The eras of our lives

Plus Links of the Week, including BookTok, two amazing poems, and Duke's beloved dog

A couple of days ago I ran into a lovely woman at the grocery store. She saw me in the aisle and her eyes got big. She came up and said how much she missed reading me in the paper. It had been a long time. She thought I had left town, or maybe died.

It was 10 years ago this month that I left the Charlotte Observer. It was four years ago this month (this week, in fact) that I started working full-time at WFAE.

To me, it’s all one career. There’s never been a point where I came to a full stop—it’s more like just taking a new exit off the highway. But every once in a while, like in that moment at the grocery store, I’m reminded that those phases of my life don’t always overlap for other people. There are folks who used to read me in the paper and don’t know I work at the radio station. There are others who hear me on the radio (or on my podcast) who have no idea I worked for the paper. I’ve done a bunch of magazine stories and a book, and some of the newspaper and/or radio people have never seen any of it. Maybe some of you reading this newsletter are just learning about all of it.

We all have people who know us from different eras of our lives. If you’re my age, there are kids you went to high school with who are now grown-ass adults with children (sometimes grandchildren). It’s hard to square the classmates you remember from pep rallies and smoking joints behind the gym to the current versions with bald spots and mortgages. Especially if you haven’t seen them in 30 or 40 years. But it’s always a thrill if you get unstuck and are able to see an old friend in a new way.

I used to get irritated when I ran into someone who thought I’d left Charlotte just because I wasn’t working at the paper anymore. But I’ve come to think it’s kind of cool to have eras of your lives, like little soap bubbles you blow out into the world. Sometimes they stick to each other, sometimes they don’t. I made sure to tell the woman at the store where she could find my work these days. Maybe she’ll look me up, maybe not. My job is to keep blowing bubbles.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My other newsletter this week was on the death of the iPod, and all the ones I’ve loved over the years.

2. Madison Cawthorn, one of the most troubling and troubled politicians I’ve ever seen, lost his bid for re-election this week. My friend Michael Kruse wrote about the pain that defines Cawthorn’s life.

3. Two other friends, ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and Kevin Van Valkenburg, wrote about another troubled character: golfer Phil Mickleson, who might have ruined his career.

4. I’m not on TikTok—not because I don’t like it, but because I’m afraid I’ll like it too much. So I didn’t know about BookTok, and how it’s causing unexpected big sales of books that have been out for years. (I know a book like that!)

5. DOG NEWS: While I work on my book about the Westminster Dog Show and the bond between dogs and their people, I’m devoting this slot to dog stories. This week: RIP Nugget, Duke University’s beloved golden retriever.

6. BONUS DOG NEWS: The Tennessee dog who broke into a house for a snuggle.

7. Austin Kleon on creativity in mundane retail spaces. This makes me want to go work in the food court at Costco.

8. Ada Limón (a former SouthBound guest!) has a new book of poetry called THE HURTING KIND. Here’s a beauty called “Joint Custody.”

9. Another poem I hadn’t encountered until this week: Eve L. Ewing’s “I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store.”

10. Here’s some guys from Sri Lanka, sitting at the edge of a swamp, playing the hell out of “Hotel California.”
    

    See y’all next week, everyone.