February PineStraw 2025

Where Community and Active Living Meet

Introducing Penick Village’s Newest Expansion, designed to elevate your way of living.

Comfortable Living Spaces: Step into comfort with our 44 beautifully designed Independent Living residences, each thoughtfully crafted to provide you with a home that’s as comfortable as it is stylish.

Village Pavilion: In our state-of-the-art wellness building, you can engage in various activities, including Pickleball, personal training, and an overall focus on your health and wellness.

Comprehensive Healthcare: The Terrace, our health services building, enhanced and renovated, providing exceptional personalized care tailored to your needs.

Welcoming Community: Enter through our updated Welcome House, a space designed to safely welcome you, and your guests, into our community.

Penick Village invites you to join our community, where we’re not just redefining retirement living, we’re elevating it to new heights.

Learn more about our community , where you have the freedom to focus on your wellness and relationships while living life to its fullest . Contact us today. Call (910) 692-0300 , email info@penickvillage1964.org , or scan the QR code to learn more.

PINEHURST TOYOTA

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Thanks to your support, we have won: Best of The Pines 2024 #1 Dealership Service Department. Schedule your appointment today to experience #1 Service

February 2025

FEATURES

65 The Fog Poetry by Paul Jones

66 The Krewes of Moore County

Photographs by Tim Sayer

76 Zeppole

Fiction by Joseph Bathanti

78 The Hunt for the Guv By Jim Moriarty

Caught between a rock and a lost place

80 Side by Side By Deborah Salomon

When home is next door, too

91 February Almanac By Ashley Walshe

DEPARTMENTS

13 Simple Life By Jim Dodson

PinePitch

21 Tea Leaf Astrologer By Zora Stellanova 25 The Omnivorous Reader By Ann Blythe

Bookshelf 33 Hometown By Bill Fields 35 Art of the State By Liza Roberts 41 Dissecting a Cocktail By Tony Cross 42 Focus on Food By Rose Shewey

Pleasures of Life By Jason Harpster 49 Out of the Blue By Deborah Salomon

Birdwatch By Susan Campbell

The Naturalist By Todd Pusser

Photogra Ph by tim Sayer

hotogra Ph thiS Page by todd P uSSer

PINEHURST • $360,000 110 BURNING TREE ROAD

Charming 3 BR / 2.5 BA home in Lake Pinehurst has lots of space all on one level. Home has nice wraparound enclosed porch w/slate flooring and doublesided fireplace. Lots of potential with some TLC!

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $398,000 108 VANORE ROAD

Adorable 3 BR / 2 BA home located on a quiet street in 7LW. The interior is bright and open with a formal dining room, nice kitchen and large primary bedroom. Home has been extensively updated to include fresh paint, new carpet, new roof and sealed crawlspace.

PINEHURST • $440,000

10 TANDEM DRIVE

Amazing 4 BR / 2.5 BA two-story colonial home situated on double lot in quiet cul-de-sac location. The floorplan is well-appointed and the home has been lovingly cared for!

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $448,500 107 WOODCOCK COURT

Charming 4 BR / 2.5 BA home located in a quiet cul-desac in popular 7LW. Layout is bright with an open and spacious design. Primary suite is located on the main level with all other bedrooms on the upper level. Home has been well maintained and has lots of curb appeal!

ABERDEEN • $442,000

478 KERR LAKE ROAD

Wonderful 4 BR / 2.5 BA Craftsman-style home in Legacy Lakes offers a great design with lots of nice features. Layout is cozy with nice upper level with access to unfinished attic/storage area that could easily be bonus room. A must see!

PINEHURST • $375,000 138 LOVE THIRTY LANE

Beautifully renovated 2 BR / 2 BA townhome in popular Lawn and Tennis. Hardwood flooring throughout main living areas and great inset wet bar in formal dining room.

FOXFIRE • $208,000 213 FOXKROFT DRIVE

Nice 2 BR / 2 BA condo in Foxfire Village. Living space is open with two bedroom suites, both with full baths and sliding glass doors to another deck overlooking the golf course. Perfect for a golf get way or an investment property!

PINEHURST • $185,000 14 POMEROY DRIVE

Large, GOLF FRONT lot in desirable Pinewild CC! Lot is beautifully situated on the 1st fairway of the Holly course and is steps away from the clubhouse!

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $475,000 107 DRUM HILL COURT

Pleasing 3 BR / 2 BA home situated on a double lot in quiet cul-de-sac with primary suite on main level, 2 bedrooms, a bonus room, flex space and full bath on the upper level. Home is in a great location and in immaculate condition!

IN MOORE COUNTY REAL ESTATE FOR OVER 20 YEARS!

Luxury Properties

Moore County’s Most Trusted Real Estate Team!

PINEHURST • $549,000 290 LAKE FOREST DRIVE

Appealing 3 BR / 2.5 BA home in the popular Lake Pinehurst area. Floorplan is spacious with lots of natural light and all on one level! Hardwood flooring in main living area, beautiful kitchen with keeping room and fabulous Carolina room. Home has been well cared for and in great condition.

ROAD

PINEHURST • $889,000 18 ABBOTTSFORD DRIVE

Beautiful 4 BR / 3.5 BA custom golf front home situated on the #6 green of the Magnolia Course at Pinewild CC. Home has been well maintained and updated throughout. Pinewild membership attached.

SOUTHERN PINES • $525,000 34 TALAMORE DRIVE

Lovely 2 BR / 2.5 BA GOLF FRONT home situated on the 11th hole of the Talamore golf course. Home is all on one level, well maintained and would be ideal as a primary residence, a golf getaway or as an investment property!

3 BR / 2.5 Charlestonian home located in historic Old Town. Home has an open concept design with beautiful details throughout. The main level hosts a spacious primary suite with luxurious en-suite bath while the upper level has a cozy feel with a second fireplace! Truly a rare find in the Village of Pinehurst!

SOUTHERN PINES • $550,000 10 RAVENEL COURT

Lovely 2 BR / 2 BA townhome in popular Middleton Place. Home has been extensively updated throughout to include bathrooms, oak hardwood flooring in dining room/living room/family room, refinished countertops in kitchen and new appliances. Lock and leave and in great condition.

SOUTHERN PINES • $1,195,000 9 SCOTS GLEN DRIVE

Attractive, well-maintained 5 BR / 4 BA home in Talamore Golf Resort. Mostly on one level, this fabulous home offers an open floorplan with fine finishes and touches throughout. From an incredible kitchen to the spacious primary suite and bath, this home has it all!

MAGAZINE

volume 21, No. 2

David Woronoff, Publisher david@thepilot.com

Andie Stuart Rose, Creative Director andiesouthernpines@gmail.com

Jim Moriarty, Editor jjmpinestraw@gmail.com

Keith Borshak, Senior Designer

Alyssa Kennedy, Digital Art Director alyssamagazines@gmail.com

Emilee Phillips, Digital Content emilee@pinestrawmag.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Jim Dodson, Stephen E. Smith

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

John Gessner, Laura L. Gingerich, Diane McKay, Tim Sayer CONTRIBUTORS

Jenna Biter, Anne Blythe, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Bill Case, Tony Cross, Brianna Rolfe Cunningham, Mart Dickerson, Bill Fields, Tom Maxwell, Mary Novitsky, Lee Pace, Todd Pusser, Joyce Reehling, Deborah Salomon, Scott Sheffield, Rose Shewey, Angie Tally, Kimberly Daniels Taws, Daniel Wallace, Ashley Walshe, Claudia Watson, Amberly Glitz Weber

ADVERTISING SALES

Ginny Trigg, Advertising Director 910.693.2481 • ginny@thepilot.com

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Christy Phillips, 910.693.2498

ADVERTISING GRAPHIC DESIGN

Mechelle Butler, Scott Yancy PS

Henry Hogan, Finance Director 910.693.2497

Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488

SUBSCRIPTIONS 910.693.2488

OWNERS

Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels III, David Woronoff

In memoriam Frank Daniels Jr.

145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue, Southern Pines, NC 28387 www.pinestrawmag.com ©Copyright 2025 Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. PineStraw magazine is published by The Pilot

AT LISI MARKET

Photograph by Matthew Gibson

The Pleasures of a Good Old Age

Miracles can come true, it can happen to you

by Jim dodSoN

Not long ago, I heard an elderly gentleman in a coffee shop comment to a younger friend, “Someday, when you’re as old as I am, you will look back on your life and realize that everything is a miracle.”

level. A true case of attitude is altitude, as the saying goes.

One of the rarely mentioned gifts of being old is realizing what you no longer need or care about.

His words brought to my mind Albert Einstein’s famous quote on the subject: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Though it varies slightly from country to country, age 72 is the global median lifespan of most people on the planet — the statistical onset of “old age.”

This month, I turn 72.

Am I worried? Not so much. True, I walk more slowly and with more care these days due to a pair of arthritic knees, the painful legacy of 40- to 50-year-old sports injuries and having probably walked too many golf courses for one duffer’s life. By the time you read this, however, I hope to have a new left knee replacement for the new year with a second one on the way. Talk about a miracle.

Like many older folks my age, I’ve also survived cancer once and am winding up a second waltz with the dreaded disease, reportedly doing quite well, thanks to my brilliant young doctors and the miracles of modern medicine.

Despite these physical challenges, I’ve never felt happier or more productive. This seems to be a common trait among active elders who find the arrival of so-called old age to be a liberating force and an opportunity to experience life on a new and more meaningful

Two years ago, I donated half of my home library, roughly 300 books, to a pair of charities. This year, I plan to give another 200 away, leaving me approximately a hundred books I cherish and will continue to read again and again until my light in this world permanently dims.

At my pragmatic wife’s suggestion, I also went through my clothes closet and sent a large donkey cart’s worth of fine clothing I haven’t worn in more than two decades to a wonderful thrift shop owned by Freedom House, a local organization that provides drug rehabilitation programs to women. I hope whoever purchases the two fine custom suits, five Brooks Brothers blazers, nine crestedwool golf sweaters, eight pairs of worsted-wool slacks and 19 golf shirts will enjoy them with my blessing. Seriously, who needs 21 solid white golf shirts anyway?

Speaking of gratitude — and something of a miracle — I’ve reached an age where watching sports of any sort feels like a colossal waste of time. I’d rather take a long walk with the dogs, read a new book or watch seasonal birds at the feeder.

This is no small change. Once upon a time, now fading fast into memory, I was the original sports-mad kid who played every game in every season and died a little death anytime my favorite golfers and favorite professional sports teams lost. A decade ago, as my passion for all sports mysteriously began to wane, I wondered if

this was because I’d changed — or if the games themselves had?

The answer is probably both. The sports teams I once worshipped, college and professional alike, were generally true hometown affairs where you could name (and root for) every player on the roster. This made the games feel much more personal and relevant. Today, almost all sports are shaped by staggering amounts of money flowing through their ranks. Not long ago, I heard about a local high school junior who recently signed with a major college program and pocketed $50,000 in NIL money. Add legalized sports betting to the state of our games and you may have a fast road to ruin for millions of fans who care less about the games than their payoff.

The real beauty of aging, I long ago realized, is the light that comes from the soul. Reaching statistical old age brings with it freedom to do your own thing along with the opportunity to forge new paths and adventures.

“A good old age can be the crown of all our life’s experiences,” wrote Helen Nearing, “the masterwork of a lifetime.” Considerably late in life, Nearing and her husband, Scott, became world famous advocates of simple living and pioneers of the organic farming movement in America. Helen lived to be 91. Scott, 100.

As Helen points out in her lovely book, Light on Aging and Dying, Socrates learned to play the lyre — and wrote his most famous poems — in his dotage. Thomas Edison was still inventing at age 92; Michelangelo did some of his finest work past 80; and Frank

Lloyd Wright, at age 90, was considered the most creative architect in the world.

Likewise, numerous poets and artists proved to be at their creative best in their good old age. Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg did some of their best work past 80. Ditto artists Goya, Titian, Manet, Matisse and Chagall. Shortly before his death at 91, Picasso said, “Age only matters when one is aging. Now that I have arrived at a great age, I might just as well be 20.”

Almost every day, we read about some octogenarian who still runs marathons or a septuagenarian who just climbed Mount Everest — for a second time. The list goes on and on.

“I am so busy being old,” wrote author and playwright Florida Scott-Maxwell in her 90s, “that I dread interruptions.”

As for this relatively new septuagenarian, one who will soon have new knees but no interest in running marathons or climbing mountains, I find the simple beauty of the natural world, a deepening spiritual life, a love of dogs and friends, plus an unquenchable passion for writing books reason enough to celebrate arriving at the ripe old age of 72.

The truth is, I’ve always enjoyed being with older people. And now that I’m one of them, I have no intention of slowing down.

That’s proof that everything really is a miracle PS

Jim Dodson can be reached at jwdauthor@gmail.com.

45 CHESTERTOWN DRIVE - FOREST CREEK

Absolutely breathtaking, beautifully landscaped property with nearly one acre in the prestigious gated Community of Forest Creek. Charm and character abound throughout, with nothing spared in either design or quality of materials. Reclaimed heart pine, European stone flooring, Rutt cabinetry, Waterworks fixtures, gourmet kitchen, wood burning fireplace, luxurious Master suite, wine cellar and so much more.

$2,950,000

55 PALMETTO ROAD – PINEHURST

FULL VIEW OF PINEHURST NO 2, the famed Donald Ross masterpiece. Location with all the extras. Totally upgraded home, hardwood floors throughout, a handsome fireplace in the living room, separate dining room. Full kitchen opens to a bright family room with a fireplace and a wall of glass. Master bedroom on the first floor. Radiant heated floors in the second MB ensuite. Spacious climate controlled garage with cabinetry. Private outside with patio and storybook Gazebo.

$2,495,000

84 POMEROY DRIVE - PINEWILD

Stunning, custom-built all brick home overlooking the 5th green of the Gary Player designed course in desirable Pinewild Country Club. A home easily suited to formal and casual evenings; special features abound in every room. From the custom mahogany double front doors to the extra-large island with upgraded granite countertop to the sideby-side stainless double wall ovens to the geo-thermal system, nothing was spared in either design or quality of materials.

$899,000

509 COTTAGE LANE – LONGLEAF CC

Soaring ceilings, large open spaces, ample windows with natural light flooding every room. Charming separate garage doors, handsome entry with stone walk-way, inviting foyer opening to long view of dining room, living room with vaulted celing and sunny Carolina Room. Enjoy morning coffee or evening cocktails on the open deck overlooking the golf course. $549,000

255 CHEROKEE ROAD - OLD TOWN

VILLAGE FAVORITE! Elegant Georgian style home in the sought after historic OLD TOWN location. Just a 2 1/2 block walk to the heart of the Village. Fabulous home seamlessly combines formal with casual living. A gourmet kitchen and large island, opens to the family room with a corner fireplace. Special 3-room mother-in-law suite with separate entrance and private garage. This phenomenal home boosts a 4 car garage and beautifully landscaped yard.

$2,475,000

535 DONALD ROSS DRIVE – PINEHURST

Elegant, all brick, custom home on desirable Donald Ross Drive less than two miles from the Historic Village of Pinehurst. Large open rooms, floor to ceiling windows, hardwood floors in main areas and deep molding. Perfect for entertaining, the dining room has a tray ceiling and double door access to the expansive deck overlooking private yard with pond and gazebo. Large 3200 square foot unfinished walk-out basement with workshop, cedar closet and lots of storage. $995,000

160 THUNDERBIRD CIRCLE – GOLF FRONT

Like NEW CONSTRUCTION at the end of the cul-de-sec completely surrounded by Pinehurst No 5 Golf Course. Private, secluded, with lush green fairways as far as the eye can see. Sellers took home down to the studs to create a stunning, mid-modern golf haven. Large “Accordion” glass doors fold back for an open Great Room to the outdoors. Chef kitchen with Bertizoni stove, Bertizoni microwave drawer, Bertizoni refrigerator and more. $799,000

12 ERIN HILLS - PINEHURST

Desirable Erin Hills! A favorite condo community for its location and expansive golf course views of multiple holes of Pinehurst No 5 Golf Course! First floor, 2 BDRM, 2 BA unit with porch overlooking golf course. High end renovations including enlarged vanity with quartz countertop in Master bath, stunning kitchen renovation, electric fireplace and more. Fully furnished with Pinehurst membership available for transfer. Buyer to pay transfer fee. $469,000

PinePitch

Spinning Wheel

Have a spot of tea with the people who make the pots on Saturday, March 8, shop-hopping along the N.C. Pottery Highway in Seagrove, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Enjoy tea tasting, homemade treats and samples from The Table, Seagrove Cafe and Carriage House Tea. For additional information visit www.teawith-

And Not a Drop to Drink

The Artists League of the Sandhills will hold an opening reception featuring the work of its members in the exhibit “Water, Water, Everywhere” on Friday, Feb. 7, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., at the Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. For additional information visit www.artistleague.org.

Oh, How Times Have Changed

In 1946, with a campaign budget of $100, Jane Pratt was elected by a landslide to represent the state of North Carolina in the United States Congress. The Moore County Historical Association, in association with the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities and The Country Bookshop, will host Marion Elliott Deerhake in discussion with Kimberly Daniels Taws about Deerhake’s book Jane Pratt: North Carolina’s First Congresswoman, on Thursday, Feb. 6, at 11:30 a.m. For further information go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

A Not So Hasty Judgment

The Ruth Pauley Lecture Series presents “Everyone’s a Critic,” with Adam Feldman, on Tuesday, Feb. 18, at 7 p.m. in BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Feldman is the chief theater critic at Time Out New York. He covers Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway, as well as cabaret, dance shows and other events of interest in New York City. He’s the president of the New York Drama Critics’ Circle, a position he has held since 2005. The lecture is free of charge, but registration is required at www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Be the Best Lawn You Can Be

Sure, it’s February, but can spring be far away? Flowers bloom. Birds sing. And the front yard is a disaster. When do I fertilize? How much water is too much? Where’d all those weeds come from? On Friday, Feb. 21, at 1 p.m. Dr. Grady White, a turf extension specialist at N.C. State, will answer those questions and more in a lecture at the Ball Visitors Center in the Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, 3245 Airport Road, Pinehurst. To register for his talk go to the Sandhills Horticultural website at www.sandhills.edu/horticultural-gardens and click on “upcoming events.”

Big Voices in Little Bodies

Encore!

Joe DeVito reprises, well, Joe DeVito when the comedian from Fox News channel’s “Gutfeld!” returns to BPAC at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 28, in the Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. For information and tickets go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

The Sandhills Repertory Theatre presents Tiny Giants, a salute to the petite powerhouses from Judy Garland to Lady Gaga, with Kelli Rabke and John Fischer, beginning Saturday, Feb. 8, at 7 p.m., at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. There will also be a matinee performance on Sunday, Feb. 9, at 2 p.m. To learn more go to www. sandhillsrep.org or call (910) 692-3611.

Swing and a Hit

The Sandhills Community College Jazz Band gets you in the mood for Valentine’s Day with its concert “Swingin’ Sounds of Love and Romance,” featuring classic and modern songs in Big Band arrangements, on Monday, Feb. 10, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., at BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. For further information go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Aquarius

(January 20 –February 18)

Those who know and love you can attest: Humdrum just isn’t in your wheelhouse. This month, when life sprinkles a few so-called obstacles in your path, consider it a boon. Not only will you rise to the occasion, you’ll also land in the good graces of someone whose unconventional thinking both complements and challenges your own. Trust that any perceived failures are but compost for the goodness to come. Your life will be anything but boring.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Take two whopping steps back.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Read the subtle cues.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

It’s going to be worth all the mess.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Deeper breaths, darling.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Two words: lemon and cayenne.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Best to take smaller bites.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

It’s time for a new playlist.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Resist the urge to fold.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

The laundry is behind you.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Tend to your nervous system.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Don’t forget to stretch. 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.

By A nne Blythe

The Heart of Appalachia

Discovering a long-forgotten love

Appalachia and its resilient people have been in the news digging out from the path of destruction carved through the mountainous region by the powerful remnants of Hurricane Helene. Vice President JD Vance rose to political prominence, in part, based on his 2016 depiction

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture

Isabel Reddy, a science writer based in Chapel Hill who has turned her hand to fiction, tells another story of Appalachian That You Remember.

Reddy takes readers to the fictional Otter Creek Hollow, a Kentucky coal country “holler” full of men with “miner’s mascara” — that perpetual dark smudge of coal around the eyes — and the cast of women who rile, nurture and support them. Reddy, herself the daughter of a former coal company president, brings the miners, company executives and townspeople to life in a poignant page-turner about love, self- discovery and impending catastrophe.

The story starts when Aleena Rowan Fitzgerald receives a box from her brother with her deceased father’s desk diaries enclosed. It’s 2019, and Aleena, the mother of two college-age daughters, is in the midst of a divorce that has forced her to examine who she was, who she is, and who she wants to be.

Aleena’s dad, Frank Rowan, spent much of his working life away from their Connecticut home, either at his New York City office or on the road. “Here was a man who, from looking at his desk diaries, could schmooze with politicians and owners of large conglomerates, who flew all over the place and dined at the most fashionable hotels and restaurants,” says Aleena. After the family company bought Otter Creek Mining Company, an acquisition Rowan initially described as “another truck mine teetering on the edge of bankruptcy in a backwoods ravine,” Frank visited Otter Creek Hollow often, trying to learn the lay of the land.

As Aleena flips through pages about her father’s work life, including his trips to Otter Creek, she finds a slip of paper with the name “Sara” scrawled on it three times. If it had been only once, it might not have piqued her interest, but three times sets Aleena on a journey from her Connecticut home to Kentucky coal country. “I wondered what Sara was like. If there even was a Sara,” Aleena adds.

Frank Rowan and Sara Stone come to life as Reddy blends the past with the present, taking readers down into the coal mines with the clanks, rumbles, smells and signs of peril while fleshing out the characters who live their lives above ground in the restaurants, homes and businesses. They are not the caricatures of Appalachia so often portrayed in modern literature and art. The people of Otter Creek Hollow are warm, giving and protective of one another while often exhibiting a hard-won, home-grown worldliness. The protagonists are multilayered and complex, much like the geography of the region itself. They offer pearls of down-home wisdom, and encircle one another during their trials and tribulations. Reddy crafts them with sensitivity and an understanding gained through her own trips to Appalachia, and the conversations she had with the people who live in the hills and valleys there.

Sara has an enigmatic air when the mere mention of her name in the beginning pages of Reddy’s novel opens the door to Aleena, inviting her into the narrative. But when she and Aleena come face to face and Sara invites her into her home, Reddy flashes back almost 50 years to 1970, before Otter Creek Hollow is obliterated by a Thanksgiving Day dam breach that sends a 30-foot tidal wave of black, fiery slurry and debris through the hollow, scooping up homes, people, cars and infrastructure in its path.

It is long ago, before the disaster, when Sara and Frank meet at a fishing hole, two people caught in a world they don’t necessarily want to be in. Dead-set against getting romantically involved with a miner, Sara has dreams of leaving the valley, going to college and finding a more fulfilling job than being a waitress. Frank is a fledgling executive entrenched in a family business that seems more focused on profits than the safety of

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150 E. New Hampshire AvE Southern Pines, NC 28387

the coal country communities. Their bond is quick, but both want to keep it secret. He’s married, with an alcoholic wife and three children (including Aleena) at home. She has brothers who would not be so warm and inviting if they found out she was being romanced by an “operator,” the generic name for the owners and operators of the mines.

The novel is loosely based on Reddy’s discovery of her own father’s work diaries and the 1972 Buffalo Creek mining disaster in West Virginia that killed 125 people and left nearly 5,000 without a home after three coal waste lagoons failed and sent a 30-foot wave careening through a 10-mile hollow at 35 miles per hour. The fictional Otter Creek Hollow disaster also left 125 dead and nearly 4,000 homeless — a cataclysmic event still very much on the minds of survivors 50 years later, when Aleena finally meets Sara in the flesh.

“This long journey, which seemed so foolish, had such a surprising result,” Aleena concludes at the end of her hunt. “I felt like I’d been given the father, the one I’d always wanted, my dad. He was a complicated man, but a loving one.”

Reddy’s writing is as fast-paced and vivid as the dam break she describes, tugging and pulling at the hearts and sensitivities of readers as they go along. The disaster looms as large as the love story, half a century old. “Your father was a unique man, I’d say,” Sara tells Aleena of the brief affair. “I suppose there was that tough businessman side of him, but that’s not the side he showed me. Our time together was kind of separate from the world.”

Then after a pause, Sara adds: “He had a good heart.”

That You Remember does, too. 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.

MORTGAGES IN ALL 50 STATES

FICTION

February Books

This Is a Love Story, by Jessica Soffer

For 50 years, Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had something important to discuss. The park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now. Jane is dying, and Abe is recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts they knew and the parts they didn’t always want to know. Told in various points of view, these voices weave in and out to paint a portrait as complicated and essential as love itself.

Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job — or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit. The true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband-to-be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Harlem Rhapsody, by Victoria Christopher Murray

In 1919, a high school teacher from Washington, D.C., arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a pre-eminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all. W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder of The Crisis, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife nor their 14-year age difference can keep the two apart.

Amid rumors of their tumultuous affair, Jessie is determined to prove herself. She attacks the challenge of discovering young writers with fervor, finding 16-year-old Countee Cullen, 17-yearold Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives. When her first novel is released to great acclaim, it’s clear that Jessie is at the heart of a renaissance in Black music, theater and the arts. She has shaped a generation of literary legends, but as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.

NONFICTION

Fearless and Free, by Josephine Baker

Published in the U.S. for the first time, Fearless and Free is the memoir of the fabulous, rule-breaking, one-of-a-kind Josephine Baker, the iconic dancer, singer, spy and Civil Rights activist. After stealing the spotlight as a teenage Broadway performer during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Josephine then took Paris by storm, dazzling audiences across the Roaring ’20s. In her famous banana skirt, she enraptured royalty and countless fans — Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso among them. She strolled the streets of Paris with her pet cheetah wearing a diamond collar. With her signature flapper bob and enthralling dance moves, she was one of the most recognizable women in the world. When World War II broke out, Josephine became a decorated spy for the French Résistance. Her celebrity worked as her cover, as she hid spies in her entourage and secret messages in her costumes. She later joined the civil rights movement in the U.S., boycotting segregated concert venues, and speaking at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr. First published in France in 1949, her memoir will now finally be published in English. Through her own telling, we come to know a woman who danced to the top of the world and left her unforgettable mark on it.

Every morning that you wake up in a pest-free home is a good morning. And the easiest way to ensure that stress-free feeling?

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Ten-Word Tiny Tales of Love, by Joseph Coelho

Some go on and on expressing their love, but what if you had to condense your adoration into just 10 words? This stunningly illustrated coffee table-worthy picture book is filled with simple 10-word expressions of love to make your heart sing. Includes illustrations from Jon Klassen, Ken Wilson-Max, Sydney Smith and more! (Ages 7-10.)

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally. Year-Round

Akeem Keeps Bees! by Kamal Bell

Knowing, growing, and flowing . . . a read-together title featuring the humans and bees from Sankofa Farms in Durham, North Carolina. The perfect choice for a nature lover, foodie or a young one who might BEE curious about where honey comes from. (Ages 4-7.)

Your Farm; Your Forest; Your Island, (three books) by Jon Klassen

Who hasn’t dreamed of having an island, a forest, or a farm all your own? Klassen is that rare author who can create a board book that’s poignant for babies and adult readers alike. This tiny trio is a must for any bedtime bookshelf. (Ages 2-4.)

American Wings, by Sherri L. Smith and Elizabeth Wein

In the years between World Wars I and II, auto mechanics Cornelius Coffey and Johnny Robinson, nurse Janet Harmon Bragg, and teacher and social worker Willa Brown created a flying club, flight school and their own airfield south of Chicago. This incredible true story reads like an “I Survived” novel, telling the story of a few brave and daring individuals who followed their dreams, teaching both Black and white students to fly in an era of strict segregation. (Ages 12 and up.) PS

WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT ATTORNEYS JESSE T. COYLE AND ROBERT J. (BOB) GALLAGHER, AS WELL AS THE ENTIRE STAFF OF CAROLINA TAX, TRUSTS & ESTATES, HAVE JOINED OUR FIRM TO CREATE THE LARGEST, MOST COMPREHENSIVE, AND MOST EXPERIENCED LEGAL TEAM IN THE REGION. MR. COYLE AND MR. GALLAGHER PROVIDE OUTSTANDING LEGAL SERVICES IN THE FIELDS OF TAX AND COMPLEX ESTATE PLANNING AND ADMINISTRATION. RECOGNIZED AGAIN IN BEST LAWYERS® 2025 AS BEST LAW FIRMS IN NORTH CAROLINA, OUR FIRM HAS BEEN PROVIDING SUPERIOR CLIENT SERVICES IN THE FIELDS OF LITIGATION, PERSONAL INJURY, WRONGFUL DEATH, WILLS AND ESTATES, DOMESTIC AND FAMILY LAW, REAL ESTATE, AND CRIMINAL DEFENSE. THE TALENTED ATTORNEYS AND STAFF OF CAROLINA TAX, TRUSTS & ESTATES ARE THE IDEAL COMPLEMENT TO OUR FIRM AND ITS EXTENSIVE PRACTICE AREAS. AS WE CONTINUE TO EXPAND TO MEET THE NEEDS OF OUR CLIENTS, WE REMAIN COMMITTED TO OUR FOUNDING PRINCIPLE: EVERY CLIENT DESERVES LEGAL EXCELLENCE, OUTSTANDING RESULTS, AND SUPERIOR CLIENT SATISFACTION.

By Bill Fields

Clear as Cursive

The handwriting on the scrawl

Hunting recently through a box of old stuff, most of which would have been thrown out long ago if I didn’t have a little pack rat in me, I found something I was glad hadn’t been tossed.

Over the years, I’ve filled many a reporter’s notebook. It’s a 4 x 8-inch lined pad with spiral rings at the top and cardboard covers, an essential tool for any journalist. Before the inconspicuously functional notebooks were widely available, while covering the turbulent civil rights movement in the American South for The New York Times in the 1950s and 1960s, Claude Sitton improvised them by cutting wider stenographer’s notebooks in half.

My discovery was of one of the first reporter’s notebooks I slipped into a back pocket, dating to 1979 when I was a student sportswriter for The Daily Tar Heel covering far less consequential events than Sitton — later the longtime editor of Raleigh’s News & Observer — was chronicling for the Times.

Beneath a creased and discolored front cover on its wideruled pages were my notes from assorted sporting events: North Carolina’s exhibition against the New York Yankees (green ink); a UNC-Duke baseball game (black ink); a spring football update from the Tar Heels’ second-year head football coach Dick Crum (blue ink).

“Going to keep it low and inside. Might even ask ’em to put the screen in front of the mound,” Carolina pitcher David Kirk told me the day before facing the two-time defending World Series champions. “If I get it up high, could be history. Chris Chambliss might hit one into Chase Cafeteria.”

“Sixth — P.J. Gay double off warning track.”

“OLB — Lawrence Taylor.”

Flipping through those old pages, I was pleasantly surprised that I could make out the vast majority of what I’d jotted down. Quotes from George Steinbrenner. “I’ve got professionals. Anybody who counts the Yankees out of the race because of spring is wrong.” Observations in the Yankees locker room before game time. “Pinella — cards, puffing cigarettes. Chambliss — 2 championship rings.” It wasn’t the neatest penmanship in the world, but it was readable.

I have notes from only a month ago that are harder to decipher.

That would no doubt be a disappointing admission for the person who taught me handwriting, Southern Pines third-grade teacher Peggy Blue, to hear. “Fine beginning in cursive writing,” Miss Blue noted on my report card in the fall of 1967. I earned

straight As in “Writing” that year.

When it comes to notes taken on the job, there is a logical reason why I’ve be come a sloppier notetaker. When I was in college, and for years afterward, tape recorders weren’t commonplace among journalists. Reporters took handwritten notes. In the case of a lengthy interview, if you weren’t on a tight deadline, you might type them up back in the office before writing a story. If you hadn’t written them so they were legible, you were out of luck.

Over the years, tiny digital recorders — and more recently, smartphones — have made it more convenient for journalists to record interviews. Convenient, verbatim audio leaves no doubt about what a subject said, but the technology has led to less thorough notetaking. Still, looking back on the period when I relied on pen and paper, I don’t recall being accused of misquoting anyone. Perhaps I inherited just enough of my mother’s steady, graceful penmanship, learned as a pupil of the Palmer Method in the 1930s, which endured into her 90s.

I can’t imagine not having learned how to write longhand, with joined letters. In this century, though, there has been a trend away from mandatory instruction in elementary school. I was stunned to find out that a young relative, who is now about the same age as I was when I wrote those notes in 1979, wasn’t taught cursive and only knew how to print block letters. About 15 years ago, many states removed longhand as a requirement. “The handwriting may be on the wall for cursive,” an ABC reporter quipped in the lede to a 2011 story about the trend.

Since then, however, education officials have realized that even in a predominantly digital age there is practical and cognitive value in knowing cursive writing. Many schools have reinstituted it as part of the third-grade curriculum. And someday, a budding reporter might even write down the profound thoughts of a coach, as I did with Dick Crum 46 years ago: “We want to play fundamentally sound football.” PS

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

Wishes into Art

Paper and fiber artist Elizabeth Palmisano’s particular alchemy

By liz A RoBeRts

For Charlotte artist Elizabeth Palmisano, inspiration comes from many sources: the material she works with, often handmade paper and fiber; her community, which includes students, fellow artists and complete strangers; and lately and most importantly, from a deeply felt calling to collect and transform the hopes and wishes of those people into art.

That art is often three-dimensional and always colorful. It typically makes a bold statement through scale, composition or unexpected materials, but does so disarmingly, with a beguiling beauty. Her work has been exhibited at Charlotte’s Mint Museum and McColl Center, and Palmisano has twice been voted Best Visual Artist by the Charlotte’s Queen City Nerve newspaper.

It’s not surprising that her community — which she incorporates into nearly everything she does — loves her back. As a self-described wishkeeper, Palmisano has been actively collecting their anonymously submitted wishes to use in her

Liminal Divine, McColl Center

art for the last few years, most recently gathering more than 1,000 handwritten ones to incorporate into a massive, multidimensional mural on Charlotte’s 36th Street. Completed in September, NoDa Cloud Wall transforms a 23,000-square-foot parking garage wall into a colorful skyscape featuring threedimensional clouds inscribed with those wishes.

“It’s really beautiful to see all the similarities that people have, from all walks of life,” she says. “We all kind of want the same things: Always love, then wishes for family, or for children. Love and family are always first. It’s wild to me how vulnerable people will be if you give them an anonymous spot to ask for what they want.”

The pandemic started it all. “It was really hard for me,” she says. “I’m an artist with a capital A first and foremost, but I teach classes and workshops because I love being with people. And I couldn’t do anything like that. So this was my way to collaborate with people without being in the same room. I asked them to digitally submit a wish, and it could be anonymous, and I was going to make a piece of art for each wish submitted. Those were my first wishes, 58 wishes, and I created a piece of art for each one.” One recent morning, at uptown’s McColl Center, Palmisano was busy printing a limited series of card decks that feature her illustrations alongside wishes and affirmations: “I love fiercely, beginning and ending with myself” was one.

She jokes that her focus on affirmations and wishes allows her

to be “a professional fairy princess at 40 years old,” but “because I’m an artist, I can get away with it.”

Still, so much outward, public focus can take an artist away from her own center, her own source of creativity. A recent fellowship at the McColl Center, during which she made paper vessels and curated an exhibit, “iminal Divine,” that included her work and that of six other McColl fellows, inspired her to look back within.

“I want to make art for me for at least the next six months or so,” she says. “So I’m diving really deeply back into my handmade paper and fibers.” The paper vessels at McColl and a recent commission to create a 60-foot-long piece of handmade paper and fiber to hang indoors allowed her to return to the delicate medium that she started with.

As a child in South Carolina and as a young adult living on

her own without a high school diploma, Palmisano not only had no access to art materials, she didn’t know “artist” was something someone could be. “I grew up in poverty, in a culture of poverty,” she says. Those roots underpin everything she does today. The first time she took discarded scraps of paper and fiber and reworked them entirely into a piece of handmade paper and sold it at an art show, she says, it was a revelation; she felt she’d performed a work of alchemy.

“It made me think of the way I grew up and where that came from,” Palmisano says. “Using someone else’s trash. You figure it out when you have no other choice. You can’t say, ‘I’m not going to eat today.’ Or, ‘I’m just not going to get to work today.’ Or, ‘I’m just not going to have clean clothes today.’ You figure it out. And I think that has served me well.”

In late 2019, when she filled a giant wall at the Mint Museum with Incantation, an ethereal, abstracted skyscape made of handmade paper, paint and collage, it was the first time many viewers had encountered fiber art in a blue-chip museum.

“Boundary-pushing” is how the museum described the piece, both for its use of recycled materials and for “breathing new life into objects not typically considered for use in the creation of art.”

It’s clear that the process of taking something discarded, breaking it down to its elements, and reworking it into something valuable and beautiful is not just empowering for

Palmisano, it’s metaphoric.

And it’s always new. “Right now, I’m leaning deep into: ‘what do I want to make?’ I’ve got a lot of experimentation underway,” she says. “In the spring, I’m sure there’ll be something. I’ll be excited, like a kid walking up and handing you a dandelion they just picked: ‘Here’s my offering.’ Good work takes time, and I really want to give myself that time, because I want to continue to be able to do this work.” PS

This is an excerpt from Art of the State: Celebrating the Art of North Carolina, published by UNC Press.

Scotch + Apple

stoRy A nd P hotogRAPh By tony CRoss

Every now and then, I’ll come across a cocktail from an influencer on Instagram that intrigues me. A few months ago ex-bartender Chris Leavitt posted a reel for a drink he’d tasted at the annual New Orleans cocktail festival, Tales of the Cocktail. “My memory served me that it was just two ingredients: blended Scotch and fresh apple juice,” wrote Leavitt. “However, the results online provided the addition of lime juice (I assume for a boost of acid) and some Drambuie (a honey/Scotch liqueur). I don’t regularly have Drambuie, so I opted for honey syrup to achieve the sweetness it provided.”

The only time I’ve worked with fresh apple juice is when I carbonated Reverie Cocktail’s version of an appletini. It turned out so well that I knew right away I wanted to try this with whiskey. I’m happy to report that the Scotch + apple is crushable: The fresh apple juice and malt/smoke from the Scotch are a great pairing. What’s fun about this cocktail is that you can play around with the specs and still have a great drink. I swapped out the Scotch and replaced it with a split base of rye and applejack (switching the lime juice with lemon, too) and loved it as much as the original.

Note that this drink will not work if you’re using store-bought juices. The apple and lime juices need to be freshly squeezed. When juicing your own apples — or if you stop by a store that can do it for you — make sure to add a little bit of ascorbic acid (you can break apart a vitamin C capsule and use the powder inside) to the juice immediately after it’s pressed to keep it from browning.

Specifications

1 1/2 ounce blended Scotch (Monkey Shoulder is great)

1/2 ounce honey syrup*

1/2 ounce lime juice

Top with fresh-pressed apple juice (Leavitt used Granny Smith apples in his reel)

*Honey syrup: Combine 3 parts local honey with 1 part hot water. Stir until evenly mixed. Let cool and store in glass bottle. Refrigerate. Lasts for at least one month.

Execution

Combine lime, honey syrup and Scotch into a highball glass with ice. Stir to incorporate. Top with freshly pressed apple juice. Garnish with an apple slice. PS

Tony Cross owns and operates Reverie Cocktails, a cocktail delivery service that delivers kegged cocktails for businesses to pour on tap — but once a bartender, always a bartender.

Hearty Breakfast in Bed

For the love of eggs and toast

P hotogRAPh A nd stoRy By Rose shewey

Here is a piece of advice I would give to my younger self: Celebrate. Everything.

So what if Valentine’s Day is a commercial holiday? Get out the heart-shaped waffle iron; make a card if you don’t want to buy one; pick some wild blooms and simply enjoy the privilege of celebrating with the people you love. Which, of course, you can do any day of the week. There’s no need to wait around for a specific day in February, but there’s also no need to not do these things come Valentine’s Day. There is no better excuse to start the morning with mimosas and hugs, because — why not?

No gifts, though. I won’t budge on this. My husband knows and, I am fairly certain, appreciates it. He’s having a hard enough time picking gifts for the usual occasions (I’m impossible to shop for), so he’s off the hook for this quasi-holiday. He never fails to make cards for me together with our son, though, which is the most precious gift of all.

But back to heart-shaped things. Here is a subtle but eye-catching way of adding romantic flair to your morning meal: Try this heart shaped egg toast with herb butter. It’s quick and easy. You won’t need Barbie-pink frosting or rainbow glitter sprinkles and, with a minor adjustment using plain butter instead of garlicky butter, the youngest family members will dig in, too.

Garlic and Rosemary Butter Bread with Eggs

(Serves 4)

6 ounces butter, room temperature 1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped

4 thick slices of bread (such as fresh sourdough)

4 eggs

Salt and pepper, to taste

In a small bowl, combine the butter, garlic and rosemary. Mix with a fork until all ingredients are well incorporated; set aside. Using a heart shaped cookie cutter (or working freehand with a knife), remove the center of the bread, but be sure to leave enough of an edge so the bread won’t fall apart. Spread a generous amount of butter on one side of the bread and the cut-out center piece. Melt 1-2 tablespoon of prepared butter in a skillet and fry the bread and cut-out center piece over medium heat on the plain side first for 2-3 minutes, then flip the bread and cook the buttered side for an additional 2-3 minutes. Turn down heat to low and crack an egg into the center of the bread; cover with a lid. Cook on low heat until the egg has the desired level of doneness, about 3-7 minutes. Add salt and pepper, to taste, and serve immediately. PS

German native Rose Shewey is a food stylist and food photographer. To see more of her work visit her website at suessholz.com.

What’s in a Name?

Stelis hallii ‘Southern Pines Hallmark’ makes its debut

By JA son h ARPsteR

Philadelphia has its cheesesteak and Chicago has its deep-dish pizza. Although people are more familiar with its golf and equestrian heritage, Southern Pines has a rich history with orchids that goes back to the 1920s, when Cattleya orchids were grown for cut flowers and shipped on rail to cities for corsages. Carolina Orchid Growers Inc. started in 1927 in Southern Pines and published its first catalog in 1933. At the height of its popularity, the business had a collection that spanned 17 greenhouses and included over 25,000 plants.

Southern Pines is the place the late Jack Webster chose to

call home as he traveled and collected orchids from across the globe. Born in Buenos Aires to English parents in 1926, Webster worked in South America as an advertising executive and chose to relocate his family to Southern Pines in 1982. In addition to starting multiple orchid societies across North Carolina, he amassed a collection of over 2,000 orchids and received a total of 16 American Orchid Society awards over 30 years. He shared his love of orchids with others by organizing shows across the state, including three beloved shows at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities in Southern Pines.

Known for being an artful negotiator, Jack worked with customs and vendors from Brazil, India, Thailand and the Philippines to import plants for local orchid societies. He named all of his awarded plants after his wife, Jean Webster. You can still find divisions of orchids for sale today with her name.

« Saturday, February 15

February at Weymouth Center

PLEASURES OF LIFE

The town of Southern Pines has multiple orchids named after it including, most recently, Stelis hallii ‘Southern Pines Hallmark.’ It was awarded a certificate of horticultural merit on June 15, 2024, at the monthly meeting of the Carolinas Judging Center in Concord, North Carolina. Since this is the first award on record for the species, additional photographs and measurements had to be taken to verify the validity of the species.

Hounds on the Grounds

9:00 am: Hunt kickoff (come early, free)

When an orchid is awarded by the AOS, a clonal name is recognized to distinguish the plant from others of the same species or grex. ‘Southern Pines Hallmark’ is an aptly chosen name given its showy, distinctive flowers, which are yellow and orbicular. Other species in the genus tend to be less vibrantly colored, with diminutive flowers. Stelis is a genus of over 500 species found in cloud forests in Central and South America. These plants need high humidity, cool to intermediate temperatures and bright indirect light to thrive.

9:30 am & 1:00 pm: Traditional hunt breakfast (ticketed)

Sunday, February 16, 2 - 4 pm NCA&T Fellowship & Gospel Choir featuring Mary D. Williams celebrating Black History Month «

Also, this month at Weymouth Center:

» Sunday, February 2, 2:00 pm Chamber Sessions presents: Sono Auros

» Thursday, February 6, 11:45 am Meet The Author, Marion Deerhake

» Monday, February 10, 9:30 am Women of Weymouth: Jane Lewis

For the botanical enthusiast, the award description is: 58 flowers and 27 buds alternately arranged on 17 basal, sequential inflorescences to 26-centimeters long borne on a 48-centimeters wide by 35-centimeters high plant grown on an 8-centimeters by 14-centimeters wooden mount; leaves oblanceolate, ascending, 2.5-centimeters wide by 11-centimeters long; sepals broadly ovate, light yellow-green, petals and lip darker minute, yellow-green; column and anther cap yellow-green; substance firm; texture matte; recognized for rarity in cultivation and attractive flowers; native to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru; exhibitor noted that longest inflorescences had been in bloom for over one year.

» Tuesday, February 18, 2:00 pm Boyd Book Club: The Year We Danced by Stephen Smith

» Friday, February 21, 1:00 pm Meet the Author, Betsy Hester

555 East Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines, NC

If a town can be called great based on the things named after it, Southern Pines may not taste as good as Philly or Chitown, but it’s a lot prettier. PS

Jason Harpster is an accredited American Orchid Society judge and works at his family’s business, Central Security Systems. He hopes to share his collection of 1,200 orchids with over 500 unique species by starting a botanical garden in Southern Scan the QR code for tickets and additional information!

Saturday, February 22, 2025 | 7:30pm Owens Auditorium, SCC Reserve your seat today! Experience Parisian Passion with Kate Liu’s exquisite

In a Word . . .

Finding new life in language

By deBoRA h sA lomon

In 1914, George Bernard Shaw captivated London playgoers with Pygmalion, the story of a highfalutin’ professor of linguistics who transforms a grubby Cockney flower girl into a lady.

How?

By scrubbing her down and dressing her up, of course. Even more important, dressing up her diction and her vocabulary.

“Words, words, words!” Eliza complains, this time to music, in My Fair Lady, the musical adaptation that opened on Broadway in 1956, then on film in 1964, sweeping awards for eons.

Words (and accents, to a lesser degree) are a force, a knife that cuts both ways. The right word (le bon mot, a useful French expression) makes a favorable impression, while a pale one falls flat and an incorrect one can be an embarrassment.

Worst are overused words, like “eclectic,” a favorite of speakers trying hard.

Ideally, an unfamiliar word will be defined by its sentence, therefore appreciated, even celebrated.

Example: Every year, The Pilot enters state and national newspaper competitions. Reporters select their best work for consideration. Last year, I didn’t have much, so just for fun, I entered a food column about using my grandmother’s bent and stained aluminum pot lid, the only extant artifact from her kitchen. The narrative mentioned a friend who buried her burned, worn-out pots in the garden. No, I commented, I’m not that anthropomorphic.

The column was ordinary, bordering maudlin. The recognition it received, I’m sure, was for the quirky placement of that perfect word — a favorite, second only to onomatopoeia, whose definition mimics its sound. Think “meow.” Or “rustle.”

I get teased about using “big” words, mostly for variety.

Nobody with a full closet wears the same old shirt every day, so why use the same old words?

One culprit is shrinkage. These days, communications must be concise. Get to the point. Speak clearly. Detailed emails — a pain. Is there an app? Just text, uh, txt me.

Enriching one’s vocabulary, however, has a bright side. You don’t need a university degree or online class, just some intelligent reading material where the writer uses words to paint a landscape, or a portrait, in nuanced shades. Find a thesaurus (a dictionary of words with their synonyms), online or on paper, and pick a word a week, something ordinary, like “quotient” for “amount.” “Unearth” for discover. Slip it into conversation. My favorite orphan word is “provenance,” which sounds not at all like its definition, but which I’ve used to investigate a beaded cashmere sweater found at Goodwill.

Don’t get too hoity-toity. Go literal rather than vague and obscure.

Or not. Better, maybe, go with whatever AI composes, since term papers, dissertations, business letters and short stories will soon flow from its omnipotence, sufficient but lacking moxie.

Great word, moxie.

In the end, words are like clothes; they reveal much about personality, mood, life, taste, experience. The right word livens a conversation like the maraschino cherry saves canned fruit cocktail from dessert oblivion. The study thereof is called etymology and can be achieved sans Henry Higgins, whose motive for upgrading Eliza became more, uh, ulterior than academic . . . if you get my drift.

As for Eliza’s “Words, words, words, I’m so sick of words!” rage, that’s what I call moxie. PS

Deborah Salomon is a contributing writer for PineStraw and The

HOURS

Breakfast Monday - Friday: 8:00am - 10:30am

8:00am - 11:30am

Lunch Monday - Friday: 10:30am - 2:30pm

11:30am - 2:30pm

-

- 9:00am - 1:00pm

Early Nesters

Winter suits great horned owls

By susA n CA mPBell

It is mid-winter across the Old North State: a time of cold temperatures, wet weather and hints of the longer days to come. Despite the seemingly inhospitable conditions, there is a group of birds already preparing to raise new families: owls. Of the three species that are regulars in our area — great horned, barred and eastern screech-owl — great horned owls are the first of the year to breed.

Being nocturnal creatures, owls are not as appreciated or as well understood as other raptors. Though owls are known for their impressive ability to locate and catch prey under the cover of darkness using their phenomenal hearing and night vision, few people are acquainted with their natural history. Great horneds are adapted to breed very early, well ahead of their cousins, the hawks, when rodents are plentiful and nesting locations are unoccupied by other species.

Great horned owls, whose name originates from ear-like feather tufts on the top of their heads, are one of the most common owls in North America. They can be found in a variety of habitats across the continent. This species is considered the top avian predator in most ecosystems with individuals preying on assorted small mammals and birds, including other owls. Great horneds are even capable of displacing eagles if they are so inclined. These birds are non-migratory, and individuals associate with the same mate year-round on an established territory. In our area, they are found in open agricultural fields, mixed grassy and wooded areas like golf courses, and in both pine stands and hardwood forests. Until late fall, when they begin their distinctive hooting, they tend to go unnoticed.

Pairs of great horneds begin courtship calling or “dueting”

around Thanksgiving. The four-hoot reply of the female is somewhat higher pitched than the hooting of the male. Mates typically strengthen their bond by the end of December. In January they will choose a nest site, usually a nest built by another species such as a red-tailed hawk, crow or even gray squirrels. They make few improvements other than perhaps lining their nest with some of their soft body feathers. The female lays one to five eggs, and then both adults share incubation duties for the next month. When the young hatch, they are covered in thick downy feathers but must be continuously brooded by the parents for the first two weeks, until they are large enough to thermoregulate independently.

Even though the temperatures are chilly, nights are long and mean more hours for the parents to hunt food for their ravenous offspring. At eight weeks, the youngsters begin to make short flights away from the nest, though they are closely watched and fed by their parents for several more weeks. Like the adults, the immature owls have gray, brown and black striped plumage, which is effective camouflage against the nest or vegetation during daylight hours.

Although hearing a great horned owl calling at night in winter is not terribly unusual, seeing one during daylight is a special treat — no matter what. PS

Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife photos or observations. She can be reached via email at susan@ncaves.com.

Sunny with a Chance of Murmurations

The amazing spectacle of blackbird flocks in eastern North Carolina

A cold, frosty morning gives way to bright blue skies over rural Tyrell County. Vast agricultural fields, interspersed here and there with patches of dense forest, border the dusty backroad. This region, just west of Lake Phelps, North Carolina’s second largest natural lake, is the winter home to an incredible wildlife spectacle.

The road continues straight as an arrow for miles and miles, providing clear, unobstructed views across freshly plowed fields. Far up ahead, above the edge of an immense soybean field, I spy what looks like a plume of black smoke rising up from the ground high into the Carolina blue sky. As I drive closer, the plume morphs into a pulsating cloud that suddenly splits in half, as if cut by an invisible ax, only to rejoin a few seconds later. The cloud rapidly changes shape again, this time looking like a massive black beachball dancing above the horizon. A few seconds later, it transforms into a thin-waisted hourglass. Then, a tornado-like funnel.

I pull off the shoulder of the road and hop out of the car with a pair of binoculars in hand. The amorphous cloud soon reveals its true identity: an immense flock of blackbirds twisting and turning together in perfectly coordinated movements. Scientists describe such behavior as a murmuration. I describe it as jaw-dropping.

Soon, the flock passes directly overhead. The birds’ highpitched chirps, combined with the sound of thousands of wings flapping together in unison, is almost deafening. For nearly a full minute, the flock flies by uninterrupted and settles into a row of leafless trees on the opposite side of the road. There, they perch and begin to preen their feathers. The bare branches of the trees look as if they are draped in thousands of black Christmas ornaments.

The pause in the aerial acrobatics allows me the opportunity to examine the flock in more detail. Staring through my binos, I note that the vast majority are red-winged blackbirds, a beautiful species in which the males sport jet-black bodies and bright red shoulder patches that glow like campfire embers under the afternoon sun. Scattered here and there among the blackbirds are hundreds of common grackles and brown-headed cowbirds.

Before long, the birds take off from the trees, cross back over the road and land in the middle of the field, where they begin to forage for an afternoon snack. This is the moment I have been waiting for. I pull out my tripod from the back of the car, and grab my camera and telephoto lens.

More and more birds settle down into the field. Soon the ground looks like it is covered by a living black carpet. Experience has taught me that this many birds together in one place will not go unnoticed for long. Hungry eyes will be watching this all-you-can eat buffet.

As if on cue, the arching flight of a northern harrier appears over an irrigation ditch running along the far side of the field. With rapid wingbeats, the hawk suddenly dives toward the ground, near the edge of the flock. Instantly, thousands and thousands of birds launch simultaneously into the air, arching high above the horizon. A new murmuration has formed. It rolls across the field like a giant black tidal wave. I marvel

how each individual bird can instantly change direction to match its closest neighbor. Essentially, a murmuration acts as a single giant superorganism. Scientists have applied all sorts of fancy logarithms and computer modeling to help explain the mechanics of murmurations. Despite their best efforts, the intricacies of such vast coordinated movements of birds remain something of a mystery.

However, one fact is clear. A whirling mass of blackbirds can easily confuse a predator like the northern harrier. And if by

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chance a predator is successful in procuring a meal, the odds against one particular bird being the victim, out of tens of thousands, is small. There is safety in numbers.

Murmurations in coastal Carolina are often due to the presence of an aerial predator. Over the years, I have witnessed peregrine falcons, merlins, Cooper’s hawks, sharp-shinned hawks and northern harriers all pursuing the vast flocks of blackbirds. Once, I watched a northern harrier successfully knock a redwinged blackbird to the ground. As it stood over the bird, picking feathers off its breast, a bald eagle suddenly swooped in and chased the harrier away, claiming the blackbird as its own prize.

On this occasion, the northern harrier is less successful. As the murmuration suddenly pivots, the harrier falls behind.

Continuing to careen and pirouette across the sky, the avian ballet moves farther away and disappears across the far side of the field, leaving me standing alone. All that remains are a few feathers scattered here and there on the ground, the only clues left behind by one of nature’s most amazing shows. PS

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

By lee PACe

Golf history

is full of memorable win streaks — Bobby Jones and the original “Grand Slam” in 1930, Byron Nelson and his 11 straight PGA Tour wins in 1945, and of course the “Tiger Slam” accomplished over the 2000-01 major championship seasons by Tiger Woods.

The Babe

And the overlooked Slam Bang

Not as well known, however, is the “Slam Bang” that Babe Didrikson Zaharias compiled in 1946-47 by winning 17 consecutive golf competitions, from Texas to Pinehurst, from Miami to the nation’s capital. In fact, perhaps no source other than The Pinehurst Outlook referred to Zaharias’ unprecedented run of domination in such cutesy fashion. Run an internet search on the phrase in that context and you’ll come up dry.

But there it is in one of the Outlook’s weekly editions in early April 1947 as it chronicles the Babe “winning everything in sight on the winter and spring tour” and being “under unusual strain as she wanted to complete the most remarkable sequence of victories ever accomplished in women’s golf.”

After winning two gold medals and one silver in track and field in the 1932 Olympics, taking up golf in 1935 and playing in 1938 in a men’s pro golf tournament, the Los Angeles Open, Zaharias had regained her amateur status in golf in 1942 and was at the top of the game’s talent pyramid as World War II came to an end. She channeled her immense athletic skills into golf by hitting a thousand balls a day. Her strength and power off the tee gave her a huge edge on the field — she amazed sportswriter Grantland Rice by hitting two shots to the edge of the 523-yard seventh green at Brentwood Country Club in Los Angeles. And her confident (some would say cocky) personality augmented her aggressive, go-for-broke style on the course.

Peggy Kirk Bell, the matriarch of Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines from 1953 through her death in 2016, first met Zaharias in the mid-1940s on the women’s amateur circuit and one day got an invitation to be Zaharias’ partner in the Women’s International Four-Ball in Hollywood, Florida.

“Babe said, ‘I need a partner, and you might as well win a tournament,’” Peggy said. “That’s how confident she was. I was really nervous the day of the first round. She could sense that I was on edge, and she told me to relax. ‘I can beat any two of them without you,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you know if I need you.’ Of course, we won the tournament."

The Babe’s winning streak started in the summer of 1946 in the TransMississippi in Denver and continued with the Broadmoor Invitation and All-American Championship, and then Zaharias’ one and only victory in the U.S. Women’s Amateur, that coming at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa. She won the Texas Women’s Open in the fall of 1946 and took the rest of the year

It reported that in an early match Zaharias “hit a screaming brassie that left the gallery gasping” . . .

off, relaxing at home in Denver with her husband, George.

“I was ready to take a long layoff from golf competition and just enjoy my home for a while,” Zaharias said. “But George had other ideas. He said, ‘Honey, you’ve got something going here. You’ve won five straight tournaments. You want to build that streak up into a record they’ll never forget. There are some women’s tournaments in Florida at the start of the winter. I think you should go down there.’”

So Babe opened 1947 with wins in Tampa, Miami, Orlando and Palm Beach, then teamed with Peggy Kirk (who would marry hometown sweetheart Warren Bell in 1953) in the International Four-Ball. The tour moved northward to Ormond Beach, St. Augustine and then The Titleholders in Augusta, Georgia, victories all. She had won 13 straight when the Women’s North and South opened on Pinehurst No. 2 the second week of April.

The Outlook noted that Babe was “getting even odds” versus the entire field, and the implication was that a bet could be placed at the Pinehurst clubhouse. It reported that in an early match Zaharias “hit a screaming brassie that left the gallery gasping” and counted the

spectators for the championship match featuring Zaharias against Louise Suggs at approximately 2,500 — “the largest gallery ever.”

Suggs was a 23-year-old golfer from Atlanta who had won two North and South Amateurs in 1942 and ’46 and would later become a heated rival with Zaharias on the LPGA Tour that was founded in 1950. The Outlook noted that Suggs seemed to garner the sympathy of the gallery and that it was only human nature as the fans “wanted to see the little one beat the strong one.” Suggs conceded an early putt to Zaharias and soon after Zaharias refused the same courtesy toward Suggs, who then missed the short putt.

“After this incident, the match became a real fight,” the newspaper noted.

Babe was 1-up going to the 18th hole, but her approach shot flew to the right and landed against a tree. She tried a bank shot against the tree that didn’t work out and lost the hole, extending the match.

“That almost killed me,” Babe said. “George was just going crazy. He later said, ‘I thought for sure you were going to lose one and break the string.’”

Suggs flew the green with her approach on the second extra hole, made bogey, and Zaharias left Pinehurst with victory No. 14 secure. From there she won the women’s division of an event called the National Celebrities Tournament in Washington, D.C., traveled to Scotland to win the Women’s British Amateur, and returned home to win the Broadmoor Invitation again. Her streak of 17 ended when she lost in October in the Texas Women’s Open. Soon after, Babe accepted $300,000 from a Hollywood film maker for a series of golf instructional films and turned pro.

The name Babe Didrikson Zaharias occupies a mere one line on the champions board in the Pinehurst clubhouse, but when you probe beneath the surface, it was an important win and a neat part of golf history. PS

Lee Pace has written about the Pinehurst experience for more than three decades

ANDREW WYETH AT KUERNER FARM

THE EYE OF THE EARTH

FEBRUARY 15–MAY 25, 2025

reynolda.org/wyeth

Andrew Wyeth at Kuerner Farm: The Eye of the Earth is co-organized by Brandywine Museum of Art and Reynolda House Museum of American Art Image: Andrew Wyeth (1917 – 2009), Snow Hill, 1989, egg tempera. Collection of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art. © 2025 Wyeth Foundation for American Art/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2250 Reynolda Road, Winston-Salem, NC

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February 2025

The Fog

Some say strong winds and hard rain sing, but I love the more subtle things: stillness as mists make frost and dew, the time between crickets and wren before the cruel light crawls in and work takes me away from you.

Drunk with sleep but almost aware that we are more real than dreams, but much less sure and far more rare.

Not cold silence, that’s too extreme though the loudest leaves go quiet as fog fills in what we forget.

The sun starts showing silhouettes. Stalled clocks whisper: “Not yet. Not yet.”

— Paul Jones

Paul Jones’ most recent volume of poetry is Something Necessary.

the the

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moore county of moore county

of moore county of moore county

Photogra Phs by tim sayer

P roduced by brady gallagher

N N N

ew Orleans has been celebrating Mardi Gras almost since the city was founded in 1718. By the late 1830s there were street processions of horse drawn carriages, gaslight torches and masked members of what would become a growing number of carnival societies, the forerunners of today’s krewes. Masked celebrants reveled in their anonymity, no longer bound by social strata. They were free to be whoever they wanted to be and to mingle with whoever they wanted to mingle. With each succeeding year, its krewes and parades, its magic and mystery, grew. The Mardi Gras colors — purple, gold and green — stood for justice, power and faith. If you’ve ever seen a jazz funeral in the French Quarter, you know that no place on Earth handles tragedy and loss the way they do in New Orleans. While the krewes of Moore County may not be parading through the French Quarter, they can be there in spirit.

(Le renaud can run but it can't hide from the riders of the Moore County

Hounds.)

(The Hot Asana teachers bend it, they don’t break it.)

(Sweat like a mother with the m´eres et fils of S.L.A.M.)

(The Rainbow Cycle riders take the long way to the pub)

(The healing hands of the Sandhills Association of Nursing Club students and faculty.)

(Le renaud can run but it can't hide from the riders of the Moore County Hounds.)

(The Hot Asana teachers bend it, they don’t break it.)

(Sweat like a mother with the m´eres et fils of S.L.A.M.)

(No one reads greens like a foursome of Pinehurst Country Club caddies.)

(Going to the hoop with the Pinecrest High School varsity basketball team.)

(The healing hands of Sandhills Community Colleg’s nursing program.)

y mother swears she’s pregnant. She wants to cook. Which she never does. In our house, my father handles the cooking. As recently as yesterday she wasn’t even speaking to us, but this baby — the baby, she says — has her happy and she wants to make zeppole. Little patties of dough fried in hot olive oil, then sprinkled with sugar. She has a craving. The way her mother used to make them. I don’t remember ever eating them, but my mother assures me I have. At my grandmother’s. But we hardly see her anymore, and I’m not certain I’d recognize her if she crashed through the roof.

My mother produces a white prayer book with a tiny lock like an antique diary’s. With a key the size of an infant’s thumbnail she opens it. Should she drop to her knees, mumbling antiphonies like those insane Calabrian widows on Good Fridays at the graveyard, I will fall over dead in astonishment, and my father will join me. But she does not pray. Rather, she takes from the prayer book’s withered secret pages a slip of frayed paper and, reading from it as she puffs on a Chesterfield, assembles the grayish-yellow mound of dough.

My father sits reading the obituaries at the kitchen table. Wearing a long white terrycloth robe with a black hex sign on the back, he looks like a prizefighter. He tells my mother that Philly Decker died and is laid out at Febraro’s.

“Did somebody shoot him or did he just eat himself to death?” she asks.

“Doesn’t mention,” says my dad.

“I thought he was too in love with himself to die. How will the world keep spinning?”

“I think we should go see him, Rita.”

“You go. I never liked him, but please tell him I said hello.”

“Your mother has no respect for the dead, Fritz,” he says to me. “Or for the living.”

He gets up and takes the newspaper into the living room. I follow him, lie on my stomach on the floor with the comics and doze off. As I sleep, the dough, hunkered in a glass bowl covered with a tea towel, miraculously doubles in size.

When I wake, I walk toward the kitchen. My mother, in a pink summer nightgown, stands at the ironing board running the steaming wedge back and forth across the collar of the black dress she’ll wear to work. The iron occasionally hisses. From the radio,

volume hiked way up, Elvis Presley, in a whispery voice, sings “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.”

She sings along as she irons, fervently, churchy, then sways, guided by Elvis over the dance floor of dream. She has not noticed me. There are tears in her eyes. Behind her, like excelsior, sun sprays the window, silhouetting her, the gown chiseled in relief, her hair spun at her crown in filigrees, her face a marbled shadow of backlight out of which drifts a disembodied yearning not clearly my mother’s. And for that instant I am blinded and do not see until the sun flares off the Pentecostal flames from the ignited oil in the skillet raging behind her.

“Mom,” I scream. She looks up surprised and smiles, still singing unabashedly: Take my hand, take my whole life too.

Then she turns and sees the fire licking at her. She grabs the wooden skillet handle. The flames leap from the skillet to her gown, pour over it like liquid, and she is instantly engulfed. The music like requiem, Elvis Presley like the cantor at High Mass looping incense over his mesmerized flock as the church burns down. I can’t move. I can’t take my eyes off her, no longer my mother, like sacred art restored, an angel wedding fire.

My father storms by me and scoops up my mother. He kicks open the screen door. There is an audible suspiration as he too catches fire, stumbling down the three concrete steps to the yard where he drops her, still clutching the spouting skillet, in my swimming pool, then simply steps out of his fiery robe and leaps in the water beside her.

The pool has sat in the little yard all winter. Leaves float on its surface. Neighborhood dogs drink out of it. The blue plastic bottom, patterned with yellow cartoon fish with long-lashed eyes and huge puckered lips, is slick with algae. The round aluminum frame is caving.

Unharmed, my mother and father sit next to each other in the pool. Laughing. She in what’s left of the charred pink gown. Bit by bit it falls off her body and floats on the water like scraps of flesh. My father is naked. Together they splash water on his burning robe until the flames die down, and there is the sodden smell of fried terrycloth, the nubs at the end of each thread brown on white like blackened marshmallows.

Joseph Bathanti was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 2024. “Zeppole” was originally included in The High Heart , published by Eastern Washington University Press in

The Hunt for the Guv

Caught between a rock and a lost place • by Jim moriarty

As it turns out, what you really need in the search for a forgotten grave in the woods is an archivist. As luck would have it, I sleep with one.

Ordinarily this woman’s field of expertise is confined mostly to the history of Pinehurst and a cast of characters whose final resting places are widely known. But when you’re looking for a spot last viewed — to the best of our knowledge — 50 years ago, marked only with a fieldstone, you need all the help you can get.

The grave we were seeking belongs to Marble Nash Taylor, a man who was the governor of North Carolina — or posed as the governor of North Carolina — from sometime in early November 1861 until Abraham Lincoln appointed Edward Stanly the military governor of the state on May 27, 1862. Taylor was the Methodist minister at the humble wooden church on Hatteras Island — the old building is long since gone — when he more or less elevated himself to this lofty post in the wake of the successful amphibious landing of Federal troops there on August 28, 1861. In rather short order, the Union Army spread its dominion over all of the Outer Banks.

Following the appearance of the troops, a “constitutional convention” — accompanied by flowery declarations covering perceived injustices of every imaginable sort — was spearheaded by three men, most notably, Rev. Taylor and his chief ally, Charles Henry Foster, a lawyer and journalist. Taylor is sometimes apocryphally referred to as the man who was governor “for a day,” though his term of office, clearly, was rather more prolonged. This did not happen through the kind graces of the Great Emancipator in Washington, D.C., who wanted absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with either Taylor or Foster.

Finding the general area where the reverend’s earthly remains reside was deceptively simple. In the book A Guide to Moore County Cemeteries, compiled by Anthony F. Parker and published by the Moore County Historical Association, the author gives detailed instructions: down such-and-such county road for 1.2 miles; take the “woods” road 3/10 of a mile to a clearing; walk the fire break north for 150 yards; the site is 100 yards east on top of the highest hill, marked at the time with two wooden knots. Parker was led to the grave in 1975 by Moses Jackson, who hunted the land and knew the location well. Before leaving the spot, Parker marked it with a simple fieldstone.

Of course, the problem with 50-year-old directions to a lonely place in the woods is that, well, they’re 50 years old, and the woods haven’t stopped growing.

The first thing I thought of was to call someone in the North Carolina Forestry Service’s Moore County office. There was an old, no longer in-service fire tower where the county road intersected the main highway, roughly 1.2 miles and this and that from Marble Nash Taylor’s grave. Maybe, just maybe, someone there would know of a modern day Moses Jackson who could be my sherpa.

The laughter at the other end of the line when I spoke with a gentleman at the Forest Service was, if not audible, palpable. It was summer. It was hot. We were in drought conditions, and he seemed rather more concerned with wildfires than dead governors, which is how I came to rely on the services of my resident archivist.

I ordered a pair of orange Day-Glo high visibility reflector vests. If we were going to go traipsing around in the woods in northern Moore County it made a certain amount of sense to take whatever precautions seemed prudent to avoid getting shot. We had little trouble finding the “woods” road off the county road, and we drove to the end of it, where there was a gathering of modest dwellings. At the home closest to where we thought we might find the good reverend, I knocked timidly on the door. No response. I turned to leave. The archivist, whose Day-Glo vest hung on her like a shiny minidress at a disco party, was not nearly so faint of heart. Her pounding could have raised the dead all by itself.

A delightful and friendly, if somewhat perplexed, lady came to the door. The archivist produced an official-looking business card. The house’s occupants knew nothing of Marble Nash Taylor or his remains; however, they did allow as how we could park our car in their yard while we searched. The archivist and I walked back up the hill toward its highest point.

The wide fire break described by Parker in his book survives with modern power lines running through it. Someone had been using this long cleared strip as sort of a rural Topgolf, providing a narrow chute to practice power fades, though judging from the age and condition of the golf balls we found, whoever it was hadn’t been working on their game much lately. Several of the balls bore the markings of Forest Creek Golf Club. Certainly the “forest” part fit.

If the fire break still existed 50 years on, the clearing didn’t, so the archivist and I split up, slashing our way through overgrowth in what we believed to be the general area of the governor’s grave. As densely wooded as it was, one thing that it was not was rocky. You couldn’t find so much as a pebble, much less

a fieldstone, in this patch of the Sandhills.

Scratched by tree branches and dripping sweat, with my patience running thinner than the governor’s resume, I was ready to abandon our search. My mind began wandering to lunch at the Pinehurst Brewery and rehydrating with an 1895 lager when the archivist called out. She’d found a very large rock indeed. The truth is, we could have combed those woods for days and would have been more likely to find a marble sculpture by Donatello than another stone like it. Without hesitation, I proclaimed this large, flat rock none other than the fieldstone marking the grave of Marble Nash Taylor, governor of the great state of North Carolina, or at least the Outer Banks.

So how, you may ask, did the right Rev. Taylor wind up in Moore County anyway? The truth is, there is more lore than there are facts. Though Taylor’s public duties, such as they were, never actually required him to leave the Outer Banks — he did make one fundraising trip north — his associate Foster did, in fact, travel to Washington, D.C., and attempt to be seated as a representative of North Carolina’s second district. He was laughed off the floor of the House of Representatives. In a letter to Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, one person described Foster as “an unprincipled scamp and cheat.”

In March 1862, a journalist from Boston traveled to Hatteras, where he found Taylor who, by then, had more or less gone back to being nothing loftier than a Methodist minister.

This did not, however, prevent others from voicing their disapproval of the ersatz governor. The Richmond Dispatch, reprinted this from the Norfolk Day Book:

“Marble Nash Taylor is one of the most despicable of the human family — hated alike by God and man, and for the reason that he employs the garb of religion to cover the rottenness of his depraved and corrupt heart. So pious did this treacherous hypocrite become at one time, that nothing would do but that he must preach the gospel. . . .He was found to be a black-hearted hypocrite who desecrated the name and character of the minister of God, and he was speedily ousted from the Conference, and his license to preach taken away from him. (According to the State Archives of North Carolina Taylor is mentioned in the minutes of the Dec. 6, 1861 meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Conference, presumably not in a flattering way.) . . . This is the scamp who dares to issue a proclamation to the people of that good old State, calling upon them to become as base and perfidious as himself.”

Though it seems that Taylor stayed on Hatteras Island preaching the good word until the end of the Civil War, during Reconstruction he was appointed “keeper of the poor house” in Fayetteville, where he stayed for roughly 15 years. Sometime around 1880 he moved to Moore County, where he sold peach trees and lived in a shack constructed of the castoffs from a sawmill. He died in 1894, remembered as a “dour” man who was addressed as “governor” right up to the end.

Jim Moriarty is the Editor of PineStraw and can be reached at jjmpinestraw@gmail.com.

Side Sideby

When home is next door, too

by deborah salomon

Photogra Phs by John gessner

APinehurst palace outfitted with the accoutrements of fine living was not what Cathy Vrdolyak and spouse Marilyn Barrett, both successful Chicago professionals, sought in 2013. They wanted a retreat, a vacation home, something as low-key as their three-level, 3500-square-foot loft in a historic Chicago industrial building was top-echelon.

Golf and climate factored in, given the Windy City’s often brutal winters. Barrett knew the area; her father, a lawyer and musician, had performed and later retired to the Sandhills. What they found — a neglected cottage bordering a public works facility, probably built to house a tradesman’s family — became the rock from which they chiseled a mini homestead, unique in having wooden pegs instead of closets and a few refrigerated drawers instead of a hulking Sub-Zero. Really? No closets? Classic utensils but no refrigerator? Not necessary, they decided, for a cuisine based on farmers’ wares, homegrown produce and a simple but interesting menu. Once completed, Barrett said the interior was “like walking into a hug.”

The women named their getaway, renovated by Pinehurst architect Christine Dandeneau, “Bloomsbury Cottage” after the literary coterie formed in the early 20th century that included British feminist author Virginia Woolf. The cottage layout and contents became the palette for the designer.

“She got it,” Barrett says of Dandeneau’s plans.

In addition to the cottage, Vrdolyak and Barrett have compact freestanding studios overlooking the gardens, lap pool, deck and a tall brick Croatian barbecue-oven.

Nearly a decade of weekends and vacations passed happily at Bloomsbury. Retirement loomed. The cottage has two tiny bedrooms and a loft accessed by a steep ladder, a tough ask for the nimblest houseguest. Besides, their elegant furnishings and collections from the Chicago loft needed a proper home.

As usual, the possibilities ran perpendicular to the norm. Maybe build a unit beside, but not connected to, the cottage, on the sliver of land tucked between Bloomsbury and the public works fence? Call it The Salon, in keeping with the European theme. Give it a 16-foot high wall of windows, a statuesque gas fireplace with exposed stovepipe and whitewashed wood floors laid in a chevron pattern. Opposite the window wall, construct shelves displaying dozens of cookbooks plus New York Times besties, writings of Virginia Woolf,

crystal objets and, in the center, a bed that unfolds out, not down. Include a full bathroom, an ice machine, hot plate and, most importantly, a wellstocked wine refrigerator.

Here, detail-oriented CPA/attorney Vrdolyak calls attention to a barely discernable chevron pattern lining the sink and its handsome brass hardware that coordinates with the chevron floor. Their cottage may lack closets but The Salon, in addition to creativity and quality, offers ample storage.

The idea of a separate dwelling unit intrigued Dandeneau, who recognized it as part of a trend, limited in square footage but not in usage. “They are lovely clients who build with character,” Dandeneau says, “and they’re not afraid.” She was able to overcome a glitch locating the wall-hung fireplace but fulfilled her clients’ desire for a multi-

purpose space suitable for social occasions as well as sipping mid-morning tea. The location screens The Salon from street view, not that there’s much traffic anyway.

Its predominant color is a dusty navy blue — drawn from the blue, crimson and yellow in the area rugs — that offers a striking background for oversized French wine posters, some liberated on their travels, and adored by Barrett.

“They were advertisements and I was in advertising,” she says. “So vibrant, they make me happy.” Two red velveteen, 1940s-ish easy chairs from Barretts’ parents’ home, further the retro mood. What better setting for a dinner party, game night, business meeting, or book club?

“It’s as though you’re going into a different era,” Vrdolyak says of The Salon décor. “Even the dogs come running, as though they’re going to another place.” Barrett, who practices yoga there, is still able to glance from her mat into the cottage through aligned windows. “It’s like getting a break from the everyday,” she says.

This side-by-side life “is definitely not for everybody,” says Barrett. But who cares? The concept, its execution and livability, is definitely for them. PS

ALMANAC February

by a shley Walshe

February is a vision quest, a serenade, a love note in the wide open wood.

On this day, though winter’s grip seems only to have tightened, the cloudless sky is otherworldly-blue. The vibrancy of color hones your senses. At once, a dreary world is clear and bright.

Follow your breath toward the luminous yonder. Above, a redtailed hawk settles in a web of silver branches. Below, dead leaves perform their unbecoming, spilling into humus at the speed of dirt. What more is there to know?

Wander noiseless as a doe. Can you fathom the vastness of sky, the medicine of silence, the wisdom of barren earth? Can you grasp the full potential of this frozen pause?

As the cold air stings your face and lungs, a shock of yellow rises from the forest floor. Daffodil buds, swollen with promise. Look closely. Do you see your own reflection? Do you feel the inner workings of your own becoming?

Walk gently. Feel the sun caress your back and shoulders. Listen to the whisperings of trees.

The deeper you drift, the more you can sense your own emptiness and fullness. The days begin to stretch. Ensembles of daffodils open. A cardinal sings a song of spring.

Winter has changed you. Prepared you for your own luminous unfurling. There was no other way but through.

Give thanks to this frozen pause, the sting of cold, the promise that was always here. Even when you couldn’t yet see it.

The February sunshine steeps your boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.

— William C. Bryant

Year of the Snake

The Chinese Lunar New Year, which began on Wednesday, January 29, culminates with the Lantern Festival on the Full Snow Moon (February 12). Cue the paper puppets for the Year of the Wood Snake. Ancient myth tells that 12 animals raced to the Jade Emperor’s party to determine which order they would appear in the zodiac. Sneaking a ride round the hoof of swift-and-mighty horse, snake was sixth to complete the great race, crossing the finish line before horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Those born in the Year of the Wood Snake are known to be highly perceptive, intuitive and adaptable. How will the wood snake shape your destiny? The Times of India predicts a year of profound transformation and growth. If you’re searching for direction, you’ll find it within.

Love Songs

Perhaps nothing says spring is nigh so clearly as the sudden swell of chorus frogs screaming from the wetlands and darkening woods. Spring peepers, whose hypnotic high-pitched calls stretch throughout the night, have but one objective. The louder and faster they peep, the better their chances of attracting a mate. Do you hear that? Love is in the air indeed.

Highlighting the 2024 Best of the Pines First Place Winners

As we celebrated the 10th anniversary of Best of the Pines this year, we inducted nine incredible businesses into the Hall of Fame. These trailblazers have achieved something truly remarkable: winning first place in their respective categories for an entire decade!

Ten Years: Best Steak

Beefeaters is a cherished Southern Pines landmark that has stood the test of time. For over 25 years, this beloved establishment has been serving up mouthwatering steaks, burgers, seafood, salads and nightly specials that keep diners coming back for more. Owner Will Faircloth is deeply committed to food quality, never compromising it for cost. He upholds rigorous standards for every cut of beef and ensures that the cooking process delivers a consistently exceptional steakhouse experience.

“We are so grateful that for so many years the community continues to support us. From the guys who cut, prepare and cook each steak to the team members who take great care of each of our guests when they dine with us, winning this award is such a big deal as we strive every single day to provide a best-in-class experience. This helps validate and reward all of our efforts.” — Owner, Will Faircloth

Ten Years: Best Hardware Store

Founded in 1921, Burney Hardware has grown through three expansions, adding rental, outdoor power equipment, and an expanded sales yard for landscaping materials. In 2018, they opened a second location in Seven Lakes to better serve the community. Known for personal, knowledgeable service and a wide range of merchandise, Burney offers everything from single bolts to screen repairs. Their dedicated team is committed to helping each customer and serving the community. They’re proud to continue the tradition of excellent service with three generations involved in the business.

“Without The Pilot, Burney Hardware would not have been able to research its history in preparation for its 100th birthday in 2021. It is really meaningful that we are able to participate in Best of the Pines and get feedback from our customers and the community at large. Thank you for supporting local businesses in Moore County.” - Jim, Kristy & Sam Ransdell, owners

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The 2025 art exhibition season for the Artists League of the Sandhills continues with the February gallery show titled “Water, Water, Everywhere”. This exhibit will feature the paintings and drawings of the League’s full members using water as the theme. A painting of a stream or river may be the first image that comes to one’s mind, but many may also perceive water as a rainy day, a shower from a lawn hose, a water spigot or city fountain, an ocean surf, beach scene or even water as an abstraction. It is sure to be an interesting and creative exhibit.

F ebruary ��� 5

To add an event, email us at

arts & entertainment

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 any events.

Saturday, February 1

KID’S SATURDAY. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Families are invited to a monthly themed craft event to socialize and get creative. Geared toward ages 3 - 10. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642 or www. vopnc.org.

Sunday, February 2

WRITING GROUP. 3 p.m. Are you interested in creating fiction, nonfiction, poetry or comics? Come to the Sunday Afternoon Writing Group. Connect with other writers and artists, chat about your craft and get feedback about your work. All levels welcome. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: lholden@sppl.net.

Monday, February 3

QUILTS OF VALOR. 12 - 4 p.m. Quilts of Valor meets the first Monday of each month to create lap quilts made especially for veterans. If you sew, bring your machine; if you don’t sew, you can iron or cut out fabrics for new designs. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

Tuesday, February 4

BRAIN FITNESS. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 18 and older are invited to enjoy short relaxation and brain enhancement exercises, ending with a mindfulness practice. Eve Gaskell will be the instructor. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376. ORNAMENTAL GRASSES. 10 a.m. Ornamental grasses can add unique color, texture and design to your landscape when chosen properly and cared for seasonally. Join Amanda Bratcher, horticulture agent for the N.C. Cooperative Extension at the Lee County Center, for a presentation to guide you in the right direction when using these plant

Bird Tour

Tuesday, February 13 • Sandhills Horticulture Gardens

options as part of your landscape. Free event. Limit 100 people. Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, 3245 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.sandhills.edu.

Thursday, February 6

LECTURE AND BOOK EVENT. 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. The Moore County Historical Association is partnering with the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities for a presentation by author Marion Elliott Deerhake titled “Jane Pratt: North Carolina’s First Congresswoman.” Books will be available for purchase from The Country Bookshop. Weymouth Center, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.ticketmesandhills. com.

SUPPORT GROUP. 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. The Sandhills Chronic Kidney Disease Support Group meets the first Thursday of each month. Clara McLean House, Shadowlawn Room, 20 First Village Drive, Pinehurst. Info: angela@sandhillsckd.com or kathy@sandhillsckd.com.

Friday, February 7

INTERNET BASICS. 11 a.m. Are you curious

about the internet but have no idea where to begin? Come to our internet basics program to begin your journey navigating everything the internet has to offer. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: msilva@sppl.net.

LUNCH BUNCH. 11:30 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to dine on different cuisines each month visiting restaurants in the area. Carpool with friends or meet at the restaurant. Dining locations will be chosen the week before. Info: (910) 692-7376.

OPENING RECEPTION. 5 - 7 p.m. The exhibit “Water, Water, Everywhere” will feature paintings and drawings of the league’s full members using water as the theme. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: www.artistleague.org.

BROADWAY PRODUCTION. 7 p.m. The Sandhills Community College Department of Theater presents You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Performances continue through Feb. 9. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Saturday, February 8

CRAFT DAYS. Children and their families

can come by the library for Drop-in Craft Days and work on crafts and coloring at their own pace. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL. 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. Savor chocolate treats of all kinds, including our “church fudge.” Enjoy a gift boutique, doughnut and hot chocolate bar, a boxed lunch, a cake walk, a chef’s chocolate demonstration and a silent auction. Pinehurst United Methodist Church, 4111 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.pinehurstumc.org.

INTRO TO QUILTING. 12 - 2 p.m. Children ages 5 - 12 can join the Sandhills Quilters Guild to learn hand sewing, tying quilts and creating wall hangings. Supplies and instruction are included. Cost is $5 for Arts Council members and $10 for non-members. Info: (910) 692-2787 or heather@mooreart.org.

THEATER. 7 p.m. Sandhills Repertory Theatre presents Tiny Giants with Kelli Rabke and John Fischer. There will also be a matinee performance on Sunday, Feb. 9, at 2 p.m. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sandhillsrep.org or (910) 692-3611.

Sunday, February 9

BRUNCH. 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Treat yourself to the Hearts and Hands Brunch benefiting the Moore Free and Charitable Clinic. There will be a buffet, musical entertainment and more. Carolina Hotel, 80 Carolina Vista Drive, Pinehurst. Cost is $75 per person and tickets must be purchased by February 2. Info: (910) 246-5333.

ART JOURNALING. 2:30 p.m. It’s time to get wild and free exploring art journaling with Marie French. Bring a few mementos and photographs. Other supplies will be provided. No experience necessary. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

Monday, February 10

SCC JAZZ BAND CONCERT. 6:30 - 8 p.m. The Sandhills Community College Jazz Band presents “Swingin’ Songs of Love and Romance” with classic and contemporary big band stylings. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

PHOTO CLUB. 7 p.m. Sandhills Photography Club monthly meeting will be a competition featuring the theme “Reflections.” It invites photographers to capture the world of reflective surfaces, from mirrors and windows to

tranquil waters. Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or new to the craft, come share your vision, gain valuable tips and connect with fellow enthusiasts. Guests are welcome. Sandhills Horticultural Gardens Visitors Center, 3245 Airport Road, Southern Pines. Info: www.sandhillsphotoclub.org.

Wednesday, February 12

VALENTINE’S LUNCH. 10:45 a.m. - 1 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to celebrate Valentine’s Day with lunch at Valenti’s. Cost is $4 for residents and $6 for non-residents. Info: (910) 692-7376.

Tuesday, February 13

BIRD TOUR. 10 a.m. Take a walk with a docent through the Gardens to learn more about the birds that are attracted to them in Winter. Free event. Limit 15 people. Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, 3245 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.sandhills.edu.

Friday, February 14

HEARTS AND CRAFTS. 6 - 8 p.m. Kids ages 4 - 13 can spend an evening doing Valentine’s Day crafts and activities. Cost is $20 for residents and $28 for non-residents. Train House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.southernpines.net.

Saturday, February 15

STORYTIME. 10:15 a.m. Saturday Storytime is a once-a-month program for children from birth to age 5 where stories, songs, rhymes and smiles allow caregivers and young children to interact and explore the fun of language and early literacy. There are space constraints for this indoor story time. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

CASINO NIGHT. 6 - 10 p.m. The Women of the Pines is sponsoring a casino night. There will be casino games, other games of chance, live shows, music, dancing and a buffet and dessert bar. Info and tickets: www.womenofthepines.org.

Sunday, February 16

SEED SWAP. 2 p.m. Set your garden up for success at SPPL’s Seed Swap, hosted by Shawna Fink. Bring seeds and trade them for others, chat with fellow gardening enthusiasts and share questions and tips. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

Tuesday, February 18

BRAIN FITNESS. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 18 and older are invited to enjoy short relaxation and brain enhancement exercises, ending with a mindfulness practice. Eve Gaskell will be the instructor. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BINGO. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to play 10 games of bingo. Cost is $4 for residents and $6 for non-residents. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

LECTURE SERIES. 7 - 8 p.m. The Ruth Pauley Lecture Series continues with Adam Feldman’s, “Everyone’s a Critic.” Free of charge, registration required. Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www. ticketmesandhills.com.

Wednesday, February 19

WHITEHALL BOOK CLUB. 2 p.m. Southern Pines Public Library’s book club for adults meets to discuss this month’s book. The book club is open to the public. Whitehall Property, 490 Pee Dee Road, Southern Pines. Info: mmiller@sppl.net.

Thursday, February 20

BRUNCH. 9 - 11 a.m. Enjoy a plated meal, hear special music and inspirational speakers and meet new friends. Cost is $25 cash or check payable to SCWC. Reservations accepted through February 17. Sponsored by Sandhills Christian Women’s Connection. BanQ on Broad, 600 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info and reservations: (302) 561-4902 or patsyrpeele@gmail.com.

READ BETWEEN THE PINES. 5 p.m. Do you love reading and discussing amazing books? If so, join SPPL’s evening book club for adults, Read Between the Pines. Copies of the book are available at the library to check out while supplies last. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: mhoward@sppl.net.

CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE. 6:30 p.m. The guest speaker will be historian and author Wade Sokolosky, presenting “North Carolina’s Confederate Hospitals, 1864 - 1865.” Meeting starts at 7 p.m. Open to the public. Civic Club, corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Ashe Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 246-0452 or mafarina@aol.com.

Friday, February 21

BOOK EVENT. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. The Country Bookshop welcomes Meryl Gordon to talk about her book The Woman Who Knew Everyone. Country Club of North Carolina, 1600 Morganton Road, Pinehurst. Info: www. ticketmesandhills.com.

HOMESCHOOL HANGOUT. 2:30 - 4:30 p.m. Homeschool Hangout is a monthly dropin space for homeschooling families in grades K-12. Meet up with others and work on activities based on the theme of the month. Some activities and resources are available, but please plan or bring your own. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

TURF GRASSES. 1 p.m. Join Grady Miller, Ph.D., for a comprehensive presentation about warm season grasses. He will cover information about pest management, minimum-risk pesticides, share his knowledge of common turf issues, how to address them and more. Free event. Limit 100 people. Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, 3245 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.sandhills.edu.

Saturday, February 22

CRAFT DAYS. Children and their families can come by the library for Drop-in Craft Days to work on crafts and coloring at their own pace. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

PANEL DISCUSSION. 10:30 a.m. Attend “A Worthy Paws,” a panel discussion with local rescue organizations sharing their missions, challenges and the impactful work they do to save animals in need. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

INTRO TO QUILTING. 12 - 2 p.m. Youth ages 13 - 17 can join the Sandhills Quilters Guild to learn hand sewing, tying quilts and creating wall hangings. Supplies and instruction are included. Cost is $5 for Arts Council

members and $10 for non-members. Info: (910) 692-2787 or heather@mooreart.org.

Sunday, February 23

STEAM. 2:30 - 3:30 p.m. Elementary-aged children and their caregivers are invited to learn about topics in science, technology, engineering, art and math and to participate in STEAM projects and activities. This month features Dennis Brown of the Moore County Beekeepers Association. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or kbroughey@sppl. net.

Wednesday, February 26

LUNCH AND LEARN. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Guest speaker is Gigi Walter, a local historian. Her topic is “Knollwood Maneuvers: How Moore County Was Involved with the Army Air Corps Becoming the Air Force.” Cost is $30 per person and includes lunch, beverage and dessert. Sandhills Woman’s Exchange, 15 Azalea Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-4677.

Thursday, February 27

DOUGLASS CENTER BOOK CLUB. 10:30 a.m. Multiple copies of the selected book are available for checkout at the library. The Douglass Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: mmiller@sppl.net.

Friday, February 28

COMEDY SERIES. 7 p.m. Joe DeVito, comedian from Fox News channel’s “Gutfeld!” returns to the Bradshaw Performing Arts Center’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Southern Pines. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Saturday, March 1

Colorful Hat Magic and Variety Show features magic, stage illusions, juggling and acrobatics. Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

CASINO ROYALE GALA. 6 - 10 p.m. Enjoy a night of adults-only fun at the tables while supporting the students of St. John Paul II Catholic School. The evening includes dinner, drinks, game tables, entertainment, great company and a wonderful cause. Cost is $150 per person. Country Club of North Carolina ballroom, 1600 Morganton Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.sjp2.rsvpify.com.

Saturday, March 8

TEA WITH POTTERS. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Discover your favorite teapot on a driving tour through Seagrove, featuring a tea tasting experience shop hopping within 5 miles along the N.C. Pottery Highway. Each shop will have homemade treats and samples from The Table, Seagrove Cafe and tea samples from Carriage House Tea. Info: www.teawithseagrovepotters. com.

WEEKLY EVENTS

Mondays

WORKSPACES. 7 a.m. - 3 p.m. The Given Tufts Bookshop has a new pop-in co-workspace open on Mondays and Thursdays in the upstairs conference room. Bookshop floor and private meeting room by reservation only. Info: www.giventuftsfoundation.com.

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: (910) 692-7376.

FAMILY FUN SERIES. 5 -6:20 p.m. The

CHAIR YOGA. 9 - 10 a.m. For adults 55 and older. Help offset body aches encountered with desk work. This is an accessible yoga class

for bodies not able to easily get up from and down to the floor. Do standing or sitting in a chair. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

STRENGTH AND BALANCE WORKOUT. 11 - 11:45 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to enjoy a brisk workout that focuses on balance and strength. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

RESTORATIVE YOGA. 12 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Practice gentle movements that can help alleviate pain while improving circulation and general well-being. Bring your own mat. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

GAME ON. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. You and your friends are invited to play various games such as cornhole, badminton, table tennis, shuffleboard, trivia and more. Each week enjoy a different activity to keep moving and thinking. Compete with friends and make new ones all for free. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

TAI CHI. 1:30 - 2:30 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Improve balance, both mentally and physically, to aid in reducing the rate of falls in older adults while enhancing relaxation, vitality and posture. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., 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: (910) 692-7376.

Tuesdays

PLAYFUL LEARNING. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Come for a drop-in, open playtime for ages birth - 3 years to interact with other children and have educational playtime. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

BABY RHYMES. 10:15 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. There will be a duplicate session at 10:45 a.m. An active library card is required.

Dates this month are Feb. 4, 11, 18 and 25. 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.

CHESS. 1:30 - 5 p.m. Join a chess group, whether you have been playing for a while or you have never played. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

LINE DANCE. 4:45 p.m. Put on your dancing shoes and line dance. This is for beginners and is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

Wednesdays

CHAIR AEROBICS. 10 - 11 a.m. For adults 55 and older. Put on your boogie shoes and let’s jam. Get fit dancing and partying up a sweat to great music. You can stand and chair dance to this energizing, low-impact aerobic workout. Douglass Community Center, 1185

W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BRAIN BOOST. 10 - 11 a.m. Test your memory while creating new brain connections. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

KNITTING. 10 - 11 a.m. Learn how to knit or just come and enjoy knitting with other people. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

BABY STORYTIME. 10 - 11 a.m. Have fun developing the foundation for your baby’s later reading with stories, songs and play. Open to parents and caregivers of infants from newborn to 24 months. Moore County Library, 101 W. Saunders St., Carthage. Info: (910) 947-5335.

LEARN AND PLAY. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Come to an open play date with your toddler or preschooler where there will be developmental toys and puzzles as well as early literacy tips on display for parents and caregivers to incorporate into their daily activities. Dates this month are Feb. 5, 12, 19 and 26. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave.,

Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www. sppl.net.

IMPROV ACTING CLASS. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Ready to laugh and have fun? Sign up for an improvisational acting class. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

PIANO. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Join Flint Long to play piano or just listen. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

LINE DANCING. 12 - 1 p.m. Looking for new ways to get your daily exercise in and care for yourself? Try line dancing. For adults 55 and older. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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: (910) 692-7376.

BRIDGE. 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Enjoy games of bridge with friends. All materials included. Douglass Community

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

DANCE. 2 - 2:30 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Instructor Maria Amaya will introduce you to dance fitness in a class designed for anyone who wants to gently and gradually increase cardio function, mobility, and balance while having fun at the same time. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

LINE DANCING. 2 p.m. The town of Vass will host line dancing for seniors every other Wednesday. Cost is $5 per session. Vass Town Hall, 140 S. Alma St., Vass. Info: www. townofvassnc.gov.

TAI CHI. 2 - 3 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Improve balance, both mentally and physically, to aid in reducing the rate of falls in older adults while enhancing relaxation, vitality, and posture. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

IMPROVISATIONAL ACTING. 3 - 4 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Unleash your creativity, embrace the unexpected and share some laughter in a dynamic and engaging art form,

Belinda Bryant, HIS

Brittany Brown

Au.D., CCC-A, Doctor of Audiology, Owner

exploring acting through a variety of roles. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

LIBRARY PROGRAM. 3:30 p.m. At The Library After School (ATLAS) is an afterschool program for K - 2nd graders who enjoy activities, crafts, stories and meeting new friends. Dates this month are Feb. 5, 12, 19 and 26. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

TAI CHI. 6:30 p.m. Learn tai chi. There is no age limit and the classes are open to the public. Cost is $10 per class. Seven Lakes West Community Center, 556 Longleaf Drive, Seven Lakes. Info: (910) 400-5646.

Thursdays

WORKSPACES. 7 a.m. - 3p.m. The Given Tufts Bookshop has a new pop-in co-workspace open on Mondays and Thursdays in the upstairs conference room. Bookshop floor and private meeting room by reservation only. Info: www.giventuftsfoundation.com.

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET.

FEBRUARY CALENDAR

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. Bring your preschooler to enjoy stories, songs and activities. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

BALANCE AND FLEXIBILITY. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to enjoy a class that can help reduce the risk of taking a tumble while increasing their ability to recover if you do. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

MUSIC AND MOTION. 10:15 and 10:45 a.m. Does your toddler like to move and groove? Join Music and Motion to get those wiggles out and work on gross and fine motor skills. For 2 - 5 year olds. An active library card is required. Dates this month are February 6, 13, 20 and 27. Southern Pines Public Library,

170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

CROCHET CLUB. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to create fun designs and memories. Supplies are on site. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

ZUMBA. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Adults 55 and older can get and stay fit by joining this free dance workout series. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

CHESS AND MAHJONG. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Bring a board and a friend. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

CABIN TOURS. 1 - 4 p.m. The Moore County Historical Association’s Shaw House grounds, cabins and gift shop are open for tours and visits. The restored tobacco barn features the history of children’s roles in the industry. Docents are ready to host you and the cabins are open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Shaw House, 110 W. Morganton

Patti Callahan Henry

FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2025 • 3 — 5 p.m.

The Colonnade at Revolution Mill: 900 Revolution Mill Drive • Greensboro, NC 27405

O.Henry magazine proudly presents Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times-bestselling author of 19 novels, including Becoming Mrs. Lewis, Once Upon a Wardrobe and Surviving Savannah. We invite you to celebrate the release of Patti’s latest novel with us. The Story She Left Behind, out on March 20, is a tale that spans decades and continents, crossing from the coast of South Carolina to England’s Lakes District, and weaving together mystery and family legacy with the lyrical prose Patti’s fans know and love. Books are available for purchase with ticket to be picked up at event, plus we will have The Country Bookshop on hand with more.

Book your tickets today at:

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Flowers can be dropped off locally or shipped from any state.

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Learn more at pinepressedflowers.com

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Weddings - Memorials - Special Events

Weddings - Memorials - Special Events

Weddings - Memorials - Special Events

FEBRUARY CALENDAR

Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2051 or www.moorehistory.com.

IMPROVERS LINE DANCE. 3 - 5:30 p.m. Put on your dancing shoes and line dance. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

LITTLE U. 3:30 p.m. Introducing Little U, Southern Pines Public Library’s preschool program for children ages 3 1/2 to 5 years old. There are stories, songs, rhymes and activities that explore the world of books, language and literacy. Little U is a fun and interactive program designed to help preschoolers develop early literacy skills in preparation for kindergarten and beyond. Dates this month are February 6, 13, 20 and 27. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

TRIVIA NIGHT. 7 - 9 p.m. Come enjoy a beer and some trivia. Hatchet Brewing Company, 490 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www. hatchetbrewing.com.

Fridays

AEROBIC DANCE. 9 - 10 a.m. For adults 55 and older. Enjoy a low-to-moderate impact class

with energizing music for an overall cardio and strength workout. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

JAM SESSION. 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. Do you like to play an instrument, sing or just listen to music? Join a music jam session. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

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: (910) 692-7376.

QIGONG. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Classes consist of chair and standing movements that can help soothe achy feet, tight hips, and lower back pain while easing restriction in mobility. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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

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February PineNeedler February Celebrations

ACROSS

1. Tree trunk

5. One way to stand

9. Hindu social division

14. “Once ___ a time...”

15. Arch type

16. Roswell crash victim, supposedly

17. Annual New Orleans celebration

19. Fine thread

20. Beg

21. Test, as ore

23. Democrat abbr.

25. One who’s against

30. Vital sign measure (2 wds)

33. Shade

35. Anchor

36. Earthen water jars

37. Lying, maybe

39. Cook, as clams

42. “Beetle Bailey” dog

43. Asian aquatic plant

45. Ashtabula’s lake

47. Propel a boat

48. February event

52. Artis’ attic space

53. Film graphics initials

54. Aches

57. Capital of Pas-de-Calais

61. Erect (hyph)

65. Annual event since 1967

67. Stood

68. Rewrite

69. Medicinal plant

70. Cold shower?

71. Stiff hair

72. Neuter

DOWN

1. Road bulge

2. Milky white gem

3. Folk tales

4. Ultimate object (hyph)

5. Deck (out)

6. City on the Yamuna River

7. Grasslands

8. Apartment building owner, for one

9. Music genre

10. “Aladdin” prince

11. “___ boom bah!”

12. ___ Aviv

13. Charlotte-to-Raleigh dir.

18. Expression

22. “Tarzan” extra

24. Shouts of disapproval

26. Christiania, now

27. Hot and humid

28. A muse

29. Go to seed again?

30. Retro car

31. Period, in web addresses

32. Primp

33. Sesame treat (var.)

34. Subsurface war vessel (hyph)

38. Face-off

40. “___ we having fun yet?”

41. Catchall abbr.

44. Bit of information

46. First name in mystery

49. Oolong, for one

50. Garden flowers

51. Potential lifesaver (2 wds)

55. Art subject

56. Rod at a pig roast

58. Part to play

59. Missing from the Marines, say

60. Snow coaster

61. ___ de deux

62. www.yahoo.com, e.g.

63. Bunion’s place

64. “It’s no ___!”

66. In-flight info, for short

Sudoku:

Fill in the grid so every row, every column and every 3x3 box contain the numbers 1-9.

Puzzle answers on page 117 Mart Dickerson lives in Southern Pines and welcomes suggestions from her fellow puzzle masters. She can be reached at martaroonie@gmail.com.

By Ron GR een JR.

Culture Shock Experience this

It was July 11, 1967, and I was walking into the Charlotte Coliseum — the original one with the silver dome that still hosts events on Independence Boulevard — with my mother, my brother and all of the pre-teen excitement that came with the promise of seeing The Monkees, live, in person, and in concert.

I knew The Monkees like they were my best friends. Mickey Dolenz. Michael Nesmith. Peter Tork. Davy Jones. (Full disclosure, my buddies and I didn’t like Davy that much because the girls thought he was heartbreakingly cute.)

The Monkees were a made-for-television quartet, patterned very loosely after The Beatles in as much as there were four of them and music was involved. They burned white-hot for a time, starred in a top-rated television show that gets credit, or blame, for spawning music videos years later, and they left us with “Daydream Believer” and “I’m A Believer” to put smiles on our faces even now.

What I didn’t know that July evening — the temperature had topped out at 87 degrees that day in the pre-global warming era — was that Jimi Hendrix was performing before our generation’s Fad Four.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, all loud guitars and evolutionary rock music, was on stage after Lynne Randell, followed by The Sundowners and, as the late great guitarist would lament, immediately before the four guys everyone had come to see and hear. It was a curious cultural moment, a concert pairing as unlikely as anchovies and ice cream at the dinner table, and it only lasted for eight shows.

But we were walking into one of them.

This was the summer of love, and the distance between Charlotte and the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco in 1967 was greater than the 2,700 miles stretching between the two. The world was changing, more dramatically than any of us probably realized, but Charlotte was still a small Southern city, connected to the rest of the country by what we saw on television and heard on the radio.

That summer, at least in my comfortable world, it meant The Monkees.

As the son of a sportswriter, I was introduced early to what were then called press gates. That’s where sportswriters, television cameramen and other muckety-mucks with connections to the building’s manager could enter without mixing with the masses.

That meant walking halfway around the outside of the big round building, which also meant walking past the elephant doors, the giant entryway built to accommodate the annual visit from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as well as the occasional load-in for concerts, usually country music shows featuring Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash or a new artist named Dolly Parton.

And Elvis. Always Elvis.

As we were heading to the press gate, our mother was telling us what to expect at our first real-life concert. Among her nuggets of wisdom was this: The Monkees are going to look different in person than they do on television.

Admittedly, this was long before anyone imagined HD television, but how different could they look? We were young, impressionable, and we figured anyone who could fry chicken as well as our mother did must know what she was talking about.

A moment after she told us about what television can do to a person’s appearance, a black limousine pulled up to the elephant doors as we were walking past. There they were, about to get out of the car, just a few feet away.

Out stepped Jimi Hendrix.

My 10-year-old mind tried to make sense of what and who I was seeing.

Mickey Dolenz really does look different, I thought. He has an Afro.

It wasn’t until an hour or so later that I realized why Mickey didn’t look like himself. While it may have caused me to doubt some things my mother said as I grew older, it’s a moment that still brings a little smile when I hear “Hey Joe” or “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone.”

And when Mickey and his mates took the stage that night — after Hendrix had stomped off with the echo of the guitar he tossed to the floor reverberating through the arena — they looked just like they did on television.

Had we been able to hear them over the screaming, they probably sounded the same, too. PS

Charlotte native Ron Green Jr. covers golf for Global Golf Post.