Random Connect Points:
Reba's Stories

Note: I always enjoy writing when my professional interests can overlap with personal passions. This article appeared in the August issue of Midlands Anchor. What are the building blocks of a great community? The quick answer might be money, political will or progressive leadership. Certainly these elements are important. But in most cases, real community boils down to trust, connections and relationships. The arts and culture environment in a community can be a driving force in establishing and cultivating these connections. Communities that invest in a flourishing arts and culture scene are the communities that thrive across demographic and geographic lines in good times and in challenging times. These connections build the social capital necessary to create the community engagement that drives economic growth. Just as a business needs an ongoing investment of financial capital to be successful and grow, a community needs an ongoing investment of social capital to b...

With all the awful name-calling during this political season, it got me thinking about the importance of name. T.S. Eliot’s beautiful poem “ The Naming of Cats ” is one of my favorite songs in the play “Cats.” It contemplates the importance of a name. The great self-improvement guru Dale Carnegie once said, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language” I couldn’t agree more. One little thing that matters to me greatly is for people to remember my name. Maybe it’s important because I’m just so bad at remembering people’s names. I try those tricks you learn in leadership development classes – find a feature of that person to remind you of his name. But if I look at someone named Ernest and try and remember his name by the fact his hair looks like a bird’s nest, I probably end up calling him something like Jay or Robin next time I see him. A name is everyone’s most personal possession. It’s your label, your identi...

Writing can be a personal expression of creativity, experience, knowledge, expertise and connection. It's an art and a science where the practicality of clarity and crisp communication converge with the creativity of inspiration and flow. Rules abound in the craft of writing, and many of them deserve respect. I love the structure of rules in life and especially love rules for writing. I spend many hours reading about the craft, the rules and how the writers whose work I love approach their writing. My reading preferences reflect my love of writing. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, the classic on the craft of writing, sits dog-eared and well-loved at the top of my stack of books I re-read when I need inspiration. The day the new AP Stylebook comes out is always reason for celebration for me. My new copy already has sticky notes clinging to the pages. And doesn't everyone still have their high school grade grammar book? Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) the writing prof...

Today is the one-year the "bike-iversary" of the day I wedged my new yellow bike into the back seat of my convertible and drove it home to Columbia from the Greenville bike shop.   It was an impulse buy for sure. I’d always liked a bike as much as the next gal when I was growing up. A bike was just part of the southern suburban experience. Getting new bikes was kind of a rite of passage from tricycles to training wheels to first real bikes to cool teenager bikes to grown up practical bikes. I have a great photo of me and my grandfather as I sat on my first tricycle. As a tween, I loved my pink bike with the banana seat and sissy bar. The last bike I owned was stolen from my backyard in Washington more than 25 years ago. Since then, it wasn’t I disliked biking…it just never came up as a mode or transportation or form of exercise. A year ago, I had the random chance to rent a bike one hot, sunny Friday afternoon in Greenville. I stopped into the shop I’d ...

The stars arrived at the venue on the Isle of Palms beach to great fanfare. An oversized black Mercedes van accompanied by a police escort slowly approached the crowd that had formed hours earlier ten-deep along the rope line. Dozens of yellow-shirted handlers sporting sunglasses made sure the spectators were safely behind the ropes as the van pulled into p lace for the stars’ arrival. The double doors of the large van slowly opened, and there was a cacophony of cameras clicking as young and old jockeyed for position to get their first glimpse of the stars of the show. The handlers carefully pulled a large white plastic crate from the back of the van. A hairless shiny head peered out with bulging eyes. These stars were called the Turtles…the Loggerheads to be exact. Their names were Discovery, Reese, Bryce, Chaz and Quincy…five loggerhead turtles that were being released into the ocean after being nursed to back to health at the SC Aquarium .  The handlers, who were the st...

Two admissions… First, I admit I will judge a book by its cover. “Dog Medicine” by Julie Barton had me at the full face photo of a beautiful Golden Retriever named Bunker. I wasn’t familiar with this writer or the story she told, but when the book popped up on my Amazon list of suggested books, I quickly hit “purchase” for my Kindle app. Second, I admit I later bought a second copy of the book in hardback. The Kindle version is hard to mark up, scribble on and turn down pages. The highest compliment I can pay a book is to buy the hardback to keep, to mark up, to turn down page corners, to return to read the passages that mean something to me. The hardback of “Dog Medicine” now sits by my bed with dog-eared pages, yellow highlighting of "turns of phrases," and sticky notes scribbled with ideas that I want to write about at some point. I read this beautifully written memoir one cold rainy week-end with my big goofy golden retriever tucked up under my feet. She doesn...

I’m a word nerd. I admit it. I recently bought the new edition of the Elements of Style not only because the clever artwork on the cover caught my eye, but also because I love the writing in it. I anticipate May like Christmas every year because it’s the release of the updated AP Stylebook. My reading stack at home includes books like Edit Yourself; Naked, Drunk and Writing; Woe is I; Bird by Bird; Writing Down the Bones; and Eat Shoots and Leaves. I’m really proud of the fact my 11th grade grammar book still has a place on my bookshelf. So it isn’t surprising that I sometimes find myself seeing life as a series of punctuation marks. Take a look at a few examples: Parentheses – Sets words off from the rest of the sentence with the intention of giving additional detail or meaning. The sentence might make grammatical sense without the words in parentheses, but those words help the reader understand something better. A parentheses inserted into life is a time set off to gain...