Tag: community
Sewers and Leashes: A Local Story
Hillsdale, MI. This is a true story. It happened once upon a time in a place I do not now live.
After an arduous...
… Neither Proud Nor Lonely
C.S. Lewis noted that “If you had asked Lazamon or Chaucer ‘Why do you not make up a brand-new story of your own?’ I...
Jawboning: A Tale of Two Hardware Stores
Hamilton, Ontario. The other day I was standing in a cavernous mega-chain hardware store looking for gardening supplies. This was not an easy task...
The Stories We Tell…
Philadelphia, PA. If you have read just one of Wendell Berry’s novels or short stories, then you have glimpsed this Kentucky farmer’s love for family,...
What’s Local?
Hillsdale, MI. A Mormon friend of mine once argued that the LDS prohibition of alcohol was right and proper not only because it was...
Swine Flu’s Real Exposure
Claremont, CA. The most haunting, awful scenes in Thucydides’s history of the Pelopponesian war are those describing the Athenian plague.
The plague emerged in the...
Waiting for the Americans…
In the late 1970s, my grandfather’s older brother, already in his nineties, was pressing his almost deaf ears to a little portable radio still...
The Reluctant Southerner: Reflections on Home and History
Moorpark, CA. In October of 1997 I attended the Southern Historical Association’s convention in Atlanta because I wanted to hear Paul Conkin’s presidential address,...
You’ve Got Mail. But Not For Long.
Claremont, CA. Tomato, the main character in Erika Lopez’s terrifically kooky Flaming Iguanas, loves the post office. She says, to be precise, that she...
Closing the Circle: An Economy of Values, and Where to Look...
It is no surprise that many of us connected with FPR welcomed the release in mid July of Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas...