Winter is for the Birds

WINTER IS FOR THE BIRDS

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You can always count on a blue-headed vireo to make sure you don’t miss your morning alarm. After all, the early bird gets the worm.
This red-shouldered hawk ruffles some feathers as it swooshes in on his prey.
Considered to bring good luck, a red cardinal shows off surrounded by heaps of frosty snow.
This female northern cardinal, though not as vibrant as her male counterpart, is unmissable with a beak as bright as hers.

Winter is for the Birds

Lynn Donovan focuses on our bright-beaked buddies

By Joi Floyd

With the brisk, wintry temperatures approaching and the holidays in full swing, you’re sure to hear about the partridge in a pear tree — over and over again. But the real tweet of the town comes from our favorite chirping, warbling friends. Though most birds of a feather flock together, you’re bound to find one or two different breeds cozying up next to each other for warmth. Whether gathering leaves and tiny twigs for nesting or feasting on tasty nuts and seeds, these sweet tweeties stick close together. Photographer Lynn Donovan captures our precious woodland buddies in action as they face the snowy — we can hope — season.

A Cooper’s hawk keeps a keen eye on his surroundings.
A creature stirring? Something has piqued this cedar waxwing’s interest and made it peer over the end of the branch.
There’s nothing stronger than a pileated woodpecker’s beak — except maybe the urge to dye our hair red.
A red-tailed hawk nestles on a branch as the winter season draws closer.
It’s hard to miss this American crow as he trots through the pure white snow.
What could bring more winter wonder than a white-breasted nuthatch playing in the snowfall?
A brown-headed cowbird hunkers down as sleet falls from
Two turtle doves? These are two mourning doves and two is always better than one.
In a wintry world of gray, brown and white, a bright eastern bluebird is sure to catch your attention.
This raging turkey vulture is hard to miss as it confidently stretches its wings post-landing.

Lowe and Behold

LOWE AND BEHOLD

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Lowe and Behold

A Greensboro home sparkles from a dash of family tradition with a merry-making twist

By Cassie Bustamante   •   Photographs by Amy Freeman

The stockings on Charlie and Linda Lowe’s mantel are hung by the chimney with care. But they aren’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill stockings. Nope, these five-of-a-kind stockings, in a soft, gold tone, are shaped whimsically, curved like an elf’s boot, trimmed and monogrammed in an orange-coral. And let’s not forget the pleated, black-and-white striped cuff.

The gold stocking fabric came from a Greensboro Symphony Guild Super Sale, back when they were held at Printers Alley. “I went with a friend of mine,” says Linda, “and there was a pair of drapes for next to nothing, like 20 bucks, and it was that beautiful, quilted fabric.” She snagged the deal, knowing she could Maria von Trapp those curtains and give them new life somehow. “It had all the trim and everything.”

“That is how an artist shops,” says Charlie. “They see other things in things.” His blue eyes twinkle proudly. And the beard on his chin? Well, it’s as white as the snow, naturally. Though Charlie, Linda’s jolly little helper elf and husband of 39 years, wears his a little more closely cropped than Saint Nick’s.

More symphony drapery panels surround the base of the couple’s Christmas tree, serving as a make-shift skirt. Mercury-glass beads in red and silver swag from bough to bough. The beads, purchased sometime in the 1960s from Friendly Shopping Center’s Woolworth’s, which Linda and her mom frequented, are a glimmering reminder of childhood Christmases. Linda says she inherited her love of Christmas decorating along with the beads from her mother, who passed away 30 years ago.

“My mom always played the organ in the living room where the tree was,” says Linda, “and she said I would just lie down under the tree and look up at the lights.” Her mom also told her how she’d cry at the first signs of the tree’s imminent death as it dropped needles on her.

Of course, some mementos are perhaps better cherished only once a year. A bell, also from 1960s Woolworth’s, plays — very annoyingly, says Linda — “Jingle Bells” when you pull its chain. As the keeper of the family bell, to this day, she calls her older brothers on Christmas and plays it over the phone as a prank. “Sixty plus years of doing that!”

Charlie, too, has fond memories of his boyhood Christmas tree. His parents both grew up on farms without much else to their families’ names, so when it came time to celebrate the holidays with their only son, Charlie recalls the tree overflowing with gifts for him. “My parents lavished me,” he says. But his mom brought one of her favorite farm traditions with her into her young family — a fresh cedar tree.

His mother, who passed away in 2016, regaled him with stories from her own childhood about cutting and hauling the chosen tree straight from the family’s farmland. “She and her sister finally got to the age to be trusted with an axe,” says Charlie, “and they would go out on the farm, and find the tree that they loved, and down it went.” And how old did one have to be to wield an axe? “Oh, they were probably 6, 7 or 8.”

“I saved all of her — what’s now vintage — Christmas stuff,” says Linda of Charlie’s mom’s decorations, everything from plastic candelabras with red bulbs to ornaments.

Linda and Charlie have been celebrating Christmas together for almost four decades. Married since 1986, they have, between them, three grown children — Alex, Rebecca and April — four grandchildren and one great-grandson. Linda was a customer at the camera shop where Charlie worked as a sales associate. He’d ask her out and she’d say no, but, eventually, as with the film in the lab, a romance developed.

After a quick courtship, the couple married and began their lives together. Both are retired now. “I retired early because of Mom and Pop,” says Charlie, who cared for his parents in their final years. Linda retired from a long career as a graphic designer that included 20-plus years with the News & Record.

But, as young parents, they were always on the go. Dropping their young children off with the grandparents, they’d haul cameras, lighting and lenses to shoot weekend weddings together. “I don’t know how we did it, but we did,” says Linda.

They worked long hours, but still found the energy to infuse some holiday magic into their own children’s memories. Before the internet even existed and clever Christmas ideas were easily found, Linda’s mother was making Santa’s boot prints on the hearth by setting down a pair of boots, sprinkling something white — perhaps confectioner’s sugar or flour — around them, lifting them off and leaving behind evidence that the jolliest elf had, in fact, been there. Linda took a cue from her mom and did the same for her kids using sprayable fake snow.

Plus, Linda decked the halls of their home and did the holiday shopping for the kids and extended family. “I look back and I am like, good grief.”

Charlie looks at his wife knowingly. “That’s what moms do,” he says. “They fill in the space.”

But Linda doesn’t just fill in the space. Her decorations, especially the ones she’s made herself, are over the top, and changed out year after year. As she unboxes her attic-full of holiday decor each year, she says, “I just pick things up and reinvent the wheel.”

In fact, when Linda sees something she likes, she wonders how she can recreate it in her own unique way. One item she knocked off her to-do-my-way list? A fox doll. Linda, who used to horseback ride, has collected hunt scenes and equestrian decor for years, and had always coveted a fox dressed for the hunt. When she couldn’t find exactly what she wanted — “they always look like bears or something” — she set her mind to making one by needle felting, something she’d never done before.

“Of course, I jump right into things,” she says. “I don’t start small.” She made one tiny bird as practice and then went full speed into crafting her fox, who sits on her entry bench for the holidays, greeting guests. He’s a few feet tall and his face is expertly crafted with a naturally sly expression. A riding helmet sits atop his head and, of course, he’s wearing a red riding jacket with gold buttons, all of it needle-felted. No small feat for her first foray into the craft.

Upon the encouragement of a friend, Linda, who used to belong to Daughters of the American Revolution, decided to enter her fox into their annual D.C. craft show in the doll category. “And it won best of show,” she says, as in winner of the whole shebang.

“Another art form that she dabbled in. She has the touch,” says Charlie. Whereas in the North Pole, Santa gets all the credit, Charlie simply can’t resist touting his own “Mrs. Claus’s” talents.

There is also the large painting in her kitchen nook. She’d gone to High Point Market with a friend and spotted a heron painting. “Gosh, I could do that,” she recalls thinking, and set up an easel right there in her kitchen to get the lighting just right as she painted. To add a touch of Linda Lowe signature whimsy, she put the bird in a blue-and-white basin, bubbles pouring out.

“But you know, in reality, they’re tromping around in mud all day,” muses Charlie. “They have got to do something! You gotta get that goop off somehow.”

A footbridge in the background of the painting is coral, a color Linda particularly loves. To set her kitchen table for the holidays, she used festive wrapping paper as a runner, edging it with scalloped, peach-colored ribbon she scored at Anthropologie. “Of course, I bought every roll!”

In the dining room, swags of greenery and blush-colored faux pomegranates adorn an unsigned vintage painting of, they’re guessing, George Washington. The fruit picks up on the colors in Linda’s custom cornices, though they weren’t custom built for this space, and — this should come as no surprise — were found at an estate sale, Parker Washburn’s to be exact. She, of course, Linda bubbles, was the daughter of Leon Oldham, founder of Leon’s Beauty School, and Aileen “Mrs. Leon” Oldham, and the estate sale was located inside the old, stone home the couple once lived in on Elm Street.

They’d need new side panels to work for Linda’s purposes, so Charlie suggested he could just make new ones. In his years of working at the camera shop, he’d honed his own carpentry skills by building store walls and fixtures. Plus, Linda recalls at their former home, “He made an amazing gate and fence for our patio.”

Charlie, ever so humble about his own accomplishments, says, “I used to like to piddle a little bit with woodworking and things like that.”

Linda knew Charlie could build her whatever she wanted, but what she wanted was to reuse something with history from an iconic Greensboro home. New side panels in place, thanks to Charlie, she recovered the cornices in a soft blue, floral fabric, piped in red. The blue blends into the Benjamin Moore Gossamer Blue on the walls.

In the living room, the mantel is decked out in nontraditional holiday colors — chartreuse and orange. The built-in bookcases that flank it feature books, blue-and-white transferware and white foo dogs that once belonged to Linda’s mom. But on the white mantel, orange foo dogs stand out and stand guard on either side, swags of greenery draping down with orange ribbon and chartreuse ginkgo leaves interwoven. “I have a thing about things being symmetrical,” she says.

The tree, however, remains traditional. And, she quips, “I only put up one big tree!” For as long as she can remember, she’s decorated the tree by herself. “It’s not a theme tree. It’s always got the same ornaments, same beads.” She especially loves a tree that’s covered in glass baubles reflecting the shine of her rainbow lights.

Did the kids help when they were little? “I would let them hang their stuff along the bottom,” says Linda, then, under her breath adds, “Then I’d go back and fix them.”

“My job is to hand them to her,” notes Charlie.

For years, the couple purchased a real tree, usually from Wagoner’s tree lot. But sometimes, Linda notes, the family would take off for West Jefferson, on a quest for that quintessential Currier and Ives moment, “which never went quite that smoothly!” 

After Charlie’s mother, who still loved the smell of fresh cedar in the home, passed, Linda caved and bought an artificial tree. The one she wanted came prewired with white lights, so Linda figured out how they were attached and painstakingly rewired it with her own strings of colored lights. “A big operation,” notes Charlie.

“I still haven’t found the right topper,” notes Linda. “I’ve never had one that’s like, ‘That’s it!’” An angel, a bow, a star — you name it — nothing has hit that high note. Once, they even hung a Moravian star from the ceiling above the tree.

“And then we just adjusted the tree under it,” says Charlie. “That was a collaborative idea.”

Linda walks into a room featuring four corner cabinets, each cabinet filled to the brim with vintage cameras Charlie has collected, mostly Nikons, but Canons and other models as well. The cabinets, mostly scored at estate sales, are by Greensboro’s iconic Benbow Furniture, now closed.

Does she decorate inside these cabinets at Christmas, too? Nope. “Don’t touch my stuff,” Charlie says with a smirk.

Charlie points to a particular black-and-silver Nikon. “This is [from] like 1951, something like that. This was occupied Japan, after WWII.  Nikon started out making telescopes and microscopes, and then went into cameras because that was something you could sell,” he says. “And we were trying to make their industry work so they could support themselves.”

“I figured I have the rest of the house, I can let him have this room,” she says with a chuckle.

“You’re not going to open that door, are you?” Charlie asks Linda teasingly as they approach the first-floor bedroom, which now serves as Linda’s craft room.

“Yeah, I am,” she says. “You know I am.”

What they both assume is a cluttered mess is actually an artist’s treasure box, overflowing with tools and materials a creative person would have a field day with. One very tall wall is piled high with various small, handmade shelving units, including one her brother made as well as her grandfather’s old shaving stand. Her vision for it? “The Harry Potter wand shop, where everything was just stacks of books.” Fitting, as this, indeed, is where the magic happens. Paints, colored pencils, glues, markers, ribbons, brushes and all sorts of crafting supplies line the shelves. An old, wooden spoon rack holds wax seal molds.

On another wall hangs a gallery of paintings and sketches from throughout the years — some by Linda, some by her mom, who was also an artist — and even a floral painting that’s been in the family for years. Linda also spent time during COVID organizing her family’s history and has rows and rows of photo albums dated by year. In fact, during that time, Linda created two round family “trees,” one for her family of origin and one for Charlie’s. Never one to follow the beaten path, hers are more garden than tree. The names, arranged in a circle, form a sort of labyrinth of hedges that resembles an English boxwood garden. They now hang in the dining room.

On the project table in the middle of her craft room sits a current project — a mirror adorned with shells she’s been collecting for years.

“If I can spill the beans a little bit,” says Charlie, “we’re trying to get a beach house.” The couple has spent the last few months searching for a property on Sunset Beach or perhaps Ocean Isle, something they can vacation at with their family but also rent out.

“I’ve been beach-deprived my whole life and I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m going to the beach!’” Linda says. “I’ve got so much stuff piled up back there!”

“I have always said about Linda,” quips Charlie, “too much is never enough.”

Going to Seed

GOING TO SEED

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Going to Seed

A family strives to protect a way of life in Julian

The first thing you’ll likely notice when you pull up to the rambling, wood-and-corrugated facade of the Julian Milling Company on Old 2nd Street is the cats.

They’re parti-colored and striped, light-colored and dark. They’re napping under a tree, they’re lolling on the loading dock — some perched primly on upturned buckets. There’s even a cat peering down from high up in the rafters.

Here’s the irony.

I’ve driven out to rural Julian to speak with Eric Horney, purveyor of the mill’s most popular product these days — Beardo’s Birdseed.

A little history.

The Julian Milling Company is a landmark. It’s been around since 1895, first milling flour and, later, cornmeal. The first machines were powered by steam — the facility converted to electricity with mills to grind livestock feed in the 1940s. Generations of Guilford and Randolph county farmers have hauled grain — hundreds of thousands of tons — to this very spot, where it has been ground into feed for horses, cattle, swine and poultry.

I can’t tell you how many feline generations have protected the mill, but I can tell you that the Horney family has been involved with the business for three.

Eric’s grandfather, J. Davis Horney, who began working at the mill in 1935, purchased the operation a decade later and was joined by his son James Davis Jr. — nicknamed Jimmy. The two of them worked together, growing the production of the mill, for more than 50 years.

Jimmy, Eric’s father, who is now 83 years old, emerges from back in the mill as Eric gently encourages a couple of cats to make room for me to step up onto the dock.

We shake hands and they invite me to sit a spell.

Jimmy and Eric are big, genial, country men. Jimmy is clean-shaven, but Eric, who is 53 years old, sports a thick beard that would be the envy of any Civil War general you can think of.

These men have seen many changes in agriculture over the years.

Growing up, Eric split his time between Greensboro and Julian after his parents divorced.

“I went to Page High School,” Eric says. “But on weekends, I’d come out to Julian to work with my dad and granddad.”

After graduating from Lees-McRae College with a degree in business administration, Eric returned to work at the mill in Julian.

The period of the 1960s through the 1990s was a prosperous time for Julian Milling Company. The business had not only its milling operation, but also a garden center. People could walk around and buy plants and shrubs while their grain was being milled.

Many of its biggest feed customers were dairy farms.

The mill owned and operated two trucks, each with a capacity of eight tons. Some of the dairies were so large that they received a truckload of feed each day.

“We’d mill the grain, add ingredients like protein, molasses and minerals, and haul it out to a farm,” Eric says.

In 1997, the year his grandfather died, Eric worked full time at the mill, along with two other full-time employees.

But many of the dairy farms were shutting down. And Eric noticed another change.

Saturdays were always the busiest day for grinding livestock feed. When the mill opened at 7 a.m., there would already be a long line of trucks and pickups outside loaded with grain, waiting.

“So one day, I said to my Dad, ‘Now wait, all these people here on a Saturday morning, what do they do all week?’”

Jimmy nods, remembering the conversation.

“And I said, ‘Well, they have full-time jobs,’” Eric continues. “‘They aren’t farmers, they’re weekend farmers.’”

Over time, even the ranks of the part-time farmers diminished.

“The children of the weekend farmers, they didn’t usually go into farming,” Eric says. “They’d take a job, sell the land off to developers.”

We pause for a moment, watching as a Mustang convertible pulls up in front of the mill.

“That’s my brother, Neil,” Eric says.

A couple of the cats move over to the shade of Neil’s car as he makes his way up the steps to the dock.

“Neil’s a full-time pilot for NetJet,” Eric says. “He comes in on his days off and helps out.”

“We’re all part-timers,” Jimmy laughs.

“Yeah, I got my licenses to sell health and life insurance last summer,” Eric says. “But I haven’t sold any policies. I keep hanging onto a dream.”

The dream is to earn a living with his work at the mill.

Yes, for decades the old mill has survived trying times — but maybe the biggest challenge yet lies just half a mile down the road.

The new Toyota Battery Manufacturing Plant.

To see it emerge from the trees and fields while you’re driving in this rural area is surreal.

A campus of 2,200 acres. A capital investment of $13.9 billion. Employment for 5,000 souls. Building restrictions on nearby properties because of the accident risks in lithium battery manufacturing.

“It’s changed the whole world around here,” Jimmy says, shaking his head. “It’s crippled our walk-in traffic.”

“Anybody who lives close by has a ‘for sale’ sign in front of their house,” Neil adds.

Eric nods his head.

“The future is online,” he says. “If no one ever walks through the front door of the mill again, we can still make it.”

Eric has a strategy.

At the Julian Milling Company location, you’ll still find packets of vegetable and flower seeds, hand implements, fertilizers and weed killers — some on the shelves for so long that they’re practically relics. There are also bags of “sweet feed” for goats, cows and horses, chicken feed for laying hens, “scratch” (a mixture of grains and seeds) for chickens, pigeon feed and birdseed.

Eric has focused on his bestselling birdseed for the past couple of years, marketing it online through Etsy and Amazon along with placing it with selected retailers and farmers markets.

“We’ve already shipped our birdseed to all 50 states, Guam and Puerto Rico,” Eric says.

During this time, he’s concentrated on finding local, high-quality suppliers of his ingredients to enhance the freshness of his product. Plus, the mill is a participant in the Got To Be NC initiative with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services.

And Eric has just launched an online platform selling — remember the beard I told you about? — Beardo’s Birdseed.

Eric takes me back to the oldest part of the building, where one of the electric mills is located. This is the machine he uses to mix the ingredients for Beardo’s Birdseed.

“There’s not a blade inside cutting anything — there’s an auger,” he says. “It’s funnel-shaped, gravity-fed, so it just mixes the ingredients over and over.”

“This is basically just like the mixer on the kitchen counter in your house,” Eric says. “But this one holds a thousand pounds.”

He points out the grill opening on the floor where he pours the various grains and seeds into the mill. Once mixed, the birdseed is bagged right on the spot.

Beardo’s is available online by individual order or by subscription and can also be purchased by nonprofits for fundraising purposes.

Dusk is approaching, so Eric takes me back out onto the loading dock, where I say my goodbyes to Jimmy and Neil. Some of the cats stand and take a stretch.

Eric looks up in the rafters.

“Ellie,” he says, “get on down here.”

The cat makes her way gracefully to the dock.

Eric tells me that the rafters are Ellie’s favorite spot. To his knowledge, she’s the eldest of the cats at age 12.

“Someday, she’s going to doze off up there and fall and hurt herself,” he mutters.

All the cats, of course, are just doing their jobs, protecting the mill — as they’ve done for generations.

And that’s something the old mill needs right now.

I think the birds will understand. 

Seasons Greetings

SEASONS GREETINGS

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Since the 1800s, America has been sending the very best

By Cynthia Adams

Dale Kearns, a Greensboro postal carrier, is accustomed to the crushing volume of holiday cards mailed out each and every year by well-wishing Americans — the annual estimate exceeds 1.3 billion.

“One customer on my route sent over 100 Christmas cards last year,” says Kearns, with a business-as-usual shrug.

New Year greetings — which are hardly a new concept, by the way — escalate that figure higher. In local designer Todd Nabor’s private collection of vintage cards, shown here, there are as many New Year greetings as Christmas ones, dating from the late 19th to the early 20th century in age.

Long before the advent of folded cards tucked inside an envelope, a postcard — cheaper and vastly easier to send than a personal letter — changed the game in the late 1800s.

But don’t think that postcard messages were necessarily short.  A 1918 postcard to Mrs. Adeline Shoppell in Greencastle, Ind. wished “Many Happy Days in your New Year,” with the sender squeezing a long message into the cramped space on the reverse side that promised a letter soon.

In 1924, Larisse Justice mailed a poinsettia-embellished postcard to Miss Hazel Hill in Greensboro. “Flowers will early fade away/But my wishes will last for many a day.” 

And what a bargain! Holiday postcards cost only a penny to mail in early-20th-century America, equivalent today to about $.18.   

Seems the whole notion of personal greetings even predates the Egyptians and Romans, who dispatched letters (especially on birthdays) written on papyrus and scrolls via fleet-footed couriers.

The sending of New Year’s greetings is attributed to China’s Emperor Taizon, who inscribed messages on gold leaves to his ministers during the Tang dynasty. The idea caught on with the general population, who wrote messages on rice paper. The practice of holiday messaging slowly crossed cultures and continents. 

While the Romans may have left Britannia, the custom of letter writing remained. Over the centuries, rice paper, papyrus and scrolls gave way to stationery and envelopes.

By the Victorian era, posting personal greetings was what well-mannered folk did come the holidays. But Henry Cole, the busy founder of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, faced a dilemma. Having neither time nor personal couriers to deploy a holiday scroll to his hundreds of admiring friends, he innovated.

Wishing to avoid a social faux pax — failing to send a cheery gift or letter in reply was bad form — Cole, in 1843, conceived of a standardized postcard greeting. As the British “penny post” made holiday communiques cheap and more popular than ever, he had a Christmas greeting postcard designed and printed for his own use, hoping to keep himself in good social standing. 

In time, Brits took to the idea, which further spread throughout Europe. Eventually, German immigrant Louis Prang migrated to America, bringing the concept with him.

In 1875, Prang printed a simple postcard featuring roses and “Merry Christmas.” Americans embraced the concept with gusto. By the early-20th century, postcards were a craze.

The Hall Brothers postcard presses began rolling in 1910. By the 1920s, folded Christmas cards in envelopes had grown in popularity. In 1928, the brothers embossed the “Hallmark” brand on the envelope flap — an idea borrowed from minting gold.

“When you care enough to send the very best,” the slogan we’ve all come to know, debuted in 1944. In the same timeframe, Hanukah cards emerged as options expanded. Slowly, too, Americans began sending personalized cards featuring family photos or supporting a favorite charity — a concept that quickly crossed the pond back to the U.K.

Today, Hallmark alone offers more than 2,000 designs and hundreds of boxed sets. At least 2,500 other American businesses compete for their market share of the greeting card business.

Yet there were greenbacks still left on the holiday table. What said you cared even more than the Hallmark logo?

A holiday-themed stamp. 

By 1962, the United States Postal Service debuted holiday stamps — lagging far behind in recognizing another way to commodify the holidays. Seems Austria lapped us by 25 years, debuting holiday stamps in 1937.

Canada introduced holiday stamps in 1939 and Cuba in 1951.

Today, stamps commemorating Diwali, Hanukah and Kwanza reflect a diverse range of holiday traditions. 

Hewing to tradition, this year’s “Holiday Cheer” stamps feature a Whitman’s chocolates style assortment of all-inclusive images: amaryllis, cardinals, fruit on a branch and a wreath. 

This year, too, philatelists can scoop up re-released favorites “Holiday Elves” and “Winter Whimsy” — miniature pieces of artwork to adorn each and every letter. 

But in an era of hastily composed texts and digital greetings, do recipients still care about receiving old-school, holiday snail mail? 

Overwhelmingly, yes. Online surveys strongly indicate the majority still prefer receiving a paper greeting card, including the younger demographics — who understand digital fatigue as well as anyone.   

Bad news, perhaps, for USPS’s hard-working Dale Kearns. 

But good tidings for those who trouble themselves to find, write, address, stamp and post those millions and millions of cards he and his colleagues deliver to each and every door across the land. 

Seems the very act of putting pen to paper, extending good wishes to one and all, is an act of engagement — of personal connection. For the faithful senders of greetings and recipients alike, a gift.

Poem December 2025

POEM

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A Christmas Night

It was a cold night

And there was ice on the road,

Our car started to slide

As it moved up the small hill,

And the headlights caught the old man

In a thin jacket

Pushing a cart filled with sticks.

There were some bundles and a package

Piled on top, and the old man

Grinned and waved at us

As he pushed the cart

Into the yard of the little house

Where a single light shone.

The tires gripped the road

And we drove on into the darkness,

But suddenly it was warm.

So Many Windows

SO MANY WINDOWS

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So Many Windows

UNCG Spartan Recovery members partner with The Moth for StorySLAM

By Brian Clarey, courtesy of UNCG University Communications
Photographs by Lynn Hey

Ches Kennedy works the room before the storytelling event begins on a late summer Sunday evening in UNC Greensboro’s Elliott University Center Auditorium. As he makes his way down the aisle, he shakes hands with people in the seats, nodding acknowledgements, exchanging kind words.

He greets newcomers as they come through the doors with the words heard so many times in rooms like these: “Welcome. Glad you’re here.”

Kennedy is here because he speaks the language of recovery. A veteran of the programs that have helped millions recover from drug and alcohol addiction, he’s fluent in the 12-step process, seasoned in the ways of chemical dependency, intricately familiar with the well-trod path from active addiction to . . . something better, something more.

He’s walked it himself.

“I never imagined 23 years ago that I, an alcoholic college dropout, would end up with an undergraduate and graduate degree, working with students in a collegiate recovery program,” he says. “A life in recovery, without the use of alcohol and other drugs, is work, but it is worth it.”

Kennedy is the coordinator of Spartan Recovery at UNCG, an organization dedicated to creating a community of Spartans — as UNCGeans call themselves — according to the organization webpage, who are in recovery or may be “sober curious.” The organization helps its members “to safely be their authentic selves as they find their way through academic life, while breaking down the stigma associated with mental health and substance use disorders through understanding and education.”

Part of recovery is speaking about the process and the changes it brings. It’s also listening to the stories of others as they’ve become better, more stable versions of themselves. So, this event — a live StorySLAM produced in conjunction with The Moth where members of Spartan Recovery can tell their stories without notes, outlines or rote memorization — falls squarely into 12-step methodology.

Since 1997, The Moth has helped launch many thousands of stories into the world, all told in person, through its radio broadcast on NPR, storytelling workshops, a book series and live events like this one. The idea came from its founder, novelist George Dawes Green, who wanted to formalize the practice of the extemporaneous storytelling like he remembered from the front porch of his boyhood Georgia home, where moths would flicker around the light as the tales were spun. Moth events hew loosely to a theme; this one is no different.

Not all the stories told on stage this night relate specifically to drugs or alcohol. But then, the disease touches everything in the lives of those who abuse them. And recovery is, at its root, about meaningful change.

“There has to be change,” says Amy Blumberg, an instructor from The Moth’s Education Program, from the stage. “The storyteller has to come out a little bit differently at the end. Or a lot differently.” These tenets form the basis of The Moth’s brand of storytelling. Blumberg and a couple other producers from The Moth worked with Spartan Recovery students through the weekend to get their narratives into shape for this final performance.

Blumberg tells the audience, about 50 people from the University community and beyond, that all stories must be true — “as remembered” — and about the storytellers themselves.

“We’re not fact-checkers,” she adds. “If they say it’s true, I believe them.”

So when, in her story, Trinity M. shares, “I was the only gay person I knew,” there are no doubts as to the veracity of her statement. Her coming-out tale begins with a childhood infatuation with Cinderella, drinking as a way of coping with her sexual identity crisis, her time as a “proud baby gay,” and the fellowship and strength she found at Spartan Recovery.

“I am Cinderella,” she finishes. “And Cinderella can get the girl, too.”

Not all stories center on recovery. Ella D. speaks about her complicated relationship with the color orange and how it changed over time. Brian N.’s opening lament, “I’m not good enough,” chronicles his path from community college dropout to UNCG master’s degree candidate. Bennett W. discloses an incident that happened to him during a hyper-competitive game of hide-and-seek. Marc R. reveals how his own insensitivity had wounded his best student, a trans man, and how the incident “showed me that I’m not the person I thought I was.” Queen R. remembers how her grandmother used to leave Post-it notes on the bathroom mirror for her to read while her grandma was at work. And Mike K. documents his path from a troubled youth who loved comics to a real-life hero as a scholar — and father.

Yes, real first names and last initials are being used in the printed program and on stage, as acknowledgement of the outward-facing nature of Spartan Recovery, although the practice goes against the traditions of some other recovery groups.

“The lack of anonymity is not a concession,” says Jennifer Whitney, director of Counseling and Psychological Services at UNCG. “Our members are living out loud, turning stigma on its head and giving a new name to recovery — one of dignity, achievement and pride.”

“There are many anonymous recovery programs in existence,” Kennedy says, “and they are so important. But ours is a program that is fighting the stigma associated with drug and alcohol addiction.”

Recovery features prominently in the story of Regan H., whose alcoholism coexisted with an abusive boyfriend before she fled to Holden Beach and met a woman at a fish market who changed her life.

John M.’s dark tale of pain — “I knew I had to die,” he begins — hews to the more traditional recovery narratives: living in his parents’ dark and windowless basement, a desire to live while pushing through thoughts of death and suicide, a cry for help.

“Now I’m seven years sober, and my life is amazing,” he finishes. “So many windows.” 

Poem November 2025

POEM

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November 2025

Why I Bought the Economy Size

Because she was not pretty,

her overbite designed to rip prey,

canines sharp as javelins, slight

lisp. Because she could stand

to lose a few pounds, and wore

a flowing flora, and a gray cardigan

strained across her chest. Because

she smiled when she talked, her voice

soft as a mother soothing a fussy child;

because she suggested the best bargain

but did not insist, just gently opened

the jar, offered it like a sacrament,

invited me to dip my finger into the cool

face cream, gently imploring, try it;

because I needed moisturizer, and she

needed that job, I bought the large size,

thanked her for the free gift, samples

wrapped in tissue paper and tucked

inside a pink pouch, the color of her dress.

— Pat Riviere-Seel

Kuyathi

KUYATHI

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Kuyathi

A potter spins her story in a backyard studio

By Cassie Bustamante

Photography by Amy Freeman

Mrunalini Ranganathan sits on a rust-orange loveseat in her backyard pottery studio, where golden afternoon sunlight casts tree-shaped shadows onto its blue exterior. Her name, she notes, is difficult for American English speakers to pronounce, so she often tells people to simply call her Miru. Her native Indian language derives from one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world, Tamil, which she uses in the center of her Lotus Stalks Pottery logo. “The four letters in the middle, they spell out ‘kuyathi,’” says Miru, “and I am so proud that I come from a civilization that had a word to say ‘female potter.’”

And the name Lotus Stalks Pottery? That comes from her own name. “Mrunal is one stalk. Mrunalini makes it plural, meaning a bunch of lotus stalks,” she explains.

While “kuyathi” has ancient origins, Miru, 49, has only been behind the pottery wheel for 13 years. Glancing around her studio, its shelves lined with stunning and intricately detailed earthenware, you wouldn’t know it. Born in Southern India where the highly structured class system regulates who can do what, she never imagined she’d ever have the opportunity to dip her hands into wet clay, let alone become a potter. “I don’t belong to the potter family,” she notes, “and in India, as you know, the caste system is so well defined. Sadly, you look down upon [potters].”

Her parents were both highly educated, as was her sister, who’s 14 years her senior and the one who came up with the name Mrunalini. Miru followed suit, never questioning her place and eventually working in the field of science as a lab manager and research biologist. “You go into school, you finish your schooling, then you go into college, become a professional of some sort,” says Miru. “If you’re a woman, of course, get married, have children and that’s it — your life is done.”

Even though it felt out of reach, she recalls, “I was always fascinated by the potter’s wheel.” In India, it is wooden and as large as as a bull cart wheel, with spokes and a hole in the outer rim. The potter inserts a big stick to spin it as fast as possible, then throws the clay and yields two pots before it’s slowed to a stop. “I would be like, oh . . . my . . . God.”

While becoming an artist wasn’t their wish for their daughter, Miru’s parents nurtured her interest and enrolled her in art classes from third to fifth grade, only stopping when her father retired and the family relocated. Her mother also influenced her interest in gardening, which is evident in the natural oasis surrounding her studio. “I was always following her around and around the house, talking to flowers and buds and wondering who was going to open up tomorrow,” she recalls. In fact, she often scratched her creative itch by pressing flowers and making greeting cards.

Eventually, art fell to the wayside as Miru followed the expected path. She holds a master’s in biology from Duquesne University, is married to an infectious disease doctor, Balaji Desai, and has two children. Mahinda graduated from Grimsley earlier this year, where he was on the drum line, and just started his first year at the University of Washington in Seattle. Sanga is in her sophomore year at Grimsley and plays on the girls varsity soccer team.

But before calling the Triad home, the family bounced around — from Balaji’s residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to his fellowship at SUNY Upstate Medical University. “The cold north,” Miru quips of Syracuse, N.Y. “People are cold, the place is cold.” It was a stark difference to the hottest part of India. Plus, throughout her husband’s career development — residency, fellowship, preparing for his four United States Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLE), submitting applications and going through rounds of interviews — Miru continued working to support the young family. “It was a lot,” she says.

After two years in Syracuse, Balaji was ready to pursue work with a practice and settle. The family had one major requirement for their future hometown: The sunshine had to be plentiful. Thankfully, Balaji landed with a practice in Danville, Va. Narrowing their search to within a 45-minute radius of Balaji’s new job, the family discovered Greensboro, which featured another checklist item, a Montessori school. The Gate City, she notes, “took us by surprise.”

In September 2012, after eight moves since immigrating to the U.S., the family finally put down roots in a brick, traditional home in Summerfield. Miru, done, at last, with what she calls a “rat race,” was able to catch her breath. “I suddenly felt like, now I really can step into what I have been missing in this life,” she says.

And that was art — to be exact, an art form that dates back to at least 28,000 B.C. “Clay is probably the oldest material that was used by humankind across the globe and still is relevant,” Miru muses. “How many things can you say that about?”

She registered for her first pottery class in October 2012, an evening class at Art Alliance. Turns out, mornings were better for her family’s lifestyle and she soon swapped to a Thursday morning class, where she found more than clay and creativity — she found community. To this day, her Thursday morning crew remains a circle of friends. “It’s like an alma mater for me, Art Alliance.”

Her first teacher, L.T. Hoisington, who has been an Art Alliance instructor for almost 20 years, is one of the most gentle souls she’s encountered. Plus, she notes, he is the only person of non-Indian origin who calls her by her first name, challenging because of the way the “R” rolls and is immediately followed by a cupped-tongue “U” sound. “He took time to practice it.” She also studied under Leanne Pizio, known locally for her vibrant, folk-art style pieces.

An Art Alliance comrade — “Fireman Bob, that’s what we called him” — taught Miru how to fire pots at home over a fire pit. His nickname, she notes, comes from his job as a fireman, not his technique. As soon as he demonstrated his process, she knew, “I have found what talks to me.” Now, a couple of metal barrels dot her own backyard.

On the shelves inside her studio sit the very pots she fired that day, which she’ll never sell. “They are so near and dear to me.” The pit-firing process is a delicate balance compared to the kiln and Miru says of all the pieces she puts over an open flame, about 70% survive. The finished look is worth the risk, earthy and unique, mottled in dark, ashen colors.

Seeing his wife blossom in her newfound passion, Balaji had been persistently asking if she wanted her own wheel, almost from the beginning. Her response never changed: “No, not yet. I don’t think I can throw well enough.”

Four years in, he stopped asking, surprising her with her own wheel. The family added a small, backyard shed to house it, which allowed her to shape and prepare pieces for firing right at home.

But the real turning point came in 2018, when Art Alliance launched a short-lived independent study program. An artist was given a time frame, a mentor and a material budget to focus on a singular concept. Miru had recently discovered terra sigillata, a thin, clay solution not to be confused with glaze, and centered her independent study around it. Patrick Rowe, “a kind-hearted, genuine human who wants you to succeed,” served as her mentor. That four-month program gave her the confidence to set off in her own artistic direction.

Her second surprise came in December 2019 when Balaji gave his wife a kiln for Christmas. She recalls squealing with joy, but it was short lived because, two days later, her father suffered a heart attack. Miru rushed to India, but didn’t make it in time to say good-bye. When she returned home, the kiln sat in their garage while she sat on the couch. “I would be blank,” she says.

She gave herself time to grieve and process her loss, slowly tiptoeing her way back to clay at home rather than in a class setting, skipping out on registering for the first time in seven years. And, of course, that spring, COVID happened. That kiln she’d gotten for Christmas made its way to the small backyard shed, where she put it to use beginning in the summer of 2020. “I would have gone crazy otherwise,” she quips.

Clay has become the antidote to nights “when I can’t sleep — perimenopause!” That’s when she fantasizes about her pottery, creating pieces in her mind before she gets to the wheel. “Sometimes it works, sometimes there is something else going on inside my head and the energy that is flowing through my hands is like, mmm-nnnn, not going to work there.”

Other things can go wrong, too. But, she says, “I have learned to take failures as learning experiences to better that process and see if I can make something even better.”

Case in point, Balaji put in a request for a bird bath — a large bird bath. After all, the couple enjoys backyard birdwatching and gardening. It took Miru a week just to cut all of the pieces. When it came time to flip it, she needed her husband’s help, but before she could get out the words, “Don’t do it like this,” he did it just like that, and, crrrrrrrrck.

Now the pieces sit in a large bucket, waiting.

With her kiln and new-found techniques, it wasn’t long before her backyard shed began to feel a little cramped. COVID still rampant, the couple decided to hire immigrant workers, who, she says, “were having a very tough time,” to frame the skeleton of what now serves as her studio. It sits adjacent to the original shed, where her kiln remains.

Once the studio’s shell was in place, the family of four worked together when they had spare time, installing flooring, shiplap walls, a wooden ceiling and shelving, and, of course, painting the blue exterior. From start to finish, it took them two-and-a-half years, working around the kids’ practice schedules and work schedules.

Miru sourced every part of her studio with the intention of keeping it as local as possible. Antique porcelain lampshades that hang pendant-style from the ceiling were collected over time and taken to a local craftsman, who sandblasted and painted them. The planks used for the ceiling and walls still emit the soft, earthy scent of pine. “This is not Home Depot or Lowe’s,” Miru says, waving her hand toward her walls. “This is from two guys who sell lumber that is discarded because it’s crooked or not up to the mark or something.”

On one wall, framed winter woodland photos of wild animals  stand out in snowy contrast against the warmth of knotty pine. “All from Yellowstone,” says Miru. Turns out the motor home parked in their driveway rolls out west almost every year. “We’re avid Yellowstoners,” she says.

The photographer? Balaji. “He has an eye, I should say,” Miru says proudly of her husband. “You might think I am the artistic kind, but I stop with the surface of the clay.”

In fact, Balaji is responsible for the studio design. He’s selected the furnishings and decor, including a blue, vintage typewriter and a couple old, metal-and-wood schoolhouse chairs. He even artfully arranges Miru’s pottery to show off her collections to shoppers.

When Miru has peddled her wares at local art shows, such as ArtStock and Art in the Arboretum, Balaji has been the one to curate her setup. But, she notes, it’s a family affair. “It takes the whole village” when it comes to packing, unpacking, popping up a tent and manning the booth all day.

While she has plans to participate in this month’s Made 4 Market at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market and Creative Clay Works at Revolution Mill, she says that doing shows has become “an energy sucker.” She’s more than happy to open her backyard studio doors and welcome people to “just come over, take a look, feel it, pick it up, look at it, fall in love.” Earlier this year, she even hosted her very first Mother’s Day sale.

Since stepping into that first Art Alliance class, much has changed. She’s grown much more confident, but admits that self doubt can still creep in at times. When it does, she reminds herself to trust her instincts: “Make it for yourself,” she tells herself. “You’re not doing this for others.”

And she’s shifted away from taking classes. “Maybe one or two workshops with certain potters, but, other than that, it has just been me practicing and trying to bring out my own style.”

These days, her pottery is the culmination of everything she’s learned as well as where she comes from, combining kiln firing, terra sigillata, pit firing and, often times, a slip-trailed pattern.

“What makes me the happiest is adding texture,” she says, dressed in a deep indigo block-print dress, flecked in a raspberry-colored pattern that mimics the designs she meticulously creates by hand. The slip-trail process itself can take hours, coaxing cream-cheese-consistency clay out of a squeeze bottle’s tiny tip. The lengthy process reminds her of the ancient Indian art of henna, still used today.

But clay has taught her patience. She’s learned to go with the flow. “Don’t control it — let it control you.” And don’t ever sit at your wheel frustrated. “Don’t put that energy into your clay. Then it won’t work for you — you’re making it sad.”

It Was a Mall World After All

IT WAS A MALL WORLD AFTER ALL

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It Was a Mall World After All

Travel back to long before online commerce was conceived

By Billy Ingram

In 1987, the debut album and single by 15-year-old pop star Tiffany hit No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making her the youngest artist to do so. What was truly remarkable was how she accomplished this feat. Industry insiders credited her performing in shopping malls around the country, the de facto town square of just about every city in America.

No nearly-forgotten phenomenon exemplified the halcyon days of the ’80s and ’90s like shopping malls. Those cavernous cauldrons of commercialism bubbled over in abundance, thanks to a booming economy and a populous stricken with consumption-itis. When primetime soaps like Dallas and Dynasty demonstrated that “Greed is Good” and those who die “with the most toys win,” malls were where you showed up to show out. So ingrained in daily life, you could purchase a ticket at a mall cineplex to watch a movie taking place in a shopping mall.

Greensboro’s first shopping mall was more than a decade in the making, dating back to 1961 when real estate speculator Joseph Koury publicly broke ground on a game-changing commercial and residential development with a staggering adjusted-for-inflation price tag of half a billion dollars.

For the magnum opus, to compliment his newly-created collage of cul-de-sacs known as the Pinecroft neighborhood, Koury engaged Leif Valand, modernist architect behind Cameron Village in Winston-Salem and Swann Middle School (then Charles B. Aycock Junior High) in Greensboro, to design a 1,000,000-square-foot retail complex housing 95 businesses, to be anchored by  three of the city’s most prestigious department stores: Belk, Thalhimers and Meyer’s, rebranded as Jordan Marsh. He called it Four Seasons Mall.

The city’s first climate-controlled shopping mall was an immediate success, with glass and reflective surfaces abounding, gleaming escalators transporting customers standing practically toe-to-toe to a heavenly multitude of unfamiliar storefronts. Each step forward illuminated by a veritable Oz of vibrant logos, wondrous epicenters of excess exuding themselves in every direction, with laminated bricks circling central gathering spaces festooned with flourishing foliage, a brash but bewitching work of architectural wizardry this reimagining of Main Street USA was.

In addition to long-established local merchants such as Prago-Guyes, Schiffman’s and Saslow’s Jewelers, Four Seasons assembled an impressive collection of national and regional clothing and accessories merchandisers, peddling wares almost exclusively influenced by what New York City fashionistas were cat-walking that year.

Catering to the ladies were Lerner Shops (stylish but affordable), Joseph R. Harris Co. (understated sophistication), Hofheimer’s shoes, Lillie Rubin (cocktail attire), Miller & Rhoads (high fashion out of Richmond, Va.), and Thom McAn (footwear). For the junior miss, Deb Shops, 5-7-9, Kaleidoscope, Brooks Fashions and Robins, catering to the pleated-skirt and high-waisted-slacks set. For men’s attire, there was National Shirt Shop (in business downtown since 1932), Mitchell Tuxedo, Frankenberger’s (with a Charleston flair) and The Hub.

Stylish jeans and westerns shirts were stocked at Chess King, The Ranch, Just Pants and Wrangler’s Roost. Headquartered in Charlotte, Wrangler’s Roost had no apparent relationship to the Wrangler corporation, which might explain why they weren’t around for very long. 

Four Seasons shoppers stopped for a quick nosh at Chick-fil-A for their new 99-cent, saucy, pulled Chick-n-Q sandwich or Piccadilly Cafeteria. But the unparalleled Mr. Dunderbak’s Old World Market and Cafe served bottled Meister Bräu lager to wash down Deutschland reubens and kraut n’wursts. This was Cherry Hill, N.J.,’s idea of a Bavarian Beerhaus ― the Sopranos would have loved it there.

Record Bar proved to be Greensboro’s premier vinyl purveyor until Peaches Records opened a few years later farther down High Point Road. Paying for your purchases wherever you shopped generally meant having cash on hand. While Bank of America issued the first nationally accepted, general use charge cards in 1958, paying with plastic didn’t actually enter the mainstream before the early-1970s. One reason is that, without a male cosigner, women were ineligible to apply for any line of credit until 1974, which, coincidentally or not, coincided with the proliferation of shopping malls.

Accepting credit cards was time-consuming. Once handed over to the clerk, the card had to be cross-referenced against a weekly-updated booklet of stolen account numbers before a receipt, three carbon copies attached, was filled out by the salesperson detailing the item purchased and amount due. The clerk then retrieved the “Knuckle Buster” stored under the counter and stuck it on the surface with suction cups attached to the base, which secured the several pound device. After slotting the customer’s BankAmericard into the mechanism, sales slip positioned on top, shop associates shoved a weighted rolling head over them, imprinting the receipt with the raised name and numbers from the card.

Four Seasons’ overwhelming allure prompted Friendly Shopping Center’s owner, Starmount Co., to construct its own enclosed retail complex. Anchored by Montaldo’s and conceived as a more upscale experience, Forum VI emerged in 1976 with 40 storefronts surrounding a distinctly moderne yet cozy courtyard flooded with oversized houseplants, all lit in soothing, golden tones. An elegant jewel box of predominantly local retailers that, for various reasons, never really caught on. Only the restaurants, Japanese steakhouse Kabuto and K&W Cafeteria, were consistently drawing crowds — but at hours not particularly advantageous to the mall’s interior tenants.

Debuting simultaneously was Carolina Circle Mall, by far that Bicentennial summer’s brightest retail star. With a reported $25-million price tag ($142.3 million in today’s dollars), “North Carolina’s Unique Shopping and Entertainment Wonderland” was located on the opposite end of town on what was formerly a 220-acre dairy farm bordering U.S. 29, 16th Street and Cone Boulevard.

As a teenager, I attended the grand opening in August of 1976. I’m kinda like a cat with an urge for exploring every aspect of my environment, but, unlike a cat, I left no scent behind at Carolina Circle. Thanks to its proximity to a nearby sewage treatment plant, a sickening stench was already permeating the air. On warm, breezy afternoons that putridity proved overpowering.

Undeterred, on opening day nearly 4,000 cars jammed the parking lot as UNCG students costumed as Alice in Wonderland characters greeted eager consumers inside. Most impressive was the ’70s futurist Montgomery Ward exterior accented with thousands of individual yellow, orange and red glazed tiles surrounding the entrance.

A disappointing number of outlets migrated over as well as duplicates of Four Seasons’ franchises including Belk, Piccadilly Cafeteria and the ever-present Chick-fil-A. Carolina Circle’s maze-like layout allowed for a more intimate feeling with smoked-glass panels, dark-colored handrails and brown, terrazzo flooring.

While the overall effect was warm and fuzzy, the major attraction for many was the first floor Ice Chalet, Greensboro’s only skating rink. Surrounding that slick surface was a food court consisting of Orange Julius, Chick-fil-A and New York Pizza. Started by two Sicilian-Americans from New Jersey, Charles Sciabbarrasi and Ray Mascali, NYP made so much dough they quickly opened another pie hole on Tate Street. That’s still there while Mascali sells slices and pies at NY Pizza on Battleground.

Saturday Night Fever exploded across movie screens in December ’77, infecting the populace with disco fever. Urgent care for disco fever was The Current Event dance club at Carolina Circle, where underaged teenagers gyrated underneath a disco ball rotating on its axis, sending shards of light across its expansive orange, yellow and black under-lit dance floor and backlit pylon barriers. One lingering feverish side effect? An overwhelming desire for ”wild and crazy guys” to possess that white, polyester, three-piece suit John Travolta wore to seduce the nation — and Karen Lynn Gorney. J. Riggings sold them on the second floor, where they were, like every highly desirable item, literally chained and mini-padlocked to the display rack.

The city’s (possibly the state’s) first skateboard park opened along the eastern end of the parking lot, closest to the sewage plant. Those concrete bowls proved a popular spot for both teenagers and younger kids, despite required knee pads and helmets. That skate park was short-lived, as was the outdoor Hawaiian Surf Water Slide retired pro wrestler John Powers opened in 1978.

The proliferation of easily accessible credit cards in 1980s and ’90s ushered in an era of haute couture from designers Betsey Johnson, Donna Karan, Liz Claiborne, Tommy Hilfiger, Perry Ellis, Guess, Ralph Lauren and my favorite, Ton Sur Ton, found at Express, Gadzooks, Claire’s, Merry-Go-Round and Mervyn’s stores. And unless someone possessed a perfectly pear shaped rear end, no man or woman ever looked right in those impossibly tight Jordache stonewashed jeans.

Sharper Image hawked high-tech gadgets no one knew they needed — computer bridge games, massaging chairs, Truth Seeker vocal stress detectors — with eye-popping price tags. Farrah Fawcett posters, cheap jewelry, infinity mirrors and goofy geegaws were Spencer Gifts’ oeuvre. Would it surprise you that they are behind those invasive pop-up Spirit Halloween shops?

Despite the hype, a requisite steady stream of shoppers never materialized for Carolina Circle. In 1986, the property was offloaded at a loss for $21 million. The new owner pumped an additional third of that investment into major renovations, including a spectacular pink, neon-like facade leading into a significantly brighter interior highlighted by enormous, pastel-colored butterflies, which hovered overhead, along with a new name, The Circle. On re-opening day, a choir resolutely standing center stage belted out the “Hallelujah Chorus,” but the resulting redux proved a resounding flop. Many a heart melted when the Ice Chalet was removed — too expensive they said — in favor of a $250,000 carousel decorated with Greensboro landmarks. The drain circling continued unabated.

Changing hands again for a mere $16 million in 1993, The Circle’s asking price was undoubtedly negatively affected by an incident that happened two years prior. A father, on an outing with his daughters, was gunned down outside of Montgomery Ward. The Greensboro Police Department establishing a satellite station inside the shopping center only served to solidify its seedy reputation.

Imagine my horror upon discovering around that same time that my 70-year-old mother was still frequenting The Circle’s Belk — which was hanging on by a thread, but one of the few retailers left due to rampant gang activity. I implored her to stop, but she liked the salespeople. After that conversation, I accompanied her whenever she shopped there.

Strolling the mall interior as she perused the racks, around a third of the storefronts were darkened caves, even Great American Cookie Company was crumbling. “If a terrorist came in and blew up the mall,” one demoralized merchant groused in 1996, “The headline would read, ‘Mall Blows Up, Nobody Injured.’” Well, there’d be my mom . . .

As a Hail Mary play, The Circle descended into an assemblage of storefront tabernacles alongside a fitness center before its 2006 date with the wrecking ball. Currently the site of a Walmart Superstore, the only physical remnant still standing is Montgomery Wards’ one-time tire-and-auto center on 16th Street.

In 2015, the scant remaining Forum VI retailers were unceremoniously evacuated for transforming the interior into an office complex. Kabuto objected; after almost 40 years, its hibachi hadn’t cooled. Determined to continue, its owners built a stand-alone pagoda on Stanley Street, where they still enjoy a bustling business today. The only remaining holdout at Forum VI is K&W Cafeteria, still serving up the same recipes, its mid-’70s dining-room decor perfectly preserved.

Out of curiosity, on a recent weekday afternoon I ventured out to Four Seasons Towne Centre. Employees outnumbered the zombie-like walkers in attendance, and blank wall installations covered over a depressing array of abandoned storefronts. The escalator wheezed, stuttered and clanked under the weight of my 150-pound frame, the sole passenger on its downward trajectory. Today’s star attraction appears to be the senses-shattering, potentially seizure-inducing bowling alley/arcade located in Jordan Marsh’s (later Ivey’s) voluminous former ground-floor entrance.

I asked friends born in the ‘80s and ’90s about their own mall memories. They didn’t have any. One remarked he had no need for the mall because he already had a girlfriend in high school. Perhaps this impression was because, sometime in the 2000s, the mall experience had devolved into a latchkey kids’ land of the lost, somewhat akin to a primitive dating app like Tinder, a convenient hookup venue where joy seekers simply slid left into Forever 21 when spying someone undesirable.

A pity shopping malls ultimately came to represent in-person purchasing’s very own Alamo, where retail desperados collectively mounted one final assault to squeeze the last possible dollar from antiquated business models they knew were totally unsuitable for the new frontier. Now, they’re a relic of our nation’s overwhelming desire for escaping into fortresses where ease of attainment meant atonement; momentarily, that is, until the creditors came calling.

Glory Days

GLORY DAYS

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Glory Days

These men aren’t kids anymore, but when they were, they forged a legacy

By Ross Howell Jr.

Photographs by Tibor Nemeth

Former Greensboro Generals ice hockey players Ron Muir, Harvard Turnbull and Stu Roberts have a pretty good idea of what our new professional team, the Greensboro Gargoyles of the East Coast Hockey League, have on their minds.

A league championship.

That’s something the Generals, the city’s first professional hockey team, achieved in the 1962–1963 season of the old Eastern Hockey League. (A later franchise, the Greensboro Monarchs, won the ECHL championship title in the 1989–1990 season.)

After I schedule an interview with Ron Muir, I find it to be wonderfully apt that he lives just across the road from the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park and its monument to General Nathanael Greene.

One old general near another.

Muir’s 89 years old now, and I’m greeted at his door by two of his daughters, Elaine Miller and Susie Barham. Elaine teaches elementary school in Blowing Rock and Susie lives in Myrtle Beach.

Muir is sitting in a big recliner and is wearing a Wayne Gretzky jersey — for those of you who don’t follow the sport, Gretzky is a legendary National Hockey League player from Canada who was nicknamed “the Great One.” A hockey game set on mute slashes across the flat-screen TV facing Muir’s chair.

Hailing from small-town Seaforth, Ontario, between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, Muir was an athlete’s athlete — playing soccer, lacrosse, football, baseball and, of course, hockey.

“I decided I wanted to play professional hockey when I was about 10 years old,” Muir says.

Ron Muir

“He’s always had his goals,” Elaine laughs.

And play professional hockey he did. Before moving his young family to Greensboro for the 1960–1961 EHL season at age 25, he’d already played professionally in Canada for three years. Standing 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing a bruising 190  pounds, Muir played left wing.

Because of his experience and age, many of his teammates looked at him as a father figure.

“Many of them were these 18-, 19-year-old boys, and their families were all back in Canada,” Elaine says.

“At Christmas, Mom and Dad would have a huge party, and the whole team would show up in our little house,” she adds.

Muir remembers that the person who convinced him to join the Generals was the late Don Carter, who was from Toronto. The two men were the same age and had first met at a Chicago Blackhawks tryout in St. Catharines, Ontario.

When they saw each other again at a training camp, Muir had been scouted by an EHL team in Johnstown, Penn., and was ready to sign with them.

Carter was already a star with the Generals. Playing defenseman, he stood 5 feet 11 inches tall, and weighed 185 pounds.

“So Carter says to me, ‘Ron, you don’t have to go to Johnstown. Come on, we’ll go to Greensboro. I played there last year and it’s a good town,’” Muir recalls.

“I thought, hell, I haven’t signed a contract,” Muir continues. “So, I signed up with the Generals’ manager, who was also at the camp, and loaded up for Greensboro.”

“My father drove us down,” Elaine says. “It was a two-day trip back then, and Susie and I were toddlers.”

“And we just ended up staying,” Muir says.

Two more daughters came along, Sandy and Cindy, and both still live in Greensboro. After Muir’s first wife passed away, he remarried, and a stepson, Jason, became family, too. Now Muir has nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

The first season Muir and Carter skated together as Generals, the team made the finals. The second season, they won the EHL championship.

In those days, there was no Plexiglas around the rink, just boards and wire. The girls would sit close to the ice, and, when Muir skated by them, they’d shout, “Hey, Dad!”

“The kids from the other hockey families would be all around us in the crowd,” Elaine says. “It was great.”

Greensboro was a hockey town — and “the Generals were superstars,” Elaine says.

“My husband, Eric, played little league hockey,” she adds. “So he knew about Dad long before he met me.”

Susie laughs.

“Oh, yeah, my husband knew Dad before he ever asked me out,” she chimes in.

Elaine smiles.

“We’d date these guys, and they’d say, ‘You’re Ron Muir’s daughters?’ That was a bonus.”

Harvard Turnbull suggests we meet for a drink at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar. Turnbull is 84 years old. Originally from Toronto, he skated at the center position for the Generals, standing 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds.

Though he was an experienced and skilled hockey player, Turnbull was still a teenager with a dream of making the National Hockey League (NHL) when he arrived in Greensboro. Signing with the Generals represented a big step toward achieving that dream.

Turnbull met with members of the Generals’ staff at the Sedgefield home of businessman Stanley Frank, one of the founding owners of the team, to finalize his contract.

“So, they said, ‘What do you want?’” Turnbull recalls.

“I said, ‘You fill it out and I’ll sign it.’ That’s how green I was. I was going to turn pro. It was like I was going to walk on water.”

Fortunately for Turnbull, coach Ron Spong made sure the contract included generous bonuses each time the team advanced in the playoffs.

Harvard Turnbull

And that was the Generals’ championship season.

“I went out and bought a new convertible,” Turnbull laughs.

“It was amazing,” he says. “We were treated like kings.”

Turnbull tells me as many as 5,000 fans would show up to watch the team play in a charity softball game. He and his teammates could play the Sedgefield golf course anytime they wanted. They were often invited into the homes of civic leaders and successful entrepreneurs.

The late Anne Cone was one of the owners of the Generals team in its glory days. A benefactor of UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum, she was the wife of Cone Mills heir Benjamin Cone, mayor of Greensboro, 1949–1951, who passed away in 1982. The couple lived in a graceful Greensboro Country Club mansion.

“Anne Cone was absolutely wonderful,” Turnbull says. “She would invite us single guys to her house for dinner about once a month.”

Among the bachelor invitees was Bob Boucher from Ottawa.

As the story is told, when Cone was in Chamonix, France, on a ski trip, she learned that Boucher, who was playing European hockey, had been arrested in Italy for fighting and couldn’t make bail. Cone managed to have him released and flown to Greensboro, where he skated for the championship team at right wing, standing 5 feet 9 inches and weighing 170 pounds.

“Bobby was a character,” Turnbull says. “So, we’d be at one of Anne’s dinner parties, and Bobby’s sitting at the head of the table where she had all these buttons, and he’d push a button and a servant would come in. Then he’d push another and a wine steward would come in.”

“He was just pushing buttons to see what would happen,” Turnbull laughs. “But Anne was cool — she didn’t have a problem with it.”

Yes, the high life was “plush,” as Turnbull likes to say, but the sport of ice hockey could be punishing, especially in those days.

He shows me a photo.

“That’s Ron Muir in front of the net and I’m taking a shot on goal,” Turnbull says. “Listen, I could really shoot the puck back then, probably get it close to 100 mph.”

He places a fingertip on the goalie’s head in the photo. The goalie’s not wearing a face mask, let alone a helmet.

“If the puck had hit him in the head,” Turnbull muses, “it probably would’ve killed him.”

He shows me another action photo, snapped right at the moment an opposing player knocked Turnbull completely over the boards and into the stands.

“That was very painful,” he says. “But I came right back out on the ice.”

Turnbull tells me that his nose was cut so badly once when he was playing in Canada that it had to be sewn back on. He’s had teeth knocked out, fingers broken and suffered numerous concussions.

“You know what they called the EHL back in my day?” Turnbull asks.

“They called it ‘the meatgrinder league,’” he says, nodding slowly. “That’s how crazy it was.”

Turnbull believes if his teams had “proper helmets, proper rules,” maybe he wouldn’t have suffered so many injuries, which continue to plague him in his golden years.

“Still,” he concludes, “I’d do it all over again.”

Stu Roberts

I meet up with Stu Roberts at the Chick-fil-A just off Battleground Avenue.

Roberts is a native of St. Catharines, Ontario, and arrived in Greensboro in 1966. Although he was just 19 years old, he had already been playing for the St. Catharines Black Hawks, a Canadian junior ice hockey team, for four seasons. He stood 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 175 pounds, and didn’t waste any time making an impression in the EHL.

Roberts won the rookie of the year award in 1966–1967.

“I was fast, and that was my game,” he says. “And I could score goals. One year, I scored 62 goals in 72 games. Wonderful year.”

Roberts tells me that he wasn’t a bruiser like Muir and Carter — he used his speed to avoid the hits.

And he knew how to please the crowd.

“I’m not bragging, but I’m proud of the fact that I won most popular player three years in a row,” Roberts says. “I used to tell Coach Spong I’d rather keep the people happy than win any other award.”

As long as the fans were behind him, he adds, “I knew I could keep my job.”

One of Roberts’ daughters, Ashley Barker, drops by the Chick-fil-A to show me some of her Dad’s memorabilia.

Among the items is a newspaper article written by a St. Catharines reporter the summer after Roberts’ second season as a General.

The writer called Roberts “Mr. Excitement.”

“He’s a gambler, often diving, literally, across the ice to get the puck,” the reporter wrote.

The crux of the article?

That Roberts was a huge fan of another speedster — No. 43, stock car driver Richard Petty. So much so that he visited Petty in Randleman, who obliged Roberts by letting him try out the driver’s seat in No. 43. Not on the track, of course.

I ask Roberts about the teams the Generals faced in his eight-year career here.

“I’m telling you, we had some great teams,” Roberts says.

“Our nemesis was the Charlotte Checkers,” he continues. “We used to go to Charlotte on a Friday night and fill the place, and come back to Greensboro on Saturday night and fill the place. It was really good rivalry.”

And there were the Roanoke Valley Rebels, originally the Salem Rebels, in Virginia.

“We used to skate in the old Salem Civic Center, but then they built the Roanoke Civic Center, which was a beautiful rink,” Roberts says.

There were the Nashville Dixie Flyers and the Knoxville Knights in Tennessee.

And, yes, even back then, two teams from the Sunshine state — the Jacksonville Rockets and St. Petersburg Suncoast Suns.

“We carried 18 players on the team and did most of our travel by bus,” Roberts says. The bus had about 20 seats and the remaining space was set up with double-deck bunks.

“We had some good times,” he continues. “I remember a lot of bus rides in a lot of snow, getting from Greensboro to Nashville, or Nashville to Knoxville, or Knoxville to back home.”

Roberts pauses for a moment.

“I think maybe people have forgotten about the Greensboro Generals,” he muses.

I tell him about how many fans I’ve seen — some even high school age — who’ve been wearing old Generals jerseys at the Gargoyles media events I’ve attended. His face brightens.

“You know, I want to thank Greensboro,” Roberts says. “I skated on some great teams. I met my wife, Amanda, here. We raised our kids here. It’s been a wonderful ride.”

And who knows? Maybe our Greensboro Gargoyles in their inaugural season will create some glory days of their own.