State park trail entry point.

Journey Home

Tales from the pilgrimage.

obituary

  • Bernardo Bertolucci and General Motors

    Bernardo Bertolucci (77) died yesterday in Rome, Italy where he had been suffering from cancer. The bigger news was General Motors’ decision to reduce workforce and eliminate six car models, including the Chevrolet Volt rechargeable gas-electric hybrid. What do they have in common besides their coincidence? They both hit me where I live. When I… Read more

  • We’re Going Home — Donald Kaul

    We knew Donald Kaul had prostate cancer and it spread to his bones. He’d been ill for a number of years but after this diagnosis, the prognosis was not good — we expected him to die this year and he did on July 22, just as the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, which… Read more

  • Remembering Donald Kaul in High Summer

    Sunday was a day to hang out on memory lane. Sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and Donald Kaul. I bought sweet corn from a roadside stand and we had it for dinner with tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, and thin slices of cheddar cheese from Vermont. At some point after our return to Iowa in… Read more

  • Friday in Spring

    Fridays in Spring I soil-block for a farmer. Yesterday I made 4,944 soil blocks which were planted in winter share. Leeks, broccoli and the like. It took four hours. While driving north on Highway One I nodded off for a brief moment. After realizing it I sat upright, glanced in the mirror and concentrated on… Read more

  • Joy Corning

    Joy Corning was on our target list to become an advocate for U.S. Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Heady with Barack Obama’s 2008 victory, and confident Senate ratification of the New START Treaty would be a slam dunk, a nationwide coalition was formed to advocate for CTBT ratification after the 1999… Read more

  • Three Recent Cancer Victims

    The recent passing of David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Brian Bedford, all from cancer, reminds us that no matter the place people hold in our imagination we are grounded in a humanity that can be taken from us equally. They will be missed. I know least about David Bowie. He was one of many rock… Read more

  • On Pete Seeger

    LAKE MACBRIDE— Pete Seeger died on Jan. 27, 2014. He influenced my life, and so many others. Others have written obituaries, including the New York Times and Singout! I’ll remember him for his song Abiyoyo, and so many others. Read more

  • Friday Miscellany

    LAKE MACBRIDE— My earliest memory of Nelson Mandela, who died yesterday, is associated with the image printed on this button. At the time, South Africa seemed like a remote corner of the world, and there were other substantial, and more local, social justice issues with which to be involved during and after I attended college… Read more

  • On Toshi Seeger

    LAKE MACBRIDE— One of the few letters I received from a celebrity was from Toshi Seeger. During the early 1970s, while seeking where to purchase a copy of Pete Seeger’s book, “How to Play the 5-string Banjo,” I sent him a note. She wrote by return mail, “Peter returns your greetings and thanks— he’s off… Read more

  • Change at the Solon Farmers Market

    SOLON— While taking photographs on Friday, a couple of legion members were walking back to the hall in their uniforms. Someone had died. It turned out to be Booky Buchmayer, the man who sold produce at the Solon Farmers Market. On most days, he was the only farmer at the market, although I am not… Read more