Posted February 01, 2023in Joe's Neighborhood
“Ah, the good old days.” Did I really just say that? Knocking on the door of nostalgia seems a bit of a trick bag. One person’s treasured memory is usually another person’s therapy-inducing nightmare. Take high school, for example. J.J. Watt, star defensive end for the Arizona Cardinals, says: “What I
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Posted January 04, 2023in Joe's Neighborhood
“It’s not opening,” my wife says with just a tinge of panic as the glass doors allowing us to leave the Paris train station stay firmly closed. That’s not the advertised deal. You are supposed to put your train ticket in the slot just like you did 10 miles earlier
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Posted November 30, 2022in Joe's Neighborhood
Rich Krumme died the other day. Most of you don’t know him. He farmed outside of Des Moines, near the small town of St. Marys, far from stoplights and Starbucks. His farm was just off a curving gravel road, on the other side of a pond, up on a small rise.
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Posted November 02, 2022in Joe's Neighborhood
“It’s somewhere in here,” says my friend as she turns her car into the small cemetery, “but I’m not sure where.” No one is around. The smell of aspen trees is tangy and sharp. The surrounding mountains deceptively invite an easy afternoon walk. The clouds roll in and roll out.
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Posted October 05, 2022in Joe's Neighborhood
Don’t get me wrong, there are serious problems in the world, and serious people are needed to keep us from killing ourselves and killing each other and to make sure we add baking powder to the cake batter. That tablespoon of baking powder is the difference between a cake that
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Posted August 31, 2022in Joe's Neighborhood
If you are lucky, you will wake up some morning and smell a doughy, cinnamon concoction drifting up the stairs. The smell will slip under your blankets, tickle your chest, and settle on your heart. It promises a lot. Love, certainly. Home, of course. Joy, without a doubt. My mom
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Posted August 03, 2022in Joe's Neighborhood
The farmhouse sat on one side of the gravel road, surrounded by a large yard with a pump, a vegetable garden and scattered peony bushes. Chickens worked the ground in a hard-packed section at the back, while cattle lowed with mild dissatisfaction from the barns across the road. It was
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Posted July 06, 2022in Joe's Neighborhood
“I actually thought I’d die with the shears in my hands.” The old man stands behind his barber chair — his podium for an audience of one. He looks at me. He looks down at his notes. He reads carefully. “But a young barber came to me and said he’d
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Posted June 01, 2022in Joe's Neighborhood
The rain is gentle in Dublin, Ireland, unlike the hard rain in Iowa this spring. The rain washes down the old slate roofs, flowing into gutters and spilling into private gardens hidden in the back of buildings. High stone and brick walls keep me from spying on people dallying inside
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Posted May 04, 2022in Joe's Neighborhood
The mud-brown leaves, pressed flat and brittle by winter snow, swirl around on my blue tarp looking for a way to escape the mulch pile. A gust blows from the west. I run to the far side of the tarp to push the leaves back. A gust blows from the
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