Category: August 2026

In Good Taste

Farm-Fresh and Flavorful

A miso ginger stir-fry

Story and Photograph by Jasmine Comer

The other day, I found myself perusing the meat section at the grocery store when a label caught my eye and left me scratching my head: Since when does beef need added “natural flavors”?

This isn’t a lecture on what you should and shouldn’t eat — that’s entirely up to you. But that grocery store moment made me realize just how lucky we are to have incredible alternatives right down the road. Our area is home to so many dedicated farmers and food purveyors who pour their hearts and souls into producing on a scale that’s more intimate than industrial.

For me, a trip to the farmers market is an instant mood booster. There is an unmistakable energy in walking into a space where everyone — from the purveyors behind the tables to the shoppers stuffing their totes — shares the exact same passion: real, local food.

There’s something special about knowing exactly where your food comes from and backing your neighbors who spend their lives growing and nurturing it. Because it hasn’t traveled 1,000 miles to land in your kitchen, it arrives fresh, handled with care and bursting with the kind of flavor that factory-farmed food just can’t replicate.

Right now, summer is putting on a show. Market tables are practically overflowing with peak-season squash, zucchini, sweet onions, tomatoes, corn, potatoes and vibrant heads of broccoli. Let’s not forget the incredible selection of sustainably-raised, local meats. On a trip earlier this summer, I came home with a haul of chicken, broccoli, zucchini, squash and onions to build a dish that lets that freshness shine. If broccoli is out of season by the time you’re reading this, you can easily substitute with more squash and/or zucchini.

The play here is simple but elevated: Crisp vegetables and tender chicken are quick-sautéed and tossed in a delicate, but rich miso-ginger sauce. The vibrant crunch of the mid-summer produce combined with the deep, savory umami of the miso turns a few simple market finds into an absolute knockout, no flavor enhancements needed. OH

Miso Stir-Fry

Ingredients

Stir-Fry Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 cup broccoli, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1 zucchini, sliced ¼ inch thick

½ onion, sliced

2 pattypan squash, sliced ¼ inch thick

Miso Ginger Sauce

2 garlic cloves, grated

1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 tablespoon white miso

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (optional)

2–3 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons water

Directions

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add chicken pieces and cook for 5-6 minutes or until browned, stirring occasionally. It’s OK if they are not cooked all the way through.

While the chicken is cooking, stir together the ingredients for the sauce and set aside.

Once the chicken is browned, remove from the skillet and add the broccoli. Sauté just until barely fork tender, stirring occasionally. Pour sauce into skillet, add chicken, zucchini, squash and onions and simmer until sauce thickens, approximately 6–7 minutes.

Remove from heat immediately, and serve over rice if desired.

On the Ball

Coasting Through Courses

Local golfer Alex Smalley rides the waves

By Ron Green Jr.

Photograph by Raymond Carlin III — Imagn Images

Alex Smalley doesn’t seek the spotlight, but occasionally it finds him.

That was the case at the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club outside Philadelphia in May when Smalley, who lives in Jamestown, found himself the center of attention. In the sixth year of a solid PGA Tour career, Smalley owned a two-stroke lead entering the final round of the year’s second major, putting him 18 holes away from a career-altering victory in a major championship.

It was an unlikely place for Smalley and his Sunday playing partner, Matti Schmid, considering that between them they had zero PGA Tour victories and a minimal number of top-five finishes, few enough that they wouldn’t require the standard number of fingers and toes to count them all.

But golf can be funny that way.

And though Smalley ultimately finished tied for second, three strokes behind winner Aaron Rai, the experience helped redefine the career of the understated 29-year-old, who is a member at Sedgefield Country Club, site of the Wyndham Championship.

Despite the fact that he shared the lead with 18 holes remaining in a national championship, Smalley did his best to make it a Saturday night like any other.

“I was in the final group at the John Deere [Classic] a few years ago and it was the first time, so the thoughts were running through my head and I didn’t sleep great,” Smalley says.

“This felt like a pretty standard Saturday night.”

That meant a quiet evening with Smalley studying his yardage book, a hockey game on in the background and trying his best to sleep through the night. Two out of the three came easily, the sleep not so much.

On Sunday, Smalley shot 70 to finish tied for second with Jon Rahm, and though Smalley didn’t win the Wanamaker Trophy, the week reinforced his belief that he belonged in the spot where he found himself — near the top of the leaderboard.

“I didn’t get off to the best start Saturday or Sunday, but I was able to fight my way back both days and have decent finishes to both rounds. It just goes to show that even when I have a bad start I can hang in there and fight and claw my way back. That was a good realization to have,” Smalley says.

Back home the next week, Smalley was congratulated by some Sedgefield Country Club members who recognized him. “I told them it still doesn’t feel real, like it almost didn’t happen but it did,” he says.

Smalley grew up in Wake Forest (the town, not the university), about a 90-minute drive from Jamestown where his family moved in the summer of 2017, between his sophomore and junior years at Duke University.

Once Smalley graduated, he decided to stick around and now lives close to his parents. When he’s not on the road, Smalley tends to stay close to home, so close that when he’s asked if he has a favorite dinner spot or two, nothing comes immediately to mind.

“My parents don’t live far away so I go there pretty frequently,” he says.

And when Smalley is on the road playing tournament golf, his mother, Maria, is rarely far behind. Early in his career, his mother caddied for him, but as he has settled into his PGA Tour life, Maria is there to document her son’s performance, using it as a foundational piece.

She walks every round her son plays, takes detailed notes on every hole down to the yardage, which direction the wind was blowing and any other pertinent details, often capturing shots with her cellphone.

It’s their version of analytics, accentuating the detailed data available through the PGA Tour’s ShotLink system. The information and the videos go back years and, in the broader sense, document Smalley’s steady progression as a player.

Smalley’s mother worked in chemical analysis after graduating from Duke with a PhD and his father, Terry, is an assistant professor of biochemistry at Wake Forest University after spending more than two decades in the pharmaceutical business.

Smalley turned pro in 2019 after graduating from Duke, where he won three college tournaments and played on the 2019 United States Walker Cup team, posting a 3–1 record.

He won consecutive Sunnehanna Amateurs in 2018–19, becoming the first player since Rickie Fowler to win the prestigious event two years in a row.

On the PGA Tour since 2021, Smalley has been a consistent performer, blossoming this spring with the best run of his pro career, a stretch that included a pair of runner-up finishes, a tie for third and a tie for seventh in five events.

“Golf is like a roller coaster. When you’re playing well you’re at a peak, you want to stay at that peak for as long as you can. And then inevitably there will be valleys and you want to get out of those as quickly as you can,” Smalley says after having just tied for third at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club. “Obviously, I’ve been playing decently well the last few weeks and good golf is fun golf, I guess. Just trying to ride the wave as long as I can.” OH

Ron Green Jr. has been writing about golf for more than 40 years and is senior writer for Global Golf Post magazine. The first golf tournament he ever attended was the 1965 Greater Greensboro Open at Sedgefield Country Club.

2026 Department On the Ball

State of Mind

Out of Bounds

The good, the bad and the laughable

By Tommy Tomlinson

This time of year provides one of the great pleasures in life: the golf nap.

I’m not much of a fan of watching golf on TV. I’m a huge fan of falling asleep in the middle of the final round of the Zero Turn Radius Lawn Mower Open or whatever the PGA Tour happens to be running on a given weekend.

The long stretches of quiet . . . the reverent tones of the announcers . . . the polite applause from the crowd . . . they’re better than melatonin washed down with warm milk. When I go down for a golf nap, sometimes I dream of my real-life golf adventures. Not that I was a good golfer. Never broke 100 in my life. But I do have a few stories.

I’m just going to come right out and say this one, even though it will sting every real golf lover like a chest hair wax: I played Augusta National, home of the Masters.

If you are not a golf fan, this is sort of like saying I stowed away in an Apollo capsule and walked around on the moon. Mortals are not supposed to do such things. You basically don’t get to play Augusta National unless you are: 1. a pro golfer; 2. a billionaire; or 3. you know a 1 or a 2.

Except . . . every year the club has a media day — or used to — where the shlubs who cover the tournament get to play. I’m told it’s a lot tougher to get an invitation now. But in the mid-’80s, if you worked for the Augusta paper — which I did — you got one.

Here are the lights, high and low:

• I played with a set of mismatched clubs and wore a pair of Converse high-tops.

• Our playing partners accidentally put their cart into a power slide on a wet patch of grass on No. 10. If the course superintendent had spotted them, we might still be serving time.

• I carded a tidy 13 on No. 12, the short par-3 famously known as one of the thorniest holes in golf. You know one way to make it thorny? Knock four balls into Rae’s Creek.

• My final score was 118, a tidy 46-over.

• However! I parred No. 16, the par-3 where Tiger Woods holed his famous chip in 2005. Almost birdied it myself. (I told you there was a highlight.)

Believe it or not, that was not my most stressful day of golf. My most stressful day of golf was a few years later, in 1992, when I followed through on a pitch I made to my editors at the Charlotte Observer: What if I played all the miniature golf courses in Myrtle Beach in one day?

It soon became clear that, barring teleportation, there was no way to play all the courses in the Myrtle Beach area in a day — there were more than 60 back then. So I restricted my playing area to within 10 miles of the old Myrtle Beach Pavilion. That still left 16 sites, some with more than one course. It took 14 hours — which included drive time between the courses, occasional pee breaks, and waiting for two preteen boys who were in front of me at one course and argued after every single hole. Not that I still think about them or anything.

I played 369 holes in 851 strokes. On the last course I ended up playing with three French tourists. There was no possible way I could explain to them what I was doing.

I had a few other notable moments in my golfing life. I snap-hooked a drive onto a cart path one time and the ball rolled halfway to the next county, a good 500 yards, like that scene in Tin Cup when Don Johnson wins Kevin Costner’s car. I had to shake hands on the first tee of a tournament with a guy who, for reasons too convoluted to go into here, I was pretty sure was going to punch me. (He didn’t.) I watched a friend get so mad he threw his 5-iron up in a tree, then got his 6-iron stuck up there trying to knock it out.

But my playing career ended on a midweek morning at the old Renaissance Park course in Charlotte, now called the Harry L. Jones Sr. Golf Course. I was playing with some friends who were way better than me. Their drives found the fairway. My drives found the rough and the woods and the out-of-bounds markers. At one point I drove my cart across the fairway to track down a wayward shot, and a groundskeeper on a tractor roared over to yell at me for driving off the cart path. (Some courses let you stray from the path, others don’t; I hadn’t known the rules for this course.) He said he had a good mind to throw me out. I have enough stress in my life. I don’t need to get hollered at on a golf course by a guy in a John Deere hat on a John Deere.

A few holes later, I hit my best drive of the day — right down the middle. I don’t think I mentioned that one of the features of this particular course is the large boulders in some of the fairways. My shot hit one of those boulders as square as if I’d aimed it there. The ball rolled halfway back to me. My friends tried, and failed, not to laugh.

In that moment I could hear the golf gods speaking.

Put down the clubs, they said. Go home and have a nap. OH

Tommy Tomlinson is the author of two books, The Elephant in the Room and Dogland. He was a longtime columnist for the Charlotte Observer and has written for Esquire, The Atlantic, ESPN the Magazine and many other publications. His online newsletter is called The Writing Shed. He lives in Charlotte with his wife, Alix Felsing.

2026 Department State of Mind

Birdwatch

Late Summer’s Song

Subhead

By Susan Campbell

The beauty of doves is taken for granted. They are numerous, even abundant, everywhere we look. Their cryptic coloration and still habits make them easy to overlook. Mourning doves are the most familiar of the group statewide. Of course, we also have plenty of rock doves (aka pigeons) and increasing numbers of Eurasian collared doves here as well. However, it is the mourning dove that deserves our attention.

The species has a sleek, medium-sized light brown body and wings that are splotched with black. It also has a small head, a pale bluish crown and eye ring as well as a long wedge-shaped tail that is edged in white. At close range, a rosy sheen can be seen on the breast feathers of the males. The mourning dove’s name originates from its plaintive song. The hooting quality of the notes has been known to fool people into thinking they are hearing an owl.

By late summer, doves are flocking in large numbers, in and around big fields. They feed busily on the ground, swallowing a variety of seeds as they fatten up prior to migration. All doves will consume large amounts of whole seeds in their crop and then perch in a safe spot to digest. Where and how far they may fly depends on weather and food availability. Most do not move long distances but rather seek out areas that will hold a diversity of grains for weeks at a time. Flocks of hundreds of birds can be found perched on wires or in snags adjacent to good foraging habitat.

Young of the year blend in well with the adults very soon after fledging. Their tails may not be quite as long, nor will their heads be as distinctly patterned, but these are field marks that are only visible at very close range. Three to five clutches of two is not unexpected in a season. With the moderate climate in North Carolina, especially along our coast, mourning doves have been found breeding in every month of the year.

There is no better time for individual mourning doves to seek safety in numbers than early September. Labor Day weekend marks the beginning of hunting season, and doves are the first on the calendar. Their robust population handles the harvest nationwide. This is due, at least in part, to their fast and erratic flight behavior that makes the birds a challenging target.

Dove hunting has a rich cultural history in the South. It is a time to bond with family and friends, enjoy the waning days of summer afield and perhaps even bring home enough plump breasts for a hearty meal — or at least some tasty hors d’oeuvres. Scouting out the right spot is the key. Hunters will survey different known locations looking for the best variety of seed-bearing cover crops, strategic perching sites and hopefully at least a few doves hanging around. For those who do not have access to suitable private land for hunting doves, the State Game Lands (Sandhills, Caswell, Jordan and others) offer opportunities. Both manage habitat specifically for mourning doves year-round. But even if you do not hunt, take some time out and look for these attractive birds — no binoculars are required. OH

Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted by email at susan@ncaves.com.

2026 Birdwatch Department

Wandering Billy

A Soulful Saturday and Sunday in September

Beat the heat at the John Coltrane International Jazz & Blues Festival

By Billy Ingram

“I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.” — John Coltrane

The John Coltrane International Jazz & Blues Festival celebrates its 15th anniversary next month, though it’s been 20 years since festival founder and organizer Joe Williams arranged for a statue of Coltrane to be erected at High Point City Hall. A Philadelphia transplant, Williams was shocked to discover the peerless saxophonist-composer was a Furniture Capital native and resolved to rectify that slight. “I just couldn’t believe that I didn’t see pictures and [announcements] all over the place saying ‘Home of John Coltrane.’ He’s a real big deal all around the world.”

The jazz world went cold after Coltrane left the station in 1967 at age 40. He didn’t just play an instrument — he inhabited that sax, imbued it with his essence, became one with it, transcended from this earthly realm when astride it. Words as a means of describing Coltrane’s seductive musicality are lacking; no alphabetic assemblage can ever soar to such heavenly heights, his albums being the shortest distance between that tentative first kiss and soon to be disheveled bedsheets.

Williams’ yearly music festival bearing Coltrane’s name has attracted a roster of rhythmic royalty: Stanley Clarke, Snarky Puppy, Kenny G, George Duke and Blood, Sweat & Tears come to mind. This year’s lineup over the first September weekend is no exception. Here are a few highlights:

Born two years before his father’s death, Ravi Coltrane picked up his dad’s mantle, and a saxophone, to carve a successful career for himself as a highly sought-after, Grammy-nominated recording and touring artist. He’ll grace the festival stage for the third time this year. Another sax savant, Mike Phillips is stylistically a mash-up of the traditional jazz masters he studied — Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins — and the hard-edged, rhythmic energy of ’90s hip-hop. He was the first musician signed by Michael Jordan to the Nike Jordan Brand, and the only musician (and soloist) who toured with Michael Jackson, Prince and Stevie Wonder.

Equal parts sayin’ and sass, French chanteuse Cyrille Aimée blends vibrant Caribbean rhythmic undertones with more traditional jazz notes. Her accomplished combo applies fresh polish on a pleasing playlist peppered with snappy show tunes and 20th-century gems such as “Young At Heart,” “It’s a Good Day” and “La Vie en rose.” Don’t miss this one!

Recently completing a European tour, Victor Wooten and the Wooten Brothers have sent audiences swinging and swaying to their funky bluegrass infused beats since the 1960s. “On Sunday, they will hold a masterclass following Saturday’s concert,” Williams points out. It’s a rare opportunity to get up close and personal with Victor Wooten, Béla Fleck’s sideman who Rolling Stone readers voted one of the Top 10 Bass Players of All Time in 2011. “Bringing in that level of talent to not only teach but talk with people that have a love of the industry, who are trying to accomplish something. Last year I had Snarky Puppy for the first Masterclass. This time Victor Wooten came to mind and, with his brothers, you get the whole family.”

This year’s high point, if you will, might be singer-songwriter Ledisi, whose 2025 soulfully silky 12th album, The Crown, caresses the ear like those occasional dreamy LPs from the 1970s. Carefully crafted by way of unadorned arrangements focusing on that silky soulful voice, what emerges is a symphonious intimacy in the tradition of Janis Ian, Melissa Manchester, Roberta Flack, Nancy Wilson, Dorothy Moore and Marvin Gaye, minus that era’s de rigueur vocal histrionics. With the exception of Moore and Gaye, those artists never produced a flawless, pitch-perfect album on par with this one.

Ledisi’s first release on Verve Forecast in 2007 (“Lost and Found”), and subsequent saucy Newport Jazz Festival performance that same year, established this New Orleans-born crooner as a powerhouse entertainer who continues to blossom in unexpected directions within every lush garden she cultivates. Inspired by immortal song stylists that came before her, in 2021 Ledisi released a collection of songs made famous by Nina Simone (Ledisi Sings Nina), then, just last October, devoted an entire album (For Dinah) to the Queen of the Blues, Dinah Washington. Vocally, she more than equates herself with a sultry rendition of “What a Difference a Day Makes” and an exuberantly bubbly duet with Gregory Porter on “You’ve Got What it Takes.”

An aside: I once asked blues legend Johnny Otis (“Hand Jive”) about Dinah Washington since they were close. He told me about Ms. Washington taking Little Eva (“The Loco-motion”), a freshly-minted, 19-year-old pop star from coastal North Carolina, on a shopping excursion in Los Angeles. Washington was a notorious hard-partier, Otis told me, so he was reticent to allow innocent Eva to possibly be led astray but figured, what the heck, it’s just a couple of hours. When the two chart-toppers returned, Eva’s face, he said, was painted up like a hooker, decked out like a $2-tramp. As for Washington, she was laughing hysterically at Otis’ dismay.

With any luck, Ledisi might slip into Dinah Washington’s extensive songbook when she rarifies our air with melodic ardor on Sunday, September 6, at Oak Hollow Festival Park.

This is a prestige event for our sister city. “Not just for High Point, but for North Carolina,” Williams insists. “With audiences traveling from all over, from 25 different states, tons of people coming in from Charlotte, Raleigh, the mountain areas of North Carolina.” With five or six truly remarkable performances by seminal artists each day, “we try to keep the price very reasonable compared to what you get.”

Plus, a portion of festival proceeds goes to purchasing instruments for musically inclined youngsters who can’t afford them. The lucky recipients are selected based on written essay submissions. “Being in the music entertainment business and seeing young people from all walks of life, it’s their ticket, their way out,” Williams says. “If a child never gets an instrument, they can never go any further. That’s their starting point.” Williams often uses his industry connections to acquire otherwise prohibitively expensive or custom-made instruments for worthy budding musicians, and who knows? “Hopefully, they will develop into the next Coltrane.” Explore more at ColtraneJazzFest.com.

While I have you here . . .

Acclaimed theater and screen actor Shannon Cochran, Page High School Class of ’76 grad, is making her Broadway debut this month in Paranormal Activity, a suspenseful drama the L.A. Times calls “The year’s best staged production.” She’s no stranger to the horror genre, having already terrified moviegoers as Anna Morgan’s sinister spirit in The Ring and its creepy sequel. You may recall reading about Cochran in my April 2023 Wandering Billy column. But you knew that, dintcha?

“The response to this play is unlike anything I’ve ever done,” Ms. Cochran (she’s a Broadway star now!) told me before embarking for The Great White Way. “People just want to gather together in the dark, scream at what they know isn’t real but seems to be magic, laugh at each other for screaming, then clutch their date for dear life.” Enjoying boffo box office this year in four major cities, she reveals that Paranormal Activity consistently attracts masses that aren’t normally playgoers. “And that’s worth everything!” Could a Broadway run lead to Tony Awards next summer? Stay tuned . . . OH

Billy Ingram contributes weekly to O.Hey, an email newsletter companion to O.Henry magazine, and can be reached at: tvparty@bellsouth.net. And you can subscribe to O.Hey by visiting ohenrymag.com and clicking on the light blue box.

2026 Department Wandering Billy

Omnivorous Reader

The Ryan Express

Will we see his like again?

By Anne Blythe

As Major League Baseball enters its stretch run, separating pretenders from true contenders for post-season play, Raleigh-based sportswriter Tim Brown has a new book that diamond purists will want to tuck into.

Although you can’t write a comprehensive Nolan Ryan life story without mentioning the record 5,714 career strikeouts and seven no-hitters, Brown chases a different plotline. In his biography Nolan: The Singular Life of an American Original, Brown goes beyond the box scores that detail the feats of the Hall of Famer with the longest playing career in MLB history. He takes his readers down to Alvin, Texas, the gritty, close-knit small town that shaped the ethos of the league’s ultimate power pitcher whose unparalleled longevity spanned 27 years.

“I think the essence of Nolan Ryan is here, in Alvin” Brown told a contemporary of the pitcher at a senior center Bingo game. “These are the towns that make men like him.”

Alvin doesn’t hide its pride. It has a statue of Ryan, a museum room dedicated to him, and a high school baseball field, junior high and community center named for him. Restaurants proudly display photos of the famous (infamous) headlock that Ryan threw on Chicago White Sox batter Robin Ventura in a 1993 game when the third baseman rushed the mound after a fast ball struck him on the arm. Brown dedicates a whole chapter to that legendary scene and one of the most replayed baseball clips of all time.

Through interviews with people who grew up with Ryan and knew his whole family as well as his wife, Ruth — Nolan’s high school sweetheart — Brown delivers much more than a baseball book. It’s a story of a family, a state and a way of life that led to a relentless work ethic. Brown’s profile of a man who has been the subject of dozens of books also embodies a good bit of myth-busting, while creating a few of its own.

With the gift of vivid storytelling that often sets sportswriters apart from the pack, Brown shows you the young boy pedaling his bike down narrow roads to “dusty ballfields.” You can almost hear the Texas drawl of the longtime Alvin residents swapping their Ryan stories that often have only a tangential connection to the development of the hometown boy’s famous pitching arm.

“Undertake a retelling of Nolan Ryan’s life through the prism of time and discover that the stories of cowboys far outnumber the actual cowboys, which doesn’t make them any less entertaining,” Brown writes. “In real life, we’ve moved on to the drugstore kind, to keyboard outlaws and Fortnite addicts and snowplow parents and participation trophies and cars that drive themselves. Starting pitchers who beg out after five innings and then get handshakes for it.

“Call it evolution if you must,” Brown continues. “What survives in the witnesses is the gooey insides of old age, the pixel-free highlights, and the romantic version of a game played on the last tendril of an ulnar collateral ligament.”

Ryan, the youngest of six children born to Martha Lee (Hancock) Ryan and Lynn Nolan Ryan Sr., was initiated into a tireless work ethic at a young age. He was up before dawn, rolling and delivering the now defunct Houston Post with his father, who also worked in the oil fields. He was steeped in the ranching culture, and grew up in a world where men were taught to do the work and own the outcome, no excuses. They were taught to speak only when necessary and stand by their word.

Brown acknowledges the adversity that Ryan faced in his career — his boom-or-bust years with the Mets, and the lingering feeling that he was unable to live up to his potential coming out of high school as a skinny kid with a triple-digit fastball. And it’s no secret that Ryan’s all-or-nothing pitching style — likely influenced by the Alvin mindset baked into him — led to a high number of free tickets to first base for the batters at the other end of his fast balls. Like another pitcher of his era — we’re thinking Bob Gibson — taking the mound was nothing less than taking charge. Pitcher and hitter were mano a mano.

In an interview incorporated in the prologue of Brown’s book, Ryan takes us to where he is now and the evolution of the sport that has made him an unmatched statistical anomaly and a seemingly untouchable benchmark for pitching durability. Surrounded “by the reminders of a life — not just a career, but a life — built on the ideal of finishing what he’d started,” Brown writes, Ryan leans back in his leather chair, hoists a leg on the edge of the desk and says, simply, “The game has changed.”

“Not mad. Not put out. Just saying,” Brown writes.

Then Brown offers something for the purists to ponder as modern baseball bullpens rely on a parade of specialized relievers for the starters who rarely, if ever, stay on the mound for an entire game.

“Going on six decades after he arrived, that something like a Nolan Ryan happened in the same game that is today’s version is almost inconceivable,” Brown writes. “That it might again is unthinkable. Then, it’s fair to wonder if the game has changed all that much. Or if the men who play it have. That’ll have to work itself out.” OH

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

2026 Department Omnivorous Reader

Home Grown

Sea-Monkey Business

From soup to what?

By Cynthia Adams

Illustration by Miranda Glyder

As soon as I could read, I stripped the Campbell’s soup labels off to send in for prizes, such as membership in the Lassie fan club. Becoming a Lassie fan clubber in good standing — one who adored the TV dog along with countless others — was irresistible.

So what if my poor mother never knew what soup she was opening? Off went the requisite labels, a dollar and my carefully printed order form.

From the moment it arrived, I kept my cherished Lassie’s picture in my special Lassie fan club wallet. And pined for such a pet one day. Alas, Mama did not think house pets were hygienic.

Briefly, we had Pete, a family parakeet. Although a chipper little bird, he was short lived. Unlike Lassie, Peter never solved a crime or conundrum.

Lassie, the rough collie, died in June 1958 in his Hollywood home at age 18. His son replaced him on the show.

Still, I held a solemn funeral for Pete when he went claws up.

Then, on a Bazooka bubble gum wrapper, I discovered Sea-Monkeys.

Sea-Monkeys, also advertised on the rear cover of comic books, captivated me. The ad made them look like merrily cavorting miniature sea horses, which I could own myself!

“Just add live sea-monkey eggs . . . and grow the most ADORABLE AND ENTERTAINING PETS.”

Dollars never idled an instant in my Lassie wallet. Packaging up the requisite bubble-gum wrappers with the order form and cash, I proudly ordered my very own Sea-Monkeys without a word to my mother. She might object to my keeping real pet monkeys in my room, I reasoned, but Sea-Monkeys were probably quiet and unobtrusive. They would be a bother to no one, confined to a small tank I would have to procure somehow.

Surely, once Mama saw them frolicking as the ad depicted, she would fall in love.

My tiny fingers trembled with excitement as I carefully opened the much-anticipated package. But soon, that was replaced by concern. The Sea-Monkeys, as received, were minute, worrisome and mystifying, looking nothing like any monkey I’d ever seen. More like dried herbs in a cellophane packet. Skimming the scant information, I read these were eggs, not actual Sea-Monkeys.

Dutifully following instructions, I placed them with tap water in a large, clean mayonnaise jar. Wait and watch them grow, the ads said.

I waited. I watched.

And waited some more. Whatever it was I was supposed to be watching for didn’t seem to be happening.

Meanwhile, I told my friends about my pet Sea-Monkeys growing at home. But in actuality the doubts sown the moment I opened the cellophane packet were the only things actually growing.

What children have in direct proportion to imagination is a lack of patience. It seemed I waited weeks — perhaps it was only days. But the water grew murkier. No tiny Sea-Monkey faces appeared, pressed against the jar, twee features I knew I’d adore upon sight.

What the desiccated Sea-Monkeys actually are, dear readers, are brine shrimp.

Pouring the smelly water down the bathroom drain, I suppose the Sea-Monkeys got a burial at sea, minus fanfare.

Sea-Monkey sales continue today, a big ruse netting big dollars for the company that markets them.

The Sea-Monkey scam made me more devoted to the honest Campbell’s soup folks and Lassie. I lapped up bowls upon bowls of alphabet soup.

Bazooka, hawkers of Sea-Monkeys, mostly lost my approval. Though I still ruefully bought it on occasion. For as savvy marketers know, little children, even those with long memories, make for poor cynics. OH

Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

2026 Department Home Grown

Chaos Theory

Time on Our Hands

From dimples to wrinkles, it’s the best gift of all

Cassie Bustamante

Earlier this year, we jumped on the social media trend of sharing baby and childhood photos of our team, each with a unique cutline. Mine? “This is who overthinks every comma.” (Never has a truer word been uttered.) In the photo, 2-year-old me is sporting a pink gingham dress with smocking, my blonde hair is in that toddler mullet that results from uneven growth, and my baby-soft face screams exasperation. One of our contributors emailed me the following morning to tell me she’d looked at the photos several times. “Your little fingers and thoughtful expression in that frozen moment just slay me.” She went on to write, “That is the most touching thing — who knew those same fingers would be pounding the keys as they do?”

Her comment got me thinking about the hands of my own children. This month, I’ll turn 48 on the very same day my oldest child, if I can still call Sawyer a child, reaches our nation’s legal drinking age. When he was just a toddler, I’d stare at his dimpled hands in wonder as he clutched his apple juice cup, thinking about how the passage of time would mark itself on those little hands in a myriad of ways. The saddest of which, I knew, would be the emergence of bony knuckles and the disappearance of those adorable, squishy dimples. It would happen so slowly that I wouldn’t notice, until one day I’d just realize that they were gone.

When I was a child, my mom’s hands were always soft, amazingly so since she was constantly using them — crafting, sewing, gardening, DIY-ing, cooking, cleaning or serving up dishes at a local Italian restaurant. It might have been thanks to the Crabtree & Evelyn Gardeners Hand Therapy cream that was a permanent fixture by the kitchen sink of our Western Massachusetts Colonial home. She took care of her hands, her fingernails always gleaming in some shade of rose or mauve. At 70, her hands, still meticulously manicured, continue to keep her busy and can often be found holding a book.

Debbie, my mom’s younger sister who missed being her Irish twin by just a couple weeks, had bony, vascular hands. She rode her bike everywhere, swam in her pool regularly and worked in a demanding job as a nurse, thus constantly scrubbing her hands. She’d sometimes whisk me away for a weekend of shopping in Boston, or perusing charming New England storefronts, peeking into the Norman Rockwell Museum and dining at the Red Lion Inn in the Berkshires. I remember those sturdy, ropy hands gripping the steering wheel and popping Gloria Estefan’s Into the Light into the cassette player as we careened down the Massachusetts Turnpike. I hope my hands end up like Mom’s, I thought to myself. My senior year of high school, Debbie used her hands in one final act, taking her own life.

Now, my hands more strongly resemble hers than my mother’s. For starters, I don’t use hand lotion regularly — sorry, Mom! My fingers have always been long and slender, but now the veins and tendons protrude like Debbie’s did. Her hands remain frozen in time, locked away safely in my memory. They never saw age spots or arthritic knuckles. As of now, my hands already have nine years on hers. And I sure hope they still have miles to go.

Yes, these days, my hands spend hours clacking away at my laptop. But they also lift weights so that I can carry my youngest, 8-year-old Wilder, when he’s sleepy, or schlep the many decorations down from our attic each Christmas. They leash up my dogs, 10-year-old Snowball and 4-year-old Cider, so we can go for our morning walks together. They hold my phone so I can FaceTime my daughter when she’s away at college. They sink into the perfect combination of homemade sourdough starter, flour and water plus a dash of sugar so that I can make the family bagels each weekend.

Later this month, my husband, Chris, and I will likely hit a local pub with Sawyer to celebrate his milestone birthday. As our son’s slender fingers curve around a tall, cool beverage, I’ll be picturing those same hands, once tiny and dimpled, holding his juice cup tightly. And I will try not to cry about the passage of time — because time may be a thief, but it is also a gift. OH

Cassie Bustamante is editor of O.Henry magazine.

2026 Chaos Theory Department

O.Henry Ending

The Student Teacher

A young stranger imparts a universal lesson

By David Spagnola

Illustration by Harry Blair

Pulling my warm, professionally-detailed BMW M5 out of the garage into a freezing storm, I drive down Cone Boulevard past a young man carrying some sort of bundle. It’s gloomy-dark and his back is to me and to traffic. For the life of me, I don’t understand how he made it this far without being run down. Hazard lights on, I roll the window down and say, “Hey.”

He gives me a nonchalant, “What’s up, man.”

I lower the window and ask him if he wants a ride. He leans in and looks around like it’s a spring day and says, “I’m all wet.” I reach across and open the door with an, “It’s just a car. Get in.”

He does.

“Where to?” I ask.

“School,” he says. “Page.”

He’s soaked to the skin.

“Don’t you have a raincoat or anything?” I ask.

“I do,” he says. “I used it to wrap up my books.” I look incredulous and when he sees it, he says something that maybe he’d been waiting all his life to say: “Man, education is everything. You ain’t nothing without an education.”

I don’t need to be told that. At 19, I had become a steel worker. The job was OK and the pay was great, but I soon realized what an education would lead to, which it did: being a street cop, then a homicide detective, now a business owner.

I drop him off and tell him that I bet the principal can find him some clothes to wear the rest of the day. Maybe not exactly in his style, but they’d be dry. He smiles and tells me to have a good day.

I do.

The universe has a lot to teach us, but I am left wondering, “Who are the teachers, and who are the students?” At 70, just when I think I know it all, I meet a guy who, at 15, teaches me something that I didn’t even see coming till he was gone.

For the next couple hours as I watch my passenger seat dry off, I feel the karma a career cop gets from helping someone, especially someone who wants to get to school. But it’s not about that at all.

When it hits, I realize it is about a 15-year-old kid reminding me that young people will be replacing us some day. And they are already on the job, preparing through thick or thin, whatever it takes, because, hey man, education is everything. OH

Originally from Youngstown, Ohio, David Spagnola moved to Greensboro to join the police department, where he served for 30 years, 22 of those as a sex crime and homicide detective. He earned his degree in criminal justice from Guilford College. These days, he is a women’s self-defense trainer and consultant. Email him at davespag@gmail.com.

2026 Department O.Henry Ending

Playing to Their Strengths

A home-run reno for two former athletic stars

By Cynthia Adams

Photographs by Amy Freeman

Houston and Emily Summers share a formidable drive. After playing pro baseball with the Arizona Diamondbacks, he started his own business. She earned All-ACC honors 12 times and is about to complete medical school.

They’re only in their 30s. And they’re new parents.

Whether coping with the pressures of athletics or professional competition, they both excel, also proving a sunny-natured resilience.

There is also mutual modesty.

Inside Emily’s study in the couple’s restored vintage North Elm Street bungalow are trophies — numerous ones — clues to the remarkable lives the young couple have already led. Houston proudly points to some she won back in high school in West Virginia, where she was a record-smashing track-and-field athlete of the year in Buckhannon.

He is no less remarkable.

As a track star who also played on the baseball field as pitcher and catcher at Northeast Guilford High School, recruiters noted Houston’s athleticism.

After graduation, he became the youngest American-born baseball player drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks, signing three months shy of his 18th birthday. Too young to rent an apartment, he initially lived with a host family.

Houston’s contract stipulated that the Diamondbacks pay for his undergraduate education. Carolina, he says, was always in mind.

Eight years later, Houston left professional baseball after seven seasons to attend UNC-Chapel Hill, long determined to get into “the best school in North Carolina I could.”

From being a notably young ball player, Houston had become a 25-year-old college freshman eager to pursue a medical degree, a goal since weathering his own medical trauma. At age 11, he developed a non-malignant tumor in his right brain diagnosed as a juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma.

“It’s a pretty rare tumor,” he explains, and a highly vascular one causing headaches and blurred vision.

“I couldn’t smell, couldn’t taste, couldn’t really hear out of my right ear.” Ironically, the benign tumor had grown swiftly to the size of a baseball. He minimizes this, saying, “It wasn’t horrible, horrible.”

At age 13, Houston underwent an 18-hour-long surgery. Today, a long scar on the right side of his skull is well concealed by clipped hair. Even up close, it is nearly invisible.

He determinedly mounted a full recovery, ignoring doctors’ orders to rest. In fact, because he didn’t listen, he suffered an accident that Houston says left him with a slight indentation in his skull. He laughs it off. Yet the harrowing experience had an impact.

“That sparked my interest in medicine.”

At Carolina, Houston tried out for the track-and-field team, but a coach redirected him. Former ball players, the coach reasoned, had an easier time becoming proficient in javelin throwing.

The sports-minded new college student “still wanted to compete.”

In his sophomore year, Emily caught Houston’s eye when attending a track-and-field picnic for the team and its incoming members. She was an 18-year-old athletic star focused on the heptathlon and high jump. “She is just very modest, but multiple-time West Virginia Gatorade Player of the Year. Junior Olympic champion.” He calls her “the real athlete.”

He recalls chatting with Emily, who asked him, “Well, how old are you?” Avoiding giving her a number, he coyly replied, “I’m a sophomore.” He laughs at the memory. “Like that was it, period.”

Meanwhile, Houston doggedly worked to prove himself in javelin. He became an honor student and earned All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors in the javelin.

Emily demurs, stressing that javelin was not her best sport, as she scoops up their smiling and gurgling baby, Julia, just waking from a nap.

A Tar Heel student-athlete, Emily earned All-ACC honors 12 times. In 2016, Emily and Houston were both named to the Capital One Academic All-District 3 teams. She was a junior (named for the second year). Houston, who served as a student body president, finished a degree in psychology.

In 2018, Emily was selected as a Chancellor’s Fellow, the first student-athlete to do so, after earning a degree in business. The University quipped in a media release that she jumped at the opportunity.

While a fellow, Emily applied to medical school. “It was interesting because I thought I was going to do consulting, then I wanted healthcare,” says Emily. Her mother, she points out, was a nurse. So was Houston’s.

Funnily enough, Houston was the one to wind up in consulting, working with Deloitte for a couple of years. Then, on July 7, 2018, the couple wed.

He and a partner acquired Sasser Restoration in nearby Whitsett. Houston says they work “in the eye of the storm,” mitigating fire, flood and mold damage for commercial businesses.

In 2023, he found a promising listing on Zillow within blocks of Cone Health System, where Emily, now a fourth-year UNC medical student, was doing a specialized rotation. The Summerses purchased that listing in April that year.

Houston’s family was conveniently nearby in Summerfield. Emily had a sister living in Burlington.

The house offered ample square footage at 2,550 square feet, even before Julia was born. Baby’s arrival made four; the Summerses owned a sweetly natured brown-and-white Newfoundland-poodle mix named Oliver.

While the bungalow looked great, their “new” one-story home was 90 years old. As their first home, they were keen to know its back story.

Neighbors believed the house was built for one of two sisters who lived side-by-side and shared a driveway. They didn’t have particulars, nor names, but dated the house to 1935–1939.

No records could be found to support the winsome story about the sisters. The address first appeared in Hill’s Greensboro City Directory by 1936, with Henry Wiseman Kendall listed as owner. (He is likely the same distinguished journalist and newspaper editor who later won multiple honors for journalism.)

A previous renovation had gutted and replaced the kitchen, giving it handsome maple cupboards, double ovens, and a large center island. The original red-oak flooring was restored to a gleaming finish.

They thoughtfully began to make it their own.

Just one look at the home’s curb appeal suggests they intuitively understood exactly how to play to its strengths. With white clapboard replacing aluminum siding, shaker shingles and copper gutters, it has all the elements of a historic bungalow’s best.

Since the Summerses took ownership, the home’s stylish evolution on one of Greensboro’s oldest streets has become obvious.

“It’s eye-catching,” says a business owner who passes by daily and enjoys watching each tweak and improvement.

“But, you know, it’s a 1930s home,” says Houston, who points out that as great as the house looks now, there were also drawbacks. “There’s no insulation in the exterior walls. There are original windows.”

And that fed other concerns.

In the summertime, their air conditioning is constantly running; in the winter, it’s the heat. Apart from the kitchen, the Summerses have scrutinized almost every other square inch. “We’ve done everything else, like [refining] built-ins and changes to the fireplace.”

Houston points out style details that elevated the front room. He changed the red brick fireplace, creating a neutral, soft-white, plaster-like finish of his own design for the mantle, overmantel and surround. He installed neutral tile to define the hearth.

Original features were kept but enhanced by modifications Houston designed himself. The built-in bookcases in the living room were extended to the ceiling to surround the windows, with added doors below.

Houston does a walk-through from the living room towards the back of the house. He mentions swinging doors that once closed the living room off from the connecting dining room. At some point, those were removed.

“But everything else [remaining] is original to the home . . . We took the mentality of, ‘I don’t know what it looked like in 1935 when it was built, but let’s imagine what it would look like if we were in 1935 and building.’ What might it have been?”

As with any older home, mysteries presented themselves.

“There used to be a walkway to the front door,” he says. “We believe the front door of the house used to be where the master bathroom is now.” During the main bathroom remodel this year, Houston unearthed signs of a second front doorway, long boarded over. Was it for a separate business entrance for a home office, as was a common practice at that time? Both doctors and lawyers often separated public and private entrances.

He is puzzled, but shrugs.

“So, there’s definitely been some changes to this home over the last almost 100 years.”

Houston and Emily wanted to incorporate the aesthetics of California designer Rose Tarlow and Steve and Brooke Giannetti, an architect/designer couple now based in Tennessee.

“I really feel like our style — we really don’t talk about it — it’s just kind of we have a natural alignment with what we like or what we think,” says Houston. “It can be a little different, a little quirky, but it’s really this clean, more neutral tone, maybe a little bit of modern, but also of a tie to some classical stuff. It’s just this organic blend.”

Houston took the lead in planning refurbishments as Emily focused upon medical studies and her pregnancy last summer. “But,” she confirms his thoughts, “we complemented each other. We have similar tastes.”

Houston volunteers that beyond style, durability and comfort mattered to both. Especially in home furnishings. And he didn’t mind imperfections. He brakes for antique and consignment stores, scoring a distressed-leather Ralph Lauren Chesterfield-style sofa — that would retail for thousands — for the sunporch for $220.

“Oliver loves sleeping on it every night,” Emily says.

Just off the sunporch, there’s a favorite sunny spot for early mornings with a hot cuppa or cold drink. A built-in niche was designed with space for a comfy chair, coffee maker and an ice machine.

And there were additional built-ins in the office/study, which Houston spiffed up with lower doors and contrasting paint.

The bungalow’s corner lot received upgrades, too, with landscaping reworked to boost its considerable cottage appeal. Hydrangeas and boxwoods, plus a new brick walkway leading to a covered porch with seating and wooden planters, upped the Southern charm factor. A white picket fence, soon to be replaced with a more period-appropriate style, cements the storybook cottage impression.

Meanwhile, as he feathered their nest, Julia was set to make her debut early this year. Houston sped to complete the bathroom redo after a plumbing snag caused flooding. He describes racing barefoot down Elm Street in the dead of winter trying to isolate the main water cutoff, finding a City water and sewer crew working nearby, a story that is only funny in hindsight.

Emily, former athletic star, laughingly recalls how she no longer raced anywhere — having regressed from running to walking with Oliver as the pregnancy advanced and her center of gravity shifted dramatically.

She approached the pregnancy experience with complete calm, says Houston.

In fact, she is steadfast in the face of new motherhood, too. Emily bounces Julia, whose eyes widen into circles as Oliver sits patiently at Mom’s feet. In March 2027, Emily learns where she will be matched for the next step, her medical residency, on what is called the “match date.”

The unknowable future — either the stuff of concern or celebration — always depends upon perspective.

The Summerses gamely anticipate what comes next. Their penchant for clearing hurdles is simply part of the fun. OH

2026 Feature