One a.m., my slumbering brain rousing itself in what was once considered merely a temporary interruption between the first sleep and the second (and summarily outmoded by modernity, clocks, industrialization and a work ethic that neatly compartmentalized our lives into cubbyholes), ears pricked to the sounds of a nocturnal house, Lori beside me … More Give me this night
Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Joe Tinker celebrated two anniversaries on July 27—that of his birthday in 1880 and his death in 1948—and 300 or so people from across the state of Kansas, California and Maryland descended on the tiny town of Muscotah to celebrate. That the celebration happened at all was an … More Muscotah’s field of dreams
Darkness does not descend but rises from the earth. Standing near the church stand wreathed within its mouthwatering bouquet of burgers and pies I watched it swallow the grass and lap up the sides of the carnival rides like coalblack floodwaters while all around ebbed and flowed families and children and roving packs … More Fair nights, carnival lights
It wasn’t a road as such, more a grass-choked two-track splitting off the cobbled dead-end street to rise onto what appeared to be a narrow levee separating the town from the railroad tracks. Beyond it an old unused grain elevator jutting into the view. “I wonder if it’ll take us there,” … More Downtown anytown
“How will we do this?” my wife asked. I looked out the window at the Cedar Point Mill and couldn’t help but imagine the entire structure crumbling into the river—with me inside. The cracks and seams spidering the limestone walls seemed wider and more pronounced than during my last visit two … More Time running out
Sometime in the night whether through a hard wind coming off the river, a minute shift in the mole-tunneled undersoil or the implacable pull of gravity, a small handhewn sliver of limestone that had been teetering nearly untethered for years beyond count wobbled free from the lower front wall and tumbled in a … More The house on the river
The cursor blinks with a cadence like an impatient tap of a foot. I’m waiting, it sneers. Would you speed it up a bit? I remind myself of the writer’s first rule: to bring order from chaos. Order. From. Chaos. It sounds so simple, so why … More Borderland vignettes
I saw my first roundabout several years ago when driving to the Topeka correctional facility to interview inmates who raise puppies for a local dog assistance program. First impressions linger longest, they say, certainly the case in point here. Rather than proceed blindly into the newfangled contraption, I pulled to the shoulder to … More Circular thinking
My granddaughter, Hailey, asked, “Do you have mountain lions there,” and I said, “Maybe. Why do you ask?” “You must live in the wilderness,” she said. Her voice was thin and reedy and filled with a curiosity that bordered on uncertainty if not fear, and on this evening she was filled … More Where the wild things are
I didn’t want to go out into the cold and ice and snow and so fretted over it with altogether too much energy. It was the last night of 2012 and I was tired. My wife had been working crazy long hours so we’d barely seen each other for several weeks, and … More The last picture, in three parts
