Happy College Campers
[Note: Here’s the 2nd in a series of stories about autumn-winter 1979 at Lakewood Community College in White Bear Lake, Minn.] “This is what it feels like,” I thought, “to know nobody.” Journal entry...
View ArticleThe Green House
May 1980 must’ve been really exciting. While there’s no journal for that year, both calendar-planners from that time are packed with entries nearly every day. I’d switched to green ink in my favorite...
View ArticleJunior’s Farm
In the summer or early autumn of 1980, my late father, Paul J. Maupin, became what my second cousin Karla laughingly called, “a gentleman farmer.” The house at 2821 Casco Point Road was sold, and a...
View ArticleNational 43-571
“Why write at all?” —Was scrawled in pencil on the Wilson Jones daily planner page for Wednesday, June 10, 1981. Two days before, I’d written a complete entry in blue-black fountain pen. It begins:...
View ArticlePen Pals (Part 1)
[First of a two-part post.] We used to write letters. A lot of letters. They arrived in envelopes with handwritten lettering, maybe in colored pen. Soon I’d be receiving a slew of those blue,...
View ArticleNo One Ever Left Alive in Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five (Part 1)
[First of a two-part post.] We drove south, stopping at nearly every roadhouse that caught our eye. It was Tuesday, Jan. 15, 1985, and fellow University of Iowa chum Chris Hampl and I traded driving...
View ArticleLadder (Part 1)
[First of a two-part post.] Ah, Pop. I was your first-born. So naturally you were excited to do father and son activities, such as my Cub Scout soapbox derby race, or when we gathered wood for...
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