Tag: Department

Almanac May 2025

ALMANAC

Almanac May

By Ashley Walshe

Come with me into the woods where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.

— Mary Oliver, from “Bazougey” (Dog Songs, 2013)

May is the dreamer and the dream, the artist and the muse, a wish both made and granted.

Daisies are sweet, she must think to herself, giggling as she scatters them across green spaces and rolling meadows, weaving them among butterfly weed and purple coneflower; gently tucking them alongside bluebells and Indian blanket.

A dusting of iris for the pine forest. Jack-in-the-pulpit for the wet and shady woodlands. And for the garden? Peonies, poppies, sweet peas, gardenias and roses.

“Come to me,” says flower to bee.

“Only you,” bee purrs to blossom after fragrant blossom.

And so it goes with milkweed and monarch, yarrow and ladybug, foxglove and hummingbird.

“I’ve been aching for you,” murmurs snake to sun-warmed stone.

“Ditto,” stone whispers back.

Listen to the queenking of treefrog, the whistling of robin, the moonlit chanting of whippoorwill. All of life is a call and response, even if we can’t perceive it.

Magnolia flowers titter at the touch of beetle feet. Phlox swoons at the kiss of eastern swallowtail. Cottontail quivers at the nip of wild strawberry.

New leaves reach for the generous sun. Earthworms pray for rain. Dandelions wish for children.

“Pick me,” a puffball whispers on a gentle breeze. A little boy answers, lifts the downy orb to the light, closes his eyes, and sends one hundred wishes soaring — ninety-nine of them dreams for the gift of an endless spring.

Legendary Sweetness

The Cherokee legend of the first strawberries tells of a quarrel between the earliest man and woman, and the sun’s role in their reconciliation.

“I shall live with you no more,” says the woman, storming away in anger. Seeing that the man is sorry for his harsh words, the sun intervenes. Casting his golden rays upon the earth, he sends plump raspberries, glistening blueberries, then luscious blackberries. The woman blasts past all of them. Finally, when sun-warmed strawberries appear gleaming at her feet, she stops in her tracks. One bite and the sweetness washes over her. Filled with the joy she shared with her husband before their fight, she gathers the strawberries to share with him.

“To this day,” writes Joseph Bruchac in The First Strawberries, a retelling of the Cherokee story, “when Cherokee people eat strawberries, they are reminded to always be kind to each other; to remember that friendship and respect are as sweet as the taste of ripe red berries.”

Want to pick your own strawberries this month? Find PYO farms across the state at pickyourown.org.

Mama Loves You

Mother’s Day is observed on Sunday, May 11. As you celebrate all the mamas you hold dear — mother comes in many forms — don’t forget the one who holds us all. We love you, Mother Earth. Thank you for all that you give. May we learn to honor you through our choices, our actions and our grateful hearts.

O.Henry Ending

O.HENRY ENDING

A Visitation on Epiphany

Walking Kiki home

By Woodson E. Faulkner

Lingering after the resounding organ postlude, I pause to take in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Stepping through its arched entrance is like walking into a portal of a distant time when things happened slowly, deliberately. Being one of the last to exit after the Feast of the Epiphany service, I catch a glimpse of the vicar and compliment his homily, which asked the question, “Why are we here?” In his sermon, he suggested that those of us who were present were seeking to build a community not just of believers, but of members of a “peaceable kingdom,” where common respect, kindness, and desire for truth and beauty might come together. He accepts my compliments graciously, bidding me “Happy New Year.”

As I step outside into the night, assaulted by a cold, bracing wind that New York is famous for, I begin the journey back to my Westside Avenue apartment when suddenly, gently, a hand reaches out to my left arm. A little voice breaks my stride: “Would you please help me home? I’m blind, you see, and can’t navigate the steps and curbs very well anymore.” I extend my arm and graciously agree to guide her the two blocks to her apartment.

I finally get a good look at this tiny woman wearing a broad-brimmed hat that flops up and down in the wind, obscuring her face. She is no more than 5 feet tall, wearing an elegant overcoat and dainty shoes. She speaks to me in short, fast sentences, giving me tips on how to help someone who’s blind. “Now, you have to walk slowly and time your footsteps with mine so I can follow you.” At the first intersection, she tells me she’s a jaywalker “because they don’t see you when you’re using the zebra stripes,” aka the designated crosswalk. “They’re just looking at the light. So, you have to make them see you by walking in a way that they are not expecting.” While this seems like a risky idea, I take her advice and guide her kitty-cornered across the street.

I’m fascinated by this lady’s spunk and determination to get around, relying on the kindness of strangers. As we time our footsteps together, I find the slower pace relaxing, devoid of the anxiety that the typical, brisk-walking New Yorker seems to exhibit.

“Just one more block,” she says. She slides her hand up, taking hold of my shoulder as we make our way down the final terminus. “You know, I hitchhiked my way around the world when I was younger,” she exclaims. “I’ve been blind all my life, but that didn’t stop me. People expected me to shut up in my room and just wither away! I wasn’t going to do it!”

“Wow,” I say, gasping in amazement at what this little lady must have experienced. “That’s incredible. Were you afraid?” I ask.

“Well, at times, maybe a little, but most people were good to me and helped me get right along.”

As the Cathedral bells sound their hourly peel, we arrive at her apartment. Just then, tiny, drifting snowflakes begin falling like fairy dust. “Here we are. I’m in the one way up there — you see it?” she asks, pointing with her cane to a place in the dark.

“Oh yes, it’s lovely,” I respond. Just then, the doorman opens the door. As she releases her grasp on my shoulder, I ask, “What’s your name?”

“Kiki,” she says. I stop in my tracks, jolted by suddenly remembering that tonight is the 10th anniversary of my mother’s passing. Her nickname was also Kiki.

Passing Kiki off to the doorman, I turn and look up at the gentle snow, falling more and more fully as it caresses my face. As the door closes, I catch a faint scent of gardenia coming from the apartment building’s lobby. That was my mother’s favorite flower.

“Goodnight, Kiki!” I say as the snow begins to melt down my cheeks.

2025 Department O.Henry Ending

Simple Life

SIMPLE LIFE

Gone But Not Forgotten

The legendary newspaper woman who changed my life

By Jim Dodson

According to latest government projections, a record 3.7 million high school kids and 4.11 million college students will graduate this spring. In a world turned upside down by partisan politics and unpredictable economics, worries about the future are understandable.

Once upon a time, I was there myself, waiting for the direction of my life to present itself.

In late spring 1976, America’s Bicentennial year, I was enrolled in a new M.F.A. writing program at UNCG and working part-time for my dad in advertising until I could figure out what to do with my life. America was slowly coming out of a powerful recession and job prospects were thin on the ground.

Sadly — or maybe not — I turned out to be a lousy ad salesman. I could talk up a storm with my old man’s clients but never quite close the deal.

I also had an alternative plan of caddying for a year on the PGA tour, which proved to be a bust when I was assigned a tubby, wisecracking CBS TV star for the Wednesday Celebrity Pro-Am who’d never played the game. He told vulgar jokes to young women in the crowd and roguishly passed gas loudly to amuse the gallery. After a long and humiliating afternoon fetching my client’s lost golf balls from creeks, backyards and thorny bushes, he handed me a $2 tip and advised with a wink, “Don’t spend all that in one place, Sonny.”

I hurried straight to the Sedgefield Country Club bar with just that in mind.

At that early hour of the evening, the bar was empty save for an elderly gentleman sitting around the corner of the bar, nursing a cocktail.

As I drank my beer, to my shock and delight, I realized the gentleman at the end of the bar was none other than Henry Longhurst, the celebrated Sunday Times golf writer and CBS commentator — one of my literary heroes.

“Young man,” he spoke up with his charming grumble, “you look like I feel most mornings when confronting myself in the bathroom mirror.”

When I mentioned my horrible afternoon of caddying for a farting buffoon who killed my dream of caddying on the Tour, Henry “Longthirst” simply smiled. He asked what other options I had in mind. Confessing that my heart wasn’t into my graduate studies, I boldly commented that my real goal was to someday become a golf writer.

The great man nodded and slowly rose, placing a fiver on the counter. As he headed to the door, he placed his hand on my shoulder and said quietly, “Well, young man, if you do decide to write about this ancient game, you will find no shortage of rogues, bounders and peculiar characters, but also inspiring champions and some of the finest people on Earth. Good luck to you, then!”

I was thrilled by this encounter, taking it as a sign that the universe would deliver something good down the fairway of life.

A few days later, I received a phone call from Juanita Weekley, the managing editor of the city’s beloved afternoon newspaper, where I’d interned for two summers. She invited me to drop by for an interview.

“Be here at 5:30 sharp,” she said. “But don’t get your hopes up. You have lots of competition.”

I found her alone in her office the next afternoon. “Come in and close the door,” she said in her famous no-nonsense way.

Mrs. Weekley was a newspaper pioneer, the first woman to edit a major newspaper in the state, a tough, plain-spoken redhead who reminded me of Lou Grant, the crusty editor from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

As I sat down, she pointed to a stack of folders on her desk. “These are applications from half a dozen outstanding candidates for this job. They are all female from top journalism schools. I’ve been instructed by personnel to hire a female. My question to you is, why should I even consider a skinny white kid from the west side of Greensboro?”

I understood her point. But I also had nothing to lose. I was still buzzing from meeting one of my sports journalism heroes.

Brazenly, I replied, “Because I’ll write circles around them all.”

Madam Weekley did not appear amused. Instead, she reached over her desk, picked up the wickedest-looking letter opener I’d ever seen and tapped it slowly on her desk.

“OK,” she said after a long pause. “I’m going to take a chance on you. But listen closely. If you’re not the best damn writer in this newspaper in a year, I’ll chase you out of the building with this thing.”

I spent the next year writing like mad to avoid being run off by her evil, sharp tongue and even sharper letter opener. At one point, however, Mrs. Weekley called me into her office and handed me the keys to a wheezing, 1970 day-glow orange AMC Pacer staff car and instructed me to drive a 75-mile circumference around the Gate City, searching for “good stories about country life” for the Sunday paper’s Tar Heel Living section.

“Think of it this way,” she said. “You’ll be our version of Charles Kuralt, writing about rural life and colorful characters you meet along the way. It’s right up your alley.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Over the next six weeks, roaming the backroads of the western Piedmont and the Blue Ridge foothill country, I found an assortment of fascinating small-town stories and colorful folks to write about, including several homegrown artists, a brilliant Yale-educated physician running a clinic in an impoverished mountain town, an award-winning poet, a famous moonshiner, the biggest Bluegrass festival in history, and the winner of a Bear Creek talent show, whose mom invited me to marry her daughter after she graduated from high school. I politely declined.

Looking back, it was the best job any rookie reporter ever had — one that shaped my life.

My “country” tales won a major newspaper award and landed me a staff job at the Sunday Magazine of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where I was the youngest writer of the oldest Sunday magazine in the South.

Two decades later, I was back in my hometown on a national book tour for my bestselling memoir, Final Rounds.

I stopped off to say hello to Juanita Weekley, the pioneering woman who took a chance on me way back when, and bring her a signed copy of my book.

She was in declining health. But her face lit up when she opened the door. We hugged and sat for an hour, and I thanked her for not running me off with her letter opener.

As she walked me to the door, she took my hand. “I knew you were going to be a superb writer,” she said, holding back tears. “I just didn’t want you to know that! I couldn’t be prouder of you, dear. Hiring you was one of the best things I ever did in my career.”

I kissed her cheek and thanked her. “It would never have happened,” I said, “without you.”

Juanita Weekley passed away in 2003.

Gone but never forgotten.

2025 Department Simple Life

Life’s Funny

LIFE'S FUNNY

Type Cast

How Greensboro’s Nich Graham rocks his Royal Safari

By Maria Johnson

Tangerine, soul, gossip, smoke.

It’s an odd foursome of words, but Nich Graham has invited me to bring prompts to our coffee-shop interview to spark the free verse that he pounds out on his old-school mechanical keyboard.

It’s his schtick and his bliss. Back for the second year in a row, Nich will bring his Typewriter Poetry, a form of performance art, to the Greensboro Bound book festival this month.

Clack-clack, clack-clack.

He’s a forefinger typist, even though his 1960s manual typewriter — Royal brand, beige Safari model, complete with Williamsburg-blue, hard-shell case — harks to an era when legions of students, mostly women, learned touch-typing to prepare them for futures as secretaries.

At 31, Nich knows nothing about quick brown foxes jumping over lazy dogs. Sporting a smattering of tattoos and a cotton tee repping Osees, a psych-rock band formed in San Francisco, he’s a lank and bright-eyed creature of his time. He recalls a brush with keyboarding instruction in fifth grade.

“We didn’t do it, so the teacher gave up,” he says.

He jabs the chunky keys with his index fingers.

Clack-clack, clack-clack.

He hammers out the four words, which appear at the top of a notecard curled around the typewriter’s heavy roller. He closes his eyes to find the flow. His verse shows up in jagged lines.

Her soul glowed

a citrus petrichor that

billowed out

in smoke

A perfume scented in

the same color

* tangerine

Just for the record, I’m not wearing perfume; neither one of us is smoking; the asterisks are a part of the poem; and petrichor means the earthy smell that arises when rain hits the ground.

I mean, he never said he was writing about me, but still.

I discreetly sniff my pits while taking notes.

Wait. Is citrus petrichor a candle scent? Do I smell like a candle?

Clack-clack, clack-clack

He uses the word “trouble” to describe himself as a young man growing up in Newark, California, on the lower lip of San Francisco Bay.

His mom, a single parent whom Nich describes as loving and tough, laid down the law when he dropped out of high school.

“You gotta figure something else out, kid, because this isn’t working,” she said.

With her blessing, Nich, who pronounces his name “Nick,” moved to the High Sierra mountains where he lived with his maternal grandmother, a “mestiza” of mixed Native American and Spanish heritage.

Together, they tended her flowers, vegetables, trees and cacti. Pulling a red wagon loaded with his grandmother’s gardening supplies, Nich absorbed lessons about time, patience and setting the right conditions for growth. He also discovered that he learned best when he was outdoors and when he worked with his hands.

A seed rooted in his teenage brain. He still hung with trouble, but, after a near-death experience, the seed sprouted.

He enrolled in a community college, where he excelled at horticulture and art. An associate’s degree later, he headed to Humboldt State College. Outside of class, he worked odd jobs and busked spoken-word poetry for donations.

A descendant of storytellers on his mother’s Southwestern side and his father’s Iranian side, Nich was a veteran of open mic competitions and poetry slams.

Spitting words came easily. The sidewalk crowds did not.

“I couldn’t compete by yelling poetry,” he says.

A friend suggested that Nich get an old typewriter as a prop and start channeling his verse via keys.

He did and added a sign: “Free-Range, Organic, Non-GMO Poetry.”

Onlookers, many of whom were too young to remember the days before computer keyboards, stepped closer, curious about the chattering machine.

If they wanted to try it, Nich let them take the beast for a spin so they could feel the bouncing action of keys under their fingertips, see the thin metal arms embossed with backwards letters striking the ribbon before dropping back into line, and hear magical rat-a-tat-tat of letters turning into words turning into thoughts.

The general reaction?

“Stoked,” Nich says. “Just stoked.”

Clack-clack, clack-clack.

Nich’s poem takes shape. Citrus petrichor wafts into another idea.

Where chisma was brought around

professional gossip

too

obtuse a term

I have to look it up. “Chisma” means rumor in Spanish.

Is “professional gossip” an obtuse term? I think not. But let me tell you who in this business is obtuse. Later.

Did Nich and I dish on work? Not really, unless you count a conversation about how writers absorb, digest and express their experiences differently.

Hmm. Maybe I don’t smell like a candle.

Clack-clack, clack-clack

Nich came to Greensboro in early 2019, intending to do a residency at Elsewhere, Greensboro’s museum of offbeat collections.

Then came a virus. And cancellations.

With no money and no way to get home, Nich repaired to the mountains of Southwest Virginia to help a woman start a goat farm. Word of mouth brought more agri-gigs, eventually leading to Greensboro’s private Canterbury School, where he still works as a garden educator, tilling, planting, weeding, watering, mulching, harvesting and composting with K-8 students.

Recently, he guided two eighth-grade girls in fixing a broken tiller.

“We sat down without YouTube and figured out how to get that thing running again,” says Nich. “It was literally the proudest moment of my teaching career. Anytime I see them I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ ”

The younger students call him Mr. Diggy.

“I’m like, ‘Whatever you want to call me is OK, little humans,’” he says. “I like seeing them grow and develop, too.”

Now working toward a master’s degree in experiential and outdoor education at Western Carolina University, Nich also does permaculture projects for private clients. In June and July, he will be working for the Creative Aging Network of Greensboro, leading gardening sessions for grandparents and their grandchildren, as well as caregivers and their charges.

He’s stuck on growth.

Swiss chard.

Lettuce.

Watermelon.

Understanding.

Connections.

He hopes to move his mother and grandmother here from California.

“I said, ‘Just come out here. I’ll take care of you,’” he says.

He sees a home, a few acres, a family-run orchard, maybe a cider press.

Clack-clack, clack-clack.

A dozen times a year, he gets paid for doing Typewriter Poetry at literary events, parties and fundraisers. On May 17, the day of the book festival, he will pop up his word shop from 1–5 p.m in the Greensboro Cultural Center.

People will feed him a few words at a time. He will type them at the top of a note card printed with his artwork, close his eyes, sway like a musician until he catches a melody of meaning, then start typing.

He can tell a lot about people, he says, by the words they toss him.

About a half give him greeting-card words: love, hope, promise — what they think they should say.

Another quarter supply words borne of turmoil. One woman started crying when she read Nich’s interpretation. “I get the privilege of helping them process whatever they’re going through,” he says.

Another quarter hand him playthings.

Nich slaps the carriage return, a chrome lever, with confidence. His poem is coming in for a soft landing.

aspiring to

share stories that

captured more than

essence

seeping down

in a river formation

a journey around

ink

noise

heart

2025 Department Life's Funny

Omnivorous Reader

OMNIVOROUS READER

Duck and Cover

How to keep your personal information safe

By Stephen E. Smith

When my mother was a teenager, she was the only all-night operator in a town of about 2,000 souls. The hours were long, so she eavesdropped on private conversations. When she got home, she shared the latest gossip with my grandmother, and within a few hours, everyone in town knew everyone else’s business.

In theory, it still works that way, except, of course, that our personal data is managed by computers — our iPhones, laptops, tablets and the clandestine eavesdropping monsters that lurk in the mystical ether — which speed up and amplify the collection process while disseminating our confidential information globally. The result, however, is the same: There are no secrets, finally or ever.

This is why Lawrence Cappello’s On Privacy: Twenty Lessons to Live By is a timely little book (151 pages) that’s surely worth the few minutes it takes to read it. It won’t be the most exciting book you’ve read, but it might be one of the most important.

Cappello is a professor of U.S. legal and constitutional history at the University of Alabama. He’s the author of None of Your Damn Business: Privacy in the United States from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age, and he’s a certified information privacy professional. He’s on top of this data collection stuff, and his advice might help you sleep a little more soundly.

We’re hammered daily by claims that the equity in our homes is being stolen, our bank accounts plundered, our reputations besmirched, and our children driven to suicide. And then there are the endless scams that pop up on our screens (I consider everything a scam until it proves itself otherwise, and then I know for sure it is a scam). And now the government — who should be protecting us — has gotten into the info-distribution game via the unsupervised plundering of heretofore confidential databases.

On Privacy is written for those who are fearful about the disclosure of their personal data but who are reluctant to toss out their electronic devices. Cappello cuts through the noise and confusion and enumerates in short, sensible steps the necessary safeguards we need to adopt to be secure in the digital age. He offers practical insights into why privacy matters, how it shapes free societies, and how it rules our lives in an increasingly interconnected electronic world.

What Cappello doesn’t do is bombard his readers with terrifying stories about unfortunate fellow citizens who’ve suffered life-altering internet crimes. Horrifying examples only encourage despair. Instead, Cappello begins by addressing the requisite rationalization, “The Nothing-to-Hide Trap,” in which we maintain that if we are full-time do-gooders, we have nothing to fear from those who’d access our personal data. “Our personal information exists in snippets,” he writes. “When taken out of context, the private details of our lives . . . too often paint a picture of us that is skewed and not entirely true,” and thus we are often misrepresented. Since first impressions matter, we should focus on what computers collect and, more importantly, the distribution of our personal data.

Cappello breaks down the threats to our privacy into easy-to-read chapters that present the problems and suggest solutions. After a brief discussion of “Privacy Is Essential to Mental Health,” he appends suggestions on “How to Talk About Privacy’s Mental Health Benefits,” followed by “How to Protect Your Mental Health Through Privacy.” It’s all very straightforward.

He claims, for example, that we have the right to be forgiven our youthful transgressions. We make mistakes. “Unfortunately, the mistakes we make in life will remain instantly accessible,” he writes, “to any stranger inclined to take thirty seconds for a quick online search.”

Moreover, we are constantly under surveillance; our movements are tracked by our phones, computers and cameras on the street. If that’s not intrusive enough, outside sources can read your private electronic communications. He offers a solution: Secure your email with PGP encryption, a popular tool that scrambles your writing so that only the intended recipient can read it. The same is true for texts; encrypted text messaging apps are readily available and require only a quick download to your phone. These email and text apps also have an automatic delete option. And he recommends you buy a Faraday bag, a small pouch that blocks all signals; otherwise, you can be tracked by your phone even if you turn off your GPS.

Not only are we surveilled by private entities, but the government has, for many years, been poking into our business. Surveillance is the enemy of free expression: It discourages people from participating in political movements by instilling the fear they’ll be arrested for speaking out against the powerful, which inhibits the right of free assemblage as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Cappello reminds us that the “belief that the surveillance powers of the state must be constantly kept in check is a cornerstone of what it means to live in a free country.”

Most of Cappello’s recommendations are simple and easily implemented: “When in doubt, log out,” delete apps you aren’t using and any accounts associated with them, tape off the camera on your computer, clear your browser history, get rid of caches and cookies, turn off and lock your computer when not in use, and purchase your own Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which makes it difficult to track your online activity. And those are just a few of the suggestions that might save you money and safeguard your reputation.

Of course, the obvious way to protect your future information — there’s little you can do about the past — is to disappear or “go dark,” as folks are wont to say. This would necessitate the destruction of all your electronics — computers, streaming devices, tablets, phones, smartwatches, etc., and all storage systems — thumbnail drives, hard drives, data stored in the cloud (the global network of remote servers that functions as a single ecosystem), old floppy disks, credit cards, etc. Everything. All of it. Then disappear. Forever.

2025 Department Omnivorous Reader

In Good Taste

IN GOOD TASTE

Look, Ma! No Buns!

In a pickle? This burger bowl is the answer

Story and Photograph by Jasmine Comer

About 16 years ago when I was 14, I had a memorable cooking mishap involving an excessive amount of salt. My mom was making her famous burgers and fries one Friday when a too-close encounter with with the mandolin sent her to the emergency room. Left in charge of cooking supper while my dad took Mom to the hospital, I was determined to finish the burgers that she’d started. Having only prepared very basic meals before — think eggs and bacon — I unknowingly created the world’s saltiest burgers. That evening, my teenage enthusiasm embraced the motto on the Morton salt box: “When it rains, it pours.”

That night was a pivotal moment where I learned a hard truth: Over-salting food is almost always an irreversible error. And it’s so easy to do it. Just as quickly as a pinch can enhance a dish, too much can ruin it entirely. This experience is why many of my recipes suggest seasoning with salt and pepper to taste, acknowledging individual preferences and needs. There’s a lesson in biochemistry here, but I’ll leave that to Alton Brown.

As for these burger bowls, rest assured . . . they are not overly seasoned. This is one of those meals that you can easily customize with protein and veggies of your choice. The magic is in the sauce. As a sauce enthusiast, I’ve always leaned toward homemade — dressings, too. They can completely transform a meal. This burger sauce is sweet and tangy, and it perfectly complements the heartiness of the beef and the crunchiness of the fresh vegetables. Do me a favor and learn from my mistakes — go easy on the salt?

Burger Bowls

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

For the beef

1 pound ground beef

1/2 small yellow onion, diced

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

Burger sauce

1/2 cup mayo

1/2 tablespoon yellow mustard

2 tablespoons ketchup

2 tablespoons sweet or dill relish

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon sugar

For the salad

1 large head romaine, chopped

1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 red onion, diced

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

½ cup pickle slices, chopped

1. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add the ground beef, onions, garlic powder, Worcestershire, salt and pepper. Cook for 6–8 minutes or until beef is no longer pink, stirring occasionally.

2. While the beef is cooking, prepare the sauce: Whisk all the ingredients together. Place in the fridge until it is time to serve the salad.

3. Assemble the salad starting with the romaine, followed by the other toppings and the ground beef. Drizzle with burger sauce. OH

Jasmine Comer is the creator of Lively Meals, a food blog where she shares delicious, everyday recipes. You can find her on Instagram @livelymeals.

2025 Department In Good Taste

Tea Leaf Astrologer

TEA LEAF ASTROLOGER

Taurus

(April 20 - May 20)

Whoever said that small minds discuss people surely wasn’t calling out a Taurus. When Mercury enters your sign on May 10, however, remember that the tea won’t spill itself.
On May 12, the full moon in Scorpio will illuminate an opportunity for you to get crystal clear on what really matters. Lastly, if things are feeling a bit awkward in the romance department, you can expect that to continue until Venus glides back into your sign on June 6. In other words, hang tight.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Gemini (May 21 – June 20)

Follow the care instructions.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Stir until fragrant.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Don’t be afraid of your own roar.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Polish the mirror.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

Dare you to take a “Me Day.”

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

Start writing things down.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Cancel your ego trip.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Relax your neck and jaw.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Hint: Slow and steady.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Try using a different soap.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

You might want to pack a snack

2025 Department Tea Leaf Astrologer

NC Surround Around

NC SURROUND AROUND

Stepping Up

Citizen Vinyl pressed into service

By Tom Maxwell

There’s a beautiful Art Deco building at 14 O. Henry Avenue in Asheville, located on a particularly high spot in that already elevated mountain city. Completed in 1939, it was built to house owner Charles Webb’s two newspapers (the morning’s Asheville Citizen as well as the Asheville Times afternoon edition) in addition to his newly-acquired-but-already famous radio station WWNC-AM. For the last five years, Webb’s glass brick, black granite and limestone behemoth has been home to Citizen Vinyl, a unique combination of record pressing plant, recording/mastering studio, record store, art gallery and café. But in October 2024, the place served as an altogether different kind of community hub.

“We were one of the few Asheville businesses that had both power and internet a couple of weeks after the hurricane,” Citizen Vinyl founder and CEO Garland (Gar) Ragland says, “so we immediately pivoted to becoming a community resource. We ran extension cords out of our space in the building and got the word out that we had internet available and power for people to charge their digital devices and cellphones. We had hundreds of people coming every day to power their phones and text or call their loved ones to let them know they were safe.”

In September, Hurricane Helene wiped large swaths of Appalachia off the map. Entire towns in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee in valleys near rivers or creeks were washed away. Marshall, a small town north of Asheville, was destroyed. To the east, Swannanoa suffered a blow from which it has yet to recover. The recently established Arts District, nestled alongside the French Broad river in West Asheville, was suddenly under 12 feet of water. The big Art Deco building that houses Citizen Vinyl was quicker to recover than most other businesses, thanks to its elevation and its proximity to NOAA’s Federal Climate Complex, which houses both the National Climatic Data Center as well as the country’s Climate Archive.

Soon, one of Citizen Vinyl’s food partners, Michelle Bailey, set up smokers and grills in their little parking lot and started preparing meals from food donated by far-flung friends and her regional farming network. “She started the weekend after the hurricane,” Ragland says, “and served about 1,500 hot meals every weekend for weeks. She had friends from Louisville, Kentucky, come over and bring hundreds of pounds of top-shelf smoked meats and barbecue. So, we pivoted — because we really didn’t have any other option than to just lean in and support our community in whatever way we could.”

Ragland is quick to point out that he and his friends weren’t the only people who met the moment. “There were many, many, noble efforts,” he says, “and what was revelatory to me was how unique and special this community of people is, how readily and instinctively people showed up to help one another. There were people on street corners with signs saying ‘Free Water Here,’ or ‘Hot Food.’ I was really impressed and inspired and proud to be a member of this community because we showed up for each other.”

Ragland, a native of Winston-Salem, started Citizen Vinyl in 2019. Inside Charles Webb’s three-story building, he established the pressing plant along with Sessions (the breezy bar and café) and Coda: Analog Art & Sound (a combination art gallery and record store). On the top floor, Ragland converted the hallowed space of WWNC into Citizen Studios, a recording and mastering facility. He can quote the building’s history, chapter and verse.

“Charles Webb designed and dedicated the top floor of the Citizen-Times building to be the new home for his radio station,” Ragland says. “It was state-of-the-art. He modeled it after the RCA Victor Studios in New York. By the time of the station’s construction, WWNC-AM had already become one of the most popular radio stations in the country. It was previously located a couple of blocks away in the Flatiron Building, and it was there that Jimmy Rodgers made his national radio premiere in 1927.” Immediately after the station reopened in its new location, bluegrass legends Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys debuted on February 2, 1939. The group played the daily afternoon “Mountain Music” slot until WWNC became a CBS affiliate.

At the time, artists from all over the country were descending on Asheville because of WWNC’s reach. “It was the highest elevation radio station east of the Mississippi,” Ragland says. “That 570 kHz radio frequency could throw from downtown Asheville all the way to West Texas and up into southern Canada.”

The amazing thing is, despite eastbound I-40 being washed out between Old Fort and Black Mountain — while half of its westbound lanes crumbled down into a gorge outside of Knoxville — Citizen Vinyl never stopped pressing records. “Our shipping and receiving did slow down,” Ragland notes, “and we had a couple slow months.” Not that big a deal, considering the town wouldn’t have potable water for 11 weeks.

In the best of times, people tend to think of things like music and food as ephemera, as if they’re mere ornaments to the real work of producing wealth. But you’d be hard pressed to think of two things more deeply woven into the fabric of community than a mother singing a lullaby to her drowsy infant, or the connections made and deepened by a shared meal in a desperate moment.

“Being part of this community and serving as a cultural hub has been a really important part of our ethos and business,” Ragland says. “The hurricane, full disclosure, put into jeopardy our ability to sustain the café and the event space. But that said, the challenges only reinforced the values and the ethos that we’ve constructed this business to be, evidenced by our name.”

The word “citizen” has been with us since the late Middle Ages, and has specific meanings in different areas of law, religion and the military. Ragland is well aware of both the promise and potential risks of using that word.

“Obviously, there’s a history that we wanted to honor by calling the business Citizen Vinyl,” he says. “But the term itself is a very provocative name to title your business because it means different things to different people. For the undocumented person, it’s a loaded word. It can be an alienating and divisive term. But on the flip side, ‘citizen’ asks the question: What does it mean to belong to a place?’ We were intrigued by the opportunity to help shape and define what it means. We’re music nerds, not music snobs. We don’t judge people’s music tastes. We want to celebrate music, art and community. We don’t pass judgment on anyone. We want to operate our business in a way that defines ‘citizen’ in the most positive of ways. The hurricane, if nothing else, created an opportunity for us to put into practice a lot of the things that we aspire to be as members of the Asheville community.”

The quote “We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us” is often attributed to O. Henry, the author Citizen Vinyl’s street is named for. The catastrophic destruction caused by Hurricane Helene may have kept you away from Asheville, but it’s time to go back, to witness firsthand the climate of resilience and community achieved by its citizens.

2025 Department NC Surround Around

Home Grown

HOME GROWN

Absolutely Fabulous

Friends who feel like Miami sunshine

By Cynthia Adams

Irene, a food writer pal, called to dish about a posh party thrown by a friend, as the French say, of a certain age in Miami.

In a story worthy of Netflix, the hostess invited a group of 24 accomplished women, doyennes all, to a birthday gathering featuring the best of everything. No expense was spared on the food, wine or glamour.

Not much impresses Irene, a former New Yorker and Miami transplant, who routinely reviews upscale restaurants, gaining insider knowledge of the city’s competitive food-and-wine scene. She has spent years developing the Miami chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier, the culinary organization created by Julia Child.

But this event was something special.

The stellar food her friend, Karen Escalera, served was the work of the late Joël Robuchon’s restaurant, Le Jardinier. The famous Frenchman’s restaurants on three continents earned a total of 31 stars, more than any other chef.

But what moved Irene most about the party was not the exquisite spread nor the haute couture nor the bejeweled, high-profile guests. It was how many friends Karen had.

“I don’t think I have 24 friends,” she confesses.

We discuss the dynamic of friendships, old and new. We know that the lack of friends curtails longevity and worsens health. And we are a little obsessed with the epidemic of loneliness that hasn’t lifted despite COVID’s decline.

Irene remains stuck on the number 24.

I begin inventorying my own circle of friends. And decide to seek some expert advice on how many friends are just right. Pew Research would agree that 24 is a big number of friends to have.

The majority (53%) in their survey reported having between one and four close friends. Only 38% report having five or more. I start counting how many I have, but get stuck in deciding what, exactly, constitutes a friend? And what’s the difference between a friend and a close friend. I think about my own circle, which includes college pals, lunch buddies, book club friends and neighbors. Friends we share drinks and laughs with, or take on a road trip. Friends who always know the best restaurants or movies, or will tell you if a dress makes you look like an episode of What Not to Wear? I’ve got a lot of friends, I decide.

But then there are friends you call when misfortune falls, or heartbreak comes — friends you can count on when life is hardest. I decide I don’t have 24 for sure, nor would I want them. Friendships like that require a lot of time and hard work.

In a city of nearly a half million people, where friends aren’t easily made, Irene says she was moved by the deep generosity of their hostess. She jokes she was pleased to be included as the hostess’s newest friend at the birthday bash. “I’ve only known her a decade,” she quips.

But what really demonstrated Karen’s true friendship took place at the party. It was how she showed her deep reverence for her circle of friends.

“I’ve seen her increasing warmth,” Irene says about Karen. Maybe it comes with age and an increasing appreciation of how much true friends mean, she says. “You see down the road you won’t have this friend forever. It will end.”

This was made clear when their hostess read from profiles she had written about each of her 24 guests, declared “top-notch friends.” Among them were CEOs and top achievers in fashion, business and hospitality.

“The party was for us,” Irene says in wonderment. “Not for her.” No gifts were to be brought.

And so, Karen, who has lived well and long, ordered herself a great cake. (“It was chocolate, seven layers, with chocolate beads around the outside . . . I cheated on my diet big time for that cake,” says Irene). She offered her circle what she knew and valued: a fabulous fête — and her articulate and heartfelt appreciation for them and who they were and what good friends they are. After the candles were blown out and the profiles were read, 24 friends filed out of Le Jardinière knowing exactly how they felt on Karen’s birthday: They felt absolutely fabulous.

2025 Department Home Grown

Wandering Billy

WANDERING BILLY

The Patriots Are Coming

Pursed lips and drum licks put the Greene in Greensboro

By Billy Ingram

“I have to prosecute a war with almost insurmountable difficulties. I cannot contemplate my own situation without the greatest degree of anxiety.” — Nathanael Greene before the Battle of Guilford Courthouse

One hundred and thirty-eight years ago, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park was consecrated on 50 untended acres purchased for $700 by Judge David Schenck. It has since expanded into what is now a 250-acre homage to those resolute Patriots who fought and died on March 15, 1781, in a pivotal exchange of cannonballs, lead balls and bayonets, reassuring America’s forthcoming victory in the Revolutionary War.

Ever hear that phrase, “We lost the battle but won the war?” The Battle of Guilford Courthouse is a perfect example. While the British effectively defeated General Nathanael Greene’s Continental Army, in doing so, the Red Coats were left so depleted that Greene’s dogged nemesis, British General Charles Cornwallis, had no choice but to, after another ill-fated fracas, surrender to George Washington at Yorktown.

To commemorate that crucial turning point in our nation’s founding, the Guilford Courthouse Fife & Drum Corps was formed 28 years ago by park ranger Stephen Ware, in part to provide a historical soundtrack for increasingly popular Revolutionary War reenactments. While Ware retired in 2019 and Mike Nelson now leads the group, I met up with Chip Cook, a member since 2021, wondering what inspired his and others’ participation in such an anachronistic undertaking.

“If you travel in the northeast — in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts — every little town has a fife and drum corps,” which Cook likens to the lure of joining a community band and the Boy Scouts at the same time. “So there are adults and kids involved in it.” There are currently about 10 active members of GCFDC but new recruits are encouraged. “We have members as young as 15, folks from all walks of life. A couple of members from the 82nd Airborne [Division] Band recently joined and they love to perform with us occasionally.”

A drum and fife corps was strategically imperative in times of war before radio messaging. “The commanders depended upon the music not for comfort, although that was helpful, too, but for communication,” Cook explains. When the call went out to, for instance, assemble the unit, or begin marching, reposition a column, prepare to fire or even retreat, the drum and fife corps transmitted those orders by way of melodic themes, known as duty calls, that troops were trained to recognize. On a clear day, they could be heard up to a mile away.

“There was a gentleman’s agreement that you didn’t shoot the musicians. They were considered noncombatants on the field,” Cook explains, noting that the corps might be leading the procession early on but well before the muskets plumed and bullets flew, drummers and fifers, made up mostly of old men and young boys, were repositioned to the rear of the fray. (After a musician reached the age of 17 they were expected to join in the fighting.)

To quickly identify and assemble instrumentalists when their service was required, “they traditionally wore opposite colors from their infantry regiment, so we wear a red coat with blue trim,” Cook says.

On the 244th anniversary of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse this last March a reenactment took place at Country Park, kicked off with members of the Tryon Palace Fife and Drum Corps as well as Cook’s ensemble. Set against a backdrop of soldiers and horses echoing an impending clashing of combatants, it was an impressive performance, considering the vast repertoire of duty calls memorized and executed in unison with crystal clarity.

“A lot of folks think this is run by the National Park Service. It’s not,” Cook tells me about these annual time tunnelings back to 1781. “It’s an arrangement with the City of Greensboro and the different groups that have participated in these reenactments for many, many years.” A surreal sight, tented encampments erected alongside the lake where, tucked into the woods above, reenactors on both sides would bivouac overnight. “They have a little market in the middle, which is kind of funny because you go through there and everyone’s dressed [for the period] and you pull out your debit card to pay, very much an anachronism there.”

Last summer, the Guilford Courthouse Fife & Drum Corps opened for a performance of Horn in the West, the decades-long running Revolutionary War outdoor drama centered around the exploits of Daniel Boone, on a night when one of the Frontiersman’s descendants was sitting in the audience. In January, they spent a weekend demonstrating their specialized skills at Cowpens National Battlefield in South Carolina. This month, our fluted troupe is bound for Colonial Williamsburg’s Drummer’s Call, a celebration of 18th-century military music also featuring an assemblage of groups from Yorktown, Northern Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. “We’re all volunteers, so we’re spending our own money to do this,” Cook notes. The Corp also participates in grave-marking ceremonies with the Sons of the American Revolution, “and we’ll be in High Point for their Memorial Day event this year.”

Chip Cook himself is a descendant of a Revolutionary War light infantry soldier, Jacob Idol, who resided in Davidson County when he enlisted in 1781. Captured by Tories and remanded to the British at Guilford Courthouse, he escaped following that conflagration, then took part in routing the so-called loyalist Tories at Raft Swamp in Robeson County, the last battle of the war fought in the state of North Carolina.

A century later, no one in 1887 Greensborough had any definitive recollection as to exactly where that decisive Revolutionary War conflict happened when Judge David Schenck began mapping and snapping up the first 50 acres of forest and untamed underbrush. He relied on hand-scrawled maps and written recollections to pinpoint the precise location where warfare waged 106 years earlier. The nonprofit Guilford Battleground Company Schenck founded to oversee the project, one that continues fostering his vision today, gifted the by-then cultivated park to the federal government in 1917. The organization then continued over the decades to purchase and donate adjoining properties as they became available, greatly expanding this verdant sanctuary that pumps millions of dollars into our economy.

In hindsight, Schenck should have acquired a lot more land than he did. Although it’s possible that Cornwallis’ attempt to smother democracy in its cradle potentially spilled over into Country Park’s footprint, just in the last few years historians have discovered that major skirmishes took place where the Brassfield Shopping Center parking lot sits. Alas, you won’t get that tract for $10 or $20 an acre like you could in 1887.

2025 Department Wandering Billy