8 minute read
Our Town
THE USUAL OUR
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–Paul Cox, treasurer of American Outlaws Raleigh U.S. National soccer teams fan group
No matter the time of day or day of the week, if a U.S. National soccer team is playing, a group of fans gathers at Th e London Bridge Pub downtown to watch. Affi liated with the American Outlaws, an unoffi cial national support group for American soccer, these fans watch men’s, women’s, and even youth national team games, fr om minor face-off s to important tournament matches. “It’s about being with other people who love supporting soccer and love supporting the United States,” says Jonathan Duren, Raleigh chapter vice president. “It’s phenomenal just to be able to get together. For most of us there, it’s not about the outcome, it’s about the community.” Th e AO Raleigh chapter organized in 2008, putting it ahead of the game nationwide as the third chapter of what are now almost 200 local groups. Of AO Raleigh’s 150 members, many are players themselves who end up playing on local recreational soccer leagues and in pickup games together. Th ey also gather for AO Raleigh cookouts and FIFA video game tournaments throughout the year. Th is month, the group will be focused on gametime: “Summer gets crazy in a good way,” says AO Raleigh treasurer Paul Cox. Th ere are a lot of games to follow: Th e Confederation of North and Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Gold Cup kicks off to determine the regional champion for North and Central America. “Group stages for the United States kick off on July 8 in Nashville against Panama,” Cox says. “July 12, July 15, those are really important games.” Anybody is welcome to join at London Bridge for a pint; AO Raleigh members stand out in their red, white, and blue paraphernalia, including scarves, jerseys, and American fl ag bandanas. Th e group takes its love of soccer seriously on a local level, too. “Th ere’s a great culture for soccer around North Carolina,” Cox says. “We love the North Carolina Football Club (N.C.F.C.) and the N.C. Courage. We’re there supporting those games, as well.” Enthusiasm is not their weak suit. “We want to spread the passion,” Cox says. “You see the excitement, the love of the game. It’s contagious to everybody in the bar, or wherever we are.” –J.A.
“It’s a very profound feeling: knowing that what I’m doing can kill me, but learning how to build a relationship with the fire, understand it and how it
works. You have to respect it.” –Meli Markham, firebreather and welding student
“A man named Phoenix taught me to breathe fire,” Meli Markham, 20, says, laughing at the irony. When the Cary native began her studies in welding at Wake Tech Community College two years ago, she “discovered this entire community of fire artists and flow artists and prop spinners.” After watching many friends practice fire manipulation, fire eating, and fire breathing, Markham felt ready to give it a go. The man named Phoenix gave her a few hours of safety training “and then handed me a torch.” Since then, Markham has honed her favorite of the “fire arts”: fire eating and fire breathing, what she calls “the contact stuff.” She performs locally with Imagine Circus in Raleigh and Addled Muse Fire Theater in Durham, and hopes to perform as much as she’s able once she graduates. “Performance and art is where my heart is. The welding came from wanting to be able to make metal art, or to weld sculptures together, or enhance spaces for my performance groups.” Her plan is to take to the road for welding contract work, combining that travel with performance opportunities. “I’ll teach workshops, make art. But I’ll definitely always have a home base here (in Cary).” While Markham won’t divulge the specifics of how fire breathing is done – “then people think they can just go try it, and you really need to be trained” – she says it’s actually quite safe when approached like any other highly trained athletic pursuit. “I have never been seriously injured,” she says, because safety precautions are so paramount. “I do lose a lot of hair though: eyelashes, arm hair. Nothing big.” She’s found good company in the Triangle. “Fire arts is a huge thing all across the world that most people don’t know about. Raleigh is lucky enough to have a really great community.” Ultimately, it’s the perspective on life that the pursuit brings her that keeps Markham, well, fired up. “People always ask if fire arts scare me, and my answer is no. Not anymore. But it’s a healthy fear. It’s not scary for me anymore, but I take it seriously. The second it doesn’t slightly intimidate you is the second you should probably stop.” –J.A.
OUR Town GAME PLAN
–Jake Wolf, co-owner-founder, Capital Club 16 restaurant
“Family heirlooms come in all different shapes and sizes, and this is a special one,” says Jake Wolf. He’s not referring to the family photos or quirky trinkets decorating his German-American Capital Club 16 restaurant downtown; he’s talking about the 1957 BMW motorcycle with matching 1958 sidecar he inherited from his grandfather, Elvin Wolf. “His love for the bike has gone on through my dad and myself and now Johnny,” Wolf’s 7-year-old son, shown above, with wife and business partner Shannon Wolf. While Johnny doesn’t ride (yet), he knows how to start the bike and recognizes the purr of its motor. “He’s into it,” Wolf says. “I’m the current caretaker of it, and eventually it’s going to be Johnny’s.” Johnny is the fifth generation of Wolfs to tool around town in the “complete” motorcycle-sidecar package with original paint and leather seats. The bike is at its best traveling 55 mph or less, meant for cruising the neighborhood, Wolf says. His grandfather Elvin bought the bike in 1965 when Elvin’s own parents were still living: Jake Wolf’s great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents rode the bike before him and his son, not to mention many aunts, uncles, and cousins. “The bike has really been an extended member of our family. Everybody grew up with it. It’s been a constant.” The bike-sidecar was treated like a family member, too. Wolf recalls visits to his grandparents’ Pinehurst home when it would be out on the front lawn, “just getting some sun” after being “cooped up in the garage.” Now a classic motorcycle enthusiast, Wolf cherishes summer months when the days are long and he has ample time before and after restaurant work to ride. “I get it on the road as much as possible. It wants to be ridden. If I let it sit, then it gets finicky.” Johnny is usually by (in) his side(car), but sometimes Wolf rides solo. “When I go out to run an errand and I take the BMW, Shannon knows I’m not just running an errand. I might take the long way there and the long way home. I don’t go very fast. But it’s in the riding, not just the getting there.” –J.A.
“People crack up when they come in expecting bait and tackle
and see a bottle of Silver Oak.” –Taylor Cash, owner, Taylor’s Fine Wine and Live Bait
From left, Johnny Hartsfi eld, David White, and Taylor Cash chat.
Twenty-seven years ago, Taylor Cash didn’t set out to sell live bait. And he certainly didn’t expect to sell fi ne wine. When he and his late wife Gail bought a little spot north of 540 on Six Forks Road, they planned to operate a gas station and simple convenience store stocked with “all the items you’d normally fi nd there,” he says: Nabs, trail mix, Goody’s Powders. A little of this, some of that. Turns out, the store’s location gave Cash a fr ont-row seat to Raleigh’s growth and development, and he’s transformed his business to embrace it. It wasn’t long aft er he bought the store in 1980, for instance, that Falls Lake State Recreation Area opened to the public. In came boating supplies, fi shing supplies, and live bait and tackle. Th en, around 2000, as Cash was closing the full-service lunch and breakfast grill he’d been operating at the store, he realized he needed another profi t center. An idea sparked when a nearby big-name grocery store completed a renovation including a facelift to its wine aisle. “I thought, ‘daggone, they must sell a lot of wine,’” to warrant such a swanky setting, he says. So he talked to one of his convenience store vendors about bringing a few bottles in to “see how it would go … It grew fr om there. In a matter of years, it went fr om selling 15 wines to over 1,000.” By now, the secret’s out, and Taylor’s Fine Wine and Live Bait is a North Raleigh destination. Along the way, local supporters like Larry Larson of Larry’s Beans coff ee and various small-scale honey-makers have stocked Cash’s shelves (today there’s a Taylor’s Blend of Larry’s Beans). “It’s become something of its own,” Cash says. Also along the way, Cash, never much of a drinker, became a wine lover, and then a collector. Merging the old-school and modern luxury elements of his demographic remains one of the best parts of his job, he says. “People come in to get some hooks to go fi shing, and then they see all this wine and coff ee and all these things. I understand where they’re coming fr om, and it’s fun to introduce them.” Meantime, he has no intent of doing away with the nightcrawlers. Sure, the wine operation is glamorous, but the fi shing supply business is steady, and most everybody needs gas. “People know us for that, too. Th ere’s something here for everybody.” –J.A.
10005 Six Forks Road; taylorswineshop.com
“ATBIDAMANDA,THESMILESARECONTAGIOUS.”-GREGCOX
222SBLOUNTSTREET,DOWNTOWNRALEIGH
TAPROOM DIMSUMRESTAURANT BOOKSTORE FLOWERSHOP
