By this Author

Dying homeless: Mourning death of drinking buddy

mfuchs — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:58:13 -0400

GREENSBORO — Michael Keith Cooper died alone last week beside one of our busiest roads, surrounded by a bank, a convenience store and two churches.

He was homeless.

Michael lost his battle with an ailing heart and the bottle. Initial autopsy results show he died of coronary heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.

He's another one gone from our city's most forgotten population.

At least, that's what Kenny Odekirk thinks. He was Michael's good friend. They once shared a tent, food and alcohol. Kenny is 38, a Greensboro native. He's homeless, too.

Are we failing our children? Video challenges parents

Brenda Hiles — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO - Today, we get busy.

We - the parents of 72,000 students in Guilford County public schools - will lose our laid-back summer. We'll crowbar kids out of bed and move them toward the door for another year at 120 schools countywide.

Our schedules will shift into overdrive. We'll keep a litany of numbers in our head - classroom, bus, tardy time, pickup time - until it all spins into one big, confusing mass.

Zoo, Montessori bring nature to kids

Holly Lux — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

When I see birches bend to left and right … I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

— Robert Frost, poet

ASHEBORO — Thank you, Liz Mann.

I was doing the typical journalism thing — watching and writing — when Liz, a 7-year-old from Pinehurst, handed me her latest creation: a small cup full of sand, packed hard and leveled out, right to the edge of the lip.

“Would you like some tea?” she asked me, a gap-toothed smile spread wide across her freckled face.

Of course, I accepted. Even without cream and sugar.

Camp Weaver puts children in touch with nature

Jay Reddick — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

The rising sun brushed clouds the color of bubblegum Wednesday morning by the time Jamie Cosson headed toward the shed beside Turtle Lake.

He led 15 campers, all sleepy from their third night in the woods.

Cosson knows that early-morning look. He’s run Camp Weaver for five summers. But he grew up fishing in Australia, his home, and he wants his campers to fish, too.

So, by sunrise every week this summer, he has led campers from their cabins toward that shed to grab a fishing pole to catch something in a 2½-acre lake where bluegill swim.

Book urges families to plug into nature

Brenda Hiles — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

We'll talk nature and kids this week.

You'll meet a local camp director from Australia, and you'll see a new plan for Randolph County's Purgatory Mountain. But today, in this first of three installments, you'll hear how a former newspaper columnist who loves to fish has become nature's new evangelist.

That's Richard Louv .

BB's will close after 19 years of selling music

mgrossman — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:14:52 -0400

GREENSBORO - BB's is done.

BB's Compact Discs will shut its doors Aug. 31 and end a 19-year tradition of selling new music and becoming a must-stop for musicians and many music fans near Guilford College.

"It's hard to put into words,'' Duncan Dunn , BB's 32- year-old owner, said this afternoon. "It's been a very significant portion of my life. A third of my life. So it's going to be a real shock the first week of September when it's not here anymore.''

Parents’ deaths drive son’s purpose

mumbarger — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

ASHEBORO - Michael Weese will leave today for N.C. State.

He'll take his laptop, his Emergency Medical Services flag, even his foot-tall doll of Superman. Then he'll begin his long-awaited quest, something he's thought about since he fished with a Mickey Mouse pole.

He wants to become a pediatric oncologist, a doctor who treats kids broadsided by cancer. He has a special motivation: his parents.

They both died of cancer. And Michael, who is 17, thinks about that every day.

Rowe: The last local music store?

Holly Lux — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO -- I hate that sign.

I see it in the window, and I can’t help but think of all the other independent record stores, all those cool spots of conversation that helped anchor our city, give it personality and draw every discerning music hound I knew.

School Kids. Spins. The Record Exchange. Crunchy Music Stuff. Gate City Noise. All gone.

Now, I read that sign in the window — those block letters in black and aquamarine that read, “HELP SAVE YOUR LOCAL MUSIC STORE”— and I realize the place many of us know as BB’s could make that list.

Forsyth County: County keeps Mayberry feel

jnewsom — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

Let's talk trees.

Amble into downtown Lewisville, to the western edge of Shallowford Square, and you'll find three oaks no one wants to lose.

Sure, they give great shade, particularly during the town's annual Beach Blast.But these trees are at least 70 years old, and town officials don't want them to die. So, last year, they allocated $4,000 to save them.

So far, it's worked. Mulched and watered, the trees are showing signs of recovery from last summer's drought.

Foster care survivor now shares story

Melissa Turner — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO - Julia Charles' book is all of 95 pages. So if you're lucky, you can read it in an afternoon.

Yet, dig into it - even a chapter or two - and you'll find a powerful story of a young girl from Guilford County's foster care program who felt she was too black, too skinny, too ugly and too alone.

Here's some of what you'll find:

She carried her clothes around in a trash bag. She got beaten by her biological mother with a plastic bag full of cans. She cursed, screamed, bullied people and walled herself away from any kind of love.

Class of '68 has different context for current events

Jayme Elrod — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO — Back in ’68, what Newsweek magazine calls the “year that changed everything,” the seniors at Dudley, Grimsley and Page lived in a protective bubble far from our country’s social and political fray.

They lived for house parties, Whiz Burgers and weekend trips to Myrtle Beach, where cheap beer and loud music turned Ocean Drive into their playground.

Jammin' on the Rizzo Riff

Brenda Hiles — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO - Right now, there's not much to look at.

Cross East Lee, pass the cleared lot where Greensboro wants to root a growing downtown, and you'll find a spider web of empty rooms in the basement, and a top floor occupied by a church.

But hear Nathan Wainscott talk. Or better yet, park him in the basement and ask him to close his eyes.

Mayberry says it's had enough, Bickersburg

Margaret Wimmer — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

LIBERTY — In a cluttered cubbyhole, behind his fuzzy Carolina-blue Carolina rug, Warren Dixon writes.

He started on a Royal typewriter nearly three decades ago. Now, he bangs away on a Gateway computer, late at night in the corner of his den, surrounded by books, a backyard window and a four-drawer file cabinet with this gem of a magnet: “Is This Quality?”

Gate City needs to discover its vision

Andrew Leeco — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO - Once again, it's the vision thing.

You heard that Thursday night in a conference room above South Elm. Some of Greensboro's most plugged-in and pragmatic talked about their trip last week to Charlotte to see how big-city collaboration works.

And even before everyone finished their chicken pasta on clear plastic plates, City Councilman Robbie Perkins drove home what everyone else in the room apparently thought after their trip down I-85.

July 29: The day they drove old Asheboro down

Christy Seals — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

ASHEBORO — The crane is gone from Dixie Drive.

For weeks, you saw it from at least a mile away in either direction along Asheboro’s main drag. You’d crest the slight hill beside Asheboro High’s Lee J. Stone Stadium, and there it was — 40 feet in the air, two words as big as any billboard.

VOTE AGAINST.

That didn’t happen this week. And that’s a big deal in the Piedmont Triad’s version of Mayberry.

Of heritage, roots and cornbread

import — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

There's a quote that John Shelton Reed and his wife, Dale Volberg Reed, like to bring up when they talk about their new book, "Cornbread Nation 4: The Best of Southern Food Writing."

They'll mention their friend John Egerton, a Kentucky native writer who calls himself a "professional South-watcher." When they do, either Dale or John will hustle from the back porch and pull a book to make sure they get the quote just right.

It's what Egerton said about cornbread.

Sifting through the past, savoring the flavor

Brenda Hiles — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

CHAPEL HILL - Beside the Reeds' refrigerator, where the tiny letter magnets spell out "Slick Southern Dude,'' are three long shelves of cookbooks, a few of which are more than a century old.

Dale Volberg Reed has read every one.

She reads them at night. Not really for the recipes. But for the way people live. She'll pick up the Picayune Creole Cookbook, circa 1902 , and realize what people keep and what people lose in their kitchens.

Miscellany: Decisions on alcohol and a Bubba contest

Margaret Wimmer — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

In our summer of Saintpaul, on my last working day before a week long romp, I was just thinking …

About a big vote. Asheboro, the Triad’s version of Mayberry, will decide in 10 days whether it can sell beer, wine and mixed drinks as well as operate ABC stores within the city limits.

It’s emotional all right. Read Rich Powell’s pro-alcohol cartoons or drive down Dixie Drive, toward the N.C. Zoo, and see what locals call “The Crane.”

Gone, but their stories remain

Holly Lux — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO — We all need to hear our share of stories. Red Russell, along with Jeff and Laurie Clark, gifted me with a few.

Back in February 2007, the Clarks — husband and wife, natives of Louisiana — told me how they turned their backyard storage shed into a juke joint that testified, James Brown loud, to the place they loved: New Orleans.

Then, a few weeks ago, Red Russell — retired lawyer, Chicago native, longtime baseball fan — told me how, at age 13, he met two baseball legends: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. And Red had a picture as proof.

Terrace McKinnon turns his life around

Melissa Turner — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO - That's Tee, better known as Terrace McKinnon.

He's loping through Ray Warren Homes, wearing his old basketball shoes, as he plucks from his big black bookbag fliers for next Saturday's gang forum. He passes them out to everyone he sees.

Or he's inside the Bluford Library at N.C. A&T. He's reading, learning and researching ways to pay for school. He wants that degree in history, with an emphasis in social work, so he can improve his city.

At 39, he's a college sophomore. Yet, for Tee, it's not too late.

Early Christmas for dogs, cats

Brenda Hiles — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO - Madison Heintz got her a dog Wednesday.

She stood by the door of the Guilford County Animal Shelter, beside the 5-foot artificial Christmas tree, and talked to everyone who came in.

You had to decipher her lingo. She was an excited 2-year-old still struggling with her ABCs. But kneel there long enough, and you got it pretty quick.

"That's my dog! That's my dog! That's my dog!''

It was Christmas in July. For Madison. And for shelter officials, too.

Food pantry to fill community with '2 fish, 5 loaves'

Margaret Wimmer — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:29:33 -0400

GREENSBORO — To Eric Sturdivant, it’s more than just a scraggly patch of grass off Franklin Boulevard.

Sure, in the bank of trees beside his tiny church, Sturdivant has discovered empty beer bottles and used condoms. Meanwhile, he’s heard stories about delinquents coming through the pines and chunking bricks at Junior, a neighbor’s friendly dog on a chain.

All grown up and heading to Beijing

Melissa Turner — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

GREENSBORO - This one's about a big-toothed little girl, and she's flying to China today to cover the Olympics.

She's Meghan Davis. And she's all grown up.

In front of me I see a 22-year-old grad from UNC-Chapel Hill. But in my mind, I'll always see a 7-year-old second-grader from Greensboro's Lindley Elementary.

Fourteen years ago, while covering education for the News & Record, I visited Gayle Wiley's class to see the particulars of their pen-pal program with a private school in India.

And there, in the second row, second seat, was Meghan.

On the 4th, it's time, baby, to strut with the red Chucks

Holly Lux — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 03:00:00 -0400

It’ll all happen Friday, July 4, our Independence Day.

In Greensboro’s Sunset Hills neighborhood, Scott Harkey will slip into his white shirt, his “Harkey For President” Styrofoam hat and his favorite fashion statement from Converse: red Chuck Taylors.

Harkey collects them. He did have 13 pairs. He now has nine in white, black and red.

He plans to get buried in his pair of high-top white Chucks. He keeps those shoes in the store bags. Double-wrapped. Today, those shoes still smell new.

A larger-than-life figure bestows thrill of a lifetime

mgrossman — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:17:00 -0400

GREENSBORO - Red keeps the small, laminated black-and-white photo in his billfold.

When he finds a sports fan - and that could be anywhere - he'll pull out his photo and recreate a time when baseball seemed more innocent and larger than life.

It was May 1934, inside Chicago's Comiskey Park. Red mailed in 100 baseball-card gum wrappers that cost a penny apiece and scored the chance to meet Lou Gehrig, the New York Yankees' legendary first baseman.