August PineStraw 2024

“

— Mike Cavanaugh, Shop Manager

Browse Inventory, Get Pre-Approved, or Complete Paperwork

CURBSIDE PICK-UP & DELIVERY AVAILABLE FOR YOUR NEW CAR!

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

PINEHURST TOYOTA ADVANTAGE PLAN

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 their number-one priority. Interested in joining the family?

All-New 2025 Toyota Land Cruiser

Thanks to your support, we have won: Best of The Pines 2023 for the #1 Dealership Service Department. Schedule your appointment today to experience #1 Service

August ����

Cover Photograph by John Gessner

Lovely 3 BR / 2 BA split plan home with spacious layout and bright, open design. Home is situated in a peaceful setting! CAMERON • $298,000

Charming 3 BR / 2.5 BA home with large, fenced backyard, paver patio and fire pit. Main level is spacious with hardwood flooring and corner fireplace while the upper-level houses all 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths.

Attractive 3 BR / 2 BA home in Bethesda Farm community. Home has an open design layout and is situated on a nice lot surrounded by mature landscaping with fenced backyard. ABERDEEN•$310,000 1026 DEVONSHIRE TRAIL

Nice 0.48-acre lot in popular 7LN Community.

Nice 3 BR / 2.5 BA NEW CONSTRUCTION close to downtown Aberdeen. Layout bright and spacious with LVP flooring in main living area and quarts countertops in kitchen. ABERDEEN•$489,900 525 N. SYCAMORE STREET

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $78,000 143 SWARINGEN DRIVE 24 acres in peaceful Reynwood community. These parcels would be great for pasture and back up to Drowning Creek. **Owner Financing Available with 25% Down**

Nice lot in highly sought after Seven Lakes West community. This is a great opportunity to live in one of the area’s most popular lake and golf communities.

Picturesque lot offering a peaceful and serene setting among towering pines in gated equestrian community. FOXFIRE • $212,000 168 SECOND WIND COURT

Luxury Properties

Gorgeous 3 BR / 2.5 BA brick home overlooking the 4th green of the Beacon Ridge golf course. Home sits in a quite cul-de-sac of this wonderful community!

Attractive 4 BR / 3 BA brick home with nice open floorplan, beautiful kitchen and spacious lower level. Whole-house generator and new epoxy garage floor! SEVEN LAKES WEST • $565,000

PINEHURST • $1,040,000 80 PINEWILD DRIVE

DRIVE Beautiful 4 BR / 3.5 BA home on the 10th tee of the Magnolia course in Pinewild CC. Home has wonderful curb appeal with special features and fine finishes throughout.

SOUND DECISIONS

Whatever your musical jam, Weymouth Center’s got you covered. Join us for any one concert or subscribe to a full series and save!

Come Sunday Jazz Series:

August 25, 2024:

Mary D. Williams, Gospel vocalist

September 29, 2024:

Rebecca Kleinman, Brazilian Jazz

October 27, 2024:

Onyx Club Boys, Gypsy Jazz Swing

March 23, 2025:

Sarah Hanahan, Alto Saxophonist

April 27, 2025: John Brown, Double Bassist

May 18, 2025: Al Strong, Jazz Trumpet

Individual concerts start at $27.50. Series of 6 starts at $145 Subscribe and save $20. Student tickets available.

Chamber Sessions:

December 15: Friends of Weymouth Concert

February 2:

Sono Auros, Flute, Cello, Harp

April 13:

Tong/Sheppard Duo, Piano, Violin

May 11:

Astralis, Classical ensemble

Individual concerts start at $30. Series of 4 starts at $100. Subscribe and save $20. Student tickets available.

Also! Kicking off with One Wonderful Night on October 19th, we will have a moving play, Long Words, that will aim to tell the story of the Boyds and the history of Weymouth!

Scan the QR code for sibscription tickets and additional information! 555 East Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines, NC

Volume 20, No. 8

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, Stephen E. Smith

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

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

CONTRIBUTORS

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

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OWNERS

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In memoriam Frank Daniels Jr.

145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue, Southern Pines, NC 28387 www.pinestrawmag.com

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Jessica Tong

The Quiet of Nature

In an increasingly loud world, maybe we should be still and listen to nature

By Jim DoDsoN

It’s two hours before sunrise and, per my daily morning ritual, I’m sitting with my old cat, Boo Radley, in a wooden chair beneath the stars and a shining quarter-moon.

Today’s forecast calls for another summer scorcher. For the moment, however, the world around me is cool and amazingly quiet.

It’s the perfect moment to think, pray or simply listen to nature waking up.

In an hour or so, the world will begin to stir as folks rise and go about their daily lives. Nature will be drowned out by the white noise of commuter traffic, tooting horns and sirens.

But, for now, all I hear is the peaceful hoot of an owl somewhere off in the neighborhood trees, the fading chirr of crickets and the lonely bark of a dog a mile or two away. Amazing how sound carries in such a peaceful, quiet world.

Ah, there it is, right on cue! The first birdsong of the new day. I recognize the tune from a certain gray catbird that seems to enjoy starting the morning chorus. Soon, the trees around us will be alive with the morning melodies of Carolina warblers, eastern bluebirds and the northern cardinals. What a perfect way to lift a summer night’s curtain and herald the dawn!

Unfortunately, it’s a sound that Earth scientists fear may be vanishing before our very ears.

On a planet where many are concerned about the impacts of global warming, declining natural resources and vanishing species, it seems to me that noise pollution and the disappearing sounds of the natural world might be among the most worrying impacts of all.

A recent article in The Guardian alarmingly warns of a “deathly silence” they claim results from the accelerating loss of natural

habitats around the globe.

The authors note that sound has become an important measurement in understanding the health and biodiversity of our planet’s ecosystems. “Our forests, soils and oceans all produce their own acoustic signatures,” they write, noting that the quiet falling across thousands of habitats can be measured using ecoacoustics. They cite “extraordinary losses in the density and variety of species. Disappearing or losing volume along with them are many familiar sounds: the morning calls of birds, rustle of mammals through undergrowth and summer hum of insects.”

A veteran soundscape recordist named Bernie Krause, who has devoted more than 5,000 hours to recording nature from seven continents over the past 55 years, estimates that “70 percent of his archive is from habitats that no longer exist.”

As quiet natural places are drowned out by the sounds of freeways, cellphones and the daily grind of modern life, fortunately, a nonprofit group called Quiet Parks International is working to identify and preserve sacred quiet places in cities, wilderness areas and national parks, where all one hears — for the moment at least — is the beat of nature, the pulse of life in the wild.

“Quiet, I think, holds space for things we can’t verbalize as humans,” the group’s executive director, Matthew Mikkelsen, recently told CBS News. “We use silence as a way to honor things.” Quiet, he notes, is becoming harder and harder to find these days, even in the most remote wilderness or within the depths of the national parks. “Every year we see more and more data to reaffirm what we’ve known for a long time — that quiet is becoming extinct.”

Perhaps because I grew up in a series of sleepy small towns across the lower South, places where I spent most of my days wandering at will in nature, I’ve been groomed to be a seeker of natural silence and quiet places in my life.

The first decade of my journalism career was spent in major cities, embedded in the cacophony of busy streets, which ex-

plains why I bolted for the forests and rivers of northern New England the moment I had the chance to escape honking horns, blasting radios, screaming sirens and even background music in restaurants, a personal annoyance I’ve never quite fathomed.

Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by traveling in France and Italy and other ancient places. There, cafes and bistros are generally meant to foster a relaxed, slower pace of life through the auspices of good food, lingering conversations and woolgathering as one watches the harried world pass by.

It is no accident that I built my first house on a hilltop near the coast of Maine, surrounded by 200 pristine wooded acres of beech and hemlock trees. On summer evenings, my young children and I could hear the forest coming alive with sounds and often saw and heard wildlife — whitetail deer, pheasants and hawks, a large lady porcupine and even (once) a young male moose — gathering at the edges of our vast lawn where I created feeding areas of edible native plants for our wild neighbors. On frigid winter nights, I put on my Elmer Fudd jacket and toted 50-pound bags of sorghum out to that feeding spot by the edge of the woods, where deer and other critters could be seen dining in a moonlit night. The eerie late-night sound of coyotes calling deep in the forest reminded us that we were the newcomers to their quiet keep.

One reason I love the game of golf is because golf is a two- or three-hour adventure in nature where the simple elements of wind, rain, sand and water provide an existential challenge to mind and body. As a kid, I learned to play golf alone, walking my

father’s golf course in the late afternoon, when most of the older golfers had gone home. I came to love “solo golf” at a time of day when the shadows lengthened and the sounds of nature began to reawaken creatures great and small.

Golf courses, like libraries, are meant to be quiet places — which makes the recent trend of golf carts equipped with digital music systems particularly bothersome to a lover of nature’s quiet sounds.

Pause for a moment and just think what one can do in the quiet:

Read a good book.

Admire a sunset.

Rest and recover.

Take an afternoon nap.

Watch birds feed.

Write a letter.

Talk to the universe.

Say a prayer.

Grieve — or feel gratitude.

Think through a problem.

“In quietness,” says the book A Course in Miracles, “are all things answered.”

My heart aches when I hear that the world’s natural places may be going silent.

A world without nature’s quiet sounds would be a very lonely place.

Hopefully, we’ll learn to listen before it’s too late. PS

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

FAIRWOODSON7

215 INVERRARY ROAD - FAIRWOODS ON 7

Privacy on 4.8 acres in the prestigious Fairwoods ON 7. Expansive rooms awash in natural light, French doors, hardwood floors, gourmet kitchen with large island, Master bedroom with fireplace. Extra large covered brick patio, 3 bay conditioned garage with epoxy floor. Extensively renovated in 2022,new bathroom fixtures, new HVAC, fresh air system, encapsulated crawl space, insulated attic.

$2,495,000

4 AUGUSTA WAY - PINEHURST

Charming, Historic, one of a kind Estate on over 2 acres. Gorgeous property, expansive patio across the back of the home overlooking terraced gardens leading to the Pond. An abundance of light-filled rooms, open kitchen, family room, detailed moldings throughout, fireplaces, hardwood floors, wine cellar, hunt room.

$1,850,000

1655 FORT BRAGG ROAD - SOUTHERN PINES

Updated home on 2.5 acres. Inviting home with 3900sq ft, 6bd, 4ba, natural light filled rooms, eat-in kitchen with gas log fireplace. Front porch, back patio, lush lawn,flowering gardens, landscape enhancements. New paved driveway, fully fenced backyard, attached 2 car garage, 4 bay carport for RV, boat or cars.

$1,150,000

509 COTTAGE LANE - LONGLEAF CC

Soaring ceilings, large open spaces with natural light throughout. Charming home, handsome entry with stone walkway. An inviting foyer opens to an expansive view of the dining room, living room and sunny Carolina room. An open deck overlooks the golf course.

$585,000

5 WICKER LANE - PINEHURST

Just one mile from the Historic Village of Pinehurst. Spacious, open rooms, custom detail throughout, arched front-facing windows, plantation shutters, hardwood floors, handsome kitchen with large island. Special 41ft x 19ft Club room great for entertaining, fitness or guest quarters. Property on one acre.

$1,995,000

1645 MIDLAND ROAD - SOUTHERN PINES

Private, Historic gated estate on over 4 acres. Lovingly renovated and refurbished, nothing spared. Chef’s kitchen, luxurious primary suite with gas fireplace, new 40ft salt water pool, new concrete driveway, new well tank, new barn door that leads to the 3 car garage, new roof, and more.

$1,725,000

3 SODBURY COURT - COTSWOLD

Desirable home just two miles from the Historic Village of Pinehurst. All brick, spacious open rooms, high ceilings, crown molding, bright kitchen opening to a charming outdoor private space. Owner enclosed the back porch to enjoy the now year-round Carolina Room overlooking a park-light setting.

$625,000

1302 MOUNT WASHINGTON CIRCLE

One of the few townhome communities in Pinehurst, Bretton Woods. Surrounded by white picket fences and strategically placed homes bordering a central “Green”. Private back yard, new flooring, designer paint colors, plantation shutters, vaulted ceilings, master and guest bedrooms.

$375,000

PinePitch

Art Is All Around Us

Channel your inner art critic at the opening reception for the Arts Council of Moore County’s Fine Arts Festival from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 2, at the Campbell House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. In its 44th year, the festival provides a major platform for artists from all over the country to display their work. See which entries won cash prizes and ribbons, and gossip with your friends over whether or not you agree with the rulings. Go to mooreart.org for additional information. If your art appreciation runneth over you can attend the opening of “More Than Miniatures — Small Art” on the same day, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., at the Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. For information go to www.artistleague.org. Either way, your eyeballs get a workout.

Start Counting

Become a citizen scientist for a day on Saturday, Aug. 24, when North Carolina joins forces with Georgia, South Carolina and Florida in the Great Southeast Pollinator Census. The Williamson Pollinator Garden at the Ball Visitor’s Center at the Sandhills Horticultural Gardens at Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst, will be the site for the census from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Prior to the 24th, those wishing to participate should register for a 15-minute interval to count pollinator interactions on a designated plant. For more information and to register go to www.sandhills. edu/horticultural-gardens/upcoming-events.html.

Double Your Pleasure

The Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines, offers two operas from The Met this month. The first, La Cenerentola (Cinderella), by Gioachino Rossini, is the story of Angelina, the stepsister who serves as the family maid who sings her favorite song about a king who marries a common girl. Destiny, anyone? It shows at 1 p.m. on Aug. 3. The second opera, Turandot, by Giacomo Puccini, tells the tale of Prince Calaf, who must solve three riddles to win the hand of the cold Princess Turandot. It will be screened at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 24. For additional information visit www.sunrisetheater.com

On the Right

The James E. Holshouser Jr. Speaker Series presents L. Brent Bozell III, the founder and president of Media Research Center on Wednesday, Aug. 14, at 5 p.m. at BPAC’s Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Rd., Pinehurst. A lecturer, syndicated columnist, television commentator, author and activist, Bozell is one of the most outspoken leaders in the conservative movement. He has been a guest on numerous television programs, including the O’Reilly Factor, Nightline, The Today Show and Good Morning America. He appeared weekly on the “Media Mash” segment of Hannity, on Fox News. Bozell received his B.A. in history from the University of Dallas.

Warm Lighting, by Courtney Herndon. 2023, Best in Show winner

Funny Days

Take a riotous musical journey back to 1967 with Jeffrey Hatcher’s side-splitting comedy Mrs. Mannerly starring Linda Purl (The Office, Happy Days, Matlock) and Jordan Ahnquist (Shear Madness), beginning Friday, Aug. 2, at 8 p.m., in the intimate McPherson Theater at the Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Set in Steubenville, Ohio, this uproarious play follows the ambitious and mischievous young Jeffrey as he enrolls in an etiquette class taught by the formidable Mrs. Mannerly, a teacher with a mysterious past and a zero-tolerance policy for rudeness. The show continues with performances on Aug. 3, 4, 8, 9, 10 and 11. For tickets and information go to www. ticketmeshandhills.com or judsontheatre.com.

Jazz on the Green

The Sandhills Community College Jazz Band will feature the music of Henry Mancini and Stevie Wonder in its third and final concert of the 2024 Summer Concert Series on Monday, Aug. 12, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on the library green of the SCC campus, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Max’s Millstone BBQ will serve food beginning at 5 p.m. The concert is free and, in the event of rain, it will move inside to Owens Auditorium.

Live After 5

Dance part of the night away with the Raleigh band Punch, whose song list stretches from ’70s and ’80s funk and retro to Motown, beach, country and jazz, at the Village Arboretum, 375 Magnolia Road, Pinehurst, on Friday, Aug. 9, beginning at 5:15 p.m. Whiskey Pines will take the stage as the opening act. As always, there will be kids’ activities, food trucks, beer, wine and low-octane beverages. For more information go to www.vopnc.org

Authors in the House

The Country Bookshop brings bestselling writer Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun, to the stage of the Sunrise Theater at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 20, to discuss her latest novel, A Great Marriage. Then, on Thursday, Aug. 22, at 7 p.m., the bookshop, at 140 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines, will host Wall Street Journal reporter Valerie Bauerlein, who will discuss her much anticipated book, The Devil at his Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and Fall of a Southern Dynasty. For information and tickets to both events go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Farce in the Park

The Uprising Theatre Company will present William Shakespeare’s dang near slapstick saga of mistaken identity, The Comedy of Errors, beginning Friday, Aug. 16, from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the annual outdoor Shakespeare in the Pines production in Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road, Pinehurst. There will be additional performances on Aug. 17, 18, 23, 24 and 25. For more information go to www.vopnc.org or www.ticketmesandhills.com.

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO ATTEND

THE CAROLINA PHILHARMONIC’S 2024/25 SEASON

OPENING NIGHT: ETERNAL ECHOES - Saturday, October 26, 2024

The power of Beethoven, the beauty of Smetana and the fiery passion of Rachmaninoff in symphonic celebration, featuring the young American pianist Rachel Breen.

MOZART’S REQUIEM - Saturday, November 16, 2024

Maestro David Michael Wolff leads the Philharmonic, guest vocalists and a powerful chorus, in a poignant rendition of Mozart’s Requiem. (RE Lee Auditorium, Pinecrest HS)

HOLIDAY POPS - Friday, December 6th & Saturday, December 7th

Ring in the Holidays with a celebrated Pinehurst tradition.

PARISIAN PASSION - Saturday, February 22, 2025

Experience Parisian Passion with Kate Liu’s exquisite performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and the Philharmonic’s stirring rendition of Ravel’s Boléro under Maestro Wolff.

GENERATIONS - Saturday, March 22, 2025

The Carolina Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and Chorus in a tapestry of musical heritage and emerging brilliance led by Maestro Wolff.

RIPPLES OF SPRING - Saturday, May 3, 2025

Journey from the serene meadows of Copland’s Appalachian Spring to majestic skies of Sibelius’s Finlandia, culminating in the lyrical depths of Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1, featuring the artistry of an exceptional soloist

BROADWAY BLISS - Saturday, May 17, 2025

The timeless allure of Broadway hits performed by two captivating Broadway stars.

All performances start at 7:30PM in Owens Auditorium, BPAC, SandhillsCommunity College except Mozart’s Requiem (RE Lee Auditorium, Pinecrest HS).

Prelude to Promise

A FUNDRAISER TO SUPPORT The Carolina Phiharmonic’s Music Education Programs benefiting 3,500 Moore County children annually.

Friday, September 13th • 6:30-8:30PM The Pinehurst Fair Barn • $175/ per person

Festive Live & Silent Auctions • Exquisite hors d’oeuvres catered by Elliotts Catering Co

Exceptional musical entertainment!

Experience it Live!

To purchase tickets call (910) 687-0287 or visit the Box Office at 5 Market Square in the Village of Pinehurst

The Carolina Philharmonic is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Leo

(July 23 – August 22)

Impossible as it seems, someone dear forgets your birthday this month. Do you: a) attack them; b) discard them; or c) both? The new moon in Leo on August 4 spells reinvention and radical honesty. If there’s something — or someone — you’ve outgrown, there’s no need to make a production of it. That said, when Mercury enters your sign mid-month, your life becomes a bit of a Broadway musical. Take the stage and own it.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Try a fresh coat of paint.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Trust your bones.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Dot your i’s and cross your fingers.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

The world will keep spinning.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Dream a little bigger.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Don’t skip the cooldown.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Check the tread.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Pack your toothbrush.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

It’s time to go off-script.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Breathe between reps.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Leave some space for the miracle. 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.

More Than a Mystery

Murder haunts a college town

By A nne Blythe

The makings for

an ordinary crime thriller are present in Joanna Pearson’s first novel, but Bright and Tender Dark is anything but ordinary.

In the first few pages, Karlie, an alluring and enigmatic college student, is found dead in an off-campus apartment, brutally murdered, with no clear trail to the suspect. A former busboy with an eighth-grade education is in prison, conveniently convicted of her murder and serving time for a crime that shattered the tranquility of a college town.

The whodunnit aspect is there.

Joy, Karlie’s freshman year roommate and Pearson’s complicated protagonist, thinks the justice system got the wrong man. It is through Joy’s hunt for the real killer that we quickly realize Pearson’s book is a bit different from the traditional murder mystery. Layered on top is a retrospective investigation into the psychological ripple effects that Karlie’s dark death has had on the whole community, connecting seemingly unconnected people even two decades after it happened.

Pearson, a psychiatrist who lives in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area, is also a poet and short story writer who now can add literary crime fiction to her compilation of writing genres. Just as her short story collections show that her poetic style spans literary genres, Bright and Tender Dark shows that her storytelling skills extend beyond short stories to novels. Many of the chapters could stand alone as stories within the larger story.

Pearson is masterful at character building. We meet Joy in the

throes of middle age. She’s a mother of two finding a new footing after a painful divorce, assessing and reassessing her life. That evaluation creates the springboard for bouncing between two critical times in her life: the present, in which her ex is about to become a father again with his new wife; and the past, for which she has a new obsession, a decades-old murder.

Part of her compulsion comes from an unopened letter that Joy’s teenage son, Sean, finds in a book of John Donne poetry he has borrowed for English class.

It’s from Karlie.

“The letter has made a long and improbable voyage through time after being tucked away and forgotten, never even opened,” Pearson writes. “A miracle. An artifact of an oldfashioned epistolary era. Sean hands the letter to Joy with the solemnity of someone who has grown up on Snapchat. Joy’s hands tremble at the sight of the familiar handwriting. She dare not open it.”

Joy had been taking long walks alone at night, unable to sleep. Words and phrases reverberated through her mind as it raced. “Constitutionally unhappy.” That’s how her husband had described her as their marriage was blowing up. It had been “oppressive” for him, he said.

“He made the unhappiness sound like the core feature of her personality,” Pearson writes. “A suffocating force. The way that Joy looked at the world, pinched and vigilant, bracing for fire ants, falling branches, and tax deadlines, rather than celebrations. But her unhappiness allowed her to get things done!”

Joy eventually musters the courage to open that letter from Karlie. It was written in December 1999, shortly before her death, and is filled with exclamation points and underlined words — Karlie’s “characteristic arbitrary overuse of emphasis” on full display. But the letter holds a clue, one that Joy has not seen in any of the coverage of Karlie’s death, a mention of a BMW that had been pulling up outside her apartment. In the letter Karlie wonders whether it was Joy, but Joy didn’t have a BMW, nor had she been following Karlie to her apartment. Now, nearly two decades later, Joy is determined to find out who it was.

The search takes her back to old haunts in Chapel Hill, where Joy and Karlie went to college and where Joy still lives. She spirals into the depths of internet conspiracy theorists and true-crime Reddit platforms.

Pearson introduces an intriguing cast of characters: the predatory professor who woos his female students; the mother of the man doing time for the crime; the transgender night manager of the apartment building where Karlie was killed; the teenage son of a police chief on the high school soccer team with Joy’s son; people in cult-like religious groups; and more.

She takes her readers on a journey of discovery, giving them a glimpse of each character’s flaws and leaving open the possibility that they might be the killer, while also revealing clues that raise doubts about their potential guilt.

For anyone aware of high profile murders in Chapel Hill over the past couple of decades, there might seem to be some similarities with the 2012 killing of UNC sophomore Faith Hedgepeth and the 2008 death of UNC student body president Eve Carson. But at readings and in published interviews, Pearson has said the book is not based on a true crime. It’s fiction, although as a writer and engaged resident in the area, Pearson acknowledges that she cannot escape true events that continue to haunt the community. Writers write what they know.

Readers will appreciate Pearson’s adroit descriptions of Chapel Hill, places both real and imagined. She takes you onto campus, inside its buildings, and across its many grassy quads and wooded edges. Spots on Franklin Street and in downtown Carrboro are recognizable, as are near-campus neighborhoods.

As Pearson explores the mystery of an inexplicable crime in her novel, she also delves into the many mysteries of the mind. Her novel is a dark, yet tender and bright study of the void a death creates in a community, and the way people use that memory to make sense of themselves. PS

Anne Blythe has been a reporter in North Carolina for more than three decades covering city halls, higher education, the courts, crime, hurricanes, ice storms, droughts, floods, college sports, health care and many wonderful characters who make this state such an interesting place.

Redefining Community and Active Living

Introducing Penick Village’s Newest Expansion, redefining retirement living and elevating it to new heights.

Crafted Residences: Experience the perfect blend of luxury and comfort in our 44 Independent Living residences, thoughtfully designed to provide a stylish space where you can truly feel at home.

Redefining Community and Active Living

Introducing Penick Village’s Newest Expansion, redefining retirement living and elevating it to new heights.

Embrace an Active Lifestyle: Indulge in activities at our state-of-the-art Wellness Pavilion, from Pickleball to personal training and more. Each designed to keep you healthy and engaged in the community.

Exceptional Healthcare: The Terrace, our health services building, will be enhanced and renovated, ensuring personalized care, whether short-term therapy or long-term care.

Crafted Residences: Experience the perfect blend of luxury and comfort in our 44 Independent Living residences, thoughtfully designed to provide a stylish space where you can truly feel at home.

Embrace an Active Lifestyle: Indulge in activities at our state-of-the-art Wellness Pavilion, from Pickleball to personal training and more. Each designed to keep you healthy and engaged in the community.

Welcoming Environment: Feel right at home from the moment you arrive. Our updated Welcome House and friendly staff are here to greet you and your guests into our community.

Exceptional Healthcare: The Terrace, our health services building, will be enhanced and renovated, ensuring personalized care, whether short-term therapy or long-term care.

Welcoming Environment: Feel right at home from the moment you arrive. Our updated Welcome House and friendly staff are here to greet you and your guests into our community.

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

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

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FICTION

Villa E, byJaneAlison

August Books

Along the glittering coast of southern France, a white villa sits atop an earthen terrace — a site of artistic genius, now subject to bitter dispute. Eileen Gray, a new architect known for her elegant chair designs, poured the concrete herself; she built it as a haven for her and her lover, and called it E-1027. When the famed Swiss architect Le Corbusier, a founder of modernist architecture, laid eyes on the house in 1929, he could see his influence in the sleek lines. Impassioned, he took a paintbrush to the clean white walls. Thirty years later, Eileen has not returned to Villa E and Le Corbusier has never left — his summers spent aging in a cabin just feet away. Mining the psyches of two brilliant, complex artists and the extraordinary place that bound them, Alison turns a now-legendary act of vandalism into a lushly poetic and mesmerizing novel of power, predation and obsession.

A Sorceress Comes to Call, by T. Kingfisher

In a dark reimagining of “The Goose Girl” fairytale, Cordelia knows her mother is . . . unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms — there are no secrets in this house — and her mother doesn’t allow Cordelia to have a single friend, unless you count Falada, her mother’s beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t evil sorcerers. When her mother unexpectedly moves them into the manor home of a wealthy older squire and his kind but keen-eyed sister, Hester, Cordelia knows this welcoming pair are to be her mother’s next victims. But Cordelia feels at home for the very first time among these people, and as her mother’s plans darken, she must decide how to face the woman who raised her to save the people who have become like family.

NONFICTION

Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party: How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World, by Edward Dolnick

In the early 1800s a 12-year-old farm boy in Massachusetts stumbled on a row of fossilized three-toed footprints the size of dinner plates — the first dinosaur tracks ever found. Soon, in England, Victorians unearthed enormous bones that reached as high as a man’s head. No one had ever imagined that creatures like three-toed giants had once lumbered across the land. And, even if someone had somehow conjured up such a scene, they would never have imagined that all those animals could have vanished hundreds of millions of years ago. The thought of sudden, arbitrary disappearance from life was unnerving and forced the Victorians to rethink everything they knew about the world. In Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, Dolnick leads us through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the first half of the 19th century puzzled their way through the fossil record to create the story of dinosaurs we know today.

Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest to Shape Our World, by Anupreeta Das Few billionaires have been in the public eye for as long, and in as many guises, as Bill Gates. At first heralded as a tech visionary, the Microsoft cofounder next morphed into a ruthless capitalist, only to change yet again when he fashioned himself into a global do-gooder. Along the way, Gates forever influenced how we think about tech founders, as the products they make and the ideas they sell continue to dominate our lives. Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he also set a new standard for high profile, billionaire philanthropy. But there is more to Gates’ story, and here, Das’ revelatory reporting shows us that billionaires have secrets, and philanthropy can have a dark side. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with current and former employees of the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, academics, nonprofits and those with insight into the Gates universe, Das delves into Gates’ relationships with Warren Buffett, Jeffrey Epstein, Melinda French Gates and others, to uncover the truths behind the public persona.

Pines, NC 28387

I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine, by Daniel Levitin

At Homeward Kitchen, there’s nothing we love more than a good home-cooked meal. But we know that when life gets demanding, home-cooked meals are fewer and farther between. Our mission is to help families get back to what matters most: time spent together.

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally. 10735 South US 15-501

Music is one of humanity’s oldest medicines. From the Far East to the Ottoman Empire, Europe to Africa and the pre-Colonial Americas, many cultures have developed their own rich traditions for using sound and rhythm to ease suffering, promote healing and calm the mind. In his latest work, Levitin explores the curative powers of music, showing us how and why it is one of the most potent therapies today. He brings together the results of numerous studies on music and the brain, demonstrating how music can contribute to the treatment of a host of ailments, from neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, to cognitive injury, depression and pain.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Tiny Jenny, by Briony May Smith

In one of the great opening lines in a picture book, Tiny Jenny begins: “Mr. and Mrs. Wren were very surprised when a baby fairy hatched from one of their eggs.” Just as readers fell in love with Smith’s Margaret’s , they’ll fall equally in love with this quirky, wise, clever baby fairy, Tiny Jenny. (Ages 2-7.)

The Quacken, by Justin Colón

Every summer camp has legendary creepy campfire tales, but this tale just might quack you up in addition to creeping you out just a little bit. Read the book, tell the story, but whatever you do, don’t feed the ducks. Silly scariness for fans of the Creepy Carrots! series. (Ages 4-7.)

Prunella, by Beth Ferry

Instead of ferns, she grew fungi. This alone should have alerted Prunella’s green-thumbed parents to the idea that their girl was different in a wonderful way. Both a celebration of amazing children and unusual plants, Prunella is the perfect book for woods wanderers and summer celebrations. (Ages 3-7.)

The Yellow Bus, by Loren Long

Trucks, tractors, yellow buses, they all have jobs to do and they just might have stories to tell. In the hands of the amazing creator of the beloved Otis the Tractor series, those stories just might surprise you. Perfect for back-to-school tables and for an anytime readtogether, The Yellow Bus might just leave readers wondering what other vehicles have surprising stories to share. (Ages 4-7.) PS

AT LISI MARKET

Photograph by Matthew Gibson

By Bill Fields

There was a lot going on in the summer of ’68, much of it heavy and consequential. But being only 9 years old during those tumultuous months, I was mostly oblivious to the real-world turmoil and focused on things that mattered to a rising fourth-grader.

Swimming — or more accurately, being at a pool — was near the top of the list.

We were not really a swimming family. Mom loved excursions to a lake or the ocean but was mostly an observer, content to take in the water from a dock or beach, and only occasionally getting in up to her thighs to cool off. She was a hawk-eyed sentry on shore, real or imagined rip currents a specialty. There is home movie footage of Mom in a suburban Atlanta hotel window waving me out of the pool’s deep end. Dad enjoyed floating on his back just beyond the breaking waves at Ocean Drive on annual vacations, a pleasure that guaranteed angst for my watchful mother.

I can’t blame all my early swimming trepidation on my mother. Before I had started first grade, my older cousins were in town for a visit and lodging at the Charlton Motel. Getting to go over there for a dip with them in a real pool — instead of the modest Sears above-ground model in our yard whose plastic bottom always felt slimy and whose primary focus seemed to be attracting bugs of one sort or another — was a big deal. My cousin Bob, treading water near the diving board and wrongly believing I knew how to swim, urged me to jump in. I thought he was going to catch me. There were a few moments of panic before Bob realized what was going on and scooped me up and carried me to the shallow end.

I soon would learn how to dog paddle. Aberdeen Lake, Rec Department outings to the Southern Pines town pool, White Lake and the rare family road trip motel pools were my learning

In the Swim

The summer of staying afloat

laboratories. Whether in murky or clear waters, though, I was still a novice.

That’s why 1968, which I call the Summer of Sore Toes, was important.

My sister Dianne and her husband, Bob, hosted me for a visit in Winston-Salem, where they had gone to Wake Forest. It was a memorable week. They showed me the college campus, treated me to cherry Slurpees at 7-Eleven, took me to an aquarium-fish store that featured a tank of piranhas. My sister baked lasagna and made tacos, exotic fare given the basic Southern food Mom and Dad served at home. They were living in a Winston-Salem apartment complex whose best feature was a pool, where I was determined to spend much of my time.

With Dianne patiently poolside with a good book or three keeping a loose eye on her little brother, I spent hours in the water. Bob, an excellent swimmer and former lifeguard, joined me in the pool when he got back from his graduate school classes and tried to help me get more comfortable and proficient in the water.

The dog paddle evolved into a reasonable freestyle stroke I could do a full lap with. I proudly learned how to do a dead man’s float. I still was too timid to go off the diving board, but I got bold enough to dive in from the pool’s edge — over and over and over. The rim had a rough concrete surface, and we helped Eckerd’s bottom line with the Band-Aids put into duty over those seven days, the week I became a swimmer.

About a decade later, when I was at Carolina, students had to pass a swim test to graduate — the requirement was staying afloat for five minutes in the manner of your choosing: swim, tread water, float. If you couldn’t pass, a physical education swimming class was in your future. I confidently signed up for the test, arrived at the appointed time, dove into the 10-foot-deep water, and had no problem lasting until the monitor’s whistle of success. If only calculus had been as easy. PS

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

MOORE COUNTY

CARLOS MIGUEL PRIETO, MUSIC DIRECTOR

Beethoven

Symphony No. 8

THU, SEP 26, 2024 | 7:30PM

Joseph Peters, conductor

Farrenc: Symphony No. 3

Beethoven: Symphony No. 8

Beethoven Piano

Concerto No. 3

THU, NOV 14, 2024 | 7:30PM

Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor

Stephen Hough, piano

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3

Brahms: Symphony No.1

Holiday Pops

THU, DEC 12, 2024 | 7:30PM

Celebrate the season with festive holiday favorites and your North Carolina Symphony.

Concert Sponsor: Aging Outreach Services

Mozart “Jupiter”

Symphony

THU, APR 10, 2025 | 7:30PM

Mozart: Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter”

Dichotomies & Gaps

Frank Campion’s examinations in paint

By liz A RoBeRts

Clemmons-based artist Frank Campion brings a cerebral tenacity to his explorations of color and geometry. A series of paintings examining vertical slices of abstracted landscape evolves into another, which juxtaposes rational and random compositional styles, which then gives way to pieces addressing the spaces between those dichotomies. Gap, a recent painting, explores all of that, with the added dimension of a snippet of a view, a depiction of the ways our eyes take in the world before us.

Lately, it’s been hard work. “Sometimes artists have this conceit that everything they touch is going to turn to gold,” he says. “The truth is that it rarely does. So you have to make a lot of messes.” Gap, for instance, is “coming out of the midst of exploring where things might go.”

Campion says 2024 has been a year of just that, of “mucking

about, cutting stuff up and putting it back together again. It’s a fun way to work because you can move stuff around without committing to it. It ends up looking like it’s fall in the studio: There’s leaves everywhere, and I’m just sort of blowing them around.”

He made his Dichotomies series by taping off one side of the canvas and painting the other “until it looked interesting.” Then he’d cover that painted side with newspaper and go to work on the blank one. When it was complete, he’d unveil the full canvas to himself. “There are moments when it’s really kind of interesting,” he says. “I have a vague memory of what the other side was like when I peel the tape and the newspaper off, and sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s not.”

Gap represents his current interest in “playing around with the idea of gaps and alleys and fissures, looking for a looser way of working. Instead of having two fields to work with, I’m seeing what happens in between them.”

To watch Campion paint is to witness intuitive creativity at work. Once, on a studio visit, he pulled a canvas to the floor and stared at it for a moment before tipping a bucket of paint onto its blank expanse. The paint was gray and viscous. It splashed indiscriminately, like muddy water. He studied it for a moment, then tipped the bucket again and again and again, finally picking up a broom-scaled squeegee to push and pull it back and forth.

Gap, 2024 by Frank Campion. 21 x 42 inches, acrylic and rag paper.

As starry splotches became ghostly shapes beneath a paler scrim, this respected painter looked for all the world like a pensive janitor, mopping the floor.

The result, weeks later, belied those humble beginnings. Sharp geometry, deep blue, soft orange and acid yellow layered the gray-splashed canvas with subtlety and contrast, dimension and structure. Pieces of gray remained, muddying some of the bright shades, swirling in tendrils on the margins.

“I like color. I like emotion,” Campion says. “I like the collision of chaos and order.” What viewers see in his work includes all of that, but most of all, he says, it’s what they bring to it themselves. “One of the things I like about abstraction is that it’s a kind of mirror. It’s a challenge.”

Campion works in a modernist showpiece of a studio he designed and attached to his house in a residential neighborhood (a contractor likened the space to the spot where Ferris Bueller’s friend Cameron’s father parked his ill-fated Ferrari). It’s a space that challenges him, delightedly so. Miles Davis plays on a continuous loop, art books fill side tables, sunlight pours through a ceiling of skylights; there’s room for giant canvases and places to sit and talk. The floor is a mosaic of speckled paint, and so is he.

Zarrab, 2023 by Frank Campion. 42 x 84 inches.

ART OF THE STATE

a Harvard-educated man who came to prominence as a young artist in Boston in the 1980s. Campion had collectors, critically successful solo shows, and was in group shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art and Boston Museum of Fine Arts (where one of his paintings is in the permanent collection). Then he became disillusioned with all of it, walked away from art completely, and immersed himself for more than 30 years in a successful advertising career.

That’s what brought him to Winston-Salem, a top job at ad firm Long, Haymes & Carr where accounts like IBM, Hanes Hosiery and Wachovia Bank and Trust Co. kept things interesting. “It was a great ride,” he says, “very creative.” After that, painting called him back.

From the beginning, color has been a main attraction. So has tension. Campion says he’s constantly intrigued by “the imposition of geometry, with its logical and rational right angles and parallel lines, pitted against a painterly catastrophe.”

His description of such a catastrophe sounds like the musings of a man in love with his work: “It’s random spills and splats, and drippy, sloppy paint. Thick paint, thin paint, rational form against random painterly incident. When I look at all the things I’ve worked on, that’s a consistent theme.” PS

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

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Chartreuse Swizzle

stoRy

A nd P hotogRAPh By tony CRoss

In 2003, San Francisco bartender Marcovaldo Dionysos entered his city’s cocktail competition for the fifth year in a row, pining for top honors. The contest was sponsored by the French herbal liqueur Green Chartreuse. According to cocktail historian Robert Simonson, Dionysos considered sitting out the year’s competition. “I didn’t have any great ideas,” Dionysos remembers. “I decided to make something fun and went in a tropical direction.” His idea nabbed first place that year and has since popped up in cocktail bars across the country and the world, becoming a modern classic.

Dionysos’ cocktail, the “Chartreuse Swizzle,” combined the herbal liqueur with pineapple and lime juices, Velvet Falernum (a low-ABV rum liqueur made with almonds, cloves and lime) and mint. Commonly made with rum, “swizzles” can be potent. They’re usually mixed with fruit juices and a sweetener, built and mixed in the drinking glass with a swizzle stick. Originally, these pronged sticks came from trees native to Bermuda, but the garden-variety lookalikes are made of metal, plastic or wood. One of my first introductions to Green Chartreuse was Dionysos’ Swizzle. For such a high proof (and pricy) spirit, it’s a little shocking how popular it became. What’s not surprising is how the four ingredients complement each other for a perfect tiki-themed sipper.

SPECIFICATIONS

1 1/2 ounces Green Chartreuse

1 ounce fresh pineapple juice

3/4 ounce fresh lime juice

1/2 ounce Velvet Falernum

Garnish: mint sprigs

EXECUTION

Combine all ingredients into a Collins glass and add pebble (or crushed) ice. Insert a swizzle stick or barspoon into the mixture, rubbing your hands together to “swizzle” the stick until frost appears outside the glass. Add more ice and garnish with mint. PS

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

Simple and Savory

Crêpes are more than just breakfast

stoRy A nd P hotogRAPh By Rose shewey

As an on-again, off-again student of the French language, I wince at how English speakers pronounce crêpes. Call me a stickler for detail, but the correct pronunciation is not craypes but, repeat after me, crehp, which rhymes with step — short “e” and silent “s.”

If the sound of crehp earns you blank stares or confused looks the next time you’re out for lunch, don’t fret; it’s a common reaction. Just stand your ground and bask in the glow of your linguistic excellence. Attempting the guttural “r” when saying crêpes helps tremendously but, regrettably, also makes you sound a tad pretentious, so keep that in mind. Or you could simply mumble the word in a noncommittal fashion and be done with it — a strategy my husband successfully uses to avoid attention on all counts.

Language intricacies aside, crêpes epitomize simplicity. As a lover of folkways, crêpes fit the bill for me, and not just as a culinary feature. You can make crêpes, as some people still do, with literally two ingredients: flour and water. That’s it. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

The history of crêpes illustrates this well enough. They likely originated in the sea-swept northwest of France as a street food for laborers and townsfolk, though some claim the French pancake dates back to the 5th century when they were first offered to French Catholic pilgrims visiting Rome for Candlemas. Nevertheless, it’s a simple food with a thousand and one variations. You do not need a hot iron and rozelle to make beautiful crêpes — a simple skillet and spatula are perfectly adequate tools.

For a playful twist on hearty crêpes (also called galettes in some regions), mix fresh nettles, wild garlic or spinach into the batter. Not only will it enhance the flavor but add a little velvety texture to your crêpes. As for filling them, the sky’s the limit.

Spinach

Crêpes

(Makes about 8)

Place spinach in a food processor and pulse. Add flour, eggs, milk, nutmeg and salt. Blend to make a smooth batter. Heat oil or butter in a skillet over medium/ high heat. Add just enough batter to cover the base of the pan and cook until small bubbles appear on the surface, then flip and briefly cook on the other side. Fill crêpes with your favorite ingredients. We like ricotta cheese, fried egg, mushrooms and sautéed veggies, such as tomatoes, asparagus, onions and peas. PS

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

Ingredients

3/4 cup fresh spinach

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 eggs

2 cups whole milk

Pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Pinch salt

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By deBoRA h sA lomon

WhenDigesting dinner for $1,000, Ken

Jeopardy! starts appearing in obits you know it has become part of Americana without being slapstick or offensive. Instead, the 30-minute TV show elevates erudition to entertainment on several levels. This isn’t just another quiz show. This one has heft.

Recently, a deceased fan was memorialized for shouting out loud when he scored an answer. Because it owns the 7 p.m. time slot, family members are still gathered for dinner, so competition gets keen. I’ve visited homes where a kitchen TV enables simultaneous eating and watching, normally forbidden but here allowed as “educational.”

I am a long-term addict as were my kitties Lucky and Missy, who — I kid you not — would appear for their nightly tussle to the opening music.

I’m convinced the mystique began and ended with Alex Trebek, the Canadian-born host, somewhat professorial, yet friendly, in impeccably tailored suits and clipped mustache. No rowdiness or slapstick screech as on Wheel of Fortune or (ugh) Family Feud, which I call “Family Lewd.”

Trebek died in 2020, at 80, having hosted his last show a few days before his death. In July the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor. Fittingly, the stamp bears not a likeness, but a question. The answer: Alex Trebek.

Settling on a replacement was a rigorous task undertaken by producers who paraded out a series of pretty and not-so-pretty faces, including the NFL’s Aaron Rodgers. In my book they were all chocolate syrup on chopped liver, but none as bad as Mayim Bialik, of zero charisma, a wardrobe from hell and embarrassing flubs. Bialik proved so painful I stopped watching for a while.

Then came Ken Jennings, the $2.5 million-winning contestant with no hosting experience, only a sweet smile and endearing lisp. OMG, I thought, they’ve got Doogie Howser subbing for Sir Laurence Olivier.

But the little Munchkin in Ivy League uniform has grown on me, although I get the occasional vibe that he’d rather be answering the questions than asking them.

However, other changes — some during Trebek’s reign — don’t fare as well. Categories are esoteric, more specialized. Science, for example, demands professional credentials. I’m not bad at opera, art, food, lit, famous people, politics and vocabulary, but preVictorian English kings are just a bunch of Roman numerals. As for geography, I’m lost beyond the Balkans, especially Asia and the Middle East. Africa? Not a clue. But this backfires, comically — upping the difficulty causes contestants to bypass obvious but often correct answers. The result? More players are professionals with photographic memories, sharpening their skills at trivia contests.

I wasn’t familiar with trivia contests. How would you study given the breadth of material? What criteria, I wondered, do the question-writers employ?

Next detraction: spin-offs, almost as prolific as Oreo flavors. Several levels of “masters” tournaments are OK. But daytime Jeopardy!, college Jeopardy!, celebrity Jeopardy!, teen Jeopardy! the “second chance” tournament et al. dilute the appeal.

I learned that how you operate the buzzer is almost as important as knowing the answer. I’ve also observed that, generally speaking, men do better than women, and that a notable number of contestants are attorneys.

Other emotions color my enjoyment. A few champions have been obnoxious, even poor sports when faced with defeat. My heart goes out to those so nervous or under-prepared that they flame out before “Final Jeopardy.”

But Jennings’ ties never disappoint, even if my acuity does.

Whatever . . . watching Jeopardy! is like eating a healthy fudge sundae, even when my critiques hit closer to home than my answers.

Now, here’s one for ya: Whither the name? And why the exclamation mark? Jeopardy is a horse-racing term but the punctuation, forever an enigmatic Daily Double. PS

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

The Stately Little Blue

A summer visitor dressed in white

By susA n CA mPBell

Late summer can be an especially exciting time for birders. We need not travel far to find unexpected visitors. Weather events may cause individuals to be blown off track and show up in the neighborhood. These lost birds may stick around for mere hours. However, in other instances, it may be a more deliberate response to environmental conditions that brings them our way.

One bird that frequently appears in wet areas later in the summer is the little blue heron. And it may not be just one, but several of them, that show up. Furthermore, they are not usually blue. This is because young of the year (which these inland wanderers almost always are) are actually white. Except for the very tips of the wing feathers — usually a challenge to make out — these birds are covered with white feathers. Unlike the great or snowy egret, which also may turn up in the Piedmont or Sandhills at this time of year, the bill of these small herons is pinkish gray, and the legs are greenish.

All of these white waders may be spotted in shallow wet habitats — streams, small ponds, water hazards, retention areas, etc. Little blue herons may be by themselves, mixed with other white, long-legged waders, or even with the much larger great blue heron. Little blues can be identified by their more upright foraging posture, their slow, deliberate movements, and a downward angled bill as they stalk prey. Unlike other smaller waders, they will hunt in deeper water, often all the way up to their bellies.

Little blues watch for not only small fish but frogs and crayfish, as well as large aquatic insects. It is thought that their coloration allows them to blend in inconspicuously with similar white species. The association then provides protection from predators. Also, it has been found that little blues are significantly more

successful predators when foraging alongside great egrets. These larger birds are likely to stir up the water as they move after underwater prey, which can then flush a meal in the direction of nearby little blues.

It takes these herons at least a year to develop adult plumage, not unlike white ibis — who sport dark plumage their first summer and fall — which also breed along our coast. They may have a pied appearance for a time in late winter or early spring. By April they will be a slatey blue-gray all over with a handsome bluish bill. Unlike our other wading birds, they lack showy head or neck plumes. They are also unique in having projections on their middle toes that form a comb, which is used as an aid when grooming.

Unfortunately this species has experienced an alarming drop in population numbers across North America over the past halfcentury. Loss of coastal wetland habitat, continued declines in water quality, and elimination as a nuisance in fish hatcheries all are thought to be contributing to the decline. So be sure to stop and appreciate these stately birds should you come across one — regardless of when or where you happen to be. PS

Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted by email at susan@ncaves.com, or by calling (910) 585-0574.

A Tornado of Butterflies

The marvel of swallowtails “puddling”

A nd P hotogRAPhs By todd P usseR

On a hot spring day in the North Carolina foothills, near the town of Morganton, I went looking for a fish. Not just any run-of-the-mill fish, mind you, but a greenhead shiner. Granted, the greenhead shiner is not much to look at most of the year and does indeed look like a run-of-the-mill minnow. But come late spring and early summer, when water temperatures warm up in the prelude to spawning season, the shiner turns into a tropical splendor. The coloration of its body magically morphs from a bland, silverish hue to radiant neon red, complete with brilliant white fins and a white head. A couple of hundred greenheads schooling in shallow water look like something straight out of the Great Barrier Reef.

Like many quests, sometimes you find something totally unexpected. On this day, I stumbled upon a cluster of intriguing critters equally as colorful and

tropical-looking as the shiners. Rounding the bend of a tiny creek with a heavy underwater camera housing in tow, I flushed a swarm of eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies from off the ground. The sudden fluttering of dozens of dainty wings around my head took my breath away. A shaft of sunlight penetrating through the canopy above illuminated their bright yellow and black wings, causing the butterflies to positively glow in the shaded forest. The effect was enchanting.

I remained absolutely still as the butterfly tornado continued to swirl around my head. Eventually, one by one, the swallowtails settled back to the sandy ground near the edge of the water. I counted well over 40 of the winged wonders, easily the most butterflies I have seen in one spot in North Carolina.

I was completely unprepared for photographing a butterfly convention. The wide-angle fisheye lens, buried within the bowels of my underwater housing, was not the tool of choice for documenting this phenomenon. So, I did what I had to do. Forgetting about the fish for the moment, I took several steps back and carefully placed my underwater housing on the ground. Then, as fast as I could, I walked to my car several hundred yards away to retrieve another camera and a more appropriate telephoto lens, all the while hoping that the colorful mass would remain.

Twenty minutes later I returned and, to my

stoRy

relief, found the butterflies still there. Lying flat on the ground, I started to frame the action. Now with the aid of a 400mm lens, in my viewfinder I could clearly make out the long tongues of the butterflies probing the sand. The swallowtails were engaged in a behavior that entomologists term as “puddling.”

It works something like this: By sticking their long tongues into the damp mud, butterflies suck up minerals from the ground. Research has shown that most of these puddling aggregations involve males, who load up their spermatophores with essential salts, which they then present as “gifts” to receptive females during courtship. In a nutshell, puddling is a butterfly frat party.

Swallowtail butterflies are frequent puddlers, and do so around the world in large, densely packed groups. Globally, scientists recognize over 600 species of swallowtails. The family includes the remarkable and highly endangered Queen Alexandra’s birdwing of Papua New Guinea, the largest of all butterflies, whose wings can stretch more than 11 inches from wingtip to wingtip. Alfred Russel Wallace, the eminent British biologist (and co-describer of the Theory of Evolution with Charles Darwin), was so enamored with birdwing butterflies that when he caught his first in the Molucca Islands in 1859, he remarked, “I was nearer fainting with delight and excitement than I have ever been in my life; my heart beat violently, and the blood rushed to my head, leaving a headache for the rest of the day.”

Closer to home, swallowtails, with their large size, vibrant

colors and propensity for visiting backyard gardens, are the quintessential butterflies for most people and attract legions of fans, even among those who despise insects. According to the recently published book Butterflies of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia, eight species of swallowtails are regularly found in the state.

Still belly-down in the mud, I continued to photograph the frenetic activity. Butterflies were constantly fluttering about, rising up into the air and settling back down on the bank. Unlike Wallace, my heart was not beating violently in my chest, and I had no headache. Still, after an hour observing the spectacle in the afternoon heat, I had worked up quite the sweat and was getting rather thirsty. Like the probing butterflies, I needed some essential sodium — not from the mud — but from a fruit punch Gatorade buried inside an icy cooler in the back of my car.

I squeezed off a few more frames highlighting the extended “tails” on the hindwing of one particularly handsome individual, a trait that gives the family its common name. Satisfied with the images, I got up from the ground, dusted myself off, and slowly walked back toward the car and much-needed sustenance. 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.

Bryson’s Bunker

Another shot for the ages

By lee PACe

The thread from 1999 to 2024 is quite eerie indeed.

Payne Stewart and Bryson DeChambeau, each of them a former golfer from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Each of them with a youthful connection to Pinehurst and its esteemed No. 2 course, Stewart from having visited for a month in 1979 to play a local mini-tour rota, and DeChambeau coming annually with the Mustang golf team to play a fall match against a local school like Wake Forest or North Carolina at the behest of Bob Dedman Jr., the owner of the resort, and a graduate and benefactor of SMU.

Each of them maturing into gracious champions after hiccups as younger players with instances of churlish or snippy behavior with fellow competitors or tournament officials.

And each of them playing in the final group of the U.S. Open and arriving at the 18th tee with history in the balance.

Stewart in 1999 needs a par to hold off playing partner Phil Mickelson, but his tee shot on the uphill, par-4 finishing hole misses the fairway to the right. He’s in 5 inches of suffocating rough, the grass wet on a cool, misty day. He punches out, has 78 yards to the hole, hits a three-quarter sand wedge to 20 feet short of the back-right hole location.

Stewart makes the putt, and his right-hand fist pump, right-leg extension celebratory pose will be immortalized on film and later in bronze for the ages.

“Perfect — a perfect way to win,” Stewart said. “I think every-

one in the field will attest to how great No. 2 is, to what a special place Pinehurst is. To win here means a lot to me.”

DeChambeau in 2024 needs a par to hold off Rory McIlroy, who’s playing one group ahead. He yanks his tee shot left of the fairway, the ball traveling more than 300 yards uphill and coming to rest under a magnolia tree, up against a root and sitting on the native hardpan sand that was exposed during the 2010-11 Coore & Crenshaw course restoration. He has 147 yards to the hole, punches out, and the ball comes to rest in a bunker sitting front right of the green.

He has 54 yards to the traditional final day, back right pin. He uses his immense physical strength to explode out of the sand to 4 feet, then makes the putt. As the ball rolls into the cup, DeChambeau extends both arms, arches his back, looks to the heavens and sets off on several seconds of unabashed joy.

“That bunker shot was the shot of my life,” DeChambeau said. “I’ll forever be thankful that I’ve got longer wedges, so I can hit it farther, get up there next to the hole.”

So now Payne’s Putt has alongside it Bryson’s Bunker in the pantheon of all-time greatest shots — not only in 129 years of Pinehurst history, but also in major championship golf.

Jack Nicklaus’s 1-iron hitting the flag at Pebble Beach in 1972, Tom Watson’s chip-in at Pebble a decade later, Seve Ballesteros’s winning putt at St. Andrews in 1984, Bob Tway’s bunker dunk at Inverness to win the 1986 PGA Championship, Tiger Woods’ chip-in at Augusta in 2005 . . . all iconic monster shots in golf.

“Bryson’s shot has to be as good as any of them,” says 2021 Open champion Jon Rahm.

– Charles Y.

GOLFTOWN

“There’s no question Bryson’s shot was one of the best shots in U.S. Open history,” says Curtis Strange, a two-time Open champion and former North & South Amateur winner at Pinehurst. “His shot was one of the toughest, if not the toughest, shots in golf. Magnify that with last hole, U.S. Open pressure on a world stage? It was an amazing shot.”

The week after the Open, Pinehurst officials, at the request of DeChambeau caddie Greg Bodine, sent via FedEx an urn of sand from that bunker to DeChambeau’s residence. The golf staffers and caddies have half-jokingly wondered if the windows in the clubhouse behind the 18th green are now in danger with retail golfers attempting that shot and hitting the dreaded skulled shot flying who knows where. The club’s social media staff even mused after the Open that the preponderance of balls landing on the roof might escalate.

All around the golf course, the village and the Sandhills, knowledgeable golf students looked on in awe.

“The long sand shot, that’s the hardest shot in golf,” says former PGA Tour player Pat McGowan, who watched his son Michael play the first two rounds. “Oh my gosh, what a shot. He could stand there and hit 100 shots and not get it any closer. He could have skulled that over the clubhouse and made a double. But Bryson is so strong he just muscled it out.”

“The stat of a PGA Tour player getting up and down from a bunker from that distance is 1.7 percent,” says Pinehurst teaching pro Kelly Mitchum. “To do it on the final hole of a U.S. Open is pretty remarkable.”

Gus Ulrich, the longtime teaching pro at Pinewild Country Club and golf coach at Sandhills Community College, was struck with the authority and resolve DeChambeau exhibited during the minute before the shot.

“What impressed me was Bryson did not overanalyze it,” Ulrich says. “He didn’t rush it by any means, but he didn’t grind over it and agonize like, ‘Oh, I gotta make this to win the U.S. Open.’ He made up his mind pretty quickly, walked

in and hit the shot. I think that’s what you have to do in that situation. The more you agonize over it, the harder the shot becomes.”

DeChambeau reflected on that very mindset afterward. Asked what he would remember most about the final two hours of a drama-laden back nine, he said: “Probably my caddie telling me I can do it out of the bunker. G-Bo just said, ‘Bryson, just get it up-and-down. That’s all you have to do. You’ve done this plenty of times before. I’ve seen some crazy shots from you from 50 yards out of a bunker.’ I said, ‘You’re right. I need the 55-degree. Let’s do it.’”

Course superintendent John Jeffreys was standing behind the green in DeChambeau’s line and considered there were about a half-dozen layers of ground undulation between the golfer and the hole — a “false front” leading up to the putting surface; a narrow plateau in the front portion of the green; a downslope and swale in the middle of the green; and finally, an upslope leading to the back crest where the pin was set.

“There’s a lot more to that green than you would think approaching it on the angle he had,” Jeffreys says. “There were a lot of areas to contend with that can help you or hurt you. What made the shot so great was he landed it on the downslope behind that first little plateau. That propelled the ball forward and it ran up to 4 feet.”

And the rest, as they say . . .

No doubt they’re making room as we speak in the history-laden hallway of the resort clubhouse to celebrate Bryson’s Bunker.

“It’s like we caught lightning in a bottle,” Dedman says. “It was otherworldly. To me, it’s almost as if it was preordained. I think maybe Payne and my father were up in heaven and put their thumb on the scale to Bryson’s advantage.” 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 on X @LeePaceTweet.

Our Writers and Illustrators

RANDALL KENAN (1963-2020) was a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and the John Dos Passos Prize.

KATHERINE MIN (1959-2019) received an NEA grant, a Pushcart Prize, a Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award, two New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Fellowships, and a North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship.

SHELIA MOSES was raised in Rich Square, N.C., the ninth of 10 children. She is a writer, director, producer, poet and playwright. She has been nominated for the National Book Award and named a Coretta Scott King Honoree.

DAVID ROWELL was born and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the deputy editor at the Washington Post Magazine for nearly 25 years.

MAX STEELE (1922–2005) directed the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Creative Writing Program for 20 years before he retired in 1988. He was an editor at Paris Review and Story Magazine and the recipient of two O.Henry Awards.

RAMAN BHARDWAJ is an international muralist, illustrator, fine artist, and graphic designer. Born in Chandigarh, India, he has had solo exhibitions in India, Norway and the USA, has painted more than 50 murals in North Carolina and illustrated 16 books.

KEITH BORSHAK has worked in advertising and design as a graphic designer, art director and creative director, receiving dozens of Addy Awards over his 30-year career. His illustration and design work has been recognized by Communication Arts Advertising Annual, The One Show, and the Graphis Design Annual.

GARY PALMER graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design. His work has been published in Wildlife in North Carolina, Ducks Unlimited, Shooting Sportsman, Better Homes and Gardens and Texas Monthly in addition to commissions for The North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, The Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service.

MARIANO SANTILLAN is a contractor for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command where he works as a web developer and illustrator. His “other” clients include Ohio State University, Fayetteville State University, The Washington Post, Cricket Magazine, and The Atlanta JournalConstitution.

JESSE WHITE is an illustrator, author, and muralist. She graduated with a BFA in studio art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her master’s in art education from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Summer Shorts

August is more than sweet tea, watermelon and air conditioning.

At PineStraw, it’s our Summer Reading Issue. This year’s selections are drawn from the collection of stories entitled “Long Story Short” published in 2009 by the University of North Carolina Press. The volume showcases the writing of 65 well-known North Carolina authors working in the genre called “flash fiction.” In Japan these short-shorts are called “palm-of-the-hand” stories.

Here are five easy pieces to enjoy on a hot day under a beach umbrella.

The Playhouse

Fiction by Max Steele

Illustration by Mariano Santillan

The professor was standing now before the doors of the American Embassy. He was early for an appointment with an old frat brother, a legal attaché who would help him procure a fast Mexican divorce. There was no urgency really in getting a divorce. It was simply that he could not concentrate on a permanent separation. When he tried he would end up in a hot soapy shower thinking about putting on freshly starched cotton clothes. Someone should have warned him in Raleigh not to drink on the plane. Here he was in Mexico City, a mile high, still a bit dazed.

Three blond children, not more than five or six years old, obviously embassy kids, a little girl and two little boys, were playing house in and around a sort of blueprint design of squares and rectangles drawn with green chalk on the sidewalk. A solid block of taxicabs, more than the professor had ever seen, was passing on the Paseo de la Reforma.

Something about the broad boulevards and the taxi horns reminded him strongly of Paris, where twenty years ago he had spent his one sabbatical. The next year he had met his wife, who often reminded him that he had never taken her to Paris as he had promised. Or done any fun things. There was never enough money on his salary, she accused him, to do any fun things. In the late autumn air the feeling of déjà vu was so strong that he felt it was a dream, or a forgotten passage from a novel he was living through.

The two boys were now standing near him whispering, and the little girl was in the chalk-line house, busily sweeping, putting things on shelves, getting pots out of a stove only she could see, and washing dishes in the silent sink.

At a signal he did not notice, the small boys, giggling and full of themselves, marched slowly to the front of the house and knocked on the door. “Knock. Knock.”

The little girl seemed genuinely surprised. She came through the house, untying her apron and opened the door, drying her hands on the apron.

“Oh, there you are!” She was quite annoyed. “Late again, as usual. And furthermore you have brought a perfect stranger home to dinner.” Oh, she was vexed. “Without even asking. Without even calling!”

“Yes, my dear,” the little husband said proudly, full of his secret. “I would like for you to meet the man who owns the merry-go-round.”

As the boys entered the house, the professor glanced at his watch. He was still five minutes early. Enough time to walk to the far corner.

As he strolled up the dark gusty boulevard, he could still hear the high laughter of the children, and at the sound of their thin, excited voices his heart almost broke. After all, how were they to know (for they were still children), how could he have known she would run off with the man who owned the merry-go-round? PS

Where She Sits

Fiction by Randall Kenan

Illustration by Gary Palmer

They were in the little dining room off the kitchen when he finally told her. He paced about, motioning with his hands.

She just sat there, staring down. Feeling nothing. Maybe. Or just plain tired.

“I can’t do it anymore, Sandra,” he said.

Sandra said nothing. Slowly, she moved her hand over the oilcloth, steadying herself.

“I don’t care what your family says about me,” he said. “I don’t care. I can’t . . . I’m not . . . I’ve got to . . .”

She might have asked Dean about the children. But the idea that he would come up with some sleazy nonsense only made her feel a wave of nausea. Sandra put her head down.

Dean stopped behind her. She could feel the tension in the air; without seeing him, she knew he was clenching and unclenching and clenching his fists. He did that when he was angry. “Did you hear me? I’m leaving.”

Sandra raised her head. “Then go.”

He stood there for the amount of time it takes a frying egg to turn white and walked from the room.

Sandra reached out and caressed the table, and remembered. Not so much remembered as allowed a flood of images, past scents, past sights, to overtake her, fill the void she was now harboring. Each image evoked something like a feeling. So much took place in this room, upon this very surface. Not merely the food served, or the homework fretted over, or the cards played, or the beer spilled, or the puzzles arranged. Moments occurred right here. And now, in this instance of illusions shattered, of dreams wrecked and a heart frozen, these moments seemed to simmer before her, behind her eyes, and she could only hold on to them, to find some strength.

She had inherited this very table from her great-grandmother. Made of pine, by whom she did not know, it had been oiled, dented, dusted, polished, chipped, varnished, battered, peed upon, burned, broken, mended, hammered, nailed, or some such for decades. If it could feel, she knew she’d feel the way it

felt now . . .

“Sandra? Damn it! . . . Where is my . . .”

The first true memory of her grandmother had been watching her across this expanse, on the other end, smiling and slicing with pride a piping hot blueberry pie. No, child, wait for it to cool. And so many mornings, days, nights, her mother at that same end: What you doing out so late? Sandra! An A in math! Now that’s good. Girl, don’t you ever raise your voice at me. I’ll knock the taste out your mouth! You heard about Uncle William, didn’t you? . . .

“Sandra, can’t find my . . .”

As if he actually expected her to come in there and help him to pack, to leave; as if any of this fault rested on her shoulders; as if she was expected to go along to get along; as if she would be unreasonable to go into the kitchen, get a butcher’s knife, and chop him into seventeen billion little pieces.

She ran her hand out against it again, against its smooth flatness, as if to absorb some of its stolid solidity.

Here, she served him his first taste of her cooking: catfish, greens, mashed potatoes, corn bread; here, she told her mother she was to wed the man who made her legs feel like overcooked spaghetti and her heart feel like butter. Here, where she tended him, listened to his tales of boring sales meetings and petty office feuds, and where he entertained his buddies (when not in front of the TV); here, where she fed and consoled and interrogated first one, then two daughters; here, where she slowly watched the shoals of her marriage erode, grain by grain.

Oh, if it could talk . . .

“Sandra.” He stood in the door. She didn’t want to look up at him. She had nothing to say.

“Good-bye.”

She did not look up, as he turned, wordless, and walked down the hall. As the door clicked behind him, she held fast. He may go, but some things would remain. A part, a piece, a fixture, a witness. Even now. PS

The Music Lover

Fiction by Katherine Min

Illustration by Jesse White

Gordon Spires lived across the courtyard from Leonard Hillman, concert master of the M Symphony, and his lover, Kyoung Wha Jun, the second violinist. Leonard and Kyoung Wha often practiced together outside in the courtyard, under the brim of a large oak tree. The neighbors would hear them playing Debussy or Brahms and sometimes something contemporary that they wouldn’t recognize.

Gordon liked to listen to them. He was in love with Kyoung Wha, who was slender and lovely, and he believed that she secretly returned his affection but could only reveal it through her music. So when she played Mozart, it was because he was Gordon’s favorite, and when she played Bach, it meant that she was biding her time, and when she played Tchaikovsky, it was surely a sign that she was ready to run off. For it was well known that Leonard beat Kyoung Wha when he was drunk, that he cheated on her with the first violist, and that he had not quit smoking like he told Kyoung Wha he would, but snuck cigarettes after matinee performances. At least these things were well known to Gordon, who was sickly and often home during the day.

One Sunday afternoon in late autumn, Kyoung Wha and Leonard played Beethoven. From his bedroom window, Gordon could see them, Kyoung Wha in a pleated blue skirt with prim white blouse, her long bangs swinging in her face as she swept her bow across the strings of her violin; Leonard, his narrow face impassive, eyes closed, chin tilted up at an unpleasant angle. Gordon could distinguish the rich, vibrant tones of Kyoung Wha’s playing from the darker, ruminative vibrations of Leonard’s, and he attributed the mistakes — rushed tempo, inconsistent meter, mawkish drawing out of notes — to Leonard, who was, in Gordon’s opinion, the inferior of the two musicians.

Taking careful aim, Gordon threw a Monopoly piece — a silver top hat — at the rounded, balding place at the back of Leonard’s head. Leonard did not stop. Gordon threw the wheelbarrow, the thimble, and the Scottish terrier. He used more force.

“What the — ?”

Beethoven came to a halt. Gordon peeked to see Leonard rubbing his bald patch, looking up at the oak tree, then down to the ground. Leonard shrugged at Kyoung Wha, who shrugged back. They resumed playing.

The next day, Gordon lobbed a satsuma, just grazing Leonard’s

left temple. Leonard leapt from his chair. Kyoung Wha seemed to look straight at Gordon then, smiling sadly. Even crouched below his bedroom window, he could feel her smile penetrate his heart like the most tender of arrows.

A few days passed before they played outside again, Leonard setting up in what had formerly been Kyoung Wha’s spot, farthest from Gordon’s window, Kyoung Wha moving farther from Leonard, into a sunny patch that did not get much shade. Her face in sunlight looked faded to Gordon, wan, and when she played — Mendelssohn this time — he heard the silent suffering as separate notes from the ones that overlapped with Leonard’s, inhabiting the spaces between. She was even more beautiful in her despair, black hair against pale complexion, in an autumnal ensemble of mauves and rusts.

Gordon heaved a bottle of multivitamins, but it overshot its mark, landing, with a muffled plop, in a giant hosta.

It rained for several days after that, the afternoons overhung with mist. Gordon saw Kyoung Wha come into the courtyard in a yellow rain slicker. He thought her green rain boots splendid, as were the orange bill and bubble eyes on her hood, which were meant to make her look like a duck.

On the first clear day, Leonard appeared without Kyoung Wha. He began to play Mahler, his feet planted like andirons before a hearth. Gordon disliked the implication that music could simply go on without her. He wondered where she was, what Leonard had done to her. The lights were off in their apartment. He could see the white fringe of an afghan against the window, resting on the back of a blood red sofa.

Gordon palmed a large rock shaped like a dinosaur egg, with a rough, pock-marked surface. He raised the window and hurled it. The rock rainbowed up and out, hitting Leonard squarely on top of the head and bouncing off. The strings of the violin made a distressed, bleating sound as Leonard slumped sideways out of his chair, then fell face first against the brick walkway.

Time passed. The lights went on. Gordon saw Kyoung Wha come out, heard her call Leonard’s name. Approaching his body, she kneeled, bent to retrieve his violin by its broken neck, got up, and stumbled back inside. The lights went out.

Gordon listened, but all he heard was the sound of distant traffic.

Softly, he closed the window. PS

An Afternoon, No Wind

Fiction by David Rowell • Illustration by Keith Borshak

Astriking, big-boned woman runs back and forth trying to fly a kite. She is surprisingly eager, considering there is no wind today. There is not enough of a breeze to sail the gum wrapper off the bench I’m sitting on. She darts tirelessly across the park as the kite drags behind her like a little dog. Every so often the kite lifts off the ground, though no higher than her head, and that’s only because she is a fast runner. This goes on for an hour.

I’m supposed to be helping my ex-girlfriend move her tanning bed into the spare room. But when the woman with the kite throws her arms up in an almost vaudevillian show of disgust, I get up, stiff from the wooden slats, and walk over to her. She isn’t aware of me until I am close enough to touch her.

“Tough day for kites,” I say.

We look at each other, and for a few seconds neither of us seems sure what to do. I back up a step or two. I am suddenly confused and can’t remember if I have spoken yet or just thought about what I might say. Tough day for kites?

“Je ne comprends absolument pas ce que vous dites.” I know it’s French, but I don’t speak a word of it. Watching her earlier, it didn’t occur to me that she wasn’t American, but up close I can see the faint olive glow of her skin, the slightly pouty curl of her lips. I consider turning around, leaving her alone, but there is something

helpless about her and her shiny but now damaged triangular kite. I point to the kite, then to the sky. I blow a deep breath and shake my head no.

“No wind,” I say slowly, so slowly that I am keenly aware of how my lips feel when they move. “There is no wind.”

We stand another moment in silence, as the strangled cry of taxi horns and someone’s high-pitched laughter and the rusty churn of a nearby bicycle chain play off each other like jazz musicians. Behind the woman a mass of clouds forms a penguin, then a penguin on skates. She says something — something abrupt, like an order — and points to the kite. She points at me, then to the kite again. I reach down to pick it up.

“Oui,” she says.

I raise the kite slowly over my head, arching my brow to say, Is this OK? Is this what you want? She doesn’t indicate one way or another. Out of the corner of my eye I notice that two older women who are dressed for the tundra have stopped to watch.

She backs up and lets some string out, all the while staring into my eyes so intensely that I am afraid to look away. She nods her head once, the way mob bosses in movies indicate their willingness to listen first, before killing. Then she turns and starts sprinting, divots of grass spraying from her heels. The kite jerks out of my hand and immediately sinks, not quite hitting the ground because,

as I say, she’s fast. Her ponytail thrashes behind her like a fish pulled into a boat.

She goes probably thirty yards before she looks up at the speckled sky, where she expects the kite to be. Her sturdy legs slow to a gallop, which causes the kite to touch down with feathery impact. The sad sight provokes her to grunt from the diaphragm and kick at the ground with such force that she nearly falls over. Her large frame heaves in and out. She yells something at either me or the kite (the literal translation might be, “What a piece of crap are you!”). I point up at the sky again and shake my head.

When she finishes winding up the string, she puts the kite back in my hands. I notice two small but distinct moles above her right eye. She catches me looking and balls up her face like a fist. She gives me an earful about something, to which I shrug and smile, though not with my teeth.

All afternoon we do this. And every time we try, I can tell that she expects it to go differently. Sometimes I shake my head in mock disbelief. Other times I grab a handful of grass and launch it into the air, as if that might tell us something. Once I try to hand the kite back to her and reach for the string, thinking she might appreciate the break. But she shakes her head in a frenzy, the way monkeys do in TV commercials, and holds the string behind her back. She tries running harder and for longer. If I hold the kite up with my arms even slightly bent, she refuses to start running. When yet another attempt fails, she violently reels the kite in. As we get ready again, she sucks some air into her locomotive lungs, then gives me the signal to release.

By now the sun has melted to the bottom of the sky, leaving behind a fiery red glaze. People walk by with their necks turned at awkward angles, their mouths agape with wonder. My French

companion is still for the first time all day. We stand there awhile, just a few feet apart, but it’s hard to believe we’ve spent the entire afternoon together. If I ran over the hill and brought back two sno-cones, I wonder if she would even recognize me.

The man at the pretzel cart is folding down his umbrella. I imagine a big wind suddenly sweeping through the park and lifting the umbrella up over the trees, the man kicking wildly in the air as he tries to hang on. When I look over again at my partner in aeronautics, it takes me a moment to realize that she is tearing up the kite. She grips it in her muscular arms and splits it down the middle. She yanks out the sticks of the frame, fumbling with them until she snaps them over her knee. Then, with lips moving but making no sound, she grabs the tail with both hands and tries to twist it off, but she loses patience with it and is content to leave it a thin, raggedy string. Her hands are a frenzied blur of methodical destruction, though her face has an even, almost serene expression. When she is finally satisfied, she bundles up the remains and hands them to me. Instinctively I reach out to cradle the wreckage.

She lumbers toward the wrought iron entrance of the park, past the statue of George Washington on his horse, past a little boy trying to step on his balloon, which keeps darting out from under his foot. She steps directly in front of a stretch limousine so that it has to slam on brakes; still, the driver senses enough not to honk. She mows through the streets with an elephantine grace and does not fade from view until well after the darkness settles in.

I COULD GO OVER THIS AGAIN, say at what point this, then that, but it would more or less come out the same. And yet there is something that I can’t account for, even now: In my arms the kite felt like a bouquet of flowers. PS

Tumbleweed

Fiction by Shelia Moses • Illustration by Raman Bhardwaj

My man is like a tumbleweed. He just rolls around and catches everything that crosses his path — every woman that is. I am telling you he’s just like a tumbleweed. That is the reason I did not want to come to this one-horse town to live. But Hogwood, North Carolina, is my Tumbleweed’s home, and he wanted to come back to be near his dying daddy. That was four years ago. His daddy, Mr. Pop, is still alive. So why are we still here?

I knew Tumbleweed would start rolling with the gals that used to love him as soon as the train stopped in Weldon to let us off in 1952. We was only here one day before we ran into one of his old gals, Missy, in the grocery store. That was the beginning of Tumbleweed going back to his old ways. First he told me that Missy was his cousin. Then I looked at that boy of hers, Boone, and I knew Tumbleweed was lying. I knew he was the daddy. Look more like Tumbleweed than Tumbleweed look like himself.

“Come on Sweet Ida,” he said to me.

“Come on nothing, Tumbleweed. You lied to me again. You know good and well Missy ain’t your cousin. You know that boy is your boy.”

“Na’ll Ida, Boonie ain’t no boy of mine. I only got six boys and two girls. You know that.” He say that mess like he proud that he left a baby in every town between Wildwood, New Jersey, and Hogwood. He ain’t never had no wife, so what he bragging for?

Missy ain’t saying a word. She just smiling and turning from side to side like she can’t stand still around my Tumbleweed. That boy Boonie ain’t got good sense. He don’t even know what we talking about. Guess we better leave before he eat up all the candy in the grocery store that Missy ain’t even offered to pay for. He definitely Tumbleweed’s boy because he always want something for nothing.

Can’t be too crazy, now can he?

“Oh stop looking for reasons not to love me gal.” Then Tumbleweed pulled me in his arms in the store that was filled with people. The store always filled with people from Rich Square, Jackson, and Hogwood on a Friday evening. It’s payday, even for the field hands. The womenfolks was looking when Tumbleweed pulled me closer. I forgot all about that boy that looked just like my man. I remembered all the reasons I love myself some Tumbleweed.

I love him for the same reason all these North Carolina womenfolks love him.

He a man! A real man! My man!

He ain’t all fine or nothing. He just a man that you gots to have.

Come that Monday morning we was back working in the ’bacco field. I was hanging ’bacco in the hot barn loft while Tumbleweed drove the truck for Mr. Willie who own all this land and ’bacco. Right now he ain’t driving. Tumbleweed just sitting and waiting to take us home. I think Mr. Willie had extra folks in the field that day. Extra women to prime this ’bacco. Extra women to look at my Tumbleweed.

They can’t fool me. That old Bessie was there shaking her big behind all over the place. She the only woman I know that wear tight skirts in the ’bacco barn. I can’t believe I left my job waiting tables at that rich country club in Wildwood to come here to prime ’bacco. Tumbleweed claimed it is a good way to make a living.

Look at him sitting over there looking at me up here in the loft and all the other women that love him out in the field.

“You want some water?” Bessie yelled to my Tumbleweed when it was time for us to knock off for lunch.

He did not answer her.

He better not!

“Anything Tumbleweed want, I can get for him,” I said, climbing down the hot barn loft for lunch.

“Fine,” Bessie said as she laughed like she knew something that I did not know. “I can get Tumbleweed some water later tonight,” she whispered and walked over to the tree to eat her pork and beans and crackers.

“Say it again,” I said as I ran up behind her. Bessie turned around in slow motion. She must have eyes in the back of her head.

I did not get far when them sisters of hers all jumped up from the ground at the same time.

“Where you going city girl?” her oldest sister Pennie Ann asked as she rolled up the sleeves on her shirt while kicking her can of beans out of the way.

I will fight anybody, anywhere for my Tumbleweed, I thought to myself.

I tried to roll up my sleeves too.

That is all I remember. The next thing I know I am lying in the back of Tumbleweed’s truck and he’s looking down at me.

“How many fights you going to have girl?” he said like he was almost sad.

“How many women you gonna love Tumbleweed?” I said as I reached for my head that was really hurting now. The knot on it felt mighty big.

Tumbleweed leaned over me and kissed me real hard with his big black lips.

All the womenfolks looked at us. They wished they was me. PS

Sprigs of Hospitality

Where Southern tradition and grace bloom

By EmilEE PhilliPs

Photogra Phs By John gEssnEr

Awhite farmhouse stands like a quaint guardian nestled at the edge of an unhurried country town. Once a month, give or take, women arrive there, sporting fancy hats and cotton gloves, dressed for a traditional Southern tea party. The timeworn charm of Edgewood Plantation in Cameron has been transformed into Lazy Fox Lavender Farm. “It’s almost like stepping back in time,” says Lindsey Lochner, the owner.

The lavender tea parties are open to the public, so anyone can experience the increasingly lost art of high tea. It’s not merely an event; it’s a gathering woven with the threads of tradition, poise and a deep-seated appreciation for the finer, calmer, forgotten moments in life.

The Lochner family purchased the home in 2022 with the goal of farming its land. After living overseas for several years, it was time to plant roots in more ways than one.

“We wanted to be able to give back to the community,” says Lindsey. “When you move around so much you end up taking more than giving. We were excited to be able to start giving back.”

The tea parties are hosted on the screened porch of the historic Edgewood Plantation, built in 1910. The fete is a family affair where Lindsey’s four children — Jacqueline, Loren, Ana and Nathaniel — help orchestrate the production, from greeting guests and showing them to their tables, to pouring tea and serving homemade lavender lemonade garnished with harvested sprigs.

“The kiddos get really excited for it. All the tips go to them,” says Lindsey. The children dress up too, wearing white dresses with frills and a collared shirt for her son, a testament to their devotion to detail.

The setting exudes an air of whimsy. The porch is

filled with antique furniture and multiple-sized tables. Each setting has teacups and pots, mismatched, all seemingly with a tale to tell. The rustic wooden furniture is draped in soft, white and lace linens.

Few colors evoke a sense of regal luxury quite like purple and its delicate counterpart, lavender. The presence of lavender in gardens and perfumes has long been associated with tranquility and gentility. Its pastel tones whisper refinement and grace, making the main act of the tea parties as close to perfect as it comes. Women of all ages partake. The clink of teaspoons against china resonates like a soothing rhythm section, with laughter and soft exchanges becoming the gentle melody of memories.

“I was blown away when I had a couple of ladies come from Charlotte for the tea parties. I’ve had several from Raleigh. I had to stop assuming people were local,” says Lindsey.

Guests choose from a selection of tea leaves before enjoying a tiered plate of goodies, many of which are lavender infused. Small

bites and sweets are primarily catered from local businesses. The spread includes puff pastries, macarons, scones, lavender butter and more, varying with the season.

Lavender blooms in North Carolina roughly between April and July, depending on the variety. Some are deep purple, some a milky white. But Lindsey vows to always have flowers. Even when lavender isn’t in bloom she’s got sunflowers, roses and more from her garden. Visitors can also do “you pick” sessions in the summer months, as well as enjoy luxury picnics in the fragrant field.

The Lochners started planting lavender — there are hundreds of varieties — almost immediately after moving to Cameron. They currently have 11 kinds at Lazy Fox Lavender Farm, each with distinct coloring and uses. Spanish lavender, a personal favorite of Lindsey’s, is a compact bud that she describes as “little butterfly wings” on the tip, far different from the more standard long, skinny blooms.

Lavender, Lindsey explains, is like “the Swiss Army knife

Photogra Phs this PagE By EmilEE PhilliPs

of essential oils.” It’s healing, calming and has antibacterial properties.

Sheep, hens, geese, honeybees, a dog and cats also populate the nearly 14-acre farm. “We’re really thankful to live here,” says Lindsey. “The home has so much character.”

During high tea, Lindsey enjoys sharing her knowledge of both lavender and the history of Edgewood Plantation with her guests. The estate is full of tokens from the past, like the worn-in wood flooring and the seven stained glass windows that appear to be original to the house. Near the walkway is a wide, flat stone once used by ladies stepping out of their carriages to avoid getting mud on their shoes and dresses.

The Lochners have transformed one of the many farmhouse rooms into a store selling dried lavender bundles, lavender soaps, lotions, candles, butters and more. For the family matriarch, the farm represents togetherness, a feeling Lindsay loves to share. She wants guests to be able to slow down when they visit and appreciate the beauty of life. The parties end with a moment of gratitude for all of her new, cherished “friends.”

Aromas of teas and lavender follow guests out, wrapping around them like a light shawl, understated and comforting.  PS

For additional information visit lazyfoxlavenderfarm.com.

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

L-R: Katherine Rucker and Peggy Voss Johnson

Back to School

Moore Montessori breathes new life into an old building

By JEnna Bit Er • Photogra Phs By John gEssnEr

Gold sparkles from a crack bisecting the concrete.

Rather than banish the blemish to history with a swipe of mortar, someone at Moore Montessori Community School chose to draw eyes to the fissure by practicing the Japanese art of kintsugi — golden joinery — on the main hallway floor.

Developed to repair broken pottery, often tea sets, sometime around the 15th century, kintsugi restores an object’s function with glue and clay while highlighting evidence of the repair in metallic lacquer.

The art form treats the cycle of growth and decay as something to be appreciated rather than disguised, a philosophy that lives comfortably at Moore Montessori in that crack in the floor of its recently renovated school on Massachusetts Avenue in Southern Pines.

Previously known as “B Building,” now Voss Hall in recognition of generous support from the Voss family, the Georgian

Revival originally opened for the 1948–49 school year. The neoclassical structure remained part of Southern Pines city schools and then the county school system for more than seven decades — through segregation, integration and beyond — until 2021.

That’s when Moore Montessori purchased the L-shaped building, distinguished by its gracious columned porch and endless stretch of yawning windows, along with the rest of the old elementary school campus, for $1.6 million.

“The front building on May Street was basically turnkey,” says Moore Montessori’s founder and head of school, Katherine Rucker, “but this building needed quite a bit of renovation.”

Two years of improvements and a community’s worth of sweat equity later, Voss Hall partially reopened for the start of school in 2023, with the final wing of the public charter school reopening that winter.

Thanks to Moore Montessori, an old school has new life.

Across from the May Street churches, uphill on East

Massachusetts Avenue past Emmanual Episcopal, Voss Hall is a neat red brick building with wide steps and a wrought iron railing leading up to a pair of welcoming white doors. The sprawling structure occupies more than 17,000 square feet, set back a generous distance from the road where lilting birdsong could convince passersby they’ve stepped into a nature preserve.

On Sept. 3, 1948, soon after the school opened, The Pilot printed a description that could still be written today: “The one-story building, whose external architecture is Georgian Colonial (there is nothing Colonial about its modern-as-tomorrow interior), is on a large, wooded lot, its beautiful entrance shaded by the longleaf pines and magnolia trees which are distinctively Southern Pines.”

With the expertise of Raleigh architect Tim Martin and monies raised in a capital campaign, Moore Montessori was able to preserve that original picture while updating the interior to remain “modern as tomorrow” well into the next generation.

“I was just trying to get out of the way of the building coming back into its own,” Martin says.

The school’s original architect, the prolific William H. Deitrick (1895–1974), known for his completion of the potato chip-shaped Dorton Arena in Raleigh, had designed the building in elegant, hand-drawn blueprints that now hang on the walls of Voss Hall. The tail end of 2021 saw the start of renovations that returned the school closer to Deitrick’s vision.

“The first step was to waterproof the building while maintaining the historical authenticity of the Buckingham slate roof,” Rucker says. Slate roofs are very nearly a lost art, and the original stone tiles for this particular build came from a quarry in Buckingham County, Virginia, hence Buckingham slate.

Despite the challenges, Moore Montessori found a slate-savvy crew from Charlotte to order the rock and complete the job. The flashing was redone and the eyebrow dormers were coppered, as was the weather-vaned cupola that crowns the roof.

“The next summer we worked on waterproofing the windows,” Rucker says. The school still has its original 9-foot-tall, single-pane windows that needed to be reglazed and repainted.

“Then it was time to take on the interior,” Rucker says. That’s when Martin came onto the project. “Tim has a passion for restoring buildings using current footprints and materials that are already there, with minimal extras.”

That meant reclaiming the original, in-class bathrooms for easy access, stripping away carpets to reveal concrete floors, rearranging a few walls and repainting them all, updating the HVAC system, and removing the dropped ceiling that had been added sometime in the ’80s.

Rucker actually attended grades four through eight in the very building she now heads. “I remember the blue carpet. I remember the lockers, the cubbies, which we still have,” she says. “I don’t remember the windows being as extraordinary as they are now.”

The ceilings had been dropped to minimize the space that needed to be heated and cooled, and the view through the windows suffered. With the ceiling height and view now restored, Moore Montessori is clawing back efficiency by way of passive heating and cooling. Cross breezes flow through open windows, and a dehumidification system and ceiling fans have been added. This way, the school shouldn’t have to rely on its new HVAC system as life support while it’s in session.

During the summer, it’s easy to see the empty building as just another historical renovation project, but come the end of another August, a rainbow of backpacks will hang in the hallway, while children pre-K through third grade work away inside classrooms aglow with natural light and the low hum of learning, as they did last year.

At one table in a primary classroom, a youngster presses his lips into a thin line of concentration while polishing a dinosaur figurine made of silver. The next table over, a vase of neatly arranged flowers hints that a pair of little hands has recently completed the task.

“Montessori is small group; it’s hands-on materials,” says Rucker, explaining why the students weren’t lined up in rows, all learning the same material, like in a traditional classroom. “The hand is the tool of the mind, and you learn by doing. When they’re ready for the next lesson, they can get it and work on it until they master it.”

Down the hall, in a lower elementary classroom, five or six students sit crisscross around a floor mat while a teacher shares a lesson. A few feet away, three other children are working together around a low table, called a chowki.

“There’s no front or center of a Montessori classroom,” Rucker says.

Each long, rectangular classroom has clean, white walls. They’re filled with wooden, child-sized furniture punctuated with splashes of color. “There’s no teacher’s desk. It’s a space designed for children. There are different areas to work — at desks, chowkis or on rugs,” she says.

Near the trio at the chowki, a blond-haired boy arranges tactile cursive letters to name objects: “dune,” “mule,” “tube.” The contented, self-directed activity is the goal of Montessori instruction, an educational model designed to put kids in the driver’s seat.

“I just think this is one of the most beautiful school buildings in North Carolina,” Rucker says. “It’s just so awesome. It’s one story, it’s accessible, it’s beautiful, and it’s ideal for Montessori, so I feel really lucky that we were able to save it.”

And, in the process, honoring the cycle of growth to make it a place of learning once again. PS

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

ALMANAC August

By a shlEy WalshE

August is a hammock, a daydream, a nap in dappled light. These searing summer days, the trees offer respite from an unrelenting heat. There, by the water. Can you imagine two more perfectly situated trees? Two more hammock-worthy specimens?

The trees have spoken. This is the spot. You cinch one rope around the trunk of a sturdy birch, secure the hammock; repeat at the trunk of a tulip poplar.

In the shade of these nurturing giants, summer softens. Sunlight flickers through a veil of green. A welcome breeze gently rocks you.

Below the canopy, cumulus clouds float across your field of vision, inviting your inner child to play.

A carousel horse becomes a Bengal tiger. A whiskered dragon shifts into a humpback whale. A never-ending carnival drifts by in slow motion.

Before long, you’ve drifted, too. As you sleep, suspended beneath the trees at the height of summer, something else is shifting.

The change always comes about midAugust, and it always catches me by surprise. I mean the day when I know that summer is fraying at the edges, that September isn’t far off and fall is just over the hill or up the valley.

— Hal Borland

A Bat Rap

International Bat Night is observed on the last full weekend of August — and has been, annually, for nearly 30 years.

Our own state is home to 17 species of bats, creatures of the night essential to pollination, seed dispersal and pest control.

Did you know that a single bat can consume over 1,000 mosquitos in just one hour? That’s over 1,000 reasons to celebrate and protect these nightflying wonders.

The days are growing shorter. Soon, the last swallowtail will have vanished like a dream. The last dragonfly, too. Once more, the trees will prepare for their grand finale.

Through the dancing leaves, a sunbeam caresses your cheek, tenderly stirring you awake. The shade has revived you. Somehow, your nap has changed everything.

Beyond the trees, sunlight graces a lush and vibrant Earth. Subtle as it seems, the season is softening. Find the birch and the poplar and see for yourself.

Bellyful of Sweetness

Late summer means the last of the blueberries, sure. But can you say muscadines for days? And let’s hear it for those early pears!

Because pears ripen from the inside out, they go from green to mush in a sugary blink. How do you know when they’re ready for harvest? They’ll show you.

Observe the color. Now, gently lift the fruit and give it a tender twist. If it’s ready, the pear will release itself with ease. If the pear holds tight, you’ll want to give it more time.

“There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. The poet had a point.

Give the pears a week to ripen post-harvest. If you miss the window, there’s always compote. PS

PS PROfiles

The People & Businesses That Make The Sandhills A More Vibrant Place To Live And Work!

AUGUST 2024 SPONSORED SECTION

K aren Griffith wants to make style more approachable to everyday women. She offers customized and transformational services and believes that everyone deserves to feel like their best, most authentic self.

K aren was inspired by watching her nana, a talented seamstress, sew when she was young. Before she got her degree in fashion design, Karen spent years working in retail clothing boutiques. She loved helping her customers find the best items in the store.

P rofessionally, Karen feels that her greatest accomplishment was taking the risk to bet on herself and start her own professional styling business two years ago. She finds tremendous joy in helping others learn to dress and appreciate their own bodies. Witnessing her clients find confidence and energy in defining and embracing their own style is her favorite part of what she does.

K aren has recently added Color Analysis to her many offerings, and it has been a huge success. Color Analysis determines which colors work best with the undertone of her client’s skin and natural coloring. She also conducts a Closet Reset, which allows her to assess her client’s wardrobe, styling unique outfits and determining missing pieces to shop for, as well as Personal Shopping, where she finds the best, most affordable, and highest quality items to finalize her client’s wardrobe update.

K aren enjoys group fitness classes, getting outdoors for walks, and hanging out by the pool with family and friends in the summertime. She and her husband, Craig, and children, Carter and Alana, have been Sandhills residents for five years, and they are amazed with all of the things to do here in an area that still maintains its small town charm. 559.300.2440

KAREN GRIFFITH

OWNER

by Lolly

Photo

Nazario

Photo by Tim Sayer

BRANDON ENFINGER, MBA

DR. JENNIFER SZURGOT

PINEHURST MEDICAL CLINIC

Pinehurst Medical Clinic is celebrating 72 years as an established healthcare leader in the area with over 160 providers and 850 team members. It has a unique leadership model that is physician-owned, physician-led, and professionally managed, keeping those closest to patient care at the forefront of decision-making. Right now, the president is Dr. Ker Boyce. The rising president, who will begin her tenure in 2025, is Dr. Jennifer Szurgot. Rounding out the leadership team is Brandon Enfinger, who serves as Chief Executive Officer at PMC.

KER BOYCE, MD, FACC, FACP

Dr. Boyce is a cardiologist specializing in electrophysiology and is also a retired naval captain and flight surgeon. Boyce was credentialed at Emory University and did his fellowships in San Diego. An educational prodigy, he quit high school at age 15, graduated college at 18, and finished medical school at age 22. He takes pride in his service with the US Navy and enjoys travel. He has even been to the South Pole. He put down roots in the Sandhills area and started the electrophysiology program at First Health Moore Regional Hospital in 1999.

JENNIFER G. SZURGOT, MD

Dr. Szurgot attended medical school and residency at Louisiana State University. Szurgot is an internal medicine physician who promotes healthy living, disease prevention, and health maintenance. She has lived in Pinehurst for 16 years, and she and her husband have appreciated raising their family in this small, familycentered community. Professionally, she enjoys practicing medicine in such a quality, locally owned, physician-led, multispecialty practice.

BRANDON ENFINGER, CEO

Brandon Enfinger, MBA, joined Pinehurst Medical Clinic in 2012 as the chief operating officer and transitioned to his current role as CEO in 2017. He says PMC’s growth over the past twelve years has further

developed its footprint outside of the county, while also expanding its clinical services and physical locations within Moore County. Enfinger is proud that PMC was awarded the “Practice of the Year” by the NC Medical Group Managers Association for 2023. He enjoys serving on community focused organizations as a board member of the Moore County Chamber of Commerce and a member of the executive leadership team for the Moore County Alzheimer’s Association walk. Enfinger was also named to the North Carolina Power List in 2021 by Business North Carolina magazine. He and his family consider Moore County to be an exciting and special place to work, live, and serve others.

PMC believes effective patient centered healthcare leadership requires a delicate balance between administrative acumen and clinical expertise. The dual model combines administrative leaders’ expertise with physicians’ clinical insights, fostering a collaborative environment that drives innovation, improves clinical outcomes, and strengthens recruitment for the best talent and minds in the industry, ensuring the organization can meet the area’s growing demand for healthcare services. Over the past twelve years, the clinic’s growth has extended its reach beyond Moore County while expanding its physical service locations. The organization plans to construct another medical office building in Moore County over the next few years to accommodate additional clinics and services.

Thanks to PMC’s leadership and excellent team, it has grown into a leading healthcare organization known for its excellence in medical care and commitment to the community. As PMC continues to evolve, it remains dedicated to the principles of quality, compassion, and innovation, ensuring that it will serve as a beacon of health and hope for many generations to come.

Dr. Ker Boyce

Jeremy Johnson, Market President of First Capital bank, believes in the power of community. Coming from a big bank where products were one-size-fits-all, he found it refreshing to join a community bank that tailors its products and services to the individual needs of each customer. He has eagerly led that charge as First Capital Bank expands into a full-service branch here in Pinehurst.

The community may not know First Capital Bank yet, but they know these hometown bankers.

Jeremy himself has lived in Moore County for 9 years, James Christy for 20 years, Patrick Berry for 20 years, Jen Moxley for 17 years, Janet Hodges, Dione Tolbert and Amy Fields have lived in the area for all of their lives. Amy, in fact, is a fifth generation local with a long family history of entrepreneurship in Moore County.

Together, they make the team that will greet customers at First Capital Bank’s newest location in the heart of the Village of Pinehurst, opening this summer. A strong group, each well rooted in Moore County is not by accident, but by design.

First Capital Bank is a “hometown” bank with an emphasis on special attention to its customers giving friendly, fast, quality service while building genuine relationships. Headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, the bank is committed to community values and local investment, understanding the unique needs of its neighbors.

First Capital Bank offers commercial, real estate, and consumer loans, as well as a variety of deposit products designed to make their customers money and provide convenience. Uniquely, First Capital Bank customers can use any ATM in the US, and any fees are refunded immediately. When First Capital Bank customers call the main line, no recording will greet them, but a live teammate, someone who knows this area because they are a historic and vital part of it, will answer the call.

When Will Faircloth received a phone call from his best friend and former colleague in the restaurant biz that a steakhouse in Southern Pines was for sale, he jumped on the opportunity. Within a few short weeks he relocated his wife, Shannon, and their daughters to a new home in the Village and became the proud owner of Beefeaters in September of 2022.

Will’s career began as a fry cook in Vermont in the early 2000’s. He loved the hospitality industry and developed a broad scope of experience working up and down the East Coast from the Cheers bar in Boston to Disney World as well as the competitive hospitality markets of D.C., Richmond, Wilmington, and Raleigh.

As a restauranteur Will’s priority is the intersection of people and food, believing that if you take care of those two things, the rest will take care of itself. He hires great people, trains them well and provides an atmosphere in which feedback and growth is encouraged. By putting his team first, he knows that they will perform at a high level.

And he is hyper-focused on food quality, never sacrificing quality for cost. Since Beefeaters is primarily a steakhouse, he enforces stringent standards on all of the beef he purchases and the quality of the cooking process to ensure a top notch dining experience.

Beefeaters is an institution that has withstood the test of time and Will both honors and improves upon that tradition. Beefeaters has been named Best of the Pines “Best Steak” for nine years now, but that is not enough for Will. He has plans for updating his building both inside and out over the next two years.

Ultimately, his family is the driving force behind his work. He is proud that all his hardworking years in the hospitality business have paid off for them in a big way!

910.692.5550

672 SW Broad St. Southern Pines, NC www.beefeatersofsouthernpines.com

Photo by Lolly Nazario

MEGAN GULLEY HUNT, GRAHAM GULLEY, AND PETE GULLEY OWNERS

Gulley’s Garden Center celebrated their 50th anniversary this May, with the town of Southern Pines issuing a proclamation to commemorate the milestone. Oscar “Pete” Gulley III and his late wife Linda founded Gulley’s in 1974 with just a truck of azaleas on the corner, back when their part of Broad Street was a dirt road. In fact, Pete planted many of the trees for the town that are located along the railroad tracks and Broad Street.

The Gulley’s business plan was, and still is, to take the money they earned and invest it back into the family business, growing and flourishing along the way. All of their now-grown children and grandchildren have been raised in the store, and the family has enjoyed watching all of Moore County grow up around them over the past 50 years.

Today Gulley’s is co-owned and operated by Pete and two of his adult children, Graham Gulley and Megan Gulley Hunt. They boast an extremely knowledgeable staff, many of whom have been through the Sandhills Community College Horticulture Program, just like Pete, who was in the program’s second graduating class. Graham and Megan both got degrees at UNC-Asheville, Graham in Economics, Megan in Mass Communications and Marketing, and Graham also went through the Sandhills’ Horticulture Program. They have crafted Gulley’s into what it is today, winning Best of the Pines, “Best Garden Center” every single year.

In addition to the plants, gardening essentials, gifts, an iconic model train and scenic landscaping, Gulley’s offers visitors a

trip into history, with Pete’s military museum on the property where he displays military artifacts, some dating as far back as the Civil War. (As well as a gardener, Pete was a Green Beret in the Vietnam War.)

The Gulley family wants everyone who walks through their doors to enjoy their time there, have a unique shopping experience, and get all of their gardening questions answered.

445 SE Broad St, Southern Pines, NC 910.692.3223

www.gulleysgardencenter.com

Photo by Emiliee Phillips/The Sway

WILLIAM HARRIS, MD

MEDICAL DIRECTOR, CARDIOLOGY

Dr. William Harris became interested in medicine at a very early age, intrigued by anatomy and physiology during his teenage years. As he grew up, he was drawn to practicing medicine because it would allow him to serve others. When his mother passed away due to cardiovascular disease, Dr. Harris became passionate about Cardiology.

Dr. Harris is the new Medical Director of Cardiology for FirstHealth. In addition to being board certified in Cardiology, he is also board certified and specializes in Interventional Cardiology, which allows him to establish more long-term relationships with his patients while also having the ability to treat complex diseases in an efficient and minimally invasive way. In his position as medical director, he oversees a practice of 13 cardiologists and nine advanced practice providers in and around the Sandhills.

Dr. Harris is a North Carolina native and a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He completed his residency at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and his fellowships at East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine. He is passionate about making patient care more accessible. He says that at FirstHealth cardiology, all team members are committed to providing a patient-centric, qualitydriven health care experience. He and his team consider it their responsibility to offer this top-tier experience through all their clinics, no matter the location and size.

Dr. Harris and his wife Amy, who is a FirstHealth Family Nurse Practitioner, moved to the Sandhills area because they appreciated the integrity and distinction of FirstHealth as a premier health care system. The couple have two children that they are excited to raise here in the Sandhills since the area offers so many opportunities but also fosters a small-town feel.

910.715.1000

155 Memorial Dr, Pinehurst, NC 28374 www.firsthealth.org

by

Photo

Lolly Nazario

360 PAINTING OF PINEHURST

John and Belinda nurture a professional work ethic with a devotion to quality. Their team believes in showing up when they say they will and can always be counted on to do and provide a quality finished product. They leave every project as clean or cleaner than it was when they arrived, they understand the importance of keeping clients informed and their job is never complete until the client is absolutely satisfied with their work. This level of professionalism is what won John and Belinda the 360 Painting “Franchise of the Year” award when they first started their business back in 2018 in Charlotte. They set up shop here in the Pinehurst area in 2020, and have become one of the local premier painting companies.

John and Belinda were in the corporate world for thirty plus years before deciding to open their 360 Painting business, combining their acumen into a highly successful service business. They offer quality customer service and are proud that most of their work comes through satisfied customers’ referrals as well as repeat business.

Due to their success this year 360 Painting of Pinehurst is growing. They have begun doing projects with five custom home builders in the local market. They have promoted their current salesperson, Nick, to General Manager and will be expanding their sales team soon. Samantha is the company’s point of contact for scheduling and all follow ups.

And as the holiday season nears, they are excited to offer custom holiday light installation and removal for your home!

John and Belinda are most proud, and rightfully so, of their family. Celebrating 43 years of marriage, they have four sons and ten grandchildren with another on the way!

NICK LEAZER GENERAL MANAGER

Photo by

Lolly Nazario

arts & entertainment

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

AUGUST EVENTS

Thursday, August 1

SUPPORT GROUP. 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. The Sandhills Chronic Kidney Disease Support Group meets the first Thursday of each month. This month we will have guest speaker Kathy White, a registered dietitian and clinical nutrition manager. Clara McLean House, Shadowlawn Room, 20 FirstVillage Drive, Pinehurst. Info: angela@sandhillsckd.com or kathy@sandhillsckd.com.

EXHIBITION GALLERY. 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Come see celebrated glass artist John Moran. His solo exhibition, titled “American Idols,” will be on display through Sept. 14. Starworks, 100 Russell Drive, Star. Info: www.StarworksNC.org.

Friday, August 2

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

ART EXHIBIT. 5 - 7 p.m. The Artists League of the Sandhills will host an opening reception for its More Than Miniatures — Small Art exhibit. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: www.artistleague.org.

OPENING RECEPTION. 6 - 8 p.m. The Arts Council of Moore County is celebrating its 44th annual Fine Arts Festival. Artwork will be on display until Aug. 28. Free and open to the public. Campbell House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.mooreart.org.

MUSIC. 6:30 p.m. Tony Low performs live. Free of charge and open to the public. Starworks Cafe & Taproom, 100 Russell Drive, Star. Info: www.StarworksNC.org.

MUSICAL. 8 - 9:30 p.m. Judson Theatre Company presents Mrs. Mannerly. Shows will continue through Aug. 11. McPherson Theater, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

OUTDOOR MOVIE. 8:30 p.m. Bring yourself or the entire family for a showing of Elemental Concessions will be available for purchase. Bring

your blanket or chair. Free of charge. Downtown Park, 145 S.E. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

Saturday, August 3

KIDS’ SATURDAY. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Families are invited to a monthly themed craft event to socialize and get creative. Geared toward ages 310. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642 or www.vopnc.org.

SATURDAY STORYTIME. 10:15 a.m. Introducing Saturday Storytime, our newest, once-a-month program for children ages birth to 5. Join in for stories, songs, rhymes and smiles, where caregivers and young children can interact and explore the fun of language and early literacy. There are space constraints for this indoor story time. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

MET OPERA. 1 p.m. Met Opera in HD presents La Cenerentola. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 420-2549 or www.sunrisetheater.com.

SHAG SOCIETY DANCE. 7 - 10 p.m. The Moore Area Shag Society invites those 21 and older to a night of dancing. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with DJ Gene Hensley. A cash bar is available, and you may bring snacks for your table. A 50/50 drawing will also be held. Admission is $10 at the door for members and $15 for nonmembers. Down Memory Lane, 161 Dawkins St., Aberdeen. Info: (919) 622-2829.

Sunday, August 4

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

Monday, August 5

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

CRASH RADIO. 6:30 p.m. Crash Radio records musicians and storytellers once a month as they share their work in front of live audiences at

venues across Randolph County. The recordings are then edited into individual episodes and broadcast weekly on WKXR 94.9 FM. Tickets are $10. Starworks Cafe & Taproom, 100 Russell Drive, Star. Info: www.StarworksNC.org.

Tuesday, August 6

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

BOOK TASTING FOR TWEENS. 2:30 p.m. Tweens ages 9 - 12 are invited to discover their next great book. Read a chapter from a popular book together, learn how to find a book that’s a good fit for you, and explore different genres and new library books at the “tasting tables.” Space is limited. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

Wednesday, August 7

PLAYTIME IN THE PARK. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Kids, bring your parents out and join other friends for giant checkers, giant Jenga, bubbles, fun and more. You may meet some new friends. For kids ages 3 - 12. Downtown Park, 145 S.E. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

FIRE SAFETY. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Learn helpful fire safety tips that can save your life. Led by the Southern Pines Fire Department. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

Thursday, August 8

SENIOR BAKE SALE. 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. The SEC is holding its 10th annual Bake Sale. Local businesses and bake shops are the table vendors, and at the end of the event, all proceeds go to the Moore County Department of Aging/Senior Enrichment Center. Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End. Info: (910) 947-4483.

Friday, August 9

LIVE AFTER 5. 5:15 - 9 p.m. Dance the night away with the band Punch at Live After 5. Whiskey Pines returns to the stage as the opening act. There will also be fun kids’ activities, food trucks, as well as beer, wine and additional beverages. The Village Arboretum, 375 Magnolia Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

LIVE THEATER. 7 p.m. Watch The Sound of Music presented by Sunrise Live and directed by Amy Damone. There will be additional performances on Aug. 10, 11, 16, 17 and 18. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 420-2549 or www.sunrisetheater.com.

Saturday, August 10

COMMUNITY YARD SALE. 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. Enjoy shopping 20 - 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. Info: (910) 420-8970.

TEA WITH SEAGROVE POTTERS. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Spend the day on a gallery crawl and celebrate the 10th anniversary of Tea with Seagrove Potters. Sample different iced teas from Carriage House Tea, pastries from The Table and Seagrove Cafe, and treats at Blue Hen, Dean and Martin, Eck McCanless, From the Ground Up, Red Hare and Thomas potteries. Shops will feature everything you need to serve tea. Each shop is giving away door prizes. Shops are located along N.C. Pottery Highway 705 and adjoining roads. Info: www.teawithseagrovepotters.com.

DAY OF SERVICE. Adults, teens, children and families are welcome to join us for a day of service. Together we can make a difference. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or mhoward@sppl.net.

Sunday, August 11

STEAM. 2:30 - 3:30 p.m. Elementary-aged children and their caregivers are invited to learn about topics in science, technology, engineering, art and math, and to participate in STEAM projects and activities. This month we are making our own ice cream in a bag. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or kbroughey@sppl.net.

Monday, August 12

SUMMER CONCERT. 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. The Sandhills Community College Jazz Band will feature the music of Henry Mancini and Stevie Wonder in their third and final concert in the 2024 Summer Concert Series. Max’s Millstone

CALENDAR

BBQ will begin serving food at 5 p.m. The concert is free. Bring a lawn chair and enjoy the library green on the SCC Campus. Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst.

PHOTO CLUB. 7 p.m. The Sandhills Photography Club’s monthly meeting features an exciting competition with the theme “Close Up,” inviting photographers to explore the intricate details of smaller subjects. Photos in this competition will reveal the tiny, hidden beauty in the world around us. The competition judge will offer expert insights and announce the winners. All are welcome. Sandhills Horticultural Gardens Visitors Center, 3245 Airport Road, Southern Pines. Info: www.sandhillsphotoclub.org.

Tuesday, August 13

HATHA YOGA. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 55 and older can increase flexibility, balance, stability and muscle tone while learning the basic principles of alignment and breathing. You may gain strength, improve circulation and reduce chronic pain practicing gentle yoga postures and mindfulness. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

AARP TALK. 12 - 12:30 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to join AARP for a fraud talk. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BOOK EVENT. 6 - 7 p.m. Environmental scientist Ryan E. Emanuel talks about his book On The Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice. The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Wednesday, August 14

PICNIC IN THE PARK. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Join Southern Pines Parks and Recreation for summer fun games, crafts and a story time. Bring your own picnic lunch. Don’t miss out on this fun, free event. For kids 12 and under. Reservoir Park, 300 Reservoir Park Drive, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SPEAKER SERIES. 5 - 7:15 p.m. The James E. Holshouser, Jr. Speaker Series presents L. Brent Bozell III, Founder and President of Media Research Center. Owens Auditorium in the

Bradshaw Performing Arts Center, Sandhills Community College, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Thursday, August 15

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

OPEN MIC NIGHT. 7 p.m. Open mic night is free and open to the public. Starworks Cafe & Taproom, 100 Russell Drive, Star. Info: www.StarworksNC.org.

Friday, August 16

LIBRARY PROGRAM. 11 a.m. Did you know you can get free eBooks, audiobooks and magazines using the Libby app and your library card? Come to our Introduction to Libby program to learn all about using Libby. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or msilva@sppl.net.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PINES. 7:30 - 9 p.m. Come to a performance of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, presented by Uprising Theatre Company. There are performances on Aug. 17, 18, 23, 24 and 25. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org or www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Saturday, August 17

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

PARTY. 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. Join Southern Pines Parks and Recreation as we wind down the summer with an end-of-summer party. Enjoy food trucks, face painting, bounce houses, yard games, water slides, music and much more. Free for all ages. Memorial Park, 210 Memorial Park Ct., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

DANCING. 6 p.m. Carolina Pines Dance Club invites you for a fun evening of swing, shag, ballroom, Latin and line dancing. Doors open at 6

p.m. Dance lessons from 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. Dancing until 9:30 p.m. Beginners and experienced dancers, couples and singles are all welcome. Cost is $20 per person, cash at the door. Tyson Sinclair Ballroom, 105 McReynolds St. (second floor), Carthage. Info: (910) 331-9965.

Sunday, August 18

MUSHROOM PRESENTATION. 2:30 p.m. Join mushroom expert Marco Rotting for “The Wonderful Hidden World of Mushrooms.” This presentation will cover fun and interesting facts, medicinal benefits, and how mushrooms can improve flowers and vegetables in your garden. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

LECTURE. 2:30 - 4:30 p.m. The Moore County Historical Association presents Donald C. McLeod with a presentation on “The Creation of the University of North Carolina in 1795 by Scots-Irish Presbyterian Graduates of Princeton University.” Open to the public. Civic Club, corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Ashe Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 246-0452 or mafarina@aol.com.

Tuesday, August 20

BRAIN FITNESS. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 18 and

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

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

BOOK CHAT. 5:30 p.m. Join in for a perfect blend of books and crafts. Southern Pines Brewing, 565 Air Tool Drive, Southern Pines. Info: mhoward@sppl.net.

BOOK EVENT. 6 - 7 p.m. The Country Bookshop welcomes Frances Mayes to talk about her latest novel, A Great Marriage. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Wednesday, August 21

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

Thursday, August 22

BOOK EVENT. 7 p.m. Welcome nonfiction writer and Wall Street Journal reporter Valerie Bauerlein as she discusses her highly anticipated book, The Devil at his Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty. The Country Bookshop, 140 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

OLD TIME JAM. 7 p.m. Join the Old Time Jam. Free and open to the public. Starworks Cafe & Taproom, 100 Russell Drive, Star. Info: www.StarworksNC.org.

Friday, August 23

SENIOR TRIP. 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to join Southern Pines Parks and Recreation to visit the North Carolina Museum of History, discovering fascinating secrets and hidden gems from North Carolina’s past. Afterward stop at New Carolina’s Freedom Park before heading to lunch at Beasley’s Chicken + Honey. Cost is $11 for residents and $16 for non-residents. Info: (910) 692-7376.

FOURTH FRIDAY. 6 - 9 p.m. On the fourth Friday of every month, The District features the best of Fayetteville’s visual and performing arts, live music and street performers. Folks of all ages get a taste of Downtown Fayetteville’s dynamic

arts and entertainment district while supporting local independent galleries, bistros and shops full of unique goods and gifts. Downtown Fayetteville, 222 Hay St., Fayetteville.

Saturday, August 24

FLEA MARKET. Shop at the Moore County Community Flea Market. Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Road S., Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

MET OPERA. 1 p.m. Met Opera in HD presents Turandot Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 420-2549 or www.sunrisetheater.com.

MOVIE NIGHT. The town of Vass will show the movie Elemental at sunset. Sandy Ramey Keith Park, 3600 U.S. 1 Business, Vass. Info: (910) 245-4677 or www.townofvassnc.gov.

Tuesday, August 27

TEEN BOOK CHAT. 4:30 p.m. Come to our Teen Book Chat and Craft. This program is for teens ages 13 and older. Share favorite books, discover new ones, and connect with other teens who love to read. Bring a favorite book to show others, if you want, and make a “bookish” craft. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: kbroughey@sppl.net.

Wednesday, August 28

PIANO CONCERT. 11 a.m. Members of the SEC Piano Wednesday group will each play a tune and end with “Piano Men,” Flint Long and Dick Pitassy. Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End. Info and reservations: (910) 947-4483.

Thursday, August 29

WELLNESS CLASSES. 10 - 11:30 a.m. For adults 18 and older. Join for educational topics to improve overall mind, body and spirit. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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

MEDICAL MINUTES. 1 - 2 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to explore different topics each month that educate the senior community. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

Friday, August 30

BLOOD DRIVE. 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Hollyfield Design is hosting its fourth annual blood drive. Schedule an appointment; walk-ins are not guaranteed space. Hollyfield Design, 130 Illinois Ave., Southern Pines.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Sunday, September 15

JAZZ MUSIC. 7 - 9 p.m. Enjoy a night of jazz from Peter Lamb and the Wolves. Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Road S., Pinehurst. Info and tickets: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

WEEKLY EVENTS

Mondays

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

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

CHAIR YOGA. 9 - 10 a.m. For adults 55 and older. Help offset body aches encountered with desk work. This is an accessible yoga class for bodies not able to easily get up from and down to the floor. Do standing or sitting in a chair. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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

RESTORATIVE YOGA. 12 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Practice gentle movements to improve well-being. 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.

GAME ON. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. You and your friends are invited to come and play games such as cornhole, badminton, table tennis, shuffleboard, trivia 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.

TAI CHI. 1 - 2 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to learn tai chi for arthritis and fall prevention. Free of charge. Classes go through October 16. 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. 10:15 a.m. Baby Rhymes is specially designed for the youngest learners (birth- 2) and their caregivers. Repetition and comforting movements make this story time perfect for early development and brain growth. There will be a duplicate session at 10:45 a.m. An active library card is required. Dates this month are Aug. 6, 13, 20 and 27. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

GAME DAY. 12 p.m. Enjoy bid whist and other cool games all in the company of great friends. For adults 55 and older. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

CHESS. 1:30 - 5 p.m. Come join a chess group, whether you have been playing for a while or have never played. This is a free program. Moore

CALENDAR

County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

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

Wednesdays

CHAIR 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.

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

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

LEARN AND PLAY. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Bring your toddler or preschooler to an open play date where there are developmental toys and puzzles as well as early literacy tips for parents and caregivers to

incorporate into daily activities. Dates this month are Aug. 7, 14, 21 and 28. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

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

GROUP FITNESS. 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Adults 55 and older can flow through yoga poses slowly and intentionally, moving breath to movement, stretching everything from head to toe. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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

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

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

 THEATER SERIES 

8-3

CAT VIDEO FEST 2024

Join us for the world’s #1 cat video festival on our big screen!

August 3rd & 4th - Cameo Art House Theatre

 SPEAKER SERIES 

L. Brent Bozell III

August 20th - Sunrise Theater 8-14 8-16 8-20

Don’t miss L. Brent Bozell III, Founder and President of Media Research Center.

August 14th - Owens Auditorium

 THEATER SERIES 

Shakespeare in the Pines

Uprising Theatre Company’s Shakespeare in the Pines!

August 16th-26th - The Village Green at Pinehurst

 AUTHOR SERIES 

Frances Mayes

Don’t miss Frances Mayes speaking on her modern classic “Under the Tuscan Sun”!

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

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

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

TAI CHI. 2 - 3 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to learn tai chi to manage arthritis and prevent falls. Free of charge. Classes go through October 16. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

IMPROVISATIONAL ACTING. 3 - 4 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Explore this dynamic and engaging art form through a variety of roles, unleashing creativity, embracing the unexpected, and sharing some laughter together.

CALENDAR

Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SANDHILLS FARMERS MARKET. 3 - 6 p.m. The Sandhills Farmers Market features the wonderful farms, nurseries, bakeries, meat and egg providers, cheesemakers and specialty food producers our area has to offer. These incredible vendors are available twice weekly at Tufts Memorial Park through October 5. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road W., Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

LIBRARY PROGRAM. 3:30 p.m. At The Library After School (ATLAS) is an after-school program for children ages kindergarten through second grade who enjoy activities, crafts, stories, and meeting new friends. Dates this month are Aug. 7, 14, 21 and 28. 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 Drive, Seven Lakes. Info: (910) 400-5646.

Thursdays WORKSPACES. 7 a.m. - 3p.m. The Given

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

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

GIVEN STORY TIME. 10 a.m. Bring your preschooler to enjoy stories, songs and activities. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

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

MUSIC AND MOTION. 10:15 and 10:45 a.m. Does your toddler like to move and groove?

Join Music and Motion to get those wiggles out and work on gross and fine motor skills. For ages 2 - 5. An active library card is required. Dates this month are Aug. 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

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

STRETCH, STRENGTH, BALANCE. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Adults 55 and older can enjoy exercises that will improve the overall quality of life. Exercises can be performed standing or seated. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

ADAPTIVE YOGA. 12 - 1 p.m. Adults 55 and older can enjoy yoga that meets them where they are. Create a sense of balance and ease by slowly increasing range of motion and mobility while maintaining natural abilities. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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

CABIN TOURS. 1 - 4 p.m. The Moore County Historical Association’s Shaw House grounds, cabins and gift shop are open for tours and visits. The restored tobacco barn features the history of children’s roles in the industry. Docents are ready to host you and the cabins are open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Shaw House, 110 W. Morganton Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2051 or www.moorehistory.com.

IMPROVERS LINE DANCE. 3 - 5:30 p.m. Put

PineNeedler Answers

from page 119

CALENDAR

on your dancing shoes and line dance. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

LITTLE U. 3:30 p.m. Introducing Little U, Southern Pines Public Library’s new preschool program for children ages 3 1/2 - 5. Join in for stories, songs, rhymes, and activities that explore the world of books, language, and literacy. Little U is a fun and interactive program designed to help preschoolers develop early literacy skills in preparation for kindergarten and beyond. Dates this month are Aug. 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

SOUND BATH. 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. All ages can enjoy the rhythm and vibration of this medicine drum sound bath, moving the body and mind into deep rest mode. A unique and ancient healing arts practice. Cost is $4 for residents and $6 for non-residents. Train House, 482 E Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

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.

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

TAP CLASS. 10 - 11:30 a.m. For adults 55 and older. All levels welcome. Cost per class: $15/ resident; $30/non-resident. Douglass Community

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

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

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

LINE DANCING. 3 - 4 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Learn dance moves and build confidence on the dance floor. Leave 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. The market runs through November. Downtown Southern Pines, 156 S.E. Broad St., Southern Pines. SANDHILLS FARMERS MARKET. 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. The Sandhills Farmers Market features some of the many wonderful farms, nurseries, bakeries, meat and egg providers, cheesemakers and specialty food producers our area has to offer. You will find this incredible mix of vendors at Tufts Memorial Park through October 5. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road W., Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org. PS

The League’s August exhibit features miniature and small works of art. The opening reception will be held on Friday, August 2, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. Art work that is 10” x 10” or smaller will be on display. The exhibit and sale will continue through August 30. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, noon to 3:00. Studios (with hundreds of additional paintings) are open Monday through Friday, 10:30-3:00, and Saturday, noon to 3:00.

Visit

44th Annual FINE ARTS FESTIVAL

Opening Reception

Friday, August 2nd • 6-8pm

Awards Ceremony at 7pm

Campbell House 482 E. Connecticut Ave.

Southern Pines

Free and Open to the Public

Exhibit Open

July 24th - August 28th

Weekdays 10am-5pm

Saturday, August 17th • 12-4pm

Sponsored by Artist League of the Sandhills, Cele Bryant, Charles Schwab, Debra Rhodes Fine Art Services, Eye Candy Art Gallery & Framing, Fore Properties, Gulley’s Garden Center/Doris & Pete Gulley, Michael Lamb Interiors, Jeanne Paine, Robbins May & Rich LLP, Rollin & Frank Shaw, Sandy Tremblay & Paul Hammock

photo credit: Timeless Carolinas

2nd

10 Azalea Road • Pinehurst • 910-295-6003 www.tvcpinehurst.com • www.facebook.com/tvcpinehurst

SandhillSeen

Arts Council of Moore County: Reception Symphony of Colors

Friday, June 7, 2024

Photographs by Diane McKay

Rita Wright, Hunter Elkins

Dale & JoAnn Erickson, Annette Daniels

Liz Harry

Franceska Aaron, Jane & Don Harnum

Anna Balinska, Belize Menzies

The Kevin Womble Family Linda Bruening

Emory & Laura Scott, Jean Skipper

Pinkie Castanien, Janice Huff, Marti Derleth, Donna May

Lynlee Long, KC Sorvari, Vicki Disantis

Tim & Natasha Russell

The Wayne Manning Fam‎ily

SandhillSeen

PRIDEFest 2024

Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities

Saturday, June 8, 2024

Photographs by Diane McKay

Derek and Kellen Hawthorne

Ryan, Annie and Kristen Anderson

Ashley Aderhold, Erica Street

Bri Hersh, Louis Stewart, Kate Bonsal

Judy Winston, J Dachille

Barbara Keating, Cynthia Davis, Kurt Kreuger

Jacob Lee, Rickie Jacobs-Lee

Shay S, Charlie K, Bobbie W

Marissa Capps, Josh Carey

Monique Baker, Maurice Holland Jr., Diana Staley

Valerie Dattilo, Michelle Yatsko

Alexa Roberts, Quanisea Moses

August PineNeedler HOT,

ACROSS

1. Astonished reaction

5. “Encore!”

9. “Pipe down!”

14. Arm bone

15. Jewish month

16. It’s spotted in Westerns

17. Town street name

18. Loch with a monster

19. Danger in a uranium mine

20. After surgery

23. Curb, with “in”

24. Musical composition

25. People with short fuses

28. Frazzled state (2 wds)

30. Skin layer

31. Decorated, as a cake

32. Pas mates

35. Change of heart?

39. Gunk

40. Canton cookware

41. “Fiddler on the Roof” role

42. Stage setting

44. Like the soil in Sanford

45. Mist

47. Dragster’s car

48. Divorcing couple

52. Mr. T’s TV show

53. “General Hospital,” e.g.

54. Allergic reaction

57. French subway

58. Small stringed instrument

59. Christmas threesome

60. Iron

61. Aces, sometimes

62. Ashtabula’s lake DOWN

1. Doublemint, e.g.

2. Cooked in the way of

3. Barber’s motion

4. Big picture

5. Bug with prominent forelegs

6. Ancient Greek theater

7. Coarse file

8. European language

9. Jack and the missus

10. Break from routine

11. Disconnected

12. Oven

13. Sharpen

21. Alternative to a convertible

22. Marsh growth

25. Baseball fare

26. “My !”

27. This being the case . . .

28. Flapjack

29. Department store department

31. “Pumping ”

32. A bunch of

33. Payment to the pot

34. “Don’t go!”

HOT, HOT!

36. Dweeb

37. Aviation tower

38. Interval between ordering and receiving, (2 wds)

42. Catches in a way

43. Carl Sagan PBS series

44. Breakfast order

45. Ballot caster

46. Mountain crest

Puzzle answers on page 109

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

Sudoku:

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

47. Much-anticipated night out (2 wds)

48. David, e.g.

49. Christiania, now

50. It may be proper

51. Hollywood VIP

55. Film graphics initials

56. Get a move on, of old

Daniel Wallace is the author of six novels. He is the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his alma mater.