This is the story of a 17-year-old girl who is in a tragic car accident, while sitting in the back seat and what happens to the rest of her life.

Tara Stone suffers from a traumatic and severe brain injury when she is thrown from the car, going over 100 miles per hour.

In a coma for months, she finally awakes to a life of no real awareness, an inability to speak or control her own body, but a life of making all who see her feel better. She is a blessing to all who meet her.

Her parents, Ray and Carolyn Stone, are the supreme example of unconditional love for their daughter as they take care of her and see her every day at the hospitals and eventual nursing homes where she lives the rest of her life.

Tara beats the odds and lives until she is 43, 27 years longer than the doctors originally thought possible.

This story is one of grit, resilience, deep faith and forgiveness.

Friday, June 20 - the first day of summer

In Wilmington for a CLE program, the first person I see is my friend Dick Horgan, who had told me about a week ago, the medicine was not working any longer for him. But here he was, a little thinner, but smiling with a bottle of mimosa for everyone.

We talked for hours about life, the practice of law and the challenges of young people as some of the people there were young parents. Then there was the lawyer, age 77, who presently has 13 capital murder cases. He does not turn any away.

On Saturday, the next day, I was sitting on a pier overlooking the ocean, having lunch with a number of people, including an old friend and judge, who laughed and talked with me about our mutual friend, Senator Robert Morgan.

For two days, the first days of summer, I spent it with friends talking about the past, present and future, remembering the words of Albert Camus...

"In the depth of winter, I learned there lay within me an invincible summer."

Good morning, we are pausing new podcasts for two weeks until a new one on Monday, June 23. Meanwhile have a great couple of weeks.

Jim

Dick Horgan wanted to come east, away from his home state of California, so he received a four-year scholarship to Yale, and never looked back.

A lawyer with a large firm in Manhattan, handling major civil cases in federal courts, he cashed in when he turned 50, and with his wife, moved to the coastal city of Wilmington, North Carolina, reinvented his life and career, practicing estate law and teaching adult Sunday School for just over 30 years.

But that is not why his podcast is so good. Dick is an incorrigible optimist, full of hope, faith and a lover of the good life he has lived. You cannot listen or see him without some of that rubbing off on you.

He is now in the twilight of his time, as he told me recently over the phone..."Jim. the medicine is not working, but I have lived a wonderful life."

This podcast was one of the first I did, on May 22, 2023. I want to publish it one more time...on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube or wherever you get your podcast.

I love telling stories. I love to watch peoples' faces as I tell one, making sure not to go on too long, but to keep their attention to the end.

I went to the small town of Plymouth this week, just off the highway on the way to the Outer Banks and met with a number of Social Workers for the county's Department of Social Services. They see the misfortunes that afflict young people every single day and often despair at their circumstances of life.

So, my visit with them was to talk about stress, depression, even suicide, and a way out. I tried to leave them with hope in telling stories. Nelson Mandela once wrote that "Hope is the greatest weapon in the world, when all else seems lost."

It is in meeting with people I have never seen before and making new friends that I have found my voice. It is storytelling that makes it all possible.

These are just a few of them.

Dr., Ramesh Krishnaraj, a graduate of UNC Medical School with a Master's Degree in Public Health from UNC talks about vaccinations, addictions, depression and his own crisis of alcoholism in a wide-ranging conversation about wellness and getting better.

He believes in a holistic approach to practicing medicine, looking at the whole person.

He believes in wellness, saying "not being sick does not mean you are well."

Richard Tevere had just turned 23, when about 3:50 am, February 17, 1970, as a Ft. Bragg MP, he opened the back screen door and walked into the bedroom where he saw a woman and a man lying on the floor.

He walked down a lit hallway and looked into two small bedrooms, then went further inside to the living room and kitchen.

He was the first person inside. He was the first witness to testify in the case against Jeffrey MacDonald for murder.

Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision, wrote of Rich Tevere,,,"he conducted himself with dignity, courage and professionalism when confronted with a horror no man should ever have to see".

This is his story.

If you were in trouble in the last 45 years in Raleigh, North Carolina or points east, and you had Rick Gammon as your lawyer, you knew you had one of the best.

From a traffic case in District Court to a capital case of murder in Superior Court, from serving as co-counsel in the prosecution of a sitting Lt. Governor to defending a former Governor, Rick has treated them all the same.

Rick is also a great storyteller, and with a gentle sense of humor, he does not disappoint.

Rick Gammon for the Defense - A Remarkable Career!