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A week before Thanksgiving, when the phrase "these uncertain times" has become an unwanted cliche, you end up finding beauty in the simplest details of anyone's story.

Let's look at three.

Two sisters. One Santa. And one music teacher, with an old violin.

Marta Richardson calls herself a “Greensboro girl.” She grew up in Guilford County’s public school orchestra program. At age 9, she started playing violin at the insistence of her music-loving father whose huge hands prevented him from playing almost anything.
By age 11, Richardson needed her own violin. But her family couldn’t afford a nice one. So, she got her grandfather’s nicked-up violin, an instrument at least 100 years old.

Richardson ended up playing it for more than 30 years — from her days at Lindley Elementary to her senior recital at UNCG to her days as a second violinist with the Greensboro Symphony.

Today, Richardson’s life has come full circle. She teaches violin at Peeler Open School for the Performing Arts, and she’ll perform this weekend for a benefit at Wake Forest University with her world music group, Songs of Water.

And this time, she’ll pull out her new violin — a 5-string electric model she bought four months ago, with the help of a grant from the United Arts Council of Greensboro and a High Point couple who heard her play.

“I’m a schoolteacher,” says Richardson, 49, a married mother of three. “I’ve got a kid in college, another one in braces, and my car — my 14-year-old Taurus that I got from my Aunt Mary — isn’t worth as much as my violin. But I know an instrument is a tool that can touch people’s hearts.”

Richardson knows that. Thanks to her grandfather’s nicked-up violin.

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Meredith Newlin and Kathryn Brown grew up surrounded by the scent of pine needles and cow manure.

Their family owned New Garden Nursery, and there wasn’t a weekend the two sisters weren’t behind the cash register, around the perennials or in the truck, toting plants to the garden center.

So, the nonprofit Greensboro Beautiful was a natural extension of their part-time jobs. Their parents volunteered. So, the sisters had to go — to dinners, to litter cleanups, to landscape projects.

They admit the dinners were boring. Still, they saw firsthand what their mother told them, over and over: “This is what enriches your life and makes living fun.”

Today, the sisters live a block from one another. And like their teenage days at New Garden Nursery, they do much together. Shop. Camp. Eat Sunday dinner.

And now, they’re steering Greensboro Beautiful’s annual wreath sale, a 27-year tradition that raises money to help bring the green to Greensboro.

Their mother’s advice took root.

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Alson Wheeler is one convincing Santa.

You can see for yourself in just a few days.

He’ll be in downtown Greensboro this weekend, outside Cheesecakes By Alex. Then, starting Monday, he’ll stand until Christmas at the corner of North Elm and Fisher and hand out candy canes to unsuspecting motorists. He snagged permission from the city.

Wheeler — a burly guy, with real white hair, a real white beard and a real Santa suit — sees a real need for soliciting some sidewalk cheer.

“More and more, I realize we are a global village,” said Wheeler, 57. “And if I can lift people’s spirits in a small way, with today’s economic situation, with a mythological character, that can’t hurt things.”

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com