The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp in your own backyard
Escape real life for a night with a fire, s’mores and a sleeping bag.
Our kids are going to have the weirdest memories of this time, and, ideally, some of them will be beautiful. Or at least comedic. This is where backyard camping comes in. Think s’mores, stars, the air mattress deflating with a cartoony hiss. Picture your children’s faces, fire-lit and, for just another minute, little. It could happen in farmland, suburbia or the Bronx — and it could be lovely. (And if you don’t have access to the outdoors, consider adapting these tips for the middle of your tiny apartment’s living room.)
Pleasure-wise, for me, backyard camping falls somewhere between the rigorous horror of backpacking and the deluxeness of oceanside camping with a cooler full of bacon and peaches. But the comparisons don’t matter, really, since right now you’re pitching a tent on your own lawn either because you can’t go on the real trip you’d planned or because you’re sick of being in the house, or both.
So first, accept a few things about backyard camping: You won’t be somewhere gorgeous (unless you already are), and you
In the fall of 2016, Molly Welch took an Uber to a Starbucks off Haynes Bridge Road in Alpharetta. There was nothing all that unusual about that. It was a favorite spot, one she visited at least twice a week.
Inside she ordered the usual, a tall cup of chai tea, and took a seat. With just one good arm, there was no way to manage her cane and carry her drink to a table.
That morning, Mike Roddy and Rick Perkins sat nearby watching, wondering about the mix of circumstances that rendered Welch, then just 21, barely able to walk or talk.
But instead of just wondering like so many of us do when we see someone with a disability, the two men struck up a conversation.
“What’s your story?” they asked her.
They say your story is what lies between birth and the day you die. In Starbucks that day, Molly began at that horrible moment on Feb. 9, 2008.
After a long weekend with family in Alpharetta, she was headed back to Auburn University, driving down I-85 south.
A journalism major, she was in her junior year and looking forward to writing articles for the school newspaper.
As she approached the exit that day, she remembered two interviews she’d recorded and decided to take a listen to get a jump on the writing.
“I was always thinking ahead,” she said.
Welch reached for the tape recorder in the seat beside her, and it hit the floor. She was trying to retrieve it when her car veered across the median and crashed head-on into an oncoming truck.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately nine people are killed each day in the United States and more than 1,000 are injured in crashes that are reported to involve a distracted driver.
Roddy and Perkins listened intently as Molly continued.
Doctors did their best to put her back together, but after she spent three weeks in a coma, they transferred her from East Alabama Hospital in Opelika to