The Mellowness of Autumn: James Whitcomb Riley’s “When The Frost Is On The Punkin”
In the past two years I have heard three people reference one of Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley’s most famous poems—“When The Frost Is On the Punkin.” Two were people I know who mentioned the poem—by referencing its title–in casual conversation about fall weather; the other was a television weatherman who mentioned it when discussing…
Read MoreGoing Home To Winesburg: Sherwood Anderson’s Clyde, Ohio
A woman, yearning for a lover who left years ago, sheds her clothes one night and walks in the rain. A man living alone, near the ravine at the edge of town, fears the expressive power of his own hands. A bearded minister smashes his fist through a stained glass window when he sees a…
Read MoreRodger Young and the Mystery of the “Common Man”
In the McPherson Cemetery in Clyde, Ohio, Rodger Young’s grave is a humble kind of space when measured against the monuments to two other military heroes on the same ground. At the cemetery’s entrance is an imposing monument to General James McPherson, the second highest-ranking Union officer killed during the Civil War. A statue of…
Read MoreWilliam Inge: Small Town America On Stage
The name William Inge probably isn’t recognizable to many, but serious classic movie buffs—the kind of folks who log long hours watching movies on TCM or AMC—are probably familiar with movies based on his plays. Inge was one of the most popular and successful American playwrights of the 1950s, and four of his plays were…
Read MoreAmerica’s Most Famous “Football Poem”: James Wright’s “Autumn Begins In Martin’s Ferry, Ohio”
It begins in August, in the dog days of summer, when the scent of cut grass, blistered from lack of rain, hovers in the air. Weeks before the school doors open for a new year, the football players are at school, early in the morning, dressing silently in their gear for the first of the…
Read More“That’s my middle-west”: Nick Carraway’s Christmas Memories
One of my all time favorite passages from The Great Gatsby concerns Christmas and the Midwest. The passage comes towards the end of the novel as Nick Carraway is describing the aftermath of Gatsby’s murder and preparing to leave New York. There’s something about this passage that captures that exhilaration of returning home for the…
Read MoreWolfhound: James Jones In World War Two
Hawaii. December 7, 1941. On a tropical Sunday morning the drone of Japanese fighters emerges over the U.S. Army’s Wheeler Field next to Schofield Barracks. Billowing plumes of smoke rise into the air as American fighter planes are destroyed. Men whirl about in confusion and fire desperately at the Japanese bombers overhead. In the midst…
Read More“Upon The Gallows Tree”: E. Merrill Root’s poem “Witchcraft”
About a year ago I was browsing through the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature: Volume One—The Authors, and I read the entry on a writer named E. Merrill Root. I had never heard of him before. E. Merrill Root was a poet and professor who spent much of his career at Earlham College in Richmond,Indiana. Edward…
Read MoreIn The October Country…..
For me, October always has two contrasting dimensions. The first is the traditional season of harvest, golden afternoons and “mists and mellow fruitfulness.” There’s an excitement in the air with the return of the school year. It’s a time of homecoming parades, crisp mornings, apples, pumpkins, hayrides, and football games. Nature’s autumn beauty is on…
Read MoreAn Autumn Classic: “Hang On Sloopy” and the OSU Marching Band
It was fifty years ago–on October 9, 1965– that The Ohio State University Marching Band first played the McCoys’ monster hit “Hang On Sloopy” during an OSU football game. The song has become a football season staple ever since, traditionally played during the transition from the third to the fourth quarter. Whenever I recall my…
Read More