Christina quarantine

Not Her First Quarantine

This is not my first quarantine.  In the sweltering August heat of 1979, my family and I, along with our entire trailer park neighborhood in Moundsville, were on lockdown for two weeks. Although 14 days...

WLU’s Rare Book Returns Home 

We stood around the podium topped with a glass case like mythical giants peering down at tiny humans, and for me, the moment felt just as magical. It was 1994, and I was in the Nelle M. Krise Rare Book’s Room a...

Celebrating Juneteenth Wheeling Style

Many Americans probably believe that once President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 that all slaves were set free and lived happily ever after. In reality, the road to freedom for most e...

Wheeling Leaves Its Mark on Twain

On Jan. 10, 1872, one of America’s most celebrated storytellers took the stage at Wheeling’s Washington Hall. An Intelligencer reporter described him as “a youngish-looking man of somewhere about thirty-five, n...

To All the Halloween Babies Like Me

At 6:01 a.m. on Oct. 31, 1973, little old me came screechin’ and bawlin’ into this world. Yes, I am a Halloween baby and that fact — one of the only sure things I know — has shaped my life in interesting ways. ...

Boo at the Zoo Unmasked

The Oglebay Good Zoo held its first Boo at the Zoo in October 1980 as a way to raise funds for animal care and zoo operations and to invite the community to enjoy safe, family-oriented Halloween fun. It quickly...

The Painful Fat Disease: Lipedema

When I learned I had lipedema, I cried. Hours later I was still crying. Thankfully, I was able to regain control over my thoughts, but I still struggle with depression associated with this progressive, painful ...

The Writing on the Wall

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Wheeling natives have made their mark all over the nation and the world. They are actors, like Joyce DeWitt and John Corbett; labor activists, like Walter Reuther; musicians, like Leon “Chu” Berry and Mollie O’...

An Ode to Wheeling Summers

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By Christina Greer The headlines are depressing.   “The most miserable state in the US is West Virginia. For the fifth year in a row!” (The 2014 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index) “West Virgin...

In Full Bloom: Nicky’s Garden Center

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  On the way back from Sunday brunch at Oglebay, we decided to stop by Nicky's Garden Center's new location on Warden Run Road to buy my mother-in-law a flower for her birthday. What we found was a whol...

New Endeavors at Olney Friends School

I arrived on campus just in time for lunch, which gave me the perfect opportunity to learn all about the organic farm at Olney Friends School, an independent, progressive high school in Barnesville, Ohio. As I ...

Words & Music Celebrates 25 Years

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I first walked in to Words & Music my freshman year of college. As the only West Liberty commuter I knew without a driver’s license or a car, finding a way to the Stratford Springs' bookstore was a bit more...

Mmm . . . Popcorn Opens at Market Plaza

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My son insisted he could smell the popcorn by the time we hit the former Kaufman’s storefront. He held fast to his dad’s hand as he skipped down the alley and into Market Plaza. We were heading out to our first...

“The Stag,” the Myth, the Legend

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Every time I visit “The Stag” at Oglebay Park, I wonder how many Ohio Valley children have perched themselves on his smooth, verdigris surface. How many families have spread a picnic blanket in his shadow on a ...