Literate Life

A famous Wyoming bumper sticker reads: “Lord, Please Give Me One More Boom — This Time I Promise Not To P*ss It Away.” Boom and bust defines the West. Some of us get caught on the wrong side of each end of the cycle. The smarter ones learn from it. They hedge their bets. They […]

In my last job I took a required workshop on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. One of the exercises paired me up with a young woman whose parents were born in India, although she’d been born and raised in the States. We were supposed to talk about where we’d grown up. Who did we feel comfortable […]

Before I came to Garfield County, I lived in two big cities: Chicago and Denver. I was surprised to learn that I did a lot more walking and biking there than I did in the more rural and suburban settings I’d lived in before. Cars are a hassle in the city. In the country, you […]

When I was 12 I was talking with my mom at the dining table. Suddenly she looked up, stood up and said, “Mother?” She asked me, “Did you hear that?” I’d heard nothing. “I hear my mother calling my name!” she said. She walked around the house, upstairs, out front. My maternal grandparents lived about […]

Back in March of this year, a Rifle library patron reported to our security guard that a man was apparently sleeping in the bathroom. The guard contacted our staff, and they went carefully to investigate. The man was not asleep. But he was unresponsive and drooling. There are people reading this that are already nodding. […]