I suspect that many of us grew up hearing, from an exasperated parent or teacher, “Just how many times do I have to tell…

Christmas 2007 Gift Suggestions from Toad Hall Candy-freak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond (non-fiction) Totally, completely, this book…

Spring was cancer season for friends. (You might want to cancel friendship with us.) When Kosmo (Carol Kosmicke) began to experience little seizures and…

A long time ago when our children were young and we lived in Albuquerque, Denis traveled a lot. The reason I mention he traveled…

A few months back a young couple spent a weekend with us at Toad Hall. Scott had graciously come to help us plaster and…

What do a naked man and woman sitting on a horse bareback have to do with selling T-shirts and shorts? Everything, if the clothes…

Suddenly you know you’re going in the wrong direction. You look back and remember… a place of clatter and quiet, of work and rest,…

I had gone to visit Grandpa in Groningen, Holland, for the last time before coming to the United States to study in January 1996.…

Have you seen the advertisement which promises you a personal relationship with a car? This luxury machine, you are told, will anticipate your every…

It is impossible to think about “growing up” in modern America without considering the role of the “youth culture” which every young person—even those…