Quick hits: Reflecting on 'Oz' in Beech Mountain, and Brevard is super cool

Old Land of Oz park gears up for annual festival

"When you drive up the steep, winding roads of this small town, past its ski slopes and under a bright green bridge, you'll see an old white farmhouse and a massive pair of ruby slippers. Suddenly, you know you're not in Kansas anymore," writes the News & Observer.

"At its debut in 1970, this was a cutting-edge theme park built in part to keep ski workers employed from June through October. The Land of Oz has been closed 30 years and is a desolate remnant of the magical retreat it was.

"But the park makes an annual comeback during the first weekend of October, when several thousand flock to the Autumn at Oz party. The two-day event started 17 years ago as a small reunion for former park employees such as Andy Harkins, 57, who was a Tin Man in 1971. It grew to more than 8,500 last year. ..."


Brevard a 'cool' small town
"If the notion of town-wide square dances with an old-time caller sounds appealing, then Brevard is your kind of place," says Budget Travel.

"Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains 45 minutes south of Asheville, the redbrick town is an outpost of authentic Appalachia. Every Tuesday night in summer, locals block off Main Street, a bluegrass band strikes up, and everyone lets loose. Longtime Atlanta resident Ginger Lipscomb, 64, is one of many who were drawn by Brevard's history. She first came in 2005 to visit friends. 'Then I started annoying them because I wanted to come every weekend.' Lipscomb now runs Stones Jewelry Store out of a century-old storefront.

"Across town, patrons head to 68-year-old Rocky's Soda Shop for chocolate malts or to the 1934 Co-Ed Cinema, complete with a gleaming marquee and ornate ticket booth, for first-run films. At day's end, there's no better spot to relax in the cool mountain air than the porch of 149-year-old Red House Inn, just one more historic—and homey—side of Brevard. ..."

Quick hits: Blackberries, wine sellers seeing green, and white squirrels

The Napa Valley of blackberries?
"People weren't that interested in buying blackberries 25 years ago, said Kings Mountain farmer Ervin Lineberger.

"Most people picked 'em wild, he said, and didn't put much value on what they called the 'tame' varieties. Dewberries and boysenberries were what people wanted.

"That's changed," writes the Charlotte Observer. "Now the berry business is brisk as their health benefits make news. And Lincoln County farmers are getting in.

"About a dozen longtime Lincoln farmers have signed up to grow blackberries for SunnyRidge Farms, a Florida-based international berry seller. The company also plans to open a distribution center early next year north of Fallston around the intersection of N.C. 18 and N.C. 27, said production manager Stanley Scarborough.

" 'Lincoln County hopefully someday will be the Napa Valley of blackberries,' he said. ..."

Holiday season big for wine sales
"Christmas is a time when North Carolina’s wine industry benefits from their products being used as holiday presents all across the state," says News 14 Carolina.

" 'We love holidays because people are here and they are collecting and adding wines to take to parties, to take as house gifts, as presents,' said Lenna Hobson with RagApple Lassie Vineyards. 'Just general Christmas gifting, if you will, but they've also built in some time for them so they're also coming to taste wine and to have a good time.'

"With more than 60 wineries across the state, many residents are snapping up bottles. ..."

Brevard's famous white squirrels branch out
"Driving along, you see a flash of white, tail twitching, darting through a lawn or scurrying up a tree.

"You do a double take, slow down to get a better look. Sure enough, it's a squirrel, but snowy white instead of the usual gray with white underneath.

"But you're not in Brevard, where the rare white squirrel is plentiful and famous enough to have a festival and gift shop named after it, or even in Transylvania County," writes the Hendersonville Times-News.

"Readers report dozens of white squirrel sightings in Hendersonville, Flat Rock, Etowah, Horse-Shoe, Mills River and across much of Henderson County. Local legend has it the squirrels colonized the Brevard area in the 1950s from a pet white squirrel or squirrels that escaped. The snowy critters now make up about 25 percent of all squirrels in Brevard, according to the White Squirrel Research Institute, run by Bob Glesener, Brevard College associate professor of ecology/biology, emeritus.

"And they are spreading. ..."