Life in Kana-text (er… CONtext)
My sister and I were always avid readers, but she used to get carsick if she tried to read in the back seat. We had what felt to us like a "high tech" piece of equipment at home, in the form of a stereo that could tape vinyl records onto cassette, so my mother made … Continue reading The Balance of Context
Life in Idaho... I've been practicing my fly-fishing cast out in the road behind our RV, aiming to land my fly on a paper plate. Jon has been out with me, working on technique--and he'll take me to try it on water once I'm hitting that plate regularly. (We picked up our three-year hunting-and-fishing licenses … Continue reading Life, and Death. And Life.
I've just been pondering what defines a ghost town. On paper, you'd probably consider Placerville Idaho in that category---it's down to thirty or so households from its 1860s gold-rush heyday of more than three thousand... Visitors can enjoy the sight of an old general store, saloon, and other mining-era buildings that now operate as summer-hour museums. … Continue reading Listening in Silence
This evening, a particular piece of kid-art caught my eye. We have their notes and drawings tacked up all over the place---on the walls, on the fridge---but when something is always there you sometimes stop seeing it. That's the case with this piece , carefully dated 8-2-11 (almost exactly a year ago) with sticker-letters spelling … Continue reading Hill-Climbing, Hummingbirds, and Handguns
Tricia Mitchell just posted a lovely blog about the castle in Heidelberg, Germany--accompanied by some of her own photos and memories of this castle over the years, and posing the question of whether her readers had memories to share. I wrote to her that although it's been almost three decades since I've been there (and although I … Continue reading A Pilgrimage of Perspective
Last week a time-warp descended on the State Park beside our house. Overlaid on the invisible borders of the frisbee-golf course, an army encampment of Civil War soldiers and camp followers sprang up, authentic in every detail (except, perhaps, for the general lack of dirt and grime). This group of history hobbyists pitches camp here … Continue reading Past, President, Future
Ah, trick question! Of course you wouldn't bury an owl, because the Migratory Bird Act makes it illegal in the United States to be in possession of even an owl feather, let alone the entire dead bird. (Or three.) So of course this post is entirely a work of fiction. (Cough, cough.) Last summer I … Continue reading How to Bury an Owl
Kana's Chronicles 