by Karina Cochran
Some names have been changed to protect identity
When I met Rhoda, every bell inside of me started ringing.
Some of those bells sounded like the siren on a fire truck, warning of potential danger. Some of those bells sounded like a gentle chime, inviting a sense of calm and beauty. But mostly, meeting Rhoda was an alarm, waking me up from a life I didn’t realize I had been sleeping through. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Rebecca Bihn-Wallace
I am an observer. I most likely can’t tell you what I ate for breakfast this morning, nor can I keep track of my belongings or change the oil on a car or explain the stock market in any real sense, but I remember the interior of every house I’ve lived in, and could probably even tell you how the furniture was arranged. I have been cursed with the curious combination of operating in two worlds: the real world, which is often loud and confusing and leaves me at times baffled; and the imagined world, the life of the mind, which is soothing but not always the best place to be. That is to say, I am a writer. Because of this, I wasn’t aware of my need for regular human contact until the pandemic hit. It came upon slowly, this pandemic, or I think it did; now when I look at the timeline of events, I think, Weeks, not months. Weeks for my state to go on lockdown, weeks for my university to close, weeks for shelter in place to begin. Months for people to rebel, months for the country to undergo another racial paroxysm. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Karin M. Gertsch
The rhythm of my early childhood was as regulated as the Swiss clock chiming on the wall in our foyer in Cologne. Then one day, when I was six years old, my grandmother was forced to change the course of our lives. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Robin Schauffler
When we were young my sister read a book where the heroine believed that if you could count one hundred white horses in a summer you would get your wish, any wish you wanted. This seemed like powerful magic. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by John Ballantine
“The shah of Iran is our friend. He sells oil at a price that we can pay so we can refine the products that grease your chassis, put gas in your tank, and provide chemical feedstocks that make our lives more comfortable. Here at Ashland Oil we do business with those that honor commitments and promote competition. John D. Rockefeller’s offspring—Texaco, Mobil, Exxon, Chevron, and Standard Oil of Ohio—want to play by the rules of their capitalist game, not the market. The major oil companies want to starve us of our life blood. They sell to each other and not us independent oil companies.”
My first press release in 1974. The perils of capitalism. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
Hawaii Pacific Review 