Tag Archives: life changes

From a straight Young Republican to a gay Democrat delegate

Date: September 3rd, 2012, 5:36 pm

In 1972, Georgia Tech student Bob Gibeling cheered Pat Nixon’s arrival at the Republican Convention in Miami. He gave interviews to national media about his generation’s support of the GOP’s progressive policies. He dreamed of becoming mayor of Atlanta, his hometown.

This week, Bob Gibeling will cheer Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention in Charlotte. As a volunteer coordinator for a faith-based nonprofit in Atlanta, Gibeling is thrilled to be voting for a platform with a full marriage equality plank. His political career has been spent not in local politics, but working for change in his religious denomination.

Over 40 years, whose life and context doesn’t change? The constants in Gibeling’s story are a family-bred passion for politics, a lifelong commitment to the middle ground and a willingness to stand for change.

His arrival at the opposite political pole is one marker of discovering his true religious faith and sexual orientation – a secret that kept him from realizing his political dreams. As he found himself, he realized the ground he had always stood on no longer made room for people like him.
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Broken cell phone, local lifeline and the powerful need to connect

Date: August 20th, 2012, 12:00 pm

The marimba beat from the iPhone woke me as usual, only the direction was very wrong. The sound came from the floor, where the phone had fallen.

My phone is my lifeline, stowing my schedule, contacts, reminders, lists, music, maps, photos, news and diversions in case of boredom. Just how emotional and deep that connection can be became more evident in the brief, illuminating adventure to turn a cracked screen clear again.

The quest led to a small, thriving universe that exists to reconnect us, and how one young man in Atlanta, Shahzad Pirani, re-made himself through repairing phones. Continue reading →

Posted in Atlanta, Career Makeover, Inspiration, Michelle Hiskey, Self-improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Restoration after rats requires Melton’s strong will

Date: July 16th, 2012, 4:30 pm

Aaron and Staci Melton, sitting at a bar table amid a decent weekday dinner crowd, still live with the damage – financial and emotional — from a rat infestation that closed their doors in late 2011.

Every day, they think about their lawsuit against their neighbor, Pet Supermarket, which is in the discovery phase in DeKalb County Superior Judge Daniel M. Coursey Jr. If a resolution comes at all, it will take a while. At stake for the Meltons is $250,000 – their lost revenue and debt for repairs.

Take away the litigation, and the Meltons still represent the psychological struggle for so many of us in middle-class Atlanta and America. Despite hard work and diligence amid economic distress, our standard of living and hope in the future have gone from security to struggle. We come face-to-face daily with this reality: forces beyond our control can quickly shut us down.
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For deliverance on Appalachian Trail, hikers rely on folks like Ron Brown

Date: July 9th, 2012, 11:00 am

On July 20, Atlanta’s Fox Theatre will celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Deliverance,” the startling and brutal film about city dwellers venturing into Georgia’s devilish Appalachian country.

A walk in the north Georgia woods today has its hazards, too – but luckily our recent group of hikers got help from a trail angel named Ron Brown.

Unlike the predatory locals in the movie, Brown is part of an super-friendly mountain hospitality corps who serve visitors to Springer Mountain — the southern terminus of the 2,180 mile Appalachian Trail — and beyond.

Thousands of outsiders show up every year to experience the “AT,” the world’s longest hiking-only footpath, which next month celebrates its 75th anniversary.

It was a hellish 100 degrees plus when we cinched up our backpacks for a long-planned overnight trip around Springer…
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For a Roswell girl, Hawaii is a positive state of mind

Date: June 25th, 2012, 8:00 am

Allison Tilly wanted to go to Hawaii.

No was her mom’s answer. She hoped Allison would just drop the idea. She and Allison’s dad were divorcing, and they were moving. A fancy vacation wasn’t in the budget.

Allison, 8 years old, is the baby of the family — imaginative, stubborn and persuasive. She rounds up her older brother and sister to play games she’s made up.

Hawaii obsessed her. Her mother relented a bit.

After you graduate from high school, Melissa Tilly said.

For 8-year-old Allison, that meant paradise was 10 years. For her mom, it seemed even farther than 4500 miles.
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While battling Vietnam scars, memoirist receives nearly $5,000 in city water fight

Date: May 21st, 2012, 11:00 am

While Christal Presley was uncovering her and her father’s scars from his service in Vietnam, she also ended up unearthing subterranean trouble familiar to other city of Atlanta homeowners:

Water meter problems.

Despite minimal water each month, and even in a city beset by the highest combined water and sewage bills in the country, Presley’s bills were about double her neighbors’.

To write her book and solve her water problems, she had to probe what for too long had seemed normal.

Answers came from questioning authorities – first her own father, and then the city of Atlanta. Continue reading →

Posted in Atlanta, Inspiration, Life Changes, Michelle Hiskey, Reinvention, Self-Help, Self-improvement, Transformation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

For Decatur’s Intown Hardware, family and creativity will survive Wal-Mart

Date: April 23rd, 2012, 7:15 pm

When big-box Wal-Mart announced plans to move into indie-minded Decatur, neighbors mobilized protests.

A legal campaign began. Anti-Wal-Mart yard signs popped up. Across the road from the planned development, Tony Powers keeps the keen eye and taste that has made his family business – Intown Ace Hardware – survive and succeed.

As the world gets more homogeneous, his answer is a more diverse identity. His store’s evolving eclecticism mirrors the funky flowering of Decatur itself.
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Common ground with the homeless raised as Easter approaches

Date: April 2nd, 2012, 7:00 am

Regardless of religion, we all are equaled through humbling moments.

The Palm Sunday service at the Church of the Common Ground in Woodruff Park repeatedly chipped at the gap between the homeless worshippers and those who were much better .

Staring into a street person’s face to see the face of Christ is a stark discovery of one’s own neediness – for status, approval and fleeting comforts.
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Posted in Atlanta, Inspiration, Life Changes, Michelle Hiskey, Reinvention, Saporta, Transformation | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Off the rollercoaster, Ben Dempsey loses 165 pounds

Date: January 30th, 2012, 7:09 pm

Ben Dempsey says of his lifelong battle against overeating,

“I had done all kinds of strange diets, like eating tofu straight for six weeks, but when I lost 30 pounds, I would gain 40. At the rate I was going, I would have weighed 420 pounds today.”

From his work in physical therapy, he knew change was possible if he could just slip that elusive mental switch. Continue reading →

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Atlanta Falcons, young dancers score points on sheer resolve

Date: December 26th, 2011, 4:55 pm

The work ethic and energy of the dancers from Moving in the Spirit is remarkable.

Every day they are moving against the tide of childhood obesity, too common in poorer neighborhoods. Their personal work ethic contrasts to the cheating educators in the Atlanta Public Schools, where many of these dancers learn.

Their Holiday Store helps teach them financial literacy and credit lessons that too few of us grasp.
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