Community stories.
Stories about neighbors, small towns and strangers who show up.
The Debt Gordon Left Sara’s Son
The Gray House Across the Road We live on a county road a few miles outside New Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the kind of stretch where the... Read more
The Sneakers That Brought Him Home
The Phone Call I was standing at my own kitchen counter folding a basket of towels when my phone rang with the school’s number on... Read more
The Stranger Who Paid Our Winters
The first cold Monday of every November, an envelope showed up on the counter of my hardware store, and for thirty years I put it... Read more
The Boy I Found In The Field
The Night the Field Gave Me a Son I have farmed the same forty two acres of bean ground outside Hollow Rock, Tennessee, for going... Read more
The Wallet He Gave Back
The Boots Sally Wouldn’t Complain About My daughter is nine years old and she has never once complained about her boots, which is exactly how... Read more
The Night the Whole Town Tipped Back
The Sound My Leg Makes There is a particular sound a prosthetic leg makes on old hardwood, and I have had two years to learn... Read more
The Pool My Neighbors Snuck Into
The worst thing about them was the complaining For a long time I believed the worst thing about my neighbors was how much they complained.... Read more
The Sugar She Never Needed
The first time she knocked on my door, I was annoyed. I had been sitting at my little kitchen table with a mug of coffee... Read more
The Stranger She Asked
I had not planned to stop in that town at all. I was sixty years old, driving a truck that smelled like cold coffee and... Read more
The Prom They Brought To Her
The dress is still hanging on the back of Emma’s bedroom door. It is a soft blue, the color of the sky about an hour... Read more
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