[Rediscovered this piece today while culling material for a book. Originally published April 14, 2011—republished here with minor edits.] One afternoon almost forty-two years ago, I saw a white eagle. It was during my Arkansas woods hippie days. Five or six of us ended up together that spectacular summer of ’71 on 170 acres of [...]
Arkansas
Feathers, blood, and physics on the brain at 7,000 feet
Oh no, not the bloody white leghorns again! Too late, alas. The memory of the brutal Arkansas chicken adventure was autoplaying in my brain, triggered by the offer of a flock of fifteen hens—free, of course—from someone in the nearby town of Dixon, New Mexico, as published in an email classifieds newsletter I subscribe to: [...]
Less than one whole year, but what a workout »Buy This Photo!«
While trying to bring order and hygiene to the hopeless dusty piles of papers, artifacts, books, bins of old photos, knives and razors, small tools, musical instruments, computer gear, and magical objects that surround my desk and drive me insane, I was surprised to find a few slides—for-real, ancient, 35mm slides—from northwest Arkansas dated April, [...]
Less than a year after resigning from Wharton County Junior College
Behold the historical record! Oh, the things that were so easy then, though you wouldn’t know it from that picture. It’s a scanned image of an old beat-up photo taken in Houston in late ’71. My father probably held the camera, which must have taken some fortitude on his part, something I haven’t recognized until [...]
She came here once and loved this house
It was several years before she died. In the Christmas package from Austin was (among other things) a little red wind-up AM-FM radio with a solar panel for recharging. I’d always wanted one, and there it was. She must have known or guessed right since she knew me. A radio for someone in the boonies [...]
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