He just stepped out for a pack of cigarettes… It’s been a while since I’ve heard anyone say it, even as a joke. The echo of a father who slipped out the door and never came home. The legacy of…
How to Disappear …by Tonya Audyn Morton
Tag: tonya morton
Life on the Prairie …by Tonya Morton
“When I was a schoolboy my map of the United States showed between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains a long and broad white blotch, upon which was printed in small capitals ‘THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT – UNEXPLORED.’” —…
Yes, Some People are Still Smoking. Could We Just Leave Them Alone? …by Tonya Audyn Morton
The first time I picked up a cigarette, I was probably six years old. It was late morning, mid-summer, and the babysitter had let us kids out into the park next to her home while she returned inside to begin…
Safe at Home: Learning to Love Baseball …by Tonya Audyn Morton
Either you learn to love baseball as a kid or else you don’t learn to love it. Right? It’s just too big. It’s like any other behemoth cultural institution—Catholicism, for example. I can speak to this as a Catholic. That…
The Love of Maps …by Tonya Morton
The oldest surviving map of the world—the Babylonian Imago Mundi—circumscribes a landmass between the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas. The world it describes is only as long as the Euphrates River. At its center lies the city of Babylon. To the…
Sowing Clover: The Stranger …by Tonya Audyn Morton
When I lived in South Dakota, one of my favorite places was a truck stop on the western edge of Rapid City. There wasn’t anything particularly special about this truck stop—except…maybe, for the quality of the pie in its diner.…
Finding Peace at Yosemite, Part Two: Ansel Adams and WWII’s Wounded Soldiers …by Tonya Audyn Morton
Author’s Note: Last issue, we published “Part One” of this two-part essay. Part One provided the backstory for a very particular time and a place–Yosemite Valley at Christmas, 1943. Photographer Ansel Adams lived and worked in the Valley, and he…
NICK AND ZORKA: An Immigrant Couple’s Lesson about America …by Jim Stiles & Tonya Morton
When the Nazis fell in Yugoslavia, the regime that took its place was Tito’s Communist government. While it had some separation from the central USSR rule, life in communist Yugoslavia was a struggle. And Nick’s experiences in other countries as a soldier showed him that life could be different. He decided to leave Yugoslavia by any means necessary.
Finding Peace at Yosemite, Part One: Ansel Adams and WWII’s Wounded Soldiers …by Tonya Morton
There’s little doubt that we live today in interesting times. In recent months, Americans have been confronted with deep, seemingly insurmountable problems. Divisions among neighbors and families. The pain of economic loss and the specter of illness and death. We’ve…
Covid 19 on the Prairie: Life in the Urban/Rural Divide …by Tonya Audyn Morton
It’s a peculiar time to live in a tiny, isolated town on the prairie. Peculiar, firstly, because the town looks largely the same, despite the international pandemic that occupies every headline and every conversation. The roads are quiet, yes. But…