Hurdy Gurdy

While traveling in England, our group stopped at the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Truly an immense construct, the main building alone was the size of a cathedral. Taking into account its crumbling outbuildings, it covered a goodly amount of space. … Continued

One night, Rhonda let me drive her car. Thirteen, and coming off a disastrous year in which my parents had gotten a divorce, an unheard of occurrence in my small, Baptist church, I’d struggled to find my way. But now … Continued

I’m sitting on a ridge in the Flinthills, watching the turbines on a wind farm do their thing. On the slope below some cows, probably Black Angus, graze on the spectacular shades of green still present after a spring and … Continued

Here’s the rule: In any hipster joint you have to employ one person over forty to cater to people like me. I was hipster before you were born dude. I have forgotten more beers than you and your handlebar mustache … Continued

I come from a part of the country where even white boys go to war.  I’m the first in my family not to have worn a uniform.  My older cousins came back from Vietnam with plates in their heads or … Continued

I frequent the sort of coffee place where everyone sits at the same spot each day. I recognize the faces; the barista starts my “usual” unless I request something different. The long communal table in the center is held down … Continued

Toward the end of the summer that lead into my ninth grade year, our neighbors the Gabas moved off the block.  Bobby Frampton gave up and went back to Compton, and Russell Bradley went back to Alabama, sent there by … Continued

After my father died in January I had his mail forwarded to me.  There wasn’t much.  He was a long-retired mailman and an increasingly hermetic widower of seven years.  By August it had become a trickle of fundraising pleas from … Continued

Evangelicals want their city on a hill to be a gated community. This tension between the desire to transform the world and to retreat from it always ends with seclusion the victor. Understanding this impulse sheds light on the political … Continued