With the moon rising over the ocean, at a midnight high tide on the longest day of the year, a mother sea turtle wades ashore. Looking to make a nest for her 200 eggs, she pulls herself up the beach, eager for a soft nesting place. It is time. Maybe it was the distracting noises […]
John Valentine
Bio: John Valentine lives in Hillsborough, where he's written about life on and off the farm for more than two decades.Email: [email protected]
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Wish you were here I
Up early, in line at the Magic Kingdom, a Chapel Hill family of four enters a vacation nightmare episode of The Twilight Zone. “Oops,” whispers the cashier at the ticket kiosk. She has just charged the family $25 million dollar’s worth of admission to Disneyworld on their Visa card. Supervisors appear, pulling our travelers aside. […]
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It takes a village
There’s a new Village Voice in the Triangle these days, and one northern Durham neighborhood is especially happy about it. These Voice readers are looking forward to monthly columns on local events, social news, word usage, visiting speakers, poetry and area history. Editor Ruth Ambrosius receives a variety of submissions each month from writers who […]
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Wait till next year
Two teenage girls and their moms out for an afternoon spin? Not exactly. Racing to the emergency room in an ambulance, foreheads gashed and bleeding, Laurel O’Neal and Jessica Cocke were apologizing to each other. “We both felt so bad. We kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry. It was my fault,’” says 14-year-old O’Neal. “I knew […]
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Snake eyes
Another suburban morning, family on the fly. Multitask schedule called out and negotiated from every room, soccer shorts lost and found, school-lunch menu debated, cereal selection voted down, dance outfit found and lost, e-mail and answering machine messages passed on or forgotten. Then we find the snake. Nothing like the real world to focus people’s […]
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Stuff
“So, let’s decide who gets the stuff,” my sister said. My parents moved to North Carolina last fall, to a new retirement village, in order to be closer to family and the specialists at Duke University Medical Center. My youngest sister and I had found them the perfect house. It was cute, cozy and small. […]
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A time to prune
Fifteen years ago, I started clearing land for some apple and peach trees. Deep in the woods, the space I chose is accessible only on foot. The trails leading to it are about four feet wide. The first couple of years, I burned out one chain saw and two lawn mowers. Jacked up to maximum […]
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Snow memories
“Whatever you do, don’t lick the snow shovel,” was usually the last thing I heard as I went outdoors as a kid in winter. We grew up on a Vermont college campus where snow was a way of life. My parents say one of their memories is clipping my mittens and hats onto my parkas […]
