Columns

I’m sure you’ve seen the raw anger and outrage boiling over on the streets throughout this country in the past weeks. It’s impossible not to have, really. Most likely you’ve glimpsed the video of George Floyd, an African American man, gasping his last breaths while...

Several Aprils ago, I drove by a DTE crew lunching on a shady hill–my favorite slope on our Natural Beauty Road. I pulled over to the right shoulder where orange columbine once danced in the wind, and turned off my car. I pushed the hazard button and walked up the...

Some of us are better at seizing opportunities than others. The first step in seizing opportunity is recognizing it. Crisis is opportunity. The Chinese word for crisis has two characters; one representing danger, and the other opportunity. COVID-19 is dangerous. A...

I’m pleased to announce the Fifth Annual Yule Love It Lavender Farm Poetry Contest Winners. This year’s theme was “Sixth Sense of Summer.” First Place: Liza Young, Sterling Heights, Michigan A Consequence of Warmth I am leaning into the melon, ready to wedge the red...

The summer day I saw Granny walking down her Appalachian alley, swinging a hen by its feet, the head dangling back and forth, I knew we’d find fried chicken on her supper table. Discreet in her butchering and processing, my sisters and I never discovered where she...

Iris Harkins, the only other Iris in our large church congregation, often sat behind my family of five during Sunday’s worship service. A friendly woman with a British accent, early on she said her husband Frank gathered with our pastors on the platform. Reverend...

From Detour to Detroit, from Saline to St. Ignace and Traverse City to Tawas, all are ghost towns today. COVID-19 has seen to that. These are the most challenging of times and its full impact remains to be known. “Just stop what you’re doing, go home and stay there,”...

Moonlight cast mullion shadows upon my bedroom floor. The Man in the Moon had sneaked up on me again. Thirty-one years sleeping in the same place, I’ve learned lunar cycles from my southward view. Yet, somehow I’d lost track of the moon’s waxing and waning. “No...

I’ve never driven a car in all of the long spells I’ve spent overseas. Due to my not having an International Driving Permit, as well as a general lack of opportunities in the countries I’ve visited and lived, I’ve only gotten the rare opportunity to ride in someone...

“I can’t wait for the Magnolia Fair,” cousin Kathy said every summer of our childhood. I could only imagine the fair, for I’d never seen it. Each summer vacation to Kentucky, those two words provoked a hope that this would be the year I’d walk the fair with Kathy....