Dreaming of the Dead

My father was sleeping, curled up in the small chair next to the picture window. I thought this  strange, because he never sat in that chair. It was my mother’s perch, from which she peered…

Those Who Came Before Us*

When we were considering a move to Hawai’i, I looked at a map and was surprised to see how isolated these islands are, a few specks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I wondered…

Dolphins at the Hilton

The Kohala Coast on the Big Island of Hawai’i is spectacular. For miles north and south, the lava-rock shoreline is broken by tree- and palm-lined beaches. Thirty miles across the sea, the islands of Maui…

Order-Givers and Order-Takers*

In the summer of 2001, I worked as a front desk clerk—we were called guest service agents—at the Lake Hotel in Yellowstone National Park. The work was hard. We spent long hours on our feet,…

Wildflowers

Recently we drove to Estes Park, Colorado, up steep and winding South St. Vrain Canyon, along the white waters of the river of the same name. A few miles from town, we parked near a…

Daydreaming

 Karen and I begin our hikes talking, but after awhile I fall behind a bit, and lulled sometimes by the sound of a stream or the singing of the birds, I daydream. On a trail…

Playing To Win

 When I was a boy, I loved sports. Baseball was my passion, and I could be found in the backyard, even in the middle of winter, endlessly throwing a rubber-coated baseball into the air and…

Class: A Personal Story

 I was born in 1946 in a small mining village in western Pennsylvania, about forty miles north of Pittsburgh, along a big bend in the Allegheny River. The house in which I lived during my…