I don't know anything about comics. I'm writing a story about comic book stores. (Don't worry, my editor knows a bit about comics and will make sure I don't mess it up too much.) Today, I spent almost two hours in Comics & Cards Trading Post in the Sturbridge Shopping Center. The owner and some regulars were kind enough to talk with me about things -- trends in comic book character development/ plot formation, trends in the industry as a whole, the difference between a "book" and a "trade," and more.

This is a huge market, y'all.

I had three years of formal art history study and a lifetime of informal art appreciation from my mother. I tend to enjoy American post-war painting more than I should. I like expressionism well enough, which would account for my appreciation of all the kinetics of good comic book art. I also love Rothko, which is little more (to the untrained eye) than color on canvas. But what I think is most similar to comic book art in classic art history might be something like Jacques-Louis David's The Death of Socrates. It's a painting that tells a story, evokes emotion and can be the subject of academic theses. If we took one important pane of a popular, beautifully-drawn comic and let it stand alone, there are a lot of people who could view it the same way I view The Death of Socrates. There's a story behind it, that story continues, and the single image is merely the depiction of a pivotal point.

This weekend is the 41st Annual Pike Road Arts & Crafts Fair.

The weather looks promising, and I'm covering the fair for our section. Along with loads of exhibitor's booths, the organizers promise good food (including "mocha cakes," their signature confection) and two special displays: the Central Alabama Model A Ford Club will exhibit their 1920s autos, and the Kelley Bartlett Conservancy will have a Birds of Prey demonstration.

I used to go to loads of these kinds of fairs growing up. In Northern Virginia, they had these all over the place in "horse country." My mother, quite the artist, made high-end decorative duck decoys and would have a booth in the arts section. We'd hang out all day, and I'd run around fetching snacks and meeting all the other artsy craftsy people. I remember being fascinated by watching some grandmotherly types tatting, making lace for table linens and dresses. From one thread, a huge tablecloth. I also remember all the children's distractions, pet-a-farms and of course... all the food.

I'll admit to being a sucker for a love story. But I don't want to know all the details of the story, of course, or to really have a similar memory. That would make it less a love story since my empathetic response would come to the fore. In my opinion, a good love story is the Princess Bride. A great love story is A Room with a View. The former gave us "as you wish." The latter makes me check behind all framed art in hotels for question marks. It's a plot point, but I digress.

In this week's edition of the East section, I write about the Hangens. They're a young couple who plan on spending a lot of their lives away from home, doing mission work. Talking with them, I got the sense that not only are they dedicated to their respective callings, but that what they have between them is this amazing love story trifecta: there's the love they each have in their faith, the love they each have for the people they work with abroad, and then the love they have for one another. Those three loves are made mammoth by the doubling of them, and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I think they'd agree.

My literary and cinematic love story examples, above, are complicated, beautiful pieces of fiction. The Hangens' love story is simple, straightforward, and fearless. Maybe that's what made my writing turn to the fictive when I was trying to explain what was so enormous about these humble people. They do have some of that boy-meets-girl, loses-girl, gets-girl in their story, but what's less common about them could be written like this:

It was freezing in the safari jeep, they’d pulled the canvas top back and Grace is a wisp of a woman anyway. She remembers the cold, and viewing birds, giraffe, maybe some hyena and antelope. She remembers her boyfriend taking her through savanna grass taller than she, following a Hippopotamus trail, and she remembers the bench at the edge of the river.

"How do you like Africa?" he asked.

"I like it very much."

"Would you spend a bit more time here?"

She squinted up to him, "how much more?"

"Well," he laughed nervously, "enough that you’d have to marry me?"

"Matt, you know I’d marry you," she smiled, then looked to the river a moment. When she looked back, he was on a knee holding up a ring made of bone.

"Will you?"

* * *

Matt Hangen remembers a lot less of that day. His nerves were pretty high. "I was being lead to two things at once," he said, "to marry her and to move to Togo. They both had to work out. It was kind of a package deal."

It might be written that way, but not in a newspaper. Obviously I had to invent the dialog after interviewing both of them and hearing their accounts of the proposal. Not very reporterly behavior at all... but I was just so taken with the story. Their story. That the proposal happened in a game park in Kenya is exotic, sure, but these are people who weren't there on holiday.

The Hangens married last December. Wednesday you can read about what they're doing about the Togo part of Matt's "package deal."

I'm in Village Coffee on the Atlanta Highway. Free Wi-Fi (secure, password is on your receipt) and a great Chai tea. I'm working on a story about these folks.

The Aldersgate barbeque was something, and I got to see how the men went about cooking hundreds of pounds of ham and chicken the day before. Some of the photos have been posted already on the East section of the Montgomery Advertiser's website -- there are two galleries up already. One that I photographed, and another that professional photographer Julie Bennett took the morning of the barbeque.

This Thursday, I'll be at Village Coffee on Atlanta Highway from about 9:00 t0 10:30. Come tell me what you think of the East section, or anything else. I cannot stress how interesting it is when someone calls or stops me to tell me about something worth covering. The Aldersgate barbeque started that way, and that turned out to be a lot of fun.

I might have been the "idiot" on the overpass, but they liked one of the photos well enough to put it in the gallery. You can see it here.

This weekend: tomorrow is the 23rd Annual Methodist Men's Barbeque at Aldersgate Methodist Church at 6610 Vaughn Road, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. I'll be out there this afternoon when they start cooking. Many cheers to Robert Thompson, chairman of the barbeque, for calling to tell us about this.

Some of the best story ideas we get are from readers. Right now, we're looking for neighborhoods that "do" Halloween decorations and festivities with particular vim. We're also wondering what kind of Halloween alternatives churches or community groups might be doing over the 26th and 27th since Halloween is on a Wednesday this year. If you email or call me, I guarantee your idea will be considered. hfunk@gannett.com or 334.240.0117

Have a great weekend!

This morning I woke to rain and drove through rain in order to sit in Starbucks at Cornerstone and watch the rain. We need all of this, and more, but there's always the inevitable slew of accidents whenever weather activity spikes after a long period "without" weather.

We had several accidents on south I-85 this afternoon and I was sent out to see what I could see and report in from the road. On the way out, I instinctually grabbed a camera.

All I knew was that the accident(s) were somewhere between Perry Hill and Taylor Road. I decided to cruise up Atlanta Highway and take Bell Road. A gamble, to be sure, but I just figured from the vantage point over the freeway, with relatively little traffic (unlike the Taylor Road, Eastern Blvd, and Perry Hill bridges), I might be able to deduce where the accident was not. Instead, I landed on top of the accident site. It started nearly under the Bell Road overpass in the southbound lanes, and stretched out south from there. Officials were already almost done clearing the roadway by the time I got there. Traffic had been stopped quite a while. Backed up around the bend, I just stood on the bridge taking some photos of what was going on (or not going on, as it were).

So, if you happened to see an idiot on the Bell Road overpass taking pictures of crash remnants and miles of stopped traffic, that was me. I wasn't quite a mad rubbernecker, I was just covering from above what our pro photographers had covered on the ground.

I'm going back to the Cornerstone Starbucks (Vaughn and Taylor roads) tomorrow morning from 8:30 until about 10:00. I'd love to hear from, meet or talk to readers then.

In today's EAST section, I wrote an article about the equestrian neighborhood Foxwood. This weekend, I'm taking the horse theme a little further by going out to a hunter-jumper horse show at Seven Oaks Equestrian Center. I always knew we had "horsey" types in Montgomery, I just never at the opportunity to spend time out there with them.

From now on, at least once a week, I will go to area coffee shops or cafes and set up shop for an hour or two. I'll announce where and when, and you can stop by to talk or tell me about your story ideas. If you're really interesting, I might start writing a story about you right there. This can also be an opportunity for you to tell me what you think of Wednesday's East section.

Tomorrow morning (Tuesday the 16th), I'll be at the Cornerstone Starbucks from 8:30 to 10:00.

On the 18th, I'll go back to the Cornerstone Starbucks from 8:30 to 10:00.

Next week, I'll change the location... any suggestions?

This week, I have three videos up here. One is about the facilities of the Bell Road Family YMCA (links to related story), the other two are from the Parade of Homes story. It's always interesting to see the finished product of any video I take, particularly because these are the first video cameras I've ever used.

I'd really like to give some props to our video techies, Shannon Heupel and Brad Harper, who take tapes full of reporter-shot footage and edit them into something that makes sense. Some of us need more editing than others!

The contest I posted on October 2nd is officially closed.
You'll know the answer tomorrow morning in the East section.

It came across what I'll call "the wire" (ok, ok, it's just email) this morning that Storkland is celebrating thirty years in business. It has been at its current location at EastChase for several years. A few casual conversations I've had today have informed me that Storkland may very well be the best baby store in town... and so I'll do some investigating.

An aside: driving north of I-85, between exits 9 (Taylor Road) and 11 (Mt. Meigs), has anyone else noticed that there is always a truck going about 60 m.p.h. in the right lane? It can be an old or new truck, a small or big truck, private or commercial -- but it is always going 60.

I-85 is 70 from the bypass to points north, and I'm usually not in any great hurry, but it's just odd. Between the bypass and Taylor Road, you can't go fast enough. Then all of the sudden, the slow vehicle appears as if on cue.

In preparation for the church story this week, John Ed Mathison of Frazer UMC, Lester Spencer of St. James UMC, Buddy Bell of Landmark Church of Christ, and Andy Hepburn of Taylor Road Baptist Church all met with me to talk about growth in east Montgomery and how it affected their churches. Those meetings went long, and they were so generous with their time. I learned a million fascinating things about the men and their churches, and I very much enjoyed talking with all of them.

A lot had to be left out of the story. Here are some interesting tidbits:

Lester Spencer's wife, Janeese, was once known as "the Lysol Queen." This is because, from June, 1996, to November, 1998, St. James held services into the Bell Road Y until their new church was built, at Vaughn and Ryan Road. She said "we used every inch of that space at the Y," and one of her groups met in the men's locker room. Before the people arrived, she would set up chairs and such, and also spray Lysol all over to cover the inevitable locker room smell.

When John Ed got to Frazer in 1972, he said, "to get a sandwich at noon, we had to go to Eastbrook." Eastbrook is 4.1 miles west of the church's location across from Eastdale Mall. He also remembers all the "coming soon" signs for Eastdale.

Landmark, now located on Halcyon Boulevard near Taylor Road, was once a neighbor of Frazer's on Atlanta Highway. In the early 90s, Landmark outgrew their 8 acres and offered it to Frazer. Frazer bought it, and the Landmark sanctuary became Frazer's first gym, complete with basketball courts and a nursery. Frazer kept the baptistery, though. The first time John Ed was there baptizing someone, he said he glanced through an interior window and saw on the backboards of all the basketball hoops "NO DUNKING." He wasn't sure what to do.

Taylor Road Baptist has big plans for their existing worship center when they move into the new one. The current one seats about 375, but is set up for their regular TV broadcasts. Pastor Hepburn told me that the space would be used for a youth center -- part arcade, part lounge, part campus ministry offices. The coolest part, I think, is that they're leaving the cameras and sound equipment in there so the youth can learn to broadcast/ make films/ record concerts/ anything else. A coffee shop will be adjacent to the center, in an existing kitchen.

I was very impressed with how community-focused all of these churches and their leadership are. One idea they all expressed was that people yearn for a place of belonging, and the churches yearn to provide that. If the church, which used to be in a community, is now creating the communities to which we belong, it's easy to see why the churches are being so proactive. From pre-schools to playing host to loads of support groups, educational programs -- it would take a book to sufficiently address the amount of congregational activity we have going on in Montgomery. People see a need, someone volunteers their time to address it, and the churches make it possible with space and other support.

And a BIG thanks to Frazer, St. James, Landmark and Taylor Road Baptist for letting me steal some time away from their clergy over the past couple weeks. I knew little about any of these churches before my editor assigned me this story.

Hey everyone, I'm working on a story for next week's paper about people speeding through neighborhoods and what can be done to slow the traffic.
If you have something to say about this, or know of someone who does, you can contact me at 240-0117 or hfunk@gannett.com

Thanks!