Peggy Mullins from a distance (Rene’ Greblo photo)
SPRINGFIELD, MO.–It is nearly an hour before showtime at Luttrell’s Auction and Live Music Barn on a recent Saturday night. An elderly woman in a purple sweater walks through four aisles of empty white plastic chairs to find a spot in the front row. This is her place in the world. There cannot be a sense of history without a place.
Peggy Mullins was married to country singer-songwriter Johnny Lafayette Mullins for 53 years.
He died in October, 2009 and that’s when she started coming to hear music in the former feed [...]
Photo by Rene’ Greblo
SPRINGFIELD, Mo.—–The sameness that shades popular culture in America has not arrived along the Route 66 bypass on the northwest end of Springfield. A white aluminum shack that looks like a large trailer sits a good distance from the road. A portable barbecue stand is sizzling adjacent to the gravel driveway.
You have arrived at an unfiltered destination:
Luttrell’s Auction and Live Music Show, 2939 W. Kearney.
And the new Blue Grass BBQ.
Auction house owner Don Luttrell claims his business is [...]
Nelson Algren when Wicker Park was real.
Early in his first term President Obama made noise about bringing back a new deal of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) as a method to resurrect the economy. It is too bad this never came to pass.
Writers, artists, former newspaper journalists and photographers could chronicle the green economy, foodways and stories of the scores of immigrants who are changing America’s landscape.
Engaging state travel guides were written between 1935 and 1943 through the Federal Writer’s Project of the WPA. I still use them today when I travel. [...]
Caregiver art by Ted Crow, Cleveland Plain Dealer
We are a quiet but intrepid tribe, those of us who are in the growing number of parent caregivers.
We are the I’m Coming Soon Platoon.
I’ve refrained from posting much about my summer journey: taking care of my 92-year-old mom with dementia and heart disease and a father with Parkinson’s Disease who turned 94 on Nov. 17. Perhaps their challenges are private. But I now know the pharmaceutical department at the Meier store in Aurora like the back of my hand. Nitrile exam gloves? Aisle 4. Personal cleaning wipes: Aisle 2. [...]
