Random Connect Points:
Reba's Stories

We’ve just returned from a glorious two-week adventure in Germany, Austria and Hungary - most of it spent travelling with friends we’ve known since our young adult days in DC. During the trip, I posted photos of the lovely scenery, the magical markets and our laughing, giddy faces. But they tell only a part of the story of this trip.  As I’ve eased back to real life trying to unpack, sort out gifts we bought and get holiday plans finalized, I’ve happily shuffled through slideshows of our daily outings in my head and smiled. But I suddenly realized that – during this season when we often forget to be present with our blessings – I was overlooking the biggest blessing of all – the gift of presence. It was our good fortune to spend so much of our time on this trip being completely present with each other and acknowledging our deep gratitude for this gift of friendship we were able to live out while travelling together. Thirty-plus years ago in DC, a group of young couples with Mississ...

What started out as a personal discipline this summer to get off the screen and back to books turned out to be a fun exploration of different reading genres and books I might not have considered reading otherwise. I'm so grateful to the more than 200 people who ended up joining my Blink Book Review Facebook group , offered book suggestions and participated in conversations.  Mini-reviews and suggestions came in from as far away as Israel and as nearby as up the street. My "to-read" list is bulging, and these suggestions have gotten me out of my rut of reading the same authors and genres.  In addition to the books that got full reviews in this series , I don't want to overlook several others I read or listened to: "South Toward Home" by Julia Reed - This was a jewel. Another collection of essays kind of like Ann Patchett's book I reviewed. Even if you don't like Julia's writing (which would be really hard to do), just listening to her read in her ...

The 50 th anniversary of Watergate this summer struck a real chord with me bringing back snippets of news stories from the summer I was eleven and heading into the sixth grade. An NPR podcast got me curious to dig a little deeper into that dark time in our nation’s history where trust in government was at a low point (sound familiar?). After reading old news stories, listening to several podcasts, and browsing through a number of books on the subject, I settled on reading "In the Shadow of the White House," a memoir by Jo Haldeman, the wife of Nixon’s chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. She wrote the book in 2017 when she was 88 to make sure her grandchildren understood their grandfather’s role in history. Jo Haldeman was a devoted housewife, stay-at-home mom of four children and LA native in 1968 when her husband, Bob, was picked to be Richard Nixon’s chief of staff. Jo embraced the family’s move to DC and her role as the wife of a senior White House official, tending the h...

My recent beach reading consisted of memoirs by two actresses from my childhood – Valerie Bertinelli (Barbara on “One Day at a Time”) and Melissa Gilbert (Laura on “Little House on the Prairie”). Both of these former child stars are close to my age – 60 or pushing it – and experiencing many of the same life events that my own contemporaries are. Both played beloved characters in my personal television soundtrack of the mid-70s. Both had written previous memoirs about the challenges, insecurities and success of their early career years. Both new books focus on their “late middle age” years and the comfort they’ve found in their own skin and their more intentional lifestyles. I enjoyed both immensely. Valerie’s “Enough Already: Learning to Love the Way I Am Today” reaches beyond her lifelong struggle with weight and self-image to chronicle how she has happily settled into a hard-won acceptance of who she has become because of – and sometimes in spite of – the intense pressure of Holl...

A young friend recently asked me to choose my favorite dog book. I had to think really hard on that one. I’ve read a whole lot of them. I believe in the power of a dog. And there’s a special place in the universe for writers who can script a good dog story – whether it’s through poetry, fiction, personal essay, photo captions or a good dog obit. At the time I got this question, I had just started "The Speckled Beauty ... A Dog and His People by Rick Bragg.  “All Over but the Shoutin’” was Rick’s first book that pulled me into h is writing many years ago. I’ve long admired his spot-on southern-isms that completely avoid the “fingers on the chalkboard” of writers who try to fake knowing the real south and how it sounds, feels, smells and tastes. In this book, Rick tells the stories of Speck, a bad-boy mixed breed (or mutt as he would have been called before that term lost favor). Sixteen essays lay out various episodes of Speck’s egregious behavior woven in with stories of Rick’s si...

This summer’s reading list has included books beyond the best-seller fiction I usually favor. Ann Patchett’ s “ These Precious Days ” is one of those. This collection of 24 essays hits on topics ranging from Snoopy’s influence in her life and her three fathers to how she selects a book cover and why knitting saved her life. Ann’s fiction has graced the top of the NYT lists for years. “Commonwealth,” “The Dutch House” and “Bel Canto” are just a few. But it’s her non-fiction that really gets my pages turning. Normally, I like to invest time in a book, get to know characters, dig into a plot. So typically, essays and short stories aren’t really my gig. Reading this book started slowly for me. Finally, over the July 4 holiday I picked it up again. And couldn’t put it down. Initially, the cover drew me in when I saw it on the shelf at Litchfield Books (yes, I occasionally judge a book by its cover). The bright colored painting turns out to be Ann’s beloved dog, Sparky , with eyes that...

This book is the story of four women from vastly different backgrounds who converged on a fledgling radio network in DC in the mid-1970s. Susan Stamberg, Linda Wertheimer, Nina Totenberg and Cokie Roberts built the backbone of the early National Public Radio while they also whacked away at the broadcast industry’s glass ceiling. The author, Lisa Napoli , lays out these journalists’ diverse upbringings at the beginning of the book with a biographical account of each that foreshadows their ultimate intersection at NPR. The narrative of how these women reported the news overlays with the stories of how they questioned the broadcast establishment and managed high-power careers. This was all while juggling marriages and child rearing - none of which were typical for women in the early ‘70s. The author also tells the human side of their friendship spanning almost 50 years. There are stories that illustrate their support for each other, their love for each other’s families, and their genu...

Memoirs can often fall into two categories – hugely self-aggrandizing or humbly honest. Jim Sonefeld’s recently released book, “ Swimming with the Blowfish: Hootie, Healing and One Hell of a Ride ,” falls squarely in the humbly honest category. As a gifted songwriter and the Hootie and the Blowfish drummer, Jim had seemingly found it all very young with the band’s ascension from a local frat attraction to hyper-international fame. However, “Swimming with the Blowfish” is more than just a first-person account of the band’s partying life on the road (although those stories are fun to read). It’s also a deeply personal account of Jim’s journey from childhood with four siblings and soccer aspirations to early band days and his personal reckoning with addiction. Jim writes with humor, self-awareness, and raw honesty about his faith, his recovery community, and most importantly, his family. He lays bare the jagged edges behind the addictions that followed him alongside the band’s fame wh...

“Confessions of a Southern Beauty Queen” by Julie Hines Mabus opens in 1968 with would-be beauty queen Patsy Channing awaiting suspension from the Mississippi College for Women, known as “The W,” following an alleged violation of the college’s strict dating rules. The book’s narrative weaves between Patsy’s college experiences in Columbus, MS, and her life growing up in a small Memphis apartment with a single, chain-smoking, Valium-addicted mother who may, or may not, be sleeping with her banker boss. Patsy aspires to be Miss America and sees the college’s beauty pageant as her ticket. Her pitch-perfect voice and breathtaking beauty make this a distinct possibility. But Patsy’s naivety about unspoken childhood trauma and her refusal to follow the narrow social strictures of the time get in the way. The book takes place against a backdrop of issues gripping the country at the time – racism, sexual freedom, women’s rights, and social inequities – overlaid with ubiquitous “mean girl” p...

I recently reread Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird” for the umpteenth time in anticipation of a class I’ll be teaching. And while “Bird by Bird” might be the ultimate guide to writing, it’s also chock full of life lessons. I take away something new each time I read it. Anne is a prolific writer on uneasy life topics like coping, death, disappointment, illness and addiction. But that’s not to say her work is a downer in any way. Her writing is hilarious, brazenly honest, quirky, genuine and just plain fun to read. The book’s title itself if a life lesson I invoke frequently. “Bird by Bird” reflects a story of her brother who, as a child, was overwhelmed by the enormity of an assignment to write a report about birds. Her father, a successful writer himself, just advised Anne’s brother to take it “bird by bird.” What simple, yet powerful, advice to guide us through most of life’s trying times. Anne shares many practical lessons about writing including how she organizes thoughts using goo...

Katie Couric’s memoir, “Going There,” gives readers a delightful and amazingly honest narrative about not only her personal life but also many of the national and international news stories from the 1990s on. And while that perspective was really fun for a news nerd like me to follow, the best part of this book was hearing Katie Couric read it in the audio format. I listened to this book while driving alone to Mississippi. It felt like Katie was in the car with me just chatting about her experiences, perspective, disappointments, fears and joys. Of course, we all think famous television personalities live a charmed life with maybe a few blips thrown in. But Katie’s book digs deep into her challenges as a young woman in a profession dominated by an entrenched patriarchy. She honestly recounts her dating mishaps along with the deep love for her first husband who died of cancer and later her courtship and marriage to her second husband. She lays bare the same fears anyone would have whe...

When “Educated” first came out in 2018, I remember seeing the book in the “new non-fiction” section of Litchfield Books. My first reaction was that it was shelved in the wrong area. The jacket description read like fiction. At the time, I passed over this seemingly depressing memoir of a turbulent and disturbing childhood in a survivalist home in rural Idaho. But recently, I heard the author, Tara Westover, interviewed on Kate Bowler’s engaging podcast “Everything Happens…” and I was completely drawn in and bought the book on my next trip to the bookstore. “Educated” didn’t disappoint. It took me less than a week to read. The story boils down to one of control and how the author learned in very hard ways that she could have control and agency over her life despite her very unconventional upbringing. This triumph came despite her father’s fanatical religious beliefs, years of abuse by her brother, lack of schooling and almost complete isolation from the outside world. While mos...

Disclaimer on this one: I was very pre-disposed to like this book because a friend wrote it. I first met the author, Patti Meredith, 25-ish years ago when we worked at SCETV. I remember having lunch together early on when she came to work there, and she told me she had a novel in her. I was impressed, awed and intimidated. I don’t know if this is THE book she was referring to then, but it was worth the wait. I pre-ordered the book the minute it was available and my copy arrived the day before we left for a 2-week trip. While I typically no longer travel with a hard copy book, this one provided me with many hours of delight. Plus, the book made it back so I can now share it with friends (at least friends who don’t mind dog-eared and marked up pages where I scribbled around the sentences that were just too good not to go back and read again). South of Heaven by Patti Frye Meredith For anyone who is southern by birth or has moved to the south, passed through the south, yearned for the...

When I first started “Only Wanna Be With You,” I anticipated a bit of a tell-all rag. The author is Tim Sommer, a music journalist and record executive who was part of the Hootie and the Blowfish inner circle for many years. And isn’t it the job description of a former insider to write a book that airs all the dirty laundry?  However, with much of the story told through long-form direct quotes from the band members and others, I gradually came to trust the author was genuinely telling a story that sometimes seemed almost too good to be true. Four USC students form a band. They find fame, get rich, make good business decisions (for the most part), experience some fortunate convergences of circumstances, move on for various reasons (but insist they aren’t breaking up), reunite for a blockbuster tour and new album, and remain friends for 25 years. The story of the band members’ friendship, electric musical connection, and complete focus on the band’s - not their individual - succes...

I must admit I never had FOMO about Hootie and the Blowfish back in the day. I had missed their rise as a popular band on the college bar and frat circuit by about four years. By the time they were selling millions of records and playing sold-out arenas, I was in my country music/NPR phase. At that point, I was living in DC and oblivious to the meteoric rise of this local music phenomenon. Over the years, "cracked rear view" (title intentionally in lower case from the album cover:) and "Fairweather Johnson" somehow ended up in my iTunes – likely the result of trading around CDs among friends. That’s about the only reason I knew any of their songs. My epiphany about Hootie and the Blowfish came a generation after their chart-topping fame. A year or so before their 2019 reunion tour, my friend, singer-songwriter Danielle Howle, was performing a house concert in my living room. She asked if I was OK with her bringing a friend to play in with her. I told her it was ...

It's summer and isn’t everyone looking for a good book to read? As much as I used to love snuggling in for a Sunday afternoon with the Washington Post Book Review, today I’m more interested in a quick blink of a review to grab the basics of whether the book will interest me. I was at the beach over the holiday weekend with friends who have a summer reading challenge for their family. While I didn’t dare get tangled up in their debate over whether an audio book gets the same credit as a hard copy book, I was inspired to read more this summer. I have fond memories of the library summer reading club when I was a kid, so I’m offering up my own version this summer – a quick series of what I’m calling “blink book reviews.” As anyone who writes for a living knows, writing short is much harder than writing long. So I’m challenging myself to write 300-ish words about these books. Stay tuned this summer and get a blink of (what I hope will be) a dozen or so books.  Join our ...

Every year on May 23, I take a few minutes to reflect on my “work-iversary,” the anniversary of the first day of my first real-life job after graduating from USC. I walked into my Capitol Hill office wearing a thickly shoulder-padded linen suit and a blouse with a floppy bow. I was so excited to start using the skills I’d learned from the USC Journalism school, my campus leadership roles and work experience during college. J School graduation day That newly minted young professional had no idea what was in store for the next 30+ years of a crooked, yet in retrospect, perfectly aligned career path. I also had no idea of the lessons I’d learn along the way. A number of years ago, I started a list of those professional life lessons to use in a presentation to a group of college seniors. Since then, I like to revisit this list on my work-iversary as a way to reflect on the past year. This year, I found myself taking some of my own advice as I launch into a new professional...

  Waxing nostalgic today over a post I wrote two years ago. The date April 8 always stands out in my mind as the anniversary of my family moving into our home on Roslyn Drive. It’s a bit more bittersweet this year after my dad’s death in October. I recently found the deed and the contract he signed to buy the land for the house from his old friend, Jay McKay . This post I wrote two years ago on the 50th anniversary includes so many happy memories and a few cringe-worthy photos that I'm sure many of my childhood friends will remember. After I originally posted this two years ago, I received several photos from the young family now living in the house - with their daughter posing in the same place in the living room in front of a similarly situated blue chair.    

In anticipating seeing Clint Black in concert in Charleston this week, I tripped down memory lane remembering the first time I saw - and met - him. You can read that story here. Thirty-something years ago, I had the cool experience of visiting the White House with an up-and-coming young country singer named Clint Black and his band. My friend, Rhonda Keenum, had already finagled the tickets qnd backstage passes for us because of her unique position as assistant to, and gatekeeper for, the late Lee Atwater. People called him all the time for favors. She was the one who made them happen most of the time. In this case, Clint Black's "people" had called to see if Lee Atwater could arrange a White House tour prior to the DC-area concert. Rhonda told the "people" she felt sure it could be arranged - if she and her friend (me) could come along. On a warm September Saturday morning, we met Clint's bus out front of the White House - this was before all the crazy secu...