paperhand puppet intervention story

Zack Touloupas II in front of a Grecian rug representing the first dollar made at Zack's.

Zack’s is 81 years old, but the restaurant has no plans of slowing down or changing with the times. Like a kind and old-fashioned grandfather, the hot-dog establishment has been welcoming generation after generation of Burlington’s hungriest citizens.

Making a trip to Zack’s is like stepping back in time to the beginning of the diner era. Burgers are frying on an open grill, while Zack’s famous hot-dogs are being assembled with a large variety of condiments.  

Waiters dressed in blue collared shirts and white aprons hustle to get to the families occupying the wooden booths, bringing them bottled sodas or fountain drinks before they shout orders to the kitchen nearby.

Individuals sit at the bar on round stools, where they face a classic unlit menu that is littered with the innumerable combinations that make up the diner’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner specials.  

The owner, Zack Touloupas II, stands in the same place his father and grandfather left off, right behind the cash register. He acknowledges that the family has kept the restaurant pretty much the same over the years.

“We’ve got ice for the drinks these days, but I think that’s pretty much the only thing that’s changed around here,” Zack said.

Although its façade is dated, its appeal is timeless. The restaurant is anchored by the business foundation that Zack’s grandfather, Zacharias Touloupas, laid down in 1928.

Touloupas and his father came from Greece in search of a more lucrative life. While the money didn’t immediately materialize, Touloupas began to work in cafes in Columbia, S.C. and then later Durham, N.C.

Eventually he had the opportunity to buy his own store in downtown Burlington, which was called Alamance Hot Wienie Lunch at the time. The family renovated their restaurant in 1960 and it remained a landmark until 1978, when it was moved from the corner of Front and Worth streets to the corner of Davis and Worth.

A large rug woven in Touloupas’ homeland symbolizes the family’s first dollar. The carpet dollar hangs behind the counter that his grandson Zack now works at.

Zack started working at the restaurant’s new location for his father, John Touloupas, at the age of five. He started washing dishes and slowly worked his way up to inherit the family business.

“The business has been good to both my family and my dad’s family,” Zack said. “I may not know everyone who comes in here, but most of them know us.”

Everyday for breakfast, Zack says his “semi-retired” father, John, comes in for breakfast and just to “hang-out.”

“My guess is that he is trying to make sure I run this place right,” Zack said smiling.

But by all appearances, the restaurant seems to be doing well. A large crowd comes in every Saturday to have a familiar hot-dog lunch, topped with Zack’s famous chili recipe.

The most popular menu item is a hot-dog “all the way,” which is loaded with onions, chili, mustard and slaw. Zack says customers need to be careful what they order though, because sometimes non-locals don’t know the Zack way of making things.

A cheese-dog for instance, is just a rectangular block of cheese inside a bun with chili on top. Zack’s grandfather invented the menu item, but often people haven’t heard of it.

“I’ve had a customer order a cheese-dog and get mad that there isn’t a hot-dog in the bun.” Zack said. “I just tell them, ‘You didn’t order it right.’”

Gary Ball, who started dressing dogs and cooking burgers there in 1976, says he enjoys busy Saturdays, but he really likes Wednesdays the most.

“I love seeing all the people come in Saturday, but Wednesday’s pay-day,” Ball said laughing.

But while the crew has seemingly turned the hot-dog business into a science, it is still a demanding job. It’s difficult to catch them standing still in their chili-splattered aprons for more than 30 seconds at a time.

“It’s hard work, and I wouldn’t suggest it to my children,” Zack said, after talking about passing down the family business. “They’ve worked here part-time over the summers, but I think they have their own aspirations now.”

Many workers have come and gone over the years, though. Travis Evans, a waiter and kitchen helper, says he worked for eight years at Zack’s, went to North Carolina A&T State University and then returned to work for another eight years.

“I started working here because I needed a local job when I was younger,” Evans said. “I left for a while, but I’m back at it again.”

The place keeps pulling people back in even after so many years. Zack attributes the restaurant’s success to their “consistency in food quality and service.”

“A lot of people came here as a kid, and then they’ll come back ten years later and feel nostalgic, saying that they are glad we are still here,” Zack said. 

For Zack and his crew this is their favorite part of the job. Although it might be hectic, they say it is worth getting to see the friendly faces of an invested community.

Visit Zack’s website for more information

Donovan Zimmerman with a mask from his Hungry Ghost performance.

Donovan Zimmerman approaches what would normally appear to be a hopelessly tangled heap of metal and begins dancing it over a table in the old Saxapahaw community center.

“We’re doing a show called Love and Robots in February,” he said. “I thought this already looked pretty robotic. Maybe it could be robot guts.”

Behind him the vibrant masks of elemental spirits, African animals, sun goddesses and trees, all stare sleepily from the walls of the former 1950’s gym, quiet and somber as the rain outside pours steadily on what has now become a puppet studio.

Zimmerman, a puppet-maker as well as the man behind his masks, paces the worn wooden court and explains his creations. He breathes life into the entities with small movements of his hands, while he talks about the jumbled piles of work that have earned him a living for going on 12 years.

“Jan and I made this old man’s face for our Hungry Ghost performance last January,” Zimmerman said. “It’s based on the traditional Asian religious idea that people who are greedy in this life will return as insatiable ghosts in the after-life.”

Zimmerman and his puppeteering friend, Jan Burger, are co-founders of the Triangle area’s Paperhand Puppet Intervention, an activist-oriented company whose headquarters are located in the small river mill town of Saxapahaw.

The two started their first show together in 1998 for a festival that promoted environmental awareness about the Haw River, whose shore their new studio now rests on.

“The idea came about to make a puppet show for the Haw River Festival to support their ideas, which seemed like a good fit,” Zimmerman said. “It got a lot of great feedback so we just kept working together.”

Their projects have since taken them to protests in Seattle about the practices of the World Trade Organization, and also to the nation’s capital, where the company invigorated thought about the repercussions of oil drilling in Alaska.

These demonstrations are known as interventions to the Paperhand group and its followers, who believe that it’s easy for people to forget the natural world around them when they go about their day-to-day business.

“The idea of an intervention is sort of like making our art a wake-up call to live from the heart, rather than from these other human conditions that take over like greed,” Zimmerman explained.

As far as their own business goes, they maintain this consciousness by watching the materials they use. They carefully collect recycled products like cardboard, fabric scraps, and paper bags for the masks’ bodies, and utilize a cornstarch goop to bring them all together.

Zimmerman said that the majority of their income comes from doing gigs at festivals, fairs, or parades, in addition to receiving commissions from museums and businesses that want to use the company’s art.

“Jan and I aren’t rich you know, but we just make enough to keep going to the next project and having a decent life, eating organic food and driving around,” Zimmerman said. “I didn’t start doing this thinking, ‘Oh yeah we’re going to get rich!’”

But their biggest annual income comes from the six-weekend show they put on every summer at the Forest Theatre in Chapel Hill. The show runs from August through September, and their latest performance brought in a total of 12,000 people.

The show is a demanding time of year, requiring the efforts of up to 30 veteran Paperhand puppeteers and musicians. The diverse cast even includes three family members: local potter Sarah Howe, and her two children Alicia Best and Alan “Pickle Dude” Best, who was nicknamed after his affinity to eating pickles.

Alan got involved with the Paperhand group at its very beginning, when he was only 7 years old. Zimmerman was looking for a small performer for one of their first Haw River Festival shows, and Alan showed interest.

Afterward Alan continued to go to rehearsals with his mother, who was his ride. “I’m going to be driving back and forth so go ahead and throw a stick in my hand,” Howe told Zimmerman.

From there it was a family affair. After 10 years, Howe brings her experience to the stage, and still gets a rush from the performances.

“There’s something very freeing about being behind a mask, especially for me as a performer,” Howe said. “Put a mask on my head and I become something different, and I’m free from myself.”

Both Howe and Zimmerman stress the importance of collaboration in their performances. Music and sound effects are an integral part of each show, and the group uses its own band to amplify the visual art.

“The music is what stirs the emotion,” Zimmerman said. “The expressions and the body language of the mask wearer do that too, but sound effects and music are really a huge part of what we do.” 

In the backroom of the studio, an old piano, drums, and speakers lay amidst the bodies of more puppets, evidencing the true fusion that the group is managing to achieve.

But what might be the biggest engine behind this group’s success is their intimate bond with the community near Chapel Hill and Saxapahaw. Their parades are mostly “people-powered,” so that local fans can show up and get their hands on these larger than life puppets.

The group also has summer workdays where they invite everyone in the area to help paint, sew, and add paper-mâché to unfinished puppets. For Zimmerman and the Paperhand group, the strings of these puppets tie their community together.

“Really I’m in it just as much for that, to create an opportunity for creativity,” Zimmerman said. “I’m not doing this work to be like, ‘I made this. Look at me, look at me.’ It’s more just about wanting to provide this platform for people who work with us to shine.”

For a calendar of performances visit the Paperhand site.

Julie Halm won first prize at a press conference Wednesday with her representation of the humanitarian journalist Sonia Nozario, thereby beating out Camille DeMere and investigative journalist Seymour Hersh for a perfect score on her final journalism project.  

The conference gave finalists Halm and DeMere one final chance to sway the popular vote. The contestants spent their time communicating what appealed to them most about their respective journalists.   

For DeMere, it was Hersh’s unrelenting mission to uncover the truth that made him so influential, especially in his most famous work to expose the My Lai massacre.

“He was really integral in exposing the terrible massacre that was covered up by the American army during the Vietnam War,” DeMere said. “He really has a lot of friends in high places. That’s how he gets most of his material.”

Halm realized that for Nozario it was finding people in the lowest places that made the most difference. “The lengths she goes to just to get her stories are unimaginable, which I really appreciate,” Halm said. Often Nozario writes on the grimy lives of drug addicts and abused children, topics that take her to the bottom of the societal totem pole.

Sometimes these assignments take Nozario to unfamiliar places, but according to Halm she chooses to be there to get the full experience.

“Largely she finds her stories by showing up at these dangerous places, which is risky but really strengthens her work” Halm said.

While Nozario faced personal-safety issues in her work, Seymour Hersh faced the difficulty of getting people to talk. DeMere, a print and online news major, sympathized with her Reality candidate.

“I think that it’s really easy to give up when people block you out and don’t call you back, and that is one thing that Hersh has always run into in the work that he has done,” DeMere said. “It’s important to persevere and to have the tenacity that is one of the essential elements of journalism.”

Halm picked out a different trait of merit within Nozario’s writing. She thought it was a testament to Nozario’s skill that the journalist was able to balance in grains of hope with her depressing glimpses of life.

“Somewhere in Nozario’s work tends to be this glimmering bit of humanity,” Halm said. “I think she has a brilliant way of showing the amounts of good and bad in the world.”

Though both of these journalists lean toward more negatively themed stories, they do it out of a sense of responsibility to expose the tragic injustices of the human condition.

DeMere was impressed that Hersh took up this demand for accountability, by persistently writing and pursuing the exposure of military corruption. Halm agreed that Nozario was also making a difference, by relocating children into foster homes away from abusive relationships.

Though there could only be one Reality Journalist in the end, both students were imparted with their idea of what a successful journalist requires.

“In one word, passion,” Halm said. “The key thing is to love what you do and do what you love. If you don’t care, you will never have the drive to be a great journalist.”

Passion is certainly evidenced in both journalists’ writing, as it takes a caring heart to tackle the darker aspects of life. But it also takes dedication, according to DeMere. “I know that there is no way that any of these stories would come to light if these people didn’t keep after it.”

But they kept going and finalists DeMere and Halm kept going, and the results were successful, looking at where it all got them.

This World AIDS Day a line of Elon students are waiting timidly in upstairs Mosely for the results from their free HIV tests. Brenda Beam, the program director for the non-profit HIV awareness organization, Alamance Cares, bustles in and out of room 211, calling students in for the final verdict. 

The theme for this year’s AIDS day is universal access to testing and care, a goal that Alamance Cares is helping to fulfill.

“This year’s theme is pretty vague,” said Beam. “I think it applies more to international healthcare in countries like Africa and places who have trouble treating HIV.”

For ten years Beam has spent AIDS day speaking to students at places like Alamance County College and Elon University about what they can do to prevent contracting the HIV virus, in addition to administering confidential tests. Even when it’s not a nationally recognized day, Alamance Cares tries to visit Elon once a month. 

“I’d really like to see ourselves out of a job,” Beam said. “We go to middle school’s and colleges hoping that kids will catch on to the ways we can prevent this sickness.”

In Moseley, Beam is busy swiping student mouths for mucosa, the moist tissue that lines a person’s mouth, nasal passages, and organs.  The test takes twenty minutes to process, and looks a lot like a standard, over-the-counter pregnancy test. A single red line appears if the test is negative, and two lines appear if the person is likely to have HIV. According to Beam the test is 99% accurate.

Still, sometimes the test can come back inconclusive, or what the technicians call reactive. This requires a full-fledged follow up test, involving blood drawing and testing.

For this step the organization recommends students to local hospitals, since the employees at Alamance Cares do not all have their own nursing licenses.

“If the test is positive, we get students in touch with physicians in Chapel Hill or the Alamance County who can start them on a treatment plan,” Beam said.

The state pays for the HIV swab tests, as well as the salaries of the people who work at Alamance Cares. The organization is also raising money for World AIDS Day by cutting deals with local restaurants in Burlington. A portion of the money made at the Blue Ribbon Diner and Chiles restaurants tonight will go to their cause.

Overall Beam felt like today was a productive day for HIV awareness. “We had about 30 students come in thanks to the advertising done by Dr. Sullivan’s class,” Beam said. “We’ve tested over 800 people this whole year.”

Dr. Sullivan is an Elon emeritus who led the human services’ senior seminar class in spreading word about World AIDS day. Last night students hosted a concert by Sweet Signatures in the Irazu coffee shop, where they played informative games and passed out condoms.

“We’re starting to see a change. These days we have almost eliminated HIV among children with newer medicine and better knowledge,” Beam said.

Alamance Cares is located on 2732 Anne Elizabeth Dr., a quick turn off of Huffman Mill Road at the Starbucks Coffee shop.

For more information about Alamance Cares go to their website: Alamancecares.com

After taking it all in you walk by the checkout counter that’s located only a few feet from the door. They keep it close so they can check-in on you. The cashier knows your name and probably even why you’re there. “Hey Mr. Busby. Your lawnmower part came in today.” You say their names back because it feels right to be loyal to a place that commits itself to connecting with you so personally, instead of digitally or remotely.

But who needs this old-fashioned interaction, when these days anyone can order anything from their computer desk and their bathrobe. Sites like Amazon.com make shopping a breeze, just three clicks and the taps of some scattered keys. No words. No interactions. No need.

Back at the hardware store, fathers are hunting among the tools to find the fix to their day-to-day problems. One walks up to the parts counter in front of me with his small, blonde son in tow. The boy’s hands are fidgeting, looking for something to do as his dad asks for a part that he had reserved on some other occasion.

“Did you eat a lot of turkey?” the cashier asks the boy. The boy’s face slowly starts to release a smile. “I don’t know if he likes it as much as I do yet,” the dad demurred. Grins are spreading as the older clerk goes in the back to find the reservation.

It seems so insignificant, this small exchange of pleasantries. But there’s something more tangible there than on any website. It’s something the father paid for when he invested the time to visit the store, or when he remembered the clerk’s name. It’s something his son needs now more than ever if he’s going to grow-up being socially healthy.

The clerk hands over the part and wishes them a happy holiday. There seems to be more interest in the boy’s eyes than before as they pass all the categories of nuts and bolts that oft go invisible to a normal kid’s eyes. Hopefully he was reminded of the touch of human interaction and the thrill of talking to someone’s face.

Hopefully he won’t grow up to be like his older brother, too busy texting in the car outside.

“We were supposed to go on a whole canoeing trip last Saturday and Sunday,” Ciambruschini said. “But both days got cancelled because the Haw river is six feet past its banks, because of all this rain we’ve been having.”

The trip was initially postponed but had to be rescheduled again when the river had not gone down. Eventually, Ciambruschini got out to the river but the trip was cut short by a whole day.

“It really ruined the semester for me,” he joked. 

But the rain doesn’t stop there. It also decreases Ciambruschini’s day-to-day activities as well.

“This rain’s really been impacting my social life and my academic life,” Ciambruschini said. “I don’t want to go outside of my house anymore, or walk to my classes. It’s just really all around depressing.”

The Maryland native is used to his share of rain, but he still can’t shake the fact that it is complicating his craving for the outdoors. 

The drizzly surroundings seemed to support his theories though, as the paths outside of the library looked like a slick and deserted ghost town.

Movie Clip from interview with David Ciambruschini

Doctors Mike Brennan and Tara B. Rashid review Iraqi health care presentation

Michael Brennan first met fellow ophthalmologist Tara B. Rashid in her conflicted hometown of Baghdad. Now she is visiting Brennan’s home in Burlington to share stories about the many obstacles she and Brennan have been trying to overcome in the Iraqi medical system.

In addition to being a local doctor, Brennan is the director and chairman of the Medical Alliance for Iraq. His work with Rashid started in 2003, when he formed the non-profit organization hoping to help train Iraqi doctors to today’s standards.

Brennan invited Rashid to come speak to his local Rotary Club group, and raised the money for her 6,000-mile journey. Here he introduced her as a valuable friend and colleague.

“When she acts, it’s not out of her self-interest. It’s for the benefit of others,” Brennan says.  

For Rashid, being a doctor in a war-torn nation is tough, especially when the country lacks technological, institutional and educational know-how.

Rashid had both good news and bad news for the Rotary Club, but she chose to break the bad news first by describing Iraq’s suffering medical system.

“The ministry of health is what we call the biggest dictator in Iraq, next to Saddam Hussein,” she joked. “It controls the resources, society, and everything,” Rashid said.

Earning a medical degree is difficult in her country. Rashid said that students must first get all A’s in high school, since the Iraqi government pays for students to go to its medical college. After eight years of medical college, students can choose to become general practitioners or take several more years to learn specialties.

Afterward, the doctor must get two licenses: one from the Ministry of Health and another from the Iraqi Medical Syndicate, which is similar to the

American Medical Association. Whereas the Ministry of Health is too controlling, Rashid says the Iraqi Medical Syndicate doesn’t do enough.

“It’s just like a country club,” Rashid said. “You go there, you register, you get your license, and that’s it. It will never back you up, it will never help you, and it has no rules whatsoever.”

This lack of rules is opening the door to more specific problems like malpractice and a lack of accreditation. The Ministry of Health, she adds, uses an outdated set of practices.

“The guidelines we are still working with are the 1942 British curriculum guidelines. No upgrades, no changes,” Rashid said.

Also, the introduction of new medicine is difficult because the nation lacks the laws that allow them a budget for more advanced drugs and equipment.

Then there’s the physical danger. When the war hit in 2003, doctors were threatened, some even kidnapped and killed. Many hospitals shut down all together.

“You could count all the hospitals in Iraq who could give at least emergency care. One, two, three. That’s it,” Rashid said.

Then Rashid shared the good news from Iraq.

The country sent out a cry for help, and support began to materialize. Help from neighboring nations led to an increase in the number of hospitals. Rashid said the Italians built a hospital for burn victims, the Japanese built a large multi-purpose hospital and the United Arab Emirates built a small hospital in addition to donating funds and drugs.

The U.S. Army fortified these health facilities against looting and attacks. The Army offered some of its own medicine in addition to funding hospital rehabilitation projects, said Rashid.

Then came the financial and physical aid of NGO’s like Brennan’s Medical Alliance for Iraq. He and his fellow doctors brought equipment Iraq had never seen before, in addition to new surgery procedures and training. 

“The alliance has built good attitudes and results, and it’s percolating up,” Brennan said. We’ve learned some lessons of what to do and what not to do and that personal relationships are the most important.”

The strong relationships seemed apparent to even those attending the Rotary Club meeting. When a question was raised as to whether the people of Iraq appreciated the help of America’s troops, Rashid’s answer was resounding.

“Yes!” she said. “Let me tell you one thing. Iraq has been under invasion since the day it was put on the map of the universe. But you are the best invasion we have had.”

After pausing for a laugh, she added, “I mean it! Not one of your soldiers broke a door, not one of your soldiers has raped a woman and not one of your soldiers has looted anything! They were there in the streets carrying plastic bags and cleaning the streets of Baghdad of garbage.”

Rashid is still hoping for more permanent internal reform.

“We need to upgrade our system, because now we are open to the world,” Rashid said. “We need to start catching up with the countries around us.”

Ten minutes before the speakers arrived the anticipation of the situation set in, as everyone fell silent in one sweeping hush. The nervous silence passed, but the excitement still intensified. Tonight would definitely push some borders.

On the pro-side of legalization was Kris Krane, director of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which is an organization that fights punitive drug policies.

Across from Krane was Dr. Paul Chabot, a recently returned Iraqi war veteran who has worked extensively in governmental administration as well as the law enforcement of narcotics.

When the moderator asked the gentlemen who would like to start the night’s arguments, Krane quipped, “Let the establishment start,” with a smile and a wave to Chabot.

As a father of two, Chabot urged the audience to primarily think about the responsibilities they will one day owe to their families. He mentioned overcoming his own drug addictions at the early age of 12, and his subsequent trip to rehab.

“I used to be on the same side as Kris,” Chabot said. But now he claims that he fights on the minority’s side versus a majority of rich pro-drug organizations.

Chabot claims that many of the war on drug’s problems are stemming from these organizations. “They stand on the backs of the sick people to prove that marijuana is good. But the opposite is quite true,” Chabot said.

Krane responded by saying that the two men had similar goals but very different ways of going about them. He used prohibition as a starting point by saying that the movement began with the noble idea of getting rid of alcoholism, but suppressing alcohol’s consumption actually made things much worse. The rise of pro-drug organizations today is not too dissimilar.

When Chabot mentioned a 30,000 person marijuana festival that had recently occurred in his community “backyard,” Krane responded by saying, “This is a testament to the fact that prohibition is not working.”

Chabot later warned of a possible “Amsterdam effect” that could invade and corrupt the U.S. economy and moral system.

Krane disagreed with this viewpoint and clarified his position. To him, responsible management of legalization would improve the U.S. economy in a safe way.

“The idea that we want a weed smoking utopia with everyone smoking all the time is simply not true. Rather we want a more regulated market that controls its distribution,” Krane said.

Chabot’s concerns quickly turned back to the safety of children, especially in parks and playgrounds. “Parks were made for kids, not drug addicts. That’s a fact,” Chabot said.

He also addressed marijuana as being a gateway drug to other drugs’ physical abuse, as well as their potential legislative legalization.

Krane argued that it is only associated thus because of marijuana’s illegal status. He claims it is currently clumped with worse drugs by the government’s own drug scheduling policies, as well as the illegal drug dealer’s own tendency to sell more than one drug.

“If we are going to give marijuana a legally regulated market like we have for alcohol, we need to take it out of the black market’s hands,” Krane said.

For Chabot and traditional law enforcement it’s a continuous fight for removal without considering the substance’s relocation in society. For Krane it’s a battle for relocation and regulation. Both sides agree however, that it’s a debate that will be reoccurring for quite some time to come.