June PineStraw 2015 by PineStraw Magazine

McDevitt Sotheby’s would like to welcome David O’Brien to our team of Equestrian Property Specialists. David grew up on a farm and has lived in Southern Pines horse country for 27 years. He has competed at the highest levels in the sport of Eventing….seven times at Rolex! He looks forward to helping buyers find their perfect farm. David also lives at Pine Ridge Farms, the area’s newest Equestrian Community. Let David show you all there is to see in this wonderful place he calls “Home”!

Come enjoy the Southern charm and relaxed sophistication of Pinehurst & Southern Pines

Jamie McDevitt, Broker/Owner 910.724.4455 JamieMcDevitt.com Jamie@JamieMcDevitt.com

Pine Ridge Farms…beautiful 5-10 acre tracts of land all with access to the Walthour Moss Foundation. Starting at only $174,000.

107 NE Broad Street Southern Pines, NC

We Can Find It For You. Whatever Your Dream Home,

17 Foxfire Blvd 2 Story 1 Bed 2 Bath, Loft Condo Great Opportunity! Asking $68,500 Call Margaret: 910-690-4591

5 Blair Ct. Doral Woods 3 Bed 2.5 Bath Pinehurst No. 3 Golf Front Attached Pinehurst CC Membership Asking $305,000 Call Elizabeth 910-690-1995

173 Cardinal Ln Seven Lakes N. 3 Bed 2.5 Bath Asking $179,000 Call Cathy: 910-639-0433

1 E. McDonald Rd 4 Bed 3.5 Bath Near the Village Attached Pinehurst CC Membership Asking $428,500 Call Pete: 910-695-9412

2250 Longleaf Dr. W. 3 Bed 2 Bath, Pinehurst Charmer Pinehurst Membership Eligible Asking $219,000 Call Dawn: 910-783-7993

Pinehurst National No. 9 Newer 4 Bed 4 Bath Golf Front Home Attached Pinehurst No. 7 & 9 Membership Asking $675,000 Call Elizabeth: 910-690-1995

Pinehurst resort realty Pinehurst Resort Realty is the preferred real estate company of Pinehurst Resort and Country Club, giving you direct resource into this Your Best Choice forand Moore CountyMembership world-renowned destination Pinehurst

The Preferred real esTaTe ComPany of The PinehursT resorT and CounTry Club. Visit Us in the Carolina Hotel in Pinehurst 1.800.772.7588 | www.PinehurstResortRealty.com | homes@PinehurstResortRealty.com

“Stop in and check out our exclusive line-up of Stearns & Foster Mattress sets and stay for a FREE NAP.”

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(910)246-2233

Free Mattress Protector with SF or Tempur purchase ($99 Value)

150 Commerce Ave. Southern Pines NC 28387

Locally owned and operated since 2002

It doesn’t take all day to get a massage ... unless, of course, you want it to.

A typical treatment at The Spa at Pinehurst usually lasts 50-80 minutes. But with spacious lounge areas, saunas, whirlpools, a swimming pool plus healthy snacks and smoothies, you can relax all day. So call the Spa to schedule an appointment that will benefit you long after your treatment ends.

Receive 20% off treatments Monday-Wednesday.

Located next to The Carolina Hotel • Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina • 855.318.6710 • pinehurst.com

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2015

June 2015

Volume 11, No. 6 70 Running Start Horse Trials

Features

By Toby Raymond

Entering the fourth year, a local equestrian competition finds its footing

57 Beach Friends

Poetry by Sandra James Snider

74 One of a Blooming Kind

58 Four Farms

By Deborah Salomon

By Jan Leitschuh

A Pinehurst cottage is reborn

The story of four family farms in the face of changing agriculture

85 Almanac

By Rosetta Fawley

64 Dear Mr. Tufts, Dear Donald By Bill Case

Part one of a lively correspondence between the patron saint of golf and his employers

Father’s Day, The Summer Solstice and June’s Main Man

35 Papadaddy’s Mindfield

Departments

15 Simple Life

37 Vine Wisdom

18 PinePitch 21 Instagram Winners 23 Cos and Effect

39 Out of the Blue

Jim Dodson

Cos Barnes

25 The Omnivorous Reader Brian Lampkin

29 Bookshelf

Kimberly Daniels Taws & Angie Tally

33 Proper English Serena Brown

Clyde Edgerton Robyn James

Deborah Salomon

41 Hometown Bill Fields

43 Birdwatch

Susan Campbell

45 A Novel Year Wiley Cash

47 Sporting Life

86 June Calendar 95 Writer’s Notebook Sandra Redding

99 SandhillSeen 107 Thoughts from the Manshed Geoff Cutler

109 The Accidental Astrologer Astrid Stellanova

111 PineNeedler Mart Dickerson

112 SouthWords Michele Movius

Tom Bryant

51 Golftown Journal Lee Pace

Cover Photograph by Tim Sayer Photograph this page by John Gessner 6

June 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

We have Father’s Day Covered.

Opulence of Southern Pines and DUXIANA at The Mews, 280 NW Broad Street, Downtown Southern Pines, NC 910.692.2744

at Cameron Village, 400 Daniels Street, Raleigh, NC 919.467.1781

www.OpulenceOfSouthernPines.com

Serving the Carolinas & More for 18 Years — Financing Available

Old Town Pinehurst: Premier property located on the 5th hole of the famous Pinehurst #2 course! Completely updated. Custom gourmet kitchen. Connected “Carriage House”. 4BR/5FullBA/2HalfBA. www.220midlandroad.isforsale.com $1,900,000 Bill Smith 910.528.4090

Knollwood Heights: “Homewood” a historic masterpiece! Sophisticated Colonial Revival style home with more than 9,000 square feet of elegant living space. Estate includes 4.66 acres of lush landscape. Breathtaking details throughout. $1,590,000 Bill Smith 910.528.4090

Knollwood Heights: Charming estate designed by Donald Ross in the 1920s. Leaded windows, wide plank oak flooring, 3-Frplcs, & 2BR/2BA Carriage house. 4BR/7.5BA. Broker/Owner. $1,395,000 Bill Smith 910.528.4090

Pinewild CC: Stunning golf retreat on 3.2 private acres. 4

National Pinehurst #9: Golf front perfection overlooking the

“Liscombe Lodge”: One of the most charming & architecturally detailed cottages in Old Town. Enhanced by an engaging history! Heart pine floors, living room w/ribbed, barrel-vaulted ceiling. 4BR/4BA. $978,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

Weymouth Heights: Charming cottage circa 1930, designed by Aymer Embury II. Two fireplaces, beamed ceiling in living room, main floor master w/study & fabulous bath, modern ktchn, hrdwd flooring. Guest House w/frplc, screened porch. Main House 4BR/3.5BA. $749,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

CCNC: Meticulously renovated and maintained! Golf

CCNC Home with Pool: 4BR/4.5BA, hand-pegged wood floors, formal rooms, family room with see-through stone FP, 1st floor master suite, office, 3-car garage! NEW PRICE: $595,000 Carolyn Hallett 910.986.2319

CCNC: Thoughtful renovations meet casual elegance in a private setting on one of the most beautiful streets in CCNC! Classy, comfortable, transitional. Move-in Ready! Well-priced for the discriminating buyer. 3BR/3BA. $539,000 Susan Ulrich 910.603.4757

Pinehurst National #9: Spacious, all brick single story

CCNC: Ideal golf retreat overlooks Dogwood Course. More than 3,000 sq.ft. of living space. Great room enhanced with a vaulted ceiling, fireplace & window-wall. Screen Porch & Deck for entertaining. Four ensuite bedrooms. $439,000 Bill Smith 910.528.4090

BR/3.5 BA, 3 car garage, pool, bocce ball court. Light flled rooms & open foor plan Spacious family room with pool table & game area. $1,010,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

13th fairway of Nicklaus course. Ideal for entertaining indoors or outside by the pool! Luxurious home with elegant details. 5BR/5.5BA. $998,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

front on 9th fairway of Dogwood course. Inviting and open floor plan for comfortable living and entertaining. 4BR/4BA. $735,000 Bill Smith 910.528.4090

home. 3BR/3BA (2-masters). Situated on 1.77 acre lot. Great storage! See more at: www.210NationalDrive.com $449,000 Frank Sessoms 910.639.3099

text “BHHSNC305” to 87778

Download our free mobile app!

Southern Pines: 910.692.2635 • 105 W. Illinois Avenue • Southern Pines, NC 28387 ©2014 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently operated subsidiary of HomeServices of American, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate, and a franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC.

7 Lakes West: Beautiful family home with views of Lake Auman. Kitchen has granite and gas cooktop. Hardwood floors throughout. 4 Bedrooms, 3.5 Baths. Priced to Sell at $429,900! Marie O’Brien 910.528.5669

Broad Street Towns: An urban townhome community - a mas-

Old Town Pinehurst: Unique home exudes livability! Built in a style reflecting an American/European design. Open, light filled rooms highlighted by large windows & tall ceilings. Cathedral ceilings, hardwood floors. Bonus Room. 3BR/2.5BA. $395,000 Kay Beran 910.315.3322

Pinehurst National #9: Charming “Wedgewood Cottage” overlooks 8th green. 2BR/2BA, Furnished! Updated Ktchn, upgraded carpets/drapery. Perfectly located near tennis courts/pool! www.120CochraneCastleCircle.com $340,000 Frank Sessoms 910.639.3099

Craftsman Home - 3 Years New: 4BR/3.5BA, open flr plan, kitchen w/granite & stainless, dining room, hrdwd, stone FP, 1st flr master suite, screen porch & deck. NEW PRICE: $336,000 Carolyn Hallett 910.986.2319

Old Town Pinehurst: Easy stroll to the Village center or clubhouse. All brick home with many upgrades. Large Carolina room overlooks a private, landscaped patio & garden area. Partial finished basement with HVAC. 3BR/3BA. PCC available. $325,000 Bill Smith 910.528.4090

Lamplighter Village in Pinehurst #6: Stunning interior with upgrades galore! Kitchen has maple cabinetry, Corian counters & black appliances. Private enlarged deck. PCC membership Courses 1 thru 9. 3BR/2BA. End unit with privacy. $315,000 Debbie Darby 910.783.5193

Sandhurst South: Beautiful home has it all! Situated

Legacy Lakes: Beautiful condo! 4 Bedrooms featuring

Pinehurst: Just a step away from your “Ah-Ha” moment! Lovingly embellished with architectural details. Dual sided gas fireplace in Living & Dining rooms for perfect ambiance. A warm & inviting home! 4BR/2BA. PCC available. $249,000 Debbie Darby 910.783.5193

Juniper Creek: Immaculate! Golf front condo overlooks the 11th Hole Tee Box. Use year round or seasonally with ability to rent. 1-car garage. 3BR/2BA. PCC Option available. $189,900 Debbie Darby 910.783.5193

Hidden Valley: Great neighborhood! Large yard. 3 bedroom split plan with 2 full baths. Fully equipped kitchen with all appliances remaining. Hardwood floors. Needs some “TLC” with great possibilities. $175,000 Bill Brock 910.639.1148

terpiece in the town of Southern Pines for those who love the community feel of downtown living. Designer details & efficient use of space. Rooftop patio. 3BR/2.5BA. $424,900 Kay Beran 910.315.3322

in a quiet neighborhood in a park-like setting. New Kitchen, New Appliances, New Floors & more! 3BR/3BA. Screened Porch & Patio. $280,000 Bill Brock 910.639.1148

2 master suites. Covered front porch & balcony with golf views. Kitchen has granite and stainless appliances. $260,000 Eva Toney 910.638.0972

www.BBHSPRG.com We open Moore doors. Pinehurst: 910.295.5504 • 42 Chinquapin Road • Pinehurst, NC 28374 Berkshire Hathaway HomeSercies and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc.® Equal Housing Opportunity.Housing Opportunity.

PINEHURST

429,000

Beautiful brick, golf front, cul-de-sac, home with expansive views of the 15th green of Pinehurst #9 from almost every room, including the study. The kitchen is a chef’s delight. Enjoy the outdoors under the covered back porch and extensive brick patio. Membership privileges convey with buyer to pay applicable initiation and membership fees. 3 BR / 3 BA 85 Levin Links

PINEHURST

$332,000

SEVEN LAKES NORTH

$319,000

$359,000

“Talent, Technology & TEAMWORK” Moore County’s Most Trusted Real Estate Team

This beautiful lakefront home is nestled on a large, serene lot that has a circular drive for plenty of parking for guests. There is a split bedroom plan plus a den/office space, an open living concept with oversized master bedroom and bath. The screened porch is huge with a deck just off that, which are perfect places to relax. Storage is abundant in this home. 3 BR / 2 BA 175 FIretree Lane

ELLERBE

$700,000

$258.000 $179,000 Southern Pines Pinehurst $199,900 Foxfire Lovely and pristine in Longleaf CC Lovely updated golf-front home Cute cottage w/nice renovations 3 BR / 2 BA 3 BR / 2 BA 4 BR / 4.5 BA www.205HunterTrail.com www.4DogwoodCourt.com www.17ChestnutLane.com Lovely one story all brick home located on quiet cul-de-sac in Pinehurst #6. Built by Precision Builders, this home has lots of beautiful upgrades with custom cabinetry, crown molding and hardwood floors galore. A charming sunroom overlooks the private back yard. There is a Pinehurst membership with this property. 3 BR / 2 BA 3 Wanamoisett Lane

PINEHURST

This beautiful brick home in desirable Pinehurst #6 was built by Hickman Builders and offers many upscale features such as oak hardwood floors, crown molding and 3 zone heating and air conditioning. The sunroom overlooks a very private backyard with a charming water feature. There is a Pinehurst CC membership with this property. 3 BR / 2.5 BA 9 Kahkwa Trail

SEVEN LAKES WEST

$525,000

$585,000 Aberdeen $145,500 Pinehurst Fantastic, all-brick golf front home Cute home on large corner lot 4 BR / 3.5 BA 3 BR / 2 BA www.80LakewoodDrive.com www.110RavenswoodRoad.com

This custom built home as over 71 acres, including timber and pasture areas and your own private pond. It is light and bright and maintenance free. There are cathedral ceilings, hardwood floors and a spacious kitchen. Plenty of places to relax and enjoy the serenity with both front and rear porches and rear patio. 3 BR / 2 Full, 3 Half Baths 138 AFJ Ranch Road

Enjoy gorgeous lake views throughout this beautiful three bedroom home! The living room offers a cathedral ceiling, large brick fireplace and sliding glass door access to the rear deck. Relax and enjoy the beautiful water views from the Carolina room, with glass door access to the deck. The main level master suite and the lower level offers a family room with brick gas log fireplace, two additional bedrooms and bath, and access to the patio. The perfect home for living and entertaining! 3 BR / 2.5 BA Longleaf $329,000 $890,000 142 SimmonsCC Drive

$449,000 Pinehurst $239,000 CCNC Pinehurst $75,000 Pinehurst Custom Built Villa Overlooking Water Custom built all brick golf-front home Brick single story w/view of 17th green Covered porch & large fenced lot Updated Immaculate Golf View Condo 3 BR$495,000 / 2 BA 4 BR / 4 Full & 2 Half Baths 3 BR / 2.5 BA 1 BR / 1 BA PINEHURST $569,000 3 BR / 2.5 BA SEVEN LAKES WEST $425,000 PINEHURST www.16SteeplechaseWay.com www.110HearthstoneRoad.com www.8RoyalDornoch.com www.210StAndrewsCondo.com www.1340BurningTreeRoad.com

$1,295,000 $189,000 Pinehurst $269,000 Pinehurst $475,000 Pinebluff 7 Lakes West $635,000 Pinehurst Stunning custom home in Fairwoods on 7 Charming brick ranch home GorgeoustownhomeintheheartoftheVillage Open plan, gourmet kitchen, pool & more! Stunning All Brick Water Front 4 BR / 4 BA & 2 Half BA 3 BR / 2 BA 3 BR / 2.5 BA 3 BR / 2.5 BA 3 BR / 4.5 BA Lakefront living is its own reward but it is especially satisfying if you have a wonderful lakefront Awesome potential in this Lake Auman waterfront home. This open floor plan offers a split This gorgeous, custom built home in Pinewild County Club is a dream for entertaining www.145SugarPineDrive.com www.105MastersWay.com www.6HollyHouse.com www.135AndrewsDrive.com home on one of the best lots on Lake Pinehurst with a desirable eastern exposure for maximum bedroom design. The living room features a large stone gas log fireplace, skylight and French with a spacious great room with soaring www.170InverraryRoad.com cathedral ceiling and center fireplace that opens to

enjoyment of all your lakeside activities. Even better if you have a heated in-ground pool and your own private beach and dock! This beautiful one story home, designed and built by the current owners, offers a well-designed interior that takes perfect advantage of all the wide water views from the ceiling to floor window walls overlooking the lake from almost every room in the house. 3 BR / 3 BA 680 Lake Forest Drive SE

PINEHURST

door access to lovely Carolina Room. The master suite offers two large walk in closets. Make this home your own and enjoy lake front living. 3 BR / 2 BA 159 James Drive

$389,000

PINEHURST

$429,000

gourmet kitchen and informal dining area .A beautiful enclosed patio area complete with built-in barbeque – perfect for outdoor cookouts. Mature shrubs and plantings adorn the yard. A great house! 3 BR / 2.5 BA 8 Troon Drive

SEVEN LAKES WEST

$349,000

$269,900 $187,900 Pinehurst $185,000 Southern Pines $225,000 Pinebluff Pinehurst $375,000 Foxfire Great home in family- friendly neighborhood Stunning new construction condo Golf front new construction in The Pines Immaculate all-brick w/golf views Elegant & luxurious w/spacious rooms 5 BR / 3 BA 3 BR / 2.5 BA 3 BR / 2 BA 2 BR / 2 BA 4 BR / 3 BA www.23BerylCircle.com www.100CypressCircle.com www.153LaurelOakLane.com www.18ShamrockDrive.com www.10StantonCircle.com

This beautiful and spacious home is located in a great neighborhood in Pinehurst Unit 8. A Pinehurst classic! This elegant, spacious one story brick home has a wonderful flow This elegant, custom built brick home offers beautiful lake views, outstanding curb appeal Great floor plan features over 3800 square feet of living area in addition to a wonderful unfinfor family and guests. Cathedral ceilings and brick gas fireplace grace the family room. and beautifully landscaped corner lot in a great neighborhood. ished space on theLakes lower level. Lots of hardwood floors and lots of windows give this home an suite has crown moldings, and plantation shutters. Open$298,000 floor plan, split bedroom arrangement, gourmet kitchen $279,500 Seven Lakes South Seven Lakes West Pinehurst $895,000 Pinehurst $241,000Master Seven South $199,000 open sunny feel This home features a renovated master bath and granite countertops. A hobby/study room with built in bookcases is a plus! Enjoy the private, plus a great master suite. There is a side patio off the dining room to watch renovated golf front home Wonderful 2-story home on cul-de-sac Gorgeous home inbrick thepatio. Old Town Charming golf front w/panoramic A must see home!! view Great family home w/private back yard fenced backyard from the the sunset acrossCompletely the lake. Spacious bonus room! 4 BA BR / 3.5 BA 34BR 3 BR / 2.5 BA 3 BR / 3.5 BA 4 BR / 3BA BR/ 3/BA 3.5 BA 4 BR / 3 BA 3 BR / 2.5 245 Canter Lane 80 Dalrymple Road 112 Lawrence Overlook

www.122DevonshireAvenue.com

www.11GraysonLane.com

www.50OrangeRoad.com

www.108Rector.com

www.117OxfordCourt.com

View Floor Plans andTours Virtual of Our Listings andListings See ALL Moore Information County at View Floor Plans and Virtual of OurTours Listings and See ALL Moore County and Community Listings and Community Information at

www.MarthaGentry.com www.MarthaGentry.coM

Re/Max Prime Properties, 5 Chinquapin Rd., Pinehurst, NC 910-295-7100 • 800-214-9007

Military?!Check out our Military Advantage Program at www.MarthaGentry.com

Re/Max Prime Properties, 5 Chinquapin Rd., Pinehurst, NC 910-295-7100 • 800-214-9007

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

EXCLUSIVE. TIMELESS. CHIC. A L IfESTyLE S TorE S pECIALIzIng In W EST C oAST D ESIgnErS T HAT E MboDy THE S opHISTICATED C oASTAL V IbE VILLAgE of pInEHUrST 910.295.3905 o p E n S U n DAy 12:00-4:00 p M

rALEIgH gLEnWooD VILLAgE 919.782.0012 WrIgHTSVILLE bEACH 910.509.0273

W W W . C o o L S W E AT S . n E T

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 Serena Brown, Senior Editor 910.693.2464 • serena@pinestrawmag.com Kira Schoenfelder, Graphic Designer 910.693.2508 • kira@pinestrawmag.com Lauren Shumaker, Graphic Designer 910.693.2469 • lauren@pinestrawmag.com contributing Editors Deborah Salomon, Staff Writer Mary Novitsky, Proofreader Sara King, Proofreader contributing Photographers John Gessner, Tim Sayer Contributors Cos Barnes, Serena Brown, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Wiley Cash, Geoff Cutler, Al Daniels, Annette Daniels, Mart Dickerson, Clyde Edgerton, Rosetta Fawley, Bill Fields, London Gessner, Robyn James, Brian Lampkin, Jan Leitschuh, Meridith Martens, Audrey Moriarty, Michele Movius, Lee Pace, Sandra Redding, Dusty Rhoades, Stephen E. Smith, Astrid Stellanova, Janet Wheaton

PS David Woronoff, Publisher Advertising Sales

Pat Taylor, Advertising Director Ginny Trigg, PineStraw Sales Coordinator 910.693.2481 • ginny@thepilot.com Deborah Fernsell, 910.693.2516 Terry Hartsell, 910.693.2513 Kerry Hooper, 910.693.2489 Perry Loflin, 910.693.2514 Darlene McNeil-Smith, 910.693.2519 Johnsie Tipton, 910.693.2515 Advertising Graphic Design

Kathryn Galloway 910.693.2509 • kathryn@thepilot.com Mechelle Butler, Maegan Lea, Scott Yancey Subscriptions & Circulation

Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488

PineStraw Magazine 145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue Southern Pines, NC 28387 pinestraw@thepilot.com www.pinestrawmag.com

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

simple life

Another Life By Jim Dodson

Sometimes before dawn on

Illustration by Kira schoenfelder

summer mornings, I let in the cats from their nighttime rambles and put on the coffee, then spend a few quiet stolen moments with my beloved Ruby Jane.

To put it politely, she has a smoking-hot body that’s spectacularly curved in all the right places. If you touch her the right way, she really sings. Ruby Jane is the secondhand hollow-body electric guitar I bought myself fifteen years ago — my own version of B.B. King’s famed Lucille. (May the King rest in peace.) I bought her in memory of — well, the dream I never chased. The evening before I found her in a secondhand shop, you see, I’d spent a couple of hours listening to and chatting with a musical hero of mine, legendary Alabama singer-songwriter Mac McAnally, whom I helped bring to the Maine Music Festival. I first heard Mac perform at a bar in Athens, Georgia, back in the late 1970s and became an instant fan. I was the senior writer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Magazine and Mac was a rising star in country music who struck me as a Southern Harry Chapin, with a voice like James Taylor and a guitar-playing style that rivaled Chet Atkins. His second solo album had just been released, No Problem Here, still one of the finest albums ever. After his appearance in the main performance tent in Maine twenty years later, we shared a cold beverage and talked about where our careers had gone since that night we met in an Athens bar. When he learned I played guitar, we even jammed a bit with a couple of local musicians before he packed up to be driven back to the airport. On the way to the airport, he complimented my playing and asked me if I’d ever thought about making music a career. I thanked him for saying this but felt sure he was just being kind to his appointed limo driver — in my case a well-traveled, mud-freckled Chevy Blazer in which he seemed right at home. I explained that I once played the guitar extensively and, as a matter of fact, came dangerously close to heading for Nashville the year I graduated from college in 1975. “But that’s another life,” I said with a laugh. “The one I never chased.” I admitted I rarely had time to play anymore — not with two small kids and a busy journalism career that literally took me a lot of places around the world. As two old boys far from their native South might do, I asked him about his own musical journey. Mac grew up in Alabama, studied classical piano and played for his Baptist church before going on to a stellar career performing on his own

and eventually writing Billboard toppers for the likes of Jimmy Buffett, Alabama, Kenny Chesney and Sawyer Brown. A dozen solo albums, seven CMA Musician of the Year awards and one Grammy nomination later, he remains one the most respected songwriters and studio musicians of modern times. “Funny how life works out down the road,” he agreed. Interestingly, this very phrase turned up in Mac’s most successful song, “Down the Road,” a bittersweet anthem about a father and his daughter who was nominated for a Grammy in 2010. We turned out to have much more in common than I realized. I told him about growing up in North Carolina, singing in the church choir and teaching myself to play a secondhand Stella Concertmaster beginning around age 10. The guitar was a gift from a man I knew only as “Blind Jack,” who worked for my dad down in Mississippi at the weekly newspaper he owned for a time when I was very young. I taught myself to play this road-worn Stella, first copying the folk songs of Peter, Paul and Mary before falling hard for the music of George Harrison and jazz greats like Chet Atkins and Wes Montgomery. In the fifth grade I formed a band with two buddies. Our biggest gig was playing “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Louie Louie” for Fall Festival at Archibald D. Elementary School, prompting Della Hockaday to accept a mood ring afterward, proving musicians always get the girls. Not long after this I took Della to the Greensboro Coliseum to see Paul Revere and the Raiders, Bobby Sherman and the Monkees, whose show was opened by one Jimi Hendrix. Greensboro in those days was a major stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit and East Coast live performance music circuit. Everybody who was anybody came through the Gate City. Around age 13, I even saw a UNCG student named Emmylou Harris perform somewhere down on Tate Street, and was a regular at Aycock Auditorium, where I saw road shows by B.B. King, Isaac Hayes, Ike and Tina Turner, and Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose. By high school I was writing songs and teaching guitar at a Greensboro music store and performing with a traditional quartet out of the Grimsley choir called the “Queensmen,” performing for everything from Rotary luncheons to weddings. In college, I found gigs playing some of my own music at a coffee house and popular restaurant on weekends. My longtime girlfriend Kristin, who was a year older and in college in the mountains, was a remarkable singer and actress who encouraged me to keep writing songs and performing. But I was also the son of an itinerate newspaperman who had printer’s ink in his blood. I worked as an editor on my college newspaper and realized I loved writing newspaper columns. At that time, Woodward and Bernstein were almost bigger rock stars than Jimi Hendrix.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2015

simple life

In June of 1975 — forty years ago this month — I came home to Greensboro to take my second internship at the Greensboro Daily News and write a bunch of new songs, figuring if I didn’t follow my father into journalism I could always take a run at Nashville. The problem was, the girl who encouraged me to chase music was murdered the previous autumn in a bungled robbery attempt of a Hickory golf club restaurant, and I couldn’t shake the anger I felt at the world for doing such an unspeakable thing. I wrote a few songs and put them in a folder and soon took a job in Atlanta writing about murder and mayhem and corrupt politicians — eager to learn more about the darkness of the human soul. During those years in the home of Bobby Jones, I quit playing golf and playing the guitar — the two things I’d loved dearly besides Kristin since childhood. One night I burned that folder of songs in the fireplace. Looking back, the thing that saved my life was a conversation with my dad that took place on the Donald Ross porch in Pinehurst in the spring of 1983 that prompted me to politely turn down a chance to work at The Washington Post and accept instead a job writing about subjects I loved for a legendary magazine called Yankee. That eventually led me back to the world of golf. From time to time, I picked up my old Alvarez guitar (the same model Graham Nash played) and played a few old tunes just for fun. It was soothing, like being with an old friend. That Christmas my new wife gave me a beautiful classical guitar. When our children were still small, I began playing for them. Soon they were performing in school shows and even singing on a local country music station with their old man accompanying on his guitar, singing background vocals. That’s why I was so happy with my life in Maine when my music hero Mac McAnally came calling to perform at the Maine Festival. I’d found a simpler life that was meaningful and safe and almost as far as I could get from those dark years in Atlanta. Naturally, I didn’t tell Mac any of this.

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We were just two middle-aged Southern boys far from home, chatting on the way to the airport. The last thing he said to me as I dropped him off, though, was kind of a kick. “Better keep playing that guitar. It’s like riding a bike. You never forget how. Who knows, you may wind up down in Nashville yet.” That afternoon, while waiting for my son Jack to finish his guitar lesson back in our little coastal town, I picked up a ruby-red, secondhand, hollow-body electric guitar and realized I’d always wanted a guitar just like that. My children grew up to be splendid singers and musicians, as did my second wife, Wendy’s, two sons — regular performers at our family’s annual Winter Solstice party when guests must all perform for their supper. Last Christmas, Maggie, the eldest and only girl, sharply pointed out that our family had never performed together — so we gave it a shot, working up a version of a Mumford and Sons tune. We even happily argued over what to name our new family band, settling on Maggie’s wry suggestion of the Just Shut Up and Sing Band. The crowd seemed to like the performance. Folks wondered why we hadn’t performed together years ago. My favorite Mac McAnally album is called “Simple Life.” It’s amazing how often I still play it — and play along with it on Ruby Jane. A line from the title song goes: A simple life is the life for me / a man and his wife and his family / and the Lord up above knows I’m tryin / to lead a simple life in a difficult time. I don’t miss a life I never had. I also never thanked Mac McAnally for inspiring me to pick up the guitar again. Playing in the early morning light gives me much needed peace and pleasure. The cats at least seem to enjoy it. That song, by the way, inspired the name of this column. PS Contact editor Jim Dodson at jim@pinestrawmag.com.

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June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

PinePitch To The Bookshop, Quick New York Times best-selling author Matthew Quick will be at The Country Bookshop on June 23 at 5:30 p.m. to talk about his new novel, Love May Fail, an ode to love, fate, friendship — and the indelible impact that teachers can unknowingly make on our lives.

A former high school teacher and coach, Quick drew on his own experiences in the classroom in writing Love May Fail. “Every new teacher believes he or she can change the world, one student at a time,” he says. “But it’s slow farming — you plant seeds that don’t bloom for years, and you seldom get to see any flower in all of its glory.” Quick, who lives on the Outer Banks, is the author of The Silver Linings Playbook, which was made into an Oscar-winning film. Join him to hear about his latest masterpiece. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad Street, Southern Pines. For more information, call (910) 692-3211 or visit www.thecountrybookshop.biz.

A Night at the Plaza

Eve Plumb (The Brady Bunch’s Jan) and Broadway star Rex Smith perform in Judson Theatre Company’s production of Plaza Suite June 18 – 21. The story is a comic collage of three couples in the swinging ’60s occupying a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Time declared the original Broadway production “an avalanche of hilarity.” You’ll be swept away on a huge rush of laughter. Owens Auditorium, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Performance times vary. For tickets — including discounted season subscriptions — and more information, visit judsontheatre.com or call (800) 514-ETIX (3849). Groups of 10+ email JudsonTheatre@gmail.com for group pricing information.

Starred and Feathered Sister Sparrow and The Dirty Birds have shared the stage with Dr. John, Trombone Shorty, The Avett Brothers and Counting Crows. On June 5 they’ll be on stage here at the Sunrise Green Space for First Friday. If it rains you’ll find them in the Sunrise Theater. There will be drinks and food too while the town parties from 5 to 8:30 p.m.

Sunrise Green Space (the grassy knoll next to the Sunrise Theater), downtown Southern Pines. Family-friendly and open to all. For more information, visit www.firstfridaysouthernpines.com.

Waste Not Want Not

Matt Hollyfield of King & Hollyfield will be at the Sandhills Horticultural Society this month. Join his program and learn how to turn found items into garden art treasurers — plant bed edgings using wine bottles, bicycle trellis, brass bed flower bed, broken pot creations. All you need to bring is your imagination on June 24 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Ball Visitors Center, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. The cost is $25 for Horticultural Society members and $30 for non-members. Space is limited to 40; payment is due at registration. For information and to reserve your space, call (910) 695-3882.

Park and Watch

Take a rug or picnic chair to the Downtown Park in Southern Pines on June 12 for this month’s Movie in the Pines. Snuggle up or stretch out for a cinematic journey to San Fransokyo, the setting for the story of multi-award-winning Big Hero 6, a Disney film inspired by Marvel Comics characters. The screening starts at 8:30 p.m. but arrive early for a good spot and to join in the games before the movie. Concessions will be available to buy on-site. There’s a rain date of June 19 in case the weather’s feeling heroic. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. For more information, call Emma Griffin at the Recreation and Parks Department: (910) 692-7376.

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Homefront and Downrange Country Folk From June 5 to July 10, the Arts Council of Moore County and Belle Meade present a special military art exhibit. It will feature narrative textiles by Kristin La Flamme, a soldier’s story in photographs by Hunter Rudd, stories of America’s military children through art from the Military Child Education Coalition’s Art from the Heart, and the story of returning home from combat through art from the Combat Paper Collection. The opening reception is from 6 to 8 p.m. on June 5. Military Appreciation Day on June 20, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Campbell House, with a concert by the Army Ground Forces Band, military canine demonstrations and children’s art activities. Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines. For more information, call (910) 692-2787 or visit www.MooreArt.org.

Back to Nature

June is a month of discovery at Weymouth Woods Nature Preserve. There are walks and activities for all the family. This month’s program includes: June 7: 3 p.m. Discovery Hike to the oldest known Longleaf pine in the USA. Meet at the Visitor Center and carpool to the Boyd Tract. Hike is approximately 1 mile. Bring bottled water, bug spray and wear comfortable shoes. June 12: 10-10:45 a.m. Creepy Crawlies. For 3 – 5-year-olds and their parents/caregivers. Come learn about insects and bugs through reading a book, playing games and crafting. June 13: 8:30 p.m. A Foray for Frogs! Hike down to the creek with the park ranger to learn more about our froggy friends. Flashlights, closetoed shoes and bug spray are recommended. June 20: 8 a.m. Father’s Day Weekend Bird Walk. Take a birdwatching journey through the woods with ornithologist Susan Campbell. June 28: 3 p.m. Fire in the Pines. Join the park ranger for a presentation on the importance of fire to the pine forests. Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. For details call (910) 692-2167 or visit www.ncparks.gov/ Visit/parks/wewo/main.php.

Rolling Stone named Cale Tyson as one of “10 New Country Artists You Need To Know.” Find out why when he plays The Rooster’s Wife on June 14. His is a “gentle, melancholy and undeniably whiskey-soaked sound.” Also performing that night will be Amy Speace, whose song “The Weight of the World,” was recorded by Judy Collins and named No. 4 Folk Song of the Decade by John Platt of WFUV in New York City. Her songs “hang together like a short story collection,” says rock critic Dave Marsh. Go listen to some stories. The Rooster’s Wife, Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen. 6:46 p.m. Tickets $12. For more information call, (910) 944-7502 or visit theroosterswife.org.

Al Fresco Vibe

Jazz up your Monday evening on June 8 with an outdoor concert on the lawn at Sandhills Community College. An evening of live jazz is exciting enough, but if you arrive early you can allow your senses to be deliciously overwhelmed by indulging in a plate of Jordan’s barbecue. The music will begin at 6:30 p.m., plates from 5:30 p.m. If it rains, head for the Owens Auditorium. The lawn, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst.

For Love of the Game

June sees the 115th Men’s North and South Amateur Championship played on Pinehurst No. 2. The Championship is the longest consecutive-running amateur golf championship in the United States. From June 29 to July 3; golf’s finest amateur players will compete for the prestigious Putter Boy trophy. Walter Travis, Francis Ouimet, Billy Joe Patton, Jack Nicklaus and Curtis Strange are among past winners. For more information, call the Pinehurst Tournament Office at (910) 235-8140.

Art for Everyone

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls,” said Picasso. “Absolutely Art” is an exciting opportunity to do just that. It’s a judged exhibit of fine art at the Artists League of the Sandhills Exchange Street Gallery, opening Sunday, June 7, with a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The awards presentation will be at 5:30 p.m. Professional artist and Artists League instructor Judy Crane will make the selection and present the awards. Meet Judy Crane and join members and guests of the Artists League of the Sandhills at their Exchange Street Gallery, 129 Exchange Street, Aberdeen. The exhibit will hang until June 26. Gallery hours: 12 to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For more information, call (910) 944-3979 or visit www.artistleague.org. PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2015

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Cos and Effect

The Moth Piano Hours

A musical trip down memory lane By Cos Barnes

I know you’ve all heard of bats in the belfry, but have you heard of moths in the piano?

I learn interesting things from my friends. Recently I asked Colleen Buchholz how her mother is getting along. A retired piano teacher and resident of Washington, North Carolina, she frequently visited her family here and I became acquainted with her at church. I knew how devoted Colleen is to her mom, so I was not surprised when she told me this tale. She has been working on a player piano her father owned. He was a piano technician, as is her brother, who lives in Vanceboro, which I had never heard of, but I was going to hear lots of things I had never heard before. According to Colleen, the daughter of one of her mother’s friends brought her a box of piano music her children had discarded years ago. Unfortunately, the box of music was full of moths. They immediately attacked the sheets of music. Then they moved on to the player piano positioned nearby and damaged all the wool felt, which Colleen has painstakingly replaced. “It took me three days to get all the felt off with a brush and hot water,” Colleen said, “and I am working on putting all new hammers in.” Colleen has wonderful pictures from that time. She has many of her dad’s tapes, too. She put tape on the brittle ones, retyped the titles. She used tweezers to get the felt out of the piano and has a graveyard of felt as a result. Hers is definitely a musical family, Colleen told me. “One night we heard music coming from the garage. We all ran out and my daddy was pedaling and grinning. Daddy had ten or fifteen pianos sitting around that he was working on. Now we had a player piano. Our dining room was the music room. It was the center of entertainment. This was the early 1960s. Daddy played piano, organ and trumpet. He had a band and did musical arrangements. He and my mom met at Sherwood Music Conservancy in Chicago, both working on piano and organ.” On the rolls of music for the piano are hymns, military marches, old favorites like “Easter Parade,” “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” and “The Sound of Music.” How grateful we are for our musical memories and the technicians who restore them for us. PS Cos Barnes is a longtime contributor to PineStraw magazine. She can be contacted at cosbarnes@nc.rr.com.

June Author Events at The Country Bookshop WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3 AT 5-6 PM ART TALK WITH DENISE BAKER

Denise Baker is a local legend who recently retired as head of the Art Department from Sandhills Community College. She has been known to “open minds” with her provocative, well researched and deeply engaging talks on art. Denise Baker is a passionate advocate of all forms of art we are privileged to hear her speak every month.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10 AT 5 PM MARDY GROTHE OXYMORONICA: PARADOXICAL WIT AND WISDOM FROM HISTORY’S GREATEST WORDSMITHS

Local favorite Dr. Mardy Grothe returns to The County Bookshop for another engaging talk about words and wit! His newest book is now out in paperback and please join us for what is sure to be a wonderful time!

FRIDAY JUNE 12 AT 5 PM MARK REINFELD 30 MINUTE VEGAN

Mark is the winner of Vegan.com’s Recipe of the Year Award and has more than 20 years of experience preparing creative vegan and raw food cuisine. He specializes in vegan and raw food recipe development and offers vegan cuisine workshops, trainings and retreats internationally.

THURSDAY, JUNE 18 AT 5 PM ELLEN CORCORAN HART BELOVED INNOCENCE

The story Hart writes tells how she and her husband survived their difficult childhoods, met, married and stayed together for 52 years. She includes in her book old photos, letters from the 1930s and documents from the New York Founding Hospital. This is the real Orphan Train written by the daughter of its inhabitants.

TUESDAY, JUNE 23 AT 5:30 PM MATTHEW QUICK LOVE MAY FAIL

Matthew Quick will be at TCB to talk about his new novel, LOVE MAY FAIL. Matthew Quick, (also known as Q) is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including The Silver Linings Playbook, which was made into an Oscar-winning film, and The Good Luck of Right Now. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention. Quick was recently named number 13 on the Hollywood Reporter’s list of Hollywood’s 25 Most Powerful Authors. He lives with his wife, novelist-pianist Alicia Bessette, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

SUNDAY, JUNE 28 AT 2PM MYSTERY TOUR SUSAN BOYER, GRETCHEN ARCHER, DAVID BURNSWORTH

Susan M. Boyer is a USA bestselling author who won the Agatha Award for best first mystery a few year ago. Gretchen Archer’s Davis Way series garnered a great quote from Janet Evanovitch, and David Burnsworth’s Southern Heat was recently nominated for an Anthony Award for best first. All three book are set their books in the South- Susan’s and David’s in Charleston; Gretchen’s in Biloxi.

The Country Bookshop 140 NW Broad St, Southern Pines, NC • 910.692.3211 • thecountrybookshop.biz

The Omnivorous Reader

Just Enough Different Voices from North Carolina’s literary landscape

By Brian Lampkin

I am weary of any argument made for the

idea of an exceptional place. On the geopolitical scale, we see the folly of so-called “American exceptionalism,” which basically argues that our place is better than yours because we say so — and because we ignore anything dreadful about American history that would contradict our rosy view of ourselves. Don’t even get me started on the idea of exceptional children.

I’m not inclined to favor the premise of Marianne Gingher’s Amazing Place: What North Carolina Means to Writers (UNC Press, 2015. $20). I tend to think that the North Carolina mountains, while lovely, aren’t all that much different from the Tennessee or Kentucky mountains. My favorite place in North Carolina — the Great Dismal Swamp — cares not at all about an imaginary border separating the good people of the Old North State from the slightly less good people of the Old Dominion. Poet Gary Snyder has always argued against thinking of state boundaries as meaningful; we are less united by statehood than we are by the ecological factors of our existence, i.e. desert dwelling Arizonians have much more in common with Barstow Californians than Barstowians have with San Franciscans. So just as I’m ready for a good argument with this book, the book refuses to argue back. First off, editor Marianne Gingher recognizes that writers are primarily influenced by physical surroundings, and not so much by dotted lines on a map. She separates the various essays into three sections: “The Mountains,” “The Piedmont” and “Down East and the Coast,” and nearly all the writers collected focus on specifics of the natural environment surrounding them — or on the specific people in those environments who helped them become writers. Michael Parker begins his essay, “A Man Came Up from Wilmington, Carrying a Bag of Snakes,” with this observation: “When people in other parts of the country ask me why so many writers come from North Carolina I am always tempted to tell them that, proportionally, there are just as many people with messed up psyches in North Carolina as there are in New Hampshire, County Cork or Calcutta.” And many other essays similarly make no claim for North Carolina’s outsized sense of literary self. But every place is specifically unique; every place has its own language and flora and fauna and writers must be attentive to what makes their place in the

world amazing unlike all the other amazing places. It’s not a matter of North Carolina being an unusually fertile environment for writers. It is a matter of North Carolina writers making exceptional use of what is uniquely wonderful about this particular place. In Parker’s essay, he focuses on the storytelling sound of North Carolina. His ear is tuned to the rhythms and scale of how Eastern North Carolinians tell stories, and, remarkably, he uses the facts of physical landscape as an explanation of the digressive nature of those stories and of his writing: “If you can’t get there from here — if the bridge is twenty miles north, if no one bothered to drain the swamp so they could put a road through it — it’s no wonder that your prose is occasionally described as orbicular, if not convoluted. My prose is often riddled with asides . . . because my sentences attempt to mimic their attempts to get to work on time in a terrain given to detour, if not dead end.” Fred Chappell’s essay, “100,” also zeroes in on the specifics of language, offering a few examples of how our disparate landscapes have their special ways with words (let me shout out for Walt Wolfram and Jeffrey Reaser’s book Talkin’ Tar Heel for an in-depth study of the various N.C. idioms), but most interestingly, Chappell tells of his need to keep his own voice alive. Chappell was once confronted by a colleague about, “Why do you say those hick things? You say ‘ain’t’ and the department head ‘don’t know what he is doing’ and ‘brung up ignorant’ and all that. It just sounds dumb. You would probably say, ‘mighty dumb.’” Chappell answers the somewhat belligerent question by saying that he speaks “in that manner to keep dialogue patterns secure in aural memory.” As a writer, Chappell is trying to keep the specific sounds of his North Carolina roots. He’s like the last of the Chickasaw speakers desperately trying to hear the language survive into the 21st Century. But Chappell is rarely so high-minded, or rather, he’s too self-deprecating to make such a claim; he chalks it up to his simple

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“orneriness” and “an odd feeling of pride.” So Parker and Chappell are making no claim for an “amazing place” other than their place in the world, no matter how denigrated, is amazing. And most of the other writers in the book say similar things, if not about physical landscape or language, then about particular people in North Carolina who made them the writers they are today. In “Fertile North Carolina,” Robert Morgan offers an explanation for the perceived notion of an odd plethora of literary Tar Heels: Thomas Wolfe. “Once Wolfe,” Morgan writes, “became such a celebrated writer and international celebrity . . . it was inevitable that the talented youth of North Carolina would think of following his career path.” Undoubtedly true, but surely also true for Faulkner’s Mississippi, or Cather’s Nebraska, or, for that matter, Atwood’s Canada or Márquez’s Colombia. We do need people to show us the way, to make clear that there is art in one’s hometown no matter where one comes from. (At a recent talk by Rocky Mount’s Allan Gurganus, several young people in the audience from Rocky Mount said that they didn’t know they could find a life in art until they discovered that the famous Gurganus was also from their humble town.) Teachers provide a different example, and many of these essays, including Morgan’s, talk about the value of certain teachers or academic institutions. Haters of Chapel Hill should avoid “The Piedmont” section of Amazing Place because both the town and UNC in particular are given serious respect. Lee Smith, Lydia Millet, Jenny Offill, Stephanie Elizondo Griest and others talk of their years in Chapel Hill with joy and, at times, complicated gratitude. Get over your petty grievances and enjoy the essays — but if grievance is more suited to your personality, then I recommend Rosecrans Baldwin’s “Diary, 2008–2013,” which begins, “1. Right around the time everything went to shit.” Amazing Place could certainly use more African American and other voices of color, but I say that with full knowledge that no anthology ever created has not been subject to overheated complaint about what is missing. Editor Gingher has put together a collection of writers any state would be proud of, and Gingher herself, in an excellent essay on Greensboro, “The Capitol of Normal,” knows that we’re no different than anywhere else — except in all the ways that we are: “Greensboro, North Carolina: a place of harmony, unrest, heartbreak, longing, boredom, hypocrisy, kindness, injustice, saints, blowhards, noisemakers, creators and destroyers, givers, takers, peacemakers, agitators, philanthropists, do-gooders, the homegrown and the homeless, visionaries, fools, and dreamers — same as any place, and just enough different, too.” PS Brian Lampkin is an owner of Greensboro’s Scuppernong Books.

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

B oo k s h e l f

Pure Escape

The pleasures of a great summer read

By Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally

In June it seems like everyone just escapes.

Some escape through books, some have hard-won vacation plans, and some have constant access to a leisurely getaway in the form of a second home or vacation house. The latter are the friends one might want to have.

Maintaining a constant invitation with these friends is its own kind of work. It requires good guest behavior — chiefly cleaning up after yourself and everyone else — especially in the kitchen; also leaving your canine companion at home; supplying extra libations; and the most thoughtful gift — ideally an entertaining book that carries everyone through the weekend and beyond. In imagining these people on their vacation, I like to envision a man in a hammock with a stack of books on a small stool next to him. In his hands is The Hunter Killers: The Extraordinary Story of the First Wild Weasels, The Band of Maverick Aviators who Flew the Most Dangerous Missions of the Vietnam War, by Dan Hampton. On top of the stool next to him are three new reads he just picked up for the trip: The Fateful Lightning: A Novel of the Civil War, by Jeff Shaara, Truth or Die, by James Patterson, Finders Keepers, by Stephen King and The President’s Shadow, by Brad Meltzer — with a sweating iced tea melting into a cocktail napkin with a timelessly crude saying from the 1980s sitting on top. Across the porch overlooking the ocean, his wife is laughing out loud because she is reading The Primates of Park Avenue, by Wednesday Martin. This is a book that is so smart, so clever, so dead on, so funny because it is so true. The author marries into the upper echelons of Manhattan society and is befuddled by the tribe until she realizes that the behavior she witnesses is not totally unrecognizable. She has seen it before in her anthropological studies. The rituals of the ever-exclusive Playground Partners Luncheon are actually very understandable when compared with the grooming rituals of the female papio cynocephalus (savannah baboon). Martin’s memoir smartly ruminates on these social comparisons and allows women everywhere to feel connected, ridiculous and somehow justified all at the same time.

I imagine that the husband, slightly jealous of his wife’s laughter, walks into the house to pick up Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy, by Judd Apatow. It is a book he bought for his adult son, a big fan of Apatow’s movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and This is 40. The book is a collection of Apatow’s interviews with comedians including Jerry Seinfeld, Mel Brooks, Jon Stewart, Louis CK, Spike Jonze, Lena Dunham and Chris Rock. They also picked up Love May Fail, by Matthew Quick, excited to know that the author of The Silver Linings Playbook has written another inventive and intelligent novel appealing to both genders — they thought that their daughter-in-law might like it. It is about a woman who leaves her pornographer husband and life of luxury for South Jersey to search for the goodness and inspiration she knew through her beloved high school English teacher. Assisted by a sassy nun, ex-heroin addict, metalhead boy and her hoarder mother, Love May Fail somehow gets to the core of life: the highs and lows and the hope that sustains us. This couple of my imagination that vacations with friends in June is totally content because not only have they brought great literary fiction: Etta and Otto and Russell and James, by Emma Hooper, and The Girls From Corona Del Mar, by Rufi Thorpe (both now in paperback), but because they have also brought great thank you gifts for their hosts. Shuffle and Deal: 50 Classic Card Games for Any Number of Players, by Tara Gallagher, is beautiful and educational. It includes directions for games like Rummy, Spit, Cribbage, Crazy Eights, Canasta, Cucumber, Egyptian Rat screw, Cheat, Betrayal, Scat, 9-hole golf, Hearts, Ghost. Accompanying the gift with a new deck of cards, it was certain that the next two generations below them would enjoy it as well. Also a gift for their hostess, a great fan of Audrey Hepburn, is the cookbook by Hepburn’s son Luca Dotti: Audrey at Home: Memories of My Mother’s Kitchen. It is full of casual photos from home and quotes about dishes and Hepburn’s intense love of pasta. It is an intimate insight into the world of an icon. Many of the pictures are being published for the first time. The imaginary couple is perfectly equipped for their vacation. But if you vacation in the real world, whether it be your backyard, or at a friend’s, or in a land far, far away — there are plenty of June books to inform, delight and entertain you. The hammock is optional.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS Llama Llama Sand and Sun, by Anna Dewdney. Beloved character Llama Llama heads to the beach for a day of fun in this interactive touch-and-feel board book that is just perfect for the youngest beach bums. Ages 1-3

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Circus Mirandus, by Cassie Beasley. His entire life, Micah has listened to Grandpa Ephraim’s stories of the Circus Mirandus, a magical Circus he visited as a child. With very unusual entrance tickets, an Amazonian Bird Woman and a performer deemed “The Man Who Bends Light” Circus Mirandus became a thing of wonder for Micah. When Grandpa becomes ill, he reveals to Micah that one of the performers promised him a miracle and he now wishes to cash it in, but will need Micah’s help. At once a story of magic, belief in the impossible, friendship, adventure and selflessness, Circus Mirandus will be THE book this summer and beyond. Ages 8-13 Book Scavenger, byJennifer Chambliss Bertman. Garrison Griswold is Emily’s idol. The developer of “Book Scavenger,” a wildly popular online game for book lovers, Griswold is a rock star in the book world. But when Emily’s family moves to Griswold’s hometown on the very day he has an unfortunate accident, Emily finds herself in possession of a very valuable book that might be the first clue in a new game, or may very well be the first clue in discovering who is behind Griswold’s accident. With elements of travel, adventure, mystery, famous authors, codes, online games, books and two book-loving 12-yearold friends, Book Scavenger has just the right ingredients for the perfect middle grade novel. Readers who fell in love with Mr. Lemoncello’s Library or Chasing Vermeer will absolutely not be able to put down this fast-paced fun new novel. Ages 8-13. Denton Little’s Deathdate, by Lance Rubin. If you could, would you want to know the exact date you were going to die? This quirky, fun, surprising novel proposes that everyone knows just that. Irreverent and thought- provoking, Denton Little’s Deathdate is a perfect quick summer read that might just be a great conversation starter too. Ages 14 and up. PS

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Dish Soap, Anyone? Plott hounding my way through American English

By Serena Brown

Apparently not many people

Illustration by Paul Brown

know what a Catahoula Leopard Dog looks like. I learnt this the other night when I happened to see a puppy of that admittedly somewhat obscure breed. It was exciting; I’d only ever seen one in a picture on the Internet.

You might wonder how a British person would be able to spot the state dog of Louisiana. I came upon the knowledge in a roundabout sort of way. When my North Carolinian husband and I started dating, I thought I should take an interest in his home state. I had visited before we met as part of an epic round-the-nation road trip. However, aside from one night in a tent in what with hindsight I now think must have been Robeson County, I knew very little about the Old North State. I consulted the World Wide Web. It told me that North Carolina was about halfway along the East Coast on the right hand side — that much I had managed to glean from the road trip — and a lot of other things about rainfall and demographics which I ignored because there were mathematics and charts involved. On one Web page there was a box with state information. As it was written in words, not numbers, I had a better chance of being able to comprehend it. That is how I learnt that the North Carolina state dog is, as you all know, the Plott hound. I developed something of an obsession with the Plott hound. It was partly

because they were appealing and partly because they represented some intangible aspect of the rural South that runs through my husband’s veins. That country way was still alien to me, but the Plott hound helped me to begin to understand it from the safety of a terraced house in South London. Along the way I learnt about other hounds and other state dogs, among them the Catahoula Leopard Dog. So it made me very happy to see that adorable puppy gambolling round its owners’ legs, my cyber-research made real. If only it were all that easy. I may be fairly fluent when it comes to coonhounds, but day-to-day I still find myself rendering my thoughts into American English before I open my mouth. For example, if I’m looking for something in a shop, the conversation no longer begins like this: “I’m awfully sorry [all British exchanges begin with an apology, we consider it polite], but could you possibly tell me whether you stock washing-up liquid?” It runs more like this: “Hello, how are you?” [wait for a reply and answer in kind, this is the South, manners are important here too. Thank goodness for that British grounding] “Do y’all carry dish soap?” It took me a long time to work out “dish soap.” Is that a bar of soap? Soap that goes in a dish, right? I’ve inquired at initialisms and translated trade names. I have only the vaguest idea of what a dually is and I’m not sure whether to raise or knit my brows at so much open talk of shagging. And while we’re up close and personal, cheek to cheek, so to speak, what in the world is a “half bathroom”? Does it contain a scaled-down bathtub? That sounds useful. I’d install one of those; it would be just the thing for washing the Plott hound. PS Serena Brown is a new mom and a treasured staff member at PineStraw magazine.

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June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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Theory of Madness Just something to chew on — not out, please

By Clyde Edgerton

While March Madness 2015

Illustration by harry Blair

was airing on TV I kept noticing coaches get angry, occasionally chewing out a team, or just an unlucky player who’d made a mistake.

I noticed the Notre Dame coach didn’t do this. Therefore I started pulling for them after my team lost. (That tells many of you which was not my team.) The coaches who use anger as a strategy must believe it helps win games, or else they wouldn’t do it — or at least they’d be doing it less and less, as they gain control of their emotions. What do the players of anger-strategy coaches learn — in addition to “hard work, team play, and conditioning are good?” My guess is that some young players are learning that it’s not just OK but good strategy to get angry at their own players when they become coaches, or if they become leaders in other professions, it’s good strategy to yell at people they direct and teach. Or if they become parents . . . etc. Wouldn’t it be interesting (SNL interesting) to see a particularly smart and insightful college basketball player chew out the coach during a time-out? “Hey. Why the hell did you put us in a zone when the man-to-man was working?” Coach looks to the floor. “I don’t —” “Don’t you see how that left Turlington free to break for that lob? Get with it! Settle down. Think!” “Sorry, Player.” It’s wrong for a coach to scream into a player’s face — a player who is doing

all he or she can to be proficient, in a game, for crying out loud. So this leads to a modest proposal. I propose that coaches work hard during the week — teaching fundamentals and coaching — and then at game time, let a promising student player coach the team. Think about it: The coach sits in the stands; he’s done all he can during weekday practices; and now he has to be quiet and watch while one of the players (a different playerleader each game) makes decisions. Imagine what the player-leaders would learn about basketball, strategy, about psychology, leadership . . . life. The adult coach would work with team members on the court and in the classroom — and get a professor’s salary. Speaking of coach salaries, what happens when a basketball player wants to wear New Balance shoes on the court but his college team has a contract with Nike? The contract stipulates that the player, by wearing a commercial product produced outside the university, must help sell a commercial product produced outside the university. This way, the player learns to wear what he or she is told to wear — regardless of personal preference — because the college can get a lot of moola that way. That Nike contract is going to help allow, for one thing, the coach (wearing Clarks) to get a salary four to fourteen times bigger than college professors who are teaching, say, psychology, or history, or something less important than college athletics. Our universities are generally teaching our students, through adult leadership, the most important bottom line: Moola. March Madness. Coach Madness. Moola Madness. Let the Games continue. PS Clyde Edgerton is the author of ten novels, a memoir and a new work, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2015

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Vine Wisdom

Tasting the Stars Dom Pérignon, the most age worthy of wines

By Robyn James

It’s a tough job, but somebody

has to do it, right? A few week ago, in the spirit of expanding my education to further assist my customers, I ventured to Raleigh to attend a Dom Pérignon tasting.

I had tasted it in the past, but this was the first time I had attended an informative vertical tasting. I was intrigued to find out the background of the champagne that is to the wine world what Rolex is to watches, what Rolls-Royce is to cars: the immediate recognition of status, luxury and quality. Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Pérignon (ca. 16381715) is said to have “invented” the first champagne. Truthfully, the young monk who was cellarmaster at the Hautvillers Abbey tried to stop the bubbles because the bottles kept exploding in the cellar. The Champagne region had become quite a destination for royalty, and the abbeys were expected to provide the king and his entourage with wine. Dom Pérignon feared that they were falling out of favor with the king because the deeper reds of their neighboring region, Burgundy, were increasing in popularity. Champagne is in the northern part of France, where it is much cooler. As a result, the grapes had to be harvested early and the barrels became too cold in the winter. The wine had to be bottled before it reached full fermentation. When warm weather arrived in the spring, it reawakened the fermentation process, resulting in bubbles. What Dom Pérignon can truly take credit for is finally letting nature take its course. He purchased bottles with thicker glass and bought corks from Spain. No more exploding bottles. The first time he tasted his final product he called out to the other monks: “Come quickly, brothers! I’m tasting stars!” The king and his court were enchanted with the bubbles, and champagne became known as “the wine of kings and the king of wines.” Today, Richard Geoffroy holds Dom’s former position as chef de cave of Dom Pérignon. He explains the painstaking process that defines the wine, “I tend to use roughly a 50-percent Chardonnay and 50-percent pinot noir blend. There are three grapes we are allowed to use for Champagne, but blending across the two is what we do here. It is tougher to just rely on the two varieties but I feel the tension between these two grapes can ultimately be

more rewarding. The front and middle of tasting Dom Pérignon comes from the Chardonnay while the second part of the middle and finish belong to pinot noir.” The villages of Champagne are classified by a 1-100 percentile system called the Échelle des Crus (ladder of growth) to determine the prices they may expect for their grapes. Premier Cru villages are rated between 90-99 percent, while Grand Cru villages can command the highest price, 100 percent. Needless to say, the grapes used for Dom Pérignon are primarily from Grand Cru vineyards. Dom is a “vintage” champagne, meaning that unlike other wineries that may blend vintages together, Dom is always from one vintage. If, due to climate problems, a particular vintage is not up to Geoffroy’s standards, the wine will not be made that year. Historically it is made six times a decade. Because Dom Pérignon’s reputation is based on producing the most ageworthy wines, Geoffroy takes strong measures to protect the wines from oxygen. The bottles are stored at the winery for a minimum of seven years, as many as ten years before being released for sale around the world. Here are the three we were privileged to taste and toast, with winery tasting notes.

Dom Pérignon P2 1998, approx. $580 bottle

The Pléntitude series, aged for sixteen years before release. “An intense, full and radiant bouquet. Notes of honeysuckle, orange colored fruits with a smoky, biting and full energy balanced finish.”

Dom Pérignon, 2005, approx. $189 bottle

“The remarkably rich bouquet reveals itself in successive waves: first the intense fruit, more black than red. Notes of praline and coriander complement the whole. The wine has a strong character and a powerful presence — there is even something physical about it. Overall, it is structured, focused, firm and dense.”

Dom Pérignon Rosé, 2004, approx. $454 bottle

The nose sings out loud and clear, beginning with fresh, intense red fruit: red currants and wild strawberries, complemented by warm notes of ripe hay, blood orange and cocoa. The attack is smooth and embracing. The wine’s chiseled integrity, intense and penetrating, is prolonged with the unexpected hint of green citrus that marks the vintage.” PS Robyn James is proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at robynajames@gmail.com.

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June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Out of the Blue

In a Word At the end of the day, let me be clear. Or not

By Deborah Salomon

In this era of texts and tweets, instagrams

and emails, communication still relies on words, not smoke signals or pictograms. The temptation to arrange these words in groups or phrases persists. These phrases quickly become addictive, then repetitive, then clichés, then obnoxious. Without them, no newscast or speech would go forth.

Just imagine an interview, political or not, without . . . “Good question:” A delaying tactic, suggesting yes, it is, and I don’t have an answer. Does anyone ever reply “Bad question”? “I’m glad you asked.” No you’re not. Guaranteed, this refers to the dreaded inquiry for which the speaker has no intention of answering. Instead, he or she will rephrase the question so the answer supports his agenda. “Let me be clear.” These four words invariably precede a hundred muddled ones. “At the end of the day…” has replaced, ad nauseum, “When all is said and done” because nothing is ever all said and done. At least the former cuts off dithering at sunset. I can see this phrase represented by an international pictogram of the setting sun printed on cards, which politicians would hold up, like bidders at an auction. “It is what it is.” Well, obviously. I’m thinking the etymology might be Walter Cronkite’s sign-off: “That’s the way it is.” This phrase makes a good shut-up line, squelching criticism of a situation the speaker won’t change. “Let me take this opportunity to . . .” OK, take it already. “Challenge.” People no longer have problems. They “face challenges.” Nobody uses this word more than reality-show moguls Michelle and Jim-Bob Duggar, parents of 19, grandparents of almost five. The Duggars never experience a disaster. Everything from a preemie baby to termites is a “challenge.” “It’s complicated.” This catch-all non-answer provides more wiggle room than a seat in first class. Have some respect: A movie named thus starred Meryl Streep. “The new normal.” Now that’s complicated. Simple version: Justifying the abnormal. “Shortly.” I fly frequently enough to recognize euphemisms. Airline employees tell us the aircraft will depart shortly as we sit, sweltering, on the

tarmac, for hours. “We will be landing shortly,” intones the pilot as he circles the airport, eating up my connection time. Ditto the voice menus for credit card and cable companies, who after six prompts, say “a representative will be with you shortly.” Yeah, really. “Only . . .” Any item advertised on late-night TV or elsewhere for “Only $19.95 . . .” is worth half that, plus shipping and handling, for the next 10 minutes. “Move on.” I’m not ready. I need to pick the scab a little longer. “Back in the day:” Love this newbie. But please, establish guidelines. The time frame must be at least 20 years so nobody will remember if you exaggerate. “Change.” Since McKinley beat Bryan, since Willke battled Roosevelt, the most-repeated campaign chant has been “Change!” Wasn’t so bad back in the day, when campaigns lasted a few months, not 18, and promises were spread by newspapers, public appearances, maybe wireless. Now the cry echoes through social media, blogs, apps, raps, talk radio, live streaming, SNL, instant replay. Never mind that few understand how change is accomplished or that the high-minded call usually falls flat. Besides, “change” implies, not specifies. So change the drapes in the Oval Office, Hillary, and you’re (one and) done. “Baby-daddy:” Ridiculous, but useful in court, probably coined to describe Clint Eastwood, who baby-daddied six children by four mommies, not necessarily his wives. Sometimes, as with Brad Pitt, a baby-daddy of six (three biological, three adopted, at last count) the daddy marries the mommy. More recently, the ID is slapped on sports celebrities who act like the title sanctifies the status. Too bad this classification wasn’t available when “Godfather” Marlon Brando baby-daddied 11 acknowledged, six disputed children with a passel of women. Single words pop in and out of the lexicon, their purpose: test our coolness. Barely had I inserted algorithm (which I confuse with logarithm which I can’t define either) into my vocabulary when up pops meme. “Meme” has forever meant “same,” in French — as in moi-meme, myself. Now, it’s some cute thingy — a word, phrase, concept or photo — that morphs and floods the internet. I found an incomprehensible explanation in Smithsonian magazine, another one that dealt with meme’s marketing potential. Moi-meme, I’ll stick with complicated. PS Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

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June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Ho m e tow n

Gone Fishing Casting a line about town

By Bill Fields

Whenever I go past a certain home on

Vermont Avenue not far from Weymouth Center in Southern Pines, one thought comes to mind: Minnows used to swim in your den.

In my fishing childhood, the man who owned the house ran a bait shop out of his carport. It was a low-key operation, not even a sign. There were several gurgling brick tanks, each containing a different species of tiny fish. It was a dozen for a dollar, although the four-inch shiners — the kind we occasionally splurged on in a bid for something fit for the wall, not the pan — might have cost more. That my angling memories tend toward the bait my father and I bought rather than the fish we caught points to our mediocrity with rod and reel. There is evidence of minor successes: fleeting seconds of Super 8 movies showing a stringer full of plump bream and a Polaroid or two of bass large enough to eat, but Curt Gowdy wasn’t ever going to want us on The American Sportsman. I never studied fishing the way I tried to educate myself about basketball or golf. That isn’t to say I was immune to lingering in Tate’s Hardware debating about the artificial purple worm on which I would spend my allowance. For the most part, though, as long as we were properly equipped (Zebco 33s) and hydrated (Tru-Ade for me and a grown-up counterpart for my dad), it wasn’t about how many fish we brought to the bank. Our fishing holes were about as basic as they could be. We dropped lines in the “Swan Pond” not far from the Proctor-Silex plant where my dad worked for several years in the 1960s. The lake that used to front U.S. 1 by Mid Pines Resort was another spot. We fished below the dam at Aberdeen Lake and at a swampy creek in Jackson Springs the color of tea that had

steeped too long, where the little sharp-toothed “Jack,” or chain pickerel, seemed to be relics of prehistoric times. Once in a while, the venue would be upgraded. Each summer Dad would get the wave from a friend in Eagle Springs. I always tagged along, because for a boy in the age group between playing with toy soldiers and trying to get girls to recognize your existence, a lightly fished, well-stocked farm pond had no equal. And when the bait was catalpa worms harvested from the “cigar tree” in our backyard — stored, to the dismay of my mother, in our refrigerator — the haul of sizable bluegills was almost beyond belief. Later on, we tried our luck off the Badin Lake pier of my brother-in-law Bill. For the cost of some chicken livers, catfish could be found on the bottom. The right time of day, bass could be wooed in the shallows. One of the biggest smiles I remember on my dad’s face was after he caught a threepound largemouth. Dad was shirtless with a farmer’s tan, wearing Bermuda shorts and Hushpuppies — his casual summer look — and as he landed that fish, there wasn’t a happier man in North Carolina. Dad and I dreamed about fish too big for cornmeal, but they remained as elusive as a hole-in-one. We got our hopes up once, on a trip to visit my sister Dianne and her husband, Bob, who were living in Tallahassee, Florida, close to Lake Jackson, then a bass haven. The marina got us stoked because it was decorated in modern Field and Stream, lunker largemouth mounted everywhere. Perhaps, with a guide and in a boat, we would have had a chance of landing a taxidermy-worthy prize. But fishing from a dock down the street from Dianne and Bob’s house, our take from Lake Jackson would not have seemed out of place in that carport back home. I never had to take down a pennant to make room for something fishy. PS Southern Pines native Bill Fields never lived on Connecticut Avenue but has lived in the actual Connecticut for a long time.

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June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

B I R D WA T C H

Chimney Swifts Look up and watch them soar

By Susan Campbell

During the summer months, if you

happen to be walking around town and look up, you’ll likely see some small, twittering, fast-flying chimney swifts wheeling about. Sure, these “flying cigars” can be seen out in the country, but they’re more abundant where people, buildings, and, as their name implies, chimneys are found.

Chimney swifts breed throughout North Carolina, from the mountains to the coast. Historically, they were once sparsely distributed, nesting in big hollow trees in old growth forests in the eastern two-thirds of the United States. But as European settlers spread across our state, providing abundant nesting cavities in the form of chimneys, swifts became more common. Without a doubt, these small birds are incredible fliers, more so than swallows and martins. They spend the vast majority of their waking hours on the wing, except while nesting. Even courtship and actual mating occur in mid-air. Only at night do they descend to rest in a protected spot — which, except in the wild, is almost always a chimney of some sort. Today they are virtually dependent on humans for their reproductive success. Unfortunately, most modern chimneys no longer offer optimal nesting sites. Chimney caps are quite effective at keeping birds out of chimneys. And newfangled, smooth chimney liners don’t give birds anything they can cling to. Nor does the smooth substrate of a modern chimney’s interior offer purchase for nests that are built from small sticks and saliva. So it’s no surprise that declines in the chimney swift population have been reported across the species entire range. But if you look up during the summer, there does seem to be sufficient roosting and nesting spots to maintain a decent population of chimney swifts

in central North Carolina. Look for them swirling around in the vicinity of older schools, churches and industrial buildings that still retain sizable brick chimneys. These larger chimneys are critical staging grounds for generations of swifts. It is an awesome sight to see thousands of swifts pouring into a roost site at dark. By late July, you can see swifts congregating in large flocks, feeding on abundant flying insects. In August, however, they begin to make their way southward on prevailing northerly air currents to wintering grounds in the tropics. During the winter months, chimney swifts are found in loose aggregations throughout the upper Amazon basin of South America. There they loaf and feed on an abundance of flying insects until lengthening days urge them northward again. The return trip brings pairs, swirling and darting, back to their summer homes by early April. Unfortunately, chimney swifts are sometimes mistaken for disease-carrying bats. As a result, significant numbers of nesting sites have been capped. Additionally, advances in heating technology have resulted in large chimneys being retired, covered or otherwise rendered unavailable to swifts. Quite simply, there is a general lack of awareness of these structures as an important biological resource. In North Carolina and other states, however, we’ve begun the process of identifying the major roost sites in a given area and raising awareness of their importance. To experience roosting behavior of migrating swifts in the Sandhills, plan to attend “Swift Night Out” during September, sponsored by the Sandhills Natural History Society. Visit the club’s website (www.sandhillsnature.org) in late summer for details. PS Susan would love to hear from you. Feel free to send questions or wildlife observations to susan@ncaves.com

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June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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The Thing About North Carolina Writers A life of improvisation and friendship

By Wiley Cash

The thing about North Carolina writers is that they stay levelheaded during emergencies.

In February, my wife, Mallory, newborn daughter, Early, and I visited Greensboro, where I’d been scheduled to join three other North Carolina writers for a Saturday evening fundraiser. That afternoon, the fire alarm went off in our hotel, and chaos erupted. A couple of hundred people — including Mallory, Early and me — evacuated to the cold, snowy parking lot while authorities investigated what turned out to be a false alarm. The three of us had been down in the lobby checking out the authors at a book fair, and we weren’t dressed for the frigid climes, so imagine our relief when a familiar voice called to us from across the parking lot: It was Clyde Edgerton, sitting inside his car, the heat and radio cranked up. My family and I joined him, and we watched the mass of humanity shiver while the coast was cleared. “It feels like we’re in a lifeboat,” Clyde said. We laughed. “You rescued us,” Mallory said while we watched Early’s cheeks grow rosy in the warmth. I told Clyde that I’d just finished his book Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers and that it didn’t mention a word about how to survive a hotel fire. He smiled and said fatherhood is all about improvisation. And that’s the thing about North Carolina writers: They’re there when you need them. Before my second novel went to press, I reached out to Jill McCorkle and Lee Smith and asked if they’d consider reading the manuscript and offering a blurb. Not only did they write blurbs for the book jacket that were more beautiful than anything found inside, they showed up to support me during a stop on my book tour, and they brought friends. In Chapel Hill I took to the podium at Flyleaf Books and gazed out at the audience and saw Lee and Jill sitting with their longtime editor, the iconic Shannon Ravenel. It felt like I was shooting basketball with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant while Phil Jackson looked on. But that’s the thing about North Carolina writers: You never know where they’ll turn up. When my friend Tom Franklin left Mississippi on a book tour, he told

his wife he was taking along his copy of Cold Mountain just in case he ran into Charles Frazier on his stop in North Carolina. “You’re crazy,” his wife said. “North Carolina’s too big. What are the odds?” Halfway through his tour, Tom realized he needed a new pair of blue jeans, so when he arrived in Raleigh for his book signing at Quail Ridge Books, he headed first to the Crabtree Valley Mall, where he ran into Charles Frazier. “I saw him in J.C. Penney,” he said. “I told him I had a copy of Cold Mountain out in my car, and he said he’d be happy to sign it.” That’s the thing about North Carolina writers: They’re incredibly kind. My mother snatched up a copy of Jason Mott’s novel The Returned as soon as it was published, and she raved about it for weeks. Her fervor grew even stronger once the television show based on Jason’s novel aired. She began following him on social media and attending his book signings with the excitement of a teenager who’s just seen her first Justin Bieber music video. I thought she was going to pass out when I told her Jason and I would be doing a book signing together in Topsail Island, and I was even more certain of her passing out once we arrived at Quarter Moon Books and he presented her with a pre-publication review copy of his second novel, The Wonder of All Things, which he’d inscribed to “Mama Cash.” Now she’s a fan for life. So that’s the thing about North Carolina writers: Even their mothers support you. A couple of years ago I found myself giving a reading at the public library in Shelby only a few weeks after Ron Rash had visited the same branch. I told the audience that it almost felt sacrilegious to follow Ron as if he were my opening act when it should so clearly be the other way around. After the event concluded a woman approached me and introduced herself as Ron’s mother; my first thought was, “Ron who?” She must’ve sensed both my confusion and short memory because she followed by saying, “Ron Rash.” I responded by asking, “And you came to see me?” Ron was on book tour for his novel The Cove, and that month he and I crisscrossed the state and just missed each other many times. Well, that’s the one bad thing about North Carolina writers: Ours is a big state, and we don’t see each other as much as we’d like. PS Wiley Cash is a New York Times best-selling author whose second novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, was released last year. He lives in Wilmington.

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June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

S porti n g Li f e

Three Mornings in the Spring Woods A remarkable guide, a ruby-throated hummingbird, and the big one that got away

By Tom Bryant TURKEY HUNT — Day One

We shut down our vehicles in the little

cut in the stand of pines, got out and softly pushed the doors closed. It was that time in the morning between night and day. There was just enough grayness for us to see to get ready, but dawn was still an hour away.

“Hey Tom, you want an egg sandwich? I made ’em this morning, still warm.” “Sure, and I brought some coffee. You want some?” “Brought my own. Thanks though.” The sky was rapidly getting light in the east. “We ought to be hearing something pretty soon,” Rich said as we munched down on our sandwiches. The words were just out of his mouth when a turkey gobbled and we both turned our heads toward the sound like bird dogs on point. Rich looked at me and we both grinned. He said, “I just lost my appetite. Let’s load up and get on over there.” The over there he was talking about was at least a quarter of a mile from where we had parked our trucks. The gobble sounded again as we grabbed our gear and headed that way. “That rascal is still on the roost,” Rich said as we moved quickly but quietly toward the sound. “We’ll ease down that gas line road and set up back in the trees.” We made the hike to the tree line in record time, picked our spots under a couple of big pines, put on our camouflaged head nets and gloves, and loaded the shotguns. The turkey gobbled again. Rich was behind me a few yards using his mouth call. “If the turkey comes this way,” he whispered, “I want you to be the first to miss.” He chuckled softly and adjusted his dove stool. Rich clucked a few times with his call and the old gobbler hollered like he had just discovered the turkey Playboy mansion. He’s coming this way, I thought, as my heart elevated to my throat. About that time, I heard a loud call down toward the creek. What the heck? I heard it again. It sounded as if someone was trying to call like an owl, or maybe more like a drunk blue

heron. He called again. Every time whoever it was made that awful racket, the turkey would gobble. The fake owl got closer, making more noise as he came. When he got to about fifty yards behind us, the fellow pulled out his box call and started yelping. Rich and I remained silent, hoping the turkey would come anyway. It didn’t work. The next time I heard the gobbler, he was hightailing it over the ridge, probably heading to the next county. Rich and I sat silently until the interloper moved back toward the creek. “That happens sometimes,” Rich said as he quietly edged up behind me. “We might as well go back and finish our sandwiches. It’s probably over for today.” “Whoever he was, he messed up a sure thing.” I said. “Nah,” he replied. “There is no such thing as a sure thing in the turkey hunting business. It was fun to hear him gobble like that, though. Maybe we’ll get him next time.” TURKEY HUNT — Day Two “Tom, let’s go back to the same spot where we were the other day and set up around that deer food patch. I think the gobblers have hens with them and won’t move until later.” The day before, a warm front had come through and the humidity was kicking in with heat right on its heels. I was already sweating as we trudged down the road. Rich hunkered down on the west side of the freshly planted food patch and I went over to the east side, back in the tree line a bit, and put on all my camouflage stuff. Rich clucked a few times and then we were quiet and listened as the area awoke from its spring snooze. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones enjoying this warm weather. Mosquitoes began to attack in force. There is nothing more irritating than mosquitoes buzzing around your ears. Even though I had on a head net and a hat, my concentration went out the window. I slowly raised my hand to slap at a mosquito and looked toward the south end of the cutover. There stood probably the biggest turkey I’d ever seen. He saw me at the same time and disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.

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In a few minutes, Rich came across the little plowed area and said with a sheepish grin on his face. “Did you see him?” “Yep, and he saw me. Let’s get out of these mosquitoes and talk about it.” Rich could tell I was disappointed that I had made the ultimate faux pas, moving when a turkey is near. A turkey might be a dumb bird, but he can see an eye blink at fifty yards. “Don’t worry about it, Bubba. We’ll get him next time.”

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Rich, my friend and turkey-hunting guide, is an amazing athlete and sportsman. He was a four-letter man in high school sports: football, baseball, basketball and track. He did the same thing in college, earning a scholarship playing football, baseball and basketball. He’s no slouch on the golf course either, shooting his age more often than not. In the woods he’s probably as good as I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a bunch. The afternoon after we saw the big turkey (the one that got away), we decided to do a little more reconnoitering for the hunt we’d planned for the following morning. After checking out the woods for likely set-up points, we headed back to the vehicles. I asked Rich about his last birthday as we hiked up the sand hill to our starting point. “Rich, you’re 80 years old and get along better in the woods than someone half your age. How do you do it?” “I don’t do numbers, Tom. So many people reach a certain age and they figure they need to hit the rocking chair. I get up in the morning and if I want to do something, I do it.” And “do it” is right. A typical day for Rich, such as the day before, went like this: up at 4:30 a.m., turkey hunt until 8:30, go to the golf course and play 18 holes, have lunch, and then go to the dog kennels to work his champion English pointers. Home for supper and get ready to do it again the next day. Does the fellow ever get tired? We still have three more days left in turkey season, but I really don’t care if we get one or not. I’ve had a wonderful time this spring watching nature come alive after a hard winter. Where else could you see what Rich and I witnessed one morning as we were loading up after a hunt? We were standing near the vehicles making plans for the next day when a ruby-throated hummingbird flew right between us, paused, and then zipped out of sight. “Man,” Rich said as he looked at me in amazement. “That made the day.” It not only made my day, it was the peak of a wonderful few mornings in the woods. PS Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist.

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

G o l f tow n J o u r n a l

Escape to the Hills

The cool and classic glory of North Carolina’s High Country golf courses

By Lee Pace

Photograph by hugh morton

From Pinehurst the drive is 196 miles

to the northwest, the smart play being to time the trip for lunch at Lexington Barbecue, just off Hwy. 64 at the midway point (best move to order the tray only with the browned ends and slaw, no reason to muck it up with fries and beans). You’re in Linville in time for nine holes and dinner, a far cry from the effort adventurous travelers made a century ago to scrape their way into the High Country. “By train from Wilmington to Goldsboro to Hickory to Lenoir and Edgemont, twenty-four hours, and then a six- or seven-hour drive by horse and buggy over the mountains at night,” Wilmington resident and avid golfer Isaac Grainger remembered years later. “That began a long series of exciting sojourns to that delightful spot.” The valley beneath Grandfather Mountain in Avery County in the

northwest corner of the state was “arranged with an order and symmetry as rare as it is beautiful,” noted an 1896 N.C. Board of Agriculture brochure, and an early advertisement for the Eseeola Lodge in Linville termed the area “a fairyland without a peer.” If it’s 82 degrees in the Sandhills, as it was on the first Tuesday in May, it’s 70 in Linville. Chip King spent the first half of his career as a golf professional in Fayetteville and the Sandhills (working for the Peggy Kirk Bell family at Pine Needles and Mid Pines), before moving to Linville in 2007 as the director of golf at Grandfather Golf & Country Club. “It’s night and day,” King says of the climate change. “When I have to leave the mountain in the summertime, it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, how did I survive?’ I remember working Golfaris for Mrs. Bell. You’re going six hours in 90-degree heat. Up here, you just don’t perspire. I’m in a shirt and tie a lot, I go out and teach dressed like that and it’s fine. It’s 72 and sunny — that’s pretty sweet. It’s a beautiful part of the world. The harsh winters are the price you pay for the great summers.” This outpost of North Carolina has long been a magnet June through August for heat-ravaged citizens of the Charlotte-to-Sandhills-to-Raleigh belt, the far western extreme of the state being more the purview of Atlanta, Greenville and Birmingham. Golfers were roaming the meadows of the Linville Valley in the late-

G o l f tow n J o u r n a l

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1800s on a 14-hole course that was redesigned and expanded to 18 in the mid-1920s by Donald Ross, the Scotsman ensconced at Pinehurst since 1901 as its head golf professional and resident architect. The club and adjoining Eseeola Lodge were managed at one time in the post-World War II era by Pinehurst’s founding Tufts family, which sent some of its staff to work the summer in Linville when Pinehurst closed for the summer. “Spend the week in Linville and make it a real vacation,” Pinehurst proprietor Richard Tufts advised in a 1942 letter to golfers promoting the Carolinas Amateur Championship, set for Linville Golf Club. “You need the rest, and there is no better place than Linville to take it.” Avery County has a concentration of five elite clubs separated at the most by six miles as the crow flies and representing every era of golf architecture: Linville Golf Club (Ross, 1924), Grandfather (Ellis Maples, 1968), Linville Ridge (George Cobb, 1982), Elk River (Jack Nicklaus, 1984) and Diamond Creek (Tom Fazio, 2003). At Linville you have the omni-present Grandmother Creek, the quirkily canted fairways and the devilishly slick greens. The views upward at Grandfather are incomparable, planned by Maples and developer Agnes Morton for holes to flow in the direction of surrounding mountain peaks. The views downward at Linville Ridge are awe-inspiring: The front nine is built on Flat Top Mountain and the apex elevation — 4,984 feet on the fourth hole — is the highest point on a golf course east of the Rockies. Diamond Creek sits on a former sheep ranch in a secluded glen near Banner Elk; it has only forty-two bunkers and its bent grass fairways are frequently sand-dressed so as to play bouncy and taut. At all of them you have the rock outcroppings, hemlock trees, moss, trout teeming through the streams and, quite likely, four seasons in the course of twenty-four hours. “There are five of us on top of this mountain here,” King says. “It’s a wonderful environment; the golf is done really well at all of these places. It’s a really cool environment; there’s a mutual respect among all the golf clubs. We all help each other provide great service to our members. It’s an interesting enclave up here.” Building a mountain golf course is always a challenge. It’s expensive to move the rocks and dirt, to get golfers from one hole to the next and not let the draw of great views turn the elevation changes into goofy golf. Augusta National chief Clifford Roberts traveled to Grandfather shortly after its opening in the late 1960s, and Hugh Morton, brother of founder Agnes and a key marketing and promotion officer of the club, liked to tell the story of the visit by the dour and demanding Roberts.

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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“Everyone was quivering and quaking, scared to death about his visit,” said Morton, who died in 2006. “I made up my mind I wasn’t going to be intimidated. I didn’t ask him how he liked the course, because I didn’t want him to have the chance to cut us down.” On the final day of the visit, Morton had lunch with Roberts. “Hugh, most mountain golf courses aren’t worth a damn, but this is the best one I’ve seen,” said Roberts, who wound up joining the club and buying a condominium. In neighboring Watauga County there is another Cobb design (Hound Ears Club) and a second Maples offering (Boone Golf Club), but the notable course is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2015. The Green Park Hotel opened in 1891 on a crest of the Blue Ridge with substantive views southward to Lenoir and was a major magnet to summertime tourists. When a whippersnapper named Francis Ouimet won the 1913 U.S. Open in stunning fashion over a pair of established British players and brought golf an avalanche of attention and interest from the masses, the hotel’s owners in 1915 commissioned the design of an adjoining golf course. Over time both Ross and Seth Raynor would have a hand in the course’s design, and the layout became what is now Blowing Rock Country Club upon the club’s formation in 1939. “The moment I walked onto the Blowing Rock course I knew I was looking at something very special, a throwback to the early American design at its peak,” says architect Kris Spence, who is doing consultation work at present with the club. The course at Grandfather opened for the summer season on Friday, May 1, and Blowing Rock opened the next day. The full influx to the High Country would commence around Memorial Day and build to a crescendo as families’ travel restrictions lifted with the passing of school graduations. “The scenery and the climate, those are the two draws,” says Blowing Rock Director of Golf Wayne Smith. “Our members will have guests in for golf or hiking during the summer. Then in the fall, they come to see the leaves. That’s been a hard combination to beat for many years.” These two counties are a celebration of the outdoors, as Shakespeare penned in As You Like It with a verse memorialized beside the 14th tee at Linville Golf Club: “Find tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” PS Lee Pace’s book, The Golden Age of Pinehurst — The Story of the Rebirth of No. 2, is available onsite and online at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club. Follow him at @LeePaceTweet.

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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Four Farms Good produce in a post-tobacco world By Jan Leitschuh

Photographs by Tim Sayer

une is the fertile time. Sufficient moisture and plenty of sunshine wash over the farms and fields, hot and June-bright. The longest day of the year is later this month, and long days beam scads of solar energy into robustly growing crops. This Sandhills land grows great longleaf pine, wire grass and tobacco. Turns out, it grows good produce too. Of course, some has always been grown — watermelons and peaches, tomatoes and squash — for the farm kitchen and farm stand. But these days, you may see more fruits and vegetables growing in the local fields than you once did. Despite the lack of USDA subsidies, produce has picked up some of the slack that appeared in the local farm economy when the government tobacco allotment programs ended in the early 2000s. Other farmers have turned to systems such as chicken houses to hang on to family land. Before the early 2000s, tobacco was profitable and tied to the land; leases could be bought and sold. What followed the end of the allotment system was a perfect storm of unstable tobacco prices and rising land values. This unlucky combination resulted in North Carolina leading the nation in loss of farmland during that period. And of all the counties in North Carolina, Moore County tied for third in loss of farmland. Was the family farm on its way out? Luckily public tastes began to return to whole, unprocessed food, and “local” became a rallying cry for any number of reasons: the freshest flavors, lower transportation costs, terroir — the taste of a place, healthier food choices, knowing one’s producers. These days, if a producer can land a contract, tobacco might still be grown. But tobacco is no longer the silver bullet of the family farm. Diversification is the guiding principle of many farms that have stuck around. On some, tobacco is gone forever; the hum of tobacco bulk barns has been supplanted by the hum of honeybees working the flowers of strawberries and cucumbers, squash and melons, peppers, blackberries and more. There are still a number of solid family farms serving our area. They continue to manage such pressures as finding ready markets for fresh produce, the cost of new machinery, the high costs of labor today. The ringing theme of every interview: family. Here are the stories of just four of those local farms.

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Priest Family Farm, Carthage. Flanking Bibey Road is a pretty, wood-sided farmhouse dotted with flowering shrubs and blooming plants. As you turn in the drive, birds call their fierce spring songs from the hedgerows and flick across the farm ponds. Caught between Carthage and Whispering Pines, with a housing development across the street, Priest Family Farm stands firm as a working farm. Behind the house, sweeping up to a ridge, lies a long field. Another stretch of good planting ground rolls gently downward from the side of the farmyard. Like many of the farmers in this area, the Priests use cover crops. Some sections of earth are still carpeted with a lush, fall-seeded cover crop of rye and vetch; others have already been plowed under. The thickly rooted vegetation holds the sandy loam soil against winter’s harsh winds. It also adds invaluable organic matter and nutrition when turned under for green manure — a sort of “composting in place” each spring. “That vetch there can provide enough nutrition for some crops,” says Gary Priest, pater familias of Priest Family Farm. Gary is joined by wife, Jane, son Ben, and a collection of seasonal help, including Jane’s high school buddy Sheryl Molineux. Today, Molineux is rinsing the blue mesh baskets of freshly cut asparagus that Gary has brought in from the fields. The field dust sluices off and the crisp spears glisten in the bright sunlight. Molineux then sorts the spears according to size: the biggest spears to be claimed by local gourmet restaurants, the slimmest go into a pile for soup asparagus. Jane’s dad farmed this place, growing tobacco and soybeans. Jane and Gary bought the 66-acre home place from him in 1987. The family grows 5.2 acres of asparagus, an acre and a half of edible-podded sugar snap peas, some arugula and fall squashes. Gary and his brother also grow 30 acres of tobacco and they farm another 80 acres nearby. Ben is the fifth generation to farm. Gary started the asparagus seven years ago as an uncertain venture. He chose the unusual perennial crop with an eye toward providing son Ben with an alternative to tobacco, a crop that has seen volatility and hard times

since the allotment system was abolished. “The profit part of tobacco went down and down, and the labor costs went higher and higher,” he explains. “If you didn’t have a contract now, you were better off leaving it alone.” Jane elaborates on the legacy decision: “Ben wants to farm. You won’t always be able to grow tobacco. There’s nowhere to sell it without a contract. With asparagus, you can plant it and it will come back. We wanted to get that started for him. Young farmers can’t afford the capital it takes to plant expensive asparagus crowns, and then wait several years for it to mature enough to take a crop.” To help develop further outlets for local fresh produce, Gary helped establish the Sandhills Farmers Market series, and has served as chairman of the board of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative. Come early April, every morning starts with cutting the asparagus spears from the raised earth ridges that make the crisp vegetable easier to pick. Ben and the workers prowl these rows, sometimes twice a day in hot weather. For six weeks they cut, “until the stems get down to the size of a pencil, or we get sick of it, whatever comes first,” says Gary with a chuckle. Driving from one of the asparagus fields, the truck bogs at a low spot on the farm road, near a pond. Gary reaches down and flips the vehicle into four-wheel drive, and it crawls out with ease. “Loggers left a mess,” he explains. He’s removed some of the mature timber that was shading the edges of his fields, and the heavy trucks rutted a few low spots. But the asparagus loves the better sunshine. Farm ponds sparkle like little jewels dotted among the wooded copses of the farm. Gary pulls over at a vibrant patch of crimson clover in bloom to point out the bees working the self-seeded cover crop, and later to show off Jane’s rows of tulips, daffodils, Shasta daisies and lilies. Jane also grows colorful annuals like zinnias for her cut-flower business — not to mention tending the family’s extensive personal kitchen garden plot, where they grow enough not only for the family, but also for their help and neighbors. “Here,” says Gary, “we grow everything.”

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

CV Pilson Farm, Cameron Not everyone gets to do what they love for a living. Young Cliff Pilson knows this. “I don’t feel like it’s work when I get up in the morning because I love what I do,” he says. “Yet I didn’t always think I was going to farm when I was younger.” It isn’t easy for a young person to get into farming life. High land, labor and machinery costs preclude it. That’s why he counts himself doubly lucky, at age 23, to be running the family’s entire CV Pilson Farm. There are 400 acres of family land, of which about 200 acres are open. Cliff’s grandfather worked 30 acres, and Cliff’s father Chester grew the farm to what it is today.” Cliff knows he is a fifth-generation farmer — “At least,” he says. Cliff’s father, Chester, used to raise tobacco, but the family has not done so for the last decade. “He was trying to diversify because tobacco prices were getting rocky and not really reliable there, for a while,” says Cliff. Chester also grew sweet potatoes, discovering his sandy, well-drained land was ideal for the tuberous, heat-loving root vegetable. He would haul the crop around to local grocery stores, selling several cases at a time, back when food safety laws made such things possible. “One day the purchase manager at Food Lion said, ‘Chester, you can’t leave, the boss wants to talk to you,’” recalls Cliff. “My dad waited forty-five minutes, a little nervous — the boss was a big man with a booming voice.” But the news was unexpectedly good, and changed the future course of the farm. “He said he really liked my dad’s sweet potatoes. Did he want to sell them to all his stores?” The buyer became good friends with the family, and later became Cliff’s godfather, “We’re still selling to Food Lion today.” The farm was one of the first to invest in the latest food safety standards, called Good Agricultural Practices, or GAPS. Further diversity into produce came when Cliff, age 15, began to take an interest in farming. He was studying to get his driver’s license, and wanted to earn some cash for gas: “When I was younger, I was into sports. I thought maybe I’d be a broadcaster. But that changed when I wanted to make some money.” He recalls the moment. “I was sitting in Union Pines High Ag class, and the teacher was explaining how one could grow flowers and make money.” Lightbulb! “My dad had a tobacco greenhouse we weren’t using. I talked to him about it, and he thought it was a good idea.” Cliff grew flowers for the next five years. Chester added strawberries, thinking they would be a good companion crop to attract sales to the farm stand. Blackberries, cucumbers, squash, cabbages, onions, romaine, peaches, greenhouse tomatoes and more followed. Somewhere along the line, Cliff fell in love with produce, and continued to introduce new crops. Besides Food Lion, CV Pilson’s sells at their farm stand on Cypress Church Road outside Vass towards Cameron. Their produce has been sold at the local Sandhills markets, area restaurants and through the produce boxes of the Sandhills Farm to Table Co-op. Cliff is also farm rep on the Sandhills Farm to Table board, the youngest yet to serve. As Cliff displayed initiative and interest, Chester began turning the farm over to him, offering more and more responsibility. Chester then retired, but still helps out and keeps busy. “This is my fourth strawberry crop,” Cliff says proudly, “and my first year officially looking after everything, including sweet potatoes. Last year, it was my responsibility but my dad still helped. This year, I was discussing a problem with him. He said he didn’t know the answer, then grinned and looked at me: ‘You figure it out, I’m gone!’ he said.” Cliff understands his advantages as a young farmer among a group that averages age 60. “It’s so tough to actually be successful at it,” he says, “to be profitable enough to support your family. I’m lucky because my dad made the farm pretty successful. His sweet potato operation is allowing me to build my produce business.” That suits Cliff just fine. He attended Sandhills Community College and worked in golf course maintenance “for about two weeks — but I absolutely hated it. I guess I was just destined to be a farmer. I love what I do.” PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June 2015

Highlanders Farm, Carthage Once upon a time — as all good stories begin — three intrepid brothers left their homeland, kith and kin. They set sail from impoverished Scotland for the promise of a new start in the vibrant young nation of America. Many Scots came up the Cape Fear River to settle, so North Carolina seemed like a fine destination for the Blue brothers, spread out on two ships for the journey. But a storm came up, and only one ship managed to struggle into the Carolinas; the other two brothers made land somewhere around New York, where they settled to become dairy farmers. The other brother, “River” Daniel Blue, settled on the land that became Highlanders Farm in 1804. Today, young Sam Blue, age 15, is the seventh generation of Blue to live on the lovely farm on Highway 22 near Whispering Pines. His father, John, runs the place, along with wife Vickie. Sister Patti and son-in-law Wally Burke run the farm stand, both retired high school teachers who returned to the farm in 2005. “They haven’t retired like they thought they would,” laughs John Blue. By the highway, lines of strawberry beds alternate with neat walkways of spread straw. Behind it, woods and a small farm pond. The banks are adorned with beehives, their inhabitants working the berry blossoms. The strawberry season for U-pick is typically mid-April to late May. Visitors crowd around a small red building nearby labeled “Sam’s Ice Cream.” It sells, as you might expect, farm-churned ice cream in strawberry and other flavors. The cheerful yellow-painted farm stand and country store next to it have baskets for U-Pickers and sell produce-lovers veggies picked that morning. The stand is a preserved historic railroad building, called “Blues Siding,” moved from its original location on the farm. The railroad depot was once an office, a store and a post office on an old railroad that traveled from Carthage to Pinehurst. The train brought in fertilizer and store supplies for the neighboring area, and carried away turpentine and wood from a shingle mill to be sold. Besides strawberries, Highlanders grows four greenhouses of early, vine-ripened tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. The greenhouses are heated economically with a giant burner that engulfs massive chunks of wood. Tree service friends obligingly deliver huge stumps that would otherwise go to the landfill. The farm also grows fresh greens for the Sandhills Farm to Table produce boxes, as well as pumpkins, melons, sweet corn, a wide variety of produce for the stand, and raises some eighteen head of beef cattle. Tobacco? A pause. John Blue is a man on the cusp of something. “Aaaah, I’m still growing tobacco,” he says, and stops again to reflect. “I keep saying I’m going to get out. The economics of tobacco really are ‘to stay in it, you really have to get larger.’ And I don’t think I’m going to get larger.” Another pause. “I don’t know,” he admits. “It’s a love-hate relationship. I’ve done it all my life, since I was young. But I don’t promote people smoking. I’ve talked to Sam about it. It’s why I put in 3 acres of peaches this year. I’ve gotten more into produce, to give him something else to do.” Young Sam has expressed interest in farming, says his father. “I try to be honest with him about the struggles,” says John Blue. “You can do everything right and Mother Nature says something different. It’s a humbling profession. You find out you’re not in control of everything in your life. And as a young man, that’s a tough lesson to learn.” One ray of hope, he says, has been the booming interest in fresh and local produce. “When people support the local farmers, it really does make a difference. The farm to table movement has been important. We appreciate that, we really do.” To help develop new markets, Blue was one of the founding members of Sandhills Farm to Table Co-op, and served on the initial Board. Still, he worries: “I hear people enjoy the diversity and the green space of rural land. I went to school in Raleigh in the early ’80s and lived in Cary. I go back there now and see all the farms crowded out by houses. I think, ‘In fifteen to twenty years, is that going be us?’ It will depend on the people of this area. That’s the bottom line. To be sustainable, you have to be profitable. We’ll see.”

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

David’s Produce, Ellerbe Until the powers-that-be moved Highway 73, folks traveling the rural twolane road came right past David Sherrill’s produce stand near Ellerbe. David and his wife, Jackie, grow fruits and vegetables. For a long time, they sold them right from the popular farm stand beside the road. Travelers from as far as Mecklenburg County saw the “David’s Produce” sign along their journey, braked, swung in and heaped their baskets and beach bags full of fresh berries, melons, squash and tomatoes. It was a simple and good system. But the inexorable march of progress shifted the farm’s dynamics when N.C. 73 joined U.S. 220 Alternate north of town — now traffic bypasses the farm completely. “The highway opened in 2008, and it took about 60 percent of the business in one day,” says David. That started the search for diversification and new markets. Sherrill has been in charge of this ground since 1977, but the roots stretch back several generations. “My great-grandfather on my mother’s side owned the farm and my grandfather on Daddy’s side bought it and moved here.” Over the years Sherrill has added land, and now farms around five hundred acres. Jackie does the books and runs the greenhouses, and works alongside Sherrill at the markets, as well as raising their two children. “She has a full-time job keeping up with everything,” says Sherrill with a laugh. The slim pair are a blur of constant, hard-working motion. They are rarely seen resting. After the highway came through, David’s Produce joined the local farmers markets to expand their outlets. Their stand is a popular destination at the Saturday market in Southern Pines. You can often catch David or Jackie setting out brightly colored potted plants and arranging stunning piles of greens and onions, cukes and tomatoes. This year, they also attend markets at Moore Regional Hospital, Rockingham, and Morganton Road. Another useful outlet for their produce has been the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative, where wholesale quantities can be delivered for better-than-wholesale prices. Sherrill began as a fill-in producer and now provides much variety. He also served on the board. The farm’s covered stand near Ellerbe beckons with a big painted peach and red logo letters that spell out “David’s Produce.” The home stand displays most anything one would want in fresh produce: Irish potatoes, berries, onions,

melons, greenhouse tomatoes and more. Country ham. Fresh eggs. Jams, honey jars, molasses and jellies lines up in a sparkling display. A long row of neat greenhouses line the other side of the stand, framing a corridor of floral beauty. Paved walkways lead the casual visitor down rows of flowers set on benches. The five flanking greenhouses are crammed with more summer color: vibrant geraniums, handsome perennials, bedding plants, hanging baskets and vegetable sets. Here, Jackie also raises fresh basil and greenhouse tomatoes and peppers. Behind the farm stand, long rows of cucumbers, yellow squash, half-runner beans, zucchini, pickling cukes and strawberries stretch an impossibly long distance to a distant tree line. Another large field holds beets, onions, garlic, greens, also neatly planted into plastic, marching like vegetable soldiers down the long lines of black. There are working outbuildings as well as open land for sweet potatoes, pasture for cattle, and chicken houses. “It’s all I ever wanted to do,” muses Sherrill. “Daddy was farming on a parttime basis, building houses, and I was doing all the farm work. I didn’t care for school. My grandmother on my mother’s side lived to be 85, and she taught me a lot. We ‘farmed’ at the dinner table. She was a good mentor.” Diversification has included livestock. “When I saw what the highway would do, I built some chicken houses in 2005. In the last few years, I got about sixty cows for grass-fed beef. We had twenty-nine calves this spring. It doesn’t take much labor to do chickens and cows, it takes a lot of labor to do produce.” Sherrill farmed tobacco till the early 2000s. “When it got bought out, I got out.” But as early as the ’80s, he was growing produce, and more each year. The stand opened in 1982. “We always had sweet potatoes, cantaloupes, sweet corn, tomatoes. We’ve grown more and more variety now over the last thirty years. More greens for the Moore County people,” he says. “I’d rather have collard greens and mustard greens than kale or chard, but I’ll grow it if they want it.” Sherrill, 58, is looking ahead to retirement from produce, but not from farming. Their children aren’t particularly interested, though daughter Ashley now runs the farm’s Facebook site, from Wake county. Some of his land has already been put into coastal Bermuda grass for cattle pasture and hay. “Much of what I own will end up being a cow pasture,” he says. “I can take one man and me, and look after all these chicken houses and cows. Produce is a whole lot of work. I’ve enjoyed it, though.” PS

Dear Mr. Tufts, Dear Donald Donald Ross’s remarkable correspondence with Leonard and Richard Tufts By Bill Case • Photographs from the Tufts Archives

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

n the 12th of May, 1924, an agitated Donald Ross fired off an astonishing letter to the man to whom he reported in discharging his myriad managerial duties at Pinehurst Country Club: Leonard Tufts, the undisputed boss of Pinehurst, Inc. Tufts, a hands-on employer in every respect, had written Ross on May 10th advising him that two of Ross’s employees and fellow Scots, Messrs. Wilson and Innes, had, according to reports made to Tufts, been “unpleasant to guests.” Tufts implored Ross to discharge them. Having already spent nearly twenty years in harness discharging the affairs of Pinehurst, Inc., Ross and Tufts were hidebound by abiding friendship and mutual respect. While Ross was normally deferential and painstaking in responding to Tufts’ unending array of concerns and brainstorms, he considered the order to jettison the two men to be entirely unwarranted. Bristling with indignation, Ross rose to the defense of Wilson and Innes and pointedly refused to fire them. He vouched that they possessed “the highest character,” and that he had already made verbal agreements with both to return. Ross firmly stated that “unless I have knowledge of some good reason for their not being engaged, in fairness to them and myself, I cannot break my word.” Perhaps it would have been prudent for Donald Ross to end the letter right there. But his dander was up. Thus, the following paragraph of the letter contained a bombshell that surely caused Leonard Tufts’ jaw to drop. Ross wrote: “To relieve the Pinehurst guests of the embarrassment of having to be greeted by gentlemen of the type of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Innes, the simplest way would be for you to engage another man to take my place as manager. My business in golf architecture keeps growing and ought to have all my attention, so I feel it is now time for me to be relieved of this work. A new directing mind may be helpful to the Club and anything that will add to its success will give me the greatest possible pleasure.” Ross had been a Pinehurst mainstay since 1900 when James Tufts — soda fountain mogul, founder of the resort, and Leonard’s father — brought Ross to the Sandhills. James Tufts died shortly after Ross’s arrival. In 1905, Leonard Tufts took control of his father’s holdings in Pinehurst. Since James Tufts had retained ownership of virtually all of the real estate, enterprises, and services in the new resort town, Leonard inherited what amounted to his own personal fiefdom.

Was Ross’s offer to resign a reckless move on his part? Probably not. As the unquestioned superstar in the Pinehurst galaxy, Ross realized his association with the resort brought it immense prestige and recognition. He presumably calculated that Tufts would not readily accept his resignation and would beseech the architect to stay. Moreover, the closing valediction of Ross’s letter indicates that he was neither shutting any doors nor holding any personal acrimony toward Tufts: “Assuring you of my deepest regards for yourself and everything concerning Pinehurst.” Thankfully for all concerned, this fracas did not result in Ross’s departure. Presumably, Tufts and Ross met and smoothed over any ruffled feathers. Ross stayed at Pinehurst in his managerial role almost until his death in 1948, surviving Tufts by three years. Messrs. Wilson and Innes, thanks to Ross’s unwavering support, weathered this imbroglio and continued in the employment of Pinehurst, Inc. for years thereafter. This letter is just one in a storehouse of correspondence authored or received by the mighty Pinehurst, Inc. triumvirate of Donald Ross, Leonard Tufts and son Richard Tufts that is housed at Pinehurst’s Tufts Archives. Most were penned in the resort’s opulent heyday decade following the incorporation of the Tuftses’ labyrinth of holdings under the name Pinehurst, Inc. in 1920. Ross’s correspondence demonstrates a hands-on and effective approach to problem-solving. He is invariably timely, responsive and complete in responding to Tufts’ various concerns. While often expressing warmth and an avuncular concern for people in the greater Pinehurst family, Ross (in his private correspondence, at least) did not hesitate to criticize those he viewed as falling short in character or ability. The candor, bordering on intemperance, with which Donald Ross at times expressed himself in his private correspondence may explain why he ordered his secretary to destroy his papers upon his death. But fortunately for those of us interested in more closely examining what made Ross tick, he did not retrieve his original posted correspondence sent to and received by Leonard and Richard Tufts and other associates. In his role as Pinehurst Country Club’s general manager, Ross exchanged correspondence with Leonard, and later Richard, on a wide range of issues. Mindful that he was the employee in the relationship, Ross politely began his letters to Leonard Tufts with the salutation “Dear Mr. Tufts.” Tufts invariably opened with “Dear Donald.” Tufts comes across in the correspondence as a confident vision-

Pinehurst Country Club staff 1940s Back row: Jack Williams, caddie master; Bert Nichols, professional; Frank Cosgrove, bar; Purvis Feree, professional; Don Currie, starter; Alex Innis, office; Abe Mitchell; John S. Gibbon, Jr.; Harold Callaway, professional Front row: Mrs. Frank Cosgrove; Willie Wilson, office; Eric Nelson, club manager and secretary to Mr. Ross; Donald J. Ross; Frank Maples, green superintendent; Dorothy Pierce, manager grill; Madeline Foley (Johnson), secretary.

ary developer, chock-full of big ideas and at times necessarily absorbed with controlling the purse strings. While Ross’s correspondence with Leonard and Richard Tufts tells us much about the personalities of all three men, it also provides valuable insight into management decisions made not only at Pinehurst but also Mid Pines, Pine Needles and Knollwood in this critical period of golf history. Coursing through the letters is a mutual recognition that Ross and the Tuftses were well-positioned to profit from the newfound desire of Americans for increased outdoor leisure time. In relating to Tufts his thoughts regarding the proposed contents of a Knollwood marketing booklet, Ross remarked in June, 1921: “The booklet should play strong on ‘Outdoor Recreation’ which is becoming more and more a part of American life. It is really amazing the rapid growth of country clubs each year. I have already laid out nine new eighteenhole courses and I have many more applications which I was not able to consider for lack of time, all of which goes to prove that catering to the American love of outdoor life is becoming a leading and important business.”

Only t he Best People

Both Ross and Tufts deemed it indispensable to lure the cream of society to Pinehurst and to keep them coming back. On August 27, 1925, Ross sensed that the Florida land boom had enhanced Pinehurst’s ability to attract upper crust guests. He advised Tufts: “At the present time all hotels [in Florida] are crowded with land speculators. Thousands of the best people will not be able to procure accommodations and it will undoubtedly react very seriously on the real estate situation . . . Many who ordinarily go to Florida will stop off and spend the winter where accommodations are more favorable from every standpoint . . . Pinehurst’s pure air, pure food, pure water, and wholesome living conditions should be a strong[er] drawing card this year than ever before.” It was difficult for Tufts to resist the income that convention business brought to the hotel during the leaner winter months. But honored guests of long standing complained. Consequently, the decision was made to end convention solicitation. In his May 21, 1927 message to Tufts, Ross applauded the move: “With reference to the curtailment of conventions held during the winter season at Pinehurst, I think you have made a very wise move. Last winter I heard so many complaints from our very best people and I am quite sure that many of those conventions were lowering the tone of the hotel. I will take pains to inform our old friends of the change in policy in regard to conventions.” Always mindful of appeasing the “best people,” both of the Pinehurst kingpins were on the lookout to stiff-arm the ill-mannered who had the temerity to apply for membership in the clubs they controlled. On February 28, 1922, Tufts confided to Ross that would-be members were concerned that one such undesirable applicant would be accepted for membership at Mid Pines, “and a number are not joining for fear he will.” Ross assured Leonard that things were under control: “With reference to [the applicant] becoming a member at Mid Pines Country

Club, [he] has many fine points, but is a rather loud, vulgar chap and certainly should never be considered as a member at Mid Pines. I will do all I can to let prospective members know that we do not want men of that kind.” A guest’s misbehavior called for finely tuned judgment and discretion — qualities that Ross and the two Tuftses possessed in abundance. In March of 1922, Ross and Leonard Tufts considered how they should deal with the erstwhile priest who was caught red-handed cheating in one of the club’s golf events. Leonard decided that the club would not formally discipline the priest, but in the future: “notify the person Donald Ross and caddie who is to be tried, so to speak, and give him an opportunity to defend himself, and we should surely have letters, or, better, affidavits from the people who have accused a person of irregularities.”

“Reasonable Inducements”

The Tufts Archives house a striking volume of correspondence in which the Pinehurst triumvirate debate whether to grant complimentary or discounted room, board and golf. Golf writers stood a fair chance of such a grant of largesse. When young Richard Tufts, ever mindful of building relationships across the world of golf, requested in January, 1926 that a writer from “Golfer’s Magazine” and his party of visiting golfers not be charged, Ross responded by affirming his belief that “Pinehurst, Inc. will be more than repaid from the advertising that will come from their visit.” Another writer seeking complimentary room and golf was not so lucky. Leonard Tufts derisively penned Ross in February, 1926: “Personally, I can’t see how anyone that he was to induce to come to Pinehurst would be an especially desirable guest. In other words, if he recommended a place especially highly, I think most of our people would shy away from it.” Railroad personnel received special treatment. Ross alerted Richard Tufts on January 14, 1927, that twenty Pullman Company agents wanted the lowest possible hotel and golf rates for a four-day stay. “These men are in a position to do us some good and if we antagonize them they might do us some harm . . . I do not think it is advisable to make a practice of cutting rates unless there is good ground for it . . . In this case I think it would be a wise move.”

The N ort h and Sout h Tournament

The North and South Amateur tournaments presented similar dilemmas. How do you attract the best golfers without promising them special treatment? Leonard Tufts weighed in on the subject by stating that special rates should be afforded to “say the first half dozen men and the first half dozen women. Should we carry it further than that?” Ross concurred that since Pinehurst was “the outstanding golf resort, I think we are obliged to do everything we can to get the best players here and any reasonable inducement which we could offer them would be, I think, good business . . . The advertis-

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ing we get out of them is very valuable.” But Ross was less felicitous toward his brethren in the professional ranks. When, in March 1925, Richard Tufts suggested paying appearance fees for a few of the top pros to assure a standout field for the North and South Open, Ross, who had played for peanuts during his heyday, groused in response: “All those good players are getting more temperamental than prima donnas, and if I don’t miss my guess it won’t be long before the clubs will be fed up with them.” The archives also reveal ongoing dialogue regarding the optimum time to schedule Pinehurst’s North and South men’s and women’s amateur events as well as the North and South Open, which welcomed professional golfers. The scheduling involved a rather delicate balancing act as Leonard Tufts explained in his correspondence to Ross mailed February 3, 1926: “The North and South is placed near as possible to the end of the season — to lengthen the season and to get publicity for the few remaining weeks that we are open.” In March, 1927, Tufts appealed to Ross to move the holding of the events to even later dates. After ruminating on the subject, Ross reminded Tufts that moving the competitions “might interfere with the class of the entry . . . I can see the probability of a poor entry in each one.” Ross suggested the Board of Governors decide “what would work out best from the standpoint of a good entry combined with the interests of the hotels.” From Tufts’ perspective, the purpose of all tournaments was threefold as he related to Ross in November, 1928: “first to induce people to come down here to play in them; second to entertain guests who are here; and third to get publicity in the northern papers.”

From Green Fees to Green W ood

Most of us envision Donald Ross sitting in his home office on Midland Road, thinking great thoughts while masterfully designing the plethora of outstanding courses that define his legacy. Alas, like most of us mortals, Ross reported to a boss who could occasionally be a nag. For example, Leonard Tufts fired off this missive to Ross on January 10, 1923: “I wish also you could fix up that parking space in front of the clubhouse. There is a rather disreputable stake, that is not even set up plumb, with “No Parking Here” and some other disreputable stake with a piece of cord hanging on it and it doesn’t look good.”

No. 2. along Azalea Road

Tufts became convinced that innumerable golfers were sneaking on the course. He did not like it and complained to Ross. On February 6, 1929, Ross sought to allay his boss’s suspicions, indicating that “it is almost impossible for anyone to escape without paying the green fees.”

Ross’s home, Dornoch Cottage, on No. 2.

In several letters, Ross defended his expenditures in maintaining the golf courses. A prime example is his January 9, 1929 memorandum to Tufts: “There has been an increase in the maintenance cost due to many causes. We were obliged to do a great deal of ditching on the courses this summer which is all charged to maintenance. Each year we open the courses a little earlier, adding to the cost of maintenance. The grass tees cost a little more to maintain . . . Several of the greens washed out during the heavy summer rains and we were obliged to rebuild them. It also required two extra men to do the hand mowing around the greens.” Given the hallowed place that Pinehurst No. 2 enjoys in American golf, it is indeed ironic that Leonard Tufts criticized its routing as observed by his stern message to Ross of December 1, 1925: “The only thing I want to impress on you and the other stockholders is that the present layout of No. 2 course from a real estate standpoint is in my opinion a mistake. You have convinced me from your work at Sedgefield and Roaring Gap that since you laid out that No. 2 course you have learned a lot and that a new layout is essential before any more land is sold over there.” [Fortunately for golf, only two holes of the original No. 2 course were ultimately changed — current holes four and five were not part of the original layout.] Sometimes Tufts employed tongue-in-cheek humor to urge Ross to take action. Several letters indicate that Tufts was of the view that trees on the golf courses should be thinned out. He likewise thought there were an excessive number of black jack trees on Ross’s property adjoining the course: “[this] suggestion is partially for the benefit of Pinehurst, Inc. and partially for the benefit of D.J. Ross and family . . . There is in the vicinity of the Donald J. Ross homestead a good many cords of black jacks which are much too close together . . . One of the bounties of the wood is that it burns fairly well even when it is green but much better after it has been out a few months.” PS Next month, more letters from the Pinehurst Triumvirate. Bill Case has recently retired here from Columbus, Ohio, where he was an attorney. We look forward to the next installment of golf history epistolary.

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Running Start By Toby R aymond

Photographs by L aura Gingerich

Horse Trials

t’s a classic, blue-sky spring morning in Vass. Long-awaited buds and blossoms dot the countryside with color, and a steady stream of horse traffic descends upon the picture-perfect Secrist farm. There’s a spirit of excitement in the air this mid-March Sunday, as a much-anticipated day of competition and camaraderie marks the season’s Running Start Horse Trials (RSHT), a signature event in the Southern Pines “North Country” community and beyond. In its fourth year and still going strong, Running Start attracts novices and top competitors alike. The brain-child of Linda Dreher and Mari Secrist, two veteran horsewomen and ardent supporters of the sport of Three Day Eventing, they bring their own high-powered brand of knowledge and passion to the game. It was when they decided to “put their heads together” and combine their talents that they truly became a force of nature. “Our goal,” says Dreher, “is to foster a valuable learning experience in a low-key atmosphere, by providing an opportunity for young riders and amateur adults to improve their skills, we set the stage for them to go on to other, more intensive venues with a sense of accomplishment and confidence.” Running Start accommodates the greenest horses in the aptly-named Green as Grass class through the more experienced that compete at Training Level. Dreher emphasizes the importance of developing horses to reach their potential. “We recognize the value in bringing along the young or inexperienced horse. That’s why Mari designs the cross-country courses to be challenging yet manageable; it encourages these horses to feel safe and be brave at the same time.” She then turns her attention to the all-important volunteers, highlighting their position at the core of Running Start. “It’s heartwarming to see so many of our neighbors come out to support this event no matter what their riding discipline. Whether the call is for assisting the judge during the dressage phase or confirming safe passage for horse and rider over a cross country jump, someone has taken time out of his or her day to be on hand.” “It’s a great way to spend the day and support the community,” one volunteer says. “It’s the most fun you can have next to riding,” says another.

What is a horse trial, anyway?

For those who are unfamiliar with the sport, a horse trial is akin to a triathlon. It combines three riding disciplines — dressage, show jumping and crosscountry. In the case of Running Start, the disciplines take place over one very rigorous day. Originally intended as a vehicle to demonstrate the military training necessary for a horse and rider to engage in battle, the athleticism and partnership required to achieve such feats quickly became a lure for amateur equestrians as well. While the programs vary, all horse trials, from the highest four-star levels down to one day events, adhere to the same set of standards. Beginning with dressage, which takes place in an enclosed arena, horse and rider pairs are asked to execute a series of uniformed movements or tests, one

pair at a time. Designed to demonstrate the harmony between them, each combination performs at their particular level for which they receive a score from 0 to 100; the lower the count, the better. At a one-day horse trial, show jumping typically comes next. Challenging fitness, stamina and technical abilities, horse and rider are expected to negotiate their way over a number of delicately balanced obstacles in a limited space, together with tight turns and direction changes. The goal is to clear each jump within the optimum time allowed without dislodging a rail. The slightest touch of a hoof can cause a rail to fall, resulting in a four point penalty. Then on to cross country, the ultimate test of athleticism, courage and endurance. Considered by many to be the most exciting phase, each pair will gallop over a number of solidly built obstacles, traverse rugged terrain — hills, banks and ditches, as well as splash through water, all within a specified time range. Penalties result from going over or under the optimum time, and also from refusals or going off course, with a fall counting as immediate elimination. At the end of the day, points for the three phases are tallied up to determine the winner at each level. The horse and rider who claim the overall lowest score (points are converted to a negative) will emerge victorious.

Linda Dreher’s Story

Linda Dreher and her 9-year old daughter were introduced to horse trials some forty-four years ago. Hailing from the Chicago suburbs, a chance encounter landed them an hour away at their first event. As observers, they were immediately struck by the dedication and enthusiasm demonstrated by horse and rider pairs as they flew by. “We were hooked right away,” recalls Dreher. “We always had horses — backyard horses — and enjoyed them very much, but it was the idea of stretching our riding skills that captured us both.” With that, a new pony named Pepper was purchased, and training began. “Snow-white with a sturdy Welsh conformation, Pepper was the pony that could. She took my daughter, Lisa, safely up through the ranks, where they ultimately achieved national recognition. When Lisa finally outgrew Pepper, the pony continued to excel in the sport and competed on the Pan American Team in 1991,” says Dreher. Meanwhile, a determined competitor in her own right, Dreher rose to become an upper level rider. However, it was her big thinking and managerial expertise that paved the way for her long-standing contribution to the sport. “My career was in restaurant design, where I developed the concepts and themes, and then installed the facilities around the country. When I turned my attention to eventing, I saw an opportunity to apply the same skills. I guess you could say that organizing is in my blood.” With an eye toward promoting a positive experience for her daughter and friends, Dreher’s first task was to

start up and run a regional United States Pony Club. “Their mission is to develop character, leadership and confidence. It was a great way to instill these very important values at an early age,” she says. A great success to this day, she then produced the Novice through Intermediate Mill Creek Horse Trial in 1981. Not long thereafter, she had another big idea: to host the area’s North American Young Rider Championship (NAYRC). Dreher worked tirelessly to organize the event, a premier equestrian competition. As a result, the Area IV NAYRC has become an exciting opportunity for riders throughout the North and South continents to realize their goals. From there, Dreher became the vice president of administration with the United States Combined Training Association (USCTA), now the United States Eventing Association (USEA), a lofty title she held for several years. By 1991, the family had had enough of harsh midwest winters. They pulled up stakes for Vass, where they bought a house and fourteen acres. In typical Dreher fashion, she and husband, Sam, did a total renovation, creating a bucolic “seventh heaven” that included a cheery guest apartment over their central aisle barn. Once that was completed, she expanded her talents to include a stable design business for the ever-growing influx of horse people to the area. However, it was her considerable reputation as an event planner that attracted Jim Cogdell of The Fork, a conservation and sporting recreation facility in Norwood. Cogdell turned to Dreher with plans to create a sanctioned horse trial of international standing. In due course The Fork Horse Trials, a prestigious two and three star competition, came into being. Dreher poured her energies into the event for ten years. Despite the demands of family, work, and competition, Dreher, always the consummate hostess, encouraged compatriot Northern riders to escape the worst of winter at her farm. One such visitor was her good friend and Illinois neighbor, Mari Secrist. Having lived barely a mile away in the North, Mari and husband Roger were destined to become neighbors with the Drehers once again in the South. “Mari was my first guest. She immediately fell in love with the weather and the riding. It was just a matter of time before she and Roger purchased ninety acres just down the road,” says Dreher.

Mari Secrist’s Story

Having an absolute love of horses since she can remember, Secrist began her career in Rockford, Illinois, when she was 12 and saw Mr. Hogan’s ponies in a field one summer day. The following morning, she and her girlfriend pedaled their bikes to his house to ask him if they could ride. He said yes, if they showed up early, before the flies came out. But as they discovered, seven o’clock in the morning was too late. “The flies are already out. Come back tomorrow . . . at 5:30 a.m.,” he said before closing the door. Which they did from then on, every single morning.

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

By the age of 15 Secrist had her first horse, a pretty liver chestnut and white Pinto named Maude, who in six years went from being an unruly runaway to jumping over five feet with ease. Her next horse broke the Illinois High Jump record at 7’5” with the future Olympic team gold medal winner, Will Simpson, aboard. That was just the beginning . Secrist trained polo ponies and later ran a twenty-six-stall, 180 acre boarding and combined training barn. When she met her future husband, Roger, at a clinic with famed Three Day Event Olympic champion Tad Coffin, she moved to his Evergreen Farm, where they organized two horse trials and seven hunter shows a year. Roger, who, Secrist says, “loves to develop anything,” in time found another property that was to become an impressive breeding and training facility, and where their Olympic hopeful, Damien, was foaled. Meanwhile, Secrist was going forward with her riding career. Competing at the advanced level together with her Thoroughbred, George, she says he’s the reason they moved to North Carolina. With the Sandhills’ great footing, hilly terrain and temperate climate providing the backdrop for their intensive spring competition training program, the more it made sense to look for property. Secrist gives George recognition for “deciding” on the farm. Near Dreher’s land there was a 360-acre parcel of rolling hills owned by Eldridge Johnson. Neighboring riders had carved out a few trails around the longleaf pines and scrub oaks that dominated the landscape. “We’d invariably make our way to a clearing in the woods, which is now called The Mare’s Field. From there I could look through the trees down to a lovely pond,” Secrist recalls. “But George gets the credit for finding what is now the cross country field facing Lakebay Road. When I’d get lost, he’d head for the same spot every time. He knew the way home.” The property they eventually settled on was ninety of the Johnson acres that included the pond, a pecan grove, and “George’s” field. After purchasing it in 1992 and completing the work in 1998, the Secrists and their fifteen horses settled in that Christmas. Because Secrist loved to

develop horses and riders to be confident and happy in their job, designing and building the cross country course became her true passion. She says her design philosophy was greatly influenced by long-time friend and coach Jacek Wierzchowiecki, Poland’s former National Three Day Event coach. “When designing a course, it should be done in such a way that it not only teaches the horse the answers to the many questions that can be asked, but also so that both horse and rider gain confidence in such a way that at the end of the day they both feel like they are ‘King of the Hill,’” she says.

Running Start Gets Its Start and Keeps Running

“Linda was ready for her next project and suggested we organize a horse trial,” says Secrist, “something I was thinking about as well. I love to design but blanch at the thought of organizing — a talent which Linda has in spades. Running Start was a natural fit for us both. We then tapped into a number of individuals who were willing to do the one thing no event can do without . . . be volunteers.” With that, the word spread. When the scheduled day arrived at last, people came from up the road and as far away as Canada, to improve their skills, bring their young horses along or simply compete at a beautiful nearby facility. Whatever their motivation, the first Running Start was a big hit. Fueled by their success, Dreher and Secrist realized they had a green light to keep going. Secrist reflects, “The feedback has had such a positive impact that RSHT is going into its fourth year . . . and likely to continue into the foreseeable future, as long as it’s an asset to the community.” And so there’ll come an early fall morning, November 21 to be precise, when once again a steady stream of horse traffic will travel to the Secrist farm for a day of competition and camaraderie that is fast becoming a Sandhills tradition. PS

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

S tor y of a ho u s e

One of a Blooming Kind

A reborn Pinehurst cottage breathes the purpose and personalities of its creative new owners By Deborah Salomon â&#x20AC;˘ Photographs by John Gessner

“We found this little yellow house – a disaster waiting for someone to love it.”

magine a little gem of a house with no closets, no free-standing refrigerator, no rugs. Five flat-screen TVs but no microwave. Tiny bedrooms, narrow lap pool all located on a dirt lane overlooking a municipal recycling center. Sounds like a Realtor’s nightmare. Yet the same cottage answers to practical, historical, creative, environmental — a dream dwelling expressing the tastes and lifestyles of inhabitants Marilyn Barrett and her friend of thirty-eight years, Catherine Vrdolyk. Their mantra: reclaim, re-image, recycle, personalize. Practically nothing is stock, off-the-rack or mass-produced. Really, how many homeowners claim a blacksmith? An eight-foot steel ellipse (found in the yard) from the railroad spur that brought vacationers into Pinehurst serves as a lamppost over the garden, with the circa-1940s fixture itself rescued from the basement of a Chicago school. Shutters become headboards; curtains are drop cloths with horse bits for tie-backs. The slate slab serving as bathroom countertop comes from nearby Route 5. In the works: a custom-built brick-and-stone Croatian barbecue with spit resembling a pizza oven alongside the two-level deck, which, at 1,000 square feet, is only slightly smaller than the cottage footprint. Bloomsbury, they call it, after an intellectual coterie surrounding early 20th century British author Virginia Woolf, known outside literary circles for the eponymous film starring Elizabeth Taylor, more recently for Woolf’s novel, Mrs. Dalloway, reprised by Nicole Kidman in The Hours. A similar coterie (the house sleeps ten on convertible sofas and a loft) gravitates here for urbane conversation, golf, music, good wine and produce from Catherine’s garden. “People from different walks of life, a little off the beaten track – that’s what our lives are,” Marilyn explains.

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

“Our biggest decision was how to allocate space and enjoy the outside . . .”

arilyn, a creative director and marketing specialist, knew Pinehurst through her father, Eddie Barrett, an attorney and big-band musician who played at the resort and later retired here. When Eddie Barrett had a stroke Marilyn flew down. She liked what she saw. Catherine, an attorney and CPA, knew Pinehurst from golf. They have occupied spectacular digs, including a three-level loft, formerly the Uneeda Biscuit factory. Marilyn pictured Pinehurst as a retreat, “A place we could go together.” They surfed websites. “We found this little yellow house — a disaster waiting for someone to love it.” Marilyn recalls the real estate agent warning, as she unlocked the door, “You don’t want to see what’s inside.” Pinehurst, as it grew and developed, needed areas where support staff could live — the tradesmen, cooks, groundskeepers and, in this case, a seamstress who used the front room to receive customers. Marilyn and Catherine quickly dismissed the property’s condition, focusing instead on the half-acre of land walking distance to the village, a charming shed, ancestral magnolias and dogwoods. “Catherine loves a project,” Marilyn rationalized. That being the woodworking Catherine, who built a massive outdoor dining table, the bedroom cubbies, peg racks that replace closets and more. They purchased the cottage in 2012. Brimming with ideas, the duo next sought an architect. “We didn’t want a man telling us what to do,” Catherine states. Enter Christine Dandeneau, the force who translated vision into reality. They found her bio online. Never mind that her architectural experience was mostly commercial. She had graduated from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. Christine received a call: ‘You don’t know (us) but you’d be the perfect architect.” They conferred. “She got it,” the cottagers decided. “It” entailed copious long-distance communication whereby ideas were translated into lumber, pipes, wires, nails, paint and aura.

irst, they gutted the interior, including ceilings but not the floors, whose mismatched boards chronicled Bloomsbury’s history. When more flooring was needed, rather than buy new, Catherine trucked down boards from her sister’s home. “The smell of good old wood was like a museum,” Christine recalls. Except “old growth” structural timbers were solid as concrete, making removal of nails almost impossible Christine found a contractor with Chicago roots and local workmen, including that blacksmith. “Do we want it all open?” Catherine posed, at the outset. “Our biggest decision was how to allocate space and enjoy the outside,” seeing that the climate offers winter respite for Windy City-dwellers They discussed options, aided by Christine’s 3-D renderings. “When I presented plans to the village, they said you might as well knock the place down and start over.” The final plan was not “all open”; instead, open spaces flowed around an enclosed core containing a bathroom with skylight, a pantry and laundry equipment. Other walls or columns defined the two tiny bedrooms, a small sitting area near the front door, Marilyn’s reading nook with rocking chair and wet bar, a powder room and large kitchen-dining space. The only new construction besides the deck was a sunroom

providing spillover space from the kitchen. Glamour kitchens are so hot. This one defines utilitarian simplicity in the European mode. No hanging cabinets block the light; instead, utensils are stored in a table/island with an end-cut cherry surface. Catherine, the cook, requires only two refrigerated drawers since she purchases ingredients from farmers markets almost daily. The dining table employs benches rather than chairs, to squeeze in more guests. Kitchen and bathroom walls have beadboard wainscoting. Rooster art and gingham … not. “We didn’t want it too cottage-y,” Marilyn says. Their preferred palette expresses another philosophy. “A neutral canvas allows stuff like a piece of pottery to stand out,” Marilyn believes. “Colors make (a space) busier, less relaxed.” Here, light streaming through southfacing windows onto white walls is itself a color element. But Marilyn must have a touch of red, hence the kitchen countertops. Rugs were banned to prevent worry about tracking in dirt. Bare floors not only show off polished wood but whisk clean. Marilyn and Catherine brought no furnishings from their other homes, preferring to purchase or build necessities. Minimalism rules.

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

“Marilyn and Cathy knew what they wanted,” Christine says. “They weren’t afraid. I learned a lot from them.”

Objects serve as wall art — musical instruments (including Eddie Barrett’s) and a weathered window frame, each pane surrounding a photograph taken from their hotel during a Croatian holiday.

arilyn stayed at Pine Needles during much of the renovation. Bloomsbury Cottage was completed in August 2013. Personality expressed within oozes through the walls to clapboards and trim. At purchase, the cottage was basic yellow. The women mulled over its rightness. Marilyn, in her quest for authenticity, invited an art director to study vegetation and compose a palette indigenous to the Sandhills. They found the fitting hue, more French vanilla than lemon, on the Southern Pines train station. “It had just been painted, so we got an exact match from the paint store,” Marilyn says. Even the green window trim and red ground level border mimic the station. Marilyn finally got a red door, which signifies welcome. And now, the most tangible connection to Virginia Woolf’s essay “A Room of One’s Own,” published in 1929, considered a seminal feminist text exploring gender inequality as applied to writers. A precious outbuilding, once a woodshed, not more than eight-by-twelve feet, became Marilyn’s personal space where she works, thinks and relaxes. Windows taken from the house overlook the garden. Furnishings are simple: an oversized upholstered wing chair, bookshelves, a spindly antique tabledesk, family photographs, a portrait of Virginia Woolf and rafters festooned with baseball caps representing their travels. Closer to the pool, Catherine’s slightly larger “room” is devoted to woodworking tools. Her avocation has produced not only the massive picnic table but cubbies which replace closets and dressers.

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

hidden pocket neighborhood. A walled garden. Brick paths separating raised beds. A firewood hopper made by the staff blacksmith. A friendly dog. Music from speakers mounted throughout. A group effort. “Marilyn and Cathy knew what they wanted,” Christine says. “They weren’t afraid. I learned a lot from them.” “I can see making this my residence,” Marilyn concludes. “Wherever I look, there’s light. On a rainy day I sit in the nook by the bar or go to the shed by myself. Maybe in five years we’ll rent the (Chicago) loft and take a place in New York, or Paris. We love Paris. But this is the easiest place to live — the happiest and safest.” Besides, after a relentless pursuit of individuality, these rooms are truly their own. PS

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Sounds on the Grounds will be held the final Thursday in June, July and August.

Take the Bite Out of the Dog Days

Featuring 70’s-themed band

“GROOVETOWN”

THURSDAY, JUNE 25TH • 6:00PM-9:00PM THE BREAKFAST CLUB • JULY 30TH LIQUID PLEASURE • AUGUST 27TH

WITH CARRIER COOL CASH, THE SEASON TO SAVE IS NOW. ®

There’s never been a better time to upgrade to a Carrier System for quality and efficiency. For a limited time you can save up to 1,450 in cool cash rebates on qualifing systems.

Don’t wait. Cool Cash is only available for a limited time.

ADVANCED TICKET SALES $5

Available at Weymouth Center and The Country Bookshop

$10 AT THE GATE CHILDREN UNDER 12 FREE FOOD & BEVERAGE TRUCKS ON SITE

Sunbelt Service Pros: Service is our middle name AIR CONDITIONING CONTRACTORS 707-H S. Pinehurst St. • Aberdeen

910-944-2044

sunbeltservicepros.com

(910) 692-6261 www.weymouthcenter.org 555 EAST CONNECTICUT AVENUE SOUTHERN PINES NC 28387

Dining Guide

Come enjoy our Italian Atmosphere for great food with friends and family! Tues., Wed., & Thurs. Fri. & Sat. Sun. & Mon. 5pm to 9pm 5pm to 10pm Closed

We accept reservations. 515 S.E. Broad St | Southern Pines, NC 28387 910-725-1868 | www.curtscucina.com

To advertise, call 910-693-7271

Dining Guide

195 american fusion cuisine supporting local farmers

lunch tues-sat 11-3 dinner wed-sat 5:30-9:30 chef prem nath

195 bell avenue southern pines 910.692.7110 www.195americanfusion.com

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET

Peach and Basil Salsa Food Demo with Alyssa Anderson, Extension Agent, Family and Consumer Sciences, June 20th 9:30 – 11:30 Downtown Southern Pines Tomatoes, Strawberries, Fruits, Veggies, Jams, Meats, Flowers & Plants, Goat Cheese, Prepared Foods, Baked Goods, Crafts, Peaches, Blueberries, Corn Mondays- FirstHealth (Fitness Center) Facility courtesy of First Health

“It’s more fun to eat in a Pub than drink in a Restaurant” Open 7 days a week for Lunch & Dinner Live music every weekend

40 Chinquapin Rd. Village of Pinehurst 910-295-3193 DrumandQuill.com

170 Memorial Dr • Pinehurst 2pm-5:30pm Will be open through October 26th Open Year Round • Thursdays - 604 W. Morganton Rd

(Armory Sports Complex) Facility courtesy of Town of Southern Pines Southern Pines 9am-1pm Saturdays - Downtown Southern Pines

Facility courtesy of Town of Southern Pines Broad St & New York Ave 8am-Noon Will be open through October 31th

Call 947-3752 or 690-9520 for more info. hwwebster@embarqmail.com Web search Moore County Farmers Market Local Harvest www.facebook.com/moorecountyfarmersmarket SNAP welcomed here

BROAD STREET

Restaurant Authentic Thai Cusine

KERY BAand Café Delightful Homemade Café Breakfast & Lunch Daily Specials & Menu

U.S. Hwy 1 South & 15-501 1404 Sandhills Blvd. Aberdeen, NC 28315

Smoke Free Environment Lunch

Closed Monday Tuesday - Friday 11:00am - 2:30pm Saturday Closed for Lunch Sunday 11:30am - 2:30pm

Dinner

Tuesday - Sunday 5:00pm - 9:30pm Saturday 4:00pm-9:30pm See our menu on MooCo under Oriental Restaurants

(910) 944-9299

Carryout and Vegetarian Dishes 84

Dine In or Enjoy our Sidewalk Café Coffees • Teas Smoothies Fresh Daily Bagels, Breads, Danish, Muffins & Sweet Treats

Specialty Orders All OccassionCakes & Pies Breakfast or Lunch Orders To Go ( Call ahead for groups of 4 or more )

“The Sweetest Spot in the Sandhills”

130 SW Broad St • Southern Pines

910-692-3902

June 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;” Oberon, Act II, Scene I, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. By Rosetta Fawley Don’t forget Father’s Day on June 21. It’s also the summer solstice. Make a weekend of it. Take your father to Sweden, where you can celebrate Midsummer at the same time, dancing round the maypole and feasting on herring and new potatoes, strawberries, beer and schnapps. Learn a drinking song or three. Head for the north and party there — the sun will stay up for the whole weekend. Or stay in the Americas and head to the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, where you can gaze at Lord Leighton’s masterpiece Flaming June.

Mr. Toad’s Abode Keep an eye out for June bugs, also known as green June beetles. As their name suggests, the adults start to appear in June. It’s a little early for rotting fruit, which is their favorite food, but the grubs can wreak havoc on a lawn. Insecticide is an option, but the Almanac is fond of insects and all who feast on them — who wants a silent summer? — and does not condone these methods. Attract frogs and toads, the gardener’s best friends, to your garden instead. Build a toad abode; it’s as simple as upturning a ceramic pot in a shady spot on the dirt. Balance it on a rock or two so the toad has an entrance and place a saucer of water nearby if you don’t have a pond. It’s easy to make a small pond to attract frogs. A sunken galvanized pail or tub of water will work if space is at a premium. Add rocks and plant native vegetation so the frogs can get in and out easily and have a little shade. Small snakes (don’t scream, they eat vermin) like vegetation too, as do lizards, green anoles, skinks and toads. Plant densely and try to choose native varieties, which will do better than imports and require less maintenance. Keep brush and arrange it in small piles to make cozy homes for reptiles. Don’t throw away rocks but arrange them nearby in a sunny spot to give your new friends somewhere to bask. At night, enjoy the chorus.

Butterflies Are Free Another reason to put away the pesticides? It’s National Butterfly Education and Awareness Day on June 6. Back to those native plants — butterflies have evolved to thrive on the nectar of their environment. Try to plant so that your garden flowers through the spring, summer and fall, and remember that butterflies like to feed in the sun. Consult The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website to find the best native plants for butterflies in North Carolina: www. wildflower.org/collections. The Almanac’s favorite choice for this month is, naturally, the Juneberry.

June’s Main Man “I first heard of [Johnny Cash] through Elvis Presley. Elvis would make me go into these little cafés and listen to John [on the jukebox] when we played in the South in the Carolinas and all down through Florida and Georgia. Then, one night backstage at the Opry, this man walked up to me and said, I want to meet you, I’m Johnny Cash. And I said, Well, I oughta know who you are. Elvis can’t even tune his guitar unless he goes, ‘Everybody knows where you go when the sun goes down.’” June Carter Cash

Birthday Boys Happy birthday to Johnny Depp, star of Benny and Joon. Mr. Depp celebrates his birthday on June 9. Also born on that date: Tsar Peter the Great (1672–1725), Cole Porter (1891–1964), Jackie Wilson (1934–1984), Donald Duck (1934) and Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012).

Arts Entertainment C a l e n da r

A Foray for Frogs

Morehead Planetarium

•

SUMMER READING PROGRAM. Sign-ups begin for the Southern Pines Public Library Summer Reading Program. This year’s theme is “Every Hero has a Story.” Sign up online or at the library. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

Tuesdays, June 2—June 23

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YOGA. 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. This class is for beginners and those who want a gentle, mindful yoga practice, including stretching, strengthening, and relaxing. Bring a yoga mat and towel. Cost: $30/resident; $60/non-resident. Classes will be held at the Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Road S, Pinehurst (Please pre-register with Parks and Recreation Dept. or online by June 1). Info: (910) 295-2817 or pinehurstrec.org.

Wednesday, June 3

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WINE GALA AT THE FRESH MARKET. 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. A fun evening of delightful hors d’oeuvres, dis-

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

Monday, June 1

Key:

Water Gardening

tinctive cheeses, and up to a 15 percent discount on wine purchases to benefit The Carolina Philharmonic’s mission to bring music to Moore County. Cost: $25. (Tickets are limited.) The Fresh Market, 155 Beverly Lane, Southern Pines. Info: http://shop.carolinaphil.org.

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ART TALK WITH DENISE BAKER. 5 – 6 p.m. A provocative and engaging talk on art with the recently retired head of the Art Department of Sandhills Community College. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or information. thecountrybookshop@gmail.com.

Friday, June 5

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FIRST FRIDAY. 5 – 8:30 p.m. A family-friendly event with live music by Sister Sparrow & the Dirty Birds. Food, beverages, and entertainment. Free admission. Sunrise Green Space, 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: firstfridaysouthernpines.com.

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HOME FRONT & DOWNRANGE: WITNESS THE ART IN MILITARY LIFE. 6 – 8 p.m. Opening Reception with artists for an exhibit focusing on military

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

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life and honoring our military’s sacrifices and service. Presented by the Arts Council of Moore County and St. Joseph of the Pines. 482 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2787 or mooreart.org.

Friday, June 5—July 10

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HOME FRONT & DOWNRANGE: WITNESS THE ART IN MILITARY LIFE. Weekdays, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Saturdays, (June 6, 13, and 27), 1 – 4 p.m. Exhibit focusing on military life and honoring our military’s sacrifices and service. Presented by the Arts Council of Moore County and St. Joseph of the Pines. Campbell House, 482 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2787 or mooreart.org.

Friday, June 5

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JAZZY FRIDAYS. 6 p.m. Enjoy a bottle of wine and dancing with friends under the tent while The Mike Wallace Quartet entertains you with live jazz music. Cost: $10/person. Reservations and pre-payment are required for parties of eight or more. Food vendor will be on site. Cypress Bend Vineyards, 21904 Riverton Road, Wagram.

Sports

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Info: (910) 369-0411 or cypressbendvineyards.com.

Saturday, June 6

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NATIONAL TRAILS DAY VOLUNTEER EVENT. 9 – 11 a.m. Participate in some trail improvement projects. Bring work clothes, closed-toe shoes, work gloves, water, and bug spray. Bring a lunch for a picnic afterwards at the park. Please call the park office to register. Visitor Center at Weymouth Woods — Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

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MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 – 3 p.m. Come visit with artist Linda Griffin. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or hollyhocksartgallerycom.

Sunday, June 7

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STORYTELLER PRISCILLA BEST. 3 – 4 p.m. This interactive program of contemporary stories and folktales is the first of three events to be presented by the Southern Pines Public Library Adult Summer Reading Program, One Community: Many Voices. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 6928235 or sppl.net.

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DISCOVERY HIKE TO THE OLDEST TREE (BOYD TRACT WALK). 3 p.m. One-mile hike to oldest known living Longleaf Pine in the U.S. Bring bottled water, bug spray, and wear comfortable shoes. Visitor Center at Weymouth Woods–Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

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ABSOLUTELY ART. 5 – 7 p.m. This opening reception for Associate and Full Members of the Artists League of the Sandhills includes a judged show with an awards ceremony at 5:30. The Exchange Street Gallery, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979.

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ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:46 p.m. Mike Farris performs. Cost: $18 (in advance). Doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets available online and at the door. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 9447502 or theroosterswife.org.

Monday, June 8

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OUTDOOR JAZZ CONCERT AND BARBECUE DINNER. Dinner at 5, concert at 6:30 p.m. Sandhills Community College Jazz Band, directed by Rob Hill. Cost: $7 per plate for dinner; concert is free. On the Lawn at Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: http://mccune-7lakes.home. mindspring.com.

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SANDHILLS PHOTO CLUB MEETING. 7 p.m. Member competition on golf. Hannah Center Theater at The O’Neal School, 3300 Airport Road, Southern Pines. Info: sandhillsphotoclub.org.

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SIP & PAINT WITH JANE. 5 p.m. Join resident artist Jane Casnellie for a fun evening of sipping and painting and take home your own masterpiece! No experience neces-

sary and all materials provided. Cost: $35. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info and registration: (910) 255-0665 to register.

Wednesdays, June 10—July 1

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TAI CHI. 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. Lee Holbrook will instruct these classes based on gentle circular movements for people of all levels, ages 18 and over. Cost: $21/resident; $42/non-resident. Classes will be held at the Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Road S, Pinehurst (Please pre-register with Parks and Recreation Dept. or online by June 9.) Info: (910) 295-2817 or pinehurstrec.org.

Wednesdays, June 10—July 22

•

PAINTING CLASS, ALL MEDIA. 1 – 4 p.m. Instructor Eileen Strickland will cover basic information on materials, techniques, color theory, composition, and problem solving. Classes are open to students of all levels of experience, ages 18 and over. Cost: $35/resident; $70/ non-resident. (Pre-register with the Recreation Department by June 9th.) Classes will meet at Village Hall, Assembly Hall, 425 Magnolia Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-2817 or pinehurstrec.org.

als, techniques, color theory, composition, and problem solving. Classes are open to students of all levels of experience, ages 18 and over. Cost: $35/resident; $70/nonresident. (Pre-register with the Recreation Department by June 9th.) Classes will meet at Village Hall, Assembly Hall, 425 Magnolia Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-2817 or pinehurstrec.org.

Friday, June 12 & Friday, June 26

•

BEACH FRIDAYS. 6 p.m. Enjoy a bottle of wine and dancing with friends under the tent while The Sand Band entertains you with live music. Cost: $10/person. Reservations and prepayment are required for parties of eight or more. Food vendor on site. Cypress Bend Vineyards, 21904 Riverton Road, Wagram. Info: (910) 3690411 or cypressbendvineyards.com.

Saturday, June 13

•

TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY. 2 – 4 p.m. Presented by the Southern Pines Public Library Reading Program. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235.

•

MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 – 3 p.m. Come visit with artist Jane Casnellie. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or hollyhocksartgallerycom.

Thursday, June 11

•

CONCERT IN THE GARDEN. 6 – 8:30 p.m. Rain or shine, an evening of incomparable ambience, terrific music, and good times. Gates open at 6 p.m. Entertainment by Old Habits begins at 6:30. Bring chairs or a blanket for lawn seating. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. Cost: No cost/Regular CFBG members; Garden Admission price/non-members. Cape Fear Botanical Garden, 536 N Eastern Blvd, Fayetteville. Info: (910) 4860221 or capefearbg.org.

•

WAR HORSE EVENT SERIES. 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Open to all riders, this is an opportunity to school any or all phases for the Sunday competition. (An extra show jumping course will be set in the ring.) Cost for Open Schooling (XC, Show Jumping & Dressage $125/Regular; $70/Friend of The Park. Carolina Horse Park, 2814 Montrose Road, Raeford. Info: (910) 875-2074.

Friday, June 12

•

A FORAY FOR FROGS! 8:30 p.m. Join us for a hike down to the creek to listen for calling frogs and toads. Families are welcome, but please leave your dogs at home for this program. Flashlights, close-toed shoes, and bug spray are recommended. Visitor Center at Weymouth Woods–Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

CREEPY CRAWLIES FOR WEE ONES. 10 – 10:45 a.m. Come learn about some of our creepy crawly friends as we read a book, play some games, and make a craft. All activities will be geared towards 3- to 5-year-olds and meant for parents to do with their children. Visitor Center at Weymouth Woods–Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

NATURE JOURNALING. 10 a.m. Join us for National Get Outdoors Day as we kick-off the Weymouth Wood’s nature journaling summer program with a session about leaves. Bring your own journaling materials or use ours (supply limited). All ages and levels of experience are welcome. Visitor Center at Weymouth Woods–Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

MEET THE AUTHOR. 5 p.m. Mark Reinfeld, winner of Vegan.com’s Recipe of the Year Award, will discuss his book, 30 Minute Vegan. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or information.thecountrybookshop@gmail.com.

•

MOVIE IN THE PINES. 8:30 p.m. Bring a blanket or chair and come early for good seating and games before the movie, Big Hero 6. Concessions available on site. Downtown Park, 145 SE Broad St., Southern Pines. (Rain Date 6/19) Info: (910) 692-7376.

•

LIVE MUSIC. 7 – 10 p.m. The Moonlight Shiners band performs at the Wine Cellar & Tasting Room, 241-A NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Free to the public. Info: (910) 692-3066.

Fridays, June 12—July 24

•

Sunday, June 14

OIL PAINTING CLASS. 2 – 5 p.m. Instructor Eileen Strickland will cover basic information on materiKey:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

• • • Film

OUR STATE SYMBOLS. 3 p.m. Join a Park Ranger

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

ca l e n d a r and learn about our state bird, the Northern Cardinal, as well as our state insect, reptile, and mammal. Visitor Center at Weymouth Woods-Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

•

WAR HORSE EVENT SERIES. The option of dressage, cross-country, show jumping, or all three phases will be available. Cost for entrants: $135 for horse trial (dressage, cross-country, and jumping) or $75 for combined test (cross-country and jumping only), or $40 for dressage only. Stabling and hookups extra. No cost for spectators. Carolina Horse Park, 2814 Montrose Road, Raeford. Info: (910) 875-2074.

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:46 p.m. Cale Tyson and Amy Speace perform. Cost: $12 in advance. Doors open at 6:16 p.m. Tickets available online and at the door. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 9447502 or theroosterswife.org.

•

HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING. 2 p.m. This year’s annual membership meeting will be held at the Black-Cole house at Rubicon Farm and will include a special presentation on the history of the house. Refreshments will be served. (The Black-Cole house is located at the end of Rubicon Road off N.C. 73. See website for directions.) Moore County Historical Association. Info: (910) 692-2051 or moorehistory.com.

•

SUNDAY KID’S MOVIE. 2:30 p.m. A mysterious potion prompts a group of elves, goblins, imps, and fairies to embark on an adventure in this fantasy film inspired by William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

Tuesday, June 16

TRANSIT— Family-Owned DAMAGE FREIGHT Since 1966 — A unique, one-of-a-kind furniture store selling new and transit-damaged furniture and new bedding at prices you can afford.

•

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF MOORE COUNTY ANNUAL MEETING AND LUNCHEON. 11:30 a.m. The public is welcome to attend, but must reserve no later than June 12. Cost: $13, payable by check made out to LWVMC. Table on the Green Restaurant, 2205 Midland Drive, Pinehurst. Info: Call Charlotte at (910) 944-9611.

•

BABY STORYTIME. 10:30 a.m. Parents and babies (ages birth to 18 months) will be engaged in early literary practices. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

Wednesday, June 17

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FAMILY STORYTIME. 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. Join us for stories, song, and fun, and stay for playtime! Family Storytime is for infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years). Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

Thursday, June 18

•

SUMMER BOOK CLUB. 10:30 a.m. To join the Douglass Center Book Club this summer, sign up and pick up your books at the Douglass Community Center or the Southern Pines Public Library. Books are provided through the Library’s Book Club Kits. The Game Room, Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

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FAMILY FUN NIGHT. 5:30 p.m. Hands-on activities, take-home ideas, snacks, and stories for the entire family presented by the Southern Pines Public Library Reading Program. This week’s theme is Superhero Training Camp. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

••• • •

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

• • •

Dance/Theater Fun History

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

PineServices

ca l e n d a r IN-HOME CARE SERVICES

•

WINE & WHIMSY. 5 – 7 p.m. Enjoy a glass of wine or beer while painting your masterpiece — this month, it’s a sunset. A canvas, paint, brushes, palette, an easel and instruction will be provided. Wine, beer, and snacks available for purchase. Limited to 16 attendees—register early! Cost: $20/CFBG members; $25/non-members. Cape Fear Botanical Garden, 536 N Eastern Blvd., Fayetteville. Info: (910) 486-0221 or capefearbg.org.

Party Supplies for all Occassions

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•

MEET THE AUTHOR. 5 p.m. Ellen Corcoran Hart will talk about her book Beloved Innocence, the story of how her father, who was sent on a real orphan train from NYC to North Dakota, and mother survived difficult childhoods, met, married and stayed together for 52 years. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or information.thecountrybookshop@ gmail.com.

Buy Local!

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compassionate home care. 24 hour, 7 days a week availability

NC Licensed & Nationally Accredited Home Care Agency

780 NW Broad Street • Suite 410 Southern Pines, NC

910-246-0586

Thursday, June 18—June 21

•

PLAZA SUITE. Thursday, 7 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Judson Theatre Company’s fourth season opens with Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, a clever, comic meditation on the effects of time on love, starring Eve Plumb (best known as Jan on The Brady Bunch) and Rex Smith (a veteran of stage and screen, and known for the platinum album hit “You Take My Breath Away.” Ticket prices vary. Owens Auditorium at Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info and tickets: judsontheatre.com or (800) 514-3849.

Friday, June 19

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JAZZY FRIDAYS. 6 p.m. Enjoy a bottle of wine and dancing with friends under the tent while The Mike Wallace Quartet entertains you with live jazz music. Cost: $10. Reservations and prepayment are required for parties of eight or more. Food vendor on site. Cypress Bend Vineyards, 21904 Riverton Road, Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411 or cypressbendvineyards.com.

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(910) 246-8000 10677 Hwy 15-501 Southern Pines Southernpines-594.comfortkeepers.com Most offices independently owned and operated

FAMILY SKATE NIGHT. 6 – 8 p.m. All levels of skaters are welcome to come skate under the lights. Rollerblades/roller skates and helmets are required. Rassie Wicker Park, 10 Wicker Drive, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-2817.

•

FUN DOG SHOW. 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. The Walthour-Moss Foundation hosts a dog show with ribbons for each class: cutest, best trick, jr. handler, and more. Cost: $5/class. Lyell’s Meadow, 225 Mile Away Lane, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 695-7811 or www. walthour-moss.org.

•

MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 – 3 p.m. Visit with artist Charlie Roberts. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or hollyhocksartgallerycom.

•

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••• • •

vickieaumaninteriors@yahoo.com

Dance/Theater Fun History

Bakery Tues-Sat 8am-3pm Sun 11am-3pm Lunch Tues-Sun 11am-2:30pm Breakfast Tues - Sat 8 - 10:30am 910.944.9204 120 N. Poplar St. Aberdeen

By the Hour Call for appointment

• • •

Established 1948

By the Project

TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY. 2 – 4 p.m. Presented by the Southern Pines Public Library Reading Program. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235.

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

910-400-5459

www.PackShipPartySupply.com

The Bakehouse & Cafe

Saturday, June 20

FATHER’S DAY WEEKEND BIRD WALK. 8 a.m. Join ornithologist Susan Campbell to look for breeding birds/new families in Weymouth Woods. Wear comfortable shoes and bring field guides, binoculars, bottled water, and shoes. Walk approximately 1.5 miles. Visitor Center at Weymouth Woods–Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

145 W. Plaza Dr. • Seven Lakes

Where European Tradition meets Southern Charm

• •

Fed Ex & US Mail Shipping, Faxing, Copying, Moving & Packaging Supplies, Notary

Pinehurst

910-315-3206

ca l e n d a r

•

HELLO SUMMER

HOMEFRONT & DOWNRANGE: MILITARY APPRECIATION DAY. 10 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. Exhibit and activities that include papermaking workshops, a concert by the Army Ground Forces Band’s Loose Cannons, canine demonstrations by K2 Solutions & Fort Bragg’s Military Working Dogs, information on organizations that serve our military, art activities, and more. Campbell House, 482 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2787 or mooreart.org.

•

SATURDAY CRAFT DAY. All day. Kids can be their own environmental heroes with the recycled crafts featured here. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

•

MOREHEAD PLANETARIUM. 9:00 – 3: p.m. We will take a group tour to learn more about science in space and the world around us. Enjoy lunch (on your own) after the tour. Cost: $14/resident; $28/non-resident. Southern Pines Recreation and Parks, Campbell House, 482 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Participants will convene and depart from the Campbell House. Info: (910) 692-7376.

•

LIVE MUSIC. 7 – 10 p.m. Whiskey Pines performs at the Wine Cellar & Tasting Room, 241-A NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Free to the public. Info: (910) 692-3066.

143 NE Broad St. Unit C | Southern Pines, NC 10:00-5:30 Mon-Sat | Sun 12 - 3 910.992.2787 | travelingchicboutique.com | 9

•

SUMMERTIME BLUES DRESSAGE SHOW. Until noon. Horse competitions. Pinehurst Harness Track, 200 Beulah Road S, Pinehurst. Info: 910-692-8467 or carolinadressage.com.

Sunday, June 21

•

FATHER’S DAY HIKE. 3 p.m. Bring Dad and join a park ranger for a 2-mile hike through Weymouth Woods. Wear comfortable shoes and bring bug spray and bottled water. Visitor Center at Weymouth Woods–Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

•

HOT SUMMER FILM. 2:30 p.m. Presented by the Southern Pines Public Library Summer Reading Program, this hilarious and heartwarming movie is set in the near future. Frank has two grown kids who are concerned he can no longer live alone, so they get him a robot to improve his health. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:46 p.m. Doublewide performs. Cost: $22/advance; $25/day of. Doors open at 6:16 p.m. Tickets available online and at the door. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-7502 or theroosterswife.org.

Monday, June 22—June 24

•

PINEWILD YOUTH GOLF CLINICS. 9 a.m. These three-day clinics are for boys and girls ages 8 – 16 and will focus on fundamentals, golf etiquette, rules of play, and more. Appropriate golf attire and own clubs required. Cost: $85. Participants should assemble by the flagpole in front of the clubhouse, 5 minutes prior to the start time. Golf Academy at Pinewild Country Club, 6 Glasgow Drive, N.C. 211 W, Pinehurst: Info: (910) 295-2817.

Monday, June 22 —June 26

•

JUNIOR FIREFIGHTER ACADEMY. 8:30 a.m – 1 p.m. Hosted by the Pinehurst Fire Department and Pinehurst Parks & Recreation Department, this co-ed program is open to students entering grades 6 – 8 and will include physical training, classroom sessions, demonstrations by firefighters, and hands-on activities. Cost: $25/

••• • •

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

• • •

Dance/Theater Fun History

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ca l e n d a r resident; $50/non-resident. (limited to 15 participants, firstcome basis). Training Room, Pinehurst Fire Department, 405 Magnolia Road, Pinehurst. Info: 910-295-5575 or fire@ vopnc.org.

Monday, June 22

•

THE SANDHILLS NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY MEETING. 7 p.m. Weymouth Woods Auditorium, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167 or sandhillsnature.org.

Tuesday, June 23

•

SENIORS DAY OUT. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Spend the day at the NC Museums of History and of Natural Science and enjoy lunch at Pharaoh’s, which offers a variety of foods. Cost: $16/resident; $32/nonresident. (Register by Friday, June 19th) Leave from the Assembly Hall Lobby, Assembly Hall, 395 Magnolia Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-2817 or pinehurstrec.org.

•

BABY STORYTIME. 10:30 a.m. Parents and babies (birth to two years) will be engaged in early literary practices. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

•

MEET THE AUTHOR. 5:30 p.m. Matthew Quick will talk about his new novel, Love May Fail. Quick is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including The Silver Linings Playbook. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211 or information.thecountrybookshop@ gmail.com.

Tuesday, June 23—June 29

•

BOLSHOI BALLET LIVE IN HD. Season ticket renewals will be on sale for the 2015-16 season. Seven performances of the world’s favorite ballets are broadcast in high definition at the Sunrise Theater. Cost: $120. Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8501.

Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

•

SOUNDS ON THE GROUND. 5 – 8 p.m. As part of Weymouth’s Summer Concert Series, the band Groovetown will perform. Food and beer trucks will be on site. Cost: $5/in advance (call or stop by Weymouth Center Office); $10/at the gate day of event. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261.

Friday, June 26

•

NATURE JOURNALING PART II: INSECTS AND SPIDERS. 3 p.m. After a brief review of how to start one’s journal, quick-draw insects and spiders, and use field guides for identification, we will take a hike and draw our discoveries. In the event of rain, an indoor program will be planned. Bring your own materials or use ours (selection limited). All ages, levels of experience, and newcomers are welcome. Visitor Center at Weymouth Woods–Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

Saturday, June 27—July 3

•

Saturday, June 27

MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 – 3 p.m. Visit with artist Diane Kraudelt. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or hollyhocksartgallerycom.

•

TEEN MOVIE. 2 p.m. Presented by the Southern Pines Public Library Reading Program. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net. Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

115TH MEN’S NORTH & SOUTH AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP. The longest consecutive-running amateur golf championship in the United States. Entries are open to male amateur golfers who have a handicap index of 5.0 or less. Pinehurst No. 2., Pinehurst Resort, 1 Carolina Vista Drive, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 235-8140 or (800) 7954653, Opt 3 or pinehurst.com.

•

BOOTCAMP IN THE PARK. 9:15 – 10 a.m. A workout for all ages and fitness levels. Children and dogs welcome. Held next to basketball courts at the Downtown Park Southern Pines. Info: (910) 445-1842.

•

LIVE MUSIC. 7 – 10 p.m. Cousin Amy performs at the Wine Cellar & Tasting Room, 241-A NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Free to the public. Info: (910) 692-3066.

Sunday, June 28

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:46 p.m. Victoria Vox and Django Haskins perform. Cost: $15/advance, $20/day of. Doors open at 6:16 p.m. Tickets available online and at the door. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-7502 or theroosterswife.org.

• • •

FIRE IN THE PINES. 3 p.m. Join the Park Ranger for

Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

Wednesday, June 24

•

FAMILY STORYTIME. 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. Join us for stories, song, and fun, and then stay for playtime! Family Storytime is for infants and toddlers (ages birth through 4 years). Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or sppl.net.

•

RE-PURPOSING FOUND ITEMS AS GARDEN ART. 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. The Sandhills Horticultural Society invites you to join Matt Hollyfield of King and Hollyfield to learn how to turn found items into garden art treasures. All you need to bring is your imagination. Cost: $25/member; $30/non-member. Register early as space is limited. The Ball Visitors Center, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 695-3882.

Thursday, June 25

•

CONCERT IN THE GARDEN. 6 – 8:30 p.m. Rain or shine, an evening of incomparable ambience, terrific music, and good times. Gates open at 6 p.m. Entertainment by the Coconut Groove Band begins at 6:30. Bring chairs or a blanket for lawn seating. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. Cost: No cost/regular CFBG member; Garden Admission price/non-member. Cape Fear Botanical Garden, 536 N Eastern Blvd, Fayetteville. Info: (910) 486-0221 or capefearbg.org.

•

••• • •

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

• • •

Dance/Theater Fun History

ca l e n d a r

AS JEWELRY

110 W. Pennsylvania Ave. Southern Pines, NC 28387 910.695.4275 • www.PaulHarknessJewelry.com

JEWELRY AS ART

a presentation about how fire helps the plants and animals of the Longleaf Pine Forest. Visitor Center Auditorium, Weymouth Woods–Sandhills Nature Preserve, 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2167.

Monday, June 29

•

WATER GARDENING. 12 – 1 p.m. Lunch and learn at the gardens with Joe Granato of Star Ridge Aquatics. Bring your lunch and the Garden will provide drinks. Ball Visitors Center, Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 695-3882. Register by email: landscapegardening@sandhills.edu.

June 29—July 1

•

Monday, June 29—July 2

•

YOUTH POTTERY CAMP. 1 p.m. Come and create your own pottery pieces with instructor Karen Fellema. For boys and girls ages 5 years and older. Cost: $70/resident; $140/non-resident. The Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Road S, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-2817.

Tuesday, June 30

•

BOLSHOI BALLET LIVE IN HD. New season tickets go on sale for the 2015-16 season. Seven performances of the world’s favorite ballets are broadcast in high definition at the Sunrise Theater. Cost: $120. Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8501.

•

JAM SESSION. 7 – 9 p.m. Bring a beverage and enjoy a casual evening listening to some great music. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 East Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261.

•

LADIES NIGHT OUT WITH ALCOHOL INK. 6 – 8 p.m. Join Pam Griner for a relaxing evening exploring the process of painting with alcohol ink and learning about the different brands of ink, the paper that works best with the medium, and how to create abstract and landscape paintings. Supplies and refreshments included. Cost: $28/$32/$35. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979.

WEEKLY EVENTS Mondays

•

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET. 2:00 – 5:30 p.m. Produce only — fresh and locally grown. FirstHealth (Fitness Center) 170 Memorial Drive, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 947-3752 or (910) 690-9520 or moorecountync.gov/index.php/farmers-market.

Wednesdays

•

SANDHILLS FARMERS GREEN MARKET. 3 – 6 p.m. Fresh and locally grown fruit and vegetables. Cannon Park, corner of Rattlesnake Trail and Woods Road, off N.C. 211, near traffic circle, Pinehurst. Info: (803) 517-5476 or moorecountync.gov/index.php/farmers-market.

Thursdays

• 92

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET. 9 a.m.

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ca l e n d a r – 1 p.m. Produce only — fresh and locally grown. Armory Sports Complex, Morganton Road, Southern Pines. Info: Info: (910) 947-3752 or (910) 690-9520 or moorecountync. gov/index.php/farmers-market.

Fridays

•

FREE COOKING DEMO. 5 p.m. A great way to start off the weekend and get scrumptious ideas. No reservations needed. The Flavor Exchange, 115 E New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1345 or theflavorexchange@gmail.com.

Art Galleries

ABOUT ART GALLERY inside The Market Place Midland Bistro Building, 2160 Midland Road, Pinehurst. The gallery features local artists. Open Monday-Friday 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. (910) 215-596. Artist GAlleRy OF SOUTHERN PINES, 167 E. New Hampshire Avenue., Southern Pines. Features art and fine crafts from more than 60 North Carolina artists. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910) 692-6077.

•

Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St. in historic Aberdeen. Exhibit hours are noon – 3 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910) 944-3979.

Saturdays

Broadhurst Gallery, 2212 Midland Road, Pinehurst. Showcases works by nationally recognized artists such as Carol Bechtel, Jason Craighead, Linda Ruth Dickinson, Bruce Dorfman, Kathleen Earthrowl. Meetthe-artist opportunities available. Monday-Friday (closed Wednesday), 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., Saturday, 1 – 4 p.m and special appointments. (910) 295-4817, www.broadhurstgallery.com.

STORYTIME FOR CHILDREN. 10:30 a.m. The Country Bookshop. 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines (910) 692-3211.

•

SANDHILLS FARMERS GREEN MARKET. 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. Fresh and locally grown fruit and vegetables. Village of Pinehurst, 1 Village Green Road, West Pinehurst. Info: Info: (803) 517-5476 or moorecountync. gov/index.php/farmers-market.

•

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET. 8 a.m. – noon. Produce only—fresh and locally grown. SE Broad St. and New York Ave. Southern Pines. Info: (910) 947-3752 or (910) 690-9520 or moorecountync.gov/index.php/ farmers-market.

•

STORY HOUR. 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. For ages 3 to 5. Givens Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-6022 or tuftsarchives.org.

Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

Hastings Gallery in the Katharine L. Boyd Library at Sandhills Community College, Pinehurst. Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday 7:45 a.m. – 9 p.m., Friday 7:45 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Saturday 8:30 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Lady Bedford’s Tea Parlour, 21 Chinquapin Road, Pinehurst. Features local artists. Tuesday-Saturday 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. (910) 255-0100, www. ladybedfords.com.

The Downtown Gallery inside Cup of Flow, 115 NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Ever-changing array of local and regional art, pottery and other handmade items. (910) 693-1999.

• •

The Gallery at Seven Lakes at the St. Mary Magdalene building, 1145 Seven Lakes Drive. Just nine miles from the Pinehurst Traffic Circle up 211, this gallery is dedicated to local artists. Wednesday-Thursday 1 – 4 p.m.

HOLLYHOCKS ART GALLERY, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Features artwork by local award winning artists, Diane Kraudelt, Linda Griffin, Jessie MacKay, Julie Messerschmidt, Charles Roberts, and artist/owner, Jane Casnellie. Monday-Saturday 10:30 a.m. – 9:30 p.m. Sunday 4 – 9:30 p.m. (910) 255-0665, www.hollyhocksartgallery.com.

The Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Avenue., Southern Pines. Monday-Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and every third weekend of the month from 2 – 4 p.m. (910) 692-4356, www.mooreart.org.

Key:

Your Guests Can Be Our Guests

Exchange Street Gallery, Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange Street in historic Aberdeen. “It’s Southern, Ya’ll,” works of Pat McMahon and Betty DiBartolomeo. September 2-28. Regular hours noon to 3:00, Monday-Saturday. (910) 944-3979.

The Old Silk Route, 113 West Main St., Aberdeen. Specializes in Asian original art, including silk paintings, tapestries, Buddhist Thangkas and Indian paper miniatures. Monday, Thursday-Saturday 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. (910) 295-2055.

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

Pavers • Brick • Stone

Let us host your family and friends Moore County’s only full service masonry dealer with: Brick • Block • Pavers Natural Stone • Retaining Walls Starting at $195 per pallet • Many colors to choose from!

• Manufactured Stone & Much More!

Maintenance Free Pavers

Come in to see how Polymeric Sand can stop erosion & weeds

617-680-6351 • Southern Pines, NC www.tanglewoodfarmbandb.com tanglewoodfarmbandb@yahoo.com

Off Hwy 5 · 327 Fields Dr. • Aberdeen 910-944-1114 • MooreBrickStone@gmail.com Ask for Dennis, Charlie & Kevin

www.mrbrickstone.com

June PineNeedler Answers

ca l e n d a r SANDHILLS WOMAN’S EXCHANGE, 15 Azalea Road, Pinehurst. All merchandise at the Exchange is handmade by consignors who live in the community. 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Lunch served 11.30 a.m – 2 p.m. (910) 295-4677. Seagrove Candle Company, 116 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Showcases art of the Sandhills and Seagrove area. Monday, Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., (910) 695-0029. SKY Art Gallery, 602 Magnolia Dr., Aberdeen. Tues.Sat. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. (910) 944-9440, www.skyartgallery. com. Studio 590 by the pond in Dowd Cabin, 590 Dowd Circle, Pinehurst. This historic log cabin is the working studio and gallery of artists Betty DiBartolomeo and Harry Neely. Fine oil paintings, commissions and instruction. (910) 639-9404. White Hill Gallery, 407 U.S. 15-501, Carthage, offers a variety of pottery. (910) 947-6100.

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 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. (910) 692-2167. VILLAGE ARBORETUM. 35 acres of land adjoining the Village Hall on Magnolia Road, Pinehurst. (910) 295-1900.

Historical Sites

Bethesda Church and Cemetery. Guided

tours for groups by appointment. 1020 Bethesda Road, Aberdeen. (910) 944-1319.

Solution:

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. (9 10) 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. Wednesday-Saturday. 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 Avenue., Southern Pines. (910) 692-6261.

from page 111 National Soul Food Month!

C O L L A S C U R C O N D A M I S N E T

S C A R

R I B S

Shaw House. 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. PS To add an event, email us at pinestraw.calendar@gmail.com by the first of the month prior to the event. Or go to www.thepilot. com and add the event to our online calendar.

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June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

By Sandra Redding

Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures. — M.F.K. Fisher

Literary Events

June 18–21 (Thursday–Sunday). 2015 Jane Austen Summer Program, UNC-Chapel Hill. Have a passion for all things Austen? A symposium in celebration of Emma, published 200 years ago, spells romance. Info: janeaustensummer.org. June 23 (Tuesday, Time TBA). The Country Bookshop, Southern Pines. Michael Quick of N.C.’s Outer Banks will speak, answer questions and sign his 2015 novel, Love May Fail. The adaptation of his first novel, The Silver Linings Playbook, won the 2013 Oscar for Best Motion Picture. Info: thecountrybookshop.biz. June 26–28 (Friday through Sunday). Summer Writers Conference 2015, University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Enjoy an MFA experience at the beach. Dedicated university writers plus the esteemed Wiley Cash and Richard Krawiec will facilitate workshops, roundtable discussions, readings and book signings. Info and registration: uncw.edu/summerwriters/index.html. July 23–26 (Thursday through Sunday). East Carolina University, Greenville. The 2015 NCWN Squire Summer Writing Residency features workshops in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Includes panel discussions, faculty readings and open mic. Info: ncwriters.org.

Congratulations

Hurrah! Guilford County finally has a regional NCWN representative. On April 11, award-winning copywriter Faun Finley held a Meet & Greet, Write & Bite kickoff event at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro. Regional reps host free monthly events welcoming writers at all levels of skills and experience. Contact her at: faun.finley@gmail.com. Mebane poet Jaki Shelton Green, who celebrates a birthday this month, is back on top. Though she went through rough times — the death of her daughter, a personal illness and writer’s block — she’s writing again and winning honors. Her

keynote address at the 2015 NCWN Spring Conference charmed attendees. Praising the beauty of diversity, she illustrated how sharing our poems and stories with one another creates community. The Burlington Writers Club announced the 2015 first place winners: High School Poetry, R. J. St. Arnold; High School Fiction, Susanna Fox; Middle-School Poetry, Mallory Jones; Middle-School Fiction, Cassandra Sigmon; Elementary Poetry, Annalise Harter; Elementary Fiction, Lucy Hawkins. Praise to all winners of the 2015 N.C. State University Poetry Contest judged by Gibbons Ruark. First Place: Mary Hennessay of Raleigh; first place undergraduate prize winner, Darren Lipman of Asheboro. Mesha Maren of West Virginia won the prestigious 2015 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize ($1,000). New book releases include: Blue Yodel, a captivating book of poems by Greensboro Poet Ansel Elkins, winner of the 2014 Yale Series of Young Poets Award . . . The Beast and The Innocent, the fifth anthology of poetry by Diana Pinckney, prize-winning writer of Charlotte . . . Above Us Only Sky, a young adult release by Outer Banks writer Michele Young-Stone, which chronicles the curious behavior of a young woman who has her wings removed (frankly, if I had wings I’d keep them) . . . Refund, the collection of short stories by Wilmington writer Karen E. Bender, which was selected New York Times Book Review “Editor’s Choice” in March . . . Six Notable Women of North Carolina — spotlighting the remarkable lives of Kathy Reichs, Jennifer Pharr Davis, Sharon Decker, Anne Pender, Kathryn Stripling Byer and Millie Ravenel — is the latest book by Jack J. Prather, founder of the Young Writers Scholarship at Warren Wilson College.

Lesson

Fueled by the Harry Potter series, the juvenile fiction, aka young adult (YA) category, is booming. Twenty-seven N.C. authors appear on the American Library Association Young Adult Library Services list, including Cindy Cipriano of Greensboro, Sarah Dessen of Chapel Hill and David Macinnis Gill of Wilmington. During my last trip to the Greensboro Library, I picked up two YA books to check out. Deciding to add something more mature, I asked a librarian where books for more mature readers were located. She led me to the LARGE PRINT section. PS Please let me know about literary happenings in your community. Greensboro writer Sandra Redding’s novel, Naomi Wise: A Cautionary Tale, is a riveting story about heartbreak and hope in a Quaker community.

Arts & Culture

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Arts & Culture

2015 Pack your picnic and enjoy an evening under the stars. Tickets start at just $28! SAT, JUNE 6 | 7:30PM

TOTALLY 80â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

FRI/SAT, JUNE 12-13 | 7:30PM

WHITE NIGHTS

RUSSIAN FESTIVAL FRI, JUNE 19 | 7:30PM

AN EVENING OF BROADWAY SAT, JUNE 20 | 7:30PM

SYMPHONIC WIZARDRY FEATURING THE MUSIC OF HARRY POTTER

SAT, JUNE 27 | 7:30PM

THE MUSIC OF THE EAGLES FREE SAT, JULY 4 | 7:30PM

INDEPENDENCE DAY

THUR, JULY 9 | 7:30PM

NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY PRESENTS

Kids 12 an admitdteunder on the d free lawn!

THE HOT SARDINES

The North Carolina Symphony will not be performing at this concert.

Everyman is successful, popular and riding high when Death comes calling. He is forced to abandon the life he has built and embark on a last, frantic search to recruit a friend, anyone, to speak in his defence. But Death is close behind, and time is running out.

SHOWING Thursday, July 16th

TICKETS $20

For a complete list of show times

visit sunrisetheater.org or call

910-692-3611.

250 NW Broad Street Southern Pines, NC 28387

ncsymphony.org | 919.733.2750 PRESENTED BY

Arts & Culture

SUMMER 2015 CLASSES OIL and ACRYLIC

ABSTRACT ACRYLICS Debby Kline – Monday, July 13, 10:00-3:00 $40 ACRYLIC OR WATERCOLOR ON RICE PAPER Pat McMahon, Monday/Tuesday, July 20/21, 1:00-3:00 $40 CREATING WITH OILS Diane Kraudelt - Monday, August 3, 9:30-3:30 $82 Supplies included. OIL PAINTING WITH COURTNEY Courtney Herndon – Wednesday/Thursday, August 26/ 27 9:00-3:30, $110 FOLLOW THE LEADER - (OIL) Joan Williams – Monday, August 24, Saturday, August 29, 10:00-4:00 $325 no discount - Supplies included (Painting a 30 x 40 gallery wrapped canvas – Poppies)

Encore

BARGAIN BOX II NON-PROFIT THRIFT SHOP

Bene fits Moore Cou nty Cha rities & Nu rsing Schol a rships for SCC Stude nts Donations Accepted During Regular Business Hours

Tuesday-Saturday 10am-4pm 7299-A, 15-501 in Eastwood (Behind Wylie’s Golf Cart) 910-235-5221

WATERCOLOR

WATERCOLOR OR ACRYLIC ON RICE PAPEr Pat McMahon, Monday/Tuesday, July 20/21, 1:00-3:00 $40 BEGINNING/INTERMEDIATE WATERCOLOR Sandy Scott – Tuesday/Wednesday, July 28/29, 10:00-3:30 $90 SOFT AND LOOSE WATERCOLOR Sandy Scott – Tuesday/Wednesday, August 11/12, 10:00-3:30 $90

DRAWING

FIGURE DRAWING (WITH A LIVE MODEL) Linda Bruening - Wednesday, July 8, 9:00-12:00 $35 DRAW IT I - HOW TO DRAW AN OBJECT Sandra Kinunnen – Thursday/Friday, July 16/17, 9:00-12:00 $60 FIGURE DRAWING (WITH A LIVE MODEL) Linda Bruening - Thursday, August 13, 9:00-12:00 $35

COLORED PENCILS AND PASTELS

Antiques & Newtiques 5336 NC Hwy 211, West End, NC 27376 (at the traffic light)

910-673-2065

Tues-Sat 11am-4pm • Sun 1pm-4pm www.westendpastimes.com

OTHER MEDIUMS

Sunshine Antique & Mercantile Company

REDUCTION PRINTING Lynn Goldhammer – Thursday/Friday July 9/10, 12:30-4:00 $95 Supplies included

Buy, Sell or Trade Specializing in Primitive & Country Furnishings

GO WITH THE FLOW-BASIC ALCOHOL INK Pam Griner – Friday, July 24, 12:00-3:00 $40 Supplies included.

Thursday- Saturday 10 to 5 Monday-Wednesday by appointment or chance

PRINTMAKING MADE EASY-MONOPRINTS Sandy Stratil – Monday, July 27, 10:00-4:00 $53

115 N. Sycamore St., Aberdeen, NC (919) 995-3488 shop • (919) 673-9388 or (919) 673-9387 cells

CREATE WITH OIL PASTELS Betty Hendrix - Wednesday, July 1, - 10:00-4:00 $55 WATERCOLOR PENCIL Betty Hendrix - Wednesday, July 22, - 10:00-4:00 $50 LADIES NIGHT OUT-GO WITH THE FLOW-BASIC ALCOHOL INK Pam Griner – Tuesday, June 30, 6:00-8:00 PM $35 Supplies and Refreshments included

GELLI PRINTING Pat Halligan – Saturday, August 8, 10:00-12:00 (Gelli plate included) $30

WORKSHOPS 2015

AUGUST 17-20 – “PUSHING THE ENVELOPE IN WATERCOLOR” Mel Stabin $590

Buying Vintage

and Military Watches

SEPTEMBER 16-18 – “INSIDE ACRYLICS” Phillip Garrett $375

ET GALLERY EXCHANGE STRE

TELY ART” “ABSOLUem ber Show

Judged M ion Opening Recept m 7p – m June 7th, 5p ugh June 26th Show runs thro

ROLEX & TUDOR Especially 1950s-1980s era GMT & SUBMARINER WARPATH MILITARY COLLECTIBLES 819 Hope Mills Road, Fayetteville Ed Hicks (910) 425-7000 edhicks82@aol.com • warpathmilitaria.com

Check us out & register at www.artistleague.org 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen • 944-3979

June 2015P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen

Patricia McDevitt with exhibiting artist Linda Storm

MacKay, Martens & Storm Pop-Up Gallery Thursday, April 30, 2015 Photographs by Al & Annette Daniels

April Mazzarino-Willett, Pamela Storm, Diana Coleman

Dan & Carol Butler, Candace Mazzarino-Willett Sally Adams, Anne Williamson, Annabelle Hale

Ashley Johnson, Jessie MacKay, David Johnson

Laurie Rich, Wendy Hopper, Molly Gwinn, Art Hopper

Meridith Martens, Pamela Storm, Judi Hewett

Tyrra Turner, Kimberly Daniels Taws, Laurie Rich

Jessie MacKay, Olga & Tony Mazzarino, Linda Storm

Pidgie Chapman, Wendy Hopper

Michelle, Justin, Peyton & Preston Bailey, Gaby & Odette Colous

SandhillSeen First Friday in downtown Southern Pines Friday, May 1, 2015 Photographs by London Gessner

Bill & Ronni Dunmire

Jim & Morgan Davis

Harriet Brynn, Lucy Ix, Hutchins Brynn

Mark & Beth Lorence, Melissa Hall

Tommy and Jenny Deese, Rey Carboni, Nicole Carbon, Jeannie Carpentier

Hannah Archer, Nate Arneson

Jim Kennedy, Bill Loeser

Trish & Charlie Jones

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June 2015i��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen

Rich Angstreich, Chris Miller holding James Miller

The Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance Pinehurst Resort Saturday, May 2, 2015 Photographs by London Gessner

Bob Ingram, Jay Howard

USO Show Troupe

Mark & Ireland Denney, Jessica Cox

Bart and Martha O’Connor, Rennie and Bart O’Connor

Rey Carboni, Nicole Carbon

Susan & Bob Baer

Sandy Carr, Toni Washington, Sarah Ellman

Ethan, Evan and Collin Biggs, Melissa, Kendon and Kerrigan Holt

Terry Miller, Martha Irwin, Joan Annis

SandhillSeen

Pinestock Musicfest 15 To benefit the Boys & Girls Club of the Sandhills Saturday, May 2, 2015 Photographs by London Gessner

Shatiqua, Serenity, Semira and Chrisann Manning

Chandler Dozier, Nick Allen, Benny Dunn

Kaitlin Bronkema, Rachel Maman, Jessyca Kempf, Eden Llovio

Jenna Lawn, Kit McKinley Laura Lang, Caroline Eddy

Dr. Michael Henry, Dr. Peter Ellman, Ralph Ronalter

“2600” band members Front: Joshua and Jonathan Core, Tenay Harrell Back: Isaiah McCalston, Ryan Anderson, Xavier Williams

Brittany, Gerhard & Charlotte Renner

Bill Smith, Ted & Margo Rhodes, Leon Gyles

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102

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June 2015i��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen

Melonee Jordan, Danielle Mahoney, Ester Kim, Chelsea Carson

A Heritage Affair Weymouth Center Saturday, May 16, 2015

Photographs by Al & Annette Daniels Sara Newman, Molly Schrader, Kate Wetherby, Sarah Young Jenny Hersh, Ted Rojanadit, Kelsey Robertson, Schuyler Shulman, London Ray Catherine Earp, John Talton, Abigail Dowd, Jason Duff

Dawn Phillips, Kea Capel, Brent Sexton, Schuyler Shulman,Kathryn Talton Hartley Fitts, Marilyn Grube, Kate Morgan, Bunny Rathbone

Lee & Amy Sawyer, Jennifer & David Furie

Alex & Michael Hobbs, Jen & Patrick Phillips, Tim Sayer

Sandra Phillips, Kea Capel, Susie Leader, Mary Schwab Jennifer Bureau, Laurie Kennedy

Rook Meacham, Mary Ann & Dick McCrary Derrick Stephens, Kelly Rhodes

Jim & Mary Lynn Goulden, Jeff & Jamie Casey Brandy Griffies, Franklin Dean, Brooke Cutler

Danielle & Matthew Mahoney

103

CONCEPT SALON The Art & Science of Pure Flower & Plant Essences

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June 2015i��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

PineStraw People

Gathered on the cover at our 10 Year Anniversary celebration Photographs by John Gessner

105

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CARPET ONE FLOOR & HOME ®

Hwy #1 North Between Southern Pines and Vass (Across from Bob’s Pizza)

Phone (910) 692-6411 • www.shortcarpetone.com

Serving the Sandhills Since 1925

June 2015i�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

T h o u g h ts F r o m T h e Ma n s h e d

Memories of a Lost Friend By Geoff Cutler

When Paul died, it felt the same as

losing my father. Everyone was at his funeral. Rickie, Kevin, Tony and Paul’s son, Tommy. All of us had worked together in a non-union pipefitting shop just outside Boston. We built water desalinization units that could purify thousands of gallons of saltwater a day for thirsty people we never got a chance to meet. They lived in faraway places like Libya, Saudi Arabia and South America. We worked eight-hour shifts hoping that when four o’clock rolled around, we’d be offered another two hours of work and the overtime pay that came with it. In 1978, I got about $2.78 an hour, so overtime was pretty important. Saturdays, we could work till noon if there were enough orders from abroad. I say, “We built water desalinization units.” That’s not exactly true. When I first started working in this shop, fresh out of high school, and with no immediate college plans, they saw me as a snot-nosed kid from the other side of the tracks who somebody connected with a job. They wouldn’t let me build anything. My first day, our shop foreman, Kevin, handed me a mop and bucket, a toilet brush, and a bottle of Pine-Sol. Pointing at the men’s room, he said, “Go in there and clean the *&%-()$) place out. I’ll come get you when it’s time for lunch. And this afternoon,” he said, glancing around a shop big enough to build a 747 in, “find a broom and sweep!” It went on like this for the first few weeks. Toilets in the morning, pushing a broom in the afternoon. The only times anyone even glanced my way, it was just to give me a scowl. You see, these men were representatives of the blue collar ethnic stew that made up the clearly drawn lines of Boston’s different boroughs. On the surface, these were hard men, from hard lives, and they found commonality and camaraderie in the work of their skilled trade. They took great pride in what they built, and were guardedly possessive of their jobs. I’d have a lot to learn about life, and some hard work to do to last in this atmosphere and be accepted, and I understood that. One day, I was pushing my broom past Paul’s area. He was lead pipe-fitter. The others called him “Pumpkin,” on account of his oversized Polish head, which they said matched that of a pumpkin. I didn’t call him Pumpkin. I called him “Sir.” He called me “Shithead.” Anyway, at that moment, he was

twisted up like a pretzel inside the steel skid that would eventually become the anchor for the piping, pumps, meters and electrical boards of a desalinization unit. Hundreds of holes had to be drilled through the skeleton steel before construction could really get under way. Since he was in his late 50s, a hard drinker, and physically un-pliable, this part of the process was grueling for Paul. “Hey, Shithead,” he called, “Dump the broom and get your ass over here. You’re going to learn to drill.” Drilling steel, you have to increase drill bit size from pilot bit up to the final hole size. One hole might require four different bits before you were through, and an inch bit could break your wrist if it snagged the drill in steel. Paul taught me to avoid snags and broken bits by drilling straight and applying just the right amount of pressure. After a while, I got the hang of it, and pretty soon, he taught me how to read the blueprints so I could begin measuring and marking the holes for myself. This freed him up to start cutting pipe, labeling and preparing wire, and mounting circuit boards and pumps. When I completed drilling a skid for Paul, I offered to help the other, older pipefitters with this nasty part of their job. This seemed to thaw the boys out to my being there. And then one day, it happened. They played cards at lunch. Either hearts, uno or gin. I usually ate off on my own. “Hey, Shithead,” Paul called across the room, “you want to play?” In the years I worked with these guys, I became a passable pipefitter, but made the best friends I’ve ever had, and Paul became like a second father. We played league golf every Thursday afternoon, we played every Sunday morning, we went fishing, had a poker night, and we took a cottage at Poland Springs golf resort in Maine every summer. At some point, I let Paul in on the fact that I was a member of Brookline, and that I could take him there once a month to play. Paul lived and breathed golf, and more than anything else, he adored these outings. I got a great kick out of the tut-tutting of the Boston Brahmin membership when my pipefitting buddies and I would spray our drives left and right down the first fairway. In 1988, I took all the guys who wanted to go to see the U.S. Open, but reserved one ticket per day for Paul so he could go all four days of the tournament. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so happy. The man, who at first was so tough getting to know, turned out in the end, to be a big old Teddy bear. By that point in our friendship, I called him Pappy. I’d long since left the company when Paul died. I’d gone back to school, had gotten another job, and married. We still played golf, and kept our dates for the Poland Spring weekend. After the service, we’d all gone back to his house, and I went into his bedroom. I don’t know why. On his bureau, he’d built a small shrine of memorabilia to the times we had together at the club. He’d saved all his scorecards, tees and logo balls and ball markers. He saved his ticket stubs from the Open and his country club cap hung over a lamp. It meant a lot knowing he loved what we did together as much as I did. PS Geoff can be reached at geoffcutler@embarqmail.com.

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June 2015i�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

T h e A c c i d e n tal A st r o l o g e r

Here it Comes, My June Bugs Look up, live well

By Astrid Stellanova

June comes sashaying onto the calendar like something too good to be true. Like icing on an astral cake — sweet, smooth. If you don’t like June in the South, well, you just ain’t got your mind right. June suits me best; this is flip-flops, cut-offs and T-shirt’s prime time in the Cosmos. Now to deliver an Astrid-turf straight talk in response to some of my faithful readers. More than anything else, remember this: Get your happy on, children!

Gemini (May 21—June 20) Somebody whose opinion matters a whale of a lot hurt your feelings. You feel so flattened and low about now you could climb up on a box and see your emotions running away at least three days in the distance. Guess what? By birthday time, this whole flapdoodle won’t matter one iota, and you will be looking back at sorrow in the rearview mirror, with the bluebird of happiness showing the way out of Down-Town. If you get a chance to share a meal, drink or cup of Joe with somebody you don’t know, take it. Be generous. This is really a month about taking chances, especially second and third ones. Chin up; there will be cause for celebration and even a little jiggy dance by the 26th. Cancer (June 21—July 22) There is at least one astral event this month that will have reverberations for your sign, but they will be of the illuminating type. This will help shed light onto something that has bugged you and that seems stubbornly unclear. A supernova collapse in deep space has ripples here on Earth; think of it as a door opening onto the path of deeper consciousness for all Star Children. Ain’t that kind of strange and marvelous? Leo (July 23—August 22) A letter. A forgotten Polaroid picture. A movie receipt. A snippet of old newspaper aging inside a book. You find something that winds up being a treasure, a key, the code to crack an old mystery, long forgotten and long abandoned. Honey, put on your thinking cap. Use this little piece of information and read it like the real treasure that it is, like a cosmic message in a bottle. Sit with it; search out the hidden meaning and play detective. Something with real fabulosity is sneaking up right behind you. Virgo (August 23—September 22) It takes a lot to keep you from derailing, just because you get so caught up in somebody else’s drama. Life ain’t about borrowing meaning; it’s about making some of what is at the center of your own drama. Take yourself for a walk and a talk. Here is another little secret: Every single player in your story is there for a reason. But don’t think their mystery matters one little bit more than the one you are living. Libra (September 23—October 22) June can be slick as a wet road, and from the Juneteenth on, you will find yourself having to explain things that you thought were plain as day. You get frustrated. It shows. Shake it off, Sugar, like you are starring in a Taylor Swift song. Everybody ain’t born as smart as you were. By the end of this cycle you will get a break and a vacation that will make you forget the aggravation (and that is really all it was, you know). Scorpio (October 23—November 21) You love shiny and sparkly things more than Rain Man, and it may be because you need the reflected light when your heart sinks lower than whale manure (over the truly dangdest things). If you can lift your eyeballs up to the horizon, you will read the nice message written plain as day in the night sky. Know this, Sugar: You have been lucky to be well loved. Even adored.

Sagittarius (November 22—December 21) You are nectar to the bees, like somebody a friend dated once. (Her name, so help me Hannah, was Smoky Bacon. Unforgettable. But it turned out she was too much smoke and not enough bacon.) Now I ask you, have you capitalized upon this nectar-like appeal? Are you using the gifts you were given and can you just own them? You don’t have to be catty to dominate the catwalk, Darlin’. Capricorn (December 22—January 19) Well, here we go again. You had your chance, and you knew it — but still, well, you blew it. Given you are one lucky Star Child this month, it appears you get that chance circling back again. Stand still. Get your rope ready. Lasso that star and bring it on home. I ain’t going to say this again: Not everybody gets a chance to catch a comet. But you do. Aquarius (January 20—February 18) By the time you finish chewing that grass-fed beef burger, you already started thinking you ought to learn to make your own pasta. And then, by George, you do. There ain’t much of anything you cannot do, zany genius, except . . . realize it. A lot of people depend upon your can-do power to just keep on keeping on . . . your candle power is that great. Shine on, Baby. Pisces (February 19—March 20) There is one person in your life whom you can go to no matter what. They have been a fixture; sometimes back in the shadows, quietly watching. Always there for you, and offering exactly what you needed, even when you didn’t know what that was. They ain’t asked for anything. But a bill is due. The payment will have to be remitted from here on, due the first of every month: Pay it forward. Honey, you will find the deeper reward in this, same as they did. Aries (March 21—April 19) In the race of life, it ain’t hard to overtake the bow-legged woman at the finish line. That don’t make you a hero. So let her win once in a while, Sugar. You are going to discover something about yourself that will make that easy. There is also a lost treasure retrieved this month; Astrid ain’t sure if it’s a thing or a person. But you will know. Whichever, or whoever, it rightly belongs to you. Taurus (April 20—May 20) You knew that bottled water was going to be a big hit waaaaaaaay back. You knew that they weren’t making any more land and so you bought the farm for next to nothing. You had a shrewd way with women, horses, babies and bankers, and you were almost always right and almost always won. Now, you are faced with one gigantic conundrum. It is going to change your entire destiny. Astrid’s pulling for you, Sugar. PS For years, Astrid Stellanova owned and operated Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon in the boondocks of North Carolina until arthritic fingers and her popular astrological readings provoked a new career path.

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June 2015i�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

June PineNeedler

National SoulBy MFood Month! National Soul Food Month art Dickerson 1

21 24

31 36 41

44 46

50 56

33 ACROSS ACROSS 36 1 Midnight meal 37 6 Monkey’s specialty? meal 1 Midnight 10 YUM! 6 Monkey's specialty? 38 10 yuM! 40 14 Long, skinny boat 14 long, skinny boat 41 15 Weightless 15 Weightless 16 Glide high 43 16 Glide high 44 17 Fittingly 17 Fitly 18 Leaf maker 45 18 leaf maker 46 19 Broken bone holder 19 broken bone holder 20 Spool 49 20 spool 21 Ta21 Ta ta ta 50 22 Sells ticketstickets 51 sells illegal 22 illegal not near 24 Not 52 24near 26 yippee! 26 Yippee! 56 27 scamper 27 Scamper 57 husband 30 Frau's 30 Frau’s husband 31 Community dwelling 59 31 Community dwelling 32 head bee 60 32 Head bee

63 snow slider 64 bay sheep 65 stuffed toy DOWN

1 2 30 3 4 32 33 34 35 5 37 38 39 6 7 43 8 45 9 10 49 11 12 51 52 53 54 55 13 58 59 21 23 62 25 65 26 27 28 Summer mo. 29 bye 33 Fall mo. Awry 36 awry 61 Youngs Rd. baby30 Acid drug37 acid drug 62 Expend (2 wds.) 32 33 Like orange 63 Snow slider like orange juice 38 juice 34 40 tulle Tulle 64 Baby goats tie up a chicken 41 Tie up a chicken 65 Stuffed toy 35 under (2 words) Not under43(2not words) 39 Infant 44 Infant DOWN 42 45 White vegetables White vegetables 1 Blemish 45 46 dog Dog 46 2 Back of the neck 49 Chicken _____ 47 Chicken _____ 3 Wager 50 Machine men 48 Machine 51 menhair stuff 4 YUM! Hair stuff52 otherwise 5 Lock’s partner 49 50 Otherwise56 Colored part 6of eyeHalf man, half goat 51 samoa 57 Capital Colored part of eye of Western 7 Employ 53 yuM! Capital of59 Western 8 Lode yield 54 Samoa 60 Wished hello9or good-bye Ugly thing 55 YUM! 61 youngs rd baby 10 Movie award 58 expend (2 wds.) 62 Wished hello or good- 11 Australian bear 59 26

Sudoku:

Fill in the grid so every row, every column and every 3x3 box contain the numbers 1–9. Puzzle answers on page 94

Mart Dickerson lives in Southern Pines and would welcome any suggestions from her fellow puzzle masters. She can be reached at gdickerson@nc.rr.com.

8 5 4

5 3

blemish back of the neck Wager 12 Sore throat voice yuM! description lock's13 partner Bachelor of ____ half man, half goat 21 Howl at the moon employ 23 YUM! lode yield 25 Injured by cold ugly thing Listens, as a warning Movie26 award 27 Use australian bearan MRI sore throat voice description 28 Attend the party bachlor ____Bragg subdivision 29of Fort howl 30 at the moon woman Brazen yuM!32 Oil change company Injured by cold 33 Singing voice listens, as a warning 34 It came ____a use an MrI midnight clear . . . attend the party 35 Cheats Fort bragg subdiivision 39 Cosmos brazen woman 42 Pillage oil change company 45voice Lubricate singing 46____a Typemidnight of reef It came clear.... 47 Follow the rules Cheats 48 Nuzzled Cosmos 49 Romantic Poet Pillage 50 YUM! lubricate 51 Gold embellishment type of reef 53 Told an untruth Follow the rules 54 Wall support nuzzled Poet 55 Catch sight of yuM!58 Luau dish Gold embellishment 59 Stomach told an untruth Wall support Catch sight of luau dish stomach

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southwords

Trooper’s Tale

By Michele Movius

Life on the lake opened

my eyes to a whole new world of birds, but the barn swallows were the first to take up residency in my heart — and at my home.

I watched them in awe, winged gems darting about with such aerobatic grace and agility that I simply had to know more about these migratory wonders. When the first barn swallow family built a nest on our back porch, five hatchlings followed. Life was good, sharing our home with the swallows. We admired their cobalt blue and tawny plumage, took notes on their various intricacies, and as we observed the family’s progression — how quickly they fledge and fly! — I began to devour information on them, reading bird guides and becoming more aware of conservation needs as barn-type habitats continue to shrink in our increasingly urban society. The magical cycle continued. And then there was the Summer of Trooper. The hatchling acquired this name when it became apparent that his young life was to be one of life-threatening anomalies, all of which he endured with perseverance and tenacity. If his was to be a stressful existence, mine would be the same as I endured all stressors with him. His problems began before he was born, when previous occupants left their nest and Trooper’s parents took up residence immediately. They quickly began a makeover, the result being the tallest, oddest nest yet. Oddities continued upon completion. The pair mostly abandoned their nest to hang out in nearby trees. Eggs laid late in the season were rarely tended, making incubation nearly impossible. Amazingly, five eggs hatched, surely with the help of the very hot sun. I soon spotted tiny fluffy heads, but they were not there for long. Four babies died; they became entangled in discarded fishing line the parents had built into the nest, unaware of its hidden dangers. Using tweezers, we carefully removed the unfortunate four from the nest and I hoped against abandonment of Trooper, the sole survivor. Thankfully, he did receive regular feedings, but in other ways he was abandoned. Most

112

barn swallows sit near their young intermittently and roost beside them at night. Not the case with these birds. Trooper, who had already lost all his siblings, was sadly deprived of much-needed socialization. Because he looked so forlorn and alone sitting on his tall nest’s edge, I would often visit and chat with him. When danger was near, though, he would hunker down — and danger was not a rarity. Just in time, and many times, I would shoo away crows and, once, a hawk that landed near his nest. Surely they had intentions for my Trooper, but they were not to have a quick lunch at my house. A near-fatal accident would occur as Trooper matured, too. Swallows remain in the nest up to twenty-three days, quickly feathering, and Trooper’s maturation process was most charming, necessitating baby photos throughout all stages. Would he soon be hopping to the ledge, exercising his wings and taking the usual flying lessons? Too soon I would know. The hop to the ledge proved too great, forcing Trooper to fly away with no experience. Swallows for miles around were alerted to Trooper’s disappearance and a huge search team amassed, creating a spectacular display of over one hundred birds! The troops had been called — all for one missing Trooper bird. Desperate in the scorching heat and in need of help, I called my husband home from work to help me search among the deep underbrush. Sure enough, he spotted something — Trooper! He was at the lake’s edge, soaking wet, halfin and half-out of the water. Still alive but very cold, he looked half-drowned — a most frightening sight. Gently scooping him up, I returned him to his nest, and the wait began. All swallows except the parents had now left, and, remarkably, the parents were periodically checking the nest. Forty-five minutes passed before that little head arose. Feedings began immediately. Finally, a healthy date of departure would arrive and be met with tears of both sorrow and joy. Most appreciated before Trooper’s fall migration were his two final visits — our last chats, which I’ll treasure forever in my heart. PS Michele L. Movius of Southern Pines enjoys creative writing and writes on various topics of interest.

June 2015i�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Illustration by Meridith Martens

Against all odds, one little barn swallow flew off into the great unknown — but he’s always in my heart

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