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The Day Grandma Swore Off Eggs
There are people who decide to raise chickens because they have carefully researched sustainable agriculture, nutrient cycles, and homesteading traditions. And then there are people like us. On what had once been part…
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The Classroom Then and Now
A rural 1950s classroom—coal stoves, creek water, and a teacher who meant business—stands in stark contrast to today’s digital, always-connected schools. This reflection explores how education has evolved, and what has been lost…
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How Artificial Intelligence Will Change the Teaching Profession
Artificial intelligence is changing the structure of education in real time. As students gain instant access to information, teachers are being pushed into a new role—less focused on delivering answers and more focused…
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The Poetry of a Teaching Life
Teaching today carries an emotional weight that often goes unseen. Beyond lesson plans and classrooms, many teachers navigate constant demands, shifting expectations, and a sense that the work never truly ends. This reflection…
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The Driveway Cure
One winter evening during the Christmas holidays, I looked out my grandparents’ living room window and saw my grandfather sitting alone in his car in the driveway. The engine was running. The windows…
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Clint Dimbrel’s Window of Opportunity
Clint Dimbrel wasn’t the kind of man you’d call refined. Unless you were talking about moonshine, cheap motor oil, or the stories he’d polish up after a few drinks and a long sit…
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Marbles were for Keeps: A 1950’s Recess Ritual at S.J. Miller Elementary
In the schoolyard of S.J. Miller Elementary during the 1950s, marbles weren’t just for fun—they were for keeps. While the girls skipped rope nearby, the boys crouched in the dirt, fiercely protective of…
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The Day Grandma Became a Flyboy
In the 1980s, three generations of my family piled into the car for a day at the Flying Circus Airshow in Bealeton, Virginia. What started with popcorn, biplanes, and a WWII pilot turned…
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Hog Days Explosion
I was visiting my grandparents one weekend many years ago. My grandfather asked if I wanted to take a walk and see the place where he was born. I was amazed to learn…
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A Kitchen Full of Starlings
Christmas Family Gathering A Christmas family gathering in a large household is something between a celebration and a carefully managed storm. Every year, Christmas dinner at my grandparents’ house in Rixeyville, Virginia brought…
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Hong Kong Flu and the Bean Sprout
It was September 1968, and my cousins and I were spending time at our grandparents’ farm in Rixeyville, Virginia. At twilight, we raced around the backyard playing Tag, Red Light/Green Light, and Hide…
Writing that's Rooted in Truth, Memory and Myth
