Jack, age 6, loves the iPad he uses in kindergarten. He already navigates the net to some degree. But when he accompanied his father to the Post Office, he sat quietly on a bench and re...

The call comes in to the police station. It’s a small town and the voice at the library says “He’s at it again.”

Paddy Dineen enjoyed good health till his heart gave out while filling his cart in a health food store.

Long article in the paper this morning stops Tim from gobbling his bacon and eggs. Bears are starving in the woods. Too many cubs, too little food.

In 1958 Elmer’s was the only high school in his county that had been integrated. Basketball was the big sport. People in the little town filled the gym every Tuesday and Friday. They ro...

As autumn turns colder there’s only one moth fluttering at midnight around the porch light. He’s the last of the flock

A corner sentinel for 40 years, Charlie’s Diner is the only landmark in a neighborhood of blue-collar people who love their burgers thick

Every four years I vote and every four years for the last 40 years the same lady has signed me in

She was about the doing not about applause canning tomatoes in summer baking pies in fall quilting winter away

Tattoos were anathema in ‘52 on any man who got one after an all-night drunk or to impress a girlfriend. But not a word was spoken to

In your mind you hear words snarling all day long but no poem arrives. The words are locked

Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out ...

Autumn and the leaves, crisp in the swirling air, are pheasant wings once more Donal Mahoney

Rose was a plain girl from a small town. She sang in the choir, never missed Bible study, left for the big city

An hour a day, sometimes more, I chipped away with mallet and chisel on a block of marble