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For working parents, new childcare solutions sprout like Bean

by Michelle Hiskey

Amid the Presidential debate chatter of workplace inequality and “binders full of women” catchphrase is the real bind that working parents find themselves in every day: how to succeed at work and childcare.

Adela Yelton is in the middle of that daily juggle herself as an entrepreneur serving working families. Her business is a novel answer to that need for working families. Bean Work Play Café near the Agnes Scott area of Decatur offers a portal into how these moms and dads are making ends meet, and seeking more flexibility, in the Great Recession.

At Bean, a parent can plug in down the hall from the childcare area. No rush to leave the office to beat traffic and late pick-up fees. Since Bean opened in March 2011, and began offering a flexible preschool a few months ago, about 200 “co-working” families have dropped in.

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Barbecue boss leaves blueprint for leadership

by Michelle Hiskey

Paul H. Taylor was one of those people who spark the best in a community, and kept that spirit lit. With the Oak Grove United Methodist Barbecue, the Taylor fire is real and smokin’.

For a half-century, this big church in northeast Atlanta has roasted three tons of pork to feed 5,000 people, which takes between 400 and 600 volunteers.

An event so large and significant needs a strong volunteer leader. For the past decade, Taylor served as “Boss Hog.”

Taylor will be missed at Saturday’s 51st barbecue, which takes place from 11 am to 6 pm. He died at age 53 in an April bicycle accident on North Decatur Road. His untimely death highlighted all that Taylor contributed to the barbecue, which serves as a template for anyone in management.

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Cutting experts at Georgia Archives severs our access to history

by Michelle Hiskey

Threats to close the Georgia Archives put all of us at risk of losing access to critical records – and people.

Now more than ever, skilled information diggers, collectors and guides are needed to verify the story that begins where memory and Google end. Like blacksmiths were in the early days of the automobile, the work of archivists has transformed in the information age. They’ve grown more indispensable to saving what is easily lost and finding what cannot be replaced.

While the governor pledged last week to keep the Archives from closing, seven archivists on its staff face their jobs ending Nov. 1. Their peers around the state rallied last week at the Georgia Capitol to tell legislators how important this repository and its keepers are to all of us. Supporters also collected 10,000 signatures on a petition given to the governor.

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Investment in education vital for Atlanta’s pioneering Hall-Long family

by Michelle Hiskey

A thoughtful, private decision can change the course of a family forever.

For the Hall-Long family, known for breaking racial and social barriers in Atlanta, one major decision steered them irrevocably from agricultural roots in Rockdale County to the frontline of civil rights. Their field was education, and their specialty was pioneering.

Annette Lucille Hall, who desegregated Georgia State University, was the first-born of ten. Her closest sister, Rubye, married Ralph Abbott Long. At one point, the Longs and Halls counted 37 family members as teachers in Atlanta Public School System.

“Education is our family business,” said Susan Freeman, a granddaughter of Alonza and Fannie who is principal of McNair High School. “You could not go to a family gathering and not hear about it. You couldn’t escape it. It was innate.”

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With service in their marrow, metro teacher gets transplant from British student

by Michelle Hiskey

“Everything is hard the first time,” Asa Valente tells her fourth graders at Berkeley Lake Elementary in Duluth. “Don’t get discouraged. Hold yourself up and keep trying.”

The lives she touches there were in the balance as Valente battled acute lymphoblastic leukemia. To stay in the classroom as a vibrant, inspired teacher, Valente needed a stem cell transplant. This forced her to live out what she had been teaching her students, and put her lin the path of a stranger 4,200 miles away who was using education to help people survive.

A few days before Valente and her stem cell donor met in Atlanta, national TV anchor (and former Atlantan) Robin Roberts highlighted stem cell transplants by receiving one from her sister.

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Of dogs, loyalty and Chipper Jones

by Michelle Hiskey

Diezel is 9, which in dog years is 63, but the Boston terrier didn’t look or act his age Sunday night at Turner Field.

He was rocking a red and blue fur mohawk during the divine canine evening known as Bark in the Park, when dogs take over the nosebleed seats.

At this point in this season, this night was really loyalty – pure and bittersweet. This month will mark the farewell of third baseman Chipper Jones, after a Braves career that began with the 1990 amateur draft.

Chipper is that blue-moon pro athlete who performs so well for so long in the same place. Our dogs don’t stay with us very long, either.

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Jeff Galloway: For health and success, schedule frequent breaks — and there’s an app for that

by Michelle Hiskey

Traffic alert: On Thursday at 7 pm, 16,000 people will run and walk 3.1 miles of closed streets in downtown Atlanta.

Jeff Galloway started this annual event — now called the Kaiser Permanente Corporate Run/Walk and Fitness Program — 30 years ago. Its growth paralleled that of Galloway’s path from elite runner to widely-traveled motivational speaker and corporate coach.

After the 1972 Olympics and winning the first Peachtree Road Races, Galloway’s reach and impact widened as he focused on the deceptively simple key to running and achieving any long-range goal.

Pacing.

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From a straight Young Republican to a gay Democrat delegate

by Michelle Hiskey

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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Move over, big profit Amazon. Make room for Little Free Libraries.

by Michelle Hiskey

A computer will forever spit out a list of “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought….”

But for those of us who want books that tell us stories about our neighbors’ tastes and experiences, and bring us into conversation and community, here’s a recommendation: Little Free Libraries.

Resembling large birdhouses, the Little Free Libraries are weatherproof cabinets with a couple of dozen books inside. Borrow one, read it, bring it back, or bring another. No cards, no fines.

It’s the charm of yard art, the wonder of a message in a bottle, sprinkled with the spell cast by a deft writer.

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Broken cell phone, local lifeline and the powerful need to connect

by Michelle Hiskey

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.

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With island help, Atlanta family tastes success with a Sea View and pimento cheese

by Michelle Hiskey

Pawleys Island, SC

Brian and Sassy Henry say they left Atlanta ten years ago because they didn’t like how competitive everyday life had become. Simply getting a parking space was a hassle. They didn’t want to raise their daughters (ages 1 and 3) at such a fast, crowded pace. One day in 2002, they took off.

“We literally left like thieves in the night,” said Sassy Henry, who grew up near Chastain Park and went to Lovett School. “We had nothing but what was in our car, and when we got to the island, we slept on mattresses for three weeks.”

To restore their balance, they took on a big restoration project 350 miles east: an icon of South Carolina’s Low Country, the rustic Sea View Inn.

Now in its 75th year, and the only inn on Pawleys Island, the Sea View is where generations of families have vacationed, eating family-style meals in the dining room, unplugging how the rat race and pace conditions us over time. The the inn, the couple and their line of gourmet pimento cheese (Palmetto Cheese) have followed a similar recipe for success: Blend the new and old to make the new better.

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Word power stokes Jenny Munn’s success and our search engines

by Michelle Hiskey

When Jenny Munn worked at the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, she traveled to Latin America to persuade people and companies to visit Atlanta. Her message relied on her fluency in Spanish.

Today she’s 31 and no longer needs a passport for the global reach of her language skills. Her expert fluency these days is in search engine optimization (SEO) – the way we find what we are looking for on the Internet, and how businesses use our word patterns to connect with us.

“SEO does have its own language, with basics that you need to understand to become more fluent in it,” said Munn, a native Atlantan who went to Lassiter High School and University of Georgia. “Once you get the ‘code,’ you can break down the barriers.”

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Would Jesus vote yes on the T-SPLOST?

by Michelle Hiskey

A conversation with Rhodes Scholar Katharine K. Wilkinson, 29, provoked this question as related to her recent book, “Between God & Green: How Evangelicals are Cultivating a Middle Ground on Climate Change” (Oxford University Press).

While the issue of climate change is global, and her book focuses on national politics, Atlanta is where Wilkinson started to become aware of the vast natural resources in the Appalachian foothills and beyond.

Only much later did Wilkinson, an agnostic, begin the see the power and numbers of the people in Atlanta and beyond who call themselves evangelical Christians.

“If you understand American evangelical Christianity, representing at least a quarter of the U.S. population, as the politically and theologically complex, fractious, and ultimately mainstream phenomenon that it is, then you’ll appreciate the nuance and sensitivity with which Katharine Wilkinson navigates her subject,” said a Boston Globe reviewer. “Wilkinson tells a vitally important, even subversive, story.”

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Restoration after rats requires Melton’s strong will

by Michelle Hiskey

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

by Michelle Hiskey

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 Atlanta Vietnam vets, serving hot dogs at USO a strong link to today’s troops

by Michelle Hiskey

Several times a day, military troops walk single file through Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, Atlanta’s crossroads with the world. As they parade through the heart of the airport – the airy atrium – travelers applaud and cheer. Here, the national spirit so often confined to July 4 is demonstrated every day.

On the mezzanine twice a month, the troops stop in for hot dogs and chili fixed by a group of Vietnam veterans from Atlanta. Along with America’s quintessential fast food, the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association (AVVBA) serves up something they wish they had enjoyed: public support.

The crossroads for both generations is the Jean R. Amos USO, which every day in Atlanta welcomes in a morning plane full of 240 troops returning home on what is know as “Operation R&R.” Later, volunteers bid farewell to 240 more somber troops returning to their overseas posts.

In a country full of yellow ribbon car magnets and other displays, the USO doesn’t stand alone. But these Atlanta Vietnam veterans recall how USO volunteers have always stood for them, and that’s why they now stand together — with frankfurters however you please.

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For a Roswell girl, Hawaii is a positive state of mind

by Michelle Hiskey

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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In his funkified corner of Atlanta, Romeo Cologne keeps the groove alive

by Michelle Hiskey

Whitney Houston, Robin Gibb, Donna Summer – some of the most danceable, summery voices are gone now. Disco and its imprint on pop music are becoming more distant.

But in a funkified corner of Atlanta every Saturday, the spirits of disco continue to beat through the shows of Atlanta DJ Romeo Cologne.

Last weekend’s gig at the Clermont Lounge extended his run of 17 years of Saturday nights there – about 800 shows — with a regular crowd of 200 to 300 people. When we spoke a few hours before show time, the topic was staying power.

Even disco haters can appreciate this issue: When music anchors our memories, what happens when the musicians are silenced?

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Atlanta’s flag insult shows how Canada forgives, inspires

by Michelle Hiskey

Last weekend, the Atlanta Braves’ home stand once again offered a reminder of one country’s grace and civility in competition – and a story of one Georgia woman’s transformed understanding of that same nation, Canada.

At Turner Field, last weekend served as a paean to Sid Bream’s famous slide that sent the Braves to the 1992 World Series. Their series opponent was back in town — the Toronto Blue Jays, whose fans in 1992 got a chance to show their character when Atlanta botched a basic national symbol: flying a flag.

Imagine that happening the other way around. Granted, at that moment, the post-9/11 patriotic fervor was still a decade away. But would Americans simply let that go as an unintentional slight to Old Glory?

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For prolific Atlanta artist “Mr. Imagination,” sleep was rare

by Michelle Hiskey

The northwest Atlanta home of Gregory Warmack, better known in modern art circles as “Mr. Imagination,” was indeed a portal to a spiritual realm. This was no airy studio with someone dressed all in black. As a self-taught “visionary” artist, Mr. Imagination sculpted his own organic world where even circadian rhythms bowed.

In thick borders around each room and hallway, his layered, meticulously encrusted creations resembled masks, animals and common items like musical instruments. With a collection of things that had already lived once as common objects, he had wired, hammered, plastered and placed them into an extraordinary new life.

A few miles from the headquarters of the world’s most iconic brand – Coca-Cola – Warmack had compelled leading museums to carve out space for the lowly bottle cap.

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