Tues.-Fri. 10-6pm Sat. 10-3pm www.StateStJewelers.com
211 A State St. Greensboro, NC (336) 273-5872
www.bmhs.us 336.564.1010
$5,309,271 8:1
Student to Teacher Ratio
Offered to the Class of 2020 in college scholarships and grants
100%
AP Honor Roll Distinction
Graduation rate
Founded in
1959
6 7
9,166
Collegiate Hours of Service athletic for 2019- 2020 signees in 2019-2020 Wells Fargo Cup State Championships & 8 Conference Cups in the past 15 years
1
Leadership Initiative,
Transportation available
Partnered with:
1-to-1
20
Performing and visual arts classes
20
Music classes
Aviation STEM courses
Applications are Applications arebeing being accepted for the 2021-22 acceptedschool for the year2020-21 school year
Technology: Each student is given an Apple Laptop
College counseling office
Please call the Admissions
Please call Office forthe yourAdmissions private tour Office for336-564-1011 your private tour kknox@bmhs.us 336-564-1011
See your doctor without going to see your doctor.
The safety and convenience of Virtual Care. Cone Health is with you wherever you are. With Virtual Care, many of the services you receive in-person you can also get by video, phone and email. All from the comfort of home. For more information and to schedule a virtual visit, go to
conehealth.com/appointments
REC HARGE. DANIEL STOWE BOTANICAL GARDEN
Charlotte. A lot of experiences are waiting to recharge your soul. Those who wander are never lost in this humming metropolis surrounded by outdoor beauty that boasts lush landscapes and natural havens. This city of green offers endless opportunities to change your scenery. Explore more at charlottesgotalot.com.
March 2021 DEPARTMENTS 11 The Nature of Things By Ashley Wahl
13 Simple Life By Jim Dodson
16 Short Stories 17 Doodad 19 Life’s Funny
By Maria Johnson
22 The Creators of N.C. By Wiley Cash
24 The Omnivorous Reader By Stephen E. Smith
26 Scuppernong Bookshelf 29 Home by Design By Cynthia Adams
33 Food for Thought By Bridgette A. Lacy
36 Botanicus
By Ross Howell Jr.
39 Birdwatch
By Susan Campbell
41 Wandering Billy By Billy Eye
70 Events Calendar 80 O.Henry Ending By Cynthia Adams
FEATURES 45 Pairing Mantids Poetry by Paul Jones
46 The Wonder of Color
By Maria Johnson Piedmont Photography Club delivers the whole, glorious spectrum
54 Our Crown Jewel
By Billy Ingram The evolving history of Greensboro’s Country Park
60 Paradise Found
By Ashley Wahl How a funky house on Lake Jeanette became a fortuitous vision
69 Almanac
By Ashley Wahl
Cover photograph by Susan Hayworth photograph this page by Amy Freeman
6 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
USA Today’s Best Beach in North Carolina
Congrats. You just found Emerald Isle. Now it’s time to BookTheCoast.com and visit North Carolina’s Southern Outer Banks.
North Carolina’s
southern outer banks
M A G A Z I N E
Volume 11, No. 3 “I have a fancy that every city has a voice.” 336.617.0090 1848 Banking Street, Greensboro, NC 27408 www.ohenrymag.com PUBLISHER
David Woronoff Andie Rose, Creative Director andie@thepilot.com Ashley Wahl, Editor awahl@ohenrymag.com Lauren M. Coffey, Art Director Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer DIGITAL CONTENT
Cassie Bustamante, cassie@ohenrymag.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Jim Dodson, Founding Editor Cynthia Adams, David Claude Bailey, Amy Freeman, Maria Johnson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Mallory Cash, Lynn Donovan, Amy Freeman, John Gessner, Bert VanderVeen, Mark Wagoner CONTRIBUTORS
Here for you In these unprecedented times, it is important that you know we’re committed to providing you the financial access, guidance, and support you need during this rapidly evolving situation. Through digital, mobile, and by phone, Wells Fargo Advisors is here, and we continue to serve you and support our communities so that you can focus on what matters most — caring for your family’s health and safety.
Helping you focus on what matters most
Private Client Group Alex Sigmon
Wealth Brokerage Services Greg Costello
Branch Manager 806 Green Valley Rd. Greensboro, NC 27408 Phone: 336-545-7100
Private Wealth Area Manager 100 N. Main St. Winston-Salem, NC 27150 Phone: 336-842-7309
wellsfargoadvisors.com
Harry Blair, Susan Campbell, Wiley Cash, Jason Cooke, Billy Eye, Ross Howell Jr., Billy Ingram, Bridgette A. Lacy, Brian Lampkin, Page Leggett, Meridith Martens, D.G. Martin, Jason Oliver Nixon, Ogi Overman, Corrinne Rosquillo, Stephen E. Smith ADVERTISING SALES
Amy Grove 336.456.0827 • amy@ohenrymag.com Larice White 336.944.1749 • larice@ohenrymag.com Brad Beard, Graphic Designer Emily Jolly, Advertising Assistant ohenrymag@ohenrymag.com
O.H
Steve Anderson, Finance Director 910.693.2497 Darlene Stark, Subscriptions & Circulation Director • 910.693.2488 OWNERS
Investment and Insurance Products:
NOT FDIC Insured
NO Bank Guarantee
Wells Fargo Advisors is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, Member SIPC, a registered broker-dealer and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company. © 2020 Wells Fargo Bank N.A. Member FDIC. CAR-0420-00088 6751912
8 O.Henry
MAY Lose Value
Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels Jr., Frank Daniels III, Lee Dirks, David Woronoff © Copyright 2021. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. O.Henry Magazine is published by The Pilot LLC
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
IMAGINE YOUR HOME TOTALLY ORGANIZED
$300 OFF PLUS FREE Installation Terms and Conditions: $300 off any order of $1198 or more, $200 off any order of $998-$1198 or $100 off any order of $698-$998, on any complete custom closet, garage, or home office unit. Not valid with any other offer. Free installation with any complete unit order of $600 or more. With incoming order, at time of purchase only. Expires in 90 days. Offer not valid in all regions.
CUSTOM CLOSETS • GARAGE CABINETS • HOME OFFICES • PANTRIES • LAUNDRIES • HOBBY ROOMS
Call for a free in-home design consultation and estimate 336-396-2300 I closetsbydesign.com Follow us
Licensed and Insured • Locally Owned and Operated
The Nature of Things
Year of the Fox The subtle magic of a different kind of circus
By Ashley Wahl
My sweetheart
and I share a birthday in February. Last year, same as the year before, we took each other to the circus to celebrate. This year we are training a fox.
OK, the fox is actually a dog. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, we think she might be training us. The point is, it’s a different kind of circus this year, and a timid red dog with large, pointy ears is showing us a thing or two about magic. In our former life, Alan and I spent the coldest months in Florida, near Sarasota, where the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus maintained its winter quarters for over 30 years. There, the circus arts are still alive and thriving, and each year — with the exception of this year — its Circus Arts Conservatory puts on Circus Sarasota Under the Big Top, which always falls on our birthday. The show is fantastical. No wild animals, of course. Just a dazzling display of human potential. For us, it felt like the ultimate celebration of life on this strange and beautiful planet. Although we were technically living in Asheville (as in, that’s where we got our mail), our Florida home was a no-frills camper van equipped with the bare essentials, including a single-burner camp stove and a portable fridge. Rarely did we stay in one spot for longer than three days, and on weekends, we set up our canopy tent at art and craft festivals up and down the coast, vending our wares alongside fellow travelers. Suffice it to say there was no room for a dog in our traveling carnival. But life twists and turns like a master contortionist. When we put down our stakes in Greensboro last fall, we felt it was time to add a member to our troupe. Back when we thought we were looking for a guard dog, we hooked up with a German Shepherd rescue that had recently taken in a mama with eight pups. The dam wasn’t exactly a Shepherd — or any other
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
breed that was easily defined. She was smaller — maybe 50 pounds — with a short, red coat and large, pointed ears. Someone found her dodging traffic on a busy road in Fayetteville and, as it turned out, had an unneutered German Shepherd waiting at home. You can guess what happened next. The whelps were darling — half Shepherd, half whatever their mother was — each one adopted as soon as they were old enough. We
brought home mama. This is a good time to mention that Alan and I are first-time dog owners. And while we had binge-watched several seasons of Dog Whisperer with Cesar Milan, nothing can prepare you for bringing home a shy little fox of a dog who is, quite literally, scared of everything. And everyone. While she isn’t exactly the guard dog we envisioned — at least not yet — we named her for the Hindu goddess Durga, protective mother of the universe often depicted perched on the back of a lion or tiger. Talk about a circus act. As for the name, we figured she might grow into it. Admittedly, watching Dog Whisperer before adopting a dog is a bit like reading Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods before hiking the Appalachian Trail, but our big takeaway is that, often, a dog’s behavior hinges upon its human’s energy. We are witnessing firsthand that Durga’s trust and confidence starts with our own. It’s a wonderful practice — leading by example rather than trying to “fix” what’s “out there.” And what a beautiful lesson on patience. Our only expectations are that of our own reactions and yet, by some miracle, our shy little fox is blossoming. No, she’s not jumping through hoops or walking a tightrope yet, but what is the circus if not a celebration of the extraordinary? And isn’t it extraordinary to live life fully and without fear? We’re getting there. OH Contact editor Ashley Wahl at awahl@ohenrymag.com.
O.Henry 11
Live a life of downtown luxury in a Center Pointe condominium!
201 NORTH ELM STREET GREENSBORO, NC
Walk to the best restaurants, entertainment and recreation destinations in the city while enjoying fabulous urban views and luxury living.
DEVELOPED BY THE CARROLL COMPANIES To learn more about the luxury units available and future opportunities at Center Pointe, visit melissagreer.com.
MELISSA GREER REA LT O R / B RO KER, G R I , CR S
Your home means everything to me. Chairman’s Circle Diamond Award 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019
Certified Luxury Specialist
336 . 337. 5 2 33 MELISSA@MELISSAGREER.COM MELISSAGREER.COM
Simple Life
In the Beginning
A grande dame, an old beech and other memorykeepers on the path to this gardener’s genesis
By Jim Dodson
Fifteen years ago, a grande dame
of English gardening named Mirabel Osler smiled coyly over a goblet of merlot and said something I’ll never forget. “You know, dear,” she declared, “being a gardener is perhaps the closest thing you’ll ever get to playing God. Please don’t let on to the Almighty, however. He thinks He gets to have all the fun.” The café in Ludlow, Osler’s Shropshire market town, claimed a Michelin star. But the real star that early spring afternoon in the flowering Midlands of England was Dame Mirabel herself. Spry and witty, the 80-year-old garden designer had reintroduced the classic English “cottage garden” to the mainstream with her winsome 1988 book, A Gentle Plea for Chaos. The intimate tale of how she and her late husband transformed their working farm into a botanical paradise where nature was free to flourish became a surprise bestseller that fueled a worldwide renaissance in cottage gardening. It’s actually what inspired me to create my “faux English Southern Garden” on a forest hilltop in Maine. My visit with Osler was one of several stops I was making across England in the spring as part of a year-long odyssey through the horticulture world while researching a book about human obsession with gardens — including my own. When I asked Dame Mirabel why making a garden becomes so all-consuming and appealing, she had a ready answer. “I think among the most valuable things a garden does for the human soul is make us feel connected to the past and therefore each
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
other,” she said, sipping her wine. “We’re all old souls, you know, people who love plants. Especially trees.” She was delighted that I shared her enchantment with trees, mentioning a gorgeous old American beech that stood beside our house in Maine and how it became the centerpiece of my own wild garden. When my children were still quite young, we carved our initials into the beech — as one must do with its smooth, gray bark — hoping our names and the tree might reside together forever, or at least a couple hundred years. Unfortunately, our great beech was visibly ailing, which sent me on an odyssey to try to save it. That quest ultimately became a book called Beautiful Madness. “I think that’s the alchemy of a beautiful tree,” Dame Mirabel agreed. “They speak to us in a quiet language all their own. They watch over the days of our lives and will long outlive us. No wonder that everyone from Plato to the Druids of Celtic lore believed divinities resided in groves of trees. Trees are living memory-keepers.” Mirabel Osler passed away in 2016, age 91. Not long after Beautiful Madness was published in 2006, however, she wrote me a charming note to say how much she enjoyed reading about our visit in Ludlow. True to form, as my wife, Wendy, and I discovered on that unforgettable spring day, Dame Osler’s final garden was a chaotic masterpiece, a backyard filled with beautiful small trees and flowering shrubs arching over a narrow stone pathway. Not surprisingly, as this long, dark winter of 2021 approached its end, Dame Mirabel was on my mind anew as I began serious work and planning on what will be my fourth — and likely final — garden. Five years ago, Wendy and I purchased a handsome old bungalow in the neighborhood where I grew up, allowing me to spend the next three years transforming its front and side yards into my version of a miniature enchanted forest — my tribute to Dame O.Henry 13
w r ig h t svi l l e
bea c h
Spring Breaks Loose
From an impromptu getaway for two, to a spring break with the family, we have packages on the island of Wrightsville Beach that are perfect for any occasion. Our Rendezvous Package is ideal for that special weekend, greeted with wine upon your arrival, dinner in our award winning restaurant, and breakfast in bed.
blockade-runner.com 855-416-9086
Simple Life Mirabel’s Shropshire garden. I nicknamed the long-neglected backyard dense with overgrown shrubs and half-dead trees “The Lost Kingdom.” Reclaiming just half of this space was another odyssey, but more than a year later — and thanks to the assistance of a younger back and a Bobcat — a promising shade garden of ferns, hostas, Japanese maples and a handsome Yashino Japanese cedar now flourishes there. It reminds me of the many Asian-themed botanical gardens I’ve visited. That left only a final section of the “Lost Kingdom” to deal with, which I began clearing late last fall, resulting in a nice blank canvas half in shade, half in sun. Since Christmas Day, I’ve spent hours just looking at this space the way the author in me stares at a blank white page before starting a new book. Creating a new garden from scratch is both addictively fun and maddeningly elusive — a tale as old as Genesis. It’s neither for the faint of heart nor skint of wallet. Gardens, like children, mature and change over time. At best, gardeners and parents must accept that we are, in the end, simply loving caretakers for these living and breathing works of art. Although the Good Lord may have finished His or Her garden in just six days, I fully expect my new final project — which, in truth, is relatively small — to provide years of work and revision before my soul and shovel can rest. No complaint there, mind you. As the Secretary of the Interior (aka, my wife) can attest, her garden-mad husband enjoys few things more than getting strip-off-before-you-dare-come-into-this-house dirty in the great outdoors, possibly because his people were Orange and Alamance county dirt farmers stretching back to the Articles of Confederation. Their verdure seems to travel at will through his bloodstream like runaway wisteria. After weeks of scheming and dreaming, sketching out elaborate bedding plans and chucking them, it finally came together when a dear old friend from Southern Pines named Max, renowned for his spectacular camellia gardens, gave me five of his original seedlings for the new garden. I planted them on the borders and remembered something Dame Mirabel said about old souls and trees being memory-keepers. Surrounded by Max’s grandiflora camellias, this garden will be a tribute to the trees and people I associate them with. A pair of pink flowering dogwoods already anchor a shady corner of the garden where a peony border will pay tribute to the plant-mad woman who taught me to love getting dirty in a garden, my mom. Nearby will be a pair of flowering crab apple trees like the pair that bloomed every spring in Maine, surrounded by a trio of Japanese maples that I’ve grown from sprouts, linked by a winding path of stone. A fine little American beech already stands at the heart of this raw new garden, a gift from friends that recalls the old beech tree that sent me around the world. For now, this is a good start. There will be more to come. For a garden is never really finished, and I’ve only just begun. OH Jim Dodson is the founding editor of O.Henry magazine.
14 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
409-A Parkway Avenue • Greensboro, NC 27401 Gary Jobe • 336-272-2772 • 336-549-1146
Short Stories Pisces and Quiet
You’ve seen the viral YouTube video. Some aquarium, somewhere, a security camera captures an octopus slipping from its tank after hours, slinking across the floor like some kind of shape-shifting alien, then dipping into a nearby tank to snack on, say, an exotic fish. In this scenario, the Pisces is, indeed, the fish. And here’s the thing: They asked the octopus if it were hungry. Selfless to a fault, Pisces are the ultimate martyrs of the zodiac. But there are better, healthier ways to invite attention. Music, for instance. Quincy Jones, Josh Groban, Nina Simone and Erykah Badu? All Pisces. Ditto Rihanna, Kurt Cobain and Smokey Robinson. Take it from the greats: Find a way to channel your fathomless sea of emotions before it gets the best of you. Because life is far more interesting thanks to your veritable brand of over-the-top drama.
O.Henry’s 10 for 10
Have you heard? As announced in our January issue, O.Henry is hosting a short story contest for our 10-year anniversary. And that’s an emphasis on short. Tell us a story in 10 words. For inspiration, look up the famous 6-word novel attributed to Hemingway. Guidelines are simple. Using the subject line “O.Henry’s 10 for 10,” submit your short story — one per entrant, please! — by email to ohenryturns10@gmail. com. Deadline: May 1, 2021. Winning entries will be published in our anniversary issue. Bonus points for pulling off an O.Henry twist. And speaking of our January issue . . . If you were wondering who painted the hauntingly quirky “Madam” portrait featured on our cover (photo contributed by VIVID Interiors), that would be Greensboro’s own Kevin Rutan, owner of Fe Fi Faux. Find him on Instagram @krutan2018.
16 O.Henry
It’s Play Time
Here’s two for you. First, UNCG’s School of Theatre presents George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, inspired by one of the most heroic, mystical and misunderstood teenage girls to have ever walked the Earth. On-demand streaming is available from March 18–20, with a Frame/ Works Discussion held via Zoom on Monday, March 22, 7 p.m. Tickets are $5. Box Office: (336) 334-4392. Info: uncgtheatre. com. Joan’s tale tips the scale toward searingly tragic. But it’s nothing a little dystopian comedy can’t remedy. March 24–27, at 7:30 p.m., Greensboro College Theatre presents Eastern Standard. Set in 1987, this Richard Greenberg rib tickler was a knockout at New York’s famed Manhattan Theatre Club and, later, a Broadway hit. This review from The New York Times in 1988: “For anyone who has been waiting for a play that tells what it is like to be more or less middle-class, more or less young and more or less well-intentioned in a frightening city at this moment in this time zone, Eastern Standard at long last is it.” Performances are free to the public. Face masks required. Greensboro College Theatre, 815 W. Market St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 272-7102 (extension 5242). Info: www.greensboro.edu/theatre.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Thrill is Back
Doodad
John Hart’s latest novel, The Unwilling, is finally here
By Page Leggett
Greensboro’s own John Hart,
New York Times bestselling author of fast-paced thrillers, has just wrapped up a virtual tour for his latest novel, The Unwilling, released on February 2.
Set in a “bigger, dirtier, scarier” version of Charlotte in 1972, the novel is told from several points of view. The thriller begins with Jason French’s return from three years in prison following a dishonorable discharge from the Marines during the Vietnam conflict. “I created a nonexistent prison,” notes Hart. “North Carolina never used the electric chair, but I wanted one.” Jason is a heroin addict prone to violence whose folks aren’t thrilled about his homecoming. His younger brother, Gibby, desperately wants to reestablish a relationship with Jason, so they set out on a carefree journey that takes a chilling turn when they encounter a prison transfer bus on a stretch of empty road. Jason’s girlfriend, who taunts the prisoners, is later murdered. Although Jason is accused, he isn’t the novel’s villain. That role belongs to a mysterious character known as X. Hart’s intricate, fictional plot began with two seeds from real life. “First was the Mỹ Lai massacre in Vietnam and a brave
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
soldier who stood down a murderous soldier intent on destroying a village,” Hart says. “He faced vilification. It was 30 years before he was recognized as a hero.” The second came from a moment that happened 30 years ago. Hart and his then-girlfriend were headed to Wrightsville Beach and ended up on a deserted road with a prison transfer bus. What if the girl in the convertible, he wondered years later, lifted her shirt? “Then, I wrapped those [ideas] up in a family story that takes place in a community split by war.” Hart came to the writing life the same way fellow bestselling authors Scott Turow and John Grisham did — by first being a lawyer. “I was a pretty unhappy law student and then a pretty unhappy lawyer,” he admits. He had two unpublished books, a wife and a young child and realized he needed time and space to focus on writing. “With my wife’s blessing, I quit my law practice,” he says. It might not have happened at the breakneck pace of his novels — and, he admits, it certainly didn’t happen overnight — but Hart eventually landed on what readers love most about his crime thrillers: characters they care about. With The Unwilling, Hart has done it again. OH For more information about The Unwilling and upcoming virtual events, visit johnhartfiction.com or follow @johnhartauthor on Instagram. O.Henry 17
© 2021 Pinehurst, LLC
Gil Hanse thought of every angle. Now it’s your turn. Play Pinehurst No. 4.
It’s time to test your mettle on this rugged masterpiece. Renowned course architect Gil Hanse transformed what Donald Ross first carved out of the sand a century ago into 18 dramatic holes you’ll want to play again and again. Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina | 844.770.9191 | Visit pinehurst.com
Life's Funny
To Bee or Not to Bee The puzzle that sometimes stings a little
By Maria Johnson
Dear Sam, I hope you don’t
mind if I call you by your first name.
Or that I know your first name. I know it because I emailed your department the other day to ask about the word “phthalate.” It’s a kind of chemical used in plastics and cosmetics. Honestly, I’m not sure how I know the word. Maybe from reading shampoo labels. Hell, I wasn’t even sure it was a word until I looked it up. But there it was: phthalate. And so I dashed off an email to Spelling Bee at The New York Times. “I am not a chemistry geek,” I wrote, “so my pain is not as great as theirs, but PHTHALATE.” At this point, I suppose I should mind my manners and express gratitude that your newspaper offers Spelling Bee. I mean, I know your game is not as popular as the crossword puzzle — no offense, but everyone knows who crossword editor Will Shortz is, and if you ask people who Sam Ezersky is, well . . . But there’s hope for you. I’ve read that Spelling Bee, which was introduced online only three years ago, is growing in popularity, and it’s easy to see why. It’s an awesome puzzle, especially for wordies, and especially in these times when no one can seem to agree on anything. We live in a world of “alternate facts,” God help us. For the time being, at least, we still agree on how to spell words, even if we disagree on which words you, Sam, recognize as valid for your game — cough-cough-PHTHALATE-cough. But more on that later. I adore the design of your puzzle, how every day you give people seven letters arranged in cells like a little honeycomb. There’s one letter in the center cell and six letters surrounding it. People like me — we’re known collectively as the Hivemind — spend wayyyyy too much time seeing how many words they can make with those seven letters while abiding by the rules.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Namely, each word has to be at least four letters long; each word must contain the center letter; and you can use letters more than once. Also, the game accepts no proper nouns, hyphenated words or cussing, which is a bleeping shame. Still, it blows my mind how many words are possible. Like, the other day, more than 40 words were possible with just seven letters. How can that be? I mean, I know the letters aren’t random. There are always vowels and letters that make up common prefixes, suffixes and combination sounds like “ch” and “sh” and “th.” I’m sure you have computers that figure these things out. It’s all very clever. I also think it’s brilliant that you assign every word a certain number of points, and you grade people based on how many points they amass. For example, on any given day, my performance could be ranked as beginner, good start, moving up, good, solid, nice, great, amazing or genius. In life, I settle for being nice. Not with Spelling Bee. Every day, I’m shooting for genius. I don’t always get there. Some days, I’m amazing. Sigh. I have been known to wake in the middle of the night and grab my phone from the nightstand to see if I can push myself from amazing to genius. I’ve discovered that if I wake up early and attack the puzzle while my mind is clear, I do really well. Sometimes, I start a puzzle in the wee hours. One morning, I got two pangrams — words that use every letter in the puzzle and, therefore, reward you with the most points — and achieved my goal while still in bed. “I’m a genius, and it’s only 6 a.m.,” I announced to my husband. He suggested that I stay in bed, that the day could go only downhill from there. Also, he said I was addicted. My first thought was: “A-D-D-I-C-T-E-D. Can I make that word from today’s letters?” And my second thought was: “Go work your crossword puzzle.” I’m not putting down other people’s games. O.Henry 19
Savor Springtime Golf Course Views
1101 Sunset Drive • Old Irving Park on the country club course • $1,295,000
Chesnutt - Tisdale Team
Xan Tisdale Kay Chesnutt 336-601-2337 336-202-9687 Xan.Tisdale@bhhsyostandlittle.com Kay.Chesnutt@bhhsyostandlittle.com
www.kaychesnutt.bhhscarolinas.com
©2019 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.
20 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Life's Funny
We choose the games we need to grow. The Bee teaches me many things. First, it shows me that success comes in small bites and in persistence. If you halt at “halt,” you could miss “halting,” and “haltingly.” Perspective is everything. Which is why, I’m sure, you can click a key in the puzzle to rotate the outer ring of letters. Sometimes, just looking at them in a different way, literally, opens your mind. Taking a break and coming back to the puzzle with fresh eyes does wonders, too. Maybe the most important lesson, though, is in revealing how I think of myself when I’m merely amazing, or great, or God forbid, nice. Why is it that I feel so much better about myself every time I step up a level? The difference can be just one word, one point. But the difference in my feeling is enormous. And it’s all in my head. I’m the same person, whether I’m a genius or one point away. What a hive-blowing thought. Anyway, Sam, your team’s auto-reply came quickly. It went on about how y’all try to use words that are common knowledge, blah, blah, blah. Right. As if “entente,” a word on yesterday’s list, is an everyday term, and “oodle” — which you failed to recognize earlier in the week — is not. Oodles of people know that “oodle” is a word, Sam. And oodles of people know that “phthalate” is a word. OK, maybe not oodles of people. But enough people to form a doggone entente, or friendly alliance, I’ll tell you that. I’ll be honest with you, Sam. That reply — which invited me to contact you directly — took the wind out of my sails. I stopped playing the puzzle that day. I was merely great. But I can live with that. Because I got your damn pangram. Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. You can reach her at ohenrymaria@ gmail.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
smile LET YOUR
CHANGE THE WORLD
Our dental assistant team is dedicated to your care, comfort, and life changing smile! We always provide the best possible care for you and your family, utilizing state of the art technology. If you are looking for a dental team who puts your best interest and health first, we would be honored to care for you. Call today to schedule an appointment (336) 282-2868
Graham E. Farless, DDS | Darryl Locklear, DDS 2511 Oakcrest Ave, Greensboro, NC 27408 www.gsodentist.com Like us on Facebook
O.Henry 21
The Creators of N.C.
Welcome Home
How Amarra Ghani became a guiding light for those in need
By Wiley Cash Photographs by Mallory Cash
Amarra Ghani
has continually found herself in two roles that are surprisingly in concert with one another: caregiver and outsider. These two roles go hand-in-hand more than one would think. Often, outsiders come from a perspective that allows them to assess the needs of others with fresh eyes, and caregivers tend to take on singular roles that set them apart.
“I’ve always felt different,” Ghani, the founder of Welcome Home in Charlotte, says. “The color of my skin, my name.” After 9/11, these feelings intensified for Ghani, a practicing Muslim whose parents are Pakistani immigrants. “I felt super-ostracized,” she says, despite growing up in ethnically and culturally diverse cities in New York and New Jersey. “People would say hurtful things to me because of what I looked like or how I grew up.” Ghani’s feelings of being an outsider intensified when her family moved to Charlotte halfway through her senior year of high school. Feeling alone, Ghani, who was not raised in a religious family, began to lean on her faith. “I was isolated from everyone,” she says. “I fell in love with Islam because it was comforting for me. I was
22 O.Henry
praying more. I was reading the Koran and I felt like God was my only friend.” After high school, Ghani attended community college in Charlotte before transferring to the University of North CarolinaAsheville, where she founded the Muslim Student Association in hopes that other practicing Muslims would not feel as alone as she once had. “That’s where I found my voice,” she says. After college, she moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and later as a production assistant at NPR. Ghani was living out her career dreams, but was called home to Charlotte in 2016 after her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She became her mother’s caregiver. She didn’t stop there. While throwing a “friendsgiving” celebration that year, Ghani encouraged her friends to bring warm winter clothes that she could donate to people in need. She learned that a friend’s mother — a native of Afghanistan who’d been living in Charlotte for 40 years — was gathering clothes for local refugees. When Ghani took her friendsgiving haul to the woman’s house, she asked her what else local refugees needed. She was surprised to learn that most of them needed the basic necessities like utensils, towels and bedding. She told her that she would put out a call on social media, which she had regularly used to make connections during her work in D.C. The response was The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Creators of N.C. overwhelming; soon, her parents’ garage was full of donated materials, from used clothing to brand new items to gift certificates. “Once I started, it just kept growing,” she says. When the pool of donors and volunteers swelled from 30 people to over 250, Ghani realized that she needed a better platform, so she set up a WhatsApp group called “Welcome Home.” This seemed like an appropriate name for a group dedicated to welcoming refugees as they bridge the gap between the struggles in their old lives and the challenges of the new. While working full-time with Wells Fargo, Ghani set about turning Welcome Home into a functioning organization, complete with a board of directors. Once things became official, the first phase of the organization’s work was to meet the basic needs of the refugee community by furnishing apartments, for example, or taking people on grocery store visits and other errands where assistance was needed. The second phase of operations focused on sustainability, and the organization forged ahead with programs in English language education and services that pair refugees with translators who can accompany them on doctor visits and other appointments where language may be a barrier. Ghani knows these difficulties firsthand. “English is my second language because my parents would not talk to me in English,” she says. “As the child of immigrants, there’s a time when you become your parents’ parent. I was 11 when I started helping my dad with forms or going to the doctor with them or going to parent-teacher conferences to translate.” What a difference an organization like Welcome Home would have made in the life of her family: “I wish someone had guided my parents,” she says. “My dad could’ve had less pressure on him.” And how were they to know such resources existed? “When you’re someone who doesn’t speak the language and you’ve just arrived and don’t know the community around you, you need someone to guide you. That is what drives me.” Welcome Home started out with 21 families, and they all eventually graduated from the program, no longer in need of assistance. “We have families who come here and who don’t know English or how to drive and perhaps have a fourth grade education,” Ghani says. Not only are they learning how to survive in a world that feels so foreign, she continues, but they are learning how to thrive. “We have three families who have been able to purchase houses in the last year,” she says. They were able to raise money to cover the rent for another family where the wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. “Earlier this year, we The Art & Soul of Greensboro
learned that this family was able to buy a house as well.” But Ghani also recognizes the hesitancy many people have about seeking help, which is why Welcome Home plays such an important role in the lives of refugees from places like Syria, Afghanistan and Myanmar. While many refugee organizations are missionary in nature, Welcome Home is not. Still, Ghani cannot deny the comfort families find in working with an organization largely comprised of people who share the refugees’ religious faith, culture and worldview. “It makes a difference in small ways and big ways,” she says. “For example, during Thanksgiving, our families know that we can provide Halal turkeys. That establishes a level of trust.” Now, perhaps more than ever, trust is paramount as refugees settle into a new community during the coronavirus pandemic. As the virus takes its toll in communities across the state, Welcome Home finds itself back in their first phase, meeting the basic needs of their families. “It’s all about necessities and fundraising to cover bills,” Ghani says. It’s also about keeping families safe from the virus itself. In mid-February, Welcome Home partnered with the city of Charlotte and the Mecklenburg Department of Health Services to provide vaccinations. “They reached out to us because of the skepticism of the vaccine in refugee and immigrant communities. We’re bridging that gap and bringing familiarity to the process of getting vaccinated,” Ghani says. Through it all, Ghani, who last month was awarded UNC-Asheville’s Francine Delany Award for Service to the Community, maintains that she is driven by her faith, as well as by the memories she has of being an outsider and her most recent calling to care for those in need. “What did I do to deserve the life that I have?” she asks. “Nothing. I was just born into this family and this faith and this atmosphere. Others aren’t so lucky.” When she works with refugee families, assisting them with everything from getting clothes to learning English, she can’t help seeing a bit of herself in their struggle. “I know where they’re coming from,” she says, “I’ve been in that place.” No matter the place where members of Charlotte’s refugee community find themselves, Amarra Ghani wants to make certain they get home. OH Wiley Cash is the writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, will be released this year. O.Henry 23
Omnivorous Reader
Feeling a Bit Eel A deep dive into mystery
By Stephen E. Smith
When asked
why women found him irresistible, heavyweight boxing champ Jack Johnson responded in the first-person plural: “We eat cold eels and think distant thoughts.”
If you’re wondering what that means (the probable double entendre notwithstanding), you’re not alone. Unfortunately, you won’t find the answer in Patrik Svensson’s The Book of Eels, although this New York Times bestseller and winner of the National Outdoor Book Award contains information aplenty about the enigmatic eel — a fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes, comprised of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera and about 800 species. Unless you’re an unlucky fisherman (eels are not a sought-after game fish) or a bumbling scuba diver, it’s unlikely you’ve come in contact with this squirmy creature that lurks in the darkness at the bottom of oceans, rivers and lakes, and you’re probably wondering why you’d read a book about them. But Svensson’s focus is on an important and timely truth: The lowly eel is linked with every other organism, including the squirmiest of them all, homo sapiens — and that makes The Book of Eels a compelling read, especially in light of the pandemic that has swept the planet. To this point, Svensson weaves a series of personal vignettes with believe-it-or-not facts (e.g.: The Pilgrims were saved from starvation by eating eels) and biographical sketches of scientists who were determined to discover the eel’s place in the ecosystem. He opens with a detailed breakdown of the eel’s life cycle, which begins in the Sargasso Sea where fertilized eggs hatch into
24 O.Henry
gossamer leptocephalus larvae known as “willow leaves.” Over a period of years, these delicate organisms drift the ocean currents and are eventually deposited in rivers and lakes (the eel can survive in salt and fresh water and for long periods in the open air), where they transform into elvers and then into yellow eels before becoming the silver eels that return to the Sargasso Sea to spawn and die. This progression can consume decades, and eels have been rumored to live more than a hundred years, suspending the aging process to adapt to environmental stresses. The personal narratives that frame the story center on Svensson’s father, who worked asphalting roads during the day and fished for eels in the evenings. Recalling the time they shared becomes a metaphor for one’s passage through life. “The stream represented his roots, everything familiar he always returned to . . . (The eels were) a reminder of how little a person can really know, about eels or other people, about where you come from and where you’re going.” Other narrative threads explore the professional lives of A-list eel fanatics, beginning with no less a personage than Aristotle, who spent years studying eels and believed that they sprang spontaneously from mud (so much for Aristotelian logic). Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist and philosopher, guessed that eels reproduced by rubbing up against rocks that loosened particles that turned into baby eels. Other eel aficionados abound — Francesco Redi, Carl Linnaeus, Carlo Mondini and Giovanni Grassi. Even Sigmund Freud was a devoted eel researcher (what could be more Freudian?), who spent four weeks in Trieste, dissecting eels in an unsuccessful search for their male reproductive organs. It was Johannes Schmidt, a marine biologist, who achieved The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Omnivorous Reader the great breakthrough concerning the eel’s life cycle. In 1904, he chartered the steamship Thor and launched a determined effort to find the eels’ breeding grounds, spending most of his professional life doggedly trawling for willow leaves in the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic until he tracked them by size back to the Sargasso Sea, an astonishing 18-year exercise in singular obsession. But it’s Rachel Carson, best known as the author of The Silent Spring and an early heroine of the environmental movement, that garners most of Svensson’s admiration. Despite her proclivity for anthropomorphizing the eel, he finds her writing in The Sea Around Us both inspirational and personally revealing, quoting her extensively: “As long as the tide ebbed, eels were leaving the marshes and running out to sea. Thousands passed the lighthouse that night, on the first lap of a far sea journey . . . And as they pass through the surf and out to sea, so they also passed from human sight and almost from human knowledge.” Svensson is thus lulled into humanizing eels, speculating that they don’t experience tedium the way humans do, and sliding again into metaphor “. . . life is over in the blink of an eye: we are born with a home and heritage and we do everything we can to free ourselves from this fate . . . but soon enough, we realize we have no choice but to travel back to where we came from, and if we can’t get there, we’re never really finished . . .” Sprinkled throughout Svensson’s narratives there are tips on eel fishing, a litany of less-than-appetizing eel recipes (the Japanese
consider eel a delicacy), a touch of philosophical speculation, and more than enough sentimentality, including a conclusion that borders on mawkish. So who would enjoy Svensson’s eel book? If you’re a fan of John McPhee’s work — The Control of Nature, Encounters with the Archdruid, Oranges, The Pine Barrens, etc. — you’ll likely find The Book of Eels a compelling and informative read. Like McPhee’s monographs, Svensson’s story is more profound than its technical parts, evolving into philosophical musings on the mysteries of life and death. At the very least, readers will discover a level of environmental awareness that’s timely and valuable. Do we know all there is to know about the eel’s life cycle? Despite Schmidt’s intense devotion to discovering the eel’s reproductive behavior, no human has ever seen two eels mate, and no one has seen an eel, alive or dead, in the Sargasso Sea. It remains a mystery. Probably Jack Johnson’s snarky response to inquiries about his love life was right on the money: There are questions that don’t require answers. 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.
Outdoor Living at its Best 6504 ASHTON PARK DRIVE
Grand Home in Oak Ridge Lake Estates
For more information about this home, or for help selling your home, call Kathy at 336-339-2000
Kathy Haines
Realtor/Broker
SPS, SRES, SFR, e-Pro, ABR
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 25
Scuppernong Bookshelf
Greensboro Bound Carries On A virtual gathering of the minds
By Brian Lampkin
If the world were without COVID-19,
this May would bring us the fourth annual Greensboro Bound Literary Festival. But, alas, the pandemic led us to cancel the 2020 event.
Like the rest of the world, we’ve learned how to live within the pandemic’s parameters. Thus, Greensboro Bound is ready to present a robust virtual festival this year — let’s call it GB 3.5 — on May 13–16, 2021. We’re bringing 50 writers together to engage in panels and conversations that address our unusual times. Our roster will surprise and thrill you. The organizing principle of this year’s series of events is “21 Conversations.” The sessions will pair writers from North Carolina with voices from the outside world, if you will. And what an outside world we’re bringing to virtual Greensboro. We can start with cancelled 2020 holdovers — Nnedi Okorafor (Binti: The Complete Trilogy) and Billy Collins (Whale Day: And Other Poems) — who have both agreed to rejoin us in 2021. Did I promise thrills and chills? How about Roxane Gay! Gay’s feminist voice and intellectual force has made her one of the country’s guiding moral centers. Her bestselling nonfiction work includes Bad Feminist; Hunger; and Not That Bad: Dispatches From Rape Culture, and she’ll be highlighting her forthcoming book, Unti on Writing. Roxane will be in conversation with Cynthia Greenlee, who has edited the recently published The
26 O.Henry
Echoing Ida Collection. Next up is CNN commentator Bakari Sellers representing the “Outside World” team. His memoir, My Vanishing Country, insists upon the value and dignity of rural, Black working-class life in the South. Bakari’s father, Cleveland Sellers, was a presenter at our 2019 festival with his own memoir of the Orangeburg Massacre. At my age, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to still have heroes and I’m suspicious of the heroic in most of its forms, but I can’t deny the joy inching toward adulation I feel for the work of writer/filmmaker John Sayles. He’ll join us for a conversation on the 1898 Wilmington Race Riots, which was depicted in Sayles’ novel, A Moment in the Sun. We’d love to have a mini-Sayles film retrospective as well, but we’ll need to see how the COVID and vaccine numbers look in May. He did make a movie (Amigo) based upon A Moment in the Sun, so we’d like to show that and, perhaps, some of these great films: Return of the Secaucus Seven, The Brother from Another Planet, Matewan, The Secret of Roan Inish and Lone Star. We will partner with Greensboro’s historic Magnolia House to bring a conversation with Candacy Taylor, author of The Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America. Whitney Otawka, author of Saltwater Table, will be in conversation with North Carolina chef Ricky Moore, author of Saltbox Seafood Joint Cookbook. Other worldly writers include Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness), Kaitlyn Greenidge (Libertie) and Rivers Solomon (Sorrowland). Not to worry, North Carolina will be well-represented. Ron Rash (who will be in conversation with Billy Collins), John Hart, The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Scuppernong Bookshelf Allan Gurganus, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, Issac Bailey, Denise Kiernan and Greensboro’s own James Tate Hill will all engage the aforementioned writers. In addition, we’ll have poetry workshops (with Jessica Jacobs and Nickole Brown), romance panels (with Alisha Rai, Rosie Danan, Kianna Alexander and Joanna Lowell) and talks with the editors and authors of two books: Our Stories, Our Voices: 21 YA Authors Get Real About Injustice, Empowerment, and Growing Up Female in America and A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South. All of these conversations will premiere on the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival’s Youtube channel during the festival weekend. Our May Scuppernong Bookshelf column will give you the entire schedule of events with details on how to register. As always, Greensboro Bound events are free. We wish these remarkable writers could be here in person, but we must evolve with these unusual times. Please join us May 13–16 from the comforts of home — and catch a glimpse inside the homes of some of our favorite writers! OH Brian Lampkin is one of the proprietors of Scuppernong Books. Stay tuned for more information about the Greensboro Bound Literary Festival.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Apply Now for the 2021-22 School Year at greensboroday.org/apply
Greensboro Day School’s vibrant learning community integrates the best of both progressive and traditional methodologies. We develop lifelong learners and inspire students to be their best intellectual, ethical, and interpersonal selves.
Greensboro Day School Academic Excellence since 1970. Age 2 - grade 12 greensboroday.org | 336.288.8590
O.Henry 27
Set on a quiet cul de sac, this gracious home backs up to the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway (the Owls Roost Spur), making it one of the area’s most popular walking trails - and it’s just steps away! Inside and out, this fine home offers exceptional living spaces designed to everyday. make the most of living eve Call for a personal showing of this luxury home!
Barry Hardeman 336-420-2837
barryshardeman@gmail.com
Let us spoil your Purr Baby! A BETTER boarding & grooming experience that all kitties deserve.
No dogs allowed for a peaceful stay in our boutique style resort. “Your cats are loved here.” Visit our website for details about our services
LUXURY CAT RESORT 28 O.Henry
GROOMING
www.purrlifecatresort.com 1604 Battleground Ave, Suite A Greensboro, NC 27408 336-907-4747 The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Home by Design
Elbow Grease
Because the heart wants what the heart wants By Cynthia Adams
Closing our eyes to our termite-
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MARIE MARRY ME
riddled garage and a looming bathroom tear-out, we snuggled down by the telly, cuddling our dogs, and watched Escape to the Chateau.
It is an ironic choice of escape from our to-do list. The series offers comforting perspective from years of projects in our (almost) century-old home. These two do-it-yourselfers beavering away on an ancient, shuttered, abandoned chateau lend perspective to the months of sweat equity we poured into our own relatively modest abode. This BBC program follows Dick and Angel Strawbridge, a British couple who bought a glorious French “pile” in 2015. Pile is Brit-speak for a very large house. But the French call this a chateau. Larger than Sleeping Beauty ’s Castle (albeit smaller than the Biltmore), the couple ’s picturesque 19th century Château de la MotteHusson is near the quaint village of Martigné-sur-Mayenne. They bought it for what they might pay for an unremarkable two-bedroom flat back in London: £280,000 pounds ($384,000) — a steal. With 45 rooms, twin turrets, an actual moat and walled garden — all poetically set upon 12 acres of pristine countryside — it is a thing of singular beauty. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
But one problem: this veddy beautiful chateau is in ruins. No running water, heat or electricity. And after the purchase, the Strawbridges are left with an impossibly small budget for the kind of home improvements this pile will require. Yet the couple dauntlessly ascribes to the motto “you eat an elephant one bite at a time” and rolls up their sleeves. The Mister, 59, laughs like Santa and has the belly to match. Meanwhile, the flamboyant and romantically inclined Missus, 40, twists strawberry-red hair into vintage curls and has a passion for red lipstick, arched brows, a hot glue gun, sewing, crafting and decoupage. They are dauntless, energetic, cart-before-the-horse types — we were stunned by what they did with this moldering and long-abandoned property in just one season. Years ago, I fell under the spell of an unusual Lindley Park home. It qualified as a “stockbroker Tudor” given that to afford its steeply pitched rooflines, many gables, brick and stucco features decorated with handsome half-timbers required a stockbroker’s bank account. As is unfortunately true of Tudors, the interiors were sunless. If the kitchen is the soul of a house, this one’s was dark. The property was in a state of beautiful disarray that suggested its former splendor. And I desperately wanted it. Let’s just say, I should have a reality show titled, The Masochistic Homeowner: The Early Years. O.Henry 29
Home by Design
One of the Tudor’s strangest interior details was a renovation gone wrong, so wrong you had to crawl out of an upstairs window and walk across a flat roof in order to access a room addition carved from an adjacent garage attic. Whereas a smarter person would have viewed that matter alone as a deal breaker, I tried to figure out how to solve this dilemma, sleeplessly fantasizing about owning this home with a beautiful arbor and quirks. Which is why I so relate to Angel Strawbridge — sans her luridly done hair and turban. When the Tudor’s home inspection report arrived, it, like the dour Strawbridge’s chateau analysis, filled a binder. Leaking roof; problematic stucco; electrical and plumbing issues; even a terrifying problem with the fireplace and chimney. If it wasn’t leaking, it was crumbling. If it wasn’t crumbling, it soon would. I wanted it. It took my practical partner to pry my fingers from the binder. My teary-eyed entreaties did not budge my engineer husband from NO to MAYBE. Did I mention that Angel Strawbridge is an enchantress, 19 years younger than Dick? Had she wanted my decaying Tudor pile, her besotted husband would have laughed nervously and followed her lead like a spellbound adolescent. That is not my husband. We did not make a counteroffer on the Tudor.
Which, by the way, sold anyway. We found another house. One that had many issues that the inspection did not uncover, and which took all of our savings to salvage. It is the house we now live in and love. This 1929 house renovation followed on the heels of a 1911 reno that was even harder and costlier. Yet, somehow, my husband was as taken as I was by its quietly stoic beauty including its thick windowsills, French doors, beautiful light and park view. We both fell under its spell, even as we toiled. It was possible to bribe my husband into nightly work after our day jobs. He would plaster and paint; I would pick up pizza and bags of Twix bars before joining him. (If we carb-loaded, we could work till midnight, then do it all over again the next day.) Like the Strawbridges, we undertook most of the work ourselves. When the initial cosmetics were done, there was something . . . some indefinable something. As if the house warmly responded to our months of labor. It became a joy to step inside. One day, my husband mused, “the house is smiling.” It liked being rescued from neglect; it reflected back to us the ministrations, the love. No doubt, too, that Angel believes their French chateau is smiling at them having been liberated from decades of grime and neglect. She is most definitely right. OH We agree that O.Henry’s contributing editor Cynthia Adams should indeed have her own reality show. Go ahead and add The Masochistic Homeowner to your future Watch List.
Think of us as your new friend in the know! Bringing you the intel you need about happenings in and around Greensboro every Tuesday morning. Sign up for our weekly newsletter about what’s happening in Greensboro.
www.OHeyGreensboro.com
30 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Dover Square
Thank you for your business and continued support.
336.691.0051
shop@randymcmanusdesigns.com
www.randymcmanusdesigns.com @randymcmanusdesigns @randymcmanusevents 1616 Battleground Avenue, Suite D-1 • Greensboro, NC 27408
SweetTreats
ABOUND A small batch bakery with fresh batches every day. From cake pops, brownies, cupcakes, and much more, we’re happy to satisfy your sweet tooth. 1616 Battleground Ave, Greensboro, NC (336)306-2827 Order by email! easypeasydnd@gmail.com
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 31
LOOKING FOR A SECOND HOME AT THE COAST? WE’VE EXPANDED TO THE BEACH
Angie and Sherri are still serving the Triad, and now have your Coastal residential real estate needs covered. ANGIE WILKIE Broker/Realtor® (910) 777-7945
awilkie@intracoastalrealty.com
SHERRI HILL
Broker/Realtor® (336) 209-8482
shill@intracoastalrealty.com
NC GLASSFEST A sale of handcrafted glass and glassware April 3 - 16
Glassblowing demonstrations on Saturdays Escaping in your own backyard is easier than you think.
Shop Online and In Person Visits must be scheduled in advance at STARworksNC.org Free Reservations Walk-ins not allowed. Masks required
www.MarshallStone.com 8605 Triad Drive Colfax, NC 27235 (336) 996-4918
32 O.Henry
19730 Virgil H. Goode HWY Rocky Mount, VA 24151 (540) 483-2737
100 Russell Drive Star, NC 27356 (910) 428-9001 www.STARworksNC.org
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Food for Thought
The Soup Swap
It couldn’t be easier to share a warm meal with friends
By Bridgette A. Lacy
Southerners are known for their
cookie swaps, but why not swap soup?
I fell in love with homemade soups during a 1994 La Napoule Art Foundation fellowship in Southern France sponsored by the North Carolina Arts Council. The chef, Malika, made a creamy, vegetable soup from scratch almost daily. Served with crusty baguettes and grated cheese for garnishing, I was in homemade soup heaven. Soup is the ultimate comfort food, nourishing the body and soul. It’s a perfect remedy for the final bite of winter and, since scientists have predicted another surge in COVID cases, a soothing, comforting dish packed with fond memories. A few years ago, my love affair with soup heated up when I heard Kathy Gunst, the resident chef for WBUR’s award-winning radio show Here & Now, talk about her cookbook, Soup Swap: Comforting Recipes to Make and Share. I loved the idea of gathering a few friends and swapping jars of chowders or brothy liquids filled with fresh ingredients. “Soup fits almost any budget,” Gunst says. “Throw whatever ingredients you have in water . . . a little bit goes a long way.” One of my favorites is a chunky stew-like black-eyed-peas concoction with fresh collards, carrots, ham and onions. It’s a savory and satisfying meal in a bowl. My friend, children’s book author Kelly Starling Lyons, often delivers a container to me on New Year’s Day to start my year off right. My friend, Joyce, recently whipped up a batch of Ree Drummond’s Best Tomato Soup Ever. I drove over to her house with my recycled Talenti gelato containers. Once home, I washed my hands, grabbed a spoon and agreed that the silky smoothness was better than any tomato soup I’d ever tasted.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Good soup can be made with scraps, creating a peasant-like meal, or from pricey seafood, for a more sophisticated bisque. As long as the flavor is there, my spoon is ready. As Gunst says, “there are no limits on what can be defined as soup.” So let’s get this thing started. And make the swap work for you — whether everyone exchanges soup at the same place and time, or you make your soup and tell your friends to bring their containers.
Here are Kathy Gunst’s Tips for Starting a Soup Swap:
Make sure the soup swap members are like-minded in terms of their diets. For example, everyone likes meat. Or everyone is vegetarian. Email or text recipients a copy of the recipe. Label all the soups and date them. Use Mason jars or any containers you can recycle (I’m a fan of Talenti gelato). Let the soup cool down before packaging. Never ladle the soup when it’s boiling hot. Use tea towels to cushion the containers you transport your soup in so they are not sliding around on the drive. Generally, cream soups don’t freeze well. Leave out the cream until you are ready to eat it. Drop the soup off in a safe manner. Leave it on your friend’s porch and call first. Consider including a crusty bread, crackers or a side salad. Share the story behind your creation. “Every bowl of soup has a story behind it,” she says. Sometimes it is inspired by a family member, other times it may be influenced by the produce selections at the Farmers’ Market. Choose ingredients based on what’s available to you. According to Lee Mortensen, market manager at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, March and April come with lots of “first of the season” produce. “Look for greens of all shades, including a variety O.Henry 33
Food for Thought of herbs from mint to green onions,” she says. Other ingredients perfect for soups are: fennel, asparagus, garlic, spinach, purslane, broccoli, mushrooms and ramps.
Spring Cream of Curried Asparagus Recipe adapted by Lee Mortensen from Perla Meyers’ The Seasonal Kitchen
“This is a simple soup bursting with flavor to hail the changing of seasons. It’s better if you make your own stock from chicken and veg if you can,” Mortensen says.
Cultivate Community your sense of
Studies have found social connection and
relationships with others to be key factors to longevity, health and happiness. At our intimate Life Plan Community, we are intentional about connecting people. We invite you to discover how the lifestyle at The Village at Brookwood can contribute to your sense of community. Contact us to
schedule a personal visit.
Ingredients:
1 pound fresh asparagus 5 cups chicken stock Salt 4 tablespoons sweet butter 4 tablespoons flour 1 to 2 teaspoons curry powder 3/4 cup heavy cream Freshly ground white pepper 3 egg yolks Dash of lemon juice
Preparation:
Remove the woody ends of the asparagus stalks. Clean stalks with a veggie peeler; cut off the tips and set aside. Place the chicken stock and asparagus stalks in a 3-quart casserole. Bring stock to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 40–45 minutes. While soup is simmering, drop asparagus tips into boiling, slightly salted water and cook for 3–5 minutes until tender. Drain and set aside. Purée the stock and stalks in a blender and reserve. Keep warm. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, melt butter, add flour and cook for 2 minutes without letting it brown. Add the puréed stock all at once and stir while bringing the soup to a boil. Cook over low heat until mixture thickens and lightly coats a spoon. Mix the curry powder with a little cream in a small bowl and add it to the soup with the asparagus tips. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper as needed.
1860 Brookwood Ave. | Burlington Proud to be a part of
Managed by
800-282-2053 |VillageAtBrookwood.org 34 O.Henry
Just before serving, mix the remaining cream and egg yolks in a small bowl and add the mixture to the soup with a dash of lemon juice. Stir vigorously while reheating the soup without letting it reach a boil and serve hot. OH Bridgette A. Lacy, a feature and food writer, is the author of Sunday Dinner, a Savor the South cookbook by UNC-Press. Her book was a 2016 Finalist for the Pat Conroy Cookbook Prize, Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Three beautiful new neighborhoods with custom builders! Lots Available!
where your
imagination takes root
Houseplants Succulents Cacti Flowering Plants Herbs & Vegetables Perennials Trees & Shrubs Supplies & Services
THE GAZEBO 3811 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro (336) 288-8893 newgarden.com
Call Us Today! Jake Letterman: 336.338.0136 Nancy Hess: 336.215.1820
KNEE PA I N ?
Sports Injuries Cartilage Restoration Ligament Reconstruction Outpatient Joint Replacement Partial & Total Knee Replacements
STEVE LUCEY, M.D. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
200 W. Wendover Avenue • Greensboro, NC 223 W. Ward St. • Suite B • Asheboro, NC 336.333.6443 • www.SMJRortho.com
O.Henry 35
Botanicus
Lenten Rose A Winter Blessing
By Ross Howell Jr.
Not long ago, my sister, Becky De-
Haven, introduced me to Lenten roses by giving me some.
Becky has a natural-born curiosity about plants. She inherited our mother’s green thumb, is a charter member of Greensboro’s Seeds ’n’ Weeds Garden Club and has as fine an eye for landscape as any professional you could hire. Her Irving Park garden is evidence. I, on the other hand, did not inherit our mother’s green thumb. But the plants my sister gave me are thriving — proof that while Lenten roses may look delicate, they’re tough, hardy plants. Sometimes called Christmas roses or winter roses, Lenten roses are not roses at all. They’re hellebores — Helleborus orientalis, to be specific — members of an exclusive little club of some 20 herbaceous or evergreen perennial flowering species native to Eurasia. The highest concentration of hellebore species in the world is found in the Balkans.
36 O.Henry
Decades ago, they were a rarity in American gardens. So how did my sister discover them? “I was looking for something that blooms in winter,” Becky says. “And that’s hard to find.” Then someone at a Seeds ’n’ Weeds meeting mentioned Lenten roses. “I liked the spiritual aspect,” Becky adds. “That they bloom during Lent.” Lenten roses usually start blooming in January, though in established beds, they can start as early as December and bloom straight through to April. They prefer shade to partial shade in well-drained soil, though my sister tells me some of hers have spread into areas in full sun. Hellebore hybrids display a variety of colors — white, pink, red, purple, plum, yellow, green, even nearly black. Petals can be smooth or ruffled. The flowers can be shaped like upturned stars or nodding bells. Some hybrids offer double blooms. These blossoms are set off against deep-green foliage, welcome color for a winter garden. And florists like hellebores because they make such long-lasting cut flowers. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Lenten roses can be incredibly prolific. About the same time my sister was planting her first winter roses for color in her Greensboro garden, Brenda and Bill Brookbank of nearby Julian decided to conduct an experiment. They tell me their backyard is filled with mature hardwoods, and back then they were looking for perennials that would grow in the shade. They planted a number of different plants. Among them were five Lenten roses. “Everything died,” Brenda says. “Except the Lenten roses.” A year later, they noticed bright green seedlings springing up in the back yard. “We thought they were weeds,” Brenda adds. So they started digging them, until they realized exactly what they were. As the hellebores continued to propagate, Brenda got the idea to start transplanting them into pots to sell at a local farmers’ market. “And what did you say, Bill?” she asks her husband. Bill chuckles and answers, “I said, ‘Ain’t nobody gonna buy those plants.’” If you’re a husband, you know just where this story is going. That day Brenda sold every plant she’d potted. She potted more and sold them too. Then she contacted a local nursery to see if they wanted to buy any. They did, but they told her she’d need to be a certified seller. So she got her certification. Later, the Brookbanks bought the lot adjoining their property — to grow more hellebores. And B&B Lenten Roses became a business. “All the plants we’ve ever sold have grown from the seed of those original five,” Brenda adds. “Oh, there’s no holding a Lenten rose,” my sister adds. The first season she put hers in, she noticed green shoots springing up everywhere. Like the Brookbanks, she thought they were weeds. Over the years the hellebores have spread into my sister’s pachysandra. In fact, Becky uses her lawnmower to keep her walking path open, so broadly have they spread. My sister’s Lenten roses display another typical characteristic: Lenten roses are reThe Art & Soul of Greensboro
markably quick to hybridize, meaning they reproduce in colors other than the color of the original plants. Though she started only with light pink flowers, her beds now display nearly every color of the Lenten rose palette, from white to nearly black. “You never know what you’ll get with a Lenten rose,” Brenda Brookbank says. She explains that it’s a good idea to purchase them when they’re blooming, so you can be certain about the color. “The mother plant will continue to produce the same color,” Brenda adds. But once the cross-pollinated seeds begin to sprout, all bets are off. As for the Lenten roses my sister gave me — they’re growing by the house in the partial shade of a big willow oak in our neighbor’s yard. When we’ve had some snow or ice, I like walking outside to have a look, their dark foliage serene in the snow, here and there a pink blossom peeking through ice. But another neighbor has expanded his parking area, so where the Lenten roses
Botanicus
reside I want to plant arbor vitae as a screen. I’m going to move the Lenten roses to a garden in Blowing Rock. They can stand the cold, and I have a well-drained spot with enough shade that I believe they’ll do just fine. Another great hellebore characteristic, especially for the mountains? They’re seriously deer-resistant. And as for my sister, Becky? Lately she’s been telling me about a new find, Chinese paperbush. I expect I’ll have another topic to write about, some season soon. OH
For more information on Lenten roses, contact your local garden shop or garden club. You can also visit B&B Lenten Roses at bblentenroses.com or call them in advance for an appointment to see their selection. Ross Howell Jr. is a freelance writer and geezer gardener. Contact him with your plant ideas at ross.howell1@gmail.com.
“INTERESTING STUFF” FOR YOUR HOME & COLLECTIONS
Pigfish Lane Antique & Interiors
antiques • porcelain • art old & new • custom framing • carpets lamp shades & repair • custom-built furniture • fine estate jewelry & more
Over 25,000 sq ft of 50+ fine dealers (919) 436-4006 • pigfishlane.com • 5425 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh
O.Henry 37
Bye,Bye,
INTERESTED IN A NONINVASIVE EYE BAG REMOVAL TREATMENT? Restoration MedSpa has all the treatments and services you need to treat eye bags and other facial concerns, without having to go under the knife. Meet AGNES, Restoration MedSpa’s latest option in innovative radio-frequency treatment options. Contact Restoration Medspa Today For Your Complimentary Consultation.
Beauty, redefined.
336.999.8295 RestorationMedSpa.com
Winston-Salem | Greensboro
Staying Safe Together
1908 Lendew Street Greensboro, NC 27408
336.273.2835 2021WendoverOBGYN_OHenry.indd 38march O.Henry
1
OUR PROVIDERS Richard J. Taavon, MD, FACOG · Sheronette A. Cousins, MD, FACOG · Kelly A. Fogleman, MD, FACOG Vaishali R. Mody, MD, FACOG · Susan Almquist, MD, FACOG Daniela Paul, CNM, MSN · Meredith Sigmon, CNM, MSN · Beth C. Lane, WHNP-BC Julie Fisher, WHNP-BC 2/4/2021 5:25:49 AM The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Hardy Hummers
Birdwatch
Rufous hummingbirds are midwinter guests
By Susan Campbell
It may sound
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK SHIELDS
odd, but this is a good time to talk about hummingbirds. I have been fielding reports of these tiny, winged jewels for weeks. So far, I have banded 17 and have details on almost 100 more — and counting! Yes, even in the middle of the winter.
Here in North Carolina, hummingbird lovers can find or attract these amazing little fliers any month of the year. And this winter has been a particularly productive season for hardy hummers across the state. Predictably, the bulk of the hummingbirds I have encountered in the Piedmont have been rufous hummingbirds. Annually, shorter days and cooler temperatures herald the return of rufous hummingbirds from points far to our north and west. The species breeds from the Rocky Mountains up into southern Canada and across to southeastern Alaska. They begin nesting when there is still snow on the ground and vegetation is sparse. In the cooler months, the majority of rufous can be found wintering in southern Mexico. However, it has been discovered in the last few decades that a wintering population exists in the southeastern United States. Across North Carolina, dozens of rufous take up residence between October and April. Many go unnoticed unless they appear at lateblooming plants or sugar water feeders. These are extremely tough little critters. These tiny birds that spend their summers at high latitudes are well adapted to cold weather. They can forage in below freezing temperatures, searching thick vegetation for insects with little difficulty. At night and during colder, wet periods, they will seek out thick evergreen cover and use torpor, a nighttime hibernation, to conserve energy. The pines, cedars, hollies and magnolias in central North Carolina make excellent winter habitat for rufous hummingbirds. The male rufous is very distinctive, having rusty body feathers in addition to a coppery iridescent gorget. Females, however, are a
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
different story. Their size and shape are not very distinctive. Aside from reddish-brown color at the base of their tail feathers, and perhaps a smattering of brownish feathers around the face and flanks, they appear much like immature male rubythroateds. They also look very similar to a few other species of Western hummers such as the Allen’s, broad-tailed or calliope hummingbird. For those with a good musical ear, the vocalization — a loud series of “stick” notes — may give a rufous away. It is interesting to note that some of these tiny marvels return to the same feeder from one winter to the next. In fact, some individuals are faithful to the same location over their lifetime, which can be seven years. To date, we have had three females that have done just that, proven by the tiny aluminum bands I placed on their legs the first year. Some individuals choose to overwinter in different locations in the Southeast. This year we have two “foreigners.” One of them was originally banded by a colleague of mine outside Mobile, Alabama, two winters ago. Furthermore, there have been some extremely lucky folks, including hosts in both the Sandhills and the Triad, who have hosted not one, but multiple rufous over the course of a single season. Last November, both a hostess in Asheville and another at Riverbend County Park outside Hickory each had three female rufous coming in for sugar water. A friend and research colleague who runs that park is investigating a fourth female rufous who turned up on February 1. And no need to worry: Winter sugar water feeder maintenance is straightforward. Hang it in an open location and simply rinse and refill every two weeks or so. In our area, a feeder hung close to the house will be protected most days and many of the nights. The regular solution (4 parts water; 1 part sugar) will not freeze unless the air temperature drops below 27 degrees. So, go ahead and hang a feeder any time. It is absolutely never too late to get noticed. Who knows? It may be found by a passing rufous hummingbird or two. OH Susan would love to receive your wildlife observations and/or photos at susan@ncaves.com. O.Henry 39
Working Together to Help You Move Forward
Get the latest word from
Named for William Sydney Porter’s preferred cocktail, we present a miscellany of curated stories, whimsies, curiosities and blithe entertainments from the writers, editors and artists who bring you award-winning O.Henry magazine. We hope you have as much fun reading The Sazerac as we do creating it.
The Health Insurance Shoppe and Triad HealthCare Network are partnered to provide you with the help and guidance needed to understand and enroll in individual health, Medicare, prescription drug, and
Each Friday afternoon, The Sazerac will hit your inbox just in time for cocktails. Relax with these fun bits intended to help you shake off the day.
special needs insurance plans.
The Health Insurance Shoppe 336.763.0776 1175 Revolution Mill Dr., Studio 4 • Greensboro HealthShoppeNC.com Certified Licensed Brokers THN@HealthShoppeNC.com
40 O.Henry
Sign up at www.ohenrymag.com/sazerac
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Wandering Billy
Adventures in Television How a hat and a T-shirt accidentally changed everything for a young Greensboro comedian
By Billy Eye Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your home. — David Frost
“Why are you contacting me now?”
Dana Ralph Lowell texted me.
Good question. Lowell had reached out to me much earlier, but now that I was compiling a database of local children’s programming for my website, TVparty.com, I had finally gotten back to him — 10 years after he’d first contacted me. Whoops. Perhaps you remember him as Billy Bobb? Back in the early 1980s, when WGGT channel 48 (“The Great Entertainer”) entered the Triad TV market, its bread-and-butter were schlocky horror movies, “professional” wrestling and former primetime network shows. Broadcasting from the Cone Export building near the Carolina Theatre, this small UHF (ultrahigh frequency) station struggled financially from the very beginning. Then, in 1987, due to the success of Elvira’s Movie Macabre in national syndication, WGGT tapped local comedian Dana Lowell to host horror features on Saturday nights. And they wanted him in character.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“As a member of a comedy troupe in the early ’80s, Lowell created Billy Bobb — “Almost like what Paul Reubens did with Peewee Herman” — as a way of lampooning local kids’ show hosts. And the station loved Billy Bobb, as did his growing fan base. “It was a zero-budget situation,” Lowell tells me of Billy Bobb’s Action Theatre. The set was “actually the news set turned around backwards to make it look like a garage.” Billy Bobb hosted kung fu movies, then low-budget sci-fi and B-horror flicks. The popularity of Billy Bobb’s Action Theatre led to a daily afternoon kiddie show. Just like Greensboro’s own beloved Old Rebel Show on WFMY, local kiddie shows winked off the airways by the late-1970s, to be replaced by syndicated cartoons, often flogging children’s toy lines. Someone at WGGT thought the time was right for a revival. “I never set out to be a kids’ show host,” Lowell insists, but he suddenly found himself hosting a daily cartoon show with a peanut gallery of young children on set. As a nightclub comedian,” he says, “I didn’t know what made little kids laugh. I was rating my work by how much I could make the cameraman laugh, or the director in the booth.” For Billy Bobb’s Fun Club, afternoons from 4–5 p.m., Lowell converted a Pac-Man machine into a puppet theater. “Junior Prankster became a little sidekick buddy for Billy Bobb,” says Lowell. It was O.Henry 41
Wandering Billy
Does Your Family Need Room to Grow?
Blue Denim can help you find a custom home to fit your new needs! BlueDenimRealEstate.com
MARK & KIM LITTRELL REALTOR®, Brokers, Owners Mark 336-210-1780 Kim 336-210-9294 Info@BlueDenimRE.com
Beautiful and Unique Creations Proud supporters of NC craftsman 4730 Pleasant Garden Rd. • Pleasant Garden, NC 336-763-0001 | gritsdecor.com
42 O.Henry
all off-the-cuff. “We were on almost five years and never had a script.” Kids wrote in by the thousands to receive their fan club certificate and hear their name mentioned on their birthdays. Billy Bobb began eclipsing Dana Ralph Lowell. Lowell received the princely sum of $25 per episode and $25 an hour for public appearances. “I had a two-part act going,” Lowell says. “Doing Billy Bobb in nightclubs, then doing Billy Bobb during the day on television.” Even though, adjusted for inflation, $25 is worth $50 in today’s dollars, “the most I made for a year being that popular TV character was $5,000 [$10,000 in today’s dollars], so it was not exactly fame and fortune.” He recalls an encounter in costume with a child at the mall. “He screamed and he came running up to me and said, ‘How did you get out of my TV? Did you get out of the TV at my house and then come here?’ He thought I lived in the television set.” Besides filming car commercials airing on other stations, Billy Bobb would turn up at baseball games, Soap Box Derby races, rodeos, shopping centers, parades, at the drag strip and anywhere a crowd gathered. “And just about everything that was happening around the county, we were there with our camera crew and it became subject matter for the show.” Lowell benefitted from what you might call the “Clark Kent Syndrome.” “As soon as I took off that costume, nobody recognized me. I just took off the red flannel shirt and the goofy hat and the T-shirt that said ‘Too Funny!’” For the entire run of the Billy Bobb program, the station was under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. “That’s another reason I had zero budget,” Lowell says. “Channel 48 was the clubhouse for a fraternity of folks having a blast making low-budget TV. It was a lot of fun.” About a dozen professional wrestlers appeared on the show. “Household name types like Sgt. Slaughter and The Rock ’n’ Roll Express,” Lowell says. “They were such pros and such hams — we would have The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Wandering Billy a blast. I remember Sgt. Slaughter picking on the puppet.” The owner of a car dealership in Reidsville, Tar Heel Nissan, was impressed with increased sales resulting from a commercial campaign starring Lowell. “And I’m like, ‘Who drops 30 grand on a Nissan — makes major life purchases — because a guy on TV named Billy Bobb said to do that? Crazy!’” After he had been doing the show for a year or two, “I found out that there was another Channel 48 in the late 1960s, early 1970,” Lowell says. “Very low-budget, even smaller than our Channel 48 was. This little station in the late ’60s had a kid show.” That show was called The Kiddie Scene with Mr. Green. (I, Billy Eye, actually appeared on it once as a 12-year-old in a skit I organized and (naturally) starred in with the neighborhood kids for a backyard performance.) A turning point in Lowell’s career came one day when he had a chance encounter with a tall, skinny old man working a concession stand at a ball game. “He had also hosted horror movies as a ‘Shock Theater’ kind of character,” Lowell recalls. “And here he is,” Lowell says. “I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, there’s my future. I’m going to be working in a concession stand when I get older, selling hot dogs at a baseball game. There’s my future in show business!’” Today Dana Lowell operates a fine arts theater at a private college prep school here in Greensboro. “Since I did get my theater degree in scenery and lighting design, I’m teaching theater. It’s a dream job that’s different every day.” Would a local kids’ show work in modern times? “No, I think kids are too cynical today,” Lowell says. “I know we couldn’t get away with the humor because everyone’s so sensitive and politically correct. We would ruffle a lot of feathers. I can’t even imagine . . .” OH Billy Eye’s TVparty is — according to The Discovery Channel — “Hands down the best site on the Web for classic TV.” The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Helping families create and enrich their legacy for generations to come
LEGACY
DO YOU HAVE YOUR LEGACY PLAN IN PLACE? CONTACT AN ONST PROFESSIONAL TO HELP Even in uncertain times feel secure knowing your Even in uncertain times feel secure knowing your financial plan remains the same. WITH YOUR ESTATE PLANNING TODAY. financial plan remains the same. ONST is here to protect your future and the ONST is legacy here tofor protect your your lovedfuture ones. and the legacy for your loved ones. GREENSBORO | WILMINGTON| GREENVILLE | |LEXINGTON oldnorthstatetrust.com | info@trustonst.com 336-646-6678 GREENSBORO | WILMINGTON| GREENVILLE | LEXINGTON 336-646-6678 | oldnorthstatetrust.com 336-646-6678 | oldnorthstatetrust.com
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE! Subscribe today and have O.Henry delivered to your home! TO SUBSCRIBE: call 910.693.0090 or email dstark@thepilot.com
Custom window treatments, bedding, furniture, and more
419 Pisgah Church Rd, Greensboro, NC 27455
336-272-4227 www.printers-alley.com O.Henry 43
WANT TO STAY HOME? You DON’T need a pot of gold. You DO need more than the “Luck of the Irish”! • Transportation • Personal Care • Companionship • Meal Preparation • Light Housekeeping • Dementia Care
1515 W Cornwallis Drive, Suite 100 Greensboro, NC 27408
Phone: 336.285.9107 Fax: 336.285.9109
email: info@1stChoiceHomeCareInc.com
3911 BRASS CANNON COURT
This custom built 4 bed, 3.1 bath home on Gnbo County Club golf course has 10’ ceilings down, 9’ up. Large rooms, bay windows, tray ceilings, 2 patios & a covered porch w fireplace.
$775,000
Sally Millikin
336.337.7230 Sally.millikin@trmhomes.com
44 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Pairing Mantids
March 2021
He has only one job to do. And she, with her hunger, her need to feed the future without him by consuming him, has a lot to get done before winter. His head tilts slightly, like a sinner at communion, like a teen expecting his first kiss to be like lightning. Then his body starts to do the work it was built to do. She turns toward him and wipes off his face. He knows it’s all over, but his body keeps on, unknowing itself. His is the kind of stupid happiness you can only appreciate at a distance, the kind you know cannot be as good as it looks. Hers is the work of duty and a different devotion. While he takes her from behind, she takes him head first just like she took a yellow striped hornet who would have taken her to his own hideaway, just as she took the grasshopper who was tired of summer, as she took the large green moth who had no mouth of its own. She ignored those magnificent wings — just let them fall — as she ignores the thrusting body that falls away from hers. He dies two deaths at once, the deaths of love and of life. But the moment between, the moment before it all ends, is the moment of his glory and the beginning of her toil. — Paul Jones Paul Jones is the author of What the Welsh and Chinese Have in Common
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 45
The Wonder of Color Piedmont Photography Club delivers the whole, glorious spectrum By Maria Johnson
“Atlantic Beach”
Renee Russell, Winston-Salem It looked like the sky was on fire. That’s how Renee Russell describes the sunset the night she and her husband, David, got to Atlantic Beach to meet with family last summer. She loved the smoky clouds — “I can see a Viking boat in that bigger cloud,” she says — and bristling sea oats below. Renee, a home-health nurse, has been taking photographs for most of her life, but capturing images has become a passion since David, also a prolific shooter, asked her to join the photography club with him about 20 years ago. Stress dissolves, she reports, when she shifts her focus to captivating scenes and starts snapping. “It’s a challenge, at times, to get the shot that you really see or want somebody else to see,” she says. See the couple’s work at russellphotoart.com.
46 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
L
et us take a moment — here in this month of mud, bluster and bursting forth — to honor ROY G. BIV. That’s not a person. It’s an acronym for colors along the visible spectrum of light. Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet. Throw in black and white, and you have the ingredients of every color that any human has ever seen — or ever will see — with unaided eyes. That’s shocking when you think about it. We see so few colors. And yet, we experience such joy in our wee rainbow, in the gradations and textures and juxtapositions with other colors. It’s all about how they’re arranged. And — as any student of Monet knows — how much light falls on them. There is no true color, of anything, only constantly changing reflections of constantly changing light. Here’s the freaky part: the color happens in our brains. Objects have no inherent color — just surfaces that reflect light in different wavelengths. Basically, the reflected light — a kind of electromagnetic radiation — hits the photoreceptors in our eyeballs, which dashes them off in chemical telegrams to our brains, which decodes them as colors. From this neurological basis, we discern objects, depth, movement and sometimes awe. Witness the pleasure prompted by these photographs provided by the Piedmont Photography Club. The club, which has been around since the 1970s, holds quarterly contests for members. These images, gleaned from last year’s competitions, showcase the wonder of color. So, photo buffs — and photoreceptors — rejoice as we prime our senses for spring and revel in the glory of ROY and company. OH Learn more about the Piedmont Photography Club at piedmontphotoclub.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 47
t “Facing the Light” Bet Wilson, Winston-Salem
Talk to amateur photographers, and a theme emerges: They squeeze in lots of pictures while taking vacations. Or, more accurately, they squeeze in lots of vacations while taking pictures. A few years ago, Bet Wilson did both while visiting Arizona in late summer, the best time to photograph Antelope Canyon, which is on Navajo land near Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. She booked an excursion into the slot canyon with 10 other photographers. The guide drove them into the rocky hollow and threw up a handful of dust to accentuate the shaft of light that turned water-worn rock into cathedral. “It was one of the joys of my life to capture that,” says Bet. “I just feel so fortunate that I was able to time my trip so I could be there — and it was a sunny day.”
“Street Art” u
Bill Cowden, Winston-Salem Maybe Bill Cowden wouldn’t notice the masked character today, now that half the world covers its face to filter out COVID, but two years ago, the lithe figure stood out on an art-plastered corner in Austin, Texas. “It wasn’t just junky graffiti,” Cowden says. “It was a lot of interesting different scenes.” Cowden lifted his cell phone and documented the urban tableau. This frame ended up in a club contest. “The competition is friendly,” says Cowden, the group’s president. “Our goal is to help anyone who needs help.” In non-COVID times, the club organizes trips to scenic places around the state, including Lake Mattamuskeet, where snow geese stop during their annual migration.
48 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
p “Peaceful Beauty” Ed Haynes, Oak Ridge
Sometimes, the best photos lurk right under your nose. Or outside your breakfast nook. That’s where Ed Haynes saw this butterfly sipping lantana nectar at sunset. “The backlit wings are what makes that one so good,” Ed says, explaining the challenge of capturing quick-moving subjects in low light. “You gotta get your exposure right. It’s a balance between getting enough light and having a fast enough shutter.” Ed’s daughter, Edie, turned him onto photography a couple of years ago, after Ed retired as a maintenance supervisor at the former MillerCoors brewery in Eden. COVID makes him grateful for his new pastime. “I’m glad I can do something in my backyard,” he says.
t “Munching Monarch” Susan Hayworth, Bermuda Run
Susan was stalking Monarch butterflies last September when she took the Blue Ridge Parkway to Doughton Park, a stop on a migration loop that stretches from the northeast U.S. and Canada, down to south Florida and Mexico. She caught this Monarch caterpillar mid-chomp. Soon, it would make a chrysalis and emerge to stretch its orange and black wings and finish the trip south. No single butterfly completes the loop; the journey spans five generations. Some monarch lines, fluttering northward after their winter vacations, stop in North Carolina in the spring. Charmed by the moderate climate and milkweed, they might stay for a few generations (the Monarch lifespan is three to five weeks except for those that overwinter; they can live a few months). Others continue to press north for the summer. Come September and October, their progeny reverse course and stop at Doughton Park to gas up on nectar for the long trip to wintering grounds — no time for royal whoopee. Thousands of Monarchs migrate south during that time, but “You’re not guaranteed you’re gonna see anything,” says Susan. “So for me to go on a hunt and see this — and have it turn out as well as it did — that’s pretty special to me.”
50 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
p “Egret in Carolina
Blue Sky”
Boyd Rogers, Summerfield
t “Jackson Fall”
Franklyn Millman, Winston-Salem
On the way from Jackson, Wyoming, to Yellowstone National Park, Franklyn Millman and his wife, Susan Von Cannon, parked their car and took a walk. “The whole road was covered with these yellow aspen leaves,” says Franklyn, “but finding a scene where you have a lot of vertical trunks that don’t interfere with each other . . .” It took some doing. Finally, Franklyn found the frame. “It had a certain rhythm to it,” he says. “I like the simplicity, and of course I liked the color.” A devoted shutterbug and recently retired internist, Franklyn has traveled worldwide. Once, in Iceland, he ventured onto a windwhipped beach to shoot chunks of icebergs. A giant wave reared. “It knocked me down and submerged my camera,” he says, laughing. He grabbed a backup camera and kept shooting until he bagged a keeper. “Your pulse actually increases, and you say, ‘Man, if I can capture that before it goes away . . .’ Those moments are relatively infrequent, but sometimes conditions are just right and, boy, it’s amazing.” The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Boyd was itching to play with his new toy, a 600 mm photo lens. An ideal opportunity came one morning at North Topsail Beach, when he spotted egrets coming and going in a bay behind the island. “You have to get them in focus, lock on and track them while you’re shooting,” he says. “It takes hundreds of pictures sometimes to get the one you’re looking for.” He likes this shot for its simplicity — “There’s nothing to distract your eye away from the bird” — and for the sharp focus on the bird’s pupil. “The eyes are the windows of the soul, I’ve read. Birds are not as much fun as mammals, but there’s a lot there, in birds’ eyes,” he says.
O.Henry 51
p “Quartet”
Sinh Nguyen, Winston-Salem Painstakingly gorgeous. That describes this striking composition, which Sinh Nguyen pieced together at a workstation in his backyard. He snipped an unfurling frond of fern. He positioned a potted flower behind it. He used a syringe to apply drops of water to the fern. He positioned his camera, which was hitched to a Sony 90 mm macro lens, on tripod. He fired the shutter. Again and again. “I took it more or less one hundred times,” he says. “I picked the ten best ones.” Using PhotoShop, he merged the images, preserving the best of each. Thirty years ago, Sinh took a class at the New York Institute of Photography, but he had little money or time to indulge his interest. Now retired, he quenches his thirst for beauty. “I get bored and walk around with my camera and the ideas come,” he says. “I take whatever catches my eye.”
52 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
p “Elephant”
Karen Vohs, Winston-Salem
t “Water Lilies in Sun” Marinella Holden, Winston-Salem
The afternoon sun was tilting toward the golden hour at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, S.C., when these water lilies pinged on Marinella Holden’s photographic radar. “It was just a vivid little area,” she says. “The colors were gorgeous, and the light was right.” Marinella took up photography after her husband, Jerry, was well into it. “I wish we’d taken this up earlier,” she says. “It just makes you more aware of your surroundings. Sometimes you’re not focused, but when you’re taking pictures, you are.” See the couple’s work at jholden1.smugmug.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Karen went to the North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival in Cary hoping to see hues of blue; the photography club was having a contest with one category reserved for subjects of that color. This puffy pachyderm fit the bill. Karen crouched low and shot upward — “like a little kid looking up” — to include the pink orbs that popped hot against cooler shades. An avid photographer for the last 10 years, Karen enjoys the challenges of the art: the quest to find and frame subjects, as well as the technical process of digital editing. She has learned much from her snap-happy peers. “There’s a lot of really good photographers in the club who are willing to share their knowledge,” she says.
O.Henry 53
© CAROL W. MARTIN/GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTION.
54 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Our
Crown Jewel The evolving history of Greensboro’s Country Park
I
By Billy Ingram
exit the cockpit of a F2H Banshee Navy fighter jet, walk past the 20 mm cannons mounted on the fuselage and, surveying unfamiliar surroundings, gaze across a pristine lake. In the distance, my brother and sister are waving me over from an approaching train, steam bellowing from its bulbous black smokestack as it chug-chug-chugs to a halt. I am 7 years old, and I’m with my family at Country Park. Many children of Greensboro have similar memories. And lucky for all of us, public parks and recreational facilities were central to the city’s vision of a 20th century urban center. The crown jewel of Greensboro’s green space has always been Country Park. Located off North Lawndale Drive, Country Park is the nucleus of a 217-acre entertainment destination that encompasses the Greensboro Science Center (a science museum and zoo) and its OmniSphere Theater; Jaycee Park and its Stoner-White Stadium; and Spencer Love Tennis Center. It’s almost hard to imagine Greensboro without it. In 1901, a 14-acre tract of lowlands flanking North Elm Street was the first land set aside for an official city park. Today we know the space as Fisher Park, but at the time, it was merely a swampy patch of undeveloped land likely donated to the city in an effort to save the surrounding neighborhood from overdevelopment. In coming years, sinuous walking trails were installed, allowing the public to fully enjoy its bucolic environs at long last. Also in 1901, Douglas Park opened on the south side of town, transforming an 8-acre plot of woods into a vibrant gathering spot with walking paths, a playground and a basketball court. It even had a stream running through it. In 1902, far outside of city limits, the Greensboro Electric Co.’s streetcar system leased what was known as Lindley Park, where a dance pavilion, man-made lake, bowling alleys, a Vaudeville theater and refreshment booths once drew happy crowds. The iron-andstone entranceways on Spring Garden are all that remain of that The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 55
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM
ancient amusement park. Yet somehow, without all the flashy accoutrement (showgirls, candlepins and ice skating, for instance), Lindley Park endures as a sacred place for relaxation and solace. This sudden turn-of-the-century mushrooming of public parks was Greensboro’s bid to join a national social movement. The idea was to provide places to contemplate nature and recreate, reducing the stress and strain of urban life. Following the lead of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Central Park in New York City, cities from coast-to-coast began adding parks to their urban landscapes. Initially modeled after the grounds of manors and estates in England, these parks catered mostly to rich families. However, over the decades, parks began accommodating the working-class families with playgrounds and recreational facilities. The prevailing theory at the time was that public money was well spent on these projects because they could potentially reduce class conflict, socialize immigrants and get kids off the streets. Building parks was a laudable social goal and demonstrated a city’s sense of social responsibility.
56 O.Henry
And so it was in Greensboro. In an outstanding demonstration of civic pride following the Great Depression, volunteers, city workers and laborers from the Public Works Administration worked together to turn 79 acres purchased in part with cemetery bond funds into Country Park. The result of their efforts opened in 1934. When temperatures sizzled that summer, the park attracted nearly 2,000 visitors per day. A wooden superstructure known as The Bath House, situated along the eastern edge of Lake Sloan, the park’s northernmost and largest body of water, is where swimmers could change and shower. Just a few feet away was a high-diving platform. A vertical aquatic merry-goround was positioned in the middle of the lake, and there was even a sandy beach-like shoreline for sunbathing. Swimming was suspended during the polio outbreak of 1948 but resumed in the 1950s. Around 1952, the park welcomed a one-fifth scale MTC G-12 train that maneuvered around on a 12-gauge track. That kiddie sized choo-choo was in operation every afternoon in the summertime. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM
Nearby, a full-size Greensboro Fire Department ladder truck and a Southern Railway boxcar acted like magnets, attracting children who couldn’t wait to climb into, up on and around the stationary machines. By the 1960s, two other man-made lakes sparkled on the property, where rowboats and pedal boats floated in endless, lazy circles, with mallards and Canada geese watching from the shorelines. Fishing was allowed with a permit, and seven picnic shelters were scattered around the lakes with free-standing grills. The park had an archery range, ball field and a craft shop where you could buy a bottle of Pepsi for five cents. A tram system shuttled motorless city folk about the park on weekends and holidays. Under the direction of Harvey West, the Municipal Band performed weekly Sunday night concerts from a pavilion located on the south side of Lake Sloan. The Country Park train was replaced in the summer of 1959 by a much bigger attraction when Greensboro resident W.A. Cameron purchased a trio of railroad cars pulled by a 1,700-pound Crown steam locomotive nicknamed “The General.” Based on the design of an 1855 Western and Atlantic Railroad passenger train of the same name that had been commandeered by Yankees during the Civil War, the attraction was a hit. There was even a mini cowcatcher (exactly what it sounds like) up front. The General was supplanted a few years later by a homemade contraption with faux caboose and a kiddie cage that looked like it might have been designed by the Merry Pranksters on LSD. (The original Country Park railroad landed in the possession of a young, up-and-coming plastic surgeon, then was later purchased by a Climax couple who sold it on eBay in 2008.) The first of two decommissioned Korean War-era F2H Banshee Navy fighter jets from Cherry Point arrived at Country Park in The Art & Soul of Greensboro
January of 1959, decades before playground equipment safety became a public-health issue. Donated by the Marine Corps, the jets were installed on the east side of the lakes; on one side of the planes, a ladder offered kids access to the cockpit, which they could (somewhat) safely exit via playground slide on the other side of the plane. That said, some residents still have scars from mounting those rusting artifacts, arms or legs singed from hot metal surfaces. And with less than adequate guardrails, I’m probably not the only kid that toppled off of those slides. The jet planes were removed in the late-1960s. From day one at Country Park, the streets leading in and out of the park became something of a shortcut for drivers with a need for speed. Not ideal. Thus, in 1960, supplementary access was closed off in favor of a single entrance for automobiles. Around that time, the central body of water was filled in to allow foot traffic access to a 1.6-mile paved circle around the circumference of the park. That’s likely when swimming was discontinued. As cities across the nation turned to more of a recreational-and-sports complex model for urban parks, construction of the Lewis Center’s multipurpose sports facility was completed on the west side of Country Park in 1964. Because the Greensboro Jaycees raised most of the money for the project, a 75-acre plot abutting the west end of Country Park was christened Jaycee Park in the 1970s, including three football/soccer fields, tennis courts, a Pony baseball field and volleyball courts. Casey’s Bar-B-Q, a hometown favorite, operated a weekend concession at Country Park during the ’60s. In 1970, the Parks & Recreation Department’s Country Park Patio restaurant entered the scene, selling hot dogs, soft drinks, candy, snow cones and ice cream. The original city zoo, located at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in the ’50s, featured a peacock, raccoons, an American bald eagle, two bison, alligators, a monkey, a vicious groundhog, several varieties of pheasant, an assortment of ducks and geese, five deer, a goose named Oswald and a black bear cub named Bruno. As the zoo aged, concern mounted about the animals’ welfare and their being housed in “inadequate structures.” After a “Save Our Zoo” campaign in 1969, the idea of a new and improved zoo turned into a contentious, on-and-off-again affair, but thanks to a last-minute infusion of cash from the city, the new zoo finally welcomed their first visitors in spring of 1973. It was designed sort of like a big, rambling barnyard, with an indoor petting zoo and enclosures for miniature burros, coyotes, a cougar, an American Bison, two elk, black swans, cattle, opossums, turkeys, a llama and Bruno the bear, who had been a major attraction for 14 years at that point. Admission was 50 cents — 25 cents for children. The Junior Museum, also commonly referred to as The Children’s Museum, got underway in 1957 — a collaborative effort of the Junior League, City Council and Greensboro Parks & Recreation. The staff (mostly Junior League volunteers) taught children about natural O.Henry 57
Ribbon-cutting for the Greensboro Junior Museum
© CAROL W. MARTIN/GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTION.
© CAROL W. MARTIN/GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTION.
58 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
sciences, how to care for the small animals on site and how to help injured critters and birds. This facility would eventually evolve into the Natural Science Center, which now threatens to eclipse Country Park as a tourist attraction. As a teenager in the ’70s, if friends wanted to have a backyard barbecue, Country Park was the preferred venue. (Who wanted to hang out with anyone’s parents?) In those days, the woods were so thick around the picnic areas that you couldn’t see past the tree lines. There was almost no foot traffic — a lone jogger, perhaps. It legitimately felt like you were luxuriating in the countryside. About that time, ten cents of every dollar (up from 3.5 cents two decades earlier) expended by the city went into a system that included 109 parks, 86 tennis courts, 78 camp sites, 65 picnic sites, 42 playgrounds, 17 baseball fields, 11 community centers, 10 gymnasiums, five outdoor pools and two indoor pools. Plans are afoot to make what might seem to be radical changes for the newly christened Battleground Parks District. Effectively erasing the largely undeveloped parcel between the Greensboro Science Center and Country Park, the overall concept proposes constructing boardwalks, viewing platforms, wooden abutments jutting into the water, weirdly-shaped climbing structures for kids, accommodations for food trucks, an amphitheater, a waterfall river, additional shelters, and — of all things — a zip line. I don’t know what it says about our society that viewing stations would be requisite in order to ponder the existence of trees and waterways. Enticing to the zip line crowd, I suppose. While neighborhood parks like Fisher and Lindley have remained virtually unchanged over the last half century, Country Park, on the other hand, has continually evolved with the times, following national trends about just what constitutes a park — and adapting to the recreational needs of each new generation. While the city’s footprint has stretched well beyond the park and its surrounding facilities, Country Park remains a tranquil oasis for fishing, exercising, meditation and socializing with friends and family. It’s nice to know that will never change. And, who knows, I may even ride that zip line one day. OH
Natural Science Center
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM
Natural Science Center
The author of five books, Billy Ingram was born and raised in Greensboro. Thanks to Nollie Washburn Neill Jr. for pictures of his trip to Country Park taken by his father in the early-1960s. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 59
60 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Paradise Found How a funky house on Lake Jeanette became a fortuitous vision By Ashley Wahl Photographs by Amy Freeman
“It’s eclectic . . . it’s Bohemian . . . it’s just color and fun,” says Julie. “It’s . . . me.”
P
lan all you want, but life has a way of leading you where you were always going, even if you don’t yet know it. This adage has been a theme for Jay and Julie Brennan since the day they met. Why would the story of their unexpected dream home on Lake Jeanette be an exception? Eight years ago, merely by chance, Jay and Julie each found themselves at Starmount Forest Country Club, where neither was a member. Mistaking Julie for someone he knew, Jay tried to strike up a conversation with her and was promptly shut down. “I had recently divorced,” says Julie. “‘Do I know you?’ sounded like a pickup line.” It wasn’t. Jay, whose own marriage was dissolving, “actually did think she was someone else,” he says. You know where this story is going: They weren’t looking for love, but they found it. And two years later, when the newly engaged couple decided they’d like to buy a house together, they certainly weren’t looking for a full-blown project. After their private wedding in 2015 — “we didn’t want to have to worry about re-titling,” says Julie — the Brennans closed on a house in Lake Jeanette’s Southern Shores community that met their three requirements: abundant natural light, ample privacy and proximity to Sherwood Swim & Racquet Club, where Jay plays tennis. Today, their lakeside home — a modern stone, stucco and cedar
62 O.Henry
vision with dramatic, angular rooflines and a sweeping view to the water from nearly every room — is everything they could have ever wanted. The interior is a playful 4,000-square-foot exploration of colors, patterns, shapes and textures (yes, stripes and polka dots can unite) with no shortage of light or whimsy. Hidden from the road by a veil of hardwoods, the five-bed, four and one-half bath house opens to a spacious ipe (Brazillian walnut) deck complete with outdoor kitchen, weather-resistant furniture and hot tub. It’s less than four miles from Sherwood’s tennis courts. But it’s nothing like the house they bought. Built in 1989, the original house was designed by an architect who lived there with his wife until the bank took it from them in the early ’90s. The Brennans bought it from the second owners. “It was unusual,” Julie says of the interior. Pink walls and handmade Mexican tile floors. But the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to the water rendered the house utterly resplendent with natural light. She saw potential. Julie is a retired art teacher who worked for Guilford County Schools for 10 years following her move here from Lynchburg, Va. “Light is very important to me,” she says. Jay liked the privacy. Because the house is surrounded by trees and situated on a cove near a water main that keeps boats confined to the main lake, the Brennans would never need to draw another window shade again. Plus, the modern design reminded him of the house his The Art & Soul of Greensboro
parents used to own in Naples. “I don’t think there were any right angles in the entire house,” says Jay. It was funky, but they liked it. And so, before they made an offer, Julie called up her tennis buddy, Marta Mitchell (as in Marta Mitchell Interior Design), to give the house her expert eye. “It’s got good bones,” Marta told them. “We can make this place whatever you want it to be.” Obviously, they would want fresh paint on the walls and new floors. (Many of the tiles were broken or chipped, Julie explains, and an uneven foundation would render all furniture askew.) But there were two major problems that the Brennans wanted to address: a lack of storage space — for all Julie’s dishes, Jay teases — and a fireplace obstructing the otherwise
“Light is very important to me,” she says. uninterrupted view of the lake from the living room. While they were at it, they figured, they just might be able to move that wall out a bit to invite even more light into the space. And they wanted to add a screened porch. Having decided to save up funds to tackle the projects “all at once,” the Brennans moved into the house as it was and lived there for four years. In spring of 2019, at long last, they were ready to move forward with the renovation. Their vision was simple enough. But following the discovery of water damage and mold in the walls, plans changed. “Rip everything out,” said Jay. Marta Mitchell drew up blueprints (there were none to be found), and with the help of Frank Chaney (architect) and Pat Parr of Classic Construction (contractor), the team got to work, making the best use of the space The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 63
64 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 65
and taking full advantage of the opportunity to start from scratch. Not only would the crew resolve the storage dilemma and enhance the Brennans’ view to the water, but they would also transform wasted space into an additional bathroom (main floor) and an artist’s loft accessible via floating staircase through Jay’s second-floor home office. “We were out of the house for almost 15 months,” says Jay, cofounder of a company that connects innovative startups with health care systems such as Cone Heath. Being displaced for over a year might have been disorienting enough in “normal” times. Never mind in the midst of a global pandemic. But in July of 2020, the Brennans moved back into their home, which was transformed from the inside, out. White stone and stucco complemented by warm cedar supersedes original exterior siding — unremarkable and gray. Inside, the eye dances across lively, polychromatic silk rugs and hardwood flooring, a miscellany of colorful art and sumptuous furnishings, then on through the back windows, which, original fireplace gone, make the deck and backyard feel like an extension of the interior. In the living room, abstract prints pop against muted walls and sunlight flickers through an avant-garde handblown glass light installation suspended from the vaulted ceiling like something straight out of a Chihuly exhibit. “We commissioned those,” says Julie of the glass pendants created by Ohio artist Doug Frates, who she and Marta discovered at High Point Market.
66 O.Henry
An open floor plan allows copious natural light and seamless flow from living room to dining room, where a matching set of bird chandeliers hangs above a Hooker table with chairs upholstered in fabrics most designers only wish their clients would let them pair up. “It’s quite unconventional,” says Julie of the prismatic polka-dotand-stripe combo. But Marta Mitchell and Annelise Tikkanen, MMID’s design team on this project, were clear on what Julie wanted. “It’s eclectic . . . it’s Bohemian . . . it’s just color and fun,” says Julie. “It’s . . . me.” Marta Mitchell describes the interior as a “unique reflection of the Brennans’ vision.” “Comfort and function being top of mind,” she adds, “this house is now open and airy and lends itself for everyday living and for entertaining large groups — hopefully in the not-too-distant future.” The living-and-dining area opens to the “screened porch wing,” where a 60-inch flat screen is mounted above a modish gas fireplace that no longer obstructs the view of the lake. “We get a breeze from both sides, so it’s comfortable out here even in the summer,” says Julie. Plus, Jay adds, “We have one of those nice Big Ass Fans.” The contemporary kitchen, sleek and minimalistic, is decked in a sea of blue tiles and backlit glass-paneled cabinets that showcase Julie’s crystal. The Brennans love their hideaway fridge, sub-zero wine cooler and Wolf appliances, but Jay will tell you that the ice maker is his favorite feature. For Julie, it’s easily the hidden pantry, which has “tons of storage for all my porcelain.” The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 67
In the master suite, where one of Julie’s paintings picks up colors from the abstract pastel rug, the Brennans now have His and Her walk-in closets, each with a window to let in natural light. But the best view of the water is from their bed — or the adjacent deck, where two orange rockers await coffee at sunrise. Besides the den (dark by design) and fitness and laundry rooms, there’s only one other room (upstairs) that doesn’t have a lake view. “That’s Nicole’s room,” says Julie, whose granddaughter lives here too. Nicole, 18, and her dog, Omar (a German shorthaired pointer mix), occupy a purple bedroom with a built-in wardrobe, fringe pendant lights and a small gallery of her own bold and colorful paintings. Actually, Omar has a bed in nearly every room. And he’s not the only resident smitten with the entire house. Although Jay admits the renovation was much more extensive than he could ever have imagined — “let’s just say the budget and I were no longer well-acquainted by the end of the project,” he says — he and Julie pulled out all the stops and couldn’t be happier. So, there you have it. They weren’t looking for it — and this house found them, more than they found it — but the Brennans are convinced that the house at the edge of Lake Jeanette was always meant to be theirs. OH
68 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
I glanced out the window at the signs of spring. The sky was almost blue, the trees were almost budding, the sun was almost bright. — Millard Kaufman Princess of the Pea
A L M A N A C
March n
By Ashley Wahl
M
arch is as harsh as it is hopeful. The earth is aflame with tender new grasses. Dead-nettle spills across the lawn like a sea of purple kisses. The birds are twittering on high and the dog is cradling something in its mouth, looking up as if to say you’ve got to see this. You are equally relieved and horrified to discover that whatever she’s holding is pink and wriggling and very much alive. “Drop it,” you say. And so, she does. On a soft patch of earth dotted with dandelion. Blind and hairless, the newborn squirrel is utterly helpless. You look up to the fork of a nearby oak, hoping to see a wild, leafy tangle of nest. Back when the world was gold-and-rust, leaves rustling like starlings with each gust, you’d witnessed its construction. And by some miracle — because what held by sticks and faith is not — the nest is still intact. You scoop up the babe with a thin cloth, place it at the base of a tree like a sacred offering, back away and wait. The dog is whimpering. She looks up at you with the worried expression of a mother, back to the squirrel, so pink and vulnerable, then back to you. Patience, you tell the dog as a reminder to yourself. The earth beneath you softens, yet there’s a chill you cannot shake. An hour passes. You have nearly given up hope that mother squirrel will arrive, but she does. And in an instant, she is gone, scurrying up the tree with the babe in her mouth. March winds can be cruel. But dog was dog, not snake or hawk. And in spring, there is always hope. Just listen to the birds. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Although the robin has been announcing its return for weeks, official spring arrives on March 20 — and with it, the glorious, flowering redbud. Blue sky or gray, redbud blossoms are utterly electric by contrast, seemingly more vibrant by the day. The Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis), also known as the Judas tree, is a tree of the pea family. Christian folklore tells that this now small and somewhat dainty tree once stood tall and mighty as an oak and that, when Judas betrayed Christ, he hanged himself from one. But let’s talk instead of their delicate clusters of rosy pink flowers, shall we? Yep, they’re edible. High in Vitamin C. And that they burst from bare-bone limbs before the tree’s first heart-shaped leaves never fails to dazzle. Pickle them or transform your spring salad into a work of art with a sprinkling or a sprig. As for the seeds and pods? Edible, too. Eat the Weeds [eattheweeds.com], a blog for foraging newbies, suggests using the unopened buds as a caper substitute. Just add pasta, garlic and butter.
In the Garden
Mid-month, transplant broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage into the garden. Ditto lettuce and spinach. And get ready for April. After the last frost, it’s time again to sow your summer garden. The earth is softening. But the birds tell you everything you need to know: spring is here. O.Henry 69
March 2021
3/
Artistic Perspective
3/
5
11
Although conscientious effort is made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, all events are subject to change and errors can occur! Please call to verify times, costs, status and location before planning or attending an event.
Israeli and Jewish cinema yet to be released in theaters. Catch them before they’re gone! Tickets: $11/film. Info: (336) 852-5433 or mytjff.com.
March 1–13
March 3
WRITE IT OUT. The Burlington Writers Club is accepting entries for its 65th Annual Spring Adult Writing Contest. Cash prizes awarded for best nonfiction (short and long), fiction, poetry, light verse, stories for children, poetry for children and Leon HintonHumorous fiction and nonfiction categories. See website for contest rules. Info: burlingtonwritersclub.org.
March 1–14
TRIAD JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL. The Greensboro Jewish Federation wraps up its virtual festival featuring seven films from
70 O.Henry
SILVER SPOON. Noon until 12:20 p.m. Explore a new WAM exhibit during one-third of your lunch hour. Catch Noon @ the ’Spoon on the first Wednesday of each month. Free; reservations required. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoonart.org.
March 5
LITTLE BLUE JAR. Noon until 12:30 p.m. You are what you eat. Ashley Kaufman serves up knowledge — and her family’s story — at this month’s “History Lunch Break.” Learn how the 1918–19 influenza pandemic made
3/
Ani-maniacs
4/
29 – 1
VapoRub a household name. Free. Register via Zoom or watch live on the Greensboro History Museum’s Facebook page. Info: greensborohistory.org/events. TO SPACE AND BEYOND! 4–5 p.m. Greensboro Parks & Recreation presents a virtual art class for families. This month’s theme: “Exploring Space” with paint. Free; registration required. Info: greensboro-nc.gov/ departments/parks-recreation.
March 11
ARTISTIC PERSPECTIVE. 7 p.m. Artist Xaviera Simmons weaves multiple themes into her artwork. Images and objects, stories and geography, bodies and landscapes — all come together to explore the complexity of our history. In this virtual event hosted by the Falk Visiting artist program, the artist sheds light on lesser-known stories and experiences The Art & Soul of Greensboro
XAVIERA SIMMONS, INDEX TWO, COMPOSITION THREE, 2012. CHROMOGENIC COLOR PRINT, 50 X 40 IN. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND DAVID CASTILLO, MIAMI. © XAVIERA SIMMONS
L ittle Blue Jar
shops • service • food • farms of indigenous and Black Americans portrayed through her abstract works. Free; registration required. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoonart.org.
March 13
HIT THE TRAILS! 8:30 a.m. The Northern Trails Marathon & 10 Mile trail race is back for its seventh year. Registration: $39-48 (10-miler); $58-70 (marathon). Virtual option available. Northern Guilford High School, 7101 Spencer Dixon Rd., Greensboro. Info: triviumracing.com. POTTERY CRAWL. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Spend the day in Seagrove. Gallery tour and tea tastings at participating potteries. Seagrove Potteries, NC Hwy. 705, Seagrove. Info: (336) 879-4145 or teawithseagrovepotters.webstarts.com. BAREFOOT DANCIN’. 8–10 p.m. Honorary dance fraternity Delta Chi Xi hosts its annual Barefoot Charity Concert. Event features student choreography. Attend virtually or in-person. Tickets required. UNCG Dance Theatre, 1408 Walker Ave., Greensboro. Tickets: go.uncg.edu/dancetix.
support locally owned businesses
March 14
GSYO WINTER CONCERT. 3–6 p.m. Three Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra ensembles perform, culminating their winter season. Free to the public. Dana Auditorium, 5800 W. Friendly Ave., Greensboro. Info: (336) 335-5456 x230 or gsyo.org/events.
March 18
LIFE OF BRYAN. 7:30 p.m. Theresa May, former UK Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader from 2016–2019, virtually presents “A Global Perspective for Extraordinary Times.” Info: thebryanseries@guilford.edu or guilford.edu/life/bryan-series.
March 18–20
SAINT ON STAGE. UNCG School of Theatre presents George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. Streaming on-demand. Tickets: $5. Info: (336) 334-4392 or uncgtheatre.com.
March 19
LOOK HARDER. Noon. WAM’S “How Do I Look: Seeing with Expert Eyes” virtual program continues, sparking conversations around
Calendar
individual artworks in the Weatherspoon’s collection. Free; registration required. Info: (336) 5770 or weatherspoonart.org.
March 24–27
EASTERN STANDARD. 7:30 p.m. Four Manhattan yuppies find friendship in an uptown restaurant after a strange bag lady causes turmoil in this biting comedy by Richard Greenberg. Free to the public; tickets required. Greensboro College Theatre, 815 W. Market St., Greensboro. Tickets: (336) 272-7102 (extension 5242) or tickets@greensboro.edu.
March 25
SHOOTING HER SHOT. 7 p.m. Ann Hamilton, Distinguished University Professor of Art at Ohio State University, is a guest speaker in the UNCG Concert & Lecture Series. Known for her site-responsive and large-scale installations, public projects and performance collaborations, Hamilton’s artworks are based in a career-long exploration of “felt experience,” as well as in the relationships between written language and tactile experience. Free; registration required. Info: (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoonart.org
O.Henry 71
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Join the effort. Visit www.triadlocalfirst.com.
shops • service • food • farms
support locally owned businesses
LIFE SPRINGS ANEW EVEN AFTER THE DEEPEST WINTERS Our customers are young and the young at heart. They are the classic American beauty or those looking for Threads that are uniquely on trend.
boutique boutique Please support your local shops WWW.TRIADLOCALFIRST.COM
809 GREEN VALLEY ROAD SUITE 101
| 3 3 6 -9 4 4 -5 3 3 5
TUES - FR I • 1 1 - 5: 30 | SAT • 1 1 -3
Shop our Online Store at guilfordgardencenter.com “I couldn’t be happier with my renters, or my rental income” Brantley White Burkely Rental Homes client
There are times when it’s smarter to lease than to sell your home. Call me when you think you’re there! I’ll be pleased to discuss how Burkely Rental Homes can help you.
We specialize in unique, native, and specimen plants. 701 Milner Dr. Greensboro 336-299-1535 guilfordgardencenter.com
72 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Join the effort. Visit www.triadlocalfirst.com.
Calendar DIVE BAR SAINTS. 7 p.m. Vocal quintet Home Free achieved international recognition upon winning NBC’s fourth season of The Sing-Off. Catch the world’s first “country a cappella group” perform songs from their latest album. Tickets start at $28.50. Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: (335) 373-7575 or tangercenter.com.
March 29–April 1
ANI-MANIACS. 9:15 a.m.–3 p.m. Spring Break Adventures series. Children ages 8–10 explore the differences between various groups of animals as they split time between the classroom and zoo or aquarium. Send a snack, drink and bag lunch each day. Registration: $180/members; $225/ nonmembers. Greensboro Science Center, 4301 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro. Info: (336) 2883769 or info@greensboroscience.org.
TUESDAYS
PILATES IN THE PARK. 4–5 p.m. Bring your yoga mat downtown for an afternoon workout with Axis Pilates. Open to all levels. Free; registration encouraged. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org.
SATURDAYS
munity karaoke in Center City Park. Free; registration encouraged. Info: greensboro-nc. gov/departments/parks-recreation.
IRON SHARPENS IRON. 10:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. Step into the past at Historic Park and see how blacksmiths in the late 18th and early 19th centuries practiced their trade. Free; drop-ins welcome. High Point Museum, 1859 To add an event, email us at ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highby the first of the month pointnc.gov. ONE MONTH PRIOR TO THE EVENT. THE COOL KIDS’ KLUB. 10 a.m.–2 p.m. Kids of all ages assemble at LeBauer Park for weekend wiggle time. Kids’ Klub programs include storybook yoga, dancing with Bella Ballerina and other fitness fun. Free; registration encouraged. Info: greensboro-nc. gov/departments/ Results Driven Skin Treatments by parks-recreation.
Lucky to Have Healthy Skin!
Licensed Master Aesthetician
SUNDAYS
SING-A-LONG. 3–8 p.m. Grab a mic and show the world what you’ve got! DJ Energizer will lay down the tracks for a fun night of com-
Facials • Chemical Peels Micro & Hydro Dermabrasion Dermaplaning • Microneedling LED Light Therapy • Skin Classic All of our medical grade treatments and products are free of harmful chemicals, parabens, sulfates, and are cruelty-free. 408 State St., Greensboro, NC 27405 | 336.675.3647 | Labellaskinbykatrina.biz
State Street
501 State St. Greensboro, 27205 336.274.4533 • YamamoriLtd.com
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
10:00-5:30 Monday-Friday 10:00-3:00 Saturday and by Appt.
O.Henry 73
As seen in: Biltmore House, Asheville Greensboro News & Record
Arts
Resinate Art The Original Representational Epoxy Artist ARTIST Carol Kaminski • HOURS by appointment only RESIN classes available
& CULTURE
4912 Hackamore Rd, Greensboro, 27410 704-608-9664 • www.ResinateArt.com
NE V E R TH E S A M E O L D S A M E O L D
KEVIN RUTAN SPRING SHOW APRIL 29TH - MAY 1ST STUDIO OPEN UPON REQUEST NOW
612 JOYNER ST • GREENSBORO, NC • 336.312.0099
74 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
COMMERCIAL & RESIDENTIAL
Kills COVID-19 Virus! You won’t find them in ordinary kitchens. Or at ordinary stores. Sub-Zero, the preservation specialist. Wolf, the cooking specialist. You’ll find them only at your local kitchen specialist.
SHOP LOCAL FOR BEST PRICES We Service What We Sell & Offer Personal Attention 336-854-9222 • www.HartApplianceCenter.com
2201 Patterson Street, Greensboro, NC (2 Blocks from the Coliseum) Mon. - Fri.: 9:30am - 5:30 pm Sat. 10 am - 2 pm • Closed Sunday
Business & Services
DUCT CLEANING & SANITIZING
Tired of the frustration of trying to knit on your own? The Premier Refrigeration and HVAC Service Company
Come join our knitting classes to learn from Wendi Cusins.
Serving the Triad and surrounding communities since 1976
24/7 ON CALL SERVICE AND SUPPORT
336.861.4884
1614-C WEST FRIENDLY AVENUE GREENSBORO, NC 27403 336-272-2032 stitchpoint@att.net MONDAY-FRIDAY: 10:00-6:00 SATURDAY: 10:00-4:00
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
24 HOUR TOLL FREE SERVICE: 800.476.6365 1519 BAKER ROAD.• HIGH POINT, NC 27263
WWW.HPREFRIGERATION.COM O.Henry 75
Don’t count on
LUCK for a healthy SMILE
2-J HOME IMPROVEMENT
• Painting • Pressure Washing • Carpentry • Hardwood Flooring • Tile Installation • Wallpaper Removal • & More! JOE DAAS
(336) 549-0854 Licensed and Insured
ASHMORE RARE COINS & METALS Since 1987
• 30+ years as a major dealer of Gold, Silver, and Coins • Most respected local dealer for appraising and buying Coin Collections, Gold, Silver, Diamond Jewelry and Sterling Flatware • Investment Gold, Silver, & Platinum Bullion
Visit us: www.ashmore.com or call 336-617-7537 5725 W. Friendly Ave. Ste 112 • Greensboro, NC 27410 Across the street from the entrance to Guilford College
Practicing Commercial Real Estate by the Golden Rule
Visit
Bill Strickland, CCIM Commercial Real Estate Broker/REALTOR 336.369.5974 | bstrickland@bipinc.com
online @ www.ohenrymag.com
➛
www.bipinc.com
76 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
COME. SIT. HEAL. We strive to provide complete care for our patients. Preventive & Wellness Care • Hospitalization Medicine / Surgery • Dentistry • Laser Therapy • And more ...
Dr. John Wehe | Dr. Tyler Perkins 120 W. Smith Street • Greensboro NC | 336.338.1840
w ww.downtowngreens boroanimalhos pi t al . com
Handmade In House
interior design · art · furniture ·home accessories 513 s. elm st, greensboro 336.265.8628 www.vivid-interiors.com
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
121-A WEST MCGEE ST. GREENSBORO, NC 27401 WWW.JACOBRAYMONDJEWELRY.COM | 336.763.9569
D OW N TOW N G R E E N S BO R O . O R G
O.Henry 77
Irving Park
NOW OPEN! BOOK NOW ONLINE
Live well
Relax & Breathe
At Salt and Soul, we are dedicated to the simple yet powerful understanding that health is a precious aspect of life that can, and need be protected, improved, and maintained.
Greensboro Salt Room and Wellness Studio offering Halotherapy, Hydromassage and Infrared Sauna services
Salt & Soul
1819 Pembroke Road | Greensboro, NC 27408
336-763-4666 www.saltandsoulgso.com 78 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
LADIES CLOTHING, GIFTS, BABY, JEWELRY, GIFTS FOR THE HOME, TABLEWARE, DELICIOUS FOOD
hair
✦
nails
336.285.9379 • Irving Park Plaza 1736 Battleground Ave. • Greensboro, NC 27408
1738 Battleground Ave • Irving Park Plaza Shopping Center • Greensboro, NC • (336) 273-3566
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Kristi Doganavsargil Owner/Stylist
Irving Park
It’s All About You at
www.cheveuxgreensboro.com Gift certificates available
O.Henry 79
O.Henry Ending
The Fish Bone
By Cynthia Adams
As a coastal weekend drew to an
end, we stopped at Sandy’s, a fishmonger in Southport. With cruelly blue skies that made us reluctant to head westward, we decided that fish, fresh from that day’s catch, would extend our getaway.
Eating outside as dusk fell, the tender, flaky fish pushed thoughts of Monday morning into the great beyond. Suddenly, I felt a bone graze my throat. I reached for my wine glass. The sensation — scratchy — was still there. Then I reached for bread to push the bone down. It was uncomfortable. But not unbearably so. My husband suggested we go get my throat looked at, but I was unwilling. There were things to do for the workweek ahead. I busied myself, coughing, gargling and clearing my throat whenever he left the room. The clock ticked. I put on my pj’s and climbed into bed. As soon as I was prone, I knew. This was not merely a scratch. When I got up to dress for the emergency room, my husband was unamused. “Why couldn’t we have gone at 6:30 and not 10 at night?” he groused. I was sheepish when checking into the ER at Moses Cone for the first time in my life. A fish bone lodged in my throat felt like an inadequate emergency. At this point, my husband stubbornly believed there was no way a bone was in there. I glared at him as he instructed the staff to put dire emergencies ahead of us, and then we sat silently for what felt like hours on end as the waiting room grew steadily fuller. When I suggested we leave and try our luck at Wesley Long instead, my husband grew more irritated but eventually agreed. Once there, we found an even busier ER. When my name was finally called, they beckoned me to a curtained off bay. I noted my name scrawled on a white board: “Adams. FB.” Wincing at that, I cleared my throat to test if perhaps the bone had moved. It was too late to bolt and go home. Eavesdropping on the patients adjacent to me, I soon realized one of my neighbors was having heart attack symptoms. The other had attempted suicide.
80 O.Henry
These people, my husband’s expression said, have real emergencies. When the young physician pulled back the curtain, I immediately apologized for being there. He pointed out that “95 percent” of people who think they have a fish bone lodged in their throat actually only have a scratch from swallowing it. I felt about as ridiculous as I had ever felt in my adult life. Then he examined my throat. “Hmmm,” he said. “I’ll be darned.” My heart leapt hopefully. “There is a bone?” I asked, relieved for the first time in four hours. “Sure is.” He left to get forceps. My husband looked stunned. The doctor returned wearing a miner’s light and carrying what looked like long, skinny barbecue tongs. “What if you can’t reach it?” my husband asked unhelpfully. “We will have to prep her for surgery,” he replied. “Surgery?” I squeaked, sobering. He explained that the bone had to be extracted or else my throat could become infected and sepsis could set in. Any pleasure I had from being in the right disappeared. But the doctor managed to extract it, and the relief was immediate, much like having a splinter release. “Thank you!” I shouted, as he showed us the bone. “It’s good sized,” he marveled. “Want to keep it?” I shook my head. Any questions, he asked. I had one. “Why did you have to write Fish Bone?” I asked, pointing to the scrawled letters on the white board. “That was so embarrassing.” The doctor was confused but turned to look. “F-B?” He asked with a grin. “Foreign Body.” My husband began laughing and I feebly joined in. Back home, mere hours before our alarm would blare, I stretched out and felt — nothing. “Do. Not. Tell. Anyone.” I muttered. But the bed shook as he lay there. And, I will admit it, I laughed, too — in spite of my fool self. OH Contributing editor Cynthia Adams claims the fish was so delicious that her FB experience was almost worth it. Her husband still has a bone to pick over the experience. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR
Or, one of the most embarrassing nights ever
NOW TAKING APPOINTMENTS FOR EYE EXAMS CALL TODAY! 336-852-7107 2222 Patterson St, Suite A, Greensboro, NC 27407 Serving the Triad’s eyewear needs for over 40 years
