlife were met with sighs and blank stares. But my confusion was mingled with slight amusement. “Bluebirds,” Hannah said, “all over the place!” Ah, how teenagers make use of hyperbole. “Probably some devilish bluejays scaring everything else away,” I thought. I’d never seen bluebirds around the yard in winter. I assumed she’d misidentified the birds, but was grateful that, if only for a moment, she’d shown some interest in the created order more than logging onto Facebook. When we arrived at the den window, I couldn’t have been more surprised. Three bluebirds, two males and a female, were nibbling away at some suet. “Eventually,” I said, “she’ll choose one of those guys and hopefully they’ll set up house in my new bluebird box.” Hannah seemed interested. She called to her sister and mother to hurry over. As we peered out the window, a couple of black-capped chickadees reluctantly joined the bluebirds, nervously flitting back and forth from feeder to tree limb. A flock of juncos pecked at leftovers on the ground and a Carolina wren sat on the deck railing waiting for a chance to sneak in for a bite. Soon a male cardinal, his crimson color stunning against the snowy backdrop, perched on a leafless branch and waited for a seat at the table.

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We stood there for a few minutes, watching the scene unfold, mesmerized by its beauty. Someone suggested pancakes and sausage. I pulled out the griddle. After we ate our fill, the day was still fresh. The girls took some time to play outside, Beverly took to her knitting, and I took another nap. Hannah eventually logged on to Facebook, Sarah snuggled in our bed with the remote, and my wife challenged me to a game of Scrabble. My only trek outdoors was to lend a hand with a feeble but fun attempt at building a snowman. When I came back in, The Pilot and Raleigh’s News and Observer were in hand, ready for me to read by our gas logs without worry of interruption. Later we’d drink hot chocolate and play some lively hands of Uno before heading off to bed, the kids happy that Monday’s school closings included Moore County. For some, a Southern snowfall means more work or additional headaches. Consider the good folks who salt and sand our roads, the hospital and nursing home workers who have to get to their jobs and the businesses that do all they can to stay open so we can buy shovels to clear our sidewalks or have enough milk to make that hot chocolate. And not everyone looks forward to being closed in with the kids or can take time off to enjoy a day at home. But a snow day can be a gift of grace, a day to be surprised by a teenager’s sense of wonder or proudly display a less-than-perfect snowman in the front yard, a day to be humored and humbled by a mean game of Scrabble or dine on a breakfast of pancakes and sausage instead of a Pop-Tart washed down with a Pepsi. It can also be a day to stop and do absolutely nothing. Most of us, even if given the privilege, have a hard time doing nothing. The drive to produce something or at least do something is as much a part of who we are as the color of our eyes or the accent in our voice. Sometimes I fear we’ve lost the ability to take a sabbath, a day of rest, even when it’s handed to us by way of a snowy, winter day. Sabbath may be a weekly faith obligation for some, but everyone needs one, regardless of the day. Along with sleep, we need wakeful time when we can simply choose to be instead of do, when we have no agenda other than to say “yes” by saying “no.” Easier said than done, I know, but the next time you’re offered a serendipitous snow day, receive it, if possible, with open arms, for while there are clothes to be washed and bills to be paid, e-mails to answer and calls to return, there is rest to be had, moments to be savored, and time to simply be wasted. PS Tom Allen, assistant minister of education at First Baptist Church in Southern Pines, is a frequent contributer to PineStraw.

Illustration by Pamela Powers January

Sometimes the grace of doing nothing is Heaven sent