By Valarie Schwartz It doesn’t seem possible that I’ve been putting it off this long, but every August since the Paperhand Puppet Intervention (PPI) started bringing weekend shows to the Forest Theater, it has been my intention to attend. Finally, in its ninth year, we made it over Sunday night for I am an Insect:…
Category: Recently
Recently: The fading of red on the head
By Valarie Schwartz Fifteen years ago, on the date that I write this (Aug. 4), I sat in a restaurant in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with my eight-year-old son, looking at a newspaper after having ordered our breakfast. This remains a memory because it was the first time I had to adjust the length of my…
Recently: Standing still does not move this Carrboroite
By Valarie Schwartz With wide-open mind, heart, arms and face, Joy Williams has returned this week to Mali, the West African nation she first visited in 2002, where she learned the dances of her ancestors. During this trip, she will participate in The Bloodline Project, striving to fight Mali’s number-one killer of children — malaria…
Recently: A roadside garden reflects the gardener
By Valarie Schwartz For years, I’ve admired the gardening I could see while driving past Irene Womble Stevens’ home on Damascus Church Road. From whichever direction one approaches this home perched on the crest of a hill, there’s no doubt that a gardener lives there. One day last year, I left a note in the…
Recently: Washing cars for running money
By Valarie Schwartz Even the abundance of recent rain could not remove the grunge from our drought-dirty vehicles, so the car wash at Carrboro High School last Saturday brought an easy clean and helped the school’s cross country team raise funds for camp, travel and supplies. A new school builds a reputation on many levels,…
Recently: Lessons from a little birdie
By Valarie Schwartz It’s not easy being green. Even growing blueberries as a measure of creating biodiversity in my yard turns out to have a downside. I planted two blueberry bushes three or four years ago and during the first few years, because they take time to get established, I freely shared the meager bounty…
Here today, gone (and eaten) tomorrow
by Valarie Schwartz Staff Writer Word came on Monday that shelves at local food pantries were bare. John Dorward, associate director of the Inter-Faith Council (IFC), gladly reported that its food pantry in Carrboro remains in good shape for this time of year. “I’m happy not to have to show you empty shelves,†he said…
Recently: No beef with this beef
By Valarie Schwartz Even with 90 pages left to read, this column acknowledges the affect of Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma on yet another previously unconscious grocery shopper. That I started shopping in health food stores in the early 1980s and have supported farmers’ markets in money and words and have been a longtime Weaver…
Recently: Don’t let your guard down when it comes to drought
By Valarie Schwartz University Lake is nearly full and though Cane Creek Reservoir is refilling, it is still not as full as it was at this time last year (on June 17, 2007 it was 92.7 percent full compared to 79.8 percent full Tuesday morning). We don’t know yet if the drought is really over,…
Recently: Running with a story
By Valarie Schwartz After writing a story yesterday about Scott Adams’ quest to run across North Carolina, I hardly slept last night. Phantom aches in my lower torso kept waking me up, making me wonder if I shouldn’t be encouraging him in my writing to just run as far as Chapel Hill and the arms…
Recently: Seymour Center takes the “senior†out of aging
By Valarie Schwartz It’s already been a year since the Chapel Hill Senior Center on Elliott Road closed and the Robert and Pearl Seymour Center opened on Homestead Road. Not only did it move, the name has stuck — the seniors who use it have dropped “senior†from their vernacular when they refer to their…
Remembering the fallen on Memorial Day
By Valarie Schwartz When we remember that “kicked in the stomach†feeling of Sept. 11, 2001, we need to also remember something we didn’t personally experience — the reason we have a holiday coming up on Monday. Memorial Day was started as our country strained to find measures for reconciliation following the “War Between the…
Recently: Tar Heel born, bred and moving to Richmond
By Valarie Schwartz Last Friday, Stephen Allred looked comfortable and relieved in his office on the west side of South Building, where he has been executive associate provost since March 2004. The day before, it had been announced that colleague, friend and fellow Equinox band member Holden Thorp would begin occupying the offices on the…
Obituary – Marvin Poythress
Marvin Poythress, 78, passed away Saturday May 11, 2008 after several years of declining health. A Chapel Hill native, Marvin was the son of the late Ila and Furman Poythress. He was preceded in death by his loving wife of 50 years, Ann Phelps Poythress, and by his brothers Robert Poythress and Durrell Poythress. Marvin…
Recently: Carrying on after the bottom falls out
By Valarie Schwartz There are two ponds in my neighborhood. The one nearest my house has a fallen tree lying across a portion of it upon which on sunny days a host of turtles can be found collecting vitamin D. They line the log from both ends, dozens of them, each looking toward the middle…