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IT’S YOUR TURN TO ASK “WHY?” You can’t help it. Deep down, you’re defined by your inquisitive nature and your love of learning. Now it’s time to get a degree for it. The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program at UNCG lets you explore the world through a framework of courses that challenge your perceptions and expand your understanding. We offer a self-directed curriculum with the flexibility of face-to-face or online study designed to fit the reality of your busy life. Curious? We thought so.
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Katie Keeps Selling Greensboro! Barrington Place
Ascot Point
M A G A Z I N E Volume 3, No. 6
“I have a fancy that every city has a voice.” 336.617.0090
1848 Banking Street Greensboro, NC 27408 www.ohenrymag.com Jim Dodson, Editor jim@ohenrymag.com Andie Stuart Rose, Creative Director andie@ohenrymag.com David C. Bailey, Senior Editor 336.617.0090 • dbailey@ohenrymag.com Cassie Butler Timpy, Photographer/Graphic Designer Kira Schoenfelder, Graphic Designer Lauren Shumaker, Graphic Designer Brianna Rolfe Cunningham, Graphic Design Intern
7 Barrington Drive
10 New Bern Square
Starmount
Old Irving Park
Contributing Editors Harry Blair, Maria Johnson, Jim Schlosser Contributing Photographers Lynn Donovan, Sam Froelich, John Gessner Contributors Cynthia Adams, Jane Borden, Emily Frazier Brown, Tom Bryant, James Colasanti,Tina Firesheets, TC Frazier, Ken Keuffel, Sara King, Meridith Martens, Mary Novitsky, Nancy Oakley, Noah Salt, Stephen E. Smith, Astrid Stellanova, Isabel Zuber
O.H
David Woronoff, Publisher Advertising Sales
38 Kemp Road E.
1203 Hammel Rd
Marty Hefner, Sales & Circulation Director 336.707.6893, mhefner@ohenrymag.com Hattie Aderholdt, 336.601.1188 Amy Grove, 336.456.0827 Advertising Graphic Design 910.693.2469, lauren@ohenrymag.com
For more information about these fine Greensboro properties contact Katie
4 O.Henry
June 2013
©Copyright 2013. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. O.Henry Magazine is published by The Pilot LLC
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A tribute to the mAn who chAnged wAtchmAking forever
In 1821, Nicolas Rieussec changed watchmaking forever with the invention of the first chronograph. Today, the Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph Automatic is a tribute to the chronograph’s technical evolution. 43 mm stainless steel case, skelleted horns and sapphire crystal back, black calfskin strap with white stitching. Crafted in the Montblanc Manufacture in Le Locle, Switzerland.
5 2 6 s . s t r at f o rd roa d • w i n s to n - s a l e m • 3 3 6 - 7 2 1 - 1 7 6 8
June2013 Features
49 Preservation The Big Cheese 50
Poetry By Isabel Zuber
By David C. Bailey
Jackie and Larry Gerringer — and family— are redifining the traditional dairy farm. Can you say cheese?
56
The Year We Danced By Stephen E. Smith
Love briefly flowered at the famed Castaways Club
The kids are all right 62 A stunning new exhibit opens at UNCG’s Weatherspoon 70
A Bungalow Reborn
78
The Art of Getting Sauced
By Maria Johnson
How a forgotten house became a gem of Fisher Park
By David C. Bailey
Great local sauces to heat up your barbecue season
June Almanac 83 The marrying month, Latin for garden lovers By Noah Salt
and Mrs. Dodd’s gifts to dads
departments
9 Hometown By Jim Dodson 12 Short Stories Your guide to the good life 15 The City Muse By Emily Frazier Brown 17 19
Life’s Funny
By Maria Johnson
artists at work
By Ken Keuffel
Omnivorous Reader 25 The By Stephen E. Smith 29 The wine guy By TC Frazier 31 Street level By Jim Schlosser of Jane 35 Life By Jane Borden 37 The sporting life By Tom Bryant 41 Game on By Jim Schlosser
45 Pleasures of Life Dept. 86 Arts Calendar 101 GreenScene By Emily Frazier Brown
111 112
The Accidental Astrologer
By Astrid Stellanova O.Henry Ending
By Harry Blair
Cover Photograph by Cassie Butler 6 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Great pairs for a great pair. Art for Eyes | Eye for Arts Fine Eyewear, Artwork and Jewelry 327 South Elm | Greensboro 336.274.1278 | TheViewOnElm.com Becky Causey | Licensed Optician Journalist and educator Justin Catanoso; singer/songwriter Laurelyn Dossett. A pair since 1984.
They may not remember your dress, but they’ll never forget your
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HomeTown
Two For the Road
By Jim Dodson
Later this
month my wife, Wendy, and I will celebrate our twelfth wedding anniversary and frankly I’m a little stumped what to buy her that she doesn’t already own or wouldn’t buy for herself, assuming she would ever do that.
A shopper she isn’t, which is one of her most endearing qualities for a woman of such beauty and natural elegance, especially in a modern culture that seems consumed with, well, consuming. Being a woman of few material wants, whenever she spots something she believes she needs, she simply waits it out until the price drops at least by half before she loosens the purse strings. I jokingly call her the Queen of Cheap. Two years ago, for our milestone tenth, I gave her a golden retriever puppy we decided to name Ajax after the famous Greek warrior of Trojan War fame, the suitor of Helen who was famous for his monumental strength and size. We guessed by the size of his paws that junior might someday be a brute, too. Ajax the Wonder Dog now weighs close to 100 pounds and spends his days lounging on couches and armchairs like a victorious Greek prince waiting for Helen of Troy to feed him grapes. He also follows his mistress everywhere, waiting for her to feed him anything remotely edible, usually carrying something of mine in his mouth as spoils of his conquest. Slippers, dress shoes, even books from my desk have ended up in his jaws, spirited away in some kind of cruel game. I’ve taken to calling him Ajax the Wonder Dog because it’s something of a wonder that either of us has survived his first two years. Anyway, at a time of tightened belts and enforced household budgeting everywhere but on Wall Street, my bride’s style and frugality are godsends and a source of inspiration to me. For one thing, I’ve ceased buying anything new if at all possible, preferring everything from gently used furniture from consignment shops to second-hand clothes from our local Episcopal jumble shop. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
When I look back on our married life, I realize that even our wedding was a model of tasteful frugality. We got hitched on a warm morning in late June — what would have been my parents’ sixty-first wedding anniversary, as it happens — in the backyard garden of the house I built on a coastal hill in Maine, with only a handful of close friends and family present, small kids and dogs included. It poured rain for a solid hour before the service, delaying things a wee bit, which no one seemed to mind terribly since everyone simply sat on the porch drinking wine and eating my wife’s fabulous brunch, enjoying the much needed rain and fellowship. Eventually the rain stopped, the sun bobbed out, and we traipsed out to the garden and got the deed done with a minimum of fuss. Then came the cake, homemade by the bride, which vanished quicker than cool rain on a hot sidewalk. After this we all went to the beach for the afternoon, then home for a supper on the lawn and whiffle ball until the fireflies came out. Looking back, it might have been the perfect summer wedding. Then again, I was in my middle 40s and didn’t require hot air balloons and a hundred handbell ringers to mark the occasion. Twenty Junes ago my first wife and I attended a friend’s wedding at the former Rockefeller estate on the Hudson that featured handbells and a full cathedral choir followed by a lavish sit-down dinner and Tiffany gifts for 700 guests under canvas, three orchestras, a dozen ice sculptures, a roving sketch artist and a hot air balloon meant to carry the happy couple away over the Hudson at dusk. As they rose from the Robber Baron splendor of their wedding, eerily recalling the Great Oz in his balloon, the bride wept and flung flower petals to the crowd while the pale groom clutched the basket and looked as if he might be trying to decide between throwing up and jumping into the Hudson to escape. Dating from medieval times and even earlier in Roman culture, as our June 2013
O.Henry 9
HomeTown crack Almanac editor notes this month, June — named for the Roman goddess Juno, queen of marriage and children — was the preferred marrying month simply because a bride made pregnant by June’s end could deliver a baby and be sufficiently recovered enough to return to the fields at harvest time a year or so later. Modern brides like it because June is the month with the longest hours of sunlight and often a month when family schedules are more flexible. Having said this, the month of October recently replaced June as the preferred month for getting hitched, since bringing in the harvest rarely applies to the dynamics of modern marriage. Knowing something’s real and lasting value — including the character and material wants of a potential mate — is something that requires time and patience and sometimes no shortage of personal experience and emotional pain to acquire. During America’s formative frontier years, a talent for frugal living off the land — using it up and making do, as they like to say up in Maine — was essential for survival not just of marriage but whole communities. Over the past few years, I recently read, home weddings and home births have both enjoyed a major revival, especially among so-called millennials, born after 1980, estimated at 80 million strong, the largest generation of Americans in history. One reason trendwatchers give for this social sea change is the simple economics. Having lived through two wars and a major economic crisis that shows no sign of ending anytime soon, many toting outrageous college debts to boot, the soaring costs of weddings and hospital births strike many millennials as unneeded extravagance. If a generation nursed into adulthood on Facebook and Twitter shows unmistakable signs of heightened narcissism and entitlement, is a wee bit lazy and attends church far less than their parents, among this group’s more encouraging traits is the fact that they possess few if any of their forebears’ costly hang-ups about race, creed or sexual preference, work splendidly in groups, and see life as far more than just making money to pay for a better house in the suburbs and expensive toys. In fact, data shows they possess a penchant for digging in and living more frugally than any other group before them, concerned about the consequences of ballooning personal and national debt, displaying an absence of material wants that has some marketers scrambling to figure out how to sell them BMWs and membership in the country club. As a group, tellingly, millennials have less household credit card debt than any generation on record. Meanwhile, they’re out there starting up online magazines and e-businesses out the wazoo, filling the blogosphere with new ideas galore, challenging convention and reshaping their world on the cheap,
10 O.Henry
June 2013
a grassroots revolution my baby boomer wife, the Queen of Cheap, has been predicting for years. She’s actually the world’s oldest secret millennial, I’ve decided — a 51-year-old college administrator who’s as savvy about social media as any 20-year-old with an iPhone, a whiz who can get more done in a half hour on her beloved tablet than an army of efficiency experts could do in an entire afternoon, surfing the Net like a gal to the Starbucks born. Saving valuable time may be the Queen of Cheap’s greatest economy of all. Which brings me back to my new millennial gift dilemma, what to do about that un-purchased anniversary present for a woman who needs or wants nothing that can’t be made, borrowed or at least bought at half price. On a lark I consulted an anniversary gift guide and discovered that the “traditional” twelfth anniversary gift calls for a trip to Japan or at least something in silk, which prompted me to spend some quality time perusing the latest Victoria Secret catalog at lunch while eating sushi. The “modern” gift for the twelfth is supposed to be either linen or pearls, which raises the stakes a bit to either a new summer dress from Ann Taylor or a string of pearls, the former I would never attempt to buy on my own, the latter she already owns — her grandmother’s, I believe. This leaves only the trip to Japan and maybe taking her out to supper to mark the occasion of our twelve remarkably happy (rewardingly frugal) years as man and wife. Forget Japan. Too far. Too expensive. Just don’t have the yen to go. But even getting her out to a nice dinner spot may prove a challenge this June because we’re renting our first vacation house at the beach in five years this July, and getting all our grown-up kids together before they scatter into the blogosphere. My bride is already deep into efficiently planning the perfect family getaway like a Pentagon accountant going to war. In the end, I may just give the Queen of Cheap a nice bottle of French wine, rub her feet, and promise to take her back to France, where we once spent a delightful fortnight roaming the streets Paris and the countryside of Picardy like Finney and Hepburn in Two for the Road, a cinematic tribute to love on the cheap. For two glorious weeks we lived on wine, roasted chestnuts and good crusty bread, and at the top of the Eiffel Tower I presented her with an engagement ring I had bought only moments before from a street vendor down below, setting me back 12 whole francs. It was the best vacation we ever had, and the moment, she claims, I won her heart forever. OH Contact editor Jim Dodson at Jim@ohenrymag.com The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Local Roots
It’s new. It’s shiny. It’s hip. But as Deep Roots’ name suggests, this market’s roots do, in fact, run deep. Sprouting from a vegetarian buying club in a Guilford College dormitory in the groovy 1960s, by 1976 the club had turned into a co-op, which, in 1990, moved to a humble storefront on Spring Garden across from the railroad tracks. Now (and finally) in its new incarnation downtown on 600 North Eugene Street, Deep Roots Market rivals in selection and style those other big-box, natural-food mega stores, especially in the ever-popular healthy-lunchand-supper-buffet arena. The manager of food service, Nicole Villano — who first co-owned a family Italian restaurant, then signed on to open new stores for Asheville-based Earth Fare — is now supplementing chow brought in from the Triangle’s Weaver Street with her own creations. Try her “Jeweled Quinoa” (pronounced alternately kee-no-wah or keen-wah), studded with raisins, blueberries, edamame and, yes, goji berries. “It has a sweet-and-savory dance going on,” she says. Or there’s carrot-and-ginger greenway, “a healthy salad with a gingery zing to keep your eyes shiny and your vision keen,” Villano says. Sure, it’s good for you, but better yet, offerings such as red curry tofu, chicken potpie and, especially, the Moroccan couscous are delicious. And choose from three dozen cheeses by the slice. A book of verse, a jug of wine and thou, oh Deep Roots. Info: (336) 292-9216 or deeprootsmarket.coop. — DCB
It’s Theater, My Pet
Scenes and songs about cats and dogs — that’s the essence of UNLEASHED! — the latest ribald puppet show written and staged by Jabberbox Puppet Theater, aka Greensboro writers Marianne Gingher and Deborah Seabrooke. The salon-style show, featuring Jabberbox’s signature “brief puppet nudity,” runs for four weekends in June and includes wine and dessert with Friday and Saturday shows. The set alternates between Gingher’s and Seabrooke’s homes, so seating is limited. Reservations: jabberboxpuppettheater.com. MJ
Wood You?
“Since we stumbled out of the cave, wood has been essential to our existence and advancement,” says Asheville’s Brent Skidmore — artist, furniture maker, sculptor, professor and curator of Speaking in Species: a North Carolina Perspective, which opens June 14 at Green Hill Center for N.C. Art and runs through August 18. “From cradle to grave, we interact, own and even inhabit things made of wood, from bassinets to bridges, from bowls to beds,” he says. “Some of us even end up buried in a wood box under a tree.” So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many objects of art either incorporate or are made from wood, like the 60-inch-long hall table crafted from poplar bark, blackened oak and western red cedar by Penland’s John Clark. “John’s piece has a very high level of design, a high level of orchestration,” says Skidmore, “but it also is loose and raw.” As in exposed bark and wood grain undisguised. Like others in the show who are second-, third-, fourth- or even fifth-generation furniture makers, “John represents a seasoned, veteran maker,” Skidmore says. Pieces in the show are as varied as the types of wood used: “You’ve got Windsor chairs, you’ve flutes, you’ve got sculpture, furniture, tables, lamps,” Skidmore says. “Wood is ubiquitous, common and simultaneously complex all at the same time.” Information: 200 North Davie Street, Greensboro, (336) 333-7460 or greenhillcenter.org. DCB
12 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Short Stories Summer with the Seersucker Chef
Summer is upon us and Jody Morphis, Fincastle’s Seersucker Chef, will soon be offering his house-made mix for mint juleps, which I love in the Carolina heat. But from now until local tomatoes come in, I’m all about Bloody Marys made with New Orleans-trained Morphis’ special mix — twenty gallons of which was once slurped down once at a certain Sunday Bloody Mary party, Morphis says. Thick and almost chunky with black pepper and only moderately spicy, it is made from whole ripe tomatoes, carrots, onions, celery, ginger and beets. Morphis says his tomato slurry “brings the South to your mouth.” Add tequila for a little south of the border action. Available at Design Archives and Fincastles Diner Downtown, 215 South Elm Street, Greensboro, (336) 272-8968. DCB
Happy Trails
When we’re hiking, says Bill Bryson in his classic Walk in the Woods, “Life takes on a neat simplicity. Time ceases to have any meaning . . . It’s quite wonderful, really.” In case you haven’t looked out the window, it’s June, and the 400-plus members of the Piedmont Hiking and Outing Club invite you to share with them some of their “quite wonderful” walks. To see some of the dozens of treks and kayaking trips they’ve got planned for summer, go to www. piedmonthikingandoutingclub.org and click on “hikes.” Some outings are as close as Lake Higgins’ accurately named Bald Eagle Trail. Others are as far afield as Linville Gorge, Mount Mitchell and Rock Castle Gorge in Virginia. Not sure? Jon Maxwell, past president of PHOC, suggests you join him on Saturday, June 22, at 9 a.m. at the BurMil Park Wildlife Center, 5834 BurMil Club Road. Whether you’re a member of the club or not, he’ll lead you on a guided eight mile stroll around Lake Brandt, via the Nat Green Trail and the Piedmont Trail, with a bathroom and water break at the marina halfway through. Call him at (336) 294-4281 to learn more. DCB
Water, Ho!
Soon you won’t have to drive to the beach to see a first-class aquarium in North Carolina. Look for sandbar sharks, African penguins, Asian small-clawed otters, fishing cats, southern stingrays, green moray eels and, of course, fish galore at the Greensboro Science Center when Carolina SciQuarium, the state’s first inland aquarium, opens Saturday, June 29. Take a behind-thescenes tour of the state’s only aquarium certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. Still at sea? Information: Greensboro Science Center, SciQuarium and Animal Discovery Zoo, 4301 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro, (336) 288-3769 or www.greensboroscience.org. MJ
Belly Up
Call it the Battle of the Bellies — a heated competition between no less than three downtown food tours. Of course, there will only be one winner: ravenous foodies. Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours, which sprang up in Durham in 2009, is the veteran. Offering tours every Saturday yearround, guides highlight downtown history, architecture and, of course, food with chefs tableside whenever possible. Stops include Nico’s, Undercurrent, Smith Street Diner, Loaf Bakery, Dame’s Chicken & Waffles, and Crafted — The Art of the Taco. June events? Every Saturday. Information: (919) 237-2253 or tastecarolina.net “Eat, Drink, Walk” was the rallying cry in early May when Tour de Food got started with stops at Tavo Restaurant & Tavern, The WORX, Boston’s House of Jazz, as well as at Fincastles, Natty Greene’s and The Sweet Shop. Half the fun is the meet-andeat aspect — getting to size up, so to speak, who else is into eating six or seven waves of gourmet food. This month’s events: June 1 and 15. Information: Tour De Food: (336) 406-6294 or www.tourdefood.net Bay Area-based DishCrawl launched its first tour in late April with sliders and shrimp’n’grits from Fincastles; soft-shell crabs swimming in chimichurri sauce from Table 16; crisply fried Asian rolls and crab Rangoon from Hibachi Café — capped off by pound cake from The Sweet Shop. Crawl is right. Or should we say waddle? Next event: June 9. Information: Dishcrawl: (336) 253-7338 or dishcrawl.com. DCB
June 2013
O.Henry 13
The City Muse Popping Up, Perfect Strangers and Going Over the Rainbow
By Emily Frazier Brown
Swept up in the schoolyard game of avoiding
Photographs by Lynn Donovan
cracks in the pavement and the unpainted tiles, I skip across the coral and aqua octagonal tributes to our civil rights heroes that have been painted on February One Place. This is the first weekend in a two-month-long weekend spring festival, affectionately known as the Pop Up Promenade. Some would prefer the city permanently close February One Place for pedestrian use, which would allow for food trucks to make a semi-permanent station and provide more square footage for street vendors to rent space. Whether or not the city decides to hold onto those half-dozen parallel parking spaces, tonight it belongs to those children holding tight to their mothers’ sides and the euphoric 20-somethings who can pretend the street belongs to them. Yellow, orange and navy blue dresses catch the eye of the Muse, who finds herself tapping her feet along to the celebratory music the street performers are dancing to. They are grinning, holding tight to their floral hairpins and looking at each member of their audience as if the two are having an intimate conversation. It isn’t long before the music seems to fade into the background, as the rhythmic motion of their torsos and the skirts of their dresses become the sound waves. A nail-biter stands on the corner, sporting a khaki blazer and skinny jeans. He’s deciding whether he wants to brave the long line of families, young professionals and college students for the taco truck — or the similarly intimidating wait for ice cream. The correct answer is both. Thankfully he makes it to the counter before running out of cuticle. His name is Lile, and he’s an immigration lawyer from out of town. He doesn’t like our one-way streets, but he could stick around longer if the buildings would always shift colors as they are tonight. The magic isn’t quite in the giggling children who are hiding beneath The Art & Soul of Greensboro
the cafe tables that Center City Park loaned the event, nor in the number of dogs who are tangled together by the light pole. It’s not even in the way that we know this will last through June, when all of downtown is sinking beneath flowers and sundresses. It’s the way that the smell of avocado, onions and cilantro don’t appear to clash with mint chip or pastrami. Perfect strangers are sharing the square tables — and their life stories — and crowding around one of the downtown boutiques to see which elusive film is cast across the outer brick wall. The magic is the group of students who are adjusting their Converse sneakers and polishing their wiry eyeglasses, exclaiming that this is the first time their college town feels like the bustling cityscape they were hoping to find and make home. The Boho Salon is a beacon for live music and long-stemmed wine glasses, leaving its front doors propped open for any who wander in. The trick is to butter you up with a tenor, and then talk you into trying the Peacock Blue you’ve always sort of considered — they’re very good at both. The evening winds down around 11 p.m., and those who aren’t yet exhausted find their nest in the taverns, pubs and bars that stay open until 2. As the Muse wanders back to her car, she spies an older gentleman on the patio at Natty Greene’s. He is strumming on a small wooden ukulele and has to keep pushing his beard out of the way. They exchange smiles, he starts to play a vaguely familiar version of “Over the Rainbow,” and I begin my short journey home. The buildings don’t, in fact, shift colors most nights, but Lile will probably find that Greensboro has only just begun to test the waters of its unique urbanization, which has managed to marry family-friendly with a true downtown nightlife. OH Pop Up Promenade, every Friday and Saturday, 6–11 p.m. www.facebook.com/PopUpPromenade Emily Frazier Brown is a native of Greensboro. She graduated from UNC Greensboro in May of this year and will be staying in the city. She can be reached at emilyfrazierbrown@gmail.com. June 2013
O.Henry 15
Life’s Funny
Post-Painting Blues
Next time I’ll start over at the home improvement store with a margarita By Maria Johnson
You know how someone will say, “What
Photograph by Sam froelich
have you been doing?” and you give a little singsong moan through your nose, like “mm-MM-mm” (translation: “I don’t know”), because nothing significant jumps out at you?
That’s because life is spent doing unremarkable things that should take an hour but take forever. Case in point: The Hour Day Weekend Week I Painted the Mailbox Post. Our story begins one warm and sunny Saturday, a day suited for something important like playing tennis, which I thought I might do later because, as I told my husband, “This will take about an hour.” And he said OK because he was going to finish our taxes, and that shouldn’t take long either, and he might play golf. Well, don’t the gods of perfect Saturdays have a good sense of humor? At this point, you might ask why the mailbox post needed painting. The answer is because something had gouged deep scratches in the post, exposing bare metal. How did that happen? The official response, common to homes with teenagers, is “mm-MM-mm.” Nobody knows. Did someone scrape it with a lawn mower? Nobody knows. Did someone carve it with a Weed Eater? Nobody knows. Did a Bengal tiger, drawn from India by the abundance of chipmunks around our home, use our mailbox as a scratching post? Nobody knows. So I stood there, surveying the damage, pondering the most efficient way to paint the post. I decided that the first thing to do was scalp the grass around the post, so I reached for the weed trimmer, but the line was jammed inside the spinner thingy. No one could remember how to open the spinner thingy — “mm-MM-mm” — and the owner’s manual was missing, so I looked it up on the Internet. Now, I consider online owners’ manuals one of the greatest innovations of my lifetime. The problem is, for every manual, there are ten YouTube videos by a Midwesterner named Dave who wants to show you every possible way to use your implement. So, I fell into that rabbit hole for a while. And if you ever need to know how to mix a margarita with your weed trimmer, give me a call. I finally knocked down the grass around the post and peeled off the house numbers, but they left a gummy residue, so I went inside for the goo remover. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
At first, I was careful to avoid inhaling the petroleum distillates the label warned about. But the residue was stubborn, so pretty soon I was splashing solvent around like cheap cologne and slashing the air with a razor while my brain cells did The Dougie in a cloud of petroleum distillates. Wheeeee. And then my husband came outside because the taxes were taking longer than expected, and he said, “You can’t just paint over those scratches. You need to sand them out.” So he brought out some sandpaper. Then he brought out some coarser sandpaper. Then he brought out a file. Then he brought out a bigger file. By now, it looked like a toolbox had urped around our mailbox. So I did the only reasonable thing: I went to the home improvement store, where people who are trapped in a project go to rest. Refugees like me lined the aisles, staring blankly at tiles and screws and fertilizer, hoping for a respite, which the store recognizes. That’s why a vendor was selling popcorn inside the door. It’s also why I predict that one day home improvement stores will turn their customer service desks into bars where homeowners throw back shots and slur things like, “Then she shed, ‘Honey, thish will only take an hour.’” So I bought some spray paint. And some vinca to go around the mailbox. And some pine bark mini-nuggets. And, oooo, a fivegallon orange bucket. Don’t mind if I do. Back at home, my husband was nowhere to be seen, but my neighbor Sharon was, so we caught up on her kitchen renovation. And her daughter’s wedding. And her parents. And her dogs. And her flowers. That was about it. Then I spray-painted the monolith. I called my husband outside and said, “What do you think?” And he said, “Looks good to me.” And I said, “You don’t think it’s too browny-brown?” And he said, “What does that mean?” And I said, “You know, too milk chocolate. The mailbox is more dark chocolate.” And he said, “It looks fine.” And I said, “No, it’s too milk chocolate.” And he said, “Then why did you ask me?” And I said, “Because I want to know what you think.” And he said, “I’m going to do the taxes.” Long story not quite as long, one week later the mailbox post was the color of dark chocolate. The numbers were up. The vinca was planted. The mini-nuggets were spread. The taxes were filed. What took so long? This is the God’s honest truth: mm-MM-mm. OH Maria Johnson told her editor it would take about an hour to write this column. June 2013
O.Henry 17
Something old
should always look like
something new.
shorescleaners.com
High Point
I Greensboro I Winston Salem
Artists at Work
The Summer of their Lives
For many who attended the fabled Eastern Music Festival — and found lives in classical music beyond it —hard work, all-day practice and underground concerts forged lasting friendships and musical brillance By Ken Keuffel
In June, as the Eastern Music Fes-
tival cranks up, student musicians as young as 14 will invade the campus of Guilford College with a clear mission: to play their chosen instrument hour after hour every day — and to get a little better each time they do. Walk beneath Guilford’s majestic oaks and you’ll hear the strains of Beethoven, Brahms, Bartok and Mahler wafting from dorms, practice rooms, classrooms and auditoriums — on the piano, in chamber music ensembles, from orchestras and during one-on-one lessons with world-class musicians.
Some students will achieve a level of musicianship that leads to a life of making music, classical or otherwise. Others will realize that classical music is not for them and pursue another profession. But as we found tracking down former students of EMF, memories of their summer experience last a lifetime. This year, the Eastern Music Festival begins on June 24 and ends on July 27. Dating back to 1961, since then it has served at least 8,000 students from all fifty states and more than thirty countries. As many as 800 students apply each year, often downloading a videotaped audition online for a scant 200 openings. Little wonder. The ratio of instructors to students is two-to-one. Not surprisingly, many alumni of EMF go on to achieve success — and sometimes fame. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis became a household name after he studied at EMF in the late 1970s. More often, though, EMF grads win jobs in professional ensembles or go on to teach — or do both. O.Henry magazine tracked down several EMF alums and asked them how the festival shaped them as musicians and people.
Nicole and Nick Caluori, French horn
During the 2002 festival, several student musicians met their future spouses. But the EMF-rooted marriage of Nick Caluori and his wife, Nicole, stands out. Both play the same instrument: French horn. Both earned undergraduate degrees from Florida State University, where they started dating, and both did their graduate work at Southern Methodist University. And now both are playing in the horn section of the West Point Band, one of most prestigious military ensembles in the country.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“We have made a great team since we met at EMF,” Nick reflects. EMF not only brought the Caluoris together in marriage. It also helped shape the kinds of musicians they would become as adults. Just ask Nicole, who attended EMF in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2005. “My first year I realized that playing music for a living is what I wanted to do,” she says. For her, it was a sudden revelation: “I was playing principal horn, and it was during the third movement of Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis.” Nick, now 30, attended EMF three times between 2002 and 2004. He says that the festival taught him to pursue his goals with unstinting tenacity. He auditioned twice for the West Point gig, losing at the finals of a 2002 tryout before winning the post at another audition held four years later. The Caluoris can still recall some of the extracurricular adventures that made their EMF experience memorable — besides the close friendship that soon blosJune 2013
O.Henry 19
Artists at Work
somed into romance. Nicole, now 28, wishes she had brought a mousetrap with her. She says that in 2003, a mouse became a “third roommate for three weeks.” It was while the Caluoris and some friends were watching a movie on a computer that “a shadow” materialized behind the blinds. “We emptied a trash can and shoved the mouse in,” Nick says. “We ran to the door and the mouse jumped out. We never saw him or her again.”
Jeffrey Multer, violin
Jeffrey Multer was just 13 when he first attended EMF as a student in 1979. He was invited back in 1980. One thing that Multer recalls clearly is that the dorm rooms at Guilford had not yet been air-conditioned. Not that he spent a lot of time in his dorm room: “You wake up early, eat quickly and warm up for a 9 a.m. rehearsal,” he says. “It’s flat out all day and it ends with a concert that you are either listening to or playing.” Multer, now 47, went on to study at New York’s famed Juilliard School, the seventh member of his family to do so, and has served as concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra since 2006. An acclaimed soloist, Multer has been described by The Cleveland Plain Dealer as a “prodigious and aristocratic violinist.” He has also appeared as a soloist and recitalist in Washington, D.C., at the Kennedy Center, at New York’s Lincoln Center, at Salzburg’s Mozarteum and at Prague’s Rudolphinium. Despite his initial issues with HVAC, Multer can’t seem to get enough of the Eastern Music Festival. Over the last twenty-five years, he’s come back to Greensboro in several roles: concertmaster of the Eastern Festival Orchestra, which consists of festival faculty; artistic director of chamber music; and head of the violin faculty. While a student at EMF, Howard Weiss, the former concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic and a conductor, was Multer’s principal teacher. Weiss taught Multer many important lessons. The one that stuck best? “Your musical ideas must be as clear to your listeners as a great writer’s ideas are to his/her readers,” Multer says. The most surprising thing that Multer learned while a student at EMF? Playing second fiddle is just as challenging as playing first violin. The most surprising nonmusical lesson: “You can’t play without food or sleep.” What advice would Multer give an EMF student today? “Plan your day,” he says. “Find time to warm up and find time to practice.”
20 O.Henry
June 2013
Eric Eakes, viola
Eric Eakes, who attended EMF in 2011, graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in viola from UNC Greensboro. He also plays with the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra — and to hear him tell it, EMF’s crammed rehearsal schedule acclimated him to a similar routine in Fayetteville. Typically, a professional orchestra gets a scant four rehearsals over a week’s time to prepare for each concert cycle. This stands in stark contrast to the several weeks that a school orchestra spends mastering a program. “The most difficult hurdle for me to overcome was the pace at which music had to be learned,” Eakes says of his EMF summer. “I was not accustomed to that.” The most valuable part of Eakes’ summer at EMF? The Alexander Technique and body mapping, two ways to reduce the chance of injury, which he learned under the tutelage of EMF instructor Shawn Copeland, also a clarinetist. “If you feel a burning sensation in your arms while playing and decide to continue playing for that last hour of practice, it is very possible that you will face injuries such as tendonitis or others that could have an impact on you for the rest of your life,” Eakes says. “Dr. Copeland introduced a mixture of both old and new concepts pertaining to the human body that were very helpful.” The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Artists at Work
Eakes, 22, also used his EMF experience to strengthen other parts of his musical game. For example, he learned — and would advise future EMF students — that it’s always best to listen to a piece of symphonic music before you practice it. “Especially with orchestral repertoire, it is so much easier to understand your own part when you have provided yourself with the context within which your part will fit,” he advises.
Diane Phoenix-Neal, viola
Diane Phoenix-Neal attended EMF as a student in 1979 and 1980 and has served on its faculty since 1998. She also studied at the Juilliard School, UNC School of the Arts and UNC Greensboro, where she recently earned a Ph.D. in musical arts. Now a professor at Central College in Iowa, she spent eight years in France, where she was the principal violist in the Orchestre de Picardie and a member of the prestigious Joachim Quartet. Although Phoenix-Neal hails from Greensboro, she boarded at Guilford College during her EMF years. Her festival experiences initially took some getting used to, as they were her first extended stay away from home. However, she soon warmed to EMF and seldom ventured off campus. There was simply too much to do, whether it was an orchestra rehearsal in the morning, a master class in the afternoon or a concert or sectional rehearsal in the evening. And there was simply too much to learn, such as the thensurprising insight that the orchestra should be approached as if it were “one large instrument.” Phoenix-Neal remembers a camp vibrating with such energy that even a free moment became an opportunity for her and other students to gather under oaks and perform chamber music. “We would make our own impromptu, underground concerts,” PhoenixNeal, 48, recalls. “I think the faculty had their own, too.”
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22 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Artists at Work For Phoenix-Neal, EMF was a transformative experience: “I believe coming to EMF allowed me to expand my vision of my life with music,” she says. “It enabled me to surge forward with my training.” To this day, that training, which finds an echo in how Phoenix-Neal teaches, reflects a philosophy to listen hard and play every note with clarity. “Every note you play is significant,” she says.
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Shelley Weiss, violin
Wearing a kilt and a poison-green T-shirt touting Dogfish Head raspberry ale, Shelley Weiss does not look anything like a classically trained musician. But at the end of one of BarleyJuice’s raucous and ale-centric songs, Weiss takes a moment to tell the foot-tapping crowd at the Triad Highland Games how much she enjoyed her stay in Greensboro while attending the Eastern Music Festival in 1987. “It may have been the summer of my greatest musical growth, playing with a group of incredible people,” Weiss, 45, says as she takes a break from her violin between sets accompanying Kyf Brewer’s whiskey-soaked vocals. What she valued most from that summer, when she was 19 and had just completed her freshman year at the Cleveland Institute of Music, was “being in the presence of top flight soloists and teachers who played for us and gave us master classes,” often one-on-one. Weiss particularly remembers renowned Japanese classical violinist Nobuko Imai and Russian-Jewish-born classical violin soloist Josef Gingold. Under their tutelage, Weiss remembers playing as the principal violinist in an impassioned performance of Shostakovitch’s gripping Symphony No. 5. Which is a long way from fiddling to the strains of BarleyJuice’s bagpipes, bouzouki, mandolin and penny whistle. After earning a degree in viola from Rutgers University and spending a couple of years in Vienna, Austria, playing with various orchestras, Weiss says, “My heart began to yearn for alternate styles, whether jazz, blues, bluegrass or Celtic.” Over the years, performing sometimes with orchestras and other times with bands, Weiss has played and recorded with Stereolab, the Frames, Poi Dog Pondering, mewithoutYou and the Empty Hats, being named the State of Florida Fiddle Champion along the way. Then, three years ago, she switched to Celtic, joining BarleyJuice. “I love fiddling,” she says, “and I love singing. And you definitely cannot sing along with a symphony orchestra.” OH Eastern Music Festival, (336) 333-7450, easternmusicfestival.org Ken Keuffel, who lives in Winston-Salem, has been writing about classical music and other arts since 1989. He can be reached at KKeuffel@gmail.com
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June 2013
O.Henry 23
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The Omnivorous Reader
War as it Was
A fine oral history of the war in the Pacific, grizzled vets finally have their say
By Stephen E. Smith
As the Greatest
Generation has aged out, the megabuck purveyors of pop culture have worked overtime producing nonfiction books, documentaries and movies honoring the service of our World War II vets. Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan earned $485 million at the box office. Stephen Ambrose’s best-selling Band of Brothers became the basis for a 2001 blockbuster HBO miniseries, and after Ambrose’s death, his son Hugh wrote The Pacific as an accompaniment to an HBO miniseries set in the Pacific theater. In 2007, Ken Burns’ slightly less commercial documentary The War dominated PBS from May through July. And lord knows how many books have been published on the subject during the last decade. The latest entry in this commercial stampede is Adam Makos and Marcus Brotherton’s Voices of the Pacific, a distillation of the recollections of fifteen Marines who experienced some of the bitterest fighting in the Pacific. No doubt many readers will be attracted to Voices after having read Makos’ A Higher Call, the moving story of an encounter between a German fighter ace and the crew of an American B-17 in the skies over Germany. But Voices shares little in common with A Higher Call, and stands apart from most commercially published WWII histories in that it’s almost purely an oral account of the fighting in the Pacific during the early 1940s. The veterans speak for themselves, and the editors intrude with a brief paragraph or footnote when necessary, which isn’t often. Oddly enough, readers accustomed to superbly crafted prose and meticulously structured narratives will likely find this oral approach refreshing. A
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description, however anecdotal, offered by a participant in a battle or military campaign is as primary as a source can get. Moreover, these veterans have earned the right to tell their stories in their own words, and there’s a cynical folksiness and raw energy implicit in what they have to say. It’s reasonable to conclude that oral histories are easily compiled — sit down with a vet and switch on the tape recorder — but such compilations present their own set of challenges. The editors of Voices had to figure out how to structure the narrative. Informants recount fragments of stories and often talk in circles, relating events out of sequence and occasionally wandering off the subject altogether. Makos and Brotherton have overcome these difficulties by carefully editing out material that doesn’t move the narrative forward. As Makos writes in his much-too-brief introduction, “Together we did countless hours of interviews, editing, and shuffling the parts of the book together like a jigsaw puzzle.” And they’ve done a credible job. Even so, their efforts don’t always result in a coherent storyline. Since interviews lack detailed description and character development, readers may occasionally find themselves confused as to who was where and when. And, too, many passages are only a few sentences in length — “They brought up bread to us. We thought it was seeded rye bread. It wasn’t rye bread — it was goddamn fleas.” These frequent shifts in point of view, however colorful, interrupt the narrative flow. And the written word can’t project inflection, depriving the reader of the information needed to fully appreciate many of the passages. Of course there’s always the question of veracity. It’s human to tell what should have been rather than what was, and after spinning a yarn enough times, storytellers emphasize the elements that made the previous tellings compelling. Makos attempts to assuage these minor misgivings by stating in his introduction: “. . . in this book, the gloves are off — for Sid Phillips and all our contributors. They agreed to participate because we made them a promise: In this book, you can tell it as it was.” And that’s what these grizzled vets do. They grouse about the difficulties of surviving in a tropical climate where the temperature is 100 degrees at night and fresh water is scarce. They recall in vivid detail the festering monsoon islands where disease and scant rations encouraged dysentery and jungle rot. “Cape Gloucester was like going to sleep and having a nightmare June 2013
O.Henry 25
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26 O.Henry
June 2013
that wasn’t even real . . . You felt like you were sent there to die and that was about the size of it.” In some cases they refute old rumors or correct long-held misconceptions, as with the much-repeated stories regarding the Marines’ sexual prowess and the virtue of the Australian women who befriended them: “People let their imaginations run wild when they think of us. Marines romancing the Australian girls. I’d say most of the relationships were old-fashioned and nonsexual. They were good girls and we respected that.” Or they disagree on the effectiveness of the .30 caliber carbine and the relative merits of the 1911 colt .45. The more startling passages reveal the horrors of war. “There was a blown-up Japanese tank there, next to us. It had taken a direct hit from some kind of shell. I looked inside, and what I saw couldn’t be put on paper. Severed heads. Two on the floor. One guy’s arm is off. All blood, everywhere. Everybody dead.” From Pearl Harbor and boot camp through the battles with the Japanese on Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu and Okinawa, to their return home and their lives after V-J Day, these vets bring to life the horrors of war and joys of an earned peace. Voices of the Pacific also offers a couple of North Carolina connections. Mobile, Alabama native Sid Phillips, a veteran of Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester, was enrolled at UNC-Chapel Hill on V-J Day when students poured out of the dorms and started a fire in the middle of Franklin Street. “They kept adding to the bonfire until it became gigantic,” he says. “It must have been thirty feet across. It burned up the traffic light in the middle of the street. Everyone was jumping up and down and cheering.” And longtime North Carolina resident Richard Greer, also a veteran of Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester, never shies away from the truth. “About 1 a.m. it was like the hordes of hell were turned loose. The Japanese were all over the damn place. They were hopped on some kind of damn drug, throwing dynamite, throwing hand grenades, wielding swords and rifles. They were screaming and yelling ‘Banzai!’ ‘Kikiboo!’ ‘Marines you die!’ ‘Blood for the emperor!’ and derogatory things about Eleanor Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, and all that kind of crap. We would yell back. ‘Eat shit, Jap!’ It was a little low, but some Jap screamed at us, ‘Screw Eleanor!’ and some Marine yelled back, ‘You screw her! I don’t want it!’” Makos assures us that these are men who “give us one last tale, one last time.” That’s exactly what we get. OH Stephen E. Smith’s most recent book of poems is A Short Report on the Fire at Woolworths. He can be reached at travisses@hotmail.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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The Wine Guy
The Art of Porch Sipping A host of great summer wines will make any gathering special, indoors or out
By TC Frazier
“Summertime
and the living is easy.” A bit trite, perhaps, but that seems to be the mantra that flows through the very essence of this wonderful time of year. Time to slow down and smell the proverbial roses. Time to make those annual pilgrimages to the coast, mountains or just your favorite rocking chair. Even the most mundane of chores can be an excuse to grab a favorite beverage. From lemonade to wine, we tend to stick to what is, well, easy. In other words, what we know and feel comfortable with — varietals such as chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and pinot gris/grigio — all of which make great porch sippers. But what if I were to tell you there are other white varietals, such as albariño, torrontés and grüner veltliner, that taste as if they were bottled expressly for summer?
While Spain makes more varietals than I can pronounce, albariño, to me, is the queen of white grapes grown in this majestic wine-producing country. Not to disparage the array of other Spanish white varietals, nothing gets me going more than this zesty, fresh grape. Albariño is a small, green, thick-skinned grape that resists fungal disease in the particularly damp climate of the renowned Riίas Baixas (ree-ahs-buy-shuss) wine-growing region in northwest Spain. Albariño is a low-yielding vine and therefore expensive to grow. It is also one of the few Spanish white grape varieties carrying its own designation on the label. Most often fermented in stainless steel for early drinking, albariño is a versatile grape. It is also extensively grown in Portugal and can be found to a lesser extent in both Australia and the United States.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Torrontés is produced almost exclusively in Argentina and has an incomparable flavor. Grown across all the winemaking regions of the country, from Salta to Río Negro, it has become an icon among Argentinian white wines. Salta, to the far north of the country, is now building a strong international reputation due to the region’s unique microclimate. Vineyards grow at 9,840 feet above sea level, with very scarce rainfall. These conditions allow for exceptional development of grapevines. The result is a light yellow wine that is occasionally graced with golden and green hues. Its aroma is reminiscent of roses, jasmine and geraniums. In the mouth it is pure fruit salad, sometimes with touches of honey, oregano and even white pepper. Its aromas suggest a sweet wine but its taste reveals a refreshing acidity. Torrontés is perfect as a refreshing start to a meal. Or pair it with anything from delicate shellfish to spicy and aromatic Indian, Chinese and Thai cuisine. As Austria’s national grape, grüner veltliner (groo-ner velt-leen-er) is as fun to drink as it is to say. With over a third of all vineyards planted with this variety, grüner, as it’s often called, is not just a refreshing beverage, but a way of life. It started getting some recognition in the U.S. in the early ’90s in chic restaurants and sushi spots. And with the high acidity in the wine, it only seems to accentuate whatever you’re eating, from fresh salads and quinoa to more heavily spiced foods. Grüner has an inviting range of aromas from fresh, green apple to juicy tropical fruit, from white pepper to mineral-laden nuances on the nose. Grüner is typically a medium-bodied wine that can cover the spectrum of dry to off-dry in style. Right now is such a great time to be a consumer of wine. Twenty years ago, the average wine shop would probably not have any wines from places such as Austria, New Zealand and South Africa — and probably only a handful from South America and Spain. Now they are as commonplace as cabernet sauvignon from California, whether due to wine shops wanting to be the first on the block to introduce these intriguing varietals or due to their absolute deliciousness. So while the ever-present chardonnay will be there in every store, next time you’re shopping for wine, try something a bit left of center. Who knows, you might impress a friend or two. Cheers! OH TC Frazier lives in Greensboro and has been in the hospitality business since he was 14. He currently is employed with Tryon Distributors. June 2013
O.Henry 29
Street Level
Daddy George, Robed and Raging
The fire and brimstone of Klansman preacher George Dorsett, a secret FBI informant, lives on only in a powerful film and a set of hidden robes
By Jim Schlosser
Dolley yes.
Photograph Courtesy of Michael Frierson
George no. Well, sort of.
As everyone who has been to the Greensboro Historical Museum lately knows, our city is proud of the garments worn by First Lady Dolley Madison. However, the museum might not be quite as enthusiastic about being the curator of the robes and a security guard uniform worn by George Dorsett while he was active in the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina. But the items are part of the region’s history. Without any publicity or fanfare and with no immediate plans to exhibit them, they were purchased from Dorsett in 2007 before his death in early 2008. During the 1960s and early 1970s, George Dorsett of Greensboro was a feared man. He was the grand kludd (chaplain) of the United Klans of America and later grand dragon of the Knights of the Confederate Klans of America. He whipped up crowds during torchlight rallies in cornfields. In 1957, he jeered at the first five black students attending an all-white school in North Carolina when they enrolled at Greensboro’s Gillespie Park School. Dorsett wasn’t even a good neighbor. He kept the Glenwood neighborhood enraged. He and others thundered motorcycles up and down the streets at all hours. When neighbors complained, this man of the gospel threatened to turn loose a rattlesnake. He was always good for an inflammatory quote when news people ap-
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
proached him, which was often. During those years Dorsett seemed to be everywhere potential trouble lurked. In the end, he fooled everybody except FBI special agent Dargan Frierson of Greensboro. All the while Dorsett was railing against black people and communists, he was informing Frierson of Klan activities in North Carolina. The FBI paid him handsomely for the information. When Dorsett feuded with the United Klans grand dragon and departed, Frierson helped Dorsett establish the rival Confederate Knights organization. The FBI paid for stationery, pamphlets and other expenses. The government even picked up the tab for a pamphlet that featured a racist joke. Buy the pamphlet, the Klan said, and $1 will be donated to the NAACP, making the holder of the
pamphlet an honorary n - - - - -. Make no mistake. George wasn’t pretending to be a Klansman. He was a member of the Klan before he became an FBI informer in the 1950s. But he hoped that being an informer might hold Klan violence in check. He didn’t believe, as some Klansmen did, in burning down black churches or houses owned by black people. “George is hard to define,” Dargan Frierson said in a 2007 interview with his son, Michael Frierson, a UNCG faculty member who made a superb documentary about his father and Dorsett. It is called the “FBI KKK” and premiered in 2011. However defined, Dorsett got results. Dargan Frierson said the FBI learned June 2013
O.Henry 31
Street Level the Klan was planning to burn down a black Burlington church. Dorsett succeeded in quashing the plan by telling his fellow Klansmen that someone had tipped him that the FBI knew about the scheme and would be waiting. Didn’t anyone in the Klan ever become suspicious of Dorsett? “All trusted me,” the then-90-year-old Dorsett told me in 2007, when he lived in a run-down mobile home near Asheboro. “I was Daddy George. They didn’t doubt me a bit.” He said he had no qualms about taunting the black students at Gillespie. “They shouldn’t have been there.” During the interview Dorsett kept a Bible open to passages he said proved the Lord was against race mixing. One of Dorsett’s Klan highlights came in the 1960s when he and other Klansmen refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee about Klan activity. The committee cited them for contempt. The FBI had paid Dorsett’s way to Washington. The bureau discreetly made sure that Dorsett’s contempt charge wouldn’t be acted upon. The only words Dorsett uttered that day were to admonish the committee for not opening the session with a prayer. Dorsett spent many years scrounging for money after he was outed unintentionally in 1975 as a Klan informer during a congressional hearing. That ended the lucrative relationship with the FBI and caused the Confederate Knights of the Klan to collapse. Dorsett had a good deal going. While he was with the United Klans, the organization paid him a reported $150 a week as a chaplain who could electrify crowds. The FBI is said to have slipped him generous sums, up to $500, for information. Until the end of his life, he earned a few bucks preaching at small churches.
“George Dorsett,” says Michael Frierson today, “was an amazing ‘fire and brimstone’ preacher who could really whip up a crowd. My dad says that during the 1960s Dorsett was an extremely valuable informant for the FBI, and he always gave very reliable information to the bureau. And his information was critical to the FBI’s effort to keep down Klan violence in North Carolina.” Dorsett recognized his role in the state’s history. Needing money, he sold the robes and security guard uniform to the historical museum for a reported $1,500. That was low compared with the $10,000 he got for robes and other items from the N.C. Museum of History. Michael Frierson said Dorsett used the state money for dental work for his son. In 2012, Dorsett’s grandson sold some Klan items — pamphlets, membership cards, the booklet containing the racist joke and other items — to the city-owned historical museum for $300. If you’re concerned city tax money paid for the historical museum artifacts, don’t be. The money came from the nonprofit Greensboro Historical Museum Inc., whose dues-paying members promote the museum and help it to enhance the vast collection of items by donations and fundraising events like last year’s Dinner With O.Henry, a gala at the O.Henry Hotel. The museum’s private incorporated arm owns the museum’s collection. Like it or not, the stuff is part of our ugly past that needs remembering. OH Jim Schlosser is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. He can be reached at jim@ohenrymag.com.
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Life of Jane
Sand in Our Shoes Swept up in the high drama with ice cream on the line
By Jane Borden
Rarely did I wake in advance
Illustration by Meridith Martens
of the golf cart and its morning-alarm song. Almost always, however, the cart itself stirred me — its tinny travailing engine, the rumble of wheels over grass and sand — before the wail of its driver. “Get up, get up, get up everybody — WHOOO — get out of that bed, you sleepyhead. I know you’re still in that sack.” At this point, Cap’n Purcell (Purcell Jones), the leader and owner of Camp Morehead by the Sea, in Morehead City, would shout a name or two of campers or counselors inside. “Caroline? I know you’re still in that bed! Sarah? Get up, get up, get up everybody . . . ” The last few words grew quieter, a Doppler effect as he drove to the next building.
If your name had been shouted, it might mean that Cap’n liked you. But more often it meant you’d recently been in trouble (always the case if the name shouted was a counselor’s), so now he had the right to pick on you publicly. Then again, good-natured ribbing also meant he liked you. Whose name had he shouted and why? Was she flattered or embarrassed? We thought these things were very important. Sometimes if you rose early and waited outside for the cart, Cap’n would let you ride along for the remainder of his wake-up route — including the boys’ cabins. “Howdy! I know you’re still in that bed!” Howdy’s name was always shouted. Even if Howdy, a counselor, wasn’t in trouble, he was always kind of in trouble, a source of humor and adoration among the campers. Howdy was very important. After waking, we all dressed and filed to the dining hall for breakfast, where Cap’n announced each cabin’s assigned activities. This was a bit of a pump fake, though, as the fun didn’t start until after inspection.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Every day we cleaned those cabins. And each morning they were full of sand again. To keep us from grasping the Sisyphean nature of our task, Cap’n promised an end-of-session ice cream party to the cabin with the highest cumulative inspection scores. Game on. The sink was the easiest responsibility on the chore wheel: a small enclosed space that was only ever studded with toothpaste. Someone checked the clothesline, bringing in anything dry. Someone made sure the cubbies were orderly. There were also the latrines and showers, of course, jobs shared with ambassadors from the other cabins in the building. The hardest task was the floor. No matter how much one swept, she could still feel sand under her feet. Shoes were ceremoniously discarded at the beginning of each camp session, so the inspectors didn’t need eyeballs to sense sand. And there was no point in sweeping at the beginning, as girls coming in and out, executing their own chores, would track the sand back in. Furthermore, if the cabin next door swept after yours, its lines of sand would inevitably find their way into your doorway. So the camper assigned to the floor always waited until she could see the inspectors crossing the lawn. Then she moved swiftly and stressfully. It was high drama, an ice-cream party on the line. Everyone in the cabin pitched in, sliding around to locate missed spots or following behind dusting baby powder to soften the floor’s touch. If a sandy spot were located after the inspectors’ arrival, a camper would leap onto the mine, as it were, standing on the spot in hopes that the inspectors wouldn’t step there. As we aged and began occupying the higher-numbered cabins, we put less effort into inspection. We came to understand that the counselors were only pretending to be strict. We noticed that when they stood in the corners and whispered, they were actually joking about the previous night’s antics in town. We realized that we could have ice cream whenever we wanted, and that, anyway, it wasn’t that great. But as kids we thought these things were very important. And I suppose they were. OH Jane Borden is a native of Greensboro and the author of the highlyacclaimed memoir I Totally Meant To Do That. June 2013
O.Henry 35
36 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Sporting Life
The Birth of a Fish Tale Chased by cold and rain, our man in the field finally found his place in the sun, and a trophy bass
By Tom Bryant
Linda and I decided to
do our annual spring camping/fishing trip a little differently this year. First of all, the weather around here had been blowing and rainy for most of February and, unfortunately, continued into March. Secondly, we were about two weeks behind in our plans because of unexpected responsibilities that we had to take care of before we could depart. Traditionally, we would head straight to Florida with just a few stops along the way, eventually ending up at Chocoloskee Island below Everglades City. This trip, we decided to start at Wilmington, camp a few days at the KOA down the road from Wrightsville Beach and take in the Cape Fear Wildlife Expo being held downtown at the new Convention and Business Center.
The Wildlife Expo was great. Our curiosity was piqued the night before we were to attend when we met the campers at the site right across from us. John Tanner, a champion turkey call carver, and his bride, Elaine, who creates beautiful tapestries and pine straw baskets, gave us the scoop about the Expo. They were participants in the event and had a booth where they sold their wares. We got the scoop from John that evening as to where to go, where to park, and the best time to get there to avoid the big crowds. John and Elaine also have an Airstream, a 32-footer, a lot larger than our little Bambi, so we were comrades in camping. As Elaine so aptly put it, “I’ve never met an Airstreamer that I didn’t like.” The Convention Center is located right beside the Cape Fear River and is the largest one on the North Carolina coast. There were at least two hundred booths displaying fishing exhibits, wildlife art, decoys, boats, camping supplies, taxidermy, hunting and fishing guides, almost anything an outdoor person could use or want to see. Everything was located in and around the picturesque building. We enjoyed the event for a couple of days, then hooked up the little Airstream and headed on down the coast. Next stop, Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina. The weather remained uncooperative, being too cold and windy to fish, so we pointed our rig toward our next stop, Mt. Pleasant, right outside Charleston, where we met friends who were also camping, and waited out this unseasonable cold snap. We seemed to be following the frosty front that was heading south and, after a couple of nights in Mt. Pleasant, we decided to jump The Art & Soul of Greensboro
ahead of it and motor to Tybee Island, below Savannah. Surely it would be warmer there. Our fishing /camping trip had turned into nothing but camping, and cold camping at that. I had yet to unlimber a rod. Tybee Island was new to us, and we found out pretty quickly that the little town was more a tourist destination than a haven for fishermen. Plus, the storm had followed us south and we had to stay over for an additional night until the torrential rain moved away. As we sat around the little kitchen table in the Airstream listening to the rain and looking at the atlas for a spot in Florida that might be dry, and more importantly, warm, I said, “I know. Let’s go to Astor and the St. Johns River.” Mother’s old winter place is located there but hasn’t been used for years. “We can’t stay at the house in Astor but we can camp nearby and check things out, maybe get a guide for the river.” Two days later, I unhooked the Airstream at a campground right outside Deland, maybe a twenty-minute ride to Astor and the St. Johns River. We had a lot of daylight left, so I told Linda that I was going to do a little reconnoitering. She wanted to do some laundry and finish the book she was reading. Astor, Florida, a small crossroad town, or in this case, river town, is located on Highway 40, a designated Scenic Highway that matches its description. It had been several years since I visited Mother’s house, much less the river where I used to do a lot of fishing with my grandfather. I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled into the driveway because the grounds of the old place were in great shape. Mother had contracted with a neighbor to take care of the mowing and to look after the trees and shrubs, and he was doing a good job. Unfortunately, though, the house needed a lot of TLC. This would be a great job for Tommy, our son, I thought as I walked around the building. Or maybe not. Tom is a contractor in the mountains and too often we forget he has a living to make and can’t run to whatever project his mother or I would like him to do. As I was getting ready to drive to the boat landing, a pair of sandhill cranes landed in the yard close to the highway. They were beautiful and were the first I’d seen since canoeing through the Okefenokee Swamp. This is a good sign, I thought. The public boat landing had changed. I remembered it as a white sand drive cut in the palmetto bushes, with a narrow slanted opening to the water. Now it was paved with a parking area for vehicles and trailers. I pulled into a slot, parked and walked to the bank. The black water flowed lazily toward the north, and I watched as hyacinths were carried along with the current. The landing is just below The Black Water Inn and Marina, where my father used to keep his little skiff. A boat was coming around the bend from that direction and it looked like a small duplicate of Bogart’s “African Queen,” even sounding like his ancient steam June 2013
O.Henry 37
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The Sporting Life engine. It rattled up to the landing and an old guy walked to the bow with the bowline. “Hey, Bud, hold this for me, would you?” I caught the tossed rope and pulled the bow as close to the bank as I could. “Thank you, sir,” he said as he climbed out over the port bow, an ancient tackle box in his hand. “You a fisherman?” The grizzled, sun-worn fella looked ageless. He had a hat pulled close over his eyes and coveralls that had seen their best days. “I wish,” I replied. “My wife and I are camping close to Orange City. I just rode over here to see how everything has changed. I used to fish the river with my grandfather.” “Well,” the old guy replied, “you’re not gonna get any younger. Take it from me. I’ve tried. So if you want to fish, fish.” I watched as he walked across the parking lot to an ancient, four-wheel drive, dually Mack truck. He put the tackle box on the floor in the front seat and came back to the boat. I was still holding the bowline. He took it from me and tied it to a cinder block he had retrieved from the bed of his truck for a makeshift anchor. “I want to show you something. Come aboard.” I stepped over the bow into the old skiff. It had seen many years of use but was well cared for. The amidship’s gas engine was still putt-putting along in neutral. He pointed to a live well that was on the starboard side of the stern. “Look in the well.” I slowly lifted the lid and peered in at the black water that was swirling from side to side. It looked as if something big was in there. “Wait a minute,” the old fisherman said. “I’ll get it.” He stepped around me, leaned over, reached in the cavernous box, and pulled out the biggest bass I’d ever seen. “What do you think?” he said, smiling because I had stepped back a step or two. “Good night nurse!” I replied. “That thing is huge, how much does it weigh?” “Not much, maybe thirteen or fourteen pounds. I’m gonna take her back up to Lake George and turn her loose. You wanta ride?” “I can’t. I’ve got to get back to camp, but I sure want a rain check.” “OK, Sport. I like the way you look and you handled that bowline just right. Here’s my card.” He pulled a bedraggled card from the front of his coveralls, smiled at me and said, “Get yourself a three-day fishing license from Walmart. Call me tonight between 8 and 9 o’clock. We’ll go fishing tomorrow, and I’ll tell you about that bass you just saw.” I did and he did. And what a story! A fish story worth telling, and I hope to tell it to you pretty soon. OH Tom Bryant, who graduated from Elon and lived in Alamance County for decades, is a lifelong outdoorsman and O.Henry’s Sporting Life columnist. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 39
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June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Last Pitch
Game On
Will Greensboro’s Wes Ferrell, arguably the most dominant major league pitcher of Depression-era America, ever reach the Hall of Fame? We hope so. Here’s why
By Jim Schlosser
Be it an umpire or a brick building, Wes Ferrell gave them hell.
Years ago, when I was a young reporter with the News & Record, the retired Major League pitcher and slugger called enraged about a company on West Market Street extension, near the tank farm. The %$#& plant, Ferrell declared, was polluting his fishing lakes. Ferrell and his wife, Lois, lived in an idyllic, isolated place — surrounded by industry and businesses. He called his haven Weslo-Willows, a remnant of the farm where Ferrell grew up in a large family. It had several ponds built with fishing in mind, one of Ferrell’s passions. Few people knew about Weslo-Willows. It couldn’t be seen from West Market extension. Later that day, I stood with Ferrell in front of an industrial building, up a hill above his property. He proceeded to harangue brick and mortar with a long string of profanities. He had already chewed out, to no avail, the humans who worked in the building. Back in his home, he regained his composure with a drink of whiskey, while seated in a room loaded with baseball paraphernalia from his years in the Big Leagues. From 1927 to early 1941, Ferrell had played mostly with the Cleveland Indians and Boston Rex Sox, with brief stints with the old Washington Senators, New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves. Never has such a versatile athlete come out of Guilford County. He once shot a seventy-three in golf at the Greensboro Country Club’s difficult Farm Course while wearing bedroom slippers because he was suffering from gout. Wes went pro after a stint attending old Guilford High School (now Western Guilford) and Oak Ridge Military Institute (now Academy), while his brother, Rick, went to Guilford College before becoming a professional player. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Wes was a shrewd investor, with property and a home in Florida. He also was in business with Rick, marketing a product called Ferrell Bros. Big League Dog Food, made in Greensboro. Baseball had paid him well, considering he played during the Depression, but, characteristically, he would likely disagree with me. He once publicly called the owner of the Senators a cheapskate. But baseball robbed him of an honor he — and others — thought he richly deserved: induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. His record has greatness all over it. He was in his prime from the late ’20s to the late ’30s. Playing for mediocre teams, he won twenty or more games four straight seasons and twenty or more in two other seasons. Twice, he won twenty-five games, a milestone few pitchers achieve regardless of the era in which they played. Ferrell threw a no-hitter. During most of the 1930s, he led American League pitchers in complete games — those in which the pitcher starts and finishes the game. Besides his stellar pitching, Ferrell had another attribute that separated him from other pitchers of his time — and those of today. He was able to hit the ball out of the park again and again. Some seventy-two years after he last played a Major League game, Ferrell still holds the record for smashing the most home runs by a pitcher in a season, nine. He also holds the record for the most career home runs by a pitcher, thirty-seven. (The figure is technically thirty-eight, but a homer he hit while playing the outfield one day wasn’t counted.) His batting average was often higher than .300, considered excellent in any era. His career home runs top that of his brother. Rick Ferrell was a catcher from 1929 to 1947 for five teams but hit only twenty-eight homers, though he racked up lots of singles, doubles and triples. Plus, he was a master behind the plate. For five years he played on the same Boston Red Sox Team as Wes — a brother throwing to his brother. Rick, unlike Wes, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1984. As a Red Sox player, Rick hit one of his rare homers off his brother, June 2013
O.Henry 41
Game On who was playing for Cleveland at the time. Wes was steamed but responded by homering his next time at bat, with his brother crouched behind the plate. In case you don’t follow baseball closely, pitchers are notoriously lousy hitters. In Ferrell’s era they only went to the plate when they pitched, every fourth game (now every fifth game). They spent their time perfecting their fastballs, curves and sliders. They had little use for the batting cage. So bad were pitchers at the plate that in 1973 the American League inaugurated the designated hitter, a stand-in batter who goes to bat instead of the pitcher. The teams Ferrell played for would never have considered sending a substitute to hit for him. Indeed, they occasionally used him as a pinch hitter, letting him bat for another player. A number of times he homered as a pinch hitter. In one game against Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees, Ferrell hurled his team to victory and belted two home runs. His pitching arm, which started giving him problems in 1937, forced him into retirement in 1941. Ever since then, those who decide which players end up in the Hall of Fame have consistently snubbed Wes Ferrell. He last came up for consideration in 2012. Again, the committee of former players and sports writers denied him, posthumously, the votes needed for induction. He could come up again in 2015. Why? Freddy Berowski, reference librarian at the Hall of Fame, says it’s impossible to say conclusively what has kept Ferrell out of the hall. He says other pitchers of Ferrell’s time with admirable records aren’t in the hall either. (Those pitchers couldn’t hit, however.) He says the decision-making process of committee members is complex and unknowable.
Dan Holmes, a baseball historian, speculates, “Had he pitched for the Yankees in his prime . . . Ferrell may have inducted years ago, but he was relegated to so-so teams.” Dick Thompson, in an article “Greatness Overlooked,” written for a baseball history publication, says Ferrell “was an impact player in the truest sense of the word. He could dominate a game with either his arm or his bat.” A book, The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time, published in 1981, saw fit to include Wes Ferrell. His biggest booster for the Hall of Fame was his brother, Rick. At his own induction into the Hall of Fame, “most of Rick’s speech was about Wes not being inducted,” says S. Richard (Rick) Ferrell of Greensboro, a nephew of both players. The younger Ferrell guesses the chances of Wes ever making it to the hall are about 20 percent. People on the selection committee are too young to remember Wes as a player. Wes’ contemporaries are dead, and they didn’t support him years ago when his name came up for the hall. Some baseball people are convinced that Wes Ferrell’s temperament initially contributed to keeping him out of the Hall of Fame. Rick rarely lost his cool and was respectful of teammates, managers and the press. Wes, on the other hand, as historian Holmes points out, was not well-liked by reporters and others who might have drummed up Hall of Fame support for him. He yelled at teammates when they made mistakes. Umpires routinely ejected him from games. On at least two occasions, when he was pitching poorly, he refused to hand
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Game On the ball to a manager who came to the mound to take him out of the game. He was fined for one instance, suspended for the other. Sometimes, Wes quit a game in disgust before the manager was ready to remove him. He once became so angry after leaving a game, he trashed the locker room. Another time, he could be seen punching himself in the jaw and smashing his head against the concrete dugout. He was a perpetual complainer and regularly turned the air blue with his profanity. One Greensboro man remembers Wes getting so mad during a card game, he picked up the deck with his powerful hands and snapped it in two. Some who knew him were irritated by him, others found his fits of fury entertaining, though he certainly did not mean them to be funny. Baseball was part of Wes’ DNA. After retiring from the Majors and returning to Guilford County, he became a player/manager from 1941 to 1948 with various Minor League clubs in the Carolinas and Virginia. He made Minor League baseball seem like Little League. In one season while playing outfield and managing the Lynchburg, Virginia, team, he hit thirty-one homers in 123 games and had a batting average of .361. As late as 1948, while managing and playing for Marion in North Carolina, he hit twenty-four home runs and batted .425. Few players on any level of baseball have ever achieved a .400 batting average. But darn that temper. Nephew Rick Ferrell remembers when he was about 10 he accompanied Wes to a game played by a Virginia team that his uncle managed. He played for the team in the outfield. It was supposed to be a stimulating and wholesome experience for young Rick. After all, how many kids ever get to sit in a dugout with a pro team? Leave it to Wes to make it unwholesome. His uncle decided that the umpires were doing a lousy job and proceeded to raise holy hell. Finally, he became so fed up, he waved his players off the field and sent them home. His nephew remembers Wes was fined about $5,000 for shortening the game. Wes was just being Wes, as he was that day outside the plant that was ruining his fishing hole. Rick was 89 when he died in 1995. Wes died at age 68 in 1976, in Florida. Ironically, the fiery Wes Ferrell is buried in a place with plenty of pacifists, New Garden Friends Cemetery, across from Guilford College. His brother also is buried there. Wes’ fishing lakes now serve as a backdrop for an apartment complex called Weslo-Willows. The last time I saw Wes Ferrell he was his usual obnoxious self. He was in line at a cafeteria at Quaker Village Shopping Center. I and everyone else in the place could hear his booming voice. “Give me one of them steaks,” he thundered at the server. After a pause, he bellowed, “Give me two of ’em.” OH The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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44 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Pleasures of Life Dept.
The Uninvited Guest Summer weddings flourish in the Greensboro Arboretum. And so do I
By Emily Frazier Brown
My first apartment
was in the middle of town, across from the Greensboro Arboretum. I lived in a tiny bedroom with a messy roommate and her cat, Jack, who had a habit of getting stuck in the dishwasher and chewing on my hair. I only notice these things in retrospect — at the time, I was too in love with my hardwood floors and how I could come home at 3 a.m. without having to explain myself to anyone the next day.
I quickly made a home out of the Arboretum, developing a Sunday routine in which I took a walk past the rose garden and over the bridge, settled on the picnic table by the basketball court and enjoyed a nap. The magic isn’t quite found in the number of strangers who congregate to play a game of pickup or even in the laughter of children on the swing set nearby, but in the constant rotation of events in which people open up their lives to this somewhat hidden Greensboro neighborhood. At Christmastime, the Girl Scouts line the entire walkway with luminarias, and just as summer arrives you can enjoy any evening at one of the overlooks to watch the parade of high school juniors and seniors taking their prom pictures. Mostly though, my joy is in the weddings. I ended a long-term relationship during my time in that apartment, and after the typical period of hoarding mediocre romantic comedies and a jar of peanut butter, I began to find ways to distract myself. When there were weddings I would put on a bright red sundress, with spaghetti straps and a lifted waist — I read in a magazine that it made me appear laid back and approachable, so it was a must-have — and enjoy a barefoot stroll through the park, settling in a seat toward the back and mingling briefly with strangers who assumed I was a distant relative or friend. I learned to let other people introduce themselves first. Oh, you went to college with Carl? Yeah, I’m friends with her. She’s great. Oh, how did we meet? I went to camp with her. Yeah, after she moved from Oklahoma. Oh, I guess it is kind of weird to go to camp when you’re 19, but you know — we worked there. Actually, yes, a drink would be great. Then it happened. I knew this day was different, because I was wearing
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
purple instead of red. My hair was up, I chose lemonade over sweet tea, and I had skipped First Friday downtown the night before to play Scrabble in my pajamas — so I already expected some kind of cosmic retribution. Still, the groomsmen were wearing bow ties and I ended my run early for fear of overheating on Bryan Boulevard. So I made my way to my little apartment on Ashland and I got ready for the wedding just in time. I took a seat by a redhead who was notably alone and gracious with compliments. He began to ask the normal set of questions. Bob, the groom, was a teammate in junior high school, but they didn’t get along. It wasn’t until they lost an epic battle with the upperclassmen and their super soakers that they learned to appreciate one another. They went to school in Raleigh together after graduating, cheated off the same overzealous freshmen and settled down in the same city for work. I once again met “her” at a summer camp, where we worked together. No, it wasn’t local. Why, I can’t quite recall the name. The music started, the bride was coming around the corner, and he was beginning to crack up. It was then that I noticed that she, too, had beautiful red hair. She was painted in freckles, about his height and being escorted by yet another tall redhead. They stole a wave to one another and then he looked back in my direction as I cursed the universe for not allowing me to stop breathing in that moment. “We’re great friends now,” Unnamed Redhead said with a smirk, “but it took a while to get over him dating my sister.” The gig was up. The ship had sailed — and hit an iceberg — and burst into flames, and was sinking in front of me. I felt my cheeks flush and I couldn’t blame it on the sunburn. As it turns out, he thought weddings were stuffy and perceived my imposition to be adorably quirky as opposed to creepy and bold. We exchanged phone numbers and we went to dinner a couple of times. Nothing came of it, but it made for a fantastic story (that I’ve never wanted to admit to anyone, ever). I eventually moved out of that apartment and to the far eastern corner of town, but incidentally moved right back into those brick buildings across from the Arboretum last month. My first weekend back, my friend and I noticed there was a wedding. We cleaned ourselves up a bit and walked across the street and opted to sit in the grass a couple of yards away — with everyone else who didn’t know the couple, but wanted to be a small part of their big day. OH Emily Frazier Brown is a native of Greensboro. She graduated from UNC Greensboro in May of this year and will be staying in the city. She can be reached at emilyfrazierbrown@gmail.com June 2013
O.Henry 45
State Street 46 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
State Street
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June 2013 Preservation Back before there were big home freezers
and lids, filled them and processed them on a rack
we saved everything the hard hot way,
in a big blue canner for the time specified in a book.
spent the summers stringing bushels
She steamed herself and the kitchen. When all had
of green beans, peeled pecks of peaches.
cooled down the lids signaled their sealing with a
We shelled peas, boiled beets, seeded cherries
satisfying snap. We took the cool sealed jars
but it didn’t seem like much work at the time.
to the shelves under the stairs, lined them in rows
My sister and I played word games, recited Bible verses,
where they seemed to glow, giving us a sense
tried to figure out the phases of the moon and wondered
of great accomplishment and a completely unjustified
if a third cousin twice removed could really count
feeling that, no matter whatever happened,
as a genuine relative. Our mother boiled Ball jars
we would be safe.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
— Isabel Zuber
June 2013
O.Henry 49
The Big Cheese At Calico Farmstead, tradition and family values merge to create the perfect farm cheese By David C. Bailey • Photographs By Cassie Butler
J
ackie and Larry Gerringer run an enterprise that’s extremely rare nowadays — a small-scale, family farm. What’s more remarkable is that their dairy farm near Gibsonville is profitable — something few farmers can boast. But Calico Farmstead, which the Gerringers operate with the help of their daughters, Anna Amoriello and June Deatherage, managed to eke out a profit even when milk prices plummeted a few years ago, in large part because of something Jackie Gerringer learned from a Mexican farm worker — cheese-making. Gerringer made her first cheese in her kitchen in 2004. By 2007, she was making two tons a week, as in 4,000 pounds. During National Dairy Month, you’ll find cheese lovers standing in line at her booth at the Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market at 501 Yanceyville Street, snapping up her hand-pulled mozzarella to make caprese salad with red, ripe tomatoes. Also popular? Her crumbly ricotta, her wide variety of herb- and garlic-infused goat cheeses, her distinctly different skillet cheese and a favorite for children’s lunch boxes, her mild but addictive cheddar chunks. The Gerringers’ farm, which has grown to 300 acres over the years, dates back to the 1700s, when Larry Gerringer’s family, German Lutherans, settled in the Frieden Church Community in what later became eastern Guilford County. “Larry had dirt under his fingernails when he was born,” says Jackie Gerringer, her crow’s-feet crinkling as she breaks into one of her perennial grins. The couple met when Jackie was 15 and married when she was 17. Larry was 19. After working at Moses Cone Hospital for five years as a bookkeeper “before there were any computers,” she switched to part-time work, helping with the
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Three generations give the term “family farm” added meaning at Calico Farmstead, where Jackie and Larry Gerringer, right, work alongside their grandson, Cole, and their daughter Anna Amoriello.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Calico Farmstead does not have goats of their own, but they use local goat milk to make a variety of fresh goat cheese.
Calico Farmstead began by making queso fresco under the name of their daughter, “Tia Anna� but their market expanded to all types of cheeses.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June 2013
O.Henry 51
tobacco during the summer after they started a family. “I learned how to do everything. It was a curiosity and a learning experience,” she says. “But when it got to the point he was breeding his cows artificially, I said that’s where I draw the line.” Larry Gerringer’s dad started the dairy business on the family farm when he left the service in 1947. In 1965, Larry and Jackie bought an adjoining farm, adding 200 acres. In 1980, Larry’s father, ready to cut back on the long hours it takes to nurture and milk 200 cows three times a day, sold the cows and milking equipment to his son. Growing tobacco, raising their own silage and hay, and plowing all their money back into the farm, Larry and Jackie survived the ’80s and ’90s. In 2004, they sold their tobacco allotment to the government: “We knew we had to replace the tobacco with something,” Jackie Gerringer says. “Milk prices were in the bargain basement.” Cheese to the rescue: “We thought, well, we have a raw product here, why don’t we do something to add value to what we already have,” she adds. And that’s just what they did.
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In an interview with a cheese-maker, O.Henry Magazine explores how Jackie Gerringer serendipitously started making cheese and what it’s meant to the couple’s family life. O.Henry Magazine: First of all, We understand that you have an official title. Jackie Gerringer: My daughter calls me The Big Cheese. I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or not. OH: How did you get the idea of making cheese? TBC: When we were milking three times a day and milk prices were in the basement, Mexicans were always asking us for fresh cheese. We walked in the barn one day and asked one of our Mexican workers, “Do you think we could sell Mexican cheese if we could make it?” “Oh yes. I can sell it,” he said, pointing to himself. OH: But how did you learn to make it? TBC: I worked with a woman from Mexico who started making cheese when she was 12 years old. And so we kind of learned together in my kitchen. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
After it hangs until dry, Jackie Gerringer cuts and salts feta. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June 2013
O.Henry 53
Jake, a great Pyrenees, is a watchdog and protector of the herd. He generally sleeps during the day so he can keep watch over the cows at night.
Calico Farmstead was named before it ever had its first calico cat. Now cats and birds of all kinds roam the farm.
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OH: In your kitchen? TBC: Yes, we’d get five gallons of milk, pasteurize it and make cheese. That got to be a big mess. There was milk all over the stove and everywhere. So we bought an Amish barn-type building and some used equipment and set up shop. OH: I understand at first you made only queso fresco, a traditional, crumbly Mexican “fresh” or fresco cheese that’s used in many recipes and as a topping on tacos, enchiladas and other spicy dishes. TBC: Yes, it was a very mild, salty cheese. After that, I bought some books and learned how to make ricotta. OH: Why make cheese instead of just selling your milk to the dairy? TBC: When you put your milk on a truck and it goes to market, you don’t know what you’re going to get for six weeks after it leaves the farm. It takes that long to get your check back. And we were losing money. OH: So you wouldn’t exactly recommend that someone go into dairy farming? TBC: If a young man walked up into my yard and asked me whether he ought to milk cows, I’d say, “Run.” You’ve got to have deep pockets or want to lose money. Lots of people are into dairy farming as a tax write-off. OH: I understand you took the N.C. State hands-on, cheesemaking short course. Did you have any other training? TBC: We didn’t have a professional cheese consultant. We were mostly doing it on our own and learning as we went along. My education was on the farm; I was always the one experimenting in the kitchen. I liked to cook. And making cheese? I thought, oh that would be fun. It never occurred to me I’d be making money doing it. OH: But you did — and without a lot of marketing or advertising, right? TBC: We first started selling cheese at the flea market in Buckhorn [near Efland]. Then, Mexican stores started contacting us. OH: So things really took off ? TBC: We sold our first cheese in April of 2005. The market quickly expanded and we outgrew our 100-gallon vat. Until October of 2007, we had a super market. We were selling 4,000 pounds every week. Then the housing market went crash and many Mexicans lost their jobs and went back to Mexico. OH: And that’s when you branched out and began making mozzarella, feta, cheddar, goat cheese, even camembert? How much queso fresco do you make now and where do you sell your cheeses other than at farmers markets? TBC: We’re only making about a thousand pounds of queso fresco now. It goes mostly into Mexican stores. But we’re also in some grocery stores — Compare Foods, Weaver Street Market and Deep Roots. OH: You told me that one daughter helps you part-time with marketing and selling the cheese. And the other has a degree in animal science with a specialty in dairy science and works full-time on the farm. Do their children work on the farm too? TBC: We have five grandsons and Larry has spent a tremendous amount of time teaching these boys everything he knows. Whether one of them ever stays on the farm, we don’t know. On the farm, not everyone is cut out to wade through manure every day. You have to like it. At least they’ll know where their food comes from. OH: Isn’t it a little tricky working with your family and having your husband as a taskmaster? TBC: We always worked well together. We get grouchy every once in a while, but he knows what he’s got to do and I know what The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A donkey pastures with the cows to serve as their protector.
I’ve got to do, and we just do it. OH: Your farm operates on organic principles? TBC: About five years ago, we decided we were going to go organic and we quit using pesticides on all of our land. We are as natural as we can be. OH: What does that mean? TBC: Our cows are on grass and they get to graze; they get to lay down on dirt. They’re not on concrete unless they’re waiting to be milked. Since we changed our process it has greatly improved the health of our animals. OH: Finding good workers must be tough. TBC: You can’t just pull someone off the street and teach them what to do overnight. It’s important to have someone who knows our animals. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Every cow has a personality and is an individual. You want a cow person. OH: You granted a conservation easement to the Piedmont Land Conservancy. What does that mean? TBC: It means our land is protected. It will always be a farm. It cannot grow houses. It can never be developed. OH ________________________ Calico Farmstead Cheese 3737 High Rock Road, Gibsonville (336) 697-2213 David C. Bailey is senior editor of O.Henry magazine. June 2013
O.Henry 55
The Year We Danced
At the fabled Castaways Club, everything was basic — even the steps to a beautiful girl’s heart
H
unched over the steering wheel of a borrowed Renault Dauphine on a frigid Saturday night in February 1966, I searched the scattered outskirts of Greensboro for the Castaways, the beach music club that was all the snazz with college kids in the Triad. As I turned off East Bessemer Avenue onto Arnold Street, my date, her teeth chattering and her London Fog overcoat buttoned to her chin, pressed her index finger to the frosted windshield and blurted, “That’s it!” “That’s the Castaways?” I asked. We’d already wound our way through a mile of World War II-era warehouses, and it appeared to me that we’d happened onto another block of
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Dance floor at the Castaways circa 1966
dilapidated buildings. But my date was correct — a large blue sign atop the centermost building proclaimed in cursive: The Castaways. Still, it wasn’t what I’d expected of the premier dance club in the Piedmont. Where were the winking colored lights brightening the glitzy entryway? Why was there no ragged queue of college kids waiting to guzzle cold Blue Ribbon and dance to live music? The street was empty except for thirty or forty cars parked haphazardly at the curb and in an adjoining gravel parking lot, and the building was nothing more than a one-story masonry warehouse with a steel door set in a blue plywood façade. During my first semester at Elon College, the Castaways was the destination of choice for any guy with a date and transportation, which generally The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Photographs courtesy Carlton Roberts
By Stephen E. Smith
The Tams performing at the Castaways
excluded freshmen such as myself, who were at the bottom of the pecking order when it came to procuring female companionship and weren’t allowed to keep cars on campus. I’d heard the club advertised the previous September on WBAG, Burlington’s best top-40 radio station, when the Toys, a black female trio who had a hit with “A Lover’s Concerto,” were scheduled to perform there. When I asked a commuter student about the Castaways, he explained that it catered to college kids, all of them white, and featured local bands, also white, and the occasional Motown, Atlantic, Stax or other R&B acts, most of them black, performing popular music for dancing the shag, or as it was called in those days and in that place, the basic. “If you’re going to the Castaways,” my informant cautioned, “you better know how to dance the basic.” Despite the sinister neighborhood — Arnold Street looked like the perfect spot for a mugging — a wave of anticipation surged through me as I guided the Renault into the parking lot. Scrunched beside me, so close I could feel the warmth of her breath, sat my first college date. My buddies on the second floor of Smith dorm called her “Blondie,” not because she resembled a character in the funny papers, but because she was exquisitely fair, so golden that we regarded her as unapproachable. In mid-January, when I accidentally struck up a conversation with her as we stood in line in McEwen dining hall, my fellow dorm rats could hardly credit my chutzpah. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“You mean you just marched up and asked her out?” they questioned. “That’s exactly what I did,” I answered. In truth, I’d been utterly nonplussed when she turned and looked me in the eye. Overawed by her sudden presence, I squeaked in a voice an octave too high to endure: “Wonder what the slop is tonight?” She smiled and we chatted briefly about the sad state of institutional cuisine and went our separate ways. My slack-jawed friends, who were seated at our regular table at the time of my encounter, were as bewildered as I had been. And I encouraged them to believe that I’d asked Blondie out and that she’d accepted. In fact, I had to phone her four or five times and gently cajole her to accompany me to the Castaways. “OK, I love that place so I guess I’ll go out with you,” she said, finally. She didn’t disappoint. Forty-five minutes before we’d turned onto Arnold Street, Blondie, wrapped in her beige overcoat, had strolled into the parlor of West dorm and surveyed the assemblage of guys waiting on their dates, searching for the bonehead freshman who had the effrontery to ask her out on a Saturday night. Caught up in a mild self-induced delirium, I was speechless. There she was, the pre-emptive ’60s coed, cool and level and balanced on the sheer edge of youth, her long blonde hair a halo of spungold around her porcelain face, her large direct eyes an ethereal blue. And, miracle of miracles, I had a date with her. June 2013
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I
View from the stage
cut the Renault’s engine in the Castaways’ parking lot, set the emergency brake, and Blondie and I stepped out into the wintry night. She took my arm, leaning into me gently enough to suggest I was her protector but not so much as to be romantically encouraging, and a minute later, we were standing in the club’s vestibule, a narrow hallway walled with multicolored Permastone, waiting to pay the cover charge and have the backs of our hands stamped so we could re-enter if we happened to wander outside. After my $4 investment — $2 each to gain admission — I certainly had no intention of leaving until they threw us out. If the exterior of the Castaways was nondescript, the interior promised an evening to remember — live music, cold beer, dancing with a beautiful girl. What could be more exciting for a feckless freshman? A crude stage was pressed into a corner of the front wall and a strip of white spotlights focused on three vocal mikes balanced on stands. A drum kit waited at the back of the platform, and two Stratocasters and an electric bass rested beside the mikes. A trombone and sax were visible in the far left corner behind an electric keyboard, and amps were stacked on the sides of the stage, suggesting that the band, whoever they were, intended to play Shea Stadium in the near future. Various utilitarian tables and chairs surrounded the dance floor, which took up a space the size of a basketball court immediately in front of the band’s equipment. The restrooms were at the far end of the building (there was already a short line at the ladies’ room door), and the bar was half visible in the shadows to our immediate left. The place was about two-thirds full, maybe one hundred couples milling about in the smoky dimness. We squirmed our way to a convenient table on the left of the dance floor, and Blondie slipped off her overcoat, revealing a
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blue, wrap-around skirt and a red cardigan sweater over a white blouse accented with a gold-chain necklace, standard college-girl garb. She immediately signaled the waiter. “I’ll have a Blue Ribbon,” she said with the authority of a club regular, which she was. I ordered the same, digging out two one dollar bills to pay the waiter — 75 cents each for the brews. The beer was pricey, but there was no avoiding the expense. If I was going to land a second date with Blondie, I needed to husband my money without her noticing I was a cheapskate. Unfortunately, she wasn’t shy about knocking back a brewsky. She drained her first can in the five minutes it took the gang of musicians to clamor onto the stage and tune their instruments. “I just love this place,” she said and ordered a second Blue Ribbon. The band opened with a rousing rendition of “Hot-Cha,” a Junior Walker instrumental featuring a huffy lead sax and the heavy use of cymbals to keep time, an altogether infectious tune that filled the dance floor with couples demonstrating their skill at the basic. I couldn’t bring myself to ask Blondie to dance during the first five or six songs. I needed the time to get a feel for the place and its clientele, and I was anxious about my ability to perform the required dance steps. As I watched the couples dancing, it was obvious that flaunting one’s skill at the basic was tantamount to a secret handshake between white Southerners. If you didn’t know the step, you weren’t part of the in-crowd, so I observed with considerable interest as their feet performed an array of acrobatic contortions, sliding and swiveling this way and that, first back on the heel and then dangerously sidewise on the sole, every sinuous motion effortlessly symmetrical. I’d known for a week that this moment would come, and there’d be no fakThe Art & Soul of Greensboro
ing the steps. So the night before my big date, I’d enlisted the aid of my dorm buddy Gene Matthews, who hailed from Thomasville and was deep into the beach music subculture. “What you have to do is move back and forth in a straight line,” Gene explained. “You don’t go shuffling all around the floor. That’s the first thing.” He leaned against the wall, demonstrating the step while dancing with the cinderblocks. “You step back with your right foot and lean back while you’re picking up your left foot, and go back to where you were to begin with. The guy always rocks back onto his left foot, never on his right. Now watch this, I’ll show you a triple step.” The basic struck me as needlessly complicated. “Is this how you do it?” I asked Gene as I attempted to imitate the movement of his feet. “No, no,” he said. “Like this. Now pay attention.” And he demonstrated the step a second time. I duplicated his movements as closely as possible, stepping off as instructed. “That’s not quite it,” he said, after I untangled my feet. “Let’s start from the beginning. You’re facing the girl with your palm down and she locks her fingers with your fingers and then . . . .” I was hopeless. “I don’t think you’re going to master the basic by tomorrow night,” Gene said, shaking his head, “but do me a favor: Make a list of the songs the band plays. It would be good to know what they’re dancing to in Greensboro.” In addition to a thorough knowledge of the basic and a familiarity with the accompanying music, it was necessary to dress the part if you wanted to be known as a Southern guy who was smooth with the women. A male who danced at the Castaways wore a sports jacket and tie (both mandatory on Saturday nights) over a starched white Oxford-cloth button-down shirt cursively monogrammed at the collar and cuff. Trousers were usually highwaisted, with a shiny alligator belt transvexing the dancer like a sack of meal. It was obvious that footwear was of the utmost importance — after all, his feet were doing the dancing — and highly-buffed alligator wing-tipped tasseled loafers were the shoe of choice. I possessed none of the appropriate accoutrements, but hoped to skate by with my khaki trousers, a blue dress shirt sans monogram, my new Harris Tweed sports coat, and Weejuns.
A
fter her third beer, Blondie began to yammer. I couldn’t make out a word she was saying — the Strats were screaming and the drummer was pounding away like a pile driver — so I simply smiled and nodded. But it occurred to me that I needed to tactfully limit her consumption of alcohol, not because I didn’t want her buzzed — a condition that promised unknown late-night delights — but because she was guzzling my pockets. I’d budgeted $10 for the evening — this after shelling out $5 to borrow the Renault — and I had a reserve $10 bill tucked in a hidden compartment of my madras wallet. I’d already handed over $5 to the waiter, and we still had two hours to kill. It was time for us to dance, whether I made a fool of myself or not. As the band struck up a soulful cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Stubborn Kind of Fellow,” I extended my hand and nodded toward the dance floor. Blondie rose from her chair and led me deep into the crowd of dancers, all of whom were shuffling in strict time to the music, their agile feet gyrating and their bodies rotating in unison. With my palm down, per Gene’s instructions, I took Blondie’s hand in mine and stepped back onto my right foot while focusing on maneuvering my left in the proper direction. And that’s when Blondie took flight. She yanked her hand from mine and went berserk, twirling away like an out-of-kilter merry-go-round and lifting The Art & Soul of Greensboro
one foot and then the other into the air in what appeared to be a spontaneous interpretation of the Freddie. Then she strutted across the dance floor clapping her hands as she lip-synced the words to the song: “Ah say yeah yeah yeah, say yeah yeah yeah . . . .” As I watched, the simple truth dawned on me: If Blondie didn’t want to dance the basic, she didn’t have to. She was beautiful. And she didn’t give a damn if she was attracting attention. She wasn’t there to prove herself to anyone; she was there to have a good time, and she intended to do just that. I had just enough sense to follow her lead. Among my socially inept high school friends, I was considered something of a dancer, so I did what I knew. Anyway, no one was watching me; their eyes were on Blondie — and she was flat-out liberating. The Freddie evolved into a freeform rendition of the jerk/ monkey/swim and then to a discombobulated rendering of the dirty twist. When “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” ended, she danced us into “Hey Baby” followed by “Let the Good Times Roll” and so on nonstop for the next hour. Lordy, how we danced! We were wholly in another dimension, oblivious to the other couples who had to scurry out of our way as we bolted across the dance floor disrupting their triple steps, underarm turns and pivots. When the band took a break — “We’re going to catch our breath,” the lead singer mumbled into the mike, “and we’ll be back in about twenty minutes” — I followed Blondie back to our table. Her face was crimson with exertion, her hair disheveled, damp strands clinging to her cheeks and the nape of her pink neck. She excused herself: “The girls’ room,” she whispered, and vanished into the shadows at the back of the club. I collapsed into my chair to catch my breath; rivulets of sweat were trickling between my shoulder blades. I drained the warm swill from my can of Blue Ribbon and took a couple of quick swigs from Blondie’s. Recalling my promise to Gene, I unfolded a paper napkin and jotted down some of the songs the band had played — “Under the Boardwalk,” June 2013
O.Henry 59
“I’ll Be Doggone,” “Heat Wave,” “My Girl,” “It’s All Right,” “If I Didn’t Have a Dime,” “Stay,” “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” and “Tracks of My Tears” and stuffed the napkin into my inside jacket pocket, where it would remain for the next forty-five years. We danced our way through an hour of the second set and when the band played a slow tune, Blondie wrapped her arms around my neck, rested her head on my shoulder, and we shuffled through a long embrace. I was hoping she might give herself over to a subtle expression of sexual yearning, but she was, in her temporary state of exhaustion, beyond prurience. When the song ended, she smiled, let her hands fall from my neck and looked at her watch. “It’s time to go,” she said. “I’ll get in all kinds of trouble if I’m late.” Girls at Elon had to be in by 12:30 on Saturday nights or they were subject to disciplinary action. A cranky, blue-haired housemother waited at the side entrance to the dorm ready to jot down the name of any girl who wasn’t safely locked inside after the porch light had stopped flashing. So Blondie hurriedly pulled on her coat, and we were out the door. I was hoping we might chat on the drive back and I’d bring up the possibility of another date, but she rested her head against the passenger-side window and instantly fell sleep — or into a sleeplike stupor. As we pulled out of the parking lot onto Arnold Street, I looked again at the stark entrance to the Castaways. It was difficult to believe that so much fun could be had in such an unlikely location. Then I drove west on Route 70 in silence. Safely back in the parking lot of West dorm, I woke Blondie. She was cognizant enough to look at me bleary-eyed. “What time is it? Are we here?” she asked, a note of alarm in her voice. “We’ve got five minutes,” I said, and she was out of the car and headed to the side entrance of West, with me trailing close behind. As always on date nights there were ten or fifteen couples exchanging passionate kisses beneath the oak trees that clustered around the side door. We arrived just in time to see the porch light flash. “I had a good time,” Blondie gushed. “I love dancing at the Castaways.” “Listen,” I said, “maybe we can go again.” “As far as I’m concerned we can do it every Saturday night until the end of the semester,” she said and melted into a crowd of girls gamboling up the steps and into the dorm.
M
y first Carolina spring opened in a gauzy green canopy over the campus, and I struggled to keep my mind on academic matters (after all, there was a war raging in Vietnam and the draft was breathing down my neck). But on Saturday nights I’d turn up in the West dorm parlor about 7:30, and Blondie and I would head over to Greensboro, either double dating or in a car I’d borrowed. We always arrived early enough to occupy the same table, and we became acquainted with the other regulars and learned the names of the best dancers. “Spider’s in house” or “Danny B will be dancing tonight,” the faithful would communicate in whispers. And every Saturday night, Blondie and I would dance the monkey/ hitchhike/pony/whatever with joyous abandon. I insisted that we perfect an ersatz basic step so we could take to the dance floor when the band played “Thank You John” and other beach tunes that required a degree of conformity. I still struggled with the steps, but for Blondie it was more parody than tribute. She laughed when she danced her comic version of the basic. “It isn’t fair,” she said one evening as we were leaving. “What’s not fair?” I asked. “It’s not fair to dance like that,” she said, leaving me to wonder what she meant. On the Saturday night before exams, we danced at the Castaways for the last time before summer break. As we left the club, Blondie paused on the curb and looked back. “You know,” she said, wistfully. “I’m going to miss this place. I love dancing here.”
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The next week, she moved to her parents’ apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, and I to Annapolis, where I got a job at the local Safeway. On four or five occasions I badgered my father into lending me his Buick, and I raced up John Hanson Highway so Blondie and I could go to the Bayou, an upscale club on K Street in Georgetown, where we danced to “Time Won’t Let Me,” “In My Life,” and “Summer in the City,” performed by the Telstars, the Bayou’s house band. We had fun, but something had changed; Blondie had lost her spontaneity, and we were separated by a sad complexity I couldn’t quite comprehend. I rationalized that we missed the Castaways, the old crowd, the familiar bands and the beach music they played, even the basic. In Georgetown, we were like every other couple dancing a silly variation of the boogaloo. One evening as we sipped beer at the Bayou, Blondie smiled and pointed to the dancers gyrating across the floor. “Look how kind they are,” she said. “Kind?” I asked. “What do you mean by that?” “The way they’re dancing. There’s no right or wrong way to do it.” And that’s when I understood what she meant by “not fair.” For every college kid who danced the basic at the Castaways there were thousands who couldn’t. They didn’t have the skill or the money or anyone to invite them onto the dance floor. The basic was exclusionary. Blondie’s dance steps, whatever they were, required no expertise. There was no hurtful distinction between those who could dance and those who couldn’t. On the first Saturday in July, Blondie broke up with me. We were sitting in the Buick under a streetlamp outside her parents’ apartment. “I’ve been seeing an old boyfriend,” she explained, “and it’s not fair to make you drive over here each weekend.” She paused. “Anyway, I’m transferring to Old Dominion in the fall.” I sat for a minute, mulling over the implications of what she’d said, and then I asked, “Are you sure about this?” “I am,” she answered, without a trace of doubt. What else was there to say? I walked her to the stoop and we hugged. She stepped inside and closed the door.
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returned to Elon the following fall, but I never mastered the finer points of dancing the basic, and I never again patronized the Castaways. In the spring of my junior year, Gene Matthews and I drove to Greensboro early on a Sunday afternoon to drink beer at Ham’s, and as we traveled west on Bessemer Avenue, I asked him to take a right on Arnold. “Slow down,” I said. “Jeeze, what an ugly street,” Gene observed. Yeah, I know.” “Hey, isn’t that the club where you and Blondie used to go?” he asked, pointing to his left. “That’s it.” “Doesn’t look like much in the daylight.” He was right. It was grim — the same blue plywood façade, the same gravel parking lot with a few crumpled beer cans scattered about — all of it bleaker in the spring sunshine. For a moment I imagined Blondie and me stepping through that familiar doorway, her arm locked in mine, on that cold February night two years earlier. And I could picture the interior of the club as it had been — the tables and chairs, the stage, the dance floor, the music, the dancers, the breathless exhilaration — all that life and energy gone as if it had never existed. “Blondie was a little bit crazy, wasn’t she?” Gene asked “She was a dancer,” I said. As we turned the corner, I looked back at the simple masonry warehouse squatting in the middle of the desolate block, and it occurred to me that what I liked best about the Castaways was the entrance. OH The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Lucas Foglia From the series “Re-Wilding: Southeastern United States,” “Family Portrait with the Photograph George
Took of Christina at their Wedding, Tennessee,” 2008, C-print on aluminum, Digital 19 1/2 x 26 inches. Courtesy of the artist. 62
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the kids are all right: a uncg exhibition about family and photography
Now that digital cameras on cell phones have provided nearly everyone with a third eye, we’re constantly barraged with images of friends and family doing some of the most private — and strangest — things imaginable, via emails, tweets, Facebook or YouTube. Why, you might reasonably ask, would anyone want to stage an exhibit of even more intimate photos of American families — and then call it the kids are all right? The short answer is that the World Wide Web badly needs an editor. The longer answer comes from Xandra Eden, curator of exhibitions at Weatherspoon Art Museum, where 120 works by thirty-eight artists will be on display from June 1 until August 18 in a show subtitled an exhibition about family and photography: “The frankness and honesty with which the artists and their families must interact to create the images in this exhibition serve as a counterbalance to the often fairly arbitrary images that populate the Internet,” says Eden. Just trying to define what the word “family” means anymore is a challenge, Alison Ferris, a UNCG alum, organizer of the show and curator at the prestigious John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, points out: “The exhibition demonstrates today’s reality: Family is a complicated entanglement of people.” The show’s artists “reject irony and judgment to show us families — natural or found — in whatever forms they take,” she says. The artists avoided taking a critical or editorial stance: “They just wanted to affirm with poignancy and humor the ever-shifting notion of the contemporary family.”
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Deana Lawson “Wanda & Daughters,” 2009, pigment print, 27 x 34 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
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Angela Strassheim “Left Behind series: Untitled (Father and Son),�
2004, pigment print, 27 3/4 x 38 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
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Lisa Lindvay “Dinner,” 2009, archival inkjet print, 32 x 40 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
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Kathleen Robbins “Asher on Belle Chase,� 2010, chromogenic color print on aluminum compound material, 27 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Jennifer Schwartz Gallery, Georgia.
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Justin Kirchoff “Fight Club,” 2009, silver gelatin print, 20 x 24 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
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Chris Verene “The Galesburg Series: Amber and Her Girls are Living in Her Car,” 2006,
chromogenic color print and oil paint, 30 x 36 inches. Courtesy of Postmasters, New York.
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Once dressed in dingy whites, the Sweeney-Penn House now wears cool shades of green along with a distinctive fish-scale roof. The house, built around 1917, was painted green to begin with and probably got the first of many white coats during the Great Depression.
A Bungalow Reborn
With the help of Preservation Greensboro and the vision of architect Tracy Pratt and wife, Cheryl, the house at 910 Magnolia Street became a restored gem in Fisher Park By Maria Johnson • Photographs By John Gessner
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he little girl was tired of looking out her window and seeing the sad little house crumble across the street. Now, the girl tells Cheryl Pratt, the view is much better. Cheryl and her husband, architect Tracy Pratt, get that a lot. Their Fisher Park neighbors often stop and say thanks for saving the bungalow at 910 Magnolia Street, a structure that once was an eyesore and now is a star. “The house just glows,” says Benjamin Briggs, the executive director of Preservation Greensboro Inc., which played a key role in the turnaround. “It went from being the worst house in the neighborhood to one of the best houses in the neighborhood.” That’s saying a lot because Fisher Park — most of which was dubbed a historic district by the city in 1982 — is full of gems. Pinned to the northern edge of downtown Greensboro, the neighborhood
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was developed in the early 1900s as the city’s first park-centered suburb. The leafy pocket is an architectural sampler, with homes built under the influence of Tudor, Mediterranean, Queen Anne, Colonial, Neo-Classical and other styles. The bungalow at 910 Magnolia Street, known as the Sweeney-Penn House, is a fine example of Craftsman architecture with its dormers, deep front porch, overhanging roof and exposed rafter tails. Built around 1917, the home was owned first by the Sweeneys, who stayed briefly. The second occupants, the Penns, lighted for a few years before selling to Emily and Charles McIver. Charles was the son of UNCG’s founder and first president, Charles Duncan McIver. The home changed hands a couple more times before landing with a couple in the 1960s. After the husband died, the wife lived alone. The house declined. When the The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Clockwise starting with top left: Brick patio, potting shed/workshop and concrete-andgrass waffles cover the tiny back yard; the xeriscaped front yard requires little water and maintenance; the pergola’s brick piers and thin square columns echo those on the home’s front; a Lady Banks rose gains a foothold at one end of the porch.
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Cheryl Pratt basks in the front room’s natural light. It was one of the first things she noticed — and loved — about the house.
wife moved to a nursing home around 2004, she left the house as if she’d run out on an errand. “Her pantyhose were still hanging over the tub,” says Cheryl Pratt.
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utside, nature continued to pummel the home’s awnings and claw at the paint. A neighbor voluntarily mowed the weeds. The owner died in 2007, leaving the estate in legal limbo. Neighbors complained as the house deteriorated. The city condemned the property. Fix it up or we’ll tear it down — that was the choice. That’s when Preservation Greensboro stepped in, offering to find a buyer for the house and to attach protective covenants that future owners would have to abide by. A couple of yard sales later, the home was cleared out enough to include on the Fisher Park tour of homes in the spring of 2011. Tracy and Cheryl Pratt walked through. With one child out of the nest and another fixing to fly, they wanted to downsize from their Cape Cod home in Hamilton Lakes. They’d been looking at condos, town homes and lofts for a couple of years. Another home wasn’t high on the list. Especially a home like the one at 910 Magnolia Street. Inside, almost everything but the floors was painted white. Walls. Trim. Light fixtures. The metal door over the fireplace. The wooden mantel. The amber tiles around the fireplace. All white. The surfaces that weren’t white were covered with layers of wallpaper, which were shedding in strips. The kitchen and bathrooms had not been updated since the 1950s. The kitchen floor was damaged by water. Cats had left their marks. The electrical system was shot. So was the plumbing. The Pratts suspected the home was laced with lead and asbestos, and they were right. And yet. The three-bedroom, bath-and-a-half home was compact at just under 2,000 square feet. It had great form. And spectacular light. And beautiful trim. And heart-pine floors. And a tiny yard. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A collector of glass and ceramic wares, Cheryl made sure there was plenty of shelf space to display her finds. June 2013
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Rich wood tones, along with shades of gold and rust, warm the Pratts’ home. The tapered columns, half-walls, and picture-frame molding (near the ceiling) are original. The Pratts added plate rails in the dining room and in Tracy’s den. When Tracy relocated a doorway between the dining room and kitchen, he created a butler’s pantry in between. Right: An antique pie safe and high chair are among the furnishings that the Pratts transplanted from their old home in Hamilton Lakes.
“If you took a couple of minutes and looked around, you could tell there was some nice stuff. You just had to see past the white paint,” says Tracy. He also liked that the house wasn’t “boogered up,” meaning butchered by bad renovations. In a weird way, the house was pristine.
T
he Pratts paid $120,000 for the property in late 2011. They spent much more gutting and rebuilding the house in the next year. “We took it down to the studs,” says Tracy, a commercial architect who went to his drawing board to bump out the kitchen, create a laundry room out of an unheated back porch, expand a dormer that sheltered the master bath and carve out a second full bath upstairs. “I call Tracy the Closet Whisperer,” says Cheryl, who’s in charge of childbirth education at Women’s Hospital in Greensboro. “He can find space where there is none.” DLM Builders Inc., which specializes in remodeling, did the heavy lifting — removing and labeling the interior trim; tearing out the plaster walls; installing modern systems; Sheetrocking the walls; and replacing the trim, which was stripped of the white paint and stained to release the warmth of the wood. A stellar example: The half-walls and tapered columns that separate the front room from the dining room. With help from Double Hung Historic Window Restoration, the Pratts also saved the original multipane over single-pane windows. They added new top-hinged storm windows with architectural hardware to prop them out. Scottish lace curtains complete the picture. All around the house, the Pratts have remained true to the home’s roots. They kept the faceted glass door knobs and replaced the original push button light switches with period reproductions They also ditched the pall of white paint for a palette of green, gold and rust. Tracy says the home originally was painted green. Like many early 20th century homes, it The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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The Pratts stripped layers of white paint from the home’s trim and doors. They kept the original faceted glass doorknobs. Below: A carved wooden squirrel memorializes the real squirrel that lived in a window — between the main and storm windows — when the Pratts first saw the home.
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probably was covered with cheaper white lead paint during the Great Depression. To reinforce the Craftsman look, the Pratts picked half-round gutters and fish scale shingles for the new roof. Even the smidgen of a backyard — now filled almost entirely by a brick patio, pergola and potting-shed workshop — fits the spirit of the house. The pergola perches on thin square columns atop brick piers, echoing the columns on the front porch. Per Cheryl’s disdain of lawns, the only grass grows between concrete tracks of shared driveway and in a concrete-and-grass waffle made from matrixes sold by Drivable Grass. Landscape designer Marguerite Suggs xeriscaped the front yard to require little water and upkeep. She included some of the Pratts’ favorites, including a Washington hawthorn tree for Cheryl and a fig tree for Tracy. The hydrangeas were transplanted from their old home. Much of the home’s interior was transplanted, too. See a Tiffany-style slag glass lamp, Chinese block print and carved end table in the front room. In Tracy’s den, a new plate rail shows off tools that belonged to the couple’s fathers. An antique jelly cabinet holds DVDs and video games. An original wood and leather Limbert chair anchors one corner. New custom- made glass-front cabinets flank the room’s pocket doors. “They look like they’ve always been here,” Tracy says of the cabinets. A butler’s pantry, which Tracy eked out when he moved a doorway, boasts a heart-pine counter. The same surface tops a kitchen desk and laundry counter. The mother slab was left over from a home that Cheryl’s parents built when she was a kid outside Atlanta. “Tracy has lugged this around for thirty years,” Cheryl says. The new kitchen, designed by Omega Creations, features quarter-sawn oak cabinets, a bead-board ceiling and Mission-style barrel lights over the island. Cheryl found the lights at Jae-Mar Brass & Lamp Co. in downtown Greensboro, where she also spied a Colonial Revival pendant light with a painted, acorn-shaped shade. The whimsical fixture hangs over the farmhouse sink. A lover of glass and ceramic, Cheryl reaches into a kitchen cabinet and pulls out glass bread plates that she bought at a Preservation Greensboro yard sale before she and Tracy toured the home. As it turned out, they made a nice remembrance of the former owner. A playful nod to another former resident: a carved wooden squirrel on a windowsill in the stair landing. A real squirrel lived between the main window and storm window when the Pratts first saw the house. “The storm window must have been opened a little bit, so she got between them,” Tracy says. The squirrel stayed until the renovations started. If she peeked in the window again, she wouldn’t believe her beady eyes. The transformation is astounding. “There were times when it got a little overwhelming, but it was fun,” says Cheryl. “All the way through it, we could see it in our heads,” Tracy says. “I think it came out looking as good as we hoped it would.” “There’s a little disbelief that it came out so nicely,” Cheryl says. The little girl across the street probably would agree. OH
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Above: Between the twelve-over-one kitchen windows and a pendant light with an acorn-shaped shade, the Pratts have plenty of light when working at the farmhouse sink in their overhauled kitchen. Below: Tracy lugged around a slab of heart pine for 30 years before using it for counter tops in the butler’s pantry (center), laundry room and kitchen.
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By David C. Bailey
Get over it, my fellow North Carolinians,
barbecue originated in the New World north of our borders when the Virginia Company introduced pigs to Jamestown in 1607. However, according to historical accounts, those misguided Virginians basted their pitcooked pork with butter, adding a little salt and pepper. It was eastern North Carolinians, I’m proud to say, who first came up with the idea of offering diners a dish of the sauce they used to mop over their roasting pork.
The Sauce: Blues BBQ Inc. Chipotle Mustard Pepper Hot Sauce The Lowdown: Steve Burnham, formerly a pilot with U.S. Airways, gave up his wings to become a hot sauce manufacturer in Concord. A wanna-be musician, he wants to put some “music in your mouth.” Character: Instantly hot and garlicky, with cascading notes of mustard and chipotle pepper Hot or Not: Wait Time: A sudden burst of heat turns into a smoldering and persistent tattoo on your tongue How Sweet It Is: 2 out of 5 Hometown and Ordering Information: Concord; Available in grocery stores or from www.bluesbbq.net The Sauce: Bone Sucking, Thicker-Style, “Hot” Sauce The Lowdown: Phil Ford, a Raleigh real estate appraiser, copied his mother’s barbecue sauce recipe. Since its introduction in 1992, the original Bone Sucking sauce has been a national sensation, winning multiple awards. Character: Sure it’s sweet, but it’s not necessarily cloying because of the honey, molasses and the complex symphony of spices and sour notes. Hot or Not: Wait Time: Layers of heat from black and red pepper are persistent How Sweet It Is: 5 out of 5 Hometown and Ordering Information: Raleigh; Available in grocery stores or from www.bonesucking.com
The Sauce: Anntony’s Caribbean All Purpose Sauce The Lowdown: A nutritionist born in British Guyana, Tony Martin developed his sauce for his highly popular Caribbean café in Charlotte. Character: Surpisingly mild and low in acidity, Anntony’s has a sweet-and-sour tang balanced by a blend of island spices. Hot or Not: Wait Time: Gives you a slow, warm glow that fades How Sweet It Is: 4 out of 5 Hometown and Ordering Information: Charlotte; Available in grocery stores or from www.anntonys7thstreet.com
That’s right. North Carolinians invented barbecue sauce. Read Robert F. Moss’ Barbecue, The History of an American Institution if you want proof. At first it was vinegar, salt and black pepper — as in Scott’s time-honored barbecue sauce from Goldsboro. Then settlers in the west, inspired by the German tradition of sweet and sour, added tomatoes to sweeten things up. Soon South Carolinians added mustard. Georgians love their sauce super sweet, just like rib lovers in Memphis and Kansas City. Ubiquitous Greek restaurateurs all over the South amped things up with oregano and other exotic spices. Still, Tar Heels ought to be proud of the scores of homegrown barbecue sauces that are on the market. Over the years, I’ve tasted dozens to separate the best from all the rest and have come up with eight great sauces emphasizing variety. They range from traditional to exotic, from super-sweet rib sauces to fiery concoctions derived from distant lands. All of them are available online, with many of them on your grocer’s shelves.
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The Sauce: Carolina Treet Original Cooking Barbecue Sauce The Lowdown: Originated in 1953 for rotisserie chicken by a grocery store, it’s been sold on grocery shelves since the 1960s. Character: Like no other barbecue sauce on the planet, Carolina Treet has a flat, salty, vinegary profile that’s underlain with celery seeds, garlic and other spices Hot or Not: Wait Time : Sneaks up on you with a back-of-the-palate after-burn How Sweet It Is: 0 out of 5 Hometown and Ordering Information: Wilmington; Available in grocery stores or from www.carolinatreet.com
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The Sauce: Scott’s Barbecue Sauce The Lowdown: Adam Scott, a Goldsboro minister, said the exact ingredients in his sauce were revealed to him in a divine dream. The taste is definitely God-given. Character: Big and bold, Scott’s is classic eastern North Carolina vinegar-and-pepper sauce, unalloyed by any exotic spices, or, God forbid, catsup. Hot or Not: Wait Time : Instantaneous lip kick, with a persistent after-burn How Sweet It Is: 0 out of 5 Hometown: Goldsboro; Available in grocery stores or from www.scottsbarbecuesauce.com
The Sauce: Outta The Park Hot & Spicy BBQ Sauce The Lowdown: Scott Granai of Cary is a prize-winning home chef. His wife, Beth, is a big advocate of organic and natural foods. The two teamed up to make a barbecue sauce that’s “better-for-you.” Character: Catsup-based, sweet and fairly complex, Outta The Park is aromatic with lots of underlying spices and a slight mustard and ginger tang to it. Can you say “ribs”? Hot or Not: Wait Time : Parks on the front of your tongue and migrates to the back of your palate with a lingering sting How Sweet It Is: 4 out of 5 Hometown and Ordering Information: Cary; Available in grocery stores or from www.outtathepark.com
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The Sauce: The Shizzle Jerk Marinade, Original Recipe The Lowdown: So what if Austin Williams, the man behind The Shizzle, is a white Raleigh commercial real estate developer? His sauce has soul — and is the real deal, thick and complex, the way Jamaican jerk marinade ought to be. Character: Packed full of pineapple, The Shizzle is highly aromatic and lightly accented with habañeros and Jamaican spices. Hot or Not: Wait Time : One, two, three — wait for it — pow! The Shizzle has a lingering, back-of-the-palate persistence. How Sweet It Is: 2 out of 5 Hometown and Ordering Information: Raleigh; Available in grocery stores or from www.theshizzlesauce.com
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The Sauce: Wells “Hog Heaven” Barbecue Sauce The Lowdown: The Wells family developed this eastern N.C. sauce before selling its operation in 2008 to Vic Swinson, who still bottles the sauce and raises natural beef and pork on a farm near Burgaw. Character: A sauce for those who like their eastern N.C. sauce just a little bit sweet and with a slightly smoky note Hot or Not: Wait Time : An instant, upfront burst of black and red pepper that quickly fades How Sweet It Is: 3 out of 5 Hometown and Ordering Information: Burgaw; Available in grocery stores or from www.wellsporkandbeef.com OH
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makethisyoursnc.com or call 336-574-0714 The Art & Soul of Greensboro
By Noah Salt
The Ancient Marrying Month Mark Twain once observed it’s better to be a young June bug than an old bird of paradise, perhaps because June is a month seemingly designed for the young at heart, beloved by gardeners and rhapsodized by poets. The month is named for the Roman goddess Juno, queen of home and marriage, which ancient lore cites as one reason June was such a popular month for tying the knot, called The Marrying Month in much of medieval Europe. Another reason was pure pragmatism. A bride who got pregnant in June could deliver before the following planting season and recover sufficiently before the fall harvest, when all hands in the field were typically needed. May was also the preferred bathing month during medieval times, so brides were reported to be relatively fresh-smelling — and, of course, flowers were abundant to aid the cause. According to recent government statistics, though, July and August recently overtook June in popularity among modern marrying American couples. All we can say is, there goes the corn harvest. June is only one of four months with 30 days and the one with the longest amount of daylight, which occurs on the summer solstice, this year falling on Friday, June 21. An Icelandic tradition holds that bathing naked in the dew on the morning of June 24 slows down the aging process significantly. Just be sure to dew it either in rural Iceland or your sheltered backyard, June bug.
For Natural Latin Lovers Learning the proper names of plants is a big problem even for dedicated gardeners. Hence our excitement over a newly arrived book called Latin for Gardeners by Lorraine Harrison ($25, from University of Chicago Press), a lavishly illustrated guide to more than 3,000 plant names that are explained and explored. With this fabulously entertaining resource at your fingertips, you’ll amble into your local nursery speaking like a true plant expert. More importantly, it’s loaded with practical information about the origin and characteristics of plants, plus delightful details about plant hunters and the lore of the garden. Did you know that in Victorian Britain a frenzied craze for ferns broke out among gardeners called “Fern Fever”? Proper name pteridomanis? You will if you own this beautiful, indispensable book, a great gift for any Latin lover of the garden.
Dad, It’s the Thought That Counts One hundred and three years ago this year, while listening to a preacher extoll the selfless virtues of mothers in a special Mother’s Day sermon at the YMCA in Spokane, Washington, a married woman named Sonora Smart Dodd got the idea to honor her father with a day dedicated to him. Thomas Smart was a widowed Civil War veteran who raised six children on his own. His daughter’s quest for a national holiday honoring dads flowered in Washington state and grew into a national movement, earning the support of Presidents Wilson and Coolidge along the way, but then hit a wall and suffered decades of derision by newspaper editorialists who feared it would become too commercial, not to mention an all-male U.S. Congress that forever dithered on the subject. It took a good woman to state the obvious, as Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith did in 1953: “Either we honor both our parents,” she wrote her colleagues, “mother and father, or let us desist from honoring either one. But to single out one of our two parents and omit the other is the most egregious insult imaginable.” Eventually, in 1972, of all people, President Richard Nixon officially established Father’s Day as a national observance. Today, based on the holiday spending habits of Americans, it is the fifth-largest card-sending occasion, averaging roughly 100 million cards and questionable neckties given annually. OH
“Green was the silence, wet was the light, The month of June trembled like a butterfly…” — Pablo Neruda The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June 2013
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Paintings B y
Arts & Culture
C.P. Logan
“Across the Tracks, Greensboro” 22x28”
Original Oils, COmmissiOns, WOrkshOps, studiO Classes, Online Classes, painting parties
www.cplogan.com
84 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
iTzhAk PERlmAn February • 13 • 2014
2013-2014 ElizABETh AlExAndER March • 4 • 2014
ROBERT GATES OctOber • 29 • 2013
ROBERT BAllARd NOveMber • 19 • 2013
STEvE kROfT & lARA lOGAn april • 8 • 2014
New subscriptions on sale
visit br yanseries.guilford.edu
BryanSeries_OHenry2013.indd 1
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
5/2/2013 10:32:03 AM
June 2013
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June 1 — 2
June 1 — August 18
Info: facrecycling.uncg.edu/cramandscram2013.html
GRADUATE WORK. You have only two days in June to see how six UNCG masters of mighty fine art — Nickola Dudley, Matthew Hayes, Harriet Hoover, Branch Richter, Amy Stibich and Clark Williamson — bared their hearts and souls painting, sculpting, drawing and making videos for their MFA thesis exhibition — at Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
A FAMILY AFFAIR. It’s up to you to decide whether the thirty-eight emerging and established artists with works in a show titled the kids are all right really feel that way — at Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg. edu.
June 2
•
June 1 — June 16
• LOOKING GOOD. If you think the eyes are a window into the soul, then check out The Penetrating Gaze, an exhibit
of figures featuring intense expressions — at Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 3345770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
•
June 1
June 4–9
night with live entertainment, food trucks, dancing in the streets and special lighting effects between Davie and Greene streets. Info: (336) 387-8354 or www.facebook. com/PopUpPromenade.
Bellemeade Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 268-2255.
HOPPERS HERE. The Greensboro Grasshoppers POPPING UP. 6–11 p.m. February One Place • • are at home again — at NewBridge Bank Park, 408 becomes a PopUp Promenade every Friday and Saturday
• KIDS RUNNING. 9 a.m. John’s Run 4 Kids, with proceeds going to BackPack Beginnings, features a one-
June 1 — June 23
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FACE TO FACE. Consider the human head, nexus of thought and seat of four of the five senses. Henri Matisse and other artists did — with works dating from 1907 to 1995 in Head to Head — at Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 3345770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
June 1–30
mile course that takes youngsters through their favorite places in downtown Greensboro. Info: (336) 510-9390 or johnsrun4kids.com
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DISHING IT OUT. 8–11 a.m. Create a Fairy Dish Garden using live plants and accessories that are included in your registration fee at Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden, 215 South Main Street, Kernersville. Info: (336) 996-7888 or www.cienerbotanicalgarden.org.
BELKED. As Belk celebrates its 125th anniversary, an • WASTE NOT, WANT NOT. 9 a.m. — 2 p.m. Ever • wonder what happens to all the stuff UNCG students exhibit highlights the department store’s growth in High Point through historic photos and artifacts — at the High Point Museum, 1859 East Lexington Avenue, High Point. Info: (336) 885-1859 or www.highpointmuseum.org.
Key:
• • Art
Music/Concerts
86 O.Henry
June 2013
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Performing arts
leave behind when they head home for the summer? It’s yours for 50 cents an item at the Cram and Scram in Cone Ballroom, Elliott University Center, courtesy of the UNCG Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling.
• • Film
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SUNDAY NIGHT MUSIC. 6 p.m. It’s folk rock, followed by big band jazz, at 7:15 with music in the park at Blandwood Mansion, West Washington and Edgeworth streets. Info: www.musep.info.
Literature/Speakers
• • Fun
History
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June 4
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WINE & DINE. 6:30 p.m. Green Valley Grill Chef Leigh Hesling serves up seared snapper over ricotta dumplings along with duck confit over wilted seasonal greens — paired with Trefethen family wines — in the Pavilion at the O.Henry Hotel. Info: (336) 478-9126 or greenvalleygrill.com.
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GOT TO BE N.C.. 6:30 p.m. Diners are the winners during the two-month-long Fire in the Triad Iron Chef-style competition that heats up in June — in the Empire Room. Tickets: www.competitiondining.com.
June 5
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GOT TO BE N.C.. 6:30 p.m. Diners are the winners during the two-month-long Fire in the Triad Iron Chef-style competition that heats up in June — in the Empire Room. Tickets: www.competitiondining.com.
Sports The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Arts Calendar
2013
June 6
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LIVE RADIO. noon — 1 p.m. WUNC’s State of Things comes to The UpStage Cabaret at Triad Stage, 232 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 272-0160 or triadstage.org.
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most days spent at sea without seeing land — has a onesailor show of his paintings at Ambleside Art Gallery, 528 South Elm Street, Greensboro, (336) 275-9844 or 1000days.net
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WATCHING YOUR MANNERS. 10 a.m. — 4 p.m. Register school-aged children for etiquette classes and activities led by the Cultured Alliance etiquette school of Durham, sponsored by Rebe Fuller and Race Against Child Hunger — at The Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, 6136 Burlington Road, Gibsonville. Info: (336) 449-4846 or www.nchistoricsites.org/chb
June 7 – June 7 - 30
HERE COMES THE BRIDE. 10 a.m. — 4 p.m. Discover the beauty and simplicity of a traditional Quaker wedding during a re-enactment that highlights the Quaker lifestyle — at the High Point Museum, 1859 East Lexington Avenue, High Point. Info: (336) 8851859 or www.highpointmuseum.org.
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June 7–8
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POPPING UP. 6–11 p.m. February One Place becomes a PopUp Promenade every Friday and Saturday night with live entertainment, food trucks, dancing in the streets and special lighting effects between Davie and Greene streets. Info: (336) 387-8354 or www.facebook. com/PopUpPromenade.
June 7
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STOWE-AWAY. 6 – 9 p.m. Reid Stowe, subject of an April O.Henry cover story — and the record holder for
• •
COOP LOOP. 10 a.m. — 4 p.m. The Edible Schoolyard at the Greensboro Children’s Museum is hosting a self-guided tour of fifteen chicken coops, all in the Greensboro city limits. Info: (336) 574.2898, extension 320, or www.gcmuseum.com/edible-schoolyard.
June 9–30
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PLAYBOYS’ PLAY. Adapted by Preston Lane from J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, Tennessee Playboy is a redneck tale of first love, second chances and murder — at Triad Stage, 232 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 272-0160 or www.triadstage.org. Key:
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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SUNDAY NIGHT MUSIC. 6 p.m. The Greensboro Big Band will jazz it up with music in the park at Friendly Shopping Center, Greensboro. Info: www.musep.info.
June 8
VAMPIRE HUNTING. 12:15–1:15 p.m. Will any of the book lovers bringing a bag lunch to an hour-long discussion of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter remember to pack blutwurst? You’ll only know if you go to BookBreak: A Museum Book Club at the Greensboro Historical Museum, 130 Summit Avenue, Greensboro. Info: (336) 373-2043 or www.greensborohistory.org UNLEASHED. Brief puppet nudity is the featured attraction, along with dessert on Friday and Saturday, on different days throughout the month of June with the Jabberbox Puppet Theater. See jabberboxpuppettheater. com for dates, reservations and locations.
June 9
• • Art
Music/Concerts
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Performing arts
June 7
• • Film
Literature/Speakers
• • Fun
History
June 2013
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Sports
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June Arts Calendar June 4
ners during the two-month-long Fire in the Triad Iron Chef-style competition that heats up in June — in the Empire Room. Tickets: www. competitiondining.com.
June 13–16
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Green Valley Grill June 11
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NOON AT THE SPOON. Noon. Spend twenty minutes with a docent who will bring you face-to-face with Head to Head, an exhibit shoulders above others — at Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
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GOT TO BE N.C.. 6:30 p.m. Diners are the winners during the two-month-long Fire in the Triad Iron Chef-style competition that heats up in June — in the Empire Room. Tickets: www.competitiondining.com.
HOPPERS HERE. The Greensboro Grasshoppers are at home again — at NewBridge Bank Park, 408 Bellemeade Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 268-2255.
June 13–15
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PLAYING AROUND. 8 p.m. The summer theater festival, a collaboration of UNCG and Triad Stage, presents God Of Carnage, about two pairs of parents discussing their children and becoming progressively childish themselves at Brown Building Theatre, 402 Tate Street, Greensboro. Also: June 20–29. Info: 336-272-0160 or www.triadstage.org.
Music/Concerts
Performing arts
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POPPING UP. 6–11 p.m. February One Place becomes a PopUp Promenade every Friday and Saturday night with live entertainment, food trucks, dancing in the streets and special lighting effects between Davie and Greene streets. Info: (336) 387-8354 or www.facebook. com/PopUpPromenade.
June 7
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• GOT TO BE N.C.. 6:30 p.m. Diners are the win• • • • • Art
June 14–15
June 13 HERITAGE DAY. 11 a.m. — 4 p.m. Familyfriendly events during African American Heritage Day — including music, dance, food, exhibitions and activities for children — at The Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, 6136 Burlington Road, Gibsonville, (336) 449-4846 or www.nchistoricsites.org/chb.
June 12
Key:
•
FERRIS WILL. 5–7 p.m. UNCG grad Alison Ferris, curator of the kids are all right — an exhibition that mixes family and photography — will talk about how family is a complicated entanglement of people — at Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon. uncg.edu.
Film
Literature/Speakers
• • Fun
History
•
Sports
Reid Stowe
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DONATE • VOLUNTEER• HONOR • MEMORIALIZE 88 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June Arts Calendar
THINKING NEW HOME?
June 15–29
• NOODLING. 8 p.m. The summer theater festival, a collaboration of UNCG and Triad Stage, presents
We’ve got just the spot...
“Noodle Doodle Box,” a play about two clowns clowning around — at Brown Building Theatre, 402 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 272-0160 or www.triadstage.org.
June 15 — September 15
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TIMELESS? Arlene Shechet says of her teetering, torquing and bulging sculptures, “Often things do collapse and fall over, and many don’t make it, but I love working on that precarious edge.” Hear her and see her exhibit, Arlene Shechet: That Time, at Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 3345770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
June 15
Hilton’s Landing
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WALKING ON WASHINGTON. 9 a.m. Sponsored by the High Point Museum, local Historian Glenn Chavis conducts a walking tour of Washington Street, once a thriving business and entertainment district for High Point’s black community during the period of segregation. Tour begins at Changing Tides Cultural Center, 613 Washington Street, High Point. Registration: (336) 885-1859 or www.highpointmuseum.org. CAMPING. 10 a.m. — 4 p.m. Learn about the daily life of a Revolutionary War soldier as the Revolutionary War Re-enactment Group sets up camp in the historical park — at the High Point Museum, 1859 East Lexington Avenue, High Point. Info: (336) 885-1859 or www.highpointmuseum.org.
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•
June 16
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SUNDAY NIGHT MUSIC. 6:30 p.m. The Philharmonia of Greenboro mixes it up with some pops and jazz during music in the park — at Barber Park, 1500 Dan Road, Greensboro. Info: www.musep.info.
June 18
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GOT TO BE N.C.. 6:30 p.m. Diners are the winners during the two-month-long Fire in the Triad Iron Chef-style competition that heats up in June — in the Empire Room. Tickets: www.competitiondining.com.
June 19
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GOT TO BE N.C.. 6:30 p.m. Diners are the winners during the two-month-long Fire in the Triad Iron Chef-style competition that heats up in June — in the Empire Room. Tickets: www.competitiondining.com.
June 20 — 29
URBAN MOBILITY OR LONG DISTANCE FUN?
•
BIBLICAL. 8 p.m. The summer theater festival, a collaboration of UNCG and Triad Stage, presents Judith of Bethulia, a bawdy celebration of the Hollywood biblical epic —at Brown Building Theatre, 402 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: 336-272-0160 or www.triadstage.org.
June 20
C 650 GT
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TO MARKET, TO MARKET. 6–9 p.m. Jiggetyjig yourself over the tracks onto the south end of Elm Street to City Market, where you’ll find fresh food, artisanal goods, local music and a kid-friendly area — at the Railyard, every third Thursday of the month until October 17. Info: www.gsocitymarket.com.
June 21
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Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports The Art & Soul of Greensboro
• • •
Performing arts Fun History
WELCOME TO THE MODERN MOVEMENT Carolina BMW 2407 GreeNGATe Dr GreeNSBoro, NC 27406-5250 336-272-4269 www.ridecarolina.com
WE DO DEMO RIDES EVERYDAY! ©2013 BMW Motorrad USA, a division of BMW of North America, LLC. The BMW name and logo are registered trademarks.
June 2013
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SUMMERHOUSE SUMMERHOUSE 1722 Battleground Avenue, Greensboro Open Weekdays 10am- 5pm; Sat 11am - 4pm 336.275.9655 • SummerhouseStore.com
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June Arts Calendar •
SUMMER ART. 6:30–9:30 p.m. Celebrate art on the longest day of the year with music, food, beverages and family-friendly fun at Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu. JAMMIN’ 7:30 p.m. WJMH’s (102JAMZ) 2013 SuperJam, which drew a sold-out crowd last year, returns to the Greensboro Coliseum with Two Chainz, Future, Wale, A$AP Rocky and Ace Hood. Tickets: Coliseum Box Office, 1921 West Lee Street, Greensboro. Tickets: www.greensborocoliseum.com.
•
June 21–22
•
POPPING UP. 6–11 p.m. February One Place becomes a PopUp Promenade every Friday and Saturday night with live entertainment, food trucks, dancing in the streets and special lighting effects between Davie and Greene streets. Info: (336) 387-8354 or www.facebook. com/PopUpPromenade.
June 22
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East Lexington Avenue, High Point. Registration: (336) 885-1859 or www. highpointmuseum.org.
JUNE 22
June 23
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SUNDAY NIGHT MUSIC. 6 p.m. Arnie Solomon & Transatlantica will turn the grass blue, followed at 7:25 p.m. by Nu-Blu with music in the park — at Hagan-Stone Park on HaganStone Park Road out U.S. Highway 421 South. Info: www.musep.info.
•
SUMMER CHILL. 6–7:30 p.m. As part of High Point’s annual Arts Splash concert series, the beach band Eric & The Chill Tones will provide a little shagging music at Mendenhall Station Transportation Terminal, 220 East Commerce Avenue, High Point. Info: (336) 889-2787, extension 26, or www.highpointarts.org.
Diddly-Bo
June 24–30
COURTING AND DANCING. 10 a.m. — 4 p.m. Shake a leg trying out some country dances of the late 18th century and early 19th century and learn about courting rituals of yesteryear — at the High Point Museum, 1859 East Lexington Avenue, High Point. Info: (336) 885-1859 or www.highpointmuseum.org.
HOPPERS HERE. The Greensboro Grasshoppers are at home again — at NewBridge Bank Park, 408 Bellemeade Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 268-2255.
DIDDLY. 1–3 p.m. Students will build a Diddly-Bo, a one-stringed, traditional roots instrument and then learn how to play it — at the High Point Museum, 1859
EMF. 8 p.m. The Eastern Music Festival’s Monday Chamber series features Mozart, Brahms and Ravel — at the UNCG School of Music Recital Hall, 100 McIver
•
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June 24
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Key:
• • Art
Music/Concerts
•
Performing arts
Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-7450 or easternmusicfestival.org.
June 25
EMF. 8 p.m. The Eastern Music Festival’s Tuesday • Chamber series features Camille Saint-Saens, Malcolm Arnold, Dmitri Shostakovich and David Popper at the UNCG School of Music Recital Hall, 100 McIver Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-7450 or easternmusicfestival.org.
• • Film
Literature/Speakers
• • Fun
History
•
Sports
Visit our
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
JUNE Graduation Framing Special! 2105-A W. Cornwallis Drive Greensboro, NC irvingparkartandframe.com
(336) 274-6717
Monday-Friday | 9:30 - 5:30 • Saturday | 10 - 4
We care about the ART of FRAMING! June 2013
O.Henry 91
It’s Summer Camp Time!
Get your kiddo signed up now.... Camp details & schedule apply to Wine and Design Greensboro Location ONLY.
Summer Fun
Week #1:
GET READY TO Waddle Your Way to The New Carolina sciquarium
July 22nd- 26th: Animal Planet (ages 4 to 6)
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OPENS JUNE 29!
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EXPLORE SUMMER
YMCA Of GREENSBORO KIDS LOVE US YMCA camps offer your kids a chance to have fun while building a healthy spirit, mind and body. Plus, they get to: • make new friends • play sports and games • get messy • learn funny songs • have fun • be a kid
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ymcagreensboro.org 92 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June Arts Calendar
June 26
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GOT TO BE N.C.. 6:30 p.m. Diners are the winners during the two-month-long Fire in the Triad Iron Chef-style competition that heats up in June — in the Empire Room. Tickets: www.competitiondining.com.
•
EMF. 8 p.m. The Eastern Music Festival’s Steinway Piana Gala features Eastern Music Festival faculty members Gideon Rubin and William Wolfram — at Guilford College, 5800 West Friendly Avenue, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-7450 or easternmusicfestival.org.
June 27–30
•
FUTSAL. The 2013 Intercontinental Futsal Cup tournament will pit six of the world’s best futsal clubs against each other. Futsal, a variant of soccer, is played on a smaller pitch, indoors. Tickets: Coliseum Box Office, 1921 West Lee Street, Greensboro. Info: www.greensborocoliseum.com.
June 27
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BEER HERE. 6:30 p.m. Beer-loving chef Jay Pierce pairs up some of his lip smackin’ cooking with Raleighbased Lonerider’s specialty ales — including Sweet Josie and Deadeye Jack — at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen, 1421 Westover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: (336) 370-0707 or www.lucky32.com
June 28-29 Futsol
Bangle
Introducing the NEW June 28–29
•
POPPING UP. 6–11 p.m. February One Place becomes a PopUp Promenade every Friday and Saturday night with live entertainment, food trucks, dancing in the streets and special lighting effects between Davie and Greene streets. Info: (336) 387-8354 or www.facebook. com/PopUpPromenade.
June 28
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EMF. 8 p.m. Violinist Joshua Bell takes the stage for the Eastern Music Festival’s Opening Night Gala, featuring music of Felix Mendelssohn, Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner — at Guilford College, 5800 West Friendly Avenue, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-7450 or easternmusicfestival.org.
June 29
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EMF. 8 p.m. Pianist William Wolfram plays with the Festival Orchestra in a trio of Beethoven concertos — at Guilford College, 5800 West Friendly Avenue, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-7450 or easternmusicfestival.org.
••• • •
Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports The Art & Soul of Greensboro
• • •
Performing arts Fun History
Sterling silver charms from $25
THE SHOPS AT FRIENDLY CENTER www.jewelrygreensboro.com
PANDORA CARD NOW AVAILABLE Special Financing Options Available*
June 2013
O.Henry 93
Treasures
•
•
Antiques Consignments
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Fine Art Animal Portraits
Appraisal Fair Saturday, June 8 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
– Benefits Guilford County Animal Shelter – Silent auction and pet adoption fair Please call for more information
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June 2013
Mon. – Wed 10-6 Thurs. – Sat 10-8 Sunday 1-6
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June 29 — October 20
•
LOOKING FORWARD AND BACK. Everything old is new again in Art History: Redux, an exhibition that explores how artists mine the works of their predecessors to produce objects that are uniquely their own — at Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
June 30
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EMF. 3 p.m. Young Pianists play in a relaxed, Sunday afternoon concert — at Guilford College, 5800 West Friendly Avenue, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 3337450 or easternmusicfestival.org.
•
ENVISION THIS. 6–7:30 p.m. As part of High Point’s annual Arts Splash concert series, En Vision will get ’em dancing with some Motown mixed with rhythm’n’blues — at High Point City Lake Park, 602 West Main Street, Jamestown. Info: (336) 889-2787, extension 26. or www.highpointarts.org.
chicken, select beverage specials and live music by Laurelyn Dossett and friends — at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen, 1421 Westover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: (336) 370-0707 or www.lucky32southernkitchen.com.
Wednesdays
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MUSSELS, WINE & MUSIC. 7–10 p.m. Mussels for $15, wines from $10–15 a bottle and live acoustic music by AM rodeo — at Print Works Bistro, 702 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: (336) 379-0699 or www. printworksbistro.com.
Thursdays
•
JAZZ NIGHT. 7 p.m. Fresh-ground, fresh-brewed coffee is served with a side of jazz — at Tate Street
Got to be N.C.
June Arts Calendar
Coffee House, 334 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 275-2754.
•
OPEN MIC COMEDY. 9 p.m. Local pros and amateurs take the mic at the Idiot Box, 348 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 274-2699 or www. ibcomedy.com.
Fridays & Saturdays
•
IMPROV COMEDY. 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, plus an 8 p.m. show on Saturday appropriate for the whole family. Actors create scenes on the spot and build upon the ideas of others, creating shows that are one-of-a-kind — at the Idiot Box, 348 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: 336-274-2699.
AROUND ELM STREET. 8 p.m. • NIGHTMARES A 90-minute, historical, candlelit ghost walking tour of Downtown Greensboro. Info and tickets: www.carolinahistoryandhaunts.com/information. OH
To add an event, email us at ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com by the first of the month prior to the event.
WEEKLY HAPPENINGS
••• • •
Tuesdays
Key: Art Music/Concerts Film Literature/Speakers Sports
•
CHICKEN’N’PICKIN’ 6:30–9:30 p.m. Skillet Fried Chicken & Songs from a Southern Kitchen. Sit down to Chef Jay’s signature fried
Business & Services Digby Eye Associates digbyeye.com
INE PROJECT Two locations: 719 Green Valley Rd, Suite 105, Greensboro (336) 230-1010 2401-D Hickswood Rd, High Point (336) 454-2020
Counseling and psychiatric medication management for adults, children, families. Bringing reconciliation, hope and healing to the triad for 38 years. 3713 Richfield Rd. Greensboro (336)288-1484 www.presbyterialcounseling.org
ESTATE SALE SPECIALISTS
QUALITY EFFICIENT WORK FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE PROJECT TO THE END ALSO BUYING FINE FURNTURE, HOME DECOR, ART AND JEWELRY WE SUPPORT THE “WOMEN’S RESOURCE CENTER” WITH A DONATION FROM EVERY SALE
PEGGY J. FRANTZ - OWNER peggyjfrantz@hotmail.com 336.209.6446
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JOIN US FOR AN
ALL-AMERICAN SUMMER
MAY 25 – SEPTEMBER 9 There’s no better place than Old Salem to experience an All-American Summer. It is the site of the nation’s first official 4th of July celebration and after all, George Washington really did sleep here!
june 14 & 15, 1o a.m. – 5 p.m. SHOPS AT OLD SALEM SUMMER SIDEWALK SALE
Sidewalk sale featuring clearance items, closeout deals, and bargains for everyone! FREE. Retail shops and stores
june 22 9:3o a.m. – 4 p.m.
FEDERAL TROOPS ENCAMPMENT Re-enactment by the 38th North Carolina Troops, a civil war/living history group. Drills and the reading of General Orders 32.
july 4 9:3o a.m. – 4:3o p.m.
INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATION & NATURALIZATION CEREMONY Hands-on activities, music, games, food and fun as well as a moving naturalization ceremony.
96 O.Henry
June 2013
For a full list of events and activities, visit oldsalem.org
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Worth the Drive to Winston-Salem Royal Rib-iera Don’t be alarmed if smoke gets in your eyes as you approach downtown Winston-Salem June 6–9; it’s merely your first clue that your love of ’cue is true — and that the Texas Pete Twin City RibFest is in full swing. For the ninth year, Winston shares the limelight with surrounding barbecue meccas — Lexington, Greensboro and High Point — as eight teams of pitmasters com-Pete for honors in four categories: People’s Choice, Best Ribs, Best Sauce and Grand Champion. Tap your feet to some homegrown tunes from the likes of Hobex, or bluegrass, jazz and karaoke acts, as you sample the goods from South Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Arkansas and last year’s reigning champ, Texas Outlaws, from, go figure, Elizabethtown, Kentucky. If you can’t make it to RibFest, consider dropping by the 2011 victor and contender in “BBQ Pitmasters” on TLC’s Destination America channel: Bib’s Downtown. Bib’s fall-off-the-bone ribs, its “Bestern” sauce (a combo of Eastern and Western N.C. flavors) and beloved Bibs Beans are available year ’round at its Fifth Street restaurant, a rehabbed Firestone Tire store, across from the Forsyth County Central Library. Info: twincityribfest.com and www.bibsdowntown.com — Nancy Oakley
49 Miller Street next to Whole Foods Winston-Salem 723.4022 Monday-Friday 10-6 Saturday 10-5 www.devajewelry.com
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June 2013
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98 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Worth the Drive to High Point A Little Night Music
July 21 Lacy Green (Country),
Experience the beach, the Blue Ridge or the Caribbean in High Point all summer long during the city’s annual Arts Splash concert series. The outdoor concerts, set in popular city parks and gathering spots, are free. All concerts are from 6 — 7:30 p.m. Bring lawn chairs, blankets and picnic fixings (leave wine and beer at home.) Information: (336) 889-2787, extension 26 or www.highpointarts.org.
July 28 Dub Addis (Reggae), Washington Terrace Park, 101 Gordon Street, High Point.
Roberts Hall, High Point University, 833 Montlieu Avenue, High Point.
August 4 Jazzen (Jazz), High Point Museum & Historical Park, 1859 East Lexington Avenue, High Point.
June 23 Eric & The Chill Tones (Beach), Mendenhall
Station Transportation Terminal, 220 East Commerce Avenue, High Point.
June 30 En Vision (R&B/Motown), High Point City Lake Park, 602 West Main Street, Jamestown.
July 14 Old Grass (Bluegrass), Oak Hollow Festival Park, 1841 Eastchester Drive, High Point.
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August 11 Jeff Little Trio (Music of the Blue Ridge), Mendenhall Station Transportation Terminal, 220 East Commerce Avenue, High Point. August 18 Jaxon Jill Band (Classic Rock), High Point City Lake Park, 602 West Main Street, Jamestown. — Tina Firesheets
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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2013.5.6-citymarket_OHenry.pdf
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June 20 July 18 August 15 September 19 October 17
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Live Jazz Every Friday Night 8.30 - 11:30
House-made pastas, sauces, desserts using fresh, local ingredients.
Come by the store for our new summer merchandise, including jewels & infiniti seasonal scarfs!!!
S June Summer Reading Sale All Books 20% Off
100 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Will & Paige DuBose
GreenScene
Canterbury 20th Anniversary Gala Saturday, April 20, 2013 Photographs by Sam Froelich
Caroline Jones, Marianne Bennett
Robb & Chris Hutchinson
Danny Murray, Julie Longmire
Kim Hayes, Susan Beard
Jeff & Lisa Hill
Harriet & Bobby Knox
Scott & Mary Hale
Louise & Chip Bristol
Scott & Trisha Faircloth
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Rick & Martha Murphy
June 2013
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102 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
GreenScene
Greensboro Montessori School’s ’80’s Night Silent Auction Fundraiser Saturday, April 20, 2013 Photographs by Sam Froelich
Laura & Jesus Gonzalez
Karen Howland, Jenny Romano
Jessica Smith, Nancy Hofer
Lisa & Chad Miller
Jason & Shirley Landry, Joan Tao
Margaret Borrego, Frank Brainard Mike & Dina Dunn, Bill Howland
Cyndi Lauder, Jack Webster Catherine Froelich, Jan Shipton
Kristin & Brady Yntema
Beth & John King
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June 2013
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Winston-Salem, North Carolina
336.306.5185
jeff@jalallc.com
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Pe s t o P a s t a • C h o c o l a t e W a l n u t P i e • C h i c k e n S a l a d • B r e a d P u d d i n g
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June 2013
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
GreenScene
Keisha Chapman, Edwina Monroe, Janice Miles
Women in Philanthropy Luncheon at Grandover Resort and Conference Center Tuesday, May 14, 2013 Photographs by Sam Froelich
Kathy Manning, Jenny Kaplan, Susan Wiseman Elizabeth Osteen, Jean Anne Ferner, Caroline Jones
Misty McCall, Teresa Moore
Mae Douglas, Edith Chance, Dollie Cheek
Maribeth Hudgins, Jane Smith
Daniella Helms, Michelle Gethers-Clark
Jane Gibson, Leslie Conway, Pam Barrett
Ann Zuraw, Lyn Faust, Susan Wiseman, Kia Mclean, Kim Younts, Julie Longmire
Candice Cummings, Michelle Schiender
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June 2013
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106 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
GreenScene
Shirley Broome
Greensboro Farmers Curb Market Saturday, May 18, 2013 Photographs by Lynn Donovan
Karla McDonald, H Nglunh, Lek H Siu
Nora & Juan Fleita, Wendy & David Rapp
Connie Warren, Jan Laney, Brender Meyer, Rhonda Underwood
Teresa & John Owens
Lu Ellen Hooper, Karen Stewart, Ellen Cosby, Mary Cosby
GreenScene
Greensboro Youth Chorus 25th Anniversary Gala & Concert Friday, May 10, and Saturday, May 18, 2013 Photographs by Lynn Donovan
Nancy Walker, Tim Lindeman, Nancy Fogarty, Holly Chambers
Nana Wolfe-Hill (Conductor) & Ann Doyle (Founder, Artistic Director & Conductor)
Claudia Sims, John Vine, Bill & Cathy Connor
Keith & Cindy Holliday, Cathy Connor, Bob & Melinda Madtes
Nancy & Bob Thurston
Rick Steedle, Holly Chambers, Doris & Charles Murph
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
June 2013
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GreenScene
Mackie Neely & Cara Derounian
Pop Up Promenade Friday, May 17, 2013
Photographs by Lynn Donovan
Marc Clapp & Katie Weegar Clair Hilliard, Lisa DeVince
Tommy Hudson & Cheryl Martin
Salem Owens & her dog Cisco Robert, Natalie, Makayla & Raisean Isley
Mik Craig, Jordan Craig, Andrew Jennings Dale & Glenna Haynes, Bob & Tricia Lamar, Joe Wheby, Terry Carpenter, Ed & Melissa Wolverton Andy Strichler, Terence Polk, Nura Strong & Coco, Charlie Walsh, Emily Finch
108 O.Henry
June 2013
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
hands-on Greensboro’s premier Montessori School... Serving children ages eighteen months through eighth grade, where students develop a love of learning through individually guided, hands-on discovery and exploration. Come discover the GMS difference for yourself! • Authentic Montessori curriculum, exceptional and caring faculty
Old Irving Park
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Old Irving Park
301 Sunset
Majestic Georgian Irving Park Home on Golf Course lot! 4 Bedrooms, 5 full & 2 half baths. New interior & exterior paint in 2010. Family rm w/custom fireplace & entertainment cabinet, hardwood & marble floors. Custom French doors to gray stone patio & Loggia w/copper roof, FP, TV, dining & entertaining area. Lap Pool, fenced back yard, new landscaping and gardens. Price available upon request
1900 Lafayette
Great Irving Park location on Greensboro Country Club Golf course. Has been updated throughout, plus new roof in 2005, paint, 3 or 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, warm and cozy. Recent exterior paint. Great for entertaining - patio has cookout bar.
Provincetown
Ascot Point
Price available upon request
4 Hillwind Ct
Fabulous family home in Provincetown. Four or five bedrooms, five full and three half baths. High ceilings, custom moldings. New roof 2012, trim painted. Hardwoods and new carpet. Three-car garage, pool and much more! $799,000
14 Charleston Square
Ascot Point Classic! Brick home with master bedroom on main level. 9 foot ceilings, custom moldings, hardwood floors on main level. 2 bedrooms, 2 baths on upper level. Lots of storage. 2-car attached garage. $395,000.
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273-0256
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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“CLICK OR CALL… WE DO IT ALL” Xan Tisdale Kay Chesnutt 336-601-2337 336-202-9687
Yost and Little Realty
Xan.Tisdale@pruyostandlittle.com Kay.Chesnutt@pruyostandlittle.com June 2013
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The Accidental Astrologer
Juicy June
Some good. Some bad. It’s all in the stars Gemini (May 22-June 21) It’s a what-the-fudge kind of a month, Sweet Thang. You got the sun and Mars traipsing through your sign, giving you astrological whiplash. Just when you think you got a handle on things, everything reverses. Do-si-do, like you’re in some nightmare hoedown. So, make them dance moves, swing your partner and get on down. By June 19, things switch it up for the good. If you are smart, you’ll sock away a little for a rainy day. That investment tip this month calls it right on the money, Honey. Cancer (June 22-July 23) This is a beyooteeful time in your sign, and some of this means you gotta lotta Grade A, prime-rib choices. Like between good, better and best. It’s also a good month to put your sleepy pants on and order in — life is good on the home front. Especially if you take your chill pill. My Aunt Pearl used to say when the sun aligns, things mighty fine. ’Specially at home. Butta that biscuit, Sweet Thing, and enjoy yourself. Come the 19th you got some money coming your way and also a mysterious stranger. Better hope it ain’t the tax man. Leo (July 23-Aug. 23) Uh-huh, you done got yourself in a situation, June Bug. I’m gonna go Tammy Faye on this one and strongly urge you to call the prayer line: 1-800-I-Seen-That! You gotta take your own inventory, just like the AA Big Book says. Look within. By the 11th you can whip this situation around. But you got more knots to detangle than a wet Shih-Tzu. Funny, but when you do, life will be sweeter than a Little Debbie cake by the 26th. Virgo (August 24-Sept. 23) When Mercury opposes Pluto early this month, you are going to feel just like a one-legged man in a butt kickin’ contest: excited and confused. Here’s what you do: Pack a bag. You got lots of friends, and this would be a good time to go visit. You got a much better mid-month and you’ll leave June feeling knee-deep in clover. You got more personality than a bowl of Lucky Charms, and you are smoother than Irish Spring soap on a rope. Spread it around, Child. Libra (Sept. 24-Oct. 23) Stay closer to your wallet than a couple roaches on a bacon bit around June 7. Life gets sticky, and when it does, use your marbles and stay cool, Baby. You feel all Elvis-style shook up until the 16th, and when the planets shift, you will be in a good — at least better — situation by the 20th. At the end of the month, use that Arthur Murray coupon and try some new moves. You will have the confidence to dance your way outta any situation. Scorpio (October 23-November 21) My cousin Buford has a mule that is more flexible than a Scorpio once they get their back up. You got some compromising to do, Honey. Manage that, and you will find things easy-peasy. But around the 11th, watch out for a jive-talker in your circle with a big hat but no cattle, Pardner. Big Hat may seem exciting, but just be aware you got a fifty/fifty chance of a boondoggle this month. Or, if the stars shift, something marvelous. Can go either way. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Sagittarius (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Don’t interfere with something that ain’t bothering you none. And don’t corner it if it’s meaner than you. I got that crossstitched on a pillow. This is a month where you got lots of struggle. If you hear a knock, it’s opportunity, not your car engine. Relationships and fun make it all worthwhile, Sugar. By the 17th you learn something new — and it ain’t just how to French braid. You could have a break through bigger than George Foreman’s Grill! Infomercial time! Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) The first of the month is all about that messy flux between Pluto and Uranus. Listen to your friends at the water cooler. By the 19th, you’ll be in another spot, where it looks like you don’t know the difference between come here and sic ’em. Child, you got a month with more highlights than Jessica Simpson’s hair. The 25th brings a little breathing room, and the drama dies down. Somebody say, “Amen!” Aquarius (Jan. 21-Feb. 19) The month is a little rocky at the starting line. You’re like the rooster who thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow. You’re a natural leader, Child, but sometimes you might check that you got anybody that wants to follow. Keep things loose on the 12th. By the 27th you are back in the spotlight, strutting like a rooster right to the top of the hen house. Pace yourself, Darling. Pisces (Feb. 20-March 20) It would be fun being you this month. You got some June days that are going to leave you plenty to smile about Darling, but just remember to use that tooth whitener. You are feeling your oats by the second week, and also feeling for your wallet. Hold on, Kit Kat. You want to splurge, but be sure you see the bonus check first. That scheme might be the best thing ever — but get your glasses and read the fine print. Aries (March 21-April 20) You are restless, Child. But going from where you are to where thinking about going to is like trading daylight for dark. Yes, you are bustin’ with ideas but you might want to just hold onto your pantyhose until the 19th. There’s change coming on the 27th that will offer you the stage you crave, Honey. Meantime, be sure you take care of them roots . . . part lines don’t lie. Taurus (April 21-May 21) Flying all over like a June bug, ain’t you? That’s the Gemini sun mixing it up with Pluto and Uranus in the beginning of the month. Making you antsy. By the second half of the month, you got to work on things in the love department. Show the love, Baby. Show them a little money, too, ’cause it can’t hurt a bit. Like Uncle Lester used to say, it’s just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one. OH For years, Astrid Stellanova owned and operated Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon in the boondocks of North Carolina until arthritic fingers and her popular astrological readings provoked a new career path.
June 2013
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O.Henry Ending
My Father’s Pal BY JAMES COLASANTI JR.
When I was 16, my first dog,
Butchy, died. My father went to the local pound and brought home the first dog he took a liking to and named her Pal.
“Questo cane mi ha parlato,” my father said. (“This dog spoke to me.”) And knowing my dad and his gift with animals, I am quite sure she did. “She told me she wanted to come home with me. She told me to pick her so I did.” Pal lived up to her name and never forgot the favor. All she knew was loyalty and love. Pal was 4 years old when we got her — and a day away from being “put down.” A collie-shepherd mix, she was marked like a collie but built like a shepherd. We realized early on that she must have been previously mistreated. Pal definitely did not like women. We never found out why, but we could tell she had an aversion to females of any age. She did, however, respect my mother, Mary, who always brought Pal her food dish. For that, the dog was grateful. She was my father’s dog — his and his alone. She was his shadow. Where he went, she went — with never too much space between them. Her dedication to him was absolute. On warm summer nights we would sit underneath the three Bartlett pears trees in the backyard shelling string beans. Pal would always be right next to my father. She would rest her head on top of his old gardening shoes, using them as her pillow — always happy to be near his scent. He would reach down with his big rough hands and very, very gently stroke her fur — always the complete length of her body — head to tail. It was the way his father taught him, and it was the way he taught me. During these family get-togethers he would often relate bits of old Italian wisdom. He would tell me, “James, l’amore di un cane ’e un po ’come l’amore di Dio — ’e sempre li per te, ed ’e incondizionata.” (“The love of a dog is somewhat like God’s love — it is always there for you and it is unconditional.”) And Pal proved that Dad was right. “James, remember too that a best friend is someone you keep in your heart forever. Just like everyone needs a heart, everyone also needs a best friend. And one more thing, a dog is the very best friend you will ever have in your life. Like no other.” As he spoke, Pal jumped up and licked my father’s face. She knew he was talking about her. There
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June 2013
were only two things that Pal was afraid of: thunder and lightning, and the report of my father’s rifle. Either one made her cower. One Saturday morning, she had gone out to the pasture with him. The crows had been circling the cornfield since dawn. My father shot his rifle into the air to keep them from damaging the crops. Pal tried to squeeze between my father’s legs in an effort to hide. My mother happened to be in the cornfield that day harvesting the ripened ears of corn, and as my father headed back to our cabin he turned toward Pal and said, “Pal, stay here with Mama. Stay.” And Pal immediately sat down near the spot where my mother was shucking corn. When my mother stood up, her left foot sank deep into a woodchuck hole, pitching her forward and twisting her ankle. The surprise and the pain took her breath away and it was several minutes before she could speak. She looked up and yelled to Pal, “Go get your papa! Go on. Go!” Pal cocked her head, looking at her knowingly. She understood the word “papa” and raced toward the cabin kicking up the dirt as she sped through the narrow rows of corn. My father was in the back chopping firewood. Pal ran up to him, sat and barked three times before starting back to the cornfield, looking over her shoulder to be sure my father was following close behind. Pal had saved the day. My mother recovered from the event and always — after that — had a very special place for Pal in her heart. One Sunday night a long distance call arrived for me in my dorm at Syracuse University. It was from my mother, who usually did not call me — always waiting for me to call home. She started her conversation by saying, “Pal died today. Your father buried her next to Butchy underneath the pear trees in the backyard.” In my heart I knew what she was going to say next. “James, this is only the second time I have ever seen your father cry.” And I knew exactly what she meant. The first time was the day Butchy died. I had been present for that sad occasion but this time I was glad I was not. This was his dog — his pack of two, which was now one. They had been the best of friends. OH A past president of the Animal Rescue & Foster Program of Greensboro, James Colasanti Jr. has won the Maxwell Medallion given by the Dog Writers Association of America three times. He and his five rescued dogs can be reached at onegooddog1@yahoo.com.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR
The love of a dog is like the love of God. Always there, always unconditional
John Reganess, CFP 速 First Vice President - Investments Fundamental Choice Portfolio Manager 324 W. Wendover Ave #301 Greensboro, NC 27408 (336) 544-1015 john.reganess@wfadvisors.com https://home.wellsfargoadvisors.com/john.reganess
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