Archive - Notes from Plattsville

A Toast and A Prayer for the New Year

The real trick to parenting might be recognizing that stupidity and bad choices are as natural as changing over to a new calendar each year.

Dec 31, 2023 •

Christmas, Gratitude, and America

Robert Allen and Al Stillman wrote a very American song in 1954, and “Home for the Holidays” is grounded in the trips that get underway in the song’s…

Dec 12, 2023 •

September 2023

New Fiction: Synchronicity

His narrow ratface didn’t put me in a courteous mood.

Sep 30, 2023 •

December 2022

A Christmas Soundtrack

What’s most interesting about Christmas memories to me is that when they appear, a master file seems to open up and reams of memory tend to stream…

Dec 5, 2022 •

November 2022

That world, the place I inhabited as a child, is gone. Not physically, of course, but it is the kind of world that has become obsolete.

Nov 6, 2022 •

October 2022

Dreamscapes and Hollow Victories

Here in the big time, I needed to look a little more rock and roll, and I needed to know my place as a sideman for someone else’s dream.

Oct 28, 2022 •

The Standard Shift

Driving lessons aren't always about driving.

Oct 13, 2022 •

June 2022

There’s profound magic in the archaic possibility of missing someone and having to remember them by sending a carefully chosen item, no matter how…

Jun 30, 2022 •

April 2022

Time, Joy, Work

There are some things you can't get with a diploma.

Apr 9, 2022 •

November 2021

Lessons of Thanksgiving and fatherhood.

Nov 24, 2021 •

September 2021

The Soap and the Corn

I've never liked Halloween, and maybe the reasons run deep.

Sep 30, 2021 •

A Not-So-Academic Theory on The Fab Four

No one in history has had more fun than The Beatles.

Sep 17, 2021 •

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