I am on a roller coaster which is click clacking up a steep incline. Lily, my eight-year-old granddaughter, is sitting next to me. "This is boring," she laments, gazing languidly over the side of ou ...  [+]

            There is a large box in the custodian's office in the elementary school where I work.  It is labeled "for lizards only." It has never been used to catch a lizard. Or anything else, fo ...  [+]

It was 1962, Wichita, Kansas.  My Dad surveyed the front yard—a very big front yard, a grim look on his face.
"Weeds," he pronounced sullenly, as if our front yard had become the equivalent of a ...  [+]

He was leaving. His meager belongings tucked into his backpack, Makoto slipped down the hall. The morning sun was creeping into the house. Shadows lingered in the living room like quiet storm clouds ...  [+]