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It is a reminder that our own personal winter is coming. When you are daily reminded of your own bones by pains in your joints, seeing a skeleton dangling from…

Tolkien understands the deepest of our longings and makes us understand them better than before.

They never quite got it when they asked me if I was “going home for Christmas” and I replied, “I live at home.”

We have, until this day, indulged in our individualistic reveries, imagining that we are always free to “light out for the Territory” and leave the ills of communal life behind…

Will I die here? I don't know. I have tried living away from here and it does not work.

Many a time, I have seen my friend doting on his little seven-year-old half brother, picking him up from school, cooking for him, and keeping his classmates’ junk food at…

Even for the average homeowner, ownership all too often is imagined as a way of gaming income flow and consumption over a lifetime, accumulating enough to spend down before one…

Alexandria, VA My last post has led some to conclude that I am a pessimist. Even Ross Douthat, among the most perceptive commentators in print and on internet, suggested that…

Kearneysville, WV. One thing I enjoy about the Christmas break is the chance to sit back and read a novel. For some months I have been intending to read Home…

Rock Island, IL A century ago in New England, the approach to snow was quite different. When snow began to fly, people switched to runners. Roads were not plowed out,…

Often the politics of the local turns on the “who” as much as the “where.” Switzerland showed as much very recently.  The country enjoys some goodwill among the sort of…

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, “Hot, Humid, and Sad.”  What I…

Claremont, CA. I spoke last week at the New Jersey Governor’s School for Public Issues, a (mostly) state-funded summer program for civic-minded students about to enter their senior year in…

Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. About a week ago our dishwasher started to issue a loud grinding sound from its hidden depths. After a few days I decided to call an appliance…

April was "Media Awareness Month" at our sons' school. I took a couple weeks off from the Porch, and I also published a first draft of this piece in the…

RINGOES, NJ. You’ve seen the commercials.A middle-aged couple drops their son off at college. As they drive away, nest now empty, they feign sorrow. Quickly, though, their mournful countenances are…

Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. Before it became a science of supply and demand and the circulation of commodities, economics was originally understood as the wisdom of household management. The Greek word…

First, let me extend my greetings to the readers of the Front Porch Republic. I have been following conversations here at FPR since it launched earlier this year and find…

Claremont, CA. Here in southern California, local woman Nadya Suleman has been holding her own on the front pages, alongside arguably more pressing stories about the flailing economy. It's easy…

MT. AIRY, PHILADELPHIA. Before I say something rather abstract about concrete things, a few personal words about what (and who) lies behind these thoughts may be in order. The photo…

CLAREMONT, CA. We have become homeowners. This week, my husband and I are moving boxes from our latest rental into a house that we may finally call home. It’s a…

JEFFERSON COUNTY, KANSAS. In the comments somewhere below, Prof. Fox mentions the regional artist John Steuart Curry. A fitting topic for my first foray into this space, not only because…

ALEXANDRIA, VA. Names are important, and few can be more significant than what a new publication calls itself. Perhaps at first greeting the name will give pause, causing the new…