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Wrightsville Beach Magazine May 2014

I get to enjoy boating again. Pounding on the surf in his boat became too risky for Blair when a herniated disc started impinging his spinal cord. Surgery at New Hanover Regional Medical Center relieved the pressure and got him back to chasing fish. www.nhrmc.org Advanced Spine Surgery. Close to Home. 72 WBM may 2014 NHRMCSpinePoteate_WBM_0514.indd 1 3/25/14 3:42 PM we later will fondly name, “Under the Hillsborough Sun.” Across the street is Vulcan’s Forge, where blacksmith Paul Gove uses hammer and anvil in the traditional manner, creating things I so want to take home with me. My stop in at the headquarters and outlet store for VIETRI pottery stirs similar longings. On my return trip, after a daylong production at Fox’s farm spent creating the food spread in these pages, photographer Allison Potter and I race to an appointment with a couple of the town’s famed literati. When we arrive at CupAJoe we find authors Frances Mayes and Michael Malone sipping coffee with publisher Elizabeth Woodman. Intoxicated from the splendid day, I share my phone photos of the farm table scene with Mayes. After photos there, we cross West King Street to the Purple Crow, next to Dual Supply Co, an old-fashioned hardware store selling paint, hardware, plumbing, clothing and bootery. Sharon Wheeler’s Purple Crow Books is a wonderfully independent local book store, described to me later by a retired judge as the literati’s “club house.” Lee Smith, walking her dog Betty, joins us in the bookstore for more fun photos and autographs. Like Smith, the town’s 30 or so prose, poetry, paint, camera and music greats can be seen walking their dogs, dining with friends in the outstanding restaurants, and holding readings at the Burwell School historic site. Across King, we eye Carolina Game and Fish, which still weighs a hunter’s prize. Surrounding the town are side-by- side small to large farms like


Wrightsville Beach Magazine May 2014
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