May PineStraw 2015 by PineStraw Magazine

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

Jamie McDevitt, Broker/Owner 910.724.4455 JamieMcDevitt.com Jamie@JamieMcDevitt.com 107 NE Broad Street Southern Pines, NC

The ultimate in golf front living at Fairwoods on 7â&#x20AC;Ś 185 Inverarry Road. Offered at $979,000.

Invite us in. We’ll bring results. 910.295.9040

108 Barnes Point, Seven Lakes West The nicest property on Lake Auman! Wonderful, spacious, easy- living home designed to take full advantage of the lake. $949,000. John McNeill 910.638.9158

25 Hearthstone Road, Fairwoods on 7 Stunning custom home with many exquisite features. PCC Premier membership, courses 1 thru 9. Over 3,800 square feet of gracious living. $945,000 Carol Carlyle 910.315.7777

3 Thunderbird Circle, Doral Woods Absolutely unique. Ideal inlaw quarters. Beautifully situated in Doral Woods. $389,000. Glen Theall 845.820.3276

140 Ridgeview Road, Southern Pines Beautiful custom built 5 bedrooms, 5 full, 2 half bath home on 1.02 acres in Weymouth Heights. $1,050,000. Debra Serino Brenner 910.315.9051

34 Augusta Drive, Mid-South Club Custom golf front home on 14th fairway. One level, soaring ceilings, impeccable condition. $529,900. Suzanne Colmer 910.639.9494

306 Trails End Road, Whispering Pines Beautifully maintained home with 7.2 acres and its own pond. Breathtaking views and complete privacy! $399,000. Bob Carmen 910.215.3764

1650 Youngs Road, Southern Pines Country French & Old World charm greets you at 1650 Youngs Rd, one of the most beautifully conceived mansions on 10 striking acres in Southern Pines horse country $1,995,000. Inge Dahl 910.690.3531

90 Kingswood Circle, Pinehurst No. 6 Gorgeous custom home! Upgraded bonus room and beautifully landscaped. A must see! $369,000. Morgan Berkey 910.691.2722

355 SW Lake Forest Drive, Pinehurst Terrific waterfront views of Lake Pinehurst. Wood floors throughout. PCC Membership. $545,000. Glen Theall 845.820.3276

www.BestPinehurstProperties.com

Suzanne Colmer Broker 910.639.9494

Bob Carmen Broker 910.215.3764

Linda Harte Broker 910.992.1767

Bob Brooks Broker 910.690.1575

Morgan Berkey Broker 910.691.2722

John McNeill Broker 910.638.9158

Carol Carlyle Broker 910.315.7777

Mark King Broker 910.992.0668

www.BestPinehurstProperties.com

Debra Serino Brenner Broker / Owner

910.315.9051

FO $2 R R 60 E 0/ NT m o

15 Barrett Road East, Village of Pinehurst Totally renovated one level home on 1.29 acre private lot. Hardwoods throughout, dream kitchen. 3000+ SF. PCC Membership. $539,000. Suzanne Colmer 910.639.9494

115 Graham Road, Village of Pinehurst Private one acre setting, English gardens, gourmet kitchen. PCC Membership $529,000. Debra Serino Brenner 910.315.9051

20 Muster Branch Road, Fairwoods on 7 Exquisite location, this hidden gem crowns the 6th and 4th fairways of the legendary Pinehurst No.2 course. $1,995,000. Debra Serino Brenner 910.315.9051

3 Briarwood Place, Pinehurst 5 minute golf cart ride to PCC! Membership available for transfer. Open floor plan. Upgrades throughout. Fenced yard. $319,000. Robert Brooks 910.690.1575

1050 Inverness Road, Southern Pines Totally updated. All brick ranch with Carolina Room and large deck. Fenced back yard. Very private. $319,900. Sally Thomas 910.215.6937

3546 Youngs Road, Southern Pines Location is everything and “Ripridge Farms”, overlooking the 4000 acre preserve of the Walthour Moss Foundation is as good as it gets! $1,250,000 Inge Dahl 910.690.3531

The Cottages at the Arboretum One level, maintenance free living with community clubhouse and pool. Granite, SS, hardwood floors. $289,900. Linda Harte 910.992.1767

Patti Mahood Broker 910.723.8803

Glen Theall Broker 845.820.3276

240 Midland Road, Pinehurst 89 Deerwood Lane, Pinehurst New custom home. Exceptional custom details, granite This beauty crowns the signature 5th fairway on Legendary throughout, custom cabinets and exquisite trim package. Pinehurst No.2. Walk or take your golf cart to the shops and restaurants in the Village of Pinehurst! $349,000. Alex Reed 910.603.6997 $1,980,000. Debra Serino Brenner 910.315.9051

Sally Thomas Broker 910.215.6937

Alex Reed Broker 910.603.6997

Inge Dahl Broker 910.690.3531

30 Chinquapin Road Village of Pinehurst, NC 910-295-9040

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

May 2015 Volume 11, No. 5

Features 59 The 1950s

Poetry by Stephen E. Smith

60 Down from the Balcony By Brent Hackney

In 1962, two gentlemen broke the race barrier and started attending local events together

64 F. Scott

By Stephen E. Smith

Quiet spring nights in Carolina

68 The Case of the Missing Golden Boy By Dusty Rhoades

A gorgeous babe, a stolen icon

73 The Hidden Magic of Midland Road By Jim Dodson

With its long and winding history, Moore’s “Park Avenue” remains a byway of the human heart

76 The Rise and Fall of the Dunes Club By Audrey Moriarty

The Sandhills’ premier night spot

80 Sandhills Cinema

Photo Essay by Tim Sayer

84 I Got Your Raincoat, Babe By Neville Beamer

He was just an ordinary guy, with hound dog eyes and a brand new Burberry

85 Under the Pines By David Carpenter

You may be struck by a pine needle. If you are, that is good luck

86 Burning With Domestic Harmony By Dale Nixon

Yes, dear, your sauce was superb. No thanks to me.

87 Summer of the Ivory Bill By Tom Bryant

Granddaddy taught me how to paddle, and to cherish those rare and precious moments

91 Almanac

By Rosetta Fawley

May is for mayonnaise? Maybe. And when the hawthorn blooms, break out the bourbon

Photograph this page from the June 2008 issue of PineStraw by Glenn Dickerson 6

Departments

15 18 21 23 25

Simple Life Jim Dodson PinePitch Instagram Winners Cos and Effect Cos Barnes The Omnivorous Reader Brian Lampkin

29 Proper English Serena Brown 31 Papadaddy’s Mindfield Clyde Edgerton

33 Vine Wisdom Robyn James 35 Spirits David Claude Bailey 41 The Kitchen Garden Jan Leitschuh

45 Out of the Blue Deborah Salomon

47 49 51 53

Hometown Bill Fields Birdwatch Susan Campbell A Novel Year Wiley Cash Golftown Journal Lee Pace

94 May Calendar 111 Writer’s Notebook Sandra Redding

113 SandhillSeen 123 Thoughts from the Manshed Geoff Cutler

125 The Accidental Astrologer Astrid Stellanova

127 PineNeedler Mart Dickerson

128 SouthWords Andie Rose

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

40% Off Discontinued Patterns & Colors In stock only

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

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

www.OpulenceOfSouthernPines.com

Serving the Carolinas & More for 18 Years â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Financing Available

CCNC Lakefront: Spectacular 4 bedroom/5.5 bath home includes chef’s kitchen, private bath with each bedroom, lake view from every room/suite. Beautiful grounds with dock & Boat House! $2,495,000 Carolyn Hallett 910.986.2319

Old Town Pinehurst: Premier property located on the 5th hole

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

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

CCNC: Handsome Colonial situated on 2.5 magnificently landscaped acres. Renovated from the studs up! Exquisite detail in every aspect of the finishes from marble counter tops to paneled walls. 4BR/4.5BA. $1,550,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

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

National Pinehurst #9: Stunning home overlooking the lake and 18th green of the Jack Nicklaus Course. Upgraded extensively in 2001 with etraordinary detail in every room. 4BR/4.5BA. $1,198,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

National Pinehurst #9: Golf front perfection overlooking the 13th fairway of Nicklaus course. Ideal for entertaining indoors or outside by the pool! Luxurious home with elegant details. 5BR/5.5BA. $998,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

Pinewild: Luxurious golf front home! Quality abounds in this

5BR/4.5BA home. Great room w/combined Carolina room, plus 4-sided fireplace, creates a wonderful flow for entertaining. Upscale gourmet kitchen. PCC available.$925,000 Arvilla Sheron 910.639.5133

CCNC Home with Pool: 4BR/4.5BA, hand-pegged wood floors, formal rooms, family room with see-through stone FP, 1st floor master suite, office, 3-car garage! $690,000!! Carolyn Hallett 910.986.2319

Taylorhurst: Stunning Colonial estate with quality craftsman-

Mid South: Southern Living designed home in Cape Cod style fronting the 15th hole of the Arnold Palmer course. Remarkable attention to detail. Light filled open rooms. Wonderful family room with panoramic golf views! 4BR/3.5BA. $599,000 Maureen Clark 910.315.1080

CCNC: Ideal golf retreat overlooks Dogwood Course. More than 3,000 sq.ft. of living space. Great room enhanced with a vaulted ceiling, fireplace & window-wall. Screen Porch & Deck for entertaining. Four ensuite bedrooms. $500,000 Bill Smith 910.528.4090

ship and almost 4,000 sq.ft. of comfortable elegance. Over 1 acre lot landscaped to provide a park-like setting affording privacy. 4BR/2FullBA/2HalfBath. $670,000 Kay Beran 910.315.3322

text “BHHSNC305” to 87778

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

Pinehurt #6: Welcome to where “Two Green Passions” merge into one remarkable home. Golf Front living at its finest capturing views of the fairway & green. 4BR/3.5BA. $499,000 Casey Barbera 910.639.4266

Craftsman Home - 3 Years New: 4BR/3.5BA, open flr plan, kitchen w/granite & stainless, dining room, hrdwd, stone FP, 1st flr master suite, screen porch & deck. $359,900 Carolyn Hallett 910.986.2319

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

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

SPCC: This home has it all…hardwood floors, open plan with spacious rooms, updated bathrooms, custom kitchen with granite. Beautiful Trex deck. Overlooks Elks golf Course. 3BR/3.5BA. $299,999 Bill Brock 910.639.1148

Legacy Lakes Condo: Unobstructed golf views from covered

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

Knollwood: New siding, new windows, new deck, new front door. Gleaming hardwood loors, nice and bright. Great floor plan. Quiet neighborhood. 3BR/2BA. $229,000 Bill Brock 910.639.1148

Cameron: Own a piece of Old Cameron history! Beautiful

Hidden Valley: Like New! 3Bdrm, 2Bath home in Hidden Valley subdivision, near schools. Built in 2001 on a corner lot. 9-Foot ceilings, brick & vinyl. Split bedroom plan with large rooms. Move-in Ready! $210,000 Frank Sessoms 910.639.3099

Village Acres: Like New! New interior paint. 2-Car attached garage. 3Bedrooms, 2 Baths. Move-in Ready! Visit: www.11LassiterLane.com for details. $199,000 Frank Sessoms 910.639.3099

4 Peebles Place: Choice Pinehurst location - convenient to everything. 3Bedrooms, 2Baths (split plan), Living room with cathedral ceiling, wood floor, fireplace, large private backyard. $183,500 Eva Toney 910.638.0972

front porch. 4 Bedrooms (2-master suites - 1 main level & 1 upper level), 3.5 Baths. Kitchen has granite, wood cabinetry, stainless appliances & hardwood floor. 2-Car Garage. $270,000 Eva Toney 910.638.0972

old home, circa 1894, was operated as Miss Belle’s Tea Room for many years. Several outbuildings and 11 acre pecan orchard. 4BR/3BA. $225,000 Bill Brock 910.639.1148

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

PINEHURST

$359,000

Exquisite townhome right in the heart of the Village. This gorgeous second floor home is accessed by elevator and enjoys private views of downtown Pinehurst. The property has been completely renovated with deep crown molding, hardwood floors, bookcases and much more. High ceilings and oversized windows give a wonderful open feel to the floor plan. 3 BR / 2.5 Ba 6 Holly House

PINEHURST

$695,900

PINEHURST

$899,000

$335,000

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

Magnificent custom built home located on the 11th tee with views of the 7th, 8th and 9th fairways of Pinehurst course #4. The home possesses timeless golf front beauty and is designed for grand scale entertaining. Meticulous attention to detail is showcased with custom moldings, unique built-ins, expansive patio areas, a custom stone raised hearth fireplace and graciously open living space. 5 BR / 5.5 BA 30 Spring Valley Court

PINEHURST

$595,000

$258.000 $179,000 Southern Pines Pinehurst $199,900 Foxfire Lovely and pristine in Longleaf CC Lovely updated golf-front home Cute cottage w/nice renovations 3 BR / 2 BA 3 BR / 2 BA 4 BR / 4.5 BA www.205HunterTrail.com www.4DogwoodCourt.com www.17ChestnutLane.com Absolutely gorgeous custom golf front home! The open floor plan living area features wide plank hardwood flooring, up-lighting, a vaulted ceiling, built-in entertainment unit, stacked crown molding, recessed lighting and a custom step down wet bar. A luxurious master suite, walk-in closet and an office/sitting room with walls of windows and sliding glass doors to the hot tub located on the wraparound deck. Also on the main level you will find a guest suite with private bath, a ½ bath powder room, private patio with water feature and Koi pond. Upstairs you will find a 2nd guest suite. With views of 5 holes, this is an amazing home! Pinehurst 3 BR / 3.5 BA 27$75,000 Barons Drive Pinehurst

WHISPERING PINES

Located on a quiet waterfront cove on Fly Rod Lake, this spacious home has over 190’ of frontage on the water. The interior is open with over 3500 square feet of living area and all the rooms are very nice sized. This home has been well maintained. Great school district. 4 BR / 4 BA 12 Sunset Drive

PINEHURST

$839,500

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

Located across the road from the famous #2 course at Pinehurst Country Club, site of the 2014 US Open, this charming historic cottage, appropriately named Fairview Cottage, was owned by Donald Ross himself from 1935 until 1941. Beautifully updated and well maintained, this lovely home has wonderful curb appeal and an impeccable location. The spacious and private back yard and patio area is the perfect setting for the full sized in-ground pool. Very special property 3 BR / 3 BA 280 Cherokee Road

“Between the greens,” a storybook cottage in historic Old Town with views of famed Pinehurst CC #2 course and the Village Chapel and Village Green, is perfectly situated for walkable Old Town living. This Southern Living floor plan home provides a lovely setting, mature landscaping, picket fence and stone walks. Wall of windows bring light into the soaring vaulted family room. Cooks will love the stunning gourmet kitchen. 3 BR / 3 Full & 2 Half BA 35 Village Green East

$329,000 $890,000 Longleaf CC $449,000 Pinehurst $239,000 CCNC Custom Built Villa Overlooking Water Custom built all brick golf-front home Brick single story w/view of 17th green Covered porch & large fenced lot Updated Immaculate Golf View Condo 3 BR /$389,000 2 BA 4 BR / 4 Full & 2 PINEHURST Half Baths 1 BR / 1 BA PINEHURST $420,000 3 BR / 2.5 BA PINEHURST 3 BR / 2.5 BA $599,900 www.16SteeplechaseWay.com www.110HearthstoneRoad.com www.8RoyalDornoch.com www.210StAndrewsCondo.com www.1340BurningTreeRoad.com

$1,295,000 $189,000 Pinehurst $269,000 Pinehurst $475,000 Pinebluff 7 Lakes West $635,000 Pinehurst Stunning custom home in Fairwoods on 7 Charming brick ranch home GorgeoustownhomeintheheartoftheVillage Open plan, gourmet kitchen, pool & more! Stunning All Brick Water Front 4 BR / 4 BA & 2 Half BA 3 BR / 2 BA 3 BR / 2.5 BA 3 BR / 2.5 BA 3 BR / 4.5 BA This beautifully maintained home, built by Precision Builders, sits majestically on a meticulously Gorgeous custom built Contemporary home on Lake Pinewild in Pinewild Country Club. Located at the end of a quiet, wooded cul-de-sac, this lovely custom built brick home overlooks the www.170InverraryRoad.com www.105MastersWay.com www.6HollyHouse.com landscaped www.135AndrewsDrive.com lot with views of Pinewild CC’s Azalea Golf Course and pond. The home features Beautifully maintained home with trey ceiling and gas log fireplace in living room,www.145SugarPineDrive.com formal 13th hole of the Pinehurst #6 golf course and boasts lush landscaping. Great open floor plan fea-

crown molding and hardwood floors throughout. There are two fireplaces, a large study with built-in desk and bookshelves, a finished lower level featuring a family room, third bedroom and full bath. Enjoy entertaining outdoors on the semi-circular patio that features two electric retractable awnings and steps down into the private back yard. Great house and ready to move in! 3 BR / 3. BA 33 Pinewild Drive

SEVEN LAKES WEST

$415,000

dining room with stunning, contemporary chandelier and glass block wall.Two guest suites with ensuite baths. Downstairs recreation room with kitchenette/wet bar and access to rear patio. Beautiful views of the lake. 3 BR / 3 Full 3 Half Baths 31 Abington Drive

PINEHURST

$459,999

tures a great room with cathedral ceilings, lots of window walls where all of the windows in the back of the home have spectacular golf views, a charming hearth room off the kitchen as well as a sunny Carolina room. The walk-out lower level offers a recreational/flex space with a full bath — perfect for a hobby or exercise room! There is a transferrable PCC membership with this property. 3 BR / 3 BA 98 Sakonnet Trail

PINEHURST

$395,000

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

Enjoy water views from the front porch of this beautiful two story home! The foyer and living Upgrades galore in this custom built home in the desirable gated community of Pinewild Country This elegant custom built Villa in CCNC enjoys a gorgeous setting overlooking water room both feature two-story ceiling height and hardwood floors. The living room also features Club! Hardwood floors throughout the main living areas and master bedroom. Living room features on an oversized lot. Home is located on one lot and has a half lot on either side for a gas log fireplaceLakes flankedSouth by built-in bookcases. $199,000 The kitchen offers custom wood cabinets, gas log$241,000 fireplace with built-in media center to the left, and built-in$895,000 bookcase to the right, crown complete privacy. Lovely water viewsSeven from theLakes large private patio and interior$279,500 living areas, South Seven Lakes West $298,000 Pinehurst Pinehurst Seven granite countertops, walk-in pantry, breakfast bar and nook. There is plenty of room for family molding, and recessed lighting. The gourmet kitchen is a chef’s delight. The master suite features including a large Carolina room. 2-story home on cul-de-sac Completely home in walk-in the Old Town Great home front w/panoramic or friendsCharming upstairs with golf three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, andview a spacious bonusfamily room. This home w/private largeback walk-inyard closet, double Gorgeous sink vanity, garden tub and shower. Very privateWonderful backyard! 3 BR / 2.5 BA renovated golf front home immaculate and shows beautifully! 34BRBR / 2.5 8 Royal Dornoch Drive. 3 BR / 3.5 BA 4 BR / 3BA / BA 3.5 BA 4 BR / 3 BA 3isBR / 2.54 BA BR / 3.5 BA 40 Abbottsford Drive www.117OxfordCourt.com www.108Rector.com www.50OrangeRoad.com www.11GraysonLane.com www.122DevonshireAvenue.com 150 Morris Drive

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

www.MarthaGentry.com www.MarthaGentry.coM

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

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

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

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

The first round after a great round starts here. The Ryder Cup Lounge Just off the porch of the historic Carolina Hotel, the Ryder Cup offers a generous selection of draft beers, scotch and bourbon as well as a mouth-watering menu with everything from Lobster Crab Cake Sliders to Backyard Rib Stacks. So after your last putt drops, pick up a glass at the Ryder Cup.

Menu Features • Lobster Crab Cake Sliders • Backyard Rib Stack • Lobster Mac & Cheese • BBQ Pork Nachos • Chicken & Waffles • Ryder Salad

• Specialty martinis • Premium scotch and bourbon

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

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

PineStraw M A G A Z I N E

Jim Dodson, Editor 910.693.2506 • jim@pinestrawmag.com Andie Stuart Rose, Creative Director 910.693.2467 • andie@pinestrawmag.com Kira Schoenfelder, Graphic Designer 910.693.2508 • kira@pinestrawmag.com Lauren Shumaker, Graphic Designer 910.693.2469 • lauren@pinestrawmag.com contributing Editors Deborah Salomon, Staff Writer Mary Novitsky, Proofreader Sara King, Proofreader contributing Photographers Glenn Dickerson, John Gessner, Tim Sayer Contributors Cos Barnes, Neville Beamer, Serena Brown, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, David Carpenter, Wiley Cash, David Claude Bailey, Geoff Cutler, Al Daniels, Annette Daniels, Mart Dickerson, Clyde Edgerton, Rosetta Fawley, Bill Fields, London Gessner, Brent Hackney, Robyn James, Brian Lampkin, Jan Leitschuh, Meridith Martens, Audrey Moriarty, Dale Nixon, Lee Pace, Sandra Redding, Debra Regula, Dusty Rhoades, Brianna Rolfe Cunningham, Stephen E. Smith, Astrid Stellanova

PS David Woronoff, Publisher Advertising Sales

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

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

Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488

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

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

2016 NISSAN MAXIMA

THE FOUR DOOR SPORTS CAR IS BACK

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910-684-1010

10910 US Highway 15-501 • Southern Pines NC 28387

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2016 KIA OPTIMA

LUXURY CRAFTMANSHIP AT EVERY ANGLE

It’s refined, modern style with well-balanced performance. From the sleek, clean design of the front end to the fuel-efficient powertrain to premium comfort behind the wheel, the upcoming 2016 Kia Optima is the evolution of the mid-size sedan.

simple life

Andie’s Attic By Jim Dodson

On a warm afternoon in May

Illustration by Kira schoenfelder

of 2007, I climbed a set of stairs in an old mansion on Bennett Street in Southern Pines and knocked softly on the door of a cramped attic office.

A pretty blonde woman named Andie Rose opened the door and welcomed me to her creative aerie. Andie was a founder and co-owner of PineStraw magazine, an attractive monthly arts tabloid with a loyal readership in the Sandhills. I was The Pilot newspaper’s Writer-in-Residence who’d just come off his latest book tour and was weighing an offer to either teach writing at a college or accept a job as an editor-at-large for a national magazine. We were brought together by The Pilot publisher David Woronoff, who’d recently purchased PineStraw by paying off one of Andie’s partners for the price of a new set of golf clubs. David had always dreamed of adding a magazine to The Pilot’s portfolio, and thus proposed that she and I simply meet and talk just to see if we had the kind of chemistry that could produce a good editorial partnership. Behind her was a lengthy career in graphic design that included stops at major publications including Texas Home, American Way (American Airlines’ in-flight magazine), and legendary luxury goods catalog Horchow. Behind me was an even lengthier journalism career and book-writing life that included editorial positions on a trio of iconic magazines — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Sunday Magazine, Yankee and Golf magazines. At best, I hoped we might spend a pleasant half-hour getting to know each other and bat around a few ideas that had percolated in my skull since 1989, when Yankee asked me to develop a distinctive Southern magazine that captured the soul and breath of the South the way Yankee did New England. Just as we finished the prototype, alas, the deepest recession in years stalled the project and I soon moved on to work as a columnist for Golf and originate the golf column for American Express’s flagship travel magazine, Departures. The magazine I always envisioned was my unfinished business and one reason I eventually came home to North Carolina. At worst I figured we would spend a few minutes chatting about our favorite magazines, and I’d finish up my work at The Pilot and be on my way to my old hometown of Greensboro to teach and write my books. More than two hours later, however, we shook hands and agreed that the encounter felt, well, almost providential — or at least like the start of something special. Our shared ideas flew like confetti at a parade. David’s instincts were accurate — Andie felt like someone I’d known forever — the creative partner I’d always dreamed of having.

Best of all, David, Andie and I shared a distinctly old school notion of what a great magazine should be, displaying the traits great magazines have in common: wit, beauty, journalistic integrity and cultural relevance, a powerful sense of themselves and a clear editorial objective. Simply stated, we would aspire to be a reader’s magazine that equally engaged the mind and the eye with brilliant storytelling and thoughtful design. Not to put too sharp a point on this lively discussion, but as veterans of the national magazine wars who hailed from strong traditions of art and journalism, it bothered us both to see what passed for local magazines almost everywhere in America these days — shallow, vanity-driven, payto-play city periodicals (often produced by people from other places) that exploited their advertisers and specialized in flattering profiles of local movers and shakers, power couples and favorite burger joints. Conversely, our excited conversation in Andie’s upper office — her attic, as I like to fondly think of it, a place where we shared dozens of ideas we’d both “stored up” for years — amounted to a mission statement of what we might create together, her brilliant design ideas married to my love of meaningful storytelling using the best writers. Evolution is a beautiful thing. I even eventually took to calling Andie my “day wife” because our heads were always together plotting and developing ideas that would hopefully surprise and engage our readers and advertisers alike, stories with both art and soul, concepts we would soon try out and begin refining into the unique DNA that became the new PineStraw. But like any young “marriage,” our beginnings were pretty humble. We started by sharing desks near the main bathrooms in The Pilot’s advertising department, which took on the task of selling our magazine space and quickly made a positive mark growing our pages. Andie and I joked that we were the magazine’s staff of two and the company’s de facto bathroom monitors. With the advertising staff of The Pilot fully engaged and as revenue increased, though, we soon moved to the rear of the building next door where The Pilot’s telephone directory operation was, a spot I liked because it was so quiet I could write early and late in absolute solitude. In those early days, I will confess, I obsessively wrote and rewrote much of the main content of the magazine even as I sought out local writers and encouraged them to use us as a platform for polishing their writing craft. It was exactly what I would have done with The Southerner had it ever materialized, or in a college classroom with budding young writers. Roughly after a year we moved to a glossy format. Next we were able to hire a recent UNCG grad named Ashley Wahl, a delightful young poet whose enthusiasm to learn and be part of the growing pains and process of making a fine magazine was obvious from the moment we met her. Not long after this, reflecting the public’s growing support of PineStraw, we expanded

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

simple life

to a larger format that quickly became a hallmark of its appeal to readers and advertisers alike. The following year, with PineStraw thriving, David and his four financial partners agreed to finance my vision of starting a magazine in my hometown. Ashley was the perfect staffer to send off to Greensboro to help launch O.Henry magazine in the summer of 2011. Given my deep connections to the Gate City, I knew exactly who I wanted on our staff. With veteran journalists Jim Schlosser, David Bailey and Maria Johnson onboard, the combination of our unique, home-grown editorial DNA and the Gate City’s hunger for something wholly original helped the magazine quickly establish itself as the “Voice of a City,” to paraphrase the magazine’s famous namesake, William Sydney Porter. Our advertisers grasped this special magazine’s appeal right from the beginning, too, I’m happy to report. They were eager to be part of something that celebrated the old city like nothing before it. The most common tribute I hear from the loyal readers of both PineStraw and O.Henry is that they “read the magazine from cover to cover.” Speaking of wonderful old cities, it was perhaps also providential that the third sister publication, Salt, would be based in Wilmington. David Woronoff’s family has long called Wrightsville Beach a summer home and my father worked at the Star newspaper for a time in my early school years. It was in Wilmington where I learned to ride a bike and swim in the lagoon off the causeway to the beach, spending almost every summer of my youth there, getting to know and love North Carolina’s coastal capital. The Port City’s rich history, vibrant colleges and arts community, youthful music scene, stunning architecture, great families and unique outdoor life made Wilmington a natural place for Salt to thrive. Not surprisingly, I asked now-seasoned Ashley Wahl if she would consider relocating there to help launch the magazine, which she enthusiastically did two years ago. These days, with PineStraw’s tenth anniversary upon us, I simply ride

between our three outstanding home-grown publications like my greatgreat-grandfather George Washington Tate did more than a century ago. He was the polymath land surveyor who laid out the boundaries of North Carolina’s central counties following the Civil War, reportedly made the bell in Hillsborough’s courthouse and served as a circuit-riding Methodist preacher who established several churches flung across the northern tier of the Old North State. I often think of old G.W. as I’m driving the beautiful back roads of Carolina, usually with my car windows cranked down and new ideas churning in my brain, triangulating between my three boyhood stomping grounds, often reminding me of the remarkable things that came from that late spring afternoon in Andie’s Attic Recently, another good thing came our way with The Pilot’s acquisition of Business North Carolina magazine, the state’s leading business publication. With their strong legacy and our core beliefs about creativity and vision, we happen to believe BNC is going to be a very good marriage, prosperous for all concerned, especially the magazine’s present and future readers and advertisers — a voice that will expand to exciting new horizons in the months and years ahead. Finally, when I look back on that fateful meeting in Andie’s office on Bennett Street, I’m moved and deeply gratified to see how our magazine family has grown so rapidly, a true measure of our aesthetic uniqueness — crafted by gifted writers and editors, talented designers and photographers at the top of their game – and even more excited to see where things go from here. PineStraw is where it all began. I can promise you, this grateful circuit-riding editor will never forget that fact. PS Contact editor Jim Dodson at jim@pinestrawmag.com.

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

Featuring works from artists: Peter Astrom Carol Bechtel Joseph Cave Jason Craighead Linda Ruth Dickinson Bruce Dorfman Bob Doster Kathleen Earthrowl Ailene Fields Shawn Phillip Morin

Broadhurst Art Gallery

2212 Midland Road Pinehurst, NC 28374 910.295.4817 judy@broadhurstgallery.com www.broadhurstgallery.com Open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 11 am to 5 pm Saturdays 1pm to 4 pm Wednesdays and Sundays by appointment

PinePitch In With The Old

Looking for that perfect certain something for your home? Or do you just enjoy rummaging through the past in the beautiful town of Cameron? Roll up, roll up for the Spring Antiques Street Fair on Saturday, May 2, from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. More than 300 dealers will display their antiques and collectibles in their village shops and along streets in the Historic District of Cameron. Cameron Historic District, 485 Carthage Street, Cameron. Information: (910) 245-3055 or www. antiquesofcameron.com

They Got Rhythm The Carolina Philharmonic are indulging in their most decadent season finale yet. Join them on Saturday, May 16, at p.m. for the Orchestra Pops Series finale: An American in Paris. Guest artists will join David Michael Wolff and the Philharmonic — for classic songs and scores from the golden age of film. If you’re more inclined to stage than screen, there will be Broadway magic, too. Go and be sprinkled with musical stardust.

Robert E. Lee Auditorium, Pinecrest High School, 250 Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines. For tickets and more information: (910) 687-0287 or carolinaphil.org

From Creole to Celt Grass

There’s a wide array of musical styles at The Rooster’s Wife this month: bluegrass with the Gibson Brothers and Darin and Brooke Aldridge; Dennis Stroughmatt and Creole Stomp are “a Cajun Creole honky-tonk party.” There’s gypsy jazz from Ameranouche, “Appalachiacana” from Tellico and “Transcendent Acoustic Alt-FolkJazz-Celt-Grass” with Sleeping Bee. May 8: The Gibson Brothers (rare Friday show) May 10: Dennis Stroughmatt and Creole Stomp May 17: Ameranouche May 24: Darin and Brooke Aldridge May 31: Sleeping Bee and Tellico

All shows start at 6:46 p.m. The Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight Street, Aberdeen For more information, call (910) 944-7502 or visit theroosterswife.org.

A Spring in Your Step

Spring to historic downtown Aberdeen for the fourth annual Spring Spree Festival on Saturday, May 16, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fun, free and open to all; enjoy family-friendly entertainment, food, arts and crafts. There will be children’s entertainment in the grassy area between Main and South Streets with bouncy castles, games, face painting and lots more. For the grownups: arts and crafts shopping, accompanied by live music from local artists and bands. For more information call (910) 944-7024 or visit www.townofaberdeen.net

What Do Carriages and Strawberries Have in Common?

More than you might think — on Sunday, May 17, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. In the morning, admire the beauty of horses and antique carriages from all over the East Coast as they take part in a parade through the streets of Pinehurst. After the parade, enjoy the fruits of spring at the Strawberry Festival. We’re talking strawberry everything, from ice cream to shortcake, plus craft booths and entertainment. For more information phone (910) 687-0377 or visit www.InsidePinehurst.com

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

Heart of Glass

The Secret Garden

The ancient Egyptians appreciated fine glass — the oldest glass examples are beads that date from 12,000 BC. For more upto-date homeware, visit NC GlassFest 2015 at Star on Saturday, May 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

How often do you put flowers in a salad? Probably not as many times as you could. Learn from Norma Burns of Bluebird Hill Farm, who will run a culinary workshop sponsored by the Sandhills Horticultural Society.

This is the premier sale of North Carolina handmade functional and culinary glassware. There will be cups, bowls, pitchers, sweet tea sets, glasses, vases and much, much more. If you’d like to see how it’s done, there are hot glass demonstrations: 10 a.m. – noon and 1 – 3 p.m. STARworks Center for Creative Enterprise, 100 Russell Drive, Star. Information: (910) 428-9001 or STARworksnc.org

Bags of Style

A canvas tote is the most useful bag in any collection. It’s the handy supplement to your designer purse; for carrying shopping, school books, newspapers, hand luggage, beach kit, everything. Your husband can lug it for you without embarrassment. It’s better for the environment than plastic store bags and it works as a discreet and attractive substitute for the brown paper party bag. In every bag motion, it carries.

To commemorate PineStraw’s tenth birthday, renowned artist Denise Baker has created a design for a beautiful — and of course versatile — canvas tote which will be available at The Country Bookshop for $12.99. Exclusive too: only a limited number are being made. “Pinestraw is indigenous to our area and is delicate and bold at the same time,” says Baker of the design, a brush of pine needles on a natural ground. We think that sums up everything that’s good about our area, our magazine and the bag’s design too. Just add fun.

Ms Burns will discuss growing edible plants, herbs and flowers and give a workshop, including a kitchen demonstration and tastings. Participants will take home a collection of fresh herbs to continue practicing their new knowledge and skills. Bon appétit. Ball Visitor Center, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Registration: $30/members, $35/non-members. Space is limited, please register in advance. Info: (910) 695-3882.

London Calling

Academy Award® nominee Ralph Fiennes plays Jack Tanner in this exhilarating National Theatre reinvention of Bernard Shaw’s witty, provocative classic Man and Superman. An opportunity to experience some of Britain’s finest theatre, beamed in live from London’s South Bank. “A romantic comedy, an epic fairytale, a fiery philosophical debate, Man and Superman asks fundamental questions about how we live.” Thursday, May 14 and Saturday, May 16 at 2 p.m. The Sunrise Theater, 250 Northwest Broad Street, Southern Pines. Tickets: $20. For more information, call (910) 692-8501.

Buggy Fest

On Saturday, May 9, beginning at 9 a.m., the 27th Annual Carthage Buggy Festival will take place in the town’s Courthouse Square. The festival is a commemoration of the famous Tyson and Jones Buggy Factory that, from the mid1800s to the 1920s, produced the carriages that were essential to life in rural North Carolina. It’s one of the biggest and best-known festivals in the region, with buggies, classic cars and historic tractors on display. There are food vendors, free rides and games for children and live music. Don’t miss the Buggy Festival Idol contest, which will be held at 4.30 p.m. Courthouse Square, downtown Carthage. For more information call (910) 9472331 or visit www.thebuggyfestival.com.

Wine in the Pines

Take a leaf from the Italian book and perform La Passeggiata, a slow evening stroll through town. Saturday, May 16, is Pinehurst’s Spring Wine Walk, an opportunity to wander sociably through the village of Pinehurst to the sound of live music while tasting foods and wine paired with each location. Select your preferred “start” time of 4 p.m. or 6 p.m. and stroll where the gentle breeze takes you. Tickets are $35 and include a shop guide and wine glass. For tickets and more information, phone (910) 687-0377 or visit www.InsidePinehurst.com.

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Instagram Winners

Congratulations to our May Instagram winners! Theme:

Ten Things, for PineStraw’s 10th Anniversary #pinestrawcontest

Next month’s theme:

“Flowers”

If it’s in bloom, we want to see it. Submit your photo on Instagram using the hashtag #pinestrawcontest (submissions needed by Friday, May 15th)

New Instagram themes every month! Follow us @pinestrawmag

Cos and Effect

All in the Family What’s mine is theirs — and comes with a story I’ll not soon forget By Cos Barnes

I recently downsized, and in the process my

children could pick — by turn — pieces of furniture that belonged to their dad and me that I could not use in my new quarters.

It went well and in all honesty I was delighted they wanted our things — although silver and crystal items were at the bottom of their lists. I tried to tell them the history of each piece and, if not the history, the funny things that occurred while we were acquiring them. My kitchen table and chairs, for instance, once belonged to a local decorator, Kitty Ostrum, who had the legs cut off and used it as a cocktail table in her den with accompanying milking stools. Of course we’d replaced the legs. It was a Lazy Susan design, and many Southern dishes were served from it. Our chairs came from Boone Antiques in Wilson, North Carolina, and when we drove all eight home, my shopping friends sat in them as they were stacked in the station wagon. My friend and decorator, Mary Gozzi, in her wisdom, saw me grieve over my grandmother’s walnut cupboard, which I had always wanted. My aunt sold it to a passing peddler for $200. Knowing my hurt and disappointment, Mary consoled me and said it was time to start my own tradition. So off we went again to Boone and purchased a cupboard made of pine. We raced gray skies home to get it inside before rain drenched us all. For many years it held my china, crystal and silver. Now it holds my daughter’s in Maryland. Another daughter, who has two young girls, took my upstairs bedroom suites. Since my mother worked as bookkeeper for a local furniture company, she had the men in the factory make me a cherry bedroom suite with twin beds and every piece of accompanying furniture I could ever use. Her daughter has it now, and the handmade walnut beds, made by the Virginia master Brown Robertson, are in her guest room. My son won the dining room table, which had belonged to my in-laws. With the banquet ends I could seat twelve at a meal, and we enjoyed many lunches and dinners there. The chandelier that I purchased at an estate sale years ago in Pinehurst is in my daughter’s home, as is the sideboard that graced my traditional dining room. What I always termed “formal” is now in her keeping room under a tobacco basket. And it looks great. I sleep in my great-grandmother’s bed, which is propped up on blocks. But that is a story for another day. For now, on Mother’s Day, what better time to celebrate what went before us and what will continue through our children? PS Cos Barnes is a longtime contributor to PineStraw magazine. She can be contacted at cosbarnes@nc.rr.com.

The Omnivorous Reader

Why John Green Matters Go ask your pre-teen children

By Brian Lampkin

Perhaps you’ve never heard of

the writer John Green. If you don’t have children in the preteen through 18-year-old range, then chances are good that John Green is entirely off your radar. You’re speeding through your adult life without a backward glance and missing out on someone who may very well be changing the future. He’s certainly affecting your sons’ and daughters’ (or grandsons’ and granddaughters’) present in dramatic and powerful ways. It’s time to pay attention.

Looking for Alaska was Green’s first book. Like most first books, at first no one noticed. Green tells the story of his initial book tour on which he sometimes found himself reading to an audience of two. Looking for Alaska was, however, an immediate success with critics. (It won the Printz Award from the American Library Association for best Young Adult novel.) And it eventually found its audience. Ten years later, he’s the most popular young adult writer in America and thousands attend readings and literally millions watch his YouTube videos. What is so special about John Green, and about Looking for Alaska in particular? I asked my preteen twin daughters that question. Their answers are stunning, but first let me give you a rough outline of the novel. Alaska is a junior at a boarding school in Alabama who has faced significant tragedy in her life. She is vibrant and alive in ways that are frankly too much for the high school boys around her. The book centers on her relationship with her

two best friends, Pudge (a fictional stand-in for Green) and the Colonel, who both love her as best they can (“love” for Green is multidimensional and not just the romantic love of so much teen fiction), but feel they have failed her in the end. The novel, through Alaska, asks this question: “How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?” And there’s no small amount of suffering in the book. And there’s sex. And a lot of cigarette smoking and underage drinking. The novel is a censor’s dream, and many a school librarian has faced difficult questions from outraged parents or, more often, outraged organizations offended by the idea of the book. But Green has always had a deep respect for the real lives of teenagers. He knows that sex and death and all the things in between are central concerns of teenagers and there’s no use in pretending otherwise. And my young daughters are grateful: “He makes me feel like I can handle things. I know bad things happen in the world, but now I know I can get through them,” says one daughter. To this parent, that sounds like a gift John Green has handed her. And her language is revealing. She knows bad things happen. Green isn’t telling her anything new; like most children, she is acutely aware of the fact of bad things happening in the world. Grandparents die, parents die, siblings die, abductions, wars, bullying, stress: the world is full of suffering and no teenager is immune from it. Like most parents I want to protect my children from all of it and am tempted to avoid talking about any of it with them, but John Green won’t let me. While in the middle of reading his most recent novel, The Fault In Our Stars, my other preteen daughter said to me, “Dad, you know I’m going to die.” That’s a heart-stopping moment for any parent and my immediate response was to push the idea aside — to get the idea out of her head by insisting otherwise: “That’s silly, honey, you’re not going to die . . .” Except, of course she’s right. It wasn’t an existential crisis for her or an immediate concern for her safety; it was an acknowledgment of the fact of life and a desire to talk about it with her father. My gratitude to Green is immense.

The Omnivorous Reader

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He is giving language and public space to a topic we want to wall off because it’s too difficult to address, but we do our wise and wonderful children a disservice by denying what they desperately want to talk about. “I read him and I feel like I’ve accomplished something important,” my daughter added. And that sense of self-worth — “I’ve accomplished something important” — is also priceless. Readers of Green feel respected; they feel like they’re being treated like competent, thinking people who are capable of dealing with life and all its joys and sorrows. It is wrong to think that Green’s books are primarily about suffering. There is so much authentic love — often between teens, but just as often between parents and their children — and also a great deal of “radical hope.” There are many big ideas in Looking for Alaska. Green includes Rabelais’ search for “the Great Perhaps” as a central motif and Alaska is an astute reader of Gabriel García Márquez and other serious writers. Don’t get me wrong: video games, fried burritos, McDonald’s, hair gel and other preoccupations of teenage life are also well represented, but Green is really trying to write about this idea of radical hope. In his introduction to the 10th anniversary edition, Green writes: “I wanted to write a novel about love and suffering and forgiveness, a novel of what in the study of religion is called ‘radical hope,’ the idea that hope is available to all of us at all times, even unto — and after — death.” And my children, like so many others, are tuned to that hope in Green’s books. The Fault In Our Stars is about children dying from cancer, true, but it is also a guide to how to live with deep love and grace and conviction and, yes, hope. I would be unaware of John Green if it weren’t for my children. In fact, my daughter insisted I read The Fault In Our Stars and I resisted and resisted until I finally saw just how important it was to her. So, I recommend it for you and your children, but whatever you do, don’t tell your children to read John Green. You’ll ruin it for them. They have to find him on their own. If anything, tell them they cannot, under any circumstances, ever read that offensive and vulgar book Looking for Alaska. Then leave it lying around the house. Green’s other novels include An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns (soon to be a movie) and Will Grayson, Will Grayson. His video blog (www. youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers), with his brother Hank Green, is the best reason to venture into the netherworld of YouTube. The Green brothers make passionate pleas for intellectualism for teenagers, embrace “Nerd Fighters” (people who fight for the respect and dignity of nerds, so-called) and remind everyone to DFTBA. Look it up. PS Brian Lampkin is an owner of Scuppernong Books in Greensboro.

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

P r op e r E n g l i s h

Holy Sugary Goodness Southern cakes are serious business — with or without forks and fine linen

By Serena Brown

My friend the Southern Belle and I were chat-

tering in her kitchen, talking of shoes and shift dresses, when she happened to open the fridge door in the spirit of hospitality. Even if it weren’t the tidiest fridge east of the Mississippi, and probably west too, it would have been impossible not to notice the gargantuan wedge of sugary goodness that inhabited the shelves therein. It was the biggest slice of cake that I have ever seen.

Now I’ve been in the South long enough to know that food is serious business in this part of the world. You don’t need to cross the Mason-Dixon line or even the USA’s borders to learn that; the area’s culinary reputation goes before her worldwide. I wasn’t a great cake eater before living here. I would have the occasional slice of Victoria sponge cake (I think in translation that’s a yellow cake) on birthdays; Christmas cake and wedding cakes. That was about it. During my sojourn in North Carolina I’ve been introduced to cakes of every different type, hue, shape and size: layer (up to seventeen of them, amazing), pound, red velvet, Irish Mist, yellow, Coca-Cola, Better Than Sex, salted caramel, Funfetti, German chocolate, box, coconut, hummingbird, Italian cream, strawberry short, ad infinitum. The Heritage Southern Cookbook lists twenty-eight different types of cake and seventeen frostings in the index. I thought I had grown inured to the bounty that a mixing bowlful of

eggs, flour, sugar and butter will provide. Indeed I think I had, until the Southern Belle produced that K2 of confection from the door of the immaculate refrigerator. I was gobsmacked*. Speaking of which, I would once have been puzzled by how to tackle such a vast slice of celebration. Now I understand that one uses a fork. Recently I raised eyebrows at a party by munching a superb piece of chocolate cake in the English fashion, i.e., from my hand. As I scoffed down the cake and tried not to notice the eyebrows — it was too late to pick up a fork at that point — I wondered why, in a nation that relishes ribs, fries, burgers and so many other foods that are better enjoyed without the interference of tableware, the cake comes in for the cutlery treatment. It struck me especially because I’ve noticed that Americans have a napkin for every occasion and are therefore perfectly equipped to deal with a few crumby smudges. This level of refinement is wonderful to me. In England, among my milieu anyway, we find our sleeves quite sufficient. I’m afraid that if you come for dinner at our house it’s as much as I can do to remember to put a roll of paper towels on the table. It doubles as the table decoration that I have invariably forgotten. Guests should also be forewarned that our dogs will quietly remove any napkin from diners’ laps, be it single damask or two ply wood pulp. But back to the kitchen. Did the Belle and I set about the cake with table forks and fine linen? No, we giggled and recorded the moment with a photograph. Then we partook of iced water with lemon and chocolate digestives. This was an Anglo-Southern visit, after all. PS *A somewhat indelicate British term meaning astounded — literally, smacked in the gob (mouth) Serena Brown is a new mom and a treasured staff member at PineStraw magazine.

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

papa d a d d y

Papadaddy Visits Heaven Please pass the crumin

By Clyde Edgerton

Recently, as a consequence of a botched

anesthesia procedure from which he recovered, Papadaddy briefly visited Heaven, then returned to Earth. In Heaven, he wandered along streets of gold, and among gatherings of family members sitting on shaded porches eating meals and talking: grandparents, parents, children, and great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents, all together at once. Papadaddy had a meal with one extended family and reports:

Illustration by harry Blair

The people at this particular noontime meal were members of the Harris-Williams-Johnson-Stark-Clements, etc. family from Arkansas, Ohio, and Ontario: • HORACE, an 84-year-old man who died in 1705 • BEATRICE, a 93-year-old woman who died in 1865 • GRANT, a 77-year-old man who died in 1943 • TODDIE, a 59-year-old woman who died in 1990 • SHAWN, 9-year-old boy who died in 2015 • PAPADADDY HORACE (1705): Can somebody pass the crumin? SHAWN (2015): What’s crumin? HORACE (1705): That boy shouldn’t be speaking at the table — take him outside and flog him. SHAWN (2015): What’s flog? PAPADADDY (2015): Spank . . . whip, actually. I think you shouldn’t be

talking, son. I think crumin must be some kind of cornbread. Right over there. SHAWN (2015): What did I do? BEATRICE (1865): You broke a custom, child. Hold your tongue. TODDIE (1990): No. . . not literally, son. Take your hand out of your mouth. It’s just an expression. BEATRICE (1865): We had over fifteen kinds of cornbread when I was coming along. The Indians was good about coming up with all kinds. SHAWN: (2015) I didn’t do anything. I don’t want to be quiet. I just got here. PAPADADDY (2015): I’m sorry. GRANT (1943): Why are you sorry? PAPADADDY (2015): Oh, I don’t mean I’m sorry about him getting to Heaven. I mean I’m sorry for any suffering of his on Earth. HORACE (1705): Take him outside and flog him. That’ll teach him to talk at a meal. TODDIE (1990): I don’t think that would be kosher — not in Heaven. HORACE (1705): What’s kosher mean? TODDIE (1990): It means kosher. PAPADADDY (2015): It means, you know, appropriate. HORACE (1705): Children do not speak at meals — I don’t care where we are. Standards are not temporary habits. TODDIE (1990): Pretty day, isn’t it? GRANT (1943): I wish it would rain sometimes. HORACE (1705): Why? We don’t need it. PAPADADDY (2015): How do you keep up these pretty gardens without rain? BEATRICE (1865): It all happens without weather . . . and then too, we have especially good reading about homes and gardens. Pass the salt, please. HORACE (1705): And pass the crumin. And why did they take away the servants? BEATRICE (1865): Because we’re in Heaven. PS Clyde Edgerton is the author of ten novels, a memoir and a new work, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

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

V i n e W i s d om

Let’s Do the Twist

Cork will always hold a place in our hearts but screwcaps prevail across the board By Robyn James

Back in the year 2000 a group of Australian wine-

makers in Clare Valley had become increasingly frustrated by the inconsistencies of their rieslings. They believed these inconsistencies were caused by corks. They grouped together to make a bold commitment to purchase 250,000 screwcap closures from a French producer, since there were no manufacturers in Australia at that time.

The jury has been out for fifteen years on these closures, but new research is definitely creating a strong case for the cap. As the saying goes, “Time will tell,” and so it has for wine’s ageability. Scientific studies by the New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative have proven the screwcap to be a superior closure to cork. Bottles aged for 15 years with cork show wide bottle variation in color, smell and taste. Cork is somewhat porous, allowing tiny amounts of oxygen into the bottle. All corks are different, so each bottle is going to experience a different amount of oxidation. In the past, winemakers believed that this tiny exposure to air was instrumental to the wine’s maturity and development with age. That theory has now been completely dispelled by professor Emile Peynaud, a French enologist and researcher who explains, “It is the opposite of oxidation, a process of reduction, or asphyxia, by which wine develops in the bottle.” His conclusion is backed up by Pascal Ribereau-Gayon, author of the Handbook of Enology, who writes, “Reactions that take place in bottled wine do not require oxygen.” Many wineries, including Château Margaux, have quietly conducted their own experiments, aging some of their wines in screwcaps and some in corks. Across the board the screwcaps prevail. Jeffrey Grosset of Grosset Wines declared, “Various tastings of red wines ten years and older sealed with screwcaps have proved them to be aging gracefully and exactly as expected. These results should allay any fears of using screwcap closures for wines destined for the cellar.” Of the seven billion wine bottles sealed each year, it is estimated that that screwcaps have grown from 100 million ten years ago to three billion this year. New Zealand and Australia are fully committed with 90-percent of their wines in caps. California and France are catching up, Plumpjack Winery in Napa are forging the way with their 1997 Reserve in screwcap, the first true luxury bottling. Michel Laroche, one of the best producers in Chablis, has made the move away from cork. “I just regret that I didn’t start earlier! Over the last ten years I do not remember one of the tastings when the wine with a cork was better than the wine with a screwcap.” And, of course, sommeliers are rejoicing that screwcaps completely eliminate the risk of cork taint in an expensive bottle of wine, making it smell like gym shoes. So, what’s the biggest problem for the little screwcap? Consumer acceptance. We have come a long way, however; we no longer get the weird expression when recommending a capped wine to a customer. We did have one customer who returned a screwcap bottle with their corkscrew stuck in the cap. That was scary! Be sure to twist it, don’t pierce it! PS Robyn James is proprietor of The Wine Cellar and Tasting Room in Southern Pines. Contact her at robynajames@gmail.com.

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

S p i r i ts

Bar None

No one in the Sandhills can mix it up like 195’s Tony Cross — which is why we asked him to concoct a ‘PineStraw’ cocktail for our 10th anniversary

By David Claude Bailey

“It’s like having my own spice rack

Photographs by Tim sayer

behind the bar,” says Tony Cross, his slate-blue eyes twinkling beneath his signature black bill cap.

Count them: twenty-three bottles of bitters — from New Orleans’ own Peychaud to the classic Angostura for Manhattans. The Manhattan is the cocktail that got it all started for Cross, the 195 bartender who brought Mixology 101 to the Porch — and who has created the PineStraw cocktail for PineStraw’s 10th anniversary birthday bash (more about that later). Thinking back a few years ago, to the day when he drove downtown to The Wine Cellar to buy a bottle of French Carpano Antica vermouth, Cross says, “It’s like a lightbulb went off in my head.” He’s referring to how the Manhattan he mixed that warm spring night tasted like nothing else that had ever passed his lips. “Mixing drinks has been my passion ever since.” Granted, making a Manhattan is not exactly rocket science. Whiskey, vermouth, bitters, jostled 20 seconds or so over ice in a cocktail shaker and strained. “But remember. Vermouth is fortified wine. It needs to be refrigerated,” he says. Manhattans had always tasted musty to him. “Any

Manhattan made with vermouth that has been on the shelf will be spoiled, which is why many bartenders only add a splash to their drinks, and why many guests will ask for light vermouth. Vermouth needs to be fresh, and it needs to be quality vermouth,” he says. In the Manhattan he made for himself, Cross poured Rittenhouse rye, which added a spicy crispness to the drink instead of making it sweet, as bourbon does. Oh, yes, in addition to insisting on huge ice cubes, Cross is all about the stirring: “I’ve found that stirring fifty revolutions gives me the proper dilution with Manhattans,” he says, flashing his Colgate smile out from under a seemingly perennial four-days’ growth of beard. Cross hails from a family where sweet tea was the strongest thing anyone drank at home. Born in Fort Bragg with a dad in Special Forces, he grew up all around the world, from Okinawa, Japan, to Washington state. As a young man, he says, “I couldn’t care less about alcohol. I was more into girls than anything else.” Ask him what he did after he graduated from high school, and he’ll tell you, “You can skip all the way to here if you want.” A little this and a little that, working in construction, video stores, gas stations, until he visited his parents, who’d moved to Southern Pines, and he got a job working in a French restaurant as a server: “La Terrace, and they hired me because I had no previous experience and could train me. I never thought in a million years I’d like this,” he says. But in the three years he

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May 2015P�� PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills Experience the Exceptional

S p i r i ts

worked at La Terrace before it closed its doors, Cross learned what he calls “the old school” style of service: “Being able to read my guests and anticipate what they wanted before they asked for it. It’s sort of like being a shadow, being there for them without their seeing me.” After La Terrace closed, “I worked at a couple of different restaurants and didn’t find my niche until I came to 195,” he says. “I started as a server and was asked to manage the restaurant after my first seven months. These are the kindest people I’ve ever worked for.” Cross, 195 American Fusion Cuisine’s manager, worked first as a server and then went behind the bar a couple of years ago. “From my first week on the job, I decided if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.” What does he mean by right? “No sour mix. All juices squeezed daily. All ice prepped daily. House-made tonic, ginger beer, shrubs, syrups, marmalades, infusions, tinctures and homemade grapefruit bitters and chocolate bitters,” he says. But ask Cross what’s the most important part of a cocktail and you’ll get a surpising answer: “Ice,” he says, flipping up a hatch behind the bar and extracting a cube big enough to choke a

horse. “You’ve got to have proper dilution,” he insists, explaining that shaved or crushed ice melts in a minute when you pour, say, a dram of $35 Scotch over it. His “on the rocks” ice is 2 inches by 2 inches. And ice made from city water? Perish the thought. Cross uses distilled water that’s chlorine-free. Sit out on the Porch one balmy afternoon and check out the level of creativity and zest Cross brings to raising the bar, so to speak, with names that are as fresh as his ingredients, and with cocktails that run the gamut: • The Kopynec, featuring Ardbeg, perhaps the peatiest Scotch on the planet, Cynar (Italian artichoke liqueur), Carpano Antica sweet vermouth and house orange bitters. • The Chrysanthemum, a recipe from the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book that combines barrel-aged Vya dry vermouth, benedictine and absinthe. • I’m Gonna Kill That Woman, made with organic Warming’s Crimson Berry Tea infused Old Tom gin, topped with Italian Aperol apéritif and French Yellow Chartreuse liqueur, spiked with fresh lemon and cranberry spice bitters.

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

S p i r i ts

How does Cross get away with serving drinks that might push the envelope even in, say New York City or L.A.? “If I didn’t work for [195 owners] Milton and Karen Pilson, I wouldn’t have the freedom to do this sort of thing,” he reflects. “When I told them all the wacky shit I wanted to do, they said, ‘Go for it.’” Cross credits the staff for being able to expertly describe his latest concoctions and graciously serve them. “It’s a team effort all around,” he says. Most of all, Cross credits Prem Nath, 195’s executive chef: “Our guests come in first and foremost for Prem’s food. If he wasn’t here in the kitchen every single shift that we’re open, I wouldn’t have this opportunity.” And if Chef Prem didn’t attract adventuresome diners, 195 might be serving sticky sweet vodka drinks instead of innovative cocktails. That dynamism is the reason PineStraw gave Cross total latitude in coming up with a signature cocktail for a magazine that has also been known to push the Sandhills’ envelope in the area of unexpected content and unexcelled storytelling. “The first thing that popped into my head is I’ve definitely got to use pine in this drink somehow,” he says. He sure didn’t have to go far to find some pine needles, which he infused into pine-needle syrup. Pine-flavored spirits are not unknown. There’s Zirbenz, for instance, a pine-inflected liqueur from the Alps. A homemade Catalán liqueur called ratafia contains, among many other things, pine cones. Spruce beer dates back centuries. And the Greeks, of course, drink millions of gallons of wine tinted with pine à la retsina. Once Cross had his syrup, he looked for a base spirit. Not vodka, he says, because frankly he doesn’t like the way it tastes. Gin was appealing, especially since Cardinal gin is made in North Carolina. “But gin eclipsed the pine needles,” he says. He eliminated dark spirits, he says, “because I wanted it to be a crowd pleaser.” Some people, he’s observed, will simply not try a cocktail using whiskey — or “whisky,” as in Scotch. Then he thought of pisco, a grape brandy that hails from Peru, popularized by pisco sours. He had recently infused some dry vermouth with chamomile tea and added that. “It brought a light floral taste like spring that was not overly complex,” he says. “I needed another layer of flavor,” he says, so he added a twist of lemon and a little bit of muddled strawberry for color and contast. The PineStraw cocktail was born. He’ll be serving it during May — and long after that if it proves as popular as the magazine. PS

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David Claude Bailey, who mixes it up in Greensboro, once made his own absinthe. PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2015

T h e k i tc h e n ga r d e n

The Other Black Gold A Sandhills Victory Garden can be yours. The secret’s beneath you

By Jan Leitschuh

Come May, the siren song of the kitchen

garden is calling your name, but your soil may be lagging — and lacking.

The crux of the matter is that we live in the pine barrens, the former site of an ancient inland sea. So how, exactly, can we turn our backyards into vegetable playgrounds? By turning our packed sand into black gold. By the first day of May, the garden soil is finally warm enough to put in a few tomatoes, some peppers, okra, eggplant, melons and sweet potatoes — vegetables whose roots crave warmth. Spring fever and tomato lust often drive gardeners to plant these crops a couple of weeks early, especially when the air temps start to soften. But if you dig your hands into the earth in early April — and what gardener can resist? — you can still feel winter’s icy grip. While the top parts of your heat-loving plants are generally safe from a late freeze, the roots tend to languish or even rot if the soil itself has not reached the mid-50s. This, of course, occurs long after the air temps have risen. Those of you who come from Somewhere Else with Naturally Good Soil may be puzzled by veggie garden failures here. The secret may well lie in your sandy soil. It’s both a blessing and a curse. If you live in the southern half of Moore county, below Carthage, then you know what I’m talking about. My home ridge, for example, consists of 18 feet of Candor sand — which is a long way down to the clay. Candor sand grows great longleaf pines and wire grass, but for tomatoes, basil, strawberries and cabbage, it needs some help. Abundant rainfalls long ago rinsed our sandy shores of many nutrients, and our summer heat burns up the organic matter we dig into. This is where you come into play. Proper soil fertility and bed preparation exponentially increase your chances of success. Plants need sixteen essential

minerals for optimal production, and to give us the nutrition our bodies need. First things first: Check your pH. This is key. Our Moore county soil is pretty acidic, again from those abundant, torrential rainfalls. Most vegetables prefer a pH range of 6.0–6.8, but your native sand might be as low as 4.3. That’s pretty low, and if the pH is wrong, it can tie up critical nutrients no matter how much fertilizer is tossed out. Plus, excess fertilizer will just trickle down and pollute the water table. If you are new to the area, your best bet is to get a soil test. We have a worldclass lab, paid for by our tax dollars, awaiting our soils. Pick up sample boxes at the NC Cooperative Extension office in Carthage. There may be a low charge during the busy season, but some times of the year — the quieter times — the test is free. Inquire at (910) 947-3188. Once you know your pH, follow the test recommendations and add lime. It’s cheap. The calcium will also help in some measure to drought-proof your plants. I like to use dolomitic lime, as it adds magnesium as well as calcium. Magnesium will make your tomatoes and strawberries taste better. The next step is to dig in lots of organic matter: compost, decayed leaves or straw, mushroom compost, and — if you’re confident that it’s free of weed and bermuda grass seed — manure. I love the richness of Brooks Compost in Goldston, North Carolina, which uses restaurant and cafeteria scraps, and so do the plants. A truckload will help start your garden, but a truckload is a lot. See if you can split it with a friend, or call to learn if they offer bagged portions locally. Don’t buy topsoil — what you want is compost. Here’s a tip: Straw mulch helps keep summer weeds down, but be sure to ask if it was from a field sprayed with persistent herbicide for broad-leafed weeds; if it has been, your garden is toast. The poisons will kill your vegetables, too. If your compost is of high quality and quantity, this may be all you need. Compost, after all, is like a magic ingredient for the sand. Good compost should have most of the sixteen nutrients you need for a splendid garden. Composted cow or horse manure, for example, contains a

T h e k i tc h e n ga r d e n

good amount of phosphorus (the middle number on the fertilizer bag). Phosphorus is essential for root development, photosynthesis and crop quality, among other things. You’ll need to get phosphorus dug into the root zone of your garden. Be careful using synthetic phosphorus, as it is possible to deploy too much, which is as problematic as too little. You’ll want to stay in “the zone.” How much is too much? Hard to say without a soil test. Organic matter does expand the margin for error, so once again proves itself a friend to the gardener. Our sand’s drainage is second to none — both a blessing and a curse. Water flows quickly through sand, perfect for veggies, which dislike wet feet and tight soils. Terrific drainage also means the soil can be worked earlier than sticky, clay-based soil. Another perk. But well-drained soils dry out faster than claybased soils. So building the organic matter of the soil acts as a reservoir to retain water in the root zone. This can be the difference between your tomato or pepper plant dropping its blossoms due to heat stress or not. Organic matter also helps the sandy soil retain nutrients. It acts like a magnet for the electricallycharged mineral particles, again, holding them in the root zone where plants can draw them up. Composted organic matter also feeds the microbials in the garden — the worms, mites, bacteria, nematodes, microarthropods, protozoans, insects, and fungi that break down compost and turn it into plant nutrition. There is a whole amazing, interdependent world in the soil, and that is what you want to nurture. Use any chemical fertilizers sparingly, if at all, to avoid “salting” out and damaging this essential ecosystem. As the old saying goes, “Feed the soil, not the plants.” The soil is not just a place to park the roots. In that sense, compost is not just your friend, it’s the all-around Garden Good Guy. One final mineral is important to this area and success with plants: potassium, also known as potash. I like to use organic, mined mineral sources such as greensand or Sul-Po-Mag, which don’t leach as quickly in our sands and provide other essential nutrients. Spread some at planting time, then again at blossom time, and you will grow the sweetest, most plump vegetables in the Sandhills. When one crop finishes, rejuvenate the soil with more compost and potash, and plant something else seasonally appropriate. If you do grow too much, the freezer is your friend. Why pay high prices for organic vegetables in the winter when the very best you can eat can come from your very own Sandhills Victory Garden? PS

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Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and cofounder of the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative. PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2015

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

Out of the Blue

Viva Chapati! Nocturnal inspiration fills the page

By Deborah Salomon

Once, maybe

twice in every columnist’s tenure, a blank happens. After almost thirty-five years on the job my turn finally came — or so I thought.

I mulled and fumed, identifying and rejecting ideas that had no relevance. I like relevance. Reminiscence reads better linked to a greater cause. This time, however, I couldn’t even spit out 600 words on the new tube-less toilet paper rolls. So I slept on it . . . and look what transpired. Before retiring, I watched a preview of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with gleeful anticipation; the original film brought together my absolute faves — Tom Wilkinson, Judi Dench, Downton Abbeyites Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton and Dev Patel, that adorable young man from Slumdog Millionaire. Relevance: British films own that certain something, a je ne sais quoi, setting them apart from junk flicks computer-generated by Hollywood. The quoi might be smarts — wit, for sure. Plus, in this case, the premise that love and adventure await old folks in faraway places. I’ve watched the movie at least five times. The sequel can’t be as good without Wilkinson, whose character expired after reconnecting with a long-ago gay lover. But it looked OK. I went to bed happy. Not for long. The lighted dial stared back, accusingly — 1:45 a.m. Too late to be early. Too early to be late. My rule: Never turn on the TV in the middle of the night. But I did, and guess what? The first Best was underway. I could almost smell the pungent Indian food, especially when wheelchair-bound Maggie Smith visits the home of the lower-caste servant who works at the Marigold. Smith is offered a plate of fresh-fromthe-pan chapati, along with something spicy for dipping. Smith demurs, in horror, but is told refusing would be the ultimate insult. With the family watching, Dame Maggie contains her fear of bacteria or worse — and nibbles. Relevance: Never travel east of Italy without Pepto-Bismol.

Suddenly, I felt a craving. Chapati! Not a Klondike bar or Scrooge’s morsel of cheese. No green tea or Greek yogurt or high-fiber protein bar. No mile-high sandwiches that Dagwood Bumstead consumed in the wee hours either. I must have chapati, which is strange, since I haven’t eaten it forever. Is this a sensory trigger? Subliminal? Transference? Lest you think I’m an insufferable foodie, chapati is simply thin flatbread cooked in a hot skillet, preferably iron — rather like a tortilla with burned spots. Chapati may be eaten plain, rolled around meat and vegetables, or dipped in anything. Give me a bowl of curried cauliflower with fresh chapati and I’m in heaven. Relevance: Many profess interest in Indian food but unlike Chinese, proliferation hasn’t happened — probably a good thing, to avoid Americanization. Others balk, assuming every dish sears the innards. Not true. So I paused the TV, bounded out of bed, booted up Google and assembled the simple ingredients. Luckily, I keep a bag of whole wheat flour in the refrigerator — sufficient, if not as good as the powdery chapati flour that insufferable foodies keep on hand. In about twenty minutes I was spreading salsa and hummus on hot chapati. Never mind that my smoke alarm woke the cats and probably the neighbors. Relevance: How many hot wings-sports bars does our town need? Please, a hole-in-the-wall Indian family restaurant that offers inexpensive combo plates seen in that other stellar British food film The Hundred-Foot Journey, starring Helen Mirren. I won’t bother with the new Marigold until Netflix. The previews looked iffy. Sequels, even British, rarely deliver. But the greater relevance taught me this: Day or night, spring or fall, hungry or not, welcome the muse wearing a sari. PS Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

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

Hom e to w n

For the Record

The skinny kid in the cartigan? Yeah, that was me — something of a state golf champ

By Bill Fields

Forty years ago

this month, I might have set a state high school golf record that might still stand. Before getting into the specifics of that vagueness, some background is necessary.

The Sandhills has a rich golf heritage, but for years the area wasn’t overflowing with young players. Most kids gravitated toward other sports. And that made sense. If you had older siblings and pored over their high school yearbooks, when it came to seeding athletic dreams, there wasn’t much contest between a lunging linebacker and a skinny kid in a cardigan leaning on his driver. But a few of us plunged into golf anyway, unashamed of watching the CBS Golf Classic instead of American Bandstand on Saturday afternoons. Plaid or checked slacks didn’t scare us. When I was 17, I proudly purchased a pair of casual shoes — deerskin! — marketed to retirees. More than embracing its attire and accessories, we were intrigued by this hard but beguiling sport, and OK with the solitary hours of practice necessary to get any good at it. When we got to the tenth grade at Pinecrest High, we could be part of a team, too. In the mid-1970s — and for a long time after that — Patriot boys’ golf was no powerhouse despite the proximity to so many courses. Not until 2008, led by Jack (No Relation, Much Better Golfer) Fields, son of Mike (No Relation, Better Golfer) Fields, who played prep golf with me, did Pinecrest win a state crown. We got to play at Pinehurst Country Club, usually the No. 1 course, which was a treat, unless you blocked your opening tee into the road and out-of-bounds. I committed that felony, but fortunately not during a match. A couple of springs, Pine Needles let us practice on the far end of the range and hit all the yellow “Property of Warren Bell” balls that we wanted. For away matches, among the venues were Scotch Meadows in

Laurinburg, Richmond Pines in Rockingham, and Sanford’s Quail Ridge, which had fantastic greens. When Hoke County was the home team, it was the Arabia course, a bare-bones design where many of the holes were lined with a single row of young pines that gave me fits. Junior year I drove a short par-4 and sank the eagle putt, but other than that, Arabia was a golf desert for me. Even though Pinecrest’s horticulture department maintained a putting green, golf was not a priority at the school. Before its games the football team got a sit-down meal of steak and potatoes. En route to our Monday matches, we stopped at McDonald’s. Once on match day, coach gave us a budget golf ball, a Spalding ERA, which we suspected he was not using in his games with his fellow station-wagon drivers. Over my three seasons at Pinecrest, my scores tended to mirror the grades of a slightly above-average student who tries hard but definitely has his limits: 82, 79, 89, 83, 72, 84, 78, 85, 80, 76. I birdied the last three holes at Quail Ridge in the 1976 Sectionals but shot 77. My scores could vary widely from one nine to the next as well, never more than during day two of the 1975 North Carolina state championship at Chapel Hill’s Finley Golf Course my sophomore year. After shooting an awful first-round 89, horsing around that evening I was stung by a wasp near my left eye. By morning, it was nearly swollen shut — handy for plumb-bobbing putts but otherwise not much fun. With a scorecard littered with double-bogeys, I made the turn in 52. I often tried too hard in golf, but for the next nine holes, I tried just right. The result: three birdies, three pars, three bogeys and a 16-stroke improvement from the front side. I have a few trophies from junior golf, but, whether anyone has had a more dramatic rally or not, I think I like the 52-36 better. PS Southern Pines native Bill Fields never lived on Connecticut Avenue but has lived in the actual Connecticut for a long time.

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

B I R D WA T C H

Blue Bunting

The many charms of the “other” bluebird

By Susan Campbell

“What, what? See it, see it! Here,

Photograph by debra Regula

here!!” So goes the incessant song, day after day, summer after summer of the male indigo bunting, loudly advertising his territory. Where? Often high up on a power line or in the tiptop of a tree. He will continue to call out his challenge to everyone, anyone or anything that will listen. His two-syllable, repeated vocalization is unmistakable.

Upon closer inspection, this fella is the “other” bluebird, slimmer but shimmering indigo blue all over. Indigo buntings are an iridescent, darker blue than the familiar Eastern bluebird. And, as with all blue birds, their feathers are actually brown. The color we see in the males is not due to pigmentation but from specialized microscopic structures that reflect and refract in the blue wavelength. And, as with other buntings, this bird has a strong, conical bill, capable of cracking hard-shelled food items. Female indigo buntings, however, are happily camouflaged; wearing dull feathers that blend in with the habitat. They are brown with a pale throat, a lightly streaked breast and some hints of blue on the back. During the winter, males molt into drab plumage: not unlike our goldfinches. Immature males are often blotchy blue and brown their first spring and, as a result, will not likely breed. Here in North Carolina, we also have the garishly plumaged painted bunting, which breeds along our southern coastline. The males sport some blue but also have red and green patches of feathers. Females of this species are simply a pea green all over and, thus, blend in with the dense maritime greenery. Painted buntings have experienced a dramatic population decline,

not only as a result of development of their habitat, but also due to the caged-bird trade in its wintering grounds: primarily in Mexico. Male indigo buntings are also trapped and sold to some degree south of the border as well. But they are not nearly as irresistible as their more colorful cousins. Indigo buntings are found in a variety of habitats throughout the Piedmont and Sandhills. They tend to favor forest edges. But birds may be found in brushy fields or clearings where weedy seed plants and insects are abundant. Associated dense woody growth provides good nesting substrate. Buntings may even be seen at feeders where they prefer small oily seeds such as nyjer thistle. These birds, however, have a broad, opportunistic diet. In early spring when seeds and insects are in short supply, they feed on buds, flowers and even young leaves. Indigo buntings eat mainly insects in the summer, not only feasting on a variety of caterpillars but large, hard-bodied beetles, grasshoppers and cicadas. It should, then, come as no surprise that this species will abandon areas where scrubby borders have been cut and grass is regularly mowed. “Tidying up” of our subdivisions and parks displaces indigo buntings as well as other migrant songbirds that require low, dense cover. This is one reason why it is important to maintain as much green space and native vegetation as possible in our communities. But indigo buntings do not stick around all year. As fall approaches, these little bits of the sky will flock up and head south to Central America and the Caribbean. They will fly great distances at night, using the stars to guide them. In fact, indigo buntings were the subjects of early migration research in the 1960s. But, come the following April, they will be back in their favorite haunts, singing their familiar song once again. PS Susan would love to hear from you. Feel free to send questions or wildlife observations to susan@ncaves.com

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A Nov e l Y e ar

Modern(ist) Family A hand reaches, a baby moves, and something is formed

By Wiley Cash

. . . a stone, a leaf, an unfound door;

of a stone, a leaf, a door. And all of the forgotten faces. Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth. — Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

I am in bed with my wife, reading aloud from the opening pages of Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe’s 1929 autobiographical novel about a boy named Eugene Gant who struggles to understand the great mystery of life in a small mountain town. Although my wife is listening, I’m actually reading aloud so that our unborn child can learn the sound of my voice. We’ve been told it’s important for our child to know our voices as soon as possible. As I read, my wife flips through her iPad, investigating chairs for the nursery, trying to decide whether we should purchase one that glides and rocks and reclines. There is also the creeping fear that a new, better, safer option may be created by the time our child is born. While I read, my eyes wander toward my wife’s iPad where patterns and colors and different kinds of chairs fly by until her finger stops sliding, and I see what may be the ideal chair provided it glides or rocks and/or reclines. It’s tan. “I like that one,” I say. What I mean is, Can we buy it, and if we don’t like it, can we burn it in the backyard as an offering to whatever awful gods control one’s fate when searching baby furniture? “I like it too,” my wife says. “Do you think it will match the paint?” Oh, God, the paint. We still haven’t chosen a color for the nursery, but I keep telling myself (and my wife) that everything — anything — looks great with tan, gray, pale blue and off-white. The nursery has become my struggle. Each day, when she walks in the door from work, my wife must witness another of my failed attempts to make some kind of progress in the 12-by-15foot bedroom. Last week I broke down the double bed reserved for guests and moved it to the attic before carrying the mattress down the stairs to the garage, which means I oversaw its controlled fall down the stairs, where it came to a rest against the front door. Once the room was empty of the bed I had a better idea of what we were working with, and I could finally give paint colors my full consideration. The pieces of a dark gray crib were collapsed in one corner like the bones of a tiny dinosaur. Scattered about were gender-neutral paint swatches and bags of baby clothes we’d somehow begun to accumulate. Also present were two boxes containing two sets of curtains we ordered online but haven’t yet returned; we’ve somehow decided they don’t match the paint we haven’t yet selected. I got to work and moved everything from the baby’s room to the other guest room, and then I used painter’s tape to stick the paint swatches to the walls.

My wife came home from work and found me in the baby’s empty room, beaming with pride at my day’s work. “This looks great,” she said, offering me a genuine smile that may or may not have been tinged with pity. “Where’s all the stuff that was in here?” I told her that I’d moved it all to the guest room, and then she informed me that her sister and brother-in-law were coming to visit. I took one long look around the baby’s empty room and imagined the walls painted a brilliant tan, gray, pale blue or off-white. And then I moved everything back. But I left the swatches taped to the walls. Progress had been made. The tan glider that probably rocks and may or may not recline has been saved in my wife’s favorites, and I’ve gone back to reading aloud from Look Homeward, Angel. This is when I read the following line about Eugene’s father, W.O., a stonecutter by trade: “He wanted to wreak something dark and unspeakable in him into cold stone.” I know how W.O. feels. There’s a dark thing inside me called fear, and with it is an unspeakable thing called uncertainty. I’m afraid of becoming a father, and I’m uncertain of what to do once I become one. I think my wife feels some version of these emotions as well. These feelings find outlet in the “cold stone” of the nursery, where we’ve begun to accumulate objects in an attempt to “wreak” this dark and unspeakable thing we’re feeling into some kind of manifestation of preparedness. And then it dawns on me that this is what Thomas Wolfe was trying to do in writing Look Homeward, Angel; he was starting with the abstract emotion, which literary critics have referred to as the novel’s sense of “lostness,” and attempting to wreak it into a thing: a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. This is what made Wolfe such a terrible Modernist. He was simply too abstract when attempting to distill emotion down to a thing. The Modernists’ mantra was, “There are no ideas but in things,” but Wolfe always preferred the idea over the thing. He begins with the abstract — lostness, loneliness, isolation — then casts about for something to which he can attach it. Perhaps that thing could be a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Or maybe it could be a tan glider, a dark gray crib, or dozens of paint swatches into which we hope to distill the mystery of what it is we’re feeling while we wait for our child to be born. This is what I’m thinking about when my wife suddenly sits up in bed. Her hands go to her stomach, and she spreads her fingers across her belly. Her quick movements scare me, and the dark, unspeakable thing inside me beats against my chest like a fist. But when I look at her I see that she’s smiling. “Are you OK?” “Yes,” she says. “I just felt the baby move.” I close Wolfe’s novel, set it on the nightstand, and reach for my wife. She moves her hands apart and I place my open hand between hers, my fingers spread wide across her belly as if I’m trying to grasp something ungraspable. This is the first time she’s felt the baby move. “What did it feel like?” “I don’t know,” she says. “I can’t explain it.” But that’s OK. I know exactly how she feels. Thomas Wolfe does too. PS Wiley Cash is a New York Times best-selling author whose second novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, was released last year. He lives in Wilmington.

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G o l f to w n J o u r n a l

Stitch Golf

How one entrepreneurial spirit created a head cover revolution

Stitch Golf Founder and CEO Charlie Burgwyn (L) and designer Matt Whitehead By Lee Pace

So you love golf. And you love appar-

el and design. You have some retail and entrepreneurial spirit in your DNA. You’ve been a salesman and you’ve called on the top golf shops around the country. You’ve wanted since the early days of your working life to create your own brand in the golf industry.

Would that we all be so lucky as Charlie Burgwyn. “There was a time when I was younger I thought I’d play the PGA Tour,” Burgwyn says. “Then in college, I started my own business running a junior golf tour across the state. I sold the business after a few years and saw the rewards of owning your own business. I quickly became distracted from aspirations of playing golf to wanting to focus on the business side of the industry. How can I start my own brand one day? I fell in love with the business aspect more than the playing of the game.” In due time Burgwyn did indeed create his own brand. It’s called Stitch Golf, and today it manufactures and ships worldwide more than 100,000 leather golf head covers from its headquarters in Cary. Burgwyn describes his initiative to enter the head cover niche in 2011 as attacking the “lowhanging fruit.” “Head covers are like socks — everyone has them,” Burgwyn says. “But you walk along the cart staging area at any club and look at all the bags, and the head covers are the worst part of the bag. They’ve got stuff from three different companies, they’re faded and ragged. You’ll see a guy get into an $80,000 car, but no one ever told him, ‘Your head covers are part of your attire.’ Once they realize it’s part of their attire, they fall in line and get on board.”

Burgwyn and his staff carefully monitor activity on their website, www. stitchgolf.com; in February this year they noticed a spike in sales activity on late Sunday afternoons. “People were watching on TV and saying, ‘That’s cool, where can I get that?’” he says, then references a text message he received from PGA Tour golfer Charley Hoffman that said, “Congratulations on starting a head cover revolution.” The Burgwyn family of northeastern North Carolina is nothing if not entrepreneurial. The patriarch, William Hyslop Sumner Burgwyn, lived from 1845-1913 and was a soldier, lawyer, doctor, banker and owner of electric and water utilities and a tobacco factory in Vance County. Charlie Burgwyn named his son William Hyslop Sumner Burgwyn V, and six-yearold Will, as the boy is called, suggested an off-shoot of Stitch Golf geared toward head covers for junior clubs. “He said, ‘Dad, here’s the deal: every time you sell one of these, I’m going to get three dollars,’” Burgwyn says. “My great-great-grandfather was a visionary. He had a very astute career and was involved in many things. Will seems to channel that entrepreneurial spirit. He’s in kindergarten and his favorite subject is math. My mom asked him why he liked math. He said it’s because he wants to be an entrepreneur. And his role model is not his dad, but James Goodnight [the founder of SAS].” Burgwyn acted on Will’s idea and luckily found a buyer needing a thousand head covers for a junior golf event. “Will now has $3,000 in his college fund,” he says with a smile and a touch of fatherly pride. Burgwyn grew up in Eastern North Carolina with parents who were both retailers — his dad ran a TV and electronics store and his mom a children’s clothing store. He remembers traveling to Charlotte with his mother as a young boy when she went to buy clothes for the coming season in her store in Murfreesboro and being fascinated by the business of design-

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ing and buying clothes. He loved golf as a youth as well and studied in the Professional Golf Management programs at Campbell University and N.C. State, working summers at Lochmere Golf Club in Cary and achieving PGA Class A status in 2001. Burgwyn spent nearly a decade on the road beginning in 2001 as a sales rep for Callaway Golf Apparel. He came to know golf pro shops inside and out. It intrigued him that there were plenty of caps for sale at $25 and shirts for $65 and up — but not much anyone wanted to buy at $50. “I thought that price point was very much under-served,” he says. “That got me to thinking — what can you make and sell at $50 that’s not being addressed now? That question drove me to come up with the product. This is a case of creating a product to fit the price.” Burgwyn liked the upscale leather head covers made by iliac Golf, but they fell into the $80 range, which already conflicted with shirts and sweaters. He wondered: Can you make a quality head cover and sell it for $50? In 2011 he packed a bag at his home in Cary and drove west to High Point and then to Hickory, two strongholds in the fabric, leather, textile and upholstery businesses. “I told my wife I was going to go figure out how to make leather head covers affordable,” he says. “I drove around for two days and went doorto-door to every leather company and customsewed furniture factory and asked them, ‘What do you do?’ Finally, I found some contract sewers in Hickory who were leather importers. The owner said, ‘I’ll sell you the leather and make the head covers for you.’” They talked numbers, the math worked, and Burgwyn had some prototypes made — simple designs in red, black, white, navy and khaki adorned with a racing stripe and circle-1 modeled after a vintage 1958 Porsche that struck his fancy. He dispatched them to his contacts at two of the nation’s top clubs, Winged Foot and Shinnecock Hills, and immediately landed orders. Burgwyn took his wife’s suggestion for a company name, Stitch Golf, and set up a display at the PGA Merchandise Show in January 2012. He left in two days with orders for 11,000 head covers. “I immediately knew I had a problem,” he says. “That shop in Hickory had two ladies on sewing machines. There was no way they could produce 11,000 head covers.” Within a year Burgwyn had a small manufacturing facility operating in Cary, and now Stitch Golf has two dozen employees working out of a 2,000-square-foot building. There are seven sewing machines operating during peak times, and Stitch goes through 300,000 square feet of leather a year — about 6,000 cowhides. Burgwyn hoped to sell $300,000 worth of head covers his

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first year and tripled that. The company is moving to a bigger facility in July with more than double the space. Stitch’s head covers are available in 1,200 golf shops and boutique retailers across the country, including ninety-five of the top 100 courses, and demand has been keen in Japan and South Korea, which combined account for thirty percent of the company’s business. Nearly seventy PGA Tour pros have a Stitch head cover on their drivers. “We did not invent the club cover; we just set out to make the best one ever,” says Burgwyn, the company’s CEO. “I firmly believe we build the best leather head cover in the world or else I wouldn’t do it. You can take every vendor that makes them, add up their production, and you will not reach our volume.” Burgywn and his designers have fun with colors and textures. Stitch has made head covers to resemble vintage baseball gloves, and it has purchased leather from the tannery in Chicago that makes leather for Wilson footballs for a special Super Bowl-themed cover. The majority of the leather comes from New York, Italy, Argentina and Germany. The covers have a simple, soft and slim look that contrasts with the bold and bulky covers made by the major club manufacturers. The company also makes a traditional carry bag, divot tools, shoe bags and other accessories. “The old buyers used to say, ‘Touch with your eyes first, then touch with your hands, then touch the price tag,’” Burgwyn says. “That’s a great idea. I said, ‘Let’s take it to another level.’ There are four elements to our products. If it looks good, feels good, smells good, then look at the price tag. Then you say, ‘Wow, this is a great value.’” On a recent Friday afternoon, the Stitch headquarters is abuzz with all hands on deck getting a large order out the door to the Far East. Included in the mix are Burgwyn’s father, Charles, who’s retired from a career in retailing but joined his son as COO three years ago; designer Matt Whitehead, who has a design degree from N.C. State; and Diana Nastasi, who was Burgwyn’s first hire three years ago when he learned she had a decade’s experience as global production manager for The Gap in San Francisco. “There are no ‘titles’ when we’re under the gun,” Burgwyn says. “Everyone pitches in. That’s the way it is with small business.” Remarkable that this business even exists, but leave it to someone with passions for golf, business, design and retailing to figure it out and make it work. PS Lee Pace’s book, The Golden Age of Pinehurst — The Story of the Rebirth of No. 2, is available onsite and online at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club. Follow him at @LeePaceTweet.

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The 1950s

May 2015

To know how it was in the fifties go to the nearest pay phone, deposit a dime and call home when you know no one is there. While the phone is ringing, shut your eyes and imagine at the other end of the line daffodils and sunlight (it’s always a spring morning in the fifties). Recall whatever pleases you: pineapple upside down cake, Rosemary Clooney, Glass Wax, a blue checkered tablecloth, Almond Roca, HaloLights, Gunther Beer, I Like Ike buttons, Pablum, Ann Blyth, tangerines — but you must allow the phone to ring for ten years. When no one answers, you’ll know you’ve dialed the right number. — Stephen E. Smith

Felton Capel and Voit Gilmore at the Sunrise Theater in March 2005. 60

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

Down from the Balcony

From the Archives:

April 2005

In 1962 these two gentlemen broke the race barrier and started attending local events together By Brent Hackney Photograph by Glenn Dickerson

ne evening in 1962, Voit Gilmore and Felton Capel went to the movies together at the Sunrise Theater in downtown Southern Pines. They bought their tickets at the box office on North West Broad Street and walked down the aisle and seated themselves front row center. Neither remembers what movie he saw that night. “That was the furthest thing from my mind,” said Capel with a laugh. Indeed it was. This was no ordinary trip to the movies by Gilmore and Capel, two of Southern Pines’ most distinguished business, civic and political leaders. This was a watershed event, a turning point in the history of their community. Gilmore, 87, is white. Capel, 78, is black. Their trip to the Sunrise marked the first time a black person had sat in the theater’s lower level. Until that night fortythree years ago, African-American patrons of the Sunrise bought their tickets at a window at the rear of the box office used by white people and sat in the balcony. The two recently gave an interview to PineStraw, again seated in the middle of the front row of the lower level of the Sunrise. They recalled their 1962 trip to the Sunrise, the circumstances that led up to it, and the events that followed. One of the most extraordinary aspects of that evening at the movies was that it took place without incident. No threats were directed at Gilmore or Capel by hard-core racists, and defenders of segregation mounted no protests in the aftermath of the event. This was at a time when the civil rights movement was in full flow and the South, including North Carolina, was beset by racial strife and violence.

The calm response to the integration of the Sunrise by Gilmore and Capel was probably due in large measure to the two men’s stature in the community. Gilmore, then 44, had served as mayor of Southern Pines from 1955 until 1959. He was the owner of the local Howard Johnson motel and restaurant, which he had integrated two years earlier, in 1960. His other business and civic interests were broad-based and well-known. He served as the first director on the U.S. Travel Service in the administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson during the 1960s. Capel, then 36, was at the time of the trip to the theater a member of the Southern Pines Town Council, on which he served six terms, including a stint as mayor pro tem. Like Gilmore, he was already a successful businessman, operating a cookware business that he still owns. But Gilmore says the peaceful reaction to the integration of the Sunrise said more about the community in which it took place than it did about him and Capel. “It was a tribute to the town,” Gilmore says of the low-key response. Even so, by the time Gilmore and Capel walked into the theater that night, they had done their diplomatic and political homework. Gilmore served notice on Bob Dutton, the Sunrise’s manager, in advance of their intention to integrate the facility. “All Dutton asked was that I call Charles Troxler, who owned the chain of theaters that owned the Sunrise, and let him know what we were going to do,” Gilmore said. “I called Troxler in Charlotte, and he was fine about it. I think maybe that the people who ran the theater knew that this was inevitable and were somewhat relieved at the prospect of getting it behind them.” Capel says of Gilmore’s communications with Dutton and Troxler, “Voit was a stabilizing force in all this.”

to their prominence, their sheer political skills, their personal charisma and their genuine friendship. They were two of the county’s most authoritative and admired figures. Says Capel: “Voit and I talked every day. We kept open the lines of communication between each other and with our respective constituencies. If that kind of communication hadn’t been maintained, things could have turned very ugly. Fortunately, we were dealing with a community that wanted to keep things peaceful.” Now as then, when Gilmore and Capel speak on behalf of a cause, people listen. And well they should. These two men for all seasons bring a lot of weight to the table. A native of Winston-Salem, Gilmore is one of North Carolina’s leading scholars, writers, environmentalists, philanthropists and world travelers in addition to being a heavyweight business, civic and political leader. Now a resident of Pinehurst, he holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science, and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in geography from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he serves as a distinguished professor of geography. After service in the Navy in World War II, he moved to Southern Pines and founded Four Seasons Travel Service. But Gilmore was more than just a travel agent. He quickly became one of the most traveled men in the world. He has climbed the Rockies, the Himalayas and the Andes. He has visited the North Pole aboard a Russian nuclear icebreaker and planted the American flag on the South Pole. He has

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

Sunrise Theater Photograph by John Gessner

ilmore and Capel did not, however, rest on their laurels after breaking the color barrier at the Sunrise. They weren’t finished. It wasn’t long before they integrated a Southern Pines bowling alley and the Mid Pines golf club in Southern Pines, until then one of Moore County’s many strictly segregated golf resorts. As was the case with the Sunrise, there was no resistance by the people who ran those enterprises. As with the Sunrise, Gilmore engaged in some advanced diplomacy. “I called Ernie Boros, the pro at Mid Pines (and the brother of famed PGA Tour golfer Julius Boros), ahead of time,” Gilmore said. “I told him I would be coming out to play a round of golf with Felton Capel, and I told him Felton was not going to be my caddie. And we played a round of golf together. There was no problem.” Later, Capel was instrumental in the integration of the Jack Tar Hotel, which for generations had been an all-white bastion in downtown Durham. Southern Pines and Moore County didn’t completely escape racial confrontation and violence during the 1960s and ’70s, but avoided the level of bitterness that beset so many towns, counties, cities and states in the South. That was more than good fortune. Gilmore and Capel were at least partially responsible for Moore’s relatively peaceful race relations. Together, they made it their business to be good-will ambassadors and leaders in the quest for racial harmony. The success they achieved was due in no small measure

traveled around the world so many times that he’s lost count. He is a former president of the American Society of Travel Agents. His business, political and philanthropic resumé is lengthy. After serving as mayor of Southern Pines, he was elected to two terms in the N.C. Senate in 1964 and 1966. In addition to his travel business, he founded a lumber company and was the developer of Town & Country Shopping Center in Aberdeen, one of the first shopping centers built outside a major North Carolina city. Gilmore donated the land upon which Pinecrest High School was built. In 2004, Gilmore was recipient of the North Carolina Award for Public Service, the highest honor the state can bestow. Gilmore is married to the former Jody Baldwin. He has five children and eleven grandchildren.

VCU. He is the son of Mitchell Capel, Felton’s middle son, who tours the country performing as Granddaddy Junebug. Another of Felton Capel’s sons, Ken, is in the automobile sales business in Southern Pines. Felton Capel is married to the former Jean Walden of West End. They have eight grandchildren. Both Gilmore and Capel are Democrats, but former Gov. James E. Holshouser Jr. says with tongue in cheek, “I don’t hold that against them.” Holshouser, who now lives in Pinehurst, says of the two men, “I’ve known Voit since he was in the state Senate and Felton since I moved to town. The courage they showed on the issue of integration, and just the way they’ve lived their lives, are admirable. When we look back on those things now, it doesn’t seem as remarkable as it was at the time. They were treading on ground where not many people had walked before.” William Friday, President Emeritus of the University of North Carolina, is also a friend and admirer of Gilmore and Capel. He told PineStraw: “These two distinguished North Carolinians personally exemplify the great tradition of public service in our state. They were leaders among those who carried us through a great crisis. The public is much in their debt for the many good works of their lives.” Former Gov. Jim Hunt has long been a friend of Gilmore and Capel and is an ally of both in Democratic Party politics. “Voit Gilmore and Felton Capel are two of the most energetic and visionary leaders our state has produced,” he said in an interview with PineStraw. “They have been personally and morally committed to doing what is right, and they’ve had the courage to stand up and do it when it wasn’t popular. They have been real change agents, and North Carolina is in their debt.” Another longtime friend of Gilmore and Capel is retired Southern Pines pediatrician David Bruton, who served as chairman of the State Board of Education under Hunt and later in Hunt’s cabinet as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Said Bruton, “Voit and Felton were two of a very small number of heroes throughout the South who realized that our society had to face the terrible problem of racial discrimination. Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 put us on notice that separate was inherently unequal. People like Voit and Felton led us to understand that we could accomplish integration without violence and without resorting to the courts.” Gilmore and Capel remain the closest of friends and are still in contact with each other every day. Says Capel, “I have been so fortunate to have a friend like Voit.” And Moore County is every bit as fortunate to have friends like Voit Gilmore and Felton Capel. These two men brought African-Americans out of the balcony of the Sunrise Theater, and in doing so helped usher Southern Pines and Moore County into a new era of equality, humanity, justice and brotherhood. PS

The success they achieved was due in no small measure to their prominence, their sheer political skills, their personal charisma and their genuine friendship.

apel, a native of Richmond County, served in the military during World War II in Germany and France. He then attended Hampton University in Virginia, after which he moved to Moore County. In 1959, he joined Los Angeles-based Century Metalcraft Corp. as a sales representative. In the mid-1970s, Capel and six partners bought Century Metalcraft and founded Century Associates, of which he is still president and chairman. He is also the owner of Cardinal Recreation Park. Capel has served on the boards of directors of Carolina Power & Light Co., Wachovia Bank & Trust Co., Durham Corp. and the Durham Life Insurance Co. He was inducted into the N.C. Business Hall of Fame in 1998. He has been a benefactor of Fayetteville State University for almost half a century. He has been a member and chairman of the FSU Board of Trustees and a member and chairman of the board of directors of the FSU foundation. In 1995, FSU named its sports arena the Felton J. Capel Arena. The naming of the arena was appropriate because the name Capel is synonymous with collegiate and professional basketball in North Carolina and Virginia. Capel’s oldest son, Felton Jeffrey “Jeff” Capel Jr., played college ball for FSU. He then was head coach at Pinecrest High School in Southern Pines. Next he became an assistant coach at Wake Forest before being named head coach at FSU. He later became head coach at N.C. A&T and took the Aggies to the NCAA tournament. He followed that with a stint as head coach at Old Dominion in Virginia and took ODU to the Big Dance twice. He is now an assistant coach with the NBA Charlotte Bobcats. Jeff Jr.’s son, Jeff III, started four years at point guard for Duke. One of those years, the Blue Devils were NCAA runners-up, losing in the final game on a buzzer beater by Arkansas. He later became an assistant to his father at Old Dominion and is now in his third year as head coach at Virginia Commonwealth, a school he led to the NCAA tournament one year. Jason Capel — Felton’s grandson, the son of Jeff Jr. and the brother of Jeff III, was a starter for the UNC Tar Heels and will play summer league ball for the Bobcats later this year. He is looking for a spot on an NBA roster. Another of Felton’s grandsons, Julian, is playing for his uncle, Jeff III, at

The late Brent Hackney served as long-time opinion editor for The Pilot and was founding editor of PineStraw magazine.

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

F. Scott

From the Archives:

May 2005

Quiet spring nights in Carolina By Stephen E. Smith

n November 1936, F. Scott Fitzgerald, celebrated author of The Great Gatsby and the archetypical Jazz Age bad boy, fled Baltimore to take up residence at the Skyland Hotel in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Faced with what he described as “mortgaging myself physically and spiritually up to the hilt,” he wrote a series of essays, later published as The Crack Up, in which he analyzed his intellectual, emotional and artistic collapse. When musing on the blissfully naïve young man he’d been before the 1920 success of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, he composed this sentence: “And there are still times when I creep up on him [the young Fitzgerald], surprise him on an autumn morning in New York or spring night in Carolina when it is so quiet that you can hear a dog barking in the next county.” When alluding to North Carolina (Fitzgerald spent no appreciable time in South Carolina), he may have had in mind the summer of ’35, when he lived at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, or perhaps he was recalling his periodic seclusions at the Oak Hall Hotel in Tryon. But in mentioning “a spring night in Carolina,” it’s quite possible that he was thinking of Southern Pines, where he’d visited with novelist James Boyd and his wife, Katharine, in the late spring of ’35. The mid-1930s were not a happy or prosperous time for Fitzgerald. He was heavily in debt to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, and to his agent, Harold Ober. His wife, Zelda, was confined to the Sheppard-Pratt psychiatric hospital in Baltimore, and his financial resources were drained by his high living and his daughter’s tuition at the exclusive Bryn Mawr School. The April 1934 publication of his fourth novel, Tender is the Night, brought the author only tepid reviews and little in the way of royalties. The March 1935 reception of his fourth book of short stories, Taps at Reveille, was even more dismal. Fitzgerald’s binge drinking was exacerbated by these failures, and to make matters worse, he was diagnosed with a mild case of tuberculosis. His short stories, which had always been his primary source of income, were becoming difficult to place in popular magazines. Changing literary tastes occasioned by the Great Depression and his immediate need to grind out stories for money diminished his ability to produce fiction of high literary quality. New Yorker writer James Thurber described Fitzgerald during this period as “witty, forlorn, pathetic, romantic, worried, hopeful and despondent . . .” It seems likely that Perkins — who also edited the novels of Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe — was observing Fitzgerald’s decline from a distance. Perkins enlisted the assistance of his genteel third cousin Elizabeth Lemmon and his friend James Boyd in an attempt to bolster Fitzgerald’s flagging spirits and to cajole the alcoholic novelist into becoming a better citizen. Boyd, the Southern Pines author of the historical novels Marching On, Roll

River, The Long Hunt and Drums, was urged by Perkins to look up Fitzgerald in Baltimore. On March 9, 1935, Fitzgerald wrote to Perkins in New York acknowledging Boyd’s ministrations: “I’ve seen Jim Boyd and we’ve had several meals together. He’s an awfully nice fellow.” And on March 11 he wrote to Perkins again: “By the way, we had sort of a Scribner congeries here last night. Jim Boyd and Elizabeth [Lemmon] came to supper . . .” The surviving Fitzgerald-Boyd correspondence, cataloged now in the Princeton University Library, begins with a March 26, 1935 letter from Fitzgerald to Boyd, written no doubt in response to Boyd’s invitation to visit Southern Pines. “. . . I’d love to spend a day or two with you if things are breaking right,” he wrote. Fitzgerald, who wasn’t shy about expounding on his troubles — he had no doubt done so with Boyd while they were together in Baltimore — received a letter posted the same day in which Boyd commiserated with him: “Back here I see how much you did in the middle of troubles of your own to get me through the siege in Baltimore . . .” Thus the Boyd-Fitzgerald friendship, contrived though it may have been, began to blossom. At the end of April, Fitzgerald wrote to Perkins acknowledging the receipt of Boyd’s most recent novel, Roll River, and on May 2, he penned a letter to Boyd concerning the novel’s shortcomings. “I could say a hell of a lot of nice things about the book, but in view of the fine press you are beginning to get I want to make a few cavils.” Boyd probably found Fitzgerald’s lengthy, detailed criticisms a trifle irksome — even condescending — but the letter is pseudo-avuncular in tone and occasionally tempered with praise: “This letter should be really to congratulate you on a fine book . . .” Fitzgerald wrote. He closed by inquiring as to the Boyds’ whereabouts during the coming summer. On May 4, Boyd wrote to Fitzgerald, responding in detail and with admirable restraint to each of Fitzgerald’s criticisms. He concluded his letter by invitation again to a Fitzgerald visit to Southern Pines: “I’d like to see you though on general principles. So, as you are a man of good heart, let me know if it is likely.” Indeed, it was likely. Fitzgerald visited with the Boyds at their Southern Pines home, now the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, sometime between mid-May and the latter part of June 1935. James Boyd’s June 26 letter to Fitzgerald continues a discussion concerning the structure and aesthetics of the novel — a discussion that had taken place during Fitzgerald’s visit to Southern Pines. “We’re here right along,” Boyd continued. “Come by again and take your ease.” Fitzgerald, always a stickler for social niceties, especially when apologizing for his bad behavior, wrote a thank-you note on stationery from Baltimore’s Hotel Stafford dated simply “Summer 1935.” During his visit, it would seem

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

that Fitzgerald had again explicated his many troubles: “In better form I might have been a better guest,” he wrote with typical candor, “but you couldn’t have been better hosts even at the moment when anything that wasn’t absolutely — that wasn’t near perfect made me want to throw a brick at it. One sometimes needs tolerance at a moment when he has least himself.” The only other clue to the discussion is a reference to “young Burt” (Nathaniel Burt was writer Maxwell Struthers Burt’s teenage son; their home was located a block away from the Boyd house): “So if you ever get in doubt about anything about the theory of the novel,” Fitzgerald wrote sarcastically, “consult young Burt — he will set you straight.” In August, Fitzgerald wrote from the Grove Park Inn in Asheville to acknowledge that he’d read Boyd’s Long Hunt and “liked it.” With typical haughtiness, he mitigated his praise: “I have quarrels with it as I have with every book ever written, especially my own.” But the friendship between Boyd and Fitzgerald had deepened enough for Fitzgerald to mention an ill-fated love affair he’d carried on at the Grove Park with a wealthy married woman. “I have just emerged not totally unscathed, I’m afraid, from a short violent love affair which will account for the somewhat sentimental cadence of this letter . . .”

ow long Fitzgerald visited in the Sandhills in the summer of 1935 is lost to memory. His literary reputation was at a low ebb, and The Pilot of Southern Pines — which was not owned by the Boyds at the time of Fitzgerald’s visit — and The Pinehurst Outlook made no mention of his stay. It is possible, however, that Fitzgerald returned to the area in 1938. In his Letters to His Daughter there is a note dated “Spring 1938” suggesting they spend Easter in Pinehurst: “I think your Pinehurst suggestion is rather good for Easter. Jim Boyd lives at Southern Pines next door; in fact, he owns most of it. We might do a few days there and a few days in Virginia Beach.” In a 1998 interview, the late Jo Roberts of Pinehurst recalled picking up Fitzgerald at Twin Gables, the Faber house in Pinehurst, during the spring of ’38: “I believe it was the year before I got married,” Roberts recalled, “so it must have been 1938. I remember clearly that Fitzgerald jumped over the hedge before I could drive in to pick him up. He was wearing white duck trousers and a blue jacket, and he was staying with Eberhard Faber, the pencil king of America, on McCaskill Road in Pinehurst. We went to a cocktail party at Nat Hurd’s — Nat owned a house behind The Village Chapel — and Fitzgerald was the center of attention. We had a delightful evening, and he stayed sober the entire time. After that I never saw him again. His wife was in the hospital. He was on his way to see her, I think.” Pinehurst lawyer Fay Neville recalls a story told to him by his stepfather: “My stepfather, Livingston Bittle, was at Princeton about the time Fitzgerald was there, and he’d always tell me an anecdote about one of Fitzgerald’s visits

to Pinehurst. My stepfather said that Fitzgerald said to him, ‘They tell me you’re an honest man. I’m going to get very drunk tonight, and I want you to hold this 200 bucks for me for the weekend so I’ll have it when I leave.’” The Neville family enjoyed a close relationship with Fitzgerald. Sigourney Fay, Fay Neville’s uncle, was a surrogate father to Fitzgerald and was the model for Monsignor Darcy in This Side of Paradise. Fay’s mother, Susan Bittle, became friends with Fitzgerald when he was a frequent dinner guest at their home in Philadelphia. Fitzgerald’s numerous biographies note that Zelda, Scott and their daughter, Scottie, spent a few miserable days at a hotel in Virginia Beach shortly before Easter ’38. Scott and Zelda got into one of their infamous drunken quarrels, but there’s no mention of Scott Fitzgerald leaving Virginia Beach for Pinehurst, and in a subsequent letter to Scottie, there’s no reference to a Pinehurst visit. Unfortunately, Roberts’ and Bittle’s anecdotal recollections don’t provide absolute confirmation of Fitzgerald’s second visit. Joan Blake, Roberts’ daughter, believes her mother may have been recalling Fitzgerald’s ’35 visit to the area. Livingston Bittle may have done the same. Fitzgerald scholar Dr. Matthew Bruccoli cannot place Fitzgerald in Pinehurst during Easter ’38 “with any certainty.” Still, a second visit can’t be discounted. Did Maxwell Perkins’ intercessions on Fitzgerald’s behalf have a positive effect on the author’s conduct? Was James Boyd successful in moderating Fitzgerald’s addictive behavior? It seems unlikely. The Jazz Age author remained self-destructive and continued binge drinking for the remainder of his life. Immediately following his ’35 visit to Southern Pines, Fitzgerald split his time between Asheville and Baltimore. He lived from July to December 1936 at the Grove Park Inn (Zelda was hospitalized at nearby Highland Hospital), drinking and carousing as usual and producing little work of which he was proud. From January to June 1937, he lived at the Oak Hall Hotel in Tryon. The final years of his life were spent in Hollywood as a contract writer for the movie studios. He died there of a heart attack in December 1940 at the age of 44. Zelda perished in a fire at Highland Hospital in March 1948. She is buried next to her husband in St. Mary’s church cemetery in Rockville, Maryland. Although his books were out of print at the time of his death, F. Scott Fitzgerald is now acknowledged as one of the most renowned and influential American writers of the 20th century. His works are read and studied around the world. James Boyd survived Fitzgerald by four years, when he too succumbed to a heart attack in February 1944. His historical novels are long forgotten, but his literary legacy lives on in the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, which is now, as it was in the spring of 1935, a gathering place for writers. PS PineStraw’s Poet Laureate Stephen E. Smith is a longtime contributor whose witty book reviews and history pieces have dazzled us for years. A poem from his latest book, A Short Report on the Fire at Woolworths, appears on page 59.

The Case of the Missing Golden Boy A Gorgeous Babe, a Stolen Icon . . .

From the Archives:

August 2009

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

P i n e S t r a w A u g u st 2 0 0 9

True Pulp Fiction By Dusty R hoades Photographs by Tim Sayer

“I

t’s a beautiful day in Pinehurst,” my receptionist chirped. I sighed. “Try again, sweetheart.” “Oh,” she said, sounding flustered. “Sorry, boss. I mean, B and N Detective Agency.” Before signing on with me, Gladys had spent ten years working the front desk at one of the big hotels. It looked like old habits died hard. “Try to get it right, OK?” I said. “Sorry. You want your messages?” “Yeah,” I said. “That’s why I called.” “You don’t have any.” I sighed again. I was going to hyperventilate soon if I kept doing that. “But you do have a lady waiting,” she went on. I perked up a bit. “A client?” “Well, she doesn’t look like a bill collector. For a change.” “I’ll be right in.”

Gladys was right. The lady seated in the outer office didn’t look like a bill collector. She looked even more expensive. She was a blonde with a body that made a man think of all the deadly sins except pride. And maybe sloth. I stuck on a professional smile and stuck out my hand. “Glad to meet you, Miss . . .” “Baudelaire. Candida Baudelaire.” The name sounded phony, but if the clothes were any indication of what she was used to paying for things, she could call herself Petunia Pig and I’d at least hear her story. “I’m Bogey Nineiron,” I said. “Won’t you come in, Miss Baudelaire?” She followed me into my tiny office and took a seat. If she was impressed by the worn-out desk and threadbare furnishings, she hid it well. “I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but you have a very unusual last name.” I slid into my own chair behind the desk. “My ancestors were from Italy. The original family name was Inneroni. When they came through Ellis Island, they had the bad luck to be processed through by an immigration official with dyslexia.” “That’s terrible!” I shrugged. “It could have been worse. But enough about me. Tell me, what can I do for you?” She took out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “It’s all so messed up. I don’t know where to turn.” I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a pint of bourbon and two glasses. I poured us both a generous slug. Ever the gentleman, I gave her the clean glass. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, and we’ll take it from there?” She downed the bourbon in one gulp. Her eyes bugged out a little and she had trouble catching her breath for a moment. “That’s really awful,” she said in a strangled voice. Despite her distaste for the stuff, the booze seemed to have loosened her tongue. And probably a layer of her tooth enamel as well. “I need you to find something for me.” I leaned back in my chair. “What sort of object?” “A statue. A small boy, putting a golf ball.” “That’s easy. You can buy them in a half-dozen gift shops around here.” She shook her head. “Not this one. This one is special.” “How so?” She didn’t answer right away. She looked out the window and chewed her lip

thoughtfully. It made me envy her teeth. “I can’t tell you that,” she said finally. “Then I can’t take the job, sister. I don’t like clients who hide things from me.” She abruptly got up. “Then,” she said. “ I guess I won’t need your services after all.” Before I could protest, she was out the door and gone. “Screwy dame,” I said, and poured myself another shot.

Later that day, as I was locking the front door of the office, a young man walked up. He was dressed in a cheap suit that hung off his bony frame like clothes on a scarecrow. But it wasn’t his sartorial inelegance that held my interest. It was the small black pistol in his right hand. “My boss wants a word with you,” he said. “Here’s a word, then,” I said. “Make an appointment.” “That’s three words, genius,” he snapped. There was no arguing with that. Or with the gun. He led me to the curb, where a limo sat waiting, engine rumbling like a large and contented cat. The gunman opened the back door and motioned me inside. One whole side of the back seat was taken up by the largest man I’ve ever seen. He’d better not ever wear yellow, I thought, or people would be trying to flag him down, yelling “Taxi!” His double chins had double chins. He was so fat that I was willing to bet his graduation picture was an aerial view. I suddenly wished I’d brought a notebook with me, so I could write some of this material down. “Come in, Mr. Nineiron,” he said in a voice that sounded like he’d been gargling with gravel. “I am in,” I said. He chuckled. “Capital, Mr. Nineiron, capital. I like a man with a keen grasp of the obvious.” “Then I’m your boy.” He chuckled again, but the effect was spoiled as the rumbling sound quickly devolved into a hacking, gargling cough. “It’s the pollen,” I said. “It gets everyone at first.” “Dreadful stuff,” he wheezed. Cleared of the congestion, his voice was no longer gravelly, but high and slightly lisping. “You were visited today by a young lady,” he said. I decided to play it cagey. “If you say so,” I answered. “Admirable, Mr. Nineiron, admirable. I like a man who realizes that he has to play his clients’ affairs close to his vest.” He poured a drink from the mini-bar. “She asked you to find an object for her. A statue.” “And what if she did?” “You should be aware that the object in question does not belong to her.” “How do you know Miss Baudelaire?” “She was once employed by me as a bookkeeper.” “But no more?” “Let’s just say it was more than her accounts that were unbalanced. Let’s just say that she’d let anyone make an entry in her ledger. Let’s just say . . . ” “I get it,” I said. Everyone was a comedian today. “In any case, I took her into my confidence, sir, and she repaid me with betrayal.” “Well, it’s not like it matters,” I said. “She didn’t hire me.” “Indeed. Perhaps you would be interested in my hiring you to find the object.” “OK. I get seven hundred a day, plus expenses.” “Excellent. I like a man who knows his worth. Too many men know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” “Wow. You sure like a lot of people.” Actually the usual rate was five hundred a day, but I figured the extra two hundred would be fair compensation for having to listen to this guy’s deranged rambling.

“If you produce results, Mr. Nineiron, you will find me most amiable.” “So tell me, Mr . . .” I paused. “My name is not germane.” “Like I told the girl, I don’t work for people who hide things from me.” “No, I mean my name is Knott Germane.” “You’re kidding me.” He looked sour. “I wouldn’t be casting stones if I were you, sir.” “Good point. So what about the statue? What makes it so important?” He lit a cigar. “What do you know of the village of Pinehurst?” “They play a lot of golf, I hear. And they do pretty well at it.” “‘Pretty well’ is putting it mildly. They are rolling in wealth, sir. And several years ago, on the chairman’s birthday, they conceived of the idea of sending him a statue.” “The putter boy.” “But not just any putter boy, sir. This one was made of solid gold.” “Wow.” “And, well, you might say wow. But the statue never reached its destination. It was stolen, sir, taken right from under their noses. It has since passed through a variety of hands. Along the way, possibly to disguise its true worth, it acquired a coating of brass, or possibly lead. And,” he leaned back and tried to look impressive, “they say it is cursed.” “Cursed how?” “Everyone who comes into possession of it dies badly. At one point, it was owned by a man named McCloughlin. He was racing at the harness track when . . . well, it wasn’t pretty.” “Bad crash?” “Horse slipped on a banana peel.” “Poor beast.” “Oh, the horse was fine. Finished the race alone, in fact. Poor McCloughlin would have survived, too, were it not for the curse.” “How did the curse . . .” “The ambulance taking him to the hospital stalled on the railroad tracks.” “Ouch.” “Indeed. The last owner was a man named Konrath, who worked in a brewery. Shortly after procuring the object from a pawnbroker unaware of its value, Konrath fell into a vat of beer and drowned. It was a slow death.” “Still,” I said “a fitting way to go.” “It would have been quicker if he hadn’t had to get out three times to use the restroom.” “Good thing I don’t believe in curses.” “Yes,” he said contemplatively. “Good thing.” I got out of the car. “I’ll report back when I have news,” I said. “I’ll be waiting,” he said.

It was a short drive back to my condo. I was surprised to find Candida Baudelaire waiting for me. “Hiya, doll,” I said. “Don’t hiya me,” she said furiously. “He’s been to see you, hasn’t he? The fat man.” “Maybe he has, and maybe he hasn’t,” I said. “What’s it to you?” “Everything,” she cried, then burst into tears. “He can’t get the statue,” she sobbed. “He can’t! I’ll do anything to keep it out of his hands!” “Anything?” I said. She came closer, looking up at me with those baby blues. “Anything,” she breathed.

“This isn’t quite what I expected,” she complained a few hours later. She handed the completed tax form to me. “Sign here. And here.” “Hey, I’ve been putting off doing my taxes, and then you came along. It was like fate.” “Uh-huh. Your records are a mess, by the way.” “I wouldn’t know. I never look at them.” There was a knock at the door. She shrank back as if afraid. “Don’t answer it.” “Why not?” I said as I pulled the door open. There was a short man with bulging eyes and a

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

Models Dusty Rhoades and Lucinda Stanley Hair by Andy Pellegrino Makeup by Jill Landingham Costuming By Showboat Costumes PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2015

bad haircut standing there. He had a gun in his hand. “That’s why not,” she said.

“I suppose you’re here about the statue,” I said as the little man finished tying my hands to one of the kitchen chairs. He’d already bound my ankles securely. Candida Baudelaire was a few feet away, similarly secured to the other kitchen chair. “Yes,” he said in an oily voice. His accent was hard to place. Possibly New Jersey. “Where is the putter boy?” “I don’t have it,” I said. “Liar!” he hissed. I was impressed. It’s hard to hiss a word without any s’s in it. “Yes!” Candida spoke up. “He’s lying! He has it!” He turned to her. “And you know where it is, yes?” She nodded. “I can get it for you. Just untie me.” He thought it over. “And why should I trust you?” She batted her eyes at him. “Why Mr. Damascus, you know I’ve always been sweet on you. Perhaps we could be . . . partners?” It would have taken a man made of steel to resist a come-on like that, and Damascus didn’t have that kind of mettle. He was practically drooling as he knelt to untie her. “Thank you,” she said sweetly. Then she kicked him in the head. “Good work, sweetheart,” I said as I saw him laid out unconscious on the floor. “Now untie me.” She didn’t answer me, just picked up Damascus’ gun. She advanced on me with the gun in her hand and a wistful expression on her face. “Come on, precious,” I said. “Quit kidding around.” “You dumb sap,” she said as she clouted me on the side of the head with the gun. I awoke with a throbbing head. It really wasn’t fair to wake up feeling like that without at least having had some fun the night before. It was then I noticed the gun lying on the floor, next to a pool of blood. I was still staring at it when the cops burst through the door.

The District Attorney was a brassy red-haired dame who apparently wasn’t fond of private eyes. “Out with it, Nineiron,” she demanded. “Geez, lady,” I said. “This is so sudden. Can’t you at least buy me dinner first?” “Can the wisecracks, pal,” she said. “The neighbors heard a shot. The police break in to find you lying next to a gun that’s been fired, with blood all over the carpet. What am I supposed to deduce from that?” “That I’m not getting my security deposit back?” She looked like she was ready to punch me. “Look,” I said. “I’m on a case.” “What kind?” she demanded. “The kind where I apparently have no idea what’s going on.” “That doesn’t narrow it down much.” “Tell me about it. But let me do my job, and I promise you, I’ll turn over whatever I get.” Her eyes narrowed. “OK. But you better not jerk me around, Bogey.” “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

As I drove away from the sheriff’s office, a feeling of depression came over me. Truth was, I really didn’t have any idea where the golden putter boy was, and had no idea where to start. I decided to go have a look at the original. Maybe it would give me some inspiration. It stood at the edge of a green space that was so flat and closely mowed it looked like a pool table. I drew closer. It was such a little thing, really, but it

meant a lot to so many people. There was a lot of history in this place, and in all of the other places in this area. Something caught my eye. Something shiny at the foot of the statue, where the foot met the base. I bent over to look.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. I had gathered all three of them in my office. Candida Baudelaire sat in the client chair. Knott Germane stood by the window, and the mysterious Mr. Damascus lurked by the door. Damascus’ arm was in a sling where Baudelaire had plugged him with the gun. I suspected they’d come to some arrangement, but it looked like a shaky one. All three sets of eyes were fixed on the golden figure that sat in the center of my desk. “That is the object, sir? You’re sure?” From the way he licked his lips avariciously, I could tell the question from Knott was just a formality. He was sure what it was. “Of course it’s the one, you idiot,” Damascus said. He moved to pick it up. Baudelaire leapt up and made her own grab for it. Knott crossed the room in a couple of quick strides and laid a hand on it as well. The three of them tussled over it, grunting and swearing. The door burst open and two cops rushed in, followed by the District Attorney. “Drop it!” one of the cops barked. They did. Then each of them looked in shock at their hands. Every palm was a light shade of gold. “Paint!” Damascus squealed. “Shoot,” I said. “I should have let it dry longer.” “It’s a phony!” Knott bellowed. “That’s right,” the DA said. “A phony. And you people are in big trouble.” “For what?” Baudelaire said. “Counterfeiting and trademark infringement. We take that sort of thing seriously around here.” She gestured to the cops. “Lock ’em up, boys.” As they handcuffed the trio, Baudelaire looked at me. “Oh, Bogey,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “How could you?” “It was easy, sweetheart,” I said. “I’m willing to overlook a lot. But when you whack me in the head with a gun and try to frame me, I figure the honeymoon’s over.” She was cursing a blue streak as they led her out. “Good work, Nineiron,” the DA said grudgingly. “But from now on, let the professionals handle this sort of thing.” “Yes ma’am,” I said earnestly. Maybe a little too earnestly, judging from her suspicious look. “Say,” she said. “Whatever happened to the real golden putter boy?” I shrugged. “Guess we’ll never know.” “Uh-huh,” she said. “Keep your nose clean, shamus.” I nodded. “As a tin whistle, ma’am.”

I stood at the edge of the green again, looking at the statue of the little putter boy. I’d managed to sneak up in the middle of the night and apply enough paint to the statue’s foot to disguise the area where the gold peeked through from beneath the damaged shell of metal. Now, I stood looking him over, under a brilliant blue sky with a few scattered clouds. I examined my handiwork. Looked like his secret was safe. I don’t know who had the little guy last, or why they’d decided to hide it in plain sight where the original used to stand. But it looked like they weren’t coming back for it. Maybe the curse had caught up with them. It seemed to me that the golden boy had brought enough bad luck to people. “Now that you’re back home,” I told him softly, “maybe that’ll change.” I heard a golfer behind me swearing at a missed putt. “Or maybe not.” PS Dusty Rhoades lives, wtites and practices law in a Carthage. He has had six mystery-thriller novels published. His most recent book, The Devils And Dust, is available in fine bookstores everywhere.

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

The Hidden Magic of

Midland Road

By Jim Dodson

ne brisk and golden morning not long ago, I set off along Midland Road to see what I could learn about the most beloved road in the Sandhills. Like many longtime residents, I’ve known and admired the tranquil beauty of this serene, pine-girdled double-road since I was young, but part of me has long sensed that I didn’t fully comprehend what makes it so unique, such a byway of the human heart. Measuring just a fraction over six miles in length, beginning at the feet of one church and ending in the shadow of another, it is, without question, one of the most historic roads in North Carolina, believed by many to be the first divided road ever built in rural America. Whether or not that’s true, over the course of its long life, the most distinctive road in Moore County has been known by a variety of affectionate names including, “The Double Road,” “Moore’s Park Avenue” and “The Road in the Pines.” Owing to the famous golf courses and handsome residences scattered along its length, the road has even been favorably compared to Monterey Peninsula’s famed “17-Mile Drive,” which might strike some as artful over-reaching given Midland’s relatively modest size and the absence of a visible sea. Yet it may not be too far off target when you consider that the road that has led generations of visitors and worshipful golf pilgrims to the self-described “Home of Golf in America” and that the secular shrine of Donald Ross’s famed Pinehurst No. 2 — directly past the front door of Donald Ross’s own house, no less — exists smack in the middle of a long-vanished prehistoric seabed. No less than nine golf courses lie directly along the road, while more than one-third of the county’s celebrated courses can be accessed via it, and though golf was certainly a driving factor in the development of the rich and varied life one finds today along its length, it is by no means the only one. The road has a storied if somewhat forgotten history as colorful as any highway in the state. Yet nature herself may have played the boldest hand in shaping this splendid byway. The sandy track that Pinehurst founder James Walker Tufts most likely chose to follow due west from the nascent “spa” town of Southern Pines in June of 1895 was, in fact, the remains of an old Indian and buffalo trail used by the region’s native peoples and migrating herds. During the Colonial era of expansion, set-

From the Archives:

December 2008

tlers from the Cape Fear used the same footpath as part of the famed Yadkin Trail to seek their fortunes in the wilder unexplored areas of western Carolina. One bit of fanciful lore holds that, in his big push to break the back of the Continental Army, Lord Cornwallis lost a cannon that bogged down in a swampy area near the eastern end of today’s Midland Road. No documentation exists to confirm or deny the tale. But Midland Road has always been a road where schemes were hatched and dreams were made and many were lost in time. “The life that’s come and gone along this road is rather amazing,” said Emily Hewson, a realtor who lives in a cottage next door to her sister Paula Meyer in a family complex her great Uncle Samuel originally built in the pines off Midland Road as a hunting lodge for his friends and dogs in the days just after the Wall Street crash of 1929. “Yet almost magically the road somehow seems to stay the same. It’s our leading landmark and has a mystique and charm all its own. I truly believe Midland Road is the spiritual heart of the Sandhills — an intimate and very human road that links anyone who travels the road to a lot of history that is both hidden and visible.”

was thinking of Emily’s beguiling characterization as I dropped in on Susan Wright’s morning preschool class at the Little People’s Loving and Learning Center at Southern Pines United Methodist Church. The first signpost officially designating the eastern starting point of Midland stands mere yards from the playground where a dozen of Wright’s 4-year-olds were climbing on the outdoor gym. Three years ago, not long after I returned to town, I attended Sunday services at Southern Pines United Methodist and found a church family in turmoil. Membership was in decline and members were openly worried about the absence of young families. The subject of interim pastor Vernon Tyson’s sermon that warm summer day was, in effect, “How to Bring a Church Back to Life.” Building a community that served young families and those in need would help bring new members down the road and back to church, Tyson said. “I remember those days all too well,” said Wright. “But it wasn’t long after that that we started the preschool program,

and every year the church would grow even more than the year before.” Today, with pastor Tommy Sweeley and a robust church family of more than 800 regular congregants, the church presiding over Midland’s eastern flank serves the needs of more than sixty area families through its food bank and outreach programs and boasts one of the most active youth ministries in the region. According to Cleve May, the young minister in charge of looking after new members, forty-five families joined the church just last year. “The rebirth has been wonderful to watch,” allowed Susan Wright, who started the preschool when her daughter was 3. “We started with a handful of children and a couple of volunteer parents and now have over forty-five preschoolers spread over four different classes, and we’re in the process of expanding even more.” She paused, moving to assist a young man dangling from the monkey bars, and glances down the slope at Midland Road. “I love the fact that we look out over this end of Midland Road,” she said with a grateful smile. “This church means so much to the people who come to it along that road. It’s really a place of the heart.”

ust up the hill, Mid Pines Inn and Golf Club, not unlike its lovely sister resort, Pine Needles, just across Midland Road, resides in an unapologetic time warp that was perhaps the original intent of the Tufts family when — eager to create a smaller, quieter retreat away from the boisterous Jazz Age crowds that flooded the Carolina Hotel and Pinehurst every winter season — they hired architect Aymar Emory to design the tidy bandbox of a hotel, and Donald Ross to create a golf course that remains remarkably true to the way it looked upon opening in November of 1922. For many students of the game, owing to Dame Peggy Kirk Bell and her family’s dedication to keeping the glory of a simpler time alive, Mid Pines remains one of the most magical spots in all of golf. Just off the tenth fairway of the Mid Pines golf course, not far from the intersection at Pee Dee Road, sits Longleaf Cottage, once owned by Judge Way, whose main residence was actually the white cottage around the corner at Crest and Pee Dee. For a time during the Great Depression, Way operated the largest orchid nursery on the East Coast, shipping more than 250 orchids to customers every day. The greenhouses still exist behind Way’s home on Pee Dee Road, a residence that also served as the first home of the Sandhills Woman’s Exchange before it moved to Midland Road in Pinehurst. In the early days of the Pinehurst Resort, an electric trolley linked the Seaboard train depot in Southern Pines to the inns and hotels of Pinehurst for 15 cents each way or eight trips for $1. The trolley made a loop from the swank Pine Woods Inn that occupied a bluff above downtown Southern Pines and proceeded across what would eventually be the eighth fairway of Knollwood Golf Club, the centerpiece of one of the first major housing developments on Midland Road until it hooked up with the well-traveled sand-rutted road that led to Pinehurst. Most of the resort’s caddies walked that road twice a day to earn their crust carrying bags for the golfing elite. A couple of factors ended the trolley’s run. First was a dispute that erupted when the Pinehurst Railroad Corporation had a sign brazenly erected at the Southern Pines Depot announcing it would hence be called “Pinehurst Junction.” An indignant Southern Pines citizenry threatened suit and called for boycotts. The dust settled only when Leonard Tufts intervened and promised to remove the offending sign. Tufts also put up the money for improving the clay-sand road linking the village and town — though he only agreed to pay for the Pinehurst half of the project. A Stanley Steamer — forerunner of the legendary “Happy Bus” — soon replaced the derailed Pinehurst Trolley. The first James Boyd, the celebrated Weymouth author’s grandfather and Southern Pines’ leading benefactor, put up the remaining sum to complete the road. In the early 1920s, Leonard Tufts and a group of investors bought the old Van Lindley orchards surrounding the road and laid out a major housing development that offered 4.6-acre lots for $1,500. It was called Midland Farms. About this time, the name “Midland Road” first appeared on maps.

he road’s modern profile was created by state road commissioner Frank Page’s decision in 1928 to double the existing road and create two lanes with a green strip median or “parkland” center, a “double boulevard” made from crushed rock and oil. “When work on this highway is completed,” Page, a son of Aberdeen, boasted to the Sandhills Citizen newspaper, “it will be the finest stretch of highway in the South.” The local Kiwanis Club paid workers 50 cents a day to plant longleaf pines and flowering shrubs along its length. For a time, an airstrip was planned for a section of what first became Midland Farms and later Longleaf. Beginning around the time the road was improved by Frank Page, many of the Midland Farms lots — which eventually yielded to housing and golf developments that became Talamore, Midland and Longleaf — were acquired by James Barber, of Barber Steamship fame, who envisioned building a Donald Ross golf course beginning roughly where Longleaf’s fourteenth hole exists today. That course was never built, and Barber’s land became instead a prominent steeplechase course where the Sandhills Cup was held every March from 1935 to 1943. “In 1948, a golf pro named Leo Walper opened the Parhaven Golf Range along what is now the third hole of the golf course,” explained Jean Walker, Longleaf’s de facto historian. “Many of the golfers who came here remembered that little golf range with a lot of affection, though it didn’t last too long.” In the 1950s, Pinehurst horseman L. P. Tate and his wife, Anne Cannon Reynolds, bought the land and established a nationally known thoroughbred training and stable facility called Starland Farm, erecting the white fences that stand to this day. The Mid South Horse Show that L.P. Tate conducted there until the late 1960s attracted the leading horse people in America, and Starland Farm trained and wintered several national racing champions, including Deputed Testamony, winner of the 1983 Preakness. The steeplechase that ran there was the forerunner of the Stoneybrook Steeplechase, a beloved fixture of the spring social scene in the Sandhills to this day. In 1988, after years of struggle between local residents who wanted the tree-lined road to retain its elegant rural character and developers who saw a bonanza in developing the old Starland property, L.P Tate’s famous race track morphed into the Longleaf residential community, home to 700 housing units and a 6,600-yard golf course designed by native son Dan Maples. “I still think about the old Starland Farm,” L.P. acknowledged not long ago. “We had such good times and people there.”

enture behind the Carolina Eye clinic and you’ll happen upon a strange and sad sight: a once-lovely English cottage now abandoned and overgrown by weeds and vines. “That was once the residence of the owners of The Archers Company,” Jean Walker provided as we poked around the cottage. Persuaded by Richard Tufts to locate from New Orleans to the sporting rich Sandhills in 1926, The Archers Company arrived on Midland Road and began producing bows and arrows made from exotic woods and shipping them around the world. The factory, standing where Carolina Eye sits today, was housed in a modest stone building originally designed to have Old World European turrets. But within a short time, The Archers Company folded and a Sandhills legend took its place — the infamous Dunes Club. From the end of the Second World War until it mysteriously burned in July 1979, The Dunes Club defined the hidden glamour of Midland Road. It was also one of the hottest gambling joints on the East Coast. “The club was perfectly situated between the jurisdictions of Southern Pines and Pinehurst,” pointed out Emily Hewson, “so it was never clear whose job it was to raid the place. Everyone in town went there. That was the place to see and be seen.”

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

According to Dunes Club lore, whenever state officials felt the need to crack down on illegal booze and gambling, local authorities thoughtfully phoned ahead to alert owner Karl Andrews and his staff so they could cover up the roulette wheel and poker tables and warn patrons who might wish to “retire” from the scene. The resulting tales of naughty socialites climbing out of bathroom windows became the stuff of local legend.

ome who have known Midland Road longest still have strong feelings about the controversial Traffic Circle, which was first created in the late 1950s and expanded dramatically in the 1970s. During periodic efforts by the state to “improve” traffic flow along the road by clearing the aforementioned pine trees, homegrown activists took their campaign to save Midland’s pines all the way to Raleigh. One group successfully petitioned the governor to have unsightly road signs removed from the circle, and a famous lady even chained herself to a group of trees that were scheduled to be cut down. The circle, in any case, seems to spiritually demarcate a formerly rowdy part of Midland Road from a far more sedately cultivated section — a fact that is all too apparent as you mosey toward the village of Pinehurst along a suddenly treeless median, past the site of the long-gone Golf Hall of Fame, and make the gentle curve past Donald Ross’s old house into the cloistered lanes of Pinehurst Village proper. Talk to an old-timer and you’ll learn the streets were laid out in a curving pattern and left unmarked for decades to dissuade unwanted visitors. In more ways than one, you have traveled between two worlds in just six short miles. With famed No. 2 suddenly on your left, the modern road curiously changes names on road posts for no apparent reason, briefly becoming Palmetto and Azalea roads, until, just around a turn by the historic Woman’s Exchange — a landmark institution that has served artisan women since the late 1920s — the road once again becomes Midland Road on the signpost. I finished my investigative amble along the famed Double Road by stopping at The Village Chapel to see if I could find anyone who could tell me something I’ve long wondered about — namely, why there is a large clock mounted on the balcony of the historic church whose carillon marks the passage of every hour with a memorable hymn. Inside, the Family Service choir was having rehearsal. I sat in a pew and listened as they ran through a gorgeous repertoire of hymns and finished with a rousing version of “Go Tell it on the Mountain.” After their dismissal, I asked choir director Darlene Skinner about the clock. “The story I always heard was that, this being Pinehurst, the ministers could be reminded that people in the congregation might have luncheon or tee times to get to. But I have no idea if that’s true or not,” she said with a laugh, walking me to the church’s wide front door. Outside, a beautiful twilight was creeping over Midland Road. “I’ll tell you something else most people never realize though,” Darlene added with a wry smile, pointing up. “There is a rooster on the very top of the church’s steeple. Most people have no idea it’s even there. It’s a rooster keeping watch.” I looked and it was true. Somehow, passing that church hundreds of times, I’d never seen it before. I will never look at the church or the road quite the same. PS Editor Jim Dodson claims that his best ideas come when he’s in transit, roaming the back roads between PineStraw and its sister publications. He takes Midland Road every chance he gets.

The Dunes Club

Above: Ladies making arrows at the Archers Co. Right: Pinehurst-Southern Pines Trolley

An early roadside guide to Pinehurst hotels

Trailriders and autos share the highway, circa 1935

The Rise and Fall of

From the Archives:

March 2007

The Dunes Club, the Sandhills’ Premier Night Spot

n July of 1926, Richard Tufts persuaded the Archers Company of New Orleans to move their operations and open a small factory on Midland Road. It was an unheralded event that eventually opened the doors to what would become one of the most famous gambling joints in the United States. Richard Rounsevelle and a handful of his employees opened the Archers Company factory; they began shipping over 300 varieties of fine, exotic woods from Cuba, Surinam, Scotland and other far-flung locales, to create and sell archery goods. The bows were strung with flax from Italy. Bow feathers came from Texas turkeys. The building housing the operations was 25’ x 100’ in area, with a full basement and made out of solid stone, built on ten acres of land. According to the Pinehurst Outlook, the factory was “set back well from the road to leave room in front for an addition which will be modeled after some of the old European castles and built of stone also . . . to present a striking appearance from the road and arouse a general(sic) interest.” Located about two miles from Pinehurst, it was built by A.B. Sally, “right on the Double Boulevard” between Pinehurst and Southern Pines. An archery range adjoined the building. Archery was very popular for several years and the guests even played archery golf, planting bull’s eyes over the golf holes and using bows and arrows instead of golf clubs, but, by the early ’30s, the Archers Company was struggling and finally closed their

doors. The building wasn’t empty for long. Karl Andrews was a native of Canandaigua, New York. He was a partner in the Silver Fox, near the Mount Washington Hotel, near Conway, New Hampshire. He moved south in the 1920s, living in Atlanta and then Durham, before moving to Pinehurst in the mid-’30s. Shortly after he arrived in Pinehurst, he bought the Chalfonte Hotel, just south of Pinehurst, in Jackson Hamlet. It was a small, elegant hotel that had suffered through the Depression. Karl transformed it into a popular night spot, bringing quality acts from the north to entertain the local and resort guests. The outbreak of World War II brought a new set of troubles to the resort community. Andrews leased the Chalfonte Hotel to the U.S. Army and housed staff officers for “the duration.” When the Army vacated, the Chalfonte was converted into a nursing home, and eventually became the Sandhills Nursing Center. After the war, Karl Andrews became a partner with Southern Pines resident James Warman. Warman had acquired the former Archers Company building and opened a nightclub named the Dunes Club. The history of the Dunes Club is surrounded by mystery and secrets that everyone knows. The Dunes Club was the place to be and be seen. Everybody went there and the club had a large cadre of regulars. They offered top quality entertainment for the locals. They offered chicken, steaks and broiled lobster, prepared by French chefs and their staff. Moore County was dry, but there was plenty of drinking going on. The Dunes Club had lockers with the regulars’ names on them, to store their

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

Photographs from the Tufts Archives

By Audrey Moriarty

personal provisions. Lloyd Cutler said, “There were all kinds of stuff going on — legal and illegal. It was fun. It was certainly the only game in town, but it was fun.” Gentlemen wore coats and the ladies wore gowns and fancy dresses. Even the hat check girl and hostess, Irene Stevens, was “a beautiful woman who looked like a movie star.” The fire department had an annual ball and beauty contest. Every year the winner was treated to an evening at the Dunes Club, with a chaperone, of course, and dinner and the show. For hotel guests, the best in gambling was also available. They operated “under the radar” but openly advertised their menus and entertainments. A 1937 ad read, “the Dunes Club . . . Halfway between Pinehurst and Southern Pines on Midland Road. We invite you to inspect the very first play spot of its kind in the Sandhills. A revelation in chic, intime night entertainment for the cottagers and hotel guests of Pinehurst and Southern Pines. The Dunes offers a distinctive cuisine — a six-piece orchestra — dancing — service that suits. If you know your way about you’ll find this smart Sandhills rendezvous.” They didn’t even publish the address. Locals were invited to “celebrate in the brilliant manner in this chic Sandhills rendezvous.” No mention of gambling was ever made.

hen guests arrived at the Dunes Club, locals were directed to dinner, dancing and entertainment, but were not permitted in the gambling area. Cottagers and hotel guests were welcome to dinner, dancing and entertainment, but were generally directed to the gambling side of the club. The Club offered roulette, craps, poker and blackjack, but had no slots. There was a strict separation between the left side and the right side. According to Tony McKenzie, one night, one of the locals got into the gambling area, and in the course of one evening, lost a good deal of money. When he was leaving,

Karl Andrews took him aside, returned his money and said, “Don’t ever do that again. The game is fixed. It’s just for the guests.” Karl Andrews knew everybody in town, and cared about them. He was always offering the club for philanthropic reasons. He hosted a Pinehurst High School basketball team, after a winning season. He bought uniforms for the football team. He offered the club for a fundraiser for Moore Memorial Hospital. All the tickets were sold out. He and Warman provided a delicious free dinner and hired William Burns and his trained birds. The birds performed a circus, with tightrope walking and lighted torches, a merry-go-round and a weight-lifting bird. The birds were followed by an orchestra and dancing and, by evening’s end, the hospital coffers were brimming. Annie Andrews, Karl’s daughter-in-law, said that during World War II, Karl made certain that the families of the men at war were taken care of and he provided those hard-to-get items for them, such as sugar, milk, butter and meat. He even paid off some mortgages and took care of folks in Jackson Hamlet, his neighborhood. Over the years, the entertainment was always top notch, with no cover charge, and two shows nightly. In the ’30s, acts included Dorothy LaSalle from the Yacht Club in New York, Jeanette Garutte direct from the Chez Paree, Chicago, the Four Coronets from the Continental in Miami, and Miss Peggy Tucker, Brunswick recording artist. Songstress Carol Rhodes’ act was described thus: “She places a slim hand on the microphone, fills the room with a deep strong voice that compels the attention of everyone within earshot. Hers is a rich voice, with vibrant and haunting blue notes.” In 1945, ads for the Dunes Club read “Officers and Civilians (Couples Only).” After the war, many of the acts were television and stage stars. The Visioneers, a string quartet from the Arthur Godfrey-Kate Smith Television Show, appeared for a lengthy tour, Jeri Gale, a comedienne from the Ed Sullivan Show,

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

and Rudy Vallee, stage and screen star. The acts varied from tap dancers, ballerinas, comics, string ensembles, singers and jugglers. The reputation of the Dunes Club grew. In 1963, Look magazine did a story on the club, and it became one of the most noted gambling venues outside of Reno and Las Vegas, even though gambling was illegal in North Carolina. Talk to anyone who has been here for a while and they have a story to tell about the Dunes Club. Pappy Moss was a regular and had a standing reservation. Many people thought he was one of the owners. His wife Ginnie appeared there one night with a live fox around her neck. Supposedly, another night, Hemmie Tufts called Happy Talbert, a long-time Pinehurst “bus” driver, from the Dunes Club and said, “Hap, come over here right away. There are a whole bunch of us who want to go to Chicago.” Hap drove them there. Dutch Shields was in charge of gambling and entertainment. He was a “mousy-looking little fellow who always wore dark suits and looked like a real hood. He wore his hat down over his brow, and there was an ever-present scowl on his face. But, when he spoke he sounded like a mouse,” according to Tony McKenzie. Dutch chose all of the ad copy and images. One time, when Dutch was sick, Karl Andrews came to the printer to select the shots. Young McKenzie was working there and Karl offered him a night job. Four or five times in 1956, Tony ended up outside watching the door, to make sure no one got where they weren’t supposed to be. He said, “When you cut the lights down and got the atmosphere and the cigar smoke rolling, it was like a real nightclub.” The Dunes Club was operating before there were any zoning laws in Moore County. It was raided periodically. One of the reasons that the club was located half way between Pinehurst and Southern Pines was so that neither town had jurisdiction, and the Moore County sheriff didn’t bother much with the goingson on Midland Road. When it did happen, the management was normally forewarned, and the gambling tables and equipment were moved out before the raids. Supposedly, Karl served coffee and cake to the sheriff and his deputies while they were raiding the place. The late ABC officer Herman “Smoke” Grimm told the story that Karl gave him “the best damn cigar he ever smoked.” Sometimes, people who didn’t realize how things were would panic. During a raid one woman ran into the men’s room, jumped out the window and ran all the way back to Southern Pines. Everyone else who stayed behind finished out the evening without an issue. After a raid, the place would shut down for a few weeks and then reopen, business as usual.

In November of 1974, on an early Sunday morning, the Dunes Club was raided by state and SBI agents, Moore County ABC officers and sheriff’s deputies. On November 6, 1974, The Pilot newspaper reported that “at the Dunes Club, a dice table and a blackjack table from the gambling room, and $9,500 in on-table betting money” were confiscated . . . Charles Dunn, SBI director, personally supervised the action on Midland Road between Southern Pines and Pinehurst, where 11 persons were charged with a variety of gambling and liquor law violations, with one of obstructing an officer in pursuit of his duty.” At this time, Karl, his son Andy, who had begun working at the Dunes Club when he was 16 years old, and Jimmy Dunn were the owners and operators of the club. All three were charged and the club was closed down. Weeks after the raid, the club was still closed and fire departments were called to the club, which was ablaze. There are many different opinions about that fire. Tony McKenzie, who was then a Pinehurst fireman, said the fire was “all over. Somebody did that fire.” McKenzie mentioned that the fire fighters opened a door in the back that led to a storage area with shelving, and that there was live ammunition on one of the shelves. The building was uninsured, and declared a total loss. The Dunes Club never reopened. The July 18, 1979 issue of The Pilot reported that 5.6 acres, located on the location of the former Dunes Club on Midland Road, were purchased by Dr. Robert G. Martin and Dr. George W. Tate, both ophthalmologists, with the intention of using the property to build an eye clinic. At that time, the property was zoned for neighborhood shopping, which permitted professional buildings. There were some remaining walls from the old stone building. On November 27, 1976, Karl Andrews died. Andrews was described as the perfect gentleman. He was kind, unassuming and generous without fanfare. Annie Andres said that he “kept a brand new Fleetwood Caddy in his garage, but drove a beat-up Bonneville station wagon. He only used the Fleetwood out of town.” He didn’t want people to think he thought he was a big shot. Tony McKenzie said you “need to give credit where credit is due. There was no finer person than Karl Andrews, and he was the Dunes Club.” PS Audrey Moriarty, local history muse and author, is the executive director of Tufts Archives and Given Memorial Library in Pinehurst.

From the Archives:

February 2008

Sandhills Cinema

Tim Sayer, Photography Collette Valentino, Stylist Andy Pellegrino, Hair Billie Ertter, Makeup

“Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of . . . Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany’s. Calms me down right away.” Holly Golightly Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

The fetching Michelle Yow captures the essence of the young Audrey Hepburn. 80

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

“My mamma always said, life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Forrest Gump Forrest Gump (1994)

Our Forrest Gump — Christian Lichter — looks positively Gumpy. PineStraw contributor Cos Barnes is curious why life is like a box of chocolates. Photographed in downtown Pinehurst. PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2015

“Isn’t it delicious?” The Girl

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Beguiling Becca Vick is stunning as Marilyn Monroe. Photographed at The Fair Barn in Pinehurst.

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

“Golf courses and cemeteries — the biggest waste of prime real estate in America.” Al Czervik Caddyshack (1980)

This motley crew of thespians courtesey of The Pilot include (l-r) David Sinclair (Chevy Chase), Hunter Chase (Bill Murray), Jim Dodson (Rodney Dangerfield), David Woronoff (Michael O’Keefe) and Steve Bouser (Ted Knight). Photographed at Pinehurst Country Club

I Got Your Raincoat, Babe From the Archives:

August 2005

He was just an ordinary guy, with hound dog eyes and a brand new Burberry

By Neville Beamer

Sonny Bono stole a topcoat from me. You

remember him, right? The short guy who was married to Cher? At least, that’s the way most people remember him. I remember him mostly because of the topcoat. It was an almost brand new Burberry raincoat with a Burberry plaid wool liner. A really nice coat. Now, I don’t mean to imply that the California congressman was a thief. Who would believe that of a politician anyway? But he did steal the coat. Those who have seen me would know that Mr. Bono would surely have no need for one of my coats, unless perhaps he liked swimming in Burberry plaid wool liners. The truth is, my coat fit him perfectly and I could not have wedged myself inside it. It was a coat that I owned by default. In the coatroom of the 21 Club, we could keep unclaimed items forever, but after a year or so they were ours to dispose of as we chose. I chose to issue the long-forgotten wool-lined Burberry to the shivering wet and unprepared Californian as a courtesy loan — for which he thanked me profusely and vowed to return it. Another political vow that dissipated? No, at the time of the loan, he had not yet entered that arena. It was 1976. Aside from his wet and bedraggled appearance, he had the mournful hound dog eyes of a man in pain. A look that only men who suffer from an intense and unrequited love can produce. Like if you talk to them too long they are going to start crying. I would have looked like that, too, had Cher given me the boot. I had met her earlier, around 1973, I believe, when CBS had the Sonny and Cher show running. She was attending some big celebrity event at 21, the nature of which I cannot recall. Let me tell you, though, that I can recall nearly everything about Cher. She was one of the most stunningly beautiful women that I had, and to this day have ever, seen. I remember the outfit, and I remember the smile, like one carries a picture in one’s wallet and never has to take it out to look. It’s etched securely in the memory frame. A few years later, I was seeing in Sonny the pained expression of a man who had just lost his fortune. The memory of meeting Cher flashed through my mind, causing an instantaneous sympathy for him. How it could feel to lose such a fabulous woman as she, I could not imagine. If it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, Sonny’s appearance bore no testimony to that. I took him directly to the men’s room and asked Otis to help Mr. Bono with his damp dishevelment. I knew there was nothing that he could do about the lost expression on the singer’s face. As Otis ran the blow dryer across the soggy shoulders of Sonny’s ill-fitting California sport coat, Sonny told me that he was expecting a lady to join him. He said he would like to wait for her at a table in the bar. He told me he was

nervous about the date, hadn’t been doing much dating. He had been with Cher since they were kids, and now it was hard to think about dating. Again, the snapshot flashed in my mind, and my sympathy for the little guy increased. When Otis finished doing what he could, I escorted Sonny to Walter, who was the maître d’ on duty in the barroom. I advised him to relax at the table and told him that when his date arrived, I would personally usher her to him. He shook my hand and thanked me, still looking nervous and out of place. I was sitting at my desk inside the door when she entered. There was no mistaking whom she would be joining, as she looked like she was there to enter a Cher lookalike contest. Considering the fact that she was fully a foot shorter, and Cher would not have been caught in that dress at a pig pickin’, she probably could have finished fifth runner-up. I got up and welcomed her, but by the time I handed her coat to the check girl, the anxious Sonny was standing pathetically beside her. More sympathy pangs as he led the pseudo-Cher to his table, babbling nervously in Californianese. After a leisurely lunch, the two were preparing to leave, and I extended my offer of the Burberry coat. He graciously accepted the loan and made the worthless vow to return it “tomorrow.” ’Tis true, sometimes tomorrow never comes. The next time I saw Sonny Bono, I was on his turf. It was 1983. I had recently left New York and the 21 Club and was visiting Roger Wilson at his home in Malibu. Roger suggested dinner with his tennis partner, Sonny, at his restaurant, Bono’s, in Beverly Hills. It had been seven years since I had seen him, but he still looked like some parts were missing. Some things we can get through but not over. I did mention the topcoat, in a humorous manner. However, the boy just didn’t get my humor. Nor did he pick up the dinner check for our trio. “Sonny’s a great guy,” Roger assured me on the way home. “He’s a little tight, though.” Back in North Carolina, I read where Sonny had taken wife No. 3, a nice-looking Cher-ish 25-year-old from Cleveland named Mary Whitaker. After being stalled in an effort to expand his restaurant operations into Palm Springs, he ran for mayor there and won. He was defeated in a bid for U.S. Senate before campaigning successfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The seat was handed down to Congresswoman Mary Whitaker Bono at the time of Sonny’s death in 1998. She remains one of four members of the House who have inherited seats from their husbands. I know there is no chance for me now to retrieve the Burberry. Perhaps there never was. If my friend Roger was right about Sonny, that he was tight, maybe he should have loosened the change purse a little and gotten himself a good ski instructor. Just kidding, Sonny. You were all right. You must have had a sense of humor in there somewhere. Why else would your tombstone read: “And the Beat Goes On”? PS Neville Beamer, owner of Neville’s Club in Southern Pines, was founding president of PineStraw magazine. Drawing from his experiences as a front desk greeter at the elite 21 Club in New York City from 1972–1982, his popular“Over 21” column included wild and humorous tales of the rich and famous.

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

Under the Pines You may be struck by a pine needle. If you are, that is good luck

By David Carpenter

Have you ever lain down on your back

Photograph by Hannah Sharpe

under a nice stand of pines? Right atop the crunchy brown pine straw? Take a blanket if you want. The needles will still be crunchy. Don’t forget the safety goggles, or at least wear your eyeglasses. What I am going to ask of you is dangerous.

A hat is a good idea, too. Make it a baseball cap or visor. If it has a buckle or something to irritate the back of your head, find another one. Or take a pillow. Shoes are recommended. Clothes are optional. What will the neighbors or passersby think? I read your mind. Well, they are not that observant. If they are, maybe they will be polite. Still self-conscious? Take a child with you. Then they’ll think it was the child’s idea. Pick a sunny day. Early to mid-morning or mid- to late-afternoon is the best time. Locate yourself a nice spot. Get down on the ground and stretch out or scrunch up, however it feels best to you. Point your head toward the sun so the brim of your hat shields your eyes. First things first. Look directly above you. If you see a big, long, dangling dead limb, move. In fact, even if you see only a small, stubby one, move anyway. Look at the trunks of the trees. Bark. No, you don’t do that. You see that. If you do that, a pickup truck will eventually drive up, and the driver will come hustle you off to a shelter. Remember, you’re not on a leash. Then let your gaze walk up the trunk of one of the pines near you. When you get to the top, notice the shimmering green needles. If you see sharply pointed leaves instead, and you realize something like a knife point is sticking in your backside and ooh, now in your ankle too, get out of there without

From the Archives:

May 2005

further ado. You’ve gotten yourself into a stand of hollies! Where the sun kisses the pines at sky level, the needles will look like they are coated with ice. They look like the long, drooping filaments of an expensive fiber-optic accent light. If your day is breezy or even windy, you get a bonus. The needles will dance for you. Your own personal ballet or jitterbug — determined by the wind. Now for the purpose of this nonsense. The object is simply to relax, of course, but my shameless desire is to see a pine cone fall. From the top of a towering pine, crashing through several boughs, deflected from its original straight-down course and finally bouncing off the bed of pine straw like a little tyke on a trampoline. Oh yeah, babe. What a thrill! Now that’s something you just don’t see without patience. While you wait for that awesome moment, there are other sights and sounds to keep you occupied. The whisper of the wind. Bird songs. Creaking pine limbs rubbing each other the wrong way. Or maybe they’re necking. If you have a wind chime nearby, enjoy it for a long moment. Then turn it off and enjoy the increased intensity of what nature throws at you. Try making a few sounds of your own. Not the one mentioned earlier, though! Being foolish is OK, but don’t press your luck. Shadows. Not only the dappled sunlight dripping through to highlight your outdoor straw bed, but shadows of birds or perhaps of an airplane. You may be struck by a pine needle. If you are, that is good luck. (I made that up.) Or you could be spattered by a bird like I was when I was writing this for you. That’s good luck, too. (Guilty again.) Maybe the neighbor’s cat will come share some thoughts with you. They don’t have to have leashes like things that bark. This bit of R&R for the soul may not solve a problem for you, but it will make you forget about a few for a while. Have fun! PS Albemarle native David Carpenter, an early columnist for PineStraw magazine, is a lifelong Southerner who has been struck more than a few times by falling needles. Luckily, he has called the Sandhills home sweet home for nearly four decades.

From the Archives:

April 2008

Burning with Domestic Harmony

By Dale Nixon

The year I bought

my husband, Bobby, a fancy gas grill, presented The Outdoor Cookbook by Southern Living to him, and lovingly tied a chef’s apron around his waist, I created a monster.

He now orders me around my kitchen like a drill sergeant, experiments mercilessly with tried-and-true recipes, and proclaims he is the best grill master in the world. His superiority complex is not what irks me, though. It is his statement, after each cookout, that HE has cooked dinner. Take the last time we cooked out, for example. Bobby said he wanted to barbecue some pork chops and invite our two daughters and son-in-law to join us for the meal. He shoved a recipe book at me and said, “I want to try this sauce for the chops. I’ll need the ingredients by Thursday.” I saluted and said, “Yes, sir.” This particular sauce called for fifteen ingredients, none of which were available in my kitchen cabinets. To the list of fifteen ingredients I added garlic, onions and soy sauce because Bobby adds garlic, onions and soy sauce to everything he cooks. I made a special trip to the grocery store and then followed Bobby’s instructions for me to “throw” the sauce together for him. The sauce was harder to “throw” together than I had anticipated. Twelve of the ingredients had to be chopped, diced, grated, minced, shaved or sliced. I then spent the better part of my day on Friday marinating the pork chops and turning them every fifteen minutes. (I followed the recipe to the letter so BOBBY’S pork chops could be cooked to perfection.) My family likes iced tea. I made a pitcher of iced tea. Each of us has a sweet tooth. I made a pan of brownies from scratch because we don’t like boxed mixes. I shucked the corn on the cob and melted some butter. I made a tossed salad, which is not an easy thing to do for my family. One daughter and I like tomatoes, but Bobby and the other daughter and her husband do not. Some like bell peppers; some do not. Bobby wants carrots. One of my daughters wants celery. The other

daughter and her husband want radishes. Bobby likes Roquefort dressing. I like oil and vinegar. One daughter likes Thousand Island and the other daughter and her husband like honey mustard. I set the table and picked a handful of flowers for the centerpiece. Then the grill master came home from work. He announced that he needed to unwind. As he read the paper, could I please get the pork chops out of the refrigerator, find his recipe and locate his hot mitts? When he had relaxed sufficiently, he lit the grill (I handed him the match) and threw on the pork chops. This is when the bellowing started. “Dale, where is the cooking oil?” “Dale, where are my cooking utensils?” “Dale, come and look at these chops.” And then, finally, “Dale, where is the meat platter?” After I played fetch and carry, we sat down to a truly delicious meal. As I cleared off the table, placed the dishes in the dishwasher and stored the leftover food, Bobby leaned back in his chair, patted his stomach and made the statements he has made since the day I created this monster. “Dale, weren’t those the best pork chops you have ever tasted?” “Yes, dear.” “My sauce was superb.” “Yes, dear.” “The garlic, onions and soy sauce really added a lot, didn’t they?” “Yes, dear.” “I like to grill out and get you away from the kitchen every once in a while.” “Yes, dear.” Then I braced myself for the statement I knew would follow; the one that always irks me. I would remain calm. I would remain agreeable in the interest of domestic harmony. “Aren’t you glad I cooked dinner for you tonight?” Between clenched teeth, I reluctantly replied, “Yes, dear.” I’ll give him credit for cooking the meal if he’ll give me credit for domestic harmony. I always say, give credit where credit is due. PS Longtime PineStraw contributor Dale Nixon’s “Hitting Home” column made us laugh, cry, and sometimes laugh till we cried for over eight years. She resides in Concord, North Carolina, but still enjoys a slice of heaven (disguised as a condominium) in the Village of Pinehurst.

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

Summer of the Ivory Bill From the Archives:

July 2008

By Tom Bryant

Every now

and then, just as the lemmings head for the sea, I’ve got to find me a black water river to wet a South Carolina jig. This urge comes naturally, since my maternal grandfather, Austin Fore, instilled it in me.

Our favorite haunt was his old fishing camp located on the Little Pee Dee River pretty close to Galivants Ferry. If you’ve ever traveled to Myrtle Beach on Highway 501, you’ve crossed the river at the ferry. When your car rumbled over the bridge, you were only 10 or 12 miles, as the crow flies, from the old fishing camp where I spent some of my happiest time as a youth. The summers were mine in those days. I had yet to get a job. “Let him have some fun, Evelyn,” my granddad would say to my mother. “He’s got the rest of his life to be responsible and work. Let him come fishing this summer with me. I’ll teach him a few things. And besides, I need a paddler.” That was my last Tom Sawyer summer, filled with idyllic days fishing, paddling and observing nature in its almost pristine form. There was one early evening when we were slowly drifting back toward camp. As Granddaddy had promised, he had taught me to paddle, and I was in the stern of the boat, keeping her in line with the bank so he could toss his jig under the low hanging alders. We had a boatload of fish, and I had put my rod down and was enjoying the slow drift, moving the paddle back and forth, propelling the boat from side to side without making any noise. He taught me well. “There’s nothing, son, that’ll run off a fish more than a fool with a paddle. You don’t have to splash and turn the river into a froth to move a boat. It’s all in letting the water do the work.” A bird flew over the river and landed in a huge cypress. He was slowly pecking on the side of a dead branch. Unlike a regular woodpecker, his efforts knocked bark down as if he were swinging an ax. My granddad whispered back to me as he slowly boated his rod, “Just be real quiet and watch.” The woodpecker was big, probably a little bigger than a crow. I marveled at how much the bird looked like the movie cartoon character Woody Woodpecker. He hung to

the side of the dead branch almost upside down, his white beak slowly pounding on the tree. When we were right under him, he dropped off the branch and soared away, beating his wings in a way that kind of loped him across the swamp. “Son,” my granddad said, “You’ve seen what few men will ever see again, an ivory-billed woodpecker. They used to frequent this swamp, in fair numbers. This is the first one I’ve seen in years. Maybe it’s a good sign and they’re coming back. Who knows? Anyway, you saw him and I bet you won’t forget him.” After that great summer, I saw my granddad only at holidays and when he would visit occasionally. A few years earlier, our family had moved to Pinebluff. My dad was working all the time, supporting a family of four kids, and he spent most of his waking hours at the ice plant in Aberdeen. He was the superintendent, and during peach season all of his time was dedicated to his job. Fortunately for me, Pinebluff was made for kids. My parents couldn’t have picked a better town for us to grow up in. There was only one problem. I loved to fish, and the only fishing water I had access to was Pinebluff Lake, where we swam and hung out all summer. The lake was great for that kind of entertainment; but for fishing, I could have caught as many casting on Highway One. I put my fishing equipment aside and concentrated on baseball. One early summer evening, Dad and I were sitting on our front porch. I was in the swing, and he was kicked back in a rocker. My sisters and brother had gone to bed, and Mother was in the kitchen doing the supper dishes. Later on, Dad was going in to work to check on the night shift, and I was just enjoying this time with him. It was quiet with just a little breeze whispering through the pines, and lightning bugs flashed here and there. “What are you up to tomorrow, Sport?” he asked as he lit a cigarette. “We don’t have a ball game, so I think I’ll get up early and try fishing down at the lake, for whatever good that’ll do me. I’ve fished every corner of that pond and haven’t caught a thing but a couple turtles.” “Why don’t you and your buddies look into Drowning Creek?” my dad suggested. “Now, don’t go down there. Just talk to some of the adults in Pinebluff about the fishing. I know Mr. Mills would know all about it. He knows ev-

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erything about this area. Your grandfather always said that the Lumber River is a great place to fish. Remember, he and your Uncle Hubert fished up around Whiteville that time and caught a cooler full of redbreast. Drowning Creek is actually the headwaters of the Lumber, so there’s bound to be good fishing.” The next morning that’s exactly what I did. Johnny Mills was a good friend, a year or two younger than me, but we still hung out together. His dad was the mayor and was the go-to guy for information about almost anything concerning Pinebluff. “I don’t want you boys to go down to that creek without an adult,” Mr. Mills said. “It’s a good fishing spot but loaded with big ol’ cottonmouths. Later on this week, I’ll drive you all down there and we’ll check it out.” And that’s how Johnny and I became acquainted with Drowning Creek. In a couple of years when we grew a little bigger, the creek became one of our favorite destinations. Sterling Carrington and a few other boys from the southern part of the county actually made a swimming hole at Blue’s Bridge. No swimming for me. I could just picture all those hungry cottonmouths. But the fast flowing water became my special fishing hole. The summer before my senior year in college, my grandfather had his third heart attack while fishing the Little Pee Dee. The doctors were right. This one took him away. After the funeral, Mother and I drove down to his fishing camp. The rest of the family stayed at the farm to help greet visitors. When we arrived, Mother went inside and I wandered down to the dock where my granddad kept his boat. The boat still had his tackle box and two or three bait-casting rods in it. I got in to retrieve his fishing gear so I could store it in the cabin. This boat was a brand new one that I hadn’t seen before, so I climbed back in the stern, sat down, and grabbed a paddle. The river flowed quickly, creating a small eddy, moving the boat slowly side to side on its ropes. I turned the seat so I could lean back and see upstream. There was a great big sand bar that thrust out in the water at the bend of the river, and a giant cypress grew right at the edge. The sun was at its highest point, and all the animals and birds were hunting shade. There was a flicker of white in the very top branches of the cypress, and I wondered what bird was moving at this time of day. After a minute or so, the bird soared across the river and turned toward the bend. There was a lot of white showing on its wings, and it had the unmistakable flight of a big woodpecker. It slowly flew around the bend and out of sight. And I remembered that great summer when my granddad taught me to paddle and we were deep enough in the swamp to see the ivory bill. PS

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Tom Bryant, former advertising director of The Pilot, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s longtime “Sporting Life” columnist.

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Introducing

The Bierhalle! With a whole new bar menu including Schnitzel Sandwich, Mediterranean Salat, Reuban Sandwich, Alpine Burger and more! (items only available in The Bierhalle)

NEW DINNER MENU ITEMS: Wiener Schnitzel Salat, Mediterranean Salat

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ANTIQUES of

Cameron

Sullivan’s Antiques

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All in the Historic Village of Cameron 910-848-3945

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910.245.7001

www.antiquesofcameron.com

Swell Caroline Costume Jewelry Braclets, necklaces, earrings 120 Market Square Village of Pinehurst 910-295-6508 www.pinehurstpotpourri.com

NOW OPEN SUNDAY 12-4 PM

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

“Too much of a good thing . . . can be wonderful.” — Mae West By Rosetta Fawley

A Sprig in Your Step It’s Kentucky Derby month. The aptly named “Kentucky Colonel” is a favorite mint cultivar for Derby refreshment. Early spring or fall is best for planting mint, but if you haven’t got around to it yet, don’t worry — grows like a weed. Borrow some from your neighbor’s garden (they’ll be grateful). Or plant some now, using a container, and enjoy a refreshing julep all through the summer. Mint likes afternoon shade; most types prefer a damp part of the garden. The word “julep” is of Persian origin, from “gulab,” meaning rose water. Mint julep recipes abound in the South. Spearmint trumps peppermint. Opinion is divided over whether to muddle the mint with sugar or simply enjoy the aroma of the mint in a garnish. The Almanac suggests trying both to find your preference. Try different types of mint too. After a few samplings, the finer details won’t matter very much, but do try to remember this: The only vessel for the mint julep is a sterling silver cup.

Mint Julep 1 sprig spearmint leaves 1 tbsp simple syrup Crushed ice 2 oz favorite Bourbon Pull three or four mint leaves from the bottom of the sprig and place them in a julep cup with the syrup. Gently press the mint against the inside of the cup with a teaspoon to release the leaves’ flavor. Fill the cup with crushed ice and pour the Bourbon over the top. Put the remaining mint sprig in the ice with a flourish. Stir if desired. Follow the advice of bon vivant Eugene Walter, who said of a 1912 receipt for a Bluegrass Julep, “Sip slowly, don’t use a straw. Between sips, think of someone you love.”

Happy birthday to Grace Jones, who played May Day in the James Bond film A View To a Kill. Miss Jones’ birthday is May 19.

May Flowers for Mum “Ne’er cast a clout till May be out.” The old English proverb means don’t remove any rags, or layers of clothing, for the lucky ones among us, until the month of May is over. Some say it means until the hawthorn, also known as may, is blooming. Either way it’s a pretty saying, but don’t follow it in Zone 8 — it would be hazardous to be wrapped in fleece and furs in the balmy weather of this month. “Here we go gathering nuts in May,” runs the refrain from the old children’s game. Spot the deliberate mistake — what nuts could be gathered in May? None, not in the Northern Hemisphere anyway. It seems the words are most likely an adulteration of “knots of may” from the tradition of gathering hawthorn flowers to celebrate May Day. In the language of flowers, hawthorn represents hope. For Mother’s Day on May 10, make up an arrangement of deep pink roses (appreciation), gladioli (admiration), stocks and honeysuckle (bonds of affection, love and generous and devoted affection). Or, fashion a garden of moss (maternal love).

And this was on the sixth morning of May, Which May had painted with his soft showers This garden full of leaves and of flowers; And craft of man’s hand so curiously Had arrayed this garden, truly, That never was there garden of such price, But if it were the very Paradise. — From The Franklin’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400)

Did Someone Say BLT? Historians differ over the origin of the word mayonnaise, but the Almanac thinks it could have been invented for the month that shares its name. What better accompaniment for a long al fresco lunch in the shade of the magnolia trees? Salad, cold chicken, charcuterie, cheese, fresh crusty bread and a crisp white wine. For the best mayonnaise of all, make your own: egg yolks, olive oil, vinegar and whisking. Go Dutch — or Belgian — and try it with French fries. Sublime.

2 10

Floor Lamp from Framer’s Cottage

Chair from Transit Damaged Freight May 2015 P��PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

It takes a village, or in our case, a community of loyal advertisers to make PineStraw magazine possible every month by passionately supporting a homegrown magazine that celebrates the art and soul of the Sandhills. PineStraw has hundreds of advertisers to whom we are extremely grateful, but as we celebrate our 10-year anniversary, we’d also like to celebrate our longest running advertisers. These businesses, both large and small, have advertised in every single issue of PineStraw for over four years. Thank you all for your support. We’re thrilled to be sharing this incredible journey with you. 1. Marcus Larose, Coldwell Banker Advantage, 48 months; 2. Mark Stewart, Stewart Construction & Development, 78 months; 3. Tanda Jarest, Opulence of Southern Pines, 71 months; 4. Neal Jarest, DUXIANA at The Mews, 71 months; 5. Chuck Helbling, Paul Blake & Associates Estate Liquidation, 53 months; 6. Wunpen Eddlemon, Thai Orchid Restaurant, 72 months; 7. Gretchen Bornhurst, Pinehurst Plastic Surgery Specialists, 58 months; 8. Alison Ives, Bella Filati, 70 months; 9. Lindsay Parks, Framer’s Cottage, 53 months; 10. Kay Beran, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices/ Pinehurst Realty Group, 52 months; 11. Kathy Desmond, CoolSweats, 71 months; 12. Alan Parker, Aberdeen Exterminating, 57 months; 13. Richard Sheetz, Metrospecs, 64 months; 14. Vickie Auman, Vickie Auman Interiors, 58 months; 15. Jessica Harrelson, Sunrise Theater,

89 months; 16. Claudia Miller, Morgan Miller, 70 months; 17. Dr. Joseph D. Wahl, Southern Pines Chiropractic, 58 months; 18. Sue Kurtz, Theodore Alexander Outlet, 71 months; 19 & 20. Executive Chef Thierry Debailleul and Adam Baj, Pinehurst Resort, 56 months. 21. Ken Bonville, Bonville Construction/ Sandhills Energy, 51 months Not Pictured: 195, 51 months; The Hair Cottage, 50 months; Martha Gentry’s Home Selling Team/ Re/Max Prime Properties, 67 months; Quail Haven Village, 68 months; Taylor David Salon, 82 months; Transit Damaged Freight, 80 months; The Village at Brookwood, 60 months; Windridge Gardens, 85 months; St. Joseph’s of the Pines, 52 months.

17 20

12 14 16

18 21

Chair from Theodore

Alexander Outlet PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2015 93 PHOTO BY JOHN GESSNER

Arts Entertainment C a l e n da r

1-2-3 Art Our Way

Musical Tribute

Sip and Paint

Friday, May 1

•

PINEHURST CONCOURS D’ELEGANCE. Two days of events are planned for the Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance starting with the Iron Mike Rally for Concours participants on Friday and ending with the Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance on Saturday. Pinehurst Resort, 80 Carolina Vista Drive, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 973-6594 or www.pinehurstconcours.com.

Woods, 1024 Fort Bragg Road. Info: (910) 692-2167 or www.ncparks.gov.

Saturday, May 2

with The London Souls and local band DirtRoad Senate. Free admission. Sunrise Green Space, 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.firstfridaysouthernpines.com.

St., Cameron. Info: (910) 245-3055 or www.antiquesofcameron.com.

CAMERON ANTIQUES FAIR. 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. • FIRST FRIDAY. 5 – 8:30 p.m. Live music, food More than 300 dealers display their antiques and • and beverages, entertainment. The new season begins collectables. Cameron Historic District, 485 Carthage

•ART EXHIBIT. 5:30 – 8 p.m. “1-2-3- Art Our Way.” THREE DOG NIGHT IN CONCERT. 5 • Opening reception featuring the work of three local p.m. As part of the Concours D’Elegance, Three artists. Exhibit runs through May 30. The Exchange Dog Night will perfom. following the awards ceremony. Tickets: pinehurstconcours.com.

Street Gallery, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979 or www.artistleague.org.

•SOMETHING SLIMY. 10 a.m. Come learn about some of these smooth-skinned amphibians as we read a book, play some games, and make a craft. All activities will be geared towards 3 to 5 year-olds. Weymouth Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

•JAZZY FIRDAY. 6 – 10 p.m. Join for an evening of music by the Mike Wallace Quartet. Cypress Bend

Vineyards, 21904 Riverton Road, Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411 or www.cypressbendvineyards.com.

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

SANFORD ARTS & VINE FESTIVAL. A • celebration of creativity and ability. Dennis A. Wicker

Civic Center, 1801 Nash St., Sanford. Info: (919) 8881158 or www.sanfordartsandvine.com.

ONE DAY WATERCOLOR CLASS. 10 a.m. – • 4 p.m. Create and Design by award winning artist

Linda Griffin. Beginner and up. Linda will demonstrate ways to incorporate architectural elements into a watercolor painting. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info (910) 255-066 or www. lindagriffin.com.

Sports

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

ca l e n d a r

“Man and Superman”

Strawberry Festival

BLESSING OF THE ANIMALS. 11 a.m. – 12 • p.m. Personal blessings with Rev. Randy Foster.

There will be facility tours and adoptable animals. Good Shepherd Pet Crematory & Cemetery, 5198 N.C. 211, West End. Info: (910) 673-2200.

•

Symphonic Salute

MAKERBOX SATURDAYS. 2 – 6 p.m. Join the Library’s teen volunteers and lea rn how to use technology, basic materials, and your ingenuity to make exciting projects. This program is most appropriate for students in grades 6–12. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

•

NC SYMPHONY. 8 – 10 p.m. The Symphony pres• ents “Appalachian Spring.” Pinecrest High School, 250

MUSIC. Becca Rae performs. The Wine Cellar, • 241A NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910)

Sunday, May 3

MONTHLY READ. 5:30 p.m. Theresa Fowler with Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Weymouth Center, 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org.

Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines. Info: (877) 627-6724 or www.ncsymphony.org. DRAGONS & DAMSELS. 3 p.m. Search for • some of our most fierce predatory insects: dragonflies.

692-3066.

FORAY OF FROGS. 7:30 p.m. Join us for a hike • down to the creek to listen for calling frogs and toads.

Also, be on the lookout for their more dainty relatives, the damselflies. Comfortable shoes, binoculars, water, sunscreen, and bug spray recommended. Weymouth Woods, 1024 Fort Bragg Road. Info: (910) 692-2167 or www.ncparks.gov.

Flashlights, close-toed shoes, and bug spray are recommended. Weymouth Woods, 1024 Fort Bragg Road. Info: (910) 692-2167 or www.ncparks.gov. Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

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

Dance/Theater

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

ShoWiNg Thursday, July 16th

TiCKETS $20

For a complete list of show times

visit sunrisetheater.org or call

910-692-3611.

250 NW Broad Street Southern Pines, NC 28387

ca l e n d a r

•

EXPLORATIONS SERIES. 3 p.m. A forum for adults. “Container Flower Gardening” presented by Moore County Master Gardener Joanne Erickson. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 6928235 or www.sppl.net.

Tuesday, May 5

•

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

Wednesday, May 6

•

CULINARY WORKSHOP. 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. Norma Burns of Bluebird Hill Farm, in Bennett, instructs. She will discuss growing edible plants, herbs and flowers followed by a workshop, including a kitchen demonstration and tastings. Cost: $30/members; $35/ non-members. SCC Ball Visitors Center, 3395 Airport Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 695-2882.

•

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

Thursday, May 7

•

FINE ARTS LECTURE SERIES. 10 a.m. Carmen McCann presents “Mose & Annie Tolliver: Expressions of Self-Taught Southern Artists.” Tickets: $11/members; $16/non-members. Weymouth Center, 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org. GATHERING AT GIVEN. 3:30 p.m. Jon Davis • will be speaking about three easy steps to improv-

ing the quantity and quality of birds that visit your yard. This event is free and open to the public. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst.

Friday, May 8

•

BEACH FRIDAY. 6 – 10 p.m. Join for live beach music provided by the Sand Band. Cypress Bend Vineyards, 21904 Riverton Road, Wagram. Info: (910) 369-0411 or www.cypressbendvineyards.com.

Saturday, May 9

•

GOLF TOURNAMENT. 8 a.m. Support Keep Moore County Beautiful and enjoy great golf, food and fun. Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club, 1010 Midland Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 947-3637 or www. keepmoorecountybeautiful.org/golf.html. 1650 Valley View Road • Southern Pines, NC Adjacent to Hyland Golf Course on US 1

910-692-0855

www.WindridgeGardens.com

Hours: Mon. - Sat. 10AM-5PM • Sun. 1PM-5PM

•

CARTHAGE BUGGY FESTIVAL. 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. A celebration of the rich history of Carthage. Courthouse Square, 4396 U.S. 15/501, Carthage. Info:

••• • •

Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports

• • •

Dance/Theater Fun History

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

FEATURING ELLIOTT LAUREN JOSEPH RIBKOFF TRIBAL LISETTE PANTS MING WANG NIC & ZOE AND MORE! SIZES 2-16

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CELEBRATING WOMEN OF ALL AGES! the

CLOTHES HORSE • Beside The Fresh Market •

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910.693.2111

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

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Maintenance Free Pavers

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

Proudly supporting the Military. Ask us how you can receive your custom home plans for FREE. WINNER OF 4 - 2014 HOME OF THE YEAR AWARDS! Certified Green Professional • NC Housing Hall of Fame

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

Phone: (910) 295-1504 • Fax: (910) 295-1549 Email: Danny@danieladams.com PO BOX 3090 • Pinehurst, NC 28374 www.danieladams.com

www.mrbrickstone.com PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2015

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C O N G R AT U L AT I O N S t o P I N E S T R AW M AG A Z I N E O N YO U R 1 0 T H A N N I V E R S A RY ! As we begin our 52nd year, we are proud to continue our partnership with you. Being part of the fabric of this wonderful community is one of our greatest joys. Come join us for a presentation and luncheon to learn more about our community May 7th or June 8th starting at 10:30. Reservations are required Please call (910) 692-0449 today to RSVP.

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

ca l e n d a r

(910) 947-2331 or www.thebuggyfestival.com.

•MEET THE ARTIST. 12 – 3 p.m. Come visit with Diane Kraudelt. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden

Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or www.hollhocksartgallery.com.

•

LADIES DAY OUT. 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. Get away for a girl day. Shop with vendors. Pamper with beauty services. Attend brief presentations. Enjoy sweet treats. Cole Auditorium, Richmond Community College, 1042 W. Hamlet Ave., Hamlet. Admission: $2. Info: (910) 331-9965 or www.LadiesDayOutNC.com.

•

MOTHER’S DAY. Stop in the Library for special self-led crafts and activities to honor moms everywhere. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

•

TRIBUTE TO JOHN DENVER. 7 p.m. “Back Home Again,” a musical tribute to John Denver. Admission: $25. Pinecrest High School, 250 Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 949-2470.

•MUSIC. 7 p.m. Pete O’Dea performs. The Wine Cellar,

241A NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3066.

•

Sunday, May 10

•

MOTHER’S DAY WILDFLOWER WALK. 3 p.m. Bring Mom out to celebrate her day with a walk through the woods to see what’s blooming this time of year. Hike for about a mile. Bring water, sunscreen, bug spray, and the whole family. Weymouth Woods, 1024 Fort Bragg Road. Info: (910) 692-2167 or www.ncparks.gov.

•

ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:46 p.m. Dennis Stroughmatt and Creole Stomp. The Rooster’s Wife at the Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Admission: $15/$20 at door. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.roosterswife.org.

Monday, May 11

•

SIP & PAINT WITH JANE. 5 – 7 p.m. Join resident artist Jane Casnellie for a fun evening of Sipping and Painting. Create your own masterpiece! No experience necessary; all materials provided, including wine. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or www.hollhocksartgallery.com. OUTDOOR JAZZ CONCERT. 6:30 p.m. • Sandhills Community College Jazz Band

performs. Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: mccune-7lakes. home.mindspring.com. Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

SANDHILLS PHOTO CLUB MEETING. 7 p.m. Speaker is Richard Ellis, a photographer from Charleston, SC. Guests welcome. Hannah Theater, The O’Neal School, 3300 Airport Road, Southern Pines. Info: www.sandhillsphotoclub.org.

Tuesday, May 12

•

Wednesday, May 13

•

FROG JUMPING DAY. 4 p.m. Hop on over for this fun, mostly-outdoor celebration of frogs! Hear about the lives of frogs and the short story, which inspired the name for this holiday, then participate in a several frogthemed games and an outdoor “Frogstacle” course. Ideal for children ages 5–10. Weymouth Woods, 1024 Fort Bragg Road. Info: (910) 692-2167 or www.ncparks.gov.

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

Sports

Protect your investment this summer

With our fully stocked truck and trailer, we come to you for all your detailing needs!

Justin Mace, Owner

Get Your Shine On Quality. Convenience. Every Time.

910-603-5379 | www.jsmobiledetailing.com

• Luxury Car Care • Fleet Management • Headlight Restoration

• Full Details • Hand Wax • Wax

• Polish • Scratch Removal • And More!

ca l e n d a r

Thursday, May 14

•

enjoyable afternoon with family-friendly entertainment, food, arts and crafts. Historic Downtown Aberdeen, 100 East Main St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-7024 or www. townofaberdeen.net.

THEATER. 2 p.m. Man and Superman by Bernard • Shaw. Showing live from London. Sunrise Theater, 250

MEET THE ARTIST. 12 – 3 p.m. Come visit with Charlie Roberts. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or www.hollhocksartgallery.com.

TUFTS ARCHIVES TOUR. 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. Free Tour of the New & Old in the Village of Pinehurst. We’ll tour the Tufts Archives. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 692-3330.

NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8501 or www.sunrisetheater.com.

FAMILY FUN NIGHT. 5:30 p.m. Learn about • different types of camouflage. Children in grades

K–5 and their families are invited to this program. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www. sppl.net.

Friday, May 15

•

FAMILY MOVIE NIGHT. 7 p.m. Face painting and a movie. This month is Annie. Rassie Wicker Park, 10 Rassie Wicker Drive, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-1900 or www.vopnc.org.

Saturday, May 16

•

SPRING SPREE FESTIVAL. 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The festival is open and free to the public for a fun and Key:

• • Art

Music/Concerts

•

Dance/Theater

• •

MAKERBOX SATURDAYS. 2 – 6 p.m. Join the Library’s teen volunteers and learn how to use technology, basic materials, and your ingenuity to make exciting projects. Program most appropriate for students in grades 6–12. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net. THEATER. 2 p.m. Man and Superman by Bernard • Shaw. Showing live from London. Sunrise Theater, 250 NW Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8501 or www.sunrisetheater.com.

•

FESTIVAL OF BEERS. 3 – 6 p.m. Taste a variety of beers from around the country at the 6th Annual Festival of Beers while enjoying music from DirtRoad Senate. Southern Pines Elks Lodge, 280 Country Club Circle, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3926 or www.members.moorecountychamber.com.

• • Film

Literature/Speakers

• • Fun

History

•

SPRING WINE WALK. 4 – 8 p.m. Wines and foods paired with each lovely boutique location. Sip, Sample, Stroll & Shop. Village of Pinehurst, 105 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 687-0377 or www. insidepinehurst.com.

•

A HERITAGE AFFAIR. 6:30 – 11:30 p.m. Step into the world of James and Katharine Boyd. Weymouth Center, 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org.

•

MUSIC. 7 p.m. Tim Wilson performs. The Wine Cellar, 241A NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3066.

•

CAROLINA PHILHARMONIC. 7 – 9 p.m. Enjoy classic songs from the Golden Age of Film, as well as a touch of Broadway. Pinecrest High School, 250 Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 687-2087 or www.carolinaphil.org.

Sunday, May 17

KID’S MOVIE. 2:30 p.m. An adaptation of a musi• cal favorite that centers on a baker and his wife attempt-

ing to start a family, when they incur the wrath of a witch and find their fates linked with characters in fairy tales. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

•

Sports

Encore

BARGAIN BOX II NON-PROFIT THRIFT SHOP

Bene fits Moore Cou nty Charities & Nursi ng Schol arship s for SCC Stude nts Donations Accepted During Regular Business Hours

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

Buying Vintage

and Military Watches

Friend to Friend’s

a thriFt boutique store

All Proceeds Benefit Survivors of Domestic Violence Tues 10:00-1:00 • Wed-Sat 10:00-4:00 125 S. Bennett Street • Southern Pines

910-992-4677 • friendtofriend.me

Spring Clearance Sale!

20% Off ROLEX & TUDOR Especially 1950s-1980s era GMT & SUBMARINER WARPATH MILITARY COLLECTIBLES 819 Hope Mills Road, Fayetteville Ed Hicks (910) 425-7000 edhicks82@aol.com • warpathmilitaria.com

100

All antiques, architectural elements & patio furniture

Sale ends Memorial Day

RAILSIDE ARCHITECTURAL & ANTIQUES 123 EXCHANGE ST., ABERDEEN • 910-690-3089 • Wed - Sat 11 to 5

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

910-673-2065

www.westendpastimes.com

Sunshine Antique & Mercantile Company Buy, Sell or Trade Specializing in Primitive & Country Furnishings Thursday- Saturday 10 to 5 Monday-Wednesday by appointment or chance 115 N. Sycamore St., Aberdeen, NC (919) 995-3488 shop • (919) 673-9388 or (919) 673-9387 cells

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

Meaningful, Personal & Unique Gifts for Mother’s Day and the Graduates

111 West Main Street • Aberdeen Tuesday - Saturday 10 to 5 • 910-944-1181 www.one11main.com

Quality CARE at an Affordable COST Talk with your doctor to learn more about Surgery Center of Pinehurst or call (910) 235-5000 to see how much you could save on your next surgery. Surgery Center of Pinehurst is committed to the comfort and well being of our patients and their families with a patient-focused approach that promotes long-term health and the highest level of patient satisfaction.

10 First Village Drive • Pinehurst, NC 28374

• (910) 235-5000 • SurgeryCenterOfPinehurst.com

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Summer Camps

O’NEAL SUMMER FUN Register Online

ONealSchool.org

Enroll by May 31st & receive a $10 discount!

A Variety of Summer Day Camps for Youth Ages 3 to 17 910-692-6920 • Southern Pines, NC

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

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PARTY FOR THE PINE! 3 p.m. Come celebrate the birthday of the worlds oldest known living longleaf pine! 467 years old! Weymouth Woods, 1024 Fort Bragg Road. Info: (910) 692-2167 or www.ncparks.gov.

Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

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JAMES BOYD BOOK CLUB. 2 p.m. The book for May is To Appomattox: Nine April Days by Burke Davias. Weymouth Center, 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org.

•ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:46 p.m. Ameranouche. The •CITIZEN’S ACADEMY. 6 – 8 p.m. Attendees Rooster’s Wife at the Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight will get a behind-the-scenes look at the Public Works St., Aberdeen. Admission: $15/$20 at door. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.roosterswife.org.

Monday, May 18

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CARRIAGE PARADE AND FESTIVAL. 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Watch the parade of carriages and then sample everything from strawberry ice cream to shortcake at the Strawberry Festival. Village of Pinehurst, 105 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: 910) 687-0377 or www.insidepinehurst.com.

Tuesday, May 19

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MUSIC. 7 p.m. Ryan Book performs. The Wine Cellar, 241A NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3066.

Sunday, May 24

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WINE TASTING. 6:30 – 8 p.m. LoCrema wine will be tasted. $10. The Wine Cellar, 241A NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3066.

BABY BUNNIES STORYTIME. 10:30 a.m. Parents and children will be engaged in early literary practices. Baby bunnies storytime is for ages birth to 18 months. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W.

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Wednesday, May 20

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STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL. 10 a.m. Come join the Women of Weymouth for the Strawberry Festival. Weymouth Center, 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org.

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FILM SERIES. 2:30 p.m. Angelina Jolie directs this true-life tale of Louis Zamperini, the Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in World War II, only to fight for his life against nature and eventually as a prisoner of war. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

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WOODPECKERS OF WEYMOUTH. 3 p.m. Learn how to tell woodpeckers apart and what makes each one unique. Weymouth Woods, 1024 Fort Bragg Road. Info: (910) 692-2167 or www. ncparks.gov.

Thursday, May 21

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LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS LUNCH. 11:30 a.m. Tony Price, the CEO of Moore Free Clinic, will Key:

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Saturday, May 23 MEET THE ARTIST. 12 – 3 p.m. Come visit with Jessie Mackay. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or www.hollhocksartgallery.com.

and Building & Grounds Departments. Info: 910692-8235. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 6928235 or www.sppl.net.

speak to members about immigration and the health care system in Moore County. The public is welcome, with a reservation. Table on the Green Restaurant, 2205 Midland Drive, Pinehurst. Reservations are required. Info: (910) 944-9611 or www.lwvmc.org.

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s s a S r e m m WI T H A

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“We do it all” tion MenAd for This

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A Full Service Salon and Boutique

230 A SW Broad Street, Southern Pines • (910) 246-0278 Book online using www.Vagaro.com

New Showroom Samples are Here! HUGE DISCOUNTS on Fabulous Designer Furniture & Accessories

416 S. Elm St. High Point, NC 27260 • 336.887.1315 10:00am - 5:00pm Monday - Saturday M/C, Visa, AMEX, Discover

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

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ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:46 p.m. Darin and Brook Aldridge. The Rooster’s Wife at the Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Admission: $15/$20 at door. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.roosterswife.org. SYMPHONIC SALUTE. 7:30 p.m. A sa• lute to the U.S. Armed Forces presented by the

Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra. Free admission. Festival Park, 433 Hay St., Fayetteville. Info: www. fayettevillesymphony.org.

Tuesday, May 26

time! Storytime is for infants and toddlers (ages birth through 5 years). Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

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YOUNG AFFILIATES MEETING. 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. The Young Affiliates of Weymouth are committed to the growth and preservation of the Weymouth Center through community events and fundraising. All are welcome. Weymouth Center, 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www. weymouthcenter.org.

Wednesday, May 27

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PRESCHOOL STORYTIME. 3:30 – 4 p.m. Join us for stories, songs, and fun, and then stay for playKey:

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Music/Concerts

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Dance/Theater

PineServices

• • Film

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• • Fun

History

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IN-HOME CARE SERVICES

Giving families

a brighter future with

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

NC Licensed & Nationally Accredited Home Care Agency

780 NW Broad Street • Suite 410 Southern Pines, NC

910-246-0586

Practicing the 3 C’s Care • Compassion • Comfort • Interactive Caregiving™ • Personal Care • Companionship Services • Home Safety Technology

By the Project By the Hour Call for appointment

Pinehurst

910-315-3206 vickieaumaninteriors@yahoo.com

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TIMEWOR KS

(910) 246-8000 10677 Hwy 15-501 Southern Pines

910.303.8346 106 E. Connecticut Ave, Southern Pines, NC

Southernpines-594.comfortkeepers.com

www.CoteTimeworks.com

Watch & Clock Specialist

Most offices independently owned and operated

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MOVING PARTS MOBILE BICYCLE SERVICE

Call The Pilot at 692-7271 JUSTIN LINGLER

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JAM SESSION. 7 – 9 p.m. Join us for our monthly jam session and hear our Weymouth acoustic musicians. All are welcome; bring your own beverage. Weymouth Center, 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org.

Saturday, May 30

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POETRY SOCIETY AWARDS. 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. North Carolina Poetry Society Awards Day. Weymouth Center, 555 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org.

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ARTISTS STUDIO PAINT IN. 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. All six resident artists of Hollyhocks Art Gallery will gather to paint in the Gallery for a Studio Paint In. Visitors are invited to stop by during the day and watch the artists while they work. Enjoy a free wine tasting offered by Elliott’s on Linden. Hollyhocks Art Gallery, 905 Linden Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 255-0665 or www.hollhocksartgallery.com.

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ALL ABOUT INVASIVES. 1:30 p.m. Are there such things as “bad” plants? What’s an “exotic” species? How can adding new plants to our environment actually hurt biodiversity? Hear the answers to all these questions and more. Weymouth Woods, 1024 Fort Bragg Road. Info: (910) 692-2167 or www.ncparks.gov.

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MAKERBOX SATURDAYS. 2 – 6 p.m. Join the Library’s teen volunteers and learn how to use technolKey:

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Art

Music/Concerts

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Dance/Theater

ogy, basic materials, and your ingenuity to make exciting projects. Program most appropriate for students in grades 6-12. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

•MUSIC. 7 p.m. Rob Matthews performs. The Wine Cellar, 241A NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-3066.

Sunday, May 31

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SNAKES OF THE SANDHILLS. 3 p.m. Learn about the various snake species found in the Sandhills. Learn to identify venomous and non-venomous area snakes. Includes live specimens to view and learn about. Weymouth Woods, 1024 Fort Bragg Road. Info: (910) 692-2167 or www.ncparks.gov.

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ROOSTER’S WIFE. 6:46 p.m. Sleeping Bee and Tellico. The Rooster’s Wife at the Poplar Knight Spot, 114 Knight St., Aberdeen. Admission: $15/$20 at door. Info: (910) 944-7502 or www.roosterswife.org.

Art Galleries

ABOUT ART GALLERY inside The Market Place Midland Bistro Building, 2160 Midland Road, Pinehurst. The gallery features local artists. Open Monday-Friday 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. (910) 215-596. Artist GAlleRy OF SOUTHERN PINES,

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History

167 E. New Hampshire Avenue., Southern Pines. Features art and fine crafts from more than 60 North Carolina artists. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910) 692-6077. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St. in historic Aberdeen. Exhibit hours are noon – 3 p.m., Monday-Saturday. (910) 944-3979. Broadhurst Gallery, 2212 Midland Road, Pinehurst. Showcases works by nationally recognized artists such as Carol Bechtel, Jason Craighead, Linda Ruth Dickinson, Bruce Dorfman, Kathleen Earthrowl. Meet-the-artist opportunities available. Monday-Friday (closed Wednesday), 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., Saturday, 1 – 4 p.m and special appointments. (910) 295-4817, www. broadhurstgallery.com. The Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Avenue., Southern Pines. Monday-Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and every third weekend of the month from 2 – 4 p.m. (910) 6924356, www.mooreart.org. The Downtown Gallery inside Cup of Flow, 115 NE Broad St., Southern Pines. Ever-changing array of local and regional art, pottery and other handmade items. (910) 693-1999.

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Sports

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

Fabulous Finds in Fayetteville

ca l e n d a r

Hermes? Chanel?

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

Decisions... Decisions...

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

Consignment Bookstore

Home School Parents, Classroom Educators (K-12th grade), Daycare Providers, Student Teachers and Parents

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

Lady Bedford’s Tea Parlour, 21 Chinquapin Road, Pinehurst. Features local artists. Tuesday-Saturday 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. (910) 255-0100, www.ladybedfords.com. The Old Silk Route, 113 West Main St., Aberdeen. Specializes in Asian original art, including silk paintings, tapestries, Buddhist Thangkas and Indian paper miniatures. Monday, ThursdaySaturday 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. (910) 295-2055.

Come Shop & Consign with us

Pay less for curriculum and books! Get paid more for your educational consignments•Books •Games •Educational Toys They’re all here

The Pilgrim’s Journey Bookstore high cotton CONSIGNMENT boutique | 910.307.5353

www.thepilgrimsjourney.com

3010 Traemoor Village Dr., Suite 190, Fayetteville, NC 28306

high cotton CONSIGNMENT | 910.483.4296 2800-4 Raeford Rd., Fayetteville, NC 28303 follow us!

886 Elm Street, Fayetteville, NC (Located behind Eutaw Shopping Village next door to Eutaw Round-ABout Skating Center off of Bragg Blvd.)

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

SANDHILLS WOMAN’S EXCHANGE, 15 Azalea Road, Pinehurst. All merchandise at the Exchange is handmade by consignors who live in the community. 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Lunch served 11.30 a.m – 2 p.m. (910) 295-4677. Seagrove Candle Company, 116 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Showcases art of the Sandhills and Seagrove area. Monday, Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., (910) 695-0029. SKY Art Gallery, 602 Magnolia Dr., Aberdeen. Tues.-Sat. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. (910) 9449440, www.skyartgallery.com. Studio 590 by the pond in Dowd Cabin, 590 Dowd Circle, Pinehurst. This historic log cabin is the working studio and gallery of artists Betty DiBartolomeo and Harry Neely. Fine oil paintings, commissions and instruction. (910) 639-9404. White Hill Gallery, 407 U.S. 15-501, Carthage, offers a variety of pottery. (910) 947-6100.

Silhouette ~ Tom Ford t ~y mFerragamo ~ Porsche Design ~ Valentino D e s i gFord n a n d q u a li ~ a d e in A u s t r i a | w w w. s ilh e t t e . c o m | v i s i t u s Design on Silhouette ~ Tom Ferragamo ~o uPorsche ~ Valentino Calvin Klein ~ Christian Dior ~ Gucci ~ John Varvatos Calvin Klein ~ Christian Dior ~ Gucci ~ John Varvatos other Luxury Eyewear other Luxury Eyewear

www.metrospecs.us

910.221.0191

201 South McPherson Church Road / McPherson Square Suite 105 in Fayetteville PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2015

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Dining Guide

195 american fusion cuisine supporting local farmers

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

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

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET

We’re Ba-ack

Food Demo May 9th with Sueson Vess “gluten-Free, grain free, coconut crepes with nondairy lemon curd and fresh strawberries Tomatoes, Strawberries, Fruits, Veggies, Jams, Meats, Flowers & Plants, Goat Cheese, Prepared Foods, Baked Goods

“It’s more fun to eat in a Pub than drink in a Restaurant”

Mondays- FirstHealth (Fitness Center) Facility courtesy of First Health

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

Open 7 days a week for Lunch & Dinner Live music every weekend

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

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

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

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

Restaurant Authentic Thai Cusine

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

Smoke Free Environment Lunch

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

Dinner

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

(910) 944-9299

Carryout and Vegetarian Dishes 108

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

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

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

Nature Centers

Sandhills Horticultural Gardens (32 acres of gardens). The Sandhills Horticultural Gardens are handicapped-accessible. Daylight hours year-round. (910) 695-3882. Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve (898 acres). 1024 Fort Bragg Road, Southern Pines. (910) 692-2167.

Bryant House and McLendon Cabin. Tours by appointment. (910) 692-2051 or (910) 673-0908. Carthage Historical Museum. Sundays, 2 – 5 p.m. or by appointment. Located at Rockingham and Saunders streets, Carthage. (9 10) 947-2331.

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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.

Tufts Archives. 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m., Monday-Friday, and 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Saturday. (910) 295-3642.

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

Key:

(10 miles north of Carthage), Sanford. (910) 947-2051.

Shaw House. Open 1 – 4 p.m. TuesdayFriday. (910) 692-2051.

Historical Sites

House in the Horseshoe. Open yearround. Hours vary. 288 Alston House Road

Solution:

North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Monday-Friday, at the Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Avenue., Southern Pines. (910) 692-6261.

VILLAGE ARBORETUM. 35 acres of land adjoining the Village Hall on Magnolia Road, Pinehurst. (910) 295-1900.

Union Station. Open 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Located in downtown Aberdeen. (910) 944-5902. Sandhills Woman’s Exchange Log Cabin. Open 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. (910) 295-4677. PS To add an event, email us at pinestraw.calendar@ gmail.com by the first of the month prior to the event. Or go to www.thepilot.com and add the event to our online calendar.

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HAPPY ANNIVERSA from page 127

May PineNeedler Answers

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Sports

SUMMER IS COMING!

Eat Light Eat Right Join Squire’s Pub for Bountiful Salads • Chicken & Fish Lean Hand Trimmed Beef Healthful Choices

910-695-1161

www.TheSquiresPub.com

1720 US 1 South Southern Pines

Casual Dining. Serious Food.

To advertise, call 910-693-7271

109

P Aul B lAke & A ssociAtes

ESTATE LIQUIDATION & TAG SALE SERVICES Serving buyers and sellers in Moore and surrounding counties for over 30 years.

LICENSED & BONDED

Refer to The Pilot Newspaper for current sale dates & locations or go to ThePilot.com or estatesales.net

ESTATE LIQUIDATORS Paul Blake 910.315.7044 Chuck Helbling 910.315.4501

Scott Harris

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

By Sandra Redding

Upcoming Events

May 7 (Thursday, 7 p.m.) Mary Kratt, prize-winning poet of Charlotte, will join poet Steve Cushman and local prose writers Miriam Herin and yours truly, Sandra Redding, to discuss “Writing a Memoir in Poetry or Prose” at Scuppernong Books, Greensboro. Kratt calls her latest publication, Watch Where You Walk: New and Selected Poems, a lyrical memoir. Info: www.scuppernongbooks.com. May 9 (Saturday, 11 a.m.). Robbin Gourley, author and illustrator of children’s books, will introduce her latest, Talkin’ Guitar: A Story of Young Doc Watson at Scuppernong Books, Greensboro. Her words and breathtaking illustrations pay tribute to the North Carolina musician who won seven Grammy Awards. After talking about the blind boy who loved music, Gourley will entertain with guitar tunes. Fun for all ages. Info: www.scuppernongbooks.com May 13 (Wednesday, 7 p.m.). International best-selling writer Jeffery Deaver, author of over thirty books, will introduce Solitude Creek, his latest mystery, at Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill. This popular North Carolina speaker will talk, answer questions and autograph copies. Info: www.flyleafbooks.com May 17–21 (Friday through Tuesday). The 2015 Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference will be held at LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center near Asheville. This annual event offers training and networking events for both seasoned and aspiring writers and speakers. Here participants interact with editors, agents and professional writers in outstanding workshops and classes. Be inspired by the quiet serenity; sharpen your writing skills. Some scholarships available. Info: ridgecrestconferencecenter.org/programs

Congratulations

Jennifer Whitaker of Greensboro won the 2015 Brittingham Prize in Poetry for her collection, The Blue Hour. She will receive $1,000 and her book will be published by the University of Wisconsin Press. The next deadline for entries: September 15, 2015. Joan S. McLean of Siler City won the 37th New Millennium Award for her poem, Remember This. She received $1,000 and her work will be published in New Millennium Writings. James Tate of Greensboro won the third annual

Dorothy and Wedel Nilsen Prize for his first novel, Academy Gothic. He received $1,000 and his book will be published by the National Book Foundation. A wide variety of books by North Carolinians debuted recently: John Prine: In Spite of Himself (University of Texas Press), by Eddie Huffman of Burlington, is the true story of an exceptional songwriter whose music sparked the careers of many, including Bette Midler and Bob Dylan; Night of the Hatchet (Lulu), by A. W. Hammock of Wilmington, is a real page turner involving a deadly terrorist cell and the hero who pursues them . . . The Niburian Sequence (Xlibris), by Gary Furnas of Lincolnton contains high adventure and scientific intrigue, Masters of the Weird Tale: Fred Chappell (Centipede Press) is the largest single collection of Chappell’s writing: twenty stories, one novel (Dagon) and numerous poems. Weirdly wonderful illustrations by David Ho and Fritz Janschka embellish this unique treasure.

Writing Lesson

O.Henry magazine recently hosted one of the most illustrious literary events in Greensboro’s history: an evening with five of the state’s top literary luminaries. Here, they share personal anecdotes and advice for aspiring writers. Jim Dodson, editor of O.Henry, PineStraw and Salt, remembers the advice his dad gave him: “Write a book that you would want to read.” It seems to have worked pretty well for the best-selling author. Wiley Cash of Wilmington finished writing his first novel, A Land More Kind than Home, in 2003. Though it was considered a good novel, Wiley continued to study, seek advice from other writers and spent hours rewriting for nine years. When finally published in 2012, reviewers declared it a great novel. Clyde Edgerton, author of fourteen books, most sprinkled with humor, teaches writing at UNC Wilmington, where he encourages students “to take no advice that does not make sense to them, to try to observe their world as if never seen, to cause the reader to SEE and to avoid adverbs when possible.” Frances Mayes of Hillsborough and Cortona, Italy, strives to create a strong sense of place for her books, whether she’s writing about Georgia or Italy. Grateful for her own success, she frequently praises the work of other writers. During the O.Henry event, she charmed fellow honorees by purchasing their books and asking for their autographs. Jill McCorkle, a patient wordsmith, confesses, “My writing process often involves a lot of note taking, every day jotting down thoughts and ideas and in the evening putting the scraps away for later perusal.” PS

a Carefully Curated Blend of Brands and Styles

What’s your writing secret? Send it to sanredd@ earthlink.net. Greensboro writer Sandra Redding’s novel, Naomi Wise: A Cautionary Tale, is a riveting story about heartbreak and hope in a Quaker community.

trendy • ageless • style 105 Cherokee Road BB • Pinehurst, NC cooperandbaileys.com • 603-8088

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Triad: (336) 272-4400 Pinehurst: (910) 215-9700 www.pestmgt.com Complete Pest, Termite, and Wildlife Control

April Showers Bring May Flowers... And Pesky Mosquitoes. Don’t let dangerous mosquitoes suck the fun out of your outdoor activities! Take your yard back with PMi’s mosquito reduction program!

Fight the bite.

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

Richard & Priscilla Beck

SandhillSeen

Sandy & George Miller

Steep Canyon Rangers in Concert Palustris Festival Friday, March 27, 2015 Photographs by Al & Annette Daniels

The Steep Canyon Rangers perform onstage

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond the Wall Lay Grown-Up Demons The day two worlds collided

By Geoff Cutler

When we got bored and had

done everything we could think of doing, we’d climb up onto the wall to watch the cars go by. We wouldn’t think of throwing crabapples at them when we sat up there because we were too close, and the grown-ups driving those cars would have caught us for sure. So we just gobbled at each other until one of us came up with an idea of something else to do. There was Ritchie and Maynard, Ellen-Ann, and my little brother and me. There may have been more, but this was a long time ago, and who was there isn’t all that important anyway. I guess you could say we were the same as any old gang of neighborhood kids. Most days we spent gazing out the schoolroom window waiting for the last bell to ring so we could come home and hack around.

Across the street from our place, that’s where the wall was. It was a stone wall and plenty tall enough to hide the property of an old lady who lived in a humongous house behind it. She was real old and never came out of that house. So we figured she wouldn’t notice us sitting on her wall. The wall wasn’t just a pile of stones either. It was the kind of thing you don’t see much anymore. Built by masons who laid a thick slab of concrete down between each and every river-round rock. A king might have slept better in his castle to be surrounded by the thing. One day, we were up on the wall and Maynard was giving us the latest on his little sister. She’d fallen off our swing set and busted her arm. She was always getting hurt — kind of a klutz, that one — when down the road came a car carrying a streetlight on its roof, pole and all. The top of the car was all stove in from the weight of the light pole, but somehow it was balanced on top of the car just as natural as can be. You might have thought . . . Well, that’s just one of those light pole cars. The front end of the car was all crunched in and the hood was gone. We looked into the maw of the engine. Right before the wall, there was a slight bend in the road. The driver didn’t notice the turn because the car plowed into the wall right below our feet. I mean right in front of our damn noses. The light pole flew off and the wall shuddered, but held fast. The noise was deafening and we about wet our pants. The car was hissing and spitting oil and anti-freeze and we looked at each other in terror. We scrabbled ourselves around and jumped down into the old lady’s yard and ran around to her driveway and out onto the street.

Inside the car, there’s a grown-up lady. Her hair is a tangled rat’s nest and she has a streaks of blood running down her face. But she’s calm, eerily calm, almost like she doesn’t know she’s carrying a streetlamp on her car and has just cracked into a stone wall. We figure she will get out of that car. But she doesn’t. She stomps her foot on the gas and revs the engine as high at it’ll go. She wrenches the steering wheel back and forth trying to turn that wrecked car off the wall. Then we hear the ear-piercing squeal of sirens, and a mess of police cars comes zooming up the road, fire engines and ambulances right behind. Grown-ups start coming out of their houses to see what all the noise is about. Just as the police are getting out of their cruisers, metal begins to tear away from stone and that woman’s wreck comes peeling off the wall. The car scrapes and screeches off down the road with its right front wheel turned up and hanging limp from the vehicle. She can’t get up much speed running on three wheels and sparks begin flying from the car. Fluids of all color leave a trail on the road behind her. The engine screams and we run down the sidewalk behind her. Ambulances, fire engines and police cars follow along beside us. A grown-up yells out for us to stay back because the car might blow up. Then the lady begins to lose control again and blasts through a solid wood fence into Mr. Caner’s front yard. We know it’s the end. That old wrecked car dies dead. We begin to hear the lady inside. She is wailing: “I need to get my husband . . . he called . . . I just need to get my husband. He’s at work . . . he called.” Fire hoses are pulled into the yard and torrents of water spew over the car. The lady, still shrieking about her husband, is pulled out and laid down on a stretcher. The men strap her tight by wrist and ankle. They slide her into the ambulance like a drawer into a bureau, and one of the men jumps in back with her. The other runs around to the cab, gets in, and siren blaring, speeds away from the chaos. We huddle up together. Trails of dried and dirty tears stain Ellen-Ann’s face. We inch closer to the gathered emergency people and can hear bits and pieces of what they say. “Started crashing miles back. Took out five cars before she hit the wall. Didn’t stop for nothing. Talked to her husband at work. Says she’s probably been drinking. Takes pills. Nervous breakdowns. Been institutionalized.” We’d seen enough. Our arms around each other, we turned and walked away. We never sat on the old lady’s wall after that. Not even boredom made us climb it. And we never talked about it, either. We didn’t have to. We all saw what happened. We all felt the same way, and we knew what each other thought. Evil demons got inside that poor lady’s head. Grown-up demons. The kind no kid wants to think wait for him. No, we didn’t sit on the wall again. Bad memories. Not good luck. Too superstitious. After that, when we got bored, we went and hung out in our clubhouse, or dangled from the jungle gym and waited for Maynard’s little sister to fall off the damn thing. PS Geoff can be reached at geoffcutler@embarqmail.com.

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

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

May Day, My Dearies No bull. Time to be your own person

By Astrid Stellanova

MAYbe you like this month’s gentle breezes, taking time for some porch sitting and iced tea. MAYbe you like easy living. And yes, my astral children, MAYbe you are also having a birthday. If you were born under the complicated sign Taurus, MAYbe you have already figured out you get to face some of life’s big questions. Not even Astrid can typecast you, Taurus, because you are your own person and face life your own way. Complicated. Smart. Prone to cause and hold grudges. But, make no mistake about it; nobody is more fun than the Taurus when the party gets started. For all of us, this month is all about subtle signs being revealed, and tuning in to them. Pay attention, Star Children.

Taurus (April 20—May 20) Don’t throw shade — go sit in it. Your birthday might be one of the best ones you have had since you were 5 years old. Soon after the candles are blown out on your cake (go on and buy one for yourself if nobody remembers to bake one for you), a series of fortunate events are set in motion by a friend. Behind the scenes, life is going to rapidly shift. When you finally see the outcome, you will be surprised — something that happens rarely to you, little shrewd one. Gemini (May 21—June 20) The lessons you faced last month may or may not have been completed. Go back to the blackboard and keep writing. You are in a cycle that will require extreme self-awareness, but not as in is there something stuck in my teeth? If you want to graduate from this psychic lesson, you have simply got to meet the test. But this is also an important transition period, and by the 21st, something key to your happiness shifts in your favor. Don’t fail to enter a contest — your luck takes a nice turn. Also, try something you have never done before even if you aren’t good at it — like being patient. Cancer (June 21—July 22) Use that tax return for at least one downright superficial and completely unnecessary thing. You deserve it, Honey. It was a difficult winter, and you are truly going to enjoy the warm months when a difficult relationship finally thaws out. Somebody close to you needs your friendship more than you do — can you give in and make that call? If you can’t do that much, at least quit your bitching about it. Nobody’s all wrong, all the time, right? Leo (July 23—August 22) Honeybun, your roar is significant but your bite ain’t got no force. What happened to your mojo? Go find it. You have moped around for way too long. Get over this pity party and get off the porch while you’re at it. By the time you read this, you will have already made at least one startling discovery. Be sure it concerns more than your underwear. Virgo (August 23—September 22) I wish I had a dollar for every time a Virgo does somebody a favor. You have been generous in a lot of ways, and now Lady Luck throws the dice your way. Get on your party clothes and show up — it’s that simple. Fortune smiles — it is a good time to speculate on real estate or the stock market. But it is a bad time to be hasty, so just read all the fine print. And don’t stick your finger in a light socket just to get cheap highlights. Libra (September 23—October 22) Whatever you do, stop rewinding the tape on recent events and watching the same old reruns. Move on. Something didn’t go to suit you, but you have an opportunity to recover all that was lost. If you keep whining, you might miss the boat while waiting at the airport. Also, try to find your childhood best friend. They have some information you might really enjoy knowing.

Scorpio (October 23—November 21) Do yourself a favor. Stop calling attention to yourself. Get interested in your best friend, partner, or neighbor. It will really change the crazy dynamic that you got trapped in recently. Also, don’t worry about that health scare. You are much healthier than you realized, and get a green pass. It ain’t the end of the world if you ain’t regular, Honey. Sagittarius (November 22—December 21) Did you find something recently that you were delighted to discover? If not, you soon will. I can clearly sense something important is going to resurface; it might have been a childhood book, or your Lassie fan club membership card, or even a time capsule you buried in the back yard. Be thankful, Honey. Meantime, a person close to you is in crisis and could sure as heck use a shoulder to cry on. Capricorn (December 22—January 19) The reward for your patience last month is something pretty innocent looking on the surface, but something that will mean a whole lot to you. When this happens, try and pay it forward, Darling. Buy somebody behind you in line a cup of coffee. And practice this little prayer of gratitude to the God of Your Understanding: thank you. Also, if you find yourself with an itch you gotta scratch, just get yourself some Epsom salts and soak. Aquarius (January 20—February 18) You are the most complicated buttercup in the field. Never known a sweeter sign, but also never known a more navel-gazing one either. The answers to your loneliness won’t happen on Match.com. The answer will come in living your one, big old, glorious life right out loud. Eat more honey. Drink less vinegar. There is a convergence that is going to help lead you away from bewilderment and into green pastures. Pisces (February 19—March 20) Honey, you are attempting to live a chocolate croissant dream in a Moon Pie world. How is it that you are always the odd one out in life? Maybe it is because your dreams are bigger than your hopes. Let them loose, Child! A ticket to Paris ain’t out of the question! And if it is, then just buy yourself a café au lait, slap a beret on your head, and Walter Mitty your way into a little happiness until your bank account fattens up. Aries (March 21—April 19) The party ain’t over yet, Honey. An unexpected guest is about to darken your doorstep, and they will be a handful. You may finally meet your match in the mischief department. Enjoy having your life upended, and just go along for the ride. You know you always liked a pal riding shotgun, and this is a month to just hold onto your liver and your gizzard and your brand new teeth. Excitement coming soon. PS For years, Astrid Stellanova owned and operated Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon in the boondocks of North Carolina until arthritic fingers and her popular astrological readings provoked a new career path.

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

May PineNeedler HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!! Happy Anniversary 1

By Mart Dickerson 8

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Sudoku:

Puzzle answers on page 109

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

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southwords

Simply Beginning By Andie Rose

Ten years ago Neville

Beamer invited Brent Hackney, Maura Coulter and myself to lunch at the old Aberdeen Café, where, over grilled cheese sandwiches and sweet tea, he suggested we start a magazine — an arts and entertainment magazine like the one I had always dreamed of creating.

Neville’s reasoning had less to do with cultural-mindedness than it did with his desire to help Brent generate an income to go toward his increasing tab at Neville’s bar, but he also believed that the community would latch on to a magazine like the one we could create. Brent had served as long-time opinion editor for The Pilot, from which he had recently retired, and was the obvious choice for editor. Maura was running the events at the Sunrise Theater. Neville also wanted a platform to share the many fascinating stories about his time as greeter at New York’s 21 Club during the ’70s. I had a strong feeling that a magazine that the four of us could produce just might work. By the time our banana pudding was served, a deal was struck. I consider myself a lucky girl. That simple meeting resulted in the job I now have and love, and for that I have a lot of people to thank. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. At a time when magazines were rapidly failing, we forged ahead with our dream. We decided on format, and with no start-up money, decided we would print a tabloid-size magazine on newsprint. But we needed a great name. We tossed around many suggestions, and were settling with PS. We kept thinking that an esoteric name was what we needed — something unexpected — maybe something along the lines of Kudzu. Driving home from work one night I saw Brent crossing the street, yelling something. I slowed down, wondering what he was trying to tell me. “I’ve got it! Pinestraw! We’ll call it Pinestraw!” I loved it immediately. Our first issue was in April of 2005 with a cover photograph of Voit Gilmore and Felton Capel shot by the talented Glenn Dickerson at the Sunrise Theater. This was a story Brent felt needed to be retold — how two gentlemen crossed the race barrier and integrated the theater. It was a well-chosen piece that immediately garnered attention and respect from the community. In the early days, PineStraw was truly a labor of love. Although there may have been fewer outstanding bar tabs, no one was getting paid.

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Contributors such as Glenn Dickerson, Stephen E. Smith, David Carpenter, Jim Moriarty, Audrey Moriarty, Karl Stuart, Dale Nixon, Robyn James and Tim Sayer all provided their talented services for the simple joy of seeing their stories, photographs and illustrations in print, and to support the fledgling publication. Bennett Rose, Hunter Hess and John Root were our original delivery guys. Beth Carpenter was a wealth of early story ideas. In those days, a lot of our brainstorming was done at our de facto office, Neville’s Club. We received advice, encouragement and story ideas from many voices. We all felt a deep sense of pride each month when the magazine arrived. We continued to put out PineStraw for two years. But change and circumstance are inevitable. Brent had died in 2005, with many great stories yet untold. Neville was still writing his “Over 21” column and running his local club, but he was ready for a break to pursue writing a novel and maybe a song or two. Maura was moving to New England. My graphic design business was dwindling due to my attention to the magazine. This was about the time that Steve Bouser took me to lunch and insisted I talk to David Woronoff about bringing PineStraw into The Pilot’s house. I knew David had always wanted a magazine — he and I had talked years before to no avail. We met and quickly decided this would work. When I approached Neville about the matter, his response was something along the lines of: “ I guess our baby is all grown up and ready to go to the prom. Go for it.” Oh, and by the way, Neville got a set of golf clubs from The Pilot as a form of payment, and Maura also received some compensation. Me — I was going to finally receive a paycheck and still keep producing my beloved PineStraw. David then surprised me with his suggestion of Jim Dodson as editor. I was, of course, very familiar with Jim’s Sunday column in The Pilot. We hit it off immediately. I’ll never forget when Jim and I met and I explained to him how our operation worked on such a shoestring budget. He was blown away and could not believe no one was getting paid. I just told him I asked and, fortunately, they gave. So I am thankful to the support of our those early contributors — they paved the way for the PineStraw that now exists. Thank you readers, supporters, advertisers and contributors. I will always be amazed that the dream Brent, Maura, Neville and I had ten years ago is thriving, though with many changes. And I still get a thrill when the magazine arrives at the beginning of the month. And when I walk down the street and see someone in the ice cream parlor having a milkshake while intently reading the latest issue. This community has been so generous in their support. Happy Birthday, PineStraw. PS Andie Rose is the Creative Director for PineStraw Magazine

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

Buyer, Purveyor & APPrAiser of fine And estAte Jewellery 229 NE Broad StrEEt • SouthErN PiNES, NC • (910) 692-0551 • In-House RepaIRs Mother and daughter Leann and Whitney Parker Look ForWard to WeLcoMing you to WhitLauter.

A N O T H E R S AT I S F I E D C L I E N T

Photos by Tad Davis Photography

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Thank you Stewart Construction for making this renovation easy, pleasurable and at times even fun. Thank you for doing a most excellent job in making our home into a warm, welcoming, comfortable place for our family to gather. - Nick & Jan Picerno

910-673-1929

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Look for the “Mark” of a Great Builder

mark@stewartcdc.com