Author: Michelle
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Ghree Lockard: A Fish in Water
Ghree’s story is the last of six pieces in a series called “Story of My Life,” produced with funding from the Wake Forest University Humanities Institute and exceptional cooperation from Group Homes of Forsyth. Ghree is one tough cookie, and she doesn’t let anything slow her down. She has cerebral palsy, so she has a…
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On the Air
The most amazing thing has happened to me: I am back on the air at WFDD, the public radio station in Winston-Salem, after an unplanned sabbatical of more than 12 years. I think I made good use of the time: I learned to be a newspaper reporter and editor; I learned about the web and video…
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Recommended by Wordle
One of the most humbling things I’ve done recently is ask my former colleagues for LinkedIn recommendations. The many beautiful responses I received reduced me to tears of gratitude, especially the words of the young journalists who have all gone on to bigger and better things in their careers. Just for fun, and because Wordle is a…
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Everything you need to know about social media …
And I thought I was so clever. Lately I’ve been having conversation with friends who are still trying to wrap their heads around using social media as part of their outreach for business or creative projects. So I started thinking about a straightforward way to explain some of what I think of as the basic…
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Inauguration Day
A father, his daughter and the first black president of the United States My old dad always did have a knack for getting things his way with us, even before an epidural steroid injection gone wrong landed him in a wheelchair. I’d learned to tolerate this, and my forbearance was even sweetening into genuine compassion….
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Song of the Ice
The iPhone is a mighty media tool, especially when it is the one piece of equipment you’re carrying when you encounter breathtaking beauty and mystery.
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Crossing the Inner Sea
I know I keep saying it, but I’m one lucky woman. Some months ago now, I got to spend a couple of days with a group of young men involved with the College Success Foundation of the District of Columbia. They were in North Carolina at the tail end of an intensive summer academic program….
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Angels Talking: Cecilia’s Story
A car accident set the course of Cecilia Henry’s life when she was just six years old. The girl nearly died from a traumatic brain injury, and doctors told Cecilia’s mother that she would never again walk or talk. When it was time to discharge her from the hospital, the neurosurgeon announced that he had…
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“God Is So Good”
When Christine Rucker, Phoebe Zerwick and I started the “Story Of My Life” project a year or so ago, we did so with the words of the late Henri Nouwen sounding in our heads. Nouwen is a writer, scholar and priest who spent the later years of his life working with profoundly disabled people in…
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Goodbye, Newsroom
Perhaps it’s not the most politic thing in the world to announce your unemployment on your own website, but I have never been one to pussyfoot around. I lost my job a little over a month ago, in a newsroom reorganization that was part of a larger reduction in force by the Winston-Salem Journal’s new…
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My Name is John
. How do you tell the story of your life without words? Meet John Linville, a resident of Group Homes of Forsyth and one of the subjects for our series “Story of My Life”. John is one of a set of triplets, born prematurely in a time when, as his sister says “it was incredible…
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Pieces of the Past
Once again, I’m a lucky story magnet. A week or two ago, I was walking through the park with Bunny Snowflake the terrorist retriever and I saw my neighbor Bill Brake playing with his girls on the swing set. “Hey,” he called out to me. “David Gall called me the other day, said he…
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Bending Toward Justice
On May 8, North Carolina became the 31st state to adopt a constitutional amendment banning same-sex couples from being legally married. Gay marriage is already illegal in the state, but voters overwhelmingly approved the amendment anyway. The amendment was opposed by a wide-ranging coalition of legal scholars, progressive religious leaders, CEOs of the state’s largest…
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Life Coach
My sister got all the athletic talent in our family, so I’ve never been on a ball diamond for more than a few tortured hours during compulsory school games (always relegated to right field, where I could do little harm). But you don’t have to be an athlete to understand this story. It’s an homage…
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Greg’s Story
Meet Greg Silvernail, the first of six group home residents we’ll be featuring in a new and improved “Story of My Life” project over the next few months. Christine Rucker and Phoebe Zerwick did most of the field work on this project, so I’m mainly just their most interested set of eyes and ears. Greg’s…