Category: Longform

My latest profile piece follows a Lakewood resident’s journey from his comfortable finance career in Northeast Ohio to security detail in the middle of Iraq (and at the height of the Iraq War, no less). I recorded somewhere around eight hours of conversation with Stony Smith, and we spent another several hours at a local shooting range. He showed me the basics, and I did pretty well (it was my first time ever shooting a gun, which was a fairly cool aspect to my reporting).

At its heart, the story gets into the importance of spending one’s time on this planet doing things that bring joy and exhilaration.

An excerpt:

The rocket smashes into the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad at some 200 meters per second — KA-WHAM! — and Stony Smith drops to the floor. He sharpens his senses and waits for more fire. These things usually come in threes.

Insurgents have been hammering the whole goddam Green Zone for months. But now, on Jan. 29, 2005, just days prior to a major national election, it’s the first time any round from the constant bombardment outside the embassy’s walls hit its mark. Stony doesn’t hear any more rockets heading his way. Nearby, two Americans lay dying. The warhead burrows deep into this imposing former palace of Saddam Hussein, but it never goes off.

Within seconds, Stony is up and running into the next room to secure his client, and this guy is leaning back in his chair, phone cocked in the crook of his shoulder, chatting away and suddenly looking up at Stony, like, “What’s the matter?” The rocket! The smoke! Didn’t you hear? A gray cloud is slowly wending through the hallways, fine and hazy. Debris rains down around the room. Stony has this determined look in his eyes and urges the man out of the office.

Here’s the thing: Stony Smith doesn’t fuck around. He doesn’t cut corners. And he certainly doesn’t tolerate anything less than achieving the stated objectives, especially as the threat of imminent death stinks up the room. The sole mission is to protect this guy, this director of a major reconstruction office in central Iraq who’s now grabbing his bullet-proof gear off a nearby coat rack with all due holy-shit haste.

 

 

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/hired-gun-from-lakewood-to-baghdad-the-evolution-of-stony-smith/Content?oid=4340571

In March, I attended a special dinner event at an Amish family’s house somewhere in Geauga County, Ohio. The dinner had been reserved by a friend back in 2011. Looking ahead, this family is booked solid through 2017. And they host these dinners four times each week.

All of which made for a very enticing story. The finished product is a pleasant tale of off-the-beaten-path dining in Northeast Ohio and a brief meditation on the Amish lifestyle.

An excerpt:

Here’s the general rundown of the evening’s unrelentingly delicious food, in order: mixed fruit, home-baked bread with maple butter spread, orange Jello pudding, salad resplendent with veggie decor, cottage cheese (featuring Cool Whip, which raises eyebrows among the diners), mountains of chicken breasts and prime rib, stuffing (the depth of flavor in this dish has made grown men cry, we’re told), mashed potatoes and the accompanying gravy boat, and the dichotomous seas of corn and peas.

We spoon heaps of the offerings onto our plates as quaint candles flicker against the fading light outside. It’s impossible to scoop a serving without remarking on how fantastically scrumptious each dish looks, and the same ebullient mutterings follow once it enters the mouth. This is the inner core of table conversation, as we are collectively unable to stop drooling. The stuffing really is ambrosial. The chicken? Divine.

Our hosts for the evening, an Amish couple somewhere in their 30s, tend to the needs of all guests. They’re well practiced in the art of hospitality, and soon enough there’s this sense that we’ve all been friends for a very long time.

“If you ask for something and we have it, you’ll get it. If you ask for something and we don’t have it, you won’t get it. If you don’t ask for something and we have it, you won’t get it.” Our bearded host intermittently casts guidance like that across the dining room. We slowly settle in to the ebb and flow of the proceedings. Judging by portions of the night’s conversations, no one is really clear on how formal or informal we should be acting, and it’s best that we do away with undue caution as early as possible. For now, we are at home.

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/one-night-in-amish-country-a-butter-churned-journey-into-the-heartland-for-the-most-exclusive-dinner-in-northeast-ohio/Content?oid=4167868

This towering GQ piece, penned by Elizabeth Gilbert years before Eat, Pray, Love, is just a delicious slice of writing. The subject is simple, and Gilbert washes over the story with patience and care.

I really enjoy magazine profiles of obscure men and women – people far from the public eye who are just, you know, living their lives. Gilbert brings the reader into the life of Eustace Conway, who’s been living in the North Carolina wilderness for years, and illuminates much about the human spirit and the cultural trajectory of this country.

An excerpt:

Briefly, the history of America goes like this: There was a frontier, and then there was no longer a frontier. It all happened rather quickly. There were Indians, then explorers, then settlers, then towns, then cities. Nobody was really paying attention until the moment the wilderness was officially tamed, at which point everybody suddenly wanted it back.

Within the general spasm of nostalgia that ensued (Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Frederic Remington’s cowboy paintings), there came a very specific cultural panic, a panic rooted in the question, What will become of our boys?

Problem was, while the classic European coming-of-age story generally featured a provincial boy who moved to the city and transformed into a refined gentleman, the American tradition had evolved into the utter opposite. The American boy came of age by leaving civilization and striking out toward the hills. There he shed his cosmopolitan manners and transformed into a robust man. Not a gentleman, mind you, but a man. Without the wilderness as proving ground, what would become of our boys?

Why, they might become effete, pampered, decadent. Christ save us, they might become Europeans.

For obvious reasons, this is a terror that has never entirely left us. A century later, some of us are still concerned about the state of American manhood, which is why some of us are so grateful when we get to meet Eustace Conway.

Eustace Conway moved into the woods for good when he was 17 years old. This was in 1978, which was around the same time Star Wars was released. He lived in a tepee, made fire by rubbing two sticks together, and bathed in icy streams. At this point in his biography, you might deduce that Eustace is a survivalist or a hippie or a hermit, but he’s not any of these things. He’s not storing guns for the imminent race war; he’s not cultivating excellent weed; he’s not hiding from us. Eustace Conway is in the woods because he belongs in the woods.

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/mens-lives/199802/elizabeth-gilbert-gq-february-1998-last-american-man-eustace-conway-turtle-island