Peggy McManus

By Peggy McManus October, 2026 Being four years old is miserable, especially when you’re a spy. I didn’t want to become a spy, but circumstances beyond my preschooler control forced me into it. You see, I was desperate to find a way to break out of nursery school, which, to me, was a prison run by the evil Warden Blackheart and a band of ruthless guards she called teachers. I got the idea to become a spy from watching my favorite TV show, “Get Smart.” I mean, if Maxwell Smart could make it...

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...