March O.Henry 2023

New Friends. New Opportunities.

Get ready to begin a new, engaging chapter in your life with so many new opportunities to nurture your mind, body and spirit here at Friends Homes.

Our exciting expansion is well underway, with our new state-of-the-art wellness center now open! The wellness center features an indoor sports court, fitness center, indoor pool, integrative health clinic, salon, art and crafts rooms, a multi-purpose room for lifelong learning and much more. It’s an important part of our reimagined, whole-person approach to wellness that o ers you more options for enhancing your physical, intellectual and spiritual health.

Join us for an upcoming event to experience the new opportunities at Friends Homes firsthand and learn more about the limited number of new villa apartments still available. Call or visit us online to sign up for a tour today.

Here When You Need Us.

FEATURES

53 Bone Beach Life

Poetry by Stephen Catlett

54 The Need for Shutter Speed

By

Billy Ingram

Bill Chandler’s wanderlust for classic automobiles turns into a creative hobby

60 The Beat Goes On

By David Menconi

From the mountains to the sea

66 We Are the Dreamers

By Ogi Overman

The Gate City has positioned itself for a bright future

69 Daddy Knows Best

By Cynthia Adams

Catherine Harrill finds her forever home in Fountain Manor

79 Almanac By Ashley Walshe

triLift ™ is the first technology of its kind stimulating the facial muscles with dynamic muscle stimulation, lifting, and tightening. It also provides a boost of collagen production through a multi-functional process, and it has already become a game changer for uncovering natural beauty.

Call today for your complimentary consultation and find out how Trilift can uncover a more youthful appearance in your face.

MAGAZINE

volume 13, no. 3

“I have a fancy that every city has a voice.”

336.617.0090

111 Bain Street, Suite 324, Greensboro, NC 27406 www.ohenrymag.com

PUBLISHER

David Woronoff david@thepilot.com

Andie Rose, Creative Director andiesouthernpines@gmail.com

Cassie Bustamante, Editor cassie@ohenrymag.com

Jim Dodson, Editor at Large jwdauthor@gmail.com

Miranda Glyder, Graphic Designer

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Cynthia Adams, David Claude Bailey, Maria Johnson

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Mallory Cash, Bill Chandler, Lynn Donovan, Amy Freeman, Bert VanderVeen, Albion Assoicates

CONTRIBUTORS

Harry Blair, Keith Borshak, Wiley Cash, Stephen Catlett, Susan Campbell, Barbara Rosson Davis, Billy Ingram, David Menconi, Gerry O’Neill, Ogi Overman, Zora Stellanova, Ashley Walshe, Amberly Glitz Weber

ADVERTISING SALES

Marty Hefner, Advertising Manager

Lisa Allen

336.210.6921 • lisa@ohenrymag.com

Amy Grove

336.456.0827 • amy@ohenrymag.com

Larice White

336.944.1749 • larice@ohenrymag.com

Brad Beard, Graphic Designer

Jennifer Bunting, Advertising Coordinator ohenrymag@ohenrymag.com

Henry Hogan, Finance Director 910.693.2497

Darlene Stark, Subscriptions & Circulation Director • 910.693.2488

OWNERS

Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels III, Lee Dirks, David Woronoff

In memoriam Frank Daniels Jr.

© Copyright 2023. Reproduction in whole

O.Henry Magazine is published by The Pilot LLC

MARCH 8–22, 2023

Experience why Charlotte is in the national spotlight as a culinary destination. This is your o cial invitation to Savor Charlotte, a two-week celebration of the chefs, mixologists and culinary community who define the flavor of the Queen City. From March 8-22, discover can’t miss hands-on classes and demonstrations from industry trendsetters, exclusive menus from tastemakers and special o ers from top restauranteurs. This is the story of Charlotte told by the culinary artists who call the Queen City home. Plan your visit at savorcharlotte.com.

by Cassie bustamante

Eversince I was a child, I’ve been enthralled by magazines. My parents gifted me my very first subscriptions — to Highlights and National Geographic, which I would anxiously await each month, religiously checking our mailbox daily anticipating their arrival. And when I was old enough to walk to the drugstore in our small New England town center, I’d use my own babysitting money to purchase high quality publications — Bop and Seventeen (plus wet n’ wild Pink Frost lipstick— it was the early ’90s). Holding those glossy pages filled with bright images and stories felt magical in my hands.

Years later, as a senior at Wake Forest University, I knew I wanted to move to New York City after graduation and work my way up to editor at a magazine, to be a part of something that always brought me so much joy. However, that same year, I met my husband, Chris, and, much to my college advisor’s chagrin — sorry, Dr. Zulick! — I put my own dream on the back burner.

I’ve spent the last 20 years all over the career map as a retail manager, personal trainer, group exercise instructor, vintage

Chaos Theory 101 An introduction

store owner and DIY blogger/influencer. I’ve raised two kids who are almost ready to fly the coop and added a preschooler to the mix. We’ve moved from North Carolina to Tennessee to Texas to Louisiana to Maryland, and back to North Carolina in 2019. Through it all, one thing has remained constant: my love for magazines. OK, two things: my love for magazines and my love for my husband.

I’d long since buried that dream of working in the magazine world, but a chance meeting with a neighbor reminded me that it still lived within me, simmering quietly all along. On an early, predawn morning walk in the midsummer of 2020, I met Jim Dodson, the founding editor of O.Henry. It was one of those moments when your soul responds to another with, “Oh, it’s you. I know you.”

A couple months later, knowing that I had social media experience, he called me about “a job you’d be a perfect fit for,” and asked me to attend a driveway meeting, as one did in 2020. At the time, I wasn’t looking for a job, but, after thinking it over, I decided to give it a shot and applied.

For the past two-and-a-half years I’ve worked as O.Henry’s digital content manager, adding the role of managing editor in 2022. Now, 23 years after putting that dream of being an editor on the back burner, it’s bubbling over with excitement. The fact that I get to play an integral part in delivering into your hands a magazine filled with beautiful, hopeful and humorous writing paired with stunning photography and artwork is the fourth greatest joy of my life, ranking just under my kids.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said, “When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it’s a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect.”

Full disclosure: We’re still a hot mess at our house. There are currently dirty dishes piled in the sink, dog slobber streaks on the windows and dried Play-Doh crumbs under my feet as I write. Life with three kids, two rescue dogs and two full-time careers can be, at times, utter chaos, but it’s given me pages upon pages of content — sometimes funny, sometimes bittersweet, always honest. And finally, I can see the storyline developing in the midst of the mess. OH

Cassie Bustamante is editor of O.Henry magazine.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BERT VANDERVEEN

Thanks to the love and attention of our staff and customers, Turtle lived a happy life at Downtown Greensboro Animal Hospital. A familiar and beloved furry face, Turtle became a friend to all she encountered and will be dearly missed.

Thank You to all our clients and the community for all your support

Celebrating our 10th anniversary this spring, we believe that every pet is family. In addition to wellness exams, surgery, and dentistry services, we also offer radiology, ultrasound, in-house laboratory, and laser therapy.

We see birds, exotic mammals, and pocket pets. Doctors John Wehe and Clarissa Noureddine and our entire staff are committed to helping your pet achieve the highest quality of life while giving the best care possible. You can expect state-of-the-art medical care for your four-legged or feathered companions.

EYEWEAR S TARTIN G

REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL. SO IS GINGER.

“My favorite part of Greensboro is the people who call it home. I’ve been blessed with rich relationships that embody the friendliness and diversity of our historic city. Walks on the Greenway, cheering at soccer games and swim meets, attending shows at Tanger Center for Performing Arts, and catching a Greensboro Grasshoppers baseball game are best enjoyed with these friends.” When it comes to selling your home, no one in the Greensboro area does it better than Ginger and the team at TR&M. Local experts, global reach. Call 336.274.1717 or visit trmhomes.com today.

SAZERAC

Sage Gardener

Lettuce pray — and praise — my favorite garden vegetable, Lactuca sativa (which Wiki says is a member of the aster family? Whatever). The “Latuca” part comes from “lactis,” the Latin word for milk, so-named because of the milky juice that gets all over you when you cut it. (“Sativa” means cultivated.) Lettuce juice, by the way, contains a trace amount of an alkaloid similar to that found in the opium poppy! Just imagine, Dorothy and her squad could have fallen asleep in a lettuce field. First cultivated for its medicinal properties, lettuce is depicted on Egyptian tombs; was propagated by the Greeks; and popularized in Rome by the Emperor Augustus’ physician. New Delhi TV’s news site insists that lettuce (along with other leafy greens) has belly-fat burning capabilities. What’s not to like about a vegetable anyone can grow, even on your patio? N.C. State says seeds can be planted from February through April, and that lettuce thrives at temps between 60 and 65 degrees. (It can germinate at 35.) The average high in Greensboro in March is 61, 70 in April. So what are you waiting for, especially with seedlings crowding every home-improvement store?

Being Scots-Irish, I try to grow what’s expensive in the grocery stores. Checked the price of lettuce lately?

Tired of salads? Check out Larousse Gastronomique, where you’ll find braised lettuce, chiffonade of lettuce, marinated, deep-fried lettuce and — wait for it — candied lettuce. And now, lettuce eat!

— David Claude Bailey

Unsolicited Advice

March is the Goldilocks of months, not too hot and not too cold. We’ve put together a little easy-peasy to-do list for you so you can soak in the glorious weather without getting soaked in perspiration.

⃣ Plan an outdoor project. Now’s a great time to build that chicken coop you’ve been dreaming up. With the current price of eggs, that hen house will pay for itself in about three weeks.

⃣ Order mulch. Spend a morning shoveling, hauling and spreading only to see that the pile doesn’t seem to be shrinking — at all Call the neighbor’s teenager to finish the job while you sip an afternoon cocktail.

⃣ Schedule a pedicure. We know what our feet look like after a long winter and it’s not pretty. While you’re at it, shave that big toe. C’mon, you know you do it.

⃣ Spring clean. Wipe down your baseboards, upper cabinets and ceiling fans. Move furniture and discover dust bunnies big enough to keep as pets. Heck, they don’t need to be fed or walked. Better than a Furby, if you ask us.

⃣ Take your workout outside. When was the last time you Prancercised?

⃣ March to your own beat. Do whatever it is that makes you bloom this month.

"A spirited forum of Gate City food, drink, history, art, events, rumors and eccentrics worthy of our famous namesake"

Star Gazing

After lunch, we stood outside remarking to one another about the astonishing, clear light. Bending over, I pointed out the sharp shadows on the sidewalk to Katie.

“Have you ever seen such?” I asked Katie, sensing something unusual.

He escaped, walking up a few steps at a building, where he was rung inside. It was an art gallery.

Long before Hulu’s witty Only Murders in the Building comedic series starring Steve Martin hooked me, I had already scoped out his house in Beverly Hills. (For the record, it’s on Calle Juela Drive.)

Dammit. I cannot be his neighbor because he sold the house next door, one he also owned, in 2019.

Allow me a lottery fantasy: If I won, I might try to tempt the new owner to move and sell me a little chunk of 90210. Or maybe not.

Because Mr. Martin already knows I’m starstruck.

Some years ago, I was in Manhattan meeting an architect friend, Katie, for a bite at a local deli.

Katie, too, was open-mouthed. Suddenly, I was aware of a casually dressed man in a baseball cap who stopped to look at the sidewalk, joining our little huddle.

“You know there’s an eclipse today, right?” the stranger said in the unmistakable voice of one famously wild and crazy guy. My head snapped up. STEVE MARTIN!

We all fell silent.

My heart thrummed. He hurried away. I looked at Katie, and inexplicably said of the funny man in swift retreat, “Let’s follow him!”

We gave chase, like celebrity-crazed fools. When Martin picked up his pace, we did too. In fact, we were all soon practically running, weaving through throngs of people at lunch hour.

Just One Thing

“A horse is a horse, of course, unless . . .” it is muscled with machinery parts, wrenches, shovels, light fixtures and golf clubs. Harnessed seven years ago by Jose Rafael Rodriguez, this iron horse is stabled at Artmongerz Gallery, perhaps Greensboro’s most eclectic art venue. A co-op style gallery, Artmongerz has been a fixture on South Elm for two decades. Rodriguez says he took up welding at an industrial overhead garage company 42 years ago after he left his native Venezuela. Also a prodigious abstract painter who does kinetic yard sculptures, Rodriguez always meant to go to art school but never quite made it. The cat he coupled together from silverware couldn’t care less. And the horse doesn’t seem to be saddled with it either. Let’s just say the neighs have it. Info: artmongerz.com.

I was out of breath, telling Katie between gasps about his California home with few windows and strategically placed skylights, ensuring his art collection was protected. His collection includes Cindy Sherman, Roy Lichtenstein, Edward Hopper and Willem de Kooning. Add to that list Lucian Freud, Picasso — well, you get the idea.

Martin has been performing in the Triad since 1975, and tells a story about running into Kreskin, a famous mentalist, in the lobby of a Winston-Salem hotel. “Steve! What are you doing here?” Kreskin asked. “How are you doing? Are you performing?”

Martin remained silent, just like he had with me and Katie.

All he could think, Martin says, was, shouldn’t a mind reader already know?

— Cynthia Adams

6 0 Y E A R S

EXPERIENCE / KNOWLEDGE / EXCELLENCE

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Dr. Anu Antony

Dr. Gaurav Bharti

Dr. Bill Kortesis

Dr. Cooper Scurry

Scene & Heard

We all know it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but who doesn’t love a pretty face? For 96 years, the Carolina Theatre’s classic Greek Revival facade has welcomed patrons, who enjoyed live music, classic movies, standup comedians and all sorts of live entertainment in an over-the-top interior bursting with Italian-Renaissance flourishes. Good looks must matter: She’s survived downtown decline in the ’60s, was saved from demolition in the ’70s and barely made it out alive from a fire in the ’80s. She’s one tough customer, but still standing with open arms to invite all who support the arts inside. In 2018, the theatre’s Setting the Stage campaign was launched, focusing on improving both artists’ and audiences’ experience inside the building. The improvements were so fabulous that now her facade needs to match her resplendent interior. In the words of Cher Horowitz, “Let’s do a makeover.” Of course, we’re not Clueless and this kind of undertaking is not possible without community support. The Carolina Theatre’s cosmetic surgery is going to cost her lovers $600,000.

She may not be young anymore, but she’s “hip, so beautiful and she’s gonna be a supermodel” once again as she approaches her centenary. For more information on how you can help Set the Stage, see carolinatheatre.com/ setting-the-stage.

A Little Stuffed Potato Wisdom

Lessons from full-grown tater tots

by Jim dodson

Someone once said to me that it’s not happiness that makes one grateful, but gratitude that makes one happy.

Looking back, I may have seen this poetic syllogism scrawled on an ancient stone wall several years ago while hiking with my wife in Tuscany (where every graffiti artist is a philosopher-in-training). Or maybe I heard Oprah Winfrey say it in one of her SuperSoul Conversations that the aforementioned wife suggested that I listen to on long drives.

Whoever said it, I’m grateful for its pithy wisdom because I’ve suddenly reached an age where I know it to be true.

Back in February, I turned 70, a milestone that took me by surprise.

It’s not that I was unprepared. In truth, I’ve enjoyed getting older and slowing down a bit, giving me the chance to notice the evening sky.

Also, I am not alone in this epic journey into the great gray age and the unknown, as my late father — who lived a full and active life right up to a week before he died at 80 — used to joke. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 69.2 million baby boomers alive and kicking today in America, the secondlargest population group next to our children, the millennials (73.9 million born between 1981 and 1996 ). My particular group was born in 1953 ands falls somewhere in the lower middle of the boomer years between 1946 and 1964.

According to the latest actuarial projections used by our friends at the Social Security Administration to calculate how much longer the agency will have to give us back all the money we spent decades putting into the system, my age and gender group — males aged 70 — can expect to live another 14.5 years, while our female counterparts come in at a 16.75. Good for them, I say! Sell the house, dump the stocks, give away the dog and go sit on a beautiful beach in

Tahiti for the rest of your days! By the way, that’s exactly what my wise but cheeky and younger wife Wendy says she plans to do with her giddy 10 extra years after I check out of the Hotel California.

Meanwhile, according to the CDC’s Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), life expectancy at birth in the United States declined nearly a full year from 2020 to 2021, a worrying dip from 77.0 to 76.1 years that is the lowest level since 1996, probably due in part to a thing called COVID. The 0.9 year drop in life expectancy in 2021, along with a 1.8 year drop in 2020, was the biggest two-year decline since 1921–1923, years in which the Spanish flu wiped out millions worldwide, including my own maternal grandmother.

Actuarially speaking, it could be worse, of course. Afghanistan’s current life expectancy is just a hair over 56 years, considerably shorter if the Taliban’s Morality Police catch you whispering about the need to educate girls and women.

Singapore’s life expectancy, on the other hand, is a bonny 86.5 years. Perhaps this means that Dame Wendy — the future merry widow — should consider moving there instead of Tahiti (which has a mere life expectancy of 78.82 years) where she’s likely to make lots of older gal pals living the good life off the insurance money on a lovely Asian beach. As any veteran foreign traveler knows, however, Singaporeans are obsessed with public cleanliness and strict social order. Littering, chewing gum in public or failing to flush a public toilet can land you a whopping $1,000 fine, while showing your bare feet or skin of any sort can earn you three months in jail. That sensational black one-piece my 61-year-old lover debuted at the pool last summer probably won’t fly with Singapore’s own Morality Police. So on second thought, perhaps I won’t suggest Singapore and just leave well enough alone. That’s probably the wisest thing I’ve learned from being happily married for 20-plus years.

The point of all these dizzying numbers, as Oprah or any Tuscan street poet with spray paint can tell you, is to live the best life you can and be damned grateful for whatever time you have left.

That’s exactly what my fellow members of the Stuffed Potatoes

Lunch & Philosophy Club try to do on a daily basis.

For the moment, there’s just three of us in the club. We meet every other week or so in the shadowy booth of a popular restaurant to discuss the current state of the world, the wonders of our grown children and the enduring mystery of our wives.

Remarkably, as this March dawns, all three of us will have turned 70 by the end of the month. Joe hit the mark in late January, I did so in early February, and Patrick achieves the milestone later this month.

I’m told none of us actually looks 70 years old, though wives, golf pals and fellow Stuffed Potatoes can scarcely be considered objective sources.

For that matter, we probably don’t even act like old men, save for when we complain about dodgy knees and idiots who run red lights. As a kid, I once asked my lively grandmother on her 84th birthday if she was afraid of dying. She grinned and patted my rosy little cheek. “Not a bit, sugar pie,” she said. “Just afraid of falling.”

None of the Stuffed Potatoes, I can reliably report, are afraid of dying. We’re too busy for that.

January Joe is a professional forester helping set aside beautiful lands for future generations. Patrick, the marketing whiz — I fondly call him the “Irish Antichrist” — is keeping the national

economy afloat. And I’m just a humble scribbler trying to finish three books this year alone.

Given that we collectively amount to 210 years of accumulated life experience, I put to my fellow Stuffed Potatoes a timely question the other day: What is the one thing you’ve learned in 70 years?

January Joe, our resident sage, didn’t hesitate. “There are wonders ahead. Don’t fight them — just surrender!” This from a lovely fellow who gets to walk in the woods for a living and surrenders most weekends to the joy of several beautiful grandbabies.

My old friend, Patrick, offered with a hearty laugh, “There’s no good news or bad news. It’s all information. Just keep doing what you do and don’t look back.” The Irish Antichrist means business. As for me, I hope to finish half a dozen more books over the 15.5 years I may or may not have left. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, we have a joyous new puppy named Winnie and a garden that is springing gloriously back to life by the minute.

I’m deeply grateful for both, not to mention a fabulous wife who says she really has no interest in going to Singapore or Tahiti. And was probably only joking.

That makes me a really happy guy. OH

Jim Dodson is the founding editor of O.Henry.

DO DOWNTOWN YOUR WAY THIS SPRING.

Whether you prefer two wheels or four, hit the road to explore the downtowns of Alamance County. The historic downtown districts of Burlington, Elon, Graham and Mebane are bustling with activity. Discover a variety of local shops, boutiques, galleries and museums. Enjoy authentic food experiences that feature fresh, locally-sourced ingredients. Quench your thirst at a local coffee shop, wine bar or one of our many breweries. Get off the beaten path this spring in Alamance County.

Quality care for more people, in more places.

Cone

conehealth.com/journey

Pisces

(February 19 – March 20)

Einstein was a Pisces. While it’s true the German physicist struggled to remember his own birthday — “It is a known fact that I was born, and that is all that is necessary,” he would say — he had that Piscean knack for thinking outside the box. Imagination is your superpower. Keep that in mind this month when Mars dips into your fourth house of home and family, and tries yanking up the rug. Tension, like time, is relative.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

The fast lane is overrated.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

You can’t pull a rabbit from an empty hat.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Best to leave yesterday behind you.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Follow the breadcrumbs.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Try screaming into a pillow.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

As you were. Or consider flying a kite.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

It’s time to speak your piece.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Be sure to read the fine print.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

You’re smothering it again.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Wear your power color.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

There’s a fine line between boundaries and dissociation. OH

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla.

We are here when you need us – even for overnight, weekend and holiday emergencies. Our technicians are thoroughly background checked for your added peace of mind, and they have a world of training and experience they bring to bear for every client, no matter what the service need might be.

•

HOUNDGATE Document reveals the influence of canine special interest

by m aria Johnson

Recently, I found a sensitive memo mixed in with some other papers on my desk.

I swear I don’t know how it got there.

The document — written for our dog sitters — contains some incriminating information. It outlines just how looney my husband and I have become in accommodating our little hound, Millie.

They say the hardest thing is to see yourself as others see you.

Well, after rereading this report, that’s no longer true.

I hope history will not judge us harshly. I doubt dog owners will. Cat owners probably will blink their eyes slowly. And we all know what that means.

In the interest of transparency, we’re disclosing the content. Sensitive parts (i.e., the names of anyone crazy enough to go along with this) have been redacted.

Dear , and :

First, thank you for tending our sweet Mills while we are gone. She’s a wiggly, kissy, zippy, barky, cuddly girl, and we hope you will love her as much as we do. Here are the basics:

CHOW

Mills eats twice a day, one cup of food in the morning and one cup at night.

Rather than leave her food prepackaged in a zillion Tupperware containers in the fridge, we’re leaving a silver food dish on the kitchen island.

Each time you feed her, please put half a cup of dry food (in plastic bin under the laundry sink) plus half a cup ground turkey and brown rice from the green box in the fridge. Mix well.

You can splash that with a little bone broth (top shelf, fridge). Please microwave the broth for 25 seconds in the little dish beside the broth.

She’ll inhale the chow and act like, “Food? What food? You haven’t fed me. You must be thinking about the last time.” Do not be alarmed. (Hereafter abbreviated as DNBA). You DID just feed her. I think.

WALKIES

She luvvvs to go for walks in the neighborhood. You can suit her up with the harness and leash on top of the dryer. If you have probs understanding the cinch-style harness, look up the YouTube video titled “Sporn Stop Pulling Mesh Harness,” which is worth watching just to hear the narrator describe the armpit pads as “Sherpa sleeves.”

If you want to drive Mills to a park, feel free. She’s a good car rider. Sometimes she will try to jump into the driver’s seat with you, which I discourage because she does not have her license yet.

Once at the park, feel free to wear my stylish fanny pack, which contains a tiny spray bottle of water. If Mills barks incessantly at other dogs, spritz her in the face and say, “Shh!” Sometimes, a “shhh!” alone will work. Pavlov was right. When she does well, say “Good girl.” Four times. In baby talk.

Mills also enjoys exercising at home. As you might know, she takes after her mother in exhibiting strong OCD tendencies toward tennis balls. If you have time, please take a ball from the ball hopper in the laundry room, grab the tennis racket next to it and hit the ball across the backyard for her to chase and retrieve a few hundred times. Joke. A few dozen times will suffice. She will promptly return the ball to you and BARKBARKBARK for you to do it again.

Once she drops the ball, tell her to “lie down.” Sometimes

she will. Sometimes she looks at you like, “Let’s just say I did.” In either case, she will back off long enough for you to pick up the ball. Probably.

Her retrieval process is not exactly . . . linear. Once she finds the ball, she often meanders. She backtracks. Sometimes, she detours to a shady spot, collapses and pants excessively, giving every indication that her heart is about to explode. DNBA. That’s her way of saying, “Gimme . . . a . . . minute.”

If she appears to have trouble finding the ball, don’t worry. She ALWAYS finds the ball, even if it’s on the other side of the yard. Sit down and enjoy the break.

The hardest part of this activity is stopping it. To break the spell, pick up the slobbery ball, carry it inside and put it in the cabinet above the dryer. See space marked “tennis ball.” Then close the cabinet. Yes, this is gross, but she will accept this as “game over.” Oh, and don’t say the word, “ball,” unless you’re ready to start this game again.

CHILLING

Mills is a great loafing companion. She likes to curl up next to you, always touching you. She’s especially fond of lounging on the couch, on a crocheted afghan made of granny squares. Everyone knows this is her afghan, but Mills is very generous. She doesn’t mind if you use a couple of granny squares to cover yourself.

Be advised: If you’re lying on your back, there’s a good chance she’ll walk up the length of your body, as if you’re made of cobblestones, stand on your chest and stick her nose in your face like, “Hey, whatcha doin’?” She weighs 32 pounds, so it’s not too bad. You can use this time to check her for ticks. As far as viewing goes, Millie likes to watch Harry & Meghan, especially the beagle parts.

OTHER MILLIE-NUTIA

Don’t be surprised if she springs up, barking insanely around 5 a.m. She’s reacting to the newspaper hitting the driveway. Really. She will beg for your food. Don’t give it to her. Even when she rests her snout on your thigh and looks up at you like Olive(r) Twist, “More porridge, please, mum?”

Periodically, she rests her head on coffee tables and chair seats while standing. Big brain, I guess.

Sometimes, when she lies down on the hardwoods, it sounds like a bag of bolts hitting the floor. DNBA.

Sometimes, when she’s relaxed, she honks like a goose. DNBA. In short, she’s a gem. And so are you, especially if you’ve read this far. OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

home of your dreams – a place that energizes and inspires you!

Courage and Candor

Daniel Wallace’s thought-provoking memoir

ing but troubled relationship, and how Nealy’s example encouraged Wallace to become something other than a cliché — not a writer, but someone “demonstrably unique, amusing,” someone living on the fringes.

By Stephen e. Smith

If you read the promo material for Daniel Wallace’s new memoir, This Isn’t Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew, you’ll assume the message is straightforward: Hero worship is an exercise in disillusion. But the “hero” in Wallace’s memoir isn’t a hero in the accepted sense (the sociological definition for “significant other” is a more accurate term); and the message, although essential and timely, is predictably ambiguous.

Wallace is the author of the bestselling novel, Big Fish, and six other much-praised works of fiction, and the qualities evident in his earlier works are perfectly transferable to his first foray into nonfiction. He crafts a compelling narrative that pulls the reader headlong into a story whose energy never wanes. He’s thoughtful and thought-provoking. He makes sense of the past in order to free the reader to face the future, and he writes with courage and candor.

Wallace introduces his hero, his future brother-in-law, William Nealy, in a scene where he happens upon Nealy attempting a perilous leap from the rooftop of the family home into a swimming pool 25 feet below. Nealy takes flight, plunges into the water, climbs out and repeats the jump over and over. “It was pretty magnificent,” Wallace writes. “It wasn’t some unformed idea I had about masculinity or manliness in him that I was drawn to; I wasn’t into that, then or now. It was just the wildness, the derring-do, his willingness to take flight — literally — into the unknown, an openness to experience and chance that so far in my short life had not been previously modeled to me by anyone.” Wallace admits that he didn’t need to emulate Nealy’s behavior but that he learned “. . . how to become the me I wanted,” and that he would think of that day — he was 12 at the time — as the moment he was born again.

The first third of Wallace’s memoir is a biography of Nealy’s short life: his need for constant adrenalin highs, his success as a cartoonist and writer, his marriage to Wallace’s sister, their lov-

Following Nealy’s example Wallace threw himself into several unsatisfying pursuits, eventually settling on the writing of fiction — the telling of quirky tales in which nothing is as it seems — that led to the success of Big Fish.

The Nealys settled near Chapel Hill, where they purchased a large tract of wooded land and William built a house, wrote books and produced cartoons and maps about the challenges of outdoor life. In the context of contemporary existence — the use of drugs and alcohol notwithstanding — it all seemed idyllic, skewed perfection in a humdrum world that was constantly encroaching. But that encroachment became all-consuming when a close mutual friend, Edgar Hitchcock, a drug dealer whom Wallace characterizes as “the kindest man I have ever met, so smart, funny and loving,” a dealer who confesses that “selling drugs is the final frontier,” is murdered.

The second part of the memoir centers on the mystery surrounding Hitchcock’s death. Nealy became obsessed with finding the man who murdered his friend, and the road led almost immediately to a likely suspect. Relying on simple intuition, Nealy was able to identify the culprit when he first shook his hand. “It was a notion that would be lodged into the marrow of his very being and would not be dislodged, not ever, not for as long as he lived.”

For purposes of the memoir, the suspect’s name is Stanley, a personable enough acquaintance whom Nealy “befriended” in an attempt to discover the truth surrounding Hitchcock’s murder. When Hitchcock’s body was discovered five months after his disappearance, Stanley began to subtly reveal his culpability.

It’s a long and tangled tale that leads to Stanley’s indictment and his eventual release because of convoluted legal circumstances that hindered prosecution. Nealy was powerless to avenge his friend’s murder, and his continuing obsession with the unpunished culprit damaged his marriage to Wallace’s sister. For one of the few times in his adult life, Nealy found himself powerless to influence events. His need to control the uncontrollable becomes apparent in a brief journal entry: “My whole life has been a struggle against the world to preserve my ‘being’ and it’s put me in dire conflict with the people I love . . . I MUST NOT LET THEM SEE WHO I REALLY AM!”

Nealy committed suicide in his early 40s, Wallace’s sister died

The Artof Living

MEET JIM BUNN

Jim Bunn is grateful for all the fun, friendship, and purposeful living he enjoys at Arbor Acres. “There’s something here for everybody—concerts, lectures, movies, croquet, volunteering, fine dining. You name it.” Jim enjoys walking around the beautiful community, visiting with friends, then tending the beauty in his back yard, where he’s planted about 20 rose bushes. “This place nurtures you, at the same time it inspires you to nurture and to help others.”

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in 2011, and Wallace inherited their ashes and Nealy’s journals, leaving him to piece together the events that led to his friend’s tragic end. The journal entries aren’t particularly revealing, but one laconic passage exposes the source of Nealy’s recklessness. Nealy’s hero, a Scoutmaster, sexually assaulted him while at summer camp. Nothing more is revealed about the encounter — and what more needs to be said? A physical dissociation from oneself is the inevitable outcome of such a traumatic event and might explain Nealy’s reckless behavior.

Wallace is left to manage his grief and grapple with the psychological pain suffered when the person upon whom he modeled his life proved himself fallible. He eventually comes to what he believes is a satisfactory understanding of William Nealy’s life and death, but that solution isn’t simple or straightforward. There are no easy answers — and the conundrum remains: What becomes of us when our significant other stumbles? “Can we ever know why we are who we are,” he writes, “the recipe that makes us the unique, bewildering, beautiful and sometimes insane creatures we end up becoming?”

Wallace doesn’t shy from the final truth: There are many ways to die — murder, suicide, illness — and he’s philosophical about the state in which we find ourselves: “. . . there appear to be no safe places left in the world, on our streets or in our hearts.” How true are those simple words?

This Isn’t Going to End Well is not an easy or uplifting read, but it is a memoir borne of intense experience and introspection, which is the only available panacea for what troubles us. Suicide is a perilous subject for the writer and the reader, but Wallace acknowledges that contemplating the taking of one’s life is the most damaging secret a person can have. The “Author’s Note” lists The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number. OH

Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press Awards.

The Right Tracker

On the trail with Charles Frazier

By Wiley CaSh

photographS By m allory CaSh

The first time I met Charles Frazier was in Asheville back in the spring of 2016. Along with several other authors, we had been invited to participate in a fundraiser at the Asheville Community Theater. I knew most of the authors there that evening, but I didn’t know Charles, and I was nervous about meeting him. Like most people in the world, I had read Cold Mountain after it won the National Book Award in 1997, and then I saw the Oscar-winning film, which starred Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renée Zellweger, when it was released in 2003. I’d read the two novels he’d published in the intervening years. My love for them only contributed to my nervousness at the idea of meeting their author.

But apparently Charles Frazier wasn’t one bit nervous about meeting me. He walked right up to me backstage and said, “I was up in Hot Springs a few months ago, and I saw that you were scheduled to do an event in town. I left a note for you at the public library. Did you get it?”

Reader, I was too shocked that Charles Frazier even knew who I was to be shocked by his reliance on paper technology. Needless to say, we’ve been friends ever since. He joined me onstage a year later for an in-conversation event for the launch of my novel, The Last Ballad, and I did the same for him when his novel, Varina, was released in 2018. We’ll be back onstage together on April 10 on the campus of UNC Asheville for the launch of his latest novel, The Trackers, a book that will both please and surprise fans of Charles Frazier.

There’s an old saying that serious writers never write the same

book twice, and Charles never has, but he has almost always written about the same places, which is to say Appalachia and the Southern United States. The surprise that’s in store for readers is that The Trackers, which is set in Depression-era America, ranges far afield from the swamps of Florida to the big skies of Wyoming to the sooty factory towns and transient camps of the Great Northwest. But readers who loved Charles’ previous novels will find echoes of those works in his new one. Like Cold Mountain, The Trackers is the story of a man on a quest. WPA mural painter Val Welch is in pursuit of Eve Long, the wife of a wealthy rancher who has absconded with a priceless piece of artwork, and like Thirteen Moons (2006), the new novel is awash in era-appropriate research, from automobiles to art and architecture to the politics of the New Deal. Like Nightwoods (2011), The Trackers expertly employs noir tropes like tight, scene-driven

dialogue and dark, ominous settings, and like the titular character in Varina (2018), Eve Long is a dashing, magnetic heroine: a former runaway turned traveling honky-tonk singer who finds herself married to a wealthy political hopeful before pulling the plug on it all and disappearing without a trace. Her husband, who is sponsoring Val’s mural project in a local post office, makes Val a financial offer he can’t refuse: track Eve and find out where she is, why she left, and, most importantly, who she really is.

According to Charles, it was nearly 10 years ago when the idea for the novel that became The Trackers first came to mind.

“We were up in Boone, and I was just killing time,” he says. “I visited the post office, which has one of those Depression-era WPA murals. After that I had more time to kill, so I went to the library at Appalachian and looked up information about WPA projects, specifically the Treasury Department art projects. One of the first images I saw was a photograph taken inside one of those small post offices, and there was a mural in progress on the wall with two young guys working on it. Standing on the floor looking up at them was an older guy and a woman. They were both well-dressed, and I thought, OK, there’s a story here.”

As the story rattled around in his mind over the following months and years, Charles dispatched with one of the two mural artists and focused on a single artist and how he might interact with the well-heeled couple who were watching him work. Artist Val Welch and rancher Jake Long and his mysterious wife Eve were born.

Charles and I are standing in the midcentury modern house he and his wife, Katherine, own in Asheville, a home that’s not quite ready for them to inhabit. Like many people in post-

pandemic America, they’re waiting on the right contractor to come along to update the house and make it fully habitable. For now, Charles has set up a writing desk in the light-filled living room, a stone fireplace against one wall and tall windows opening to the yard, where, despite it being mid-January, the view is alive with greenery.

I think about Inman, Ada and Ruby, the three characters who drove the narrative in Cold Mountain, and ask Charles if there’s something that spoke to him about using a similar triangulation of characters in The Trackers.

“Well, that’s one of the things that appealed to me while writing this book. I could keep a handle on the relatively limited number of characters because I have a problem sometimes with expansion,” he says. “Having that very clear arrangement of characters helped me keep it under control and forced me

to focus on trying to keep the book short. But, in The Trackers, Eve is the reason the triangle exists. I never lost sight of her as the main character.”

Eve is no doubt the main character. Even when she’s not on the page, her presence drives the action and tension. And even though this book is relatively short in comparison to some of his longer novels, many of the scenes feel expansive because Charles allows them to breathe and exist as the reader witnesses them in what feels like real time. One scene that comes to mind unfolds over a long night in the swamps of Florida when Val encounters Eve’s former in-laws, a dangerous band of lawless folks who are as suspicious of Val’s outsider status as they are of his questions about their former daughter-in-law’s whereabouts.

“That was a really fun scene to write,” Charles says. “It was

e Joseph M. Bryan Foundation of Greater Greensboro, Inc.

fun to get that rhythm, that really slow, heavy rhythm to the dialogue and pacing. This is the point in the novel when Val is beginning to learn that he is truly in over his head.”

There were points in writing The Trackers when Charles began to fear that he was in over his head too, especially when the pandemic struck and he could not make use of the location scouting that had benefited all of his previous novels and brought the realities of place and landscape to the page. But he had an ace or two up his sleeve when writing about the West and about Florida: He and Katherine spent the bulk of the 1980s living in Colorado with their young daughter, and after Cold Mountain was released, they resided full time on a horse farm in central Florida. Of course the process of writing The Trackers was full of research, but when you read the novel and encounter far-flung Western states, the boggy swamps of Florida and people who understand horses intimately, you are encountering worlds that Charles Frazier knows well.

If you read the novel, you might also be reminded of a literary genre Charles also knows well: the travel narrative, which his novels certainly borrow from, especially Cold Mountain and Varina. But it is his lesser known first book, Adventuring in the Andes, a travel guide published by the Sierra Club, that most reflects his love for the genre.

During the long years of writing The Trackers, especially during the COVID lockdown, travel was on Charles’ mind,

and he was itching to get out West and look around, but he found himself settling for photographs, music and art that was resonant of the West in the 1930s, especially Woody Guthrie and Diego Rivera. But writing a novel as complex and rich as The Trackers is hard, and it takes a long time, despite how many books you’ve published before or how many millions of copies they’ve sold.

“It doesn’t get any easier,” Charles says. “At least it hasn’t gotten any easier for me. And I’m just an enormously disorganized writer. Every time I finish a novel I’m a little bit surprised.”

As if to give insight to the expanse of hours spent at his desk, he shows me the tiny slips of paper he uses to record his word counts along with the dates of his daily writing sessions. When I look at his handwriting I can’t help but be reminded of the note he left for me in Hot Springs years earlier, and I wonder how Val Welch would go about tracking it down.

Well, I’m no tracker. So, to the people of Hot Springs, North Carolina, if you find a little slip of paper that contains a message that Charles Frazier wrote to Wiley Cash years and years ago, do me a favor, hang onto it until I’m back in town. OH

Wiley Cash is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, is available wherever books are sold.

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Ready to pounce

A game of cat and alpha

By Cynthia a damS

I was so eager to break the glass ceiling that I began eyeing the work exits if the ceiling showed no signs of cracking. Some bosses made exits easier than others.

My first real job paid peanuts, but the boss was a rock star in the civil rights movement. I was idealistic enough to love the grant-funded dead-end work. When the grant expired, I accepted a permanent job with a lackluster boss, only to discover a telling omen.

My desk overlooked a cemetery.

Between the new boss’s whispery voice and the graveyard view, I flapped my wings daily just to get my blood flowing, achieving minimal career velocity.

I moved on to an international corporation with real pay and prospects, and two bosses. All they shared in common were New York backgrounds and human bodies.

One, a pipe-sucking, tweed-wearing adman with a lofty vision of himself, drove a Volkswagen Thing. Despite his eclectic exterior, he was a dullard counting the days to retirement. The other, a Dapper Dan right out of Mad Men, was fresh out of rehab — imposed after he infamously peed off the boss’s deck at a Christmas party.

Dapper Dan was utterly brilliant, but bitter about his ex-wife, who had recently left him.

Unfortunately, I reminded him of her. He immediately nicknamed me (ugh) Cat Turd.

No longer bored, I pointedly ignored the insult.

Slowly, the embittered one found grace, thanks to a relentless pursuit of recovery (although my feline excrement moniker stuck). He invited me to hear him speak at AA meetings — for once, he knew what he was talking about — sharing the program and his spiritual practice. Soon, I recognized toxic relationships of my own. Dapper Dan’s recovery helped me leave a painful marriage and recover myself, too.

Next, I found yet another colorful boss (imagine Colonel Potter on M*A*S*H). He was no alcoholic, but rewarded late

workers with a splash of Dewar’s in our coffee mugs. I didn’t like Scotch, but adored the irreverent man.

I was recruited away from that job, but soon remorseful, as the new boss, a shameless sycophant, was Colonel Potter’s opposite.

Soon, I hastened to my final corporate gig — working alongside a vainly handsome, abusive alcoholic: “Mr. Alpha.”

What are the odds? Seemed I also reminded Alpha of his ex-wife.

I am ashamed to admit how thrilled I was when Alpha revealed himself by lewdly insulting an off-duty police officer at a work event. Arrested on suspicion of DUI, he dispatched me to find cash for his bail. Before I did, I whispered to the arresting cop, “Take his belt. He’s probably a suicide risk.”

Of course, Alpha was far too in love with himself for self-harm.

Alpha began making moves upon our shared assistant, who tearfully reported it to me. Human resources was overseen by Alpha’s pal and she refused to go there.

How to stop Alpha?

The answer surfaced while I was scanning articles for a work project.

I enlisted friends far and wide to mail articles on workplace harassment to Alpha — printing or typing his address.

I played a long game, and nervously waited.

Eventually, Alpha summoned me to his corner office.

“Shut the door,” he growled.

“Stop it. Right now,” Alpha demanded, face reddened.

“Stop what?” I asked, temples pounding.

“You know what,” he said. “I’m warning you.”

“If you tell me exactly what it is you want me to stop, I’ll certainly try,” I bluffed quietly.

Alpha glowered. His mouth opened. Then closed.

“Get out,” he snarled.

I padded away.

From that day forward, Alpha stopped pawing our assistant. Even so, I knew that even a Cat Turd had only nine lives and pondered my exit, praying I would land on my little cat feet. OH

Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor to O.Henry.

Nesting Season

There’s no place like home

By SuSan CampBell

It is almost that time again for our feathered friends: nesting season. Pairs of birds will team up to bring forth the next generation. In some cases, they will even repeat the process once or twice before the days shorten and temperatures begin to drop.

As with so many behaviors, reproduction is triggered by hormonal changes, which are the result of changes in day length. Females will become responsive to the advances of males as daylight increases. And before long, the hunt for a spot to nest will begin. Interestingly, the strategies vary among the bird species we find in central North Carolina.

The investment in nest building for some species is minimal. Killdeer, for instance, only create a slight scrape in a sandy or pebbly surface. They are ground nesting birds whose splotched eggs blend in perfectly with the substrate. Furthermore, killdeer young are precocial, meaning that they are mobile as soon as they hatch and will instantly begin following their parents. There is no nestling phase, so protection of the young birds is unnecessary.

In the Sandhills it is not unusual for mourning doves to nest at ground level in a layer of grasses or small twigs. Even when doves nest in small trees or shrubs, their nest platform is minimal. It is amazing that the eggs or young do not fall through the nest. Then again, this species is known to raise young in virtually any month of the year, so losing an egg or youngster through the cracks is not problematic in the long run.

Cup nests are a very common strategy for nesting — especially among songbirds. Northern cardinals, blue jays and American

robins all form a typical nest from small branches, twigs and grasses. Such nests can be visible through the leaves and are not infrequently depredated. As a result, some species, such as blue-gray gnatcatchers and ruby-throated hummingbirds, have evolved to use camouflage in the form of mosses or lichens on the outside of the cup so that the nest is not obvious to predators on a bare limb.

Hawks and eagles have taken nestbuilding to the next level and may create an enormous, cupped platform for their young. These huge stick nests, placed high in a live tree or snag, typically are enlarged with more material every year. They can be very noticeable given their bulk. However, given the size and ferocity of these birds, the strategy is not problematic. Furthermore, one of the adults typically guards the nest until the young are close to fledging.

And then there are the species that use holes: the cavity nesters. Woodpeckers and nuthatches can carve out a cavity in dead wood using their powerful bills with little trouble. Species such as chickadees, titmice, bluebirds or wood ducks will move right into these spaces when the architects move on. It is these birds that many of us have been giving a helping hand by erecting bird boxes. Box design varies by species, of course, given the different reproductive requirements of different birds. The height, the depth of the box and, most importantly, the size of the entrance hole will determine who will move in.

So, if you have not yet done so, this is the time to be cleaning out and repairing nest boxes for the breeding season. Old nests should be removed, and the boxes should be aired out for a day or two. It would not hurt to give them a rinse with the hose as well — but do NOT use cleaning products. And then stand back: It will not be long before your first feathered tenants will be moving in! OH

Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photographs at susan@ncaves.com.

Grab Your Popcorn

A locally produced WWII film hits the big screen

flick set in 1950s South America focused around a search for Nazi war criminals.

While writer/director Phil Blattenberger grew up hither and yon, he’s considered Greensboro home for more than two decades now. “So yeah, I’m a local filmmaker if you wanna call it that, kind of by default,” he tells me. “I grew up on all the ’80s pastiche.” His favorite films as a youngster were those blockbuster, so-called popcorn flicks that didn’t take themselves too seriously. “Obviously all the classic Indiana Jones and Back to the Future movies.”

In Blattenberger’s latest motion picture, Condor’s Nest, a German Colonel played by Arnold Vosloo (Imhotep in The Mummy) sadistically executes an American bomber crew during WWII. Ten years later, the commander of that doomed mission travels to South America to exact revenge and, in the process, uncovers a sinister plot to ignite a Fourth Reich to finish what Hitler had only just begun.

It’s a fact that thousands of high ranking Nazis fled Germany after the fall of the Third Reich, establishing new lives and new identities in South America. It’s been convincingly posited that Hitler and Eva Braun lived out their lives in Argentina.

By Billy ingram

“Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you’ll find the real tinsel underneath.” — Oscar Levant

Our fair city has been a hotbed of independent filmmaking over the last quarter century or so. Recently, perhaps inevitably, a number of locally produced motion pictures have been attracting worldwide audiences. With the wide release of Condor’s Nest in January, one cadre of Greensboro-based filmmakers, Lost Galleon Films, has burst onto the Hollywood landscape in a big way with a rollicking, star-studded revenge

“It’s a really rich narrative that’s not been touched on, surprisingly,” Blattenberger says of what he proudly calls his own popcorn flick. “The type of film that your older brother brought you to when you were 13 and not supposed to see R-rated movies, and you sat in the theater with a bag of popcorn and just watched a bunch of Nazis get their asses kicked. Nazi ass-kicking movies do extremely well globally and have a grand appeal.”

Condor’s Nest is a motion picture shot on a grand scale, including constructing an 85-foot-long, 80-year-old historic aircraft. It serves as a major set piece for the opening scenes, which take place alongside a little farmhouse in Eastern France. “We built a full scale crashed B-17 bomber down to the centimeter in terms of engineering,” Blattenberger notes. “Museums donated original pieces from B-17s to really build this thing out.”

Making a motion picture of this caliber means there are thousands of moving parts and, if any one of them doesn’t look right, the whole thing falls apart. “We were amazed the first time actually looking at scenes through the monitor on the day we were shooting,” Blattenberger says. “All right, smoke’s pouring out the engines — these things look like real engines. We have car chases and explosions, some really high production value elements that are so easy to fall flat if you don’t have the crew that can put it

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together right. In fact, those elements became some of the strongest points in the film.”

Name actors invariably help to sell films, giving it more commercial cache globally. “Obviously Nazis are bad,” Blattenberger says, chuckling. “It’s been done so many times. What you don’t want to do is just get the stereotypical Nazi with an evil laugh. We wanted to find somebody with gravitas who was going to bring a bit of nuance to the role, in the sense that his character was internally justifying his own horrible actions, actually making him the good guy in his own head. And we knocked it out with Arnold Vosloo who went toe-to-toe as the villain in Blood Diamond up against Leonardo DiCaprio.”

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PLANNING THE PATH TO YOUR FUTURE

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Michael Ironside appears as a Russian agent. He’s been in dozens of movies like Starship Troopers and Total Recall, and was featured in Top Gun. “We pulled in Twilight star Jackson Rathbone to play a really seedy character,” Blattenberger says. “He shows up about halfway through the movie and turns into one of the big third-act villains.” Cast as Heinrich Himmler is James Urbaniak (Robert Crumb in American Splendor). “He had never spoken a word of German in his life,” Blattenberger says of Urbaniak’s performance. “He had to learn his entire role in German, doesn’t speak a word of English in the entire movie. We cast Academy Award nominee Bruce Davison (Longtime Companion). He did his whole scene in German.”

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Key setups with these actors were filmed in and around the Julian Price House, a Tudor-revival estate that looks as if it could exist anywhere in the world, most improbably in Greensboro. “That’s actually the Condor’s Nest,” Blattenberger notes. “The titular location for this film that’s supposed to be set in the mountains of Bolivia.”

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Lost star Jorge Garcia portrays a turncoat bartender in Buenos Aires spying for both the Russians and Germans. The basement of Havana Phil’s Cigar Company, for some four decades known as Cellar Anton’s, one of the city’s most revered dining rooms, served as his bar. “We shot our big wide establishing shots in South America,” Blattenberger explains, “selling the idea that you’re in another continent, so we could jump in the movie to the interior of a bar that’s on a different continent. Greensboro was a great location for that.”

“The real guy to talk about is Jacob Keohane,” Blattenberger says of his lead actor. “He’s been active on the East Coast theater circuit for years. He had a major role in Halloween Kills that came out last year. The guy’s absolutely brilliant.”

This locally produced picture proves there’s no need to lower expectations just because a film isn’t made in Hollywood. No less than Paramount Pictures picked up the distribution rights for a dozen or so major cities including New York and Los Angeles, and the movie is available on streaming platforms as you read this.

I can tell you first hand, there is no other experience in life comparable to working on a movie set. The writer/ director agrees: “Running around with a crew of 30 or 40, there’s a mania and an energy to it, a coordinated chaos. It’s addictive. It’s something that you latch onto and, man, you just wanna keep making movies, you know?”

As for Phil Blattenberger and Lost Galleon Films’ next project, “We’re officially in pre-production on Without Consequence, a crime thriller set in the American West in the early 1960s, shooting in New Mexico this October or November. We’ll pull a few familiar faces from Condor’s Nest on it and there will probably be a scene or two shot in Greensboro.” OH

In another of life’s moments reminding us just how old we are, Billy Ingram actually worked on the posters and trailers for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Back to the Future 2 and 3.

March 2023

— Stephen Catlett

By Billy ingram

PhotograPhs By Bill

Chandler

In a story as familiar to me as Aunt Goo-Goo’s spaghetti sauce recipe, Bill Chandler is a transplant whose glancing flirtation turned to love for the residents of Greensboro. Having spent most of his career as a neurosurgeon at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, he established a second home here to be close to one of his sons, an orthopedic surgeon, and his daughter-in-law, a local pediatrician.

Chandler enjoyed his visits here so much that he’s made the Gate City his permanent retirement home.

“You’ve got to realize, people come to North Carolina and they never leave,” Chandler says. “Three of the finest neurosurgeons in Greensboro trained with me up in Ann Arbor. I spent seven years with each one of these folks. So that’s a nice connection, as are my two lovely granddaughters who are now 15 and 12.”

Performing surgery and teaching in a world-class medical school devoured his free time, but now Chandler can passionately pursue photographing classic cars. “I’ve always enjoyed photography,” Chandler tells me. “Even way back when I was young, in training, I had a dark room and all the stuff you used to have to have. Then along came digital photography, which I thought was wonderful.”

Chandler believes older automobiles should be enjoyed to the fullest, not perched up on blocks waiting to be transported from one collector’s event to another. “These cars are made to be driven,” he points out. “In fact, they don’t like being stored. All the rubber gaskets go bad, so the more you drive them, the better they are.”

This gearhead is particularly intrigued by the front end of these older, collectible automobiles and does an extraordinary job of capturing the quirky personality each

1950 Aston Martin DB2

Bill Chandler’s wanderlust for classic automobiles turns into a creative hobby

embodies. “I started taking pictures with the red 1953 MG TD that’s sitting in my garage right now.” That ’53 MG is a head-turner and serves as a great way to meet people. “Invariably, you pull into a Lowe’s parking lot and somebody comes out and says, ‘My dad had one of those,’ or young people will ask, ‘What is that . . . and what’s an MG?’ Curiously, I was walking around one time in a hat with an MG logo on it and some guy came up and said, ‘So, how many MGs do you have?’ Not what kind, but how many.”

At one point, he owned two MGs, including a red 1957 MGA. “That model sort of brought MG into the modern era,” he says. “In the early ’60s, they started

making the MGB, which they manufactured for a long time. That was sort of a squared-off design, to me, not as attractive.”

Born in 1945, Chandler remembers being impressed as a youngster with ’50s era car-nnoisseurs piloting those sporty MGs. “I thought, boy, someday I’d like to have one of those,” he says. “They made the TD model from 1950 to ’53. He says that a 1936 model, though, looks a lot like his ’53 model. “In The Crown, Prince Phillip shows up driving an MG TD,” he says. The same year that Chandler’s MG was manufactured, the first Corvette debuted. Around the same time, Detroit offered up the first Thunderbird. “Before that, there were

1967 Corvette 427 1952 Jaguar XK 120

no American-made two-seat sports cars,” Chandler says. “When I was growing up, around 1955, we’d go over and look at the brand-new Corvette, a little two-seat thing, and the original Thunderbird, which was a cute little car.”

Detroit’s more typical mid-’50s models, like a Buick Roadmaster that Chandler gave the Andy Warhol treatment in his photos, were bloated behemoths, easily seating six adults, equipped with 300 horsepower, overhead-valve V8 engines, aquatic-like fins, protruding headlamps, cinemascopic tempered glass windshields, massive chrome ornamentations and accents, and moderne amenities like electrically adjustable body-contoured seats. Weighing in at almost 2 tons, sailing one of those land yachts to and from your job at the Rand Corporation told the world you had made it.

In contrast, driving a British-made sports car in the ’50s was a somewhat rebellious move. Not quite a James-Deansmeared-across-a- country-road-in-a-Porsche-550-Spyder level of rebelliousness, but a statement nonetheless. “The ’53 MG has no rollup windows, no heater, so they’re pretty basic little cars,” says Chandler. “And that’s why you can work on just about any part of it. On the ’53 model the hood lifts up from the sides and meets in the middle like an old-time car.”

Love for MGs must be coursing through his veins

because the first new vehicle Chandler ever bought, back when he was an intern, was a feisty flame-red 1971 MG Midget two-seater costing around $2,400 back in the day (About $17,000 in today’s dollars). “Through much of my career I wasn’t working on cars, but now I enjoy the mechanics of it. I guess being a surgeon, you like to be hands-on.”

While he was still primarily residing in Michigan, Chandler brought down to Greensboro that ’53 MG which he purchased in 2009 to tool around town in. “I’d drive it to racketball three days a week, usually with my golden retriever in the front seat, and people would take pictures at stoplights.”

He still owns that magnificent machine. “I’ve had it 14 years and it starts up like an old lawnmower,” says Chandler. “Occasionally I have to replace the spark plugs or something leaks a little bit. But, the adage about cars is, you don’t worry that it’s leaking. You only worry when it stops leaking.” (To put pedal to metal on a racetrack, he also owns a 2017 Porsche 718 Boxster S. “It’s lightweight and has a mid-engine design,” he says. “So it’s perfectly balanced for the track. It’s fun, but not really as photogenic as the classic cars.”)

1965 Austin Healy 3000 Mark III

1934 Auburn 1250 Boat Tail

Of course, unforeseen breakdowns will happen, but it’s purely a mechanical thing when it comes to repairing classic autos. “There’s the diagnostic part and then the fun of fixing it,” Chandler says. “A modern BMW or Porsche, you can’t touch those engines. Half of the time you can’t find the engine.”

Neurosurgeon to grease monkey in one easy step? Complex brain surgery and car engine repair are hardly comparable. “There are just many, many more unpredictable unknowns that you’re going to find in surgery,” reports Chandler. “I’ve had a lifetime of enjoyment doing a lot of the most complex neurosurgery, brain surgery tumors, aneurysms, and, because it was a big medical center, we would always see the most complicated cases.”

By contrast, no matter how complex a car is, it’s just a collection of parts. “Whether the carburetor needs tuning or the head gasket needs changing or anything else, I’ll take care of it myself,” he says. From tuning carburetors to changing head gaskets and replacing water pumps, Chandler has developed the skills to take take apart almost everything.

Some of the older and more expensive models seen here were photographed in the field or at car shows such as Concours d’Elegance in Michigan. If the 1950 Aston

Martin DB2 Drophead that Chandler shot looks familiar, it’s a precursor to the James Bond DB5 model seen in Goldfinger, which reappears in six subsequent films, although this author was unable to determine whether retractable headlights transforming into a pair of machine guns came stock on consumer models.

A rare oddity is a 1934, three-wheeled Morgan Super Sport labeled VJ62342 with the then-new “barrel-back” body style, its 1200-cubic-centimeter JAP V twin engine jutting out front; what one former owner referred to as “a special kind of madness” to drive. The 1934 Auburn 1250 Boat Tail salon car was built in Indiana, designed by Gordon Buehrig who was renowned for the luxurious but sporty Cord Model 810, also manufactured in the Hoosier State.

One of the most expensive collector cars on the market right now, and no wonder, is that 6-cylinder Mercedes Benz 300SL Coupé with dual Gullwing doors, an option only offered between 1954 and 1957. Its lightweight, 110-poundframe couldn’t accommodate normal doors but helped this “dreamcar” hit a top speed of 162 mph.

The Iris Blue, 150-horsepower, twin-carb 1965 AustinHealey 3000 Mark III convertible came with sumptuous leather upholstery, striking that sweet spot between per-

1954 Mercedes Benz 300SL Coupe (Gullwing)

formance and comfort, and is considered highly collectible. The first sports car to feature a top-hinge hatchback, this was the last of the big Healeys before that lineage was discontinued in 1968. “I created that look through the [Austin-Healey] windshield because there were people standing back there, there’s so much clutter in every photograph,” Chandler explains about the challenges involved in getting the crisp, clean images that are his trademark.

“You have to take a photograph and look at whether the essence of the car is good and there’s not some crazy reflec-

tion . . . that also happens.” To declutter and make those photos pop, he captures his shiny metallic subjects in brightest sunlight, replacing the background with solid black.

“There are a lot of interesting photographic challenges with blacking out the background, at least the way I do it. It’s not some button you push. I will enlarge the photo millimeter by millimeter, go along the edge of every mirror and everything else and then turn it black. So it’s a process.”

With a base price slightly more than $4,200 in 1967 (around $36,000 in today’s dollars), that gorgeous Marlboro

1953 MG TD

1954 MG TF Jack

Toyota Supra 2019

Maroon Corvette Sting Ray, the most refined of the second generation ’Vettes, was a world-class racer with an optional 427CI three-carburetor, 430 horsepower, big-block V8. There’s a reason Corvettes won Car and Driver’s “Best All-Around Car” or “Best Value” award 10 out of 12 times from 1964 through 1975 — and it wasn’t just for the sleek body styling. A Concourse condition Sting Ray like the one pictured will set you back around $140,000 today.

One of the photographer’s favorite images is a full frontal look at a 1952 Jaguar XK120 Fixed Head Coupe. “A friend of mine owns that one,” Chandler says. “It’s funny, you would think a black car with a black background wouldn’t show up but it turns out there’s so much color in that car

— there are blues, pinks and all sorts of colors.” That was Jaguar’s first sports car offering since SS 100 production ended when WWII broke out.

“As I met more and more people who collected old cars, once they saw these photos they said, ‘Wow, can you do one of my car?’” As a result, people from around the globe send Bill Chandler their hi-resolution pics for digital super-charging, which he does for free. “A lot of these cars here are owned by friends of mine. I never charged them anything, I just have so much fun doing it. It’s sort of like taking pictures of their kids because they love their cars so much. I always say, whatever you own, it should be fun to drive.” OH

TYPE DESIGN BY KEITH BORSHAK

Dreamville Festival

Between apocalyptic weather and the coronavirus pandemic, rapper J. Cole’s Dreamville Festival has had a rocky existence in its short history. But in spite of multiple postponements, Dreamville has been a huge success, starting with 2019’s sold-out debut at downtown Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Park that immediately established it as one of the nation’s top hip-hop festivals. Dreamville’s second edition in 2022 expanded from one day to two with an onstage lineup featuring the entire roster of Cole’s Dreamville Records label, and it also sold out. Round three returns to Dix Park the first weekend of April as another multi-day affair. It should be another big success, with Cole himself in the headline slot.

April 1 - 2, Raleigh; dreamvillefest.com

MerleFest

Centered on the multi-style “traditional plus” music played and loved by its late, great founder, Doc Watson, MerleFest has been a tradition at Wilkes Community College since 1988. The venerable roots-music festival is a signpost event on the Americana circuit. And after the same pandemic problems that every other live-music event faced in recent years, it’s back with an impressive lineup featuring the Avett Brothers, Maren Morris, Little Feat, Tanya Tucker and more.

April 27 - 30, Wilkesboro; merlefest.org

Springtime in North Carolina means college basketball madness, azaleas blooming — and the earliest days of outdoor music. Our state has a staggering array of A-list music festivals spanning numerous genres from now until fall. Here are some of what you should be making plans for.

North

Carolina Folk Festival

Bear Shadow

The mountains of the far western corner of North Carolina are the setting for this springtime festival, which happens the same weekend as MerleFest. First conceived in 2021, this year’s model has a first-rate alternative-leaning lineup featuring Spoon, The Head and the Heart, Jason Isbell and Amythyst Kiah.

April 28 - 30, The Highlands Plateau; bearshadownc.com

Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance

Started in 2003 as a nonprofit music and dance festival, Shakori Hills takes place on a bucolic 9,000-acre spread in rural Chatham County. It’s probably the top camping festival in the greater Triangle region, with solid Americana lineups. Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives, Malian singer/guitarist Vieux Farka Touré, beach legends Chairmen of the Board and festival regulars Donna the Buffalo. There’s also a fall version of Shakori Hills, which happens every October.

May 4 - 7, Pittsboro; shakorihillsgrassroots.org

Annual Carolina Beach Music Festival

Dance to beach music with your toes in the sand at the 37th Annual Carolina Beach Music Festival on Saturday, June 3 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Billed as “the biggest and only beach music festival actually held on the beach on the North Carolina coast,” three bands will be performing. Shows are accessible from the Carolina Beach Boardwalk at Cape Fear Blvd. and Carolina Beach Ave. S. For information on tickets call (910) 458-8434.

June 3, Carolina Beach

Festival for the Eno

The granddaddy of music festivals in the Triangle, Festival for the Eno dates back to 1980 and happens on the grounds of Durham’s West Point Park. Started as a fundraiser for the Eno River Association, the festival — which also offers a craft and food market — has hosted a who’s who of Americana-adjacent and roots artists including Emmylou Harris, Doc Watson and Loudon Wainwright III. Recent years have featured rising regional acts including Mipso, Rainbow Kitten Surprise and Indigo De Souza.

July 1 and 4, Durham; enofest.org

Dreamville Festival

BY BOB KARP

Mountain Dance and Folk Festival

Reputedly the first event in America to be called a “folk festival,” Asheville’s Mountain Dance and Folk Festival was founded in 1928 by the folk music legend, Bascom Lamar Lunsford. It remains the longest continuously running folk festival in the country, and it’s as much about the folk dance traditions of Western North Carolina as the music.

Aug. 3 - 5, Asheville; folkheritage.org

Earl Scruggs Music Festival

A newcomer to the North Carolina festival circuit, the Earl Scruggs Music Festival debuted last year at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring. As you’d expect for a festival named after the man who invented the three-finger style of bluegrass banjo, the lineup trends toward classic bluegrass and Americana.

Sept. 1-3, Mill Spring; earlscruggsmusicfest.com

John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival

Although he made his mark as an artist elsewhere, John Coltrane was born and raised in Hamlet, North Carolina. He was one of the towering figures of 20th century jazz, a key collaborator with Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and his fellow North Carolina native Thelonious Monk. The John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues Festival has been paying tribute to his legacy every Labor Day weekend since 2011 with solid lineups — 2022 featured trumpeter Chris Botti, singer Patti LaBelle and saxophonist Kirk Whalum, among others.

Sept. 2 - 3, High Point; coltranejazzfest.com

Festival for the Eno

Bear Shadow PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE NEWS, OBSERVER, BEAR SHADOW, MERLEFEST

MerleFest

Hopscotch Music Festival

Downtown Raleigh has a well-earned reputation for doing music festivals right, and one of the events that helped pave the way is the alternative-slanted Hopscotch. Originally started in 2010 under the auspices of the Indy Week newspaper, it showed off Raleigh’s walkable grid of downtown nightclubs and outdoor stages to fantastic effect. Past headliners have included Flaming Lips, The Roots, Solange Knowles and St. Vincent. Hopscotch director Nathan Price reports that this year’s model should feature “an expanded lineup closer to pre-COVID size.” Here’s hoping.

Sept. 7 - 9, Raleigh; hopscotchmusicfest.com

North Carolina Folk Festival

In 2015, the National Council for the Traditional Arts brought the long-running National Folk Festival (which has been around since 1934) to Greensboro for a three-year run. It was such a success that, after the national festival’s Greensboro run

ended, the city opted to keep it going as the rebranded North Carolina Folk Festival. Last year’s lineup was typically eclectic, featuring everything from George Clinton’s P-Funk All-Stars to the Winston-Salem Symphony String Quartet. Expect more of the same in 2023.

Sept. 8 - 10, Greensboro; ncfolkfestival.com

World of Bluegrass

The International Bluegrass Music Association moved its annual business convention and festival to Raleigh in 2013, where it has been a huge success. Between the convention, trade show, “Bluegrass Ramble” nightclub showcases, awards show and street festival, total attendance can top 200,000 when the weather’s good. Past headliners have included Steve Martin, Alison Krauss, Béla Fleck and just about every notable picker and singer in the genre. Year in and year out, it’s downtown Raleigh’s biggest music festival.

Sept. 26-30, Raleigh; worldofbluegrass.org

World of Bluegrass

That Music Festival

Sponsored by Raleigh’s Americana/roots radio station, That Station, 95.7-FM, That Music Festival made its debut in June 2022 at Durham Bulls Athletic Park with an all-North Carolina lineup featuring American Aquarium, Steep Canyon Rangers, Mountain Goats, Rissi Palmer and more. The sophomore edition is tentatively scheduled for October, most likely in Durham again.

October, Durham; thatstation.net/that-music-fest

Annual Bluegrass Island Music Festival

Music lovers will be flocking to the Outer Banks, beach chairs in hand, for the 12th Annual Bluegrass Island Music Festival October 19-21 held at the Roanoke Island Festival Park overlooking miles of the pristine waters of Roanoke Sound. Buy your tickets and book your lodging well ahead of time. Acts this year include The Goodwin Brothers, Seth Mulder & Midnight Run, Rhonda Vincent & The Rage, Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, Leftover Salmon, The Kody Norris Show, Thunder & Rain, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, The Kitchen Dwellers, The Steeldrivers, Darin & Brooke Aldridge, Breaking Grass, Tim O’Brien and the incomparable Sam Bush.

October 19-21, Manteo; bluegrassisland.com OH

Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival

We Are the Dreamers

The Gate City has positioned itself for a bright future

By Ogi Overman

Buckle up, buckaroos, it’s about to become boomtown around here. Or, we could call this burg Boomtown — as in Boom Supersonic. HondaJet headquarters is old news. In fact, it’s hard to look up without seeing one. But several other aero-related businesses are set to take off around PTI. You already likely know about the Toyota battery plant on the Guilford-Randolph county line and the UPS distribution plant

in Mebane. Remember the FedEx hub way back when and the Publix Distribution Center in 2018. Two new hotels are going up downtown. And speaking of downtown, where do we start or stop: Tanger Center, Carroll properties, brew pubs and restaurants spring up like morel mushrooms. BOOM!

But let’s get nitty-gritty for one small paragraph. Did you know about Syngenta announcing its North American headquarters

would stay in Greensboro in 2021 with a $68 million investment or Procter & Gamble’s $110 million investment in 2022, or LT Apparel Group’s $57 million investment? Ka-BOOM!

Yet, there’s still something missing. Let’s face it, most any city can boast of well-paying jobs, luxury hotels, entertainment and athletic venues, a downtown revival, parks and greenways. What Greensboro needs is something almost no other city has; something so unique and quirky, and downright unnecessary that it would make visitors go back home and tell their friends, “You have got to go to Greensboro!”

So, we threw logic — and practicality — to the wind and used our imagination to picture just a few of the possibilities (And we welcome your suggestions, the more far-fetched, the better):

Frozen Pond: The Piedmont Winterfest skating rink downtown is a nice idea, but it has its drawbacks: It’s temporary, has fake ice, and it costs money to skate.

This visionary sees a pond in summer and a skating rink in winter. Let’s say you dig a shallow hole, pipe in some water and lay some hockey pipes and a chilling system underneath. You freeze it the day of our downtown Christmas celebration, “Festival of Lights,” the first Friday of December.

Then, in early April, you thaw it out and it becomes a reflecting pond — but not just any pond. You put a fountain in the middle that changes colors and arrays. It also has an LED color-changing system underneath and officially turns on the night of the home season opener for the Grasshoppers.

Around the perimeter you have benches, kiosks and roving singers. In summer, the vendors sell sodas, sparkling water and ice cream; and in winter, coffee and hot chocolate. The roving singers might be everything from carolers to Bel Canto singers to barbershop quartets to folk groups to Grimsley’s madrigal singers — you name it.

When the U.S. Figure Skating Championships return to the Coliseum a few Januarys hence, we’ll be ready for it.

Downtown Trolley: Granted, trolleys are not exactly a unique idea, but they generally cruise around tourist towns such as Gatlinburg, Tenn. Ours will be both functional for townsfolk and fun for out-of-towners.

During lunchtime, two trolleys, eco-friendly, of course, run up and down Elm Street, taking workers to and from lunch, boosting business at downtown eateries, and solving potential parking and traffic problems.

In the evening, passengers catch a ride from Hamburger Square, the downtown hotels, UNCG, Greensboro College, NC A&T, and other gathering spots, to and from the ballpark on game nights, and Tanger Center on event nights.

Electric Car Grand Prix: OK, Charlotte is the hub of NASCAR (it could’ve been Greensboro, but that’s a whole ’nother story), but there is a huge opportunity for Greensboro to be on the vanguard of a burgeoning form of motorsports — Formula E.

Like it or not, gasoline-powered vehicles are on the way out, and that includes race cars. Formed in 2014, the wave of the future is called the ABB FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile)

Formula E World Championship and now holds races all across Europe as well as Mexico City. As of now, the only Formula E race in the U.S. is held in Portland, Ore.

Here’s how it would work in Greensboro: The hub is at War Memorial Stadium. With very little infrastructure change, the field becomes the garage (not to conflict with NC A&T’s baseball season). The start/finish line is the corner of Yanceyville and Lindsay, and the pits are alongside Lindsay, toward town. The cars depart in front of the stadium, to the right, then loop onto Wendover. Loop again onto Westover, pass Grimsley High School, then left at Benjamin Parkway which turns into Smith Street, and onto Murrow Boulevard, reaching the home stretch on Lindsay.

First, though, we need a sponsor. Hello, Toyota?

The World’s Largest Beer Bottle: Since we’re already informally known as “Greensbeero,” why not make it official? Imagine the touristas who will flock here to pose in front of the World’s Largest Beer Bottle, not to mention the locals who just love to sample the dozens of locally brewed craft beers inside. Yes, I said inside.

The bottle will be made of glass block and needs to be three- or four-stories high. A spiral staircase — with a handrail, of course — will reach to the top, with a landing at each story, stocked with several taps serving up Greensboro’s and the state’s distinctive brews.

For the earthbound patrons, a checkerboard dance floor will beckon them to shake a leg. A state-of-the-art sound system, disguised as a jukebox, will play hits from every decade, from the ’50s to the present, one decade each night of the week. Monday you might hear Danny and the Juniors, to Sunday’s fare by Machine Gun Kelly

For the daring, a telescope on top looks down on the ’Hoppers game or up to the moon. Bottoms up!

Century Boulevard: This one will take a big buy-in from the business owners to the city, state and federal governments. And a little help from a Tanger or LeBauer type wouldn’t hurt. But wowsers, would the end product be worth it.

Elm Street becomes Century Boulevard, celebrating the 20th Century, one block per decade. Starting at Old Greensborough and running to Fishers Grille, each store on each block will (as much as possible) be a re-creation of the décor, storefront design, fashion, music, food, lingo, attire, autos and trappings of that era. In one afternoon, tourists — and there will be plenty — may take a virtual tour of the century. The music, for instance, will range from Tin Pan Alley to Boogie Woogie to Big Band to Crooners to Elvis to Brit Invasion to Disco to Metal to Grunge to Pop Punk to whatever Gen X-ers listened to.

This will be by far the biggest, most expensive and most farfetched undertaking Greensboroians have ever envisioned. But, as a wise man once said, “Good things happen when nobody cares who gets the credit.” OH

Ogi Overman has been a mainstay on the Central NC journalism scene since 1984. He is currently compiling a book of his columns.

Daddy Knows Best

Catherine Harrill finds her forever home in Fountain Manor

By Cynthia a dams • PhOtOgraPhs By Bert vanderveen

Soon after O. Henry depicted Harrill’s renovation triumph, events prompted doing it all again.

Approaching the end of his life, Glen “Buck” Campbell informed his daughter he wanted her to move.

Her father’s hospitalization in September 2019 prompted Harrill to keep vigil for three days and nights.

As Campbell was being transferred to hospice, Harrill decided to dash home for a change of clothes. Before she left, her father said, “Well, I want you to do something for me on your way.”

He was emphatic. “Go by Fountain Manor and buy that unit with the downstairs master.” As a protective father, Campbell knew it was the property she had first wanted. But also, a more practical choice for a permanent home.

“He died later that day,” she adds: September 17, 2019. As an only child, Harrill had an enviably close relationship with her father. They even fished together.

Beneath Catherine Harrill’s resolve to renovate two properties in the same development back-toback lies a tale precipitated by a loving father’s last request.

He asked his daughter to move from her freshly renovated Fountain Manor home.

But all of that in good time.

Only four years ago, recently retired Harrill, a health professional, had just finished gussying up a condo in Fountain Manor (see O. Henry May 2019). The design, colorful and chicly bohemian, an ideal showcase for her expanding art collection. She rediscovered how much she enjoyed the creative process, having once worked as a home stager.

The end result was completely original. “It was a great transitional home,” she says, for before she renovated, she had downsized from a 4,200-square-foot home to an apartment.

Harrill had long favored Fountain Manor, a perennially popular development created in 1973.

Browsing an estate sale at a Fountain Manor unit in 2017, she discovered the unit itself was for sale and immediately snapped it up, making it a jewel of a property.

Yet it still wasn’t her first choice. Harrill had previously pursued a condo she could practically see from her front door, which had languished in bankruptcy for years. It possessed the holy grail of plans: an end unit with a first-floor main bedroom and bath. “Yet it was owned by a bank that was not interested in selling until January of 2020,” she says.

“I had tried to purchase the unit before,” Harrill explains.

Nonetheless, the bank-owned condo had been deteriorating. The renters moved out without cutting off water. Inevitably, pipes froze and burst.

Now there was water damage — and mold.

At her father's insistence, Harrill tried again. The bank finally budged.

“I made a bid then and closed in a few weeks [in January of 2020].” But buying the place proved to be the easy part. Although much of the damaged sheetrock had been removed, “everything leaked, and that’s where all the mold came from,” says Harrill. “We took a lot [more] sheetrock out that we discovered had been damaged.”

Remediating mold and rot would require taking much of the condo down to the studs — “a gut job,” she says.

This news didn’t discourage Harrill. Instead, it was liberating. She could create a better layout.

Once again, Harrill enlisted Jim Weisner to draw the plans for the latest renovation, and hired Classic Construction on the recommendation of her friend Becky Causey. Demolition began in March.

And soon, too, fate proved Campbell's fatherly instincts correct.

Harrill had acquired a Labradoodle puppy named Ida Mae, after losing her father. “She was born on my dad’s birthday. Isn’t that weird?”

The new puppy needed lots of walks and attention.

Then, Harrill tripped on the stairs and took a tumble, “shattering my ankle.”

It was sobering; she needed a more accessible floor plan. While her showcase home of bold color and artistic expression (with the paint barely dry) was beautiful, it was now inaccessible. All the bedrooms and full baths in her original unit were on the second floor. Even simple potty breaks for the puppy posed a real challenge — there was no way she could climb stairs until the fracture healed.

Stuck downstairs on crutches, a single flight of stairs might as well have been Mt. Everest.

She used her experience to inform changes in the new condo, deciding to move the stairs, even changing the elevation and pitch. “It wasn’t a big deal to move the stairs,” she explains, grimacing, “because they were already rotten.”

Timing-wise, the renovation was in process before the pandemic developed. But as time went on, sup-

ply-chain delays proved nightmarish. “Fortunately, even though we needed windows, materials, I got in under the wire.”

Harrill's father’s sense of urgency again proved prescient.

There were hiccups, nonetheless, and building supplies grew more difficult to obtain. Insulation alone “took a couple months to arrive.”

Luckily, she had already chosen and ordered plumbing fixtures and appliances, and made forays to suppliers around the Triad, including Burlington.

As the interiors were being designed, Harrill surveyed artifacts from her parents’ farm. “I have beams from dad’s barn in the sunroom,” she points out. Another tip of the hat to her father and

a rural childhood: A large turtle shell Campbell preserved became a natural art treasure.

As the project proceeded, the new layout gave the impression of more spaciousness. “It has larger rooms. A differentiation of space,” she says.

The first space to be designed was the dining room. She again worked with Laura Mensch and Gina Hick’s Vivid Interiors, who had specified a custom banquette for the colorsaturated blue dining room in the former condo. “A rhapsody in blue,” was the description.

This time, the Vivid duo designed a rhapsodic dining room that is a study in pink, with Phillip Jeffries wallpaper, calling to

mind the popular “Barbiecore” trend. Its most stunning feature is a lacquered ceiling — a process that would require multiple applications between sandings to complete — in seashell-coral pink. They encouraged Harrill to carry pink into the kitchen, but she had something different in mind.

More neutrality.

“My sister-in-law’s firm, Kelly Koury Harrill Designs, helped with the entire place — all the rest.” Nonetheless, it was summer of 2021 before the interiors were completed, and later still before a custom rug arrived.

Although she had made edits since moving to an apartment several years earlier, Harrill began to cull through furnishings, trying out old pieces in the new rooms. “Things I was attached to stayed. I only kept what I really love,” she says, adding that she purchased some new furniture.

But art was important to her decision making. Several former pieces made the cut. She acquired works by artists she had either discovered recently or years ago when working for Ann Compton at Compton Art Gallery, “when my children were babies.”

Compton's gallery represented Greensboro artist Agnes Preston-Brame. Harrill was enamored by her work. “I told Ann I was only going to sell Agnes PrestonBrame pieces for a month.”

Preston-Brame made the art edit for the condo home straightaway.

Kevin Rutan, whose work figured prominently in the Sunset Hills reno featured on the cover of the January 2021 O. Henry, is among artists whom she knows and collects. “That’s my best friend’s home,” she texts about the feature. “Kevin's company did a faux finish in my dining room back in the 1990s in Fisher Park.”

A Billy Cone piece, formerly hanging in her bedroom, now hangs in the living room. Others were found on her travels. “I decided I wanted Greensboro and North Carolina artists.”

“I bought the one over the sofa in the mountains,” Harrill says. “William

Dennis is a professor of art. The lady who owns the gallery in Banner Elk studied under him.” She also mentions Amy Heywood, another artist she has collected.

Ever a nature lover, she displays a trophy fish she caught and another her son, Harrison, caught. She hung her son’s draped with his Boy Scout’s sash. Laughing, she admits having insisted he become an Eagle Scout.

Kitchens are something Harrill spends considerable effort on, especially conscious of surfaces and fittings. Tellingly, a professional chef bought her former condo. In 2019, I described that kitchen: “With white marble tile and white quartz, it is an understated study in how to create a white kitchen that isn’t sterile — and wor-

thy of being right up front and on view.”

The newest kitchen, open and sleek, is very different, but again a study in sophisticated finishes. This time, she craved something streamlined.

“I wanted it to be completely different,” she adds. And either smooth or tactile.

The hood is stucco and textural. The geometric wall tiles by Studio Tile have a relief design and extend to the ceiling. Thanks to COVID-related delays, “I picked out three different kitchen sinks.”

Most impressively, a wall of electronically controlled kitchen cabinets was chosen because Harrill didn’t want visible hardware. “But if the power goes out, I can’t get my groceries out [of the cupboard],” she says, and laughs, demonstrating how the electronics function.

“But it sure looks good!”

Her main bedroom is calm and absent some of the Brutalist touches (such as the grasscloth) used in her former bedroom. The ceiling also has cove molding. “These closets are huge!” she exclaims, opening a door.

Harrill leads into the main bath, which features artistic, graphic tile patterns, saying, “This is the biggest bathroom I’ve ever had!”

“He’s so good at finishings,” she says, praising Pat Parr, the contractor.

For fun, Harrill created a tiny nursery for her newest granddaughter, Millicent Campbell Morecraft (born January 13), out of a former closet. It features gray and white puffy clouds as a soothing backdrop. “It’s a sweet little room,” she says happily. “My aunt Millicent had a home I loved.”

She is still finessing things — it wasn’t a case of “boom, it’s done.” The prior condo “was a transition place,” she now recognizes.

Of course, despite all, there were problems. Harrill awaited a striking special-order rug for months — disruptions from the pandemic seeped into the project’s completion in the last year as the interiors took shape. Thanks to the pandemic, too, the outdoor living areas grew more significant than ever. After finding patio chairs at Carriage House, Harrill ordered a concrete table through the designer so she could eat and entertain outdoors.

What works best in Harrill’s newest Fountain Manor home?

“It’s quiet,” she finally says, referring to the design itself. Ida Mae pads by, an unusually mellow pup. The quiet must agree with her, too.

Given so much of her life was under revision, Harrill bought new wheels, too: a restored 1972 Chevy pickup, “with stick shift on the wheel.”

When her father bequeathed acreage to her and her children, she told her contractor, Pat Parr, she might get some cows. “Why?” he asked.

“So, I can get a truck,” Harrill replied.

Parr retorted, “Just get a truck. Cows are a lot of work.”

She offers a ride back to my office, adroitly shifting, her ankle injury seemingly not affecting her using a clutch.

Gleefully, Harrill throws the Chevy into reverse.

“Most days I don’t notice it,” she says with a convincing grin, before asking, “Don’t you just love my truck?” OH

ALMANAC

By a shley Walshe

On the Wild Side

Among the wild blossoms beginning to carpet the soft earth — fig buttercups and field mustard, blood root and Johnny jump-ups, dimpled trout lilies and Carolina jessa mine — the common blue violet is one you’ll likely spot in damp woods and shady meadows. Also called the woolly blue violet, wood violet or common meadow violet, this short-stemmed perennial is known for its heart-shaped leaves (edible) and white-throated purple flowers (also edible).

March is a born artist, wide-eyed and unbridled, creating for the sake of life itself.

The genius begins with a single daffodil, warm and bright, nodding in a stream of honeyed light. Each petal is a world of yellow. Each leaf, a meditation on green.

The artist becomes obsessed.

One daffodil becomes a series, progressively abstract, until each flower is more essence than form.

Paintings expand into wild landscapes. Quick as the hand can move, a rolling sea of yellow starbursts stretches from one canvas to the next. The foreground softens. Thick and messy brushstrokes evoke a tender, playful light.

Crested irises and yellow violets now spill from the frenzied brush, followed by flowering clover, purple deadnettle, wild onions, chickweed and a downy flush of dandelions.

Robins begin to appear. Bluebirds, too. Tree swallows and towhees and red-winged blackbirds. The painting nearly sings out.

Leafless branches, stark among the luscious earth, are suddenly laden with clusters of crim son whirligigs. Redbuds are studded with bright fuchsia blossoms. Soft pink swirls adorn silverlimbed saucer magnolias.

The brush strokes quicken. A sweep of tulips colors the earth magnificent. As spring bursts forth, flower by brilliant, quivering flower, the artist surrenders to the muse.

But have you ever seen a bird’s foot violet? Named for the shape of its narrowly lobed leaves (they do, in fact, resemble bird feet), this viola species prefers dry, sandy soil and pine lands. The five-petaled flower, lilac or bicolored with bright orange anthers, is largely considered to be the most beautiful violet in the world. But what spring bloomer isn’t a bewitching vision to our winter-weary eyes?

Our life is March weather, savage and serene in one hour. —

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Time to Sow

The cold earth is thawing. The Full Sap Moon rises on Tuesday, March 7. The maple sap is flowing once again.

The vernal equinox occurs on Monday, March 20 — along with a dark, balsamic moon. As a new season and cycle begin, we return to the garden.

In early March, sow carrot, spinach, radish, pea and turnip seeds directly into the softening earth. Mid-month, sow chives, parsley, onion and parsnips. At month’s end: beet and arugula seeds.

Broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings can be transplanted outdoors mid- to late-month. Ditto kale, Swiss chard, lettuce and kohlrabi.

Growing season has commenced. As the days grow warmer still, behold the simple miracle of spring’s return. The miracle of life itself. OH

Although conscientious efforts are made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, all events are subject to change and errors can occur! Please verify times, costs, status and location before attending an event.

To submit an event for consideration, email us at ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com by the first of the month one month prior to the event.

Weekly Events

WEDNESDAYS

WINE WEDNESDAY. 5–8 p.m. Sip wine, munch pizza and enjoy the soothing sounds of live jazz. Free. Double Oaks, 204 N. Mendenhall St. Greensboro. Info: double-oaks.com/wine-wednesday.

LIVE MUSIC. 6–9 p.m. Evan Olson and Jessica Mashburn of AM rOdeO play covers and original music. Free. Print Works Bistro. 702 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: printworksbistro.com/gallery/music.

THURSDAYS

JAZZ AT THE O.HENRY. 6–9 p.m. Sip vintage craft cocktails and snack on tapas while the O.Henry Trio performs with a different jazz vocalist each week. Free. O.Henry Hotel Social Lobby, 624 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: ohenryhotel.com/o-henry-jazz.

March Events

March

01–31

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH. Exact times and dates vary. Learn about women’s history in Greensboro and beyond with special programming. Free. Greensboro History Museum, 130 Summit Ave., Greensboro. Info: greensborohistory.org/events.

01–12

PHENOMENAL WOMAN. Times vary. Take an epic journey through the astonishing life of world-renowned poet, author and activist Maya Angelou in this stage performance. Tickets: $23+. Hanesbrands Theatre, 209 N. Spruce St., Winston-Salem. Info: ncblackrep.org.

Winter Concert

03.05.2023

ROBIN WALL KIMMERER. Enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, plant ecologist, educator and author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plant will speak at Guilford College. Dana Auditorium, 5800 W. Friendly Ave., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/event. 02

WIND ENSEMBLE. 7:30 p.m. The UNCG wind ensemble performs a chamber music concert. Free, but tickets must be reserved. Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St., Greensboro. Info: vpa.uncg.edu/single-event/ wind-ensemble-chamber-concert.

COOKIES & CONSORTIUM. 5:30–7 p.m. Enjoy free coffee, cookies and stimulating conversation with UNCG’s Humanities Network & Consortium. Free. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: weatherspoonart.org/calendar.

03–05

NUNSENSE. Times vary. Laugh along as five nuns try to manage a fundraiser in this

cabaret-style comedy. Tickets: $22+. High Point Theatre, 220 E. Commerce Ave., High Point. Info: highpointtheatre.com/events.

RANDALL BRAMBLETT. 7:30 p.m. Fiddle & Bow and The ’Boro Sessions present Randall Bramblett, whose career spans five decades, with Nick Johnson. Tickets: $25+. In the Crown at the Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

HBD DR. SEUSS. 3–4:30 p.m. Kids of all ages will enjoy a Read Across America and the World Fest featuring crafts, games and performances. Free. Central Library, 219 N. Church St., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc. gov (click on “events”).

04–31

BARN THEATRE. Times vary. The Church Basement Ladies are back with The Last Potluck Supper, a musical voyage through 100 years of their history. Tickets: $28+. The Barn Dinner Theatre, 120 Stage Coach Trail, Greensboro. Info: barndinner.com/2023.

04, 18, 25

BLACKSMITH DEMONSTRATION. 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Watch a costumed blacksmith in action as he crafts various iron pieces. Free. Historical Park at High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org. 04

WHODUNNIT. 6 p.m. Support Community Theatre of Greensboro while solving a murder mystery at the Starry Starry Night, The CTG Gala. Tickets: $125. Greensboro Country Club, 410 Sunset Drive, Greensboro. Info: ctgso.org.

MURDER MYSTERY. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m. Enjoy dinner with a side of ‘80s style murder mystery. Tickets: $70+. The Blue Heron Event Venue, 4130 Mendenhall Oaks Parkway High Point. Info: eventbrite. com/e/i-love-the-80s-to-death-murder-mystery-dinner-tickets-517930342597.

KOUNTRY WAYNE. 8 p.m. Enjoy a night of stand-up with one of Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch in 2021. Tickets: $35+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events. 05

NIKKI GLASER. 7 p.m. The popular comedian and podcast host delivers a night of shockingly honest, no-holds-barred laughs. Tickets: $25.75+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

WINTER CONCERT. 7–8 p.m. The Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra showcases talented young musicians. Free. Dana Auditorium, 710 Levi Coffin Drive, Greensboro. Info: gsyo.org/events.

08

SALAMANDER STROLL. 7–8 p.m. Walk the trails at Price Park and discover where salamanders make their homes. Free. Kathleen Clay Edwards Family Branch Library., 1420 Price Park Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

10–19

THE WIZ JR. Times vary. Enjoy a joyous modern retelling of L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s story reflecting contemporary African American culture. Tickets: $15+. Starr Theatre, 520 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: ctgso.org

with the North Carolina bred comedian with incredibly quick and cutting wit. Tickets: $15. The Idiot Box, 503 N. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: idiotboxers.com.

11–31

COLLABORATION IN CRAFT. GreenHill’s spring exhibition features masters of contemporary craft media from across the state. Opening reception from 6–8 p.m., Saturday, March 11. Free. Greensboro Cultural Center, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org/events.

11

TEA WITH SEAGROVE POTTERS. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Spend the day cruising the beautiful countryside, discovering spectacular handmade pottery and sampling teas and pastries along the way. Free. Info: teawithseagrovepotters.com.

DRU HILL. 8 p.m. Enjoy a night of ’90s style R&B with Dru Hill and Jagged Edge. Tickets: $65+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

LIFTED VOICES. 1–4 p.m. Hear about Greensboro women’s successes and struggles from costumed interpreters. Free. Greensboro History Museum, 130 Summit Ave., Greensboro. Info: greensborohistory.org/events.

OPUS. 7:30–9 p.m. The Philharmonia of Greensboro perform Hindemith’s Metamorphoses and Schubert’s 9th Symphony. Free, donations encouraged. Dana Auditorium, 5800 W. Friendly Ave., Greensboro. Info: creativegreensboro.com.

12

CURIOSITIES. Noon–3 p.m, early-bird shopping opens at 11 a.m. Peruse vintage treasures and unique art pieces during Curiosities at the Curb. Early-bird, $2; after noon, free. Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville Street Greensboro. Info: gsofarmersmarket.org.

KEY GLOCK. 8 p.m. Sirius XM’s Hip-Hop Nation presents rapper Key Glock. Tickets: $39.50. Piedmont Hall, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY. 6:30–8:30 p.m. Learn and enjoy photographing nature in all forms, plus focus on the technical side with the Carolina Nature Photography Association on the second Monday of each month. Free. Griffin Recreation Center, 5301 Hilltop Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”).

14–31

THE REVOLUTIONISTS. Times vary. Four beautiful women lose their heads in this irreverent, female-led comedic play set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Tickets: $15+. Pyrle Theatre, 232 S Elm St., Greensboro Info: triadstage.org/calendar.

14–19

TEMPTATIONS. Times vary. Ain’t Too Proud is a musical celebrating the life and times of The Temptations featuring Motown hits you know and love. Tickets: $33+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events. 14

BROADWAY. 7:30 p.m. Renowned actor and singer Norm Lewis performs as part of Well-Spring’s Broadway to Greensboro series. Tickets: $16. The Virginia Somerville Sutton Theatre at Well-Spring, 4100 Well Spring Drive, Greensboro. Info: well-spring.org/theatre.

JAMES BOND. 7 p.m. Catch Sean Connery in the second classic 007 film, From Russia with Love. Tickets: $7. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

16

SUSTAINABILITY FILM & DISCUSSION. 6 p.m. The UNCG Sustainability Film and Discussion Series returns with inperson screenings. Free. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: weatherspoonart.org/calendar.

17–19

NIK CARTWRIGHT. 8:30 p.m. Laugh along

OPUS MATINEE. 3:30–5 p.m. The Greensboro Concert Band, made up of approximately 100 non-professional music enthusiasts, takes the stage. Free, donations encouraged. Dana Auditorium, 5800 W. Friendly Ave., Greensboro. Info: creativegreensboro.com.

ROMEO AND JULIET. Times vary. Creative Greensboro and Shared Radiance Performing Arts Company present the Shakespeare classic featuring a teenage cast. Tickets: $10. Stephen D. Hyers Theatre, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: creativegreensboro.com.

17

ST. PADDY’S CONCERT. 8 p.m. The Keith Allen circus joins forces with The Wright Ave. to throw down an epic St. Paddy’s day special infused with psychedelic sound and oozing with funky flavor. Tickets: $12. Flat Iron, 221 Summit Ave., Greensboro. Info: etix.com/ticket/p/3125063/the-keith-allencircus-the-wright-ave-greensboro-flat-iron.

18

BLOCK PARTY. 3 p.m. Country singer-songwriter Michael Ray headlines the Tournament Town Block party. Free. Hamburger Square, McGee and Davie Streets, Greensboro. Info: tournamenttown.com/block-party.

WORKING WOMEN. 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Meet the Working Women of Early High Point. Costumed interpreters demonstrate some of the activities that Quaker, enslaved and free early High Point women would have done. Free. Historical Park at High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org.

21 & 22

BLUEY LIVE. 6 p.m. Audiences of all ages will laugh along with Bluey and his family in Bluey’s Big Day. Tickets: $24+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

23–31

DANGEROUS CORNERS. Times vary. In this British play, explore a unique concept of time and the effect it has on characters’ lives. Tickets: $15+. Catawba Theatre, 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. Info: uncsa.edu/performances/index.aspx.

23–30

ARTIST RESIDENCY. Engage with artists over a nine-day period with When We were Queens . . . a collaboration between African French dancer/choreographer Murielle Elizéon and acclaimed African American musician Shana Tucker. Free. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: weatherspoonart.org/calendar.

23–25

THE WORLD GOES ‘ROUND. 7:30–9:30 p.m. Enjoy a musical revue showcasing the songs of John Kander and Fred Ebb. Gail Brower Huggins Performance Center, Odell Building, 815 W. Market St., Greensboro. Info: greensboro.edu/academics/arts/ performance-calendar.

23

BUDDY GUY. 7:30 p.m. The 86-year-old legendary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee continues to rock the stage with special guest Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. Tickets: $35.50+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

NEWCOMERS. 11 a.m. Greensboro Newcomers Club will celebrate its birthday with a luncheon, door prizes and fun. Tickets: $25+. Revolution Mill, Textile Drive, Greensboro. Info: greensboronewcomersclub.com.

24–26, 30

DOGGONE MYSTERY. Times vary. Mark Haddon’s bestselling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, comes to life on stage. Tickets: $14+. Hanesbrands Theatre, 209 N Spruce St, Winston-Salem. Info: ltofws.org.

24

SERAPH BRASS. 8 p.m. An ensemble drawn from America’s top female brass players performs as part of UNCG’s Concert & Lecture Series. Tickets: $5+. Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St., Greensboro. Info: vpa.uncg.edu/single-event/seraph-brass.

ANDY FORRESTER. 8:30 p.m. Known for his Dry Bar Comedy Special, Forrester has been making audiences laugh for over 23 years. Tickets: $15. The Idiot Box, 503 N. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: idiotboxers.com.

SPRING CONCERT. 7:30 p.m. À la carte presents a buffet of music from various genres, styles and epochs, performed by some of the area’s best musicians and special

guests Ciompi String Quartet and renowned harpist Jacquelyn Bartlett. Free. Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 607 N. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: alcgreensboro.com.

25 & 27

HIDDEN GEMS. Times vary. Bel Canto Company and Gate City Voices weave a majestic story expressing wonder and awe of the eternal through song. Tickets: $5+. First Baptist Church, 100 W. Friendly Ave., Greensboro. Info:belcantocompany.com.

RUNWAY 5K. 9 a.m. Run the PTI 5K/10K on the Runway to benefit The Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC, Greensboro Urban Ministry and Open Door Ministries of High Point. Registration: $10+. Piedmont Triad International Airport, 1000 Ted Johnson Parkway, Greensboro. Info: ptirun.com.

YOLANDA ADAMS. 8 p.m. The Grammywinning, gospel-singing sensation performs

Handmade In House

with the Greensboro Symphony. Tickets: $35+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

THE BOSS. 7:30 p.m. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band rock the stage with their first tour in six years. Tickets: $140+. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

FUNNY GODMOTHERS. 7:30 p.m. Your wish is granted when these touring female comedians who have been there, done that, help you laugh about life. Tickets: $25+. High Point Theatre, 220 E. Commerce Ave., High Point. Info: highpointtheatre.com/events.

SKID ROW. 7:30 p.m. The Gang’s All Here Tour brings together the ‘80s rock band and Buckcherry. Tickets: $30+. Piedmont Hall, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

FILM SCREENING. 6–7:30 p.m. Watch and discuss The Dixie 3: A Story on Civil Rights and Nursing with producer Hampton. Tickets: $25. International Civil Rights Center &

121-A WEST MCGEE ST. GREENSBORO, NC 27401 WWW.JACOBRAYMONDJEWELRY.COM | 336.763.9569

Museum, 134 S Elm St., Greensboro. Info: sitinmovement.org/events.

NATURAL EGG DYEING. 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Get ready for the Easter Bunny by dyeing provided eggs with common foods from nature. Free. Historical Park at High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org.

26

MOUNTAIN MOVIES. Celebrate mountain culture at a viewing of selections from the Banff Centre Mountain Film World Tour. Tickets: $11.24+. High Point Theatre, 220 E. Commerce Ave., High Point. Info: highpointtheatre.com/events.

28–31

LES MISÉRABLES. Times vary. The popular Tony-winning musical is a timeless testament to the survival of the human spirit. Tickets: $29+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

28

CORY ASBURY. 7 p.m. The American Christian singer-songwriter who has been singing in church since he was a teen makes a stop on The Pioneer Tour. Tickets: $19.95+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

30–31

MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN. 7:30 p.m. Discover the boisterous comedy filled with original songs set against the backdrop of the Thirty Years War in what many consider to be one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. Tickets: $15+. Freedman Theatre, 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. Info: uncsa.edu/performances/index.aspx.

SPARTAN JAZZ. 7:30 p.m. The UNCG Spartan Jazz Collective pays tribute to big band legend Thad Jones. Tickets: $7+. In the Crown at the Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

IMPROV. 7:30 p.m. Current cast members of the hilarious improvisational television show Whose Line Is It Anyway deliver a night of live comedy. Tickets: $55+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events.

DOGS ON THE CATWALK. 7–10 p.m. Dogs strut their stuff on the runway in Red Dog Farm Animal Rescue Network’s annual fundraiser. Tickets: $50+. Summerfield Farms, 3203 Pleasant Ridge Rd, Summerfield. Info: reddogfarm.com/events.

RODEO. 7:30 p.m. At Cinch World’s largest Rodeo, expect a trifecta of fun with action, entertainment and intense competition on the menu. Tickets: $20+. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

JUDAH & THE LION. 8 p.m. Enjoy a night of live music with the folk rock band known for “Take It All Back.” Tickets: $30+. Piedmont Hall, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

GreenScene

Monday,

Photographs by Bert VanderVeen

Carrie Thompson & David Lillard

Cassandra Durham

Jeff Cameron, Phoebe Snyder

Monet Ramirez

Damaris & Ronnie Staton

Terri Bannister

Brian Tennie

Stephanie Williams

Nala Fairley

Aston Anglin-Stone Corey Hillman Joe Florence

“BeBe” Greene

Designer: Jewel Moser

GreenScene

Big Hair Ball

Benefitting Family Services of the Piedmont

Saturday, January 28, 2023

Photographs by Albion Associates

Designer:

Designer: Oivia Jurney

Designer: Cassidy Burel

Model:

Designer: Stephanie Tastet

Designer: Hunter Morton

Model: Ella McGarrigan

Designer: Amber Garlatz

Designer: Demetrius Liyongo

Model: Macy McAlister

Designer: Erika Lowrance

Designer: Brooke Berglund

Designer: Stephanie Tastet

Designer: Erika Lowrance

Model: Ada Kirkland

U’lia Hargrove

Model: Reagan Sumner

Designer: Cassidy Burel

Model: Mary Jane Perry Designer: Stephanie Tastet

Model: Olivia Henn

Designer: Erika Lowrance

Model: Mae Moody Designer: Brandi Burns

Model: Mae Bradley

Model: Reagan Neff

Model: Courtney Kim

Model: Megan Mascia

Designer: Dani Gosha

Carlyle Lowe

Designer: Caitlin Rhyne

Model: Adrian Smith

Model: Elizabeth

Model: Payton Cheek

Model: Emerson McCormick

Designer: U’lia Hargrove

Model: Callie LaFave

Model: Anna Griffin Designer: U’lia Hargrove

Model: Rebekah Roy

Model: Mamie Jane Halderman

Model: Madeline Ringer

Designer: U’lia Hargrove

The Chili Queen

The prize is in the pot!

By BarBara rosson Davis

It has been widely reported that capsicum spices make one wickedly hot. Even dreams catch fire! Billy the Kid, a lover of chili, once supposedly said “Anybody who eats chili can’t be all bad . . . even when the bed-linens tend to levitate after eating three bowls.”

This chili tale is not one of enraged cannibals butchering conquistadors, seasoning them with chiles, cinnamon, cilantro, cocoa and corn, simmering the lot, then feasting. Rather, it’s a spicy story of a “Chili-Cook-off” that takes place at the original — and no longer in existence — Roosters Gourmet kitchen shop on State Street.

Chili, the concoction, with or without beans, has many versions. Recipes abound — some guarded, some misguided and some worthy of a prize. Thousands of known chili-pepper varieties exist, ranging in hotness and assorted colors. “Carolina Reaper” (grown in Rock Hill, S.C.) is a hybrid cultivar, rated the world’s hottest pepper, as referenced in Guinness World Records, circa 2012.

At Roosters, proprietor Mary James Lawrence bags the spices I’ve selected and points to the newly-arrived Calphalon pots, the largest of which catches my eye. But the price of $145 is beyond my budget.

Then I see a sign that tempts the competitor in me: “Enter Roosters’ Chili Cook-off and Win the Pot!”

Fortune favors the brave. I fill out an entry form, fire up the brain, chili on my mind, and go home to simmer some beef. Roosters’ contest requires a recipe plus a sample of the contestant’s homemade chili to be judged by local chefs and restaurateurs. If my chili is going to stand a chance of winning, it has to be truly “after-burner” distinctive, mouthwatering, and so irresistible the Judges cannot stop eating it. Damn the mouth, defy the stomach! I add some kicker-ingredients: authentic Spanish chorizo, smoked (hot) pimenton (Spanish paprika), Tio Pepe Fino Sherry, tons of garlic and an assortment of fresh chiles: Anaheim, jalapeño, habañero, serrano, poblano and pasilla. The beef is grass-fed, Guilfordcounty-raised, simmered for hours in chili powder, cumin, cinnamon, onions, oregano and garlic, plus chiles, with a whole bottle of Corona beer and more sherry. In the morning, I add sautéed chorizo chunks, more onions, fresh peppers, smoked paprika, dark kidney beans, a can of enchilada sauce and tomatoes.

I then let my chili meld its aromatic flavors for two days and serve it with chopped fresh cilantro and three shredded cheeses melted on top.

Judgment day arrives: Twenty contestants and onlookers surround the tasting table at Roosters. The five judges sample — and re-sample — each recipe from numbered bowls. I have no idea which bowl holds my chili as the judges taste, nod and whisper. Their eyes begin watering . . . Mary James announces, “Only one female entry, folks.”

Me? Up against a passel of good old Southern boys? More buzz. Thirty minutes go by. Now I’m sweating.

Finally, after conferring with the judges (for what seems eons), Mary James announces, “It’s unanimous! — Number four is the winning chili!” She smiles at me.

“Congratulations to Greensboro’s Chili Queen!“ she beams, handing me the huge Calphalon pot. My eyes start to water, but not from chiles. OH

A native Californian, Barbara Rosson Davis is a writer living in Greensboro since 1979. A lover of chili, she concocts new versions of her original winning chili, whatever the season.

BY HARRY BLAIR