New Morells music! From left, Lou Whitney, D. Clinton Thompson, Ron Gremp and Maralie. Photo taken in Columbia, MO.
Musical archeologist and retired mapmaker Glenn Steinkamp first heard the Morells in 1980. The Morells-Skeletons were one of the great American rock-punk-soul-country bands of that era.
They were based out of Springfield, Mo. They are featured on a beautiful mural in downtown Springfield. They made such an impression on me that we had to make a full-length documentary on them.
The Morells radiated the joy that everyone is searching for today.
In 1982 the Morells released [...]
COLUMBUS, OHIO—The mid-century modern breeze of Columbus makes for one of my favorite tropical getaways.
Part of that comes from the fact I spent time as a kid on North Star Road in the suburb of Upper Arlington. Summer nights were long and songs were short. There were wide-eyed trips to the since-razed Kahiki Polynesian Supper Club, an architectural and cultural classic of tiki life.
And beyond the horizon, there was the South Wind Motel, a place I had not heard about until I visited Columbus over the summer.
The South Wind opened in 1959 at 919 S. High St. in the German Village section of Columbus. It went through some funky times [...]
A hand-carved baseball bat sits atop a bookshelf in my office. It was made by the Birmingham Black Barons first baseman Lyman Bostock, Sr. The bat is beautifully finished and lacquered. Bostock’s name is wood burned into the bat with the title “Negro League Legends.” The bat is 36 inches long but it covers miles of distinguished memories.
It is a magic wand.
I purchased the folk art from Bostock in 1994 when the Chicago Sun-Times sent me to Birmingham, AL. to trail Michael Jordan playing minor league baseball for a few days. I was privileged to have many meaningful assignments at the newspaper. This remains near the top of the list. Meeting Bostock was more [...]
The Virginia Press Association (VPA) asked me to be the keynote speaker at their annual conference and awards banquet, held May 4 at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville, VA. This year’s theme was “Beyond the Fold (Navigating Tomorrow’s News Landscape).”The association was founded in 1881 by the Virginia General Assembly. Current VPA Executive Director Betsy Edwards liked the hopeful tones of my book “Beacons in the Darkness (Hope and Transformation Among America’s Community Newspapers).”
By request here is a lightly edited version of my 40-minute talk. Post-conference updates are denoted by ***. Enjoy.
No place is a place until things are [...]
