Richmond, VA
Bojangles Bought the Corner a Stoplight
A tap dancer’s feet can sound like rain on a roof, but Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s sweetest rhythm in Richmond may have been the click of a traffic signal changing at a street corner.
Today’s storyColumbus, OH
When Jerrie Mock Landed and They Looked for the Pilot
A typewriter went around the world in a little Cessna, tucked in with a woman who had no interest in looking heroic.
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Kenova, WV
The Pharmacist Who Lit Up Kenova, One Pumpkin at a Time
The first surprise was probably the smell: fresh-cut pumpkin, damp October air, and that unmistakable mess of seeds and stringy orange pulp that somehow gets everywhere.
Baltimore, MD
The Baltimore Bartender Who Made Every Book Free
The funny thing about The Book Thing of Baltimore is that it looks like a place where you should reach for your wallet — and then the whole point is that you don’t.
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Memphis, TN
The Bellman Who Taught Memphis Ducks to Walk the Red Carpet
The funny thing about the lobby ducks at The Peabody Memphis wasn’t that they were in the fountain. It was that, for a while, they were famous hotel guests with absolutely no sense of ceremony.
Seligman, AZ
The Seligman Burger Man Who Served Laughs on the Side
The little drive-in in Seligman, Arizona, had “Snow Cap” in its name, even though the desert around it looked far more likely to serve dust than snowballs.
Cranston, RI
The Cranston Kid Who Made New Sneakers Feel Like a Welcome Mat
The shoes were what Nicholas Lowinger couldn’t stop seeing: sneakers with tired soles, pairs pinching small feet, shoes that looked as if they had already lived someone else’s whole childhood.
Tulsa, OK
The Tulsa Woman Who Got Tapped by Space
The sky over Tulsa flared like someone had dragged a match across the dark. Then, a little later, space followed up with the politest possible knock.
Las Cruces, NM
Pluto’s New Mexico Punster Gets One More Ride
A tiny moving dot once changed Clyde Tombaugh’s life. Decades later, a tiny portion of him went chasing after it, tucked aboard a spacecraft headed into the deep, cold dark. Clyde W.
New Haven, CT
The New Haven Toymaker Who Made the Case for Christmas
The little metal pieces must have looked almost funny in such a serious room: tiny girders, nuts, bolts, pulleys, and motors, the sort of things that could turn a living-room floor into a small…
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