Most days I’m thankful for my neighbor’s transmissionally challenged truck. Reliably at 6:15 each morning it roars down the road full throttle–even though it’s less than 50 feet to the stop sign. There’s a low rumbling pause and then the driver guns it toward U.S. 42. I can hear his gears shifting in the increasing distance…

Here are 10 things you can do outdoors that require little or no preparation, skills, or special equipment. 1. Hiking You can also bike, run, or jog, but I like hiking because anyone can hike. In some places I’ve been a hiker has to worry about venomous snakes, alligators, or dangerous insects. But the worst…

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything worth posting here. Apparently I’m not the only person struggling to write after the election. It’s not that I haven’t tried. It’s just that everything I start devolves into a political rant. I start out with good intentions … and suddenly I’m ranting again about cabinet appointments and exaggerated news reporting. But I’m not surprised. One can hardly buy a cup of coffee or check the weather forecast without a reminder of the huge rift in our nation…

Full disclosure: I’m a big fan. Dylan is a part of my family’s language. Growing up, the most important piece of furniture in the house was always the stereo and the only album that was always left out was Tangled Up in Blues…. Still my first reaction to Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize in Literature was – Uh… Really???

By all accounts we’re in the midst of an intensely weird presidential election. Whatever happens on November 8, it will be historic. Most people have strong opinions about our contenders. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. I want to talk about Regis. Regis and I were co-workers at a local church.…

Hope Edelman is one of the speakers at the River Teeth creative nonfiction conference this year, which I help plan. When I checked out Edelman’s bio I felt an immediate need to get a copy of her book Motherless Mothers and see what insights it might provide. I didn’t get past the first chapter without…

So my car exploded last month. Really. I still have no answers on why this happened. I left work late as usual. It was cold — red-cheek, Ohio-January cold — so I had driven to work, even though I live just a few blocks away. But when I turned the ignition on our old Buick,…

I have a soft spot for wayward boys. I suppose I see my brother in all of them. Otherwise I would have dropped the middle school version of our church’s afterschool program after two sessions. My Thursday group consisted of about half a dozen foul-mouthed in-town boys and two girls…

In less than a month I will be losing my job.* That means I will soon be engaged full-time in the soul sucking process of a desperate job search. If you get the notion that I’m not looking forward to it, you are correct. For one thing I’m leaving a job I love: people I…