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| Tuesday, December 27, 2011 |
| From radar to witchin' rods |
By Tony Gonzalez
The Tennesssean
John Lodl often heard Rutherford County’s old-timers talk of the divining rods, swearing by their eerie movements as proof positive of bodies buried below.
No headstone, no matter, they said. In the hands of the right person, the wavering of the rods could say more about a cemetery than the aged records that Lodl, bearded and bespectacled but youthful at 37, oversees in the local archives.
One day last winter, Lodl went from skeptical to startled.
In a secluded cemetery in Eagleville, he watched a woman balance a pair of plain old coat hangers on her fingers and walk the field.
“Sure enough, when you cross over a grave, those things cross,” Lodl said. “I can’t explain it. But it works.”
He’s not the only county staffer believing.
Dowsing — also known as witching or doodlebugging — has gained an unlikely following in the technology wing of the county’s historic courthouse. There, a crew better known for digital mapping and laser-guided land surveys finds itself blending those high-tech tools with folkways to find and document the county’s lost cemeteries.
Read the full story at Tennessean.com.Labels: Tennessean
by Tony Gonzalez @
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| Thursday, December 01, 2011 |
| The Story of Black Friday (in tweets) |
By Tony Gonzalez
The Tennesssean
They stood, they waited — and before the clock struck midnight — they tweeted.
Sure, the Twitter one-liners included the obvious exclamations about the long lines and cold fingers endured waiting for door-busting Black Friday sales.
But it was often the offbeat and unconventional that put the furious typing thumbs of Nashville’s social media world into motion on the year’s bhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifiggest shopping day: topless male models at clothing stores, piles of coupons strewn about the sidewalks and spiffy maps handed to shoppers inside Target.
Few details were too small to share.
Waiting in line outside Walmart, Nashville Twitter user @kali4nyaaa looked down at the jar of sugary Nutella balanced between her knees and made the inevitable decision. She snapped a photo and put out her dispatch: “What I’m eating in line … hahaha!”
Read the full story and view a Storify presentation at Tennessean.com.Labels: Black Friday, feature, offbeat, social media, Storify, Tennessean
by Tony Gonzalez @
: comments: 0
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| Saturday, November 19, 2011 |
| Disney fans find fairytale deals at Middle Tennessee outlet stores |
By Tony Gonzalez
The Tennesssean
MURFREESBORO — In the next two weeks, Sharayah Wells will tally another trip from La Vergne to Disney World, where the 25-year-old dresses as Snow White before gliding into the theme park with her son.
Once inside, Wells plans to meet other fans of animated fairy tales and trade collectible lapel pins shaped like Mickey Mouse, Tinker Bell and the Mad Hatter. On casual days, she’ll wear one of at least 100 Disney T-shirts she owns, walking through the park in her one-of-a-kind Disney character shoes, hand-painted by her sister.
Wells is among the true believers in Disney, and one of hundreds all over the world who feed their collections — and their obsessions — with visits to Middle Tennessee. The Character Depot off Interstate 24 in Murfreesboro is one of two remaining Disney merchandise stores in the area and a half-dozen discount outlets nationwide. It touts deep discounts and rotating offerings that keep ‘em coming back throughout its two-month holiday stint, which ends Jan. 1.
Wells visited this week, looking over T-shirts, but didn’t buy. She said she won’t resist for long.
“I feel they find me,” Wells said. “That’s kind of nerdy, but I’m OK with it.”
This story is archived at he Tennessean.com.Labels: Disney, Murfreesboro, Tennessean
by Tony Gonzalez @
: comments: 0
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| Monday, November 07, 2011 |
| Neglected in first years of life, girl opens heart to new family |
By Tony Gonzalez
The Tennesssean
WILSON COUNTY — Sitting cross-legged in the back laundry room of her family’s farmhouse, 13-year-old Dani Lierow let her father tie her shoes. As Bernie looped the laces, she tilted her head and stared intently into his face.
Then she reached a hand up and touched his speckled gray beard.
The gesture, exploratory and affectionate, might be commonplace in many homes. But it was never expected in theirs.
“That was one of the things they never thought she’d do,” Bernie said. “Get close to somebody.”
When he and his wife, Diane, first met Dani in foster care in Florida in 2006, she still wore diapers even though she was 8 years old. She hit and bit herself and never made eye contact.
It had been a year since police rescued her from a tiny, roach-infested room in Florida. She had survived her first seven years confined there by her birth mother, cut off from other human contact.
Damaged and badly delayed in her development, Dani drew national attention after a Pulitzer Prize-winning story in the St. Petersburg Times thrust her unique challenges and adoption onto the national stage. Everyone from Oprah to Anderson Cooper came calling. Those who heard her story were inspired to cry, to adopt and to take a more vigilant approach toward neglected children.
Soon after Bernie, Diane and their biological son, William, adopted her into their family, the drama moved to Middle Tennessee, where the Lierows had lived before they moved to Florida. They restored a 1920s farmhouse at the eastern edge of Wilson County. They found a summer camp, a horse stable and other programs to help meet Dani’s needs.
Read the full story at Tennessean.com.Labels: feature, Tennessean
by Tony Gonzalez @
: comments: 0
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| Sunday, September 04, 2011 |
| To help refugees, Smyrna teachers get creative |
By Tony Gonzalez
The Tennesssean
SMYRNA — In the refugee camps where she grew up in Thailand, Shee Ku walked through the jungle to sit in dirt-floor classrooms where teachers punished mistakes with physical force.
At Smyrna High School, where she enrolled in 2007, teachers were kinder, but Shee Ku felt intimidated in new ways.
She simply didn’t understand anything in class. She’d never seen a calculator or a computer, and common American concepts tripped her up on exams.
Shee Ku’s people, a group known as the Karen, escaped oppression by the military in Myanmar — formerly known as Burma — by moving to camps and eventually to the United States.
Dozens of Karen families began arriving in Rutherford County in 2007, challenging the local schools in ways faced by few other Middle Tennessee districts outside Nashville. Confronted with teenagers who could not read or write in any language, who could not add or subtract, who in some cases had never been to a school at all, educators had to invent new ways to help students learn.
For the first Karen arrivals in ninth grade, teachers had just four years to make it happen.Labels: education, Tennessean
by Tony Gonzalez @
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| Monday, August 22, 2011 |
| Slow ride |
By Tony Gonzalez
The Tennesssean
EAGLEVILLE — Golf carts may be leisurely, low-speed rides, but cart enthusiasts in this farming town an hour south of Nashville want to fast-track a new ordinance to allow them to drive on city streets.
They’re so eager, in fact, that the two-man police department recently issued a warning in bright red text on its website: “Carts are not yet legal to drive on roadways or sides of roadways. This is for your safety.”
But for those who already decked out their golf carts with “street-legal” necessities, including brake lights, seat belts and mirrors, the freedom of the road has been hard to resist.
“They’re just as convenient as the dickens,” said Councilman Andy Soapes, who rides his cart to the fishing pond, to the farm co-op three doors down and to the mailbox at the end of the driveway.Labels: news feature, Tennessean
by Tony Gonzalez @
: comments: 0
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| Tuesday, August 09, 2011 |
| Semis, cars vie for pavement |
By Tony Gonzalez
The Tennesssean
CHRISTIANA — In his 16 years behind the wheel of a big rig, trucker Clint Massey has seen traffic more than double on Interstate 24, the highway he drives across the region twice weekly.
Regional truck traffic will double again in the coming two decades, projections say, adding to the kind of truck-heavy congestion that intimidates commuters and leaves drivers like Massey in a bind when seeking a place to rest.
Truck stops fill by nightfall, he said, often forcing truckers back onto the highway to again test their stamina in search of another place to stop.
“Out here, we make a mistake, people lose their lives,” Massey, 54, said as he refueled at the Shell truck stop at exit 89 on I-24 south of Murfreesboro. “That’s why we need places like this, where we can rest.”Labels: Tennessean, transportation
by Tony Gonzalez @
: comments: 0
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