Random Life on the Mississippi by Tena Starr I had no sense of Missouri, but two things were clear pretty quickly: We were not in the South anymore, and Missourians are really, really proud of their state. Every person we talked to recommended something — tow... More »
by Tena Starr Okay, some trivia. Although neither Steve nor I are big on guided tours, we took a tour of the supposedly haunted McRaven House, an antebellum mansion in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where few such houses survived the Civil War. There, we learned a... More »
by Tena Starr If you happen to run across a shoe, a rat, and a corkscrew, all stuck together in a glue trap, get in touch with me. They’re all mine. Well, maybe not the rat. And don’t get feeling too bad for the rat, because it had been living the high life... More »
by Tena Starr For the most part, Vermont cultivates a vanilla image — a small, pretty state, full of cows, skiers and maple syrup. But if you poke it a little, Vermont is weird. It used to be weirder, but there are still remnants of eccentricity and odd cha... More »
by Tena Starr I’m a fan of James Lee Burke, who writes gritty crime novels based in New Orleans and the bayou country of Louisiana. Mr. Burke’s books are punctuated by alligator growls in the night, by the life of the bayous and the Atchafalaya, the biggest r... More »
by Tena Starr I’m a convert to train travel. Steve and I were going to New Orleans and points south — as far south as we could in Louisiana, until the road ran into the ocean. More than once, when we said we were going to Venice, a Louisiana resident said, ... More »
by Tena Starr I’d been puzzling about the recent lack of scammers to mess with when I got a call last week from a robot that was trying hard to sound like a reasonable person. Congratulations, it said. I’d won second place in Powerball, and was about to be ... More »
Part II by Tena Starr I once had an editor, at a different paper, who believed a reporter could find a good story in any random person — a mini-mart clerk, a housewife, a construction worker — that we all have something to tell. Traveling this country ofte... More »
by Tena Starr Maybe it’s because I grew up on the Missisquoi, which routinely flooded fields on our farm, the road and bridge as well, so we were sometimes stranded with the road under water on both sides. Maybe it was because Dad didn’t seem particularly... More »
by Tena Starr This is a comment on progress — because it seems to me that either we’re not making much, or we’ve come to a grave misunderstanding of the word. I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time remembering that I have to dial 1 802 525 to ca... More »
