Fiction, Essays, and Other Things

  It was by no means by farthest journey but certainly my most ambitious in terms of preparation and demand and also my most rewarding. On paper a road trip through the heart of America from Oklahoma City to Las Vegas indicates nothing out of the ordinary, but this was a celebration of Route 66, America’s Highway or, as she is more commonly known, the Mother Road, on her centennial. Cutting from the heartland to the West Coast, this once indispensable pathway to the Pacific has fallen into neglect in the last forty years but it remains the embodiment of America from the vastness of the land to the changing landscapes, to the celebration of the American spirit and the struggles of the American experience. Pop-culture has kept it alive and though it has been decommissioned it is never empty. It is fabled more than any other road and in the story of Route 66 lies in many ways the story of America, in tragedy and triumph. I had visited parts of Route 66 before. In 2017, I visited ...

  It is amazing how much a construed perception, even if with elements of truth, can become an accepted narrative, scrutiny and reevaluation not even considered. In the case of Ulysses S. Grant and his placement in the canon of United States Presidents, how it happened is less surprising that it happened at all. Throughout the 20 th century and even early in the 21 st , Grant was consistently found just above the bottom of presidential rankings, just above Hoover and Harding. And yet, looking at the man’s last years, such a standing would seem inconceivable. This is not only because he led the Union Army to victory. In fact, a common and uncontested talking point I myself was thought in history class was that the North the Civil War in spite of Grant’s leadership. The root of such reading is not hard to see. Lee’s first mistake, after all, was simultaneously underestimating Grant and overestimating his own troops, but to suggest that Grant was a man unprepared and unschooled in...