Episode #243: Van Again

The significant luxury of an operable hatch.

Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 243. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen.

In this episode I start out to wax poetic about my snow plow truck then detour into talking about my tour van instead. There is also a hubcap update. And be sure to scroll down

The view over the cargo net.

Never leave home without it.

That time the gas tank fell off, but that’s another story.

…and finally, please scroll down to the Marginalia section where I share a few highlights from a book I started reading out in my deer stand.

Forward!
Mike

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Today’s episode draws on the essay “Van Again” from the book Hunker.

DVD copies of Mike’s PBS documentaries (including “Michael Perry On The Road,” starring the van in question) are available here.

The subject of today’s marginalia, the book Daughter in Retrograde, is available from BookShop.org and on Amazon. (Law requires me to let you know we catch a little commission if you order through those Amazon and BookShop links. Are we good, law?)

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MARGINALIA

(Annotations from books Mike is reading, or annotations related to the episode)

I’m just a few chapters in, but am enjoying Kersten’s take on Midwestern culture—for better or worse.

I highlighted the line below because I wish I’d’a thought of it first:

And here we get into the idea of discernment as opposed to doubt, and where it leads us.

For the record, I’m not cynical about midwestern pleasantries. There’s a lot of sincerity to be found hereabouts, especially when we work face-to-face and neighbor-to-neighbor. But I also know what it is to smile benevolently whilst curling my toes and grinding my molars, and the passages above convey that nicely.

I’m eager to see where the rest of the book leads. Off the cuff, what I think I’m liking is I like to read critical takes on the culture I’m immersed in as it gives me food for thought, a reason to look in the mirror a little more closely, and above all I like it when those critiques arise from within as opposed to the election-season local cafe parachute job we are so often subjected to.

Okey-doke then. Nice ear muffs.