When I was a teenager, filled with angst and hormones and having nothing to do, I drove. Sitting at home some nights felt claustrophobic and made me restless. I cast about for things to do, of which there were plenty—homework, dishes, my weekly sweeping of the basement. Siblings and parents…
Leave a CommentAuthor: Patrick Dobson
Dr. Patrick Dobson is a work in progress until his termination. In the meantime, He is a writer, scholar, postman, and college professor living in Kansas City, MO.
The University of Nebraska Press published his travel memoirs, Canoeing the Great Plains: A Missouri River Summer in 2015 and Seldom Seen: A Journey into the Great Plains in 2009. Canoeing the Great Plains won the 2016 High Plains Book Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award. His essays and poems have been published in New Letters, daCunha, Kansas City Star, Garo, Wood Coin, and JONAHmagazine, and others.
Dobson earned a doctorate in American History and Literature at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2013. He has edited books, taught journalism, and been a union ironworker. He now teaches American History, Modern Latin American History, and Western Civilization at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS.
He looks forward to hearing from you soon.
When we packed the car, we were all a little on edge. We had the elderly matriarch Vera with us, and her presence makes everyone a little pushy. We worried about her comfort. We made sure we have the car cane and the walker. We asked if he needed to…
Leave a CommentManic depressive illness has taken me all over the world. It’s given me extraordinary power and deprived me of basic human relationships. Medicated and psychoanalyzed, I have it under control now. But it demands constant care from a psychiatrist and the development of coping skills and discipline. I’ve had this…
Leave a CommentEvery now and then, I run into someone who remembers me from the long past. I look forward to these times and don’t experience them enough. Their memories surprise me and give me insight into myself that I don’t have and can’t get on my own. Almost always, I’m recalling…
Leave a CommentMy grapevines produce enough grapes to make 10 gallons of juice a year. Yet, all that juice winds up turning into feathers and bones and muscles. As soon as one of those little grapes starts to turn from green to red, bang, a cardinal or robin jumps out of the…
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