Region & Place 428

If I earn ten pennies in heaven for being a local food supplier, do I get five for being regional?

If I am correct, it seems there is a certain kind of arch-typical narrative that has become quite popular here at FPR, and in some sense, emblematic of its defense…

I have a friend who is a cloistered Trappist monk and his current obsession is the ‘outer’ and decidedly non-sedentary goal of running a marathon (on the back forty of…

Like dew on the gowan lying Is the fa’ o’ her fairy feet; Like winds in summer sighing, Her voice is low and sweet. Her voice is low and sweet,…

If you had told me, a happy and professionally satisfied D.C. lawyer living on Capitol Hill, just over a year ago, that I would be back someday soon living in…

When in 1967 my parents were the thirteenth family to move into newly minted Columbia, Maryland, I was three months old. The American dream at that time generally took the…

A little over a year ago, after hearing my bitter protests about another pathetic talk by some expert on education whose vision of life I find basically revolting but whose…

What would we think of a government that banned milk? Would we think it over-reaching, even oppressive? Would we condemn it for rejecting a great gift from God? Would we…

Hilaire Belloc once wrote that he never burned anything but oak in the huge fireplace of his ancient home in West Sussex. For a while I considered doing the same…

When SueAnne Bassett learned that she had stage four cervical cancer eight years ago, her doctors gave her a 20 percent chance that she would live five years, and that…

“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”  --Wallace Stevens January 25,  the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, will mark the fifth time in the last decade that…

Over a drink with a fellow Canadian ex-pat about a month ago, I rather wistfully (and irresponsibly) indulged in some wishful thinking as I expressed my longing for the solid…

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] The final sentence in Behind the Beautiful Forevers--Katherine Boo's wonderfully written, devastatingly detailed narrative of several fascinating, despairing stories that took place over the period…

Hidden Spring Lane. “I plan on dying here.” The words came quite unbidden and surprised me. We were in the process of building a house on a few acres in…

In my last essay, I took issue with the inescapable computer, that costly thing on the student’s desk in “good” schools, inducing the itch for instant “information” at the expense…

I woke up early last Friday morning, still in a slump from my post-Thanksgiving food-coma. Not too keen on the idea of braving an icy north wind just yet, I…

This is Part IV of a series of essays. For previous installments of "Life Under Compulsion," see Part I, Part II, and Part III. “Good morning, Mr. Jones,” says the man…

The View from My Front Porch, or Why We Bought the Farm               by Andrea Kirk Assaf Remus, Michigan. The view from my gray…

The family’s life in this village had come to an end when the lake was dammed in 1958. One wonders who would consider such things worth it.

The following is a series of reflections and ruminations on Decision 2012, courtesy of FPR writers-at-large.  Winnebago County, IL. Following Standard Operating Procedures, Republican bosses in Washington [and their lackeys…

LEXINGTON, Mass. -- It is not a porch, but a long cement slab that stretches the width of our home, which we make on the lower level of a small…

My brother Brett and I were polite but rambunctious children who made a game of killing bees and dumping their carcasses into buckets of rainwater.  Having heard that bees, like…

Lincoln, I was informed when I was nine years old, freed the slaves. I learned that lesson well; I was an excellent student. Lincoln freed the slaves and, in my…

The protestors stood on the Piazza di Spagna in Rome, brandishing bowls of penne pasta. Above them rose the wide marble staircase of the Spanish Steps; nearby, turquoise water spilled…