He made it a lifelong practice to demonstrate creative uses for things people normally throw in the garbage. He believed that nothing around the house should be discarded if it could be used.As such, George Washington Carver became America’s foremost … Read More
Tour Guide on the Rio Grande
In 1818, Boonslick, Missouri resident Lindsay Carson was killed by a falling tree. His widow, Rebecca Robinson, raised 15 children by herself. Their 11th child, a kid named Kit, was sent to work in a saddle shop in Franklin, Missouri, … Read More
The Scents of Steinbeck
“Cannery Row in Monterey California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, … Read More
Aruba dabba doo
The island has no stoplights. And nary a discouraging word about roundabouts. The people are too happy to bitch. Even the crabs are civil to the pelicans. And the iguanas know you want to feed them. The flamingos don’t worry … Read More
Dakota Impressionist
Always wanted to drive through a Van Gogh painting. South Dakota may be as close as I get. Endless acres of sunflowers, blooms big as your head. Along a roadside papered with Wall Drug signs, two museum billboards stood close … Read More
Strange Mussell Forkers
They were a ragtag gaggle of patriots. Somewhere north of Bynumville and Bee Branch, in the middle of an unicorporated area named for the Mussel Fork creek that runs through it, I met a most diverse group of Mussel Forkers. … Read More
Outlaws need pants.
Just south of Lawson, in the pastoral countryside, a huge factory, built more than 150 years ago, made pants and sweaters. The factory may have sold pants and sweaters to Harry Truman, who sold pants and sweaters when he was … Read More
Tulsa. Music. Truth.
He’s the new kid on the block. His museum stands next to the monument to legendary truthsinger Woody Guthrie. And down the block another monument against fascism at Greenwood. Bob Dylan’s star shines among Tulsa music royalty. Leon Russell. The … Read More
