The back-to-the-land movement brought hosts of wannabe farmers and dreamers to West Virginia. It also brought a dancer who brought big dreams into the deep hills.
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The West Virginia Disaster that Changed Coal Mining Forever
A half-century later, one of the worst labor disasters in American history still reverberates in the courts and in the lives of families of the 78 lost miners from a conflagration for which no one has ever been held responsible.
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800 Miles to go before I sleep
What happens when you embark on a Parental Mission of Mercy to rescue your son's broken-down car 800 miles away and bring it back in the same day without obliterating a schoolbus-load of church kids. NOTE: Don't try this at home.
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SHORTSTORY: The Catholic Boy and the Five Dollar Bill
An extremely short story about an encounter with Abraham Lincoln and a pudgy Catholic boy on the streets of West Virginia's capital city. With a cameo appearance by Greek philosopher Diogenes.
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PARADIGM SHIFTING: Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Life in the Trenches of Poetry
In this 1995 profile, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti forecasts "the revenge of the white man" taking place in contemporary politics in 2018 while reflecting on an epochal career as a poet, artist and essential figure in the rise and spread of the Beat movement.
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ELIZABETH and GEORGE: Part 1: A life on the streets
She called herself Elizabeth and she was a woman of the streets. But Elizabeth was also — or had been — named George. And she had a surprising former life. | PART 1
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ELIZABETH and GEORGE: Part 2: He was a musician on the go and then gone
George was an up-and-coming singer-songwriter who had connected with Ric Ocasek of The Cars. Then, George was gone like the wind. Ocasek turned to Rolling Stone to find out: "Where's Geo?"
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ELIZABETH and GEORGE: Part 3: A long-sought reunion, but with whom?
The long-sought reunion between the three sisters and their long-lost sibling was set to take place after a quarter-century apart. But who would they be meeting: Elizabeth? Or George?
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How the pawpaw was found, got lost and was found again
Pawpaws have been rediscovered and celebrated in a host of products from pawpaw beer to pawpaw popsicles. But how did the custardy fruit get forgotten since a pawpaw patch today might have been one cultivated ages ago by American Indians?
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BELFAST DIARY: Hanging with the Dalai Lama after the bombs fall silent
Getting close-up and personal in Belfast, Ireland, with the Dalai Lama and Christian monk Father Lawrence Freeman as they talk peace after the bombs between Catholics and Protestants fall silent.
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The night the house came crashing down around me
A portrait of the artist as a skinny kid attempting the impossible task of fixing the most important relationship in his life up to that point. While standing there in his pajama bottoms and t-shirt as the house began to shake.
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Rounding up a father’s life in bits and pieces
Fathers can be mysterious guys, especially if they were members of the Greatest Generation who didn't talk about things like their ships being torpedoed in the Atlantic and whose go-to form of anger was volcanic utterance. But in the bits and pieces of a father's life, I find the man he was.
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How Mount Hope lived up to its name when desegregation came to town
The black kids went to one school in tiny Mount Hope. The white kids went to another. But when the court order came to desegregate, a funny thing happened in the hills of West Virginia. The white kids were sent to the black school instead of the other way around. Historic things ended up happening.
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You didn’t go one-on-one with the One-Armed Bandit
The life of a journalist is filled with mundane daily tasks. Get the calendar edited. Rewrite a press release. Track down a source who isn’t returning e-mails. Then, you get to talk to Gary Mays. The West Virginia native, had his left arm shot off at age 5. What happened next was the stuff of legend and lore, complicated by the racism that likely defused a pro sports career.
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Documenting the opioid crisis in numbers and film
The numbers of deaths, shattered families and communities are grim when it comes to the opioid crisis. But what happens next? In her Netflix documentary, "Recovery Boys," Oscar-nominated documentarian Elaine McMillion Sheldon takes a look at the attempt by four young West Virginians to kick opioids by working on a farm in the West Virginia hills.
