In my childhood home there were not two matching pieces of furniture. There was a random assortment of straight back wooden chairs and shapeless overstuffed chairs covered with large floral patterns. There was a stout table of dark wood joined to an under shelf with narrow uprights like a picket fence on three sides. It had been made by my...
Read MoreKinaalda; Where are the old ways?
On the wall of my sunroom hang two portraits. In one a small girl leans forward and raven hair cascades forward in heavy ropes to frame her face. She is about 6 years old. She clutches a circular disk of beadwork to her breast and her eyes are closed as though she were praying. The coarse woven blanket that forms the background is patterned with bold...
Read MoreLooking for Tom Joad; Everybody’s going on the road
Route 66 has a million stories to tell, some funny some poignant. My first real road trip was hitchhiking from Baltimore to L.A. in 1969. Most of those miles I logged on Route 66, the Mother Road. It was an education of the first order. I just walked out to the highway with an army surplus pack on my back and stuck my thumb in the air. For years after, in...
Read MoreHiggamus hoggamus; My kingdom for a scribe
This may look easy, but it’s not. It’s hard. Coming up with a fresh new subject for the old “Letter from Home” column … I start writing and I get a few paragraphs into it and it’s looking really promising then a small voice says, “You wrote about that in 2008.” Or, I start with a flourish and then fade quickly with nary a point or conclusion in sight. The...
Read MoreComing through the rye; Adapting to changing times
Look! There along the shoulder of Silver Saddle Road, growing in golden abundance between the brome grass and rabbit brush, are feral fingers of rye, reaching from Doney Park’s past into today’s drier reality. It’s been 50 years since rye was planted as a cover crop for dry-farmed corn, bean and potato fields to keep the soil from blowing away in the...
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