Dorothea Lange Depression Photos

Growing up and living during my younger adult years in Illinois, I suppose I knew about as much about the Great Depression as anyone in my circles. Stock market crash. High unemployment. The Grapes of Wrath. Sometimes my mother told a story that drew me past the facts...

Stolen Beans

My mother was born in 1926—she recently turned 90—and was one of nine children in the family growing up in a small town in rural Arkansas. Her father lost his business in the Great Depression. Soon after that, while the family’s belongings were stored above another...

Evidence of Things Unseen

“I didn’t think we had termites in Colorado.” If I had a dollar for every person I know who thinks that … well, I could have used the cash to pay the termite guys. We definitely have termites in Colorado. More specifically, in my neighborhood, er, in my house....

What Do You Do?

When people ask me what I “do,” I have to resist the urge to make the kind of joke my mother would make. She would wave her hands in the air and say, “I do this,” followed by sliding her feet and saying, “then sometimes I do this.” Mom cracks people up because she...