Citizen Jim’s Latest Hurrah

Citizen Jim’s Latest Hurrah

With the announcement of the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite, a legendary mayor cements his legacy

By Jim Dodson  •  Photograph by Mark Wagoner

On a sunny afternoon late last year, former Greensboro mayor and longtime president and chief executive officer of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, Jim Melvin, took three old friends for a leisurely drive in the country. His purpose was to show them the 1,800-acre Greensboro-Randolph Megasite off U.S. Highway 421 south of the city, which Melvin and a group of private and public partners hoped would soon become the home to a major transportation-related manufacturing facility.

“I think we finally got it right,” declared the genial former mayor many Triad residents affectionately think of as “Mr. Greensboro” owing to his many years of dynamic civic activism and an unrivaled record of accomplishments over the past half century. “Can’t tell you fellas what’s coming,” he teased with his fellow travelers, “but when this thing is finally announced, which may be very soon, it’s gonna be one of the most exciting things to ever happen to this region, a true game changer — improving lives like you can’t imagine.”

Melvin took a breath and added, “Lemme tell you, it took a lot of faith and unbelievable hard work by a number of folks who never gave up trying to make this thing happen. That’s the real story.”

Seated in the back seat of Melvin’s SUV, a retired textile executive and lifelong friend of Melvin’s named Jimmy Jones couldn’t help smiling, recognizing a well-worn phrase that could be a working motto for his old friend’s dynamic public career.

Some years after Greensboro’s most accomplished public figure in decades left public office and became just Citizen Jim in 1981, the story goes, he was invited by the trustees of Greensboro College to give the school’s annual commencement address.

“When it came time for him to speak,” Jones remembers, “Jim simply walked up to the lectern, looked out at the graduates and declared, ‘I think it’s best to quote the late Winston Churchill. Never give up! Never, never give up!’ And with that, he wished them all good luck and sat down. The crowd loved it. In fact, they gave him a standing ovation. It was vintage Jim Melvin and said everything you need to know about the man.”

Indeed, true to his word, in early December, a few weeks after he took his pals for a spin in the country, Citizen Jim and a host of key stakeholders unveiled a transformative $1.29 billion deal with Toyota North America to build a new-generation lithium battery manufacturing plant for electric and hybrid automobiles at the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite, projecting employment of at least 1,700 workers by the time it opens in 2025.

In a sense, Melvin’s tireless 10-year quest to bring a major manufacturing facility back to the Triad after decades in which major textile, furniture and other related manufacturing industries fled the region might seem like simple vindication and the perfect coda for a fellow who once invoked the stark words of Winston Churchill at war to inspire Greensboro College graduates. Given his formidable vita over four decades, it’s also tempting to wonder if the triumph of the megasite might be a fitting last hurrah that defines his legacy.

A quick review of Citizen Jim’s remarkable public life and notable civic accomplishments illustrates the point.

Edwin Samuel Melvin, named for both his Greensboro grandfathers and known as “Jim,” grew up on Asheboro Street — today Martin Luther King Boulevard — absorbing the value of long days and hard work from his father, Joe, who owned a popular Texaco filling station. “He was the hardest-working man I ever saw, quite honestly, sunrise to way past sunset every day of the week. He and my mother were also firm believers in the importance of giving back in whatever way you could to help others. That idea stuck with me early.”

After earning a degree in business from UNC Chapel Hill, followed by a stint in the army, Melvin was at home pumping gas on Asheboro Street for his father one afternoon when the president of a local bank — one of his daddy’s customers — was impressed by young Jim’s can-do attitude and invited him to enroll in the bank’s teller training program.

The work with people suited his personality, even more so when his boss suggested he join the Greensboro Jaycees, an organization full of young go-getters and future movers and shakers, heavily involved in civic activity. Jim signed up in 1961, not long after a guy named Arnold Palmer began setting the golf world on fire. “It was one of the smartest things I ever did. The Jaycees were a fantastic group of people and the GGO [Greater Greensboro Open, forerunner of today’s Wyndham Championship] was just entering its golden years.” Two years after joining, Melvin became the tournament’s charismatic chair, helping to raise more than $1 million that attracted the interests of CBS, which nationally televised the tournament for the first time — and continues to this day.

One year later, Melvin became president of the Jaycee chapter, which under his watch was named “Best Jaycees Club in the World.”

In 1968, he entered politics by serving as campaign manager for Rich Preyer’s successful congressional race. A year later, he ran unsuccessfully for the city council and was chosen by the council to serve as mayor pro tem in 1971. From there, he went on to five consecutive terms as Greensboro’s first publicly elected mayor. During his tenure, Melvin supported expansion of the Greensboro Coliseum, construction of a new municipal office building downtown, creation of the city’s most modern sewage treatment plant and the building of Bryan Park. He also played a pivotal role in the development of the Randleman Reservoir.

Melvin left politics in 1981 to focus on his banking career and philanthropic interests, retiring from banking in 1997 to accept the post of CEO and president of the Joseph Bryan Foundation at the personal urging of the aging Joe Bryan, who recognized both Citizen Jim’s innate passion for the Gate City and his knack for getting big things done.

Among other things, under Melvin’s guidance, the foundation raised $15 million to bring Elon Law School to the heart of downtown, orchestrated major improvements to the coliseum, helped create Center City Park and build the ballpark where the Greensboro Grasshoppers play. He also helped create Action Greensboro, a nonprofit that serves as a catalyst for public-private development to serve city residents.

A decade ago, in the wake of a 30-year mass exodus of major textile, furniture and cigarette corporations, Melvin took on what would arguably became his most ambitious and challenging project of all — a campaign to bring major manufacturing back to the Triad.

“We lost more than 90,000 good-paying jobs when those vital industries left the region,” he pointed out when we caught up to him at his office, a few days after the megasite deal was announced. “Charlotte became a booming banking capital, and Raleigh thrived as center of high technology. But here in Greensboro and the Triad, we were always a manufacturing culture going back to the days when John Motley Morehead had the foresight to create the North Carolina Railroad through this part of the state that attracted people like the Cone brothers to Greensboro, setting off a manufacturing boom that lasted for a century. We needed to somehow get that back.”

The idea of a shared manufacturing megasite, he says, originated a decade ago when Stan Kelly and Mike Fox of the Piedmont Triad Partnership hired a top engineering firm to find a suitable location. They identified a 1,800-acre rural parcel off U.S. 421 between the town of Liberty and the Julian community.

A unique partnership between Randolph County, the Bryan Foundation, the City of Greensboro and Piedmont Triad Partnership got the program off the ground, including Realtor Sam Simpson and real-estate lawyer David Joseph, whose task it was to convince more than 100 individual landowners to sell their property in the interest of the project. “That was no simple job,” Melvin says. “They sat on a lot of couches and just listened to folks. They joked that they each put on at least 10 pounds.”

The team “made generous offers to buy or replace the land,” Simpson says. “But for most of these people, this wasn’t about the money. This was about, in some cases, land their families had lived on for generations. This was about their roots in a community.” He continues, “They had to believe this project was going to make a difference in their lives — and everyone around them — before they agreed. That took patience and absolute transparency, which Jim Melvin insisted on.”

A major boost came two years into the process when the North Carolina Railroad expressed interest in joining the massive development project, granting the site unrivaled transportation access for a potential manufacturing client from a pair of interstate highways (and a third in planning stages) and a railroad line directly adjoining the site.

The final piece of property was acquired in 2017, and Toyota identified the megasite as a leading candidate for its new North American auto production plant. At the 11th hour, however, the deal collapsed when the company opted to move to Alabama instead.

Among other things, a unique working group that included the City of Greensboro, Randolph and Guilford counties, the North Carolina Railroad, Piedmont Natural Gas, Duke Energy and a key environmental engineering firm managed to collaborate on an even more compelling turnkey site that would have everything a major manufacturer need to be simply “move in and get to work.” This goal was achieved when the Greensboro City Council agreed to extend water and sewer to the site.

“The working group was the final piece of the puzzle, and Jim Melvin’s visionary approach to things was so important,” notes Brent Christensen, CEO of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce. “It brought everyone together to share ideas and get things done. That’s the Melvin way.”

“None of this happens without Jim,” echoes Randolph County Commissioner Darrell Frye, who has known and worked with Melvin for years. “He knew how to get the right people together and make it happen. He’s a visionary who never gives up. I think the positive multiplier effect of this is going to prove unlimited in the future. It worked out even better than we hoped.”

Which brings us back to Citizen Jim’s novel commencement address to the graduating class at Greensboro College, an admiring mention of which reportedly found its way into commentary in The New York Times. The man clearly practices what he preaches.

“But did it really happen the way your friends like to tell the story?” We put that question to him at his Bryan Foundation offices a few days after Toyota made its groundbreaking announcement.

“Believe it or not,” he confirmed with a hearty laugh, “it did happen like that. But you’ve got to realize the circumstances. It was cold and starting to rain. The last all those parents sitting there wanted was to hear some long-winded politician give a speech. So, I just gave them my favorite quote by Winston Churchill. They seemed to really appreciate that.”

Finally, we wondered if this latest accomplishment might be a fitting last hurrah for the indefatigable Melvin, who turned a youthful 88 on Christmas Eve.

The man who never, never gives up, just smiled.

“How about we just say the latest hurrah,” he suggested.  OH

 

Short Stories

Lovin’ Some Lyle

Singer-songwriter-actor Lyle Lovett brings his witty lyrics and distinctive spin on country music to the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, March 8 at 7:30 p.m. Accompanied by an acoustic band, the four-time Grammy-Award winner hit the road at the beginning of March — the first time in two years. The show will feature acoustic arrangements of Lovett standards, as well as a preview of songs from his upcoming album, scheduled for release in May. The smaller ensemble and Lovett’s informal, conversational onstage style will provide the audience with an up-close, “living-room” listening experience. Rumor has it that the Texan lives near Houston in a house built by his grandfather in 1911. Explains a bit about the diversity of his music. Info: TangerCenter.com

Fun and Names

The Greensboro Children’s Museum is upping its game for kids of all ages. In January, it received its largest donation in its 23-year history. The $1.25 million donation from Frank and Nancy Brenner will be used to advance the museum’s mission to inspire hands-on learning through play, as well as fund building repairs and upgrades to more than 20 indoor and outdoor exhibits. The gift officially launched the museum’s capital campaign, “Building for Tomorrow,” to raise $2 million for infrastructure improvements to the facility. In honor of the gift and recognition of the museum’s expanded presence throughout North Carolina and Virginia, in July the museum will be renamed the Miriam P. Brenner Children’s Museum. Miriam Brenner is the late mother of Frank Brenner. Info: GCMuseum.com

As Seen in O.Hey

Don’t throw away your shot to hear a phenomenal entertainer speak and perform as part of UNCG’s Concert & Lecture Series. Daveed Diggs is an actor, rapper, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and producer known for his work in Hamilton, Black-ish, Snowpiercer and Disney’s forthcoming The Little Mermaid — we hear he’s a little crabby about that. Catch Diggs at 8 p.m. on March 5. Info: VPA.UNCG.edu/ucls-2; to subscribe to O.Hey, visit oheygreensboro.com

A Fairy Tale Come True

Cinderella — the time-honored, beloved story of a dreamer — shunned by her step-monsters and saved by a fairy godmother, glass slippers, industrious mice and a charming prince — comes to life at the Carolina Theatre, 5 p.m., Saturday, March 26 and, 3 p.m., Sunday, March 27. The classical ballet version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale brings drama, romance and humor to the stage — not to mention outstanding performances by the Greensboro Ballet. Set to the music of Sergei Prokofiev, the ballet will remind you that dreams can come true. And sometimes losing a shoe isn’t a bad thing. Young Cinderellas in training can dress in their favorite princess costume and enjoy a tea party with Cinderella and her friends. Included will be a goody bag and a princess craft project. Meet many of the characters from the ballet and, of course, the Cinderella herself will pose for photos and give autographs. Definitely a sugary sweet event for sugary sweet sweeties. Info: CarolinaTheatre.com/Events

Dynamic Duo

While we’re on the subject of 24-carat entertainment, chanteuse extraordinaire Jessica Mashburn, along with world-renowned singer/songwriter /devoted husband (because why wouldn’t you be?!?) Evan Olson, are once again performing as AM rOdeO. They will bring their merry melodies to Grandover Resort’s 1808 Lobby Bar from 7–10 p.m. on Friday, March 11. Two of the most talented performers you’ve ever heard of, AM rOdeO reminds O.Henry’s me of big city lounge entertainment. Practically a lost art, Jessica and Evan bring with them a wide repertoire of tunes from The American Songbook classics to the present. Evan Olson’s musical compositions recently have been featured on network shows such as The Young and the Restless, America’s Funniest Home Videos and Dexter: New Blood on Showtime. This promises to be a sophisticated, enormously entertaining kick-off to your weekend. Info: GrandoverResort.com — Billy Eye

Ogi Sez

by Ogi Overman

Let’s pause for a moment and reflect on the past two years — how we handled the horrors, the isolation, the fear of the unknown, the suffering that began not one but two Marches ago. Many of us were on the brink of losing all hope, and, maybe, some of us did. But then came that sliver of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel, and now we hope that we will find ourselves at the dawn of a new day, a new season, a new and vastly different March.

Let the music play.

• March 19, Greensboro Coliseum: Women’s basketball takes center stage at the Coliseum this month, but nestled between the ACC tourney and the Regionals, the Avett Brothers managed to sneak in their rescheduled New Year’s Eve show. They promised they’d be back and they didn’t disappoint. But then, they never do.

• March 25, High Point Theatre: The mid-’90s were marked by a resurgence of swing music, led on the East Coast by the Squirrel Nut Zippers and the West Coast by Big Voodoo Daddy. But the phenomenon also was going on in Great Britain, with the Jive Aces leading the charge. They’re bringing their “Jump, Jive & Wail” tour stateside this spring, and I think I’ll Zoot up and flip, flop & fly over to High Point.

• March 26, Ramkat: It seems almost cliché to call Donna the Buffalo a cult band. Granted, a quarter century ago they amassed an immediate cult following that has only multiplied today. But by taking a leap of faith and forming the Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival down the road in Pittsboro, they took on an aura all their own. So, if you can’t wait until May to see them, head over to Winston.

• April 1, Ziggy’s: I know, I know, I’m breaking the rules by hyping a date in April, but, as Barney said when the gold truck came through Mayberry, “Ange, this is big. This is big — big!” Indeed it is. When a legendary music venue reopens in a new town and is again run by a venerated impresario, Jay Stephens, it deserves a month’s notice. Ever-popular newgrass act Acoustic Syndicate hosts the grand opening. And it promises to be grand.

Almanac

March

By Ashley Walshe

March is an age-old prophecy: a great thaw followed by a riot of life and color.

Some said it would start with a single daffodil. A field of crocus. The soft warble of a bluebird.

All the signs are here. And in the bare-branched trees, where wild tangles of dead leaves resemble papier-mâché globes, newborn squirrels wriggle in their dreys, eyes closed.

Weeks ago, winter felt eternal. The cold air stung your face and fingers. The world was bleak and colorless.

Now, the red maple is blooming. Saucer magnolia, too. You build the last fire, sweep the hearth, return to the garden and its wet, fragrant earth.

Frost glistens in the morning light, but you know it’s true — that spring is coming. You know because the birds know. They cannot help but blurt it out.

Beyond the flowering quince, a woodpecker drums on a towering pine.

A towhee gushes drink-your-tea.

A robin whistles cheerily, cheer up, cheer up, cheerily, cheer up.

Soon, spring peepers and chorus frogs will join the band. The first bee will drink from the first hyacinth flower. A young squirrel will open its eyes.

Sunlight kisses wild violets, purple dead nettle, tender young grasses. Everywhere you look, you notice a new warmth, a new softness, the gentle pulse of life. By some miracle, spring has arrived. A sweet mystery born from the icy womb of winter.

In March winter is holding back and spring is pulling forward. Something holds and something pulls inside of us too.

— Jean Hersey

A Gardener’s Luck

Let’s talk about three-leafed clover (genus Trifolium), a flowering herb in the legume family that just might be what your lawn or garden has been missing. Common as weeds — and often disregarded as such — clover can grow in most any climate, tolerate poor-quality soil and resist most pests and diseases. Here’s the best part: clover can “fix” spent patches of earth by restoring nitrogen levels. In other words, it’s a natural fertilizer and often is used as green manure crop.

Using clover as a ground cover between garden beds will also attract pollinators. Mix some clover with your grasses and your lawn will look greener. An added bonus: It’s impervious to dog urine. Even if you never find a four-leafer, that’s some good garden luck.

Spring Forward

Daylight saving time begins Sunday, March 13. Longer days inspire evening walks, birding, a quiet hour in the garden. Notice what’s flowering: breath-of-spring (winter honeysuckle), brilliant yellow forsythia, lemony scented star magnolia. Notice what needs to be pruned: ahem, the rose bush. Although the vernal equinox occurs Sunday, March 20, spring has been here for weeks, present in each glorious inhalation. Allergy season? Coming soon.

 

O.Henry Ending

André Leon Talley

A sense of self at the rainbow’s end

By Cynthia Adams

A gangly Black kid, left in infancy to be raised by his grandmother, a domestic in Durham, became the “last great fashion editor,” declared The New York Times.

André Leon Talley, who died January 18, wrote: “To my 12-year-old self, raised in the segregated South, the idea of a Black man playing any kind of role in this world seemed an impossibility.”

His eyes “were starving for beauty.” Talley found it in high fashion.

His death at 73 was first announced on Instagram to his 403,000 followers.

Talley, 6′ 6″ in his stocking feet, became a towering figure in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W, Interview, Ebony, HG, Women’s Wear Daily, Vanity Fair and Numéro Russia.

Yet, he remained gracious. My friend, Irene Moore, who worked for W, said, “In spite of his forbidding look, he was a really nice guy.” Maureen Dowd remembers how “He told me about his late grandmother in Durham,” after she wrote about how her mother descended from a line of Irish maids.

Bennie Frances Davis was a stylish and proud grandmother, a lodestar.

Dowd intimated Talley was a hoarder, stuffing his home with crystal, linens, even Truman Capote’s sofa. Like Capote, the legend was “prowling the world in search of glamour and beauty, disdaining ‘dreckitude.’” Dreckitude, Talley explained, “is the lowest point in the lowest ebb.”

Talley’s touchstones remained his Southernness and beloved grandmother. These, Southern writer Julia Reed said, secured their friendship until her death.

In his memoir A.L.T., André Leon Talley wrote: “At the end of the rainbow that has led me to a successful career in the world of fashion . . . I find that the things that are most important to me are not the gossamer and gilt of the world I live in now.” His deep Southern roots furnished “a sense of place, a sense of self.”

Born in 1948, Talley’s sense of self came early. He recalled walking across Duke’s campus, where Davis worked in housekeeping, and being peppered with rocks by students. (He was on his way to read Vogue.)

Talley studied French and literature at N.C. Central University, with graduate studies at Brown University.

He interned in New York for his idol, Diana Vreeland, at the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute. She connected Talley with Andy Warhol, founder of Interview.

Designer Tom Ford kept notes, faxes and emails from Talley, describing them as “works of art.”

Post Vogue, Talley experienced the chilling effect of “Nuclear Wintour,” the staff’s nickname for the brusque and demanding Dame Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue portrayed in The Devil Wears Prada.

Despite all, Talley remained the toast of New York and France, where he had lived and was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Yet he was tugged southward to the Carolinas for frequent honors. Last November, N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper awarded Talley the state’s highest civilian honor, the North Carolina Award (for Literature).

Since 2000, Talley was a trustee at SCAD, The Savannah College of Art and Design. He also was a headliner at Charlotte’s Mint Museum, curating an Oscar de la Renta exhibition in 2018 and chairing the 2019 Coveted Couture Gala. In addition, he was a television personality on America’s Next Top Model and artistic director for Zappos.

He wistfully hoped Wintour would reconcile with him at his deathbed.

On April 19, Louis B. Gates Jr.’s popular ancestry-tracing program, Finding Your Roots, will feature André Leon Talley.

Yet, Talley already knew who he was — a caped crusader, fighting the good fight against dreckitude.  OH

Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor for O.Henry. She can be reached at inklyadams@aol.com.

Simple Life

The Baker’s Assistant

How sweet it is

By Jim Dodson

Not long ago, my wife, Wendy, joined 47 million foot soldiers of the Great Resignation by retiring early from her job as the longtime director of human resources for one of the state’s leading community colleges.

She loved her job at the college. It was fun and fulfilling in almost every way.

But something more was missing — and revealed — when COVID invaded all our lives.

Simply put, it was time to follow her heart and do something she’d envisioned doing even before I met her 25 years ago: to start her own gourmet, custom-baking company called Dessert du Jour.

News late last year that an innovative shared community kitchen for food entrepreneurs (called The City Kitch, based in Charlotte) was opening branches in Greensboro and Raleigh propelled her into action. She signed up for the first private kitchen studio and got to work preparing for her debut at a popular outdoor weekend market just before Christmas, selling out everything she baked in a couple hours. It was a promising start.

I should pause here and explain that Wendy is no novice or newcomer to the luxury baking world. Even while masterfully holding down a demanding career over the past two decades, she made stunning custom wedding cakes, luscious pies, artistic cookies and other baked delicacies for friends and neighbors.

As I say, she was already wowing customers in Syracuse, New York, when we met during one of my book tours in 1998, and she agreed to go on a formal first date that turned out to be, as I fondly think of it, baptism by baby wedding cakes.

To briefly review, on a brisk autumn evening after a seven-hour drive between my house in Maine and her home in Syracuse, I arrived just in time to find Wendy cheerfully boxing up 75 miniature, exquisitely decorated wedding cakes for some demented daughter of a Syracuse corporate raider.

“Oh, good,” she beamed, flushing adorably with a dollop of icing on her button nose, as I appeared. “Want to help me box these up and take them around the neighborhood for me?”

How could I refuse? Her neighbors, it seemed, had offered space in their refrigerators and freezers until the cakes could be delivered to the wedding hall in the morning.

Truthfully, I don’t recall much about being pressed into service as an impromptu delivery man. I just have this vague memory of carefully boxing up dozens of the beautiful little cakes and bearing them all gussied up with elegant ribbons and bows to her lady pals around the cul-du-sac. “Oh,” one actually cooed as she looked me over. “You must be the new boyfriend from Maine. Careful you don’t put on 50 pounds. Wendy’s cakes are awesome.”

I gave her my best Joe Friday impersonation. “Never tasted ’em, ma’am. Just here to help out the baker lady.”

Happy to report, the baby wedding cakes made it safely to the wedding hall the next day without incident. The grateful baker lady even thoughtfully saved one of the gorgeous little cakes for the trip home to Maine.

I’m embarrassed to say I never sampled it. Cake wasn’t my thing, probably because I grew up with a mama who annually made me a birthday cake from a Betty Crocker box mix and store-bought frosting that tasted like chocolate-flavored sawdust with icing. I gave Wendy’s baby wedding cake to my children, who absolutely loved it.

Another issue emerged on my next visit to Syracuse, our critical second date. When I breezed into her kitchen with a bottle of her favorite wine before we went out to dinner, I found her putting the finishing touches on another masterpiece of the baker’s art.

Sitting nearby on her kitchen counter, however, was a beautiful wicker basket full of popcorn, my all-time favorite snack food. As she opened the wine, I grabbed a big handful of what I thought was popcorn.

Her lovely face fell. It turned out to be a groom’s cake that only looked like a wicker basket full of popcorn.

Profusely apologizing, as I licked the evidence of the crime off my greedy fingers, figuring this might be our last date, I had something of a dessert awakening.

“Hey, this is really good. I don’t even like cake. What’s in this?”

To my relief, she laughed. “Only the finest Swiss white-chocolate, sour-cream cake with salted buttercream. But no worries. I can make another one pretty quickly. Let’s just get Chinese takeout for dinner while I work.”

I’d never seen such composure under fire. Right then and there I decided to propose to this remarkable woman and even confessed my sad history with Betty Crocker, wondering if she would do the honor of becoming my wife and someday making me a birthday cake.

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll even make you a Betty Crocker box cake if you want it.”

Talk about a selfless act of love! This was like inviting a Wine Spectator judge to enjoy a lovely bottle of Boone’s Farm’s Strawberry Hill or LeRoy Neiman to do a doodle of a racehorse! She actually made me a box-mix cake, which I took one taste of and dumped in the garbage.

Fortunately, by the time our wedding rolled around two years later, Dame Wendy had schooled me up like a pastry chef’s apprentice, a culinary awakening sealed by my first taste of her incredible old-fashioned caramel cake — which she now makes me every year for my birthday (along with a sour cherry pie). 

Not surprisingly, the spectacular cake she made for our outdoor wedding beneath a gilded September moon disappeared without a trace before I could even get a taste. Our greedy guests left nary a morsel and even took home extra pieces stuffed in their pockets. 

Since that time, a long and steady stream of fabulous specialty cakes, cookies, pies, scones, muffins and the best cinnamon rolls ever made have flowed from her ovens to the tables of friends, family and customers from Maine to Carolina.

Which is why the creation of Dessert du Jour is such a milestone for the love of my life. She’s never been happier, launching her little dream company at a time we’d all like to see in the rearview mirror as soon as possible. In the meantime, she shares her happiness with others, one gorgeous theme cookie or slice of roasted pecan-studded carrot cake at a time.

And for the moment at least, I have the honor and pleasure of still being her sole employee, the one who puts up the tent and tables at the street market and delivers the goods wherever I’m sent around town, a baker’s assistant happily paid in cake tops and leftover cinnamon rolls.

I ask you, does life get any sweeter than that?  OH

For more information, visit thecitykitch.com and dessertdujour.net. 

Jim Dodson is O.Henry’s founding editor and ambassador at large.

Poem

What the Moon Knows

She knows shadow, how to

slip behind clouds. She’s perfected

the art of disappearing. She knows

how to empty herself into the sky,

whisper light into darkness.

She knows the power of silence,

how to keep secrets, even as men

leave footprints in the dust, try to claim her.

Waxing and waning, she summons

the tides. Whole and holy symbol,

she remains perfect truth, tranquility.

Friend and muse, she knows the hearts

of lovers and lunatics. She knows 

she is not the only one that fills the sky,

but the sky is her only home.

— Pat Riviere-Seel

Pat Riviere-Seel is the author of When There Were Horses

Omnivorous Reader

Balancing the Scales

Justice among disparate
peoples in Colonial America

By Stephen E. Smith

Humorist Edgar Wilson “Bill” Nye is credited with saying: “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” Readers of popular history who tough their way through 464 pages of Nicole Eustace’s Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America will likely be left with the notion that what they’ve read is more profound than entertaining.

“Covered with Night” is an Iroquois expression describing the state of grief or mourning inspired, in this instance, by the 1722 murder of a Native American man who lived near Conestoga, Pennsylvania, a small community north of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. Details of the fatal encounter are straightforward and commonplace: English merchants John and Edmund Cartlidge were bargaining with Sawantaeny, a Seneca hunter and fur trader, when an overindulgence in alcohol, probably by all parties concerned, led to a disagreement. Sawantaeny went for his rifle, but John Cartlidge disarmed him and bashed in the Seneca’s skull.

“My friends have killed me,” were Sawantaeny’s last words.

Such incidents, terrible though they may be, are not an uncommon aspect of human interaction, but in the early 1700s, a period in America’s past that is strangely deficient from the history we’ve been taught (we learn about the Lost Colony, Jamestown, Plymouth and mysteriously we jump to the Boston Harbor Tea Party), such a death had far-reaching ramifications for the Native American and Colonial communities. Covered with Night explores the causes and consequences of the Cartlidges’ ill-advised assault on Sawantaeny, while illuminating the fundamental flaws in the relationships that existed between the Native American and Colonial cultures.

Eustace’s complex treatise was made possible by the meticulously documented speeches of a Native man called “Captain Civility,” who reacted to the death of Sawantaeny by attempting to strengthen the tenuous bonds that existed between the competing cultures, and Eustace was able to draw on earlier studies by 20th century ethnographers and on postmodern analyses on social and criminal justice. If all of this sounds complicated, it is.

Investigations of Sawantaeny’s murder by Native American leaders and Colonial officials initiated a debate about the very nature of justice and its cultural context. Colonial authorities were fearful that the murder might bring on a full-scale war, endangering the white population and disrupting trade. The crisis was serious enough that news of it reached the British Board of Trade in England, resulting in a region-wide treaty conference that produced an obscure document signed at Albany in 1722 between members of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee and representatives from the colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It remains the oldest recognized treaty in the history of the United States. Much more than a simple diplomatic instrument, the treaty records a foundational American debate over the nature of justice.

Avoiding conflict with their Indigenous neighbors was the foremost concern of the Colonial authorities, and they held the Cartlidge brothers in irons pending their execution — which is exactly what the Native Americans hoped to avoid. Pennsylvania Gov. William Keith was dismayed to learn that sending the Cartlidges to the gallows was counter to the Native American notion of justice. Native diplomats Satcheechoe and Taquatarensaly asked that the Cartlidges be released from prison and from the threat of execution. They preferred that Keith journey to meet with the leaders of the Five Nations to “cover the dead” by offering reparations and performing mourning rituals that addressed their grief — all of which ran counter to Colonial assumptions about what constitutes civilized retribution.

The Iroquois weren’t “savages,” as characterized by the Colonial authorities. They were possessed of a humanity that tied them to the land and their communities, and they saw the murder as an opportunity to establish stronger and more lasting bonds with their Colonial neighbors. They wanted their collective grief assuaged emotionally and accounted for economically.

“Colonists were so unprepared for Native offers of clemency, a total inversion of their expectations, that they made little deliberate note of the philosophy that informed Native policy,” Eustace writes. “Indigenous ideals entered the record made at Albany almost inadvertently, the by-product of colonial desires to document the land and trade agreements that would further Pennsylvania’s prosperity and security. Still, colonists dutifully wrote down the speeches that Captain Civility and other Native speakers made to them. And in the process, they preserved Indigenous ideas on crime and punishment, violation and reconciliation.” Negotiations were complicated by barriers of language and dialect. Various Native American tongues had to be translated from one Indigenous speaker to another until the words evolved into a concept that could be realized in standard English.

If Eustace’s explication of events is occasionally academic, it’s also thought-provoking, requiring patience and commitment on the part of the reader. Attempts to energize the narrative by using present tense, and a somewhat awkward fictional attribution of motivations to characters whose true emotions are unknowable, only serve to lengthen and diminish the story: “Seated at his table, William Keith warms the bottom of a stick of vermilion sealing wax,” she writes. “He feels the heat but will take care not to burn his fingers. In a quiet room, a dollop of wax makes a soft splotch as it hits paper, round and red as a drop of blood. Keith lets the wax cool a moment from liquid to paste, then presses smartly with his seal to emboss the wax with an intricate pattern of scrolls.”

Eustace also includes detailed descriptions — furniture, dwellings, the travails of daily living, concepts surrounding indentured servitude and slavery — that enhance the reader’s knowledge of an otherwise obscure period in our history. But her primary contribution is the reclamation of alternative concepts of crime, punishment and the mitigation of grief that are no longer components of contemporary life. 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 by Design

Travels With Mom

Art — like beauty and stars — is in the eye of the beholder

By Cynthia Adams

Nobody in our town, nicknamed Hell’s Half Acre, talked or thought about it. They talked about the price of soybeans. We didn’t need to think about art.

Art was unambiguous; what an artist friend calls “accessible.” Artwork matched the sofa and rugs, usually purchased in the same place.

Only Ruth, my mother’s friend, owned actual art. Hell’s Half Acre’s sole sophisticate chose abstracts, not the matadors and tearful clowns that dominated other homes.

For this, Ruth aroused quiet suspicion.

With flair matching her Julie Christie looks, she knitted plum and pink throws when everyone else chose ugly avocado greens, browns and harvest golds that matched their kitchen appliances.

During European summer study with a group of teens and art teachers, I discovered that art actually provoked something. Seeing. Thinking.

Soon after Ruth lost a battle with cancer, my mother struggled with the same. Post-surgery, she chose a trip to a place where she hoped to see stars lolling around crap tables. Mom didn’t dream of seeing great art or cities. She wanted to “do Vegas.”

Steve Tesich quipped in a review of Larry McMurtry’s Desert Rose he hoped the desert would take Las Vegas back. Me, too! Let the sand swallow it — the gaudy flash, splash and obsession with cash.

In Vegas, Mom showed remarkable stamina for a cancer survivor. The first evening, we sat at a one-armed bandit while downing Bloody Marys. Light headed with booze, I jumped as the machine erupted in explosive honks.

“You won! How much?” Mom trilled as it spat quarters into a plastic cup.

“I don’t know,” I shrieked. “Too much to count!”

Black streaked my cheeks from touching the filthy lucre and clapping my hands to my face. It was 40 quarters.

Mom played all night; certain she would spot celebrities. Alas, no.

I did encounter art in Vegas when fate returned me to the wasteland the desert would not take back. Mogul Steve Wynn had opened a museum in the Bellagio Hotel.

The (since closed) Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in the Venetian Resort Hotel was mostly void of tourists, however.

And Mom’s health battles continued. Post heart surgery, Mom was deeply depressed. A geographic cure was needed once more.

When an old debt was suddenly repaid, I offered to go wherever the windfall would afford us. She chose Los Angeles.

Great, I thought gloomily. Mom might glimpse a star.

And there was a splendid new Getty.

Day one in Los Angeles was consumed by Mom’s request for a hairdo and my dread of freeway driving.

Day two, a freshly coiffed Mom could not comprehend my desire to see the Getty. I tried to sell her on its cinematic views of Tinseltown. Soon after arriving, Mom shrugged off the museum. I found her on an outdoor bench staring into space. She waved me off, claiming tiredness.

Yet she magically rebounded when we decamped to Nate ’n Al’s, a Beverly Hills deli once frequented by stars: Doris Day! Tony Curtis! Larry King!

Day three, we refocused on Mom’s idea of a well-spent day. We booked a Gray Line tour, trolling the homes of stars from yesteryear. She loved the guide’s spiel: Hitchcock’s mansion, Lucille Ball’s ranch, Aaron Spelling’s compound.

Steve Martin’s modern home stood apart. Filled with L.A.’s most important private collection, its windows were oriented to protect the art from damaging light. (An embarrassing encounter with Martin years later is a subject for another day.)

We continued star stalking — which had not produced a living celebrity — booking the Dearly Departed tour. Tooling around L.A. in an old hearse, visiting infamous crime scenes, star-soaked stories of overdoses and untimely deaths, we eventually entered the Hollywood Forever cemetery. Within its mausoleum lay Rudolph Valentino and Marilyn Monroe.

Proximity to dead stars was nearly as soul-satisfying for Mom as a brush with a living one. We paid quiet tribute at celebrity gravesites.

A television and film museum had opened near our boutique Beverly Hills hotel, but at the word museum, Mom shuddered.

Instead, we visited Rodeo Drive, where certain retailers employed the Vegas trick of free drinks as a means to lower inhibitions. Giorgio’s on Rodeo, where Mom’s favorite (Elizabeth Taylor!) once shopped, sprinkled fairy dust over us. We sipped champagne and spent money we didn’t have.

Window shopping on Rodeo Drive, Mom exclaimed, was much more thrilling than any museum, her yellow-and-white-striped Giorgio’s bag swinging in time with her excited step.

Weren’t displays of inaccessible, beautiful things also visual art?

Aware at last, I smiled. OH

Cynthia Adams is a contributing editor
to O.Henry.