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Meymandi Meymandi Concert Concert Hall, Hall, Raleigh Raleigh
Friday, Friday, February February 23 23 7:30pm 7:30pm
aa nn ee vv ee nn ii nn gg ww ii tt hh aa uu tt hh oo rr ss
JOHN JOHN GRISHAM GRISHAM and and JOHN JOHN HART HART
National National launch launch for for John John Hart’s Hart’s new new book book “The “The Hush” Hush” For For more more information information and and to to buy buy tickets, tickets, visit visit naturalsciences.org/thrillers naturalsciences.org/thrillers PRESENTED BY PRESENTED BY
WRAL-TV, WRAL-TV, Business Business North North Carolina, Carolina, North North Carolina Carolina Humanities Humanities Council Council
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Piedmont Opera presents Gilbert and Sullivan’s
ThePirates ThePirates of Penzance Piedmont Opera presents Gilbert and Sullivan’s
of Penzance
The very model of a modern Major General Stanley was simply trying to protect his daughters from the swashbuckling Pirates of Penzance. The very model a modern–Major Generalhow Stanley was simply tryingand to protect Now the police areofinvolved who knows it will end! Gilbert Sullivan his daughters from the swashbuckling Pirates of Penzance. take us once again to the land of Topsy-Turvy. Now the police are involved – who knows how it will end! Gilbert and Sullivan take us once again to the land of Topsy-Turvy.
March 23rd at 8:00 PM • March 25th at 2:00 PM • March 27th at 7:30 PM 23rd at 8:00 • UNCSA March 25th at 2:00 PM • March 27th at 7:30 PM TheMarch Stevens Center ofPM the • PiedmontOpera.org or 336.725.7101 The Stevens Centerfor ofinformation the UNCSA • PiedmontOpera.org or 336.725.7101 Visit our website about our upcoming, pirate-inspired events! Visit our website for information about our upcoming, pirate-inspired events!
Ridethe theSpring Spring Arbor Ride Arbor Greensboro Bustoto the Opera! Greensboro Bus the Opera!
FreePirate Pirate Free Party Party for theyounger younger for the Mateys! Mateys! Ticket buyers and their children are invited to meet the Ticket buyers and children are invited to meet cast andtheir enjoy refreshments following the the performance on March 25th! cast andmatinée enjoy refreshments following the
matinée performance on March 25th! Students receive a 50% discount off all tickets sections B-D!off all tickets Students receive a in 50% discount
in sections B-D!
OHenryPirate1.indd 1
Spring ArborofofGreensboro Greensboro takes to the opera Spring Arbor takes youyou to the opera in style for only $15. in style for only $15. is offered on March 25th25th Our luxury luxurycoach coachservice service is offered on March and service to and fromfrom and includes includescurbside curbside service to and the Stevens on-board pre-opera talk talk and and the StevensCenter, Center,anan on-board pre-opera a wine! WeWe eliminate the the a glass glassofofsparkling sparkling wine! eliminate headaches of and walking in bad weather! headaches ofparking parking and walking in bad weather! (Tickets to the opera are an additional cost.) (Tickets to the opera are an additional cost.)
The address is 4010 Battleground Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27410. The address is 4010 Battleground Avenue, The Spring Arbor Bus departs from Greensboro at 12:45 pm Greensboro, NC 27410. & departs Winston-Salem at The Spring Arbor Bus departs from Greensboro at 12:45 pm approximately 5 pm.
& departs Winston-Salem at approximately 5 pm.
1/8/2018 12:40:43 PM
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February 2018 FEATURES 51 Seeking the Moon Poetry by Barbara Baillet Moran 52 What’s Old Is New By Billy Ingram
How the historic Guilford Building was reborn as the the most wired structure in downtown Greensboro — and possibly the South
58 Into the Wild by David Claude Bailey
Our scribe roams his ancestral Scottish Highlands in search of local ales, red squirrels, mighty Ben Nevis — and assorted new friends
64 Bridging the Divide By Nancy Oakley
Millennial D.I.Y. energy refreshes a 20th-century architect’s vision
73 February Almanac By Ash Alder
Red roses, rutabaga and Year of the Earth Dog
DEPARTMENTS 13 Simple Life By Jim Dodson 16 Short Stories 19 Doodad By Ogi Overman 21 Life’s Funny By Maria Johnson 25 Omnivorous Reader By D.G. Martin 29 Scuppernong Bookshelf 31 Gate City Journal By Maria Johnson 37 Life of Jane By Jane Borden
39 In The Spirit By Tony Cross 43 True South By Susan Kelly 45 Birdwatch By Susan Campbell 47 Wandering Billy By Billy Eye 74 Arts Calendar 89 GreenScene 95 The Accidental Astrologer By Astrid Stellanova 96 O.Henry Ending By Cynthia Adams
Cover photograph by Amy Freeman, Photograph this page by Jim McMillan
6 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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M A G A Z I N E
Volume 8, No. 2 “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 Jim Dodson, Editor • jim@thepilot.com Andie Stuart Rose, Art Director • andie@thepilot.com Nancy Oakley, Senior Editor • nancy@ohenrymag.com Lauren M. Coffey, Graphic Designer Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Cynthia Adams, David Claude Bailey, Harry Blair, Maria Johnson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Lynn Donovan, Amy Freeman, Sam Froelich, John Gessner, Bert VanderVeen, Mark Wagoner CONTRIBUTORS Ash Alder, Jane Borden, Grant Britt, Susan Campbell, Wiley Cash, Clyde Edgerton, Billy Eye, Ross Howell Jr., Billy Ingram, Susan Kelly, Sara King, Brian Lampkin, Meridith Martens, D.G. Martin, Ogi Overman, Stephen Smith, Astrid Stellanova
O.H
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©Copyright 2018. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. O.Henry Magazine is published by The Pilot LLC
8 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Simple Life
Angels Unawares Extending kindness to strangers . . . whoever they happen to be
By Jim Dodson
Mr. Pettigrew is about my age, maybe
a little younger, his hair turning gray. His truck was old, his trailer older — so old the dumping mechanism was rusted shut. We had to unload the firewood by hand.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I’ll stack it for you.” I told him not to worry, I was happy to stack it myself. Up in Maine, after all, where I lived for many years, they say firewood heats you twice — once when you cut and stack it, again when you burn it. “You from Maine?” he asked “Nope. Just lived there for 20 years. I’m from here. How about you?” “Surry County. I’ve got 30 acres up there, or used to.” A large chocolate Lab hopped out of his truck and lumbered toward us. “That’s Fred. I better put him back in the truck or else he might wander into the street. He’s about the last thing I got these days. Sure hate to lose him.” My dog Mulligan charged toward Fred but soon both their tails were wagging. She’s a tough old lady and Fred was smart enough not to give her any guff. The afternoon was a sharply cold one between Christmas and New Year’s. The kids had all gone back to their busy lives, and I was in my annual postChristmas funk made deeper by a psychic hangover from a year that only Ebenezer Scrooge could love, a humdinger of relentlessly bad news — killer floods and record hurricanes, devastating wildfires, mass shootings, rising seas, melting icecaps, Russian meddling, a world on the brink of nuclear war, a Congress divided against itself, a president who thinks he’s a game show host. Being a rare fan of winter — too many years in Maine to blame — I wasn’t bothered that an Arctic deep freeze was on its way, just that I was out of decent firewood. Before Christmas I’d seen a hand-lettered sign advertising seasoned firewood by a small farmhouse out in the country, so I phoned. Sixty bucks a load sounded reasonable. He brought it that afternoon. As we worked, I asked how Mr. Pettigrew’s Christmas had been. He shrugged. “Not so good. But at least I’m alive.” He explained that he’d recently been diagnosed with kidney disease and had nearly died from cirrhosis of the liver just one year ago. He faced further testing in the New Year. “This time last year I was in the hospital, sure I was about to die. So I The Art & Soul of Greensboro
signed over everything to my daughter,” he said. “I signed over everything I owned — even my land up in Surry County — because I wanted her to at least have something to remember me by.” When he survived, she refused to transfer his property back to him. In fact, she evicted him from his own house. “That’s a tough break,” I sympathized. “What keeps you going?” “One foot in front of the other,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve got a little disability to live off of and a place for Fred and me to stay. I’m able to do odd jobs and sell some wood off a piece of land I still own. I’m pretty grateful for that.” After a pause, chucking a piece of wood on the pile, he added, “Better enjoy this life now, I reckon. Never know when it’ll just go.” I simply nodded. A week before Christmas my good friend Chris passed away while sitting on his front porch reading the morning paper on an uncommonly warm December morning. Chris was only 54. Dogs were his best friends, too. Mr. Pettigrew looked about the same age as Chris. “You retired?” he asked me, snapping me out of my sudden wintry thoughts. “Nope. Just plain tired,” I joked, casually adding that I would turn 65 on the second day of February “if the Good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise,” as both Johnny Cash and my late Grandmother Taylor liked to say. “You don’t look anywhere near that old,” said Mr. Pettigrew. “I don’t feel anywhere near that old,” I said. “Just certain parts do.” Mr. Pettigrew laughed. It was a genuine laugh. I wondered if I could laugh like that if I had kidney disease and my daughter had taken everything I owned. We finished up and he thanked me for buying his wood. It was beautiful wood, well-seasoned red oak with some maple mixed in. I gave Mr.Pettigrew an extra twenty, petted Fred on the head and wished them both well in 2018, marveling at his grace under fire. He gave me his card and said, “If you need an extra hand with anything, you know where to find me.” I watched him drive off, grateful for having met Mr. Pettigrew. The next afternoon, an even colder one, another pickup truck pulled up in front of the house. An older man came to my door. His hair was white. He was well-spoken and polite. “I’m hoping, sir, if you could possibly help me . . .” Sometimes I wonder if the angels have a target on my back. When I was 9 and my brother 11, our father walked us through Lower Manhattan’s Bowery February 2018
O.Henry 13
IT’S NOT ALL IN YOUR HEAD “Severe neck pain and headaches brought me in for treatment. I was a previous patient, referred by my two co-workers. After my first round of treatments, the pain improved but I did not follow through with maintenance adjustments. A few years later, my pain returned and this time it was much worse! I am now much better and I never thought I would feel this good again! I am happy to enjoy life without pain. My advice to other patients is to follow through with the maintenance.”
Linda sought help because she suffered from chronic headaches and severe neck pain. The only thing that caused temporary relief was prescribed medication or shots, and she was afraid she would have to live a life in pain. The truth is, most musculoskeletal pain is not “fixed” by pills or shots. They may temporarily cover the pain, however, the actual cause of the problem is only getting worse. We have all been to the dentist for a toothache and prior to being treated, a numbing gel is applied which provides temporary relief. However the gel does not fix the cavity, it only covers the pain. Short-term relief sometimes seems more desirable than treating a cavity, but a decaying tooth will not get better without addressing the underlying issue. Applying this same philosophy and motivated by the desire to fix neck and back issues, not just cover the pain; I founded The Pain and Laser Centers of North Carolina, PLLC. At The Pain and Laser Centers of NC our goal is to to start sharing the simply truth and KEY SECRET behind pain relief. Our doctors’ PASSION is to listen to our patients’ needs, determine their personalized treatment plan then educate the benefit of working on structural changes. Our objective is to help as many people with neck and back pain, disc issues, knees and feet neuropathy by using the UNIQUE treatment protocol, LASERA. This non surgical laser therapy is safe, painless and has helped thousounds of patients like Linda get their life back. Linda’s only hope rested in pills and shots, yet a simple examination determined weight distribution on the joints and muscles had become uneven as she aged. She did not realize a minor imbalance could be the root of all her issues. After LASERA, Linda no longer suffers from headaches or neck pain! Read her testimony and see why her life has changed for the better. If Linda’s story sounds painfully familiar, do not suffer needlessly. Call The Pain Centers of NC to determine if LASERA will change your life too.
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14 O.Henry
February 2018
Simple Life one freezing Saturday morning during a Christmas visit to see the homeless men sleeping on the frozen sidewalks. This was before homeless shelters were commonplace. My mother thought we’d just gone out for fresh bagels. We saw men with blue legs huddled beneath newspapers and cardboard boxes on sidewalk grates — and wound up buying a couple dozen warm bagels and distributing them. My brother and I eventually took to calling our old man Opti the Mystic because souls in need always seemed to find him — and take something away from his cornball belief that a small act of kindness can make all the difference in someone’s life. Since that day, either a curse or a blessing, probably a little of both, they seem to find me, too — people like Mr. Pettigrew and the gentleman at my door whose name I never asked. Friends gently chide me for giving any homeless person who asks whatever I have in my pocket. There are places these lost souls can go, they say. The poor are always with us, the Good Book reminds. Besides, they’ll just drink or smoke up whatever you give them. Not to mention that this world is full of scam artists, hucksters and thieves. Maybe they are right. But to this day, I’ve never regretted reaching into my pocket when someone has the courage to ask. As Opti might say, perhaps what you do even in the smallest way for another living creature, human or otherwise, you actually do for yourself in a way that only the universe may bother to take note of. The man at my door, at any rate, had a painful story about losing his job in Washington, D.C., and driving down to stay with his son in Carolina, hoping to find a new job. He hadn’t called ahead and his son was out of town. “The shelters are all full and I found a place that costs $60 a night. I’ve only got $20. Last night I had to sleep in my truck and the police told me not to do that again.” He apologized and, turning away, began to cry. I’ve seen enough tears in this world to know they were as genuine as Mr. Pettigrew’s laugh. Both held notes of sorrow. I gave him what I had in my pocket. It came to $41. He accepted the money, wiped his eyes and offered me a weathered hand. “Thank you, sir. When I get a job, I will repay you. That I promise.” I told him that would not be necessary and asked him to wait a moment while I fetched another ten bucks from my loose change jar and gave him that, too. “Supper money,” I said, thinking of my late Papa — imagining him as one of those target-hunting angels standing beside me whispering Scripture in my ear. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some of us may entertain angels unaware. “Just curious,” I said to the man at my door. “How’d you pick my house?” He smiled. “I’m really not sure. Your house just looked like a kind house.” My wife got home after dark. I had an excellent fire going and poured her a glass of wine. She asked me how my day had gone. She always worries about my postChristmas funk. I told her the funk was gone. I was eager to face a new year with genuine optimism, in part because that I’d met a couple older gentlemen who helped remind me how grateful I am to be turning 65 with a good roof over my head and a little loose change in my jar. An early birthday gift to me, I joked. “Who were they?” “Have no idea. Just a couple elderly angels.” The next day, the second gentleman returned with a big smile on his face. “I just got a job at Lowe’s,” he declared. “I wanted to let you know. I will return that money.” I congratulated him and said that would not be necessary, though I still forgot to ask his name. OH Contact Editor Jim Dodson at jim@thepilot.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Short Stories
And contrary to popular belief, those who teach can do, too. See for yourself at After Hours, the Seventh Annual Guilford County Art Teachers Show, at Irving Park Art & Frame (2105–A West Cornwallis Drive). Opening February 9 with — what else? — an after-hours reception at 5:30 p.m., the exhibit runs through March 22 and features works in all media by elementary, middle and high school art teachers. What better argument for keeping — and expanding — art curricula in schools? Info: (336) 274-6717.
À la Française
It’s the official month of luv, and what better way to win that special someone’s heart than through his/her stomach — with classic cuisine from the arbiters of amour, the French? On February 4 and 18, stop by Scuppernong Books (304 South Elm Street), where Chef Reto Biaggi of Reto’s Kitchen will be setting up a crepe station. Choose between confections dusted with powdered sugar or, if you don’t want to blow your New Year’s resolutions, savory selections filled with all kinds of good-for-you ingredients. Alternatively, you could express your love for the community by gobbling up another Franco fave at “Love Your Local French Toast,” a fundraiser for Greensboro Farmers Market (502 Yanceyville Street). Between 8 a.m. and 11:30 on February 10, the market will serve up the ooey, gooey, decadent breakfast dish using local farm eggs, freshly baked bread, and a variety of toppings. First come, first served; cost is a mere $5. Info: scuppernongbooks.com; www.gsofarmersmarket.org.
“SHIMMERING FLIGHT” MIXED MEDIA ON RECYCLED PAPER BY JENNIFER PFEIFFER
Those Who Can, Do
On The Hush
Fans of novelist John Hart can learn about the author’s latest book, The Hush at back-to-back — or rather, Hart-to-Hart — events on February 28. At 3 p.m. at the Glenn McNairy Branch of Greensboro Public Library (4860 Lake Jeanette Road) the two-time Edgar Award–winner will discuss the book, which picks up where his 2009 opus, The Last Child, left off. Then, at 5:30 p.m., Greensboro Bound Literary Festival will host Hart at a ticketed dinner at Scuppernong Books (304 South Elm Street) followed by a reading (open to the public) of The Hush. Tickets and info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
Or perhaps “grow-down” would be more appropriate. Sure, we’re all keeping an eye on Punxutawney Phil this month, but it isn’t too early for gardeners, growers or anyone with a green thumb to register for the 33rd Guilford Horticultural Society Symposium on March 3 at the Guilford County Agriculture Center (3309 Burlington Road). With the theme “Diversity Gardening,” this year’s gathering will include Adrienne Roethling of Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden in Kernersville, who will discuss the garden buffet and give a guided tour of the Master Gardener’s Legacy Garden. Also in attendance will be Mark Weatherington, director of N.C. State’s JC Raulston Arboretum, who will discuss gardening in the South, while Ellen Ashley discusses the “magic” of a meadow garden. Additionally, expect workshops, plants, products, lunch, door prizes and more. To register: guilfordhorticulturalsociety.org.
Worth the Drive to Winston-Salem
A river runs through SECCA, or the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (750 Marguerite Drive, Winston-Salem) — the Yadkin — with the opening of Dance for the River (February 8 through March 11). Presented by the nonprofit Yadkin Riverkeeper, the multimedia exhibit showcases videos and photograpy by local photographer and Yadkin denizen Christine Rucker. Inspired by the Yadkin’s untouched landscapes and swirling waters, dancers from Helen Simoneau Danse and UNC School of the Arts are captured in images designed to create awareness of the importance of the region’s primary water source as a sensitive ecological system, a thing of beauty and life source. May it forever flow. Info: (336) 725-1904 or secca.org.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CHRISTINE RUCKER PHOTOGRAPHY
Hoe-down
Enter to Win
The Hillside’s alive! Meaning, the fully restored estate of Julian Price, focus of Preservation Greensboro’s Designer Showhouse on view in April. And if you’re lucky, the, er, Price is right for two free tickets — on O.Henry — to the Hillside Gala on April 5, which will be held at the estate (301 Fisher Park Circle). Go to ohenrymag. com to enter the contest and check our Facebook page (facebook.com/ohenrymagazine/) for details. The winner will be notified on March 30. It’s certainly worth a shot, especially if it means having a gander at one of the Gate City’s architectural icons.
Ogi Sez Ogi Overman OK, February has Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day and, uh, that’s about it. It’s cold and gray and dreary and yucky, but at least it’s short. Luckily, no fewer than five of those 28 days contain some top-shelf music in the neighborhood. So, let’s slog onward through the fog, shall we?
Bru-Bach
When the strict forms of classical meet improvisational jazz, magic happens. So take five and head to Dana Auditorium (5800 West Friendly Avenue) to treat yourself to some musical magic on February 22 and 24 at “Bach to Brubeck,” the latest concert in the Tanger Outlets Masterworks Series — and Greensboro Symphony Orchestra’s first foray into blending genres. Showing the way are Dan and Chris Brubeck, brothers of the late, great Dave Brubeck, known for reinterpreting classics in a jazz format. The program will include Bach favorites, such as the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 followed by Dave Brubeck’s Brandenburg Gate. Expect other crowd-pleasers such as Brubeck’s Variation on a Theme by Bach, and a Brubeck medley, that includes, yes, the ever-popular Take Five. Tickets: (336) 335-5456, ext. 224, or greensborosymphony.org.
Bring in the Clowns
It’s February and goodness knows, during the dreary slog through mid-winter, our funny bones could stand a little tickling. To happy up, look no further than the N.C. Comedy Festival (February 21–23), featuring, just for starters, Greensboro’s “face of comedy,” Eric Trundy, and Eddie Brill, a stalwart of clubs in the United Kingdom (as seen on The Late Show with David Letterman). Presented by the Idiot Box, the week of funny men and women from all over will make sure that audiences at Carolina Theatre (310 South Greene Street) have the last laugh. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
• February 1, Carolina Theatre: Hopefully you picked up this month’s copy hot off the presses, otherwise you missed the Wailin’ Jennys. I’m a sucker for three-part female harmony, anyway, so there’s no chance of your not seeing an elderly chap down front screaming “Parting Glass.” • February 8, Carolina Theatre: I
hate to double dip, but when the second dippee is Art Garfunkel, I’ll excuse myself. Out from under Simon’s shadow, he’s finally getting recognition as a brilliant solo artist. It’s long overdue.
• February 9, Cone Denim Entertainment Center: She has both the degree and the pedigree. As if to dispel criticism that she rode in on the coattails of her legendary father (Donny Hathaway), Lalah Hathaway earned a degree from Boston’s famed Berklee School of Music. Three Grammys later, she’s still singing but the critics are long silent. • February 11, Haw River Ballroom: Keeping with the famous father theme, Marc Broussard’s dad was iconic Louisiana guitarist Ted Broussard of The Boogie Kings. If swamp boogie with intelligent lyrics is your thing, Marc’s your boy.
• February 16, High Point Theatre:
All my fellow boomers will be happy to hear that one of the authors of the soundtrack of our lives, Al Stewart, is not only still kicking but still touring. Yes, time passages, but, curiously, in the Year of the Dog, this tour is called The Year of the Cat.
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Doodad
This CommUnity Sings A new musical tradition is born
I
t all started with a newspaper column yours truly wrote a year ago. The story involved a couple of guys from Toronto who were organizing mass singalongs in acoustic-friendly buildings and posting them on YouTube. So intrigued was I that I wondered whether this could be a worthwhile endeavor for Greensboro. The response was virtually unanimous that, indeed, we possessed the talent and wherewithal locally to replicate it here. So, I took the idea to my musician friend, Jessica Mashburn, who sits on the board of the Carolina Theatre, and she, in turn, took it to director Brian Gray, who gave it an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Next we organized an all-star committee, who agreed that we had been afforded a chance to do something far more meaningful than a fun afternoon harmonizing among 1,100 of our closest friends. At a time of societal divisiveness and polarization, we had been handed an opportunity to bring the community together, in all its mosaic beauty. So, to make the point, we capitalized on the “U” in community when we named the event, resulting in This CommUnity Sings. We set the date for Sunday, February 18, from 2–5 p.m. (carolinatheatre. com/event/community-sings) In a nutshell, here’s what’s in store: The event is free. Anyone can come. Once there, everyone will divide up into one of four vocal ranges and be taught their parts by musical directors Bill Young and Ron Jones, department heads at UNCG and N.C. A&T, respectively. We will learn three songs: “Carolina on my Mind,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “What a Wonderful World.” We will have stationary and roving cameras videotaping the performance, to be posted on YouTube streamed live. Eric Chilton, weatherman and host at WFMY-TV, and a noted singer and bandleader in his own right, will be our emcee. Getting us in the festive spirit, the drum lines from Grimsley High and A&T will perform outside, and no fewer than four eclectic bands will serenade inside the theatre. The bar and concession stand will be open. There is no admission charge. Most important, do not be deterred if you can’t carry a tune in a bucket. We will have enough trained vocalists there to put on a stunning show. All you need is a smile on your face and a song in your heart. Oh, and if this goes as well as we anticipate, it may become an annual event. OH — Ogi Overman The Art & Soul of Greensboro
TWO VALENTINE WEEKENDS for COASTAL LOVEBIRDS
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blockade-runner.com February 2018
O.Henry 19
Life’s Funny
Stone Cold Fun Swept Away by Curling
By Maria Johnson
With the Winter Olympic Games schussing
around South Korea this month — assuming that no one has shown off the size of his button by launching nuclear weapons in those parts — I think it’s fair to say that most of us have resumed our once-every-four-years infatuation with the sport of curling, that oh-so-slick game that resembles shuffleboard on ice.
Most of all, I enjoy watching curling team members furiously sweep the ice ahead of the stone as it glides down the sheet. Apparently, the point of all that sweeping is to heat up the ice enough to melt the surface slightly, thus reducing friction and causing the stone to travel in the desired direction. I also suspect that, in the minds of Olympic sweepers, their frenzied performances are auditions for Swiffer commercials after the Olympics as the possibility of a professional curling career is, shall we say, subzero. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a lot of fun with the sport, as a group of Greensboro residents has discovered. First a little background: About this time last year, Walker Sanders had a chat with Chuck Burch. Burch manages Piedmont Winterfest, temporary outdoor ice rink that’s open in downtown’s LeBauer Park from mid-November through January. Sanders is president of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, which built the park with money from the estate of the late Carolyn LeBauer, then gave the park to the city. He also serves on the board of the nonprofit group that manages the park. After the park opened in the summer of 2016, Sanders asked Burch what he thought about curling. Burch said he thought his hair was too short for that. Then he said,
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“Ohhhhhhhh wait, you mean the sport.” That might be a slight exaggeration. Or a big one. In any case, the outcome was the same. Burch, whose full-time job is managing Greensboro Ice House, a year-round indoor rink, agreed that curling would be a good way to attract nonskaters to the outdoor rink. Sanders proposed trying it with a group of friends. So in January 2017, Sanders and a dozen pals spent an afternoon sweeping, slipping and sipping their way through a highly informal introduction to curling. “You could have called it the Close-Enough Curling Club,” said Sanders, noting that the slapstick factor was boosted by beer and wine sold at the park’s two kiosks, the only alcohol allowed on the premises. Serious curlers never would condone what happened in Greensboro, a sudsy, scaled-down version of the game. The thick outdoor ice is far too bumpy for their tastes, and neither would they approve of the homemade equipment that Sanders and his buddies used. It seems that a set of used curling stones runs about $7,500, which makes even foundation people, who are used to doling out big bucks, go, “Say wha?” Chuck Burch to the rescue. After consulting YouTube on how to make your own curling stones, he went to an online restaurant-supply site, ordered 16 stainless steel mixing bowls with lips; bolted and duct-taped them together in pairs, with one bowl flipped on top of another; drilled holes in the tops of the orbs and filled them with about 40 pounds of liquid concrete to approximate the weight of real stones. For handles, he stuck galvanized plumbing pipes in the bowls. For sweeping, he bought $15 Quickie push brooms from Home Depot. The whole makeshift experience felt like sledding on cardboard boxes. The consensus: Yeee-haaa. This past December, Burch and Sanders decided to broaden the experiment by inviting the community to a curling demo at Winterfest. About 100 people showed up. Half of them tried it. Burch collected emails from people who were interested in curling again. From them, he culled five teams. Chris Ratliff, who captains one of the teams, grew up in Eden and lives in Greensboro. He’s been fascinated by Olympic curling since he was a kid. February 2018
O.Henry 21
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Life’s Funny “I liked the strategy of it and the teamwork,” says the 41-yearold Ratliff, who plays adult-league baseball in the summers and has been looking for a local winter sport. A couple of weeks ago, Ratliff’s crew — they call themselves Gate City Curling — and the other teams gathered for Greensboro’s first organized curling games. I stopped by on that Monday night, just as Ratliff’s team squared off against a team called Game of Stones, led by Jessica Becher, a 30-year-old newcomer to Greensboro. The two teams had one thing in common: No one knew squat about curling. “Are you guys ready?” someone asked after a brief warm-up. “No, but let’s go anyway.” The game was tied 1-1 after the first “end,” which was similar to an inning in baseball. After a few more ends, Ratliff’s team was up 8-1. The first team to 10 points would win. Confident of victory, Ratliff’s team asked if I wanted to push a couple of stones down the ice. After all, I’d hit the center of the target on my first practice throw. Sensing that it was time to retire from a brief but illustrious career, I declined their offer. They insisted. I accepted. They regretted. My first stone bumbled halfway down the ice. Determined to fix that problem, I gave my second stone the ol’ heave-ho, which resulted in 1) me sliding to a halt as a snow angel on ice and 2) my stone whizzing way past the target. Four-point rally to Becher’s team. I was released from my contract. Ratliff’s team won in a mitten-biter. Winterfest closed for the season at the end of January, but the teams plan to convene again in November, when rink opens the week before Thanksgiving. I’ll be there, watching from a window at nearby Cafe Europa. Perhaps I’ll be sipping a locally brewed Red Nose Winter Ale in full support of the Greensboro’s newest athletes, local curlers who — as we now know — have the stones to go out and play on thick ice. OH To find out more about curling in Greensboro, contact Chuck Burch at c.burch@greensboroice.com. Maria Johnson can be reached at ohenrymaria@gmail.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Omnivorous Reader
The Last Ballad Wiley Cash creates a model for other writers
By D.G. Martin
Readers of this magazine have come to know
and admire Wiley Cash as a regular contributor of poignant essays about his family, his work, and his writing.
In the October issue, he gave us a very personal report about the origins of his latest novel, The Last Ballad. He told us that for the past five years he had been “living in a 1929 world of cotton mill shacks, country clubs, segregated railroad cars, and labor organizers with communist sympathies. Everything I know about the craft of writing and the history, culture and politics of America, especially the American South, has gone into this novel.” Now that the book is out and Cash’s promotional book tour is drawing to an end, it is a good time to take another look at this remarkable story of blended fiction and important history. When Cash takes us back to 1929 Gaston County’s textile mill country, he forces us to confront real and uncomfortable facts about the brutal conditions workers faced. All the while Cash uses his storytelling gifts to create a moving tale about a real person, textile worker and activist, Ella May Wiggins. On the frame of this real character, Cash builds a moving story that puts readers in Wiggins’ shoes as she walks the 2 miles every evening from her hovel in Stumptown to American Textile Mill No. 2 in Gaston County’s Bessemer City, works all night in the dirt and dust and clacking noise, and then walks back to tend to the children she has left alone the entire night. Cash follows her decision to support the strike at Loray Mills, where her ballad singing at worker rallies mobilized audiences more than the speeches of union leaders. He relates how her actions also provoked negative responses from union opponents that led to her death. In the book’s powerful fourth chapter, Cash compresses the conversion of Ella May from oppressed textile worker to inspirational union hero into one evening. As she rides in the back of a truck from Bessemer City to a prostrike rally at the Loray Mill in Gastonia, she tells Sophia, a union organizer, about her family’s struggles, the death of her beloved son, and “the weight of her children and their lives upon her heart.” “Hot damn,” Sophia says. “And you sing too? “Hell, girl, we hit the jackpot with you. You might be the one we’ve
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
been looking for.” That evening in Gastonia, in the shadow of the “colossus of the Loray Mill . . . its six stories of red brick illuminated by what seemed to be hundreds of enormous windows that cast an otherworldly pall over the night,” Ella May tells her story to the rally’s crowd and sings a song from her mountain youth that she adapted on the spot. She began, “We leave our home in the morning, We kiss our children good-bye. While we slave for the bosses, Our children scream and cry.” And after several more verses of struggle and woe, she concluded, “But understand, dear workers, Our union they do fear, Let’s stand together, workers And have a union here.” When it was over, “people cheered, whistled and pointed, called her name and chanted union slogans. Flashbulbs popped and illuminated ghostly white faces as if lightning had threaded itself through the audience.” By the end of the evening and the conclusion of the fourth chapter, Ella May has the makings of a legend and a target of the anti-union forces that will bring about her early death. In the book’s other chapters, Cash introduces us to people who shaped Ella May’s life: her no-good husband John, her no-good boyfriend Charlie, the Goldberg brothers who ran the mill where she worked, her AfricanAmerican co-worker and neighbor Violet, the union strike leaders, a 12-yearold worker who loses half his hand when it gets caught in the mill’s machinery, and Wiggin’s children as they struggle through hunger and illness. We also meet an African-American railroad porter, Hampton Haywood, a communist union organizer. Ella May makes an unlikely friendship with Katherine, the wife of mill owner Richard McAdams. Katherine persuades her husband to sneak Hampton out of town to save him from a racist and antiunion lynch mob, risking Richard’s place in the elite social order — and his life. The picture Cash paints is an ugly one, showing conditions of Wiggins and her fellow workers to be only a step or two away from serfdom and slavery. Education for the workers or their children was a pipe dream, as Wiggins explained to U.S. Senator Lee Overman, when the union sent her to February 2018
O.Henry 25
Reader
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26 O.Henry
February 2018
Washington to tell the union story. Overman had told a striker she should be in school. “Let me tell you something,” Wiggins shouted at Overman. “I can’t even send my own children to school. They ain’t got decent enough clothes to wear and I can’t afford to buy them none. I make nine dollars a week, and I work all night and leave them shut up in the house all by themselves. I had one of them sick this winter and I had to leave her there just coughing and crying.” In his first two best-selling novels, A Land More Kind Than Home and This Dark Road to Mercy, Cash had wide freedom to develop compelling stories and fashion endings that would surprise and satisfy his readers. But he lost this freedom with The Last Ballad. Historical fiction binds its authors to certain facts. There can be no surprise ending. Cash’s readers know from the first page that Ella May is going to be killed. In Cash’s case, however, the genre does not restrict his great gifts in character development or in developing rich subplots that give his readers a satisfying literary experience. As a bonus they come away with a deeper comprehension of Ella May’s experiences and those of the people on all sides of the Loray labor conflict. In his October article for this magazine, Cash, who grew up in Gastonia, explained what made writing about Wiggins a difficult task. “How could I possibly put words to the tragedies in her life and compress them on the page in a way that allowed readers to glean some semblance of her struggle?” Recently he told me, “I wanted to write a novel that was not only true to the facts, but I wanted almost more importantly to write a novel that felt true to the experience as I understood it. When I was writing this novel I was perfectly aware that these are real events. And the facts are all there. The facts in this novel, are indisputable. And I felt like, by getting the facts right, it allowed me a scaffolding to let the characters come alive.” So how did Cash do? I agree with Charlotte Observer writer Dannye Romine Powell, who called The Last Ballad Cash’s “finest” novel, one that she suspects “will serve as a model for any writer who wants to transform fact into fiction.” In creating this model for other writers of historical fiction, Cash met his challenge of putting into words Wiggins’ tragic life and the oppressive times in which she lived. And those words and the story they tell confirm Cash’s place in the pantheon of North Carolina’s great writers. OH D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch, which airs Sundays at noon and Thursdays at 5 p.m. on UNC-TV. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 27
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February 2018
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Scuppernong Bookshelf
Re-emerge! Re-engage! Re-read! The mighty groundhog heralds the season of rebirth
Compiled by Brian Lampkin
Let’s, for once, truly celebrate the
groundhog. On February 2, or thereabouts, Persephone (probably no accident that the sonically similar town of Punxsutawney is the home of the modern rodent standin for Persephone) returned from the dead to grant the Greeks another spring. Now it’s up to Phil and his shadow. How many books would a woodchuck read if a woodchuck could read books? Probably quite a lot: Groundhogs are solitary, stick close to home, like to nap in the sun and I imagine hibernation is excellent for reading. One might even finish Finnegan’s Wake. February 6: North on the Wing: Travels with the Songbird Migration of Spring, by Bruce Beehler (Smithsonian Books, $24.95). It turns out that birds may be better harbingers than groundhogs. Beehler engages readers in the wonders of spring migration and serves as a call for the need to conserve, restore and expand bird habitats to preserve them for future generations of both birds and humans. February 6: The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures, by Antonio Damasio (Pantheon, $28.95). One of our pre-eminent neuroscientists offers a landmark reflection that spans the biological and social sciences, offering a new way of understanding the origins of life, feeling and culture. We are not separate from the Greeks or from our one-cell origins. February 6: The Kings of Big Spring: God, Oil, and One Family’s Search for the American Dream, by Bryan Mealer (Flatiron Books, $27.99). A masterwork of memoir and narrative history, The Kings of Big Spring is an indelible portrait of fortune and ruin as big as Texas itself. And in telling the story of four generations of his family, Mealer also tells the story of how America came to be. February 13: The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World, by Bart Ehrman (Simon & Schuster, $28). Ehrman is a professor of religious studies at UNC, and a leading
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
authority on the New Testament and the history of early Christianity. The American religious historian Elaine Pagels calls it “a vivid, nuanced, and enormously readable narrative.” Groundhog’s Day is one of the few important holidays not absorbed into the Christian calendar. February 20: The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth, by Michio Kaku (Doubleday, $29.95). Whether in the near future due to climate change and the depletion of finite resources, or in the distant future due to catastrophic cosmological events, we must face the reality that humans will one day need to leave planet Earth to survive as a species. World-renowned physicist and futurist Michio Kaku explores in rich, intimate detail the process by which humanity may gradually move away from the planet and develop a sustainable civilization in outer space. Will there be groundhogs on Mars? February 27: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, by Steven Pinker (Viking, $35). Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom. Bill Gates calls it “the most inspiring book I’ve ever read.” The groundhog has seen its shadow! February 27: The Hush, by John Hart (Thomas Dunne Books, $27.99). OK, I can’t conjure a groundhog connection, but the Edgar Award–winning Hart’s latest book has been getting lavish praise: “The Hush is too captivating, too thrilling and simply an amazing feat of storytelling. I started reading at 4 and finished by 9. I marvel at John’s talents.” — Sally Brewster, Park Road Books (Charlotte). John Hart will appear at Barnes & Noble on February 27 and at Scuppernong Books on February 28. And don’t forget that these important books from 2017 re-emerge in paperback this month. In a way, these titles come back from the dead as the publicity engine reignites enthusiasm for the buried hardcovers: Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders (February 6), The Bright Hour, by Nina Riggs (February 6), and, of course, Shadowbahn, by Steve Erickson (February 13). OH Brian Lampkin is one of the proprietors of Scuppernong Books. February 2018
O.Henry 29
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Gate City Journal
Labor of Love
Thanks to Janis Antonek, Greensboro Daily Photo reveals slices of life in the Gate City for all to see
By Maria Johnson
Two thousand nine had just
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARIA JOHNSON
hatched, and Janis Antonek had a lot possibilities whispering to her. She had new laptop. And an almost-empty nest. And a persistent photography habit. And a desire to discover more about her city. So she rang in the New Year by launching a new website: Greensboro Daily Photo (greensborodailyphoto.com). In the nine years since, she has dutifully posted photos of local people and places every day. Every. Single. Day. She doesn’t lug her Nikon D-7000 around every day – weekdays, she’s a Spanish teacher for Guilford County Schools — but weekends find her covering serious ground. She logs five to 10 miles on foot and more behind the wheel in pursuit of snaps that capture the diversity and beauty of Greensboro. She takes around 1,000 photos on most weekends. She might use 10 of them, enough to last the week and provide a cushion until her next foray. With her leather clogs and long lens, Antonek’s a regular at street festivals, farmers markets, community concerts, fairs and other public events. She patrols downtown Greensboro. She haunts parks and trails. She roves historic sites. She interviews people she knows and people she doesn’t know. She supplements her reportage with online research, which she sometimes transforms into meaty cut lines, or descriptions of her photos. A passionate amateur, this camera bug’s not going to win a Pulitzer for her images, but that’s not the point. The point is to celebrate the depth and breadth of Greensboro. That was the spirit that guided her in 2009, when she joined City Daily Photo, a web portal that began in Paris in 2005 and now links to hundreds of daily photo blogs from around world. There, Greensboro Daily Photo rubs shoulders with Guatemala Daily Photo, Grenoble Daily Photo and Cairo/Giza Daily Photo. Like most affiliates, Antonek follows the portal’s suggested themes and regular features. On the first day of every year, she posts what she considers
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
to be her best photo from the previous year. The winner for 2017: A picture from the National Folk Festival’s final run in Greensboro last September. From time to time, Antonek tackles the “A to Z” format, which requires her to feature something that starts with each letter of the alphabet. “Can you imagine: It’s Sunday night, and you’re worried about what your ‘Z’ is going to be?” she says. She recalls interviewing local hotelier and restaurateur Dennis Quaintance. “He said, ‘You needed a ‘q,’ didn’t you?’ I said, ‘Well, I could have done (High Point University president) Nido Qubein, but I chose you.’ He felt a little better,” says Antonek. She admits that her ardent volunteerism — she gets no real money for her efforts; only a trickle of income from Google ads, and that doesn’t even cover her site fees — can be a grind. “As my husband says, ‘Every day comes around pretty often.’ It’s a lot of work, but it’s my education, too,” says Antonek. She makes sure her students at the Middle College at UNCG know about her nonpaying job. “When you teach school, you have to model community service and make them realize that everything you do is not for money,” says Antonek. Her husband, David Thompson, provides technical and emotional support for her extracurricular life. He understands when she runs out of the house in the middle of a power outage to find a Panera restaurant with wifi so she can make her deadline. “It’s probably become too much of an obsession,” she says. “But it’s not about me. It’s about the community.” She’s serious about her responsibility to a larger community. A first-generation college graduate and self-described lifelong learner, Antonek grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia. “I try very hard to be a poster child for West Virginia because it has such a bad reputation,” she says. “You want to represent well.” Her father worked for the tax department. Her mother was a men’s barber in an era when few women rented chairs in male-dominated shops. Her mother later opened a single-chair barbershop for herself. She preferred men as clients. “She said women complained all the time, and the men complained only if their wives didn’t like their haircuts,” says Antonek. During Antonek’s senior year in high school, her cousin gave her an February 2018
O.Henry 31
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Gate City Journal old camera and showed her how to use it. Photography blossomed into a hobby during her lengthy college years — undergrad at West Virginia University, grad school at Auburn University and a doctoral program at the University of Pittsburgh. As a student of language and education, she has traveled to almost 50 countries. She speaks English, Spanish and rusty-but-retrievable Russian. Her paternal grandparents immigrated from Ukraine, so an appreciation of different cultures infuses her personal life and her photography. “I do think I’m so committed to GDP because I am global-minded and want to know about the rest of the world — and for the rest of the world to learn things about my community,” she says. She migrated to Greensboro 1996 to teach foreign language education at UNCG. She took the place of Jane Tucker Mitchell, who became a mentor and friend. Today Mitchell serves as a core reader of Antonek’s posts, urging her to avoid cute titles and to use relevant search terms. “I think she’s archiving some things that will be valuable in the future,” says Mitchell, noting that Antonek’s fact-filled cutlines set her blog apart from other daily photo sites. “She’s a good writer, and she knows how to write about what’s important,” Mitchell says. Since its inception, Greensboro Daily Photo has racked up more than 700,000 page views, with an average of more than 200 page views a day. That’s not counting Facebook views. Readership spikes when Antonek features places with active online communities. Anything about the neighborhoods Lindley Park and Sunset Hills gets gobbled up. A recent post about Greensboro-based business Replacements Ltd. snared 700 views. Among her devoted readers are former Mayor Keith Holliday — he once called, worried because he was no longer getting daily emails, but the problem was on his end and was easily fixed — and civic stalwart Betty Cone. “She’s been a very good, behind-the-scenes reader. It makes you want even more to get it right,” says Antonek. And positive. Antonek makes no apologies for avoiding controversial topics, although sometimes she stumbles into them. Take the time that she posted a picture of a feral cat. The backlash against feral cats caught Antonek by surprise. Antonek didn’t blink. She views herself as a documentarian, not an editorialist. At the same time, she goes to lengths to be inclusive and sensitive. Recently, Antonek posted a picture of a The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 33
Gate City Journal
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February 2018
sculpture by Greensboro artist Jim Gallucci. The piece, constructed from wreckage from the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, was installed at the corner of South Elm Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Gallucci’s sculpture replaced a bust of MLK, which caused some grumbling. Antonek made sure to note that the bust will be renovated and moved to another location downtown. She also posted the link to a picture of the bust that she snapped in the first month of Greensboro Daily Photo. “I try to cast the net widely and not get just my vision of the community,” she says. One recent Saturday morning, Antonek visited photographer Toni Shaw in her studio at HQ Greensboro, a shared workspace on Lewis Street. (See Antonek’s post on December 30.) Shaw, 52, is known for her portraiture and wedding photography. Her corporate clients include UnitedHealthCare, Wells Fargo and Delhaize America, the parent company of Food Lion. Shaw’s Go Click! photography workshops attract students from all over the country. Last year, she landed on a list of BAUCE pronounced boss) magazine’s list of 16 successful black female photographers She and Antonek got to know each other when their daughters were students at Jones Elementary, a Spanish immersion school. On that Saturday, they hugged in recognition. They caught up on family, talked photography, snapped each other’s pictures and laid the groundwork to see each other again. Shaw was planning to move to a new studio, an artists’ workspace called Studio 503 on East Washington Street. Antonek scribbled in her notepad, guaranteeing that the new studio and its denizens will show up in future photos. Her work is selfsustaining this way: Every picture she takes and every contact she makes lead to more. “There’s a lot of serendipity in these photos,” she says. Back on the street, Antonek lamented the decline of local print journalism that touches all quarters. That motivates her to keep her blog going. “If you don’t have something to remind you of what you have in common, you create your own news feed,” she says. OH Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. She can be reached at ohenrymaria@ gmail.com.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Life of Jane
The
Sporting Life How to enjoy nature with a 12-year-old
By Jane Borden
I’m not a competitive person. I’m probably the
ILLUSTRATION BY MERIDITH MARTENS
least competitive of people, if you ranked us, if being noncompetitive were something to win. Not that I care.
When my 12-year-old nephew and I shared a small all-terrain vehicle during a guided drive through the woods of Virginia, and he said to me, “You have to pass everyone. We have to get to the front!,” I agreed only for his benefit. This is childish behavior I don’t typically indulge. But I am a good aunt. In fact, I am probably the best aunt of all aunts (or even uncles) anywhere. We were at Primland, a hunting resort in Virginia, to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday. My sister rented five ATVs, each one occupied by an adult driver and one child. We were to drive single file, behind a guide in a lead car, followed by a second guide in the rear. The paths were narrow, the terrain treacherous. It was safer to follow the rules. But impressing a tween is also important. According to some people. So I’ve heard. Still, I told Franklin we would see how it went, that I would only jump ahead if it were safe to do. I was rational. I was probably the most rational person there. Mostly, though, I didn’t want to initiate the race. If you start it and don’t win it, you’re an even bigger loser because you can’t claim you never cared. Disinterest is key to competitions, including those determining the least competitive person. Therefore I would wait for someone else to start. While Franklin continued his pleas for me to race, he had no idea we were already winning. About 10 minutes into the trip, on a stretch of service road, my brotherin-law, Wes, popped out of line, sped up and passed us. He had been in third place — I mean third in line — with my cart pulling up second, and my other brother-in-law, Marc, in the front. Until, in one swift move, Wes passed us both. He led the pack. For a moment. Riding Wes’s energy and capitalizing on Marc’s dejection, I shot out and passed Marc, retaking second place —I mean second position. Franklin was elated. He hopped in his seat, pumped his fists and squealed like a toddler. I’ve never seen him that happy, and I’ve spent nine Christmas mornings with him. What I’m saying is, “Suck it, Santa.” But before long, Franklin turned desperate again. If we still weren’t winning, we were losing. I wanted him to understand that this activity was about enjoying beautiful surroundings and spending leisure time with family. Instead, I said, “Technically, we are in the same position we were at the start, so we’ve lost nothing. Borden, on the other hand was in first and is now in third: He’s the real loser.” Franklin’s face took light, and then did mine. The smile of a child enjoying his younger brother’s misfortune is a memory to last a lifetime. Unlike Franklin, however, I truly was there for nature: to feel the fresh air blow across my face as I sped past my brother-in-law’s vehicle, to hear the sound of crunching leaves as we veered off the road to do so, and, Oh look, it’s a black bear — tricked you, coming through! But then Marc caught us unaware. Although I slammed on the gas, my The Art & Soul of Greensboro
peripheral vision had spied the nose of his ATV too late. We couldn’t accelerate in time. Franklin and I were now third in line, and officially losing. Granted, my two sisters were behind us, so Franklin and I weren’t technically last. But Lou and Tucker weren’t trying to race. Like I said, if you don’t care, you can’t lose. Also, since we’re being technical, Lou no longer drove an ATV on account of wrecking hers almost immediately. Now Franklin became repetitive. “Pass them!” “Get in front!” “Go! Go! Go!” Even on narrow, wooded trails, as the vehicles launched over rocks and logs, he badgered me to race, so blinded by a desire to win, that he couldn’t see the trees we would hit if I tried. I wanted to ask, “What is wrong with you?” But I reserve that question for losers. “Franklin, I need you to trust me,” I said. ”I have to wait for the right moment. If we try but can’t get in, and have to fall back in line, we’ll look like fools. If you think you might fail, don’t try.” Excellent advice for kids. I must’ve read it in a children’s book. Or maybe I heard Obama say it. As we approached a promontory, I saw my window. The lead guide made a huge U-turn on a flat grassy area. Rather than follow the circumference line he’d cut, which Marc and Wes already had, I cut the diameter and pulled into line directly behind our guide. This was one of the proudest moments of my life. We all exited our vehicles to take a breather and enjoy the view. By view, I mean Franklin crowing and dirt talking Borden and his cousins. Careful, grasshopper, I thought: The game is not yet won. Back in on our vehicles, I explained to Franklin that our strategy must now shift from predator to prey. Instead of seeking vulnerabilities in opponents we chased, we were the vulnerable ones. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, indeed — because the king’s brother is always trying to kill him, or at least that’s what I learned from English Lit. As we entered a trail for our last return run, Franklin was the designated lookout. He would shout if someone tried to overtake us. My job? Ride the guide’s tail. All the way back to the parking lot, I kept within a few feet of the guide’s back bumper. Safety first. Wes made an effort, more for fun than showmanship — surely he realized our defense was impenetrable — and then we were back at the shed. Had we really won? Won the family ATV tour? The pink didn’t return to my knuckles until every ignition was off. The guide exited his vehicle and said, “You guys were rowdy, huh?” Borden fell apart in despair. We told him it was all fun and games, that no one actually wins an ATV tour, and that winning isn’t all that important anyway. But everyone knew it wasn’t true. Borden wouldn’t speak to anyone. He sulked the whole drive home. And then he hid in his room. I felt for him. But at the same time, he should have ridden with me. Next time, pick a winner. OH Jane Borden grew up in Greensboro and lives in Los Angeles — not that it’s a competition. February 2018
O.Henry 37
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38 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
In The Spirit
The Face of Alley Twenty Six
Rob Mariani makes an impression with his delicious tonic made from scratch
By Tony Cross
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY CROSS
If you’ve kept up with some of my columns,
you’re starting to see that in the world of spirits and cocktails, quality ingredients make for a better drink, from having a quality spirit (remember, quality doesn’t always mean pricier), all the way down to making a simple syrup from scratch. The market for small-batch ingredients is huge right now. I jumped on the train when I started bottling my own tonic syrup. Although I have one of the few local tonics on the market, there is a nearby company that started retailing their tonic syrup before me. I’m talking about Alley Twenty Six Tonic, created and packaged by the boys over at their bar in Durham. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The first time I tried Alley Twenty Six Tonic, I was at a meeting with the distribution company that carries my tonic syrup. One of their concerns was having similar syrups with the tonic from Durham. Luckily for me, our syrups are as delicious as they are contrasting. While my syrup has a more pronounced bitterness with baking spices, Alley Twenty Six Tonic has more of a sweet cola flavor with a touch of bitterness. The other major difference between the tonics is the fact that Rob Mariani, one half of Behind the Stick Provisions, has his syrup in way more places than I do. That’s an understatement. Rob is the kind of person who makes a big first impression. Tall and lanky, with an imperial, handlebar-style mustache and his signature flat/newsboy cap, he always has a smile on his face. I first met him a year and a half ago at a local distillery party, and most recently sat down with him in Durham over a few of his tonic drinks. Originally from Estonia, and raised in New York City, Rob didn’t find his passion for bartending until after moving to New Zealand in the beginning of the millennium. “I landed in Wellington and stayed there for a year. A friend hooked me up with some guys building a nightclub. I was doing construction, and at the end of the build decided that I wanted to learn to bartend there. My shift was from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. It was a blast. I was hooked.” Rob left New Zealand and found himself bartending at high-end restauFebruary 2018
O.Henry 39
wElcoming nEw patiEnts
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40 O.Henry
February 2018
In The Spirit rants in Washington D.C., including Agraria (now called Farmers Fishers Bakers) with D.C. celebrity Derek Brown. Mariani relocated to Durham afterward and helped open Alley Twenty Six in the fall of 2012. Alley was launched by owner Shannon Healy, formerly of Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill. Healy and Mariani started making their own mixers and syrups from scratch. Healy’s recipe for their tonic syrup was a hit; that’s when the light bulb went on. Healy and Mariani launched Behind the Stick Provisions and started bottling their tonic syrup for retail. “The market for cocktail syrups was growing, and we wanted in,” says Rob. “We decided to launch our retail brand with tonic syrup because there were only a few on the market, and frankly, we liked ours better.” Rob took the original recipe, and slightly tweaked it for larger scale production. As tonic sales blossomed, Rob realized he would need to transition from behind the bar to Behind the Stick. “After 15 years of bartending, I saw this as a great opportunity to shift jobs in my industry career. I didn’t want to leave, I just didn’t want to work till 3 a.m. anymore,” he says. “This was the logical next step for me. Now I get to work with bartenders, distillers, home cocktail enthusiasts, and an amazing cross section of the industry.” And that he has. Just follow him on Instagram (behindthestickprovisions) and you’ll see the myriad places he pops up. As we sat down to talk, Rob had one of the barmen make me a daiquiri with his tonic syrup in place of simple syrup. I finished it in four sips (absolutely delicious). He said he usually likes to substitute his tonic syrup in place of a traditional sugar syrup to give certain classics a spin. He also explained why he loves using his tonic in rum (and his love for rum). I found a new bestie. I’d lie if I said I didn’t sit there at least a little jealous while he told me of his adventures to Trinidad and Martinique to visit rum distilleries. He has an upcoming trip to Barbados in February, where he plans on learning more from different distilleries, such as Foursquare and Mount Gay. I know why rum is my favorite spirit, so I asked him why it’s his. “Rum is a versatile and misunderstood spirit,” he says. “It can be made from various forms of sugar — molasses being the most common — but pressed sugar juice for rhum agricoles has amazing earthy, grassy and funky notes that really bring the term ‘terroir’ to rum.” His recent “rum adventures” include scouting trips for places to live in the distant future. I can’t wait to visit my new bestie wherever the island may be. OH Tony Cross is a bartender who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
February 2018
O.Henry 41
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42 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
True South
Tag, You’re It It’s all in the #
****
It’s occurred to me that an entire segment of the populace is omitted and ignored from these posts. So I’ve decided it’s time for a hashtag for us, the baby boomers, and here it is: #olding. I invite you to get on Twitter and get this thing going. I’ll start. By Susan Kelly
In a world where everyone’s perpetually
looking for a shortcut, few things fill the efficiency bill like Twitter. If you can’t say it in 140 characters — now doubled — it ain’t worth saying. But Twitter spawned an even faster, shorter means of communicating, via hashtag. Hashtags are a great way of being part of a group, or movement, or sentiment. Consider political, social, activist hashtags such as #metoo. Or #blacklivesmatter. Then there are the perennials #inmynextlife or #beach. My own hashtags tend toward weird/trivial/minutiae, like #sittingarounduseless (my armoire) or #cheetosandwine (my pre-bedtime snack). But my favorite hashtag has been coined by millennials: #adulting. This gerund, which appears in no dictionary, is applied, apparently, whenever a 20-something accomplishes some task, errand or goal that falls under growing up, and — gasp — taking on a duty that was heretofore done for you, and probably by your parents. Actual samples from Twitter: Googled how to boil a potato the other day. #adulting is going well. I feel super accomplished because I can fold a fitted sheet. #adulting Now a member of a dry-cleaning loyalty club. #adulting In bed before nine and I’m not even mad about it. #adulting Why does chicken take so long to defrost? #adulting Looking through the Williams Sonoma catalog. #adulting Genuinely proud of myself for replacing my wiper blade myself. #adulting Getting psyched when you find a great parking spot at the grocery store. #adulting The Art & Soul of Greensboro
What’s the age that you start giving up belts? #olding Discovering at a dinner party that you’re all sitting around talking about what kind of dental floss is best. #olding We actually get up every morning and ask each other how we slept. And then answer each other. #olding Wearing shuffle shoes around the house — slippers, crocs — and forgetting to take them off when you run errands. #olding All body cavities and indentations get bigger, deeper, wider: eye sockets, armpits. #olding How can I be #olding when my forehead still leaves grease spots against windows? Oh wait — the extra-duty moisturizer. No more finding Lite-Brite pegs or Easter candy wrappings in the dryer lint trap. #olding The age where you aren’t deciding which party to go to, you’re deciding which funeral to make time for. #olding Putting on pajamas at 5 p.m. #olding How can I be #olding when I still get chill bumps listening to the Willy Wonka soundtrack? Still saying “blue jeans” instead of just “jeans” is a sure sign of #olding A toothbrush in your pocketbook in case there are poppy seeds in the cocktail fare, which will wind up in your receding gums. #olding Discussing the fastest route to somewhere while in the car. #olding “Olding” is just so infinitely kinder and gentler than certain adjectives — or medicines advertised during Lester Holt — that imply concepts unacceptable to baby boomers. But I’m here to tell you. If you don’t know what Twitter or a hashtag is, you’re it: #justplainold. OH Susan Kelly is a blithe spirit, author of several novels, and proud new grandmother.
February 2018
O.Henry 43
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February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Birdwatch
Love Bird
For the American woodcock, February is mating season
By Susan Campbell
February is the month for love — and
for the American woodcock, this is certainly the case! By midmonth this pudgy, short-legged, long-billed denizen of forest and field is in full courtship mode. Almost everyone, however, will miss its unique singing and dancing since it occurs completely under the cover of darkness.
American woodcocks, also called “timberdoodles,” are cousins of the long-legged shorebirds commonly seen at the beach. Like plovers, turnstones, dowitchers and other sandpipers, these birds have highly adapted bills and cryptic plumage. Woodcocks, having no need to wade, actually sport short legs, which they use to slowly scuffle along as they forage in moist woods and shrubby fields. This behavior is thought to startle worms and other soft-bodied invertebrates in the leaf litter and/or just below the soil surface. Their long, sensitive bills are perfect for probing and/or grabbing food items. And camouflaged plumage hides woodcock from all but the most discerning eye. And, speaking of eyes, American woodcocks have eyes that are large and strategically arranged on their heads. They are very high up and far back such that they can see both potential predators from above as well as food items in front and below them.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Beginning in late winter, male American woodcocks find open areas adjacent to wet, wooded feeding habitat and begin their romantic display at dusk. Their elaborate come-hither routine begins on the ground and continues in the air. Typically, the male struts around in the open area uttering repeated, loud “peeent” calls. He will then take wing and fly in circles high into the sky, twittering as he goes. Finally, the male will turn and drop sharply back to the ground in zigzag fashion, chirping as he goes. And like a crazed teenager, this is followed by repeated rounds of vocalizations. Where I live along James Creek in horse country in Southern Pines, displaying begins on calm nights in December. Some of these individuals are most likely northern birds that have made the journey to the Southeast retreating from colder weather. They may just be practicing ahead of some serious hanky-panky in early spring back up North. Regardless, females are known to visit multiple spots where males are known to do their thing before they choose a mate. So it behooves the males to display as often as possible to impress as many females as they can during the weeks that they are on the hunt for a mate. Although long hunted for sport, it was Aldo Leopold, the renowned conservationist, who implored sportsmen to better appreciate these little birds. They are well adapted for a forest floor existence, hidden from all but their mates come this time of the year. And, on rare occasions, from birdwatchers keen on getting a glimpse of the American woodcock’s antics come late winter. OH Susan would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos at susan@ncaves.com.
February 2018
O.Henry 45
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46 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Wandering Billy
Poole Party Remembering a family friend and local radio icon
By Billy Eye “When you reach the end of your rope, hang on.” — Bob Poole
Attended a fab book launch party for
Dr. Tomi Bryan’s book, What’s Your Superpower? (written under the pseudonym Tomi Llama) at the Divine Llama Winery. This is a terrific read, gathering all the most effective techniques allowing one, as Dan Holden states in the intro, “to align more fully with our authentic strength, purpose and power.” Tried and true coping mechanisms and superior lifestyle enhancements that anyone can benefit from. Look for it on Amazon. You’ll love it! We enjoyed a fun-filled Saturday afternoon. If you haven’t experienced Divine Llama, besides their luscious wines, you’ll be amazed at the dozens of llamas in every conceivable size, shape and color roaming the property.
The only hitch, a minor one for sure, was the super tricked-out luxury party bus that didn’t show up to ferry us there. Which served as a reminder of a mid-1950s mobile rumpus room piloted by my parents and Greensboro’s No.1 morning radio jock of all time, Bob Poole. Stoneville native Bob Poole was WBIG’s booming baritone for 25 years beginning in 1952, having come from the Mutual Broadcasting System in New York where he’d won the TV-Radio Mirror Award as “America’s Favorite Disc Jockey” in 1949. He was also awarded Billboard’s “DJ Award” for three successive years. He even appeared as himself in the 1951 cult motion picture Disc Jockey. Literally the first post-Modern radio personality, every morning deejay you’ve ever heard has unknowingly adopted and adapted his style. “Poole’s Paradise” was a local sensation from day one. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
For whatever reason, perhaps because they were all extremely witty and loved to imbibe, Bob and Gloria Poole and my parents hit it off early on. In 1955 they, along with some of Greensboro’s finest families, cruised to the Bahamas aboard the MS Stockholm where Bob and my father Bill, who’d gotten mightily smashed that first night at sea, spent the next day heaving over the side of the ship. Also in the mid-’50s, years before liquor could be served legally in a bar, my father and the Pooles retrofitted a sidelined city school bus into a rolling speakeasy equipped with comfy sofas, drapes, side tables and throw pillows. Gloria Poole recalled to me in 2014, “I decorated it, we painted it turquoise and orange, we had all the seats taken out and had banquet seats and a bar put in.” Once aboard their rolling liquor cabinet, complete with a built-in refrigerator freezer, “We’d go to football games or drive around to people’s houses, park in their driveway and throw a little cocktail party.” The days of Old Grand Dad on wheels and diesel fuel were a thing of the past by the mid-1960s when I was old enough to remember Bob and Gloria unexpectedly dropping by our humble home on Hill Street. There’d be so much commotion emanating from the living room, everyone laughing so volcanically, they’d be in tears. Being of the seen-but-not-heard generation (we weren’t even supposed to be seen!), I would eavesdrop from the hallway steps. Hearing me chuckling along with everyone one evening, Bob insisted I join them. None better in the art of the bad pun, Master Po taught Grasshopper how to spar verbally. In my teen years Bob took a liking to me, perhaps because I was such an unabashed fan. I’d pass along jokes, trivia books and oddball magazines for show fodder, either at his home at 718 Dover Road or at the old radio station where Lowe’s is now on Battleground. Genuinely grateful, he’d credit me on the air when he knew I’d be listening, driving to Page High. I was reluctant to tell my friends, though. Bob Poole was considered decidedly square by the mid1970s; WBIG was the station your parents listened to, while WCOG-AM and WRQK-FM dominated the youth market. When someone said they’d heard my name mentioned on the radio on the way to school, surprisingly classmates in Ms. Bell’s art class were in awe that I knew the man. We’d all grown up eating breakfast while listening to “Poole’s Paradise.” My first contribution to his program had been when I was around 3 years old. My father hoisted me above his shoulder to visit Bob in his “Poole Room” February 2018
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studio as he was beginning a broadcast early one morning. Warbling his familiar theme song, I began whistling along with Bob, which caused him to burst out laughing. Heroes have feet of clay. In the ’70s, Bob’s boozing got out of hand. Not that it affected his work, so far as I know. Alcoholism was, as one radio veteran informed me, an occupational hazard. Bob would take a half gallon of vodka and turn it upward, all alone, atop the then vacant hilltop lot at 707 Blair Street. As Gloria put it, “Bob thought no one could see him there but everybody could.” That spot was only two doors away from where we had moved, yet I don’t recall his ever visiting despite the fact my parents had a cocktail party attended by family and friends every evening. In 1977, George Perry (as WFMY’s kiddie show superstar The Old Rebel) and Bob Poole hosted a live Saturday morning radio broadcast from the Piccadilly Cafeteria inside Carolina Circle Mall. Though it was radio, George Perry was still fully decked in his top hat and Southern Gentleman garb. Neither looked terribly comfortable in this format; Bob had just completed a months long hospital stay that almost did him in. He was thin, wan and performing before an audience of middle-aged mall rats wolfing down biscuits and gravy. That show lasted only a few weeks before Bob found himself once again bedridden. His medical bills were so extraordinary — hundreds of thousands of dollars — Joe Bryan and a bunch of local businessmen raised enough cash to wipe them out and more. Mere weeks after signing off for the last time, Bob Poole passed away, almost 40 years ago today. He was 61. I visited him at Cone (back when it was just a hospital, y’all) on several occasions. The final time he greeted me with, “Great . . . probably the last time you’ll ever see me and I’m coming out of the bathroom!” Through it all, he never lost that quick wit or his innate curiosity. Three years ago this month, I contacted O.Henry magazine out of the blue with a submission about, you guessed it, Bob Poole. I consider it an honor to tell you his story. Sometimes I don’t think it’s a pure coincidence that it was Bob who led me to such a happy association. OH Born and raised in Greensboro, Billy Eye can be reached at Billy@tvparty.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 49
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Seeking the Moon She wakes from darkness to moonlight’s glow, peers through windows in room after room. Where is the moon, silver all around, yet nowhere to be found? Stepping out to bright cold night, she bends back, almost falling, spies the moon at last, shining cream directly above, waiting all the white while, just to be seen. — Barbara Baillet Moran
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
February 2018
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WHAT’S OLD IS NEW
How the historic Guilford Building was reborn as the most wired structure in downtown Greensboro — and possibly the South
S
By Billy Ingram • Photographs by Amy Freeman
hortly before midnight on April 13, 1985, the 200 and 300 blocks of Davie Street, both to the east and west, were almost entirely engulfed in flames. Construction materials located in front of Greensborough Court and directly behind the Guilford Building were fueling much of that conflagration while simultaneously raining fireballs on severely overwhelmed firefighters. Raymond Holliman was one of the men assigned to protect the Guilford Building on the corner of South Elm and Washington, knowing that if they failed to hold the line, commanders on the ground were prepared to move their troops and equipment back to the Carolina Theatre and allow Hamburger Square to burn unabated. Firefighters were successful in their heroic effort, but what Holliman couldn’t know then was that, within a few years, he’d be one of the owners of the very high rise he was instrumental in saving. Downtown Greensboro was expanding skyward in 1927 when the opulent The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Guilford Building opened for business. Jefferson Standard’s headquarters had been completed four years earlier. Both skyscrapers were the work of architect Charles C. Hartmann, who outfitted this, the second tallest building in the city at the time, with an exterior consisting of a bold gray terra-cotta base, scored to resemble marble, with the upper floors wrapped in locally sourced brick, all crowned with an impressive terra-cotta cornice. No one disputes that this Renaissance Revival style superstructure was originally envisioned as a hotel, reflected in the sumptuous imported Italian marble lined lobby and hallways on every floor. It’s perhaps apocryphal but at least one old-timer remembers the Guilford Building as the intended location for the King Cotton Hotel — until the owners quickly realized noise and soot from 100 trains a day pulling into the new depot then under construction would make sleeping there untenable. As the story goes, another King Cotton, similar in design but much less fanciful, was erected two blocks away. February 2018
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A total of 14 levels, each of the 11 upper floors of the Guilford Building encompasses more than 8,000 square feet of office space. The original main floor tenant in 1927 was Greensboro Bank & Trust, a relatively new concern that started on this very block in smaller digs. Unable to withstand the ravages of the Great Depression, it went belly up after depositors panicked and caused a run on the financial institution. It was replaced by United Bank and & Trust in 1931. When United collapsed three years later, Guilford National Bank moved in, hence the current name of the building. Earliest tenants included R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Smith & Corona Typewriters, Doctors Fred Patterson and Wesley Taylor, Montgomery Ward’s district offices, the Atlantic and Yadkin Railroad, along with numerous cotton and insurance brokers. A number of prominent lawyers practiced at the Guilford, so a fully furnished law library was installed to serve attorneys on site. What is now the guard station in the lobby was first the Hole-In-TheWall then, beginning in the early 1930s, the Guilford Soda Shop, which continued selling hot dogs and confectionaries well into the 1980s. During WWII, at least one seedy massage parlor was situated on the premises, no doubt serving the hundreds of randy Army Air Force soldiers being trained and outfitted at the Overseas Replacement Depot, alongside the IRS, the US Office of Price Administration (setting commodities prices during the war), and the folks in charge of the fuel tank farm by the airport. Future state senator Elton Edwards had an office on the sixth floor in the 1950s; that’s when Coca-Cola was one floor up, directly above that were General Electric and Edgcomb Steel, while Western Auto could be found on the 11th floor. You could also cash in F&S Gold Stamps shoppers collected from the grocery store for appliances and knick-knacks in their showroom, send telegrams via Western Union, and purchase men’s clothing at The Slack Shop. In the 1960s, NCNB took over the space Guilford National Bank had occupied, while Carlyle Jewelers got underway here as The Jewel Box. Better Business Bureau, WQMG Radio and around a dozen insurance companies had offices on the upper floors. Northwestern Bank moved in when NCNB relocated in the 1970s, installing a side entrance where the National Theatre used to be, while longtime merchants The Slack Shop and Guilford Soda Shop continued to anchor either side of the lobby. As retailers began their exodus from downtown to the suburbs, the Guilford Building was similarly in a state of flux. Within a decade, this once premier banking and business center was as much a derelict as many other downtown establishments. The skyscraper was donated to Guilford County by Jefferson Pilot, the largest gift in our county’s history, then put up for public auction.
B
ob Poston grew up in Greensboro but was living with his wife, Diana, in New Jersey in 1993, running his software business when, he recalls, “My sister and her son Raymond Holliman, who were here, said they wanted to buy the Guilford Building. I couldn’t remember which one it was!” he recalls. “So many people who might have wanted to buy it, didn’t want to touch it,” Bob says, remembering considerable concern about possible asbestos levels. “Fortunately for us, Raymond had worked for the fire department and had been trained in the asbestos problem. He investigated the building and found out there were just a few tiles on a few floors,” all of which were removed. The Postons figured on being silent partners in the deal. “My sister was trying to talk us into moving down here,” Bob says. “When we came down to visit she showed me this office, it sort of clinched the deal for me because it has so much personality.” Today, Bob is retired while Diana serves as leasing agent, chief financial officer and overall majordomo. “Diana kind of grew into managing and developing.” Bob explains, “The more she did it the more she liked it.” First order of business was resuscitating the decaying tower, a painstaking floor-by-floor heavy construction job. Only a few scattered tenants occupied offices when the families took possession of the building. Television receivers bouncing signals from mobile news vans to both WFMY and WXII sat on the roof along with a whole lot of other ancient infrastructure with frayed wiring, some of it dating back to the 1920s. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
This enterprise was a tremendous leap of faith as Diana recalls. “Those were dark days for downtown,” she remembers. “There was actually a young prostitute out front and drug dealing. It was terrible.” Other than a few disparate watering holes, nobody was seriously looking at downtown to locate any sort of business. Diana adds, “It took vision, mostly from Raymond.” It turns out to have been fortuitous timing on their part, however, as cell phone use and something almost no one had heard of in 1993, the Internet, were poised to explode. “We had a stroke of luck,” Diana confesses. “Just about the time we were signing the paperwork to buy the building the telecommunications industry started to deregulate.” Rather than just leasing offices as originally planned, she allows, “Early on, I got a phone call from a company in the Midwest and they said, ‘You know, you’re in perfect coordinates for our antenna and, by the way, do you have any inside space we could use for support equipment?’ Then it was one [tech center] after another after another after another.” The heavy equipment and massive refrigeration units the telecommunications industry employs for switching centers and server farms requires secure locations with maximum load-bearing concrete and steel flooring, qualities the Guilford possesses in abundance. At present, there are some 60 high-tech firms operating within its confines. Familiar communication firms like AT&T Mobility, Sprint/Nextel, and Carolina Digital likely made one of your recent phone calls possible through their sophisticated routers and relays while Web hosting and design firms like Forcefield and Carolinanet provide essential online connectivity. “We call it co-opertition,” Diana says. “They’re in fierce competition but share fiber and battery backups.” Raymond tells me that February 2018
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the backup generator in the basement, two V8 turbo diesels bolted together, “Could run the whole block if we wanted to.” So it came to pass that one of the oldest structures downtown is also the most modern. Tenants love the building’s retro features: It’s the many original, fully restored details that lend so much excitement to this nearly century-old landmark. Cartoon depictions of General Greene on the elevator buttons, the layout of the offices with interior walls that don’t meet the ceiling and glass transoms above mahogany doors with pebbled glass inlays, imbue these workspaces with an open feeling. “Historic chic, people call it,” Diana notes. “We’ve developed this building all the way, all by ourselves.” One of the striking features, located next to the elevators, is the brass mail chute that descends from the top floor to the lobby. Diana explains why it’s no longer in use: “One day our mailman was picking up in the lobby and somebody put a sharp object down the chute and it cut his wrist.” That mail apparatus is actually property of the U.S. Postal Service. “The supervisor from the main post office came over and said, ‘I don’t want you to get rid of these but let’s block them.’” The former bank lobby is right out of a 1930s gangster movie with a giant brass clock; extinct San Daniele Italian pink marble teller stations, baseboards, and two-story pillars; dark wood panel accents; ornately fashioned plaster molding on the 16-foot high ceiling; and rows of picture windows backing the two balconies. Diana tells me, “It was the Roaring 20s and everyone thought there was no end to our prosperity.” Only one of the delicate brassand-green glass hanging lamps remains. “By the time we got in here thieves had taken the rest. We saw where they might have been auctioned off somewhere but we didn’t get there in time.” Raymond Holliman points out the circular embedded medallions on the ceiling, which he says weigh around 300 pounds each. “We had a craftsman who worked on the Governor’s mansion come down and he worked on that ceiling for about two years,” he adds. When they were investing all that effort into this dazzling showplace, a five-star restaurant must have seemed like a good fit. And yet, in the end, the space was used for heavy equipment storage by Duke Power and wouldn’t be accessible to the public. Overseeing reconstruction of the only floor left to develop, Raymond explains the meticulous process they go through: “We take it all out, everyThe Art & Soul of Greensboro
thing. We take the moldings from around the windows down, remanufacture them, then put them back.” When it comes to the authentic accents, from the individual mail chutes to the distinctive doorknobs, “We go to a great deal of trouble to restore those, get them polished and corrected.” The panorama view is stunning from this 10th-story high perch. Raymond says, “I come up here on July 4th to watch the fireworks downtown, High Point, the water park; you can watch like six fireworks at the same time.” The shot of downtown you see on News 2 is from the top of this high rise. One of the perks of occupancy is the shared glass enclosed conference room on the mezzanine level, looking out over South Elm, featuring state-ofthe-art interconnectivity for every participant no matter what device they’re using. Bob tells me, “There’s free Wi-Fi in this room so if you’re on Skype or FaceTime and have a client in China, you can talk to them and present it on the [wall-sized] screen.” The row of storefronts lining Washington Street have been home over the last nine decades to beauty parlors, jewelry stores, dentists and optometrist offices, civil service organizations and various men’s clubs. The two longest-running businesses there today are Howard’s Barber Shop and Locke Alterations. When the Hollimans and Postons acquired the building in 1993, barber Howard Cleveland had already been clipping and shaving customers in this location since 1981. Jesse Locke has even deeper connections to this corner. While studying at A&T University, Locke began working at the Guilford Building performing alterations part-time for The Slack Shop in 1961. He met his future wife, Dorothy, when she was working the counter for Austin “Jimmy” James at the Guilford Soda Shop in 1972 before he relocated his own business here from across South Elm in 1994. He’s kept the city in stitches ever since. This monument to the optimism of those who came before us, recast as a thriving high-tech portal, is poised yet again to lead us into the future. With the reinvigoration of the South Elm corridor, “We’re almost full. People like being in the middle of everything,” Diana says. “And they like having access to the high speed connections and data we have on site. There’s a lot of networking going on around us.” Ninety years of networking . . . and counting. OH A native of Greensboro, Billy Ingram enjoys nothing more than writing for O.Henry. Which usually indicates he’s about to get fired. February 2018
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th
Our scribe r in se mighty Be
By David C
Into
he Wild
roams his ancestral Scottish Highlands earch of local ales, red squirrels, en Nevis — and assorted new friends
Claude Bailey • Photographs by Jim McMillan
Portree
The photographer, Jim, the author, David, and their minder and chauffeur, Anne
I
Ullapool
f you’re headed to Scotland, you’ll hear it again and again from anyone who has been: What you’ll like most about Scotland is the Scots. After spending three weeks in the country whence my genes were carried to Piedmont North Carolina by some ancient ancestor, here’s proof positive of that premise. I’ll start with the man who inspired me and my wife, Anne, to go: Jim McMillan. Though not technically a Scot, you’d never know it from his Drumalee-heritage, his gnome-like appearance, his behavior, his love of spiritous beverages, and his mischievous smirk, with eyes sparkling beneath a tangle of eyebrows, letting you know that he did it and got away with it. So when he told me that he was determined to make a return trip to Scotland, I instantly volunteered to go with him. Mentioning something about foxes and henhouses, Anne said she was going too. Jim wanted to return to the wilds of the Highlands. I wanted to avoid big cities. A fan of the Outlander series, Anne wanted to see some of the places that had looked so otherworldly on the screen. Jim Dodson, O.Henry’s editor and lover of all things Scottish, generously helped us focus our thoughts over a few beers and a huge map at Scuppernong Books. Over our three weeks’ journey, mostly in the Highlands, we met one generously obliging Scot after another, each seemingly determined to convince us that we never wanted to go back home again. Here are just a few of those we’ll never forget. One of my favorite encounters was in an atmospheric pub in the Lochcarron Hotel, where we’d stopped to get directions over the Internet. Anne sat contentedly at a table communing with her iPad and a sticky sweet she’d ordered, while Jim and I stood holding up the bar and our end of a conversation with a chap encased in several decades worth of tweed. The rambling hotel, the busy pub and its patrons looked as though they came right out of central casting — a flurry of friendly dogs constantly underfoot, another being held at the end of his leash (“Mind your ankles”), three or four gray-haired ale lovers seemingly permanently slumped over the bar, a couple telling a seemingly endless story in an animated and totally unintel-
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ligible brogue. There was just enough light slanting through the windows to reveal a trio of hand-pumped ale pulls. I opted for Real Ale or cask ale — naturally carbonated — and only as chilly as the cellar under the pub where the cask is kept. Coo-ing over my pint of Red Cow Bitter, which I’d chosen over the Golden Cow, I replied to our tweedy friend that, yes, it was superb. And answering his next inquiry, I told him that we were from Greensboro, in Piedmont North Carolina, home to a number of Scotch-Irish like Jim and myself, where folks held highland games annually, along with Robert Burns celebrations. We had lots of microbreweries, I told him. In fact, I said, boasting a wee bit, we must have a dozen breweries in the three-city area. “And what would your population be?” he asked. “Oh, something like 500,000,” I said. “Ahhh, we only have one brewery, a very fine one, Strathcarron,” he said pointing to my pint. “Then again, with a mere 500 souls roundabout, we keep it very busy.” Do the math, Dave.
T
wo encounters of the close kind came in the village of Portree, a busy harbor and a tourist hub on the Isle of Skye. We were staying at Staffin, a good bit to the north in the middle of nowhere, in sight of the storied Trotternish Ridge, where rock formations, tortured by centuries of wind, weather and geology, have been clept with names like the Old Man of Storr, Kilt Rock and the Pinnacles of Quiraing. We’d come searching for fresh seafood in Portree, which, with its pastel-painted shops along the harbor front, looks as if it had been lifted from the lid of a box of chocolates. Down by a recreational boat ramp, a brawny lad wearing a wet suit peeled halfway down struggled getting his Zodiac on a trailer. And yet he paused to entertain our question of whether he knew of somewhere that sold fresh seafood. “You can check along the old port,” he said. “It’s mostly pubs and restaurants now, but there’s a seafood market that’s occasionally open. Are you parked down here?” he asked, pointing to the tourist car park. “Yep,” we said. “Stop back by in a half hour on your way out once I’ve unpacked the Zodiac,” he said with a wink. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
W
e climbed a series of steep steps up into the village, which bustled with German tourists, youthful backpackers and harried couples wearing garish holiday clothes. It’s the sort of town where I find myself wishing I were anything but a tourist. In a feeble effort to blend in, I had mostly been wearing what I wear in Greensboro whenever it’s chilly, a dodgy herringbone snap-brimmed cap, a tattered and treasured thrift-store Harris Tweed jacket, and enough beard and mustache to keep my face from freezing. As we headed down a set of narrow stone steps, a boisterous bunch of 20-somethings bounded up the steps, with the lad in the lead obviously several sheets to the wind. He was taking the steps at speed while, over his shoulder, he was hectoring his girlfriend in an advanced state of brogue. I flattened myself against the brick wall alongside the steps to make room for him, but he quite literally ran smack dab into me. Swiveling to catch his balance, his face met mine — so close, in fact, I could tell he’d been drinking not just ale, but a dram or two of Scotch. He stared at me in puzzlement for several long seconds, a big smile breaking over his face. “Howdy,” I said, returning his smile. His girlfriend grabbed him by the shoulder in hopes of getting him moving again without toppling. “He f-ing looks more like the locals than the bloody locals,” he shouted to her, looking back at me as he topped the steps. “Shut your gob,” she said. “You are a f-ing local. We went down the stairs and searched the quay. The seafood shop was open mostly in the mornings and on alternate days, not that one. Making our way back to the boat ramp, we resigned ourselves to The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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having, once again, reheated meat pies and Scotch eggs for supper. Our friend with the Zodiac waved us over and held up a sizable plastic bag filled with huge razor clams. “Know what these are and what to do with them?” he asked. My daughter, who was with us and lives in Spain on Mallorca, beamed, commenting on their extraordinary size compared to Mediterranean razor clams. “I harvested them this morning,” he said pointing to SCUBA gear in the Zodiac. “Enjoy.” Offers for payment or a quick pint or two before he headed home were turned down. “Something to remember Portree by,” he said. The second thing, in fact.
A broch on the Isle of Skye
Ruins of a croft on the Isle of Skye
View from Loch Snizort
Traffic jam near Staffin
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W
e met Ian Giles strolling along the beach in front of historic Kilmun, where boats bobbed merrily atop the Holy Loch. Impressed by the historic town’s community spirit and welcoming park, we asked Ian, who was on the street in front of one of the vacation homes built in the Victorian era (some of which were now crumbling), about making a contribution to a community redevelopment fund we’d seen mentioned on a poster. Ian said his wife actually managed the fund and he’d find her, but first he was eager to know whether we’d seen any of Scotland’s legendary red squirrels. Apart from the legendary Angus MacFergus MacTavish Dundee of song, we had not. Actually, in retrospective, Ian looked a little squirrely himself, but in the best possible way. Eager, energetic, animated, with bright eyes and a set of choppers that easily broke into a cheery half-smile, Ian straightway invited us into his house. “Would you like some tea?” his wife asked us, accepting our small donation and beginning to tell us all about Kilmun. She was interrupted by Ian, his arms stuffed with a huge stack of folio-sized books. From their pages, red squirrels disappeared into the drawers of feeders or capered up trees. Some seemed to pose patiently for Ian’s camera, looking up resignedly from their meals. Others were caught in mid-leap. Some were hanging upside down from their back feet. They’d been photographed in the full glory of spring, in the rain, in the snow, with fall colors ablaze and in the heat of the summer. Ian explained how the number of the British Isles’s only native squirrel species had been plummeting since the 1870s when American gray squirrels had been introduced (by Brits, he added) as an ornamental species. Jim, a fellow photographer, plied him with technical questions. He showed us his camera equipment and his feeders and the window where he got some of his best shots without leaving the house. The books had been produced in Italy on the finest paper available, and Ian explained how each two-page spread had been produced from a single long sheet of paper so that there wouldn’t be an unsightly gatefold in the middle of the page. I got dizzy thinking of the expense of self-publishing such custom-printed books. We finished our tea. Anne made noises about simply having to get on to catch two ferries to our next destination. I began to see her point. Meanwhile Jim and Ian, bonded over red squirrels and cameras, plowed through yet another book, with Ian explaining each page and how he got the shot. “But you really need to get on,” Ian said of a sudden. “It’s so nice to find someone interested in wildlife and photography. I just wish the squirrels had cooperated and you could have seen some live.” I didn’t tell him that I preferred meeting one passionate, engaged human being over seeing a hundred squirrels. But I should have.
Y
our first sight of Ben Nevis can be a bit unnerving, especially when you’re determined to scale it, as Jim and I were. Fading into and out of the clouds and wearing a toboggan of snow, it loomed 4,411 feet high over the village of Corpach, topping any other peak in the British Isles. We were looking for our Airbnb and knew we had the right street, but there seemed to be two houses with the same number, at which point we met Colin Gray riding his bike from his own home nearby. Muscular, compact and almost boyish, he diplomatically set us straight with a smile, then asked what brought us to Corpach. Jim pointed at Ben Nevis with a sheepish grin and said, “We want to climb that.” “Aye, you can do it,” he said with a reassuring air. “I’ve been up it many a time, but I’m on my way to work right now. Would you like to come by after supper and see some photos that I’ve taken?” We of course said we’d love to. Anyone in decent shape can safely climb Ben Nevis, all the travel guides say, provided the weather cooperates. But Scotland, we had already learned, is a place where you can experience all four seasons in one day. And Ben Nevis is not called the mountain with its head in the clouds for nothing. Maybe we should get a guide, I suggested. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
We didn’t know it, but we’d just met our guide. Sitting in his backyard later that evening, we first saw a shot of a youthful Colin, standing proudly atop Ben Nevis with a buddy. Then we saw a photo of him hiking up a peak with a most attractive woman. Then photos of the two of them with children camping and hiking, along with subsequent photos of Colin atop other peaks. “It’s called Munro Bagging,” Colin explained enthusiastically. A Munro (after Sir Hugh T. Munro) is a peak that tops out at over 3,000 feet. To become a “compleatist” or a “Munroist,” all you have to do is climb all 282 of Scotland’s Munros, much in the way American climbing enthusiasts scale all of Colorado’s 14ers. Colin had topped fifty Munros. With Ben Nevis we basically had two choices, he told us. We could take what’s called the pony track or tourist trek. It’s 11 miles long and takes seven to nine hours. It’s steep all the way up, with lots of switchbacks. The view from the top is breathtaking, Colin told us, but it’s often crowded. Online, one hiker reported how hundreds of walkers filled the path like “a whole trail of lemmings in every direction” some slow and others “impatient walkers behind banging their walking poles and breathing right down our necks.” The other route, up the North Face, Colin said, is never crowded. Maybe that’s because, according to walkinghighland.co.uk, it’s “a challenging ridge climb that should only be attempted by experienced scramblers and physically-fit hill walkers.” It, too, is 11 miles long but takes 10 or 11 hours. “It’s incredible, though,” Colin said with a faraway look in his eyes. “For me, it’s not just about getting to the top.” If we were determined to “bag” the mountain, we’d take the so-called pony track. If we wanted to experience Ben Nevis, we’d attempt the North Face. “This is a truly spectacular route,” the website echoed, “which will live long in the memory and does true justice to the mountain.” The following evening in the pub directly across the street from our Airbnb, Colin raised a pint of golden ale and toasted our making it — halfway up the mountain. From a remote car park, we’d first made our way through a towering forest tangled in lush ferns. We gained altitude for several miles beneath a seemingly unending canopy of the most planted trees in Scottish, towering Sitka spruce. At last we burst out onto the tortured landscape that makes the Scottish highlands so unforgettable. Thousands of years ago, glaciers gouged, scraped and plowed through this landscape, bulldozing their way between unmovable peaks, exposing the flesh and bones of Mother Earth. Between us and our goal, boulders lay jumbled helter-skelter, greenery struggled to get a foothold and a creek crashed downward with sparkling water that had been snow only hours ago. What made this particular highland glen so enchanting and, at the same time, forbidding and haunting, were the steep peaks that loomed on either side of the path, calving rock slides and magnificent waterfalls. Into the far distance, a rugged path seemed to snake its way ever upward. After an exhausting but exhilarating climb of five hours, we reached a stone rescue hut, where we ate a late lunch and realized that, according to the website, we still faced the trek’s most “challenging ridge climb.” Running out of time and already worn out, we turned back. “It was humbling,” I told Colin, ordering a second round of local ale. “And magnificent,” Jim added. “Whether you make it to the top or not, you can’t go wrong,” Colin said. “Every step of the way is stunning.” Colin was right, of course, just as he was right about persuading Anne she had the stamina to join us the next day on a trek through Nevis Gorge, a less challenging hike to one of Scotland’s more dramatic waterfalls. And just as he was right for pointing us toward Neptune’s Staircase, a steep series of locks less than a mile from our Airbnb, hosting a flotilla of colorful crafts along the Caledonian Canal. And just as he was right for sending us to one pub for drinking and another for eating haggis. (“Get it battered and fried,” he counseled.) But what he did more than anything else — and what so many of the other Scots we met did — was to put a face — and one rambling story after another — onto a landscape that’s already one of the most enchanting on the planet, imbuing the rocks, rills, mountains and glens with fairies, sprites and pixies, just as their forefathers had. Every individual seemed determined to convince us that Scotland is not only a nice place to visit but somewhere you’d also want to live. Mission accomplished. OH David Claude Bailey agrees with A.E. Housman that “Malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.”
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Reconstruction of ancient dwelling on Loch Tay, Crannog Center, Aberfeldy
Kin Loch Leven resident taking his daily constitutional along the West Highland Way Ferry pools, Glen Brittle
Melrose Abby February 2018
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Bridging the Divide
Millennial D.I.Y. energy refreshes a 20th-century architect’s vision By Nancy Oakley • Photographs by Amy Freeman
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“D
ude!” Ian Bracy’s face lights up as he greets a frequent visitor to the house he’s been working on for the past year. “Hi,” replies his guest, a dapper gent whose white hair is covered by a Bavarian wool hat adorned with a band of yarn and an elaborate pin depicting a deer with spectacular antlers. The exchange wouldn’t strike one as extraordinary if it weren’t for the 50-odd-year age difference between the two men. But given their shared passion for the house, with its distinctive vertical lines and angles, generational barriers quickly disappear. The elder man, Joel Funderburk, designed the house where he lived and worked for 40 years. “I’ve been a registered architect since 1966,” says the alumnus of N.C. State’s prestigious School (now College) of Design. These days he’s “edging and ageing” out of his profession. “I’ve got things that have been torn down. Gone!” he says of some of his commissions in Greensboro. Among them were the upfitting of Potpourri and Reed Runners, the Friendly Center boutiques and purveyors of all things mod and wicker in the 1960s and The Art & Soul of Greensboro
’70s, and Potpourri Press. “I like to say of David Grimes [owner of the three businesses], “he had two wives, three houses and one architect,” Funderburk chuckles. “He was very avant-garde.” One could say the same of Funderburk’s former dwelling that rises out of a woodsy ravine — just several feet from Cornwallis Drive in the middle of Irving Park, of all places. “I think most people thought it was unbuildable,” says Funderburk, referring to the lot adjacent to manmade Medford Lake that he and his wife, Norma, bought in the 1970s. “They’d look at it and say, ‘Can’t do a thing with this.’” So why bother? “He built this house to the land. He didn’t fill. He didn’t cut,” says Patsy Bracy, Ian’s mom and an interior designer who graduated from UNCG in 1975, coincidentally the very year the house was constructed. “That’s the way, man,” insists Ian of the building technique. “That’s the way,” agrees Patsy, “but that wasn’t the way back then.” Funderburk designed what Patsy calls an “upside down” floorplan, in which the living room, dining room and kitchen are upstairs, and the bedrooms — or February 2018
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specifically, the Funderburks’ two sons’ bedrooms — are downstairs. “For social segregation,” the architect explains. These are joined by a bath and abutted by a den and a sunny office that Funderburk and wife, Norma, both used. Upstairs, which is to say, street level, the house opens to a foyer flanked by a living room and dining room, down a hallway on the left, the master bed and bath, and in the center of the house, the kitchen. The exterior is swathed in gray wooden shakes that blend seamlessly with the wooded surroundings, which spill into the house through rectangular Pella windows.” It is a style vaguely reminiscent of coastal and mountain resorts that emerged in the 1970s — California’s Ventana Big Sur, for example. “I like to use the words, ‘contemporary rustic,’” Funderburk says of his design that was quickly constructed from prefabricated panels. Whatever you do, don’t call his design Modern. “The word, ‘Modern’ is irksome,” Funderburk insists. “It implies off-the-wall.” Regardless of an appropriate label, if there is one, the house is certainly unusual, with its wraparound deck and a bridge spanning the problematic ravine. And it caught the eye of Ian and Patsy Bracy after the Funderburks, longtime empty nesters, had put it on the market and moved to Wellspring. “We couldn’t pass up this opportunity,” says Ian. With a background in economics, the 31-year-old UNC grad had moved to Boulder, Colorado, near his twin sister Addie, a World Mountain Runner Champion. (Ian himself ran cross-country at Carolina.) “My dad [Dennis] asked me to come back for a little bit,” he explains, to help out in his company, Isometrics, a Reidsville-based manufacturer of tanker trucks, truck trailers and fuel-hauling equipment for airplanes.
But the sight of the Funderburk house, then for sale, awakened the young man’s desire to work with his hands again. Possessing a strong visual sense, likely inherited from his mom, Patsy, and growing up around building projects of his dad’s (“He’s a
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Renaissance man”), Ian saw potential in the unusual house on Cornwallis Drive, now overgrown with brush from the ravine in front. “You couldn’t even see the house,” Patsy remembers. As for the back, the Bracys were unaware that Lake Medford lay beyond 40 years’ growth of ivy and unraked leaves (a look that Funderburk prefers, calling it “natural natural” as opposed to “cultivated natural.”) The Bracys bought the house in June of 2016, with the intention of Ian inhabiting it; in late October, he had set up camp in one of the lower bedrooms and got to work. He had run into an old high school chum, Brett Paschall, who, by another stroke of coincidence, is the nephew of O.Henry photographer Lynn Donovan. The two friends had played soccer together at Northwest Guilford. (Paschall would eventually parlay his skills into a scholarship at Elon University and play semi-professionally for a time.) “I was actually playing some pickup ball when I started working on this house,” Ian continues, “and it was like, ‘Hey man, you want to come work?’ He’s awesome. There’s nothing he can’t do.” “I’m pretty experienced with building stuff,” Paschall concedes, having “practiced” on his parents’ house by stripping hardwood floors, building a large backyard shed (“a mini house”) for his dad, not to mention redoing the front suspension on his 2003 diesel-powered Volkswagen Beetle. And just how did this jack-of-all-trades learn to be so handy? “YouTube,” shrugs Paschall, with a trace of a smile. “We joke,” Ian intercedes, “we can jump in. We can just figure it out.” “If we mess it up, well, we gotta fix it. That’s the way you gotta look at it,” Paschall agrees. “Can’t go in there all planned. Just go in there, do it. Fix it if it’s not right.” But for all their can-do, D.I.Y. spirit, the two Millennials worked from a wellthought-out vision — Ian’s vision — that improved on Funderburk’s original. The central focus was the wraparound wooden deck that hugged the house. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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February 2018
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“The columns . . . they were done,” Ian recalls. “They were not in good shape.” Not to mention the heavy brush underneath extending to the lake in back. Ian’s solution: Rip out the entire deck and replace it with a bigger and better one — using industrial-grade steel from his father’s company in Reidsville. Having built a bridge at a beach resort in Honduras that his parents own, Ian knew he wanted to replace the bridge over the ravine using quarter-inch, stainless steel. But one night as he was strolling through downtown and chanced upon a glass sculpture lit from within, inspiration struck. “I was like, ‘Man! I want to do glass and light it from the bottom!’” he recalls. The result is a sleek walkway with glass siding topped with a flat railing. Ian fashioned the metal clips that hold the glass in place and the metal strips buttressing the supporting beams, which have a distressed look. “The architectural grade [of steel] rusts over,” Ian explains, “and that rust actually provides a protective layer, but it also looks cool.” Ultra cool when the same look is applied to the entire upper and lower deck — all 1,587 square feet of it. “He did it all himself,” says a proud Patsy Bracy. “He did all the welding.” With help, of course from his buddy Paschall. The two expanded the deck in the heat of last summer. “Those tall beams?” Paschall notes, “I had to get under the deck and drill through a quarter inch of steel,” he recalls. “The hardware, the brackets, Brett drilled ’em all,” Ian echoes. “I am a master of the drill, now,” says Paschall with a shake of his head. “You need some steel to drill through? Call me!” Ian’s original plan was to extend both the upstairs and downstairs decks, so
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both were of equal size. But once into the project, he had another flash of inspiration. “I was like, ‘You know what? If you bring the bottom deck out, [why not] make the top deck shorter so you’re looking down on it?’” And that’s how the upper deck became recessed. The overall effect? “The deck line balances the house to the property,” Ian notes. The property was the other conundrum. In true D.I.Y. fashion, Ian rented an excavator and started clearing out loads of ivy and leaves, discovering the lake and a retaining pond fed by a small creek. He and Paschall cleared away all the brush in front of the house and, again using stainless steel, terraced the bank of the ravine facing the downstairs windows. They also planted some grass on a portion of the back lot. “I don’t think he likes the grass,” says Ian, referring to Funderburk. A correct assessment, as it turns out. “For 40 years we avoided the grass,” says the architect. “Avoided the lawnmower . . . but if you have to have grass, it’s a nice amount.” He started dropping by periodically, once the Bracys determined he was the previous owner. Patsy had noticed a piece of mail addressed to him. “And I said, ‘What? Joel Funderburk owned this house?’ Then one day he came by and I met him.” The name was all too familiar to her, because, after graduating from UNCG in 1975, she interviewed with his old firm Funderburk & Mitchell. She didn’t get the job. “I had no architectural training,” Patsy says now. “Just interior design.” But as she points out, things have a way of coming back around, for she The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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lent her talents to refurbishing the interior of the house, primarily, the kitchen and the master bath. She credits Ian with opening up the master into a single open space, and the kitchen, too, by bringing down a wall and adding a metal exhaust fan over the center island, the supports for which he made from yet more scrap stainless steel. Patsy brought a Zen-like vibe to the house, using a palette of soft grays. “I think of a house as the background for the people and their art. So if you keep that background neutral, then you can add a splash of color and change it anytime you want,” she says. Hence the gray walls, and gray stain on the floors of red oak — which pick up the tones of the hardwoods outside. The kitchen, previously all white, is a now mix of white and gray, all of it brightened by three skylights on the angled, back wall, which has a northern exposure.
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The idea for them, came from, who else? Ian. “It was too dark for me. . . I’m a Leo. I need sun,” he says, turning his face to the windows where a patch of blue and tree branches appear. “Sunshine, man. Hawks.” “I’ve always said that God said, ‘You will not put holes in roofs.’ And I avoided them,” Funderburk responds. “But they’re great!” Apart from the grassy patch of lawn, he is pleased with Ian’s work, offering bits of advice here and there, such as adding a strip of flatbar across the glass panels of the bridge to make it safer. He admires the steel railings of the deck, the skylights, the kitchen’s cabinetry and the cool metal exhaust fan, plus a glass door to the deck. “He’s brought it into the 21st century,” the architect muses. “That view is really the curb appeal of the house,” he adds, looking out back to the lake, no The Art & Soul of Greensboro
longer obscured by the mounds of leaves he let fall and stay. “Wildlife,” says Ian. “I have seen as many as seven deer here — at one time,” Funderburk remembers. “I could see building a bog garden,” says Patsy, following their gaze. It is not to be. For the free-spirited Ian hears the siren call of the West again, and has decided not to remain in the house, after all. “If I could take it and move it to Colorado . . .” he says wistfully. He hopes to establish his own studio there, where he will work with metal, or glass, perhaps build furniture. The house is once again on the market, but refreshed, waiting for the next inhabitants to make their mark. “Leave just enough for the next one,” advises Funderburk. “You can’t think The Art & Soul of Greensboro
their thoughts,” he adds before turning to Ian. “I’ve sung your praises. How many times have I come by?” “A whole bunch,” replies Ian. “You’re a cool dude.” “I probably won’t see you again,” says the architect, holding up a gnarled fist. “I’ve nuisanced you enough.” “Nah, man,” says Ian raising his own curled hand. “I like seeing you.” And as his young, taut knuckles meet the older weathered ones in a brotherly fist bump, one can practically see the flash of a small spark. Not the sort from a welder’s torch but from the magic of two visionaries’ touch. OH Nancy Oakley is the senior editor of O.Henry February 2018
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72 O.Henry
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The flowers of late winter and early spring occupy places in our hearts well out of proportion to their size. – Gertrude S. Wister
By Ash Alder
February morning . . . The coffee is freshly ground, and you hold in your hands the last grapefruit from the bushel. Remember how your grandma used to eat them? And how, when the birds started singing, she would visit the camellias, maybe cut one for the green vase on the windowsill? Suddenly you feel like dancing. Sliding in your socks across the cold kitchen floor, sweet memories flicker like the warm crackling of vinyl. You put on the coffee. Slice the grapefruit. Reach for the sugar bowl. In the cupboard, on the highest shelf, you notice the little green vase. The birds are singing, and you are waltzing to the windowsill. Won’t be long, now, until the camellia flowers. The waltz of winter is one of the simple pleasures.
Sweet as Pie The last full moon rose on Jan. 31; the next rises March 1. No full snow moon this month, but the new moon falls on Feb. 15, the day after Cupid strikes. Cold as it’s been this winter, perhaps we can call it the new snow moon. And if the god of the great wintry winds gifts us with more of it, you’ll want to have the (coconut/almond) milk and honey on hand for snow cream. Friday, Feb. 16, marks the celebration of the Chinese New Year. Cue the paper lanterns. This lunar New Year is a time to clean house and create space for good luck to arrive. In the spirit of the Earth Dog, a little advice from man’s best friend: Be happy; be loyal; live from the heart. National Cherry Pie Day is celebrated on Feb. 20. Although the old chestnut about George Washington and the cherry tree is a myth, it’s true that
cherries were one of the president’s favorite foods. Chill some to sweeten a romantic evening, or if you feel inspired to bake pie, make a date of it. Calling in a sacred partner? A Japanese love spell suggests tying a single strand of hair to a blossoming cherry tree. No lie.
Roses & Rutabaga Red roses say I love you, but nothing says our love is eternal like the whole fragrant bush. February is generally a good month to plant roses. And if you’re already playing round in the garden, consider popping a few early rutabagas into the ground. Also known as the swede, this root vegetable is believed to prevent premature aging, improve eyesight and, because it’s loaded with vitamin C (one cup contains 32 milligrams), it’s an excellent immune system booster. Maple-glaze them. Roast them with brown butter. Or if you’re craving savory, they, too, make good pie.
Tree Wisdom The ancient Celts looked to the trees for knowledge and wisdom. According to Celtic tree astrology, those born from Jan. 21 – Feb. 17 associate with the rowan (mountain ash), a tree whose wood has long been used for spindles and spinning wheels. Rowans are the philosophers of the zodiac. They are visionaries, eccentrics, and like Aquarians, are often perceived as cool or aloof. But that’s just because they’re busy dreaming up a whole new world. Rowan people are most compatible with ivy (Sept. 30–Oct. 27) and hawthorn (May 13–June 9) signs. In the Ogham, a sacred Druidic alphabet, the symbol of the rowan represents insight, protection and blessings.
Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle. . . a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream. – Barbara Winkler
February 2018 POW! (WOW) 2/
8-11
February 1 JENNY-ROSITY. 8 p.m. Winnipeg, Canada’s Wailin’ Jennys take the mic. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
February 1–11 THE END OF TIME. The clock is running out on For All Time: Interpretations of the Fourth Dimension from the Collection. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu
February 1–18 RAISIN’ THE CURTAIN. On Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, a production of Triad Stage. Performance times vary. The Pyrle Theater, 232 S. Elm St. Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 272-0160 or triadstage.org.
February 1–March 4 FEET OF CLAY. And hands, heads and torsos too. Mexican sculptor Kukull Velarde’s expressive clay fig-
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BRUSH UP 2/
16
ures still animate Gallery 6 at the exhibit, Isichapuitu. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
February 1 –April 8 A REALLY BIGGERS SHEW. Meaning, Sanford Biggers: Falk Visiting Artist, a multimedia exhibit exploring, history, culture and identity. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 3345770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
February 1–April 22 CARRY-ALL. See 17 artists’ perceptions of how global travel has affected daily life at Baggage Claims. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
February 2 SHOUT! OUT. 7:30 p.m. It may be winter but there’s a “Summer Breeze” blowin’ through town, as the Isley Brothers (Ronald and Ernest) take the stage for 97.1 QMG’s Rhythms of Triumph concert. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro.
BRU'S BROS 2/
22&24
Tickets: (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com. AUTHORS, AUTHORS. 7 p.m. Hear selections from UNCG M.F.A. students Sarah Bailey and Katie Naymon. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. GROOVE TIME. 10 p.m. Be a dancing queen — or king at Pop-Up Dance Club. Print Works Bistro, 702 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: (336) 379-0699 or printworksbistro.com.
February 2–March 8 WHOA! Rhymes with “slow.” Which is the point of Slow Art: Leigh Ann Hallberg, Setsuya Kotani, Jeannine Marchland and Jan-Ru, an exhibit that fuses Eastern and Western influences . . . and prompts viewers to pause and reflect. Kick-off reception is on 2/2 at 5:30 p.m. GreenHill, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 333- 7460 or greenhillnc.org.
February 3 FOUR EVERMORE! 7 p.m. Celebrate the four-year anniversary of Greensboro’s most popular indepenThe Art & Soul of Greensboro
Arts Calendar dent bookstore. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
Hornets. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Tickets: (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
February 4
CHRIS-TAL (CORN)BALL. 7:30 p.m. Rock 92’s Chris Demm and Chris Kelly bring you “2 Guys Named Chris Comedy All Stars.” Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 3 p.m. Meet Barbara Claypole White, author of The Promise Between Us. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 7631919 or scuppernongbooks.com. HUM RUNNER. 2 p.m. That would be Wanda Quinn, a hybridizer of daylilies who will discuss how to attract hummingbirds to your garden at a meeting of the Triad Daylily Fans Garden Club. Earth Fare, 2965 Battleground Ave., Greensboro. Info: (336) 456-4509 or thegreensborocouncilofgardenclubs.com
February 6, 11 & 15 DODSON SIGHTINGS. From the comfort of your own home! Catch O.Henry editor Jim Dodson, who will discuss his latest book, The Range Bucket List, on UNC-TV’s Bookwatch, hosted by D.G. Martin. UNCTV’s North Carolina Channel (2/6) and UNC-TV main channel (2/11 and 2/15). Info: unctv.org.
February 7 SWARM UP. 7 p.m. Get buzzy with the Greensboro Swarm, NBA Development League for the Charlotte Hornets. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Tickets: (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
February 8 AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet Tom Mira y Lopez, author of The Book of Resting Places (with Daisy Hernandez). Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. ART FOR ART’S SAKE. 8 p.m. Leave your troubled waters behind while the sweet sounds of Art Garfunkel carry you away. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
February 8–11 POW! (WOW). Good (The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Spider-Man, along with Dr. Strange) takes on Evil (Loki,Yondu and Green Goblin) at Marvel Universe Live! Age of Heroes. Performance times vary. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Tickets: (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
February 9 AUTHORS, AUTHORS. 7 p.m. Hear selections from UNCG M.F.A. students Emma Liston and Michelle Reed. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. SWARM UP. 7 p.m. Get buzzy with the Greensboro Swarm, NBA Development League for the Charlotte The Art & Soul of Greensboro
February 9–18 MY FUNNY VALENTINE. 6:30 p.m. Music is indeed the food of love for a week of Valentine’s Jazz, featuring Georgia Rodgers Farmer and Kelly Smith with the Likewise Trio (2/9 &10), Lynne Goodwin and Likewise Trio (2/14), Angela Bingham (2/15) and a Cole Porter tribute from Lisa Dames and the Likewise Trio (2/16 &17). O.Henry Hotel, 624 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: (336) 854-2000 or ohenryhotel.com.
February 9– May 13 EPIC. The only word to describe the enormous canvases of Frederic Church: A Painter’s Pilgrimage. Reynolda House Museum of American Art, 2250 Reynolda Road, Winston-Salem. Tickets: (888) 663-1149 or reynoldahouse.org.
February 10 TOASTY. 8 a.m. French toast rules the day! Vas-y and gitcha some! Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 373-2402 or gsofarmersmarket.org. SOIR NOIR. 6 p.m. Or rather, soirée, Bel Canto Company’s fundraiser: Amore: Noir, featuring music of the 1930s and ’40s, a sit-down dinner, wine and silent auction. Guests are encouraged to dress as their favorite characters from the time period. Revolution Mill Event Center, 900 Revolution Mill Dr., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2220 or belcantocompany.com. RAT OUT. 7 p.m. As in, Rat Pack, the theme for Greensboro Symphony’s fundraiser, Name That Tune, featuring poker, blackjack, roulette, dancing, a silent auction and more. Proceeds from the event benefit the Sympnonhy’s education programs in the Triad. Greensboro Country Club, 410 Sunset Dr., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 335-5456, ext. 239 or greensborosympnony.org.
February 11 OPUS CONCERT. 6 p.m. Love fills the air as Greensboro Big Band, led by Mike Day, performs at Sweet Sounds Valentine’s Dance and Concert. Berry Hall, Canterbury School, 5400 Old Lake Jeanette Road, Greensboro. Info: gsomusiccenter.com.
February 13 PECK’S GOOD BOY. 7 p.m. See Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning turn in To Kill a Mockingbird. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
February 15 PINE AND DANDY. 7 p.m. Celebrate the second issue of Pine, the arts magazine realized by Anna and Laurie Cone. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. TOP BRASS. 7:30 p.m. The United States Air Force Heritage Band presents Heritage Brass, a free program of patriotic songs, jazz standards, new compositions and more. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com
February 16 BOARD MEETING. 5 p.m. Sharpen your competitive edge for Family Game Night, featuring board and card games, a scavenger hunt and Pokemon Go, as well as “The Challenge of High Point,” from the 1980s. High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: (336) 885-1859 or highpointmuseum.org. BRUSH UP. 6 p.m. Catch the opening artists’ reception of Different Strokes for Different Folks, featuring the works of David and Nancy Gordon. Tyler White O’Brien Gallery, 307 State St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 279-1124 or tylerwhitegallery.com. AUTHORS, AUTHORS. 7 p.m. Hear selections from UNCG M.F.A. students Ben Newgard and Forrest Rapier. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. KEYED UP. Catch Greensboro Symphony’s Tanger Outlets Pop Series concert, Piano Men, featuring the works of Elton John and Billy Joel. Westover Church, 505 Muirs Chapel Road, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 335-5456, ext. 224 or greensborosymphony.org.
February 17 AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet Poet Conor Bracken, author of Henry Kissinger, Mon Amour. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. A CAPELLA FELLAS. 8 p.m. UNC’s Clef Hangers croons a variety of tunes. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
February 18 AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 2 p.m. Meet poet Barbara Crooker, author of Les Fauves. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. WE SING. 3 p.m. Or rather you sing. Don’t be shy about belting out a medley of tunes at the Gate City’s first singalong, This CommUnity Sings. (See page 19). Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com
February 19 OBJECTS OF AFFECTION. 10 a.m. Things take February 2018
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76 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
center stage as Curator of Education Dean MacLeod presents “The (Arti)facts of Life: The Power of Artifact Contemplation.” Greensboro History Museum, 130 Summit Ave., Greensboro. Info: (336) 373-3043 or greensborohistory.org. FOR BETTER OR VERSE. 8:30 p.m. Come out to Monday Night Poetry, the Gate City’s oldest poetry open mic event, featuring Jasmine Williams and Michael Gaspeny. Greensboro Public Library, Central Branch, N. Church St., Greensboro. Info: Info: (336) 373-3617 or email: beth.sheffield@greensboro.nc.gov.
February 20 AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet Frank Morelli, Young Adult author who penned No Sad Songs. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. TED TALK. 7:30 p.m. Ted Koppel, former newsman, longest-serving anchor in U.S. broadcast history speaks at Guilford College Bryan Series. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 E. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro Tickets: (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
February 21 AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 10 a.m. Meet Laura Phillips who will discuss her book, The Industrial Legacy of High Point, N.C. and Highland Cotton Mills Village. High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: (336) 885-1859 or highpointmuseum.org.
AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 6:30 p.m. Booklovers can unite over food, music and door prizes at the annual Booklover Social, featuring novelist Sharyn McCrumb and her latest volume, Unquiet Grave. Greensboro Public Library, Central Branch, 219 N. Church St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 373-3617 or email: beth.sheffield@greensboro.nc.gov. PUB TALK. 7 p.m. Greensboro Bound presents “Literary Jungle, Literary Community: A Small Press Panel Discussion.” Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
February 21–23 LAFF RIOT. 7 p.m. NC Comedy Festival dishes out the first and last laughs courtesy of The Idiot Box. Performance times vary. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
February 22 AUTHORS, AUTHORS. 10 a.m. Meet authors Ellenor Shepherd, Ellen Fischer, David White and Krystyna Rodriguez at a luncheon and booksigning, courtesy of the Greensboro Newcomers Club. Wyndham Garden Hotel, 415 Swing St., Greensboro. Tickets: Contact GNC President Jenny Kendall at (336) 638-1639.
Arts Calendar
February 22 & 24
BRU’S BROS. 8 p.m. Meaning, Dan and Chris Brubeck, siblings to the late, great, Take Five jazzman, Dave and stars of “Bach to Brubeck,” along with Greensboro Symphony. Dana Auditorium, 5800 W. Friendly Ave., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 335-5456, ext. 224 or greensborosymphony.org.
February 23 AUTHORS, AUTHORS. 7 p.m. Hear selections from UNCG M.F.A. students Emily Cinquemani and Anna Blake Keeley. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. SWARM UP. 7 p.m. Get buzzy with the Greensboro Swarm, NBA Development League for the Charlotte Hornets. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Tickets: (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com. OPUS CONCERT. 7:30 p.m. Carol Stephenson conducts Greensboro Tarheel Chorus. Christ United Methodist Church, 410 N. Holden Road, Greensboro. Info: gsomusiccenter.com.
February 24 ED TALK. 1 p.m. Institutions of higher learning became one of the pillars of black activism in the 20th century; learn more from Lisa Withers at “Each One,
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77
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78 O.Henry
February 2018
1/10/18 1:24 PM
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Arts Calendar Teach One: The Growth of Education in the AfricanAmerican Community Since 1900.” High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: (336) 885-1859 or highpointmuseum.org. I THINK, THEREFORE I JAM. 6 p.m. Winter Jam, to be precise. Rock out to Skillet, among other Christian crooners. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Tickets: $15 at the door with general seating.
February 25 SWARM UP. 2 p.m. Get buzzy with the Greensboro Swarm, NBA Development League for the Charlotte Hornets. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Tickets: (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
Info: (336) 883-3666 or highpointpubliclibrary.com.
February 28–March 4 PLAY LADY, PLAY. As in, hoops! The ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament takes center court. Game times vary. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Tickets: (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
WEEKLY HAPPENINGS Mondays
February 27
BUZZING. 10 a.m. Your busy little bees engage in a Busy Bees preschool program focusing on music, movement, garden exploration and fun in the kitchen, at the Greensboro Children’s Museum, 220 N. Church St., Greensboro. Preregistration: (336) 574-2898 or gcmuseum.com.
NO AUDIO. 7 p.m. See Charlie Chaplin as the Little Tramp in the 1925 silent classic, The Gold Rush. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
CHAT-EAU. Noon. French leave? Au contraire! Join French Table, a conversation group. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 7631919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
February 28
Tuesdays
AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 5:30 & 7 p.m. John Hart discusses his latest novel, The Hush at a ticketed dinner followed by a public reading. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Tickets and Info: (336) 7631919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
READ ALL ABOUT IT. Treat your little ones to story times: BookWorms (ages 12–24 months) meets at 10 a.m.; Time for Twos meets at 11 a.m. Storyroom; Family Storytime for all ages meets at 6:30 p.m. High Point Public Library, 901 N. Main St., High Point.
PINT-SIZED GARDENERS. 3:30 p.m. Instill your kiddies with a love of gardening and growing edible things at Little Sprouts (ages 3 to 5 years). Greensboro Children’s Museum, 220 N. Church St., Greensboro. To register: (336) 574-2898 or gcmuseum.com. PICKIN’ AND GRINNIN’ 6 until 9 p.m. Y’all come for Songs from a Southern Kitchen: Abigail Dowd and Jason Duff (2/6); Vaughan Penn (2/13); Windfall (1/16); String Thing, featuring Brad Newell and Bob Martin (2/20); Graymatter (2/27). 1421 W. Wendover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: (336) 370-0707 or lucky32. com/greensboro_music.htm. CREATIVE KIN. 5 to 7 p.m. Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins: Enjoy a free evening of artistic expression at ArtQuest. GreenHill, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 333-7460 greenhillnc.org. MUSSELS, WINE & MUSIC. 7 until 10 p.m. Mussels with house-cut fries for $15, wines from $10–15 a bottle and live music by AM rOdeO — at Print Works Bistro, 702 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: (336) 379-0699 or printworksbistro.com/live_music.htm. ONCE UPON A TIME. 2 p.m. Afterschool Storytime convenes for children of all ages. Storyroom, High Point Public Library, 901 N. Main St., High Point. Info: (336) 883-3666 or highpointpubliclibrary.com.
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Business & Services
Across the street from the entrance to Guilford College
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Arts Calendar Thursdays
TWICE UPON A TIME. 11 a.m. Preschool Storytime convenes for children ages 3–5. Storyroom, High Point Public Library, 901 N. Main St., High Point. Info: (336) 883-3666 or highpointpubliclibrary.com. ALL THAT JAZZ. 5:30 until 8 p.m. Hear live, local jazz featuring Dave Fox, Neill Clegg and Matt Kendrick — and guests Sarah Strable (2/1), Dr. John Henry (2/8), Angela Bingham (2/15) and Clinton Horton (2/22). All performances are at the O.Henry Hotel Social Lobby Bar. No cover. 624 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: (336) 854-2000 or www.ohenryhotel.com/jazz.htm. JAZZ NIGHT. 7 p.m. Fresh-ground, fresh-brewed coffee is served with a side of jazz at Tate Street Coffee House, 334 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 275-2754 or www.tatestreetcoffeehouse.com. OPEN MIC COMEDY. 8–9:35 p.m. Local pros and amateurs take the mic at the Idiot Box, 2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro. Info: (336) 274-2699 or idiotboxers.com.
Fridays
Fridays & Saturdays NIGHTMARES ON ELM STREET. 8 p.m. A 90-minute, historical, candlelit ghost walking tour of Downtown Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 905-4060 or carolinahistoryandhaunts.com/information.
Saturdays TO MARKET, TO MARKET. 7 a.m. until noon. The produce is fresh and the cut fleurs belles. Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville St., Greensboro. Info: gsofarmersmarket.org. THRICE UPON A TIME. 11 a.m. Hear a good yarn at Children’s Storytime. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. WRITE IS MIGHT. 3 p.m. Avoid writer’s block by joining a block of writers at Come Write In, a confab of scribes who discuss their literary projects. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. JAZZ ENCORE. 6:30 p.m. Hear contemporary jazz cats Benjy Springs (2/3), Georgia Rogers Farmer and Kelly Smith (2/10), Lisa Dames (2/17), Ben Strickland
(2/24) while noshing on seasonal tapas at O.Henry Jazz series for Select Saturdays. O.Henry Hotel, 624 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: (336) 854-2000 or ohenryhotel.com. IMPROV COMEDY. 10 p.m. on Saturday, plus an 8 p.m. show appropriate for the whole family. The Idiot Boxers create scenes on the spot and build upon the ideas of others, creating shows that are one-ofa-kind — at the Idiot Box, 2134 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro. Info: (336) 274-2699 or idiotboxers.com.
Sundays HALF FOR HALF-PINTS. 1 p.m. And grown-ups, too. A $5 admission, as opposed to the usual $10, will allow you entry to exhibits and more. Greensboro Children’s Museum, 220 N. Church St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 574-2898 or gcmuseum.com. MISSING YOUR GRANDMA? 3 p.m. until it’s gone: Tuck into Chef Felicia’s skillet-fried chicken, and mop that cornbread in, your choice, giblet gravy or potlikker. Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen, 1421 W. Wendover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: (336) 370-0707 or lucky32.com/fried_chicken.htm.
To add an event, email us at
ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com
by the first of the month
ONE MONTH PRIOR TO THE EVENT.
Arts & Culture
MINI MAKERS. 11 a.m. Let your child (age 5 or younger) bring out his or her inner Van Gogh at ArtQuest’s Masterpiece Fridays, featuring tales from classic storybooks and artistic activities. Cost is $6 per person. GreenHill, 200 N. Davie St. Greensboro. To register: (336) 333-7460 or greenhillnc.org.
THE HALF OF IT. 5 p.m. Enjoy the hands-on exhibits and activities for half the cost of admission at $5 Fun Fridays ($2 on First Fridays). Greensboro Children’s Museum, 220 N. Church St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 574-2898 or gcmuseum.com.
80 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Making Your Home a Dream Come True
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
online @ www.ohenrymag.com February 2018
O.Henry 81
Arts & Culture
UC/LS and Falk Visiting Artist Sanford Biggers
Thursday, March 15 7:00pm Elliott University Center
vpa.uncg.edu for tickets
Lynn Harrell UC/LS Artist-in-Residence
Saturday, March 17 8:00PM School of Music Recital Hall
82 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Ebb & Flow LEIGH ANN HALLBERG | SETSUYA KOTANI | JEANNINE MARCHAND | JAN-RU WAN
Arts & Culture
f e at u r i ng wo r ks by
David Nance & Amy Gordon Artist Reception february 16 6-8pm (free & open to the public)
Lunch & Learn with David nance from 11:30am-1pm ($20)
Jeannine Marchand
OPENING RECEPTION + FIRST FRIDAY FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2018 FROM 6:00 - 9:00 PM
FINE ART & UNIQUE GIFTS Tyler White O’Brien Gallery 307 State Street, Greensboro (336) 279-1124 www.tylerwhitegallery.com
Live music by Julia Goodson from 7:00 – 8:00 PM Free and open to the public. Cash bar.
200 N. Davie Street | Downtown Greensboro | GreenHillNC.org/Slow-Art
“Monet’s Garden”
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Acrylic On Canvas
16”x20”
February 2018
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For him, only the BEST will do.
And his natural curiosity and thirst for knowledge are best fulfilled at Greensboro Montessori School, where students as young as 18-months-old are given the respect, encouragement, and independence necessary to prepare for a lifetime of achievement.
OPEN HOUSE:
Sunday, March 4 at 1 p.m.
Come see how Greensboro Montessori School delivers the best in education from early childhood through ninth grade.
Call 336-668-0119 or visit thegms.org to register
State Street
GMS_OHenry_Feb.indd 1
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84 O.Henry
February 2018
1/11/18 7:13 AM
Greensboro’s diamond destination
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Unique Shoes! Beautiful Clothes!! Artisan Jewelry!!! Shoes Sizes 6 - 11 • Clothes Sizes S - XXL
507 State Street, Greensboro NC 27405 336-275-7645 • Mon - Sat 11am - 6pm www.LilloBella.com
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
10:00-5:30 Monday-Friday 10:00-3:00 Saturday and by Appointment
February 2018
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The BesT of
Provincetown
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86 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Paul J. Ciener
Botanical Garden IS PROUD TO PRESENT
Empowering Dreams. Embracing Legacies. The Chip Calloway Lecture Series “Backyard Stream Repair” by Wendi Hartup
Stormwater Manager, Town of Kernersville Thursday, March 15, 2018 12-1pm • Garden Ballroom
Lunch and Learn is FREE to Members of PJCBG $2 donation for nonmembers. Registration is required. Register online or call 336-996-7888. Bring your lunch. The Garden will provide drinks.
M. Gaines LeGare
NMLS# 198806 • Area Manager 5 A OAk BrAnch Drive, GreensBOrO, nc 27407
Office:336.663.0778 cell:336.213.3186 www.GatewayLoan.com/gaines-legare
Gateway Mortgage Group is a registered service mark of Gateway Mortgage Group, llc nMls 7233. Greensboro Branch: 5 A Oak Branch Drive, Greensboro, nc 27407
Life & Home
As part of Forsyth Creek Week, this lecture will help kick off the county-wide event with small-scale solutions to eroding streambanks. Learn what types of beautiful native plants will stabilize the banks as well as create a shoreline garden! For more Forsyth Creek Week events, visit http://forsythcreekweek.squarespace.com/
“Slow Gardening, North Carolina Style” by Felder Rushing Gardening for all Senses, all Seasons
Thursday, March 22, 2018 2pm • Garden Ballroom Free to members of the NC Unit of the American Herb Society and members of Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden.Nonmembers are $10 at the door Slow gardening isn’t lazy or passive it actually involves doing more stuff, carefully selected to be productive without senseless, repetitive chores. By focusing on seasonal rhythms and local conditions, it helps the gardener get more from their efforts while better appreciating how leisure time - and energy - are spent. More than mere tips for easy gardening, it’s more about thinking “long haul” and taking it easy.
To register, call 336-587-5727 or email carlila1st@gmail.com
“Nativars: Good, Bad, or Just Beautiful?” by Travis Beck Director of Horticulture, Mt. Cuba Center Thursday, March 2, 2018 12pm Travis Beck is Director of Horticulture at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware, where he oversees the care and evolution of nearly 1,000 acres of native plant gardens, landscaped grounds, and natural lands. Prior to Mt. Cuba, Travis worked at the New York Botanical Garden, where he managed large landscape design and construction projects. He is a registered landscape architect, an ISA Certified Arborist®, and holds a master’s degree in Horticulture from The Ohio State University. His book, Principles of Ecological Landscape Design, published by Island Press, applies current scientific thinking to the design and management of successful, sustainable landscapes.
Registration is required. Register online or call 336-996-7888. Bring your lunch. The Garden will provide drinks.
Paul J. Ciener BotaniCal Garden 215 S. Main Street, Kernersville 336-996-7888 www.cienerbotanicalgarden.org
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
February 2018
O.Henry 87
Downtown Greensboro
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88 O.Henry
February 2018
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
GreenScene
Kelei McCormick, Christian Bejos
Lager Haus/Biergarten Opening Red Oak Brewery Thursday, December 14, 2017
Photographs by Lynn Donovan Amy Mehaffey, Sherry Stehman, Wendy Rigney
Jake Wrightenberry, Win Maddin
Jimmy Allred, Ricky Sharpe, Gary Rutledge, Jimmy Clendenin
Josie Kite, Bob Evans
Ann Lynch, Russ Williams Kristen & Pete Landreth
Mary Lacklen, Allen Odom, Brian Holdridge Charles Pate, Brianna Pimentel, Wilson, Clay Jones
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Greg Johnson, Tom Olson Meshell & Michael Goldstein
Vickie Harrington, Nikki Miller-Ka
February 2018
O.Henry 89
Floral Design Delivery Service Home Décor & Gifts Weddings & Special Events We have chocolates, romantic candles, and beautiful flowers for your perfect Valentine! 1616 Battleground Avenue, Suite D-1 Greensboro, NC 27408
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90 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
GreenScene
Liz Smith, Alden Lamar
Jeff, Ben & Nathan Hodge
Piedmont Winterfest
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Photographs by Lynn Donovan
Amy, Jennifer, Christian & Raquel Gomez
Marcus Harmon, Eileen Khaosanga
Ellie Harris, Mia Gray
Jason, Jordan, Joanna & Janet Nim
Natalie & Joshua Flores
Patrick & Braelin Callan
Tricia Lamar, Pam & Pete Fairhall
Carolyn & James Hanigan
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Alli & Susan Turner
Patti Hoyt, Mariah Dortch
Jacob Haslam, Tori Mann
February 2018
O.Henry 91
GreenScene
James, Tony & Taj Raleigh
Bart Ortiz Jr, John Ortiz, Bart Ortiz Sr
Tex & Shirley’s at Friendly Center’s Last Day Sunday, December 24, 2017
Photographs by Lynn Donovan
Ashlee & Emyra Brown, Jeremiah Guy, Deandra Vanstory, Charles Brown, Nevaeh Gibson
Steve, Deanna & Lauren Levine
Ashok, Shashi & Thej Khanna, Bharthi Reddy
Jasmine Gainey, Charles McArthur Elliott, Harrison, Faye & Arnold Rogers
Charlie, Caroline, Muriel & Doug Alexander, Jamie Dietz
Melinda Means, Tony Schallert Randall Williams, Bryce Russell
Mattia & Jorge Cardenas, Nadja Schmidt, Matthew Crompton, Taylor Brock, Francesca Botero
Daniel Witte, Mackenzie Meyers
92 O.Henry
February 2018
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A house you love in the neighborhood you desire
110 SunSet Drive, GreenSb oro, nC Irving Park brick home that was built with serenity and family comfort in mind. Situated overlooking the golf course, 5 BR, 5 full BAs, 2 half BAs, Master BR on main level, open floor plan and custom built details. Bonus room, covered Porch, screened Porch. 3rd level wired & plumbed to finish if desired. Attached 2-car garage.
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O.Henry 93
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February 2018
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The Accidental Astrologer
No Rules for Radicals
Aquarians march to the beat of a different drummer By Astrid Stellanova
While I ain’t gonna say Aquarians are wild, they sure are exciting, enticing and
(usually) socially engaged. Let’s add radical and (sometimes) irresistible to their qualities. A short list of these rule-breaking celebrities: Galileo, Christina Ricci, Christian Dior, Darwin, Dickens, Ellen DeGeneres, Mozart, Thomas Edison, Michael Jordan, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Paris Hilton, Mia Farrow. Two presidents were Aquarians: Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. Ad Astra — Astrid
Aquarius (January 20–February 18) It’s like saying fire is hot or water is wet to say how much an Aquarian wants to be original and independent. You are wired to march to a drumbeat that is your own. Don’t fight it. When you give in to this most prized inclination, Sugar, it is not only a thing of envy but even your enemies (who are few) admire it, though they may moan and groan about it. You are a jewel in the good Lord’s ring. Pisces (February 19–March 20) Pump the brakes, Thelma (or was it Louise?) The cliff ahead may look like it offers the best view but you are not gonna like the consequences. Two people take special interest in you, and, if nothing else, try to serve as a good example. (Or, Baby Cakes, you can always serve by being a bad example if that’s your aim.) Aries (March 21–April 19) You tried to fit in, didn’t you? But no more schlumpadinka, Baby. It’s time for you to enjoy your fashionista side. You didn’t get where you are by trying to hide your glory. Maybe you have to tamp down the splurging, but don’t even think about conforming when it comes to your sense of style. Taurus (April 20–May 20) Some say the best way to burn fat is on the cooking stove, and, Honey, you do love your grease. But time to get off the biscuits and gravy train and go straight towards your new destiny as a fit person. You’ve had some warning signs and take them to heart. Gemini (May 21–June 20) Give you a straw, and you could suck all the air outta the room. You have been too full of righteous indignation, and it is alienating your friends and family. Lighten up, Sweet Thang! If you don’t learn anything else from old Astrid, who is the Queen of Self Righteous Anger, take this lesson to heart: Your wrath and indignation have never done a thing to win hearts and minds. Cancer (June 21–July 22) It’s bring your wine to work day! No, seriously, it is actually bring yourself to work day. You did take a necessary step back from your out-of-control job, but maybe you overcorrected. Get back down to business and settle into the routine. Balance is good, and so is discipline.
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Leo (July 23–August 22) Privately, you tell yourself that if you had a fault, it is that you’re less loveable than you used to be. Is your ego just slap crazy? The truth is, little Leo, nobody loves you quite like you love yourself. Try, just try, to love somebody else with that same passion. Virgo (August 23–September 22) I know, Sugar. You have been a rock to a lot of people and you are justifiably tired. Sometimes, you should look in the mirror and say: “I cannot be an adult today. I will let my inner child play all it wants to.” That’s going to bring you a break — even if only for one day. Libra (September 23–October 22) When you came into this world, you brought a whole lot of light to some very dark corners in your family life. You still do. If you don’t love yourself for this, Honey, just know that everyone else does. In late spring, you are going to make a new friend who will help empower you and leverage your career. Scorpio (October 23–November 21) The odds are not against you, Love Bug, but you get down in the dumps and think the dice are loaded. Your turn to win is coming up; keep your chin up and keep in the game. Meanwhile, a neighbor is really hoping you will draw them into your inner circle. They are, like you, surprisingly shy and need a nudge. Sagittarius (November 22–December 21) By the time you are reading this, you have had a shoulda-coulda-woulda moment. Be like the Disney tune and “let it go.” Your best was good enough — it just wasn’t appreciated. Show yourself the same kindness you show others — and keep on keeping on. The road is long and you have a second chance. Capricorn (December 22–January 19) See that trophy fish stuck over the mantel? If it had just kept its mouth shut, it would still be swimming in the sea. Every time you look at that trophy, ask yourself if you have been as discreet as you oughta be. And ask yourself if it isn’t ironic you hooked, baited and caught that fish yourself. OH
For years, Astrid Stellanova owned and operated Curl Up and Dye Beauty Salon in the boondocks of North Carolina until arthritic fingers and her popular astrological readings provoked a new career path. February 2018
O.Henry 95
O.Henry Ending
The Unkindest Cut By Cynthia Adams
As the narrator
of educational TV programs droned on about the Foucault pendulum or the mating habits of sloth, my husband, Don, loved having his thick hair tugged and pulled.
His barber, Mr. Burgess, actually thinned it. Don would always return from his shop with stories about Mr. Burgess’s investments — and a peculiarly militaristic haircut. Then, Mr. Burgess hit 100 and closed shop. After sitting in the company of unhurried men who let stories fall out of their mouths as clipped hair fell around their draped shoulders, Don and his fine head of hair were adrift after Mr. Burgess hung up his clippers. Patronizing walk-in shops, Don became experimental after a persuasive female barber convinced him it was more stylish. Stylish was a new possibility! The longer length was all well and good until Don snagged an interview with a conservative firm. He purchased an interview suit, tie, shirt and wingtips, but decided to fly unshorn to the interview early Monday morning. As Don polished his CV, I started thinking. I had plunged into dog grooming with a new pair of dog clippers. Admittedly, our dogs looked a bit off. Mottled skin shone through in a few unfortunate places on their withers, rumps and legs. But they wriggled and protested, so the outcome in no way reflected my grooming skills. After convincing Don he couldn’t go off on this job interview looking shaggy, he perched tensely on the toilet seat. The razor thrummed against my palms, ticklish and heavy. “Just a little overall,” he reminded, his eyebrows arched downward. I aimed the clippers straight at the very top of Don’s forehead to establish a baseline — and cut a 3-by-3-inch swath. A hunk of black hair fell to the floor and pink skin peaked out from beneath the razor’s trajectory. “Hunh!” I blurted out. Don’s eyebrows flew up. “What did you do???” he shouted. “Sit back down,” I reproached. “You would never jump up like that if Mr. Burgess was giving you a cut.” But this wasn’t a baseline; this was a tragic miscalculation. The beginnings of a Mohawk. “It’s just a little short. For you.” I explained. (It would be short by anyone’s standards, unless, say, you were an aboriginal into ritual scarification.) “How short?!” “Oh, a little shorter than Mr. Burgess’s cuts.” That was the first of a rapid series of lies. Don looked in the mirror. “Oh. My. God.” he sputtered. I laughed.
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February 2018
Which I’m prone to do when something goes tragically wrong. He touched his scalp with a tentative finger. “Wait, let me fix it! It’s just the first baseline cut.” I protested. “This thing didn’t cut that close with the dogs,” I argued. (The only true thing I said that Sunday afternoon.) Don rounded on me, snatching away the vibrating razor. “You turned it the wrong way! You turned it downward to shave and shaved a strip of hair off the top of my head! In the very middle of my forehead!” The gash atop his forehead matched the spreading pink of his face. “But I like it,” I lied instantly. What a fantastic lie this was. He scowled. “You could wear a hat!” “To a job interview? Seriously?” Don was apoplectic. We discussed barber options on a late Sunday afternoon. I sprinted to find the phone book. Only one salon was open. Cowardly and embarrassed, I waited in the car as Don went inside. He returned unrecognizable. His fine, luscious thick hair was now a few centimeters long. What would the interviewer think? That Don had head lice? That he was into gangsta chic? So I lied again. “I love it!” I exclaimed. Don glowered. On Monday morning, Don wore a new suit, crisp shirt and Windsorknotted tie for the Big Deal Interview. His “I’m game!” gait was off. But when he returned home on Tuesday, a smile wreathed his face. He dropped his bags. “No big deal,” Don said. “I don’t think I’m actually a very good fit for that place.” I had undercut him. Short cut him. Fifteen years passed. Don developed his father’s receding hairline. His hair is no longer dark or lush. Of late, though, he has been growing it. Last Sunday, I eyed him as he shaved. “I could even that up, just a little,” I ventured, touching his graying locks. “No,” Don flatly replied. “Just with scissors,” I added. “No. Nope. Never.” “Well, that was an unfortunate thing about the razor,” I mumbled. A final, stupefying lie. “You know,” Don added, searching my face, “I was wrong for that job. I wouldn’t have liked it.” We stood inside the sweet silence. We both understood that sometimes half-truths are the only way to super glue a relationship back to the sticking place. And we smiled. OH Greensboro-based, frequent O.Henry contributor Cynthia Adams has been a storyteller all of her life. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Married life on the razor’s edge
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