GRIT - Stories of Resilience

How hard is it really? How can Mount Ranier, located in the state of Washington, in the Pacific Northwest, be so beautiful and challenging and dangerous at the same time? That depends on whether you want to climb to the top or just visit the National Park down below. Mount Rainer is 14,411 feet in the air, at its peak. It is almost a vertical climb, you spend a couple of nights on it during your c...

Samantha Hamilton believes the harder you work, the easier it is to get lucky. That is not the same as the harder you the luckier you will be. Those words have been Samantha's mantra most all of her young life, from growing up on a farm in Kentucky to undergraduate school at the University of South Carolina, with a double major, to law school at Wake Forest University with both a Master's...

It took seven years, but Clark Wright finished walking the entire Appalachian Trail, all 2,100 plus miles of it, from Springer Mountain, Georgia to the summit of Mt. Katahdin, Maine. During his several visits to the Trail, Clark managed to successfully practice law in New Bern, North Carolina and become the proud father of two daughters. On the last five miles to the end, he started at midnight, f...

Clark Wright has a passion for the practice of law in New Bern, North Carolina. He has an equal passion for the outdoors in general and hiking in particular. In this new podcast, Clark tells the story of taking some months off from his law firm in the spring of 2001, rides with his wife Joanna to Springer, Georgia, and in March of that year starts what he hopes will be the walking of the entire Ap...

No one has spoken as eloquently and passionately about Wake Forest University and its story as Dr. Edwin G. Wilson. He came as a freshman in 1939, at the age of sixteen, and except for years in military service during the Second World War and graduate studies at Harvard, he never left. His English classes, particularly those on the Romantic Poets, were the most sought after by students at registra...

Alex Nunnally , a walk on Senior with N.C. State's men basketball team, thought his last time in a Wolfpack uniform might be on March 12, when as a 10 seed, his team was playing Louisville on the first day of the ACC Tournament. It was not to be as N. C. State played five games in five nights, winning them all and the ACC Championship and an automatic bid to March Madness and the NCAA Tournament....

In a refreshingly candid and brave conversation, Abbie Earley, UNC Class of '23, tells her story of a descent into deep depression in the spring of her junior year, and then with what she calls Team Abbie, she decides to fight back. She graduates on time with her class and now spends her time "chasing joy". Abbie believes two components are necessary to fighting depression and loneli...

I so hoped the N. C. State basketball team might win it all in the Final Four. But wait! Which team, the men's or women's? Both earned tickets to this year's Final Four. So, remember on Monday night, after the Men's Championship game is over, and they are playing the song, One Shining Moment", just remember that all the teams who participated in the tournament are honored, not...

Do you ever wonder what a baseball or softball player is thinking when a fly ball is hit to his or her position, all the while waiting for the ball to come down? How about the thrill of hitting a home run? Starting at the age of six, Haley Haislip has played organized softball ever since, including four years in high school and now four years, starting at first base, for the Women's Softball team...

Josh Traeger, a resident of Traverse City, MIchigan, by way of Pennsylvania, Wake Forest University, law school in Chicago, Air Force JAG, and ultimately senior trial lawyer, knows well the life stress of being a trial lawyer, and more specifically. a prosecutor of some of the most awful crimes that exist. Sometimes traveling away from home for at least 200 days a year, he would leave his young wi...

What is it that we can learn from our Youth on questions of fears and overcoming them? How important is it that we have a full and purposeful life? How do we get that? Does faith play a part in all of this? Are you afraid of change and doing new things? What are the fears of your life? These questions, and more, are topics in this new Podcast on Unafraid!

How many fears do you have? I have many, including a fear of heights, seeking to please people way too much, getting older and not as well balanced as I used to be. Riding bikes is a challenge. We worry about so many things...the future, our health, change, the economy, a constant stream of breaking news, getting older, getting sick, not being here one day. You name it, if there is a fear, someone...

In a few days, I am speaking to a North Carolina Leaders' Institute for elected Sheriffs in this state about Ethics and Professionalism. Like so many similar law enforcement officers all over the country, these men and women are elected to the office of Sheriff. They are just like the rest of us. They want to succeed, win elections and tqke office. They want to please people, sometimes too much. T...

The bumper sticker in the fall of 1972 was short and simple..."Robert Morgan Keeps His Promises". Running for and winning re-election as North Carolina's popular Attorney General, Robert Morgan was at the pinnacle of his political success. His political secret was the same as his personal one...he kept his promises, all his life. He was Attorney General, United States Senator, Direct...

This past Saturday was the 54th anniversary of the deaths of Colette, Kimberley, and Kristen MacDonald. Convicted by a jury in late August, Jeffrey MacDonald was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. He is still alive and serving time in a federal prison in Maryland. This podcast is not about the facts of the case as those are well known. Rather, I attempt to answer what has made this cas...

Bernie Carbo made Boston Red Sox and World Series history in Game 6 of the 1975 Classic, hitting a two-strike pitch for a three-run home run with two out in the bottom of the eighth inning, evening the score with the favored Cincinnati Reds, leading to an extra inning win for the Red Sox. That swing of the bat landed Bernie Carbo in the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame. Bernie would play 12 major leagu...

We all tell stories, almost every day of our lives, to most of our friends and many of those whom we have just met or known for long. It is what we do. Trial lawyers do this for a living, in opening and closing arguments to judges and juries. In a book titled In the Interest of Justice - Great Opening and Closing Arguments of the last 100 Years, Joel Seidemann, then an Assistant District Attorney...

The long-ago poem Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, includes, near the end, these two lines... "Tis not too late to seek a newer world... To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." This podcast is about change, which happens all the time to all of us, some benign and some not. We are told that it is not what happens, but how we respond, that is most important. Still, change can be...

In a criminal courtroom, there are three important chairs, not including those for the judge and jury. First, there is one for the prosecutor, next, there is one for the defense attorney and finally, there is one for the defendant. In this podcast, with a little lightheartedness along the way, I discuss three trials from my past, all involving Wade Smith on the other side. In 1979, there was the J...

Albert Camus, a French writer and philosopher, winner of the 1957 Nobel prize for Literature, once wrote "In the depth of winter, I found there lay within me an invincible summer". Winter represents adversity, tough times in the world, and summer is hope, the future and resilience. Each of us faces winter at some point in our lives, and all of us, I believe, have an invincible summer wit...

Regardless of whether you are responsible for the lemons in your life, or whether they are beyond your control, lemonade is what you want. With Monday, January 8, being my first podcast of the new year, I focus on starting all over again, personal goals for this year. I do not talk about my usual topics of losing 10lbs, going for extended walks, finishing my book for the umpteenth time, practicing...

I am taking a Christmas Pause for Podcasts this month and will have a new epidsode on January 8 in the new year. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to listen to one or more of these podcast since April. I look forward to new and exciting episodes starting early next month with really interesting new guests. I will give a preview of a number of them soon. Meanwhile, I wish you Happy Holid...

How do you prosecute a murder trial more than nine years after the crime? Are there witnesses still alive? Have their memories faded? Do they still want to be involved? Where are they now living, and how do we find them? What if people agree with you that the accused committed the murders, but say with confidence, you will never prove it. Too much time has passed, and people have moved on. Just le...

This Thanksgiving, as I was driving through several neighborhoods, I saw so many people out walking in the streets, after what was undoubtedly a large meal. I could not help but think back to what is now, a long time ago, when my parents, two brothers and I lived on a street named Faculty Drive, adjacent to the campus of Wake Forest. One Thanksgiving, my older brother Glenn and I went walking to s...

Earlier this year at a gathering in Raleigh's Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, after the funeral services of Wade's dear brother Roger, I saw Ann Smith, who spoke to me, introducing me to someone with the general words of "this is Jim Blackburn. He and Wade have so many stories, they can go on and on." That story began for me in the spring of 1979, when Wade was co-counsel to Jeff...