Country Mouse: Berries for Pie & Dinner on the Screened-in Porch

As I settle into my new life I freely swing between my new place and my father’s place. Janet’s world and Daddy’s world. Janet’s world is tentative and emerging. Daddy’s world is in its own orbit, with its established rhythms, yet fewer rules than I’ve ever experienced before. Pop was raised on this homeplace founded…

Charm and Technology–how a stream of technicians arrived at my door to fix a problem only one could

The top frustration for my move to St. Louis was getting my phone and internet service up and running. For the first two weeks I was here, I was steady-dating a steady stream of technicans from Charter that kept me in a steady state of on-the-verge-ness. If it wasn’t my phone, it was the internet…

All Things Harry Potter–A weekend release–WSJ article, street fair, TV news, breakfast conversation, math problems, and a movie outing

It was a long Harry Potter Weekend, even out here in the Midwest. On Friday I read about the pirating of “Deathly Halllows” and Scholastic’s countermeasures in the Wall Street Journal as I sat down for a “Fish in a Boat” lunch at a bohemian cafe near the City Museum where I’d gone to watch…

Review of Thompson’s “Cattle Country and Back Trail” on Book Pleasures

There’s a new review of my father Erwin A. Thompson’s “Cattle Country and Back Trail: Two Tales from the Thompson Western Series” on Book Pleasures Among other comments, the reviewer Ernest Dempsey says: “Cattle Country and Back Trail is an exciting reading of the values that characterized the heroes of the not-so-remote past. Foremost, these…

“Pancho’s Sister,” a historical story poem by Arletta Dawdy

While Arletta Dawdy researched her book HUACHUCA WOMAN, she read widely about the Mexican Revolution, visited Columbus, New Mexico and learned to admire Pancho Villa. Arletta says, “Many controversies whirled around the man, including tales of his sister’s fate and his response. Variously, we are told the hacendado came to claim her and Doroteo Arango…

Riehlife Responds to 8 Random Facts Meme: Tag, I’m It–Background and Okay, NINE Facts

Susan Tweit and Jane Kirkpatrick tagged me for the EIGHT RANDOM FACTS meme which, upon doing a google search, I discovered is going around the blogging world like measles. Who knew? What’s a Meme, Mom? Here’s how Susan Tweit defines a meme:” The word originated with British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who used it first…

Riehlife Interview with Velda Brotherton, author “Fly with the Mourning Dove”

Velda Brotherton, originally from Winslow, Arkansas has been writing fiction and non fiction for 20 years. She studied her craft through workshops and mentored by other writers. Velda is a little like my father, in that the formal education for both ended at high school graduation–in a day when that was solid schooling. Both have…