Category: Writing

November 17, 2018

Short notice, but fun assignment: wrote and shot this piece for the Quechee Times earlier this fall. Love the Quechee Library and the atmosphere of introspection and reflection that it fosters. Read the whole thing here.

October 1, 2018

With zero time before deadline, I was asked by the publishers of the Quechee Times to do “something” on the post office in Quechee for their fall issue. Turned into this fun little piece — hardly Pulitzer material, but I think it gets the job done under the circumstances. Great crowd, fun little spot. Read…

April 19, 2015

Checking One Off the Bucket List In 2013 Trail Runner Magazine declared it one of “10 Trails That Should Be on Every Bucket List.” National Geographic has listed is as one of the world’s “Best Classic Trails,” and Outside Magazine has called it one of the world’s “20 Most Dangerous Hikes.” It may be all that. But the…

November 3, 2014

Not much can surprise in our increasingly dysfunctional community nowadays. This, after all, is where police cars are set on fire, determined attempts are made to ban dogs from public property, and anonymous complaints are raised over the Halloween decorations at the post office. Apparently some of us have nothing better to do than complain…

April 5, 2014

They prefer to describe it as “a quiet revival,” but the army of evangelical Christian missionaries descending on New England more resemble a crusade. Self-styled Warriors for Christ, these spiritual carpetbaggers come North to plant churches and convert the “unchurched” and “gospel-parched” to fundamentalist Christianity. Wielding big smiles and inerrant bibles, they claim to be…

October 31, 2012

I think I’m done trying to be friends with Rwanda. We’re clearly not meant for each other — every time I ask her out, she kicks me in the balls and laughs at me as a I collapse in a heap, then she steals my wallet and runs off to get high with the few friends she’s got left. I’m just too old…

October 6, 2012

[Editor’s note: I wrote this little piece for our local paper, the Norwich Times, waaay back in late August. Feels like a lifetime ago. For those of you who don’t get the Norwich Times — and why don’t you, it’s a great little paper? — it might be a worthwhile read if only to get…

July 1, 2012

“I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” The famously harsh opinion as voiced by anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist some years back. Tracy Hall may not fit in Grover’s bathtub, but it’s as small as government gets,…

June 7, 2012

Four million steps from Georgia, Appalachian Trail thru-hiker Smooth Sailin’ is heading North to Katahdin in Maine, about 400 miles away. Behind him lies 1700 miles of simple needs: food, ­shelter, laundry, occasional ­showers.  Next stop is Hanover, an AT hiker favorite with its cheap restaurants, ample services, and a rich history of AT involvement.…

June 7, 2012

Equal parts gingerbread cookies and painful reminders of our hectic and commercialized lives, there’s no getting around the Holiday season. For starters, it is a ritual that requires an intimidating amount of shopping. This is ‘the big one’: 20 percent of all retail sales happen over the Christmas season. You can take on that particular…