Things I wrote in 2014
Stories and videos from Jeremy Markovich
Stories and videos from Jeremy Markovich
Poems For Everyone — January, Our State Magazine
All seems lost, until the gas lamps under the poem catch the eyes of two women and draw them up. Down the street, they remember it. “Something about happiness,” says the one with the black hair. They keep walking, past the words that have folded into the fabric of the city, there for you, if you look up.
Steve Smith and Me — March 13, Charlotte Magazine
I’m going to have a son sometime this summer. Someday, we will be watching some sporting event, and I will lean in and say, “You know, I saw so-and-so play.” This will bring me great joy. He will not be impressed.
That’s the thing about sports. They’re meant to be lived in the moment. Seconds after those moments happen, they start feeling stale. Sure, you can try and re-live them. You can watch the video again. You can look at old pictures. You can replay the radio call. They might make you choke up a little. They might give you chills. But they won’t make you weep, or jump out of your seat, or clap, or groan. We like to say that moments live forever. But moments grow old, just like we do.
A Letter Lost To History? Not Exactly — May 12, Charlotte Magazine
Time capsules are funny things. We make a big deal about the pomp and circumstance of putting them into the ground without, say, putting a lot of thought about how to hermetically seal said capsule to keep things like moisture and bugs out. So when some folks in Charlotte cracked open a capsule buried in 1964, they excitedly pulled out a key to the city, a reel of since-decomposed film, and some goo. Lots of goo.
I had gone to the library a few months before the ceremony and pulled the microfilm of the 1964 newspaper story that detailed the burial of the time capsule, as well as the text of the actual letter. This isn’t so much my best writing as it is me just thinking ahead. My favorite quote:
Mayor Brookshire said that he guessed the mayor of 2014 faced many of the same problems of Charlotte of 1964. “I sincerely hope that no intervening wars have added to your problems.”
Building a Better Boardwalk — May, Our State
Maybe the most important thing isn’t what it is or what it’s been, it’s that people care enough about it to try and figure out a way to keep it alive:
What do we do about the boardwalk? It’s probably a good thing that Carolina Beach is still asking itself that question. Because that question leads to better questions. How do we fix it? How do we make it better? What do people really want? How can we make a piece of the past last long into the future? It’s clear that people still care about the boardwalk. They’re still searching for answers. And until they get them, they still have a place to go, to walk atop the dunes, and to wonder how we came to feel that a boardwalk that’s only three blocks long should go on forever.
The Man Who Taught a Fiddler To Play Guitar — May, Our State
“You can’t embalm a body, and you’ve never played the Grand Ole Opry.”
The Cost of Charlotte’s Next Big Thing—May, NBC Charlotte
The Scoop On Howling Cow—June 2014, Our State
Alli Davis admits it. She names the cows.
Davis, all of 22 years old, wears her sandy blonde hair back in a ponytail. She stands at the end of a row of calf corrals in a gray T-shirt and muddy boots. The calves see her. They’re all between 2 and 8 weeks old and are built like stocky little deer. They bounce around like big puppies. The conversation comes to a dead stop. Calves have that effect on people.
There’s one named Shamrock. The youngest ones, the twins on the end, are named Lucy and Ethel. One in the middle is named Butter. Her mom’s name was Peanut. There’s another one named Jelly. Davis wants to name the next one Sandwich. “Nobody thought that was a good idea,” she says in a thick Tennessee accent.
Cows respond to names, she says. She knows this because she was raised on a dairy farm with 600 cows. Sure, the names are cute, but Davis has an underlying seriousness about her. “It’s not a job,” she says. “Dairy farming is a way of life.”
I’m Taking My Parking And Going Home—June 5, NBC Charlotte
When America Became #merica — July 1, Medium
I know a guy named Doug who was once terrified of French Canadians…
Facebook’s Island of Misfit Pictures—July 10, NBC Charlotte
Facebook says 82 percent of its traffic only goes to 8 percent of its pictures. That means people barely ever look at 92% of the pictures on Facebook. And considering 400 billion pictures have been uploaded to the site since it first went online, there are a lot of snapshots that are just sitting around, taking up space. So, where do they go?
Welcome To The World, Son—August, Charlotte Magazine
I think I’ve gotten enough advice. Some of you have already warned my wife and me of the impending DiaperStorm. He will try to pee on you, you’ve said. You’ll never sleep well again. And my favorite: Your days of X are over; X meaning anything from bungee jumping to cattle rustling to avoidance of the Disney Channel. Some of you merely listed the worst baby things you could think of and then ended the conversation with “greatest thing in the world.” My kid fires laser beams out of his eyes and caught the couch on fire before farting mustard gas and speaking French. Greatest thing in the world.
A Story About Drones, Shot By A Drone —August 12, NBC Charlotte
The video is here, although you can find an outtake below.
From Rust Belt To Bible Belt—September, Charlotte Magazine
I’ve never felt like I’m in the South in Charlotte. Sure, you do get the colloquialisms, the bless-your-hearts and the sweet tea and the offers of grits that I always turn down, but it is possible to exist in Charlotte in much the same way as you existed in Ohio. Or Pennsylvania. Or New York state. It is possible to move and yet not really move at all.
The Conspiracy Tree Tower—November, Charlotte Magazine
In mid-September, a post on a website called Daily Paul (which overtly mentions that it has nothing to do with Ron Paul) showed a picture of Tower Tree with the headline “I have uncovered something mysterious about a tree comm tower in Charlotte.” The tower, it seems, was nefarious. “For the past few months, I believed this was a cell phone tower,” the blogger said. “I now have growing suspicions on this tower — as you will come to see why.”
Go on.
SCORCHING HOT PANTHERS TAKES—November 11, NBC Charlotte