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What it takes to change the rural habit of driving unbelted

I’ve been working on a special project at the paper since mid-November, and it is out today. Joining in on a project begun by reporter Jeff Sturgeon, I was tasked with explaining, in narrative form, the reasons rural Virginians buckle their seat belts less often than other drivers, and the steep cost that changes some of their minds.

The story is told through Alex Havens, a Franklin County man who, in the past few years has gone from habitually ignoring the seat belts to religiously buckling up. But he didn’t learn from the little light on his dashboard, and he didn’t learn from the signs along the road. Those things that have made buckling up routine in many communities go overlooked for many rural drivers — until the potential impact of the seat belts becomes painfully clear.

The story: Traditions, old habits die hard on country roads

Reporting from Nowhere, USA

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I was dispatched to a rural outpost in nearby Franklin County Tuesday when two people were found dead in a car along a back-country road.

penhookPenhook is, in technical terms, a “census-designated place.” That essentially means there are some mailing addresses that include “Penhook, VA,” but it isn’t a town, or a city or even some sort of village. According to a quick Wikipedia search, Penhook consists of 12.6 square miles and 726 people.

On the way, an editor and a reporter here at the paper who are more familiar with Franklin County told me there was a Minute Market there that locals frequented, using as a general store and knowledge center.

After checking to see if police would give me any information at the scene where two people were found shot to death — they wouldn’t at that point — I made my way to the Minute Market, where the clerks probably noticed me while I was still parking my car.

They know their customers, and they probably knew I wasn’t one of them. But they also knew something strange was going on that day, and they weren’t surprised when I told them I was a reporter.

The clerks, who were rightfully disturbed by the violent event that had apparently occurred just down the road from the store, already had an idea what had happened. In fact, they already knew who called 911 and what the caller had seen.

Going to a small town, or a place like Penhook that isn’t even big enough to be a “town,” is an inherently different experience as an outsider. But many rural areas, like this one, will welcome outsiders into the fold if they come bearing some sort of help.

In this case, I was attempting to find out what had happened down the road, just like them.

And it’s general stores and communities like the Minute Market and Penhook that make small towns extremely rewarding to report from.

In larger areas, the magnitude of any one event — even the violent deaths of two people — is diluted by the simple fact that only so many people can feel affected by it. What happened Tuesday night in Penhook — when every person who walked into the store began talking about the shooting — simply doesn’t happen in large communities.

I was standing with the clerks when one of them received a text message. We had heard from the 911 caller that the victims had been found in a metallic Jeep. The clerks and customers had been wracking their brains to come up with an idea of who could be involved. The text message brought the answer.

It was only a rumor at that point, but it spread like wildfire through the night, and it turned out to be true. When the clerks read the message, saw the names of the supposed dead, the light bulbs went on. They drove a metallic Jeep.

And then the pain and disbelief set in. They were regulars, like most customers, and they were local business owners, and they loved their dog, and they were such a nice couple. Everything there was to know, seemingly, was known in this store.

In that rural outpost, everyone is connected. The people feel these connections deeply and when one or two are lost, it resonates.

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Below I’ve got some recommended reading: Stories set in these hyper-connected small communities.

The Hanging by Rich Schapiro, The Atlantic: This great piece is in the new issue of the magazine and debuted this week. Along with my experience, it sparked the idea for this post. This tale, however, shows the part of the story that comes after the big news: When some violent event happens, no one can believe so-and-so would do such a thing. And that’s when you realize that no community, no matter how tightly bound, can completely know and understand a person.

The Ballad of Johnny France by Richard Ben Cramer, Esquire (1985): A classic on a sheriff’s search for two mountain men. (Link is to the excellent Bronx Banter blog.)

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Finally, I have a big piece coming out as part of a special report in tomorrow’s paper. It is also, coincidentally, about rural life. Stay tuned.

Epilogue: Phillip Wellman and The Fake Grenade Toss Heard ‘Round the World

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It was summer while I was in Missouri working for Stry.us. We realized early on that the Springfield Cardinals, the major league team’s Double-A club, was often the best show in town.

I don’t remember exactly how many games we attended before realizing that one of minor league baseball’s icons was right there in the stadium. But somehow, we figured it out.

Now, you don’t become iconic in minor league baseball for superior play. For better or worse, minor league baseball is more often memorable for bizarre team names, or out-of-left-field promotion nights. And on some summer nights, it steals the spotlight with showstopping manager tirades.

The man anonymously coaching the Cardinals’ young hitters, we discovered, was also the man who threw the most famous baseball tantrum of the YouTube-era — Phillip Wellman. I contacted the team and Wellman, who was manager of the Mississippi Braves when he became a viral video legend, agreed to talk to me. And I wrote the story of his life as an anonymous Internet sensation, The Fake Grenade Toss Heard ‘Round the World.

At the time, Wellman was perfectly content to talk about it or taking ribbing from his players, but didn’t have any plans to trumpet his 2007 star turn to the masses any more than necessary.

That is usually SportsCenter’s role, or BuzzFeed’s. But he agreed to a planned cameo for a Super Bowl commercial. He appears in a Volkswagon commercial alongside other viral video stars distinguished by their anger, and the idea is that Volkswagon makes Wellman and the others happy.

So happy they sing together atop a hill on a sunny day.

According to the Springfield News-Leader, Wellman actually owns a Volkswagon and received some payment for the appearance. At least this time, his appearance on TV was intentional.

The ad:

Photo by Dan Oshinsky/Stry.us

When police officers and firefighters face off, the public cheers for firefighters, and other recent news

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The cop beat took me to a hockey arena last week. And considering the number of officers and fire personnel on scene, you’d have assumed there was an explosion.

Instead, they were all off duty. It was the 10th annual hockey game between “guns” and “hoses” for a muscular dystrophy charity organization.

But there was nothing charitable about the rivalry between the two sides. Many of them play in rec leagues year-round, some just to get ready for this game. Pretty fascinating show of camaraderie:

Roanoke County firefighter Kenny Mallock had a large purple bruise under his left eye Friday night, and that was before he took the ice against his former police brethren.

What he calls a friendly rivalry had even been stewing Thursday in a scrimmage for Friday’s 10th annual Guns & Hoses Charity Hockey Game between local firefighters and police officers. Mallock had been in a hockey fight. He said the shiner came from the hit that led to the fight.

Mallock, one of a few players who have switched sides over the decade of playing the game, said he has often been a target since he moved over to the Hoses three years ago.

Read the full story: Guns and Hoses hockey game showcases friendly rivalry

I’ve also had a few other featured stories in the paper in the past couple months. Enjoy a selection of those, and know I’ve got a big piece in the works:

No ‘bad guys’ in SPCA, pound flap

Virginia Tech students dies of injuries sustained in Christmas Day crash

Atheist group’s billboard draw a strong reaction

Reading to remember from 2012

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It is, of course, tremendously difficult to narrow down an entire year in the increasingly vast world of great narrative journalism into a Top 5 list, but I am a sucker for lists, so I did it again this year after enjoying the process last year.

It was meant to be a quick reflection where I just wrote down the most memorable pieces I read this year. When I ended up with 26 stories in a list, I realized my process was probably flawed. But anyway, I managed to narrow it down to my top five and then some honorable mentions. Obviously, these are just the pieces that I read/loved/envied/imagined myself writing. There were many other great pieces I simply haven’t gotten around to reading yet.

My five favorite stories of 2012:

Portrait of the Artist as Postman, By Jason Sheeler, Texas Monthly: The headline and teasers for this story make it interesting enough. But they give nothing away about the head-spinning, gut-wrenching twist that makes it one of the most memorable character explorations I’ve ever seen.

The Honor System, By Chris Jones, Esquire: Perhaps the best part about this story is that it, in itself, participates in some misdirection. Until the end, when it asks you to open your eyes — if you really want to.

Marathon Man, By Mark Singer, The New Yorker: A story that gradually morphs from a mystery into a psychological study, with the marathon looming as the societal symbol of striving. “The marathon, no matter where it takes place, remains, as ever, a solitary pursuit in which every runner ultimately competes against himself or herself.”

The Norway Massacre Story, By Sean Flynn, GQ: There are few truly definitive stories of any given event these days (look no further than GQ and Esquire’s dueling coverage of the Zanesville animal escape). Flynn’s story is the story of this horrific tragedy. With the fate of nearly every character on that island in jeopardy, the story navigates the terror of the shootings with both a compelling sense of drama and a compassionate eye toward the victims.

The Yankee Commandante, By David Grann, The New Yorker: It’s becoming unfair at this point — very few writers can pull off this type of epic historical yarn. Within the context of a story that has a well-known ending, Grann finds a fresh, original story that stands strong on its own.

Honorable mentions:

The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis, By Patrick Hruby, ESPN: A great story that is a revelation because of the design. If this is how stories can look on the Web, there are great things ahead.

The Consequences of Caring, By Bill Simmons, Grantland: A revelation from Bill Simmons as he continues to narrate the lives of sports fans — capturing the power sports hold in our lives even though they are just games.

We Are Alive, By David Remnick, The New Yorker: A rare glimpse into Bruce Springsteen, in a year where he somehow stole even more of the music spotlight a decade after his creative resurgence.

Malice at the Palace, By Jonathan Abrams, Grantland: Oral histories, especially those written by Abrams, made for some seriously good reading this year. Look forward to more of these tremendously detailed accounts.

Big Med, By Atul Gawande, The New Yorker: Gawande takes the nebulous world of medicine and gives people a parallel they can understand as he discusses how to improve medical efficiency. The parallel? The Cheesecake Factory.

I wrote a story about a resilient boy’s trip to Sesame Street

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Kenji Knight, a 2-year-old who has overcome dwarfism and the Japanese earthquake disaster, got to meet some of his favorite TV characters last night. When Sesame Street Live came to the area, he was in line early to meet some of the characters and play some games.

Waiting in his mother’s arms to meet Elmo and Cookie Monster, Kenji Knight was wearing a red shirt that read, “Hug Me!”

Kenji has taken to Sesame Street as one of his favorite American entertainment options. Born in Japan with a form of dwarfism, he was adopted by Jessica and Kevin Knight during their five-year missionary trip to Japan.

But when the characters appeared before Thursday night’s “Sesame Street Live” show at the Salem Civic Center, the 2-year-old waved his arms, pointing and imploring his mother to keep the furry, adult-sized figures at arm’s length. As he pointed to a much more familiar Elmo doll, Kenji reminded his adoptive mother that the brightly colored characters from the TV show were a bit more intimidating in this setting.

“To him, that’s Elmo with gigantism,” Jessica Knight said.

 

Read the whole story here: Adopted boy meets some friendly giants

I am where I’ve been going

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It’s a difficult thing to realize at the time, but that’s probably a good thing. If we realized it, leaving home for college would sound far more intimidating. It’s not easy and it’s certainly not short. In fact, it begins to feel so normal that it takes more than a few moments to get our bearings when it ends.

And it ended for me last week — the dream state that engulfs early adulthood in a haze of aspirations and plans always set in the future but seemingly never in reality. The constant motion — striving toward colleges, then internships, summer jobs and long-term internships — that takes place mostly in rapid eye movements of hope, it stopped. My eyes were open, I was awake, and I was employed.

I haven’t just landed at The Roanoke Times — I started here as an intern in September — but I’ve been offered my position full-time, so the anxious engines that took me to Virginia Tech, New York and Missouri can rest.

It’s hard to miss the prolonged routes the people of my generation are taking to our first destinations. It took me six months from graduation. Some are going to grad school. Others are working in some less-than-permanent situation, as I was before. And for those of us who were lucky enough to have the support to keep jumping at opportunities, appealing landing places are starting to appear.

For more than four years, we live in a state of limbo between school and temporary jobs and our parents’ homes. And we talk nebulously about “jobs.” Throughout college, the economic situation made our prospects seem more like a mathematical game of survival — a poker tournament of sorts — than a mission to establish the lives we want for ourselves. But then you get there, without counting the miles or seeing the signs or even realizing where “there” is.

It’s not the end — stability doesn’t require you to stop — but it is a checkpoint. A few weeks before I graduated high school, I quit my job at Dunkin’ Donuts. Long before that, I had decided I wanted to write, to work in journalism. It didn’t feel like work.

So when I left that after-school job, which paid for the car I still drive, it was my intention that I would never “work” again. Four years later, that has been the constant goal and the time has paid off. This is where I get to achieve my most basic dream — make a living in journalism — and take a moment to have some new ones.

I interviewed John McCain

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It’s not every day you get face time with a former Presidential candidate. Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican candidate, came to Roanoke to stump for Mitt Romney and the party’s candidate for senator here, George Allen, in the days leading up to Tuesday’s election.

The former candidate visited at the same time former President Bill Clinton was speaking across town, capping off an election season that put Virginia in the spotlight. McCain spoke with me for a few minutes and outlined the strategy for winning Virginia again, after losing it in 2008 for the first time since the 1960s.

Of course, we now know it didn’t work, but it was still an exciting taste of political reporting that landed on the front page of the Sunday paper.

Read the whole story here: Clinton, McCain stump for party allies

Recommended reading — Nov. 2

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There are lots of important things to read this week, mainly because of the ever-present decision facing America: What beer to buy. Ok, so that isn’t exactly the choice most people are thinking about, but it was a great read from Bloomberg Businessweek among my recommended reading for this week.

The Plot to Destroy America’s Beer, Bloomberg Businessweek: Chances are you drink one of AB InBev’s beer brands, and probably associate it with a certain culture or nation or recipe. Budweiser is America’s traditional lager based in St. Louis. Beck’s is authentic German. Stella Artois is a Belgian mainstay. All of those assumptions used to be true, but the business of becoming the world’s biggest beer seller has changed some things.

What superstorm Sandy says about how the US handles crises, The Guardian: A terrific insight on the country’s reaction to the storm that struck the northeast, and how we behave so differently in the political arena.

It’s Global Warming, Stupid, Bloomberg Businessweek: The boldest, and perhaps most necessary reaction to Sandy was Businessweek’s cover story. It expressed a sentiment that hasn’t been central to the election, but later brought magazine owner and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to endorse President Barack Obama.

And with that, the election section:

Elect Obama: Barack Obama is a Great President. Yes, Great. by Jonathan Chait, New York

Elect Romney: The Choice, by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post

It doesn’t matter who we elect: This is the least consequential election in years, by Andres Martinez, Quartz

I covered a homicide-suicide in Roanoke

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Over the past week I’ve been writing about an incident where police say a man killed his ex-girlfriend and then himself. Family members of the victim told me it was an abusive relationship that persisted because of a living situation even after the romantic relationship ended.

Read the story: Roanoke mother sought escape from abusive relationship