Another marriage saved on the California Zephyr
My wife is stuck. Having climbed up into the top bunk of the sleeper car, legs forward, head tucked, she can’t unfold. The ceiling is just a bit too close [...]
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Posted May 03, 2017in Joe's Neighborhood
Posted April 05, 2017in Joe's Neighborhood
In search of Mother’s Day
“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.” — William Makepeace Thackeray. Mother’s Day cards in the card aisle at the grocery store are [...]
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Posted March 01, 2017in Joe's Neighborhood
What does democracy look like?
Bundled against the cold, with a pink pussy hat, pink gloves and pink scarf, the woman looks over the crowd of 26,000 gathered at the foot of the Iowa State [...]
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Posted February 01, 2017in Joe's Neighborhood
At the checkout counter
Winter sits heavy in Des Moines, Iowa. Grey skies, bare trees, and a cold wind blowing across the Urbandale Hy-Vee parking lot and down my sweater, turning those last few [...]
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Posted January 04, 2017in Joe's Neighborhood
David or Pinocchio?
The loud and angry Italian couple leaned into each other as they faced off like professional wrestlers getting ready for the big, slingshot-catapult, missile-dropkick finale to their match. Waving their [...]
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Posted November 30, 2016in Joe's Neighborhood
‘Enough!’
“Keep pumping your arms, Joe. Legs up and squeezed together. Shoulder blades on your back. Keep that pelvis on the mat. Belly button in and up. That’s it.” The hard-bodied, [...]
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Posted November 02, 2016in Joe's Neighborhood
Joe’s Neighborhood: A Thanksgiving story, the Pilgrims and same-sex marriage
Knocking on the door of No. 9 Beschuitsteeg in Leiden is unsettling. Don’t get me wrong, not the unsettling of eating slimy raw herring by the tail, a Dutch delicacy [...]
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Posted October 05, 2016in Joe's Neighborhood
‘I am Iowa’?
“ ‘Gov. Robert Ray was a phenomenal governor and a true statesman,’ said [Gov. Terry] Branstad.” – Office of the Governor of Iowa, Terry Branstad, Sept. 26, 2012. “In his [...]
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Posted October 04, 2016in Joe's Neighborhood, Uncategorized
Joe’s Neighborhood: George Arvidson
George Arvidson died the other day. Most of you probably didn’t know him. I barely did. He floated around my legal career as an older fellow lawyer, but we rarely [...]
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Posted August 31, 2016in Joe's Neighborhood
A tall woman on being tall
A woman is running along a narrow pole in Strasbourg, France. That much is clear. But straight up in the air? She certainly is striding strong, arms outstretched, thumbs up, [...]
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