In Pursuit of Jimmie Ricker’s Farm
It was hard to resist. John Harrigan’s portrait of Great North Woods stump farmer Jimmie Ricker in our local newspaper compelled me to drive...
Losing (Some of) the Local Commons
The annual Prairie Festival at The Land Institute just outside Salina, KS, was held two months ago, but it's been much on my mind...
The Local Game
The baseball season has ended. For fans just about everywhere outside of Boston, this will signal either melancholy or relief. Or possibly disgust. Melancholy...
Dirt Thick with Known Dead
While wandering in a used bookstore this summer, I picked up Donald Hall’s String Too Short to be Saved. I enjoyed Hall’s stories about...
Food and “the job of getting it there”
In Charles Frazier’s 1997 novel Cold Mountain, a minister’s daughter decides after her father’s death to remain on their western North Carolina farm, rather...
Thinking and Writing in ¾ Time: A Few Thoughts on Jimmy...
There are many surprising things about getting older. As I sit on the cusp of my late thirties, staring at that blinking cultural landmark...
Mama Gets a Bugle
It is a mark of the middle class to maintain a low-grade prowl on eBay or Craigslist for some odd thing. My prowl was...
On the Beat in the City of Hospitality
On my way to work at the local weekly newspaper, driving down East Mansion Street and then West Michigan Avenue in downtown Marshall, I...
Messing About in Boats
In the nautical classic The Wind in the Willows, Ratty tells his new acquaintance Mole, “‘Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING—absolutely nothing—half...