Melinda Ruley

There’s not been much to smile about in the newspapers lately, so when Alan Gell came into our kitchen on the front page of The News & Observer last month, acquitted at last of the murder charges that landed him on death row six years ago, it was hard not to grin right along with […]

By Wednesday morning of the Great Winter Storm, with schools still closed and 47 damp mittens scattered about the house and Greg Fishel predicting slippery roads into perpetuity, I was ready for a rant. So I made a cup of tea and looked through the newspapers. There was a feature story on a new “laughter […]

We are all of us, in our family, competitive by nature. My 7-year-old son Henry, for instance, has never for one minute bought the idea that soccer is “just a game” and maintains, at untellable personal sacrifice, a polite silence whenever one of his coaches says they’re just out there to have fun. Henry’s father, […]

Our children bring out the best, and the worst, in us. For their sakes we open our hearts, empty our wallets, conquer our tempers and ransack our souls for the scraps that are saintly and good. That’s not the end of it, of course. For every saintly scrap there is a dragon, breathing fire and […]

From the beginning, it made people positively giddy to think Mike Peterson might have killed his wife. I’m not talking about from the beginning of the trial itself, when it looked like the state had no case, and that defense attorney David Rudolf was going to eat District Attorney Jim Hardin’s lunch. I’m talking about […]

You could hear the Firebird at the top of the island, gunning it, picking up speed, grinding gears. Already it had sped past twice, streaking silver down Canal Street and spinning southward toward the pier. This time I went out to meet it, stood in the center of the road in my matronly black one-piece, […]

It’s been a thin time for Senator Jesse Helms, laid up in bed at the Inova Fairfax Hospital near Washington. Late last month, Helms had open-heart surgery to replace a prosthetic mitral valve inserted a decade ago. Prior to surgery, Helms was off his feed, tired and weak. Doctors offered detailed medical analyses of Helms’ […]

This spring I had my very first cancer, a bouncing basal cell carcinoma. It showed up on my shoulder, a pearly little bump–innocent looking, really. Since I started having babies my previously serene skin has become mutinous, producing warty outbreaks, jumbo freckles, ominous pigment eruptions. Surely, I argued in the dermatologist’s office, surely this tiny […]