Holding Wide The Doors

On June 11, 1963—fifty years ago today—Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked two highly qualified African-American students from enrolling at the University of Alabama.  He did it personally, clip-clopping up the path leading to the doorway of Foster Auditorium, where summer enrollment was already underway...

Fabricating Fear

We searched for a lake monster on the shores of Lake Superior.  This was sometime last July.  My wife Meredith, son Henry, and I had headed north from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in the hopes that the vacation town of Duluth, Minnesota might momentarily insulate us from the horrors of the world...

Live Forever

In September of 1932, just hours after his uncle’s funeral, twelve-year-old Ray Bradbury was walking down the familiar streets of Waukegan, Illinois when he spotted a carnival tent on the shores of Lake Michigan...  

Buckethead

Once a boy drowned at a summer camp.  This was in June of 1968.  It was early evening, a dinner of fried chicken and green beans already breaking down inside the bellies of the boys, and as their counselors shouted numbers to the sky (“98…99…100!”), the campers hid, determined not to be found...