May 2012 PineStraw by PineStraw Magazine

May 2012 Volume 7, No. 5 Departments

Sweet Tea Jim Dodson

10 PinePitch 15 Cos and Effect Cos Barnes 17 The Omnivorous Reader Stephen E. Smith

21 Bookshelf 25 Hitting Home Dale Nixon

Letter From the Sandhills Tom Allen

The Kitchen Garden Jan Leitschuh

Out of the Blue Deborah Salomon

Vine Wisdom

38 41

Sandhill Photo Club Birdwatch

Features

The Sporting Life

Golftown Journal

An excerpt from author Anne McKeithen’s Listening to Color

Robyn James

Susan Campbell

43 47

82 95 109

Tom Bryant Lee Pace

Calendar

SandhillSeen Thoughts From the Man Shed

Geoff Cutler

111 112

PineNeedler

Mart Dickerson

SouthWords

Steve Bouser

52 Voices Among the Stones

By Anne McKeithen

58 Seasoned and Soulful

By John Wilson

A stroll through Aberdeen’s vibrant modern streets

68 Ladies of the Club

By Cassie Butler

For more than 60 years, the Cardinal Book Club has delighted in its very select membership

72 Time Warp

By Deborah Salomon

Historic Rubicon’s farm comes alive through the journal of a 12-year-old girl

81 May Almanac

By Noah Salt

May’s abundant blooms and the ancient magic of Hawthorne

Cover Photograph by Hannah Sharpe Photograph this page by John Gessner 2

May 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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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

Cassie Butler, Photographer, Writer, Graphic Designer Ashley Wahl, Editorial Assistant Editorial

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

John Gessner, Tim Sayer, Hannah Sharpe Contributors

Tom Allen, Cos Barnes, Steve Bouser, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Geoff Cutler, Mart Dickerson, Robyn James, Jan Leitschuh, Anne McKeithan, Dale Nixon, Lee Pace, Jeanne Paine, Noah Salt, John Wilson

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David Woronoff, Publisher Advertising Sales

Michelle Palladino, Sales Representative 910.691.9657 • mpalladino@pinestrawmag.com

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910.693.2467 173 W. Pennsylvania Avenue Southern Pines, NC 28387 pinestraw@thepilot.com • www.pinestrawmag.com ©Copyright 2012. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. PineStraw magazine is published by The Pilot LLC

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sweet tea chronicles

Birds Let Loose into Darkness

By Jim Dodson

As I think back on it, I’d all but given

Photograph by Cassie Butler

up hope for a job at my hometown newspaper the warm May afternoon I was summoned to see Miss Juanita Weekly, the managing editor of the Greensboro Record, the largest afternoon newspaper in the state. I’d been out of college for six months, a delayed graduation owing to an unfortunately timed bout of mononucleosis, working for my dad part time in advertising sales and attending graduate school at UNCG in creative writing, neatly revising my dream from being the next Woodward or Bernstein to that of becoming a college writing professor. Five years before this — at the start of May my senior year in high school — I’d hatched a crazy plan to postpone college and take off for Paris and ideally snag a job as a stringer for the International Herald Tribune, hoping to make myself the new Ernest Hemingway. I’d just won the city’s annual short story writing award. Funny how life has other plans. It was 1976, the year of the Bicentennial everything, and a deepening recession meant no major newspapers in the state were hiring full-time starting reporters — even the one where I’d worked as the wire boy and summer intern for three consecutive years, writing my rear end off in hopes of catching somebody’s attention. “Well,” Juanita said, siting back in her creaky wooden desk chair, “here’s the deal, Sport. Turns out I’ve been told we can hire one reporter this year. I’ve already got a stack of applicants a foot tall.”

She leaned forward and touched an impressive pile of letters and clippings. “You’re a promising young writer,” she said. “But unfortunately for you, I’ve been told I have to hire either a female or minority reporter or maybe one that’s both.” Juanita Weekly was classic old school, a big-boned redhead with a whiskey laugh, your classic newspaper lifer. She could be as tough as a two-dollar steak, and this was the teeth of affirmative-action hiring in the newspaper business. “My question to you is this, why should I hire you — a skinny white-bread kid from the prosperous west side of town — when I’ve got an amazing pile of well-qualified gals to choose from, including two black candidates who’ve just earned their Master’s in journalism from Carolina and Columbia University, respectively?” Quite honestly, I didn’t have a good answer for this: even wondered why she’d bothered to invite me in for a chat, given the apparent long odds against being hired. So I said the first thing that came to my mind. Oh, sweet arrogance of youth. But I felt I had nothing to lose. “Well, to begin with,” I said, “I’ll work harder than anyone you may hire, and I can basically write circles around anyone — including someone with a master’s in journalism.” I remember the look she gave me. Think of Lou Grant in drag. An unnerving silence ensued as she stared and thought. Finally, she lit a cigarette and got up and walked over to her office door, calmly shut it, and walked back to her chair. I remember how it creaked as she sat back down and leaned toward me over her desk. She took a drag and released the smoke slowly through both nostrils. “OK,” she said quietly. “Here’s my decision. Ken Bowden [the paper’s

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2012

sweet tea chronicles

delightful personnel director] will probably have my head. But I’m going to take a chance on you.” I swallowed dryly. “Thank you,” I managed. “Don’t thank me. Just work your skinny ass off.” Before I could assure her I would, she opened her desk drawer and took out a scary looking letter opener that looked like a small Bowie knife. “Here’s the deal,” she added, leveling it at me. “If you aren’t the best damn writer in this building and make me look like a genius before I retire in a year or two, I’m personally going to take this letter opener and slice off your balls. That understood?” I swallowed again, though I don’t recall having any spit left. “Yes ma’am.” “OK,” she said, “let’s seal our deal.” To my astonishment, she opened a lower desk and took out a bottle of Ancient Age and poured a tiny bit into a Dixie cup, handing it to me. She gave herself an actual grown up portion and we drank. At least it was already after normal working hours. “OK,” she said. “You report tomorrow at 6 a.m. in the women’s section. I’ll let Martha Long know.” “The women’s section?” I asked. Martha Long was the paper’s legendary society editor. “That’s right,” she said. “You’re going to write features for the women’s section for the first three months. Martha’s probably going to despise your guts, but she’s retiring soon, too. Think of it as a blow for men’s liberation. After that we’ll turn it into a full-time features department.” She put the booze back in her drawer, crumpled her Dixie cup and smiled at me. “Now get the hell out of my office before I change my mind.”

ot long ago I told my son Jack this story and he laughed as if I’d made it up. “I can’t imagine that kind of thing happening today,” he said. I agreed but assured him every word was true — though I may be off about the booze. Knowing Juanita she may have just poured herself a finger of booze and merely let me sniff the bottle. Why waste the good stuff on a punk kid? Two decades later, when I returned to Greensboro to promote my first book, I dropped in to see the magnificent woman who gave me a chance at a writing life just to say thank you. We’d corresponded over the years that took me on to Atlanta and then a blossoming career and family life, in New England, but I hadn’t actually laid eyes on Juanita since the day she retired. I took her flowers and a bottle of Ancient Age. She was so touched and glad to see me she cried, and I cried a little too. We passed a delightful hour catching up. Juanita Weekly was dying of cancer, still as tender and tough as they come. May 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SweeT TeA chronicleS

Funny how life repeats certain themes. Like birds that return to the same nest every springtime, ready to renew the cycle of life. Aptly enough, I now have two of my own children entering one of the worst job markets in half a century. My daughter Maggie graduated from the University of Vermont last May, worked in a posh inn for a while, then a month or so ago chopped off her hair a la Audrey Hepburn and moved to New York City hoping to find some kind of job in writing. She’s a promising young writer with a poet’s sensibility — well ahead of where her old man was at her age, I must tell you. Moreover, she has a dazzling combination of her Southern grandmother’s easy charm and beauty and her Scottish grandmum’s brains. Later this month, my son Jack is scheduled to finish up at Elon and plans to follow his sister to Gotham City, hoping to find some kind of starter job in film or public radio or TV. Jack is basically a self-taught documentary filmmaker, a talented kid who has already made a pair of beautiful and impressive short films on Sri Lanka’s endangered ecosystem and a pioneering health organization in India. Where he gets his nimble filmmaking skills is anyone’s guess — but he’s miles ahead of where his old man was, once upon a time. Their mom and I couldn’t be prouder of these two Maine babies for chasing their big-city dreams. Generally speaking, we’ve resisted the temptation to give them a lot of work advice, though I have admittedly pointed out to them both that they may never see the thing — or person — coming that changes their lives. As I write this, slightly over a fortnight ago Maggie landed a very fine job at a major communications firm, and just this week she moved into a new apartment between Riverside Church and Morningside Park, a beautful neighborhood hard by the campus of Columbia University. To say her mom and I are relieved is probably an understatement. But neither of us is particularly surprised. Son Jack is up next, and God knows what adventures lie ahead for him. He’s got the wanderlust of his grandfathers and the narrative voice and eye of a very fine filmmaker. Perhaps you have a graduate heading for a brave new world this May, too. Their world and yours is suddenly going to change. Doors will open and unexpected people will appear. Suddenly a larger life will begin to take shape. -“Our children,” wrote my favorite writer, James Salter, “are the birds we let loose into darkness.” It’s an image I love and keep close to my heart. Our children will fly away, build nests, create new life, renew the cycle. That’s simply nature’s way, the way of the world. The way of the wise heart, too. PS

9th annual

b lu

e je an

b a ll

je a e n u l

b a ll

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2012

PinePitch Thy racing Art

A Given Saturday

The third annual Given on the Green, an event that tags Pinehurst as “An International Destination,” is scheduled to be held in the Grand Ballroom of the Carolina Hotel on Saturday, May 5, from 7 to 10 p.m. This progressive style affair, designed after the “Tavern on the Green” event in New York City’s Central Park, will feature international delicacies prepared by area chefs, plus spirits, live music, and a silent auction and raffle. Tickets: $75 (available at the Library in the village of Pinehurst or the Given Book Shop in Olmsted Village). Proceeds benefit the Given Memorial Library and Tufts Archives. Info: (910) 295-6022.

Endurance athletes from hither and yon are busy training for the annual Woodlake Triathlon/Duathlon, which is scheduled for Saturday, May 26 — a Memorial Day weekend tradition. The sprint race includes a 600-yard swim, 17.2-mile bike ride and 3-mile run. Those who prefer not to plunge into the 1,300-acre lake can sign up for the run/bike/run duathlon instead. Prizes will be awarded to individuals and relay teams. Race gun fires at 8 a.m. Registration closes on May 21, so hurry up! Registration/ Info: woodlaketriathlon.com.

Yo Quiero Pooch Parade

On May 5, the Moore Humane Society will hold its first annual Cinco de Mayo Pooch Parade at the Downtown Park in Southern Pines (145 SE Broad Street). Dog owners are encouraged to bring their canine companions along for games like “Bobbing for Bones,” and various contests, including Best Costume, Best Owner/Dog Duo, Best Canine Duo and Best Dog Trick. Vendors and children’s activities will also be available. Registration: $20/dog. Proceeds benefit Moore Humane in its efforts to provide animals with a chance for rehabilitation and adoption. Rain date: May 6. Info: www.moorehumane.org.

May 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Traveling light

A round for the children

The Climber Pouch, which was featured in a spread of tailgate-friendly goods in last month’s PineStraw, is available at The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines (241 NE Broad Street). This all-terrain (and ultra-light) wine transport comes in chardonnay and cabernet and holds 1.5 liters (about two bottles) of wine. “It’s good,” say those with refined taste buds. And good to go: on hiking and fishing trips, or backyard barbecues. Price: $17.99/pouch. Info: Wine Cellar at (910) 692-3066.

The sixth annual BackPack Pals Golf Tournament is scheduled to take place in Beacon Ridge Country Club at Seven Lakes on Friday, May 18. Proceeds benefit BackPack Pals, a nonprofit group that provides backpacks full of nutritional foods for children in Moore County Schools who do not have enough food for the weekend. Golf tournament features captain’s choice format. After lunch, a shotgun start begins at 12:30 p.m. Cost: $65/ individual; $300/team of four as a corporate sponsor. Hole sponsorships are $100. For more information and registration, call Ginger at (910) 673-1330 or Jo at (910) 673-3604.

The Man in Black

Baxter Clement, known in the Sandhills for his role as Buddy Holly, will star in a live musical tribute to Johnny Cash on May 3 and 5 at the Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad Street, Southern Pines. The Tennessee Three, which was the backing band for Cash for nearly 25 years, will feature Hunter Boyer on lead guitar, Tommy Thompson on bass, and Daniel Garner on drums. Baxter’s wife, Taylor Clement, will make a special guest appearance as June Carter Cash. Showtime: 7:30 p.m., both nights. Tickets: $25. For tickets, call (910) 603-6003 or visit www.baxterclement.com.

clay nation: Behind the Scenes close to home

Meet the Author events at The Country Bookshop this month have strong ties to the place we call home. On May 14 at 5 p.m., Cary author Diane Chamberlain will discuss her latest novel, The Good Father, which is based in North Carolina — “the state that inspired so many of my stories,” Chamberlain writes in her website bio. Two days later (May 16 at 6 p.m.), Anne McKeithen will speak on Listening to Color: Blacks and Whites in Aberdeen, North Carolina, which chronicles race relations in the South via interviews, census records and local newspaper clippings pre- and postsegregation. Then at noontime on May 21, catch Wiley Cash discussing his latest literary thriller, A Land More Kind Than Home, which is set in a small town in western North Carolina. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211.

hook, line and Sinker

Whether or not you read Paul Torday’s 2007 tale of fly-fishing and political spinning, you’ll want to catch Salmon Fishing in the Yemen at the Sunrise Theater May 10 through 14. The 2011 British film, a romantic comedy-drama set in the desert country of Yemen, is based on Torday’s novel of the same name. The PG-13 film, directed by Swedish film director Lasse Hallström (who directed The Cider House Rules and Chocolat), stars Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor and Kristin Scott Thomas. Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. (weekdays); 2:30 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. (Saturday and Sunday). The Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad Street, Southern Pines. Tickets/Info: (910) 692-8501 or www. sunrisetheater.com.

Pottery newbies and seasoned collectors alike will enjoy a Behind the Scenes Pottery Crawl on May 12 along the North Carolina Pottery Highway in Seagrove from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Meet the artists, watch various demonstrations, and, if you feel so inclined, try your hand at making a pot. The Crawl isn’t just an insider’s look at how and where area pottery is created. It also offers culinary and wine pairings at each of the fourteen potteries in this selfguided tour. Tickets: $45; $100/patron (includes commemorative pottery piece); $150/Mother’s Day package (includes two tickets and several gifts for Mom). All proceeds benefit the Northern Moore Family Resource Center, a nonprofit organization that serves children and their families. Tickets/Info: (910) 948-4324 or www.nmfrc.com.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2012

Six: Forty-six

PinePitch

After an April hiatus, the Rooster’s Wife Concert Series will pick up again on Sunday, May 13, with a concert happening every Sunday thereafter through July 29. Twelve straight weekends of live music. All Sunday shows in May begin promptly at 6:46 p.m. at Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen. Tickets: $12/advance; $15/day of show. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org.

This month’s lineup: 5/13 – Frazier Band: Mando wizard John Frazier fronts his own band after three years with John Cowan. Newgrass — as in progressive bluegrass — from East Nashville, Tennessee. Lizzy Ross: Think philosophy via Chapel Hill, blues from a deep heart. 5/20 – Bruce Molsky: The premier old-time fiddler in the world and defining virtuoso of Appalachia’s timeless folk music traditions. Brooks Williams: A triple threat that brings fiery guitar, great song writing chops and a rich silky voice to the stage. 5/27 – Darin Aldredge Band: Bluegrass of the classic and modern variety. Darin and Brooke Aldredge lead this tight group from old time gospel to speedgrass (yep, fast bluegrass). Audrey Auld and Anne McCue: Bluesy, Australiaborn forces of nature.

State of the Art

The twentythird annual Student Art Show at Sandhills Community College will feature painting, drawing, printmaking, digital photography, computer art and more — such as duct tape accessories and cardboard animals made by 3-D design students. An opening reception will be held on May 2 from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. Exhibit will be on display though July 27. Hastings Gallery, Katharine Boyd Library, Sandhills Community College. Info: (910) 695-3879.

Yo, Mamas

In need of a ladies night out? The Arc of Moore County is hosting its second annual Mom Prom on Saturday, May 19. This exquisite affair, to be held at the Pinehurst Member’s Club at 6:30 p.m., will benefit The Arc in its effort to provide support and services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. Wear your sauciest garb and bring your gal pals along to mingle and dance with local celebrities. Highlights of the evening include a silent auction and the crowning of a Prom Queen, who will strut away with a gift certificate to the Spa at Pinehurst and dinner for two at a renowned local restaurant. Tickets: $40; $75 (premium ticket, which includes a membership to The Arc of Moore County, five entries to the Prom Queen drawing, and two drink tickets). Tickets, information and sponsorship opportunities: (910) 692-8272 or www.thearcofmoore.org.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

C o s a n d E f f ect

How do you want to retire?

A Natural Bonding By Cos Barnes They have been lovers for the dozen years I have known them, Their love has weathered the snow of winter, the searing heat of summer. Opposites do attract, I suppose, for she is fragile and dainty. He’s a giant, tall and thick of girth. She’s thin, he’s heavy. She’s docile, he’s domineering. She’s weak, he’s mighty. She is short, his head is in the clouds. His hair is straight and thin; hers, thick and wavy. She is prissy and sometimes wears blossoms in her hair. He’s conservative and always clad in Oxford gray. She’s in her glory in springtime. He prefers the cold of Christmas. Time has taken its toll, and the skins of both show it. Her wrinkles are small and spidery, his deeply etched creases. She’s delicate, needs more attention. He’s independent, strong and healthy. When she’s moody, he’s aloof. When she’s flighty, he’s steadfast. Although they’d both known celebrity, it seems to have affected neither. Oblivious to fame, they stand unchanged, united and deeply rooted. Her arms stay wrapped around him. He is possessively protective. Time does not alter their stance. She simply clings tighter, he hovers closer. Neither gives a hoot what the neighbors think. They stand locked in their brazen embrace. She’s a dogwood, he’s a pine. Intertwined they stand in my backyard. PS Cos Barnes is a longtime contributor to PineStraw magazine. She can be contacted at cosbarnes@nc.rr.com.

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Gorgeous, custom built brick home with wide views of the 17th fairway of Pinehurst #7. The home has an open floorplan and beautiful light from soaring two story windows across the back for a spectacular view, gourmet kitchen w/spacious butlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pantry. 4 BR / 4 Full & 2 Half Baths $995,000

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Gorgeous views of the 4th fairway of Pinehurst #5. This is one of the prettiest spots in Pinehurst! This custom built home offers wide views from almost every room and has an open and bright floor plan. 3 BR / 2.5 BA $297,500

Beautifully renovated home on the 3rd green of Pinehurst #6! Great location and super views. Kitchen and baths have been tastefully updated as well as the living areas. This is a wonderful chance to have a home on the golf course at a great price! 3 BR / 2.5 BA $239,900

Gorgeous custom home on the 15th hole of Pinehurst #6 offers over 3,000 square feet of living space. Features an open floorplan, beautiful gourmet kitchen, oversized laundry room, vaulted ceilings in the great room and three upstairs bedrooms. 4 BR / 2.5 BA $398,000

SOUTHERN PINES

7 LAKES WEST

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Great house in a great neighborhood! Located at the end of a quiet street, backing onto wooded area, this house offers spacious bedrooms, oversized sunroom, super yard and outstanding curb appeal! Won't last long! 3 BR / 2.5 BA $229,000

Gorgeous all brick home in Seven Lakes West! The home offers many upscale details such as hardwood flooring, deep crown molding, huge master bedroom, sun room overlooking a well manicured, fenced back yard. This home is absolutely pristine! A must see! 3 BR / 2.5 BA $295,000

This elegant townhome has every imaginable upgrade. High ceilings, soaring windows, lots of hardwood, deep crown moldings, gourmet kitchen with all upgraded appliances. 3 BR / 2.5 BA $359,900

WHISPERING PINES

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Gorgeous custom built lake front home on Whisper Lake! Three floors offer wonderful privacy for enjoyable family living. Beautiful views of Whisper Lake from the screened porch, the spacious deck and from almost all the rooms. 4 BR / 2 Full & 2 Half Baths $499,500

This lovely custom home is tucked away at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. The home has a wonderful floor plan with hardwood floors, deep crown molding, granite countertops in the well appointed kitchen and spacious master suite. 3 BR / 2 BA $249,900

This elegant custom built Villa in CCNC enjoys a gorgeous setting overlooking water on an oversized lot. Home is located on one lot and has a half lot on either side for complete privacy. Lovely water views from private patio and interior living areas, including a large Carolina room.

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May 2012 P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ThE oMnivorouS rEAdEr

When vice Was nice Teddy roosevelt’s failed crusade to clean up Sin City

By sTePHen e. sMITH

if you’re fed up

with politics — the endless bickering, backbiting and skullduggery — you can take solace in the straightforward truth Richard Zacks conveys in Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York: American manners, mores and politics have changed little in the last 120 years; we are still, at our worst, the same old bunch of bungling con men.

In this well-researched history/biography of the two years in which Teddy Roosevelt served on the New York City Police Commission, Zacks tackles familiar cultural bugaboos — idealism vs. pragmatism, good vs. evil, innocence vs. experience, freedom vs. authority, etc., all of it exemplified in the streets of New York. At the end of the Gilded Age, America’s greatest city was rife with corruption — houses of prostitution on every block, nude women “high kicking” in private gambling clubs, whiskey flowing on the Sabbath, cops and public officials on the take. Add to this unsavory mix the priggish, self-righteous, hypocritical, ambitious Teddy Roosevelt, and you’ve got yourself the archetypical American moment. Appropriately enough, the prologue opens with the image of a naked lady: “A stunningly beautiful woman stood at the very highest point of the Manhattan skyline. She was naked, perched on her tiptoes at the very top of the tower of Madison Square Garden at 26th Street, more than 300 feet off the ground.” The statue was of the Roman goddess Diana, and architect Stanford White had paid out of his own pocket for the gilt copper “pubes-

cent body that matched his desires.” The polyglot pandemonium of Irish, German, Syrian, Turkish, Chinese, Armenian, Italian and Russian immigrants tipping their hats to Diana and accepting — indeed, enjoying — the corruption that ruled the city was too much for the right-minded minority. The wretched refuse yearning to breathe free may have reached the golden shore, but they had managed to bring with them much of the corruption that tainted European society. The details of New York street life of the period were explored in prurient detail by the Right Reverend Charles H. Parkhurst, who railed from the pulpit, decrying vice of every ilk. When he and his minions set out to explore the city’s seedy underside, they had no difficulty exposing — with the thoroughly unwholesome zeal of the puritanical — the guilty pleasures of Victorian New York. The city’s many daily newspapers raised a hue and cry against the remnants of the Tammany Hall machine and an utterly corrupt police department — and along came TR with his zealous notions of good and evil. As an appointed member of the Police Commission he was determined to stamp out the unsavory pleasures of the unwashed masses. At first all goes well for TR and his compatriots on the Commission, but it isn’t long before the inevitable complications set in. Enforced decency, it turns out, is always problematic. No episode better illustrates these complications than the trial of Ashea Wabe, otherwise known as Little Egypt. She became a front-page sensation when she danced at a fancy Fifth Avenue bachelor party for Herbert Seeley, P.T. Barnum’s grandson. A theatrical agent was hired to procure a dancer, and he offered the 18-year-old Wabe cash to expose her “lower regions.” Her father was offended by the amount of money proffered, and he tipped off the police. The entire episode was covered extensively by the newspapers, and the guest list revealed the names of many of the city’s finest families. The World interviewed Little Egypt in her apartment, where she re-enacted her “couchee-couchee” dance and admitted in broken English that she loved to

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dance “in zee all-togezher.” What followed was a tabloid brouhaha in which the Commission and the police became objects of ridicule. Roosevelt’s zealotry earned him many enemies, and the Commission, which had once been single-minded in purpose, began to fracture. The issue of Sunday prohibition turned the newspapers against Roosevelt. They argued that if the blue laws banning drinking on the Sabbath were enforced, anyone engaging in commerce on a Sunday could be imprisoned. They also noted that Roosevelt, who enjoyed an occasional glass of wine, could drink his fill on Sundays at the Union Club, which, as a private club, was exempt from the law. The various immigrant groups who had formerly supported Roosevelt’s reform efforts also turned against him, and even the Republican Party would not allow TR to speak on their behalf after the New York City electorate returned Tammany Hall to power to protest TR’s reforms. Roosevelt’s exuberant personality engendered much of this public disfavor. He may have impressed the self-righteous do-gooders with his dynamic speechifying and limitless energy, but more sophisticated citizens found him insufferable. No less a personage than Mark Twain regarded TR’s personal style intolerable. Island of Vice falters slightly when relating the petty squabbles and insider politics of the Police Commission and TR’s often small-minded part in facilitating the cleanup of the city. Viewed in retrospect, much of the legal maneuvering and infighting is as forgettable as the belligerence and enmity of contemporary American politics. And it’s just as tiresome. Roosevelt considered his sojourn as a police commissioner a roaring success, but historians have been less generous. Change is never permanent, and the New York City Police Department has since suffered “cycles of corruption and crackdown, of palms greased, and then wrists slapped.” For most Americans, Roosevelt’s two years spent on the Commission are a footnote. He was, after all, always on the lookout for an appointment commensurate with his talents and ambition, which, of course, he found — secretary of the Navy, leader of the Rough Riders, governor of New York, and youngest president of the United States. He attacked the “malefactors of great wealth” (we now call this “class warfare”), and he gave us the grand gift of our National Park System, which has granted him a view from Mount Rushmore in perpetuity. PS Stephen Smith’s most recent book of poetry is A Short Report on the Fire at Woolworths. He can be reached at travisses@hotmail.com.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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BooKShELf

new releases for May By THe CoUnTry BooKsHoP

FICTION

of this book and join us at The Country Bookshop May 3 for his signing.

IN ONE PERSON By John Irving. Irving returns with his most political novel since Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Billy tells his story for more than half a century filled with a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention.

BREASTS by Florence Williams. Well researched and revealing scientific findings from the fields of anthropology, biology and medicine, Williams’ investigation follows the life cycle of the breast from puberty to pregnancy to menopause. She goes to a plastic surgeon’s office and to a laboratory where she finds environmental toxins in her own breast milk. Interesting facts: Breast milk contains substances similar to cannabis and is also sold on the Internet for 262 times the price of oil.

THE SOLITARY HOUSE by Lynn Shepherd. A fast-paced historical suspense novel set in Victorian London. Charles Maddox is a disgraced police officer who is hired to track down the culprit responsible for sending threatening letters to his client. Aided by his uncle — London’s greatest detective — whose great genius is now belied by his failing health, they unravel a dangerous web of power and murder. NEXT TO LOVE by Ellen Feldman. Now in paperback! This book is an honest look at three women in a small town during WWII and after (some) of their men return home and American life has changed irrevocably. THE HOMECOMING OF SAMUEL LAKE by Jenny Wingfield. Now in paperback! This book is fantastic — and has the best character in literarture since Scout Finch. Set in the South, this book deals with people who are good, people who are evil and the daily decisions we make that define ourselves as such. A gem of a good read — enjoy the speakeasy run from the house called “never closes” and the preacher son-in-law forced to return home (and never enter “never closes”).

NON-FICTION STAYIN’ PUT by Samuel Bobbitt Dixon. You usually have to be ‘in the family’ or at least seated at the dinner table to get the kind of good old North Carolina Stories Sambo Dixon shares in this book. Sambo’s collection of short stories explains how he ended up “stayin’ put” in Edenton, North Carolina as a successful preservationist and lawyer. If you know North Carolina well and want to escape to years past or are new to the state and want to know how the good old boys were raised, pick up a copy

CIVIL WAR SKETCH BOOK: DRAWINGS FROM THE BATTLEFRONT by Harry L. Katz, Vincent Virga, Alan Brinkley. There were no videographers or photographers to capture the Civil War action for the media. Newspapers relied on “Special Artists” who sat at the battlefields and sketched the scenes unfolding around them. Spanning the entire war and providing views of Shiloh, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg and the stampede of Union soldiers fleeing the Rebels at Bull Run — this is a must have-coffee table book. 10 1/2 THINGS NO COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER HAS EVER SAID by Charles Wheelan and Peter Steiner. Google Charles Wheelan’s 2011 Commencement speech at Dartmouth; then consider this book for this year’s graduate. Honest advice with a good sense of humor. Wheelan expanded his speech of need to know information (that you might not get anywhere else) and added cartoons by Peter Steiner. DRIFT: THE UNMOORING OF AMERICAN MILITARY POWER by Rachel Maddow. Sassy. Witty. Intelligent. And often much too cute. If the United States appears to be strangely at peace with perpetual war

BooKShELf

and all its human and financial costs, it is equally true that the answers to modern national security questions are generally unappealing. For the critic, everything is easy. For those who actually deal with the issue, everything is hard. This book, however, shouldn’t be ignored. NAZIS AFTER HITLER by Donald McKale. In the field of international relations, it is necessary to say, drivel is often camouflaged by impressive words. The fact of the matter is that after the Second World War most of the Nazi butchers cheated justice and truth. This is their story. All the Allied powers, to one degree or another, share the guilt. Mankind, McKale concludes, “is much less human for it.” RUSH TO JUDGMENT by Stephen Knott. William Shawcross and Stephen Carter began the process. Knott apparently wants to finish the job. The critics of President George W. Bush are simply “incoherent and hysterical.” And he largely proves this by taking their own words seriously. As one reviewer bluntly declared, “the actions of the Bush administration after 9/11 seemed unique, extraordinary, and unconstitutional only to those ignorant of the broad sweep of presidential history. . . ” A must read. HITLERLAND by Andrew Nagorski. All of the observations of Americans in Germany from 1919 to early 1942 tied together in one volume. The research is overwhelmingly impressive. As evil is on the march, one is struck by how many either refused to see or wished it away. The few who did comprehend were bitter and frustrated. This book is somewhat like In The Garden of Beasts, but with a much larger sense of tragedy. PS

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h i tt i n g h o m e

Whom Do You Love The Most? Each daughter owns the largest piece of my heart

By Dale Nixon

I wrote this col-

umn in 1987 when my two daughters were young. Allow me to go back in time and share it with any mother who has more than one child and has heard the question, “Mom, whom do you love the most?”

Edie came home from school for a quick visit between exams. She wanted a hot meal and a shoulder to cry on. I offered her both. I was in the kitchen cooking and Edie was chattering away. She was telling me about all of her studying, about how tired she was, about the lost hours of sleep and how glad she would be when she was home for the summer. Hollis interrupted us several times to tell about her second-grade activities: the approaching field day, learning cursive writing and a new song she had learned. Each time she interrupted, I reprimanded her. Finally, I said, “Hollis, don’t interrupt. I’m talking to Edie. Go outside and play. Edie is going back to school tomorrow, and we have a lot to catch up on.” Hollis stuck out her lower lip and left the room. The next day, after Edie left, Hollis crawled up on my lap and said, “Mom, I have an important question to ask you. Will you promise to answer it and tell me the truth?” “Of course I will.” “Whom do you love the most: me or Edie?” “Sweetheart, I love you both the same. Why do you ask?” “Oh, I just wondered….” “Honey, if it makes you feel any better, Edie asked the same question of me. I asked it of my mother, and she probably asked it of her mother. All mothers love all their children the same.” The answer seemed to pacify Hollis for the time being. She hopped down off my lap and went about her play. Those two girls of mine! If only they knew. I do love them both the same,

but for different reasons. How could I explain to Hollis that I loved Edie the most because she was my firstborn, because she was the one I stared at for six months, bursting with pride that I had brought this tiny person into the world? How could I explain to Edie that I loved Hollis the most because she was my lastborn, my baby, and that she always would be my baby, no matter what her age? I loved Edie the best because we grew up together. I was younger when she was born and seldom worried about anything going wrong. I loved Hollis the best because I was older when she was born. Perhaps a little wiser, I realized the world and the people in it were not perfect. I loved Edie the most because of my anticipation of her growing up. I couldn’t wait until she talked, walked, danced, dated and matured. With Hollis, I know better. I appreciate each stage and each day of her young life. I love Edie the most because she is calm and easygoing. I love Hollis the most because she is energetic and has a mind of her own. I love Hollis’ sensitivity and Edie’s reserve. How can I explain to Hollis that I love Edie the most because we can talk “girl talk”? We can discuss makeup, clothes, hairstyles, songs and guys. We can confide our problems and our worries to each other. How can I explain to Edie that I love Hollis the most because we can tickle each other, play Old Maid on a rainy afternoon, cry together over a Disney movie and spend the entire day at the park? I love Hollis the most because she still enjoys sitting on my lap and snuggling close. I love Edie the most because she wishes she still could. So, to answer the question about whom I love the most: I love Hollis the most because she is Hollis. I love Edie the most because she is Edie. I love them both the same. From 1987 to 2012…some things never change. Happy Mother’s Day! PS Columnist Dale Nixon may be contacted at dalenixon@carolina. rr.com.

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

May 2012

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

L e tt e r F r o m T h e S a n d h i lls

The Scent of a Woman From a passing fragrance, powerful memories arise

By Tom Allen

Nearly a year passed before

I mustered the nerve to ask her. When church was over, she usually left by way of the door where I stood and shook hands, a Sunday morning ritual familiar to most ministers. The first Sunday we met, fourteen years ago, the scent she was wearing evoked an immediate memory — my grandmother Mum’s mirrored vanity, her silver-plated hair brush, a box of assorted costume jewelry, jars of Pond’s Cold Cream and the two bottles of cologne that held her signature scents. One was Chanel No. 5, worn on special occasions and usually purchased by a grandchild, every two or three years, either at Christmas or for her birthday in October. The name of the other scent I could not recall, but this dear lady was wearing it. My Southern upbringing taught me better than to walk up behind her, take a good sniff of her neck, and say, “Gosh, you sure smell good. Whatcha’ got on?” But how to inquire seemed a bit awkward.

Some Sundays the scent was less pronounced, but on that particular Sabbath, the smell and its memory were so sweet, I wondered if Mum might have been in line to shake my hand. “May I ask the name of the cologne you’re wearing?” I shyly asked. “I think it’s what my grandmother used to wear, and it sure brings back memories.” “Charlie,” she said with a smile. “Charlie,” I responded, “that’s it.” Mum Pate, my mom’s mother, lived only ten miles from Mama Allen, my other grandmother. They rarely saw each other and hardly ever spoke on the phone. When they found themselves together at a family gathering, they were cordial and chatty, referring to one another as Miss Pate and Miss Allen, yet they were as different as night and day. Mum was a regal-looking matriarch, a wine-sipping Methodist who, on rare occasions, kept a pinch of snuff between her cheek and her gums along

with a small Dixie “spit” cup filled with Kleenex, hidden out of sight, behind her favorite chair. She drove a light blue Delta 88 Oldsmobile that had two speeds — fast and stop. She loved to watch election returns on television, rarely missed an episode of General Hospital or As the World Turns, and would sneak a puff of a Virginia Slim from time to time. She had silver-white hair that was beautyparlor perfect, adored a good T-bone steak, rarely left the house without a spray of Charlie, and never looked more elegant than when she asked me, fresh out of college, to escort her to her brother’s fiftieth wedding anniversary bash. Mama Allen was a teetotaling Baptist, a farmer’s wife who never learned to drive, never saw the ocean, preferred radio over television, and had little if any use for beauty parlor appointments or a signature fragrance, save the clean, fresh scent of Ivory, the only soap she ever used. She was a particular woman with particular tastes — Scott toilet tissue, Sunsweet prune juice, Martha White flour, staples from which she never veered. Other than a whiff of Ivory left from her early morning bath, the scent I most recall is that of a hamburger patty frying in her ancient iron skillet, calling me to lunch after a summer morning of cropping tobacco. My mom worked in our school system. Her summer break ended before mine. In her absence, Mama Allen, who lived next door, provided lunch. Along with a well-done hamburger, her properly blessed meal came with squash and onions, rice with gravy, fried cornbread, and her house wine — sweet tea. There was no dessert. “Sweets rot your teeth.” And there was little room for lunchtime chatter. “What time’s he coming to pick you up? Go on outside and wait so he won’t have to blow the horn.” My two grandmothers lived a few minutes from each other yet were miles apart in temperament and tastes. They did, however, share common bonds. Both lost an adult child from severe strep infections, years before the advent of penicillin. Both saw sons go off to war, grieved the loss of my younger brother, Bob, and found ways to cope as young widows when their husbands died early. They were good cooks and avid gardeners, women of deep faith who lived long, full lives, took their last breaths with dignity, and in their own ways, left me with no doubt that I was loved and cherished. Science tells us the olfactory system, the system that controls our sense of smell, triggers relational memories through a complex cascade of events, evoking recollections stored in the hippocampus, a sea-horse shaped component of our brain. How it all works, I have no idea. I’m just glad it does. For when I need the grace of good memories I pray for a whiff of Charlie and hope my wife will, occasionally, abandon the grill for a hamburger cooked in an iron skillet. PS Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.

May 2012

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The kitchen garden

Black Gold

Compost is good for you — and Mother Earth

By Jan Leitschuh

Like offering a woman really good chocolate, your kitchen garden’s palate is pleased — truly, madly, deeply pleased — by excellent compost.

Though it can’t flash you a thousand-watt smile of appreciation, your garden will nonetheless react with happiness, throwing off lush, healthy darkgreen foliage and tasty, plump produce, as well as resist drought and disease, and encourage beneficial soil life. The roots will luxuriate, creating a solid foundation for production and decreasing runoff. Would you like to boost produce nutrition, garden fertility and reduce your irrigation bill? Grow the prettiest roses on the block? The answer is compost — and free compost at that. But more on this in a Sandhills moment. It’s no secret that the nutritional value of food has been declining since World War II. This sad situation was summed up in a 2009 issue of Time magazine thusly: “If the economy isn’t grim enough for you, just check out the February issue of the Journal of HortScience, which contains a report on the sorry state of American fruits and veggies. Apparently produce in the U.S. not only tastes worse than it did in your grandparents’ days, it also contains fewer nutrients — at least according to Donald R. Davis, a former research associate with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin. Davis claims the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is anywhere from 5 percent to 40 percent lower in minerals (including magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc) than those harvested just 50 years ago.” U.K. and U.S. government statistics also show that levels of trace minerals in fruit and vegetables fell by up to 76 percent between 1940 and 1991. So, if not nutritionally bankrupt, our food system is surely overdrawn. But wait! Who better to turn the tide than the kitchen gardener? There is growing evidence that compost-grown fruits and vegetables generally contain more nutrients. The Soil Association conducted a systematic review of the evidence comparing the vitamin and mineral content of organic and conventionally grown food and found that compost-grown food contained higher levels of vitamin C and essential minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron and chromium. An independent review of the evidence found that such crops had significantly higher levels of all 21 nutrients analyzed, compared with conventional

produce including vitamin C (27 percent more), magnesium (29 percent more), iron (21 percent more) and phosphorous (14 percent more). Organic means SO much more than “not sprayed.” Organic systems produced spinach, lettuce, cabbage and potatoes that showed particularly high levels of minerals. In other words, soil matters. A good kitchen gardener feeds the soil, not the plant; that’s the soil’s job. And in feeding, good compost is king. The compost model is a different model from the “dirt is a dead place to park the roots while you toss fertilizer to the plant” method. Compost is nature’s way of achieving sustainability. In, say, the woods, dead leaves and fallen branches turn to leaf mold; exquisite fungal mats form to transport minerals from “over there” to the static plants, where they are in turn fed sugars, the product of the tree’s photosynthesis; soil microbe populations form countless generations, adapting to their unique micro-environment, living and dying and doing their part to sustain the forest. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. A model community of cooperation. We could take note. Plant lovers call compost “black gold,” and precious it is. It grows tasty produce. Compost is that magical substance that enables plants to thrive. It is organic matter broken down into its finest form, in which it resembles a black, loamy soil. All organic matter eventually becomes compost — including us. Think about it — we are all dirt, composed of the foods we eat. Making your own compost is easy: save anything organic — coffee grounds and filters, eggshells, ashes, old banana peels, vegetable scraps. Exclude fat, meat, bone, pet excrement and citrus peels. Include old grass clippings from non-chemically treated lawns, dead leaves, nippings and prunings, etc. You’ll keep a valuable resource from being land-filled, and you’ll turn a waste product into a bonus. It’s free, unlike petrochemically derived synthetics, which are growing more expensive each year. You’ll get all sorts of trace minerals and macronutrients and micro-nutrients that aren’t usually available in commercial N-P-K fertilizers. Unlike commercial fertilizer, your compost won’t release its payload of nutrition in the first rain, to seep into the water table or waterways — it’s nature’s time-release mechanism. If you do choose to use fertilizer, you won’t need as much and the compost will tend to keep it where it needs to be — out of the local water. In our acidic soils, compost tends to buffer the pH and “grab” onto nutrients, holding them longer for plants to use. But if you’ve over-limed, compost helps mitigate that too. Properly aged and composted material will never burn your plants. What’s not to like?

May 2012

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

The kitchen garden

There’s an easy, slacker way to compost, and the correct, scientific way. The correct, properly constructed compost pile heats up quickly, destroying insects, weed seeds, pathogens. It needs to breathe, and be turned periodically, and should be at least three feet high, and maybe four feet square on each side — enough bulk and mass to generate heat. It should contain the correct ration of greens — juicy, wet organic matter — with “browns” — old leaves or sawdust, wood chips, etc. Stable cleanings from horses bedded on shavings make for a pretty good mix of greens and browns. We are fortunate to live in an area with an abundance of horse apples. The only two problems I’ve had with horse manure — and they’ve been enough of a problem to give me pause — is that sometimes I’ll end up with Bermuda grass in my growing beds, and Bermuda is a very tough creature to eliminate in an organic system. Another problem is a persistent herbicide that is sometimes sprayed on pastures and hayfields; as the horses graze or eat the sprayed hay, the herbicide passes though the animal and into the manure with enough power to kill many things, including trees. I get manure from known sources, and plant something in it to make sure it’s not toxic before spreading on the garden. Contact Cooperative Extension, (910) 947-3188, for more info on this issue. The slacker way to compost, and the one I prefer given that the only machinery I have available to turn a compost pile is my rapidly aging spine, is to “cold” compost. Simply make a pile of material in an out-of-the way spot, and give nature a year or so to work her magic. Come spring, peel back the top layer of leaves and chickweed, and dig in, spreading it on your gardens, roses and other special pets. Yes, nearby tree roots will try to nip in for a snack. An even easier way is to save your kitchen scraps in a bucket, then take them to the garden, dig a hole and pitch them in; cover with the dirt you took out. The worms will love you. No one will be the wiser. I take natural composting even a little further, much to my landscaper husband’s chagrin. I am forever tucking a spent banana peel or sprinkling coffee grounds under the mulch near a beloved plant such as a plum tree or a rose bush. Then I give it a stomp to promote contact with soil microbes. In summer, the material breaks down quickly. The plants love the minerals and other compounds given off as the material breaks down, and I can let it compost in place, out of sight. Viola! No turning. In our antiseptic, antimicrobial world, it is interesting to note that a type of friendly bacteria found in soil may affect the brain in a similar way to antidepressants, activating brain cells to produce the feel-good chemical seratonin. And soil used to be a significant source of the nerve-nourishing vitamin B12. Not that eating handfuls of dirt is

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May 2012

The kitchen garden

advised, but when we rinse our garden produce, it’s not unusual for a little good dirt to cling. But enough of that! You’re sold on the benefits of organic material in your kitchen garden, and even lawns and landscape. What about the free compost? To promote International Compost awareness Week, a local “Compost Fest” will kick off on Saturday, May 5, on the beautiful grounds of the Cooperative Extension in Carthage. The aim is to promote sustainable living, recycling, reducing environmental pollution, enhancing our soil quality, and growing healthier vegetables and fruits. Starting at 9:30 a.m., visitors can see free exhibits and hear three speakers detailing how compost is made, how to compost in your own backyard successfully, and how to use compost in your yard and

gardens at home. There will also be a free garden tour of four nearby compost-using gardens. Best of all, attendees can leave with a free 50-pound sack of Brooks BR-1 compost to take home and use in their landscapes — and make their own feel-good chemicals. PS What: Compost events, exhibits and speakers; compost-using garden tour; free 50-pound bags of Brooks Br-1 compost given away Where: Cooperative Extension, 707 Pinehurst Ave., Agricultural Center, Carthage, NC 28327 When: 9:30 a.m. Saturday, May 5 Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and co-founder of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Great Smiles Are Always In Style! • Smile Makeovers • Porcelain Veneers & Bonding • Cosmetic Fillings (Front and Back Teeth) • Non-Mercury Fillings • Crowns & Fixed Bridges • Bleaching (Whitening) • Root Canal Therapy • General Cleanings & Preventative Care • Non-Surgical Periodontal Therapy • Digital Imaging (90% less Radiation) • Partials and Dentures • Cerec Single Visit Onlays & Crowns

G.R. Horton 295-5980 3 Regional Circle Suite C • Pinehurst DDS, PA www.carolinasmiles.com General and Cosmetic Dentistry

May 2012

Become Part of Our History

Visit Pine Needles Lodge & Mid Pines Inn to become part of the legacy of the Pine Needles Club. Inquire about vacation packages or membership opportunities at 800.706.3660 or membership@pineneedlesclub.com

1005 Midland Rd. Southern Pines, NC 28387 | www.pineneedles-midpines.com

o u t o f t h e bl u e

Anchors Away

High gloss, big hair and extra cleavage give a whole new meaning to the Boob Tube

By Deborah Salomon

I am a media watchdog. Hear me bark.

Today’s question: If there’s nothing worth watching — as people keep protesting — why is everyone buying bigger, sharper, louder, multi-function TVs? Parents are warned that children under 2 shouldn’t watch any TV and after that, as little as possible. Yet smack-dab in the middle of the “family” room stands a screen of ping-pong table proportions. No more hiding it behind the doors of a faux French country armoire. Once on, the image is so real we want to hop, skip and jump in like Mary Poppins’ little charges jumped into Bert’s street drawings now streaming from Netflix. And to say you bought that behemoth to watch the news is like saying you buy Playboy for the articles. Whoa. This puppy may be on to something. The news, which is all people watch, has become an entertainment form vying for ratings with more than murders, crashes, primaries, troop deployments, fires, sex scandals and tsunamis. Ratings demand a new breed of reporter. Qualifications include lip gloss, long legs (for teetering on bar stools), dental veneers and, below all, cleavage. I’ve nothing against cleavage on the beach. A party’s fine but not the 6 a.m. news. Almost as bad: the early gals wearing black lace cocktail dresses, sleeveless Lycra tops in January, sparkly drop earrings or something equally inappropriate. Whom could they be attracting? Certainly not the mom with bed head, puffy eyes, wearing a ratty bathrobe. The ladies of the evening news, one network in particular, go several steps further with bigger hair, deeper cleavage, brighter paint, shorter skirts and higher heels. My quasi-scientific study begins on a positive note. Yes, Virginia, there really are women both pretty and smart. Also, I’m sure, women who are plain and smart. Except they don’t get newsie jobs with a few exceptions grandmothered in on cable plus the timeless Diane Sawyer, but certainly not local stations serving as network farm clubs. Odd, isn’t it, that this previously male-dominated profession has given way to Ashleigh Banfield and Zoraida Sambolin of CNN’s “Early Start,” from 5 to 7 a.m. “The news from A(shleigh) to Z(oraida),” they chirp. Adorable.

When CNN sprung this duo on the public in January, critics were harsh. Even I dashed off a nasty little piece about giddy airhead meets cold fish. Banfield, with Palinesque glasses and perkiness, has been toned down a speck. Sambolin, the diversity token, still acts like she just smelled something foul — but in a darling peasant dress with puffy sleeves. They have no chemistry. I don’t trust them. Their high-fashion wardrobes distract attention. What must Murrow and Brokaw, Huntley and Brinkley, Cronkite and Rather think, looking down from Mount Rushmore? Never did I expect to hanker for a semi-serious guy in gray suit and striped tie with my coffee. Something else that must be halted if TV is to survive its own technology: computer-generated ads. Like a kid with a new toy that just keeps going and going and going, these ads with babies doing the Charleston, or monster morphs, or cars that fly to pieces and reassemble, try my patience. Something is very rotten in Denmark when folks spend two weeks’ salary on a TV to watch the Super Bowl, then give awards to the commercials. And although I appreciate the value of instantly recognizable icons — the Geico gecko, the Aflac duck with his own Facebook page — that Progressive insurance dame wearing a beehive hairdo and crimson lipstick has but one virtue: Her blouse stays buttoned. Sounds like I watch a lot of TV. I can’t say only news. Maybe for background noise, or because my cat naps on the warm cable box, or for picking at political scabs. The truth is I bought a fair-sized HD model because the screen is shaped like a basketball court. Basketball looks great on it. You can actually read the players’ tattoos. Kewpie dolls in push-up bras mouthing massacres off the teleprompter fare not as well. Clicking around one evening I found Judy Woodruff, long retired from CNN, on PBS. At 66 she sounds believable and looks nice in a well-tailored crimson business suit. I wish she’d spank Ashleigh Banfield. The solution, of course, is right there on my remote: a tiny button bearing only three well-worn letters. O-F-F. Click. PS Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

May 2012

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

V i n e W i sd o m

Reds That Play Well With Others Once taboo, blended reds are coming on strong

By Robyn James

They say

Photograph by Cassie Butler

“what goes around, comes around,” and that is so true in winemaking.

For centuries in France — wine’s mecca — blending was the epitome of the art of wine in nearly all regions. I say “nearly all,” because Burgundy is the small exception to the rule. Pinot Noir, the primary grape of Burgundy, doesn’t play well with others. The French figured this out pretty quickly and focused their blending skills in nearly every other region, Bordeaux, Rhone and the Languedoc region. When the original Italian immigrants settled in California, they planted numerous grapes in each vineyard; there was no distinction among the rows of vines as to what actual grapes were planted. They would pick the grapes, blend the wine and call it their “Field Blend.” Truthfully, they weren’t aiming for a superior product at that time, but rather what they fondly referred to as Dago-Red, their quaffable everyday wine. During prohibition, the California industry suffered terribly, and with the 1972 Judgment of Paris Tasting, California winemakers suddenly felt that they could only compete with France’s quality by making wines from only one varietal. Even though blended wines from Bordeaux and the Rhone region were coveted and collected, blended wines from California were considered “cheap or inferior,” too reminiscent of the pre-Prohibition table wines. Wines of single varietals took on an elegant cachet and blended wines were frowned upon. Eventually, a renegade band of winemakers in Santa Barbara and Paso Robles became known as Rhone Rangers because they began blending Rhone varietals they grew in their vineyards: Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre, the noble grapes of Chateauneuf du Pape. Taking notice and not wanting to be outdone, Napa and Sonoma winemakers began emulating Bordeaux and blending Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec, the five authorized grapes for Bordeaux. They formed the Meritage Society, a “California Bordeaux” membership. Today, the more adventuresome winemakers have crossed party lines and are now blending Rhone and Bordeaux varietals together to make some incredibly interesting wines.

Imagine when cooking, the difference between using one type of spice in a sauce as opposed to five! The sauce literally becomes a completely different dish with the addition of each consecutive spice. Such is the case with wine as well. Blended reds are all the rage. Here are a few examples of some of my favorite and most interesting blends. 2 COCKY SISTERS RED BLEND, PASO ROBLES A blend of Counise/Syrah/Grenache/ Viognier/Cabernet Franc/ Petit Verdot “For an inexpensive wine, this is a pretty good investment. The alcohol is high, but it’s in keeping with the cherry, berry, currant, dark chocolate and spice richness, giving a fat, glycerol oiliness to the fruit. Easy to like this soft, dry, heady wine.” RATED 88 POINTS, THE WINE ENTHUSIAST $13.99 CONCANNON CRIMSON & CLOVER RED WINE, LIVERMORE VALLEY, 2009 “A velvety blend with aromas of currant, clove and vanilla that lead into bright, fruit flavors of blackberry on the palate. The spicy finish is soft and long with hints of leather. Bold and lusciously fruity, the backbone of Petite Syrah gives this blend fantastic depth and structure.” RATED 88 POINTS, THE WINE ENTHUSIAST $11.99 CONN CREEK HERRICK VINEYARD RED, NAPA, 2007 “The bistro styled Herrick red (a blend of 82 percent Cabernet, 8 percent Syrah, 5 percent Cabernet Franc, 3 percent Merlot, 1 percent Malbec and 1 percent Petit Verdot) sells for a song. It offers lots of flavor, spice and fruit. Drink it over the next 2-3 years.” RATED 87 POINTS, ROBERT PARKER, THE WINE ADVOCATE $19.99 PS Robyn James is proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at winecellar@pinehurst.net.

May 2012

Sandhills Photography Club Night Photography Competition Class A

The Sandhills Photography Club welcomes all who have an interest in improving their photography skills and gaining the technical knowledge that goes along with it. The club meets at 7 p.m. on the second Monday of each month at Christ Fellowship Church on Midland Road at Pee Dee. Regardless of skill or background, any prospective member is invited to attend. Website: sandhillsphotoclub.org

Honorable Mention 3rd Place

Pam Wandrey Patient Fisherman after Sunset

Tom Reedy Night Watch

Honorable Mention Pam Wandrey Illuminated Innocence

1st place

Jim Davis Village Chapel

2nd Place

Kathy Green My Starry Night in Glacier

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Night Photography Competition Class B

Still Life Competition Class A

1st Place

Jill Margeson Tulips

2nd Place

Jean Marie Schubach Bonfireâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sparks

2nd

Donna Ford Pomegranate

1st Place

Don Hiscott Victoria Harbor

Honorable Mention

Debra Regula Bright Reflections

May 2012

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B IR D WA T CH

Falconry

Ancient and regal, a new sport takes flight

By Susan Campbell

Falconry is

defined as the taking of wild game in its native habitat with the aid of a trained raptor. Most think of this as an ancient sport of nobility, but it is also a viable means of acquiring meat for the table. Specific hunting regulations do apply. Regardless, it is an activity that requires the handler and his bird spend a considerable amount of time together. Initial training takes months before the first hunting takes place. And a hawk requires daily attention and regular exercise throughout its lifetime (often twenty years or more) so the commitment to this endeavor is significant. Furthermore, the training to become a full-fledged falconer takes years to accomplish. It is important to realize that the keeping of hawks for falconry or any other endeavor, such as public education, requires specific state and federal permits. Knowledge of the proper handling and care as well as maintaining safe living quarters (among other things) are all part of the permitting process. Therefore not just any one can — or should — keep these birds. Also, equipment, feeding, housing and veterinary care as well as travel to train a hawk is an expensive proposition. However, falconry can be an immensely rewarding experience. Anyone who has seen a trained hawk fly cannot help but be impressed. The species used in the sport tend to be large-bodied but very fast. Here in the U.S., they include more than just true falcons such as the American kesterel, peregrine falcon or gyrfalcon. Accipiters, such as the larger goshawk, are also popular. Harris hawks, found in the western part of the country, are fre-

quently trained as well. Not only are these birds quite handsome, but they regularly hunt in pairs. Interestingly, they readily accept a human handler as a “second bird” when in the field together. Most of the hawks used for falconry in this country are bred in captivity for the purpose, not wild birds. Although the sport can be traced back to at least the third millennium B.C., it is a recent endeavor here in the New World. Following a National Geographic article in 1920, interest grew in the eastern U. S. Since there was no history of the sport being tied to actual hunting, it was far more popular among natural history lovers and conservationists. After World War II, with worldwide travel becoming more common and growth of the media, information on falconry had become more widespread, resulting in a greater fascination with the activity. Local clubs were springing up, and by the 1960s the North American Falconers Association (NAFA) was created. The NAFA was not only responsible for self-governing the sport but became instrumental in conservation of wild hawks following the effects of DDT, most notably the peregrine falcon. Recovery of peregrines from the effects of persistent pesticide use was made possible by the Peregrine Fund during the 1970s and 80s, using not only the equipment and techniques developed by falconers but with their own birds. Falconers and scientists with the Fund were instrumental in captive breeding efforts as well as release of birds back into the wild. Today the Fund exists to support continuing scientific research on raptors of all kinds and to provide public education at their center in Boise, Idaho. Here in the Sandhills we certainly have resident falconers but no local clubs (yet?). However, if you visit the King Fisher Society’s facility in Laurel Hill, you can visit with a variety of hawks and, if you are very lucky, may have the opportunity to take part in a falconry hunt as well. For background material on falconry in North Carolina, go to www. ncfalconersguild. org. PS Susan would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted by email at susan@ncaves.com, by phone at (910) 949-3207 or by mail at 144 Pine Ridge Drive, Whispering Pines, NC 28327.

May 2012

Kicking things off is our Grillin’ & Chillin’ Beer Dinner at 7:00 PM on May 3rd, where we’ll be pairing perfect summer beers with straight-off-the-grill deliciousness.

Next up is Mother’s Day, May 13th. Starting at 11:30 AM, the source of all goodness in your life will be treated to special Mother’s Day offerings like Roast Stuffed Quail with a Maple Cabernet Reduction or Shrimp and Clams Romesco.

On May 19th we’ll be hosting the Inaugural Sly Fox Crazy Golf Tournament starting at 9:00 AM at The Fox! Nine holes of nerve wracking miniature golf will test even the steadiest hand; better bring the old Billy Baroo.

Eyewear Trunk Show Tuesday, May 8th 12-5 PM

Finally, don’t miss our Memorial Day Weekend Pig Pickin’ starting @ 6:00 PM on May 24th. All active duty and retired members of our Armed Forces will be able to purchase plates for only $5.00. A small token of our esteem for all you do for us. See you all month long at The Fox!

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May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

T h e sp o r t i n g l i f e

Thumbs Up An ode to the vanishing art of hitchhiking By Tom Bryant

No responsible sport-

ing organization has ever sanctioned this outdoor sport. Most folks wouldn’t even consider doing it; but if you happened to be a player when you were young, wild and foolish, then you know what I’m talking about.

It began in the late ’40s, reached its heyday in the ’50s, and peaked in the early ’60s. With the advent of interstate highways and two cars in every driveway, the sport withered on the vine and became a fond memory to those of us who were participants. The sport of hitchhiking, gone forever with the occasional exception of a few down and outers, was a way many of us moved from one location to another when we were still in school. I started thinking about the fine art of bumming a ride the other evening while I was watching the old movie It Happened One Night with Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. In one scene, the couple was stranded along a country road and Gable was showing Colbert the fine points of catching a ride. He used every gambit from the confident I-don’t-really-care-if-you-pick-me-up-or-not thumbing motion to the desperateemergency-I-need-a-ride gesture. Nothing worked until Colbert used the old raising-her-hemline-to-straighten-a-stocking-seam and vehicles locked up their brakes. Colbert’s technique never worked for me; although in some wilder locations where I’ve been stranded, it might have. During the ’50s, it was not unusual to pick up a hitchhiker on the way to Aberdeen and pick up the same person on the way back to Pinebluff. It was a way of life and part of the benefits of growing up in Moore County. Most of the time, drivers who picked us up were friends of the family and more often than not would drop us off in front of our houses. So it was not rare to see young people on the side of the road with their thumbs gesturing in the wind. Hitchhiking was a male sport, though, and females were discouraged from participating. I can’t ever recall seeing a girl hitching a ride until the mid-’60s, when equal rights became an issue. This occurred toward the end of the sport, though, and was probably a good thing. After high school and before Dad bought me my first car, I moved up a step in the sport and began hitching rides back and forth to college. I attended Brevard, a small junior college in the mountains, and it was not unusual for me to step out on the side of Highway 1 in Pinebluff at 10 o’clock in the morning and be in my dorm room by 3 o’clock that afternoon, about

as fast as my dad could drive me. Of course there were little ways that a college student could help his situation. Most of the time we were catching rides with strangers, and even in those trusting days, they needed a little reassurance that you were on the up and up. I always wore a tie and a blazer. I had a small suitcase that had a Brevard decal on the side, and I would make a cardboard sign indicating that I was a student on the way back to school. It always worked. When I was a sophomore, my dad bought me a 1940 Chevrolet Deluxe, a great old car that served me faithfully for many years. But back then, even though gas was 35 cents a gallon, I couldn’t always afford to fill her up. So I would continue to use my expertise in

the thumbing sport to save nickels. I learned early that when hitching across country it’s important to have a back-up plan. So I always stashed away enough money to catch a bus if I was stranded or in a bad situation. A couple of times that emergency fund came in handy. I met some great people during my travels, and I found that ninety percent of them were basically alike. They all aspired for the same things and had good hearts. The other ten percent? I always hoped I wouldn’t get in their cars. But sometimes I did. After I graduated from Brevard and entered Elon College, my family moved to Lakeland, Florida, which was a long way to hitch a ride. By then, however, I considered myself somewhat of an expert and decided to thumb home during semester break. It was to be a real adventure, going and coming. My roommate dropped me off on the other side of Graham, North Carolina, wished me well and headed to his home in Raleigh. I immediately caught a ride to Sanford. The driver was a deacon in the Baptist church and was on his way home after visiting a relative for the weekend. He wanted to make the 11 o’clock service and let me out on the new bypass around town. I stood around for a while. Not much traffic on Sunday morning. One of the beauties of hitchhiking in those days was being able to notice the small things along the side of the road. On one trip I even found a $20 bill just lying in the grass. I whiled away the time in between rides making up stories about that cash. Cars were few and far between. I was meandering southward at a leisurely pace when I heard a car, out of sight, screaming my way. Good grief, I thought, that fellow has his foot in the carburetor. When he came over the hill and saw me, he slammed on brakes and skidded past me to the side of the road. The car was a brand new Plymouth Fury hardtop convertible. A guy opened the passenger door and hollered back at me: “Hurry! Hurry! Get in the back! Let’s go!” I ran to the car, tossed my suitcase in the

May 2012

al th n o ti on Na e M l Sa

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May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

T h e sp o r t i n g l i f e

backseat, and climbed in as the driver roared off, both tires smoking as he burned rubber. Uh-oh, I thought. I might have made a mistake here. I was looking for the seat belt as the passenger leaned back and introduced himself and his partner. “Hope you don’t mind but we’re trying to break our time record from Chapel Hill to Ocean Drive. Hang on. Would you like a cigarette? No? How about a martini?” They were students at UNC and did indeed break their record. I was glad when they let me out on Highway 17 south of Ocean Drive Beach, and I was glad that I had finished the ride in one piece. A friend had lent me the use of his beach house whenever I was in the area and I took him up on it and spent the night at OD, as we called the little beach north of Myrtle. I sacked out early, planning on a fresh start the next morning to continue my epic trip to Florida. This particular hitchhiking adventure was toward the end of my thumbing career, and I met other interesting people along the way. For example, there was a fellow who picked me up right outside of Charleston. He was driving a little Nash Metropolitan, one of the smallest cars on the road. He was nipping a little from a pint whiskey bottle that he kept under the seat, so I talked him into letting me drive. He nipped along all the way through Georgia and fell asleep just south of Jacksonville. He had advised me shortly after I got behind the wheel that the brakes didn’t work too well and to use the hand brake as much as possible. That got my attention as we coasted over the Savannah River Bridge and came to a screeching halt at the stop light right before town. I almost yanked the little hand brake out of its socket. The journey back to school after spring break was just as hair-raising. It started off promising when two co-eds in a bright blue convertible picked me up. I rode with them to Gainesville, Florida, then caught a ride to Jacksonville with a good old boy in a pickup with no muffler. It took an hour before my hearing came back. Then the ride to beat all rides was the one with a pair of newly married Seminole Indians heading to Waycross, Georgia. They were still celebrating when I climbed in the car. After a few miles, I encouraged them to let me drive while they partied. But that’s a whole other story. I finally made it back to Elon and resolved to give up the sport of hitchhiking and do something a little more sedate. So I joined the U.S. Marine Corps. The whole time I was with them, I didn’t have to worry about a ride. PS Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist.

May 2012

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

Different Strokes There is golf. And then there is putting

By Lee Pace

I spent the winter digesting the

acclaimed tome of putting guru Dave Stockton, Unconscious Putting. I learned how to begin reading a putt when I approach the green, how to examine the prospective path of the ball from the low side, how to make my practice strokes from behind the ball — not over the ball. I read with interest Stockton’s preference to address the ball with the putter first in front of the ball, to use a forward press and power the stroke with the left hand. The stuff is working for Phil Mickelson and Matt Kuchar. I’m next in line.

I spent late February afternoons on the practice green rehearsing the new routine, getting a feel for the foreign texture of the forward press and a dominant left side. I broke from my writing chores to pick up my putter, step in to address with my right foot first and have a slightly open body over an imaginary ball on the wood floor. I made notes in my journal and highlighted passages from the book in yellow on my Kindle reader. I set off on March 30 with the gang reassembled for the first time in months, bound to bomb them from 50 feet and beyond and nail them with precision from six feet. And I said to hell with the whole kit and caboodle by the 12th hole. Such are the vagaries of putting, the madness of it all. Putting is about feel, instinct and confidence. I had none of these with my new regimen and technique and hadn’t the patience to let them take root and grow — not with

two-down presses, snakes, sandies and greenies riding on the outcome of my ham-handed jerking. There is golf. And then there is putting. And never the twain shall meet. Think of the irony: Roughly half of our strokes are taken on a mere three percent of a golf course. A one-inch tap-in counts the same as a drive ripped 280 yards down the fairway. Bad driving has sent pros back to the sweater racks; bad putting sends them to a rubber room. Bookshelves are filled with analysis and opinion on this simple affair that children pursue with kicks, giggles and pink balls amid waterfalls and the mouth of a clown. Pity poor Scott Hoch and the word his name rhymes with after missing from two and a half feet to lose the Masters in 1989. We all spit up our cornflakes just a month ago watching replays of that poor gal on the LPGA Tour whiff a one-footer to lose a major championship, coughed up our brew as Lee Westwood wrenched one from a foot on the ninth on Saturday of the Masters. The great one himself, Ben Hogan, missed the entire cup on a two-footer on the 18th at Augusta in 1946, handing the Masters to Herman Kaiser. So inflicted with the yips was Hogan in his twilight years that he actually campaigned to have the size of the hole enlarged, lessening the emphasis on putting, and he sniped at Billy Casper after Casper’s win in the 1959 U.S. Open, “If you couldn’t putt, Billy, you would be outside the ropes selling hot dogs for a living.” Pinehurst golf lore is certainly full of great putters, their idiosyncrasies and their resolve to master this science within a game. Harvie Ward one-putted 18 greens in 36 holes in winning the 1948 North and South Amateur championship, using the rusty Otey Crisman putter he found abandoned in a locker at Hilma Golf Club in his hometown of Tarboro. Dick Chapman, whose family spent winters in Pinehurst, liked to drink ginger ale before a competitive round, saying the soda “makes your fingers feel thin” and aids the putting touch. Paul Azinger won the 1992 PGA Tour Championship on No. 2 wielding an odd-looking putter with a thick grip and an oblong head — “I call it the ‘Thing,’” he said. “My buddies

May 2012

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

said I wouldn’t have the nads to put it in my bag this week.” Payne Stewart got a putting tip from wife Tracey on the eve of his 1999 U.S. Open victory. “Payne, you’re moving your head,” she said after watching Saturday’s third round. Keeping his head steady and not peeking throughout the final round, Stewart took only 24 putts the final day, including his bomb from 25 feet on sixteen and championship winner from 15 feet on the final hole. Michael Campbell checked

Tour rookie Ben Crenshaw nearly won the 1973 World Open at Pinehurst putting with the Wilson 8802 putter he’d found as a junior in a salvage bin at Austin Municipal. into Pine Needles on Sunday the week of the 2005 Open, played a practice round on No. 2 on Monday morning and spent five hours back at Pine Needles that afternoon working with coach Jonathan Yarwood on adjustments to his stroke and lagging long putts with his eyes closed. He one-putted 10 holes in the final round of his championship charge. Tour rookie Ben Crenshaw nearly won the 1973 World Open at Pinehurst putting with the Wilson 8802 putter he’d found as a junior in a salvage bin at Austin Municipal. He used “Little Ben” to win two Masters and compete on four Ryder Cup teams, and it was still in his bag when he returned to Pinehurst in 2011 for a ceremonial round on the No. 2 course he and partner Bill Coore had restored. “I’ve got a relationship with this putter longer than anyone except my family and a few close friends,” Crenshaw says. “We’ve been to hell and back. I’ve said he’s like Willie Nelson’s guitar — old, beat up, doesn’t look worth a darn. But Willie says he keeps that guitar because it just feels right to him. That’s Little Ben — he’s always felt just right.” The business of putting is getting ultra sophisticated these days. A company called Yes Putters has patented its “C Groove Technology,”

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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

a clubface innovation that purports to “grip” the ball at impact for a millisecond, reducing the odds of it skipping and skidding. Odyssey Golf has a similar idea, applying oval dimples to its putter faces to lock with the ball’s dimples and start it rolling at impact. PGA professional David Edel believes that seeing the line and aiming are the Holy Grails of putting, that no two golfers see their putter, ball, line and the hole the same. He created Edel Golf to manufacture custom putters built to a golfer’s individual aim and stroke pattern. And then there’s the belly putter phenomenon that reached a crescendo during the last year as more PGA Tour players wield a long putter with the butt end anchored to their flat bellies. That the clubs are no longer the domain of codgers with the yips and now are the first choice of 20-somethings has opened the floodgates to the masses. Keegan Bradley, 25, won a major championship with a belly putter. Even Mickelson experimented in the fall with a long putter, but soon returned to his standard length blade. Shaft manufacturer True Temper told The New York Times in February it might produce half a million belly putter shafts this year, up from 60,000 in 2010. Raleigh’s Webb Simpson says he was just “messing around” when he picked up a belly putter in 2004, his freshman year at Wake Forest. Simpson won twice and notched three seconds on tour in 2011. “I got some grief from my teammates, but it was too good not to switch,” he says. “It has made my putting more mechanical and less dependent on feel and sight.” My traditional groundings keep me sidelined in the belly putter derby, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t capitulate in an emergency. But I’ve always been able to keep my right hand quiet despite its dominant role in powering the stroke, so the yips have never been an issue. In the meantime, I hoped to find a pearl or two in Stockton’s book, but the complete overhaul was a bit much. I did glean some valuable insight and ideas on visualizing the roll of the ball into the hole and of paying particular attention to the last third of the ball’s projected path. And I really liked the idea of “keeping the ball on the face for as long as possible” in making the stroke. In other words, hit it softly. To those kernels I’ll add my bedrock fundamentals: Eyes over the ball, palm of the right hand flat to the target through impact, right shoulder turns under, head remains down, hold the finish, wait patiently for the wondrous cluck and rattle of the ball falling into the hole. PS Lee Pace’s book “The Golden Age of Pinehurst” will be available this summer. PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

May 2012

You’ll fi nd more than 50 of the best brands here, including one you can’t find anywhere else. Adidas • Peter Millar • Sport Haley • Tail • Tehama • Puma • Titleist • Tommy Bahama • Under Armour • FootJoy • Straight Down Pinehurst Collection • SDI • Zero • Maui Jim • Oakley • Brighton • Dooney & Burke • Putterboy Collection • Vera Bradley • Isda Cole Haan • Lilly Pulitzer • Iliac • Aveda • La Bella Donna • J. Lindeberg • Ashworth • Oxford • Polo • Ashworth • Adidas • Ahead American Needle • Bobby Jones • Callaway • Cutter & Buck • EP Pro • Fairway & Greene Gear • Greg Norman • Imperial • Nike

The Pinehurst Shops are full of shirts, shoes, jackets, spa products, bags, gifts and accessories from brands like Vera Bradley, Adidas, Nike, Peter Millar and Cole Haan. So come in and find your favorites. Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina • 910. 235.8154 • pinehurst.com

May 2012 In Nature’s Time This morning, I woke to a mockingbird composing his jubilant variations from the woods at the far side of the upper field, where the jays replied from poplars, and ravens answered from elder oaks. It was only a week ago that frost still sought winter in the shadows reaching long across my dooryard — despite the eager defiance of young plum blossoms. Last night, however, in the second full moon of March, the wind boldly suggested spring and now I find rebirth in the morning rising beyond these sunlit pines. The mockingbird’s song urges me across the meadow to the large boulder that rises from its ancient cradle of earth near the field’s high center and I consider how it never fails to graciously accept whatever season rests upon its wise and weathered face. I’ve found that beginnings and endings seem to often come in greens and browns and we can read the poetry of time’s passage in the things that life grants us, cocooned in the days of late autumn fields where only dead grass hides the busy movement of mice; in the counted rings of winter’s fallen trees; in dogtooth violets as they push their way into spring’s burgeoning warmth and in the secret purpose of dragonflies on lazy-sweet midsummer evenings.

I watch the wind dance with freshly budded branches at the wood’s edge down where the path forever curves into sun-striped shadows bending from sight. There is a depth of emotion that grips me, now, leaving me barely able to whisper, offering quiet praise in reverence for the passing of one thing into another and another and another. The language of seasons speaks a certain truth — a covenant in constant motion that echoes deeply in the bones. The mayfly doesn’t mourn its day and wisdom won’t ask how long things last; they will last enough and, if they must, they come to us again. For now, it is simply enough to climb to that boulder on the hill and witness the soft new green of trees brushing against a blue so bright it hurts my eyes. There, I’ll feel the beat of my heart harmonize with that primal voice within, and listen to the mockingbird sing of all the blessings that have been and offer a joyful promise for all that are still to come.

— By Melinda Kemp Lyerly

Voices Among the Stones By anne mCKeithen •

PhotograPh By Cassie Butler • illustrations By FranK r iCCio

The ancestors are not dead. They live in the sprits in the community. They are reborn into the trees, the mountains, the rivers, and the stones to guide and inspire the community. maliDoma PatriCe somÉ

stand in a cemetery in North Carolina as traffic speeds past, fumes filling my nose, my hair flying. Empty beer bottles and fast-food containers litter the graveyard’s edge. I try to overlook the trash and noise to concentrate instead on the burial markers. I am trying to find some pattern in how the graves were laid out. Nothing here looks simple and nothing is. More than a hundred graves lie in this flat, sandy ground — the remains of African-Americans who lived between 1840 and the present. Brambles and brush obscure many graves. Some markers carry inscriptions that are no longer legible while others bear the names of families still living nearby. Berkley Cemetery lies east of Aberdeen, where Laurinburg Road intersects Glasgow Street. The cemetery marks the western border of Berkley, a hamlet that sprang to life around 1890 when railroading boomed in the fledgling village of Aberdeen. Along with its ring of black hamlets called Berkley, Midway and Broadway, Aberdeen is situated in

the Sandhills. This forest of pines and white sand straddles the Piedmont and Coastal Plain sections of south central North Carolina. Near the road a group of granite monuments stands neatly enclosed in a chain- link fence. Here the grass has been clipped and the names are clearly marked: Thomas, Hemenway, Clark. Most other graves, however, are identified with simple stones, standing or leaning in no discernible order. Some gravesites are only mounds of sand, the names of the deceased engraved in aluminum foil on temporary funeral home markers. Strewn across the plots are baskets of faded plastic flowers, empty floral containers and longleaf pine needles. Scrub oaks and dogwoods have sprung up, making it impossible to walk in more than half the cemetery. I find myself asking: Is this sacred ground, and, if it is, why is everything such a jumble? What do I know about this land anyway? My grandfather, Edwin McKeithen, grew up in Aberdeen, where in 1910 he and his father bought eighty acres of farmland, which included the parcel that became the cemetery. Grandfather called his farm Orchard Hill, a name he adopted from a passing railway car. The land stretches westward from the forlorn cemetery, across U.S. 15-501, past fields planted at different times in peach trees, tobacco and soybeans, and then through more piney woods to the railroad tracks. In 1914 my grandparents, by then the parents of 2-year old twin boys, built a two-

story four-square house. My mother’s father, who was friends with my McKeithen grandfather, owned a lumber mill and for two years had saved his best heart pine boards for the house. There, in 1917, my father was born. My grandfather McKeithen raised peaches and sold real estate. During the Great Depression my grandparents lost their savings, but with help from Grandmother’s family, they held on to the farm. Grandfather found work through a WPA (Works Progress Administration) project, managing the new Moore County Hospital. Edwin and Mary Norman McKeithen kept the home fires burning while their three sons served in the armed forces during World War II. As a child of the 1950s, I carry memories of family celebrations — Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays — at Orchard Hill, and of picking scuppernong grapes with Grandmother under an arbor on hot September days. Grandfather drove to work in a black, hospital-owned 1942 Chevrolet. Although the springs stuck out from under his seat, the other seats showed no wear at all since he always drove alone to work and never drove the car anywhere else. When he retired in 1959, my grandparents built themselves a smaller house on the farm for their remaining years. My parents, my brother Jere — three years my senior — and I moved into my grandparents’ old house. I was 13. Just before he retired, Grandfather deeded a few acres on the east side of the highway to four black churches for a cemetery. Actually their dead had been buried on the land for decades. After the first section filled up, the family sold plots on an adjoining parcel, so that today the five-acre cemetery sprawls down the hill toward a small factory, and back into the scruffy pine woods toward the black settlement of Berkley. As a child I struggled to understand the issues of race. I struggle still, especially when I return to Aberdeen, trying to sort the past from the present. Berkley Cemetery stands between the family home place where I grew up, a white child in a segregated world, and Berkley, the community of our close neighbors, who were black. When I was a child I knew more about China or Italy than I did about Berkley. Unless we had a reason to go there, we avoided Berkley’s rutted, unpaved streets and stayed away from its reminders of poverty. Mostly we kept our distance. From time to time I’d see a ragged line of cars parked on the side of the road by the cemetery. A funeral was taking place. Sometimes I’d see the mourners wearing hats and dressed in their Sunday clothes. Solemnly they would stand, praying or singing softly as we rushed by on the highway. When, in warm weather, we left our windows open at night, I would hear the sounds of jive that wafted toward our house from a Berkley joint. The music was insistent and nervy and sexy and it was not meant for me. I was a casual observer of Berkley life and unfaithful at that. In 1963 I moved away from home and thought no more about the subject. It was more than thirty years later before I paid any attention to Berkley. On a visit to my mother in 1996 I discovered that many residents of Berkley lived outside the town of Aberdeen and did not have access to its public services — trash pickup, city water and sewer, sidewalks, town police and fire

protection. They could not vote in municipal elections. Although Aberdeen annexed Berkley in 1997 and some services started immediately, I was angry that our black neighbors had had to endure a one hundred-year wait to acquire some of the security and comfort that whites just took for granted. And I was curious to learn how this exclusion had come about and how it had managed to survive for so long. Since then I have sought to learn stories from Aberdeen’s past, especially those from the Jim Crow years up through school desegregation of the 1960s and early 1970s. I asked about two dozen people who had lived in the area during Jim Crow or desegregation if I could interview them and record on audiotape our discussions of their experiences. Some I interviewed were people I had known since I was a child. Friends and family recommended others, many of whom still live in or near Aberdeen. It was not hard to discover certain facts about early African-Americans who lived in Moore County. Enslaved blacks built the early plank roads and canals in northern Moore County. Later in the nineteenth century, men of African descent labored in the turpentine woods, sawmills and lumberyards and constructed many of the railroads. In the early twentieth century, black workers built the golf courses and elegant resort hotels in the nearby resorts of Pinehurst and Southern Pines, as well as churches, schools and houses. Black masons erected commercial buildings; many blacks cleared white farmers’ fields, sowed and harvested their corn and tobacco. AfricanAmerican women cooked for white families, took care of their children, washed whites’ laundry in big pots in the dooryard, hung the linen on lines to dry, and pressed out the wrinkles with heavy, hot irons. But the history of African-Americans in Moore County is as weedy with neglect as Berkley Cemetery. In these pages I present some of the history I’ve been able to glean and try to bring a little order to it as well.

he black hamlets that later surrounded Aberdeen — Berkley, Midway and Broadway — sprang up after the railroad arrived and had become distinct neighborhoods by 1900. Ever since emancipation, black families had moved from farm to town, where they found mostly unskilled labor and service positions. Kin networks made life friendlier in the black hamlets, and helped smooth out the disruptions caused by migration from the country. Here everyone was a newcomer and residents were likely to have similar problems and interests. Children played together in the sandy yards. Friends and relatives helped working mothers with child care. And families became part of a community. Newly founded black churches served important social functions as a place to meet and greet neighbors. Black folk continued to look out for one another as they had under slavery. Finding work and providing food and shelter were often difficult tasks in themselves, but there were other worries too. Many African-Americans

lived in fear that they might fail to protect their families from the terrors of the Ku Klux Klan, sexual assault from white men, or overwork from white employers. In the newly formed hamlets blacks provided safety and support for one another as best they could. Most blacks struggled along on low wages. Cooks — who were mostly black women — got five dollars a month and a laboring man’s wages were sixty cents a day plus rations. Nearly everyone 10 years or older earned some money. Girls sewed, dressed hats or wove baskets; boys hunted, fished, split wood and if the family owned a wagon, they might haul something for pay. Elders, too, took on odd jobs. When they were not working outside the home, grandparents helped with housework, gardening, childcare and wood chopping, which freed up the younger generation to earn wages away from home. As neighborhoods got more established, residents created a community outside white control: They built their own churches, schools, cemeteries and charities. This required them to pool whatever extra resources they could muster. Between 1890 and 1900 Aberdeen grew from a rough rail stop to a little town bustling with trade. The number of residents more than doubled from 227 to 559, and by the century’s end, Aberdeen boasted three railroad lines as well as vigorous sawing and lumber businesses. Not only were there stores owned by whites, but there were black-owned businesses like Richard Goode’s barbershop next door to Emma Knight’s millinery shop. AfricanAmerican George Thomas had a blacksmith shop; later his work would be displayed in the Smithsonian Institution. “We Have It, You Need It, Come and Get It!” was the motto of Mark and Nancy Wimberley, white dealers in groceries, fresh meats, country produce and furs. A sign below the pitched tin roof of their Sycamore Street store advertised, “We pay cash for dry and green hides.” Several white women worked in the downtown area. In a large, barn-like building James McNeill Johnson owned a drugstore where his sisters Sarah and Alice were pharmacists. Mary Page recalled a store boasting a millinery department where you could have your hat “trimmed to taste.” “We rushed in,” she said, “to see the hats. We looked, then we went to Raleigh and bought our hats as we had always done.” In the raw, newly settled village, houses and businesses stood next to one another. Aberdeen’s downtown business district grew up along the railroad tracks, and then headed west a block or two toward the bottom of Page Hill. There has always been a randomness to the business section, with feed stores sitting next to beauty parlors and a boardinghouse beside the post office. After 1900 the homes of many whites stood inside the town limits while most African-American lived outside these boundaries. There were few streets, no paved roads, and people who lived along the railroad tracks still used the rail bed as their primary walking path into town and back. Home photos show sandy yards with a few spindly saplings recently planted near the house. Every residence had a fence to keep wild pigs and deer out of the women’s kitchen gardens. The 1900 Census gave no street addresses yet the listings for white and black households are so often interspersed, that some streets or sections of

town must have been racially mixed. Whites who lived in mixed neighborhoods were more likely to be renters; but blacks who lived near whites might have owned or rented their homes. Not long after A.F. Page died in 1899, most of his Aberdeen land was parceled out to his three daughters, and in turn at least one daughter, Frances, deeded lots near her home to her black servants. Soon little pockets of black homes developed down the lanes or streets of predominately white neighborhoods. It was not unlike the Mississippi village that Willie Morris has described, “All over town . . . the Negro sections surrounded the white, and in that curious fractured pattern which Northerners have never quite comprehended, many Negro and white houses sat side by side.” But outside Aberdeen town limits most African-Americans settled: Berkley to the east, Broadway to the west, and Midway, halfway between Aberdeen and its northern neighbor, Southern Pines, following the railroad lines. An 1898 business directory reported there was a “prosperous school; also a good school for the colored people. There were three comfortable churches for whites and five for the colored people, a town hall and public library . . . nine stores, three planing mills and dry kilns, one foundry and machine shop, one wagon and repair shop, one weekly newspaper; . . . two hotels . . . About 50,000,000 feet of lumber are shipped from this depot annually, quite a quantity of naval stores also. This was a very prosperous growing town . . .” This directory was biased by its obvious boosterism. In Moore County the so-called “good schools” for black children were, in fact, poorly built structures: small, underequipped and understaffed. Community leaders believed African-Americans needed and deserved less education. There was little money available for any local schools, and whites who had lived through a post-war depression clung to a fiscal stinginess when allocating their meager funds. And since blacks paid less in taxes than whites, leaders were not inclined to spend much money to improve black schools. These attitudes played a crucial role in denying black children equal facilities. At the beginning of the new century a few white middle-class women were venturing into the work force. Black women’s work as cheap domestic servants and the advent of electrical appliances, telephones and indoor plumbing all contributed to a revolution in homemaking. White women had more time for charity work or perhaps employment outside the home. Stories passed down suggest that white mistresses and their black servants cared about each others’ welfare. There were common concerns: the health and education of their children, Christian beliefs and the rapidly changing nature of the “industrialized” home. Yet there was little chance they could meet as equals to discuss these issues. Whites had trouble imagining that black people had lives outside their work, and blacks kept their personal lives private. In addition, a black woman who worked out of necessity had few reasons to accept her white employer’s work ethic as her own. When work interfered with family or community needs, black women were likely to align themselves against their bosses. This did nothing to create warm relations between black women and their white employers. Even as modernized home improvements had changed life for some white women, black women still worked mostly as domestics or washer-

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

women. As the once-dominant lumber and railroad businesses began to dwindle just as turpentining had, black men scurried to find new work on fruit farms or in the growing golf resorts. Some took their families to Northern cities. Even white men had adjustments to make. Neill McKeithen gave up farming to become county clerk of court in 1904, moving his family fifteen miles north to Carthage, and other white families moved on, too. The heyday of railroading would end soon. But life for Aberdeen’s remaining residents would whir on into the twentieth century, in an increasingly segregated fashion.

ccording to Jeffery Crow, North Carolina got an undeserved reputation for good race relations in the first half of the twentieth century: “Whites mistook blacks’ cautious, carefully calculated statements for acquiescence and complacency. In fact, African-Americans never gave up the struggle for equality.” But the lack of improvement in blacks’ living conditions spurred many of them northward. In the early 1950s Josephine Washington and Hazeline Pryor were among those who left Aberdeen for the North. They moved to Philadelphia where they worked in factories and raised their families. Hazel Pryor recalled, “After World War II, everybody was going to New York — the Joneses, the Lees, the Camerons — everybody. We moved to Philadelphia and it was exciting.” Like other transplanted Southern blacks, Jo Washington and Hazel Pryor found life different in the North. “We weren’t used to the tall buildings and to living in apartments,” said Washington. “There were not as many trees. It was a very nice city, even though I lived way up in the northeast, away from town. It was very convenient. We had buses and subways and could get to work in about half an hour.” “Oh, my, you could make much more money there,” Pryor continued. “And you only worked eight hours a day. If you worked after 4:30, that was overtime. When I first went to Phillie, I was only used to housekeeping and some cooking, and I went to work for a Jewish family. They worked as pharmacists from nine to six, so I was hired to take care of two kids and make a light dinner. They had soup before dinner and I had to learn how to make soup. I caught on very quickly and worked for them for about a year. Then I moved to a factory because there was more money and less hours.” Work in Northern factories liberated black women from white people’s kitchens where they were isolated and had no chance for mobility or any recourse against an employer’s racism. Josephine Washington remembered that her first job in the city was in a burlap bag factory. We had to “sort bags, good from the bad, fold them. By then my sister was already working at that factory. Over the busy times we’d get hired and then laid off, so after getting laid off, I went to another factory. We made sport coats, trousers — we worked together there for fifteen years. We stuck together until we got the union in there — they couldn’t lay off three hundred people. We were union members, and they took care of us very well. We retired in 1995, when we came back to Midway.” “You might think,” said Washington, “oh, I live in New York or Philadelphia! But to me, there’s more prejudice in those cities than there is here. One thing about the South, they used to say you knew your place. In the big city you never know your place. You worked right alongside whites, but they really don’t like you. “In the summertime you moved into a neighborhood, and in the winter

you didn’t notice anything because you didn’t come outside. But the next summertime, you’d look around and say, ‘Where are my neighbors?’ The whites had all moved. And the blacks had moved in.” Life in the city was also anonymous. “In the city,” said Hazel Pryor, “if you get lost, and ask somebody how to get somewhere, the people never answer you.” She continued, “You would never know anyone there. You’d recognize faces of people on your block, but still you didn’t know the person.” The trade-off for gaining a better quality of life was living among strangers. In retirement Mrs. Pryor and Mrs. Washington moved back to Midway and refurbished their childhood homes. They’ve found themselves once again surrounded by strangers. “We’re back here and I thought, oh, we are coming home, people are going to be nice, accept us. No way!” exclaimed Washington. “Hazel and I could be out here dead for a week and they wouldn’t even know it. I’m dealing with it, but if I ever get bored I get on the train and go to Phillie.” But on balance they seem satisfied that they returned. “Now the South has changed a lot so people are migrating back from the big cities because, in my opinion, it’s better living. I looked back over my childhood and my parents and I said I’m gonna do better; I’m going to make it better for my kids and I tried to instill that in my grandchildren.” She said of Hazel Pryor: “She likes it here better than I do but as you get older in the city, you need a slower pace. Sure I drive in the city, but with the hustle and the bustle on the expressway, you’ve got to keep looking, you’ve got to be alert. And when I come up out of the subway, I have to lean against something, I am so tired. Lord have mercy.”

erkley is not much more than a mile from Old Bethesda, and Faith Cemetery is right between the two. Keyser — Berkley’s main street — is lined with well-kept modest houses and neat yards. We drove through the quiet neighborhood toward our final stop. I had saved Berkley Cemetery for last. We parked beside a rusted pile of litter. Because cemeteries remain relatively undisturbed over time, historians consider them repositories of cultural information. This is particularly true for unkempt graveyards like Berkley. One of the first things we noticed was the lack of grass, except for one small space fronting Laurinburg Road. I think that patch was planted to suggest an entrance to the grounds, although there is no gate into or fence around the burial ground. Aside from this modest stretch of green, much of the ground is bare, except for scattered pine needles and weeds. This could be intentional. In traditional cemeteries in the southeast United States it is not unusual to find that grass is not planted and that the ground is scraped to remove any vegetation. African-Americans do not necessarily place graves in even rows and often there is no particular order for placing individuals within a family group. Sometimes objects are placed on a grave to indicate a person’s occupation; other times graves are decorated with items such as broken mirrors or lamps that had belonged to the person. Their function may be more than decorative: Some say they are intended to ease the passage from this world to the next. To the untrained eye, these objects might appear to be junk, especially if they have weathered or decomposed. So it was impossible to tell if some items were thrown carelessly from a passing car, or were placed lovingly beside the grave of a relative. To add to the confusion (or perhaps to explain it) I can imagine a tension here between traditions — that of letting the cemetery stay in its tangled

weedy state, which is typical of some older African-American graveyards in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina, and that of conforming to more modern maintenance practices. Standing near his parents’ graves three years earlier, Theron Thomas had told me, “It’s a shame Mr. McKeithen [my grandfather] gave us this land and we can’t even keep it up.” When Erik asked why it isn’t kept up, I speculated that some families prefer the old ways and that others might not have the interest or the money to spend on cemetery upkeep. It is hard to say. Kathy and I stepped gingerly in our sandaled feet through the briars and sand, looking at names on markers. I pointed out those that meant something special to me: Ernest Taylor, Mattie Capel, Janie McLeod Murchison Jackson, Mary Bryant and the unknown Laura Burns. When I had first walked through the cemetery in 1996, I saw a gravestone leaning on its side, partially uprooted by a large oak. The concrete slab marker was small and had a simple ivy garland winding across its top. And underneath the ivy I could make out: AURA, Wife of Mose Burns Born 1867 Died 1923 My heart had leapt at the thought that there was someone named Aura, the name I had used in a high school story I wrote about the cemetery. But close inspection revealed an “L” covered with ivy. Her name was actually LAURA. I found her in the 1900 census: Laura Burns, 33 years old, married and mother to a boy and a girl. Erik and Tom inspected a group of graves, which were all enclosed within one plot. Each grave included a large headstone as well as a smaller footstone with three initials. Artificial flowers stood arranged all over the mounds of sandy soil. Even amateurs like us couldn’t help noticing the individual flavor of many elements of gravestones and plots, which is characteristic of traditional cemeteries. These include using inexpensive, homemade materials such as pipes or concrete blocks to make an enclosure around the plot or grave, and are often a sign not only of creating something artistic but also of making do with the materials at hand. Although most graves use tombstones as markers, it is not unusual to find graves without stones. There were many cast concrete monuments, most often produced commercially and made to look like marble. Several displayed the same design of ivy intertwined with an anchor, a Christian symbol, representing the connection between God and His people. Other concrete markers were the work of local artisans, who made their own molds, either imitating commercial markers or creating their own designs. Some stones have been fashioned by amateur stone carvers; others had attached metal letters like those used on mailboxes. Tom asked me about the flat slabs of concrete we saw. These are the tops of burial vaults, which, in the 1970s, a number of funeral homes started leaving flush with

the ground. Some are covered with metallic, bronze-toned paint; others are painted white or left bare. On the top they contain a flat marker with the name and dates of the deceased. A few graves have old wooden markers that have nearly disintegrated. We counted several dozen military gravestones, each a slender white marble monument, carved with the deceased’s name, rank, birth and death dates and marked with military insignia to indicate the branch of service with which the person had been affiliated. “Folk” cemeteries often make use of “emotionally direct words and symbols” on grave markers. Stepping carefully around the thick strands of briars that threatened to scratch her legs, Kathy pointed to the symbols she found: cross, dove, heart and praying hands. We walked down the hill toward Glasgow Street, where we saw some of the inventive ways people had decorated their plots with pipes and other simple materials. Clay drain tiles marked the boundaries of one plot; another used metal pipes laid flat on the ground for the same purpose. In another, someone had built two brick pillars about three feet high. It was impossible to tell if some of the work of these homegrown artisans had been lost or destroyed over time. As we returned to the car and drove across the road to my mother’s house, I had a feeling of incompleteness. The closer I looked at Berkley Cemetery, the more I realized how little I really knew or can ever know of life in Berkley. It is so hard to understand the lives of others. For me the exploration of race, neighbors and family ends as it began — with more questions. But I think it is important to keep asking, to try to understand one another as we also work to better living conditions for all our neighbors. It is important to close the divide between black and white, to seek economic opportunities for the disadvantaged and to insist that communities be inclusive. The relationships I developed while undertaking this investigation (especially the friendships of Mrs. Crisco, Shirley Gillis, Josephine Washington, Hazeline Pryor, Jesse Wimberley, and Maurice Holland Sr.) taught me to look beyond what I had learned to expect. I have not been disappointed. I remember Mary Alice Crisco’s insistence that there have always been black and white people of good will trying to make life better. Felton Capel reiterated that theme. Yet I’ve seen the barriers that still exist and know how hard it is for activists like Sandra Vamper, Shirley Gillis, Clara Belle and Jesse Wimberley to effect change. We must push for full inclusion in our communities. It is important that qualified candidates on local ballots represent the races and ethnic backgrounds of those who are eligible to vote. We must keep talking to one another and listening to the voices of the living and the dead that whisper their stories, their dreams, and their wisdom. PS

Anne McKeithen will be making an author appearance at The Country Bookshop on Wednesday, May 16. Join her for a book-signing and Q&A moderated by Jesse Wimberly with special guests. This event begins at 6 p.m.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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Seasoned and Soulful A stroll through Aberdeen reveals an old town in the process of a splendid rebirth By John H. Wilson

Photographs by Cassie Butler

The One Eleven Main building in downtown Aberdeen will be celebrating its 100th birthday the same day as Aberdeen’s Spring Spree, Saturday, May 19 from 11 a.m. — 6 p.m. Stop by the store for cake, refreshments and door prizes, and spend the day in the streets of Aberdeen, a town with rich railroad history and much to offer.

he old railroad town of Aberdeen, nestled along the tracks of the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad, is a seasoned and soulful town, one of North Carolina’s finest treasures. Originally called Blues Crossing, Aberdeen was settled in the 1850s by a band of hardy Scottish Highlanders who came to the area to harvest resin from the longleaf pines for tar, pitch and turpentine. By the early 1890s, Aberdeen was an influential hub of industry and transportation with a rail line extending to Fayetteville and the Cape Fear River. The decline in the timber and naval stores industries, the Great Depression, and competition from the large national chains precipitated ineffable challenges to Aberdeen in the 20th century. Yet the old railroad town held its head high and proved its mettle, weathering economic shifts and downturns with grit and determination. Today a creative entrepreneurial culture has taken hold in old Aberdeen. Strolling down its friendly sidewalks, dotted with colorful planters, wrought-iron benches and period street lamps, I sense old Aberdeen in the midst of a renaissance. Its century-old buildings, bearing the blue plaques of the National Registry of Historical Places, are dressed up and home to an alluring collection of specialty and design shops, antique and hardware stores, cafés, restaurants and galleries, each sated with personality and character. When I first set foot on the dusty planks of the Aberdeen Supply Center, I was greeted with the mellifluous scent of feed and fertilizer and farm country hospitality. Being an old hardware store aficionado, I was in awe of the well-stocked shelves, filled with sturdy shovels, rakes, rope, Georgia boots, products to treat animals and rid unsavory pests, and hundreds of other sundry and practical items. After selecting a pair of hardy work gloves, I turned and noticed a rooster strutting back and forth on the checkout counter. As I handed a ten-dollar bill to the cashier, the rooster kept one eye firmly trained on me, clearly aware I wasn’t one of the regulars.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

At that moment, I realized there is a quirky brilliance and behind-the-scenes intrigue to this fine old railroad town. Something new and captivating, it seems, awaits discovery behind its old doors and storefronts. When I opened the gold-tinted door of the Old Silk Route on N. Main Street, for example, bordered by a pair of white elephant planters topped with bright green ferns, I felt as if I had been beamed to the Asian subcontinent. Owner Ann Magee greeted me with a warm smile and showed me her latest collection of colorful tapestries, wall hangings, and Buddhist thangkas. Over tea, I learned that Magee had once accompanied legendary local golfer Peggy Kirk Bell to India, where Bell coached members of the Indian Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s National Golf Team. After contemplating the bird cages and white silk spheres displayed in the attractive storefront of One Eleven Main, I entered a shop of dazzling beauty, appointed with home furnishings, accessories and gifts of every sort. My eyes quickly settled on an old rolling ladder by the shelves. Betsy Saye, one of the owners, said some of her older clients remember stepping on the ladder as children and sliding along the rails when her shop was the old Aberdeen Hardware Store. She pointed out the original freight elevator in the back with its giant pulley wheels and rope still in place, and the old metal PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2012

nail bin, filled with unique and tasteful gifts. If Aberdeen Hardware were still in business, it would celebrate its 100th anniversary this year. One store over, at Renee’s, I found myself in an Alice-in-Wonderland room, filled with colorful bolts of cloth reaching up to the ceiling. Owner Kim Renee likened them to giant candy sticks, and proceeded to show me her whimsical collection of finials and lamp shades, one made out of old sheets of Bach music. Back outside, under a warm cloudless sky, a bright red caboose parked quietly by the old railroad station caught my attention. Inside were two wooden desks and volumes of old and very large ledgers stacked high on the dusty pine floor. What did they contain? I wondered. The Aberdeen Coca-Cola Bottling Company on South Street has always piqued my curiosity and was next on my list. Along the way on the corner of Sycamore and South, I stopped to peek in the window of a vintage service station crammed with antique glassware, hurricane lamps, fire irons, books and other enticing items of bygone days. Inscribed in the cracked concrete pavement were “W.H. McNeill, 18971927-1974” and other telling clues of the past. I would have to return for closer inspection.

I entered the painted brick building of the Aberdeen Coca-Cola Bottling Company through the front door and found myself peering down a long empty corridor. At the end, a small table with a stainless steel napkin holder and two white plastic chairs sat quietly on a polished gray concrete floor. I walked cautiously down the narrow hallway, not knowing what to expect. I could hear a pin drop it was so quiet. When I came to a large room containing pallets of soft drinks, an employee of the company suddenly appeared. An affable fellow, we chatted and I learned that nowadays the Aberdeen Coca-Cola Bottling Company is solely a distribution center — the bottling days are long gone. The young employee then led me to a cozy room filled with small tables and vending machines offering cold drinks, hot coffee, sandwiches, chips, cookies and more. He said that folks in Aberdeen drop by often for a hot coffee or a cold drink, depending on the season. As I left, I noticed a sign tacked up by the entrance of the refreshment center that read: “A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.” I crossed over South Street and followed the curve of the rail spur to Union Station, where

Left: When you fall into the rabbit hole of Renee’s, located at 109 Main Street, you’ll adore your Alice-in-Wonderland search for lampshades and one-of-akind fabrics. Top right: One Eleven Main’s store owners, Erin ReVille, Betsy Saye and Julie Moore, sit in their store filled with everything to make a house a home. From home furnishings, tabletop must-haves, accessories and gifts, this old building owned by Saye has much to offer inside.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

I spotted Cottage Chic on the corner of Main and Sycamore. I opened the door to a world of beautiful bed linens, cottage-style furniture, artwork, and home décor items in pastels. The original pine floors and tin ceiling recalled the days when the brick building was a drug store and later a grocery. The delightful owner, Shelly Thompson, told me she travels to Paris, the Tuscany region of Italy, London and the Caribbean for inspiration and ideas and offers interior design services to clients locally and all over the world. Her latest projects were a bed-and-breakfast in Italy and homes in Napa Valley, Kiawah Island, and Bald Head Island. Shelly will soon open French Bleu Living on the same street. Mon Dieu! A rumble in my stomach reminded to pick up a loaf of fresh bread at The Bakehouse before heading home. I passed an assortment of interesting storefronts along the way, pausing to examine an antique upright piano tucked away among urns of exotic plants and fresh flowers and what appeared to be a bust of Julius Caesar. Curious, I opened the door and was greeted by the proprietor of Aldena Frye Floral Designs, who I learned owns another shop on South Street in Aberdeen, dealing primarily in permanent botanicals and in silk flowers. Aldena sources fresh flowers from all over the world (Israel, Holland and Colombia, to name a few) and does a robust trade providing arrangements for weddings and corporate events. Her interest in flowers dates to when Below: Shelly Thompson, owner of Cottage Chic, fluffs a sea of comfy pillows on a display bed.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Aldena Frye arranges flowers inside her shop.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

she and her husband, a former American Airlines captain, lived in Hawaii and Thailand. Placing first in a flower show in Hawaii, Aldena thought maybe, just maybe, the flower business may one day be her calling in life. No doubt, we owe the judges a big thank-you. The Bakehouse on N. Poplar Street is both bakery and café and a popular gathering spot owned and operated by Martin and Mireia Brunner, a husband and wife team who have perfected a winning recipe by combining their talent, culinary passion and Old World heritage. Originally from Austria, Martin is the pastry chef and his father is the bread maker. Mireia is originally from Barcelona, Spain, and, with her mother, operates the café part of the business, offering fresh-made soups, “Barcelona” burgers, flounder sandwiches, Mediterranean panini, fresh salads and more. While considering the delectable pastries, cakes, croissants and loaves of fresh breads elegantly displayed behind sparking glass, I was greeted by the impeccably dressed proprietor, wearing a tall white chef’s hat. Martin showed me a photo of his grandfather’s bakery, “Backhaus Brunner,” noting it was established in Hartberg, Austria, in 1948, the same year The Bakehouse was built. Transcending two continents, the Brunner tradition in excellence continues. India, the Caribbean, France, England, Italy,

Spain, Austria! A bristling and colorful cosmopolitism has taken root in the town square. Next on my list — a taste of Mexico! I returned to old Aberdeen the following day to sample the cuisine of La Poblanita. The café’s coral-colored walls were adorned with sombreros and the bright red blades of the ceiling fans were shaped like chile peppers. After a basket of fresh tortillas and hot sauce, I was served a savory plate of chicken and beef tacos. I exited the door smiling, knowing I had stumbled upon another hidden gem in old Aberdeen: a Mexican café of charm, character and authenticity. Right next door, I was pleased to find Upro’s Food to Go, a soul food restaurant that I made a note to come back and visit. Feeling the need to stretch my legs before heading home, I crossed the railroad tracks, passed by Railside Antiques and the Artists League, and stopped for a moment by the old Aberdeen Lumber Company Office (circa 1892) for a glance into history. I continued my trek down Fayetteville Street. On my left was a weedy railroad yard filled with rusty rail anchors, rail spikes and fish bolts, reminiscent of a scene out of a John Steinbeck novel. In front of the old brick maintenance shop was Engine Number 405, a spectacular locomotive painted in blue. Inscribed on its side, in bright yellow, was “Aberdeen

and Rockfish R.R. Co., The Road of Personal Service.” I asked myself, “Where is Rockfish?” That for another day! PS Postscript: I have touched on a mere fraction of the many shops, cafés and places found in old Aberdeen not long after finishing my sojourn; for example, the latest incarnation of the longtime popular Aberdeen Café reopened for business, guaranteeing I’ll continue my deep inquiry around town. So, put on your walking shoes, spend an afternoon or two exploring and shopping in this delightfully mysterious old railroad town, and you will surely come home with an intriguing story of your own. John Wilson lives in Southern Pines, and can be reached at jhw1353@hotmail.com Left: Inside La Poblanita, the colorful décor loudly proclaims, “Viva México!” to all its diners. Right page: Top left, The new-old regulars at The “New” Old Aberdeen Cafés. Top right: Clarice Baker relaxes in the sun outside her mother’s Come As You Are Evangelistic Center’s Church Antiques and Gift Shop on Sycamore Street. Bottom left: Spring colors fill the spacious Plan B home furnishing and design services store on Poplar Street. Bottom right: Hair stylist Ashley Wood finishes a new do at Studio Elite Hair Gallery on Sycamore Street.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

story anD PhotograPhs By Cassie Butler

“P

repare the youth of today to be the good citizens of tomorrow.” It’s only fitting that this is the motto of Aberdeen’s venerable Cardinal Book Club, widely believed to be not only the oldest continuously operating book club in the Sandhills, but among the oldest in all of North Carolina. A commonly expressed joke — one that holds a grain of truth — is that the only way to gain admission to the club is for a sitting member to pass on. Even so, more than sixty years after the club’s founding, the ladies of the Cardinal Book Club assemble faithfully for refreshments, a book exchange and catching up on each other’s lives every first Thursday of the month. Today, only one of its original founding members, Doris Moon, 84, is still an active member. Moon joined the club as a young married woman and served as hostess at the first recorded meeting on July 7, 1949. She recalls that in the early years of the club, membership ranged from 18 to 24 members, but in the 1970s the club was reduced to 16 members. Since the club does not meet during summer months, June through August, and does not exchange books in December, there are only eight months of book exchanging per year. Basically, each member only needs to purchase one book every two years for club purposes. The idea to provide a stream of stimulating reads that would appeal to other members of the club through a system of exchanging titles seems to work without a hitch, if longevity and member dedication mean anything. “I’m a reader, and I certainly don’t get all my books from the book club, I get them from everywhere,” notes club member Juanita Auman, who admits by the time she gets a book near the end of the two-year rotation, chances are she’s probably already checked it out from the library and read it. Ironically, the Cardinal Book Club was created for young mothers and wives following World War II by the older women of the Sandhills Book Club. Now nearly all the Cardinal members are in their 80s. “It’s pretty embarrassing. We’ve grown old together, and that’s a fact,” says Auman with a laugh. “The club has changed as we’ve changed, but

our l aDies oF the CluB (leFt to r ight) roW 1: Doris moon, Juanita auman, louise BuCKhan; roW 2: roBBie harter, marJ gsChWinD, eDna Donathan; roW 3: elDiWeiss loCKey, K athryn KuZminsKi, JoyCe mCinnis; roW 4: ann mCneill, eVelyn taylor, ruth sinClair; roW 5: Carolyn Burns

it’s always been a close-knit group,” Doris Moon points out, explaining how a shared passion for good books and friendship provided a welcome forum in which knowledge was shared and relationships blossomed. In its early days, reflecting a societal change that sent more women into the work force following the war, the book club met in the evening after some members got off work. “A number of us were the group after World War II who found work outside the home,” Auman explains. “Some of us even worked two jobs outside the home.” “It’s always been a lot of fun and important for us,” adds Louise Buckhan, one of those who worked two jobs and yet is still a loyal member going on forty years. “Starting out we were all sort of in the same boat. We all had babies and young children, and we were all working yet trying to keep up with the world, be members of the PTA, have fun with our friends and keep up with what was going on in our area.” “Our children grew up together,” Doris Moon says. Now that almost every member is a lady of a certain age, members are free to meet in the after-

noon at Bethesda Presbyterian Church, a private home or a local restaurant. Current affairs, church and family news, garden tips and favorite recipes are all part of the lively social exchange of a typical Cardinal Book Club gathering. Often so are specially arranged speakers and outings. Good memories are the ties that bind, like pages in a book. Member Marj Gschwind, 86, points to photographs that show the members of the Cardinal Book Club at Aberdeen Lake hard at work painting a public structure in the heat of the day. “We are fortunate to have people like Robbie and to get some younger members because we want the club to continue,” Marj says. Translation: new Cardinal blood. “We’re pretty seasoned,” she adds wryly. “But we’ve calmed down with our age.” By Robbie she means Robbie Harter, a youngster of just 60, the club’s current youngest member, who was invited to join when her mother, Sue Buffkin, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and was forced to drop out. “There’s seldom a vacancy,” says Moon, confirming the commonly held view of the club’s closely held membership structure. “If someone

happens to resign or move or. . . you know, . . . things that happen to older people, the club elects a new member to take her place. The spots are usually filled by a family member.” Other old photos show club members dressed in mismatched clothes and big hats. Beautiful handwriting on the back of one photo notes: “Cardinal Book Club ‘Tacky Party’ Meeting — June 1961.” Eldiweiss Lockey recalls her most memorable Cardinal Book Club experience, a club trip to New York City fifteen years ago. She describes it as a bonding experience “where we all had such a great time. Everyone liked the things we took in, the places we ate, the plays we saw,” she says with unwavering conviction. By tradition, each hostess chooses the meeting site and a program coordinator chooses the entertainment, a program that can range from tea with a visiting author to a live concert of orchestral prodigies. If the program coordinator is Ruth Sinclair, for example, you can count on members being treated to piano performances by her brightest students. As for books, well, here’s where the story gets interesting — and oddly charming. The truth is, there’s rarely any discussion of a particular book — and never a formal review. Yes, the club revolves around members’ love of good books, with a book committee that assures that the books chosen are either current top-sellers or of topical interest to members. Once club business is dispensed with and the latest book exchange accomplished, a typical meeting quickly moves on to refreshments, a selected program and socializing. True to the club’s founding motto, the ladies also enthusiastically support a community project. Last year, for instance, instead of exchanging Christmas presents, they purchased underwear, undershirts and socks for students at Aberdeen Elementary in Berkley, a low-income part of Aberdeen. “We pull together,” Robbie Harter says. “We look after each other and keep up with everyone — the births and deaths, everyone’s sickness and sometimes travels too. Our social committee is in charge of sending out cards if someone is sick and sending flowers if someone’s in the hospital.” Not surprisingly, members pass around a blessing box, a basket where the members give their spare change to fund these thoughtful acts of kindness. “You can learn a lot from books,” notes one of the longtime members. “But the real blessing of the Cardinal Book Club is that of the close female friendship that spans the years, as life goes by.” PS

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Time Warp

Modern Family Enjoys the Best of Several Eras By Deborah Salomon Photographs By John Gessner

“Our family has an old 1820s house on Rubicon Farm, our special North Carolina history place.” Evie Sugg crossed the Rubicon, literally, when the 8-year-old moved from a genteel Winston-Salem residence to a cabin in rural West End. Granted, her new home had a spa tub, air-conditioning and a satellite dish. But technology did not remove the antique shop aroma, or prevent getting splinters in her socks from the rough pine floors, or interfere with time travel back to 1820 when nine children slept in the attic space she shared, grudgingly, with her brother James. “Can you imagine that with no air-conditioning how hot it gets up there in the summer?” Evie writes. These surroundings inspired Evie to compose a charming booklet: “Rubicon Farm, A Place for Stories.” The stories (and photographs, also by Evie) include feral cats and a rescued horse which became part of the farm, and her life. “Basically, I was living in a place of history,” says Evie, now 12. “I looked around and found very old glass bottles and broken china, with pieces I could fit together.” An outbuilding, which served as the Eastwood post office during the Civil War, is plastered with faded newspapers. “This house was definitely an experience.”

The Sugg family — Russell, Elizabeth, James and Evie — bought Red Brick Cottage, a historic showplace in Pinehurst, in 2007 as their primary residence, but kept 64-acre Rubicon Farm for vacations and weekend retreats. Elizabeth drives to West End twice a day to feed the feral cats, which were born under the house. “Rubicon Farm is not an ordinary house. It is a one-of-a-kind house…” the booklet continues. The farmhouse was built in the early 1820s by a Scotsman named Black who traveled up the Cape Fear River from New Bern to farm in Moore County. The “Scotch cottage,” as it was called, was constructed, inside and out, floor to ceiling, of untreated local heart pine, which has mellowed to a rich brown. Three multi-use rooms downstairs and a dormitory upstairs housed the family. The kitchen was disconnected from the house, as was the custom, to avoid conflagration. Eventually the kitchen did burn, replaced by an outbuilding which, now connected to the house, serves as the kitchen/dining area. Subsequently, the Cole family raised tobacco on part of the 2,000acre tract. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and recognized as having historic value by the Historical Preservation Foundation of North Carolina. In 1980, Jack Carter of Pinehurst purchased and extensively renovated, within preservation

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Outbuildings, from various decades, included the Eastwood post office, a tobacco warehouse and a stable.

Dark, comfy, relaxing: Parlor walls, floor and ceiling are original heart pine, now weathered. guidelines, the Black/Cole House at Rubicon Farm, as it became known. Further restoration was accomplished by the Wetmore family, who desired a suitable background for their period furnishings. Occasionally, the Wetmores opened the house as a museum and for meetings of the Moore County Historical Association. “The farm has some tales that have not been told and adventures that we have not seen or heard because our family will create them.” Native North Carolinians Elizabeth Norfleet (author, magazine publisher, cooking instructor) and Russell Sugg (attorney, banker) met on a blind date at Wake Forest University. They have lived on Egypt Mountain outside Raleigh, in an 1880s Victorian in Oxford, and in Winston-Salem. Career shifts for both Elizabeth and Russell plus good schools for the children brought them to Pinehurst. Elizabeth renovated a 1950s ranch on Everett Road, lived there for a year and moved back to Winston-Salem. Then, in 2005, the couple decided to use a windfall bonus to purchase a place they would enjoy long-term as a family. Both had visited Moore County as children. Historic properties in Pinehurst were considered before purchasing Rubicon Farm in 2005. “When the real estate agent unlocked those gates, Russell said I had that look even though we hadn’t been inside yet.” Elizabeth and the children relocated full-time. Russell went back and forth. “It was definitely a different lifestyle,” Elizabeth recalls. But she, as

Near right: Passageway connects house to previously freestanding kitchen. Right page: Woodwork by superb craftsman Thomas Godwin include picnic-style tables, kitchen island and cupboards.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Attic sleeping loft once accommodated nine children — now only two, or guests.

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Strangely, door in master bedroom leads to front porch. Quilts and flea-market objects match the era. a history major, thrived on antiquity — something she passed on to Evie. “The house was in bad shape but luckily it is listed on the National Historic Registry. That is how my parents found it.” Elizabeth, accustomed to living among formal antiques, insisted Rubicon Farm be warm, comfortable, kid/pet friendly. In her words, a hodge-podge of sturdy tables, armoires, leather couches, a fireside slipper chair with ottoman, interesting lamps, quilts, quirky andirons, rooster prints, poster art from Taste Full, her food magazine. Elizabeth shopped flea markets for old wooden tennis rackets and a telescope. Her grandmother’s needlepoint card table cover with an equine motif hangs on the parlor wall. Wood golf clubs fill a corner. Leather cowboy boots resting on a shelf were made at Dixon’s Boot Company in Wichita Falls, Texas, the last U.S. company to custom-make boots. “Hank Williams Jr. wore their boots,” Elizabeth says. The floor plan speaks old and new: Two front rooms, each with a fireplace and door onto the porch, could have been bedrooms and/or a parlor. Elizabeth has brightened dark walls with quilts, patterned rugs and sunny paintings. Typical of the era, the house had only one closet, under the stairway. Yes, there is a thermostat, but also century-old nails driven into the wall, for hanging things. A full bathroom with tub and stall shower was added in the 1970s. This and a laundry-utility room could have been sleeping spaces for children. Beyond, a passageway with window seats joins the dining area and new (but appropriately rustic) kitchen to the original house. Elizabeth motions with pride to two long, picnic-style tables made by craftsman Thomas Godwin of Marsden, who also did the kitchen cabinetry. Godwin found lengths of unfinished pine of unknown age and origin in an outbuilding. From this he built the handsome table and benches. PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2012

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Elizabeth Sugg finds peace, productivity in a country setting. Other installations also contain reclaimed materials. Many windows have original, wavy-paned glass. The kitchen opens onto two covered back porches, perfect for sitting and peeling peaches or shucking corn on a summer afternoon. The Suggs brought the front porch swing from their first house in Wilmington. “It’s a superstition — we take something we love from one house to the next,” Elizabeth says. “I can squeeze twenty people in here (for a meal). People realize it’s not the size of the place, it’s the coming-together feeling.” Rubicon is the only house, Elizabeth continues, where all members of their extended families have gathered. After bustling Winston-Salem, life at Rubicon Farm was different for Evie — “sort of hard. In Winston I was five minutes from school. At Rubicon Farm I was twenty. I missed having my own bathroom.” Without insulation, the house was chilly in the winter and warm — even with AC — in the summer. “The nights were quieter,” Evie continues, and sometimes spooky. “You don’t hear trucks. The sunsets are really, really pretty and at night you can see every star.” Her friends think the farm is (what else?) cool. Russell Sugg was the true time traveler, shuffling back and forth from cosmopolitan to country. “The house is comfortable enough but during the winter it felt like another era,” he says. “I wanted my kids to know they could have a modern life in an old structure,” Elizabeth adds. “I wish we could have a séance with everyone who has lived here and ask questions.” After two years taming Rubicon the family moved to Pinehurst village but returns frequently for an afternoon, a day or weekend. Elizabeth

finds work time most productive here. Evie kicks the soccer ball in the yard, sits on a stump to read or walks down to their pet cemetery. One outbuilding holds a ping-pong table. James, a championship golfer at 13, finds things to do at Dormie Club. Soon, Katie, the rehabilitated rescue horse, will be stabled on the property, completing the family, as Evie completes her booklet of stories: “Now Rubicon is a clean, comfortable, relaxing place where history comes alive. And I think in the future we will have it and still make it a family house, and the pine trees we planted will be fully grown. But for now, it is our almost 200-year-old house. We have shared it with people so much, and I don’t want it to go away.” PS

Evie Sugg, junior historian, reads from her booklet.

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May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Things We Love About May A Writer In The Garden

By noah salt

May Day, Bees, And The Magic of hawthorne According to old English almanacs, May is the best time for buttermaking — not too warm, not too cold — but a poor time to get married, especially if the groom is determined to wear green, possibly due to associations with the Green Man of pagan lore — the tricky pollinator of living things, including flowers and virgins. May Day, marking the start of summer in Celtic tradition, itself has roots deep in pagan lore of the early British Isles, when bonfires were lit on the first day of the month to assist the strengthening sun and purify cattle. Lovers who walked through the smoke of a May Day fire were believed to have a more harmonious relationship, too. Romans brought the five-day festival of Florilia, named for the Roman goddess of flowers, and in the Middle Ages small towns began erecting Maypoles for larger public celebrations that involved dancing, music and general merrymaking. A branch of flowering hawthorne tree laid on a neighbor’s doorstep was certain to bring good fortune in the coming growing season. The hawthorne had other magical properties, too. A fair maid who, the first of May Goes to the field at the break of day And washes in dew from the hawthorne tree Will ever after handsome be. Speaking to the vital role of bees: “Take heed of thy bees, that are ready to swarm / the loss thereof now is a crown’s worth of harm,” advises Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. “A swarm in May is worth a load of hay / a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon / A swarm in July is not worth a fly.”

“One looks forward to the peony season as to the yearly visit of friends one loves, and the impulse to go whoring after novelties is, in me, quickly stilled. I could no more dig up these old friends and replace them with new ones than I could tell a human being that after thirty or forty years I was tired of their company. Moreover, peonies need time to settle down and do justice to their capacities. Properly cared for, which is a simple matter of enough water and plenty of fertilizer/ mulch, they improve with age, like wine, and if you have a clump you like, my advice is to leave it be. – From “Peonies” in Green Thoughts, by Eleanor Perenyi

Taxes are paid for another year Birdsong at dawn and dusk College graduation Honeysuckle in bloom The sound of crickets Afternoon rain Mowing the lawn

May In The Garden With most of the spring prep work finished, roses, particularly the old variety of them, are the real showstoppers from middle to late May, typically producing their lustiest show of blooms and varieties of color. Their only real rivals in some gardens are peonies, typically coming late in the month, which derive their name from the etymological root peaon, a hymn of praise to a helping god. In Greek mythology, Paeon was the first to use the beautiful plant for medicinal purposes. For our money the Fringe tree, Chionanthus virginicus, aka “Old Man’s Beard” or “Snowflower,” a native shrub that can be trained as a tree, produces masses of spiky white blooms in May, challenging even the divine smelling peony for perfection. Meanwhile, Siberian iris, dianthus, catmint, wild columbine and clematis bring the garden to its annual peak.

May 2012

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

ART CLASS. Artists League of the Sandhills. (910) 944-3979 ART EXHIBIT & OPENING RECEPTION. 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Hastings Gallery, Sandhills Community College ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design. (910) 692-9743 PRESCHOOL STORYTIME. 3:30 Southern Pines Public Library

GATHERING AT GIVEN. 3:30 p.m. Given Memorial Library SPRING BEER DINNER . 7 p.m. The Sly Fox Pub NC SYMPHONY CONCERT. 8 p.m. Viva Italia. Robert E. Lee Auditorium. (877) 627-6724 A TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY CASH. 7:30 p.m. Sunrise Theater. (910) 603-6003

ART EXHIBIT & OPENING RECEPTION. 6 – 8 p.m. New Generation of Seagrove Potters. Campbell House Galleries. (910) 692-2787 or www.mooreart.org FIRST FRIDAY. 5 – 8:30 p.m. Sunrise Theater. www.firstfridaysouthernpines.com TEMPLE THEATRE PRODUCTION. Little Shop of Horrors. May 3-13. Thursdays at 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.; Fridays & Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m. Temple Theatre, Sanford. www.templeshows.com

GUEST CHEF AT RUE THIRTY-TWO. Three courses. Rue 32, 290 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info/ Reservations: (910) 725-1910

ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design. (910) 692-9743. PRESCHOOL STORYTIME. 3:30 – 4 p.m. Southern Pines Public Library. (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net. ENGLISH SPEAKING UNION. 6 p.m. Presenting Andrew O’Shaughnessy. Country Club of North Carolina. (910) 235-0635

ART LECTURE. 10 a.m. “Landscape Painting & Its Legacy: van Ruisdael, van Gogh, & Mondrian,” Weymouth Center. (910) 692-2787. www.mooreart.org. OLDIES & GOODIES FILM SERIES. 2:30 p.m. A espionage thriller starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor (1942). Southern Pines Public Library. (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

ANTIQUE FIRE TRUCK & CAR SHOW. 6 p.m. Event part of the Carthage Buggy Festival. Hosted by the Carthage Firefighters Association. Music, food and other activities available. Nancy Kiser Park, Carthage. Info: www.thebuggyfestival.com. JAZZY FRIDAYS. 7 – 10 p.m. Live jazz music and hors d’oeuvres, rain or shine. Admission: $10. Cypress Bend Vineyards & Winery, Riverton Rd., Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411.

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS MEETING. 11:30 a.m. Guest speaker: Pat Corso, Reservations required. Table on the Green, Midland Country Club, Pinehurst. Charlotte at (910) 944-9611 WINE DINNER AT RUE THIRTY-TWO. 6:30 p.m. Rue 32. (910) 725-1910

ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design. (910) 692-9743 or www. AcademyofClassicalDesign.org SENIOR ACTIVITY. Douglas Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave. (910) 692-7376 MEET THE AUTHOR. 6 p.m. Anne McKeithen will discuss her book, Listening to Color. The Country Bookshop. (910) 692-3211

DINING IN THE FIELD. 6 p.m. Sandy Woods Farm, Pinehurst. Tickets: (910) 295-3663 SANDHILLS SPRING CLASSIC. May 17 – 20. USEF “A” rated hunter/jumper show. Carolina Horse Park, 2814 Montrose Rd., Raeford. (910) 875-2074 or www. carolinahorsepark.com

PLANT TALK. 10 a.m. Hydrangea expert Josh Kardos. Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Ball Visitors Center, Sandhills Community College. Reservations: (910) 695-3882 PINEHURST LIVE AFTER 5. 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. Featuring The Sand Band. Village of Pinehurst. (910) 295-1900 BLUEGRASS IN THE PINES. 6 – 8 p.m. Free concert featuring the South Ridge bluegrass band. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. Info: Southern Pines Recreation and Parks at (910) 692-2463 MOVIE IN THE PINES. 8:30 p.m. Free viewing of Kung Fu Panda 2. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. Rynet at (910) 692-7376

ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design. (910) 692-9743 or www. AcademyofClassicalDesign.org

WINE DINE AND PAINT AT RUE THIRTY-TWO. Four course wine dinner plus art supplies. Rue 32, Southern Pines. (910) 725-1910

JAZZY FRIDAYS. 7 – 10 p.m. Live jazz music and hors d’oeuvres, rain or shine. Admission: $10. Cypress Bend Vineyards & Winery, Riverton Rd., Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411. CAROLINA POLOCROSSE CLUB. May 25 – 27 . 7 a.m. – 5 p.m. Pinehurst Harness Track, Route 5, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 949-3345.

SUMMER READING. Southern Pines Public Library. (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net MAY DAY SENIOR EVENT. 11:30 a.m. Douglas Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. (910) 692-7376

1 7 8 14 15 21 22 28 29

ART CLASS. 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. (910) 944-3979 or www. artistleague.org FLORAL DESIGN CLASS WITH ALDENA FRYE. 6:30 p.m. Aldena Frye’s, Aberdeen. (910) 944-1071 or (910) 944-1073

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Live music from John Frazier Band; Lizzy Ross opens. Poplar Knight Spot, Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org

MEET THE AUTHOR. 5 p.m. Diane Chamberlin will discuss her book, The Good Father. The Country Bookshop, Southern Pines. (910) 692-3211 SCC JAZZ BAND OUTDOOR CONCERT. 6:30 p.m. Free and open to the public. Sandhills Community College, Pinehurst. (910) 695-3829

6 13 20 27

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Bruce Molesky and Brooks Williams. (910) 944-7502 or www. theroosterswife.org FAIR BARN CONCERT. 4 p.m. The John Brown “Little Big” Band in concert. The Fair Barn. (910) 295-0166 CONCERT IN THE PINES. 6 p.m. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. (910) 692-2463 MOORE COUNTY CONCERT BAND. 2 p.m. Cardinal Ballroom, Carolina Hotel. www.moorecountyband.com ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Live music from Darin Aldredge Band; Audrey Auld and Anne McCue open. Poplar Knight Spot, Aberdeen. (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org

STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL. 10 a.m. Women of Weymouth. Southern Pines. (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org MEET THE AUTHOR. 12 p.m. Wiley Cash will discuss his new thriller, A Land More Kind than Home. The Country Bookshop, Southern Pines. (910) 692-3211

CAROLINA PHILHARMONIC PINEHURST POPS SERIES. 7 p.m. Salute to Broadway. Featuring “West Side Story” “The Sound of Music” and other pop favorites. Robert E. Lee Auditorium, Southern Pines. www.CarolinaPhil.org

2 3 9 10 16 17 23 24 30 31 •

PIG PICKIN’ AT THE SLY FOX. 6 p.m. Kick off Memorial Day weekend with roasted pork. The Sly Fox Pub, Southern Pines. (910) 725-1621

SENIOR EVENT. 9 – 11 a.m. National Senior Health & Fitness Day. Fish, walk, play disc golf and check out new fitness equipment along the trail at Reservoir Park, Southern Pines. Register by May 15. All participants will receive a gift bag. (910) 692-7376 ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design. (910) 692-9743

Friday

4 11 18 25

GALLERY PREVIEW. 6 – 8 p.m. Arts Council of Moore County presents a special preview of its fundraiser, Art Anonymous. Campbell House Galleries, Southern Pines. Reservations required. (910) 6922787 or www.mooreart.org

May 2012 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Arts & Entertainment Calendar May 1 – 26

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PRESCHOOL STORYTIME. 3:30 – 4 p.m. Bring infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years) for stories, songs and fun. Playtime follows. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

• ART IN THE GARDENS. Sculptures by North Carolina artists throughout Sandhills Horticultural Saturday CAMERON ANTIQUES FAIR. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Over 250 dealers display antiques and collectibles in the Historic District of Cameron. www.antiquesofcameron.com. MALCOLM BLUE ANNUAL BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL. 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. Bring chairs or blankets. Malcolm Blue Farm, Bethesda Rd., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 315-5937 or (910) 752-0161. CINCO DE MAYO POOCH PARADE. 3 – 5 p.m. Bring canine companions for games and contests Downtown Park, Southern Pines. www.moorehumane.org. GIVEN ON THE GREEN. 7 p.m. Benefit for the Given Memorial Library and Tufts Archives. Carolina Hotel. (910) 295-6022.

5 12 19 26

CARTHAGE BUGGY FESTIVAL. 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. Buggies will be on display in addition to continuous entertainment, arts/crafts, antiques, great food, and annual car show. Courthouse Square, Carthage. (910) 947-2331 or www.thebuggyfestival.com BEHIND THE SCENES POTTERY CRAWL. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Event benefits the Northern Moore Family Resource Center. Seagrove, NC. Tickets/Info: (910) 948-4324 or www.nmfrc.com. COOKING DEMO. 12 & 2 p.m. Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775. WINE TASTING. Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775. ART CLASS. 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Artists League of the Sandhills, Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979 or www.artistleague.org. BETHESDA BACKYARD BBQ & CRAFT FAIR. 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Bethesda Presbyterian Church. (910) 944-1319. SPRING SPREE IN DOWNTOWN ABERDEEN. 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. Downtown Aberdeen. FESTIVAL OF BEERS. 3 – 6 p.m. Southern Pines Elks Lodge, Southern Pines. (910) 692-3926. MOM PROM. 6:30 – 10 p.m. Benefit for The Arc of Moore County. Pinehurst Member’s Club. (910) 692-8272 or www. thearcofmoore.org. WOODLAKE TRIATHLON AND DUATHLON. 8 a.m. Most of the race takes place within the gated community of Woodlake in Vass. Triathlon consists of a 600 yard swim (expected to be wet suit legal) in the 1,300 acre lake, a 17.2 mile bike route and a 3 mile run. Info: woodlaketriathlon.com AUTHOR EVENT AT GIVEN. 3:30 p.m. Local author Ron Rhody will discuss his latest book, Theo’s Ashes. Given Memorial Library, Pinehurst. (910) 295-6022 FREE WINE TASTING. Elliott’s on Linden, Pinehurst. (910) 215-0775

Gardens. Sculptures will be for sale with a percentage of proceeds going to the gardens. Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 695-3882.

May 3

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GATHERING AT GIVEN. 3:30 p.m. Barbara Vedetti will discuss the Long Term Care facilities in Moore County, such as what to look for and how to research the facility. Q & A and refreshments afterward. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-6022.

May 1

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EARLY ONLINE REGISTRATION FOR SUMMER READING. Regular registration begins Friday, June 1 at the library. Students K-5 will explore the night this summer through the theme “Dream Big-READ!” Programs are free and open to children of all abilities. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

•

SPRING BEER DINNER AT THE SLY FOX. 7 p.m. Sit outside and enjoy beer and grilled delicacies. Cost: $38+. The Sly Fox Pub, 795 SW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1621.

•

SENIOR EVENT. 11:30 a.m. May Day has been observed as a holiday for many centuries in Europe. Make paper strip flower bouquets to decorate the DCC. Learn about this holiday and how it was introduced to the United States. Douglas Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

•

NC SYMPHONY CONCERT. 8 p.m. Viva Italia. Featuring William Henry Curry, Resident Conductor. Program includes Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Wolf, and J. Strauss Jr. Robert E. Lee Auditorium, Pinecrest High School, Southern Pines. Tickets/Info: North Carolina Symphony Box Office at (877) 627-6724.

May 2

• ART CLASS. 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. & 1 – 4 p.m. “Dreamscaping Level 2” with June Rollins. Refined tech-

May 3 & 5

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A TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY CASH. 7:30 p.m. Live musical tribute to Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three; guest appearance of June Carter. Features Baxter Clement. Tickets: $25. Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad Street, Southern Pines. Reservations: (910) 603-6003.

niques include: Alcohol ink suns, wiping out skies for special effects and waterfalls. Focus will be on color theory, creating pleasing shapes and varying edges. Previous alcohol ink experience recommended. Cost: $35. Artists League of the Sandhills,129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979 or www.artistleague.org.

May 3 – 13

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• ART EXHIBIT & OPENING RECEPTION. 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Twenty-third annual Student Art

TEMPLE THEATRE PRODUCTION. Little Shop of Horrors. Thursdays at 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.; Fridays & Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m. Temple Theatre, 120 Carthage St., Sanford. Info: www.templeshows.com.

Show. Exhibit runs through July 27. Hastings Gallery, Katharine Boyd Library, Sandhills Community College. Info: (910) 695-3879.

May 4

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ART EXHIBIT & OPENING RECEPTION. 6 • – 8 p.m. New Generation of Seagrove Potters. Features

LUNCH & LEARN. 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. Topic: Aging Gracefully and Defying Mother Nature. Includes lunch, gift bags and specials. The Laser Institute of Pinehurst, 80 Aviemore Court, Suite A, Pinehurst. Info/RSVP: (910) 295-1130.

works by the younger generation of Seagrove potters, who are building upon the generation before them. Exhibit on display through May 25; weekdays from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2787 or www.mooreart.org.

••

ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design presents “Private Collections,” the first lecture of Series Two in the 2012 Lecture Series. “The Art of England: An Untold Story,” will be delivered by artist and Academy Director D. Jeffrey Mims. Reaching back to the court of King Henry VIII, a narrative will follow the struggles and triumphs of a nation learning to define its artistic identity. Series tickets: $100 for each 5-lecture series. Info: (910) 692-9743 or www. AcademyofClassicalDesign.org. Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Performing arts

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FIRST FRIDAY. 5 – 8:30 p.m. Family friendly community event featuring live music from Wheeler Brothers, a five-piece indie-folk act from Austin, Texas. Food and beverages available for purchase. Free admission. The grassy knoll adjacent to the Sunrise Theater, Broad Street, Southern Pines. Info: www.firstfridaysouthernpines.com.

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � May 2012

ca l e n da r

May 5

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CAMERON ANTIQUES FAIR. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Over 250 dealers display antiques and collectibles in village shops and along streets in the Historic District of Cameron. Rain or shine. Info: (910) 245-3415; (910) 245-3020 or www.antiquesofcameron.com.

••

MALCOLM BLUE ANNUAL BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL. 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. Bring chairs or blankets. Concessions available on-site. Entry: $8/adults; $3/children under 12. Malcolm Blue Farm, Bethesda Rd., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 315-5937 or (910) 752-0161.

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FREE COOKING DEMO. 12 & 2 p.m. Strawberries and goat cheese. Two of North Carolina’s favorite spring treats. Elliott’s Provision Company, Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775.

•

CINCO DE MAYO POOCH PARADE. 3 – 5 p.m. A fundraiser in effort to provide animals with a chance for rehabilitation and adoption. Bring canine companions for games and contests (including Best Costume, Best Owner/Dog Duo, Best Canine Duo and Best Dog Trick). Also features vendors and children’s activities. Rain date: May 6. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. Registration: $20/dog. Info: www.moorehumane.org.

•

GIVEN ON THE GREEN. 7 p.m. Progressive style event features hors d’ourves, tapas dinner, and fine spirits; designed after the “Tavern on the Green” event held in NYC’s Central Park. Evening also includes entertainment, silent auction and raffles. Benefits the Given Memorial Library and Tufts Archives. Tickets: $75. The Grand Ballroom, Carolina Hotel, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-6022.

•

FREE WINE TASTING. Licia Albarino; an internationally fashionable summer white from Spain. Elliott’s Provision Company, Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775.

May 6

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AUTHOR READ SERIES EVENT. 3 p.m. Explorations: Forum for Adults will host a “Low Country Cook-off.” Local chefs will cook Low Country dishes inspired by The Pat Conroy Cookbook in a cook-off competition. Tickets are free and are required to participate in tasting and judging contest entries. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

May 7

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ART CLASS. 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. “Your Next Step: Mixing that Perfect Color with Diane Kraudelt.” Explore the world of mixing colors, as well as the

••• • •

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

• • •

Performing arts Fun History

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ca l e n da r

uses of color mixing for landscapes, still life studies, and portraits. Add interest, cohesiveness, and individuality to your painting by using the colors you create. This class is for anyone who has painted in oils or acrylics before, from beginners on up. Cost: $65. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979 or www.artistleague.org.

• U.S.OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP LOCAL QUALIFIER. Sponsored through the Carolinas

Golf Association. Magnolia Course, Pinewild Country Club. Info: (910) 673-1000 or www.carolinasgolf.org.

•

FLORAL DESIGN CLASS WITH ALDENA FRYE. 6:30 p.m. All materials included. Cost: $50. Aldena Frye’s, 107 South St., Aberdeen. Info/ RSVP: (910) 944-1071 or (910) 944-1073.

May 8

• GUEST CHEF AT RUE THIRTY-TWO. Three courses. Ten percent of sales go to the charity

of guest chef’s choosing. Cost: $30; $15/wine pairings. Rue 32, 290 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info/Reservations: (910) 725-1910.

May 9

••

ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design presents “An English Prophet,” the second lecture of Series Two in its 2012 Lecture Series. “The Art of England: An Untold Story,” will be delivered by artist and Academy Director D. Jeffrey Mims. Reaching back to the court of King Henry VIII, a narrative will follow the struggles and triumphs of a nation learning to define its artistic identity. Series tickets: $100 for each 5-lecture series. Info: (910) 692-9743 or www. AcademyofClassicalDesign.org.

Ph.D. Lecture is the last of three in the 2012 Fine Arts Lecture Series “Dutch Treat: Art & Culture in the Golden Age.” Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Admission (per lecture): $10/ACMC & Weymouth members; $15/ nonmembers. Reservations: (910) 692-2787. Info: www.mooreart.org.

•

OLDIES & GOODIES FILM SERIES. 2:30 p.m. A espionage thriller starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor (1942). Enjoy refreshments and meet other film buffs. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

May 10 – 14

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SUNFLIX MOVIE. 7:30 p.m. (weekdays); 2:30 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. (Saturday & Sunday). Salmon Fishing in Yemen. Starring Emily Blunt and Ewan McGregor. Rated PG 13. The Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 6928501 or www.sunrisetheater.com.

May 11

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ENGLISH SPEAKING UNION. 6 p.m. Presenting Andrew O’Shaughnessy, director of The International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and author of The Men Who Lost America. Country Club of North Carolina, Pinehurst. Membership/Reservations/Info: (910) 235-0635 or bmoc@embarqmail.com.

•

May 12

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CARTHAGE BUGGY FESTIVAL. 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. The festival recognizes Carthage and the Tyson & Jones Buggy Factory that operated in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Buggies will be on display in addition to continuous entertainment, arts/ crafts, antiques, great food, and annual car show. Courthouse Square, Carthage. Info: (910) 947-2331 or www.thebuggyfestival.com.

•

BEHIND THE SCENES POTTERY CRAWL. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Meet artists, tour studio, make your own pottery and enjoy delicious food and wine. Demonstrations focus on different aspects of the craft — from shaping the wheel to glazing and firing techniques. Tickets: $45; $100/ patron (include commemorative pottery piece); $150/Mother’s Day package (includes two tickets and several gifts for Mom). Raffle includes fourpiece place settings, salad set and salad bowls.

FACIAL PLASTIC SURGERY INCLUDING: Blepharoplasty (Eyelid lift) Endoscopic forehead lift

Facelifts Rhinoplasty Skin cancer surgery

BODY CONTOURING INCLUDING: Post-bariatric surgery Ultrasonic assisted liposuction Breast Reduction Reconstructive procedures

Breast augmentation and revisionary breast surgery Abdominal contouring surgery Post-mastectomy breast reconstruction Fat grafting for breast and body contouring

SKIN CARE SERVICES INCLUDING: Microdermabrasion

Laser hair removal, Peels Dermaplaning, Facial treatments and waxing

Our new 4,500 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility has its own private entrance.

plastic surgery center

••

ART LECTURE. 10 a.m. Arts Council of Moore County & Weymouth Center presents “Landscape Painting & Its Legacy: van Ruisdael, van Gogh, & Mondrian,” led by Molly Gwinn,

••• • •

May 11 – 13 DRESSAGE IN THE SANDHILLS. All day. The Harness Track, Route 5, Village of Pinehurst. Info: (910) 692-8467.

The Result Can Be Astounding... or So Subtle No One Will Know.

May 10

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

•

JAZZY FRIDAYS. 7 – 10 p.m. Live jazz music and hors d’oeuvres, rain or shine. Admission: $10. Cypress Bend Vineyards & Winery, Riverton Rd., Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411.

• • •

5 FirstVillage Drive, Pinehurst, NC 28374 • 1-855-294-BODY Jefferson K. Kilpatrick, MD, FACS Board Certified, American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery www.jkilpatrickmd.com

Russell B. Stokes, MD, FACS Board Certified American Board of Plastic Surgery www.drstokes.com

(2639)

Noel B. McDevitt, MD, FACS Board Certified American Board of Plastic Surgery www.pinehurstsurgical.com

Performing arts Fun History

cA l e n dA r

Raffle tickets for dinnerware: $10. Event benefits the Northern Moore Family Resource Center. Seagrove, NC. Tickets/Info: (910) 948-4324 or www.nmfrc.com.

•

FREE COOKING DEMO. 12 & 2 p.m. The perfect salad for Mother’s Day. Elliott’s Provision Company, Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775.

• FREE WINE TASTING. Lelia; an earthy Grenache from Spain. Elliott’s Provision

Company, Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775.

May 13

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MOTHER’S DAY AT THE SLY FOX. 11:30 a.m. A special prix-fixe menu just for mom. The Sly Fox Pub, 795 SW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1621.

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Live music from John Frazier Band; Lizzy Ross opens. Tickets: $12/advance; $15/day of show. Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org.

May 14

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MEET THE AUTHOR. 5 p.m. Diane Chamberlin will discuss her book, The Good Father. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad

BUTLER ASSOCIATES PERSONAL PROPERTY APPRAISALS and ESTATE SERVICES Appraisals: Insurance, Charitable Donations, Equitable Distribution

CHAPEL HILL, NC 919-968-3573

GREENSBORO, NC 336-299-6509

www.butlerandassociates.org

St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211.

•

SCC JAZZ BAND OUTDOOR CONCERT. 6:30 p.m. Free and open to the public. BBQ by Jordon’s available for $7/plate starting at 5 p.m. In the event of rain, concert moves to Owens Auditorium. Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 695-3829.

May 15

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LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS MEETING. 11:30 a.m. Guest speaker: Pat Corso, Executive Director of Partners in Progress, the Moore County Organization with the mission to attract investment, increase jobs and maintain/ improve the quality of life for all Moore County

CUTLER TREE

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at Penick Village, you’re welcome anytime, especially on May 3 at 10:30 am. Join us for lunch at one of our new cottages and a great walking tour of our wonderful

Important Baltic Parcel Gilt Silver Monteith, SOLD $48,000

Gold and Ruby Lariat, Michalis, SOLD $11,000

Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac 1986 12 bottles, SOLD $15,000

neighborhood. you’ll also have a chance to visit our new Village house community center, and meet some residents along the way. leave costly home and yard maintenance behind, and replace them with a carefree, independent lifestyle. to rsVP, call us today at (910) 692-0386 or (910) 692-0382.

PENICK VILLAGE

500 east rhode Island avenue | southern Pines, nC 28387 (866) 545-1018 toll-free | www.penickvillage.org

Alfred Stieglitz (Am, 1864-1946), View from Studio, SOLD $440,000

Thomas Sully (PA, 1783-1872), General Jackson, SOLD $62,500

WWW.LLAUCTIONS.COM - 919.644.1243

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residents. Reservations required. Table on the Green, Midland Country Club, Pinehurst. Info: Charlotte at (910) 944-9611.

Fresh fashion meets classic style at The Cupola.

• WINE DINNER AT RUE THIRTY-TWO. 6:30 p.m. California meets Argentina. Five

wines; six courses. Cost: $85/person. Rue 32, 290 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info/ Reservations: (910) 725-1910.

May 16

••

•

SENIOR ACTIVITY. Celebrate AsianAmerican & Pacific Islander Month with a trip to Susa Sushi. Enjoy sushi or hibachi. Transportation fee: $1/residents; $2/non-residents. Register by May 10. Douglas Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

•

MEET THE AUTHOR. 6 p.m. Anne McKeithen will discuss her book, Listening to Color, which is about the black and white communities in Aberdeen, North Carolina. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211.

ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design presents “The Royal Academy,” the third lecture of Series Two in its 2012 Lecture Series: The Art of England: An Untold Story, as delivered by artist and Academy Director, D. Jeffrey Mims. Reaching back to the court of King Henry VIII, a narrative will follow the struggles and triumphs of a nation learning to define its artistic identity. Series tickets, $100 for each 5-lecture series. Info: (910) 6929743 or www.AcademyofClassicalDesign.org.

12PNH089PinestrawAprilCupola.indd 1

The Carolina Hotel Village of Pinehurst 910. 235.8474 • pinehurst.com

3/5/12 1:04 PM

May 17

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DINING IN THE FIELD. 6 p.m. Traditional low country supper prepared by the chefs of Elliott’s on Linden. Event benefits Sandhills Children’s Center. Tickets: $125. Sandy Woods Farm, Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Tickets: (910) 295-3663.

May 17 – 20

•

SANDHILLS SPRING CLASSIC. USEF “A” rated hunter/jumper show. Carolina Horse Park, 2814 Montrose Rd., Raeford. Info: (910) 875-2074 or www.carolinahorsepark.com.

May 18

•

PLANT TALK. 10 a.m. Hydrangea expert Josh Kardos of Plant Introductions, Inc. in Watkinsville, GA will discuss the care, pruning and propogation of hydrangeas. Hydrangeas and perennials will be for sale afterward. Free event; limited seating. Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Ball Visitors Center, Sandhills Community College. Reservations: (910) 695-3882.

••• • •

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

• • •

Performing arts Fun History

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May 18 – 20

• BACKPACK PALS GOLF TOURNAMENT. • PLEASURE DRIVING SHOW. 9 a.m. – 5 11:30 a.m. (lunch); 12:30 p.m. (shotgun start). p.m. ADS sanctioned. Top pleasure driving event Format: Captains Choice, flighted handicap. Cost: $65/individual; $300/four as a corporate sponsor. Hole sponsorships: $100. All proceeds to benefit BackPack Pals program. Beacon Ridge Golf and Country Club, 6000 Longleaf Drive, West End. Info/Registration: Ginger at (910) 673-1330 or Jo at (910) 673-3604.

in the Southeast; three rings of competition: dressage, pleasure classes, and obstacles. On Sunday at 9 a.m., horses will parade through the Village of Pinehurst. Spectators welcome; free admission. Pinehurst Harness Track, Route 5, Pinehurst.

PINEHURST LIVE AFTER 5. 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. A free monthly event that brings live music into the historic Village of Pinehurst. Featuring The Sand Band. Food and beverages available for purchase. Village of Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-1900.

MINI GOLF TOURNAMENT AT THE SLY FOX. 8 a.m. Featuring a 9-hole course. All holes designed and constructed by local golf course staff. Participants will be asked to judge which holes are toughest, most fun, best looking and craziest. Green fees: $20. Proceeds benefit MooreLabs, who will present a check to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer research. The Sly Fox Pub, 795 SW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1621.

•

BLUEGRASS IN THE PINES. 6 – 8 p.m. Free concert featuring the South Ridge bluegrass band. Bring a chair, blanket and dancing shoes. Concessions available on site. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. Info: Southern Pines Recreation and Parks at (910) 692-2463.

•

MOVIE IN THE PINES. 8:30 p.m. Free viewing of Kung Fu Panda 2. Concessions available on site. Bring a blanket or a chair. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. Info: Rynet at (910) 692-7376.

ART CLASS. 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. “Intermediate Chinese Brush Painting: The Peony, ‘The Queen of the Flowers’” with Loretta Moskal. The Peony is the national Flower of China and symbolizes prosperity and nobility. It also symbolizes “the beauty of a woman.” The class will cover loading the color on the brush, painting the flower

•

FREE WINE TASTING. Brooms Sauvignon Blanc. Aroma: jalapeno peppers; Flavor: asparagus. Unlike any other wine in the world. Elliott’s

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Film

Literature/Speakers

Fun

History

•

FREE COOKING DEMO. 12 & 2 p.m. Fresh North Carolina seafood. Elliott’s Provision Company, Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775.

Performing arts

• •

•

SPRING SPREE IN DOWNTOWN ABERDEEN. 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. Second annual event features food & beverage vendors, arts & crafts, live music and children’s fun zone. Downtown Aberdeen.

• •

Music/Concerts

• •

•

BETHESDA BACKYARD BBQ & CRAFT FAIR. 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Barbecue for sale by the plate or by the pound; sample and vote for your favorite local BBQ sauce. Event also features silent auction, local arts and crafts, bake sale and plant sale. Proceeds benefit Moore Free Clinic and other mission projects. Free admission. Bethesda Presbyterian Church, 1002 N. Sandhills Blvd., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-1319 or bethesdapresbyterian.weebly.com.

Key:

Art

•

May 19

in various positions, the buds, leaves, and stems, creating your own composition and adding bees or butterflies. Cost: $50 (includes paper & handouts). Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979 or www. artistleague.org.

Sports

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Provision Company, Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775.

•

FESTIVAL OF BEERS. 3 – 6 p.m. Ticket includes beer samples, commemorative pilsner glass, and live entertainment. Tickets: $25/advance; $30/at gate. Must be 21 or older to attend. Southern Pines Elks Lodge, 280 Country Club Circle, Southern Pines. Tickets/Info: Chamber of Commerce at (910) 692-3926.

• MOM PROM. 6:30 – 10 p.m. Ladies Night Out. Evening features a silent auction, dances

with local celebrities, and the crowning of a Prom Queen, who will receive a day of pampering at the Spa at Pinehurst and dinner for two at one of the area’s fine dining establishments. Tickets: $40; $75 (premium ticket includes a membership to The Arc, five entries to the Prom Queen drawing, and two drink tickets. Benefits The Arc of Moore County. Pinehurst Member’s Club. Tickets/Info: (910) 692-8272 or www.thearcofmoore.org.

May 20

•

FAIR BARN CONCERT. 4 p.m. The Fair Barn presents The John Brown “Little Big” Band in concert. Tickets: $25. The Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-0166.

•

CONCERT IN THE PINES. 6 p.m. Free concert featuring Pinecrest High School bands: con-

cert, symphonic and jazz ensemble. Band Boosters will be on site to sell concessions. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. Info: Southern Pines Recreation and Parks at (910) 692-2463.

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Live music from Bruce Molesky and Brooks Williams. Tickets: $12/advance; $15/day of show. Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.theroosterswife.org.

May 21

•

ART CLASS. 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. & 1 – 4 p.m. “Dreamscaping Level 3” with June Rollins. Larger works include panoramic formats. Emphasis will be on creating dynamic compositions with shape arrangement, layering, combining neutrals and color accents. Previous alcohol ink experience recommended. Cost: $35. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979 or www.artistleague.org.

•

STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL. 10 a.m. The annual Strawberry Festival presented by the Women of Weymouth. Admission: $5/members; $10/ guests. Reservations required. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org.

•

SENIOR FOUR-BALL ONE-DAY TOURNAMENT. Sponsored through the

Carolinas Golf Association. Pinewild Country Club (Magnolia). Info: (910) 673-1000 or www. carolinasgolf.org.

•

MEET THE AUTHOR. 12 p.m. Wiley Cash will discuss and sign copies of his new thriller, A Land More Kind than Home. The Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3211.

May 22

•

CAROLINA PHILHARMONIC PINEHURST POPS SERIES. 7 p.m. Salute to Broadway. Featuring “West Side Story”, “The Sound of Music” and other pop favorites. Tickets: $25/general: $50/priority & reserved seating. Robert E. Lee Auditorium, Pinecrest High School, Southern Pines. Info: www.CarolinaPhil.org.

May 23

••

ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design presents “The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,” the fourth lecture of Series Two in its 2012 Lecture Series. “The Art of England: An Untold Story,” will be delivered by artist and Academy Director D. Jeffrey Mims. Reaching back to the court of King Henry VIII, a narrative will follow the struggles and triumphs of a nation learning to define its artistic identity. Series tickets: $100 for each 5-lecture series. Info: (910) 692-9743 or www.

   Fayetteville

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AcademyofClassicalDesign.org.

May 24

WINE DINE AND PAINT AT RUE THIRTY• TWO. Four course wine dinner plus art supplies. Paint with a local artist while you dine. Cost: $50. Rue 32, 290 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info/Reservations: (910) 725-1910.

•

PIG PICKIN’ AT THE SLY FOX. 6 p.m. Kick off Memorial Day weekend with roasted pork. Plates: $20/general public; $5/active duty and retired members of the Armed Forces. The Sly Fox Pub, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 725-1621.

race takes place within the gated community of Woodlake in Vass. Triathlon consists of a 600 yard swim (expected to be wet suit legal) in the 1,300 acre lake, a 17.2 mile bike route and a 3 mile run. Info: woodlaketriathlon.com

•

FREE COOKING DEMO. 12 & 2 p.m. Chilled soups for the summer. Elliott’s Provision Company, Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775.

•

AUTHOR EVENT AT GIVEN. 3:30 p.m. Local author Ron Rhody will discuss his latest book, Theo’s Ashes. Set during the 1950s, it is the prequel to Theo’s Story, Rhody’s first work of fiction. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-6022.

Knight St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www. theroosterswife.org.

May 30

•

SENIOR EVENT. 9 – 11 a.m. National Senior Health & Fitness Day, the nation’s largest annual health promotion event for older adults. Fish, walk, play disc golf and check out new fitness equipment along the trail at Reservoir Park, Southern Pines. Register by May 15. All participants will receive a gift bag. Info: (910) 692-7376.

••

May 27

ART LECTURE. 3 p.m. The Academy of Classical Design presents “The Triumph of Public Art,” the final lecture of Series Two in its 2012 Lecture Series. “The Art of England: An Untold Story” will be delivered by artist and Academy Director D. Jeffrey Mims. Reaching back to the court of King Henry VIII, a narrative will follow the struggles and triumphs of a nation learning to define its artistic identity. Series tickets: $100 for each 5-lecture series. Info: (910) 692-9743 or www. AcademyofClassicalDesign.org.

May 26

MOORE COUNTY CONCERT BAND. 2 p.m. Free event. Cardinal Ballroom, Carolina Hotel, Pinehurst Resort, Village of Pinehurst. Info: www. moorecountyband.com

NC AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP SECTIONAL QUALIFIER. Sponsored through the Carolinas Golf Association. Legacy Golf Links. Info: (910) 673-1000 or www.carolinasgolf.org.

WOODLAKE TRIATHLON AND DUATHLON. 8 a.m. The Woodlake Triathlon/ Duathlon has been the premier spring triathlon of the Sandhills for over 10 years. Most of the

ROOSTER’S WIFE CONCERT. 6:46 p.m. Live music from Darin Aldredge Band; Audrey Auld and Anne McCue open. Tickets: $12/advance; $15/day of show. Poplar Knight Spot, 114

May 25

•

JAZZY FRIDAYS. 7 – 10 p.m. Live jazz music and hors d’oeuvres, rain or shine. Admission: $10. Cypress Bend Vineyards & Winery, Riverton Rd., Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411.

May 25 – 27

• CAROLINA POLOCROSSE CLUB. 7 a.m. – 5 p.m. Pinehurst Harness Track, Route 5, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 949-3345.

•

FREE WINE TASTING. Artisan Pinot Noir from California. Aroma: violets. Elliott’s Provision Company, Elliott’s on Linden, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 215-0775.

•

May 31

•

GALLERY PREVIEW. 6 – 8 p.m. Arts Council of Moore County presents a special preview of its fundraiser, Art Anonymous. Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Reservations required. Info: (910) 692- 2787 or www.mooreart.org.

Weekly Happenings Tuesdays

•

FREE YOGA FOR PTSD VETS. 6 p.m. Yoga for retired veterans who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. No previous yoga experience necessary. Yoga Massage in the Sandhills, 5374 Niagara Carthage Rd., Southern Pines. Info: Mary Ann at (910) 949-2162.

Wednesdays

•

CHILDREN’S STORY TIME. 1:30 p.m. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-6022.

FINE ART

& Photography

Art Classes Custom Framing Fine Art Printing Graphic Design 275 NE Broad Street Southern Pines 910-246-2266 Meet the Artist

Wilder Rich Friday, May 4th 6:00-9:00 pm

Saturdays

•

Silly Walks Saturday, May 12th benefit the Food Bank Contest Toof Central & Eastern NC 7:30-9:30 pm

MEET THE ARTIST AT WORK. 12 - 3 p.m. Meet artist Caroline Love (5/5); Jane Casnellie (5/12); Diane Kraudelt (5/19). Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Rd., Pinehurst. Info: (910) 2550665 or www.hollyhocksartgallery.com.

••• • •

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

• • •

Performing arts Fun History

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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SEAGROVE CANDLE COMPANY, 116 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines, showcases the arts and crafts of the Sandhills and Seagrove area. Open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday, Wednesday-Saturday. (910) 695-0029.

Art Galleries BROADHURST GALLERY, 2212 Midland Rd., Pinehurst, showcases works by nationally recognized artists such as Louis St. Lewis, Lula Smith, Shawn Morin, Rachel Clearfield, Judy Cox and Jason Craighead. Meet-the-artist opportunities are available. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., and Saturday, 1-4 p.m. (910) 295-4817, www.broadhurstgallery.com.

SKY ART GALLERY, 602 Magnolia Dr., Aberdeen, is open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. TuesdaySaturday. (910) 944-9440, www.skyartgallery.com. STUDIO 590, located in a historic log cabin, is the working studio and gallery of artists Betty DiBartolomeo and Harry Neely. Studio 590 offers fine oil paintings, commissions and instruction. Located by the pond in the Dowd Cabin, 590 Dowd Circle in Pinehurst South. (910) 639-9404.

ART NUTZ AND RAVEN POTTERY, 125 SW Broad St., Southern Pines. Come see the potter at work. Features art, local pottery from many potters, handmade jewelry, glass and more. MondaySaturday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. (910) 695-1555, www. ravenpottery.com. ARTIST GALLERY OF SOUTHERN PINES features art and fine crafts from more than 60 North Carolina artists, 167 E. New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910) 692-6077. ARTISTS LEAGUE OF THE SANDHILLS, located at 129 Exchange St. in historic Aberdeen. Exhibit hours are noon - 3 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910) 944-3979.

WHITE HILL GALLERY, 407 U.S. 15-501, Carthage, offers a variety of pottery. (910) 947-6100. THE DOWNTOWN GALLERY (inside Flynne’s Coffee Bar) is located at 115 NE Broad St. in downtown Southern Pines. Ever-changing array of local and regional art, pottery and other handmade items. (910) 693-1999. LADY BEDFORD’S TEA PARLOUR, located at 25 Chinquapin Road in Pinehurst, is featuring local artist Nancy Campbell. Original oil and watercolor paintings are on display inside the tea shop. Open Tuesday - Saturday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. (910) 255-0100, www.ladybedfords. com.

THE CAMPBELL HOUSE GALLERIES, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines, is open 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday-Friday, and every third weekend of the month from 2-4 p.m. (910) 692-4356, www. mooreart.org. THE GALLERY AT SEVEN LAKES, a gallery dedicated to local artists. The Gallery is open on Wednesday and Thursday each week from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. 1145 Seven Lakes Drive, The St. Mary Magdalen building. Just 9 miles from the Pinehurst Traffic Circle up 211.

Nature Centers

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

WEYMOUTH WOODS SANDHILLS NATURE PRESERVE (898 acres). 1024 Ft. Bragg Road, Southern Pines. (910) 692-2167.

HOLLYHOCKS ART GALLERY, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst, features original artwork by local artists Diane Kraudelt, Carol Rotter, Morgen Kilbourn and artist/owner Caroline Love, Deane Billings, Jane Casnellie. Meet the Artists, Saturdays, Noon to 3 p.m. Open Monday-Saturday 10:30 a.m. - 9:30 p.m. (910) 255-0665, www.hollyhocksartgallery.com. THE OLD SILK ROUTE, 113 West Main St., Aberdeen specializes in Asian original art, including silk paintings, tapestries, Buddhist Thangkas and Indian paper miniatures. Open Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. (910) 295-2055.

Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Performing arts

 Sanford

SANDHILLS HORTICULTURAL GARDENS (32 acres of gardens). The Sandhills Horticultural Gardens are handicapped-accessible. Daylight hours year-round. (910) 695-3882.

VILLAGE ABORETUM. 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. BRYANT HOUSE AND MCLENDON CABIN. Tours by appointment. (910) 692-2051 or (910) 673-0908. CARTHAGE HISTORICAL MUSEUM. Sundays, 2-5 p.m. or by appointment. Located at Rockingham and Saunders streets, Carthage. (910) 947-2331.

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

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HOUSE IN THE HORSESHOE. Open yearround. 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 Ave., Southern Pines. (910) 692-6261. SHAW HOUSE PROPERTY. Open 1-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. (910) 692-2051. TUFTS ARCHIVES. 9:30 a.m. - 5 p.m., MondayFriday, and 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Saturday. (910) 295-3642. UNION STATION. Open 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Located in downtown Aberdeen. (910) 944-5902. SANDHILLS WOMAN’S EXCHANGE LOG CABIN. Open 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. (910) 295-4677 To add an event, e-mail us at pinestraw@ thepilot.com by the first of the month prior to the event.

PineNeedler Answers From page 111

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May Honorees

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May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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New Expanded Menu!

We’re Ba-ack

MOORE COUNTY

Table on the Green Now pairing American Cuisine with the exotic tastes of Thailand

910-295-3240, 295-4118 Midland Country Club, Midland Road PUBLIC WELCOME www.tableonthegreen.com

Live Music & Entertainment Please call for info

Sunday Brunch Menu 10-2pm Lunch 11:30 - 2:30 Tues. - Sat. Dinner 5 - 9 Tues. - Sat. Closed Monday Reservations Suggested | Banquet Room Available Elegant Dining with Family Friendly Atmosphere

FARMERS MARKET

Tomatoes, Strawberries, Fruits, Veggies, Baked Goods, Jams, Meats, Flowers & Plants Mondays- FirstHealth

(Fitness Center) Facility courtesy of First Health 170 Memorial Dr • Pinehurst 2pm-5:30pm

Thursdays- 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

Call 947-3752 or 690-9520 for more info Websearch: Moore County Farmers Market Local Harvest

facebook.com/moorecountyfarmersmarket

Carol Dowd, AIFD ~ Owner/Designer

www.botanicalsweb.com ~ bffo@embarqmail.com

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen Disc Golf at the Reservoir Saturday, March 17, 2012

Photographs by Laura Gingerich

Daniel Gschwind

Elwood Benton

Noah Morrison

Josh Rock

Rudi Andersen

Stacey Mitchell

Stephen Caviness

Justin Monroe

Eric Bates

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen

Southern Pines Horse Trials II at Carolina Horse Park March 23-25, 2012 Photographs by Jeanne Paine

Kristi Nunnink

Dottie Greenleaf, Janice Costello

Kylie Lyman

Erin & Ben Tursam, Vanesa Crumpley, Andrew McConnon

Roisin O’Rahilly, Dick Moore, Karen Flipse, Andrea Moore

Ite O’Higgins, Lefreda Williams

Abigail Wilson, Miranda Webb, Lucie Hughes Stephen Bradley

Rod Lynch, Larry Smith

Annie Huberth, Vicki Reynolds

Erin Sylvester

Campbell Jourdian, Ashley Van Camp

Matt Flynn

Lindsay Staiano, Sophie & Chris Williams

Effie & Dr. Nick Ellis, Ginger Wright, Dick Webb, Sassy, Kevin & Christine Riley

www.sapc.edu/saush/inqpine.php • affordable way to complete your bachelor’ degree • majors in Business Administration, Elementary Education and Interdisciplinary Studies • credit evaluation for military training and prior learning

For more information, contact Professor James Miles Director, St. Andrews @ Sandhills 910-695-3888 • milesjr@sapc.edu

May 2012 P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen

Rod & Cynthia McIver

Alice in Wonderland Flower Show Preview Party Weymouth Center Thursday, March 29, 2012 Photographs by Al and Annette Daniels

Thea Pitassy, Patti Fisher, Cav Peterson

Marion & John Gaida

Jean & George Neil

Barbara & Jerry Dunn

Beth & Sam Walker, Jean Webster

Jean Hendry, Ellen Stone, Peggy Baldwin, Leann Parker

Wanda & George Little, Dave & Beverly Harper

Margaret Owen, Carol Dowd, Cynthia McIver

MLS 147807 • 3Br/2Ba Longleaf Country Club

MLS 144980 • 3Br/3Ba/104Acres Close to Carolina Horse Park

MLS 147898 •6+acres Walthour Moss Foundation Access

~ SOLD ~ Youngs Road

Jo-an DeSell

910-690-6126 Jo-an@DeSellandCo.com

Audrey Wiggins

910-315-3032 Audrey@DeSellandCo.com

www.DeSellandCo.com ~ 910-692-0770 730 S Bennett St Ste. A ~ Southern Pines, NC

100

May 2012 i�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

SandhillSeen

Moore County Arts Council Appetite for the Arts Black Ties for the Birds Fundraising Dinner Friday, March 30, 2012

Ruth & Mack Verhyden

Photographs by Cassie Butler

Mack Verhyden, Lucille Buck

Dixie Chapman, Jim Buck, Charlie Meyer

Lucille Buck

Diana & Charlie Meyer

Betsy & Larry Best

Betsy Best, Pidgie Chapman, Diana Meyer

Elizabeth Palmer, Paul Bride, Helen & Eric Von Salzen

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May 2012 i�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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

Tyrone the Tarantula

How a pet store visit turned into an unlikely friendship

By Geoff Cutler

“They’re very sensitive crea-

tures, you know.” I turned and saw the man who’d walked up to me. He wore dark glasses and held a guide stick in his hand. I’d been standing, mesmerized, by the spider in the cage.

“I take it you have a tarantula,” I said to the blind man. “A bunch of them,” he replied. “I’ve had them all my life and they are just really cool animals.” “What do you do with them?” “Feed them crickets, mostly, and then sometimes, I’ll put my hand in the cage when I’m feeling the need of company and gently move it around until I find the spider. Eventually I find him, and then I prod him from behind with my other hand, and they’ll climb on board. Usually he’ll scurry quickly up my arm and settle on my shoulder near my neck. Our bodies are really warm there, and spiders love the heat. If you get one, you’ll want to have the black light in his cage top turned on all the time, and I cover the top with a towel too, for extra warmth. That one you’re looking at is a female.” The truth is, I hadn’t been thinking of buying a tarantula at all. That is, until this guide to tarantulas had found me standing by the cage. It was a Friday afternoon after work. I was working for my cousin back then. He was a carpenter, and we were renovating a barn to be turned into living space for another cousin. A family affair is what it was. My brother was the electrician, and there was another family of brothers on the work crew. Handsome lads they were, but I can’t remember their names now. I was low man on the working totem-pole. Mostly grunt and dirty work, like cutting out the old floor boards in the stalls where the horses had been peeing all their lives. God, what a smell you got from that wood when it was sawn! Once in a while, they’d let me swing a hammer, but not having three dimensional vision, I’ve never been much good setting nails. The rest of those boys would laugh like hell as I dinged up the lumber and hit the nail head every third or fourth swing. On Fridays, I took bags of saw dust to the pet store over on Brighton Avenue Not the horse-pee saw dust; we dumped that mess, but the good stuff from the fresh lumber. The store owners used it to put in the bottom

of all the animal cages. I was poking about, looking at the exotic animals for sale, and that’s when I spotted the tarantula and was given the tutorial on spiders by the blind man. When I finally left the store, I left with a lighted cage, decorative rocks, some specialty wood for climbing, a dozen crickets, and quite a large hairy arachnid. I named her Tyrone. We didn’t get too warm a reception back at the house. I was young and still living with my parents, and when we came through the kitchen door, I called out for them to come see the new pet I’d brought for the whole family to enjoy. My father didn’t say much at all. He kind of grunted a little bit and looked at me like I’d lost my marbles … again. My mother let out a controlled shriek, and said, “Absolutely not! You take that … that thing, whatever it is, right back where you got it.” My father said later it was the first argument he’d ever seen any of the children win against their mother. We had quite a tussle over that spider, but in the end, I prevailed by saying I’d take care not to let it out of its cage, and it would stay in the back part of the house where we kids lived, and she’d never even know it was there. And besides, I was thinking about moving in with some friends, and this would be as good a time as any. That got her, I think. As a family, we loved living together, and the fun we had wasn’t something she was quite ready to give up. Tyrone the tarantula had a new home. Well, the spider was a hit. I’d get her out for all my parents’ cocktail parties, or dinners, and bring her down to help keep conversation bright and lively. The women could all be counted on to emit the controlled shrieks, and the men would look on just as my dad had. You could see them thinking: “What’s with this kid?” It got to the point that any time there might have been one too many pregnant pauses at the dinner table, my mom would say, “Honey, go get Tyrone.” Spiders don’t do much. They hunt, or in this case, wait to be fed. I’d toss a handful of crickets into her cage, and the crickets would bounce around for a bit, Tyrone looking on from her corner. And then like a hurled dart, she’d pounce. Her fangs, each an inch long, paralyzed the food, and she’d have them spun into cocoons in seconds. Later, once they were soft and marinated to her liking, she’d come back for them and suck their insides out. My oldest sister was one of Tyrone’s biggest fans, and became mesmerized by the arachnid’s eating habits. On special occasions, like Christmas, Thanksgiving, or maybe for Fourth of July, I fed Tyrone baby mice. But you don’t want to hear about that. In all the years I owned her, and that was quite a few, I never once got stabbed. I could, just like the blind man told me, put my open palm into her cage, and slowly prod her abdomen with my other, and she would climb gently onto my hand and then, just like he said, she’d make her way up my arm to settle quietly in the crook of my neck. We would stroll about, maybe go see the rest of the family, or maybe we’d just sit down and read a book, listen to some Santana or Pousette Dart. When I found her dead in her cage one morning, I called all her friends and family members to let them know, and we had a nice service in the backyard, and a burial. Then we shook up some Bloody Marys and had lunch to honor her passing. PS Geoff Cutler is owner of Cutler Tree LLC in Southern Pines. He is a regular contributor to both The Pilot and PineStraw. He can be reached at geoffcutler@embarqmail.com.

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May PineNeedler

By Mart Dickerson

42 Be worthy of 43 Opera solo 44 Midday 46 THANKS! 49 Reject, as a boyfriend 51 Part of a min. 52 Positive answer 53 Tough time 57 Big Apple (abbr.) 59 Otherwise 60 Clothes pressers 62 Lubricates 66 Beverage at Nev’s, O’Donnell’s, Dugan’s 67 Chili con __ 68 Prophet who built the arc 69 TV spots? 70 Leg joints 71 Au naturel

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2 Bathroom, overseas ( to Liam) 3 Gray sea eagle 4 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries 5 Person from down under 6 Business abbr. 7 _____free (got for nothing) 8 Entice 9 Bunsen burner 10 “See Ya!” French style 11 Makes a sound like a lion 12 Jagged 15 Yellow pigment 20 Lah Dee ____ 22 Ocean Spray’s drink starters 23 THANKS! 24 Wicked 25 “as you __”, command at DOWN Bragg 27 Strata 1 Fall mo. 30 Choice at The Wine Cellar May Honorees 31 Jean fabric 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 32 Weep 3 Gray sea eagle 4 Organization 35 Those who are opposed of Petroleum 13 14 15 37 TV lawyerExporting Matlock Countries 16 17 18 38 Grain 5 Person from down under 39 Cart for6hauling heavyabbr. 19 20 21 22 Business things 7 _____free (got for nothing) 23 24 25 26 27 28 40 Desperate 41 Speaks 8 Entice 29 30 31 32 burner 42 Days of9theBunsen wk. 33 34 35 10 "See Ya!" French style 44 THANKS! 36 37 38 39 40 41 45 Request the dinera sound like a lion 11atMakes 47 Optical devices 12 Jagged 42 43 48 Slippery Yellow pigment 15 frigid 44 45 46 47 48 49 Cat food brand 20 Lah Dee ____ 50 Got white, from fright 49 50 51 52 22 Ocean Spray's drink 54 Redneck starters 53 54 55 56 57 58 55 Asian nation 23 THANKS! 56 Read attentively 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 58 Connecticut (abbr.) 24 Wicked 66 67 68 61 Dir. to25 Raleigh "as you __", command at 63 PromissoryBragg note 69 70 71 64 Chap 27 Strata 65 Her www.CrosswordWeaver.com 30 Choice at The Wine Cellar 6 7 9 8 31 Jean fabric 43 Opera solo ACROSS 32 Weep 5 744 2Midday Fill in the grid so every row, Thosecolumn who are opposed 35 every 46 THANKS! 1 Margarine 9 4 and every 3x3 box contain the numbers 1-9. TV lawyer Matlock 37 5 Bride's walk 49 Reject, as a boyfriend 38 Grain a min. 107Is 3 51 Part ofPuzzle answers on page 92 39 Cart for hauling heavy 52 Positive answer 13 A large company (abrv) 8 things timeDickerson lives in Southern Pines 53 ToughMart 14 Unabridged and would Desperate 40 Big Apple (abbr.) 57 15 Aroma 4 3 welcome any suggestions from her fellow puzzle masters. 2 6 41 Speaks She can be reached at martaroonie@gmail.com 59 Otherwise 16 Firm up muscles 42 Days of the wk. 1 Clothes pressers 60 9 17 Look down on 44 THANKS! 18 See ya! Italian style. 5 2 62 Lubricates 45 Request at the diner 66 Beverage at Nev's, 19 Disks 47 Optical devices 3 4O'Donnell's, Dugan's 21 THANKS! 48 Slippery frigid 23 Kitten's cry 67 Chili con __ PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 . . .Cat . . . .food . . . . brand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2012 68 Prophet who built the arc 26 Be sick 50 Got white, from fright 69 TV spots? 28 Recycle ACROSS 1 Margarine 5 Bride’s walk 10 Is 13 A large company (abrv) 14 Unabridged 15 Aroma 16 Firm up muscles 17 Look down on 18 See ya! Italian style. 19 Disks 21 THANKS! 23 Kitten’s cry 26 Be sick 28 Recycle 29 Airplane storage location 32 Autos 33 Bog down 34 Hanker 36 Sleigh 37 Goodman, of big band fame 38 Chances of winning

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southwords

Battle of the Bamboo Curtain By Steve Bouser

One recent morning, I confronted what looked like a sinister, 10-foot stalk of asparagus that had sprung up overnight in the middle of the backyard.

They’re b-a-a-a-a-a-ck! The sight of that exotically ugly green-andbrown shoot filled me with dread. I knew from experience that it was just the advance scout of a seemingly invincible invading army from the Far East. The spring offensive of that relentless horde is now in full swing, and we’re locked in mortal combat. Taller than a house. Able to leap fifty feet of open space at a single bound. More stubborn than toenail fungus. It’s Super-Bamboo! Every year at this time, I bitterly curse the previous owners who, at some time in the distant past, saw fit to plant a stand of bamboo across the back of our large lot in the Weymouth neighborhood. Of course, they had no way of knowing what untold grief their bit of landscaping whimsy would cause to someone at the turn of the 21st century. They were like the person who buys a kitten in a weak moment, forgetting that it will someday turn into a cat. Someday is now. Those original sprigs across the back are now 60-foot monsters whose thighthick trunks crash and clatter together in the wind. I would like them just fine if they were content to stay where they belong. But, like leafy Ho Chi Minhs, they consider it their mission in life to send out spies and infiltrators to subvert and conquer the whole countryside while you’re not looking. They do their work through insidious underground stems called rhizomes. After spreading covertly into new territory, these secret agents send up new stalks that grow with alarming speed because of the powerful food-manufacturing base back home. Unless you want your whole property turned into a panda habitat, you’ve got to go on the offensive. And you can’t just spray the foliage, a la Agent Orange. Weed killer hardly fazes it, and chances are you’ll zap all the surrounding

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vegetation — which there’s a lot of across the back of our yard. (I prefer to think of it as a varmint preserve.) There are three halfway practical ways of drawing a line in the sand and saying “This far and no farther.” None is very satisfactory. All are labor-intensive. The first is to just keep hacking away at each new shoot, in the knowledge that another one will soon take its place. As one gardening website advises, “Cut them off with pruning shears. Keep doing this until no more shoots come up. This will exhaust the energy stored in the rhizomes underground.” Yeah, right. But that’s working hard instead of smart. Chances are you’ll exhaust your own energy first. The second option, as unbelievably difficult and costly as it sounds, is to dig a trench and wall off the stand of bamboo with an impenetrable 2-foot-deep barrier of sheet copper. No thanks. Even if I went to that trouble, I feel sure the danged stuff would find a way out, like the Viet Cong making an end-run into Cambodia to get around the DMZ. I have come to prefer a third tactic, which a wise old gardener taught me: surgical interdiction. It’s fiendishly clever. First you clip off the new stalk, as close to the ground as possible. Then you daub full-strength, undiluted brush killer concentrate on the open wound. It enters the sap system and, in most cases, kills the root all the way back to where it came from. This actually works, I find. And it’s more tedious than physically taxing, which is a big advantage in the heat and humidity of bamboo season. It doesn’t stop the invaders, but it helps keep them at bay. If you know a better way, tell me. Meanwhile, each year at this time, you’ll see me quietly and patiently making my way from sector to sector of our property, carrying a plastic stool, picking off ticks, slapping mosquitoes, and wearing a tool belt that includes pruning shears, an eyedropper full of poison, and other instruments of my deadly trade. Snip, daub. Snip, daub. I have become bamboo’s worst nightmare. PS Steve Bouser is the opinion editor of The Pilot where this originally appeared in May 2000.

May 2012 i�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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