Emily Paine Carter

Recent columns

• Readers write of run-ins with political bigwigs
• Recording holds clues from 6 decades ago
• Rubbed shoulders with any big names?
• Column archive

First, the serious stuff for you history buffs: Answering my Dec. 7 query about local World War II prisoner-of-war camps, reader Nelle Lucas remembered seeing German POWs in Salem. "We saw them often, when we rode with Daddy -- Posie Starkey, who had a grocery store on Main St. -- past Valleydale on his way to work."

On a related topic, Glenvar raconteur Jimmy Gladden said his late father, Jim, helped finish construction on a 1950s Cold War bomb shelter for members of Congress and their families. "Daddy was brought in to do ceilings and floors at The Greenbrier [in West Virginia] -- but the men didn't know what they were working on.

"The entrance was down the road from the hotel: through a TV repair shop! The staff could fix your TV -- but they were all CIA."

Neighbors Editor Erica Myatt e-mailed two other items. One: Shortly "after Pearl Harbor, Japanese and German diplomats from Washington stayed at The Greenbrier for months before transport could be arranged for them to leave the U.S." Kevin Myatt, Erica Myatt's husband and this newspaper's weather columnist, even spotted "a coffee table book with a large photograph of hundreds of these diplomats and their families posing in front of the hotel."

And two: Early in WW II, U.S. officials brought dozens of "national art treasures" from Washington's National Gallery to a room at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C. Armed guards actually lived there, in order to protect the masterpieces at all times.

The Rev. Bob Copenhaver's and George Snead's cougar-sighting report (March 30 column) prompted a stampede of folks wanting to tell me about their own wildlife. (Students, note this example of the importance of spelling and punctuation: a "wild life" report is something else entirely, unsuitable for this newspaper's family-oriented "Neighbors"-hood.)

Why, recently -- right in my downtown Salem 'hood -- we spied a turkey and a pheasant beside the historic Reinhard/Webber house ... and deer in my very own back yard!

On Christmas Eve a few blocks away, Bob May chuckled as he recounted his puzzlement as to why his basket of apples dwindled nightly. Seems a deer had been visiting the Mays' breezeway and helping herself to two or three at a time.

In other "disappearing fruit" news, I had wondered where Salem's once-plentiful autumnal supply of Osage oranges had gone. You know, those bumpy, pale-green, softball-sized things; perhaps you noticed their smashed pulp in alleys, because they were the ideal ammo for mischievous kids to lob at one another.

So imagine my giggling surprise when computer research on a different topic linked me to my own Dec. 2, 2005, column on the lowly fruit -- now accompanied by national pop-up ads for mail order! Say what?

Had America become aware of claims that the "mock oranges" also repel spiders and other pesky critters? Salem Farmers Market vendor David Hodges of Catawba had informed me thus -- for that 2005 column -- so I started stashing the occasional ball into armoires and under beds.

Esther Davis' Christmas 2007 newsletter revealed my competition for the now-sought-after globes: She gathers them for home decor. The talented floral artist said in a telephone interview that she lets them shrivel to a tennis-ball size, then sprays them for color. Pickin's were slim this year, she added, especially because her "favorite Osage tree between the Y and the Civic Center was cut down."

If you've missed Esther's lectures on flower-drying techniques, you'll have a chance to catch up. Fresh from her presentation at the celebrated Philadelphia Flower Show (March 23 column), she was summoned to Rhode Island to tape a PBS-TV segment. Sean Conway -- yes, he of former guest appearances with Martha Stewart and of Target's outdoor furnishings line -- hosts the "very tastefully done" program. Esther said that the TV show's schedule should appear soon on its www.cultivatinglife.com Web site. And I'll try to keep you posted here.