Guard Dogs

The two big news stories since I moved from Missouri have been: anti-Semitic lunatic shoots up the Jewish Community Center, and cops shoot teenager who is black and unarmed. Is that where I am from? Well, yes. It is a place that struggles with fear in its own ways. We will always have trouble with […]

Where We Were

One of the ladies groaned, “She is like this every day,” and they mean the lady who must be told to sit at the table for dinner, who gets up and wanders away, must be told again, sits long enough to yell, “Why am I here?” and “This is not what I wanted!” and “How much […]

Creases

“You’ll just have to let things unfold,” she told me. I don’t know if I was more confused by “let” or “unfold.” “Let” is difficult, but “unfold” is even more unimaginable, suggesting as it does that someone else folded things (theist though I may be, a personal God who folds things up? madness) or that things […]

Strangers

When we came out of the bar in Iowa City, there were still twenty people on the other side of the street. They were holding signs and chanting in front of the Old Capitol. We had had nice cocktails at an upstairs bar. We had participated in a round of applause for the bartender called […]