Stories

I clutched my glass of cold milk in my tiny hand as I sat in front of our black and white TV, waiting for Engineer Bill to cry out either “red light”, or “green light.” Depending upon what he chose to say, I would either glup down the milk in my glass or unflinchingly...

If you’ve been following my story about museum-building in my backyard chicken coop, you’ll know about my propane tank. Outside my “coop-museum” sits a propane tank that provides the gas for our home appliance: gas for our fireplace and kitchen stove. You can’t...

The chickens have flown the coop. What remains is an empty coop holding possibilities. What you may know now, if you read last month’s newsletter, is that I have a museum in my backyard, in an abandoned chicken coop. I began raising backyard chickens in 1985, when we...

While sifting through boxes of old family photographs, random mementos, and dusty souvenirs last week, I felt oddly disconnected from all of them. Who were these people in the photographs, where were they, what were they doing, and most importantly, why? It was almost...

During a recent visit to Las Vegas, I visited a museum that invites you to question what you perceive as reality. This museum provides a refreshing look at what we think is real and what might just be an illusion. It raises the question that…perhaps we can’t always...

During a recent visit to Las Vegas, I visited a museum that invites you to question what you perceive as reality. This museum provides a refreshing look at what we think is real and what might just be an illusion. It raises the question that…perhaps we can’t always...

Every time I drive past an In-N-Out burger in Austin, I think of my grandfather. When the In-N-Out chain arrived here in 2013, Austinites were offended. Locals thought the wave of transplants from Californians had gone too far. Turns out that the burger chain belonged...

Immersiveness seems to be up in the air, like AI. In a moment when we’re trying to understand where we humans fit into a future with robots infused with artificial intelligence, it can be challenging to sense the boundary between our analog and digital worlds. I was...

My fascination with fog horns - yes, fog horns - emerged from other hidden artifacts and people that fill our landscape. Fog horns and other industrial sounds create ambiance - they send messages of alarm or comfort along the water. While spending a few months this...

This month on Substack, I am sharing a fascinating story from my island camp in Maine… “Part 2” continued from last month’s essay on the “real” Green (and I’m not talking about the color). Bob and I arrived on this island during the 1980s, not to escape the mainland...