O.Henry Ending

O.HENRY ENDING

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March 2025

The Donor

Giving of yourself in acts great and small

By Cynthia Adams

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

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

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

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

Bearing witness to suffering has taken a toll.

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

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

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

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

The kidney?    

“My kidney.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She collects herself.

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

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

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

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

Fit for a King

FIT FOR A KING

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March 2025

Fit for a King

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

By Billy Ingram

Photographs by Betsy Blake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Profiles in Courage

PROFILES IN COURAGE

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March 2025

Profiles in Courage

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

By Ross Howell Jr.   •   Photographs By Mark Wagoner

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

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

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

Carol Key

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

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

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

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

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

She pauses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The kids loved it!” Key laughs.

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

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

“That was nice,” Key adds.

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

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

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

Yakima Fox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fox looks me straight in the eye.

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

She was accepted. Then came training.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That moment cemented her confidence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wendy Cheek

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does she hope her firefighters will remember her?

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

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

Jurica Isangedighi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But she can go you one better.

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

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

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

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

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

And on her days off?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poem March 2025

POEM

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March 2025

March 2025

The Opal Ring

When I was thirteen, my grandmother gave me an opal ring.

I like to wear it when I dress up to go out.

It is so delicate most people never notice it.

My grandmother whispered, It’s from some old beau.

I wear the ring, her memory, to feel magical.

Three small iridescent stones, a gold band worn thin.

Only when I asked did she whisper her secret.

Did you ever look deeply at the displays of color,

opaque stones holding quiet fire? The band’s worn thin.

The last time you betrayed me I slipped on the ring.

Iridescent means plays of color. So few truly look deeply.

She called me to her room, opened a sacred drawer.

This is the last time you betray me. I slip on the ring,

its blue-green, pink lights so delicate. You never noticed.

In her room, she handed me a velvet-lined box.

My grandmother gave me her opal ring. I was only thirteen.

—Debra Kaufman

Wandering Billy

WANDERING BILLY

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March 2025

Drawn to The Gate City

Comics come to life in unexpected places

By Billy Ingram

“I don’t have inspiration. I only have ideas. Ideas and deadlines.” — Stan Lee

Buried inside an otherwise ordinary office plaza on Cornwallis Drive, tucked twixt dental practices, LLCs and LLPs, sits the Fungeon, a collab for writers and illustrators, several of whom have long associations with many of Marvel Comics’ best-selling titles.

An assault on the senses, this fancave is where pop-culture ephemera from the last seven decades bedazzles every square inch. A tidal wave of childhood memorabilia washes over you — an impossible number of Batman and other superhero figurines, an autographed photo of Dy-no-mite Jimmie “JJ” Walker, breakfast food mascot dolls, a Pee-wee Herman marionette, Star Wars collectables, VHS tapes, movie posters, a full-sized early-80s Galaxian arcade game, even a bright red Wham-O Monster Magnet with “life-time magnet” fists. I half expected the Kool-Aid Man to come bursting through the wall.

I’m there to meet with Chris Giarrusso, a former New Yorker and comic book creator who was drawn to the incandescent glow and nearly imperceptible excitement of The Gate City in 2017. Now, he shares a fantasy factory with four other creatives. There’s Jody Merriman, known as “Ol Grumpy” on social media. Giarrusso describes him as “a real burly, tough guy who you wouldn’t expect to be drawing pictures.”Randy Green is an acclaimed comic artist, best known for Tomb Raider and Emma Frost. His family owned Green’s Supper Club locally. Illustrator Marshall Lakes has his own comic line. And lastly, former Marvel and DC editor Brian “Smitty” Smith is co-creator of the New York Times-bestselling graphic novel The Stuff of Legend as well as writer/artist of the adorable Pea, Bee, & Jay children’s book series from HarperCollins.

Giarrusso is one of those lucky, talented individuals who has managed to forge a career in the comics. “When I was in college,” the Syracuse native told me, “I read about the internship program at Marvel in Wizard magazine.” He applied in 1997 and was accepted. “So for a summer, I was an intern there. That’s really the big game-changer, just getting the foot in the door and people getting to feel comfortable around you, that you’re not some crazy person. I guess they’re always afraid that the intern’s going to be some whack-job type.”

In 1998, Giarrusso was hired by Marvel’s production department, scanning artwork for Photoshop tweaking. “But I also liked to draw,” he says. “So I would show people my cartoons every chance I got. I was cartoon riffing on what was happening in the office or whatever.” Shades of Marvel’s superhero satirist extraordinaire Marie Severin. Eventually, the editor of “Bullpen Bulletins,” a feature in every Marvel publication, gave Giarrusso space for a monthly comic strip. “The editor said, ‘Yeah, OK, less work for me to fill up a page.’”

Almost by necessity, he created a line-up of cuddly, kid-sized Marvel heroes characterized by big heads and bulbous boots, whose comical interactions were drawn-up in standard newspaper strip format. “Because the panels were so small, it’s easier to draw little kids,” he says about the origin, if you will, of Mini Marvels. “You can actually squeeze them in better into the panels. And just the idea of them being kids was kind of already a built-in gimmick.” A devotee of Charles Schulz, Giarrusso quips, “I wanted to do Peanuts but with little Marvel characters.”

The little strip that could caught on. After about a year, “I pitched the idea for a longer story to Smitty before he went up the ladder. He was an assistant editor when I got hired as a production guy. I put a proposal together, handed it to him and then he pushed it through.” The result? The emergence of, quite possibly, the freshest, most original talent the genre has seen this century, effortlessly capturing the rhythmic essence that makes for great comics.

Undoubtedly, that’s why Marvel continually repackages Giarrusso’s back catalog. Mini Marvels: Hulk Smash was released in December and one reviewer raved that this book “will remind you why comics are fun, and if given to a new fan, this could be their gateway into comics.” Mini Marvels: Spidey-Sense unfolds with a genuinely funny tale about paperboy Spidey’s fractious battles against a peevish Green Goblin while innocently attempting to deliver the Daily Bugle to his arch enemy’s house. Giarrusso rendered the pint-sized Spider-Man with an exuberance and fluidity reminiscent of co-creator Steve Ditko’s earliest web-slinger sagas.

Beginning in 2009, Giarrusso’s own original high flying tyke-in-tights, G-Man, flew into view in three graphic novels published by Image Comics, followed by The G-Man Super Journal: Awesome Origins, an illustrated-prose hardcover from Andrews McMeel, who also publish definitive collections of Peanuts dailies (and Calvin & Hobbes, another influence, I suspect). A series crying out to be animated, G-Man’s universe is populated by a multifarious cast of characters rivaling that of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, fused with the innocence of early-1960s Legion of Superheroes. Nominated for a Harvey Award in 2014, G-Man: Coming Home was selected as Favorite Adventure Graphic Novel by Kids’ Comics Revolution.

“Fifteen years ago or so, when Mini Marvels was having a moment, Acme Comics invited me for a signing,” Giarrusso explains about his initial sojourns South, previous to his relocation to Greensboro eight years ago. “It became kind of routine to come for every Free Comic Book Day. I got to know the area and the community and the people here.” Graphic artists and writers can easily work remotely and are often required to. In that regard, our fair city makes for a comfortable launching pad. “At one point, Smitty came down and he set up the [Fungeon] studio. A couple years later, I followed and just inserted myself into the framework that he created here.”

Giarrusso has been particularly productive of late. While working on Pea, Bee, & Jay, Smith sold HarperCollins on a series for middle graders that Giarrusso illustrates, Officer Clawson: Lobster Cop, which features the undersea adventures of a mystery-solving crustacean. A new Mini Marvels story appeared in October 2024, then Giarrusso created four visually arresting variant covers for the 2025 X-Men/Uncanny X-Men crossover event. Alongside February’s incendiary image fronting his Eddie Brock Carnage #1 variant, these edgier renderings reveal an artist whose style is evolving, assuming a more dynamic, unflinching underpinning without sacrificing any inherent adolescent charm.

Ironic? In the bowels of a nondescript office complex, cleaved from a patch of woods where as a 9-year-old I happily retreated reading DCs with Go-Go Checks purchased from a drug store around the corner, there exists a grotto where creative individuals are weaving dreams into four-color fantasies and captivating children’s lit that is destined to ignite imaginations for generations to come.

Birdwatch

BIRDWATCH

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March 2025

Heard But Not Seen

Eastern phoebes tuck their nests away

By Susan Campbell

Eastern phoebes are small black-and-white birds that can be easily overlooked — if it wasn’t for their loud voices. Repeated “fee-bee, fee-bee” calls can be heard around wet areas all over our state. The farther west one travels through the Piedmont and into the foothills of North Carolina, calling males become more and more evident. From March through June, males declare their territory from elevated perches adjacent to ponds and streams. Even on warm winter days, these little birds can be heard loudly chirping or even singing a phrase or two.

Phoebes have an extensive range in the U.S., from the East Coast to the Rockies, and up and across central Canada. In the winter they can be found in Southern states from the Carolinas over to Texas down into Mexico and northern Central America. They are exclusively insectivorous, feeding on beetles, dragonflies, moths — any bugs that will fit down the hatch. Although they do not typically take advantage of feeders, I have seen one that did manage to negotiate a suet cage one winter. Because their feet are weak, they’re not capable of clinging, so this bird actually perfected a hovering technique as it fed in spurts.

Originally eastern phoebes utilized ledges on cliff faces for nesting. We do not know much about their habits in such locations since few are found breeding in those places now. Things have changed a lot for these birds as humans have altered their landscape.

While phoebes can be easy to locate as a result of their loud calls, in our area their nests may not be. Although they are good-sized open cup structures, they will be tucked into out-of-the-way locations. Typically, they will be on a ledge high up on a girder under a bridge or associated with a culvert. They may also be up in the corner of a porch or other protected flat spot. Grasses and thin branches are woven and glued together with mud to form the nest; therefore it’s critical that the location be close to water.

The affinity eastern phoebes have for nesting on man-made structures in our area may indicate that these are safer than more traditional locations. Climbing snakes are not uncommon in the Sandhills. Black rat snakes and corn snakes are not as active on buildings as they are on bridges and other water control structures. The phoebes may be adapting their behavior in response to these predators and others less likely to be found so close to human activity.

If you have, or have had, phoebes on your property in summer, I’d like to hear about it. I continue to record locations and details on nesting substrate for the species in the Sandhills. The variety of locations that these little birds choose has been very curious. Light boxes and fixtures, gazebos, porch support posts and more have been used, if they are covered by at least a slight overhang. Not only is water a necessity for phoebes in summer, but they require mature trees for perching and foraging as well. Keep an ear out and perhaps you will find one of these adaptable birds nearby — and be sure to let me know!

Home Grown

HOME GROWN

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March 2025

Putting the Pieces Back Together . . .

With resilience, grace and wit

By Cynthia Adams

One evening as I am chopping vegetables, my young friend, Jamie, calls me.

She occasionally texts, but never phones. Most weeks, we chat at Brown-Gardiner’s fountain, where she is a popular server — animated, engaged — the primary reason for my going so often.

Answering, I strain to understand Jamie’s garbled speech. The only words fully discernible are “this is Jamie.” She struggles, stuttering, until falling silent. 

Her friend, Lexi, takes the phone. Lexi’s words are crisply clear: Jamie has suffered a stroke. She goes on to say that she has just been released from the hospital following days of unconsciousness and lifesaving surgery. Lexi pauses.

“Jamie wanted you to know.”

Jamie is in her early 30s. A stroke? My knees wobble.

Jamie is the sort who brings life and vivacity into a room, as she has done at the lunch counter. The sandwiches, salads and dishes are standard lunch-counter fare, but nothing special. Jamie is. Often, she’d spot me approaching and open the door in greeting. 

In a few days’ time, after much texting back and forth, Jamie indicates she would like a visit. I take silly gifts: A bath bomb that resembles a doughnut with pastel sprinkles. A satin sleep mask emblazoned, “Shit Could Be Worse.” 

Just like her old self, Jamie howls with laughter.

She has miraculously survived the catastrophic stroke without losing her motor skills. There is no facial paralysis nor limp. No overt paralysis of any kind. Yet Jamie’s brain scans reveal damage to areas controlling speech. She struggles with aphasia and speech challenges.

Jamie chats normally and suddenly goes silent, freezing, searching for a word. This is something I had previously seen when another friend — a woman five decades older than Jamie — had a stroke. 

More than once, rather than asking, “Where’s my phone?” Jamie instead says, “Where’s my brick?” Or, maybe block. Determined to show no reaction as my intelligent and chatty friend struggles to summon words, I still feel my heart sink for her. 

But Jamie’s wit and intelligence are fully intact. She gamely laughs during a terrifying time. “My brain is def broken,” she texts a few months later.

Attempting jokes about the surgery, the hospital stays, the worry she reads in her friends’ faces, Jamie finds her way through her own terror with humor. 

Showing the blackened bruising at her femoral artery after carotid angioplasty and stenting, she declares, “But I’m still pretty!”

Everyone reassures Jamie she will soon be well. Better than new. Even so, Jamie  cannot drive, or resume college classes nor work for six months minimum. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” she will mutter, not cynically, but with convincing force, intent upon powering back to health. 

One day, I mention that a collection jar for her benefit has been placed at Brown-Gardiner. Jamie texts back, asking if the picture chosen “makes me look pretty.” I report back that, in fact, it does. Her smile — her face — beams from the jar. Faithful patrons contribute small change and bills. 

One day, $1,000 is dropped in the jar by a single group of customers. Jamie reports as best she can that it was from guys she always served on the Saturday morning shift. While she struggles to fully convey who “the guys” are, I try to guess if they are part of a golf team or a tennis league.

Jamie isn’t quite sure, but she is sure of one thing: “They love me.”

As her megawatt smile beams brighter, she adds, “and I love them.”

Since her saga began, Jamie has learned a preexisting congenital defect triggered her stroke, something called arteriovenous malformation, or AVM. In her case, it was located in the carotid artery. Much like aneurysms, it’s difficult for an AVM to be diagnosed until it’s too late.

Strangely, this hasn’t discouraged her. Learning the cause of the stroke has had the opposite effect. With a name, however strange, AVM is an anomaly that she can wrap her mind around, Jamie explains.

The condition is quite rare: Only 1.34 per 100,000 people have AVM.

Somehow, this statistic cracks Jamie up. 

“Of course,” she says, articulating slowly. With a wry smile that says, “it couldn’t possibly be anything commonplace,” she throws her hands up in the air. Since her stroke, in rapid succession, Jamie has been scrutinized and scanned from top to bottom in MRI machines.

“Now I know the deal,” she adds. 

Jamie has learned, to her relief, that she is not a walking time bomb. 

“That was scary. Would I just drop dead?” This was her first thought upon emerging from days of unconsciousness after the stroke.

Jamie’s July birthday week draws together a young group of friends who take her for a celebratory steak dinner. She shares funny moments, reporting that she kept a journal “for my up-and-coming stroke comedy tour.”

Her speech is, against all odds, normal. Yet, the stroke is a bomb that fell onto her old life, segmenting it into before and after.

In the interim, another stent was needed. Weeks of speech therapy and recovery, scans and consultations have become months, now years. Two Christmases have passed. 

Jamie has suffered medical setbacks, forcing her to temporarily abandon online studies begun since the stroke to complete her undergraduate degree. Even so, she will still graduate this year.   

Jamie’s wrestled with red tape in order to get financial assistance. To cope with insurance claims. To get to medical appointments.

Simply to survive.

Yet Jamie’s resolve remains intact. In her first year of the event, she sent a revealing picture of herself at a game table with pieces before her. 

“I’m gonna be sitting here trying to figure this stupid puzzle out . . . making my brain work . . . This is harder than it looks.”

In over two years of struggle, it is the only complaint Jamie has ever texted.

Essay Contest Winner

ESSAY CONTEST WINNER

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March 2025

Harriet Flies Home

A tale of catch and release

Note from the editor: This was our 2024 O.Henry Essay Contest winner.

By Eric Schaefer

She lands on the end of my fishing pole, making casting impossible. I don’t mind. I’m glad to see her. She has been gone for a few days, and I am always relieved to see her return. Not that I expect her to stay forever. She is, after all, a wild animal, and she needs to be with other crows — at least in theory. So I lean back in the boat and watch her preen her shiny black feathers.

Two years ago, my wife and I fished her, half-drowned, out of a drainage ditch in Florida, wrung her out and gave her a little cat food, which she readily accepted. Soon, the chick was eating everything and seemed perfectly happy with her surrogate parents and her roommate, a lab mix named Alfie. We named her Harriet.

Harriet belongs to the tribe of fish crows who speak in a minor negative key. Their principal call sounds like anh anh. As in “anh anh, I ain’t doing that” or “anh anh, I ain’t what you think.” Crows are versatile, however, and are capable of a variety of vocalizations. They are accomplished mimics, and I believe Harriet can say whatever she wants if so moved. Cocking her head so that one eye focuses on me while the other surveys her surroundings gives me the impression that some complex calculations are taking shape inside her little crow brain. Alfie, on the other hand, I’m pretty sure I can outsmart. 

At mealtime, Alfie sits, staring, drool pouring out of both sides of his jowls, his brown eyes pleading, “Oh pleeeze, can I have just a little of that whatever it is you’re eating? I don’t care, I’ll eat anything, and try my best to actually digest it or throw it up — that’s OK, too — but please let me give it a try.” Harriet doesn’t beg. She would rather steal. And steal she does. Glance away from your plate and she’ll swoop down and take a morsel, then fly up to a bookcase or a high counter. She’s discerning. She’ll examine her prize, maybe cache it for later, but she doesn’t just wolf it down, hoping it doesn’t come back up — like somebody else. 

I’ve never invited Harriet on the boat, but she needs no invitation. She comes and goes as she pleases, and I flatter myself to think she likes my company. I did ask Alfie once, and he was delighted to be included. He bounded enthusiastically about on the boat until he lunged at a Canada Goose and we capsized. While I tried to save my floating gear, he bobbed up a little ways downstream, and I think I heard him say, “I don’t have any idea how we ended up in the water, but this sure is fun.” I didn’t invite him back.

When Harriet first came to us, I thought I should keep her indoors for her protection, so I built her a big cage. It took up half a room and I equipped it with swings and branches and pools and shiny objects and all manner of things a crow might like. She would have none of it. She squawked persistently whenever I put her in her deluxe accommodations, until either I or my wife surrendered and let her have the run of the house. She’d follow us around, poking her beak in whatever it was we were doing. We loved her company, but knew we couldn’t deny her the chance to explore the outdoors. So, one day, we decided to accept whatever happened, and we took her out to the porch and set her down on the railing. She was in no hurry to fly. She sauntered back and forth, examining her new surroundings. Crows don’t actually walk. They strut as if practicing an arrogant little dance step or modeling some outrageous new costume on a runway. Suddenly, she squatted and jumped into the air, flapping steadily until she landed on an oak tree branch.

Alfie catapulted off the porch, ran to the tree, and jumped up so his front paws were on the trunk and he was looking up into the branches. He was either saying, “Come down out of there! You’ll hurt yourself;” or, “How did you do that? Can you teach me?” After that, Harriet accompanied us on whatever outdoor activities we were engaged in, until, one day, she disappeared. We told ourselves it was a good thing, that it was exactly what she should do, and we hated it. But eventually she came back and started to come and go at irregular intervals. The times she was away began stretching out to days.

So now she sits at the end of my fishing pole, looking rather pleased with herself after having been gone for longer than I liked, when a murder of American crows shows up and takes up a raucous cry in the trees. So, this is where you’ve been? I feel like a parent with an unruly teenager. Go tell your friends you have to stay home for a while. She looks at me, calculating, and then at them, and then back at me and says anh anh, and flies off.

NC Surround Around

NC SURROUND AROUND

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March 2025

Dropping In

Return of the Carolina Chocolate Drops

By Tom Maxwell

It all started in April 2005, at the first “Black Banjo: Then and Now Gathering.” The event, held at Appalachian State University in Boone, was part scholarly pursuit and part throwdown, featuring four days of “lectures, jams, workshops, down home frolics, and performances” with a view to bringing the “funky, plunky instrument” back home to Black America. Dom Flemons, a 23-year-old student at Northern Arizona University, attended.

“I was the young person at the event,” Flemons says. He had been playing banjo for a few years already, busking on street corners and devouring records by the Memphis Jug Band and Dave Van Ronk, as well as ’20s songster music of people like Gus Cannon and Henry Thomas. 

So, like many young people who fall in love with old music, most of Dom’s musical heroes were dead — even if their music was very much alive. But in Boone he was about to enter the musical land of the living.

“When I met Joe Thompson, a light bulb went off in my head,” Flemons says. “I heard him playing at the opening ceremony for the Black Banjo Gathering, and all of a sudden I understood the music that connected people like Henry Thomas to Gus Cannon. When I heard Joe’s music, I heard that flavor of fiddle and banjo music that these guys were referencing, playing and living next to generationally. And that inspired me to move out to North Carolina. I sold everything I owned, packed up my car, took Route 66 east and headed for North Carolina to be near the music.”

Thompson, born in 1918, had been playing African American string band music for 80 years by the time Dom Flemons heard him perform at the Black Banjo Gathering. An Orange County native, Thompson joined his family on fiddle (after studying his father’s old-time technique, which was handed down by his own father, a former enslaved person) playing square dances, parties and dances after corn shucking or tobacco stripping. Joe considered quitting music after his cousin and musical partner, Odell Thompson, died in the ’90s, but picked it back up basically by popular demand. Even a stroke in 2001 couldn’t slow him down. “I got to sit with Joe and play music,” Flemons remembers, “and it was a powerful experience just to be in his presence. I knew that I was connected to the tradition from there. It’s something beyond just music. It’s a feeling as well and, if you’re deep in the culture, you understand the nuances of that feeling.”

Two years after his performance at the first Black Banjo Gathering, Joe Thompson became a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow. He also started mentoring Dom Flemons’ new band. Local musicians Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson also saw Thompson at the Black Banjo Gathering and had been playing music at his Mebane house for several months by the time Dom, newly graduated from college, moved to North Carolina. The three youngsters decided to form a band of their own. “These are the years leading into Obama being elected,” Flemons says, “and culturally, people were ready for a Black string band. They could handle it.”

Flemons, Giddens and Robinson called their band the Carolina Chocolate Drops. “With the combination of all three of the original members of the trio, we created a sound that was very authentic and raw, but also landed right,” Flemons says. “We always had a rock solid rhythm. I leaned 100 percent into that, because being a fan of the Grateful Dead, I understand that give and take with the audience.”

All traditions, an accomplished jazz musician once observed, meet at the root. In their career, the Carolina Chocolate Drops were seamlessly able to blend Civil War-era Black string band music, ’60s folk-rock, jazz and hip hop. It’s no surprise — but still an absolute delight — that the band covered Blu Cantrell’s 2001 R&B Top 40 hit “Hit ’Em Up Style (Oops!)” on their Grammy-winning album Genuine Negro Jig.

“I was a fan of Old Crow Medicine Show,” Flemons says, “so I always thought about fast old-time as being a genre. Fast old-time is something that people have always enjoyed, and it was becoming very popular at that time. When we were arranging songs with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, they would usually do a Joe Thompson number. I came up with the jug and took a combination of what I thought about with traditional jug bands, as well as people like Charles Mingus, and applied that to ‘Georgia Buck.’ That gave us a unique sound from a traditional old-time string band.”

The Carolina Chocolate Drops went on to have a stellar career, releasing five albums, opening for luminaries like Taj Mahal and Bob Dylan, making numerous television appearances, and performing several times at the Grand Ol’ Opry. But as all fiery combinations do, they burned bright, then out. Robinson left in 2011; Flemons followed suit two years later. By 2014, the group functionally disbanded. Until now.

“Rhiannon wants us to do this festival she’s putting together, Biscuits & Banjos,” Flemons says. The festival will be held in Durham April 25 – 27 and will feature not only a reunited Carolina Chocolate Drops, but also solo appearances by Flemons and Giddens. Rounding out the stellar lineup are legacy acts like Taj Mahal, promising newcomers Infinity Song, Tar Heel native Shirlette Ammons and many more. In the tradition of the Black Banjo Gathering — and countless others since time immemorial — there will be artist talks, workshops, a biscuit bake-off (Giddens is a self-described “avid biscuit baker”) and a community square dance.”

Indeed, all American musical traditions do meet at the root. Blues, jazz, rock-and-roll — and a sizable chunk of country music — owe their very existence to African American musical idioms and cultural expressions. We are all the better for it, and when you combine this history with Southern food and an old-school hootenanny, life gets very good indeed. And North Carolina is one of the few places in America where something like this could happen.

“North Carolina is such a wellspring of culture in general,” Flemons says, “and I believe that it has done a lot of things right when it comes to expressing the culture of the state. I think it’s something in the way that the land is structured and the way people are raised. Because a lot of times they have this particular connection to the land, and a foot in both the country and the city. The Carolina Chocolate Drops did school shows in almost every city and town in North Carolina, so I got to see everything from Edenton all the way up to Asheville and Black Mountain and Hot Springs. Every part of North Carolina has something beautiful and unique, and the music reflects that.”

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

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March 2025

Coin of the Realm

The history of Rome in loose change

By Stephen E. Smith

If you believe the ancient Romans had little to do with your life, look at your feet. They gave us the concept of left and right footwear. They also left us their checkered history, of which there’s too damn much. If you’ve tackled Gibbon’s unabridged The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, you know that a manageable history of ancient Rome requires a framing device that places events and characters in perspective.

Historian/numismatist Gareth Harney has devised an agreeable gimmick. He has selected what he believes are the 12 most significant coins minted during the Empire’s 800-plus years, and he’s written A History of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins, connecting the coinage to the emperors and events that influenced their minting.

Roman coins were struck from alloys of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum or copper — materials that gave them resilience — and they are discovered still in Welsh fields and Polish barnyards. You can buy a pile of uncleaned Roman coins on eBay for $30.

First introduced in the third century BCE, Roman coins were used well into the Middle Ages, and during a denarius’ existence, it would likely have passed between millions of hands. Many of the coins are worn smooth, obscuring the profile of the emperor or god whose likeness was meant to ensure political stability and economic security.

In crisp, energetic prose, Harney opens each chapter as if he were writing historical fiction. “The vision was surely his alone,” he writes of Constantine’s moment of conversion. “Yet the confused shouts of his soldiers seemed to claim otherwise. As the marching column ground to a halt before the spectacle, men raised their arms to the clear sky, calling out to their emperor to witness the unfolding miracle. It took shape, by all accounts, in the rays of the midday sun. A glowing halo surrounding the solar disk, sparkling with additional rival suns where it was intersected by radiating horizontal and vertical beams — all shimmering like jewels with spectral color.”

Harney guides the reader through the history of Rome from Romulus, suckled by a wolf on an early Roman coin, to the last emperor, who was deposed by the German general Odoacer in 476 CE. In the early years of the Empire, coins illustrated mythical scenes and various gods and goddesses, but that changed, as did much of Roman life, when Julius Caesar issued coins bearing his likeness. “Even in an age of giants — Pompey, Cicero, Antony and Cleopatra — Caesar would tower above all,” Harney writes, “bestriding the world like a colossus.” The appearance of Caesar’s profile on the Roman denarius in 44 BCE is acknowledged as a transformative moment in Roman history. The new coin violated ancient law, tradition, and the sacred delineation between military and civic authority. Caesar went so far as to order the minting of a denarius with the likeness of the defeated Gallic leader Vercingetorix, an enemy of the Roman Republic.

The Julio-Claudian dynasty receives its due — Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, et al. — and Harney explains the events leading to the coinage produced by each emperor. Bits and pieces of Roman excess and debauchery are reviewed in tolerable detail, and readers are occasionally treated to new depravities, of which there was no shortage in an empire populated with leaders who were murdered almost as quickly as they took power.

For many of these upstart emperors, assassination was often a merciful escape. In 260 AD, for example, the emperor Valerian was defeated by King Shapur I and was taken prisoner. He lived out his years in slavery, falling to his hands and knees to act as a step for Shapur to mount his horse. The emperor of Rome had become a human footstool for an enemy king who later had him skinned, stuffed and placed on display.

Harney’s discussion of the various currencies makes the constant shuffling of Roman emperors slightly less confusing, but the devaluation of Roman coinage is his most significant and timely lesson. The emperors, unable to pay for Rome’s defense, lessened the amount of silver or gold in each coin. “By 270, the ‘silver’ coins of Rome held less than 2 percent precious metal. Nothing more than crude scraps of copper rushed out of the mint, without a thought of quality control. A thin silver wash on the coins only served to insult the intelligence of the Roman people, and quickly wore off to reveal the depressing base metal below.” Any belief in a reliable gold or silver standard vanished from the monetary system. As coinage ceased to hold its value, Romans returned to barter as a method of exchange. When new coins were issued, they dulled more quickly, and they felt light in the hand, signaling debasement. Each degraded coin is part of the puzzle whose final piece reveals the complete collapse of the Roman state.

A History of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins will appeal to a broad audience. Excluding the rare reader who has a comprehensive knowledge of Roman history and the numismatist specializing in Roman coinage, the majority of readers (those who saw an episode or two of I, Claudius or the movie Gladiator) will find Harney’s history well-written, informative and sophisticated — high-end Monarch Notes for Gibbon’s six-volume Decline and Fall. They may even feel inspired to start collecting Roman coins.

Harney doesn’t claim that his research offers profound insights into our contemporary political divisions or the teetering state of our democracy, but readers will likely infer whatever lesson appeals to their politics. One truth, however, is inescapable: Empires rot from the inside out.