When a friend of mine (who juggles for Acroentertainment) mentioned that there was a juggling workshop/club that met every week, I was interested but far from optimistic about the likelihood of learning the art with any success.

The experts in the group demonstrating lit torch juggling

Hand to eye coordination is not something I’m known for, and juggling certainly requires that and more. While I’ve admired the talent of jugglers as well as was entertained by it, I believed it was something I could never learn. This all changed after one evening at a workshop in the Method Community.

Read more »

“Rewind the clock and put the needle on the record, it’s time for a rave!” I was a bit incredulous of the flyer (a rave, in Raleigh, in 2009?), but after nearly a month of failed attempts to find a good Friday night party I figured anything would be better than one more night of bar hopping on Glenwood. Three words to describe the evening I found: Too Much Fun!

Read more »

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas stand in front of their grocery store, The Thrifty Food Market, in 1972.

A few weeks ago I attended a First Friday event at Rebus Works, a small art gallery in Boylan Heights. As I walked through the crowded room inspecting the artwork, glass of wine in hand, my footsteps across the creaky, worn wood floors started to echo in my ears. The chit-chat of the crowd seemed to fade away, and my mind began to drift back to a time that existed more than 35 years ago when the gallery space was occupied by a neighborhood grocery called The Thrifty Food Market. It was a simpler, different sort of time.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas had owned and operated the little grocery store at the western terminus of the Martin St. viaduct since 1937. I lived in Boylan Heights for several years in the early 1970s and got to know the Thomases well. They were a kindly older couple whom I always thought of back then as the grandparents of Boylan Heights. In those days I lived with a group of friends in a house that many of our neighbors regarded with disdain as a “hippie house.” But not the Thomases. They took a liking to us, — well, actually, there was no one they didn’t like — and we certainly liked them.
Read more »