DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD
Mother’s Day
Monday, May 15 2023
My mother has been dead for five years now. She died at 86, without spending a single night in a hospital.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
A Visit to Camp Disappointment
Sunday, March 12 2023
Browning, Mont. — Wandering about what is called the “Hi-Line,” U.S. 2 and the tracks of the Great Northern Railway, I came upon this obelisk monument to Lewis and Clark.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Happy Birthday John Steinbeck
Monday, February 27 2023
Bismarck, N.D. — Normally I don’t observe the birthdays of my literary and historical heroes. I know Jefferson’s birthday (April 13, 1743) and Shakespeare’s (April 23, 1564), and Bertrand Russell’s (May 18, 1872), and Samuel Johnson’s (September 18, 1709), and not many more, at least by day of month.…
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
To Be or Not To Be On I-94
Friday, February 17 2023
Bismarck, N.D. — I was having a conversation about death and the afterlife with a friend the other day. The question: is death the end — oblivion and complete disintegration — or is it the portal to something else? And if something else, what does that something else entail?
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
32,000 Feet Over the Pine Ridge
Friday, February 10 2023
EDWARDS, Colo. — I flew from Bismarck, N.D., to Denver the other day to give a lecture. After the usual delays, the plane left Bismarck at about 10:30 a.m.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Missing McCullough and a Rich Immersion in the Humanities
Tuesday, August 23 2022
BISMARCK, N.D. — The death of David McCullough on Aug. 7, 2022, at the age of 89 is a terrible loss. It seems almost fitting that as the American republic totters near the edge of the abyss, our most civil of public historians has taken his exit.…
- Published in Dispatches from the Road