I’ve never been called a motor mouth. Except for the occasional morning when compelling insight from overnight dreaming must be described in intricate detail upon waking, people I’ve lived with report they want me to say more, not less. I presume I inherited this reticence from my grandparents. All four came over on the boat from Finland. Perhaps you’ve...
Read MoreUseful nothing; What I am doing in Maine
The silence before the collapse: that’s what made us laugh. Three kids stack playing cards to make little rooms on the living room floor and then the colorful rectangles barely whisper when they fall down, turning our long minutes of focused concentration into one shared gasp. Dismay and delight mixed together. That’s what I think of when I stand back to...
Read MoreQuittin’ time; A fire lookout meets winter
When great pools of standing water shine day-break orange out along the Little Colorado, and I see spray from Grand Falls without my binoculars, I begin to think, “Outta here.” When a lightning-struck dead snag burns like a chimney but doesn’t start wet pine needles on fire, my mission shifts. This morning before sunrise, there I was bent over the beam of...
Read MoreService is the adventure; On daring to go far in a life
Nurse Nina Poore has singlehandedly inspired me to dare to be great in my 80s some day. “Nina won’t tell you” I heard repeated about Nina around town. She won’t tell you about being Arizona Daily Sun Citizen of the Year in 1990 or that Governor Rose Mofford awarded her a clock for her work with preventing substance abuse among children. That might be...
Read MoreGlimpses from the fire lookout; (Not quite of this world)
“Dispatcher, I have a small glowing red and purple disc at 174 degrees, 31 miles, hovering over Mormon Lake.” “I copy, 174 degrees, 31 miles. We’ll call this Incident #4.” In 18 seasons at a handful of fire lookouts in central Arizona I’ve seen flares dropped from Air Force craft, I’ve seen dust from the Painted Desert roll down the Little Colorado like a...
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