A Case of the Human Condition: Geographic Mobility in America — Watching My Kids Disappear

Peter at the airport with his bags 2000. Photo by Barbara Falconer Newhall

Peter leaves home for college. Photo by Barbara Falconer Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Most of my grandmother’s children – there were seven of them – lived out their lives within walking distance of their mother’s white frame house in Scottville, Michigan. Not my father. He moved away.

Which is why, when I think of my Grandma Falconer I see the pince-nez, the soft pink skin and the silvery-white hair swept into an up-do — but I also see my grandmother’s figure standing motionless at the foot of her driveway, watching as my family drives out of town. [Read more...]

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A Case of the Human Condition: How Selective Service Made a Man of My Son — Without Even Trying

The Selective Service pamphlet

The Selective Service pamphlet

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

It was a colorful pamphlet, standing at crisp attention in its rack in the post office lobby. “MEN 18-25 YEARS,” it read. “You can handle this. REGISTER. It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s the law.”

I was busy. Christmas was a week away and our annual holiday letter needed mailing. But the block-lettered words, “MEN 18-25 YEARS,” stopped me in my tracks. In two weeks my son Peter would be eighteen. [Read more...]

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