America Is Not Two
October 1, 2024A snippet from my Wisdom Road Takeaways and Synthesis; a reminder as we head into what will be the most contentious election in our lifetimes: America is not divided in two. We are one American mosaic made up of many different pieces. Powerful forces try to push us into two severed buckets, red or blue,…
New Sharing From Wisdom Road
September 19, 2024Renewed greeting, friends; it has been a while. Wisdom Road is alive and well, though into a different stage. The travels completed in the late spring, the book going through edits both large and small, and hoping madly that I have a publishing deal to report before too many more weeks have passed. Even then…
Wisdom Road: Place Matters
December 4, 2023The travels of Wisdom Road are 90% complete. I can now start to explore the lessons of this journey: Where we live really matters. Place imprints on who we are. I, a child of suburbia and California, share many values with the people I meet along the way, but there are limits on how well…
Down Through North Carolina
October 14, 2023I head south from Virginia Beach, down the Outer Banks through Kitty Hawk and Nags Head, across Roanoke Island where an early colony of Europeans was somehow lost. I zig-zag through the North Carolina lowlands, skipping over and around ocean inlets crossed with lines of crab pot buoys, and languid rivers that lost their gumption…
Tangier Island: How Long Before It Is Gone?
October 11, 2023It is high tide in mid-afternoon, and a full moon high at that, when I get to tiny Tangier Island, a 45 minute boat ride from the Maryland and Virginia Eastern Shore. The paved trails that traverse the island are covered in places with a few inches of water that creeps out of the salt…
Pennsylvania Dutch Country Holds Many Lessons for Wisdom Road
September 23, 2023If you take the interstate across southern Pennsylvania, you miss the chance to stop for a loaf of bread at the Wild Goose Grocery in Intercourse; you probably won’t see the Amish farmer outside the small burg of Bird-in-the-Hand standing on his wooden disk plow, pulled by stout, tawny horses, six abreast; or the 10…
Down East Maine on Wisdom Road
September 11, 2023Margie Patlak, in her book about Down East, More Than Meets the Eye, writes: “To be grateful for the opportunity to walk on this earth and be mesmerized by all its ephemeral wonders and mysteries: the thin ribbon of fog suspended in midair; the glittery dance of wind and light on the water; the intricate…
Anishinabeg First Nation Elders Share Their Stories and Wisdom
September 3, 2023Wisdom Road is staying in America, but I secured an invitation to visit the First Nation community at Kitigan Zibi, about 100 miles north of Ottawa. It is way out of the way, but I decided to visit to make a point. National borders are ephemeral lines on a map, drawn by the most recent…
Our World Needs a New Taxonomy of Learning Imperatives
August 7, 2023As we get ready for the new school year, I want to share this with you in case you did not see it at the beginning of summer. I won’t re-state my argument here; just click through to this article that I published in June via Next Gen Learning Challenge. The big question that I…
The Treasures of Diversity in American Cities
July 24, 2023Phyllis Harris was born and raised in Cleveland, the daughter of a single mom who worked at a factory as she was growing up. She realized “at an early age that I was different”, and came out as a lesbian when she was 19 years old. She is the Executive Director of the LGBT Community…
Incredible: Top Urban Restaurant Staff All Formerly Incarcerated
July 21, 2023Infectious passion at the intersection of redemption, hope, pride, and great food radiates off of Brandon Chrostowski like heat from the embers of a well-banked camp fire. In 2007 Brandon founded a culinary institute, and in 2013 added Edwins, a high end French restaurant in a downtrodden section of Cleveland with the unlikely business plan…
Timeless Wisdom of a Back Country Ranger
June 8, 2023Living in a natural world, you have to be honest. There’s no place for contrived illusions. In June of a normal year, the Merced River flows out of Yosemite Valley in an impressive, but well-behaved tumble of white water, over and through the jumble of granite boulders left behind when the glaciers receded after carving…
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