There are three main chairs in a criminal courtroom - one for the Prosecutor, one for the Defense Attorney and one for the Defendant.

I have sat in all three. This is Part 1 of the Prosecutor's chair in the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case.

From my 1989 interview with Freddy Kassab, who pursued MacDonald all his life, after the murders in 1970, through the trial in 1979, I tell you why I believe the government won and Jeffrey MacDonald lost.

It was emotion and passion on our side but most of all the evidence that led to his conviction of three counts of murder. This is that story.

This Christmas season, it is easy to be distracted and somewhat depressed with all the news in our country and indeed, in many parts of the world.

But there have been other times as the famous song, "The White Cliffs of Dover" remind us of the times of World War II.

The song, " A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" as the memorable line, the whole darn world seemed upside down".

This is the way it feels to me now. Upside down."

It isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

So, pick a color - paint the story of your life and give it a title.

I picked the color blue and for a title "The Color of Hope. This is my take!

Forrest Gump said his mother told him that "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get."

That pretty much sums up my latest trip to Chetola for a seminar for lawyers and paralegals this past weekend. Hearing stories of surviving three bouts of cancer and no one thinking one lawyer would even be here to dealing with hosting and paying for a wedding to take place next Saturday, to confronting three large bears to worrying about one's career, this time we had it all.

And to top it off, Chetola did not have a record of my reservation on one of their busiest times of the year. But everyone remained calm and through the day and a room move or two, it worked out with Chetola acting at their best.

But at first, it was not guaranteed.

This weekend and this podcast is about life, and how these people deal with it. It isn't always perfect, but it is full of grit and reslience.

Built in 1915 to support a railroad line from Abington, Virgina, to the North Carolina mountains, the hotel thrived for over a half century as the hub of West Jefferson, located in Ashe County in the northwest part of the state.

In 1977, due to the closing of the railroad and bus lines, the hotel was forced to close its doors for about 50 years.

Bought in 2019, Mark Beck and his family began a 5-year journey to restore the hotel to its former prominence and grandeur.

Opening its doors to the future in July of this year, this is the story of one family's persistence and the resilience of an old hotel. Mark and his daughter Lily have given a new meaning to the words "grit" and "resilience".

Complete with pictures, this is their story of the restoration of a landmark.

In the late spring of 1956, Wake Forest College moved from the town of Wake Forest to Winston - Salem and a new campus. Most of my friends were children of faculty members as was I, as my dad was the Chaplain of the school.

Many of my friends stayed behind, and I lost contact with them. But in a twist, this past week I had lunch with one of them again, a person whom I had known since the first grade, and he told me about others just like him that I had known all those years ago and what had become of them and the lives they had lived.

It made me think about friendships all the more, and so this podcast is about friendships, new and old, the grit and resilience of having them, and how they enrich our lives.

From the random meeting of someone who works in a grocery store to someone you meet in a courtroom or school, life is about making and collecting new friends.

I hope you will enjoy it and this week, make at least one new friend.

This past week was a tough one for this country. Political assassination, shouts of revenge, we seem to have lost, or at least misplaced, our way.

It is a time to remember the words of Nelson Mandella that "hope is the greatest weapon in the world when all else seems lost".

Not that long ago, really, on April 4, 1968, Robert Kennedy spoke in Indianapolis to a group of black people in a poor area of the city and told them that Martin Luther King had been shot, and that he had died.

Sen. Kennedy's talk that night, written by him in a car on the way there, helped to calm the city and give them peace. There were no riots there, though there were that same night in over 100 cities.

We have a blueprint for getting better if only we have the will to follow it.

When former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice and legendary lawyer Phil Carlton asked me to speak to the residents of The Cardinal, a well-known senior citizen's establishment in Raleigh, I immediately said yes.

So, on Wednesday, August 27, due primarily to the interest in the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case, I spoke to an overflow group of about 150 people about the case and then added parts of my own subsequent story for good measure.

This podcast is the video of that presentation. It is a trip back in time.

After holding podcasts for over two years, I am hoping to make some changes and updates to my conversations with people and bring you the best podcast I can. So, for two weeks I am taking a summer pause.

I look forward to a new podcast on Monday, September 8, and hope to see you then.

Until then, have a great rest of the summer.

Jim