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My father was never one to complain. On the morning of the day he died, an ulcer he’d suffered from for years, and left untreated, ruptured and began to bleed. Two days later I met with the town coroner. He told me the end had been painless...

The kitchen cupboards were the last to be sorted out. My father gaped at the size of the throwaway pile in the front hall. “Would I do this to you?” 

In terms of scale and scope of destruction, the series of floods that struck the Mississippi River system in the spring of 1927 (now known simply as “the great flood of 1927”) is regarded as one of the nation’s greatest natural disasters...

Here’s to 
the innards 
and ubers 

The US is filled with remarkable diasporic hot spots, where immigrant and refugee communities have sprung up, most often due to secondary migration patterns.

An enduring mystery surrounds the artistry of Thomas Cole.

It hit me in a noisy bistro—

the muted frequency— 
Jimmy Cobb’s brushes were fine sand

We got one channel that came over the mountains from West Virginia, and bad weather just about ruined that. On stormy winter nights Papaw went outside to turn the antenna while my big brother, Wendell, stayed in front of the TV, watching...

I say archetype, but I really mean
messenger.

Nothing helps. There is no magic amulet, no proven talisman that will bring words out of the air …