Peace and Quiet

For almost each of the twenty-plus years I worked at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Manyu and I hosted an incoming international college student. Hosting, in this case, did not mean that students lived with us, but rather that we introduced them to La Crosse...

Turtle Season

Every year at this time hundreds of painted turtles leave the Mississippi River backwaters to lay their eggs. If they all wandered no farther than the beach, there would be no problem. Many of them, however, travel a quarter mile or more and wind up in residential...

Gulls, Terns, and Pelicans

I spent the days on either side of my seventieth birthday at my mom’s house near Green Bay, Wisconsin. On one of those days, my sister, my brother, my sister-in-law, Manyu, and I took a day trip to the small city of Algoma. Once a commercial fishing village on Lake...

The Weather or Just Weathered?

Last night I returned home from my annual fishing trip into a remote section of Ontario’s Lake of the Woods. This year, for the first time, the afterglow of the trip was intermixed with questions about how long old men can handle serious backcountry travel. Five of...

FAFSA

I thought my FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) days were over, but this winter I helped two high school seniors complete their applications. One of the kids is my nephew (Manyu’s brother’s son). The other is the daughter of a friend. Much has been...
Steven Simpson