Category: July 2023

Greensboro’s Jeanaissance

One legacy at a time, denim is on the rise again

By Billy Ingram • Photographs by Mark Wagoner

It was a solemn promise Evan Morrison made to his grandmother on her deathbed that would lead to one of the most improbable outcomes imaginable. He’d just returned from grad school in the City of Light and was looking after her. “She asked that I stay here and make Greensboro a better place,” he recalls. Morrison had no way of knowing then that his pathway forward would result in the return of denim manufacturing to our city. Ensconced in his office atop the historic White Oak Mill, he tells me, “We’ve had so many retirees come here just pouring tears, knowing that this still is happening.”

Denim isn’t just in our jeans. It’s in Greensboro’s — and Evan Morrison’s — genes. Growing up in the Gate City, he attended Buttons and Bows day care in a converted mill house where the walls were adorned in navy and gold, the colors of Cone Mills. His mother worked at Moses Cone Hospital and an aunt was a pattern maker at Blue Bell.

What led to Greensboro becoming the denim capital of the world? The path was forged in the 1890s when two brothers with an entrepreneurial spirit moved to the city and built, first, Proximity Manufacturing Company to produce denim, and then, 15 years later, White Oak Mill, the largest denim mill in the world and the largest cotton mill in the southern United States.

Life was unimaginably rugged in the latter part of the 19th century, which found Americans in need of clothing that could hold up against the elements and rigors of farming. Recognizing that largely untapped market, Baltimore wholesale grocers Moses and Ceasar Cone relocated to Greensboro in 1895 to take advantage of that opportunity. A year later, Cone’s Proximity Cotton Mill, so named because of its adjacency to growing fields and cotton gins, began weaving denim for work clothes. Over the next decade, Cone added two more Greensboro plants, Revolution Cotton Mills and White Oak, producing flannels and denim 24/7.

In a loft above Coe Brothers Grocery on South Elm Street, Hudson Overall Company was formed in 1904. Business was so brisk, the outfit opened a much larger denim factory a block away on South Elm and Lee Street (now Gate City Boulevard) in 1919. Renamed Blue Bell, it became the world’s largest overall manufacturer. Over time, it bought up various regional brands, including Casey Jones Overall and that company’s nascent, largely unrealized Western line, Wranglers. Blue Bell hired Ben Lichtenstein, aka Rodeo Ben, a famous tailor to professional cowboys, movie and bluegrass stars, to design what they called Blue Bell’s Wranglers brand. Introduced to the public in 1947, the name was later shortened to Wrangler.

Organized, it’s been said, by disgruntled Blue Bell employees in the 1930s, Greensboro Overall Company began operations on Carolina Street, manufacturing less expensive Blue Gem coveralls. Both companies’ products were made from Cone fabric. Blue Gem’s label with the radiant gemstone states proudly, “Made of CONE deeptone® DENIM.”

By the 1940s, Cone Mills was number one in the world for denim production, world leader for indigo consumption and world output leader in denim fabric. Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco was becoming increasingly dependent on Cone for its 501 line of blue jeans that had become an unlikely fashion statement almost overnight.

At White Oak during the peak years, 3,000 looms were aligned in rows down a cavernous corridor stretching outward so far that if you were positioned at the end of the line, bent down to floor level, and looked forward, the curvature of the earth would only allow you to see where the floor and ceiling converged.

Already in possession of the Lee brand, VF Corporation acquired Greensboro Overall Company and Blue Bell in the 1980s. The Blue Bell label was scuttled while the company focused on Wrangler. VF’s strategy? If their products couldn’t beat the number one jeans manufacturer, Levi’s, having both the number two and three spots would result in more combined sales. It worked and, by the time VF relocated its headquarters to Greensboro in 1998, it had become the world’s largest publicly traded apparel company.

As Evan Morrison pondered the future following his grandmother’s passing in 2013, “I knew I wanted to work in denim. That’s what our city’s known for.” At that time, there were only eight denim mills operating in America. Locally, Cone’s White Oak Mill was running full tilt with several months lead time. “Made in the USA was a major selling point then,” Morrison recalls. “I thought, ‘Well, there’s no brand in Greensboro making jeans or denim products out of cloth woven in Greensboro. So if we start a business like that, we could be the only one of our kind in the Western Hemisphere.’”

Morrison partnered with William and Tinker Clayton to create Hudson’s Hill in 2013 to market clothing and accessories made from Cone denim. Things were going well until, in 2017, Cone announced that their only active mill, White Oak, was ceasing operations, despite producing 1 million yards a year with 46 weaving looms running nonstop. With that closing, a 122-year legacy of denim manufacturing in Greensboro came to an abrupt end with no reasonable expectation that it would ever return.

L to R: Evan Morrison, Chip Hardeman, Bud Strickland, Debbie Lindsey and Greg Redelico, representing Proximity Manufacturing Company, a weaving business producing selvage denim woven on Draper shuttle looms at White Oak Mill. Morrison is director of operations; Hardeman is general manager; Strickland is on the board of advisors; Lindsey is a weaver; and Redelico is superintendent.

“It was like, ‘Oh my God, what are we gonna do?’” Hudson’s Hill’s business model had just imploded. “I cold-called and met with the new owner of the property, Will Dellinger, who owns JW Demolition.” Morrison posited that Cone denim’s methodology was the equivalent to Coca-Cola’s secret recipe. “This is the house that made Levi’s, Blue Bell, Lee, OshKosh and Carhartt famous — when a pair of blue jeans became iconically American. People immigrating to the U.S. have a vivid memory of their first pair of jeans. It was a symbol of a better life.”

In 2019, with an agreement in place to lease a portion of the White Oak Mill, Evan Morrison and a group of business professionals across the state formed a nonprofit called the White Oak Legacy Foundation, or W.O.L.F. Morrison approached Cone Denim, asking if they could take possession of the remaining two looms at White Oak with a promise that somehow they’d figure out a way to put them to good use. “We drew up a deed of gift that basically says they’ll give them to us through the nonprofit.” When Cone donated those last remaining looms, Morrison points out, “Essentially, they gifted them to the city. So the people of Greensboro now own our history. W.O.L.F. is the nonprofit that cares for it.”

Original founders of Denim 101 Jill Amidon Strickland and Bud Strickland, shown here, helped W.O.L.F. relaunch an education program in 2021 through volunteering. The rebooted Denim 101 has become so popular that every course has a waitlist. When the couple first launched the program several decades ago while working for Cone Mills at White Oak, Bud worked in product development and Jill worked in quality assurance.

An abundance of Cone Mills veterans in the area possessing a decades-long understanding of supply chains and contacts helped W.O.L.F. map out a workable business plan. “So we started renovating these looms in December of 2019 and, by March of 2020, we were ready to fire them up,” Morrison recalls of the initial run. “We wove our first couple of inches and then, of course, all the plastic parts that had dry rotted broke. So it took another month to find all those parts and rehab the machines to get them back up and running.” By May, those looms were weaving five days a week, “but they don’t weave very fast.” For Morrison, that presented a challenge. “I have an M.B.A., and an entrepreneurial spirit. So let’s figure out how to do as much as we can with what little we’ve got.” Know how to spot a true entrepreneur? “I do all the machine fixing and all of the rebuilding myself,” Morrison says.

L to R: Nick Piornack, Evan Morrison, Karen Little, representing Revolution Mill, located in NE Greensboro, formerly the world’s largest flannel and corduroy mill and part of the Cone Mills family of textile mills, now historically renovated and owned by Self-Help. Since 2013, it has hosted a collection of textile exhibits, ephemeral objects and historical equipment that has helped showcase its history throughout its mixed-use campus. Nick serves as general manager, Evan oversees special projects, while Karen serves as property manager at Revolution Mill.

W.O.L.F. has four defining pillars: Make, Remember, Learn and Create. Working looms represent the “Make” portion of W.O.L.F. “Remember” is being manifested as an American Denim Museum downstairs at White Oak on the heels of Morrison’s previous historical installations at various locations over the last decade. Cruise around town and you’ll spy statues of pairs of blue jeans put in place when Evan Morrison first coined the moniker, Jeansboro, now synonymous with our city.

“The ‘Learn’ side is Denim 101,” Morrison explains. “There used to be a big event here called The Denim School. Designers would come for a couple of days and learn, from bale-to-fabric-to finishing, how things actually got made.” By chance, his across-the-street neighbors, Bud and Jill Amidon Strickland, founded that program in the ’80s. “I asked them to come back on and help us. We’ve put on six sold-out programs and everybody from Gap to Levi’s, Lee, Wrangler, Cone Denim, Cotton Incorporated, with students from N.C. State, A&T, UNCG all attending.”

The “Create” aspect means staying on the cutting edge, just as Cone Mills was recognized worldwide for modernizations. “The first air-conditioned plants,” Morrison points out. “First to develop ‘S’ jeans, which is like a recovery denim that has stretch but doesn’t stretch out. First to weave denim with the new, natural indigo being grown in the United States. So many firsts.”

That spirit of innovation lives on at White Oak. The first pair of jeans in the Western Hemisphere woven on shuttle looms with hemp as a component was recently developed there. “Last year, we wove some of the first ever bio-based, plant-based indigo,” Morrison notes. “It doesn’t use any chemicals, just natural elements.”

To attain a custom shade of denim for a more distinctive look, 20,000 linear yards of yarn has to be ordered. “We can only handle about 4,000,” Morrison says. In order to act big but stay small he came up with the idea of “weft out.” In a typical pair of jeans, “the blue that goes through the loom is called the warp and it gets filled with what’s called weft.” Generally, that weft is white, creating the lighter hue you see inside your jeans. “I thought, ‘What if we just flip the fabric backwards?’ So we started Weft Out, which is our trademark, using filling yarn to create a custom color.”

Morrison unfolds a bolt of a fabric revealing an astonishing effect — vibrant hues of turquoise, gold and orange, with indigo playing a supporting role on the back side. “This is something that we sell to really high end fashion companies for $3,000 [per pair of] jeans. It does take a lot more time.”

A little closer to home than $3,000 jeans, one hopes, is the aforementioned Hudson’s Hill, where Evan Morrison began this journey ten years ago, a stylish storefront situated next door to where Hudson Overall/Blue Bell was established well over a century ago. Stocked exclusively with products made in America, with a hefty percentage produced right here in North Carolina, I liken it to shopping at the Ralph Lauren store in Beverly Hills, albeit more compact.

Inside Hudson’s Hill, hip haberdasher J.R. Hudgins points out a line of jeans not likely found outside of New York or Los Angeles, saying, “Tellason is like an entry level gold standard for the shop right now, affordable for an America made pair of jeans.” A grouping of classically styled jackets catches my eye. “These are from a company called Mr. Freedom,” Hudgins says. “I love them because he’s a French designer who has a very Western aesthetic but with a European cut, higher cut arm holes, much trimmer body, not as boxy.” There are, of course, store-branded jeans and jackets constructed from found dead stock: “Fabric Cone Mills or another local producer stopped making and we found enough to make some pants or jackets out of it,” he explains. “Once these sell, that’s it.”

L to R: William Clayton, Tinker Clayton, Evan Morrison and John Hudgins, representing Hudson’s Hill: The Last Great American-Made General Store, located in downtown Greensboro on S. Elm Street. The Claytons (father and son) and Morrison are co-owners, while Hudgins serves as store manager.

E-commerce aside, Hudson’s Hill’s local customer base is augmented by visitors here on business from larger cities and abroad. “That’s the clientele for a lot of the higher ticket items,” Hudgins says. “Yes, if our store was in Brooklyn, we’d probably be a lot more successful. But we couldn’t do things the way we do if we weren’t here in Greensboro.”

Headquartered on Green Valley Road, Cone Denim still operates factories in Mexico and China, and — as you read this — it’s relocating its headquarters to Revolution Mill. The circle of life and all that. And still innovating with Flash Finish technology and Mission Zero Waste to be more eco-efficient.

Adjacent to Evan Morrison’s workspace/studio at nearby Revolution Mill, old Cone manufacturing equipment sits on display. “I might be leaving my work at the end of the day, kind of frustrated because something’s gone wrong,” he tells me, “and I’ll walk out of my office and look over and there’s a granddad [crouching down] with his grandkid telling them, ‘I used to work on these machines in this building when I was a young person.’ And that’s the tackling fuel, to quote The Waterboy.” OH

Those interested in Greensboro history might find Billy Ingram’s book, EYE on GSO, to be perfect summer reading. Available from bookstores and on Amazon.

The Legacy of Moses Cone

Just months after the employees of the combined Proximity, White Oak and Revolution Mills celebrated their fourth annual picnic in 1908, newspapers around the country proclaimed that Moses Cone, the “Denim King,” was dead at the age of 51. However, weaving and manufacturing of denim in Greensboro was still in its infancy.

Having left no last will and testament, under North Carolina law, 50 percent of Cone’s estate would have to be surrendered to the state. His brother, Ceasar, and Moses’ wife, Bertha, negotiated with state officials to park his holdings into an account, allowing Bertha to live comfortably until her death in 1947.

Moses Cone holding his niece, Isabel Cone, ca. 1907.

Photograph © Greensboro History Museum Collection

Per that aforementioned agreement, that trust was then donated, along with a sizable patch of centrally located real estate, for the construction of a hospital to be named for Moses Cone. But there was one stipulation: If the Cone name ceased to be associated with the hospital, ownership would revert to Moses’ living descendants.

That’s why, no matter how many times Cone Health may be purchased, merged or rebranded, the name Cone will always be front and center.

Big Screen Jeans

Right: Stranger Things, Left: Yellowstone

Greensboro’s own Wrangler jeans are taking a noticeable star turn on hot TV series like Yellowstone and Stranger Things. Truth to tell, if you recognize any label or logo in the scene of a television production, it’s almost certainly paid for.

Product placements are a bit more subtle today than back in the 1980s when characters would play an entire scene in front of a Pepsi machine. Or, think back upon ET’s intergalactic hunger for a relatively unknown candy, Reese’s Pieces, considered the first mega-successful product tie-in of all time after M&Ms passed on the opportunity.

Wrangler’s first product placement campaigns started back in 1947 when their rough-and-ready denim jeans were first introduced to the public, leather labels stitched on the backsides of big name rodeo stars to reach the targeted rugged individual demographic. To a certain extent, that still holds true.

Wrangler is only one of a number of Triad companies that have been purposely inserting their products into scenes and sponsoring television programs since the medium’s earliest days. With deep pockets, Big Tobacco was one of the first industries to see the potential in television. In fact, in the 1950s and ’60s, sponsors had more control over the content of TV programs than the networks did.

Walker

Headquartered in Greensboro, P. Lorillard Tobacco Company sponsored classic shows like Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour, which found Old Gold’s Dancing Cigarette Pack and The Little Matchbox tap-tap-tapping across the small screen in the early-1950s. Lorillard’s Newport logo was featured prominently on ’60s sensations like The Price is Right and Petticoat Junction.

R.J. Reynolds took an integrated sponsorship approach with seamless transitions as a primary advertiser on The Flintstones when that cartoon series debuted in 1960. “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should,” especially when Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble would sneak around the cave to light one up while the wives continued doing all of the chores. Camels became synonymous with The Phil Silvers Show.

Reynolds’ Kent cigarettes sponsored The Dick Van Dyke Show. Cast members happily puffed away in one minute skits while Steve McQueen stepped out of character to peddle Viceroys on Wanted: Dead or Alive. Vicks VapoRub, manufactured (until 1985) by Greensboro-based company Richardson-Vicks, was another ubiquitous TV advertiser in the 1960s and ’70s.

In 1952, Greensboro’s Burlington Industries became the first textile manufacturer to advertise on television. By the 1960s and ’70s, its brash, bold, percussive spots became woven into the fabric of nighttime television, punctuating programs like The Waltons and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. When Burlington did its yearly opinion survey in 1975, 70 percent of those sampled recognized the brand from watching television.

So the next time you spy a pair of men’s Greensboro jeans on a Western-themed show like Walker or Outer Range, know that Wrangler is continuing a decades-long tradition of Triad firms influencing the television programs we watch in both large and small ways.

2023 Feature

Poem July 2023

Clay Banks

The creek is old and its banks are steep.

Its flow never stops its work of remaking.

Clay like this wants to keep its form

though scoured by the storm-carried silt,

pitted as by earthbound lightning strikes.

Water is turned by jutting granite,

milky quartz, even soft sandstone,

all of it red with rust going green

as first the ferns unroll their fronds

and vines tease the air with soft thorns

the way childhood returns in old age.

A friend told me how his mother, who

is now constantly looking for her home,

who can’t recognize him or his sister,

was happy to play ball with his toddler,

with his new puppy. She tossed the ball

against the brick patio wall with a spin.

The dog and child ran with confused joy.

Sometimes they fell over each other.

His mother always caught the ball.

She was the only one who seemed to know

exactly where the ball would bounce.

— Paul Jones

Paul Jones is a professor emeritus at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His latest collection of poetry is called Something Wonderful.

Tea Leaf Astrologer

Cancer

(June 21 – July 22)

Your capacity to experience the gamut of human emotions is extraordinary. And yet, while you’re busy making an Olympic sport out of mood swings, those who love you are left floundering. This month, prepare to stick a landing that will dazzle even your most grounded of companions. Use this sober moment to communicate your heart’s desires. Because here’s the gold: Your high lifts up the world.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Try not to pick at the scab.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Step one: Relax your shoulders. Step two: Seriously? Shoulders first.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

May as well enjoy the ride.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Cut yourself some slack.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

The sign couldn’t be more obvious.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

The heart always knows.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

You’re in the clouds again.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

But is it your monkey? Your circus?

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Just because it’s uncomfortable doesn’t mean it isn’t good for you.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Cleanup on aisle life.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

You’ll hear what you want to hear. 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.

2023 Department Tea Leaf Astrologer

omnivorous reader

Omnivorous Reader

Discovering a Dutch Master

A life story ringed with mystery

By Stephen E. Smith

Convincing a friend that a work of art you love is worthy of his or her attention can be disheartening.

You: “See the inner darkness and the outer brightness of the painting, how the sense of circumambient air drifts evenly through the scene?”

Friend: “How much is that thing worth anyway?”

Our unabashed enthusiasm is too often dashed by indifference. Or, worse yet, by that Antiques Roadshow inclination to ignore anything other than a painting’s monetary value.

Given our confusion as to exactly what art is and what it means, it’s little wonder we tend to reject uninvited suggestions as to what we should like or dislike. That’s the challenge facing art critic Laura Cumming in Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death. Since childhood, she has been enamored of A View of Delft, With a Musical Instrument Seller’s Stall, by Dutch artist Carel Fabritius (1622-1654). Now she wants us to love it, too.

Cumming has been the art critic for The Observer and was a senior editor of the New Statesman magazine, both British publications. Her book The Vanishing Velazques was a New York Times bestseller. In her latest offering, she writes with keen insight and obvious affection for the Dutch masters — Rembrandt, Vermeer, Avercamp, Ruisdael, De Hooch, etc. — but the focus of her memoir is on the less celebrated Fabritius, known for having painted The Goldfinch, The Sentry, as well as A View of Delft. Fabritius is considered a minor Dutch master, primarily because so little of his work survives, but Cumming maintains that he’s no less accomplished than Vermeer and Rembrandt, and that he’s deserving of greater recognition. Unfortunately, precious little is known about Fabritius’ life, and it’s assumed that most of his paintings have not survived. We do, however, know about his death.

The “Thunderclap” in Cumming’s title alludes to an explosion near a convent in the city of Delft, where 80,000 pounds of stored gunpowder exploded on Monday, October 12, 1654. The detonation injured a thousand, destroyed hundreds of wooden homes and left a hundred people dead, including Fabritius, his apprentice and the subject of the portrait he was painting at the time. Fortunately, his best-known painting, The Goldfinch, was rescued from the rubble.

Although Fabritius was a student of Rembrandt, he’s seldom mentioned by his contemporaries, and documentation concerning his personal life is sparse. His wife and child died early, and, like most Dutch painters, Fabritius was deeply in debt. His isolation is reflected in The Goldfinch, his lesser-known The Sentry and two brooding self-portraits, which are little enough upon which to base a lengthy aesthetic exposition. “I go round and round this tiny tale,” Cumming writes, “this life circling out from the village of Middenbeemster, ringed with mystery. It is a man’s whole life. Yet I can get no more of him, except perhaps through his art. He is like a suicide who takes his secrets away with him.”

The “memoir” element of Thunderclap focuses on Cumming’s father, James Cumming (1922-1991), a painter of “semi-figurative art.” Cumming admired her father’s artistic dedication, but his inclusion in the narrative seems mildly intrusive when explicating the likes of the Dutch masters. Certainly, his influence is felt in the love Cumming has for art, but the connection to her narrative is tenuous at best.

But Cumming recalls with pleasure the art she discovered growing up in Scotland, and the magnificence of the paintings she observed on a childhood visit to the Netherlands. The bulk of her beautifully written text is devoted to explicating the art produced by those Dutch masters, and the book offers colorful images of the paintings she explicates.

Americans, for all our lack of aesthetic depth, are nonetheless capable of appreciating how art relates to our everyday lives. Grant Wood’s American Gothic, for example, is an immensely popular masterpiece that illustrates through the subtle use of symbolism most of our aspirations and contradictions — the individual vs. collective wisdom, religion, the American Dream, the virtues of hard work, the relationship between the sexes, upward social mobility, etc. — and the subtle social criticism in Childe Hassam’s Washington Arch in Spring is apparent to any careful observer. Ethnocentric tendencies aside, it’s possible to discern much about the cultural history of a foreign country by studying its art. This is where Cumming’s insights are essential.

Her description of De Hooch’s The Courtyard of a House in Delft is representative of her work: “. . . the brickwork lying in its separate courses, the paint exactly imitating mortar; the dusty blue of the weeds and ivy, the clear light of the street; then the wonderful set of rhyming shapes — the scarlet shutter on one side, its wooden counterpart on the other; the oval window in the stonework and its glass twin in the hallway, the recession of arch inside arch inside arch that takes the eye right through the corridor and out in the street of Delft.”

Reading Cumming’s meticulous descriptions opens the reader’s perception of the accompanying paintings. Her precise prose takes readers on an excursion through the Rijksmuseum and the Golden Age of Dutch Art. It’s a tour worth every ounce of effort.

No book, especially a book on art, is for everyone. But Thunderclap comes close. Keep an open mind. And if you’re not interested in art, you can take solace in the fact that the masterpieces Cumming presents are priceless, deserving of a jubilant Antiques Roadshow “Wow!” with the turn of every page.

Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death will be in bookstores in mid-July. If you find it enthralling, you might also enjoy Donna Tartt’s 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Goldfinch. OH

Stephen E. Smith’s latest book, Beguiled by the Frailties of Those Who Precede Us, is available from Kelsay Books, Amazon and The Country Bookshop.

2023 Department Omnivorous Reader

simple life

Simple Life

The Wish Book’s Final Chapter

Saying a fond farewell to Sears’ last remaining North Carolina store

By Jim Dodson

I learned that the last Sears department store in North Carolina — honest-to-goodness brick and mortar store — was closing. Out of simple curiosity, and a dose of nostalgia, I went to pay my respects.

Truthfully, I hadn’t set foot in our local shopping center’s Sears since purchasing a new Craftsman lawnmower there more than five years ago. Happy to report, it’s been a fine mower.

Before that, my last visit to Sears was probably as a kid in the mid-1960s when, fueled by the firm’s famous “Wish Book” Christmas catalog, every kid I knew haunted the toy department at the downtown Sears retail store during the run-up weeks to the holiday. My first bicycle came from Sears, and was later parked outside the store the year my buddy Brad and I innocently drifted from the toy department into the adjacent lingerie department to stare in wonder at the display mannequins in all their undergarmented glory. As she escorted us to the exit doors, the unamused clerk with the pointy-blue eyeglasses refused to believe we were simply looking for presents for our moms.

That iconic downtown store, in any case, is now a giant hole in the ground, awaiting construction of a swanky office building as time, life and commerce march resolutely on.

Let’s pause and have a moment of fond reflection for — as Smithsonian recently described it — “The retail giant that taught America how to shop.”

Sears began modestly in 1887 when a former railway lumber salesman named Richard Sears moved to Chicago to partner with an Indiana watchmaker named Alvah Roebuck to launch a catalog selling jewelry and watches. Both men were still in their 20s. Six years later, they incorporated as Sears, Roebuck and Company, putting out a 500-page catalog that sold everything an American farmer or thrift-conscious housewife could ask for at a “fair price,” shipped directly to the customer.

In a nation where most Americans still resided on farms or in small towns, this marketing model exploded like a prairie fire, fueling the growth of urban factories. Even Henry Ford was said to have studied the Sears marketing model for making and selling his cars. The company’s first stock certificates were sold in 1906. “If you picked up a big enough chunk of stock when the company went public,” writes Investopedia, “you’d never have to work again.”

The first Sears retail store opened in Chicago in 1925. Four years later, on the eve of the Great Depression, the company was operating 300 stores around the country. By the mid-1950s, the number topped 700. By then, the corporation’s reliable Kenmore appliances, lifetime-guaranteed Craftsman tools, DieHard auto batteries and Allstate Insurance were beloved household names in America’s ballooning mass consumer culture. The stores followed the consumer’s migration from Main Street to shopping centers and, eventually, suburban malls.

Perhaps the company’s most enduring product line was introduced in 1908 when a Sears executive named Frank Kushel came up with the idea of kit houses sold through a specialty catalog called “The Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans,” offering 44 styles of mail-order homes ranging in price from $360 to $2,890. Generally shipped by rail, house packages provided everything down to screws and nails, including pre-cut and numbered framing lumber, flooring, doorknobs, wiring and plumbing.

Between 1908 and 1947, an estimated 75,000 Sears kit houses — from Bungalow to English Cottage, Craftsman to Queen Anne — were shipped to Americans. Old House Journal notes that unknown Frank Kushel’s Modern Home Program wielded as much impact on the development of American architecture as famous contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright.

Sears boasted that its houses were built to last, explaining why thousands of them remain highly prized, lovingly restored jewels in older neighborhoods across America, relics of a bygone golden consumer age.

By the 1970s, the firm owned the tallest skyscraper in the world in Chicago, was among the first to introduce home internet services, and jumped into the real estate, credit card and financial services businesses.

Perhaps it was too much for the gods of commerce to tolerate. Critics pointed to the company’s legal affrays over sex and race discrimination and a business model fueled by corporate hubris.

In 1993, just shy of its 100th anniversary, Sears discontinued its famous catalog. Walmart was now the nation’s leading retailer, and Americans were suddenly buying things “online.” One year later, a former hedge fund guru named Jeff Bezos started up an online book service called Amazon, pretty much putting the finishing nail in the coffin of the historic brand. After 75 years on Wall Street, Home Depot took Sears’ place on the Dow Industrials. As the company’s sales steadily spiraled downward, a forced marriage with K-Mart in 2004 failed to stem the hemorrhage.

In January 2017, shortly before I purchased my Craftsman mower, the iconic tool brand was sold off to Stanley Black & Decker.

Less than a year later, in October 2018, Sears filed for bankruptcy.

Last December, the company emerged from bankruptcy but announced the liquidation and closing of all its remaining stores. According to reports, less than a dozen made it to this spring. Only one in North Carolina.

Which is why, out of some strange, old fashioned sense of brand loyalty or happy memories of lawn mowers and provocative lingerie mannequins, I felt a final farewell trip was in order.

Bright yellow “Going Out of Business” banners festooned the building. I wandered through looking at the remaining stock items. Fifty-percent bargains were everywhere. I looked at Kenmore refrigerators, top-line Samsung dishwashers and GE Elite ovens, all half-price.

I decided on a lightweight Craftsman toolbox to remember the place by, a steal at $27.

On my way out, I paused to chat with a clerk, Janice, who has worked for Sears for more than two decades. “It makes me really sad to think that Sears is going away for good,” she said. “Like millions of Americans, everything in my house as a young married woman came from Sears. I guess nothing lasts forever, does it?”

She surprised me with a sudden, feisty grin. “You know, I think if we’d only stuck with catalogs, by golly, we’d have beaten Amazon and still be going strong!”

I loved her company spirit. I wished her well.

Then I went home to mow my lawn.

Whenever the math of this world doesn’t quite add up — when the sad subtractions outnumber the hopeful additions, or vice versa — I find temporary comfort by mowing my lawn. Crazy, I know. But it briefly puts things in perspective.

Besides, my Craftsman mower never lets me down. OH

Jim Dodson can be reached at jwdauthor@gmail.com.

2023 Department Simple Life

The Creators of N.C.

The Art of Life

Perseverance with paint and canvas

By Wiley Cash

Photographs By Mallory Cash

In 2013, painter Tom Ward went to the beach to die. He and his wife, Mary, both natives of Long Island, New York, had been living in Durham for 11 years when he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as ALS, a disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Over time, people with ALS lose control of their muscles, including the muscles used to eat, speak and breathe. Most die of respiratory failure within three to five years.

“I didn’t know how long I was going to live,” Tom says one afternoon in late May while we are sitting in his living room in Wilmington, several of the gorgeous paintings he’s completed over the years hanging on the walls around us. He smiles a wry smile. “And I kept thinking, It’ll be too bad if I croak in Durham.”

“We’re beach people,” he says. “We love the beach. When we were young and dating, even after we were married, we spent a lot of time on the Long Island beaches on the South Shore and the North Shore. So when I got the diagnosis we came out to Wilmington and looked around. And that’s how we got here.”

Only 10 percent of those diagnosed with ALS live beyond a decade, and Tom can be counted among those few. His disease is mercifully slow moving, and some days he feels well enough to take a trip to the beach with Mary’s assistance to paint en plein air; Fort Fisher is a favorite spot. Other days, when his body does not feel like his own, he works from home, taking his motorized wheelchair into his studio, where he moves onto a padded chair positioned in front of his easel. Throughout his battle with ALS, and its attendant and unpredictable ups and downs, painting has been a constant in Tom’s life. So has Mary’s support and advocacy.

In 2016 Mary was named a fellow by the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, whose mission it is to empower and support the military caregivers who care for America’s ill, wounded or injured veterans. A former Marine (Is there really such a thing as a former Marine?), Tom, like other veterans, is two times more likely than a civilian to develop ALS. Mary has spent years advocating for caregivers like herself and for veterans like Tom, even authoring three books on issues from navigating veterans benefits to service dogs to her own’s family’s experiences with war after the couple’s son served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But it’s not in her national efforts that Mary’s support for Tom is most apparent. It is more evident in the small moments of their day-to-day lives: her leaving the conversation to get him a glass of water; her gently correcting his memory or assisting him as he parses the details of one of my questions. And Tom is just as devoted to Mary as she is to him, supporting her through two graduate degrees and careers as diverse as a public school teacher and a hospital administrator. It was the latter position that caused the couple to move from New York to Durham after she accepted a job at Duke Hospital.

But as much as their relationship is based on intangible evidence of love and support, the larger moments still loom in their shared past, perhaps none larger than the moment in 1993, after 13 years of marriage, when Tom contracted encephalitis and, after a lengthy treatment, showed signs of cognitive impairment that affected his executive functions. Suddenly, a man who’d served in the Marines and forged a career in risk management for an insurance company in Manhattan was having trouble parsing step-by-step instructions and remembering simple tasks like picking up their 9-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son from school. Tom’s symptoms forced him to retire from a busy job, and he suddenly found himself seemingly without purpose for the first time in his life.

“When our kids were growing up, I had to appear to them to be industrious in some way,” he says. “That was just my personal rule. I couldn’t sit on the couch and give into the thing and let that thing rule me, let the fatigue rule me.”

A year or so into Tom’s battle with the long-term symptoms of encephalitis, he and Mary found themselves in an art gallery not far from their home in upstate New York. Tom had always appreciated art, but he’ll be the first to admit that he didn’t know much about it.

“I thought all painting was called impressionism,” he says, laughing. “I didn’t know there was something called classical realism or other styles of painting. I thought impressionism meant painting like someone would think all cars are Chevys without knowing about Buicks or Pontiacs or Peugeots.”

Even though Tom didn’t know much about painting, that day in the gallery he couldn’t help but be struck by the work of an artist who signed their paintings “V. Walsh.” Tom approached the gallery owner and learned that V. Walsh was a woman named Virginia. On impulse, Tom expressed an interest in studying under Walsh, and he left his phone number with the gallery owner. Within a few weeks he and Virginia Walsh were setting up their easels side by side, a master and an apprentice with zero experience.

I ask Tom what drew him to Walsh’s work, what it was about her paintings that day in the gallery that caused him to make a decision that would change his life.

“She turned a form,” he says, referring to a painter’s ability to give the illusion of depth on a flat surface. “It was a painting of a plum that had a quarter sliced out, and the slice was laying as a half-moon shape on a tabletop. It was the light striking the flesh of the plum and the color that she put there. And then you could see the interior of the plum where the slice had been removed. Her use of color was just so perfect. It just grabs the eye. That’s what made me say, ‘Wow, that’s it. I want to do that.’”

Walsh agreed to work with Tom, but their time together got off to a rocky start. It was Walsh’s practice to educate by example, and she and Tom would regularly set up their easels and paint en plein air together for hours at a time. She was particular in the way she wanted his paints and materials organized, but to her frustration, Tom seemed unwilling to comply. Walsh ended up calling Mary in frustration to break the news that she couldn’t work with Tom because of his obstinate disposition. When Mary discovered that Tom hadn’t shared his struggles with executive function with his new mentor, she told the teacher that her pupil wasn’t being obstinate; he simply didn’t have the ability to comply without explicit, patient direction. Things went more smoothly after that, and Walsh and Tom continued to work together, painting outdoors through a number of seasons to exhibit for Tom the exquisite yet too often unnoticed changes the natural world undergoes when one truly pays attention.

Both his attention to detail and his deeply felt portrayals of the natural world are evident in Tom’s work almost 30 years after his lessons with Virginia Walsh, though sometimes his ALS makes it difficult for him to render detail as easily as he once could. Take the use of his palette knife when he works with it, rather than a brush, to apply a smooth layer of paint to the canvas.

“I’m just not getting the cut of the knife in a way that portrays what I’m seeing in my mind,” he says. “That’s ALS. The thought in my brain that tells my hand what to do either gets lost completely or is received in a garbled fashion. So my hand’s not really doing what I’m asking it to do.”

But, just as he has throughout his life, whether as a Marine or a businessman or a new painter struggling with organizing his paints and materials, Tom finds a way to adapt. And, as usual, Mary is by his side. No matter what comes next, it will happen to them together. And it will happen by the sea. PS

Wiley Cash is the Alumni Author-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. His new novel, When Ghosts Come Home, is available wherever books are sold.

2023 Department The Creators of N.C.

Chaos Theory

Dog Days

Early morning walks with man’s best hound

By Cassie Bustamante

Except for a blip of time between entering high school and graduating from college, I’ve been a dog owner for most of my life. Even during those teen years, when my parents repeatedly said no to a puppy, I bought myself a fish and named it Dog. You could say I am a dog lover, but there’s one hound who completely stole my heart.

Before we began having kids, Chris and I were happily a one-dog family. We’d gotten Charlie, a beagle who preferred his own company over anyone else’s, early in our relationship. But just a few months after our nuptials, a friend informed me about a litter of “bagles” — basset beagle pups — in need of homes.

“I think Charlie needs a friend,” I tell Chris on the phone, nervously bobbing my knee. What I really mean is that I need a friend.

“He’s perfectly fine as a loner,” he replies. But he knows me better than that. So he asks, “What’s going on, Cassie?”

“Weeeeell, Cyndee told me about these basset beagle puppies that are absolutely adorable and need homes and I just thought — ”

He interrupts, “Are you at the shelter right now? You are, aren’t you?”

“Oh God, no. If I was, I’d be calling to tell you we already have a puppy,” I answer.

He pauses while my foot tap-tap-taps, and then answers. “OK, but this is your dog.”

Two days later, we bring Jake, our white-and-tan bagle, home. He darts through the door, long, velvety-soft ears flapping behind him, and greets Charlie, who sniffs a bit and then promptly ignores him.

But I’m smitten. I feel a connection on a soul level with this pooch as I gaze into his dark brown eyes, which appear to be lined in charcoal. And, as it turns out, we’re kindred spirits when it comes to chow. As I gain a whopping 40 pounds the next year while growing the first Bustamante baby, so does Jake. (In our defense, we thought bassets were just “big-boned” canines.)

At his next check-up, the vet, shocked by his 75-pound weight, puts him on a diet. Knowing how much he loves to eat, I decide to implement a more rigorous exercise routine and cut back his food a little less than recommended.

And so begins our love affair with long, early-morning walks together. Through the marshlands of Louisiana, by the rivers near Annapolis, Maryland, and up-and-down countryside hills of western Maryland, we walk. For 13 years, we walk, adding two more dogs — Catcher and Snowball — to our little crew.

We walk until arthritis takes over Jake’s spine and he can no longer join me and the other two pups, until the vet tells me that I need to let him go. “He loves you so much that he will stay with you, in pain, as long as you allow it,” she tells me.

On his last day by my side, I walk him to the bus stop to retrieve the kids. We take it as slowly and as cautiously as we need to, taking breaks every now and then. But we need one last walk together, no matter how short.

Back at home, we all stroke his ears, nuzzle his pitch-black nose and tell him how loved he is. And we say good-bye. Almost two years later, I say good-bye again as we prepare to leave the house where Jake and Charlie are both buried in the backyard, for the greener pastures of North Carolina.

These days, I still walk with my dogs in the quiet stillness of the morning and, while I miss Jake, his spirit is never far. In fact, many mornings, Catcher will incessantly turn around as if he senses someone behind us. When I look, no one’s there. But if I listen carefully on windy mornings, I can hear the breeze flapping Jake’s ears. OH

Cassie Bustamante is editor of O.Henry magazine.

2023 Chaos Theory Department

Beyond the Back Door

Three backyard buildings allow room for growth, sanctuary and entertainment

By Cassie Bustamante • Photographs by Amy Freeman

With a little out-of-the-box thinking, a backyard building can become so much more than a place to park your lawnmower. A dilapidated storage structure can open doors to mixing work and play. Take it from these three home and business owners, who unearthed the hidden potential in their own backyards. One turned a shanty of a shed into an employee haven. Another repurposed windows to form a whimsical greenhouse. The third transformed a single-car garage into a hidden guest retreat.

The Shed

In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, Dudley Moore Jr. would meet up with a few buddies on the back deck of his High Point office building for a few beers and a little escape from stay-at-home-life. Moore, who is president and co-owner of Otto & Moore Furniture Design with sister Carolyn Shaw, recalls his pal Lin Amos saying, “You know, that’s a cool building. You ought to do something with that.”

The building in question, now lovingly known as “The Shed,” was an old garage that Moore guesses to be almost 100 years old. Visible from their vantage point on the deck, it looked like it was on its last legs and was serving as a home to snakes and spiders. It’s been a fixture on the Otto & Moore property since the day the company, founded in 1960 by Shaw and Moore’s father, Dudley Moore, set up its office there. “We’ve been here since 1970 and it was already old and decrepit then,” says Moore.

Aside from critters, the shabby structure stored old chair samples and engineered drawings in tubes. “It just sorta became a catch-all for junk,” says Shaw. “It was a disaster!”

But, with a nudge from Amos, the wheels started turning.

“It just got my imagination going,” says Moore, who planned to turn it into functional storage. A furniture designer by trade, he notes that “it had a certain beautiful symmetry to it.”

Moore and Shaw enlisted the help of Scott Dunbar, vice president of Dunbar & Smith general contractors and, “very fortunately,” husband of their office manager, Lora. Once the project started, Moore nixed the original plan. “It’s too cool for that,” he says. “So then we decided to make it a party shed.”

The exterior was first to be transformed and now resembles a modern Scandinavian cottage. The original metal roof was patched, and the once chippy siding was sandblasted and repainted in a dark, almost-black brown. Because they wanted to maintain its garage-style charm, a new slate-blue, sliding barn door was added, concealing a pair of glass paneled doors, which function to keep the critters out.

Thanks to the creative collaboration between Moore and Otto & Moore designer Laura Niece, the once ramshackle interior reflects the exterior aesthetic, complete with a Dutch door and a fireplace shipped from Denmark. A pair of timeworn leather chairs from the Netherlands, found at Antiques & Design Center of High Point during Market, invite one to cozy up, fireside.

With a built-in bar area and a record player with speakers inside and out, The Shed is now host to a wide range of events, from board meetings to employee baby showers. “We use it for business purposes as well as fun,” says Shaw, whose own son spent lunch breaks watching Stranger Things there during last year’s summer internship with Otto & Moore.

Are they worried about too much merrymaking on the job? “Honestly,” says Moore, “we like to think — with creative people in particular — if you can make the job fun as well as work, then it actually helps breed creativity and productivity.” So, is Otto & Moore hiring? Sadly, no, but you can add “party shed” to your list of employer must-haves.

Greenhouse Affection

When Jamie and John Hizer, plus their five kids, moved into their Westridge Heights home in March of 2020, the backyard was an overgrown tangle. Yet, underneath a mess of English ivy, Jamie could see its hidden potential.

The Hizers enlisted a crew to bulldoze the backyard, leaving them with a “blank landscape.” After tossing around different ideas for their open space, Jamie stumbled upon a beautiful greenhouse kit from an online retailer. “I fell in love with it,” she recalls, though she didn’t love the $10,000 price tag.

But the greenhouse seed had been planted, and Jamie, after researching, became convinced that they could create something special using old windows, a little elbow grease and out-of-the-box thinking. She saw it clearly in her mind, operating to extend their growing season and as an entrepreneurial endeavor, a space for small events and photo opps. John, a safety consultant for an insurance company, thought, “You’ve lost your mind!”

Ever determined, Jamie began collecting windows from several sources — never paying more than $5 dollars a pop — then scraping, sanding, glazing and refinishing each. John? “He would just shake his head and help me stack the windows,” says Jamie.

When it came time to build, the Hizers laid windows out on the ground to work out a configuration. Over a two-month period of project weekends, the four walls went up, one by one, followed by the trusses and, finally, the plexiglass roof.

In April of 2021, “we put the last nail in and I burst into tears,” recalls Jamie. Just one month later, Pinetop Greenhouse opened its sunny yellow doors for its first event, Mother’s Day mini photo sessions amidst seedlings sprouting all around them.

Now, a once neglected yard thrives, the upcycled greenhouse its pièce de résistance. Though not heated or cooled, the glass enclosure allows Jamie to start her seeds in early spring and protect plants from frosts. Just outside, garden beds lush with vegetables, herbs and flowers flourish, interwoven with gravel and stone paths.

Pinetop Greenhouse provides fruits of the labor that can’t be seen to the naked eye, too, and connects Jamie, who grew up on a small farm, to her own roots.

A full-time nurse by trade, she finds much-needed sanctuary in her own backyard. While navigating her professional role during the pandemic, she also faced personal challenges. “My mom almost died of COVID — two weeks in the ICU,” she recalls. Working in the greenhouse and garden offered Jamie a chance to “take back some form of control” in a world that felt like it was spiraling.

“Good days, bad days, stressful days,” says Jamie, “I just come get in the dirt and it works itself out.”

These days, she often calls her mom for gardening advice and hopes that the cycle continues with her own kids seeking her help one day.

For now, the greenhouse nurtures Jamie’s creative spirit. She loves “the thrill of the hunt” and shops local thrift stores, often scooping up vintage finds that inspire a complete overhaul of the interior design.

She points to a floral painting paired with a gold gesso-framed mirror. Those two pieces snowballed into a day spent flipping the entire aesthetic. “For $20 bucks,” says Jamie,”I was feeling inspired here.”

What’s next for this greenhouse that, according to Jamie, “constantly evolves?” She’s currently dreaming of adding a butterfly house. “I’ve kind of slipped that into conversation and gotten the side eye [from John],” she says. But, the seed has been planted and, no doubt, her new dream will take flight soon.

For more information, visit pinetopgreenhouse.com.

Ohana Cabana

Nestled into the corner of Kimberly Paisley’s backyard, among blooming rhododendron, twittering birds and lush landscaping, a peaceful retreat awaits. Six years ago, on the day Paisley first toured the Old Starmount Forest abode and spied its detached garage, a vision began forming in her mind.

The previous owners had already been using the building as extra living space, having furnished it with a bed and a small sofa. “When I looked at the house to begin with, the guy showed me around — the husband — and the wife was sitting in there on her computer, so that immediately gave me an idea,” says Paisley.

No stranger to renovation, Paisley has purchased and remodeled several homes in her time. (She’s currently turning a 130-year-old home into a duplex that “is going to be absolutely breathtaking.”) In early 2021, finally ready for her budding idea to come to life in her own backyard, she drew a rough sketch in a notepad.

Needing the motivation to get started, Paisley purchased a vintage-style, cherry-red refrigerator for what would become her retreat’s kitchen. “I bought it first thing and worked the whole [design] around it,” she says. “It was the incentive I needed to go.”

But there was one major hurdle to overcome before work could begin. While the former garage had been outfitted with electricity and heat, it was missing one vital ingredient that would make it completely livable: water.

Of course, installing new plumbing meant tearing out much of the existing concrete, which Paisley, as someone who works as her own contractor, hauled to the dump herself in 90-degree weather. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack — I mean, just sweating. You know, I’m the only woman out there. The men are like, ‘Let us help you,’” she says and laughs. “I was like, ‘I’m not gonna turn that down.’”

After the plumbing was installed and the new concrete poured, “it went fairly smoothly.” The last room to be finished — her favorite — was the small-scale Ikea-inspired kitchen. And to counterbalance Ikea’s “simplicity, functionality and beauty,” the kitchen’s pièce de résistance was, yes, her newly purchased, bright red retro refrigerator.

With the interior work just about complete, the retreat opened its doors to its first guest, a girlfriend who was moving back to the continental U.S. from Hawaii. “She stayed probably six months until she found her own place, but it was the perfect little space for her.” And did they meet on the backyard deck for drinks during that period? “Every day!”

It was a gift, a wooden sign, from that friend that would inspire the exterior palette of pale yellow siding, green shutters and purple doors, as well as the cottage’s name, Ohana. “Ohana means friendship in Hawaii,” says Paisley, pointing to the sign hanging on the facade as a greeting.

Airbnb? “As you’ve seen on NextDoor, people are really not wanting that,” she replies. She’s considering opening it up to just people in the neighborhood who have visitors coming in: “golfers who need a place to stay,” for instance. “I would love to offer it for that. But otherwise, no.”

For now, the aptly named former garage remains a peaceful respite for friends. “It’s just so pleasant! It’s quiet — it’s like you’re in a whole different place, but you’re not,” muses Paisley. “You’re just in the backyard.” OH

2023 Feature

Birdwatch

Rare and Mysterious

On the lookout for the unusual white hummingbird

By Susan Campbell

If you happen to look out the window and see a flash of white at your hummingbird feeder or flowers, you may not be seeing things. Late summer is when I receive at least a report or two from hosts who have glimpsed a rare pale-colored hummingbird. Given the number of people who feed hummers here in North Carolina, birds in unusual plumage tend to get noticed. And given the network of bird enthusiasts I am familiar with, reports of unusual hummingbirds find their way to my phone or computer pretty quickly.

White hummingbirds include both leucistic (pale individuals) as well as true albinos (completely lacking pigment). Gray or tan hummers are more likely than full albinos. Light-colored individuals have normal, dark-colored soft parts such as dark eyes, feet and bills. Albinos, on the other hand, are very rare. These snow-white birds that sport pink eyes, feet and bills have been documented fewer than 10 times in our state. Only three have been banded and studied closely here to date.

It is not unusual for people to think they are seeing a moth rather than a hummingbird when they encounter a white individual. They do not realize that these beautiful creatures are possible. As much as we now know that they do exist, we know very little about white hummingbirds. Opportunities to study these unique individuals are few and far between. What we do know is that they tend to appear in July or August as young of the year and do not survive into their second year. White feathers are very brittle and likely cannot withstand the stresses of rapid wing beats and long-distance migration. Another curious characteristic is that all of these eye-catching birds have been female. So it is likely that, for whatever reason, this trait is genetically sex-linked.

The first white hummer that I managed to band was a creamy bird in Taylortown a number of years ago. She was an aggressive individual that roamed the neighborhood terrorizing the other ruby-throateds. The first true albino I documented was in Apex in Wake County, and that individual was even more aggressive; chasing all of the other birds that made the mistake of entering her airspace. For me to have a chance to study a white hummer, I must get word of it quickly before the bird heads out on fall migration. I have missed more than one by less than 24 hours.

The last white hummer I had the privilege to examine close up was an albino a decade ago in Washington, N.C. A mostly white hummingbird gave me the slip in Charlotte four years ago. So, I am way overdue to band yet another. Who knows who I might encounter this season? Each one is so unique. I simply hope to at least hear about another of these tiny marvels before all of the hummingbirds in the central part of our state have headed south. OH

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

2023 Birdwatch Department

Sazerac July 2023

Stay Cool List

The Dog Days of summer are upon us, but don’t sweat it. We’ve got some ideas to help you keep your chill.

Enjoy breakfast al fresco before the temperature peaks. Our choice: driveway-fried eggs with hot sauce. Those little black specks? Seasoning.
Looking for some old school fun? Forget rollerblades. It’s all about fan blades this year. Sit in front of an old-fashioned floor fan and talk directly into it and listen to the magic happen. Even AI sounds more human than you!
Go skinny-dipping. Don’t have a pool? Your neighbors won’t mind, especially if they’re not home.
Tackle that summer reading list. We suggest something hot and steamy. You know, just like the weather.
Finally, email that friend from middle school who signed your yearbook with “Stay cool” to let them know you did, in fact, do just that.

Sage Gardener

Walk past my friend Evan’s house, where the lawns are all but manicured, and you’ll likely do a double take. Beneath the dappled shadows of majestic oaks, his yard is decidedly unkempt, almost wild, but with something clearly intentional going on. Over there, punctuating what most people see as weeds — including joe pye weed, a rainbow of other wildflowers and dandelions — an endangered Schweinitz’s sunflower (purchased, not plucked) is thriving. And, look, there’s a plum tree — and figs ripe for picking nearby, flanked by blueberries, blackberries and elderberries. My friend’s a permaculturist, going on his sixth year of transforming his yard into something akin to a small botanical garden. Like more than 3 million people in 140 countries, Evan is managing his land in a supportable, nondestructive manner, in order (according to him and the Encyclopedia Britannica) to mimic patterns found in surrounding natural ecosystems while reducing waste, preventing pollution, protecting wildlife and improving the land’s biodiversity. “If something doesn’t flourish, maybe it’s telling me it doesn’t want to grow under the conditions in my yard,” he tells me. Among his nonstarters are miner’s lettuce, pine nut seeds, ramps, borage and garlic from seeds. “I’m trying to figure out what this natural system wants to do that can also benefit us, without changing the way that the system works.” Although it may look like it’s a no-sweat proposition, Evan has toted — quite literally — tons of mulch to create meandering pathways around his yard. Building berms from fallen logs and plant debris, he’s created “hugelkultur” mounds, the organic equivalent of raised beds. He spends hours in his vegetable garden, but, if something languishes, he just plucks it up and replaces it with something that flourishes. “Permaculture can take the fear of failure and shame out of gardening,” he says. “Experiment and learn. Make sure it’s fun. And remember, nature is messy.” Which sounds to me like a pretty good maxim for navigating the rest of the world. — David Claude Bailey

Window to the Past

Surrounded by washtubs brimming over with boiled eggs, this crew of five Cone Mills workers preparing for the 1915 annual Fourth of July company picnic might just be wondering whether attendees really want that much egg salad. May we suggest an epic game of egg toss?

Just One Thing

The Yawning Grave, by Gadisse Lee. 2018. Archival Inkjet Print. 15 × 15 in.

“I was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,” writes Gadisse Lee, who got her B.F.A. from UNCG in 2022. “At 6 years old, I lost my birth mother and brother, and one year later my father died of tuberculosis. My sister and I were sent to an orphanage, and eventually adopted and flown to North Carolina. Through my photographs, I grapple with ideas of loss, isolation, displacement, loneliness and survival.” Lee’s photos will be featured at GreenHill beginning July 22 in Living in the Ordinary World, a retrospective covering the work of photographer John Rosenthal over the last 40 years. Lee’s photos are among those of 10 photographers whose work Rosenthal, a Chapel Hill-based photographer and essayist, chose to have showcased along with his own work. Rosenthal’s photos will include early black-and-white images of New York City, his renowned series on Hurricane Katrina and more recent color photographs of coastal landscapes. Of Lee’s work, GreenHill Curator Edie Carpenter says simply, “Gadisse Lee is an incredibly talented young photographer,” but her work speaks for itself. Info: greenhillnc.org

2023 Department Sazerac