susan reinhardt
by jeanne charters

Well, shut my mouth! It finally happened. I met up with a really truly “Southern belle” right here in Asheville.

Just when I thought the entire town was peopled by relocated Yankees, in she walked…pretty as a magnolia blossom, soft as a drawl and sweet as candied yams. Said “belle” is Ms. Susan Reinhardt, thrice-weekly columnist and features writer for the Asheville Citizen Times; wife of talented jazz musician, Stuart Reinhardt (aka “Tidy Stu”); and mother to 11-year-old Niles and 5-year-old Lindsey, the “loves of my life”.
Truth be told, under all that sweetness, you catch a definite trace of Tabasco. This girl from the land of grits clearly has some grit of her own. She is by her own admission a bit of a flirt and, at times, would almost qualify as a “hussy” (although no blue eye shadow was in evidence at our coffee klatch).

She’s tall, slender (“My goodness, I have such a pouchy stomach.”) and has gorgeous tan legs revealed from her mini skirt right down to her lime-green slides. “Oh darlin’, they’re tan because I use that spray stuff; but it’s always streaky because I just don’t take time to let it dry properly.”

Like many beautiful women, she’s self-deprecating about her looks; but in the depths of her Southern soul, she knows she’s Jezebel pretty.

Susan’s an instant “girlfriend”…someone you wish you had time to know better. She says she’s an award-winning Journalist because she’s “nosy” about people as evidenced by the fact that before I got her settled down, she knew much more about me than I did about her.

I love Susan Reinhardt’s columns. I’d told her so before we ever met. Sometimes, they make me howl, and sometimes they nearly make me weep. They range from tart and tarty to prose that approaches poetry. The quality of her work has resulted in several awards from the North Carolina Press Association for both humorous and serious feature articles. She’s most proud of the Outstanding Achievement in Writing Award she won from Gannett newspapers, in competition with over 100 other Gannett columnists.

Susan is now syndicated in newspapers across the vast Gannett chain and has learned that people around the country respond to her columns with no geographic bias. She has good friends from all areas of this nation, but I had to ask her to define her idea of a real Southern gal.

“She’s not afraid to flirt. She’s not afraid to use everything she has, whether it’s her time, her heart or her charm. She’s very honest and if she does something naughty, she’ll tell her best friend about it. There’s no pretense. Southern women are very eccentric…in a good way. One of my best friends is from the Bronx, and she’s actually more Southern than some of my friends here, so it’s not just geographical. It’s the spirit of the woman. Oh, and one more prerequisite for being a Southern woman—you have to know how to make a casserole.”

As a writer, I’m in awe of Susan’s ability to turn out quality columns or features 3 times each week. When asked about how she pulls this off, she replied:

“Sometimes it’s inspiration. Sometimes it’s desperation. The deadlines come up and I just know that I have to produce something. A good source is my readers’ calls. I’m nosy…I talk to people. My family is a constant source of material. I think being curious about the world is most important to a columnist…the crazier the better and the more inspiring the better. I don’t like boring stories. I don’t want to read ‘em and I don’t want to write ‘em.”

After earning a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Georgia in 1984, Susan took a job at the Sun News in Myrtle Beach, SC. There, she met a male member of Myrtle Beach “royalty” she named the Duke of Habit.

“We were engaged for about 10 or 20 minutes, and then he broke my heart. So I moved to a tent in the Virgin Islands and made an attempt to become a born again virgin.

After a while, he came there and fetched me back to Myrtle Beach where we broke up again…thank God! A Southern woman always likes to have a fiancé somewhere in the closet, you know. The classy thing to do, though, is to always give back the ring when you break up—unless he cheated. Then you get to keep it.”

Next, I asked Susan how she met her husband, Stuart.

“I picked him up on the street. Now-a-days, people use the Internet; but I was old fashioned and just met him on the street. Actually, it was Bele Chere and I heard this saxophone playing somewhere and I just followed that sound and there he was. At first, we didn’t get along. We were both dating other people and I couldn’t get used to his dry wit. After 3 or 4 months, though, we started to get more serious. I knew when I saw how clean his house was that I would marry him.”

Asked about goals, Susan responded:

“The goal is to improve constantly and to get my 2 novels published. But my main goal is to be a good mom. I’m more devoted to my children than to my work. I’d sure like to get those novels published, though, because I’d like to be financially secure enough so that I could continue to write my columns but maybe not so many. That would give me the time I want to stay home with my children. However, I always want to write columns.”

Then, I asked Susan to give some advice to other working moms.

“Well, I think the hardest time is 7:30 at night and they’re hungry and trying to do homework and they’re wild from too much sugar and you’re tired. Remember that it’s only an hour and don’t get too upset about it. I try to remember every day that my son is just a little boy and that one bad grade is not going to ruin his life. Sometimes, you just have to let things go and pick your battles. I let my 5-year-old wear her chunky, hideous shoes to school if that’s what she wants; and if my son wants to wear a wild Hawaiian shirt to school, so be it. Also, don’t pack their lunches unless it’s absolutely necessary. Make them eat 3 to 4 school lunches each week. That’ll save you lots of time. That’s the one thing about motherhood that I hate—packing those lunches!”

We concluded our interview with a hug and a walk back to the newspaper. I’ve read Susan Reinhardt’s interviews ever since I moved to Asheville and am now reading her first book, Only Hussies Wear Blue Eye Shadow. Her writing is as refreshing as a mint julep on a hot summer day. Nothing will ever take the Southern belle out of Ms. Reinhardt, and why in the world would anyone want to? Thanks, Susan!

Jeanne Charters lives in Fairview with her husband, Matt Restivo. A former V.P. of Marketing for Viacom Television, she started her own award-winning broadcast Advertising agency in 1990. [ charmkt@juno.com; 828-628-0023 ]