Since last night–maybe even yesterday morning–I’ve heard the sound of water being drawn coming from upstairs. After a while I realized this was an incessant sound. There were people upstairs moving around, not sounding excited, and no wet spots appeared on my ceiling, so I figured there wasn’t a leak. So I began to wonder what all the water was Read More

Today I went to Zion. Not the historical Zion, of course, but a local institution calling itself by that name. It was indeed a mountain. In my early childhood I considered mountains to be only those geographic features with jutting, raw rock and year-round snowcap. It wasn’t that kind of a mountain, but as you drove up it the valley Read More

A local township is reappraising the property tax. A coworker’s property went from something about $35,000 to $89,000 assessed value. This shows the rural area I’m in, for there to be such a low value, but the increase is astounding. By all accounts the property appears at its former worth and has not been magically transformed; it is a redneck Read More