December PineStraw 2021

McDevitt town & country properties

Take extra moments to celebrate the season with family, friends and community, especially in this uniquely challenging year.

Michael D. Ritter

Senior Vice President - Investment

Steven J. Menendez

Senior Vice President - Investment

Lauren Corum Client Associate

David Yoder Financial Advisor

110 Turnberry Way | Pinehurst, NC 28374 | 910.693.2430 | www.fa.wellsfargoadvisors.com/mrrg

Investment and Insurance Products: • NOT FDIC Insured NO Bank Guarantee MAY Lose Value Wells Fargo Advisors is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, Member SIPC, a registered broker/dealer and nonbank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company. © 2020 Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC. All rights reserved. CAR-1120-00790

A CURATED LIFESTYLE BOUTIQUE clothing | jewelry | home 280 NW Broad Street Downtown Southern Pines 910.725.0637 www.patriciafinds.com

PA T R I C I A

December ����

DEPARTMENTS 21 26 31 33 37 41 43 49 53 55 61 63 65 66 73 114 123 127 128

Simple Life By Jim Dodson PinePitch Good Natured By Karen Frye The Omnivorous Reader By Anne Blythe Bookshelf Hometown By Bill Fields The Creators of N.C. By Wiley Cash In the Spirit By Tony Cross The Kitchen Garden By Jan Leitschuh Character Study By Jenna Biter Pleasures of Life By Tom Allen Out of the Blue By Deborah Salomon Birdwatch By Susan Campbell The Naturalist By Todd Pusser Golftown Journal By Lee Pace Arts & Entertainment Calendar SandhillSeen PineNeedler By Mart Dickerson Southwords By Ruth Moose

FEATURES 77 Wet Christmas Poetry By Shelby Stephenson 78 The Twelve Days of Delights By Jenna Biter Turning a classic carol into delicious treats

90 The Violin in the Closet

By Susanna Klingenberg

Separated by tragedy, musical voices are reunited

94 The Nutcracker

A fantastical journey through the Four Realms

98 ’Twas the Night Before Christmas

By Romey Petite

104 Christmas and Beyond By Deborah Salomon Seasoned with a light touch

113 December Almanac By Ashley Walshe

Cover photograph by Tim Sayer

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The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Opulence of Southern Pines and DUXIANA at The Mews, 280 NW Broad Street, Downtown Southern Pines, NC 910.692.2744

at Village District, 400 Daniels Street, Raleigh, NC 919.467.1781

at Sawgrass Village, 310 Front Street Suite 815 Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 32082 904.834.7280

www.OpulenceOfSouthernPines.com Serving the Carolinas & More for Over 20 Years – Financing Available

M A G A Z I N E Volume 17, No. 12 David Woronoff, Publisher Andie Stuart Rose, Creative Director andie@thepilot.com

Jim Moriarty, Editor

jjmpinestraw@gmail.com

Alyssa Kennedy, Digital Art Director alyssamagazines@gmail.com

Lauren M. Coffey, Graphic Designer laurenmagazines@gmail.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Jim Dodson, Editor Emeritus Deborah Salomon, Staff Writer DIGITAL CONTENT Emilee Phillips

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

John Gessner, Laura Gingerich, Tim Sayer

CONTRIBUTORS Jenna Biter, Harry Blair, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Bill Case, Mallory Cash, Wiley Cash, Tony Cross, Brianna Rolfe Cunningham, Mart Dickerson, Bill Fields, Laurel Holden, Sara King, Jan Leitschuh, Meridith Martens, Jason Oliver Nixon, Mary Novitsky, Lee Pace, Todd Pusser, Joyce Reehling, Scott Sheffield, Stephen E. Smith, Angie Tally, Kimberly Taws, Daniel Wallace, Ashley Walshe, Claudia Watson ADVERTISING SALES

Ginny Trigg, Advertising Director 910.693.2481 • ginny@thepilot.com Jennie Acklin, 910.693.2515 Samantha Cunningham, 910.693.2505 Terry Hartsell, 910.693.2513 Erika Leap, 910.693.2514 ADVERTISING COORDINATOR

Emily Jolly • pilotads@thepilot.com

ADVERTISING GRAPHIC DESIGN

Mechelle Butler, Scott Yancey

Live, Love, Sparkle This Holiday Season!

GIFT CARDS AND WRAPPING AVAILABLE Tues - Fri: 12-5PM; Sat: 11-4PM Private appointments always available.

Email info@knickers-lingerie.com or call 910-725-2346 150 E. New Hampshire Ave / Southern Pines, NC 28387

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PS Steve Anderson, Finance Director 910.693.2497 Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488 SUBSCRIPTIONS

910.693.2488 OWNERS

Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels Jr., Frank Daniels III, Lee Dirks, David Woronoff 145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue, Southern Pines, NC 28387 www.pinestrawmag.com ©Copyright 2021. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

PineStraw magazine is published by The Pilot LLC

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

East Lake Cottage at CCNC

10 Deepdale Lane, a Huntley Design & Build, was built in 2018 with 4 BR, 4 BA, 3623 sq ft. The home features many upgrades including a media room, wet bar, generator and 4th bedroom. NEW LISTING Offered at $925,000.

451 Old Mail Road • Southern Pines

The jewel of Moore County’s horse country, Fox Hollow Farm is secluded on 10.52 acreswith easy access to thousands of acres of equestrian land.

4BR, 4.5BA, 5,276 sq ft. Offered at $1,995,000.

Maureen Clark when experience matters

Berkshire Hathaway HS • PRG • 910.315.1080 • clarkproperties.com

SOLD

205 Crest Road • Southern Pines

Classic Colonial Revival in Knollwood Heights, built in 1930 on 2 acres, 6700 sq ft with 5 BR, 5.5 BA and attached 2 car garage. Highlights include fireplaces in living, dining, master and Carolina room, original hardwoods, and large backyard pool.

Offered at $750,000.

33 Elkton Drive • Forest Creek Golf Club

This golf front residence offers luxury and drama in a home balanced with inviting, livable spaces. The ground floor hosts a series of game rooms and a theater. Built in 2007 with a premier location on the 16th Hole, North Course, the property has 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, 3 garage bays. NEW PRICE $1,575,000.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeSercies and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc.® Equal Housing Opportunity.Housing Opportunity.

Talent, Technology & Teamwork!

Moore County’s Most Trusted Real Estate Team!

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SEVEN LAKES WEST • $455,000

PINEHURST• $358,000

PINEHURST • $325,000

111 RITTER DRIVE New construction underway in desirable location with 4 BR / 3 BA and beautiful finishes throughout.

1 FUR COURT W. Wonderful 3 BR / 2.5 BA home on generous corner lot in great location w/bright, open floorplan.

110 WESTCHESTER CIRCLE Attractive 3 BR / 2.5 BA one-level home located in desirable Lake Pinehurst area.

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PINEHURST • $421,000

SOUTHERN PINES • $395,000

SOUTHERN PINES • $309,000

3 DEERWOOD LANE Lovely 3 BR / 2 BA brick home situated on nice double lot in beautiful Pinehurst #6.

495 CENTRAL DRIVE Beautifully renovated 5 BR/3 BA home w/open layout along 8th fairway of Pine Needles golf course.

414 PALMER DRIVE, UNIT 14 Luxurious golf front 2 BR / 2.5 BA condo w/fine detail throughout on Arnold Palmer signature course.

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SEVEN LAKES NORTH • $365,000

ABERDEEN • $300,000

PINEHURST • $352,000

104 SWAN RUN COURT Lovely waterfront 3 BR / 2 BA home on Lake Echo w/bright and airy traditional style.

155 ARGYLL AVENUE Great home for growing family in nice location.

Spacious and open 4 BR / 2.5 BA floorplan w/lots of curb appeal.

35 SCIOTO LANE Brick ranch 3 BR / 3 BA home on large lot with private back yard in Pinehurst #6.

1

#

IN MOORE COUNTY REAL ESTATE FOR OVER 20 YEARS!

Luxury Properties Moore County’s Most Trusted Real Estate Team!

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PINEHURST • $735,000

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $1,400,000

PINEHURST • $1,600,000

38 MCMICHAEL DRIVE Beautiful custom built 3 BR / 2.5 BA home located on the 2nd fairway of the Holly course in popular Pinewild.

328 LONGLEAF DRIVE New construction underway! Amazing 5 BR / 5 BA home on 6.64 acres in popular gated community!

423 MEYER FARM DRIVE Spectacular custom 4 BR / 4.5 BA home on 3rd hole of the north course in gated Forest Creek.

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SEVEN LAKES WEST • $600,000

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $1,150,000

SOUTHERN PINES • $760,000

105 COOK POINT Gorgeous WATERFRONT lot on Lake Auman w/two new docks, boat lift and electric already run!

132 SWARINGEN DRIVE Stunning 3 BR/4 BA WATERFRONT home on Lake Auman w/amazing outdoor living space!

125 KINGS RIDGE COURT Spectacular golf front 4 BR/4 BA home in desirable Mid South club w/tons of space and curb appeal.

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PINEHURST • $552,000 4 BROADMOOR PLACE Immaculate single-level home w/nice open layout along the 11th fairway of Pinehurst #3.

3 BR / 2.5 BA

NEW

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LIST

PINEHURST • $585,000

CARTHAGE • $663,000

28 BEASLEY DRIVE Amazing golf front home in nice location w/lots of space and breathtaking golf views.

3 BR/5.5 BA

TBD PEACE ROAD Great opportunity to own a beautiful 95.71 acre property 15 minutes from Pinehurst. Large portion of the property has been cleared with stumps removed and is ready for home site or pasture.

Re/Max Prime Properties, 5 Chinquapin Rd., Pinehurst, NC 910-295-7100 • 800-214-9007 • Re/Max Prime Properties 5 Chinquapin Rd., Pinehurst, NC

www.ThEGENTRYTEAM.COM

• 910-295-7100

DON’T JUST LIVE HERE...

LOVE IT HERE.

Schedule a tour today.

Call to learn more.

Residents of Quail Haven Village love the living choices, abundant resort-like amenities and nearly endless social engagements available to them. Here, residents and their families will love the emphasis on nutritious dining options, whole-person wellness and the peace of mind that comes from having continuing care in place should they need it.

Call 910.295.2294 to schedule a private tour and don’t just live here...LOVE IT HERE. 155 Blake Blvd., Pinehurst, NC 28374 A Life Plan Community offered by Liberty Senior Living.

QuailHavenVillage.com © 2021 Quail Haven

BHHSPRG.COM

LUXURY

$2,750,000

4 bed • 7/1 bath

Pamela O’Hara (910) 315-3093 MLS 100297806

Dunross Manor, built by Donald Ross in 1929 in Knollwood Heights on 2.3 acres. Beautiful chefs kitchen, 1,900 sq ft workshop, carriage house,

415 Fairway Drive, Southern Pines

LUXURY

fabulous outdoor kitchen, breathtaking gardens.

$875,000

4 bed • 3 bath

Jennifer Nguyen (910) 585-2099 MLS 100297732

Beautiful home on 16.5 acres in equestrian community, The Fields. Gourmet kitchen, new appliances, open floor plan, screened

341 Bracken Hill Road, Cameron

porch, three car garage, and more.

$499,000

3 bed • 3 bath

Debbie Darby (910) 783-5193 MLS 100299772

Golf Front in Pinehurst #6. Totally renovated with new flooring/paint/baths/lighting/ landscaping and an enclosed pool.

114 Deerwood Lane, Pinehurst Pinehurst • 42 Chinquapin Road, Pinehurst, NC 28374 • 910 -295 - 5504 | Southern Pines • 167 Beverly Lane, Southern Pines, NC 28387 • 910-692-2635 ©2021 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently operated subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate, and a franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC.

Always a Step Ahead

December, 2021 Amy Stonesifer ®

Thinking about selling your home?

Contact us for a no-hassle, no-cost market analysis of your home's current value.

Serving Moore County and Surrounding Areas!

910.684.8674 | 120 N ASHE ST | SOUTHERN PINES, NC 28387

www.maisonteam.com We are looking to buy land/lots!

Big or small parcels with road frontage.

Areas: Moore, Hoke, Lee & Harnett Counties

Stop by our office and see Santa on December 4th, 2021 from 11am-2pm.

Buy, Sell or Rent through us - we do it all!

910.684.8674 | 120 N ASHE ST | SOUTHERN PINES, NC 28387

NEW GREENS HAVE ARRIVED

AT THE COUNTRY CLUB OF WHISPERING PINES Recent renovations at the Country Club of Whispering Pines includes an upgrade to the greens on the River course.

Come enjoy the brand new Champions Bermuda grass on the River course.

WHISPERING Q NOW OPEN! Whispering Q features smoked pulled pork, pulled chicken, ribs, wings and prime rib sandwiches.

Open Wed, Thurs, Sun 11am-5pm Fri & Sat 11am-7pm

2 Club House Boulevard, Whispering Pines, NC 28327 910.949.3000 • countryclubofwhisperingpines.com

The Country Bookshop

12 Days of Christmas

20% OFF the Section on the Given Day Sun, Dec 12th

GARDENING Wed, Dec 15th

Mont, Dec 13th

COOKING

Tues,, Dec 14th

ART

NATURE, ANIMALS & SCIENCE

Thurs, Dec 16th

CHILDREN’S NON FICTION

Fri, Dec 17th

Sat, Dec 18th

Sun, Dec 19th

Mon, Dec 20th

SPORTS AND GOLF

Tues, Dec 21st

MUSIC AND PERFORMING ARTS

BIOGRAPHY/ MEMOIR

Wed, Dec 22nd

TRAVEL

140 NW Broad Street • Southern Pines, NC • 910.692.3211 thecountrybookshop.biz • thecountrybookshop

PUZZLES

MILITARY AND HISTORY Thurs, Dec 23rd

HARDCOVER FICTION

Be Merry

One of the best-kept secrets for home furnishings and decor, Southern Design Furniture carries multiple name brands such as the beautiful Bassett furniture featured here, as well as an assortment of accessories to add that little something extra to your home.

4909 Raeford Rd, Fayetteville, NC 28304 | 910.423.0239

SIMPLE LIFE

Meaningful Happiness When you think about it, the ordinary becomes extraordinary

By Jim Dodson

I bumped into a

ILLUSTRATION BY GERRY O'NEILL

friend in the produce section at the market. We had not seen each other since the start of the pandemic — well over a year ago, if not longer — long enough for me to briefly forget her name, though maybe I was just having the proverbial senior moment.

In any case, when I asked how she’d been, she simply smiled.

“Like everyone, it’s been pretty challenging. But, also kind of revealing. It may sound funny, but I discovered that picking beautiful vegetables to cook for my family makes me really happy.

Previously, shopping seemed more like a necessary chore than a privilege. I guess I’ve learned that the ordinary things provide the most meaningful happiness.”

We wished each other safe and happy holidays and said goodbye. She went off to the organic onions and I went in search of the special spiced apple cider that only comes round during the autumn holidays — an ordinary thing, it suddenly struck me, that provides “meaningful” happiness to my taste buds. For what it’s worth, though too late to count, I also suddenly remembered my friend’s name: Donna.

Quite honestly, in all the years I’ve steeped my tin-cup soul into the works of great spiritual teachers, classical philosophers, transcendental thinkers, Lake District poets and street-corner cranks, I’d never come across the phrase meaningful happiness.

But suddenly — like an ear-burrowing TV jingle or a favorite song from the 1970s — I couldn’t get the idea of it out of my head.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Mankind’s search for happiness and meaning, of course, probably constitutes the oldest quest on Earth, beginning with a fabled naked couple in a heavenly garden, though as any ancient sage worthy of his or her plinth will tell you, true happiness is not something you can acquire from the outside world.

Even a fashionable fig leaf can only cover so much.

Objects and possessions can certainly provide a shot of pleasure, but they invariably lose their power to possess us somewhere down the line as rust and dust prevail. At the end of the day, as our wise old grandmothers patiently advised, true happiness can only come from the way you think about who you are and what you choose to do. As a famous old Presbyterian preacher once remarked to me as we sat together on his porch on a golden Vermont afternoon: “What we choose to worship, dear boy, is what we eventually become.”

This curious idea of meaningful happiness, in any case, struck me as a highly useful tool — a way of defining or, better, refining — what kinds of people, things and moments in life are worthy of our close attention in a world that always seems to be beyond our control and on the verge of coming apart at the seams. For most of us, like my friend Donna’s awakening among the vegetables, the art of discovering meaningful happiness simply lies in recognizing the ordinary people, things and moments that fill up and grace an average day.

My gardening hero, Thomas Jefferson — “I’m an old man but a new gardener,” as he once wrote to a friend — was an inveterate list-maker. And so am I. So, naturally, I began taking mental inventory of the blessedly small and ordinary people, things and moments that provide meaningful happiness in a time like no other I can recall.

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SIMPLE LIFE

I’m sure — or simply hope — you have you own list. Here’s a brief sampling of mine: Rainy Sundays give me meaningful happiness. The heavens replenishing my private patch of Eden. No fig leaf needed.

Speaking of which, I’ve spent most of the pandemic building an ambitious Asian-inspired shade garden in my backyard, though probably more Bubba than Buddha if you want to know the Gospel. Even so, it’s granted me great peace and purpose, untold hours of pondering and planning, no small amount of dreaming while digging in the soil, delving in the soul, bringing an artist who works in red clay a little bit closer to God’s heart.

Unexpected phone calls from his far-flung children provide this papa serious meaningful happiness. They grew up in a beautiful beech forest in Maine, assured by their old man that kindness and imagination could take them anywhere in the world. Today, one lives in Los Angeles and works in film, the other is a working journalist in the Middle East. They are telling the stories of our time. This gives the old man simple joy from two directions, East and West.

Courteous strangers also make me uncommonly happy these days — people who smile, open doors for others, wear the world with an unhurried grace. Ditto people who use turn signals and don’t speed to make the light, saving lives instead of time; those who realize the journey is really the point. For this reason, I always take the back road home.

Mowing the lawn for the first time in spring makes me surpris-

ingly happy, as does mowing it for the final time in autumn, bedding down the yard.

In summer, I love nothing better than an afternoon nap with the windows wide open; or watching the birds feed at sunset with an excellent bourbon in hand, evidence of a growing appreciation for what our Italian friends call Dolce far niente — “The sweetness of doing nothing.” Ditto golf with new friends and lunch with old ones, early church, old Baptist hymns and well-worn jeans. My late Baptist granny would be appalled.

Let me be clear, eating anything in Italy makes me wondrously happy — for a few blessed hours, at least.

Watching the winter stars before dawn makes me blessedly happy, too, along with wool blankets, the first snow, homemade eggnog, the deep quiet of Christmas Eve, the mystery of certain presents, long walks with the dogs, writing notes by hand and my wife’s incredible cinnamon crumb apple pie.

This list could go on for a while, dear friends. It’s as unfinished as its owner.

But time is precious, and you have better things to do this month — like shop, eat and be merry with the friends and family you may not have been with in years.

Let me just say that I hope December brings you true meaningful happiness.

Whatever that means to you. PS Jim Dodson can be reached at jwdauthor@gmail.com.

Lin gets Results! toP 1 % of Moore County reaLtors toP 1 % of u.s. reaLtors

ENERGY. EXPERIENCE. EFFORT. WWW.LINHUTAFF.COM

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Lin Hutaff’s PineHurst reaLty GrouP Village of Pinehurst | 910.528.6427 | linhutaff@pinehurst.net The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

4 AUGUSTA WAY • PINEHURST

Charming, historic, one of a kind, estate on over two acres just one and one half miles from the historic Village of Pinehurst.

Covered porches and waterfalls in secluded settings add to the charm and character of this home constructed in another era when casual entertaining was an everyday event.

The expansive patio across the back overlooks terraced stacked stone gardens leading to the POND and total privacy.

The ‘’old Parson’s Estate’’ is a rambling, all brick home set amidst beautiful gardens and waterfalls overlooking a tranquil pond.

A handsome Hunt room with complete wine cellar nearby is tucked away for private evenings.

ENERGY. EXPERIENCE. EFFORT.

Carved mill work and deep molding throughout. Many updates including new windows.

Village of Pinehurst | 910.528.6427 | linhutaff@pinehurst.net

Lin Hutaff’s PineHurst reaLty GrouP

Merry Christmas!

104 East Main Street | Downtown Aberdeen | 910.944.8887 | www.keesappliance.com

– Call Howell’s Masonry for a custom built fireplace! – BRICKWORK

STONEWORK

FIREPLACES

OUTDOOR LIVING

910-944-0878

www.howellsmasonry.com 10327 Hwy 211 • Aberdeen, NC 28315

PinePitch North Pole Heads South There will be a Christmas Adventure for children 12 and under, including pics with Santa and a candy hunt, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 1, at the Recreation Center Gym, 160 Memorial Park Court, in Southern Pines. For more information call (910) 692-7376. Also on Dec. 1, the North Pole Experience comes to the National Athletic Village, 201 Air Tool Drive, in Southern Pines, with activities, music, sleigh rides and more. The experience continues on Dec. 4, 10 and 11; all times are from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. For further information go to www.nationalathleticvillage.com.

Even Santa Loves a Parade The Christmas Parade in downtown Southern Pines will be from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 4. Rumor has it Santa will be kickin’ it in the Pines. Hard to imagine any more information would be required but, if you just need someone to talk to, you can call (910) 692-7376.

Let Out the Cummerbund The Women of Weymouth kick off the holidays with a gala at the Boyd House on Saturday, Dec. 4, at the Weymouth Center for Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. There will be an open bar, hors d’oeuvres, a buffet dinner catered by Elliott’s on Linden, music and dancing. Black tie is optional. The cost is $90 for members and $110 for non-members. For information call (910) 6926261 or visit www.weymouthcenter.org.

Music to Our Ears The Moore Philharmonic Orchestra will perform its 17th annual Holiday Concert at the Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst, on Saturday, Dec. 4, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is free.

For more information go to www.mporchestra.com. At 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 5, the Sandhills Community College Music Department will present its holiday concert, also at Owens Auditorium.

Admission is free and open to the public. For further information call (910) 695-3828. And, on Sunday, Dec. 12, the Moore County Choral Society will have its annual holiday concert with conductor Anne Dorsey, also at Owens Auditorium. For additional information go to www.moorecountychoralsociety.org.

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The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Attack of the Sugar Plum Fairies

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

Watch the Bolshoi Ballet perform Tchaikovsky’s holiday classic The Nutcracker in high def at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St. in Southern Pines, on Sunday, Dec. 19, at 12:55 p.m.

For more information go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

When a Sagittarius plays with fire, it’s wonderfully innocent. Sort of.

But this bold and short-fused fire sign has a reputation for being more than a little reckless — especially when it comes to affairs of the heart.

Pause and reflect during the solar eclipse on the 4th. Who are you? Who do you want to be? Should you splurge for that positively extravagant vegan leather coat? Fortunately, things are looking a bit more auspicious this month. But don’t leave the candle burning unattended.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you: Capricorn (December 22 – January 19) Two words: humble pie.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18) Ask for a sign. You’ll know it when you see it.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20) Save the smothering for the bread and butter.

Don’t Look Now, But Here Comes 2022 Bring the whole family to downtown Southern Pines to ring in the New Year before Grandpa’s bedtime on Friday, Dec. 31.

The pine cone drops at 8 p.m. but before that there will be live music, carnival games, face painting and more. For additional information call (910) 692-7376.

Aries (March 21 – April 19) You are the Perfect Storm. Don’t hold back.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20) Best not to wait for an invitation.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20) Ask again later.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22) No matter how hot things get, play it cool.

Leo (July 23 – August 22) The quest for perfection doesn’t end well.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22) That smile on your face says it all.

Libra (September 23 – October 22) Sometimes the obstacle is the path.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21) When the popcorn is ready, the truffle oil will appear. PS

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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MAKING the

imPOSSiBLe

Accessible Victory Junction celebrates

childhood and the magic of camp. Fully-accessible year

round programming includes

summer camp, family retreats, day programs, equine therapy, and pediatric patient outreach to

hospitals and Ronald McDonald Houses throughout the Carolinas.

Since 2004, Victory Junction has provided over 90,000 experiences to children with complex medical conditions and their families. From all 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, and four other countries, Camp removes all barriers, including cost and transportation. Victory Junction provides opportunity, access,

and empowering experiences to children that create a feeling of freedom and possibility.

Because of the generosity of donors, programming is free to

the families served.

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victoryjunction.org/winter 4500 ADAM’S WAY RANDLEMAN, NC | 336.498.9055

A West Coast Lifestyle Boutique

CoolSweats Village of Pinehurst 105 Cherokee Rd Pinehurst, NC 910.295.3905

G O O D NAT U R E D

The Power of Patience

wrights v ille

b e ach

BEACH HOLIDAYS

Stay calm and carry on

By Karen Frye he last month of the year can be a whirlwind of events and gatherings. For many, it can increase stress levels and seriously undermine the season. One way to navigate the holidays with fewer difficulties lies in the virtue of patience.

While patience may sometimes be more of a goal than a reality, it is absolutely worth the effort to adopt this behavior and practice it when the occasion presents itself. How we handle challenges can make all the difference in the outcome.

Impatience is an everyday part of life. I can get very impatient with traffic backups or waiting too long in a line — convinced for strange karmic reasons that I’ve picked the “slow” one. There is a simple technique in these situations that can change the perspective and make the experience not quite so bad. I’ll take a few deep inhales through my nose and slowly exhale through my nose. Using this deep breathing technique can slow the heart rate and relax the mind in a relatively short time.

One of the most challenging situations to test your patience is confrontation. It can come at you from nowhere. You can be having the best of days, and suddenly you find yourself engaged in an unpleasant conversation. It could be a personal attack about something you’ve done, a rant about an accident, or just a simple misunderstanding. As one person berates the other, things can get totally out of control and wind up in an adrenaline-pumping shouting match.

There’s a very simple solution. Before you even respond, stop and be silent. Take the time to be patient before you say anything to escalate a situation. Just listen. Within those moments of quiet you can take stock of the circumstances and handle your response in a peaceful, kind and gentle way. It can change the outcome.

The will to calmly wait gives us the opportunity to become more compassionate people. This is the season of love and joy.

Practice patience and you will find many benefits: definitely more happiness and less stress. PS Karen Frye is the owner and founder of Nature’s Own and teaches yoga at the Bikram Yoga Studio.

T

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

CELEBRATE WITH US

From our Enchanted Airlie package, to a Holiday Cabaret celebration, and our exclusive New Year’s Eve Package there are plenty of ways to celebrate the holidays at the Blockade Runner. Visit our website to see what packages and events we have in store for this holiday season.

blockade-runner.com 844-891-9707

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THE OMNIVOROUS READER

Hell of a Read

A dizzying journey of the imagination

By Anne Blythe

The adage that you can’t judge a book

by its cover is not one that works for the fourth novel written by Jason Mott, a writer and poet who lives in southeastern North Carolina. The title of Mott’s latest work of fiction, Hell of a Book, is in large, bold capital letters at the top of a black and yellow cover. Go ahead, judge it.

It truly is a hell of a book, one that explores racism, police violence and being Black in America.

It’s a novel — and a mystery, too — about a novelist with a vivid imagination. It’s difficult to know what’s real and what the writer is imagining. It’s also challenging to see how the main characters are connected, until the very end. Even then, there’s no certainty as to whether they’re truly bound in anything other than the novelist’s mind.

Mott pulls readers through a difficult and sometimes overwhelming conversation about “The Altogether Factual, Wholly Bona Fide Story of a Big Dreams, Hard Luck, American-Made Mad Kid” — his subtitle — with madcap humor, painfully poignant prose and a showme-don’t-tell-me contemplative style.

The protagonist is a Black fiction writer on a dizzying book promotion tour, an unnamed bestselling writer who is breathlessly whisked through a blur of airports, hotels and cities by a quirky cast of drivers, and a profit-driven agent.

We first meet him at 3 a.m. in the hallway of a Midwestern hotel, where he’s naked, locked out of his room and being chased by an angry husband who has caught the author with his wife. He runs after him, flailing at him with a large coat hanger.

As the protagonist is about to be caught, the elevator doors open, and he escapes into a new scene with his savior of the moment, an elderly woman bringing home groceries in the wee hours of the morning.

“She’s eighty if she ever danced a jig,” Mott writes, showing his voice that delights throughout the novel.

As the naked novelist and blue-haired woman watch the hotel floors counted off in the elevator, Mott introduces readers to a sobering reality that becomes a central theme as the writer moves through his chaotic, alcohol-infused tour. Another Black male has been shot and killed by police, but Mott doesn’t give him a name. The old woman asks the novelist a question: “Did you hear about that boy?”

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

“Which boy?”

“The one on TV.” She shakes her head and her blue hair sways gently like the hair of some sea nymph who’s seen the tides rise and fall one too many times. “Terrible, terrible.”

The novelist tries initially to go on with his celebrity life without fleshing out his feelings about “the boy.” He tries to push the latest outrage blaring on TVs and pulling Black Lives Matter advocates into the streets with signs and chants into that place deep inside himself where injustices stew without boiling over.

This time, though, the world is outraged, and the protagonist can’t tune out the calls to stop the madness or the cries to confront centuries of oppression and brutality.

The morning after the naked ride in the elevator, we meet The Kid, a mysterious but thought-provoking boy who might, or might not, be a figment of the author’s imagination. He looks to be about 10 years old, “impossibly dark-skinned,” and might, or might not, represent the all too many Black children lost to police violence.

We also get to know Soot, another Black boy in rural North Carolina, whose father tries to teach the power of invisibility, picking up on a theme in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man about not wanting to be seen by oppressors. We’re left to wonder how these boys are connected to the protagonist.

Early on, it becomes clear that the touring novelist has what he describes as “a condition,” an unnamed affliction through which he can blend an imaginary world with reality. His storytelling style, almost a stream of consciousness, can be disorienting but riveting, mind-numbing but thought-provoking.

On one trip from an airport to a book event, The Kid appears in the backseat of a limousine. He’s fully aware that the driver up front can’t see him, and he’s ready to test the author’s assertion that he’s just a character made up in his mind.

“Why am I not real?” The Kid laughs.

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OMNIVOROUS READER

“Because I have a condition,” the protagonist says. “I see things.

People too. They say it’s some sort of escape valve for pressure on the mind, probably caused by some sort of trauma. But I don’t go in on that. I haven’t had any type of trauma in my life . . . Nothing worthy of a Lifetime network movie or anything like that.”

Trauma eventually takes readers from the misadventures of the book tour to the dirt roads of Bolton, the hometown of Soot — and Mott as well, raising yet another conundrum. Is Mott’s Hell of a Book really a novel, or is it more fact than fiction about a Black novelist from the South?

“Nestled in the sweaty armpit of Carolina swampland, surrounded by gum trees, and pines, and cedar, and oak, and wild grapevines, the town of Bolton is the land that time forgot,” he writes. “The main exports of Bolton are lumber and black manual labor. The wood comes from the forests and swamplands — all of which are owned by the local paper mill — and the labor comes from the town’s seven-hundred-odd residents. I wish I could tell you that there’s something more than those two chief exports that comes out of Bolton, but there’s nothing else. Bolton isn’t a town that gives, but neither is it a town that takes.

It’s the type of place that keeps to itself. It’s self-sustaining, the way the past always is.”

The past and the present need to confront, and reckon with, what generations of Black Americans have endured.

“Down in this part of the world, we got it all: fifty-four Confederate flags planted along the Interstate, statues put up by the daughters of

the Confederacy, plantations where you can have wedding pictures taken of the way things used to be, we got lynchings, riots, bombings, shrimp and grits, and even muscadine grapes,” the novelist writes.

“Yeah, the South is America’s longest-running crime scene. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. But the thing is, if you’re born into a meat grinder, you grow up around the gears, so eventually you don’t even see them anymore. You just see the beauty of the sausage. Maybe that’s why, in spite of everything I know about it, I’ve always loved the South.”

It’s also the place where the protagonist, The Kid and Soot converge — without fully solving the air of mystery that surrounds them throughout the book. The enigmatic threads Mott so adroitly weaves together become more tightly stitched toward the end. Hell of a Book will make you think while also entertaining you on a helluva journey.

“Laugh all you want,” the protagonist writes as he and The Kid come to the end of the journey, “but I think learning to love yourself in a country where you’re told that you’re a plague on the economy, that you’re nothing but a prisoner in the making, that your life can be taken away from you at any moment and there’s nothing you can do about it — learning to love yourself in the middle of all that? Hell, that’s a goddamn miracle.” PS Anne Blythe has been a reporter in North Carolina for more than three decades covering city halls, higher education, the courts, crime, hurricanes, ice storms, droughts, floods, college sports, health care and many wonderful characters who make this state such an interesting place.

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December Books

FICTION Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, looks into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery that forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silence of a town controlled by the church. Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism and empathy.

The Echo Chamber, by John Boyne The members of the Cleverley family all have mobile phones and live a gilded life, little realizing how precarious their privilege is — just one tweet away from disaster. George, the patriarch, is a stalwart of television interviewing — in his words, a “national treasure.” His wife, Beverley, is a celebrated novelist, though not as celebrated as she would like. Each of their three children is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Together the Cleverlys go on a journey of discovery through the jungle of modern living where past presumptions count for nothing and carefully curated reputations can be destroyed in an instant. To err is human but, to really foul things up, you only need a phone. The Echo Chamber is a satiric, dizzying downward spiral of action and consequence, poised somewhere between farce, absurdity and oblivion.

NONFICTION Micro Life: Miracles of the Miniature World Revealed,

by D.K. Publishing With spectacular macro photography and microscope images, Micro Life reveals a hidden, living world full of intricate structures beyond the naked eye. Included are the tiniest insects and spiders, but looking deeper, you will discover truly microscopic creatures — even bacteria and viruses. Earth is home to more microbes than any other living organism. Bacteria on Earth outweigh humans by 1,100 to 1 and, without them, all world ecosystems would collapse. This book reveals this vital, unseen realm, but includes large life-forms, The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

too. You can wonder at the beauty of a pollen grain, a butterfly egg, the spore of a fungus, and the nerve cell of a human in extreme close-up. The biology builds into a reference on how all organisms, however small, solve the basic problems of movement, reproduction, energy, communication and defense.

Bunny Mellon Style, by Linda Jane Huffman, Bryan Huffman, Thomas Lloyd Learn how Mellon’s style developed, take a look inside the family homes she designed, get the flavor of her collaborations with French designers of fashion and jewelry, and begin to understand her vast and lasting influence on the world of 20th century design. Original research included Mellon’s personal writings and correspondence, conversations with people who knew and worked with her, and those who spent time in her home and gardens. From published works, they gathered information about personal relationships between Mellon and Jackie Kennedy Onassis; designers Billy Baldwin, Balenciaga, Givenchy; and more. Blending stories and accounts from a wide variety of viewpoints results in a unique perspective of this extraordinary woman who moved in the upper echelon of society but preferred not to be noticed in the public eye.

The President and the Freedom Fighter, by Brian Kilmeade In The President and the Freedom Fighter, Kilmeade tells the little known story of how two American heroes moved from strong disagreement to friendship, and in the process changed the entire course of history. Abraham Lincoln was white and born impoverished on a frontier farm. Frederick Douglass was Black and a child of slavery who risked his life escaping to freedom. Neither man had a formal education, and neither had an easy path to influence. No one would have expected them to become friends — or to transform the country. Sharing little more than the conviction that slavery was wrong, the two men’s paths eventually converged. As he did in George Washington’s Secret Six, Kilmeade has transformed a nearly forgotten slice of history into a dramatic story that will keep you turning the pages to find out how these two heroes, through their principles and patience, not only changed each other, but made America free for all.

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& HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS The Barking Ballad,

by Julia Paschkis This oh-so-cute readaloud is the perfect holiday gift for young animal lovers. With rebus cues when to bark or meow, this sweet poem with pictures is sure to have kids begging for one more read before bedtime. (Ages 3-6.)

Merry Christmas, Gus, by Chris Chatterton Christmas lights, Christmas decorations, Christmas sweaters??? Bah! Humbug! Gus doesn’t like any of them. Just what does make this scruffy scrooge change his mind?

Why, a friend to share it all with. Festive fun for little ones, Merry Christmas, Gus is the perfect choice for holiday family reading Wtime.

O N(Ages D E 3-6.)

RFUL 100 The Little Owl & the Big Tree, by Jonah and Jeanette Winter Discover the story of the tiny owl stuck in the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, its rehabilitation process (including all the mice he could eat), and its release. Detailed information on the Northern saw-whet owl species makes this a great choice for young nature lovers. (Ages 4-7.)

The Christmas Owl: Based on the True Story of a Little Owl Named Rockefeller,

by Gideon Sterer Co-written by Ellen Kalish, caretaker of the real owl found inside the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, The Christmas Owl is a charming story of friendship, compassion, and the true meaning of this special time of year. (Ages 4-7.) PS Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

“Miracles at Weymouth”

December 10 - 12 11 am - 4 pm An outdoor festival of fun for the whole family.

Any $ Donation to Enter Sponsored by the Gerald Claude Kirby Trust

In celebration of the 100th Anniversary of our historic Boyd House, we are hosting 100 events in 2022.

WONDERFUL 100

Live music series, Humanities, Literature and Art Lectures, Performing Arts, Creative Youth Programs, Food and Drink, Special Events and more! All raising awareness and support for Weymouth’s next 100 years. Join us!

Arts & Humanities Lecture January 16 • 3 pm

“Freedom Park: The Inspiring Story of How a Monument to Freedom is Built while Confederate Statues are Coming Down”

Part 1: Speaker, Marsha Warren Thank you to our major benefactors: Richard J. Reynolds III and Marie M. Reynolds Foundation; Gerald Claude Kirby Trust; NC CARES for Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council; Arts Council of Moore County; The Palmer Foundation; Marion Stedman Covington Foundation; The Cannon Foundation

For tickets and more information, visit Weymouthcenter.org Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities 555 E. Connecticut Ave. Southern Pines, NC A 501 (c)(3) organization

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Two Thousand Miles I Roam Just to make this dock my home

By Bill Fields

I have a modest stash of record albums,

PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL FIELDS

LPs that spark memories of people, places and parties. The number of scratches pretty much tells where each ranked on my personal charts, but no visual cues are required to identify the vinyl that meant the most to me.

Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman was the first album I owned, and I thought it was 29 minutes of gold. It was released in November 1968, when I was 9 years old. Given that pop culture took the slow train to Southern Pines in those days, I obtained it a bit later.

The love of my first album coincided with my loathing of fourthgrade music and having to learn how to play the recorder. I didn’t like the teacher and couldn’t get the hang of the instrument. The combination caused me to loathe that class to a degree unmatched until calculus came along.

Amid the unpleasantness created by a one-dollar piece of plastic with holes in it, putting Wichita Lineman on the record player was bliss even though there was a lot of melancholy within the lyrics of those 11 songs. Campbell had a beautiful, pure voice and was, as I would learn, a world-class guitarist.

As I listened over and over to the album, Campbell became an obsession, my first outside of sports. If, in the summer of ’69, you’d told me I could meet either Brooks Robinson or Glen Campbell, I might well have chosen the famous Arkansan who didn’t play third base.

My mother and sisters could sing, and the Campbell record convinced me to see if I could, too, although there wasn’t a boys’ choir in America that would have signed me. I made up for the talent deficit with enthusiasm. Santa Claus brought me a TrueTone reel-to-reel tape recorder, affording me a make-believe opportunity to be a sports announcer or, after Campbell’s music became part of my life, recording artist.

I sang the title track plenty of times, but the second song on side one, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” became my favorite. It was written by soul singer Otis Redding with Steve Cropper and recorded not long before Redding died in a plane crash in December 1967, when he was only 26 years old.

I must have heard Redding’s song played on the radio after it was

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

released in early ’68, but Campbell’s cover was what I tried to mimic.

I recorded it on the TrueTone and forced my parents to listen to me perform it live in the living room. I was far from being a lonely child, but Redding’s song of loneliness, sung by Campbell, fascinated me.

When Campbell came to town to play golf in the pro-am preceding the U.S. Professional Match Play Championship at the Country Club of North Carolina in 1971, he was the celebrity I was most eager to see, even though Mickey Mantle and astronaut Gene Cernan also were in the field. Campbell was dressed in yellow and offered a wide smile when I called out from behind a gallery rope before snapping a picture with my Instamatic camera. After the round, he signed my program. I collected many golfers’ autographs that day — Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Julius Boros and Ray Floyd among them — but at home that evening I lingered over the signature of the man whose music had meant so much.

About 20 years or so later, when karaoke had become a thing, I was in an airport hotel in Orlando, having arrived to photograph a story with well-known golf instructor David Leadbetter the next morning. I hadn’t sung outside the shower or alone in my car in years. But it was karaoke night at the Marriott, I knew no one in the crowded bar, and I wanted to sing. There was no doubt about the song.

I was waiting for my turn when I heard a familiar voice. It was my colleague John Huggan, a Scot with standards and opinions.

Suddenly, I did know someone in the crowded bar. My plan for off-key anonymity was gone. Huggan and I chatted over a beer as a handful of karaoke performers grabbed the microphone. My name was called. The lyrics scrolled on a monitor but having sung “The Dock of the Bay” over and over as a kid, I could have done it without assistance.

I sang the song. A few people clapped. I warily returned to my barstool.

“You weren’t the worst,” Huggan said.

I considered it high praise PS Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent.

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Experience the Joy of Exceptional Music

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February 19, 2022, 7:30pm – Flow – Solo Piano with David Michael Wolff • March 12, 2022, 7:30pm – Pops: Movie Muse April 16, 2022, 7:30pm – Viva Voce (For the Love of Song) • May 22, 2022, 8:00pm – Pops on the Green

Every year, The Carolina Philharmonic brings the Joy of Exceptional Music to 3,500 local children, in partnership with local schools, culminating in interactive orchestral experience concerts each Spring.

These programs are made possible only thanks to your support. We are a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Consider making a tax-deductible donation today.

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T H E C R E AT O R S O F N. C .

Cultivating Community Caroline Stephenson steps out from behind the camera

By Wiley Cash • Photographs by Mallory Cash

According to filmmaker Caro-

line Stephenson, “It’s all about storytelling.”

She should know. She was born and raised in rural Murfreesboro, North Carolina, where she grew up surrounded by stories and storytellers.

Despite the rich culture around her, as a young person, Stephenson believed that real art could only be found outside Hertford County. Her father, a retired professor and writer, and her late mother, an architectural historian, regularly traveled with the family to places like Norfolk, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and metropolitan New York, where they would visit museums and view films in art house theatres.

desire to create, but also in an all-too-familiar angst-driven urge to leave home. Like so many young people who think opportunity and adventure are waiting somewhere else, Stephenson says that she “couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

First, she spent two years at St. Mary’s School in Raleigh, and then two years at Boston University before transferring to Columbia College Chicago, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in film.

Soon, she was living in Los Angeles, beginning a career that would carry her to places like Prague, Vienna, Athens and Budapest, working as an assistant director on sets for films and television shows like

“That made a big impression,” says Stephenson, especially the films. “I wanted to do that.”

The restlessness that Stephenson felt as a coming-of-age artist in rural eastern North Carolina manifested itself not only in her The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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T H E C R E AT O R S O F N. C .

Empire, House and, currently, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan.

After marrying fellow filmmaker Jochen Kunstler and having two children, Stephenson felt a call to home. She and her young family moved back to Murfreesboro in 2010, where Stephenson came to terms with Hertford County’s rich cultural heritage as well as its incredible challenges. The county is 60 percent Black, and historical inequities in everything from education to home ownership serve to compound a poverty rate of 22 percent, much higher than the state average. The county’s struggles have also resulted in a dogged spirit of determination that immediately inspired Stephenson and her family to dedicate themselves to supporting the community.

“I’m driven by the incredible people where I’m from,” Stephenson says. “They created beauty, and above all they persevered and were proud.”

To tell the stories of the people of her region, Stephenson stepped behind the camera and relied on the talents that had taken her around the world. She made documentary films about Rosenwald Schools, which educated rural Black children during segregation, as well as a documentary about women who work in chicken processing plants in eastern North Carolina. Other documentaries and screenplays are in the works, all of them highlighting challenges that have either been overcome or are still being faced.

Like any successful director looking for the best angles and working to make a production as seamless as possible, Stephenson is

most comfortable being off camera, outside the glare of the lights.

“I like to be behind the scenes,” she says. “I want other people to shine.”

She also wants to make connections between the people and the organizations of Hertford County so they can support one another.

In 2016, Stephenson opened Cultivator, an independent bookstore that quickly became a community hub. “We also sold local art and pottery, screened movies, held meetings and educational workshops,” she says. The store was the only bookstore within an hour’s drive in any direction but, as is the case with so many independent bookstores, it was tough to make ends meet. The pandemic made

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The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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the venture even more difficult, and Cultivator closed its doors in April 2020, but the books — most of which were either donated or left behind after Stephenson’s mother, a voracious reader and book collector, passed away in 2014 — remained.

Stephenson quickly realized that not having a storefront did not have to stop the work of Cultivator, and so she converted her minivan into a bookmobile. “It’s just a folding table, personal protective equipment, and boxes and boxes of free books,” she says. “But we now serve more people than we served with the bookstore.”

The Cultivator bookmobile regularly sets up in front of libraries, grocery stores, big box stores and churches. Sitting behind a table in the parking lot of Murfreesboro United Methodist Church one chilly night in late October, a volunteer named Christina is handing out books at the church-sponsored monthly bilingual dinner. Young children, many of them Spanish speakers, tote armfuls of children’s books, some written in Spanish. When Stephenson’s name comes up, Christina, who has been a volunteer for 10 years, pauses.

“Caroline is who inspired me to get involved in the community,” she says. “She does for others.”

Andrew Brown owns a family farm with his daughter, Sharonda, and has partnered with Cultivator to address food insecurity in the community. Sharonda is the evening’s featured speaker. The family has also been the subject of one of Stephenson’s documentaries.

“Caroline got things going when she came back home,” Brown

says. “You need someone like her to bring people together.”

Inside the church’s fellowship hall, tostadas and accompanying fixings are being placed on long serving tables as a line of hungry diners forms. A woman named Alejandra announces that dinner is ready. Pastor Jason Villegas greets everyone, moving quickly between English and Spanish.

“I met Alejandra at an ESL (English as Second Language) class at Cultivator,” Pastor Villegas says. When Alejandra joined Villegas’ congregation, she encouraged him to preach in Spanish to reach more people in the community. The community dinners began not long after.

When Pastor Villegas says the blessing, he prays first in English, then translates it to Spanish.

“Thank you that we have connection and unity here,” he says.

He keeps his eyes closed, but he lifts his hands as if gesturing toward the people around him. “And thank you to Caroline Stephenson for bringing so many of us together.”

Of course, Stephenson is not there to hear this prayer or witness her community’s gratitude. She is overseas on a film set, operating where she is most comfortable, behind the scenes. PS Wiley Cash is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, is available wherever books are sold.

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IN THE SPIRIT

Ho, Ho, Ho And a bottle of your choosing

By Tony Cross

This time of

year, the pains of my job are real: I’m forced to order many different spirits, ranging from industry standards to eclectic, and sample them — just so I can give you a recommendation for the holidays.

What a drag.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY CROSS

If you’re stuck in the gift-giving department this year, I have you covered. I’ve picked five different spirits that may be foreign to you, or the recipient of your choosing. Please keep in mind that I ordered these online. If you’d like to do the same, I suggest doing it sooner rather than later. While I’m at it, I’d also like to suggest grabbing a bottle from one of North Carolina’s many distilleries. We’re fortunate to have some great hooch from the folks over at TOPO, Sutler’s and InStill Distillery, just to name a few.

Chateau de Montifaud VSOP Petite Champagne Cognac

If you are buying for someone who enjoys Rémy Martin, or even just enjoys their spirits neat (Scotch whisky or bourbon whiskey, for example), then I bring you this elegant cognac. The Montifaud estate and the Vallet family have been producing cognac for six generations spanning more than 150 years. Their cognac is aged for one year in new casks and then several more in French Limousine oak. With some depth and notes of pear and apricot, it’s great on its own, or even in cocktails.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Angel’s Envy Finished Rye

This whiskey has been seen in our local ABC stores, but only once in a blue moon, so act fast. You may be familiar with Angel’s Envy bourbon. I confess, while it’s pretty popular, it has never been one of my favorites. This rye, on the other hand, is a showstopper. I had my first taste last year right when the leaves were turning color and hitting the ground. I remember thinking how it tastes like fall.

The folks over at AE start with a 95 percent rye mash bill, aging it in charred white oak barrels. Then, they transfer the whiskey into rum casks — adding a sweetness to the rye, balancing the spiciness with notes of toasted oak, caramel and nuttiness. This whiskey is an ideal gift for any bourbon or rye fan.

Clairin le Rocher

This style of rum from Haiti got my attention at first sip. If you’re in the market for a gift for anyone with an affinity for rum, look no further. I’ve enjoyed the different bottles of clairin over ice, or as a Ti’ Punch. Per the website’s tasting notes on this particular bottle: “Le Rocher is a distillery at a higher elevation, creating their Clairin in the style of Jamaican single pot still by boiling wild sugar cane juice into syrup.” This rum is a little funky (in a good way) and there are notes of butterscotch and bananas. There are other clairins on the market, too, and any of them would be a great addition to that special someone’s home bar.

The Kyoto Distillery Ki No Tea, Green Tea Flavored Gin The team over at Kyoto Distillery only makes gin, and that

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The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

IN THE SPIRIT

dedication shows. Though this may seem like a boutique buy to some, the flavor of the gin is uncanny — I have never tasted a gin so clean and balanced, with different notes of green tea to boot. It’s described this way on the website: “Ki No Tea is a product created in collaboration with tea-grower and blender, Hori-Shichimeien, founded in the Meiji era in 1879 and based in the famous Uji region to the south of Kyoto city. A number of super-premium Uji teas have been specially selected to form the heart of Ki No Tea. Tencha and gyokuro provide intense aromas and depth of flavour with a wonderful sweetness that occurs naturally in the distillation of these superior teas. These teas are blended carefully with a secret botanical recipe used only in Ki No Tea.” Tencha is the tea used for matcha, and gyokuro (which means, “Jade dew”) is very rich and robust. Bottom line: this gin is outstanding on its own, and I cannot think of a gin that could go toe-to-toe with Ki No Tea without needing a modifier. If anything, buy this for a martini lover.

123 Organic Tequila Reposado (Dos)

Buy this for yourself. Founder and tequilero David Ravandi’s attention to detail with his line at 123 Organic Tequila is unparalleled. From its certified organic source (the agave is grown on USDA and EU certified organic estates without synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides) to the sustainability of its packaging (100 percent recycled glass; the label is printed on recycled paper; the labeling is made from vegetable-based inks), 123 Organic Tequila Reposado captures the finest expression of 100 percent organic blue agave. I’ve had their anejo “Tres,” and, now, their “Dos” reposado. Only distilling twice, this agave has notes of lemon and, on the palate, you’re treated to salted caramel and a touch of vanilla but not in an overpowering, vanillabomb way. This agave is great on its own, but man, oh man, it is my personal favorite for margaritas. PS Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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THE KITCHEN GARDEN

Christmas Greens Cold and collards go together

By Jan Leitschuh

It’s the most wonderful

PHOTOGRAPH BY DEB TUCKER

time of the year for many kitchen gardeners. Holidays are an opportune time to harvest, prepare and share the fruits of the late fall veggie patch — especially fresh collards.

About the time frost kisses the November vegetable garden, knocking back the remnant pepper plants and gone-to-seed basil, the collard patch comes into its happy place. That happy place extends into December, indeed, usually all winter. Jack Frost may be nipping at your nose, but he only does very good things for the unique flavor of collards.

When temperatures drop down to about 26 degrees Fahrenheit, frost can burn the foliage of the collard’s cousins such as broccoli and cauliflower. But the tough leaves of collards can take the cold down to 5 degrees F. A deeply cold morning may flatten your collard patch, a sad drooping sight, but after a few hours of sun they look sturdy and brand-new again. More than merely survive cold weather, nutrient-packed collards come through the cold even more flavorful — sweeter.

“Because of their high levels of glucosinolate compounds, collards offer more nutrition than all but just a few other vegetables,” says SFGate. “Freshly harvested collards top the charts in nutritional benefits, but by the time they are shipped long distances, up to 80 percent of their nutrients are lost. In addition, time and distance cause sweetness to fade and bitterness to intensify, so the tastiest option is to grow them yourself.”

That’s what we do — grow ‘em ourselves! No bugs in our winter garden.

A member of the cabbage family, the substantive, leathery leaves of collards grow in a loose head, rather than tight balls like cabbages.

Thus, the home gardener can harvest just a few leaves for supper or soup, or you can chop the whole shebang for a holiday cookfest.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

There are several ways to prepare collard leaves for cooking. A quick and simple way is to tear the leafy part from the midrib, then discard the ribs. The softer leaves can be rolled and cut into thin strips for even steaming. By julienning, smaller amounts of the tough leaves can be swiftly and easily steamed, dressed with a little Texas Pete or olive oil.

Discarding the sturdy midribs is wasteful, however. A more traditional treatment is to go big, with pounds of collards prepped at one time. Tear the leaf from the midrib, as above. Then, snap the crisp ribs into 3-inch pieces and place on the bottom of a pan with about 4 cups of liquid.

In the South, those 4 cups of flavorful liquid are often the result of boiling two or three smoked ham hocks in several cups of water for 2 hours (you could use — sorry, traditionalists — chicken, or even vegetable stock if ham is off your dietary radar). Other common additions are a teaspoon or so each of salt and red pepper flakes. Onehalf cup of apple cider vinegar helps the boiled meat break down and adds depth to the flavor but, be certain to use a non-reactive pot.

After a 2-hour simmer, the smoked meat should fall off the bone.

Cool the broth, chop the meat, and remove bones. Add about 5 pounds of washed and torn collards, the snapped midribs at the bottom of the liquid. Then pile on the torn leaves, with the thickest leaves near the bottom. The newer, more tender, leaves can go in near the top since they won’t be fully submerged.

Cover the pot and simmer gently for another hour. Repeat, gently. Low heat keeps the healthy sulfur compounds in the collards from stinking up the joint. The bright green leaves will darken to an olive green.

Eat hearty, share with friends, and freeze the rest. Merry Christmas! PS Jan Leitschuh is a local gardener, avid eater of fresh produce and cofounder of Sandhills Farm to Table.

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C H A R AC T E R S T U DY

Tuned In to the Generations Gary Brown’s musical legacy

By Jenna Biter

Mount the steps to The Caro-

PHOTOGRAP[H BY JOHN GESSNER

lina Hotel, walk the lobby to the dining room, and sit down to a fine breakfast under crystal chandeliers. Five mornings out of seven, Gary Brown Jr. will be in the corner tinkling the keys of the shiny baby grand just like his grandfather Robert L. Murphy did for 30 years before him.

Veterans of the hotel staff, and even some guests, watched Brown grow up playing music. At first it was strictly after school. He debuted alongside his grandfather and uncle, Rev. Dr. Paul Murphy, when he was only 14 years old. “My grandfather or uncle would be on the piano. Sometimes my uncle would be on the upright bass or the saxophone, and I would be on the drums,” says Brown. “That makes me the third generation.” He flashes a smile.

Eventually he shared his grandfather’s breakfast gig, penciled into the schedule more and more often, especially after he graduated from Pinecrest High School in 2007. Grandfather was preparing grandson to continue the family’s legacy. “I wanted to,” Brown says.

“It was never forced on me.”

In 2022 he’ll have been at it for 19 years. It’s a legacy that spans more than music. Gary’s father, Gary Brown Sr., has been working as a chef at the resort for 42 years, cooking now at Fairwoods on 7.

From a rocking chair on the wide, wraparound porch outside the

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

hotel’s dining room, Brown motions to the grounds. “To be in this atmosphere, you definitely have to make sure you are professional,” he says. When he was a teenager, Brown remembers being nervous that patrons would approach him to chat while he played. “I asked my grandfather, ‘What if somebody comes up to me?’” His grandfather explained it was a part of the job, part of being an entertainer, not just background noise.

Nearly two decades later, Brown’s fingers scale the black and white keys on autopilot while he small-talks with guests. He raises his eyebrows and affectionately impersonates their wide-eyed awe, “‘Woooo, you’re not even looking at your hands!’”

For Brown, playing the piano is like blinking — he can focus on the action but doesn’t have to. “I’ve literally been so tired that I could rest and play the piano,” he says. “One time, I almost fell off.” He drops his head, slumps to one side in imitation. “You know, how your body drops off? I nodded off, but it’s weird because my fingers kept playing.” He folds into laughter, remembering the waitstaff’s amusement at his expense.

Brown can read sheet music but usually plays without it. “I gauge the crowd, see who’s there, see who’s into it,” he says. He’ll sprinkle in pop songs for younger guests. “I love music. I like hymns. I like jazz. I like regular music that people hear on the radio. Either way I put my own touch to it.”

He’s been playing — well, trying to play — the piano since before he can remember. As a toddler, he would crawl to the piano and pull himself onto the bench to hammer at the keys. Then, in the second grade, he entered an art contest with the assignment to draw what you want to be when you grow up. His picture depicted the PineStraw

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adult Gary seated at a baby grand. “I didn’t know how to draw hair, so I just drew a mohawk,” he says, running a hand over his tightly cropped haircut.

Even without the mohawk, his elementary artwork was prescient.

“I not only play piano, I tune pianos,” he says. “And my grandfather tuned pianos, and my uncle tunes pianos.”

His Uncle Paul also plays at the resort at least once a week, as he has for the past 37 years. And his mother, the daughter of Robert and Paul’s sister, Cathy Murphy, is a piano technician, able to regulate and repair pianos.

The family’s musical legacy began when Robert opened Murphy’s Music Center, a piano store, in Aberdeen in 1972, at the time one of the few Blacks to own a Sandhills business. He shuttered the store in 1980 because of the recession, but his misfortune had an upside.

During the economic downturn, Murphy couldn’t afford to pay tuners to maintain the pianos he had in stock, so he learned to tune the instruments himself. That led to a new business, Murphy’s Music Service. When he started playing at the resort in 1982, the combination launched the family’s musical arc.

“My grandfather taught me how to tune by ear first,” Brown says. “Then, after I learned to tune by ear, he allowed me to use a device as an aid. If the device is broken, you still need to be able to tune the piano.”

He dives into a masterclass on the process. “For most of the keys on the piano, there are three strings,” he says. “I use the felt to mute

the left and right string, so then it only exposes the middle string.”

Brown describes the tedious process with hand motions as if a piano were in front of him. With only the middle string exposed, he sets the note before individually tuning the right and left strings until all three are in tune.

“That’s pretty much what I do all the way down the whole piano, and the piano has over 260 knobs and tuning pins I have to turn,” he says. “A lot of times, I go through it twice.”

Patience was the first skill Brown learned from his grandfather. “I used to look at him and say, ‘What is he doing?’ I’m like, ‘He’ll never get done doing that.’”

But wisdom comes from experience. “You just focus on one string at a time,” he says. He points to a decorative retaining wall on the grounds, “It’s like somebody building that brick wall right there . . . one brick at a time.”

At first, Brown learned the tuning trade in his grandfather’s shop. When his grandfather decided he was ready, Brown accompanied him to tune in customers’ homes. Then he graduated to tuning pianos solo with only pickup and drop-off by Grandpa.

When his grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, Brown stepped up. “He was tuning the piano, and I was right beside him.

But he didn’t have enough strength to do it. So, I said, ‘I got it, Grandpa, I got it,’” Brown says. “Then he’d hand me the tuning hammer, and I’d tune the piano.” When Murphy’s condition worsened and he had home hospice, Brown would service pianos and

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The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

C H A R AC T E R S T U DY

bring checks back to his grandfather until he passed away in 2012.

Nearly a decade later, Brown still shows up for his grandfather’s clientele. He helps to support Murphy’s Music Service, run by his grandmother, Thomasina, but also has his own tuning business, Murphy and Brown’s Moving Music. “Call either or, and I’ll still show up,” Brown says and cracks a smile.

After Robert Murphy died, Brown was upset he didn’t play the piano for his grandfather while he was in hospice care, so he added a third, compassionate, leg to his business. “It just opened my eyes to the opportunity. You know, since you didn’t do it for your grandfather, you can do it for other people.

“I’m the last person they hear before they pass away,” he says with sober gratitude.

“A lot of family members are mourning, don’t know what to say, don’t know what to do. Then when I come with the music, the music fills the gaps.”

Sometimes Brown brings his sons, Gary Brown III and Jayce, just shy of their ninth and fifth birthdays respectively, with him when he plays for hospice patients, so they can witness the gift that music can be.

Like their dad, the boys gravitated toward the piano as toddlers. “I would see them going to the piano and doing the same exact thing I did,” he says. But like Murphy didn’t force the piano on his grandson, Brown doesn’t force it on yet another generation. “A lot of people that come up to me, they say they used to take lessons when they were young, but they don’t play anymore. Maybe they had a strict teacher, or they just didn’t practice when they were supposed to,” he says. “But when they hear me play, they say they wish they would have kept playing.” Brown knows the next generation will get there on its own, if that’s where it wants to go.

“My grandpa always told me, ‘If you find something you love to do, you never work a day in your life.’ That’s why I learned how to play and I learned how to tune,” he says.

“I love it.” PS Jenna Biter is a writer, entrepreneur, and military wife in the Sandhills. She can be reached at jennabiter@protonmail.com.

Contact Brown for any of his piano services by calling him at (910) 315-1362 or emailing him at garybrown1362@gmail.com.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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P L E A S U R E S O F L I F E D E P T.

Reconsidering a White Christmas Perfection isn’t what it’s cracked up to be

By Tom Allen

The chances of a white Christ-

mas in the Sandhills of North Carolina are slim to none. Even if a few flurries put folks in the holiday spirit, the National Weather Service defines a white Christmas as having at least 1 inch of snow on the ground the morning of December 25. But a couple of inches on December 22 that hang around for a few cold days would make the cut, right? Liturgically speaking, Christmastide is 12 days, so more days equals a greater probability, correct?

Dreaming of a white Christmas, where the treetops glisten? Bing crooned the iconic song, first heard in Irving Berlin’s classic, Holiday Inn, then later in the eponymous motion picture. It continues to be the bestselling Christmas song of all time.

The concept is lovely, but when it actually happens, the dream, more often than not around here, becomes a nightmare — wind, cold, ice, cars off the road, and sundry other unpleasantries. In our part of the world the three French hens wouldn’t have electricity.

Aside from a couple of Christmas day dustings, I’ve only experienced one white Christmas, in Louisville, Kentucky, the winter of 1990. One front after another brought several inches of snow, starting the first week of December, continuing, almost weekly, for the next three months. Snow and a couple of ice storms kept the frozen stuff on the ground until early March.

Western Kentucky is well-equipped for these seasons, unlike the more temperate parts of the South, where a couple of inches brings life to a standstill. Roads and parking lots stayed pretty clear. Even the apartment complex where I lived kept the sidewalks and entryways clean. But dirty, piled-up snow, gray mush and salty slush made for a depressing winter. And even with salt trucks and The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

snowblowers, I often found myself waddling on an icy sidewalk or gingerly taking baby steps, hoping not to fall, which I did on a few occasions, bruising my ego more than other bodily parts.

On Christmas Eve 1990, my then-fiancée, Beverly, and I headed out to a service at the church we attended. The night was cold, raw, with just enough flurries to slow driving. Inside, the setting was beautiful, traditional, candles and crèche, and “Silent Night” to wrap things up. Heading out to my car after the service I noticed a grey Buick sedan had skidded on an icy patch into the front door panel on the passenger side of my red Toyota. Before I could yell, “Hey, hold on,” the car was gone. The dent was minor; I’d like to believe the chap driving the grey Buick had no idea he bumped my car. After all, it was Christmas — peace on Earth, goodwill to men, even the ones who dent your red Toyota. My instinct was to run, to catch the fella’s attention, to wish him a “Merry Christmas” before I pointed out we needed to talk. But another patch of ice brought me down, making me wonder just how merry and bright this Christmas would be.

As I recall, other than the dent — which I never got repaired — and a sore backside, it was a pretty good holiday. Oddly, the fact that our Christmas was white mattered little. I’ll take a chilly morning, clear roads, whatever family is gathered, and a snuggle with my dog.

Because the perfect Christmas, like the perfect marriage or kids or job or church, really doesn’t exist.

So, consider letting go of that perfect holiday. Substituting canned biscuits for yeast rolls that failed to rise isn’t the end of the world. What if the recycled Dollar Tree bag you had to use because you forgot that pretty roll of paper had someone else’s name on it? Don’t sweat it. Kids wiggly at Christmas Eve services? Baby starts crying during “Silent Night”? What better night to hear an infant cry?

The probability of a white Christmas here is low. Chances of a 70-degree day are the same as a 40-degree day. So be thankful for whatever’s on your table — and the people around it. Be civil. Be kind. Be glad.

Just watch out for that guy in a grey Buick sedan. PS Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.

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OUT OF THE BLUE

All Aboard

A ticket to ride the memory train

By Deborah Salomon

I parked on Pennsylvania Avenue,

PHOTOGRAP[H BY JOHN GESSNER

gathered my stuff and walked toward The Pilot office for a staff meeting. I work mostly from home but enjoy seeing everybody, checking the grapevine at least once a week.

Just before opening the door, I heard the shrill whistle, clanging bell and thunderous approach of a train, not much more than 50 yards away.

Just like an old movie, the present fades away and I am, once again, a little girl waiting with her mother on the platform of the original Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, ready to board The Southerner which would take us to my grandparents’ house in Greensboro. The sensory experience practically knocked me over: sounds, smell, emotions all at once, as though a compartment (the right word) in my brain had burst open, spilling forth contents, remarkably intact.

Because this is about brains, not trains.

Nevertheless . . . trains were part of my childhood. I rode a subway to school and traveled to Greensboro several times a year by rail.

After supper on warm nights, Granddaddy would walk me over to the tracks parallel to Lee Street to watch the freight trains rumble by.

I waved at the engineer. He waved back.

But it was the overnight trips from Penn Station to Greensboro’s imposing Southern Railway Depot that are etched above the eyebrows.

Before boarding, we would “grab a bite” at a coffee shop (always an egg salad sandwich, for me) then proceed to the platform bathed in enough steam to hide a furtive Ingrid Bergman. The conductor really did shout “All aboard!” to hurry passengers onto coach and Pullman (sleeper) cars. An hour or so into the trip, near Philadelphia, porters would commence “making up” berths in upper and lower compartments.

The porters! They were the essence of rail travel, posters for institutional segregation/racism. Most had white hair under their caps. All were kind and deferential. Unlike rather stern conductors, they smiled, made me feel safe. Watching them assemble upper and lower bunks concealed by heavy canvas curtains was like watching a child play Transformers. I can smell the ironed cotton sheets, feel the scratchy wool blankets, see the pillows covered in striped ticking.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Then the Pullman car went dark.

I peeked out. How strange to see strangers padding up and down the aisle in robes and slippers.

Once under the covers (I got the window side) after my mother fell asleep, I squeezed a metal gadget that unlocked the heavy shade and watched the landscape speed by.

Clickety-clack, clickety-clack . . . lullaby of the wheels.

We woke early, dressed (nobody traveled sloppy back then) and made our way to the dining car for breakfast. Glorious!

Outrageously expensive orange juice, scrambled eggs, biscuits and jam served by waiters wearing white gloves, who called me “Missy.”

Out the windows, Virginia and then North Carolina looked so much greener than New York. I saw cows grazing.

The air felt warm and fresh as we disembarked. Granddaddy was waiting in his ’36 Dodge, which emitted an odor that made me car sick. I can smell it, right this minute, and still feel woozy.

There’s so much more. When I was about 8 my mother sent me on ahead, alone. By then, the route required changing trains in Washington, at midnight. Always an adventurous child, I was thrilled. My mother pinned a note on my jacket, instructed the conductor, gave the porter a whole dollar to look after me, although little was required.

By then, I knew the ropes.

This was soon after World War II; trains were filled with happy young soldiers headed home. The ones in my car “adopted” the lone little girl, taught me a card game, gave me Hershey bars.

Unthinkable, now, which makes the memory even more precious.

But this is about the brain, right, not the train?

My last train ride was in Switzerland, in 1996. Here, I learned the hard way that if departure is scheduled for 10:32 that means 10:32, not 10:33. However, a few days before this memory eruption, I spoke to a couple who still ride Amtrak from Southern Pines to Penn Station, for a lark. Sure, it takes 12 hours but no driving to RDU, parking, weather delays, baggage issues, cramped seats, getting a cab ($50) or bus to midtown Manhattan. You can walk around, maybe recline. I must have been ruminating on this when Amtrak blasted across Pennsylvania Avenue unlocking a trainload of memories — audible, olfactory, visual — which like ghosts at midnight on Halloween, must slither back into that compartment in my frontal cortex, forever. PS Deborah Salomon is a writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

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B I R D WA T C H

A Tree of Delights Decorating can be for the birds, too

By Susan Campbell

ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR

This season, why not create a gift

for your feathered friends and consider “decorating” a holiday tree just for them? Although a hearty evergreen would be best, anything from a leafless sapling to a young longleaf pine will work. Better yet, a younger American holly or other berry-laden variety would be a terrific choice!

Consider this a project for the whole family, just like hanging ornaments or setting up lights in the yard. Keep in mind that, especially when using an evergreen, you are providing not one, but two, basic needs that all our wintering birds have: food and shelter.

To “decorate” your tree: — Drape with traditional strings of popcorn and cranberries or other dried fruits for the bluebirds and the blue jays.

— Hang homemade suet on pine cones for the chickadees and nuthatches.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

— Nestle shallow cups with sunflower seed or millet on the thickest branches for the cardinals and titmice.

— Smear peanut butter on the bark to attract woodpeckers and wintering warblers.

Last, but certainly not least, your tree will invariably attract natural food in the form of tiny insects. It will take no time for Carolina wrens or ruby-crowned kinglets to find them between the leaves or needles, or under the bark.

It may be that you create your gift to the birds just after Christmas — when your indoor tree is finished providing joy for the family. This is about the time that natural foods are waning and the birds are foraging in earnest. No doubt, bird species large and small will find your arboreal creation before long. Keep track of which ones you see using the tree. It may be a longer list than you might think.

Of course, other wildlife will love this holiday gift, too. In addition to gray squirrels and perhaps a fox squirrel, southern flying squirrels may glide in at night for a snack. A raccoon or opossum may sniff it out. Even a white-tailed deer or two will probably take a nibble. But then, who doesn’t appreciate a treat during this special season? PS Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos.

She can be contacted at susan@ncaves.com.

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T H E NAT U R A L I S T

Snow Days

North Carolina’s greatest wildlife spectacle Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

They appear like clockwork each November, arriving by the tens of thousands from their breeding grounds in the far north of Alaska and Canada, settling in for the winter in scattered locations across northeastern North Carolina, many in federal wildlife refuges created, in large part, for them and their kin. Possessing stark white feathers, weights of more than 5 pounds, and wings that stretch over 28 inches from tip to tip,

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snow geese are among our state’s most spectacular waterfowl. Aesthetics aside, what makes snow geese so remarkable is their tendency to form enormous flocks on their wintering grounds.

Containing as many as 40,000 individual birds, these cacophonous flocks provide the state’s greatest wildlife spectacle and can be seen in many of our coastal wildlife refuges such as MacKay Island, Pea Island and Lake Mattamuskeet. However, the largest flocks tend to aggregate in the vast fields and lakes of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in rural Tyrell County, which is exactly where I found myself one winter’s day.

I had timed my arrival for late afternoon, just as the sun was starting to dip in the bright blue western sky. Experience had taught me that the geese spend much of the day roosting in the shallow waters The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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T H E NAT U R A L I S T

Toast of the refuge’s Pungo Lake, only to leave in unison in early evening to forage in nearby agricultural fields.

Turning down a refuge dirt road, a northern harrier, a large, white-tailed hawk, arched gracefully above a hedgerow that bordered a shallow irrigation ditch, its long wings barely flapping in the gentle breeze as it attentively searched the grasses for an unsuspecting rodent or bird. Up ahead in the road, a pair of white-tailed deer ambled into an immense field of corn, their brown bodies quietly disappearing among the golden stalks.

Rounding a sharp bend in the road, I slow my car. Stretched out to my right, in a recently plowed field, are hundreds of tundra swans, their large white bodies aglow in the late afternoon light. Like the snow geese I have come to see, they, too, are recent migrants from the far North.

Both the geese and swans are attracted to this area for the immense wetlands surrounded by fields of corn and soybeans, crops that provide a high-energy food resource that sustains the gregarious flocks through the long winter days. The refuge allows local farmers to plant crops on its lands as part of a cooperative farming program. Instead of paying the refuge rent, farmers are encouraged to leave a portion of their crop in the field for the migratory waterfowl.

I put my car in park, roll down my window and turn off the engine. Pointing a long telephoto lens in the swans’ direction, I frame a small group standing at attention, carefully monitoring a predatory red-tailed hawk flying above the tree line at the far end of the field. Suddenly, I hear them, the roar of thousands of wings launching simultaThe Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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T H E NAT U R A L I S T

Naturalist and photographer Todd Pusser works to document the extraordinary diversity of life both near and far. His images can be found at www.ToddPusser.com.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Engaging Activities All Year

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neously from the surface of nearby Pungo Lake nearly a half-mile away. Despite the distance, the booming voices of the snow geese echo through the trees and across the vast expanse of the soybean field.

Before long, immense V-shaped lines of geese approach, high up in the sky from the east, and begin to circle above the tundra swans. Great swirling currents of snowwhite wings, all beating in unison, descend, tornado-like, to the ground just a hundred yards from my parked car. Their synchronous movements are provocative. No other waterfowl are as gregarious, and I marvel at how the large birds fly so skillfully in such large aggregations. At no time do I see two birds so much as brush wing tips.

The geese snowstorm lasts for a full 20 minutes, and the open, plowed field, once a drab brown landscape of crop stubble, morphs into an enormous living white carpet full of frenetic energy. The noise is deafening.

There are few spots on the planet where one can witness such a gathering of animals, and it is remarkable to think that a spectacle such as this occurs so close to home. Even more astounding, I have this phenomenon all to myself. Nary another car is in sight.

As the sun dips toward the western horizon, late afternoon light washes over the flock, casting a golden hue over the sea of white feathers. The incessant chorus continues as the geese, mixed among the taller tundra swans, eagerly gobble mouthfuls of nourishment, pausing occasionally to crane their necks upward looking around for potential predators.

After nearly an hour, the dark silhouette of a flapping eagle appears just over the tree line along the far corner of the field.

The entire flock instantly takes notice and, for just a split second, their honking and cackling stops. Then, blastoff! Thousands of birds launch simultaneously in a furious explosion of flapping wings.

The flock rises into the early evening sky in a white shimmering wave and circles back toward the lake, leaving nothing but a few scattered feathers strewn across an empty field, and silence. PS

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G O L F T OW N J O U R NA L

Social Status

Tobacco Road’s uniqueness shines in cyberspace

By Lee Pace

It’s the banana ball

that balloons into the wind and is funneled into the hinterlands to the right.

It’s the duck hook that runs like a scalded dog into the woods left. It’s that bladed wedge that flies into the weeds and dark catacombs beyond the green.

A bad shot at Tobacco Road Golf Club provides opportunity.

For Martha Hudson with her trusty iPhone camera, the possibilities are endless.

“Most of the really interesting angles that I find usually happen when I’m playing and I’ve hit a really horrendous shot, or I’m helping someone look for a ball,” says Hudson, a golf staff member at Tobacco Road who manages the course’s social media platforms.

Over the last six years, Hudson has learned to work with dexterity, documenting the skies, shadows and seasons of a course designed

by Mike Strantz in 1998 and carved from a sand pit 30 miles north of the village of Pinehurst. Showcased at various times on the club’s Instagram account, which numbers more than 26,000 followers, are the mottled grasses and dramatic hillocks around the blind-shot 13th green; the mammoth mounds bordering the pathway of the tee shot on the first hole; the weathered railroad ties up to the ninth tee, or others providing access to bunkers around the course. There are misty mornings, full moons at dusk, and the ecrus of dormant grass in the winter.

“For me, it’s capturing all of what makes this golf course so unique,” she says. “The features, the green shapes, the undulations, the light at different times of day and different seasons. I wasn’t here when the course was built, but the guys who were here talk about how Mike saw everything as art. That artwork has matured over 20 years. That’s what I try to capture.”

Tobacco Road is one of the Sandhills area’s most distinctive golf courses. It’s appropriate then that the club has one of the most cutting-edge social media presences, particularly on Instagram, the medium of choice for millennial and Generation Z golfers looking for eye candy and interaction with their fellows. It can hardly

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

rival the reach of Pinehurst Resort and Country Club with its 68,000-plus Instagram followers and a worldwide presence via more than a century of existence and its position as a U.S. Open “anchor site,” but Tobacco Road dwarfs every other golf venue in the area.

Hudson, a former collegiate golfer at the University of AlabamaBirmingham and an English major, melds her love of golf — “the Game,” as she refers to it online — a one-of-a-kind golf course, her vocabulary and her camera, into an eclectic mix of images and pithy descriptions.

“I have a concentration in creative writing, so the storytelling aspect of doing the marketing at such a unique place is fulfilling on a creative level for me,” she says. “Tobacco Road is truly a special place, and people are reliving experiences digitally, whether it’s going through their own photos or Instagram or whatever social media platforms they’re on. You get their attention, and then they’ll dig into whatever story you want to tell. A lot of golf courses never take advantage of the opportunity. It’s free. All it takes is effort, a little time and some creativity.”

A mid-1990s golf trip to Myrtle Beach by two Sanford friends and businessmen sparked the idea for Tobacco Road. Mark Stewart was president of Lee Concrete Co., and Tony Woodell was vice president of construction, and their company owned more than 200 acres of old rock and sand quarries on a tobacco and soybean farm just off U.S. 15-501 south of Sanford. The proliferation of courses in the 1990s golf boom prompted them to wonder if a daily fee course located between the population-dense Triangle area and the international golf mecca of the Sandhills might work. They investigated the concept and were led to Strantz, a former Tom Fazio protégé who had recently completed excellent work at Caledonia and True Blue near Pawley’s Island, South Carolina.

Before his death from cancer in 2005, Strantz bequeathed to the mid-Atlantic region a half-dozen dynamic new golf courses. His firm was named Maverick Golf Design for excellent reasons. The architect worked on one course at a time and set up living quarters at the venue. He stood 6-foot-5 and sported shoulder-length hair and a mustache. He rode a horse around the property and made intricate sketches of every hole, then turned the drawings over to his shapers.

He would be covered in dirt after working the equipment all day or in paint after marking the lines of the various layers of the course — PineStraw

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G O L F T OW N J O U R NA L

fairways, fescue rough, love grass, areas to be left in their natural sandy state. Part of the club’s logo is a deer skull that Strantz found while building the course.

“I remember his passion most of all,” says Joe Gay, the club’s original director of golf, who retired in 2015. “He was so enthusiastic about everything. He was excited all the time. We feel blessed Mike provided us with this golf course before he passed away.”

Today the course is ranked No. 49 on Golf Digest’s list of America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses and No. 35 on Golf magazine’s Top 100 Courses You Can Play.

The course closed for two months in the summer of 2014 to convert its greens to MiniVerde Bermudagrass.

“It is so visually stunning, and the images just get seared in your mind at certain places, and it just makes you want more,” Hudson says. “You want to understand more of the golf course and why Mike did that or maybe how you could have played it differently.”

Hudson grew up in Black Mountain, just east of Asheville, and played golf in high school in the early 2000s before moving on to UAB. She was working at a daily fee course in Birmingham in January 2015 when she was hired at Tobacco Road. Gay retired later that year, Chris Brown moved up from head professional to director of golf, and Hudson was given more responsibilities, including managing the social media platforms. The course’s Instagram account had under 500 followers at the time.

“Martha has done a great job,” Brown says. “Some people are good with the photos, some with the words. She’s skilled at both.

Add to that the fact that everybody has a mobile TV studio in their back pocket. The younger audiences are coming through the door, the guys attracted by Bar Stool and places like that. People get information today through so many different sources. I’m 53. I don’t have to understand it or always agree with it, but I know it works.” PS Chapel Hill-based writer Lee Pace has written about golf in the Sandhills since the late 1980s and has authored a dozen books about clubs, courses and the people who made it special. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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From the gourmet Southern flavors of the Four-Diamond 1895 Grille to the casual atmosphere of the Pinehurst Brewing Co., dining options at Pinehurst include something for every taste.

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December ����

WET CHRISTMAS

for Richard Hood

I’m cooking a pizza in the oven.

Every bit of steam’s frolicking.

Snug on my high bed, the sheets listen.

From dawn to dusk the barnyard lights glisten When I crease my covers whiter than snow,

For I am loving no flakes this Christmas.

With every yellow daisy popping up, The meadow turning even more golden, And the full moon, coming up now, blossoms To let the elephants and flocks go by.

They flop out of sight like exclamations, Arriving in wonder, McGee’s Crossroads, To prep and string popcorn in rows of clouds.

There is no snow on Paul’s Hill this Christmas, Just dollops of dewy lichens on posts.

May sweaters spring red, blue, white, brown, lacey, Minds lift away from neutrally racy Swears to mark the weather this morn.

I put suet out for the woodpeckers.

Not a one in sight will leave me undone.

All my button-holes I keep unbuttoned For breezes to make my lashes whistle, This merry Christmas day, Cricket snores.

The front door’s purposefully half-open, My heart singing a sprig in awe of spring.

— Shelby Stephenson

Shelby Stephenson was North Carolina’s poet laureate from 2015-2018.

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The Twelve Days of Delights

By Jenna Biter • Photographs by John gessner

Dec. 25 marks the first day of the Christmas season, not the last. In Christian theology, the 12 days of Christmas begin with the birth of Christ and end with the Epiphany, the coming of the Magi, on Jan. 6. Thanks to the time span, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” came to be the earworm millions of radio listeners subconsciously hum from November till year’s end with the predictable vocal breakthrough at “five golden rings.”

Printed in 1780, the children’s book Mirth without Mischief features the earliest known version of the playful lover’s ode. Of course, the carol’s origins are less than clear, but most historians agree that the song was originally a memory-and-forfeit game. Singers who forgot lyrics paid their playmates with a forfeit like a kiss on the cheek.

Only competitive kids, Jeopardy! champions, or carolers with serious sets of lungs typically finish the song, so we asked 12 local confectioners to interpret the verses in a visual cheat sheet of holiday desserts.

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

By K ayla R enee Cakes

Kayla Lowery found an image of a lyric sheet while searching the internet for partridge-in-a-pear-tree inspiration and knew that she wanted to scrawl the carol’s opening line, “On the first day of Christmas,” on her cake to introduce the song. She daubed the fowl and foliage with a palette knife and paintbrush to achieve a vintage design that matches the tenor of the 18th century song. “I’m more of a buttercream hands-on kind of person than I am a fondant person,” she says, referring to her painterly technique.

Lowery, 22, started her baking business when she was just 14 and will open her first storefront in January in downtown Raeford.

Email: kaylareneecakes@gmail.com Instagram: @kaylareneecakes Facebook: @KRLCakes

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Two Turtle Doves

By Grace Filled Baker

“I am always inspired by vintage cakes,” says Alison Reed, whose mother in-law, Debbie Reed, taught her how to bake, passing along vintage piping techniques in the process. “I knew I wanted to do a heart, keep it clean and simple and white,” she says of her dessert. Reed made a chocolate cake with cream cheese filling, gracing it with two chocolate turtle doves. Doves mate for life, so the heart shape is fitting. Reed prefers to work in muted tones that support the vintage modus operandi of her home-based bakery, Grace Filled Baker.

Website: gracefilledbaker.com Email: alison@gracefilledbaker.com Instagram: @gracefilledbaker Facebook: @GFBgracefilledbaker

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Three French Hens

By Sal’s of Southern Pines

Sarah Gunderson, an experienced chef who runs her own catering and cake business, meticulously deconstructed “three French hens” into a crêpe cake layered with a pomegranate compote and diplomat cream, a pastry cream folded with whipped cream. She garnished her cake with pistachios and honeyed orange peel.

The crêpes are French. The pastry cream is made with eggs, representing the hens. The “three” represent faith, love and hope. “I did honey for hope because I hope for a sweeter tomorrow; pomegranate for love; and then crêpe again, for the unleavened bread, for faith,” Gunderson says.

Website: salsofsouthernpines.com Email: sgunderson@salsofsouthernpines.com Facebook: Sal’s of Southern Pines Instagram: @sals_ofsouthernpines

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Four Calling Birds

By Cakes in the Pines

Kristen Donovan has been baking since her 13-year-old daughter was 3 and has been running her one-woman show, Cakes in the Pines, for two years. “I wanted to make it bright, happy — a Christmasy feel,” Donovan says. “Especially since these past two years have been a little dark.” So, instead of blackbirds, she opted for an evergreencolored, vanilla bean buttercream overlayed with a snow-covered Christmas tree and a trio of white birds. The fourth calling bird, made of fondant and sugar paste with wafer paper wings, alights on the top tier, which is a marble cake. The bottom tier is vanilla.

Email: cakesinthepines@gmail.com Facebook: @cakesinthepines Instagram: @cakesinthepines

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Five Golden Rings

By Pineconefections

Mary Hannah Ellis has some serious local baking credentials, but she’s a hobby baker and wants to keep it that way. “Baking should always be enjoyable; the kitchen is where I go to escape from work,” she says. She escapes to the tropics for the fifth day of Christmas. “I love Christmas, but I’m not a fan of winter,” Ellis says.

“Summer is my favorite season.” So, of course, her interpretation has a piña colada spin. The “five golden rings” of paradise is a three-tiered cake made of pineapple layers with coconut-pineapple filling and coconut cream cheese buttercream, and it’s decorated with pineapple rings and piped sprigs of holly.

Instagram: @pineconefections

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Six Geese A-Laying Form V Chocolates

“When I thought of six geese a-laying, I immediately thought of golden goose eggs,” says Scott Hasemeier, Pinehurst’s resident chocolatier, who specializes in hand-painted bon bons. In a three-day process, Hasemeier made thin-shelled white chocolate eggs, filled them with a caramel “yolk,” and then tossed the eggs in golden luster dust before cozying them into a nest of chocolate-covered pretzels. “I rolled the pretzels into a small branch, and then I covered that with some chocolate bark and sprayed it with some green cocoa butter to make it look mossy,” he says.

Website: formvchocolates.com Email: formvchocolates@gmail.com Facebook: @FormVChocolates Instagram: @formvchocolates

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Seven Swans A-Swimming Cookies by Jay

When Jessica Wirth and her family were stationed in England, she and her British neighbor would take their kids to feed a few of England’s swans, all technically owned by the queen — though her majesty exercises that option only in the waters nearest Windsor castle. After mastering the art of decorating cookies with royal icing, Wirth now runs her own home-based, cookie-making bakery, Cookies by Jay. She even owns a 3D printer to make her “seven swans a-swimming” cookie cutters. The cookies are her signature almond vanilla-flavored sugar cookies with a soft-bite vanilla royal icing and hand-painted details.

Website: cookiesbyjay.com Email: cookiesbyjaync@gmail.com Instagram: @cookiesbyjay Facebook: @CookiesbyJay

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Eight Maids A-Milking Ashley’s Sweet Designs

“I decided to do the scene with a big red barn because it’s like where I came from,” 24-year-old Ashley Garner says. “Robbins is a farm town.” She constructed an entire country scene out of movable sugar cookies finished with royal icing that anyone would like to eat and every kid would like to play with . . . and then eat. Garner started making and decorating cookies and cakes after catching the bug from watching television bakers. She posted her creations to social media, and people started placing orders. Now, she’s baking at Robbins’ new Middleton Street Bakeshop, where the owner, Carrie Ritter, allows her to work on her own business, Ashley’s Sweet Designs.

Email: ashleyssweetdesigns@outlook.com Facebook: Ashley’s Sweet Designs

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Nine Ladies Dancing Lynette’s Bakery and Café

Lynette Bofill opened her eponymous bakery and café in 2019, and she’s been serving up Cuban American favorites ever since.

She’s interpreted nine ladies dancing in a flan that tastes like Christmas. “My grandmother always made flan for every holiday or birthday,” she says. “It’s not a holiday without one.” Bofill’s “nine ladies dancing” is flavored with orange and cranberry and doused in a cranberry-bourbon citrus sauce. She imagined the soft, delicate caramel custard as nine elegant ballerinas, and the cranberry, citrus and shot of bourbon as their bold moves. “It comes together just like a performance,” she says.

Website: lynettesbakerycafe.com Email: info@lynettesbakerycafe.com Facebook: @LynettesBakeryCafe Instagram: @lynettesbakerycafe

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Ten Lords A-Leaping C.Cups Cupcakery

Growing up, Chelsea Schlegel enjoyed artistic endeavors like painting and sculpture. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in hospitality and resort management, cake decorating turned out to be her match-made-in-heaven career fit. “I was always watching Food Network as a kid and loved the Ace of Cakes,” she says. Schlegel works as the cake decorator at Janell Canino’s C.Cups Cupcakery, where she created the bake shop’s “ten lords a-leaping” cake. “I decided to be pretty straightforward with it,” she says. And it paid off.

Website: theccupscupcakery.com Email: southernpinescupcakes@gmail.com Facebook: @theccupscupcakery Instagram: @ccupscupcakery

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Eleven Pipers Piping The Bakehouse

“I immediately knew I wanted to do something classic,” says Teresa Santiago, the pastry chef at The Bakehouse in Aberdeen. “‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ is a Christmas carol written in the 1700s, and it made me think of large chapels with stained glass windows and a really traditional Christmas.” Santiago hand-piped and painted the stained glass panels on columns of fondant, shaped the Christmas tree out of tempered chocolate, and hand-blew the ornaments from sugar. “Here at the Bakehouse, we love Christmas,” she says.

Website: thebakehouseofaberdeen.com Email: thebakehouse@yahoo.com Facebook: @thebakehouseofaberdeen Instagram: @thebakehouseofaberdeen

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Twelve Drummers Drumming The Macaron Sisters

Military wives, friends and devoted bakers Morgan Wagner and Lindsay Weaver decided to tackle the art of macaron making together. They were hooked after their first batch, eventually launching their home-based business, The Macaron Sisters, to share their passion for the French cookie.

“With macarons being naturally round with flat tops, we thought it would be neat to make them look like drums,” says Wagner. The lighter brown cookies with green piping are spiced gingerbread with eggnog buttercream, and the darker brown cookies with red piping are classic chocolate with chocolate peppermint ganache.

Website: morganbatanian.wixsite.com/themacaronsisters Email: morganbatanian@gmail.com Facebook: @themacaronsisters Instagram: @the_macaronsisters

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The Violin in the Closet Separated by tragedy, musical voices are reunited

M

By Susanna Klingenberg • Photographs by Eamon Queeney

usical instruments carry the souls of the people who have played them. Inside the Raleigh home of Tony Morcos, a 1792 Zwerger violin and a 1905 Blüthner piano occupy places of pride. Exquisitely crafted of wood, strings and ivory, their story spans centuries and continents, tragedy and hope.

The lives of the piano and violin first intertwined through sisters Grete and Natascha Wilczynski, a promising pair on the performance scene in Munich, Germany, in the early 1900s. Partners and best friends, they often played duets in concert halls around the city. The two sisters had a striking stage presence with very different approaches.

On the Blüthner, Grete was a technical, no-nonsense musician. On the Zwerger, Natascha was a free-spirited bohemian. Their musical strengths lifted and complemented each other, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

With the rise of Nazi rule, everything changed for Germany’s Jewish population. Passage of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws — the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor — meant that the life Grete and Natascha had known, including their

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appearances on the stage, was no longer safe. Natascha was scheduled to play her violin live on the radio with the Munich Radio Symphony, but the morning of the concert, she received a telegram — because of the new laws, she could no longer play. “You have been cancelled,” it read.

Soon thereafter, Natascha fled to Italy with her violin, but in 1938 she was deported to France, where life was equally perilous. With so much uncertainty, she left the Zwerger with her brother, Jakob, in Strasbourg. Her fears proved all too prescient. Natascha was arrested and sent to Drancy, a transit camp in France, then transferred to Auschwitz on August 31, 1942. She was murdered there, the date of her death unknown.

Meanwhile Grete, who had married and then divorced, fled to Jerusalem with her young daughter Ruth, leaving her beloved piano behind in Munich. Grete offered a former neighbor everything in her old apartment — all of her worldly possessions — if he could somehow rescue the Blüthner and get it to her in Jerusalem. Her neighbor succeeded, allowing Grete to carve out a meager living giving piano lessons in her Jewish quarter apartment, the sound of the piano bringing moments of normalcy to their new home.

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lin in the closet.” Once he started asking questions, he couldn’t stop.

The story of his great-aunt Natascha sparked an interest in his roots and a recognition that his love of music, already a hobby, ran deeper than he realized.

By 1991, the 22-year-old Morcos was a college grad and fledgling musician, into “partying and guitars” and living in a tiny San Diego apartment. He decided to learn how to play his great-aunt’s violin. “I got that thing restored and took it to my teacher,” says Morcos, “and she said, ‘Now this is a violin!’” He began playing in coffee shops, bars, anywhere in San Diego that would have him. As his talent as a musician grew, so did his desire to reunite the violin with his grandmother Grete’s piano.

In the late ’90s, Morcos looked up Kellerman and asked if he’d be interested in selling the Blüthner. He wasn’t. But in 2015 — now settled in Raleigh — Morcos got a call from his cousin Daniela. “She said, ‘He wants to sell!’” he recalls. “I couldn’t believe he remembered me and took the trouble to track us down.”

Morcos bought the piano and had it shipped from New York to his house in Raleigh to welcome it back to the family. After nearly a

Grete and Natascha Wilczynski

Once Ruth was grown and living on her own in Jerusalem, Grete remarried and immigrated to New York, bringing the piano with her.

When she retired to Florida in 1986, she sold the Blüthner piano to Stewart Kellerman, a writer and editor for The New York Times. He had once taken piano lessons from Grete’s great-niece (and Tony's cousin), Daniela Morcos, while she was a student at The Juilliard School.

Stewart was drawn to the sound and feel of the piano, but also the history of the instrument. “Knowing its story added to the pleasure of playing it,” he said in a recent interview.

Ruth also eventually immigrated to the United States, marrying a Catholic man and converting to Catholicism. On her way to the United States, her ship stopped in Nice, France, where Natascha’s brother, her uncle Jakob, gave her the Zwerger violin. Ruth settled in Dayton, Ohio, but never mentioned to anyone — not even to her own children — that she was Jewish. It was a safe life, a deliberate step away from the persecution in her past. The violin, a physical reminder of her family’s story, was tucked in a closet, hidden for nearly 40 years.

That’s where her son, a curious, young Tony Morcos, found it.

“She’d ask me to go get something from that closet, and I saw the case there and wondered. And I just kept wondering,” says Morcos.

“For a long time, I didn’t have the guts to ask my mom about that vio-

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Tony Morcos with his wife, Mindy

century, the instruments were reunited. Morcos decided to surprise his mother, Ruth, with a concert for her 90th birthday. It would feature the two instruments she hadn’t heard playing together since her childhood in Munich.

On August 29, 2015, the Zwerger violin and the Blüthner piano joined in their first duet in over a century. In honor of Grete and Natascha, they were played by two women with Jewish ancestry: Jacqueline Saed Wolborsky, principal second violin for the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, and Mimi Solomon, an accomplished chamber pianist and lecturer at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

That night, the violin and piano filled the air with Brahms and Beethoven, undiminished, strengthened by their many caretakers. “The violin was dark and soulful, like a sultry woman,” says Wolborsky. Richard Ruggero, the longtime Raleigh piano tuner who maintains the Blüthner, describes its sound as “warm and romantic.”

For the musicians and guests, the songs of the violin and piano awakened powerful feelings. “That evening was a life-altering experience for me,” says Wolborsky. “These instruments represent the history of my own family, and of so many Jewish families — their voices represent survival. This violin was not quieted. She still speaks.”

For Ruth, the instruments recalled decades of pain, the fortitude of building a new life and family, and the joy of music. “Mom and I cried when Jackie and Mimi played,” says Tony. “They were telling my mom’s story. She survived. The party honored her life and all she had been through to get to her 90th birthday.”

Ruth passed away last year but the story endures, a haunting reminder of darkness and hope, rendered in wood, strings, and ivory. PS

Susanna Klingenberg is a writer, editor, and former North Carolina State University writing instructor.

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Jacqueline Saed Wolborsky with the Zwerger violin

A Heartbreaking Suspicion In 1993, Tony Morcos took his great aunt Natascha’s violin for an appraisal at Sotheby’s in Beverly Hills. The appraiser was drawn to the bow, noting some missing embellishments.

He confided a heartbreaking suspicion to Morcos: that Natascha had removed and sold the bow embellishments — gold and mother-of-pearl, most likely — to earn money for her escape. “He had seen this story before: a desperate Jewish violinist couldn’t sell her violin — that’s her livelihood — but she could sell the accoutrements,” remembers Morcos.

He began to piece together the puzzle: “We found evidence in old letters that Natascha was trying to raise the equivalent of $10,000 to get to Cuba, including selling the gold and mother of pearl from her bow, she was trying to survive, trying to get out, but was not able to.”

Ten years later, Morcos landed in the Raleigh workshop of world-renowned bow expert Jerry Pasewicz. After examining the bow, Pasewicz confirmed the appraiser’s suspicions and restored Natasha’s bow to its original beauty, forever a reminder of a life tragically lost.

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The Nutcracker: A fantastical journey through the Four Realms

land of Sweets

Producer: Nicole Stein, Angela Robb

Karma Spa Lounge and Beauty Bar

Hair: Angela Robb

Karma Spa Lounge and Beauty Bar

Makeup: Laura Sykes, Jessica Biegger Wine and Design

Artists: Jennifer Campuzano, Tika Worthon, Kate McDonald, Grace Harjung, Nicole Torres, Celina Torres Costumes by: Showboat Costumes Photographs by Tim Sayer

Scan this for behind the scenes view of Valerie being made up

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valerie Herman Manager of C Cups

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The Nutcracker:

land of Snowflakes A fantastical journey through the Four Realms

Katie McIntire K.Mac Athletics and Arts

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The Nutcracker: A fantastical journey through the Four Realms

Land of flowers

Scan this for behind the scenes view of leslie being made up

Leslie Habets Jack Hadden Floral and Events, the dress was designed and built by Leslie Habets

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The Nutcracker:

Land of adventure A fantastical journey through the Four Realms

Jennifer Boer TWS Technology

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STORY OF A HOUSE

Christmas and Beyond Seasoned with a light touch

By Deborah Salomon • Photographs by John Gessner

M

inimalist. Christmas. Opposites.

Decorating a home for Christmas suggests tinsel, paper chains, gingerbread villages, candles, holly wreathes, mangers, Santas, angels, lights-lights-lights.

Not necessarily. A few absolutely perfect — in scale and taste — Yuletide arrangements can make a house glow.

Especially when the house itself is tailored to its occupants’ lifestyle, where decorations lean toward the elegant, the traditional, the spare.

Garlands. Ribbons. Wreaths.

This happens at the Country Club of North Carolina home of Teresa Marshall and Rick Kline, who married in their new living room last December. Accommodations for the COVID-19 pandemic

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limited them to 10 guests sitting on white sofas arranged like pews.

Framing the scene were miles of moldings: crown, window, door.

High ceilings completed the effect — airy and calm — which, all things considered, also provides the ideal stage for Christmas decorations.

No snowmen. No reindeer. No elves. Santa survived the cut.

“We just wanted a little bit of Christmas in all the main rooms,” Teresa says.

Helping to realize the effect was Matthew Hollyfield of Hollyfield Design. He was tasked with creating arrangements that could be augmented with red roses for the wedding on Dec. 27. In Teresa’s childhood home, the tree, decorated by her mother, was the focus. “I felt strongly about that,” she says. All Rick remembers is “just a tree and a lot of toys.” And butter cookies. Their wish was simple. “We The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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wanted to establish our own traditions, carry over decorations and add to them every year,” she says.

Teresa wanted the main tree in the living room, in front of a window, and a tabletop tree visible from the bottom of a high staircase, festooned with greenery — the very staircase she descended in her wedding gown. Partial to large glass ball ornaments, she sat back, turned on the music and watched Hollyfield hang them. A tray of succulents extended over the kitchen countertop; a small arrangement centered the dining room table. Understated, but a presence.

Outside, more garlands of pine and fir, to be augment-

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ed this year by lighted trees. Teresa and Rick decorate immediately after Thanksgiving. Otherwise, there’s hardly time to enjoy. Greenery must be best-quality manmade, and reusable. Spray-on piney scents are optional.

Hollyfield confirmed the house was an excellent backdrop. The decorations didn’t have to compete with “a lot of heavy oil paintings,” he says. Rick and Teresa prefer landscapes by local artists, including one by Jessie Mackay, who lives just down the road. Otherwise, expanses of white walls, framed by those amazing moldings, beg seasonal adornment.

Ah, the house: White-painted brick stretches The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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asymmetrically across a knoll overlooking the Dogwood Course and lake beyond. A circular driveway surrounds close-cropped grass, green enough for putting. Tall pines dominate the background, where a pair of eagles nest.

Location. Location. Location.

T

eresa and Rick were living within sight of this prime property, conveniently vacant. Their house needed renovations. Why not start over, build their dream home on the lot with the million-dollar view?

Rick, an attorney, and Teresa, a retired banker, negotiated the purchase. They drew a layout suited to their needs, where the pool (with hot tub and sun shelf) is close enough to the living room — with its interesting tray ceiling — and adjoining screened porch to seem part of it. The dining room with built-in bar serves as a passageway into a large kitchen, all white and stainless steel, with miles of natural quartzite countertops, a chevron tile backsplash, and paned windows with nothing to obscure the vista — all for Teresa. She prepares Thanksgiving dinner for a multitude of relatives.

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“I make Sunday breakfast,” Rick says.

Adjoining the kitchen is a small “keeping room.”

Teresa adopted this New England designation that refers to a small area where family gathers around the fireplace in an unheated cabin come winter. More sitting room than den, this fireplace and TV are still the draw, especially when guests congregate in the kitchen. That leaves the dining room for contrast, painted a deep sea blue with teal overtones on the walls, ceiling, even the moldings.

The master suite is off the kitchen-keeping area, enabling an entrance from pool deck to bedroom. Here, again, a splash of wall color. Not mint. Not lime or avocado. Maybe celery. “It’s called Teresa green,” she says, therefore pre-ordained.

Area rugs over stained white oak floors throughout are colorful, but muted. The furnishings are in the comfort/ The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

contemporary mode, excepting several antiques from Rick’s family.

Upstairs the scale changes. Two comparatively small bedrooms, each with a bathroom, accommodate family and guests. Yet, citing the careful design, they use each room, almost every day.

“W

e have been very blessed,” Teresa says. “I had the ability to retire, and we’re both healthy.” Their decision to marry in December ensured that Christmas will always be doubly special. As for the house they built for their wedding and beyond: Serene. Beautiful. Absolutely perfect. PS PineStraw

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Arts & Culture

E THEATRTEMPLESHOWS.ORG E L P M TE 55

919.774.41

DECEMBER

2-19, 2021

-23, 2022

3 JANUARY 1

T H E A R T I S T S L E AG U E O F THE SANDHILLS th

27 Annual Fall Exhibit & Sale LARGEST OFFERING OF ORIGINAL FINE ART IN THE SANDHILLS

OPEN NOW THROUGH DECEMBER 17TH! MEMBERSHIP MAKES A GREAT CHRISTMAS GIFT!

All adults with an interest in the visual arts are invited and encouraged to become members.

Levels of membership: Associate member - $50/year • Full member - $160/year

910-944-3979 • www.artistleague.org 129 Exchange Street • Aberdeen, NC 112

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A L M A N A C

December

By Ashley Walshe

D

ecember is a bed of ash and embers, an ancient ritual, a deep and permeating warmth.

The songbirds are stirring. You slip on your work gloves, slip out the back door, fade into the arms of the dark and wintry morning.

On the walk to the woodshed, the cold air stings your lungs. You gather the kindling and hardwood. You gather yourself for the long journey inward. The leaves crunch gently underfoot.

Back inside, where the sleeping cat resembles a furled frond, the hearth becomes a sacred alter. You kneel down, offer the gifts of summer’s storms: walnut, oak and maple limbs. In a moment of deep silence, the wood speaks. The fire keeper listens close.

Once the kindling catches, time slows. And as the logs begin to pop and crackle, the dancing flames transport you to every fire you have ever known. You are transfixed — enchanted. Here and many places, as if all timelines have merged.

At once, something breaks you from your trance: a primal knowing.

It’s time again to feed the fire. You add another log, shift your focus from the flames to the glowing embers, the source of true and lasting warmth.

The sleepy cat unfurls.

Soon, you’ll slip on your gloves to return to the woodshed. Back and forth you will go, all winter. The cold air will sting your lungs, but you’ll be ready for it. You’ll embrace it. An ancient fire will glow within you, will guide you through the darkest days of winter.

Gift from the Magi

Gold? We get it. But frankincense? Because the trees that produce this fragrant resin flourish only on the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, in India and the Horn of Africa, there was a time when, like myrrh, this sap was as valuable as gold. Used for perfumes and incense, as well as for its antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties, frankincense has a heavenly (yet earthy) aroma that has long made it a coveted offering for religious ceremony. Its scent is believed to reduce anxiety and stimulate the immune and respiratory systems. And did you know that, when burned, its smoke repels insects? A wise gift indeed.

Peppermint Tea

Eggnog and wassail have their place.

But peppermint tea requires no hubbub.

It’s sweet, but not too sweet.

Caffeine-free.

And unlike nog, which doesn’t exactly leave you feeling light and airy, peppermint tea promotes healthy digestion.

For a ritual for one, bring a cup of purified water to a boil. Place seven peppermint leaves into a favorite teacup, then add hot water and steep with fresh tarragon leaves and a quarter-inch slice of vanilla bean. Stir in a spoonful of local honey.

Ritual for two? Double it up.

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.

– Edith Sitwell

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&

Arts Entertainment C A L E N DA R

Classic Movie: Die Hard 12/

2

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.

JOY OF ART STUDIO. Painting, drawing and mixed media. Offering both private and small groups with safe distance. Classes are held at Joy of Art Studio, 139 E. Pennsylvania Ave., Suite B, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 528-7283 or www.joyof-art.com or www.facebook.com/ Joyscreativespace/.

RENT THE SUNRISE. 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. Rent the Sunrise Theater for your private event. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines.

Email information@sunrisetheater.com to help you plan your special night out at the Sunrise.

SCAVENGER HUNT. Pick up scavenger hunts at the Given Book Shop, Given Memorial Library or online at www.giventufts.org/program-andevents. The scavenger hunt will take you through the village of Pinehurst, and there will be multiple

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Holiday Festival 12/

10

First Eve: Pine Cone Drop 12/

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themes such as science, shapes, historic buildings and more. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst.

and $90 for non-residents. Whitehall Tract, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2463 or www. southernpines.net.

BOOK SALE. This month’s sale is buy one, get one free on Christmas and holiday books. Given Book Shop, 95 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

ART EXHIBIT. 12 - 3 p.m. Come to the 27th annual Fall Exhibit and Sale. Paintings will be for sale through Dec. 17. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979.

WINTER READING CHALLENGE. All ages are encouraged to join the Winter Reading Challenge. Track your books through the Beanstack app or by logging into the Beanstack website. Log the books that you read from Dec. 18 - Jan. 31 and be entered to win prizes. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

Wednesday, December 1 FOREST BATHING. 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. Make time to relax on a guided sensory journey into nature.

Walks are led by Lara Beth Jones, licensed occupational therapist and nature and forest therapy guide. Cost is $45 for Southern Pines residents

BOOK EVENT. 2 - 3 p.m. Author Anne Byrn is coming with her new cookbook, A New Take on Cake. There will also be a cake tasting.

The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Thursday, December 2 EXHIBITION ON SCREEN. 10 a.m. The Danish Collection. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

TRIVIA. 6 - 8 p.m. Come out for trivia with Hallie. Southern Pines Brewing Company, 565 Air Tool Drive, Southern Pines.

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CA L E N DA R CLASSIC MOVIE. 6:30 p.m. Die Hard. Cost is $10. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

BOOK EVENT. 8 - 9 p.m. Author Brené Brown launches her book Atlas of the Heart. This will be a Zoom launch. The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Friday, December 3 CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE. 5:30 - 7 p.m.

Children 12 and under are invited to play games, win tickets, and pick their prize. Don’t forget to bring a camera for pictures with Santa. Stay afterward for our Flashlight Candy Hunt. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Recreation Center Gym, 160 Memorial Park Court, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

NORTH POLE EXPERIENCE. 5:30 - 9 p.m.

Join the National Athletic Village for a night of merriment and travel through the North Pole’s lights to Santa’s workshop. There will be lights, kids’ activities, music, sleigh rides and more. The experience will continue on Dec. 4, 10 and 11.

National Athletic Village, 201 Air Tool Drive, Southern Pines. Info: www.nationalathleticvillage.com.

THEATER SHOW. 7:30 p.m. The Encore Center Theatre presents the holiday comedy A Christmas Story. There are more performances on Dec. 4 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Dec. 5 at 2 p.m.; Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m.; Dec. 11 at 7:30 p.m.; and Dec. 12 at 2 p.m. There will also be a student matinee performance on Dec. 10 at 9:30 a.m. and a sensory friendly performance on Dec. 11 at 2 p.m. Encore Center, 160 E. New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: (910) 7250603 or www.encorecenter.net.

Saturday, December 4 SATURDAY KIDS PROGRAM. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Learn about different books, characters and activities to read and things to do this winter. You can make a craft or two and build a chaos tower.

Masks required. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

CHRISTMAS PARADE. 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Enjoy local marching bands, activities and more at the Southern Pines Christmas Parade. Santa Claus will make an appearance. Downtown Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

MET OPERA. 12:55 p.m. Eurydice, live in HD. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

CRAFT DAY. 2 - 4 p.m. Adults and teens are invited to make a craft to keep or give as a gift at the Holiday Crafternoon. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

HOLIDAY GALA. 6 - 9 p.m. The Women of Weymouth invite you to kick off the holidays on a high note at the historic Boyd House The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

at Weymouth Center. Open bar, signature cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, buffet dinner catered

by Elliott’s on Linden, music, dancing and more.

Black tie optional. Cost is $90 for members and $110 for non-members. Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www. weymouthcenter.org.

HOLIDAY CONCERT. 7 - 9 p.m. Moore Philharmonic Orchestra performs their 17th annual Holiday Concert. Free admission. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.mporchestra.com.

SHAG DANCE. 7 - 11 p.m. The Moore Area Shag Society holds its monthly dance. You must be 21 years old to attend. Down Memory Lane, 161 Dawkins St., Aberdeen. Info: www.mooreareashagsociety.com.

Sunday, December 5 WRITING GROUP. 3 p.m. Interested in creating fiction, nonfiction, poetry or comics?

Connect with other writers and artists, chat about your craft and get feedback on your work.

All levels are welcome. The session will meet at the library. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: lholden@sppl.net.

HOLIDAY CONCERT. 4 p.m. The Sandhills Community College Music Department presents its annual holiday concert. Admission is free and open to the public. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 695-3828.

Monday, December 6 LITWITS BOOK CLUB. 4 p.m. This club is perfect for third- through sixth-graders who enjoy talking about books and meeting new friends. Each month, multiple copies of the chosen book will be available for checkout at the library. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or email: kbroughey@sppl.net.

Tuesday, December 7 VIRTUAL STORYTIME. 4 - 4:30 p.m. Matt Tavares will read his book, Dasher. Copies of the book will be available at The Country Bookshop.

Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Wednesday, December 8 FOREST BATHING. 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. Make time to relax on a guided sensory journey into nature.

Walks are led by Lara Beth Jones, licensed occupational therapist and nature and forest therapy guide. Cost is $45 for Southern Pines residents and $90 for non-residents. Whitehall Tract, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2463 or www. southernpines.net.

Thursday, December 9 SENIOR TRIP. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to travel with Southern Pines Recreation and Parks to start your Christmas

shopping early or look for fun deals as we head to Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville. Lunch on your own at the mall. Cost is $6 for Southern Pines residents and $12 for non-residents. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

TRIVIA. 6 - 8 p.m. Come out for trivia with Hallie. Southern Pines Brewing Company, 565 Air Tool Drive, Southern Pines.

CLASSIC MOVIE. 6:30 p.m. Elf. Cost is $10.

Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

Friday, December 10 HOLIDAY FESTIVAL. 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Come to the Miracles at Weymouth outdoor festival of holiday fun for the whole family. This event will feature fun, food, vendors, decorations, photo opportunities, entertainment and Santa and Mrs. Claus’ Toy Shop. It is open to everyone for the entry fee of any monetary donation of their choice. The festival will continue through Dec. 12. Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org or www.ticketmesandhills.com.

SENIOR TRIP. 3:30 - 9 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to travel with Southern Pines Recreation and Parks to enjoy a beautiful Christmas light show on a fun train in beautiful Benson. Afterward stop at the candy shop for all your favorite holiday treats. Cost is $13 for Southern Pines residents and $26 for non-residents. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE. 5 - 8 p.m. Join Pinehurst Business Partners for a holiday open house in the village. Participating businesses will offer sales, giveaways and more. Village of Pinehurst.

Info: www.pinehurstbusinesspartners.com.

Saturday, December 11 CRAFT DAY. Children and their families can come by the library to work on crafts at their own pace. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

OLD-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS. 1 - 5 p.m.

The farmhouse at Malcolm Blue Farm will be decorated in the fashion of the 1800s. There will be music, light refreshments and kids’ activities. Malcolm Blue Farm, 1177 Bethesda Road, Aberdeen.

Sunday, December 12 POP UP IN THE PINES. The Mini Market Series, organized by Marie & Marcele. Hatchet Brewing Co., 490 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: mariemarcele@gmail.com.

HOLIDAY CONCERT. 7 p.m. The Moore County Choral Society features its annual holiday concert with conductor Anne Dorsey. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.moorecountychoralsociety.org.

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Monday, December 13 TEEN WRITING CLUB. 5 p.m. Are you a teen writer interested in creative writing and storytelling? Ready to share your work, hone your craft or just hang out and get inspired with other young writers? Join us for the Teen Creative Writing Club. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or email: kbroughey@sppl.net.

Tuesday, December 14 BINGO. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to come play 10 games of bingo. Prizes given to the winners. Cost is $2 for Southern Pines residents and $4 for non-residents. Space is limited to 24 participants. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

CREATIVITY CLUB. 4 p.m. Creativity Club celebrates the many ways to be creative, such as drawing, crafting and writing. For grades K - 5. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

Thursday, December 16 READ BETWEEN THE PINES. 5 p.m. SPPL’s book club for adults meets to discuss this month’s book. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. To join email: mhoward@sppl.net.

CLASSIC MOVIE. 6:30 p.m. Christmas Vacation. Cost is $10. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

THEATER SHOW. 7 p.m. Uprising Theatre Company/Shakespeare in the Pines is performing Dickens and his Christmas Carol. There will be more performances on Dec. 17 and 18 at 7 p.m. Village Chapel, 10 Azalea Road, Pinehurst.

Info: www.uprisingtheatrecompany.com or www. ticketmesandhills.com.

SOCIAL DANCE. 6 p.m. Carolina Pines Dance Club invites you for an evening of fun, music and dancing. Dance lessons begin at 6:30 p.m.

Dancing until 9:30 p.m. Swing, shag, ballroom, Latin and line dancing. Beginning and experienced dancers, couples and singles all welcome.

Cost is $15 cash at door. National Athletic Village, 201 Air Tool Dr., Southern Pines. Info: (724) 816-1170.

Saturday, December 18

Sunday, December 19

READING ROOM. All day. All ages are invited to enjoy the Cozy Reading Room. Grab a book, find a seat, and get started on your Winter Reading Challenge goal. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

BOLSHOI BALLET. 12:55 p.m. The Nutcracker, live in HD. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

FOREST BATHING. 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. Make time to relax on a guided sensory journey into nature.

Walks are led by Lara Beth Jones, licensed occupational therapist and nature and forest therapy guide. Cost is $45 for Southern Pines residents and $90 for non-residents. Whitehall Tract, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2463 or www. southernpines.net.

ART SATURDAY. 2 - 4 p.m. Enjoy the art exhibit featuring works by Martha Dodd, Morgen Kilbourn and Meridith Martens. Campbell

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House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.mooreart.org.

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STEAM. 3 p.m. Learn about topics in science, technology, engineering, art and math.

Elementary-aged children and caregivers are invited to participate in STEAM projects and activities. This program will be held outdoors, and advanced registration is encouraged. This month’s topic will be Winter Games. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www. sppl.net.

Monday, December 20 WOMEN OF WEYMOUTH. 9:30 a.m. Each meeting features an invited speaker or program.

Meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. with social time.

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CA L E N DA R The business meeting begins at 10 a.m. and is followed by the speaker. Free admission.

Weymouth Center for Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-6261 or www.weymouthcenter.org.

Tuesday, December 21 CLASSIC MOVIE. 6:30 p.m. Polar Express. Free showing. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

Thursday, December 23

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CLASSIC MOVIE. 6:30 p.m. It’s A Wonderful Life. Cost is $10. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

Thursday, December 30 DOUGLASS CENTER BOOK CLUB. 10:30 a.m. Multiple copies of the selected book for the month are available for checkout at the library.

Douglass Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or email: mmiller@sppl.net.

Friday, December 31 FIRST EVE. 6 - 8 p.m. Bring family and friends for a Winter Wonderland and ring in the New Year early. The event will feature live music, carnival games, face painting and much more. The highlight of the evening is the countdown to the Pine Cone Drop at 8 p.m. Downtown Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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UPCOMING EVENTS Sunday, January 2 LIVE MUSIC. 6:46 p.m. The Gibson Brothers perform with special guest Vickie Vaughn.

Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Sunday, January 9 THEATER SHOW. 2 p.m. “Jerry Herman on Broadway” is being presented by the Sandhills Repertory Theatre. Be prepared for amazing tap dancing by some of Broadway’s finest. Show dates are Jan. 9 at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. and Jan. 10 at 1 p.m. Tickets are $35 for regular seating, $75 for VIP lounge seat area, and $45 at the door.

Students under 12 are free. Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com or www. sandhillsrep.org.

OUR DENTAL PRACTICE IS GROWING AGAIN! Please join us in welcoming Dr. Ray Chavis DDS! Find out more about Dr. Chavis on our Facebook page.

New patients always welcome!

Saturday, January 15 DANCING. 6 p.m. Carolina Pines Dance Club invites you for a fun evening of social dancing, swing, line, ballroom, shag and Latin. Doors open at 6 p.m. Dance lessons at 6:30 p.m.

Dancing until 9:30 p.m. Beginners and experienced dancers, couples and singles all welcome.

Cost is $15 per person, cash at door. National Athletic Village, 201 Air Tool Drive, Southern Pines. Info: (724) 816-1170.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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CA L E N DA R

Sunday, January 16 LECTURE SERIES. 3 p.m. Marsha Warren speaks on “Freedom Park: The Inspiring Story of How a Monument to Freedom is Built while Confederate Statues are Coming Down.” This is part one of a three-part series. Cost is $15 for Weymouth members and $20 for non-members.

Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www. weymouthcenter.org.

Monday, January 17 WOMEN OF WEYMOUTH. 9:30 a.m. The Women of Weymouth committee will meet and have a guest speaker. Free admission.

Weymouth Center for Arts and Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www. weymouthcenter.org.

WEEKLY EVENTS Mondays WORKOUTS. 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to get their workout on. Open Monday through Friday. Cost for six months: $15/resident; $30/non-resident.

Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

INDOOR WALKING. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Improve balance, blood pressure, and maintain healthy bones with one of the best methods of exercise. Classes are held at the same time Monday through Friday. Ages 55 and up. Cost for six months: $15/resident; $30/non-resident.

Southern Pines Recreation Center, 210 Memorial Park Ct., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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GAME TRIVIA. 1 - 2 p.m. Adults 55+ are invited to play famous TV games such as Jeopardy! and Family Feud. Southern Pines Recreation Center, 210 Memorial Park Court, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BRIDGE. 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Enjoy games of bridge with friends. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

Are You Winter Ready?

Tuesdays BABY RHYMES. 10:30 a.m. Baby Rhymes is specially designed for the youngest learners (birth-2) and their caregivers. Repetition and comforting movements make this story time perfect for early development and brain growth. Dates this month will be Dec. 7 and 14. There will be a duplicate session at 11 a.m. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net GAME DAY. 12 p.m. Enjoy Bid Whist and other cool games all in the company of great friends.

For adults 55 and older. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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CA L E N DA R SPARK STORYTIME. 2:30 p.m. This Spark Storytime at Fire Station 82 is for ages birth through 2 and kids will have a chance to see fire trucks. Dates this month will be Dec. 7 and 14. Fire Station 82, 500 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www. sppl.net TABLE TENNIS. 7 - 9 p.m. Enjoy playing this exciting game every Tuesday. Cost for six months is $15 for residents of Southern Pines and $30 for non-residents. For adults 55 and older. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

Wednesdays TODDLER TUNES. 10:30 a.m. Does your toddler like to move and groove? Join us for Toddler Tunes to get those wiggles out. Dates this month will be Dec. 1, 8 and 15. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net CHAIR VOLLEYBALL. 1 - 2 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Get fit while having fun. Free to participate. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

BRIDGE. 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Enjoy games of bridge with friends. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

Thursdays MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET. 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. The year-round market features “producer only” vendors within a 50-mile radius. providing fresh, local and seasonal produce, fruits, pasture meats, eggs, potting plants, cut flowers and local honey. Crafts, baked goods, jams and jellies are also available. Market is located at the Armory Sports Complex, 604 W. Morganton Road, Southern Pines.

GIVEN STORY TIME. 10 a.m. Wonderful volunteers share their love of reading. Social distancing for children and masks required for adults. Stop by and join the fun. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info and tickets: (910) 295-3642.

CHESS AND MAHJONG. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. All levels welcome. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

SHAW HOUSE TOURS. 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. The Moore County Historical Associations’ Shaw House grounds and cabins, 110 Morganton Road, Southern Pines, are open for tours and gift shop purchases Thursday and Friday. The restored tobacco barn features the children’s role in the history of the industry. Please call the Historical Association at (910) 692-2051 to book a tour.

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PRESCHOOL STORIES. 3:30 p.m. Ages 3 - 5 and their families can enjoy a session with literacy-building skills to help them prepare for kindergarten. This session is for your big kid who is ready to stretch, dance, listen and play. Dates will be Dec. 2, 9 and 16. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net or email lib@sppl.net.

Fridays TAP CLASS. 10 - 11:30 a.m. For adults 55 and older. All levels welcome. Cost per class: $15/resident; $30/non-resident. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

BRIDGE. 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Enjoy games of bridge with friends. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

Sundays GENTLE STORYTIME. 3:30 p.m. This is a sensory story time for families with children on the autism spectrum or with multi-sensory needs.

This program is for children ages 3 - 8 and will combine books, songs, movement and integrative activities. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net. PS

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December 01 Anne Byrne A New Take on Cake Book Signing and Cake Tasting The Country Bookshop

December 02 Brené Brown Atlas of the Heart Book Launch Event Online/The Country Bookshop

December 04 Back Into The Swing Of Things Weymouth Center Holiday Gala Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities

December 07 Virtual Storytime with Matt Tavares and Dasher Online/The Country Bookshop

December 10, 11 & 12 Miracles at Weymouth Family Holiday Event Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities

December 12 Sing & Rejoice presented by Moore County Choral Society Owens Auditorium

December 16, 17 & 18 Dickens and His Christmas Carol An Original Take on a Timeless Tale The Village Chapel

December 20 Pinehurst Resort Golf Getaway for Two - Raffle Online

For More Information & Events Visit TicketMeSandhills.com 910.693.2516 • info@ticketmesandills.com

Introducing The weekly newsletter from PineStraw magazine!

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SandhillSeen Prancing Horse Farm Tour Sunday, October 17, 2021

Photographs by Diane McKay

Barbara Sedwick

DVM Drs. Myra Durham, Lisa Kivett, Emma Poole, Hannah Hinson

Azalia Harrison, Meado & Brook

Kendyl Janis, Bill Long

Beth Howard, Lexie Willoughby

Rick & JoAnn Martello, Rita Roberts

Kim Traggorth, Helen Thomas, Cindy Gregory

Cate, Andrew & Nichole Benbow

Lori & Steve Beale

Emma & Amanda McDade

Leigh, Trey & Lily Bortins, Carol Yachanin

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Lincoln Sadler and Abner

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SandhillSeen Come Sunday Jazz Brunch

Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities Sunday, October 31, 2021 Photographs by Diane McKay

Shaena Martin & Sammy

Denise Baker, Lois Holt, Jean Webster, Dotty Starling, Sue Huston, Dorothy Gibson Connie Germond-McCord, Bill McCord

Ian, Bryce (child) & Julia Griffith, Daisy

Paul Hammock, Sandy Tremblay

Ben & Alyson Bahr Lisa Unwin, Ed Lindsay

Kelly McAndrew, Janet Kenworthy

Marylouise Bailey Mary Johnson, Lorraine Nugent

Phil Werz, Dan, Sam & Otto (child) Dreyer

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Sharon & Carnie Lawson

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Lincoln Sadler

SandhillSeen

Will, Rowan & Fiona Haynes

Informal Hunting

Moore County Hounds October & November 2021

Photographs by Jeanne Paine

Wayne Moore, Susan Gaines, Thomas Kenna

Laura Lindamood, Isabelle Jones

Lefreda Williams, Betsy Rainoff

Dr. Jordanna & James Hostler

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

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By Mart Dickerson ACROSS 1 Tropical fruit 6 Roman royal treasury 10 Swedish pop group 14 Halo wearer 15 Voiced 16 Group of nations 17 Ogle 18 Spinning toy 19 Footwear 20 Left, at sea 21 Bog 22 Lights one up 24 Water pitcher 26 Went on the rampage 27 Famous doll 30 ____State, home to Nittany Lions 31 Embellish 32 San __ (CA city) 33 Expression of surprise 36 First course 37 Terminate 38 Lost color 40 Bard’s before 41 Star Trek Dr. 43 Egg-shaped 44 Iraq’s neighbor 45 Scissor-like tools 46 Bet sum plus winnings 49 Tofu

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Puzzle answers on page 126 Mart Dickerson lives in Southern Pines and welcomes suggestions from her fellow puzzle masters. She can be reached at martaroonie@gmail.com.

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TOY BOX

Toy Box

Children’s drawing 51 “As you __” devices 38 Lost color 53 Pealed Captured soldier, for before 40 Bard's 54 __ upon a time short 55 Dr. Elk’s cousin 41 Star Trek Garden stone 58 Robert E. ____ Egg-shaped 43 Dickens’ “__ of Two 59 Genetic code 44 Iraq's neighbor Cities” (2 wds.)

Leases 45 Scissor-like tools Eavesdrop 46 Bet sum plus winnings Building toy49 Tofu

Ogle Spinning toy Foot wear Left, at sea Bog Lights one up 1 Water pitcher Went on the rampage Famous doll 4 ____State,Sudoku: home to Nittany Lions Fill in the grid so every row, every Embellish column and every San __ (CA city) 3x3 box contain the Expression of surprise numbers 1-9.

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SOUTHWORDS

O Christmas Tree

By Ruth Moose

When water is up to your waist,

the last thing you think about is Christmas.

And certainly not Christmas trees. You rescue what you can at hand. You bless sump pumps and those who make them. Same goes for wet vacuums. You are amazed that sofas can swim, but armchairs cannot. And you cry over books.

Thousands of pages, sodden wads of pages, glued together, their backs forever warped and bucked in humps and waves. How heavy they are as you cart them to the curb. How wasted their lives.

Hurricane Florence got all the publicity, but the hurricane after got us. In Albemarle, our usually sunny (and the site of my artist husband’s studio) daylight basement ended up with nearly 3 feet of water. At least it was clear, cold and clean water, but still a frightening sight. Here were my husband’s sketches and paintings, art books, art supplies and frames. His working easels and drawing board, paints and brushes. It’s a sickening feeling to pull open a drawer of paint tubes and water pours out. Not to mention a lifetime collection of art books with glorious color reproductions of paintings he’d used for study and inspiration. In other sections of the basement he also had a woodworking shop furnished with years of accumulated equipment and tools.

Then there was the household part of the basement with the water heater, furnace and 35-year-old food freezer, all standing in water.

Plus various assorted items we’d stored over the years. Never had water, four sump pumps going simultaneously, receded so slowly.

You can only haul furniture out to dry, watch the skies and wait.

Pray. And when the water is gone, you wet vac and wet vac and wet vac. You hear the roar of the motor in your sleep.

Then you begin to dry out sketches and wipe off oil paintings and cry over lost watercolors who went to meet their medium. You open cabinet doors, and drawers and water pours out.

Somewhere in the flood I heard my librarian aunt’s voice when

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she said, more than once, she never trusted basements. Neither did she like attics. “Basements are too wet,” she said, “and attics are too dry.” At least I thought what we had stored in the attic was dry and better dry any day than wet, wet and wetter.

But, miracle of miracles, after the water went, the air conditioner came back on, the water heater began to purr and the ancient food freezer hummed its heart out. So I emptied and cleaned it and began all over again. Thirty-five years old, hauled through four complete household moves, the freezer kept going and going and going. Gave one heart and hope.

In all that water and wetness, nobody thought about the Christmas tree until months later. We were too busy mopping and drying out and saving what could be saved. When it came time to do the tree, we remember what had been in some of those sodden boxes in the basement. That artificial tree I’d argued and fought against and finally been persuaded (for ecological reasons) to tolerate. Not accept. All our married life my husband and I had fought the real vs. artificial Christmas tree fight. And for years I’d won.

Real was a cedar tree that permeated the whole house with the smell of Christmas. No artificial tree had ever come close to that.

For years we’d had the advantage of family land to tromp as a family, choose and cut a tree. We never found the perfect tree. Just ones that could be trimmed or branches spliced to suffice. It didn’t matter, as long as they were real. All Christmas trees when trimmed and lighted are beautiful.

When family lands were no longer available, I had no choice but an artificial tree. Somehow the picture of my husband assembling those branches that still look and feel — to me — like giant green bottle brushes, never matched the one in my memory of tramping through the woods on a winter Sunday, kids and dog ahead, ax and saw in hand, to bring home bundled and tied atop the station wagon, this year’s Christmas tree.

Thankfully, the tree ornaments and decorations were in the attic.

The tree itself had been stored in boxes too big to go through the crawl space and had to go to the basement. The basement flooded.

So we had dry ornaments and a rusty tree. We dried out the branches, shook the rust out, stuck them back into a shape that still looked like a pyramid of green bottle brushes and said, “Merry Christmas to all and to all a working sump pump.” PS Ruth Moose taught creative writing at the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill for 15 years and tacked on 10 more at Chatham County Community College.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

ILLUSTRATION BY MERIDITH MARTENS

Poor, rusted Christmas tree

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Because They Are

Buyer, Purveyor & Appraiser of Fine and Estate Jewellery 229 NE Broad Street • Southern Pines, NC • (910) 692-0551 Mother and Daughter Leann and Whitney Parker Look Forward to Welcoming You to WhitLauter. @whitlauter_jewelers