‘Finnished’
The past three months I have been involved in a documentary film project about the immigration of Finnish workers and their families to Ashtabula Harbor. It’s been a grueling task, particularly the past two weeks as I’ve edited hours...
Illegal pursuits
What I did was illegal, but the misty river was sublime. And so on the morning of October 14, 2016, I pulled off the side of Route 340 in Virginia, attached my Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 lens to my D800, and took a hike along the insanely busy...
Sorghum
The day we harvested sorghum it did not matter if the sorghum grew on red or blue land. The cane was green, the community a rainbow of calloused hands and smiles. The sky voted for life, the sun for abundance, the sap for a sweet finish, its...
A veteran for peace
Walter S. Nicholes slid into the school bus seat next to me, nodded and asked me where I was from. Walter is from Shaker Heights. He is a World War II veteran. He served in the Merchant Marines; entered the academy in July 1942. He saw the world...
July 4, 2016
The fireworks in the neighborhood didn’t keep me awake, much. I was tired. I am tired. Working on a 100-page book about the county where I live and work is a wearisome, worrisome task. It has consumed me for three months now, and it will...
Scars
I have two rather prominent scars on my face, both of them acquired in my early years and both of them of my own stupidity. There is one above my eye and one on my chin, both of the same side of my face. Both came when my parents were living in...
Good music passing through
Sometimes good things come out of the blue. Such was the case Saturday when John Lilly stopped by in Geneva to have lunch with me at Mary’s Diner. John was editor at Goldenseal Magazine for the entire time I wrote for the magazine. He was a...
A day with the Easter Bunny
My church, Friends Cornerstone in Madison, Ohio, a Quaker congregation, held its annual Easter Egg Hunt and Spring Carnival on Saturday. I had the honor of manning the photo booth, where a youngster could be photographed with the...
Maple syrup and snakes
In a typical year, I would make my first West Virginia/Back Roads journey in early May. But so far this year I’ve made two trips, one in January and one in March. The January trip, to the Eastern Panhandle, was during a weekend when the...
Signs and stories
I generally don’t like church signs. Not the ones that identify the church, but the ones that preach, cajole and attempt to convict people who really ought to be focused on their driving rather than their spiritual condition, although...
The Feather Cottage
As 2015 comes to a close (sigh), I am reminded that we never know where life is going to take us. A year ago, I was living in a tiny house on a dead-end street in Ashtabula. Two bedrooms, a postage-stamp sized lot. 700 square feet, two people...
Anxious times
My pastor, Mark Winner, is one of the wisest persons I’ve ever met. His sermon on Sunday, which was about peace, especially in the setting of family relationships, was incredibly insightful. First, he pointed out that war and strife are not...