In today’s world, with our steady stream of negative news, self-promotion, and verbal and physical attacks, meeting a man like Lee Estes is heartening. Humble and unassuming, he is an example of good deeds rewarded. As he stands in his driveway, shakes his head, and smiles, it is clear he’s still not used to seeing his 15-story likeness a few blocks away. The Nations is fast becoming a neighborhood of hip bars
On August 21, 2017, the first coast to coast total solar eclipse in 99 years will sweep across the country. Most people will see only a partial eclipse – the moon will appear to take a bite out of the sun – an amazing show on its own. The twelve million people lucky enough to be situated along the 50-70 mile band of totality will view, according to Roger Senechal,
I am trying to imagine this striking young woman hiding inside a Jimmy the Gourd costume. As a cast member of Veggie Tales, the animated show offering kind and helpful lessons to children, Katie Talbot pulled on a large orange suit with a backpack connected to it. Depressing a button on the backpack, the suit expanded many times, much like a hoop skirt. While singing and dancing to the
Daily dose of gelato in hand, I meander through the back alleys and narrow streets of Florence’s Oltrarno quarter. A few blocks from the Arno River, away from tourists and crowds, lies a quiet neighborhood of Florentine artists. Peering into the artisan workshops and studios, you discover a rich part of Florence’s culture and history. Bookbinders, silversmiths, paper marblers, sculptors, marble craftsmen, perfume makers, potters, shoemakers, metal workers. Some of these craftspersons apprenticed under a master or studied with an instructor. Many are members of artisan families, and the skills and practices were handed down through the generations.
Adam Schallau greeted me with more cheeriness than I could muster at 4:45 AM. “You get up and moving and a story unfolds,” he smiled. As we headed down dark trails to a ledge a mile above the Colorado River, I realized how much I would learn from one of the Southwest’s premier landscape photographers. I watched Adam track the moon and the clouds, and he saw changes in the
“You have no chance of scoring if you don’t take the shot.” Operating on the premise that you have to start somewhere, Victoria Kopyar almost seems to welcome mistakes and problems. Known as someone who relishes the chance to reimagine or reinvent, Victoria “jumped in with both hands and feet” to improve the look of her golf game. Growing up in Ohio, Victoria loved pretty clothes and couldn’t always afford
Susan McVicker and Katie Gilliam describe their chance meeting as a God thing. With a mother-daughter age difference, they both marvel at the timing of their worlds coming together and the adventure that unfolded. Susan says she “couldn’t possibly have imagined that her art would someday help women on the other side of the world.” Four years ago Susan came across a dilapidated shoe box filled with her late grandfather’s
Around the world, we discard one million plastic bags every single minute. We use, on the average, a bag for 25 minutes, and it takes 100-500 years for the bag to decompose. Our plastic trash, disposed of on land, flows from streams to rivers to the oceans. An ocean gyre is a system of ocean and wind currents, swirling like a whirlpool. The trash is drawn into the calm center
Give Lynn Lesher a challenge, and she’s happy. Problems delight her, and routines bore her to tears. She describes herself as “a domestic AND an intellect.” She has found a way to employ both tendencies while working alongside some of Nashville’s biggest country music stars. Twenty years ago, Lynn decided she was tired of offices and the corporate world. “I literally just quit one day,” she says, sounding like it still surprises her. While
I hesitate, wondering if I am headed in the right direction. Following my instructions, I turn down a deserted alley, made more gloomy and lonely by the heavy San Francisco rain and gray January morning. The alley consists of back doors and fire escapes and garbage dumpsters and Chinese signs. I come upon one tiny English sign and smile – I am in the right place. The Golden Gate Fortune
