Animal Tales

ANIMAL TALES

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I Know Not Where I Go

Lessons from the lodge

By Eric Schaefer

An oriole sings to me from the top of a hickory, and I rush to put out orange slices and pots of grape jelly. But he won’t stay. Every spring, he flies off as if he has some important place to go. “Stay a while,” I say. “There is no hurry.” But he’s off to an unknown destination. I can’t stay much longer either.

We bought the place because of the lake. The house was a wreck. We hauled out a dozen soiled mattresses, a pickup load of beer cans and various detritus. The work was hard, but there was always the lake. We took lots of breaks to lounge and try to find the cool places where the springs came up from the bottom. One day, an engineer from the state came around and inspected the dam. He said the trees on the back side of the dam should not have been allowed to grow up. Their roots would undermine the dam’s integrity, but cutting them down now might be worse because rotting roots were more dangerous. Telling us what should have happened before we arrived was not helpful, but he was right. The dam grew weaker and more vulnerable each year but held on until the remnants of a hurricane backed up water, and it gave up in a sudden, catastrophic collapse. Three acres of water, fish, turtles and flotsam went downstream overnight. In the morning, there was nothing but mud. 

Since fixing the dam was prohibitively expensive, we were forced to watch nature reclaim the land. Initially, it was depressing, but nature didn’t waste time providing us with a show. Grasses and shrubs were quick to sprout, and it wasn’t long before willows, sycamores and sweet gums covered the old lake bed. We traded kingfishers and hooded mergansers for common yellow throats and a chat or two who liked the new growth. Then, one morning, walking the stream that runs down the middle of the old lake bed, I came across a stick that had been stripped of its bark. 

Beavers are often considered a nuisance, but, in my old lake bed, they were welcome. It took them just a few days to construct their first dam. While working, they lived in a burrow in the stream bank and came out to work crepuscularly. I thought their first dam should have been located further downstream, but my wife said, “Don’t argue with the engineers. They’ve been doing this for a long time.”

She’s right. Castor canadensis has been shaping the landscape for 7 million years or so. They not only build dams and lodges, but, once water backs up enough, they dredge channels in their new pond so they can swim deep enough to keep out of reach of predators. When they cut down a tree that is too big to drag, they either cut it up or make a canal to float the wood to where they want it.

I wanted to watch the endeavor, so I started going down to the stream early in the morning and evening. The first animal I encountered slapped his tail on the water hard enough to sound like a gunshot, making me nearly jump out of my boots. But  I knew the pond wasn’t big enough for him to hide for long, so I sat down to wait. Sure enough, he stuck his nose out of the water in a minute or two. He lay motionless with just his nose above water, looking me over until he decided I wasn’t a threat, and then he glided across his pond to where there was a freshly cut willow branch. He sat on his haunches in the shallow water, held the stick in his front paws and started eating the bark off the stick like you would eat corn on the cob. 

I began to visit him regularly in the evening. Sometimes, I’d bring a snack and eat with him. He never gave that warning tail slap again. He’d pause when I’d arrive —  I fancy he was making sure it was only me — then he’d go about his business, unperturbed.  Sometimes, a more petite beaver, perhaps his girlfriend, would show up. They built an impressive mound of sticks on the pond’s bank, and I could imagine its cozy interior, where I hoped they would be raising kits in the winter. Beavers are laid back about their accommodations. They have been known to share their lodge with otters, muskrats and other wetland neighbors. If I had been smaller and a little younger, I might have tried to visit them in their home.

Tragedy struck one day in the form of another storm that raised the water enough to wash away the beaver lodge and completely destroy their dam. I don’t know where they ended up; I haven’t seen them again. The lake bed is now filled with willow stabs and brambles. They didn’t like the sycamores much and left them pretty much alone, so the area has taken a new turn. I’d like to watch and see what develops, but my wife and I can’t take care of the place anymore. Can’t keep the house from falling down or the yard from turning into a jungle. We can’t keep enough wood to keep the fire going. We’ll be moving on soon. I know not where, but there will be a different assortment of birds, perhaps an unfamiliar flowering shrub might catch my eye, or a butterfly new to me will land on the bench where I’ve come to sit and watch. I might even land where the oriole makes his home.

From Central Park to Fisher Park

FROM CENTRAL PARK TO FISHER PARK

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From Central Park to Fisher Park

A big-city transplant brings verve to a 100-year-old bungalow

By Maria Johnson
Photographs by Amy Freeman

About a dozen years ago, Richard Peterson was walking down Greensboro’s North Eugene Street where it feathers from the commercial glassiness of downtown into the residential coziness of Fisher Park, when he saw a 90-some-year-old lady.

She was faded and outdated.

But she had class.

And good bones.

Peterson, once a jet-setting New York hair stylist with A-list clients, saw what she could be. So he did what he usually does: He made the most of her attributes, which, in this case, included a deep front porch, cedar shakes and rosy-brick walls stacked in a Flemish bond pattern, with alternating long and short sides in every course.

In the decade-plus since he bought the compact cottage, Peterson has artfully used tones from that brick palette — ranging from salmon to russet — to splash the property, inside and out, with blushing accents balanced by calming greens.

Now, especially in the spring, when the home’s English-flavored garden froths with blossoms inside the peaked waves of a boxwood hedge, the old Craftsman dame, petite though she may be at 1,000 square feet, still turns heads.

Her show stopper: the crown of pink Eden roses climbing above her front porch.

“When the roses are in bloom, people stop and take pictures,” Peterson says proudly. “If I’m outside, they tell me how beautiful the garden is and how much they enjoy seeing it.”

An anonymous passer-by once dropped off a pack of note cards with a picture of the house on the front.

“I think it’s a testament to the fact that the community around here is very thoughtful,” he says. “It’s a great place to live.”

Fifteen years a Piedmonter, Peterson still looks the part of Manhattanite with his oval glasses, shock of Warhol-white hair, low-cut Chuck Taylor sneakers, and jeans, henleys and hoodies in every conceivable shade of black.

Recently, he walked into a Greensboro furniture store.

“You must be from New York,” a saleswoman said.

How Peterson landed in Greensboro is as interesting as the transformation of his cottage from weary to whimsical.

He recounts some of his earliest memories as a child growing up outside Cleveland, Ohio, in the 1950s and ’60s. His father took the family for Sunday drives through swanky Shaker Heights, where the captains of shipping, steel and banking lived in grand homes.

Peterson wondered what life was like behind those walls.

His life was modest by comparison. His father owned a gas station. His mother was a housewife. His maternal grandfather, a Hungarian immigrant, tended a flower-and-vegetable garden behind the house that the two families shared.

Peterson was about 8 when his family moved to their own home, but he never forgot the flowers, partly because his grandfather incubated cuttings under Mason jars and literally passed on the beauty to the next generation.

When Peterson was 16, he went to work for a florist in Shaker Heights.

He accompanied the shop’s owner to the homes of wealthy clients to gather pretty vases, take them to the shop, fill them with botanicals and deliver them back to their stately homes. Peterson had found a way into the mansions that wowed him as a kid, and he liked what he saw.

“I drove my family crazy because all of a sudden I wanted Waterford and Baccarat crystal and sterling silver,” he says.

Soon, Peterson was arranging flowers.

Acting on the encouragement of a life partner who was a hairdresser, Peterson diverted his flair for composition into beauty school, where he learned how to snip, color and texture hair. He and his partner opened several salons in Cleveland.

“We were extremely successful,” Peterson says.

The couple moved to New York City in the late ’80s after Peterson snared a job with the late Kenneth Battelle, aka Mr. Kenneth, the darling of New York society women who wanted the cachet of being shorn by the man who is often described as the first celebrity hairdresser.

Mr. Kenneth created Jackie Kennedy’s iconic bouffant. Marilyn Monroe, Brooke Astor, Audrey Hepburn, Babe Paley, Katherine Graham, Nancy Kissinger, Joan Rivers and other notable noggins sat in his chair — but only for a cut.

Mr. Kenneth passed his wet-headed clients to his employees for styling. Peterson dried, combed, teased and lacquered his way into a loyal following.

He styled and schmoozed with Pamela Harriman, who was once married to Rudolph Churchill, the son of Sir Winston. Two husbands later, she was hitched to Averell Harriman, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Harry Truman.

Peterson groomed the heads of many women affixed to heads of state.

When First Lady Betty Ford was in town, Peterson did her ’do. She told him about an Italian restaurant that she and the President liked. Peterson said that he’d love to take a friend there.

Ford made a reservation for them. When dessert was finished, Peterson called for the check. He was told that the dinner was compliments of Betty and Jerry Ford.

When the Crown Princess of Sweden was in New York and needed her hair styled, Peterson reported to her suite at the Waldorf Astoria; Mr. Kenneth’s salon was inside the hotel.

At the suite, Peterson was greeted by a man who led him to a room where he could work. Peterson directed the man to move some furniture so that the princess could sit in the best light.

After the princess was coiffed, her father walked into the room, and it dawned on Peterson who had helped him.

“I had the King of Sweden moving furniture around for me,” he says, dissolving into laughter.

With Mr. Kenneth’s blessing, Peterson worked part-time as a personal hairdresser to the CEO of two apparel companies. He traveled the world on her private jet.

“I was feeling all big-shot-like,” says Peterson. “It was a shock the first time I had to fly coach.” Except for a year-long stint with a salon in Palm Beach, Fla., Peterson camped in New York. He and his partner lived in an Upper West Side apartment overlooking Central Park, in the same building where actors Al Pacino and Andie MacDowell lived.

But, after a while, Peterson says, the magnets of love and work in the big city lost their pull. He started looking for a place to move solo. Someplace green, where he could have a yard. Someplace like his boyhood home, only warmer.

It just so happened that a friend, another New York stylist, flew to Greensboro every six weeks to style the hair of a local socialite he’d met in the Big Apple. Soon, he was doing the hair of several of her Greensboro friends. Peterson tagged along to help on one of those trips. During the visit, Peterson and his friend attended a drag bingo event in downtown Greensboro.

“The majority of the audience was straight people, and everyone was having a good time,” Peterson says. “It told me that this place was open and accepting. I thought, I could easily live here.”

A few phone calls later, he had a job at an upscale salon on North Eugene Street. He rented a room on Summit Avenue, watched way too much HGTV and set his sights on restoring an older home.

“I can’t tell you how many power tools I bought,” he says.

He haunted salvage stores, demo sites and antique shops, squirreling away hardscape for his someday yard: a wrought iron arch, a double metal gate, a white picket fence.

One day, as he walked down North Eugene, an aging swan caught his eye.

The sign out front said, “For Sale or Rent.”

Peterson rented with an option to buy. Then he opened his wallet.

He had the hardwood floors refinished and stained dark before he moved in.

Later, with deed in hand, he shelled out for a new roof, water heater, HVAC system and basement waterproofing.

The financial hits kept coming.

Inside the cottage, wood paneling peeled away from the walls. Under that, the original plaster flaked away. And under that, a brick wall crumbled. It was one of two side-by-side brick walls separated by a gap, an energy-saving style known as cavity construction, common in 1924, the year house was built.

Peterson had the inner brick wall repointed, hung with drywall and painted bright white.

He added floor-to-ceiling windows in the sunroom, where he often watches TV with his Labrador retriever, Sammy,

Waves of sunset and emerald tones — in the form of houseplants, artwork and punchy artifacts — carry the eye throughout the house. See a mannequin sheathed in pink sequins in the front room; a large metal pig in front of a Louis XVI repro desk in the middle room; and flying pigs perched in the sunroom.

The glee continues in the backyard with curvaceous rose-colored balusters around porches — including a small wedge that Peterson calls his “Juliet Balcony” — fan-back garden chairs and  faux flamingos.

The blushing accents pop against vivid green islands of artificial turf, which Peterson installed so his dog could go outside without stamping the house with muddy paw prints.

The rest of the backyard resembles a wooded hallway. With help, Peterson sculpted fieldstone paths and planting beds down the length. He decked the hall with river birches, azaleas, ligustrum, distylium and ferns.

The walkway ends with a project in progress, an empty landscape-block pond that Peterson envisions catching a tumbling waterfall.

“My wish is to be in a forest,” he says.

For the front yard, his wish is to be in the Cotswolds.

The metal gate, which he found at the now-shuttered Mary’s Antiques soon after moving here, is flanked by concrete orbs given to him by a client. She imported the balls from England.

“I can’t imagine what it cost to ship them,” Peterson says.

He added salvaged porch railings, balusters and a swing.

“No Southern porch is complete without a swing,” he says.

He filled the slatted seat with faux pillows and a throw that he made with spray foam, chicken wire, concrete slurry and paint. He spiked the arrangement with a gazing ball and contained the arrangement with a chain. The spectacle was made for eyes, not fannies.

Ditto the garden tucked between hedge and porch. In season, the space bubbles with a fountain that provides mood music for ferns, roses, azaleas, Asiatic jasmine, coleus, zinnias, impatiens, verbena and whatever else strikes Peterson’s fancy.

He bought a small pickup truck after moving to Greensboro, and he finds it difficult to pass a nursery without loading the bed with more plants.

“I was better off when I had a car, and not a truck, because now I’m not restricted,” he says.

He makes no apologies for his devotion to natural beauty, though.

“If you look at a flower — the color, the shape, the fragrance, everything — it’s a miracle,” he says.

He lets his observation hang before seeking a response.

“Isn’t it?” he finally asks.

The voice belongs not to a jaded urbanite, but to an awestruck kid.

Birdwatch

BIRDWATCH

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Long Trek North

Louisiana waterthrush leads the way

By Susan Campbell

In early spring, birdwatchers such as myself are eager to spot the first returning migrants of the season. These are northbound birds that have spent the cooler months far to our south, in Central or South America. There, the living is easy, with plentiful food and a mild climate. But as the days begin to lengthen, these birds begin their return flight to the breeding grounds. Many may fly both day and night as the urgency of their mission increases. Hormone levels drive them to make their way swiftly to their natal area. Some return to the exact patch of woods, marsh or lake where they themselves hatched.

One of the earliest to return here in central North Carolina is the Louisiana waterthrush. A small, drab warbler, it is far more likely to be heard than seen at first. Its plumage is streaky brown and white. Birds can be recognized by their prominent broad white eyebrows and pink legs. As its name implies, the species prefers wet habitat, being at home along streams and rivers where it not only feeds in the trees, but along banks and around rocks at the water’s edge.

In the spring, Louisiana waterthrushes will call or sing as they move from place to place. As with so many species, the male’s vocalizing serves not only to attract a mate, but to establish territory. They have a loud, melodic song that carries well over the sound of moving water. The species’ call note, too, is a high volume “chip” that is easy to pick up in thick vegetation or above a gurgling stream.

Louisiana waterthrushes are insectivorous and so will consume any fly, midge or beetle that it sees. Also, waterthrushes will pick hatching aquatic insects such as mayflies or stoneflies out of the water. Individuals may wade in the shallows as they forage, making short jabs at potential prey items.

After pairs find one another and begin to raise the next generation of waterthrushes, they become virtually silent. This no doubt enables them to protect their nesting site and their young from would-be predators. Nests are built on or near the ground, making them relatively vulnerable to disturbance. Secretive behavior also reduces the chances that they will be parasitized by brown-headed cowbirds, which are known to seek out open cup nests such as those made by waterthrushes to deposit a single egg. The resulting nestling will be unwittingly cared for by waterthrush parents to the detriment of their own young.

Being one of the earliest warblers to return in the early spring, they are also likely to disperse in early summer after their young leave the nest. They may return to their Central American wintering grounds by the end of July. If you are fortunate enough to encounter a Louisiana waterthrush in the weeks to come, enjoy it because it is not likely to be around for very long.

A Way of Life

A WAY OF LIFE

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A Way of Life

Ann Tilley makes her mark, as lightly as possible

By Cassie Bustamante • Photographs by John Gessner

For me, it’s always been just to have the lightest impact on the world, on nature,” says Ann Tilley as she peers out from her sewing studio’s garage door, surveying the acreage that surrounds it. Nearby sits the narrow, tiny house with wood siding she and her husband, musician Adam Joyce, built and now reside in. The large family property is just about as far southeast as you can get in Guilford County. Just behind their home, a row of raised garden beds made from old refrigerators host early spring plantings, such as garlic, protected from the couple’s curious cats. Clothing pinned on a line strung along the garden’s exterior border waves in the breeze.

Tilley pauses, her fingers gently gliding along a patchwork T-shirt in shades of green with touches of lilac. “This is my absolute favorite shirt.” The garment has been created by stitching together pieces from old band merch. And not just any band — The Bronzed Chorus, Joyce’s group, whose sound is, according to Tilley, “instrumental post-rock, but then there’s a lot of synthesizer and electronic. I always say that if you listen to it in your car, you want to speed.” Tilley made a dozen or so of these tees and sold them at the band’s shows. The couple originally met at a Bronzed Chorus show in Durham, where Tilley was raised. Today, both are employees of Forge Greensboro. Joyce, a woodworker and furniture maker by trade, runs the makerspace’s wood shop while Tilley runs the textile shop.

Back in Bull City, Tilley’s parents own and run Acme Plumbing Company, originally founded by her great-grandfather. While her mother owned a sewing machine, Tilley, now 38, says the actual use of it sort of skipped a generation. “It was not progressive for her to sew,” she muses. Instead of traditional toys, Mom bought the kids sketchbooks and markers, nurturing creativity in other ways, while at the same time instilling in them environmentally conscious values.

“My mom was the first person I ever knew who wouldn’t buy something because of the packaging associated with it — before I ever heard of zero waste,” says Tilley.

Tilley recalls latching onto cross stitch as a child via Girl Scouts, discovering she loved fabricating art from fibers and how embroidery floss felt on her fingers. Later, in her tween years, a household book she happened to pull from a shelf opened her up to the world of sewing.

Foot to the pedal, she unearthed a means to express herself. “I like to be different,” she says. “I don’t like to wear what other people wear.”

Still, as the child of practical, no-nonsense parents, she says, “I thought fashion was frivolous. My parents are plumbers.”

Tilley’s interest in the arts led her to the Savannah College of Art and Design, a move that she says was good for her because it allowed her to explore painting, drawing, illustration and fashion. By the time she was an upperclassman, “I was obsessed with fashion magazines,” she recalls. “Harper’s Bazaar was my bible!” Tilley would flip through pages and, inspired, make her own versions of what she saw.

Her fashion interests led her to discover the fibers department, something she didn’t even know had a name. She recalls someone explaining to her what that department entailed and realizing it was exactly what she’d been after — “That’s me!” she recalls exclaiming. In 2008, Tilley graduated with her Bachelor of Fine Arts in fashion and fibers.

These days, Tilley calls herself a textile artist. The light-wood walls of her tiny home are filled with her own creations. “Pop art was my first love, which I think is really obvious.”

The art that hangs on her walls makes the house into something of a tiny museum that catalogues Tilley’s evolving interest in textiles. Inside a large, charcoal-gray, curved frame mimicking the shape of an iPhone is a woven textile she calls Hold Me, which is exactly what the text on the piece beckons. On the adjacent wall in the tiny home’s single spiral staircase leading to the loft, a complementary creation titled Current Reflections is framed in wood salvaged from old bleachers and given to them by a Forge friend. The piece itself is a chartreuse green, the yarn dyed by Tilley, and features a motif of toothbrushes, solar panels, poison ivy, trees and, in the center, tiny homes.

Up in the loft, the couple’s platform bed sits below a skylight. A shelf, inches away from the foot of the bed and made from the same recycled bleacher wood, provides ample room for books, plus space for guitar cases below. “It’s a little bit of a pain in the ass to change the sheets, but . . . ,” she trails off dreamily, looking up.

“I can literally see the Big Dipper,” she says. “And when you wake up in the middle of the night and the moon is there, I feel blessed every time.”

Next to the bed, a wall hanging Tilly fabricated faces the wrong direction so that the couple’s brindle-coated kitten, Tina — short for Patina — won’t damage it. Tilley takes it down and Tina immediately attacks.

The hanging is one of several Tilley made during a three-week art residency at Reconsidered Goods last November. Using denim yardage unearthed in “a ’70s storage unit,” Tilley crafted a piece that pays homage to Greensboro’s history in garment making, as well as her own background working as a Wrangler traveling on-site tailor and at a Raleigh denim factory. A pocket on the hanging is adorned with a leather Wrangler patch and Ralph Lauren rivets, a spray of bright, printed and embellished flowers emerging. Hot-pink felt lettering reads “Feeling lost? Discover crafts.”

“All of these pieces came from the idea of craft as therapy,” says Tilley of the work that came out of her residency.

Back downstairs on a gallery wall, a hanging fabricated from necktie silk reads “Days for Making, Days for Mending,” a necktie Tilley sewed hanging down its center. Along the bottom of the piece, “Salem” tags create a sort of fringe effect. Last fall, Tilley toured Salem Neckwear with Rene Trogdon, who was selling off and donating machinery and materials. His late father, James Trogdon Sr., had founded the company in 1964 to fill a niche market for premium neckties. Sixty years later, after Rene’s brother and the company’s then-president, James Trogdon Jr., became ill with long COVID, Rene found himself in a tough position and had to close. Sadly, James Trogdon Jr. passed away in December of last year.

“I mourn those stories of the loss of small and local,” she says, noting her parents’ own multigenerational company. Creating art with remnants from businesses such as Salem Neckwear, she gets to preserve a piece of their story.

“The thing I fear the most,” she continues, “is just that globalization is taking away all of that local personality.”

Every corner of their house, almost every nook and cranny in it, veers away from mass merchandising and designs driven by big-box retailers such as HomeGoods and Home Depot. The sliding door that leads to their single, green-tiled bathroom is a remnant from Tilley’s childhood bedroom. Where the original hardware sat, Joyce created darker-stained, midcentury-inspired wood inlays that flank the new nickel hardware. The exterior panels have been covered with mirrors to reflect light, giving the illusion of space. But the interior of the door was not such an easy task. Tilley struggled to strip all of the paint and eventually settled on covering it with a pastoral mural.

“I thought it was going to be done in a year without me doing anything,” quips Tilley about the home’s construction. But, she soon realized, “we need to do this together.”

Over the course of almost a decade, whenever they had time, Tilley and Joyce could be found outside of their rental home, just down the road in Julian, measuring, cutting, hammering. They also regularly visited the property, which had been in Joyce’s family for generations, first building and installing a solar shed.

The doors to the shed feature a modern graphic design in vibrant colors, inspired by a Frank Stella piece. Stella, who passed away in May of last year, was known as one of the fathers of 1960s minimalist art. Tilley and Joyce painted the doors right after a particularly busy moment in life, “and then, on our week off, we were like, ‘Let’s do something fun.’” A moment later, she chuckles. “We can’t ever relax.”

Beyond its bold doors, the building houses the tiny home’s breaker box and a generator, plus the regular tools one would expect to find in a shed. As far as the solar system that runs the property’s power, Tilley says, “Adam just watched a bunch of YouTube videos” and figured it out.

Some yards away from the home, a curved hangar featuring a bold, turquoise garage door serves as her sewing studio. It’s not heated though, so she has plans to construct a new building and has marked stairs with old sewing machines leading to where it will exist a stone’s throw away. “Manifest destiny, you know?”

“Right now, it’s a little nippy,” Tilley says. She tugs tighter around her a lavender velvet jacket she made with a cherry-printed lining, all fabric sourced from Reconsidered Goods.

This is where the real “magic” Tilley is known for happens — Magic Pants, that is. In 2016, Tilley founded Ann & Anne, a ready-to-wear clothing brand, with Anne Schroth, owner of Red Canary. While there, the two women designed a high-waisted tailored pant that featured an invisible elastic band in the back, an elastic panel in the front, and a cinching strap. The result? A pant that flattered figures of all shapes and sizes. Her friends started calling them “Magic Pants” and the name stuck.

Ann & Anne closed officially in 2018 and Tilley pivoted to teaching sewing classes across the area, from Durham all the way to Winston-Salem, including a stint at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown.

At Village Fabric Shop in Winston-Salem, she offered a class on making Magic Pants and the shop employees suggested that she make a pattern for them. At the time, she was busy teaching, but when COVID shut that down for a while, she got to work. And now? “I have literally sold this [pattern] on six continents.”

Tilley has also created her own YouTube channel, which allows her to increase her reach, teaching people across the world how to make these pants. Sewing, she says, is what gave her the “first feelings of self-sufficiency,” something she hopes to pass on to others through her instruction. Nowadays, she makes practically everything she wears, right down to the undies, something she started making from scraps when she worked at Gaia Conceptions, a sustainable brand founded by Andrea Crouse and located “just behind Westerwood Tavern.”

“I worked there for years,” says Tilley. Gaia Conceptions, she says, features made-to-order organic clothing and the brand pays its employees fairly. “They really walk the walk.” Crouse, Tilley says, even showed her how to make her own deodorant.

Nearby, a pair of of underwear in blue and white sits on her sewing table. “I haven’t worn these — don’t worry” she quips. The fabric is soft, comfortable, and there’s no elastic that would dig into a waist.

While the temperatures have been less than ideal, Tilley has, for now, set up shop in Joyce’s music studio, settled a little farther back on their land. A makeshift desk in the middle of his space holds her Brother sewing machine, a row of guitars hanging on the wall behind it. Next to the machine, old fashion drawings from her SCAD days feature a flirty midi dress, a long embellished gown and a mod ’60s-inspired swimsuit. “I do make my own swimsuits now,” she says. “And having a well-fitting swimsuit is wild!”

Joyce’s studio serves as the hangout spot for the couple’s other cat, Go-Go Boots, a beauty with long fur everywhere except for — you guessed it — below her knees. With the sun beckoning, she requests to go outside. Tilley follows.

“We actually got married in this field,” she says, looking out into a large, cleared space of land. In July of 2016, the couple tied the knot. True to form, the large tent that provided shade for guests was made by a friend “from old Tyvek he dumpster dived.”

And do they plan to live out their days where they once said “I do”?

“Forever home, absolutely,” says Tilley. Perhaps, one day, they may consider building a different house with a main-level bedroom as they age. But, if they do, it will be right here. “It’s a way of life.”

Home Grown

HOME GROWN

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Who really holds the power?

By Cynthia Adams

My friend, Pratt, is laid up with woes: a serious illness that has taken a number of medical tests to diagnose and more pain pills than he cares to swallow.

But this week just takes the cake, he tells me. A favorite Toby jug slipped from his hands and shattered. His microwave won’t cook beyond seven minutes before halting. “Is it protesting, or just broken?” I ask. I suggested what my tech-savvy husband always tells me: power off and restart.

Then his smart TV died.

“I’m reduced to using my old, stupid TV,” he mutters. 

From my experience, smart TVs are just as stupid.

Ours regularly seems to freeze up — much like I used to do before a Toastmaster’s speech. It goes into sputtering spasms mid-streaming, just before the second to last episode of a compelling Netflix drama.

Our so-called smart TV doesn’t especially like being told what to do by Roku and regularly strikes until rebooting.

Rebooting heretofore sounded like something you’d have a cobbler do, versus a tech fix.

Sadly, even if my TV is getting smarter, I am not. The mechanisms of technology mystify me as much as ever. When my bank’s online bill-paying function abruptly stopped working this past weekend, I developed hives, fearing I’d been hacked.

Nope.

The banking IT pros were the guilty party behind this sabotage, all due to an update. Post said improvement, nothing functioned properly for days. Trying to resolve this over the phone — during which I was asked such things as “have you cleared your cache?” — I shuddered and felt mildly sick.

Actually, no, I had not even touched my cache. 

“What about your VPN?” Before I embarrassed myself by blurting out something about my VCR (long ago consigned to recycling), I answered honestly. “VP what?”

The customer service representative sighed. “Try logging in via a search engine other than your usual.” Flustered and fumbling as she stayed on the phone with me, I faced another hurdle. I could not read my own scribbled passwords.

My head throbbed. Meantime, Citibank hit me with a $28 late fee for a balance of $18 I couldn’t manage logging on to pay.

By day five of this technological marathon, I had a low-tech solution. Maybe I’d move elsewhere. But I was soon notified of a national data breach. My response? To freeze my credit and change all auto payments, and google distant archipelagos where no one uses the word “breach.”

My cell phone immediately began doing a curious thing, cutting out calls as quickly as I could answer them, perversely trying to connect to my headphones each time. 

I took the same advice I’d rattled off to Pratt and gave it the ol’ power off and reboot.

It worked!

Seems you don’t have to have the smarts to hold the power. But before I clear my cache, I’m doing a juice fast, pulling olive oil and visual meditation.

Then I’m powering my entire self completely down.

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Flight Risk

Didya hear the tale of a rooster on the lam?

By Cynthia Adams

The rooster crowed predawn. A rousing, rooster reveille. 

Was it a lucid dream, a subliminal sound? After all, I had fallen asleep reading David Sedaris, whose brother, Paul, is nicknamed “the Rooster.”

Unmistakable, again. A rooster’s lusty crow.

“Didya hear that?”

Don nodded, splashing his face. Our morning-has-broken repartee is mostly “Uh huh” or “Not yet,” in answer to “Ready for coffee?” or “Ready to walk the dogs?” 

Not “Was that a rooster?”

We live in town, on a park, and have seen foxes, deer, raccoon, possums, chipmunks and squirrels. Once, I encountered a juvenile bear during a morning run. We’ve a variety of birdlife, including hawks and owls. But a rooster? Never.

The real secret to our relationship, we’ve silently agreed, is keeping things muted until coffee cups are filled and emptied, the paper skimmed, and we’ve dressed without walking into closet walls. Neither of us are morning people. 

Pulling on sneakers and grabbing dog leashes, we both understood we were going to look for the rooster.

“Sounded close,” Don muttered, and we set out, as if we were advance scouts nearing enemy lines. A Delft-blue sky rimmed the horizon above our usual trail into Latham Park. There was no birdsong beyond harsh complaints from an agitated murder of crows congregating along power lines, and the plaintive moans of mourning doves. 

The rooster was nowhere to be seen, but day after day we kept hearing him.

We redoubled efforts to find him during morning and afternoon walks. We began inhaling our cuppa joe and I waved the paper off, determined. 

“Didya hear him this morning?” I began asking first off. It felt portentous.

Along the park trail, seeking confirmation from others, too, I’d ask perfect strangers, “Didya hear that?”

“A rooster!” they’d marvel, squinting at me with interest as if I had conjured the bird up. Sometimes his crowing sounded well beyond the prior day’s perimeter, surprising us.    

Then, finally, he just appeared as we gardened one Saturday. The Dude himself!

Our wildest terrier alerted us when the rooster strolled over for a drink from our fountain. Bax trembled with excitement, as if to say, “I found him, and I’m keeping him!”

When I approached the rooster, he nonchalantly disappeared into the woods, strutting along our neighbor’s fence line. His plumage was colorful; a gorgeous fellow. 

My grandmothers had kept chickens, and I’d written about raising urban chickens for this magazine; I knew enough to give him space.

A few days later, we spotted him in the shaded perimeter of a parking lot. We froze, pulling the terriers closer. Soon after, we discovered the rooster was gaining an online presence on Nextdoor.

Some had names in mind, including Leghorn Foghorn. Don called him Russell Crowe.

Our editor once had a rooster cleverly called Brewster Roostamante. 

But the person resolved to capture the rooster dubbed him the innocuous sounding Todd. (Didn’t he deserve better?) After organizing a small posse for the weekend, a trap was sprung after his fourth or fifth reveille.

Soon after, we both started hearing phantom crowing. 

“Didya hear that?” I asked Don, pausing my weeding the weekend of Todd’s entrapment.

“I keep thinking I hear him, too.” He pulled a sad face.

Trundling him off to suburbia, Todd’s captor posted a mugshot. “Todd” was captive, pacing in a dog kennel. Gone was his devil-may-care swagger. Can a rooster look dispirited? 

Within 24 hours Todd was transported away to God-knows-where by God-knows-who. I imagine the clever bird had already figured out how things lay, so to speak.

Because the pairing of roosters and life in a high-density neighborhood, it turns out, is a foul, foul affair.

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

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Mountain Thriller

Murder in the Grove Park Inn

By Anne Blythe

If you’re someone who likes to armchair travel through the pages of a good book, Terry Roberts, a native of the North Carolina mountains, has a thriller of a journey for you.

In The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape, Roberts transports his readers to the luxurious Grove Park Inn, a stately and historic resort in Asheville that serves as the dark yet alluring backdrop for a murder mystery that exposes the tiers of a justice system that doesn’t always treat the wealthy and the poor equally.

The book starts with a bang when a nameless man standing near a tousled bed pulls out a pearl-handled derringer, shoots a naked college girl and leaves her on the thick, soft carpet to die in a pool of her own blood.

We quickly meet Stephen Baird Robbins in his home in Hot Springs, 30 miles downriver from Asheville. He’s a twice-married, once-divorced and once-widowed man who has stood trial twice for murder and been acquitted both times.

It’s October 1924, and Robbins, a retired investigator with a reputation for solving seemingly unsolvable crimes, is living a somewhat relaxed existence in a rental home with Luke, his 3-year-old son whose mother died in childbirth. Life had dealt them some wounds and bruises, but Robbins and his two neighbors were optimistic that together, they could raise Luke to adulthood.

When Robbins received a letter on fancy stationery from Benjamin Loftis, owner of the Grove Park Inn, trying to stir him out of his secluded piece of the world, he balled it up and threw it in the fireplace. Loftis persevered, first with a telegram telling Robbins his “presence is required due to a matter of some urgency,” and then with a personal follow-up in a chauffeur-driven trip to Hot Springs.

Loftis, a “newspaperman, chemist, pharmaceutical manufacturer, self-styled architect and — this is important —hotel man,” gave his pitch to Robbins. The hotel’s renown was in jeopardy after a college girl was found dead in one of the plush rooms.

“So in sum, you have a murder on your hands, and not just any murder, but the worst kind — a supposedly innocent young woman,” Robbins responds to Loftin. “The publicity is killing you. Two weeks have gone by and the sheriff hasn’t been able to nail anybody for it and you are getting desperate.” Robbins, a character who has appeared in two previous books by Roberts, let the hotel owner know from the start that he might not like the results.

“I want the murderer caught and punished, so that the inn’s reputation will remain unsullied,” Loftin responds.

Thus begins a tale that takes Robbins, who describes himself as “hill born and runaway” with “rarely two bills in my wallet to rub together,” to a resort where a man of his socioeconomic background is rarely a favored guest. Given wide access to the large granite stone inn described as “the finest pile of rocks ever built,” in October, “when fall began to wrap its cold hands around the mountains,” Robbins checks into the third floor hotel room next door to the murder scene.

The cast of characters includes an array of hotel workers and well-heeled guests such as judges, politicians and other townspeople who want to mingle and be seen among the wealthy travelers seeking retreat.

The hotel workers, its dining room servers, front desk managers and dutiful housekeepers are an interesting lot. The hotel itself, with all its corridors, luxurious amenities and nooks and crannies, becomes its own character.

Then there are the “girls” — the young women brought in to “keep the party lively” for events that might draw mostly men and a few bored wives. Robbins, a tenacious investigator with a knack for building rapport with the working people, has no qualms about standing up to the powerful. He is determined to find out who killed Rosalind Caldwell, or “Rosie,” as the locals called the young woman found dead in the hotel.

“Perhaps only Stephen Robbins could do what must be done here,” Roberts writes in his acknowledgements thanking the character for yet another appearance in one of his books. “After all, this is a book about prostitution and politics — a timely topic — and it required a hard hand and true voice to find justice.”

The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape is about social status, privilege, racial injustices a wrongful arrest and a forthright observation that things are not always as they seem, even if that’s what the wider community wants you to believe. In fast-moving, descriptive prose, Roberts takes readers on a pursuit filled with danger and love that reveals the deaths of two other young women found lifeless in circumstances eerily similar to Rosie’s.

These were not the sort of women whose deaths would typically draw big headlines in Prohibition Era Asheville, Robbins notes. Their bodies were not discovered in a fancy hotel, nor did they come from the well-to-do neighborhoods of the town’s rich and famous.

Even if there are enough clues to figure out the likely killer long before the story ends, Roberts is adept at pulling his readers through to the conclusion to find out whether or not there will be justice for these victims. It’s an entertaining pursuit, a journey to another place and another time well worth taking.

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The Donor

Giving of yourself in acts great and small

By Cynthia Adams

Ann Deaton wears her niece Leslie’s citrus-quartz pendant, fingering it gently as we talk. When I mention how lovely it is, a smile flickers. She eats slowly, sipping tea during our lunch in a Middle Eastern restaurant. The retired high school counselor, with intelligent blue eyes behind gold wire-rimmed glasses, is just regaining the ability to laugh after months of being hamstrung by grief at the loss of her niece. 

Leslie inherited Ann’s charismatic personality and valiantly fought cancer for months until her recent death. Ann had been a constant presence in Leslie’s abbreviated life. She watched her battle pancreatic cancer with a pilgrim’s fervor, both expecting a miracle.

In a sense, Ann believes Leslie experienced one. The singular miracle was that, until her end, she remained lucid, engaged, even questioning. At one point, Ann thought that if Leslie got into a new drug trial, she might triumph. Her smile tightens. 

“She was so ill at that point; the drug itself would have killed her. I think Leslie lost hope when she learned that.”    Today, however, Ann doesn’t weep. She is cried out.

Bearing witness to suffering has taken a toll.

She wraps half the sandwich, saying, “My appetite isn’t really great.” Ann has just returned from Key West, a trip she has made often with old friends. 

“I needed it,” she admits. “Those sunsets.” 

“It’s so kind of them to invite me.” She casually mentions it might have something to do with “the kidney.”

Without missing a beat, she tells me how she takes trips and celebrates holidays with the family.

The kidney?    

“My kidney.” 

Ann gave their daughter a kidney on September 25, 2002.

She laughs as my mouth drops open. The recipient survived many years. “Her kidney lasted until her death from cancer.”

“I was in the hospital at Duke overnight. That’s all,” Ann replies, batting questions away.

She looks past my shoulder into space, reflective. Ann remains other-focused. 

I tell her my stepfather died of kidney failure after many years on dialysis. 

Every eight minutes another person is added to the national transplant waiting list. Only one out of every four needing a transplant receives a kidney, with a typical wait of five years. 

Ann is aware of the statistics. She tries to convince others that she is living proof that organ donation “is no big deal.” The transplant is done laparoscopically and generally requires just one overnight hospital stay. A friend, Realtor Kathy Haines, chose to follow her lead, donating a kidney to a stranger.

Ann knows how grateful her recipient’s family remains. At the young woman’s death, she was told that “a part of me is already in heaven.”

“Wasn’t that nice of them to say?” she asks, dabbing a napkin at her mouth. 

We part. Ann is off to feed the feral cat colonies around town that she supports. It’s another cause near and dear to her. 

With a warm smile she winds a scarf around her neck.  Ann walks purposefully, off into the winter’s day. 

Afterward, I call a friend whose son died one year after receiving a kidney from a living donor and complete stranger.

I relate what Ann has just shared — that the transplant pain was not significant and recovery was straightforward. My friend’s voice quavers. 

“I’ve always dreaded asking the donor, that wonderful man, about the pain he suffered.” 

She collects herself.

“Thank you for that. And please, please, thank Ann for me.” 

Outside, the sun emerges, pushing back against earlier grayness. I think of Ann making her faithful rounds in a RAV4, feeding cats in a colony near a shopping center and then another off Spring Garden, where wary felines gather and await her. At home she cares for Leslie’s cat, Virginia, and other rescues.

There is always an Ann, I think, to show us our better selves.

Winter will yield to spring. The sun, defiant, climbs higher until its magnificent sunset.

Fit for a King

FIT FOR A KING

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Fit for a King

Today’s princes and princesses learn skills to become tomorrow’s leaders

By Billy Ingram

Photographs by Betsy Blake

Society’s crustiest curmudgeons disparaging the aberrant behavior of today’s youngsters has practically become a national pastime. Modern-day kids, many insist, are rebellious, insolent, lazy, entitled, unable to communicate effectively whether speaking or writing, and devoid of core American values such as hard work, accountability and responsibility. Oh wait, that’s exactly how society characterized those of us who grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, my generation. Raised to be considerate, kind and obedient, to curtsy and bow when company arrived, to be seen, not heard . . . and we all know how that turned out. But has the pendulum of propriety swung way too far in the opposite direction?

Just imagine what effect it might have if today’s youngsters were taught etiquette, the importance of courtesy, respect, punctuality, politeness, eye contact, proper dressing and grooming.

That’s precisely the focus of Geovanni Hood, whose Charmed School of Etiquette is spearheading a return to refinement and civility, most recently in conjunction with D-UP in the enlivened Washington Street Historic District in High Point. His six-week course engages kindergarteners to teens in lessons that stress proper manners and comportment, encouraging youngsters to gaze away from a constant barrage of pixelated stimulation in order to effectively face life’s three-dimensional challenges.

Founded by Jakki and Corvin Davis in 2007, D-UP (Develop Skills, Uprise Education and Power-Up For Life!) began as an after-school basketball program. A year after achieving nonprofit status in 2010, D-UP moved its headquarters to Washington Street, expanding outreach efforts to include nutritional education to combat childhood obesity, while promoting academic achievement and character development.

“We wanted to make sure that the students went through etiquette classes,” D-UP’s Jakki Davis tells me, “because this is something they can learn now and it will be forever ingrained in them.”

Hood was brought in as a visiting instructor, says Davis. “When I met Geovanni and saw his interest in our students and what he was doing, I thought, ‘This will be perfect.’ ” Plus, she adds, he makes it fun.

“When your child steps out the house, they are not only a representation of themselves, but they are a representation of you,” Hood says. They’re creating their brand, so to speak. Your brand, he says, involves knowing “how to be socially active, how to make friends, how to engage in conversations and build character.” Cultivation reflects positively on parents as well.

Besides collaborating with nonprofits such as D-UP, Hood’s outreach includes local churches, the YMCA and the Piedmont School at Andrews High School. “I’ve taught at Howard University in D.C. as well, so I pretty much just travel.” Most organizations will bring him in for a day, but longer sessions may stretch into two eight-hour days back to back “or I might come in one day a week for five weeks.”

As former Human Relations Commissioner for the City of High Point and a certified career coach and navigator, his book Navigating Success: Interview Eitiquette Guide for Teenagers is a primer for anyone who believes chivalry is not dead, merely moribund. “Young people can’t do what they don’t know,” Hood insists. “When somebody comes along, leading by example, then others will get it and hopefully follow suit.” As for getting through to teenagers, he says, “If I’m teaching them how to be properly mannered versus calling it ‘etiquette,’ they understand it better.”

A Greensboro resident by way of Brooklyn, what inspired Hood to lead the way in teaching etiquette to a new generation? A room at the O.Henry Hotel dedicated to the memory of Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown.

Beginning at the turn of the last century, with determination undeterred by mob violence and an overwhelming resistance toward efforts aimed at assimilating African Americans into polite society, Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown established, then tenaciously re-established after everything was burned down by residents opposed to the very idea, institutions of higher learning for people of color. By 1940, Brown became known as the “first lady of social graces,” following the publication of her manners manual, The Correct Thing to Do, to Say, to Wear, a more reality-rooted companion to Emily Post’s Etiquette, published two decades earlier.

Hood shares Brown’s basic philosophy: “Educate the individual to live in the greater world.”

“What I teach is situational etiquette, but also interview etiquette, and I love teaching both,” he says, reflecting his background in corporate culture and client services. “I’ve been in management for the last 13 years and interviewed plenty of candidates who don’t know how to answer a situational question, may only answer one part of the question, or arrive in incorrect attire, not wearing a tie or not having access to resources to be dressed properly for an interview.”

Knowing the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork is one indication of how far socially you’ve climbed, but more crucial is learning how to handle those unexpected forks in life’s roads we find ourselves navigating. But it’s important to note that the aforementioned Emily Post, America’s esteemed etiquette expert, once famously stated, “Nothing is less important than which fork you use. Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is ethics. It is honor.”

One day last winter at D-UP’s new workshop, converted from a former house, I was able to observe firsthand how eager preschoolers are to learn new skills. “The little ones, they’re one of my favorite groups,” Hood says. “They’re so young and impressionable, just super excited about learning at such an early age before they have other impressions put on them.” He begins by focusing on what goes into creating a great first impression: “What does that look like? What does that sound like? And how to leave a lasting impression.” To demonstrate the practicality of his instruction, he guides the kids through different role-playing scenarios.

At the end of the six-week program, both those youngsters and the older students enrolled in the etiquette course would have an opportunity to utilize their newfound expertise by rubbing tiny little elbows with the city’s elite during D-UP’s annual Royal Celebration held in December 2024 at Congdon Yards in Downtown High Point. The culminating event serves as a graduation ceremony of sorts, centered around a formal dinner served amid enchanting surroundings.

Inspiration for the Royal Celebration occurred a decade ago when Davis was accompanying children on a trip to Octoberfest. “I was in the backseat with one of our little boys and his sister, who had on a princess gown,” she recalls. “I said, ‘Look at my little princess,’ just admiring her, and her brother says, ‘She ain’t no princess.’ I said, ‘Of course, she is. And you, a prince.’” The young man objected, saying, “I ain’t no prince.” But Davis encouraged him, saying “Yes, you are prince and don’t ever feel like you’re not.”

The next day, reflecting on that exchange, Davis realized, “We can tell kids who they are but sometimes we truly have to show them. All of these thoughts started coming to me — like limousines, tuxedos, a sit down meal, empowering kids to be able to talk with adults and not fumbling over the words.” Within weeks, D-UP cobbled together the very first Royal Celebration, “just by reaching out to our partners, because it was already the end of the semester and we had no budget for this at all.” That was nine years ago.

There were around 30 enrollees that first year, but by 2024 enrollment had grown to 65 participants, all outfitted in tuxes and elegant gowns donated by VIP Formal Wear at Four Seasons Mall. “We have community members who understand exactly what we’re doing and it means a lot to them,” Davis says about VIP and other sponsor contributions for the Royal Celebration. “You could see an instant change in the boys’ demeanor when they were trying on tuxedos. The same with the girls trying on their dresses and shoes.” Arriving in style to the venue by limo, Davis says, the kids emerged with a new attitude. “It’s such a positive experience for them, but also for us to see their reactions.”

Attended by local dignitaries and business leaders, the purpose behind a Royal Celebration is instilling confidence in the young ones when in a formal setting. “We have a three-course meal for them,” Davis says. “They don’t even have to question which fork to pick up. Using their manners, not speaking [out of turn], it’s such a confidence builder.” The children were paired with adults at each table so they could engage in grown-up conversations and put their newly-honed skills to work.

During the social hour, the courtly kiddos were encouraged to mingle and introduce themselves before striding on stage to receive their awards based on performance and improvement. Another highlight of the evening was a round of ballroom dancing. “We offer dancing here anyway,” Davis points out. “Ballet, modern and hip hop, but here they got to practice ballroom.” By all accounts, the Royal Celebration was once again triumphant. No surprise that, around this same time, Davis was crowned 2024 Businesswoman of the Year by the High Point Chamber of Commerce.

Lately, Hood has been venturing into middle schools, instructing students on developing resumes. While that may seem premature to an outsider, “We are preparing children for the future,” Hood says. “If they understand these things at a young age, then start practicing these skills, just imagine how far ahead they’ll be later on, perfecting skills instead of learning them for the first time.” He’s also instructing teenagers on interview techniques and leading, “a social skills class that will be a summer program to help prepare them for returning back to school.”

Is Emily Post still relevant to modern life? “There’s a way society works in order to gain opportunities in your favor,” says Hood. In fact, he suggests the pathway to happier happenstances begins “by carrying yourself correctly, having genuine morals and values that you stick to and, more importantly, being an example for the person that’s watching you. Because you never know what an inspiration you can be for them.” Naturally, there are times when potential participants walk out on his classes. “This is for those who want it, for those who want to be their best, who want to strive for change. So if you’re not ready to make that difference right now, I’m not mad at you. You’ll get it eventually . . . or you won’t.”

Uber-ing back to High Point’s palatial train station for the rail ride home, by happenstance, I had the same driver returning who picked me up earlier. He somewhat warily asked what I was doing on Washington Street. In that instant, staring out onto this clean shaven boulevard as excited children are exiting a bus to scurry into an after-school program, where across the street young men are shooting hoops, killing time before a scheduled lesson in checkbook economics, I blurted out, “I think I just witnessed a revolution.”

Profiles in Courage

PROFILES IN COURAGE

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Profiles in Courage

Lucky for us — these women enjoy running into burning buildings for a living

By Ross Howell Jr.   •   Photographs By Mark Wagoner

When women first joined the Greensboro Fire Department as firefighters in 1978, they often were met with doubt and resistance.

But, through generations of service, female firefighters have shown that they have the mettle to take on the physical and mental challenges of firefighting — and to excel.

In Greensboro today, there are 34 women who are full-time firefighters. I had the opportunity to speak with a few of them.

Carol Key

Deputy Chief Carol Key invites me into her corner office in the GFD administrative suite of Fire Station 1 on North Church Street.

I can’t say precisely what I expected her background to be, but it certainly wasn’t art! Key studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design and holds a bachelor’s degree from the N.C. State School of Design.

She and her husband, Kevin, are the only married couple to go through the grueling, six-month recruit training program at the same time. Her husband now serves as captain in the GFD critical resources branch.

“We’d been married for one month and four days when our class started,” Key says. Everything about the program is intense. An individual recruit is allowed to fail two exams. If they fail a third, they’re out.

“Kevin and I spent the first six months of our marriage together — seven days a week, 24 hours a day,” she continues.

She pauses.

“About halfway through training,” Key says, “we got into a knockdown, drag-out fight in front of everybody.”

“And we’d tried to be so professional,” she continues. “We wouldn’t even kiss in public.”

“But after the argument,” Key adds, “we both acknowledged we needed a little space now and then, and we were OK.”

And they’re still OK — happily married, with two daughters studying at UNC-Chapel Hill.

I ask her how she and Kevin managed raising young children on 24-hour shift schedules.

“We had to make a decision about that,” she says. The one-day-on, two-days-off schedule results in three separate firefighter shifts — “A,” “B” and “C” — so that a full complement of firefighters covers the entire city 24/7, 365 days a year.

“We decided that I would work ‘A’ shift and Kevin would work ‘B,’” Key continues. So each parent had the kids home to themselves on “A” and “B” shifts, and on “C,” the whole family was together.

“The kids loved it!” Key laughs.

Since “C” shift was their “together time,” she and Kevin resolved to do things as a couple.

“We’d go on lunch dates, we’d go see a movie during the day, whatever we could do to enjoy each other’s company,” she says.

“That was nice,” Key adds.

“This is the first time I’ve been 8 a.m.–5 p.m. since I was in training back in 2008,” she says.

Through all the years, Key has kept her hand in graphic design and art. She has her own freelance graphic-design business, has painted expansive murals in the education wing of West Market Street United Methodist Church and consulted on the website design for the Greensboro Firefighter Historical Society, where she serves as president.

“Firefighting is such a gritty profession,” Key says. “It’s not for everybody. But I love it.”

Yakima Fox

Yakima Fox has been a Greensboro firefighter for 18 years. She serves at Fire Station 59, West Vandalia Road. Born in Salina, Kan., Fox moved here when she was 3 years old.

Firefighter is just one of the roles she plays. Fox also performs in community theater and even has a talent agent, though she doesn’t devote the amount of time to acting that she used to.

Her brother was the reason she considered trying out for the Fire Department.

“He was a GFD firefighter,” Fox says, “and he just kept bugging me and bugging me. ‘They need women,’ he said. ‘You should try out.’”

At the time, Fox was a student, studying biology at N.C. A&T.

“I wanted to do something in the medical field,” she explains.

While Fox’s brother was pestering her, an aunt’s comment made her absolutely determined to apply. When the aunt heard Fox was thinking about trying out to be a firefighter, she said, “Well, I don’t think you can do it.”

Fox looks me straight in the eye.

“I’m the kind of person,” Fox says, “you tell me that I can’t do something, I’m going to do it just to prove you wrong.” Fox also thought, pragmatically, that a Fire Department salary would surely be a big help paying tuition.

She was accepted. Then came training.

“It was a whole realm I didn’t know, it was all foreign,” Fox says. “It was a challenge in so many ways — mentally, emotionally, physically.”

“I’m 5 feet, 2 inches tall,” she continues. “I couldn’t even reach certain things!”

But Fox adapted, finding her own ways to meet the recruitment trainers’ strict standards.

Fox tells me one of the most difficult training tasks was putting out her first car fire.

She had to work alone, wearing full turnout gear, breathing oxygen from her self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). Her suit felt like it was closing in on her. The SCBA air she was breathing was getting warmer and warmer from the heat of the flames.

The fire was producing a lot of smoke, so much that it was difficult for her to see. The pressure of the hose was pushing her back as she moved toward the fire.

“It was a workout that I hadn’t ever experienced,” Fox says. “I was using muscles I’d definitely never used before. And I was thinking, Man, this was just a car fire.”

“That’s the mental part of it,” she continues. “You say to yourself, ‘I’m going to be OK.’”

“So you take a moment,” Fox says, “and you go in there and do what you need to do.”

That moment cemented her confidence.

“From then on,” she concludes, “I enjoyed it.”

Fox believes her 15-year-old son has mixed emotions about her profession.

“He’s quiet, he’s a teenager, he doesn’t say much,” she says. “Sometimes I think he worries about my safety a little bit.”

She tells me her son is a good actor — “better than me,” she exclaims — and has performed in community theater with her.

Fox also hopes her son will participate in the Greensboro Fire Department Explorers program, where young people meet with firefighters for an inside view.

“I want him to understand what my job is,” she says. “I want him to understand the challenges and the benefits.”

“I want him to see how you can help somebody,” Fox says.

“That’s why I like this work so much,” she continues. “I’m helping people who really need it. When somebody sees me, they are not having a good day — maybe they’re even having a tragic day. And I’m able to make their day just a little bit better.”

Wendy Cheek

As I enter the Fire Station 49 office on West Friendly Avenue with Captain Wendy Cheek, one of the firefighters nods his head in her direction as we pass.

“You’re talking to a legend,” he says.

A few days after our conversation, Cheek is due to retire from the GFD       after 30 years — 20 years as a captain, riding an engine. And she stays plenty busy outside the station, too.

An advocate for healthy eating and fitness since losing her mother to cancer, Cheek took up massage therapy 24 years ago and has a loyal list of clients. She started her practice as a backup, in case she was injured as a firefighter and couldn’t continue the work.

And she has a small farm near Madison where she keeps chickens, raises hay as a crop and maintains a truffle orchard.

“After I retire, I’ll get some goats,” Cheek laughs. “The little ones. And a dog.”

But what drives her now, what fills her with pride and emotion, is her work in the Fire Department.

Cheek grew up in the N.C. mountains among the foothills near Elkin and Jonesville, and moved to Greensboro in 1989, “following a boy,” she says, shaking her head.

The boy thing didn’t work out, but she stayed on, working at a downtown deli and studying law enforcement and computer programming at GTCC.

“I was thinking I might go into the FBI,” she says, “until I learned they could place their agents anywhere in the United States.”

“I really wasn’t sure I wanted to move away from family,” Cheek adds. Looking for a challenge both physically and mentally, she called the GFD to see if they hired women.

At the time she was accepted for training in 1995, there were only four women in the department, as she recalls, and no others had been hired for years.

An avid hiker then and now — Cheek celebrated her 50th birthday by hiking the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim — she was also a competitive bodybuilder. Still, she remembers fire training school as one of the most difficult challenges she’s ever taken on.

And during her career, she’s done her best to guarantee every crew member riding a call, siren blaring and lights flashing, is trained, fit and prepared to give their very best.

“When I ride the truck,” Cheek says, “I ride in the back a lot.” Typically, the captain leads the crew from the front seat, next to the driver. From that position the captain receives computer information on the status of the emergency. Less experienced crew ride in the back seats.

By riding caboose, the captain makes it possible for junior crew to get valuable experience.

“I want them to know what I know — or more than what I know,” she explains, “because if I’m the weakest link on the truck, then I know we’ll be OK.”

Cheek is very direct in communicating what she expects of her crew’s interaction with the public.

“I always tell the guys, ‘You treat every person like they’re your grandparents,’” she says. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a stubbed toe or a heart attack, we’re going to treat them with kindness and respect.”

How does she hope her firefighters will remember her?

“Well, I don’t see myself as any kind of legend,” she says. “It’s not like I’ve been doing anything out of the ordinary.”

“I want them to remember that I always took care of them, that I stood up for them,” Cheek adds. “I want them to remember I gave them 100% until the day I walked out this door.”

Jurica Isangedighi

In January, Jurica Isangedighi marked her 10th year with the GFD.

She grew up in Chapel Hill, was a standout point guard for the women’s basketball team at Chapel Hill High School and attended High Point University on a full basketball scholarship. When she graduated in 2011, Isangedighi wanted to become a college coach. To get experience, she returned to her old high school as an assistant to her former coach. For the next two years, they led their teams to the women’s state basketball championship finals.

Isangedighi moved to the collegiate ranks the following year, coaching at Mount Olive College, now the University of Mount Olive.

It was then that a former teammate who was applying for a Fire Department position, encouraged Isangedighi to try as well.

“After attending High Point, I loved this area, and I always wanted to come back,” Isangedighi says.

But she’s thorough. She applied not only to the Greensboro Fire Department, but also to the Winston-Salem and Raleigh departments.

The Greensboro department offers candidates the additional benefit of practice dates.

“You can go through the course and get your hands on the equipment,” Isangedighi says. For women, she believes, that’s essential experience.

“We’re not as strong as men, so we have to rely more on technique,” she continues. And instructors showed candidates the proper way to do things.

So when it came down to passing the tests required to qualify, Isangedighi says, “It wasn’t so bad. Still, it’s very, very demanding — physically and mentally.”

In the relatively short time since her hiring as a GFD firefighter, Isangedighi has earned the coveted title of “engineer.” That’s “driver” to you and me.

Think about it. She’s piloting — on city streets — a behemoth machine that weighs more than 20 tons, measures some 10 feet wide and 40 feet long, and is powered by a 500-horsepower diesel engine. Ladder trucks, which Isangedighi is also qualified to drive, are even bigger.

But she can go you one better.

Isangedighi’s Fire Station 21 on Horsepen Creek Road is a three-bay GFD facility with both fire and ladder trucks. It’s also part of the state regional response hazardous materials team.

“The hazmat truck is actually a tractor trailer,” Isangedighi says. “And I recently got my Class-A license, so I can drive it.” She smiles broadly.

“I love driving the trucks,” Isangedighi continues. “I have a really great crew. I have a captain who knows a lot about trucks and engines, so he’s teaching me.”

She explains that the trucks can be quirky and the engineers check them every day, lifting the cab to inspect the engine, testing the pump to ensure it’s working properly, checking all the tools on board.

“Every single day, every engineer does that,” she says. “Then, once a year, we’ll take them into the garage for service. These trucks constantly have eyes on them.”

And on her days off?

“Oh, I’m back home with my two kids and my wife, hanging out,” Isangedighi says. “Our son is 4 and our daughter is 1.”

She tells me her son likes to Facetime with her when she’s on the truck, and sometimes the whole family will stop by the station.

“He’ll get on the truck,” Isangedighi says. “He thoroughly enjoys it.”

“But the little one,” she laughs, “has no idea. She’s too young.”

Isangedighi intends to remain with the department for her whole career.

“I think the Fire Department is a great transition for athletes,” she says.

“You’re part of a team, you’ve got a goal to accomplish, you train and you get to help people in the community,” Isangedighi concludes. “That’s a good thing.”