Signe Waller Foxworth serves her guests a midafternoon snack of locally grown strawberries in the dining room of the 1930s-era log house she shares with her husband on Greensboros Pinecroft Road. You can say I just celebrated my 70 th birthday if you say most of my hair is brown, she says.

The moment I first saw my name in print, I knew that this was what I was meant to do. While nothing I wrote in optimism from my early undergraduate years has been replaced with a dose of reality.

Starting January 2, 2010, something will happen that, as a child of a tobacco-growing family, I never thought Id see. Ill finally be able to come home from a bar with my shirt still smelling like a dryer sheet and I couldnt be happier about it.

Frank Vel'uez pushed the plate of fajitas away. He no longer had an appetite. I peered outside the window of la Cuarta Restaurant, a converted mobile home, and could see Angel and Eduardo standing in the parking lot of la Tienda on the opposite side of US Highway 117.

Filing does not open for Greensboros municipal elections for another two months, but campaigning has already begun.

Im standing at the second water station of the North Carolina Marathon on Hamilton Street in High Point, which comes after the course winds through the exclusive Emorywood neighborhood, and before it splays east then makes the long run north to Sandy Ridge Road near Interstate 40.

US Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) delivered a stirring address at Wake Forest on April 20. The Young Americans for Liberty sponsored the event, and Paul, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, found a highly receptive audience inside the confines of Wait Chapel.

The tea parties in Greensboro and throughout the rest of the country are a sign that many Americans are angry and frustrated with the direction our country is moving in and worried about the staggering bills this administration is running up on the peoples credit card.

Ill be the first to tell you that, of all the post-NCAA championship articles, this piece is a little late to the game. The final game was held more than a week ago and by now, youve read a whole slew of opinions in regards to the outcome and associated storylines.

Its no secret that my favorite living actor is Al Pacino and one of his best roles was playing Lowell Bergman, the 60 Minutes producer who fought tooth-and-nail to get Jeffrey Wigands interview on the air in the Michael Mann film The Insider. Wigand, played by Russell Crowe, became big tobaccos ultimate whistleblower when his interview with Mike Wallace aired on 60 Minutes in February 1996.