Roll down the windows and turn up the volume: these Carolina tunes will keep you cruising

By David Menconi

 

Road trip season is upon us, which calls for some music to keep the momentum going. Whether you’re twisting along the Blue Ridge Parkway or cruising the Outer Banks Scenic Byway, when you hit the road for points beyond, bring along tunes made by artists with ties to the Old North State.

 

Chuck Berry

“Promised Land” (1964)

This classic from the great classic-rock elder Chuck Berry tells the story of a coast-to-coast journey with a roll call of cities along the way, including both Raleigh and Charlotte.

6 String Drag

“Gasoline Maybelline” (1997)

One of the best bands from Raleigh’s mid-1990s alternative-country boom, 6 String Drag was a powerhouse with old-school country harmonies and a soulful horn section. Nothing pile-drives like “Gasoline Maybelline.”

Blues Magoos

“Tobacco Road” (1966)

Durham native John D. Loudermilk wrote a lot of great songs, none greater than this oft-covered garage-rock classic. New York’s Blues Magoos cut the definitive version of “Tobacco Road,” which you’ll find on the 1972 proto-punk compilation Nuggets.

Squirrel Nut Zippers

“Put a Lid on It” (1996)

The big hit for the latter-day Chapel Hill hot-jazz band could go here as a good song for picking up the pace (or even speeding). But “Put a Lid on It,” featuring singer Katharine Whalen at her sassiest, is better for cruising.

Black Sheep

“The Choice Is Yours” (1991)

From Sanford, North Carolina, the hip-hop duo of William “Mista Lawnge” McLean and Andres “Dres” Titus would like you to know: You can get with this / Or you can get with that.

Don Dixon

“Praying Mantis” (1987)

After you’ve been driving awhile and the caffeine starts to wear off, here’s a great singalong pick-me-up. “Praying Mantis” dates back to the early 1980s and Dixon’s long-running band Arrogance. After Arrogance broke up, Dixon, a South Carolina native who went to UNC Chapel Hill, had a solo hit with it.

Etta Baker

“One-Dime Blues” (1991)

Baker was one of the great legends of Piedmont blues guitar. That especially goes for her signature instrumental “One-Dime Blues,” which rolls on down the highway. If you can play it yourself and keep up, you’re “one-diming it.”

The “5” Royales

“Think” (1957)

Covered by James Brown and Mick Jagger, “Think” was one of the most enduring songs that the legendary Winston-Salem R&B band The “5” Royales left behind. It’s also a perfect cruising song — but keep your hands on the wheel, no air-guitar allowed.

Sylvan Esso

“Song” (2017)

Durham’s Sylvan Esso, made up of Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn, makes folksy electronic music with a warm, beating heart. This one is a great song for the wide-open highway.

The Connells

“Stone Cold Yesterday” (1990)

Although they’re best known for the moody 1993 ballad “’74–’75,” Raleigh’s Connells can pick up the tempo, too. This song’s call-to-arms guitar riff really should have been all over the radio.

Fantasia

“Summertime” (2004)

The High Point native, Charlotte resident and season-three American Idol winner has never been better than on her sultry performance of the George Gershwin classic. Perfect for long cruises.

Southern Culture on the Skids

“Voodoo Cadillac” (1995)

Once you’re close enough to your destination to exit the highway, here’s one to ease off the throttle by Chapel Hill’s long-running garage-rock band. I got eight slappin’ pistons right here under my hood / Let’s ride. OH

Howard and Other Fixtures

It was dark in there — the house, the heart pine and Howard’s heart — yet we always saw the light

 

By Cynthia Adams

Our den’s heart-pine paneling was stained so darkly you could barely make out the swirls, which imperceptibly darkened with every year. A faux-shuttered, oak TV cabinet presided over our family room, which featured Early American decor at its very apex. I even recall a fake spinning wheel. Early American was embraced by children of the Depression, much like doughnuts and savings bonds.

The furniture and accessories were one-part TV Western-inspired (Remember the dark interiors of Bonanza’s Ponderosa?) and the other part owing to the limited range of our local furniture store. 

On the wall was a large, dark-stained curio cabinet from MaLeck woodcraft factory in Wingate, which was owned by a relative. It was filled with knickknacks, including a tiny coffee grinder. A matching magazine rack hid Mom’s National Enquirers and Grits.

My father’s untouchable recliner occupied an oval brown-and-cinnamon braided rug, likely from Capel Rugs in Troy, which profited from Early American better than early Americans had.

And perched like a fixture in our den in his dusty work clothes — a navy blue jumpsuit and Caterpillar cap, which covered his black hair — sat Howard, our father’s pathologically shy bulldozer operator. The work clothes indicated that he had not yet been home to Ruby, his devout and long-suffering wife. Although Howard had not found religion, Ruby sure had. For hours, Howard would just sit there, often in companionable silence, though sometimes he could be surprisingly chatty.

Behind the noticeably inebriated Howard were shelves filled with Reader’s Digest condensed volumes, the World Book Encyclopedia (a must in pre-Internet days) and the World Book’s supplemental annuals, which helpfully summed up what we had just experienced in the prior year, in case we had memory lapses. Life, National Geographic and Progressive Farmer magazines — all well-thumbed — were on the shelf. 

But Howard had not come to read. He sought company.

A nubby brown-and-mustard plaid sofa formed a right angle to Howard’s often-claimed Early American chair. These were, and I do not exaggerate, impervious to stain.

Matching coffee table and end tables with spindles flanked the seating. These were sturdy tables. I know this, because on sleep-walking forays, I sometimes awoke standing on top of that coffee table. 

Silk flower arrangements, earth-toned and sporting dried money plant and reedy shoots, filled squatty brass bowls meant to approximate spittoons, something I observed watching Westerns.

The sole window was covered by mustard yellow, light-obviating curtains complete with “sheers” meant to check any excess rays of light.

Even midday, the room was tavern-like. This may have reminded Howard of his prior appointment at the bootlegger.   

Most often, he showed signs of having hit the Four Roses hard. (The tip off was that Howard would actually talk. Otherwise, he could not.)

“I like the way you walk,” he observed noncommittally, as I strode briskly past him to the kitchen one afternoon.

At that, I stopped. 

“You walk like you know where you’re going,” he added good-naturedly, slurring the word “where.” 

He spelled it out: “G-O-I-N-G.”

It wasn’t lewd. This was just Howard, a hapless truth-teller when under the influence.

I shrugged and continued.

If my younger brothers and sister popped in, they would try cajoling Howard into cheeseburgers from Jenkins. It is an abiding mystery why we were allowed to ride with an obvious drunk — perhaps because Howard had a clean driving record: never a wreck nor a DUI. 

Once behind the wheel of the Pearl, his yacht-sized white Ford Fairlane, he seldom drifted across the dividing line. He kept the radio on a country station.

At the wheel, Howard was prone to talk.

“Miz Ruby don’t deserve me,” he would lament as the music whined. “She’s a good Christian woman.”

We knew better than to comment.

“She’s got dinner on the stove waiting for me,” he would add while heading straight to the burger joint in the opposite direction from his home.

Even as Howard slurred a curb-side order, we knew as well as he did that it would be uneaten.

Once we were home, Howard would shoo us inside with white bags of burgers and fries, disappearing inside Pearl’s trunk to root for his bourbon, though Dad kept a bottle hidden in our broken dishwasher for him. Dad even called the dishwasher “the bar.”

(“Why do we need a dishwasher when we have five children?” he would ask incredulously.)

When Howard reappeared inside, our mother made a fruitless effort to feed him.

She once offered pound cake and coffee.

“No’mmm,” he slurred one memorable evening, swallowing “Ma’am.” 

“I don’t like dry cake. Chokey cake. C-H-O-K-Y.”

Apparently, Miss Ruby was not only a paragon of virtue, but a fine baker as well.

This insult was never forgiven; our mother’s grudge held fast.    

Yet we regarded Howard as one of us and loved him. 

We sold him countless boxes of World’s Finest Chocolates and God knows how many magazine subscriptions. 

One night, we learned that Howard was found dead of a heart attack, sitting in the Pearl at home. I imagined Ruby waiting; Howard’s supper long grown cold. Only later did my father tell me the colder truth; Howard had died elsewhere, in flagrante delicto. (A fate my father, too, would share.)

Our father sold the dozer and earth-moving equipment. Only the den remained fixed.

We, each of us, drifted. I left for college and pretended adulthood, walking as Howard had said, as if I knew where I was going.  OH

We dare you to utter the words “Early American” to O.Henry’s contributing editor Cynthia Adams. On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t.

Her favorite children’s book is easily The Borrowers, by Mary Norton.

Brain Candy

Summertime and the reading is easy

 

By Shannon Purdy Jones

For me, summer reading calls for what we at Scuppernong Books think of as “brain candy” — a palette-cleanser of sorts to give us a break from the weight of meatier books we’ve consumed. After all that we’ve been through during the pandemic, our first post-vaccination summer is the perfect time to relax or romp in the sunshine, shucking off the stresses we’ve been carrying around. So grab another beer from the beachside cooler and dive into a salacious romance or a thriller that can’t be put down. This year more than ever we’ve all earned a break to indulge in some guilty pleasures and unwind.

So here’s what we’ve got for you this month: Brain candy for every kind of reader, including those who still want something with a little bite for their poolside grazing.

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books, $28) Malibu: August 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over — especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva. The only person not looking forward to the party is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud — because it is long past time for him to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth. By midnight, the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play and all this family’s love and secrets will come bubbling to the surface.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry (Berkley Books, $17) When Poppy met Alex, there was no spark, no chemistry and no reason to think they’d ever talk again. Alex is quiet, studious and destined for a future in academia. Poppy is a wild child who only came to U of Chicago to escape small-town life. But after sharing a ride home for the summer, the two form a surprising friendship. After all, who better to confide in than someone you could never, ever date? Over the years, Alex and Poppy’s lives take them in different directions, but every summer the two find their way back to each other for a magical weeklong vacation. That is, until one trip goes awry, and in the fallout, they lose touch. Two years later, Poppy’s in a rut. Her dream job, her relationships, her life — none of it is making her happy. In fact, the last time she remembers feeling truly happy was on that final, ill-fated Summer Trip. The answer to all her problems is obvious: She needs one last vacation to win back her best friend. As a hilariously disastrous week unfolds and tensions rise, Poppy and Alex are forced to confront what drove them apart — and decide what they’re willing to risk for the chance to be together.

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins (Riverhead, $28) When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat, questions arise about three women who knew him. Laura is the troubled one-night-stand last seen in the victim’s home. Carla is his grief-stricken aunt, already mourning the recent death of yet another family member. And Miriam is the nosy neighbor clearly keeping secrets from the police. Three women with separate connections to the victim. Three women who are — for different reasons — simmering with resentment. Each, whether they know it or not, is burning to right the wrongs done to them. When it comes to revenge, even good people are capable of terrible deeds. How far might any one of them go to find peace? How long can secrets smolder before they explode into flame?

Blush by Jamie Brenner (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, $26) For decades, the Hollander Estates winery has been the premier destination for lavish parties and romantic day trips on Long Island. But behind the lush vineyards and majestic estate house, the Hollander family fortunes have suffered and the threat of a sale brings old wounds to the surface. Matriarch Vivian fears that this summer season could be their last — and that selling their winery to strangers could expose a dark secret she’s harbored for decades. Meanwhile, her daughter, Leah, who was turned away from the business years ago, finds her marriage at a crossroads and returns home for a sorely needed escape. And granddaughter Sadie, grappling with a crisis of her own, runs to the vineyard looking for inspiration. But when Sadie uncovers journals from Vivian’s old book club dedicated to scandalous novels of decades past, she realizes that this might be the distraction they all need. Reviving the trashy book club, the Hollander women find that the stories hold the key to their fight, not only for the vineyard, but for the life and love they’ve wanted all along.

Heatwave by Victor Jestin (Scribner, $22) Oscar is dead because I watched him die and did nothing. Seventeen-year-old Leo is sitting in an empty playground at night, listening to the sound of partying and pop music filtering in from the beach when he sees another, more popular boy strangle himself with the ropes of the swings. In a panic, Leo drags him to the beach and buries him. Over the next 24 hours, Leo wanders around like a sleepwalker, haunted by guilt and fear, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce. A prizewinning sensation in France and now stunningly translated by Sam Taylor, Heatwave is Victor Jestin’s unforgettable debut — a searing portrait of adolescent desire and recklessness, and secrets too big to keep. (Originally published in France under the title La Chaleur.)

The Coward by Stephen Aryan (Angry Robot, $14.99) Kell Kressia is a legend, a celebrity, a hero. Aged just 17, he sets out on an epic quest with a band of wizened fighters to slay the Ice Lich and save the world. Only he returns victorious. The Lich is dead, the ice recedes and the Five Kingdoms are safe. Ten years pass with Kell living a quiet farmer’s life, while stories about his heroism are told in every tavern across the length and breadth of the land. But now, a new terror has arisen in the North. Beyond the frozen circle, north of the Frostrunner clans, something has taken up residence in the Lich’s abandoned castle. And the ice is beginning to creep south once more. For the second time, Kell is called upon to take up his famous sword, Slayer, and battle the forces of darkness. But he has a terrible secret that nobody knows. He’s not a hero — he was just lucky.

Other notable summer reads: 

Sex/Life: 44 Chapters About 4 Men by B. B. Easton (Forever, $17.99), The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang (Berkley Books, $16), Falling by T. J. Newman (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, $28) and The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books, $28.99)  OH

Shannon Purdy Jones is store manager and children’s buyer at Scuppernong Books. Her current favorite children’s book? Pearl by Molly Idle.

The Soong Saga

North Carolina’s link to the fall of “The Last Emperor”

 

By D.G. Martin

One of North Carolina’s most interesting stories takes us back to the 1880s when a young Chinese boy winds up in Wilmington, where he converts to Christianity and then returns to China as a missionary. He becomes wealthy, and his family becomes extremely powerful. How it all happened is a saga that is almost unbelievable.

In Wilmington there is a small granite monument on the grounds of the modest, lovely Fifth Avenue Methodist Church building. It reads: “Charlie Jones Soong, father of the famous Soong family of modern China, was converted to Christianity in the old Fifth Street Methodist Church, which stood on this site. He was baptized on Nov. 7, 1880, by the Rev. T. Page Ricaud, then pastor. One of his six children, Madam Chiang Kai-shek, whose Christian influence is world-wide, is the wife of China’s devout generalissimo and president. Erected in 1944.”

Here is the report from the November 7, 1880, Wilmington Star announcing an event that would ultimately have a profound impact on modern Chinese history: “Fifth Street Methodist Church: This morning the ordinance of Baptism will be administered at this church. A Chinese convert will be one of the subjects of the solemn right (sic), being probably the first ‘Celestial’ that has ever submitted to the ordinance of Baptism in North Carolina. The pastor, Rev. T. Page Ricaud, will officiate.”

That Celestial, as some Americans then referred to a Chinese person, was Charlie Soong, a teenager, whose North Carolina Methodist sponsors arranged for his education and subsequent return to China as a missionary.

A minister in Wilmington persuaded Durham tobacco and textile manufacturer Julian Carr to take an interest in Soong. Carr brought Soong to Durham and then arranged for him to enroll as the first foreign student at Trinity College in Randolph County.

Carr and Soong developed a “father-son” lifelong friendship, despite Charlie Soong’s serious flirtation with Carr’s niece, which resulted in Charlie’s exile to Vanderbilt University for more religious training. After being ordained as a Methodist minister, Soong went back to China as a missionary. Once there he drifted into business, developing the Bible printing operation that became a springboard to greater financial success, often with Carr’s backing.

When much of China’s limited manufacturing capacity was under the control of foreigners, Soong showed that the Chinese could do it for themselves. He helped construct a platform on which China’s modern manufacturing base is built. He printed Chinese Bibles so inexpensively that they drove the competition — mostly Europeans — out of business and, in the process, became one of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful business and political insiders.

It was the last days of the Qing Dynasty and “The Last Emperor,” and China was in revolutionary turmoil. Soong helped fund the activities of the major revolutionary leader, Sun Yat-sen, sometimes called the “founder of the Chinese Republic.”

Soong sent most of his children to the United States for education. When his three daughters came back to China, they married prominent Chinese. One daughter, Ching-ling, married Sun Yat-sen and, as Madame Sun Yat-sen, remained an important figure in Chinese government long after her husband’s death. She even served under Mao Zedong as a vice-chairman of the People’s Republic from 1949 to 1975.

The oldest daughter, Ai-ling, married banker H.H. Kung, who became finance minister in the Nationalist government.

Another daughter, May-ling, married Chiang Kai-shek, who led the Nationalist government until he was driven to Taiwan by Mao’s forces in 1949. Madame Chiang Kai-shek was well known to Americans and a favorite of many until her death in 2003 at the age of 105.

One son, T.V. Soong, represented China at the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. After the Communist takeover of China, he moved to the U.S. and became a highly successful banker.

The Soong family was so important in China that it is sometimes referred to as The Soong Dynasty, the title of the most popular and detailed version of this story, written by Sterling Seagrave and published in 1985. It presented an unfriendly version of the family history, but a review in The New York Times saw it differently. “Indeed the charm of the man often outshines Mr. Seagrave’s attempts both to debunk him and make him sinister,” said the Times.

A more recent book by former Greensboro resident Ed Haag, Charlie Soong: North Carolina’s Link to the Fall of the Last Emperor of China, gives us a more balanced account. Although the Charlie Soong story is not new, Haag dug up previously unpublished material, much of it from the Soong papers housed at the Duke University library. Haag explains better than earlier authors how Charlie Soong became so wealthy. While others have written about Soong’s missionary work leading to a business printing Bibles, his association with a flour mill in Shanghai also contributed to his success. According to Haag, Soong’s greatest wealth came from his role as a “comprador,” a fixer and go-between who helped bridge the different customs and expectations of Western suppliers and traders and their Chinese counterparts. Those North Carolinians who already know about Charlie Soong will appreciate Haag’s refinements and additions. For those who never heard of Soong, Haag’s book is a great starting point.

But the Soong family’s connection to North Carolina doesn’t end there.

On Aug. 30, 2015, his great-grandson Michael Feng came to Wilmington to be baptized in the same church where his great-grandfather received the sacrament. Feng and his wife, Winnie, are longtime active participants at The Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, a historic church in New York City, at Fifth Avenue and 90th Street.

“It was the church of my grandfather, T.V. Soong, where Winnie and I were married and raised our two children,” said Feng. “I had just never gotten around to being baptized. I guess my parents were too busy when I was young. Winnie had been after me for a long time to be baptized. And when we were planning a trip to North Carolina for a wedding, we decided this would be a wonderful time and place for my baptism.”

Feng explained to the congregation at Fifth Avenue Church that his family remained grateful to the North Carolinians who provided his great-grandfather the educational, spiritual and financial resources that made the difference for Charlie Soong. “He gave these resources to his children and our family,” said Feng of a Chinese dynasty announced in a note in the Wilmington Star 135 years before.

Almost seven years after his baptism in Wilmington, Michael and Winnie Feng remain active at the Church of Heavenly Rest, where there is another North Carolina connection. The leader of that church is its rector, the Rev. Matthew Heyd, who grew up in Charlotte and was a Morehead Scholar and student body president at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Surely, Charlie Soong would be pleased.  OH

D.G. Martin hosts North Carolina Bookwatch Sunday at 3:30 p.m. and Tuesday at 5 p.m. on UNC-TV.

His favorite book growing up was Lou Gehrig, Boy of The Sand Lots by Guernsey Van Riper Jr.

Totally Blawesome

A flower farm where miracles bloom year-round

 

By Wiley Cash
Photographs By Mallory Cash

On a lush four acres of land nestled between Chapel Hill and the Haw River, 24-year-old Raimee Sorensen spends his days growing, harvesting, assembling and delivering stunning bouquets and custom flower arrangements. According to his mother, Rebecca, “He emanates joy.” The oldest of three siblings, Raimee works alongside Rebecca and a small, devoted team of farmers. It’s clear that everyone at Blawesome flower farm is dedicated to two things: delivering high-quality, organically grown flowers to the waiting hands of their customers and ensuring that everyone on the farm has the opportunity to live and work to their full potential, including Raimee, who has a diagnosis of autism and epilepsy.

“When given the opportunity to be amazing and successful,” says Rebecca, “folks with disabilities will rise to meet that challenge. If we are able to provide more opportunities for folks with disabilities to be successful, then I think we would see a moral shift in our communities.”

And farming is certainly challenging. “There are always opportunities to problem solve,” Rebecca says. “It’s very cerebral work.” In the morning, Raimee looks at his check list and gets to work, deciding how much preservative solution to add to which type of flower and what kind of tool is necessary to harvest each variety. “And when he takes his bouquets out into the world, he gets the confirmation of ‘You’re a wonderful farmer, and you grow amazing things,’” Rebecca adds. From season to season, Raimee’s knowledge and confidence have grown, and Rebecca has seen the skills he’s learned on the farm transfer to other areas of his life. For example, when they host tours and workshops on the farm, Raimee is able to share his knowledge about what’s going on in each production zone, and if someone asks a question, it’s Raimee, despite challenges with expressive and receptive language, who often chooses to answer it.

Before starting the farm, the Sorensens homeschooled Raimee for eight years, and during that time, they set up community internships where he could explore a number of opportunities while building varying sets of skills. He particularly excelled at a community farm where he volunteered for four years. He enjoyed being outdoors and working alongside others. Eventually, the Sorensens enrolled Raimee in a charter school specifically geared toward students with disabilities, but when the school abruptly shut down, they realized they needed to find an opportunity for him to achieve his greatest sense of independence. Better yet, they would create one.

Initially, the Sorensens’ decisions were practical. They had a 1/4-acre strip of land alongside their driveway, and based on how Raimee performed in his work at the community farm, they decided to cultivate the small area into a flower garden. After all, he was good at growing things, and he enjoyed connecting with the community. What better way to connect with others than by putting fresh flowers in their hands?

Raimee was not the only Sorensen with a background in farming and a love for flowers. Rebecca grew up in rural northeastern Pennsylvania with a father who was an avid gardener. In high school, she worked at and eventually managed a greenhouse, and later, on the other side of the country, she worked at an organic farm, growing peppers and houseplants in greenhouses in Oregon. She felt confident that she and Raimee could turn this small plot of land beside their house into a successful venture that would allow them to explore their interests and talents.

And then the four-acre lot next door went up for sale. Rebecca and Raimee’s vision for what they could do grew, and the family shifted again.

After purchasing the land, Rebecca applied for a micro-enterprise grant. The initial grant was for $5,000 but after completing the application, she learned that more money was available. She went back to the drawing board, carefully envisioning a project and wrote a proposal that eventually won a $50,000 state grant from the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. The shift had happened. The Sorensens were now owners of land that would become a flower farm, and all they had to do was build it.

Working with a team of land specialists and local farmers, the Sorensens grew intimately familiar with their new land, working to create a plan that was realistic in terms of what they could grow and harvest with their small crew. At the same time, Rebecca, whose background is in social work, was traveling the state, leading workshops on affordable housing for adults with mental illnesses. She met an architect from Elon University whose son had a diagnosis, and he suggested that they work on a project together. He went on to design the barn on the Sorensens’ new property, and he brought out teams of university students to help construct it. He would later design the home where Raimee and a supported-living provider live.

Blawesome was born, and the flower farm that began on a small strip of land beside the family’s driveway grew into a working farm that provides fresh flowers for everything from weddings to businesses, plus events at UNC-Chapel Hill.

But no matter how much the Sorensens had been willing and able to shift over the years, COVID presented an incredible challenge. They lost national contracts with huge corporations. Weddings were cancelled, and the university moved nearly all of its business online. But people still wanted flowers, and Blawesome met that need. Individual orders soared, as did memberships in their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), which provides seasonal flowers year-round to subscribers. “The community just came out and lifted us up in a way we could’ve never anticipated,” Rebecca says. “It was extraordinary.”

That says a lot coming from someone who has seen extraordinary things happen, both in her family and in her community. Raimee took medication for obsessive compulsive disorder for eight years, and then he was able to stop taking it one year after starting the farm. He has epilepsy, but according to Rebecca, he’s had only one seizure in the same time span. “You can pull Raimee’s Medicaid file for the past four years and see that he has not accessed any of the services he used to access since we started the farm, because he’s happier and healthier than he’s ever been,” she says. Both Raimee and the farm are thriving. “A lot of people in his situation don’t get told how special they are,” she adds.

But it is hard work, and the work never stops. “I don’t know if people understand how completely consuming farming is. It’s a lifestyle,” Rebecca says. “I like that for Raimee because it’s every part of his day. There’s not any time when he’s not thinking about it or planning for it or anticipating something, but it’s pretty miraculous to be part of something that is a living, breathing organism. I feel like I’m surrounded by miracles all the time.”  OH

Wiley Cash is the writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, will be released this year.

His favorite children’s book is The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth. His all-time favorite book? Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison.

Lost and Found

Sometimes life’s greatest mystery is, well, locating your mom

 

By Maria Johnson

Where was my mom?

I had no idea.

I’d arranged for a friend of mine — a ride-share driver — to take my mom from her house to a water aerobics class, a step toward post-vaccination normalcy.

And now, at the appointed hour, my friend was texting me to say that he’d arrived at my mom’s house early, but there was no sign of her. He rang the doorbell, waited, then left.

Hmm.

I called her cell phone. No answer.

I tried the landline. No answer.

I felt my heartbeat pick up.

“I’m going over,” I told my husband.

“Yeah, you should,” he said. “Lemme know if you need help.”

If I needed help. I knew what that meant. He did, too.

But it was probably the same situation as last time she didn’t answer. She was on her patio, puttering in her flowers, and her cell phone was inside.

I rang the doorbell once . . . twice . . . three times.

Nothing.

I heard her dog barking inside the house. If my mom were on the patio, her faithful guardian would be with her, not in the house. I fumbled with my keys and opened the door.

“Hellll-oooo-oooo,” I called.

Nothing.

There was her dog, wagging away.

“Where is she, Ella?”

Ella ran to the back of the house. I followed.

“Hellll-ooooo?”

The bed was made in her room. Everything seemed to be in order. I closed my eyes for a second and made myself look in the bathroom.

Nothing.

I walked to the kitchen. There was her coffee cup, and her favorite flannel jacket, with a soft blue plaid, hanging over the back of the kitchen chair where she sits. A blue gel pack, thawed, lay on the kitchen counter. Was she having a pain she hadn’t told me about?

I swept through the dining room and living room, out onto the patio. The rainbow lantana was vibrant, and the swamp hibiscus was blooming in wide pink saucers.

But nada mama.

I walked back through the house, stopping briefly at a shelf full of family pictures.

There was my dad.

My mom’s sister. Their mother and father. Their maternal grandmother and grandfather.

All gone.

“Do Y’ALL know where she is?” I asked the gallery.

No response.

So much for the view from heaven.

I scanned the house again, looking for clues, and decided she’d left on a mission.

Did she find another ride to the class?

I headed for the Y.

“I’ve, um, lost my mom,” I said to a woman behind the counter. “Has she checked in?”

“Oh yeah, she was in here earlier. She said her ride didn’t show up.”

Now I was really stumped.

I looked toward the glass wall that separated the lobby from the pool. Was she still here?

Across the pool, a group of women splashed with foam dumbbells. One woman, with her back to me, looked sort of like my mom. If that bobbing noggin belonged to her, I didn’t want to scare her by showing up on the pool deck. The class would be over in 30  minutes. I set my phone alarm and headed to the gym to calm myself with a few dozen sets.

When my alarm stuttered, I walked to the women’s locker room, which was dripping with grannies. Literally.

I checked the locker aisles and the dressing stalls. No ma. I hit the showers. All of the curtains were pulled shut. I thought about calling her name, but there was no way she would hear me under a stream of water, without her hearing aids.

I had an idea: We’d just gotten a pedicure together. I knew her color. Plus, we have the same crooked toe on our left foot. I bent double and inched down the row inspecting soapy feet as nonchalantly as possible — which is not very.

“Have you lost something?” a woman behind me asked gently.

“Yeah, my mom,” I said popping upright.

In that moment, I knew I sounded like that kid who, long ago, in the toy section of a store called Value Village, realized her mom was nowhere in sight. The kid who went running to find her. The kid who finally found her a couple of aisles away. Had I wandered away from her? Or had she wandered away from me?

I couldn’t remember.

I just remember how relieved I was to see her, and the look of surprise on her face when she saw I was distressed.

Fifty-some-odd years later, I had help in my search. A squad of soaked grannies was on the case, calling my mom’s name around the locker room while I checked the pool and sauna.

I was standing on the pool deck, utterly flummoxed, when one member of the search party came out of the locker room, waving
at me.

“I found her!” she said triumphantly.

She led me to the locker area — which I’d passed on the way in — and there sat my mom on a bench, wrapped in a towel.

“Hi, honey,” she said, smiling. She seemed surprised to see me.

“When did you . . . why did you . . . how did you get here?” I began.

She’d gotten mixed up, she said, and thought her ride was coming an hour earlier than we’d planned. When he didn’t appear, she’d called me, but I didn’t pick up. So she’d asked a friend, who happened to be helping her in the garden that morning, to take her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have left you a message.”

“But just now,” I said. “A few minutes ago, where were you?”

“Oh, in the toilet,” she said, dropping her voice. “I couldn’t get my bathing suit back up. You know how hard that is when you’re wet. But, look, I’ve met the nicest people.”

I stood there, eyes wide.

It all made sense.

Sort of.

And she looked so happy.

A new friend walked by her.

“I can tell that’s your daughter,” she said. “She looks just like you.”

“Thank you,” my mom and I said in unison, involuntarily.

I turned to leave her with her new pals.

“I’ll be in the gym whenever you’re ready,” I said. “Don’t take another ride home.”

“I won’t,” she said, laughing and turning to her soggy classmate. “Well, lemme tell you what happened.” 

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. Contact her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

Favorite children’s book? Not exactly. More like nonfiction, encyclopedia-type books about dogs and horses. “They didn’t do much for my narrative skills,” she says, “but I did know everything about Saint Bernards and draft horses at a very young age.”

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Have you ever met a Leo with a show dog? I doubt it. Because if there’s one thing this fire sign hates more than sharing the spotlight, it’s feeling inferior to another being in any way. Who has the silkiest locks, the smoothest gait, the most charming disposition? Of course you do, Leo. But this month — and yes, everyone knows it’s your birth month — don’t be surprised if you’re not getting the undying affection you so desperately crave. Do yourself a favor: relax. Your fans still adore you. Especially your rescue mutt.

 

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Virgo (August 23 – September 22) Brush up on your social skills this month. Interrogation and flirtation are inherently different.

Libra (September 23 – October 22) Love is in the air. But you won’t catch it with a butterfly net. Read that again. 

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21) Spin and you’ll win. It’s really that simple.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21) Don’t throw the crazy out with the bath water. You know you’d be lost without it. 

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19) Two words: Muscle through.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18) Let’s not beat around the bush. You know what to do. Swallow your pride and ask for help. 

Pisces (February 19 – March 20) Too much of a good thing isn’t the case this month. Just don’t forget to say thanks.

Aries (March 21 – April 19) You’ve just moved mountains. Don’t think people haven’t noticed. And don’t let that go to your head.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20) Plant the seed. Then leave it be. Seriously. Walk away.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20) Pack your bags, sweetheart. Go someplace you’ve never been. It’s time for a little perspective.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22) Don’t spend it all in one place. But if you do, remember that abundance is a mindset.  OH

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla. 

Below Expectations

Last month, O.Henry’s Raleigh-based sister pub, Walter, featured North Carolina artist Amber Share. She’s become a thing on Instagram with her Subpar Parks project — a series of “postcard” illustrations inspired by one-star reviews of National Parks. And now she has a book out: America’s Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors.  Here’s one for you, Greensboro. Share’s take on Hanging Rock State Park, where, as one underwhelmed visitor complained, the “trees obscure the view.” Find her on Instagram @subparparks

 

Tacos + Tequila

The most beautiful words in the English language? The great novelist Henry James said, “summer afternoon.” But he’d never been to the Greensboro Taco Festival. On Saturday, August 14, from 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., try convincing yourself that words like “guac” and “cilantro” weren’t created here in the Gate City, especially after that third margarita. At this sizzling fiesta of area restaurants and mobile kitchens, you’re bound to find the taco of your dreams, whether you like yours with lettuce and tomato, cotija and lime, mango, extra veggies or with salsa so blistering it will make your mouth, nose and eyes water. Speaking of water, you can find that here, too — with or without salt and tequila. Admission: $15; $10/advance. VIP tickets: $35 (include one shirt, two tacos and two margaritas). White Oak Amphitheatre, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: greensborocoliseum.com/events.

 

Belly Dancing

Downtown Greensboro, but with food trucks. Like, lots of them. On Sunday, August 29, from 3–9 p.m., celebrate the flavors of the city at, yep, Greensboro Food Truck Festival. Fifty food trucks plus craft beer, live music, kids’ activities and craft vendors — no ticket required for entry. Just bring your appetite — and maybe some sunscreen — to Greene, Market and Elm Streets, which will smell a bit like street food heaven.
Info: www.greensborofoodtruckfestivals.com

 

Show Us Your Twist

If you love this magazine, then you likely know a thing or two about our namesake, William Sydney Porter, who famously ended his stories with a twist. And if, like us, you can’t get enough of his writing and whimsy, then you’ll want to be at the Greensboro History Museum on Thursday, September 2, for a conversation about the extraordinary genius of this favorite Greensboro son at 7 p.m. The Life & Works of O. Henry, a co-production of the museum, Greensboro Public Library and Scuppernong Books, features Ben Yagoda — bestselling author and editor of the new Library of America anthology O. Henry: 101 Stories — and Jim Dodson, founding editor of O.Henry magazine. It’s free, smart as the dickens and you’ll leave feeling all the richer. Greensboro History Museum, 130 Summit Avenue, Greensboro. Info: greensborohistory.org.   

 

Supper and a Song

In the blazing heat of summer, blooming in full sun, behold purple aster and Limelight salvia. Alice Walker’s Shug Avery said it best: “I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it.” And when a musical adaptation of Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is showing at the Barn Dinner Theatre, you’ll only piss yourself off by not snagging tickets. The Color Purple runs from August 7 through September 25. Boasting an exuberant score — jazz, ragtime, gospel, African music and blues — this story of hope is a testament to the healing power of love. And that’s after you dance through the Southern-style buffet. Seating begins at 6 p.m. Tickets: $51–$56 (adults); $25.50–$30.50 (children under 12). Barn Dinner Theatre, 120 Stage Coach Trail, Greensboro. Reservations/Info: barndinner.com. 

 

 

 

OGI SEZ

 

We’re baaaaaaaack! After a cold, dark, lonesome, COVID-induced hiatus, the wonderful and necessary world of live music is making a beautiful comeback. And your faithful scribe is ahead of the curve on finding the finest entertainment offerings from around the Triad. Tentative, maybe, but this month marks the first full concert schedule in a year and a half, and to say we’re ready is a huge understatement. Let’s indulge! 

• August 11, White Oak Amphitheatre: I had the privilege of interviewing Train lead singer Pat Monahan a couple of years ago in advance of a show at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. He was as warm and neighborly as the rock band’s signature sound (“Drops of Jupiter,” “Hey, Soul Sister,” et. al.). They’re into their third decade now, and still chugging along.

• August 19, Ramkat (Winston-Salem): Thank goodness my favorite mid-size venue is back in full swing, with several goodies to choose from each month. This time around, it’s Kendell Marvel, one of Nashville’s most in-demand songwriters for years, who has finally stepped from the shadows into the performing limelight. No formulaic pablum here, folks. He’s the real deal.

• August 22, Blind Tiger: Local music aficionados know how lucky we are to have a genuine blues legend like Bob Margolin residing among us. And he performs among us, as well, bringing several of his top-shelf friends with him. The ever-popular BT did a good thing by nabbing him for what promises to be an SRO event.

• August 28, High Point Theatre: OK, I know I’m prejudiced. He’s my neighbor and two of his band members are my cousins (Timmy and Toby Overman). But, believe me, Billy “Crash” Craddock has still got it. He hasn’t lost a step in his long, illustrious career, and puts on a show as entertaining as his days as a young ’70s heartthrob.

• August 29, Tanger Center: Hallelujah! We’ve been waiting a year for this, and our downtown crown jewel is finally open for business. And there’s no better way to get our feet wet than with the Queens of Soul. These three elite vocalists, backed by the complete orchestral treatment, perform everything from royalty like Aretha, Tina Turner, Gladys Knight all the way to current stars such as Adele, Alicia Keys and even Amy Winehouse. This will be an evening that’s good for the soul.

Miss Mully’s Garden

It may be unfinished, but what in life is not?

 

By Jim Dodson

When COVID-19 shut down the world as we know it last year, I decided this was a sign from on high to finish building my backyard shade garden.

The cosmic joke, as any gardener worth his composted cow poop knows, is that, while no garden is ever really finished, it may well finish (off) the gardener.

That said, I set myself a goal to have the garden fully laid out and growing by the time the dog days of August rolled around. Beneath ancient white oaks, I began to see elegant stone pathways winding through beds of cool ferns, colorful hostas and other shade-loving trees and plants — the ideal place to sit and read a book when the oppressive heat of late summer lays upon us.

You might say I worked like a dog — and with a dog — from February to July, hoping to get the job done. After clearing out the last of the weeds and some forlorn, overgrown shrubs of the property’s former owner, I drew up plans and constantly revised them, laying out pathways and building beds for young plants.

Alas, August is here, and while I toiled and toiled away, my ambitious shade garden is yet unfinished.

Still, my old dog, Mulligan, never missed a day of work. She’s 16, and either deaf or simply uninterested in whatever her owner has to say. We’ve been together since I found her running wild and free in a park where I’d just given a talk at a festival, a joyous black pup with the happiest eyes I’d ever seen.

Workers in the park told me she was a stray that nobody could catch, had been around for weeks, either a runaway or a pup someone simply dumped. She was living off garbage and small critters she chased down in the woods. The girl was a hunter.

To this day, I’m not sure whether I found her or she found me. She raced past me as I was preparing to leave, heading back for the woods across a busy highway where I’d seen her cross into the park an hour before, somehow just missing the wheels of a truck.

I simply called out, “Hey, you! Black streak! Come here.” Something remarkable happened. The pup stopped, looked back, then ran straight into my arms. I named her Mulligan, a second-chance dog. Mully, for short.

We’ve been together ever since.

Any time I’m working in the garden, she’s there. Every trip to the plant nursery, the grocery store, or any errand around town, she’s along for the ride.  It’s been like this for a decade and a half. She’s my constant travel pal — my best friend and the best dog ever — always ready to hit the road.

Four years ago, Miss Mully was along for the ride when I started down the Great Wagon Road for a book about the Colonial Era “highway” that a couple hundred thousand Scots-Irish, English and German immigrants, including all three wings of my family, took to this part of the world during the 18th century.

As I laid out this long-planned journey in my mind, Mully and I would simply breeze down the mythic road together from Philadelphia to Georgia over the span of three or four weeks, meeting colorful characters, diving into frontier history and gathering untold tales from America’s original immigrant highway. The book would almost write itself. I’d finish it in no time flat.

Evidently, God and wives both laugh when foolish men make plans, to paraphrase an old Yiddish proverb. From the beginning, my wife, Wendy, thought it would take me five years to complete my mighty road book.

She was right. Ditto God.

Like my backyard shade garden, my mighty road tale is not yet finished. The sweeping scope of its history and people, not to mention the motherlode of remarkable folks Miss Mully and I encountered along the road, argued for a much deeper dive and more thorough approach to my subject. An unplanned bit of plumbing surgery and a worldwide pandemic that shut down the globe for more than a year hardly helped to shrink the time horizon.

But that’s life.

We all have unfinished business. We are all works in progress.

With a little luck and continued work, I hope to complete both my book and my backyard garden around the same time, maybe by Thanksgiving.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I understand that the day is growing late for my old dog and her master.

She still walks a mile with us every morning, and her dark eyes still shine with the happiest light.

Every afternoon, she takes a slow walk around the garden as if inspecting my work or memorizing the plants. I often catch her just sitting alone in the middle of the garden, thinking God knows what.

For the moment, our journey together is unfinished. But someday I hope to sit in the middle of Miss Mully’s Garden, reading a book and thinking God knows what, too.

Something tells me that won’t be the end of the journey. Maybe just the beginning.  OH

Jim Dodson is the founding editor and ambassador-at-large of O.Henry.

His favorite children’s book? The Wind in the Willows. His all-time favorite book: James Salter’s Light Years.