My face felt funny, Drawn or pinched, either would have been understandable as I looked through the ceremonial smoke and across the misted shortgrass prairie of Eastern Montana. I had come to this ceremony cynically expecting a lot of native victimhood on display but once there, found it challengingly meaningful…

We are emotionally shaken daily by the recent Turkey earthquake death toll. Earthquakes are one of those things that leap up into our existence un-announced and wreak havoc with entire regions. Science tells us we have a hand in hurricanes, tornadoes, and flooding but we don’t rule the crustal movements…

Some say us Southern-talkers have honey dripping from our mouths when we speak. I like that, however, I prefer honey to travel the opposite direction down my goozle, a body part that reminds me, there are vocabulary differences between people north and south of Arkansas. Truly, people skirting the Appalachians…

Sometimes Mother Nature rolls over on her back and asks you to scratch her belly, or maybe just gawk at the scene before you. The thrill of small visual gifts is highlighted if you hold low expectations of anything happening. Maybe if I watched more TV and Youtube features of…

I’m blaming southern writer Rick Bragg for creating an aching discontent in my palate. His descriptions of fried pork cracklins, etouffee, and andouille sausage got my fervor up and made me itchy for something to eat that would remind me of who I am and where I came from. He…

Next month we are going to bury my mother . . . dead you know. She actually died two years ago but she had given her body to science to be a cadaver, or as she put it “I plan to teach at the medical school for a few years…

Rope and the average person What do you say to a respected elder’s advice to “Never cut a rope”? Never? Really? How the hell does one ever end up with a short piece of rope then? …

Gala-goddam-pagos Our sandals had barely hit the tarmac when our passage was blocked by a lizard the size of an overly large baguette sporting a broomstick tail. He was implacably eyeing a cactus fruit along the path. We literally stepped over him.

At 88 years old, John looked at the white-tailed deer bounding away with joy and wonderment and said “Look some, some, some brown thing!”. This coming from an expert deer biologist who knew their biology, physiology, dentition, antler sizes, and taxonomy. Yet, age had moved the bounding mammal from detailed…