At the end of my day it’s the little stories that collect and twist into the shawl of sleep. They replay sometimes at a more appreciative pace. Time slows down a little and the focal area widens and suddenly takes into view the cacophony, color, caresses and odors of the day I just dashed through. I catch the significance of a sideward glance or a...
Read MoreCrop cycles; A tale of two gardens
Dear Sam, I hope this finds you well, tucked away there in West Virginia’s sheltering hollers. I confess, I keep picturing you in your old trailer, although I’ve visited you twice since you’ve been in your new handmade house. I loved the closeness of the trailer to the creek. I’m sure you don’t take the creek for granted, but streams of water out...
Read MoreLocal color; Ancestral corn
My older brother Homer told me about our Cherokee grandma walking with her people from Missouri alongside an oxcart that carried a few household goods and precious seeds into Texas about 1900. Our grandpa was a one-armed schoolteacher who saw the raven-haired beauty pass and declared he would “marry that woman.” Homer explored the prairies around Aledo,...
Read MoreRoad songs; Have lyrics will travel
“Why do you bob your hair, girls?/It’s not the thing to do/Just wear it, always wear it/And to the Lord be true/And when before the judgment/You meet the Lord up there/He’ll say, ‘Well done, for one thing/You never bobbed your hair.’” –Blind Alfred Reed, 1927 The pickup truck carves the ranch road like a broken beer bottle through scattered mesquite...
Read MoreQuerencia; At rest off the grid
I’m headed north to the Grand Canyon to interview Eric Guisse, who began carving a homestead on the parks border more than 40 years ago. Greg Hales, my pardner in crime and videographer extraordinaire pilots his truck north through ponderosa and piñon scrub. As we pass through a clearing in the forest I glimpse a large white owl perched on a branch beside...
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