Category: Features

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Features

The Iconic, Pint-Sized No. 22,186

(Linda Zhao)

What is one of the most iconic American product designs of all time, that is simple in design, affordable, practical, indestructible, and pint-sized? Here are some clues: It’s a kitchen item celebrated by florists for its versatility, beloved by brides for its nod to Southern charm, and used by both beachgoers on the Alabama Riviera and foodies in Brooklyn bars. It would be easy to overlook Patent No. 22,186, but we should respect and remember the profound impact the Ball Mason jar has had on our culture.

The history of the Ball Mason jar is a fascinating story of five brothers who saw a need in their country for a safe way to preserve foods and, by using their abilities, changed the family meal and lives forever. A pint-sized history lesson reveals that John Landis Mason first patented the glass jar in 1857, but the Ball Brothers Manufacturing Glass Company licensed the Mason jar and in the process made the Ball Mason Jar one of the most iconic product designs of all time. For three centuries—through challenges and opportunities, economic prosperity and financial trials, disappointments and successes—the company has endured.  And, furthermore, there has been only one trademark etched on the bottom of each jar, “Made in the U.S.A.”

Ironically, the Ball Mason jar, which was once viewed only as a primary kitchen product, is now more at home at weddings, bars, and chic events than on a pantry shelf. Pretty flower bouquets, perfumed candles, organic salads, and iced tea are placed inside the jars much more often than the expected canned fruits and vegetables.

An increased emphasis on environmental and economic issues related to healthy food production has created a resurgence of interest in canning, which promotes the original intent of the jars. Google “Popularity of home canning” to find numerous statistical facts supporting this claim. Only in recent years have I started canning, so I’m part of the data verifying the Ball Mason jar’s current “in vogue” status.

Canning may be making a huge comeback, but homemade jellies, jams, pickles, string beans, and tomatoes have always been part of the DNA of generations of women in my family who were like the industrious Little Red Hen of storybook fame: They grew their food, canned their food, and shared their food with others. Grandmother Jaye, who had nine children, probably canned out of necessity. My mom had four girls who loved nothing more than her hot biscuits filled with homemade preserves and jellies—fig, pear, plum, dewberry, scuppernong (a “big white grape”), strawberry, and peach. Many troubles—big and small—found their relief in a piping hot biscuit filled with these goodies.

(Linda Zhao)

After every last spoonful was scraped from the jar, it was washed and stored in a box to be reused the next season. In fact, often jars were passed from one family member to another. A Ball Mason jar is practically indestructible. Think about it: Do they ever chip or break?

The process of canning involved everyone in my family. Whether it was shaking a pear tree to bring down the ripened fruit or picking figs, my sisters and I were in charge of gathering the fruit. During the days of late spring, my sisters and I scoured fence rows or ditches beside roads for dewberry patches. We heeded Mother’s words concerning snakes that found the brambles of the bushes to be their cooling place, for Daddy’s leg bore the long scar of a rattlesnake’s fangs when he was a young boy. We had heard the story many times of how he lay near death’s door for weeks fighting off the poison from this lowly serpent.

As we picked the berries, I repeated the Uncle Remus stories my teacher had read aloud to my class. I tried to retell the tale with the same excitement and cunningness in my voice that Miss Farish used as she read Br’er Rabbit’s plea with Br’er Fox: “Please, don’t fling me in dat brier-patch.”

My sisters and I returned home victorious from our searches, but with fingers pricked by thorns and stained purple from eating more berries than we had placed in the syrup buckets and dishpans we carried. Mother placed the berries in a big pan and smothered them with Domino sugar. A dishtowel was placed on top of the pan for the berries to sit overnight on the table to macerate.

While cooking, Mother stirred and mashed the berries until the juice had thickened enough to coat a spoon. Then Daddy helped Mother strain the seeds and pulp through a large flour sack catching the berry juice in a pan before the Ball Mason jars were submerged for a water bath.

Years later, even my father had learned to can from start to finish. After Mother’s death, Daddy tried to fill her void by being a mother to us. He immersed himself in doing the things she had always done. Daddy, who had never opened a can, was suddenly canning pear and fig preserves.

There are few sights as pretty as sunlight streaming through Ball Mason jars filled with fruits and vegetables floating in their juices. The radiating, translucent shades and hues of colors can never be captured in the many paint samples hanging on a Home Depot wall.

The Ball Brothers story should be included in children’s history books, for their story is one of American greatness. Surprisingly, few students—or even adults—know about their dedication to a dream that became a reality. The spectrum of colors in the filled Ball Mason jars sitting on my kitchen island is as pleasing to the eye as the memories of great Americans, school days, and family times are to the heart. The rainbow of colors in the jars also reminds me of the Bible story of God’s faithfulness to Noah and to future generations of people. That’s something pretty remarkable for a pint-sized jar!

Gwenyth McCorquodale has been teaching since the age of 7, when she taught her three younger sisters the letters of the alphabet. Gwenyth retired from Judson College in Marion, Alabama, where she served as professor of education and head of the department of education. She has written books, articles for national and international journals, and for her hometown newspaper, The Monroe Journal.

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Entrepreneurs Features

Bridging the Divide With BBQ

(Courtesy of Ben Ferguson)

At 31, Ben Ferguson took the perfect job for anyone seeking national influence. A conservative radio host, Ferguson joined CNN’s stable of political contributors in 2013. But seven years of expressing conservative views to a hostile audience, and even to hostile colleagues, became debilitating. “I got exhausted,” Ferguson said. “I just saw the hate and anger every time I’d go on TV that would come from people hoping that you die, and from liberal groups trying to attack you and silence you forever. They really try to ruin your life.”

So Ferguson chose to defuse the anger by building community. He left CNN last year and started a barbecue restaurant in his hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, while continuing his nationally syndicated radio show from Dallas. “I wanted an outlet that was just totally non-confrontational or controversial,” he said. “Food was my outlet to bring people to the table and bring them together.”

But Ferguson’s BBQ has a unique feature. It shares the building with a gun range the host also owns.  “People love it,” he said. “It’s not what you expect when you’re walking into a gun range to have a world-class barbecue restaurant. People are going, ‘Are you kidding me? This is here?’ They keep coming back.”

(Courtesy of Ben Ferguson)

Savory Memories

Ferguson’s desire to open the restaurant reflects the memories of his younger days. “You know, when I lived there, I’ve never once cooked barbecue,” Ferguson said about Memphis. “The best barbecue places in the world are in Memphis, right? Why would you want to barbecue when you can literally just go down the street and eat some of the best barbecue in the world?

“But I missed the traditional Southern pork barbecue: pulled pork, shoulders, ribs and sausage. I got into barbecue because I missed it. I wanted that quality that I got in Memphis, when I could drive to an amazing restaurant and just get it.” His customers seem to agree. “Father’s Day was jam packed,” Ferguson said. “There was a wait list to get into the restaurant. We had our biggest Sunday ever on Father’s Day, which was exactly my goal: to bring families together.”

(Courtesy of Ben Ferguson)

Serving Safety

The gun range, meanwhile, allows residents to receive defensive firearms training in one of the nation’s most dangerous cities. “I wanted to teach as many people as possible how to protect themselves,” Ferguson said. “There are a lot of single mothers in Memphis, and we’ve done a lot of outreach in trying to bring in single mothers so they can protect and defend themselves and their kids in their home. That’s part of our mission statement, our purpose, and it’s worked.”

(Courtesy of Ben Ferguson)

The unique pairing attracts a wide variety of customers. Some conduct Bible studies. Others hold weddings, wedding rehearsals, or funerals. “Every Friday morning, we have a group of men that just hang out with one another, and they have a great time,” Ferguson said “It’s pretty amazing.”

Backseat Beginnings

Ferguson’s journey to radio host and barbeque entrepreneur began “in the backseat of my mom’s car, listening to this new guy on the radio by the name of Rush Limbaugh,” he said. “That was in 1993.” At the time, Ferguson was 11 years old. Later, he heard another host, a liberal member of Memphis’s City Council, talk about a bill being debated in Congress. “I asked my mom if I could call in because I thought what she [the female host] said was wrong and inaccurate,” Ferguson said. “I called and challenged her on it after I got the bill from Congress. She started yelling at me but I was able to beat her with facts. I fell in love with talk radio right then and there.”

Two years later, at 13, Ferguson became the nation’s youngest talk-show host. At 20, he became the youngest to sign a syndication contract. At 23, he wrote his first book, “It’s My America, Too,” and spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention. In 2012, Ferguson moved to Dallas, where he conducts his local and national shows.

A Way to the Heart

But the 39-year-old radio host might be making his biggest impact outside of the studio. “I’ve had liberals who say, ‘Ben, I don’t believe in what you said on the radio. But let me tell you, I went out to your restaurant,’ ” Ferguson said. ” ‘I couldn’t not try it after you’ve been talking about it for the past year, and I ended up taking a permit class. So I just want to say thank you because now, I can protect my family. I really enjoyed your staff and your facility.’ Bridging that gap has been amazing.”

For Ferguson, the way to a potential antagonist’s heart winds through the aroma of sauce and spices. “Anytime you smell barbecue or cook barbecue, it brings people together from different walks of life,” he said. “It doesn’t matter your politics.”

Joseph D’Hippolito is a freelance writer whose commentaries have appeared in the Jerusalem Post, The Stream, Front Page Magazine, and American Thinker.

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Features The Great Outdoors

The Last Frontiersman

roland welker
Roland Welker in Alaska. (Courtesy of Roland Welker)

Roland Welker is as tough as they come. He’s a bushman, fur trapper, big game guide, logger, and survivalist who spends months at a time alone, deep in the wilderness of the western Bush region of Alaska. His tough exterior is evidenced in the dirt embedded deep in his fingertips, his raspy yet animated voice, and his calm and unflappable demeanor as he chops wood, butchers a fresh kill, or builds a shelter. He’s tough, yes, but he’s also incredibly reflective about the outdoors, and his call to live like the “old-timers” in the wild.

He calls his lifestyle “getting woodsy” and says it’s a mentality—like a game of chess—where you have to think about every move you make. You have to be able to look around you and utilize what’s at hand. It means living like an old-timer, dependent on skills, physical fitness, and the land.

A Lifetime of Experience

Welker’s passion for the outdoors was ignited during his childhood growing up in the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania. Wanting to immerse himself even more into the wilderness, during his 20s, Welker set his sights on Alaska. Now 49, his outdoor experiences for the past 28 years have led him to become an expert at wilderness survival. In fall 2019, he participated in filming for Season 7 of the History Channel’s survivor show, ALONE, and won.

For the first time in the series, rather than determining the winner by which contestant lasted the longest before “tapping out,” Season 7 offered the largest prize yet: $1 million to any contestant who could last 100 days in the wilderness of the Canadian Arctic.

Welker was a natural, and his calm determination alongside a lifetime of survival experience led him to win the prize. He achieved a lot of “firsts” for the show, including killing an 800-pound musk ox with one arrow and a belt knife, building a shelter he termed “Rock House,” and building a meat cache that rivaled any contestant’s shelter—assuring that his meat would be safe from predators. His mindset had as much to do with his success as his survival skills; Welker said he went in prepared to stay the whole winter—well over the required 100 days—which led him to chop wood for hours each day and allowed him to amass enough wood to get through the negative 30 to 40-degree temperatures.

The Trek to Alaska

Raised in Shiloh, Penn., by the age of 8, Welker was setting traps that he would check by flashlight before going to school. He was camping solo by age 11 and had a backpack ready by the door so he could head out each weekend. Sometimes it was with family or friends, but if no one was available, he was just as happy to go alone.

“I grew up there in the 70s,” Welker said. “It was still kind of a really neat backwater place in the 70s—a lot of farms still going, the dairy industry was still there. There’s always been logging and still is to this day; coal businesses were booming in the 70s before it went extinct. It was just a really neat time to be a boy in central Pennsylvania—Shiloh, in particular.”

(Courtesy of Roland Welker)

A voracious reader, Welker said his father taught him a love of reading by introducing him to American novelist Louis L’Amour and Western books. “I remember him buying ‘The Big Sky,’ a 1947 Western novel by A. B. Guthrie Jr.” The book paints a portrait of life for mountain men between 1830 to 1843. Welker said he has read the book 30 or 40 times. “It’s my favorite. People say I kind of became a character from that book. It’s almost scary.”

At 24, Welker struck out for Alaska, eventually making his way to Red Devil by accident. Red Devil, Alaska, had a population of 23 as of the 2010 national census. Welker fished and hunted along the Kuskokwim River.

“This is mountain country. It was winter and ice was running when I arrived, and this was my first Alaska winter. I was getting into the thick quick,” he said. Welker soon realized that “this is the place I had been looking for forever. It was still frontier-y and wild west, so to speak.”

Welker says he was a bit of a reckless teenager, and credits the wilderness for taming what he calls “shift energy”—that young aggressiveness of his teen years.

“I found this place [Red Devil], and I took a lot of that energy and absorbed it into major expeditions that I would fund myself. I’d pick a piece of country and start calling in supplies so I could trap all winter.”

Welker said his lifestyle was affected by the nation’s founding fathers and historical figures he learned about through reading.

“I absorbed myself in every book on history that I could lay my hands on starting in the sixth grade,” he said. He particularly enjoyed the works of Allan W. Eckert, a 20th-century author who wrote historical novels about Native American tribes.

Welker wanted to be like the novel protagonists. “Somewhat unknowingly, I started forming myself under the likeliness of the frontiersman in the mountain at a very young age. I am not just a hunter, I’m a sportsman. I’m absorbed in the old traditions of frontiersmen, and that’s what carried me through ALONE,” he said.

Jill Dutton is a travel writer who seeks out locally celebrated foods, outdoor activities, and liquor trends. She’s passionate about telling the stories of those she meets on her travels, offering a glimpse at the culture of place. Follow Jill’s travels at www.USAbyRail.blog.

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Features Giving Back

Unboxing Grief

Fran Solomon’s 20 years of working in bereavement care began with an intense personal experience. “My father died in 1998,” she said. “His death was the first of a significant person in my life. I did what I think many people do. I grieved through the funeral, and then I had to get ready to return to work on Monday. “So I put my grief into a box, tied a pretty bow on it, and stuck it on a shelf. I thought I was going to get over it, move on, and with time, forget.

“Fast forward to 2002, my daughter was born. Somehow this beautiful life that had entered mine was accompanied by profound sadness. A friend sat with me and listened to all the reasons for my sorrow. Then there it was. The last thing I said encompassed all my grief,” Solomon said.  “I was grieving that my father wasn’t here to see the one thing he had wanted more than anything —to have a granddaughter. Until that moment, I had no idea that the loss of my dad had had such a profound impact on me. It had resurfaced now many years later, as I welcomed my daughter.”

It ended up impacting Solomon’s own relationships going forward. “Because of my friend’s willingness to sit and listen, I was given an invaluable gift. I was able to understand the association between my sadness around the birth of my daughter and my father’s absence. Had that not happened, my relationship with my daughter could have become a resentful one, resulting from my having displaced my emotions. Through that experience, I came to understand the importance of bereavement care for support, understanding, and appreciation for what grief really is.”

Solomon founded HealGrief.org, a non-profit website that provides the tools, resources, and information to guide one’s journey after a death, through grief and into a healthy post-bereavement equilibrium. It also provides a place to celebrate the lives of loved ones, including pets.

The site provides these tools through offerings like a podcast archive, featuring interviews with a wide array of people who have survived the grief process themselves. The podcast, Let’s Talk Death, can be accessed as a printed transcript, as audio only, or viewed. Central to its mission is removing the cultural taboo that has surrounded death. A virtual support network connects people who are grieving with others who have lost loved ones too. These connections help to dilute the feelings of isolation often associated with grief.

Philanthropy has been a long-term commitment for Solomon. She has been a member of the Cedars Sinai Medical Center Board of Governors for some 20 years. Simultaneously, for a decade, she served as a member of the Board of Directors, as well as the Chair for Our House Grief Support Center, a community-based agency located in Los Angeles.

Now a certified grief-recovery specialist, Solomon lives in LA with her husband, Rick, and their three children, Matthew, Alex, and Lianna. Solomon’s husband serves on the HealGrief.org Board of Directors. He has long supported her work, she said, because he’s realized how much it has enriched her life and the life of their family.

During her work with Our House, Solomon’s focus began to expand beyond community boundaries. She realized that grief is universal. She perceived the need for a place where people across the world could come to celebrate the lives of those they love. She realized that this place also would need to provide resources to help those who are struggling with grief to recover.

Fran Soloman. (Courtesy of Fran Soloman)

Actively Moving Forward is another HealGrief program. Best known as AMF, it began with college students supporting other college students through their grief journey. It evolved into a program supporting all young adults, allowing them to communicate with each other in a way they communicate best—digitally. It’s an app that is a hybrid of a social network, database of resources, and a notification center for daily inspirational quotes. It also offers a community board for posting.

The app since has extended to people of all ages, hosting separate and distinct communities for young adults and for those who are over 30. App members can participate in regularly-scheduled virtual support groups and in book clubs.

“It’s such a gift to hold a safe and sacred space for people to share their most intimate feelings about something so deep within them. And it’s a gift to witness deep friendships emerging from this thing called grief,” Solomon said. “None of this costs our members anything. They can sign up for as many kinds of virtual support as they like.”

“Our members have learned that although grief has a start date, it doesn’t have an end date. Grief is an uninvited companion that we somehow learn to take with us through the rest of our lives,” she observed. Solomon says her work in bereavement care “teaches me to live life to the fullest, to never wait for tomorrow. To tell my family and those I love how much I love them and how important they are to me. It’s a daily reminder of how precious life is and how important it is to be present for those we love.” The site averages about 10,000 new visitors each week, according to Solomon. Poignantly, she reports that the most-visited page by far is “Death of a Child.”

Services are offered at no cost to the site’s users. Solomon reports that HealGrief.org, as a 501c3, accepts donations and has received grants. One was from Funeral Service Foundations, who recognized the importance of the app. Traditional bereavement care was disrupted during the time that Covid shutdowns were most intense, according to Solomon. People who work in bereavement care were unsure of the best ways to serve their clients during that time, so many referred them to HealGrief.org.

“Being virtual, we were in a prime position as the continuum for serving those in need,” Solomon said. “In-person care for many will always be necessary, however we have found that people tend to be more comfortable and share more from the comfort of their own homes,” she explained. “We have been able to serve in new ways. People with disabilities or who don’t have transportation, for example, now can access the support they need too.”

“Support is crucial,” Solomon reflects. “Lack of support can lead to poor coping skills, which can lead to addictive behaviors, suicidal ideology, etc. Grief can change the trajectory of a person’s life. We find that when people try to put their grief into a box or shut down their feelings, this tends to trigger displaced emotions and manifest in ways that they themselves often don’t understand. I was a clear example of this.”

The organization provides training to university faculty, staff, and social work students. It works to help faculty become more grief-sensitive and to understand the needs of grieving young adults through its Grief Sensitive Campus Initiative.

“Many institutions offer bereavement leave to faculty,” she observed, “but not to students. Students have had to negotiate their workload with each professor, interfering with their need to be with families. And upon returning, grieving students can’t be expected to function equally with their peers.”

Christine Colbert holds a master’s in journalism. She has written for and edited varied media. Her preferred “beat” is good news.

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Features

Memorial Day at Mission San Juan Capistrano

A view from amongst the flags in the Field of Honor, at Mission San Juan Capistrano. (All photos courtesy of Jeff Perkin)
Portals of the past open up to Homefront America’s Field of Honor, at Mission San Juan Capistrano.

It is only fitting that a mission founded in 1776 was chosen this past Memorial Day to honor American military members, veterans, and first responders. With nearly 400 American flags on display at Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California, Field of Honor was a solemn tribute expressing gratitude to the heroes who have served our country. Homefront America, an all-volunteer 501c3 military outreach and support organization, created the event as a way to celebrate America’s service members and raise awareness about the organization’s efforts in providing year-round programs to enhance the quality of life for military families.

Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt

Flags are adorned with cards that remember and honor loved ones who served America; pictured is a flag celebrating all of America’s active-duty military, veterans, and first responders.

A large, beautiful courtyard at the heart of the mission was the temporary home for hundreds of flags adorned with loving messages of remembrance and gratitude from friends and family. As visitors read these heartfelt messages and stories, they are given the opportunity to see beyond the flowing rows of colored cloth, to what they truly represent—men and women who put their lives on the line in service of their country.

Mamie Maywhort, founder of Homefront America, proudly said of the event: “It’s all about the flags and the incredible stories behind the flags. Each and every one of those heroes has a significant meaning to me.” Taking in the diverse pictures and stories on each flag, we can see that a common thread of service and devotion stands guard to protect the essence of America and the principles that make the nation great.

No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.
—St. Ambrose

Acjachemen descendant Michael Gastelum takes part in the mission’s oldest tradition, a rare ringing of the bells.

On the opening day, May 26, 2021, several veterans who had served abroad in the Korean War and Vietnam were guests of honor, celebrating this first-time event at the mission. In a rare tribute, the misson’s bells were loudly sounded to honor all of America’s service members, past and present. The ringing of the bells is the mission’s oldest tradition and has only ever been performed by a chosen few. Michael Gastelum, a descendant of Native American ancestors from the valley’s Acjachemen tribe, powerfully pulled on two ropes, reverberating the bell’s resounding music throughout the mission for over a minute.

Mission Executive Director Mechelle Lawrence-Adams poses with her father and other veterans, including Adam Maywhort of Homefront America and Michael Gastelum (center), after the ringing of the bells.

The community was invited to sponsor individual flags with donations ranging from $50 to $1,000. Mission San Juan Capistrano Executive Director Mechelle Lawrence-Adams said: “This new project and partnership strikes at the heartstrings of what makes the mission so meaningful to people of all faiths, backgrounds, and journeys. To see hundreds of American flags beautifully displayed, each representing an actual person who has served our country, should be pure awe […] the entire mission team is truly excited to celebrate our military, and can’t wait to experience the visual and emotional effect of this meaningful project.”

The first flag at the mission was installed by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

This Memorial Day saw an America deeply divided along a number of polarizing lines. The many flags that were on display offered the hope that red and blue can continue to be woven together into one American whole. The identity that transcends all colors is the unifying idea of America. As Eleanor Roosevelt said: “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility.” Memorial Day offers Americans the opportunity to honor those who took responsibility and paid the ultimate price for freedom. It is also a reminder of the responsibility all Americans share to vigilantly protect the rights and principles on which America was founded.

The historic setting of Mission San Juan Capistrano helps us look back to a time before screens and the incessant, 24-hour cable news cycle. America has always had its challenges, but it has also been home to incredible human beings willing to fight to preserve the nation’s best qualities. The flag reminds us of the blood that has been spilled in the name of “a new constellation” founded “by the people, and for the people.”

The first flag hangs on one of the mission’s 18th-century walls, near the famed bells.

True patriotism is not about blind allegiance to our leaders, but requires carefully watching them with a critical eye to discern whether or not they are serving and upholding our constitutional rights. Our heartfelt thanks go out to all those who work diligently to preserve and protect the essence of America.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
—Mark Twain

Jeff Perkin is a graphic artist and an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach available at WholySelf.com

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Entrepreneurs Features

The Peach Truck Coming Through

Stephen and Jessica Rose at a peach orchard in Georgia. (Courtesy of The Peach Truck)

A Tennessee couple has their hearts set on giving Americans everywhere access to fresh, ripe Georgia peaches

Growing up in Fort Valley, Georgia—one of the state’s biggest producers of peaches—Stephen Rose was always the kid who could tell when someone at a gathering had made a cobbler with grocery store-bought canned peaches. They simply couldn’t compare to the sweet Georgia peaches he frequently ate, plucked fresh from the tree at his neighborhood farm. Later in life, when he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, he realized that the typical grocery store didn’t sell the kind of peaches he was used to eating—and he missed them terribly.

In 2012, Stephen and his wife, Jessica—a Seattle native who also became enamored with the fruit after visiting Stephen’s hometown—decided to take up the challenge of providing Nashvillians access to delicious, ripe Georgia peaches. They started selling peaches from the Georgia neighborhood farm of Stephen’s youth out of their ‘64 Jeep Gladiator pickup truck.

First, the couple sold peaches at roadside stands and farmers’ markets—the fruit was an immediate hit. Nine years later, they have expanded to a multi-truck team that will tour 33 states this summer, along with a website that offers nationwide shipping directly from Georgia peach farms. “[It’s] in the back of a UPS truck the same day it was picked,” Stephen said during a recent interview in Nashville.

A long line forms for The Peach Truck’s fresh peaches. (Courtesy of The Peach Truck)

Indeed, a peach from The Peach Truck tastes different. Biting into one of the Fiesta Gem peaches—with its flesh showing the colors of a fiery sunset—juices flow forth and a surprising tang comes through. Stephen compares it to a Sweet Tart, the iconic sweet and sour candy.

Georgia on My Mind

Stephen believes that Georgia’s climate and soil make it the perfect place to grow peaches. Georgia red clay has a particularly strong ability to hold nutrients in the topsoil. Winters are chilly and wet, while summers are excruciatingly hot and humid. “We like to say, ‘What’s bad for humans is good for peaches.’ You’re gonna have really sweet peaches as that peach suffers on the tree,” he said.

A peach orchard in Georgia. (Courtesy of The Peach Truck)

Peach varieties are plentiful as well—contrary to what one might expect from glancing at the supermarket offerings—from the Elberta, which shines a bright yellow when ripe and “tastes like candy,” according to Stephen, to the Harvester, which comes right off the pit and is perfect for canning.

Changing the Game

The couple realized that even when a peach is grown and picked at the perfect time of ripeness, if the product doesn’t reach the customer soon, the flavor suffers. So they worked out the logistics of getting fruit to people just days after it’s picked. The process requires managing inventory, so that peaches aren’t sitting in storage for more than three days. This means more trips to the farm, and thus, increased trucking costs—but that’s the cost of ensuring freshness.

“When you think of the traditional grocery-store route, what they want is shelf life. They want a product that can sit on the shelf for a long time. It continues to look good, it’s red,” Stephen said. Peaches are commonly harvested before they’re ripe and refrigerated in storage while traveling from a regional distribution center to a local one before finally arriving at the store—where they could sit on shelves for a week or more.

Biting into a fresh Georgia peach. (Courtesy of The Peach Truck)

When peaches get refrigerated before they ripen, they don’t soften up properly and sometimes take on the flavor of the fridge, leading to a mealy texture and bland taste. When buying peaches from The Peach Truck, the package comes with instructions for proper care: The fruit is to sit on the counter or in a paper bag until it gives a little when squeezed—at that point, it can go in the fridge.

Farm to Consumer

The Roses are proud that they’re able to cut out the middlemen and directly bring the product to consumers. “[It] enables us to reconnect customers to farmers,” Stephen said. Jessica lamented that the American food system has gotten “so complicated.”

“It got so efficiency-based instead of quality-based,” she said. “Everyone wants a perfectly round, red peach.”

The Peach Truck website states that the company only sources from farms that are “GLOBAL GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) or PRIMUS-certified”—voluntary audits verifying that produce is grown according to responsible food-safety and sustainability standards.

The Peach Truck does home deliveries across the country (all except four states). (Courtesy of The Peach Truck)

The couple hopes that their model can be applied to any type of produce. “We feel like the next evolution of this company is really connecting the American farmer to the end consumer—with whatever they’re growing. There’s great produce grown in this country, that never makes it to the end consumer because it might not meet the grocery stores’ demands of the shape and the size—but it tastes amazing,” Stephen said.

Last winter, The Peach Truck experimented with offering satsumas, a sweet mandarin orange variety originally from China and introduced to the West via Japan. Stateside, satsumas are grown in southern Georgia and northern Florida. The response from their peach fans was enthusiastic.

Of course, there are challenges to running a company that relies on the forces of Mother Nature. The Roses recalled that back in 2017, terrible weather ruined large amounts of the crop. Luckily, this year’s harvest is bountiful. They hope the summer will once again bring memorable experiences as people nationwide catch breaks from their perspiration by biting into delicious, ripe peaches, with juice running down their arms and all.

“At the end of the day, what it does is it provides gratitude for any time we have a great [harvest] … because every season is a gift, right?” Stephen said.

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American Artists Arts & Letters Features

‘The Voyage of Life’

"The Voyage of Life: Youth" by Thomas Cole circa 1842. National Gallery of Art.

America’s first great landscape painter, Thomas Cole, was a pivotal figure in the development of a distinctly American artistic identity in the early 19th century. Cole’s masterful landscapes range from picturesque compositions of America’s pristine wilderness to imaginative historical and allegorical scenes. The revered artist’s devotion to seeking the presence of God in nature inspired him to create depictions of divinity within the world and the human experience.

A prime example of this undertaking, and one of Cole’s most renowned series, “The Voyage of Life,” is a group of four paintings that illustrate the major stages in a man’s life: “Childhood,” “Youth,” “Manhood,” and “Old Age.”

The series was commissioned by wealthy banker Samuel Ward for his private residence. Ward, a religious man, hired Cole to portray the faith-based view of a man’s allegorical path through life ending in salvation. Ward died shortly after the commission commenced, but Cole continued work on the series with the new intention of showing them to the public. In his later years, Cole was an increasingly religious man, to which this series is a testament. Regardless of your faith, “The Voyage of Life” captures a journey through different seasons, challenges, and the varying mental, emotional, and physical states we experience as we ride the river of life.

‘Childhood’

“The Voyage of Life: Childhood” by Thomas Cole circa 1842. National Gallery of Art.
Detail of Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life: Childhood.

Cole originally worked on “The Voyage of Life: Childhood” when he was in his late 30s in 1839–40. This first landscape of the series symbolizes man’s birth into the world. A baby whom Cole called “the Voyager” is the passenger on a boat being guided down a river by an angelic figure. The front of the boat has an hourglass that is held by one of many angelic carvings whom Cole called “the Hours.” A shadowy cavern at the base of a massive rocky mountain, whose precipice is lost in clouds, gives the viewer the sense that the child has been delivered into this world of time from a mystery beyond it. The rosy light of sunrise casts an inviting glow on a vast and verdant landscape. Lush foliage and vibrant flowers greet the child on the banks of the calmly flowing river.

The child holds his arms outstretched joyously clenching flowers as he sits on a lush green bed of foliage that fills the boat. His guiding angel looks down lovingly while navigating the child into this colorful and wondrous new world. The painting symbolizes the optimism and mystery of childhood. Everything is fresh and filled with amazement. It is the dawn of existence for Cole’s voyager that is symbolized by the glow of morning light and the abundant natural flourishing of spring.

‘Youth’

“The romantic beauty of youthful imaginings, when the mind elevates the Mean and Common into the Magnificent, before experience teaches what is the Real.” – Thomas Cole

“The Voyage of Life: Youth” by Thomas Cole circa 1842. National Gallery of Art.
Detail of Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life: Youth.

Cole completed “The Voyage of Life: Youth” along with the rest of the series in 1840. In this second painting, the landscape has opened up to reveal the course of the river through lofty trees and distant hills that elevate into soaring mountains. The voyager has now confidently taken the helm of the boat and looks longingly forward, pointing toward a glowing palace of clouds in the sky. For Cole, this symbolized “the daydreams of youth, its aspirations after glory and fame.” The young man seems to rush toward his lofty goals unconscious that he seems to have left his angelic guide behind him on the shore.

The landscape of “Youth” is enticingly gorgeous and teeming with life. The many flowers of childhood have been replaced with the ambition of mighty trees. A spirit of adventure and lust for the glories of life are pervasive in the painting. The boy charts a course for the palace in his mind without noticing that the river makes a sharp turn in the distance. It flows toward the right side of the painting where rocky cliffs await the voyager foreshadowing the third painting in the series. The naiveté and optimism of youth are going to be challenged by the realities of manhood. Cole seems to imply that wisdom and humility are the result of tempering the beautiful, yet inexperienced, visions of youth.

‘Manhood’

“The Voyage of Life: Manhood ” by Thomas Cole circa 1842. National Gallery of Art.
Detail of Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life: Manhood.

“The Voyage of Life: Manhood” is a very dramatic shift in tone and content from “Youth.” The now middle-aged voyager finds himself in a dark and dreary landscape rushing down a treacherous part of the river. Rocks jut out of rapids that are mere seconds ahead of him. Looking forlorn, the helm of the boat is gone and his hands are clasped together in desperate prayer. The angels on the boat look concerned as time in the hourglass seems to be running out. Cole, who himself had bouts of melancholy, seems to be outlining his sobering and blunt view of middle age. In his words, “Trouble is characteristic of the period of manhood.” Above the voyager in the clouds are ghostly apparitions. The man seems haunted by “demons’ and the place to which he has been delivered by the ignorance of his youth.

The viewer is left with a feeling of uncertainty as to what will happen to the voyager. Out of the bewildered man’s sight, behind him in the clouds, light shines down into the unpleasant scene from where the angel continues to watch over him. This offers the insight that life’s difficulties may not be as serious or lasting as they may seem during the experience. Adulthood is a challenging part of the voyager’s journey that he is navigating with his faith. Even when all seems lost, it is not, and a higher power is watching over him. The flowers and superficial beauty of youth are behind him but what lies ahead is a more meaningful truth.

“The upward and imploring look of the voyager shows his dependence on a Superior Power; and that faith saves him from the destruction that seems inevitable.” – Thomas Cole

‘Old Age’

“The Voyage of Life: Old Age” by Thomas Cole circa 1842. National Gallery of Art.
Detail of Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life: Old Age.

In “The Voyage of Life: Old Age,” the river has reached the mouth of a calm ocean symbolizing the end of the voyager’s experience in this world. The boat’s hourglass has broken off and there isn’t much left in the landscape. The angel appears before him now, pointing his gaze toward the heavens, which appear to be opening up to him in a gesture of invitation beyond this world.

“The chains of corporeal existence are falling away; and already the mind has glimpses of Immortal Life,” described Cole. It is here that the Christian doctrine of salvation in the afterlife is most prominent allegorically. The voyager had his time on the wildly changing river of life and now looks in hopeful wonder toward the faith-based promise to which Cole and his patron subscribed.

“The Voyage of Life” was well received by the public and critics alike. The poet William Cullen Bryant remarked that “the conception of the series is a perfect poem … set before us are the different stages of human life under images which every beholder admits the beauty and deep significance.” The paintings form a powerful allegory for human life and the hope of salvation in the mystery beyond it. Cole was hugely influential in establishing America’s artistic reputation and his works went on to inspire many other American artists. His attempt to instill the divine into his landscapes played an important part in forming the beauty, soul, and allure of America.

In 1842, after the initial success of the series, Cole made the impressive and somewhat shocking decision to laboriously paint all four paintings a second time in order to be able to further display them publicly. The first series was privately owned by Ward’s family and thus no longer under his control. For this reason, two slightly different yet essentially similar sets of “The Voyage of Life” exist at two different American galleries. The first set (1839–40) is at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York, and the second set (1842 and pictured in this article) is at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.


Jeff Perkin is a graphic artist and an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach available at WholySelf.com.

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Features

Mending Marriages

Kimberly and Joe Beam of Marriage Helper. (Nikayla Skolits)

Joe Beam gave a talk recently in Texas; afterward, a family came up to greet him, their young daughter shyly offering up her comments as well. Partially hard of hearing, Beam crouched down and asked her to repeat herself.

“Thank you for saving my family,” she told Beam.

Since 1999, Beam has hosted marriage crisis workshops, which couples sometimes tell him are “the best-kept secret in America.” But the path to saving marriages—which takes him all around the world, nowadays—began with his own divorce.

Twice Married

Before Beam founded various organizations including Marriage Helper, he was working in corporate America and running workshops on relationship-related topics. His own marriage was in rocky waters, having reached a point where he was vilifying his wife, he said, and the relationship was cold. When the couple divorced, Beam thought he would end up living happily ever after and marrying another woman with whom he’d fallen in love—that didn’t pan out.

But after three years of Beam visiting every weekend to see their two daughters, Beam and his wife Alice became friends again. They were able to spend time together without arguing, and they rebuilt their relationship.

“I came back and asked my wife if she would be willing to take me back and marry me again,” Beam said. Of course, she had to think about it. She also asked everyone around her for their advice.

“And everybody, everybody she talked to told her not to marry me again, that she can never trust me again,” Beam said.

“Contrary to their advice, she decided that she would marry me a second time,” he said. “That was 1987.”

It wasn’t smooth sailing just because they had made up. They argued a lot, having not yet worked on the issues that festered in their first marriage, and both were in need of healing. Alice sought out a counselor, and Beam says he healed through helping others.

“We began to have heartfelt, open and transparent, honest conversations,” Beam said.  “Eventually, Alice became my best friend, and to this day she is my best friend.”

And through that union, they had their daughter Kimberly.

Hope’s Not Lost

Kimberly Holmes has never known her parents to be apart.

“I owe my life to two people who decided to do the right thing, who decided to put their marriage back together and to make it work. Otherwise, I would not exist,” Holmes said. She knows this not least of all because her experience of having always known loving parents is a departure from the experience, and trauma, that her two older sisters had growing up through their parents’ divorce, which remarriage doesn’t just erase.

“I’ve seen them [my parents] fight, but I’ve seen them work it out. I’ve watched them live and model a great marriage. And it has affected me in amazingly positive ways in my life,” said Holmes, who is now CEO of Marriage Helper. In her five-year tenure, she has greatly expanded the organization’s reach, helping couples in crisis as well as couples who just want to learn. It’s work she describes as “purpose-filled,” because she has seen that the workshops don’t just provide effective education—they give people hope.

Marriage Helper has received countless relationship questions from all around the world: My spouse says terrible things about me, will he or she ever see me in a positive light? How do I forgive my spouse for cheating on me? Can I ever trust my spouse again?

But the most common question is simple: Is there hope for me and my situation?

“And our answer to that is yes,” Holmes said.

She answers confidently because she’s seen the amazing transformations that happen. People are reminded up front that there’s no guarantee any given marriage will be saved (about three of every four couples attending the workshops see success), but the tools and ideas learned in the workshops do promise to change and improve personal relationships regardless.

Three-Day Workshops

After completing a bachelor’s degree in psychology, Holmes had neither a specific career in mind nor a thought of joining the “family business,” but continued graduate studies in marriage and family therapy with the heart to help people.

In her schooling, she experienced firsthand what working with couples one-on-one is like, how slow the progress is, and how frustrating it can be.

But at the same time, Holmes started working part-time for Marriage Helper on the side, and once a month she would help out with the workshops.

“And I would see amazing progress that would happen in these couples, in only three days,” Holmes said. “It was during that time that I realized this is what I want to do. I want to help marriages be saved, families be strong.”

The workshops are unique in the relationship counseling world. For one thing, dozens of people gather in each session (through video conferences as well). Days before holding a pair of weekend workshops for 45 couples from across the globe, Beam elaborated further.

Based on his experience in the corporate world, Beam took the “three-day workshop” and applied it to marriage counseling. In his quest to repair his own marriage and then help others, Beam had read countless books and earned a doctorate. Now an expert at taking complex psychological principles and simplifying them, making them easy to understand at a deep level, he’s often invited to counseling centers to teach their counselors to do the same.

He helps people to understand how their behavior affects others, how to recognize their own unacknowledged harmful actions, how to deal with anger, and how to forgive (including a how-to-reconcile process). He also walks people through the process of what happens when we fall in love, and decodes other deep insights in a simple but enlightening manner.

Over the years, Beam has worked with a diverse range of couples and seen a wide variety of problems. When he talks to people, none of it is theory. He can talk about real experiences and real marriages that fell apart or were salvaged. Experience means Beam has seen it all, and he doesn’t judge. Everyone is treated with respect and dignity regardless of individual situations, and the workshops, like Beam, are very positive.

The vast majority of couples attending the workshops include one spouse who wants out, and is only present because of the promise that divorce papers will be signed afterward.

“Basically, on the first day, they’re not talking to each other. They’re kind of pushing their chairs apart. Some of them are scowling,” Beam said. “By the end of the first day, at least they’ve calmed down.

“Then the second day, they actually start talking to people and start loosening up.

“And then the third day—it’s amazing to see the transformation—on the third day, we have trouble keeping them quiet so we can actually teach! Because they’re all interacting with each other, encouraging each other.”

Not everyone, of course. Not all the couples stay together, but around seven out of ten do.

(Nikayla Skolits)

Best Kept Secret

That 70-some-percent success rate raises some eyebrows, so Beam says that over the years Marriage Helper has invited many psychiatrists, counselors, and therapists to join the three-day workshops and see for themselves. They join thinking, “This is crazy,” but leave saying that the methods and results are valid.

“This is the 22nd year so far,” Beam said. “Every one of them sends couples to us now.”

Leaving inspired on the third day isn’t enough; couples have to be willing to put into practice all they have learned, for there to be real and lasting change. Marriage Helper isn’t there to twist people’s arms and convince them to stay married; instead, couples are given the tools needed to make their relationships work. Even couples who don’t stay together recommend the workshops—the principles can apply to any relationship.

As a teacher who intervenes in the middle of things, Beam doesn’t always know the outcomes. But sometimes couples find him—even years later, even couples from 1999—and share incredible stories.

A minister acquaintance of Beam’s recently remarried a couple that had divorced five years prior and made up after attending one of the workshops.

Another couple attended one of the workshops about 10 years ago, but ended up divorcing later on. The woman recently contacted Marriage Helper to say that she and her ex-husband started dating again after six years of divorce, and were contemplating marriage. They wanted to attend another workshop, to see if they could really make things work.

Many couples that finish the workshops say their children should, once engaged, also attend, so they can build strong relationships from the start. The workshops fill up weeks in advance.

“We love to have engaged couples,” Beam said. “We figure it’s the best premarital education in America, or the world, because not only do they learn all these fascinating, very powerful principles about relationships, but they’re in a room full of people who’ve messed it up. So we’re not giving you theory, we’re showing you real-world stuff.”

Holmes hears many people call it a last resort, saying if anything works, this will. And she believes it does work, wholeheartedly. The Marriage Helper team believes strongly in the mission to create strong marriages, she said, and that drives everything they do. “We never stop being passionate about doing this,” Holmes said.

“I give God credit for all of that, because I’m just not that smart,” Beam said. “It’s just absolutely exhilarating to hear how it worked. But when you’re working with them and they’re in pain, it’s absolutely painful. We hurt when we heal these couples. We feel their pain and it gets to us. But then we hear the stories afterward, of how they got through this and got through that, and it’s just amazing and unbelievable—I can’t believe God chose us to do this.”

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Features

Retired Prison Doctor Saves Lives Mentoring Children of the Incarcerated

Dr. Gedney with Dante and Jalyssa whom Dr. Gedney mentors today. (Courtesy of Karen Gedney)

When Dr. Karen Gedney started mentoring the children of incarcerated parents ten years ago, she was surprised at how chaotic their lives were.

“They were bouncing from one place to another,” Gedney said. “Their breakfast was soda and a Cheeto-like substance. They were sleeping in other people’s apartments under the kitchen table and they were surrounded by members of their family who were violent and involved in criminal activity.”

Gedney was introduced to the task of mentoring these children while treating inmates at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center, a men’s prison, from 1987 to 2016. She also treated inmates at the nearby Stewart Conservation Camp, a minimum-security facility. Together with her husband, Clifton Maclin, who is now deceased, they mentored five children through the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.

“The three oldest have completed college and I continue to mentor the two youngest who are siblings, Jalyssa and Dante,” Gedney said in an interview. “We realized that to make a significant difference we had to mentor children at risk, especially the ones who had no father, or a father in prison.”

Dr. Gedney with Dante and Jalyssa whom Dr. Gedney mentors today. (Courtesy of Karen Gedney)

At the end of 2020, some 1,249,300 people were incarcerated in state and federal prisons, according to data from the Vera Institute for Justice.

“Just like medicine, we need a society that helps prevent people from spinning into the criminal justice system, and one of the biggest bang for the buck is the youth because you still have a lot of leverage in the direction they’re going,” Gedney said.

Today, Jalyssa is 17 years old and Dante is 13 years old. While their father has been incarcerated most of their lives, their mother was reportedly having a hard time providing housing and food for them.

“She was going from one bad housing situation to another and the little kids were suffering from the consequences of being exposed to poverty, violence, and drugs,” Gedney said. “Jalyssa and Dante were exceptionally bright and talented, like flowers but planted in the wrong environment.”

When Gedney picks them up on a Saturday or Sunday every week, she said the siblings don’t want to go home at the end of the day.

“If people really want to do something in terms of helping society be safer and more equitable, then they definitely should consider mentoring children of the incarcerated,” she said. “It will enrich their lives.”

Gedney authored a book about her years treating inmates as an internal medicine specialist called “30 Years Behind Bars: Trials of a Prison Doctor” (2018).

(Courtesy of Karen Gedney)

“I wrote it to increase awareness and broaden the hearts and minds of the public when it comes to the incarcerated and prison reform,” Gedney said.

One of the most harrowing experiences happened during her second year when Gedney was held hostage, assaulted and raped by one of her Northern Nevada Correctional Center patients.

“I was rescued 10 hours later by a SWAT team that threw in a concussion grenade after they sledge hammered a hole through a kick out panel in the wall,” she said. “Seeing the inmate be killed by the SWAT team affected me emotionally, and made me doubt myself. I had to deal with shock, anger and then find forgiveness.”

Ultimately, the experience increased Gedney’s resolve to help and make a difference.

Dr. Gedney’s husband, Clifton Maclin, with the 5 children they mentored together before Clifton Maclin died. (Courtesy of Karen Gedney)

“The reason I decided to stay was because I knew there were workers in the system who didn’t want me to help the inmates or to be a voice against abuse,” she said. “To this day, I believe there were some correction officers in there who allowed me to be taken hostage because they wanted me dead.”

Although now she is retired, Gedney continues her efforts to assist the prison population by sitting on various boards, such as Ridge House, which facilitates transitional housing in Reno, and the Nevada Prison Education Program.

“I donate $500 to the Western Nevada College every year, which is the institution in my city that is responsible for providing higher education in the prison system,” she said. “I designate that the funds be used for someone who is incarcerated or formerly incarcerated as a scholarship.”

Deb Conrad is director of the Higher Education in Prison Program (HEPP) at Western Nevada College (WNC) where 150 incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals are enrolled at any given time.

“Many people who are incarcerated go in with less than a high school education and if they do not receive any education or other kinds of skill development while they are incarcerated, when they come out, the recidivism rate is very high,” Conrad said.

According to data from the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, some 7.6 million people are released yearly nationwide but 2 out of 3 are arrested again within 3 years and more than 50 percent are incarcerated again.

“If incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people don’t have a way to become productive citizens in their communities, good neighbors and to reconnect positively with their families, that makes the communities less safe,” Conrad said in an interview.

One of the obstacles WNC faces when fundraising for HEPP is the stigma that the incarcerated shouldn’t be gifted with a free education because of past offenses for which they are serving or have served time to society.

“When incarcerated people come out and have an education coupled with a true desire to change their lives, do better and not go back to their former lives, they are a great source of untapped talent,” Conrad added. “We also serve people who have life without parole sentences because they deserve an education, too.”

Donations can be made payable to the Higher Education in Prison Program at Western Nevada College, Bristlecone Building, 2201 West College Parkway, Room 140 in Carson City, Nevada, 89703.

“About 97 percent of our incarcerated students get a C-minus or above but I can tell you that most of them are getting a B-plus or above and that outperforms their peers at WNC where only 80% of students on the outside are getting a C-minus or above,” Conrad said.

Juliette Fairley is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Chateauroux, France, and raised outside of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Juliette is a well-adjusted military brat who now lives in Manhattan. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.

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Features Giving Back

An Orphan-Turned-Accountant Gives Back to Undervalued Communities

Andre with a financial literacy student. (Courtesy of Andre Henry)

When he was 8 years old, Andre Henry became an orphan after losing his parents. At the time, he had been living in the projects in Chester, Pennsylvania.

“Having to deal with that type of environment and living there on a daily basis was hard,” said Henry, 29, in an interview. The loss of his parents took him out of the projects and landed him in Section 8 housing with his grandmother where there was a silver lining.

“She lived in the predominantly white neighborhood of Upper Darby,” he said. “My professors, the friends I met, and the students in the school I attended were from a higher economic setup. They influenced me to become a better person and to learn and grow.” After attending Wilmington University, Henry became a corporate accountant and decided he would find ways to create change in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

“Some individuals are still stuck in the projects today,” he said. “I’ve got family and friends who deal with that environment on a daily basis. It hit me hard and, as I grew older, I felt like I had to find a way to give back and help those individuals in need.”

Henry’s fiancée, Ce’Aira Brown, 27, is a U.S. track athlete who has personally benefited from his accounting expertise.

“Being a professional athlete, I didn’t know a lot about taxes until I met my fiancé and he actually helped me get my finances together, which is something I wish I had learned when I was younger,” she said.

Ce’Aira (C) with student athletes. (Courtesy of Andre Henry)

Brown was raised without a mother as a teenager and credits running track in high school for saving her from the pitfalls of young adulthood.

“After my mother emancipated me at 14 years old, I moved in with my dad, my grandfather, and my older brother,” she said. “It wasn’t Section 8 housing but we all had to sleep in the same room. It was crowded.”

Henry met Brown while participating in interstate track meets. “I ran for Upper Darby and she ran for Overbrook,” he said. “I was semi-pro and running at meets unattached. I saw Ce’Aira running track.” Eventually, they became a couple and now Henry and Brown lecture together to teens at public schools about financial literacy and mental health. Henry also maintains a 600-member chatroom online called The Wolf Pack teaching people about investing.

“I offer financial literacy advice on a daily basis,” he said. “I teach people how to invest in vehicles like 529 Plans, Health Savings Accounts (HAS) and self-directed IRAs. I try to help them understand finances overall.”

Ce’Aira (C) with student athletes. (Courtesy of Andre Henry)

The couple’s chat groups take place on the Telegram mobile app.

“We make it all available there while we’re working on getting a platform up on our own social media prototype that we are now creating with a designer,” he said.

A former trader at JP Morgan in Newark, Delaware, Henry also created his own algorithm that identifies trades before they are posted.
“I do high frequency trading while some people do option or swing trading,” he said. “It’s all about what risk you are comfortable with.”
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) claims that anxiety around money is connected to financial illiteracy, destructive financial conduct, and lack of financial security, with the greatest stress about money expressed by single women and young adults.

About 53 percent said thinking about their finances makes them anxious and 44 percent said discussing their finances is stressful, according to a Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center study.

“Even prior to the pandemic, more than half of American adults were experiencing financial anxiety,” Annamaria Lusardi, Ph.D., academic director of the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center and University Professor of Economics and Accountancy at GW, said. “A multifaceted approach will be needed to address this problem; including a systematic increase in financial knowledge, which can happen through policy and programs.”

Brown, an 800-meter runner, separately manages an empowerment group made up of some 50 women nationwide between the ages of 22 and 35 years old called Buildup Women Group (BWG).

Her goal is to improve their self-esteem.

“I graduated with a psychology degree from Hampton University in Virginia so I teach them confidence, not to give up and not to compare themselves with others,” she said. “I mentor them daily and send affirmations. On Fridays, we meditate for 30 minutes.”

Because the duo have both overcome adversity, Brown suggested they write a book together. “From Orphan to Self-made Millionaire: The 10 Irrefutable Laws of Purpose” was independently published in May and has led to a chatroom of followers who aspire to write their stories and publish a book, too.

“We’ve both been through a lot and felt like we could help others,” Brown said in an interview. “Once we started writing, Andre expressed himself more than I did and other people are inspired by our success with publishing the book.”

The pair is now turning to what may be their greatest work of all.

“We’re getting married next April,” Brown said.

Ce’Aira and Andre. (Courtesy of Andre Henry)

Juliette Fairley has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.

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Features

Cooking up a Taste of American History With Frank Clark

Frank Clark, master of Historic Foodways at Colonial Williamsburg, brewing beer the Palace Kitchen. (Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg)

In the kitchens of Colonial Williamsburg, Clark and his dedicated staff are keeping our young nation’s culinary history alive

As a young kitchen apprentice at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Frank Clark faced a challenging task. To demonstrate his skills, he had to prepare a three-course meal for eight guests at the Governor’s Palace.

On the menu: onion soup, roasted leg of lamb, house-salted and -smoked Virginia ham, salmon with shrimp sauce, savory cheesecake, battered and fried cauliflower, and French-style chicken—all for the first course. For the second course, there were fried crab cakes, Italian-style asparagus, carrot pudding, eggs a la crème, fried beefsteaks in ale sauce, potato balls, and apples in surprise (custard-filled, meringue-coated baked apples). A third course of candied almonds and ginger, strawberry fritters, a marzipan hedgehog, and chocolate and lemon creams finished the meal.

The guests enjoyed the feast, and Clark passed the test.

A native of Williamsburg, Clark has been working full-time at Colonial Williamsburg—a historic, 301-acre living history museum—since 1988. His mother had worked as a trainer there for 30 years, and he started when he was a college student. By chance, when he was leading school tours one summer, management moved him to the kitchen to help out.

“After working there for two summers, a full-time job came up, and I became an Historic Foodways apprentice,” he said.

Today, as the site’s master of Historic Foodways, he researches, cooks, and displays colonial recipes to keep our nation’s culinary history alive.

A recreation of the first course of an 18th-century meal at Colonial Williamsburg. (Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg)

Early American Life

When Clark started his kitchen work, the cookbooks of the 18th century were his primary resource. “I read them and was fascinated by them,” he said. He started researching all that existed in printed cookbooks from the period, often going to all the local libraries to find them. “Now the internet has helped me and other food historians. I can just look online,” he said.

“The key to reading the 18th-century text is knowing that it is all set out in paragraphs,” he said. Reading a recipe was like reading a story, not just a list of ingredients and instructions. He learned to follow the language of the time. For example, a piece of butter might be measured as “the size of a hen’s egg, or a walnut, or a nutmeg.” Some writers were better than others, he noted. Sometimes crucial details were left out, and he and his staff would have four different interpretations of the same recipe.

A stuffed—called “forced” at the time—pumpkin. (Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg)
This is a stuffed (or forced) pumpkin.

Despite the challenges of interpretation, the cookbooks provided valuable insights into how early Virginians cooked, ate, and lived. “Learning how people eat tells about their religion, society, and quirks of life,” Clark said. “Primarily, pork and corn were the markers of early American diets.”

Clark noted that Virginians are known even today for their salted pork. They also ate different animal parts, including offal, for which many recipes existed—such as one for a whole barrel of pickled beef tongues. He described another recipe for pickled asparagus, which called for dipping bundled asparagus held by their roots into boiling water, then placing the bundle into a mix of basically vinegar and salt. “These are recipes you don’t see in a Betty Crocker cookbook,” he said.

He considers the recipes to be a way to teach today’s people about how much healthier the 18th-century traditional diet was, because there were no modern-day processed foods.

“We were governed by seasonality in this period, and most of our food came from a 20-mile radius around town,” Clark said. In Williamsburg, few—if any—households were self-sufficient, so people relied on the market. “The supplies in the market were provided by the many small farmers and households that surrounded the town. There is also lots of evidence that free and enslaved African Americans provided much of the seafood and poultry [there].”

Salamagundy, a cold chicken salad. (Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg)

Clark also noted that the area was “part of one of the largest trade empires the world had ever seen.” Imported goods from other British colonies, from Indian spices to Jamaican sugar and rum, were “available to all who could afford them.”

Meals weren’t comparable between people of differing economic status. For the wealthy, it was all about offering as many choices as possible, and they would employ several skilled cooks who could prepare decorative foods and table settings. Meals at the Governor’s Palace were lengthy, bountiful feasts, with multiple dishes at each course.

When the middle class entertained, “they would try to offer choices like the wealthy, but they would not have as much food nor as many choices, and would probably not have much in the way of decorations,” Clark said. Families in poorer households might have used salted pork to flavor other ingredients.

A “Turk’s cap with ice-cream”—a pound cake hollowed out and filled with ice cream. (Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg)

Living History

Of course, times have changed. But to keep the culinary history alive, Colonial Williamsburg maintains two still-operating kitchens: at the Governor’s Palace for formal meals and at the James Anderson Armory for more casual meals.

Dressed in colonial garb, Clark and his staff prepare meals in these kitchens at least four days per week, setting out four or five different dishes using 18th-century recipes. “The cookbooks are a wonderful resource. We cannot dig up a 200-year-old pie, but [we] can make it again by using the recipes in the cookbooks,” he said.

While visitors aren’t able to taste the displayed dishes, they can dine at several onsite taverns and other eateries. Clark consults with the chefs there, especially with the goal of getting 18th-century foods into the taverns. He’s pleased that they’ve captured the essence of early American cooking.

Although he’s not a trained chef, Clark treasures his cooking life: “This is the best cooking job on earth. I get the joy of cooking without the stress of a restaurant grind. … I can take my time and enjoy talking to our guests as I go.”

He has also embraced what he learned on the job. “It has given me skill sets I never thought I would have—I can butcher a cow, salt meat, and bake bread,” he said. “It has built up my understanding of where we are from, and what is the process to go through before we can cook and eat.”

Alexandra Greeley is a writer and editor with more than 20 years of experience. Her work has appeared in the National Catholic Register, the Vegetarian Times, and others. She has written 36 cookbooks.

Categories
Features Giving Back

Locker Room Contest Leads Texas CEO to Help Michigan High School Students

(Courtesy of Hollman Helps)

When Travis Hollman launched the Locker Room Contest, inviting students to send videos of their outdated locker rooms, he had planned to gift the winning school only with new lockers. But when he saw the video tour of Beecher High School in Flint, Michigan, he was motivated to do much more.

“They had no plumbing, no doors on the bathroom stalls, no place to study, no recreation room, and no internet access,” Hollman said in an interview. “The school is so nice now. We’ve got heating, plumbing, doors on the bathroom stalls, and we’re finishing the rec room floor and putting in basketball nets.”

Hollman is the founder and CEO of Hollman in Irving, Texas, the leading manufacturer of team sports, fitness workspace, and custom lockers. Together with his colleague Daniel Gilbert, co-founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers, he spent $1.5 million on renovating the Flint, Michigan, school.

(Courtesy of Hollman Helps)

“I’ve always been pretty good about giving back, and when you meet these kids, you just get more motivated,” Hollman said. “If Beecher High School had been a public building, it would have been condemned, but because it was a school, it stayed open.”

Up until the 1960s, Flint, Michigan, had been one of the wealthiest cities in America, but the end of the industrial era and the automotive boom ended in urban decay, urban flight, and water contamination. “Flint has one of the highest crime rates because they’ve got no police funding,” Hollman said. “Property valuations have come down so much.”

“There is supposedly this racial divide in America, and Beecher High School is 100 percent African American,” Hollman said. “I wanted to prove to those kids that there is no divide. It’s the media making that up. We still love everybody. We saw on the video that the school was in bad shape. There was no heating, and the showers didn’t work. What mattered was that they were students at a school in need.”

(Courtesy of Hollman Helps)

The Locker Room Contest is part of Hollman’s Higher Education and Learning Program (HELP), which is a division of the Hollman Family Foundation.

Although COVID-19 made it a challenge to travel to the school and oversee progress, Hollman said he’s proud that the commitment was maintained. “The cost of wood increased, and the price of gasoline has almost doubled,” he said. “All that stuff impacts our business, and it also impacts our giving. If it costs 20 percent more to build in raw materials and it costs 30 percent to 40 percent more to ship the product, it gives us less that we can do.”

Hollman sits on the executive boards of a domestic violence charity as well as Big Brothers Big Sisters, and his wife, Stephanie Hollman, is the star of the Bravo TV reality episodic “The Real Housewives of Dallas.”

“My wife and I decided we had to help,” Hollman said. “We just want the students to have a little bit better life and to keep those kids off the street.” Because of the renovations, Hollman said the school has become a favorite place for Beecher students, who are staying at school until 10 o’clock at night. “If just one doesn’t die from a gunshot wound because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, then it’s a win.”

(Courtesy of Hollman Helps)

Juliette Fairley is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Chateauroux, France, and raised outside of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Juliette is a well-adjusted military brat who now lives in Manhattan. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.