Risk Averse?

Two UPS workers loading cardboard boxes into a delivery truck at a warehouse loading dock

I realized a few years ago that many of the people who knew me when I was working various jobs as an applied anthropologist thought that I was very risk averse, and staid. When I "got straight" in 1971, I backfilled over the old life pretty thoroughly. Year by year, I buried it. There was …

White Horse Circle

Most of us have events that echo through the corridors of our lives. Thirty, forty, and fifty years later, it remains like a rhythm track beating at an intersection from a car seven cars ahead. Playing loud in the chain of stopped autos at the red light. You can't make out the song, but you …

End of the Road

Among a close set of my friends, the term "end of the road" had a distinctive meaning. "I've hit the end of the road!" meant you were leaving our close little circle of travelers. Most often, it meant you were putting your pack down in your girlfriend's apartment for connubial bliss. We'd sip a glass of …