An old two-lane road in Alaska ran along the shores of the Cook Inlet and was called the Kenai Highway. From the city of Anchorage it coursed south about two hundred miles to its end at the fishing port of Homer. On a sunny day in early September Mick Bowman left camp just outside of […]
“In somnis innocentes sumus” Ambrose Bierce Curtis Bowman stood in the lobby of a travelers hotel in New York City. He didn’t know the town nor a soul in it. Everyone was strange to him. Everybody seemed indifferent, some even threatening. He wanted out of the hotel and out of New York, but when he […]
Twenty years ago I spent a year traveling from Los Angeles, California to the southernmost end of South America. Most of the journey was taken on local buses, traveling from town to town, through Mexico, Central America and South America. During that time I wrote a series of stories, which were published in a California […]
At the end of the Civil War, countless veterans found themselves dispossessed and began hopping freight trains to look for work on the American frontier. These migrant workers came to be known as hoboes. Like the cowboys of the old west, hoboes embodied qualities of resilience, ingenuity and transcendent freedoms. Their stories still inspire many […]
Another month has passed since the last post in this blog. Between the Covid-19 thing and the summer heat of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley, it’s been a slow, quiet time. And while I’ve worked on a few themes for articles, nothing has risen to the level of a good yarn. Still, there are outlines […]
After forty days and nights in Colorado & Wyoming (with no posts) I’ll return to New Mexico this week and try to catch up with new stories from the road.
In this era of global connectivity, universal confinement is something new in the human experience. For many it brings intolerable boredom and chastening pangs of mortal dread. Others pass the time with hobbies, chores, projects… finally cleaning out that attic or the garage. Zoom meetings and binge-watching are high on the list of activities these […]
We slept on the beach that night. There were five of us. Esther and Lev were from North Carolina and had just arrived in country. James and John, two brothers from California, were on a surf safari along the shores of Central America. Being the only Americans on a cross-country bus trip, we all got […]
Three days ago, my daughter Hannah became a Grandmother (making me a Great-Grandfather). Today she celebrates her own Birthday. So happy Birthday to my dear, beloved Daughter. Here’s a remembrance of a time we shared long ago.