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M A G A Z I N E
Volume 12, No. 3 “I have a fancy that every city has a voice.”
336.617.0090
111 Bain Street, Suite 334, Greensboro, NC 27406
www.ohenrymag.com PUBLISHER
David Woronoff david@thepilot.com Mary Best, Editor mary@ohenrymag.com Jim Dodson, Green Beer Lover-at-Large Andie Rose, Creative Director andie@thepilot.com Lauren M. Coffey, Art Director Alyssa Kennedy, Graphic Designer DIGITAL CONTENT
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Mallory Cash, Lynn Donovan, John Gessner, Bert VanderVeen, Mark Wagoner
101 Wentworth Drive Charming Old Irving Park - Storybook home overlooking Elmwood Park. Walking distance to Greensboro Country Club and shops on State St. This home has a great updated kitchen that features a gas stove, updated counters, back splash and copper sink. Neutral colors, hardwood floors on main, plantation shutters, sunroom, enclosed porch. 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Bonus room on second floor. New roof in 2021. Beautiful backyard is meant for outdoor living with patios and manicured landscaping.
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OWNERS Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels Jr., Frank Daniels III, Lee Dirks, David Woronoff © Copyright 2022. 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
Swim your way to a healthy lifestyle. Sagewell is a new health and fitness center from the experts at Cone Health. Experience total body wellness tailored to your needs, plus three pools, group exercise classes, personalized fitness assessments and more. NOW OPEN | Call 336-890-3199 to join today.
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March 2022 FEATURES 43 44
50
What the Moon Knows Poetry by Pat Riviere-Seel
Free to Go & Grow
While COVID has initiated a tidal wave of resignations, it doesn’t always take a pandemic to change your work trajectory. Mainly, it takes courage — and the belief in a more fulfilling life. Meet three area people who have pivoted careers — for very different reasons
Citizen Jim’s Latest Hurrah
By Jim Dodson With the announcement of the GreensboroRandolph Megasite, a legendary mayor cements his legacy
54
A Leap of Faith
65
Almanac
DEPARTMENTS
28 The Creators of N.C.
12 From the Editor
By Wiley Cash
15 Simple Life
By Cynthia Adams
By Mary Best
By Jim Dodson
18 Short Stories 21 Tea Leaf Astrologer
By Zora Stellanova
22 Life’s Funny
By Maria Johnson
24 The Omnivorous Reader
By Anne Blythe
27 Bookshelf
32 Home by Design 35 The Pleasures of Life
By Lindsay Morris
39 Birdwatch
By Susan Campbell
40 Wandering Billy
By Billy Eye
78 Events Calendar 88 O.Henry Ending
By Cynthia Adams
By Cynthia Adams Finding shelter from one storm after another By Ashley Walshe
8 O.Henry
Cover photograph by Bert VanderVeen
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A NOVEL PLACE
Chapter 2
Away We Go S
undrenched days crossed paths with sapphire shores in the rearview.
What had forever been off-limits was now open range. On this epic coast, three bright-eyed and bushy-tailed explorers could cut loose along the breaks.
Discover seasonal offers on vacation rentals & more at CrystalCoastNC.org
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From The Editor It is the first mild day of March: Each minute sweeter than before … There is a blessing in the air — William Wordsworth
Mary Best Editor
mary@ohenrymag.com
12 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK WAGONER
M
arch can be a fickle month, but having grown up in the 1960s and 1970s in rural Guilford County, March brought the promise of hope to my family. While snow and ice still were probabilities, something about my father shifted during the year’s third month. Subtle, nevertheless unmistakable. He began making lists and outlines of the vegetables he planned to plant in our garden. Even though the temperature often was chilly, he spent time surveying his plot. It wasn’t a huge spot behind our house, but it was large enough to be bountiful. My four siblings and I spent time tilling, fertilizing, planting, caring for, harvesting and, finally, consuming or canning — and had a grand time. Under my father’s guidance, we shared with our neighbors the vegetables we grew — string beans, crowder peas, cucumbers, peppers, squash, tomatoes and more. As my father’s garden flourished, so did our understanding of him. Born in a tiny community along the Pamlico Sound in the 1920s, my dad developed an appreciation for and the importance of satisfying one of the most basic needs of survival — nourishment. The youngest of nine children, my father spent his early years close to my grandmother while my grandfather and four older uncles fished. In that remote, windswept coastal fishing village — and under my grandmother’s gentle yet watchful eye — he learned to cook, care for relatives and friends, develop a love of poetry, and cultivate a garden. The Great Depression brought hardship, and what once had been the family's successful, statewide seafood business languished. And then, in 1943, the U.S. Army “invited” my father to serve. In 1944, he marched from France to Berlin. When he wasn’t in combat, he cooked, preparing meals for hungry, scared and often wounded young soldiers. My father returned home in 1946, and after a difficult time adjusting to peacetime America, in 1947, he entered college, earned a bachelor’s degree, moved to Stokesdale, met my mother and became a beloved school principal — while raising five children. Heroes define and shape our lives. He was — and always will be — my mentor, best friend, shelter, protector. And, yes, my hero. OH
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O.Henry 13
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14 O.Henry
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Simple Life
The Baker’s Assistant How sweet it is
By Jim Dodson
Not long ago,
ILLUSTRATION BY GERRY O'NEILL
my wife, Wendy, joined 47 million foot soldiers of the Great Resignation by retiring early from her job as the longtime director of human resources for one of the state’s leading community colleges.
She loved her job at the college. It was fun and fulfilling in almost every way. But something more was missing — and revealed — when COVID invaded all our lives. Simply put, it was time to follow her heart and do something she’d envisioned doing even before I met her 25 years ago: to start her own gourmet, custom-baking company called Dessert du Jour. News late last year that an innovative shared community kitchen for food entrepreneurs (called The City Kitch, based in Charlotte) was opening branches in Greensboro and Raleigh propelled her into action. She signed up for the first private kitchen studio and got to work preparing for her debut at a popular outdoor weekend market just before Christmas, selling out everything she baked in a couple hours. It was a promising start. I should pause here and explain that Wendy is no novice or newcomer to the luxury baking world. Even while masterfully holding down a demanding career over the past two decades, she made stunning custom wedding cakes, luscious pies, artistic cookies and other baked delicacies for friends and neighbors. As I say, she was already wowing customers in Syracuse, New York, when we met during one of my book tours in 1998, and she agreed to go on a formal first date that turned out to be, as I fondly think of it, baptism by baby wedding cakes. To briefly review, on a brisk autumn evening after a seven-hour drive between my house in Maine and her home in Syracuse, I arrived just in time to find Wendy cheerfully boxing up 75 miniature, The Art & Soul of Greensboro
exquisitely decorated wedding cakes for some demented daughter of a Syracuse corporate raider. “Oh, good,” she beamed, flushing adorably with a dollop of icing on her button nose, as I appeared. “Want to help me box these up and take them around the neighborhood for me?” How could I refuse? Her neighbors, it seemed, had offered space in their refrigerators and freezers until the cakes could be delivered to the wedding hall in the morning. Truthfully, I don’t recall much about being pressed into service as an impromptu delivery man. I just have this vague memory of carefully boxing up dozens of the beautiful little cakes and bearing them all gussied up with elegant ribbons and bows to her lady pals around the cul-du-sac. “Oh,” one actually cooed as she looked me over. “You must be the new boyfriend from Maine. Careful you don’t put on 50 pounds. Wendy’s cakes are awesome.” I gave her my best Joe Friday impersonation. “Never tasted ’em, ma’am. Just here to help out the baker lady.” Happy to report, the baby wedding cakes made it safely to the wedding hall the next day without incident. The grateful baker lady even thoughtfully saved one of the gorgeous little cakes for the trip home to Maine. I’m embarrassed to say I never sampled it. Cake wasn’t my thing, probably because I grew up with a mama who annually made me a birthday cake from a Betty Crocker box mix and store-bought frosting that tasted like chocolate-flavored sawdust with icing. I gave Wendy’s baby wedding cake to my children, who absolutely loved it. Another issue emerged on my next visit to Syracuse, our critical second date. When I breezed into her kitchen with a bottle of her favorite wine before we went out to dinner, I found her putting the finishing touches on another masterpiece of the baker’s art. Sitting nearby on her kitchen counter, however, was a beautiful wicker basket full of popcorn, my all-time favorite snack food. As she opened the wine, I grabbed a big handful of what I thought was popcorn. O.Henry 15
Simple Life Her lovely face fell. It turned out to be a groom’s cake that only looked like a wicker basket full of popcorn. Profusely apologizing, as I licked the evidence of the crime off my greedy fingers, figuring this might be our last date, I had something of a dessert awakening. “Hey, this is really good. I don’t even like cake. What’s in this?” To my relief, she laughed. “Only the finest Swiss white-chocolate, sour-cream cake with salted buttercream. But no worries. I can make another one pretty quickly. Let’s just get Chinese takeout for dinner while I work.” I’d never seen such composure under fire. Right then and there I decided to propose to this remarkable woman and even confessed my sad history with Betty Crocker, wondering if she would do the honor of becoming my wife and someday making me a birthday cake. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll even make you a Betty Crocker box cake if you want it.” Talk about a selfless act of love! This was like inviting a Wine Spectator judge to enjoy a lovely bottle of Boone’s Farm’s Strawberry Hill or LeRoy Neiman to do a doodle of a racehorse! She actually made me a box-mix cake, which I took one taste of and dumped in the garbage. Fortunately, by the time our wedding rolled around two years later, Dame Wendy had schooled me up like a pastry chef’s apprentice, a culinary awakening sealed by my first taste of her incredible old-fashioned caramel cake — which she now makes me every year for my birthday (along with a sour cherry pie).
Not surprisingly, the spectacular cake she made for our outdoor wedding beneath a gilded September moon disappeared without a trace before I could even get a taste. Our greedy guests left nary a morsel and even took home extra pieces stuffed in their pockets. Since that time, a long and steady stream of fabulous specialty cakes, cookies, pies, scones, muffins and the best cinnamon rolls ever made have flowed from her ovens to the tables of friends, family and customers from Maine to Carolina. Which is why the creation of Dessert du Jour is such a milestone for the love of my life. She’s never been happier, launching her little dream company at a time we’d all like to see in the rearview mirror as soon as possible. In the meantime, she shares her happiness with others, one gorgeous theme cookie or slice of roasted pecan-studded carrot cake at a time. And for the moment at least, I have the honor and pleasure of still being her sole employee, the one who puts up the tent and tables at the street market and delivers the goods wherever I’m sent around town, a baker’s assistant happily paid in cake tops and leftover cinnamon rolls. I ask you, does life get any sweeter than that? OH For more information, visit thecitykitch.com and dessertdujour.net. Jim Dodson is O.Henry’s founding editor and ambassador at large.
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 17
2/1/2022 7:38:59 AM
Short Stories Lovin’ Some Lyle
Singer-songwriter-actor Lyle Lovett brings his witty lyrics and distinctive spin on country music to the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, March 8 at 7:30 p.m. Accompanied by an acoustic band, the four-time Grammy-Award winner hit the road at the beginning of March — the first time in two years. The show will feature acoustic arrangements of Lovett standards, as well as a preview of songs from his upcoming album, scheduled for release in May. The smaller ensemble and Lovett’s informal, conversational onstage style will provide the audience with an up-close, “livingroom” listening experience. Rumor has it that the Texan lives near Houston in a house built by his grandfather in 1911. Explains a bit about the diversity of his music. Info: TangerCenter.com
Fun and Names
The Greensboro Children’s Museum is upping its game for kids of all ages. In January, it received its largest donation in its 23-year history. The $1.25 million donation from Frank and Nancy Brenner will be used to advance the museum’s mission to inspire hands-on learning through play, as well as fund building repairs and upgrades to more than 20 indoor and outdoor exhibits. The gift officially launched the museum’s capital campaign, “Building for Tomorrow,” to raise $2 million for infrastructure improvements to the facility. In honor of the gift and recognition of the museum’s expanded presence throughout North Carolina and Virginia, in July the museum will be renamed the Miriam P. Brenner Children’s Museum. Miriam Brenner is the late mother of Frank Brenner. Info: GCMuseum.com
As Seen in O.Hey
Don’t throw away your shot to hear a phenomenal entertainer speak and perform as part of UNCG’s Concert & Lecture Series. Daveed Diggs is an actor, rapper, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and producer known for his work in Hamilton, Black-ish, Snowpiercer and Disney’s forthcoming The Little Mermaid — we hear he’s a little crabby about that. Catch Diggs at 8 p.m. on March 5. Info: VPA.UNCG.edu/ucls-2; to subscribe to O.Hey, visit oheygreensboro.com
18 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A Fairy Tale Come True
Cinderella — the timehonored, beloved story of a dreamer — shunned by her step-monsters and saved by a fairy godmother, glass slippers, industrious mice and a charming prince — comes to life at the Carolina Theatre, 5 p.m., Saturday, March 26 and, 3 p.m., Sunday, March 27. The classical ballet version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale brings drama, romance and humor to the stage — not to mention outstanding performances by the Greensboro Ballet. Set to the music of Sergei Prokofiev, the ballet will remind you that dreams can come true. And sometimes losing a shoe isn’t a bad thing. Young Cinderellas in training can dress in their favorite princess costume and enjoy a tea party with Cinderella and her friends. Included will be a goody bag and a princess craft project. Meet many of the characters from the ballet and, of course, the Cinderella herself will pose for photos and give autographs. Definitely a sugary sweet event for sugary sweet sweeties. Info: CarolinaTheatre.com/Events
Ogi Sez Ogi Overman
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect on the past two years — how we handled the horrors, the isolation, the fear of the unknown, the suffering that began not one but two Marches ago. Many of us were on the brink of losing all hope, and, maybe, some of us did. But then came that sliver of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel, and now we hope that we will find ourselves at the dawn of a new day, a new season, a new and vastly different March. Let the music play.
• March 19, Greensboro Coliseum: Women’s basketball takes center stage at the Coliseum this month, but nestled between the ACC tourney and the Regionals, the Avett Brothers managed to sneak in their rescheduled New Year’s Eve show. They promised they’d be back and they didn’t disappoint. But then, they never do. • March 25, High Point Theatre: The mid-’90s
PHOTOGRAPH BY KATIE KLEIN
were marked by a resurgence of swing music, led on the East Coast by the Squirrel Nut Zippers and the West Coast by Big Voodoo Daddy. But the phenomenon also was going on in Great Britain, with the Jive Aces leading the charge. They’re bringing their “Jump, Jive & Wail” tour stateside this spring, and I think I’ll Zoot up and flip, flop & fly over to High Point.
Dynamic Duo
While we’re on the subject of 24-carat entertainment, chanteuse extraordinaire Jessica Mashburn, along with world-renowned singer/songwriter / devoted husband (because why wouldn’t you be?!?) Evan Olson, are once again performing as AM rOdeO. They will bring their merry melodies to Grandover Resort’s 1808 Lobby Bar from 7–10 p.m. on Friday, March 11. Two of the most talented performers you’ve ever heard of, AM rOdeO reminds O.Henry’s me of big city lounge entertainment. Practically a lost art, Jessica and Evan bring with them a wide repertoire of tunes from The American Songbook classics to the present. Evan Olson’s musical compositions recently have been featured on network shows such as The Young and the Restless, America’s Funniest Home Videos and Dexter: New Blood on Showtime. This promises to be a sophisticated, enormously entertaining kick-off to your weekend. Info: GrandoverResort.com — Billy Eye The Art & Soul of Greensboro
• March 26, Ramkat: It seems almost cliché to call Donna the Buffalo a cult band. Granted, a quarter century ago they amassed an immediate cult following that has only multiplied today. But by taking a leap of faith and forming the Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival down the road in Pittsboro, they took on an aura all their own. So, if you can’t wait until May to see them, head over to Winston. • April 1, Ziggy’s: I know, I know, I’m breaking the rules by hyping a date in April, but, as Barney said when the gold truck came through Mayberry, “Ange, this is big. This is big — big!” Indeed it is. When a legendary music venue reopens in a new town and is again run by a venerated impresario, Jay Stephens, it deserves a month’s notice. Ever-popular newgrass act Acoustic Syndicate hosts the grand opening. And it promises to be grand.
O.Henry 19
We are lucky to have
GREAT PATIENTS
20 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Tea Leaf Astrologer
Pisces
(February 19 – March 20)
The only difference between a mythical creature and a Pisces is that a mythical creature believes in itself. Pisceans are magical by nature and naturally psychic. That’s because those born under this mutable water sign are masters of subtle emotion. This month, the cosmos is dealing you a planetary royal flush. In other words, you don’t have to keep swimming upstream. But will you?
Escape to the
SANDHILLS
Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you: Aries (March 21 – April 19)
The Home of American Golf® beckons all visitors. From world-class golf to local shopping and dining, our welcoming Southern hospitality is why people have been coming home to the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area for more than 125 years. Plan Your SANDHILLS Escape today!
Don’t forget to stretch.
Taurus (April 20 – May 20)
There’s a whole world outside of the box. Think about it. Gemini (May 21 – June 20) Less talking. More dancing. Cancer (June 21 – July 22)
Slow down. Proceed with caution. Be prepared to pivot. Leo (July 23 – August 22)
You’re back in the spotlight. Breathe easy. Virgo (August 23 – September 22)
A little salt goes a long way.
Libra (September 23 – October 22)
Someone’s got color in their cheeks again.
www.homeofgolf.com
Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)
Try zooming out.
Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)
When one door closes, best not to set up camp on the front porch. Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)
Three words: Don’t look back.
Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)
Timing is everything. Read that again. OH Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O'HENRY Magazine Jan - March 2022 Half Pg Ad.indd 1
O.Henry 21 11/19/21 2:25 PM
Life's Funny
What A Gas A lesson on finding what you need
By Maria Johnson
A dark green cylinder.
About the size of a football. Says “Coleman” on the side. White label. Red-and-black print. I know exactly what I’m looking for — a propane tank for a camp stove — and why. The ice is coming. Or so the forecast says. My memory jumps to a little more than a year ago, when a weekend ice storm left us in the dark and the cold. We didn’t have it as bad as many others did — our electricity went out Saturday morning and came back on Sunday afternoon. We were pure-T lucky that some parts of the city still had power and that we had enough gas in the cars to go and get McDonald’s coffee and takeout meals. We brought them home — instead of eating across town — because the pandemic raged on. Our wings were clipped. Twice. But we had a gas fireplace. And water. And batteries for our flashlights. And quilts and afghans stitched by long-gone grannies who lived when these conditions were closer to the norm — when winter nightfall meant kindling a fire. We did as they would have done. We turned the sofa to face the fireplace and literally huddled with our hound and our loved ones. Our older son and his girlfriend were still here, stretching their Christmas visit because they were working from home, and they allowed “home” to be with us for a while. We warmed Thai takeout — not very well — in a Dutch oven
22 O.Henry
over the fire, under an open flue. We read Sherlock Holmes stories aloud, by flashlight. We went to bed early and rose with the sun. In daylight, we drove — carefully, around downed trees and through intersections with stoplights gone dark — to a park. We stayed long enough to be dazzled by the sunlight dancing in the diamond woods — and to be scared into retreat by the gunshot pops and muffled whooshes of trees breaking and falling under the weight of their jewelry. On the way home, I saw a friend striding, as she usually does, for exercise and joy, down an empty Lawndale Drive in a neon parka, her New England hardiness in full view. We, however, were reduced to basics. A walk. A fire. Some food. And water. Good health. Good humor. Each other. When everything else fell away, it was easy to see what we had. And be grateful. It’s hard to talk about this — gratitude in the face of hardship — even with the pandemic waning somewhat. So many people in this country have died of COVID in last two years: 886,000 at this writing. Eight. Hundred. Eighty-six. Thousand. So many people have suffered and are still suffering with empty chairs and guilt and long COVID. But I hear timid thanks leaking out in people’s stories these days. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Life's Funny Timid thanks for the hard stops that enable us to see that simple is OK. Small is OK. Dare we say it: better, even. Maybe giving thanks is where this gets sticky. Thanks implies a giver with an intention. A purpose. A reason for the rattiness. We love a reason, don’t we? But sometimes, I think, there is no reason. Bad stuff happens because it can. And will, inevitably, in this God-filled universe. Sometimes we get caught in the jaws of life and don’t survive. Sometimes, we do survive — for a while longer. Whether we can scrape up any wisdom afterward is up to us. Whether we can look around and see the doors that have been, many times, open all along — that’s up to us. Take, for instance, the opportunity to buy a gas camp stove after last year’s power outage. I saw it. And took it. Bought a gas cylinder, too. And stored it in the garage, separate from the stove. But where, oh where, I wonder now, a year later. We comb the shelves and crannies. Then we look in insane places — as people who have lost things often do.
Could it be in the laundry room? The pantry? Your sock drawer? Jeff searches the attic — the attic! — as I stand before the garage shelves that seem to mock me. “OK, I know you’re here,” I finally surrender. “Just show me where.” I take a breath and soften my gaze. And there it is. In a cardboard box, on edge, that I had clearly labeled like the spine of a book: “PROPANE GAS FOR CAMP STOVE.” Ohhh yeahhh. I had put the tank there, after several months of watching it get knocked over and roll around on the shelf, because it seemed safer that way. I laugh out loud. Because what I wanted wasn’t in the form I was looking for — and by my own hand, to boot. But it was there all the time. OH Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. You can reach her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.
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O.Henry 23
Omnivorous Reader
Balancing the Scales Justice among disparate peoples in Colonial America
By Stephen E. Smith
Humorist Edgar Wilson “Bill” Nye is
credited with saying: “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” Readers of popular history who tough their way through 464 pages of Nicole Eustace’s Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America will likely be left with the notion that what they’ve read is more profound than entertaining.
“Covered with Night” is an Iroquois expression describing the state of grief or mourning inspired, in this instance, by the 1722 murder of a Native American man who lived near Conestoga, Pennsylvania, a small community north of the MarylandPennsylvania border. Details of the fatal encounter are straightforward and commonplace: English merchants John and Edmund Cartlidge were bargaining with Sawantaeny, a Seneca hunter and fur trader, when an overindulgence in alcohol, probably by all parties concerned, led to a disagreement. Sawantaeny went for his rifle, but John Cartlidge disarmed him and bashed in the Seneca’s skull. “My friends have killed me,” were Sawantaeny’s last words. Such incidents, terrible though they may be, are not an uncommon aspect of human interaction, but in the early 1700s, a period in America’s past that is strangely deficient from the history we’ve been taught (we learn about the Lost Colony, Jamestown, Plymouth and mysteriously we jump to the Boston Harbor Tea Party), such a death had far-reaching ramifications for the Native American and Colonial communities. Covered with Night explores the causes and consequences of the Cartlidges’ ill-advised assault on Sawantaeny, while illuminating the fundamental flaws in the relationships that existed between the Native American and Colonial cultures.
24 O.Henry
Eustace’s complex treatise was made possible by the meticulously documented speeches of a Native man called “Captain Civility,” who reacted to the death of Sawantaeny by attempting to strengthen the tenuous bonds that existed between the competing cultures, and Eustace was able to draw on earlier studies by 20th century ethnographers and on postmodern analyses on social and criminal justice. If all of this sounds complicated, it is. Investigations of Sawantaeny’s murder by Native American leaders and Colonial officials initiated a debate about the very nature of justice and its cultural context. Colonial authorities were fearful that the murder might bring on a full-scale war, endangering the white population and disrupting trade. The crisis was serious enough that news of it reached the British Board of Trade in England, resulting in a region-wide treaty conference that produced an obscure document signed at Albany in 1722 between members of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee and representatives from the colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It remains the oldest recognized treaty in the history of the United States. Much more than a simple diplomatic instrument, the treaty records a foundational American debate over the nature of justice. Avoiding conflict with their Indigenous neighbors was the foremost concern of the Colonial authorities, and they held the Cartlidge brothers in irons pending their execution — which is exactly what the Native Americans hoped to avoid. Pennsylvania Gov. William Keith was dismayed to learn that sending the Cartlidges to the gallows was counter to the Native American notion of justice. Native diplomats The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Omnivorous Reader Satcheechoe and Taquatarensaly asked that the Cartlidges be released from prison and from the threat of execution. They preferred that Keith journey to meet with the leaders of the Five Nations to “cover the dead” by offering reparations and performing mourning rituals that addressed their grief — all of which ran counter to Colonial assumptions about what constitutes civilized retribution. The Iroquois weren’t “savages,” as characterized by the Colonial authorities. They were possessed of a humanity that tied them to the land and their communities, and they saw the murder as an opportunity to establish stronger and more lasting bonds with their Colonial neighbors. They wanted their collective grief assuaged emotionally and accounted for economically. “Colonists were so unprepared for Native offers of clemency, a total inversion of their expectations, that they made little deliberate note of the philosophy that informed Native policy,” Eustace writes. “Indigenous ideals entered the record made at Albany almost inadvertently, the by-product of colonial desires to document the land and trade agreements that would further Pennsylvania’s prosperity and security. Still, colonists dutifully wrote down the speeches that Captain Civility and other Native speakers made to them. And in the process, they preserved Indigenous ideas on crime and punishment, violation and reconciliation.” Negotiations were complicated by barriers of language and dialect. Various Native American tongues had to be translated from one Indigenous speaker to another until the words
evolved into a concept that could be realized in standard English. If Eustace’s explication of events is occasionally academic, it’s also thought-provoking, requiring patience and commitment on the part of the reader. Attempts to energize the narrative by using present tense, and a somewhat awkward fictional attribution of motivations to characters whose true emotions are unknowable, only serve to lengthen and diminish the story: “Seated at his table, William Keith warms the bottom of a stick of vermilion sealing wax,” she writes. “He feels the heat but will take care not to burn his fingers. In a quiet room, a dollop of wax makes a soft splotch as it hits paper, round and red as a drop of blood. Keith lets the wax cool a moment from liquid to paste, then presses smartly with his seal to emboss the wax with an intricate pattern of scrolls.” Eustace also includes detailed descriptions — furniture, dwellings, the travails of daily living, concepts surrounding indentured servitude and slavery — that enhance the reader’s knowledge of an otherwise obscure period in our history. But her primary contribution is the reclamation of alternative concepts of crime, punishment and the mitigation of grief that are no longer components of contemporary life. OH Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press Awards.
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O.Henry 25
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26 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Bookshelf
March Books
Compiled by Shannon Purdy Jones
After an entire winter spent
indoors (and especially this COVID winter) spring feels like I’m shedding a winter cocoon and stepping back out into the world. It’s no surprise that at Scuppernong one of our favorite ways to connect with our community is over a good book. We have four book clubs that meet on a monthly basis at Scup, including a brand-new Romance Book Club launching this month. If you’re feeling the urge to shake off the winter cobwebs and reconnect, then find below our next few month’s book club picks to see which conversations fit you. Or, head over to our events calendar at scuppernongbooks.com. (Book clubs meet on Zoom, though we hope to move back to in-person this year as COVID precautions allow. Login info for each book club Zoom is available on our events calendar.) White Shadow by Roy Jacobsen (Biblioasis, $16.95). March Reading the World Book Club pick No one can be alone on an island . . . but Ingrid is alone on Barrøy, the island that bears her name. The war of her childhood has been replaced by a new, more terrible present — the Nazi occupation of Norway. When bodies from a bombed vessel carrying Soviet prisoners of war begin to wash up on the shore, Ingrid can’t know that one will not only be alive but could be the answer to a lifetime of loneliness — nor can she imagine what suffering she will endure in hiding her lover from Nazi authorities, or the journey she will face, after being wrenched from her island as a consequence for protecting him, to return home. This highly anticipated follow-up to Roy Jacobsen’s International Booker and Dublin Impac Award-shortlisted The Unseen, a New York Times New and Noteworthy book, White Shadow is a vividly observed exploration of conflict, love and human endurance. Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe (Orbit, $17.99)
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
March Sci-Fi Book Club pick Nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award for Best Novel Sanda and Biran Greeve were siblings destined for greatness. A high-flying sergeant, Sanda has the skills to take down any enemy combatant. Biran is a savvy politician who aims to use his new political position to prevent conflict from escalating to total destruction. However, on a routine maneuver, Sanda loses consciousness when her gunship is blown out of the sky. Instead of finding herself in friendly hands, she awakens 230 years later on a deserted enemy warship controlled by an A-I who calls himself Bero. The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood (Berkley, $16.00) March Romance Book Club pick As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn’t believe in lasting romantic relationships. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive kisses the first man she sees. That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor — and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford’s reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope. Dead on Arrival by Jaki Shelton Green (Blair, $10.95) March Poetry Book Club Pick This is a welcome reissue of Jaki Shelton Green’s acclaimed premier collection of poetry. Green’s earlier works pulse with the intoxicating rhythms and fierce clarity of image that made her one of North Carolina’s most popular poets. Here is an artist, at turns, angry and wickedly funny, demanding justice yet possessed of a refined grace. OH Shannon Purdy Jones is store manager and children’s book buyer for Scuppernong Books. O.Henry 27
The Creators of N.C.
The Lost Treasure of Home Jonas Pate and his runaway hit Outer Banks
By Wiley Cash
While there is plenty
of mystery in the breakout Netflix smash hit Outer Banks — everything from a father lost at sea to a legendary treasure — the mystery that director and co-creator Jonas Pate seems most intent on exploring is the age-old mystery of what divides people along class lines. It worked for Shakespeare with his Montagues and Capulets, and 370 or so years later it worked again for Bernstein’s and Sondheim’s Jets and Sharks. Pate’s rival groups are similarly aged, sun-kissed teenagers living and partying along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where a group of working class kids known as the “Pogues” continually find themselves marginalized and dismissed by the “Kooks,” who are the children of wealthy residents and seasonal tourists. Fists and hearts certainly fly, but despite the show’s use of cliffhangers and action-packed
28 O.Henry
sequences, at its core Outer Banks investigates the emotional and experiential threads that pull some of us together across class lines while invisible barriers push others of us apart.
According to Pate, the divide between the haves and the have nots is “the oldest story in the world. It cuts across everything,” which he believes explains the show’s broad appeal. Broad indeed. In the late spring of 2020, just as the people of the world were settling into the pandemic and the realization that they did not want to see or hear another word about Tiger King and Joe Exotic, Outer Banks debuted in mid-April and quickly became one of Netflix’s The Art & Soul of Greensboro
PHOTOGRAPH BY MALLORY CASH; COURTESY OF NETFLIX
The Creators of N.C.
most watched shows of the year. The following summer, the show’s second season hit No. 1 on the Nielsen report. The success seemed immediate, and the show’s slick production quality made it all appear as easy and relaxed as a day on the water, but Jonas Pate and his twin brother, Josh, with whom he created Outer Banks along with Shannon Burke, had spent their whole lives preparing for this moment. The Pate brothers grew up in Raeford, North Carolina, where their father served as a judge and their grandfather owned a local pharmacy. “It was amazing,” Jonas says. “It was like Mayberry. I’d ride my bike to the pharmacy and get a Cherry Coke and a slaw dog, and then I’d visit my dad at the courthouse. My stepmom was head of parks and recreation, so I’d go over there and help ref T-ball games.” We are sitting on the second-story porch of the home he shares with his wife, Jennifer, and their two teenage children in Wilmington, just across the water from Wrightsville Beach. The January morning is unseasonably warm and sunny, and Jonas is dressed as if he just stepped off the set of Outer Banks, not as its director but as one of its stars. (How handsome is Jonas Pate? A few days later, our 5-year-old daughter will walk past Mallory’s computer while she is editing photos of Jonas. She will stop in her tracks and ask, “Who is that?”) Jonas’ surfer appeal is not surprising considering that while he primarily grew up in Raeford and attended high school there, he spent his summers with his mother along the barrier islands near Charleston. “Outer Banks is an amalgam of different high school environments and things that we went through,” he says. “It helped create the mythical environment of Outer Banks where we kind of knew what it was like to live feral in a small town with haves and have-nots. Kiawah and James Island were like that. It was poor kids and rich kids, and they would get into fights. And Raeford is still very rural.” Rural, yes, but Jonas and Josh still found plenty to keep them busy. If they were not exploring the marshes and waterways off the coast of Charleston, then they were shooting homemade movies back in Raeford, where they made films of Robin Hood and Hercules and edited them by using two VHS machines. He laughs at the memory of it. “The cuts were terrible and fuzzy,” he says, “and all the special effects The Art & Soul of Greensboro
and sound were awful.” But he admits that something felt and still feels magical about it. He had always loved film, especially those by Steven Spielberg and Frank Capra, saying that he has “always been drawn to filmmakers who are a little sweeter and have a little more heart.” After college, the brothers found that they still had the desire to make films, but they did not know how to break into the industry. “We didn’t know anyone in the film business,” he says. “We didn’t know anything.” The brothers moved to New York and worked to immerse themselves in the city’s film culture. While interning at the Angelika Film Center, Josh met Peter Glatzer, who was a fundraiser for the Independent Feature Project. They talked about screenwriting, and the Pate brothers soon had a script that Glatzer was interested in producing. Their first film, The Grave, was shot in eastern North Carolina, and while it did not receive a theatrical release and went straight to video after premiering on HBO, the Pate brothers had their collective foot in the door. In 1997, they made another North Carolina-shot film with Glatzer, The Deceiver, that starred Tim Roth and Renée Zellweger, and it found a larger audience after debuting at the Venice Film Festival and being distributed by MGM. The brothers headed for Los Angeles. Once there, Jonas found himself “taking jobs just to pay the bills” and “getting further and further away from what I actually
O.Henry 29
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30 O.Henry
The Creators of N.C. wanted to do.” One bright spot of his time in LA was meeting his wife, Jennifer, who also worked in the industry as a casting agent. Not long after they met, Jennifer started her own agency, and Jonas went to her for assistance in casting his first television show, Good vs. Evil, in 1999. From there he went on to direct and produce a number of television shows, including the NBC shows Deception and Prime Suspect and ABC’s Blood and Oil. In 2005, the Pate brothers partnered again and returned to North Carolina, where they filmed a single season of the television show Surface, which they co-created. After having kids, Jonas and Jennifer decided to move back to North Carolina in time for their son and daughter to attend high school. Jonas suddenly found himself on the other side of the country from the industry he had devoted his life to for the past 20 years. But then something magical happened. Jonas understood two things: First, he needed to create something that could be shot on the coast so he could stay close to home. Second, he would draw from his own experiences to make it real. “When I pulled from my own life instead of the movies I’d seen, it all came together,” he says. “You get to the universal by being super specific.” One big challenge that Jonas and his team encountered was casting the show’s young stars. “We auditioned maybe 500 or 600 kids, and we really had to try to find kids who’d been outside and lived in the outdoors.” Not surprisingly, given the Pate brothers’ personal ties to the show’s geography, nearly every star they cast was from the South, except for one who hailed from Alaska. “Growing up outside, being around boats,” Jonas says, “it’s hard to fake that stuff, and it’s hard to make it look real if it’s not.” I turn off the recorder and Mallory packs up her photography gear, and we say our goodbyes to Jonas. He is leaving soon for another production set. We share a number of mutual friends in Wilmington with him and Jennifer, and we talk about getting together for dinner once he returns. Mallory and I are alone in the driveway when I realize that I have locked the keys in our car. To say that I was embarrassed — and, let’s be honest, panicked — would be an understatement. Mallory pulled out her phone and began searching for a locksmith. I have a flip phone, so I just stood there, weighing the two most logical options: breaking the window with one of Jonas’ landscaping rocks or just leaving the car and walking home, denying it was ever ours. I cannot help thinking that if I were John B., the star of Outer Banks and leader of the Pogues, played by Chase Stokes, I would sneak into a neighbor’s garage and hotwire their car, drive home, procure a backup set of keys, and return for Mallory while passing under the investigating deputy’s nose. Or, if I were Topper, the leader of the Kooks, played by Austin North, I would bang on Jonas’ door and use his phone to call my father’s car service. But I am neither of these characters. I’m just me, so I apologize again to Mallory, and we wait for the locksmith together. OH Wiley Cash is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, is available wherever books are sold. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 31
Home by Design
Travels With Mom Art — like beauty and stars — is in the eye of the beholder
By Cynthia Adams
Nobody in our town, nick-
named Hell’s Half Acre, talked or thought about it. They talked about the price of soybeans. We didn’t need to think about art.
Art was unambiguous; what an artist friend calls “accessible.” Artwork matched the sofa and rugs, usually purchased in the same place. Only Ruth, my mother’s friend, owned actual art. Hell’s Half Acre’s sole sophisticate chose abstracts, not the matadors and tearful clowns that dominated other homes. For this, Ruth aroused quiet suspicion. With flair matching her Julie Christie looks, she knitted plum and pink throws when everyone else chose ugly avocado greens, browns and harvest golds that matched their kitchen appliances. During European summer study with a group of teens and art teachers, I discovered that art actually provoked something. Seeing. Thinking. Soon after Ruth lost a battle with cancer, my mother struggled with the same. Post-surgery, she chose a trip to a place where she hoped to see stars lolling around crap tables. Mom didn’t dream of seeing great art or cities. She wanted to “do Vegas.” Steve Tesich quipped in a review of Larry McMurtry’s Desert Rose he hoped the desert would take Las Vegas back. Me, too! Let the sand swallow it — the gaudy flash, splash and obsession with cash.
32 O.Henry
In Vegas, Mom showed remarkable stamina for a cancer survivor. The first evening, we sat at a one-armed bandit while downing Bloody Marys. Light headed with booze, I jumped as the machine erupted in explosive honks. “You won! How much?” Mom trilled as it spat quarters into a plastic cup. “I don’t know,” I shrieked. “Too much to count!” Black streaked my cheeks from touching the filthy lucre and clapping my hands to my face. It was 40 quarters. Mom played all night; certain she would spot celebrities. Alas, no. I did encounter art in Vegas when fate returned me to the wasteland the desert would not take back. Mogul Steve Wynn had opened a museum in the Bellagio Hotel. The (since closed) Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in the Venetian Resort Hotel was mostly void of tourists, however. And Mom’s health battles continued. Post heart surgery, Mom was deeply depressed. A geographic cure was needed once more. When an old debt was suddenly repaid, I offered to go wherever the windfall would afford us. She chose Los Angeles. Great, I thought gloomily. Mom might glimpse a star. And there was a splendid new Getty. Day one in Los Angeles was consumed by Mom’s request for a hairdo and my dread of freeway driving. Day two, a freshly coiffed Mom could not comprehend my desire to see the Getty. I tried to sell her on its cinematic views of Tinseltown. Soon after arriving, Mom shrugged off the museum. I found her on an outdoor bench staring into space. She waved me off, The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Home by Design claiming tiredness. Yet she magically rebounded when we decamped to Nate ’n Al’s, a Beverly Hills deli once frequented by stars: Doris Day! Tony Curtis! Larry King! Day three, we refocused on Mom’s idea of a well-spent day. We booked a Gray Line tour, trolling the homes of stars from yesteryear. She loved the guide’s spiel: Hitchcock’s mansion, Lucille Ball’s ranch, Aaron Spelling’s compound. Steve Martin’s modern home stood apart. Filled with L.A.’s most important private collection, its windows were oriented to protect the art from damaging light. (An embarrassing encounter with Martin years later is a subject for another day.) We continued star stalking — which had not produced a living celebrity — booking the Dearly Departed tour. Tooling around L.A. in an old hearse, visiting infamous crime scenes, star-soaked stories of overdoses and untimely deaths, we eventually entered the Hollywood Forever cemetery. Within its mausoleum lay Rudolph Valentino and Marilyn Monroe. Proximity to dead stars was nearly as soul-satisfying for Mom as a brush with a living one. We paid quiet tribute at celebrity gravesites. A television and film museum had opened near our boutique Beverly Hills hotel, but at the word museum, Mom shuddered. Instead, we visited Rodeo Drive, where certain retailers employed the Vegas trick of free drinks as a means to lower inhibitions. Giorgio’s on Rodeo, where Mom’s favorite (Elizabeth Taylor!) once shopped, sprinkled fairy dust over us. We sipped champagne and spent money we didn’t have. Window shopping on Rodeo Drive, Mom exclaimed, was much more thrilling than any museum, her yellow-and-whitestriped Giorgio’s bag swinging in time with her excited step. Weren’t displays of inaccessible, beautiful things also visual art? Aware at last, I smiled. OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor to O.Henry. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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34 O.Henry
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The Pleasures of Life
Ode to a Daffodil Acres of yellow blooms beckon the splendor of spring
By Lindsay Morris
In the evening Alice sat on
her grandfather’s knee and listened to his stories of faraway places. When he had finished, Alice would say, “When I grow up, I, too, will go to faraway places, and when I grow old, I, too, will live beside the sea.” That is all very well, little Alice,” said her grandfather, “but there is a third thing you must do.” “What is that?” asked Alice. “You must do something to make the world more beautiful,” said her grandfather. “All right,” said Alice. But she did not know what that could be. — Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney I remember the morning as if it were yesterday. It was early, oh so very early. Much too early for my 8-year-old, growing body. With every ounce of my being, I silently commanded my spirit to ignore the telltale signs of the low beams of light seeping through my blinds. I ordered the gentle tugging on my shoulder to relegate its dictates to the deep recesses of my dreams. Within moments, the strong hands that tugged also separated me from the comfy sanctuary of flannel sheets that enveloped me and jarringly forced me to welcome the earliest moments of dawn. And then the magic words were spoken: “It’s time.” Just as a hypnotist awakens his client from the edge of consciousness, I was completely awake and reminded of our task at hand. In a trance, I methodically enumerated my to-do list, putting on work boots, donning gardening gloves and grabbing whatever was accessible on the kitchen counter to fuel what I knew would be a long day ahead. Opening the back door of my childhood home has always brought about visions of Wonderland or Terabithia, and that morning was no different, other than the sun shinThe Art & Soul of Greensboro
ing much lower and more intensely through the dense trees that hedged our little world of Avalon Loop. You see, Avalon was a world my sisters and I firmly believed God created for our imaginations. The animals of the realm, while not visible, could certainly be heard talking among one another. From the swans’ snorts and the ducks’ cackles on the pond to the neighing of our horse, Ike, son of Tina, and the low whimpers and barks of our dogs, all were offering their morning greetings. But time with furry and feather friends would have to wait. It was as if they, too, had heard the summons, “It’s time,” as my father walked by with tools and bags in hand. I followed his lead with confidence, knowing that he always had a plan prepared with precision and efficiency. I also knew there would be rules that I must follow, but that is how order thrives in the kingdom of Avalon. My father was a Renaissance Man, one who could dream, create and implement with scientific acumen — a rare man of beauty and science. As much as my young mind could conceive, I knew his goal was never to disrupt nature, but instead to curate it and if possible, unveil and highlight its beauty. But that warm October morning, I feared our task that day may not reach completion as I observed the mound of bulbs at our feet. My father, a patient and determined man, seemed nonplussed and content to get started. According to my father, we had around one thousand bulbs to plant alongside the driveway and the north end of the pond. Listening closely, I absorbed with great care his meticulous instructions. He demonstrated how to push the spade into the soil just enough so that the bulb was covered but would still have room to adequately grow and absorb the earth’s nutrients. I worked alongside him, mirroring as closely as possible how he broke the earth. With his small spade, he calculated the distance, spaced and designated a home for each bulb. His plan was masterful, and it played out like a lyrical dance as we glided down the hillside. The minutes quickly turned into hours. Only when the sun began to dim over the pond did it call out to the swans, ducks and geese, who echoed in unison to the fading sunlight. As I surveyed our work, a sense of pride filled my entire being. With a reassuring smile, my father O.Henry 35
Pleasures of Life
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glanced over at me, tired, but expectant. While my arms and limbs were heavy with fatigue, it could not rival the growing anticipation of what I knew the spring would reveal. And spring could not come soon enough for my impatient spirit. I remember assessing the soil on a daily basis, practically pleading with it to offer any sign of life. The winter of 1990 was a particularly cold one, and those first shoots of bright spring green seemed as though they would never appear. I imagined myself to be an evangelist, praying and wooing those tiny bulbs that we had so carefully sown to rise from the earth. I wasn’t even particularly sure what variety of flower they were because I had never asked my father. Instead, I hoped to be surprised by what would spring forth from the work of our hands. I wanted their beauty to be unveiled in their own timing. And it wasn’t long after their green shoots greeted the sun that I noticed a yellow tint to a few of them. However, as quickly as my synapses fired this message to my brain, my heart sank with great dismay. Yellow: The color of sickness, the color of school buses and pencils. For me, it was more than just a color that clashed with my golden blond hair, impeding me from wearing anything in its hue, but it also made me anxious and uneasy about everything when it surrounded me. For some reason, yellow fully dilated my senses. You see, colors have always had a way with me. I have synesthesia, in which colors dictate my mood, my taste and my sense of well-being about the world. After all these months of anticipatory excitement, I was now utterly uncertain what this initial indication of yellow would reveal. However, just a few mornings later in February, I was awakened to an unseasonably warm and sunny day. Rushing outside, I expected to be greeted with sickness at the sight of so much yellow. However, nothing could have prepared me for what my eyes encountered and the response that followed. If heaven could be so adorned with rays of golden and lemony yellows, and even yellows marked with golden orange halos, I would have thought that I was in the realms of glory. I willingly abdicated my senses and gazed upward to the The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Pleasures of Life sun and offered it gratitude for the beauty that it had nurtured and now reflected. Yellow no longer triggered painful anxieties to rush through my veins, but instead lovingly beckoned me to sit among it to just soak in its splendor. And the splendor of our daffodils has grown exponentially over the years. More than 30 years later, their yellow blooms have become an intrinsic part of our family’s life, just as they have become the centerpiece around many occasions with family and friends. Not only are they the foremost indicator of spring’s arrival, but each year, without fail, they celebrate my March 1st birthday with grandeur. They have marked with great intentionality baptisms and homecomings. Now, more than three decades later, not only has my memory of that day remained vividly intact, but with each passing year numerous events and moments with the daffodils have been added to the storehouse of my memories. You see, over the course of three decades, the daffodils have been divided and spread over and under and around our property. Easily covering five or more acres, adorning both entrances and even abounding in great numbers around the loop road surrounding our pond, their numbers now add up to more than 25,000 flowering blooms. The magic of that day has turned into a proliferation of beauty that not only welcomes but befriends all who enter the realm of Avalon each spring. Their beauty, and the work of our hands, has been a reminder of what planting and nurturing can create. This is how Miss Alice Rumphius from Barbara Cooney’s beloved children’s book learned to make the world more beautiful by spreading her lupine seeds across her home and down by the sea. Similarly, my father, on that unseasonably warm October day, showed me with love and patience how beauty can be elicited and magnified in unexpected ways through the vision of a daffodil bloom. OH Though living alongside the Mayo River in Rockingham County, Lindsay Moore is connected to Greensboro through the spirit of Howard Coble and her love of the local arts scene. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
DAY TRIPPERS WELCOME March 13 – 2 pm “Freedom Park: The Inspiring Story of How a Monument to Freedom is Built while Confederate Statues are Coming Down” Part 2: Speakers, Reginald Hildebrand and Reginald Hodges $15 Supporters /$20 General
March 27 – 11:30-2 pm “Come Sunday” Jazz Brunch Shana Tucker and ChamberSOUL, and brunch from a local restaurant. Supporters/General: $40/$50 - Band and Brunch $25/$35 - Music Only Kids 12 and under $15 for Brunch; Free Show
For tickets visit: weymouthcenter.org
Just a short drive away, there’s a perfect place to escape for the day. Our 100 year old historic house is a storied venue for events and programs that will spark your mind, and feed your senses. If you prefer, you are welcome to roam our 26 acres of gardens and grounds, or picnic on our lush lawns. We’re conveniently nestled in the heart of Southern Pines, a quaint town, which boasts a host of restaurants and cute boutiques that also offer something for everyone. So next time you have the urge to get out of town, put us on your GPS. You can experience a real getaway, but still get home in a single day.
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Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities 555 E. Connecticut Ave. Southern Pines, NC A 501(c)(3) organization
In celebration of the 100th Anniversary of our historic Boyd House, we are hosting 100 events in 2022
WONDERFUL 100
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Birdwatch
Cleanup on Aisle 2 The vulture’s role in the ecosystem
By Susan Campbell
Vultures: All of us have seen them.
Maybe it’s been passing a group feasting on a recently killed animal by the side of the road. Or, more likely, you have spotted an individual soaring overhead on long, outstretched wings. These odd looking birds are too often misunderstood and even disliked — for nothing more than their appearance. In actuality, they are fascinating creatures that perform a vital role in the ecosystem: They are Mother Nature’s cleanup crew.
Often referred to generically as “buzzards,” vultures are part of a family of birds found worldwide with dozens of species, including South American condors. Here in North Carolina, we have both turkey and black vultures year-round. Individuals from farther north significantly boost flock numbers in the cooler months. These large black scavengers lack feathers on their heads: likely an adaptation to feeding almost exclusively on carcasses. Turkey vultures are the more common species from the mountains to the coast. Soaring in a dihedral (v-shaped profile) on long wings with silver linings, they have red heads and long tails for steering. Black vultures, however, have gray heads and white patches on the under-wing as well as somewhat shorter wings and tails. As a result, they soar with a flatter profile and fly with snappier wing beats. This species has really expanded across the Piedmont in recent years, perhaps due to development, increased road building and the inevitable roadkill that results. The winter brings vultures together in what can be impressive roosting aggregations that are known as “wakes.” These groups can build to 100 or more individuals of both species that will roost
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close together in a particular spot: night after night during the season. Late in the day, they will gather in mature trees with larger branches capable of holding significant weight. It is easy to spot them on tall snags or sitting side by side on communication towers. Given the human tendency toward neatness, there are fewer and fewer dead trees for the birds to utilize — so they have been forced to use manmade perches. They may choose rooftops and this can, believe it or not, include people’s houses. It is not obvious as to why they choose the locations that they do each winter. Given the ease at which they roam in search of food, proximity of their next meal seems rarely a concern. They are capable of gliding and soaring many miles each day. No doubt they require a location with a substrate that warms readily in the morning sun to provide the updrafts they require to reach cruising altitude. Vultures do need a perch that is open enough to allow them to spread their wings on takeoff. This is likely why they are found roosting in more open environments. For those living near a vulture roost site, be aware that the birds seldom use the same location for more than one season. This could be for reasons of cleanliness or to perhaps reduce the chances of predation — but we really do not know. Also, do not expect that the wake will persist beyond early spring. The group will break up and head off to their breeding grounds by late February or early March. Using prevailing southerly breezes, they will be carried back north in short order. Although we do have small numbers of breeding vultures in the Piedmont and Sandhills of North Carolina, they are widely dispersed and are quite secretive during the nesting season. Unless they are on the wing, sniffing out (yes, they use their noses more than their eyes) their next meal, they may go completely overlooked. OH Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted at susan@ncaves.com. O.Henry 39
Wandering Billy
The Prez of Jazz Night
By Billy Eye It’s too exciting for words … so they had to set it to music! — movie trailer for Blues in the Night (1941)
I’ve been carping for a decade
that this town needs a groovy, early-evening Sunday hangout. Jazz Night at Cafe Europa fits the bill perfectly, especially now that the weather is turning milder and the patio is open. (Let’s hope. I’m writing this in February.) This swinging soiree from 6–9 p.m. is presided over by Prez, spinmeister supreme who also hosts a Wednesday night jam at Flat Iron, broadcast live over WUAG.
As someone who frequented the 1980s and early ’90s Los Angeles underground dance clubs, mid-’90s’ Club Babylon raves here, and, in the early 2000s, footloosing in massive discotheques across London’s underbelly, I’ve had the privilege of grinding behind grooves laid down by the top DJs in the world. <name drop> Keoki, Paul van Dyk, Sasha & John Digweed, plus PeteTong, Fatboy Slim and Paul Oakenfold. Having been present for a number of Prez’s performances in a dimly lit Greensboro nightclub over the last year or so, I’d rank him with the best on that list, possessing a prodigious talent for transforming the most quotidian room into bouncy blissfulness, drawing on an all-too-rare musical intelligence unleashing a bar-
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rage of mind-blowing beats veering wildly but seamlessly from one genre to the next. “I could be at a bar, for example, and everybody’s got their back to me,” Prez tells me. “But something they hear they register with, either their head nods, their foot taps, fingers clicking, and you know that, ‘Oh, wow. They recognize what they’re listening to.’” For Sunday Jazz at Cafe Europa, Prez spins a mellower tone, with a softer but no less sharpened edge. It is anchored in part by modern jazz-inspired pioneers like DJ Can and Amerigo Gazaway, echoing with the vocals of Aretha Franklin, The Chi-lites, Nina Simone and other seminal 20th-century soul sensations. Who is this guy? “My parents were into music and they’re from the South,” Prez says. “So, there were cross-cultural dynamics for me, like them growing up in a Southern culture, then my father joining the military, traveling around the world while raising kids along the way. Then I came to UNCG as a freshman, where I honed my skills.” Residing in various countries, like Germany and Thailand, as a child before settling in Massachusetts had to have influenced his musical preferences. “I think it gave me a taste of what the culture of a certain environment sounded like,” Prez says. “Finding different dynamics in soul music but with kind of an African flavor or a Polynesian flavor or Latin rhythms.” This DJ paints with a broader brush than one would expect, which makes sense because jazz underpins so many contrasting styles. “You get a different flavor that’s not just classical jazz,” Prez says about his style. “It’s not just big band; you get a little hip-hop flavor, some soul, house, electronic and funk music that stems from jazz.” Cafe Europa attracts an eclectic clientele on a regular basis, The Art & Soul of Greensboro
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MARIANNE LEGRECO
Getting into the groove on Sunday evenings
Wandering Billy that’s part of the appeal of the place. “We started Jazz Night back in May 2021,” Prez says. Just took a chance. My man [bartender] Jonny Alright and [owner] Jacob Pucilowski over at Europa said, ‘Hey, let’s do something kind of cool, something different.’” When Jazz Night first got underway it was just the lone DJ flying solo alongside crates of his albums. “It was not what the crowd expected jazz to be,” Prez recalls. “That’s why we kept doing it and why we’re still doing it now.” Warding off any remaining chill in the air with more chill on the patio at Europa, surrounded by our downtown parks? For a serene Sunday twilight, nothing could be finer in Carolina when you consider this is a casual bistro offering affordable cocktails and slightly Southern comfort cuisine. Its French dip sandwich, steak & frites, and the cafe burger come highly recommended. I’ve never ordered anything that didn’t satisfy. “Of course, you go with the classics,” Prez explains about his choice of needle drops. “Coltrane, Miles, Max Roach, Dizzy, then venturing into Roy Hargrove, Robert Glasper, Ali Shaheed Muhammad.” As word spread and the audience expanded, people started bringing their own records. “I was like, ‘Cool.’ Then people started turning up with turntables, keyboards, a guitar now and then, and it became a kind of a jazz jam formulated around the records.” Kinda reminds me of a smoky little joint (back when smoky was okie) called Sammy’s in the Plaza Shopping Center where, a few de-
HOP INTO
Spring
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cades ago, a combo on Friday nights drew legions of jazz enthusiasts. Moving a crowd with your rhythmic repertoire begins with an understanding of the basics. “I tell people,” Prez says, “if they want to collect records, if they want to become a successful DJ, you listen first. You don’t go out and buy gear or buy records; it’s about listening and then you can curate. Then you can turn that into a three-hour mix where people are entertained.” In an atmosphere infused with melodic precision, a totality of tonality presented in a way that Greensboro hasn’t heard or seen before, somehow every week Prez manages to discover another fresh take on what jazz can be, constantly experimenting with syncopated juxtapositions. Arrive alone or with a coterie, and should winter’s icy fingers linger the proceedings will be relocated indoors. Wheels of steel are largely digital now, but they still spin. Prez has been honing his craft for two decades. “I don’t really know what keeps me going, to be real. I think it’s the joy that I see on younger people’s faces that are new to this, are fresh into music. Seeing their energy, feeding off of their energy. How do you capture that moment?” Prez asks, knowing full well the answer. “That’s what being a DJ is.” OH Next month marks exactly six years since Billy Eye started writing “Wandering Billy,” which is why the schools and liquor stores will be closed during April to honor that landmark occasion.
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March 2022
What the Moon Knows She knows shadow, how to slip behind clouds. She’s perfected the art of disappearing. She knows how to empty herself into the sky, whisper light into darkness. She knows the power of silence, how to keep secrets, even as men leave footprints in the dust, try to claim her. Waxing and waning, she summons the tides. Whole and holy symbol, she remains perfect truth, tranquility. Friend and muse, she knows the hearts of lovers and lunatics. She knows she is not the only one that fills the sky, but the sky is her only home. — Pat Riviere-Seel Pat Riviere-Seel is the author of When There Were Horses
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FREE TO GO & GROW
ROB BROWN
Finding the Promised Land As told to Ross Howell Jr. • Photograph by Bert VanderVeen
W
hen I was in fourth grade, my dad — who at 84 is still a Richmond Times-Dispatch photographer — took me to a football game between VMI and the College of William & Mary. He hung a camera around my neck, got me a press pass and told me to see what I could do. I got a picture of a guy scoring a touchdown, which ran in the Times-Dispatch. The paper paid me $5. I was hooked. But when I graduated from high school, I didn’t see photography as a real job. So, I apprenticed with a brick layer. Later, I went to Longwood University, playing basketball in the summer with a guy named Leger Meyland. He was going to photo school and convinced me to go, too. He has been a mentor and friend for 40 years now. After a year at Randolph Community College, I got a job at the Radford News Journal. Then I came here to Greensboro to work at the News & Record, where I met my wife, Lane. After she got a job in Chicago, we moved there. I found work at The Times of Northwest Indiana, a suburban newspaper. We had kids and decided to move to Baltimore to be closer to our families. Lane landed a full-time job at The Baltimore Sun. I was a freelance photographer and stay-at-home dad. When we learned the News & Record was looking for a director of photography, I applied. They took a chance on me, even though my only management experience was raising kids. In 2015, when I was laid off from the paper, I felt spurned. For a while, I freelanced. Then I put my cameras away, rarely taking pictures. I decided I’d try something completely different. I signed up for brewing school at Rockingham County Community College, then got an entry-level job with Natty Greene’s Brewing Co. I was putting beer bottles in boxes in a cold The Art & Soul of Greensboro
warehouse. Eventually, I was trained to work in the cellar, and later, I handled brewing. Then I went to Foothills Brewing in Winston-Salem. My work there also was very physical. I realized brewing is a younger man’s game. So, I decided I’d give computer security a try. After about two months of study at Guilford Technical Community College, COVID hit. All my classes went virtual, except for geology. Even though I’d made the president’s list and was six hours away from my associate’s degree, I was feeling very isolated. I knew when I finished, I’d be starting at ground level again. Worse, I’d be working with 19-year-olds who were real computer whizzes compared with me. Because my son was getting married, I’d been helping him look for a wedding photographer online. One evening, I was talking with Lane. I showed her a photographer’s site and said, “Looking at these photos makes me want to take pictures again.” And she asked, “Why don’t you?” So, I got back into freelance photography. After about three months, I heard that the Elon University communications department was looking for a photographer. I applied and got the job. Now, I’m back to doing something I love and something I’m good at. For years I was wandering in the desert and now I’ve found the Promised Land. I couldn’t have done it without Lane. OH A longtime writer for O.Henry, Ross Howell Jr. is doing research for a second historical novel. O.Henry 45
FREE TO GO & GROW
JESSIE SLOAN
Landing on Her Feet
By Cynthia Adams • Photograph by Bert VanderVeen
F
or such a sunny personality, Jessie Sloan, a Shreveport, Louisiana, native, had a surprising first job after college — making bombs at the Louisiana Ordinance Plant. “I was making 2.2 mortar shells, putting the mechanism on the back of the shells that made it propel.” She also began hair-raising work as a cosmetologist — her mother having advised her to always have a side gig. Next, Sloan vetted materials for Lucent Technologies in Shreveport, with top security clearances. (“If I did not approve it, they would not purchase it.”) After 27 years, she “woke up one morning and, noting a Lucent posting in Greensboro, decided I wanted to see how the other part of the world lived.” In a lickety-split, Sloan transferred. Sloan remained in top clearance work — secure telephones for the White House and transatlantic junction cables. Whenever she saw the President using a White House phone, she thought, “I had a hand in that. Oh, my goodness!” Ever mindful (“My mama always told me, never settle for one thing. Have an A, B and C. I’ve always had more than one job”), she earned her N.C. license, resumed work in a beauty salon — and still worked for Lucent. Two years later in 1997, Lucent closed the Greensboro facility. Sloan retired. For a while, she traveled, unable to do hair given a knee replacement. “I had to find something else!” She laughs. “I don’t let anything get me down. I keep a positive attitude.” A Louisiana podiatrist first introduced Sloan to reflexology. “If I had any sore places, he would massage a certain area on my foot, and the pain would go away.” She told him how she loved giving foot massages. He lent Sloan his books. “One night I was in bed and said, ‘Well, Lord, what can I do?’
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The Lord said, in my mind, ‘Do feet! You enjoy doing feet.’ I got up that morning and found a school.” For a year, Sloan studied reflexology at Natural Touch Massage School, completing studies and clinical work in 2005. She registered her business, Soles by Sloan, working at a State Street salon (plan A). Sloan advertised, appeared at health fairs and built a reflexology practice, which she later moved to her home. Does she absorb the energy of clients as she works? “You do. You’re transferring your energy to that person. And absorbing all that drains you,” she says. Meanwhile she worked for Sears 14 years — plan B — in data entry. Sloan giggles. “A friend said, ‘You’re not from this planet. You’re not from here.’ I would say, ‘I am too from here! God made me, and He made me this way!’ So many things have happened to me that were unexplained. It’s amazing.” Today, Sloan’s primary work remains reflexology. But, always, there’s a plan B. Last August she began working with special-needs children on school buses. She arrives at the terminal before 6 a.m. “I keep them in their bus seats to be sure they don’t get up and hurt themselves. Help them off and on and help with their seat belts. It’s really rewarding.” This repeats in the afternoon. Sloan returns after lunch to assist again, riding with the children, soothing them, and is home before 5 p.m. “I’m learning to be thankful, patient. Learning to be caring. Understanding. To work with kids,” Sloan says. “I’ve always wanted to do it.” She ends the call, preparing for a reflexology session. “Reflexology is my first love. That is just part of me. That, I always tell people, is my calling.” OH The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
FREE TO GO & GROW
CHRIS HAYES Learning Lessons from COVID
By Maria Johnson • Photograph by Bert VanderVeen
E
arly one Sunday morning, after wrapping up his 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift in the intensive care unit of Greensboro’s Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, registered nurse Chris Hayes sniffs out the charge nurse, hands over a handful of badges and tags, and walks out of the Greensboro hospital in his blue scrubs for the last time. The next afternoon, he sits in a sparsely populated Panera restaurant, sipping a cola and absorbing the new reality of his retirement. “It hasn’t sunken in yet,” the 56-year-old Hayes says. Bearded, burly and athletic, with sports sunglasses parked atop his closely cropped hair, the former high school wrestler explains why he left his beloved profession in January, after nearly 32 years. It’s true, he says, he’d been thinking about retiring to have more time to travel and work on projects around the house. The accelerator, he says, was COVID. Specifically, one young man with COVID. Chris cared for him last summer. The kid — a college student with no history of health problems — had been moved to the ICU because his oxygen levels were falling. Chris saw him only one night. The kid was conscious, alert and talking through an oxygen mask. And even though Chris had told himself — after doing it once early in his career — that he’d never get attached to a patient again, he connected with this young man. “I could see my daughter there,” Chris says, eyes welling at the thought of his younger child, also a college student. That night, the young man — who was not yet eligible for a vaccine because of his age — crumped. That’s nurse-talk for took a sudden turn for the worse. They put him on a ventilator to help him breathe. He stayed on the machine for three weeks. One morning, when Chris was at home, he got a text from a colleague. They’d lost the kid. “I about threw my phone through the wall,” Chris says. “It was anger, just anger wishing it had never happened.” His anger surged at other times, too, especially when dealing with older, unvaccinated patients. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“Probably the hardest thing was listening to people when they were dying, saying they wish they had [gotten the vaccine],” he says. The idea of retiring grew sweeter when his wife, Jamie, left her job. She’d also worked nearly 32 years as a public school teacher. She, too, was pushed out by COVID and the overwhelming demands it placed on educators. They both were seasoned veterans with thick skins, Chris says, but COVID had found their breaking points. “Everybody has one,” he says. “Anyone who tells you they don’t is lying.” Still, he says he harbors no hard feelings about his pandemic experience. “I’m probably smiling because it made me retire early,” he says. Eventually, he adds, he’ll look for another job — a low-stress, part-time gig — maybe in landscaping or in a big-box hardware store, where he can get a discount to furnish his garage workshop. Lately, he has been building coffee tables, TV stands and end tables for his daughters and their friends. Before the next job search, though, he’ll take several months to scratch some items off his to-do list: going to an Eagles concert with his wife; taking two cruises with his family (one to celebrate older daughter Rebecca’s graduation from pharmacy school); and attending every fall volleyball game of his younger daughter, Grace, a senior at Bridgewater College in Virginia. One of Grace’s teammates had COVID in 2020 and developed a seizure disorder afterward. The teammate recovered and played again, Chris says, but seeing people who are younger and stronger than he is get seriously ill with COVID was not lost on him. “Noticing that young people are not immune to all of this has taught me that life is precious,” he says. “It’s time to get out and enjoy it.” OH O.Henry 49
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Citizen Jim’s
Latest Hurrah With the announcement of the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite, a legendary mayor cements his legacy By Jim Dodson • Photograph by Mark Wagoner
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n a sunny afternoon late last year, former Greensboro mayor and longtime president and chief executive officer of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, Jim Melvin, took three old friends for a leisurely drive in the country. His purpose was to show them the 1,800-acre GreensboroRandolph Megasite off U.S. Highway 421 south of the city, which Melvin and a group of private and public partners hoped would soon become the home to a major transportation-related manufacturing facility. “I think we finally got it right,” declared the genial former mayor many Triad residents affectionately think of as “Mr. Greensboro” owing to his many years of dynamic civic activism and an unrivaled record of accomplishments over the past half century. “Can’t tell you fellas what’s coming,” he teased with his fellow travelers, “but when this thing is finally announced, which may be very soon, it’s gonna be one of the most exciting things to ever happen to this region, a true game changer — improving lives like you can’t imagine.” Melvin took a breath and added, “Lemme tell you, it took a lot of faith and unbelievable hard work by a number of folks who never gave up trying to make this thing happen. That’s the real story.” Seated in the back seat of Melvin’s SUV, a retired textile executive and lifelong friend of Melvin’s named Jimmy Jones couldn’t help smiling, recognizing a well-
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Jim’s can-do attitude and invited him to enroll in the bank’s teller worn phrase that could be a working motto for his old friend’s training program. dynamic public career. The work with people suited his personality, even more so when Some years after Greensboro’s most accomplished public figure his boss suggested he join the Greensboro Jaycees, an organization in decades left public office and became just Citizen Jim in 1981, the full of young go-getters and future movers and shakers, heavily story goes, he was invited by the trustees of Greensboro College to involved in civic activity. Jim signed up in 1961, not long after a guy give the school’s annual commencement address. named Arnold Palmer began setting the golf world on fire. “It was “When it came time for him to speak,” Jones remembers, “Jim one of the smartest things I ever did. The Jaycees were a fantastic simply walked up to the lectern, looked out at the graduates and degroup of people and the GGO [Greater Greensboro Open, foreclared, ‘I think it’s best to quote the late Winston Churchill. Never runner of today’s Wyndham Championship] was just entering its give up! Never, never give up!’ And with that, he wished them all golden years.” Two years after joining, Melvin became the tournagood luck and sat down. The crowd loved it. In fact, they gave him ment’s charismatic chair, helping to raise a standing ovation. It was vintage Jim more than $1 million that attracted the Melvin and said everything you need to interests of CBS, which nationally televised know about the man.” the tournament for the first time — and Indeed, true to his word, in early continues to this day. December, a few weeks after he took his One year later, Melvin became presipals for a spin in the country, Citizen dent of the Jaycee chapter, which under his Jim and a host of key stakeholders watch was named “Best Jaycees Club in the unveiled a transformative $1.29 billion World.” deal with Toyota North America to In 1968, he entered politics by serving as build a new-generation lithium battery campaign manager for Rich Preyer’s sucmanufacturing plant for electric and cessful congressional race. A year later, he hybrid automobiles at the Greensbororan unsuccessfully for the city council and Randolph Megasite, projecting employwas chosen by the council to serve as mayor ment of at least 1,700 workers by the pro tem in 1971. From there, he went on time it opens in 2025. to five consecutive terms as Greensboro’s In a sense, Melvin’s tireless 10-year first publicly elected mayor. During his quest to bring a major manufacturing © CAROL W. MARTIN/GREENSBORO tenure, Melvin supported expansion of the facility back to the Triad after decades in HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTION. Greensboro Coliseum, construction of a which major textile, furniture and other new municipal office building downtown, related manufacturing industries fled PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF creation of the city’s most modern sewage the region might seem like simple vindi- GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM treatment plant and the building of Bryan cation and the perfect coda for a fellow Park. He also played a pivotal role in the who once invoked the stark words of development of the Randleman Reservoir. Winston Churchill at war to inspire Melvin left politics in 1981 to focus on Greensboro College graduates. Given his banking career and philanthropic interhis formidable vita over four decades, it’s ests, retiring from banking in 1997 to accept also tempting to wonder if the triumph the post of CEO and president of the Joseph of the megasite might be a fitting last Bryan Foundation at the personal urging of hurrah that defines his legacy. the aging Joe Bryan, who recognized both A quick review of Citizen Jim’s Citizen Jim’s innate passion for the Gate City remarkable public life and notable civic and his knack for getting big things done. accomplishments illustrates the point. Among other things, under Melvin’s Edwin Samuel Melvin, named for guidance, the foundation raised $15 million both his Greensboro grandfathers and to bring Elon Law School to the heart of downtown, orchestrated known as “Jim,” grew up on Asheboro Street — today Martin Luther major improvements to the coliseum, helped create Center City Park King Boulevard — absorbing the value of long days and hard work and build the ballpark where the Greensboro Grasshoppers play. He from his father, Joe, who owned a popular Texaco filling station. also helped create Action Greensboro, a nonprofit that serves as a “He was the hardest-working man I ever saw, quite honestly, sunrise catalyst for public-private development to serve city residents. to way past sunset every day of the week. He and my mother were also firm believers in the importance of giving back in whatever way you could to help others. That idea stuck with me early.” decade ago, in the wake of a 30-year mass exodus of After earning a degree in business from UNC Chapel Hill, folmajor textile, furniture and cigarette corporations, lowed by a stint in the army, Melvin was at home pumping gas on Melvin took on what would arguably became his most Asheboro Street for his father one afternoon when the president of a ambitious and challenging project of all — a campaign local bank — one of his daddy’s customers — was impressed by young to bring major manufacturing back to the Triad.
A
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tified the megasite as a leading candidate for “We lost more than 90,000 good© CAROL W. MARTIN/GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTION. its new North American auto production paying jobs when those vital industries plant. At the 11th hour, however, the deal left the region,” he pointed out when we collapsed when the company opted to move caught up to him at his office, a few days to Alabama instead. after the megasite deal was announced. Among other things, a unique working “Charlotte became a booming banking group that included the City of Greensboro, capital, and Raleigh thrived as center of Randolph and Guilford counties, the North high technology. But here in Greensboro Carolina Railroad, Piedmont Natural Gas, and the Triad, we were always a manuDuke Energy and a key environmental facturing culture going back to the days engineering firm managed to collaborate when John Motley Morehead had the on an even more compelling turnkey site foresight to create the North Carolina that would have everything a major manuRailroad through this part of the state that facturer need to be simply “move in and get attracted people like the Cone brothers to to work.” This goal was achieved when the Greensboro, setting off a manufacturing Greensboro City Council agreed to extend boom that lasted for a century. We needed water and sewer to the site. to somehow get that back.” “The working group was the final piece The idea of a shared manufacturing of the puzzle, and Jim Melvin’s visionary megasite, he says, originated a decade ago approach to things was so important,” notes when Stan Kelly and Mike Fox of the Brent Christensen, CEO of the Greensboro Piedmont Triad Partnership hired a top Chamber of Commerce. “It brought everyengineering firm to find a suitable location. one together to share ideas and get things They identified a 1,800-acre rural parcel off done. That’s the Melvin way.” U.S. 421 between the town of Liberty and “None of this happens without Jim,” the Julian community. echoes Randolph County Commissioner A unique partnership between Darrell Frye, who has known and worked Randolph County, the Bryan Foundation, PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF with Melvin for years. “He knew how to get the City of Greensboro and Piedmont GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM the right people together and make it hapTriad Partnership got the program off the pen. He’s a visionary who never gives up. ground, including Realtor Sam Simpson I think the positive multiplier effect of this and real-estate lawyer David Joseph, is going to prove unlimited in the future. It whose task it was to convince more than worked out even better than we hoped.” 100 individual landowners to sell their Which brings us back to Citizen Jim’s property in the interest of the project. novel commencement address to the “That was no simple job,” Melvin says. graduating class at Greensboro College, “They sat on a lot of couches and just lisan admiring mention of which reportedly tened to folks. They joked that they each found its way into commentary in The New put on at least 10 pounds.” York Times. The man clearly practices what The team “made generous offers to he preaches. buy or replace the land,” Simpson says. “But did it really happen the way your “But for most of these people, this wasn’t friends like to tell the story?” We put that about the money. This was about, in some question to him at his Bryan Foundation cases, land their families had lived on for offices a few days after Toyota made its generations. This was about their roots in © CAROL W. MARTIN/GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTION. groundbreaking announcement. a community.” He continues, “They had “Believe it or not,” he confirmed with a to believe this project was going to make a hearty laugh, “it did happen like that. But you’ve got to realize the difference in their lives — and everyone around them — before they circumstances. It was cold and starting to rain. The last all those agreed. That took patience and absolute transparency, which Jim parents sitting there wanted was to hear some long-winded politician Melvin insisted on.” give a speech. So, I just gave them my favorite quote by Winston A major boost came two years into the process when the North Churchill. They seemed to really appreciate that.” Carolina Railroad expressed interest in joining the massive develFinally, we wondered if this latest accomplishment might be a fitopment project, granting the site unrivaled transportation access ting last hurrah for the indefatigable Melvin, who turned a youthful for a potential manufacturing client from a pair of interstate high88 on Christmas Eve. ways (and a third in planning stages) and a railroad line directly The man who never, never gives up, just smiled. adjoining the site. “How about we just say the latest hurrah,” he suggested. OH The final piece of property was acquired in 2017, and Toyota idenThe Art & Soul of Greensboro
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A Leap of Faith
Finding shelter from one storm after another By Cynthia Adams • Photographs by Amy Freeman
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y 2017, Rick and Randy Burge-Willis had had enough of a historic and gorgeous — but too-large — 18th-century farm. There was too much acreage to maintain at Lilac Hollow, their quaint compound in scenic upstate New York. “We named it that because a previous owner had collected more than 350 lilac bushes from around the world and planted them over three acres,” Rick says. The pair of serial entrepreneurs were weighing retirement. (Rick already was semi-retired.) Change beckoned. And a better climate. Until Hurricane Katrina swamped New Orleans, they had once dreamed of retiring to the city which they had long loved. Lilac Hollow was a Martha Stewart-like dream property. The 10-room house featured 6,000 square feet, replete with fireplaces and period antiques. It was the very definition of New England quaintness. Best of all, the house sat in the midst of 150 bucolic acres with mountain views, hops and dairy barns, and a chicken house. They listed it on the market, “assuming it would take at least two years to sell,” Randy says. The property lasted nowhere near two years; it didn’t even last two weeks. A mere 12 days later, a woman living in Atlanta phoned to inquire further. She was, they O.Henry 55
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discovered, a working chef relocating to upstate New York. They had the perfect chef’s kitchen. There, she saw what none of the other area houses had: professional grade appliances — and two of each. The Lilac Hollow owners were former restaurateurs themselves, still operating the Bakery at Lilac Hollow. (Rick also was a former baker for a gourmet food spot in Albany, New York, and had been the chief baker and pizza maker at their restaurant.) The two men invited the chef to stay for the evening and to cook together. She took them up on their offer, and the house was a hit. There was no hesitation; the chef wanted to take possession of Lilac Hollow in late June 2017. “It was a ‘what the heck moment,’” Randy says. “We needed to find a house and fast.” The kitchen that sold the farm had a backstory. There was, of course, their ongoing bakery venture. But there also was another poignant story. For years, the couple had been interested in all things culinary. Neither had owned a restaurant. But in 2011, they agreed to become restaurateurs, sharing the daily work. Rick and Randy opened an 11-table café with pavilion seating outside in the Helderberg Mountains, only 18 minutes from their farm. It featured a multi-item menu specialized in Cajun and Creole foods they came to love in NOLA, with a smattering of local favorites (like pizza), as well. On opening night in April, Randy’s birthday, cars filled the cafe The Art & Soul of Greensboro
parking lot. A line of waiting cars wound down the street — cars full of eager, hungry patrons. “We named it Po’ Boys, and it was prophetic,” Randy sighs. He explains the problems: The menu offered “too many” items. They wanted their hardworking staff to be well-paid. It was nonstop work for them, too. Seven days a week. “We were very successful during the summer months,” Randy says. His voice trails off; his expression says, “too successful.” In August 2011, an uninvited guest named Hurricane Irene visited upstate New York. The historic, unprecedented storm took out bridges, drowning homes and businesses. Po’ Boys, only four months old, did not escape harm. “The building survived, but we were without power and lost substantial inventory,” Randy says. “The real issue was that the community was devastated and had no ‘appetite’ for dining out. Many had literally lost their homes,” Randy says. Their home, which was unscathed apart from losing power, quickly filled up with folks they knew, needing, as he says, a candlelight meal and a place to sleep. While their home was only seven miles away, “the bridge on the road to work washed out and we had to travel 18 miles out of our way.” Randy says. Sadly, the new restaurant was no longer viable. “We decided to cut our losses.” He adds. On October 30, 2011, they closed Po’ Boys Café for good. They remained at Lilac Hollow until June 30, 2017. Over many junkets to New Orleans pre-Katrina, Rick and Randy O.Henry 57
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began talking about giving up rural living. “We were both city guys originally. We had lived in Boston or its burbs for nearly two decades, so coming back to the city wasn’t strange for us. The farm had been our dream. We did it, we loved it, and then it was time to move on,” Rick says. They agreed on finding a true neighborhood — versus the isolation and demands of maintaining a farm. Rick and Randy had money in their pocket after Lilac Hollow sold, and both were ready to embrace a Southern, warmer lifestyle. And yet, it was as the sage’s admonition goes, “be careful what you wish for.” Packing up a huge country house and making such a move was a breathtaking shift for the two. Yet they insist it made complete sense. But where exactly? Somehow — studying maps, quality of life and a Southern locale with warmer weather — the pair had determined that Greensboro might check all the boxes. “We had never been to Greensboro before,” Randy confesses. “But we wanted to move South.” They came down for a weekend, meeting a Realtor and looking at 16 homes in two days. A Charleston-style two story brick house in Latham Park — the last home they viewed, was the one. “We opened the door and fell in love with the house. The dappled light through the trees. The willow oaks!” Rick says. “Close to downtown, easy airport access and a beautiful park across the street,” Randy says. “We saw the house on Saturday, saw it again on Sunday, made an offer and got it accepted on Sunday. We flew home Monday morning.” Rick adds: “We wanted a place where it would be easy to have two German shepherds in the city. It also felt like we still had a little bit of the country with us. Most of all, the light here in the summer is special.” Were they anxious about such a leap of faith? Randy only laughs. “Not really. We had already made a bigger leap in going from suburban Boston to rural Upstate New York. Our beautiful The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Latham Park neighborhood made the transition easier for us.” But what sold them on Greensboro? “Right size, good airport, good health care, progressive atmosphere. Affordable. Lots of green space,” Rick observes. “We have never looked back. This is our forever home.” Did anything concern them after they returned to New York? “Nothing,” Randy says firmly. “After we visited, we knew it was the right choice.” Rick insists there were no detractors among their close circles. If anything, he says, they were “a little jealous, but supportive.” But there were practical concerns as they packed up their former residence. The Latham Park house was 3,000 square feet, nearly half the size of Lilac Hollow. “We filled two dumpsters, sold multiple primitive pieces and gave some to the new owner. Still, we moved way too much and have been winnowing since [or replacing to accommodate a new find].” The couple completed packing and purging just in time to relinquish the keys to Lilac Hollow’s new owner and headed south for Greensboro. They moved into Latham Park June 30, 2017. The custom-built home featured double porches, built-ins and unique lighting. “We’ve been told it was custom-built [by Guy Andrews]and that some of Greensboro’s notable families (or their progeny) have lived in this house at some point,” Randy says. “McLean Moore lived here early on, so most of the light fixtures are originals from the noted Greensboro firm McLean Lighting Works.” “This wasn’t a cookie cutter house,” he adds. Helpful neighbors contributed details about the house. “We often run into people who have lived in the house or who are somehow associated with it [including the builder’s daughter, Julie McAllister], or they stop by to reminisce about their memories of the house,” Randy adds. The interiors required marrying two styles. Rick says it also allowed them to “break out of the ‘primitive/colonial’ mode and move out of our comfort zone in terms of decorating.” “One of the decorating challenges for us was how to incorporate the primitive and ‘high country’
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pieces we loved [and that were so appropriate in an Upstate farmhouse] into a classically southern city house,” Rick says. A favorite inspiration was Valkill, Eleanor Roosevelt’s Hudson Valley home. “It’s not ‘high design’ by any stretch, but a collection of beautiful and timeless things that were important to her. Warm, inviting, eclectic,” Randy muses. “The kind of place where she could have intimate conversations with presidents and kings, but also with friends and acquaintances. It’s become a sort of guide for us as we combined the bits and pieces of over 40 years.” Creating several library areas was first among their projects. “We had a library in our previous home and we moved thousands of books with us . . . much to the chagrin of the moving crew,” Randy says. The new home offered bookshelves, but their collection required even more. “We needed to get the books out of the storage unit,” he says. They added bookcases in first-floor rooms, including a small study with rare pecky cypress paneling. For avid cooks who entertain, they had to share a far smaller kitchen. “It took us a while to get the choreography down!” Rick says. They added a new deck and pergola, expanding the outdoor living area. Two years later, the elements struck again. On July 31, 2019, Buffalo Creek flooded part of Latham Park. It wreaked serious damage to much of their first floor.
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A flood, their old nemesis, had once again left them surveying water and wreckage. This might have been a deal breaker for less resilient people. But not Rick and Randy. They set to work. Miraculously, the flood did not dampen their love of the house or community. It also wrought positive outcomes. “First, it showed us what great neighbors we have,” Randy says. Rick agrees. “We all came together to help and support each other. Second, it gave us the impetus to make some big changes to the house. We love our home even more,” he says. “We live in a flood-prone area,” says neighbor Kaylee Phillips, who works for Carriage House Antiques. “We said to our family, if it starts to flood, we have to go down to help Rick and Randy before we think about our house, because their things are so beautiful! And their house is so classic,” she says. Phillips, who lives down the street, once worked at Summerhouse, a defunct antiques and gift store. It was owned by Julie McAllister, whose father was Guy Andrews, builder of numerous Latham Park and Brown Town homes. Soon after the Phillips family moved down the street from Rick and Randy, “They came into Carriage House and said, ‘Hey neighbor!’” Phillips says. She smiles: “They are so special! Every single detail of their home is so special.” As they settle deeply into the closeThe Art & Soul of Greensboro
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knit community, they have amassed friends. After the flood, house changes were required, like painting and papering, but some were simply desired. The first changes? In the kitchen, naturally. “The house only had small ovens. We needed full size to fit roasting and sheet pans,” Randy says. “We replaced the wood floors in the kitchen with travertine. Replaced the kitchen counters with a lighter color granite [White Spring] and the dated bead board backsplash with handmade Spanish subway tiles.” More changes evolved. They added granite molding (baseboards) to the powder room, new exterior doors to the kitchen, and new French doors and updated windows in the family room. They replaced a standard exterior door leading to the upper porch with a French door. Neither have regrets. It all works better now, they say. Their Latham Park home, one with a park view, brings them peace. They can pretend it's Central Park whenever the snow flies or in spring when the old growth trees — a hallmark of the neighborhood — are in full bud. Their main bedroom is off the upper porch, which is furnished with chairs and tables. They hang baskets of ferns there when the weather is gentle, which remain until frost arrives. They recently had the exterior repainted a buttery yellow and used a dark, New England–like green on the shutters. Five years later, Rick and Randy consider their new city’s per-
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sonality. “Friendly, open and accepting, community focused, the ‘New’ South,” they reflected in an email. “The quality of life here is exceptional and constantly improving . . . cultural resources, green spaces, health care, entertainment. Most everything is less than 15 minutes away.” Favorite things to do here? “Taking dogs to the parks, searching for treasures at antique and consignment stores, tending our vegetable garden in our community plot at Keeley Park, cooking good food, and expanding our Southern food repertoire,” they wrote. Last winter, they had a strong crop of collard greens and dined on collards and Hoppin’ John for New Year’s Day. Come holidays or any occasion, Rick and Randy swing back into serious baking mode. They bake cookies, breads and NOLA-inspired delectables for neighbors. For parties, they create a house cocktail and bring out the good china and crystal, even coupes for sparkling sips. NOLA remains near to their heart. It was there they learned how to be Southern. “The attention to detail, quality and depth, not just in the food but in the experience. NOLA has it down,” they wrote. No Southerner worth their collards would argue. OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor to O.Henry. She can be reached at helmschad@gmail.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A L M A N A C
February March By Ashley Walshe
M
arch is an age-old prophecy: a great thaw followed by a riot of life and color. Some said it would start with a single daffodil. A field of crocus. The soft warble of a bluebird. All the signs are here. And in the bare-branched trees, where wild tangles of dead leaves resemble papier-mâché globes, newborn squirrels wriggle in their dreys, eyes closed. Weeks ago, winter felt eternal. The cold air stung your face and fingers. The world was bleak and colorless. Now, the red maple is blooming. Saucer magnolia, too. You build the last fire, sweep the hearth, return to the garden and its wet, fragrant earth. Frost glistens in the morning light, but you know it’s true — that spring is coming. You know because the birds know. They cannot help but blurt it out. Beyond the flowering quince, a woodpecker drums on a towering pine. A towhee gushes drink-your-tea. A robin whistles cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up. Soon, spring peepers and chorus frogs will join the band. The first bee will drink from the first hyacinth flower. A young squirrel will open its eyes. Sunlight kisses wild violets, purple dead nettle, tender young grasses. Everywhere you look, you notice a new warmth, a new softness, the gentle pulse of life. By some miracle, spring has arrived. A sweet mystery born from the icy womb of winter.
In March winter is holding back and spring is pulling forward. Something holds and something pulls inside of us too.
— Jean Hersey
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A Gardener’s Luck
Let’s talk about three-leafed clover (genus Trifolium), a flowering herb in the legume family that just might be what your lawn or garden has been missing. Common as weeds — and often disregarded as such — clover can grow in most any climate, tolerate poor-quality soil and resist most pests and diseases. Here’s the best part: clover can “fix” spent patches of earth by restoring nitrogen levels. In other words, it’s a natural fertilizer and often is used as green manure crop. Using clover as a ground cover between garden beds will also attract pollinators. Mix some clover with your grasses and your lawn will look greener. An added bonus: It’s impervious to dog urine. Even if you never find a four-leafer, that’s some good garden luck.
Spring Forward
Daylight saving time begins Sunday, March 13. Longer days inspire evening walks, birding, a quiet hour in the garden. Notice what’s flowering: breath-of-spring (winter honeysuckle), brilliant yellow forsythia, lemony scented star magnolia. Notice what needs to be pruned: ahem, the rose bush. Although the vernal equinox occurs Sunday, March 20, spring has been here for weeks, present in each glorious inhalation. Allergy season? Coming soon. O.Henry 65
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A special advertising section spotlighting area restaurants, caterers, bakeries, markets and specialty stores 66 O.Henry
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- 9” x 10.875” the
GREENSBORO
IS CO F F E E AT I T S JUS T- ROAS T E D B E S T
We know you love coffee. We do, too. That’s why we partnered with Roasting Plant Coffee to bring you the freshest cup possible—roasted right before your eyes in Roasting Plant’s Javabot system. Choose from some of the highest-grade specialty beans in the world (or create your own custom blend) and brewed-by-the-cup perfection is less than a minute away. If your coffee craving needs an extra shot of flavor, our curators can whip up cappuccinos, lattes, iced coffees—even coffee shakes! It’s all you ever wanted in a coffee shop, right here in The Fresh Market. This! Is The Fresh Market, and we can’t wait to serve you.
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NOW OPEN AT 7AM • 3712 LAWNDALE DRIVE ONLY
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MAKE THE PERFECT BLEND A local shop that provides the best tasting coffee, espresso drinks, all natural juices, smoothies, and baked goods. We also offer Grab and Go Lunch options including wraps, sandwiches, salads, soups and more!
IG-wow_whatadrink • IG-Cafe@revolution FB-@WowWhatADrink • FB-@cafeatrevolution Email: jutztasteit@gmail.com
336-587-8876 / 336-327-4903 Monday-Friday • 7am-3pm (modified due to COVID-19) We support local vendors for our food Cheescake By Alex and Panera Bread and we sell LIVE Alkaline Water distributed in Winston-Salem NC small Black Business.
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GREENSBORO
FULLFILL YOUR Sweet-Treat Craving A small batch bakery specializing in cupcakes, French Macarons, pastries and custom cakes designed by our talented artists.
Baked fresh daily and the cakes are never cold stored.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
1616 Battleground Ave, Greensboro, NC (336)306-2827 Order by email! easypeasydnd@gmail.com
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WORLD CLASS COMFORT FOOD Fulfill your appetite’s and heart’s desires with Dame’s parings. From “first-timers” to “barnyard veterans”, Dame’s “Almost” World Famous Chicken & Waffle inspirations are truly palette pleasing pairings that offer something special for all comers.
301 Martin Luther King Jr Drive • Greensboro, NC 27406 | 336.275.7333 | dameschickenwaffles.com
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GREENSBORO
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meats | eggs | dairy | produce prepared foods | jams | flowers | honey baked goods | seafood | coffee & teas | crafts Indoors & Outdoors
Open Every Saturday 7:30-12noon Wednesdays 8am-12noon (mid-April to mid-October)
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501 Yanceyville Street at the Corner of Yanceyville and Lindsay
HOLD THE DATE!
GO GREEN PLANT & GARDEN SALE Sunday April 24th 9am-2pm
COMFORT FOOD FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY
Oakcrest
Family Restaurant
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G R E AT M E A L S AT A G R E AT P R I C E ! 2435 Battleground Avenue • Greensboro, NC 27408 | (336) 288-7585 | www.oakcrestrestaurant.com
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GREENSBORO
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EAT WELL, FEEL WELL Sustainably-grown Certified Organic produce
MARKET OPEN: Wednesday : 4-6pm • Saturday : 9am-12pm
Sunset Market Gardens’ mission is to grow and provide the most nutritious food, while continuing to build a biologically rich, alive soil. 346 Woolen Store Road • Reidsville, NC 27320 | www.sunsetmarketgardens.com
EXPERIENCE THE AUTHENTIC TASTE OF MEXICO! Find the vibrant culinary culture of Mexico at a price you can afford to love.
3900 Battleground Avenue • Greensboro, NC 27410 | 336-282-4800 | blueagavemexicanbarandgrill.com
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GRAZING TABLES AND CHARCUTERIE BOARDS FOR EVERY SPECIAL OCCASION 142 Church Ave High Point, 27265 | thebloomingboard.com |
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Gourmet Food Your Stomach Will Love
Subs, Sandwiches, Wraps, Salads, Quesadillas, Soups, Beyond Burgers, Desserts, Candy Apples and More. Made with all Premium Meat. No pork or beef sold here. 1608 West Friendly Avenue • Greensboro, NC 27403 336-370-6911 | www.wyliesgourmetcafe.com
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shops • service • food • farms
support locally owned businesses
LIFE SPRINGS ANEW EVEN AFTER THE DEEPEST WINTERS
Please support your local shops WWW.TRIADLOCALFIRST.COM
Sometimes it’s smarter to lease than to sell your home. Call us when you think you’re there! I will be pleased to discuss how Burkley Rental Homes can help you.
The best Piedmont lawns and gardens start at Guilford Garden Center www.guilfordgardencenter.com
“I couldn’t be happier with my renters, or my rental income” Tom Arevian Burkely Rental Homes client
We specialize in unique, native, and specimen plants. 701 Milner Dr. Greensboro 336-299-1535 guilfordgardencenter.com
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Join the effort. Visit www.triadlocalfirst.com.
March 2022
The Lion King
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Although a conscientious effort has been 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.
March 1
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March 1–28 DONTÉ HAYES. 9 a.m.–4 p.m. View visual artist Donté Hayes’ work, with a reception on March 2 from 3–5 p.m. Gatewood Studio Arts Center, 527 Highland Ave., Greensboro. Info: vpa.uncg.edu
SINFONIA. 7:30–9 p.m. Experience UNCG Orchestra’s ensembles, ranging from contemporary works for full orchestra to intimate pieces for chamber and string orchestra. Free; tickets required. UNCG Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St., Greensboro. Info: vpa.uncg.edu
March 2, 16 & 30
March 1–6
March 2–6
THE LION KING. Disney’s The Lion King will have fans feeling the love. Tickets: $29+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events
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MUSIC IN A BOTTLE. 5–7 p.m. Lawn Service and Little Brother Brewing for live music and drink specials. Free. LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensborodowntownparks.org/calendar
ACC WOMEN’S BASKETBALL. The 45th edition of the nation’s longest-running women’s basketball conference championship returns to the Coliseum for its 22nd year,
GSYO Winter Concert
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kicking off March Madness. Tickets: $99 (all sessions). Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events
March 3 GROW YOUR GARDEN. 6–7 p.m. Get the most out of your garden, plus selection and timing of plant varieties. Free virtual event; registration required. Info: greensboro-nc. gov (click on “events”)
March 4 A LA CART LENT. 7:30–9 p.m. Observe Lent with J.S. Bach, H.I.F. Biber, Katz, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, plus Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater. Free. Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 607 N. Green St., Greensboro. Info: alcgreensboro.com
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Calendar
Northern Trails Race
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ROYAL JELLY. 8 p.m. Stimulate the body and soul with Royal Jelly, an eight-piece ensemble based in Greensboro, with SunQueen Kelcey & The Soular Flares opening. Tickets: $10/advance, $15. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events
March 5 DAVEED DIGGS. 8 p.m. Hear Daveed Diggs — Tony and Grammy Award–winning actor, rapper, and widely-known originator of the dual roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette in Hamilton. Tickets: $10+/non-students. UNCG Auditorium, 408 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: vpa.uncg.edu
March 6 GSYO WINTER CONCERT. 7–8 p.m. Enjoy a selection of music by the Greensboro The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Avett Brothers
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Symphony Youth Orchestra, the finale to their winter season. Free; tickets required. Dana Auditorium, 710 Levi Coffin Drive, Greensboro. Free. Info: gsyo.org/events LAST WAKING MOMENT. 8 p.m. Hear music from Greensboro’s own Last Waking Moment’s debut EP at the Crown, with local heavyweights Condado and Boone legends Cloutchaser filling out the bill. Tickets: $10/advance, $15. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events
March 8 LYLE LOVETT. 7:30 p.m. Texas-based musician, singer, composer and actor Lyle Lovett takes the Crown. Tickets: $45+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events
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March 10 CONTAINER EDIBLES. 6–7 p.m. Learn how to use limited space, sun and time to grow a variety of vegetables and herbs. Free virtual event; registration required. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”) NCWN OPEN MIC. 7–8 p.m. Share five minutes of your genre with the North Carolina Writers’ Network of Greater Greensboro at an open mic night. Sign-ups first come, first served. Free. Scuppernong Books, 304 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: ncwriters.org BERTY BOY RELAPSE. 7 p.m. Bert Kreischer, an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer and host, performs his newest stand-up special. Tickets: $35.75+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.
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Calendar March 11 HERITAGE BOOK CLUB. 10:30 a.m.– noon. Join in a discussion of Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life and Work of Zora Neale Hurston, a part of the Southern Writers series. Free virtual event; registration required. High Point Public Library, 901 N. Main St., High Point. Info: highpointnc.gov/calendar KOЯN. 6:30 p.m. The nu-metal band KoЯn takes the stage with special guests Chevelle and Code Orange. Tickets: $49.50+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events DISCORDIA DAMES. 8 p.m. Drawing on various styles and backgrounds, the Discordia Dames represent some of the best in traditional burlesque. Tickets: $25/ad-
vance, $30. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/ events
March 12 NORTHERN TRAILS RACE. 8:30 a.m. (marathon) & 8:50 a.m. (10-miler). Don’t misseither 10- or 26.2-mile Trivium Racing on the trails of northern Guilford County. Registration: $39+/10-miler, $58+/marathon. Northern Guilford High School, 7101 Spencer Dixon Road, Greensboro. Info: triviumracing.com/events SIP, SAVOR, SHOP. 1–8 p.m. Enjoy an assortment of treats and handmade goods by local artisans from every corner of the state, plus wines and distilled beverages. Tickets: $35/ advance; $40. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events
OPUS CONCERT. 7 p.m. The third spring Opus concert features the Greensboro Concert Band. Free; donations accepted. Guilford College, Dana Auditorium, 710 Levi Coffin Drive, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”) NO CAP COMEDY. 7:30 p.m. Laugh along to an all-star lineup including Karlous Miller, D Young Fly, Chico Bean, DeRay Davis, Lil Duval and Michael Black. Tickets: $60.75+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events ’90S KICKBACK PART 2–8 p.m. Experience the ’90s Kickback Concert Part 2 starring Jagged Edge, Avant, Ginuwine, H-Town, Adina Howard and Michel’le. Tickets: $45+. Steven Tanger Center, One Abe Brenner Pl., 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events
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80 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Calendar March 12–13 BATTLEGROUND REENACTMENT. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. (3/12) & 10 a.m.–3 p.m. (3/13). After two years of COVID cancellations, the Revolutionary War Battle of Guilford Courthouse reenactment returns live and in person! Free. Greensboro Country Park, 3802 Jaycee Park Drive, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”)
March 13 DOUG BAKER. 2 p.m. Songwriter Doug Baker, a fixture in the Greensboro music scene for 40 years, brings songs from his first solo album, Navigating Life, to the Crown for a special matinee performance, with guitarist and vocalist Barry Gray; multi-instrumentalist Mark Dillon; his son, percussionist Zach Baker; and bassist Glenn Jones. Durhambased singer/songwriter Leah Kaufman
opens. Tickets: $10/advance, $15. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events THE SIMON & GARFUNKEL STORY. 6 p.m. Using huge projection photos and original film footage, a full-live band performs Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s hits, including “Mrs. Robinson,” “Cecilia,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Homeward Bound” and more. Tickets: $25+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events
March 15 CAROLINA CLASSIC. 7 p.m. Enjoy a screening of the classic Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Tickets: $7. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events ANNE LAMOTT. 7:30 p.m. Author Anne
Lamott tackles loss, grief and disappointment, as well as compassion, connections and faith in a Guilford College Bryan lecture. Tickets: $46+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events CANE MILL ROAD. 7:30 p.m. Catch bluegrass artists Liam Purcell and Cane Mill Road South Carolina musical duo Ivy Bryan and Mallory Blackwood, better known as Ivy Inez, opening. Tickets: $12/advance, $15. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/ events
March 17 SCIENCE FICTION BOOK CLUB. 7–8 p.m. Participants will discuss Megan O’Keefe’s Velocity Weapon, a book filled with dazzling space battles, intergalactic politics
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Calendar and rogue AI. Free virtual event; registration required. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/ event
March 18 HOW DO I LOOK? Noon–12:45 p.m. UNCG professors Sarah Cervenak and Sunny Spillane discuss new ways of seeing in conjunction with Lorraine O’Grady: Both/ And. Free virtual event; registration required. Info: weatherspoonart.org/calendar CARLY BURRUSS. 7 p.m. Country music artist Carly Burruss brings a whimsical, tongue-in-cheek disposition with an agile, lilting sound, with Casey Noel opening. Tickets: $12/advance, $15. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events
March 19
March 20
AVETT BROTHERS. 8 p.m. The rescheduled Avett Brothers show comes to the Gate City. Tickets: $49.50+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events
MAXWELL NIGHT TOUR. Soul singer Maxwell transfixes fans with more than 20 years of classic tunes, with Anthony Hamilton & Joe opening. Tickets: $62+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events
WINTER HOLIDAY HIKE SERIES. 9 a.m. Experience a three-hour, 7-mile Spring Equinox Hike. Free; registration required. Bill Craft Trail, 368 Plainfield Road, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”) TEN TENORS. 8 p.m. The Ten Tenors serenade fans with their stunning vocals. Tickets: $35+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter. com/events
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March 21 POETRY CLUB. 7–8 p.m. Discuss Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green’s Dead on Arrival with Neither Rhyme Nor Reason Poetry Book Club. Free virtual event; registration required. Info: scuppernongbooks. com/events
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82 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
LAWNDALE SHOPPING CENTER • IRVING PARK
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Calendar March 24
March 25–27
LORRAINE O’GRADY. 5:30 p.m. WAM hosts a viewing party of a live-streamed interview with visual artist Lorrance O’Grady and guest poet and activist Alexis Pauline Gumb; exhibition tour to follow. Free; registration required. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: weatherspoonart.org/calendar
IDEAL HOME SHOW. 10 a.m.–8 p.m. (3/25), 10 a.m.–8 p.m. (3/26) & 11 a.m.–5 p.m. (3/27). At the Tour Tiny Homes, visit the marketplace to view home décor and peruse new styles and designs by local artists. Tickets: $8+/adults; children 12 and younger free. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events
Enjoy opera excerpts from Black composers at 7:30, along with a keynote address by Naomi André—Black opera authority and Seattle Opera’s scholar-in-residence— along with presentations on the composition, production and history of Black opera. Enjoy a keynote by Naomi André, an authority on Black opera and first scholar-in-residence at Weatherspoon Art Museum Auditorium, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: vpa.uncg. edu/music
MARCH MADNESS CONTINUES. 7 p.m. The 2022 NCAA Women’s Regional takes center court at the Coliseum. Tickets: $30/adults, $20/seniors/students. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events
PAPA ROACH. 6:50 p.m. American rock band Papa Roach performs its Kill the Noise Tour with guest artists Hollywood Undead and Bad Wolves. Tickets: $55/advance; $60. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events
March 26
March 26–27
LET ME IN! 7:30 p.m. Rodney Carrington, a multitalented comedian, actor, singer and writer stops in the ’Boro for his Let Me In! Tour. Tickets: $45+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events
March 25 NATURE CREATIONS. 5–6 p.m. Let your child’s creative spirit shine with Chia Pets. Free; registration required. Xperience @ Caldcleugh, 1700 Orchard St., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”)
BLACK OPERA MUSIC SYMPOSIUM. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. (Symposium) & 7:30 (Concert).
CHALK WALK. 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Design art on the sidewalks of the Greensboro
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Calendar Arboretum on Saturday. Sunday, individual categories will be judged. Artist registration: $10; free admission. Greensboro Arboretum, 401 Ashland Drive, Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov (click on “events”)
March 26–27 PRINCESS TEA. 3:45 p.m. (3/26) & 1:45 p.m. (3/27). Greensboro Ballet presents a pre-ballet magical tea party, with Cinderella and friends available for photos and autographs. Tea tickets: $25; ballet show not included. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events
March 26
March 31
WALKER HAYES. 8 p.m. country music’s rising star Walker Hayes performs his Fancy Like Tour. Tickets: $67+. Steven Tanger Center, One Abe Brenner Pl., 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/ events
HIP-HOP TRIO. 7:30 p.m. Hip-hop superstars Rod Wave, DaBaby and Boosie Badazz bust a rhyme in the Gate City. Tickets: $40+. Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events
March 30
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CREATIVE CLASS. 7–9 p.m. Duane Cyrus, School of Dance professor, curates presentations and discussions that target community engagement and access to art for general audiences. A series of informal presentations and discussions on the arts — with a panel of curated guest artists and scholars —share their talent in an enriching evening of community, networking and discussion. Free. UNCG Dance Dante Theatre, 1408 Walker Ave., Greensboro. Info: dance.uncg.edu
CINDERELLA. 5 p.m. & 3 p.m. A lost slipper, a Fairy Godmother, Prince Charming and a kind young lady whose beauty sparkles from within— Greensboro Ballet presents the full-length classic Cinderella. Tickets: $20+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events
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O.Henry Ending
André Leon Talley By Cynthia Adams
A gangly Black
kid, left in infancy to be raised by his grandmother, a domestic in Durham, became the “last great fashion editor,” declared The New York Times.
André Leon Talley, who died January 18, wrote: “To my 12-year-old self, raised in the segregated South, the idea of a Black man playing any kind of role in this world seemed an impossibility.” His eyes “were starving for beauty.” Talley found it in high fashion. His death at 73 was first announced on Instagram to his 403,000 followers. Talley, 6' 6" in his stocking feet, became a towering figure in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W, Interview, Ebony, HG, Women’s Wear Daily, Vanity Fair and Numéro Russia. Yet, he remained gracious. My friend, Irene Moore, who worked for W, said, “In spite of his forbidding look, he was a really nice guy.” Maureen Dowd remembers how “He told me about his late grandmother in Durham,” after she wrote about how her mother descended from a line of Irish maids. Bennie Frances Davis was a stylish and proud grandmother, a lodestar. Dowd intimated Talley was a hoarder, stuffing his home with crystal, linens, even Truman Capote’s sofa. Like Capote, the legend was “prowling the world in search of glamour and beauty, disdaining ‘dreckitude.’” Dreckitude, Talley explained, “is the lowest point in the lowest ebb.” Talley’s touchstones remained his Southernness and beloved grandmother. These, Southern writer Julia Reed said, secured their friendship until her death. In his memoir A.L.T., André Leon Talley wrote: “At the end of the rainbow that has led me to a successful career in the world of fashion . . . I find that the things that are most important to me are not the gossamer and gilt of the world I live in now.” His deep Southern roots furnished “a sense of place, a sense of self.”
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Born in 1948, Talley’s sense of self came early. He recalled walking across Duke’s campus, where Davis worked in housekeeping, and being peppered with rocks by students. (He was on his way to read Vogue.) Talley studied French and literature at N.C. Central University, with graduate studies at Brown University. He interned in New York for his idol, Diana Vreeland, at the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute. She connected Talley with Andy Warhol, founder of Interview. Desinger Tom Ford kept notes, faxes and emails from Talley, describing them as “works of art.” Post Vogue, Talley experienced the chilling effect of “Nuclear Wintour,” the staff’s nickname for the brusque and demanding Dame Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue portrayed in The Devil Wears Prada. Despite all, Talley remained the toast of New York and France, where he had lived and was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Yet he was tugged southward to the Carolinas for frequent honors. Last November, N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper awarded Talley the state’s highest civilian honor, the North Carolina Award (for Literature). Since 2000, Talley was a trustee at SCAD, The Savannah College of Art and Design. He also was a headliner at Charlotte’s Mint Museum, curating an Oscar de la Renta exhibition in 2018 and chairing the 2019 Coveted Couture Gala. In addition, he was a television personality on America’s Next Top Model and artistic director for Zappos. He wistfully hoped Wintour would reconcile with him at his deathbed. On April 19, Louis B. Gates Jr.’s popular ancestry-tracing program, Finding Your Roots, will feature André Leon Talley. Yet, Talley already knew who he was — a caped crusader, fighting the good fight against dreckitude. OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor for O.Henry. She can be reached at inklyadams@aol.com. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR
A sense of self at the rainbow’s end
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