Small Grandson
You gotta love a seven-year-old grandson who can’t get over the odd pattern in the tines of a salad fork that don’t exist in the regular one. Or asks that his next birthday present be…
No Cloudy Days
My Simon, my white ghost, my sun-seeking companion left this world Monday afternoon. As always, my heart breaks more viscerally when my cats die – than even the humans who’ve lighted my way. In their…
Connections
A couple Saturday nights ago, I gathered by Zoom with my sister, Sonja, and her two sons, Ben and Tim, and daughter-in-law Lori. Borne of the exigencies of COVID when a summer reunion proved unwise,…
Now, This Day
You and I would agree, I think, that heaven such as the one anticipated by “true believers” does not exist. That your Plains Indians heroes and the armies that killed them do not reside on…
Rooms To Let
Maybe not 50 cents. (For those of you who remember Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.”) But for sure within my budget. Ada Keifer’s red brick Civil War-era house sat at the crook of Baltimore…
Antiquated
This little vignette will make no sense unless you remember a time when most houses had just one or two phones, tethered firmly to a wall. When calls occurred more for arrangements than chats. When…
A Prescription for Our Fears
Grandma Sherfy was my current age—75—in 1963. That year, I was a cocky high school junior—finding my bearings, myself, my prowess. Aunt Blanche would die in November—breast cancer. So would President Kennedy. We were catching…
Imprints
At the edge of sleep, Just as Simon’s paw reaches under the covers for my cheek, I wake at home. The corner of North Ash and Earl, in McPherson. The brick bungalow that my dad…
The Sly Season
May first in Montana; May Day. Spring, or so the calendar has said since late March. But we know better here. Now is not the time to hang the snow shovel in the garage Or…
The Montana Heritage Project
The Meagher County Poor Farm sits on the western edge of White Sulphur Springs, Montana. You turn off beside the once-grand old Ringling house and follow a winding gravel road until you come to what,…