SENC Fall 2015

SE

First Anniversary Edition!

FALL 2015

North Carolina

RISING TIDE 40 YEARS IN THE N.C. SEAFOOD INDUSTRY

Harry Taylor

A Light in the Dark

Old Burial Ground

The art of the real in the digital age

Burgaw’s teen drug abuse center

Voices that speak from the past

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SouthEast North Carolina

Fall 2015

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Fall 2015

SouthEast North Carolina

3

Editor’s NotE:

Mutiny! Mutiny we cried!

SE North Carolina www.sencmag.com Issue No. 4

Staff / Credits / Contributions PUBLISHER Gary Scott EDITOR Todd Wetherington ASSOCIATE EDITOR Trevor Normile PRODUCTION/ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Becky Wetherington CONTENT & PHOTOgRAPHy Jacqueline Hough Nadya Nataly Trevor Normile Gary Scott Todd Wetherington

It’s already been a year. Huh. How ‘bout that.

When SE North Carolina was just getting started—when publisher Gary Scott first brought the idea up to the staff—we thought he might have gone out of his skull.

We had not only a newspaper to put out but also the local visitor’s guide, endless special-run inserts and annual school board publications to do. That stuff’s the zeroglory, behind-the-scenes work that makes a local paper valuable in the community.

Little known fact: it doesn’t matter if it’s a daily paper, the weekly wrapper (us), news radio or television—if a news outlet isn’t busy doing something every second of every day, it will be doing nothing before long.

That’s why NPR likes to syndicate features about cabbage farming. Even on a slow news day, there’s work to be done.

Busy as we already were, we became slightly uncomfortable when Mr. Scott cooked up his bright idea to somehow do more.

At first, SE North Carolina was supposed to come out annually. Then, the suggestion came to print monthly. After the mass retirements stopped and the riot-fires were finally out, the publisher settled on a

CONTRIBUTINg PHOTOgRAPHy Corey Cannon Bruce AlleyCat ADvERTISINg Becky Cole Alan Wells Evelyn Riggs Gary Scott CIRCULATION Debby Scott SUBSCRIBE: Four issues (one year) $19.95 plus tax dscott@ncweeklies.com

SE

North Carolina seasonal schedule.

In the end, we agreed not to drive his truck into a hog lagoon and he (very auspiciously) promised not to have us flogged for mutiny.

Joking aside, I wouldn’t say it’s gotten easier, necessarily. It’s always just a little less painful than we remember, a little more organized each time.

We’re still getting the hang of things, trying to cover topics that might interest our readers. And thanks to our spring 2015 edition, the layout desk now knows the upper-limit on how large to make my face on a page.

The answer is not very. Not very big.

Very small in fact. Teensy weensy.

That’s not all. We’ve renamed a few things, tweaked details here and there. It seems like the best improvements are the hardest ones to spot. More than that, it’s all about developing a formula.

Part of that formula is capturing the weird and the folksy, but doing it in a way that’s respectful of our culture here. Part is presenting a new angle on the topics people already love reading about.

I’ve kept chanting my mantra that no matter the details and setting, all the stories we write are about the people.

That’s why we need you, dear reader.

Write in. Compliment what you like. Vent about what you don’t. Just give us your opinion. Tell us how you are, or just who you are. Tell us about the coyote that ate your chickens. Tell us about your afternoon by the river.

Things are chugging along pretty well so far, and we know folks are reading.

So shoot us a line—there’s plenty more to come.

(Don’t be shy. It’s super easy to write in.

Send your stuff marked “SE North Carolina Editors” to P.O. Box 69, Kenansville, NC, 28349, or e-mail us at senc@nccooke.com.)

CONTACT senc.ads@nccooke.com senc@nccooke.com 1.910.296.0239 ON THE COvER Todd Wetherington

Crabs fill a holding tank at Garland Fulcher Seafood

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SouthEast North Carolina

Trevor Normile, Assoc. Editor Fall 2015

Mystery Photo

Where in SENC is this?

Where in Southeast North Carolina is this?

A quick explanation, in case it’s needed: Every quarter, SE North Carolina includes a cropped-down version of a landmark or scene in one of SENC’s many signature communities.

Try and guess where and what this structure is.

Hint: it is off the beaten path and its life may be nearing an end.

But it’s located in the heart of southeastern North Carolina!

See page 71 for answer

This fall in SENC! These local areas are featured in this edition of SE North Carolina.

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Goldsboro ............ 57,63 Dunn .......................... 73 Kinston.................. 9, 39 Fayetteville .. 9,53,72,73 Warsaw................. 73,74 Pink Hill (Jones Co.) .. 75 New Bern ............. 31,73 Kenansville ............... 73 Oriental ..................... 14 Beulaville .................. 36 Harrells ...................... 64 • Wallace .................. 37,49 Swansboro ...................... 72 Morehead City .................... 74 Beaufort .................................. 66 Burgaw ................................. 60,75 • • Sneads Ferry ................................... 73 Reigelwood ....................................... 70 Surf City ................................................ 74 Topsail Beach ............................................ 51 Castle Hayne ............................................... 73 Wrightsville Beach.................................. 28,72 Wilmington ................................... 9,43,53,72,73 Whiteville ..................................................... 39,73 Carolina Beach .................................................... 73 Supply ..................................................................... 22 Varnamtown ............................................................ 20 Oak Island .................................................................. 36 Fall 2015

SouthEast North Carolina

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What they said

SE 15

er 20

Summ

Letters

a

Caro lin North

A

HOLL

itage is her er erin’ hollivey’s corn in sp op

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echa steepltch Fest toutons tstre g traditi Fron racin horse

tales Ferry vel, done

y tra Water shioned wa d-fa the ol

sh chop ade Jake’sen a couch mr? se Ever of a Chrysle out

You’re certainly welcome

What a great literary addition to the region! Many thanks for such a well-produced magazine about the many facets and uniqueness of southeastern North Carolina. Your stories on the region’s heritage, history and culture are wonderful and they provide our young people and visitors with a glimpse into our shared past. I look forward to future editions and more tales of our past.

We were privileged to work with many people in Duplin County (including Jacqueline Hough) to commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the War Between the States and the region’s contributions and veterans from surrounding counties. Nearly forgotten is Major-General Robert F. Hoke and his division’s strategic position below Duplin Roads (Wallace) in early 1865 to resist enemy attack, and the 10,000 man prisoner exchange near that position. Many farmers who left their homes to defend North Carolina comprised Hoke’s army – many from the counties in southeastern North Carolina. So much history in this region!

Again, a fine issue and do keep up the great work illuminating our history.

Bernhard Thuersam Director, Cape Fear Historical Institute, Wilmington

Something in the woods

My husband and I are bigfoot fanatics. We watch everything on TV that we can. We are definitely believers.

The BFRO have talked to a lot of people who have seen big foot and all of them can’t be wrong.

We deer hunt during deer season and always have our eyes open for other wildlife. We live near Angola Bay. The people

CORRECTION:

In our summer 2015 edition, Hollerin’ Contest winner Robbie Goodman’s photo was incorrectly identified. We apologize to Mr. Goodman and gladly include his photo here.

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SouthEast North Carolina

in your article admitted they would never return to the area where they believed they saw a bigfoot, but we would have to go back and check it out.

The BFRO might be interested in what these people have seen. All this is just a thought. You never know what might turn up!

This is the first time we have read your magazine. Keep them coming!

Demand is rolling in

Cheryl and Doug Faircloth Rose Hill

The Onslow County Council for Women has a booth every year at the Oktoberfest in Jacksonville in support of Onslow Community Outreach. We hand out information that is of interest to women and their families. I just saw your summer 2015 issue and thought it would be perfect to give out this year on October 24. Could you please tell me what I would need to do to get 25 (or more) copies by the October 24 date?

Connie Gamble Ochse President, Onslow County Council for Women Jacksonville

We’d be happy to hook you up. Be sure to check out our website too, at sencmag.com, and hit us up on Facebook. -Ed.

Just give us a holler

I was born and raised and still live in Spivey’s Corner, N.C. Loved your summer issue! A friend showed me a copy she had picked up at the Country Squire in Kenansville. If possible, I would like to obtain a copy.

Sherrie M. Baxley Spivey’s Corner

FEEDBACK: Got something to tell us?

We want to know. Send comments or suggestions to SE North Carolina editors, P.O. Box 69, Kenansville, NC 28349 or email senc@nccooke.com Fall 2015

SE Table of Contents

In Every Issue

Fall 2015

Features

64

Windward

14 The Seafood Life

40 years of tidal changes

Stirrings

22 Mary’s Gone Wild

60 PORT Human Services

31 Bernaroo

64 Harrells Truck and

22

66 Old Burial Ground

The divinely disturbing Two days of loud art

Refuge for troubled teens

Tractor Pull Smokestack lightning

Sailors, soldiers, and mythic spirits

Brood

SE-Snapshots

9 Fayetteville FireAntz

Hockey stars look to put sting on competition Our Picks: Hometown Heroes

39 Whiteville Nature Museum Hands-on science center brings the lab coats and microscopes Our Picks: N.C. Science Museums 57 Wayne Co. Jazz Showcase Monthly roundup of swinging sounds Our Picks: N.C. Jazz Greats

36

Fashion

Fashion for less: thrift store chic

42 Harry Taylor

Painting with light

34

49 David Wells The Cheese Man cometh

Murmurs

“The Even-ing” Trevor Normile

72

53 Battle of the Beards Facial follicle face-off

Events

Check out Play Dates for upcoming events in Southeastern NC

42

78

Folk

A good woman is hard to find Fall 2015

SouthEast North Carolina

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SE Snapshots

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Indians

This year to be a season of beginnings for Fayetteville FireAntz Team will have a new coach, new players and new game time

T

his is a season of new beginnings for the Fayetteville FireAntz.

The 2015-16 season will include a new coach, Jeff Bes, new players and a new start time.

Bes played minor league hockey for almost 20 years and is the former coach of the Mississippi Surge.

A charter member of the Southern Professional Hockey League, Fayetteville FireAntz have been there for almost 20 years.

Director of Marketing Joe Wellbrock says several things contributed to the team’s 21-27-8 record and seventh place finish in the league.

There were injuries, player call-ups and three different goalies.

He adds that last season was a big opportunity to grow as an organization, with the team falling short of making the playoffs. The Antz missed the playoffs three of the past four seasons, but won the regular-season title in the other.

A heads up for the home team fans: the 56-game season will include 28 home games at the Crown Coliseum, 1960 Coliseum Drive, Fayetteville. This season, games will start at 7:05 p.m. instead of 7:30 p.m., a change Bes hopes will appeal to fans.

Average attendance is 3,100 per game with 6,000 there on specialty nights for military and kids.

During the 2014-15 season, 85,122 fans attended the games.

From 1987 until 2011, the legendary Kinston Indians played as the minor league iteration of the Cleveland Indians. The possibility of pro baseball returning to Grainger Stadium was raised in April, as the Carolina Single A Wilmington Blue Rocks may move to Kinston next year.

Hammerheads FC

The Fayetteville FireAntz are hoping for a successful 2015-16 season after a series of injuries took out key players last year.

Part of hockey’s appeal is the long regular season: this year it starts Oct. 24 against the Huntsville Havoc and will continue through April 2.

Before the season began, the Antz hosted the Macon Mayhem at Oct. 16 and played in Knoxville.

Single game tickets range from $14 to $20 for adults and $5 for children under 12. Group packages for 10 or more are also available.

Individual tickets for the 201516 season are sold at the Crown Complex Box Office and online at CrownComplexNC.com. Season ticket packages are currently available by calling 910-321-0123.

SE Fall 2015

Wilmington’s Hammerheads Football Club, founded in 1996 and based at Legion Stadium, Wilmington, are currently affiliated with New York City FC and have defeated soccer teams in the Major League, teams like Dallas Burn and D.C. United. In 2003, the Hammerheads took the USL Pro League Championship.

Crossover The relatively new semi-professional basketball team, Fayetteville Crossover, was established in 2011 and is based at John D. Fully, Sr., Recreational Complex, Fayetteville.

After starting in the Continental Basketball League, Crossover moved to the Tobacco Road League and just last year moved into the East Coast Basketball League. Crossover completed a 10-2 season this year and won two of its three playoff games.

SouthEast North Carolina

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SE Windward

North Carolina

Musings 14 of a fisherman Sherill Styron of the Garland Fulcher Seafood Company clings to a changing—and shrinking—seafood industry, with hope for the future, memories of the past and a yearning for the salt air. Read about the people behind the delicacy.

Mary’s Gone Wild

22

Mary’s Gone Wild Folk Art Garden and Doll Village in Holden Beach is both impressive and unsettling at first glance. At its heart though, Mary Paulsen’s intense exhibits are the fulfillment of a prayer, and a sweet dedication to rescued toys.

Bernaroo

31

The arts were alive in North Carolina June 24, and the epicenter was New Bern’s Bernaroo festival. It was sort of like a city-wide riot: their torches were fire water, their pitchforks were guitars, and the mob’s only goal was to celebrate the culture of N.C.

se • windward

Teach a man

to fish...

Story & Photography by Todd Wetherington

Sherrill Styron looks back on four decades of SE North Carolina’s changing seafood industry 14

SouthEast North Carolina

Fall 2015

Fall 2015

SouthEast North Carolina

15

se • windward

The odor of fish,

sharp but only faintly unpleasant, grows stronger as you near the harbor along Hodges Street in downtown Oriental, a permanent reminder of the Pamlico Sound that borders the small coastal town, and the industry that kept it afloat for decades.

As a light mist of rain from an approaching storm moves across the water, Sherrill Styron walks the docks outside of the Garland Fulcher Seafood Company, running his hand across the painted, scarred wood of boats whose silhouettes and idiosyncrasies have become etched in his memory like the faces of loved ones.

“I’ve wanted to be in the seafood business since I spent my first summer working a shrimp boat. When I was young, there wasn’t nothing I liked any better,” he recalls.

Styron was able to turn that youthful ambition into a career when he took over Garland Fulcher Seafood 42 years ago. The business made him a wealthy man, at least by local standards.

But today’s seafood industry is far different than the one he entered into half a lifetime ago. The markets are down.

Operating expenses have skyrocketed.

And the boats tied to the docks are no longer his.

At 73, his arms and calves have begun

to cramp up. His right hand recently developed a tremor.

“It just seems to be getting worse all the time. Sometimes I don’t even notice and other times it gets pretty bad,” he explains. “They haven’t been able to find out what causes it. I guess it’s just something that happens to some people when they get some age on them.”

He’s thought about retiring. Somehow though, he’s always found an excuse to stay on.

But now, as he looks back on four decades of fishing, selling, and working to secure his family’s future, it seems the seafood business may be through with Sherrill Styron before he’s through with it.

••• The Garland Fulcher Seafood Company has been a fixture of Oriental’s waterfront since 1941, when Fulcher took a cue from his half brother, Clayton, who owned a successful seafood business in nearby Bayboro.

The 28-year-old bought up a small piece of land on Hodges Street where the seafood company’s office is now headquartered. Over the years, Fulcher acquired more property in the area, adding a crab plant and ice house in the 1960s.

By the time Styron, a native of the Hobucken community, came aboard in the early 1970s, the company boasted

six boats delivering seasonal catches of shrimp, crabs, and fish around the clock.

“I had planned on being an accountant,” remembers Styron, relaxing in his office and gazing at an oil painting portrait of Fulcher that adorns a wall near the stairwell.

“The way I met Garland was I worked on one of his boats one summer while I was teaching, in 1968 or ’69. I thought I’d teach school a few years and take my CPA exam and it wouldn’t be long before I’d switch over and be an accountant,” Styron explains in his flat, Down East brogue. “My brother was working one of Garland’s boats with another man and they needed a third person, so I went on the boat. I got to know Garland and I liked him and for some reason he liked me.”

Styron describes Fulcher as a hardworking man who, entering his 60s, had no children to pass his business on to.

“I was doing some bookkeeping work on the side for about three crab houses and two of them were making pretty good money. And I was pretty sure the third one was making more than he was showing,” Styron chuckles.

In 1973, the two men formed a partnership. In 1980, Fulcher sold out his half of the business to Styron.

Today, Styron runs the company with his oldest son, Jeff. His other son, Mike, is also a part owner. The business has grown to include a crab processing plant a few miles down the road in Arapahoe, as well as a small seafood retail market on Hodges Street that opened in 2007.

The Styrons employ approximately 50 people, most of them working in the crab plant. Several truck drivers deliver Garland Fulcher seafood as far north as Boston, Mass. down to McClellanville, S.C. “That’s the only way we can make money now,” Styron says matter-offactly. “No more mark-up than you can

Sherrill Styron, owner of Garland Fulcher Seafood in Oriental, stands beside the Capt. Cecil, one of his first boats.

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Fall 2015

get now just packing shrimp across the dock and putting them on a processor, or packing flounders and stuff like that and selling them on the regular wholesale market, you’re just spinning your wheels.”

••• Across the street at the retail market, Buddy Harper, Styron’s brother-in-law, is packing salmon fillets in a cooler and sharing jokes with a customer. Harper began working for Garland Fulcher Seafood as a truck driver (“I spent a week running to South Carolina and decided that was all I needed of that”) before taking over the dayto-day operations at the market.

Housed in a small plywood building filled with the familiar smells of fresh fish and shrimp, the shop’s walls are decorated with plaques in memory of Harper’s friend, Russell Jones, who was a familiar face in the local seafood community before passing away in Dec. 2014. There are also photos of Morgan Styron, Jeff’s daughter, who helps out in the store when she’s not in school.

But the most unusual wall decoration is an inked message marking off how far water rose in the building during Hurricane Irene, on August 27-28, 2011 — 5 feet, three inches.

The water carried away the cash register, scales, and coolers and ruined motors and conveyors.

It also took a tea kettle that once belonged to Harper’s grandmother.

“I was using it as a tip jar,” explains the Pamlico County native, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday. “There was a line of money floating out the door and off down the street. Sherrill (Styron) came down in a canoe, but there wasn’t

Top: A handwritten message describes the water height at the Garland Fulcher Seafood retail store during Hurricane Irene. Middle: The store’s manager, Buddy Harper, enjoys a cigar as talks to a customer. Right: The Capt. Jeff, named after Sherrill Styron’s son, is silhouetted against the sky over the Pamlico Sound.

se • windward much he could do. A lot of people around here never got back into their homes after that storm.”

Though the seafood company eventually recovered from the hurricane, other forces, both locally and within the industry, have led to more lasting changes.

••• “There was enough help back in those days for everybody.

Of course, it finally got to the point, I think it was ’89 or ’90, we had to start bringing Mexicans up here.”

Styron is discussing his early years in the seafood business, when work was plentiful and there was little trouble finding locals to pick crabs.

“Around here it was nearly half white and half black, older women working in the crab houses and most of the men worked on the water catching the stuff,” he remembers.

As those women retired or died off, the workforce began to dwindle.

“Our young people didn’t want to pick crabs, so we had to start bringing (migrant workers) up. They were extremely good help. When they first came up here, you want to talk about workers? — they were workers! Right now picking crabs is near about all Mexicans, very few local women at all. If we couldn’t bring migrant workers up here now we couldn’t make it.”

Styron says the crabs themselves have been in retreat since Hurricane Floyd in 2000.

“It’s a far cry from what it used to be. I’ve seen times, back when things were really going good, when we had to pick crabs at night. We were letting the workers stop and eat supper and then come back to work three or four more hours. We had a good group of women: I don’t know how they did it but they’d be right back here at 6 or 7 o’clock the next morning to start all over again.”

Styron admits the thought of retirement has loomed larger as age and changes to the industry have drained both the profit and enjoyment from the seafood business. Though he served for years as Oriental’s mayor and on the town council, he could never quite resign himself to a life that didn’t include salt water in his nostrils and the feel of fish scales sliding through his hands.

In 2006, he received two offers on the property in Oriental.

One was less than half his $10 million asking price. The other offer, from an Atlanta businessman, was more interesting but no more workable.

“He wanted to give me $11.9 million and after it was all over and the dust had settled, he wanted me to give him a million of it back. He was trying to defraud his investors. I wasn’t about to touch that.”

Around that same time, Styron made the decision to begin selling off his fleet of shrimp boats, nine in total.

“I thought, ‘I’ll sell one this year, and another one next year, and then one the year after and by the time I sell all these boats someone will come along and buy this property.’ Well, I advertised the boats and they went just like that, so I don’t even have a boat anymore. I’ve got a couple that I’m still owed some money on, so they stay here at my dock.”

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Fall 2015

Unable to sell off the business, Styron said there are times when he regrets not having the boats.

“I have people say, ‘Why don’t you buy them back or buy some more,’ but it wouldn’t be profitable to do that now. The permits for the boats have gotten sky high. You don’t shrimp but five months out of the year and of course you have to pay for insurance on the boat for 12 months. At the end of the year you were lucky if you broke even.”

Another, more personal reason, has also kept him from buying back the boats.

“My maintenance man passed away. He left here and went home, took a bath and ate supper, got in his recliner and had a heart attack and died just like that.”

••• Standing on the docks outside his office, Styron squints into the wind and points to a large, black-hulled shrimp boat tied nearby, Capt. Cecil painted in orange and white script across its bow.

“That was the second boat I ever owned. My father was a fisherman. I used to tell my wife, I said, ‘When our boys get old enough they can run this fish house, I’m going to give them one of these boats.’

Until recently, Styron recalls, he would often work beside his employees in the seafood company’s ice house, helping to chop ice and pack down the Capt. Cecil and other boats before they set out on a run.

“I used to get in there with them and help. Last year it was

a little work for me; I would start getting tired after doing it. In a minute I was just about out of breath.”

Years ago, when prices were high, he would also help sort fish as they came in off the boats, smiling to himself at the profits the local flounder would bring. At times it all seemed like a game, one a smart man could play to his and his family’s advantage.

“I’ve had times when you had fish come in today and the market was dropping. You got boats that got here just a few hours later but you couldn’t unload them until the next day and the market was down 25 cents a pound from what it was the day before. But when the market was right boy, that was some kind of fun.”

If he can hang on a little longer, maybe a better offer on the business will come along. Maybe the crabs will come back and the market prices will pick up.

“I wouldn’t mind being here a few more years before I have to leave.

When I die everything will go to Jeff and Mike, but I hope that’s no time soon. It’s like they say, everybody wants to go to heaven but they don’t want to go quite now.”

SE Right: A worker at the Garland Fulcher Seafood Company’s processing plant in Arapahoe sorts through a batch of newly-delivered crabs.

Much of the work once handled by local women is now done by migrant workers. Bottom: The docks beside the Garland Fulcher Seafood Company. Due to the high cost of insurance and other factors, most of the business’s boats were sold off around 2006.

Fall 2015

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Bring Your Own Knives: A ‘Shucking Good Time’ at Varnamtown’s Oyster Roast Every first Saturday in November, hundreds of people gather in the Brunswick County Town of Varnamtown for an afternoon of shuckin’ and socializin’.

der, shuckers open the mollusks with thick-bladed knives, sometimes sprinkling hot sauce or lime juice on the light-gray meat, alternately swallowing a mouthful of sweet pickles and hush puppies.

Diane Phillips of Wilmington was at the last oyster roast.

“I’m going to have to say these are some of the best oysters that I think I’ve ever had.

And I grew up eating oysters.”

The Dixon Chapel roast started in 1953, according to Marlene They shuck bushel after Varnam, one of the event’s bushel of freshly fired oysters organizers. at the annual Dixon Chapel Her friend, Beatrice VarUnited Methodist Church nam, 89, remembers working Oyster Roast. For more than that first roast. They charged 60 years, the church has $5 a head. “The first one we been sating appetites of oys- had we made $98.” ter lovers from the coast, the The church expects to net Piedmont and well beyond, about $10,000 at this year’s through this $20, all-you- oyster roast. can-eat fundraiser.

The event has never lacked It’s the oldest of 12 pub- for oysters, traditionally harlicly promoted North Caro- vesting them from the Locklina oyster roasts. Church wood Folly River, next to and community Varnamtown. members shovel The church adfreshly caught vertises the roast bivalves onto as “A Shuckin’ heavy-duty grills.

Good Time.”

Then, pairs of VARnAmTOwn Johnny Ezzell volunteers hoist of Supply sums each batch onto up the experian oak-burning cooker the ence this way: “Good fellowsize of a backyard trash can. ship, good food. Reasonable Orange flames lick upward, price. Good price. All you sending flakes of ash drifting can eat. It’ll be an annual through the air. thing for me.”

This abridged article, by How long does it take to roast an oyster? Five to 10 Jack Horan, was originally minutes, says Jesse Butter- published in Coastwatch magbaugh of nearby Supply. “Just azine. For the complete article, go to http://ncseagrant.ncsu. until they start opening up.”

Standing shoulder to shoul- edu/coastwatch/previous-issues.

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se • windward

Artist Mary Paulsen, above, has created a surreal wonderland — Mary’s Gone Wild Folk Art Garden and Doll Village — in the small Brunswick County community of Supply. Her creations include large scale dollhouses, brightly painted tree houses, and colorful paintings of exotic sea life, both real and mythical. Paulsen is also a collector of the mundane and the extraordinary, having constructed entire buildings out of recycled glass bottles.

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‘Crazy Mary’s’

divine

playground

M

STORY & PHOTOGRAPHY BY TODD WETHERINGTON

ary Paulsen says she heard the voice of God for the first time in 1996. The message was clear: construct a village in her front yard for the 6,000 dolls she had accumulated since childhood, when she would rescue discarded toys from trash bins around her Sunset Beach neighborhood.

Two years later, Paulsen received another decree from on high, this one with instructions to take brush and paint to canvases of window glass, illustrating her visions of colorful creatures both holy and psychedelically secular. The third and final mandate

Fall 2015

came five years ago — collect bottles, any kind of bottles, and use them as glass siding for a new gallery.

Though she had no experience as either an artist or a carpenter, Paulsen wasn’t particularly troubled by the new direction her life had taken. “The Lord gave me visions in my head; he gave me the knowledge of how to do all these things,” she explains.

Through a process that’s as hard to define as the place itself, Paulsen has managed to combine her spiritual directives into a sprawling fantasia equal parts childhood wonderland and Gothic nightmare — Mary’s Gone Wild Folk Art Garden and Doll Village.

Located a few miles off U.S. 17 in the small

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se • windward Brunswick County community of Supply, the village unwinds like a mashup of Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Sanford and Son, and The X-Files. It also recalls Paradise Garden, the rambling sculpture museum created by another well known — and divinely inspired — Southern folk artist, the late Rev. Howard Finster of Georgia.

Other than a welcome sign by the highway, the only greeting offered to visitors of the village is written on a piece of cardboard, taped to a dusty curio cabinet: “Remember if you steal from here you have just stole from the Lord not me and He will be your judge & jury amen” ••• “I don’t know whether to be impressed or freaked out.”

So says Brian Weber, a Jacksonville native on vacation with his family, as he navigates a series of lopsided treehouses that tower over the village’s entrance. The reaction is understandable. — Mary Paulsen’s singular vision made reality is, undeniably, both impressive and freaky.

The main village consists of large-scale dollhouses, each roughly the size of a small shed, which have been constructed to represent specific themes. Bible verses, cryptic quotes, and bits of Paulsen’s singular advice decorate many of the walls. Dolls in various states of ruin and undress peer out from behind boxes or beneath weeds. Several stair-

cases lead nowhere or simply terminate in mid-air. And throughout, nearly every available space is overflowing with the decaying odds and ends of daily life: rotary telephones, novels, coffee mugs, rooster figurines — they’ve all found a home in Paulsen’s otherworldly art project.

Each dollhouse leaves its own, peculiar impression. In the school building, wall length paintings of cartoon characters Tweety the bird and Sylvester the cat guard over an assortment of dusty children’s toys,

“”

SOME MAY BE LEFT WITH THE INESCAPABLE FEELING THAT THERE IS MEANING, DANCING JUST AT THE EDGE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, HIDDEN IN THE JUXTAPOSITIONS OF THE COMMONPLACE AND THE BIZARRE, THE RELIGIOUS AND THE RIBALD.

sports trophies, and comic books. A sign at the school’s entrance declares, “Jesus Christ is Lord over this school and over all this village.”

One of the most striking buildings is

the chapel, a quaint mauve and ochre hut with an interior that is either charming or unsettling, depending on one’s attitude towards inanimate toys shaped like blank-eyed children. On each side of the chapel’s small alter a congregation of ragged dolls, some dressed in their Sunday finery, others sporting Bubble Yum T-shirts and gypsy scarves, sit expectantly in miniature pews. Watching over it all, a weathered watercolor of Jesus rests atop a grime covered organ, his gaze turned toward windows painted with images of dancing angels.

Navigating Paulsen’s surreal playground, visitors will find little in the way of guideposts or explanations. Some may be left with the inescapable feeling that there is meaning, dancing just at the edge of consciousness, hidden in the juxtapositions of the commonplace and the bizarre, the religious and the ribald.

It would take days, weeks maybe, just to see, much less make sense of it all.

••• Out behind the dollhouses in the Folk Art Garden, Mary Paulsen is bent over a new project, trawl in hand. Slapping mortar around the base of one green jar after another, she carefully places them around a metal hoop stretched over a small garden of flowers.

Dressed in a light blue top and matching slacks, her copper hair ruffling in the slight breeze, the 66-year-old is relaxed and in rare humor.

“Sometimes I look this good and sometimes I look even worse,” she jokes,

Left: Mary Paulsen shows off an example of the hundreds of window paintings she has completed since, as she puts it, “the Lord gave me the visions in my head.” Above: One of the thousands of dolls Paulsen has rescued over the years peers out from the shadows.

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Colored light pours in through the walls in one of the buildings Mary Paulsen has constructed from donated bottles and brightly painted windows. Below: A rusty suit of armor stands watch beside an adult-size dollhouse. Visitors to Paulsenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sprawling (and growing) art project can expect surprises around every corner.

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se • windward

A painting of Jesus watches over a congregation of assorted dolls in the chapel at Mary’s Gone Wild Folk Art Garden and Doll Village.

breaking into an infectious cackle. “Most people my age don’t do as much as I’m used to doing. The Lord has kept me in good health — I still climb ladders and hammer nails.”

Paulsen’s latest project is situated between several buildings, composed mostly of bottles and painted windows, that are startlingly different from those in the dollhouse village. Stepping into those structures is not unlike walking into a church, the rooms aglow with light filtered through their multi-hued glass walls.

Across the street, a haughty, scarlet-haired mannequin in a yellow polka dot bikini beckons the curious toward Paulsen’s art gallery, which contains hundreds of her larger than life DayGlo window paintings of frolicking mermaids, amorous fish, waltzing turtles and other improbable wildlife.

Paulsen remembers her family was initially less than enthused with her artistic calling. “They thought I’d gone off the deep end. They kept telling me I should do something useful. But they stopped talking when I did my first painting and had it sold for $80 before 10 o’clock the next morning.”

Paulsen says visitors come from across the U.S. and beyond to take home one of her original works. “People say it wouldn’t be a vacation if they didn’t stop here. Some of them have started what they call ‘Mary’s Rooms’ with my art that they’ve collected.”

Paulsen donates a portion of the proceeds from her art sales to Feed the Children, a nonprofit hunger relief organization.

Though her life has seen its share of heartache — both her father 26

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Fall 2015

and first husband were killed in accidents at sea — the woman some have labeled “Crazy Mary” seems at peace with the turn toward the alternative that her life has taken. Her newfound carpentry skills even helped bolster her romantic life — the artist and her current husband, Paul, were married in the chapel dollhouse.

“I’ve done a few weddings there,” notes Paulsen, who also happens to be an ordained minister.

And in her seventh decade, the young girl who once rescued unwanted dolls is still recycling her neighbors’ discarded goods. According to Paulsen, most of the bottles and windows she uses throughout the Folk Art Garden and Doll Village are donated.

“It’s like the things I need just materialize when I start a project,” she remarks, sweeping her hand across an adjacent lot filled with stacks of glass materials she’s yet to find a use for.

As for the future, Paulsen says the Smithsonian has already laid claim to her schoolhouse. Beyond that, she’s given little thought to what will become of her life’s work after she’s gone.

“I hope my grandyoungins might want to take it over and carry on, but you never can tell about that,” she says.

In the end, it matters little whether Paulsen is divinely inspired or touched with madness: her mission to create a space outside the confines of the “normal” world is a holy one, either way.

“There’s nothing here that’s going to hurt anyone; it’s here for everyone to walk around and look at,” she explains. “It’s here to show that there are still good things in this Earth. We already have enough bad.”

SE

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ay light spectacular

Wrightsville Beach flotilla kick starts coastal Christmas season The Wrightsville Beach Flotilla and fireworks show, held annually and now in its 32nd year, drew thousands last November to the shoreline.

Below and at left, boat and ship pilots decorated their vessels in a variety of themes and colors. Some were meant to be simply festive, others included a season’s greetings.

Some of the most impressive entries though stood out for their creativity, such as Skip Wilson’s Yellow Submarine (below).

His craft even won Crowd Favorite— “full speed ahead Mr. Wilson, full speed ahead.”

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se â&#x20AC;˘ windward Story and photos: Todd Wetherington

BERNAROO blasts into New Bern with two days of music and art

Fall 2015

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31

BERNA BERNA BERNA BERNA se • windward

Above: Bluesy garage rockers Thick Modine tear it up during their Bernaroo performance at New Bern’s Isaac Taylor Garden. Right: A performer from New Bern’s Smash Studios puts on a display of live aerial silk dancing high above the crowd.

For two days in June, the streets of downtown New Bern were transformed into a free-flowing showcase for some of the finest musical and visual artists the state has to offer.

After an extended hiatus, the Bernaroo Music and Arts Festival returned to the town in 2015 with an embarrassment of musical talent, with acts varying from rockabilly, soul and electronic pop to garage rock, hip-hop and funk.

Bernaroo kicked off on June 24 with music at the historic Isaac Taylor Garden. New Bern natives The Take Kindlies got the festivities underway with their barn burning blend of rockabilly, blues, and punk rock.

Carrboro’s Matt Phillips & the Philharmonic followed with a set of soulful, R&B-based folk featuring keys, sax, and Phillips’ bluesy wail. The Raleigh-based electronic pop act TOW3RS closed out Bernaroo’s opening day, with their melodic mix of ’70s and ’80s dance and rock sounds that echo the more adventurous wanderings of David Bowie, Prince, and Joy Division.

On Saturday Bernaroo kicked into high gear with an all-day, downtown excursion including performances at local bars, restaurants, and craft dealers. Boone-based band Arson Daily packed The Brown Pelican bar for

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Fall 2015

a close quarters, blood and sweat performance, while Isaac Clowers, of the Wilmington jam band Medicated Sunfish, held a solo performance for revelers enjoying a few adult beverages outside of Brewery 99.

By late afternoon, a crowd of music fans had returned to Isaac Taylor Garden for Bernaroo’s headlining performances. Thick Modine, one of several bands with New Bern ties that performed at the festival, lit up the historic downtown site with a blues-drenched take on garage rock that dripped with raw venom and whiskey.

Wilmington’s seven-piece hip-hop jazz crew Temple5 kept heads nodding and rumps shaking with their rapid fire verbal artistry and tightly wound grooves.

Closing out the evening, Raleigh’s Chit Nasty Band, the leaders of the ‘Nasty Nation,’ brought the funk rock for one of the most electrifying live shows of the festival. The “Soul Train” style dance line that formed during their set was one of Bernaroo’s most unexpected, and undeniable, pleasures.

The music continued after the downtown events during aftershow performances at Mickey Milligan’s Billiards. The first night featured local electronic musicians Unversed, Selkies, Astaroth, and Enrapture. Saturday’s after hours entertainment was pro-

AROO AROO AROO AROO

Clockwise, from bottom: 1. Bernaroo-goers take in a show at the The Brown Pelican pub. 2. An aerial silk dancer warms up before her performance. 3.

Revelers enjoy glasses of the house beer outside of Brewery 99. 4. Boone-based band Arson Daily perform for a packed crowd at The Brown Pelican.

vided by Fearless Freaks and Friends, a local psychedelic punk quartet that invited a few of their fellow Bernaroo performers on stage for an impromptu jam session.

The event also featured performances by local theater groups, dancers, and artists. The Rivertowne Players performed selections from the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar” while Greenville artist Rodrigo Pacheco put on a live demonstration of his unique printmaking skills. One of Bernaroo’s more unusual sights came courtesy of New Bern’s Smash Studios and Fitness, whose performers put on a gravity-defying display of live aerial silk dancing.

Festival co-organizer Grant Golden said he was “completely overjoyed” with the reception Bernaroo received throughout New Bern.

“Being able to see so many folks participating in their local music scene and engaging with one another was remarkable to say the least,” Golden commented.

“The majority of the attendees hadn’t heard of these artists prior to the festival and we had many come up to us afterwards and tell us how much they loved each of the acts and how excited they were for more music like this in New Bern.”

Golden said organizers have already begun to plan for next year’s Bernaroo festival, which he said will be even larger than in 2015.

“We’re looking to have marquee events at several different venues now while still utilizing the smaller clubs for other acts.”

Golden said he’s currently focused on organizing the Carolina Lily Fest, a day-long benefit festival for the Coastal Women’s Shelter. The festival will take place at the Isaac Taylor Garden in New Bern on Nov. 21 and features Rebekah Todd, Dark Water Rising, Lowland Hum and several local New Bern openers.

Golden said events like Bernaroo and the Carolina Lily Fest help to keep the spirit of artistry and community involvement alive in southeast North Carolina.

“It’s crucial for a community-based city like New Bern to have a strong, diverse arts scene. The town has countless shows for beach music acts and classic rock cover bands, which are great in their own rights, but it’s important to highlight younger original acts that may be pushing the musical boundaries of listeners,” Golden noted. “Events like Bernaroo not only help to expand our community’s cultural landscape, but also help to strengthen our community’s ties.”

SE Fall 2015

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se • murmurs

Chapter Two:

The Even-ing Fiction & Illustration by Trevor Normile The first chapter of this dark short story on the nature of dreaming appeared in our Spring 2015 edition, page 65. Read it online at sencmag.com under the “magazines” tab.

slept and I slept and I slept some more. No need to wake up just yet. Just a few hours more.

Just wake up before the dream ends.

Two seasons had passed, it seems, since I’d fled the witching shack in the swamp, passing through flat yellow fields that gave way to ones dressed in beautiful, waving color— always skirted by the chuckling woods that seemed to welcome me, only to reach out with dreary, disorienting fury when I wandered too close by.

Sleeping through the mornings on a bed of red and purple wildflowers and straw, this new life held no promise, no adventure and no calamity. The rollicking wild lot, so big as to draw no comparison from a Dutch tulip field, held only a vast, peaceful sea of color. To the birds soaring above, I was a lonely little dot of sentience in the middle.

There wasn’t much else to do, frankly, than to sleep.

And yet, the exhaustion of my escapade never seemed totally sated in those months. When sleep set in, I let

I

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SouthEast North Carolina

the smoky river of unconsciousness carry me home, to my mother and father and brother and sister, where we’d spend an evening by the fire pit. Slumber granted me a fair leave, just enough time to visit home in my dreams. Just don’t linger too long, or it all falls apart.

One afternoon after my rest, a grumbling stomach took me through the wild flowers and groundhog hills to dare the underbrush. “Stay back! I’m here for my vittles and then I’ll be gone,” I shouted.

Acorns for flour. Crickets for substance. Berries to stave off the scurvy.

Rabbits—brains, eyes and all—for the energy. After my escape from the tendrils of the swamp, the woods now seemed more mischievous than anything, and maybe, I thought, the odd thicket might hold something good to eat.

But I hadn’t yet learnt just how mischievous the forest could be.

Approaching the woodline, I took care not to tread on snakes, for if they had legs instead of me, I would expect the same of them; and because the bite of a copperhead could easily render me as limbless. I learned to honor the power of nature, for even in this tame locale, I was not its master.

In my closeness to the life of the forest, I was able to pick apart the chuckling

Fall 2015

I’d heard from the fields: a mix of toads, songbirds, insects and larger critters wandering about in their own natural congress. My pace became less anxious.

Maybe it was all in my head.

Wandering through the woods, the fields were always a sprint away, with the reds and purples peeking through the foliage from a ways off. Besides, I could smell the leaves on the trees and the time would come to find shelter for the winter.

Along the forest floor, I collected the acorns whose keen little buttons occasionally stabbed at my feet. Such was my zeal for fresh flour that my search led me farther from the forest edge and into the autumnal, Technicolor wilderness until the evening finally crept upon me.

Time to leave.

That’s when the pulsing began.

“Doom, doom, doom, doom,” like the heartbeat of a horrible monster lurking in the air around me. The chuckling faded, leaving only the dissonance of the cicadas and that infernal pulsing. Time to leave.

Right now.

The forest though would have none of it. As I turned to run, I felt my foot snatched back, I felt the armfuls of treats brush my fingertips as they fell into the growing shadows. I squirmed and twisted and landed sideways. My right temple struck something hard.

As the pain radiated through my darkening skull, I caught a glimpse of a deer’s face staring through the thicket.

To my shattering terror, it extended a hairless, human arm toward me, fingers outstretched. I turned my head back.

A flat stone for a pillow, the forest had just bludgeoned me to sleep.

It didn’t matter if sleep came after a night of stargazing by a fizzled fire or having been violently consumed, again, by the natural order of things, it was always the same dream.

In my dream, we sat next to a beading jar of tea, knowing that the smoke from the fire would stink our clothes to High Heaven. We always had the same conversation, beginning with the local farm league baseball team and ending with the presidential race. Until the pause in the wise-cracks and laughter comes.

Then I have 10 seconds to wake up.

If I don’t wake up, it always happens the same way, with the same hypnotic precision. My mother stands up, stretches her arms, head cocked to one side, the way Mom always did in her bubbly way.

Time’s up. Something’s wrong.

“Does anybody want ANYTHING WHILE I’M INSIIDDDEEEE,” she says.

It starts as a question, but ends without that sing-songy slide in tone that signifies

a query. Her voice becomes unbearably loud and overdriven, like the mouthpiece of some astral telephone, broadcasting straight into my temporal lobe.

Away behind her, a car rushing down the road slows under some unknown force, leaving ghostly afterimages of its headlights frozen behind, seemingly stamped in the dimensionality of spacetime itself.

Then I notice the fire freeze in place.

Clouds gather in the sky and begin to sleet. The beads of dew collecting on my tea dribble their way back to the top and stream into the air above. I get the sense that the vacation is over, that I’ve overstayed my welcome.

This time though, I held on. Not just because I got the sense I was missing something devastatingly important, but because I was frustrated to have so little time to be back home, and because I lucidly feared that whatever awaited me in the waking world, the deer-man, the forest, would cause me to dream no more.

So I held on, even as the texture of my brother’s face became a mess of angular shapes. I held on even as the fire bloomed into a tapestry of light before fading away.

With the moon and fire gone, I couldn’t help but shut my eyes, just for a moment, just for a few hours, just until daylight.

I awoke back in the field, sore,

Fall 2015

bloodied, confused. My heart pounded against my lungs. Nearby, my acorns somehow retrieved, had been arranged into a square on the ground. Next to them lay a small metal box with a large, red button. The box was stamped: “CONSCIOUSNESS FILAMENT DEGAUSSER. Manufactured: APPLIED EXISTENTIALISM, Delco, N.C.” I’d never seen such a thing before, not in the shack and certainly not in the field. I hadn’t seen a manmade object in months, in fact. My head throbbing, I sat up and wiped the dirt and dried blood from my face, in the nonchalant way people do when they’ve just pulled through a state of shock.

Then I noticed, midway up a hill full of wildflowers, maybe a hundred yards away through the wafting mirage of hot air above the flowers, the deer-man, sitting cross-legged, its hands resting on its knees. Its antlers helped to skyline its figure at the crest of the hill.

Silently, it raised an open palm in what appeared to be some kind of unsettling greeting.

Then I fainted once more, the glowing fields falling out of focus and the pulsing replaced by the faint, taunting chuckle of the forest.

SE

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35

se • fashion

Sales junkies find second-hand deals

ataly

aN Nady

on Story: Todd Wetherinilegt orm Photos: Trevor N

N

American Eagle, Guess, and Old Navy are all brands Special Collections in Beulaville had available in their boys section for under $8 in a variety of shorts, T-shirts, and even jeans.

ew shoes. New belts. Purses, dresses, jeans, blouses, jewelry, T-shirts. Those dress pants are perfect. Oh, and let me have that hat too.

If you’re not careful, clothing can put a dent (even a fashionable

one) in the budget.

A man will spend approximately $35 a month on clothing.

Meanwhile, a woman in a single month, on average, can spend approximately $59 in clothing alone, give or take an extra $20 for shoes. After all, that little black dress needs a pair of shoes to go with it. This doesn’t include children’s clothing expenses.

Over the course of a year, the shopping for new clothes tab can easily add up to $2,000.

Two grand for clothing is a lot of money, especially when living expenses and other important bills have to get paid.

The question is, “How can I possibly cut down the cost of clothing and keep that speciality boutique look?”

In light of the economic state of the country, smart and savvy shoppers are turning to buying second-hand clothing. It’s a secret to some, but quite a few fashionistas haven’t been able to keep quiet about it. Throughout the country, second hand shops are popping up left to right.

Stores like Plato’s Closet, the Buffaloe Exchange and Good Will are becoming the premier spots to find gently worn designer clothing for a fraction of the cost. Second-hand

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Fall 2015

shopping is growing in popularity as the cost for new gear by couture designers continues to soar. Vintage is so in right now.

There are generally four types of second-hand shops: consignment, pawn, classifieds, and thrift. The difference between the four all comes down to whether the shop is helping the customer sell items or not.

Consignment is a service in which a shop sells the items for the owner and the owners keeps ownership of the items until they sell. Shopping consignment is a great option when looking for quality goods or high-end brands.

Though pawn shops carry sell items such as jewelry, guns, appliances, and other types of goods, some shops do sell clothing; it just depends on the shop and the demand of the region.

Technically, stores such as Plato’s Closet and Once Upon A Child are considered pawn shops also.

Classifieds are another interesting way to find second-hand clothing. Classifieds can usually be found in local newspapers, but with modern technology websites like Craigslist, Amazon, and eBay have proven to be another source of access to clothing and accessories.

Thrift shops rely heavily on donations, especially when they are connected to a nonprofit organization. Goodwill and Salvation Army are two of the most recognized thrift stores across the county. Keep in mind that some second-hand stores down the block from home may not be “considered” thrift shops, but may offer a good way to find cool items.

When shopping second-hand there are a couple of things to

Vintage and used clothing consider before jumping on the bandwagon.

1. Don’t worry: Leave your prejudice at the door. Yes, some shops are dirty, but most are not. Allow yourself to explore and be open minded.

2. Set a budget: At first it’s a guessing game to figure out how much things cost. Eventually, one will get the hang of things and able to gauge how much to spend on each spree.

3. Look for clothes with new tags: This is perhaps the best part of buying second-hand, as items with original price tags can be a steal bargain if the original price is $45 and purchased for $4 second-hand.

4. If you don’t wear it, don’t buy it: Do not buy clothing you cannot see yourself wearing.

Yes, the item is probably worth $2, but it’s $2 that will be sitting in the closet. Buy things to add to your wardrobe.

5. Examine each item thoroughly: Check for loose buttons, holes in the material, broken zippers, or stains.

There’s nothing like finding a brand new and never worn Calvin Klein dress for $3 or a pair of $50 Vera Wang jeans for 99 percent off.

Southeastern North Carolina has an impressive assortment of second-hand dealers.

Throughout the hot summer months, yard sales and rummage sales are easy to find on a Saturday morning. In Wallace, there is a weekly stockyard on Thursdays and Saturdays, where many second-hand dealers wheel and deal shoes, purses, hats, dresses, and other items.

Near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, Oak Island is home to a charming consignment shop, Klassy Kollections. In the east

quadrant of Duplin County in Beulaville there is an eccentric thrift shop, Special Collection. Far from the run of the mill shops, both Klassy Kollections and Special Collection are ideal places to find a wide-ranging assemblage of clothing, shoes, jewelry, and even home good items.

Buying second-hand clothing for children can prove to be “smart shopping” as children outgrow their clothes very quickly.

Maternity clothes can often be expensive to buy brand new, especially for something that will only be worn a few times over a ninemonth period. Spending a buck or two here and there will allow more options and fun ways to be creative with the pregnancy look.

Exploring different types of shops similar to the aforementioned, is an excellent crash course in second-hand buying.

Dressing the entire family for half the price sounds like a buyers dream come true, and it is. The trick is finding a type of store that works best for the budget and the type of items you’re interested in buying. If it seems there is nothing that meets the needs when shopping “used” then buying new is not a bad idea. However, take advantage of the sales while they’re available.

Cole Haan flats at $30, an Apt. 9 blouse with the tags still on it for less than $8, jeans at half the cost they are at Old Navy and a matching purse for under $5 in mint conditions. Swipe the card at Klassy Kollections in Oak Island and you just got a deal on shoes alone.

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$10.00 Admission

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SE Snapshots

SE PICKS: Science Museums f

North Carolina

Kinston

Whiteville Nature Science Museum Discover the world of science

A

dded on as a satellite campus of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, the new Museum of Natural Sciences at Whiteville opened its doors in February of this year to welcome the southeastern community to explore the world of learning.

Located in Whiteville at 415 S. Madison St., the museum offers a variety of interactive programs and exhibits for all ages. Upon entering the facility through the back door there is a rack of children size white lab coats waiting to be worn. To the side of the coats, there is an elaborate lab set up, known as the Investigate Lab. Visitors are welcomed to explore different realms of science through a series of experiments ranging from scales to fossils. Children from the Whiteville community and surrounding areas can be seen tinkering with the microscopes, pipettes, beakers, and magnifying glasses conducting their own experiments using the scientific method.

The majority of the exhibits are interactive and designed to provide the public with tools and techniques to explore science.

The museum also includes a naturalist center, which provides an extensive collection of specimens from bear claws, snakes, seahorses, butterflies, and more.

The In Your Backyard Resource Center is an information area that features facts about aquariums, state parks and other sites within the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The lab is specially designed for exploration of North Carolina’s diverse natural places.

The museum houses a discovery forest, which provides the younger children, eight and under, and their families with an opportunity to curiously explore bird wings, beaver sticks, or rocks.

The 5,000 squarefoot Lenoir Memorial Hospital Health and Science Museum features several hands-on health and science exhibits such as a “giant” Operation Game and a miniature replica of the hospital that children can crawl into. Free admission at 403 W. Cashwell St., Kinston. 252-939-3302.

Wilson Located in historic downtown Wilson, the Imagination Station Science and History Museum is an interactive space for all ages. With three floors to explore, one can race against wild animals to discover why they are faster or slower than humans. See what the inside of a bee hive looks like from the inside.

The third floor is home to the NC Museum of the Coastal Plain featuring history exhibits specific to the Upper Coastal Plain of NC. 224 E. Nash St., Wilson. 252-291-5113.

Roanoke Island

A curious young visitor to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Whiteville examines a tray of fossils under a laboratory light.

The museum also has an outdoor nature play space for children.

No matter the reason for visiting, the Museum of Natural Sciences at Whiteville provides an educational breeding ground that takes the curious mind into a world of endless wonder and invention.

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The North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island has the 1,800 squarefoot Sea Turtle Assistance and Rehabilitation (STAR) Center as well as a hands-on Sea Turtle Rescue exhibit. The Aquarium received the Association of Zoos and Aquariums 2015 Award for Exhibit Design for its STAR Center. Construction will begin in October for the Jellyfish Exhibit, which will open in 2016. 374 Airport Road, Manteo, 252-475-2300.

SouthEast North Carolina

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SouthEast North Carolina

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North Carolina

Harry Taylor

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Digital photography has changed the imaging game forever, but was something lost along the way? Wilmington photographer Harry Taylor has reached back in time to reclaim a process that requires little more than tin plates, a glass lens, a wooden box and a few mysterious chemical processes. The results—beautifully haunting portraits of our region.

David Wells

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Growing up in the small town of Wallace, David Wells dreamed of becoming an actor. Nearly 40 years after striking out for New York, he is one of the most well-known character actors in the business. If you’re a fan of “Shameless” or “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” you’re a fan of David Wells.

Beard Contest

Fall 2015

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Hellaciously hirsute gentlemen from across North Carolina converge on Fayetteville and Wilmington each year for a celebration of some of the finest facial follicles in the state. From the Van Dyke and Fu Manchu to sideburns and soul patches, there’s a look for all seasons and SouthEast North personalities.

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Im

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SouthEast North Carolina

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age of a legacy Photographer Harry Taylor finds the ‘real’ in a digital world

Story and Photos: Trevor Normile It was 115 years ago now that Eastman Kodak released the Brownie camera. Today, attic explorers lucky enough to find them are dismayed when the local antique dealers offer only twenty or thirty dollars for the cameras.

That’s because the Brownie was the Model T of cameras; it brought real photography to the unwashed masses as professional photographers looked on with horror—150,000 shipped in their first year of production. This, just 35 years after Mathew Brady and his Harry Taylor of Wilmington practices the historic art of wet-plate photography. Below, Taylor rinses a freshly-made tintype photograph of the author.

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’Cause there’s ‘looks like,’ and there’s ‘is.’

Above left, Taylor works in his darkroom at his Wilmington studio. In wet plate photography, a sheet of metal doused with chemicals is used in the same way as modern photographic film. Taylor often works with “tintype” photographs.

These are made by covering a tin sheet with a light-sensitive collodion solution, exposing it in a large-format camera and developing. Above middle and right, Taylor watches the image appear in the tin as it’s rinsed.

associates brought the Civil War to the public in glorious large-format wet plate photographs.

And then came other formats. Film in 35mm format surged past mediumsized film. Then, 110-format captured much of the budget-minded market that the Brownie once dominated.

Finally, the late ’90s brought the rise of digital photography. No film, no chemicals. Just pictures.

Then in 2002, some Finnish guy decided to put a camera on a Nokia phone and bam—selfies.

But 50-year-old Wilmington photographer Harry Taylor didn’t get any of those memos. Or he did, but he just kind of lost them. Mr. Taylor takes photos on wet pieces of tin.

Taylor isn’t a Luddite; he likes Instagram as much as the people who wander the sidewalk below his Market Street studio. He liked my dinky little Fujifilm digital camera. He probably likes those the way a competition shooter sometimes likes shooting a BB 44

SouthEast North Carolina

gun.

Plenty of those Instagram folks were walking around the day I interviewed Mr. Taylor. At precisely 12:59 p.m. I walked up to his studio, which sits above a vapor shop. Mr. Taylor was one minute early to greet me.

I don’t like smoking cigarettes in front of interviewees—I don’t really like smoking at all anymore—but as Mr. Taylor recognized me and walked over, he didn’t scold the cigarette in my mouth. He just said something along the lines of “At least you’re not vaping chemical stuff like everyone else.”

You see, Harry Taylor doesn’t like fake cigarettes, because he doesn’t like fake anything.

“When I reach out to someone I don’t know, it’s a handwritten note or a phone call, or if I have a real affinity for the person, I usually just show up on their doorstep. People can blow off an e-mail so easily. When I mean it, I go see ’em,” he says minutes later in his studio.

Fall 2015

“The first [digital camera] I got was a Canon ... for the next three or four years it was the best camera going, and it was superb and it was financial—it cut my film cost. It was a lot cheaper to buy one camera that would save you a fortune compared to what it used to cost to develop film through the year.

“You gotta understand too, when digital came out, I could see how brilliant and how... nothing short of a miracle it was. I jumped in wholeheartedly, I went six years without a darkroom ... I jumped both feet into digital and ran hard with it. Digital is terrific, it’s very good and useful, it’s made us all better.”

This isn’t a technical dissertation on chemical processing versus digital.

But the process by which Harry Taylor makes his images is, in itself, technical. It’s also very un-technical. It’s a part of his personality, because unlike the computers that power the modern digital camera, Mr. Taylor’s titanic

eight-by-10 view camera doesn’t have Taylor’s work seems to rely more on a brain of its own. It has a lens, a large reflex than resolution; more essence, wooden box, a view screen and a wet less electronics. tin plate in the back. And that’s just Enamored as a child with a box he about it. found of historical photographs, the Already an experienced photogratintype, ambrotype and Daguerropher, Taylor decided around 2007 to type photos collected by the antique reinvestigate large format photogradealers in his family, it planted a seed phy, particularly the historical process that took some time to grow. known as tintype, which uses sheets “I’d sneak in there and look at of tin covered in chemicals to produce these things, and it was truly extraorimages. Consider the stern, poised dinary. It took some life experience portraits of families from the 19th to connect the dots that this was Century: many of those were taken something branded on me long as tintypes. The process produces a ago, that it was something I need to longer-lasting and more detailed (not pursue,” he says. to mention haunting) image than the Much of the tintype process retypical snapshot. lies on educated human guesswork, It was a meaningful way, Taylor ex- ancient cameras and glass lenses plains, to capture produced the world during before the his adult years. days of qualThere’s someThing ThaT “It started with ity control. looks like iT’s real, and life changes. I It often involves reached a point in mixing chemiThere’s someThing ThaT is life I was married cals that may or real. The sTaTe moTTo of a few years, I had may not be just children, my parquite out-of-date norTh Carolina is, ‘To be, ents had died, my and having the raTher Than To seem.’ and wife’s parents had twitching, blinkiT’s probably my favoriTe died, you start to ing, sneezing think about your human contrapThing abouT norTh Carolina. own mortality tion sit still for iT goes for me Too, beCause a period of and what’s truly important to you.

10 seconds, whaT i do is real.

What is your a veritable thing gonna be? I eternity in thought, a digital camera is just going today’s terms. to leave a pile of hard drives and some The Daguerrotype photos many prints or things, it just wouldn’t be are familiar with from photogramuch of a legacy, or something I’d be phy’s earliest days are even more proud of,” he explains. complicated than the ones Taylor “The other factors too, are things produces in his shop. You start with like my own interests outside of phocopper plated in silver, polished to tography. I think the best photography a perfect mirror sheen. Then, it’s comes from outside of photography. fumed with iodide and bromide, Some people obsess over cameras and exposed and developed over boiling lenses and I really kind of don’t. I have mercury. a lot of junky cameras. I shoot pictures The much-simpler tintype process every day with something somehow. starts with a blackened piece of metal, It’s not the same thing day to day.” tin, painted in Japan Black lacquer Taylor says his goal isn’t necessarily and baked. It’s durable. You pour on the technical perfection many shoot collodion, bathe it in silver nitrate, for today. Pixel-peeping, arguments shoot it in the camera wet, pour on over fine color balancing, image stadeveloper, wash it and fix it. The time, bilization—if those terms don’t mean the age of the chemicals, even the anything to the reader, don’t worry. humidity and heat

“”

Fall 2015

Above, a massive print of a tintype photograph shows a woman standing in a forest. The resolution in the large-format tintype pictures Taylor produces is astounding. The process is also used to stage “historical” Civil War photographs, often using re-enactors as models. Below, Taylor works through the tintype process.

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Far left at bottom, Taylor pours light-sensitive solution onto a sheet of tin. Top and upper left and middle, the resolution and swirly bokeh of tintype photos give them a dreamlike quality.

Above, a photo Taylor made for the Sleepy Hollow television program.

affect the photo, Taylor says, because the operator under his black hood is part of the camera.

For those 10 seconds or so that the photo is exposed, the eeriness sets in.

I pose for a portrait. Taylor sets my head against a brace that looks like a piece of equipment from a Fleet Street barbershop. Like a jewel fit for a Persian palace, the glass of Taylor’s mammoth Wollensak lens seems to look back as I strain to focus on a scratch in the middle, just to keep my eyes from moving. Ten seconds is a long time to look into such a thing.

I’ve read about the effects of staring into a camera for an extended period of time. One documentarian even makes five-minute videos of models just staring into the camera. After a few minutes, many of his subjects start to cry without explanation.

“I think there’s a big factor to that, when someone has their photo made with a 10-second exposure versus 1/250 of a second. I almost never not have someone say, ‘wow’ after a 10-second exposure. For 10 seconds, they are present.

They can’t hide behind a smile. Their facade will drop away. Ninety percent of photography is happy, happy, happy. It’s

not true,” he explains.

“A lot of people have their photo faces. A lot of people can line up for their family portrait in the front yard and do all right. But there’s something unnerving about being analyzed that period of

“”

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There’s jusT an amazing dualiTy of everyThing here.

There’s always a good and an evil side To everyThing, very liTTle middle ground, which i love.

time. For me, a lot of my equipment is 150 years old; my favorite lens was made in 1859 and sold to a portrait studio in London and it’s trickled around the world into my hands.”

Such an instrument couldn’t be totally without some kind of attachment, Taylor says.

“I like to tell people about that because it just kind of reminds them they’re going to pass through a glass that has seen an unknown number of people for 150 Fall 2015

years. Things have energy about them too. I think with antiques, there’s residual elements of previous users and subjects.

It’s like a worn out cassette tape in a way, of personalities that are still lingering there. I don’t have any scientific proof of that, but I do know it makes a different kind of picture. That fact remains.”

As I watched my image appear on the tin after a rinse, that part became obvious. Looking around Taylor’s studio, it’s even easier to see once you’ve sat in the chair. On one wall hangs a large print from one of his wet plate photos, a nude woman whose face is covered, pictured standing alone in the woods.

She’s almost transparent, maybe a comment on the steadfastness of nature in the face of mankind. It’s as if the photo helps one see more than is really there, more than is really real.

The Southeast, especially Wilmington, lends itself to that kind of work, Taylor says. The photographer is a Virginia native who spent time living in the Pacific Northwest before finding his final home in Wilmington. One of the greatest projects of his life is the documenting of the Cape Fear River region, he says.

His work in fine art photography,

For those 10 seconds or so ... the eeriness sets in. especially the wet plate collodion process shown here, has included a slew of bigname clients: Our State, Coastal Living, Slate, Juxtapose, NPR, Time Lightbox, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Oxford American and even television’s Sleepy Hollow. In 2011, he was the only American chosen for the famous Sianoja Simposio International De Artist En Noja in Spain. Recently, the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington showed Taylor’s “Requiem,” a greenhouse constructed of a staggering 280 ambrotype and glass negative photos from his reenacted Civil War portraits, and of the region in general.

“There’s just an amazing duality of everything here. There’s always a good and an evil side to everything, very little middle ground, which I love. That’s much more interesting than the boredom of the Northwest,” he explains.

Part of that contrast is that when Taylor is making his art, he just prefers the medium that feels more real—even on humidity-soaked days in the studio, running materials up and down a collodion-splattered staircase. “‘Cause there’s looks-like, and there’s is. There’s something that looks like it’s real, and there’s something that is real.

The state motto of North Carolina is, ‘To be, rather than to seem.’ And it’s probably my favorite thing about North Carolina. It goes for me too, because what I do is real. And I don’t think I just seem.”

That realness came at a price, though.

Wet plate photography has been a love of Taylor’s for some time, but when he decided to jump back in, he immediately hit some roadblocks. For starters, his camera manual was printed before the Civil War. It took Taylor six months of talking to chemists to figure out the formulas for developing the plates, a process much different than simply shooting on eight-by-10-inch sheets of film. Then he had to find a camera that could handle the work (shown, page 42). And lenses that, it just so happens, can’t be found at the local five ’n dime.

Not only that, but every day, a better iPhone photo app comes out. Every day, more people learn to use Photoshop.

Cheaper, more automated digital SLRs fly off shelves to hobbyists who may not know the difference between their aperture and a hole in the ground. And Mr. Taylor will be just fine, fiddling with his tin plates and his wooden box.

“The cream’s gonna rise. Some people are dinosaurs and they’re donna be resting with the dinosaurs. There’s a good side to it and a bad side to it. But when I look back at photography 25 and 30 years ago, there was a stagnation about it. It was very good, and I think it stands out as even better than today’s work in a lot of ways, but in a lot of ways it feels really stagnant in hindsight.

Going through the digital revolution really broadened my perspective on what’s possible and what’s good,” Taylor explains.

At least with his tins and his box,

Pink Hill, NC

Harry Taylor has something more than a hard drive to hold on to.

“I still haven’t done everything I want to do with it. There are still several projects I have in mind, and I still have a couple different exhibits of bodies of work that are growing, that I’m nurturing. I think I’m first and foremost an artist and it’s the way to work that speaks to me.

“Photography has long been touted as the easiest medium to do. That’s for sure, when you compare what a potter goes through, or a woodworker or painter, I mean it just doesn’t hold a torch to those other media. But I find that doing a very hands-on process, then suddenly that legitimizes that process ...

It’s where I found my voice, it’s the place where I dwell, it’s the place where I get the imagery I’ve been looking for that I can’t find anywhere else.”

Learn more about Taylor’s work at harrytaylorphoto.com.

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David Wells

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Acting is in his blood

David Wells, left, stars in a performance of “Waiting for Godot”, the famed absurdist play

by Samuel Beckett. The Wallace native has made a name for himself in the movie industry as an in-demand character actor.

D

STORY & PHOTOS BY JACQUELINE HOUGH CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS BY DAVID WELLS

avid Wells has always viewed actors as craftsmen.

“There’s a craft to acting,” he says.

“It’s not magic. It’s work.”

A longtime performer and teacher, acting is part of who Wells is.

He will not hesitate to tell someone who is interested in acting that, if they don’t have a passion for it, they should find something else to do and be happy. Acting is hard work.

Over more than 30 years, Wells has become known

for doing varied and eccentric characters such as the “cheese man” on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the grave digging Milton on “House.”

At 63, he has more than 50 films and 100-plus television appearances on his resume.

“I have been fortunate that I have been able to do these different things,” he says.

But Wells has never forgotten Southeastern North Carolina and the town of Wallace.

His mother, Winifred T. Wells, was a lawyer. She was also the town attorney for Wallace as well as Duplin County’s

se • brood attorney. She later served as a Superior Court Judge.

Wells’ father, Dr. D.L. “Buck” Wells was a dentist.

While at Wallace-Rose Hill High School, Wells participated in the school’s theater program. During his senior year, he played the lead in “West Side Story.”

But he never really considered acting as a career goal.

“I went to college and didn’t know what I wanted to do,” Wells says.

At Guilford College, he majored in political science and thought he was going to be pre-law. But during his senior year he became more involved in theater.

After graduation, Wells went overseas on a tour with other college students. At the Vienna State Opera House in Vienna, Austria he had an epiphany as he watched Beethoven’s Fidelio.

As he watched the performers receive 22 curtain calls, he knew he wanted to be an actor.

Wells came home and told his father, who said it was fine, but wanted to know how his son was going to make a living.

So Wells decided to get his master’s degree so he could always teach as a plan B. He went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

In 1976, Wells moved to New York and stayed there until 1982. Then he moved to Los Angeles.

He earned his Screen Actors Guild card in 1977 by playing an alcoholic in an industrial film. It was based on the true story of a young Vietnam vet who drank himself to death.

During his early days in the business, Wells landed a few acting jobs in New York but mostly studied there with a famous teacher named Wynn Hammond, who taught Denzel Washington and other actors.

In Hammond’s class, he met other actors who helped him get to Los Angeles, where he really started working.

One of the things that Wells is known for is a series of Ocean Spray commercials where he performed a dance. Wells says the dancing wasn’t included in the original script for the part.

“When I got to the audition, music was playing and I just started dancing,” he remembers.

What was supposed to be one commercial ended up being 15 commercials, radio spots and personal appearances over three years.

Wells says he learned to dance in Southeastern North Carolina while jitterbugging at the American Legion Building in Wallace as a teen.

Over the years, Wells has appeared in hundreds of commercials. He says he was fortunate when he got to Los Angeles to play a wide variety of characters on television and in movies.

His more recent roles have been in The Last Ship, Justified, Major Crimes, Revenge, Castle, Parks and Recreation and Shameless.

Two of the more high profile movies Wells has appeared in are Beverly Hills Cop and Basic Instinct. He’s also done his fair share of movies-of-week.

Wells says several roles have stood out in his career.

Years ago, he performed in a two-hour episode of Matlock, in which Wells’s character had the crafty TV lawyer beat until the very last page of the script. Wells said he enjoyed working with Andy Griffith during the Wilmington shoot.

“That was a lot of fun,” he remembers. “It was one of the highlights.”

Wells also fondly recalls a television movie, Inherit the Wind, where he worked with Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott.

He says spending time with Scott was a great experience.

“He told me tale after tale about Patton, The Hustler and one of my favorites—Dr. Strangelove.”

Over his career, Wells has appeared in five horror movies but admits he can’t watch them.

“They scare me to death,” he laughs.

Twenty-five to 30 years ago, he began teaching other actors.

His past students include R.J. Mitte (Breaking Bad) and Brighid Fleming (Labor Day).

As he has gotten older, Wells says he works less than he once

did. By doing the occasional commercial or TV show along with with actor Ed Asner. Simpson wrote and directed the film. his teaching, Wells keep things going.

“It was a labor of love,” Wells says.

“You sort of cobble a career together,” he says.

Last year, the veteran actor drove down to Topsail by himself For years, he watched friends go into acting and get burned and drove back with his son through North and South Dakota, out after going at it hard year after year. taking in Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone national parks.

“It’s a hard business,” he says. “You just try to keep putting one Wells says he has plans to do a southern route through New foot in front of the other. If you get bogged down where you are, Orleans and San Antonio. you will get discouraged and quit. And This has always been his way of takyou really have to want to do it.” ing a break and preparing for a new Wells and his wife, Carolynn, have a cycle.

15-year-old son, Liam, a sophomore in “I would take a break and kind of WHEN ASKED ABOUT high school. He says he put off getting gear up and fight the wars again,” he married because he couldn’t afford it RETIREMENT, WELLS PAUSES says. when he first moved to New York.

When he is in Los Angeles, Well says AND RECOUNTS THAT ACTOR he stays busy almost seven days a week.

“I didn’t want to subject someone else to my lifestyle. I was living on people’s “This is what I do,” he admits. “I do ED ASNER ONCE TOLD HIM HE floors, walking dogs, cleaning dogs, it all the time.” babysitting and moving furniture.”

Wells equates his craft with the art WOULD LIKE TO DIE ON STAGE. And for the first two years after movof writing and discusses Ernest Heming to Los Angeles, he slept on people’s “I DON’T THINK IT WOULD BE A ingway’s habit of putting pen to paper floors. every day.

BAD WAY TO GO,” “But I was determined I was going to “You are always looking for work,” he do this,” he says emphatically. “If you are comments, “even when you are workgoing to do this on a professional level, ing. It is the life I lead. I’ve been doing it you have to study. And study with the almost 40 years.” best teacher you can find.”

Simpson and Wells are currently Most summers, Wells and his family can be found at their working on another film together. Wells says he is looking forhome in Topsail Beach. In Los Angeles, the family lives on Hol- ward to the hard work of raising money, shooting and distributlywood Boulevard, about two blocks from Grauman’s Chinese ing the film.

Theatre.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s fun,” he stresses.

He admits that while on vacation, he’s often still working. BeWhen asked about retirement, Wells pauses and recounts that fore arriving for a recent stay in Topsail, he drove cross-country to actor Ed Asner once told him he would like to die on stage.

Red Mountain Theatre, in Birmingham, Ala., with his friend Ed “I don’t think it would be a bad way to go,” Wells says.

Simpson. Simpson is the head of the theater department at High The best part about acting is, if a person lives long enough, Point University in High Point. everyone else in his or her category will be dead, jokes Wells.

Simpson and Wells did a film called “Elephant Sighs” together “Then you get all the work,” he laughs.

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“”

Wallace native David Wells has had many memorable rolls during his nearly four decades in the movie business.

Opposite page: Wells plays the enigmatic “Cheese Man” in an episide of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Middle: In an episode of “Matlock” Wells does battle with acting legend Andy Grifith. Right: Wells relaxes at his home in Topsail Beach last summer. The actor splits his time between the N.C. coast and Los Angeles.

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FACIAL

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FASHION Story: Michael Jaenicke Photos: Contributed Kevin Grimsley’s former girlfriend was a big fan of his beard.

His current love interest, though, sits more in the middle of the long-standing social debate about male facial hair.

“She says she couldn’t care less about it and that she likes me because of the kind of person I am,” Grimsley said.

Good thing the beard wasn’t a deal breaker, because Grimsley is among a rising group of men

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Photo by Bruce AlleyCat

John Viar, Bradley Cool, and Chris Kelly were winners in Wilmington’s Front Street Brewery Mustache and Beard Contest in November 2014. At right, Johnny Ivey (a.k.a. Johnny Awesome) emceed the event. Ivey is also pictured on page 53.

FACIAL FASHION

Continued

nationwide who are unapologetic and absolutely shameless in support of all things facial hair-related.

Grimsley is a member of Cape Beard, a Fayetteville beard and mustache club, where men showcase their facial fashion at competitions, and in the process raise money for charity and non-profit organizations.

So eat your heart out women, facial follicle fashion in its purest sense is a male-only fashion genre, even though many clubs have women create beards for themselves and compete in more honorary categories.

While the club may not be the oldest in the state it could be the most giving, said club president Johnny Ivey.

Indeed, nearly every male on the south side of puberty can grow facial hair, but few among these men attempt to create runway-model, trophy-snatching facial creations.

Grimsley entered the facial hair styling world with the same fashion knowledge and associated crafting skills as many other males — little to none.

“Being a part of the club is when I started to figure out how I would cut, style and make my beard,” Grimsley said. “I started learning, and often realized I had no idea what I was doing before I came here. In fact, many of the things I had been doing were all wrong— totally opposite of what I should have done.”

The club introduces newcomers such as Grimsley to waxing, oils, lotions, razors, scissors and other cutting tools and techniques that turn facial hair into works of art.

Grimsley, the club’s secretary, is just coming into his own in terms of learning the craft.

“It all started to come together when I started to learn freestyle stuff,” he said. “But the real secret is to practice in front of a mirror.

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Like anything else it’s about practicing it until you find a balance.”

Facial hair has been largely frowned upon in the mainstream and on Main Street in the previous quarter century, aside from the Elvislike sideburns of the 1960s and Burt Reynolds type mustaches of the 1970s.

Facial hair has a long and tangled history of acceptance and bold stereotypical rejection in the U.S — it started swinging back into the mainstream about a decade ago.

One, if not the first beard and mustache club was started in 2003

by Phil Olsen and his Beard Team USA. All of this happened in spite of the fact that our forefathers, religious sects and famed historical figures donned long beards and elaborately-carved mustaches.

Beard and mustache clubs have grown across the state, with bigger cities such as Raleigh, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Wilmington and small towns alike joining the craze.

Cape Beard currently has 54 coin holders, a union-like card that cements membership in the group.

Terry Craven, president of the Beard and Mustache Club of North Carolina, says one of the best ways for competitors to excel is through top-notch follicles that center around a character.

Some of his favorite characters include a velvet jacketed Englishman, a riverboat gambler costume and threads and accessories he uses as an old west cowboy, and all the trimmings and tricks of a circus ringmaster.

“People love characters and that can be the difference between weekenders and those who go to impress the crowd — and judges,” Craven said.

The biggest decision most competitors make before a competition is what category to enter. Going outside the run-of-the-mill barbershop style is rewarded heavily in competitions.

“It’s about making yourself as presentable and in some way original as possible,” Craven said. “Judges notice people who step out.

There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, ‘It is just as I feared!

Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!’

—Edward Lear (1875) Most also know the extreme amount of time that’s put into be oily and cause rashes... and that compliments will flow it by contestants.” from women and fellow beardies.

Craven and other veterans size up the competition via The New York Times reports that beards became en vogue Facebook and online beard and mustache clubs. somewhere around 2005. The trend may have started Competitors on the highest level have follicle fanatics sooner, but it has remained a fashion movement today. following their every scissor click and costume change.

Once considered a sign of wisdom, strength and virility, “Yeah, groupies follow us and hoop and holler it up,” facial hair has left some of that behind, as well as ideas that said Craven, who has picked up a nice stash of mustache people who wear them have poor hygiene and an uncivitrophies. “People begin following me three days or more lized demeanor. before and want to know my every move, so I post things.

“I think we’ve passed the dark ages,” said Al Jenkins, Terry Craven a longtime member of the Chicago Beard and Mustache Otherwise, they get very ticked off.”

Craven, 60, said younger competitors such as Ivey, 30, Club. “It’s not a country or city thing; not about heavy and Grimsley, 38, often have an advantage. drinking; not about rich or poor, especially when you consider the “Their facial hair is usually easier to work with so they don’t have thousands or people doing it competitively in clubs across the counnearly the same preparation as those with older follicles,” he said. try.”

Craven is an electrical systems engineer, but said beard and musEven so, suds and non-stop fun will be flowing Nov.15 in Wilmtache members come from all walks of life. ington at the Front Street Brewery’s second annual beard and mus“We have bikers, hippy-types but also doctors, lawyers, profestache competition. sionals and an array of people,” he said. “A lot of the women that “You’ll have more fun than you can imagine at a competition,” come have tattoos and nose rings, but they too can’t be defined or Craven said. stereotyped into one or two categories.”

According to Craven the camaraderie between contestants and Cape Beard will hold its biggest annual competition, Beardtofans is incredible. berfest, on Oct. 17. The event will feature 13 categories and a “Star “It fills a need and a void for us and there’s lots of love and comWars” theme. It is held at the Rockshop Music Hall, located at 128 passion going on,” Craven said. “It’s a real uplifting experience for S. King St. in Fayetteville. everyone.”

Charity events the club has pulled off recently include a beardGrimsley agrees and says the beardies get adulation from people ed babies event to benefit foster children, a pig picking that raised in Fayetteville. $4,000 in May for autism patients, a dunk-a-beard water event to “We get recognized and pointed out in town and people actually help oxygen therapy patients and a can drive to support the Second take us seriously for what we do,” he said. “They see we are creative Harvest Food Bank. and involved with the community.”

“We want to be known for our beards but more so we’d like to be Cape Beard member Steve Brack is taking his game to the next known for our hearts,” Ivey said. “In general we help a charity about level later this year by competing in the world championships. But every two months. I’m not sure what all clubs do, but I guarantee he’d best be aware that the European crowd take beard and musyou Cape Beard is the only one tache competition more seriI know with that kind of track ously then their counterparts record.” on American soil.

The Chicago writer Gary Many though won’t have Marshall said there are 13 things the same warm feeling from no one will tell you about before the competitions, since most do growing a beard. not raise money for charitable Some of the items on the list causes. include: That beards will still “What we do is an absolute need to be shaved and trimmed blast,” said Brack, “but I can’t and that they will itch; they are tell you the tingly feelings we amazingly easy to mess up; they get when presenting a check to Submitted photo Photo by Bruce AlleyCat Submitted photo make the wearer look older; that Steve Brack (left), a recent world champion in bearding, Bill Best an organization from a bunch hair and beards are not the same (center), and Wilmington’s Shannon Leslie have all won recent of guys trying to have a beard compositions; that beards can beard competitions in southeastern North Carolina. better than the next guy.” SE Fall 2015

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BEARD & MUSTACHE STYLE DIAL

JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT

Here is a list of some of the most common beard and mustache styles and categories at competitions, which generally are subdivided into three groups — mustaches, partial beards and full beards.

• Van Dyke: A goatee that is accompanied by a mustache.

• Hollywoodian: A mustache with a beard worn on the lower part of the chin and jaw, with no connecting sideburns.

• Full: A flowing beard with or without a styled or integrated mustache.

• Sideburns: Hair grown down the side of the chin and temples.

• Jawline: A beard grown from the chin down the jawlines.

• Chinstrap: A beard with long sideburns that ends under the chin.

• Chin curtain: Also referred to as a Lincoln or spade.

• Neck beard: Close to the chinstrap, but the jawline and chin are shaved.

• Designer stubble: The shabby chic look.

• Brett: Similar to the chin curtain, but does not connect to sideburns.

• Circle beard: Not quite a goatee, but a small chin beard that connects around the mouth to a mustache.

• Sea captain: A full, rounded bottom heavy beard that has short sides that can compliment a long mustache.

• Junco: A goatee that connects to the corners of the mouth but does not include a mustache. Similar to a circle beard, • Meg: A goatee that extends upward and connects to a mustache. Commonly found in southeast Ireland.

• Monkey tail: A Van Dyke, a Lincoln mustache that sort of looks like a monkey’s tail that stretches down to the chin and around the mouth.

• Hulihee: A clean-shaven chin that has fat chops that are connected by a mustache.

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• Muslim beard: Full beard, trimmed mustache.

• Verdi: A short beard with a rounded bottom and slightly shaven cheeks and a prominent mustache.

• Friendly mutton chops: Long mutton-like sideburns connected to a mustache, but a clean shaved chin.

• Stashburns: Often called the Lemmy. Sideburns that drop down the jaw but jet upward across the mustache, leaving the chin exposed.

• Reed: A beard with a mustache that is worn on the lower part of the chin and jaw.

No sideburns.

• Royale: Narrow pointed beard that extends from the chin. Became popular in France during the Second Empire.

• Old Dutch: A long beard connected by sideburns that flare out in width at the bottom but without a mustache.

• Soul patch: Small amount of hair under the bottom lip.

• Fu Manchu: A straight mustache that starts at the corners of the mouth and moves downward past a clean-shaven chin, extending past the jawline and having two tapered tendrils.

• Handlebar: A wide, thick mustache with ends that curl upward.

• Walrus: Thick, bushy whiskers that droop over the mouth.

• Musketeer: A narrow pointed beard with a long, slender mustache.

• Hungarian mustache: Bushy hair that extends outward from the middle of the upper lip.

• Imperial mustache: Small and bushy mustache that is curled upward.

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Without biotin

While using biotin

Can we really make our beards grow faster?

A beard is more than a simple fashion statement. Beard-growing takes patience, and it requires care.

While my own beard was perhaps a bit less impressive than ones found in these pages, the truth is that not all men are even as gifted as I. It all comes down to genetics.

But I got to thinking, what recourse do the unbearded out there have? Are they forever locked out of face-hair Valhalla? Is there nothing that can be done so these men can experience the satisfaction of beardom? Perhaps there is a chance. It’s a compound called “Biotin.”

The list of things for which I take razor to face is a short one. In fact, it’s just one entry long: Science.

Now, it’s not exactly true that shaving causes hair to grow faster.

Exfoliation however, can promote hair growth. Add biotin, a chemical found in peanuts and available over the counter, and one can safely promote hair growth.

In a six-week test, I found this to be absolutely true. After a shave, I thoroughly washed my face twice per day as usual, using a light exfoliant and dabbing dry. During the first three weeks, my hair grew at a pace of about 3.175 millimeters, or about an eighth of an inch each week. That’s about average.

After I added biotin to the mix (5,000 mcg per day), my facial hair grew an astounding 4.24 millimeters per week—about a half inch of hair in three weeks. So it seems that the supplement worked, though a vitamin chewy can only do so much. Excess biotin is flushed out in the urine, so more isn’t necessarily better.

It’s expensive too, compared to the natural method: keep your face clean, and be patient.

—Trevor Normile

SE Snapshots

SE PICKS: N.C. Jazz Greats

North Carolina

Billy Taylor

Wayne County Jazz Showcase spotlights musicians from ENC and beyond Event held on the third Friday of each month from 7 to 9:30 p.m.

A

s you walk down John Street in Goldsboro and approach the Arts Council of Wayne County, the sound of drums drifts out into the streets.

In August, it was Africa Unplugged playing during the free monthly PNC Presents Wayne County Jazz Showcase, which is held on the third Friday of each month from 7 to 9:30 p.m at the Arts Council, 102 N. John Street.

The Durham group was different for the jazz event. Members played traditional instruments from West Africa to create a contemporary sound.

“Everyone loves it,” said Arts Council of Wayne Executive Director Sarah Merritt. “It attracts a diverse group.

Each month, it gets bigger.”

Initially when the Showcase started in February of 2014, admission was $10. Merritt applied for a $10,000 grant from the PNC Foundation, which allowed the concerts to be held for free.

Musician Eric Xavier Dawson puts together the show each month. Dawson is a saxophonist and graduate of North Carolina Central University.

Most months, the guest artist is accompanied by the Eric Xavier Band.

Past artists have included jazz vocalist Eve Cornelious, saxophonist Brian Miller and pianist Ernest Turner.

Merritt noted people come from as far as Greenville, Raleigh and Wilmington to hear the Showcase.

During the spring of this year, the Arts Council received $20,000. Merritt

felt the extra funds will allow them to take the Showcase to the next level and bring musicians from out of state.

“The Jazz Showcase has been a wonderful opportunity for us,” she said.

In addition to the Showcase, on the first Friday of each month there is an open house, with live music from 5 to 8 p.m.; second Thursday is Open Mic

Taylor, a native of Greenville, was a jazz pianist, composer and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University and served as the director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Thelonious Monk Born in Rocky Mount, Monk would go on to fundamentally change the sound of jazz with his unorthodox, improvisational piano style and compositions such as “’Round Midnight”, “Blue Monk”, “Straight, No Chaser”, “Ruby, My Dear”, “In Walked Bud”, and “Well, You Needn’t.” Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington.

John Coltrane

Africa Unplugged perform during the Wayne County Jazz Showcase. The event features performers from across the state.

Night from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. and fourth Thursday is an African Drum Circle from 5 to 7 p.m.

To get a calendar and information about guest artists, go to www.ArtsInWayne.org or like Wayne County Jazz Showcase on Facebook.

For information, call 919-7363300.

A towering figure in the history of jazz, Coltrane stormed out of his hometown of High Point to help usher in a new world of hard bop and would later pioneer the blistering music known as free jazz. Throughout his career he worked with many of the jazz greats, including Miles Davis. Coltrane remains one of the most significant saxophonists in music history.

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Feedback: WE WANT YOURS!

Welcome to our fall issue of SE North Carolina. We are quite pleased with the responses we’ve received during our first year of producing this new magazine, and we continue to be curious about what readers like, or don’t like, about it.

Please let us know what you think.

We’ve put a great deal of work into the first four editions, and the product is and will be a work in progress. We hope the information and features herein will be the kind of information you want and will look forward to each edition, in portraying our corner of North Carolina in an interesting and honest light.

Content:

senc@nccooke.com Like our features and information this time? Let us hear from you. Got suggestions for future stories? Let us know. Got any thoughts on how this magazine can be improved? We’re all ears. Send us a message at the address above.

ATTENTION WRITERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS! If you’re interested in submitting content for consideration to be included in this magazine, let us know that too. We’re looking for some quality work from all areas of southeastern North Carolina.

Advertising:

senc.ads@nccooke.com Want to reach southeastern North Carolina with your products and services?

SE North Carolina is the newest, greatest way to reach a sophisticated audience with advertising that will help brand you and tell your business story at an attractive cost. Our printed copies of the magazine were snapped up quickly after publication of our first edition. And even more people have accessed SE North Caroina online at sencmag.com. Email us to find out more information about including your messages.

Intangibles:

senc@nccooke.com Tell us what’s on your mind and anything else you’d like to share that would help us provide southeastern North Carolina with a magazine you’ll be excited to look forward to four times a year!

View past & current issues online at sencmag.com

SE Stirrings

North Carolina

PORT Human Services

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The specter of drug abuse haunts the rural landscapes of North Carolina as surely as its urban epicenters. A live-in treatment center in Burgaw offers teens trapped in a downward spiral a second chance at life. Hear two survivors share their stories of recovery and hope.

Harrells Truck & Tractor Pull

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The annual two-day celebration of metallic might and hard charging horsepower brings participants not only from Sampson County and North Carolina but from across the nation. Sit back and enjoy a high-decibel power duel.

Old Burial Ground

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Soldiers buried standing up, naval heroes laid to rest with their instruments of warfare and a young girl lost at sea. They each have their own stories to tell and they all can be found in Beaufortâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Old Burying Ground, one of our regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most unusual resting places.

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PORT Human Services aids teens dealing with addictions Story: Nadya Nataly Photos: Trevor Normile

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t’s been approximately five months and the last place “Kevin” thought he would end up spending his summer was in rehab.

Only a day away from turning 16, he said that this particular birthday would the first one in several that he’s actually been sober. He is a part of the 48 percent of male high school students who have used marijuana one or more times in his life, the 7 percent who have used pain relievers for nonmedical reasons and the 22 percent of teens who had five or more drinks within a couple of hours at least once a day.

Those statistics can be daunting. Kevin’s substance abuse was out of control and led him to rehab at PORT Human Services, a Critical Access Behavioral Health Agency (CABHA) located in Burgaw, Pender County.

PORT is a private, nonprofit organization that provides services for residents throughout the state seeking assistance in substance abuse, intellectual/ development disability issues, and mental health. PORT has a variety of locations spread throughout the Southeastern region which specialize in helping provide prevention and treatment services for children and adults. The facility located in Burgaw is an inpatient unit specifically for teenagers between the ages of 12 and 18.

Kevin sits animatedly sharing his personal account of drug and alcohol abuse, but he Throughout the program, teens fidgets incessantly. He shakes work on different goals to earn privileges like family visits and his head, acknowledging his computer/video game time. nervousness while saying, “I have anxiety problems and brain damage because of my addiction.”

Kevin openly admits he has a hard time remembering his past due to the incessant abuse. “I’m here to get sober. My drugs of choice were anything over the rainbow, basically anything I could get my hands on; pills, weed, alcohol...” he says.

“I had my first drink when I was nine. I knew I could get away with it because my mom was an alcoholic. She’s been an alcoholic all of my life. I knew I could get a drink whenever I wanted. My mom 60

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IN Y OWN never noticed. I started smoking weed when my brother (who was 15 years old then) asked me if I wanted to smoke.”

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s research shows that underage drinking and drug abuse is a major public health problem. On average youths aged 12 to 20 drink 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in the United States, with more than 90 percent of this alcohol consumed in the form of binge drinking.

In the course of a month, the CDC says, 9.4 percent of youths 12 and older use illicit drugs.

The life-long effects this type of abuse can have on a youngster can range from memory problems, changes in brain development that can have long-term effects, or disruption of normal

Stock photo For teenagers like Kevin, seeking rehab at PORT Human Services is their one opportunity to get back on the right track and learn to live a drug free life during and after treatment.

YOUR SKIN growth and sexual development.

For many teenagers needing help, PORT is their light at the end of the tunnel—a saving grace.

“Kids have access to prescription pills and [all] kinds of drugs, I think increasingly in the last 10 years. It is important they know they can come to treatment to get clean; more than anything to look at the underlining issues and the choices that they made,” said Monique Hroncich, program supervisor of the PORT residential and adolescent programs in Burgaw.

“We have kids who [have been] shooting heroin every day to kids taking prescription drugs. You can’t put a face on it or a name to it

because every kid is different; every kid comes with their own story.”

Hroncich and her staff of 12 work around the clock at the treatment facility to provide a program for nine teenagers at a time, that not only gets them drug and alcohol free, but teaches them life skills they can apply or implement into their personal daily living during treatment and life after treatment.

In a typical day, teens undergo individual, group, and family therapies while developing life skills and learning coping skills that will allow them to reach a high level of functioning without drugs. The inpatient treatment approach cuts the teen completely off from the outside world with restrictions on Internet, electronic devices, and limited communication with family. The intent is to allow the teen to focus on the steps needed to get them on the road to recovery.

Their home, for 120 days or more depending on the need of treatment, is modeled on a college dorm, with a common area, ping pong table, and huge kitchen and dining area. The PORT grounds also have a half court basketball area in the backyard. Some of the teens have also taken the time to show off their green thumb, decorating the facility with plants and flowers they’ve grown on their own with the support of the program coordinators.

The teens are under around-the-clock supervision and have full daily

During their free time, several of the teens play a leisure game of ping pong, while others spend quiet time in their rooms meditating or writing letters to their families.

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schedules to stay on task. Each day, A bit hesitant to share the depths of For some of the teens being at PORT the teens learn basic life skills ranging her actions that brought her to PORT, was the first time they were not isolated from laundry, cooking, regular houseJennifer dispiritedly admits she resorted or ashamed of their struggle. hold chores, and time management. to a variety of means to fuel her crack In denial of his drug addiction, The students work on addiction.

“Kevin” refused to sober up, but after a daily personal and treat“Like [some] girls in hospitalization where he was informed ment goals they hope to the drug thing, eventuhe had brain damage, it was time to achieve during their time ally I got into prostitureconsider. in therapy. tion and that kind of “Before I came here, I got messed The teens in rehab thing. My grandparents up. I tried something I said I would at PORT come from would give me money to never try. I was told there was heroin at various walks of life get me off the streets and the party, but I couldn’t even tell you and regions in the state. (prevent me from) doing if I tried it. My first week here I was “Jennifer” had only something,” says Jennifer. higher than my mom. I was running been at PORT for ap“When I first started, I from emotions. My mom, my niece, proximately five days was 14-15, I had a pimp; they all used to call me a monster. I’ve when she was interthat was pretty bad. It changed a lot since this program,” said viewed. “I struggled was my worst phase. I Kevin. with crack for a long felt, the first time I did “This program ... it’s helped me a time,” said Jennifer. it, that this was bad, but lot to recover from how I used to be.

“My mom was into I knew I had to have I am now faced with my challenges, crack for 25 years. I startdrugs.” like my emotions I’ve repressed for so ed using her stuff and Ultimately, addicmany years. I am choosing to face them before I knew it I was addicted. I had tion can have a long-term devastating instead of using drugs. I have to come an idea [what crack was] from what impact on a teen’s life. Other teens up with coping skills instead of using my grandma told me about my mom’s currently under treatment at PORT drugs.” using, but I wanted to know how it felt shared their stories concerning down“It takes a lot to get through this and why my mom felt the need to do ward spirals into drugs and addiction. program. I am going to make it because it.”

I have to. I Jennifer am getting is like any a job when typical17I get out of year-old girl here and with per[getting] my sonal goals high school and career diploma.” dreams, but “For some she admits of these kids learning how this is their to cope with From cooking to gardening, PORT Human Services provides teenagers with an opportunity to last stop learn social and life coping skills as a part of their treatment.

The teens learn to prepare their own life sober is before they her first goal. meals and do their own laundry, while learning how to interact with others their age who are are incarcerfacing similar circumstances.

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Ricky Brown

ated or they are homeless,” says Ricky Brown, substance abuse counselor at PORT. Brown has been working with the teens for the last four years. He shared some of the struggles he’s witnessed them face upon arrival. For the most part, in the beginning of their treatment, the teens can be resistant, he said. While some want to refuse treat-

Greenville (252)752-2106 Kim Cobb Lora Jordan

ment, eventually they give in to the opportunity of getting clean and sober and, according to Brown, that’s when the journey to recovery starts.

“One of the biggest things, a lot of kids come here very disrespectful, noncompliant, oppositional; just used to doing things their way. So just getting them to conform to what it is we’re asking—like getting up at a certain time, doing chores, understanding basic independent living skills, and being responsible, which are things the program is based upon,” said Brown.

“Eventually you start to see a gradual change and what you hope for is those values and principles are pushed on to the other kids through modeling or us at PORT encouraging them. It’s what is expected here and what they can do when they go home to their natural environment.”

Since 2011, when the facility opened, approximately 103 children have been helped in numerous levels of support. Of those 103 teenagers who have successfully completed rehab, several have gone off to college,

New Bern (252)633-4104 Debbie Ham

Wilson (252)243-7009

Monique Hroncich

become parents and stayed drug free.

The service that PORT offers to the desperate teens clinging to their lives has been providing a second chance, and an opportunity to break free from the clutches of drug and alcohol abuse.

“If we don’t do it, who will?” asks Brown.

SE

Jacksonville (910)455-1404

Shallotte (910)754-3999

www.garrisevans.com Fall 2015

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MAXIMUM TORQUE Photos: Trevor Normile

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Fall 2015

From concept to reality, let our jewelry designers craft a piece of jewelry that will be cherished for generations!

Full Retail Jewelry Store • Custom Designs • In House Jewelry Repair

Feel the power of the Harrells 300’

Action. Mayhem. Speed. Tractors. The annual Harrells 300’ Truck and Tractor Pull is held every year in the third weekend in June.

With its mud drag strip and high-powered mutations of former farm implements, the Harrells 300’ is a family event the way they used to be—bags of peanuts, fairground atmosphere and plenty of noise.

Some of the wilder contraptions, powered by turbine motors, spit flames 30 feet in the air.

Racers in souped-up tractors and pickups pull weighted sleds across the earth while fans rave over the hellacious noise of monstrous Massey-Fergusons and abominable Allis-Chalmerses. Held behind the Harrells Volunteer Fire Department, it’s also a fundraiser for the community’s firefighters.

Visit www.tpull.com for more.

Mt. Olive, NC 903 N. Breazeale Ave. (919) 658-3258

Dunn, NC 1307 W. Cumberland St. (910) 892-1827

BuddysJewelry.com

www.

“Make The Wise Choice”

Serving all of Duplin County, Randy Wise and his staff offer a great selection of fine jewelry including watches, necklaces, earrings, and diamonds, diamonds, diamonds! Plus a big selection of Southern Gates and John Wind jewelry.

Wise Jewelers Fine Jewelry • Watches • Gifts

100 Front St. (On the Corner) Kenansville

910-275-0311 Expert Jewelry Repair • We Buy Gold!

Hours: Mon.-Fri. 9:30-5:30 • Sat. 9:30-1:00

Fall 2015

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se • stirrings

Beaufort’s Old Burying Ground speaks from the past

Story by Todd Wetherington Photography by Corey Cannon, Todd Wetherington

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Thou has all seasons, for thine ownâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

I wonder what they would say to one another, these dead, this cast of sailors, lost children and the utterly forgotten that lie entwined with the roots of live oak and azalea, beneath the sand?

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D se • stirrings

D

own the narrow paths between graves, descending through a past as tangled as those roots, the air cools under the dome of limbs and the sound of nearby traffic fades to silence. After the rain ends, as the light shifts to an emerald haze and the resurrection ferns stretch out their fronds, I can almost hear them, their voices, like the names on their markers, worn thin with salt spray and wind.

••• Crossing through the wrought iron gates of the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort is not unlike entering a theater for the showing of a particularly grand drama, one peopled with an unlikely cast of figures both tragic and absurd.

The cemetery was deeded to Beaufort in 1731 by Nathaniel Taylor, following the first survey of the town. Though the earliest marked grave dates back to 1756, it’s almost certain that many of the burial plots, some designated with little more than shell, brick, or wooden slabs, date back much farther.

While the northwest corner, the oldest part of the cemetery, appears empty, an archeological survey confirmed that the site is lined with graves. The unmarked plots are thought to contain the victims of the Indian wars of 1711, when the area was all but depopulated by hostile Coree and Neusiok tribes.

But it’s the Old Burying Ground’s later occupants, the prominent and colorful figures of Carteret County’s past, that work on the imagination.

There’s the British naval officer (d. 1700s) who fell ill in Beaufort during the Revolutionary War. With his dying words, he asked to be buried in full uniform, standing up, facing England and saluting

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King George.

Buried nearby is Sergeant George Johnson (d. 1800s), a member of the 35th United States Colored Infantry, who lies beside Pierre Henry (1812-1887), a free-born black man.

One of the most well known occupants of the Old Burying Ground is Captain Otway Burns (d. 1850), a naval hero in the War of 1812. Atop his tomb stands one of the cannons from his brigantine, the Snapdragon.

Another seafaring man’s grave is inscribed with the verse: The form that fills this silent grave Once tossed on ocean’s rolling wave But in a port securely fast He’s dropped his anchor here at last.”

And then there are the graves of the families, the children.

There’s the tale of Sarah (d. 1792), who believed her husband, Jacob Shepard was lost at sea. In his absence, Sarah married another man, Nathaniel Gibbs and gave birth to a child. But after several years absence, the shipwrecked Jacob unexpectedly returned to Beaufort.

The two men agreed that Sarah would remain a Gibbs in life but would spend eternity at Jacob’s side.

The tale of the Gabriel family is told on an inscription on the grave of the young mother who died following childbirth, her infant following soon after: “Leaves have their time to fall And flowers to wither at the North wind’s breath And stars to set...but Thou has all seasons, for thine own, O Death.”

Opposite page: A canon from the Snapdragon, the brigantine of Capt. Otway Burns, marks the grave of the naval hero in the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort. The grave is just one of the unusual monuments to the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seaport past that can be found at the historical site, which dates back to the early 18th Century.

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se • stirrings But somehow, it seems, all paths in the cemetery lead to one solitary grave.

There are several variations of the story about a young girl who became ill at sea during a voyage home from England with her father. When the girl eventually succumbed to the illness and died, her father kept his promise to his wife to bring their daughter home by preserving the child’s body in a cask of rum.

Upon returning home, the little girl was buried — still in the rum cask — at the Old Burying Ground.

••• For two and a half centuries they’ve remembered, paid their homage to the child, the myth.

Visitors leave their gifts on her grave, which is marked only by a thin piece of wood. I kneel and examine the items, several layers deep atop the small mound: shells, stuffed animals, angel figurines, dolls, beads, crayons, a pirate’s flag, and pennies.

Some claim to have seen a little girl playing in the cemetery at night, or that her gravetop gifts are sometimes found in other parts of the Old Burying Ground, as though someone has taken them away to play.

Maybe. But I think she’s down there yet, restful and content in the grace of her father’s promise. Grown from a child into a tale for a winter’s day, of the sea and love and remembrance.

I bend down and place my own trinket, a bottle cap, atop the offerings. I turn from her grave and make my way back through the cemetery, towards the street and the sunlight.

SE

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North Carolina

Where in SENC is this?

Bridge over the River Cape Fear N.C. 11 near Reigelwood This monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mystery photo: The old truss bridge over the Cape Fear River on N.C. Hwy. 11 in Bladen County.

The closest community is Reigelwood, in Columbus County, but East Arcadia in Bladen County is not too far away. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bridge 12,â&#x20AC;? as it is identified with the N.C. Department of Transportation, was built in 1952 and is a late example of a Pennsylvania truss bridge, one of only two still in use in North Carolina (both are in Bladen County). It was the first bridge to span the river at this location.

The site is known as Black Rock Landing, however, and was likely once to have been home to a ferry.

The Cape Fear River is quite wide at this site and a bridge with a total of 24 spans extending 1,237 feet was required to carry N.C. 11 across it. The northern approach required 20 tree beam spans, each about 45 feet in length.

A new, modern bridge opened to replace â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bridge 12â&#x20AC;? in September. Work is already in progress to dismantle the old truss bridge, with completion scheduled by the end of November.

Since 1971

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Fall 2015

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Play dates Upcoming things to do in southeastern North Carolina

Hamlet

NOVEMBER 19-21 • 7:30 p.m.

J.W. Seabrook Auditorium, 1200 Murchinson Rd., Fayetteville William Shakespeare’s Hamlet comes to life.

Admission $6-$12 Visit sweetteashakespeare.com

SE PiCk Donna the Buffalo and 8:00 p.m. - Ziggy’s by the Sea, Peter Rowan with 208 Market St., Wilmington American roots troubadours team up with Ben Cohen the co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s for The (Founder of Ben & Jerry’s) WEDNESDAY, NOV. 18

Stampede, a musical roadshow to raise awareness about the use of corporate money in politics.

Admission $22-$27.

Visit greenfieldlakeamphitheater.com

32nd Annual N.C. Holiday Flotilla

at Wrightsville Beach

NOV. 28 - 10 a.m.

FESTIVAL NOV. 28 - 6 p.m. - PArAdE Wrightsville Beach Town Park, Blockade Runner Resort & Intracoastal Waterway/Banks Channel, 1 Bob Sawyer Dr., Wrightsville Beach A group of yachts sailing in company of Christmas lights and holiday decor in a parade on the Intracoastal waterway.

Admission for Anchor’s Away Launch Party on Nov. 27: $30 per person; All other events Free.

Visit ncholidayflotilla.org

Swansboro Christmas Flotilla

NOV. 27 - 6-8 p.m.

105 Front Street, Swansboro A time-honored tradition and fun for the whole family. Enjoy the spectacular parade of lights glimmering off the White Oak River, with music filling the air and delicious treats such as funnel cakes, cider and hot cocoa.

Free admission. For more information, call 910-326-1174.

17th annual Touchstone Energy

N.C. Cotton Festival November 7 • Broad St., Wilson Ave., and Edgerton St., Dunn.

Admission: $15 per person $25 two-day pass Celebration of the cotton and farming heritage of Dunn. Family activities with two stages of live entertainment.

Visit nccottonfestival.com

A Christmas Carol

23nd Annual North Carolina Pecan Harvest Festival November 7 • Vineland Station 701 S Madison St., Whiteville

DEC. 11-12, 7:30 p.m.

DEC. 13, 3 p.m.

Goldsboro Paramount Theatre, 139 S. Center St., Goldsboro

Free admission. Live entertainment with Jim Quick and Coastline and Four Miles South.

Celebration of the pecan harvest.

Charles Dickens’s story about the “Christmas Spirit” featuring the most infamous humbug of all, Ebenezer Scrooge. Admission $15-$18.

Visit goldsboroparamount.com.

Visit ncpecanfestival.com

Polish Festival November 7 • St, Stanisiaus Church, 4849 Castle Hayne Rd., Castle Hayne Free admission. An opportunity to feast on authentic Polish food and watch traditional dancers with live entertainment from the Chardon Polka Band.

Battleship Alive: Christmas Edition

Visit ststanspolishfestival.org

DEC. 5, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

N.C. Veterans Day Celebration November 7 • Downtown Warsaw

USS North Carolina Battleship, 1 Battleship Rd., Wilmington

Free admission. America’s longest consecutively-observed Veterans Day celebration. Memorial service at 10 a.m., parade with flyover start, barbecue lunch at fire department, street dance and street fair in the afternoon. Duplin County Veterans Museum open all day on Hill St.

The battleship comes to life with the daily adventures and routines of the crew aboard the ship.

Admission $6-$12 Visit battleshipnc.com

Liberty Hall Christmas Candlelight Tour FRiDAY, DEC. 4 and SATURDAY, DEC. 5

6:00-8 p.m. Friday, 5:30-8 p.m.

Saturday, Liberty Hall Restoration, 409 S. Main Street (N.C. 11), Kenansville A Liberty Hall Christmas tradition since the 1960s, the antebellum home of North Carolina’s Kenan family, now a restored plantation museum, is featured with 15-minute guided tours for two evenings that include historic characters telling tales of the Kenan family and life in early 1800s in rural eastern North Carolina. Through candlelight tours, the museum offers a unique experience with sights, sounds, and delightful aromas that will help visitors relive that period of history.

Admission $10.

Carolina Lily Fest November 21 • Isaac Taylor Garden, 228 Craven St., New Bern

SE PiCk Disney on ice Presents 100 Years of Magic

Admission $15. A celebration of unity and creativity in the New Bern community.

Visit carolinalilyfest.brownpapertickets.com

Crystal Coast Countdown Dec. 19 - Jan. 4 126 Park Lane, Sneads Ferry

7 p.m. DEC. 16-19, 11 a.m./ 3 p.m. DEC. 19, 1:30 p.m./ 5:30 p.m. DEC. 20 7:30 pm, Crown Complex, 1960 Coliseum Dr., Fayetteville From Mickey Mouse to Finding Nemo and all of the favorite Disney princesses in one night on ice.

Visit crowncomplexnc.com Fall 2015

Ring in the new year Crystal Coast style with dozens of family oriented events sprawled throughout the coast, including Atlantic Beach, Beaufort, Down East, Emerald Isle, Morehead City, Newport and Pine Knoll Shores. Ice skating, scavenger hunts, live entertainment, and lots of food.

Visit crystalcoastcountdown.com

island of Lights New Year’s Eve Countdown Dec. 31 Carolina Beach Boardwalk, Carolina Beach Ave, Carolina Beach

Free admission. The giant lighted beach ball being dropped at midnight followed by a spectacular fireworks demonstration.

Visit pleasureislandoflights.com

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SE People

North Carolina

On the same job for 70 years Maître d’, official greeter, restaurant floor manager: Sanitary Seafood John Tunnell has done it all at MoreRestaurant and Market head City’s Sanitary Seafood Restaurant and Market. When you’ve been on the same job for 70 years, you tend to learn just about everything about the place.

He’s worked for three generations of the Garner family, and, at age 85, he says he still puts in about 30 hours every week.

“We all work together—no titles. Everybody does some of the same things,” Tunnell told SE North Carolina magazine recently.

“Many people do not live to be 70 years old, much less being able to say they worked at one job for that long,” he added.

The son of a commercial fisherman, Tunnell was born in Whortonsville in Pamlico County but, except for a short stint in the Marine Corp, has lived in Morehead City most of his life. “Daddy was a commercial fisherman and I learned a lot about seafood from him. All my family were fishermen and we fished the oceans, sounds, and rivers.”

In 2010, Tunnell received the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce’s “Outrageous Service Award” and has been a grand marshal of the North Carolina Seafood Festival.

“Mr. Tunnell always goes out of his way to make everyone welcome (at the restaurant). He loves people and they love him,” Beth Golden, a waitress at the Sanitary for years said.

Tunnell has a biography for sale at the restaurant which tells his life story. He will gladly autograph any copies purchased.

John Tunnell

Photo by Gary Scott/SE North Carolina

... illustrating the unique nature of those in our corner of North Carolina.

Under fire for Facebook post

Web photo

Mike Halstead

Ex-Surf City Police Chief

A Facebook post in September by Surf City’s thenPolice Chief Mike Halstead that railed against the Black Lives Matter movement, which he blamed for a recent rash of police officer killings and shootings, led to his “retirement” after the post went viral.

Halstead’s Facebook post called members of that group “nothing more than an American born terrorist[s].”

Despite some local support in Surf City, Halstead and the town board reached an agreement that provides for his retirement after a 35-year law enforcement career.

The ‘face of agriculture’ past, present and future When Blake Phillips arrived on the Harrells Christian Academy campus on the morning Chosen for CSX Railroad of Saturday, Sept. 19, he was excited to see all the camera corporate campaign crews and realized it was much more than just a photo shoot for his Future Farmers of America chapter. But he still didn’t know it was all about him.

Blake Phillips: This is your life.

Those camera crews were at HCA to capture footage of the next star of a major corporate advertising campaign. Phillips was selected from about 20 candidates nationwide as the face of agriculture in CSX Railroad’s upcoming advertising campaign to promote the transportation utility company’s role in serving the nation’s agriculture industry. The story of his involvement in agriculture and FFA had been deemed the most relevant story in CSX’s search for someone who represented the past, present and future of agriculture.

The project the Warsaw native, a junior at HCA, was recognized for was his beef cattle raising. His family’s more than 200-year history of farming the same land also played a major part in his selection as did his service in FFA since sixth grade.

The CSX multimedia campaign went “live” online on Oct. 5 and will continue into next year.

Blake is the son of Jason and Brigitte Phillips of Warsaw.

Blake Phillips

Photo by Gary Scott/SE North Carolina

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Handmade crafts allow couple to live a simpler life When Max and Kathy Whitley graduLeatherwork, potter artisans ated from East Carolina University, where prenticeship with Alice Procter. they met in the early 1970s, they She makes her own glazes and has decided to combine their artistic built her own kiln. The pieces she skills and began selling their makes are always functional—she work at crafts shows in 1972. ensures everything is lead free and The following year they all the eating and drinking impleopened a leather shop in Greenments are microwavable. “Everyville, which also began selling thing is decorated,” she remarked.

Kathy’s pottery and eventually The ideas for the designs often turned into a successful craft come from the pieces themselves. co-op. The Whitleys have been “The pot will talk to me,” she making a living doing their art said, explaining that each piece full-time ever since. can take a day to complete.

For Max, the fascination with The Whitleys made the decihandmade leather goods began sion to build a home on family at an early age, traveling the property near the Jones/Duplin Americas with his family. He’s County line that includes a duck Photos by Todd Wetherington/ catapulted that fascination into a career that has allowed both him and pond built in the 1940s, and is SE North Carolina wife Kathy the opportunity to live a simpler life largely away from the home to the Whitleys’ workshop, a hustle and bustle of the 21st century. Hammers, bevels, cutting shears large wooden building divided into two rooms to accommodate the and strap cutters are his tools and “vegetable-tanned” leathers help him very different workspaces for each spouse. handcraft belts and bags—his specialties. “It’s all hand-tooled, there’s “It’s a good feeling to be able to stay home and be self-sufficient,” no machinery used,” Max told the Duplin Times in a recent interview. said Kathy. “The happiness and satisfaction—I’m still trying to make a “It’s all done in the old, traditional style with tools that were in exisperfect pot.” tence 100 years ago.”

Access the couple’s website at leatherandpottery.com to learn more Kathy learned the art of clay working at ECU and under an apand to view examples of their leatherworks and pottery.

Max and Kathy Whitley

The family that styles together . . .

Siblings in the James family in Pender County figured out how to avoid Family of barbers and stylists working long, hot hours outdoors like they did growing up on the family’s farm near Maple Hill. Today, five brothers and two in the next generation have found successful careers as barbers and stylists in southeastern N.C., remaining close to each other and still preserving family ties.

Gerald, the oldest at 43, now lives in Burgaw where he operates the Stay Sharp Barber Shop and a separate business, Stay Sharp Barber College. He was the first in the family to enter the profession, barbering since 1991 and operating the college since 2013. He has led the way, so to speak, for others in the family to follow suit.

His four brothers have done that. Nelson, 41, is a civilian barber on base at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville and has barbered since 1994. Ryan, 34, lives in Chinquapin and has his own shop, RJ’s Kutz, in downtown Faison. Twins Kendrick and Lendrick work in shops in Snead’s Ferry and Jacksonville, respectively.

Gerald’s wife, Debbie, is also a stylist and is business manager for the barber college.

Their sons, Gerald, Jr., 23, and Kendrick, 19, have begun working with their father in his shop and training at the college.

Gerald, Sr. said he was never “a talker” growing up but has learned to be a people person being in the business over the years. Brother Kendrick said the reward of working in the business, besides not working in the hot sun, is making someone smile when they get a haircut.

The James ‘gang’

Photo by Gary Scott/SE North Carolina Front (kneeling and seated) are Kemodrick, Gerald, Sr., and Gerald, Jr. Standing, from left are Nelson, Ryan, Debbie, Kendrick, and Lendrick—all in the James family

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Pink Hill Medical Center ~Healthy Living Begins With Quality Care~

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• 4 quarterly issues mailed to your home: $19.95 / year plus tax or mail payment to SENC Magazine Subscription P. O. Box 1967, Greenville, NC 27835 or SENC Magazine Subscription P. O. Box 69, Kenansville, NC 28349

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Fall 2015

Wine & Dine Travel planner SE Getaways

North Carolina

Our corner of North Carolina offers much more than just scenic beauty...

Here are some great places you can appreciate for the good foods, good times, history, and oldfashioned SENC hospitality!

DUPLIN COUNTY

WINE & DINE GETAWAYS

Lunch Package includes: • • • • •

Complimentary Bottle of House Wine 2 entrees from The Bistro 1 Homemade Dessert 2 Glasses of Duplin House Wine 1 Night Stay at:

The Quality Inn Warsaw

$124 00

*

To book, call:

910-293-2800

Is Still Beulaville’s Favorite Restaurant!

$13400

811 W. Main Street 910-298-3346

$10.00 Admission

*

Fri., Dec. 4 Sat., Dec. 5

910-285-9200 * Plus tax. Based on double occupancy. ** Gratuity Included

Discover more Duplin County Packages at

ONSLOW COUNTY

409 S. Main Street Kenansville, NC Call for reservations 910.296.2175 KINSTON

Best Family Feast Down East.

Country Store & Restaurant We offer multiple venue locations for everything from family cook-outs to elegant weddings. We have a large covered shelter, a large banquet room, and The Barn.

The Barn is our newest upscale venue for weddings and other events.

Thursday & Friday 4:30-8 p.m Saturday 4:00-8 p.m.

Daily Lunch Buffet, Monday ~ Saturday

Christmas Candlelight Tour

To book, call:

No matter how you slice it...

PIZZA VILLAGE

Liberty Hall Restoration

Holiday Inn Express Wallace

www.UncorkDuplin.com

BEULAVILLE

KENANSVILLE

1600 Haw Branch Rd. Beulaville

Call for Details 910-324-3422 www.mikesfarm.com

Since 1946.

BBQ & ChiCken Daily SpeCialS SeafooD everyDay 405 E. New Bern Rd. Kinston, NC 28504 252-527-2101

910 West Vernon Ave. Kinston, NC 28504 252-527-1661

2405 E. North Queen St. Kinston, NC 28504 252-523-3303

416 Kingold Blvd.

Snow Hill, NC 28580 252-747-0127

www.kingsbbq.com

SE Folk

North Carolina

A good woman is hard to find

I

t’s funny, the things that stick in your mind His name was Frank Harris. I found him fishing under a bridge across the river from the local paper mill not far from the small eastern N.C. newspaper where I worked in the mid-2000s.

Frank was sitting out on the farthest point of a small, sandy inlet, crouched on a chipped paint bucket. He was small boned and dark skinned, dressed in a stained plaid jacket and workman’s boots.

I approached him slowly, making as much noise as I could. I didn’t want to startle this guy. You can never be too sure who you’re going to meet underneath a bridge.

“How’s it going, man?” — my usual line in indeterminate situations.

“Hey there,” he shot back, friendly enough but obviously wary.

I had been sent out that early fall morning to get photos of local fishermen. The small river access beneath the bridge had been recommended by my editor as a likely place to grab some shots of early morning anglers. I knew exactly what he had in mind: old guys, looking jolly but slightly wistful, relaxing and waiting for a bite on the line — Good-Natured Locals, in other words.

Frank Harris was not a Good-Natured Local. Frank Harris was pissed off, depressed, sarcastically bitter and more than willing to tell you about it.

And he didn’t want his picture taken.

The first thing Frank did, after refusing to be photographed, was take off his faded Red Sox cap and show me the two jagged scars running the length of his hairline on opposite sides of his skull.

“Had me an accident back in ’89. What little brains I had just dribbled on out,” he confided.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask what kind of accident. Anyway, Frank had already moved on.

“I come out here to think. My memory’s not so good since all that crap, hard to keep things straight...dates and names and such.”

At this point I made a last attempt to persuade Frank to let me take one quick picture.

I’d had no luck tracking down fishermen that morning and I was in no hurry to go back to the paper empty handed.

“No sir, I really don’t want my picture taken. They took my picture enough when I was locked up.”

Ah. I wished Frank much luck with his fishing and thinking and turned to leave.

“Say man, let me ask you something,” Frank bellowed suddenly.

My gut tightened. I had a fairly good idea what was coming.

“You work for the paper, right? Maybe you can help me out.”

It was the type of request that’s familiar to almost anyone in the journalism trade. Most people assume that those in the news business must certainly have access to facts and information that the average Joe could never track down. By and large this simply isn’t true. With enough intestinal fortitude and a well-honed ability to cut through layers of bull excrement, most citizens can come up with 99 percent of the information that any journalist can find.

Frank Harris, however, would clearly never buy this. And so, despite a certain weariness, I let the man mumble forth his strange, gray little tale.

Frank, it seems, wanted a divorce. There was only one problem. He’d lost his wife. Lost her, one Jessie Harris, maiden name Lynch, some 15 years prior.

“She went to a barbecue over in the next county and never come back,” Frank explained, his pale grey eyes growing puzzled, as if after all that time he still couldn’t quite come to grips with Jessie’s treachery.

He then elaborated on the special relationship the couple shared. “She tried to run me over in my own truck one time. She was deadly man, but I was too quick for her,” he chuckled darkly.

After long years of searching, Frank had recently heard rumors that his homicidal bride was living in a county not far from my hometown.

“You’re a newspaper man, think you can

Story: Todd Wetherington Illustration: Trevor Normile get me some information on her? I come down here almost every day to think, but it’s hard man. I really need help.”

Well. I couldn’t look at this guy with his ragged coat and empty fishing pail and tell him I had no idea how to find his wife, or ex-wife, or whatever she was.

“Let me talk to some people,” I said, “maybe somebody I know down that way could help.”

Frank positively beamed, years fell from his face, he leapt off his bucket and shaking my hand announced, “Oh man, that’s great. I tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna let you take my picture.”

In the interest of decency I contacted a few acquaintances from back home. It was a long shot at best, and of course none of them had a clue where to find Jessie, her family or anyone remotely connected to the Lynch clan.

I’d given my word to a tattered soul with half a brain, potholed memories and a missing half that crouched beside him, sat there almost visibly opposite his ruined paint bucket as he fished that dank little hole beneath the bridge. When I lost his phone number it didn’t particularly trouble my soul. After a few weeks I gave the matter little thought at all.

I seldom seek photos of fishermen these days, and certainly not with the same sense of urgency as that fall morning over a decade ago. But I look for the man whenever I get back that way, scanning the faces at convenience stores and along roadsides. His picture is lost somewhere in the morgue files of a small town newspaper, but I think I’d know his face, even now.

Of course, chances are Frank wouldn’t remember me. I don’t imagine his memory’s gotten any better in the intervening years.

But still…

I hope he found a better fishing spot, or at least never ate anything he caught out of that chemically-stained river. I hope his bitterness faded and the ramshackle past fell away like the discarded remnants of last month’s drunken barbecue.

And I hope he never found that damn woman.

SE

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