Atlanta

Voice of WCLK’s “Morris Code” reveals secrets of surviving hard times

Date: February 25th, 2013, 3:41 pm

For Morris Baxter, the Great Recession hit six years before the rest of us. In 2002, he lost his six-figure salary record label job and all the perks: the prestige, the travel, the expense account, the corporate card and the national hip-hop record promotions. Bitter and negative, full of self-pity, he had to find a way to reboot his life.
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Amid loss, no tears from these Atlanta clowns

Date: February 18th, 2013, 6:34 pm

February in Atlanta is circus month, and but not all the clowns are goofing under the Big Apple and Ringling Bros. big tops.

Far from the spotlight, for all but two weeks a year, a local troupe of clowns managed to practice their craft for tiny, tough audiences: some of the sickest kids in Georgia, even some who are dying. As clowns, they’ve kept their show going on this year even after sudden loss in their own ranks.

For the surviving members of the Big Apple Clown Care Unit, creating laughter in the face of heartbreak has transformed them far more than wearing a funny hat, a fake nose and makeup ever could.
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George Bailey, teenage suicide and a temporary goodbye

Date: February 4th, 2013, 5:15 pm

Stories of recovery and reinvention inspire us, because they show us possible routes out of our own valleys. These stories prove that we ordinary people are capable of extraordinary resilience.

Each week since August 2011, I’ve told stories like that here. The column will continue, but without me for awhile. Starting next week, another writer will take over this space: Ben Smith, a former AJC reporter who is also my husband. He has written here previously about chicken nachos and his trail adventures.

My attention turns to my personal story of recovery. I believe that we must be brave enough to open up a dialogue about a subject full of stigma and denial: mental illness. If we don’t, too many of our stories, especially our children’s, will keep ending too soon. Continue reading →

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For 15 years, the mark of an Atlanta newcomer: a 678 phone number

Date: January 28th, 2013, 8:00 am

Fifteen years ago this month, 678 became Atlanta’s third telephone prefix, and every call became a 10-digit dial. Today, when smartphones let us tap to connect, it’s easy to forget past milestones in how Atlantans connect – and what those turning points meant in the perception of the city’s growth and who we are.

For many native Atlantans inside I-285, there’s 404 and everything else. That’s what they grew up with. The 770, 678 and 470 will always belong to the Johnny-come-latelys and suburbanites.

The 404 prefix is dialed into their identity, a shared jersey number for the veterans on Atlanta’s home team. It is a holdover from a simpler time, before the rest of us got here and made life a whole lot more complicated.
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Amid change in Oak Grove, chicken nachos never dip as a Saturday ritual

Date: January 21st, 2013, 7:47 pm

South Philly owns the cheesesteak.

The deep-dish pizza rose from the north side of the Chicago River.

The best chicken nachos ever can be found at a butcher shop and delicatessen in north suburban Atlanta.

That’s no brag, just fact, according to the regulars who swarm into Oak Grove Market every Saturday for a plate of the eatery’s number one seller.

More than a taste, the nachos are a tradition that helps keep this small business going in the recession, and gives people a one-of-a-kind experience that they won’t get at a chain restaurant. It’s the same recipe, the same day of the week, at the same place – chicken nachos transformed into a social anchor. Continue reading →

Posted in Atlanta, Michelle Hiskey, Saporta, Transformation | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Southern misperceptions tackled in Decatur author’s “Eat Drink Delta”

Date: December 30th, 2012, 7:58 pm

So much of the South is misunderstood by outsiders, and a trustworthy guide like Susan Puckett helps the rest of us understand where we live. Her new book, “Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler’s Journey through the Soul of the South” (University of Georgia Press), takes readers on a trip into the complicated culture and food of a strip of Mississippi often maligned for its poverty, obesity and backwardness.

Her ground-level stories of the people and crops, their traditions and dishes, bring to life the coexistence of different races and classes in one of America’s most fertile areas. The Delta is synonymous with blues, and Puckett, a Decatur author of six previous books who served as food editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 18 years, explored the connection between the hard stories and soulful food.
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Behind 100 miles and $10K, an endurance to care for men on foot

Date: December 17th, 2012, 4:32 pm

Someone ran 100 miles and showed up last week at the Central Night Shelter downtown with a pocketful of checks totaling $10,000, an eye-popping climax to a story of one man trying to help the many homeless men who had shown him how to better appreciate his own life.

His donation shone light on the endurance of the shelter, which has for 32 years housed and fed about 100 men a night at Central Presbyterian Church and the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Between November and March, this shelter has never missed a night.
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Posted in Atlanta, Inspiration, Life Changes, Michelle Hiskey, Saporta, Self-improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Urban Atlanta youth use muscle, risk to master complexities of the harp

Date: December 10th, 2012, 6:59 pm

Of all the instruments, one of the biggest and heaviest, most expensive and most exotic is the harp. A performer must play each foot and hand separately, using everything but pinkies to create the ethereal notes.

That is the muscle behind the dreamy soundtrack of the Atlanta Urban Youth Harp Ensemble. Most of these young musicians have overcome major disadvantages to master the instrument’s complexity, earn gigs at local weddings and events, qualify for college scholarships and position themselves for professional music careers.
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At Atlanta synagogue, teens film memories of adolescence during Holocaust

Date: December 3rd, 2012, 7:06 pm

High school sophomore Mollie Simon is used to boiling down history to dates, places, names and civilizations. On paper, the people affected by all those events, even those who survived wars and atrocities, were virtually faceless.

This year, her own history changed when she joined 15 other teenagers from her synagogue set out to interview their congregation’s seven Holocaust survivors. Most of them were teenagers themselves when, without warning, their world turned upside down – all because of their identity as Jews.

The connection between teens and elders turned into “Edim L’Shoah: Witnesses to the Holocaust,” which will be screened free to the public at 4 pm Sunday at Congregation Shearith Israel (CSI).
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At Alex Haley memorial, Atlanta’s modern slave trade comes to light

Date: November 26th, 2012, 6:54 pm

Annapolis, MD – Anchoring the heart of this seaside, colonial capital is a can’t-miss commemoration to a beloved storyteller who died 20 years ago.

Alex Haley transformed the appreciation of family history by starting with his own wrenching past, and his bronze likeness sits in a storyteller pose on the city dock, overlooking the waters where the slave ship Lord Ligonier brought his forefather Kunte Kinte from Gambia 245 years ago.

Alex Haley authored the memoir “Roots,” and the Kunte Kinte–Alex Haley Memorial pays tribute to ancestor and descendant, the power of storytelling and the resurgence of interest in genealogy.

The sculpture showing an animated Haley speaking to three children also points indirectly to Atlanta, where slavery thrives today in the form of human trafficking.
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Posted in Atlanta, Inspiration, Michelle Hiskey, Transformation | 2 Comments