t can take three hours to drive from Germaine to Joseph. The route is pretty much the way a crow actually flies –five miles one way, three miles back, ten to the right, fifty to the left, circle around, stop for some road-kill. . . Most Germainers don’t consider Joseph a big enough reward to make that journey.  Before Joseph became the art mecca of Eastern Oregon, its main claim to fame was that Walter Brennan had a spread there. Back in the early half of the 20th century, Walter was considered the finest character actor. He appeared in over 200 films, but being Grandpa McCoy on The Real McCoys TV show pretty much overshadowed his previous work. I remember him from that show and because he cut the saddest record of all time, “Old Man Rivers” about an old farmer and his mule. The lyrics weren’t so touching, but…

he buildings in Germaine are like nesting dolls. Open the door to the coffee shop and inside that you will find a bookstore, inside of that a travel agent, inside of her, a doorway to another dimension. Really. Behind the gate of Wicker’s Weld and Repair there is a sculpture garden and a yacht club. Really.  I went over to Wicker’s because I’ve been thinking about putting up a little iron fencing around the family plot. Not anything fancy, just something about two feet high with pointed tips. I wanted to talk to Donnie about it because he is the welder and he’s the one would have to construct it. Wicker’s has a big iron gate and you have to get out of your car, open the gate, drive through –if you want to drop something off that you can’t carry from the street. I didn’t have anything to drop…

by Susie Applegate I’ve just finished the story about the Budreau fire. It’s seven a.m. and I’ve been up since 3 ‘clock this morning, when Renee, the sheriff’s dispatcher, called me to tell me that the Old Arlington house was burning. I keep thinking about what Shaherazade said and the way the little ones just moved in close to their parents and had that look in their eyes like you see in the eyes of the depression photographs. A look of pain and resignation that should never be present in a child of eight like Shaherazade’s sister Salome, much less in Juliette who isn’t even two years old “I spent my whole life going from one disaster to another.” At least Shaherazade didn’t sound defeated when she said that. She sounded angry and I have to say, good for her.     Hugo Budreau kept talking about how thankful the…

Okay, ten weeks holed up in my apartment is over the top, even for a recluse like me. I was so pissed at my dad and mom for perpetuating this falsehood about the Arlingtons that I could hardly stand it! I don’t care if The Germaine Truth goes to hell if, in the end, it’s just a baby version of the California rag I left behind. For crying out loud, I will not sign some faustian contract with Satan for $500 a month and Mom’s tuna casserole. A girl’s got to have standards.  I just don’t get it. All my life I have been taught about journalistic integrity. It has been the foundation of my family culture. So what went wrong? I can understand The Washington Post or The Los Angeles Times, or any of the big corporate media swimming in millions of dollars of investors money. I can fathom…