Tender Places

A few women were seated casually in a semi-circle, each one with a spinning wheel and a basket of wool rovings at her side.  Though there were several kinds of wheels, each spinner was engrossed in the same task:  Spinning wool…

The Columbia River Gorge spread out below me.  The gentle hills that lined this wide waterway, aptly nicknamed Big River, were painted in shades from an artist’s color wheel: Raw Sienna; Green-Gold; Viridian; Leaf Green. The blue skies mirrored the glittering…

Baseball season begins today, and even though it’s not my favorite sport, the game of baseball has many good things going for it, despite the looong games and the even looonger season that won’t end until October. Baseball humor (yes, it’s…

A large shelf in the school library was full of dusty yellow boxes, their tops stamped with the once ubiquitous brand name Kodak. Hundreds of photographic slides were inside, a hodge-podge of carefully labeled photos of class parties, field trips, and…