Joshua Heston

The rain poured down just beyond the garage doors, dirty cement glistening in the late, dark summertime somewhere between light and dusk. Bare incandescent lightbulb shown over saws and level, hammers, screws, nails, fishing rods, my dad’s red hammer. Old 1960s’ refrigerator, stocked with beer and leftovers, with a freezer desperately in need of defrosting hummed. It was July sometime in the early 1990s. I paused. Perhaps the twilight made this moment profound, though if someone had looked at...

Saturday morning and the mountain humidity is mounting, fog burning off from river lake below, hot late spring sun peeking through night clouds clearing as the minutes tick by. I’m still bemused by old turn-of-the-century tourist brochures touting the Ozarks’ “cooling summer breezes.” It’s only nine o’clock in the morning and I’ve already sweated through my shirt, confident it won’t be the last time today. Saturday morning markets are a lot of work. Just one year ago, StateoftheOzarks moved...

Night falls with the rain but the light in the room is warm and dim, the music moody, calming after an exhausting week. The sound of a baseball game echoes lowly. The dogs are making comfortable noises from rug and couch. As I sit at the kitchen table to write, again, the mind wanders. “I have an idea,” Dustin Burkett is saying. His earnestness is contagious, his talent inspiring. We are sitting at another kitchen table, cold winter light streaming, conversing about the StateoftheOzarks...