Omnivorous Reader

Omnivorous Reader

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Heart of a Poet

Time, place and eternity meet in Indigo Field

By Stephen E. Smith

On this sunny late-March afternoon, Marjorie Hudson occupies rarefied space: She’s standing in the footprints of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson and Thomas Wolfe, reading from her beautifully wrought first novel, Indigo Field, at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities. Her bright eyes (they might be blue or green; the afternoon light plays tricks) stare out from a shock of white hair (she’s accurately penned the description, “white-blonde hair,” for a character in her novel), and she’s smiling the smile of one who’s realized her dream via pure, implacable determination. In the words of Keats, she’s surprised everyone, including herself, with “a fine excess,” writing that strikes the reader almost as a remembrance. Now all she has to do is sell her masterwork. The literary world needs to know about Indigo Field, and readers need to snatch it off bookstore shelves or download it online.

Hudson is a Midwesterner who settled in North Carolina by way of a lengthy sojourn in Washington, D.C., where she worked for a nature magazine that kept her indoors much of the time.  “We all worked such long hours, we hardly got to go outside,” she says. “All it took for me to jump ship was a visit to a friend (in North Carolina), a rainbow over a farmhouse, and I was hooked. My days were full of freelance writing assignments, sunbathing in the yard, gardening and pond swimming. Whippoorwills chanted outside my window, a sound I’d never heard before. When frogs took over the pond one night in a massive mating ritual, it was better than any nature documentary.”

Thus Indigo Field evolved into a decidedly Southern novel featuring Southern characters immersed in a regional history that emphasizes a strong sense of place. Even so, there’s no forced, ersatz Southernisms in her dialogue, no Hollywood “y’alls,” and, thank God, there’s not a subhuman Faulknerian Snopes in sight. Her characters speak authentically, and they never propagate a phony gesture. Somehow she’s acquired the ability to absorb the Southern landscape she’s adopted as home.

She came by this invaluable knowledge by happening into the perfect job. “One of the many freelance jobs I took to pay the rent was copy-editing novels at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill,” she says. “I had never read much Southern lit before, and reading the novels of Clyde Edgerton and Jill McCorkle, and the stories of Lee Abbott and Larry Brown was like going to grad school. How a novel all fit together was fascinating. How a short story was constructed was beautiful. And the language! I was learning the rhythms of speech and turns of phrase from my neighbors, my new husband and these stories. I turned to my computer and started a story of my own.”

Hudson’s prose style is clear and concise, and she preserves a delicate balance of empathy for characters who come alive with startling authenticity. Her leapfrogging plot turns sustain the story’s energy and propel the reader ever forward. The Regal House Publishing promotional material provides an accurate precis. “In this novel of moral reckoning, the unjust outcome of a murder trial, and the chance accident that follows, result in a feud that raises the spirits of the dead, forcing enemies to become allies in order to survive.”

Good enough. But the novel’s beauty is more than fancy footwork, deft plotting and the able handling of points of view. Hudson writes with the heart of a poet. Her prose has been worked on (in the best sense) to get rid of that worked-on feeling. Take this transitional passage from Chapter 49: “This great wind rode the eye of a rogue hurricane and spun out lightning and whirlwinds like warriors of a great army. These warriors flattened all they touched, and chose what they touched with care. They touched the new homes of wealthy people and left the old derelict homes of Poolesville, the farmhouses of widows, the trailer parks of the destitute, damaged but still standing. The wind brought lightning strikes so pervasive that many small fires lit rooftops, tall trees and last year’s broomsedge in Indigo Field. . . . This wind skipped from high spot to high spot, so that places that had been raised up were laid low, and places that were low and humble remained intact.”

The writing of Indigo Field took up almost 30 years of Hudson’s life — with time out to write and publish an acclaimed short story collection, Accidental Birds of the Carolinas, and a history/travelogue, Searching for Virginia Dare. “I had 450 pages (of the novel) by 1998, but I didn’t know how to end it and I knew it needed revision.” She set Indigo Field aside, finished a different novel, sent it out, got discouraged, went to graduate school, and all the while the novel kept getting longer and longer. Hudson recalls: “I kept adding layers of things I was fascinated with: parrot colonies, Nike missile sites, archeology. As it got longer and longer, unbeknown to me, New York’s acceptable novel length had gotten shorter and shorter. It was roundly rejected.” So Hudson turned to a small press, Regal House Publishing in Raleigh. Regal reminded her of Algonquin in the old days: “Small, feisty, locally owned. I even knew one of the editors,” she says. “I submitted my 50 pages. They asked for the rest. I got the call a couple of months later. I was still revising. Cutting mostly. I had a whole new version by the time Jaynie called and said ‘Yes.’”

Indigo Field was chosen to be part of Regal’s “Sour Mash Series,” a selection of books centered on the American South’s sense of place and history. Hudson was in the place described by Flannery O’Connor: “The Southern writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet.” After living in North Carolina for almost 40 years, Hudson is a Southern writer, and she’s pretty proud of that.

She’s come a distance, a far piece, to stand before an audience at the Weymouth Center — and all the other audiences she’ll be entertaining in the months to come. She has a novel to sell. It’s demanding work, but Marjorie Hudson is surely up to the task.  OH

Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. He’s the recipient of the Poetry Northwest Young Poet’s Prize, the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for poetry and four North Carolina Press Awards.

Home Grown

Home Grown

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Highly (Anxietied) Entertaining

My mother, the hostess with a host of worries

By Cynthia Adams

My mother, while a charming and gracious Southern woman, was driven to the fine edge of sanity by entertaining.

Hosting the Home Demonstration Club (born in the Depression) to discuss homemaking topics such as canning and cake decoration was on par with Princess Margaret making a stop in Hell’s Half Acre. HHA was 30 miles from Monroe, Charlotte, Concord and — well, places where HRH Margaret would never deign to visit. 

“Company” sent seismic waves through our ranch home.

A hair appointment was booked. A trip to Smart Shop for a new dress. High-anxiety calls went to Mama Patty, her mother, who lived for company.

Mama Patty, always baking, was primed and ready for “drop-ins,” her polite term for interlopers. Not so with her youngest, Jonnie Louise (who dropped the “e” on Jonnie in her fifties — Mama Patty had hoped for a boy).

Out came the Electrolux, Johnson’s floor wax and the buffer. Yes, JL owned a buffer. Also, a punch bowl with cut-glass cups; plus, china, crystal, silver, linens, etc.

My older sister and I would vacuum, then hand wax the floors (yeah, Karate Kid stop your sniveling). Then buff. While managing to gripe and argue the entire time. 

Once when I complained that I was too tired to help, Mom gave me one of her diet pills. 

“These are from Dr. Pfeiffer, so they’re safe, but give lots of energy.” 

Those pills became known as Black Beauties on the street — amphetamines. Of course, JL didn’t know this. I grew more jittery than the shuddering buffer, following the oak grain and inhaling the waxy smells as my young heart hammered. 

While show time drew near, we were all banned from the kitchen as soon as cooking commenced.

Mom believed her usual repertoire lacking when it came to the Home Demonstration Club. She would send herself into a complete frenzy — once making a baked Alaska.

By the time the Home Demonstration agent and guests arrived, Mom, the floors and her buffet were perfect — but she was near collapse.

Then there was Mama Patty.

Mama Patty, who had faced devastating losses, lived out her life as if she had only walked among duckies and daisies. Yet she lost a toddler to meningitis. A young husband to an aneurysm. A breast to cancer.

(When questioned about never complaining, she replied, “Self-pity is a cancer! And it will kill you faster,” then proceeded to smock gowns for neighboring newborns and send cakes when someone died.) 

Mama Patty’s house was tidy, cheerful — and full of bad furniture.

At least, the kitchen was cheerful. The table, chairs and counter were red melamine rimmed with chrome. Pound cakes (lemon and chocolate) awaited in Tupperware. A fruit pie chilled in the “Frigidaire” with fried chicken, potato salad and pickles.

A meal was always at the ready and she happily fed whomever graced her doorstep. 

She “went modern,” decorating the den with a brown Naugahyde sofa and recliner, and a braided green rug. She accented with unidentifiable amber glass objects. With the recliner extended, she stretched out to enjoy her soaps, The Edge of Night and Secret Storm.

Mama Patty’s bedrooms were filled with 1940s-era “suites” of brown furniture, which even my kid self recognized as ugly. 

When Mama Patty died, mourners spilled outside the country church, later overwhelming her little house. A weepy-eyed man no one recognized blubbered, “I loved Miss Pat so much!” 

When asked how he knew our grandmother he answered, “Oh, I repaired her appliances.”

Seemed he and his family enjoyed not only regular visits but also her cooking. He once was fixing the washing machine when a bad storm arose; she perfectly innocently insisted he lie down on the bed till it passed. 

Mama Patty feared storms, snapping turtles tangling up her fishing line, snakes and drowning.

All real things to fear. And all of which made my mother’s social anxieties, then and now, an even greater mystery.  OH

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

Wandering Billy

Wandering Billy

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A Musical Visionary

Tuning into Tyler Millard

By Billy Ingram

“Those who wish to sing always find a song.”  — Author Unknown

There are few truly revelatory moments in life. Covering the nascent punk/post-punk music scene in East Los Angeles from 1980–83, witnessing teenage bands and young musicians like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Social Distortion, Minutemen, Fishbone and Perry Farrell thrashing through their earliest gigs was one of those moments for me. This week brought another revelation: discovering the music of Tyler Millard.

Singer/songwriter Tyler Millard didn’t pick up a guitar until he was 21. Admittedly, mostly by necessity when life threw him a curveball. And yet, in little over a decade, he’s produced some of the finest original compositions this region has seen since Rhiannon Giddens ascended into the multiple Grammy-winning heavens.

Hard to believe? Check out Tyler’s latest single dropping this month on Spotify, “Gold and Green,” a dreamy ballad lyrically reminiscent of Conor Oberst or David Bazan, sans their concussive bleakness. Those crooners’ caterwauling stands in stark contrast to Tyler, whose haunting harmony reverberates into the mind’s sacred soil reserved for your all-time favorites, as if his soothing assuredness has always existed inside your ears. It’s the fourth single from an album that will be released later this year.

On a recent Saturday night at One Thirteen Brewhouse + Rooftop Bar, I caught a performance by The Ghosts of Liberty, a tight three-piece band Tyler formed with his wife, Emma, joining him on vocals and father Richard Millard on keyboard. For these types of gigs, the combo mixes original tunes with twists on classics such as “Brown-Eyed Girl” and “Tennessee Whiskey.” Elevated by Emma’s classically trained, velveteen voice and stunningly pristine vocal styling, their romantic, anthemic composition, “Sundown to Sunrise,” has racked up close to half-a-million listens on Spotify.

Tyler might actually have an advantage over other singer/songwriters, sonically at least, because he’s sightless — a slightly more accurate description than blind. He can still detect bright sources of light, but little else.

“I’d always had bad vision. It just got a little bit worse every year,” Tyler explains. Majoring in mathematics at UNCW, he was 21 when “driving was starting to get scary for me already.” Forfeiting his driver’s license, he was ultimately diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa or RP for short. “Honestly, at the time, it was a little bit of a relief because I knew I shouldn’t be driving anymore.”

Finishing his degree and faced with an inability to compete in the sporting events he excelled in, Tyler picked up a guitar, meticulously teaching himself to play. “I wasn’t talented naturally, out of the box. It just never even occurred to me that music would be a part of my life.”

Pretty much every successful creative person I’ve ever encountered has found themselves at a crossroad leading a wholly unanticipated but gratifying future. “As I’ve moved through life, I’ve seen other people cope with mourning their expectations,” Tyler says. “I now recognize that’s kind of what I was going through at the time. You think your life’s going to be one way, then realize everything’s going to be very different.” Feeling fortunate in a way, he adds, “It wasn’t like I had some sort of an accident and lost my vision. I had time to kind of ease into the water.”

As luck would have it, college campuses are a hotbed of wannabe guitar heroes. “So there were tons of people to learn chords from,” Tyler recalls. He admits to being obsessed with mastering the instrument, saying “I think you kind of have to. There’s such a barrier of entry with a guitar. It literally hurts your fingers getting the guitar to become so familiar that it feels like part of your body.”

After an unsettling attempt at teaching high school, Tyler returned to UNCW for grad school in order to teach at the community college level. It was there that he got serious about writing music. “By the time those two years were up, my fate was sealed,” he recalls. “I’d played too much guitar and couldn’t go back. So I moved home to Oak Ridge where my dad lives.”

After earning his teaching certification, he switched gears and instead pulled together his first band. “I was still living at home, so I wasn’t concerned with money as much,” he tells me. The Tyler Millard Band found receptive audiences first in Wilmington, “where I got to see my old friends from college. And we played in Greensboro a bunch when Buckhead [at Plaza Shopping Center] was open.” In 2014, the group released an album, Carolina Blues, which harkens back to Carolina-inspired, shit-kickin’ Southern rock of the ’70s.

In 2018, Tyler’s proposal to his wife, Emma, came in the form of an exquisitely tender refrain he composed then serenaded her with. Together they recorded the song, entitled “Prologue,” with Doug Davis of The Plaids producing, credited to Em & Ty. A poignant, poetic melody sure to dampen dry eyes, “Prologue” is genuinely worthy of becoming a standard performed during every matrimonial party, as commonplace as “Wedding Song (There Is Love).”

By then, Tyler had abandoned the bar band concept for a more practical approach to making a living with music. You might say he did the math. “My dad and I play the wineries around here,” he says. “The economics of it are that the patrons are older and the owners are older, so everybody’s got more money.”

Occasionally joined by Emma, their first set is made up half of covers, half originals. “It takes a little bit of warming up just to get our voices sounding good and we also want to stay sharp on our own material,” Tyler says. “The second two sets are all bangers. We like to end really strong.”

Tyler sings while fingering an electric acoustic Fender Telecaster. Switching off on vocals, Emma strums her own acoustic six-string, forming the nucleus of The Ghosts of Liberty. “We put out three songs and did the whole Nashville thing — production, writing and everything,” recalls Tyler. For several days they hunkered down in Music City, collaborating with professional song stylists “who literally write 10 songs a week sometimes. We would sit in a room and they’d be like, ‘What do you wanna write about?’ Or, ‘Do you have any pieces you’ve been working on, a chunk of a song or anything?’ And we’d take it from there.”

No doubt, Tyler Millard and The Ghosts of Liberty will fast become yet another facet into what is evolving into a recognizable 21st century “Greensboro Sound” exemplified by Laura Jane Vincent, Josh Watson, Emily Stewart, Caleb Caudle, Tom Troyer and so many others. Although those musicians primarily root around in their respective and respectable country folk backyards, Tyler’s solo work is more rock-oriented.

“Another blind friend of mine from London taught me how to mix,” Tyler says. “Right now I’m laying down backing tracks, some drums and bass for us to play along with for bigger shows.” He tells me Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” is one of the tunes the band plans to cover “just because it’s kind of cool to turn it into a rock-and-roll and not a pop song.”

Down the road from his dad, Tyler and Emma currently reside in Oak Ridge with their 18-month old daughter, Clara, and Emmett, the dog. “She’s the best,” the proud father says of their baby girl. “All of a sudden she’ll be hugging my leg and I’ll have no warning that was gonna happen, you know? And that makes your day.”  OH

For concert dates, go to tylermillard.com.

Billy Ingram’s first book (mostly) about Greensboro, Hamburger², is available as a free PDF at: tvparty.com/1-hamburger.html.

Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory

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Falling for Forests

Attempts at passing a love of hiking from generation to generation

By Cassie Bustamante

“And you ask, ‘What if I fall?’ Oh but my darling, what if you fly?”    — Erin Hanson

From as early an age as I can remember, I’ve felt most at home with myself while wandering through woods, a trait I inherited from my father. When I was a child, Dad would often venture out to hike nearby trails on the weekends, toting along a backpack that held his Canon plus its various lenses. After developing his photos — because that’s how it worked back then, kids — we’d pore over pictures of fungi, wildflowers, birds, animals and sometimes even dung, all of which we’d try to identify in the National Audubon Society’s field books.

In my tweens, I began venturing out with Dad. Surely, I ruined his peaceful treks with my endless, mile-a-minute chatter, but he was happy that his daughter was showing interest in his hobbies. My out-loud inner monologue gave away the fact that my mind and eyes wandered, so Dad was careful to point out tripping hazards. Dexterity has never been my strong point.

Now, with three kids of my own, I hope to pass on that appreciation of the great outdoors. I want them to experience what I do while developing a sense of wonder over nature’s miracles and realizing how small we — and our worries — are in this big world. So far, only my 5-year-old full-of-curiosity son and my 17-year-old athletic son are into hiking. My 16-year-old daughter rolls her eyes at the mere suggestion.

However, on Mother’s Day, no one is allowed to demur. You do what Mom wants, no questions asked. And so six years ago on the second Sunday in May, our family found ourselves navigating a winding trail in Maryland’s Gambrill State Park, just a stone’s throw from our former home.

The rocky path too narrow for side-by-side hiking, we trudge onward in a line. Chris, my husband, leads the pack while I play caboose and our two kids (the littlest not yet born) walk in-between. Reverting to my childlike state as I tend to do in the woods, I point out every heart-shaped leaf, every colorful mushroom sprouting up and every dragonfly that skitters by. Captivated by the scenery around me, of course I’m not looking at the path directly in front of me. And Dad isn’t there this time to stop me from snagging my foot on a knotty tree root. Before I know it, I’m airborne, my feet above and behind me. Ribs first, I land on hard ground.

I lie among the pebbles and dirt for a moment, absorbing what has just happened. When I finally look up, I see my kids’ faces agape at Mom splayed out in the dirt. Popping up as quickly as I can, I shake the dirt off and wipe my bloody knees and elbows.

“I’m good,” I say. “Let’s keep going!”

If this had been a movie, this would be the part where the narrator’s voice intrudes, saying, “She was not, in fact, good.”

My ribs are bruised and sore for a solid month afterwards, but I’m not about to let a little — OK, big — stumble stop me from showing my kids how wondrous the woods can be, dammit.

Since then, I’ve tripped many more times, on craggy slopes at Hanging Rock, down leaf-slick trails in the Grandfather Mountain area and, yes, over tree roots everywhere.

So, what if you fall? Take it from someone who knows. Maybe you won’t fly through the air like I did, but you’ll get back up. You’ll dust yourself off and trudge onward, reveling in the magic of the Earth around you. And, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to share it with those you love, even if you have to drag them out there in the first place.  OH

Cassie Bustamante is editor of O.Henry magazine.

Sazerac May 2023

Sazerac May 2023

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Free Seeds! Can You Dig It? 

Long before the freestanding Little Seed Libraries began appearing in neighborhoods, public libraries were on the bandwagon, distributing seeds alongside books. 

Since 2018, Greensboro’s Glenwood Library has sponsored a free seed exchange and informational program. (Library patrons are encouraged to plant their seeds and resupply the library’s after harvesting their own — everything from marigolds to zinnias — and assorted vegetables.)

Now a neat hybrid called Little Seed Libraries has taken root. The free seeds and exchange program emulates the popular concept of neighborhood-based Little Free Libraries (now with 150,000 registered locations). 

On Parish Street in northwest Greensboro, a dark green box on a post, fetchingly embellished with Free Seeds, has resident Mallory Cutsor excitedly praising the idea on NextDoor, a social media site. Cutsor who lives nearby, checked out a generous variety of herb, flower and vegetable seeds free for the taking. (Seed exchanges are encouraged.) 

In early March, her 4-year-old son started the seeds they had selected, she says.

Among the offerings were snap peas, kale, lettuce, spinach, rocket and various herbs, plus hardy flowers such as zinnia, sunflowers and cosmos. The seed library was helpfully stocked with free planting calendars, offering planting tips and number of days to harvest. The Parish Street Little Seed Library is possibly Greensboro’s first. Only five years ago, there were an estimated 660 seed libraries in 48 states, the majority housed in universities, ecology programs and public libraries. Today’s estimates are far higher, rising in tandem with community gardens — as gardening surged among the pandemic home-bound.  The free seeds concept promotes urban gardening and aids pollinators — providing green scenes for neighborhoods everywhere.      — Cynthia Adams

Window to the Past

Photograph © Greensboro History Museum

Mayor, Mayor, how does your garden grow? Former Mayor Paul Lindley (1877–1933) grew his garden in manicured rows featuring boxwoods, flowers and statuary.

Sage Gardener

The first time I was served edible flower buds was in an oh-so upscale, chichi Charlotte eatery that I was reviewing for our sister pub, Business North Carolina. “Nasturtiums,” my wife, Anne, said, spearing a bloom with a bit of lettuce from her salad and gobbling it down. I wrinkled my nose and said something like “Who eats flowers?” “You,” she shot back, “as in cauliflower and broccoli, not to mention the squash blossoms I stuff with cheese and deep-fat fry for you.” Shut my mouth — as usual. A former Latin teacher and something of a Medievalist, Anne entertained our table guests with how, for centuries, flowers have been used not just as garnishes, but candied and crystalized; infused, as in rosewater and vinegars; “and how about capers?” she added. “What would eggplant caponata be without flowers?” Then there are tisanes and various teas made with flowers, from chamomile to lemon balm. But back to the 21st century and your garden, which I trust is under way. Got pansies, violets, calendulas, lavender, hyssop, sage, borage, chives, cornflowers and thyme planted? (Ever used thyme flowers in your green-olive tapenade?) You might want to check out whatscookingamerica.net/edibleflowers for an exhaustive list of what plants and parts of plants you can eat — and some important cautionary notes on what to not eat if you have a will to live. Don’t have a garden? Other than artichokes in Italian spots, I don’t know of any chic boîtes featuring flowers with their haute cuisine. You might just have to settle for Outback’s blooming onions.    — David Claude Bailey

Just One Thing

“Our sculptures are inspired by the archaeology of great civilizations,” say the brothers Caviness — Bryan with a B.F.A. from NCSU and Brad with a B.F.A. from UNCG. From their studio in Browns Summit, they create — and then carefully break — replicas of pottery that are contemporary with the scenes they depict. “The shattered clay symbolizes the destruction of great sites,” they explain, like the ruins of the Erechtheion atop Athen’s Acropolis. Within a classic black-figured amphora seemingly ravaged by the ages, the pillared statues of the caryatids (or virgins) stare serenely out over Athens’ ancient cityscape. Their work, they hope, creates “a compelling contrast between beauty and brokenness” in hopes of sparking preservation and restoration. (Note to the British Museum: The lone caryatid that Lord Elgin looted and is in your collection would like to join her sisters in Greece.) The caryatid vase and a number of others — including depictions of Cordoba, Spain, the Karnak Temple, Egypt and the old city of Jerusalem — rotate in and out of Ambleside Gallery in downtown Greensboro. Info: amblesidearts.com.

Unsolicited Advice

Wondering what a mom wants, what a mom needs? Well, Christina, a genie in a bottle would be amazing, but we’ll settle for not getting rubbed the wrong way just for one day. And there is one way you can make that happen for your mom on this Mother’s Day. How would we know? Let’s just say we’re hoping the father of our children is reading this right now because it’s the only item on our list: a day at home alone.

And what would we do with a glorious day in our own house, all by our not-so-lonesome?

Sip morning coffee in silence. Do you hear that? Aaaah, neither do we.

Go to the bathroom whenever we want without any little fingers poking underneath the door, accompanied by whines of “Mommmmmy, are you almost done?”

Blast Whitney Houston while singing into a hairbrush and dancing around the halls like Hugh Grant in Love Actually.

Eat a nutritious midday meal at an enjoyable pace as opposed to wolfing down the discarded crusts of PB&J and calling it lunch.

Miss our kids. Dammit.

Life’s Funny

Life’s Funny

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A Little Lesson in Fame

The Greensboro connection to pop culture icon Meinhardt Raabe

By Maria Johnson

The emails landed in my inbox a few days apart.

The authors — who didn’t know each other — had read my February column about riding in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile (www.o.henrymag.com/lifes-funny-76/) and wanted to know if I’d run across any mention of “Little Oscar, The World’s Smallest Chef.”

Bob Sandberg, who lives in Colfax, wrote that while growing up in Madison, Wisconsin — the headquarters of Oscar Mayer — he’d encountered the wiener-on-wheels several times, and that “Little Oscar was a huge draw wherever the Wienermobile went. He was this ‘little person’ dressed in a white chef’s jackets and slacks and a white chef’s toque. He would mingle with the crowd and hand out the Wienermobile whistles.”

No, indeed, I had not heard about Little Oscar, but I was happy to add this to my stash of wiener trivia.

Then came an email from Diana Wold of Browns Summit, also by way of Wisconsin. She, too, wanted to talk about Little Oscar.

At this point, I’m thinking “What’s up with Little Oscar?” But I’m glad Diana reached out because I learned some juicy facts.

One: Little Oscar’s real name was Meinhardt Raabe (pronounced Robbie), and he was her second cousin, her father’s cousin’s child.

And two: Raabe’s bigger claim to fame was his role as the Munchkin coroner who pronounces the Wicked Witch of the East dead in The Wizard of Oz movie.

Whoa.

It’s a globally recognized scene in which Raabe — in a bright orange wig, waxed beard and mustache, along with a dark purple cape and huge hat with tightly curled brim — stands beside Dorothy and unfurls a Certificate of Death. (Heʼs the third from the left in the poster pictured.)

He then warbles this 13-second line in front of the Mayor of Munchkinland:

As coroner, I must aver

I thoroughly examined her

And she’s not only merely dead

She’s really most sincerely dead

His announcement sets off the Munchkins, who break into jubilant song — “Ding, dong, the witch is dead . . . ” — which gets the attention of the squashed hag’s sibling, the Wicked Witch of the West, who appears in a puff of red smoke.

“Who killed my sister?” WWW demands.

Game on.

My heart leapt to know about the Greensboro connection to this classic snippet of moviedom, and I made a beeline to Diana’s kitchen, where she and her husband Russ shared stories and documents that told more about their esteemed cuz of Oz.

Born to German immigrants in 1915, Raabe grew up on a dairy farm in Watertown, Wisconsin. He was the only little person in his family — indeed, in the whole area — something he was painfully aware of.

“He wanted to be a minister, but the story went back then that he was not tall enough to see out of the pulpit,” says Diana.

So Raabe went to a local college to study accounting. In the summer of 1933, his parents took him to the World’s Fair in Chicago. They’d heard about Midget Village, a scaled-down replica of a German town populated by small adults.

It was a life-changing experience, Raabe told interviewers, to see people like himself. They lived, worked and played together. He’d found a community.

He worked at Midget Village the following summer and used his earnings to help pay for school. He finished his accounting degree at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and looked for white-collar work. He was 3-foot-4.

“The accounting companies couldn’t see me for dust. Prejudice was very outspoken at that time,” he told the Lutheran magazine, Correspondent, in 1992. One manager suggested that he work in a carnival sideshow.

Raabe finally landed a job with Oscar Mayer. Soon afterward, in 1936, the company christened the first Wienermobile, a novelty car for promotional appearances.

Years later, Raabe suggested to an interviewer that he’d come up with the idea for Little Oscar after noticing a small chef pictured on the company’s packaging.

“I said, ‘Well, look, I can be a little chef and a sales promotion person,’” he told Correspondent. “I could speak fluent German and probably 70 percent of their customers at that time were butchers of German parentage.”

Raabe suited up for the part-time Wienermobile gig in addition to his sales job.

In 1938, he heard about a little-people casting call for an MGM movie. He hopped a train to California and auditioned. His speaking ability landed him the part of coroner in The Wizard of Oz. He took a leave of absence from one cultural touchstone to work on another.

When the film wrapped, Raabe, then 23, went back to the Wienermobile. Wizard was released in 1939. Gone with the Wind hit big screens the same year, and Wizard lingered in the shadow of the Civil War blockbuster until television boosted its profile.

Even as a child in the 1940s, Diana Wold says no one in her family talked about Raabe being in the Wizard. He was celebrated as Little Oscar. It wasn’t until Wold became an adult that she realized the movie’s status.

When she and Russ lived in Appleton, Wisconsin, a neighbor found out that Raabe was Diana’s relative. He was overjoyed to meet the one-time actor.

“So help me, I thought he was going to wet his pants,” says Diana, now 80. “People are like that about The Wizard of Oz.”

Yep. The movie has so many rabid devotees that Raabe and his wife Marie — also a small person whom Raabe met when he was traveling with the Wienermobile and she was working as a cigarette girl in an Akron, Ohio, hotel — traveled the country attending Oz-related events after his retirement from Oscar Mayer in 1971.

Raabe, who continued growing to 4-foot-7 after the movie, relished mingling with fans, signing autographs and repeating his lines from the movie, even though it was later revealed that his speaking part, and those of other Munchkins, were altered and dubbed.

“It’s been a lifetime means of making a living,” Raabe once said. “You can’t get sick of something that keeps you going.”

At times, he still felt the sting of disrespect — he reported that people fronted him in lines and reached over his head to grab items in stores — but he also understood that his stature was key to his security.

After the Wolds moved to Greensboro in 1994, Raabe and his wife drove their custom RV to visit the couple several times, usually between fanfests.

“Meinhardt could talk about anything,” Russ recalls.

“A mile a minute,” says Diana.

“He could talk your arm off,” Russ adds. “He seemed like he was in his teacher mode a lot of the time.”

Raabe, also a pilot, taught navigation and meteorology as a member of the Civil Air Patrol in World War II. He earned a master’s degree in accounting and studied horticulture. He liked to walk around people’s yards, identifying plants and giving instructions on how to care for them.

“He was going to tell you what he knew,” says Diana, laughing.

Retired to a senior community in Florida, Raabe continued traveling after his wife died of injuries from a car wreck that hurt both of them in 1997.

He came to Greensboro in 2001, at age 86, to attend the Community Theatre of Greensboro’s seventh annual stage production of Wizard, a local tradition.

He recalled his time on the movie set to Cathy Gant Hill of the Greensboro News & Record.

Judy Garland, he said, was not quite 16, but sophisticated for her age.

“She’d come in the morning and say, ‘Hi, gang!’ We got the impression she enjoyed working with 124 little people as much as we did with her,” he said.

Raabe kept going.

He appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2005, the year he released his autobiography, Munchkin Memories.

In 2007, he attended the unveiling of the Munchkins’ star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 2009, he was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday.

“He enjoyed the limelight,” says Russ Wold.

Raabe died in Florida in 2010. He was 94. He and his wife had no children. His estate gave $1 million to Bethesda Lutheran Communities, an organization based in his hometown. He had previously given the outfit $3.5 million. Now known as AbleLight, the nonprofit helps people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“Because he experienced discrimination based on his appearance and perceived ability . . . he gave with an open hand and an open heart,” the organization’s annual report said in 2015.

Sitting in her kitchen, Diana Wold shakes her head in amazement.

“He had quite a life, with the Wienermobile and The Wizard of Oz, and everything in between,” she says. “He’s my claim to fame.”  OH

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

Tea Leaf Astrologer

Tea Leaf Astrologer

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Aries

(March 21 – April 19)

Life gives us what we need even if we don’t have the RAM to ask for it. In your case: lessons in patience. While you’ve been through the wringer this year in more ways than one, trust that it’s not been in vain. The big picture begins to clarify this month — you’ll see — and when Jupiter enters your sign on April 22, it may well inspire some monetary gain. Things are looking up. Never mind that you’ve got a spending habit to match your fiery temper.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Cash in your chips.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Beware of the Freudian slip.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Open a window.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Embrace the liminal space.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Two words: Tupperware upgrade.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Keep a light on for grace.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

The silence will tell you everything.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Mind where the roots run deep.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Loosen your grip.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

The tension is palpable.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Consider a digital detox.   OH

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

Birdwatch

Birdwatch

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The Early Bird

American robins usher in spring

By Susan Campbell

It is early spring in central North Carolina and few migrants are this far north, let alone back and ready to breed. Flocks of American robins have been evident all winter, feasting on dogwoods, hollies and other berry-laden shrubs. But now they are less interested in eating and ready to start a new family. They are, indeed, the “early birds.”

American robins are found throughout most of the United States and Canada. They are one of the most familiar birds on the continent. In winter, thousands from across Canada and the northern tier of states move southward, not as a response to the drop in temperatures but in search of food. Although robins are insectivorous during the warmer months, they become frugivorous in winter. Flocks of thousands are known to forage and roost together here in the Southeast.

Both male and female robins have long black legs, orangey-red breasts and dark gray backs. Males, however, have a darker head and more colorful breasts. Robins use their thin, yellow bills to probe the vegetation and soft ground for invertebrates in the warmer months. Spiders and caterpillars are common prey as well. These birds use both sight and sound to locate prey. It is not unusual to see a robin standing still and then cocking its head as the bird zeroes in on a potential food item just under the soil surface.

Here in our area, come March, male robins return to the territories they have defended in past summers. In bright, fresh plumage, they will sing most of the day from the tops of trees and other elevated perches, attempting to attract a mate. Their repeated choruses of “cheer-ee-o, cheer-ee-up” echo from lowland mixed woodlands to high elevation evergreen forests as well as open parklands in between. Females will accept a male for the season, but once summer draws to a close, so does the pair bond.

Females are the ones who select a nest site and build the nest. Suitable locations are typically on a branch lower in the canopy and support a hefty, open cup nest. Twigs and rootlets are gathered and then reinforced with mud, often the soft castings of the very earthworms they love to eat. The nest will then be lined with fine grasses before the female robin lays three to five light blue eggs. Constant incubation by the mother robin takes about two weeks, followed by two more weeks of feeding by both parents before the young fledge. Robins can potentially raise four broods in a season — although rarely do all nestlings survive. And fewer yet (about 25 percent) will make it through their first year, to breeding age.

Surviving young of the year will wander, often with siblings or a parent, until late summer, when they will flock up with other local birds. Small groups in North Carolina may move farther south if winter food here is scarce or if competition with larger northern flocks is too great. But not long after the New Year dawns, the same birds will be on the way back. Increasing day length triggers their return journey. And thus, the cycle will begin anew.  OH

Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photographs at susan@ncaves.com.

O.Henry Essay Contest Semifinalists

O.Henry Essay Contest Semifinalists

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The Big Year

By Art Williams

It was the year I turned 15 when I had changes in my life that I would never have imagined. My parents announced that our family was moving from our home in Tennessee to North Carolina.

For my father it was an opportunity to get a promotion with his company, Du Pont, and finally return to his hometown of Greensboro. His life journey had begun here after The Great War. His path led to a degree from NC State, marriage, and then four years in World War II as an officer before returning to start life anew with the wife he adored. So, yes, he was glad to return to his roots. As for me, it meant jumping into a new culture, changing schools, and losing all my friends, including a girlfriend of almost two years. She was a good kisser.

My mother was glad for the change as well. Returning to North Carolina meant she had her relatives close by in Raleigh and Hamlet. Our nuclear family was already familiar with the state. Every summer we vacationed through the Blue Ridge, Triad, and Triangle and on to the beaches.

But that year would be different – a permanent move. It was like going through a time warp. In Tennessee, the schools taught history about that state – often related to the Civil War. North Carolina focused on the Revolutionary War, and I had to adjust my perspective. Other adjustments here were disorienting for a teenager who was trying to get a grasp on a new life. I also had to overcome a Tennessee accent.

In addition to hiking the Chickamauga Battlefield near Chattanooga, I had grown up watching cars go by our house and could name the makes and models from memory as they approached our intersection. Some of the license plates portrayed the stars and bars flag of the South and the phrase “Forget. Hell no!”

Chattanooga was proud of its historic tourist attractions. It boasted of Rock City as the place to see – promoted in red and blue paint on barn roofs throughout the region. The Lookout Mountain Incline, where you could take a tram to the peak, allowed a great view of the cityscape and surrounding countryside.

I remember it was while waiting to ride that tram, as an 8-year old boy, that I started to drink from a water fountain when my mother and sister called me back. I stopped and looked up as they pointed to a sign that read “Colored”.

That is one of my first memories of such a thing as a separation between races. The concept was confusing for a young boy who just wanted to play sports, ride a bike, shoot fireworks, run free with his friends, and maybe kiss a girl or two. For all of Tennessee’s teaching of history we didn’t discuss segregation, discrimination, or race relations. Those would be new words and ideas brought home to me in 1963 as we arrived in Greensboro.

My parents bought a fine house just outside the city limits, near the end of a road named Hobbs, and the big move was underway. We stayed at the Journey’s End Motel along Battleground Road – that building is long gone – the site turned into shops.

The day we expected to move in, the trucking company called and said the moving van’s clutch had burned out going through the mountains, and it would take an extra day to deliver all our worldly possessions. So, for one more night we went to another motel across the street from First Baptist Church – the church to which we would later transfer our membership.

That day, as part of getting to know the area, and to distract my two sisters and me, dad and mom piled us into the car. We went for a drive along Friendly Avenue and Market Street, down to Elm and Davie.

Dad recalled, as a kid, he had a newspaper route, so he took us by the building that housed the Greensboro News & Record, now the Arts Center. Unknown to me at the time, the newspaper was the company where I would work as an intern reporter while studying journalism at Chapel Hill only five years later, and then work in the advertising department.

We drove further down memory lane as Dad took us past the bus station at the corner of Edgeworth and Friendly, across from the Sears store. As a teenager, he had also worked as a soda jerk at the bus station. The next few turns took us past the Myers Department Store, Mayfair Cafeteria, and the Woolworth’s buildings.

As we turned onto Friendly toward the S&W Cafeteria, we saw people carrying placards in front of the restaurant. I remember my father saying something like ‘Uh, Oh’, as he turned the car away from the area. It was the first time I saw picket line, a protest of any kind. And the protesters were all black. I didn’t have time to read what the words were on the signs.

That fall, I discovered our next-door neighbor was the manager of the S&W. As part of a carpool, he gave his daughter and me a ride to Grimsley Senior High. I found out he was the man who had stood in the doorway of the S&W with a shotgun during that long hot summer. He explained that he saw no reason why black people should not eat at his cafeteria. Most of his kitchen and serving staff were black. He worked beside them every day, and said he would defend their right to eat there.

That year taught me many things. I could survive change, a broken heart, and losing friends. I could face new realities and strive to understand the world around me better as it changed and as I changed. I learned that sometimes we are in the middle of history while it is being made.

The Red Ticket

By Kay Cheshire                                            

The idea of luck to me as an 8 year old simply meant my friends were lucky to have more toys, a bigger house or they didn’t have to walk to school. When I told my father the neighbors were lucky because they had a new car, he told me luck had nothing to do with it. Hard work is what gets the things we need. Only fools rely on luck, he’d warned me.

That same year the Catholic elementary school I attended in the early 1960s was raffling off two Schwinn bicycles, one for a boy and one for a girl. The boys’ tickets were blue, the girls’ were red, and each ticket cost twenty-five cents. I was determined to own one of those red tickets. My second-grade friends had theirs, comparing numbers, each convinced they would be the lucky winner. Everyone kept asking me why I didn’t have a ticket. One night at dinner I asked for twenty-five cents to buy a ticket.

My father said, “You won’t win. It would be like throwing money into a river.”

The disappointment rolled over me, flattening any hope I would get a red ticket. All through the night I tried to think of how to get a quarter, even praying. As though higher beings carried coin purses to drop change from Heaven. I didn’t care about the bicycle I just wanted a ticket like my friends.

The next morning, my mother handed me three cents to buy milk in the school cafeteria. We called those three pennies the “milk money” and each day she would give me my milk money.

Walking to school I counted on my fingers how many days of saving three pennies until I had twenty-five cents; it would take nine days. The raffle was in fourteen days. So, at lunch I put the milk money in my sock and drank water for the next two weeks. I was proud of myself for figuring out the math.

At the end of the nine days, I took the pennies and bought my red ticket. It became my most prized possession.  I looked at that ticket every night before I went to sleep.

The drawing for the bicycles was the last day of school before summer break and when the big day arrived all the students packed into the cafeteria. The bikes gleamed on the stage, black and silver for a boy, red and silver for a girl.

The parish priest was asked to pick the winners. He spun the drum full of blue tickets first, revolving it several times for dramatic affect. All the boys waited anxiously. He picked a ticket, called the number. A fifth grader yelled, raising his hands over his head, running like a sprinter up the stage to receive his prize. Everyone clapped, others shook his hand as he beamed.

Then the priest rolled the girls’ drum turning it over and over, finally selecting a ticket. He called out the number, but no one yelled. Instead, there was a low murmur like a swarm of bees. The priest repeated the number and waited. A girl next to me yelled.

“She’s got the number!” Pointing at me

I looked at her, looked at my ticket, looked at the number.  I don’t remember much after that as people started pushing me, clapping, and slapping my back. I eventually made it up the stage and stood next to the boy winner while a picture was taken for the school newspaper. Then someone helped me and my bicycle off the stage.

I had to walk the bike home because I didn’t know how to ride a two wheeler. The neighborhood kids followed me like the Pied Piper, touching the chrome and the red and white streamers dangling from the handlebar grips. It was better than any Christmas morning I had ever known.

Someone ran ahead to my house to announce I’d won. I rolled the bike down our driveway eager to prove there really was such a thing as luck. But my parents weren’t as thrilled as I thought. They both wanted to know where I got the money and when I explained I’d saved my milk money, my mother accused me of stealing.

“I didn’t steal anything,” I protested. “You gave the money to me. I thought you’d be glad I’d figured out the math.”

To me, stealing meant taking money belonging to someone without them knowing it. I had no idea what I’d done was considered stealing. I worried how long I would have to stay in jail for stealing twenty-five cents.

But my father said he was glad I’d won the bike, giving my mother a strange look. The money was never mentioned again.

During those summer months while my father taught me to ride that Schwinn two-wheeler, I kept turning around to be sure he was holding on.

Then one afternoon he let go and I stayed upright. It was the first taste of freedom all children discover, and for me I’d bought that freedom with twenty-five cents.

I’m sure it was luck I’d won the bike it certainly wasn’t hard work. It was the only bike I ever owned and when I left home to attend college, my parents gave the bike to a charity who refurbished bicycles for disadvantaged children as Christmas gifts. I was always glad another young girl would be lucky enough to own that bike.

As an adult, I often experienced that force of good fortune, known as luck. I’ve won other raffles, door prizes, and small amounts of money from lottery tickets, but I’ve also worked hard for the things I needed. Like my father said, only fools rely on luck.

1999

By Myra J. Stephens

I felt as though I’d been slapped across the face with an admonition from the Universe to, “Pay attention, Woman!” It was a small notice in the Sunday paper, ‘Auditions: 3:00 – 5:00p.m.’, that had virtually reddened my cheek. As I checked the time and place, I announced, “I’m going to audition for this play!”

My nearly college-age daughter replied, “Can you act?” She said this as if she were asking me if I were certain I had the skills to hunt wild boar. To make a long story short, I went to the audition and was cast in a leading role.

The things I learned performing in that production, and the bonds of friendship that were forged changed my life and expanded my horizons. I’m pleased to say that I was fortunate to meet one of my very good friends during that show and we have maintained that relationship to this day.

There is nothing like being alone on a stage with the audience’s eyes trained on only you. It was the most difficult part of the role for me; to forget the audience existed and to stay firmly in the moment of the story. But in learning it, I gained confidence in my own creativity and my own worth and not long after, I began to seriously write. It took some time to get it right, but four years later, I wrote and directed my first play.

This time in my life was a learning experience in many ways and just as it’s

important to take your car to the dealer when the ‘check engine’ light flashes red, our bodies also have the same kind of warnings. The tricky  thing is being aware and paying attention to those personal ‘check engine’ lights. Something as simple as a minor sniffle can morph into a sinus infection, then slyly slip down the respiratory system and decide to hang around as viral pneumonia if we don’t take care when the original sniffle arrives, and there are even more insidious warnings that can be easy to ignore.

In my case, burning the candle on not two, but four ends, was a stressful

situation. I was working, acting, writing, and keeping a house and family in order, which to my twisted way of thinking was perfectly normal and I could handle it. Handling it, apparently included, using my time during lunch and after work to learn my lines, and/or go to rehearsal, and then staying up until one or two o’clock in the morning to write. This didn’t leave much time to sleep or eat and I subsequently lost twenty-five pounds

without even noticing. That was a bright red, flashing ‘check engine’ light that I was choosing to ignore. But everyone knows what happens when you pretend those red lights aren’t flashing.

It would be like playing chess in the park with a six-hundred-pound gorilla who cheats. Are you going to be the one to tell him that you know he’s been cheating? Of course not, because it would be a disaster for you.

To put it politely, my engine stopped running, as in broke down. After four days of being unable to get out of bed and crying non-stop for no reason I could identify, my doctor put me in the hospital for my own safety. Unkind people were much more descriptive; ‘she’s lost her marbles’, ‘she’s gone bye-bye’ and my favorite – ‘she’s gone to the loony bin’. But the truth is, it was probably the best thing that could have happened. It identified a manageable problem and once the problem was identified, I was able to get back on track. Once I was back on track, I took steps to stay there. This

included developing coping skills, learning to deal with stress and time management, and of course balancing the chemicals in my brain through medication, which cannot be stressed enough.

When I was ready, my writing and the rest of my life was waiting for me; from fairy tale princesses managing OCD and nymphomania to Southern Gothic Christmas fare to a journey through a crisis of faith, I’ve tackled them all. Apparently, I don’t fit into a specific genre.

Eventually I became close friends with an actor who played opposite me in

several productions, and we became so close that we married in 2007. Our marriage has been a joining of two creative forces that together form a shining light. We’ve retired to Greensboro and are currently dipping our toes into what appears to be a wonderful theatrical environment, and it all began with a small audition notice for The Cemetery Club. Apparently I do have the skills to hunt wild boar.

The year that changed everything

By Wanda Kersey

Thousands of people are told something every day that changes the rest of their life. In January 2022 I was sitting in a drab doctor’s office chair and remember looking up at the doctor as he stood, leaned against the white office cabinet and delivered the news that no one wants to hear: I was going to die. My diagnosis was acute myeloid leukemia. I was told I might have 3 months to live.

I just sat there. My mind went blank. Did I just hear that I was going to die?

My thoughts and perspective changed immediately.

When I left the cancer center, my mind went racing. I had so much to do. I am a “collector of things”, especially snowmen, milk glass, and toys. I’m not a hoarder, but I did see a lot of value in things. After the initial shock, all I could think about at first was my stuff. All of a sudden, my stuff lost all its value. I really felt the need to get rid of so much. It makes me ask the question, “What really matters?” I feel my answer now is to not be afraid, and to have a good attitude and outlook, no matter the odds. Possessions and things just don’t matter like they used to. I have been able to let go, and put my trust in God (though I still have a soft spot for sweets).

My son, my sister, my brother, and many others have been right there for me, and they still are, 11 months later. Yes that’s right, I am still kicking, against all odds. I told my doctor that I wanted to enjoy the life I had left to live and not be sick. I want quality, not quantity of life. Though there was no available treatment for me, due to my age and other health issues, he told me they would bring in hospice to my home. But I can say I never thought I would see this Christmas.

I don’t know what I would do without my family.  I mean, I have a friend-base beyond all belief. I am so grateful for the love I have received this year and don’t have the words to express it to them.

At this present time I am still under hospice care, and have a daily trickle of family and friends always popping by to say hello or sitting on the porch with me. God is giving me time, but I am ready when He is, and I am not afraid. In a sense, we all live on borrowed time. But this year I have paid attention to the blessing of time and of each and every day.

My new mantra that I have learned this year is: Love God, family and friends. Don’t worry (about stuff), be happy, and don’t forget to smile.

The Year That Changed Everything

By Renee Skudra

     In the past year it seems that the winds of fortune blew black and indomitable.  My best friend, a woman from war-besieged Ukraine, died suddenly of lung cancer, there were two job losses in our home, scary medical incidents and hospitalizations, and a 42% increase in our rent.  Each day brought new calamities – a heretofore reliable car which inexplicably developed engine trouble and gave up its automotive life, necessitating the unexpected purchase of another vehicle despite scant monies to do so.  The roof of the house developed a leak and a small mouse decided to adopt our place as his ancestral home.  A relationship that looked promising ended abruptly in a “this is not working for me” declaration, leaving me bereft and heartbroken.    Family members did odd things, calling in the middle of the night screaming while others leveled accusations which had no known basis in fact.    A cousin demanded that I give her money because “you have a lot of it and I cannot pay my bills anymore.”  Although I retorted that I now found myself in the unenviable position of going twice-weekly to food banks to augment the food stamps I had finally been given, and taking whatever form of work came my way she loudly exclaimed that I was a liar and probably had large sums of money sitting in Swiss banks.

     Each bad day seemed to breed another one full of mishaps and complex problems that riled up against logic and clear thinking.    In these moments everything became magically amplified.  I found myself thinking about my brother who didn’t invite me to his daughter’s wedding because incomprehensibly “you might cause a problem.”    When my niece relocated to Minnesota and had her first and second children, I was also not advised of those facts because “it’s not your business.”  The past rose up like a seven-headed hydra, recalling other wrongs perpetuated against me: a failed love affair where a brilliant and darling Irish-American lad demanded I change my religion (which in good conscience I could not do) to suit his stalwart Catholic parents; my own mother and father who constantly told me that I wasn’t pretty or good enough and needed to do better, several gal pals who had betrayed my confidence by chasing after my gorgeous but chronically unemployed husband.  Sometimes I found a person to commiserate with but even that did not obviate the growing list of woes that had attached themselves to me and the anger kept increasing exponentially whenever I felt wronged – whether it was simply for a utility shut-off that occurred for a one-day-late paid bill or rejections from magazines for story pitches I had sent their way.  Ironically, being a victim can sometimes feel like recompense and be satisfying.

    My faith fortunately allows me the belief in miracles and such a one arrived in a mental landscape which was admittedly bleak and desolate.  On a random night I turned on the TV and watched a PBS show called “Captain Scott B and the Great Adventure.”    The movie, made as a tribute by his daughter, captured the life of her amazing free spirit and naturalist North Carolina-born father, Scott Bertram.  The beautifully nuanced photographs revealed a man of extraordinary sensitivity and wisdom who infected everyone with his positivity and love for life, family, art, the ocean, animals and his boyhood home of Hendersonville.   What struck me was the enormous effect he had on others, encouraging with unmitigated enthusiasm each to be their very best selves.  He drew pictures, laughed loudly and often, shared easily, and leaned into others’ experiences with kindness and generosity.  His wife and children and apparently the world at large adored him.   At the end of his life, on his deathbed, he offered his daughter Betsy these words: “forgive, forgive everything”.  At that exact moment I felt something like a huge “ping” go off in my head.  These are the very words that changed everything in this year.  Some people might call this an epiphany but that wouldn’t be a large enough expression to describe the massive sea change, the re-set of my mental apparatus that finally and fully took in the import of that three-word oh-so-pithy advice.

           The next morning, with my son and wayward Bichon Frise in tow, we went to the lake, luminous in the mid-day light, on the Guilford College campus in Greensboro.  That setting has always been a kind of sacred space for me, sitting in a portal of oft-remarked history and the nearby presence of the famous Underground Railway tree.  A flock of Canada Geese was by the water’s shimmering edge and a group of turtles was settled on an overarching limb by the lake’s periphery.    I took out of my purse two quotes that I had copied on a piece of dog-eared paper. One, authored by California writer Annie Lamott,” said that “forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back.”  The other by a psychologist named Bernard Baruch averred “one of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything, every night before you go to bed.” I picked up two handfuls of leaves, still redolent with their autumn hues, and one by one scattered them on the lake, each which I silently denoted as carrying a grudge or resentment, thereby forever releasing those.  When I recited out loud the experience where my son, despite two Master’s degrees was told by an employer that they did not hire people with developmental disabilities, and the grave hurt that that had caused each of us, the beating of my heart increased ten-fold until it felt like it and the winds around me were roaring.  Moments later, I threw a large maple leaf onto the lake’s tiny waves and said “I forgive you too.”    I didn’t know Scott Bertram but his words changed the trajectory, the architectonics of my life.  God bless this man from the mountains of North Carolina.

The Year that Changed Everything—1970

By Samuel C. Newsome

University was a big transition for a farm boy with hopes of a medicine career.  Passing is not good enough. One must excel.  That summer, before my senior year, I finished my med school applications.

There was very little I could do now but await some response to my applications and hope I got an interview.  On a hot Saturday in late June, I got a call from my uncle Hermie.  “Can you get dressed up tomorrow afternoon and come with me to see Robert?”

I had met or more correctly seen Robert at a family gathering years before.  He was a small man in a dark suit who was aged even then and had particularly gnarled and wasted hands.  “Sure, any special reason we’re meeting Robert.”

“You’d best call him Dr. Robert when we meet him.  He’s Dr. Robert Moore.  He’s got a lot of friends at the medical school.”

Uncle Hermie picked me up in his old Buick on Sunday afternoon and we leisurely drove to the home of Dr. Robert and Nellie Moore.  Their home was in an older genteel community about two blocks from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine.  The house appeared spotless white on a clear and sunny afternoon.  Nellie—Mrs. Moore, met us at the door.  “Well, if it isn’t Hermie Moore.  It seems like we haven’t seen you in years.  And this must be Sammy who you told us about.  Well, come on in, Robert is somewhere in the house.  Let’s go out on the breezeway and he’ll be with us in a minute.”

Nellie soon returned with three glasses of iced tea and Dr. Moore in tow.  He was smaller than remembered and now in white pressed shirt and dark slacks rather than a black suit.  “Hermie, good to see you again.  It’s been too long.  And this is Sammy, you told me about.  He’s Carl’s son, isn’t he?  I remember Carl.  When he was a boy, he used to throw rocks at our mules.  I guess he thought that if he riled them up, he wouldn’t have to plow.”  He looked at me and asked, “Why would you ever want to be a doctor?  You can certainly find easier and richer pursuits.”

I had rehearsed my answer to the question I knew was coming, but couldn’t remember it. I said something like, “I’ve focused so much on pre-med courses, that I don’t have any fallback plan.  Once my interviews are over, I’ll be forced to consider something else.”

His only response was, “I see.”  He took my copies of transcript and MCAT scores and looked at it for a second before he looked at me and said, “I’ll write your recommendation.  It may help you and good luck in getting into medical school.  Medicine is changing and God only knows if it’s for the better.”

Dr. Moore and uncle Hermie talked a while about farms, relatives and weather and before I knew it, we were on our way home.

A week later I received a copy of Dr. Moore’s letter.  It was a short, but warm recommendation.  A week later, the local paper had a story about a well-known local physician dying of natural causes—Dr. Moore.

I was granted an interview in November, that was a positive sign.  I arrived at the conference room amid the typical confident interviewees.  Each applicant was assigned to a chaperone to guide them about the offices of the interviewing professors.  Ms. Catherine Davis was my guide.  She was polite and friendly and asked about my reasons for choosing Bowman Gray School of Medicine.  I was soon at the office of Pathologist, Dr. Robert Pritchard.  Dr. Prichard reviewed my application, transcript and Dr. Moore’s letter.  He informed me that he had been a good friend and neighbor of Dr. Moore.  He enjoyed his sense of humor and especially that of his wife, Nellie.  He told me a story of Nellie’s attempt to collect debts.  “She went to see a fellow who had recovered from a complicated leg injury.  When she arrived at his home, he was in the process of putting in central air.  ‘Doc and I are getting older and need that central air, but if people don’t pay their bills, we can’t afford it.’

His smile never wavered and he casually pointed to three window units sitting on the lawn.  ‘Why don’t you just take those.’

Nellie turned around and left in a huff.”

Dr. Pritchard chuckled at the thought.

That concluded our interview on an amiable note and Ms. Davis was waiting outside to usher me to my last interview.  I sat down in the hall and waited.  After a while I peeked around the corner into his office and no one was there.  When Ms. Davis returned, I told her the professor was a no-show.  She was flustered for a moment; then her smile lighted up.  “We’ll just go see Doug.  He’ll give you that interview.”

Dr. Doug Maynard was a professor of radiology and as I later learned, a pioneer in the infant science of ultrasound.

After reviewing my papers, we spoke mostly about farming.  Like myself, he had grown up on a farm.  He saw similarities in medicine and good farm practices.  He had also known Dr. Moore.  As an orthopedist, who was very familiar with x-rays.  Ms. Davis soon arrived and the interviews were finished.

A week later I received my coveted acceptance letter.  My suspicion is that both doctors valued the letter from Dr. Moore.  I also suspect that Ms. Davis, who was the secretary of the hospital president for thirty years was an unofficial, but powerful member of the board.

1970 was for me, a notable year.  Looking back, fifty-two years, I can’t imagine how my life would be different without medicine, or how my career hinged on the kindness of Drs. Moore, Pritchard, Maynard, uncle Hermie and the patient and kindly Ms. Davis.

The Year That Changed Everything

By Porter Halyburton

1965 started off pretty well. Two years before, I had graduated from Davidson College, joined the Navy, gotten married, and started Naval Preflight School in Pensacola, FL. In April 1965, I finished Navy flight training, my first daughter Dabney was born, and I joined an F4 Phantom fighter squadron in Oceana, VA. In May we left for Vietnam aboard the carrier USS Independence. When I saw Dabney for the last time, she was five days old.

Flying combat in the war over North Vietnam was dangerous but exciting. I did not know much about Vietnam, but believed we were there to stop the spread of Communism and help the people of South Vietnam to remain free.

Our carrier and Air Wing were “on the line” for 45-day periods, flying missions for 12 hours a day. In between those periods, we enjoyed some Rest and Relaxation for a week or 10 days.

The Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan were exotic ports of call, full of adventure and wonder for a young Naval officer of 24.

I flew 75 combat missions without serious incident and was looking forward to being back home for Christmas, but I knew home would be different with all of the race riots and anti-war protests that were beginning to tear our society apart. We did not get much news, but I knew the riots were bad with people dying and cities burning.

My luck ran out on my 76th mission and I was shot down and captured north of Hanoi. I did not know that I would be declared Killed in Action nor that my wife Marty would begin life as a widow and single mother, believing that I was dead. She did say that being KIA was probably better than being a POW in North Vietnam. After a year and a half, she was to learn that I had not been killed and was a POW and the years of uncertainty began for her.

I did know that when I pulled the ejection handle and parachuted from that stricken plane, I was severing all connection to my previous life and falling into a strange, foreign, and hostile land. There was nothing but fear and uncertainty for me in the future that I could see. All I had was my determination to do everything possible to survive whatever lay ahead. What lay ahead was more than seven years of captivity, solitary confinement, denial of all rights and human dignity, hunger, thirst, unbearable heat, bitter cold, extreme physical violence.    

Despite these terrible conditions in the early years, things did improve for the last two and I lived a different life with other prisoners and improved health. We had learned how to adapt to our conditions and make the hard choices that were critical to the preservation of honor and dignity.

I learned much about myself and others, about life and how to live productively in the worst of circumstances. I made many friends, many memories and learned many things I could not have learned in any other way. The bad years have faded to the back of my remembrance in favor of forgiveness and gratitude.

Since release from that prison and the prison of hatred, my life has been one of joy and fulfillment with a beautiful family and meaningful work.

I have a tombstone in my garden under the grape arbor that looks across the croquet court and the vegetable garden to the bay. The teak bench and coffee table make it a perfect place to watch croquet with a glass of wine or simply admire the sunset.

The flat stone there says that I died on October 17, 1965.

In Memory of

Porter Alexander Halyburton

Lieutenant Junior Grade, USNR

JAN.16, 1941 – OCT.17, 1965

KILLED IN COMBAT OVER NORTH VIETNAM

Son of Katherine Porter Halyburton

Husband of Martha Carrel Duerson

Father of Dabney Lorimer Halyburton

If my life stood for nothing more, I would be satisfied to have been a son, a husband, a father.

Yet somehow, I was spared this death and have had many years of joy, happiness, freedom, and prosperity. Each time I look down at that gravestone, I give thanks for this life and for the critical choices I made back in 1965.

So, 1965 really did change everything.

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