Spring 1969. America in another of what has become, in the last seventy years, one of its never ending, never winnable wars.  The social divisions, the racial divisions, the political divisions even greater then than today. 

Not many farm kids today know the phrase “walking the beans”.  Certainly, no town kids do...

Some summer days just don't work out the way you plan...

Mixing day-old donuts and whiskey while winter camping.

Saying goodbye to one of the four Sweet Williams. 

Poverty smells. It smells like yesterday’s cigarettes on today’s clothes. Like unwashed bodies. Like stale sweat. Like half-burnt motor oil from aging cars with bad mufflers and rusted out floorboards. Like overflowing toilets and full diaper pails. Like coal smoke and chemical factory fumes.

Once in basic military training, we all cursed the lies the recruiting sergeants told us to entice us to enlist, but sometimes they gave good advice...

Adventures of a three-year-old on his way to the outhouse.

A Father's Day story of the gift from a combat veteran father to his combat veteran son.

There's love, then there's young love...