April O.Henry 2021

w healthy at home

We’re with a future of more well and less sick. And that means everyone doing their part to stop the spread of COVID-19. Please continue to practice the three Ws: 1. Wear your mask 2. Wash your hands 3. Wait 6 feet apart Safe and effective vaccines to prevent the virus are now being administered throughout N.C. Find out when you’re eligible to get your shot at conehealth.com/vaccine

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April 2021 DEPARTMENTS 11 The Nature of Things

By Ashley Wahl

13 Simple Life

By Jim Dodson

17 Short Stories 19 Life’s Funny

By Maria Johnson

29 Scuppernong Bookshelf 33 Weekend Away

By Jason Oliver Nixon

36 Botanicus

By Ross Howell Jr.

39 Birdwatch

By Susan Campbell

23 The Creators of N.C.

40 Wandering Billy

27 The Omnivorous Reader

68 Events Calendar 80 O.Henry Ending

By Wiley Cash

By D.G. Martin

By Billy Eye

By Cynthia Adams

FEATURES 45 Beige Wall Telephone, 1960s Poetry by Michael McFee

47 Queen of DIY

By Cynthia Adams How stay-at-home mom Ursula Carmona became a media sensation (Hint: She did it herself)

53 It’s a Blog’s Life

By Maria Johnson Social media maven René Zieg shares her flare

62 Devotion in Motion

By Ross Howell Jr. One native plant at a time. That’s how Root & Branch Gardens’ Steve Windham is helping to restore our ecosystem

67 Almanac

By Ashley Wahl

Cover photograph of Ursula Carmona by Amy Freeman 6 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Fine Eyewear by Appointment 327 South Elm | Greensboro 336.274.1278 | TheViewOnElm.com Becky Causey, Licensed Optician

M A G A Z I N E

Volume 11, No. 4 “I have a fancy that every city has a voice.”

336.617.0090 1848 Banking Street, Greensboro, NC 27408 www.ohenrymag.com PUBLISHER

David Woronoff Andie Rose, Creative Director andie@thepilot.com Ashley Wahl, Editor awahl@ohenrymag.com Lauren M. Coffey, Art Director Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer DIGITAL CONTENT

Cassie Bustamante, cassie@ohenrymag.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Jim Dodson, Founding Editor Cynthia Adams, David Claude Bailey, Amy Freeman, Maria Johnson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Mallory Cash, Lynn Donovan, John Gessner, Bert VanderVeen, Mark Wagoner CONTRIBUTORS

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8 O.Henry

MAY Lose Value

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

KEVIN RUTAN’S SPRING SHOW APRIL 29TH • 12-5 APRIL 30TH • 10-5 MAY 1ST • 10-5 612 JOYNER ST • GREENSBORO, NC • 336.312.0099 24x24

2020 was a year we will never forget. It was also a year we would like to forget. Last year I spent many many hours painting in MY studio. Art therapy works, but now I have no room.

It’s overflowing with new works: painting on canvas, board, paper of all sizes and styles. Please come by, the studio will provide masks, hand sanitizer, and an open space atmosphere.

Thanks, Kevin

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I would like to thank all the people who did support the arts in 2020. All Through the House, White and Wood, 1618 Seafood Grill, Knight & Carr, Allen and James Design, The Artery and many others.

Thank you, MiHee, my lovely wife.

Kevin Rutan

30x40

16x20

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The Nature of Things

Soul of a Place

Home isn’t just brick and mortar — it’s a feeling

By Ashley Wahl

When it comes to houses, you could say I have a type.

In a word: soulful.

In other words: quirky, colorful, old.

Given that Fisher Park is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Greensboro — a mosaic of grand and modest houses with as much variety as a jovial street fair — it’s little wonder I was drawn here like a hummingbird to foxglove.

I love it for its tree-lined streets; the tipped tricycles dotting front lawns and sidewalks; the lush gardens that mingle and spill across property lines; the tree swings and wind chimes and wide, cozy porches.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

You may know by now that I returned to Greensboro last fall to edit this magazine. After tirelessly scouring the web for rental houses last summer, I gasped when I saw what I consider to be three perfect words: Fisher Park Bungalow.

Flash back a decade or so. Just out of college, while renting a onebedroom apartment on the outskirts of Greensboro’s first streetcar suburb, I quickly fell in love with the eclectic mix of houses — and people — on every block. And then one evening at golden hour, I happened upon Fisher Park’s picturesque nature trails. Crossing that first stone bridge was, to me, equivalent to how Mary Lennox must have felt when she discovered the door to the Secret Garden. Or Lucy Pevensie, stepping into Narnia. You get the idea.

Now, back to last summer.

When I clicked through the photos for the Fisher Park listing, the hair on my arms stood up. I could feel the soul of the place without being there.

“This is it,” I told my fiancé, Alan. “This could be our future home.”

We scheduled a tour for the following week.

From the outside, the century-old brick home was, frankly, unremarkable. But such was the architectural trend of the American

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Craftsman movement, a no-frills departure from Victorian-style influence. Inside, natural light filled each room, where high ceilings and hardwood floors created a warm yet elegant atmosphere. Just shy of 1,200 square feet, it was a humble space that had been cared for over the decades.

Three bedrooms and one tiny bath, it had an open floor plan and minimal storage.

But when we saw the funky kitchen, with its vibrant yellow walls and retro blackand-white tile floors, it was game over.

“This house has soul,” we agreed, exploring the spacious backyard, where rusting metal chairs, once painted a punchy shade of pink, surrounded a steel fire pit. Beneath the bright teal garden shed, the landlord told us, a pair of gray foxes had reared a litter of kits that previous spring.

Out front, rosemary hedges kissed the edge of the sidewalk, and lemon thyme, peppermint and sages flourished in massive concrete planters.

We felt like we were already home.

But houses like that aren’t exactly a dime a dozen in this neighborhood — especially not for renters. We knew there were other applicants with their hearts set, too. And so, while we hoped it would be our future home, we tried not to get our hopes up too high.

On down the street, a white cat appeared like an apparition on the steps of a gracious front porch. Around the block, a host of dahlias peeked over a picket fence like an assemblage of nosy neighbors. But one yard stopped us in our tracks. Staked into the ground near the sidewalk was a tree branch adorned with a wild tangle of greenery and a miscellany of treasures: ribbons, dog collars, bracelets, crystals, shoelaces and hair ties. Attached to this vertical branch was a hand-painted sign that explained it was a “Wishing Tree.”

“This is exactly the kind of place I want to live,” I told Alan. “A place where good people still believe in magic.”

We made our wish.

And guess what?

We couldn’t love our yellow kitchen more. OH Contact editor Ashley Wahl at awahl@ohenrymag.com.

O.Henry 11

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Simple Life

My Wife’s Secret Life And why I’m happily married, blissfully in the dark

By Jim Dodson

I recently discovered that my

wife, Wendy, enjoys a secret life.

Actually, I’ve known about it for years. I just never let her know that I knew about it.

It’s also possible that she’s always known that I know about it (and has chosen to keep that a secret, too).

Either way, the woman is a master at keeping her husband happily married and blissfully in the dark.

Consider the high drama of our recent unplanned kitchen makeover.

One evening last spring, our fancy German dishwasher blew up like the Hindenburg and flooded the kitchen of the charming midcentury bungalow we’ve spent the last five years faithfully restoring.

I suggested we move to Scotland.

Within days, however, Wendy had rallied a small army of specialists with industrial driers, fans and blueprints for a complete renovation.

Curiously, they all seemed to know my wife by her first name.

Though I’m hardly the suspicious type, such fraternal bonhomie did make me momentarily wonder if Dame Wendy might have a private, second career as a kitchen subcontractor and home makeover artist.

One of her not-so-secret pleasures, after all, are the makeover programs playing around the clock on HGTV, brick-and-mortar dramas where — in the span of 45 minutes — unspeakably decrepit houses are transformed into suburban show palaces by clever couples who make witty remarks about shiplap and infinity tubs.

Not that I’m the jealous type, but my bride speaks so casually about home-rehab hosts Joanna and Chip Gaines or the dorky Property Brothers or that sweet, folksy couple redoing the entire town of Laurel, The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Mississippi, it’s as if she actually knows them. And I can almost picture the Good Bones gals whispering sweet nothings about rare Victorian beadboard or vintage crown molding in Dame Wendy’s wise conchlike ear.

Unlike the unreality of these home makeovers, our massive kitchen “reno” took nearly a year to complete, including endless delays due to COVID-19. We upgraded the subflooring, wiring and plumbing; installed a beautiful Tuscan tile floor; searched two counties for new granite counters; and outfitted the entire kitchen with new appliances. We also ordered so many takeout meals that I considered moonlighting for Grubhub.

I’ll confess, there were moments when I had beguiling dreams of misty Scotland — specifically a rather fetching one in which I am rowing a dinghy across Loch Lomond with a provocatively dressed (and pre-crazy) Kim Basinger sitting in the bow.

Strictly between us, I have no idea what this dream could mean.

But I’m not dinghy enough to tell my wife about it because she’ll know exactly what it means, and I really don’t want to spoil the surprise if Kim and I ever reach the other side of the loch.

Besides, doesn’t a bloke deserve a few healthy secrets of his own?

Sadly, I don’t have many others. Unless you count the fantasy about being the first man in history to ride his John Deere lawn tractor across America. Of course, that dream died when Wendy sold my tractor at a yard sale in Maine right before we moved to Carolina.

She claims there was no room for it on the moving truck, meaning I couldn’t at least drive it home to the South and make a few bucks mowing lawns along the way.

I recently heard a top marriage specialist on the radio insist that the secret to a long and happy marriage is “not having too many secrets, but enough to keep a marriage interesting.”

The specialist, a female psychologist, didn’t specify how many secrets keep a marriage interesting, or conversely, how many keep a O.Henry 13

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Fact is, I am perfectly happy operating on a strictly “need-to-know” basis. She knows that what I don’t know won’t hurt me, which may be the key to our own long and happy marriage.

Besides, we have an enviable distribution of domestic duties and responsibilities.

Wendy runs the house, pays the bills, makes most of the important decisions and never fails to find my missing eyeglasses/wallet/car keys or TV remote when it’s clear some thoughtless nitwit has mistakenly put them somewhere just to make me go crazy.

Suffice it to say, I know my proper place in our happy domestic realm, outside in the yard quietly missing my beloved John Deere lawn tractor.

On an entirely separate front, I have no idea how much money I earn from my so-called literary career. I simply put together words that amuse me, send them off to editors I’ve never met who (sometimes) like and (eventually) pay me real folding money for them.

It’s a sweet mystery how this magic happens. I frankly never know my precise material worth, year to year, but I assure you it’s no mystery to Dame Wendy how much money I make — or am due — down to the last farthing.

Home and family, however, are where Wendy’s secret life truly excels.

Our four fully grown and theoretically independent children constantly call up from faraway places to share their endless existential crises or ask her advice on all manner of discreet topics, confiding things they wouldn’t dream of telling the old man, whom they only call when they need more farthings to cover the rent.

But that’s OK with the old man in question. The older he gets, the less he knows and the happier he is.

For it’s all about perspective — i.e. my wife’s clever design for our happily married life.

One final example shall suffice.

The other afternoon, I popped into the house from trying to start up my walk-behind mower for the first lawn-cutting of the spring and discovered that my multitasking domestic Chief Executive was putting the final touches on our brand new fully renovated kitchen in a manner most unusual.

She’d just assembled an elaborate rolling cart she’d ordered from some chic West Coast design house and was dancing rumba-like to South African reggae music as she decorated Easter cookies for neighborhood kids.

“I’m thinking of painting the den a lovely new green for the spring,” she blithely announced, sashaying past me. “It’s called Mountain Air. What do you think?”

As our elegant new dishwasher purred away, she waved the sample color on her smart phone, which isn’t remotely as smart as she is but probably a good deal smarter than her husband.

After 20 years of happy marriage, I’m no April fool.

I simply told her that I loved it and headed back to my stubborn lawn mower, secretly dreaming about Kim Basinger riding a John Deere tractor through the misty Scottish Highlands. OH Jim Dodson is the founding editor of O.Henry magazine.

14 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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Short Stories See Ya Later (Propagator)

Raise your trowel if you started (some semblance of) a Victory Garden in 2020. That’s what we thought. The Greensboro Farmers Curb Market (501 Yanceyville St.) hosts the annual Go Green Plant & Garden Sale on Sunday, April 25, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Green or otherwise, at-home horticulturists can find vegetable starters, medicinal herbs, fruit-bearing bushes, ornamental flowers and, just maybe, some of the wackiest looking plants you’ve ever seen. At this “local growers only” sale, you can also snag pro tips with your heritage, native and regional plants. And does your garden ache for a bit of locally made frippery?

Yep, you’ll find that, too. Sale held indoors and outdoors. Face covering required. Info: www.gsofarmersmarket.org/events-feed

Hip to It

For those in the know, the High Point Spring Market, aka, the “remix,” is already on the calendar for June 5–9 (www.highpointmarket.org). But have you heard of High Point x Design? It’s an evolving grassroots movement to make High Point a design nexus year-round.

And it’s not just for the trade pros. If you’re a design enthusiast looking for art, décor, furniture or lighting, go forth and explore the “flagship” showrooms beneath the HPxD umbrella. Of course there are exclusive “trade only” showrooms, too. But nearly 20 fashion-forward galleries and boutiques will open their doors to all on Tuesday, April 6, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Wednesday, April 7, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. And if you’re looking to mask and mingle, don’t miss the HPxD Mixer on Tuesday, 4 p.m., at Cohab.Space (RSVP: info@cohab.space). High Point Spring Premarket (trade-only event) happens Sunday, April 25, through Tuesday, April 27. More info: hpxd.org.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

All Dolled Up

Not long before lockdowns were the norm, High Point’s Theatre Art Galleries (TAG) ordered 15 mannequins for an exhibit featuring Tony and Emmy award-winning designer Paul Tazewell’s costumes. Does Hamilton ring a bell? The Tazewell exhibit, which ran until early January 2020, was TAG’s last before it shuttered. Last month, it reopened with Mannequin Musings, which started as a Call to Artists to reimagine the naked displays otherwise left collecting dust. Fifteen creatives from across the state participated. You bet last year was an inspiration. And so was our future. Consider High Point artist Annie Chrismon’s “No Rain, No Flowers,” which is crowned by a luminous white cloud dripping with teardrop prisms. Bedecked in rhinestones, lush greenery, silk gardenias and fairy wings made of twigs, the mannequin nods to nature’s law: spring always follows winter. TAG (220 E. Commerce Ave., downtown High Point) is open Tuesday through Friday, noon until 5 p.m. Or, experience the exhibit virtually (and vote for your favorite) here: tagart.org.

Built Like a Ram

OK, Aries. Maybe you should go on a brisk walk, blow off some steam, take a few slow, deep breaths of wisteria. Ruled by Mars (the god of war), those born under this fiery sun sign have a tendency to be more than a little hot-headed. But damned if you couldn’t charm the spit from a tree swallow. This month, the planets are aligned in your favor. Try to keep your cool. Go with the flow. But if instead your blood doth boil, try doing a headstand.

O.Henry 17

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Life's Funny

Walking with Rio A reflection on dogs and cats and life

By Maria Johnson

You stand in the living

room, whining in a pitch I cannot ignore.

I turn.

You fix me with eyes the color of hard candy, root-beer flavored. Clear and warm and sweet.

I solve the mystery by deduction.

It’s not food you want. There’s a scoop of kibble in your dish, wet with beef broth, and you won’t touch it.

You’re not in pain. You groan and shift when you’re hurting. Plus, you’ve just downed half a peanut butter sandwich made chunky with your morning meds.

“Go for a walk?” I say tentatively. I’m doubtful because your limp is pronounced this morning. A few minutes ago, I sat at the kitchen table and watched you hobble down then back up the ramp we built for you over the patio steps.

“Go for a walk?”

You confirm with a steady gaze.

Of course. You’re all about the walk, the run, the movement that expresses, better than anything, who you are.

You’re a leggy foxhound — “Imagine a beagle,” I tell people. “In a supermodel’s body” — born to the chase with nose and ears and stride that gobble up the woods with ease.

You’re a good sport, though. Most of the time, you settle for walks on greenways, trails and suburban streets.

So I slip the harness — the new one that doesn’t rub your shoulder — over your head, grab a plastic bag and my phone, and we set out into the neighborhood.

How many times have we walked this way together? How many miles have we covered in our menu of loops that start and end at home?

I do the math.

More than six thousand.

Your dad — your human dad, that is — figures he’s walked 10,000 miles with you.

That’s 16,000. And that’s just with us, in the nine years since we found you, when you were about two. God knows how many miles were on your odometer when you bounded into our lives, bony and collarless, as we were leaving a Mexican restaurant.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Tom, your human brother, who was 14 at the time, named you Rio for the restaurant.

It fit.

Rio, river.

River, run.

Goodness, did you run.

In the dog park, in the woods, streaking across our broad backyard, flashing in and out of the Japanese cypresses with speed and ease that made everyone laugh in recognition of the truth. Your essence was there, in those slivers of seconds you were suspended over the ground.

But this morning, we walk.

Your Dad and I — knowing that our ambles with you are numbered — let you mosey and meander, sidetrack and sniff as much as you want.

The grass in cracks of asphalt.

The mulch under trees.

The acorns passed over by squirrels.

The green and white beacons of fire hydrants.

You salute them as usual.

Your right front leg quavers as you balance.

The X-ray was so subtle, the line where the bone density changed.

How could such a small shadow change your gait, your life?

Your nails click in the concrete gutter. The fourth step is muted.

You’re taking weight off that leg.

It’s weird, this business of knowing. None of us knows, do we?

But something changes when we have an inkling. We stop looking forward. We reel in our attention to now. You do this naturally.

Like right now. Buckled into the moment, you walk at the pace your body allows, which is slow. It’s a good time to slow down.

Spring is being born. The morning air flows around us like cool creek water, but the sun is warming, pulling new life from the Earth.

Daffodils — the first I’ve seen this year — trumpet the news. Purple crocuses reveal tangerine exclamation points.

You stick your head into a storm drain to check for cats. It’s such a cliché. But cats drive you crazy.

You lift your head as we pass Moe’s house. Yes, I remember.

You growled and barked at Moe, who tiger-stalked to the end of his driveway, squared up to you and swiped. You yelped and jumped back.

A red line welled on your nose. You looked shocked. That was not supposed to happen.

The cat was supposed to run. You were supposed to chase.

O.Henry 19

Life's Funny

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Skittles, the cat that lived down the street, understood. When you lunged, he dashed, a puff of orange smoke. Skittles and his family have been gone for years, which is why I’m surprised when you pull me into his old yard and stand there a long time, staring at the stoop where he used to curl. What will I say if someone comes out of the house and asks me what’s going on?

“My dog sees the ghost of a cat that used to live here.”

Then I see what you see. It’s not a ghost.

It’s Sudi, the fluffy black-and-white cat that has taken up with a family across the street.

You rear and twist like a sailfish, fighting the line that binds you.

Your leash slips my hand. Sudi takes off.

You take off. You’re wobbling like a car with a flat tire. And the gas pedal floored. Sudi sprints down a fence line and makes a hard right into a wooded patch. You make a hard right into a wooded patch. I make a hard right into a wooded patch.

I’m running as fast as I can, shouting at you to stop, plowing through the briars, jumping downed branches, catching glimpses of your churning back legs. My heart is hammering.

The vet warned that high impact exercise could fracture your shoulder. Please, God, don’t let me hear a cry of pain. And, PS, while you’re at it, don’t let my husband — who will be driving up the street any minute — see any of this. He would be so mad if you got hurt on my watch, just like I would be so mad at him.

Finally, I catch up to you. You’re jumping and pawing at the back gate of another house.

Sudi has squeezed his way to safety.

“Damn you,” I say, picking up your leash and wrapping it around my hand twice.

You turn to me smiling, breathless, tongue lolling.

“Damn you,” I say again, sucking wind through laughter.

In your mind, in the moment, you are still you.

That is all you know.

That is all I know.

We limp out of the woods together and head home.

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry.

20 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

409-A Parkway Avenue • Greensboro, NC 27401 Gary Jobe • 336-272-2772 • 336-549-1146

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The Creators of N.C.

Every Moment is a Window Through his art, Richard Wilson bridges the gap between then and now

By Wiley Cash Photographs By Mallory Cash

Spend some time with visual artist

Richard Wilson’s work, and you’ll quickly grasp the role historical connection plays in it.

Take his Shadow Series, for example. In each painting, an African American boy or girl stands in the foreground, the background comprised of images of an African American trailblazer. In one piece, a girl in a leather bomber jacket blocks the sun from her eyes and stares toward the horizon, as if searching for a sign of what’s to come; behind her is an assemblage of newspaper stories and photographs of Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman to hold a pilot’s license.

Another shows a young boy in oversized boxing gloves gazing up at a speed bag that’s just out of reach; behind him, a newspaper announces that Jack Johnson has defeated James Jeffries to become the 1910 heavyweight champion of the world, the first African American to win the title. Other luminaries such as Arthur Ashe, Serena Williams, Michael Jordan and Barack Obama are featured in the series, each a guiding light for the young dreamer standing “in the shadow.” To the viewer, it’s clear that ancestors and aspiration are powerfully present in The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Wilson’s artwork.

And if you spend any time with the artist himself, you’ll understand that ancestors and aspiration are powerfully present in his own life.

The oldest of three boys, Wilson was born in Robersonville (Martin County) and moved with his family to Conetoe (pronounced Kuh-nee-tuh), another rural town in Eastern North Carolina, when he was 8. He grew up surrounded by family — siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. They were close-knit.

Today, Wilson is standing in the middle of his art studio in Greenville, N.C., where he and his wife have lived for just over 20 years. The walls around him are festooned with his original works and ribbons from national art shows; the floor cluttered with framed prints and works-in-progress. Wilson, a tall man who looks like a linebacker yet comports himself like a poet, admits that he has nearly outgrown the space that he built himself. On the wall opposite him is a framed original painting titled A Window Into the Past, in which an older African American man with a cane is picking his way across a field to a weathered two-story farmhouse. The man in the painting is Wilson’s uncle. The home, which has since been demolished, once belonged to Wilson’s paternal grandmother, Francis Wilson Knight, lovingly known to everyone — family or O.Henry 23

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otherwise — as Grandma Pigaboot.

“Every weekend we’d go to my grandmother’s house,” Wilson says, gesturing toward the painting. “All the children and grandchildren.

That was the highlight of my week. My uncle, who was a sharecropper, would cook on the grill. We’d all play kickball and softball. I can still smell the rain on the dirt, the trees — pears and pecans. It was a beautiful life.” He sighs and his broad shoulders slump forward slightly. “But when my grandmother passed away, we all stopped going back there, and we just lost that connection.”

Although Wilson’s work is nothing if not realistic, each piece contains elements of symbolism that could be lost on the casual viewer.

In the painting of Grandma Pigaboot’s house, the electrical service entrance — where the home had once been connected to a power line — is frayed and disconnected. That’s exactly how Richard Wilson felt in 2020, a year that saw a pandemic cripple the globe and political and cultural turmoil seize the heart and soul of the nation. Wilson used his art to reconnect with his family, his community and the landscape that once brought him so much joy.

Although he had featured his grandmother’s house in previous works, last year he found himself wanting to paint it again, and this time he wanted to include a family member. He called up his Uncle Bill and asked if he could come take some photographs of him. Uncle Bill happily obliged. It had been a while since they’d seen each other.

“We started talking about old times,” Wilson says, “and he started posing for me, and I started taking pictures of him. We had a great time.” But Wilson wanted to keep their reunion a secret. “I told him, ‘Don’t tell your children I’m doing this painting,’” says Wilson. “I wanted to put it on Facebook to see if they recognized the house and recognized that their father was in the painting.”

Imagine Wilson’s delight when, after posting the finished painting online, Uncle Bill’s youngest daughter wrote this: Hey, cuz, I really like this piece. It reminds me of back in the day, and the man in the picture reminds me of my pops.

Comments from other cousins followed, each expressing tender sentiments.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

“And then they started buying prints,” Wilson says, supporting him at a time when art shows had been canceled due to COVID. “It brought us all back together.”

Of course, the house in the painting represents much more than just a place. Wilson’s grandmother bequeathed him a legacy that highlights the importance of family, faith, land and self-reliance — all of which Wilson has made use of throughout his path to becoming a full-time artist against incredible odds.

“My grandmother took us around and made sure that she introduced us to all of our family members,” Wilson says. “She was adamant about that, about knowing who your people are.” He stops speaking and smiles as if a memory is playing through his mind.

“She also taught us how to be entrepreneurs. We used to turn in Coke bottles and get cash for them, and then we’d turn around and buy candy and sell it. Or we’d make Kool-Aid and turn it into freeze cups, and then we’d sell those.” She also taught Wilson and his siblings and cousins how to make use of the land by taking them fishing and teaching them how to sew gardens. And she instilled the importance of faith in their lives by ensuring that they accompanied her to church.

Richard Wilson has won countless awards for his art, which has been featured in television shows and films, showcased in public and private collections and purchased by the likes of the late Hank Aaron and Gladys Knight. Those early lessons from his grandmother have allowed him to turn a childhood spark of inspiration into the passionate flame that fuels his work. His Shadows Series makes that clear.

But Richard Wilson acknowledges that not everyone is as lucky to have had the family and influences he’s had. Yet that’s the great thing about forging a connection with people you love.

“If you didn’t have it then,” he says, “you can start it now.”

One could say the same about living your dream. OH Wiley Cash is the writer-in-residence at the University of North CarolinaAsheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, will be released this year.

O.Henry 25

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26 O.Henry

ON N I A S LERIL AP

Hugh McColl’s Chapter Two The twenty years Hugh McColl’s spent since stepping down as Bank of America CEO belies the notion that irrelevancy is a part of retirement.

This is the story of how McColl, at 85, remains essential in a city that bears his imprint, from building Uptown to investing social capital in all corners of the community.

A new book by Howard E. Covington Jr. available online at:

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Omnivorous Reader

Thriller Triumph An evil character spices a Carolina plot

By D.G. Martin

Do you remember Hannibal Lecter, the psy-

chotic doctor played by Anthony Hopkins in the film The Silence of the Lambs? Lecter was a brilliant but evil serial killer who dined on his victims.

We may have been horrified by Lecter, but we were mesmerized, too. Some publishers tell their authors that such over-the-top evil characters like Lecter can make a good story even better.

Kathy Reichs, one of North Carolina’s most successful crime fiction writers, uses the salt of just such an evil character to season her most recent book, A Conspiracy of Bones. In this 19th novel by the Charlotte-based and New York Times bestselling author, Reichs introduces Nick Body, who delivers conspiracy theories on a popular podcast.

Reichs is not new to designing intriguing evil characters. Her series of Temperance Brennan novels was the basis of the long running Bones television series. Brennan, like Reichs, is a brilliant forensic anthropologist. She uses her dead body-examining skills to solve complicated crimes perpetrated by her evil characters.

Nick Body’s ability to stir up his listeners reminds us of the late Rush Limbaugh, though Body goes to a whole other extreme. He kidnaps children and then stirs up his podcast listeners, who pay money to access his program and buy the products he offers that, supposedly, arm them against the coming violence.

Here is how Reichs sums up her character’s alarmist con games: “Over the past decade, Body has been particularly vehement on two themes. Plots involving kids. Plots involving medical wrongdoing. Occasionally, his insane theories managed to combine both elements. Many of Body’s harangues focused on disease. Over and over, he returned to the theme of government conspiracy.

“A sampling: He claims that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa was a biological weapons test performed by America. That SARS was a germ attack against the Chinese. That AIDS was created and distributed by those in power in the U.S. That the anthrax attacks following 9/11 were orchestrated by the government. That banning DDT was a scheme to depopulate the Earth by spreading malaria.

That Huntington’s disease is caused by a microbe and the government is conspiring to suppress a known cure. And, my personal favorite, that chemtrails are responsible for mad cow outbreaks.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

“There were numerous variations on the evils of vaccination.”

She continued, “In the old tried-and-true, Body alleged that vaccination causes autism. In a somewhat more creative twist, he argued that Bill Gates was behind the plot to use immunization for population control. In another series of tirades, he insisted that the government was sneaking RFID chips into children via inoculation.”

Reichs has Brennan figure out Body’s deadly schemes and bring him down, though the beginning of the story seemingly has nothing to do with the evil podcaster. What gets Brennan’s attention is a mutilated, unidentified body found in rural Cleveland County and sent to the medical examiner in Charlotte for identification.

The fictional Charlotte-Mecklenburg medical examiner, Dr. Margot Heavner, and Brennan have a long-standing and bitter rivalry. So Heavner does not ask Brennan to assist in the official identification process. Brennan is miffed and decides to conduct her own investigation. With the help of old friends in law enforcement, she tracks down multiple leads in Cleveland County, Winston-Salem (an ashram), Mooresville, Tega Cay near Charlotte, and all over Charlotte from Myers Park to Central Avenue and modest developments in west Charlotte. At every stop Brennan and Reichs teach readers lessons in science and technology. They show how good law enforcement can use such learning to track down leads and bring the bad guys to justice. In the end, Brennan connects Body to crimes that go far beyond his conspiracy theory exploitations.

Even more satisfying for Brennan, her superior work results in putting a negative spotlight on Dr. Heavner, who has to leave her job in disgrace. All this gives us hope that the next fictional Charlotte-Mecklenburg medical examiner will value Brennan and put her great skills to work. OH D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch Sunday at 3:30 p.m. and Tuesday at 5 p.m. on UNC-T V. The program also airs on the North Carolina Channel Tuesday at 8 p.m.

O.Henry 27

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Scuppernong Bookshelf

The Cruelest Month And why it’s good for us

By Brian Lampkin

Why do we read depressing

books? What compels us to look at despair and think of it as entertainment? You’ll be hardpressed to find a novel in the so-called canon of American literature that isn’t bleak, disturbing or downright devastating. One theory argues that reading about sorrow provides us with a little inoculation against the very real grief that’s coming for us all. We read as a way to prepare, as a way to get ready for the death of our parents, the loss of our friends, the overthrow of democratic governments. Perhaps we’ll be more ready, more able to emotionally deal with despair because we’ve read exquisite works that delve into it without looking away. We’re ready.

We’ve been vaccinated.

And we all (OK, not quite all of us) want to be vaccinated. In this month’s column, we’ll look at books publishing this month and think of the ways they may offer some protection. From COVID and disease, for sure, but also from less tangible ailments of our current condition.

The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, by Carlo M. Cipolla (Doubleday, $15).

The Laws: 1. Everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals among us.

2. The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses themselves.

4. Nonstupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals.

5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

If only there were an inoculation against stupidity — I would The Art & Soul of Greensboro

have been spared so many awful decisions!

Women of the Pandemic: Stories from the Front Lines of COVID-19, by Lauren McKeon (McClelland & Stewart, $18). In Canada, women are leading the fast-paced search for a vaccine. They are leading their provinces and territories. At home, they are leading families through self-isolation, often bearing the responsibility for their physical and emotional health. They are figuring out what working from home looks like, and many of them are doing it while homeschooling their kids. Women crafted the blueprint for kindness during the pandemic, from sewing masks to kicking off international mutual-aid networks. And, perhaps not surprisingly, women have also suffered some of the biggest losses, bearing the brunt of our economic skydive. Through intimate portraits of Canadian women in diverse situations and fields, Women of the Pandemic is a gripping narrative record of the early months of COVID-19, a clear-eyed look at women’s struggles, which highlights their creativity, perseverance and resilience as they charted a new path forward during impossible times.

Broken (in the Best Possible Way), by Jenny Lawson (Henry Holt and Co., $27.99). As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken, Lawson brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way. With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, the author humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to Shark Tank to the reason why Lawson can never go back to the post office, Broken leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way.

And of course, Lawson’s long-suffering husband, Victor — the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball — is present throughout.

The Light of Days: The Untold Story of O.Henry 29

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Scuppernong Bookshelf Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos, by Judy Batalion (William Morrow, $28.99). As propulsive and thrilling as Hidden Figures, In the Garden of Beasts, Band of Brothers and A Train in Winter, The Light of Days at last tells the true story of these incredible women whose courageous yet little-known feats have been eclipsed by time. Judy Batalion — granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivors — takes us back to 1939 and introduces us to Renia Kukielka, a weapons smuggler and messenger who risked death traveling across occupied Poland on foot and by train.

Joining Renia are other women who served as couriers, armed fighters, intelligence agents and saboteurs — all who put their lives in mortal danger to carry out their missions. Batalion follows these women through the savage destruction of the ghettos, arrest and internment in Gestapo prisons and concentration camps, and for a lucky few — like Renia, who orchestrated her own audacious escape from a brutal Nazi jail — into the late 20th century and beyond.

First, Become Ashes, by K. M. Szpara (Tor, $27.99). Two quotes sum it up: “A timely tale about the dangers of committing too fervently and unquestioningly to a person and their cause.” — Kirkus Reviews

“A standalone about the complicated ways we cope with trauma, about balancing acceptance and truth, and about belief in its darkest and brightest forms.” – Booklist Definitely a book for our times. Szpara will be part of our 2021 Greensboro Bound Festival and will be in conversation with novelist Rivers Solomon.

Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir, by Mark Lanegan (Hachette Books, $17.99). If you know the music of Mark Lanegan, then you know what you’re in for: an unflinching look at darkness. One critic describes this book as “one of the most compelling accounts of squalor and misery ever committed to paper.” Not your cup of awful? Maybe Lanegan goes through it all so you don’t have to.

Other notable April releases: Whereabouts, by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf, $24), First Person Singular: Stories, by Haruki Murakami (Knopf, $28), World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, by Anthony Bourdain (Ecco Press, $35) and The Man Who Lived Underground,

by Richard Wright (Library of America, $22.95). OH Brian Lampkin is one of the proprietors of Scuppernong Books.

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O.Henry 31

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Weekend Away

Let’s Go to The Greenbrier!

The Madcap gents banish the beige at the legendary West Virginia resort

By Jason Oliver Nixon

The last few weeks of winter were

drab, wet and all-around uninspiring. There was nefarious news on every front, and it felt like Groundhog Day on Elm Street. On eternal repeat.

John and I found ourselves ambling about in our pajamas at all hours of the day. We were lethargic. Our hair was tucked into baseball caps.

My beard went untrimmed. And you can only watch Auntie Mame and Bridget Jones’s Diary so many times before you start quoting the lines in your sleep.

It was time for a prints-and-patterns intervention.

Hence, John and I booked an escape to the one place that always delivers a tip-top, terrific tonic — a balm to all things banal and beige.

The Greenbrier!

“Hello,” I trilled after ringing up the fabled West Virginia resort. “Any specials? Yes, yes, yes. AARP? Triple-A? Sure. Sign us up. Tout de suite! And patch me through to the spa.”

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

John and I have been lucky enough to visit The Greenbrier — “America’s Resort since 1778” — on various occasions. Each time, the hostelry has more than lived up to its legendary restorative prowess. And no, we don’t attribute the rejuvenation to the area’s mineral-rich waters that have made White Sulphur Springs a destination for generations.

It’s not the falconry or the gun clubs either.

Although The Greenbrier has something for everyone — from escape rooms to bunker tours, spa treatments to off-roading excursions, golf and tennis to you-name-it — we aren’t really into what you might call “organized activities.” John and I go for The Greenbrier’s Dorothy Draper-designed décor, the riot of color, prints and pattern, and the pure theatricality that is the resort-styled version of The Wizard of Oz. There is nothing like it anywhere — especially since The Greenbrier’s closest twin, the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, has, tragically, been sold (its design future uncertain).

A little history . . .

Shortly after World War II, the legendary New York-based interiors superstar Dorothy Draper — sort of a midcentury Joanna Gaines but with verve — was commissioned to transform The Greenbrier into a showstopper. The resort had served as a 2,000-bed hospital during the war and needed, well, a O.Henry 33

Weekend Away bold new vision.

Draper, queen of theatrical, was known for design mantras such as “Banish the beige.” She took one look at The Greenbrier’s vaguely institutional architecture and white brick exterior, blinked, then lavished it with enough drama to attract the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to the grand unveiling.

But back to the here and now and the warm embrace of the Greenbrier.

“Hello, hello. Bonjour! Yes, we are back. Yes, hello, hello,” I said to the lovely, slightly quizzical folks at check in. “Charge it, please.

And which bar is open? Oh, it’s so good to be back.”

Our room was awash in cabbage roses, stripes and faux bamboo flourishes with “his” and “his” bathrooms. We couldn’t have been more content staying put, but seeing as we were finally someplace other than Instagram, we wanted to spend every waking moment soaking up all the design exuberance we could handle.

Happily, The Greenbrier was largely empty — AARP rates are more favorable mid-week, perhaps? (John handles the cash) — so we could scamper about like feral monkeys in a banana forest with eyes wide and mouths agape. We marveled at the inky green walls in the Victoria Writing Room; the rose-bloom upholstery and black-and-white tile floors in the Upper Lobby; a baroque plaster clock against blue-and-white striped walls; the coral-hued North Parlor; and busts of the presidents delightfully arranged next to the toilets. And that’s just scratching the sublime surface.

Dorothy Draper’s protégé, the equally iconic Carleton Varney, a

34 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Weekend Away longtime Madcap Cottage friend (he wrote the introduction to our latest book, Prints Charming: Create Absolutely Beautiful Interiors with Prints & Patterns), oversees the décor of The Greenbrier and constantly curates — and refreshes — the content.

Notes John, “The Greenbrier is always fresh. Never fussy. Never formal. That’s part of the magic. And there are families with kids.

Older folks. New Yorkers. Southerners. And everyone in between.”

Our time at the Greenbrier was pure bliss. We dined on superlative Asian fare at In-Fusion (tucked into the glittering, Busby Berkeley-worthy casino). We washed away our cares with a 25-minute Sulphur Soak at the recently overhauled spa. We watched Aladdin in the resort’s movie theater (Hurrah! An open-for-business movie theater); we sipped cocktails in the Lobby Bar; we splashed about in a pool reminiscent of the Roman Empire; and we walked into White Sulphur Springs where the main drag is definitely on the move. (Think a slew of new restaurants popping up!)

But, really, John and I just lolled about with magazines and cocktails. And lapped up the luxe.

Then it was back to reality. Still, the hair is washed and the shirt’s tucked in. The beard is trimmed and the socks match. I’d say we are ready to tackle the world anew. At least for a few weeks.

Thank you, Greenbrier! Long may you reign. OH The Madcap gents, John Loecke and Jason Oliver Nixon, embrace the new reality of COVID-friendly travel — heaps of road trips. For more information, visit Greenbrier.com.

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 35

Botanicus

The Delightful, Delectable Tulip And why I really am my wife’s hero

By Ross Howell Jr.

My wife Mary Leigh’s favorite

flower is the tulip. That makes life simple for me, as a husband.

Anniversary or Valentine’s Day, if I show up with a bouquet of tulips, I’m a hero. (Caveat: It’s very important to remember the date before the event.)

For the gardener side of my life, however, tulips are not simple.

No, the bulbs aren’t hard to plant. And while the flowers are beautiful, offering a wide range of colors and shares — sometimes stunning, sometimes subtle — believe me when I say these flowers are tricky. The tulip’s history is long and storied. Cultivated in Persia (now Iran) as early as the 10th century, the tulip derives its name from the Persian word for “turban.”

Following its introduction from the Ottoman Empire to 17th century Europe, the tulip became wildly popular, nearly wrecking the Dutch economy in 1637, when a speculative futures market saw individual bulbs fetch astonishing sums before crashing, leaving some investors with ruinous losses.

36 O.Henry

It’s loss — more accurately, depredation — that’s my problem.

The delightful tulip is tasty to many North American mammals, including squirrels, chipmunks, voles, rabbits, groundhogs, various breeds of domestic cattle and whitetailed deer. These are just the mammals in my personal experience. No doubt there are more.

Imagine my chagrin after I filled our Olive Street backyard bed with what I announced as “Mary Leigh’s” tulips, only later to discover that neighborhood squirrels had excavated and eaten nearly every bulb.

The next year I tried planting bulbs at the front of our house.

Most of these bulbs escaped the squirrels’ delectation. I attribute this good fortune to car and pedestrian traffic, and to the neighbors’ cats across the street, though the cats don’t seem to deter the squirrels’ custom of bringing pecans from the trees across the street to picnic on our front porch steps.

I’m not alone in facing such tulip challenges.

Consider the case of my friend, Devin Lacey.

Devin is a strapping, six-foot-five-inch Appalachian State grad who pours drinks part-time at a Blowing Rock watering hole.

He’s also the founder of a successful business called Booze and Bouquets Floral Designs, providing arrangements for businesses The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Botanicus and events, as well as selling flowers to individual customers at Boone’s Watauga County Farmers’ Market. Except the booze, of course, Devin grows everything he sells.

That includes tulips. Which prompted an Instagram Story about him eating a bulb for the express purpose, he explained, of understanding why deer found them so palatable.

“They’re crunchy,” Devin opined after chewing and swallowing the whole thing. “Like a water chestnut.” (I don’t recommend you try this at home.)

Devin isn’t surrendering. He’s installed tall fencing, and still happily plants and sells his tulips. In spite of such hardships, I’d recommend tulips to any gardener. Some people stake chicken wire or plastic netting over their bulbs to deter squirrels and chipmunks. As for deer, people try red pepper flakes, fragrant spices, hot sauce, garlic or mothballs. Electric fencing works well. (Personally, I draw

the line at bar soap suspended in old panty hose or sprinkling a mix of blood, urine and whatever other disgusting fluids that might confuse the deer.)

There’s nothing quite so thrilling as the sight of tulips blooming on a sunny April day. In front of our house, Mary Leigh and I have some that were first given to us as a wedding present.

Despite squirrels, time and my own pained efforts, the tulips still make her smile, which, to me, is the loveliest sight of all. OH Ross Howell Jr. is a freelance writer and geezer gardener. Contact him at ross.howell1@gmail.com.

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Ruby Ready

Birdwatch

Ladies and gentlemen, start your feeders

By Susan Campbell

It’s that time, folks!

PHOTOGRAPH BY WILL STUART

North Carolina’s smallest bird, those winged jewels that have spent the winter in the tropics, are now headed back our way.

Ruby-throated hummingbirds will be returning to gardens and feeders by mid-April. So, it’s time to get ready!

First and foremost, in spite of what you may have heard, these tiny dynamos are mainly insectivorous. Bugs of all kinds make up the majority of their diet. Anything small enough to fit down the hatch will be consumed throughout the day — followed up by a nectar chaser every now and then. Therefore, it is critical to be judicious year-round in your use of pesticides and herbicides, so that the invertebrates hummingbirds depend on will thrive.

Consider planting for your hummers. There is a wide array of plants that are easy to grow that will get the birds’ attention. The best are obviously native species such as trumpet creeper, coral honeysuckle, cardinal flower, bee balm, columbine and even butterfly weed. There are loads of non-native perennials that are a wonderful (and not invasive) addition to your hum-garden, like many of the salvias, Mexican sunflower, sultan’s turban and lantanas. Do not be surprised if you see a hummer hovering around the vegetable garden when your okra starts to bloom or your basil goes to seed. Keep in mind that the thicker the vegetation is in your yard, the buggier it will tend to be — a good excuse to let things go wild in at least a section of the property. And dense vegetation will also provide the birds with necessary cover for roosting, as well as protection from the elements and potential predators.

Of course, many of us have augmented our yards with sugar water feeders that will bring the tiny birds into view. While there are many brands on the market — with more being added every season — they

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

vary in quality and effectiveness. No matter what kind you choose, be sure it can be opened up for complete cleaning and that the ports are large enough (at least 3 mm) not to cause bill injury. Hummer feeders need to be cleaned with hot water (no detergent) at least every three days during the heat of the summer, so easy access for effective scrubbing and rinsing is critical. A 10 percent bleach solution is fine later in the season when mildew can be an issue. Just be sure to rinse all of the parts very thoroughly before refilling.

The best choice for offering homemade nectar is a saucer-style feeder, such as a HummZinger, that pops apart for easy cleaning and refilling.

The beauty of these feeders is that they do not tend to seep or drip and, as a consequence, are less likely to attract the bees and wasps that reservoir-style feeders do. Also, many designs now have a built-in ant moat that creates an effective barrier to those even tinier sugar-loving critters that abound in our area during most of the year.

Please avoid store-bought mixes. They can contain additives and preservatives that may not be good for the birds. A simple mix of 1 part sugar to 4 parts water is all you need to use. Adding color to the fluid is not recommended, nor is it necessary. Red dye is usually a petroleumbased compound that the birds cannot digest. Besides, ruby-throateds have phenomenal color vision and can see the red components of your feeder from over a half a mile away.

Last but not least, although hummingbirds do not use conventional bird baths, they do need to keep their feathers clean. There are specialty fountains on the market that are very shallow and may attract them to bathe, though it’s more likely you will see a ruby-throated rinsing off by making passes through your sprinklers. You could even have a close encounter with an overheated ruby-throated if you happen to be watering with a hose during the heat of the day. OH Susan would love to receive your wildlife observations and/or photos at susan@ncaves.com.

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Wandering Billy

Ghost of a Place

What life was like for German POWs in Greensboro

By Billy Eye I never felt like a free man until I was a prisoner in your country.

— Unknown former German POW

In 1943, Basic Training Center No.

10, later officially designated as the Overseas Replacement Depot (ORD), was established on the north side of Greensboro, where Bessemer and Summit avenues intersect. Situated on 650 acres, ORD’s mission was to train and outfit U.S. Army Air Forces for the European theatre of war.

And grafted onto the southeastern corner of the base, located south of Bessemer at the corner of Winston and Sullivan streets, was the gateway into ORD’s German Prisoner of War camp.

The initial influx of POWs (referred to then as PWs) had been captured as combatants serving with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps. (Somewhat coincidentally, that’s where my father was stationed during that period.) Housing 400 Krauts (the derogatory

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nickname wartime Germans were almost universally given) from 1944 until 1946, ORD’s POW camp was one of 18 small “branch camps.” Compare that with much larger installations statewide, housing thousands of internees in Butner, Fort Bragg, Monroe, Southern Pines and Hoffman.

In accordance with the Geneva Convention, POWs were required to be housed and fed in the same manner as American recruits.

Germans would treat our detainees reciprocally, or so we hoped. But, as we later discovered, that was not the case.

POWs crossed the ocean to America on Liberty (cargo) ships and arrived in Greensboro by Pullman cars — the height of luxury — where they were waited on by Black porters in transit and enjoyed meals in dining rooms where African-Americans weren’t welcome. In fact, they were treated so well that it created a furor after local airmen of color complained — and rightly so — that our enemies were afforded better accommodations than they were.

Meanwhile, with every able-bodied male recruited for the war effort, the U.S. suffered from a severe manpower shortage. Crops rotted in the fields. Food shortages called for extreme rationing.

And so it was that women were recruited for our manufacturing sector. Think Rosie the Riveter, et al. For obvious reasons, we couldn’t have German nationals building our ships and planes. However, there were crucial jobs related to infrastructure that the captives could perform. Wearing bright blue fatigues with the letters “PW” stenciled The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Wandering Billy on the back, many prisoners spent their days plowing fields and harvesting cotton, tobacco and peanuts, while also performing other duties on and off base. Limited to 8-hour shifts, they earned 80 cents a day.

The enormous milking barn that sat — until recently — behind Friends Homes at Guilford was taken apart by Germans and then rebuilt across Friendly Avenue for the Coble Farm. “When they [POWs] come in from the field,” a 1945 Greensboro Daily News article stated, “they will go to a spigot, take off their shirts, and let the water run all over their bodies.” At first, MPs (Military Police) supervised the work details, but before long the POWs began arriving unaccompanied and would often share meals with the families for whom they were working. Many were even invited for Sunday dinner.

Luis Felicia, who went on to establish a well-known dance studio in Greensboro, was stationed on the base from 1943–45. In an interview with a UNCG history project, he recalled supervising Germans servicing the Officer’s Club, said to be one of the most elegant clubs in the nation. “Some of them were just kids,” Felicia said. “They were real young, you know, and they’d come, and they’d send me eight of them, and every week I’d get a different batch.

They were there to clean and, you know, do the chores around the club.”

Besides minor problems communicating, there were few snags. Quite the opposite, actually. “They were real happy,” Felicia commented. “I think they were happy to be prisoners because they had a lot of good food to eat.” One day while emptying the garbage cans out, one of them told him, “My goodness. Hitler would feed the whole army with what you just threw away.”

According to ORD News in August of 1944, Germans bivouacked in the Gate City grew “sick and tired” of the war. Just a couple of months earlier, those same POWs were certain the Wehrmacht armed forces would prevail. Now, with 4,000 allied bombers dropping their payloads over Berlin every day, they began questioning the Nazi propaganda they’d been force-fed back home.

A year after Victory in Europe Day, all Axis combatants were forcibly deported back to their hometowns. If given a choice, The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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O.Henry 41

Wandering Billy

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42 O.Henry

a great number would undoubtedly have stayed. After all, they had it a lot better in the U.S. than they did in their own war-ravaged nation, a large portion of which was occupied

by Russians who were not at all sympathetic to their plight.

Many Germans who were quartered in Greensboro wrote letters back to the American families they grew to know while working for them, often receiving “care packages” in return. In those missives, some former combatants remarked that, ironically, they never understood the concept of freedom until they were imprisoned here.

If you want to tour what’s left of that enemy internment facility, travel down Winston Street from Sullivan Street. To the right were eight Prisoner of War barracks with four latrine and shower units in the rear. One of the barracks still exists at 727 Winston Street (but with a more modern brick facade). Next door, what was formerly Mess Hall No. 11 (reserved for German POWs) has been repurposed as a heating and air business. An outbuilding can still be spotted at the rear of 721 Winston.

An unfenced guard field would have been located to the left, where an administration office at 704 Winston resolutely sits up on cinderblocks just as almost every other temporary building in ORD did. The fencing in front of that dilapidated structure is precisely where the barbed wire line was in 1944.

At that time, Winston Street (then South 13th Street) ended at the edge of camp. Now it curves to the east, leading to Utility Street and offering a look at the camp’s other concertina-wired zone reserved for recreation and education, which included English lessons. It appears that four of the five original buildings still exist.

R.E. Michel Company at 2100 Sullivan Street operates out of two refurbished rec halls that were built for POWs at the eastern edge of the camp.

So . . . 425,000 Germans incarcerated around the country, including about 10,000 in North Carolina, helped America win World War II? Nazi that coming! OH Billy Eye would love to write the definitive book on ORD if ever there is funding for such a project.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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44 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Beige Wall Telephone, 1960s

April 2021

To you who have never known what it is to be tethered to the family’s one phone by a corkscrew cord filthied by idle fingers twisting it as we talked and stretched by our efforts to sneak with the handset

away from the dining room where that cheap plastic box clung to the wall, my sister and I desperate to hide behind curtains or in a nearby room and mumble dumb endearments to whichever lucky soul we had a crush on that week: I won’t say how wonderful it felt to hear a call’s unexpected tremolo and rush to answer that sudden summons, lifting the receiver’s heavy curve out of its metal hook, or to dial seven numbers on a whirring analog wheel and hear a distant ringing pulse in the ear, knowing that actual bells trilled as a body moved through space to deliver its hopeful Hello? – no, it was awful, that phone, intended for businesses, brisk standing exchanges of information, not a home where its too-public anchoring left adolescent siblings open to each other’s mockery and the cocked ears of nosy parents straining to decode one side of conversations as we curled closer to the wall and whispered words downward into the darkness that our huddling made, not pacing like a barking dog chained to a stake in the backyard but trying our best to vanish, descending slow as a diver sipping words like oxygen from a humming line whose other end kept us breathing.

— Michael McFee, From We Were Once Here, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2017

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PHOTOGRAPH BY AMY FREEMAN

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

ueen Qof DIY How stay-at-home mom Ursula Carmona became a media sensation (Hint: She did it herself)

By Cynthia Adams

N

ine years ago, Ursula Carmona typed out her manifesto: “I’m a DIY junkie,” she confessed. And with “expensive taste but no décor budget,” she realized this was her best option.

Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that her simple mission — to create fresh, creative interiors on the cheap and inspire others in the process — would render her a nationally recognized design influencer.

And yet, this self-taught, DIY, social-media sensation wasn’t always comfortable using power tools, tearing out walls or gutting rooms.

This came of necessity, she insists.

One day, she found an old circular saw at a yard sale, and before she knew it, Carmona was leaning into all sorts of power tools — hard. Mastering tools emboldened her to tackle projects like moving walls, creating her own built-ins and undertaking entire bath and kitchen re-dos.

Her résumé reads like a DIY dream: Better Homes & Gardens Stylemaker; nominee for Domino’s Design Blog Awards; runner up for Home + Garden Trendsetter of the Year.

Now, Carmona’s work is regularly featured in The Home Depot blog, Better Homes & Gardens Style Spotter Blog, IHeart Organizing and Remodelaholic.

And since landing in North Carolina five years ago with her family, she has been power-tooling, painting and resurfacing her way towards creating the home of her dreams — transforming a fixer upper in nearby Ruffin into a house fit for the pages of Better Homes & Gardens. Check it out in the January 2021 issue, to be exact. All the while, she’s become a print and social media inspiration for thousands of others with ambitious tastes but limited budgets.

A decade ago, before her husband Orlando’s California job relocated their family from “the brown hills of Cali” to the frigid Great Lakes area, Carmona worked as a massage therapist.

Although she briefly considered nursing school, it occurred to her that a profession in health care or alternative medicine simply wasn’t going to spark her joy.

Orlando supported her decision to stay at home as daughters Fiora, Priya and Sayuri were born in close succession.

“My husband worked two jobs. We slept on an old mattress with a spring that used to poke The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF USRULA CARMONA

Before

me in the ribs at night.” They saved money and stuck to a budget.

But living in the cold clime of the North, in a confining bubble of children, meals and chores, she morphed into a dauntless “DIY junkie,” she admits. Adversity in the form of the difficult climate and distance from her California family amplified her creativity.

With kids at home, says Carmona, “You need some outlet.”

And so she began documenting her DIY spirit by creating her first blog, Home Made by Carmona.

The blog was something of her own, something she could work on in her precious downtime. Just a little project, she figured. Even if nobody read it, she consoled herself, “it’s a way to reach out to a creative community.”

Life as a stay-at-home mom provided endless content. From her once lonely kitchen table, the first-time blogger began sharing meal planning and organizational tips, then, eventually, projects that became more and more ambitious. Within just two years, she had amassed thousands of subscribers.

Soon, too, Carmona was invited to appear on HGTV’s popular home improvement programs, becoming a name. A brand, even.

She gained eager sponsors like The Home Depot, whose products aided her renovations. She was even invited to travel with HGTV Expos, presenting alongside celebs like Fixer

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF USRULA CARMONA

Upper’s Chip and Joanna Gaines.

Early on, Carmona found an experienced ally among HGTV’s original stars.

“I had a chance to chat with Matt Fox,” she says. “He mentored me, helping my public speaking.” (Fox and Shari Hiller hosted Room

by Room, HGTV’s first-ever program, which swiftly boosted home renovation’s ascending popularity among viewers.)

Carmona ascended too. Naturally telegenic and preternaturally calm, her gentle smile and self-assurance caught the attention of magazine editors, TV producers and sponsors — those who “make things possible.” Still, she modestly insists, she is “not a top tier” blogger.

Things happened swiftly. Only a few years after launching a blog, Carmona’s inspiring “chic on the cheap” projects landed in coveted print and digital shelter publications, including Better Homes & Gardens, Country Living, This Old House, House Beautiful, ELLE Décor, BuzzFeed, DIY, Apartment Therapy and Domino.

For someone who had never worked in media or design — and without the help of an agent to promote her — that’s pretty impressive.

But she worked hard, springing up before dawn each day and often toiling away into the night.

She credits necessity and creative restlessness as the genesis for her work, but it’s clear she possesses an extraordinary drive.

She also learned the basics of home renovation — electrical wiring, plumbing and carpentry — all by herself, calling it “solo remodeling.”

More and more she was tapped for national television appearances on HGTV and as a speaker at home improvement shows. She became a DIY finalist featured on Hallmark channel’s Home and Family Competition.

She marvels that all of this has happened. But when she shares the story of her childhood, it’s clear the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Carmona is the oldest daughter of Donald and Karen Town, who remain on the West Coast. Donald is a fine artist and a former art director for Disney known for creating iconic art for films including Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid.

As a child, Carmona often accompanied her father at work and played on film sets.

“I grew up a Disney kid . . . The philosophy that you can create anything.”

She even jokes that she married her husband “because he looks like Aladdin.”

Carmona interned at the studio while she was being home schooled, rotating through the various departments and absorbing the creative energy.

“My folks sought to be expansive,” she adds. They always encouraged us to “explore whatever we wanted to do.”

Long before the pandemic, Carmona proved herself uniquely equipped to handle isolation. She was committed to providing the home-school experience to her children, too.

Yet blogging was daunting because there was such a learning curve.

Carmona slowly taught herself everything from writing content and creating photography to styling and blocking shots, even learning HTML in order to program her new blog.

The photography and styling were easier. “I’m very visual,” she explains.

She studied search engine optimization in order to attract more The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF USRULA CARMONA

Before

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

eyeballs to her blog.

What most surprised her were the responses to organizational ideas and meal planning tips.

“Everybody wanted free downloadables and printables,” she muses.

Wearing the hats of wife, mother, blogger, influencer, home renovator and do-it-yourselfer, Carmona kept gaining momentum with her projects and attention from followers. She expanded into other platforms, adding Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram.

America took notice. One journalist marveled that she had taken her make-do, re-do style and “turned that into an art form” after she was a featured speaker at a Cleveland, Ohio, home show five years ago.

Yet another journalist called Carmona’s home renovation skills nothing short of a “sensation.”

Upcycling and self-reliance became key to her mission.

Repurpose things, she stresses. “You can make beautiful things with effort and creativity. That is what I want people to understand.”

Her daughters helped her rescue cabinets from the roadside by loading them into a wagon and lugging them home. Now painted and with new hardware, they factored into a reno and are utterly unrecognizable.

“I don’t want people [to view us] as design bloggers who didn’t have to reach to get here. And, I don’t want them to waste money.”

She worked equally hard at presenting her projects in an encouraging and articulate way.

Opportunities began flowing — speaking gigs and televised appearances. She accepted multiple “one-room challenges” along with fellow bloggers.

At one point, she undertook “at least four one-room challenges sponsored by Better Homes & Garden” in a single year. The challenge requires completing a room renovation within six weeks, as a community of bloggers post their progress along the way.

Despite travel limitations, 2020 led to more media exposure than ever, as home-bound followers eagerly attempted DIY themselves, although the pandemic halted media junkets. Many of her most popular ideas on Pinterest concerned adapting to pandemic confinement: A closet became an office — a “cloffice.”

But there was another all-consuming project: the fixer upper.

Around the 2016 Cleveland home show, Carmona made another vow: No more shoveling snow.

“I had lived in the North for so long. When opportunity came, I said, ‘Is it my chance to be warm?’

We’d heard so much about North Carolina from friends and my sister.”

Carmona sought a place private and verdant.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

They searched online properties once Orlando found a job in Elon.

A (vacant) two-story house set on 16 acres of woodlands in Ruffin interested them. It was remote but blissfully private. Plus, it had a guest cottage.

“Space and opportunity,” Carmona says. But her husband was dismayed.

“He said, ‘Oh, this is terrible!’” She giggles. “But, I knew I was home.”

The setting was idyllic. There was even a solar panel!

The houses would allow her to expand her skills, she decided. As for her husband, well, ‘He didn’t object that hard.’”

She knew he would come to love it. “The joy comes from making the space your own.”

Renovating the guest house kitchen was first, so her sister, brother-in-law and their new infant could temporarily stay there. (They later resettled in Charlotte.)

Her own kitchen redo happened later.

Recently, when Better Homes & Gardens came to document the progress of Carmona’s DIY dream home — including the kitchen, the living room and various refurbished interiors — what they didn’t photograph was her newly renovated greenhouse. (Carmona is an avid gardener as well, with, believe it or not, a separate gardening blog.)

And what was that line about the apple and the tree?

The Carmona daughters are growing up. Fiona, 16, who has dreams of culinary school, is working with her mother on a culinary blog, Cooking with Carmona.

Priya, 15, aspires to be a textile designer and has been printing her own designs onto fabric for design projects.

Last year, Carmona braved COVID to fly to California for a partnership project with The Home Depot. This was especially close to her heart: she was to tweak her parents’ home.

“I wanted a space to showcase his [Donald Town’s] artwork. I will say, despite the job he’s had and the lifestyle he’s chosen, he’s the most down-to-earth person.”

Carmona pauses. “Maybe a little too humble. He rubs shoulders with these incredible people and doesn’t say a word.”

Like her father, she is self-effacing. “I consider myself a mid-level blogger. But when you are breaking into a smaller niche, it presents some opportunities.”

She adds, “Isn’t the idea of stretching oneself to break the mold?”

It’s not just who you know, talent and skill, she says, “but a little luck too.” OH You can check out Ursula Carmona’s blog at www. homemadebycarmona.com.

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

It’s a

Blog’s Life

Social media maven René Zieg shares her flare

By Maria Johnson • Photographs by Amy Freeman

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 53

I

f you drove by René Zieg’s home, a cream-colored bungalow distinguished by a heavy brow of evergreen clematis over the front door, you’d never guess that it was a laboratory of sorts, a proving ground of products and ideas.

Zieg publishes her findings regularly.

You can see them — as some 75,000 followers do — on her blog, Cottage and Vine (cottageandvine.net), a digital scroll of her musings about home, garden, food, clothing, travel and other expressions of self.

Spanning several social media platforms — including a dedicated website, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and email newsletters — Zieg fuses the commercial and the personal with ease.

Her posts draw on her own home-improvement projects; seasonal design ditties; meals that she and her husband make (“Sometimes he’ll say, ‘This is blog-worthy,’ and we’ll take a picture.”); her experiences with freebies and invitation-only tours; family gatherings; and morsels vacuumed from websites, magazines and books.

Recently, when her older son, Tyler, was getting married on a February weekend visited by an ice storm (which happened after the ceremony was delayed so the bride could recover from COVID), Zieg pulled out the stops to make the rehearsal dinner memorable. She

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scripted signs, composed table decorations and assembled a slide show of snapshots. People were surprised when she didn’t cry at the wedding the next day. René explained that she’d spent all of her tears while going through family photos.

Such vulnerable glimpses, she says, are vital to her readers.

“I would like for people to know me a little bit. I read a lot of blogs, and I enjoy them more when I feel like I know the writer. I feel like they’re more relatable,” says Zieg, who grew up in Asheboro and earned a degree in fashion merchandising from UNCG. She met husband-to-be Rick, a Maryland native who graduated from UNC Charlotte, through a high school friend. They settled in Greensboro in the early 1990s, nestling into a home in Lindley Park before transplanting to their current home in the old Starmount neighborhood in 1996.

René started blogging in the late aughts, when sons Tyler, now 25, and Parker, 22, were in elementary and middle school. “Back when we still got a newspaper, Rick was reading about blogs,” she recalls.

“He said, ‘You really should start a blog as a creative outlet.’” René let the idea simmer for a couple of years before launching her site in 2009. “It started out as family things — parenting strategies, things the kids were doing, family management,” she says. As the boys The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

grew, René, by then a full-time mom, focused on writing about the thoughtful curation of home and garden. “Once they get older, you know, you kinda get back to your roots,” she says.

René leaned on design experience from former jobs, one as a merchandiser in the men’s and boy’s divisions of Girbaud, then a brand that belonged to Greensboro-based clothing giant VF Corp.

“We’d take designs from French designers and adapt them to the American market, with colors and buttons and trims,” she says.

Her last full-time gig was with the Klopman Mills division of Burlington Industries, where she devised mood boards to show potential customers how synthetic fabrics could be used in apparel.

On her way to work one day at the Burlington Industries headquarters — a mid-century “exoskeleton” building that was leveled to make room for the expansion of Friendly Center — she first saw the Starmount home that would be hers.

Like most people who fall in love with a house for sale, she and Rick were blind to the flaws. “It was like, ‘Oh, it’s fine. We can move in!’” René says, laughing. “Then all of a sudden, it was like, ‘Well, we really need to do this.’”

Some fixes — like ripping up the mauve carpet that crawled up the pine stairs leading to the second story of the 1938 home — were easy and cheap. Other improvements took more design and budget planning.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

In 2003, the Zieg family (pronounced ZIG, as in zigzag) undertook a major renovation. They bumped out the back of the house, adding about 200 square feet to the dining room and another 200 square feet to what had been a galley kitchen.

The construction lent itself to good stories — later. “We had two toddlers, and we were washing dishes in the bathroom,” René says.

“When we pulled up the flooring, you could see dirt in the crawl space under the kitchen floor,” chuckles Rick.

The improvements were pre-blog, but subsequent renovations and tweaks have been a mainstay of Cottage and Vine. There is no shortage of subjects. “When you live in an older home, it’s like the Golden Gate Bridge,” René says. “You finish working on one thing and move on to another.”

“I like having something going on at the house,” adds Rick, a sales director whose company makes liners for shipping containers.

“Fixing something, painting something or landscaping in the backyard is fun.”

René’s likes and reflections snare oceans of eyeballs. Fohr, a company that verifies the reach of social media influencers, puts her audience at almost 75,000 between all of her platforms.

There’s likely some overlap among followers, but René’s numbers still are robust enough to generate a healthy stream of income thanks to dozens of advertisers, including Crate & Barrel, Lexus and O.Henry 57

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 59

Nordstrom. She works with a national agency, AdThrive, that places advertisements on her blog. She also uses rewardStyle, a monetization program. When readers click on her links and tags, and buy the attached items, René gets a commission.

Often, companies pitch products to her, hoping she’ll post a picture and write-up. Walmart, for example, dangled a fee for her to write about their on-line clothing store. So last fall, René bought some jeans, sweaters, boots, dresses and a faux-Sherpa coat, then posted pictures of herself modeling in her home and at locations around Greensboro. She stresses that she only promotes products that appeal to her tastes.

“I’ve turned down more than I’ve accepted,” she says.

“It’s been people coming to her, not her going to them, which is a high compliment to her,” adds Rick.

The perks of the job can be surprising. Sound Sleep Products, a gel-foam mattress company, sent René a queen size sample compressed into a small box. “We opened it in the dining room, and it sort of exploded,” René says, laughing. “We had to finagle it back to the bedroom. We’re still sleeping on it.”

The bedroom echoes the placid vibe of the home, where downy whites and beach beiges dominate. Blue-and-white ceramics speak

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calmly. Live plants and pale green glassware bring in notes of nature, along with fibrous mats and baskets. Faded oriental rugs pave the hardwoods. Impressionistic watercolors by family friend Lenton Slack of Asheboro grace the walls.

Even the family’s Weimaraner, Reagan, fits the decor with her soft gray coat.

Sometimes, René solicits feedback on interior changes. Last fall, when she trotted out a new kitchen island/prep table made of metal and marble, she pondered what kind of rug should go underneath.

“I’m torn between a simple sisal rug or a vintage rug with muted color. What do you think?” She asked. Readers voted for vintage.

In 2010, when she painted the upstairs hardwood floors — a way to brighten the former attic while avoiding the cost and disruption of refinishing floors — readers lauded her courage. “It takes a brave woman to paint the floor white, so kudos to you! Love it, it looks stunning!” exclaimed a reader known as The Hip Hostess.

Followers also endorsed a major project that the Ziegs finished last fall: the construction of a patio that spans the back of the house.

Greensboro landscape designer Marguerite Suggs drew plans for hardscape and surrounding plants, some of which were transplanted (boxwoods and limelight hydrangeas) and some of which were The Art & Soul of Greensboro

bought new (autumn ferns and an oh-so-upright hornbeam tree).

Pruning Perfection & Landscape, a local company, laid the patio pavers. They also installed lighting below trees, along walkways and under the ledge of the patio’s knee wall. Buffalo Fence erected sections of privacy fence, dressing up the posts with pyramidal copper caps. The overhaul preserved René’s herb garden, which is outlined by rocks from family homes in Vermont, and West Jefferson, North Carolina.

René inherited her green thumb — a kitchen orchid supports 19 white blossoms — from both parents. Her mother, Rita Hunter of Asheboro, specializes in gardening to attract monarch butterflies.

Her late father, Norman Hennessee, raised vegetables. René relishes the memory of sitting down with him to watch Crockett’s Victory Garden on PBS. Norman, who was an avid woodworker, also whispers his presence inside René’s home. The family prizes his Queen Anne and Chippendale reproductions. Another heirloom is the kitchen table that René’s maternal great-great-grandfather fashioned from thick pine planks in the 1800s. Generations have sat around the table, spilling their lives, literally and figuratively, across the love-worn boards.

The Ziegs have added their own chapters to those stories. Years The Art & Soul of Greensboro

ago, they hired carpenter Doug Mack to build a banquette down the long side of the table. René looks at the nautical-style bench, deep with concealed storage, and sees her sons, exhausted from swim practice and full of a late dinner, lying down and falling asleep on the broad seat.

Soon to be empty nesters, René and Rick plan on staying put.

They’re fond of their neighbors and of the neighborhood’s proximity to downtown Greensboro and their favorite haunts at the Four Corners crossroad in Lindley Park. Plus, René is itching to entertain on the new patio and write about it.

And there are more projects on the horizon. Like refreshing the downstairs bathroom. Moving the laundry room from the basement to the first floor. Organizing the basement into a proper storage space. There is no end in sight, which is a bonus for René and her readers.

“It’s an evolution,” says René. “Our needs change, and our house changes with that.” OH Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. Contact her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

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Devotion in Motion

One native plant at a time. That’s how Root & Branch Gardens’ Steve Windham is helping to restore our ecosystem

PHOTOGRAPH BY LYNN DONOVAN

By Ross Howell Jr.

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

S

itting on his Wharton Street front porch, Steve Windham is telling me the story behind Root & Branch Gardens, his landscape design and services business.

What makes Windham’s approach unique is that he doesn’t want your yard just to be pretty. He wants it to protect the balance of nature.

For that reason, Root & Branch Gardens specializes in landscaping with North Carolina native plants and trees. Native plants, he tells me, are arguably essential to life as we know it. The birds, the bugs, the harmony of all living things.

Sharing this knowledge has become the soul of Windham’s work.

I ask him how long he’s worked in landscaping and watch a twinkle dance at the corner of his eye.

“Since I was big enough to dig a hole,” Windham answers.

He describes a photograph in which he’s sitting in a wheelbarrow at the age of 8. It wasn’t just anybody’s wheelbarrow. It was his mother’s.

Jeannette Windham is the founder and proprietor of Jeannette’s Plants and Designs, a gardening institution in Greensboro — and later, in Summerfield — for many years.

Though retired, Jeannette still keeps her hand in the soil, so to speak, volunteering for Greensboro Beautiful Inc. (Steve, who’s also active, served as a past chairman.) Just recently, she curated the renovation of the Rock Garden at Tanger Family Bicentennial Garden, finalizing its The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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Butterfly weed design and specifying the plantings.

“My mom was a great inspiration . . . a mentor,” Windham says.

“She’s a real plant person.”

As a kid, Windham recalls helping his mother with various landscaping projects in Greensboro and getting his hands dirty in his granddad’s vegetable garden. Before graduation from Page High School, he even worked part-time for his mother.

At one time he considered a career in electrical engineering, but his interest in the natural world never waned. He studied at Guilford College and Central Piedmont Community College. “I took biology, ornithology, different things,” he says. He received a degree in horticulture at CPCC. And his passion for learning continues.

Windham is currently working toward a certificate in native plants from the North Carolina Botanical Garden at UNC-Chapel Hill, where a conservation garden offers something of a proving grounds for propagating native plants, banking seed to protect wild plants from extinction, conserving biologically diverse habitats and creating native gardens using sustainable gardening practices.

Before realizing what is now his core mission — that he is here to serve as a guide and advocate of native plants and trees — Windham ran a small business and worked at New Garden Landscaping & Nursery for nearly three decades.

In 2016, while Windham was still working at New Garden, he got involved with the Davidson Horticultural Symposium, which has been around for 35 years but seeks to offer new voices in horticulture.

One of those voices was Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing

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Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants. In the book, the University of Delaware professor uses hard science to convince readers how essential the link is between native plants and native wildlife. When gardeners fill their yards with nonnative species, native insects will not — or cannot — ingest these “alien” plants. So the insects starve, depleting a major food source for birds and other creatures.

When Windham fully understood how important native plants and trees are to the environment, he put that knowledge at the core of his professional life, launching Root & Branch Gardens in 2018.

“I decided to tie my personal interest to my business,” he says, “so I could practice conservation in my backyard and other people’s backyards.”

The point, Windham adds, is not to get customers to uproot and replace all their Bradford pear trees, crape myrtles and Burford hollies. He’s happy if he can get customers to at least consider native options, which are also beautiful, sustainable and beneficial to our ecosystem, when selecting trees and plants for their gardens.

As for groomed, expansive yards — well, he’d like to see them smaller. Many native grasses and shrubs that need no herbicides or fertilizer to thrive can be introduced to occupy some of the space.

But before Windham makes any suggestions, he first visits with his clients in their yards and gardens. He asks them if they like to have birds and butterflies around. He asks if they’d like to reduce the size of their lawns, and add plants that will provide food for wildlife. He asks their favorite time of year in their gardens, since The Art & Soul of Greensboro

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF STEVE WINDHAM OF ROOT & BRANCH GARDENS

Jeana Garden Phlox and black-eyed Susan

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF STEVE WINDHAM OF ROOT & BRANCH GARDENS

Jacob Cline bee balm

various natives add interest at different times of year.

“Just because you decide to use native plants doesn’t mean they’ll do well,” Windham explains. The success of the natives depends on matching their traits with soil type, drainage and sunlight. There are some native plants that are best suited to shady, wet situations, and others that thrive in hot, dry exposures.

Now Windham is reading a New York Times best-seller by Doug Tallamy: Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard.

If American landowners converted just half their yard space to native plants, Tallamy argues in his online initiative called the Homegrown National Park, they would “collectively restore . . . ecosystem function to more than 20 million acres of what is now ecological wasteland.” (To put that in perspective: the biggest U.S. National Park is Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve, comprising 13.2 million acres, more area than Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park and the country of Switzerland combined.)

Windham is doing what he can to help make that happen.

The best part?

“I’m getting to do what I love,” says Windham. “And I know Mom is proud.” OH Root & Branch Gardens is located at 1019 Wharton Street, Greensboro. For more information, visit rootandbranchgardens.com.

Ross Howell Jr. is a freelance writer and geezer gardener. Contact him at ross.howell1@gmail.com.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Interested in learning more about landscaping with native plants?

In addition to the resources already mentioned, Windham recommends Native Plants of the Southeast: A Comprehensive Guide to the Best 460 Species for the Garden, written by Larry Mellichamp, professor emeritus of botany and horticulture at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

In addition to visiting Chapel Hill’s botanical garden, you might also want to visit The University of North Carolina at Charlotte Botanical Gardens.

Founded in 1966, the botanical gardens comprise a 7-acre native plant garden, The Van Landingham Glen. Like the UNC-Chapel Hill botanical garden, the UNCC botanical gardens offer certification in native plant studies.

One of the oldest plant societies in North America (founded in 1951), the North Carolina Native Plant Society provides an outstanding website with a list of N.C. native plants for gardens, along with activities and events, at ncwildflower.org.

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C.P. LOGAN “MARTHA’S BOUNTY” • 16”X20” • ORIGINAL OIL CONNIE P. LOGAN - ARTIST/TEACHER

www. CPLogan.com

As seen in: Biltmore House, Asheville Greensboro News & Record

Arts

Resinate Art The Original Representational Epoxy Artist ARTIST Carol Kaminski • HOURS by appointment only RESIN classes available

& CULTURE

4912 Hackamore Rd, Greensboro, 27410 704-608-9664 • www.ResinateArt.com

66 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

I will be the gladdest thing Under the sun!

I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

A L M A N A C

April n

By Ashley Wahl

A

pril is the earliest fawn, dewy eyed and trembling, landing in a world so soft and tender you can barely remember the deep silence, the bleak landscape, the icy ache of winter.

The nectar of spring flows steady as milk from the mother. It is the wet kiss from doe to teetering fawn. It is here, now. And it is delectable.

Like the fawn, we’ve awakened to a warm and gracious Earth that simply gives.

A tabernacle of peepers sings out.

In the garden, thin spears of asparagus rise like tiny prayers to the sun, young turnips humming songs of the cool soil. Cottontail rabbit grows plump.

Purple martins chatter inside birdhouse gourds and everywhere — everywhere you look — edible flowers bloom.

Rosy pink redbud bursting from bare-branched limbs. Violet and clover spilling across lawns. Forsythia and dandelion mushroom like palatable sunshine.

Even wisteria — sweet, aromatic miracle — twists around fences, buildings and treetops like ruche fringe, a garden party for this tender new world.

The trees are leafing out. There is pollen for the wasps, the beetles, the bees.

And, do you hear that?

The chorus frogs have reached a crescendo, their many squeaking voices one.

The canticle of spring is growing stronger. Whitetail baby mews along.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Canticle of the Sun and Moon(flowers)

Now that we’ve made it past the last frost, bring on the summer bulbs: gladioli (sword lily), flamboyant cannas, caladium (aka, heart of Jesus, angel wings, elephant ears).

Sew the first of the sunflowers.

And — at the end of the month — moonflowers.

Although they look like morning glories, which open at the earliest touch of light, moonflowers blossom beneath the stars — each ephemeral bloom lasting just one night. Kissed by the light of a near-full moon, the fragrant white flowers are nothing short of enchanting. Create your very own Midsummer Night’s Dream, plus or minus a mischievous garden sprite or two.

Poetry Month

What is a flower but a poem?

Same of a tree, a nest, an egg.

Of course April is National Poetry Month.

Look around. Birds weaving tapestries of needles and grasses. Spring tulips. Dogwoods like angelic flashes of white in naked woods. And, three words: violet blossom jelly.

Harvest wild ones in the morning. Three heaping handfuls.

Place them in a pretty bowl.

Add boiling water. Stir, then keep covered for one rotation of the Earth.

Tomorrow, strain the liquid — deep and dark and blue. Add lemon juice; boil. Add cane sugar and pectin; boil and behold: wild fuchsia magic.

Just add toast.

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April 2 21 Eggstravaganza

4/

April 1–3

ACTING UP. Stream UNCG’s MFA Student Director One-Act Productions on-demand. Round Pegs, Square Pegs, directed by Hayley Greenstreet; Where Words Once Were, directed by John Perine. Tickets: $5. Info: (336) 334-4392 or uncgtheatre.com.

April 1–30

iHEART ARTS. Show your love for the arts this month through ArtsGreensboro’s free Public Art Scavenger Hunt.

Register to receive code and download app. Donations (optional) help support the annual ArtsFund. Info: artsgreensboro.org/i-heart-arts-month.

April 1–June 26

SHIFT HAPPENS. Site-specific art installations by Heather Gordon. GreenHill Center for NC Art, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 937-3051 or greenhillnc.org/ shift-happens.

April 2–3

EGGSTRAVAGANZA. Watch your favorite zoo animals sniff out tasty treats. Free virtual event. Info: nczoo.org.

April 6

GOING FORWARD. 7–8 p.m. UNCG School of Music kicks off its free virtual series, “Finding Our Way Forward: Conversations in Music Education.” Featured speaker: Sarah McKoin. Info: vpa.uncg.edu.

A TASTE OF ART. Noon until 12:20 p.m. Noon @ the ’Spoon continues. Explore a new exhibit on the first Wednesday of every month. Free; reservations required.

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2-3

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

April 7

Spring Fling

4/

10

Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro.

Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoonart.org.

April 8–10

ACTING UP, PART II. Stream the next batch of UNCG’s MFA Student One-Act Productions: The World on a Hill, directed by Chris Gilly-Forrer; Oral History Project, written and directed by Karen Sabo. Tickets: $5. Info: (336) 3344392 or vpa.uncg.edu.

April 10

SPRING FLING. 8–10 p.m. UNCG School of Dance Faculty and guest artists strut their stuff in this live — and live-streamed — annual spring performance. Tickets: $5.

UNCG, Mary Channing Coleman Building, 1408 Walker Ave., Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5570 or dance.uncg.edu.

April 11, 18 & 25

OPUS! 6–7:30 p.m. Creative Greensboro’s virtual Spring Opus Concert Series. Small ensembles of the Philharmonia of Greensboro deliver everything from West African Fusion to Southern Soul. The lineup: Africa Unplugged and A Sign of the Times (4/11), Los Acoustic Guys and Rissi (4/18) and Outdoor Afro (4/25). Free.

Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events.”)

April 12

LIFE OF BRYAN. 7:30 p.m. Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad, shares his views on slavery, segregation and lingering race issues virtually. Tickets: $46. Info: bryanseries.guilford.edu or thebryanseries@guilford.edu.

April 14—17

Revolutionary

NO WORK, ALL PLAY. 7:30 p.m. The Book Club Play

by Karen Zacarias. A comedy about books and the people who love them. Free; tickets required. Greensboro College Theatre, 815 W. Market St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 2727102 x 5242 or tickets@greensboro.edu.

15

April 15

POETS & BARDS. 4–5:30 p.m. A free workshop for poets of all ages and skill levels. Come prepared to receive constructive critique and share your work. Registration required. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events.”)

REVOLUTIONARY. 6–7 p.m. Learn how the Battle of Guilford Courthouse changed American history. Local historian and U.S. Park Service employee Rebecca Barefoot will be your guide. Free virtual event. Info: preservationgreensboro.org/event.

April 16

HOW DO I LOOK? Noon. “How Do I Look: Seeing With Expert Eyes” features Christopher Kepley, associate professor at UNCG’s Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering. Free; registration required. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoonart.org.

CULTURED SOUNDS. 4–5 p.m. As part of the UNCG’s Irna Priore Music and Culture Lecture Series, Nina Eidsheim presents “How we Teach Machines to Listen for Certain Accents to Reinforce Race.” Free virtual event; registration required. Info: vpa.uncg.edu.

April 17

MASTERS ON DISPLAY. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. MFA Thesis Exhibition features artwork from UNCG’s most recent School of Arts graduates and degree candidates. Free.

Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro.

Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoonart.org.

April 19–23

PLANETARY PARTY. Celebrate Earth Day all week with this free virtual animal party. Info: nczoo.org/events.

April 22—24

SPARTAN SONG. Stream the world premiere of musical short films Flatbush Avenue; and Radio: A Musical Ghost Story. Tickets: $5. Info: vpa.uncg.edu.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Calendar CALLING ALL WRITERS. The North Carolina Writers’ Network is hosting its annual Spring Writers’ Conference online.

Tickets required; pay-what-you-can. Info: ncwriters.org or (336) 293-8844.

April 24

KICK IT TO THE CURB. 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. “Go Green Plant & Garden Sale.”

Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville St., Greensboro. Info: gsofarmersmarket.org.

April 29

HIT IT, MAESTRO! 8 p.m. The Greensboro Symphony Orchestra’s Masterworks season finale features Dmitry Sitkovetsky (conductor and violin) and guest conductor Gerard Schwarz. Program: Weber’s “Overture to Der Freischütz”; “Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor”; and “Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4.” Tickets start at $20. Steven Tanger Center for the Arts, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: greensborosymphony.org or (336) 335-5456 x224.

April 29–May 1

LOOK AT THIS POLAROID. Noami Iisuka’s Polaroid Stories blends classical mythology and real-life stories from kids who grew up on the street. Tickets: $5. Info: uncgtheatre.com or (336) 334-4392.

WEEKLY HAPPENINGS Wednesdays & Thursdays HOMESCHOOL ADVENTURES. 9:15–11 a.m. If reptiles and amphibians, geology or kitchen science light up your little one, then your hands-on learner is in for a treat. Five- or seven-class punch cards available for kids ages 5–7 (Wednesdays) and 8–11 (Thursdays). Members: $65–$95; Nonmembers: $90–$120. Greensboro Science Center, 4301 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro. Info: (336) 288-3769 or www.greensboroscience.org.

Thursdays

PINT-SIZED PROFESSORS. 3:30–5 p.m.

Habitat treasure hunt and eco-friendly crafts for kids ages 5–7 Members: $35; Nonmembers: $45. Greensboro Science Center, 4301 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro.

Info: (336) 288-3769 or www.greensboroscience.org.

Bobbie Maynard

Broker, Realtor ® , GRI, CRS, CSP, Green

Team Leader

Over 30 years experience buying & selling the Triad Make the right move!

To add an event, email us at ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com by the first of the month ONE MONTH PRIOR TO THE EVENT.

CELL-336.215.8017 • GREENSBORO, NC • BOBBIEMAYNARD.COM

Business & Services

You won’t find them in ordinary kitchens. Or at ordinary stores.

Sub-Zero, the preservation specialist. Wolf, the cooking specialist.

You’ll find them only at your local kitchen specialist.

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

SHOP LOCAL FOR BEST PRICES

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ASHMORE RARE COINS & METALS Since 1987

PERSONAL, VIP SERVICE My Priority is You

Business & Services

PJ RICHARDS

336-380-2887 PJ.RICHARDS@ALLENTATE.COM THE COLLEEN LONG TEAM YO U R R E S P O N S I V E R E A LTO R ®

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• Painting • Pressure Washing • Carpentry • Hardwood Flooring • Tile Installation • Wallpaper Removal • & More!

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(336) 549-0854 Licensed and Insured

• 30+ years as a major dealer of Gold, Silver, and Coins • Most respected local dealer for appraising and buying Coin Collections, Gold, Silver, Diamond Jewelry and Sterling Flatware • Investment Gold, Silver, & Platinum Bullion

Visit us: www.ashmore.com or call 336-617-7537 5725 W. Friendly Ave. Ste 112 • Greensboro, NC 27410 Across the street from the entrance to Guilford College

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www.bipinc.com

Let your smile

SHINE as Bright as the

SPRING

SUNSHINE

Hop over to Stitch Point for your spring needlepoint project

1614-C WEST FRIENDLY AVENUE GREENSBORO, NC 27403 336-272-2032 stitchpoint@att.net MONDAY-FRIDAY: 10:00-6:00 SATURDAY: 10:00-4:00

70 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Working Together to Help You Move Forward

COMMERCIAL & RESIDENTIAL

DUCT CLEANING & SANITIZING Kills COVID-19 Virus!

Business & Services

The Health Insurance Shoppe and Triad HealthCare Network are partnered to provide you with the help and guidance needed to understand and enroll in individual health, Medicare, prescription drug, and special needs insurance plans.

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

641 MCWAY DR., SUITE 101• HIGH POINT, NC 27263

WWW.HPREFRIGERATION.COM O.Henry 71

Hop Into Spring Skin

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72 O.Henry

10:00-5:30 Monday-Friday 10:00-3:00 Saturday and by Appt.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

SweetTreats

ABOUND

Dover Square LUXURY CAT RESORT

A small batch bakery with fresh batches every day. From cake pops, brownies, cupcakes, and much more, we’re happy to satisfy your sweet tooth.

1616 Battleground Ave, Greensboro, NC (336)306-2827 Order by email! easypeasydnd@gmail.com

GROOMING

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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Irving Park hair

It’s All About You at

nails

✦

blow-outs ✦ color ✦ cuts ✦ new styles ✦ manicures pedicures ✦ Keratin/ Brazilian smoothing treatments

Kristi Doganavsargil Owner/Stylist

April Haumann Nail Technician

Shannon Bishara Stylist

Lorie Ring Stylist

Amy Sellers-Kane Stylist

Anna Brame Stylist

Wenona Dixon Stylist

Jennifer Miller Stylist

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www.cheveuxgreensboro.com Gift certificates available

74 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Irving Park

WELCOME SPRING!

$10 OFF SALT ROOM SESSIONS

Live well

Relax & Breathe

Do you suffer from seasonal allergies? If so, no worries this year! Halotherapy helps safely relieve the troubling symptoms of allergies and other respiratory conditions while giving you the additional benefits of stress relief and relaxation.

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LADIES CLOTHING, GIFTS, BABY, JEWELRY, GIFTS FOR THE HOME, TABLEWARE, DELICIOUS FOOD

Greensboro Salt Room and Wellness Studio offering Halotherapy, Hydromassage and Infrared Sauna services

Salt & Soul

1819 Pembroke Road | Greensboro, NC 27408 336-763-4666 BOOK ONLINE – use code SPRING10 (offer good thru April 30, 2021)

1738 Battleground Ave • Irving Park Plaza Shopping Center • Greensboro, NC • (336) 273-3566

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

www.saltandsoulgso.com O.Henry 75

We strive to provide complete care for our patients.

Preventive & Wellness Care • Hospitalization Medicine / Surgery • Dentistry Laser Therapy • And more ...

Dr. John Wehe | Dr. Tyler Perkins 120 W. Smith Street • Greensboro NC | 336.338.1840

interior design · art · furniture ·home accessories 513 s. elm st, greensboro 336.265.8628 www.vivid-interiors.com

Handmade

In House

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

76 O.Henry

DOW N TOW N G R E E N S BO R O . O R G

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

THE FLOWERS YOU PLANTED WILL BLOOM IN MAY.

• Transportation • Personal Care • Companionship • Meal Preparation • Light Housekeeping • Dementia Care

1515 W Cornwallis Drive, Suite 100 Greensboro, NC 27408

Irving Park

You will get to see them because at home you’ll stay.

Phone: 336.285.9107 Fax: 336.285.9109

email: info@1stChoiceHomeCareInc.com

3911 BRASS CANNON COURT

This custom built 4 bed, 3.1 bath home on Greensboro Country Club Carlson Farms golf course has 10’ ceilings down, 9’ up. Large rooms, bay windows, tray ceilings, 2 patios & a covered porch w fireplace.

$775,000

Sally Millikin

336.337.7230 Sally.millikin@trmhomes.com

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 77

shops • service • food • farms

support locally owned businesses

SPRING IS A GREAT TIME TO HOP INTO A LOCAL STORE

“I couldn’t be happier with my renters, or my rental income” Brantley White Burkely Rental Homes client

There are times when it’s smarter to lease than to sell your home. Call me when you think you’re there! I’ll be pleased to discuss how Burkely Rental Homes can help you.

Please support your local shops WWW.TRIADLOCALFIRST.COM

Shop our Online Store at guilfordgardencenter.com

We specialize in unique, native, and specimen plants.

701 Milner Dr. Greensboro 336-299-1535 guilfordgardencenter.com

Join the effort. Visit www.triadlocalfirst.com.

shops • service • food • farms

support locally owned businesses

Our customers are young and the young at heart.

They are the classic American beauty or those looking for Threads that are uniquely on trend.

Carriage House Antiques & Home Decor 336.373.6200

2214 Golden Gate Drive Greensboro, NC Monday-Friday 10-5 • Saturday 10-4

boutique boutique 809 GREEN VALLEY ROAD SUITE 101

| 3 3 6 -9 4 4 -5 3 3 5

TUES - FR I • 1 1 - 5: 30 | SAT • 11 -3

Join the effort. Visit www.triadlocalfirst.com.

O.Henry Ending

Sew What

By Cynthia Adams

Home Ec

maven Mildred Green always wore sensible shoes with her pastel polyester ensembles. Her clipped salt-and-pepper hair never varied in style. She had a small gap between her straight front teeth.

And when she stood at the front of the class, dread nearly consumed me.

“Next, we will make a dress.”

I gasped. A recent apron-making fiasco remained very raw.

Trudging down our gravel driveway after school, I weighed options: sew, or ruin my grade point average.

Mama went to Monroe and purchased lime green hopsacking, zipper and the required McCall’s pattern. She plopped the bag on my bed looking pityingly.

Within days I was again Mrs. Green’s focus. Her mouth set after examining my seams, so wonky you might have thought I’d been drinking while sewing.

“Tear that out.”

The next week, I fruitlessly struggled to guide the sewing machine’s foot. It careened off course, jumping into the zipper, savaging the metal.

A gunfire sound sent students crouching on the floor.

Mrs. Green raced toward me with surprising speed as I inventoried my fingers.

“You broke the needle off!”

After repairing the machine, she composed herself. Then, predictably, said, “tear that out.”

After school, Mrs. Green would help remedy whatever I had done in class. I dreaded these sessions, watching her pink lips purse tightly.

During a former biscuit debacle, when I baked biscuits that could have been used for ammo, she commented wryly, “Your mother never allowed you to cook, I am guessing.”

I would not become a homemaker, I muttered one afternoon. Mrs. Green supported that decision.

80 O.Henry

Completed at last, my shift resembled Monty Python peasant garb.

“You will wear your finished dresses tomorrow for grading,” Mrs. Green announced.

The next day, I crept into homeroom — a sad sack in a, well, sadder sack. Moving from class to class, I willed myself invisible. In Algebra, I noticed a one-inch gap exposing my flank. I moaned.

By journalism class, a longer gap appeared underarm, exposing my bra. I pinned my arms to my sides.

Kathleen Gore, teacher and mentor, grinned.

“Want my sweater?” she offered.

I sank into a cubby to hide until it was time to face Home Ec. Before total and utter humiliation, Mrs. Green gave a brief lecture about accessorizing.

“Assess yourself and remove one item after dressing. Never wear more than seven accessories.”

This I could master, I thought, given that I owned fewer than seven.

Then, one by one, she summoned us forth for review.

So many seams had opened that I approached the front of the class as if transporting an active grenade.

Titters erupted. Mrs. Green bit her lip. “Your mother should not have bought hopsacking.”

True. But shifting blame was unhelpful; I raised my chin.

Later, pulling the ruined garb over my head tested the remaining seams. The whole thing shuddered to the floor.

Only the invincible YKK zipper held.

That evening I lay wanly across a chenille bedspread imagining a writer’s life. Shelves of books inhabited this fantasy. As did the antique desks, typewriters and classical busts.

I imagined a closet stuffed with clothing — and eight, nine, maybe ten accessories, all to be worn at once.

And there would be writing awards, I thought bitterly. Springing up to attack the lime green monster on the floor, I easily ripped it to shreds. “Tear that out!”

Indeed.

No doubt, Mrs. Green would discretely purse her pink lips when the reporter inquired about her former, Pulitzer-Prize-winning student before letting out a simple sigh. OH Contributing editor Cynthia Adams happens to look fabulous in lime green, although “hopsacking” is still a trigger word.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR

If you’re looking for Suzy homemaker, keep looking

NOW TAKING APPOINTMENTS FOR EYE EXAMS CALL TODAY! 336-852-7107 2222 Patterson St, Suite A, Greensboro, NC 27407 Serving the Triad’s eyewear needs for over 40 years