Author
My medium was striking out. Oh sure, she had gotten June. Sitting in a white wicker chair in the sunroom at the back of her Victorian home on a flower-lined street in Lily Dale, she had gotten June, my mother’s lifelong friend who had passed away recently. But that wasn’t…
Read moreIn the spring of 1988 a film crew rolled into the small town of Dyersville, Iowa to begin making a movie that the Philadelphia Inquirer came to describe as “not so much about baseball as it’s about dreams, magic, life, and what is quintessentially American.” Field of Dreams, starring Kevin…
Read moreWhen he found the bodies, George Bascom was furious. Didn’t this prove what he had been saying all along, that the Indian chief and his followers were ruthless killers? They had undoubtedly slain the little boy too, which was why they had been refusing to return him. The four bodies…
Read moreMy kid doesn’t pay me lip service. When it comes to the important stuff, she doesn’t tell me what I want to hear. She tells me what she actually thinks. Which is the way I want it. Although, I must admit, from time to time it’s been a little unsettling,…
Read moreThey have a name for me. They call me a Grinch, a curmudgeon, a Scrooge, and a grouch. The number of words available to describe me, and others like me, says something about how common we are. We are legion. And for good reason. Christmas is an overblown, garish exercise…
Read moreSee if you know this story. After enthusiastically supporting a hugely expensive war, an angry, combative segment of the American public became outraged at the idea of paying taxes. Complaining of government overreach and darkly warning of the nation’s doom, these self-proclaimed patriots insisted that the government must live within…
Read moreWaiting for a cheeseburger at the McDonalds in Williston, North Dakota I noticed something I hadn’t seen for a long time. The manager was irritated with his staff, snapping at them, frustrated by their incompetence. My first thought was that this man was not equal to his position. But then…
Read moreMy poor wife. She was lacking something. She was suffering a deficit. She had a hole where her experience of America had been. She had never been to Yellowstone. Worse yet, she had never seen the Grand Tetons or been to a rodeo. It was a tragic thing. Think about…
Read moreIt was perfectly logical to believe. After all, the Rhine connected with the Danube via the Main and a short portage, tying together the entire European continent. The Nile ran for an astonishing 4,000 miles deep into central Africa. So why wouldn’t the Missouri flow from the Mississippi all the…
Read moreOn April 20th, 1999 two students entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and started shooting. One of the students, 18-year-old Eric Harris, had a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a 9mm carbine with thirteen 10-round magazines. The other student, 17-year-old Dylan Klebold, had a 9mm handgun with one 52-, one…
Read more
Pilgrim’s Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier by Tom Kizzia
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The question of what to do when a child is lured into a cult is hard enough, but the issue becomes even more complicated when the cult is actually the child’s family and the cult leader is the child’s father. The complications deepen when the cult leader and his family are elevated to the status of a cause celebre by anti-government groups fighting the US Park Service in a remote corner of Alaska…
