country scribe

While in Arizona, I have my own private Minister of Culture, my cousin Tina of Scottsdale. In the past weeks, we have visited two art exhibits and the botanical gardens. I also attended a theological discussion and a Bach pipe organ concert. I wouldn’t have known...

The Reid Park Zoo in downtown Tucson celebrated the birth of a baby tapir a couple of weeks ago. The tapir is an endangered and bizarre creature from South America. It looks like a pig with an elephant’s trunk, but it is related more to rhinos and horses than pigs. It...

A question of manners: What is the proper way to inform a friend that you have already heard the story they have started to tell for the fifty-third time? Equally vexing: What is the proper thing do when the look on the faces of others makes it clear you have embarked a story they...

The oil boom hit Casselton, North Dakota last week in a big way. With a couple of big booms, the myth that crude oil which moves through our towns on long trains won't explode went up in smoke. If an oil train derailed in a major city, the consequences could be dire. Other myths...

A tiny Guatemalan restaurant is my favorite here in Tucson. In the kitchen, Guatemalan Grandma produces delicious food which I chronicled here a few years back. I still go there weekly. Guatemalan Grandma must think I am still growing: The pile on my plate mounds higher with every...

One thing about city living: You can go days without any outside social contact other than the checkers at the store! The checkers here are friendly. They tend to be retirees. Quite a few are "Tucson Mamas," a name cooked up by outsiders for female Tucson natives. Tucson Mamas...

Flew home from Tucson a few days last week for an early Christmas with family. I discovered anew why I went to Tucson in the first place. The high temperature during my brief visit home was one degree above zero. Lows hit -25 F. I dragged my Ford Ranger out of the shed to serve...