Jay Grelen
Stories by Jay
Guitarist cares for kids needing homes
posted: 12/10/2011 4:21 a.m. Discuss
Arkansas guitarist Jason Truby, who wrote the title song for the Matrix Reloaded soundtrack, has wowed Hollywood with his harddriving, high-decibel musical arrangements.
Novelist inspired by Amish friend
posted: 08/06/2011 3:21 a.m. Discuss
Cindy Woodsmall, wh sets her romance novels i the world of the Amish, was bit the childhood rebel whos transgressions included fo bidden meetings with a frien while growing up in rura Maryland.
SWEET TEA: Strangers no more, a goodbye
posted: 07/03/2011 5:17 a.m. Comments 9
I thought I’d ride this column-writing gig into the Arkansas sunset.
SWEET TEA: His brand not panel’s cup of tea
posted: 06/30/2011 4:39 a.m. Discuss
Rush may know radio, but what Mr. Limbaugh knows about sweet tea wouldn’t fill one of the caps off a bottle of that beverage he is hawking.
SWEET TEA: Journalist on case, 33 years later
posted: 06/28/2011 5:19 a.m. Discuss
They found her shoes, her purse and her car.
SWEET TEA: A Shipp that passed in the light
posted: 06/26/2011 3:55 a.m. Discuss
If the police had listened to Chuck Crummy, the hounds of justice might have treed Whitey Bulger, one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted, a decade ago.
SWEET TEA: Tortillas best eaten by nibble
posted: 06/23/2011 5:02 a.m.
Discuss
You could do-rag your head with one of Brenda’s big flour tortillas or swaddle your sleeping newborn baby.
SWEET TEA: Holliday or -aday, it’s a Doc
posted: 06/21/2011 4:34 a.m. Discuss
It was only one vote, but it was an important vote to Doc Holladay in his first run to become sheriff of Pulaski County.
SWEET TEA: Pixie voice quickens a dad’s heart
posted: 06/19/2011 4:35 a.m. Discuss
I am not hearing — I know I can’t be hearing — the child I think I hear.
SWEET TEA: This crash course was in driving
posted: 06/16/2011 3:56 a.m. Discuss
In his first career, John Gravett wore a badge on his chest and a sidearm at his waist.
SWEET TEA: Doc says name came naturally
posted: 06/14/2011 4:25 a.m. Discuss
Even the sheriff’s mama and his wife have surrendered and refer to him as “Doc” when they’re talking to folks outside the family.
SWEET TEA: Her spirit floats like a butterfly
posted: 06/12/2011 5:01 a.m. Discuss
The times I visited with Cindy-Lou — that’s her Arkansas-American name — she fluttered about as if her feet were strapped to the back of a butterfly.
SWEET TEA: Man calls his kid self a handful
posted: 06/09/2011 4:47 a.m. Discuss
Black teacher spanks out-of-control white first grader. White first-grader’s parents and grandmother attend PTA meeting. Black teacher nervous.
SWEET TEA: There was safety in a number
posted: 06/07/2011 5 a.m. Comment 1
I haven’t rung up the number but three or four times in thirty-something years, yet there it sits in my mental speed dial as if I call it every day.
SWEET TEA: In heaven, a teacher takes seat
posted: 06/05/2011 5:15 a.m. Discuss
The first-grader was out of control so his teacher spanked the boy, and he straightened up.
SWEET TEA: Joplin load in, thanks to angels
posted: 06/02/2011 3:40 a.m. Discuss
For two days, Audrey Burtrum-Stanley walked among angels and giants.
SWEET TEA: In twister’s wake, past stands tall
posted: 05/29/2011 2:43 a.m. Discuss
Eighty bucks, it cost me, that eight-foot stick that jutted from a two-hundred pound ball of roots and wet black soil.
Volunteers turn up, pitch in
posted: 05/26/2011 3:56 a.m. Discuss
One word explained the high-noon traffic jam at this rural Canadian County intersection the day after tornadoes spawned in a swarm of storms took out dozens of houses and killed at least nine people in Oklahoma.
SWEET TEA: Litter and silence all that’s left
posted: 05/26/2011 3:24 a.m. Discuss
he calm after the storm is all the more distinct for the contrast between the feel of the place and the evidence of the violent twister just passed.
SWEET TEA: Flaking memento will suffice
posted: 05/24/2011 4:40 a.m. Discuss
Chris Larmoyeux didn’t get the best seats in the house.
SWEET TEA: In kitchen, moms cook up magic
posted: 05/22/2011 3:50 a.m. Discuss
The preschool innocents don’t realize that Susan Smith is setting them up for a good teasing when they finish high school.
SWEET TEA: Wife knew his resolve from day 1
posted: 05/19/2011 3:08 a.m. Comment 1
Vestibular schwannoma, which you know, of course, is a cerebellopontine angle tumor, brought out the best in John Herman.
SWEET TEA: Can’t beat that story with stick
posted: 05/17/2011 4:44 a.m. Discuss
You might say that Emma Clarke’s parents, Oscar and Ruth Peel, were childhood sweethearts. Oscar was 11 when he met Ruth; she was 9.
SWEET TEA: Men, fire, chickens, possums
posted: 05/12/2011 2:49 a.m. Discuss
C.W. Steel, no doubt, is highly skilled with a blowtorch.
SWEET TEA: Lakeside property not a plus
posted: 05/10/2011 4:56 a.m. Discuss
Unless you think fishing from your living room window is a good thing, the Mayflower neighborhoods off Paradise Road were anything but last week as the waters of Lake Conway covered yards and lapped against houses that had become literal lakeside homes.
SWEET TEA: Home is where the water is
posted: 05/08/2011 3:07 a.m. Discuss
Janet Copeland is a torrent of high-water humor, a flood of lighthearted observations as she guides me over slippery tile and squishy carpet in her home.
SWEET TEA: Before a storm ... kindness
posted: 05/03/2011 3:55 a.m. Discuss
I saw the storm-cloud anxiety in the grocery store Sunday, hours after Saturday night’s epic electric show when the sky seemed never to go dark, a full illumination of the dome of eternity rather than yellow distant jags.
SWEET TEA: Mongoose, yes, but no pizza at bar
posted: 05/01/2011 3:46 a.m. Discuss
The Gar Hole did not serve gar. Nor did this bar in the basement of the long-gone Marion Hotel serve pizza.
SWEET TEA: Rooting around for armadillo
posted: 04/26/2011 4:29 a.m. Discuss
To fix a reasonable price on a dead armadillo, you need to know who’s buying.
SWEET TEA: Easter? In a word, it’s forgiveness
posted: 04/24/2011 3:16 a.m. Discuss
What is Easter? asked my new friend, Huimin Qi, a Chinese music professor who is visiting UCA and whose birthday falls on Easter this year.
SWEET TEA: Stumped? Grandma was right
posted: 04/21/2011 3:10 a.m. Discuss
Crushed like an accordion, Troy Crenshaw says of what happened to his left leg upon his sudden stop at the bottom of a tree he had climbed. So badly crushed that his doctors had to trim his leg off below the knee.
SWEET TEA: New take on an old, old word
posted: 04/19/2011 5:16 a.m. Discuss
In the olde days, by which I mean the days when Ma Bell made telephones with bells of metal that actually rang, we listened to music on a device called a record player, a turntable or, for today’s purposes, a phonograph.
SWEET TEA: After six dark years, a revival
posted: 04/17/2011 5:43 a.m. Discuss
They paved (BBQ) paradise to put up an autoparts store.
SWEET TEA: Lawman’s Day 2 is 1 that lingers
posted: 04/14/2011 3:46 a.m. Discuss
Second day on the job, fresh out of the academy, Little Rock cop Charlie Holladay is riding in a patrol car with Will Morgan, a seasoned cop.
SWEET TEA: Carts carry more than groceries
posted: 04/12/2011 4:30 a.m. Comment 1
If you had been a bacteria clinging to a certain grocery cart at the Kroger on Markham in Little Rock a couple of days ago, you would have seen a 20-something mother coming at you with a complimentary disposable sanitizing cloth.
SWEET TEA: Tater tale: Two sweet on spuds
posted: 04/10/2011 4:25 a.m. Discuss
This seemed all wrong but there they were in the produce section, sweet potatoes shrink-wrapped for microwaving.
SWEET TEA: Past crime confessed in last talk
posted: 04/07/2011 3:31 a.m. Discuss
He’s not alive to defend himself, so we’ll grant him anonymity, which will require that we leave her name unspoken as well.
SWEET TEA: Big Bird was made by who?
posted: 04/03/2011 4:59 a.m. Comments 2
The 5-year-old sat in her parents’ bookstore, the shelves stacked with the words of freethinkers, unbridled commentators, seekers of truth and knowledge and, of course, the Muppet parables.
SWEET TEA: This man’s lot in life: Tempt fate
posted: 03/31/2011 4:23 a.m. Comment 1
Doggone if I haven’t helped another good boy go bad. Yes, another good one. For more than a year, I have been knowingly leading another astray, choosing my personal convenience over his young soul.
SWEET TEA: Red meat and white knuckles
posted: 03/29/2011 5:37 a.m. Discuss
This was the quintessential man clan, 13 two-legged opposing thumb cauldrons of boiling adrenaline, paper china piled with meatballs, cheese dip, salsa and chips, this inimitable specimen of (suburban) manhood semi-circling Eric Buckner’s flat-screen television on Saturday night.
SWEET TEA: From few, a miracle blossomed
posted: 03/20/2011 2:48 a.m. Discuss
The story of Wye Mountain is like the biblical miracle of the loaves and fishes, wherein food for one, freely shared, became a feast for five thousand with leftovers.
SWEET TEA: In the end, his family was there
posted: 03/17/2011 3:59 a.m. Discuss
Tina’s mother tells the story for her, about the accidentally brutal manner in which Tina heard the news.
SWEET TEA: Watching disaster from afar
posted: 03/15/2011 5:11 a.m. Discuss
Soon enough, you’ll be hearing plenty about Kay Collett Goss, a long-time political hand whose career dates to the days of Wilbur Mills.
SWEET TEA: Pasta with just a dash of jalapeno
posted: 03/13/2011 3:58 a.m. Comment 1
In Maumelle, of all places: Odbaigal Myamar, a Mongolian who works two doors down in the Japanese steakhouse, orders takeout Italian from Carlos Benitez, the Mexican who owns The Pasta House.
SWEET TEA: Rockin’ offspring rolls in LR
posted: 03/10/2011 5:42 a.m. Discuss
Good thing for Pink Floyd that Ed Cobb — and not his daughter, Heather Isbell — was the one working on the band’s album The Wall.
SWEET TEA: Good ink, good nibs, good life
posted: 03/08/2011 5:41 a.m. Discuss
Henry Simpole is coming to Little Rock. All the way from England — the country, not the Arkansas village.
SWEET TEA: One of the last to see JFK alive
posted: 03/06/2011 3:26 a.m. Discuss
Frances Johnson is pretty certain the National Enquirer is the publication where she discovered herself enshrined in a photograph of JFK.
SWEET TEA: Quakes: Quantity, low quality
posted: 03/03/2011 5:45 a.m. Discuss
These 4-point-7 s, 3-point-8 s, nothing but tremors, says James Smith, who rode out a Richter Sixer in a California desert when he was a teenager.
SWEET TEA: Great War tale told in old watch
posted: 03/01/2011 5:21 a.m. Discuss
Second Lt. John Harries still had the watch.
