Not-yet-published pieces, stories, essays, rants, and random strangenesses

The woman who ran the campground was a coal miner. She and her husband both were. There are a lot of coal miners around Gillette....

Last night I swore I’d never again set foot in the Black Hills. Today I feel pulled back there, if for no reason than to see what they...

My first shock was the realization that Kyle, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where I was to meet with Vincent Blackfeather,...

The wind is so high, it’s causing dust devils all over the place—pink-brown whirlwinds of dust, dancing like small tornadoes, dancing...

As I leave Pipestone, I say on the tape, “Ever since St. Paul I thought that everything was new and it was all beginning. It’s getting...

The Butterfield Café had a terrific breakfast special: 2 eggs, 2 cakes, 2 sausage, 2 bacon, $2.75. The bacon was extraordinary. The...

After the Inipi ceremony and the evening with Virgil, I needed a day to process everything. I left St. Paul after breakfast, and wandered...

The drive itself took, what, fifteen minutes? Twenty at most. At the time, St. Paul was definitely I arrived early at Mazakute Episcopal...

As I look at the map and retrace my path, I’m rather mystified by the route I took. Some of it makes sense; some of it worked out so well...

Day 4 began with me leaving Lake Forest and heading up to Wisconsin. Wisconsin, as close as it was, might as well have been another...

Ah, the flatlands! Driving east from Rockford, I’m finding the prairie very refreshing—all these wide vistas, this great expanse of sky....

I left the idylls of Ohio for the ills of the interstate. At least it went by quickly. The moment I got off the interstate, I saw...

Silver Spring, Maryland, where I lived at the time, is terminally suburban. It creeps up to the border of Washington, D.C., and sprawls...

When they heard about my impending cross-country trip, my friends Wayne and Sue arranged a Talking Stick ceremony for me. We had done...

In early 1991, while being smudged with a combination of five herbs sacred to the Yaqui tradition, I had a spontaneous and rather...