The Man I’ll Never Know Well
On October 16, 1940, sometime on his wedding day, my dad, Paul Sherfy, registered with the McPherson County, Kansas, draft board. He identified his employer as the local newspaper and his soon-to-be wife, as his…
Whose Montana?
Two caveats as you approach this essay: First, this might NOT be news to any of you. I may be leagues late in seeing or feeling this divide between then and now. Second, I do know that Montana in…
Colors
I do it every year: retool some part of my house—a wall from which I jettison current pictures and replace them with something more striking, more colorful. Or trade one set of tchotchkes on a particular…
Joy
“Live in joy even though you know all the facts.” It’s been a hell of a new year already. Trump and his cohorts have invaded Venezuela, killed Renee Good, yanked elderly undressed men from their…
Ana #4 – Banana Bread
I am a legend in my own head for wasting bananas. I purchase them with some frequency, intending to be “good” and improve my diet. Then, when they start to brown and spot, I plop…
Blow-Up
Nothing says Christmas quite as succinctly as a yard full of deflated blow-up holiday characters. A flaccid Santa tumbling over his stomach. Sprawl-legged reindeer still in harness. Some unidentifiable characters like a Smurf-elf—a smelf—in a puddled mess. A…
WHAT NOW!!!
I’ve pulled the kantha quilt up over the bed—quickly so as to keep Tuxedo from nesting in the sheets. Though the forecast called for a thick cloud cover and snow, there’s a bit of sun…
What Do I Know?
What do I know, really, of India? That chefs, clad in sparkling white clothes and towering toques, came out often to greet us and ask how we found the food. That every driver who piloted…
Anas #3 – A Gift of Beauty
I’ve long since told you about my introduction to graduate school at the University of Oregon: deaf landlady, garret room with a naked lightbulb, one refrigerator shelf, reading assignments triple those that I’d experienced in college,…
It’s Complicated
My father, Paul Sherfy, died on February 24, 2002, at eighty-nine in the health-care wing of the Cedars Retirement Community—a Church of the Brethren facility in McPherson, Kansas. I’d seen my dad several weeks before his…