About three times a week, I head to the Judson Post Office to get the mail. I have been renting post office boxes for decades. The PO box habit began when I was a poor college student, often moving across town to save on rent or get a marginally nicer place. I did not want to deal with filling out change-of-address forms and risk missing magazine subscriptions, or deliveries from the Book of the Month Club, or the History Book Club.
This is an admittedly old-fashioned habit in this time of electronic mail and digital subscriptions. I use both extensively, but I also cling to the print magazine...
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HOCHATOWN, OKLAHOMA — The original Hochatown, named for a Choctaw family, is now submerged, flooded when the Mountain Fork River was dammed to form Broken Bow Lake. Like all land in America, it was first inhabited by Native Americans — in this case, members of the Choctaw tribe. Similar to Broken Bow, a few miles south, Hochatown grew in the early 20th century around the Choctaw Lumber and Coal Company (now Dierks Forests). Once the surrounding virgin forest was largely cleared, the lumber company relocated. The post office closed in 1963. The cemetery and church were relocated to higher ground;...
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I have been a longtime practitioner of short naps for decades. I usually set my phone timer for 35 minutes. Longer naps can leave me groggy and unable to sleep at night. My favorite spot, weather permitting, is the wicker sofa outside on our front porch. The sofa belongs to my Beautiful Mystery Companion. It is old and battered, not unlike its napping occupant. I have spray-painted it three times, depending on its location. It is now white with blue cushions.
A couple of years ago, the frame that holds up the sofa bottom fell apart. I fired up the tractor, put the sofa in the bucket, took it down...
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An old beer stein with a weathered wooden handle sits on the built-in bookshelf behind my desk. Grammy Bourque, my maternal grandmother, gave it to me more than 30 years ago when I traveled to New Hampshire to visit. I have no idea of that stein’s age, but I would guess it is nearly as old as I am. She and my grandfather, who died at 67 of a heart attack in 1972 while shoveling snow off the roof, kept a set in their basement bar, which also featured a pool table, and a small woodshop.
I imagine my grandfather — a quiet, talented man who built their small house in the country outside Hopkinton...
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