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October 2020
DEPARTMENTS 17 Simple Life
36 Weekend Away
20 Short Stories 21 Doodad By Maria Johnson
41 The Pleasures of Life Dept.
By Jim Dodson
By Jason Oliver Nixon By David Claude Bailey
47 Birdwatch
By Susan Campbell
23 Life’s Funny
By Maria Johnson
26 The Omnivorous Reader By D.G. Martin
30 Scuppernong Bookshelf 33 Home by Design
48 Wandering Billy By Billy Eye
92 Events Calendar 96 O.Henry Ending By Jeff Paschal
By Cynthia Adams
FEATURES 51 A Nimble Deer
Poetry by Terri Kirby Erickson
52 The Light Within
By Jim Moriarty In darkness, Beverly McIver sees and paints by the light and voice of truth — and amazing grace
58 A New Spin on Greensboro
By Maria Johnson Capturing the art and stories of the carousel
64 Nature Provides
By Cynthia Adams Designer Larry Richardson pulls straight from nature to color his home magnificent
68 Dream-Making
By Ross Howell Jr. Give Justin Stabb a problem and watch him delve into his palette of materials to solve it
74 Kitchen Confidential
By Billy Ingram When Daniel and Kathy Craft decided to update their kitchen, they found themselves looking more to the past than the future
81 Almanac
By Ashley Wahl
8 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Fine Eyewear by Appointment 327 South Elm | Greensboro 336.274.1278 | TheViewOnElm.com Becky Causey, Licensed Optician
M A G A Z I N E
Volume 10, No. 10 “I have a fancy that every city has a voice.” 336.617.0090 1848 Banking Street, Greensboro, NC 27408 www.ohenrymag.com PUBLISHER
David Woronoff Jim Dodson, Editor jim@thepilot.com Andie Stuart Rose, Creative Director andie@thepilot.com Nancy Oakley, Senior Editor Lauren M. Coffey, Associate Art Director Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Ashley Wahl Cynthia Adams, David Claude Bailey, Harry Blair, Maria Johnson CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Lynn Donovan, Amy Freeman, Sam Froelich, John Gessner, Bert VanderVeen, Mark Wagoner CONTRIBUTORS
Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Wiley Cash, Tony Cross, Billy Eye, Ross Howell Jr., Billy Ingram, Sara King, Brian Lampkin, Meridith Martens, D.G. Martin, Jason Oliver Nixon, Ogi Overman, Todd Pusser, Stephen E. Smith
Here for you In these unprecedented times, it is important that you know we’re committed to providing you the financial access, guidance, and support you need during this rapidly evolving situation. Through digital, mobile, and by phone, Wells Fargo Advisors is here, and we continue to serve you and support our communities so that you can focus on what matters most — caring for your family’s health and safety.
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Private Client Group Alex Sigmon
Wealth Brokerage Services Greg Costello
Branch Manager 806 Green Valley Rd. Greensboro, NC 27408 Phone: 336-545-7100
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10 O.Henry
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203 Sunset Drive $1,600,000
815 Woodland Drive $1,159,000
3206 Olde Sedgefield Way $850,000
6304 Poplar Forest Drive $839,900
3913 Brass Cannon Court $775,000
6998 Toscana Trace $679,900
2519 Rivers Edge Road $599,900
201 N Elm Street #605 $584,780
9 New Bern Square $525,000
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7 Waldron Court $469,900
7 Ashton Square $445,000
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1819 Wild Fern Drive $432,000
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2018 Rosecrest Drive $364,900
3729 Apple Orchard Cove $360,000
201 N Elm Street #408 $290,990
1206 W Northwood Street $284,000
5447 & 5455 Bunch Road $155,000
4910 Tower Road #D $134,900
2516 Rivers Edge Road $99,000
7748 Chesterbrooke Drive $90,000
2513 Rivers Edge Road $90,000
2515 Rivers Edge Road $90,000
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2509 Rivers Edge Road $85,000
19 Carlson Terrace $80,000
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1925 Otter Creek Drive $30,000
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9 Blue Gill Cove $1,164,000
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3 Granville Oaks Court $855,000
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SEE ONE YOU LIKE?
To arrange a showing or get more information on one of these charming homes, call one of our agents or visit trmhomes.com today.
Marti Tyler 336.210.7503
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Simple Life
“A Story For These Times” By Jim Dodson
On a lovely evening beneath the trees
not long ago, as summer green gave way to autumn gold, my wife, Wendy, shared a charming little story a friend had recently passed along to her via email. She wondered if I’d ever heard it before.
In fact, I had. But it had been many years since I thought of it and the wise soul who first shared it with me decades ago. Here’s the story. The Bohemian novelist and short-story writer Franz Kafka was walking home through a park in Prague one afternoon when he passed a little girl who was crying because she’d lost her favorite doll. The writer, known for stories that fused realism and fantasy, suggested that the two of them search for the missing doll, but the doll was nowhere to be found. Hoping to console her, he suggested that they meet the next day and continue the search. Upon his return, he presented the girl with a letter he insisted was written by her missing doll. “Please do not mourn for me,” the doll wrote. “I have gone on a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.” Over the days and weeks that followed, he presented a stream of “letters” that recounted the doll’s amazing encounters with interesting people she’d met on her journey through the world. The letters provided deep comfort to the little girl. When their meetings finally came to an end, Kafka presented the girl with a new doll that didn’t look anything like the original. To ease her confusion, he read the girl a final letter from her doll explaining why she seemed so different. “I have been out in the world,” the doll wrote. “My travels have changed me.” The little girl hugged The Art & Soul of Greensboro
the new doll and carried her home. Franz Kafka died a short time later from tuberculosis. He was just 40 years old. He never married. His stories and novels, however, were destined to become some of the best-loved writings of the 20th century, exploring themes of loss, grief and existential anxiety in a rapidly changing world. His very name — Kafka — would become a synonym for a world turned upside down by surreal predicaments. The poet W.H. Auden called him the “Dante of the 20th Century” and novelist Vladimir Nabokov ranked him among the most influential voices of all time. Many years after her meeting with Kafka in the Prague park, the little girl, now an old woman, found an unread letter secreted in her beloved childhood doll. “Everything you love will probably be lost,” the letter said. “But in the end, love will return in a different form.” Though at least one of his biographers later questioned whether the encounter in the park actually happened, it is reported that Kafka, a prodigious letter-writer, put as much time and care into the creation of the doll’s colorful adventures as he did crafting his own wildly imaginative tales. Regardless, the story outlived its author and has provided comfort to untold numbers of people wrestling with grief and loss, a timeless “healing” story long used by grief therapists and spiritual advisors. In a year that will be remembered for its incalculable losses of life and livelihood, its Kafkaesque politics and a historic pandemic that will change each of our lives, the doll’s message seems more relevant than ever. Everything you love will probably be lost. But love will return in a different form. Hearing the story again gave me a shot of much needed hope. It reminded me of the first person who told me the story over a bowl of O.Henry 17
Simple Life
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18 O.Henry
soup, a dear old friend named Col. Bob. During the last decade we lived in Maine, Col. Bob and I met every few weeks for lunch and conversation at a village cafe where the soup was homemade and the community chatter lively. Bob Day was a decorated veteran of WWII who’d led one of the first Army units over the Rhine into Nazi Germany. After his service, he returned to West Point, where he taught logistics. He made his mark as the pioneering director of admissions who is credited with admitting women to America’s top military academy by convincing his superiors to adopt merit over patronage as a primary means of admission. We first met one Christmas when Bob played the angel Gabriel in the annual Christmas play at our local Episcopal Church. My two knee-high nippers had important roles in the pageant. One was playing a lamb, the other a baby cow in the climactic manger scene. As Col. Bob stood hovering over the blessed setting with his goofy, Gary Cooper smile, one of his plaster-ofParis wings fell off and conked a baby cow on the head. The audience gasped with alarm but erupted with applause when the boy beneath the cow’s head turned out to be laughing. The boy was my son, Jack. Col. Bob was a volunteer grief counselor with a local organization that worked with families suffering from the loss of a child. As he explained to me over soup one crisp autumn day, his main job was to listen and care and simply “be” with people wrestling with unimaginable grief and loss. As I learned in time, Bob was uniquely qualified for such soulful service. One day during his early years at West Point, his wife phoned him at the office to report that their youngest son had run outside to play and been run over and killed. Not long after the funeral, Bob returned from work to discover that his grieving wife had packed up and moved out with their two other two boys. The weight of sorrow had become too much. Bob understood. He set up his wife and kids in a nice house in a neighboring town. Though he and his wife were never fully The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Simple Life reconciled, they remained best of friends for the balance of her life. A few years later, a second son set off to see the world before college, contracted a strange virus and died. Once I learned of these tragedies and others in his life, I understood — and deeply admired — the source of Col. Bob’s easy grace in the midst of so much personal suffering, including his unsinkable sense of humor and belief in the healing power of love. Every year for almost a decade, he showed up at our annual winter solstice party. Guests were invited to perform for their supper — to sing a song or read a poem to lighten the darkest night of the year. Col. Bob read hilarious limericks he spent the year composing. Bob’s thing was original limericks. Some were sweet, others were poignant. Some were devilishly blue. The solstice crowd loved them all. Bob loved literature and life. As I said, it was he who first told me the story of Kafka and the little girl with the lost doll. This was not long after my own father died and I was going through a double dose of loss from his death and a divorce that seemed to come out of nowhere, leaving me more than a little discouraged about the future. It was Bob — using this story — who reminded me that, given time and an open heart, love and laughter would come again in different form. He was right. Both came in the form of an extraordinary woman who has been the joy of my life for more than two decades — the same woman, I might add, who reminded me of the story of Kafka and the doll as we sat beneath the autumn trees a few weeks back. Hearing it again also reminded me of the last letter I received from Col. Bob a decade or so ago, inquiring about Wendy and our kids and our new life “back home in the South.” He informed us that he, too, had recently moved home to Connecticut to be close to his surviving son and grandchildren. He was volunteering as a docent at a history museum several days a week and still working with grieving families. The handwritten letter included several pages of his original limericks — the “greatest hits of an angel with a broken wing,” as I like to think of them. Not long after the letter arrived, I learned that Bob had passed away and drove up to his memorial service at West Point. It was great to meet his son and several of Bob’s old friends, students and colleagues. We all had stories of his amazing grace and healing sense of humor to share. Folks had a good laugh when I explained how a broken angel’s wing in a Christmas play introduced me to Col. Bob, a gift not unlike the one that Kafka gave the little girl in the Prague park. It’s still the perfect message for a changing season and Kafkaesque days like these. Everything you love will probably be lost. But love will return in a different form. OH
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Contact Editor Jim Dodson at jim@thepilot.com The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 19
Short Stories
STEP SHOW
She’s hardly a shoe fanatic — the most she ever shelled out was $175 for a pair of black, elastic boots with chunky heels and square toes — but she’s a sole sister, artistically speaking. Greensboro’s Marilynn Barr fashioned the 70 ceramic models featured in The First Shoe Collection, an exhibit ongoing at Alamance Arts’ Captain White House, 2130 S. Main St., Graham, through October 10. Built from clay molded on wooden shoe lasts from the 1940s and ’50s, the glazed pumps, sandals and moccasins are painted with fanciful designs inspired by the events of Barr’s life. “When the Earth Says Hello,” a pink-and-white confection edged with green grosgrain ribbon and spiked with yellow daffodil petals, recalls her flower-power days as a young woman on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “It’s got the bright sunshine feeling I’d get on the streets going toward Central Park,” she says. Info: (336) 226-4495 or Alamancearts.org/current-exhibits.
Ground Game
Now that you’ve spent plenty of time at home, gazing upon the South 40, why not give it an upgrade? The Greensboro Council of Garden Clubs (222-4 Swing Road) is here to help with its seminar, “Garden Designs and Plants for 2021.” Starting at 1 p.m. on October 17, a roster of local garden gurus will offer their insights for creating a green space that meets your desires. First up is Greensboro’s Lee Rogers, who will give the 411 on layout basics with her talk, “Landscape Design Concepts and Principles.” Want to know how landscape design is done on a grand scale? Then stick around for “A Vision for Reynolda Gardens,” from Director Jon Roethling, who brings years of expertise at N.C. State’s Raulston Arboretum and High Point University to the grounds of the Reynolds estate created by landscaping legend Thomas Sears. And everyone, it seems, is going native these days, so pick up a few pearls of wisdom from Guilford Garden Center’s Christina Larson, who will discuss native plant species that attract birds. Cost is only 20 bucks with the option of purchasing a $10 box lunch. For more information, contact Lorraine Neal at (336) 580-6617 or visit thegreensborocouncilofgardenclubs.com.
20 O.Henry
The Astrological Outlook for an Upscale Life
Could there be a bigger pain in the ass than Libra? And we mean that as a compliment. As one of the four cardinal signs, along with Aries, Cancer and Capricorn, Libra kickstarts a new season, beginning with the autumnal equinox when days and nights are of — Ding! Ding! Ding! — equal length. The sign of the scales (the zodiac’s only inanimate object) perpetually seeks balance and harmony. It rules legal proceedings and partnerships of all kinds (order in the courtship!) and pours its strong energy into righting wrongs, setting things straight . . . devil take the hindmost. No big surprise that social justice warriors, from Gandhi to AOC, are Libras. Or real warriors, like Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who led the Allied armies to defeat the Third Reich, and as President, ordered American troops to enforce Supreme Court – sanctioned desegregation of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. But his ferocity was cloaked with a dazzling smile set in a cherubic face. Libras also seek beauty, art and culture. Some of the most revered writers — William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe and Oscar Wilde — are Libras. As are some of the world’s great beauties (Catherine Deneuve), singers (Julie Andrews, Luciano Pavarotti), and controversial types (Snoop Dogg, Kim Kardashian, Lee Harvey Oswald, Vladimir Putin). But that’s the scales for you, ever swinging back and forth to balance good and bad, right and wrong, yin and yang. The best news for Libra this fall? Mars, the Tasmanian Devil of planets, is retrograding in his home sign, Aries. Finally! A calm after summer’s storms! And a little hubba-hubba, too. Enjoy it all. Peace out.
*Given the unusual circumstances currently facing all events and their organizations, anyone planning to attend any program, gathering or competition should check in advance to make certain it will happen as scheduled.
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Doodad
Restoring the Glory
Bill Allred restores timeless treasures for the simple joy of it
Before
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF BERT VANDERVEEN
W
hen furniture retailers mask up for the High Point Market later this month, Bill Allred will be mixing up stains in the workshop behind his house. While they’re rubbing in hand sanitizer, he’ll be patching cracks in wood grain — painting them so expertly you’ll never know where the split was. As new furnishings roll out, Allred will continue what he’s been doing for most of his 75 years: reviving the old pieces. “Bill is a treasure for North Carolina and for Greensboro,” says Benjamin Briggs, executive director of Preservation Greensboro. “He has spent most of his life learning the old ways of furniture restoration and incorporating new techniques.” Recently, Allred rejuvenated a 200-year-old whiskey table for Blandwood Mansion, Preservation Greensboro’s headquarters and the former home of antebellum Gov. John Motley Morehead Jr., a.k.a. The Father of Modern North Carolina. The marble-topped table, done in the Late Empire style, was probably made in Philadelphia or New York in the 1820s or ’30s. Morehead likely bought the piece for Blandwood’s expansion in 1846, a year after he finished his second two-year term. The handsome table, adorned with scrollwork and cove molding, was meant to be ogled. “People would have been impressed,” Briggs says. A progressive Whig, Morehead entertained those sympathetic to his causes: education, transportation and manufacturing. He offered visitors corn squeezins from his own distillery, locked in the table’s base. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
After The piece was passed down through the family to Dr. William Elliott White Jr. and his wife, Shirley, of Charlotte. Their estate donated the table to Preservation Greensboro in 2018. Benefactor Terry G. Seaks paid for the restoration; much of the mahogany veneer had peeled away from the white pine substrate. Allred returned the piece to its former glory by replacing aftermarket corbels, a missing mirror on the cabinet door and the lustrous veneers. “They just glow,” says Briggs. “They remind me of dark chocolate.” Allred learned his craft at the knee of his father, who owned a Greensboro refinishing and repair shop called Style-Craft. Allred retired from the family business, sort of, in 2009. “I played golf, but after a while even that gets old,” says Allred, who wears a cap from the public course at Gillespie Park. These days he’s picky about his jobs, restoring only exceptional pieces for individuals, dealers and museums. He completely overhauled a slant-top desk for the Ford Museum in Michigan. “I’m not in it for the money anymore,” says Allred. “I do it because it gives me something to do, and I enjoy doing it. I can’t get over the looks on people’s faces when they see the difference between what they had before and what they’ve got when it goes home.” OH Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. For information on Blandwood tours, go to preservationgreensboro.org. O.Henry 21
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Life's Funny
Going with the Flow Taking the green way to success
By Maria Johnson
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF HIGH POINT PARKS AND RECREATION
Greensboro needed a water feature.
The thought surfaced in the early 2000s, as city promoters and planners explored ways to kick-start the city, especially the anemic center city. After visits to similar-sized cities, some boosters floated the idea of building a downtown canal or a string of ponds to provide a manmade waterfront that would draw restaurants and entertainment venues, and therefore young people and tourists. That notion never amounted to more than a ripple — the biggest banks in Greensboro continued to be the kind with drive-through windows — but now, if you squint your eyes and add a splash of imagination, you can see another unifying feature flowing in our midst: the major greenways and their tributaries in Greensboro, High Point and beyond. Sometimes I think these channels hold a key to lifting the area, both economically and spiritually. The potential gripped me as my husband and I cycled the 4.5-mile High Point Greenway, including a 1.2–mile stretch that opened last summer between Deep River Road and Penny Road, near the Piedmont Environmental Center. The new section contains a stunning expanse, nearly a half-mile of elevated boardwalk winding through the woods that anchor wetlands around the Deep River, which ironically is neither deep nor wide at that point. No matter; the boardwalk is the star. Undulating side-to-side to dodge the biggest trees, the plank road sweeps through a forest that’s enchanted naturally by the thrum of cicadas; the trills of birds; the silhouettes of leaves backlit by the sun; the shafts of light that pierce the canopy and dapple the path. The boardwalk itself — constructed by subcontractor Backwoods Bridges out of Freeport, Florida — is a wondrous work, with handrails tilted inward and sanded at the joints to be easy on the fingers, and a smooth deck of closely-spaced planks that go easy on the tires and bones. The day we rode, under a crystal blue sky, a wisp of fall tickled the
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
air. The red maples and dogwoods were just starting to blush at the thought of dropping their green robes. The gorgeous purple blooms of kudzu — hey, even scourges have their good points — perfumed the air. Weaving through the white oaks and red oaks, we spotted sumac and poplar, pawpaw and cottonwood, persimmon and sycamore, ironwood and sweet gum. We couldn’t help but be floored by the diversity of timber. Yeah, we know a fair bit about trees. We also have plant-identifying apps on our phones. The natural beauty continued as the new segment ran into older sections of the greenway leading to its end at Armstrong Park, near North Main Street. Running along a creek called Boulding Branch, the path was lined with downy milkweed, yellow-flowering ironweed and the tiny white starbursts of wild clematis. There was another kind of beauty at work here, too. Stay on this — or any other lengthy greenway — for long enough and you’re sure to slice though a cross-section of your community, a vast and varied fabric of people and places. Unlike trips by plane or train or automobile, enclosures that whiz you past the world at speeds that make absorption difficult, walking or cycling a greenway brings you down to earth, literally. On the High Point Greenway you witness weary older neighborhoods, once home to legions of furniture factory workers; the redbrick grandeur of High Point University; the deep restful greens of Armstrong Park. You see young families — some of them looking different from yours, speaking languages different from yours — teaching their children to ride bikes. You see an ambling professor, coaxing chilly temperatures with a sweater tied over his shoulders. You see strolling students, weighed down by backpacks and bent toward their phone screens, commiserating. “Plus, my stupid-idiot-self did this at midday.” “You’re insane.” You see young lovers taking pictures of each other on the rocks in the creek. O.Henry 23
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24 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Life's Funny You see the man, sitting on a tarp in a tunnel, who looks down as you say hello. You see agile seniors clonking pickleballs at Armstrong Park. You see the Black Lives Matter fist spraypainted on a utility box. Walk or ride a greenway, and you’ll see your community in a way you’ve never seen it. We desperately need those opportunities to connect, not to mention the business opportunities sitting on the “banks” of the greenways. Right now, maps of the greenways in Guilford County look like a package of gummy worms, with multicolored stretches denoting “completed,” “under construction” and “planned” segments. From the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway on the north side of Greensboro, to the Downtown Greenway, from the Bicentennial Greenway on the south and west sides of the county, to the High Point Greenway — in theory, all of them will knit together one day. But assembling the money, land and will to join the threads can be slow going. The oldest section of the High Point Greenway was dedicated in 1989. The newest leg, the part with the boardwalk, took 10 years — from 2008 to 2018 — to get rolling. The holdup was a property owner who refused to grant an easement, instead offering the whole parcel for $3 million, according to Terry Kuneff, High Point’s interim director of engineering services. Finally, the resistant property owner moved, and the new owner, the Greensboro Chinese Christian Church, gave the green light. A year later, the city delivered the final leg of the greenway under budget at $3.7 million. Unlike most city projects, Kuneff says, this one brings kudos from citizens. “People just enjoy it,” he says. “When you walk through the wetland area, you really don’t see anything. It kinda provides you an escape. I don’t know any other way to describe it: It’s just pretty.” And pretty powerful. OH Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. She can be reached at ohenrymaria@gmail.com The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 25
Omnivorous Reader
A McCorkle Couplet Connecting tissue of two novels
By D.G. Martin
In 1984, a young North Carolina writer, Jill McCorkle, shocked the literary world by making her debut with two simultaneously released novels, The Cheer Leader and July 7th. The New York Times called her a born novelist. She went on to write three more novels, Tending to Virginia (1987), Ferris Beach (1990), and Carolina Moon (1996).
Then she paused to concentrate on short stories that won high praise. But in 2013 she was back with another novel, Life After Life, and then again in July 2020 with Hieroglyphics. Both books deal with the complications in older people as they face life’s end. Life After Life focuses on residents of a retirement home and the people who work for and with them. Hieroglyphics deals with one couple’s efforts to adjust to retirement and aging. Into these settings McCorkle injects rich and disturbing stories that hold her readers’ attention throughout. Life After Life is set in the fictional town of Fulton, North Carolina, a place not unlike Lumberton, where McCorkle grew up. In the Pine Haven Retirement Center, her characters come together as residents, staff, visitors and family. One important character, Joanna, provides hospice-like counseling and comfort to dying residents and their loved ones. Her activities give the novel a gentle storyline and provide a persistent reminder that illness and death are an inescapable part of the experience at Pine Haven.
26 O.Henry
A mentor tells Joanna, “Make their exits as gentle and loving as possible. Tell them how good it will be, even if you don’t believe it yourself. You’re Southern, you know how to do that.” McCorkle describes how family members embrace Joanna “like she is one of them. Lung. Brain. Breast. Uterus. Pancreas. Bone. The families discuss and explain their loved one’s symptoms and diagnoses for her as if they have never been heard of before, have never happened to anyone else, and she listens.” Each of McCorkle’s characters has a different set of challenges, but the onset of fatal illness and death is a constant. For instance, there is Stanley, a lawyer and widower. After Stanley’s wife died, his son moved into the family home, would not leave Stanley alone, slept beside him in his dead wife’s place in their bed, and began driving the grieving father crazy. To get away from his son, Stanley decided to act as if he really was crazy and therefore needed to be in a retirement center. He constructed a new image for himself, a kind of senility combined with a loss of judgment that led to inappropriate remarks to women. His crude descriptions of his desires and how he wants to fulfill them prove that his mental condition requires institutionalization. Stanley’s crazy conduct is an act to get him away from his son and into the retirement center. It worked. Stanley is only one of the several characters whose situations evoke sympathy, pain and laughter. Dealing with the presence of death is part of life’s experience. Reading Life After Life deepens a reader’s realization of its oncoming approach. It makes one wonder again why we are here, why we are still here, and whether there really is some life after life. At the end of Life After Life, one of Pine Haven’s most popular service people, C. J. (for Carolina Jasmine), is found dead in her apartment. It looks like suicide, but there are hints that something The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Omnivorous Reader is amiss. A single parent with a young son, C.J. had been secretly seeing a surgeon who had a wife and other love interests. The surgeon is an obvious suspect, but there is no closure to his fate. Near the book’s ending another character remembers “a train wreck in this very county in 1943 where over 70 people died, most of them soldiers trying to get home for Christmas.” McCorkle says she recalls her dad talking about visiting the crash site near Lumberton and seeing all the scattered debris. C. J.’s death and the train wreck provide connective links from Life After Life to Hieroglyphics. The father of a central character in Hieroglyphics died in the train wreck. McCorkle also lived in Boston for a number of years, where she heard about a 1942 nightclub fire that took more than 492 lives, including the mother of another key character in Hieroglyphics. When Lil, whose mother died in the fire, and Frank, whose father died in the train wreck, first met, they discovered their common bond, one that held them through 60 years of marriage. The story begins with Frank and Lil, now in their 80s, retiring to Southern Pines. They live within driving distance of the train wreck’s site, which is near the modest home where Frank lived for several years after his dad’s death. Frank and Lil have driven to the old house, now occupied by Shelley, a single mother, and her young son, Harvey. Shelley has seen Frank driving by before and is nervous. “It doesn’t help that that old man rides by so often now, his green Toyota slowing in front of the house and then circling the block.” When Shelley meets Frank at the door, he explains, “I grew up here. I would love to see inside if convenient. My wife, too.” Shelley resists, but at the end of the book Frank is in the backyard of the old house finding some closure. In the 300 pages between its opening and closing at the old house, McCorkle takes us deep into the lives of the characters we meet on the first pages: Frank, Lil, Shelley and Harvey. Frank carries the consequences of the The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 27
Omnivorous Reader
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train wreck throughout his life. Both his father and mother were on the train, coming from Florida to their home in Massachusetts, where Frank and his grandmother waited for them. Frank’s seriously injured mother remained in North Carolina to recuperate. She was sure she heard Frank’s father calling, “Don’t leave me.” So she stayed and ultimately married a local man. Frank joined her and they lived in her new husband’s house. Ultimately, Frank went to college and graduate school, married Lil, and became a college professor specializing in ancient history and archeological relics. Along the railroad tracks he collected relics from the wreck, including a toy decoder that he imagined his parents were bringing him for Christmas. Lil cannot get over the loss of her mother, a ballroom dance instructor, who had not told her husband or Lil that she was going to the nightclub. The questions of who her mother was with and why still haunt Lil. She is also a collector. McCorkle uses Lil’s collected newspaper clippings and copious notes to help tell a story that include her agonizing experience of Frank’s misadventures with a younger academic. Shelley’s son, Harvey, collects horror stories about the Beast of Bladenboro, the Glencoe Munchkins, and other scary tales that keep him awake at night and that he uses to frighten his schoolmates and add complication to his mother’s life. Shelley is a court reporter in a Robeson County courtroom during a high profile trial of the doctor accused of murdering one of his many girlfriends. The doctor’s victim was C.J., a major character in Life After Life. Shelley’s troubles with Harvey and Frank intersect with her life’s other challenges to put her court reporter’s job at risk. McCorkle brings these different characters together into a complex, layered and gripping novel, making Hieroglyphics, along with Life After Life, more proof of her storytelling genius. OH D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch Sunday at 3:30 p.m. and Tuesday at 5 p.m. on UNC-TV. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 29
Scuppernong Bookshelf
Yes, Another Crisis — in Publishing
By Brian Lampkin
P
erhaps by now word has filtered out to the general reading public, but book lovers (and bookstores) may have trouble getting the books they want this holiday season — at least not in a timely fashion that makes for a joyous Christmas morning. The arrival of the pandemic last spring caused most publishers to push back the publication dates of many books and most publishers determined at that time that the fall would be a safe time to get those delayed books out into the world. So now we’re seeing a huge volume of new books landing at the printers at the same time, which is overwhelming the industry. In short, they can’t keep up, and many books will fall temporarily out-of-print while printers try to catch up. Much like the toilet paper industry, book printers were pretty much operating at capacity before the pandemic, so there’s not much room for the sudden growth. What strategies can book buyers use to increase their chances of getting the novel they need? Some suggest doing your holiday shopping now, in October, to guarantee a December delivery. That should work, but it’s hard to think about anything joyous in the anxious times before this election. Some bookstores are stocking up on extra copies now in an effort to anticipate demand, but it’s not always easy to know what the public will demand. For now, let’s look at some of the major releases set for this month to get you thinking about Christmas in October, which has been the dream of retailers for decades. OCTOBER 6: Magic Lessons: The Prequel to Practical Magic, by Alice Hoffman (Simon & Schuster, $27.99). In an unforgettable novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author Alice Hoffman unveils the story of Maria Owens, accused of witchcraft in Salem — matriarch of a line of the amazing Owens women and men featured in Practical Magic and The Rules of Magic. OCTOBER 13: Ottolenghi Flavor: A Cookbook, by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage (Ten Speed Press, $35). This is another large and colorful book that breaks down the fundamentals of cooking into three key elements: process, pairing, and produce. For process, Yotam and Ixta show how easy techniques such as charring and infusing can change the way you think about cooking. Discover how to unlock new depths of flavor by pairing vegetables with elements of sweetness, fat, acidity or chile heat, and learn to identify the produce
30 O.Henry
that has the innate ability to make dishes shine. OCTOBER 13: Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel, by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum, $19.99). Jason Reynolds is always held close to Scuppernong’s heart (we were one of two bookstores in the country to earn a visit from him last year), and this graphic adaption will be a middle-school staple for years to come. Reynolds is a former Newbery Honor, Printz Award and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author. OCTOBER 13: How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back, by Jeff Tweedy (Dutton, $23). There are few creative acts more mysterious and magical than writing a song. But what if the goal was actually achievable for anyone who wants to experience more magic and creativity in their life? That’s something that anyone will be inspired to do after reading Jeff Tweedy’s How to Write One Song. Why one song? Because the difference between one song and many songs isn’t a cute semantic trick — it’s an important distinction that can simplify a notoriously confusing art form. OCTOBER 20: This Will Make It Taste Good: A New Path to Simple Cooking, by Vivian Howard (Voracious, $35). Another Scuppernong favorite (Howard’s food truck tour stop for “Deep Run Roots” is legendary), This Will Make It Taste Good provides simple but powerful recipes like her briny green sauce, spiced nuts, fruit preserves, deeply caramelized onions and spicy pickled tomatoes. Many of these recipes are kitchen crutches, dead-easy, super-quick meals to lean on when you’re limping toward dinner. Vivian’s mission is not to protect you from time in your kitchen, but to help you make the most of the time you’ve got. The Greensboro Bound Literary Festival Virtual Series brings an exclusive Zoom event with Vivian and chef Asha Gomez on October 22 at 7 p.m. Go to greensborobound.com for details. OCTOBER 27: The Cold Millions, by Jess Walter (Harper, $28). This long-awaited novel from the author of Beautiful Ruins is an intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early 20th-century America that eerily echoes our own time. The Cold Millions offers a portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams. Featuring an unforgettable cast of cops and tramps, suffragists and socialists, madams and murderers, it is a tour de force. OH Brian Lampkin is one of the proprietors of Scuppernong Books The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 31
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Home by Design
Charm and Spades Damn this kitchen and its quarantineer demeanor
By Cynthia Adams
In 2020, we learned the new kitchen requi-
sites: expansive, slick, lit like a Hollywood set for a Nancy Meyers flick, and/or the perfect set for your Zoom conference.
While most of us are scrounging around for whatever can be created with the random remains in the cupboards, writers at Fast Company breezily forecast the brave new world of future kitchens. Some boast smart fridges that sense what needs restocking — even possessing UPC barcode scanners that can transmit item info to your shopping list — and even order, if so desired. Extensive dry and wet food storage, cold storage that goes far beyond mere wine fridges, and specialized exhaust systems for both odor and virus removal, will be de rigueur. But not for everyone. We’re the fourth owners of a century-old house built by Ralph Lewis that has charm in spades. It also took an actual spade to chisel away four layers of kitchen flooring affixed with black tar, when we bought the place. An old photo shows me scraping madly with garden tools, including a weed claw. We hauled away mismatched cabinets from a cheap reno. Our vintage kitchen is still tiny. Most would have banged out more walls — at least two were previously removed in order to remove the butler’s pantry. Allow that to sink in: a butler’s pantry. File that feature under “delusional thinking.” There has never, ever, been a butler in residence. Sorry, Lord The Art & Soul of Greensboro
and Lady Carnarvon fans, to disappoint. (Although a Swedish chap at a Key West B&B offered to come be our “house man.” We had to decline, given the absence of downstairs quarters, no wages, not to mention our bewilderment concerning what a house man would even do.) Ugliness slowly yielded to eccentric charm. My brawny partner manhandled the stove from its dangerous location by a doorway. He installed tiles and created a cooking alcove, now one of the room’s best features. Later I insisted upon industrial appliances. I envisioned a range like ones you see in celebrity kitchens, with names that sound like stealth weaponry: Viking, Vulcan, Wolf or Aga. We wound up with what we could afford — a Frigidaire, unsuited to wartime maneuvers. “It looks pretty good,” I agreed, with indifference to actual performance. We sold off stock to bankroll modest cabinetry and said appliances; the market value immediately skyrocketed. “Enjoy your $100,000 kitchen,” Don groused. “Our retirement.” But now clean, with the underlying wood floor refinished, it felt refreshed. Just having a deep kitchen sink and a sexy range to twiddle with after months spent microwaving meals on the porch and washing dishes over the bathroom sink — positively made me want to get into that kitchen! And cook! Mainly, we enjoyed having coffee in said improved kitchen. Also, pouring wine, and reading newspapers upon the retiled island. And now? “Now that people are in lockdown, there’s all this joy of cooking going on,” says designer Kim Colin. “People are rediscovering sourdough O.Henry 33
Home by Design and learning how to grow useful kitchen herbs.” What people? Those would not be my people. A functional kitchen does not make me a cook, to paraphrase the joke, any more than standing in a garage makes me a mechanic. I have not, even once, produced a meal approaching ones enjoyed at (insert restaurant name here: ___________). Not at Print Works Bistro, Green Valley Grill, Pastabilities, Melt, Mythos, Osteria, 1618, Undercurrent, Fleming’s, Cugino Forno or even, God help me, Dunkin’ Donuts. Miss Colin, it appears that I alone among quarantineers did not learn to bake sourdough. Nor master the art of martini-making, dehydrated snacks, or homemade dressings. But I did just coin a new word: quarantineer! Oh, food pornographers. You are a fraudulent bunch. I am talking to you, Giada De Laurentiis! Giada, of darling platform shoes, bohemian tops, cinched-waisted jeans, tooth veneers and dangly earrings. Star of Food Network’s Giada at Home 2.0. “Worth the effort!” “So much better homemade!” “Easy as pie!” Pie-making, for the record, is not easy. Who coined that phrase? Pie crust dough sticks to a rolling pin like dog poop sticks to white sneakers. Also, I can spell the word umami but I have no idea how to deploy it. What is it, exactly? The “fifth sense?” Say what? Food pornographers like Ms. De Laurentiis got me good: I’ve la-
bored long, even risked Covid over chasing down odd-ball ingredients, only to find the outcome revolting. My fig jelly looked like pancake syrup. Thai Cooking for Dummies is not to be trusted. And don’t get me started on the inedible eggplant fiascos. My partner became a studied liar. Watching Don picking at the result disguised with cilantro (or basil; bigger camouflage and easier to keep alive in our quarantine herb garden) hiding the burned bits, he remains sturdily positive. “Well, hey! It’s pretty good!” I growl like a mean dog with range rage; a flour and grease splattered one. (A positive pandemic note: I don’t yet have Covid because I can taste and smell how revolting my concoctions are.) When he commandeers the kitchen, wrecking every countertop and space, leaving the gas range (why, oh why, did I insist upon that?) blotched with more oil than the Exxon Valdez disaster — I survey the carnage from frying calamari in a too-small pot. The calamari actually tastes good. Grabbing the Windex and paper towel — there’s an upcoming Zoom wine tasting and this mess simply will not do — I disassemble the frigging oil-slicked range to scrub, blot and spray. On second thought, just don’t Zoom me till the vaccine is ready. OH Cynthia Adams is writing a food porn exposé. The working title is, Embittered: That Taste of Ash Ain’t All in Your Mouth.
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Weekend Away
Mountain Men The Madcap gents head for the hills
By Jason Oliver Nixon
There’s a handful of rarefied
American resorts that are spoken about in hushed terms. Among those are The Point in upstate New York, Vermont’s Twin Farms, and San Ysidro Ranch on the California coast south of Santa Barbara. Blackberry Farm, tucked into the rolling hills and mountains of eastern Tennessee, also appears on that coveted, in-the-know list with breathy nods to the estate’s culinary prowess, superlative spa treatments, impressive wine list, and themed escapes built around literary and fashion “activations.”
I have been lucky enough to visit “the Farm” and was impressed by the estate’s gastronomic glories and bucolic landscape, so I was excited to hear that the Blackberry team would be opening a new outpost up the road from the Farm and atop a nearby mountain named, predictably, Blackberry Mountain. In a word, Blackberry Mountain is camp. High-end camp. Rooms start at about $1,500 per night. Just for the room. Envision a certain luxe rusticity paired with stunning vistas of the Great Smoky Mountains, interesting menus, endless activities, charismatic sommeliers, and private fire pits complete with dial-up s’mores. And lots of construction still taking place. But let’s dive deep: As you follow the directions from the
36 O.Henry
main highway through Walland, Tennessee — about a 4 1/2-hour drive from the Triad — you might ask, as I did, “Er, did we miss something?” “Deliverance,” my partner, John, said. But then you turn onto a newly asphalted road, and that seems encouraging. We drove past the vaguely Druidic gatepost emblazoned with an artistic “M” twice before realizing that we had gone too far. Back on track, we rounded a corner to the property’s actual gates, where we announced ourselves via intercom and were buzzed in. And then we got lost again at a junction as we traveled up and up the mountain. “Just like camp,” John observed. “We need a map.” A few turns past the many homes being constructed (the Mountain is mixed use in its focus — resort meets second, third and fourth residences), and we arrived at the 5,200-acre property’s lobby-cumbar/dining room, aka The Lodge. The views out toward the endless pine-shaded Great Smoky Mountains and the heated pool and spa lawn were breathtaking, and we lapped up the very calm interiors of the public spaces with the fire crackling merrily away in the bar. We were ferried by Lexus up from The Lodge to our stone-clad cottage complete with sprawling bedroom, spa-like bathroom, and private terrace with fireplace. A golf cart sat charging beside the villa’s entrance that would allow us to travel up the mountain to locations such as the fitness center, aka The Hub, and Firetower — and, yes, it’s a hike uphill, so the golf cart certainly came in handy. Settled into our neutral-hued (aka, beige) pitched-roof guest room, John and I set out to explore. A stay at the Mountain — unlike the Farm, which gears itself more to relaxation — revolves around things to do. Or as the resort refers to the post-reveille run sheet, “active adventure.” The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Weekend Away “We want the Mountain to inspire curiosity in our guests,” notes Blackberry Mountain proprietor Mary Celeste Beall. “Have fun with that, I plan on sleeping,” commented John. “If I have to be curious, is there room service and a sauna and Turner Classics on the TV?” And so I was left on my own to channel an inner “curiosity.” I skipped the Japanese pottery class — something called “raku” — but did try the Sound Bathing treatment, and that left me a bit perplexed. There were lots of musical instruments and singing, I think. Maybe a gong and a zither. I felt like I had attended a Sarah McLachlan concert, albeit supine. But then I didn’t like the bizarre “equine therapy” I tried at another retreat either, so maybe it’s me. Would I care to do a spin class? Or any of the myriad exercise classes, yoga, spa treatments, workshops, painting classes, and hiking trails and so much more? Er, no. I do too much of too much in my daily life. Well, maybe not the gong playing. Or the raku.
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Instead, I created my own version of “active adventure.” I luxuriated with a perfect martini in The Lodge surrounded by a heap of magazines beside the fire before enjoying the hot tub in a natty Orlebar Brown bathing costume depicting James Bond. But maybe I wasn’t being a good sport. I recalibrated and tried to fit in. I donned head-to-ankle organic Lululemon and generic Allbirds. “You look like a trustafarian from Venice Beach,” John commented, whilst dialing up for bubble bath and ice. “Very Abbot Kinney.” Still, I tried. In my own way. “Where’s the spa?” I trilled. “A farm-to-table pedicure, perhaps?” “And is there a mixology class at the bar? With complimentary nibbles . . . ” “Is there archery?” We lapped up two inspired dinners at the Three Sisters restaurant and hiked a bit and took the golf cart to lunch at the Firetower, where John and I savored the eye-popping views. I took part in a cooking demonstration and felt like Ina Garten for about an hour.
Paul J. Ciener
Botanical Garden
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Paul J. Ciener BotaniCal Garden 215 S. Main Street, Kernersville 336-996-7888 www.cienerbotanicalgarden.org
O.Henry 37
Weekend Away
So...
Staying at home for months has lots of folks rethinking their space. We can help. (336) 275-9457 dlmbuilders.com
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38 O.Henry
John slept in, and we ran amok with the golf cart and Instagram TV-ed the whole thing. Frankly, the golf cart was our favorite active adventure. Brilliant. I considered a yoga class. And thought about Pilates. And I have no idea what happens in a “movement studio” and don’t want to know. Happily, there were s’mores that evening by our fire. What I realized was that my interest in camp-like activities ended at about age 14 in tandem with the demise of The GoGo’s and my plaid Swatch. If I have to be active, I want to bike through Provence or hike Sicily. And if I am curious, it’s about art-house films, museums, and famous gardens. Although I do like a good lanyard. Sigh. I guess I am the wrong demographic. Get me to the Farm. So this bad camper ordered another martini and sat back to enjoy the postcardperfect vista and wait for the internal dinner bell. OH In their debut travel column, the Madcap Cottage gents, John Loecke and Jason Oliver Nixon, embrace the new reality of COVIDfriendly travel — heaps of road trips. To kick off the festivities, the gents pile into their Subaru and set off for the recently opened Blackberry Mountain (see blackberrymountain.com), the adventure-geared sister to Tennessee’s fabled Blackberry Farm. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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O.Henry 39
Private Enclave
5308 FITZHUGH TRAIL | SUMMERFIELD
For more information about these homes, or for help selling your home, call Kathy at 336-339-2000
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336.218.6706 408 C Gallimore Dairy Road Greensboro, NC gso_kb Greensborokitchenandbath.com
40 O.Henry
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The Pleasures of Life Dept.
Au-some!
All that glitters in Uwharrie National Forest
By David Claude Bailey
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF RANDALL DAWSON
Gold! I had you from the git go, didn’t I?
What word, other than “sex,” is so monosyllabically mesmerizing? So when our intrepid MeetUp leader, Hiker Steve, promised to show us dormant gold mines in Eldorado, less than 52 miles from the front door of O.Henry’s office, how could I resist?
I’d hiked the Uwharrie National Forest near Asheboro for years. Smack dab in the center of the state, it’s made up of 51,000 acres of public land amid some of the oldest mountains in North America. (Millions of years ago, peaks higher than the Alps towering over 20,000 feet, but they’ve since been worn down to glorified hills that top out at no more than 1,020 feet high today.) Hikers can choose from any number of evocatively named treks — the N.C. Zoo’s Purgatory Mountain with its Moonshine Run Trail, Jumping Off Rock trailhead, or the Tot Hill and Coolers Knob trail in the Birkhead Mountain Wilderness. But gold? Who knew? Only a few. The trailhead that leads to the gold mines isn’t marked and you have to drive through the largest mud puddle in Montgomery County to get to the parking space. (We
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
actually got out of the car and measured the depth before venturing through it.) But less than a mile down the trail on the right hand side of Big Creek stands a dynamited shaft that pierces the hillside and opens up into a shadowy caved-in area. Guarded by a humongous hoppy frog, stands a stagnant pool and an invitingly deep shaft that goes far back into the mountain to end abruptly in total darkness. A word about access is needed here. While our national and state parks admonish hikers to stay on the trails and emphasize strict preservation of pristine areas, national forests are designated for “multiple use.” This includes horseback riding, off-the-leash dog-walking, off-road ATV recreation, plus hunting and fishing. Also allowed under permit from the U.S. Forest Service: cattle grazing, lumbering and mining. Gold panning is also allowed without a permit, “provided only small quantities are removed for personal, noncommercial purposes.” Down the Internet’s rabbit hole I went, where I learned that there is, in fact, gold in them thar hills and creeks, and what’s more, people are taking it home with them. Need I mention that gold was selling for record high prices of just shy of $2,000 an ounce in early August? No, I didn’t have gold fever, I told my wife, but wouldn’t it be fun to “find a little color?” And so it was that my friend Randall and I, on a blistering hot summer day recently, found ourselves in the air-conditioned aisles of one of the neatest country stores in North Carolina — The Eldorado Outpost. Beyond the squatting Sasquatch statue and cases of survival O.Henry 41
w r i g h t svi l l e
bea c h
The Pleasures of Life Dept.
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42 O.Henry
knives, past Beanie Weenies and Vienna sausages flanked by bottles of Pepto-Bismol, not far from the Carhartt dungarees, a vast array of gold prospecting ware beckoned — miner’s moss, folding sluice boxes, sifting screens, shovels of all shapes and, of course, prospecting pans. After exercising my credit card to equip us with a $15 gold pan, biscuits because they were out of hardtack that day, and sufficient hydrating supplies, we motored down Highway 109 toward Midway and took a right onto Methodist Church Road until it met Coggins Mine Road. There, we went left and, just before the bridge, took a right through that gargantuan mud puddle. From a previous scouting expedition, we knew we needed to follow Big Creek (which empties into the Uwharrie River near what’s called the Low Water Bridge) for about 750 feet to where an old dirt road forded the creek. We crossed the creek, went past an environmental monitoring well and followed the trail until we came to a loop, the inside of which was fenced off by a substantial railing. Posted along its length were signs that said “Danger Beyond This Point.” One of them read “unsafe mine shafts & high walls, deadly gas & lack of oxygen, unsafe ladders, unstable explosives, deep pools of water . . . Stay Out, Stay Alive.” The 8-yearold in me reared his head and said “C’mon! Let’s go.” But there’s no doubt that the Russell Mine, as I later discovered was what we had stumbled upon, is a treacherous site. At least two open pits are off-limits, with ravines so deep you can look down upon the tops of 60-foot high trees growing at the bottom of the trench, which varies from 10 to 100 feet wide. This open pit snakes back hundreds of yards into the hillside with iron grates covering mine shafts here and there. On the top of one of the hills is a vertical shaft that pierces the ground. It is surrounded by not one, but two fences. At the bottom of the hill was a lateral shaft fenced off by bars big enough to keep a rhinoceros in, or maybe out. From the shaft’s 4-foot-high orifice — on a 90-plus-degree day — a constant blast of air no more than 65 degrees provided an ideal place for us to eat lunch. As any N.C. schoolchild knows, in 1799 the 12-year-old son of a farmer near Charlotte hauled from a creek a 17-pound nugget of gold, which his family used as a doorstop until his father sold it for $3.50. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
We would like to thank all of our clients for allowing us the opportunity to help you pursue your financial goals. Seated (left to right): Allen Hammonds, Vice President/Investments; Chip Pegram, First Vice President/Investments. Standing (left to right): Christopher T. Barbee, CFP®, Vice President/Investments; Robert B. Mitchell, Jr., Senior Vice President/Investments; John G. Scott, Jr. CFP®, Senior Vice President/Investments; Jacqueline T. Wieland, AIF®, First Vice President/Investments; Paul A. Vidovich, CFP®, First Vice President/Investments, Branch Manager; Gregory E. Gonzales, Senior Vice President/Investments; Phillip H. Joyce, Vice President/Investments
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O.Henry 43
The Pleasures of Life Dept. Word spread and other farmers began combing creeks and riverbeds for gold, which likely found its way into waterways from nearby veins of gold-bearing quartz. Quartz and other volcanic surface rocks are associated with the presence of gold, which is formed, as they were, deep in the bowels of the earth before being squirted and thrust to the surface. By the 1830s, prospectors were scouring the Uwharries for gold, digging up and blasting to bits quartz formations, sluicing the Uwharrie River and its creeks, and digging shafts down into the earth. With mines in Guilford, Moore, Montgomery, Orange, Randolph, Stanly and two dozen other counties, North Carolina produced more gold than any other state in the union until the California gold rush of 1849. At one time, an estimated 250–600 mines were in operation in the nine counties surrounding Montgomery County. According to an 1888 story in the Salisbury paper, the Russell Mine was “in full blast running their 40 stamps and working the largest output in Montgomery County.” Another account has men bringing rocks up from 60-foot-deep pits to gold stamps, huge weights that crushed the gold-bearing rock into sand-sized particles from which the gold could be separated. Surely, Randall and I surmised, some of that gold got away and
washed into Big Creek. From the piles of rocks heaped up all along the creek, it was evident we weren’t the first people to think that. In fact, we met a prospector who hoped to strike it rich there. Camping out and working all day in the creek, he looked the part with a 5 o’clock shadow, ragged cut-offs, bare chest and nut-brown skin. Holding a handmade spear, his eyes glittered as he explained how and where and why he did what he did. He didn’t have gold fever, he assured us. He had that once and it had cost him his marriage. He was just taking advantage of being jobless during the pandemic to see if he couldn’t strike it rich. And, no, he hadn’t found anything yet, but the day was young and he had several more days before someone was coming to pick him up. So on that hot day when Randall and I came back equipped to dig in, so to speak, we’d done our homework. Drawing from a pamphlet published decades ago by the N.C. Geological Survey (“It is still possible to find small amounts of gold in the stream sediment [and] in exposed quartz veins”), we panned “where streams begin to widen or change in velocity.” We panned “along the insides of bends or in slow-water areas below rapids.” We panned where “gold tends to work its way to the bedrock and often accumulates in crevices, depressions and potholes in rock underlying the stream.” We dug way down into the bed of the stream since gold is
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The Pleasures of Life Dept. 19 times heavier than water and eight times heavier than sand, which is why, the brochure said, it would end up in the grooves in our gold pans — if only it would. We went back into the woods a third time to pan in Betty McGee’s creek, another area favored by prospectors. But my fever by then had diminished and I brought my fishing rod and caught a few goldentinted war-mouths while Randall and a friend labored away. I thought back to our second trip to Russell about two weeks after our first exploratory trek. We’d stumbled across our prospector’s campsite, where he sat dodging mosquitos, flies and the smoke from his fire. His hands and legs were laced with cuts and gashes. His face was smudged with ashes. His hammock hung under a tarp still sloshing from the previous night’s torrential rains. Tin cans, rusted and burnt in the fire to discourage coons and possums, lay about the ground. But our friend was pumped. The day before, he had, in fact, struck a vein way down the creek from where everybody else panned. Would we like to see his pay dirt? Of course. He dug into a pack and pulled out a tiny vile the size of a hypodermic syringe. When the sun caught its contents, it glittered and shone like nothing else on the planet, as if it were reactive or somehow effervescent. His eyes gleamed. “I’m going back today to see if I can’t find some more,” he said feverishly. As we made our way back to the car in the punishing heat, Randall asked me how much I thought our friend had found after two weeks of back-breaking work.
“If it were salt instead of gold,” I said, “that’s about how much my dad would put on his T-bone steak.” Eureka! OH Contributing Editor David Claude Bailey prefers digging beds for Sun Gold tomatoes in his Alamance County garden to prospecting for gold in the Uwharries. The Uwharrie National Forest is billed as a “Land of Many Uses.” That includes hiking, fishing, mountain biking, dirt biking and some of the best trails in the state: www.montgomerycountync.com/visit/ uwharrie-national-forest/ The North Carolina Zoo doesn’t allow gold panning but you can spot Panamanian golden frogs and golden-crested mynas under a timed-entry plan. Or you can hit the Purgatory Mountain Trail that’s on the zoo’s perimeter: www.nczoo.org/ The Eldorado Outpost is a combination gathering place/ general store/ outdoor goods and camping equipment emporium, with a grill area that serves up hearty fare like tater wedges, biscuits and corn dogs: www.eldoradooutpost.com/ Downtown Asheboro’s restaurants, shopping and antique scene attracts visitors from miles around, but it’s Four Saints Brewing Company that really hops to the rescue of thirsty hikers, bikers and anyone else: www.foursaintsbrewing.com/
Escaping in your own backyard is easier than you think.
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www.MarshallStone.com O.Henry 45
www.bmhs.us 336.564.1010
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Recent events have highlighted the value of social connection and relationships with others. Studies have found them to be key factors to longevity, health and happiness. At our intimate Life Plan Community, we are intentional about connecting people. We invite you to discover how the lifestyle at The Village at Brookwood can contribute to your sense of community.
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After 30 years as an educator in the NW region of Guilford County Schools, Mary will be utilizing her skills in communication and teaching in her real estate career to guide her clients through the buying and selling process.
Š2019 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently operated subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate, and a franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc.Ž Equal Housing Opportunity.
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Birdwatch
Pine Dwellers
The familiar trill of these tiny warblers is never far
By Susan Campbell
When most folks think of war-
blers, what comes to mind are diminutive, colorful songsters flitting about in the treetops during the spring and summer months. Most warblers subsist on a diet of insects and therefore head south as the first cooler breezes begin to blow, winging their way toward Central America and beyond. However, for the handsome pine warbler, things are a bit different!
Pine warblers can be found across North Carolina year round. They are not choosy about the evergreen species that they inhabit, so you may find them in spruces and Virginia pines in the mountains, loblollies and longleaf in the Piedmont and Sandhills, as well as pond pines along the coast. Develop an ear for their vocalizations, and you will find that these little birds are quite common — even in mid-winter. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of pines in an area to attract them. Just a few mature trees in a mixed stand may produce a pair or two. Pine warbler vocalizations are limited to a “chip,” uttered by both the male and the female, in addition to a musical trill coming only from the male. His warble can be heard on warm days in the winter, and, during breeding season, a come-hither signal to potential mates. These little males, about the size of a titmouse, have short, slender bills, yellow bodies and yellow-gray wings that sport two The Art & Soul of Greensboro
white wing bars. Females are similar but more greenish — definitely well camouflaged to protect them during their brood-rearing activities in early summer. Flocks of pine warblers can number in the dozens come winter as individuals from up north mix in with our sedentary birds, no doubt finding safety in numbers. Also, they may be seen associating with yellow-rumped warblers that are found in the Piedmont and Sandhills during the cooler months. Both species may show up in your yard to take advantage of feeder offerings. Suet is very attractive to these insect-loving birds. Although yellow-rumpeds may also feed on fruit or sugar water, pines usually do not. They, however, may take advantage of smaller seeds or, not uncommonly, sunflower hearts. This species spends probably more time in search of seeds than any other warbler, foraging deep in the cones that are produced in late summer. For whatever reason, these feisty little birds are not very bashful when they are particularly hungry. On colder mornings, when I would go out to refill my homemade suet feeders when I lived in Whispering Pines, it was not unusual for a bird to land right next to me as if to say “Hurry up! Where have you been? It’s past my breakfast time!” I do miss having them in the yard where I live now. But it just takes a five-minute walk through the neighborhood to a ridge with a long line of loblollies for me to spot a flash of yellow high up in the branches and hear that familiar trill. Fortunately, a few handsome pine warblers are never very far away! OH Susan would love to receive your wildlife observations and/or photos at susan@ncaves.com O.Henry 47
Wandering Billy
Pandemic Politesse Covid’s comedy of manners, mobile eats and sweet treats
By Billy Eye “Etiquette is what you are doing and saying when people are looking and listening. What you are thinking is your business.” — Virginia Cary Hudson
Changing times call for changing
norms and new customs. To compare and contrast our polite society’s code of conduct with past guidelines, to stay au courant I’ll be referring to my grandmother’s edition of Etiquette by Emily Post, published in 1945.
For instance, you may have learned early on not to chew food with your mouth open. Today? Splash, spittle and splatter. To quote the upcoming 2021 edition of Billy Eye’s Etiquette, “What happens in the mask stays in the mask.” As a general rule, when strolling alongside a lady, gentlemen walk closer to the street, harkening back to when passing horse and buggies splashed debris from puddles swirling with equine excretions, donkey dookie and the broken dreams of the hoi polloi onto fair maiden’s petticoats. Today, a gentleman must still walk to the right of said damsel maintaining a 6-foot distance, even if it means promenading into oncoming traffic. When making her debut, a débutante should nowadays remove her face covering unless she has foie gras breath or excessive neck wattle. After absconding with an Amazon delivery from your neighbor’s front porch, if it’s something you can’t use, the box should be returned with a short but curt note apologizing for any inconvenience. Addressing a dignitary in a formal setting, say a congressman or city council member, you are to greet them with “sir,” “ma’am”
48 O.Henry
or, when appropriate, “you traitorous knucklehead.” According to Etiquette, wedding invitations should be ordered two months before the big day. New rule: Don’t bother with invitations silly, no one wants to attend your super-spreader event. Some things, however, remain constant. Reading from chapter 40 of Emily Post’s 1945 rulebook, “When Children Come To The Table,” nothing much has changed. Basically, it should never be allowed. Look it up!
* * * October. Eye like to think of it as the over-the-hump month be-
tween summer and the holidays. It’s also time for the downtown Food Truck Festival on the 11th, weather and apocalypse permitting. I’m a big fan of the Big Cheese Truck, who plan to be there. I sampled their fare at the new extension of Idiot Box comedy club now called Next Door Beer Bar & Bottle Shop, where a festive crowd recently took advantage of outdoor seating and mild fall temperatures. Nathan Stringer, formerly chef for Coast Seafood in High Point, along with his business partner Chris Blackburn, launched their mobile mealticket as everyplace else was shutting down. It’s been a fantastic voyage for these galloping gourmands ever since. With a rotating menu of globally influenced sandwiches, subs, wraps and brunch, Big Cheese bounced their way around the Triad this summer, parking at places like Grandover Swim & Racquet Club, Hoots Beer Co. and Joymongers. Expect savory carne asada tacos, garnish with pickled, roasted red peppers, artichoke pico and key-lime slaw; garlicy jalapeño crab cake sandwiches adorned with tzatziki, brie, tomato, pickled snow peas, roasted peppers; or an Italian meatloaf sandwich kicked up a notch The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Wandering Billy with provolone, olive-caper-parsley tapenade, salami, pepperoni, tomato and aged cheddar on sourdough. Sides include my fave: fried green tomatoes. Just goes to show you that, no matter how tough the business landscape may be, pursuing your dream can be the shortest road to success.
***
Speaking of following your heart by way of one’s digestive system — finding herself out of work with a newborn baby to look after in May, Veneé Pawlowski began doing what she does best baking from her home on the outskirts of downtown Greensboro. With orders trickling in at first from her circle of friends, word of (or fork to) mouth caused business to explode for what she s calling Black Magnolia Southern Patisserie. Veneé serves up traditional Southern classic desserts, often with a European spin. “ I use brioche for my cinnamon rolls”, Veneé says. “ And I make sure to have a cake, pie and pudding available each week.” Eye tried her banana pudding and it’s the best I’ve had since my grandmother passed! I t s a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, Veneé tells me. And becoming harder now that her baby girl just turned 4 months old: S he s getting a little bit bigger so she doesn t just sleep all day. Working out of one of three grand houses from the turn of the
20th century on the east side of the 600 block of Summit Avenue, her house avec bakery is on the corner of Summit and Charter Place. It has been painstakingly restored, with its majestic two-story high white Ionic columns up front and an inviting rounded wraparound front porch underneath corner bay windows. Next door is Tar Heel Manor with 4,000-plus square feet on two levels featuring four bedrooms, a sleeping porch, sun room and library loft. They can be rented by the night, week or month. In the pre-motel / hotel / Holiday Inn days of 1906, Tar Heel Manor morphed into a travelers’ lodge, then a boarding house before becoming a duplex in the 1950s. The house where Veneé and her husband, Ian, reside will eventually be re-converted into a single-family residence once again. “W e’ ll be moving very soon, just because wev e been expanding so quickly.” Each week Veneé features a rotating variety of delicacies including bourbon chocolate chess tarts, strawberries-and-cream bread pudding, red velvet cake, and strawberry lemonade cake, available by the slice if you prefer. With the holidays fast approaching you should give her a try. OH Billy Eye is O.G. – Original Greensboro. Black Magnolia Southern Patisserie can be found on Facebook.
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October 2020 A Nimble Deer A doe that was, only a minute before, quietly munching, leaps over a wooden fence, nimble as a goat. She rears up, after reaching the other side, like a trick dog — her front hooves dangling from her useless forelegs, her hind legs absorbing all the weight. She cranes her soft, brown neck just far enough to reach the succulent leaves of a dogwood tree. But the younger deer — smaller, less sure — stick to low-hanging branches, their tails flicking like little propellers that fail to lift them from the earth. – Terri Kirby Erickson
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
The Light Within
In darkness, Beverly McIver sees and paints by the light and voice of truth — and amazing grace By Jim Moriarty
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hen I was much younger and more rambunctious my mother used to caution me that nothing good ever happens after midnight. My mother never knew Beverly McIver. Working into the solitary small hours of the night, McIver often begins a canvas by projecting a face onto it. She underlines the eyes, the nose, the mouth, getting the drawing to her liking as if she were setting a table with the bare essentials before the feast. Then, when the light goes out, the paint goes on. And, oh my, does she paint. With a kaleidoscopic palette and audacious, yet economical, brush strokes, she steps into her subject — often not once, but over and over again, creating in the sweep of time a riveting series of canvases. Works can be built around a doll or a coil of black rope. They can be
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portraits of her mentally disabled sister, Renee, her father, Cardrew Davis, or even herself. “The fact that she works in series is such a strength. And what I’m so moved by is the freshness, the fluency,” says Anne Brennan, the executive director of the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina. “She must have a pact with herself about keeping it moving, keeping it fresh and not second-guessing. And, boy, she knows when to step back, when to get out. I think she trusts her intuition or subconscious. She’s paying attention. That is so brave. So brave and true to herself.” The Cameron is one of several museums — including the Mint Museum, the Crocker Art Museum, the Nasher Museum Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art — that hold McIver’s work in their permanent collections. O.Henry 53
“Imagine if you were painting a series of self-portraits,” says Brennan. “Think how you might become formulaic in your choice of the passage of light against this plane of your face — and she is so not. Every painting is as fresh and innovative and original and spontaneous as the next.” McIver’s magnetic laugh and her purring Persian cats — Clydie, Bona, Bella and Gracie — roam freely in her Hillsborough condo in the daytime. But, at night, she pays attention to the voice in her head. “They talk about artists needing natural light but when I’m painting I like for it to be dark,” says McIver, whose dreadlocks have fallen victim to a bit of pandemic-induced self-barbering. “It’s quiet. My brain cuts on. That’s my authentic self. That’s the voice that I have no control over but to listen to it because it’s always right, even if I don’t really understand. My teacher in college said, ‘Just keep doing it. Don’t worry about what it is. Just keep walking.’ I said, ‘I don’t know what to do next.’ She’s like, ‘Just go there and wait for that voice. It’ll show up.’ I’ve always let that govern what comes out. It’s always way, way honest. Painfully honest.” McIver grew up in Morningside Homes, barracks-style public housing a couple of miles east of downtown Greensboro, long since razed. It was the site of the 1979 “Greensboro Massacre” when members of the Klu Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party exchanged gunfire with protesters organized by the Communist Workers’ Party who had come to Greensboro in support of the region’s predominantly black textile workers. The “Death to the Klan” march was
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supposed to go all the way to city hall but the two groups clashed at the beginning of the march. Both sides exchanged gunfire. Five people were killed, four members of the CWP and Dr. Michael Nathan, the chief of pediatrics at Lincoln Community Health Center in Durham. The violent confrontation was captured on video, a slice of ‘70s history that plays on an eternal YouTube loop. McIver’s mother, Ethel, watched the shooting from her kitchen window. The family car, a lime-green Pinto, was shot in the gas cap, the bullet passing into the trunk. Ethel McIver testified at the trial of six members of the Klan, five charged with murder. All were acquitted. Beverly was 17. Though she was not a witness that Saturday morning — “I was working at McDonald’s on Battleground Avenue,” she says — she keeps a copy of her mother’s testimony. The man who lent McIver her surname is barely a footnote in her life. “I have some tiny, tiny flashbacks of him putting us [Renee, the eldest, Roni, the middle sister, and Beverly, the baby] in a hot tub of water,” she says. “We were all crying because it was too hot. But that’s it.” He was gone by the time she was 3. When he passed away in New Jersey a decade or more later, the McIver family didn’t attend the funeral. A child of desegregation, Beverly was bussed across town to predominantly white schools. “In order just to exist I had to learn to straddle both of those worlds,” she says. One of the coping mechanisms she found was a clowning club at Grimsley High School. “As a clown,” McIver once told Kim Curry-Evans, now the director for Scottsdale Public Art in Arizona, “I was transformed, The Art & Soul of Greensboro
and in many ways more acceptable to society. No one cared that I was black or poor.” It was the seed of a theme featuring both whiteface and blackface that inhabits many of her canvases, particularly in her early works. “I needed to not repeat living in the projects and being poor,” McIver says. “Whatever I do, I’m not interested in being poor again.” Her inner voice got louder when she squeezed her first tube of oil paint as an undergraduate at North Carolina Central University. “I had a great teacher who said to me, ‘You know, you have enough talent that if you work hard, you can make it.’ That’s all I needed to hear. I can make it.” The teacher’s name was Elizabeth “Libby” Lentz. She passed away in 2003. “I was in New York and got a call saying she’d driven up into the woods of North Carolina and left her car running and ran a hose from the exhaust into the car and the police had found her,” McIver says. “I flew back down to attend her service. It was horrible. It was really, really horrible. She was one of the first people that really believed in me, that I could have a voice to make a difference in the world. She was a painter and she taught me to paint. So, yeah, that was pretty sad.” McIver’s degree from North Carolina Central was followed by a Master of Fine Arts from Penn State University and enough residencies, exhibitions (solo and group) and awards to make the curriculum vitae Hall of Fame. She’s held teaching positions at Arizona State University, NCCU and, for the last six years, Duke University. Though she’s set up her easel in places as disparate as an art colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, a studio in Brooklyn or an academy in Rome, her subjects are inevitably close to home. McIver began painting her mentally disabled and epileptic older sister, Renee, 25 years ago and has never stopped. “I can paint Renee over and over again because she looks different. She looks like a little girl; she looks like she’s 70. Sometimes she looks fragile, like she’ll fall over. Renee is 60 now but has the mindset of a third grader,” says McIver. They talk on the phone every day. “I just ordered Renee a purple comforter. I saw her yesterday. She called me this morning. I said, ‘Renee, don’t call me before 11 o’clock.’ She called me at 10:15. I listened to the message. ‘Hey, I want you to know I really enjoyed that quiche you brought me yesterday. It was so good I ate two pieces this morning. I just wanted to let you know. I know you’re busy. I’m busy, too. I’m making potholders.’” In 2002 when McIver was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University, filmmaker Jeanne Jordan was a fellow at the same time — a fellow fellow, one supposes. “We were like across the hall from each other,” says McIver. One day Jordan told McIver that she and The Art & Soul of Greensboro
her husband, Steven Ascher, wanted to make a film about her. The result was the Emmy-nominated film Raising Renee. The initial idea for the project was to focus on McIver, her life and her art. But when her mother, Ethel McIver, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, “that changed everything,” says Beverly. Ethel McMaster McIver grew up in Staley, North Carolina, near Liberty. “I think they went to Asheboro to shop at the Walmart,” says McIver. Ethel began cleaning houses when she was 10 years old, substituting for her mother one day when Beverly’s grandmother was too sick to go herself. Closeted in the Morningside Homes, it was a trade that lasted a lifetime. “When I got my first house I copied the furniture, all the things that were in one of the houses my mother cleaned, winged-back chairs and drop-leaf tables,” says Beverly. When Ethel passed away in March of 2004, Beverly became Renee’s primary caregiver. The film, six years in the making, began before Ethel’s death and ends when Renee is able to move into her own apartment. It tracks — in an unvarnished, authentic way — the complicated relationship between the artist and the sister who knits potholders by the bushel and is eternally enamored of the pinks and purples of a third grader. “I’m not going to pretend like it was easy or that I’m honored to be Renee’s legal guardian,” says Beverly. “I love Renee dearly but some people wanted a film more like glorifying caretaking in a way that’s just not true. Caretaking is hard. I don’t care who it is.” O.Henry 55
One of the works McIver painted during that period was Family Praying, a powerful image of five family members, holding hands around the hospital bed of their deceased mother, their own flesh whitened to the point where some features disappear completely. “They are in mourning, sort of life draining away, the way color might drain from someone’s face,” says Jennifer Dasal, the curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art and the host and creator of the acclaimed podcast ArtCurious. Seven years later, artistically admired and commercially comfortable, McIver made Truly Grateful, a self-portrait that’s currently paired in the NCMA exhibit “Interchanges: CrossCollection Conversations” with The Virgin in Prayer by Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato and Jesse Burke’s photo Blessed. McIver’s painting is described as exuding “a calming, almost spiritual atmosphere.” Even as color explodes on the surface of her canvases, McIver holds back nothing in revealing her subjects, including herself. “Maybe facial elements, things that might be blurred over by some artists trying to, perhaps, beautify somebody — she doesn’t do that,” says Dasal. “And I love that about her work. She’s aiming to show the truth about somebody.” William Paul Thomas, a portrait painter himself and an adjunct professor of art at Guilford College, covered McIver’s classes at Duke while she was at the American Academy in Rome. “Her attention to the way light reflects off the surface of someone’s face is really fascinating,” says Thomas. “She achieves these really emotive,
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thoughtful, beautiful likenesses of her subjects with a kind of grace and economy. There’s a vibrancy and textural quality of paint that’s totally apparent when you see the work in person.” And there is no telling where McIver’s voice might lead her. During her COVID confinement, it led to a piece of thick, black rope. “I have pictures of everybody with rope,” she says and laughs. What started out as a series about being stuck in the house turned into something more. “My intuition said to me, you need to buy rope. What do I need rope for? What am I going to do with rope? Then I said, ‘Well, let me see what rope costs on Amazon.’ The rope was, like, $30. If it had been a hundred I would have been, like, I’m not buying a hundred dollars worth of rope,” she says. “I had no idea what I was going to do with it. So, thirty bucks, I ordered the rope. It was all coiled up and I pulled it apart and I was, like, I want to see what that looks like around my head,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself in the air. “It can look like an octopus. It can look like my hair before I had the COVID. My cousin, Lonnie, who lives in Greensboro was, like, ‘I got stopped by the cops again.’ He’s a tall black man, dark skinned. They pulled him over. They showed him a picture of the suspect.” She pauses. “OK, that does not make me feel better. I never thought of him as Black Lives Matter, I just think of him as my cousin Lonnie. I asked him if he would pose for me and I made this painting Lonnie Can’t Breathe.” In August McIver joined a group of artists contributing works for the People For the American Way’s “Enough” campaign. The The Art & Soul of Greensboro
organization was founded by Norman Lear, someone McIver met once in New York at a party given by Maya Angelou in honor of Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize. “I think I know Oprah, too, though I never met her,” Beverly jokes. McIver is simultaneously working on a solo exhibition for the Betty Cuningham Gallery, her New York affiliation, and curating an exhibit of African American artists for the Craven Allen Gallery in Durham, where she’ll also have a showing of her new paintings beginning Nov. 17. In 2022, she’ll have a traveling career “survey” that will begin at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and travel to the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem before going to the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina, among other possible locations. And she has long range plans to build a house on 11 acres in Chapel Hill where she’ll create an artist-in-residence program, aimed foremost at advancing artists of color. “I made some of my best work under those circumstances — when somebody is actually taking care of you and all you have to do is just paint. I want to be able to give that back,” she says. The painting Taxi Driver is a relatively recent acquisition of the Cameron Art Museum. It’s among the paintings in what McIver calls her “Daddy Series.” She met her natural father, Cardrew Davis, when she was 16. “We were standing in the kitchen, me and my mother. ‘I have something to tell you.’ I said, ‘What?’ She said, ‘Yeah, your dad’s at the door.’ And there was this big guy standing there,” says McIver. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“I don’t know what the real story is. I know my mother wanted him to pull her out of that marriage. If you met my father you’d know that he’s incapable of that. He barely loves himself. When my mother died, he did attend the funeral. And that’s when I said, you know, I’m going to get to know this man.” She gave him one of her early portraits of him. When he found out it might be valuable he put it in the closet. Another of McIver’s series features a tiny blackface, button-eyed doll. “She’s just a little black doll that my friend found online in an auction and purchased for me,” says McIver. “She’s been in a lot of my paintings.” Actually, she’s been in all of them, from the ones painted in Rome to the ones created in Brooklyn to the ones that were not yet imagined by a little girl in hot water in Morningside Homes, who grew up working a 6 a.m. shift at Biscuitville and a cash register at McDonald’s. “There’s such a separation in my head from that little girl and who I am today,” says McIver, “to the point where I don’t think they recognize each other. So, Gracie — that’s my doll I’ve created — is sort of that little girl. I paint her.” Oh my, does she paint. OH When not spending time with his grandprincesses, Jim Moriarty is the senior editor of our sister publication, PineStraw magazine, in Southern Pines. O.Henry 57
Carousel benefactors paid from $10,000 to $25,000 to sponsor figures on the carousel. The Greensboro Grasshopper, purchased by the city’s minorleague baseball team, was the first local figure made by The Carousel Works of Mansfield, Ohio. The company boasts a catalog of more than 250 customizable figures, which, believe it or not, includes an okapi, which looks like a cross between a zebra and giraffe, and a cassowary, an ostrich-ish bird. Both creatures are residents of the science center zoo.
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
A New Spin on Greensboro Capturing the art and stories of the carousel By Maria Johnson • Photographs by Amy Freeman
Y
ou’d be hard pressed to come up with a project that’s any more “of, by and for” the city than the carousel that was donated to the Greensboro Science Center this past summer by the Rotary Club of Greensboro. Open to the public under COVID-19 rules since August 26, the gleaming carousel and its cupola-topped roundhouse represent Greensboro in a way few local landmarks do. On the face of it, the merry-go-round is a eye-popping menagerie of 57 handmade animals, half of which can be found in the science center’s zoo, aquarium and displays, plus eight bench-style chariots accessible to disabled riders. But scratch the surface of the figures (joke, don’t), and you’ll find local stories galore, most of them linked to the business or personal lives of the donors who paid for them. For example, Katherine and Mike Weaver underwrote a cosmetic horse bearing the constellation of Capricorn, the astrological sign under which their twin sons were born. The family of the late Bob Cone bought a camel in memory of Cone, whom they lovingly joshed about walking like a camel. Susan and Vic Cochran sponsored a gibbon because, as a science center volunteer, Susan once donned a furry shirt to comfort and bottle feed a baby gibbon that was rejected by its mother. Life’s moments coming full circle.
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The tiger was sponsored by John K. Snider. The science center is home to Sumatran tiger brothers Rocky and Jaggar, who came to Greensboro in January.
Most figures, including the bulldog mascot of N.C. A&T State University, were carved from blocks of laminated basswood. The bulldog — championed by Chancellor Harold Martin, a Rotarian — was carved from a single block. Figures with distinct heads, legs and tails are carved from different blocks that are joined before painting.
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Spangled with LED lights and mirrors, the carousel is 46 feet wide and weighs 24 tons. It’s decorated with hand-painted “rounding boards” depicting key facets of Greensboro history. This photo shows World War II flying ace George Preddy Jr., a Greensboro native, and NASA astronaut and N.C. A&T graduate Ronald E. McNair. To learn about scenes on the outer and inner rounding boards, carousel visitors (after COVID) can use touch screens to read histories penned by legendary Greensboro reporter Jim Schlosser.
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Greensboro resident and UNC alum Frank Brenner, who is also a part owner of the New York Yankees, picked up the tab for the school’s ram mascot with Carolina blue horns.
Recognize the typeface on Biscuit’s tag? That’s because Biscuitville restaurant owners Dina and Burney Jennings picked this horse. The carousel also includes a pig, courtesy of Tommy Neese and his sausage-making family, and a rhinoceros and a bee, as in the Roy and Vanessa Carroll’s Rhino Times newspaper and Bee Safe Storage units.
Donors Barb and Tom Somerville signed up for the seahorse, which represents a resident of the science center’s aquarium, although the actual seahorse isn’t quite as …lavender.
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
You’ll never catch a hummingbird being this still. Peggy and Lewis Ritchie sponsored the jewel-toned figure in honor of their families fondness for the bird.
Recently retired N.C. State University athletic director Debbie Yow, a native of Gibsonville, lobbied for Tuffy, the school’s mascot, after speaking to the Greensboro Rotary and learning about the carousel project. Her late sister Kay, the famed Wolfpack women’s basketball coach, would love the “wolfie” hand gesture. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
At first blush, this appears to be your average pirate cat. But a wider lens would reveal-, and you’ll see it’s being chased by yellow lab. Joyce and Robert Shuman bought the cat; Joyce’s brother Freddy Robinson and his wife Susan covered the dog, a replica of their son’s pooch. The dog’s saddle is adorned with the names of Freddy and Susan’s grandchildren. O.Henry 63
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Nature Provides
Designer Larry Richardson pulls straight from nature to color his home magnificent By Cynthia Adams • Photographs by Amy Freeman loral designer Larry Richardson is just as prone to brake for newly-fallen hedge apples he spied along a city street as he is to pluck a seed pod and incorporate it into fall décor. Varying living and dried elements, he creates a moody tableau that resembles a Dutch still life, where you might find a ripened piece of fruit or cut pomegranate or exotica. Richardson avidly shops Mother Nature as freely as he does cultivated plants in his greenhouse. Summer’s end brings its rewards, Richardson says. But he considers autumn a welcome prelude — a time of harvest and found beauty. As one season opens the door onto the next, each of us yearns to welcome Nature’s changing mood and shifting palette into our own homes. Richardson, with two floral shops, a greenhouse and years of experience, is an expert at condensing the landscape’s kaleidoscopic transformation into stunning arrangements. In late September, he was way too busy to sit down for a long interview, but he did take the time to share some hints and creative insights into how he does what he does so well. Richardson recommends opening the eye to what is beautiful in the “quiet season” as vivid summer hues dim to duller shades of gold. He appreciates the restful muting of the natural color palette before the extravagant riot of hues and tones homeowners gravitate toward in the winter holidays. As an example, Richardson stands before a display he created, a sumptuous mix of intensities in plants and objects: amethyst, cinnamon, terra cotta and golden browns. An orange bromeliad blooms midst ferns and angelwing begonias, not to mention a cornucopia of gourds, dusky pumpkins, golden and green foliage, ornamental peppers, flowers, fruit, nuts, ornamental seed pods and branches of bittersweet. Many of those colors are drawn from a real still life hung nearby. Think like a painter, he teaches. Contrast and surprise are key to a pleasing fall arrangement. “When you think of fall, you think of cooler temperatures,” he says on an afternoon at the greenhouse, where workers are unpacking boxes and the interior of his showrooms are filling with fall-themed organics and The Art & Soul of Greensboro
an assortment of decorative objects. It is one of those rare September days, cool yet not cold, after recordbreaking weeks of scorching heat. By autumn, we face the reality of months of cold ahead, Richardson says. “The colors warm up. You want to feel the warmth,” he smiles, adding, “You want to be wrapped by the beauty, so that you remember to appreciate each day.” In September, everyone is thinking autumn and autumnal colors, he says. His job is to help customers find a creative direction employing a mix of the vintage and natural world. Yet in truth, watching Richardson as customers dart in and out, asking about plants and recommendations, autumn doesn’t seem as quiet as he suggests. The fall season looks more like a qualifying race for an all-out marathon, one that will occupy him, his partner, Clark Goodin, and the staff for months to come. Richardson’s two businesses, Plants and Answers: The Big Greenhouse on Spring Garden Street and a floral shop downtown send him hunting and gathering new combinations of natural components, plants and organic finds each fall into the end of the year. Any of us can do the same, no matter our budget, he insists. Richardson admires millennials’ fondness for plants — noting a heightened interest in the unusual (from philodendron to air plants). He likes what he terms experimentality, whether in choosing a plant, composing a planter or preparing a table for a special meal. Creativity is free, he stresses. To illustrate, he pops an ornamental cabbage plant into a tiny bag of water before tucking it into a centerpiece, where it will stay a few days before being transplanted into a planter. Richardson describes how he decorates at home. Even a creative must seed his creativity. So, he walks through his house like a visitor, “and I look for wood carved things, natural elements, old gourds, dipper gourds, apple gourds. At home, I will mix in fresh Granny Smith apples and red apples because those types of things will hold for a long time.” He seeks out an object to inspire. O.Henry 65
“I have a tendency to want to bring together lots of different elements. In the fall, I like to bring in natural elements. You may have a piece of pottery you want to bring in, and let that be your inspiration to start,” he suggests. “Then, I want to make my fall showcase the bounty of the end of the season,” he says. The summer is when you grow things and then in the fall you harvest them. “So, harvest those things, whether they are by the side of the road, or old okra pods, different pieces, like bittersweet, which I harvested outside by the greenhouse.” Draping bittersweet branches across a display adds tiny explosions of orange to a subdued arrangement. “It was only branches of green pods yesterday, but it opened overnight to give me the orange that we like.” He will use those branches yearlong, as they dry and colors intensify. “I like for the outside to flow into what you do decoratively on the inside,” he says. “You use the same color palette, and it keeps growing. I do that at home; you want the outside to be a reflection of what you would imagine is on the inside.” Richardson says he approaches seasonal decorating methodically — the exterior first. “I have a tendency to do my front door. Then the side and back doors.” As for the front door, it should introduce the foyer and interior concepts for cohesion. He contemplates decorative accents for mantle and dining room table. Even ordinary work spaces might get embellishment. “Then, don’t forget the kitchen island,” he reminds. Late year, Richardson appreciates the impact of orange — not garish orange but a persimmon orange. And blue. (More on the blue later, a bit of an obsession.) “I have a tendency to go with orange, reds, and golds . . .” Bright yellows are too intense. “They command the eye.” He amends, “they demand the eye.” For the table, Richardson composed an arrangement of fruits,
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berries, vines, gourds and plants with dark foliage — “anything that’s more natural in the fall.” Then, he placed ornamental peppers in silver wine buckets. “Branches are good with berries and fruits on them,” he suggests. If you’re entertaining, cut some branches off with the fruit attached. “Look for things you can use from your garden. Or dry hydrangea. Cut those blooms now and hang them upside down, and they will dry and have the fall colors.” A painting was the inspiration point for another autumnal display. “Pansies were the start. The ‘wow factor’ was the crabapple branches. Which is what you expect this time of year. And it will (still) be beautiful at Christmas.” He used pottery pieces, building upon tonalities and textures — from clay to brass and copper. “If you look, notice the pottery is there giving a grounding,” he says as he explains the display. “I brought in the carved bear pushing the wheel barrow. I had carved owls and used the wooden elements of the bowls.” These he filled with (faux) fruits. “Copper was my inspiration. Then, where I used dark foliage, it looks like velvet.” He points to a velvety, purply-colored leaf — “It’s a Rex begonia.” Richardson usually avoids standard oranges and greens, even in autumn. Instead, he chose a bromeliad for an unexpected accent. Adding in dried pods to the display summoned a cinnamon color. “I have a tendency to use the French style and clump things. Rather than spread something throughout an arrangement, clump it. You get much more impact,” he explains. And strive for dimension. The finishing touch to an arrangement is the bittersweet. “It gives that air and texture — if you took that away, it would be pretty, but this adds depth to the arrangement.” Richardson has strewn leaves as if they fell there naturally; The Art & Soul of Greensboro
there are dried artichoke and cat tails. He gives emphasis to the center of the table — not even the mantle takes precedence. “Anything else is auxiliary for the table.” Richardson used a vintage goose tureen as the focal point of the centerpiece. Again, he cleverly tucked small cabbage plants into the display, which can later be transplanted outside. “I placed brass tureens on the mantle to tie that in,” he explains, along with an elongated planter holding ferns. Indian corn and leaves serve as accents. “I can add berries, add dried bittersweet, and I might tuck in a pear that is fresh. I have a tendency to warm things up (color wise) in the winter, then cool them down in the spring and summer.” Fall décor can extend into Thanksgiving and beyond, designing everything with that in mind. “Even the goose on the table can stay till Christmas,” he indicates. “I would introduce more greens and evergreens.” “Lots of times when I put together the elements of a table-scape, I think about what I want to get out of it. To make life a little easier, I do want to use the goose theme for Christmas as well.” The table china is a Lenox white pattern rimmed in cobalt blue. Over the mantle hangs a painting that inspired the arrangement below. An oval antique fish platter, in blue accented with orange, hangs above it. Paintings are frequently moved, depending upon the season. “Art can be moved,” he says. “I do that all the time. I change my art depending upon what I’m trying to achieve.” For instance, if he’s entertaining, a painting might take a place of honor in the dining room. Or, “It could be the lighting has changed throughout the The Art & Soul of Greensboro
year, and makes the art take on a whole different look.” The buffet is set with serving pieces. Richardson likes to place pieces from his massive blue-and-white porcelain collection. He marks the moment whether entertaining or not. It’s very French to do this, he explains. “Their lives are built around eating and entertainment. And they pull out the stops for just two.” So does Richardson. And he enjoys a sense of occasion. Meanwhile, with autumn giving way to the intensive holiday season, Richardson mans the greenhouse as Goodin runs the florist. He also sells antiques at the Carriage House and the Shoppes on Patterson. But plants are at the heart of his work. Like many Triad businesses, Richardson got his start at Greensboro’s Super Flea, where he sold plants. (It was also a place where he scouted vintage treasures.) “It was in July of 1975, the first Super Flea. I started Plants and Answers later that year.” Former teacher Pat Fogleman joined him becoming “my good man Friday. Now she’s much more than an assistant.” He built the greenhouse in 1976. He told Fogleman that orchids would be good sellers. She fretted they were too expensive for a flea market. He told her buyers would value them if she did. He created combination baskets (“some call them European gardens”) and though she was initially uncertain, Richardson saw that she possessed an eye “and just had to develop it.” Fogleman is a mainstay at the greenhouse, where she helps customers find the right touch of natural color to warm their home, he says. “She has a following,” he smiles. Richardson started out thinking he would be an academic; he has so many interests, ranging from botany to antiquities. But he distills all of it down to this: “I love beauty.” From early autumn till the ball drops on New Year’s Eve, he will be in a mad dash to beautify Triad homes and gardens. He and Goodin will watch Times Square via TV on the third floor of their Sunset Hills home. The snowdrops and crocus will be nudging their way up, soon to appear. OH Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor to O.Henry. Tips for Fall Décor: “Go big or go home,” he says when it comes to more appealing pots and container gardens. Z “Go for unusual.” Richardson is not a big fan of chrysantmums, which are ubiquitous. Z Visit garden centers and nurseries and seek out unusual foliage and colors. Z Go organic: get into the woods or your own yard. Z Dry your own flowers. Z Pick up dried pods and plants and use them. Be original and avoid trends: (“Ghost pumpkins are out,” he advises.) Z
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Loft at Congdon Yards
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
DreamMaking
Give Justin Stabb a problem and watch him delve into his palette of materials to solve it By Ross Howell Jr. • Photographs by Amy Freeman
A
rchitect Peter Freeman had a problem. While he was pleased with his ambitious design for a light fixture for a medical facility, he wasn’t sure how to build it. He wasn’t even sure it could be built. So Freeman did what many architects, designers, museums, corporations, nonprofits and private individuals are doing these days. He reached out to Stabb Designs in High Point. Thirty-something Justin Stabb founded his business in 2016 following a remarkably challenging career path. He’d designed and built manufacturing machines. He’d installed robotic-arm work stations and brought them online for major corporations. He’d developed processing and manufacturing systems on-site for big industry. Yet the mechanical engineering — what Stabb calls the “function” side — of his creativity had always been driven by a love for artistic creation. I was determined to learn more. So here I am, opening the door to a low-slung building on West Green Drive. I’m greeted by a tall man with a shaved head, short-clipped beard and dark brown eyes. In this age of Covid, I’m wearing a surgical mask, and we keep our distance, nodding The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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Justin Stabb at his coffe house, ’83 Custom Coffee greetings. Though we don’t shake hands, I see his are big, the hands of a man who makes things. Sophisticated computer equipment is mingled among work benches and tool cabinets. Stabb introduces me to Brittany Rankin, the office manager, his first employee. He hired her as a barista for ’83 Custom Coffee, originated in 2018, another Stabb enterprise. His “coffee house” is a black pickup painted with the ’83 Custom Coffee logo and modified truck bed — I walked by it on West Green Drive as I entered the building. It provides freshbrewed gourmet coffee and a pleasant place to gather to share ideas. While the truck café left some High Pointers scratching their heads, it’s now a fixture in town. “I come from an unconventional background,” Stabb says. “My grandmother was a professional oil painter. My grandfather was a patent attorney.” So from the time he was a boy, Stabb’s imagination was shaped by both creation and construction. Stabb tells me his father was a contractor in Oakland, California, who built and set up a small work bench in the back yard, where his son could glue together model airplanes and car kits while he worked on building projects. “I remember sitting in that golden California sunshine, watching my Dad,” Stabb says. “It was great, getting to see the things he made.” Later Stabb moved to Rochester, New York, and would study at the Rochester Institute of Technology, one of the leading universities in the nation for training in technology, the arts and design. Along the way, Stabb started working at the age of 15 for Mahany Welding Supply, a company founded in Rochester in 1946. He contin-
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ued for seven years, gaining more responsibility for larger projects as he proved his abilities and his experience grew. There, Stabb learned welding and blacksmithing from Michael Krupnicki, the owner of the business. In 2001, Krupnicki had decided to start offering welder training classes not only for professional tradesmen, but also for the general public, through day clinics, night courses, collegiate and vocational classes, plus professional welder qualification programs. His programs were so successful that in 2012 Krupnicki formed Rochester Arc + Flame Center, where experienced professionals and world-class artists now offer classes in welding, smithing, glasswork and jewelry. “Mike’s a great teacher,” Stabb adds. He walks me to the area of the shop where he finished the Freeman lighting piece. “First we had to come up with the parts that would be assembled for the light,” Stabb says. “We needed to design something that would be strong, but relatively lightweight.” Using his 3D printer, Stabb designed and made a prototype for the element, which could then be precisely reproduced in quantity. Next was the colored glass for the light. Following Freeman’s design, an intricate shape had to be carved out of the centers of the small glass panes. “One of our suppliers used water-jet technology to cut the holes,” Stabb says. “We didn’t know for sure that the water jet would work, but it did.” Stabb adds that he likes projects that test the limits of fabrication technology. The problem with the etched-out panes was that the edges of cuts The Art & Soul of Greensboro
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MICHAEL BLEVINS
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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were sharp and brittle-looking. “So we fired them again in the kiln,” he says, handing me one of the leftover panes to inspect. The edges are smooth to the touch, elegant-looking. “Firing the glass again smoothed the edges, made them organiclooking,” Stabb says. “That’s what we were looking for.” Stabb explains that pieces like Peter Freeman’s light fixture give him the opportunity to excel. “I describe what I do as ‘dream-making,’” he says. “Give me a problem. Let me mix from a palette of materials to solve it.” We move on to an element from a different lighting project. It’s bigger than a hollowed-out bass drum. Encircling its center is a ring of LEDs. Next Stabb shows me one of the fins that will be attached to the drum. “Each one of these fixtures, when finished, will be about 12 feet in diameter,” he says. “See the holes in the top?” he asks. I nod. “That’s way more than we need to suspend it,” Stabb continues. “But we’re using wire, and we wanted an industrial look.” He opens a door and we move into a back area of the shop. Here the other drum light fixtures are stored, awaiting assembly, along with other projects. He points to an impressive air-cleaning system that reaches from floor to ceiling. Calling on his machine design experience, Stabb reverse-engineered the system from diagrams and other systems he’d
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seen, making it himself and saving thousands of dollars from what he would’ve paid had he purchased one. As we talk, another of Stabb’s employees walks in. He’s lanky, with blue eyes and sandy blond hair and looks to be college age. His name is Clayton Brewer. Stabb tells me his specialties are fabrication and installation of big displays. “His grandmother wants him to go to college,” Stabb says. He explains that Brewer isn’t really interested, so they’re developing a special curriculum that will cover fabrication and design and art, along with management and accounting courses from different institutions so Brewer can one day run his own business. Stabb tells me his other employee, craftsman Brad Grubb, is out of the office working on location. Looking at the air cleaner, I ask Stabb if he’s ever considered going back to the industrial sector. “Designing machines for manufacturing is something I used to do full-time,” he responds. “It’s lucrative, but it’s all function and no art.” He explains that the work he’s done for manufacturers will only be experienced by the employees who work in their facilities. “I want to make things my kids will get to see,” Stabb adds. For that reason he’s keeping his focus on some artistic projects that can be viewed in commercial and public settings. “But I like making big things,” he says. “That way I can leverage my industrial experience.” Stabb Designs built a life-size wooden train locomotive that was installed at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. They’ve The Art & Soul of Greensboro
fabricated custom lighting fixtures made from wooden bats and made beer taps from old repurposed tools for a baseball stadium. The magnificent light designed by Freeman? It’s ready for installation at Bethany Medical. So what dreams does dream-maker Justin Stabb envision for himself? Right now his company is designing a section of Plant 7 at Congdon Yards in High Point. The downtown facility will provide access for fabricators and designers to expensive, state-of-the-art equipment inaccessible to the budgets of small companies, especially start-ups. “In November Stabb Designs will be moving into a 14,000-squarefoot facility,” he says. That’s a big step up from the modest building I’m visiting now. “And someday I want to have a product line,” Stabb continues. “Maybe I’ll downscale some of our big projects. I like repurposing. And I want to find ways to repurpose what I’ve learned.” As I’m about to leave, I notice a little work bench made of wood near Stabb’s computer. The low bench has a vise, screwdrivers, childsize braces with auger bits and other tools scattered over its surface. “For my kids,” Stabb says. He smiles. As I leave, I think of that young boy sitting in the California sun, watching his father make something. I expect Stabb Designs will be making a world of dreams in the years ahead. OH Ross Howell Jr. is a novelist and freelance magazine writer in Greensboro. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
When Daniel and Kathy Craft decided to update their kitchen, they found themselves looking more to the past than the future
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF DAVID AND LAUREN CLARK.
By Billy Ingram
as anyone ever been to a lively party where the most entertaining folks didn’t congregate in the kitchen? It’s the heart and hearth of a contemporary home, a place for relaxation and creative activity, the only room where the entire family daily congregates. That always presents a genuine challenge for interior designers, but even more so when they’re tackling one of the city’s most revered mid-century masterpieces. “We knew we wanted a Loewenstein,” Kathy Craft says of her and husband Daniel’s search for the perfect home more than a decade ago. They had looked at almost a dozen houses in the Irving Park area designed by famed architect Edward Loewenstein before contacting Lee Carter about the status of the home he grew up and lived in. Was he willing to sell? “Lee contacted us six months The Art & Soul of Greensboro
later,” Kathy recounts. He told them he would consider an offer, but “wanted the house to remain as is — they wanted it taken care of,” she says. “I walked in, got six feet into the door and I’m like, ‘I don’t even need to see any more.’” Katie Redhead of Tyler Redhead and McAlister Real Estate is not surprised by the Crafts’ experience. “It’s amazing how we are seeing more demand for the mid-century Loewenstein designed homes,” she says. Sadly, many of Loewenstein’s finest homes fell prey to the bulldozer over the last two decades as developers valued the acreage more than the heritage. “Right now we’ve got such high demand, if one did come on the market I think it would be very well received. And I probably wouldn’t have said that 10 years ago,” Redhead says. Designed for Wilbur and Martha Carter, the Carter House, loO.Henry 75
Original kitchen, photographed during a 1952 photoshoot commissioned by famed architect Edward Loewenstein. cated on Country Club Drive, was the architect’s first fully realized Modernist design. Completed in 1951, Loewenstein’s signature can be seen in the integrated carport, slate floors in the common areas front and back on either side of a spacious dining room, the enormous fireplace serving as a load bearing wall, and an array of picture windows encircling the home to allow the majesty of the verdant outdoors into every room. “We replaced all the windows,” Kathy Craft says. “We’ve been here 16 years and it took us that long to do all of that.” Organized around an L shape, exterior flourishes, repeated in the interior, include native bluestone, brick walls and wormy-chestnut siding. The yard is so large, extending all the way to Cornwallis, there was space for a horse stable. Influenced by the Usonian houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Carter House is literally a work of art, recognized so by the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. “I would say the Carter House, for Loewenstein, put his signature on the map in terms of what he could accomplish,” says Patrick Lucas, director of the School of Interiors at the University of Kentucky and author of Modernism at Home: Edward Loewenstein’s Mid-Century Architectural Innovation in the Civil Rights Era. According to Lucas, who was on faculty of UNCG from 2002 to 2013, there are probably 20 or 25 of Loewenstein’s houses still
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standing, “Sprinkled here and yon through the Greensboro area,” he says. “Some in Irving Park. There’s a great one in Pleasant Garden. There’s one in Sedgefield.” In his opinion, the Carter House is one of Loewenstein’s finest, “certainly in terms of the big ones that he was known for. It’s a really splendid home because it has an extra room on the front that is sort of a double living room. It’s a pretty brave space and, as a result, the house is quite open.” “It had good bones,” Kathy Craft says of the home when they took possession. Because of the engineering bent of Loewenstein’s firm, his homes were almost overbuilt, so solid they don’t have a lot of issues that modern buildings develop over time. “It needed a lot of cosmetic work, ripping the shag carpeting out, stripping and painting, phone lines and curtains, while trying to keep everything as minimal as possible,” Kathy says. Other than updated appliances, the kitchen hadn’t changed significantly in nearly 70 years. “We lived with the original kitchen the entire time,” Kathy Craft says. “And I was fine with it but Daniel said, ‘Let’s blow it up.’ I wasn’t the instigator there, for once.” That’s when Emma Legg and Sydney Foley of Kindred Interior Studios were brought in to reimagine that space. “One of the reasons we named our company Kindred,” Legg says, “is that it’s really important to us that each and every project reflects our client’s style and taste, their wants and needs. When someone walks into The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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a space we’ve designed, our goal is for that person to say, like in this instance, ‘Oh, this looks perfect for Daniel and Kathy Craft.’” “We were just both so excited about the project,” Foley says. “When we pulled up we knew it was going to be really fun because we could get really deep into a project like this because there is such a specific look.” Not only were they going for a mid-century Modern look, “We’re also looking to do the whole house justice because it’s a historic home, it is going to be noted, and we want to make sure we’re doing old Ed [Loewenstein] justice, as well as the Crafts.” “One challenge that we had is, Kathy and Daniel are both minimalists,” Legg says. “The wall that their range is on backs up to their dining room and it’s rather long. They were pretty adamant that they did not want to fill that wall with upper cabinets.” That’s when they came up with the idea of adding a thin wedge of shelving above the range that rounds the corner into the housing for the oven and microwave. “This gave us an opportunity to bring the countertop up as a backsplash without going to the full wall,” Legg says. “This keeps the lines very clean but at the same time gives it just a little bit of interest, to keep from being boring. We also added wall sconces for additional cast lighting while they’re cooking and also if they wanted to display any objects, to highlight those as well.” “We can make anything beautiful,” Foley says. “But for us the measure of a successful kitchen is about function, and how the work flows.” That’s why they worked in tandem with Pat Parr of Classic Construction. There’s a rule of thumb for interior designers called the “Work Triangle” that incorporates a room’s three main items — in this case the refrigerator, sink and range — and how that space functions within the floor plan. “Are you able to get from A to B without having to climb over your island, that kind of thing,” Foley notes. “We get very detailed with our clients about what’s going to be in each drawer, what kind of features do they require, do they need peg storage for dishes, layered storage for silverware?” The original floors were concrete topped with vinyl-asbestos tiles, all the rage in the fifties. “The Crafts wanted a real terrazzo floor,” Legg says. “Based on the quality of the concrete and the amount of work that they were going to have to do, real terrazzo was not feasible. After a lot of research, we came up with a porcelain tile that looks like terrazzo and, once installed, we felt like it was really beautiful and it did mimic the real thing.” The result is an oasis of luxurious simplicity with inviting lines reflected in flooring that shimmers in the light. “A lot of other kitchens we’ve seen had a kind of identity crisis,” Foley says. “People try to cram too many design features into a kitchen. Sometimes we just find that less is more in some situations.” As for the Crafts, they love their sleek, state-of-the-art kitchen. “Oh my gosh, I had no idea it would change my life so much,” Kathy says. “I always liked the old kitchen but now that it’s all new, it’s like, wow, this is really nice. We spend a lot of time there and I haven’t gotten at all tired of cooking over these last few months. It makes day-to-day life much easier.” OH Billy Ingram is a former Hollywood movie poster artist and the author of five books. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
hen the Carter House won the American Institute of Architects’ N.C. design award in 1951, Edward Loewenstein explained his design process to a colleague: “We started working with the Carters on an extremely contemporary house . . . A local contractor estimated the house and they decided they would rather have a traditional Georgian house. We completed drawings on this, through the working drawing stage and obtained an even more outrageous estimate . . . [Ultimately,] the Carters decided to let us carry the project through as a contemporary project. As it progressed, their parents, who were very conservative, had become very enthusiastic about it and we have received violent comments in both directions from neighbors and friends.” Loewenstein wasn’t just a mid-century master but a civil rights pioneer in Greensboro. In the early 1950s, he became the first white architect in North Carolina to employ African-American designers to work alongside him. In addition, he also offered opportunities for women to enter the field.
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A L M A N A C
October n
By Ashley Wahl
O
ctober is a cauldron of enchantment. The cracking open of pecan husks. The whirl of sparrows casting cryptic messages across fiery canvases. Crisp air and burn piles. Black walnuts and black dahlias. Golden leaves and ever-fading light. October awakens the mystic, beckons homemade tinctures, loose-leaf teas, sage leaves wrapped in tidy bundles. October is pumpkins and gourds, pumpkins and gourds, spring-blooming bulbs in the cool autumn soil. She’s the veil between worlds — thin as a web in the morning light. The black cat that slinks across your path, disappears, then watches from beyond a silky sea of milkweed pods. Do not be afraid. October is ripe with blessings. You need only let her reveal them. Try squatting down — fluid movements are best — and then gaze into her yellow moon-eyes until all you can see is yourself. This is her invitation. And in her own time — you cannot rush nature — she will saunter toward you, perhaps with a jingle, and all superstition will dissolve. October is the black cat kissing your hand, arm and shin with her face and body, her circular movements like that of an ancient symbol, a sacred dance, a living incantation. She is purring. She is plopping belly-up in the dry leaves at your feet. She is all but crawling into your lap — a playful and hallowed month filled with auspicious surprises.
There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October. — Nathaniel Hawthorne
Mums the Word
Chrysanthemums are blooming. Pink, purple, red, orange and yellow. Double-petaled and fringed. Heirloom cultivars as lovely as dahlias. In Chinese bird and flower paintings, chrysanthemums are depicted in ink wash paintings among the “Four Gentlemen” or “Four Noble Ones,” an assemblage of plants that represent the four seasons: plum blossom (winter), orchid (spring), bamboo (summer), and chrysanthemum (autumn). Native to China, this medicinal flower was brought to Japan by Buddhist monks in the year 400. Here in the United States, a “Dark Purple” cultivar was imported from England in 1798 by Col. John Stevens, the American engineer who constructed the country’s first steam locomotive and steam-powered ferry. In the years since, mums have reigned as the “Queen of Fall Flowers,” singing alongside our kale, pansies and cabbage, and coloring our autumn gardens magnificent. According to feng shui, chrysanthemums bring happiness and laughter into the home. They’re loaded with healing properties and have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries. Chrysanthemum tea (made from flowers of the species morifolium or indicum) is considered a common health drink in China, often consumed for its cooling and calming effect. And as any flowersavvy gardener will tell you, mums repel most insects yet are nontoxic to animals. Glory be to this noble flower! Long live the lovely Queen of Fall.
Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar. — Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing
The Night Sky
This year, the full harvest moon rises on the first of October, and on the last day of the month, the first blue moon of 2020 (the full hunter’s moon) will create the quintessential vision of Halloween, illuminating the sky for a howl-worthy night. And, look, there’s another celestial beauty shining bright this month: Mars. On Oct. 6, Mars will be just about as close to Earth as it can get — 38.57 million miles — a proximity the likes of which we won’t see again until September 2035. On Tuesday, Oct. 13, Mars will arrive in the constellation Pisces, beaming from dusk until dawn at a magnitude three times brighter than our brightest nighttime star, Sirius. In fact, this month Mars supersedes Jupiter as the second-brightest planet, following the moon and Venus as the third brightest object in the night sky. OH The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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WE OFFER: DOG DAYCARE • SLEEPOVERS • GROOMING • WEBCAMS
705 Battleground Ave.
www.DogDaysGreensboro.com
86 O.Henry
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
DOWNTOWNGREENSBORO.ORG
VIVID
Handmade
In House
i n t e r i o r s
interior design • art • furniture • vintage • textiles • home accessories
513 s elm st , greensboro 336.265.8628 www.vivid-interiors
121-A WEST MCGEE ST. GREENSBORO, NC 27401 WWW.JACOBRAYMONDJEWELRY.COM | 336.763.9569
COME. SIT. HEAL. We strive to provide complete care for our patients. Preventive & Wellness Care • Hospitalization Medicine / Surgery • Dentistry • Laser Therapy • And more ...
Dr. John Wehe | Dr. Tyler Perkins 120 W. Smith Street • Greensboro NC | 336.338.1840
w w w.downtowngreens boroanimalhos pi t al . com The Art & Soul of Greensboro
DOWNTOWNGREENSBORO.ORG
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Irving
PARK LADIES CLOTHING, GIFTS, BABY, JEWELRY, GIFTS FOR THE HOME, TABLEWARE, DELICIOUS FOOD
1738 Battleground Ave • Irving Park Plaza Shopping Center • Greensboro, NC • (336) 273-3566
88 O.Henry
Shopping is the best therapy To advertise here call 336-617-0090 The Art & Soul of Greensboro
“MONTEREY TUG” • 18”X24” • ORIGINAL OIL CONNIE P. LOGAN - ARTIST/TEACHER
www. CPLogan.com
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Resinate Art The Original Representational Epoxy Artist ARTIST Carol Kaminski • HOURS by appointment only RESIN classes available 4912 Hackamore Rd, Greensboro, 27410 704-608-9664 • www.ResinateArt.com
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TRIPEPTIDE-R n Ec k R E Pa I R hIgh PERfoRmacE retinol coRREcTIon foR EaRly To aDvancED sIgns of nEck agIng
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Business & Services
Now Available at
s m o ot h v i s i b l e h o r i zo n ta l n ec k l i n e s firm n ec k s k i n reduce crepiness
Love Your Neck! Located at Friendly Center next door to Barnes and Noble Tuesday-Saturday 10-6 • 336-294-3223 Visit our new website… shereesinatural.com for special discounts on SkinCeuticals and brow waxing.
1614-C WEST FRIENDLY AVENUE GREENSBORO, NC 27403 336-272-2032 stitchpoint@att.net MONDAY-FRIDAY: 10:00-6:00 SATURDAY: 10:00-4:00
Practicing Commercial Real Estate by the Golden Rule Bill Strickland, CCIM
Comprehensive and Attentive Care
Commercial Real Estate Broker/REALTOR 336.369.5974 | bstrickland@bipinc.com
www.bipinc.com
SHOPPES on PATTERSON Antiques & Interiors Furniture Collectibles Consignment 2804 Patterson St. | (336) 856-2171 www.shoppesonpatterson.com
90 O.Henry
Fall in Love with your Smile
Gill Family Dentistry Serving the Triad Area
306 Muirs Chapel Rd., STE C | Greensboro, NC 27410
336.299.1379 | GillDentistryTriad.com
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Crutchfield Farms
Master and guest bedroom on the main level. Great room with fireplace open to the kitchen area and breakfast room. 4 bedrooms with 4 baths and a bonus room. SS appliances, granite kitchen counters, washer/dryer.
Yvonne Stockard Willard Realtor™, Broker, GRI
yvonne.stockard@allentate.com www.allentate.com/YvonneStockard
Ready for the Next 100 Years As Hanes Lineberry continues our 101st year, we are excited about the future.
Call for an appointment.
336.509.6139 Mobile 336.217.8561 Fax allentate.com
717 Green Valley Road, Suite 300 • Greensboro NC • 27408
We’re here to serve all your needs:
Since 1987
• 30+ years as a major dealer of Gold, Silver, and Coins • Most respected local dealer for appraising and buying Coin Collections, Gold, Silver, Diamond Jewelry and Sterling Flatware • Investment Gold, Silver, & Platinum Bullion
Visit us: www.ashmore.com or call 336-617-7537 5725 W. Friendly Ave. Ste 112 • Greensboro, NC 27410 Across the street from the entrance to Guilford College
336-854-9222 • www.HartApplianceCenter.com
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Business & Services
ASHMORE RARE COINS & METALS
• Live streaming memorials • On-site chapel & reception hall • Strong social media platform
• Funerals, cremations & memorial services • Comprehensive pre-planning services
To learn more, please contact us at 336.272.5157 www.haneslineberryfuneralhomes.com
515 N. Elm St. Greensboro, NC 27401
“Serving your heart’s desire”
6000 Gate City Blvd. Greensboro, NC 27407
We Service What We Sell & Offer Personal Attention 2201 Patterson Street, Greensboro, NC (2 Blocks from the Coliseum) Mon. - Fri.: 9:30am - 5:30 pm Sat. 10 am - 2 pm • Closed Sunday
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October 2020
Lunch & Learn
10/
8
Although conscientious effort is made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, all events are subject to change and errors can occur! Please call to verify times, costs, status and location before planning or attending an event.
October 4
HUNGRY FOR MUSIC AND MORE? 4 p.m. Otis Battles Food Truck/Birthday Concert in High Point. Presenting The Launch of Miss Johnnie Mae’s Food Truck along with special guest performances by Coko of SWV; KeKe Wyatt; and Aseelah. An outdoor event, face coverings and social distancing required. Tickets: www.eventbrite.com/e/ otis-battles-food-truck-birthday-concert-tickets-118073357591.
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How Does Your Garden Grow?
10/
21
Pumpkin Fun
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28
October 6
October 8
October 8
October 9-11
BIRD WATCHING 101. 5:30 p.m. Stella and Tom Wear, and Melanie Stadler share bird watching basics following social distance protocols. Morehead Park, 475 Spring Garden Street, Greensboro. Email llorenz@actiongreensboro. org to pre-register. Info: www.downtowngreenway.org/events READ ALL ABOUT IT! 7 p.m. Terri Kirby Erickson will have her book launch event virtually on Zoom. She will be donating $2 per book sold that evening to Second Harvest Food Bank of NWNC. You can sign up at www. Press53.com.
LUNCH & LEARN. Noon. Join us at Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden for an October bringyour-own Lunch and Learn, “Magical Monarchs” by Jeanne Megel (The garden provides beverages). Free to members or $2 for nonmembers. Registration: www.cienerbotanicalgarden.org or call (336) 996-7888. GRAB YOUR POPCORN. This year’s Tryon International Film Festival 2020 will be online, offering a larger selection of films to a worldwide audience. The Festival kicks off with a virtual gala and concludes with an online closing awards ceremony. Info: TryonInternationalFilmFestival.com or call (404) 379-5762. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Arts Calendar October 10–11/ 17–18
FALL TOUR. For this year’s Fall Parade of Homes, some houses will be experienced virtually, others can be seen in person. Virtual homes will be featured on the Parade website and in the Parade of Homes magazine. Open house tours will be offered Saturday and Sunday both weekends, where you can see the latest in new designs, products and services. (CDC protocols required.) Info: www.greensborobuilders.org/event/fall-parade-of-homes/
October 15-18
BRUJA! 6:30 p.m. The Kernersville Little Theatre and Krossroads Playhouse present The Kitchen Witches at Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden, 215 S. Main St., Kernersville at 6:30pm. Tickets: kltheatre. com or call (336) 993-6556.
October 19
WE VANT YER BLOOD. 2:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden will host a Red Cross Blood Drive at 215 S. Main
Street, Kernersville. Appointments: www. redcrossblood.org and use Sponsor Code: Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden or call (336) 996-7888.
October 21
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW? 6 p.m. Join Sara Stratton at the Public Edible Orchard to learn about permaculture gardens and how to create one. Social distance protocols will be followed. Meeting Place, 801 West Smith Street, Greensboro. Email llorenz@ actiongreensboro.org to pre-register. Info: www. downtowngreenway.org/events
October 23
BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT. 5:30 p.m. Join Fitness Friday at The Mill with Core Integrity Pilates: Title Boxing. Participate in a free workout and enjoy live music from Athleta. Clean Juice will also be there. Located at The Stacks at Revolution, 2001 Yanceyville St., Greensboro. Info: revolutionmillgreensboro. com or (336) 235-2393.
October 28
PUMPKIN FUN. 10:30 a.m. Join an online Storytime with Miss Marya! Preschoolers will enjoy flannel retellings of Big Pumpkin and Five Little Pumpkins with Marya Ryals, the youth librarian at the Hemphill Branch. Enjoy these not-so-scary stories and practice your counting skills. Info: www.greensboro-nc.gov or www. facebook.com/GSOLibrary/
October 29
WHODUNIT? 7 p.m. Triad Stage is proud to present A Vindictive Vintage, a wine-themed virtual interactive murder-mystery play and party. Tickets: triadstage.org.
To add an event, email us at
ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com
by the first of the month
ONE MONTH PRIOR TO THE EVENT.
Business & Services
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
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PHOTO:AESTHETIC IMAGES
Treat
Yourself FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR STYLE
FALL STYLES ARRIVING DAILY Schedule an appointment
Floral Design • Delivery Service Home Décor & Gifts Weddings & Special Events
Come visit our retail shop! Thank you for your business and continued support.
1616 Battleground Avenue, Suite D-1 Greensboro, NC 27408
336.691.0051
shop@randymcmanusdesigns.com
www.randymcmanusdesigns.com
1616-G Battleground Ave | Dover Square 336.617.7941 10am-5:30pm Mon.-Sat. www.bibsandkidsboutique.com
94 O.Henry
to enjoy personal one on one styling to put together your
Simply Meg’s fall wardrobe
SAVVY STYLE. PURELY PERSONAL.
1616-H Battleground Ave Dover Square 336.272.2555 www.simplymegsboutique.com
Dover Square The Art & Soul of Greensboro
I N T H E FA L L I S S U E O F
The Fall 2020 issue of Seasons Style & Design has had plenty of time to age and is about to be uncorked with a look at local wine and design. We’ve explored a handful of Piedmont wineries and found that grape pairs well not only with food but also with llamas, art and music.
For years, many a table has been dressed up with the colorful, Italian pottery of Hillsborough-based Vietri. Find out what’s new for Fall entertaining . . . and whether the company’s popular warehouse sale will take place as scheduled.
The greening of design has quite literally arrived in the form of Fiddle Figs, an in-house boutique of Allen & James Interior Design consisting of plants. What better home accent to spruce up a room — or a garden?
ON NEWSSTANDS NOW. GO TO HTTPS://SEASONSMAGAZINENC.COM/LOCATIONS/ FOR DISTRIBUTION LOCATIONS.
O.Henry Ending
Life and Afterlife
By Jeff Paschal
She was just a puppy,
maybe 6 months old, when we got her. Walking down a hallway at an Ohio Humane Society kennel, my wife, Beth, had noticed this big, beautiful brown-and-white dog, hopping around, tail wagging, begging to be petted. “Zoe’s going to be a big girl,” a handmade sign said, guessing she might be a Labrador Retriever and Saint Bernard mix.)
“We’ll take her,” we said. We opened the backdoor to our SUV, and Zoe launched herself in with no effort, as if she’d been doing this all her life. No sooner had we cranked the engine than we began to hear a sound that would become familiar — Zoe whining and trying to “talk”— all the way home. But it didn’t take long for her to adjust to her new home with its large, fenceless backyard. We had a harder time adjusting to taking our new charge on the leash in sun, rain and, Ohio being Ohio, snow — lots of snow — while waiting for Zoe to complete her bathroom mission. So we bought one of those electronic underground “invisible” fences, and by coincidence, the woman sent to train Zoe had been the one to find her abandoned and running along a country road. She had decided not to adopt her after she discovered that Zoe was “a screamer.” Based on inflection, we learned to discern some of the meanings behind Zoe’s “vocabulary.” A whine? “Feed me” or “Let me out.” Talking? “Play with me” or “I want to go with you.” A bark? “I’m protecting the pack” or “For heaven’s sake, throw the ball already!” As a bonus sound, Zoe liked to sing along when we sang Christmas songs or “Happy Birthday” (much to the belly laughs of grandbabies). Zoe was the only dog I ever owned that would actually bring a ball back to you over and over. She relished chasing a thrown tennis ball,
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hurling herself into the air, and catching it on first bounce, in midflight. The kids called her “a pure athlete.” And she was. A 6-mile run with me in the Ohio countryside was no problem for her. She had her share of mishaps that, looking back on them, seem comical now: Like the time Zoe had managed to run through the large end of a wire tomato cage, which became wrapped around her body. Or her run-in with a skunk, requiring a bath of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish-washing liquid. Though routinely friendly with people, Zoe had her own rules about other dogs. Off their leashes, they were friends. But if Zoe or another dog were tethered to a leash, she became a ferocious defender of her owners. As with all of us, Zoe’s days were numbered. Around age 12, she slowed down, sometimes seeming confused and occasionally arthritic. One of our vets discovered she had cancer. The time for hard decisions had come. The loss would be devastating. It’s so strange, I loved my dad, but I think I cried as hard when Zoe died as when he did. Why? I do not know, but our pets are so constant with their affection, so forgiving of our moods and mistakes. And we give thanks for their indiscriminate kindness amidst a world often cold and angry. Mark Twain said, “Heaven goes by grace not merit. Otherwise you would stay out and your dog would go in.” I understand his thinking, but somehow heaven would be diminished without these precious pets of ours. A few months ago, during lunch with a group of ministers, I posed the question, “So, dogs and cats, going to heaven or not?” “Yes! Absolutely!”— unanimous agreement. “You’re all a bunch of heretics,” I said as we laughed. I paused, then added, “And I’m with you.” Even now I see Zoe restored, a puppy, flying through the air to snatch a ball in mid-flight. Zoe — the word means “life.” And she brought life to us. We will always miss her. OH Jeff Paschal lives in Charlotte where he and his wife, Beth, are unworthy servants of a cat named Shelly. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR
All dogs go to heaven — after creating paradise on Earth
A N E X C L U S I V E C O L L A B O R AT I O N W I T H W E D D I N G D R E S S D E S I G N E R H AY L E Y PA I G E