My Life
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Answers as Questions, Auditions as Learning Experiences
An Indy Intern Tries Out for Jeopardy! in Santa Maria
An Indy intern tries out for Jeopardy!, leaves with a story and a key chain. Read story.
Rival Gang Members Join Together in Peace
Turning Pain into Hope
Aqeela Sherrills and Calvin Hodges grew up on opposite sides of the tracks during the bloody gang conflicts of the Watts neighborhood in south L.A. Aqeela was a member of the Crips gang and Calvin was a member of the Bloods. They now both work for peace and reconciliation in Watts at the Community Self-Determination Institute (CSDI). Read story.
Volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans
Back to New Orleans
I’d been back to New Orleans since Katrina, for the first post-Katrina JazzFest, the festival that, over a decade’s worth of years, had endeared the city to me. Read story.
Back Home Again
An Evacuee Tells Her Story
An evacuee tells her emotionally draining experience of being put out of her home. Read story.
Wheels of Hope
Bicycles Provide Rwandans with Transportation to Move Harvests
Heart rate through the roof, lungs burning, pedal stroke erratic. Read story.
Rape Survivor Overcomes Trauma
A Tale of Trust
I was raped in the fall. I was 17. He was my first boyfriend. Read story.
Mustache March Rocks Santa Barbara
KJEE DJs Grow Mustaches to Support MS Drive
"This gives us a really fun reason to get behind a great cause," said Jenny. Read story.
White Christmas
I Went Back East to Find A White Christmas, and This is What I Found...
The old Bing Crosby movie is cheesy, but who among us hasn’t dreamed of being in the midst of one of those Nineteenth Century Victorian Christmas card scenes? Read story.
Is Aunt Edna Worth a Sweater?
Families You’re Born Into, Families You Create, and What They Mean
Families you’re born into, families you create, and what they mean. Read story.
Ode to Kathryn Bailard and Elizabeth Drouin
Light in the Darkness
Death and the holidays don’t mix. I imagine death and her cool shadow thriving in the doldrums of January or in April, during tax season, but she should leave the holidays to the living. As the calendar flips over to November and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” takes over the radio, my thoughts usually start simmering with images of big family dinners, thoughtful gifts, too much chocolate, and great conversations with friends. Read story.
A Thanksgiving Tale
Free Avocados and a Turkey Heist
Last Thanksgiving, I didn’t have anyone to hang out with. There I was, all alone, with a borrowed car and a bottle of Popov Read story.
Baja Tales
Lobsters, Tollbooths, and a 50-Foot Jesus
Every weekend, thousands of fun-seeking Americans flood across the Mexican border into Baja, California. Some are underage college students wanting to go to bars and clubs. Others are surfers intent on exploring the many surfable nooks and crannies the Baja coast has to offer. Read story.
How the Health Insurance Crisis is Ruining Antiques Roadshow
Heirloom Deflation
I went through a phase where I just loved to watch Antiques Roadshow. I find it peppy and soothing, predictable and amazing, a wonderful amalgamation of historic America and middle America, naiveté and expertise, innocence and greed. Read story.
Coming Out and Going Straight
Gay, Proud, and Partying
While coming out of the closet is never a particularly fun activity, doing so when one is the only child of conservative, fundamentalist Christians from Orange County is, well, less fun. After enduring a few weeks of less-than-supportive comments from my dad and watching my mom struggle to make sense of her feelings, I made a mixed CD of songs that would keep me cheerful and convinced that coming out was the right thing to do and that loving my girlfriend, Jackie, was a-okay in the grand scheme of things. Read story.
Surviving the Suicide of a Daughter and a Niece
Life Forever Changed
My name is Sally. I’m a suicide survivor — two times. I lost both my daughter Linda and my niece Stephanie to suicide. Linda killed herself by jumping from the seventh-floor balcony of her apartment. She was 45. Stephanie ingested a lethal combination of alcohol and prescription drugs. She was 32. Read story.
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