Journey Home. Isn’t that where we are always heading?
This blog is an attempt to make sense of a life through writing and photographs. During the coronavirus pandemic I retired from outside paid work and began posting here more. In 2026, this is a place to get my daily writing pump primed. I write a short post most days to get to work on the autobiography I hope to publish this year.
The narrative of my autobiography is simple. “After completing an extended childhood and education, a person chooses the path of a writer, only to encounter societal pressure to postpone gratification in that métier. Along the way, family life, social engagement, cooking and gardening, and a career take precedence — until 2010, when the world finally turns toward their aspirations. The writer confronts the unknowns of the same social order in which they began, even as it comes apart.”
On Aug. 21. 2024 I received my Library of Congress Control Number and ISBN for An Iowa Life: A Memoir, the first part of my autobiography.
I began writing in public with an August 1974 letter to the editor of the Times-Democrat newspaper in my home town. The majority of my public writing has been such letters, opinion pieces, and since 2007, thousands of posts on several blogs. When I was younger, I had vague notions of becoming a novelist, yet found it difficult to break from the exigencies of a life to produce fiction. What I write now is grounded in some form of reality, not really non-fiction, but not fiction either.
Read my most popular post Autobiography in 1,000 Words to learn more about me.
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For now, I enabled comments. I read them all and post about half of them. Pro tip: If your comment is longer than my original post or on a different topic, I recommend you get your own blog.
Thanks for reading my work.
Journey Home 
5 replies on “About”
We are new garlic farmers in Colorado. I would love to learn more about your garlic harvesting, sorting and curing set up. It’s very interesting. As we need to decide what method to use and prepare it now during the slow season.Please contact me through Messenger, Facebook or give me a way to contact you. Thank you.
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Kathy, Thanks for reading my blog. I have worked at a local CSA for the last five years and all of the garlic produced is either distributed to members or used for seed. The farm plants in the fall, although garlic can be planted in the spring as well. The best resource for you is to explore Practical Farmers of Iowa. http://www.practicalfarmers.org/ If you join, there are discussion groups where you can learn which members use which techniques regarding garlic. They have a lot more expertise than I do, and they may be aware of a similar group closer to where you live. Whatever methods you use, start recruiting volunteers now as it takes a lot of people to plant, harvest and weed. Best wishes for your new endeavor. Regards, Paul
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Just a note, but I keyed off a casual comment you made in one of your posts as well as more generally musing on life questions addressed in some of your posts with a poem that I used for my post today.
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I recently discovered this blog because I was researching the Solon Advocate. I am writing a story about my parents. Fritz and Marjorie Arrowsmith who bought the paper in 1948. My understanding is that it was on its last legs, when my parents bought it. Dad was a Linotype operator for the Omaha World Herald and Mom took journalism in high school, they had no money and zero business experience. However, Markatan, the local banker had a hunch about them and wanted to save the paper so he loaned them what was then a huge amount of money. I have also been in contact with man whose parents bought it from them. I am currently writing a piece about them and what I remember about growing up in Solon where as a baby my playpen was often left on the sidewalk while Mom and Dad worked. I was truly “raised by a village” and it was Solon. I want to extend this into something bigger. I was thrilled to find your piece about it and that while no longer family owned is a least least at the University. I would love to have a conversation with you about it and perhaps send you my piece Regardless, this is very personal for me and I appreciate that you gave me this piece of information. Margo Arrowsmith
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A link to my email is on the Read Recently page.
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