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Been Thinkin’ About…a long last day
The orange sun slips behind the western mountain ridges. Summer solstice ends, even as the evening news begins its frantic reporting of...

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…American frontiers
The caravel's sails billowed and orchestral music swelled. I was glued to the TV that early summer of 1992, watching a PBS documentary on...

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been thinkin’ about…The warrior poets
The sun was hot that late afternoon and bits and pieces of the moment still float somewhere in my memory. We were parked out back behind...

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been thinkin’ about…The spider and the boat
The great garden spider, all bright yellow and stark black, was still and waiting on her weaving web there amid blooming iris and peonies...

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been thinkin’ about…The minstrel oaks
Next to a grand white oak that was appropriately gnarled with age, rested a battery of 1860s' cannon, tended by men in blue wool uniforms.

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…Mountain magic
I clench the Arkansas diamond in my small palm, imagining in my five-year-old mind that the clear quartz crystal is a real diamond and,...

Joshua Heston
5 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…The zombie story house
"You're a great storyteller, Uncle Josh," my niece is saying on the phone. "When you tell stories, it makes people want to listen."

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…Bricks in time
I'm doing my best to stay awake, leaning back in the overstuffed couch as the clock ticks toward midnight. I'm catching up on my favorite...

Joshua Heston
3 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…Words, arts, crafts and tomatoes
Farmers Market will open every Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., and every Wednesday, 2-6 p.m., weather permitting (May through October). Many of our regular vendors will be there, as well as some new ones.

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…Televisions forever
I certainly didn't realize it at the time, but I had walked into a moment soon out of time, a television repair store, a strange threshold land between age-old craftsmanship...

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…A cup of peach tea
I really don't mind, mind you. I did not write for the book to become, generically, the "great American novel." I don't even know what "the great American novel" means.

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…The shirt on the sink
Outside, the spring storms had raged. I watched the radar grimly, anticipating the social media reports of tornadoes and floods and loss.

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been thinkin’ about…The pear tree
The pear tree in the yard has leafed, shade dappled beneath an increasingly hot sun. Mist rose in the holler last night, turning the...

Joshua Heston
3 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…Cold spring days
Cold spring days are special things. Too soon the air will be hot and ragged as summertime seems to arrive earlier each year and so I...

Joshua Heston
3 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…The divine hag
The old Scots-Irish settlers in the Ozarks would know what I was talking about. The Cailleach is a weather-personification deity...

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…The bitter March wind
The bitter March wind stirs the red oak leaves on the hillside, leaf litter heavy in the late afternoon. The sky has cleared, temperature...

Joshua Heston
3 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…Underworld gains
There are no trophies. No suburban dad stories of the glory days, although I still smile when I remember outrunning the town's basketball ..

Joshua Heston
4 min read


Been Thinkin' About…The town with many doors
The river ice has broken up, white knife edges crushing together against the silt, framing the dark river island trees, smooth maples...

Joshua Heston
3 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…Roses in a dark room
A dark bedroom, a single light. The lamp was a strange thing, heavily weighted, long, spindly neck, rough black charcoal-like texture of...

Joshua Heston
3 min read


Been Thinkin’ About…Cake, ice, fog
I had been to the home of Silver Dollar City artist Joe Benjamin. Joe had talked of his pen-and-ink art while his wife Jan dished up bowls..

Joshua Heston
3 min read
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