America

Tucson on the Brain

by John Hamilton Farr on January 20, 2012 · 7 comments

in America

“At this moment, your father would be very proud of you,” she said. It was NOT a compliment! We were sitting in traffic waiting to turn left from Ajo onto La Cholla, following a short cut I’d learned from the realtor, and of course I knew just what she meant. (Numbers, money, nitpicking, and assigning [...]

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Remembering Old Boat Races

by John Hamilton Farr on November 18, 2011 · 3 comments

in America, History

Back in Maryland on the lovely Eastern Shore, long before the real estate bubble inflated housing out of all proportion and flooded our little town with people who thought going to the farmers’ market was the same as living in the country, way back when you could still find mouldering 18th century brick houses overrun [...]

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Alamosa Lunch Run

by John Hamilton Farr on October 18, 2011 · 10 comments

in America, Travel

I guess we have a hard life. Nothing to do this morning but go to Alamosa, Colorado on an errand of whimsy and also have lunch. Yes, it’s 90 miles away, but so what? This is the WEST! On the way to Tres Piedras—”three rocks”… father, son, holy ghost—30 miles from Taos and about 15 [...]

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Nebraska Traveler, Part III

by John Hamilton Farr on October 2, 2011 · 17 comments

in America, Travel

The last thing I expected was a beach, but there it was! I’d turned right onto Rt. 97 after Snake River Falls and headed south toward Mullen, Nebraska (population 451, seat of Hooker County). With no more attractions to seek out, I was truly on my own, just me and the Sandhills—so far that morning, [...]

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Nebraska Traveler, Part II

by John Hamilton Farr on September 30, 2011 · 4 comments

in America, Travel

US 20 west from Sioux City wasn’t quite what I expected, but I can’t blame Nebraska. In the past, I’d driven across the state on roads where I might not see another car or truck for what seemed like hours. But US 20 roughly followed the Elkhorn River for most of the way to Valentine, [...]

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Nebraska Traveler, Part I

by John Hamilton Farr on September 29, 2011 · 2 comments

in America, Travel

All I had to do to drive home to Taos from Dubuque, Iowa was the usual two-day “thunder road” trip, but they wouldn’t let me. Sissies! What was so hard about 650 miles one day to Ogallala or thereabouts and 500 miles the next, whether I struck out across the prairie on the little two-lane [...]

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Yovah Notes

by John Hamilton Farr on September 23, 2011 · 0 comments

in America

I’m back! Safe and sound in Taos, other than waking up in the pre-dawn hours with a panic attack over money, housing, and the coming winter, aargh. I have a LOT of catching up to do, but first these brief notes from Iowa. • Reading over my last post, I see I perpetrated another one [...]

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Yovah, Yovah

by John Hamilton Farr on September 14, 2011 · 9 comments

in America

“Isss Chicago near Yovah?” the curious Austrian asked our friends in Vienna once. Yovah?? It took a moment for them to grasp the German pronunciation… Oh, IOWA! Yes, “yo-vah,” of course. The more graceful rendering has stuck with me ever since. And Yovah is in fact where I am now. Yes friends, Iowa. Dubuque, to [...]

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Never Forget!

by John Hamilton Farr on May 4, 2011 · 2 comments

in America, Video

I surely never will. This day 41 years ago changed my life instantly and forever. I was teaching at Wharton County Junior College in Wharton, Texas at the time. My conservative students were either ignorant of what had just happened or said “those hippies had it coming…” I was apoplectic and spent most of the [...]

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Why People Drive the Wrong Way on the Interstate

by John Hamilton Farr on December 22, 2010 · 7 comments

in America

You have to admit, there could be a correlation. I discovered this amazing parking demonstration while on a fool’s errand to Walmart this afternoon. Not that I didn’t get what I came for—two rolls of packaging tape—but who goes to Walmart four days before Christmas for a freaking role of tape? Apropos my ranting of [...]

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