Lula’s Tavern was recommended to me from the very beginning by my friend’s husband who is a Moberly native. Moberly is not a tiny town compared to Missouri standards, population roughly around 13,700, but Lula’s fit the requirement nevertheless. Upon research of this place, the words “warm beer and lousy service” kept appearing in contrast to it’s high ratings and outstanding comments. What was going on?
Written for Vox Magazine‘s Tiny Town Tastes blog series. Read all about Lula’s here.
Buckingham Smokehouse Bar-B-Q Owner Mark Brown, 62, did not grow up dreaming of owning a barbecue restaurant. He opened the restaurant out of desperation.
Brown spent 20 years on the road, driving tour buses for some of the biggest bands and musicians of the century — and has tour passes, five platinum albums and stacks of memorabilia to prove it. Starting with a gig for the Ozark Mountain Daredevils from 1976-79, Brown, 23 at the time, grew up with a few of the members in Springfield. The band took him along to be a part of the stage crew.
“I never asked for the job,” Brown said. “The phone rang one night, and before I knew it, I was on my way to L.A.”
Written for the Columbia Daily Tribune. Find the full article here.
Do you know what ocean acidification is? I didn’t.
Tonight, I attended a lecture by National Geographic environmental writer, Craig Welch. Welch wrote “Sea Change,” a Seattle Times story about ocean acidification that drastically affects marine life and communities from Southeast Asia to the Pacific Northwest. I learned that people react to ocean acidification, which is elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the ocean, more than they do to climate change, which is the same thing but in the atmosphere.
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Photo by Daniel Brenner
Kelsey Monroe’s third-graders were engaged March 18 at Midway Heights Elementary School. The topic was food, specifically spinach. Yes, spinach, the vegetable that makes Popeye big and strong. Except this spinach didn’t come from a can.
How do you write about poverty?
How do you write about addiction?
It’s not easy.
When I met Latashia, she wasn’t ready to interview. She just came home from Alabama, a place that held not-so-happy memories for her, after visiting a sick grandmother. For the past seven years, Columbia has been her safe haven. Revisiting the physical location of her past shook her present world, and she wasn’t ready to tell her story when I first came to speak to her.
That was fine. I’ll be patient.
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