Many Novembers ago, I was in faraway and exotic Palm Springs for business so I decided to look up an old high school classmate, Bill...

Our small convoy of creaky moving vans drove several hours north, then down into the isolated Plainview Valley to evacuate the few...

I arrived late for our company service awards dinner. I had not planned on attending at all, run-down as I was feeling. My father was...

Five-year old Neal Mastrobattista stood on the edge of a rolling meadow of tall grass, waving especially to him, behind his grandparents’...

With a final look back at his empty apartment, Alden Gerhardt tossed the key on the counter and closed the door. He dragged his old...

In 1983, after four years in the Air Force, I joined some high school friends in LA, actually Pasadena. Without qualifications or...

I cut someone off in traffic. It wasn’t a dangerous move. I’m not aggressive. I was in a hurry; road construction had forced the daily...

While still a boy, Cecil recognized — and was confused — that he felt aloof to his mother, the woman who had raised him. He observed...

We were enduring a newsworthy spring deluge. Record snow melted down into the ravines of our local mountains. Rivers overflowed. With...

Time travel is a little easier than expected. Every living thing has a distinct vibration that leaves behind a traceable residue on...

Whit and Brenda planned to announce their engagement at a wake held for Whit’s grandmother. They entered a small dining room where the...

The widower Lester Stanhope wearied of winters, having experienced seventy-two of them, embracing instead the warmer weather, the time to...

My friend Banjo — his real name — was nice enough to lend me his family’s cabin in the White Mountains to recharge. No one ever...

My father had a heart attack about 18 years ago. His first night back from the hospital, after having a quadruple bypass, he “changed.”...

Rex’s girlfriend, Petulia, called from the garage. “Rex!” Rex was standing at the bay window in the darkened den, toggling the...

The summer after graduating from high school, thanks to my supportive guidance counselor, I took a dream job assisting an oral historian...

This time I awoke abruptly. Startled into existence with a bone-rattling chill, I lay exposed to the elements and rarified mountain air,...