It’s always a good time to mind your manners — even if it costs you a table

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SPRING HOPE — A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I drove to town, listening to radio coverage of the U.S. Open while tripping two lanes northeast.

Door-to-city-limit, call it 22 miles.

Not long after we crossed Interstate 95’s ungoverned mayhem, Cam Smith — formerly of the PGA Tour, now of the LIV brigade — holed a birdie putt to close his front side.

“Isn’t that Joe Dirt?” she asked, referencing the Australian’s mullet that mirrors the one styled by David Spade in the 2001 comedy of the same name.

We lol’d, as the kids say.

A few minutes later, as the soil darkened along Macedonia Road, we arrived at the intersection of N.C. Highway 581 — which is precisely where the day’s original plan started to veer off-script and into something else.

Be gone, meet-and-greet through downtown, and hello silver screen.

•••

To say the superintendent wasn’t an immediate fan of my arrival is to say the Yankees never try to flex their media-market-muscle in pursuit of baseball’s best power-hitters.

As I parked at the turnabout of Barbee Street and eased from the Jeep, he looked.

A curious gaze, but no matter — audibles are often followed by some degree of consequence.

At any rate, I powered my camera and started firing.

Snap-snap-snap-snap as a crewman worked the peak of two beams.

Repeat.

Looking back, there’s probably never been a more textbook definition of greenhorn come-to-town than that high-noon rendezvous — as in, newbie Enterpriser few know, if any, out-and-about and taking pictures along a dead-end stretch of gravel.

At that point, I could feel the gaze — pointed, and if colorized, warp-red — calling me up the hill.

“I thought there was a movie studio here?” I eventually asked the man across the fence.

Beat.

Awkward.

Insert … eternity … here.

No, he finally advised — just a bunch of steel and block and rebar and scrap and such being lowered to Mother Earth.

Start to finish, everything would be done in short order.

•••

As the Barbee Street folly rang in my head, we looked for a place I could hot-spot my laptop.

Dollar Tree it was.

And while Kelly shopped for Father’s Day cards, I went about the process of trying to reconstitute my plan, frustrated by not being able to easily pin something in a GPS-driven world.

Something with splashy sight lines.

Something palatial.

Something ever-changing for the area.

After a few clicks, I was back on familiar ground, again scouring Hannah Whitley Camarena’s in-depth reporting on the development of Ascent Studios , followed by repeat views of TV-types conducting stand-ups from the construction site in 2023, when optimism for the project was over the moon.

There would be dollars, they said.

Stars and jobs.

New ways and means for Spring Hope.

Slated for completion by year’s end, the sprawl was to feature dueling arches at the entrance and sound stages to house any and all manner of productions.

But as my foreman buddy attested, it wasn’t going to be found where I was looking.

•••

Following Hannah’s words, we ended up at 102 W. Nash, an antique gallery that functioned as a prop house for Ascent’s AI-inspired “Renner,” directed by Robert Rippberger and starring Frankie Muniz .

It reeked of the past, as archives often do.

In the lobby, there was tinted stemware — sea foam, kinda-sorta — opposite a vintage hair dryer, pulled out of a somewhere-salon circa yesteryear.

It was new once, like us, and bright.

Bold.

NASA-bent, if you will, with a flighty-worthy cap.

But I digress.

Elsewhere on the floor were all sorts of gems — sheeted baseball cards, a standing phone booth, dolls that looked like they could really wink, a bowl of marbles, a Doors poster, bottles, cans and a tumbledown copy of “The Catcher in the Rye.”

It felt like home, I’m telling you, and to a certain extent canned my annoyance over not being able to find a production lot some 200 acres in the making.

And the staff that day — a very cordial pair of ladies, Vicky and Stephanie — couldn’t have been more accommodating, walking us through their catalogue in addition to sharing what they knew about filmmaking in Spring Hope.

As the conversation developed, it was suggested we cold-call Mayor Kyle Pritchard’s house to see what we could turn up.

“That’s what I do,” Stephanie said.

Oh.

But seeing as how I wasn’t exactly batting 1.000 that day in the making-new-friends department, I let her suggestion drift into the store’s ether.

Another time, maybe.

Besides, Kelly’s attention had turned in the direction of a mustard-colored table we didn’t need — which means you can figure out exactly what happened next.

Curiosity being a big force in my life, though, I’ve done homework since then — making calls, sending emails and talking off-record with townsfolk about Ascent, only to gather there is no real consensus about its past, present or future.

Interesting.

I can tell you this much, however — we really are hoping to report on the group in the coming months as a more-than-viable player in the North Carolina film industry, with shows covering all genres shooting on location in the area.

That’d be cool.

And, who knows? Maybe one of the production designers will desparately need a throwback yellow table, crescent-shaped.

Odds are, I know a guy.

Justin Hayes is The Enterprise’s news editor. Reach him via email at jhayes@springhopeenterprise.com .

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