Atlanta Senior Life - October 2020

Clockwise from left: Lisa Adler of Horizon Theatre Co., Michael Hidalgo and David Thomas of ART Station, Jeff Watkins of the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse, and actor and playwright Tom Key

Photo by Phil Mosier

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WAITING FOR THEATER CURTAINS TO RISE AGAIN

It’s been a long, dark spring and summer for Atlanta’s theaters. Metro playhouses turned out the lights months ago to slow the spread of Covid-19. Unable to gather audiences in their theaters, actors, directors and playwrights were left to wait out the pandemic and hope for the safe return of live theater someday.

Several Atlanta theatres are trying or planning new ways to reach audiences. Some are going digital and streaming shows online. Others propose new ways of staging: The Atlanta Opera plans to perform Pagliacci this month in an open-sided tent with masked audience members clustered in small groups; The Alliance Theatre wants to start its 52nd season in November with shows staged in several different

ways, including a drive-in version of “A Christmas Carol.”

We thought this [presumably brief] pause before curtains start to rise again across the metro area would be a good time to meet some of the people who create Atlanta theater.

On the following pages, we present a half-dozen metro Atlantans who have devoted their careers to building theatrical groups and bringing stirring performances to the community. Their paths to Atlanta’s stages have varied widely – from writing plays to acting in plays to building an audience by staging Shakespeare year-round. Let’s hope they will be able to turn on the lights in their theaters soon.

and relatable. But to address gender, race, sexual preference, and economic disparity in American society, she had to learn what it means to be a brave storyteller. Especially after an editor excoriated her debut novel.

“To tell the truth, fearlessly,” Cleage said. “To not always feel that as an African American writer, I have to write noble women who are always correct, who are long-suffering matriarchs. Those are not the only stories we have to tell.”

The book that the editor criticized was 1997’s “What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day” –the story of a young Black woman diagnosed with HIV. It went on to be featured in Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club and it became a New York Times bestseller.

Cleage’s play, “Blues for an

Alabama Sky” (1995), was directed by Kenny Leon and starred her Howard University classmate, Phylicia Rashad. The Cosby Show actress gave such a believable performance, an audience member reached out to catch her as she portrayed a staggering, drunken 1930s nightclub singer.

Her play “Flyin’ West” (1992), was featured at The Kennedy Center. It told the story of African American pioneers, starred the late Ruby Dee, and became the most produced new play in the country in 1994. But Cleage calls it all icing on the cake.

“The moment I will always treasure is the first time we had an audience of 200 people at the Alliance Theater,” she said. “And people went crazy. They gave it a standing ovation. They laughed at all of the stuff I hoped they would

laugh at.”

Cleage also remembers her critical father praising the performance, and it brought tears to her eyes.

More than 50 years have passed since Cleage made Georgia her home. She still sees America battling some of its same social demons, including in the theater community, where there is still room for diversity.

“There’s a lot of holding these theaters’ feet to the fire and to say, ‘Okay, we love the rhetoric, but what are you going to do about it?’” Cleage said there needs to be voices for women and people of color on every level of a production. “These are great American theaters, and they need to be about the business of telling great American stories.”

Even as the coronavirus has

stalled the theater community, Cleage says she’s inspired to write faster. “All of us, by doing the best work we can possibly do, we make those audiences hungry for more good work,” Cleage said. “It’s very important to me that this theatre community thrive. And I’m always grateful to be a part of it.”

Among the shows put on hold by the pandemic is Cleage’s latest work, “Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous” (2019) –a hilarious and poignant story about getting older, as told by an aging actress. And with age, Cleage hasn’t lost any of her spunk either. She’s currently exploring film noir. “It’s been fun for me to see if I can write a bad girl.”

— Tiffany Griffith

Playwright. Essayist. Novelist. Poet. Political Activist. With so many titles next to her name, it’s a wonder that Pearl Cleage can recall specific details about her first night in Atlanta back in 1969. She went to see Black Image Theater put on a play. Cleage remembers the actors wore jeans and black turtlenecks. They talked about the Black community and

what needed to be done in the post-Civil Rights Era.

“And I thought to myself, ‘I’m home!’” Cleage said. “’This is exactly the kind of theater I love.’”

The new city welcomed her with open arms. Cleage credits the encouragement, as well as Atlanta’s lively political and artistic scene, for much of her creativity.

“People wanted me to write

what I know. And that’s the best gift that a place can give you,” Cleage said. “To make you feel like you’re able to be deeply rooted in that place and reflective of that place. And I hope that’s what I’ve been able to do in Atlanta.”

She would go on to write many plays and books – love letters to the community that fascinates her the most: Black women.

“Because I’m a Black woman. I know myself, so I feel that I know those characters and I want to see women like the women that I know, like the women that I see, on the stage. Because their lives are so

interesting,” Cleage said. “I could write those stories forever.”

Though her stories center around women of color, Cleage believes the themes are universal

Special

business to open up because of what we do, which is bring people together,” Thomas said.

“All of our training and all of our experience for at least the last 30 to 35 years has been just that — to bring people together for live theater,” Hidalgo said. “Our hands are not only tied behind our backs, our legs are tied together too. We can’t even walk, let alone run.”

It’s a tough spot for these two partners in work and in life who are used to blazing through 20-hour days filled with projects, both at home and at work. Together since they met, and married since 2015, when they were legally able to do so, they live within walking distance from ART Station in a 1940s bungalow they are renovating. These days, much of their time is spent applying for business grants and loans and working toward the day they can finally stage their onhold productions of “Murder for Two” and “Looped.”

From left, ART Station founders Michael Hidalgo and David Thomas

ART Station, a cultural mainstay in the ever-changing landscape of Stone Mountain Village, has been pummeled by the global pandemic. Every employee was furloughed, except for one who takes care of the historic building, which houses a 150-seat theater, a cabaret theater, five art galleries, classrooms, production and administrative space and gift shops.

Co-founders David Thomas, the center’s president and artistic director, and Michael Hidalgo, its producing director and designer, are now “working pretty much as volunteers,” Thomas said.

Two productions of the nonprofit’s professional equity theater company and its summer arts camp were cancelled, along with its biggest fundraiser, the March 17 “Raising of the Green.”

ART Station programs have served more than 50,000 patrons and students in past years. As of now, there’s no telling when the facility will reopen.

“We’re in a really weird place because we’ll be the last kind of

“There’s one word that really summarizes what we’ve been doing. That’s planning. We always plan,” Hidalgo said. “David’s a huge dreamer, and I try to make it realistic. What we do normally is plan, but this is abnormal planning. … It keeps us challenged.”

Thomas and Hidalgo seem to thrive on challenges.

They met in 1983 in graduate school at Virginia Tech and worked together in outdoor theater in Wilmington, N.C., before moving to Atlanta in 1984.

“I was working in insurance to pay the bills while David was living the dream, doing arts stuff,” Hidalgo said.

Thomas was traveling around the state to consult with arts groups as grants director for the Georgia Council for the Arts. He had been thinking of opening an arts center in Midtown Atlanta, but “I came to an arts festival in Stone Mountain … and I saw the Trolley Barn and I just got tingles,” he said.

The Trolley Barn, at 5384 Manor Drive, was built as a trolley station and streetcar barn in 1913, part of a streetcar line from Stone Mountain to Whitehall Street in downtown Atlanta.

Michael Hidalgo and David Thomas

Co-founders, ART Station

Pearl Cleage

Playwright in residence, Alliance Theatre

Thomas was dazzled by the old brick building, but, “It was in horrible, horrible shape,” he said. “The roof had caved in. You had to wear a mask to go in there. It was full of asbestos.”

And yet, he forged ahead, forming a founding group of artists, government, corporate and community leaders that raised $3.5 million to renovate the building for an arts center. The theater company

Thomas founded in 1986 moved into the building in 1990.

Historic restoration and renovations have continued since, including a project primarily completed in Oct. 2019 that replaced 11 brick archways lost to asbestos removal, renovated the lobby, and installed and added all new seats to the theater.

A Fox Theatre Institute grant funded another major improvement completed after the center shut down in March.

“We now have a brand-new stage with a brand-new turntable inserted in the stage, which is fabulous. Nobody’s seen it yet, but we’re very much looking forward to showing that off,” Hidalgo said.

Donna Williams Lewis

The troupe sought original works. In Horizon’s early days, Adler saw the potential in a story submitted to her on onion skin paper by a local college student. The notes detailed the young Black woman’s experience of being raised by the many women in her life during the 1960s in the segregated South.

“It wasn’t really a play, but I was like. ‘You’ve got something.’ This girl can write,” Adler recalls.

With a little work, that heartwarming story, “Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery” by Shay Youngblood, premiered on the Horizon stage in 1988, and had two additional runs at the theater. It thrilled and entertained audiences and was performed nationwide. Youngblood continues to have a thriving career. This and people waiting in the rain for Horizon performances, are memories Adler holds close to her heart.

In addition to laugh-out-loud comedies, such as Avenue Q, Horizon also has addressed sober topics, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, sexual abuse, human trafficking, gentrification, and autism. Adler said the variety in their programming reflects Horizon’s mission.

“To connect people, inspire hope, and promote positive change through the stories of our times,” Adler said.

Being a contemporary community theater means reflecting the community the Horizon Theatre is in, Adler said. “It’s a goal of ours to put different races, different ages on stage together,” she said.

Adler has seen Horizon’s audiences grow from being mostly white viewers, to a 60 percent white audience and 40 percent people of color. That number grows to 85 percent when an African American focused show is performed. But Adler said the Black Lives Matter movement is holding them to a higher standard.

being too white, nationally. Locally a lot of anger and frustration coming out over many, many years of what people feel like is racism. Even though there’s a lot of diversity in the work in Atlanta, a lot of the producers are mostly white people.”

Adler said the current power dynamic and culture in theater is under debate about how to make it better. New tools are being utilized, antiracism plans are being created, meetings and trainings are being held. The pandemic has also stalled live theater. “This is the longest time in my entire adult life that I haven’t done a play. And it’s very strange,” Adler said.

The Horizon Theater has weathered the storm with a July furlough, a Paycheck Protection Program Loan, and money in reserves. But she fears layoffs might be unavoidable.

Adler hopes the shutdown will teach people about the value of live theater.

“With the pandemic, people realize what it brings to the community. When you can’t go, suddenly they realize this arts community thing is kind of important,” she said.

In the meantime, the Horizon Theatre is experimenting with new ways to present entertainment– streaming performances and interactive programs. Adler is optimistically commissioning work for a return to safe, in-person acting in January.

“What’s exciting to me is the opportunity to create a world. People walk into an environment, and you create everything that happens to them,” Adler said.

“You’re responsible. You take them on a journey. And the ability to create that world and impact people is addictive.”

Lisa Adler left the vibrant theater scene in Chicago and came to Atlanta. But in the early ‘80s, she noticed something was missing: contemporary theater. She believed Atlanta was missing performances that addressed current issues in modern times with relatable characters.

It was a dream both Adler and her husband, Jeff, were willing to bet on.

“The first play we did we used $1,000 of our wedding money,” she said with a laugh.

With the help of a producer who also wanted to create original work, the seeds for the Horizon Theatre were planted. The show that started it all was “Bonjour, La, Bonjour” by Michel Tremblay

– a French-Canadian play Adler had first seen at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. “At the time we were growing up, the Steppenwolf Theatre was the hot, young place with all the great young talent that people wanted to be part of,” Adler said.

The couple received heavy praise for their efforts. A second performance soon followed – “Top Girls,” a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill about women in the workplace. “Caryl Churchill was a very cutting edge, popular writer at the time,” Adler noted.

Adler was inspired to run the show because she was determined to showcase plays by and about women.

“Both of those plays had never been done in Atlanta,” Adler said. “And we were looking to bring fresh voices to Atlanta.”

From there, multiple plays snowballed into a season. Atlanta’s theater community showed its support as 300 season tickets were sold that first year. Adler now holds the title of co-founder and Co-Artistic/ Producing Director of Horizon Theatre.

“Black Lives Matter has also hit our community really, really hard. That has been very stressful and emotionally draining for everybody in the community,” she said. “There’s been a lot of accusation of theater

— Tiffany Griffith

Jeff Watkins

Artistic Director, the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse

Jeff Watkins learned early to play to the crowd.

When he was very young, his father worked as a professional magician and ran a magic shop in Texas. Young Jeff would watch his dad perform close-up magic (the kind with card tricks and disappearing balls) at magicians’ conventions and other gatherings.

After college, Jeff took up street magic for a while himself. With a freshly minted college degree, including a minor in theater, he moved from Texas to New York to make his fortune in show business. He auditioned for acting jobs and paid for groceries by doing sidewalk shows.

“Washington Square was the most fun,” he said. “Wall Street is where I made the most money.”

Like most starting actors, he spent much of his time just looking for work. He landed a job with a six-actor company that toured the northeast in a van and a car and staged shows in schools and community centers about various literary figures. In the early 1980s, he headed west to Chicago to join some college friends who were organizing a theater group there.

A couple of years later, as Watkins was driving from Texas to New York for yet another audition, he stopped off to visit a friend in Atlanta. She ran a group that staged readings of Shakespeare’s plays in local bars. When his friend decided to move

Tom Key Actor, playwright, director

to New York herself and leave the Atlanta Shakespeare Association behind, “I said can I have it?”

Watkins said.

Watkins became the group’s artistic director. In 1984, the group staged a production of “As You Like It” in a back room at Manuel’s Tavern, a storied Atlanta watering hole where politicians, cops and journalists gathered. One early show, Watkins said, was a political fundraiser.

Playing Shakespeare in a barroom turned out to be a

dissuaded from that.”

He calls his style of presentation “Original Practice,” meaning he stages plays as he believes they originally would have been performed. Productions follow the text, employ no dramatic modern sets or updated sound effects, and use only fabrics and clothing from the period. His actors don’t pretend there’s not an audience sitting just a few feet away. “At Manuel’s, I said this is the vibe I’m after,” he said.

Here’s Where to Find Theaters

230 productions of Shakespeare’s plays, he said, and twice preformed the full “canon” -- 39 plays attributed fully or in some form to Shakespeare.

“I’ve done more Shakespeare than anybody else on the North American continent,” he said one recent afternoon as he sat on the porch of his Decatur home, “and maybe more than just five or six people in the U.K.”

In 1990, the company moved into the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse at 499 Peachtree St. in Midtown Atlanta. The 200-seat Tavern staged more than a dozen plays a year until the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close in March.

Watkins doesn’t know when his troupe will return to live performances – mid-next year, he guesses – but he has plans to expand so he can someday do even more of the kind of plays his fans have nicknamed “Shakespeare for NASCAR fans.”

For current information on when individual metro theaters plan to reopen their main stages and on whether and how they are presenting theatrical events now, check their individual websites.

7 Stages Theatre: 7stages.org

Act3 Playhouse: act3productions.org

Actor’s Express Theatre Co.: actors-express.com

Agatha’s A Taste of Mystery: agathas.com

The Alliance Theatre: alliancetheatre.org

ART Station: artstation.org

Atlanta Lyric Theatre: atlantalyrictheatre.com

Atlanta Opera: atlantaopera.org

Aurora Theatre: auroratheatre.com

City Springs Theatre Co.: cityspringstheatre.com

Dad’s Garage Theatre: dadsgarage.com

Dinner Detective Murder Mystery Dinner Show: thedinnerdetective. com/atlanta

Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre: earlsmithstrand.org

Found Stages: foundstages.org

Georgia Ensemble Theatre: get.org

Horizon Theatre Co.: horizontheatre.com

Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Co.: truecolorstheatre.org

Legacy Theatre: thelegacytheatre.org

OnStage Atlanta: onstageatlanta.com

Out of Box Theatre: outofboxtheatre.com

Out Front Theatre Co.: outfronttheatre.com

Pinch ‘N’ Ouch Theatre: www.facebook.com/pnotheatre

Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse: shakespearetavern.com

Synchronicity Theatre: synchrotheatre.com

Stage Door Players: stagedoorplayers.org

Theatrical Outfit: theatricaloutfit.org

Village Theatre: villagecomedy.com

revelation. Watkins saw what he thought his productions should be – directed to the audience and, for lack of a better word, entertaining. “I had been a street performer,” the 64-year-old said.

“I know in my stomach – I know in my gut – when it’s working with an audience. I cannot be

At first, his plays weren’t always popular with critics who thought Shakespeare should be treated seriously and updated to reflect modern times, he said. But his shows found an audience. Watkins’ company has staged Shakespeare for more than 35 years. It has presented more than

And he’s convinced that sitting back with a draft Guinness and watching a sword fight from your bar table as you dine on shepherd’s pie is the best way to see Shakespeare. “What I’ve created connects to the audience,” he said. “If you think Shakespeare isn’t your playwright, you need to spend more time at the Shakespeare Tavern … and this beer will help.”

— Joe Earle

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Atlanta actor Tom Key has never been one to shy from a difficult topic, conversation, decision or role.

At 70, he’s still at it. After retiring in June as artistic director of the Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta, Key is auditioning for film and TV work, has gotten involved in social causes and is hopeful he’ll be back on stage in Atlanta again by the spring of 2021.

The author of the “Cotton Patch Gospel,” a show that reimagines the story of Jesus set in the rural South of the mid-20th Century, also is contemplating writing another play. “I am working to develop a writing habit,” he said. “I’m about two months into it. I want to get to the point where I’m writing every day, because the times are so challenging.”

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He wants his new project “to show that what unites us is greater than what divides us, and that we all belong to each other.”

Key grew up in Birmingham. In 1963, when he was only about 13, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in his hometown and the deaths of four young girls in the bombing showed him powerful, horrifying lessons about race and the need for community. “My whole view of reality was changed,” he said. “It was a formative experience.”

Fast forward to 1968. Key made friends with a roommate who was a young man of color and made plans to bring him home at Thanksgiving. No, said his shocked parents. If you do that, we’ll stop paying for your tuition and your car.

“So, I took them up on it,” he said simply. “We maintained a civil relationship, but there was a real gap or wound that was just there.”

After moving to Knoxville, he emerged from the University of Tennessee in the late 1970s with an undergraduate degree in English literature and a graduate degree in theater.

“Cotton Patch” followed. It started as a one-man show and flowered into an off-Broadway musical. Key toured with it, eventually landing in Dallas for a two-year stint with a theater company there.

In 1986, Key and his family moved back to Atlanta. About a year later, he was offered a job as artistic director an off-Broadway theater in New York. He decided to stick with Atlanta, his “home place in the South,” he said, because he felt it offered a better environment for broadening his directing and writing skills and perhaps starting a small theater company. “New York theater is like the state fair where the tomatoes are judged,” he said. “But the tomatoes are not grown in the soil of the midway.”

He carved out his reputation through extensive work at the Alliance Theatre and through touring “Cotton Patch” and “C.S. Lewis on Stage,” a one-man show based on the British writer. Film and TV opportunities came along.

An artistic director’s job came calling again in 1995, this time with the Theatrical Outfit. It encompassed a grab bag of duties from picking out, casting and occasionally acting in and

directing plays to forming and encouraging creative teams. Key also functioned as a public advocate and money-raiser for the theater.

The theater’s plays ran the gamut, but more than a few tackled thorny questions related to race, sexual orientation or faith. “I always ask the question, ‘What do we need to have a conversation about right now?’ And sometimes the answer was, ‘We really need is to have a good time right now.’”

The longtime Atlanta theater veteran recounted how presenting envelopepushing productions sometimes occasioned pushback.

In some places where ‘Cotton Patch” was being staged, fundamentalists took out ads in local newspapers calling it “blasphemous” and urging people to stay home.

And Key remembered how a 1982 run of the play at the Alliance Theater featured a live discussion following each performance.

One night got especially ticklish. “A woman in the front row asked, without any hesitation or apology, why I made the [Ku Klux] Klan a bad force in the story because [she said] it was an organization founded to protect Christian women and children,” he recalled. Key said he paused for what seemed a long time, then -- “in the same way that bombs are defused-slowly and carefully.”

-- he explained why he had the KKK play a role in the lynching of Jesus in his play.

The longtime Atlanta actor said over the years he was asked to join productions that espoused a stance or an opinion and sought to demonize those who deviated from it. He always politely refused, he said.

“I turned down a play about the Holocaust because with it came a vision that we are animals just surviving and humanity has no moral basis. It wasn’t just that I disagreed with the idea, I literally would not know how to play that role.”

Now he returns to writing. “I plan to write about the human condition,” he said. “I believe fundamentally in the core of my being that we are part of a story that’s going to end well, even when we’re in the worst of times.”

— Mark Woolsey

Her garden is for the birds...and bugs

Around Town

Joe Earle is Atlanta Senior Life editor-at-large and has lived in metro Atlanta for over 30 years. He can be reached at joeearle@ reporternewspapers.net

When Esther Stokes moved into a new home in Brookwood Hills a couple of years ago, the yard sprouted many familiar flowering plants with roots in foreign places. Now those imports are disappearing. Stokes is replacing her azaleas and camellias with Joe Pye weed, cardinal flowers and other types of greenery that grew up here in the wild.

With her new plantings, Stokes, a landscape designer by trade, is going native. Why? Because her garden is for the birds.

It’s a bit for the bees, too. Also, the bugs, to tell the truth. But it’s mostly for the birds Stokes has been paying close attention to since she was a child growing up in Virginia and that she supports as chair of the board of Georgia Audubon, a bird-centered nonprofit that claims it builds places “where birds and people thrive.”

“Literally, that is what we try to do,” Stokes said one warm August morning as she sat on the shaded patio in her native-plant-filled garden. “Whether we are restoring or establishing new habitat or whether we are maintaining what is there, everything is through the lens of birds. And if birds are thriving, those are good places for people.”

These days, Stokes said, Georgia Audubon wants to do more to support birds. The 1,700-member organization, based at the Blue Heron Nature Center in Buckhead, is spreading its efforts across the state, is adding staff, and has changed its name to reflect its new aims. Until August, the organization was known as the Atlanta Audubon Society, or, before that, the Atlanta Bird Club.

Stokes says Georgia Audubon intends to work with the other, smaller Audubon societies around Georgia and will sponsor projects to help fill the gaps between various local clubs and state Audubon societies in neighboring states.

“I feel like Atlanta Audubon, and now Georgia Audubon, has become a part of the conservation community,” she said. “We have been very intentional about that, and because we think partnerships are critical — you can’t do everything yourself — we’ve begun a lot of that sort of work. And there’s lots left to do.” Interest in birds came naturally to Stokes. “I’ve been interested in parks and birds as long as I can remember,” she said.

There was a time, back when she was in her 20s, that she enjoyed simply keeping an eye on birds and kept lists of the different kinds of birds she’d seen.

Nowadays, with the coronavirus keeping everyone at home, more people are discovering the pleasures of birdwatching, she said, and Georgia Audubon is providing online classes and virtual bird walks on Facebook to help both longtime bird fans and newcomers expand their participation in the hobby. “We have found people are staying at home and watching their feeders and it has opened a window and their

minds,” Stokes said. “People have noticed that not all birds look alike.”

But Stokes’ chief interest these days is watching the bigger picture, the overall habitat that supports the birds. Her new interest came as a natural outgrowth of her work as a landscape designer, which she started in the 1980s, and continued as her volunteer work with Piedmont Park led to work with other Atlanta parks and eventually back to birds through Audubon.

Native habitats are important she said, because birds and bees and bugs do best when they live among the sorts of plants their kind long have lived among.

“For the last 50 years, in the landscape area, we have imported all these plants from China and Japan that do well here, but the insects don’t recognize them,” she said. “They are beautiful, but they don’t provide ecosystem services.”

And some birds depend on those bugs as a source of food. So, what’s good for the bugs can be good for the birds, too.

Stokes says the people at Georgia Audubon intend to foster native habitat across the state. One of the organization’s new employees will be based at and work on projects on the Georgia coast.

“Research has shown us that ‘if you build it, they will come,’” she said, as birds occasionally darted through the shrubs and trees in her yard in search of late-morning snacks. “We’re losing things like grassland birds because they don’t have habitat, but if you build a grassland, they will come back.”

Georgia birds now can find a number of recently restored habitats, with more added every year. In Brookwood Hills, for instance, they can just check out Esther Stokes’ backyard.

JOE EARLE

Esther Stokes checks on Joe Pye Weed and Cardinal flowers growing in her backyard.

Former TV anchor Monica Pearson stays busy in her ‘rewirement’

Monica Pearson no longer graces metro Atlanta’s TV screens nightly, but she remains a significant presence on the local landscape. Pearson arrived in Atlanta after TV and newspaper reporting jobs in her native Louisville and became the first African American and the first woman to anchor a major Atlanta evening newscast, at WSB-TV in 1975. After a 37-year career, countless major stories and a veritable truckload of awards, she stepped away in 2012.

Nowadays, she keeps busy doing radio endorsements, accepting some-but not allspeaking engagements, handling voice acting for various clients from her own home studio and exercising religiously. She still moves at a rapid pace, but slowed down long enough to chat recently with Atlanta Senior Life contributor Mark Woolsey.

Q. What are you doing these days as a retired person?

A. I am not retired, I’m rewired. I call what I do “rewirement” and here’s the reason: I have to stay active to keep my mind sharp. In my rewirement, I’m doing things I want to do versus things I have to do, meaning I will say no to some organizations [who want her to get involved with or speak to their memberships]. I’m doing things I couldn’t do as a journalist -- endorsing companies and places, things like Stone Mountain, which is somewhat controversial at times, but they’re also companies I use. I’m also putting together a website to speak my mind on things I

MANSIONS

ASSISTED LIVING & MEMORY CARE

couldn’t do before…and I am walking.

Q. What do you think about the changes in journalism that have occurred since you stepped away?

A. It’s very confusing for a viewer -- even me (laughs). I think people need to learn how to watch TV now. By that I mean there are certain channels with a political bent and you need to be aware of that. I stick with my local news and spend a good deal of time reading newspapers. I want to make up my mind for myself. The only one I’ll admit to watching every day on cable is Rachel Maddow, because she’s fair. On a normal day I do sample CNN, MSNBC and Fox. Most people will look at just one thing and that concerns me…If you look at both sides, you can make your own decisions. You have to delineate between people who are paid to be opinionated and people who are paid to present the news. Most viewers don’t understand the distinction between commentary and journalism.

Q. What advice would you give to prospective journalists?

A. The first thing I would say is get into it because you love news, you like telling stories that affect people’s lives. Far too many people are getting into the business nowadays because they think it’s going to make them a star. It’s “I want to be an anchor” and it’s not about the anchoring, it’s about the reporting. It’s about helping people make decisions about their lives.

Q. If you were still in journalism, how might you have covered this year’s pandemic?

A. The only thing I would have done differently is that people are just now taking note of how this affects seniors, and young people, who didn’t take it seriously because they think they’re bulletproof. I think these kinds of stories should have been done sooner. Another story I wish we had done sooner is on essential workers.

Q. What’s your opinion on the “Black Lives Matter” movement?

A. At first, I didn’t understand Black Lives Matter because I hadn’t done my research. Once I did, I was very comfortable. Put it this way: if Black lives mattered ,why are Black and brown people being the “essential workers” who are most exposed to COVID and paid the least? If Black lives mattered, why would we see an education system that’s still very segregated and in many cases “less than” for Black children? If Black lives mattered, why would a young white man who shot three people be to walk toward officers with his hands up and allowed to go home, whereas a Black man who is walking away and getting in his car is shot in the back? The movement is being demonized right now. On cancel culture: if you know your history, you don’t mind some of your history being canceled. I know I’ll get in trouble for saying this, but some people don’t know what the Confederacy was about, the history of people being enslaved for economic reasons and not being treated as human beings. You don’t have a problem taking down the statue of a man who was a slaveholder.

Q. On a lighter note, do people still comment on your hair the way they used to when you were anchoring?

A. They still do that. And I change my hair all the time. As a matter of fact, that’s where I’m headed. I have a noon appointment to get a haircut. You have to remember that for me, hair is an accessory. As you change your jewelry, I change my hair.

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You have choices for electronic storage

As a senior, you may have downsized your living space, but you’ve likely increased your need to store more electronic stuff –such as photos, videos, music, and data files containing important personal information.

And if you’ve purchased a new phone, tablet, or computer, you’ve probably noticed a couple of trends that seem to pull in opposite directions: your phone and tablet have more storage space, and your computer has a smaller hard drive. This dichotomy is not as strange as it seems, and you can easily manage your storage needs at surprisingly little or no cost.

Gene Rubel

The Digital Device Doctor cures digital anxiety for seniors and home/home-office users.

A graduate of Harvard Business School, “Doctor Gene” spent more than 30 years in international business. He can be reached at generubel@gmail.com.

electronic ones (solid state drives or SSDs), they need less space to manage the data. To keep prices lower, they’re offering smaller drives. However, you have more and more electronic stuff – and that’s where “the cloud” comes into play. The industry has created huge banks of servers, all connected through the internet, to hold all the stuff you want to keep. Think of them as electronic storage lockers and understand that you can have storage lockers scattered throughout cyberspace for free or for a few bucks a month, all accessible from every device you own.

another thousand songs and lots of Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.

It works across all devices and operating systems, and you can provide links to share files or collaborate on Word files or spreadsheets. That can

resolution photos and images and downloading music. iCloud is also good for instantly sharing files with other iCloud users.

Most iPhone/iPad users sometimes misunderstand the difference between device storage and iCloud storage, and that can lead to problems.

Dropbox for fast access is when I renewed my driver’s license. Using the cellular network, which is more secure than a WiFi connection, I was able to pull up the documentation I needed on my phone. I didn’t have to bring along a birth certificate or passport.

Amazon

subscription of $69.99 gives you 1TB of OneDrive storage, and the family subscription of $99.99 per year for up to six family

First, a little context. As a mobile, connected society, we are making much more use of phones and tablets. More and more seniors continue to read books, newspapers and magazines and listen to podcasts on phones and tablets because they’re easy to carry. It’s also easy to customize type size for better readability and to use earbuds or some other listening device to hear better without disturbing anyone around you. Tablets can also be used for handling email, shopping online and streaming video content.

Personally, I hardly watch anything on a TV anymore; my wife does.

In addition, we use our phones to take pictures, shoot videos, play music – and do all the things we do on a tablet. Those files and all the apps we use take up storage space on the devices.

At the same time, computer hard drives are getting smaller, and you can chalk that up to a technology change. As the industry switches from mechanical hard drives to

In addition, electronic storage makes it easier to share with family and friends as needed. While we think of sharing photos and videos, we can also share music. In addition, by carefully managing access, we can store documents with important personal information or instructions that can help designated family members manage your affairs if necessary.

So, what are some of the best choices for you and what can you expect to pay? Here’s our rundown of some well-known storage providers and some you may not be familiar with.

Google

Google is my favorite for online storage for its capacity, accessibility and capabilities for working on files and sharing them. If you have a Gmail account, you already have all of this for free in Google Drive.

For starters, you get 15GB (gigabytes) of storage, the most of any free plan. How much is 15GB? It’s enough space to store several thousand photos, plus a few hours of video, maybe

come in really handy when doing volunteer work or family projects.

If you somehow manage to blow through 15GB, you can switch to a paid plan – which will be under the name of Google One. Plans start at 100GB at $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year and top out at 2TB (terabytes) at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

iCloud

iCloud is really designed for Apple users, but if you have an Apple account, it can work for you if you have an iPhone or iPad and a Windows-based computer. It’s built into your Apple devices, and you can easily set them up to back up your pictures and videos as well as your contacts. In fact, you should make sure you have this set up if you are planning to buy a new Apple device. That’s

Your device can come with 64 or 128GB storage space, but that needs to handle the operating system and the ability to run apps as well as store stuff. That storage is finite. When you hit the limit, you need to offload or delete files and apps, and this is where you need to be careful. Removing photos, videos, music and other files from your device will also delete it from your iCloud. But as long as you have iCloud capacity and automated backup, the device will move files to the cloud.

Dropbox

You might be tempted to dismiss Dropbox out of hand because it only gives you 2GB of free storage, but it can fill a useful role as part of an overall storage plan. I find it works best as a replacement hard drive for files I work on or need to be able to access quickly from any device anywhere in the world. You can set up folders for documents and photos, just as

Amazon is another one of those storage places you might forget you have. Everyone with an Amazon account gets unlimited photo storage and up to 5GB of video storage free. If you have Amazon Prime, you

members gives everyone the apps and 1TB each. OneDrive allows you to share files, folders, and photos with friends and family by sending a link via email or text. The caveat is that people must have the ability to access the internet to use the link, and it can be complicated for some. However, you can also simply attach a file or photo to an email.

Backup and Restoration

because your setup will depend on sending all the data on your iPhone or iPad to an iCloud account and then transferring it to your new device.

You get 5GB free, but you can easily expand it to 50GB for $0.99 per month. Plan on getting extra iCloud storage because of the ease of taking so many high-

you do on your computer and give access to those who need it. It’s more for collaboration with one or two other people rather than a huge group, such as you might have with Google Drive. All they need is their own free Dropbox account to share – and everyone can access the files from up to three devices. If you need more space, you can get Dropbox Pro with 2TB for $120 a year.

The best example of why I like

can also use their cloud to store music, like I do. But in today’s world of integration, you can also use Amazon print and share photos and view them as virtual photo albums on Amazon devices like Fire TV, Echo Show, and Fire tablets.

However, the most important benefit is that your photos can live forever on Amazon. Once you save them to the Amazon Photos app, they’re there in perpetuity, and you can safely delete them from your phones or cameras to free up space on the device.

With other services, most notably Apple, deleting photos and videos from the cloud or device deletes them from everything connected with that provider. But you can always buy more space: 100GB for $1.99 per month or 1TB for $6.99 per month.

Microsoft

Microsoft and OneDrive are worth mentioning because if you have a Microsoft account, you get 5GB of free storage. But if you subscribe to Microsoft 365, you get a lot of storage space on Microsoft OneDrive along with regular updates of the popular Microsoft apps Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The individual annual

We’ve discussed five storage options out of the dozens available today. None is mutually exclusive; you can mix and match them. However, they’re

not designed for automated backup/restoration operations. If you think about these services as storage lockers, putting your files there is more like putting stuff in boxes and putting the boxes wherever they physically fit. And no matter how well you organize and stack your boxes, if you need something from the back of the locker, you need to move the boxes to find what you want. It’s a laborious process. Services such as Carbonite do the heavy lifting. They can automatically backup your computer’s files and use a special routine to restore files to your computer. They are not free, but they are relatively low cost and, in my opinion, highly valuable. Once you set them up, these services pull all recent files from your computer or device and file them in appropriate online folders. When you sustain damage to a hard drive or decide to buy a new computer, you can use these services to restore files – and even application

software in some cases – in the same way you had them on your computer’s hard drive.

Backup and restoration services are not meant to be used to retrieve individual files or folders. Again, that’s what those online storage lockers are meant for.

But unlike physical storage lockers and physical things, electronic files can easily be copied multiple times and stored in multiple locations. Businesses do this all the time. They store copies all over the world to make sure a natural or manmade disaster in one place doesn’t wipe out their ability to recover and restore operations. You can use the same tools as a Fortune 500 company to store retrievable files and backed-up files from anywhere in the world and access them all from one place with a few keystrokes. And for little or no cost, we don’t think you’ll ever run out of space.

AJC SALE

Avoid gaining weight during

My 92-year-old friend Bill Roselle, who lives in California, reads my Atlanta Senior Life articles online. He sent an email yesterday and said he wanted to let me know he’s gained 10 pounds since the coronavirus pandemic took hold of Californians (not to mention the September wildfires and unprecedented early fall heat waves). It’s been a rough year!

I did not write back to discuss my “new” 19 pounds (gained since early March). It wasn’t something I was particularly proud of. But weight gain for older adults during this pandemic isn’t unusual and experts are saying it’s almost inevitable for many of us.

With “increased time spent on the couch, it’s no wonder weight gain has been a common experience,” states an article I spotted in Sharp Health News. The article reminds older adults that maintaining a healthy weight is important to prevent a manage a number of health conditions, such as high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes.

Those conditions, by the way, are the same ones that place older adults at a higher risk for COVID-19 complications, should we unknowingly have contracted it. Either way, weight gain can be uncomfortable — and, as mentioned, dangerous to our overall health, especially if binge eating is involved.

Becca Eckstein, executive director of Veritas Collaborative’s Adult Hospital in Durham, N.C., wrote in an email that there can be added “hurdles to recovery” for people who gain weight because of inactivity.

“During a time when social distancing is key, a pandemic can create greater feelings of loneliness for an individual needing additional support,” she wrote. “Eating disorders can thrive in isolation and eating

disorder symptoms are likely to exacerbate during a time of higher anxiety and stress.” And the 2020 pandemic is stressful.

“Taking care of your mind, body, and soul is more important now than ever,” Eckstein says. “Lastly, finding joy in the small things — whether gratitude for each day of health, reading an enjoyable book (or even joining a virtual book club), or looking forward to the day where hugs are safely in abundance,” she said.

The International Journal of Eating Disorders suggests that “binge eating might also occur simply due to [our] proximity to food, an emotional reaction to the pandemic, or even because of stockpiling food” (in an effort to prepare for self-isolation). In fact, those with a history of eating disorders are “beginning to exhibit worsening symptoms.”

A Few Silver Linings

But there’s good news, too. “One silver lining of this pandemic is there are now more virtual treatment and support options than ever, which is great for people who were previously unable to access in-person treatment,” Chelsea M. Kronengold, communications manager for the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), wrote in an email.

“Older adults who struggle with food, body image and exercise issues are experiencing the added challenges of being ‘high risk,’ and are likely taking extra precautions to self-isolate. …Whatever you are feeling right now (e.g., loneliness, anxiety, anger) is valid. Connection and community are key during this unprecedented time.”

Many grandparents have taken this time to get more comfortable with using video platforms such as Zoom or FaceTime to remain connected to family members

and close friends, and video technology seems poised to take on a new cultural significance, some experts say. In a 2018 study, researchers found that the use of video chatting has actually helped to reduce the risk of depression in people aged 60 and older, a group that is more likely to be socially isolated than its younger counterparts.

Another study, conducted by researchers in Oregon and published in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, found that of four online communication technologies –video chat, email, social networks and instant messaging -- using video chat to connect with friends and family appeared to hold the most promise in staving off depression among seniors. However, all those video chats will not keep older adults (or younger ones) away from the late-night snacks and refrigerator tours.

Aging Adjustments

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us that as we age, our “body composition

gradually shifts — the proportion of muscle decreases and the proportion of fat increases. This shift slows our metabolism, making it all the easier to gain weight.” In addition, we may become less physically active while we age, increasing our odds for weight gain.

Clinical psychologist Karen Samuels is an expert in the field of eating disorders. For more than 30 years, she’s been a workshop leader and keynote presenter.

Samuels has published extensively on a number of issues related to treatment of eating disorders across our life span. Samuels gives special attention to women at midlife and beyond. “Eating disorders do not discriminate,” she says. They seem to thrive in isolation and can reactivate (at times) in mid-life (especially for women). Samuels tells her readers, it’s OK to let our bodies change.

Not everyone, however, is gaining weight. Along with binge eating are bulimia and anorexia nervosa. Both can add to significant weight loss and even life-threatening conditions:

“Anorexia has the second-highest mortality rate of any psychiatric diagnosis — outranked by only by opioid use disorder,” according to The Eating Disorder Foundation’s fact sheet.

One survey in July found 62% of people in the U.S. with anorexia seemed to get worse when the coronavirus hit. The more common binge-eating has already reported an increase for the year in helpline calls.

Bulimia and anorexia were often thought of as problems facing young people, but many experts say women (and some men) who struggled with eating disorders as teens and young adults appear to renew those old habits during a late-in-life crisis. In fact, “Eating Disorders are not a lifestyle choice,” states the National Institutes of Health, “they are biologically-influenced medical illnesses.”

People struggling with anorexia nervosa will avoid food and severely restrict food intake by eating minute amounts. They can become dangerously underweight, suggest the experts. Those with bulimia nervosa eat

large amounts of food followed by forced vomiting, excessive use of diuretics, fasting, laxatives and (in some cases) excessive exercise.

Eating disorders can affect anyone at any time, regardless of age, gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexuality or cultural background, according to Medical News Today. According to other experts, triggers can include menopause, natural changes connected to aging, retirement, feeling a need to compete with younger people, an empty nest, becoming a grandparent and divorce, among others. Remember, NEDA and other organization offer help at any age.

Ways to avoid gaining weight

■ Get moving

■ Self-monitor your weight

■ Watch what you eat (particularly portion sizes)

■ Get the support you need

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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When your loved ones live at Addington Place, you can rest assured they’re in the embrace of a safe, warm community that’s responsive to what’s most important in life. Our first priority remains the safety and wellbeing of our residents, and we welcome the chance to share more about our compassionate staff and person-directed care. Call for more information or schedule a virtual tour and be entered to win a $100 Visa Gift card.

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Should we get married or just live together?

Dear Rusty:

My question is about benefits and getting married. I am a retired man, 65-years-old, and collecting Social Security plus two pensions. My girlfriend will turn 62 in October of 2020 and plans to apply for Social Security benefits on her 62nd birthday.

If we were to get married, would we be affected money wise? Or should we just live together?

Contemplating Marriage

Dear Contemplating

Marriage:

Russell Gloor is a certified Social Security advisor with the Association of Mature American Citizens

Your own Social Security benefit will not be affected in any way if you get married, unless your potential new bride is a very high earner

and her Social Security entitlement at her full retirement age (which is 66 years and 8 months) is more than twice the full benefit amount you were entitled to at your full retirement age (even though you claimed your SS earlier). In that case, you would become eligible for a spousal benefit from your new wife after you are married for one year.

If, however, your potential bride is the lower earner and claims at 62, but is entitled to a Social Security benefit at her full retirement age (FRA) that is less than 50% of your FRA benefit amount, your new wife may be entitled to a “spousal boost” from you after you are married for a year.

I cannot tell you the answer to those questions without knowing your respective benefit amounts at each of your full retirement ages.

You may also wish to consider potential survivor benefits. If you

WORRY LESS. LIVE MORE.

are married and one spouse dies, the surviving spouse is entitled to 100% of the amount the deceased spouse was collecting at death, if the surviving spouse has reached full retirement age (otherwise the survivor benefit is reduced for claiming it early). The surviving spouse gets the survivor benefit if that benefit is more than they are entitled to on their own.

In any case, neither of you would be eligible for a Social Security spousal benefit or survivor benefit from the other unless you are married (you must be married for at least one year to get a spousal benefit and at least 9 months for a survivor benefit).

Note that so-called “common law” marriage isn’t recognized in most U.S. states, and Social Security goes by state law on that topic. The only states which currently recognize common law marriages are Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah (and the District of Columbia).

So, unless you were to live in one of those states, or in D.C., cohabitating would not be considered a “marriage” for the purposes of Social Security benefits, and no spousal or survivor benefits would be available to either of you.

This article is intended for information purposes only and does not represent legal or financial guidance. It presents the opinions and interpretations of the AMAC Foundation’s staff, trained and accredited by the National Social Security Association (NSSA). NSSA and the AMAC Foundation and its staff are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other governmental entity. To submit a question, visit our website (amacfoundation.org/programs/social-security-advisory) or email us at ssadvisor@ amacfoundation.org.

The 2 million member Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC] [https://www. amac.us] is a senior advocacy organization that takes its marching orders from its members. We act and speak on their behalf, protecting their interests and offering a practical insight on how to best solve the problems they face today.

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Watch out for scammers in these crazy times Boys & Girls Club leader pens 267 letters to kids

It amazes me that although we are in an international pandemic crisis, we still have to contend with scammers focused on ripping off naïve and trusting people, many of them seniors, who, like all of us, never have experienced such an event before.

Because the virus itself is dynamic and with the rush to find and develop vaccines (and soon, I hope, a cure), the scams too are moving in new

directions.

If you are on Medicare, be especially mindful of unsolicited requests for information. Along with your Social Security number and date of birth, fraudsters often are looking to acquire your Medicare number.

Here is where you need to be “politely skeptical” of people looking to acquire information from you:

--Never give your Medicare

number to anyone other than a doctor, a health care provider, or a trusted representative. Treat it like a credit card. Those coming doorto-door offering free coronavirus testing, supplies or treatments probably are not legit. Don’t provide information to them and just for fun, call your local police department, so we can check them out.

STAY SAFE

--Don’t click on internet links before you verify the source. Domain names can vary only slightly, a letter or number here and there, and still look legit when they aren’t. Put your glasses on and read the fine print closely before you click. On that note, make sure your antivirus program on your computer is up to date. Keep in mind that during epidemics and disasters, the number of fake charities and crowdfunding sites will increase. Don’t assume a fancy website is a legit one. Check it out.

Tech Care for Seniors

At some point, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will bring us, even if only a trickle at t time, better and better news regarding vaccines. Do not jump on the unicorn just yet, because along with the legitimate reporting will come the fraudsters. How do you verify that something is legit?

Steve Rose is a retired Sandy Springs Police Captain, veteran Fulton County police officer and freelance writer. He is the author the book “Why Do My Mystic Journeys Always Lead to the Waffle House?” and the column “View from a Cop.”

Online is the best avenue. Go the internet and do some investigative work, perhaps typing in the new wonder drug’s name and look at the results. If it is a scam, there has been something written about it. Verify that piece with 2-3 more online searches. (Hint: if you see a couple of scam articles regarding the subject you are researching, close the book on it because it is probably bad news.)

By Donna Williams Lewis

When Warren Boys & Girls Club closed for the coronavirus quarantine, its executive director Gail Johnson got busy calling members’ families about their needs and securing money for gift cards to help them buy groceries.

“At some point I realized I’m just talking to parents and telling them to tell the kids ‘hi,’” she said.

That wasn’t enough for Johnson, who’s now in her 42nd year with Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, an afterschool program whose mission is to “positively impact the lives of children and teens, especially those who need us most.”

“These kids didn’t even have time to say goodbye to their teachers,” Johnson said. “All of a sudden everybody was gone.” She wanted the kids to know how much they matter and how much they were missed.

“I wanted the letter to be about the questions I ask them each day,” said Johnson. “The gift of writing is part of your soul you’re giving to someone else. It has

404-307-8857

--Remember that fraudsters are looking for the path of least resistance, including those who won’t ask questions or don’t verify information they’ve been provided. (The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask.)

A friend told me that she simply could not understand a human mind that prioritizes scheming to steal rather than to help in such a time. Talk about naïve. We could be vaporized by a nuclear disaster and there would be that one guy selling radioactive wonder drugs guaranteed to have you back on your feet in no time. The term “We’re all in this together” does not apply to all. It is unfortunate, but true.

Do not let your guard down.

The FTC Consumer Information site is good. (consumer.ftc.gov/blog.) The FCC (Federal Communication Commission, fcc.gov/covidscams,) also provides current information on fraud related to Covid-19.

Not only individuals are targets for frauds, but small businesses as well. Scammers are hoping to grab some of the funds from the Paycheck Protection Program, designed to help small business owners survive this mess.

So, the word of the day is ignore. Ignore the emails, robocalls and websites. Do your own research on legitimate websites.

As bad as things seem at times, remember that somehow, we’ll figure it out and get back to normal, or in my case, uh… so, so.

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house!

So, she took pen to paper and, over a period of about two weeks in April, handwrote 267 personalized letters — one for every child on the roster — and then mailed them in personally addressed envelopes.

Johnson’s letterwriting project was “a testament to who she is,” said her supervisor, Nikki McClain, regional operations director for Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta.

“She loves what she does,” McClain said of Johnson, who started with the nonprofit while still a sociology major at Spelman College. “She’s impacted so many people in this city. She’s definitely treasured.”

Instead of composing the letters at her home, Johnson wrote them inside the thenshuttered Warren club in Grant Park, where she’s worked since 1991. She hoped to recreate the mental space she’s in with each child when she greets them upon their arrival.

the pandemic, things are going to get better,” she said.

Grant Park resident Canveta Burke’s son and granddaughters were among those who replied to Johnson, attaching candy to their letters.

“The Boys & Girls Club is just their home away from home. Miss Gail has been a key part of their lives,” Burke said. “They cried when they got their first letter from Miss Gail. If only I could have recorded the look on their faces. Each child had their own letter. It was specifically for them, for the person she knew

they were.”

In late August, Warren Boys & Girls Club began a partial reopening.

Johnson is there by 7 a.m. each weekday, helping a limited number of students who begin arriving a half hour later with the challenges of their virtual school day.

“With the kids returning, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “It’s like we were holding our breath for five months. This is giving us an opportunity to exhale and move forward.”

to be intentional and has to be heartfelt.”

She recalls reminding a boy named James to stop aggravating his sister and told him his beloved LEGOs would be ready for him when he returns.

“The hardest letters to write were the ones to my kids who were seniors this year,” she said. One of them had been at Warren from the age of 6. She chose to write instead of type because “that’s me going the extra mile, to give a part of me.”

She used a variety of colors of ink, selecting them “depending on the personality of the child.”

Aside from getting her supervisor’s approval for postage, Johnson told almost no one about her project until it was done.

Letter writing is said to be a lost art, especially among youth, and she didn’t want to be discouraged by potential naysayers. The response she got to her labor of love blew her away.

Parents told her how excited their kids were to get, in some cases, their very first letter. Others told her about their kids being upset that a sibling’s letter came but theirs hadn’t arrived yet.

Some kids spoke for themselves and wrote Johnson back.

“It gave me hope that, despite

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“We make house calls.”

Gail Johnson confers with a teen at the Warren Boys & Girls Club.

Gail Johnson

Ghost tours return despite pandemic

By Joe Earle

Come October, ghost tours seem thick as pumpkins around metro Atlanta. So many pop up that it can feel like about every metro community is haunted by that spectral someone just waiting to tell his or her story or produces an eager tour guide willing to tell the living about the dead.

This year is different, of course. Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, many tours are being cancelled, presumably so this year’s ghost fans won’t show up on future tours in a different way.

Still, it’s hard to keep a good ghost story buried, and some metro guides and tour-hosting institutions are going ahead with their shows, which can offer a good way to learn a little local history. Some tours have moved online, while participants in other tours are being asked to don masks and socially distance themselves for inperson strolls through their haunted hometowns.

Here are few tours that, as of mid-September, organizers were planning to present this year. If you want to join one, check the company’s website to make sure the tour still is on and that tickets still are available.

Capturing the Spirit of Oakland Halloween Tour

Oakland Cemetery’s popular tour, a major fundraiser for the cemetery, is scheduled to return Oct. 15-Nov.1. Visitors who take the tours meet ghosts who inhabit the historic cemetery and retell the tales of their lives. Due to the pandemic, fewer tickets are being sold for each night this year than in the past to allow for greater spacing between people on the tours. Participants will be required to wear masks. The cemetery will offer hand-sanitizing stations, not use paper tickets for the tours, and require payment by credit or debit card. It also is making videos of the ghosts’ presentations, in case the tour must move online. Tickets cost $40, $28 for children aged 4 to 12. On VIP night, Oct. 16, admission includes a three-course meal and tickets cost $150.

For more: oaklandcemetery.com/event/capturing-the-spirithalloween-tours-2020

Decatur Ghost Tour

This guided walking tour covers a little more than a mile as

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participants stroll around downtown Decatur and visit sites such as the DeKalb County Courthouse, High House and the city cemetery. Tour guides retell the stories, both historical and paranormal, of some the city’s haunted spots. Masks are recommended, but not required, and tour groups will be limited to 25 to allow for social distancing. Tickets cost $15 for adults, $12 for children 10 and younger. For more: decaturghosttour.com

Lawrenceville Ghost Tours

The Aurora Theater presents 90-minute tours on weekend evenings through Halloween of reputedly haunted spots in downtown Lawrenceville. Tour groups will be limited to 15 people, guides will wear face shields, and participants are asked to wear masks and stay at least 6 feet apart. Advance reservations are required. Tickets cost $20 for adults, $15 for children.

For more: https://www.auroratheatre.com/productions-andprograms/view/lawrenceville-ga-ghost-tours

Ghosts of Marietta

Don’t let this 5-month-old sweetheart’s grumpy face fool you- Coventry may be a bit shy at first, but she loves to play with all sorts of toys and is learning more about how to be a cat every day. Coventry originally came to the Atlanta Humane Society as a tiny newborn kitten who had been abandoned by her mother and needed to be nursed around the clock. This little girl is a fighter who pulled through against all odds, and now she’s looking for a home to call her own. As she was growing, we noticed that she had some slight tremors and an abnormal gait, and some tests revealed that little Coventry has cerebellar hypoplasia, which is a neurological condition. Her case isn’t too severe, and she will still live a normal, healthy life…

she just might wobble a little bit! Because she’s a bit shy, Coventry is looking for a patient adopter. She is spayed, microchipped, up-to-date on vaccinations.

Georgia, an affectionate, 6.5-year-old Boxer mix is hoping her perfect match is out there somewhere. She’s potty-trained, crate-trained, knows basic manners, loves going on long walks and doesn’t pull much on the leash, and she’s looking for a low-key home where she can relax, get as many cuddles as hear heart desires, and go on a nice long walk every day. Since she has done so well with her foster brothers, we believe Georgia would likely be successful with another dog. Georgia is spayed, microchipped, up-to-date on vaccinations.

While the Atlanta Humane Society is closed to the public, you can apply to adopt a pet by visiting atlantahumane.org/adoptionapplication.

Guides lead a 90-minute, lantern-lighted tour through downtown Marietta. Ghosts of Marietta says its guides base their presentations on documented sightings, first-hand experiences and local history. During the tours, they scare up a ghost or two at some of the Cobb County city’s best-known spots. Tours are held year-round on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, starting at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $17 for adults, $12 for children 12 and younger.

For more: ghostsofmarietta.com

Roswell Ghost Tour

Owner David Wood said his company shut down its tours for several months this year because of COVID-19, but now is back in operation. They re-started in June, he said, because of popular demand – customers kept calling and saying they wanted to take part in outside activities again. “It an outdoors exercise thing,” he said. “People are just dying to get out of their homes.” Guides lead groups of up to 40 or so tourists on a 1.5-mile walking tour and share local ghost stories as they pass landmarks such as Bulloch Hall or the founder’s cemetery. Masks are recommended, but not required. Tickets cost $20 for adults, $10 for children 12 and younger.

For more: roswellghosttour.com

Tour of Southern Ghosts

For its 35th anniversary, the ghost tour put together by ART Station in Stone Mountain is going online because of the pandemic. The tour will include ghost stories from across the South. To link to this year’s tour, presented Oct. 15-31, go to artstation.org, Tickets cost $17.

For more: www.artstation.org/current-events

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