Peggy McManus

By Peggy F. McManus August, 2026 When I was four years old, Dad was working on his doctorate at WSU. Our family was poor as dirt at the time, and lived in a ratty little trailer in an even rattier trailer park near the campus. The gravel road in front of our single-wide was coated with a thick layer of sticky tar that stunk to high heaven, especially during the long, hot days of summer. Behind our trailer, a river flowed, dirty brown and foreboding. There was no fence or barrier of any kind...

By Peggy McManus June 2026 I love a good meadow and had the good fortune to survive a great deal of time in them as a child. My vast experience with meadows came about because of my parents, who regularly headed out to the country to forage for food. They knew all the best places to look, and the far majority of them were in or near a meadow. A stand of birch trees or the charred remains of a forest fire were great places to find morels. Hike up a mountain on a warm July day, and you could...

By Peggy McManus Mar 2026 Family dinners were the highlight of my young life. We gathered at the kitchen table, enjoying Mom’s cooking, sharing stories of the day’s events, and laughing. Generally, the recaps of my days were tainted with awkward moments and unfortunate outcomes. “A boy at lunch was chewing with his mouth open today,” I reported one evening. “It was so disgusting, I accidentally let out a scream.” “That’s a bit of an overreaction,” Mom said.“Did your teacher tell him to close...