Our Turn at this Earth

“I learned a new shorebird today!” my partner, Al, announced.“What kind?” I asked.“Killdeer.”“You’re kidding? Killdeers aren’t shorebirds.”Al unfolded his…

The early frontiersman Ricard I. Dodge wrote that “the first experience of the plains, like the first sail … is apt to be sickening. This once overcome”…

The first thing I noticed when the power went out was the silence. It seemed deeper than could be explained by the mere absence of the refrigerator’s hum.…

“The Magic Mirror.” That’s what Admiral, one of the TV manufacturers of the 1950s, aptly named its top-of-the-line model. My family’s less showy Zenith…

“Malaysia to Send 3,000 Tonnes of Plastic Waste Back to Countries of Origin.” So read a recent headline.Apparently, the Malaysians are tired of being a…

What if you discovered that a genius, a visionary thinker who could string thoughts and words together that make you believe in your own potential and…

I grew up with a healthy respect for a form of intelligence my mother referred to as common sense. Ever since that Kansas childhood, I have equated the…

One of the most heartbreaking essays I ever read was by Alice Walker, about a lonely horse named Blue. One joyful day, a mare arrived to share his…

Anyone who’s lived under a Midwestern or Great Plains sky knows that we see lightning before we hear its crack and thunder. But on a vacation last August…

When I was sixteen, my family left the farm where I grew up and moved into town. The house, along with all of the outbuildings and the corrals and…