Strawberry spring
Nature's sweet fake-out, plus my favorite things of the week -- Coach K, how books are made, a flatulent license plate, and much more
Oh hell yes.
The first Stephen King book I read was a collection of short stories called NIGHT SHIFT. It was 1980, I was sixteen, and I was about to get on a Greyhound to ride to Atlanta for a high-school seminar. I was looking through some paperbacks at Jack’s Minit Market and grabbed that one to take on the bus. I had never heard of Stephen King. By the time I got to Atlanta, I had read the whole book. I didn’t sleep great at the hotel that night.
The story I remember best was called “Strawberry Spring.” It refers to the false spring that arrives in New England every year before the cold locks in one last time. I’m not going to spoil the plot, but you will not be shocked to hear that, in King’s strawberry spring, very bad things happen.
I wasn’t familiar with the concept of a strawberry spring. I grew up in south Georgia, where by March you can pretty much put away your jacket for good. But here in North Carolina we get a false spring pretty much every year, right around now.
This morning I went out on the porch and the birds were chattering, the daffodils stretched for the sun, and a parade of walkers came by with pasty legs poking from shorts pulled from the back of the dresser. By next weekend it’s supposed to be back down in the 30s at night again.
I like that the weather throws us a head fake now and then, to remind us just how little control we have over this giant spinning ball of a planet. It’ll be plenty hot soon enough. If I need to get chilled, I’ll go back and read one of those Stephen King stories.
(OK, I probably won’t. Once was plenty.)
10 things I wanted to share this week:
My other newsletter post this week was about finding a release valve to take the pressure off in troubling times.
This week’s guest on the SOUTHBOUND podcast was Phoebe Zerwick, who has written a powerful book called BEYOND INNOCENCE. It’s about Darryl Hunt, who spent 19 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit — and had a tragic struggle with his newfound freedom.
My weekly for WFAE was about the humans of Ukraine, and a young boy playing the piano.
Wright Thompson on the last coaching days of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski is worth all the time you’ll need and then some.
DOG TIME: As I work on my book about the Westminster Dog Show and the bond between dogs and their people, I’m saving this spot for a dog link every week. This week: A Twitter thread of dogs in paintings.
My friend Jeremy Markovich has a Substack called NC RABBIT HOLE that is a thoroughly entertaining glimpse of weird North Carolina. This might be my favorite Rabbit Hole yet: The story of the woman who marshaled the forces of good to keep her FART license plate.
A brilliant text, photo and video tour of how a book is made.
Something for your ears: I really enjoyed the new Big Thief album DRAGON NEW WARM MOUNTAIN I BELIEVE IN YOU (I don’t know what it means, either.) The record shifts styles so effortlessly that it reminds me of the old saying about British weather: Wait 10 minutes and you’ll get something different. And the song “Blue Lightning” has one of my favorite lines in quite a while: I wanna be the shoelace that you tie.
I also dug the new Superchunk record WILD LONELINESS — man, they still sound good more than 30 years in.
The thing that mesmerized me the most this week: a Steph Curry shooting drill.
Interesting . . . I, too, picked up my first Stephen King novel on the way to a bus trip to Elizabethton, TN. It was Salem's Lot, and it scared me, but I fell in love. Sadly, he's not the author he once was and I've only tried a few of his books in the last 10-15 years - a couple were good but most just didn't move me, much less scare me.
To scratch the itches of Stephen King and baseball, try his novella "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" - sort-of scary, yes, in the way that things we can't see are scary ... but she's a kid you can root for.