TCB — Oct. 28, 2015: Shattered

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2015

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Depression, guns and the deadly result

by Liz Seymour PAGE 16

Daycare dilemma PAGE 8

A coffeehouse with food PAGE 20

Aggie pride!

PAGE 7, 26 & 31

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Oct 28 — Nov 3, 2015

The long road to Memphis

by Brian Clarey

26 UP FRONT 3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 6 Commentariat 6 The List 7 Barometer 7 Unsolicited Endorsement

NEWS

13 Citizen Green: Measuring outcomes 14 It Just Might Work: More people 14 Fresh Eyes: Fear & loathing at Furniture Market

COVER

20 Food: Coffee with food 21 Barstool: What goes with wine?

22 Music: A broken bow 24 Art: A laureate reads

OPINION

26 Striving for greatness at A&T

GAMES 29 Jonesin’ Crossword

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

16 Suicide by gun

CULTURE

8 Eating Mudpies 10 At-large voices 12 HPJ: On the road

GOOD SPORT

30 East Lindsay Street, Greensboro

ALL SHE WROTE 31 The GHOE

13 Editorial: Timing’s the thing

QUOTE OF THE WEEK I almost gave up, but I sensed I would lose a lot more than a future with horses if I did. I’d be losing the self I was just beginning to construct — not the fearless girl who rode her pony bareback around fields at a gallop, but someone brave in a different way: a woman who was finding her own way, daring to be a beginner again, making peace with discomfort, and letting go of illusions.

— Mary Seymour, in the Cover, page 16

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In that winding gap made by the Smoky Mountains where they peel off from the Blue Ridge chain, the leaves have already turned. Amid the riot of reds and oranges and yellows, some trees show their naked black branches where the foliage has blown away.

It’s the road to Memphis, where I drove with one of the Mikes, who flew down from Long Island to make the trip with me.

I’ve known this particular Mike since fourth grade. We went through high school and, later, college together with the other two fools waiting at the end of the line.

Ray Ray’s out in San Francisco these days with a handson business and a young family. The D makes his home in Harlem, NY and works for a fantastic television show that I won’t name in print just to tick him off a little. That’s how we do each other, me and my friends.

And while we’ve seen each other a few times since we graduated and we keep in touch over our various screens, it’s been 25 long years since we had our time together in the city of New Orleans.

We all had our reasons for going on this trip: stress, lifestyle changes, divorce, escape. And at the heart of it, I believe, was the realization that despite our best efforts, the years are still managing to get away from us.

The D is going gray at his temples now, like Paulie Walnuts from “The Sopranos.” Ray Ray has been coloring his thick, white hair, a concession that one of the Mikes has been unwilling to make. I am by far the most bald member of the quartet, though when we were running around I had more hair than all of them put And at the heart of it, I believe, together. was the realization that despite But in the our best efforts, the years are still studio at Sun managing to get away from us.

Records, where Bob Dylan once kissed the ground where Elvis Presley stood as he recorded “Hound Dog,” and in the Jungle Room at Graceland, where a young Lisa Marie used to nap in a monstrous carved wooden chair, we felt young again.

The inside jokes. The ridiculous recollections. The relentless busting. The bonds are still there, perhaps even strengthened through the decades.

We felt strong enough to execute a maneuver known as the “bang bang,” wherein participants eat a meal at a restaurant and then promptly go to another restaurant and eat another one. It surely put a hurting on me, but I have no regrets about the fried chicken at Gus’s, or, for that matter, the dry ribs from the Rendezvous, which we later ate for dessert.

Life’s too short for regret.

triad-city-beat.com

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

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Oct 28 — Nov 3, 2015

CITY LIFE October 28 – November 3 WEDNESDAY

Housing and the LGBT community @ UNCG (GSO) Is housing fair for the LGBT community in the Triad? What can we do to make housing fair, affordable and livable for everyone? Find the answers and discuss the problems with a group of housing researchers, housing service providers, LGBT advocates and city staff. The discussion starts at the Bryan Building at UNCG at 4:30 p.m. Visit oma. uncg.edu for more information.

Piedmont Wind @ RJ Reynolds Auditorium (W-S) For classic horror lovers, the Piedmont Wind Symphony plays the soundtrack to a screening of the classic 1931 film Frankenstein. The symphony features an original score and family-friendly environment. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Visit piedmontwindsymphony.com for more information.

by Daniel Wirtheim

THURSDAY

An Evening of Short Plays @ Stephen D. Hyers Theatre (GSO) The Drama Center Playwright’s Forum, based in Greensboro, presents Stage Fright, a collection of 10 to 15 minute long original plays. Members of the playwright’s forum crafted each play on the theme of Halloween or horror. The plays begin at 8 p.m. Visit Greensboro-nc.gov for more information.

Everclear @ The Cone Denim Entertainment Center (GSO) If you had a radio in the ’90s you’ve heard Everclear. They were a staple of alternative rock with hits like “Father of Mine” and “Heroin Girl.” The band is touring to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their album Sparkle and Fade. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Visit cdecgreensboro.com for tickets and all the details.

Raise Up @ Central Carolina Worker Justice Center (GSO) Watch workers from across the South take a brave stand against corporations in this documentary following the movement for labor rights and $15 an hour. The screening begins at 6 p.m. Visit carolinaworkers.org for more information.

FRIDAY

Halloween Boo-ery Party @ Pig Pounder Brewery (GSO) Pig Pounder, the brewpub launched by Marty Kotis, hosts a Halloween shindig with a scavenger hunt, costume contest, games and, of course, beer. The games begin at 3 p.m. Visit pigpounder.com for more information.

HalloWheels Bicycle Festival: Spooky Scavenger Hunt @ Twin City Hive (W-S) You’ll need to poke some real big eyeholes in your ghost costume for the second night of the HalloWheels Bicycle Festival. This riddle-based scavenger hunt will take bicyclists to some of the spookiest historical sites in downtown Winston-Salem. The hunt starts at 7 p.m. at Twin City Hive. Visit beersngears.com for more information.

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WAM Masquerade 2015 @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO) Pop-Art and Pop-Culture are the theme of this year’s Halloween soiree. The Forge is sponsoring a costume contest, and live jazz music will enliven the festivities. Animations will be projected in the atrium and local comic artists are waiting to draw you in character. The party starts at 7 p.m. Visit weatherspoon.uncg.edu for more information.

SATURDAY

HalloWheels Bicycle Festival: HalloTweed @ Millennium Center (W-S) For the last day of the bicycle festival, riders are going tweed. Get on your best clothes for the English countryside and support a more cycling friendly city.

The ride starts at 9:30 a.m. Visit beersngears.com for more information.

Pumpkin Pancake Celebration @ Greensboro Farmers Curb Market (GSO) To celebrate the fall season Chef Alex Amoroso dishes out his pumpkin pancakes. You can guess the pumpkin weight and dress in costume for this celebration of all things pumpkin. The event starts at 8 a.m. Visit gsofarmersmarket.org for more information.

Carmina Burana @ Stevens Center, UNCSA (W-S) If you’re alive you’ve heard Carmina Burana, perhaps in a commercial or film. The first and last movements, as performed by the UNC School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra, start with the popular “O Fortuna,” the quintessential soundtrack for all villains. This music is so diabolical that Nazi Germany considered banning its release, which makes it kind of perfect for Halloween. The music starts at 7:30 p.m. Visit uncsa.edu for more information.

ComicFest @ Acme Comics (GSO) and Burke Street Comics (W-S) Halloween might be the best-fitted holiday for comics. That’s why Acme Comics and Burke Street Comics are giving out free comics as participating members of Halloween ComicFest 2015. One of the free comics is a dark reimagining of the origin of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Find each shop’s Facebook page for opening hours and more details.

Chamber of Beats: A Halloween Get Down @ Kohinoor Hookah Palace (GSO) Turn off the “Monster Mash” and get down to the Chamber of Beats. Six DJs perform and the bar promises drink specials. Plus, there’s a costume contest for most ridiculous costume. The event starts at 8:30 p.m. Visit the venue’s page on Facebook for more information.

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Oct 28 — Nov 3, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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Lambs to the slaughter

“Cooper has ignored calls to overturn the case and grant Smith a new trial for at least three years. Prosecutors drop cases or decline to pursue charges all the time on the basis of acting ‘in the interest of justice’ if they don’t believe there’s adequate evidence.”

This is in fact not the way the system works [“Citizen Green: Roy Cooper’s sacrificial lamb”; by Jordan Green; Oct. 21, 2015]. If a court reversed the conviction, an AG can choose not to appeal. If the court orders a new trial, an AG can decline to prosecute the new trial, thus effectively letting the accused out of prison. But the AG cannot unilaterally reduce a prison sentence. The AG cannot unilaterally grant a new trial.

Is your critique based on some objection to a motion for new trial filed by Smith? If so, then please detail what you are referring to, because the paragraph above just doesn’t make sense. You are essentially attacking Cooper for not exercising the power of the governor’s office, an office he does not hold.

Yet. Raleighite, via triad-city-beat.com Jordan Green responds: Thanks for the opportunity to clarify. Cooper’s responsibility in this case rests on his legal opposition to granting Smith a new trial and his opposition to the federal court taking judicial notice of Swecker’s report. Certainly, the ultimate decision was in the hands of Judge Catherine Eagles, who indeed ruled against granting Smith a new trial. I would imagine that if Cooper had agreed with Smith that the original case was flawed and that a new trial was in order, Judge Eagles would have found that compelling, or at the very least worth considering. If Cooper has had a change of heart about the Smith case, he still has an opportunity to publicly express his regret, even if the window for legal intervention has closed. As an aside, it’s worth noting that Swecker is the chair

of the Governor’s Crime Commission.

If anyone has more credibility on matters of public safety and justice in the state of North Carolina, I can’t think of who it would be.

I could also argue that Cooper himself is the sacrificial lamb. Put it this way, Cooper is arguably the last of a certain breed of NC Democrats – those who came to power at the turn of the millennium when Jim Hunt exited the scene for the last time. After all, no one believed that the Dems were in any danger of losing either legislative chamber or many Council of State positions. Since North Carolina is in a new era, the party has to change its tune especially since the business wing of the party that was faithful to people like Hunt have either themselves retired or switched parties.

Sure, McCrory’s approval numbers are like the Titanic, but so are the General Assembly’s – and those guys are immune to a 2010-like wave. If anything, some of the voters who are disgruntled with the governor are more aligned with Tea Party bloggers who are mad that McCrory, Berger et al are not pushing enough regressive policies.

The real issue is that there is nobody on the right who’s forcing Pat into a primary. I don’t think that the General Assembly’s condescending attitude towards anyone who’s not in their special club has trickled down to enough people yet.

Meanwhile, Cooper is the last of an old generation of Democrats, so he has to take the bullet so to speak. A Cooper loss next year should (in theory anyway) force the state party to rebuild itself because whatever it’s doing now clearly hasn’t worked. In other words, the only way to combat legislature malfeasance is electing a new generation of Democrats in 2020 with something coherent (Cooper is more of a vote against the NCGOP than a vote for anything).

Kdub1, via triad-city-beat.com

4 rediscovered cassettes

by Jordan Green

1. Reggae mix taped off the radio

My cassette collection goes back to 1984 — Duran Duran’s Arena was my first purchase, if you must know — and continues roughly until the turn of the millennium. Some are manufactured, others are copies with song lists dutifully inscribed with a Precise Rolling Ball pen, while still others are unlabeled and housed in mismatched cases. The latter are the best. One of my favorites arrived in the mail from a friend named Chris Kubic, AKA Finster K. Rain, in the late 1990s.

The nearly inscrutable label is a greeting in the secret-handshake language of our personal bond over poetry and music: “Oh yea much goosey.” We called ourselves the Goose Poets; I can’t explain. But the music on the cassette is reggae taped off a radio station in Key West, Fla., complete with bits of static where he’s evidently tuning the dial to improve the reception. Ecstatic, affecting and perfectly sequenced, the songs are total classics, from Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” and the Starlites’ “Dip Them Jah Jah Dip Them” to Linton Kwesi Johnson’s “Sonny’s Lettah.”

2. Bill Watkins — country demo

One of the unexpected benefits of small children is they have this uncanny ability to dredge up items you never expected to see again in your life. That’s how I stumbled on an old demo by Bill Watkins, an obscure Cincinnati rockabilly artist who recorded the incomparable “Big Guitar” and “Missed the Workhouse” in the late 1950s.

I had the honor of interviewing Watkins for an oral history that served as my senior project at Antioch College. During our visit or perhaps shortly afterwards he gave me a six-song demo of country songs that he wrote. If you can get past the maudlin sentimentality on songs like “Moving Rain” and “Mama Bought the Guitar,” each one is a perfectly formed vessel of Watkins’ mercurial acoustic guitar picking and thin, gentle vocals. The demo suggests an attempt to score commercial success in Nashville in the early ’70s, but Watkins’ huge and gracious personality could never

have fit in such a narrow frame.

3. Jesus Chrust/Apostates split

This is truly DIY: a split between the early ’90s political crust punk bands Jesus Chrust and Apostates. The cassette is a blank like you might buy in a package at the drugstore, and the hand-drawn labels look like they were copied at Kinko’s and then glued onto each side. I don’t really know anything about the bands, but by their names you can be assured they were hostile to organized religion. Song topics include animal rights, racism and the South African liberation struggle. The music is blistering, ear-singeing hardcore perfectly balanced on a knife’s edge between fury and idealism. I’m guessing the two bands were part of the scene at ABC No Rio in New York City. But I can’t know for sure because I was a 16-year-old in Kentucky when I mail-ordered the tape.

4. Iris Dement backed with Emmylou Harris

Nothing particularly novel about this, but it hits my ears just right. During the period when I was known as “Country Jordan” at Antioch College, I checked out Iris Dement’s 1992 debut album Infamous Angel and Emmylou Harris’ 1995 left turn Wrecking Ball from the Yellow Springs Public Library, and copied them onto a 90-minute cassette. The title song of Dement’s album should have been a Jack Kerouac novel; the lead track “Let the Mystery Be” is an Americana anthem of agnosticism; and if you’re not crying when you hear “Mama’s Opry,” you might not be human. Harris’ Wrecking Ball, meanwhile, almost singlehandedly started the subgenre of goth-country. Produced by Daniel Lanois, it’s mostly covers — the title track is by Neil Young — and for my money the best is her reading of “Goodbye,” Steve Earle’s sad meditation on the oblivion of addiction.

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Eric Ginsburg: The parties, or more specifically, the tailgating. I’ve been to the show before, and witnessed a standout performance from 2 Chainz (Young Jeezy was woefully inadequate). But the action outside Aggie Stadium and at Fanfest is where I’ve had the most fun.

And it’s dispatches from a friend at this year’s tailgate, which I missed because I was out of town, that I find most entertaining.

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Readers: The people chose the parties (33 percent), but they also chose each other (“the people” with 25 percent). Alum Jessica Langley explained: “I love the fellowship between Aggies. Even though thousands of people are in one area, it has the intimate feel of family.” Professor Derick Smith offered his own answer: “Post-game at the plots; it’s like a family reunion.” The game and “other” tied for third (17 percent) while the show received a measly 8 percent.

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20

17%

The Game

17% Other

8%

Good Sport

25%

The people

10

Culture

33%

The parties

40

Cover Story

New question: What (if anything) do Greensboro police need to change in the wake of the New York Times article?

Vote at triad-city-beat.com.

Opinion

Jordan Green: The people. I covered homecoming in 2006, and the whole thing is fabulous. I have to say the people are the best part of it because I was impressed by how much pride the alumni have in their school and the pleasure they take in seeing each other at homecoming. During that assignment I ate dinner at Natty Greene’s Brewing Co., where I had the pleasure of meeting alum Derrick Giles, who advised me on how to hang at the tailgate party. Derrick is a public-spirited guy whose company Enpulse Energy Conservation provides a model for sustainability, entrepreneur-

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News

Brian Clarey: My northeast Greensboro neighborhood, loaded with A&T alumni, goes a little crazy during the Greatest Homecoming on Earth with cookouts, game-watching parties and backyard celebrations that run deep into the night. I love the parties, and I love the people. But dammit, I’m a football fan, and A&T has a fantastic team this year. They’re at 6-1 after this weekend homecoming win over Howard University, a 65-14 romp. And they’re finishing their regular-season schedule with two home games against conference opponents: Delaware State on Nov. 14 and NC Central on Nov. 21.

The Aggies are huge this year, which puts the game, which can sometimes be something of an afterthought, in the spotlight.

ship and job creation. We see each other almost every day because Enpulse is housed next door to Triad City Beat in the Nussbaum Center. I’m proud to call Derrick a friend, and it’s thanks to homecoming.

Up Front

With the Greatest Homecoming On Earth happening at North Carolina A&T University this past weekend, we wanted to ask our readers and editors about their favorite part.

triad-city-beat.com

Best part of GHOE?

The Show

Games

F.lux

by Daniel Wirtheim if I turn f.lux off I’m shocked at how harsh the blue light from the computer screen is. I had always believed that turning down the brightness would save my eyes a few years but I had never considered color was the most important factor. And even if it is a mind-over-matter thing, is that such a bad thing if it makes you feel better?

It takes a while to get used to. The first day I wasn’t sure if I could take my computer seriously — seeing everything through rose-colored lenses. But after a few days, I quit thinking about it. Now, after about a month of using f.lux, I stick my nose up at non-users with their twitchy little eyes.

All She Wrote

The idea is that it will match the color of your screen with the natural color temperature in your area at any given time.

Just consider for a moment the science behind this.

We’re all biologically programmed to get tired when the sun goes down. But since the advent of computers, we’ve been staring at lights that tell our brains the sun is right in front of us and so we should stay up. F.lux is designed to realign us with our natural, healthy circadian rhythms.

So far it’s hard to gauge whether my sleep has improved. I can say that my eye twitches disappeared and I feel generally less stressed since I started using f.lux. This could be a mind-over-matter type of thing. I do know that

Shot in the Triad

Before a friend sold me on f.lux I attributed my slight eye twitches to an excess of caffeine. I hadn’t drawn the correlation between staring at a computer screen late into the night and my ailing optical health. I downloaded the program and used myself as a guinea pig.

F.lux changes the blue light coming from a computer screen to a softer red light. It was designed after research concluded that blue lights make people stay awake. So f.lux was actually made to help computer junkies sleep better. But others, like myself, find benefit from not staring at harsh lights.

You can download f.lux for free on the internet (it’s completely safe) and then it will ask for your ZIP code.

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Oct 28 — Nov 3, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

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NEWS

City loosens stake to increase daycare’s chances of survival

by Jordan Green

City leaders are willing to relinquish a clause that would allow them to claw back property sold to a daycare to give the nonprofit the best shot at survival. They reason that keeping the daycare afloat will protect the city’s $527,000 investment in the facility and meet a need for childcare that they consider critical for the continue revitalization of downtown.

The unanimous vote by Winston-Salem City Council on Monday night to relinquish the city’s claim on the property of Mudpies Downtown East in exchange for a $200,000 payment by the daycare’s primary lender was not a surprise. The resolution was passed without comment as part of the consent agenda.

The deal had been worked out a week prior in closed session by the finance committee of city council.

“I think there’s an old saying you should never see sausage or laws being made,” Robert Clark, who chairs the committee, said at the time. “I’m glad we just did that in private.”

The daycare across the street from Wake Forest Innovation Quarter, which is operated by the nonprofit Northwest Child Development Centers, has DICK GRAY The city of Winston-Salem is forgiving a $158,750 balance as part of a sale of property to Northwest Child racked up escalating debts since the Development Centers through property tax payments over a 10-year period. city sold the property for the facility in tion of the building and leasing equipsee is some kind of resolution or option The finance committee was legally 2011. Under the initial deal, the city ment.

Part of the nonprofit’s debt to the that could be signed by BB&T such that allowed to go into closed session under sold the property to the nonprofit for bank is a $300,000 equipment lease at a in the future the city has committed to a state law that permits public bodies to $362,505, receiving a cash payment of high interest rate.

The nonprofit wants a set hard number that the bank could preserve attorney-client privilege. $203,755. The remaining balance of to renegotiate the loan to purchase the then pay to have that released and they Clark said the reason for going into $158,750 was to be forgiven based on equipment so they can could go forward with a more smooth closed session is that he wanted City new jobs being created reduce the interest rate. foreclosure and ultimate sale of the Attorney Angela Carmon to be able and property taxes being The nonprofit estimates property,” Drew Phelps, a lawyer repreto explain some things to the other ‘If they foreclose, paid. The property taxes the deal would increase senting Northwest Child Development members of the committee without are expected to repay most likely we their monthly cash flow Centers, told the finance committee last the knowledge of the nonprofit’s legal the debt over a 10-year would have to by $8,000, which would week. counsel. period. in turn free up funds to Clark said he came up with the “There’s different legal options that write off those Since the daycare repay the city loans. $200,000 figure for the settlement. we have that I would prefer the othopened in 2013, continuloans.’

But as a condition of “If they foreclose, most likely we er side not know about,” Clark said, ing financial challenges – Robert Clark approving the loan, the would have to write off the loans,” he “although they probably are aware of have prompted the city to bank wants the city to said, “and that $200,000 would certhem.” step in and loan the nonrelinquish a reversionary tainly mitigate the pain.” He added Northwest Child Development Cenprofit $483,000. The curprovision in the deed that allows the that if the city’s asking price had been ters CEO Tony L. Burton III said the rent balance on those debts is $399,250, city to reclaim the land if it is no longer too high, the bank would likely have nonprofit’s financial difficulties are tied putting the city’s total investment in the being used for the public purpose of walked away from the deal, and this to enrollment. daycare at $527,000. The city’s investproviding nonprofit daycare services. action could potentially protect the city’s “We didn’t get the development ment is subordinate to a $2.1 million “Essentially, what we would like to $527,000 investment. in that area as fast as we thought we debt to BB&T, which financed construc-

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Opinion

city council, Clark finds himself in an interesting position as the person who was tasked with putting together a deal to try to save Mudpies Downtown East.

“The medical school’s getting ready to move downtown, so there’s more folks coming,” he said. “So I think the demand will grow. I don’t think the city should be in the daycare business. If you look at the total investment, we have about 15 percent. I see us as a minor player trying to get a catalyst going.”

Clark noted that he voted against at least one of the city loans to Northwest Child Development Centers.

“I said, ‘You guys have got to get your financial house in order,’” he said.

“I’ve already expressed in my vote my displeasure.

He added, “As chair of the financial committee, it is my job to try to come up with a plan to protect the city’s assets, and I think the plan we came up with encouraging BB&T to come up with that equipment loan and giving them almost $100,000 in cash flow, and make Mudpies a viable company and protect the city’s investment is a good one. I think I can wear two hats.”

triad-city-beat.com

would,” he said. “One of the reasons we located there was the Innovation Quarter. The families that needed care did not come as fast as we expected. Now that people know that we’re there we’ve gotten the enrollment we need.”

Burton said enrollment at Mudpies Downtown East is up to 171 with a capacity of 196, while enrollment across the board is down. The nonprofit also operates a daycare on North Poplar Street at the other end of downtown, one in King and one in Mocksville, with plans to open a fifth facility near Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

The Mudpies Downtown location on North Poplar Street has an enrollment of 99 with a capacity of 160. Burton said cuts to the department of social services have adversely affected parents’ ability to pay for daycare and the counties no longer make direct payments for daycare.

City leaders believe that quality daycare is essential to the successful revitalization of downtown, as Clark said when the finance committee met on Oct. 19.

Jason Thiel, president of Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership, said “there’s a lot of unmet need” for daycare in the center city. His own child was enrolled at Mudpies for about a year.

“Particularly in this part of downtown, near the Innovation Quarter, when you’re building new residential units and new employees are coming like Inmar, you have to think holistically so you can accommodate growth,” he said.

Thiel said childcare, like retail and restaurants, is a key component to attracting quality employers.

“At the time this is something that to me you have to go out and aggressively pursue the things that you need or you allow things to happen via the market,” he said. “I personally believe in a proactive approach in recruiting and playing a proactive role in determining how things unfold. The daycare was a strategic use; it was needed downtown. The market is playing a role. But there is some government help. It was controlled by the city. It was a public purpose. We are trying to build a well-rounded city.

It wouldn’t have been able to happen without government assistance.”

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Family

by Eric Ginsburg

All She Wrote

Shot in the Triad

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Culture

Cover Story

Opinion

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Up Front

Oct 28 — Nov 3, 2015

Newcomers outline positions in at-large city council forum

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Recent UNCG graduate Sylvine Hill is one of three challengers running for city council at-large.

In a forum for Greensboro City Council candidates on Monday, two distinct new voices emerged, presenting their visions for the city.

The format of the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress candidate forum on Monday differed from others this election season, fitting more questions into its two-hour program by posing each to just a few candidates rather than the entire slate before moving on. That made it more difficult to directly contrast specific candidates’ positions but opened up space for more detailed answers, giving audience members a fuller sense of each candidate overall.

Portraits of two candidates in particular — newcomers Sylvine Hill and Marc Ridgill, who are both running for citywide office — with whom the public is less familiar came into sharper view.

The forum, held before a full audience at the Central Library downtown, attempted to cover the at-large, or citywide, race as well as the mayoral contest. But the absence of Devin King, who is challenging Mayor Nancy Vaughan, and fellow first-timer Brian Hoss who is running at-large made the discussion lopsided.

Though the mayor is in her first term, she’s a longtime figure on council. And all three at-large incumbents, especially

ERIC GINSBURG

Former police officer Marc Ridgill has said he learned “invaluable” lessons during his professional career that would benefit council.

former Mayor Yvonne Johnson, are cluded, but she isn’t afraid to stake out well known political figures in the city. her own positions.

Even casual observers of city council in “I really want a more progressive the last few years wouldn’t be surprised Greensboro,” she summarized in her by the ground staked out by Vaughan, opening statement.

Johnson, or at-large incumbents MariThe city is currently in a transitionkay Abuzuaiter and Mike Barber, all of al phase, Hill said, but the council whom have served multiple terms on shouldn’t focus as much on downtown, council. but rather should expand Hill and Ridgill, who its view to lift up small each hope to push past businesses across the city. an incumbent on Nov. 3, Hill, who is black, ‘I really want a no doubt have networks addressed a few race-reof their own, but neither more progressive lated questions differently is a well-known political than her fellow newcomGreensboro.’ figure in Greensboro. er Marc Ridgill, at times Here’s a closer look at the – Sylvine Hill making remarks similar ideas they articulated on to populist Mayor Pro Monday so that voters Tem Yvonne Johnson, the can make an informed city’s first black mayor. decision. Early voting is already underThe city needs to do a better job in way, and concludes Saturday at 1 p.m. hiring diverse employees at the top, she said, especially considering the wide raSylvine Hill cial diversity of Greensboro that extends The 25-year-old Dudley High and far beyond black and white. Hill said UNCG grad talks about the need for she supports the release of police body more tech and green jobs to bring camera footage to the public in some Greensboro into the 21st Century and cases — the release is currently illegal, according to the city — to build public keep young people like her in the area. trust and awareness. When asked about She has previously complimented the diverse hiring in the police department, current city council and did so again which is 75 percent white despite white at points on Monday, even hugging a people being less than half of the city’s council member after the forum con-

ERIC GINSBURG

population, Hill said that many black people don’t want to be police officers in the first place because of a lack of trust, adding that the city’s complaint review committee should be strengthened.

Similarly, when asked how Greensboro could emulate something successful in Winston-Salem or Durham, Hill suggested that the city would benefit from more peaceful protest in line with Black Lives Matter demonstrations in other cities.

Marc Ridgill Ridgill, a 56-year-old retired police officer who finished his career as a school resource officer at Grimsley High School, said council would benefit from his unique background. He would like to see the city become more business friendly, he said in his opening statement, which he explained could include a less cumbersome city inspections and permitting process.

Ridgill said on Monday and at a previous League of Women Voters’ candidate forum that he would like to see the International Civil Rights Center & Museum pursue national historic landmark status, which he said would help the museum qualify for federal funds and would help “save and elevate it to the status it deserves.” He identified it

with others nationwide as well as private employers that offer better pay.

“Everybody is trying to search for minority candidates,” he said. “They are doing their best [in the police department].”

Ridgill also brought up policing when discussing economic development in east Greensboro, as he did at a previous candidate forum, saying that partnering with police to address vandalism and theft from stores will help business owners know that their investments are safe while helping residents by protecting

nearby businesses.

He shared lighter moments with Johnson during the forum, though the two disagreed often, but both felt the police department could do more to provide sensitivity training to officers.

Ridgill relied on his professional experience as candidates discussed the idea of merging departments with the county to save money, saying that it was tried with first responders but proved to be complicated and not entirely successful.

Up Front

branches blocking traffic signs, for example — to build trust and relationships before trying to address the city’s concerns, such as a high rate of home break-ins.

Greensboro used to be known for youth sports, he said in response to another question, and he would like to see a resurgence, saying that it has been deemphasized in the city’s marketing.

When it comes to diversity in the police department, Ridgill said the department has tried to attract diverse recruits for a long time, but is competing

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as one of the most important things the city could prioritize.

The museum operates independently from the city, which runs the Greensboro Historical Museum, but has received considerable public funding, making it a common topic of discussion on council.

Ridgill said during his time as a police officer he worked closely with the neighborhood watch in Glenwood just south of UNCG, an experience he described as “invaluable” because it taught him to listen to residents concerns — tree

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HIGH POINT JOURNAL

Montlieu Avenue on list of projects leaders want to push forward

by Jordan Green

Local transportation leaders want the state to consider funding improvements to Montlieu Avenue near High Point University, but there are contrasting visions for what the project would accomplish.

The city of High Point has a wish list of road projects that they hope will move forward if state funding becomes available. And with the state budget signed by Gov. Pat McCrory adding $1.8 billion for transportation projects, some of that money could trickle down to the local level.

Mike Mills, the head administrator for Division 7 in the state Transportation Department, said transportation officials will likely know in the next three to four weeks if the funds will allow any local projects to receive funding.

The wish list put together by local transportation officials includes projects that are not funded through 2020.

Among them in rank of priority are reconstructing the interchange at Business 85 and South Main Street, changes to Montlieu Avenue, extending Piedmont Parkway from Eastchester Drive west to Sandy Ridge Road and building the DICK GRAY Utility lines are being moved on Skeet Club Road to accommodate two additonal lanes. Several other major Jamestown Bypass. projects are in the planning stages.

The Montlieu Avenue project, still in its infancy, has already caused consterleg of Montlieu Avenue to the universi[Interstate] 74, PTI, downtown High Greensboro is already under construcnation. Mayor Bill Bencini invited then ty’s main entrance.

Point and High Point University. It will tion. That project includes an interTransportation Secretary Tony Tata to A description of the Montlieu Avenue be a pretty good economic development change with Interstate 73, which is the visit High Point to discuss the project project, which is estimated to cost $10.1 corridor.” southwest leg of Greensboro’s Urban earlier this year. million, calls for widening the “roadway While the city’s decision to close Loop and a straight shot to the airport.

“They took us on a tour to show us to accommodate a two-lane median part of Montlieu Avenue prevents the But Greg Venable, a transportation how Montlieu Avenue could take you divided facility with bike lanes and sideimproved roadway from providing a planning administrator for the city of from High Point Uniwalks on both sides.” link to North Main Street, Mills pointed High Point, downplayed the Montlieu versity to Interstate 74,” Mills touted the out that motorists will still be able to Avenue project as a link in a major Mills recalled. “They Montlieu Avenue project head south from the western terminus thoroughfare. were talking about how in tandem with the on College Drive to get to downtown.

“The project that we put forward, ‘Montlieu Avenue important it was to get Jamestown Connector Transportation officials’ long-term you’re not increasing capacity; you’re would add bicycle as giving people in High it done, along with the vision builds off Montlieu Avenue’s connot providing new access per se,” he A-section of the JamesPoint another way to nection to Greensboro Road in the Five said. “It’s more of a beautification projlanes...’ town Bypass to get that get to Piedmont Triad Points area, a commercial hub in the ect. Montlieu Avenue would add bicycle – Greg Venable connectivity.”

International Airport beblack community near the Interstate 74 lanes so you have that potential there for The High Point City sides Eastchester Drive/ interchange. Beyond Interstate 74, the improving safety for cyclists. There’s a Council had previously Highway 68 in the north new Jamestown Bypass — with a price bus route there, so there’s the potential voted to close the section and Kivett Drive in the tag of $48.1 million — would swing to add a bus shelter.” of Montlieu Avenue that bisected the southeast. around the south side of the town and Venable also downplayed the signifcampus of High Point University to en“[Highway] 68 to the airport is pretty travel north past GTCC. The B-section icance of High Point University to the able the university to build a pharmacy congested,” he said. “This will give you of the project from Vickrey Chapel project. school. The closure brings the eastern pretty good access to [Interstate] 73, Road near GTCC to Hilltop Road in “Montlieu does end right there,” he

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terminates at Eastchester Drive, where XPO Logistics is located. The extension would bring it to Sandy Ridge Road, providing an east-west connection. The completed length of the street runs east from Eastchester Drive to College Road at the division between Jamestown and Greensboro. It aligns with Hilltop Road, which in turn aligns with Groometown Road south of Gate City Boulevard in Greensboro.

Of the unfunded projects, nothing ranks higher in High Point than reconstructing an obsolete intersection at Business 85 and South Main Street.

Venable said the state has already committed funding to replace the bridge, which is deemed structurally deficient.

“A lot of the issues with that interchange is the ramp configuration,” Venable said. “There are actual businesses within the ramp loop with driveways.

That creates a problem from an access standpoint and traffic movement. People get confused a lot of times, and they’ll go the wrong direction on those loops, which is a safety concern.”

triad-city-beat.com

acknowledged. “Now, it’s a private drive through campus. As far as where the road would end, that’s the end of the project — there’s that potential. But providing a safer area for all modes of transportation is probably the main goal of the project.”

Mills said the state has yet to hold a public-input meeting on the project, emphasizing that it’s still in the early stages.

Access to Piedmont Triad International Airport is also a driving force behind the extension of Johnson Street from Skeet Club Road north to Sandy Ridge Road near the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market. The north side of the city already has a direct link to the airport through Eastchester Drive/Highway 68, but the multi-lane roadway has become congested as the Palladium and other shopping centers, office parks, medical facilities and residential neighborhoods have created ever-increasing traffic loads.

An extension of Piedmont Parkway requested by the city of High Point would also build out the northern section of the city. The street currently

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OPINION EDITORIAL

Always question the timing

Nothing is random.

Okay, some things are random. Lightning. The lottery.

A few candidates for Greensboro City Council.

But most things happen for pretty good reasons, generally following the rule of cause and effect.

For example, when UNC Board of Governors Chair John Fennebresque stepped down from his post on Monday, it was for very good reason: He ham-fistedly axed UNC System President Tom Ross, held a secret, one-man search process for his replacement and installed Margaret Spellings, a longtime advisor to President George W. Bush and protégé of Karl Rove.

It was a blatantly political appointment — Spellings will be the first president of the UNC System not to hold an advanced degree since the 1950s, has no previous ties to the state of North Carolina’s vaunted public university system and will draw in salary about 30 percent more than Ross commanded: $775,000 a year.

Fennebresque didn’t even try to pretend that his resignation, effective immediately, had nothing to do with Spellings’ appointment.

With the search completed, he told the Raleigh News & Observer: “I am stepping down from the board to make way for and encourage new leadership. Significant challenges lie ahead for the system as it continues to provide the unparalleled education our students deserve.”

It’s like he took a dump on the floor and ran out of the room.

In Greensboro, when Downtown Greensboro Inc. Chief Operating Officer Cyndy Hayworth stepped down last week, she was sure to iterate that the decision was not because of the parking-lot nap that landed DGI President Zack Matheny a DWI charge just a couple days before.

She told the Greensboro News & Record that her resignation had “nothing to do with what happened last week,” but she had the air of a person leaving the bar just before a heated argument turned into a fistfight.

Consider, too, the timing of the now infamous Winston-Salem Strip-Club Raid of 2015, when law enforcement agencies including state Alcohol Law Enforcement descended on three of the city’s topless bars and seized enough drugs to spread 122 charges around 25 people and shut them down for a month. The raid on Friday night dovetailed neatly with a piece in the Winston-Salem Journal a couple days earlier about the downtown club Lollipop’s, a fully nude concern that does not serve alcohol that the city is trying to seize and close through a lawsuit filed in May. You could call it a coincidence, if you believe in that sort of thing. But not too many people in Winston-Salem are willing to speak for the strip clubs now.

CITIZEN GREEN

Mistrust and murky facts in black health Dr. Sylvia Flack has been facing down a crisis in health disparities that disadvantage people of color since she joined the administration of Winston-Salem State University in 1989. Her first job, as coordinator of the nursing

by Jordan Green program, was to halt a plan by the NC Board of Nursing, UNC Board of Governors and state lawmakers to close the program at the historically black institution. Even though the university leadership considered the program a lost cause, she saved it.

Short in stature but with a bright disposition and engaging manner, she hinted during a workshop on Oct. 24 that she wouldn’t mind passing the baton, but still clearly sees the state of black health as profoundly unacceptable.

Hers was only one of the breakout sessions after lunch at the Cross-Systems Equity Summit hosted by Neighbors for Better Neighborhoods and funded by the United Way of Forsyth County that examined how various systems interact to perpetuate institutional racism and oppression. Flack said it’s important to be frank: People of color are more likely to be sick and die prematurely than their white counterparts, and face significant barriers to healthcare. This challenge intertwines, reinforces and compounds worse outcomes in education, employment, criminal justice and access to finance.

The basic facts about minority health disparities are not in dispute and have long been established. By 1980, the National Institutes of Health reports, there was a growing awareness that blacks, Latinos, American Indians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were likely to die younger while suffering from higher rates of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, infant mortality and low birth weight.

Local health leaders have evidence that those disparities continue to this day, and are actually more acute in Forsyth County than in North Carolina as a whole. The 2014 Forsyth County Community Health Assessment Report, which was published in July, found that black residents were 23.1 percent more likely to die of cancer and 48.1 percent more likely to die of heart disease — the two leading causes of death in the county. Black residents also had higher death rates for diabetes and kidney disease than their white counterparts.

The report indicated that “the strongest predictors of better or poorer health status are better or poorer socioeconomic conditions respectively,” adding that “the racial differences in socioeconomic status, neighborhood residential conditions, and access to medical care are important contributors to health disparities.”

The report outlines a correlation between health, poverty and race that should be obvious: “The distressed

areas located within the community were in the low-income people of color neighborhoods.”

What accounts for the disparities? Certainly environment. Flack mentioned lack of transportation allowing people to get to doctor’s offices and hospitals, and showed a slide that indicated blacks and Latinos are significantly more likely to live near waste management facilities. The same risks to people of color come into play with major highways. Anyone who is familiar with the geography of Winston-Salem knows that the neighborhoods flanking Highway 52 are predominantly black and Latino.

The Health Disparities and Inequalities Report, published by the federal Centers for Disease Control in November 2013, found that “traffic-related air pollution is a main contributor to unhealthy ambient air quality… with the highest concentrations of risk of exposure occurring near roads.”

This exposure is associated with asthma, cardiovascular disease, poor reproductive outcomes and mortality. The report goes on to say that “in the United States, it is widely accepted that economically disadvantaged and minority populations share a disproportionate burden of air pollution exposure and risk.”

But environment and poverty don’t explain everything, Flack said, adding that lack of trust, experiences of racism in the medical establishment and misdiagnosis because of stereotyping all play a role. She mentioned in particular that black women experiencing abdominal pain have been misdiagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease, a condition typically caused by sexual activity.

As a testament to the murkiness that surrounds minority health research, I found three references to a study indicating that black women were being misdiagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease as recently as 1993, but the so-called study was a news article in a feminist health journal, not a peer-reviewed scientific research paper. The original research appears to have been conducted by Dr. Donald Chatman in 1976. I couldn’t find any additional studies replicating Chatman’s findings. I’m not sure if that means the research lacks credibility, or that the racial stereotyping is so pervasive that there’s no interest in the medical establishment in correcting the record.

Whatever the truth of the allegation of black women being misdiagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease, mistrust of the medical establishment among African Americans is well founded and historically rooted. To mention only a few well-known examples, right in Winston-Salem, white community leaders promoted forced sterilization, a program that lasted into the 1970s and predominantly affected poor women of color. Similarly, the US Public Health Service allowed black men to remain untreated for syphilis at the Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama from 1932 to 1972 without the patients’ knowledge so they could study the progression of the disease.

More downtown residents

Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

less aisles and scanned for anything to report and came up with only this — the 2016 furniture trends are as follows: fake plants, fake books (yeah seriously a whole booth dedicated to fake books), headless rainbow birds, and Victorian-era furniture which appeared to be dipped in primary colored paint.

The building went on forever. It was a maze of color. I was getting uncomfortable. They could tell I wasn’t one of them and I picked up speed.

I needed a drink.

I made my way through the labyrinth to a little bar area. It was as surreal as the rest of this circus.

Somehow the bartender must have known I wasn’t what I appeared, because after waiting anxiously in line watching people walk away with drinks he would only pour me quarter-ounce tastes of whiskey. Was there some secret code? I managed to cobble together an ounce or so of whiskey out of five or six “samples” and steeled myself to return to the fray. Down a metal staircase and onward.

Up another staircase to the children’s section, with $30,000 bedroom sets made to look like airplane cockpits or spaceships. Down another flight to what looked like a massive antique store, stopping at the little wine and cheese carts with confused bartenders to hydrate.

I was on my fourth or fifth plastic four-ounce cup when I came upon a massive brick courtyard filled with people at the far side of the building.

The “traditionally Southern” catering and middle-aged cover band created the overall effect of a summer cookout in your rich friend’s backyard.

I made my way to the buffet line, filled my plate with barbecue and green bean salad, and found a spot out of the way in the corner to sit and think.

What is the story of the furniture market?

I sat there for awhile watching the throngs of rich, middle-aged people from all over the world.

I watched them in the middle of this city-within-a-city drunk on one cup of wine, letting their hair down and dancing. I thought about the bus station, empty buildings and the man I had asked for directions who didn’t even know how to get here. I thought about the plastic furniture and all the wealth. This tiny island of prosperity that only exists twice a year felt so separate from High Point. I turned these things over in my head, drank the free wine this forged pass got me and ate my free sandwich.

The party wound down and as the last chords of the Black Crowes-inspired cover of “Hard to Handle” rang into the autumn night, a strange phrase echoed through my mind: “Don’t worry folks, things are still about the same.”

Tim Nolan is a bartender and musician living in Winston-Salem.

Opinion

I started to get nervous about halfway to High Point.

My furniture-buyer costume was tight and hot and uncomfortable, my market pass twisted and caught

by Tim Nolan on my sports jacket. I tried to take my mind off it, imagining the sights I was about to see — black rhino skins, dinosaur-leg tables, children from the developing world being used as chairs, I imagined. This was it; I was as going to see the greasy underbelly of the High Point Furniture Market.

Now I know everyone is sick of hearing about the vacant buildings in downtown High Point, but it’s difficult to overstate how similar parts of it are to the set of “The Walking Dead.” I easily found a spot to park in a long row of empty spaces across the street from a long row of empty buildings on a long empty street three blocks from my destination. I locked my car, scanned the immediate area for zombies and set off.

I cut across the train station and some empty parking lots, walked past a long row of decrepit shrubbery and across a particularly brutal concrete bridge when suddenly, over the horizon, I saw the glittering oasis that is the spiritual center of the beast: Market Square.

My heart pounded at the entrance, where three police officers stood by a woman with a scanning gun. I paced around pretending to text or research. I was racking my brain for a cover story to explain how lost I looked. “I’m just an assistant,” or “This is my first time at market,” or maybe “Could you please direct me to, uh, Alan Cousins Art Acquisitions? Yeah that’s it.”

I knew if I hung out too long they would get suspicious so I just bit the bullet and went for it, desperately trying not to look nervous as I made my way to the entry queue. I kept my head down, and my shaky hand lifted my fraudulent pass to be scanned. The woman casually scanned my tag and continued her conversation.

I was in.

I entered the space and felt an immediate pang of disappointment. Where I had expected sex and power, cocaine and opulence, I found only the eye of a swirling vortex of banal capitalism staring back. Here was a shopping mall with no registers.

Long aisles were separated into makeshift booths.

Sure, everyone looked rich, and I couldn’t have afforded anything here, but where was the glitz, the glamour, the smoky backrooms where billionaires bet million-dollar furniture on poker games, a model on each arm? I trudged down the count-

News

My recent trip to Memphis with some old friends — none of whom has spent much time in the South — brought me to the downtown streets of that Southern city, a familiar sight for me but one that jarred my more urbane friends who spend their time in New York City and San Francisco.

“Where is everybody?” one asked.

by Brian Clarey Because besides some pedestrian action on Beale Street and a thick crowd at the Peabody Hotel to watch the ducks ride the elevator, there was very little street life in Memphis.

I explained to my friends, who weren’t really interested, that like just about every other Southern or Rust Belt city, downtown Memphis was devastated by white flight in the 1970s, when everybody with the means moved out to the suburbs, leaving the inner city to rot in crime and poverty. Eventually all the residential buildings were torn down or converted for commercial use, and now in Memphis most of the people on the streets don’t even live there.

But unlike Greensboro and Winston-Salem, which have been actively trying to bolster the ranks of downtown residents for the last 20 years, Memphis has been focusing on tourist attractions for its dwindling base of visitors: Hotels, attractions, sports arenas and the like. So while our cities — excluding High Point, which has shown no interest in having residents in downtown — have been constructing apartment buildings and converting existing properties for residential use, Memphis built a gigantic pyramid for its NBA team that sat dormant for years after the FedEx Forum arena was built in 2004. Now it’s the world’s largest Bass Pro Shop.

Greensboro and Winston-Salem have been building on those downtown numbers, with each housing about 2,000 residents. But critical mass for a downtown, according to urban planner Patrick McDonnell, is 10,000 residents, at which point the commercial concerns — restaurants, retail and grocery stores among them — have enough of a market to really make a go of it.

Of course, compared to Memphis, Greensboro and Winston-Salem have virtually no tourist action, so it wouldn’t make sense to create entire districts like Beale Street for people who are never going to show up.

But we can further develop our downtowns to beef up those residential numbers, and that’s exactly what’s happening. Almost 1,000 new residences are in the pipeline in downtown Greensboro, with a similar number on tap for downtown Winston-Salem. That doesn’t put us where we need to be in terms of critical mass, but unlike Memphis we’re moving in the right direction.

And though we don’t have a giant pyramid that sells fishing lures, we do have more people walking around on our streets than Memphis, with the possible exception of Beale Street.

But that’s all tourists anyway.

An impostor at Furniture Market

Up Front

IT JUST MIGHT WORK

FRESH EYES

triad-city-beat.com

At the end of the workshop, Flack mentioned to me that black people are often hesitant to go to a local clinic in Winston-Salem, and suggested that I try to find out why. A woman who had previously worked with the federal Women Infants & Children food and nutrition program, who had overheard our conversation, posited some theories.

“Black people are tired of feeling like they’re the subject of a research study,” she said. “And they keep getting prescribed medications that don’t make them feel better. So they stop going back.”

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Oct 28 — Nov 3, 2015

Depression, guns and the deadly result

Cover Story

by Liz Seymour

16

When I was in second grade my whole class made ashtrays for Christmas.

Everybody’s parents smoked. Grown-ups would send their kids to the corner store to buy a pack of Winstons or Tareytons.

The copies of Time and the Ladies’ Home Journal on the coffee table were filled with cheerful ads showing people making their daily lives better with cigarettes. And then 50 years ago the Surgeon General’s office issued its report on smoking and health and things began to shift. Cigarettes remained — and remain — legal, but the culture around smoking changed dramatically. Second-graders no longer gave their parents ashtrays for Christmas and doctors no longer smoked their way through medical consultations (yes, that used to happen too). Hundreds of thousands of people who would have died of tobacco-related diseases didn’t.

What will it take for us to apply the same national will to guns? Every time there’s another mass shooting we line up on either side and post and re-post angry things on social media and then stagnate into theoretical issues of constitutional rights and personal responsibility. And people go on dying.

The cost of our American gun culture

became painfully personal to me this past January when my beautiful, funny, smart sister Mary lost her way in the depths of a bipolar depression that her disease told her would never end. One chilly winter afternoon she lay down on her bed and shot herself in the head with a gun she had purchased earlier that day.

Something important to know about suicide by gun: At an 85 percent fatality rate it is by far the most effective method out there. The vast majority of those who survive a suicide attempt will never try it again, but once a gun enters the mix there are very few second chances.

Another thing to know about gun suicides: They are extremely common — more common than gun homicides, more common than accidental shootings and much, much more common than the terrible mass gun killings that dominate the headlines. Just look at the numbers: In 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control, more than two-thirds of all gun deaths in the United States were suicides — 21,175 in all. That comes out to an average of 58 gun suicides a day. A day.

It has become commonplace within the

The last photograph of Mary Seymour — taken on a train trip in November 2014.

triad-city-beat.com

LIZ SEYMOUR

A professional photo taken of Mary Seymour taken to accompany one of her articles.

ABIGAIL SEYMOUR

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Oct 28 — Nov 3, 2015 Cover Story

18

medical community to define access to guns as a public health issue — so much so that the connection between guns and public health has stirred up a powerful backlash from the National Rifle Association.

Four years ago conservatives in Florida pre-emptively passed the so-called ”docs vs. Glocks” law that makes it illegal for doctors to ask their patients about gun ownership. Similarly, Dr. Vivek Murthy’s nomination for surgeon general was held up for almost 18 months largely by an NRA campaign that labeled him “President Obama’s radically anti-gun nominee.” His crime? Having tweeted, “Tired of politicians playing politics w/ guns, putting lives at risk b/c they’re scared of NRA. Guns are a healthcare issue.” Gun advocates went, well, ballistic. By the time he was finally confirmed in December of last year, Murthy had backed so far down as to promise that he would not use the surgeon general’s office as a “bully pulpit for gun control.” His position now is that we need more “common sense.”

It’s an odd part of the grief process, or the healing process, or whatever damn and unasked-for process I’m in the middle of right now, that every time I read a date a little clock in my head starts running backwards to where Mary was and what she was doing at that time. In May 2011, the month “docs vs. Glocks” was signed into law in Florida, Mary was starting a blog called Galloping Mind, subtitled “Musings on horses, humans, and life.” In the first entry she wrote about returning to horseback riding after a 25-year hiatus.

“I almost gave up,” she wrote, “but I sensed I would lose a lot more than a future with horses if I did. I’d be losing the self I was just beginning to construct — not the fearless girl who rode her pony bareback around fields at a gallop, but someone brave in a different way: a wom-

It wasn’t the first time. Mary was diagnosed with bipolar disorder — the brain disease that used to be called manic-depression — in the summer of 1995 after a dramatic psychotic break. From that moment onward she worked vigilantly to keep herself on the middle path between the terrifyingly seductive highs and the

Mary with Mystic, the white horse she had always wanted.

an who was finding her own way, daring to be a beginner again, making peace with discomfort, and letting go of illusions.”

Mary returned to riding in her forties.

Months before her 50th birthday she left a writing and editing job in Massachusetts, sold her house and moved to Greensboro where her two sisters lived. It was the end of 2008, which, as it turned out, was a terrible time to be making a change. Once she arrived in Greensboro, Mary couldn’t find another editing job; she ended up working in retail for $7.50 an hour and freelance writing on the side. One of her freelance articles was a wry, funny piece about her job search; that article led to a conversation with North Carolina Public Radio’s “The Story with Dick Gordon” about being a middle-aged, college-educated woman caught short in the recession. It made for great radio, but it was Mary’s own life and she was scared. One evening we sat on a bench in the Greensboro Arboretum while she cried and cried.

“I’m so tired of being plucky,” she said.

Shortly after that she pluckily applied to graduate school.

In October 2012 when Vivek Murthy

KATE COOLER

sent out his tweet about guns, Mary was a couple of months into a job she loved at the Mental Health Association in Greensboro. In May of that year she had graduated with a master’s degree in counseling from UNCG. Two months before that our other sister Abigail and I had forcibly taken Mary to the emergency room at Wesley Long Hospital.

“I tried to bolt,” Mary wrote later, “but my boyfriend pinned me in his arms and carried me, kicking and pummeling, to his car. I understood in a thunderburst of clarity that this was a cosmic test. The universal force that was giving me orders would show me how to surmount this newest obstacle. It would all become part of my enduring myth as the next Dalai Lama.”

Mary told us later that she had not taken her lithium for several months — whether she had stopped accidentally, stopped on purpose, or stopped accidentally-on-purpose even she didn’t know for sure. Once back on the lithium she returned quickly to center.

soul-destroying lows that are the two poles of the disease, and for the most part she succeeded, becoming along the way a vocal advocate for greater public understanding of mental health.

She wrote about it — a piece she published in Newsweek in 2002 called “Call Me Crazy, But I Have To Be Myself” is required reading in some college classes — she lectured, she taught, she worked with individuals. She took up shardware, a mosaic technique that uses broken plates to make beautiful and eccentric works of art, and she taught it to other people with mental illness as a metaphor for finding the beauty in brokenness.

Still, Mary had a bipolar brain. At about this time last year, she started feeling depressed again. At first she attributed it to the change in the seasons — she hated winter’s long nights and cold days — and a change in jobs. She went to yoga class more often, rode her horse whenever she could, asked her doctor’s help in adjusting her medications, reached out to family and friends for support. Mary had been writing off and on about her own life; after she died we found fragments of a memoir.

“Depression is its own country,” she had written. “You don’t know exactly how or when you got there, but you know you want to get out. The country declares sovereignty and says you will live there until you die. Which may be sooner than you think.”

The particular depression Mary was writing about occurred in 1998, three years after her first psychotic break. It took two years for her to fully crawl her way out of that one.

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“I grew used to days that were shaded from black to pale gray, grateful for any that were pearly,” she wrote. “I started therapy with a Buddhist-oriented practitioner and came to know the strands of anxiety, insecurity, fear, hopelessness and grief deeply woven into my psyche. I learned to sit with them and study them rather than push the feelings away.”

Eventually the pearly days began to outnumber the gray days, and then the sunny days outnumbered the pearly ones and Mary went on with her full, creative and satisfying life.

paninis salads small plates craft beer & wine Mary Seymour (back left) with her sisters Abigail (foreground) and Liz.

By October of last year it was clear that the depression had returned. Mary was educated enough in her own illness to recognize that this was the depression that inevitably, in the cycle of bipolar disorder, follows the mania — in this case just a couple of years late. By November she was describing a sense of despair and anxiety that rarely lifted; by December she had lost a noticeable amount of weight and was having trouble sleeping. To those of us who spent time with her every day, she seemed like someone disappearing under a sheet of ice, looking out at the world from a greater and greater distance. It was like her psychotic break but in reverse: a sharp parabola that felt like reality to her.

But wasn’t.

“What’s so strange is that I am my own worst enemy,” she wrote near the end of December. “It’s my imaginings, my fears, that render me incapable. If I could only find a way to let go of all that fear. It’s irrational, really — I have enough money to get by for quite a while. It’s not about base survival — it’s about the mind playing tricks on itself, distorting reality.”

In 1996, in the wake of a mass shooting, Australia dramatically tightened its firearm-licensing requirements, prohibited

several kinds of firearms outright and held a mandatory buyback of all the guns that had been made newly illegal. The firearm suicide rate subsequently fell by 57 percent. When Israel no longer allowed its soldiers to take guns home on the weekend, the overall suicide rate in the Israeli Defense Force dropped by 40 percent.

Twenty years ago the state of Connecticut passed legislation that barred a person who had been a patient in a mental health facility within the last six months from purchasing a gun, and started mandating an eight-hour safety training course for anyone who wanted a gun permit. The firearm suicide rate fell by 15.4 percent.

To receive a gun permit in Massachusetts, where Mary was living when she experienced her first big depression, you must fill out and mail in a hard-copy application, be fingerprinted and photographed, pay $100 and take a certified gun safety course. Massachusetts has one of the lowest overall suicide rates in the United States, fewer than ten for every 100,000 people.

In early January, Mary spent a couple of days in a mental health facility in Winston-Salem, hoping that a new regimen

COURTESY

of medications might begin to reverse the despair that had overtaken her days and her nights. She came home from the center on a Thursday evening feeling little better. On the Saturday after she got out, she sat down in her sunny workroom overlooking her sloping backyard and wrote: “Today I signed up for a gun permit. Apparently it takes 5-7 days for the permit to come through. The thought of buying a gun and shooting myself terrifies me, but so does the idea of living any longer. Maybe my meds will kick in during the next few days and none of this will happen.”

Mary applied online and paid the $5 application fee. On Tuesday around noon — fewer than two business days after her application was submitted — she received an email from the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office letting her know that she had been approved and could pick her permit up from their office.

Perhaps given another couple of days the meds would have kicked in as she hoped, perhaps a good night’s sleep or a warm day or a decent meal would have been enough to alter her state of mind, but now we’ll never know. Five days after applying for a gun permit, Mary was dead.

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CULTURE Consuming Krankies’ cuisine

by Eric Ginsburg

n many ways, the evolution of the space occupied by Krankies at the eastern edge of downtown Winston-Salem marks the various modern eras of this city since big tobacco took a plunge.

It began with the Werehouse, as some townies and scenesters love to tell you.

And the latest remodel, a phase that began with the displacement of the Electric Moustache artist space in the building, coincides with a larger rebirth of the city’s core, and this quadrant in particular.

New floors, improved seating, a relocated stage, a torn-down wall and, most importantly, food set this iteration apart from earlier ones. And this likely won’t be the last facelift for the cultural outpost.

Krankies the café is not unrecognizable to those who grew used to Krankies the coffeeshop. Counter service ERIC GINSBURG is replaced with a fast-casual Eric Weyer, from Hoots, recommended the Hoppin’ John Plate and I’m glad I took his advice. approach, with orders and payment still taking place at The provolone cheese itself is cooked, rather than salad with bacon and a turkey Reuben, among others. the register but dishes brought out to tables. But the melted by proxy between bread in a typical grilled There’s a Cheesy Western with a quarter-pound patty culture and vibe prevail; despite a relatively extensive cheese.

Protruding from the sides of the puffy hero and fried egg served all day, and a Southern cast-iron food menu, it’s more accurate to call Krankies a coffeebread, the cheese is visibly browned and topped with fried chicken sandwich that bests some of its counterhouse that serves food than a restaurant that has an cold crisp vegetables (think of a raw slaw) oregano, parts with slaw and pickles. When the chicken entrée obsession with the black gold. mayo, red wine vinegar and tomato.

Weyer’s heard arrived in front of my friend Bethany, it made me wish I I ran into former Krankies employee Eric Weyer — good things about this one too, and a Krankies server hadn’t opted for the healthier meal. the red-bearded Eric behind Hoots brewery and bar (as on shift recommended it to my friend Emily, who enBut this is just the beginning of Krankies’ new configopposed to his more closely-cropped business partner joyed it.

I finagled a bite for myself, and while I liked it, uration, the latest evolutionary step on central fringe, Eric Swaim) — on my way into the newly transformed I’d pick the Hoppin’ John over it again. and there’s plenty of time to come back for some fried café. Without a clue of what the Later that week, Krankies Coffee bird or the wild mushroom spätzle. menu might entail, I solicited his adposted a mouthwatering photo of anvice and took it, ordering the hoppin’ Visit Krankies Coffee at other vegetarian dish, served during John plate.

Pick of the Week 211 E. Third St. (W-S) or dinner — a wild mushroom spätzle Weyer knows what he’s talking Pumpkin Pancake Celebration @ Greensboro with cultured cream and rosemary — at krankiescoffee.com. about. The Southern-style vegeFarmers Curb Market (GSO), Halloween, 8 a.m. which apparently became a bestseller. tarian meal of rice and beans with With a ton of flour-dessert experience under his Spätzle, I learned from a few cooking satisfying cooked greens, a wedge of belt, Chef Alex Amoroso of Cheesecakes

by Alex websites, is a kind of soft, egg noodle common in cencornbread and a scoop of chow chow might not sound tral European nations, and its now the No. 1 reason I’d might be the most qualified person to whip up some like much, but it’s tasty and filling. There are other want to travel to Hungary or Austria. pumpkin pancakes.

You’re invited to come and guess vegetarian choices here too, including the $5 toast The menu at Krankies isn’t dominated by food how much the Great Pumpkin weighs, and costumes with ricotta and honey or avocado and radish, the daily for herbivores though, nor European cuisine. Lunch are borderline mandatory. The event will start at 8 a.m. vegetable plate or, more popularly, the griddled cheese options also include a meatloaf sandwich, a chopped Visit gsofarmersmarket.org for more information. hero.

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Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

The best part about being a booze columnist — besides the whole getting paid to drink thing — is that you’re always trying something new, on the lookout for the unexplored, the forgotten, the experimental. It’s a habit anyone could cultivate, but with the job actually requiring that you not fall back on your go-to, an instinctive feeling of guilt builds anytime you aren’t pushing yourself.

So when your girlfriend says something like, “Hey, can we put Fireball in that bottle of prosecco you bought the other night along with apple cider to make this drink I saw on Instagram?” you say yes much more quickly than you might otherwise, if at all.

And that’s a good thing, because the apple-cinnamon mimosa spinoffs we drank from martini glasses in the wilderness just south of Great Smoky Mountains ERIC GINSBURG Shaheen Syal, Michael Hewlett and Eliza Walmsley admire a piece by Laura Lashley that Syal committed to buy at the event.

National Park are worthy of repeating. the local arts scene, those folks were feeling forced to step out of someone’s these, or Michael Hewlett from the I might’ve felt differently, represented, especially from (appropriway. And for someone like me, who Winston-Salem Journal and city planner even considering the inborn requireately) a younger cohort, including Dane fully intends to check out new gallery Kelly Bennett, is the real reason I recments of the job, if the bottle of Ciacola Walters and Laura Lashley.

Art Nouexhibits but can never seem to find the ommend small events such as this.

Prosecco hadn’t felt like a steal at $13, veau asked several of these prominent time, it set forward a structured reason Maybe they, in fact, are really the best or if I didn’t know I could find it again artists to pick another local — which in to show up at a specific time. part about my job. at Caviste, a Winston-Salem wine shop this case included Greensboro — whose Plenty of art openings offer wine or over on Robinhood Road. work inspired them, resulting in a stacks to attendees, a sort of reward or See, I came by the prosecco at a wine diverse cast spreading across mediums, incentive for attendance, but in a way tasting event last week, where the styles and social networks. the role reversal here made art a bonus Caviste proprietor showed up to sample How else do you end up with a tattoo to this chance to socialize. a red, white and rosé alongside it. Art artist exhibiting masterful drawings Because to be totally honest, the Nouveau Winston-Salem, the youngnext to a three-part think piece on race people excite me more than the art or bloods associated with the city-county and appearance next to carnie-style the wine. The folks of Art Nouveau — arts council, held the wine and cheese paintings? Wood carvings, sculptures, like Jackie Johnson who was showing her event to stir up additional interest in an conceptual photographs and other mom and a family friend around the exexhibit it put on at the Milton Rhodes materials graced the room’s walls and hibit or Devin Mackay, Shaheen Syal and Arts Center on the southern edge of floors.

Eliza Walmsley who invited me along downtown, and invited Caviste to faciliThere is beauty in events like these. for dinner and yes, more wine, after the tate the sampling.

Art Nouveau held an opening for the event ended — are sharp, welcoming And sample I did, asking for more exhibit of course, but this more intiand affirming. It isn’t that I dislike the of the fruit-forward white wine before mate setting provided ample space for art, and I sure as hell don’t dislike the rotating through the exhibit. If there attendees to study each piece without wine. But running into people such as is such thing as household names in

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by Eric Ginsburg

Unconventional wine pairings

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Oct 28 — Nov 3, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Good Sport Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote

22

CULTURE Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg snaps a hair from her bow

by Daniel Wirtheim

t was near the dead end of “Winter,” during one of the last voracious bursts of Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas when a hair from her violin bow snapped. But Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg didn’t notice. She only dug harder into her violin, bracing the current of sound that she had built in a fury as the stray horsehair waved above her like a war banner.

Thirty minutes before the horsehair broke, the Gate City Camerata were playing the waltzes of Arnold Scholenberg, 10 light and touching pieces. It was Triad Stage and UNCG’s Oct. 23 concert featuring the violinist with the UNCG Symphony Orchestra and Gate City Camerata. The camerata — a group of 18 UNCG student and faculty members — sat erect, moving as a tightly disciplined ensemble. A few of them adjusted their eyeglasses after each waltz, and when they finished Sonnenberg walked onstage.

Her pants were pink, more DANIEL WIRTHEIM Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, a polarizing figure in classical music, plays along with the UNCG Symphony Orchestra. vivid than a tickle-me and just short of a hot pink. She was slightly slouched, her tunities for devastation, her performance carried the Auditorium, she didn’t speak a word. But her personal walk relaxed but purposeful. She stopped at the center intensity of a high-wire act. demons were evident in her sneer, in her dark eyes, and of the ensemble and placed a white cloth on her violin Besides being a composition bred for devilishly bold the way she thrashed the air above her head with the where her left cheek would meet the wood. musicians, Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas has its share violin bow.

The violinists of the camerata began the first of of slow, sweeping moments that Sonnenberg played After the Gate City Camerata finished the fourth Astor Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas with disstanding erect, her dark and fierce browline raised and season, the UNCG Symphony Orchestra took the stage sonant, hissing sounds as the double bass picked up a mouth twisted with concentration. It was far from with the classic symphonic sound of Bela Bartok. They rhythm dropped by Sonnenberg’s swaying hips. It was the image on the program that UNCG provided, the played Dance Suite, three sweeping numbers worlds a bold choice for a concert with university students. picture of a seemingly pleasant and smiling violinist.

Pizzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas is a mean comSonnenberg is 54 and the director of the San Franposition, four tightly wound tango pieces that make Pick of the Week cisco-based New Century Chamber Orchestra. In her Vivaldi’s Four Seasons sound like elevator music. Played early years she was a child prodigy abandoned by her Frankenstein! @ RJ Reynolds Auditorium (W-S), together, the tangoes are a turbulent ride of hard-hitfather and the youngest-ever winner of the Naumburg Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. ting crashes and major lifts with the blustery kind of International Violin Competition, which gave her an Most consider the 1931 film Frankenstein to be the energy that can break a bow hair. entrée to Carnegie Hall and flung her into the limelight best version to date. The Piedmont Wind Symphony Sonnenberg looked to the bass, pumping her body as a controversial yet extremely talented player. It was makes its homage to the cult classic with original music up and down with the rhythm. She let out a guttural when she was 32 that Sonnenberg badly injured her to accompany the screen action. Frankenstein-lovers “humph,” as her body dived low with a voracious burst pinky finger while cutting onions and had the fingertip of all ages can find something to enjoy about this of notes. She moved herself up and down like one surgically reattached. She had almost fully recovered performance. Visit piedmontwindsymphony.com for might if undergoing an exorcism, at times both of her when she attempted suicide, but the gun never fired. more information. feet leaving the ground at once. With so many opporThroughout the entire performance at Aycock

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away from the dark appeal of Sonnenberg playing Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas.

After Dance Suite, Sonnenberg joined the orchestra, standing next to the conductor, for Max Bruch’s “Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor.” She traded licks with the orchestra, a seemingly docile affair for the wild woman that snapped a bow hair.

Watching her with the Symphonic Orchestra was a nice sendoff but a weak cure for the listener’s hangover, the result of an exhilarating wall of sound Sonnenberg had created in Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas.

The orchestra is primed for success, a group of college kids that might have successful careers ahead as session musicians. The way Sonnenberg plays cannot be taught. In her delirious performance anything can happen, even a hair from a bow might snap. And that’s no big deal for her. She only bends down to bite the stray hair off and raises her bow again, a toast to the demons that spur her on.

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24

CULTURE Old landscapes with new fellows

by Daniel Wirtheim

t was a Friday night. Energy from A&T’s Homecoming stirred on Elm Street while North Carolina Poet Laureate Shelby Stephenson introduced the 2015 NC Arts Council Fellowship Recipients inside Scuppernong Books.

In the back of the store, nestled in an enclave between a table topped with slices of pie and a pair of couches, David Potorti, director of literature and theater at the state Arts Council, was giving his opening remarks to a room of roughly 25.

The recipients were a group of seven — four fiction writers, two screenwriters and a poet — who will receive a $10,000 grant to further their craft. All of the recipients have agreed to stay in North Carolina for their year as a fellow.

Potorti introduced the fellows with short bios, most of them about living as educators and freshly published writers.

Then he introduced Stephenson, the North Carolina poet laureate.

Stephenson’s face is a landscape unto itself. When he takes a moment to choose his words — which he does often — his wrinkles drift into the sides of his face. He moves and speaks slowly.

A self-proclaimed farmboy who studied law at UNC- Chapel Hill, Stephenson DANIEL WIRTHEIM Kim Church, a recepient of the 2015 NC Arts Council Fellowship, read from her novel Byrd. came into the position in the midst of controversy. lover, a California musician.

Funderburk’s message seemed as elusive as a few Stephenson was chosen only after the first 2014 Poet The Arts Council does not select fellows but they do of the listeners who had crept back to the bar for anLaureate Valerie Macon resigned. Gov. Pat McCrory offer criteria that a panel of professionals must adhere other drink. Groups of passersby were speaking loudly had originally selected Macon without consultation to when making the decision.

The applicant cannot be enough to one another to be overheard clearly inside. from the Arts Council. She was a state employee with enrolled in an academic or degree-granting program And all the while Stephenson sat, his face a landscape a thin publishing résumé who was quickly swimming and has to submit a list of items the writer may use the not of a city caught in the midst of one of the nation’s in accusations of being a McCrory-insider and stepped grant money for. largest homecomings but a long narrow stretch of dirt down. Stephenson was a more deliberate pick.

The money cannot be used for academic research road.

His poems are a lifetime of reflections on growing but can be used to set aside time for work.

The Arts up in a rural farming family in Benson. Baseball gloves, Council claims that this is the way to promote culturGod and fields are just some of the themes from the ally significant works in and about North Carolina. poem that he read before allowing the fellows to take Pick of the Week Julie Funderburk is an assistant professor and arts their turn. director at Queens University of Charlotte and the only HalloWheels Bicycle Festival @ Downtown (W-S), starts One of the fellows, Kim Church, like Stephenson, poet at the fellowship recipient reading. She received Thursday studied law. She read a passage from her first novel an MFA from UNCG’s creative writing program.

UniByrd, about a North Carolina woman who moves to A bike-in movie screening of ET the Extra Terrestrial, corn Press, a small-press based in Greensboro, pubCalifornia with her boyfriend, gets pregnant and rea spooky scavenger hunt at creepy historic sites across lished her book of poems Thoughts to Fold into Birds in turns to her hometown where she puts her child up for Winston-Salem and a final bicycle ride in tweed: 2014. adoption. Byrd has been a moderate success, at least HalloWheels is your ticket to having an active Halloween.

“In the bedroom where your parents slept, the hardenough to make Church an artist fellow. Her work, If nothing else, be sure to catch the scavenger hunt, a nonwood’s scorched,” she read from her poem, “Slated for like Stephenson’s is dedicated to Southern imagery, competitive ride that’s part history lesson and part terrifying.

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Oct 28 — Nov 3, 2015 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

C A&T University’s homecoming football game is typically a pretty big deal in Greensboro. You don’t get the moniker “Greatest Homecoming On Earth” for nothing.

A few factors amplified this

by Anthony Harrison year’s homecoming celebration.

For one, the university heads into its 125th year of existence in 2016. That long and storied academic history produced the A&T Four, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and ill-fated astronaut Ronald McNair.

It’s an excellent legacy for a historically black university, steeped with civil rights activism.

But perhaps the biggest draw to the Oct. 24 homecoming game was that the Aggies kick ass at football this year.

While the program has produced talent in years past — including NFL Hall of Fame defensive end Elvin Bethea — A&T’s football teams have rarely dominated, especially in recent memory. But over the past four seasons, the Aggies have clinched winning seasons, with the last year culminating in a five-way tie for the head of the Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference.

Coming into the homecoming game, their record stood at 5-1, the only loss coming against the Tar Heels, who currently tout a venerable one-loss season of their own.

Tickets sold out — and kept selling. A&T wanted everyone to see this game; they wanted everyone to be

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march, the brass section possessed the pipes to cause there who could possibly get in. And hell, no one worth temporary tinnitus for fans sitting on the visitors’ side. their pudding would miss this game.

The Aggies faced the Howard University Bison, a More than 22,000 fans crowded into Aggie Stadilongtime MEAC rival. The Bison hadn’t won a game um, literally overflowing onto the track and into the and recorded some embarrassing losses against Appasurrounding parking lots. lachian State and Boston College.

Of course, many fans found the scene outside the Despite all odds, Howard didn’t look half bad in the stadium quite welcoming. first quarter, even in the face of crippling penalties Tailgating at any sporting events is de rigueur. But, and withering defensive play by the home team. They again, you can’t call your homecoming the greatest on strode onto the field in the second quarter tied 7-7, Earth by keeping things simply at par for the course. even leading momentarily after freshman wide-out The acrid smell of hot dogs and burgers cooking on Guy Lemonier set up a short-scoring drive by returning the grill wafts through the air, sure. But add to that a punt to the A&T 12-yard line. the oily odor of frying catfish, the spiciness of fried But then the Aggies turned on, chicken, the sizzle of porterand they turned down for nothing. house steaks and visions of mac I recall diminutive sophomore & cheese, cole slaw, green beans A&T’s next home game pits running back Tarik Cohen showing and other delights, all in heaping the Aggies against Delaware his stuff during the spring game, portions. And it’s accompanied State on Nov. 14 at 1 p.m. but he played a red-letter perforby the polyphonic cacophony of For more information, visit mance against Howard. He consiseverything from old-school funk tently slid and slammed through and disco to the freshest trap, emncataggies.com. the Howard defensive line, includanating from PA systems, booming a 31-yard touchdown run to boxes and dozens of car stereos. put A&T back on top after that momentary loss of the Aggies roll hard with tailgating. lead. He may be small, but he played with the heart The marching band doesn’t fool around, either. and power of a six-footer.

The Blue and Gold Marching Machine’s reputation He’d be named Player of the Game with two other precedes this column; it’s practically insulting just touchdowns, rushing for 137 yards on 17 carries. to point that out. From their route starting point at Right before halftime, A&T kicked a field goal, setMurrow Boulevard, they arrived at Aggie Stadium at ting the score at 30-14 in their favor. around 12:30 p.m., accompanied by the A&T Golden And then the announcer came over the PA. Delight dancers, the legendary drum line and a rear “Attention: If you are sitting in the Howard band secechelon of former band members. Even after that long

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The Aggies thumped the Howard University Bison 65-14 at this year’s homecoming game.

ANTHONY HARRISON The A&T Aggie Bulldogs walk the promenade.

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as well, with sophomore defensive back Jeremy Taylor blocking and recovering a punt attempt and sophomore wide receiver Khris Gardin returning another punt for a touchdown. Aggie second stringers came on the field, and Howard never scored again.

The final score: 60-14.

A parking attendant across the street off Bessemer Avenue asked me: “How was the game?”

I reported the score.

“It was a blowout,” I added. “It was a great game.”

He just shrugged and smiled, saying, “Hey, it’s homecoming! Greatest on Earth!”

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tion, please vacate your seat,” he calmly requested. But with a hint of a smile, he said, “They are coming back.”

Disgruntled Aggies had taken over the whole section. Police officers’ requests to leave went unheeded until the Howard band returned from their halftime routine.

Returning to the field, the football team would not grant Howard University any similar courtesy.

The Aggies decimated the Bison in the third quarter. A&T scored four touchdowns, and the defense shut down any attempts by Howard. Redshirt junior defensive end Angelo Keyes even recovered a fumble for a touchdown.

The special teams rose to the occasion

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Spooky bikes HalloWheels Festival @ various locales (W-S), Thursday to Saturday Winston-Salem’s BeersNGears planned three days and nights of Halloween-themed festivities all centered on biking. On Thursday, bikers ride from SECCA to A/perture Cinema to watch ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. There will also be a spooky scavenger hunt at Twin City Hive at 7 p.m. on Friday, and bring your finest tweed to the Millennium Center for the HalloTweed ride on Saturday morning. For more info, visit beersngears.com.

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1 Dope 2 Setting for a 1992 Fraser/Shore comedy 3 Pepsi Center player 4 Boarding pass datum 5 Source of a Shakespearean snake bite 6 “Whatevs” 7 That thing, to Torquemada 8 Wrestling victories 9 Animals in the game “The Oregon Trail” 10 “___ to Be You” 11 Like some buildings with arches and columns 12 California city where Erle Stanley Gardner wrote his Perry Mason novels 14 Guides around the waistline 15 “WKRP in Cincinnati” news director Les 19 #696969, in hexadecimal color code

22 Djokovic rival 23 Poisonous plant also known as monkshood 24 “Oh yeah?”

27 Calcutta coin 28 Army officer below captain, in slang 29 Flowering groundcover plants in the apt genus Pulmonaria 33 Clean 34 Dress rehearsal 35 2006 appointee, to friends 40 “Brave New World” feel-good drug 43 Best Western competitor 44 Some long-haired dogs, for short 45 Coca-Cola bottled water brand 47 Ground-based unit?

51 Cornell of Cornell University 52 Fr. holy women 53 “Consarnit!”

55 Some printers 56 He played “The Ugly” opposite Clint’s “The Good” and Lee’s “The Bad” 57 Monster container

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49 Berkshire Hathaway headquarters 50 Skateboarding 101 jumps 53 Some Emmy winners 54 Ralph Bakshi movie that was the first X-rated animated feature 58 Arkansas governor Hutchinson 59 Long-term aspirations 60 D.J.’s dad, on “Roseanne” 61 Solid yellow line’s meaning, on the road 62 “___ Came of Age” (Sarah Brightman album)

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1 TV room 4 Decider in a tennis match, perhaps 13 Shiba ___ (such breed. many doge. wow.)

14 Hexadecimal 16 “Charlie’s Angels” director 17 #15 on AFI’s “100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes,” from a 1982 film 18 Shake your hips 20 Drum kit components 21 Sluggish 22 Musical notes after mis 25 Dropbox files, often 26 Schwarzenegger movie based on a Philip K. Dick story 30 Tight-lipped 31 Sentiment akin to “Ain’t no shame in that!”

32 Phrase in French cookery 33 Pkg. measures 36 Lets in a view of 37 Photographer Goldin 38 Coaching legend Parseghian 39 Hairpieces in old portraits 41 Type of card for a smartphone 42 Travel widely 46 Actor Lukas of “Witness” 48 “Can’t Fight This Feeling” band ___ Speedwagon

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The Marching Rams of Northeast Guilford High School at the Greatest Homecoming on Earth.

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few blocks away.

The activities began a week earlier with the coronation of Mr. & Miss A&T, daily events, lectures, parties, comedy shows, step shows, luncheons and dinners throughout the week, while culminating in the legendary Saturday parade and the homecoming football game against the Howard University Bisons. A host of Sunday activities round out the week, but the real party is Saturday night when alumni and GHOE tourists pack downtown Greensboro tighter than a lycra dress on Gabuay Siddobay.

Young Dro, Rae Sremmurd, Wale, Fetty Wap and Future were rapping at the Greensboro Coliseum, and Gladys Knight was crooning the night before at Koury Convention Center.

But the real party and after stretched from South Elm to Murrow Boulevard and beyond.

It’s 9 or so and the waning waitstaff demurs my invitation, citing a rare “off” Saturday night. I notice as I make my way down Elm that a few other normally lively establishments have flickering signs indicating dimming power and being closed.

The real action is centered around Churchill’s, where the queue to enter is like an anaconda in a basket. The ladies are decked in everything from cutout dresses that look like they’ve been attacked by Siegfried & Roy’s tigers all the way to ensembles that would make Cookie Lyons do a double take.

The men are just as plume-worthy with Sunday best suits, tightly tailored hipster gear, explosions of color, layering and bling and refined casual wear. The mood is lively, but tense. It’s definitely a party — but it’s a private one, and this white girl was an outsider.

I’ve been here before — the outsider. In the early ’90s one of my first jobs as a journalist was as a reporter for the Carolina Peacemaker, founded in Greensboro in 1967. I worked for the legendary civil rights activist and Publisher John Marshall Kilimanjaro and the venerable Editor-in-Chief Hal Sieber, who served as a speechwriter for John F. Kennedy and authored several books about civil rights.

They threw this cub up against the likes of local lightning-rod activist Ervin Brisbon, put me in a room with Jesse Jackson, gave me Coretta Scott King’s home phone number and sent me to pick up Toni Morrison at the airport. I covered murders, moments in history, fights for historic buildings and neighborhoods, political feuds, racial profiling issues and even a Klan meeting — all in the name of opening the lines of communication in this racially divided city.

Twenty some years later as I gave a eulogy at Hal Sieber’s funeral and looked out at the room, I was impressed at the rainbow turnout, this community of people shaking hands and telling stories and realized that this is exactly what Hal had been fighting for his entire life. It’s what we should all be fighting for every day and in every human interaction we have.

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t’s 8:30 p.m. on date night at one of downtown Greensboro’s most venerable restaurants and the joint is so empty the steak knives are blowing a keening, metal whisper. The staff is low-talking about an early close and I’m trying to convince them to join me for the crescendo of NC A&T University’s 125th homecoming just a

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