Sometimes you need to cut people off and let them live with whatever lies they’re most comfortable with. Dan learned that one Tuesday morning while trying to fix a leaky hose, and his neighbor, Carl, leaned over the fence with a cigarette and too much advice. “Thing is,” Carl said, blowing smoke toward the tomatoes,…

I’ve never set out to “help people biblically.” Honestly, that always felt too big for me, like something reserved for folks who had perfect lives and memorized wisdom ready to dispense at a moment’s notice. I’m not that person. But somewhere along the way, I realized I could live out the spirit of what I…

Douglas Williams had ink in his veins, whiskey in his breath, and regret clinging to him like newsprint on a humid day. The Virginia City Chronicle was down to its last legs, and maybe one of them had termites. The rival paper, The Nevada Territorial News, was running him out of business, printing in color…

Eddie Winston wasn’t the kind of man who went looking for signs from the universe. He was the kind who ignored them until they tripped him flat on his face. So when he and his new bride, Marjorie, found themselves stranded in Virginia City, Nevada, with a busted radiator and a week’s worth of honeymoon…

Trace Rawlins had a reputation that could outshoot any gunslinger west of Hollywood. He wasn’t just the star of “Rawlins’ Range,” he was the range. The hat, the swagger, the drawl, or so he’d tell you. His cast and crew might’ve told a different tale, one with a few more four-letter words and fewer camera…

Now, I didn’t go looking for the Strauss–Howe generational theory. It found me. I stumbled on the idea of “Turnings,” these repeating cycles that supposedly shape the rise and fall of institutions, the mood of generations, even the character of national life. At first, it sounded a little too tidy for the messy world I…

If you ever meet Martin Cavanaugh, don’t let that mild-mannered smile fool you. Beneath it lies a man who can slice a person to ribbons with words that sound like compliments embroidered on a pillow. Diplomacy, as Martin practices it, is saying the nastiest things in the nicest way, and he’s a grandmaster of the…

Friends, my fellow countrymen, chronically online goblins: lend me your pitchforks for five minutes. I promise to return them duller than you left them. Last week, the Internet devoured a 34-year-old substitute teacher because, in 2011, she tweeted: “I’m gonna kill my roommate if he leaves another Red Bull can on the coffee table.” Fourteen…

There’s a fellow I once knew named Jerry who swore he was born to lead. From the time he could tie his shoes, he was in charge of something. Kickball teams, Cub Scout hikes, and even, on one bold occasion, the neighborhood’s unofficial “Safety Patrol,” which mostly involved telling other kids to stop running near…

When people hear I once worked as a reporter in Virginia City, they get a faraway look in their eyes, as if I must’ve been hand-fed Mark Twain’s ghost chili recipe or something. The truth is, all I really got was a sore backside from sitting on barstools too long, and a pocket full of…