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- 4
Attending the Musical Play "The Book of Mormon"
This play has a deeper meaning than an irreverent comedy
- 11
Twisted Junipers: Poems of the Utah Desert
These poems, I hope, give the reader a taste of Utah.
- 2
Vedauwoo, Wyoming: On a Sierra Club Hike
Vedauwoo, Wyoming is a splendid place to explore, photograph and try your hand at writing.
- 6
A Quick Camping Get-Away
Getting away from the city up into the forests of the foothills can be rewarding and excviting even if it is only for a short time.
- 6
Henry David Thoreau and the Mystic Lore of Cape Cod
Henry Thoreau visited Cape Cod 4 times and each time he went, he became more and more fascinated by the mystic lore of the many legends of Cape Cod that were ercorded in his writings.
- 6
Sand Hills Below the Wyoming Line
A Number of years ago I well remember spending the day with my youngest daughter in pursuit of the sand hills of northern Colorado just south of the Wyoming border. After we found them, we enjoyed the great variety of vegetation and especially the aspen trees trying to grow faster than the...
- 4
Under the Glacier, A Superb Icelandic Novel
This novel but Icelandic author Halldor Laxness (1902-1998) is a must read for all who quest for spirituality and humor.
- 12
Hudson River in Winter
One of the most unusual storms I ever experienced was along the Hudson River just above New York City--a snow thunder storm.
- 8
Irish, French, and Italian Sketches in Poems
The Irish and French seacoasts are connected with heather, rocks and wind , and Venice is surrounded by the sea, though its towers rise high above.
- 23
The Impact of the Dawes Act on Native Americans
The Dawes Act of 1887 greatly impacted tribal peoples of the United States by essentially breaking up reservations into personally owned lots that became taxable to the individual. Before hand the land was held by the tribe as a whole and was not taxable.
- 7
Ah to Be in Ireland! (a Short Story) Part One
This short story was originally written as a play for the stage. It begins with Seamus O'Neil, his wife Cathleen and a auto mechanic whose name is Jmmy Schwartz. Seamus is tiring quickly of his job as janitor of an apartment complex in Brooklyn. His children come home complaining about being called...
- 10
Thanksgiving Day in Dublin, Ireland
While on sabbatical leave in Ireland doing research at Trinity College Library in Dublin, I never felt so homesick for the States as I did on Thanksgiving Day, a regular work day in Ireland, when I sat down to a restaurant meal of sausage and chips all by myself.
- 12
In the Comfort of a Plains-Indian Tepee
Tepee's are so well constructed that even when it is bitter cold outside, the warm fire heats up the dwelling very effectively and quickly with the smoke rising straight up through the flap hole. One March, at the University of Wyoming, the White Roots of Peace visited our campus with messages of...
- 2
Rafting the Upper Colorado River
On the night of our first day on the river, I reflected on experiencing swirling rapids beneath ever-so-still sandstone towers. I recalled hikes taken with my son years earlier at headwaters of the Colorado River at Thunder Pass, high in the Rockies. Under the rising moon, I drifted a few years...
- 2
Distant Drums of Wounded Knee Part Six
In this sixth section of the story, Sam, the Lakota Medicine Man and the Viet Nam vet are released from prison. After Bill, the vet, leaves Sam and Spotted Hawk (the medicine man) arrive at the idea of reclaiming the Black Hills for the Lakota Nation not by violence but by placing prayer flags up...
- 6
Irish Interest in Henry David Thoreau
During my sabbatical leave from the University of Wyoming, I spent six months in Ireland researching the influence of Thoreau in Ireland. Michael Yeats relates that his grandfather used to read Walden aloud to his son William Butler Yeats and surely his poem "The Lake Isle of Inishfree" is...
- 11
Springtime in Bologna
While teaching at the University of Bologna one spring, one of our favorite walks was from the bivio San Luca up the colonnade walkway to the very top of the hill where the San Luca shrine was perched among flowering trees. We enjoyed the views of the distant snowy Apennines while standing in the...
- 7
A Cross Country Descent Into the Laramie Plains
In this adventure a group of friends and I descended on skis the wrong canyon down to Laramie, Wyoming and we came out ten miles south of Laramie in bitter cold winds. We had to cross country ski up and down over icy prairie mounds until we returned to Laramie some 5 hours late.
- 5
Having Fun With the Kids in Old Wyoming
There were many things we could do with the kids in Wyoming including prairie hikes to see the wildflowers in bloom and antelope running in the distance. In the winter we climbed the prairie snowdrifts with a shovel to dig a tunnel that led downwards and burst through the lower end of the drift....
- 1
Silver Fever (a Story in a High Country)
This short story focuses on two silver miners suspicious of one another in a high country out in Wyoming. One of the miners turns the other's heart condition to his advantage but all for naught.
- 7
The Prairie off Guard, an Encounter With Inverse Gravity
I experienced the presence of an expanding globule of mercury that formed in the sky of the lone prairie of Wyoming. It communicated without words when I dared to ask it how it got here. It communicated that it employed inverse gravity to propel itself at incomprehensible speeds.
- 12
Spiritual Reclaiming of The Black Hills of South Dakota
Inasmuch as the U.S. Government refused to return tribal lands in the Black Hills of South Dakota but instead offered a monetary settlement in the 1970's, the Lakota Nation refused the money and laid spiritual claim to the hills (guaranteed by the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868) by placing spirit...
- 10
Our National Parks: An Hour Inside a Glacial Ice Cave
The one time that I attempted to climb Mount Rainier in Mount Rainier National Park up to Muir Camp led me to some marvelous ice caves. I could not resist walking deep into one of them and sitting down in a comfortable spot where i could no longer see daylight. I soon realized that my presence back...
- 4
An Open Letter to the Late Edward Abbey
In this imaginary letter to the late Edward Abbey (deceased over twenty years), I complain about unbridled develop such as the building or rebuilding of major cities in flood plains or urban sprawl far beyond the limits of what was once suburbia. Edward Abbey certainly addressed these problems from...
- 13
Rambles on the Aran Islands West of Galway
In order to prepare for taking a trip out to the Aran Islands, I read the journals of the dramatist John Millington Synge to get a preview of a rugged seacoast, fishing villages, and the Gaelic language. A year later, I and my brother-in-law sailed from Rossaveale to Inis Mor where we heard the...
- 6
Ancestral Pueblo Ruins in Utah's Grand Gulch
When we at last ascended to the top of Turkey Pen Ruins in the Grand Gulch of southern Utah, we saat and stared at the valley below us. Up here it sounded like the voices of others far below us were really right next to us. We reflected that Einstein's theory of relativity was correct as the here...
- 23
A Strange Unearthly Ranch
After visiting a barley ranch owned by Pat McGuire north of Laramie Wyoming and experiencing highly unusual localized weather that knocked down our tent three times in a row and experiencing unusual lights in the sky, we returned to Laramie thinking that we had visited a place from another...
- 6
A Day on the Delaware Bay
Bivalve Harbor, New Jersey is not as active as it once was back in the 1920's when oystermen were astir in the wee hours of dawn with lamps aglow on decks of the oyster fleet. Oystering today is still moderately strong with boats heading down the Maurice River for the open waters of Delaware Bay....
- 2
Our National Parks: Putting America Behind You on Cape Cod
A visit to the beaches of Cape Cod National Seashore Recreation Area that are pounded with surf are mystical in that the sea is in a constant hypnotic movement. It relaxes the mind and spirit and helps to connect the human being with the cosmic universe. Thoreau once wrote that to walk along the...
- 5
The Missing Panelist (A Short Story)
In this story I have a hesitant English professor serve as a panelist on a psychic energy panel along with other college professors. A hot shot out-of-body travel man from Philadelphia has the panelists travel out of their bodies for a few moments before showing his own expertise. The English prof...
- 2
Our National Parks: Excitement in Dinosaur National Monument
Way back in 1959, as a young bachelor, I wanted to explore Dinosaur National Monument by traveling west of Maybell Colorado on a dirt road with a warning sign, "Four-Wheel Drive Only!" Not to be deterred, I drove my old 1950 Ford onward into the Monument even though the road became to ruts filled...
- 6
A Brief Interruption, A Professor's Unearthly Encounter
This short story involves an overworked college professor at a technical college who experiences a brief UFO interruption in his busy routine in the dark of night that gives him a broader perspective of life.
- 5
Spirit Drawings or Petroglyphic Fear (short story)
This piece focuses on aseemingly ambitious professor trying to get some information ofrom a tribal elder of the Shoshone people of Wyoming. The professor is interested in knowing about petroglyphs. The Indian takes him out to the wilds of the rez to show him what Indians call "spirit drawings." He...
- 2
Our National Parks: Guadalupe High
We chose the wrong time of year to climb Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas--the month of March. While El Paso was mild, Guadalupe Mountains National Park was quite chilly. Not to be deterred we proceeded up the trail dressed in winter garb with skull caps and gloves. Once we cleared the...
- 3
Our National Parks: A Day in Death Valley
To get out of Las Vegas for a break during a three-day convention, we drove northwesterly into Death Valley National Park to hike into Mosaic Canyon as though we were on an expedition to Mars with gray and red swirls of rocks that looked like a giant brain with grooves. We saw lizards running at...
- 3
Our National Parks: A Strange Switch: A Short Story Set in Early Yellowstone
The U.S. Army served as the first National Park Service personnel to defend Yellowstone National Park (1872) from poachers and marauders. In this short story I focus on a conflict between a poacher and a member of the U.S. Army defending Yellowstone. The poacher kills the service man by claiming...
- 3
A Sharing of Irish Bread Recipes From My Wife's Irish Farm Days
Two breads that I remember the most while living in Ireland at my wife's birthplace out in the countryside were Irish soda bread and brack bread. Soda bread is the good old standby bread served at all three meals of the day, while brack bread (made with tea and dried raisins and currants), is...
- 2
Arizona High
Years earlier I had climbed the San Francisco Peaks through hip-deepm snow one day after a freak June blizzard in Arizona. We failed to reach the summit of Humphreys Peak at 12, 633 feet. We contented ourselves with just looking across at Humphreys from a little summit about 400 vertical feet...
- 1
Come to Alaska: III Walking North from Juneau
A day earlier I took a raft trip down the Mendenhall River near Juneau, Alaska. Today I would walk along the North Shore highway until it crossed the Mendenhall River. where I would hike a trail that climbed along the edge of the Mendenhall Glacier (originally called the Auk Glacier). I woke up...
- 0
Come to Alaska: II Climbing High Above Juneau
During my one week in Alaska in 1986, I took the Mount Roberts trail above Juneau through dense forests of sitka spruce and alder with an undergrowth of devil's club and ferns. The trail climbed steeply through tree-line at 1,500 feet. Soon I entered the foggy tundra with occasional peep holes...
- 1
Children's Stories: II A Muskrat's Courage
In this short story based on an Algonquin legend, it is the muskrat who saves the day by diving from a log raft deeper than the brave beaver and deeper still than the otter to obtain in its paw a bit of mud for Manabozho to turn it to dust and blow it upon the flood waters. Once this was done, the...
- 2
Children's Stories: I Little Green Witch of the Prairie
This little story is based upon a dream my daughter Michelle had when she was a little girl living in Laramie, Wyoming. It was there that our Shoshone friend, Rupert Weeks, came to visit quite a number of times telling stories of his people, including one called "The Shoshone Witch Woman.". Surely...