What do we fear more—dying or being forgotten? My father, who was always a private man, died a little more than 7 years ago. I don’t know if he worried about being forgotten—that’s one of the many questions I never…
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…
Do you ever wonder if Facebook is making you hate people? I don’t mean to suggest I hate my Facebook “friends.” I like those folks. I keep my friend list short, filled only with people I know and like, so…
This is, by all measures, a frightening time for American journalism. The press has a legitimate reason to fear a Trump presidency. Trump has expressed disdain for reporters, has called them “among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” He…
“It came from out of nowhere.” Things do, of course. Come out of nowhere. It’s Easter week. Tuesday morning, waking up, every channel is BREAKING NEWS. There’s been a Terrorist attack in Brussels. The airport and the subway system. You…
Sorry, Smokers. The Death Panels Were Real I’m the sort of person who volunteers to fill out forms. It’s a bizarre personality trait, but one of the few things I can offer to the people I like. So, when a…
There’s no use in sugar-coating it: I can’t go to church services anymore. When an acquaintance died a couple years ago—a warm, funny and open-minded man—I thought we were right to go to his funeral. I was raised Catholic, after…
Consider, for a moment, the horse. Your average horse is still a romantic figure, evoking a rich historical relationship of labor, war, and transport. Horses made the journey across the Oregon Trail. Horses marched into battle, and lay among the…
I’ve always liked to think that I have pretty decent luck. But it turns out that everyone has good luck until, suddenly, they don’t. On April 17th, I was on a camping trip with my husband, Jim, when I received…
I know the drive back home intimately. Coming from any direction, the Black Hills are a forested island, rising out of the dust-sea of plains. The hills are old and carry all the legends of old age. Harney Peak, where…