just a few friends When a writer starts thanking some people, he is bound to forget others. The appearance of ingratitude, certainly actual ingratitude, is not a condition into which a person should strive. For a long time, I told…
Small rural towns in the American West have a talent for incubating distinct personalities whom city folk call “local characters” or “colorful individuals” while town members express their appreciation with grins and tales of exploits and recognition. Blanding, a town…
Far away places, with strange soundin’ names Far away over the sea Those far away places, with the strange soundin’ names Are callin’, callin’ to me -lyrics by Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer Back in mid-July I went fishing…
time and again I do not believe my father remained a fly fisherman long after I moved away from Moab. From the time he left Utah in the mid 1990’s, he seldom fished. Back in Texas, Dad went through a…
I’ve spent most of my life on the edges of farm country. As a kid, in South Dakota, I knew the cadence of farm-speak, cribbed from the little 4H and FFA members who ruled the elementary school show-and-tell presentations, overheard…
Note: In the essay that follows, I continue to write about my early days of learning to fly fish. Uncle Lloyd still lived in Dove Creek, and I was on the way west again with my family. We were moving…
By now, most Americans have heard some mention of an ongoing debate over “Net Neutrality.” Whether via John Oliver’s now famous segment on the issue, which drowned the FCC website in pro-neutrality comments, or else courtesy of a few grudging…
The summer after the second grade, my best friend told me the truth. “You know, you aren’t supposed to be here,” she said. We were wandering the streets of Sturgis, South Dakota, as one did in those days, looking for…
“There’s cracks,” Del is saying, “up on the Smoky, that’re so deep, you can drop a rock down in ‘em, and you can’t hear the first bounce for ten, maybe twelve seconds. There’s smoke comin’ out of ‘em…Those coal seam’s…
The phone rang. I looked at the ID and saw it was Wesson again. We’d spent most of the last two hours on the phone, though it was, by necessity, a one sided conversation. He talked and I scribbled furiously.…