Some of my ancestors on my Daddy’s side came out of Tennessee in the 1700s and for more than 50 years worked their way north across Kentucky to Illinois growing bloody butcher corn and Jacob’s beans in patches of rich soil they hacked from the endless forest. They ate game and hunted their own herds of half-wild pigs that ran free and fattened on...
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As a child, I often found myself reading books I heard my sister Kathy talk about. She read aloud poems that moved her or passages that just demanded sharing. She guided me into The Harvester by Gene Stratton Porter at about age 10. There I first engaged a consuming romantic love that suffered greatly and played out against the world of medicinal herbs....
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Time folded back upon itself recently and the fabric yielded and tore slightly beneath an unseen pressure. I had received a friend request on Facebook. I didn’t recognize the name so I did my usual private eye routine and began by looking at the profile picture. Thank god it wasn’t a kitten or cartoon avatar. I studied a photo of a bewhiskered...
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The engineer lowered the needle to the record and a momentary scratch and pop was followed by the haunting guitar notes of the Ventures playing “Apache.” I spoke into the mike. “This is 1450 AM RADIO KENA Mena, Arkansas and you’re listening to … the Bearcat Prowl.” The year was 1967 and with several schoolmates I was hosting a weekly radio show of news and...
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We sit around a desert fire; a few hardened sticks of ironwood are yielding a small steady flame and little smoke. The calm waters of the Sea of Cortez a few yards away are murmuring companionably. Orion has just careened from behind the shadow of El Morro and he flashes his Concho belt against the black velvet sky. A young coyote yips “I been to Austin”...
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