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Articles by Bland Simpson
All Hands on Deck
First, we scarfed. In a Piedmont country shed, Bill Garlick and I — boaters but not boatbuilders till one Sunday afternoon three days after Thanksgiving some years back — began to craft two small sailing skiffs, and we were hooked at once. We fashioned complementary angles on the ends of two pairs of marine plywood sheets in order to scarf them and make each pair into one.
North Carolina’s Eternal Refrain
Where mountain winds leave off, highland waters may pick up with their own sounds and songs, unhurried burblings and tricklings: from a nearly noiseless creek in the woods that suddenly becomes the gushing, fast-sliding, showering stream of the 250-foot Cascades in Wilkes County to the huge, throaty resonance of big Linville Falls pouring thickly forth into its plunge pool 90 feet below, and well south to the hundreds of Transylvania County falls, each with granite-bowled pools of their own,...
Sounds of Home | Our State
From Poplar Branch to Owl Creek, from Lockwoods Folly to Brasstown, I hear North Carolina sounding. As some of our state’s sounds become almost tunes, or even songs, the gift to us all is, in a sense, a choral library of wide-ranging, never-stopping sonic wonders — music from both the nature around us and the efforts of our humanity: A Carolina Chorale. From sea to mountain, one hears unmatched sonic bookends.
Under the Currituck Beach Lighthouse
Prologue We climbed slowly the tower’s 220 steps not long before sunset, surrounded all the way up by its 650,000 bricks laid in one-to-three common bond, led by 19-year veteran Currituck Beach Lighthouse Site Manager Meghan Agresto. “You can touch anything metal but nothing glass,” she said as she installed my wife, Ann, and me inside of the hollow first-order Fresnel lens at the 162-foot pinnacle.
A Town Called Bath
The bells of Bath ring at noon, and their sounding out is general across the broad peninsula where lies the oldest North Carolina town. Once these chimes are done, only the occasional screeching of gulls and scrawking of great blue herons break the silence lying over the old port. The town sits 10 feet above the water, and a rise near the foot of King Street holds many a soul buried in the former churchyard of the Bath AME Zion Church, now honored by a large marble slab.
Give a book to someone (or yourself) - The Well
For gift-giving, UNC Press editors recommend five books about North Carolina people, history, beauty and politics that also address broader topics such as climate change, election fraud and what may be the state’s most hotly debated subject — barbecue. You might be tempted to wrap up one for yourself.
Book Excerpt
Book Excerpt An excerpt from the N.C. Literary Hall-of-Famer’s new release By Bland Simpson Once, after a walk up to some stores on the edge of the Greensboro neighborhood where his family lived, a good friend of mine — Jim, let us say — was strolling on home. The time was just before 2 o’clock, and a sudden summer rainstorm drove him to run up onto a stranger’s porch to wait till the storm blew on through.
The Fishing Camps of Core Banks
Core Banks, the long, slender, least-inhabited of North Carolina’s barrier islands, lies east of the colonial seaport town of Beaufort. The first time Ann and I went to stay in one of the two fishing encampments out on those sandbanks, each of our 8-yearold twins, Hunter and Susannah, brought along a friend, and our daughter Cary was 10 months old. Late that Friday afternoon, we embarked on the car-and-passenger ferry Green Grass from Morris Marina on the north side of Atlantic.
Excerpt: Bland Simpson’s ‘Land of Water, Land of Sky’
From left, Tom Earnhardt, Ann Cary Simpson, Scott Taylor and Bland Simpson. Photo: UNC Press Editor’s note: Bland Simpson is a friend of the North Carolina coast and of the entire Tar Heel State. He’s a friend and supporter of Coastal Review and an occasional contributor. Likewise, he’s a friend of our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation, having served long and faithfully on its board of directors.
New book by North Carolina icon Bland Simpson rambles through state's natural beauty
Just in time for Christmas gift season, the University of North Carolina Press offers up a handy coffee table book of Tar Heel images with terrific text. Bland Simpson has enjoyed a protean career.
Coast Guard commissions cutter named for NC native
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Glen Harris at Fort Macon. Photo: Ann Cary Simpson At U.S. Coast Guard Station Fort Macon in Atlantic Beach on Friday, Aug. 6, one breezy, blue-sky day before the 79th anniversary of America’s Pacific Islands campaign in World War II, the U.S. Coast Guard convened a hundred officers, crew and family members to commission a new, fast-response cutter named for Chief Petty Officer Glen Harris, who was born in the Down East village of Stacy, married and lived in Beaufort.
Why I Love Pool Halls
On a green field of order, where I wait for this game’s random shifts to bring you back, high and low, striped and solid balls rotate. I chalk my cue and call for one more rack . . .
4 Items for Your March To-Do List
One of the stops on the Harriet Jacobs Walking Tour is Edenton Harbor, where Jacobs boarded a boat to escape to the North in 1842. photographby Emily Chaplin and Chris Council Harriet Jacobs. photograph by GILBERT STUDIOS, WASHINGTON, D.C. GOLD-TONED ALBUMEN PRINT Walk Through History In honor of Women’s History Month, take a self-guided walking tour that follows the footsteps of one of North Carolina’s African American icons, Harriet Jacobs.
The Mighty Roanoke River: A Photo Essay
Finding the Flow With a drainage area of almost 10,000 square miles, the Roanoke River is bigger than all the other North Carolina river basins — only the Cape Fear comes close. The catch is that all of the more than 9,000-square-mile Cape Fear basin is within North Carolina, while most of the Roanoke pulls Virginia’s Blue Ridge waters our way, with just over one-third of the Roanoke actually in our state.
Island Time
The greatest of all the shores I know are our long, sandy strands, the last sandbars before Africa, the islands of the Carolina coast. Whether we go out to them only a time or two, or steadily for 60 years, whether we find fish or first love or family life through the generations, the devotional, even reverential qualities of voice are in the air when we North Carolinians mention our jaunts, our stays at the beach, by which we mean the islands.
Climbing Sand: The Dunes of the Outer Banks
When I was a boy, my cousins and I used to leave our family’s Kitty Hawk seaside cottage after lunch and tromp away from the ocean, walking west toward the sound-side woods, crossing a naked, mile-wide sandy plain behind and beyond the oceanfront cottages and beach road. Only a few times did we go sliding down the loose, angled sand into the woods themselves, for we were always warned how difficult it might be to climb back up.
In Praise of North Carolina Clay | Our State
On many a Friday when I was a boy, my family drove from Elizabeth City to Chapel Hill to see my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. In Bunn, NC Highway 98 made a left turn and then gave its westbound travelers a hilltop prospect over a great, miles-long range of fields and forests, and then the two-lane blacktop went undulating over long, straight stretches, ribbonlike toward Wake Forest and Durham.
Misfortune in the Barringer Gold Mine
John Fisher listened to the scrape and rattle of shovels as several workers cleared a path through a long-ago cave-in inside a horizontal shaft of the Barringer Gold Mine in Misenheimer. Fisher and the workers were about 200 feet beneath the surface of the rolling hills of northern Stanly County. Nearly a century had passed since eight miners died a sudden and horrible death here on a wet August afternoon in 1904.
An Island of Your Own
Steer wrestling, a practice credited to legendary cowboy and rodeo star Bill Pickett, usually involves leaping onto a steer from the back of a specially trained horse. At the Madison Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to To watch in full screen, click here. Davis Island wasn’t always an island.
Shelton Herb Farm in Leland
Steer wrestling, a practice credited to legendary cowboy and rodeo star Bill Pickett, usually involves leaping onto a steer from the back of a specially trained horse. At the Madison Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes.
Chilling on Middle Lane
“What’s it like here in Beaufort in the dead of winter?” I asked Jimm Prest, the late innkeeper of the Langdon House Bed & Breakfast, the week of Thanksgiving long ago. At that moment, I had spent but one night in the town that has now, for more than 30 years, been a second home to my family and me. “I can tell you in a few words,” Jimm replied.
Maco Light | NCpedia
The Maco Light, also called the Ghost at Maco Station, is one of North Carolina's most well-known and enduring supernatural phenomena. It dates to a fatal train wreck in 1867 at a small rural station then called Farmer's Turnout, 14 miles west of Wilmington on the line serving Wilmington, Florence, S.C., and Augusta, Ga. Conductor Joe Baldwin, riding in the last car of a wood-burning train, discovered that his car had come uncoupled.
Salted Chocolate-Caramel Shortbread Bars
Yield: 16 bars. Crust: 1¼ cups flour ¼ cup sugar 3 tablespoons cornstarch ½ cup salted butter, cubed Caramel filling: 1 cup sugar 2 tablespoons water 1 tablespoon light corn syrup ½ cup heavy cream, room temperature 2 tablespoons unsalted butter softened ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt Chocolate topping: 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped 3 tablespoons unsalted butter Flaked sea salt Preheat oven to 375°. Generously butter (or spray) an 8-inch square baking pan.
The Book Club at Duck’s Cottage | Our State
Steer wrestling, a practice credited to legendary cowboy and rodeo star Bill Pickett, usually involves leaping onto a steer from the back of a specially trained horse. At the Madison Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to Duck’s Cottage used to be over there, says owner Allen Lehew as he points toward Currituck Sound, less than 100 yards away.
City Portrait: Elizabeth City
The half brick in my hand is fractured across its middle, and whatever red it once had has long since drained or soaked away, for there is no doubt that water was involved in its faded fate, its dull brown tone. On half of its long side are seven barnacles; on its fracture are nine. The same man who pulled it out of the Pasquotank River, attorney Russell Twiford, later gave it to me.
Moonshine | NCpedia
Moonshine, illegal, untaxed whiskey distilled by the "light of the moon," has been a part of North Carolina lore and culture for centuries. From the state's eastern swamps and pocosins to its remote mountain coves, no small number of North Carolinians have engaged in the manufacture of unbonded whiskey, which has also been called mountain dew, blockade, white liquor, white lightning, corn liquor, popskull, stumphole whiskey, forty-rod, and shine.
Women in Brewing are Breaking the Pint Glass Ceiling
When Hollie Stephenson looks over the shiny metal brew tanks on the work floor at Highland Brewing Company in Asheville, she’s pretty pleased. Not only because, as Highland’s brewmaster, she enjoys watching great beer come to life, but also because she sees a growing number of women involved in the process: Of the five people on the floor, two are women. “I like the way that looks,” she says. One of those women is her boss, Leah Wong Ashburn, president of the 23-year-old company.
City Portrait: Morganton
If I could sing a love song to Morganton, I’d take back my breath from that view of Table Rock that rises behind the first glimpse of town and use it in tribute to the granite cliff, freckled green with scrub trees against the signature blue of the ridge. Table Rock is a sudden, stony plane, a high note in the soft peaks that hold hands to say grace around Linville Gorge. Table Rock is also a Morganton refrain, its shape and sensibilities playing out across the town below.
Photo Essay: Reliving the Revolution through Reenactment in Guilford County
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published in March 2017 and updated in March 2019. The trees and parks and lawns are verdant and plentiful; the citizens are conscientious recyclers. But neither fact pertains to Greensboro’s name. Because in 1781, Greensboro wasn’t Greensboro. It was a backcountry farming community of less than 100 people. Rebels battling the British weren’t known as Americans, but as Continentals.
Molasses Cream Pie Cookie Recipe | Our State
Steer wrestling, a practice credited to legendary cowboy and rodeo star Bill Pickett, usually involves leaping onto a steer from the back of a specially trained horse. At the Madison Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to Yield: 2 dozen cookies or 1 dozen pies.
A Coconut Cake Recipe is Both Coveted and Elusive
“I’ve got a few minutes to kill, so I’ll whip up a coconut cake for us,” said no one, ever. The only spontaneous thing about a coconut cake is our delight. It takes time and talent to make one, and in our grandparents’ day, it likely required a train or truck. A coconut’s hard shell served as fitting luggage for the tropical treat’s long journey inland.
Honoring the Waters that Provide Our Bounty
One of my earliest places of play was a big fish house on the west bank of the Pasquotank River in Elizabeth City. The family of my great boyhood friend Bob Daniels owned the Globe Fish Company, which had been a wholesale seafood business for more than four decades by the time Bob and I, still under 10, would walk there after school, and then bound upstairs to explore the big, cool riverside rooms filled with boxes of ready-to-ship fresh fish on ice, and fish scales everywhere.
A Sound Country Serenade – Our State Magazine
In 1941, a then-unknown marine ecologist named Rachel Carson wrote of shad running by night through a coastal North Carolina inlet, and birds in vast numbers moving “into the sound country.” She gave us a great gift, something big to sing about. She wrote of the sounds; their rivers, streams, and creeks; and the pocosins and bottomland swamps between them.
Bicycle Dreams | Our State
Go ahead and say bicycle, but really, it’s a bike. A bicycle is one of those sleek machines that cyclists — as opposed to bike-riders — scare you to death with, whizzing noiselessly past while you’re taking a walk. The kind with wheels (bikes have tires; bicycles have wheels) skinny as a hose. A bicycle is at the very top of the evolutionary ladder, and not everyone wants to climb that high.
Baked Custard Recipe | Our State
Steer wrestling, a practice credited to legendary cowboy and rodeo star Bill Pickett, usually involves leaping onto a steer from the back of a specially trained horse. At the Madison Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to Yield: 6 half-cup servings.
The Great Migration of Glass Eels
You wouldn’t see them if you weren’t looking, and few people know to look. And let’s be honest: Not many people go on the hunt for one of the least understood, most underappreciated, and downright slimiest creatures on the planet. But on late spring nights and for weeks on end, they’re out there, from one end of North Carolina to the other: Eels. Millions of them.
Hoop Cheese Biscuits Recipe | Our State
Yield: About 12 biscuits. 2 cups biscuit mix 1 tablespoon sugar ¼ teaspoon black pepper ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper ½ teaspoon garlic powder ¼ cup chopped chives 1 stick cold butter 1 cup buttermilk 1 pound hoop cheese 4 tablespoons butter, melted Preheat oven to 425º. Grease a muffin tin. In a large bowl, combine biscuit mix, sugar, peppers, garlic powder, and chives. Grate butter into dry ingredients. Using fingers, incorporate to a crumbly consistency.
A Guide to Native Plants in North Carolina
North Carolina has a vast array of native plants. Some are more suited to home gardens while others are best viewed in their native habitat. This is due mostly to their availability or lack thereof. But even if you can’t have every kind of native plant you want in your yard, this provides a great excuse to travel throughout our state to see wildflowers in the wild. Our hardiness zones range from Zone 6a in the mountains to Zone 8a at the coast.
The Scoop on Howling Cow
Alli Davis admits it. She names the cows. Davis, all of 22 years old, wears her sandy blonde hair back in a ponytail. She stands at the end of a row of calf corrals in a gray T-shirt and muddy boots. The calves see her. They’re all between 2 and 8 weeks old and are built like stocky little deer. They bounce around like big puppies. The conversation comes to a dead stop. Calves have that effect on people. There’s one named Shamrock. The youngest ones, the twins on the end, are named Lucy and Ethel.
Underclad Undergrads Streak NC College Campuses | Our State
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally appeared in Our State’s April 2014 issue. One cold winter’s night 40 years ago, when Dwight Sparks was a Western Carolina University junior — an otherwise clean-cut, reasonably serious undergrad from Davie County preparing for a career in journalism — he did something crazy. He streaked.
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