Stevie, a good boy, enjoying his new life. I have a dog named Stevie who sleeps on the couch with his nose pushed against the cushions and his back to the world. I don’t know if this is how all dogs sleep on the couch because we’ve never allowed any of our other dogs to jump up there. But we felt sorry for Stevie and did not have the heart to yell at him. Stevie crawled out of a corner of hell and came to our home when he was about five years old. He had quite a history, an

For two miles, we had followed a shaded trail that led through a lonely pine and ash forest outside of Bend, Oregon. For the last mile, we had seen no one. At the two-mile mark, we arrived at a fork in the trail, where a weathered wooden sign directed hikers to turn left if they were bound for Moraine Lake, nearly 7,000 feet in elevation on the slopes of the South Sister. We turned and found ourselves on a thickly-wooded, rapidly ascending slope. It was a sunny day but unu

I was driving one morning on Kamehameha Highway in Aiea when I stopped my car for a young black fellow waiting at a crosswalk that has a reputation for being dangerous. Drivers always seem to be speeding, and there is no traffic signal. Crossing is perilous, and when I see people rush across the street, it reminds me of the Planet Earth film clips of African wildebeest dashing crazily across a crocodile-infested river. So, I skidded to a stop. He started to cross, then he

Early one fall morning on a perfect day, we followed a trail through the brush, turned left at the homeless guy's encampment, and walked along the coast until we reached a sandy cove. We were pleased to find that we had arrived before anyone else. Even the homeless fellow was still fast asleep. Our shadows stretched across a welcoming patch of damp sand where the only other tracks were those of shore birds. The ocean was unusually calm. We were at that time of year when t