A Tug to the Tar Heel State

A Tug to the Tar Heel State

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November 2023

Inside the collected and colorful Casa Carlisle

By Cassie Bustamante  
Photographs by Amy Freeman

“I f you want to date me, you have to promise we can live in North Carolina one day,” Jason Carlisle recalls his wife, Crystal, saying presciently to him early into their 20-year relationship.

“I don’t remember saying it like that!” she counters, but confirms it was part of the deal. North Carolina, Crystal says, “was woven in my heart long before I knew why.” While she felt an inexplicable pull, Jason, who says he’d follow Crystal to China or the moon, had always loved the Tar Heel State. He recalls fond childhood memories of trips from Florida, where his family had a farm, to Maggie Valley and Cherokee in the ’80s, as well as traveling with youth groups to leadership conferences in Appalachia.

And so it was that in the summer of 2018, the couple and their three boys — Lucas, now 15, Grayson, 14, and Micah, 9 — took a leap of faith. They sold their farm in Florida — “Cows, chickens, I mean the whole farm!” says Crystal. With no new employment prospects in sight, Jason, a teddy-bear type who now works for GFL Environmental in High Point, quit his job and said goodbye to his tractors and truck when the family made the move.

Why? Crystal discovered that her little sister, Karissa, who had been adopted as an infant years earlier by a family in California, was now living in North Carolina. It’s a long story that begins with Crystal’s mother: “My mom had my brother and myself and was a single young mom and found herself pregnant again and gave that baby up for adoption.” It turns out that when Karissa was only 2, her adoptive mother died of ovarian cancer. Her adoptive father moved to North Carolina for familial support. So when Karissa, at 18, reached out to her birth family, Crystal finally understood that tug she’d felt to North Carolina

So, with as many of their belongings as they could fit in a 26-foot U-Haul, the Carlisle family headed north. Awaiting them was a 1971 home (more than double in size of their farmhouse) abutting Forest Oaks Country Club’s golf course.

Just months earlier, Crystal had taken a six-day house-hunting trip to the Greensboro area — selected for its proximity to Thomasville, where Karissa lives with her two children —  looking at over 20 houses. By day five, she recalls resolving to live in a camper for the summer because nothing felt right and she “was not going to settle.” Finally, on day six of her trip, a Friday, her agent brought her to Forest Oaks.

“I can live here,” she thought, satisfied that the neighborhood was close enough to town, but with a bit of the rural feel her family was used to. The house itself was structurally sound and the kitchen had been updated a couple years earlier by the previous owner, but Crystal — who calls herself “The Thrifty Designer” on Instagram — was excited to wave her creative wand, especially with so much more space to serve as her canvas.

Jason and the kids, of course, didn’t see the new family residence until the day they pulled up in the moving truck, and, as he recalls, he said, “Welcome home, boys. We’re home.”

Arriving with limited furnishings and possessions, Crystal quickly got to work slapping a lot of paint on the walls and filling their new abode with vintage treasures found at various secondhand stores. “I try to live sustainably, for sure,” she says.

In fact, much of the home’s decor is thrifted. Crystal, who formerly owned a vintage shop in Florida, spent childhood weekends and summers with her great aunt and uncle, Jimmy, a regular flea market vendor. “They called him ‘Bones,’” she says. “Because he sold actual bones. Alligator skulls and you know.” Growing up in that environment, she became accustomed to thrifting and has carried that into adulthood. “I never knew anything different.”

In the family’s den, just off the kitchen, Crystal waves an arm around the room and says, “Literally everything in here was thrifted.” Even the leather sectional? Yes, even that, which set the family back a whopping $150. And the floral vintage wallpaper? Also thrifted.

The only piece in that space that traveled from Florida with her is a Modern painting of a woman in blue holding cut roses in pinks and reds that sits between two windows. It was a gift to Crystal from her mother on her 18th birthday. Though it appears as if the colors in the artwork inspired the palette of the room, Crystal says, “I am just drawn to those colors and when I put it up there, I thought, oh my gosh, she’s perfect.”

With bold strokes and an innate sense for seamlessly mixing antiques with Modern vintage, Crystal continues the flowery patterns and color palette throughout the main floor of the home. Blues, teals, pinks and reds harmoniously repeat, masterfully drawing the eye from one treasure-filled room to the next with ease.

How does Jason feel about the florals and pastels that flow throughout the home? “I trust her so much,” he says, a glint of pride sparkling in his light blue eyes. Then, those eyes twinkling, he says jokingly, “As you can see, I inspired everything in here.”

In the dining room, pink paint blankets the walls, creating a soft and intimate surrounding for a looooong wooden table flanked by a contrasting teal antique church pew and midcentury upholstered dining chairs. On one wall, a pair of long shelves display a rainbow assortment of vintage glassware.

“Did she tell you about this table?” Jason asks. “$100!”

The blonde wood table, it turns out, was handmade, complete with turned legs, by a neighbor and features several leaves to make it even longer. She purchased it when his estate items went to auction. “When we moved, I was like, I want a dining room table that will fit 12–14 people and everybody was like you’re insane,” says Crystal. But, she adds, “I put it out there and it comes to me!”

Dreams come true for Crystal. Now, the dining room hosts regular Sunday family dinners with Karissa, her husband, Travis, her kids and her adoptive father, affectionately known as Uncle Earl to Crystal’s kids. “It’s been so cool to have a family that we never knew we would have,” muses Crystal. “It’s been a really fun surprise.”

In a corner of the dining room, a large vintage chalkboard purchased at a church yard sale and previously used in a Sunday school classroom sits on the wall. On the right side in black Sharpie, presumably written by a Sunday school student, it reads, “God is cool.”

Underneath the chalkboard, clearly not part of her aesthetic, is a box with items spilling out: her donation pile. “I am always gathering and purging, gathering and purging,” she says. While she frequents thrift stores as a shopper, she also replenishes them, happy to keep worthy items out of the landfill.

In fact, friends often inform her when they spy potentially good scores curbside, headed for the dump. One of her favorite finds, which came to her via a friend texting about “a pile of stuff at the curb” by their church, hangs on a wall in their guest room. “It’s a Burwood peacock, complete with its original crown,” says Crystal. “Out of the trash.”

Jason was flabbergasted to discover similar pieces sell for a couple hundred dollars. “And it was just sitting on the side of the road,” he says, shaking his head.

The fireplace in the same room has been painted a soft pink, though Crystal admits trying black first. “I hate black,” she says, adding, “It just doesn’t feel like me.” Above the, wait for it, pink mantel hangs a gilded vintage mirror, a gift from Karissa, who she is now able to spend time with regularly. “She’s a thrifter as well, so we’re always collecting.”

On the built-ins next to the guest room fireplace, rainbow-ordered books hand-selected by Crystal for their color line the shelves, purchased from her one of her favorite thrift stores, Blessingdale’s, a Southwest Greensboro gold mine for deal hunters. “They have books at eight-for-a-dollar!” she exclaims.

While she has filled her home with found treasures, the real gem of the house, according to Crystal, is the sunroom and the backyard.

Outside, several sculptural Moderne Russell Woodard chairs — Crystal’s most prized possessions — surround an aqua outdoor dining table snagged on Facebook marketplace. A pair of matching Woodard chaises with a side table sit just off to the side. “We actually unloaded our leather sofa at the farm because everything wasn’t going to fit,” she says. And she was not about to leave Russell Woodard behind.

The sunroom — also a shade of pink, Sherwin-Williams’ Malted Milk — serves as the family’s breakfast nook and homework hub. Flanking the room’s many windows are 1960s floral panels in shades of — you guessed it — blues, pinks and reds. “All my curtains came from Blessingdales,” says Crystal, who has hung vintage floral curtains in many-a-room.

Jason calls attention to the sturdy, large-scaled vintage classroom chairs, mustard yellow in color and serving as a clean-lined foil to the pastels and florals. “They are perfect for our boys — big boys,” quips Crystal, whose children take after their father.

Adjacent to the sunroom is the space that they’ve made the most changes to, the kitchen. With Jason’s help, Crystal, who has built quite a following on social media because of her keen eye for thrifty and colorful design, participated in a spring 2020 online event entitled “One Room Challenge,” sharing updates each week on her instagram page: @casa_carlisle. The couple removed cabinets from one wall, replacing them with open shelving, painted the lower cabinets and island in a custom shade of teal, painted the uppers white, replaced lighting with more modern fixtures, added wallpaper backsplashes and made it their own with personal details and thrifted touches.

But Jason knows his wife well enough to say, “I am pretty sure at this point she wants to paint these cabinets again.”

With a coy smile, she responds, “I’ve thought about it.”

“There’s nothing off the table,” says Jason, constantly in awe of the changes Crystal makes in their home “because it keeps the house fresh, keeps it new, keeps it different.”

These days, Crystal works full-time as an account executive for a furniture company in High Point and, while she still loves to fluff her nest, she doesn’t see many drastic changes on the horizon. “There are a couple projects I would like to tackle, but we’re right now at the point in our lives where weekends are for sports or for family stuff,” she says. “We just raised fun kids, so I want to hang out with them. We’ve raised our own little best friends.”

Later this month, the Carlisles will gather around their extra-long dining table with their boys, Karissa’s family, Uncle Earl and extended family from afar to give thanks for the most treasured North Carolina find: time spent with family and a house that has exceeded Crystal’s dreams — at least for now.  OH

Fire in His Eyes

Fire in His Eyes

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November 2023

An artist reflects on processing trauma through his canvas

By Cassie Bustamante

Faced with the aftermath of personal trauma, Chase Hanes turned to what helped and healed him in his youth — painting.

Asked if he just picked up a brush one day and watched as the paint flowed across the canvas, the self-taught artist lets out a laugh. After a pause, a drawn-out nooooooooo.

As a shy and quiet child growing up in Midway, Hanes, now 31, recalls how in elementary school he was encouraged to tap into his creativity by “a very special teacher.” With her guidance, he discovered that it was “a way to really condense feelings and get them to where I am able to process them,” an important lesson for a young introvert.

Years later, as a high school student, Hanes says, “I was struggling with a lot of depression and identity issues, and painting and drawing and being creative was so healing, so cathartic.” It was during those four years that he developed his identity as an artist. Through studying art books and lots of practice — “countless drawings of people I admired” — Hanes honed his skills. One individual in particular showed up repeatedly during his early practice: his sister, Amber, who is 11 years older and has always been “very maternal” toward her younger brother. “One of the first paintings that I got really applauded for was a portrait of my sister. My mom still has it hanging on our wall at home.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in English and creative writing from Chapel Hill, he went on to UNCG and completed a master’s in library and information sciences and another in women’s and gender studies.

Following academia, a job that Hanes thought was the right next step on his career journey turned out to be the thing that would once again find him struggling with identity. Working for a “nonprofit where individuals facing severe health issues, food insecurities and/or cyclical poverty could get various resources,” Hanes staffed the day center, “where people would get meals, have recreational activities and participate in support groups.” At the nonprofit, he also guided poetry circles and helped many people who could barely read write poems, describing that process as magical. “In theory,” says Hanes of his work there, “it sounds very beautiful.”

While the work he did in the poetry circles was, in fact, rewarding, the overall workplace was far from it. “I saw how people — staff and clients alike — got taken advantage of repeatedly, which was especially severe and inhumane in the early days of COVID,” he says. Hanes says that he found himself in what he viewed as an “emotionally abusive professional environment.” Once again, he felt adrift, struggling with depression and without an avenue to channel his skills and creativity. Wistfully, he adds, “I kind of just left art behind.”

In July of 2020, Hanes made the decision to leave his job. “When I got away from that situation, it ripped me apart,” he says, his deep, black-brown eyes focused downward. He looks up. “But after a few months . . . I was able to make something from it.”

It’s often been said that great art comes from great pain. And maybe that’s why in the fall of 2020, Hanes found himself reaching once again for his paintbrush. “Prior to October 2020, I had only done one painting,” says Hanes of that life-changing year. “And then, all the sudden, it just came like a storm and I had to keep going. I had to make sense of the trauma that I experienced.”

Once again, someone he greatly admired served as his muse: Taylor Swift. What is it about her that inspires him? He laughs and says, “I could write a whole dissertation!” In addition to being close in age, Hanes, a self-proclaimed Swiftie, sees similarities in the way they approach the world. “She understands that people with similar sensitivities have certain obstacles in life that they have to overcome,” he says, alluding to his own sensitivity. He adds, “Her honesty and her willingness to be vulnerable is so special.”

While Hanes is inspired by Swift’s songs, often written about her own life experiences, he used her as a vehicle for telling his story in a collection of paintings he calls fragile life, take up space. “It was easier — it almost felt like it gave me space,” says Hanes. “It gave me distance from my own experience to tell my story with another character at the very beginning.”

A few of the early paintings in this collection feature images of women being saved or uplifted by a group of women. Hanes, who felt he’d lost his community along with his job, reconnected with a group of female childhood friends who always made him feel safe. “There’s a beautiful sense of clarity that comes along with finding your way back to people who really do love you and care about you.” It’s no surprise that this group, his old — and renewed — community traveled with him to Nashville to see Swift’s Eras Tour, a concert at which he shed tears of joy.

Later in Hanes’ fragile life series, a painting entitled Stolen Lullabies Were/Weren’t Mine to Lose — inspired by the lyrics, “You weren’t mine to lose,” from the song “August” — features a drowning Taylor Swift amidst books and pages bobbing in the ocean around her. Hanes draws another parallel between himself and the singer: “This particular piece deals with Taylor losing the rights to the masters of her precious work, and I had lost a lot of writings and some drawings and some artwork . . .”

Yet, the expression on Swift’s face as she’s drowning isn’t one of suffering. “There’s a certain peace in being able to know you’ve lost something and not fight it,” says Hanes. He pauses and offers one word. “Acceptance.”

After reaching acceptance through his art, Hanes continued to process his feelings on canvas. A later painting in the series, Break Free, draws on Swift’s “Tolerate It” lyrics:

. . . what would you do if I

Break free and leave us in ruins

Took this dagger in me and removed it

Gained the weight of you, then lose it

In this painting, out of a shattering concrete statue, Hanes’ own figure finally emerges, replacing the character he had assumed and then rejected. “It’s about a ripping the self away from following in someone’s footsteps, someone who nobody should follow in their footsteps,” he says. He notes that in this piece, “I am wearing my Taylor swift cardigan and I’m feeling protected and coming into my own person.”

The final work in this collection, completed in December 2022, is a pair of paintings titled Get the Light Back in Your Eyes, Kid, and is inspired by the cover to Taylor’s October 2022 album, “Midnights.” In each painting, Hanes appears, holding a lighter. In the first, he’s looking at the flame, and, in the second, he’s looking up, the glow reflected in his eyes. He explains that he’d been talking to a friend who was familiar with the hardship he’d endured — from leaving his job, the repercussions and finding a new role, his current job, as Forsyth Tech’s acquisitions librarian. “She looked at me one day,” he says, “and she said that I had the light back in my eyes.”

As Hanes reflects on the paintings he’s created from a need to release pain, the light in his eyes sparks from a strengthened sense of self and from friendships he’s rekindled.

What’s next for this Swiftie? While his painting has slowed down due to the work-life balance, he’s thrilled to be finding joy on the job. “I get to decide the new materials that come into our collection and I get to really focus on diversifying . . . and bringing in a lot of marginalized voices and filling in collection gaps.” Then he laughs, adding, “Possibly international travel to see The Eras Tour . . . I may find out tomorrow.”

A few days later, he confirms that he and his childhood friends are, “Drum roll . . . going to Dublin 2024!”  OH

The Crying Game

The Crying Game

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November 2023

My initiation into the Antiques Roadshow

By Cynthia Adams

I still have an antiques hangover of epic proportions, the aftermath of the PBS Antiques Roadshow event last May at Raleigh’s North Carolina Museum of Art, shot for the program’s 27th season. This was only the second time the show has been filmed in Raleigh — and only the fourth time in its history it has come to North Carolina.

In fan parlance, the show is known as AR and first aired in the United States in 1997, now commanding an audience of 6 million viewers.   

A big deal with big drama.

It is based upon the original British premise: Folks bring cherished valuables for on-screen appraisals. Locations vary, but are typically museums or historic sites. Appraisers evaluate and explain whether they’re junk, bunk or treasure.

My fandom began decades ago, but my saga began early this year. 

With only five scheduled cities on the 2023 AR tour, I jumped to enter the online ticket lottery. By April, I was notified I had won tickets — a feat compared to getting into Stanford. 

On average, at least 8,000 applicants vie for 3,500 tickets. Those selected are limited to two objects (more allowed if a collection) for appraisal by the on-site volunteer experts. Fans are legion.

O.Henry colleague Ross Howell Jr. shares insight into just how far-reaching AR is, describing a scene from the former Foggy Rock Eatery & Pub in Blowing Rock. 

“There was a row of flat screen TVs along the length of the bar featuring the usual sports options, but, one night, things were fairly rowdy at the head of the bar, where the cash register was located. I thought maybe it was a football game, but instead it was a group watching Antiques Roadshow.” Fans included “preppies and trust fund babies,” but also “strapping mountain boys” in ball caps.   

“The bartender that night was a bearded, 6-foot-5-inch App State grad who now has his own flower growing business. Somehow, he was keeping a loose record of the valuations proffered by others at the bar as the item was being described by the expert on TV. I never quite gathered what the prize for guessing the valuation closest to the expert’s without going over was, but I think it had to do with who would be responsible for buying the next round of drinks.”

The experts, who gain national celebrity, come from some of the nation’s top auction houses.

At least 6,000 objects are appraised per event, according to the AR website. Raleigh featured 64 appraisers in 23 areas ranging from Ancient Art to Rugs and Textiles.

But, if I’ve learned anything since experiencing AR in person, it’s how I badly want to steal something — nothing I saw hauled in by the show’s many acolytes. Something cerebral, like the sharp and witty descriptions of the participants in Jay Kang’s Liars, Losers and the Lessons of Antiques Roadshow. Now that, I wanted to steal. Because Kang has broken down exactly what it means to, like me, become one with legions of liars and losers. 

The lesson? I, too, was prepared to fake amazement on live television. As if unsure whether baubles I dragged along truly merited the golden AR spotlight — before summarily learning said baubles were unworthy. 

That was the lesson. 

Am I a sore loser? I’m scouring the internet to find fellow liars and losers because . . . well, misery loves company. 

But I digress. Because the reason you’re here is my liar-to-loser exposé.

Learning my ticket admitted two, I gave one to fellow AR fan Larry. [Last name withheld because, well, there’s some shame in our game.] Thereafter, we weighed what items we would take for evaluation. 

On event day, May 16, we left Greensboro for Raleigh at 11 a.m., although our admission time wasn’t until well after lunch. We amused ourselves on the drive by practicing reactions: “Wow! You’re kidding me, right? I had no idea!” and pulling astonished faces.

If you’ve seen the show, you understand. For the rest of you, “Wow” is the conditioned response. It’s Pavlovian. When appraisers tell owners their signed baseball is worth a gazillion, or grandma’s churn is worth thousands, they all mutter the same dazed response: “Wow.”

As if they’ve never heard of Google search.

Nervously excited, we stop off for a slice of pizza and can barely eat for yakking. We have high hopes our treasures might astonish even the most jaded AR appraiser. 

Larry brings some prizes from estate sales: most importantly, a French painting along with some decorative objects, including Bactrian, or “mud,” camels. I have some heirlooms from my husband’s family, small enough to tuck into my purse. 

Pulling into the parking lot, heat radiates on the horizon. Waved through successive lots by the guards, we notice the decidedly older crowd, gesturing and animated. 

Collapsible wagons, the main accessory of the day, are being popped open and filled.

AR flags fly merrily, and navy-blue tents marked the museum grounds — like what exactly? “This looks like a geriatric Taylor Swift concert,” I mumble to Larry, who scored the prize he’s driving at an estate sale. The 2012 350 E Mercedes with only 81,000 miles is a honey of a find. (A great talisman, we had agreed en route.)

“We’ll either come home excited or come home with our tails between our legs,” he predicts. We grow suddenly sober. We had taken time away from work. But clearly, here is a crowd with nothing but time — and suspected valuables — on their hands.

Scores lug boxes or tug arcana and indescribable objects. Confusingly, some enter as others exited, given our staggered ticket times. On his way out, a white-haired man drags a darkly stained and shellacked tree stump festooned with carved stallions, legs pawing and tails flailing.

“What is that?” yells a hard-of-hearing AR fan. 

“A table!” chirps the owner. “It weighs 250–300 pounds.” Two people mouthed the requisite “Wow,” at which the stallion table owner glowed. For him, it’s worth it’s weight in AR gold.

Rather than exit, he suddenly heads for the AR Feedback Booth. Here one could roll the dice again in a last gambit to get on air with a self-effacing joke about how their treasure was mere trash.

We wade through the throngs. A man bearing dodgy looking brass vases howls, “They’re worth $2,000! And I only paid $300 for them!”

“Wows” follow. He bears a triumphant grin on the scale of the stallion stump table.

We trudge with the treasure-laden to Stage 1, called “triage,” to be assigned categories.

The screener in triage, now humorless as it was 1:30 p.m. and she had been on site since 6:30 a.m. — wearily inspects our objects. Her sweat-dampened hair sticks to her forehead.

We are separated for the rest of the day, Larry dispatched inside an air-conditioned museum building, first to Asian Arts then Paintings. (Later reporting that there were few in those lines.) I had no such luck, sent first to the popular Jewelry queue, the longest on the premises, before the even longer Decorative Arts and Silver line. Both are outdoors, where I crowd-watch — and bake.

Walking canes and wheelchairs are not uncommon. Some stagger past bearing weighty relics, curiosities and sundry collectibles.

As of 1:45 p.m., 35 people wait ahead of me. Occasionally, others are escorted by AR crew to the front of the line. Rather than advancing, I steadily lose ground. Standing on tiptoe, I spot natty Doyle Auctions appraiser Kevin Zavian, who wears a suit despite the heat. At the beginning, an electric energy ripples through the line, as we murmur about possibilities.

Yet, the reality goes from manic to depressive as we see stranger things by the hour. 

“Is that man carrying a tapestry on a broom or mop?” a woman asks behind me. Whatever it is, he bears it high like Joan of Arc marching into battle.

As my spirits flag, I spot AR Folk Art appraiser Ken Farmer. Which gives me a brief adrenaline blip. Thereafter, I lose track of time. The air grows stiffer, hotter, as we advance by mere inches, the tapestry bobbing ahead.

“Where did all these people come from?” I hiss in despair. I meet some people who have come all the way from northern Virginia and Charleston, S.C. I despondently imagine somebody driving from Calico Corners, North Dakot, a to break in line with a ukulele. It’s possible. Those of us in the “crowd of liars” are clearly prepared to drag said valuables to hell and back in hopes of newfound wealth, as Kang writes.

Cautionary AR emails warned, it will be a long day, one with lots of standing and waiting. But, somehow, being fabulists ourselves, we don’t quite seem to comprehend the truth of this. However, I brought along a folding chair, which I dutifully lug around all day without actually using it. (More liar madness. If I don’t sit down, hopping along with a chair, perhaps the line will go faster.)

Let’s face it. The odds are against any of us getting on air. There’s a staggering surfeit of quilts, pottery, china, swords, Bakelite jewelry, violins, signage, antique bellows and baskets.

[Fact: Of the most telegenic, rare or intriguing objects appraised at each AR location on the annual tour circuit, only an estimated 90 or so are chosen for recording. Even then, there’s the faintest possibility my precious keepsakes will make the final cut.]

Still, appraisers do their valiant best to winnow out rarities. Occasionally, video crews come through filming “B roll” of the lines of waiting hopefuls lugging everything from well buckets to Grandma’s bloomers. Some deemed “good television” are rare, but not Moon Rocks rare. 

Also curious, even the uber-confident sported shorts, T-shirts, even (gasp!) open-toed shoes. (Expressly forbidden in AR pre-event instructions. And how would that look on TV?) 

But it grows infrequent for AR crew members to randomly tap attendees for filming on set within the museum. The rest of us are left to languish with our sweaty armpits.  Merciful AR volunteers (who also scored admission and appraisals by volunteering) toss out water bottles to the parched crowd. As Larry said in one of our many debriefing conversations the whole day is about as exciting as “watching people bringing junk to a flea market. It wasn’t much better.”

As the line crawls along, Larry calls: “Well . . .” He drawls. “I’m going home with my tail between my legs.” 

The Asian Arts expert (likely Robert Waterhouse) tells him his porcelains are newish or fake. He’s pretty sure he knows who faked them.

“The Bactrians were not the early ones, like I hoped, but still worth $3,000–4,000 for the pair.”

And Larry’s other porcelains? His prized blanc de chine dogs? 

“They were old, but not as old as they were made to look. The reason he knew they weren’t was they both had worked for Sotheby’s. A fellow agent there had them painted. If they had been real, they would have been worth $30–40 grand.” 

And the painting? Appraiser Alan Fausel of Bonhams New York evaluates it matter of factly. Larry is hoping it’s the work of famous French landscape artist Jean Baptiste Camille Corot.

If authentic, it’s invaluable. If it was painted by someone “in the school” of the painter — and it seemed many imitations were attempted — the work might be still worth mere thousands.

Not a complete wash out, but a disconsolate Larry laughs bitterly.

By this time, I had met many other attendees, including Donna and Mike Moore, Judie Mapomo, and Angela Pozeamb — and heard their items’ backstories. A former Macy’s buyer brought two signed Tiffany candy bowls. Another had costume jewelry. Yet another Raleigh woman hauled a garish silver-plated sculpture. “I don’t even like it,” she confesses, as her exasperated husband is suddenly splattered by bird poop.   

By the time I reach appraiser Jill Burgum of Heritage Auctions in Dallas she looks beyond exhausted. 

At her invitation, I produce my treasure: three engraved rose gold studs in an oval antique box.

“Well, these are charming,” she says kindly, lifting one stud, which she promptly drops. Burgum drops underneath the table, too, searching the ground. A fellow appraiser is sympathetic. “Things roll, right?” he commiserates as my heart thrums.

I join her search. Noticing a glint of gold, I find it.

Burgum knows exactly what they are: 18-carat tuxedo studs. We purchased them in a South African antique shop for a pittance — perhaps less than $25. They bore a Birmingham, England, origin mark, dating them precisely to 1899. The original box was called a “coffin” and accounted for a portion of their worth, which was anywhere from $300–500. 

She wonders if it was emblazoned with the name of the actual maker or simply the reseller, guessing it was the later. Not a humiliating outcome, but what, exactly, had I expected?

Two grueling hours later, I summit the second antiques Matterhorn: Decorative Arts and Silver, poised before ARTBnk appraiser Kelly Wright. 

Opening my bag of treasures for the exhausted Wright, I quickly surmise he’s not particularly interested in my husband’s ancestor’s riches-to rags-saga. (A London-made fortune lost to mining in South Africa. Facts in my folder under the heading “Formerly Wealthy But Ruined Ancestors.”)

Wright, having logged hours in the stifling heat, understandably appears close to collapse.

I share what I can in the two minutes allocated. His eyes flicker to mine as he examines my two engraved silver match safes, an ornate glove stretcher, shoe horn and two pairs of grape shears. He reference-checks the hallmarks.

They collectively date to the 1860s, also hallmarked Birmingham, England. “Early Victorian,” Wright determines. The marks concluded they were plated . . . naturally, because the bankrupt ancestor was forced to liquidate the sterling. 

Only the less valuable silverplate was retained.

More bad news: The glove stretchers, etc., belonged to (incomplete) “dresser sets,” Wright explains wearily but patiently. Broken sets held diminished value. 

Wright shoots a pitying look. Given their antique value, they would now be worth only about $60 per item. 

All total, the heirlooms I’d risked heat stroke for were not worth $1,000. I imagine the boys in the bar at Blowing Rock booing me off the stage if I had been filmed.

The AR website suggested, “When your appraisals are complete, please spend time to explore our event venue and enjoy the festival atmosphere.” Rejoining Larry, who’s been waiting in the shade, I announce, “I’ve no desire whatsoever to visit that durn Feedback Booth.”

“Me neither,” Larry agrees. 

“The most valuable thing I got out of today was the free bottled water,” I complain.

“I liked my stuff better when I thought it was valuable,” Larry grouses, packing the trunk. Then we laugh. Irrationally merry.

He carefully threads his real treasure, his Mercedes, through traffic, hitting the Interstate, dissecting every hot minute.

“Do you think it’s kind of a racket?” Larry asks.

It’s, of course, a purely rhetorical question by that point.  OH

Restaurant in Peace

Restaurant in Peace

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November 2023

A look back at bygone ‘Boro eateries

By Billy Ingram

Join us for a retrospective of Greensboro’s rich culinary legacy. Travel back in time to when just about every place someone dined in was locally owned. Patrons not only became friends with the restaurateurs, they were able to watch their children, who served them and ran the cash register, grow into adulthood.

Our journey begins in an era when farm-raised meats and just-picked produce were delivered directly each morning from farms to cafe back doors. Every dish was painstakingly prepared daily from generations-old recipes; adventurous innovators rose up with visions for what an increasingly younger clientele yearned for. Tuck in your bib and dig into the days shortly before the soulless mediocrity of an endless chain of corporate franchises hijacked America’s taste buds.

1) Manuel’s Cafe

© Greensboro History Museum

From the early 1920s to the mid 1950s, Manuel’s was the epitome of fine dining downtown, with fresh flowers and linen tablecloths. Men, of course, wouldn’t think of arriving attired in anything but a suit and white gloves were de rigueur for the ladies, though most folks of a certain class dressed like that when they left the house back then any way. Known for its rich, savory spaghetti and massive Western-style steaks, Manuel’s shared the block with Jefferson Standard’s West Market Street entrance. “We serve the very best!”

2) Cafe Mecca

© Greensboro History Museum

A little further down West Market during the ’30s and ’40s sat “Greensboro’s Most Popular Restaurant,” Cafe Mecca, serving seafood and steaks but pretty much offering the same menu items as every other local hash house. There was very little ethnic food available in town, but one notable exception was The Lotus Restaurant, launched in the 1930s and specializing in Chinese dishes, facing the Carolina Theatre on Greene Street.

3) Matthew’s Grill

Almost every city eatery from the’30s into the ’80s was owned and operated by Greek immigrants, Matthew’s Grill, aka “The Right Place To Eat,” being no exception. Having learned the business at The Princess Cafe, his sister and son-in-law’s downtown mainstay on South Elm, owner-operator Minas Dascalakis bought Matthew’s, sandwiched between the Greensboro and O.Henry Hotels on North Elm, in 1953. For the next 36 years, that luncheonette’s counter served as a go-to spot for business leaders and city officials. Standard Southern fare dominated the menu — the Sunday Special in the ’60s was braised rabbit — but Dascalakis was always eager to whip up any off-menu Greek speciality a customer craved.

4) Your House

This always dependable, inexpensive diner began life in Greensboro in the mid-’50s, adjacent to the Journey’s End Motel on Battleground, and survived 55 years, long after that motor lodge gave way to a generic shopping center some four decades ago. In its heyday, the restaurant was part of a 12-unit chain founded by the Callicotts in Burlington in 1962. I was also partial to another house, Jan’s House, in that funky dilapidated strip mall on West Market, where you could imagine the chef was flat-topping hash browns between stints behind bars.

5) Ranch Restaurant

© Greensboro History Museum

Very much like the design and concept of Your House, The Ranch Restaurant was attached to Smith’s Ranch Motel on Randelman Road at what was then the edge of town near Interstates 40 and 85. In 1968, proprietor J. Howard Coble (no relation to U.S. Rep. Howard Coble of Greensboro, whose father was Joe Howard Coble) served up a complete club steak dinner, including salad, french fries and buttered roll for the princely sum of $1.65.

6) Southern Queen Hot Shoppe

Ever notice that streamlined, train car-like building with a stainless steel exterior (recently painted over) attached to the side of La Bamba on Gate City Boulevard? Originally located across the street, this very rare example of a late-1940s Paramount built diner was constructed for Southern Queen Hot Shoppe, a drive-in hangout for post-war hipsters serviced by uniformed “curbers.” The Greensboro Hot Shoppe was one of 70 in seven states at the chain’s height.

7) Airport Restaurant

© Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection

According to my dear friend, Margaret Underwood, it was at this out-of-the-way Italian eatery overlooking the tarmac at PTI that chef Steve Bartis, another Greek expat, served the Gate City’s first pizza pie back in the 1950s. According to Margaret, this joint, with a $2.25 Wednesday night buffet, “had the best tossed salads with Roquefort dressing I’ve ever tasted.”

8) Tom Tom Supper Club

From the 1940s well into the 1970s, supper clubs were all the rage. Communal dining and dancing in grand ballrooms accompanied by live entertainment dished out by B- and C-listers such as Gogi Grant, The Archers, aka “America’s Answer to the Beatles!,” and alleged comedian Joe E. Ross’ wretched stand-up act. In Greensboro alone there were over half-a-dozen supper clubs during the 1960s with names like Queen’s Inn, Canopy, Tropicana (borderline strip joint booking acts such as Ginger “Snapper” Monroe, Exotique), Green’s — famous for its beach-themed oyster bar — and the Plantation on High Point Road (now Gate City Boulevard), where occasional A-listers, including The Ames Brothers and Nat King Cole, performed.

9) S&W Cafeteria / Mayfair Cafeteria

© Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection

Just one of many cafeterias downtown, the S&W was said to be the finest in the nation with an operation that took up three floors. Many felt it was a cut above, both culinarily and with its quietly elegant interior. Both S&W and Mayfair closed in the mid-’60s, when customers began fleeing the center of town for neighborhood retail strips, Friendly Center and, soon to follow in the ’70s, the Four Seasons Mall. 

10) Sunset Hills Restaurant

© Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection

A fine dining establishment named for the neighborhood it bordered, Sunset Hills Restaurant opened its doors in the 1952 at 1618 Friendly Road. Offering live lobsters, thick-cut pork chops and massive steaks served in a refined setting, it closed when the entire block was demolished in the early-1960s to accommodate a modern fire station, where 1618 West is docked currently.

11) Bliss Restaurant

© Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection

From the corner of Northwood and Huntington, this fine dining establishment seared chops and steaks for the Irving Park set from the 1940s until the mid-’60s when the place, by then renamed Al Bolling’s Charcoal Steak House, was itself reduced to charcoal after an inferno leveled the structure. That location then became home to the greatest multiscreen movie theater this city has ever or will ever know, the Janus. There’s a First Citizen’s Bank there now.

12) IPD / Cellar Anton’s

© Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection

Across Northwood from Bliss, Bill Anton converted a grocery store into a community culinary gathering spot like no other: Irving Park Delicatessen (IPD to regulars). The look, seen here in 1960, changed drastically in later years, but upstairs was the casual cafe where beloved waitress Bertie Johnson warmly welcomed folks, serving up lasagna and beef Leonardo that couldn’t be beat. Downstairs, where maître d’ Fitz Fitzgerald presided, was the more upscale Cellar Anton’s, a cavernous, candlelit old world grotto dominated by a wooden bar for folks “brown bagging.” At the time diners brought their own liquor to be stored behind the bar, then paid a nominal fee for set-ups. When IPD closed a decade ago, an extraordinarily crucial manifestation of what defined Old Greensboro vanished along with it.

13) Casey’s “World’s Best Bar-B-Q”

© Greensboro History Museum

Very popular with the Grimsley High lunch crowd from the ’50s into the ’70s, Casey’s was known for its grab-and-go Whiz Burgers, so named because the patties were slathered in Cheez Whiz. Booths were equipped with tabletop jukeboxes and prominently displayed up front was a check for $5,000 (more than $50,000 adjusted for inflation) signed by Andy Griffith for catering a Los Angeles cast party. He’d wanted his TV co-stars and crew to experience authentic North Carolina barbecue. You may recognize this building — it’s the strip on Friendly where Bandito Bodega is today.

14) Honey’s Drive-In

© Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection

With car culture in full swing by the 1950s, cruising High Point Road became a requisite teenage pastime. So the idea of downing King Bee burgers with your date sitting close enough to share your shake in an automobile the size of a small living room made perfect sense. Immaculately coiffed car hops attended to mobile meal-goers, while indoor noshers placed orders via closed-circuit telephone. Behind Honey’s (previously McClure’s) was the fabled Sky Castle, where Greensboro’s grooviest rock’n’roll radio jocks broadcasted live over 1320-AM WCOG. DJs would even take requests from diners as they tuned in while eating, parked in their beaters and crates. A great deal more exciting than current tenant Olive Garden.

15) McClure’s 

© Carol W. Martin/Greensboro History Museum Collection

After Drew and Devore McClure sold the aforementioned drive-in, they opened this upmarket restaurant around 1964 in the Summit Shopping Center. It was considered the height of mid-century elegance, featuring the “Sir Loin Room,” where rare roast beef was carved to order. A lobster tank anchored the front window, while, in the rear, the comfy Lantern Lounge with tufted leather seating showcased local musical acts on weekends. Very Continental.

16) Jung’s

© Greensboro History Museum

In the 1970s and ’80s, this Tudor-inspired house at 314 North Church St. was one of the city’s superlative dining destinations. While Jung’s Chinese & American Restaurant featured beautiful, spacious dining rooms with high ceilings, when I would tag along with my father, he would generally order Chinese spare ribs to-go.

17) Jordan’s Steak House 

Jordan’s Steak House, established in 1972, featured an intimate, 76-seat isle of gentility on Church Street, masked by a nondescript exterior. The most sought after chophouse in the Triad for visitors during High Point Furniture Market, its limited menu ensured exceptional standards. Diners selected the cut of beef they desired from a rolling table-side cart and, in due time, that steak returned grilled to perfection. By 1999, it was well-done the moment mediocre meat merchants Outback and Longhorn rode into town uninvited.

18) Darryl’s 1890

For teenagers in the 1970s, Darryl’s was the place to congregate with friends over frosty $3 pitchers and cheap wine carafes. Immersed in a playfully garish decor obviously inspired by New Orleans cathouses, the atmosphere was unlike any other, almost every station adorned with its own singular theme. The most requested corner was the caged table resembling a jail cell. Lines were long as eager date-nighters clambered to get inside on weekends.

19) Tony’s Pizza

Another hip hangout for high schoolers in the 1970s was Tony’s Pizza on Battleground, an avenue nowhere resembling the congested corridor of car lots and fast food chains we’re accustomed to today. Conceived and owned by Aleck Alexiou, son of The Princess Cafe’s owner, Tony’s was known for its incredible submarine and grinder sandwiches, a relatively new concept for this region.

20) Baskin-Robbins

Can one wax nostalgic over a franchise store in a cinderblock hut? In the 1970s, after movies let out at the Janus Theatres, Baskin-Robbins’ parking lot on Battleground behind IPD became packed tighter than a BR pint, brimming with young people. Business was so brisk Janus launched its own ice cream parlor that failed to dampen the throngs amassing nightly in search for affection over confection anyway. After the Janus’ eight screens flickered out in 2000, the crowds melted away at 31 Flavors, resulting in its slow demise.

As an amuse bouche, here’s a partial list of restaurants that have been around for 45 years or more, still in their original locations, that remain highly recommended: Cafe Pasta; Bernie’s Bar-B-Q; Brown-Gardiner Drug Store’s lunch counter; Lucky 32; Yum-Yum Better Ice Cream; K&W Cafeteria; Lox, Stock & Bagel; First Carolina Delicatessen; Mayberry Ice Cream; and New York Pizza on Tate.  OH

Poem November 2023

Poem November 2023

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November 2023

After Church

When the preacher’s son told me

my aura was part halo, part rainbow,

I saw him see me

saintly. God

appeared instantly and everywhere

that summer:

smiling in the pansies,

reflecting us in the farm pond,

beside us on our bikes,

in the barn fragrant with warm cows,

glinting from the hay chaff,

the slatted light.

God touched us as we touched,

electricity in our fingers,

we were shimmery and dewy,

our skin golden, hair sun-bleached.

Angels sang in our voices.

The moon rose in heaven, love,

heaven in the moon.

— Debra Kaufman

Debra Kaufman’s newest poerty collection, Outwalking the Shadow, is forthcoming from Redhawk Publications.

Almanac November 2023

Almanac November 2023

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November 2023

November opens our eyes to invisible worlds.

On a quiet morning, the soft trill of a single cricket coloring the darkness, you pull the old cookbook from the kitchen cupboard and cradle it by lamplight. Your hands know what to do, turning stained and cockled pages with gentle intention. Running your fingers over the food-smudged recipes, you think of the hands that held this relic before yours; all the homecooked meals; all the gatherings; all the love.

Slowing down, you delight in the soft rustling of each page, the fingerprints, the swell of memories. The journey is as sacred as the destination.

When you turn to the recipe — the one you’ve nearly memorized but could never forsake — your eyes dance from list to countertop, countertop to list. You tick off each item before dropping into an ancient, ancestral rhythm.

Your hands know what to do — measuring, whisking, mashing — and as you study each ingredient, you see them not as what they are, but where they’ve been:

Eggs warm from the hen.

Sweet potatoes buried in dark earth. 

Fields of wheat.

Cinnamon and nutmeg trees.

Sugarcane swaying in a spring breeze.

Yes, what you’re baking has a name. But it’s more than what you see. More than warm crust and vibrant orange filling. It’s sweetness harvested from darkness; prayers folded into faithful mixing bowls; the quiet song of summer’s final cricket.

Morning breaks slowly. Beyond the kitchen window, eddies of golden leaves gather and disperse, here and gone as quickly as the seasons.

An amalgam of spices warms the kitchen. As you place the cookbook on the shelf, your own hands sweeten the harvest — an eddy of unseen gifts folded into a family treasure. 

 

The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July.      — Henry David Thoreau

Days to Remember

The first frost is nigh. Daylight saving time ends on Nov. 5. Autumn is edging toward winter.

Between Dia de los Muertos (Nov. 1–2) and Thanksgiving (Nov. 23) are a ton of lesser-known holidays awaiting their time in the sun. Below are a few them. Of course, Veterans Day (Nov. 11) belongs up here.

Nov. 5 – Pumpkin Deconstruction Day (yep, exactly what it sounds like)

Nov. 6 – Marooned Without a Compass Day

Nov. 8 – Dunce Day

Nov. 13 – World Kindness Day

Nov. 14 – National Pickle Day

Nov. 15 – Clean Your Refrigerator Day

Nov. 17 – World Peace Day and Homemade Bread Day (more twofers like this, please)

Turn! Turn! Turn!

Turn back the clock; turn the compost; turn your focus inward.

As the garden journeys toward dormancy, we, too, slow down. And yet, these darker days awaken the dreamer, guiding us toward unopened books, forgotten crafts, the stovetop, the woodpile and the hearth.

From these quiet spaces, potent questions emerge.

What are you willing to let go of? How might this foster your growth?

As you nurture the roots of your wildest longings, feeding the soil of what’s true, you are minding the very fabric of what’s possible.

Such is the magic of this fallow season. OH

Wandering Billy

Wandering Billy

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November 2023

Tales of a Fisher Park Paperboy

What was once a way of life is now unthinkable

By Billy Ingram

“The newspaper carrier hasn’t time to get into trouble. He finds it fun to hold a job, to earn money and learn to meet people. He may not be aware of it, but he is developing individualism and learning to accept responsibility.”      – J. Edgar Hoover

Can you imagine allowing — no, encouraging — your preteen to leave the house unaccompanied during the twilight hours before sunrise, meet up with some random stranger in a pickup truck, then roam the neighborhood going door-to-door before your alarm even goes off in the morning? Inconceivable? Yet, that was a common occurrence in my youth, no less than a Norman Rockwellian cultural touchstone . . . the hometown paperboy.

Technically, I suppose Ben Franklin could be considered America’s first newsie as he handed out the Pennsylvania Gazette he published in the 1700s, but in truth that distinction belongs to 10-year-old Barney Flaherty, who was hired in 1833 to deliver The New York Sun. At that time, child labor was an accepted practice in factories and sweatshops around the country. That now unthinkable practice was outlawed a century later, but employing schoolboys to distribute the local news continued unabated by simply labeling these pint sized couriers “independent contractors.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Tom Cruise, our current President? All paperboys at one time, as was a friend I met at Mendenhall Junior High in the late-1960s, John Hitchcock. 

Being a morning person as a youngster, I would occasionally tag along on weekends, when bundles of newspapers were tossed off a truck at 6 a.m. for 12-year old Hitchcock and another nearby paper carrier, Norfleet Stallings. Pick-up was at what was once a spectacular 1920s-era, California Art Deco-inspired former firehouse once occupied by the City and County Council of Civil Defense. It was not in the best of neighborhoods, located alongside the railroad tracks on Church Street between Hendrix and Bessemer.

After rolling the papers, then fastening them with rubber bands, Hitchcock would throw a Greensboro Daily News-branded canvas bag over his shoulder and slide onto his silver Stingray 3-speed bike’s banana seat. Then he’d peddle and fling that morning’s edition onto dewy lawns across a seven-block route bordered by Bessemer Avenue, Church Street, Elm Street and North Park Drive.

His take for the week was 5 or 6 bucks, around $50 adjusted for inflation. “I was the richest kid in town,” Hitchcock says, perched behind a crowded counter at his shop, Parts Unknown: The Comic Book Store. “I could buy all the comic books I wanted and, if it was cold, get a bowl of chili, a bag of Fritos and a drink at Woolworth’s for like 35 cents. Then I’d high tail it home.”

Hitchcock still lives in the Fisher Park Craftsman-style home on Olive Street his family has owned since the 1930s. One recent evening, the two of us wander the neighborhood while Hitchcock points out houses and mentions some of the customers that lined his route.

“Mrs. Coble lived there forever. She was the sweetest old lady,” Hitchcock tells me as we approach 904 Olive. “After her kids were grown, she started renting out rooms.” Behind her house sat a square cinder block hut, no longer there. Word has it that back in the early-’50s, “for about a month, legendary Hall-of-Famer Mickey Mantle and a couple of bonus babies [rookies] lived in that house when they were sent here to get seasoned for playing with the Yankees.” After the games as those ballplayers would hang out drinking beers, Hitchcock’s uncle would join them. “He said they were really down-to-earth guys.”

This former paperboy had his share of eccentrics along the route. “My friend, Ken Edwards, came to my house one day and he says, ‘Look what I’ve got,’” showing Hitchcock a stack of early Fantastic Four and Spider-Man comics. Edwards explained that one subscriber on Hendrix was selling 12-cent Marvels for 10 cents apiece. “I slowly ended up buying all of them from him. What was weird about the guy, and I mean really weird,” says Hitchcock, “is he would give you a comic if he could spank you with a paddle. I never did it, but Ken did, and he said the guy didn’t hit worth a damn compared to his dad.”

A couple of blocks west at 113 Hendrix sits a large two-story duplex. “Alan McLeod had one of the greatest butterfly and moth collections anyone ever saw,” Hitchcock recalls. “He would buy cocoons, hatch them and mount them for display.” McLeod’s grandmother resided in the adjoining unit. “There was a welcome mat in front of her door. The paper had to be placed directly on the mat. If it wasn’t there, she would call and tell me to ‘bring my paper in.’ Sometimes it would be just a foot away. And I never got a tip.”

On the corner of Hendrix and Church, there’s a house Hitchcock remembers well. “Behind that house was a square metal cage where this guy kept squirrels,” he says. “Don’t ask me why, but he did.” Crossing the bridge over the railroad tracks to the other side of Hendrix was a dwelling with a more exotic habitat. “They had monkeys in a 5-foot by 8-foot pen. We’d bring pecans for the monkeys to eat and the homeowners would yell at us to get the hell out of there.”

In a charming bungalow at 1005 Magnolia, “There was a wonderful woman, Mrs. Noah. She lived by herself,” Hitchcock recalls. “She had a framed lithograph of Robert E. Lee, must’ve been passed down through the family. She told me that her daughter was seeing a guy and when the boyfriend walked in, saw the picture of Robert E. Lee, he says, ‘Why, General Grant! I’m glad you have such a nice place in this house.’ Mrs. Noah looked at her daughter and said, ‘He’s got to go.’”

In the 1980s, papergirls joined the carrier ranks. During the next decade, falling circulations and rising liability costs spelled the end for an American childhood tradition stretching back to the pioneer days.

Perhaps J. Edgar was right. John Hitchcock’s business on Spring Garden will be celebrating its 35th anniversary next year, so that entrepreneurial spirit did indeed start early and stuck.  OH

When not wandering, Billy Ingram can be found on Tuesday afternoons behind the counter at Parts Unknown, where one of the shop’s best-sellers is Brian K. Vaughan’s acclaimed graphic novel series Papergirls, which he highly recommends.

Birdwatch

Birdwatch

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November 2023

Flying Under the Radar

The rarely noticed double-crested cormorant

By Susan Campbell

Overlooked by many, the double-crested cormorant is a waterbird found alone or in small groups across our state during the cooler weather. This large, black, gull-like bird has few admirers. It only gets noticed when sitting with wings outstretched, drying in the sun, on an exposed perch such as a low snag or bulkhead. Although cormorants are less waterproof than most, their lack of buoyancy makes it easier to swim after prey in deep water. They can be found in a variety of bodies of water, from retention or farm ponds to larger lakes and reservoirs. However, if you are at the beach during the winter months, you may see them in the open ocean, often foraging together by the thousands.

This bird is hardly a striking waterbird. Cormorants actually look odd — somewhat like a cross between a loon and a goose. Although it seems to be a dull black bird with a long neck and pointed wings, should you see it at close range it actually does sport some color. The bright orange-yellow facial skin and shockingly aquamarine eyes of adult birds are apparent. Furthermore, breeding individuals have two black and white tufts as well as a blue mouth from early spring through mid-summer.

Double-crested cormorants are widely distributed across North America. They breed on rocky outcroppings off the coast of Canada and Alaska as well as on islands in wetter portions of the Upper Midwest. They place bulky nests in stout trees or on the ground in colonies. Flocks migrate inland across the United States to coastal wintering sites. Some cormorants can be found farther away from the coast in wetter habitats of the Southeast.

Given that this species primarily feeds on a variety of fish, and can congregate in large numbers, it is sometimes considered a nuisance by fish farmers and fishermen. Double-crested cormorants have strongly hooked bills which, along with their strong, webbed feet, definitely make them good fishers. More often than not, however, their foraging goes unnoticed, especially here in North Carolina. Moving from place to place, like so many species of birds, they form skeins or V-formations. Significant flocks have been known to show up during the fall in the Sandhills. Flying low, they appear in the afternoon to drop in to feed on one of our larger lakes. Just before dark they will fly up into an older pine to roost.

It is hard to believe that double-crested cormorant populations were once imperiled. Widespread use of pesticides in the 1960s and ’70s impacted the breeding success of many birds, especially those high up on the food chain. Compounds such as DDT caused eggshell thinning and thus, a precipitous decline in breeding productivity until it was banned in the U.S. in 1969. Recovery was swift, however, and numbers remain high in spite of increased human activity throughout the species’ range.  OH

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

Home Grown

Home Grown

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November 2023

Mama’s International Cuisine

Taste buds awaken outside of her kitchen

By Cynthia Adams

Ours was an international kitchen . . . if you accept that the fare at IHOP is international.

Mama made gravy, but not the Italian red sauce certain New York Italians confusingly call gravy.   

True, she made red-eye gravy, milk gravy and brown sausage gravy, which she spooned over biscuits. As for red sauce, Mama went rogue. If she ran short on Hunt’s tomato sauce, she substituted catsup. She used ground beef in her spaghetti sauce, but to a difficult-to-digest extent. Slicks of oil glazed the surface as she ladled it over the pasta, completely unfazed.

Mama’s version of Chow Mein came from a can of Chun King bamboo shoots. As she hotly argued, it had to be authentic or else Chun King would never have put it on the can in the first place.

The menfolk loved Mama’s Hungarian goulash, a substantial dish that came from The Progressive Farmer or Betty Crocker’s cookbook. It had little to do with Hungarians or actual goulash, but Mama, a born improviser, was no stickler. The sheer weight of the dish — leaning heavily on a base suspiciously like her brown breakfast gravy — featured ground beef, cooking oil, powdered onion, celery salt, canned mushrooms and a pint of sour cream. So substantial, in fact, it could sustain a famished Hungarian ditch digger.

When I experienced authentic foreign food as a student studying abroad, my reality was rattled. Nothing I’d eaten in Hell’s Half Acre, as locals called our community, had prepared me. 

Italian fare — from a slice on the street to pasta — delighted yet bewildered. The simplicity and lightness of fresh ingredients — and lack of reliance upon Hunt’s tomato products — shocked my system.

Once back in Cabarrus County, I never told Mama how unlike Italian gravy it was. Besides, my father and brothers were enthusiastic about Mama’s hearty cooking, leaving no room for self-doubt. He would push back from the table, happily groaning, “Jonni, I’m stuffed!”

She was a get-er-done woman, uninterested in the fuss and bother of Julia Child. Jonni and Julia? Never. True, Mama was expeditious, but not so much as Mama June of Here Come’s Honey Boo Boo, who prepared on camera a two-ingredient “sketti” with catsup and butter. I figured most home cooks were equally steadfast in their reliance upon recipes found on can labels and cake boxes.

That was, until I met Peggy, whose son I later married. As a young woman invited to her table, I fell under her spell, already intoxicated by her fragrant kitchen — where fresh herbs and spices, olive oil, and generously sized Italian meatballs and sausage simmered.

I inhaled, and the aromas of Italy filled my senses. Although of Irish stock, Peggy was a native New Yorker steeped in Italian fare. 

Chianti was on the table — I’d noted Peggy enjoying a glass as she cooked. These were habits I vowed to adopt as soon as I had a kitchen of my own. Only an M.F.K. Fisher or a Ruth Reichl could express Peggy’s carefree alchemy, meshing ordinary ingredients into an exceptional whole as she sometimes sang along to a Frank Sinatra tune.

As dishes were passed, I watched, enraptured as Peggy served. The sauce lightly covered slightly toothy pasta. Over that went hand-rolled meatballs, fragrant of fresh parsley, basil and garlic. Then the Italian sausages. Grated parmesan (fresh!) was passed around, along with garlic bread for sopping all that deliciousness.

I carefully avoided telling Mama about the ecstasies of authentic home-cooked Italian for obvious reasons. Mama would have been mortally wounded; she fancied herself to be a fine cook. (And I never told Mama how Peggy also created a culinary masterpiece out of a Thanksgiving turkey, too — pushing herbs beneath the skin before dousing it with a good olive oil. And cooking it until done, which Mama seldom bothered with.)

When my marriage to Peggy’s son ended, my relationship with her endured. Years later, Peggy and I were having drinks with her daughter, Gale. Peggy was especially fond of a good Manhattan, and, as we sipped, I wistfully reminisced. 

Did she still make her spaghetti, I ventured, hopeful of wangling an invitation to her table?

Peggy giggled her signature, girl-like trill. “Oh, I don’t cook anymore,” she said, waving her hand. “Those days are behind me.” 

This news was tantamount to learning that Michelangelo retired early and no longer carved marble. 

“B-but . . . ” I spluttered, at a complete loss. I turned away before she could see my despair.

New World Italians have a charming expression for a meat sauce like Peggy’s: Sugo Della Domenica or “Sunday’s sauce.” It is never difficult, they observe, to get people to the table for Sunday’s sauce.

Indeed.

Sometimes in my dreams, I sip chianti in Peggy’s kitchen. The sauce simmers; bits of fresh basil dance to the surface. The growl of my impatient stomach. And then, sigh: that first al dente bite in the mouth. 

My sweet Mama, I vowed long ago, could never know.  OH

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