BHHSYostandLittle.com/827224
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815 Woodland Drive, Greensboro
8 Granville Oaks Court, Greensboro
4311 Ravenstone Drive, Greensboro
B A R B A R A WA L E S 336 –314– 0141
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K AY E B R I N K L E Y 336 – 686 –7292
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5806 Harriet Court, Summerfield
6978 Toscana Trace, Summerfield
5802 Scotland Oaks Court, Greensboro
MELISSA GREER 336 –337–5233
NANCY HESS 336 –215 –1820
JA R E E TO D D 336 – 601 –4892
$795,000
BHHSYostandLittle.com/809452
$795,000
BHHSYostandLittle.com/824013
$744,900
BHHSYostandLittle.com/828780
6861 Matzinger Court, Oak Ridge
6109 Mountian Brook Road, Greensboro
707 Blair Street, Greensboro
MELISSA GREER 336 –337–5233
JA N E CO H E N 336 – 681 –4502
S A L LY M I L L I K I N 336 –337–7230
$650,000
$639,900
$600,000
Adams Farm 336 – 854 –1333 • Elm Street 336 –272– 0151 • Friendly Center 336 –370 – 4000 ©2017 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently operated subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate, and a franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc.® Equal Housing Opportunity.
This is the story of a selfless nurse and a 1.5-lb. girl wonder. Infants are a passion for Cathy Wyler, RN, and neonatal care is her calling. On the day Demi Idowu came into this world born 16 weeks early, Cathy and the rest of the dedicated team at Cone Health Women’s Hospital immediately began to do what they do best. Along with the constant, loving presence of her parents, Demi received the exceptional physical and emotional care that has enabled her to become the healthy, playful 3-year-old she is today.
Learn more about Cathy, Demi and her mother Ayoola at ConeHealth.com/stories
E X C E P T I O N A L C A R E . E V E R Y D AY.™
16 Loch Ridge Drive Exceptional luxury inside & out in this custom built home overlooking Buffalo Lake. Resort style living in popular Provincetown. Main floor includes light filled foyer, step down living room with incredible lake views, formal dining room, wall of windows in expansive kitchen-family room -breath taking! Wood paneled library or office adjacent to master suite. Upper level bedrooms, baths & bonus plus third floor media lounge, bar & exercise room. Entertain beautifully on the bluestone terrace & gardens. Salt pool
Katie L. Redhead GRI, CRS Broker/Owner/REALTORÂŽ 336.430.0219 mobile 336.274.1717 office
900 Rockford Rd $3,750,000
8121 Riesling Dr $2,995,000
3215 N Rockingham Rd $2,900,000
814 Northern Shore Ln $2,250,000
2302 Princess Ann St $1,699,000
17 Flagship Cove $1,330,000
1415 Kellenberger DR $849,000
5900 Stoneleigh Pl $799,900
4006 Gaston Ct $795,000
2100 Berkshire Ln $759,000
7517 Henson Forest Dr $758,900
1 Chesterfield Ct $729,000
2104 Rockglen Ln $610,000
1904 Huntington Rd $599,000
512 Woodland Dr $598,000
201 N. Elm St $581K – 266K
1106 Dover Rd $575,000
7732 US HY 158 $575,000
2910 Round Hill Rd $463,000
704 Nottingham Rd $449,900
2107 Medford Ln $449,000
2904 Hamden Dr $429,000
7579 Adler Rd $425,000
1107 Hammel Rd $389,000
UC
3403 Annry Dr $309,900
109 W Brentwood Rd $299,800
7708 US HWY 158 $275,000
1808 Independence RD $259,500
1512 Colonial Ave $249,800
6102 Auburndale Dr $224,900
UC
1412 West Lake Dr $217,000
4417 Oakcliff Rd $197,000
19C Fountain Manor Dr $179,900
1700 N Elm St #J3 $125,000
2313 Markland Dr $120,000
1700 N Elm St #H1 $119,000
7A Fountain Manor Dr $119,000
4113 Beckford Dr $115,000
1700 N Elm #P6 $99,500
6307 Alley Ridge Way $70,000
Willow Wind Dr Lots $42,500– 30K
1315 Joyce St $38,000
16 Loch Ridge Rd $1,295,000
104 Nut Bush Rd E $1,275,000
219 Manchester Pl $1,100,000
2105 Berkshire Ln $914,000
4200 Cranleigh Dr $895,000
1402 Briarcliff Rd $849,000
1704 Willow Wick Dr $719,900
705 Blair St $699,000
3806 Hazel Ln $699,000
537 Woodland Dr $679,000
5552 Drake Rd $650,000
11 Hobbs Pl $615,000
4208 Brambletye Dr $555,000
3412 Donnington Ct $535,400
5309 Mecklenburg Rd $528,000
5107 Heddon Way $525,000
314 Lemons Rd $480,000
303 Topwater Ln $465,000
5406 Mecklenburg Rd $375,000
3005 Redford Dr $369,000
12 Linden Ln $345,000
22 Checkerberry Sq $339,000
2205 Wright Ave $325,000
SEE ONE YOU LIKE?
To arrange a showing or get more information on one of these charming homes, call one of our agents or visit trmhomes.com today.
Marti Tyler 336.210.7503
Rodney Hazel 336.254.8946
Meredith Parsons 336.202.7070
Katie Redhead 336.430.0219
Wendi Huffman 336.254.4122
Elizabeth Pell 336.447.5516
Alec McAlister 336.707.0463
Kelli Kupiec 336.541.0832
Charlotte Quinn 336.314.4105
Karen Bickham Jobe 336.430.6552
Maggie Marston 336.253.2467
Lori Richardson 336.549.4414
Shane Morris 336.416.3922
Leslie Stainback 336.508.5634
Jill Oakley 336.456.6077
Preston Young 336.420.1478
Stacey U. Ofsanko 336.404.6342
Patty Yow 336.255.9369
Frank Slate Brooks 336.708.0479
trmhomes.com / 336.274.1717
Kristen Haynes 336.209.3382
The most important part of imaging is seeing the patient’s concerns clearly. The best doctors consider more than what shows up on a scan. Radiologists at Greensboro Imaging pay attention to people—their hopes, their worries and their families. So we recommend preventive imaging procedures to catch issues early, before the worries get too big. Whether it’s time for a mammogram or lung cancer screening or you need answers from an MRI or ultrasound, our specialists are never far away. greensboroimaging.com • 336.433.5000
Offering you a variety of homes and lifestyles all through Greensboro and the County! Let us know what you’re looking for and we’ll find it for you!
802 Northern Shores Point
Estate setting and gated community is perfect for the “car” lover! You can’t miss this one of a kind custom home built by Southern Structures. Wonderful floor plan with large windows to enjoy the view. Garage on first and lower level.
16 Hines Park Lane
Maintenance free living at it’s best. Spacious “Birch B” floor plan built by D. Stone Builders. Large closed in patio for privacy. Wonderful floor plan! Large dining at entrance that flows into kitchen with island, gas range. loads of cabinets & walk-in pantry.
8161 Apple Grove
Lake view is always a plus! Located in the Western Section of the county, this gorgeous R&K built home boasts a screened porch overlooking the lake. Over 3,700 sq ft with 4 bedrooms, office/living room, bonus with 2 built in beds.
7720 Twin Leaf
Large family home in NW Guilford County with exceptional features! Better than new custom built home located on a quiet street in the back of Henson Forest. Removed from the new highway, but with all the convenience!
SMITHMARKETINGINC.COM BETTY SMITH: 336.451.4923 • betty.smith@allentate.com l JEFF SMITH: 336.215.7880 • jeff.smith@allentate.com
May 2017
DEPARTMENTS 17 Simple Life By Jim Dodson 20 Short Stories 23 Doodad By Ogi Overman 25 Life’s Funny By Maria Johnson 27 Omnivorous Reader By Stephen Smith 31 Scuppernong Bookshelf 35 Papadaddy’s Mindfield By Clyde Edgerton 39 True South By Susan Kelly 41 The Road Home By Caroline Hamilton Langerman
45 Gate City Journal By Grant Britt 49 52 55 57
Life of Jane
By Jane Borden
The Pleasures of Life By Maggie Dodson
Birdwatch
By Susan Campbell
Wandering Billy By Billy Eye
94 Arts Calendar 113 GreenScene 119 Accidental Astrologer By Astrid Stellanova 120 O.Henry Ending By Cynthia Adams
FEATURES 63 Cave Men Poetry by Joseph Mills The Art of Design: 64 The Color Purple By Cyntia Adams How Linda Lane finesses fabric
66 Bicycles Spoke-n Here By Maria Johnson The two-wheeled designs of David Johnson
68 Designing Woman By Cynthia Adams Carolyn Shaw’s furniture magic
70 Revolutionary Design By Billy Ingram
An industrial icon from Greensboro’s past time tunnels to the present with a brilliantly scaled human campus
76 The Art of Imperfection By Maria Johnson The intentional and unintentional meet in Leslie and David Moore’s High Point home
93 May Almanac By Ash Alder Beltane, dandelions and maypoles
Cover Photograph by Bert VanderVeen Photograph this page by Amy Freeman
8 O.Henry
May 2017
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Art for Eyes | Eye for Arts Fine Eyewear, Artwork and Jewelry 327 South Elm | Greensboro 336.274.1278 | TheViewOnElm.com Becky Causey, Licensed Optician Find us on Facebook
DESIGN
your look
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Ask a designer or visit ethanallen.com for details. Sale going on for a limited time. ©2017 Ethan Allen Global, Inc.
Be the wellspring of
Friendship.
A wellspring is an abundant source. And that’s what our friendly, welcoming community feels like — an abundant source of opportunities to grow, connect, and make new friends. As a Life Plan Community, Well•Spring offers not only a
A LIFE PLAN COMMUNITY
maintenance-free lifestyle, but also security and peace of mind for the future — which means you’ll have plenty of time for adventure with friends, old and new.
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CARF/CCAC ACCREDITED SINCE 2003
M A G A Z I N E
Are you a candidate for a partial knee replacement? Not every arthritic knee needs a total knee replacement
Volume 7, No. 5 “I have a fancy that every city has a voice.” 336.617.0090 1848 Banking Street, Greensboro, NC 27408 www.ohenrymag.com Jim Dodson, Editor • jim@thepilot.com Andie Stuart Rose, Art Director • andie@thepilot.com Nancy Oakley, Senior Editor • nancy@ohenrymag.com Lauren Coffey, Graphic Designer Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Matthew D. Olin, MD
has been certified & master course trained for the BioMet Oxford Partial Knee Replacement since its introduction to the US in 2004. To schedule an appointment with Matthew D. Olin, MD to determine if this surgery is for you. Call: 336.545.5030
Dr. Olin specializes in anterior hip replacement surgery, partial & total knee replacement surgery, in addition to revision hip & knee replacement surgery.
Cynthia Adams, David Claude Bailey, Harry Blair, Maria Johnson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Lynn Donovan, Amy Freeman, Sam Froelich, John Gessner, Bert VanderVeen CONTRIBUTORS
Ash Alder, Jane Borden, Grant Britt, Susan Campbell, Maggie Dodson, Clyde Edgerton, Billy Eye, Ross Howell Jr., Billy Ingram, Sara King, Susan Kelly, Carolina Hamilton Langerman, Brian Lampkin, Meridith Martens, Joseph Mills, Ogi Overman, Romey Petite, Stephen Smith, Astrid Stellanova
O.H
PUBLISHER
David Woronoff ADVERTISING SALES
Ginny Trigg, Sales Director 910.691.8293, ginny@thepilot.com Hattie Aderholdt, Sales Manager 336.601.1188, hattie@ohenrymag.com
Scan to watch an interactive video of a partial knee replacement.
Lisa Bobbitt, Sales Assistant 336.617.0090, ohenryadvertising@thepilot.com Brad Beard, Graphic Designer Lisa Allen, 336.210.6921 • lisa@ohenrymag.com Amy Grove, 336.456.0827 • amy@ohenrymag.com Jaime Wortman, 336.707.3461 • jaime@ohenrymag.com CIRCULATION
Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488 SUBSCRIPTIONS
336.617.0090
©Copyright 2017. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. O.Henry Magazine is published by The Pilot LLC
For more information about Dr. Olin and surgery visit www.GreensboroOrthopaedics.com
12 O.Henry
May 2017
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
100 Years 5Generations 1 Name
From Our Family to Yours for 100 Years From Christmas dinners to firstday-of-school breakfasts — and all the little moments in between — we’re proud to be a part of your family tradition. Try Neese’s and you’ll see why we’ve been the sausage of choice for a century.
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SPRING IS HERE AND THE HEAT WILL SOON FOLLOW. IS YOUR COOLING SYSTEM READY?
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MAINTAINING YOUR HVAC SYSTEM like your car is extremely important and will affect the life expectancy of each. Small unknown problems can turn into major repairs. We are a factory trained comfort specialist dealer who takes pride when performing a system maintenance. Special financing offers available for qualified Trane equipment til May 31, 2017. Up to $1000 Trade-in Allowance or No Interest Plans
Clean it now, and you won’t have to resurrect it later. AVOID THE HORROR.
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Simple Life
Going Home By Jim Dodson
Half a century ago this
month, I was chased off the golf course of my dad’s club in Greensboro for losing my cool and burying a putter in the flesh of an innocent green during my first 18 holes ever on a regulation course. To compound the crime, I was playing with my dad and his two regular golf pals at the time, Bill Mims and Alex the Englishman.
After being shown how to properly repair the damaged green, my straightarrow old man calmly insisted that I walk all the way back to the clubhouse in order to report my crime to Green Valley’s famously profane and colorfully terrifying head professional, who upon hearing what I’d done removed the eternally smoldering stogie from the right-hand corner of his mouth long enough to banish me from the golf course until midsummer. This felt like a death sentence because I had been preparing for this day for well over a year, wearing out local par-3 courses and modest public courses in preparation for stepping up to a “real” golf course with my dad and his buddies. The idea was that I should become reasonably proficient at playing but — more important — learn the rules and proper etiquette of the ancient game. Painful as it was, this day, it changed my life. The next afternoon after church, a postcard Sunday in early May, my dad drove me 90 minutes south from the Piedmont to the Sandhills to show me famed Pinehurst No. 2, Donald Ross’ masterpiece, where I saw golfers walking along perfect fairways and actually heard a hymn being chimed through the stately longleaf pines. True to form, my upbeat old man — whom I called “Opti the Mystic” owing to his relentless good cheer and penchant for quoting long-dead sages when you least expected it — calmly pointed out: “That golf course, Sport, is one of the most famous in the world. But you’ll never get to play there until you learn to properly behave on the golf course.” He added, “If you ever do, you’ll be surprised how far this wonderful game can take you.” I was crestfallen as we drove on past the famous course. But a few miles down Midland Road we turned into a small hotel that had its own golf course, the Mid Pines Inn and Golf Club. “Let’s step inside,” my dad casually suggested. “I’ll introduce you to an old friend.” His old friend was a man named Ernie Boros, the brother of Julius Boros, the U.S. Open winner I’d recently tagged along after at the Greater Greensboro Open whenever I wasn’t shadowing my hero, Arnold Palmer. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Ernie Boros couldn’t have been nicer, offering me a free visor along with the news that his famous brother Julius happened to be having lunch at that moment in the dining room. He graciously offered to introduce us. The encounter was brief but warm. The great man asked me how I liked golf and commented that if I continued to grow in the game, the odds were good that I would meet the most amazing people on Earth and play some incredible golf courses. Then he offered to sign my new visor. “Wasn’t that something?” said Opti as we wandered out to look at the 18th hole of Mid Pines, which that day, wreathed with dogwoods and banks of azalea just past bloom stage, looked every bit as magical as Augusta National did on television. “You just never know who you’ll meet in golf. Tell you what,” he added almost as an afterthought, “if you think you can knock off the shenanigans, maybe we can play the golf course here today.” And with that, I finally got to play my first full championship golf course. It only took another two decades (and my mom fessing up) for me to realize that the whole affair was simply a sweet setup by my funny and philosophical old man — a classic Opti the Mystic exercise to illustrate the point of learning how to live life with joy, gratitude and optimism, not to mention respect for a game older than the U.S. Constitution. And here’s the most amazing thing of all. Both men were correct in their assessments of golf’s social and metaphysical properties. If I’d been less awestruck and a little more tuned into the universe, perhaps I’d have heard echoes of the same message coming from Opti and Julius Boros — that the ancient game could take you amazing places and introduce you to some of the finest people on Earth. A fuller account of this teenage epiphany opens the pages of The Range Bucket List, my new — and possibly final — golf book that reaches bookstores May 9. Fittingly, the memoir appears almost 50 years to the day after that life-altering weekend. In a nutshell, the book is simply my love letter to an old game that, true to my old man’s words, took me much farther than I could ever have imagined it could, deeply enriched — and possibly even saved — my life. It even eventually brought me home again to North Carolina. Not long after turning 30, taking the advice of Opti to “write about things you love,” I withdrew from consideration for a long-hoped-for journalism job in Washington to relocate to a trout stream in Vermont where I went to work for Yankee magazine as that iconic publication’s first senior writer (and Southerner), a move which helped shape the values of this magazine and opened an unexpected door to the world of golf. This move in turn led to Final Rounds, a surprise bestseller about taking Opti back to England and Scotland to play the golf courses where he fell hard for the game as a homesick soldier prior to D-Day. My dad was dying of cancer at the time. It was indeed our final golf trip. May 2017
O.Henry 17
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Simple Life
Among other surprises, the book prompted Arnold and Winnie Palmer to get in touch, inviting me to spend two years living and traveling with them as we crafted Arnold’s own best-selling memoir, A Golfer’s Life. An enduring friendship and nine books followed, four of which were golf-related, including the authorized biography of Ben Hogan and a biography of America’s own great triumvirate of Sam Snead, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson. A few years back, while looking through an a trunk full of my boyhood stuff from my late mother’s house, I found my first three golf books and a small notebook that listed 11 items on my “Things To Do In Golf” list. Here’s the list: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Meet Arnold Palmer and Mr. Bobby Jones Play the Old Course at St Andrews Make a Hole in One Play on the PGA Tour Get new clubs Break 80 (Soon!) Live in Pinehurst Find Golf Buddies like Bill, Alex and Richard (my dad’s regular Saturday group) 9. Caddie at the GGO 10. Have a girlfriend who plays golf 11. Play golf in Brazil
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That was it, short and sweet. If you’d have informed me when I cobbled this list together (probably the year before I got the boot from Green Valley) — the predecessor of what decades later I came to call my Range Bucket List — that I would accomplish in some form or another everything on this list and then some over the next half century, I probably would have laughed out loud in disbelief — or simply keeled over from pure glandular teenage joy. In simplest terms, that’s what The Range bucket List is, a grateful Everyman’s love poem to the finest game on Earth, tales I’ve never been able to tell until now about Arnold and Winnie Palmer, John Updike, Glenna Vare, amateur great Bill Campbell, LPGA icon Jackie Pung, the greatest Scottish woman on Earth, the power of a best friend and the ultimate mulligan at marriage, low Old Course comedy and how — true to Opti’s words — the game deeply enriched my life and even brought me safely home to North Carolina again. There’s even an oddly revealing account about a peculiar afternoon of golf with a guy named Trump. I hope those who enjoy my books find this tale amusingly human, perhaps even reminding them of their own travels through the game of life and their love affair with a grand old game. Every golfer worth his salt, after all, keeps a Range Bucket List. And everyone’s list is different. I’ll be making the rounds in the state throughout the spring and summer, spinning some of these tales and others I’ve never told, meeting like-minded sons and daughters of the game who share my passion for its many unexpected gifts. Perhaps we’ll meet at one of these gatherings. Maybe by then I’ll have even figured out why I was so hot to play golf in Brazil, the only item from that list from so long ago, still waiting for a check mark. The List, like life itself, goes on. That’s part of the fun, and the sweet mystery of golf. OH
THE BOOK DEBUT! Jim Dodson will be reading from and discussing The Range Bucket List at 7 p.m. on May 9 at Barnes & Noble at Friendly Center (3102 Northline Avenue, Greensboro). For more info visit https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/store/2795
Photography Courtesy of Joshua McClure
Contact Editor Jim Dodson at jim@thepilot.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
May 2017
O.Henry 19
Gone Fisher-in’
Meaning, Fisher Park, the location of Preservation Greensboro’s Tour of Homes. One of the oldest neighborhoods in Greensboro and an example of what PGI President Benjamin Briggs describes as a “streetcar suburb,” Fisher Park will showcase eight historic houses on the tour, including the one that everyone in the Gate City has been talking about of late: Hillside, once the residence of Ethel Clay and Julian Price. Tickets are available around town or online at preservationgreensboro.org.
Mobile App(etite)
Pulp Pieces
It’s been on a bit of a hiatus since 2014, due to Weatherspoon Art Museum’s 75th anniversary celebrations, but on May 21, the biennial exhibition, Art on Paper returns. Consisting of works in which paper is used as a surface or a medium in itself, Art on Paper has contributed to the growth of the museum’s collections: With support from xpedx, formerly Dillard Paper Company, and the Dillard Fund, Weatherspoon has been able to purchase more than 600 works since the exhibit’s inception in 1965. Info: weatherspoonmuseum.org.
O.Henry Family: Safe at Home
Frequent O. Henry contributor Kevin Reid once said that if the Cubs ever won a World Series, he would die a happy man. Last year the Cubbies kept their end of the bargain, and on March 24 of this year, Kevin kept his. Regarded as a savant of sorts in both baseball and R&B music, Kevin could tell you that, say, Ray Jablonski hit .289 in 1957 or that the Crests had the far better version of “Sh-boom” than the Crewcuts (and why) — but misplaced his car keys on a daily basis. He authored two books: Country Hardball: The Autobiography of Enos “Country” Slaughter and Greensboro: Images of Modern America. The old ballyard just won’t be the same.
20 O.Henry
May 2017
All aboard the “Triple T Express,” officially known as Triad Touring Tasters! Launched late last month by Triad Local First, the initiative is uniting local communities through food. Here’s how it works: a group of 17 gourmands or “tasters” gathers at a Greensboro restaurant, or some purveyor of food, boards a luxury bus provided by Matt Logan LLC and travels to another Triad city to explore one of its eateries. The initial venture in April started at Zeto’s before heading to Willow’s Bistro in Winston-Salem. This month, foodies will board Matt Logan’s magic bus on May 23 at Crafted — The Art of the Taco (219-A South Elm Street) and travel to its newest sister restaurant, Crafted, in the Twin City’s Arts District. Info: triadlocalfirst.org. Tickets: eventbrite.com
Worth the Drive to . . . . . . the Yadkin Valley! The Yadkin Riverkeeper kicks off its series of paddles on N.C.’s longest river at 9 a.m. on May 21with the WKZL-FM Paddle-a-thon. The 9.3-mile journey begins and ends — via shuttle — at Childress Vineyards in Lexington, where there will be food, beverages and live music from Indie/ folk artist Emma Lee. Can’t make it May? No worries! Subsequent monthly paddles — some of which explore farther reaches near Elkin and the Kerr Scott Dam in North Wilkesboro — are scheduled from June through September. To register for each paddle (separately), visit yadkinriverkeeper. org or call (336) 722-4949.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
UNTITLED #3”, 2014, FROM THE SERIES “CHIMATEK”, MIXED MEDIA COLLAGE ON PAPER, 45 5/8 X 32 3/4 IN. © SAYA WOOLFALK, COURTESY LESLIE. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF LYNN DONOVAN
Short Stories
Stamens and Pistils and Puppets, Oh My!
Want to know more about pollination but afraid to ask? Jabberbox Puppet Theater presents Beauty and the Botanist, an original one-act play — inspired by a Fred Chappell short story — about Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus and a maverick female protégé, written and performed by Deborah Seabrooke and Marianne Gingher. Join the merriment for salon-style adult puppet theater (limited to 20 guests per performance) featuring Jabberbox’s trademark “brief puppet nudity.” Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30 p.m. on May 19, 20, 26, and 27 and June 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, and 17. Sunday matinees are at 2:00 p.m. on May 21, 28, and June 4, 11, and 18. Curtains open at 301 East Hendrix Street. Be sure to arrive a half-hour before evening curtain time for wine and homemade desserts on the porch. Tickets are $15 evenings, $10 matinees. For more information about discounts, special weekday performances and reservations, visit www.jabberboxpuppettheater.com, email deb.seabrooke@gmail.com, or call (336) 272-7888.
Ogi Sez Ogi Overman
Those of us, um, of a certain age, might remember dancing around the maypole in our youth. And while that tradition seems to have died out, the dancing part is alive and well. Only now it happens in concert halls, ballrooms and nightclubs, with live bands supplanting the poles. And May has some good ones (bands, that is).
• May 6, Cone Denim Entertainment
Sauce of the Month
I couldn’t wait. I broke out my new bottle of BabyBolo’z at breakfast. Swimming in a sea of cilantro and 13 different kinds of vegetables, my two eggs, sunny-side up, sizzled away in a savory sauce of eight peppers. At lunch, I doused my nachos with Greensboro entrepreneur George Lopez’s “Taste of Cuba” — a combination salsa-hot sauce-pico de gallo-marinade. Come supper, I heaped it atop some smoked country ribs, and it sang out loud and clear, without a note of sugar. George says no one’s tried it on oatmeal. Welllllll, with a little sour cream, it’s not half bad. BabyBolo’z Hot Sauce and Marinade is available at Super G Mart, Triad Meat Co. or at George’s test kitchen/office by appointment. Info: babyboloz.wixsite.com/hotsauce.
Barn Burner
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF JANET COOPER-BRIDGE
Antiques, vintage gardening tools, baskets, boxwood wreaths, lavender, soaps and lotions . . . If you have a penchant for rustic elegance à la française, then head to The French Farmer’s Wife, a refurbished barn in Kernersville (1987 Beeson Road), that hosts monthly sales held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. over a period of three days. And be sure to get there early, as merchandise goes fast. This month’s sale will be held Mother’s Day Weekend (May 11th, 12th and 13th). To learn more, go to www.facebook.com/TheFrenchFarmersWifeNC/ and pick up a copy of the Summer issue of O.Henry’s sister publication, Seasons, when it hits the stands in mid-June.
Center: If you’re a Journey fan — which I am — the bad news is, the closest they’ll be to Greensboro this year is Louisville, Kentucky (I checked). But the good news is, the next best thing, Trial By Fire, is in town this month. Don’t stop believin.’
• May 13, Blind Tiger: Robert
Randolph’s pedal steel guitar is called “sacred steel” for a reason. He and his Family Band may not quite turn the BT into a Pentecostal Holiness church, but fans will walk out having had a religious experience.
• May 16, Lucky 32: Close your eyes and you will swear three guitarists are playing at once. Open them and you will see Vicki Genfan playing solo. She won Guitar Player magazine’s international Guitar Superstar ’08 contest, if that tells you anything. She and local songwritingsinging-pianist pal Kristy Jackson promise to light up L32. • May 20, Greensboro Coliseum: If
there’s a hotter country act that doesn’t have states in its name than Eric Church, I can’t imagine who it would be. The superstar’s tour, called “Holdin’ My Own,” might be the understatement of the decade.
• May 25, The Crown: With spring in the air, the N.C. Brass Band is throwing an indoor picnic. The virtuoso ensemble will feature not only Sousa marches but all the jazz, pop, and American Songbook standards that are timeless.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
May 2017
O.Henry 21
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Doodad
An Audiophile’s Paradise
How Ed Parks turned an obsession into a business
S
ometimes Ed Parks must feel like a museum curator. It is not unusual for folks to walk into his place of business, spend an hour or so admiring his inventory, and walk out without making a purchase. Naturally, he would rather sell them something, but he has no qualms about letting them browse to their hearts’ content. “I get a lot of gawkers come in and I try to amuse them, knowing they have no interest in buying anything,” says the congenial businessman. “Guys our age [50-ish and up] are familiar with most of this stuff, but some of the kids don’t have a clue what some of it is.” But, purchasing power aside, what both age groups will do is spread the word, and, as Parks knows, word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising. And, in the 14 months that he has been open, word has definitely gotten around. Tucked in a 1,400- square foot former print shop beneath a strip center on Main Street in Jamestown, with no storefront exposure, Parks’s Vintage Audio Exchange has made a name for itself among not only audiophiles like himself, but collectors, turntable and vinyl purists, gearheads, musicians and electronics geeks. His massive inventory includes turntables and speakers (which he also repairs), amps (power, pre, guitar, tube, PA, integrated, etc.), equalizers, receivers, tape players (cassette, eight-track, reel-to-reel), microphones, antique radios (console and tabletop), jukeboxes, artwork and posters. Oh, and that doesn’t include the rows upon rows of categorized albums or the 12,000 45s. “My last purchase was 170 boxes of albums (25,000 in all),” he notes, almost apologetically. “I use them mainly to drive traffic in here.” Being a vintage, hands-on person by nature, Parks nonetheless has joined the global technological market. He contracted a top-notch web designer to build his website and is doing a growing percentage of his business through e-commerce. Currently he is in the process of photographing and categorizing each of his hundreds of products, a daunting task, to say the least. “I still plan to have a storefront and do repairs and take consignments,” he explains, “but you’ve got to go with the times,” adding, “We’ve made sales to people all over the U.S. and as far away as Malaysia. I just sold a gold-plated cassette deck to a guy for $5,000.” At the other end of the spectrum, if you want to buy a shiny, black vinyl Buddy Holly album, Ed Parks will sell you that, too. OH Vintage Audio Exchange is located at 702-F West Main Street, Jamestown. (336) 848-5330, stereoguy@vintageaudioexchange.com. — Ogi Overman The Art & Soul of Greensboro
May 2017
O.Henry 23
Two days of learning, networking and industry collaboration for manufacturing professionals. ncmep.org/mfgcon
Save the Date We’re excited to announce the date and location of mfgCON 2017. The event will take place September 19–20 at the Benton Convention Center in WinstonSalem, NC. This year’s agenda will be packed with breakthrough moments and inspiring stories from peer organizations that can help you tackle your toughest manufacturing challenges.
Why Attend?
REGISTRATION IS OPEN Go to https://www.ncmep.org/ to register for mfgCON 2017!
The conference offers a specialized manufacturing curriculum with more than 24 highly curated sessions featuring expert speakers and real-world case studies from your fellow NCMEP colleagues, plus four keynote presentations.
What’s New? This year, we are adding a Meet-the-Experts program. Conference attendees can schedule and meet oneon-one with top NCMEP subject matter experts to discuss strategies/issues related to the manufacturing environment. Get access to the brains behind our solutions and services.
Curriculum This year’s tracks focus on solutions in four key areas: Talent Development, Emerging Technologies and Innovation, Leadership and Culture, and Business Growth.
Life’s Funny
The Best Medicine Chillin’ with Mom and old mags By Maria Johnson
So there I was, hanging with my
84-year-old mom in a doctor’s office because, you know, that’s what you do when you’re 84 and upright: You spend days in doctors’ offices reading old magazines, waiting for doctors to refer you to other waiting rooms, where you can read more old magazines.
It’s very therapeutic, this reading of old magazines. You can rip out recipes with impunity. You feel like you’re still in style. And you learn relatively new things. For example, while sitting in a doctor’s office a few years ago, I learned that Kim Kardashian had married a guy named Kris Humphries in a $2 million “fairy tale wedding” — as if they would have spent $2 million on a fake-ivy trellis and 12-pack of Yuengling at the Elks Club. Anyway, later in the day, it occurred to me that I’d seen pictures of Kardashian and rapper Kanye West out on the town with, you know, their daughter, and I was thinking, “I wonder if Kris Humphries knows about this.” Which led me to Google something like, “Kris Humphries fool or what,” which led me to find out that Kardashian and Humphries got married in 2011 and divorced 72 days later. But hey, I never knew this in the first place, and without that tattered old magazine, Kris-what’s-his-name might have been lost to history. Mmm . . . where was I? Oh yeah, the doctor’s office. So the nurse calls my mom in and says, “Let’s get your height and weight,” which causes my mom to shed her coat, shoes, sweater, socks and earrings, spit out her gum and blow her nose. I exaggerate, of course. But not much. For the height part, mi madre draws her shoulders back, lifts her head and rivets her arms to her sides. It appears that she has just reported to Parris Island for boot camp. I recognize this because I do it, too. Everyone does. You’re trying to stretch your weight over more height, hoping to appear thinner. It’s kind of the opposite of trying to make yourself look bigger when you see a bear. You’re thinking, “Maybe if I look skinny, he’ll leave me alone.” The nurse moves on. She reports that my mom’s blood pressure is good and her temperature is “perfect.” So now my mom is getting the Big Head because she’s still warm, which is OK because, as we all know, half of feeling good physically is feeling good mentally, which makes me wonder why we all don’t just stay home and The Art & Soul of Greensboro
watch old Pinky and The Brain cartoons. But I digress. So the doctor — who hung the moon, in my humble opinion — examines my mom and declares her to be in tip-top shape. Fantastic. There’s just one thing. A bone density test has shown that my mom basically has no bones. It seems that she has been standing up on the strength of her moisturizer. Hmm. Could be a problem. So the doctor prescribes a bone-building drug called Boniva. Bonnnnn-eeeeee-vahhhhhhh. Lots of women her age take it. And who wouldn’t? It sounds so restful. Like a resort. “Welcome to Boniva. Room service is available 24-7. The pool is right over there. The bar is over there. The fake-ivy trellis is over there. (Waves to couple by the pool). That’s Kim Kardashian and Kris what’s-his-name-is. Wave while you can.” Well, the whole Boniva thing gets me to thinking about how prescription drugs sound so alluring these days. Like Lunesta, the sleep-inducing drug that sounds like a cross between a beautiful moon, a siesta and maybe a high-end moth. Or Abilify, the antipsychotic drug that sounds like the 8th habit of highly effective people. Or Levitra, which sounds like “levitate,” which I’m sure is magical experience for dudes with erectile dysfunctional until maybe four hours later, when the rabbit won’t go back in the hat, so to speak. WE INTERRUPT THIS DRUG-INDUCED REVERIE TO BRING YOU BACK TO MARIA’S MOTHER’S APPOINTMENT. OK. Right. So, technically speaking, the reason I’m here, as a Good Daughter, is to be listening and asking questions on my mom’s behalf. So I ask about the drug that the doctor has just prescribed. Me: “So, ummm, does this stuff work?” Doc: “Yes.” Me: “I see.” Good thing I’m used to asking those tough journalistic questions. What? The appointment is over? We can go? Just take a left, a left, a right, a left, go past the break room, through the janitor’s closet, and down the laundry chute to the appointment desk? Wheeeeee! Here we are. Are we available at 2:45 p.m. six months from now? Wait, that’s not Columbus Day, is it? OK, good. Then I guess we’ll be free. Until then, salud! OH Maria Johnson is open to receiving free lunches from drug reps. Contact her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com May 2017
O.Henry 25
The Omnivorous Reader
True Masterpiece The joy of rediscovering True Grit
By Stephen E. Smith
In the late 1960s,
a friend who’s an avid reader of popular fiction plowed through the novel True Grit and saw the John Wayne/Kim Darby movie on the same day, immersing himself in Charles Portis’ yarn set in Indian Territory in the late 1800s and acquiring what must have been a disconcerting insight into Hollywood’s inherent ability to mangle art (at the very least, the movie moguls could have spared us the sorry acting of Glen Campbell). About the same time, I read True Grit and concluded that the novel was chockfull of memorable characters and the quirkiest dialogue ever uttered by fictional beings who aren’t working overtime at being funny. My friend and I have been quoting lines from the novel for almost 50 years — not constantly, of course, but when our conversation happens onto a subject that might be illuminated or made humorous by a sentence or two attributable to Rooster Cogburn or Mattie Ross, we’ve never hesitated to employ Portis’ superbly crafted dialogue. I’m particularly fond of quoting from the exchange between the horse trader Stonehill (played in the original film by the inimitable Strother Martin) and Mattie as she attempts to wrangle a refund for the ponies her late father had purchased. Stonehill threatens to go to a lawyer and Mattie responds, “And I will take it up with
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
mine . . . He will make money and I will make money and your lawyer will make money and you, Mr. Licensed Auctioneer, will foot the bill.” Who hasn’t wanted to utter that sentence when dealing with a litigious tormentor? My friend is fond of quoting passages from Rooster’s hilarious, self-serving explication of his checkered past, as when he alludes to the wife and the son he abandoned: “She said, ‘Goodbye, Reuben, a love of decency does not abide in you.’ There is your divorced woman talking about decency . . . She took my boy with her too . . . You would not want to see a clumsier child than Horace. I bet he broke forty cups.” But enough. You can quote almost any passage from the novel, including sections of Mattie’s deadpan first-person narration, and you’ll likely set the table on a roar. I’m not in the habit of rereading novels, but that’s exactly what I did after seeing the Coen brothers’ adaptation of True Grit. I decided to give Portis’ novel a thorough reassessment almost a half century after my first encounter with Mattie Ross. After all, America was a very different place in 1968: the women’s movement, the war in Vietnam, the counterculture. Would the novel hold up to changes in mores and tastes? Is it as well-written as I remembered? I completed the reread, taking my time and occasionally re-evaluating scenes I judged particularly memorable, and here’s what I concluded: True Grit is great American fiction — not a great American Western — but great American fiction period, worthy of study as a literary masterwork and occupying a station commensurate with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird. Unfortunately, True Grit has never attracted the academic attention that Twain’s masterpiece and Harper Lee’s sentimental story of the South have garnered. It is a genre Western, and what self-respecting academic would publish a monograph titled “Repression, Revision, and Psychoanalysis in the Soliloquies of Rooster Cogburn”? But from the novel’s opening sentence — “People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so May 2017
O.Henry 27
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28 O.Henry
May 2017
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Omnivorous Reader strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day” — Mattie Ross establishes herself as the archetypal American hero, an individual so selfpossessed that she’s capable of rejecting collective wisdom. In that one sentence, Portis establishes a form and voice that embodies an entire sensibility, a collection of manners, mores, thoughts and feelings, faithful to the spectrum of American experience and emblematic of a rich inner and outer life. As Clarence Darrow wrote: “. . . he (an American) is never sure that he is right unless the great majority is against him.” That’s Mattie Ross, and the reader is instantly smitten. And it’s Mattie’s steady voice and an unwavering determination — as profoundly established as that of Scout Finch and Huck Finn — that propel the reader through the multiplicity of experience that confronts her. Rooster Cogburn is Mattie’s antithesis — alcoholic, vulgar, pragmatic, possessed of almost every human weakness but redeemed by fortitude and a strained, awkward sense of loyalty and a disarming honesty. “I found myself one pretty spring day in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in need of a road stake and I robbed one of them little high-interest banks there. Thought I was doing a good service. You can’t rob a thief, can you? I never robbed no citizens. I never taken a man’s watch.” When it comes to the major themes around which literature teachers construct their lessons, True Grit touches subtlety on each and every one — the frontier, the American dream, East vs. West/ North vs. South, the journey from innocence into knowledge, sense of community, sophistication vs. a lack thereof, etc. — and it does so without a trace of burdensome preachiness. But mostly, the novel is a story that suspends time, freezes the reader in a moment in our history that evolves finally into the present, giving us a sure knowledge of who we are and how we came to be here. What more can we ask of an American novel? The John Wayne and Coen brothers’ cinematic interpretations of True Grit are entertaining and reasonably faithful to the original work, but it’s Portis’ novel that’s the real deal, a solid piece of Americana that deserves to be read and studied for generations. It occurs to me, finally, that I should have said all of this 50 years ago — True Grit was as deserving of praise then as now — but as Mattie Ross articulates succinctly in the novel’s conclusion: “Time just gets away from us.” OH Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press awards.
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May 2017
O.Henry 29
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30 O.Henry
May 2017
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Scuppernong Bookshelf
May-lange New reads for spring
By Brian L ampkin
The highlights of this month’s newly
released books include timely books on the potential fall of democracy and the lessons of the Russian Revolution. But don’t worry, it all ends with some North Carolina humor of the best kind. May 2: You’re the Only One I Can Tell: Inside the Language of Women’s Friendships, by Deborah Tannen. (Ballantine Books. $27). New York Times bestselling author Deborah Tannen deconstructs the ways women friends talk and how those ways can bring friends closer or pull them apart. From casual chatting to intimate confiding, from talking about problems to telling what you had for dinner, Tannen uncovers the patterns of communication and miscommunication that affect friendships at different points in our lives. She shows how even the best of friends — with the best intentions — can say the wrong thing, and how words can repair the damage done by words.
May 2: Into the Water, by Paula Hawkins (Riverhead, $28). With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present. Beware a calm surface — you never know what lies beneath. May 9: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: The Album, the Beatles, and the World in 1967, by Brian Southall (Imagine, $30). A carefully crafted and collectible volume celebrations the 50th anniversary of a legendary and groundbreaking Beatles album. The “A-side” of this coolly curated title is all about the Beatles, the music on the album, the recording process, how the disc was received at the time and how it has been acknowledged as one of the greatest albums ever recorded. The “B-side” looks at the state of the world in The Art & Soul of Greensboro
1967, from the Summer of Love to antiwar protests to the launch of Rolling Stone magazine to Jimi Hendrix’s first U.K. tour as a solo artist. May 9: October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, by China Mieville (Verso, $26.95). The renowned fantasy and science fiction writer China Mieville has long been inspired by the ideals of the Russian Revolution and here, on the centenary of the revolution, he provides his own distinctive take on its history. May 9: The Range Bucket List: The Golf Adventure of a Lifetime, by James Dodson (Simon & Schuster, $27). A teenage boy’s wish list was just the beginning of a career that included several bestsellers, including the beloved Final Rounds, Arnold Palmer’s autobiography and a history of three of golf’s greats. The editor of this magazine reviews his Range Bucket List, proving that dreams have a way of coming true. (For more see “Simple Life,” page 17). May 16: Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century (Blue Rider, $27). Chuck Klosterman’s tenth book collects his most intriguing articles in their original form, featuring previously unpublished passages and digressions. Subjects include Breaking Bad, Lou Reed, zombies, KISS, Jimmy Page, Stephen Malkmus, steroids, Mountain Dew, Chinese Democracy, The Beatles, Jonathan Franzen, Taylor Swift, Tim Tebow, Kobe Bryant, Usain Bolt, Eddie Van Halen, Charlie Brown, the Cleveland Browns, and many more cultural figures and pop phenomena. May 16: Since We Fell, by Dennis Lehane (Ecco Press, $27). Gillian Flynn says that “Lehane is the master of complex human characters thrust into suspenseful, page-turning situations.” Since We Fell is a novel of profound psychological insight and tension. It is Dennis Lehane at his very best.
May 2017
O.Henry 31
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Bookshelf
May 23: Geek Girl Rising: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech, by Heather Cabot and Samantha Walravens (St Martins, $26.99). Meet the women who aren’t asking permission from Silicon Valley to chase their dreams. They are going for it —building cuttingedge tech startups, investing in each other’s ventures, crushing male hacker stereotypes and rallying the next generation of women in tech.
treating every patient
LIKE FAMILY You should be treated with respect and care when you visit your Greensboro dentist… as if you were a member of the family. Trust Dr. Farless to meet your family and cosmetic dentistry needs and provide the comfort and peace of mind you deserve!
May 23: Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom, by Thomas Ricks (Penguin, $28). By the late 1930s, democracy was discredited in many circles, and authoritarian rulers were everywhere in the ascent. There were some who decried the scourge of communism, but saw in Hitler and Mussolini “men we could do business with,” if not in fact saviors. And there were others who saw the Nazi and fascist threat as malign, but tended to view communism as the path to salvation. Churchill and Orwell, on the other hand, had the foresight to see clearly that the issue was human freedom — that whatever its coloration, a government that denied its people basic freedoms was a totalitarian menace and had to be resisted. May 30: Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977–2002), by David Sedaris (Little Brown, $28). Written with a sharp eye and ear for the bizarre, the beautiful, and the uncomfortable, and with a generosity of spirit that even a misanthropic sense of humor can’t fully disguise, Theft By Finding proves that Sedaris is one of our great modern observers. It’s a potent reminder that there’s no such thing as a boring day-when you’re as perceptive and curious as Sedaris. OH Brian Lampkin is one of the proprietors of Scuppernong Books.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Call today to schedule an appointment (336) 282-2868 Meet GrahaM e. Farless, D.D.s.
Dr. Farless was born and raised in northeastern North Carolina on a family farm in Merry Hill. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, receiving his B.A. in Biology, and later attended UNC School of Dentistry where he earned his Doctorate of Dental Surgery. Dr. Farless is very involved in many professional organizations, from the Guilford County Dental Society to the American Dental Association. Dr. Farless and his team are committed to technology, continuous education and providing the best care one can get! Outside the office, he enjoys spending time with his wife and 3 boys, playing sports, F3 workouts, hunting, fishing and just enjoying the outdoors.
2511 Oakcrest Ave, Greensboro, NC 27408 www.gsodentist.com
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May 2017
O.Henry 33
꤀㈀ 㘀 倀漀爀猀挀栀攀 䌀愀爀猀 一漀爀琀栀 䄀洀攀爀椀挀愀Ⰰ 䤀渀挀⸀ 倀漀爀猀挀栀攀 爀攀挀漀洀洀攀渀搀猀 猀攀愀琀 戀攀氀琀 甀猀愀最攀 愀渀搀 漀戀猀攀爀瘀愀渀挀攀 漀昀 琀爀愀昀昀椀挀 氀愀眀猀 愀琀 愀氀氀 琀椀洀攀猀⸀ 䴀愀渀甀昀愀挀琀甀爀攀爀ᤠ猀 匀甀最最攀猀琀攀搀 刀攀琀愀椀氀 倀爀椀挀攀⸀ 䔀砀挀氀甀搀攀猀 琀愀砀㬀 琀椀琀氀攀㬀 爀攀最椀猀琀爀愀琀椀漀渀 ␀㘀㤀㤀 搀攀愀氀攀爀 愀搀洀椀渀椀猀琀爀愀琀椀漀渀 昀攀攀㬀 搀攀氀椀瘀攀爀礀Ⰰ 瀀爀漀挀攀猀猀椀渀最 愀渀搀 栀愀渀搀氀椀渀最 昀攀攀㬀 搀攀愀氀攀爀 挀栀愀爀最攀猀⸀ 䐀攀愀氀攀爀 猀攀琀猀 愀挀琀甀愀氀 猀攀氀氀椀渀最 瀀爀椀挀攀⸀
䘀漀挀甀猀攀猀 漀渀 昀甀渀挀琀椀漀渀愀氀ᤠ猀 昀椀爀猀琀 琀栀爀攀攀 氀攀琀琀攀爀猀⸀ 䤀昀 渀漀琀 昀甀渀Ⰰ 琀栀攀渀 眀栀愀琀㼀 䤀琀ᤠ猀 愀 挀漀洀瀀漀渀攀渀琀 攀瘀攀爀礀 搀爀椀瘀攀 猀栀漀甀氀搀 栀愀瘀攀Ⰰ 愀渀搀 攀瘀攀爀礀 挀愀爀 猀栀漀甀氀搀 猀琀爀椀瘀攀 琀漀 瀀爀漀瘀椀搀攀⸀ 吀栀攀猀攀 琀眀漀 戀攀氀椀攀昀猀 氀攀搀 甀猀 琀漀 挀爀攀愀琀攀 琀栀攀 䴀愀挀愀渀⸀ 䄀 倀漀爀猀挀栀攀 眀椀琀栀 渀漀 漀昀昀 搀愀礀猀Ⰰ 椀渀猀瀀椀爀攀搀 戀礀 漀渀攀 挀漀爀攀 琀攀渀攀琀⸀ 䔀瘀攀爀礀 挀愀爀 猀栀漀甀氀搀 戀攀 愀 猀瀀漀爀琀猀 挀愀爀⸀ 倀漀爀猀挀栀攀⸀ 吀栀攀爀攀 椀猀 渀漀 猀甀戀猀琀椀琀甀琀攀⸀
吀栀攀 渀攀眀 䴀愀挀愀渀⸀ 匀琀愀爀琀椀渀最 愀琀 ␀㐀㜀Ⰰ㔀 倀漀爀猀挀栀攀 漀昀 䜀爀攀攀渀猀戀漀爀漀
㔀㘀 ㌀ 刀漀愀渀渀攀 圀愀礀 䜀爀攀攀渀猀戀漀爀漀Ⰰ 一䌀 ㈀㜀㐀 㤀 ㌀㌀㘀⸀㈀㤀㐀⸀ ㈀
倀漀爀猀挀栀攀䜀爀攀攀渀猀戀漀爀漀⸀挀漀洀
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May 2017
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Papadaddy’s Mindfield
Dark Night
A simple boat trip can test a man’s pride and his night vision By Clyde Edgerton
One evening a few weeks ago, I left
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR
Gibby’s Dock and Dine in Carolina Beach, just off the Intracoastal Waterway. It was 7 p.m., dark, and I was in a motorboat alone, heading 15 miles north to a friend’s dock on Wrightsville Beach. My wife and daughter had just left Gibby’s in an automobile and would be waiting for me at my destination. I was hoping to impress my wife (and myself) with how quickly I could get to Wrightsville Beach. I’d planned to leave before dark but time had slipped away.
Well, yes, we could haveleft theboat and comebackforit thenext day. But ... comeon, alittlenight trip up thewaterway? What could bedifficult about that? (Not beingable tosee, forone th ing, Captain Ahab.) I’d be headingnorth, right? Withland tomyright andleft? And surelythere’d be enoughlight tosee aheadin thedark — not far, but far enough. It’s astraight shot. I’dismply stayin themiddleof thewaterwayand thus avoid the crab pot buoys. The channelmarkerswould all havered and greenlights, right? It wouldn’t be that dark. Before Iknowit, I’m disoriented. Yes, there are houselightsoff tomyleft, to thewest along thewaterway, and I’m confident that thereis aneasternbank tomy right — os mewhere — but therest of theworldisinkedover. Inkedin, inked out. ThenI see a greenlight far ahead — a channelmarker. It seems extraordinarilyfar away. Thewaterisles calm thanI’d rememberedon the trip down that afternooninfull, bright, beautifuldaylight. And coming toward me, from way far up north, is a light brighter than any train headlight I’ve ever seen. Or is it stationary? And it’s not just one bright light — it’s a cluster of lights together like a sunflower, like a white, nighttime sun. It has killed any night vision I might have. I put my hand up to block it out. I calmlyth inkabout theworst th ing that can happen. I candie. But worse: Imay have toconfesstupidity. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Boat ownersknowabout thesafetycord runningfromnear the throttle thatyou canclip toa beltloop os that ifyou falloverboard the attached cord will pull amall s buttonoff amall s knob and cause theboat engine tocut off os that theboat willnot runaway. I’venever hookedit up. I hookit up. Where the hell am I? . . . I mean, in reference to the shoreline? I turn loose the wheel, pull out my phone, keeping a hand up to block the bright light. I touch to open the Maps app with GPS but my screen is blocked by a white box asking if I want to join any of several Wi-Fi servers. I cancel that, worried again about my night vision, then I see the waterway on the iPhone screen and a small blue dot that is my position. Aha. I look up. What? At my one o’clock position is a string of lights sitting on the water. . . is that a very long, low boat? How could that be? It’s a boat dock! How can it be ahead and to my right on the barrier island side? The shore with houses is to my left. There are no boat docks on the back side of Masonboro Island. I turn the boat to get around this phantom dock. I’ve drifted way left it seems. How? What’s going on? Theblindingbrightlight is gettinglarger. And h igher. Yep, it’s comingforme. Ineed to be to theright of that dock, and to theright of theblindingbrightlight headedmyway, but how? Andwhat about the crab pot buoys? No wayI canseeoneof those. I should beout in themiddle. I check thebluedot onmymap. Confirmed. I’m to ofarleft, orwest. I change my headingisgnificantlyto theright, east. Suddenly, I remember that thesatellite choiceon the GPS should showphotosof the boat docks. The plainmap doesn’t. Another Wi-Fi request blocksmyscreen. Myleft hand blocks theblindingbrightlight. I haveno night vision. I grab thewheel and find thesatellitemap. I presit andwait. Thescreenlsowly fillsin. Ah, there’s my little blue dot in the Intracoastal Waterway. The satellite map shows shallow and deep areas in the water. Cool. It shows boat docks. Cool. If I just had a flashlight to see ahead in the water. Is there one on the boat somewhere? Oron theiPhone? Yes. I turnit on. Better to have aniPhone thana Swiss Armykniferight now. I hold the phone h ighoverhead to trytolight thewaterover thebowandwatch themap. Myleft handisbackup, blocking thebright sh ip headlight. Ileanagainst thewheel tosteerwithmybody os mehow. Loand behold about50feet straight aheadis a greenreflecting square — a channelmarker! TheiPhone flashlight isnotlighting thewater May 2017
O.Henry 35
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Papadaddy ahead but isreflectingoff a channelmarker. I see on the satellite map that I’ve drifted right — far right. Most boats havewhat’s called awh iskycompas, aner ratic compas that floatsinliquid, and isonlyroughlyaccurate, especiallyif there are waves. Byth is compas, I see that I’m heading almost northandneed a 10-degree cor rectionor os to thewest. That blinding light. It’s closer. And closer. I can see it’s a very large boat. Will it miss me? I maneuver to the right. It passes to my left. It’s gigantic. It has no thoughts of slowing down. The wake tosses me way up and way down. I’m in idle, waiting for the wake to pass. I say ugly things. Thewakerecedes, and Ilsowlycrawlnorth — checkingsatellitemap, flashlight up, watch ing for channelmarkers, etc. Nearingmydestination, I realize I haveno clearlandmarksformyfriend’sdock. Myfriend’s pierisone amongmanyexactlylikeit. I’venever docked there (or anywhere else ) at night. Mywife and daughter aresupposed tobe waitingat that dock. They’ve probablybeen there awh ile. I phone them. Mydaughter answers. “What’s takingyou oslong, Daddy? ” “Oh, noth ing. Just takingmyitme. Noneed torush. Nicenight. Is Mama there? ” “Sure. Heresheis.” My wife asks, “What’s taking so long, Honey?” “Oh, noth ing. Just takingmytime. Nicenight out here. Need tobe careful, though. Wouldyou dome afavor? ” “Sure.” “Areyouon thedock? ” “Yes.” “Wouldyou turnonyour phone flashlight andwaveit overyour head? With thelight sh iningout towardme? ” “Sure. Where areyou? ” “I’mnot altogethersure...wouldyou turnon the flashlight andwaveit overyour head? ” “OK.” “Oh, good,” I say. “I seeyou.” ThenI realize she can’t hearmebecause her phoneisover her head, goingbackand forthin the air. Inafewminutes, I docksafely, stepoff the boat, andmywife asks, “Howwas the trip? ” “Fine,” I say, holding onto a single sliver of pride deep in my soul. I don’t know where to start. “Wasn’t it prettydarkout there? ” “Damndark.” OH Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir and most recently, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
True South
Mom’s The Word Here’s to the woman who loved us. No matter what
By Susan Kelly
Our first grandchild was
recently born, and as the paternal grandmother, I’m aware that my job is to zip my lips, use a lot of hand sanitizer and stock up on organic foods so he doesn’t go into puberty at age 4. Whenever today’s baby and child-raising issues (read: rules) come up, my mother always says, “I don’t know what we did when y’all were growing up. We just . . . lived.”
I don’t know what she did either, while we were locking ourselves in the bathroom, breaking thermometers and playing with the mercury. It’s a shame about mercury being so deadly and all, because you haven’t lived until you’ve chased not-quite-liquid, not-quite solid skittering silver beads across floor tiles. When that activity paled, we headed outside and dared each other to grab the electric fence, seeing who could paralyze themselves the longest before the shock got the best of you. Dry ice was a favorite toy, too — to burn your fingers, or throw in the toilet and watch it steam and billow — but it was only available once a year, for the school carnival witches’ kettle on Halloween. Back then, teachers didn’t ask you to write essays on what your parents “did.” Thus, they were spared the humiliation of one friend, whose son wrote, “She picks her teeth until they bleed” (that’ll teach you rabid flossers!), or another, whose child said, “They like to relax.” My own son didn’t even have to write down his answer; he announced it in carpool one day The Art & Soul of Greensboro
when he saw my knuckles whitening on the steering wheel as his friends competed to see who could blat the biggest imitation fart noises inside their elbows. “Y’all be quiet,” he commanded. “My mother doesn’t like children.” Which is only slightly less mortifying than the drawing my daughter recently unearthed, of herself crying in bed, sick, and the mother standing by with a cartoon balloon saying, “There’s nothing I can do.” A tattered, handwritten note from first grade reads, “I’m sorry I got on your nerves.” What I’m sorry about is that I saved it, to torture me all these years hence. For absolution, I take comfort in my old-school pediatrician. “My child has a rash,” I worried when he returned my call. His succinct advice: “So what?” His prescription on the endless night of a child’s coughing and coughing? “Just move into another bedroom so you can get some sleep. You’re a mother, not a martyr.” I’m also grateful to the elementary school that kept a gross of ramen packages on hand, so my middlest didn’t starve all those days I refused to deliver his lunch bag when he forgot it. Yes, yes, guilty as charged. I also failed, like some other mothers, to make up the dorm room bed with five fitted sheets, one on top of the other, so the child could merely strip one off, week after week, instead of doing laundry. But listen, when you asked that I please not fold your underpants on the counter, where everyone could see that you still wore eyelet bloomers instead of bikinis? I did that, I did. And I want you to know that now, when I glimpse those Kraft-paper lunch bags, unused and undisturbed after two decades, or come upon a long-expired coupon for frozen yogurt for good behavior at the dentist, a treat I failed to cash in for you, I cry a little. I’m sorry. I love you so very much. But you’ll have to find your own money for the therapist. OH Susan Kelly is a blithe spirit, author of several novels, and proud new grandmother. May 2017
O.Henry 39
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Road Home
Keeping Faith How a true daughter of the South found her place beneath a rose-colored sky
By Caroline H amilton L angerman
It wasn’t easy being the daughter of
a Southern WASP in Boston. As a kid, I fumbled to find the right words when my Catholic, Jewish and agnostic friends asked “what I was.”
“I’m a Piscopal,” I announced uneasily. This seemed to get me off the hook when my best friend’s dad invited me to say the rosary. My mother, a Colonial Dame, explained that Protestants had broken away from the Catholics for more freedom. But when I saw what fun the Catholics were having at church every Wednesday evening, the frilly white dresses they wore to their First Communions and the romantic names of saints they adopted at their confirmations, I resented that I had been freed against my will. Being a Piscopal offered no perks. My Jewish friends got bar and bat mitzvahs. Every weekend during seventh grade, I listened to them recite passages from the Torah and slowdanced with their handsome cousins from New York under the shimmering light of a disco ball. Once, I watched with fascination as the parents of my newly initiated-friend kissed with their tongues. I was sure Frenchkissing was one of the 95 indulgences Martin Luther had pinned to the church wall. Could I protest my Protestantism? On Sundays, I wriggled into itchy white tights and sat on the velvet pews of our church. The only brightness in the stained glass sanctuary was my brother lip-synching the minister’s words. “Do this for the remembrance of me,” he mouthed with his eyes crossed. In high school, I fell for a Catholic boy like a wrecking ball against brick. There were fire-hot days spent with his 11 siblings on an estate in Woods Hole, and snowy Christmas Eves spent waiting up for his phone call after Midnight Mass. From my early-19th-century twin bed (if Protestants didn’t keep idols, why did Mom worship antiques?), I watched the snow fall on our pilgrim roof. Oh, how I would have loved to light The Art & Soul of Greensboro
candles with JFK as the clock struck 12! Sitting on the bleachers of Harvard’s hockey stadium, I regarded my boyfriend’s mother, a former WASP who had converted to Catholicism, with sideways longing. She was tall, brunette, and kept an angelic distance from her offspring, smiling gently when they scraped their knees, frowning slightly when they broke the rules, and whispering amusedly, “Excuse me,” when she caught us kissing in the living room. Even as our love was dying in the early days of college, my boyfriend’s religion lingered on me like my freckles from our Cape Cod weekends. On a required freshman demographic survey, I checked the box “I believe in the sanctity of human life,” feeling the tiniest thrill of rebellion towards my parents, who had on many occasions trapped me in our station wagon to explain the benevolence of Planned Parenthood. My Southern university did contain Protestants, but they seemed to be speaking a different language from the one I had learned. They mentioned Jesus so often that I started to think I might bump into him at the next fraternity party. They highlighted the Bible with yellow markers and sang praises with a rock band. On Friday nights, they hopped into SUVs with clean-cut boys who were genuinely happy to just hold hands. I was so envious of their clarity. I kept clicking “refresh” in my soul, hoping there might be a Paperless Post from God. Meanwhile, back in Boston, my brother toyed with agnosticism. His deepest faith was in Tom Brady; his chapel was Fenway Park; his prayer of Thanksgiving was when the golf ball sank — by grace alone — into the 18th hole. “This one’s worth watching,” he wrote, emailing me links to TED Talks in which geniuses argued for community without communion. During a 10-year stint when I lived in New York City, this philosophy was more compelling than ever. But I sensed there was magic in this world, and didn’t that necessitate magic outside of this world? It was in the never-ending silence after my son was lifted from me and I waited for him to cry. It was in innocence. In my body’s gut-wrenching reaction to violence. When I moved to my mother’s home state of North Carolina with my husband, it was in the rose-colored May 2017
O.Henry 41
The Road Home
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May 2017
sky at 8 o’clock on summer evenings and its reflection on the house next door. “The bricks are glowing again,” I said, and some tiny creature inside me felt awed. I was aware of a quiet, lower case rapture. If Boston had been the muddy water in which I was ineligible for Holy Communion and matzoh ball soup, Charlotte was like the Baskin Robbins of Protestantism. I now qualified for countless parishes and all of their perks. Like the Bachelorette dizzied by an “amazing group of contestants,” I began seeing all of them. I dressed up to meet the handsome Episcopal Church and recite poetry from his eloquent Book of Common Prayer. Just around the corner, the Methodists had an infamous Kids Carnival and a charming minister who, it was exclaimed by beautiful women at cocktail parties, had been nominated for bishop! I joined the gym at the Presbyterian Church and enrolled my son in its Kindermusik classes. On Tuesday mornings, we sang “Jesus Loves Me,” and played with a marvelous selection of silk peekaboo scarves. From our backyard, morning and evening, we heard the enchanting bells of the Baptists. Suddenly, like a herd of elephants who’ve caught wind of an oasis, my family and friends submitted their opinions on which church I should join. Methodism was too new; never mind that Catholicism was too old. Episcopalians were too superior, never mind that Baptists were too humble. My mother seemed keenest on the Presbyterian Church, with its Scottish roots. “But I’m Episcopal. We went there every week. I was confirmed.” She laughed. “Oh, the Episcopal Church was more convenient. Our friends went there.” I hung up the phone and laughed, thinking how arbitrary the aspects of our identity can turn out to be. I looked out the window of my new house. Here was my new street. In my new city. I put a hand on my belly, where there was another new life. After 32 years, I would have to make my own choice about a church for my family. “Where would you like to go to church?” I asked my toddling son, and he looked at me, trying so hard to understand the question. I picked him up and held him tight, realizing that whatever SWASP’s nest I began weaving for him now, he would spend the rest of his life unraveling. OH Caroline Hamilton Langerman has published in The New York Times, Elle, Town & Country, Southern Living and more. She hails from an old Concord family. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 43
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Gate City Journal
Mudd in Yer Eye Permaculture takes root in Greensboro
By Grant Britt
PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM FROELICH
Once upon a time, public grazing
was a no-no. Many of us older earthdwellers remember dire consequences for chowing down on public shrubbery and the fruits thereof. To do otherwise — picking berries, or digging up anything with roots and leaves in public parks would likely earn you a firm swat across your bottom. But lately, freethinking, food-for-the-masses agriculturalists have untightened the rules against free-range munchables, and public grazing is getting a second look. The rise of permaculutre is the culprit, creating edible landscapes. Former UNCG adjunct professor Charlie Headington is responsible for introducing Greensboro to permaculture 25 years ago after attending a lecture on the system. “I listened for about 15 minutes, realized this was something I wanted to do,” Headington says. He and his wife, Deborah, were avid gardeners, the kind who grow fruit in the front yard. “Permaculture gave us a bigger picture strategy, how to integrate fruit trees into it, capture your rainwater.”
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“In permaculture, some spaces are left wild, others are restored, and still others are highly developed, as in an urban context,” Headington writes on the Greensboro Permaculture website, https://greensboropermacultureguild. wordpress.com/about/what-is-permaculture/. “Nutrient cycles, water storage, soil quality, and plant diversity are enhanced, while the resources flowing through the system are slowed down, stored, recycled and used sparingly,” he continues. “Small spaces can yield big harvests; human intervention, inputs, and maintenance are kept to a minimum. The aesthetic is pleasingly natural. Eighty percent of the work is in the initial installation, and 20 percent in its maintenance, the reverse of normal gardening, (devoting) less time to weeding and fighting insects and more to designing, harvesting, and learning.” Headington was hooked: “I took a 72-hour course, learned more about it, from then on started doing workshops and introducing it to schools.” It couldn’t have come at a better time for the professor, who was associated with the religious studies department and continual learning center at the university. “When you’re adjunct faculty, they should call them the agile faculty [since] you have to wear several hats. You have to be opportunistic,” Headington says. “Permaculture became one of my hats that I wore, and it turned out to be a very happy endeavor,” he says. Although he continues to teach part-time on a graduate level online, he became the Gate City’s Johnny Appleseed of permaculture, introducing it to schools and churches. When the legendary chef and May 2017
O.Henry 45
Gate City Journal food activist Alice Waters came to town, he joined forces with her, touting the newly opened Edible Schoolyard at the Greensboro Children’s Museum. “Permaculture gardens, farms and landscapes are organic, edible and diverse,” Headington writes on his website. “They are practical, lowmaintenance and productive. Each element of the landscape, whether, plant, animal, or structural, is placed by the designer in a mutually beneficial relationship to its neighbor, the yields of one supporting the needs of the other. Permaculture designs and builds communities.” It also attracts new converts who try to improve on the original model. Freelance writer David Mudd, who had just moved to Greensboro from a farm he was living on in Kentucky, took Headington’s course in 2013. Missing the rural life, Mudd wanted to connect with people with similar interests. He took the 72-hour course that is offered on weekends over a period of six months. “We’d go two days a week, amble around downtown, travel to farms in Summerfield,” Mudd recalls. They also visited abandoned lots that seemed as if they could be reclaimed and repurposed. Mudd started the Greensboro Permaculture Guild because he says when he finished the course he wanted to just keep doing it. “I wanted to learn more, didn’t want to walk away from the people I
had enjoyed hanging out with,” he says. “So I and a couple of others proposed us continuing to get together to teach and help one another, have lunch one day a week, and bring to one another what we wanted to do in our own yards, and what we might do to help other people interested in edible landscaping, urban gardening.” Their first major project was at Elsewhere, Greensboro’s unconventional museum that collaborates with resident artists. Headington says he had been talking to co-founder and director George Sheer for a long time about reworking the weed-and junk-filled empty lot out back. When downtown developer and entrepreneur Andy Zimmerman started buying up adjacent property, Mudd enlisted his aid to work with him on landscaping the area. But Headington says the Guild tries to think beyond landscaping. “We’re not not only concerned with natural landscaping, but people landscaping,” he says. “You have to provide walkways and interesting venues along the way and plants play a part.” But there’s also a social aspect to it: “Urban design is really challenging,” Headington says, “because you have to think as much about people as you do about nature.” The people/nature aspect has come together with an informal partnership with Habitat For Humanity. We design edible landscapes for each house
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they bring online now,” Mudd says. “We make every effort to meet with the family/individuals targeted to own the house before the landscaping takes place” He says his team tries to “learn where they’re coming from, see what plants they know and make an edible landscape if that’s what they want.” Habitat is a registered nonprofit, which enables the Guild to get nonprofit pricing from some area nurseries on trees and plants. “On the day of installation, one or two or three of us will be there to implement the plan we’ve come up with,” Mudd says. “But mostly it Habitat’s regular crew of volunteers who actually put the plants in the ground.” In addition, there’s a Design Studio made up of people with good graphic and design skills. They work with homeowners and others on formulating landscape designs. The Design Studio is made up of Guild members, some of whom have a degree in architecture, like lead designer Tay Hallas. “But we basically go by word of mouth, by what people like about what we do, and people seeking alternative designs themselves,” he says. “We certainly would love to add some landscape architects, but we’re kind of just growing now, we’re fledglings, so we’ll see what happens.” Headington and the Guild are involved in a number of permaculture installations throughout town, working with Action Greensboro, an economic development group, and the Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department’s trail division on greenways and other projects. “I was just communicating with Parks and Rec the other day about refurbishing a park that had fallen on hard times,” Headington says. “They liked my ideas about bringing in native woodland plants that would also attract birds, butterflies, a variety of healthy insect life, so there’s just a growing interest in this.” The Guild is particularly proud of their installation called the Meeting Place on the corner of Prescott and Smith. “It’s the first public orchard, was just a gas station at one point and now a popular little park on the triangular lot, with a gazebo,” Headington says. “We’re growing about 20 kinds of fruit there, have a big strawberry production, have peaches, pears.” It’s more than something pretty to look at. “It’s part of that whole movement of people to not only be closer to nature, it’s not so much a romantic vision, it’s useful,” Headington says. “ It’s something we get food from, we gather rainwater, we lower our energy costs, and we have all this fresh food and, of course, kids love it, they’re very involved in it.” And best of all, the wee ones these days don’t get smacked when they dive in for grazing. OH Grant Britt now grazes free rangily wherever nature catches his eye — without fear of retribution. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 47
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48 O.Henry
May 2017
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Life of Jane
Kitchen Confidential Recipes from a fin-de-siècle Irving Park Tween
By Jane Bordain
In 1931, amateur cook Irma von Starkloff
ILLUSTRATION BY MERIDITH MARTENS
Rombauer self-published The Joy of Cooking and reinvented a genre that had been stymied by what the legendary cultural critic H.L. Mencken called “cooking-school marms.” In 1961, Julia Child followed in her footsteps with Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which decoded classical techniques for the American masses. And in the late 1980s, a 10-year-old Jane Borden made “cooking” the easiest yet, by improvising concoctions that invariably made her friends say, “No thanks, that’s gross.” Below, a collection of her most, er, famous recipes. “Bologna Curl Ups” Best served right after school or when trying to impress a play date. • Remove a slice of Oscar Mayer bologna from the package in the fridge drawer. Mind the drips. Place slice on a salad plate. • Remove a Kraft Singles from same drawer and peel away cellophane; tear it into pieces and stack them in the center of the bologna circle. • Turn on CBS. It’s almost time for Guiding Light • Microwave the plate for 10 to 15 seconds, or until edges of meat product curl up on the sides creating a bowl filled with melted processed cheese. Optional: Crumble nacho-cheese flavored Doritos into the “bowl” for added crunch. • Cut into pieces that are exactly the same size — exactly the same. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“Mashed Cake” Best served a couple of days after someone had a birthday and there’s cake in the fridge. • With a sturdy fork, mush the cake and icing together until a singular consistency is achieved. It should resemble a swampy brownie. • Change the channel. DuckTales is on. • Roll the swamp brownie into a ball, eat it like an apple, and ignore your sister telling you that it looks disgusting because, in 20 years, the same thing will be called Cake Pops and will sell for $3 a piece at fancy bakeries everywhere, so y’all can all STFU.
“What’s in the Fridge on Cheese and Rice” If you have leftover rice, you have a canvas. The fridge door is your palette. • Prep work: The night before, when your mother tries to toss the leftover rice from dinner — “there’s almost none left. . . it will dry out . . . no one will eat it” — remind her that you are a someone, you are an artist in search of a medium, and you can fit the entire world on a single grain of rice. Do not let her silence your voice. Resist! • Hooray, it’s time for Tiny Toons! “They’re tiny. They’re toony. They’re altogether looney.” This show isn’t that great, but if the TV is on, it means you can keep eating. • Fill a microwavable bowl halfway with rice. Run your fingers under the sink and flick water onto the rice, since it is seriously dry. • Chop up cheese and mix it with the rice. Pro tip: Skip the knife and cutting board by biting off hunks and spitting them into the bowl. • Add mustard. Or chow chow. Maybe today it’s ketchup and pickles. You get it. Cheesy rice rules and you can’t screw it up. Pro tip: Chopped cherry tomatoes add moisture to the rice and cut the May 2017
O.Henry 49
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These are just Lunchables. • Grab a box of Lunchables from the fridge. They’re for school, but maybe your mom won’t notice. Pro tip: The cheese slices are square and the weird meat is round. So if you want every bite to have the exact same amount of cheese and weird meat — exactly the same — you’ll need to pick off the corners of the cheese and carefully place them on the sides.
“A Parade of Oranges” If you have neighbors who attend Greensboro Day School, they will knock once a year, while selling citrus as part of a school fundraiser. • Open one of the several boxes of oranges stacked on the kitchen porch. • Eat one after another until you get a stomach ache from the acid. You have a lot of fruit to get through.
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• When your mom starts cooking for the evening meal, she will forbid any more snacking before supper and kick you out of the kitchen. Watch television in the den. • Once you hear that she is on the phone with Nancy, head back to the kitchen. Stand by the door until she faces the sink and then scurry, fast and silent as a mouse, into the pantry. • Grab a bag of Doritos. • Peer around the folding door and wait until she’s facing the sink again. Scurry back out with your contraband. Pro tip: Mind the phone cord. If it has already wrapped itself around her body more than once, you are in danger: She could spin around without notice, to untangle herself, and see you. • Eat your Doritos in the den. Bathe in the comfort of every chip being the same size. Then hide the empty bag under the sofa. You are a genius. Actually, you’re a dingdong. Go outside and play. OH Jane Borden now lives in Los Angeles, where she continues to ruin perfectly good food items by “preparing” them. Fortunately, she married a cook.
50 O.Henry
May 2017
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro May_QuarterPage_OHenry.indd 1
4/12/17 1:27 PM
May 2017
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The Pleasures of Life
The Things We Keep
By Maggie Dodson
Last year, in the oppressive heat of a
Brooklyn summer, I moved into a new apartment with my boyfriend. Prior to this move, we both agreed to go through the contents of our respective lives, discarding items we didn’t need in order have a fresh start; a blank slate on which to build a life together. Expecting to find an ungodly amount of junk, I opened a bottle of wine, put on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and got out the trash bags.
If our lives are made up of the things we keep, my life was looking a bit neglected and moth-eaten. Old receipts, expired debit cards, parking tickets, to-do lists. In my 28 years, it would seem as if I hadn’t collected anything of substance. How had I come this far with so little to show for it? I sipped more wine and continued the search for things to keep. I was sure I had a few lying around, somewhere. An hour or two later I found them: a pack of used and worn mechanical pencils and an elegant black, beaded clutch. The pencils belonged to my Scottish grandmother, the clutch, to my Southern Gammy. I placed them delicately in the “to keep” pile. They were coming with me to the new apartment. On paper, my grandmothers couldn’t have been less alike. One was an industrial chemist from Scotland, the other a beauty queen from Maryland. Their experiences were so different, their lives and passions rarely, if ever,
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overlapping. They grew up at a similar time but in different parts of the world. Perhaps the one thing they had in common was how fiercely they loved their families and me. Finding these intimate items that belonged to them opened the floodgates of my memory. I felt inspired to ask questions and to think about what my grandmothers were like as young women, how their lives took shape and how they shaped mine. My father’s mother, Janet Dodson, was a generous woman. She’d give you the shirt off her own back, without question. My father describes her as a feisty woman who charmed all those she met, a lady who never hid her feelings about her core values, a true believer in God, and a loving mother and wife. She was the youngest of 11 children, the daughter of a coal miner and, according to my family, after high school she won the Miss Western Maryland Pageant and was offered a studio contract to perform with a stalwart of the nightclub circuit, singer Tony Martin. She turned it down to marry my grandfather, an ad salesman from North Carolina. My Gammy was a breast cancer survivor, ever the social butterfly, and driven by a desire to give back to those in need. She lived for her garden, her five grandchildren and her volunteer work at her church in Greensboro. My mother’s mother, Kathleen, was a pioneer. An only child who’d lost both of her parents by the age of 22, she began her career in Glasgow as an industrial chemist, first at Rolls-Royce and then at IBM. She met my scientist grandfather while walking to catch the bus to work, and later, followed him to Canada, Alaska, and finally to a farm in Maine, where they’d settle down, buy two of nearly every animal and start a life with their three children. She was a voracious reader, a stickler for manners and a lover of classical The Art & Soul of Greensboro
ILLUSTRATION BY ROMEY PETITE
From a pair of unforgettable grandmothers
music. She was fond of sharp cheese, good gin, quiet nights, her family and animals, particularly cats. She had a knack for enduring hardships, even if they threatened to upend her life. She loved to laugh and was revered as a practical, brave person with an enviable book collection, the matriarch of her tiny village in the highlands of Maine. As a progeny of both women, I hear the stories of their lives and search for a glimpse of myself. Am I a charming spitfire, too? Would I be bold enough to lead a group of government wives into the Alaskan frontier? Was my smile just as enigmatic? Could I record an album? How does one run a 250-acre farm, earn her masters and essentially a Ph.D, with three mouths to feed at home? These questions are vital when I think about about how I will take on the world, how I will ultimately make my mark and what I will leave behind. My beloved grandmothers have both passed
Pencil in hand, I’m reminded of how my Grandmother passionately stressed the importance of knowing and developing your own unique voice. on, and these questions are more important than ever, if yet unanswered. But in some ways, having these intensely personal items — a box of well-used pencils, a glittery black clutch and the memories they evoke — is enough for now. I use the pencils when working on a new essay or underlining a striking sentence in a book. Pencil in hand, I’m reminded of how my Scottish Grandmother passionately stressed the importance of knowing and developing your own unique voice. Meanwhile, I carry my Gammy’s beaded clutch on special occasions. Its glamor makes me feel fancy, feminine, and socially brave in a way I’m sure Southern Gammy would have appreciated and wanted. Perhaps some day I’ll move again and have to sort through the contents of my own cluttered closets, dressers, and drawers. Maybe by then I’ll know what to keep and what to pass along. But for now, these things from my grandmothers? These are the things I will keep. OH Maggie Dodson is the daughter of Jim Dodson and lives in New York The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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May 2017
O.Henry 53
Greater Guildford Go Red For Women Luncheon Locally Sponsored By:
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54 O.Henry
May 2017
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Birdwatch
A Rarity Nevermore The common raven is appearing more frequently in these parts
By Susan Campbell
Although the raven has, for
centuries, been one of the most widely recognized and intriguing birds in the Northern Hemisphere, it is uncommon to see one in Piedmont North Carolina. And in the Sandhills, the common raven is a real rarity — a situation that is likely to change in the not-too-distant future.
By contrast, the raven’s close cousin, the crow, loves calling Piedmont North Carolina home. Distinguishing between ravens and crows is really pretty easy. To begin with, ravens are massive, jet-black birds half again as large as our crows. And unlike the constant and abrasive “cawing” that comes from crows, the raven’s call is a shorter, harsh or gurgling croak that, not surprisingly, carries a long way. It is, in fact, this distinctive vocalization that often gives them away, especially in remote areas. Ravens also have heavy, serrated bills and long wedge-shaped tails. And while crows can be seen swooping from tree to tree in gangs, ravens seem specifically designed for altitude. Since they typically range across both large forests and open expanses, you will often see them soaring effortlessly high in the sky. In our state, common ravens breed in the Appalachians and can be found roaming the mountains for miles around. But for several decades now the species has been moving farther east across the foothills, no doubt a range expansion facilitated by human activity. Ravens, as well as their other corvid cousin, are opportunistic feeders. Roadkill is certainly a major The Art & Soul of Greensboro
and easy source of food — as are landfills, parks and campgrounds. Even pet food bowls and bird feeders attract their attention. Some clever birds have learned that gunshots during hunting season may mean a meal in the not too distant future. And farmers have learned that ravens aren’t reluctant to go after eggs, chicks and even newborn small animals such as lambs. These birds are exceptionally intelligent and are, arguably, the smartest of all birds found in North America. Not only do they readily figure out where to find their next meal, they will work in pairs to acquire certain types of food. One individual will divert the attention of a nesting adult bird while its mate steals an egg or nestling. Common ravens can be destructive in their search for food, tearing into campers’ tents and other manmade structures, and, in numbers, can foul sensitive equipment. In fact, ravens have a predilection for causing power outages by pulling the insulation off wire and picking electrical insulators. They inevitably become a nuisance if they linger too often or too long around any human habitation, a problem given how long-lived the birds are and that they are also nonmigratory. It is both a surprise and a treat when I spot one of these impressive birds in the Piedmont. One conspicuous individual ranges around the Red Oak Brewery in Whitsett where I’m part of a project to encourage hummingbirds. I have also seen ravens flying high above U.S. Route 1 around Sanford and one sitting on a guardrail along N.C. Highway 54. I would not be surprised if a pair is breeding in the area along the Deep River. At these lower elevations, riverside bluffs resemble the cliff habitats where common ravens usually nest. They make ledges on tall buildings their home as well. Ravens are clearly adaptable and perfectly happy to live alongside us — more and more of them all of the time. OH Susan would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos at susan@ncaves.com. May 2017
O.Henry 55
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56 O.Henry
May 2017
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Wandering Billy
“Just Plain” Joan The Hollywood diva who always took Greensboro by storm around Mother’s Day
By Billy Eye “The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.” — Bette Davis
SIXTY YEARS AGO: Eleven-year old
Chester Arnold Jr. had acquired five shares of Pepsi common stock in 1957 but grew concerned about his investment. From his home on Cypress Street, he fired off a letter to Pepsi’s chairman Alfred Steele in New York to ask if his board of directors was “crooked — like those people in the movie” he had just watched.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Steele’s new bride, film legend Joan Crawford, understood better than anyone the power of a finely executed publicity stunt. The boy and his parents were flown to The Big Apple and put up at the Waldorf Astoria for a whirlwind tour of the city. The Steeles planned a trip to Greensboro later that week would provide the perfect Hollywood ending to a real-life fairy tale — plucky small town boy meets glamorous movie star with the lights of Manhattan as their backdrop. After three days, the Arnold family traveled with the Steeles to Wilmington, Delaware, where a photo was snapped and dispatched to newspapers around the world; it showed young Chester, flanked by Crawford and her husband, as they attended a Pepsi board meeting. The next morning, May 2nd, Joan Crawford, her husband Alfred and their entourage emerged from the 9:50 train at the Southern Railway Depot, where they were presented with keys to the city before crossing the street to the King Cotton Hotel to freshen up. Joan wore a simple white sleeveless dress with an enormous matching hat, as was the style of the day, for May 2017
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The Perfect Mother’s Day Gift!
2017 Celebration Luncheon SPECIAL GUEST: ANDIE MACDOWELL Andie MacDowell is an award winning actress and North Carolina resident well known for both her artistic and philanthropic achievements. She currently stars as Judge Olivia Lockhart in the Hallmark Channel series Cedar Cove. McDowell is a three time Golden Globe nominee for her roles in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Green Card, and Sex, Lies and Videotape, for which she also won Los Angeles Film Critics award for Best Actress. As an international spokesperson for L’Oreal Paris for the past thirty years, MacDowell has championed the firm’s efforts to support the fight against ovarian cancer. She is also known for her work with children’s health organizations for which she was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Lander University and an Honor of the Arts from Winthrop College.
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58 O.Henry
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
DLM_OH_April17_thirdsquare.qxp_Layout 1 4/6/17 10:28 PM Page 1
Wandering Billy
a 2 o’clock press conference announcing Pepsi’s newest, most modern bottling plant. At 4 p.m., Joan, Alfred, Pepsi executives and the Arnold family departed the King Cotton, escorted west down Spring Garden across Holden by a police motorcade. With sirens blaring, they roared up on a crowd numbering into the hundreds, some waiting for hours for the most elaborate ribbon cutting ceremony Pepsi had ever hosted.
FIFTY YEARS AGO: On the morning of May 5, 1967, a more jaded Joan Crawford greeted reporters at a Burlington press conference for which La Crawford arrived fashionably late (a popular Hollywood euphemism, widely adopted in the South, referring to some undefined moment existing between Bette Davis promptness and “Miss Garland’s not coming out of her dressing room.”) Smartly dressed in a silk-lined, cinnamon colored linen jacket and matching shift, her upswept red hair tucked into an oversized fedora, Joan confessed in a drawl straight out of central casting, “Last week at a housewarming for Donna Reed several people asked me where I was going next and when I said, ‘North Carolina,’ they said, ‘She already packed her Southern accent!’” Although there might have been just a nip in the air that Friday morning, there was definitely a nip in Miss Crawford’s air from sipping vodka throughout the day. Crushing a spent cigarette under anklestrapped high heels — the kind Joan Crawford wore so famously in the 1940s they became notoriously known as “come f**k me pumps”— the Academy-Award winner took great pains to portray herself as Just Plain Joan who entertained guests with home-cooked meals of breaded pork chops with fried apple rings and scrubbed the floors of her humble two-story penthouse shanty overlooking Central Park herself. It was Mildred Pierce redux with a side of cornpone, only now her precious Veda was a cold (but refreshing) Pepsi. “Every time you drink a Pepsi, I want you to think of Joan Crawford. If you drink Coke, you can think of those polar bears!” FORTY-NINE YEARS AGO: Attending a May 18, 1968, Pepsi-Cola function in Charlotte, Joan posed for a photo with two locals, 11-year old Teresa Staley and George (Old Rebel Show) Perry, to promote the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s backyard carnival fundraisers. Teresa recalls being escorted into Crawford’s hotel suite, “The Old Rebel was super nervous and super excited about meeting her, but I was so young I didn’t have a clue. I was just excited about taking a road trip.” “Quite a character,” is how she remembers the The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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May 2017
O.Henry 59
Wandering Billy
ThaT SaTurday Feeling —
T
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Give me a porch and a good book. Give me a long, cold drink of something barely sweet — a good dose of fresh air and a healthy outlook — and nothing to do except anything I want. Stay a weekend at Double Oaks and get back to that Saturday feeling.
movie star. “Instead of pronouncing my name ‘Teresa’ she called me ‘Teraaaaasa.’ It was very funny. We spent a significant amount of time there, everything had to be just right to allow her picture to be taken.” The photographer captured George Perry gazing adoringly at the motion picture icon while Joan’s eyes remained fixed on a point somewhere in a galaxy far, far away. “She had just injured her ankle. She was wearing an Ace bandage but would not allow any pictures to be taken below her knees. I’ve worn glasses since I was 8, but she wouldn’t allow me to wear glasses in the picture because she was afraid it would cause a glare.” The thing that most impressed Teresa was, “Her bedroom door was open and her whole bed was covered with hats. I thought it was pretty cool that she traveled with all of her hats. And she carried her own ice on
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airplanes because she didn’t trust airplane water.” No seminal Joan Crawford role would be complete without a no-good-deed-goes-unpunished ending, in this case the actress was unceremoniously dumped by Veda — er, Pepsi — on her 65th birthday. It’s anyone’s guess how Crawford would have greeted the recent FX hit TV series based on her over-inflated rivalry with Bette Davis. Whatever her peccadillos and peculiarities, Joan Crawford was a wildly successful, widely admired businesswoman at a time when that was a genuine rarity, one who not only conquered the insidious labyrinth that is show business but also helped establish Pepsi-Cola as a multibillion dollar global powerhouse. If there’s any feudin’ goin’ on around these parts I’m obliged to take Joan’s side, thank you very much. OH Billy Eye spent 15 years in the insidious labyrinth of Hollywood before coming back to his hometown of Greensboro.
60 O.Henry
May 2017
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
On The Point
Because She Deserves It
This Mothers Day
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
May 2017
O.Henry 61
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May 2017 Cave Men A full wine rack is Saturday mornings, The first day of vacation, A just-waxed car. It is a promise of future good dinners, of future celebrations, of a future. A full wine rack murmurs: Don’t worry. There’s plenty. You’re safe. — Joseph Mills from Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
May 2017
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The Color Purple How Linda Lane finesses fabric
By Cynthia Adams • Photographs by Amy Freeman
T
extiles designer Linda Lane, deeply absorbed as Puccini plays softly in her Fisher Park home studio and workspace, is thinking about purple. It is, far and away, her favorite color. Lane’s eyes widen as she says this, lest she be misunderstood. Purple has been trending for years, she says. Purple is intense. Lane is intense. She laughs to indicate she knows this, but make no mistake: Color is the main stock in trade for Linda Lane Design. “I think I’m good at color,” she says. “I dream in color. Just last night I had a dream about my old periwinkle Volvo from 1980!” Although her studio is a creative place for imagining and creation, this is Lane’s work: manipulating color in infinite design variations and patterns for her own and others’ textile designs. But back to purple. If Lane could speak in color, why, she might be speaking in Purpleese. Purpleese would be a magnificent sound. Color is all, she explains. Colors come. Colors go. Gray has stayed, displacing beige for some years as the neutral favorite of designers. These are trends, Lane says, with a wry smile. Trends change. Lavender, a cool gray-lavender, “not mauve — nobody says mauve anymore,” is still a huge hit. Shades of pink (Lane produces swatches) and mercurial shades of gray play well together. “So you will see a sofa that’s gray with a violet tinge,” she says. “Gray is still taking a stronghold over beige,” she adds. Lavender-not mauve plays into many of the swatches Lane has “edited” and curated for a client. Whenever she isn’t noodling and doodling to create her own fabric designs, she is rethinking and refreshing the popular classic fabric designs her client already owns. Lane sends the redesigns in new colors to her client, who approves and forwards them to India for execution. Lane also creates an array of paisleys, chrysanthemum, crane and tree-of-life–inspired patterns. Many become new classics that will be reiterated and reimagined in new colors but they originated right here, in Lane’s studio. “Every house of fabric has in-house or outside designers,” she explains. “And there are hundreds of companies who make fabrics. I’m in the background.” In M.B.A parlance, she’s B2B, business-to-business. The fabrics chosen will be produced then shown at the semiannual fabric market in High Point, Showtime, the only one of its kind, which takes place June 4–7 and December 3–6. Some of the fabrics will be chosen by the flood of buyers (more than 800) who represent the biggest names in furnishings: Ralph Lauren, Pottery Barn, West Elm,
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Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware, to name a few. Their buyers will go through hundreds of fabrics, anoint the winners, and those (and only those) will be issued and used as upholstery fabrics for the following High Point Market. There, she will see the fabric as imagined: gracing sofas, armchairs, ottomans, curtains, bedding or tabletops. Many of Lane’s favorites never enter production. But happily, many do. It is a gamble, a toss-up, a complete unknown. And Lane loves doing it, in the same way she loves going alone to museums. “I want to spend my days just losing myself in it.” However, deadlines are waiting, and there is work to be done. Lane is in her work uniform, dressed, head-to-toe in varying intensities of gunmetal gray. She swivels in an office chair and glances outside the window. Because she does not render her fabric designs via computer but by hand, Lane’s computer is more a tool for communication than design. “I’m old school,” she says. “I hand draw and paint everything.” There are watercolors on Lane’s drafting table where a bohemian paisley fabric sketch is in process. Everywhere the eye lands there are fabrics of Lane’s own design, sketches, inspiration books, and Lane’s paintings and paints. And color! Color everywhere. The home office, which is more studio than office, is temporary. Lane is gearing up for a home redo at the house she and her husband acquired nearby in the Fisher Park historic district, and they’re living in the rental for the short-term. A love of exuberantly colorful and tactile fabrics is generational for Lane. This passion, she explains, reaches back to her mother and grandmother. A fondness for a riot of color in designs also speaks to her exposure to different cultures. Born in Beirut, Lane grew up in New London, Connecticut. Lane says she was inspired early on by the French influences in postwar Beirut (following World War II). Also, the women in her family moved her. She reaches into a box and produces intricate pieces featuring her mother’s painstaking French knots, cutwork, needlework, even twee children’s clothing that she sewed, or knitted, many fully lined. “What do I do with these?” she asks softly. “They’re so wonderful. I couldn’t get rid of them.” She still keeps her mother’s sewing machine. Growing up, Lane accompanied her mother to the fabric store where she chose her own fabrics and notions. Her mother would create any outfit Lane wanted. While in her 80s, her mother took up painting. The room is a light-shot one with a drafting table and inspiration boards and fabrics everywhere, draped, pinned to boards, or folded on shelves. There is a spotlight that Lane can direct onto a sketch or painting of a new fabric under development in order to dissect how the color changes. She must, Lane explains, have good light in order to properly work with color. Lane worked for Baker Furniture after attending art school where she majored in interior design at the Paier College of Art. Her mentor there was married to painter Henry Gorsky. “It was sort of Bauhaus school,” Lane says. Fashion was her first wish. “That was my heart,” she says. Her parents moved to D.C., and Lane eventually moved there, too. In retirement, she will return to the home the couple keep there and become a “museum rat.” “That is where I get inspiration,” Lane says. And a good place to be lost, in a rapture of color. OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor for O. Henry and a contributing writer for Seasons. Linda Lane serves with her on the Greensboro Historic Preservation Commission. Lane is also chair of Preservation Greensboro’s Hillside Designer Showhouse May 20–21.
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Bicycles Spoke-n Here The two-wheeled designs of David Johnson
By Maria Johnson • Photographs by Bert VanderVeen
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f you go to David Johnson for a custom bicycle, you might feel as if you’re getting a tailor-made suit. He’ll stretch a tape measure down your arms, your torso, and your legs, noting your inseam and the length of your thighs. Then he’ll get more cycle-centric. He’ll test your flexibility — that is, your ability to reach the handlebars — and pepper you with questions. How are you going to use the bike? For racing? Weekend road riding? Touring with packs? Trail busting? Commuting? How often? How many speeds do you need? What kind of brakes? What about aesthetics? Johnson’s signatures are curvy lines and one-of-a-kind paint jobs. Unlike Henry Ford’s early cars — which came in any color his customers wanted, as long as it was black — Johnson’s bikes come in any color his customers want, except black. That’s too stock. “I have a soft spot for the 1950s colors — creamy whites, pastels like sea foam green, soft pinks and, in the same breath, bright intense reds, 1957 Buick Roadmaster red,” says Johnson, a welder who trained his torch on a different mode of transportation five years ago when a local airplane
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maintenance company began shedding jobs, including his. Johnson, now 51, had been looking for a way to combine his artistic eye, his mechanical skills and his boyhood love of bikes: “I said, ‘Screw it. I’ve been putting this off for years.’” He raked up his savings and started a Greensborobased business called Serif, which he changed to Dogwood Cycleworx two years ago. To date, Johnson has designed and built about 25 bicycles. Some clients have hard-to-fit bodies. Some want hard-to-find features. And some just crave the cachet of a custom bike. Brian Bilich, formerly of Greensboro, owns two Johnson-built machines: one for roads, one for trails. The average-size Bilich can, and does, ride off-the-rack bikes. But he also wanted to support a local craftsman who happens to be a friend, and he wanted a bike that was unique. “Riding a custom-made bike is more of an emotionally satisfying experience, having something that no one else has,” says the 38-year-old Bilich, a special education teacher who lives in Asheville now. His mountain bike is painted pink and covered with silhouettes of black luna moths. His road bike is white, decorated with images of honeycomb and bees. The designs mimic the tattoo sleeves that cover both of his arms. “I have an appreciation for the creepy crawlers,” Bilich says. “It’s about expressing yourself.” Johnson makes all of his creations from steel alloy tubes and other parts that he orders from the United States, Germany, England and Italy. Against a background of country music, he spends about 80 hours building each machine in his garage workshop and paint booth. He incorporates flourishes as his customers’ tastes and budgets allow. Most of his finished bikes cost $4,000 to $6,000, less for frames only. If that sounds like a wad, consider that high-end, factory-built bikes can range from $3,000 to $9,000. One of Johnson’s prototypes, which he calls Marilyn in memory of curvaceous Marilyn Monroe, shows what he can do differently. Marilyn is a sexy blue retro cruiser. She sports a three-tone paint job and cantilevered seat stays that arch upward from the rear hub, peak under the top tube (the ouch-y tube to quick-stopping laymen), and come to rest at the head tube, just beneath the handlebars. The dual curves end in pointed tips made from an old ash baseball bat. Marilyn’s wheel rims and bullet-shaped handlebar grips are made of ash, too. Her cream leather saddle is trimmed in conchos, coin-like ornaments that are more common to motorcycle seats. With rat-trap pedals, white tires, front and rear drum brakes and an eight-speed internal rear hub, Marilyn is ready to roar. Will Johnson take her for a spin? Alas, no. She’s only for show. “I don’t have a bike of my own,” Johnson says. “ The cobbler’s children have no shoes.” OH Maria Johnson, no kin to David Johnson, is a contributing editor of O.Henry. She can be reached at ohenrymaria@gmail.com. See more images of David Johnson’s work at dogwoodcycleworx.com The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Designing Woman Carolyn Shaw’s furniture magic By Cynthia Adams
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isn’t an engineer. The company has four on staff who handle the heavy lifting of turning what is, after all, an artistic vision into something that can be mass produced. Still, Shaw emphasized, “It’s technical.” She did take some engineering classes in order to better master the job skills. “I learned to paint at Carolina,” she says, but had to go back to school to understand the manufacturing side of things. After graduation, she landed a job in architectural illustration in Dallas, which was her initial ambition. Her grandfather constantly wheedled to get her to return to Otto & Moore. Shaw finally relented after several years. “I moved back here,” she laughs, “because I was tired of being poor.” She also missed her family. The bulk of Shaw’s hours are spent using AutoCAD (computeraided design) software. In May, she is creating designs that will manifest in furniture shown months later in the fall market. The spring market is deeply affected by the fact that their manufacturers close down for Chinese New Year in February. Spring furniture designs must be completed by January. Manufacturers must have final details months in advance. The time between pre-market and market “tends to be a difficult time.” Perhaps the client loves a bedroom group design as a whole but hates the bed; this means, Shaw explains, they have a month to get designs, specifications, samples, etc. turned around. Container ships are not fast. The turnaround happens because Otto & Moore is “a collaborative firm,” Shaw says, pointing to the congenial mix of family closeness and intense work deadlines. Despite being family-intensive, there is no fudging on the workload. After sending designs to the client, once approved, a sample can be produced in Asia within a week. The downside? The furniture sample may be at sea for a month in transit. Changes are extremely expensive. If the product has to arrive sooner, it means costly air freight. Don’t, however, picture Shaw designing only living room and
Photographs by amy freeman
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y dad designed a collection called Great Hill Road for Riverside Furniture, which they sold for over 20 years,” Carolyn Shaw recalls proudly. That was back when the furniture industry was going great guns, before profit margins got trimmed. “Our Dad bought two new Mercedes in the same day,” Shaw grins. But today the family business, Otto & Moore, would be unrecognizable to its founders, Shaw’s grandfather, William Dudley Moore Sr., and his partners, who established the company in High Point in 1960. The family, though, is no newcomer to the furniture industry. William Sr. had trained with the famed furniture designer Gordon Perlmutter in New Jersey before striking out on his own. His father, James D. Moore, had founded Home Chair Company in North Wilkesboro. Moore Sr. possessed a talent for passing on his design skills to others, including his granddaughter, Carolyn, and her father, William Dudley Moore Jr., who took over the company last year when Moore Sr. died. The company remains a close-knit family affair. Grandchildren Liz Moore, and William (Will) Dudley Moore III, are also furniture designers working in cubicles within a spit-ball throw of one another. But it’s a completely different animal from William Sr.’s and William Jr.’s heyday. “I think people are surprised by how technical my work is — staring at a computer 80 percent of the day,” Shaw says. She stresses that, in addition to needing a design eye, the work today requires spot-on engineering and high-tech skills, because the new manufacturing processes are so computer-integrated. Furniture manufacturing has also shifted overseas, erasing wiggle room for design flaws that could be fixed with a quick trip to the factory. (Client Vaughan-Bassett is still manufactured in Galax, Virginia. This means design changes for them can be tiger-fast, as there is no time delay as with offshore manufacturing.) Design today is engineered to precise standards. The proof of a workable (and profitable) design concept is exactitude as well as commercial appeal. A centimeter of error can be a multimillion dollar error. Shaw likes the synergy of collaboration and seems to thrive in the high-octane world of pressing market deadlines and has little time for office tomfoolery. She is a fine artist (and a 1984 Chapel Hill graduate) who decided to become a furniture designer at the urging of her father. “In our firm, four designers are women, and three are males.” Shaw
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
bedroom suites. At the moment, she is working on color renderings — believe it or not — for Brunswick Billiards of pool hall fame. Brunswick is an old Otto & Moore customer. In their case, Shaw creates color renderings which they approve before she and the engineers develop the final plans. Not all clients request color renderings. “We just do the casing. It’s complex to design a pool table. You have to have multiple internal floor levelers, just to get them flat.” Shaw brings a pool table she designed up on her computer screen: “This is one more contemporary design that I did.” It is a surprise: streamlined, Art Deco in its sleekness. Having worked with Brunswick for years, Shaw anticipates their tastes, but also dedicates time during the furniture market to do a walk through with officials, sharing influences and trends to better understand the company’s target customer. She did so again during the April market. “There are only so many who can afford pool tables. They tend to be older people who have more traditional leanings.” And yet, she describes how vital it is that she can communicate with a great product developer, her liaison to clients. Product developers give Shaw assignments. An example is “to build a short bedroom” by which Shaw means, a small line that can expand if it does well. She discusses cost containment, proportions, finishes, hardware, and all the things that can affect a designer’s work. If they are compatible, if they allow creative license, Shaw is jubilant. “A day like that can end in a celebration at Blue Zucchini,” which is among her favorite restaurants in High Point. That’s about the only time for fun in games, in this intensive day and age. With buying being more segmented, the majority of Otto & Moore’s income is royalty-based, and Shaw says, “We work a lot harder now. They used to take a break and go outside and pitch pennies at lunch.” No more. Shaw’s brother is in China six to eight times a year with accounts. The majority of Otto & Moore’s company accounts are middle to high end names: Century, Riverside Furniture, Barnhardt, Universal, FFDM, Vaughan-Bassett, Lexington, Lane, Hooker, Brunswick Billiards and others. For two weeks each year, during spring and fall, the High Point Market is a daze of client activity and interaction, and “throwing sketches down for the next market,” says Shaw. The intensity is such that Shaw describes the “post market assignments” — juggling the next generation of new designs immediately after market. “I like to go to market one day, and let the creativity wash over me.” If Shaw can go alone, just to experience the sheer creative force of the event, “that’s a great day.” Shaw, who is surrounded by furniture, insists, “I’m still not indifferent to furniture!” In an interview with Furniture Today, she once described how she uses the “mood board.” The mood board tells the story of a design. By pulling tear sheets from magazines and going online to sites such as 1stdibs, an online antique marketplace, Tumblr or Pinterest, Shaw finds inspiration and direction. The global reach of the internet and the personal perspective gained from social media helps her better understand where things are trending but also helps her with “clues and ideas.” That said, though, Shaw gets a faraway look in her eyes and grins, tucking away a stray hair, and sighs, “I would love to go back to a drawing board!” OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor to O.Henry.
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Revolutionary
Design An industrial icon from Greensboro’s past time tunnels to the present with a brilliantly scaled human campus By Billy Ingram • Photographs by John Gessner
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epurposing derelict tombstones of the Industrial Age — Brightleaf Square and American Tobacco Campus in Durham, High Point’s Market Square and multiple factory buildings in Winston-Salem’s Wake Forest Innovation Quarter — have resuscitated entire communities, infusing a permanent sense of vibrancy and viability into what were forlorn economic and cultural dead zones. With the aggressively forward-thinking adaptive reuse of Cone’s former Revolution Mill, Greensboro can finally lay claim to our own cutting-edge venue sculpted from a historic property, a multi-modal monument as impressive as the metropolitan jewels other Carolinians have been bragging about for years. Abandoned manufacturing hubs have been reacclimated here before. Cotton Mill Square was a magnificently funky shopping mall carved out of an 1895 textile works that also served as Western Electric’s top-secret electronics headquarters. It was regrettably demolished in 2008 but Wafco’s one-time flour mill (condominiums since the 1980s) is a lynchpin of the College Hill neighborhood. The urban reinvigoration underway now is on a scale we’ve not witnessed, and it’s as essential to the future of this city as the industries they supplanted were to our past. No question, the Cone family put Greensboro on the map beginning in 1895. Recognizing an emerging market for durable work clothes, they ramped up quickly with four enormous manufacturing plants: Proximity, Revolution,
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White Oak and Proximity Print Works. Built in 1898, Revolution Mill became the largest producer of flannel in the world. By the 1920s, one in seven Gate City residents worked for Cone, with more than 200,000 yards of denim leaving the weave sheds every day. That was when working for Cone was a way of life, literally. Fifteen hundred employees lived with their families in houses provided by the mill, shopped at several company-owned grocers, sent their kids to Cone schools and to Camp Herman in the summer and gathered at annual picnics. Teams from each plant competed against each other on four adjacent baseball diamonds. There was a hotel, coffee shop, fine dining restaurant and two YMCAs with bowling alleys and fully equipped gymnasiums with year-round swimming. A worker could easily spend weeks without leaving the Cone confines where every aspect of life was represented, or replicated you might say, right down to the mill barbershop, drugstore and doctor’s office with nurses who looked in on expectant mothers. A single sheriff’s deputy kept the peace in this city within a city. Not that it was an idyllic utopia. It wasn’t, but that’s another story. Cone continued to manufacture denim in Greensboro until it was blended into Internation Textile Group (ITG) in 2004. ITG still produces denim at its White Oak plant. In the 1960s, however, Revolution Mill occasioned one of the biggest fashion fads ever in jean manufacturing — but not by design. Oldtimers still gab about that Sunday afternoon flood in June of ’68. Although a tremendous amount of rainwater fell in a short period that day, the mill’s The Art & Soul of Greensboro
runoff system was able to handle the capacity. That is until an empty 500-gallon tank came unmoored from its scaffolding, slid into the rushing creek, then jammed like a cork into the outflow under Summit Avenue, sending chemical wastewater surging into nearby homes and overwhelming a storage facility at Revolution. The aftermath left thousands of yards of denim hopelessly mottled and bleach-stained. Someone had the bright idea to stitch them up anyway and the acid washed jean was born. Cone unloaded Revolution Mill in the early 1980s after the bottom fell out of the textile business, locally anyway. Two decades later, developers Frank Auman and Jim Peeples converted a large swath of the mill into an office and event space, the most visible occupant being The Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship. Forced into foreclosure in 2012, Revolution Mill found a savior in Self-Help Ventures Fund of Durham, which develops and invests in commercial real estate projects like this one and paid $8 million to rescue the 45-acre property. “CEO Martin Eakes is from Greensboro so it was a pretty easy decision for him that we would complete this development rather than try to develop it with somebody else,” says Self-Help’s Development Manager Micah Kordsmeier. The organization then proceeded to plow an additional $100 million to forge a campus where creativity, commerce, art and contemporary living converge. It’s a miraculous makeover of colossal proportions, this Gate City phoenix. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Revolution Mill had to be The Art & Soul of Greensboro
gutted and reimagined from the ground up. The original maple flooring, sturdy brickwork, oak support beams and frames were all preserved and enhanced with the latest technological advances, then made to look sleek and ultramodern with interior glass walls. The result is a hive of activity with 250,000 square feet of office and studio space where the entrepreneurial spirit thrives. The variety of enterprises afoot runs the gamut — optometry, portraiture, finance, retail, advertising, dining, digital illustration, furniture design, 3D rendering, you name it. Architectural artifacts of an earlier age abound. A heavy metal fire door in one office, barn-like gates in another, not to mention the numerous weatherbeaten, concrete bunker like flying buttresses that at one time secured outside walls since the vibration from the looms would have quaked the bricks from the framework without them. Attention to detail? Even sewer covers with the Cone logo were restored. Hundreds upon hundreds of energy efficient, 8-foot tall windows needed to be manufactured, almost every one requiring slightly different specs because of the age of the building. Large segments were cut out of the upper level flooring to give the interior a feeling of grandiose openness throughout. Kordsmeier explains their approach: “We wanted you to be able to see the full expanse. That’s what these old mills offer really, the rhythm of the columns and wide open spaces.” To give you some idea of the enormity of the task, most of the doors and windows had been securely bricked in decades ago to “permanently” seal off the site. Every one of those archways and frames needed to be meticulously reconstructed. “Masons don’t just come knowing how to do that,” May 2017
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Kordsmeier notes, “they had to be shown by our architect [Eddie Belk] very specifically how he wanted these bricks to be laid out.” Revolution Mill is a way of life once again. Located in the oldest portion of the building are 142 one- and two-bedroom loft apartments with rustic touches throughout. Original artifacts are incorporated everywhere, 26 separate floor plans all reflect an unmistakable solidity. Look for the dull, comforting thud of hardwood floors, hallways of polished concrete with exposed wooden structural beams, Manhattan-sized windows tucked into 100-year-old, thickly mortared brick walls stretching 20 feet upward. The building’s solidity makes for a spectacular setting, whatever one’s taste in home furnishings or entertainment style. Perfect for hobnobby cocktail parties or literary receptions, but equally well-suited as a crash pad for your old college buddy’s punk band. In another wing, an artist colony with a dozen studios for working painters, designers and sculptors is flourishing alongside UNCG’s Weatherspoon’s spacious outlier gallery hosting bimonthly installations. The Artist In Residency Revolution (AirRev) program offers politically and socially conscious artists the opportunity to do their thing in a 1,774-square foot shared studio space at greatly reduced rates. How fitting that textiles are making a comeback at Revolution. One of the larger spaces is taken up by LT Apparel, a New York–based designer and manufacturer of children’s clothing for labels like Healthtex, Adidas and Carhartt. Fashion designer Rosalyn Womack is known for her elegant, custom-made Bob Mackie-esque dresses for women of all sizes. Kordsmeier tells me Self-Help made accommodations so that established businesses already on site could transition into new digs as seamlessly as possible. “Some people like to be pioneering. And that’s part of the story, but they had a pretty big tenant base here for a long time,” he says. “Over 50 businesses have been here for years; it’s just that we have more space available.” The inner core of the works features a large but surprisingly intimate The Art & Soul of Greensboro
open-air courtyard with a built-in stage and terrace seating for concerts, a wall for projecting movies, a dance shell, and a modular food truck docking station with a side kitchen to service outdoor events. There’s also an adjoining conference center. Kordsmeier believes this and other nearby gathering spots are key to the identity they’re striving for. “Ninety percent of Greensboro may never have a reason to come to the offices here or the apartments, but we want to give them all a reason to come here on a nice summer afternoon,” he explains, adding that the city expressed some concern that the project would siphon away downtown denizens. “We’re conscious of that because we’re big downtown boosters,” Kordsmeier says. “It’s actually unusual for us to do a project outside of a downtown. Anything exciting that happens downtown we want to have a connection to it.” There’s plenty of opportunity for cross-pollination between the two districts. An indispensable catalyst in the downtown music and art scene, Urban Grinders, is extending it’s robust blend of caffeine culture into what owner Jeff Beck is calling a more “refined coffee shop experience.” Fronted by an inviting courtyard and topped with a hardwood slanted ceiling and exposed steel supports, the satellite cafe is situated inside a cozy corner of Revolution Mill. Located in the former machine shop, Cugino Forno’s Italian wood-fired pizzas are flash-baked in a 900-degree oven that boasts “volcanic rock bottoms from Mount Vesuvius.” Their savory Neapolitan pies are sourced strictly from Old World ingredients, right down to the imported flour. The handmade Mozzarella is flown in weekly from a small town in Campania. An expansive dining area is kept impressively sunny thanks to two facing walls with rows of towering cathedral-like windows. Opening later this month, Natty Greene’s Kitchen + Market will specialize in locally sourced foods with meats cut to order, fresh baked goods and, of course, beer. This emporium can be found in the one-time carpentry shop where a striking boathouse-style canopy of shellacked maple planks, embedded May 2017
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with glass panes encircling its center, bathes the room in natural light. This standalone building has been augmented with a mezzanine and a super-sized party deck over the reservoir next to a rivulet where the water runs so clear you can watch tadpoles and sunfish fantailing their way east. Once considered the rear of the property, an entranceway is being fashioned off Yanceyville Street to make the brawny eastern facing buildings the first thing visitors will see. Other than the three mammoth smokestacks that is, remarkable when you consider they’ve held their ground for well over a century. That Greensboro could support such a cosmopolitan concept is an amazing leap of faith. With construction on the $100 million campus nearing completion, Micah Kordsmeier recognizes, “These industrial reuse projects have been going on for 30 years at this point.” In that time, trial and error — how to adapt the spaces for commercial use as opposed to living spaces, for example — bore out. “There’s been a lot of proving of concepts over that time so they were started in stronger markets because there was the ability to take more risk. It took a long time for investors and lenders to develop a comfort and understanding of it,” Kordsmeier says. Thanks to the previous owners, the property was in much better shape than would normally have been the case with these types of reconstructions. The surrounding landscape came adorned with lush greenery and mature trees where slate steps and stacked stone garden walls neatly frame some 1,200 parking spaces. Warehouses with no historical value have been removed, and gently sloping green hills with new shrubs and saplings have replaced the muddy rivulets and thickets that once populated this panorama. It’s here that the Greenway will one day connect Revolution to downtown 2 miles away, a 15-minute bike ride. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Vestiges of a long-gone way of life can be faintly detected in the patches of woods still remaining in the neighborhood. I’ve uncovered steps to homes that no longer exist and almost-buried rail spurs. Legend has it the remains are out there somewhere of an outdoor pool that was destroyed in the 1940s, when the old patriarchal system began to slowly unravel. By the 1960s, the company houses had been sold off to the employees that lived in them at bargain prices, greatly enhancing our city’s middle class. Proximity Mill was lost to the bulldozer in 1979. White Oak is still producing denim, albeit on a smaller scale, while the greatly deteriorated Proximity Print Works was recently purchased, slated to be renovated into affordable housing that will anchor a mill village of sorts for future generations. My grandfather, Judge E. Earl Rives, had the city motto from the 1940s embossed across his business card. It reads: “Greensboro is a good town.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Indeed, for far too long Greensboro seemed oddly preoccupied with constructing avenues out of the city, expanding highways and skyways for hastening people away from here. Perhaps at last we’re at a crossroads between what was, for most folks anyway, a good town and what may one day be a great city. As youthful innovation merges harmoniously with the prodigious labors of our rarely romanticized past, perhaps now we rise. OH Billy Ingram was born and raised in Greensboro but hightailed it out of here as soon as he could, only to return 15 years later so he could torture you with his indigestible word salads. He is the producer of a local music TV series, The Nathan Stringer Summer Music Show, available this month on DVD at Amazon and streaming on YouTube. May 2017
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Story of a House
The Art of Imperfection The intentional and unintentional meet in Leslie and David Moore’s High Point home By Maria Johnson • Photographs by Amy Freeman
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er blousy white shirt — worn simply and smartly over black leggings and accented with white stone beads — isn’t exactly a lab coat, but you could think of interior designer Leslie Moore as a domestic scientist. And you could think of her home, a nearly 100-year-old English-style cottage in High Point’s Old Emerywood neighborhood, as the place she conducts her residential experiments. “This is my laboratory,” she says. “I try things out here.” She points to the hardwood ceiling, starry with can lights, in her vast kitchen. “I wanted to try that. None of my clients would do it,” she says. “I love it. It makes the ceiling disappear. If this room had a white-painted ceiling, it would look like a runway.” Strolling through the home, where Leslie and husband David have raised two children, is the best way to get a feel for Leslie’s taste. “It’s very eclectic,” she says. “That’s an overused word, but that’s what it is.” Her outlook was informed by her art history education at Vanderbilt University and a short stint in Jackson, Mississippi, where David, an ear-nose-and-throat specialist, was a resident.
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hile in Jackson, Leslie took interior design classes at Mississippi College and worked for a residential designer who imported European antiques. When David had time off, the couple drove to New Orleans and haunted the shops along Magazine Street. “We’d go to all of these antique stores, and then we’d go eat,” Leslie says. “It was awesome.” From that experience, Leslie gained an appreciation of French-flavored furniture and accessories. The woman knows her way around Empire, Louis XV, Napoleon III, and Directoire styles. She relishes weaving together old and new pieces of different genres. “When you do things like that, it gives the room an evolved look, like it wasn’t all done at one time,” she says. “I like things to look lived-in, even if you haven’t lived there very long. You don’t want it to look like the designer just walked out the back door.” When David joined a practice in High Point in the early ’90s, he and Leslie bought a house that was the perfect proving ground for her ideas. The house, built in the 1920s, was originally a two-bedroom cottage on a sloping corner lot in a sparsely populated section of the then-new development. An early black-and-white photo, given to the Moores by the daughter of the developer, shows a modest gabled brick house, painted white, with thick timber window frames and a copper overhang at the front door. The setting is downright pastoral; no other structures are visible. The front yard is striped with tall pines and trimmed by a split-rail fence. The driveway is dirt. “We have at least half a dozen magnolias, and they’re enormous. They’re not even in the picture,” says Leslie. Early on, physician Stanley “Brick” Saunders owned the house. He and his family lived there for several decades. “When we moved here, a lot of older people referred to it as the Saunders House,” Leslie says. “You know how it is: It’s never called your house until you move.” After the Saunders clan left, the home changed hands several times, sprouting additions and modifications along the way. The house encompassed nearly 3,000 square feet in 1994, when the Moores moved in with their daughter, Braeden, now 25, and the first in a long series of Golden Retrievers. The following year, son Will arrived. Leslie dipped her toe into a career a few years later. She imported antiques and sold them in Charlotte for a while. In the late ’90s, she launched a solo design business. “I’ve always been a freelancer,” she says. “All of my work has come from referrals and word of mouth.”
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Her front room, which is layered with warm colors and textures, is a microcosm of her exacting approach.
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Her clients include some of High Point’s well-known furniture families. “I feel very humbled by that,” she says. The families pay Moore to do what she has done in her own home: sweat the details until the space sings. “My husband says I’m picky,” she says. “I say I’m discerning.” Her front room, which is layered with warm colors and textures, is a microcosm of her exacting approach. Take, for example, the high-armed Knoll-style sofa. It’s a custom piece — “My middle name is ‘custom,’ ” Leslie says — covered with a milk-chocolate brown cotton velvet in a basket weave. The sofa is dabbed with cotton-print pillows in rose, gray and bone. The gold metallic coffee table, stamped with a linen-pattern top, hovers over a toasty Aubusson rug. The yawning fireplace is flanked by two chairs: a smoking chair covered in ostrich-embossed brown leather and a slipper chair cloaked with a rosy pinkand-taupe toile slip cover. A creamy cashmere throw lolls over the back. “I’m all about throws,” Leslie says. The other end of the room is anchored by a meaty chest of drawers that was painted with a tortoise shell pattern at The Wind Rose in Greensboro. Until it closed a few years ago, the store was a designers’ mecca of custom-made furniture and finishes. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Leslie balanced the chest with an antique French writing desk on the opposite wall. With its leather inset top and molded gold ormolu accents, the desk is more ornate than Moore’s overall style, and certainly fancier than the room itself, which is rustic with wavy hand-troweled plaster walls and a beamembedded ceiling. But the desk works, and it’s evidence of how Moore stamps a room with curveballs —unexpected splashes of colors, textures and styles. Uniformity is not her way. Often, her off-speed pitches show up on the walls. She’s not much on contemporary furniture, but she laps up contemporary art, as long as it’s original. For a client in Pinehurst, she’s assembling the works of emerging Southern female artists. She’s adamant that art does not have to match the sofa. “Buy what you are drawn to,” she advises. All of the Moores’ art is original, and some of it originated with them. Leslie points to a piece that she did, an impressionistic acrylic painting of a European alley. Another wall holds a precise watercolor that David painted, guided by a photograph of the garden at Villa Borghese, which they visited in Italy. The columnar cypresses and umbrella-shaped pines captivated him. More of his paintings — abstract color blocks — are grouped in the butler’s pantry and walk-through bar. David confines his artistic bursts to music these days. He plays upright May 2017
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bass in a new-grass band called Blue Ridge James. The group was known as Blue Ridge Jams, with no “e”, until a venue wrongly advertised them as Blue Ridge James, and the bandmates decided they liked that name better. Leslie says that David doesn’t have, or want, much say in how she decorates. All he asks is that no one disturb his encampment, a planet with just enough gravity to suck in musical instrument cases, papers, files, packs and the like, on one end of the family room. “This I’d like to blow up,” Leslie says, waving her hands at the loose ends. “Just like he’d like to blow up what we call Mommy World in the kitchen.” Mommy World is a catchall counter full of Target bags, reading glasses and recently opened mail. Life in progress.
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eslie made sure there was plenty of room for that when they doubled the size of house with a massive addition 10 years ago. Away went the old breakfast room, deck and carport. In came a two-car garage with upstairs playroom and office. The satellite is docked to the house with a screened breezeway, a favorite place for the family to catch a breeze and a bite to eat. A colonnade of chunky posts and curved brackets bolster the breezeway. The thick beams and beefy wooden door and window frames — distinctive with their overhanging lintels — echo the original house. So does the unusual brickwork. Under Leslie’s watchful eye, masons replicated the squash mortar, which spills from between the bricks like an overloaded tuna sandwich, and the occasional clutch of bricks that jut from the otherwise plumb walls. “Some of the masons were like, “I don’t know about this,” she says. “But once
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they did it, they got into it. They were feeling very artisan-like.” The main house grew, too. The huge new kitchen revolves around an island that seats six; no breakfast table need apply. An enclosed loggia punched with skylights overlooks a terrace. An airy new master bedroom provides a refuge. The master is as cool and restful as the sitting room (at the front of the house) is warm and spicy. “If I had a refrigerator and a Keurig up here, I could stay here 90 percent of the time,” says Leslie. The bedroom is a study in the unexpected. For bedside tables, Leslie uses chests of drawers, each of a different style and color. Her fondness for chests is well-established throughout the house. In Leslie’s mind, drawers beat shelves for storage every time. She and David use the bedside chests for clothes. A towering armoire holds linens. A television floats above a raised gas fireplace that’s built into a wall across from the king-size bed. “I wanted to see it,” Leslie says, explaining the elevated firebox. More surprises converge where pale aqua walls meet cotton print drapery panels with periwinkle blue, a hue that’s repeated in the delicate trellis pattern of the wool carpet. “It doesn’t need to match; I don’t want it to match,” she says. “I tell my clients, if the colors don’t match, it’s easier on your eye. In nature, nothing is the same color.” She credits her art-history training for this understanding. “Sometimes,” Leslie says, “it’s the color that you think shouldn’t go that makes the piece and gives it fluidity.” As with most old houses that have been appended, the Moores’ place is full of quirks and whispers of lives past: half-steps and slightly ramped changes in floor elevations; scrolled iron stair railings; white-painted plank doors leading to the original bedrooms. It’s all fine with Leslie. “I like things perfectly imperfect,” she says. OH Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.
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May 2017
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— Botanicus —
Joy Mongers The peony is sure to bring a smile to anyone’s face
M
By Ross Howell Jr.
arco Polo described peonies as “roses the size of cabbages” when he returned to Italy from his sojourn in China in the 13th century. Before Polo’s visit, the flower had been cultivated for centuries by the Chinese for its beauty and for its taste. “I eat nothing without its sauce,” philosopher Confucius (551 B.C.–479 B.C.) is said to have commented about the peony. “I enjoy it very much, because of its flavor.” Despite the fact that a quick Internet search yielded a surprisingly tasty-sounding recipe for peony jelly from a Benton Harbor, Michigan, newspaper, the only way peonies make their way to the dining room in my household is in a flower arrangement. But what arrangements they are! After frail, wine-colored shoots in spring, peonies give way to clenched balls of blossom amid a profusion of green leaves, the nectar of those balls sweet bliss to the ant world. Heavier, they nod and tenuously open, the most voluptuous of all flowers — pink, red, white, whites limned with pink or red — petal after ruffled petal offering beauty to the light. When I cut these flowers for my wife, and see the smile on her face as she arranges them in a vase or bowl, I find myself experiencing for a moment what anyone who grows flowers longs for, maybe what anyone at all longs for — pure joy. In the end, after their beauty has passed and they disintegrate, leaving a clutter of petals on the dining room table after a party, as if someone had tried to bring a touch of elegance to a scene in one of the Hangover movies, I carry them unceremoniously to the trash or compost. Since I’m a young man no longer, I feel a bit more wistful each time I enact this ritual. But I grow maudlin. How about taking part in a celebration of peonies? Founded in 1903, the American Peony Society notes that the flower first enjoyed public interest primarily as a cut flower in the first half of the 20th century. Since peonies could be harvested in bud and refrigerated without damage for several weeks, they could be shipped by train from cultivating areas to urban markets. Early APS exhibitions, therefore, were primarily cut flower affairs, and extremely competitive. “In 1936, Harry F. Little brought over three thousand blooms to the show, held in Toronto that year,” the APS writes. “The most coveted award in those days was that for Class No. 1: A collection of 100 blooms made up of not less than 80 different varieties. . . . Modern shows are more relaxed affairs with highest honors going to the one best peony in the show.” So for a day trip (Marco Polo’s China journey lasted 26 years!), you might want to take in the American Peony Society’s Annual Convention. This year it’s in Raleigh, May 31 to June 4. While most APS events — such as the guided tours of the Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, N.C. State’s JC Raulston Arboretum, and plant hunter Tony Avent’s Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Garden in Raleigh — are for members only, these sites are open to the public, so you can tour them on your own in case you’re not an APS member. Regardless, the big APS Flower Exhibition and some seminars are and swill be open to the public. Be sure to check listings. And don’t forget your peonies for Mother’s Day! OH
Ross Howell Jr.’s novel Forsaken has been named a finalist for the 2016 “Foreword” INDIE Book of the Year in the Historical Adult Fiction category.
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May 2017
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92 O.Henry
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
By BAysh Alder Ash Alder
I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers. –Claude Monet May is a month of magic. A single flower is proof. But the Earth spills fragrant blossoms with the fervor of a child in a spring wedding, hands dipping into that shaky wicker basket until the aisle resembles a sea of brush strokes — a Monet painting come to life. May is a month of abundance. Plump strawberries. Rhubarb pie. Tomato vines winding up rustic garden trellises. On May 1, an ancient fire festival called Beltane celebrates this fertile season with feasts and rituals. Midway between the spring equinox and summer solstice, Beltane was traditionally a celebration of light that marked the beginning of summer, a Gaelic May Day festival during which cattle were led between two sacred fires, the smoke from which was said to purify and shield the herd from disease before they were driven into open pasture. Villagers and couples danced round and leapt over the flames to cleanse their souls and invoke fertility and good fortune. May is a month of flowers. In her book of essays and meditations inspired by a retreat to Florida’s Captiva Island in the early 1950s, Anne Morrow Lindbergh mused that “arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day — like writing a poem or saying a prayer.” Mother’s Day falls on Sunday, May 14, two days after the full Flower Moon. Gift her wildflowers. A sprig of dogwood. Irises from the garden. Gather them in the early light and feel the magic of May pulsing within them.
Spring in a Bottle
The first maypoles were made of hawthorn, a mystical tree whose pale blossoms represent hope and supreme happiness. Also called thornapple, hawberry and May bush, the ancient Celts believed this magical tree could heal a broken heart. If you stumble upon a wild hawthorn, especially one growing among ash and oak, legend has it you have found a portal to the faerie realm. The Celts sure love their nature spirits. According to Celtic tree astrology, those born from May 13 – June 9 draw wisdom from the sacred hawthorn. Creative and charismatic, hawthorn types are often found performing for a crowd. They’re most compatible with ash (Feb. 18 – March 17) and rowan signs (January 21 – Feb. 17). And wouldn’t you know it? The hawthorn is one of two birth flowers of May, the other being lily of the valley — less fabled but far more fragrant.
Remember picking your first dandelion? How it yellowed your clothes and fingers? How its tiny florets rendered it the most perfect specimen you’d ever seen? Before you knew it as weed or edible, dandelion was faithful companion. You wove it into wildflower crowns, you gathered them for Mother, and gasped when you found one gone to seed. Even as a child, you somehow knew that dandies spread like laughter. For that, you were grateful. In the spirit of that playful inner child, harvest a basketful of dandelions on a warm May evening. Make wine. Pop off the blossoms. Soak them in citrus juices. Boil with ginger and clove. Bottle the sweetness of spring to enjoy all year. Dandelion wine recipes are nearly as easy to find as the star ingredient. Just be sure to harvest from someplace free of pesticides. And when the blossoms stain your fingers, don’t be surprised by a sudden impulse to turn a cartwheel or somersault across the lawn.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The May Bush
Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. — A. A. Milne
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May 2017 Sip 'N' See 5/
1
Berried Treasure
May 1 SIP ’N’ SEE. 6 p.m. Further the cause of emerging artist educational programs and community outreach, the Center for Visual Arts Greensboro at Wine & Vine hosts a fundraiser, consisting of live music, tasty eats and wine. Tessa Farm to Fork, 3929 Battleground Avenue, Greensboro. Tickets: greensboroart.org.
May 1–21 GRADS’ GRADES. See the 2017 M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition featuring works of seven M.F.A. candidates at UNCG’s School of Art. Weatherspoon Art
94 O.Henry
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Shrew Who?
A Meal for Mom 5/
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Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
May 1–June 4 SMALL IS ALL. Explore the variety in a seemingly scaled-back genre and its successor at Minimalism/ Post-Minimalism. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
5/
19-21
Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon.uncg.edu.
May 2–8 HOPPERS HERE. The Greensboro Grasshoppers are home again. First National Bank Field, 408 Bellemeade Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 2682255 or www.milb.com.
May 1–August 26
May 3
ECHOES. Likenesses in paintings’ structure, theme and technique are apparent in Affinities & Variations.
OPUS CONCERT. 7 p.m. Ratta-ta-tatta-ta! Greensboro Percusssion Ensembles take the stage The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Arts Calendar
Scent-illating 5/
20
Church Service 5/
under the baton of Mike Lasley. Trinity Church, 5200 West Friendly Avenue, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov. AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet spoken-word artist Kondwani Fidel, author of Raw Wounds. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
May 4 TRACE IN THE HOLE. 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Keep it between the lines at an Adult Workshop: The Art of Stenciling. GreenHill, 200 North Davie Street, The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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The Wheel Deal
Summer Sounds 5/
25
Greeensboro. To register: (336) 333-7460 or greenhillnc.org. ROCK THE BLOCK. 6 p.m. Signature Sounds Showcase Series presents the rockin’, Americana sound of Old Heavy Hands. Select Cycles, 430 North Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: humblmediasvcs.com/events. AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet Adam Sobsey, author of Chrissie Hynde: A Musical Biography and enjoy special guest musical performances. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
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May 4 & 6 WHAT THE EL? 8 p.m. Cellist Zuill Bailey joins Greensboro Symphony for an evening of Elgar. Dana Auditorium, 5800 Friendly Avenue, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 335-5456, ext. 224 or greeensborosymphony.org.
May 4–6 DANCIN’ IN THE STREETS. Daily movement classes, pop-up and evening performances in unlikely spaces — all of it gratis. Welcome to On Site/In Sight: A Downtown Winston-Salem Dance Festival presented by Helen Simoneau Danse. May 2017
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Arts Calendar Various locations in downtown Winston-Salem. Info: helensimoneau.com.
May 4–7 LADIES’ DAY. A community of eight women, a girl coming of age . . . Catch Shakin’ the Mess Out of Misery. Performance times vary. Caldcleugh Multicultural Center, 1700 Orchard Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 373-2974 or greensboro-nc.gov.
AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 4 p.m. Meet Andrew Farah, author of Hemingway’s Brain. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 7631919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
United Mthodist Church, 410 North Holden Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov.
May 7
THE TROUBLES. 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Frankly, you do give a damn about the South’s most epic story. See the 1939 classic, Gone With the Wind. Carolina Theatre, 310 South Greene Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
May 9
May 5
CRAFTY. 11 a.m. The works of more than 100 local artists is yours to peruse and buy at the Made 4 Market Arts, Crafts & Pottery Show. Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 373-2402 or gsofarmersmarket.org.
TITUS SPOT. 7:30 p.m. That would be Titus Gant Quartet, the first concert of Jazz in the Crown series. Crown at the Carolina Theatre, 310 South Greene Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
OPUS CONCERT. 3 p.m. Wah wah wah! Greensboro Brass Ensemble blows hard, with Kiyoshi Carter as conductor. Greensboro History Museum, 130 Summit Avenue, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov
OPUS CONCERT. 7:30 p.m. Peter Perret conducts Philharmonia of Greensboro. Page High School Auditorium, 201 Alma Pinnix Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov.
ANCESTRAL AVENUES. 3 p.m. Learn more obscure research techniques in basic geneaology at “Roads Less Traveled,” presented by Timothy Rackley. Morgan Room, High Point Library, 901 North Main Street, High Point. Info: (336) 885-1859 or highpoint.org.
AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet novelist C. David Gelly, author of Volunteer Gap. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
AUTHORS, AUTHORS. 3 p.m. Meet poets Stephanie Rogers (Plucking the Stinger) and Kerri French (Instruments of Summer), and at 4:30 p.m., Maggie Rosen (Deliberate Speed of Ghosts) and author Dawn Shirk. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
THE LONGEST YARD. Noon. We know: Mowing and weeding take up a lot of time, but they’re worth the effort. Learn more at a lunch and learn, “9 Steps to a Healthy Carolina Yard.” Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden, 215 South Main Street, Kernersville. To register: (336) 996-7888 or pauljcienerbotanicalgarden.org.
May 6 BERRIED TREASURE. 10 a.m. Learn how early Quaker settlers prepared strawberries. Hoggatt House Kitchen, Historical Park, High Point Museum, 1859 East Lexington Avenue, High Point. Info: (336) 885-1859 or highpointmuseum.org. BREW HA HA! 2 p.m. The family that steeps together keeps together. Take a Family Cooking Class: Afternoon Tea, and learn how to make tea sandwiches, rooibos tea chai shortbread cookies, while sipping either iced or hot tea. Greensboro Children’s Museum, 220 North Church Street, Greensboro. To register: (336) 574-2898 or gcmuseum.com.
May 8 OPUS CONCERT. 7:30 p.m. Young voices ring loud and clear, thanks to Greensboro Youth Chorus and conductors Ann Doyle and Teresa Allred. Christ
AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet Leslie Lawrence, author of The Death of Fred Astaire — and Other Essays from a Life Outside the Line. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
May 10
May 11
May 12 AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet John Trump, author of Still & Barrel: Craft Spirits in the Old North State. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street,
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May 2017
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Arts Calendar Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com. OPUS CONCERT. 7:30 p.m. Choral Society of Greensboro tunes up. Jon Brotherton conducts. Christ United Methodist Church, 410 North Holden Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov.
paninis • salads craft beer & wine • and more
May 13
Food & Dining
HOME BOY. 10 a.m. Meaning, local artist William Mangum, whose collection of new art and home furnishings, Simply Urban, makes its debut. William Mangum Fine Art, 2166 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro. Info: (336)379-9200 or williammangum.com.
May 13 & 27 IRON FISTED. 10 a.m. You-know-who is back at the forge, doing his thing. High Point Museum, 1859 East Lexington Avenue, High Point. Info: (336) 8851859 or highpointmuseum.org. BOOK TALK. 2 p.m. WFDD/Scuppernong Book Club discusses Swing Time by Zadie Smith. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
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OPUS CONCERT. 7:30 p.m. Ta ra ra boom dee-ay! Greensboro Concert Band plays on, with Evan Feldman conducting. Grimsley High School, 801 Westover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov. WISEGUYS. 8 p.m. For some giggles and guffaws see Laugh My Pain Away, featuring comedians Bruce Bruce, Luenell, Kountry Wayne, Bruh Man and host Drankins from the The Hip Hop Station’s 3 Live Crew Morning Show. Special Events Center, Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 West Gate City Boulevard, Greensboro. Tickets: (800) 745-3000 or ticketmaster.com.
May 14 A MEAL FOR MOM. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Give Mom a break in the kitchen by treating her to a buffet brunch of crab legs, heirloom tomatoes and goat cheese, shrimp and grits, stuffed zucchini, grilled salmon, carving stations, pastries, desserts and more. Print Works Bistro, Proximity Hotel, 704 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Reservations: (336) 215-2868. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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shops • service • food • farms
Arts Calendar
ROPE ’EM AND WRITE ’EM! 3 p.m. Words, that is. Self-published writers gather for an Author Rodeo. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
May 15 THE PAST SPEAKS. 10 a.m. Learn the stories behind select objects in the Greensboro History Museum’s archives, courtesy of Bill Moore, former director of the museum. Greensboro History Museum, 130 Summit Avenue, Greensboro. Info: (336) 373-2043 or greensborohistory.org.
May 16 AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet Robert J. Norris, author of Exonerated: A History of the Innocence Movement. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
May 18 NO CIGAR. 5:30 p.m. But how about a cigar box . . . as an altar? Make a sacred space using recycled
98 O.Henry
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materials, found objects and personal items as a part of the Arts & Wellness series. GreenHill, 200 North Davie Street, Greensboro. To register: (336) 333-7460 or greenhillnc.org/Arts-Wellness.
May 19–21 HOPPERS HERE. The Greensboro Grasshoppers are home again. First National Bank Field, 408 Bellemeade Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 2682255 or www.milb.com. SHREW WHO! 5:30 p.m. Youth Shakespeare brings to life the volatile relationship between Kate and Petruchio in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Suggested donation: $8. Tanger Bicentennial Gardens, 1105 Hobbs Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov.
May 19 HANGING WITH CHAD. 8 p.m. Chad Eby Quintet brings some riffs to Jazz at the Crown. Carolina Theatre, 310 South Greene Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
May 20 HOOFIN’ IT THROUGH HISTORY. 8 a.m. Historian Glenn Chavis leads a walking tour of the Washington Street district. Limit: 20 people. Changing Tides Cultural Center, 613 Washington Street, High Point. To register: (336) 885-1859. SCENT-ILLATING. 10 a.m. Tour the aromatic herb garden and see how early settlers used herbs in sachets, among other ways. High Point Museum, 1859 East Lexington Avenue, High Point. Info: (336) 885-1859 highpointmuseum.org. CHURCH SERVICE. 8 p.m. As in, Eric Church, country superstar whose “Holdin’ My Own” tour comes to town. Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 West Gate City Boulevard, Greensboro. Tickets: (800) 7453000 or ticketmaster.com.
May 21–September 3 PAPERED OVER. Rock? Scissors? Who needs ’em? Catch Art on Paper 2017: The 44 th Exhibition. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon. uncg.edu.
May 2017
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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May 2017
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Whether it’s for a mother or a graduate ...
Sometimes it’s smarter to lease than to sell your home. Call us when you think you’re there! Michelle will be pleased to discuss how Burkely Rental Homes can help you. -Sterling Kelly, CEO Burkely Communities
One stop shopping for all your gift-giving needs! Over 6,000 square feet filled with antiques, upholstery, accessories and gifts from over 25 designers, dealers and artists.
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this event is free and open to the public with plenty of free parking and handicap accessible. exhibit runs through Saturday, June 3, 2017.
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Arts Calendar May 22 AUTHOR, AUTHOR. 7 p.m. Meet Ali Standish, children’s author who penned The Ethan I Was Before. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
May 25 SUMMER SOUNDS. 7:30 p.m. North Carolina Brass Band gears up for summer, with “Picnic,” a concert of typical outdoor music — marches, jazz, pops and more. Carolina Theatre, 310 South Greene Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 333-2605 or carolinatheatre.com.
May 25–31 HOPPERS HERE. The Greensboro Grasshoppers are home again. First National Bank Field, 408 Bellemeade Street, Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 2682255 or www.milb.com.
May 27–29 THE WHEEL DEAL. Cyclists from all over the world convene in the Twin City for road races, concerts and Carolina hospitality. Catch the action at the Winston-Salem Cycling Classic. Downtown Winston-Salem. Info: winstonsalemcycling.com.
WEEKLY HAPPENINGS Mondays 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 North Church Street, Greensboro. Preregistration: (336) 574-2898 or gcmuseum.com. CHAT-EAU. Noon. French leave? Au contraire! Join French Table, a conversation group. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
Tuesdays 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 North Main Street, High The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Point. Info: (336) 883-3666 or highpointpubliclibrary. com. PINT-SIZED GARDENERS. 3:30 p.m. Instill a love of gardening and growing, edible things in your wee one at Little Sprouts (ages 3 to 5 years). No session on 5/30. Greensboro Children’s Museum, 220 North Church Street, Greensboro. To register: (336) 5742898 or gcmuseum.com. PICKIN’ AND GRINNIN’ 6 until 9 p.m. Y’all come for Songs from a Southern Kitchen at Lucky 32 Southern Kitchen: Darrell Craig and Jeremy Wood (5/2); Wes Collins, Heather Styka and Mike Reed (5/9); Vicki Genfan and Kristy Jackson (5/16); Molly McGinn, Dave Willis, and Brent Buckner (5/23); Tommy Edwards & Friends (5/30); 1421 Westover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: (336) 370-0707 or lucky32.com/greensboro_music.htm.
Wednesdays TO MARKET, TO MARKET. 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. The produce will be fresh and the cut fleurs belles at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 373-2402 or gsofarmersmarket.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 North Main Street, High Point. Info: (336) 883-3666 or highpointpubliclibrary.com.
Thursdays TWICE UPON A TIME. 11 a.m. Preschool Storytime convenes for children ages 3–5. Storyroom, High Point Public Library, 901 North Main Street, 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 special guests: Holly Hopkins (5/4); Nicci Canada (5/11); Tenya Coleman (5/18); Georgiana Penn (5/25). All performances are at the O.Henry Hotel Social Lobby Bar. No cover. 624 May 2017
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Arts Calendar Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: (336) 8542000 or www.ohenryhotel.com/jazz.htm. JAZZ NIGHT. 7 p.m. Fresh-ground, freshbrewed coffee is served with a side of jazz at Tate Street Coffee House, 334 Tate Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 275-2754 or tatestreetcoffeehouse.com.
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 Street, Greensboro. Info: gsofarmersmarket.org.
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.
THRICE UPON A TIME. 11 a.m. Hear a good yarn at Children’s Storytime. Scuppernong Books, 304 South Elm Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 763-1919 or scuppernongbooks.com.
Fridays
Fridays & Saturdays
JAZZ ENCORE. 6:30 p.m. Hear contemporary jazz cats John Trotta, Sarah Strable & Ernie Rushing (5/6); Anne-Claire Niver Quartet (5/13); The Matt Reid Quartet (5/20); Carrie Marshall, Scott Sawyer, Ron Brendle and Dave Fox (5/27), and enjoy 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.
NIGHTMARES ON ELM STREET. 8 p.m. A 90-minute, historical, candlelit ghost walking tour of Downtown Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 905-4060 or
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 HALF OF IT. 5 p.m. Enjoy the hands-on exhibits and activities for half the cost of admission at $4 Fun Fridays. Greensboro Children’s Museum, 220 North Church Street, Greensboro. Info: (336) 574-2898 or gcmuseum.com.
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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 $4 admission, as opposed to the usual $8, will allow you entry to exhibits and more. Greensboro Children’s Museum, 220 North Church Street, 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 Westover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: (336) 370-0707 or lucky32.com/fried_chicken.htm. JAZZ EN PLEIN AIR. 6 p.m. Don’t let the specter of the work week ruin the remains of your weekend; cheer up with Sunday Jazz Picnics at LeBauer Park, featuring Jacqui Haggerty (5/7); Kassem Williams Trio (5/14); Mark Mazzatenta (5/21); and The Epiphany Project (5/28), 208 North Davie Street, Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
om fore M e for nd Bay! p o ke D Sh ee er’s W th e Th Mo
meet finely crafted beer and wine.
This is where they come together,
Arts & Culture
Where arts and fine crafts
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Arts and Vine.
May 6-7, 2017
10am-5pm • Dennis A.Wicker Civic Center Art • Pottery • Fine Crafts • Music Wine • Craft Beer • Food • Fun Free Admission to Artists’ Booths. Tickets available to Wine/Craft Beer Tasting & A Taste Of Sanford!
SanfordArtsAndVine.com Facebook.com/ArtsAndVine Thanks to our generous 2017 Festival Sponsors!
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
May 2017
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Richard Fennell, House at Damascus, 2000, oil on canvas, 40 x 48 inches
Arts & Culture
OPENING RECEPTION Friday, June 16 | 6:00 – 7:30 PM Members’ Preview: 5:30-6:00 PM www.GreenHillNC.org/Richard-Fennell
ANNUAL MEETING, QUINTESSENTIAL SOUTHERN COCKTAIL COMPETITION + GOOD EATS AUCTION Wednesday, June 21 | 5:30 - 8:30 PM www.GreenHillNC.org/Good-Eats
PAINTING DEMONSTRATION + TALK BY RICHARD FENNELL Wednesday, August 16 | 6:00– 7:00 PM For a catalogue of works available for sale email Edie.Carpenter@GreenHillNC.org
200 N. Davie Street | GreenHillNC.org Located in the Heart of the Cultural District
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104 O.Henry
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Arts & Culture
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
May 2017
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336.373.6200
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May 2017
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
May 2017
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
GreenScene
Jonah & Norman Chiu
Lessons for Life Gala Performance
The Music Academy of North Carolina Saturday, March 18, 2017 Photographs by Lynn Donovan
Cat Keen Hock, Ron Ford, Matt & Becky Libera
Claire & Molly Kaiser
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Stephanie Foley Davis, Kellie Burgess
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
May 2017
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GreenScene
Jeff Johnson, Emily Frye
Tangerstyle Spring VIP Preview Party Tanger Outlets Thursday, March 16, 2017
Photographs by Lynn Donovan
Meghan Grant, Katie Pendergraft
Janice & Kendra Sharpe
Jennifer Bringle Handy, Mandy Blake
Janelle Triola, Kendria Godair
DJ Hargrave, Marissa Barrett, Mandy Engelman
Derrick Vereen, Charlton Provatas, Kassem Williams, Aaron Matson
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Ana Faneite, Mishell Thiolen
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
GreenScene
Debbie & Ed Mirise
Ethnosh - The Flavors of Greensboro Jerusalem Market Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Photographs by Lynn Donovan
Dave Cohen, Judy Hampton Katie Marshall, Trish Kemerly
Lisa Rose, Janice Mericka
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Fenna & Chris Corry
Easa, Saliba, Omar & Debbie Hanhan
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Jane Bowie, Phil & Marisol Rogers
George & Elizabeth Burfeind
May 2017
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Fred & Sue Starr
GreenScene Prelude to Paris
To Benefit EMF's Young Artist Scholarships Friday, March 31, 2017 Photographs by Lynn Donovan
Jackie Humphrey, Kenny & Sandra Greene
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May & Khalel Freihan, Janie Silvers
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116 O.Henry
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Which one suits your living desires? top home
2700 Lake Forest Drive
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May 2017
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State Street
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118 O.Henry
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Accidental Astrologer
Maybe Baby For Taurus, golden days are ahead
By Astrid Stellanova
May means in Taurus-speak, maybe, or maybe not. Taurus, we know better than
to pull your tail and enrage the hothead in you. Friends know you as surprisingly sunny and funny when unprovoked. Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth II, Adele, George Clooney, Tina Fey, all share the sign of Taurus, and none of them seems too ill-tempered, right? — Ad Astra, Astrid
Taurus (April 20–May 20) If anybody crosses somebody in your camp, you’re liable to burn their house down, eat the provisions and take their mule. You are a fierce adversary, Sugar, with a fierce sweet tooth, right? But there is the other side, all generous and loving, and when that side shines, everybody wants to stand in your golden light. This is the reason you collect friends — and enemies — like nobody’s business. Speaking of which, a business opportunity opens in due time. You have every reason to give it a very good look. Gemini (May 21–June 20) This month is Willy Wonka fun and crazy for you. Find the wild child in you to go with it and play. The fact that you finally made it into the candy factory says a lot about just how tenacious you are. You earned your pass and then some. The month you are going to have is one you have longed for, Honey. Cancer (June 21–July 22) Last month’s shenanigans left you a little sheepish and secretly ashamed. Get over it, Sweet Thing. You may have gone to the extremes, but there ain’t no reason you can’t reboot and move on. You paid to play, and nobody had more fun than you did. BTW: Brace yourself for an unexpected love to surface. Leo (July 23–August 22) Two days this month will reveal aspects of your abilities and talents that you have denied or suppressed. If you can just go with the flow, these talents will lead you to unexpected outcomes offering a brand-new vocational choice. Pay extra attention to the number 4 for additional clues — and don’t argue so dang much. Virgo (August 23–September 22) There is either a good time or a good story this month for Virgo. When you stop muddling over something long past, you will find the traction to move forward. The fact that it is over is something you ain’t quite accepted yet. Sugar, the past is as stale as an old doughnut, but the present is where your true joy lies. Libra (September 23–October 22) The past month was a doozy, and you felt like a wing-walker with a drunk pilot at the controls. This is a time of trusting in yourself and waving bye-bye to the dingdong person formerly in charge of your destiny. You are the pilot of your life, Sweet Thing. You don’t have to do aerial tricks to prove it, either. Scorpio (October 23–November 21) It was sweeter than a bite of a hot buttered biscuit drizzled with honey just to The Art & Soul of Greensboro
watch the face of a rival fall behind as you roared to the front, wasn’t it? You have pulled way ahead, but they ain’t giving up quite so easy. It might pay off for you to form a peaceful pact with them, or else spend the rest of the year playing a mean game of tag. Sagittarius (November 22–December 21) You’ve dodged a few bullets this year. Beginning to face that maybe careless and reckless ain’t just your driving traits? Now, settle down and cogitate. Let the lessons and the luck sink in, Sugar. It is fun to be one step ahead of trouble, Twinkle Toes, but it might detract from more important work you have yet to do. Capricorn (December 22–January 19) Recent events have confirmed your latest inspirations were a success, and some powerful folks are about to bet on you and your newest ideas. If you were a horse, you would give Seattle Slew a run for the money. All signs point to your standing in the winning circle, Honey Bun. Bow, smile and say thank you. Aquarius (January 20–February 18) In the past, you let one close to you dictate the terms of your life, right down to who, what, where and how things would go down. Have you noticed how wrong they were about what worked for you? Fire their fool self. You are in a unique situation, Honey Bunny, to reposition your life and your happiness. Pisces (February 19–March 20) When you got right down to it, you immediately figured out what you needed. That wasn’t so hard was it? Now you have won the admiration of someone who could use your past experience. Pay it forward. Give this person the benefit of what you know. Your lives intersected for a good reason, Sugar. Aries (March 21–April 19) By garaging your three-horsepower moped, you have found the peace and quiet you didn’t know you needed. As entertaining as it was to watch you roar around town in a ball cap and gray pantyhose, it seems about time you embraced your serious side. You are going to need it. There is a real challenge ahead, Darling. You are up to it. 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.
May 2017
O.Henry 119
O.Henry Ending
The Paper Angel
By Cynthia Adams
On a Sunday morning last
May, my stepfather rose to start the coffee pot. He was an insomniac, sometimes up as early as 2:30 a.m. That morning, however, he slipped, shattering two bones in his leg.
There had been other falls, other broken bones, including fractures to his back and hip. Somehow, he had powered back each time. But now, well in 90s, he was not returning to his inveterate self. After more than 10 years of dialysis, my stepfather was spent. There was no chance he would walk again, doctors decreed. He decided he was ready to go — meaning, the ultimate leavetaking. No surgeries, no more dialysis. My stepfather awaited transfer to hospice care — an irony, as hospice was where I had first met him back in 1990 when we were fellow volunteers. We had come full circle; no more standing by a bedside comforting a dying stranger. Now, my stepfather was awaiting one of the 17 beds at Beacon Place, a hospice residential center. On Monday, my mother took a call from his hospital bedside. She looked puzzled, then brightened; “Oh, yes!” she said. “You’re our paper girl!” While making Sunday’s predawn paper rounds, Shywana noticed the ambulance picking up “Mr. Jim.” She asked to visit him. By the time she arrived at
120 O.Henry
May 2017
Cone Hospital, my stepfather had already been transported to hospice. So she drove across town to Beacon Place. “Do you know who I am?” Shywana asked gently as she entered his room around 8:30 p.m. “Of course I do,” Jim answered, but his clarity was ebbing. She gently prompted. “I deliver your paper, remember?” My mother took Shywana’s hand. “You leave our paper at the steps every morning,” she said. “You are so wonderful to us.” Shywana described seeing “Mr. Jim” in the kitchen in the wee hours preparing coffee while on her delivery route. Whenever he couldn’t find the paper easily, he would phone her. Shywana began getting out of her car and propping the paper on the back steps. She and my stepfather met only once in person. But she was always watching out for him. She began retrieving their emptied garbage can on Tuesdays. My mother had no clue, thinking it was a kind neighbor. By the next afternoon, “Mr. Jim” died. The following Sunday, Shywana placed a Hallmark card with the paper, propping it carefully by the back steps. Since Jim’s death, we learned more about Shywana. She arises at 12 a.m. and delivers four paper routes before arriving at her day care job. She returns home after 8 p.m. We rely upon the kindness of strangers, to paraphrase Tennessee Williams. But now, we know the name, and the endless kindness, of at least one. OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor to O.Henry. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Illustration by Harry Blair
Just one of many among us
W
e are Greensboro, North Carolina. We are the city of makers. We design, build, create. We roll up our sleeves. We get our hands dirty. We get it done. We make it happen. Made in Greensboro celebrates those makers — the entrepreneurs, the artists, the community builders, the next generation of leaders. Made in Greensboro is an initiative of Action Greensboro and the City of Greensboro.
CHRIS PADGETT, 28 ENTREPRENEUR, INVENTOR It may be cliché, but successful businesses often start out in someone’s garage. It’s said that Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, Harley Davidson and Nike all started in a garage before becoming household names. Could Fusion 3 be the next name to add to that impressive list? Maybe. As a student at N.C. State, Chris Padgett saw an online article about 3D printing. As a mechanical engineering student, it piqued his interest, so he purchased some kits to put together as a hobby. “I actually started out in my parents’ garage and now we are located here in Greensboro with 15 employees.” Before moving from his parents’ garage to a permanent location, Chris went through the Triad Startup Lab and was an early member of the Forge. Fusion 3 is now working with local customers, machine shops and universities. Its suppliers are largely local, but its market now reaches all of North America and even overseas. “We manufacture equipment, assemble everything and test our products right here in Greensboro.”
BRENT WICKHAM, 45 DESIGN MANAGER Brent Wickham, 45, spends his days with Technicon Design’s Greensboro branch helping design and create products that most people won’t see for years to come. “It’s incredibly exciting to help shape what people will be driving or using in the future.” Brent, a California native, came to Greensboro in 2013 when Technicon opened an office to support Volvo Trucks. “The whole region has so much potential. There is a great deal of manufacturing already here and the aviation industry is really growing and developing. All this helps make Greensboro a great place to live and work.” At Technicon, Brent and his team provide design services and support for the transportation industry, such as digital modeling, engineering, visualization and animations. His group works with original equipment manufacturer design studios worldwide.
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