May PineStraw 2020

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s r a l l o D of

McDevitt town & country properties

IF YOU OR SOMEONE CLOSE TO YOU IS S H O W I N G S Y M P T O M S O F C O R O N AV I R U S ,

WHAT NEXT? CALL YOUR PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN. Pinehurst Surgical Clinic is open and will maintain normal business hours to serve non COVID-19 health issues.

Quality patient care has been our priority for nearly 75 years.

We will continue to be open and serve our community.

Pinehurst Surgical Clinic is here for our patients during this difficult time by being open during regular business hours, offering telehealth, and also reminding them to make the necessary steps to protect themselves & others:

C L E A N YO U R H A N D S O F T E N • AV O I D C L O S E C O N TA C T S TAY H O M E I F YO U ’ R E S I C K • C OV E R C O U G H S & S N E E Z E S W E A R A FA C E M A S K I F YO U ’ R E S I C K • C L E A N & D I S I N F E C T

For more information, call:

910-295-6831

www.pinehurstsurgical.com

Always a Step Ahead

Introducing Introducingaabrand brandnew newCaviness Caviness a brand new Caviness Land development in NC. LandIntroducing development inAberdeen, Aberdeen, NC. Land development in Aberdeen, NC.

Pre-Selling Pre-SellingNow! Now!

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Serving Moore County and Surrounding Areas!

910.684.8674 | 120 N ASHE ST | SOUTHERN PINES, NC 28387

www.maisonteam.com

MLS 198255 35 CYPRESS CIRCLE Southern Pines, NC • $210,000

MLS 199268 490 SHELDON ROAD Southern Pines, NC • $340,000

MLS 198794 660 E MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE Southern Pines, NC• $610,000

MLS 196375 1220 BURNING TREE ROAD Pinehurst, NC • $325,000

MLS 199474 938 WINDS WAY Aberdeen, NC • $322,500

MLS 199473 934 WINDS WAY Aberdeen, NC • $315,000

MLS 198403 430 PALISADES DRIVE Aberdeen, NC • $284,900

MLS 199659 587 FOOTHILLS STREET Aberdeen, NC • $302,500

Buy, Sell or Rent through us - we do it all!

910.684.8674 | 120 N ASHE ST | SOUTHERN PINES, NC 28387

May ���� FEATURES 59 Where I’m From

Poetry by Mallie Clara Purvis

60 Reviving a Soulful Sound

By Stephen E. Smith A scruffy old guitar finds its voice again

66 The Legend of Eddie Pearce

By Bill Fields

How the “Next Nicklaus” found new life on the rocky road to the Sandhills

70 Donald’s Digs

By Deborah Salomon

DEPARTMENTS

15 18 21 23 25

29 33 35

37 38

Simple Life By Jim Dodson PinePitch Instagram Contest Good Natured By Karen Frye The Omnivorous Reader

41 Wine Country By Angela Sanchez 43 Pleasures of Life Dept.

By Katherine Smith

By Stephen E. Smith

Bookshelf

Hometown By Bill Fields

Papadaddy’s Mindfield

By Clyde Edgerton

In the Spirit By Tony Cross The Kitchen Garden By Jan Leitschuh

45 46 49 51 55 78 79

80

Out of the Blue By Deborah Salomon Food for Thought By Jane Lear Birdwatch By Susan Campbell Sporting Life By Tom Bryant Golftown Journal By Lee Pace PineNeedler By Mart Dickerson The Accidental Astrologer

By Astrid Stellanova

Southwords By Jim Moriarty

The Ross Cottage gets a mulligan

77 Almanac By Ash Alder Cover Photograph

by John Koob Gessner Photograph This Page from the Tufts A rchives

The Ross Cottage 6 6

May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Enjoy Bedtime…

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

at Sawgrass Village, 310 Front Street Suite 815 Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 32082 904.834.7280

www.OpulenceOfSouthernPines.com Serving the Carolinas & More for Over 20 Years – Financing Available

Talent, Technology & Teamwork!

Moore County’s Most Trusted Real Estate Team!

PINEHURST • $350,000

20 KILBERRY DRIVE Custom 3 BR / 2.5 BA golf front home located on the 4th tee of the Azalea course in Pinewild. Home is single level w/spacious layout.

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PINEHURST • $465,000

2 BLAIR PLACE Custom 3 BR / 2.5 BA brick and hardiplank home w/fairway views of 16th hole of PCC course #1. Home has recently been repainted and offers large wraparound front porch.

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15 WALNUT CREEK ROAD Elegant 3 BR / 2.5 BA home in beautifully secluded area of Fairwoods on 7. Layout is spacious including large master suite w/extra large walk-in closet.

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $319,000

121 SMATHERS DRIVE Newly constructed 3 BR / 2 BA home in beautiful community.

Home is located in desirable location within walking distance to marina and offers lots of extras.

1 E. MCDONALD ROAD Adorable 4 BR / 3.5 BA brick home w/open floorplan and beautiful hardwood flooring. Home offers lots of curb appeal and is located within walking distance to historic Village.

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SEVEN LAKES WEST • $375,000

129 ANDREWS DRIVE Perfect WATERFRONT building lot in desirable community of Seven Lakes West.

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PINEHURST • $418,000

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WHISPERING PINES • $390,000 160 TUCKER ROAD New construction underway – offering lots of privacy.

3 BR / 2.5 BA home w/nice layout and oversize kitchen perfect for entertaining!

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SEVEN LAKES SOUTH • $305,000 102 HUNTINGDON COURT Lovely and unique 3 BR / 2.5 BA home in quiet location overlooking both golf and water – spectacular views from 3 sides.

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PINEHURST • $467,000

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PINEHURST • $325,000

130 SHADOW CREEK COURT Appealing 3 BR / 2.5 BA townhome in Forest Hills community.

Townhome offers spacious layout, gorgeous kitchen and lots of curb appeal.

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WHISPERING PINES • $310,000

4 MORNING GLORY LANE Well maintained 4 BR / 3 BA home in great location.

Floorplan is bright and open w/large kitchen and oversize master suite.

PINEHURST • $465,000

86 MCMICHAEL DRIVE Beautiful 2 BR / 2.5 BA custom home on 7th hole of the Holly course. This home has the most beautiful views in Pinewild.

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PINEHURST • $329,900 3 MITCHELL COURT Outstanding 4 BR / 3 BA brick home in Popular #6.

Layout is inviting and features two master bedrooms as well as large covered deck in back.

IN MOORE COUNTY REAL ESTATE FOR OVER 20 YEARS!

Luxury Properties Moore County’s Most Trusted Real Estate Team!

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PINEHURST • $535,000

49 GREYABBEY DRIVE Contemporary 4 BR / 4.5 BA home on 7th hole of Pinewild CC’s Magnolia course. Interior is light and open w/beautiful gourmet kitchen.

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SEVEN LAKES WEST • $575,000

310 BROKEN RIDGE TRAIL Exquisite 4 BR / 3 full BA 3 half BA brick home located on over 3 acres w/spacious layout. Along with the home there is a barn and beautiful rolling pastures.

PINEHURST • $535,000

PINEHURST • $530,000

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SOUTHERN PINES • $540,000

1 AUGUSTA DRIVE Stunning 3 BR / 2.5 BA custom home in popular Mid South Club. Interior is open w/beautiful oak flooring and nice upgrades throughout.

5 AUGUSTA WAY Attractive 4 BR / 3 BA brick custom home located in Pinehurst Donald Ross area. Home has a beautiful layout and is within walking distance to historic Village of Pinehurst.

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PINEHURST • $539,000

122 ANCHOR POINT Gorgeous 4 BR / 3.5 BA waterfront home on Lake Auman. This custom brick home offers lovely floorplan and spectacular water views.

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PINEHURST • $795,000

26 OXTON CIRCLE Appealing 4 BR / 3.5 BA home in great location w/spacious layout, gorgeous kitchen along with views of golf and water. Tons of appeal inside and out.

NEW

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $735,000

159 NATIONAL DRIVE Delightful 4 BR / 3 BA home in private gated community of Pinehurst #9. Home is spacious w/gorgeous kitchen, great 3 seasons room and beautiful landscaping.

64 GREYABBEY DRIVE Grand all brick 3 BR / 3.5 BA golf front home on Magnolia course in Pinewild. Open layout w/hardwoods in main living area and beautiful views of fairway and green on hole #3.

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MCLENDON HILLS • $675,000

106 SUNSET POINT Amazing 3 BR / 3.5 BA custom brick and stone stunner.

Home offers beautiful layout and is move-in ready and is truly a rare find on Lake Auman.

PINEHURST • $545,000

13 HALKIRK DRIVE Nicely maintained 4 BR / 4.5 BA brick home in gated Pinewild community. Home offers beautiful hardwood flooring throughout the main living area as well as kitchen and has beautiful layout.

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PINEHURST • $610,000

20 CRAIG ROAD Alluring 4 BR / 4.5 BA in beautiful Old Town location.

Home has bright, open floorplan, gourmet kitchen and tons of curb appeal.

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PINEHURST • $599,000

51 STONEYKIRK DRIVE Stunning custom 5 BR / 3.5 BA brick home in beautiful Pinewild CC. Home offers exquisite finishes and detail throughout w/great floorplan, gorgeous kitchen and an abundance of space.

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

www.ThEGENTRYTEAM.COM

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

Historic cottage in tHe Village

M A G A Z I N E Volume 16, No. 5 David Woronoff, Publisher Jim Dodson, Editor

910.693.2506 • jim@pinestrawmag.com

Andie Stuart Rose, Creative Director

910.693.2467 • andie@pinestrawmag.com

Jim Moriarty, Senior Editor

910.692.7915 • jjmpinestraw@gmail.com

Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer

910.693.2508 • alyssa@pinestrawmag.com

Lauren M. Coffey, Graphic Designer

910.693.2469 • lauren@pinestrawmag.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Deborah Salomon, Staff Writer Mary Novitsky, Sara King, Proofreaders CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

John Koob Gessner, Laura Gingerich, Tim Sayer CONTRIBUTORS Tom Allen, Jenna Biter, Harry Blair, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Bill Case, Wiley Cash, Tony Cross, Brianna Rolfe Cunningham, Mart Dickerson, Clyde Edgerton, Bill Fields, Laurel Holden, Jane Lear, Jan Leitschuh, Meridith Martens, D.G. Martin, Lee Pace, Renee Whitmore, Joyce Reehling, Scott Sheffield, Stephen E. Smith, Astrid Stellanova, Angie Tally, Kimberly Taws, Ashley Wahl

PS ADVERTISING SALES

Whispering Pines Cottage • 40 Village Green East Whispering Pines Cottage, built in 1915, exemplifies the influence of New England style architecture on Old Town cottages. Sited squarely on .69 acres, within view of Pinehurst No. 2, the yard features three separate, fenced landscapes, each beautifully designed. In 2007, the cottage was restored to its original plan and charm, adding a new kitchen, butler’s pantry and master bath. Since 2012, a spacious family room, large laundry room, mudroom connecting a 3-car-garage and spacious workshop have been added. Highlights include a main floor master, 3 fireplaces, heart pine floors, Carolina room and walk-in pantry. 4 BR, 3.5 BA, 5754 sq ft. NEW LISTING Offered at $1,640,000

To view more photos, take a virtual tour or schedule a showing, go to:

Maureen Clark

www.clarkpropertiesnc.com

when experience matters

Pinehurst • Southern Pines BHHS Pinehurst Realty Group • 910.315.1080 ©2015 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently operated subsidiary of HomeServices of American, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate, and a franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC.

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Ginny Trigg, Advertising Director 910.693.2481 • ginny@thepilot.com Terry Hartsell, 910.693.2513 Perry Loflin, 910.693.2514 Dacia Burch, 910.693.2519 Patty Thompson, 910.693.3576 Samantha Cunningham, 910.693.2505 ADVERTISING COORDINATOR

Emily Jolly • pilotads@thepilot.com

ADVERTISING GRAPHIC DESIGN

Mechelle Butler, Scott Yancey

PS

Steve Anderson, Finance Director 910.693.2497 Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488 SUBSCRIPTIONS

910.693.2488

OWNERS

Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels Jr., Frank Daniels III, Lee Dirks, David Woronoff 145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue, Southern Pines, NC 28387 www.pinestrawmag.com ©Copyright 2020. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

PineStraw magazine is published by The Pilot LLC

May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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100 Lake Dornoch • CCNC. Pinehurst The stunning contemporary home, poised over the 17th hole of the Dogwood Course, is characterized by rooms with a view. 4BR, 5BA, 2HB, 4570 sf. Offered at $775,000

Chanticleer at Forest Creek • Pinehurst Choose one of these French Country Cottages designed by Mark Parsons for Chanticleer at Forest Creek, or select from the remaining 14 lots available. Call the Berkshire Hathaway agent on duty at Forest Creek 910.295.5000 to schedule a showing. NEW LISTINGS $485,000 - $538,000

Maureen Clark

910.315.1080 • www.clarkproperties.com

123 Pinefield Court • Southern Pines

770 Yadkin Road • Southern Pines

Built in 2006, this 6580 sq ft residence on 8 acres includes 5 BR, 6.5 BA, theater room, billiard room, open living plan, wine cellar, 3 car garage and outdoor kitchen.

Gated privacy. Offered at $1,900,000

The perfect farm on 10 acres, short hack from the Foundation. Offering: huntbox (2008) 5-stall barn, 2 BR and Residence (2011) 3 BR, 4610 sq ft, pool. $1,875,000.

5 Merion Place • CCNC • Pinehurst Rambling, fun-filled home on 5 acres, has it all for family living: 2 family rooms with fireplaces, 4 BR, 4.2 BA, guest apartment, main floor master, 5500 sq ft., 3 car garage. $899,000.

140 North Valley • Southern Pines Loblolly, a Southern Pines historic treasure, located on a quiet, tree-lined street, is a lovely combination of unparalleled building elegance embraced by comfortable living features.

5BR, 5BA, 8,050 sf. Offered at $1,490,000

Berkshire Hathaway HomeSercies and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc.® Equal Housing Opportunity.Housing Opportunity.

We’re on that bridge.

Let’s cross it together.

THE ONLY LIMITATION IS YOUR IMAGINATION BRICKWORK

STONEWORK

FIREPLACES

OUTDOOR LIVING

910-944-0878

www.howellsmasonry.com 10327 Hwy 211 • Aberdeen, NC 28315

178 Lost Trail Drive, McLendon Hills

335 Grande Pines Vista, Grande Pines $2,950,00 3 bed / 3/2 bath

Jennifer Nguyen 910-585-2099 Karen Iampietro 910-690-7098

3 bed / 3 bath

Pamela O’Hara 910-315-3093

B H H S PRG .CO M

“Monreve Farm” — Beautiful equestrian property adjacent to Walthour Moss Foundation.

8 stall Morton barn, 2 run-in sheds, 10 paddocks, and riding ring.

13 Banning Drive, Newbury Ridge 5 bed / 5 bath

Bill Brock 910-639-1148

Great, multi-generational home on the water. This showplace home on Blue Lake has it all.

Two separate living quarters, more than 5,000 sqft.

MLS 199329

185 Doral Drive, Doral Woods $349,000

3 bed / 2/1 bath

Kay Beran 910-315-3322 Linda Criswell 910-783-7374

OFFERS INVITED. Classic Cape Cod home in Doral Woods.

Large patio and very private yard. PCC property privilege membership available.

MLS 197961

Peaceful horse farm and certified wildlife habitat.

Custom home with wrap around porch, main floor master suite, and basement.

4 stall barn, riding area, and private trails.

MLS 196830

201 Plantation Drive, Mid South Club $850,000 5 bed / 4/1 bath

Debbie Darby 910-783-5193

MLS 198891

$699,000

4 bed / 4 bath

Jennifer Nguyen 910-585-2099

MLS 194386

1220 Aiken Road, Vass $852,000

$899,000

Private estate on 47 acres in Grande Pines with a 2 story all-brick home. 4 stall barn, climate controlled car barn/ carriage house and a separate 5,900 sf workshop.

This could be your view!

Stunning golf front estate.

Main house with guest house, 5 garage spaces, pool/spa, and many custom details.

This is a one of a kind property.

MLS 198780

5 Chestnut Lane, Pinehurst $539,000 3 bed / 2/1 bath

Frank Sessoms 910-639-3099

Lake front, great view of Lake Pinehurst. All brick, built in 1993. New 16x14 deck, new hardwood floors, new appliances, and walk-out basement.

MLS 199346

416 Avenue of the Carolinas, The Carolina $315,000

3 bed / 2 bath

Bill Brock 910-639-1148

Three Bedrooms, two baths, large bonus room, open floor plan, stainless fully equipped kitchen, easy commute to Ft. Bragg.

MLS 199162

70 Laurel Road, Pinehurst $825,000 5 bed / 4/1 bath

Emily Hewson 910-315-3093 Pamela O’Hara 910-315-3324

Own a special part of Pinehurst history: “Pine Villa.” Original Tufts Cottage built in 1896.

One block from the heart of the Village of Pinehurst.

MLS 196039

85 Cherry Hill Drive, CCNC $525,000

3 bed / 3/1 bath

Kay Beran 910-315-3322 Bonnie Baker 910-690-4705

MOVE IN READY! This twostory home is the most flexible of plans with a large, open entry accessing a formal dining room, a den/study, kitchen and family room, master suite, living room and Carolina Room — all on the main floor.

MLS 197750

85 Pine Meadows Road, Pinehurst $295,000

3 bed / 2 bath

Casey Barbera 910-639-4266

Well maintained, all brick home now available in Unit 1!

Desirable split floor plan with over 2200 sq feet of living space including a formal dining room and office.

MLS 199682

Pinehurst Office • 42 Chinquapin Road, Pinehurst, NC 28374 • 910 –295 –5504 | Southern Pines Office • 167 Beverly Lane, Southern Pines, NC 28387 • 910-692-2635 ©2020 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently operated subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate, and a franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC.

SIMPLE LIFE

Simple Small Places And how they produce some of life’s greatest moments

By Jim Dodson

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the fa-

mous Roman philosopher and statesman, once observed that all he needed to live was a good library and his garden.

I’m beginning to know what he was talking about.

In a world where life as we knew it outside home has largely come to a standstill, familiar people and places that provide a measure of comfort and sense of normality are more important than ever.

In my own narrowed sphere, I am fortunate to have a home library and garden where I can find useful diversion, fresh perspective and life more or less unchanged. As any reader knows, a good library can transport you anywhere in the world you’d care to go without leaving your comfortable armchair. And a garden keeps on growing regardless of the day’s news.

Before it became a library, the small room that leads to the large screened porch out back was where our house’s previous owner, Mama Meryl Corry, spent most of her days during the final years of her life. Her late husband, Al, was a larger-than-life character and a gifted contractor who built a number of the first houses in our postwar neighborhood, including, in 1951, his own dream house for Meryl and their four children. It’s a cozy brick-and-wood bungalow that looks more like the private retreat of a Hollywood starlet than a Carolina housewife and mother.

In fact, Mama Meryl was both — at least in the opinion of a kid who grew up two doors from the Corrys but was always in and out of their house with their two youngest sons, Craig and Britt. At a time when preteen boys begin to notice such things, Craig Corry and I maintained that we had the best-looking moms in the neighborhood. Meryl was a statuesque beauty with flowing auburn hair who looked a lot like filmdom’s leading lady Maureen O’Hara. My mom was diminutive and blond, a former beauty queen from Maryland who could have been Doris Day’s kid sister. Not surprisingly they were best friends, their alliance forged by the noisy abundance of boys underfoot.

Several years ago, as if by the sweet hand of Providence, Mama Meryl passed on and the Corrys reluctantly placed their family home on the market, just as my wife Wendy and I happened along in search of our own perfect house in which

to grow old. We purchased the place within a week. The Corrys were delighted.

To this day, you could never convince me that Mama Meryl and Big Al, wherever they relocated, didn’t have some say in the matter.

During the first two years we were updating and renovating rooms, the one space that proved to be a puzzlement was the small room with a fireplace that connected the dining room to the large screened porch in back — the same room where Mama Meryl spent most of her time after Al was gone. From oldest son, Chris, I learned that the space was originally an outdoor patio with a fireplace — another California touch. Al enclosed it for a cozy reading room featuring an entry door at the rear of the carport, allowing easier access and a good view of the arriving postman.

Sometime during our second spring in the house, as I turned my attention to tearing apart and rebuilding Mama Meryl’s overgrown gardens, it suddenly hit me that the room was ideal for a home library like the one I had for two decades in Maine.

Earlier this year, we completed work on the library, providing space for 500 or so books in custom-built maple bookcases, with new gallery lighting, original artwork, vintage rugs, a handsome antique walnut writing table and five comfortable chairs suitable for any and all sort of visitors, including spirits.

In ancient times and in every culture, libraries and gardens were considered sacred places that nurtured the human spirit. The Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt was considered the spiritual wonder of the world, housing the writings of Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, and many others — until, after years of decay, Julius Caesar was blamed for burning it down. Jesus spent his last night on Earth praying in a garden and, of course, Adam and Eve were reportedly invited to leave one dressed in fig leaves for violating property rules.

I’m pretty sure Mama Meryl approves of how I’ve updated her garden and reading room, evidenced by the fact that I can almost feel her presence in both places.

With nobody but the dogs and me likely to occupy my library’s armchairs for the foreseeable future, I’ve lately taken to inviting the spirits of well-loved authors who anchor my bookshelves to come sit for a spell in a chair of their choosing.

As Mama Meryl hovers approvingly, methinks Walker Percy prefers the houndstooth club chair while — naturally — Joseph Campbell fancies the mythic oak chair with Egyptian carved heads. Mary Oliver lounges in the elegant red Deacons chair where Annie Dillard often sits, and the big comfy wicker number

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

15

SIMPLE LIFE

is rightly claimed by my friend Elwyn Brooks White, whose iconic children’s books (Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web) and collections of essays shaped my views on life and writing from age 6 onward. They inspired me to chase a career in which I’ve wound up eating my own words — or at least living off them.

At times like these, E.B. White’s Pulitzer Prize-winning essays, letters and other works have traveled with me since the year I graduated college, and are a tonic for the captive soul.

Particularly endearing is his essay, “Death of a Pig,” which details the author’s struggles to save an ailing pig and make peace with his own grief. After burying his pig beneath a wild apple tree with his rambunctious dog Fred in attendance, White confides: “I have written this account in penitence and grief, as a man who failed to raise his pig . . . The grave in the woods is unmarked, but Fred can direct the mourner to it unerringly and with immense good will, and I know he and I shall often revisit it, singly and together, in seasons of reflection and despair, on flagless memorial days of our own choosing.”

White and his wife, Katherine, lived on a saltwater farm in North Brooklin, Maine, an hour or so up the road from where my first wife and I lived after we married in 1985 — four days after my favorite author passed away.

I never got to meet him, though an unlikely connection unexpectedly came my way through the garden.

Upon learning that Wendy and I planned to move home to North Carolina in the winter of 2007, an elderly friend who claimed to be friendly with Katherine White gave me a remarkable going away gift — a clump of white Italian coneflowers she claimed originated in the garden of Katherine White.

Remarkably, the flowers made it through a succession of long-distance moves and careful transplantings, faithfully returning spring after spring for more than a decade.

Ironically, our last move home to the Corry house proved to be the undoing of my well-traveled coneflowers. Perhaps their uprooting in late summer and the

idea of making it to another spring was simply too much for them to contemplate.

In any case, I think about those coneflowers from time to time, usually when I’m resting with a cool beverage in an old wooden chair after a day of work in the garden, my other sacred sanctuary in the time of coronavirus.

From the depths of that old chair, I find it reassuring to study the stars before dawn and while the birds of late afternoon are dive-bombing the feeders as the last light falls like a benediction over the yard.

Certain questions, for the moment at least, remain unanswered. For example, I shall probably never know if those handsome white coneflowers really came from Katherine White’s garden, though I like to think that they did. Their message is clear.

“To live in this world,” advises my friend the poet Mary Oliver from her grand red chair in the library, “you must be able to do three things. To love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends upon it; and when it comes time to let it go, to let it go.”

Mama Meryl knew this. I suppose I’m finally learning it, too.

Someday this house will pass into other hands and the books of my fine home library will be boxed up and donated to the annual church auction or carted off to the community book sale.

Likewise, without me around to keep it trimmed and tidy, my garden will likely overrun its borders and spread into places it was never meant to go, a disordered Eden that may prompt the new homeowner to hack it down without a trace.

But for now, like long-gone Cicero before me, these are the simple small places where I seek and find whatever there is for present comfort during these flagless memorial days — from books that still let me roam the world to a garden where, I noticed just yesterday, the bluebirds have returned for the third year in a row to start a new family — a sign that life always begins again PS Contact Editor Jim Dodson at jim@thepilot.com.

Lin gets Results!

ENERGY. EXPERIENCE. EFFORT. 16

Lin Hutaff’s PineHurst reaLty GrouP Village of Pinehurst | 910.528.6427 | linhutaff@pinehurst.net

May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

If Pinehurst has it, Lin can get it for you!

Go to LinHutaff. com

315 N BEULAH HILL RD • OLD TOWN Elegant, historic, formal, informal. ‘’Cotton Cottage’’ .

Completely restored Historic home with addition of large Master Suite, Indoor pool and elevator. New 3 Bay garage. 6BD, 5 1/2BA. Offered at $1,250,000.

14 GREYABBEY DR • PINEWILD STUNNING, golf front contemporary home with walls of glass from ceiling to floor. Amazing gourmet kitchen boasts Miele and Thermador appliances, plus Miele stainless Hood. Superb. 5BD, 4 1/2BA. Offered at $795,000.

129 NATIONAL DR • NATIONAL Seller was a successful Interior Designer on the national level, particularly in Northern Virginia and the District.

Her expertise is evident in every detail of this home.

Spectacular golf and pond vistas. 4BD, 4 1/2BA, plus large Bonus Rm. Offered at $795,000.

91 SAKONNET TRAIL • PINEHURST NO 6 Spectacular property. Custom, all brick, with French doors and walls of glass showcasing cobalt blue, in-ground, salt water pool. Gourmet kitchen with Bertazzoni, dual fuel gas range. Fenced yard. 4BD, 4 ½ BA. Offered at $675,000.

49 GLASGOW DR • PINEWILD Contemporary home like no other in the gated community of Pinewild Country Club. Gourmet kitchen opens to large family area overlooking patio, golf course. 3BD, 3 ½ BA. Offered at $639,000.

15 E MCCASKILL RD • OLD TOWN Walk to the Village! “Craven Long Leaf Cottage” was one of five bungalows built by the Sandhills Construction Co. during 1920 and 1921. Sellers have historically restored and modernized the cottage. Fabulous extended deck overlooking beautifully landscaped back yard. 3BD, 2 ½ BA. Offered at $599,000.

16 APPIN COURT • PINEWILD GOLF FRONT, Pinewild home tucked away on a quiet cul-de-sac. Stunning home with walls of windows.

The handsome kitchen with access to deck overlooking longleaf pines, small stream and 11th hole of the Holly Course. 5BD, 3BA. Offered at $597,000.

8 STANTON CIRCLE • COTSWOLD Beautiful Cotswold home boasts full basement with 11 ft ceilings and 23 x 45 heated/cooled area. Great for practicing golf, fitness room, storage, game room and more.

Hardwood floors throughout main level. Anderson windows, Trane heat pumps, Trane electronic air cleaners etc.

4 BD, 3BA. Offered at $475,000.

1 STANTON CIR • COTSWOLD Stunning home in the desirable Community of Cotswold, a townhome Community in Pinehurst less than two miles from the Historic Village of Pinehurst. All brick custom home with large open rooms, a handsome kitchen and sun filled Carolina Room with private court yard.

3BD, 2 1/2BA. Offered at $380,000.

2 TEWKESBURY CT • COTSWOLD Cozy cul-de-sec in the sought after Community of Cotswold.

Large open living spaces with hardwood floors and handsome granite in kitchen. Single level living, patio and large eating space off kitchen. High ceilings. Community pool. Great community to walk. Offered at $350,000.

8 LAMPLIGHTER VILLAGE • PINEHURST NO 6 Located in the popular Pinehurst No 6 Community, a short walk to the No 6 driving range. Built with every attention to detail. Kitchen open to Great rm with vaulted ceiling. Pinehurst CC Charter membership available for transfer. 4BD, 3 1/2BA. Offered at $339,000.

5 SODBURY COURT • COTSWOLD All brick, quality built, with private courtyard.

Front foyer opens to dramatic Chinese Chippendale staircase and handsome great room.

Large living areas, two story fireplace and lots of natural light. Located near private, Cotswold community pool. 3BD, 2 ½ BA. Offered at $325,000.

ENERGY. EXPERIENCE. EFFORT.

Lin Hutaff’s PineHurst reaLty GrouP Village of Pinehurst | 910.528.6427 | linhutaff@pinehurst.net

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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PinePitch Virtual Edition

In the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, many sites dropped their paywalls to allow unrestricted access. This likely won’t last forever, so don’t be surprised if the viewing at some of the destinations listed on these pages now comes with a price tag.

Casino Royale Casino Guitars will continue its Musicians Matter series featuring local out-of-work musicians on Friday nights from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. To tune in go to the Casino Guitars Facebook page.

Venmo usernames will be posted during the livestream concerts for donations.

Museums Galore

Standing ‘O’ from the Cheap Seats On Wednesday, May 13, at 7:30 p.m., Maestro David Michael Wolff will present his third concert in a live streaming series launched together by Sandhills Community College and the Carolina Philharmonic. To join the audience for the piano-centric performance from an otherwise empty Owens Auditorium at the Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, simply go to www.carolinaphil.org and click the “play” button. The series will continue on May 27 at 7:30 p.m. with Ryan Book on the guitar. SCC piano instructor Kristina Henckel will also be performing in May. Details can be found at www.carolinaphil.org.

You’d be hard pressed to find a museum that isn’t doing some sort of virtual tour.

What follows is just a smattering of what’s available online.

Want to see the Rosetta Stone and a few Egyptian mummies? Go to blog.britishmuseum.org.

Interested in a trip to Paris? You can visit the Musée de Louvre as long as vous acceptez l’utillsation de cookies.

Join “Degas at the Opéra” or “Raphael and His Circle” at the National Gallery of Art by visiting nga.gov.

If you simply can’t resist Paris in the springtime, you can make a return trip to the Musée d’Orsay at m.musee-orsay.fr to see “Whistler’s Mother,” Edouard Manet’s “Olympia” or Claude Monet’s “The Saint-Lazare Station” and more Degas, which is decidedly not the same as more cowbell.

So you think you are stuck in isolation? Have a look at “The Bedroom” in the Van Gogh Museum’s collection at vangoghmuseum.nl. Or maybe just stop by to check out the sunflowers.

At the Sunrise The Stay-At-Home Film Fest for locked-down Spielbergs has been extended for, well, about as long as we’re going to be locked down. Make a video re-enactment of a scene from your favorite movie or play and submit it. Keep it clean.

For complete instructions, visit the Sunrise Theater website at www.sunrisetheater.com. At this writing, Good Shot Judy remains scheduled to give a live outdoor concert on May 23 at 7 p.m. The theater is also hoping to continue The Great Composer Series: In Search of Haydn at 10a.m. on Thursday, May 28. As Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.” In addition, the Sunrise will be continuing its Virtual Theater in May. Go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

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What seems like about a hundred years ago, in April, all of America was worried about becoming Italy.

But, even in these perilous times, you can visit the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Botticelli. Caravaggio.

Michelangelo. Leonardo.

Virtualuffizi.com will let you book tickets.

And, in L.A., they come and go and talk of Michelangelo (Sincerest apologies, T.S.) at the J. Paul Getty Museum’s “Michelangelo: Mind of the Master” exhibit at www.getty.edu/museum.

Need more? Go to Google Arts & Culture for the motherlode.

May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Montreux Jazz Festival and Boomer Rock

Tar Heel Collections Worried about being charged mileage on your gigabyte globetrotting tours of great museums? Stay right in your own backyard. At the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh it’s possible to explore the collection virtually by going to ncartmuseum.org. Another feature, “NCMA Recommends,” highlights film, music and art from the collection. The Reynolda House Museum in Winston-Salem is producing “Call-a-Curator” to anyone on its email list where team members share their view on art and all things Reynolda. The Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington is currently giving a virtual tour of the photographs of well-known architect Phil Freelon in its exhibition: “Structure in Space and Time — Photography of Phil Freelon.”

The Montreax Jazz Festival made over 50 concerts available to stream at no charge for 30 days. Included were performances by Ray Charles, Wu-Tang Clan, Johnny Cash, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye and Carlos Santana. To find them go to stingray.com/FREEMJF1M and enter the code FREEMJF1M. At a higher altitude, Neil Young has allowed access to some of his “Fireside Sessions,” filmed at his house in Telluride, Colorado, by his wife Daryl Hannah at neilyoungarchives.com.

Take a Hike Staying home is all well and good but if you feel the need to get out and explore you can do it safely by taking virtual tours — or watching live cams — at a number of National Parks, including Yellowstone at nps.gov.

Other parks offering virtual tours are Yosemite, Denali, Kenai Fjords, Hawai’i Volcanoes, Carlsbad Caverns, Bryce Canyon and Dry Tortugas.

Or, you can explore 35 of them on Google Earth. You’ll need a comfortable pair of boots and trail mix.

Get a Quick Art Fix

Culture in Quarantine The National Theatre Live, long a staple offering of the Sunrise Theater, will be releasing an encore performance every week in May on its YouTube channel. Find the list at either sunrisetheater.com or nationaltheatre.org.uk. In addition, the Metropolitan Opera has promised encore performances while the opera remains dark. That list is also available on the Sunrise website or at MetOpera.org. And, if you haven’t maxed out on baritones, you can always visit the Royal Opera House via Facebook or YouTube.

The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia has been running short daily pieces featuring one of its curators talking about one of their favorite pieces of art in the extensive collection of over 900 impressionist, postimpressionist and modern paintings that include works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Henri Rousseau, Amedeo Modigliani, Edgar Degas, Vincent Van Gogh and Georges Seurat. The collection also features African masks, Greek antiquities, Native American jewelry and more. The “Daily Servings of Art” are available in bitesized portions by going to YouTube and searching for “Barnes Takeout.”

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

INSTAGRAM WINNERS

Congratulations to our May Instagram winner!

Theme:

Babies & Toddlers

May Winner

#pinestrawcontest

Next month’s theme:

“Outside Play”

To submit your photo on Instagram you need to post a photo, tag us @pinestrawmag and in the caption field add the hashtag #pinestrawcontest (Submissions needed by Monday, May 18th)

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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Enjoy vibrant living with delicious cuisine, personable services, and enriching opportunities & amenities that allow you to grow older better.

Join us.

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G O O D NAT U R E D

Boost Your Happiness

Bringing the World to Southern Pines

Techniques to soothe the mind

By K aren Frye

The first quarter of the year has been

a challenging time, more so than I can ever remember.

We have ways to lift up our spirits when things seem uncertain and fear takes over our thoughts. Here are some suggestions that can make you feel better in just a few minutes.

Look at pictures of people and animals you love. Remember the enjoyable times you shared and send them a silent wish of happiness.

Exercise, even if only for a few minutes. Take a brisk walk, do jumping jacks — anything to get your heart rate up and, breathing deeply, more oxygen into your lungs. In one minute you will feel better.

Give someone money. Research shows that when we give money to someone in need, we immediately feel better about ourselves, and the other person will feel better, too, because someone cares.

Work toward a goal. It can be a simple task like organizing your desk (that always makes me feel better), or eating healthier foods. Feel good about your progress.

Remember the power of appreciation. Saying “thank you” to the people who work in public jobs — the grocery store checkout person, the server delivering take-out meals, the garbage collectors, the UPS driver — is a quick happiness booster.

Write down a few things that you are grateful for in your life. Your children, your pets, the food on your plate. When you write things down you have a visual reminder of all the goodness in your life.

Bringing the World to Your Doorstep We are dedicated to getting books in your hands so we are expanding our free delivery services to all Moore County addresses.

Free shipping on orders over $50.

BROWSE ONLINE AT THECOUNTRYBOOKSHOP.BIZ

Do a 90-second heart meditation. Take a deep breath and imagine exhaling from the center of your chest. Then close your eyes and imagine someone you love. Recall times you’ve shared with them and feel gratitude that they are in your life. This simple method can take you from stressed out to blissful in 90 seconds! It can reduce your stress hormones for up to five hours.

Play a song that you like, and sing along. This can lift you out of almost any bad mood.

Finally, the most effective way to quickly boost your happiness is to do an act of kindness for a stranger or a friend. Even the smallest acts have beautiful outcomes. PS Karen Frye is the owner and founder of Nature’s Own and teaches yoga at the Bikram Yoga Studio.

140 NW Broad Street • Southern Pines • 910.692.3211

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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Keeping the music flowing…

The Carolina Philharmonic streams music to you and local children We are indeed living through unusual times, and music, perhaps in times like

these more than ever, is essential. It connects us to other humans, to our own humanity.

It soothes our uncertainties and sorrows, heightens our joys, renews the spirit. It fills the space between us.

Doesn’t it seem as if the vivid, crackling sound of dawn remains constant throughout the day? Sounds that I usually miss or take for granted – those of a neighbor tending to their rose garden, of a child playing in their yard, the chirping of birds, the rustle of leaves – have become vivid, and I say a prayer of gratitude as the rumbling sound of the garbage truck turns heroically onto our road.

Indeed, through it all, and even as we remember all those suffering more than ourselves, there’s a remarkably heartwarming flipside. This may be the most vibrant Spring I can remember, in terms of being aware of life and the music of creation itself. Aaron Copland, the great American composer born at the dawn of the 20th century, once said, “To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.”

And so the music continues. Although The Carolina Philharmonic’s public concerts are temporarily on hold, last month we launched LIVEstream at BPAC together with Sandhills Community College. Although the 600-seat hall remains empty, thousands have experienced the live performances online. The series continues through May! The Philharmonic has also been working with our local schools to keep our music programs active. This month, thousands of grade school students will experience a virtual and collaborative final performance of the Encore! Kids concert they’ve been preparing for the past months. I look forward to sharing a video with you on our website of a virtual children’s choir singing a song I wrote for them called “Twilight.”

Just imagine hearing their voices recorded from their homes coming together through music!

LIVEstream at BPAC Throughout May, David Michael Wolff of The Carolina Philharmonic, in partnership with Sandhills Community College, presents a series of live-streamed concerts from the stage of Owens Auditorium, So wherever you find yourself, take a seat!

Each live concert stream will begin at 7:30pm and last 30 minutes. There is also a link on the Philharmonic’s homepage to experience the concerts directly on YouTube, where you can view it in full screen, as well as post your comments and even song requests.

May 6, 7:30pm Kristina Henckel, piano May 13, 7:30pm David Michael Wolff, piano May 27, 7:30pm Ryan Book, guitar

To tune in, simply visit www.carolinaphil.org and click on the play button.

It’s thanks to you, to this music-loving community of ours, that we’re weathering the storm. Thank you for the many personal notes and for your continued support of your local Philharmonic Orchestra.

belong

YOU

Stay safe! David Maestro David Michael Wolff

YOUR SUPPORT BRINGS MUSIC EDUCATION TO MOORE COUNTY STUDENTS

AT A COLLEGE THAT WILL MAKE SURE YOUR CREDITS TRANSFER We have five University

Offering Music Education Programs to and Studies programs numerous 2+2 agreements.

Approximately 3,500 Local Children Every Year Charlotte Cox

Associate in Arts — NC State Transfer Encore! Kids (grades K-2) Carnegie Hall Link Up Program (grades 3-5) sandhills.edu • 910 Carolina Philharmonic Junior Orchestra (grades 3-12) Contact us today to learn more

help you learn, engage,

If you would like to support The Carolina Philharmonic, please mail a donation to: 5 Market Square, Pinehurst, NC 28374 The Carolina Philharmonic is a 501(c)3 non-profit. Donations to “The Carolina Philharmonic” are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

2020

THE OMNIVOROUS READER

The Delta Blues Legend Nobody Knew A new biography of Robert Johnson comes alive with anecdotal details

By Stephen E. Smith

Biographers, musicologists and blues

aficionados who’ve attempted to research the life and times of bluesman Robert Johnson have faced a daunting challenge: Not much is known about the elusive Johnson, who was born out of wedlock in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, in 1911, and whose lifeless body was found 27 years later in a ditch outside Greenwood.

All that remains of Johnson are a couple of photographs — and they don’t tell us much about his life — and a death certificate that lists only the date of his demise (Aug. 16, 1938) and the location of the body when it was found.

And, of course, there are the 29 classic recordings, including 12 outtakes, of Johnson’s playing and singing what would eventually transform the man in a pinstripe suit holding a Gibson L-1 guitar into the definitive bluesman whose Delta style influenced a generation of guitar heroes.

Those are the available facts. The heart of the Robert Johnson legend, the details of how he lived and the appalling circumstances surrounding his death, are based on speculation, hearsay, rumor and outright invention, and despite a plethora of books, a feature film and a documentary or two, there’s been little primary source material available until the publication of Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson, by Annye C. Anderson with Preston Lauterbach.

Annye Anderson is Johnson’s stepsister. She considers Robert “family,” although they weren’t blood relatives and were linked only by a convoluted mixing of broken relationships and communal living arrangements. Still, she managed to spend time with the great bluesman through her preteens, and she willingly supplies anecdotal details and insights into his life and

personal habits. She also retells stories that were passed down to her from her extended family.

Given the dearth of information surrounding Johnson’s life, Anderson’s testimony is a welcome addition to the historical record, but the serious reader must be willing to take Anderson’s recollections at face value.

Although there’s a chance of falling victim to a hoax, there’s no reason to believe that Anderson isn’t who she says she is. She supplies a summary of family relationships that link her to Johnson, and her intimate knowledge of the time and place in which Johnson lived is convincing enough. It’s reasonable to assume, or at least to hope, that Anderson’s collaborator, Preston Lauterbach, the author of three previous blues-related volumes, and the publisher, Hachette Books, have done their homework.

Anderson’s stated purpose is to “set the record straight.” Readers learn about Johnson’s daily routine in Memphis and details of his hoboing, his love life, his favorite foods, his preferred tobacco, and the divergent sources of his music.

Given the time and social circumstances in which he lived, Johnson was aesthetically middlebrow. “I know his (Brother Robert’s) repertoire pretty well,” Anderson writes. “He was blues, he was folk, he was country. Jimmie Rodgers was his favorite, and he became my favorite. Brother Robert could yodel just like he did. We did ‘Waiting for a Train,’ together. . . . And you name it. All the Irish songs he did, because in the South they used to sing lots of those songs: ‘Annie Laurie,’ ‘My Bonnie,’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne.’” Like many bluesmen of the period, Johnson played at juke joints, in parks, at rent parties and dances, and on street corners and front porches, but never achieved national recognition during his lifetime.

Typical of Anderson’s recollections is Johnson’s last visit at a family gathering on the evening of the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling fight. Johnson, guitar in hand, was decked out in a white sharkskin suit, Panama hat and patent leather shoes. “He was razor sharp when he dressed,” Anderson recalls. “He (Johnson) did ‘Terraplane (Blues),’ ‘Sweet Home Chicago,’ ‘Kind Hearted

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

THE OMNIVOROUS READER

Woman,’ he and Son (Johnson’s half-brother) did ‘44 Blues’. . . . That night of the big fight was the last time I saw him.”

Johnson died not long after the Louis-Schmeling bout. “Everyone was in shock,” she writes. “He was dead two weeks before we knew. . . . We weren’t going to sing Jimmie Rogers together ever again, or sing ‘John Henry’ together anymore.”

The second half of Anderson’s memoir is a predictable tale of music-biz skulduggery.

Johnson’s recordings went unappreciated until Columbia Records released King of the Delta Blues Singers in 1961. In the early ’60s, Steve LaVere, a researcher and promoter of blues artists, began to focus on the Johnson legend, making himself wealthy in the process.

Anderson sums up seemingly endless controversy in one paragraph: “People say Steve LaVere made Robert Johnson a legend. No. Steve LaVere didn’t tell Eric Clapton about Robert Johnson.

He didn’t tell Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones.

Musicians already knew Brother Robert’s work before LeVere got into the picture. That’s the whole reason LeVere got involved. Those big artists had covered Brother Robert’s songs that nobody had copyrighted. Brother Robert was already a goldmine fifteen years before he won a Grammy. Steve LaVere caught on before anyone else, and we never caught up to him.”

As for the oft-repeated myth that Johnson sold his soul to the devil and the melodramatic stories surrounding his death by poisoning or from the ravages of congenital syphilis, Anderson dismisses it all, noting that people will say “anything for a dollar.”

Despite endless legal wrangling, Anderson and her half-sister Carrie Spencer never profited from Johnson’s belated success, and a sense of bitterness shades her memoir. In addition to setting the record straight, money is surely one of the motivations behind Brother Robert. Claud Johnson, who was ruled by the Mississippi Supreme Court to be Robert Johnson’s son, received over a million dollars in royalties in 1998.

“My family lost all we worked for during the past twenty-five years,” Anderson writes. “You know, I was born at night, but not last night.”

Anderson supplies blues enthusiasts with a few mundane but revealing recollections that help flesh out the character of Robert Johnson, but we still lack a fully dimensional portrait. The man remains a mystery, a mostly fictive figure whose 29 recordings have had a profound influence on an essential American art form. PS Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press awards.

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BOOKSHELF

May Books

FICTION

The Paris Hours, by Alex George

What would happen if instead of burning all of Marcel Proust’s notebooks, his maid kept the last remaining one? And what would happen if that last notebook made its way into Ernest Hemingway’s hands? The Paris Hours follows four characters, each on a quest to right a past wrong.

A Children's Bible, by Lydia Millet

Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet’s sublime new novel — her first since the National Book Award long-listed Sweet Lamb of Heaven — follows a group of 12 eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time.

When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group’s ringleaders — including Eve, who narrates the story — decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.

All Adults Here, by Emma Straub

Straub writes with knife-edged humor, sliced and diced and added into a delectable stew of flawed characters and story. Astrid is a steely widow and mother of three adult children in the small town of Clapham. She witnesses a terrible accident involving a longtime acquaintance, and it turns out to be the cataclysm that unleashes her reflections on past mistakes and decisions kept bottled up for decades. Her intentions and attempts to right a series of wrongs spanning the years allows the reader to dive into the secrets kept not only by Astrid, but also by her family and those around them. This is a sly, wicked and wholly satisfying read.

Latitudes of Longing, by Shubhangi Swarup

This book is nothing short of amazing. The elemental forces of nature and how we understand and relate to those forces are at the core of the three stories of interconnected people in this book. Unapologetic and with a full portrayal of complex lives, this book is ultimately a love story to the best and worst versions of humanity and the planet. The young author is a storyteller of extraordinary talent and insight who was awarded one of the most prestigious prizes in India for this novel. Richly imaginative and wryly perceptive, Latitudes of Longing offers a soaring view of humanity: our beauty and ugliness, our capacity to harm and love each other, and our mysterious and sacred relationship with nature.

Hello, Summer, by Mary Kay Andrews

Conley Hawkins left her family’s small town newspaper, The Silver Bay Beacon, in the rearview mirror years ago. Now a star reporter for a big-city paper, Conley is exactly where she wants to be and is about to take a fancy new position in Washington, D.C. Or so she thinks. When the new job goes up in smoke,

Conley finds herself right back where she started, working for her sister, who is trying to keep The Silver Bay Beacon afloat — and she doesn’t exactly have warm feelings for Conley. Soon she is given the unenviable task of overseeing the local gossip column, “Hello, Summer.” Conley witnesses an accident that ends in the death of a local congressman — a beloved war hero with a shady past. The more she digs into the story, the more dangerous it gets. As an old heartbreaker causes trouble and a new flame ignites, it soon looks like their sleepy beach town is the most scandalous hotspot of the summer.

Old Lovegood Girls, by Gail Godwin

From the best-selling, award-winning author of Flora and Evensong comes the story of two remarkable women and the complex friendship between them that spans decades. When the dean of Lovegood Junior College for Girls decides to pair Feron Hood with Merry Jellicoe as roommates in 1958, she has no way of knowing the far-reaching consequences of the match. Feron, who has narrowly escaped from a dark past, instantly takes to Merry and her composed personality. Underneath their fierce friendship is a stronger, stranger bond, one comprising secrets, rivalry and influence — with neither of them able to predict that Merry is about to lose everything she grew up taking for granted, and that their time together will be cut short. Ten years later, Feron and Merry haven’t spoken since college. Life has led them into vastly different worlds. And when each woman finds herself in need of the other’s essence, that spark — that remarkable affinity, unbroken by time — is reignited, and their lives begin to shift.

NONFICTION

On Lighthouses, by Jazmina Barrera, Christina MacSweeney

Obsession can be a form of mental collecting, involving an accumulation of images, experiences and stories, but it’s the stories that really bring the thing to life. On Lighthouses artfully examines lighthouses from the Spanish to the Oregon coasts and those in the works of Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Ingmar Bergman and many others. Barrera’s musings take the reader on a journey into her obsession, from hopeless isolation to a meaningful one, so comforting, yet so very ethereal and spectral. This is a book to be read, then read again and again.

Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter that Changed America, by Jim Rasenberger A riveting and revealing biography of Colt, a man who made significant contributions to our country during the 19th century, Revolver is also a lively and informative historical portrait of America during a time of extraordinary transformation. Colt seemingly lived five lives in his 47 years — he traveled, womanized, drank prodigiously, smuggled guns into Russia, bribed politicians, and supplied the Union Army with the guns they needed to win the Civil War. He lived during an age of promise and progress, but also of slavery, corruption

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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and unbridled greed, and he not only helped to create this America, he embodied it. By the time he died in 1862 in Hartford, Connecticut, he was one of the most famous men in the nation, and one of the richest.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Hundred Feet Tall, by Benjamin Scheuer

With a little love and a little time and a little care, a little seed in a little jar can grow a hundred feet tall. Perfect for Earth Day or graduations or for simply a story of persistence and dedication, Hundred Feet Tall is sure to become a classic. (Ages 3-6.)

Green on Green, by Dianne White

This stunningly beautiful ode to the seasons practically begs to be read aloud in the shade of a longleaf pine. For story time, bedtime or anytime a new season comes around, Green on Green will delight young listeners and fulfill the desires of readers when new seasons begin to peek their heads out of the weather-worn earth. (Ages 3-6.)

Layla’s Luck, by Jo Rooks

Layla is sooo lucky. She wins the race wearing her lucky socks, aces the spelling test with her lucky pencil, and grows the tallest flowers with her lucky watering can. But on the day when it matters most, it seems Layla’s luck has just run out. It takes a friend to point out that it’s not luck that helped Layla find such success, but hard work and dedication, and this is just the thing she needs to push on toward her goal. Cute illustrations and a gentle message of stick-to-itiveness make this the perfect book to read together. (Ages 4-7.)

Malamander, by Thomas Taylor

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Herbert Lemon works as the Lost-andFounder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel, and among the lost umbrellas and trunks one day, Herbert finds himself face-to-face with a lost girl.

This girl, Violet, leads Herbert on a wild journey through his unusual town, where the pair encounter a powerful old woman with spying capabilities, a top hat-wearing book-recommending monkey, a 12-year-old mystery, and a mysterious aquatic monster. A fun mystery with quirky humor, Malamander is perfect for that sophisticated young reader who appreciates a little dark humor. (Ages 9-12.)

Be You!, by Peter Reynolds

Brave, curious, kind, adventurous. Reynolds honors all the ways we celebrate the amazing young people in our lives in this charming new book destined to become a classic for new babies and graduation gift giving. (All ages.) PS Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally

May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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HOMETOWN

Man on the Run

Life at a different pace

By Bill Fields

Wearing my orange slicker with the

hood up, I must have looked like a large buoy that had escaped Long Island Sound. As I lumbered east toward the water on a chilly and rainy afternoon, my short, choppy strides weren’t earning any style points.

It was the last Sunday in March, and the inclement weather meant I had the street to myself. Social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t an issue. Whatever description fit what I was doing — running, jogging, slogging — moving at a pace faster than walking felt good.

This exercise was rooted in a hot afternoon last fall when I was walking near Southern Pines Golf Club on a route I used to run. A high school cross-country team appeared on my left, where they were beginning practice on the fallow Little Nine. I passed them as they stretched, but a minute later the teenagers — some in singlets, others in T-shirts but all as skinny as a young slash pine — glided past, their laughter and chatter receding as they crested a hill, leaving me to make a much slower, solitary climb.

As I continued a long walk through the Weymouth neighborhood and back to my rental car parked by Downtown Park, I surveyed my running life, meager at its apex and missing for a decade, replaced by workouts on the treadmill, climber or stationary bike at the gym.

I never was fast nor did I possess notable endurance, which explains why for many years a tiny red ribbon signifying second place in a first-grade race shared space in an envelope of Turkey Trot numbers accumulated as an adult. I never entered anything longer than a 10K — and only a few of those to go with a larger number of the Thanksgiving Day 5-milers — and never exceeded 8 miles in a workout. Career highlight: finishing one of the Turkey Trots in 43:50 when I was in my early 40s.

But “having run” was still satisfying, a feeling of accomplishment. This was so whether the journey was from my Old West dormitory room to Gimghoul Castle in Chapel Hill to clear the head before a long night of studying; through a Georgia neighborhood on sticky summer evenings; along a windy seafront in England, wishing I’d worn another layer.

My most purposeful trips took place in the late-1990s when I set out to lose weight by running multiple laps on a nearly traffic-free perimeter road at a city park near my home. I kept at it each evening after work for months regardless of the weather, shedding pounds through my plodding routine, motivated by a fellow jogger who did his many laps wearing a headlamp at dusk and told me he had dropped 50 pounds after several years of running there.

While on a 45-minute walk in mid-March, after my gym had shut down, I remembered that guy. I turned my stroll into something more for a block or so, resumed walking, then jogged a bit more. I did this for most of a week before stepping out with a different goal — to go for a run.

I began at a shuttered restaurant that in a previous iteration had a tiny bar packed with folks after work. Later on, it was a sports-themed place with 25-cent wings on Tuesday nights, which ensured a big crowd.

It was dark, the parking lot empty as I began the first of three round-trips up a stretch of Riverside Drive, over Ash Creek and between the marsh. Others also had escaped the indoors, and we made our way giving each other a wide berth. There were as many paces as faces, some slow and some fast. I was solidly in the middle but exerting enough energy that after 25 minutes I was sweaty and winded.

On my calendar, over two weeks of canceled out-of-town work the second half of March, are times and distances denoting my new daily habit. As one month melted into the next, I was sure of very little, only that I would try to keep putting one foot in front of the other, running both for and from something. PS Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent. Bill can be reached at williamhfields@gmail.com.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

PA PA D A D D Y ’ S M I N D F I E L D

Outdoors Is Not Closed A gift that amazes the child in all of us

By Clyde Edgerton

I’m writing these words in late

ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR

March 2020.

My gentle editor recently told me that the Salt magazine theme for May’s issue would be “the outdoors.” I took a walk to think about how to write about that subject during these dark times.

More people are taking walks, riding bicycles — missing beaches and closed parks. I can only guess at how things will be in early May, when you are (now) reading these words. It does not seem far-fetched to guess that, by then, you or I — or both of us — will have lost people we knew, and perhaps loved. I know of no time since World War II during which I could have said that.

On my walk, I notice a wisteria vine behind a neighbor’s house. I think about how, unchecked, it will begin to take over bushes, shrubs, trees — a nuisance vine. But the beauty of its blossom may counter that, depending on your relationship to the vine; that is, if it’s growing in the woods you can admire it, but in your yard it may become invasive and unwelcomed. The reason I notice the vine on this walk is because late March and early April are days of Wilmington’s wisteria blooming — light purple — for its three- or fourweek colorful span.

I rarely, if ever, see a wisteria vine without remembering a particular wisteria vine. My mother remembered it being planted in about 1915 at the base of a trellis in her grandmother’s backyard. That would have been three years before the Spanish flu epidemic. Twenty-one years later, in 1936, the federal government bought 5,000 acres in the vicinity of the homeplace, where the vine grew on its trellis, and offered it to the state of North Carolina for a dollar, with the understanding that the acreage would become a recreational site. The site became the William B. Umstead State Park, situated between Raleigh and Durham. Graveyards, as well as stone and glass remnants of an entire community, can still be found near trails and streams.

The wisteria vine planted by my grandmother survived the land transfer,

and once every year for the past 70 years or so, I’ve helped family members clean the family graveyard near the site of the homeplace. By the 1950s, the wisteria vine began taking over wild shrubs and pine trees around the graveyard, and for a while in the early ’80s it arched magnificently over a dirt road that ran through the park. This memory of it in bloom, reaching up into and over pine trees, and over the road, is unforgettable. Park rangers painstakingly extinguished the vine in the 1990s. Sadly, in my view.

My guess is that you remember an outdoor childhood spot — near a certain tree, or creek or hillside. Perhaps there was a path that led to a secret place.

While outdoors interests adults, it often amazes children. When did you last climb a tree?

In a sense, outdoors is childhood. And outdoors is a gift, like a sense of humor, like strong relationships with people we like and love. Gifts. Not acquisitions growing from what we don’t need.

Granted, we need toilet paper, but it’s not free.

Outdoors is free. PS Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir and most recently, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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IN THE SPIRIT

Rainy Day Cocktails

Always seem to know when it’s time to call

By Tony Cross

As I’m writing this, our state is

going into a mandatory stay-at-home lockdown for folks who do not fall into the criteria of jobs considered “essential.” If you work at a grocery store, pharmacy, hardware store or even a bank, you can go to work if you choose. A lot of other folks must stay home.

This is the hardest column I’ve ever had to write. All of my friends in the restaurant/bar business are clinging to hope that this passes soon; most of them know it will not. I’m at a loss for words.

To say that these past weeks have been devastating would be a huge understatement and, in a way, somewhat disrespectful to those who have had their world flipped upside down. With that being said, a lot of people are staying home, which is good. Be responsible. A lot of you are stuck inside with your significant others. I feel for you, too. Hopefully, by the time you read this, we’ll no longer be hiding from a virus. But, just in case we are, here are some cocktails to make at home, while we’re trying to stay sane and keep hope alive.

I’m going to pick two spirits this month (bourbon and agave) and give a drink recommendation for each. If we’re still asked to stay at home a month from now, I’ll pick two more, rinse and repeat. So get out your jiggers, measuring spoons — whatever you’ve got — and try to have fun together, before you claw each other’s eyes out. As for me, all I can say is, “Cheers to being single!”

Bourbon Besides drinking whiskey neat, there are myriad things that you can mix up at home, but for now we’ll stick with a classic. For those of you who come back to read this mess month after month, I know that I’m reposting this, but we may have some new friends tuning in.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY CROSS

Old-Fashioned The definitive cocktail, right? Spirit, sugar, bitters and water. There ya go.

Personally, I prefer a rye whiskey, but when you’re stuck at home, you play with the hand you’ve been dealt. By the way, I’ve been told that our local ABC stores are essential, so I guess things could be worse. Here’s how I build an old-fashioned when I’m home. I take my rocks glass and add a quarter-ounce of a rich demerara syrup. (To make that I stir together two parts demerara sugar and one-part water over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.) After the syrup, I add three dashes of Angostura bitters, one dash of Regan’s orange bitters, and one dash of Angostura orange bitters. Why two different orange bitters? Because I’m complex. No. Because the Regan’s is dry and the Ango is sweet. Together they bring an orange balance. If you are tuning in for the first time, I completely understand that now is the time you turn the page and read something else. No offense taken.

Add two ounces of whichever whiskey you’ve got on hand and give it all

a quick stir. Next is ice. I use a large cube and stir for 50 or so revolutions, until the glass is chilled, and you feel the drink has been properly diluted.

Remember, water is an ingredient, so make sure you stir. Then I’ll take a swath of orange and lemon peels, expressing oils over the drink, and put them in my cocktail. If you feel it looks good enough to drink, then do it.

Agave It’s warming up. My favorite time of year is here, and it’s almost literally the only thing I’m smiling about these days. Margarita season is upon us. If you’re new to this column, first thing’s first: no store-bought mix. Ever. Take it out of your mind. It doesn’t exist. Here’s how to make a somewhat-decent ‘Rita from scratch. Grab a cocktail shaker. If you don’t have one, maybe you have a protein shaker. Not ideal, but who cares; you want a margarita, right? Add 3/4 to an ounce of fresh lime juice (you’ll need to squeeze your own) into the shaker. Take a rich simple syrup (refer to the old-fashioned recipe to make it yourself, but use white or cane sugar instead), adding a quarter or half-ounce to the shaker. If you like your margarita a bit sweeter, opt for the half-ounce. Add roughly a halfounce of Cointreau (orange liqueur). If you only have triple sec, that will do. If you have none of the above, that’s OK, too. I’ll give you an alternative in a few.

Now comes the tequila. You’ll want a blanco tequila — it’s clear and unaged; light and crisp; perfect for margaritas. If you have a reposado, that will most definitely work as well. If you only have an añejo, I wouldn’t dare. Pour two ounces of the tequila into the shaker. Before you add ice, make sure you have your drinkware ready. If you’re having it on the rocks, make sure your glass is packed with ice. If you’d like to have a salted rim, take a lime wedge, and rim it around the glass. I recommend only rimming half of the glass; that way you can switch back and forth from a salted sip to a non-salted sip. If you’re having your drink straight up, make sure your coupe or martini glass has been in your freezer while you’ve been preparing it. Now add a lot of ice to your mixing vessel, seal it, and shake the hell out of it until it’s nice and frosty (if you’re actually using the protein shaker, you bro-shake it hard for about 1015 seconds). Strain your margarita over ice or in your coupe. If you didn’t have an orange liqueur to add, you can take the peel of an orange, and spray the oils over the cocktail like we did with the old-fashioned. You can also add a lime wedge on the glass for a garnish, but I usually drink mine instantly and forget.

Stay well everyone. PS Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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THE KITCHEN GARDEN

Peace in the Garden The solace of double handfuls of dirt

By Jan Leitschuh When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things”

In April we were housebound, anxious and

uncertain, perhaps bored, lonely, broke, depressed, slothful or antsy. You can’t go out and socialize over a meal or a beer with mates. The kids make working at home an oxymoron. No hugs. Fewer workouts. Your industrious neighbors or social media buds are detailing their cars, lifting weights, reaming out their closets, basement and garage, then sewing masks for hospitals before repainting the house, and you haven’t even put your pants on by lunch.

Will May bring a reprieve? Here’s hoping.

These are difficult times, with friends and neighbors falling sick or worse, losing jobs, losing business, with money worries, or working on the front lines of exposure. It is easy to “despair of the world.”

At the same time, we can observe good things. The terrible and the lovely can, and do, exist simultaneously. This pace downshift has changed my neighborhood. Parents stroll outside with their children or teach them to bicycle in the nearly empty side streets. Joggers run past, folks work in their yards, walkers smile at each other even as they give a wide berth. Couples stroll holding hands.

And there is ample time to work in the garden.

Personally, I find this among the most anxiety-relieving activities available. I

38

can trowel the earth and pick though the weeds, divide the perennials and repot for later distribution to friends, prune the grapevine, trim shrubbery. For a time — a momentary eternity — I too, am able to “rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Plopped in a backyard awash in sunshine, I can top up my winter-depleted stores of vitamin D as I strip out the centipede grass that crept into the beds over winter, admire the daffodils and later the iris, prune the spring-blooming bushes, plant seeds. (I still might not have on proper pants, but then, our place is private.)

By putting my hands into the dirt, I find I’m able to release a myriad of distractions and anxieties, focusing on one grounded, concrete thing at a time. The world slows down. This is self-care.

Not only that, gardeners wear gloves! We wash our hands — a lot! We probably invented the elbow bump. Social distancing in the garden is a cinch. We stay home, rooted. We are a compliant lot.

The Washington Post reported that seed companies are seeing brisk business online as consumers turn to growing their own food amid the coronavirus emergency. Some half-opened seed packets at our house are 2 or 3 years old, and their germination is suspect. Yet, miraculously, here come zinnia, basil, cosmos, cucumber and sunflower shoots, spottily perhaps, but plenty for our needs. Online, I ordered some squash, eggplant and gloriosa daisy seed.

Perennial herbs in the garden flushed out, supplying us with homegrown oregano, parsley, garlic, chives, mint, sage, sorrel, thyme and lemon verbena — as local as you can get.

Care to join in the garden meditation? Feeling the tug to give into the earthier rituals of spring? Find an area with a minimum of six hours of summer sunlight, with access to water. Weed out that raised bed, or till up a row and add compost, potash and lime. Perhaps your yard is landscaped, unsuitable for a vegetable garden. Yet often there is a little sunny bare spot suitable for a compact bush tomato, or a small section for herbs. A cucumber or melon vine can snake up a deck or porch railing.

Containers are also an option for those without a bit of ground. Use the richest soil you can, and add compost. Protect the side of the pots from baking, thus burning the roots. Water daily, especially when the blossoms, and then fruits, appear, or after fertilizing lightly. Beans can grow in a 5-gallon bucket, with a drilled drainage hole. Window boxes can grow a vining cherry tomato or herbs as well as flowers. A child’s old play pool is a raised bed, with proper drainage.

For those without dirt or inclination, who still wish to participate in the fruits of the earth, good news — farm stands are allowed to be open, even dur-

May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

THE KITCHEN GARDEN

ing the shutdown. This is especially welcome news for lovers of Sandhills strawberries, which peak in early May. “We’ve been getting advice from NCDA (North Carolina Department of Agriculture), the Strawberry Growers Association and the N.C. Extension specialist for strawberries and NCSU,” says local producer Billy Carter, of Eagle Springs, who has 4 acres of strawberries under cultivation.

To make the process safe for both customers and farms they’re using plenty of cleaning supplies and single-use gloves for pickers, limiting contact with customers, and posting signage about staying apart.

Farmers are being innovative, employing protective measures like pre-packing tomatoes in plastic containers to avoid contamination. “You know how people love to rub a tomato,” said John Blue, of Highlanders Farm in Carthage.

Blue grows several greenhouses of tomatoes, as well as strawberries, peaches and summer produce for his stand on N.C. 22. As for Highlanders’ strawberry U-pick operation, “We’re thinking maybe open every other row, spread people out, ask people not to come if they are sick,” said Blue. “It’s frustrating for farmers, because we don’t want anybody to get hurt. We’ll have to adapt as we go and do the best we can.”

Some producers are even learning, via video classes, how to open an online store for their farms.

And we all know that to stay healthy, we have to eat well. Like Mama always said, “Eat your vegetables . . . and get out of those pajamas!”

As the world as we knew it has been transformed, there are unmistakable little blessings everywhere. A new sense of rest and stillness, time to spend with loved ones and creative hobbies.

Neighbors checking on neighbors. Getting on top of life again instead of chasing it. A deep appreciation of those in critical infrastructure jobs: medical staff, police and fire support, supply chains, as well as an extraordinary acknowledgement of those in simple front-line work such as grocery, feed and hardware store employees.

People are finding innovative ways to help and connect with each other, and an expanding joy in simpler things. People are finding enough space, for even a moment, to not “tax their lives with forethought of grief.”

A renewed appreciation of nature, and the “peace of wild things.”

There is no clarity as to what May might look like. I hope you have something tasty, or perhaps cheerful to tuck into your bit of dirt. Or, lacking that, support those who do it for a living.

May we meet on the other side of this with dirt under our nails, wearing pants, not pajamas. PS Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and cofounder of Sandhills Farm to Table.

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May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

WINE COUNTRY

It’s That Feeling You Get Recreating those special moments

By Angela Sanchez

Ever wonder why,

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN KOOB GESSNER

when you go on vacation and have a great meal or drink a new wine or try a food for the first time and you try to replicate it at home, it is never quite the same?

When we visit beautiful places like Napa, California, or Tuscany, Italy, we’re in a beautiful setting, with great weather, wonderful food and wine, and people who share their hospitality and traditions. We’re transported to a place where you can’t help but feel relaxed and rested. Your mind is overtaken by scenery and stimulated by new adventures, new foods and new people. You lose stress and your mind settles down.

When we experience things from a state of calm and relaxation, and focus on detail, we get a completely different sensory experience. Our palate is heightened and opened in a way that it isn’t on a normal basis. A bite of handmade pasta with fresh, local olive oil and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano can be a whole new experience. The pasta’s texture is softer and richer, the olive oil taste ripe and bright, and the cheese sharp and salty-sweet.

In that moment everything is at its best. The pasta was made fresh just moments before the olive oil — that was pressed just a mile away — was drizzled over it. The cheese and the accompanying glass of wine were made with longstanding traditions, carefully crafted just moments from where you sit. Your mind and body, and therefore your palate, are at their best, too.

You have traveled to a place that is not only beautiful but has a history and tradition of agriculture. The wine, cheese, olive oil, truffles and vegetables are served to you in season, at their best. It’s an unforgettable experience that, unfortunately, cannot be easily replicated. You have created a memory not unlike the feeling you get when you smell something cooking or baking at Christmas,

and you’re reminded of your childhood and Grandma’s cookies, her kitchen and her spirit. It’s the feeling I get when I smell sugar cookies baking during the holidays, recalling a sweet memory of my mom and me baking for Santa. Nostalgia, peacefulness, joy.

I get a similar feeling when I recall a glass of Côtes du Rhône rosé on a warm June afternoon in France, followed by a meal of all locally sourced produce and a bottle of deep, dark red Châteauneuf-du-Pape and a threetiered cart full of impeccable French cheese.

Pure peace, heavenly flavors, fresh and ripe and set in my memory forever.

But how do we recreate these feelings?

Having a glass of Chianti from Tuscany and a bowl of handmade pasta here at home is not quite the same. Same wine, same method of pasta making, same cheese and maybe even the same olive oil, but they just don’t taste as wonderful. Some things are missing.

It’s the backdrop, the company, the body in relax mode.

While we may not get the Rhône Valley on a sunny afternoon or that “under the Tuscan sun” backdrop every time, we can get the cheese, wine and recreate a similar meal and experience. The key is not to rush it.

Save it for a day off, when friends you haven’t seen in a long time are visiting, or your favorite aunt is coming to town. While the wine and cheese have traveled far, they are, at their core, still the same as when you experienced them in their home. If we allow ourselves to slow down and enjoy the moment while eating and drinking and reminiscing about our travels we just might recover a piece of that feeling we enjoyed so much.

Take a glass of your favorite wine from your travels — be it Sonoma, California, or Burgundy, France — and a cheese your fell in love with while you were there, and sit outside as the sun sets. Take some deep breaths, find calm and appreciate the moment. I’ll be there, too, with my glass of Champagne and Camembert on a Sunday evening with loved ones. For a moment or two, if we’re lucky, we will visit those places in our memory again.

Before long we will travel again, find a new favorite wine, a new favorite cheese, a new favorite meal — new memories to remember.. PS Angela Sanchez owns Southern Whey, a cheese-centric specialty food store in Southern Pines, with her husband, Chris Abbey. She was in the wine industry for 20 years and lucky enough to travel the world drinking wine and eating cheese.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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Serving the Sandhills Since 1991 Born in Eau Claire,Wisconsin, Dr. Joseph D.Wahl was fascinated, even as a child, with how the human body functions.With a Bachelor of Science from North Carolina State University, Dr.Wahl graduated from Northwestern College of Chiropractic in 1990 and began his practice in Greensboro.

In 1991 he moved to Southern Pines and took over a practice — Southern Pines Chiropractic. Since then, Dr. Wahl has built Southern Pines Chiropractic into a practice that embodies the Chiropractic Triad of Health: structural, nutritional and emotional. His goal is to set his patients on a course that leads to a richer, better life as a result of their chiropractic experience.

Southern Pines Chiropractic, P.A.

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910-692-5207 • www.ncchiro.com 42

May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

P L E A S U R E S O F L I F E D E P T.

Flowers for Mama Beauty floating in a coffee mug

By K atherine Smith

It was 3 a.m. on Mother’s Day. I was 19,

driving home from a night walking through Weymouth with a certain boy my parents didn’t know about. On my lap, I balanced a bouquet of sunflowers, picked up from a 24/7 grocery store, hoping that my mom would be so delighted to discover them in the morning that she would forget to ask me where I had been.

I parked a block away from home, tiptoed down the driveway, and carefully pulled on the squeaky kitchen door. It was locked. The noise alerted my mom’s huge German shepherd, who was even more anxious than usual with my dad working out of town. Hoping to quiet Zulu before she woke everyone up, I ran around to the back porch doors, which were indeed open, and met my mom in her camo pajamas, holding a rifle. Despite my shielding myself with her favorite flowers, Mom did indeed ask me where on earth I had been.

These days, while I still often find myself driving to my parents’ house in the middle of the night, Zulu now sleeps in their closed bedroom, and I have a front door key. Somewhere between Interstate 40 and the back roads of Seagrove, I will stop to pick up flowers for my mama. Dogwood twigs, half a dozen daffodils, or a single magnolia blossom float intoxicatingly beside me in an unwashed coffee mug on the console the whole way home.

Beauty is my mom’s love language. We five kids were raised with climbing roses, azalea coves leading to white wicker dreaming chairs, beefsteak tomatoes bursting from their cages and onto our dinner plates, antique furniture refinished from someone’s roadside trash pile, and living room walls revived each year by fresh buckets of goldenrod, sienna and merlot paint. When Mom left her only home in Moore County to follow my dad to his new job in Texas a few years back, it was with wrought-iron hanging baskets of ferns, seed packets

of kitchen herbs, and buttercups hand-painted on thrifted plates. We all knew Mom was terribly homesick, but she resolutely held beauty close, and it fed her straight from her senses to her marrow.

Only when I moved thousands of miles away to Alaska did I understand this necessity of homegrown beauty. All winter, I walked in circles around the garden section of Lowe’s Hardware, just for the home smell. I bought a new houseplant nearly every weekend, ordered more seeds than I’d ever be able to plant, built a growshelf from recycled shop lights, and a small greenhouse out of PVC pipe.

In the place where stark independence met the nostalgia of being cared for, I grew my first garden. Along with hardy Swiss chard and kale, I planted the marigolds I grew up with, trained sugar snap peas up willow tepees, and, against all odds, grew a few small tomatoes and jalapeños in my little greenhouse. When my first zucchini bulged from its papery yellow blossom and into my palm, my life was changed. I saw, as my mother must have years ago, that flowers are a necessary beauty, the archetype of potential, the very perpetuation of new, green, life. I saw my mother, just as she must have seen hers, in a pregnant bloom.

This Mother’s Day finds Mom and me both back in our Carolina home soil. In my small garden, I am growing up again, reared by the beauty that is my mother’s literal namesake. Motherwort spreads its bitter calm with blessed mint-family invasiveness. Matricaria chamomilla grows tall and feathery, “the herb for babies of all ages,” as my teacher likes to say. And when I get on the highway in the middle of the night to drive a few short hours into her arms, my mama no longer asks me where I've been. She just embraces me, as we have both learned to do with perennials on the first day of summer, and says, “I’m so glad you came.” PS Katherine Smith grew up swinging from ivy vines and hunting water lilies in Pinebluff, N.C. She’s returned to North Carolina to study clinical herbalism at the Eclectic School of Herbal Medicine in Lowgap, calling Ireland and Alaska home in the interim.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

OUT OF THE BLUE

For Mother, with a Twist Gratitude for the lessons learned

By Deborah Salomon

May is for mothers. The woman who

wiped our tears and noses and bottoms, who taught us to drink from a cup, eat with a fork, share our toys, say please and thank you. For this she is rewarded with breakfast in bed, flowers, a long wait in a crowded restaurant and handmade cards she will treasure forever.

My mother, who lived to 98, taught me by a different, rather contrary method which, although I did not follow with my own children, worked exceptionally well. For this I am grateful.

Examples:

Being there matters: My mother was a career woman, a high school math teacher. She was 36 when I was born. My father was 45. She returned to teaching when I was a few months old, and taught until I started first grade.

Then she was home all day. My father’s job required a 90-minute commute, each way; hers, at least an hour. I hardly saw either of them, which allowed me the most wonderful, sweetest nanny in the world.

Annie was 18. My mother found her sweeping floors in a Greensboro beauty parlor, took her back to New York, where she was my companion/caregiver for five years. After leaving us Annie rose in the nanny ranks, according to her annual postcards. Before retirement she worked for the Rockefellers.

All I wanted was to stay home with the kids. Not much choice; I didn’t have a car until the youngest started pre-kindergarten.

Siblings aren’t important: My mother was eldest of three; my father youngest of seven. Who needs all that noise and bother? This only child responded by having three in 3 1/2 years. Glorious noise, memorable bother.

Shoes hurt: My mother had terrible feet, wore ugly orthopedic shoes. She assumed mine would be the same. They weren’t. Nevertheless, while the other little girls wore penny loafers, ballet flats, Keds and Mary Janes, I suffered in brown lace-ups. My three followed the crowd: saddles, sandals, boots. Better fallen arches than droopy psyches.

Pets aren’t necessary: I adored animals. No siblings, how about a puppy?

I begged. Finally, a sweet little cocker spaniel. It was winter. We lived in an apartment. My parents could not manage the walks. A month later, Skippy went to live in New Jersey. I was allowed to visit. Skippy had a grassy yard and three children for playmates. Lucky Skippy.

We had a puppy before our first child was born, followed by other dogs and cats. Kids need animals. So did Mommy.

Birthday parties matter, too: All my grade-school friends had them, sometimes at home, sometimes the mom would herd a few giggling girls to a Walt Disney movie followed by ice cream and cake. Too much mess, my mother

decided. Suppose one gets sick? Or runs into the street? Or spills all over her party dress?

I reacted by mounting birthday extravaganzas. Cleaned and decorated the garage, rented long, low tables, ordered party sandwiches, almost passed out blowing up balloons. What a mess! I treasure the Polaroids that, miraculously, haven’t faded.

Trust begets trust: I was a good girl. Made good grades, had nice friends, obeyed the rules. Freshman year, a cool guy invited me to a statewide frat weekend in Charlotte. The event was approved by the Duke women’s dean, no small feat. Several girls shared a room at the hotel where the dance was being held. We drove there with the guys, unloaded our bags, checked in. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a familiar figure sitting in the lobby, reading a newspaper.

I know you meant well, Mom, but really . . .

One of my daughters trained with the Canadian Junior Ski Team in Argentina when she was 14. The other worked in California, at 19. And my son backpacked through Germany, visiting car manufacturing shrines, when he was 17. I was scared to death but they were good kids so I never let on.

Food really matters: I learned to cook young because my mother’s food was bland and mushy. We never had fun stuff, even as a treat. No Kraft dinner, hot dogs, Kool-Aid, ice cream sandwiches, cupcakes. She made brownies once a year, for the bridge club. She never, not once, roasted a turkey for Thanksgiving. Too wasteful for only three people, she rationalized. Which is why I do turkey often, including summer. Nothing beats real turkey sandwiches. Stuffing knows no season.

I am extra-grateful for self-taught culinary skills that I turned into a career that took me interesting places to meet fascinating people. Cookies, I learned, open doors.

My mother believed the most important thing about getting married is the china, crystal and silver. I didn’t care, picked simple, classic designs. Nothing doing. The china and crystal had to be gold-rimmed, therefore not dishwashersafe. The silver . . . ornate, difficult to polish. My mother envisioned elegant dinner parties. Instead, I dragged everything out once a year, at Passover, where attendees included young children fascinated by the easily tipped stemware.

After my mother’s death, in 2000, I called a fancy caterer, who arrived with a roll of hundred-dollar bills bigger than a softball and many empty boxes. Finally, these prized (by my mother) possessions would fulfill their destiny, albeit not at my table. I sang Mom’s praises all the way to the bank.

In retrospect, the most valuable lessons were problem-solving, self-sufficiency.

My mother called me her “ways and means” child. Not very warm and fuzzy.

Not something celebrated by Hallmark or FTD. Or even Butterball. But lots more practical.

For that, especially on Mother’s Day, thank you so much, Mom. PS Deborah Salomon is a staff writer for PineStraw and The Pilot.

She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Strawberry Fields Forever

By Jane Lear

Although it may sound strange,

soaking, or macerating, strawberries in a mix of sugar, orange juice, and Madeira or sherry is far from a new idea. Macerated fresh fruit was a Victorian fad borrowed from the French, and in Miss Leslie’s New Cookery Book of 1857, by the popular American cookbook author Eliza Leslie, you will find “Strawberries in Wine.” There’s no citrus, but Miss Leslie does specify 46

Madeira or sherry. The berries are “served at parties in small glass saucers,” she noted, “heaped on the top with whipped cream, or with white ice cream.”

My grandmother used glass saucers for serving as well — they hold the winey juices nicely — but her rationale behind macerated strawberries wasn’t a special occasion but a too-hot-to-bake day. By June, her house would be dim and shadowy, the tall windows shuttered to keep out the heat and bright shafts of sunlight.

Preparations for the evening meal — a pot of snap beans set to simmer, for instance — usually began in the cool of the morning, after the breakfast things were cleared away. A “strawberry bowl,” however, was left until the drowsy afternoon. I’d be pulled away from Nancy Drew to help wash a colander full of the ripe fruit (“always leave the caps on, dear, so they don’t get

May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES STEFIUK

Classic shortcake is nice. But it’s hard to beat this spirited twist on summer’s most luscious berry

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

waterlogged”) and pat them dry with well-worn tea towels reserved for just that purpose. Trying to copy my grandmother’s neat flick of the wrist made quick work (or so I thought) of hulling.

You may wonder if a fortified wine such as Madeira or sherry — or port, if that’s your preference — will overpower strawberries, one of the softest, most perishable fruits, but I’m reminded of the “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” line from the movie Dirty Dancing. Although each wine adds its singular, supple balance of sweetness and acidity to the berries, the fruit not only holds its own but gains extra resonance. (The same is true of strawberries with balsamic vinegar, traditional in Modena, Italy, the home of aceto balsamico.

For this, you need the best, oldest balsamic vinegar you can find; the kind that’s been reduced over time to a syrupy liquid.)

Strawberries need warm sunny days and cooler nights for peak flavor and fragrance.

When shopping, look for even coloring (those with white shoulders haven’t had enough time to fully ripen) and a captivating aroma. Those that travel the least generally taste the best, so seek out local growers.

Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream à la Miss Leslie are perfectly fine accompaniments to macerated strawberries, but my grandmother’s favorite embellishment was actually an exercise in household economy: leftover (i.e., slightly stale) sponge cake or pound cake, cut into fingers or cubes and toasted. The end result was modest and restrained, yet completely refreshing, and afterward, everyone at the table stood up, ready for a game of cards or Parcheesi.

What I realize I’m ready for, though, is a set of Victorian cut-glass saucers. And maybe some Nancy Drew.

Strawberries with Madeira and Orange 1 quart ripe strawberries Sugar to taste About 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice About 1/4 cup medium-dry Madeira or sherry

1. Quickly rinse the strawberries and pat them dry. Hull them with a paring knife and put the whole berries (halve them if large) in a serving bowl.

2. Generously sprinkle them with the sugar and gently stir in the orange juice and Madeira.

Refrigerate, covered, until the berries release their juices and the flavors have a chance to play well together, about 2 hours. PS Jane Lear, formerly of Gourmet magazine and Martha Stewart Living, is the editor of Feed Me, a quarterly magazine for Long Island food lovers.

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PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

B I R D WA T C H

Birdz in the Hood

This time of year, the ponds are full of hooded merganser

By Susan Campbell

Have you seen a male hooded mergan-

ser lately? They’re hard to miss with their extensive white hoods, black-and-white chests and chestnut sides.

Or perhaps you have noticed a female — a tan bird with a stiff short tail and cinnamon crest? If you’re really lucky, maybe you’ve seen a pair courting, the preliminary dance to successful reproduction. The drake flares his crest and vigorously bobs his head, surely impressing his intended. These handsome little birds are a species of diving duck restricted to North America. Affectionately known by birders and hunters as “hoodies,” they are quite spunky in spite of their diminutive size.

Hooded mergansers can be found statewide year-round here in North Carolina. Good numbers of migrants from farther north show up during the winter months. But by spring, pairs are more localized. Breeding birds may turn up on small ponds anywhere from the mountains to the coast.

Needing clear water for foraging, they are quite at home on beaver ponds and slow-moving backwaters of smaller rivers and streams.

With a relatively long and sharply serrated bill, hoodies excel at catching

fish. These birds have what are called nictitating membranes — an adaptation that protects the eyes but still allows them to see while underwater.

Even new ducklings can dive in shallow water to feed within a day of hatching. Alert birders sometimes spot hooded mergansers swimming with their heads submerged, scanning for prey below the surface.

Unlike dabbling ducks such as wood ducks (or “woodies”), hooded mergansers’ legs are set farther back on the body to facilitate propulsion while underwater. This means that they are rather awkward on land, so you will seldom see them walking or even sitting out of the water. Furthermore, these birds need a waterborne running start in order to get airborne. Once aloft, however, their short wings make them quite adept at negotiating flooded timber or grassy marshlands.

Hoodies are one of a few species of waterfowl that use cavities for nesting. Early prospecting for suitable sites begins at the end of the summer.

Females search for holes high up in either live or dead trees to deposit a clutch of up to a dozen white eggs. They prefer an opening of 3 to 5 inches across, making cavities created by larger woodpeckers ideal. Since leading their fledglings overland to water is awkward, nesting usually occurs close to the water, unlike woodies that may nest up to a quarter-mile or more inland.

These animated little birds are quite long-lived with individuals surviving 10 years or more. Furthermore, breeding productivity is quite good nowadays since hoodies have adapted to man-made boxes for nesting. Regardless, seeing hooded mergansers in the warmer months in the Sandhills or Piedmont is quite a treat indeed! PS Susan would love to hear from you. Send wildlife sightings and photos to susan@ncaves.com.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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SPORTING LIFE

All on the Line A full day in a full life

By Tom Bryant

It had become a ritual with the old

man. Every morning he would fire up the little gas stove in the Airstream, put the percolator on with enough coffee for four cups, two for now and two for later, which he would carry in his ancient bent thermos. Then he would warm four biscuits stuffed with country ham that he had cooked the evening before. The ham reminded him of home and the family farm. He missed the everyday rigors of farming but realized with the last doctor’s report that it was time to let that stage of life go. Two of the biscuits were for breakfast, and two were for lunch, when he would pull his skiff up on a mangrove key and wait for the tide to change.

His fishing gear was stowed under the awning of the compact camper he had bought years before at about the same time he had been able to purchase the lot on Halfway Creek. The small tidal creek, more a stream really, flowed out of the Everglades and was more brackish than fresh water. The evening before he had been able to net mullet for bait to use on the tidewater change in the bay.

His wife of 50 years, Hensilee, was away from the camp visiting one of the children in Fort Lauderdale, so he had all the doings to himself for a couple of weeks.

A solitary man, he enjoyed the quiet of his little piece of property and never got tired of watching the sunsets across the Gulf. More times than not, he would be motoring back across the bay heading for home when the sun began its march toward evening. He would get there in the lowering light in time to clean the day’s catch, fix a bite of supper, and then relax in his favorite camp chair out on the dock that housed his archaic skiff.

He liked to say that he was a keeper of God’s nature and always gave more than he took. He actually grew up on a farm in the low country of South Carolina, a farm that had been in his family for generations. In the last year, he had passed the mantle and responsibility of the farm to his oldest son and now was at home on his creek in the closing stages of his life, doing what he loved most.

He paused briefly before walking down the short path to the dock where his little skiff rested, then went over his supplies for the day. Plenty of water in a twoquart canteen, never can have too much water on the bay. His daypack filled with lunch and other necessities that he had accumulated over the years, like his fillet knife and the first-aid kit he had built from scratch. His fishing rig consisting of a

bait-casting rod and reel, a surf casting outfit he had converted to boat use, and a venerable fly rod that he loved to employ in the shallow salt water flats bordering the mangroves, just before the deeper water of the Gulf.

His skiff, he liked to say, was one of a kind, and it truly was. Built by a grizzled old Florida riverboat captain he had known for years, it was acquired after much negotiation. The captain’s health necessitated his move north to be close to family and was the only reason he’d agreed to sell.

It was a strange looking craft with a diesel motor amidships, almost like the ones on small John Deere tractors. It made a pockety-pockety noise recognized by anyone who had ever been around farm tractors.

The skiff was about 17 feet with a wide shallow V-beam that made it extremely seaworthy, yet with a very shallow draft. In front of the motor housing was a wooden half console, and at the bow was a covered enclosure for gear. A fish live well was located on the stern. All in all, an unusual boat. Slow, but as the old man often said, if he had to hurry, he wouldn’t go.

With the sure movements of many repetitions, he loaded all his gear, fired up the engine and slowly cruised down the creek toward the bay. He had one more superstition: He tapped his left shirt pocket for the reassuring, familiar feel of his bottle of nitroglycerin pills.

He’d had his first heart attack young, at 45. His second came 20 years later, in the same month as the first. It was January. He always said that it was the cold that precipitated the attacks; and after the prognosis of the doctors, he bought a winter place on the St. Johns River close to Astor, Florida. When that location wasn’t warm enough in the winter, he found and purchased the little piece of land on Halfway Creek.

His family doctor was brutally factual about his health. “You’ve had two heart attacks. The next one will take you away.” That’s when he prescribed nitroglycerin pills to help with the old man’s angina.

The ride out toward the bay was as restful and beautiful as usual; and in a short time, he was to the Ten Thousand Islands that bordered the Gulf. They weren’t really islands but mangroves that grew in the salt water with numerous twisted roots that would trap sand during tidal flows and create little islands, or keys, as the natives call them. He had worked with a local fisherman when he first began fishing the mangroves and learned the area as well as the river he used to fish back in South Carolina.

There was a miniature mangrove island that he named Fiddler Key because of the fiddler crab population. Every time he slid his skiff to the water’s edge, the beach looked as if it was moving, it was so packed with little crabs. The males’ greatly enlarged claws would be waving back and forth as they hustled on down the strand looking for places to hide. He would trap 15 or 20 to use as bait for what he called his favorite eating fish, the sheepshead.

Sheepshead love to hang around the mangroves because of their diet of crustaceans and barnacles that grow on the roots. The fish, which can grow up to 4

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SPORTING LIFE

pounds, also have a great fondness for fiddler crabs, and the old man rarely missed catching four or five sheepshead around the islands.

In almost no time, he pulled five keepers into the boat and deposited them in the live well. He then fired up his skiff and headed out to the mangroves bordering the Gulf. It was almost time for lunch, so he baited his converted surf casting rig with a mullet and cast out where the deep water began. Then he tied up to a mangrove and ate lunch. It was also his tradition to take a little nap after lunch, so he put up his boat awning over the bow and nestled down on several boat cushions and dozed.

The drag on the reel awakened him and he sat up, grabbed his rod and leaned back to set the hook.

Whatever was on his line was big, and the drag screamed as the fish took more line off the reel and headed for deep water. Nothing to do but cut the line or follow it in his boat.

He wanted to see this fish, so he placed the rod in the gunnel holder, untied the skiff, fired up the motor and chased the fish out in the Gulf.

The battle went on all afternoon. The fish would take out more line, and he would use the skiff by motoring toward the fish to help him recapture his lost effort.

As the sun was beginning to set, he finally decided to give up. The fish had him beat. Just as he was about to cut his line, he saw the giant fish roll to the top of the water only 40 yards away. He motored closer, muttering all the while, “I hope I haven’t killed him.”

It was a bluefin tuna about 5 feet long, probably weighing two or three hundred pounds. He got his pliers and cut the steel leader as close to the fish’s mouth as he could and watched as the enormous tuna rolled a time or two, one eye balefully looking at the old man, and then he gradually submerged and drifted out of sight.

He sat leaning against the port side of the boat and watched as the blazing sun slowly sank in the western Gulf. He shook a pill from the bottle he took from his shirt, hoping it would diminish the pain he was feeling across his chest. He figured he was probably 10 miles out and turned the little skiff toward the east and home. A full moon was rising across the bay as he entered through the mangroves.

He slowed the kicker and released the sheepshead he had in the live well. It will be too late to clean them anyway, he reasoned. The pain in his chest would come and go. He felt as if his heart was in synch with his little diesel motor, pockety-pockety.

“What a wonderful day,” he thought. “If this is my last one, it’s been a blessing.” He took his last pill.

The little skiff glided steadily toward the brightness of the moonrise and home. PS Tom Bryant, a Southern Pines resident, is a lifelong outdoorsman and PineStraw’s Sporting Life columnist.

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G O L F T OW N J O U R NA L

Splendid Isolation Finding time to find the game

By Lee Pace

Long before COVID-��, social

PHOTOGRAPH BY LEE PACE

distancing, tissue-hoarding and obsessive hand-washing gripped our very existences across America and beyond, I enjoyed a week of a self-imposed quarantine, specifically, the Thomas Wolfe Room at the Weymouth Center in Southern Pines.

In June 2019 I was fortunate enough to secure a week’s stay at the Weymouth Writers-In-Residence program, which has been running since 1979, when Sam Ragan, the center’s director, conceived the program. Given that Weymouth was once owned by novelist James Boyd, Ragan thought the rambling old mansion would be an ideal venue for North Carolina writers to hole up and work on their novels, poems, short stories, screenplays, what have you.

There should be muse in abundance amid these rooms and acres “where sparks of creativity could be struck,” in the words of Katharine Boyd, James’ wife.

After all, in this house Boyd conceived and wrote his acclaimed and best-selling book, Drums, a Revolutionary War saga published in 1925, and others like Marching On. Curiously, he didn’t type them or scribble them by longhand; he dictated them at a stand-up desk in a study that now serves as the N.C. Literary Hall of Fame room. And on this sprawling estate he and Katharine entertained literary giants like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Paul Green and Wolfe, who came for three days in January 1937.

I had two golf books going at the time, so what better venue to percolate my thoughts? Five miles to the west was the first tee of Pinehurst No. 2, Donald Ross’ tour de force that has hosted three U.S. Opens, one Ryder Cup and a PGA Championship. One mile to the south was Southern Pines Golf Club, another Ross design with more than a century of history. Within a half-hour radius were nearly three dozen courses, from upscale private clubs designed by Tom Fazio at Forest Creek to idiosyncratic daily-fee designs like

Mike Strantz’s Tobacco Road.

And just out my window was the land where over a century ago a nine-hole course called Weymouth Woods had been laid out.

“One of the finest private golf courses to be found in the state — perhaps the South,” it was described in 1910. “It is conveniently and beautifully located, a little east of the house, has a good turf and is as handsome as a framed picture.”

James Boyd was a noted Pennsylvania industrialist who bought the land in the early 1900s and created a 1,200-acre estate, naming it Weymouth in tribute to the seaside village in England. He commissioned the construction of the golf course (details on builder, designer and time frame are sketchy), but it eventually took second fiddle in town to Southern Pines GC, which was formed in 1906.

In time the property passed to Boyd’s grandsons, Jackson and James, and James in the 1920s retreated to Weymouth and expanded the original home into the grand manor house that exists today.

The latter James Boyd was not a golfer, preferring equestrian and hunting sports, and founding Moore County Hounds, which exists today. He let the course go to seed.

“Golf is merely the most expensive and depressing form of pedestrianism,” Boyd wrote. “I know of no other practice, except the purchase and consumption of bad liquor, wherein good money can be spent for so pitiable a result.”

I beg to disagree, certainly, and spent my week at Weymouth reveling in the game to varying degrees, from spending the days with my fingers splayed across my laptop keyboard, and early mornings and evenings wrapped in this convergence of history, ambience and the spirit of golf. I brought plenty of reading material as well as a curious strap to work on keeping my arms and elbows connected should I hit some practice shots.

Early one morning I ventured down to Southern Pines GC with the idea of playing a quick nine before hitting the grind. I schlepped my bag on my shoulder and took off on the course completed by Ross in 1923, then remembered that the ninth hole doesn’t return to the clubhouse, a sure sign that the routing’s as pure as the land and architect’s eye would allow. No telling how many bad holes have been forced the last century by the purely American contrivance of returning the front nine back to the clubhouse.

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G O L F T OW N J O U R NA L

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It’s a brisk walk, the numerous inclines in the ground challenging my stamina, but the short distances from greens to tees of the vintage course giving some energy back. My game is properly tasked — trying to nail a draw on the par-5 fifth hole for extra carry, for example, and dial in short irons on the par-4 eighth and 10th. Nearly every green requires precision to imagine and execute a recovery if you’re off to the sides. The lake serving as anchor on the eighth through the 11th hole glistens in the early morning light.

At twilight several evenings I took a couple of golf clubs and balls out to the acreage where the golf course once existed, trying to imagine where the holes might have run, being mindful to hit away from the dog-walkers. Ah, that notch in the trees in the distance — what a nice spot for a putting green.

Maybe a century ago that patch was covered with sand and clay before they learned to grow grass greens in the South.

And late into the evening I tucked into my copy of Michael Murphy’s 1972 cult classic, Golf in the Kingdom. The thesis of one of my writing projects was that golf is a game best played and enjoyed by walking, and though I’ve read the book a couple of times before, I wanted to re-read it with an eye toward catching snippets that might support my view.

I found this rant by Dr. Julian Laing, the town doctor in the fictional Scottish village of Burningbush: “For every theory ye propose about the improvement o’ the game, I’ll show ye how the game is fadin’ away, losin’ its old charm, becomin’ mechanized by the Americans and the rest o’ the world that blindly follows them . . . I see the distorted swings, the hurried rounds, and now the electric carts tha ruin the courses and rob us of our exercise.”

And I uncovered these morsels from Shivas Irons talking about Seamus McDuff, the mythical figure lurking in the shadows along the Burningbush golf course.

“Ye’re makin’ a great mistake if ye think the gemme is meant for the shots. The gemme is meant

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G O L F T OW N J O U R NA L

for walkin’.”

And, “‘Twas said tha he sometimes forgot his shots, the walkin’ got to be so good. Had to be reminded by his caddy to hit the ball.”

And finally, “If ye can enjoy the walkin’, ye can probably enjoy the other times in yer life when ye’re in between. And that’s most o’ the time; wouldn’t ye say?”

It was near midnight one evening when I turned off the lights in one of the upstairs rooms at the front of the house and made my way back to my bedroom, taking care that the old floorboards didn’t creak and disturb my fellow residents.

It was quite a splendid week, a couple of lunch appointments and evening rounds of golf with old friends, but it was mostly seven days of writing golf, reading golf and thinking golf. No news, limited outside engagement. Very quaint, indeed.

I was looking forward to returning to Weymouth in May, but sadly, the program has been suspended in the wake of the virus lockdown.

We’re certainly between shots at the moment.

PS Chapel Hill-based writer Lee Pace has written the histories of Pinehurst Resort, Mid Pines and Pine Needles, and has authored a centennial book for the Carolinas Golf Association.

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C O M E S E E U S I N T H E H I S T O R I C S T E A M P L A N T.

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B r e w i n g .:cThe o m Art & Soul of the Sandhills May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 .0 . 0 . . M . .a .g . n . o . .l i .a . .R .o . a . d . . • . .V . i .l l . a . g . e . . o . f . .P . i .n . e . h . u . .r .s .t , . .N . o . r . t . h . . C . a . .r o . .l i .n . a . .• . .P .i n . .e .h .u . r . s tPineStraw

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May ���� Where I’m From

I am from a two stop-light town; from sweet tea and Crisco shortening I am from a house with one bathroom and six inhabitants; rocking chairs by dawn and cozy fire pits by dusk I am from muscadine grape vines, big oaks, and dandelions I am from Purvis and Chriscoe, Jenny and Jerry; blonde hair and blue eyes, hard work and family time From don’t speak if you have nothing nice to say to no blood or no bones — dry it up, from corn doodles and goo-goo bars I’m a river girl of Scottish descent, vacationing on the ocean’s shores, from callused hands in a textile mill and World War II I am from places one only longs to raise their children, from a small town with a big impact, and a calling to somewhere far away with hopes the feeling of this place will always follow — Mallie Clara Purvis Moore County Writers’ Competition First Place Poetry Grades 9-12

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Reviving a Soulful Sound

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A scruffy old guitar finds its voice again

By Stephen E. Smith Photographs by John Koob Gessner

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’I ll bet

you’re nagged by a furtive longing to possess something that’s impractical. Maybe it’s Aunt Amelia’s Tiffany brooch or Granddad Ralph’s ’49 Mercury sedan. In my case, it’s always been a Stahl Style 6 guitar made by the Larson brothers of Chicago. Whatever the object, we know this: If we search long enough and can shell out the cash, we’re likely to get what we want. This is America; we invented conspicuous consumption.

Inspired by what comedian Martin Mull dubbed “The Great Folk Music Scare,” I bought my first guitar, a digit-mangling Kay archtop, in August 1961, from a pawn shop on West Street in Annapolis, Maryland. I was a rising eighth-grader and paid $15 I’d received for my birthday. Every Saturday that fall, I toted my caseless Kay to St. John’s College campus, where I sat under the last surviving Liberty Tree (on the very spot where patriots plotted the Revolution) and strummed “Goodnight, Irene” ad nauseam with five or six honest-to-God beatniks. On one of those cool autumn afternoons, a Maynard G. Krebs character handed me his guitar and said, “Here, give this a try.”

I strummed a G chord, one of the three I’d mastered. “Wow!” I said.

The proud owner beamed. “Plays like silk and chimes, like a chorus of seraphim,” he said.

“What kind of guitar is this?” I asked.

“It’s a Stahl 6,” he replied.

When I got home, I had to look up “seraphim” in the dictionary, but I knew in my bones what a Stahl guitar was.

For most of the 60-plus years that have slipped by since that autumn after-

noon, I never happened upon a Stahl Style 6 I could afford. If I were a more accomplished player, I might have been willing to shell out $7,000 to $14,000 for a pristine original-condition Stahl, but alas . . .

And then, eight months ago, a Stahl Style 6 materialized on my computer screen — and it was for sale at a reasonable price! The rub: It was in sad — very sad — condition. The seller listed it as “Non Functioning,” noting that the Stahl was a “Luthier Project” afflicted with a “Non Original Bridge, Non Original Tuners, No Pins, Back Cracks with washboarding” — and an all-too-ominous caution that the guitar would need “some finish work.” But the center strip was clearly branded “WM. G. STAHL/MAKER/MILWAUKEE” (a lie, since the guitar was made in Chicago by the Larson brothers) and 95 percent of the instrument was there.

I asked the seller a few pointed questions, made a reasonable offer, and PayPaled him the money. Four days later the UPS man delivered a big box that I ripped into with, I admit, adolescent gusto.

At this point in the typical restoration epic, buyer’s remorse sets in. What have I gotten myself into? the new owner asks. But I wasn’t in the least bothered by the Stahl’s condition — not at first. The seller had been reasonably honest — everything he said was wrong was wrong — but with each careful inspection I noticed flaws he’d failed to mention. The fingerboard extension was bent — not broken, thank goodness, but obviously sigogglin — the bridge (which anchors the strings to the body) wasn’t a correct Larson brothers’ flattened pyramid type and it was glued in the wrong location, the peghead overlay was damaged, the frets needed attention, binding was missing at the bottom of the fingerboard, the 3-on-plate Kluson knockoff tuners were flat-out annoying — and worst of all, some idiot with a paint roller had applied two gallons of runny

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Guitar back: restored on the left, original condition on the right

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gloppy gooey polyurethane or other superfluous substance to the guitar’s body, the front, back and sides. And that didn’t include earlier overspray of shellac, lacquer and varnish that had melted into the polyurethane — a deal-breaker for any vintage guitar collector, since original finishes are necessary to produce the instrument’s authentic sound.

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ollectors argue endlessly about original finishes vs. restored.

You’ve probably seen those Picker guys on the History Channel who love “rusty gold” and “the look” or the erudite appraiser on Antiques Roadshow who says, “In original condition this Philadelphia dressing table would be worth half a million dollars but since you refinished it, it’s worth seventy-five bucks.

Maybe.” And that’s how it is with vintage guitars. But I’m not a vintage guitar collector. I simply wanted to play the guitar, and to do that I needed to have the polyurethane removed.

Poly finishes dampen sound and I had a lot of it on the Stahl, which meant that the guitar had reached a point in its checkered life where it was up or out.

I might have relisted it on an auction site and gotten my money back, but I was determined not to sell or trash my latest acquisition. I was in possession of a rare Larson brothers Stahl Style 6 serial number 27022 (a numeral not based on production numbers), which meant the instrument was 100 years old! Who knows where it had been and the stories it could tell? Guitars, like their owners, have their own DNA and quirky personalities.

How valuable are Larson instruments? Consider this: A 1937 Larson-built Euphonon dreadnought recently listed on the Reverb for $64,500. Ouch! (If you’re interested in Larson instruments, I suggest you read The Larson Brothers’ Creations, by Robert Carl Hartman, or John Thomas’ excellent article in issue #15 of Fretboard Journal.)

What I needed was someone — the right someone — to save my Stahl Style 6. I’d heard that it’s possible, under unique circumstances, to remove a secondary finish while preserving the original surface. I got on the phone and chatted with luthiers in Wilmington, the Raleigh-Durham area, Charlotte and the Triad, and settled on Bob Rigaud (pronounced “rego”) in Greensboro.

Bob is a world-class builder, a luthier whose guitars are comparable to those of the Larsons. Seven years ago, he built for me a New Moon koa tenor ukulele, a high-quality, handmade instrument that sings with a surprisingly mellow, resonant voice, and he’s supplied instruments for many A-list performers, most recently Graham Nash, who travels with his Rigaud parlor guitar and uses it to compose new music.

More importantly, Bob has a reputation as a superlative repairman. A few years ago, “Steady-Rollin” Bob Margolin, Muddy Waters’ longtime sideman, stopped in Bob’s shop to have an old Gibson L-00 repaired. I was curious about Margolin’s experience with Bob, so I emailed him. He replied: “Bob fixed my mid-’30s Gibson L-00. He checked it out and knew exactly what to do. He told me the guitar would come back better than I could imagine and it did. Big admiration for Bob.” Margolin was so impressed with the sound of his Gibson, he went directly to a studio and recorded the CD This Guitar and Tonight, a ragged, in-your-face acoustic outing in which the old L-00 vibrates like the blues bucket it is.

Bob had also repaired two of my guitars, one a Larson-built student-grade Maurer that required delicate finish work, which he accomplished flawlessly.

He also sealed multiple cracks, back and front, and made them disappear.

Better yet, he left most of the original French polish intact.

So in late May I drove to Greensboro and handed my Stahl to Bob. He was busily at work on three new guitars — always his first passion — but his

Bob Rigaud face brightened as his eyes ran over the damage wrought on my Larson by time and abuse.

“I can fix this,” Bob said. “I can make it sing again.”

Bob Rigaud is possessed of a gregariousness purely borne of enthusiasm. His life is guitars, and he delights in every aspect of building and repairing instruments and hearing them sing. We sat in his modest workshop and talked for two hours. His hands fluttered like birdwings as he pointed out myriad flaws I’d failed to notice and explained in detail how he’d approach correcting each imperfection.

“Can you fix the finish problems and make the washboarding and back cracks disappear?” I asked.

He was uncharacteristically succinct. “I can,” he said, smiling.

The Stahl was in his hands.

Brimming with faith and high hopes, I drove back to Southern Pines and waited. And waited. June came and went. On the last Saturday in July, I traveled from High Point to Bob’s workshop to check out the progress he’d made on my guitar. The old Stahl was laid out like a cadaver on his workbench, the fingerboard taped off. And miracle of miracles, most of the poly finish had been removed and much of the original French polish seemed to be intact. The washboarding was gone without a trace, as were the many back cracks and a small hole I’d somehow overlooked. The once-mangled Brazilian rosewood back had been restored to its original glory.

“How did you repair the back so perfectly?” I asked.

“I flattened the wood and sealed the cracks with an epoxy I tinted with rosewood sawdust.”

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But there was still much work to complete, including the peghead overlay, the replacement bridge, and the angle problems with the fingerboard extension. I left satisfied but anxious to have the Stahl back home.

August, September, October and November passed, and I was content to have Bob work at his own speed. But in early December, my friend Craig Fuller of Pure Prairie League and Little Feat fame drove me to Bob’s workshop. Bob, always the perfect host, showed us the guitars he was building, and Craig and I examined the Stahl in detail. It was close to being complete: a new, handcrafted bridge with inlays was temporarily applied, a beautiful peghead overlay was in place, and new Stewmac Golden Age reproduction tuners were installed, but the frets still needed work and touch-up finishing was left to accomplish. I’d hoped that Craig, who’s played more guitars better than I ever will, might try out the completed Stahl and give me his opinion, but Bob was still struggling to correct the intonation, the key to ensuring that a guitar sounds as good as it possibly can.

“I’ve never repaired a Larson guitar that had the correct intonation,” Bob observed.

On January 22, 2020 my phone rang; the Stahl was ready for me to take possession. “I’m proud of it,” Bob said.

I stepped into his workshop at 9:30 the following morning. And there it was, my 1920 Larson brothers Stahl Style 6 guitar resurrected. I picked it up, strummed a fat G chord and felt an instant synaptic connection: I remembered the sweet sound — the sustain, the purity of voice — that had amazed me all those years before. It played like silk and chimed like a chorus of seraphim. It had the mojo and “the look.” Bob smiled but said nothing. He didn’t need to. He absolutely understood how I felt. He was feeling it too.

“I loved working on this guitar,” Bob said. “When I was regluing the internal braces — which, by the way, are all maple, not spruce — I could see evidence of August Larson’s work, and I felt like I was having a conversation with him all these years later. A hundred years from now maybe some other luthier working on this guitar will be having a conversation with me.”

“You don’t have to reveal any trade secrets,” I said, “but how did you save so much of the original finish?”

“Sense of smell,” Bob explained. “As I take down the finishes, I can smell them and after all these years of working on guitars, I can pretty much tell you what the finish is and when it was applied. When I got to the French polish, it gave off a very distinct smell. That’s when I stopped.”

Great luthiers are the real guitar heroes.

I play the Stahl every day now. It’s my musical soul mate. I know I’ll never be a great musician. And that’s fine. The process of learning guitar continues to unfold for me. I like it that way.

Was resurrecting the Stahl worth the time, money and effort? Was it merely an attempt to recapture my youth? What I can tell you is that my Larson guitar testifies that a tradition honored 100 years ago is adhered to still with patience and pride. I’ll be passing the Stahl along someday, and isn’t the past always present in the hope we have in the future?

My Stahl Style 6 sits in my guitar room next to a Liberty Tree guitar made from the wood of the tulip poplar I sat under on St. John’s campus all those years ago. Hurricane Floyd roared through Annapolis in 1999 and fatally damaged the 400-year-old tree. Taylor guitars purchased the wood and built 400 fancy instruments. It’s strikes me as wholly appropriate that my Stahl and the Liberty Tree sit side by side.

After all, something so complete has a beauty all its own. PS

Liberty Tree guitar

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The Legend of Eddie Pearce How the “Next Nicklaus” found new life on the rocky road to the Sandhills

By Bill Fields

A

s things go in dating, once things have gotten serious, you meet the parents.

The first time Linette Smith visited the Florida home of Doris and Wes Pearce, she was struck by the contents of one particular room with a bunch of trophies. Linette knew her boyfriend, Eddie, as a car dealer at Larry Rigby Chevrolet in Abilene, Texas, who had sold her a new 1986 Camaro Berlinetta.

“Were you good at something?” Linette asked Eddie upon seeing the shelves full of silver curated by Eddie’s mother.

“Oh, yeah,” Doris interjected, “he was a golfer.”

In fact, Doris’ younger son was a very, very good golfer who before he had a driver’s license was being viewed as someone who not only could win on the PGA Tour but dominate it, a generational star in the making.

Eddie played liked a man when he was a boy.

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Gary Koch, a six-time tour winner and longtime television broadcaster, recalls a 1969 high school match in which he and Pearce, his fellow King High School star in Temple Terrace, Florida, were grouped with the No. 1 and 2 golfers of another team. It was a water-guarded par-5 that called for a drive, layup and third shot onto the green. But not if you had Pearce’s talent and strength.

“The three of us had layed up, and Eddie takes out his 1-iron, which he was so good with, and powers it up in the air, over a lake and onto the green,” Koch says. “I glanced over at the other two guys and they’re shaking their heads like, ‘Are you kidding?’ I would still put Eddie among the top 10 ball-strikers I’ve ever seen — and that’s when he was 18 or 19 years old.”

Pearce is 68 now, nearly a half-century removed from winning the 1971 North and South Amateur at Pinehurst No. 2, another rung on his ladder to the greatness so many predicted.

He has been back in the Sandhills since late 2018 as general manager of

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PHOTOGRAPH BY TIM SAYER

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Southern Pines Nissan Kia, where many customers know his name if not all the stories. “I make sure I meet as many people as I can when they come in because I know 95 percent of them play golf,” Pearce says. “They don’t know if I play or not. So, I’ll sit down with them and introduce myself to them and they say, ‘Oh, I remember you.’ It’s amazing how many people do remember me.”

Pearce has been a success in the car business for almost 40 years, closing sales instead of closing out tournaments, which never became a habit once he turned pro and grew too familiar with closing time.

“It was probably 8-to-5 that I was going to make it to 35,” Pearce says.

“Now I’m 68. Man, it’s been unbelievable. What a ride.”

He played 195 PGA Tour events, most from 1974 through 1981, although he made an improbable return for an additional season in 1993. The player who turned heads as an amateur never won on the biggest stage, earning four runner-up finishes among just a dozen top-10s.

Pearce’s golf journey began in the Tampa area when he was just a toddler. Babe Zaharias, who owned Forest Hills Country Club with her husband, George, put a club in Eddie’s hands when he was 3. “It’s all I did,” he says. “It’s all I wanted to do.”

He was carrying a money clip and wearing alligator-skin golf shoes by the time he was 16, a success in money games with the grown-ups in Tampa and in formal competition with his peers. He won the 1968 U.S. Junior Amateur at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts — dispatching a handful of golfers who would become Tour standouts. “I knew I would win when I stepped on the first tee,” Pearce told his hometown newspaper that week. “I was brimming with confidence.”

Prior to claiming that national crown, Pearce was a dominant force for years at the Press Thornton Future Masters, a premier junior tournament in Dothan, Alabama, winning seven consecutive age-group titles between 1963-1969.

If Wes was in Eddie’s gallery, as he usually was, there was always a firsttee ritual. “I’d say to Dad, empty your pockets, because he always carried about three dollars worth of change in his pockets and he would jingle it,” Pearce says. “I’d put it in my golf bag and give it back to him after the round.”

Longtime Southern Pines resident Mike Fields, who played a lot of junior golf, was a regular at the Future Masters. “When I was 7, 8 and 9 years old, I remember watching Eddie play at Dothan Country Club,” says Fields,

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60. “He had flowing blond hair and what I thought was a tour-pro swing.

He was a legend in Dothan, always the talk of the tournament. All the kids talked about how far he hit the ball and that the ball sounded different coming off his clubs. I remember he was also very friendly to the younger kids who idolized him.”

Pearce’s contemporary, Ben Crenshaw, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, told GolfChannel.com in 2013, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with as much talent as him. Eddie had such a gorgeous, powerful swing. He could just hit the most beautiful shots you’ve ever seen.”

In his formative years, many of those shots were hit with plenty of cold, hard cash on the line. As a teenager, Pearce fell into a group of gambling golfers at Bardmoor Country Club in Largo, Fla. “There were money games with guys he perhaps shouldn’t be playing with,” says Koch. “But Eddie was always comfortable in those situations, almost weirdly so. He wasn’t too worried because he knew he was better from the standpoint of physical talent. Those guys would bet on anything — it was an interesting cast of characters.”

One of the regulars was Martin “The Fat Man” Stanovich. Once, after a week of thousand-dollar Nassaus, Pearce had won nearly $25,000 from Stanovich. Not long after that, Pearce was in a practice bunker working on his superb sand game. He had been warned to leave good enough alone when it came to further bets with Stanovich, but didn’t listen.

“Marty was watching me hit those sand shots,” Pearce recalls, “and he said, ‘Damn, you’re pretty good.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ He said, ‘Well, you want to hit some shots, $100 for closest to the hole?’”

The wagers grew. After 90 minutes, Pearce had lost $20,000 to The Fat Man. “I walk up to the clubhouse and I’m in a daze,” Pearce says. “Lloyd (Ferrentino, who ran the course) said, ‘He got you, didn’t he?’ Marty was a magician out of the sand. That was a hard, hard lesson. I know I had to play a lot of golf to get that money back.”

In the spring of 1969, Pearce, Koch and their King High teammates won the Florida state championship with a four-man, 36-hole total of 579. It remained a Sunshine State record for 30 years. Pearce was heavily recruited and went to golf powerhouse Wake Forest, where he stayed for two years before deciding to turn professional.

Sports Illustrated had referred to Pearce as the “Next Nicklaus.” With a powerful lower body and effective leg action, Pearce resembled the Golden Bear. “It was the time of the 1-iron and Eddie could really hit the long

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irons,” Koch says. “He had a bit of an upright swing, and he had big legs and could create speed and get the ball quickly into the air.”

Eddie’s personality was more King than Bear, outgoing like Arnold Palmer, the man who had convinced him to go to Wake Forest. Pearce never met a stranger, and his outgoing nature made late nights happen all too easily. Pearce was runner-up in his fourth tournament of 1974, the Hawaiian Open, but was never really able to build on that early promise.

He safely kept his exempt status as a rookie, finishing 44th on the money list, but only improved to 39th in 1975.

Detailed statistics for that era aren’t available like they are now, but Pearce’s putting, particularly once he became a pro, didn’t match his longgame skills. “Back in high school we used to joke that if I could ever hit it like he did and he could putt like me, nobody would ever beat either of us,” says Koch, who was known as an excellent putter.

Pearce loved life on the road — too much — and didn’t have the selfdiscipline to practice more and party less. “A lot of guys talked to him,” says Roger Maltbie, a friend of Pearce’s in their tour days in the 1970s, “but Eddie was going to do what Eddie was going to do.”

An instinctive, natural golfer from childhood, as his career stalled in the late-1970s and early 1980s, Pearce got bogged down with mechanics. “I had always had a good swing and played by feel,” he says. “I never thought about my swing until the last few years on tour. And then I thought about it all the time when I was over the ball. The more I thought about it, the worse I got.”

In 1981, when he was only 29 years old, Pearce finished 210th on the money list after being 225th the previous year, failing to earn as much in a season as he had in a week of money games as a teenager. He had neither a winning lifestyle nor golf game. “By that point he was struggling personally and professionally,” Koch says. “Some of us were worried about him. Was he going to be able to get his life squared away? What was he going to do?”

Tired, frustrated and unhappy, Pearce packed it in after that lousy 1981 season, unsure what his future would hold. “When I quit playing, I gave everything away that had to do with golf,” he says. The inventory of discarded equipment included two George Low Sportsman model putters Nicklaus had given him, clubs that a decade later were selling for thousands to collectors.

Pearce had an endorsement deal, doing commercials, for Don Reid Ford in Orlando, and was good friends with Reid and his business partner, Cesar Prado. (Prado is godfather to Eddie Pearce Jr.) They turned out to be the gateway to his second career. “I asked Cesar, ‘What’s the deal with this car-selling thing?’” Pearce says. “Cesar told me I probably would be real good at it because of how I was with people, the way I took care of sponsors and guys playing in pro-ams.”

Prado was right. He got Pearce a job at a dealership in Lakeland, Florida, that needed to improve its numbers. “That’s where he got his start, turning that store around,” says Prado, now retired in Texas. “Eddie is very personable, very likable and he had a knack for it. I’m just glad I was able to help a little bit and get him on a track where he could be successful.”

Over the next couple of decades, Pearce would put in three-month stints at dealerships across the country, becoming a specialist at organizing their operation and improving sales. “We’d take the store over, do all the training and all the advertising,” Pearce says. “If we turned it around, we’d come

back and give them tune ups.”

Pearce was a sales manager at a Chevy dealer in Abilene, Texas, in August 1986 when Linette Smith came in to buy a Camaro. “His closer was having a little bit of a difficult time with me,” Linette says. “So Eddie decided to come in and close the deal.”

Linette got her Camaro and, in time, a boyfriend. “We were really, really good friends for about 3 1/2 months — we didn’t really date, we just hung out,” Linette says. “And then we went down for a weekend in Mexico and the rest is history.”

Pearce still enjoyed the bar scene, but that wasn’t Linette’s. “After I came into the picture, he settled down,” she says. Pearce curtailed his drinking, imbibing only occasionally these days. The couple got married in 1990.

“Third time’s the charm for both of us,” Pearce says. “She’s put up with me for 30 years, and it’s been an amazing trip, a lot of fun.”

Linette played an encouraging role in Pearce’s return to competition in the early 1990s. Inspired by watching Hale Irwin win the 1990 U.S. Open at age 45, Pearce set about getting fit, losing more than 50 pounds. He failed at Qualifying School in late 1991, but a year later, at The Woodlands outside Houston, 40 years old and wielding a long putter, he got his card.

The bittersweet part was that his father had died of lung cancer nine months earlier.

He savored practice rounds with buddies he hadn’t played with in a long time. But Dewars was now just the name of his dog, not his drink of choice. Though Pearce applied himself in ways that he hadn’t the first go-round on tour, he couldn’t find the magic that had made him a can’t-miss kid.

He missed 19 cuts in 27 tournaments in 1993, shooting just six rounds in the 60s and failing to record a top-25 finish. He was unsuccessful at Q-School following the ’93 season and, a decade later, in trying to earn his way onto the senior tour.

“I’m very proud of Eddie and the way he dug into trying to make a comeback,” Linette says. “It wasn’t for lack of trying that he didn’t do better when he got back out there. But perhaps Eddie wasn’t mentally prepared for all of it.”

Her husband was content to return to the car business, where he enjoys mentoring employees in whom he sees potential. One such young man worked in the detail department at Pearce’s previous dealership in Henderson but was interested in sales. He has moved up through the ranks and is now general manager of a dealership in Lee County.

“When you get somebody like that and they do well, it’s like it’s your kid,” says Pearce, a father of two. “If I can latch onto a couple more folks like that before my career is over, I’ll be happy. It makes me feel good to do that, because this business is a great business, it really is.”

Pearce has played little golf in recent years, although he and Linette watch a lot of tournaments on television. “Eddie might reflect on a certain course that he played in the 1970s,” says Linette, “but we just enjoy the game. We enjoy watching the young players come up.”

It’s a different game than it was 50 years ago, but some golfers stand out as they always have, if not as much as Eddie Pearce did before he didn’t. PS

“It was probably 8-to-5 that I was going to make it to 35,” Pearce says. “Now I’m 68. Man, it’s been unbelievable.

What a ride.”

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Donald’s Digs The Ross Cottage gets a mulligan

By Deborah Salomon • Photographs by John Koob Gessner

D

ornoch Cottage is to golfers what Graceland is to silver-haired rock ’n’ rollers. What Monticello is to American presidency buffs. What Tara was to Scarlett. Donald Ross not only slept, ate and breathed here, but built his home overlooking the third hole of Pinehurst No. 2. Value it as did Ross: Of the 400, and then some, golf courses the master designed, he chose to live on Midland Road.

This value has not diminished. In March, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Pinehurst Resort auctioned off two nights at Dornoch plus three rounds of golf, with proceeds benefiting the Employee Relief Fund. The winning bid: $25,000.

When they get there, the winners should not expect a McMansion fitted out with gadgetry. Rather, a comfortable home, rich in memorabilia, with a romantic backstory: Ross, whose trade was listed as carpenter/clubmaker, arrived in Boston from Dornoch, Scotland, in 1899, with $2 in his pocket. The 28-year-old left his fiancée, Janet, behind but soon returned to marry her. James Tufts brought the budding star to Pinehurst in 1901, as club manager/pro. The young couple and their daughter Lillian lived at Hawthorne Cottage until Janet died of breast cancer, in 1922.

The widower was lonely.

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Dornoch Cottage front 1924

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PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE TUFTS ARCHIVES

Documents from the Tufts Archives at Given Memorial Library indicate that, about 1923, wealthy widow Florence Blackinton purchased a lot on Midland Road with the intention of building a winter retreat. The Tufts family sent Ross to negotiate boundary issues. Nature took its course; a year after Janet’s death, Donald and Florence married.

About that house Florence planned to build: She wanted an antebellum two-story colonnade spanning the width. Donald dreamed of a Scottish cottage done in stone and pinkish brick.

Their compromise: Scottish front, plantation rear, main entrance on each side.

The compromise worked. Donald and Janet lived at Dornoch Cottage, named for his birthplace, until his death in 1948.

The house was purchased by Wayne and Jo Ashby, who entertained the Donald Ross Society there, and subsequently

by Bob and Carol Hanson, whose livelihood and lives revolve around golf. Structural repairs were needed, desperately. Once they had been completed, the Hansons’ mission was to create a shrine to the Ross/Pinehurst legend, using Bob’s collections of golf art, antique clubs, photos and memorabilia. To that they added period furniture in the graceful Southern style. Pinehurst Resort purchased Dornoch in 2017 as a lodging option for special guests and began another round of renovations in January of 2018.

Dornoch Cottage rear 1924

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Decking it out suitably fell to Mark Clay, the Dallas interior designer in charge of renovating and furnishing Fownes Cottage, another historic residence renovated by the resort for conferences, VIPs and the personal use of resort owner Bob Dedman Jr. and his family. The result: comfortable, elegant, authentic yet less formal than Fownes; a place to invite friends for a drink, maybe a barbecue, while rehashing their birdies and bogeys on No. 2.

“Mr. Hanson took a lot of the memorabilia,” Clay recalls. “Mr. Dedman replaced some of it himself.” The rest was collected from Pinehurst shops and elsewhere. Clay worked with the furniture that remained, had some reupholstered, wallpapered the bedrooms and bathrooms, added draperies. The dining room table came up from Dallas, with chairs custom-made to complement it.

“This wasn’t going to be a private residence. I had to be practical about using what came with the house,” Clay says.

The floorplan remained the same, except for an upstairs “Nanny’s room,” where he put a soaking tub. But the bathrooms needed work and the kitchen got a new floor, a farmhouse sink, new countertops over existing pine cabinets. Clay used a grasscloth wall covering and a beadboard ceiling in the dining area.

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May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Donald Ross and his wife, Florence

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Clay’s design signature, upholstered headboards, made the cut although he retained one classic four-poster bed with “R” embroidered on pillow shams.

A small, outdated swimming pool added post-Ross was filled in. The paneled den remained tartan-clubby, filled with golf photos and souvenirs. Much was added to the landscaping.

The result: another piece of Pinehurst history brought forward to 21st century standards with Wi-Fi and AC, leaving aura intact.

Clay had to complete the renovation in 12 weeks because Gil Hanse, internationally lauded golf course architect, would occupy Dornoch for six months while he redesigned Pinehurst’s No. 4 course.

“There is no doubt in my mind that living in Dornoch Cottage was one of the most meaningful experiences ever extended to Tracey (his wife) and me during my career,” says Hanse. “To wake up every morning in Ross’ house, look out the window at arguably his greatest creation, and sit in his office and work on plans of our own in the same space as he visualized some of the greatest holes on the planet still gives me chills.

“It also crossed my mind that all the mundane things we take for granted — like making coffee, taking out the trash, reading a book were also done by him, here. We lived in his house, and while all the thoughts about great course ideas he created under this roof and how many amazing golf holes were dreamed up — it was the notion that we experienced his house just like he did.

“That might be the most meaningful part of it.” PS

Gil Hanse PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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Discover rockingham

PineNeedler Answers from page 78

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A L M A N A C

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May n

By Ash Alder

ay is a series of miracles so intertwined that nothing feels separate from it.

Take, for example, the mockingbird fledgling, who leaps from its nest 12 days after hatching.

Twelve days.

The descent is less than graceful. More like a stone than a feather. And when he lands, stunned, on the soft earth beneath the tree, each blade of grass performs its highest service. As if cradled in the hands of an invisible, benevolent force, the fledgling rests.

Tender new life abounds. White-tail fawns take their first wonky steps. Red fox kits explore a world outside their den. And like the mockingbird fledgling, now flapping its newfound wings and hopping in the grass, these precious babes are easy prey.

As baby bird performs his hop-flap-plop routine, mama and papa bird stay close, ever ready to defend him. That’s the thing about mockers. If ever you’ve seen one chase off a raven, jay or crow, then you’re familiar with the raspy battle cry of a tiny beast that knows no fear.

Days have passed, and the fledgling’s wings are growing stronger. There’s no shortage of ants, grasshoppers and beetles for feeding, and under his parents’ watchful eyes, he’s gaining air with every jump.

Not far from the tree where the mocker babe hatched is a quiet road not far from your house.

This is where you enter the picture.

On a leisurely walk, the air sweet with magnolia blossoms and spring roses, you notice a stopped car, the driver kneeling in front of a small lump in the middle of the road.

“I can’t leave him here!” says the driver, a young mother who is visibly shaken by the sight of this tiny being — a mockingbird fledgling whose wiry feathers and wide yellow beak somehow make it look like a curmudgeonly old man.

He isn’t injured, you observe. Just spent from a recent flight lesson. Relieved, the driver snags a toddler shirt from the back of her car, and you use it to gently scoop him off the road.

When you set him down on the earth, the fledgling gives a brave little squawk, flaps his wings, then musters the strength for a few shaky steps before plopping down in the soft grass for more rest.

One day, you think, that mockingbird will take flight. And one day, sooner than you think, he will have one hundred songs to sing.

You hear a crow caw in the distance, and as mama bird watches from her nearby perch, you can’t help but smile at the miracle of it all.

But I must gather knots of flowers, And buds and garlands gay, For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. —Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The May Queen”

The Mother’s Moon

The Full Mother’s Moon rises on Thursday, May 7 — three days before Mother’s Day. Also called the Milk Moon, Flower Moon and Corn Planting Moon, this month’s full moon is a brilliant reminder to celebrate all mothers — human and animal — for the glorious gift of life.

Speaking of gifts, here’s one for Mama: daylily bulbs (to bloom in June).

The Rose Garden

May is a jubilant explosion of fragrant blossoms.

Crabapple and dogwood. Violets and magnolia. Flame azalea and flowering quince.

And then there are roses.

If you’ve ever known a rose gardener, then you’ve seen the light in the eyes of a soul who has seen life after perceived death (dormancy).

I once toured the rose garden of a retired Episcopal minister who described the deep sadness of cutting his blossoms each winter, and the wonder of their return.

I’ll never forget his tender nature or, for that matter, his favorite rose.

“Dolly Parton,” he told me, pointing to a fragrant red rose in the corner of his garden. “She’s wonderful.

She just blooms and blooms.”

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. — John Muir

Garden Spotlight

Let’s hear it for fennel, folks!

This perennial herb has long been cultivated for the digestive-aiding properties of its fruit (fennel seeds), but its bulb and leaves are likewise packed with nutrients.

Fennel is good medicine for the heart, skin and bones. It aids with inflammation and metabolism.

And, lucky for (most of) us, it tastes like licorice.

There are dozens of ways to eat the bulb, but if you’re looking for fresh and easy, try pairing it with red plums (thinly sliced) for a slam-dunk salad topped with honeyginger dressing. Enjoy! PS

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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May PineNeedler Acronyms

ACRONYMS

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ACROSS 22. “____ la la!” (French expression) Bondprogram, actor Timothy 40. Phone Absurd 1. Ran, as colors10. Variety of 32 down 23. James 5.

Nobelist Hammarskjold 26.

Seawall briefly 11. Ophthalmology study Arithmetic, for short 8. Clarified butter formerly 41. Sear, when ironing 13. Accommodate to 30. Tokyo, hurch enclave 12. Flimsy, as an excuse 31.

Living room extra, 2 wds 44. surroundings Bridal path Watch out!" on the 13. Not straight 14. Bar seat 34. Persia, now 46. Plunderer e 14. Shabby and untidy 35. Stocks and ____ 19. Flat bottomed boats 48. Prenatal aper layer 15. “Miss ___ Regrets” 37. Sicken 22. "___ Gang" 49. Parishioners, the Ogle 16. Abound 38. Sarcastic unordained 23. Fix, in a way, as a 17. Barter 39. Spur on n 50. Kissing disease, for computer 40. Painter, liance 18. Baptizes short e.g.

24. Cherish 20.

Capital of Norway 42.

“Do the Rightlab Thing” pizzeria owner omebuilder's strip 51. Biology supply 25. Desires 21. Self- contained underwater 43. Geheime Staatspolizei abic for breathing apparatus 52. Frolic 26. "___ Hai" 45. Secret mander" 53. Drugs, in slang 27. Come up top and ___" 54. Other 28. Radio detection and ork 55. Bambi, for one ranging Sudoku: hletic setting 29. Genuflected 56. Graphics Fillinterchange in the grid so every ork-out places format 32. Hawaiian tuber row, every column and orge or Ira of song33. Part of a horse's rein every 3x3 box contain ng fame the numbers 1-9.

36. Oust t better 38. Put in reserve Puzzle answers on page 76

47. “The thigh bone’s connected to the ___ bone" 48. Fauna counterpart 50. “The War of the Worlds” base 52. Hit from behind, as an auto (hyph) 56. “Taras Bulba” author 57. Ear-related 58. Pineapple brand 59. Absurd 60. Arithmetic, for short 61. Church enclave 62. “Watch out!” on the course 63. Paper layer 64. Ogle DOWN 1. Alliance 2. Homebuilder’s strip 3. Arabic for “commander” 4. “Stop and ___” 5. Dork 6. Athletic setting 7. Workout places 8. George or Ira of songwriting fame 9. Get better 10. Variety of 32 down 11. Ophthalmology study 13. Accommodate to surroundings

14. Bar seat 19. Flat bottomed boats 22. “___ Gang” 23. Fix, in a way, as a computer 24. Cherish 25. Desires 26. “___ Hai” 27. Come up 28. Radio detection and ranging 29. Genuflected 32. Hawaiian tuber 33. Part of a horse’s rein 36. Oust 38. Put in reserve 40. Phone program, briefly 41. Sear, when ironing 44. Bridal path 46. Plunderer 48. Prenatal 49. Parishioners, the unordained 50. Kissing disease, for short 51. Biology lab supply 52. Frolic 53. Drugs, in slang 54. Other 55. Bambi, for one 56. Graphics interchange format

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May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

T H E A C C I D E N TA L A S T R O L O G E R

May the Force Be With You All things seem possible in May

By Astrid Stellanova

There’s so much to love about May: Memorial Day,

Dance Like a Chicken Day and Star Wars Day. Star Children, attention must be paid to the May born, whether Taurus or Gemini. Some May children are deeply worried, even clinically depressed. Others, unusually sunny and full of a belief in possibilities.

Queen Victoria, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, George Lucas, Audrey Hepburn, Adele, Bing Crosby, Mark Zuckerberg, Bob Dylan and Janet Jackson share the same birth month. One way or another, they will get your attention.

Taurus (April 20–May 20) This we know: You could talk to a telephone pole. Your motto in life is, “I don’t talk to strangers, so introduce yourself, Honey!” In the midst of the viral epidemic, you want to wade into the crowd and give the world a big old hug and talk. Admirable, if dangerous. Dial pals for solace if you absolutely must.

Gemini (May 21–June 20) Hey you, with the chip on your shoulder! Do. Not. Try. Me. Your friends and family are dying to say that, want you to get off the crazy train and remember who loves you. Love isn’t always enough, but neither is rage. Grab your chance for redemption.

Cancer (June 21–July 22) Serial hobbyist that you are, you’re itching to build a better tree house, or make the world’s finest pizza. Well, Honey, just go full tilt boogie, because it is good to explore all creative outlets. Summer brings opportunities to learn and create.

Leo (July 23–August 22) Fluent in the language of sarcasm, are you? Sugar Booger, it’s time to find another way to mix and mingle. You’re quick with the quip but that can be tiresome for your bestie. Listen with the same dedication and you’ll learn your nearest and dearest truly need to be heard.

Virgo (August 23–September 22) Last month was about as fun as dropping the hair dryer into the bath water.

Electrifying and horrifying. There’s still some fallout, and Darling, it must unfold before you get back to whatever normal is. Your pack is waiting for you to get past that final hurdle and find peace.

Libra (September 23–October 22) Measure twice, cut once, Sugar Pie. Not that meticulous you need to hear such advice but in these unusual times, details must be observed, and you have been way too preoccupied. Snap out of it, and recognize freedom from a redo by doing it right.

Scorpio (October 23–November 21) You are the boss, Applesauce, of your life. Nobody else but you. As stubbornly

as you cling to the past, the present is right there before you with a lot of hope, light and love. Still clinging to some very old notions about who was what, when you were a younger you? Fuggedabout it.

Sagittarius (November 22–December 21) You are closer to catching lightning in a jar for the second time, Honey. Don’t let anything convince you that your idea isn’t worth the work and worry. You see something that not everybody has the vision to see, the mind to master it and the mouth to broadcast it. Do it!

Capricorn (December 22–January 19) You slowed the boat and now you are nearing the season when all good things will come to You Who Waited. Patience will be rewarded. Remember, Sweet Thing, all the people who supported you on what looked like a Moon mission.

They stood by. Now share the spotlight.

Aquarius (January 20–February 18) Now you are in a particularly interesting phase of your life, caught between contemplating and cogitating — and overthinking. It’s easy for you to get stuck there, because you are seeing multiple dimensions. Resist stalling, Honey, because if your hunch is right, act!

Pisces (February 19–March 20) Now what? You like a clear path laid out and can’t see ahead. Murkiness is just the way it is, Love Bug. Nobody is getting a marked map these days with a big X over the treasure. Yet a big part of you recognizes that the treasure isn’t hidden.

It’s right there, in your own hand, within your big heart.

Aries (March 21–April 19) There’s just something about a fire sign that makes people gather round. Aries fire can either warm or burn, and some get too close. Here’s a chance to find a balance. Not everyone needs for you to bring them a Hershey bar. Or a scolding. Try subduing that big old force field for a few days. 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.

PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May 2020

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SOUTHWORDS

What’s a Drop Cloth?

(And why on earth would you ever want one?)

By Jim Moriarty

famous New York columnist and author, ran for the president of the city council with his buddy, Norman Mailer, who was campaigning for the office of mayor.

Their insurgent platform — hey, it was still the ’60s — was that the boroughs of the Big Apple should secede from the remainder of the state. As it turned out, this proposition was not looked upon favorably by the general population and the Mailer/Breslin ticket was crushed at the polls. In a rather terse concession speech Breslin said that his everlasting regret was that he was “mortified to have taken part in a process that required bars to be closed.”

In our most recent — or, God forbid, current — situation, I find myself in complete agreement. My own pub, which I affectionately refer to as the Bitter and Twisted, was long ago deemed nonessential. While the finer points of that opinion may be a personal matter of some dispute, there is no getting around the fact that I’d have been better off if the governor had extended his catalog of places to avoid to include Lowe’s Home Improvement.

For some reason my wife, the War Department, got it in her mind that since the hours previously occupied by the Bitter and Twisted had now been “freed up” — her words, I’m afraid — this would be a grand time to paint the living room. To my untrained eye the living room looked just fine. In fact, I was just getting used to it. A cobweb here and there. Maybe a nick or two from the time she thought it was a good idea for me to move the furniture about like a game of shuffleboard. And, I’ll grant you, there are the extra holes — generally falling into the three-to-seven range — required for me to hang any picture. They’re hidden, of course, though we all know where they are. More obvious are the scratches where the Alaskan malamute, owned by some boy my daughter dated for 15 minutes in high school (she’s now 43), carved out of the side door like Freddy Krueger. It’s not that I’m opposed to change, per se. But why fix something that’s not broken or that, at the very least, is bound to require a great deal of, well, doing something?

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And I’m not handy. I’m not just not handy, I’m religiously so. I’ve spent a lifetime taking every precaution to ensure that I know virtually nothing about anything that could reasonably be considered useful. If I actually had to fix a toilet, it would only be a matter of days before we had to move. And, having once attained a reputation for a high degree of ignorance around the house, you don’t want to throw that sort of thing away willy-nilly on something as mundane as a living room that really wasn’t all that bad, as long as you sort of keep the lights dimmed.

She, on the other hand, seemed convinced that new paint jobs ought not be a once in a generation phenomenon. So, off to Lowe’s we go. According to the War Department, buried somewhere in what I’ve been told is a utility shed, we did have some old brushes and whatnot that had last been used to make cave paintings, so it wasn’t as though we were in the market for the whole kit.

I’m not saying there are a lot of people who know as little as I do, but it did seem as though there were an awful lot of folks who had the same idea my wife did, vis-à-vis idle time. Myself, I’d have been perfectly happy to socially distance my ass right back home. Instead, we looked at chips. Color, not potato. “Which do you like,” she asked, “the Drizzled Berry Hibiscus or the Uggs Mocha?”

People can hold very strong opinions about such things, so I looked off toward the hardware lubricants and mumbled, “Ugh.” And she said, “Uggs it is.”

And that’s how the living room, using a technique that can best be described as Jackson Pollock Meets The Three Stooges, turned brown. On the plus side, as all fans of Ocean’s Eleven know well, taupe is very soothing. PS Jim Moriarty is the Senior Editor of PineStraw and can be reached at jjmpinestraw@gmail.com.

May 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PineStraw : The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ILLUSTRATION BY MERIDITH MARTENS

In ��6� Jimmy Breslin, the

“Gratitude is an art of painting adversity into a lovely picture” -Kak Sri

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