October PineStraw 2022

Wells

To feel confident in

investment planning, you deserve a personal, tailored plan and a meaningful and open relationship with your investment advisors. Since 1991, Menendez & Ritter Retirement Group has made these goals the foundation of our practice.

are here to give you advice and guidance on how to plan to achieve your financial goals. Backed by the sophisticated resources of one of the nations most recognized financial service companies, we will develop personalized strategies that are designed to let you plan your future with confidence.

Michael D. Ritter

Senior Financial Advisor

Steven J. Menendez Senior Financial Advisor

David Yoder Financial Advisor Chris Hunt Financial Advisor

Lauren Corum Client Associate

Vandi Norman Client Associate

October ����

FEATURES

77 Stairs at Weymouth

Poetry By Maureen Sherbondy

78 Here’s to the Next Hundred Years

By Jenna Biter

From suffragettes to leading ladies, more than just a book club

82 Mending Fences: The Movie

Fiction by Daniel Wallace

84 Truths & Tales

By Addie Ladner & Reyna Crooms

A fresh take on Blackbeard the pirate

90 Cabin Confidential

By Deborah Salomon

Rough-hewn exterior belies the comfort within

103 October Almanac

By Ashley Walshe

DEPARTMENTS

25 Simple Life By Jim Dodson

28 PinePitch

31 Tea Leaf Astrologer By Zora Stellanova

33 The Omnivorous Reader By Anne Blythe

37 Bookshelf

41 Hometown By Bill Fields

42 The Creators of N.C. By Wiley Cash

47 In the Spirit By Tony Cross

50 Focus on Food By Rose Shewey

53 Crossroads By Ashley Walshe

54 Art of the State By Liza Roberts

58 Sandhills Photography Club

63 Out of the Blue By Deborah Salomon

67 Birdwatch By Susan Campbell

68 Naturalist By Todd Pusser

73 Golftown Journal By Lee Pace

118 Arts & Entertainment Calendar

131 SandhillSeen

135 Pine Needler By Mart Dickerson

136 Southwords By Emilee Phillips

Cover Photogra Ph by tim Sayer

October Sale

All Ogallala Down is 20% Off

Sleep plays a vital role in the body’s cycle of rejuvenating, healing, and growing. The DUX® Bed’s unique, customizable component system provides unrivaled ergonomic support to help you experience significantly higher quality sleep. The DUX Dynamic combines the best that a traditional DUX bed has to offer, with the added advantage of adjustability. Not only can you customize each side of the bed for optimal support and comfort with our patented Pascal system of interchangeable cassettes, but now with a simple press of a button on a handheld controller you can choose a sleeping position separate from your partner. Resolve to invest in your health. Visit a DUXIANA® store near you and discover why The DUX Bed is more than just a bed, it’s the first step to a better, healthier way of living.

Opulence of Southern Pines and DUXIANA

at The Mews, 280 NW Broad Street, Downtown Southern Pines, NC 910.692.2744

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

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

Serving the Carolinas & More for Over 20 Years – Financing Available

Check out our Advantage Plan that is guaranteed with every purchase.

PINEHURST TOYOTA

At Pinehurst Toyota, we’re more than just a dealership. We’re a family. Every time you step onto our lot, our goal is to make sure you are 100% satisfied with your visit, whether you’re looking to purchase a new ride, secure financing for that vehicle, have your current auto serviced, or buy genuine Toyota parts. You can count on our staff to make you the number-one priority. Interested in joining the family?

See dealer for

No

Maintenance and

offer or ad on

Roadside Assistance

from

72 hours of purchasing

vehicle you

not completely satisfied, bring it back and exchange it for another vehicle at Pinehurst Toyota. Mileage driven must not exceed 200

A W A K E N

O U R L O V E O F D E S I G N

Green Front, you can browse a curated selection of unique furniture, hand-knotted rugs, decorative accessories and luxurious upholstery at affordable prices. From traditional to , we have rugs and furniture that speak to every style.

r you discover your perfect item special order to your taste, there are quare feet of inspiration for you to explore. Just an hour from Southern Pines, Green Front in Raleigh is the to get inspired for your home.

4 bed

5 bath

Julia Lattarulo (910) 690-9716

Jennifer Nguyen (910) 585-2099

MLS 100342695

Nestled in the Pines, just outside of Historic Pinehurst, the William Burke Estate was constructed as a farmhouse and was lovingly renovated into an exquisite home and equestrian property. Just over 9 acres and includes a 2-stall barn, fields, a kennel, and more. The private gardens and grounds are perfect for wonderful evenings and magical events.

bed

Sessoms (910) 639-3099

100328446

Beautiful all brick, golf front home located in the gated community of Pinehurst National #9, on the first fairway. Easy walk to clubhouse, tennis courts, and pool. Built in 2007 with all the custom features you have come to expect by Lee Huckabee Construction. Transferable Pinehurst Country Club Charter Membership.

$595,000

5 bed • 3/1 bath

Callan Nagle (703) 303-8969

Jennifer Nguyen (910) 585-2099

Enjoy the Pinehurst lifestyle in pristine home. Kitchen adorned with upgraded appliances and granite countertops. Wood floors flow througout the main living area. Primary suite with a custom walk-in closet. Lower level with a large family room, bar, office, flex, and bedroom. Enjoy fenced-in backyard with deck, patio, and firepit.

Marie O’Brien (910) 528-5669

MLS 100347525

$325,000

3 bed • 3 bath

Jennifer Nguyen (910) 585-2099

Stacey Caldwell (910) 391-4199

MLS 100346763

Enjoy southern living from this rocking chair front porch. Wood floors flow throughout living room, kitchen, formal dining, breakfast nook, and foyer. The main floor has primary bedroom suite with an oversized walk-in closet. Relax on the covered porch that overlooks a beautiful fenced in backyard for everyone to enjoy.

Julia Lattarulo (910) 690-9716

Burch (941) 350-7678

MLS 100344428

3 bed • 2 bath Jim Hurt (540) 798-1792

MLS 100341534

Beautiful brick home in the desirable Pinewild Country Club. Updated kitchen, new roof, and propane gas.

Rare opportunity to own a grand residence in Moore County, NC, home to the golf capital of the world. Renowned Pinehurst is only ten minutes away. Built in the beginning of the 20th Century, the home is distinctive with its Italianate frame and wrap around porch. It’s listed on the National Register.

Cute and well-maintained home in Pinehurst #6 with a transferrable Pinehurst Country Club membership! Easy cart ride to the Village and clubhouse. Stainless steel appliances, granite kitchen countertops, wood burning fireplace, and more will make you feel completely at home.

98 Stoneykirk Drive, Pinehurst

15 Dry Springs Court, Cameron

201 Blue Street, Aberdeen

39 Bedford Circle, Pinehurst

6 Emerald Lane, Pinehurst

1382 Linden Road, Pinehurst

129 Saint Mellions, Pinehurst

HOSTED BY

MAGAZINE

Volume 18, No. 10

David Woronoff, Publisher david@thepilot.com

Andie Stuart Rose, Creative Director andiesouthernpines@gmail.com

Jim Moriarty, Editor jjmpinestraw@gmail.com

Miranda Glyder, Graphic Designer miranda@pinestrawmag.com

Alyssa Kennedy, Digital Art Director alyssamagazines@gmail.com

Emilee Phillips, Digital Content emilee@pinestrawmag.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Jim Dodson, Deborah Salomon

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

John Gessner, Laura L. Gingerich, Tim Sayer

CONTRIBUTORS

Jenna Biter, Harry Blair, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Bill Case, Mallory Cash, Wiley Cash, Tony Cross, Brianna Rolfe Cunningham, Mart Dickerson, Bill Fields, Meridith Martens, Jason Oliver Nixon, Mary Novitsky, Lee Pace, Todd Pusser, Joyce Reehling, Scott Sheffield, Rose Shewey, Stephen E. Smith, 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

Jennie Acklin, 910.693.2515

Samantha Cunningham, 910.693.2505

Jessica Galloway, 910. 693.2498

Terry Hartsell, 910.693.2513

Erika Leap, 910.693.2514

ADVERTISING GRAPHIC DESIGN

Mechelle Butler, Scott Yancey

ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Rebah Dolbow • pilotads@thepilot.com

PS

Henry Hogan, Finance Director 910.693.2497

Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488

SUBSCRIPTIONS 910.693.2488

Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels III, Lee Dirks, David Woronoff

In memoriam Frank Daniels Jr. 145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue, Southern Pines, NC 28387 www.pinestrawmag.com

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Martha Gentry Team Leader

Mark Gentry Realtor

Ginger Gentry Realtor Partner Deborah Cook Realtor Partner

Lari Dirkmart Realtor Partner

Steve Veit Realtor Partner

David Sinclair Marketing Coordinator

Teresa Miracle Listing Coordinator

Lin Bourgon Closing Coordinator

Judi Jimenez Weekend Coordinator Victor Uy Field Coordinator

GIFT CARDS AVAILABLE

Tues - Fri: 12-5PM; Sat: 12-4PM

Private appointments always available.

Email info@knickers-lingerie.com or call 910-725-2346

150 E. New Hampshire Ave Southern Pines, NC 28387

presents

The Emperor - Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto featuring Maestro David Michael Wolff conducting as soloist from the keyboard Dvorak’s 8th Symphony

7:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 15, 2022 Opening Night of The Carolina Philharmonic 2022-2023 Season Owens Auditorium at Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, SCC

A jubilant opening for The Carolina Philharmonic's exhilarating 2022-2023 concert season.

Tapestry

A Gala celebration of how music has woven itself into the fabric of our community in support of The Carolina Philharmonic's Music Education Programs benefiting 3,500 Moore County children annually

Friday, October 28th • 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

The Pinehurst Fair Barn • $150 per person

Join your friends at the Pinehurst Fair Barn to experience the joy that The Carolina Philharmonic's music education programs have brought to 18,000 Moore County children.

Enjoy the musical magic of Maestro David Michael Wolff and the Philharmonic's Junior Orchestra and feast on tapas from North Carolina's three regions, catered by Elliotts on Linden, while supporting the children of our community in a special way.

Festive Live & Silent Auctions • Open Bar Black Tie Optional • Valet Parking

For additional information, call The Carolina Philharmonic Box Office 910.687.0287 www.carolinaphil.org

Weymouth Wonderland

Holiday Festival

Dec 2 - 4

Three Days of Something Wonderful for Everyone!

Candlelight, Carols & Cocktails is for Grown Ups: Light up the season with a casual and comfortable evening get-together. Friday, Dec. 2, 5 pm. $50 Members • $60 Non-Members

Outdoor Wonderfest & Market is for the Whole Family to go Walkin’ in a Weymouth Wonderland. Our grounds will be a holiday family funderland featuring: local vendors and artisans; Weymouth’s own Holiday Shoppe; food from some of our area’s popular food trucks; wandering minstrels and choristers; Santa and Mrs. Claus in their magical toy shop. And more!

Saturday, Dec 3, 10-4 pm. Entry fee of any $ donation

Teddy Bear Tea is For Kids ages 3-10, to enjoy an activity-packed event with an adult by their side. All are welcome to bring their favorite teddy bear for an afternoon filled with fun!

Sunday, Dec. 4, two seatings 1 or 3:30 pm. $25 per child, $30 per adult

For tickets and more information, visit weymouthcenter.org

Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities

555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines, NC A 501(c)(3) organization

SIMPLE

Coach and The Bull

The road less traveled to authordom

BY

by Jim DoDSon

Not long ago, following a speech to a historical organization in Georgia, I was asked by a woman in the audience how I became a “successful author.”

Anyone fortunate enough to pub lish a best seller is likely to get some version of this question from time to time. That’s because almost everyone has a story to tell.

For years my response was, “Because I couldn’t make a living out of mowing lawns in the neighborhood forever,” or, “The Baltimore Orioles already had a decent shortstop.”

The truth is, writing books is a lonely enterprise, and the vast majority of folks who are good at it invariably find their way to the craft via some other pathway.

Before literary success arrived, Charles Dickens worked in a factory putting labels on tins of boot polish. Harper Lee was an airline ticket clerk. William Faulkner served as a postmaster. Nicholas Sparks, a dental equipment salesman.

We were all, in other words, something else before we became writers. But dreamers all.

In a famous essay titled “Why I Write,” George Orwell, of Animal Farm and 1984 fame, said writers put pen to paper out of “sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose.”

Joan Didion claimed she wrote simply to discover what she was thinking — and feared — at the moment.

“Everyone has a novel in them,” the late Christopher Hitchens sniffed, “and in most it should stay there.”

The truth is, writing anything is work that takes time, discipline, imagination, constant revision, false starts, new beginnings and plenty of patience. Hemingway called it the “loneliest, hardest art.”

One of my favorite writers, novelist Graham Greene, actually published a book called Why I Write in which he explained that good storytelling takes place in the unconscious before the first word is written on the page. “We remember the details of our story, we do not invent them,” he said — noting that ideas often come unbidden during unexpected moments of ordinary life — while dropping off your laundry, running errands, or (as in my

case) mowing the lawn or working in the garden.

As the youngest son of a veteran newspaper man who hauled his family all over the 1950s South, I learned to read chapter books around age 4, in part because I never had time to make real playmates in the sleepy towns where we lived before moving again. From my parents’ bookshelf (both dedicated readers), I was drawn early to adventure storytelling, particularly the short stories of Rudyard Kipling, Greek myths, and any tale that involved animals and magical places. Absent a flying carpet, I often read books sitting in a large cardboard moving box on the porches of our old houses. And sometimes in the shady, cool dirt beneath the porch.

Inevitably, I grew up imagining someday becoming a journalist like my father, traveling all over the world to find such magical places. When he eventually introduced me to the essays of E.B. White — this was after reading Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web — I even pictured myself someday living on a farm on the coast of Maine.

When I look back, I see a clear pattern of how I became a writer. Including an unlikely pair of school teachers who changed my life.

In a faraway October of 1969, I was a junior underclassman who landed in the American literature class of an aging spinster named Elizabeth Smith and — to my dismay — a newby math class teacher named Larry Saunders. English lit and I were natural companions. But I detested algebra and was probably the slowest student in “Coach” Saunders’ class, a nickname we teenage geniuses were inspired to give him due his skinny, geeky frame and non-athletic orientation.

I don’t know what Miss Smith saw in me. She was short, round and half deaf. Her unflattering moniker was “Bull” Smith. This was her final year of a long teaching career that stretched back to the mid-1930s.

Out of the blue, Miss Smith pulled me aside one day to urge me to enter the Gate City’s annual O.Henry short story contest which had been running since the 1920s — so named in honor of hometown boy William Sydney Porter. So, on a lark, I did. My simple tale was about visiting my quiet grandfather on his farm for several weeks one summer, not long before he passed away.

SIMPLE LIFE

The story won first place, deeply shocking my sports pals. I dropped by Miss Smith’s classroom at the end of the term just to say thanks and wish her a happy retirement. She gave me a copy of Robert Frost’s Complete Poems, and, in return, wished me a long and happy career writing books. I think I laughed.

Larry Saunders was an even bigger surprise. Early on he realized that I would never a mathematician be — and proposed a remarkable compromise. If I never missed class, agreed to pay attention and try my best, he would agree to giving me a C-minus or better. I made the deal. Saunders was famous for writing daily inspirational quotes on the chalkboard. Once, the jokester in me managed to alter one of his quotes. “Familiarity breeds contempt” became “Familiarity breeds.” Even Coach had a chuckle.

During my senior year, good fortune found me in Larry Saunders’ class again for geometry — which, shockingly, I found to my liking. Geometry became very useful when, decades later, I became an amateur carpenter like my father and grandfather, and I built my post-and-beam house on the coast of Maine with my own hands. I couldn’t have done it without Coach Larry. About the same time, I published my first book, which turned out to be an international bestseller. I always meant to write Larry and thank him.

In 1983 on my way to a job interview at the Washington Post, I stopped by the Greensboro Public Library to do some research and spotted — of all people — Miss Smith paging through a dusty travel atlas in the reference room.

“Miss Smith,” I quietly interrupted her work. “I don’t know if you remember me . . .”

She looked up and chortled. “Of course I do, Mr. Dodson. I have followed your career with great interest. I am very pleased that you are writing.”

I was at a loss for words, but thanked her and wondered what she was up to these days. “I’m off to the dusts of ancient Egypt!” she trilled.

Before we parted, I also thanked her for seeing something in me — and for the volume of Robert Frost. Within weeks, I would withdraw from the Post offer in favor of a senior writer position at Yankee Magazine, a job that shaped my career and life.

Sadly, I never got to say thank you to Larry Saunders, who passed away in January 2021. “He loved teaching, playing the piano, and his nieces and nephews. He had a huge sense of humor,” notes his considerable obituary. He spent almost four decades teaching math and would inspire the creation of the an nual Larry Saunders Excellence in Teaching Award in his honor.

A good coach — like a great teacher — recognizes a young person’s strengths and weaknesses, and strives to help them find the right path.

Larry Saunders was both. Thanks to his wisdom, I built a beautiful house, found my way to writing books and even fell in love with inspiring quotes.

Which is why I think of “The Bull” and “Coach” every October. PS

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

PinePitch

Charity on the Hoof

Take your horse-loving herd on a self-guided tour of six exquisite horse farms from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 16. All proceeds benefit the Prancing Horse Center for Therapeutic Horsemanship. Tickets are $25 in advance or $30 the day of.

Children 12 and under are free. Prancing Horse Center, 6100 Hoffman Road, Hoffman. Trot off to www.prancing-horse.org for information and tickets.

Cabin Cool

Catch up on some upscale cabin coziness on Saturday, Oct. 22, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a tour of eight historic cabins in Pinehurst, Southern Pines and Carthage, taking them all the way from flannel to flawless. One of the cabins is featured in this edition of PineStraw beginning on page 90. Drop into the Woman’s Exchange before or after the tour for a complimentary dessert and drink the day of the event. Tickets are $25 and proceeds support the Sandhills Woman’s Exchange, 15 Azalea Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-4677 or www.sandhillswe.org.

Live After 5

Don’t miss the last concert of the 2022 Live After 5 concert series on Friday, Oct. 14 from 5:15 p.m. to 9 p.m. with entertain ment experts Bantum Rooster. Wildfire Pizza, Jaya’s Indian Cuisine, and Sunset Slush will be on-site with a wide selection of food for all to enjoy. Beer, wine and additional beverages will be available for purchase. Bring your picnic baskets but leave the outside alcohol at home. Kids’ crafts ensure a good time will be had by all. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

Handmade for the Holidays

There’s something for everyone at the 43rd annual Holly Arts and Crafts Festival on Saturday, Oct. 15 beginning at 10 a.m. and boasting the talents of over 100 crafters — from woodworking to glass, stitched art to lawn ornaments, jewelry to metal sculpture. Your favorite downtown shops and restaurants will be offering sales and specials, with food trucks on hand to ensure you shop but don’t drop while you cross names off that holiday gift list. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

Celebrating Iconic Female Leaders

Spend your Saturday with former governor of South Carolina and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley as she discusses her book If You Want Something Done: Leadership Lessons From Bold Women. She joins The Country Bookshop’s Kimberly Daniels Taws in an intimate and inspirational conversation on Saturday , Oct. 8 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. For information and tickets visit www.ticketmesandhills.com.

The Big Easy

Join the New Orleans Masquerade Band for a Jambalaya and Jazz Fundraiser, featuring jazz and blues of the 1920s and ’30s, on Sunday, Oct. 16, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at The Fair Barn. There will be small bites by Southern Whey, delicious jambalaya and dessert served by White Rabbit Catering, and cider tastings compliments of James Creek Cider House. Hosted by the Given Tufts Foundation, all proceeds benefit the Given Memorial Library and Tufts Archives. Pinehurst Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Road S., Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Charo in Class and Concert

BY TED FITZGERALDS

Moore Heritage, More Fun

Blend treasure hunting with history and fall fun for the whole family at the 14th annual Shaw House Heritage Fair and Moore Treasures Sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 8, rain or shine. The Heritage Fair offers unique vendors, baked goods, live music, demonstrations of old-time crafts, treasure sales and farm animals for petting. The Shaw House, Sanders Cabin and Garner House will be open for tours. The tobacco barn and museum highlight historic agriculture of the Sandhills. The Moore Treasures Sale features collectibles, pottery, jewelry, art, antiques, vintage books, toys, glassware and much more. All proceeds benefit the ongoing efforts of the Moore County Historical Association. Admission is free. The Shaw House, 110 W. Morganton Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2051 or www.moorehistory.com.

Have Hydrangeas, Send Help

Give your hydrangeas a fighting chance at survival by attending an hour-long presentation on the care and keeping of the colorful plants at the Sandhills Horticultural Lecture Series on Friday, Oct. 14 at 1 p.m. In addition to hearing from expert Wake County gardeners, attendees will also see a video of the Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival. Registration is not required, but seats are limited, so arrive early at the Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, Ball Visitors’ Center, 3245 Airport Road, Pinehurst.

Music and pop culture icon Charo may be best known for her signature “cuchi cuchi” phrase, but she’s also been voted “Best Flamenco Guitarist” twice by Guitar Magazine. Her bubbly personality and trademark 1970s expression have endeared her to millions of fans around the world. On Friday, Oct. 21, from noon to 1:30 p.m., Charo will host a master class on guitar and performance, a special oppor tunity for a small group to learn from a world class artist at BPAC’s intimate McPherson Theater. If you miss her master class, there’s still time to catch her on stage. She’ll be performing that evening from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at BPAC’s Owens Auditorium. Both locations are at 3395 Airport Road Pinehurst. Additional information and tickets are at: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

The British Are Coming!

Make your way to downtown Southern Pines for the penultimate First Friday of the season with The English Beat, a UK band that fuses Latin, pop, soul, reggae and rock — all in support of your local theater. As always, leave the dogs and outside alcohol at home but enjoy the food trucks, along with some Southern Pines Brewery brews, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 7. On the square at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

Libra

(September 23 – October 22)

It’s hard to find balance in a world so positively askew. Even for you, Libra. And yet, you make it look easy. Contorting yourself with such subtle mastery that no one seems to notice you’re bent out of shape. Let the plates fall. Draw yourself a bath. The Earth will keep spinning while you recharge. And with the blustery energy of the new moon and partial solar eclipse sweeping in on October 25 — a breath of fresh air — it may be time to unearth a hidden passion.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21) In through your nose, out through your mouth.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Slow down and proceed with caution.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

It’s time to clear the cobwebs, darling.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18) The door was never locked.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20) Two words: system reboot.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Butter won’t save the stale bread.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20) Try sweetening the pot.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20) There’s an app for that.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Don’t leave yourself at the altar.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Opening a window might help.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Concentrate and ask again. 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.

For people losing shut-eye to snoring and sleep apnea, studies show an oral appliance that is custom fit by a dentist may be all they need. Oral appliances are mouth guard-like devices. Patients like oral appliance therapy because it is comfortable, easy to wear, quiet, portable and cared for easily.

Schedule an appointment today with Dr. Rebecca Fronheiser. She is a specialist in the field of Dental Sleep Medicine and has achieved DIPLOMATE STATUS from the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine.

The oral appliance may be covered by your medical insurance company.

Of Race and Justice

Two books with common cause

By A nne Blythe

Sometimes two books can sit far apart on the bookshelf and seem to have little in common. Then you read them and discover the themes they share.

Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial is novelist and lawyer Corban Addison’s first work of nonfiction, a fast-paced legal thriller that reads like a novel about — wait for it — hog feces.

Addison tells the saga of Elsie Herring and hundreds of other residents in eastern North Carolina so disgusted by the stench and waste disposal practices of the industrial-style hog farms among their rural, mostly Black communities that they waged a legal battle against a pork industry giant. Through deft description of courtroom drama and artful portraits of the characters in this classic good-versus-evil narrative, Addison exposes the longstanding injustices of institutional environmental racism.

In Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt, Phoebe Zerwick, head of the Wake Forest University journalism program who used to work at the Winston-Salem Journal, delivers a thorough journalistic exploration of the life, wrongful conviction, exoneration and death by the suicide of Darryl Hunt. Zerwick shines a harsh light on a fundamentally flawed justice system and the institutional racism embedded in it.

Addison opens his book inside the federal courtroom in Raleigh where U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt has just been alerted that a jury has reached a verdict in one of a series of nuisance cases that hog farm neighbors brought against Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest pork producer.

The decision came quickly.

“The word spread like sparks from a brushfire,” Addison writes. “Smartphones emerge from pockets and handbags, thumbs fly across screens, and messages are cast across the digital wind, lighting up other phones with chimes and beeps miles away.”

Britt, Addison writes, is “a charming octogenarian with the oracular eyes of a barn owl,” who waits for the assembly of the necessary attorneys, paralegals, plaintiffs and others to take their places in the courtroom. Peering over his glasses at the lawyers, he motions to the bailiff to bring in the jury.

A quiet settles over the courtroom. The foreman, holding an envelope with the verdict sealed inside, tells the judge that he and his fellow jurors have come to a unanimous decision. “As the

envelope makes its short trip to the bench, the plaintiffs in the gallery take a breath and hold it,” Addison writes.

His prose is poetic though, at times, a bit overwrought. “The pain and sorrow of memory, together with the labor of years and dreams of days yet to come, are at the altar before them. Contrary to the tale of greed and opportunism being spun by politicians and poohbahs across town, they aren’t thinking about a million dollar payday as they wait for the judgment to be delivered. Instead, they are whispering a simple prayer, the prayer of verdict day, of verdictum. Please, Lord, let them believe us. Let them believe that we told the truth.”

In the ensuing scenes he gives readers a sense of history about land in the coastal plain that has been passed down from genera tion to generation among Black families who are standing up against the nemesis they say is responsible for them being unable to enjoy the life they, and their ancestors, once had.

This thoroughly researched and reported narrative ends with a visit to Joyce Messick, one of the plaintiffs in the nuisance cases who saw the hog farm near her family’s property shutter.

While Messick told him she finally felt as if she could breathe clean air, others have not gotten to that point. “Most have yet to see the change, to fill their lungs with liberated air, to stand upon emancipated ground,” Addison writes. “The dollar is still the lodestar of Smithfield Foods, and the legislature is still its domain.” Nonetheless, Addison concludes, there are people who will be relentless until commitments by the pork industry are realized.

To open her book about Hunt, Zerwick explains why she felt compelled to revisit a case she had chronicled in a series for the Winston-Salem Journal, one that led to new court proceedings that resulted in his exoneration.

“Beyond Innocence is my attempt to finish a story I began long ago,” she writes. “In 2003, when I wrote about the wrongful conviction of Darryl Hunt for the Winston-Salem Journal, Hunt was in prison then for the 1984 murder of a newspaper editor who had been raped and stabbed to death, not far from the newsroom where I worked.”

Hunt, who maintained his innocence throughout, was exoner ated after 19 years of legal battles and the help of tireless advo cates who refused to let the wrongful conviction stand.

OMNIVOROUS READER

“To the outside world, Hunt was the man who walked out of prison without rancor or regret,” Zerwick writes. “But the past haunted him, and the heroic narrative of a man who fought for justice masked a deep despair.” Zerwick decided to revisit Hunt’s story after he was found dead in the driver’s seat of a pickup truck that had been parked by a busy road with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

She was grief-stricken, as were many others. Then she went into reporter mode.

“I wasn’t done with the story after all,” Zerwick writes. “I started looking into his death soon after the funeral. Rather than tackle the big question about the failure of the justice system, I focused first on the facts.” Answers began to arrive as she in terviewed the people around him, studied photographs and Facebooks posts, and pored over correspondence Hunt had with his lawyers.

“Hunt’s death taught me a great deal about the limits of journalism and forced me to question my motives,” Zerwick writes. “Does the public’s right to know, that righteous principle we journalists invoke, justify exposing the secrets I hoped to find? Does shining a light in the dark places really help, as we claim it does? Who am I to tell a story Hunt had not told himself?”

In the end, though, Zerwick brings new layers to the saga of Darryl Hunt, the heroic advocate for reform, and the often-told recounting of his wrongful conviction.

“Long before politicians began campaigning against mass incarceration, Hunt saw the system he had left behind for what it is, a trap that condemns millions of men and women, and their children, to living on the fringes, barred from jobs, housing, bank loans, food assistance and more, barred, in short, from a reasonable chance at a decent life,” Zerwick concludes, and she wishes Hunt was here to be a part of the reforms.

Both Zerwick and Addison have crafted new, nonfiction accounts of old cases that tested the justice of the justice system. They should be read from cover to cover. PS

Anne Blythe has been a reporter in North Carolina for more than three decades.

A celebration 100 years in the making!

October 14 • 5:30 - 10 pm

Help us celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Boyd House. The night begins with a live performance of James Boyd’s historic Free Company Radio play, “His Honor, the Mayor” written by Orson Welles, featuring local and national actors. Following the play, enjoy dinner catered by Elliotts, Silent and Live Auctions, and dancing! Black Tie Optional.

$150 per person • Tables of 8 available

Classical Music Sundays

October 2 • 2 pm

Featuring: Matt Palmer

Classical Guitar

Matt Palmer is a recent recipient of the “Up and Coming Guitarist of the Year” award by Guitar International Magazine. $25 Members $35 Non-Members

November 2 • 2 pm

Featuring: Ciompi Quartet Classical Music.

The Ciompi Quartet of Duke University was founded by the renowned Italian violinist Giorgio Ciompi $25 Members $35 Non-Members

Come Sunday Jazz Series

October 30 • 11:30 - 2 pm

Featuring: Orquesta Gardel

This 12-piece group combines Latino music veterans with African and Anglo-American music students, for a salsa sound. Bring your own blanket, chairs, and a picnic. Cash bar with mimosas, beer, wine, and non-alcoholic beverages available. Members: $25 / Non-Members $35 Kids 12 and under are free

For tickets and more information, visit weymouthcenter.org

Thank you to our sponsors: Richard J. Reynolds III and Marie M. Reynolds Foundation; Gerald Claude Kirby Trust; NC CARES for Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council; Arts Council of Moore County; Moore County Community Foundation; The Palmer Foundation; Marion Stedman Covington Foundation; The Cannon Foundation; Donald and Elizabeth Cooke Foundation; The Pilot

We’re celebrating 100 years of our historic Boyd House with 100 events in 2022

555 E. Connecticut Ave. Southern Pines, NC A 501 (c)(3) organization

100

October Books

FICTION

Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic — including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was 9 years old. Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. From the bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, the highly anticipated Our Missing Hearts is a deeply suspenseful novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear.

Signal Fires, by Dani Shapiro

On a summer night in 1985, three teenagers have been drinking. One of them gets behind the wheel of a car and, in an instant, everything on Division Street changes. Each of their lives, and that of Ben Wilf, a young doctor who arrives on the scene, is shattered. For the Wilf family, the circumstances of that fatal accident will become the deepest kind of secret, one so dangerous it can never be spoken about. But, time moves on, even on Division Street. Years later a new family, the Shenkmans, arrive. When Waldo, the Shenkmans’ brilliant, lonely son, befriends Dr. Wilf — now retired and struggling with his wife’s decline — past events come hurtling back in ways no one could have foreseen.

Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenage single mother, living in a trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves and crushing losses. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

NONFICTION

The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, by Stacy Schiff

4909 Raeford Rd, Fayetteville, NC 28304 | 910.423.0239

Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the American Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” With highminded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd, eloquent, and intensely disciplined man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution. A singular figure at a singular moment, Adams packaged and amplified the Boston Massacre. He helped to mastermind the Boston Tea Party. He employed every tool in an innovative arsenal to rally a town, a colony, and eventually a band of colonies behind him, creating the cause that created a country. For his efforts he became the most wanted man in America: When Paul Revere rode to Lexington in 1775, it was to warn Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason. Schiff brings her masterful skills to Adams’ improbable life, illuminating his transformation from aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Farmhouse, by Sophie Blackall

Houses tell stories of important days and nothing-much days, of laughter and people and animals, of tiny important things once loved and now left behind. Farmhouse honors all of those things in loving collage and illustration. Kids will love it, but parents and grandparents may just find they have stories of their own to tell. (Ages 4-8.)

Hey, Bruce!, by Ryan Higgins

You have laughed with him, flown south with him, and raised a flock of baby geese with him, and now you can interact with him. Bruce, the bear just grumpy enough to love, is back in this fun

title that will send him flying through the air and have books tumbling off the shelves into the hands of delighted young readers. (Ages 2-5).

Set Sail for Pancakes!, by Tim Kleyn

Breakfast food books are the new hot(cake) item in the kid’s section. Sail the high seas with Margot and Grandpa as they try to find the perfect ingredients for a delicious breakfast, then make a batch of your own. (Ages 3-7.)

My Pet Feet, by Josh Funk

Awakening to a world with feet in stead of ferrets, hoses instead of horses, and flocks of cows instead of crows, when the letter R goes missing an entire town goes upside down in this funny picture book packed with visual jokes. A must for story time, bedtime or anytime. (Ages 3-7.) PS

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally.

Kristy Woodson Harvey

Join O.Henry magazine at The Colonnade at Revolu tion Mill, Greensboro, as we host Kristy Woodson Har vey, a New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Under the Southern Sky and The Peachtree Bluff Series. Following drinks and hors d’oeuvres, she'll share stories from her latest novel, The Wedding Veil. Set at the Biltmore, this historical-contemporary novel is about Edith and Cornelia Vanderbilt, a present-day family, and the famous, missing Vanderbilt veil.

Tickets are on sale now and include beverages, hors d’oeuvres from Pepper Moon Catering, Q & A with the author, and book signing.

(The Wedding Veil will be available for purchase.)

Thursday, November 3, 2022 6 — 8 p.m.

The Colonnade at Revolution Mill

900 Revolution Mill Drive Greensboro, NC 27405

"One of the hottest new Southern writers."

— Parade.com

Supported by

Great art picks up wherenature ends.

My Flying Life

The good, the bad and the pressurized

By Bill Fields

About a decade ago, early on a Saturday morning, I was at New York’s LaGuardia Airport for a flight to RDU. The gate area was mostly empty except for a familiar face in a corner chair. Roy Williams, the UNC men’s basketball coach, had been in the Big Apple for the NBA draft. He was eating a candy bar when I introduced myself.

“You won’t remember this,” I said, truer words having never been spoken, “but you were sitting next to me on my first flight.”

In December 1979, Williams was a graduate assistant for the Tar Heels, among his duties driving copies of “The Dean Smith Show” to television stations around the state each weekend during basketball season. On this Monday, he was flying Piedmont Airlines from RDU to Tampa for Carolina-South Florida that eve ning at the Bayfront Arena in St. Petersburg. A 20-year-old junior journalism major, I was covering the game for The Daily Tar Heel.

Roy told me how to yawn to keep my ears from hurting on the climb and descent. When the flight attendant arrived with the beverage cart, I told her it was my first flight and was a bit disappointed I wasn’t given a pair of wings.

Perhaps she knew it wasn’t really my first flight. That had been a 15-minute spin above Southern Pines in a single-engine plane two years earlier with an assistant pro I knew who had just gotten his pilot’s license. But the two-hour trip to Florida on a 737 made that brief sightseeing venture seem like a bucket of balls at Knollwood compared to 18 holes on Pinehurst No. 2.

Hearing a friend, now retired, tell me recently that he flew 6 million miles in his sales career got me thinking about how much I’ve flown over more than 40 years. Tallying up the totals in the loyalty programs of the two airlines I’ve flown the most comes to 790,135 miles. Counting the flights before I had frequent flier accounts and all the travel on other airlines that isn’t documented, I must be approaching 1.5 million miles up in the air.

My most memorable air travel (enjoyable division) wasn’t with

any of the surviving legacy carriers or airlines such as TWA, Pan Am, Piedmont or Eastern that are no longer with us. Over four days in 1989, while profiling Arnold Palmer as he neared his 60th birthday, I had a seat on his Cessna Citation III, a $7 million business jet, while the golf legend traveled from a senior tournament to various course design projects.

Palmer, in the left seat beside co-pilot Lee Lauderback, flew N1AP into his hometown and to where he had long wintered — Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and Orlando, Florida — and then to Kansas City, St. Louis and Greenville, South Carolina. The biggest thrill was the next-to-last leg: Orlando to Moore County, where Palmer and longtime architecture partner Ed Seay were working on Pinehurst Plantation (now Mid South Club).

I was clearly well ahead of the aviation gods after that assign ment, but they’ve gotten in their licks since. Just months after traveling with Palmer, I had a hellishly bouncy flight into Málaga, Spain, the last flight before the airport was shut down because of severe weather. Two decades later, flying on a Korean Air charter of senior tour pros from San Francisco to Incheon, about an hour from landing a pocket of clear air turbulence caused the plane to drop dramatically, banging up flight attendants and anyone who wasn’t belted in. The experience sure put into perspective all the windy, nervous approaches into water-guarded LaGuardia — aborted landings notwithstanding — that would follow.

One has no choice but to roll with the punches, especially in today’s chaotic world of airline staffing shortages, delays and cancellations. Edinburgh, Scotland, was a mess this summer as I attempted to begin a journey home, hundreds of travelers lined up outside on the sidewalk because of a technical snarl, missed connections on their minds. It was not, as I found out while getting a short sleep at a ring-road hotel in Amsterdam that evening, an unfounded worry.

But for almost every glitch, armrest hog or man wearing a tank top, there is a stunning sunset at 37,000 feet, or a gate agent more pleasant and patient than most would be. And I’ll always have memories of Air Arnie. PS

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

OF N.C.

A Purpose-Driven Art

Scott Avett follows the mystery

By Wiley CA sh P hotogr APhs By M A llory CA sh

For a man whose music I’ve been listening to for almost two decades and whose face I’ve seen everywhere from the Grammy Awards to the Today show to the 2017 documentary May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers by Judd Apatow, Scott Avett was surprisingly easy to reach. After a couple of calls and texts to mutual friends, my wife, Mallory, and I arrived to interview him one day in early August. He met us in the driveway of the small house he’d converted into an art studio in the country about 15 minutes outside of downtown Concord, North Carolina.

Most North Carolinians, as well as music lovers around the world, know Scott as the other half of the Avett Brothers, who, along with his younger brother Seth, bassist Bob Crawford and cellist Joe Kwon, have sold millions of records and whose career has carried the band from small stages in college towns to the Grand Ole Opry to Madison Square Garden and beyond. But Scott knows himself best as a man whose purpose is to create, and painting is as much a part of his creative life as songwriting.

While his visual art has rarely been exhibited publicly aside from a 2019 show at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Scott has been a working artist since graduating from East Carolina University in 2000 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art. His paintings and drawings most often speak to family life and the natural world in rural North Carolina, but his work is in conversation with the many cultural and artistic influences he encounters on the road and in his reading life.

In our time together, Scott will rattle off quotes from French Impressionist Edgar Degas and the Trappist monk and mystic poet Thomas Merton the way some of us might

casually discuss Monday Night Football or the day’s headlines. It’s clear to me that while his work portrays what one could see and hear if one were to spend time shadowing him during his daily life on the land in Concord, there is a deeper spiritual mystery residing in the work that speaks to the same unseen hand that guides emotions and ideas like love, duty, purpose and one’s role in them all.

This mystery is perhaps what Scott refers to as “the revelation of meaning beyond the physical act of making” that informs his exhibition, “After the Fact,” which is running through October at the Greenville Museum of Art in Greenville, North Carolina. This exhibit will run concurrently with “Purpose at Random,” Scott’s show at the SOCO Gallery in Charlotte, which began in September and will run through November 2. The show in Charlotte features new oil paintings that Scott began working on in the early months of 2020, which means the work was created during the pandemic when he would have otherwise been on the road with the band. In a press release for the show, Scott says, “I’m not sure that it was easier to paint during the pandemic but it was certainly more available than playing concerts. Painting is a solitary activity. The more time alone the better, I think. The pandemic provided space.”

On the day we meet him, the only calendar space Scott has is a two-week break from touring, and so he’s at work completing a painting that will be featured in one of the upcoming shows. Inside, his studio reveals itself to be a place in creative flux. Paintings either hang on the walls or lean against them, some in various stages of completion. Hiding amongst them — and he will show it to us just before we leave in a few hours — is an early draft of a painting of singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile, the final draft of which appeared on the cover of her 2018 multi-Grammy Award-winning album, By the Way, I Forgive You.

We follow Scott into an open space, past a low counter where his kids’ works-in-progress are waiting for their return. The studio is bright and airy. Morning light pours through the windows on the

east side of the house. Scott stands in the middle of the room with a cup of coffee brewed by the Concord coffeehouse, Verb, in hand.

As Mallory unpacks her camera gear, I tell Scott that I grew up in Gastonia, which is on the west side of Charlotte, while Concord sits on its east. We talk about what it was like to be raised so close to Charlotte in the 1980s and ’90s without much awareness of what went on in what seemed to us to be “the big city.” We joked that the only time we went into Charlotte was to go Christmas shopping at SouthPark.

“That was the fancy mall,” Scott says, smiling. I tell him that once, when I was young, I spotted NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon with his first wife at SouthPark, and that leads us to a conversation about race car drivers as Sunday races served as the backdrop of our North Carolina childhoods, especially for Scott, given that Charlotte Motor Speedway sits just a few miles away from the place where he was raised. I ask Scott how he and his family ended up on this expanse of land where he has remained despite his world travels, his parents still living just a few miles down the road, and his own family’s home tucked into the woods behind his studio.

Scott’s father was born in North Carolina and grew up the son of a Methodist minister whose calling took the family around the state. Scott’s mother was an Army kid born on a base in Germany before being raised in Kansas and Virginia. Just before Scott was born, his parents and older sister moved to Alaska, where his father hoped to get work as a pipeline welder, but the job fell through, and on the way back south the family lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for about a year. That’s where Scott was born. But they eventually found their way back to North Carolina and to the landscape where Scott’s grandfather had touched so many lives. When the family decided to settle down outside Concord — his father traveled as a welder and his mother taught school — they were gifted 2 acres and an old house by an elderly couple who had

OF N.C.

long admired Scott’s grandfather. His father renovated the home, and Scott’s parents lived there until the house burned down last year. But fire can’t burn roots, and Scott’s parents rebuilt, and they continue to reside just down the road from him.

When Scott and his two siblings were growing up, his parents made certain that education was available to them, especially if the kids were hungry for it. “They were intent on that,” he says. “They said, ‘We will see to it that you have an opportunity to go to school. If we’re broke, we’ll rob a bank to pay for it. If you are interested in education, you will get the opportunity.’” All three children went to college.

It’s clear that Scott values his children’s education as well, especially in the arts. Aside from the makeshift studio set up for them alongside his own work, his daughter regularly participates in afterschool tutoring sessions in creative writing led by the owner of the local bookstore, Goldberry Books, in downtown Concord. It’s easy to imagine a holistic education in art and outdoor experiences unfolding for children in a landscape like this. If I sound wistful when imagining such a childhood it’s because I am.

But our conversation turns toward what could be considered the more practical matters of being a creator, namely, what happens when your hobby — whether it’s painting or songwriting or writing novels — becomes your job. Is the mystery of creation compromised?

“As soon as you’re doing something to pay bills, I don’t know that you’re really following your heart,” Scott says. “We’re called to have a purpose, but you can slip off that purpose really quick ly, and all of a sudden the purpose becomes to pay the bills more easily. I want to avoid that. There’s a mystery in creating. I want to follow the mystery and get as close to it as I can. But when I’m

THE CREATORS OF N.C.

caught up in success or anything else it has nothing to do with getting close to the mystery. It just distracts from it.”

Jeff Gordon and NASCAR are still lingering in the corners of my mind, and I mention that Gordon retired from driving at the age of 44, and both Scott and I are now in our mid-40s. I tell him that I doubt Gordon’s physical skills were diminished at that age, but perhaps his awareness of the risks he was taking became more apparent the older and wiser he got. I ask Scott if he’s more aware of the choices he’s making at this stage of his career and if his skills are continuing to sharpen.

“I feel like I’m in the sweet spot, ability-wise,” he says about both performing music and painting. “Physically, I can do it, and, mentally, my tools have accumulated quite a bit. I see evidence of that when I can make plans about what project I am going to execute. Ten years ago, I might say, ‘I hope I can do this. I hope I don’t flub it and get stuck on something.’” He pauses for a moment. “I think I hold it all a little looser than I ever did, and I’m not going to be blown away by whether it hits or doesn’t hit. I don’t know why, but there’s now a barometer, and sometimes it says, ‘Hey, enough, you have enough. Now, with enough, can you lean into your purpose?’”

I ask him how it feels to let go of a painting after someone buys it. After all, when he writes a song he can always perform it whether or not it’s on a record or in front of a live audience. “It rips pretty hard,” he says. “It really does. I see painting as me telling my life story, and as I do that, it’s kind of tough to imagine that some of it’s in Colorado, some of it’s in New York, some of it’s in Texas. But I haven’t gotten too attached to any of them so far. There are only three I won’t let go of. One of my wife and two of our kids that I painted in bathing suits. They’re just portraits of them, but I’ve said those aren’t for sale.”

I ask him if his art is a result of his being anchored to this land given his family’s history on it. He pauses as if painting an answer in his mind.

“We’re all bigger than our place,” he finally says. “I am in North Carolina, and I am making the things I’m meant to make. When you can settle that and not think that New York is better than North Carolina, then you can start getting to your work.

“You have to find a corner of the world,” he says. “I truly believe that on these 80 acres there is more to explore than I can do in a lifetime. There is so much work to be done here, and by work I mean purpose. To me, my purpose is realized here. My purpose is to create. There are a lot of leaves to peel back here, and there are a lot of experiences happening.”

He pulls his phone from his pocket and flips through his pho tos, landing on a picture he took the night before of his 7-year-old son just after he’d fallen asleep. “There’s nothing not timeless about this,” he says. “If my purpose is to recognize relationships and see things, this is a good place to be.” He laughs and puts his phone away. “But where’s not?” PS

Wiley Cash is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, is available wherever books are sold.

Batch-a-Zombie

Cocktail prep for Halloween

By tony Cross

Rum is the nectar of the gods, right, so what makes more sense in October than having a little fun with a Zombie? Without further ado, let me present the batched, milk-punch-clarified Zombie cocktail that you can bottle and drink whenever you want. Talk about the living dead.

I follow a few fine bartenders on Instagram and one, whose handle is thirstywhale, put up a quick little TikTok about scaling up the Zombie, and then clarifying the whole thing. As soon as the video ended, I was on it.

First, let’s address the whole milk thing. Adding milk to drinks is nothing new. In fact, milk was added to punch before people were shaking up cocktails. As Dave Arnold explains, “Milk punches are known for their soft, round flavors. That softness isn’t caused just by the presence of milk but by the removal of phenolic compounds from the spirit via the casein-rich curds.” In English, clarifying a batched drink with milk makes the drink soft and smooth, without tampering with the ABV. Batching cocktails ahead of time is plenty of work, but just imagine pulling a bottle of clarified Zombies from your cabinet on Halloween night and pouring it over ice for the parents while their ghosts and goblins dig into the candy bowl. Look at you, all cool and stuff.

Clarified Zombie (batched)

3 cups Jamaican rum

3 cups Gold Puerto Rican rum

2 cups 151 demerara rum

1 cup Falernum

1 1/2 cups lime juice

2/3 cups grapefruit juice

1/3 cup cinnamon syrup

2 3/4 ounces grenadine

3/4 ounce absinthe

1/2 ounce Angostura Bitters

3 cups whole milk

This recipe yields roughly four 750ml bottles of cocktails. You can definitely cut this in half, or by three-quarters, but . . . if you’re going to buy the bottles of spirits for this recipe, you might as well go all out. In fact, any extra would make a great gift for a birthday or the holidays. Once completed, this cocktail will hold for many, many years.

Here are the liquors I used:

Jamaican: Appleton Estate 8 Year

Puerto Rican: Bacardi Gold

151: Lemon Hart & Son Rhum

You don’t have to use these, but make sure the rums come from the respective origins. You can order these online and have them shipped to you in a week. I highly, highly recommend this op tion. You’ll need to get the Falernum there anyway, and there’s no substitute for that. What is Falernum, you ask? It’s like a syrup/liqueur that is flavored with lime, almond and clove. It’s an essential in many Tiki drinks.

Notes on Execution

Juice: please squeeze it yourself. Do not, I repeat, do not buy these in a bottle. Also, make sure that the juice is squeezed just prior to batching. Strain it, too, will ya?

Cinnamon syrup: take 10 grams of cinnamon sticks and blend them for 10 seconds. In a small pot, make a 2:1 simple syrup with 1 cup of white sugar to 1/2 cup water. Stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Place the syrup in the blender with cinnamon, and blend one last time for another 10 seconds. Let the syrup cool in a container, and then strain out the solids. Refrigerate until you’re ready to use.

Grenadine: there are two options. You can buy this, but not at the grocery store. Contrary to belief, grenadine is not made from

IN THE SPIRIT

cherries, it’s made from pomegranate juice. Small Hand Foods makes a great one, if you’re looking online. You can also make this at home. Just take equal parts POM pomegranate juice with demerara sugar and stir it in a pot over medium heat until dissolved. Presto!

Absinthe: I have a nice bottle here at the house, but if you don’t, almost every ABC in North Carolina has one. If you’d rather order online, may I suggest the Vieux Pontarlier Absinthe Superieure?

Showtime: In a large Cambro, start with your smallest ingredients first — Angostura Bitters, absinthe, all the way up to 3 cups of rum. Give it a quick stir. Add the 3 cups of milk last. You’re halfway there. Cover your container and walk away. Let it sit for 2-4 hours. When the time has passed, take a medium to large strainer, and line the inside of it with paper towels (one ply thick). Make sure that you slowly pour the cocktail into your strainer. It will take a little while to filter through, so you’ll have to pour and wait, repeating the process. If you pour too quickly, the curdled cocktail will rip through your paper towel. When all is filtered, filter again. This time, take a coffee filter to catch every last bit of curd. Once this is done, just bottle and keep in a cool, dark place. This cocktail will hold forever in the bottle. Pour 2-3 ounces over ice. Garnish with grated, fresh nutmeg. And be careful — these drinks are potent. More than a couple, and you’ll be walking like a . . . well, you know. PS

Tony Cross is a bartender (well, ex-bartender) who runs cocktail catering company Reverie Cocktails in Southern Pines.

Scott Athans,

P. Poindexter,

Kenny

Peter, Peter, Waffle Eater

Everything doesn’t need to be orange

story A nd P hotogr APh By rose sheW ey

My husband cheekily calls me “the adopted daughter of the South” for no other reason than my fascination with big, loud pickup trucks. I will admit that my favorite vehicle is our old, mud-splattered, lifted four-wheel drive truck with 35-inch tires and rumbling pipes you can hear miles down the road. (I may or may not have taken this truck, just for kicks, through the porte-cochère at the Carolina Hotel. I mean, Sunday afternoons tend to be a bit slow.)

While I am a fan of robust vehicles, I typically prefer more delicate things in life. Take waffles, for instance. The ever-present Belgium waffle — the thick, fluffy, square (or round) waffle with deep, soggy pockets that hold ungodly amounts of maple syrup — is the waffle of choice for most. I, on the other hand, am a devo tee of the thin and crisp Scandinavian waffle. The lacy, ornate, heart-shaped Nordic-style waffle with a light dusting of powdered sugar makes my heart sing.

The same way I adore delicate shapes, I have an appreciation for delicate flavors. So, despite it being October, the month of all things orange-tinted, pumpkins rank low on my harvest list. Yes, I love pumpkins as much as the next Boho-knit-cardigan-wearing, scentedcandle-hoarding girl but excuse me while I mark this page safe from the annual pumpkin craze. Iconoclast? Not at all. Pumpkins are delightful in many ways, but when it comes to flavor, they aren’t much to write home about. What truly makes anything pumpkin-infused stand out is the supporting cast: a warm, comforting spice mix that is added to virtually all things pumpkin-related.

It’s hard to imagine October without stumbling over chubby gourds at every turn, but autumn has many beautiful heralds — juicy apples, chestnuts, mushrooms, pears or, for instance, hazelnuts. I learned quickly that Americans don’t share my enthusiasm for hazelnuts, a symbol of health and strength, and was recently told by a chef that it’s a Euro thing. Maybe, but I’m also here to tell you that you are missing out if you do not incorporate hazelnuts

into your fall cuisine. Whether you enjoy them raw, roasted, covered in chocolate or ground up into flour, hazelnuts are exquisite and should not be missing from your autumn harvest spread.

Norwegian Hazelnut Cardamom Waffles (Serves 2)

1/2 cup finely ground blanched hazelnuts

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom (or 1 teaspoon cinnamon)

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk (or any non-dairy milk)

3 tablespoons maple syrup

3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted

Preheat your waffle iron. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and add remaining ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mix and stir to combine. Pour batter into the preheated waffle iron and cook until golden brown and steam is no longer rising. Serve with toppings of your choice — berries, figs, chopped nuts, yogurt or simply dust with powdered sugar. PS

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

Good and Dead

And totally down-to-earth

story A nd P hotogr APh By A shley WA lshe

Our neighbors are the best. They’re very quiet, very private — I’ve never actually seen them. But I should mention that they’re also very dead.

Last spring, my husband and I moved into an RV near Lake James as a sort of romantic venture as newlyweds. We live at the end of a private drive shared with other RV-ers (mostly weekend warriors) and a few retirees with swanky prefabs and sweeping views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Our view is a little different. Just beyond the camper’s eastfacing windows — and I do mean just beyond them — 11 white crosses are staggered among windswept pines, a sparse fringe of mountain laurel and a dusting of vibrant moss. Most of the crosses are wooden, one is broken; a handful are PVC replicas. Two weatherworn headstones blend with the rugged landscape.

The site is decidedly understated. No fencing; no benches; no fancy signage. Propped against the base of a lichen-laced pine, a wooden plank marks “Dobson Cemetery” in handpainted lettering.

I make it a point to greet the Dobsons each day, same as I would any neighbors. There’s Alexander (d. 1876), who lived to be 83; and Cora J. (obviously dead but stone illegible); and at least 11 others. Lord knows how many bones rest 6 feet below. But I find comfort in the Dobsons’ quiet presence. So far as I can tell, they don’t seem to mind mine.

My fascination with cemeteries began six years ago while visit ing my great aunt in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Shirley was dying of bone cancer, and I was there to help her sort through her worldly possessions. It was a tender time.

While Shirley was facing her mortality in a literal sense, I was navigating a different kind of loss. After supper, I’d venture down the street for a stroll through the city’s oldest cemetery. There, perhaps for obvious reasons, my heartache felt welcome. Yet so did my dreams of a full and happy life. As I wove among the ancient trees and motley gravestones — the living and the dead — my perspective shifted. We’re not here for long. What will we do with the time we’ve got?

Which brings me back to our camper with a view.

We see our share of white-tailed deer. Birds come and go. But you can imagine we don’t get a ton of human foot traffic back here. We’d had none, in fact, until the other morning.

We were dining on the back deck when our neighbor — a live one from a few lots down — appeared like an apparition amid the wooden crosses. Our startled dog went ballistic.

“Sorry to disrupt your brunch,” Dave chimed as he tromped heavily through the lot. Despite having lived here for over two years, he’d never felt inclined to visit the cemetery until hearing that the Dobsons “may or may not” be related to Daniel Boone.

He came. He saw. He seemed utterly unimpressed. We returned to our peaceful graveside picnic.

That our dead neighbors might be kin to an American trailblazer certainly intrigued me, but after a bit of fruitless digging — online, mind you — I gladly surrendered the search. The way I see it, they’ve all crossed the veil into that good night. They’re all pioneers. Besides, it’s often the mystery that keeps life interesting.

On that note, dear neighbors, I’m really glad you’re here. I hope you won’t mind if I keep saying hi. But it’s really OK if you don’t say it back. PS

Ashley Walshe is a former editor of O.Henry magazine and a long time contributor to PineStraw.

ART OF THE STATE

Sacred FIGURES

Cristina Córdova sculpts soulful, fantastic people from clay

By liz A roBerts

“I was always very creatively inclined, and very restless,” says sculptor Cristina Córdova, as she moves – glides, really, with ease and focus –around a massive head she’s shaping out of clay in her Penland studio.

She molds it with elegant hands, quickly, decisively, certain about what she wants this clay to be. Like the work that has made her name, it will become real, it will be soulful, thoughtful, disarming, alive. Its eyes will be hollow, but they will express sadness; its face will be impassive, but it will express stoicism.

Known for her remarkably lifelike figurative sculptures in clay, which typically range from diminutive to lifesize, Cordova grew up in Puerto Rico. She earned her undergraduate degree from

La persistence del verdor

BY ROBIN DREYER

BY

ART OF THE STATE

the University of Puerto Rico and an MFA in Ceramics from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University before moving to Penland in 2002 for a three-year residency, and subsequently making the campus her home.

Córdova credits her mother with nurturing her creativity from an early age, steering her toward the career that has made her one of the most respected sculptors in North Carolina and

Cristina Córdova

a pillar of the Penland community since 2002. She credits a ceramics teacher with first showing her the potential of clay, the possibility that it could go beyond representation to “embody any idea.” At that point, she says, “the material revealed itself to me in this really exciting way. And I never looked back.”

Still, she took some time to settle on her subject. Gradually, “I started to become a little bit more excited, more empowered to start specifically to focus on the figure.” It was a focus borne in part by her heritage. Growing up Catholic in Puerto Rico, she says, in a house with literally hundreds of depictions of saints all around her, the idea of using a figurative work of art “as a way of harnessing your emotional energy and pulling it into something sacred” was a mechanism she’d internalized. Though her current work is not religious, Córdova finds that it’s understood “at a different level” in Puerto Rico, where “Catholicism is not a choice, it’s woven into the culture, so people come to the work with a shared insight.”

Her subject may come naturally, but that doesn’t make it easy. Depicting the figure in clay is a challenge. Early in her career, Córdova found herself stuck in between two worlds, the sculptural tradition of working in the round with a live model, and the more organic ceramic tradition. Eventually, she settled on a hybrid approach, one that includes not a live model but a series of blueprints that provide her with the measurements and dimensions she needs to create a sculpted three-dimensional figure.

The head before her on this particular day — not necessarily a man nor a woman, as is sometimes the case with her figures — is imagined instead of representational, and so its blueprints are designed merely to keep her to scale, leaving room for improvisa

El Rey

Vestigios

MANN

BY

ART OF THE STATE

tion. In other instances, she uses a series of photographs to help her create more precise blueprints.

Córdova gestures to the head before her: “I’m called right now to do things that are big, almost monolithic. I think it has something to do with what we are experiencing [with the pandemic]. I’m not interested in intimate or narrative-oriented work. I’m interested in big statements.”

Big statements seem called for by the importance and enormity of our internal worlds in such a situation, she says. “The isolation, the uncertainty, the newness — to have to take all this in without being able to respond in our normal ways . . . recourse is very limited. So you’re holding this inside of you, and that’s all you can do, is hold it, and witness it, and be with it. We need a big container for that right now. So I’m making big containers.”

It’s not a simple process. Beginning with a large donut-shaped piece of clay that’s laced with sand and paper pulp for stability

and structure, Córdova then patches in a perpendicular slab, and then another, and then adds rings of clay, providing “the basic topography.” From there, she more fully fleshes out and articulates the shape of the head and face.

Having worked “all over the place in terms of scale” over the course of her career, the process of working in such large dimensions now excites her: “This to me is a starting point. I really want to get bigger. I have no idea how I’m going to do that.”

Córdova’s award-winning work is in the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico and many others. PS

This is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Art of the State: Celebrating the Art of North Carolina , to be published by UNC Press this fall.

Cosmología Isleña

Del balcón

Sandhills Photography Club: Abandoned & Decay Competition

The Sandhills Photography Club meets the second Monday of each month at 7 p.m. in the theater of the Hannah Marie Bradshaw Activities Center of The O'Neal School at 330 Airport Road in Pinehurst. Visit www.sandhillsphotoclub.org.

PHOTO CLUB

Tier 1, 1st Place: Working Truck

By Bill Buss

Tier 1, 2nd Place: Angel By Robert Mobsby

Tier 1, 3rd Place: Abandoned Montana By Susan Capstick

Tier 2, 2nd Honorable Mention: Yesterday’s Beauty By Shari Dutton

PHOTO CLUB

Tier 2, 3rd Place: Forgotten in the Weeds

By Mary New

Tier 2, 1st Place: Late for Breakfast By Shari Dutton

Tier 2, 2nd Place: Accurate Aim By Dee Williams

Tier 2, 1st Honorable Mention: Minor Problem By Tom Batts

Sandhills Photography Club: Abandoned & Decay Competition

PHOTO CLUB

Tier 3, 1st Place: Trolley Yard By Pat Anderson

Tier 3, 2nd Place: Al Fresco

By Gisela Danielson

Tier 3, 3rd Place: Magallenes III By Gary Magee

Tier 3, Honorable Mention: Still Beautiful in Death By Neva Scheve

Meds on Parade

Art for the heart — and everything else

BY

By deBor A h sA loMon

We call PineStraw magazine “The Art and Soul of the Sandhills.” There it is, written on the cover. Soul is amorphous. Art, however, wears many guises. It’s called the “art” of politics — at least in part — because if candidates can’t put on a good show they ain’t goin’ nowhere. They deliver artfully crafted scripts often, per Macbeth, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” They choose well-tailored costumes in (except Nancy Pelosi) conservative colors. I almost fainted when she deplaned at midnight in Taiwan wearing a bubblegum-pink pantsuit.

But this art commentary doesn’t concern MAGA caps or power ties. Rather, the drama rampant in TV ads for prescription and OTC medications.

Now Pelosi’s pantsuit appears Pepto Bismol pink.

This dates from 1997 when the FDA relaxed rules governing direct advertising to consumers, as long as side effects receive prominent billing, along with “Consult a physician.” The U.S. and New Zealand are the only countries that allow direct ads.

Sounds like a win-win-win for patients, docs, ad agencies, drug

manufacturers and “everyman” actors. Because, with a few exceptions, glamour-pusses don’t have eczema or hemorrhoids.

Truth be told, drug and health-related ads have taken over prime time TV once dominated by Tony the Tiger. To document this I sat down with pencil, paper and stopwatch. My findings indicate that a typical 2-minute ad break will have four or five commercials, at least three of them drug-related. No more whitecoated “physician” or “pharmacist” dispensing advice. These are on-location productions with multiple actors, cartooning, music, special effects. Some are melancholy, offering cancer patients “more time” without suggesting a cure. Others push prevention or detection, hence the now familiar Cologuard logo. The toughest to watch are anti-smoking, where the spokesperson is missing a jawbone or larynx, followed by a black screen announcing “Joe Smith died in 2020.”

Pets help. A drug that renders HIV-AIDS “undetectable” avoids the click-off by showing a couple bathing a white dog. Most drug ads, however, feature healthy-looking folks at weddings and graduations, none experiencing the dire side effects listed by the voice-over.

Manipulative? Who cares? Big pharma’s goal is to have you clamoring for the drug by name — if you can pronounce and pay for it. Trade names lean on consonants, particularly X, Y, Z and Q minus the U. Pronounce Cibinqo for me, please. At least the trade name Rinvoq is easier than generic upadacitinib.

I finally found an MD willing to comment, albeit anony-

Oct

Oct

Oct

BPAC’s

Going Beyond with Priscilla Shirer

Oct

BPAC’s

mously. Slick, unrealistic, exaggerated, providing false hope by innuendo was his verdict, although he chuckled at the one for a bone strengthener, where grannies narrowly avert accidents like tripping on a pine cone or falling off a ladder.

OK, so almost all’s fair in war and medications. I still draw a line below the belt.

Remember diving for the remote when Viagra burst onto the market? Now, usually around suppertime, the menu includes bent carrots, misshapen zucchini, wacky bananas and cukes simulating Peyronie’s Disease. Look it up. After that, a “stool softener” which compares the ailment to “passing a pineapple,” unpeeled, of course, seems tame. But I do laugh at the one where a woman opens the car door only to find a toilet replacing the driver’s seat, followed by the same substitution for her office chair.

At this rate, it’s only a matter of time until Mona Lisa’s smile will be co-opted to confirm a satisfactory, uh, outcome.

As the evening wears on, hucksters hawk a battery-operated ear wax cleaner called Wush and a dainty ladies’ shaver for “down there.” The men’s version for “groin grooming” is called Lawn Mower. Ugh.

But is this ad art? Or are we creating culture icons? Will the Charmin bears join Pooh and Paddington?

Possibly, considering Christie’s sold Andy Warhol’s painting of a Campbell’s condensed soup can, painted in 1961, for $11 million. Today’s artist might immortalize a fancy organic brand.

Literature has its Pulitzers, Broadway its Tonys, films their Oscars. Ads earn statuettes at the annual Clios, which recognize creativity/excellence in advertising. Health care has its own category.

Clio usually takes the high road, hon oring foundations conducting medical research. My vote still supports the nerdy Preparation H spokesguy who insists, coyly, that my derriere “deserves expert care.” PS

Deborah Salomon is a writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

910-295-6003

HELPING YOU BECOME YOUR HAPPIEST & HEALTHIEST YET!

NOW ACCEPTING NEW PATIENTS FOR HEALTH COACHING

Meet Carole Hoffman, Health & Wellness Coach

I feel a passionate sense of purpose to help improve the lives and health of others and teaching them how to maintain great health for themselves. I bring with me 8 years as a nervous system therapy practitioner working directly with patients, over 600 hours of nutritional education and 10 years as a nutritional advisor to heath care professionals on their challenging patient cases. I am thrilled to take this experience and work directly with patients again to help them achieve the greatest level of health possible, while partnering with Southern Pines Chiropractic. Ever the nature lover, when not working you can often find me communing with nature, in the middle of the woods. I am the proverbial tree hugger! Carole Hoffman

or other

challenges contact me and learn how I may be able to help

What a Hoot

Call of the barred owl

By susA n CAMPBell

Owls definitely fall into the “spooks” category for many people. But there is one species that tends to be more endearing than scary: the barred owl. Maybe you have heard the “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you a-a-a-a-ll?”

echoing through bottomland forest. The song is most frequently heard in early spring when male barred owls are claiming territory and advertising for a mate. But they actually can be heard vocalizing any time of the year. These are large but well camouflaged birds. Only a little bit smaller than the great horned owl, barreds are often their close neighbors. Disputes over space and feeding areas are not uncommon. Vocal sparring early in the year can get quite heated; however, male barred owls can be heard now, calling or squawking not only at night but at dawn and dusk as well.

This owl gets its name from the distinct vertical brown streaks on its breast, belly and flanks. The bird’s spotted head and dorsal surface, in addition to the barring, make it very hard to spot during daylight hours when it is perched motionless close to the trunk of a large tree. Their liquid brown eyes make them very endearing to bird lovers far and wide.

Barred owls find a wide variety of prey in swamps and bottomland forests. They feed on not only mice, rats, rabbits, small and medium sized birds, but reptiles and amphibians as well. These owls will also wade into shallow streams and pools after crayfish and small fish. At dusk, barred owls take advantage of large flying insects such as moths and large beetles.

Barreds, in spite of their size, actually nest in cavities. They will use old woodpecker holes, rotted stump holes and even larger manmade nest boxes. Up to five young are raised by both parents for close to a full year. Adult barred owls are sedentary and probably mate for life. This likely explains why they tend to be so defensive of their territory. Not surprisingly, during the

breeding season, the larger-bodied female barred owls are the most aggressive. Raccoons, opossums and hawks are common nest predators. But it is great horned owls that are the greatest predatory threat, so competition can be quite intense.

These owls are not averse to roosting, or even nesting, close to human habitation. People who get close to a nest may be sub jected to distraction displays. The female may call loudly, quiver her wings or even attack with her talons. So, should you ever discover a nest hole, it is best to give it a wide berth to avoid any unintended consequences. They are known to use the same cavity year after year if they are successful. A pair of barred owls was documented to use the same cavity in the middle of the campus of the University of North Carolina for six seasons.

Despite the fact that they are non-migratory, barreds have expanded their range. Over the last century, they have moved westward into the Pacific Northwest and into southwestern Canada. They are in the process of displacing other native owls of the region including their close cousin, the endangered spotted owl. Certainly the future of this endearing species seems quite secure in our area. PS

Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photo graphs at susan@ncaves.com.

In the Realm of Seadevils

Encountering wonders from the deep-sea

story A nd P hotogr APhs By todd P usser

A crescent moon hung high in the sky over a sea as smooth as glass. The air was thick with humidity as our research vessel plowed slowly through the waters of the Gulf Stream 150 miles south of Cape Cod. Thousands of stars twinkled above while lightning danced across distant thunder clouds miles away. Below my feet,

it was a mile and a half down to the ocean floor.

The steady sound of the massive winch suddenly stopped. The thick cable extending out from the stern, taut with tension, indicated that the deep water trawl net was close to the surface. Like a kid on Christmas morning, I could barely contain my excitement. You never know what you might catch when dropping a net far below the ocean’s surface. On this particular trawl, the net was towed around 1,500 feet deep. Chances are good you might catch something that has never been seen by human eyes.

The deep-sea is defined as waters below 660 feet, where sun-

Dragonfish

NATURALIST

light no longer penetrates. At its most extreme point, the ocean is an astounding 36,201 feet deep — roughly 7 miles down. At those depths, the ocean is a pitch-black wilderness where temperatures hover just above freezing.

It is not hyperbole to say that more is known about outer space than the deep-sea. The ocean covers 70 percent of this planet, and on average, is nearly 2 ½ miles deep. As pointed out by author Helen Scales in her recent book, The Brilliant Abyss, the entire surface of the moon has been mapped to a resolution of 23 feet, while the deep ocean floor that blankets the Earth has only been mapped to a resolution of 3 miles.

As a kid, on family vacations to Cherry Grove in North Myrtle Beach, I would often find myself standing on the sandy shore and staring out over the ocean, trying to look past the horizon line and wondering what treasures lay hidden beneath. In middle school, I daydreamed of being Captain Nemo, from Jules Verne’s classic Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, piloting the wondrous deep-sea submarine Nautilus in search of sea monsters. Later, in college, I discovered real-life explorer William Beebe, who in 1930 became the first man to descend into the dark depths of the ocean, below the reach of light, using a large steel sphere lowered from a stationary ship by thousands of feet of steel cable. Beebe introduced the wonders of the deep to people around the world in a series of articles for National Geographic and popular books such as Half Mile Down. I never imagined at the time that I would be able to see some of the wondrous creatures Beebe described in his writings.

With a few final turns of the winch, the net was hauled onto the deck of the ship. Grabbing a hard hat and life vest, I walked out onto the stern to assist the fishery biologists in sorting the catch. Down on one knee, I began to pick through a cornucopia of our planet’s strangest inhabitants — creatures that look like they evolved from the mind of Dr. Seuss. Even their names evoke a Spielbergian science fiction epic: dragonfishes, greeneyes, lanternfishes, whalemouths, hatchetfishes, bristlemouths, star-eaters, gulpers. Many were velvet black with mouths full of huge teeth and possessed strange, glowing bioluminescent lures sprouting from their heads. There were bright red shrimp, glowing squid, and skinny eels with bird-like beaks.

I reached into the twine of the net and gently untangled a saber-toothed viperfish, which possessed a series of needlesharp fangs that extended up from its lower jaw to just above its eye. A series of bioluminescent dots ran along its flanks while an elongated glow-in-the-dark lure extending from its dorsal fin dangled in front of its fearsome maul. When viewed only in a photograph, a viperfish would appear to the be most fearsome critter in the sea. Thankfully it grows only to a foot in length, as do the vast majority of the monstrous looking fishes from the deep.

Farther down the side of the net, I find another unusual fish, the fangtooth. Sporting a face only a mother could love, the 5-inchlong predator comes equipped with a massive mouth full of oversized teeth that are capable of tackling prey nearly as large as itself.

Suddenly, there is an exclamation of excitement from a

Deepsea Shrimp

Black Sea Devil-humpback anglerfish

biologist standing nearby. We all rush over to discover the ultimate prize in tonight’s haul: a small female humpback anglerfish commonly known as the black seadevil. Looking a bit like a demonic tadpole, she seemed to be all head with a rotund black body, huge mouth, big teeth, and a stout, rod-shaped lure that extended up from the top of the head, which was capped by a glowing, bacteriafilled light organ known as an esca. Scientists speculate the lure may be used to attract prey close to her vicious mouth — or perhaps to draw in a mate.

The deep-sea is vast, the largest livable space on the planet, and it may take years to find a mate. There are around 170 species of deep-sea anglerfish currently recognized by science, and many deploy a most remarkable reproductive strategy. Male anglerfish lack bioluminescent lures and are many times smaller than females. In several species, when a male finds a female, he literally latches onto her skin, like a tick. Once attached he never lets go for the rest of his life, taking “till death do us part” to a whole other level. Eventually, he fuses with her tissue and gains sustenance from her bloodstream. He is entirely depen dent on the female for survival. In return, he provides her with a never-ending supply of sperm.

The abyss is unfathomable, a place beyond comprehension for us landlubber humans. Countless creatures that defy imagi

nation still await discovery in its dark depths. I, for one, feel extremely privileged to have experienced some of its treasures firsthand. 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.

Nikki R. Haley served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 through 2019. She previously served as Governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017. She and her husband, Michael, an entrepreneur and combat veteran in the South Carolina Army National Guard, have two children.

From the New York Times bestselling author of WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, Nikki Haley’s sharply intimate and inspirational book celebrates the world’s most iconic women leaders. Woven with stories from Haley’s own childhood and political career, If You Want Something Done will inspire the next generation of leaders.

The ticket includes admission to Ambassador Nikki Haley’s talk with The Country Bookshop’s Kimberly Daniels Taws and a copy of Nikki Haley’s most recent book If You Want Something Done: Leadership Lessons From Bold Women. The book will include a signed bookplate. Visit ticketmesandhills.com

Porking Out

A tradition like no other

BY LEE PACE

By lee PACe

Among the much-revered culinary traditions in golf are the pimento cheese sandwiches at The Masters, the “burgerdog” at The Olympic Club (essentially an elongated hamburger served in a toasted hot dog bun), the snapper soup at Pine Valley (thick with nuggets of turtle and finished with a dollop of sherry), and the peanut butter and bacon sandwiches at the halfway house at Mountain Lake in Florida.

And then you have the pork chop at the Pine Crest Inn in the village of Pinehurst.

“The pork chop is as much a rite of passage of visiting Pinehurst as four-putting one of the greens on Pinehurst No. 2,” says Steven Lilly, an annual visitor along with up to 28 fellow Davidson College graduates.

“At the ’99 U.S. Open, we had 1,600 pork chops go through that kitchen. That’s a lot of pork,” adds Marie Hartsell, a longtime cook at Pine Crest, which opened in 1913.

The 22-ounce porterhouse pork chop is among the “classic entrees” listed on the menu of the Pine Crest, which was owned

in the early days by golf architect Donald Ross and has been in the Barrett family for six decades.

“Fork-tender served with mashed potatoes, fresh vegetables and natural pan gravy. A Pine Crest Inn tradition for over 60 years!” the menu reads.

The pork chop was the creation of longtime chef Carl Jackson, who started in the kitchen as a boy in the 1930s, worked his way up to chef, and was an institution at the inn until his death in 1998 at the age of 77. Nephew Peter Jackson took over for Carl, and Carl’s grandson Kiyatta Jackson works in the Pine Crest kitchen today.

“The pork chop has been a leader on the menu all these years,” says Peter Barrett, son of Bob Barrett, the Ohio newspa perman who bought the inn in 1961. “Carl had a special pot, and he braised them in an old pizza oven big enough to hold the pan. He’d get about 24 in a pan.”

Lilly has ordered the pork chop three nights in a row for 30 years during his annual trip to Pinehurst. He estimates one-third of their group will order the pork chop every night at dinner.

“Over the years, we have noticed the presentation changes,” Lilly says. “Sometimes a plate, sometimes a shallow bowl, perhaps differing ingredients in the au-jus vegetable medley. But the tender, slowroasted chop, which seems to fall from the bone moments before the fork (never the knife!) even makes contact, remains a constant.”

Foxfire Golf Club

GOLFTOWN

Pedro Martinez-Fonts is one of a dozen close friends originally from Cuba who migrated to the United States in the early 1960s to get away from the Castro communist regime. They have been meeting at the Pine Crest Inn every May for more than two decades.

The member’s favorite,

golf

manicured

and

Fairway bunkers are strategically placed

rolling

wayward shot

Brad Thorsky, PGA,

Golf

Widely considered the most challenging course, the Grey Fox features hilly terrain, several doglegs and towering pines. Golfers must avoid the sand and position the ball on the proper side of the fairway so that they get the best approach angle to the small greens.

please contact:

Blvd

Pinehurst, NC

“The pork chop reminds me of when we used to roast a pig, covered with banana leaves, on my grandfather’s farm in Cuba,” he says. “Not only is it a generous cut that can feed more than one Cuban, but it is also tender and full of flavor. Of all the times we have stayed at the Pine Crest, I have seen only one Cuban, the late Bobby Perkins, who could handle one of these pork chops by himself.”

Harman Switzer was part of a group of a dozen golfers based in Princeton Junction, New Jersey, who visited the Pine Crest annually from 1974 through 2019 until age got the better of them. “The people, the porch and the pork chop kept drawing us back,” he says. “And I haven’t missed a chop in that time. I must admit, at 78 years of age, one 22-ounce serving is sufficient for the week. But there was a time when one was not enough.”

On one occasion one of their members brought his wife to experience the pork chop.

“She was so rightfully impressed with chef Carl’s creation that she asked to speak with him, unashamedly in search of the recipe,” Switzer says. “Chef Carl immediately appeared from the kitchen and delightfully began to expound on the hours of marinade and slow cooking. Whereupon the lady politely inquired about the sauce ingredients. To which chef Carl also politely responded, ‘Oh sorry, that’s a secret sauce.’ Which, to my knowledge, remains a Jackson family secret today.”

Indeed it does, though snippets of the presentation have emerged over the years.

Jackson used to buy all his meat from a butcher shop in Boston, but now the chops come from an institutional distributor. They used to come with a layer of fat that’s now trimmed off. Barrett says Jackson cooked them at 225 degrees all day, but now they’re braised at 350

THE

THE GREY FOX COURSE

GOLFTOWN JOURNAL

degrees for a slightly shorter period. The corn, okra, onions and carrots are visible dancing around the meat on the shallow serving bowl, but the broth is the finishing touch. Insiders will admit to there being salt, pepper and paprika, but no one is certain whether V8 Juice, tomato juice and/or Campbell’s tomato soup are part of the elixir.

In June 2022 I visited the Pine Crest for three nights with a group from Chapel Hill and mentioned to the guys as we sat down for dinner that the pork chop was the specialty of the house. All six of us ordered the pork chop, and an hour later were wheeled out to our beds, sated and happy. One in our group commandeered the meager leftovers (six bones with a little meat hanging about) to take home to his 75-pound dog, Ernie.

“Ernie was joyously grateful, especially to those who’d left a little meat on theirs,” Steve reported.

Kiyatta Jackson, known as “Yacht” and now a breakfast cook at the Pine Crest, says he’ll honor his grandfather’s wishes that his recipe remain a secret. But at least someone knows the ingredients and the process for generating the Pine Crest’s signature dish and, when a new chef comes through, they’re given chapter and verse about the most popular choice on the menu.

“We might have made our last visit as a group, but I’ve been back myself twice in the last year,” says Switzer, who lives on Callawassie Island near Hilton Head. “It’s always good for a special occasion — a birthday, anniversary, wedding. Or sometimes seeking sanctuary from a low country storm.

“There are lots of excuses for visiting the Pine Crest and enjoying a drink on the porch and savoring the pork chop — the latter being the celebratory culmina tion of the journey.” PS

Lee Pace has written about the Pinehurst experience for more than three decades from his home in Chapel Hill. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @ LeePaceTweet.

There’s

FINE ITALIAN DINING | HOUSE-MADE PASTAS AND BREADS MADE DAILY

Born amid the storied walls of the historic Magnolia Inn in the heart of Pinehurst Village, Villaggio Ristorante promises an exquisite fine dining experience second to none. Live music every weekend on the patio in weather-permitting months. For diners only.

Tue, Wed & Thur: 5 p.m. – 9 p.m. | Fri & Sat: 5 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Reservations required | reservations@villaggioristorante.net

65 Magnolia Road, Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina 910.420.2485 • villaggioristorante.net

BY

October ����

Stairs at Weymouth

In that haunted writer’s retreat in Southern Pines a spiral staircase descended from the ceiling.

No, it wasn’t a dream. I opened my eyes  and the corded spiral appeared. I waited for a ghost to show, or a voice to whisper.

Dark hours I stared, until early light spilled into the room, erased  the vision.

Today I wonder  if I had it all wrong; maybe those stairs were waiting for me to climb up.

— Maureen Sherbondy

(From Eulogy for an Imperfect Man)

From suffragettes to leading ladies, more than just a book club

By Jenna Biter PhotograPhs By tim sayer

Aberdeen’s daughters filter into the restaurant’s back room, chittering amicably among themselves. If the town was a medieval state, these would be the ladies of the court. “Oh, how have you been?” passes between childhood friends, and swift introductions welcome new faces. With the arrival of each member, conversation swells, and the history of Aberdeen becomes flesh. The guests call out connections across a makeshift banquet table like they’re tossing a ball of yarn back and forth, from woman to woman, until the process knits fiber into fabric.

Betsy Mofield, decorated in red-rimmed glasses almost as sharp as her wit, was Aberdeen’s mayor for 14 years, and Laura Farrell’s husband, Jack, is currently in office. Someone’s mother was everyone’s favorite English teacher, but she was also Aberdeen High School’s only English teacher. “Your grandfather was my dentist for over 40 years,” another adds in a side conversation. Even the women who say, “I don’t know why I have been invited to this book club,” always lingering on the “I” with their lilting Southern drawls, have lived in town for 40plus years and married men who grew from Moore County soil.

Our book club members and models in alphabetical order: Lynn Page Anderson, Allison Auman, Kim Page Auman, Carolyn Burns, Aldena Frye, Cindy Huntley, Kam Hurst, Mary McKeithen, Laurie Kuzminski, Betsy Mofield, Claudeen Moon, Laura Pitts, Martha Wicks.

The organization is the Walter Hines Page Book Club. Lynn Page Anderson, an impressive, soft-spoken woman, currently serves as the president. It’s “the oldest active book club in North Carolina and perhaps the oldest in the country,” she says. It derives its name from Walter Hines Page, a distinguished Sandhills citizen who is buried in Old Bethesda Cemetery off Old Bethesda Road. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain during World War I. In 1935, over a decade after the club’s founding, the members voted to rename their Thursday Afternoon Book Club after the late local giant.

Anderson lifts her fork and pings a water goblet to quiet the room, but the chatter persists. She makes a face, somehow politely. A louder voice intervenes, and the meeting begins. New member introductions roll into lunch, and dessert rolls into a review of the last meeting’s minutes, then the current meeting’s agenda. Eager hands and voices raise to second motions approving donations and the formation of committees.

“We’re very democratic,” Anderson says. “Something comes up, and we vote on everything.”

Democracy is the gilded baton they pass gingerly from predecessor to successor; no woman wants to drop it on the handoff. Anderson ponders the women who founded the club in 1921, a year after they got the vote. “I wonder how many of them were suffragettes, or how many of them understood that women can have a more important life than being relegated to cooking and cleaning? At the time, the population of Aberdeen was about 852 people, and here were these 22 women. That’s a big chunk of the population, and they decided they wanted to share experiences and culture with their friends.”

Membership has expanded to 24, but advancing culture and community remains their North Star. Monthly meetings feature speakers from local nonprofits like the Prancing Horse Center for Therapeutic Horsemanship, and Camp Dogwood for the Blind and Visually Impaired, or sometimes local artists and authors. After the program, they vote on whether to donate to the cause, and they always vote “yes.”

Hardbacks lying on the white tablecloths are the only clue this group convenes under the guise of a book club. Each member buys one copy of a current book, and they circulate from woman to woman per a list inserted into the copies like library borrowing cards. They read the books consecutively, not synchronously, and they don’t have to read the books at all. “You get a chance to read the books, and you can talk about them . . . if you want.” Anderson says. After two years, the books have rotated through all 24 members, and each woman gets hers back. They select new titles, and the process repeats.

Anderson drives the meeting forward — the annual “white elephant” and, at last, the centennial celebration. Instantaneously a committee forms to handle the catering and venue. Over a century after their first meeting on October 21, 1921, in an Aberdeen living room, the book club still meets on the second Thursday of the month, but third-party luncheons have re placed home gatherings.

The Walter Hines Page Book Club celebrated its 100th anni versary last October, but the pandemic relegated the celebration to modesty. They’re planning a bigger bash for this year: “How’s Saturday, October 22? One hundred one years and a day since the founding,” Anderson asks. Eager hands and voices raise to second the motion. PS

Jenna Biter is a writer, entrepreneur and military wife in the Sandhills. She can be reached at jennabiter@protonmail.com.

Photographed at the historic John W. Graham House in Aberdeen owned by Bart and Lynel Boudreaux.

Mending Fences: the M ovie

Fiction by Daniel Wallace • illustration by M ariano santillan

Ibought a car from one of those grassy roadside lots, paid in cash that arguably wasn’t mine and disappeared into the night like the smoky tail of a dying match. I was in the next state by morning, at a Waffle Shoppe full of truckers and farmers and dropouts, all of them wearing baseball caps, none of them backwards. I turned mine around.

I found a booth in the back. Waitress caught my eye and winked. “Be right with you, hon,” she said, same as they always do, like it’s from the handbook. Tangerine lipstick and penciled-in eye brows, thin tinsel gray hair in a ponytail. She was my age probably but looked twice that, weary but indestructible, like she’d been standing up her entire life and be buried that way too. She walked over to me with the pot, veins like river maps beneath her skin, face that had been through a lot, too much, but she smiled with a warmth that was so real I felt it in my heart. Nametag: Kate.

“Morning, baby. Coffee?”

I nodded, she poured. “What can I do you for, sweetie?” Like she might take me in her arms and rock me to sleep.

I kept my face low reading from the menu but when I looked up to order her eyes were fixed on me. She blinked once, kept staring. I could see her tongue resting against the top of her bottom teeth, her mouth hanging open just that much.

“Good lord.” She gave me the once over twice. “You’re — aren’t you — ?”

I turned away. There was a TV on the wall and I wondered if I’d been on it already, but nothing I’d done would make the news. That’s what I told myself. I thought I was faster than my past. But maybe nobody is that fast.

She pointed at me.

“You’re Dustin — Dustin — lord, my brain has gone to mush. I just saw you.”

Impossible. Never in my life. And I’m no Dustin. “Sorry?”

“Last night. The movie, your movie. Oh, you know — San Francisco Nights! With Julia Roberts!” An exclamation point, like she’d just won a prize. “Dustin Evers. You are Dustin Evers and I cannot freaking believe it. Oh good lord.”

Her smile made her makeup flake and her lipstick crack.

I shook my head. “I think you have me confused with somebody else.” Matter of fact, a little gruff, putting her off without pushing too hard.

But her eyes wouldn’t let me go.

Dustin Evers, I thought. Dustin Evers, the actor. Okay.

“You got me,” I said.

I’d seen that movie too. A pastry chef and a fireman fall in love when her bakery burns down. I shrugged and almost smiled and she shivered like a woman about to freeze. She motioned a cohort over, a girl who might have been her daughter, twins basically separated by 20 or 30 years.

“Lucy,” she said, in a whisper. “Get over here. Look at this.”

Lucy dragged herself over and looked at me with her dull dead sleepy eyes. “Hey, sugar,” she said. Then to Kate: “What am I looking at?”

“You’re looking at Dustin Evers,” Kate said. “San Francisco Nights?”

Lucy took a minute to fall into the magical world Kate made for her and then just like that she was all in. She opened her mouth but no words came out.

“Oh, oh, oh wow,” she said, finally. “Wow wow wow.” Then, blushing: “I’ve had a crush on you since I was 12.”

They laughed. I laughed. Like I’d heard it all before.

“Well, thank you, I guess,” I said. “The camera is kind to me.”

“God was kind to you,” Kate said. “That face of yours is a gift from God.” She looked at Lucy. “I can’t believe I’m saying this to Dustin Evers!”

“Dustin Freaking Evers.”

“What’s she like?” Lucy said. “Julia Roberts. They say she’s nice but I think, I don’t know, she might be full of herself.”

I sipped my coffee. “She’s an absolute angel,” I said.

“Is there a movie around here you’re making?”

“Yes,” I said. “There is. Right down the road.”

“Wow,” Lucy said. “Wow wow.”

“That how you hurt your hand?”

She was addressing the blood lines on my knuckles.

“Yes. I do my own stunts.”

“His own stunts.”

Lucy and Kate looked at each other, because did they ever have a story to tell now.

“What’s it about?” Kate said.

“Yeah,” Lucy said. “What’s it all about?”

“What it’s all about?” Philosophers now. “Well, I guess it’s about a man who did some things he wished he hadn’t done, tries to run away from it all, meets a woman on a farm who sees him for who he could be, deep down, then hires him on to mend fences, and they, well, you know.”

“Sounds like my kind of movie. What’s it called?”

“Mending Fences,” I said, and I saw it unfolding before me.

The woman on the farm — tall, copper hair, a widow maybe, tough unyielding eyes at first but deep pools of goodness and almost spiritual power, me working the land for her, sleeping in the barn on a bale of old hay, her scraggly mutt my first best friend, that mutt follows me around everywhere, and I was milking cows, riding horses, saving her life from that snake — a rattler — that almost bit her, how we picnicked beneath that big old oak tree, the one her granddad planted 100 years before, and then how one thing led to another and I kissed her beneath a sickle moon, and finally I told her everything, everything I did leading up to the night I got that car from the roadside lot, all of it, I couldn’t live that lie a minute longer but figured when I told her she would leave me and she almost does, she almost leaves me but she doesn’t, and she says hon, sweetheart, sugar, baby, damn it if I don’t love you, but you gotta go back and make things right, have to before we can move into the next thing, into the rest of our lives, together. And so in the movie I do, I go back and I see the girl and I see the man and my mother and my father and I do what I can to make it right, and then I come back to her and she takes me in her arms and the music swells and finally I’m happy, we are happy, and that’s why it’s called Mending Fences. I told them the whole thing, and by the time I was done I was surrounded by all of them, the truckers, the farmers, the dropouts, and a short order cook to boot. They loved me so much. Someone even bought my breakfast. And then it was over: I told them I had to get back on set. But I want to thank the Academy and my great director and Julia for being the best costar a guy could ask for . . . but more than all of them put together I have to thank Kate and Lucy for that morning, for the greatest gift I ever got in my life, to be another man for just those few minutes, to be famous for not being me. PS

Daniel Wallace's memoir, This Isn't Going to End Well, will be published by Algonquin Books in April, 2023.

Topsoil

by a DDie l a Dner & r eyna crooMs illustration by MiranDa Gly Der

It’s 1715, just off the colonial North Carolina coast. A sloop flying a black flag decorated with a horned skull approaches. At its helm: Blackbeard the pirate, a gruesome sight with smoke streaming from his braided hair and a severed head in his hands. His crew swings onto the deck, swords in hand, ready to strike down any other ship in their bloodthirsty, unrelenting quest for treasure.

According to North Carolina research historian Kevin Duffus, very little of that is true. “Most everything you’ve ever read about Blackbeard is wrong,” Duffus claims. Read on for clues to sort between the truths and tales of this famed pirate — and for ideas to get out and do some exploring for yourself.

Greenville

Beaufort Inlet

Pamlico Sound Beaufort

Ocracoke Island

Bath

revisiting history

An interview with a man who is on a mission to uncover the truth about Blackbeard.

Kevin Duffus first became fascinated by pirates as a young boy, when he watched the 1968 film Blackbeard’s Ghost. “At the time I didn’t understand that history can be fictionalized — I was just so interested in this Blackbeard,” says Duffus. Shortly after, Duffus’ father, who was in the Air Force, was posted in Greenville, North Carolina. Duffus started researching the area’s history and dis covered that the infamous character he’d seen in the movies had died not far away, in Ocracoke.

So, at 17, Duffus and two friends hopped on their bikes to visit the barrier island and experience the history for themselves. “It took us over two days to get there. That was the beginning of my quest to find Blackbeard,” Duffus says. He explored the coast, looking for the landscapes he saw in the film, like the high cliff where, in the movie, Blackbeard had built himself an inn from salvaged timber. But when Duffus asked locals at a community store where to find that cliff, “they said, son, the highest point here is only about 8 feet,” Duffus says. “I began to realize you shouldn’t learn history by watching movies.”

Since then, Duffus, a longtime television producer who now owns a production company focused on history and tourism, has logged thousands of hours conducting primary research on pirates, and on Blackbeard in particular. He spent a week in England’s National Archives, going through log books and correspondence of Royal Navy ships stationed in Virginia in the early 1700s. He has also done research on foot: He once discovered a grave, covered in vegetation, along the banks of the Tar River. “Even trusted institutions like museums and park services have helped to perpetuate the historical fraud of the legendary pirate,” Duffus says. “I’ve been working to winnow out all of the unsupported claims, to weed out the three centuries of myth and legend.”

In 2008, he published The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate, which is now in its fourth edition and one of six books he’s authored about maritime history. In 2014, Duffus was honored as North Carolina Historian of the Year by the North Carolina Society of Historians. We spoke to Duffus to learn why he believes that Blackbeard’s story is more complicated — and more important to North Carolina’s history — than the popular narrative suggests.

Pirates were indistinguishable from the rest of society. They dressed the same, they talked the same. There’s no such thing as pirate clothing, eye patches, earrings or tattoos — that’s been largely invented.

So often, popular culture portrays pirates as living in their own little world at sea, without the external events and forces that would have shaped real life. Blackbeard’s world was complicated. It involved wars between nations, economic distress, social stratification, legal irregularities and lost or destroyed official records. In Colonial America in the 1700s, the era considered the Great Age of Piracy, it was hard to establish a life. People who lived here would do whatever was necessary to survive.

Around the town of Bath, North Carolina, the years before Blackbeard became a pirate were marked by political discord, drought, famine and yellow fever. Often, a group of down-andout sailors would set out by boat to raid a merchant’s vessel to quickly raise some funds. They’d fire a gun or cannon, then they’d raise the black flag signaling they were pirates; the merchant ship would typically be outnumbered and surrender. Battles and bloodshed were rare. Usually, these pirates would simply detain their victim’s vessel for an hour or two while they searched their cargo for valuables like food, wine and shoes.

You say pirates don’t match up with what many of us have in our heads — Why?

So pirates were everyday people?

Yes, they were everyday mariners. It was a way to make some quick money, then return to your family and normal life. And there’s some gray area, too: Some professional mariners were privateers, which meant they were authorized to attack enemy ships. England was gearing up for war with Spain, so they’d enlist these mariners to do their work. There were no police, there was no one preventing this pirating from taking place, so there was no real danger of being caught. It became so popular that there are records of hundreds of men doing it.

Only once people started making money off the legends. Around the late 1800s, there were a number of artists, like Howard Pyle, who began creating illustrations of pirates. Then came a number of films that romanticized the pirate life, starting in the mid-1900s. That’s when the distinctive pirate look and manner of speaking coalesced. No one said “Arrgh!” until Robert Newton played Long John Silver in the 1950 film Treasure Island.

When did the current version of a pirate become popular?

A rendering of Blackbeard’s last battle painted by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris in 1920.

What about the idea of buried treasure?

Buried treasure is also a ridiculous myth. If you took a small chest, let’s say 6 cubic feet, and filled it with gold, it would weigh 9,500 pounds! How would you move that, let alone bury it? The rumor probably came about because during that time, if you had valuables and didn’t have a safe, you’d bury them in your backyard.

ered he wasn’t hanged. After he was pardoned and released from custody, Salter returned to Bath. He became a representative of Bath at the colonial legislature and a patron for the construction of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, and had a productive life and a family.

What have your findings led to?

A year or so into my research, some records showed that Blackbead had a sister, Susanna White, who lived on the banks of the Tar River near Washington where he’d visited. After searching this swampy area, I found the headstone of Susanna White near a bridge over the Tar River in Grimesland. When I read the tombstone, I realized she couldn’t have been his sister: She was born 37 years after Blackbeard died. For many years after that, I’ve been haunted by her identity and why folklore associated the two.

I finally proved her identity by poring over the deeds at the Pitt County Courthouse. It listed a transfer of property from a Salter family member to her “children and grandchildren,” including Susanna White. She was the granddaughter of barrelmaker Edward Salter, who plays a huge role in the narrative of that time. For a while, history told us Salter was a pirate with Blackbeard and was hanged. But after research in England’s National Archives and the North Carolina Archives, I discov-

The majority of Blackbeard’s inner circle of officers were from Bath and the Pamlico region of North Carolina. He had close relationships with the colony’s collector of customs, Tobias Knight, an enslaved Black man named Caesar and John Martin, the son of the town’s founder. This leads me to believe that Blackbeard himself was from this area or had strong ties to the town.

That contradicts a lot of the accepted history. People believe that Blackbeard’s real name was either Edward Thatch or Edward Teach, and that he was from Bristol, England or the Caribbean. But it never made sense to me that an outof-towner could sail to Bath and tell people what to do, or that even someone from Jamaica would have strong, trusting relationships with locals. These people were willing to fight and die for him.

What do we know about Blackbeard’s last days?

It was a time of great uncertainty, danger and betrayal. A number of Blackbeard’s former pirates left him to return to

What’s been your biggest revelation about Blackbeard?

Blackbeard as depicted on an Allen & Ginter cigarette card.

honest lives. I believe that he would have done the same, but by the autumn of 1718, Blackbeard had become notorious throughout the colonies for some of his acts of piracy, one of which was a blockade of the port of Charleston. By this point, his ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, would have been crowded with as many as 400 pirates — he’d have had no choice but to continue committing acts of piracy to keep everyone fed and mildly intoxicated.

He tried to return to Bath, where colonial governor Charles Eden had given him a pardon. But it was worthless — he had violated its terms and everyone knew that, including Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Alexander Spotswood, who hoped to burnish his reputation as a vanquisher of pirates. About that same time, rumors were afloat that the King of England had issued a new pardon for pirates, with more generous terms, but no one knew when it would arrive.

So Blackbeard and his crew were laying low at Ocracoke, not sure of where to go or when or if they were being hunted.

They waited too long. They were surprised by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard, who Spotswood had hired to capture Blackbeard, with a crew of 60. Maynard shouted that they were there to take Blackbeard dead or alive. Hoping to stand his ground, Blackbeard fired the first shots — an act of treason! And in fewer than six minutes of hand-to-hand combat, the king’s men bested the pirates. A highlander with a broadsword was said to have slashed Blackbeard from behind, cutting off his head. Yet, Spotswood’s invasion of his neighboring colony was illegal: He had no authority to arrest or kill pirates within the inland waters of North Carolina. Three weeks after Blackbeard’s death, the king’s new pardon arrived in Virginia.

I reconstructed this based on three sources. One was a

letter I found in the British National Archives written by Royal Navy captain Ellis Brand, who supervised the expedition — it’s the most detailed and reliable. Maynard wrote a letter to a friend that added a few more details. The third source, based on hearsay but reasonably trustworthy, was a news report published in a Boston newspaper that recounts eyewitness testimony about the battle at Ocracoke.

What’s next in your research?

I’m searching in Charleston and Philadelphia for more that could help us complete his story. A great mystery I’d love to pursue is what happened to Blackbeard’s log book. On January 3 of 1719, Maynard returned to the James River in Virginia with Blackbeard’s head. Letters found in my research say he recovered Blackbeard’s “pocketbook,” which would have been a diary with a list of receipts and other papers. When Blackbeard was killed, the Royal Navy took the log book from his sloop to London, but from there, it disappeared.

Who was Blackbeard to you?

After years of research and analysis, I still don’t know Blackbeard’s true identity or origins with absolute certainty. Despite being a hugely popular historical figure, he remains a silhouette in the fabric of time.

That’s the ultimate Blackbeard treasure: his identity. PS This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Blackbeard Buccaneer, a 1922 painting by Frank Schoonover.

A Bahamian stamp featuring Blackbeard.

Cabin Confidential

Rough-hewn exterior belies the comfort within

by Deborah saloMon • PhotoGra Phs by John Gessner

The image of a cabin as a lowly dwelling lacking basic amenities evolved long ago from 19th century shelter into 21st century mountain retreats, ski lodges and vacation hideaways. Abe Lincoln may have been born in one, but it bears no resemblance to the adaptation Kelly Rader has wrought in Pinehurst. Based on comfort and informality, her rebuild may look rustic on the outside but within, soft jazz wafts from a sound system. Half a dozen flat screen TVs hang from walls that remain log only in the living room. Mile-high duvets cover queen-sized beds except for built-in bunks awaiting grandchildren. A screened porch opens onto a stone terrace and, from the new second story, dormers look onto a quiet lane leading into the village.

There is nothing oversized, nothing pretentious. Everything is welcoming. Call it rustic ele gance. It was a formidable undertaking for a woman who admits preferring her elegance rustic-free

like her former homes — a stately Georgian brick built in 1913 with carriage house and pool in St. Louis, or an Upper East Side Manhattan apartment.

Kelly grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, a town known for its fine residences. Her mother, Pat Johnstone, was a golfer on the amateur circuit. When her parents retired to Pinehurst Kelly wanted to be near them. No better place than the village, a theme park for retirees from everywhere strolling the lanes, rocking on porches, eating at cafés, shopping at farmers markets, living the good life in restored 1920s cottages.

The most likely prospect was a small log home built about 1925 for glove czar Percy Arnold for $5,000 — at the time considerably pricier than its neighbors. Exterior and interior walls were logs, and the ceiling beams massive tree trunks. A stone fireplace dominated the living room. Streetside, Kelly recalls, “It didn’t look like it belonged.”

But it was for sale, and they were curious. Coincidentally, Bill Rader had noticed it advertised online three years before. Let’s take a look, they decided.

“We walked in . . . and fell in love with the fireplace,” Kelly recalls. Both appreciated the cabin ambience — Bill’s family owns a resort in Pennsylvania composed of 39 log cabins.

“My Cabin,” as it was known, had passed through many hands and undergone several up-

grades, including a kitchen fashioned from a one-car garage.

They purchased the cabin in 2015. Planning the renovation took a year, construction two. According to town regulations, they could build up but not out. A full second story with dormers was added, giving the footprint more substance. Weathered logs were removed and replaced with new ones in the living room. Elsewhere, interior walls were faced with conventional materials. “It was too dark. I’m a white-and-beige person. I like a Ralph Lauren feel,” Kelly says.

Her desire for light is served by multiple small-paned windows, some with shutters, installed at various heights, most surrounded by wide moldings which themselves enhance the décor. Rather than depending entirely on lamps or ceiling fixtures, Kelly chose sconces wired directly into the wall, to avoid visible cords. Also absent: clutter.

Doors leading from the living room into the now light-walled master suite were sealed (to increase privacy), with the space retooled as built-in bookcases. Dutch doors to the outside were added, along with an old-fashioned manual doorbell and wood-framed screen door. A small garden is fenced and quiet.

They gutted the kitchen and raised the ceiling. Now a little gem — almost a culinary sculpture gallery — the modest kitchen displays statuesque Italian SMEG brand toaster and juicer, soaring glass-front cabinets, knotty pine floors, a tall, narrow refrigerator and a refectory table surrounded

by banquette seating in front of windows facing the sidewalk.

“It’s like a fishbowl. We sit here and wave at people walking by, so much fun,” Kelly says.

Instead of stark white, kitchen walls and cupboards are painted a variation with the slightest tinge of green. There is no dining room. Eight can eat comfortably at the kitchen table. On holi days, an empty space at the end of the living room is filled by a hunter’s table with leaves that fold out to accommodate at least another eight.

Hallways are covered in rough grasscloth for texture and practicality. They wipe clean. Kelly devoted one hallway to framed clippings from her mother’s golf career. A larger-than-life portrait reproduction of legendary golf pioneer Old Tom Morris is visible to passers-by, through a front window.

All four bathrooms are light, bright and new, lots of white and glass with contrasting navy blue. Off the living room, a perfect little screened conversation porch opens onto a terrace.

But the upstairs bedroom with sliding barn door and four built-in bunks painted hunter green, covered with tartan plaid quilts, elicits the biggest smiles.

Furnishings defy period or classification but illustrate a trend popular with downsizing retirees:

out with the old, start afresh, which doesn’t always mean new. Kelly haunts Design Market in Aberdeen, estate sales and other sources for tables, chairs and case pieces. In the living room two upholstered chairs swivel, allowing their occupants to grab hors d’oeuvres off the massive square coffee table, then spin back to a TV mounted over a breakfront. Bent bamboo chairs accent the master bedroom. A well-worn blanket chest from Bill’s childhood found a place along with an antique metal disc player and a painting by Bill’s mother.

For fun, leopard-print runners cover stairs and hallways. Waffle-weave carpets add more texture. Old golf clubs and bag anchor a corner of the living room. Deer antlers twist out of a vase. Happily, it hangs together beautifully, creating an atmosphere more livable than grand.

Kelly and Bill moved from St. Louis in 2018. A plaque on the fence announces their ownership: “House of Rader, established Dec. 10, 1988,” their wedding day.

“What I wanted was a gathering space for our family,” Bill says.

The cabin, now with five bedrooms and four bathrooms, is ready for Thanksgiving, when the Raders’ three adult children and other guests will number 22. At least 12 will bunk down at the cabin and the holiday feast will be there.

Mission accomplished. PS

ALMANAC

October

by a shley Walshe

Octoberis the wisdom weaver, spinning the invisible to light, capturing the ephemeral, then letting it all go — again and again.

On this crisp autumn morning, waves of yellow leaves release themselves to the damp earth, and golden light illuminates a silver orb. Glistening with beads of dew, the spider web is a work of wonder. A series of concentric whorls and radial lines resembles the helm of an ancient ghost ship; the thumbprint of an unseen giant; a chandelier turned sideways. Dripping like crystals from tidy spirals of silk, hundreds of water droplets hold within them tiny worlds of ever-shifting beauty and light. Until the dew dries, each leaf falls 1,000 times. Until the dew dries, a hidden world is manifest.

The garden spider knows three things: creation, destruction and the space in-between. In other words: Nothing will last. She isn’t afraid of starting over.

In the evening, when the shadows take life and the owls cackle like witches gone mad, the black and yellow spider will swallow her own web. The same wind that sends colored leaves swirling will carry a fresh line of silk from one swaying tree to another, the bridge from which the weaver spins anew.

Tomorrow, the air will be cooler; the light, softer; the leaves, a brighter shade of gold. The spider, silent at the navel of her orb, will wait for her next cue. It’s neither time to build nor devour. And yet, the leaves continue to spill. The crows are roosting by the hundred. An invisible force is stirring, whirling at the center of all living things.

Flickering Lights

Before the first winter squash was gutted and carved to resemble a ghoulish floating head, early Irish immigrants fashioned jack-o’-lanterns from turnips and mangelwurzels (root vegetables used as fodder). Why? Tradition. And to ward off evil spirits, of course.

Have you ever seen a face hacked into a hollowed-out turnip? By comparison, our pumpkin “jacks” appear quite jolly. If you’re really trying to spook your neighbors this year, consider whittling a bushel of root veggies for the front porch. Or not.

Pumpkin Craft

Sure, you can roast the seeds (toss with oil and sea salt, then bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees). But what of all the pumpkin guts? If you’re one to add pumpkin to everything but the compost pile — muffins, oatmeal, waffles, cookies, soup — try making a purée. It’s like pie filling, minus all the sugar and spices. And it’s pretty simple:

First, remove the seeds (you’re roasting them anyway, right?). Next, steam the pulp until it’s tender (about 30 min utes), let cool, then use a potato masher or food processor until pulp is smooth and creamy. Freeze the excess.

Yes, a sugar pumpkin will taste better. But a carvin’ pumpkin is more fun. PS

‘Only today,’ he said, ‘today, in October sun, it’s all gold — sky and tree and water. Everything just before it changes looks to be made of gold.’ — Eudora Welty, The Wide Net and Other Stories

Restaurant Guide

Whether you’re looking for an intimate date night or a place to feed the whole family, take a peek at some of the best dishes and ambience that our neighborhood has to offer.

Voted “Best Authentic Pub” with Above Par Outdoor Dining

Hidden among the tall pines of Pinehurst is a storied authentic American tavern, Drum & Quill. Voted Most Authentic Pub in the Best of the Pines contest for three years running and built on the old Irish tradition of a Public House, a place to gather or a cozy place to eat, drink and make new friends, Drum & Quill offers a covered

patio to gather outdoors rain or shine. Enjoy a view of downtown Pinehurst while sampling their famous pimento cheeseburger, Korean beef tacos or fried green tomato caprese and sipping on a cocktail made from the historic bar stocked with nearly 200 spirits. Moore County’s most liked tavern is the is perfect spot to enjoy a fall day on our patios!

Quality Food Meets Warm Hospitality

If you’re looking for warm hospitality in a quaint, local atmosphere, look no further than Midland Bistro. Exceptional customer service is a key component to building their reputation as a local favorite for breakfast and lunch,

along with quality food. At Midland, there is also a strong emphasis on supporting local, as they love to utilize local produce as much as possible. Even their fresh bread and aromatic coffee come from nearby Aberdeen.

2160 MIDLAND RD. SOUTHERN PINES, NC 28387 | 910.420.1030 | MIDLANDBISTRO.COM

We believe our food is only as good as the ingredients we use.

At Limitless Meal Supply, we advocate for supporting not only our local suppliers, but also our environment. Our weekly meal-plan options and menu create balanced meals, desserts and snacks for all dietary lifestyles. Our meal-prep service is operating from the 106-year-old building in the heart of Carthage. We fulfill online orders from the restaurant’s renovated kitchen in four easy steps. We post a menu, you order a meal plan or a la carte items, we plan, prep, shop & cook, and then

the food is ready for pick-up or delivery. Look on our website for our ever-changing, weekly menu. If you don’t see a meal-plan that fits your lifestyle, we would be happy to curate one just for you! We will be open for walk-in / grab + go in the middle of October. All meals from the menu will be available, as well as, freshly baked breads, pastries and desserts. Microwaves will be available to heat food and eat in our cafe, or heat and run! Grab a weeks worth of meals in one stop! The options are Limitless!

Comfort Food Like You’ve Never Had Before

At Chapman’s Food and Spirits, you’ll find delicious chef-driven, American fare in a comfortable, casual atmosphere. Enjoy unique spins on fresh, homemade comfort food while sipping

on cocktails out on the patios in downtown Southern Pines. The kitchen produces a variety of specials along with their popular classics, such as the Ultimate Burger or their wicked good Crawfish Fries.

How do you choose where to go to lunch? Do you choose “the same ol’, same ol’,” something you’ve seen in national ads, or just by wandering aimlessly… and hungry?

We may not be the biggest, the most advertised, or the fanciest. Yes, we are attached to a gas station. But we have the best sandwiches, the best customer service, and we have been a local lunch spot since 1998!

We’re WEDGIES! And this year, our customers have

voted us “Best of the Pines!”

There’s no “same ol’, same ol’” here. Delicious, madeto-order sandwiches on pizza crust, hot from the oven, cut into a Wedge, and dressed perfectly. Meats, cheeses, freshly sliced produce, and homemade sides… and don’t forget the homemade warm chocolate chip cookies!

Still hungry? Stop wandering… It’s lunchtime at Wedgies!

Delicious Authentic Indian Dishes

Husband and wife Jayarani and Ekambaram Elamaran opened Jaya’s with their daughter, Ria, in 2015 and have lived in Moore County for over 30 years. Having grown up up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and Delhi, Jayarani and Elamaran felt it was important to follow Southern Indian traditions and stay true to their culture with their delicious, homestyle Indian dishes. The family business has won Best Indian Restaurant in Best of the Pines for the last four years.

Their most popular dishes are Butter Chicken and Chicken Tikka Masala, but Maran’s favorite dish is their Chicken 65 appetizer. With vegan, vegetarian and glutenfree options, Jaya’s provides delicious food for all dietary needs. You can often find their food truck at various events in Moore County, such First Friday, and they offer catering as well. You can always find something uniquely delicious at Jaya’s.

YellowBird Brings Rave Reviews

YellowBird Southern Table and Bar is the latest venture by Leadmine owners Sonja McCarrell and Orlando Jinzo. The brunch spot has been all the buzz in its first year of business- especially their mimosa towers. The concept is Southern brunch — fried chicken and champagne. The menu includes gems like chicken and waffles, crab cake benedict, iron-seared wagyu and bison meatloaf and, yes, everyone’s favorite Brussels

sprouts. On the drink menu, you’ll find a Woodford Reserve Old Fashioned and a slew of chef-driven craft cocktails that Orlando and Sonja’s restaurants are known for.

They serve brunch from 8 to 4, seven days a week. Be sure to dine often to try their ever-changing creative specials like smoked salmon omelettes, lobster rolls and watermelon mimosas.

Making You Fat and Sassy

The House of Odell and Luella’s has been around for less than two years, but already the food truck is making a big name for itself, earning a spot among the Best of the Pines and taking home top honors at the 2022 NC Food Truck State Championship. The name and the slogan both pay homage to owner Dawn Sugg’s grandmothers, Odell and Luella, and the food truck is Dawn’s way of carrying on her grandmothers’ traditions

of spreading good food and love within the community. The truck is known for doing everything with a twist - signature burgers, sandwiches, slow-smoked barbecue brisket and moreand can be found traveling to events all over Moore County and beyond, as well as Red’s Corner and even local neighborhoods. Stay tuned to their Facebook page to find out where they’ll go next.

Fall is for Traditions

Vince Continenza opened Ironwood in 2006. After his passing, his wife, Cindy and son, Nathan who is the Executive Chef, have carried on his dream of the ultimate dining experience.

Their passion for exploring unique flavors brings seasonal menu changes allowing Chef Nathan and his team to create culinary delights for all to enjoy. Whether starting new

traditions or celebrating old ones we hope you enjoy our newly expanded wine menu and new fall dinner features including Stuffed Bone Marrow, Tuna Tartare and Seared Duck Breast.

Ironwood is always a popular place to enjoy the holidays with family and friends so make your reservations early. Please visit our website for holiday hours.

It All Starts With Brunch

….short rib hash and shrimp and grits, to be exact. Meet the cute owners, Brian and Alison Henley, who have always connected over their love of the food scene.

Mason’s, opened in 2017 is the product of their passion for great food. They’ve created a popular local brunch spot with delicious, seasonal fare, inspired by their southern roots in a modern, energetic atmosphere.

Named after their son, Mason’s is nestled in the heart of downtown Aberdeen in a historic 100 year old building that they restored to create a bright, contemporary space.

From the scratch made biscuits and craft cocktails, to the market, featuring local and regional specialty products, the team at Mason’s hope to give you the best possible dining experience.

Hot Fresh Donuts! Do we knead to say more?

Whether you love old-style raised donuts or traditional cake donuts, you will find your heaven on earth at Southern Angel Donut Co. Since opening in 2017, Southern Angel has been baking fresh donuts the oldfashioned way: handmade and yeastraised daily.

Their cake donuts come in three flavors: chocolate, vanilla and blueberry and the raised yeast donuts come either glazed, frosted or filled. Choose from a variety of sweet toppings or try one of their apple fritters, honey buns or stix donuts. Their recipe for success has been great customer service and great donuts!

Thai Treats Taking the World by Storm

If you’re not familiar with ice cream rolls, allow Scrollicious to introduce you to the Thai phenomenon. Watch in person as they create the dessert of your dreams. An ice cream roll is made by pouring milk on an ice grill and adding fruits and other ingredients for more flavor. They roll it up and serve it up - a dessert that looks so cute you could just eat it up.

Scrollicious also offers Boba Teas and Snow Ice, Taiwanese favorites. The melt-in-your mouth dessert that the world is falling in love with, Snow Ice comes in a a variety of unique flavors like Taro, Mango Coco and Green Tea. While you’re exploring new flavors for your taste buds, try a smoothie, fruit tea or one of their traditional homemade ice creams. Scrollicious has a little something for everyone. Roll on in to see for yourself!

The New Bistro on the Block

The newest addition to the block of restaurants brought to you by owners Toi and Anthony Becke, Central Park Ave Bistro, is home to American cuisine - everything from eggplant parmesan to racks of ribs and chicken Cordon Bleu burgers. The extensive menu also includes pizza!

The casual atmosphere makes you feel right at home as you indulge in comfort food that is sure to leave you asking for more. The Bistro serves lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday and offers a delightful Sunday Brunch that shouldn’t be missed.

Got a Craving For Curry?

Look no further to satisfy that curry urge than Thai Fusion in Olmsted Village. A hankering for teriyaki? They’ve got your rice covered. Drunken Noodles? The best in town. Pad Thai? A peanut sauce you’ll go nuts over! Serving the Sandhills with authentic Thai dishes for over six years, Thai

Fusion is known for their welcoming, friendly customer service. Consistently speedy, they’re a popular go-to for a quick takeout meal. Using natural ingredients to provide a flavorful, yet healthy meal, you’ll want to satisfy your next craving at Thai Fusion.

It Takes A

At Villaggio Ristorante & Bar, traditional Italian dishes and regional specialties are freshly created for your enjoyment. Born amid the storied walls of the historic Magnolia Inn in the heart of the Village of Pinehurst, Villaggio promises an exquisite fine dining experience second to none. House-made pastas and breads are made

daily, and the freshest fish, chicken, veal, steak and chops are perfectly prepared. After dinner, enjoy a special house-made dessert with a specialty coffee, a dessert wine, or an after dinner liqueur. The Villaggio Bar is a great spot to watch sports or catch up with friends.

To add an event, email us at pinestraw.calendar@gmail.com

arts & entertainment

function. Given Tufts Bookshop, 95 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst.

HAUNTED HISTORY CRUISE. 3 - 4:30 p.m. Cruise through the Sandhills and hear all about our haunted history. This is the perfect blend of history and ghosts, not too scary for the faint of heart. The cruise will run every Saturday in October. Brought to you by the Sandhills Trolley Company. Pine Crest Inn, 50 Dogwood Road, Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Murder Mystery Cruise

Although conscientious effort is made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, all events are subject to change and errors can occur! Please call to verify times, costs, status and location before planning or attending an event.

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

TECH HELP. Need help with your laptop, tablet or smartphone? SPPL offers one-on-one Tech Help Sessions. These sessions focus on topics like downloading e-books, using digital resources, sending emails, and more. Visit the circulation or reference desk or the website at www.southernpines.net/601/ Technology to request an appointment or call the library for more information. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

OCTOBER EVENTS

Saturday, October 1

AUTUMNFEST. 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. This fall festival features arts and crafts, live entertainment, a 5K run, youth sprint races and great food. Presented by the Arts Council of Moore County and the Southern Pines Recreation and Parks Department. Downtown Park, 145 S.E. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.mooreart.org.

KIDS SATURDAY. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Bring the kids to the library for a drop-in craft. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

OPEN HOUSE. 1 - 3 p.m. The Given Tufts Bookshop is having a community open house to reveal the newly renovated meeting room and for people to get first dibs on a date for your next work

MURDER MYSTERY CRUISE. 6 - 9 p.m. Escape the danger, solve the mystery and figure out who the culprit is. This is for adults only and will make 2 - 3 stops during the evening. Brought to you by the Sandhills Trolley Company. Southern Pines Brewing Company, 565 Air Tool Dr., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

OUTDOOR MOVIE. 7:15 p.m. The Princess Bride. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

FRIGHT TROLLEY. 9:30 - 11:30 p.m. Be afraid, be very afraid. There will be stops along the way. Download the “Arryved” app from your app store prior to your cruise. The cruise will run every Saturday in October. Brought to you by the Sandhills Trolley Company. Divine Lounge, 390 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Sunday, October 2

CLASSICAL MUSIC SUNDAYS. 2 p.m. Matt Palmer, a recent recipient of the “Up and Coming Guitarist of the Year” award by Guitar International Magazine, will perform. Tickets are $25 for members and $35 for non-members. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.weymouthcenter.org.

WRITING GROUP. 3 p.m. Interested in creating fiction, nonfiction, poetry or comics? Connect with other writers and artists, chat about your craft and get feedback on your work. All levels are welcome. The session will meet at the library. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: lholden@sppl.net.

Monday, October 3

CHAMBER MUSIC. 7:30 - 9:30 p.m. The American Brass Quintet performs. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.mooreart.org.

Tuesday, October 4

BRAIN FITNESS. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to a new Brain Fitness class. Eve Gaskell will be the instructor. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

TEEN WRITING CLUB. 5 p.m. Are you interested in creative writing and storytelling, connecting with other writers, and getting feedback on your work? Join us for the Teen Creative Writing Club. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or email: kbroughey@sppl.net.

Thursday, October 6

SALE AND RAFFLE. 2 - 5 p.m. Shop the annual White Elephant Sale and Raffle for gently used furniture, art, household items, jewelry, toys, sports equipment, home baked goods and more. There will also be raffle prizes, a silent auction and daily 50/50. The sale will continue on Oct. 7 from 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. and Oct. 8 from 8 - 11 a.m. A raffle ticket purchase is needed for admission to Sneak Peek Sale on Oct. 6. No entry fee Oct. 7 or 8. Proceeds benefit Sacred Heart Church Ministries and Moore County charitable organizations. Founders Hall, next to Sacred Heart Church, corner of N.C. 211 and Dundee Road, Pinehurst. Info (910) 295-0704.

Friday, October 7

MEDICARE INFO SESSION. 11:30 a.m. Join us for “What to Expect for Medicare Open Enrollment 2023” to have your questions and concerns addressed. Sharon Sherlock, Moore County Senior Health Insurance Information Program coordinator, will speak. Light refresh ments will be served. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

SWINGING JAZZ. 12 - 1 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to get inspired, start dancing and express themselves creatively through movement. Free of charge. The dance series continues through November 18. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info and registration: (910) 692-7376.

OPENING RECEPTION. 5 - 7 p.m. The Artists League of the Sandhills will host an opening recep tion for their “Pencil and Pastel” exhibit. The exhibit will be on display through Oct. 21. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-3979 or www.artistsleague.org.

FIRST FRIDAY. 5 - 7 p.m. First Friday is a familyfriendly, free concert series on the Sunrise Theater outdoor stage. Enjoy food trucks, some Southern Pines Brewery brews, and listen to great music while supporting the local theater. No dogs, outside alco hol or rolling coolers. The English Beat performs. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

MEET THE ARTISTS. 6 - 8 p.m. The Arts Council of Moore County will have a meet-the-artists open ing for the exhibit, “Layers of Art: Textures and

Clay.” The exhibit will be on display through Oct. 28. Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.mooreart.org.

HALLOWEEN CRUISE. 8 - 10 p.m. Boos and Booze, a different version of our Brews Cruise. There will be fun ghost stories, comedy, games, and more. Each cruise is different. Please be sure to download “Kahoot!” and “Arryved” apps from the app store and create accounts before your cruise departure. This cruise will stop at two separate breweries. Southern Pines Brewing Company, 565 Air Tool Dr., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Saturday, October 8

LIVE MUSIC. 7 - 10 p.m. Come enjoy music from Pat & Bernie. Hatchet Brewing Company, 490 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.hatchetbrewing.com.

WORSHIP EVENT. 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Join us for the Going Beyond Simulcast with Priscilla Shirer and Anthony Evans. Cost is $28 and includes a light breakfast and box lunch. The Village Chapel, 10 Azalea Road, Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

YOGA IN THE PARK. 9 - 10 a.m. Bring a mat or just a towel and join the community for mindful movement in a casual environment. Led by Rachelle Hartigan in association with Southern Pines Recreation and Parks. Yoga is free and for all ages and abilities. Downtown Park, 145 S.E. Broad St., Southern Pines.

COMMUNITY YARD SALE. 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. Enjoy shopping 30-40 individual outdoor booths offering everything from handmade crafts, modern tools and electronics, vintage and antique collectibles and even an assortment of everyday household items or clothes. A food truck will be on site. The Bee’s Knees, 125 N.C. 73, West End.

HERITAGE FAIR. 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. The 14th annual Shaw House Heritage Fair and Moore Treasures Sale is a major fundraiser for the Moore County Historical Association. The Heritage Fair offers unique vendors, baked goods, live music, demon strations of old-time crafts, treasure sales and farm animals for petting. The Shaw House, Sanders Cabin and Garner House will be open for tours as well as the newly restored tobacco barn. This event is rain or shine. Free admission. The Shaw House, 110 W. Morganton Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2051 or www.moorehistory.com.

VOLUNTEER FAIR. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Are

CALENDAR

you interested in lending your time and talents to a valuable cause? Come to the Volunteer Fair where local organizations will be here to answer questions and provide information about volunteer opportunities. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

TRIBUTE SHOW. 2 - 4 p.m. The Sandhills Repertory Theater presents the music of Johnny and June Cash in Darlin’ Companion. Lee Auditorium, 250 Voit Gilmore Lane, Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

BOOK EVENT. 2:30 - 3:30 p.m. Ambassador Nikki Haley will be in conversation with The Country Bookshop’s Kimberly Daniels Taws about Haley’s new book If You Want Something Done: Leadership Lessons From Bold Women. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

TROLLEY RIDE. 2:30 - 4:30 p.m. Take the Trolley to Kalawi Farm and have a pumpkin hunt, ice cream, and games. This is a family friendly event. Recommended for ages 4 and up. Brought to you by Sandhills Trolley Company. Pollywog’s Play Pad, 155 Hall Ave., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

KARAOKE TROLLEY. 6 - 9 p.m. Come rock and roll through the Sandhills. Brought to you by the Sandhills Trolley Company. Pollywog’s Play Pad, 155 Hall Ave., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Sunday, October 9

MINI MARKET. 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Enjoy shopping, food trucks and live music. Hatchet Brewing Company, 490 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines.

Monday, October 10

PHOTO CLUB. 7 p.m. The Sandhills Photography Club monthly meeting will be a competition with the topic of “Long Exposure.” The judge is Kate Silvia, a professional photographer from Charleston, South Carolina. Theater of the Hannah Marie Bradshaw Activities Center of The O’Neal School, 3300 Airport Road, Pinehurst.

Program coordinator, will speak. Light refresh ments will be served. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

Thursday, October 13

GATHERING AT GIVEN. 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. Gather along with friends and neighbors for an hour long discussion with Mary Garrison, the owner of Will-aBee Market. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

Friday, October 14

OUTDOOR MOVIE. 5 - 7 p.m. Rocky Horror Picture Show. There will be a second showing on Oct. 15. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

LIVE AFTER FIVE. 5:15 - 9 p.m. Enjoy the last concert of 2022 with music courtesy of Bantum Rooster. Live music and fun kids’ activities will ensure a good time for all ages. Food trucks will be on-site. Beer, wine and additional beverages will be available for purchase. Picnic baskets are allowed, no outside alcoholic beverages are permitted. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

100 YEAR CELEBRATION. 5:30 - 10 p.m. Help celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Boyd House. There will be a live performance followed by a party with dinner catered by Elliott’s on Linden and silent and live auctions. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.weymouthcenter.org.

TROLLEY RIDE. 6 - 7:30 p.m. All aboard Hogwart’s Trolley X-press. Calling all wizards, we need your magic to help us solve a mystery. Come dressed in your robes and wands in hand. This is a family-friendly event. Brought to you by

CALENDAR

Sandhills Trolley Company. Pollywog’s Play Pad, 155 Hall Ave., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

WIZARDLY BREWS CRUISE. 8 - 10 p.m. Welcome to the Wizarding World of Sandhills Trolley Company. Jump onboard and cruise around to the local breweries while your cruise director, Dolores Umbridge, tests your knowledge of the world’s most famous wizard. Download the “Kahoot!” and “Arryved” apps from your app store and create accounts before your arrival. Southern Pines Brewing Company, 565 Air Tool Dr., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Saturday, October 15

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

HOLLY ARTS FESTIVAL. 10 a.m. The festival combines the talents of over 100 handcrafters in a variety of genres, from woodworking to glass, stitched art to lawn ornaments, handcrafted jewelry to metal sculpture. Downtown shops offer sales and specials. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

BAKE SALE. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Women of the Pines is kicking off their fundraising efforts with their annual bake sale. There will be baked goods and gift cards raffled off. Raffle tickets are $25 each. Sandhills Woman’s Exchange, 15 Azalea Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.womenofthepines.org.

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION. 1 - 9 p.m. Come celebrate the eighth anniversary of Southern Pines Brewing Company. There will be bands, food trucks, beers, games and a bounce house for kids. Southern Pines Brewing Company, 565 Air Tool Drive, Southern Pines. General admission is $10. Info: www.eventbrite.com/e/ southern-pines-brewing-company-8th-anniversarycelebration-tickets-387700752387.

GHOST TOUR. 3 - 4:30 p.m. Love ghost stories without the scare? This cruise is kid-friendly and mostly funny. We will also do some trick-or-treating, so costumes are welcome. Kids under 3 are free. Brought to you by Sandhills Trolley Company. Pollywog’s Play Pad, 155 Hall Ave., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

DANCING. 6 p.m. Carolina Pines Dance Club in vites you for a fun evening of social dancing — swing, line, ballroom, shag and Latin. Doors open at 6 p.m. Dance lessons at 6:30 p.m. Dancing until 9:30 p.m. Beginners and experienced dancers, couples and singles all welcome. Cost is $15 per person; cash at door. National Athletic Village, 201 Air Tool Drive, Southern Pines. Info: (724) 816-1170.

ADULT PROM. 7:30 p.m. The Sax Doctor presents Tonight’s Dream, Tomorrow’s Memory, an adult prom for those 21 and older who want to relive that special prom night. The Country Club of Whispering Pines, 2 Club House Blvd., Whispering Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Sunday, October 16

HORSE FARM TOUR. 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Come to a self-guided tour of six exquisite horse farms. This is a fundraiser to benefit the Prancing Horse Center for Therapeutic Horsemanship. Tickets are $25 in advance or $30 day of. Children 12 and under are free. Prancing Horse Center, 6100 Hoffman Road, Hoffman. Info and tickets: www.prancing-horse.org.

INDUCTION CEREMONY. 2 p.m. Join us at the induction celebration for the COVID-delayed 2020 N.C. Literary Hall of Fame. Free admission and open to the public. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.weymouthcenter.org.

STEAM. 2:30 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’s theme is “Autumn.” Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

FUNDRAISER. 5 p.m. Come to the Jambalaya and Jazz Fundraiser, featuring the New Orleans Masquerade Band. There will be small bites at 5 p.m. and a seated dinner at 6:30 p.m. Hosted by the Given Tufts Foundation to benefit Given Memorial Library and Tufts Archives. Cost is $100/solo, $190/ duo and $750/table of 8. Pinehurst Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Road S., Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www. ticketmesandhills.com.

Monday, October 17

WOMEN OF WEYMOUTH. 9:30 a.m. Social time begins at 9:30 a.m. A short business meeting begins at 10 a.m. and is followed by guest speaker Dr. Dan Barnes, from FirstHealth Cancer Center. Free admission. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.weymouthcenter.org.

Tuesday, October 18

SENIOR TRIP. 7:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Adults 55 and older can enjoy a trip to Raleigh for a day at the N.C. State Fair. Enjoy great food and vendors. Cost is $10 for residents of Southern Pines and $14 for nonresidents. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BRAIN FITNESS. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to a new Brain Fitness class. Eve Gaskell will be the instructor. Free. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BOOK CLUB. 2 p.m. The new James Boyd Book Club is here. Free admission, registra tion required. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.weymouthcenter.org.

TEEN WRITING CLUB. 5 p.m. Are you interested in creative writing and storytelling, connecting with other writers, and getting feedback on your work? Join us for the Teen Creative Writing Club. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or email: kbroughey@sppl.net.

BOOK EVENT. 5 - 6 p.m. Emily Hughes will talk about her book, Bird of Paradise. Registration

CALENDAR

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

Wednesday, October 19

MUSIC JAM. 1 - 2 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to grab some “Found Sounds” from around the house and join the jam session. Wooden spoons, coffee cans, chopsticks, boxes of Mac-n-Cheese, etc. Bring them to the party as we make music and move together to favorite songs and awesome drumbeats. 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 after-school program for kindergarten through second graders who enjoy activities, crafts, stories, and learning. This month’s special program will be Spooky Storytelling with Rose Highland-Sharpe. Whitehall House, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

Thursday, October 20

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

CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE. 6:30 p.m. Author and historian Wade Sokolosky is the special guest speaker with a presentation on “Sherman’s March Through North Carolina, with Particular Emphasis on the Battles of Bentonville and Wyse Fork.” Meeting starts at 7 p.m. Open to the public. Civic Club, corner of Pennsylvania and Ashe St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 246-0452 or mafarina@aol.com.

Friday, October 21

MASTER CLASS. 12 - 1:30 p.m. Music and pop culture icon Charo will have a master class on guitar and performance. Observers do not per form during the class but will watch others work and be able to ask questions. McPherson Theater at BPAC, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

HALLOWEEN HAUNT. 5 - 9 p.m. Trick-or-treat at the local downtown businesses in Southern Pines at 5 p.m., then join us at the Downtown Park at 5:30 p.m. for Halloween themed games, crafts, activities, and the best dog costume raffle. Stay afterward for the showing of Encanto at 6:45 p.m. For ages 12

and under. Downtown Park, 145 S.E. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

LIVE THEATER. 7 p.m. Presenting Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. There will be additional showings on Oct. 22, 28 and 29 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 23 and 30 at 3 p.m. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sunrisetheater.com.

CONCERT. 7 - 9 p.m. Music and pop culture icon Charo will perform. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

THEATER PRODUCTION. The Encore Center will present The Hound of the Baskervilles There will be more performances on Oct. 22-23 and Oct. 28-30. Encore Center, 160 E. New Hampshire Ave., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.encorecenter.net.

Saturday, October 22

CABIN TOUR. 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Eight historic cabins in Pinehurst, Southern Pines and Carthage will be on tour. This is a wonderful time to support the Woman’s Exchange and visit these unique properties. Tour participants are also invited to the Woman’s Exchange for complimentary dessert/ drink day of the event. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at Sandhills Woman’s Exchange, DuneBerry Resort Wear in Pinehurst, and R. Riveter in Southern Pines.Sandhills Woman’s Exchange, 15 Azalea Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-4677 or www.sandhillswe.org.

OKTOBERFEST. 4 - 9 p.m. The evening kicks off with Kinderfest from 4 - 6 p.m., a fun festival for children and families to enjoy. There will be music, fun crafts, a bubble artist and a Halloween costume show off. There will be traditional Oktoberfest activities from 6 - 9 p.m. featuring German music by The Mountain Top Polka Band. Food and beverages will be available to purchase. Picnic baskets are allowed, outside alcoholic beverages are not permitted. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

TRIBUTE CONCERT. 6 - 9 p.m. Come enjoy the Ultimate Garth Brooks Tribute featuring Shawn Gerhard. Cooper Ford, 5292 U.S. 15-501, Carthage. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

SINGLES CRUISE. 6 - 9 p.m. Are you single and ready to mingle? We will have a mix of speed dating at our brewery stops. Download the “Kahoot!” and “Arryved” apps and create accounts before arriving for the cruise. Brought to you by the Sandhills Trolley Company. Southern Pines Brewing Company, 565 Air Tool Dr., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Sunday, October 23

FUN RUN. 10 a.m. Come join a family fun run starting and ending at Hatchet Brewing Co. Tickets are $50. Hatchet Brewing Company, 490 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.hatchetbrewing.com.

Tuesday, October 25

LUNCH N’ LEARN. 10 a.m. Sandhills Woman’s Exchange will host owner Amanda Crew of Crew Family Orchards. Amanda will discuss the history

and tasting of olive oils and balsamic vinegars. Chef Katrina will prepare a lunch from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Cost is $30 per person. Sandhills Woman’s Exchange, 15 Azalea Road, Pinehurst. Info and reservations: (910) 295-4677 or www.sandhillswe.org.

MUSICIANS’ JAM SESSION. 6 - 9 p.m. Bring your own instrument and beverage or just come and enjoy the music. Attendees must have the COVID vaccination. Free admission, registration required. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.weymouthcenter.org.

Thursday, October 27

DOUGLASS CENTER BOOK CLUB. 10:30 a.m. Multiple copies of the selected book for the month are available for checkout at the library. Douglass Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or email: mmiller@sppl.net.

Friday, October 28

FESTIVAL D’AVION. 4 p.m. The 2022 Festival D’Avion is the fourth annual celebration of freedom and flight at the Moore County Airport. The festival continues through Oct. 30. Children 12 and under are free. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

FAMOUS COUPLES CRUISE. 6 - 7:30 p.m. Pick your favorite couple and come dressed up to win. There will be multiple stops at local breweries. Brought to you by Sandhills Trolley Company. Pollywog’s Play Pad, 155 Hall Ave., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

HAUNTED HOUSE. 7 - 10 p.m. Enter our attraction along a dark, winding road, surrounded by haunted grounds. If you are brave, roll down your windows to take in the night’s stale air . . . but watch out. From the moment you arrive on our property, you are fair game to each and every haunted creature residing here. For all ages. Cost is $5 per person. Campbell House Grounds, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

Saturday, October 29

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

CALENDAR

TASTE AND SEE. 8:45 a.m. Join us as we relax and enjoy sampling three recipes that look impressive but are simple to prepare. As we work together, we’ll also consider God’s recipe book for living and hear several short, hope-filled stories of faith in real life challenges. There will be light, continental breakfast available followed by the “Taste and See” at 9 a.m. Dress is casual and there is no cost, but reservations are required. Sandhills Alliance Church, 111 Trotter Dr., Pinehurst. Info: (843) 535-1721 or email bksloan705@gmail.com.

TRUNK OR TREAT. 12 - 4 p.m. Enjoy trick or treating with your kids. Hatchet Brewing Company, 490 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.hatchetbrewing.com.

PAWS ON PARADE. 3 p.m. Take your furry friends on a fun Halloween stroll around the Storywalk. Costumes are encouraged but not required. Prizes will be awarded for best costume. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

Monday, October 31

CHIEF’S CUP. 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. The Chief’s Cup is a Ryder Cup-style tournament with two teams. The tournament engages law enforcement worldwide, championing acceptance and inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities, starting first with their own communities. Longleaf Golf and Family Club, 10 Knoll Road, Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Friday, November 4

KIDS CRUISE. 5 - 6 p.m. Bring the kids and trick-or-treat in costume on the Halloween Trolley. Brought to you by Sandhills Trolley Company. Pollywog’s Play Pad, 155 Hall Ave., Southern Pines. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

COSTUME CONTEST. 9 p.m. Come dressed in your best Halloween costume. Hatchet Brewing Company, 490 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.hatchetbrewing.com.

Sunday, October 30

JAZZ SERIES. 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. Join us out doors for live jazz featuring Orquesta GarDel. Bring your own blanket, chairs, and a picnic. There will be a cash bar. Kids are invited to participate in a “Dia de los Muertos” costume parade. Cost is $25 for members and $35 for non-members. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.weymouthcenter.org.

MEET THE ARTISTS. 6 - 8 p.m. The Arts Council of Moore County will have a meet-the-artists open ing for the exhibit, “Passages and Perspectives.” The exhibit will be on display through Dec. 17. Campbell House Galleries, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.mooreart.org.

Sunday, November 6

CLASSICAL MUSIC SUNDAYS. 2 p.m. The Ciompi Quartet performs. Tickets are $25 for members and $35 for non-members. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.weymouthcenter.org.

WEEKLY EVENTS Mondays

WORKOUTS. 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to get their workout on. Open Monday through Friday. Cost for six months: $15/ resident; $30/non-resident. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SING FOR FUN. 9 - 10 a.m. Adults 55 and older can sing for fun while reaping the physical and

CALENDAR

mental benefits of a choir experience. Learn various songs from all genres. Cost per month is $36 for residents and $52 for non-residents. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

STRETCH AND MOVE. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to do a gentle, low impact dance with inspirational music. Cost is $36 for residents and $52 for non-residents per month. 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.

GAME ON. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. You and your friends are invited to come out and play various games such as corn hole, badminton, table tennis, shuffleboard, trivia games and more. Each week enjoy a different activity to keep you 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.

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 0 - 3 years to interact with other children and have educational playtime. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

BABY RHYMES. 10:30 a.m. Baby Rhymes is specially designed for the youngest learners (birth - 2) and their caregivers. Repetition and comforting movements make this story time perfect for early development and brain growth. There will be a duplicate session at 11 a.m. Dates this month are Oct. 4, 11, 18 and 25. An active library card is required. 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.

TAI CHI. 1 p.m. Come learn tai chi. There is no age limit and the classes are open to the public. Aberdeen Parks and Recreation Station, 301 Lake Park Crossing, Aberdeen. Info: (910) 944-7275.

SPARK STORYTIME. 2:30 p.m. This Spark Storytime at Fire Station 82 is for ages birth through 2 and kids will have a chance to see fire trucks. Dates this month are Oct. 4, 11, 18 and 25. Fire

Homestyles

Station 82, 500 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

TABLE TENNIS. 7 - 9 p.m. Enjoy playing this exciting game every Tuesday. Cost for six months is $15 for residents of Southern Pines and $30 for non-residents. For adults 55 and older. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

Wednesdays

CHAIR YOGA. 10 - 11 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.

LEARN AND PLAY. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Come in for an open play date with your toddler or pre schooler 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 Oct. 5, 12, 19 and 26. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

CHAIR VOLLEYBALL. 1 - 2 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Get fit while having fun. Free to participate. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

Library

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.

FARMERS MARKET. 3 - 6 p.m. The Sandhills Farmers Market features some of the many farms, nurseries, bakeries, meat and egg providers, cheesemakers and specialty food producers our area has to offer. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

LIBRARY PROGRAM. 3:30 p.m. At The Library After School (ATLAS) is an after-school program for kindergarten through second graders who enjoy activities, crafts, stories, and learning. Dates this month will be Oct. 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. Come 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 Dr., Seven Lakes. Info: (910) 400-5646.

YOGA. 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. Grab your yoga mat and head to Hatchet for a yoga session with Brady. Session cost is $10 and includes a pint of our DILLIGAF lager. Hatchet Brewing Company, 490 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.hatchetbrewing.com.

Thursdays

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET. 9 a.m.-1 p.m. The year-round market features “producer only” vendors within a 50-mile radius

providing fresh, local and seasonal produce, fruits, pasture meats, eggs, potting plants, cut flowers and local honey. Crafts, baked goods, jams and jellies are also available. Market is located at the Armory Sports Complex, 604 W. Morganton Road, Southern Pines.

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

MUSIC AND MOTION. 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. Does your toddler like to move and groove? Join us for outdoor Music and Motion to get those wiggles out and work on gross and fine motor skills. For 25-year-olds. Dates this month are Oct. 6, 13, 20, 27. An active library card is required. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

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

PINOCHLE. 1 - 3 p.m. Adults 55 and older can enjoy playing pinocle, a trick-taking card game. All skill levels welcome. Free of charge. 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, 3361 Mt. Carmel Rd., Carthage. Info: (910) 692-2051 or www.moorehistory.com.

ORCHESTRA REHEARSALS. 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. The Moore Philharmonic Orchestra has weekly rehearsals. Membership is open to youth and adult community members and there is no fee to join. Wellard Hall at Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.mporchestra.com or email moorephilharmonicorchestra@gmail.com.

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 this 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.

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.

RESTORATIVE YOGA. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Practice gentle movements to improve well-being with certified instructor, Jahaira Farias. Practice movements that may help alleviate pain and improve circulation. Bring your own mat. 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.

LINE DANCING. 3 - 4 p.m. For adults 55 and older. If you’re interested in learning dance moves and building confidence on the dance floor, this class is for you. Leave your inhibitions at the door and join in. Cost is: $36 for residents and $52 for non-residents per month. Cost is for a monthly membership. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

Saturdays

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET. 8 a.m. – 12 p.m. The 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, accompanied by live music. Market is located in downtown Southern Pines at S.E. Broad Street and New York Ave. and runs weekly (with the exception of Autumnfest) until the end of October. PS

PineNeedler Answers from page 135

The

Photo

Our annual Collectors Choice Night is by invitation only and is our most spectacular event of the year. This is a lovely reception held prior to the public opening of the exhibit. Exquisite food and a special cocktail based on our theme are served to our guests. Admission is $100 per couple. The $100 is applied to the price of any painting (or can be counted as a donation if you don’t make a purchase). Please plan to join us that evening and have first choice to purchase a truly unique piece of art and help support the Artists League. Call 910-944-3979 or email artistleague@windstream.net for an invitation.

Opening Reception

Friday, October 7, 5:00-7:00

Our October exhibit will showcase the pencil and pastel work of Artists League members. Both media represent a wide range of drawing techniques, from fine detailed work to soft impressionistic renderings. Please join us for the opening reception or stop in during the month. The exhibit will be on display through Friday, October 21. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, noon to 3:00. Our artists’ studios have hundreds of additional paintings to view and are open Monday through Friday, 10:30-3:00, and Saturday, noon to 3:00.

OIL & ACRYLIC:

Tuesday

Tuesday

Monday

SandhillSeen

Arts Council Reception Triangle Visual Artists Campbell House Galleries Friday, September 2, 2022

Photographs by Diane McKay

Emily Davis, Luke Huling Elaine & Jerry Schwartz

Paula Shelton, Bernie & Jackie Rosenblum, Kerry Arnold

Courtney Herndon, Bob & Jane Asdal

David Taylor

Paul Hammock, Sandy Tremblay Chrystal Hardt, Sharon Barnes

Fred Nuenighoff, Claudie & Jack Wells

Joan & Bill Meade

Kate & Dennis Szerszen

Nanette Zeller, Andrea DonoghueMary Kay Baker, Catherine Taylor, Penny & Mary Ann O'Donnell

SandhillSeen

17th Annual Rick Rhyne Memorial Fishing Tournament

Cardinal Lake Saturday, August 13, 2022

Photographs by Diane McKay

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Wanda Rhyne, Sheriff Ronnie Fields Annabeth, Madison, Chad & Jack Shue

Victoria Young, Hunter & Jackson McGhee

Jessica, Roxy & Allen Rhyne

Joe Caliri

Miranda & Madison Malan

Elizabeth Thomas, Kvyion Covington, Gabriel Tabron, Zyquavia Gibson

The Watkins Family

Lea Chandler, The Auman & Seaford Families

Derek Kivett, Matthew & Sherry Horne

Marisha Chalmers, Langston Allbrooks

(front) Chelsea & Daniel Ritter, Jack Pomeroy, (back) Tyler & Rob Pomeroy

SandhillSeen

“Come Sunday” Jazz Brunch Weymouth Center Saturday, August 28, 2022 Photographs by Diane McKay

Cheryl Cherne, Karen Frye, Russo Doug Krueger, Janet Blair

Cathy Jones, Michael Busko, Jacques & Mary Wood

Weldon & Richard Carlton

Kyle Black, Raggs

Debbie & Jack Bulko Keenan McKenzie Music band

Nate & Steph Grotzke

Phil Werz, Emily Havener

Lindsey Simmons, Helenka Ostrum

Kim Thatcher, Cindy HallDave, Amanda & Kennedy Perfetti

October Pine Needler It takes two

ACROSS

1. Merry party

5. Client information folders

10. Crimson Tide state, for short

14. Largest continent

15. Thoughts

16. Spoken

17. Observed

Birds that make a gaggle

19. Math term, for short

It takes two . . .

22. African nation

Humor

Employee under RN

With 33 across, It takes two . . .

27. Chinese pan

South American nation

(See 26 across)

35. Opera solo

37. Interpretations of music piece

42. Take a breather

Hubbub

Smudge

What P.S. stands for in a letter

Not difficult

Talk

Darling

Caustic substance

It takes two . . .

Anatomy pouch

Med. scans, for short

Ms. Winfrey

Spanish plantations

Male deer

It takes two . . .

That hurts!

Dorothy’s dog

Utopian

Greek letter

Obstacle

bear

Flower or wine glass part

DOWN

1. Deep cut

On the briny

Legal claim

Root beer brand (3 wds.)

Combatant

Notion

Scallion

Painting prop

Map dir.

It takes two . . .

Tapestry

Pine Tree State

tank growth

slowly

swarming insect

meas.

31. Raise up, on Young’s Road

Released, as a shirt button

Sage

Lawyer abbr..

Narcotics

Whitish gem

Prying

Eye infection

cookies

takes two

Belt

Tax specialist

Puzzle answers on page 124

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

Without a word

Hwy.

Emcees

“The Jungle” author Sinclair

Persona non

Scold

Snooty people

In awe

Grew old

African nation

It takes two . .

French play part

Pillow covering

Able

Sudoku:

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

The Haunted Fireplace

“Do you like scary movies?”

By EmilEE P hilliPs

I was never much into ghost stories as a little girl, but that didn’t make me immune to the heebiejeebies when something didn’t feel quite right.

The house where I grew up was built in 1875. It’s a rambling white farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Most of the time our home felt warm and cozy, especially when the whole family was together. It was during thunderstorms, or when I was alone, that I got scared.

The old house is the polar opposite of a modern, open floor plan. It has rooms of all different shapes and sizes, each with an atmosphere entirely its own. Every addition to the house brought with it idiosyncratic wall and floor configurations. Our house was imposing and roomy and, to a little kid like me, it felt like a mansion — not of the fancy or fairytale kind, but the big, mysterious kind.

Sometimes, it even seemed alive.

The majority of the house was built with rough cut lumber. There are four fireplaces, two of them in working condition. The wooden mantels are all strictly utilitarian, devoid of ornate carvings or decoration. But the one in the green room is different. Very different.

I should mention that the house was often cold in the winter. We had a pair of furnaces, but their fuel efficiency may not have been up to 21st century standards. They often burned through all of the propane before the delivery truck could make it back for a refill. Or sometimes they were simply unable to ward off the chill of a high-ceilinged house. So, on the coldest nights, my family gathered in the green room around its oversized fireplace.

My brother and I used to wrestle on the worn brown carpet, rolling in front of the fire that always gave off more fumes than it seemed it should. I suppose I didn’t pay it any mind those first few years until one day I looked up at that ancient fireplace and watched the mantel ooze. My eyes got as big as saucers. It was as though I was watching a horror movie and I couldn’t look away.

The walls were bleeding.

Suddenly, every creak I heard in that old house came alive. I could imagine whispers coming from the flames. Every speck of blue dancing in the fire became a spirit showing itself to me just to see if I was paying attention.

When the fireplace was on I would tiptoe in and out of the room, keeping a wary eye on the hearth. If I was quiet, I thought, I would be safe.

It was creepy and sinister and a bit terrifying. And despite countless reassurances from my parents that a menacing other worldly being had not inhabited that gaping hole in the wall, I wasn’t convinced.

Even now, when the fireplace in the green room is lit, amber fluid seeps from the mantel and oozes over the layers and layers of paint applied to disguise where all the previous drips have been scraped off. And, now that I’m older, I understand it’s not unheard of for old homes built of heart pine to drip resin for years, the heat triggering the flow.

Perhaps the old house isn’t haunted after all — except for the footsteps my father sometimes hears clomping up the steep wooden staircase at night. The steps, oddly enough, are carpeted. PS

Emilee Phillips is PineStraw’s director of social media and digital content.

BY

Independent

Independent

Mother and Daughter Leann and Whitney Parker Look Forward to Welcoming You to WhitLauter.