Monday,

July 11, 2025

Clark Wright  

Finding Peace

Near the Top

of the World

It is in the outdoors, exploring new and challening places, that Clark Wright, a long-time attorney from New Bern, North Carolina, says he "feels closer to God and a real sense of peace and contentment".

In his latest journey,of just a few weeks ago, he talks of his travels to the Andes in Peru and how such travels have shaped his life and career.  Specifically, he tells of seeiing Machu Picchu, at almost 8,000 feet, a 15th century Inca citadel and traveling through the  Salkantay Pass, which at its highest peak, is 24,574 feet, the highest in the Andes.

  He talks of his family, his law practice of 43 years, and at the age of 68, the callenges that lie ahead and what he wants to do next.

Everyone Needs  a Miracle

The Life and Times of Tara Lynn Stone

It is the call no parent ever wants to get. It was late on Sunday night. the day after Christmas, 1993, when four teenagers, riding in a new GT Mustang, going too fast, no one wearing a seat belt,left the road, traveling 566 feet, flipping several times, with the final two flips being 96 and 27 feet.  The car landed upside down in a field. Everyone in the car was thrown out. The young passenger in the front seat was killed. Tara Stone, just turned 17, was in the left back seat suffered severe head and brain damage.

Her dad, Ray Stone, worked for the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Her mother, Carolyn worked as a paralegal in a Dunn law firm. That is how I came to know her, hear the story of her daughter and eventually meet Tara in a nursing home where she was living in Dunn.

This is her story, what happened to her, the life she lived and the contributions she made. It is a story of faith, unconditional love and forgiveness.

Friday

July 4, 2025

"Being a proud new U.S. citizen on the Fourth of July"

July 4, 1826 & 1976

The Washington Post published an opinion piece on Friday, July 4 by Emil Stern, a native of Australia, now a screenwriter in Los Angeles, and who became a U. S. citizen days before July 4 of last year.  His story is so relevant to our country today that I give you the entire story as Emil writes it.

Imagine, if you can, two presidents of this country, once friends, then arch rivals, and in the end goof friends once again, dying on the 50th anniversary of July 4.  That happened to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two founding  fathers, with the last words of Adams being "Thomas Jefferson still lives".

Then, 50 years ago. President Ford seeks to unite the country as he welcomes the Tall Ships into New York harbor.