“I’m Jim Bishop. I’m the castle builder.” Those were the first words from the man I believe may be the strangest in the United States, for sure the strangest I’ve met. He lives in the mountains of Colorado and over the past few decades has, indeed, single-handedly built himself a castle. It leaps out of […]
American High School
Posted December 2nd, 2011 at 4:46 pm (UTC-4)
I don’t know if there’s anything in the world that quite compares to a high school football game in the smaller towns of America. I went to Macomb, Illinois the other day and the first thing I noticed when we drove into town were signs saluting the local high school foot ball team, the […]
Girls on Skates
Posted November 29th, 2011 at 12:56 pm (UTC-4)
I was in Denver to see the roller derby championships. It was the first time I had ever seen the sport played and was blown away. Roller derby is hard to describe if you’ve never seen it, but basically just try to picture a group of feisty female athletes, many of them in hot pants, […]
Obama Land in Chicago
Posted November 22nd, 2011 at 12:28 pm (UTC-4)
I went to Barack Obama’s favorite diner, Valois, before I left Chicago. It was too cool — there were photos of him all over the place, smiling alongside the owner, and a big poster of his “favorite things to order.” Apparently bacon, eggs, and pancakes were one of his choice combos. The waiter, John, […]
Detroit: A City Trying to Rise Again
Posted November 7th, 2011 at 4:47 pm (UTC-4)
We drove into Detroit, Michigan at around midnight. In some U.S. cities, there are areas that still have some life at that hour – late-night restaurants closing up, bars open, people milling around; there’s a lovely hum. But that’s not we saw when we first arrived in Detroit. The streets we drove on were pitch […]
Occupy Movement
Posted November 1st, 2011 at 2:53 pm (UTC-4)
When I was in New York, I headed over to Wall Street to see the anti-corporate greed protest that’s been going on for a while there now. There were colorful banners denouncing everything from racism to sexism and hundreds of people with their faces painted white with grey blotched eyes and red trickling down their mouth, stumbling around […]
Eating on the Road
Posted October 27th, 2011 at 1:03 pm (UTC-4)
On my first morning in New York I went to this diner where I was fed pretty much a full meal before I’d even sat down — a cup of coffee, bacon, sausage and, oddly, a slice of orange. It was a weird and kind of wonderful American way to keep a line of hungry […]
Remembering the Twin Towers
Posted September 2nd, 2011 at 4:02 pm (UTC-4)
Like many Americans, I’ll never forget, not just the horror of watching hijacked airplanes fly straight into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York on the crystal-clear morning of September 11th, 2001, but also the immediate, defiant determination of the people of New York to rebuild the towers as quickly as humanly possible […]
What’s Next, Pestilence?
Posted August 31st, 2011 at 1:04 pm (UTC-4)
If the EARTHQUAKE wasn’t bad enough, along came Hurricane Irene, which wasn’t a big deal in our parts, but managed to knock a tree into our house and cut power just as I was fixing to write my next blog, about Labor Day and labor songs. I’ve finally got the juice to do so, and […]
Freedom Isn’t Free — Or Always Pretty
Posted July 7th, 2011 at 1:27 pm (UTC-4)
Children’s first exposure to the freedoms that Americans cherish sometimes comes not from kindly parents or wise teachers, but from an obnoxious jerk insulting someone or cursing at something. Ranting till the veins bulge in his neck. If confronted, the loudmouth snaps back, “Yeah, well, it’s a free country.” Indeed it is, as we reminded […]
