Silly lady, Miss Phoebe. Doing lunch in Basalt she passed the second hand store and loved this once-used wedding dress and bought it. Then what to do? Clever lady, Miss Phoebe, decided that she would marry the bull that very evening. Demanding lady, Miss Phoebe. We did it all for her; gathering minister, bridesmaid, ring [...]

Bill called tonight. He’s home; three years in the slam, three months in a halfway house in Denver, and now home.  His former wife had placed and lit candles for his homecoming. He was touched by this and also by my continued relationship through this period of his life. It was not a matter of [...]

Angelina’s life as a nun is one of daily routine, quotidian the proper word. Dreary tedium? Not at all, dutiful repetition, each day like another bead of the rosary, the sum more than beads, a sacred necklace. With ever finer grit the imagination has been sandpapered away, it is smooth to the touch, and with [...]

People pray and find some peace in this. They supplicate themselves, they kneel on hard wood and their parietal brain spaces go dark. Oh yeah, they’re hooked up in a positron emission tomography machine and are going to be there for two or three hours. This is a scientific experiment to understand religion and the [...]

She is going home now, no longer uncertain.
They had sent a general to deliver her the news about her husband. “We want to use your husband’s ultimate sacrifice to reset the moral tone of America.” In her numbness she said yes, and thus that military funeral became such a big media event.
There were three generals [...]

In addressing the People’s Press entourage, George writes in the email with his “Pilgrim Redux” document attached (and provided below): “OK, I’m irrationally exuberant about the pilgrim stuff. If y’all need to find a more rational persona, that’s probably possible.”
The editorial board is not absolutely insistent on the brand as pilgrim and the logo as [...]

Is one cutlet the same as every cutlet? Well, yes and no, sometimes. Raynard cut meat after school and on weekends through high school and he’s been here ever since. Early on he sold me on the pin bone as the best bargain in steaks. The pin bone is the first cut from the sirloin [...]

He spends seven days a week here at the train station. Even if only one person in a hundred lets him carry their bags there are thousands every hour. They pay five rupees, maybe ten; it doesn’t add up to enough for a family of four. The girl stays home, the boy begs here and [...]

We were talking about coffee – George, Craig of Rainy Day, Catherine Lutz and I – and how George and Craig both start their days off with ten cups each and then I added to George, “and orange juice too?” “Oh no,” he replies.” “I haven’t had a glass of orange juice since 1987.” Well, [...]