Review: Hamlet — Movies for the Rest of Us with Bill Newcott

Hamlet

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

1 hour 54 minutes  

Stars: Riz Ahmed, Morfydd Clark, Art Malik, Sheeba Chaddha, Timothy Spall

Writers: Michael Lesslie, from William Shakespeare’s play

Director: Aneil Karia

Reviewed at the Toronto International Film Festival

 

The “Shakespeare-in-the-Present-Day” genre always presents inherent challenges: We don’t currently live in an era of omnipotent kings and queens, and no matter how powerful someone is, they very seldom can get away with cold-blooded murder.

In his imaginative adaptation of Hamlet, Oscar-winning British director Aneil Karia (The Long Goodbye) attempts to resolve the conflict by staging the drama within an insular, spectacularly wealthy South Asian family, owners of a massive English conglomerate. Accordingly, obsessed with preserving his family’s essential upstanding public image, young Hamlet (The Sound of Metal’s Riz Ahmed) doesn’t go to the cops when he suspects his uncle poisoned his father and is now going to marry Ham’s mother. Instead, he hurls himself into a doomed attempt to prove his uncle’s guilt and then exact all-in-the-family revenge.

No brooding around a castle keep for this Hamlet: Contemplating the nature of mortality, he barrels through the streets of London in his electric Lamborghini: “To be (screeeeech!) or not to be (honnnnnk)!” Boardrooms replace throne rooms. Hamlet’s iconic play-within-a-play becomes a Bollywood dance extravaganza. Elsinore is not the name of the family’s palace fortress, but that of their sprawling company.

For the most part, the updates work nicely, once more proving just how bulletproof The Bard’s work can be. Still, while this version takes occasional liberties with the original text – assigning some lines to different characters and substituting a place name or two – the disconnect between a 21^st century setting and Shakespeare’s Elizabethan prose can be stylistically jarring. Are we really going to accept, for instance, that when Hamlet’s dad is referred to as “Our King,” the speakers actually mean it in a CEO kind of way?

Ahmed, dewy-eyed and open-gazed, makes a uniquely vulnerable Hamlet, utterly believable as a super-sensitive drama school type who naively believes he can unmask his father’s killer through a play. As Ophelia, Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud) bears a heavier load: It may be heresy to say this, but to my mind Shakespeare himself never really nailed the transition of Hamlet’s beloved from a self-assured, cynical observer to a self-destructive basket case, so there’s no sense faulting Karia or Clark for not pulling that off convincingly.

Longtime movie bad guy Art Malik (The Living Daylights, True Lies) makes a suitably diabolical Claudius; Bollywood legend Sheeba Chadda manages to infuse some dignity into Hamlet’s maddeningly spineless mother, Gertrude.

Among Shakespeare’s tragedies, Hamlet is famously “the one where everyone dies.” Here, the climactic bloodbath is staged as the Worst Dinner Party Ever: One after another, the leading lights of Elsinore shed this mortal coil with varying degrees of shocked disbelief – especially Timothy Spall’s Polonius, who seemingly chokes to death on the scenery he’s been chewing for the past two hours.

Outrageous fortune, it turns out, ain’t all it’s cut out to be.

Katie’s Story: My Husband Died of Dementia at Age 33

It was November 2008, right before the holidays, when the police knocked on Katie Brandt’s door. Mike Brandt, 29, had left their small three-­bedroom house in Center Barnstead, New Hampshire, a few hours earlier. He was supposedly meeting a client about his web design business — a side hustle from his high-school teaching job. Katie, also 29, thought this was a lie but let it go.

Katie feared the knock meant trouble — or worse, that her husband was dead. She remembers the officer saying: “We’ve clocked your husband going 90 miles an hour, and we can’t catch him. He stopped at Cumberland Farms, bought beer, urinated on the side of the building, and took off.”

Minutes later, Mike pulled into the driveway, nearly hitting the deck. The officer coolly watched from the door as Mike, a hulking 6-foot-3, stumbled out of the car reeking of vomit, then threw up on the pavement.

Katie didn’t know what to think. His strange ­behavior had started during her first trimester of pregnancy, 11 months before that visit from the police. She noticed something was off — Mike didn’t share her excitement about the baby.

At first, she brushed off his indifference as marital, like being ignored by a spouse glued to the game.

But there were the weird moments: the earbuds he refused to remove during her labor, lost in a Harry Potter audiobook while she gave birth; the strange obsession with sweets.

Then Mike quit his teaching job, ostensibly to grow his web design business. But when she checked his phone, she found a slew of unanswered messages from angry customers. His designs, once beautiful, had turned chaotic with ugly fonts and bizarre layouts. Worse, he didn’t seem to notice the drop in quality or care about his upset clients.

There were smaller, stranger things: He started licking food off his fingers at dinner. He stopped brushing his teeth and let his beard grow wild. These weren’t just quirks.

Looking back, it was the police incident that marked the end of the early days of Mike’s illness, when she could still recall how it had been before the intimacy between them was gone.

“It was like he was drifting far away,” Katie said, “and I couldn’t reach him.”

 

When I met Katie, 45, at Tatte Bakery & Café in Brookline, Massachusetts, she had just finished a long afternoon on Beacon Hill, reciting her elevator pitch to state senators. She arrived for our meeting put together, in business casual, slightly weary from repeating her story.

Katie is tall and lanky with a big, toothy smile. Her voice is warm and even, the kind that draws people in. She greeted me with practiced calm, coffee in hand, then pulled up a chair and leaned in close to hear better over the din of voices in the bakery. We fell back into the conversation we had been unspooling for months — about caregivers and the systems that fail to support them, about the meaning of loving someone through cognitive decline.

We had already met each other through a webinar we had co-hosted on family caregiving. She spoke as a national advocate for dementia care; I, as a palliative care physician and consultant to the National Center for Equitable Care for Elders. But I wanted to take our conversation beyond titles and talking points. I wanted to learn how she’d transformed her life, following the slow, devastating unraveling of her husband by a rare, fatal neurodegenerative disease, into a career shaping support structures for others — a path that led her to a position as the director of Caregiver Support Services at the renowned Frontotemporal Disorders Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Katie never sugarcoats her story. She replayed the timeline of events from 12 years ago, which had followed Mike’s diagnosis, at 31, with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) — an illness that slowly erodes personality, judgment and emotional awareness.

“It had been two years of misdiagnoses before a doctor finally listened,” Katie said. She’d suspected all along that “something was terribly wrong” while the doctors shrugged. Depression, they said. Stress. Marriage ­problems.

When a doctor diagnosed him with severe depression, the medications they prescribed made him sleepy and even more disconnected. She insisted that his psychiatrist order a scan of his brain. “Could he have a brain tumor?” she asked. She remembers attempting to explain to the doctor the reasons for her concerns. But how do you explain that someone’s personality has vanished — when that person doesn’t even notice?

No one listened. Not Mike. Not the doctors. And, as it turned out, that scan was the wrong kind to show signs of frontotemporal dementia.

When Mike tried to fix their washing machine with a butane torch, she knew something needed to change, and fast. Desperate, Katie brought Mike to her father’s doctor, a neurologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Katie coaxed Mike into the exam room with strategies that she had honed over the past year and a half. She never commanded him; instead, she made gentle suggestions like: “Let’s sit here. The chairs look comfortable.”

It wasn’t long before Mike stopped the interview, shortly after the doctor asked him to name words starting with the letter F. “Fuck!” Mike yelled and abruptly left the exam room. Katie was left behind, stunned and alone.

“It’s bad,” the doctor said to Katie.

Not long ago, I spoke with the neurologist Brad Dickerson, Katie’s boss, about why frontotemporal dementia is difficult to diagnose. Dickerson is the director of the Frontotemporal Disorders Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He sees patients referred by other doctors, often to confirm a diagnosis or, in some cases, to unwind years of misdiagnoses. His kind manner and trust-inducing smile come across even on a Zoom call — the kind of doctor you’d want. But his expertise lies in frontotemporal dementia, a fatal disease that progresses over time, as short as 3 years or as long as 12. Frontotemporal dementia has no cure and no proven treatments to slow its progression. In that sense, he is the kind of doctor you hope you’ll never need.

About 15 percent of cases of frontotemporal disorder are inherited, leaving the remaining 85 percent without a clear cause, according to Dickerson. He studies the familial forms of the disease. The hope is that knowing where to “shoot the arrow” will help researchers develop targeted treatments for people with the inherited version, and suggest medical strategies for the unknown or sporadic types.

“We’re on the brink of personalized medicine for FTD — treatments tailored to fit a person’s unique biology,” he said.

Ask him to explain frontotemporal disorders, and he begins with a taxonomy lesson, categorizing different symptoms of the disease according to which lobe of the brain they begin in — either the frontal lobes located directly behind the forehead or the temporal lobes that sit behind the ears, like a set of headphones.

Mike had “behavioral variant” frontotemporal dementia that began in the right side of the frontal lobe, according to his medical records.

As the disease gets worse, the frontal lobes slowly atrophy (or shrink), and circuits to other parts of the brain become faulty as they clog with abnormal proteins. This disrupts cognitive processes such as executive functioning, which helps us plan, organize, and pay attention. When executive functioning is lost, a person may become disorganized, inflexible, or impulsive. Atrophying frontal lobes may also trigger repetitive behaviors — like incessant listening to Harry Potter audiobooks — or obsessions, such as an unstoppable desire to eat sweets.

Mike’s loss of interest in the world of Katie and their son tracks to a loss of metacognition or insight. Metacognition — our sixth sense — lights up the dark road ahead, helping us assess danger. It’s our inner mother warning us “Don’t do it.” A decline in metacognition can lead to a fading of our emotional and social engagement and our ability to see others outside of ourselves.

Katie sees the loss of partnership, when we are no longer being seen by our special other, as the core disaster of fronto­temporal dementia for families. Her work with caregivers, she tells me, recasts their role from invisible player to the “star in their own epic tale,” with “being there” as the ultimate expression of love.

Frontotemporal dementia is still widely misunderstood, even among medical professionals. One cause of diagnostic confusion is that the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s dementia — the most common cause of dementia in older adults — are different from frontotemporal dementia. Alz­heimer’s usually begins in the back regions of the brain, with the first signs often emerging as memory and word-finding problems.

“With FTD, they don’t forget things like an Alzheimer’s patient would — but their personality is completely different,” Dickerson said. He added: “FTD doesn’t fit the textbook definition of dementia that most doctors learned in medical school.”

Some of the diagnostic misadventures experienced by patients and families, he observes, are due to the use of screening tests that are structured to identify the memory loss seen in Alzheimer’s.

In FTD, memory is preserved, at least in the early and middle stages of the illness: Patients might be able to master a crossword puzzle but refuse to stop working on it to help prepare the family dinner.

To get the full story, he interviews the patient and an “informant,” usually a family member, partner, or close friend, since they are most likely to notice uncharacteristic behaviors as signs of something amiss. Without this perspective, the chances of missing a brewing frontotemporal disorder are high, as the patient, due to deteriorating metacognition, will tell you that “everything is fine.”

Katie was close to her mother, Diane. They spoke on the phone every day. She became a sanctuary for Katie, now a mother herself, as Mike’s interest in fatherhood slipped away. The day Katie received the news about Mike’s diagnosis, her parents were there, sitting in the doctor’s waiting room.

Katie remembers that day as the last time she saw her mother. She watched her parents step into the elevator down to the lobby as she followed Mike on his preferred route, the stairs. Four days later, her mother died in her sleep of a heart attack at 58.

Her mother’s death was the moment Katie realized there was no return to life as it had been. She would have to figure out her own life first if she was going to support Mike through what lay ahead. With her mother gone, she left her job in New Hampshire and moved in with her father, newly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, in Massachusetts. In the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, her home in Center Barnstead went into foreclosure, making it unsellable. She also lost her health insurance, which she’d had through Mike’s job. In the following months, Katie was swallowed by a bureaucratic vortex of securing medical insurance for her child and Mike. She applied for food assistance for the baby.

By the time Mike died at 33, Katie had already begun shaping her grief into something structured. At rock bottom, she began to build. In the summer of 2012, a few months after he died, Katie started volunteering for the Boston-based arm of the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration. That role evolved into leading a support group and providing community education. In 2018, this work turned into a position at Mass General.

I asked Katie about how she was doing after years of caregiving, for Mike and then for her father, all while raising a child on her own. Why step back into the breach of dementia caregiving, this time as an advocate?

“At first, the work was about finding my voice after years of isolation and loneliness,” she replied. “This horrible thing happened to me, and the world just kept turning, like it didn’t matter.” She wanted to tell her story.

But then it became about diving in, learning everything she could about how to help families living with dementia caregiving. “Some people want to leave a caregiving experience in the past,” she said. Katie, meanwhile, wanted to fight, and pay things forward.

Katie’s work at Mass General is a mix of science communication, systems navigation, and pastoral care. She lectures to national groups about family caregiving, sometimes to audiences as big as 1,000. She trains clinicians. She moderates forums where caregivers get to say out loud: “This sucks.”

“When caregivers are part of our program, they don’t need to Google to get answers,” she said.

She also sits on advisory panels trying to improve the caregiver experience: fighting for supports and recognition, and for more rigorous training for neurologists.

Katie is unapologetic. She knows the story of Mike’s illness is compelling, and has learned to use it to bring attention to the caregivers behind the diagnosis.

“I know we have to wait for science to cure Alzheimer’s and other dementias, but public policy and money could fix the problems that caregivers are afflicted by now,” she told me.

In 2020, the Older Americans Act was reauthorized by Congress and included, for the first time, provisions that allowed patients under 60 with dementia to access support programs that they previously were locked out of because of age. Katie was co-chair of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA), which pushed this legislation forward.

She thinks that this updated law is game-changing for caregivers of patients with early onset dementias, and wonders how different things would have been for her if Mike had had access to caregiver services — and also for her father, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 58.

Katie invited me to sit in on a Zoom support group for caregivers of people with frontotemporal dementia. She routinely allows clinicians to sit in as learners, encouraging members to be the teachers, in a role-reversal. “It helps some of them find meaning to their experiences to share this way,” Katie said.

The group, the largest of its kind in the country, is co-led by Katie and a colleague from Mass General. I watched Katie navigate the meeting with the calm of a pilot in the midst of an emergency landing, as members toggled between laughter and despair.

“If you want to know what they’re up against,” she said, “listen to the caregivers!”

Dark humor abounded as some recounted their bleakest moments of the “journey,” as many seasoned caregivers referred to it. One gentleman described how his wife “lost her nouns,” meaning she could no longer name objects. He would hold up two boxes to help her choose her morning cereal, and she would point to her choice. Another man recalled the moment he realized he needed a backup emergency plan: After tumbling down the stairs, he lay on the floor, only to watch his wife step blithely over him on the way to the kitchen to “top off her coffee.”

Katie sees internet-based support groups as the single biggest technology innovation for caregiver support, exponentially expanding people’s access to information and strategies to support caregiving.

“People are trapped at home, oftentimes, or live in rural or remote places,” she said. “But most people have a smartphone where they can log on and watch a webinar.”

Members nodded in agreement when one commented that the group “had saved my life.” But, mostly, there was relief at having found a space where people “get it.” A place where they understood the terrible years before a correct diagnosis, years of not knowing what was wrong, of being blamed, of feeling like they weren’t strong enough. They understood the weight of reconciling entrenched anger, hurt, and resentment.

What Katie navigates for the group is not just information, but translation. An existential formula for survival. You are not imagining this. It is not your fault. No, he won’t get better. But you might.

Since FTD often starts with impulsivity, apathy, and compulsive habits (in younger people typically, ages 45 to 65), patients can be misdiagnosed with mental health, drug, or alcohol problems. For young families, the fallout can be life-altering. Jobs are lost. Children are confused. Partners can be marginalized or gaslit by their own communities. Family members sometimes report that their loved one’s “B.S. detector” is dysfunctional, making them vulnerable to financial scammers and other grifts.

The neurologist Richard Ryan Darby, who runs the Frontotemporal Disorder Clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee, is fascinated by what happens when brain changes lead to brushes with the law or outright criminality. I spoke with him about his work, which sits at the blurry edge where neurology and psychiatry meet. Darby uses MRI scans to study how different parts of the brain talk to each other. In healthy brains, these connections are balanced. But in people with FTD — a disease that strikes at the control centers for behavior and judgment (remember metacognition) — this balance can fall apart.

Darby’s theory? When one part of the brain goes offline because of damage, other regions start to take over, sometimes leading to odd or harmful behavior, like breaking rules or even committing crimes.

One of the hardest parts of his job is when his patients end up behind bars, and he can’t reach them directly. “It’s always a struggle to get the patient’s information to the jail medical team,” he said. “I’m never convinced that my patient is going to tell them about their diagnosis.”

I recently spoke with Jill Rovitzky Black, whose ex-­husband had frontotemporal dementia. His gruesome murder, while living in a homeless shelter, was widely covered in the news media a few years ago. Jill recounts the darker side of FTD, one that can subject a family or caregiver to intolerable threats. Jill describes her funny, nerdy librarian ­husband becoming “zombie-­like,” as if he had been body-snatched by aliens. He gave away thousands of dollars of their savings to “internet lovers,” eventually ending up in jail for bank fraud. Jill paid for lawyers and bail but, ultimately, she needed to protect herself and her teenager. She left their 32-year marriage. Jill’s story, like Katie’s, is marked by legions of doctors not listening to her cries that something was strangely wrong, and the diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia was ultimately made too late — on autopsy.

Darby’s advice to law enforcement is clear: “If a law-abiding citizen commits a serious crime over the age of 50, consider the possibility of a brain disorder — and get a specialist involved.”

 

The day after I met Katie at Tatte, she invited me to attend the Rare Disease Day in Boston, organized by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MassBio). The event gathers a mix of leaders: biotech executives, scientists, and policymakers all in one place, laser-focused on finding cures. Except today they are gathered to listen to stories. The agenda leans on words like hope and understanding, with talks delivered by patients and families, the common thread being the years of misdiagnosis.

I watch Katie work the room. She knows people’s backstories like others know recipes. Katie is singular in this environment, hoping to educate the group about the importance of family caregiver support. I snap a picture of her and the former CEO of MassBio. He brightens as she asks him about his family — about his son, whose life was saved by a new drug treatment for cystic fibrosis.

Over lunch, we dive back into the weeds of the caregiver experience and her hope for better policies.

“The reason why being an advocate is so important to me is because, when I work with families, I see the same problems over and over: the economic impacts on working-age families, the loss of social networks, the negative impacts on the health of caregivers,” she says.

“Think of all the policy gaps,” she adds. No affordable options for respite, or homecare, or adult day programs that can handle a younger person, to name a few. Medicaid insurance coverage, being a last resort, is only for those who qualify.

Katie nods when I remark that working with families is never about finding silver linings or expecting white-knuckled grit, but about seeking clarity. It’s about easing the everyday hassles for caregivers so they themselves have space to live and care for their own health. We agree that the full complexity of supporting caregivers can be summed up in one simple action on our part: listen.

Katie interrupts our conversation to take a call. It’s her father’s nursing home. He is now in his 70s with advanced Alzheimer’s. “Dad no longer recognizes me,” she says. Then she listens intently, makes a suggestion, and tells them: “I’ll stop by after work.”

 

Lynn Hallarman is a consultant for the National Center for Equitable Care for Elders at Harvard University and a health science journalist. She previously served as director of palliative care at Stony Brook Medicine in New York. She also works as a health science journalist, with her work appearing in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, JAMA, Aeon, and more.

This article was originally published as “Katie’s Story” on Aeon (aeon.co)

This article is featured in the March/April 2026 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.

 

Cartoons: Perchance to Dream

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Jacques Pépin on Cooking, Art, and a Lifetime of Simple, Honest Food

Renowned chef Jacques Pépin, now in his nineties, has spent a lifetime showing that cooking can be both elegant and accessible. At the heart of his work is the simple idea that cooking and art are acts of generosity. Whether in the kitchen or at the easel, he returns to the same principles: Use what you have, pay attention, and take pleasure in the process. It is a quiet philosophy, but one that has shaped a remarkable life and continues to inspire anyone who cooks.

His newest cookbook (his thirtieth), The Art of Jacques Pépin, features family recipes alongside his own drawings, landscapes, and illustrated menus, and offers a reminder that good food, like good art, is made with attention, restraint, and a sense of joy.

Irene Rawlings: How would you describe the relationship between art and cooking?

Jacques Pépin: There is a deep relationship between art and cooking, but they are not the same. I have been cooking for more than 80 years. In the kitchen, I feel at home. I feel confident. I don’t always follow recipes. I follow the food. I adjust. I taste. I react.

If someone were filming me cooking the same dish twice, it would never be exactly the same. The variations happen naturally. I don’t even think about them. That is what cooking is. Cooking is alive. It changes from moment to moment. A sauce reducing a little more, a vegetable cooking a little less, the seasoning shifting depending on what the dish needs. You respond to what is in front of you. It is a conversation.

IR: How is painting different for you?

JP: When I paint, I don’t feel the same control. Sometimes I don’t know where I am going. I begin…then, at some point the painting takes hold and leads me. I follow it rather than direct it.

I don’t ask if it is good or bad. I ask if it makes my life happy, if it gives me energy, if it feels right. In that sense, painting is about letting go. That is where art and cooking meet. Both require attention. Both require trust. But one is about guiding, and the other is about surrendering.

IR: Chickens appear again and again in your cooking and your art. Why chickens?

JP: Chickens have been a constant in my life. I paint chickens. I cook chickens. They are simple, familiar, and essential.

People often ask for the secret to the perfect roast chicken. There is no real secret. It begins with the bird itself — how it was raised, what it was fed, how it lived. In the town where I was raised, we had blue-footed chickens. The Bresse chickens are known for their quality and flavor. When you become accustomed to that kind of ingredient, it shapes your understanding. It becomes your foundation.

IR: Tell us your answer to this age-old question. What came first — the chicken or the egg?

JP: Eggs are essential. You ask me what came first, the chicken or the egg, I will always say the egg. I could live without chickens, but not without eggs. Over the years, I have learned to make omelets in different ways. My mother made what we would now call an American omelet — cooked through, slightly browned, filled and folded. Later, I learned the French omelet, which is cooked very quickly, never browned, soft and creamy inside. I make both. It depends on the moment. There is no single correct way…only what works, what satisfies, what brings pleasure.

IR: What was your early training and how did that shape your understanding of food?

JP: I began my apprenticeship in 1949. In my family, it was the women who cooked. They were strong, capable, and in control of the kitchen. Many of the professional kitchens I knew at the time were also led by formidable women. They fed not only their families but everyone around them. Food was central. It was not separate from life. It was life.

IR: You have cooked for world leaders. What was that like?

JP: Cooking took me into many different worlds. I was the personal chef in the household of Charles de Gaulle and his family when he was President of France. And I was part of the brigade that prepared formal state dinners for visiting world leaders like Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. In those kitchens, there was strict protocol. Every movement mattered. Precision, discipline, and timing were essential.

But what stays with me most are not those formal meals. It is the family meals. With the de Gaulle family, meals for the children and grandchildren were simple…often roasted chicken, leg of lamb, or other familiar dishes. These meals were paid for out of their own budget.

IR: Please talk about your friendship with Julia Child.

Jacques Pépin and Julia Child cook classic American hamburgers on their television show Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home (Uploaded to YouTube by Hungry)

JP: I met Julia Child in 1969 in New York. [Restaurant critic] Craig Claiborne introduced us, and we became friends quickly. We spoke French. Her French was better than my English.

Julia had a deep respect for classical French technique. Spinach had to be blanched. Green beans as well. There was a discipline to her cooking, and I admired that. At the same time, I was often more interested in what was simple, what worked, what brought pleasure. Between us, there was a balance. Sometimes we disagreed…on live television. Once, she insisted on washing a chicken. I said, “We are putting it in a 400-degree oven. If anything walks out, I will shake its hand.”

IR: Let’s talk about cooking at home and with family.

JP: Cooking is a way of connecting with family. Children will eat anything they help cook. It is as simple as that. My granddaughter, Shorey, we cook together, even when she was very little. We go into the garden and pick herbs — parsley, chives, tarragon — and bring them back to the kitchen. We make simple dishes: macaroni and cheese with spinach and ham, a pound cake with raspberry preserves, a hot dog that curls in the pan. It is not about complexity. It is about time together. She is now finishing college. Time passes, but those moments remain.

IR: Food can also bring people together in difficult times. Can you share an example?

JP: On September 11, I was at home in Connecticut. I was supposed to go to New York that day, but the plan changed. Like everyone else, I watched the events unfold on television…trying to understand. I went to New York soon after. At the French Culinary Institute, where I was dean, we made a decision. We would cook. Teachers and students came together and for weeks we prepared meals for firefighters, police officers and the volunteers working at the site. It was a small gesture, but it mattered. Food offers comfort when words cannot. It creates care. It creates connection. It reminds us that we are not alone.

IR: The impulse to teach and share continues to shape your work. The Jacques Pépin Foundation, based in Barrington, Rhode Island, supports culinary training programs across the country.

JP: Through the Jacques Pépin Foundation, we have created hundreds of instructional videos focused on basic cooking skills. We also offer free culinary and life-skills training to people coming out of prison, recovering from addiction, experiencing homelessness and underserved communities. In six weeks, someone can learn enough to begin working in a kitchen. More importantly, they gain confidence. They discover they can do something meaningful. They can build a life.

IR: What do you want everyone to understand about everyday cooking?

JP: Cooking does not need to be complicated. Some of the best meals take 15 minutes. You open the refrigerator, see what you have, and begin. If you are lucky enough to have a family that supports one another, create your own menu book. Write down what you cook, what you share, what you enjoy…not for perfection, but for memory. Do not wait for a special occasion. Make ordinary dinners special.

IR: What would you like us to take away from this conversation?

JP: Cooking is about sharing. It is about adapting. It is about living in the moment. Art is about letting go and allowing yourself to be guided by something you cannot fully control. In both, there is a philosophy I have always believed in: keep things simple, respect your ingredients, work with care, and take pleasure in what you do. And I have always believed that cooking should bring joy to you and those you are cooking for. That is enough.

Please join Irene Rawlings as she talks with Jacques Pépin on the Women, Books & More podcast.

 

Remembering Harper Lee Through a Visit to Her Alabama Hometown

Thousands of visitors, including many from abroad, beat a path each year to the tiny town of Monroeville in southwest Alabama. And in 2026 there’s an even more compelling reason to visit — It’s the 100th birth anniversary of its most acclaimed native, Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Known to her friends and family as “Nelle,” the beloved writer spent her formative years here, and although she spent many decades living in New York City, she made frequent trips home to visit her family. She spent her final days here as well, residing in an assisted living facility after she suffered a stroke in 2007. She died in 2016 just short of her 90th birthday and is buried in Monroeville’s town cemetery.

Few novels are as treasured by readers worldwide as To Kill a Mockingbird. Since its publication in 1960, it’s sold more than 40 million copies and continues to sell up to a million copies per year. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and has been translated into more than 40 languages. The 1962 film version scored Oscars for Gregory Peck as Best Actor as well as awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Art Direction for a black and white film. The Broadway version starring Jeff Daniels consistently sold out during its run from 2018 to 2022.

Trailer for To Kill a Mockingbird starring Gregory Peck (Uploaded to YouTube by Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers)

Lee claimed that the legal drama at the heart of the novel, set in the 1930s and concerning a Black man named Tom Robinson falsely accused of rape, was a composite of a number of Southern trials preceding the civil rights movement. But there’s no question that much of the rest of Mockingbird is strongly autobiographical. Lee modeled the sassy tomboy Scout after herself, and her older brother, Edwin, is presumably a stand-in for the character of Jem. The likely model for the oddly eloquent and imaginative Dill was writer Truman Capote, who, in one of literature’s greatest coincidences, spent much of his childhood living next door to the Lees. And her father, A.C. Lee — a Monroeville attorney who by all accounts was a man of great moral conscience — was surely the inspiration for the character of Atticus Finch.

Harper’s Hometown

And of course the novel’s fictional town of Maycomb bears a strong resemblance to Monroeville itself. Nowadays, however, literary pilgrims who come here expecting to be transported in time to the scene of Lee’s childhood will be disappointed to learn that only remnants of that town still stand. Her own childhood home on South Alabama Avenue was razed long ago and is now the site of Mel’s Dairy Dream, an ice cream stand. Capote’s home next door has also been demolished, although portions of a stone wall and the foundation still stand on the vacant lot.

But the one monumental structure that still stands — the old Monroe County Courthouse, now officially called the Monroe County Museum — is the true draw in Monroeville. Erected in 1903 with an iconic bell tower that still chimes the hour, the edifice is the most imposing structure in the town square, even though the much newer and larger courthouse stands next door. It’s also on the National Register of Historic Places, principally because of the breathtaking oval-shaped courtroom on the second floor. This space, furnished as it would have been in the 1930s with spittoons, potbelly stoves, and a flag with just 48 stars, also has a pressed tin ceiling and an elegant curving upstairs balcony.

The sign at the main door of the building reads “Home of the World’s Most Famous Courtroom,” and for good reason. It was in that upstairs balcony where Harper Lee sat as a child and listened to her father argue his cases. It was the space that fired her imagination in the unforgettable trial scene at the heart of her novel. And it’s an almost exact duplicate of the courtroom in the 1962 film — the designer for the set on the Hollywood sound stage made only minor changes from the original. Mockingbird pilgrims may well feel chills as they enter this room, perhaps picturing Gregory Peck delivering his final exhortation to the jury: “In the name of God, do your duty!”

Visitors will also want to linger in the rooms adjoining the courtroom where extensive exhibits on both Lee and Capote can be found. They’ll see there many historic photos of Lee — standing at the very spot in the balcony where she sat and watched her father, showing Gregory Peck around Monroeville, and receiving the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President George W. Bush in 2007.

Extensive quotes from interviews published after the novel’s release reveal fascinating tidbits, like the fact that she and Capote used to sit in the treehouse behind her home and “play” at being writers. Another tells of her initial reservations about Peck playing the Atticus role, which changed when she saw him in costume: “The minute I saw him I knew everything was going to be all right because he was Atticus.” She had no qualms at all, however, with the set design for the Finches’ home: “It looked so real that I wanted to sit down in a rocking chair and fan myself.”

The rooms with exhibits covering Truman Capote describe how Lee accompanied Capote to Kansas for research into the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in the town of Holcomb, which resulted in his bestselling true crime account In Cold Blood. Lee took her own notes, which she shared with Capote, and befriended the people he wanted to interview who initially balked at talking to the flamboyant writer. As Lee described it, “He was like someone coming off the moon — those people had never seen anyone like Truman.”

Outside the Courthouse

On the town square just outside the courthouse, there’s a bronze sculpture called A Celebration of Reading depicting three children centered around a bench reading a book, all unidentified, although many people might reasonably assume they represent Scout, Jem, and Dill. There’s another bronze marker honoring the fictional Atticus Finch erected by the very real Alabama Bar Association, calling Atticus “a lawyer-hero who knows how to see and to tell the truth, knowing the price the community, which Atticus loves, will pay for that truth.”

Lee would have known most of the buildings still standing on the town square, although different businesses now occupy them. Her father’s law office, where Lee wrote portions of Mockingbird, still stands at the corner of Claiborne Street and Mt. Pleasant Avenue. A brochure outlining a walking tour of “Monroeville in the 1930s,” available inside the old courthouse, will lead to a number of highlights, including the nearby sites of Lee’s and Capote’s childhood homes. According to the brochure, the tour will take about an hour “depending on who you run into. (If you get some good stories, come back and tell us).”

Dedicated fans of Lee’s novel may also want to visit the First United Methodist Church on Pineville Road, where Lee was a member for many years. Lee’s grave, with a simple marker strewn with coins, pencils, and pens, is in the adjoining cemetery. Members of her family are buried nearby. Even the gentleman who may have been the inspiration for Boo Radley, Alfred Boulware, is interred here, a man who, just like the fictional Boo, lived his life as a reclusive shut-in.

Mockingbird on the Stage

The most significant draw in Monroeville for literary tourists by far is the celebrated dramatic rendering of To Kill a Mockingbird presented each year since 1991 by a troupe of amateur actors from Monroe County and surrounding communities. The play, written by the late Christopher Sergel, is not the same version that appeared on Broadway but frequently sells out just like its New York counterpart did. Performances start in late March and run through April with a special performance taking place each year on the Saturday closest to Harper Lee’s birthday on April 28th. In 2026, that performance is scheduled for April 25th.

The first act introducing the characters and townspeople of Maycomb takes place in an outdoor amphitheater just outside the old courthouse. The set consists of the exteriors of three small houses — a dilapidated, overgrown one representing the Radley place; a prim and tidy one where the Finch family resides; and another with two doors representing the homes of town gossip Miss Stephanie, the narrator Miss Maudie, and the grouchy and morphine-addicted Mrs. Dubose. These structures stand year-round and are another draw for tourists who can’t make it to Monroeville in the spring. Highlights of the first act include the mob hoping to lynch Tom Robinson pulling up on the adjacent street in an old jalopy and Atticus’s shooting of a “mad dog,” which barks offstage.

The second act takes place in the historic courtroom where Lee might have imagined her fictional trial taking place as she wrote her novel. Since in 1930s Alabama only white men would have been allowed to sit on a jury, a jury of 12 men is selected from the audience to form the jury in the trial scene and sit on stage with the actors. On the other side of the room is a box for the grand jury, and anyone from the audience is also allowed to sit there if they like. Highlights of this act are outbursts on the witness stand both from Bob Ewell, the racist redneck who’s made the accusations against Tom Robinson, and his supposedly abused daughter, Mayella. And of course, Atticus’s soaring summation to the jury is another highlight long remembered by those in the audience.

Tonja Carter, Lee’s former lawyer and personal friend, is the president of the Mockingbird Company, which oversees the production of the play. She estimates that as many as 20 percent of the audience at any given performance comes from outside the U.S., testament as to why this play has been named one of the Top Ten Events for Alabama Tourism by the state tourism department. She also claims that many audience members are left in tears when the drama comes to a close, including herself. “No matter how many times I watch, it resonates with me every time,” she says.

In years past, the play and the Monroeville troupe of actors have taken their performances abroad to Israel, China, and the United Kingdom and to other places in the U.S. like the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Once, after a performance in Israel, Dott Bradley, a longtime cast member who plays Calpurnia, the Finches’ faithful housekeeper, was approached at the play’s end by an audience member who was crying and felt compelled to apologize for the injustices of the past. “I told him, ‘Sir, there’s no need to apologize for what happened then. We can’t do anything about the past. But we can do something about now and the future.’”

The Actors Speak

Nearly all the actors are amateurs with no acting experience in their past. Many return year after year, occasionally switching to other parts, sometimes by necessity when the child actors grow into adulthood. All of them, however, understand the importance of meeting the audience’s expectations. “The heart of this play speaks to both injustice and individual integrity and to the underlying joy of children who unfortunately have to learn about the harshness of life they’re going to face someday,” says Roger McCay, one of two actors playing Atticus Finch. “If we don’t bring all of that out, we haven’t done our job.”

For that reason, McCay tries to bring a certain gravitas to the character of Atticus, using “a number of Southern gentlemen” of his acquaintance, including his father and grandfather, as models. He says his portrayal of Atticus differs substantially from his counterpart, Will Ruzic, who has played Atticus for seven years. “His mannerisms, his cadence, his interaction with other characters, are all different from mine. We’re not clones of one another.” As for Ruzic, although he works hard to portray Atticus as a man of high character and morals, he’s mindful that he can’t just copy Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning role. He works especially hard at creating a bond with the child actors playing Scout and Jem, bringing his own experiences as a father to the front. “If I get to know those children and who they are, it helps us all show the bond between the fictional father and his children,” said Ruzic.

Many of the actors find aspects of themselves in the characters they play. AnnieJean Norris, one of four girls playing Scout, says “She’s a sassy young country girl, just like me. She doesn’t really listen to Atticus. I listen to my parents but kind of reluctantly.” Other actors have to stretch to bring out elements in the character they don’t have inside themselves. Monica Booker, who plays the emotional Mayella Ewell, said she actually loves being loud and angry and “getting kind of growly.” She knows she’s done her job if she sees the audience or jury members getting apprehensive and fidgety. Steve Billy, who plays Mayella’s father,

Bob Ewell, is by all accounts an extremely gentlemanly person and yet manages to make his character so loathsome that audience members avoid him when the play is completed. “He told me he feels dirty after he leaves the stage,” said Tonja Carter. Ironically, Billy is the district attorney in a neighboring county.

Remembrances of Harper Lee

Several of the actors actually met Harper Lee in her frequent trips home to Monroeville. They were all aware of her dislike of being in the limelight and her wish not to discuss her fame.

Michael Tonder, who plays Judge Taylor, once assisted Lee in sending a UPS package without knowing who she was. They chatted pleasantly about the heat and other matters, and only afterward did Tonder’s manager identify whom he’d been assisting. “She was probably glad I didn’t bring up her book,” he says. Fred Kelley, who also plays Judge Taylor, told a story about Lee berating a gas station attendant who had identified her to an out-of-town customer. “She said ‘If you ever do something like that again, I’ll be getting my gas somewhere else!’” Tonja Carter was once with Lee in the town square when a tourist walked up and said, “You’re Harper Lee!” Knowing how much Lee hated being the center of attention, Carter quickly replied “No, she’s not. This is my aunt. But she gets that all the time.”

Even though Lee has been gone now for ten years, remembrances of her still run strong in Monroeville. “For this town, Harper Lee still lives. Both she and the play are part of this town’s identity,” says Roger McCay. Or as Tonja Carter put it: “Everyone in this town has a love affair with Harper Lee. We want to make her proud.”

For more information, visit www.monroecountymuseum.org, www.tokillamockingbird.com, or visitmonroevilleal.com.

Ask the Vet: Poison Control

Question: I have a cat named Beauty and a Chihuahua named Beast. Is it okay to apply half of Beast’s monthly flea and tick preventive to his skin and the other half to Beauty’s skin?

Answer: It’s far safer to treat Beauty with a product labeled for cats because most topical flea and tick products for dogs contain substances toxic to cats. The most common are pyrethroids, neurotoxins that paralyze and kill fleas, ticks, mites, and lice. One of the most popular pyrethroids is permethrin.

Because liver metabolism in cats and dogs differs so much, cats are exquisitely sensitive to permethrin and other pyrethroids. Therefore, canine flea and tick products that contain these chemicals must never be applied to cats.

My cats often rub up against my dogs, so I don’t use pyrethroid-containing pesticides on my dogs. If you decide to, let the product dry before Beauty and Beast snuggle or play with each other; delaying contact for 72 hours is even safer.

 

Ask the Vet is written by veterinarian Lee Pickett, VMD. Send questions to [email protected] and read more at saturdayeveningpost.com/ask-the-vet.

This article is featured in the March/April 2026 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.

Here on Main Street: Four Eyes Are Better Than Two

I have a good memory, but relying on it too much can cause problems.

One night last year I went to bed and then got an idea around 2 a.m. Has that ever happened to you? You go to bed and you start thinking of things: Maybe there’s a problem you have to solve at work, and you think of it at 2 a.m. Do you get up immediately and write it down, or do you say to yourself, “Nah, I’ll remember it in the morning.” I always do the latter. Whether it’s an important thought or a dream, I always think I’m going to remember it in the morning.

I never remember it in the morning.

This particular thought wasn’t something I could write down; it was an important email I had intended to send before I went to bed. I wanted the person to get it first thing in the morning. But I couldn’t get up and send it. Why?

I wear contact lenses.

I’ve gotten to the age where I can’t work on my computer without wearing my contacts, and I’m not going to go through the hassle of stumbling around in the middle of the night to put in my contacts, open my computer, compose an email, send it, and then take out my contact lenses again. What a pain.

Wear them to bed? No, I’ve done that a couple of times and I found out that I actually don’t like waking up with little plastic discs superglued to my eyeballs.

So I had to get up earlier than I had planned in the morning to send the email.

You’re probably thinking, why doesn’t this guy just get eyeglasses? DING DING DING. You win a year’s supply of Rice-A-Roni! Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat! 

I haven’t worn glasses in 30 years. Sometime in the late ’90s I became someone who wore contacts exclusively. Was it vanity? Not wanting to carry around and clean glasses all the time? Probably a combination. I just thought that contacts were “easier” to deal with and I looked “better” in contacts. A lot of people think that way.

But a couple of months after the not-being-able-to-send-the-email-at-2-a.m. incident, when I was at my eye doctor appointment, I got a pair of glasses (I had a free pair coming to me, thanks to my insurance). I got them just in case I needed them when I had already taken off my contacts. Those late nights or early mornings. You know, as a backup.

I started wearing them more and more, even during the day and early evenings, when working and watching TV and going to the store. And I started to realize something.

I didn’t like wearing contacts anymore.

Maybe I should clarify that. It’s not the wearing of the contacts I hate; it’s having to put them in in the morning and take them out at night. It’s an irritating chore right up there with flossing my teeth and trimming my eyebrows. (They’re approaching an Andy Rooney-ish level of bushiness.)

How could this happen? I distinctly remember not liking glasses when I was a kid. Having to take them off all of the time to clean them. The little screws becoming loose and having to repair them with a special small screwdriver. The kids calling me “four eyes.” One time a kid got mad at me and snapped them in half.

Of course, one could say that even a person who wears contact lenses could be called “four eyes,” but you can’t really see contact lenses unless you get uncomfortably close to someone, so it’s still two eyes. (Besides, I’d have to change the title of this article.)

I actually like taking my glasses off to clean them! Is that weird? There’s something pleasing, even peaceful about cleaning them. I like the ritual. I like tossing them gently on the table and rubbing between the eyes at the top of my nose, to show that I’m a serious person who is working hard and a little stressed.

I’m also saving money because I no longer have to buy contact lens cleaner and new cases. Those days when an eye is a little dry or watery or red? Before, I’d have to go without a contact in that eye or wait until the irritation subsided. Now that isn’t a problem anymore.

All of this has given me a truly bizarre sense of freedom that’s hard to describe.

(I know I sound like someone who has just discovered gold in their backyard, but it really has been a revelation.)

I keep thinking of people in the past who either didn’t have the option to wear contacts because they weren’t around or simply decided not to wear them. Did Bennett Cerf wear contacts? Ogden Nash? Harold Lloyd? Teddy Roosevelt? Edith Head? Benjamin Franklin? Waldo of “Where’s Waldo” fame? They got along just fine.

The only time I can think wearing contacts would be advantageous is if I were doing something physical. Oh, and being out in the rain or snow. I was shoveling a few weeks ago with my glasses on while sleet was coming down, and I had to go back inside and take them off.

It’s not that I’m abandoning contacts lenses completely. But instead of contacts being what I wear every day and eyeglasses being my backup, I’ve switched things around.

I don’t know what’s happening to me as I get older. First I started to like low-fat milk and bourbon, two things I thought in my twenties I would never like, and then I stopped driving a car. Now I’m going back to wearing eyeglasses?

The only downside? When I take my glasses off, I have these big marks, right above the ears. I have such a giant head. That’s one good thing about contacts. They don’t care how big your head is.

Borrowing a Piece of the Old West in Jackson Hole

At most luxury hotels, the amenities are predictable — plush bathrobes, good toiletries, maybe a spa. At the Rusty Parrot Lodge and Spa in Jackson Hole, you can check out a belt buckle.

Not buy one. Borrow one.

Guests are invited to choose from a collection of more than 60 vintage and commemorative buckles and wear one out for a night on the town. If you need a belt, you can check out one of those, too. It doesn’t feel like filling in a missing piece of a costume; it feels more like finding Jackson Hole’s rhythm and deepening a sense of place.

Instead of standardized amenities that could exist anywhere, more hotels are leaning into experiences that feel specific and personal. Gestures like this go beyond making a stay comfortable; they make it memorable. At the Rusty Parrot Lodge — and yes, there’s a story behind the name — that philosophy shows up in small, tangible ways, starting with the belt buckle library.

The Belt Buckle Library

Brandon Harrison, the general manager of the Rusty Parrot and the son of owner Ron Harrison, grew up at the hotel and has many childhood memories intertwined with the property’s history and personality.

Harrison has been collecting buckles since he was a teenager. His collection is a combination of award belt buckles from local ski events; buckles that represent local businesses and ranches; and buckles that say “Jackson Hole” or Wyoming.” He also collects buckles made in Jackson in the 1970s by Wyoming Studio Arts, particularly those by sculptor James Lind. “My belt buckle collection is entirely buckles of local interest,” he says.

Harrison calls out the rise of the Cowboy Core trend as the inspiration behind lending guests a selection of his buckle collection. Cowboy Core refers to a fashion trend that draws on Western-inspired clothing — think boots, hats, denim, and statement belt buckles — worn as everyday style rather than for function.

A Hotel Built on Personal History

The Rusty Parrot Lodge was opened by Ron Harrison in Jackson Hole in 1990, and it wasn’t just the family business; it was the place where Brandon and his sister grew up. The building was lost to a devastating fire in November 2019 and later rebuilt on the same spot, reopening in 2024.

Set at the gateway to Grand Teton National Park, Jackson Hole has long been a crossroads of outdoor adventure, wildlife, and Western culture. The belt buckle library, available year-round, fits naturally into that rhythm, whether guests are visiting for summer hiking or winter skiing.

At first glance, the hotel is a classic mountain lodge: Western art, oversized windows framing the Tetons, and cozy fireplaces that invite you to settle in. But spend a little time here and you start to realize this goes beyond design touches.

The downstairs lobby bar, called The Den, showcases a collection of Western art gathered by the Harrison family and salvaged from the original building. And the hot-from-the-oven cookies served each afternoon in the second-floor library are more than a snack: They’re a continuation of a family ritual.

“I used to work as a bellboy after school and I’d do my homework in between helping guests,” Harrison says. “The hotel chef baked me cookies so I could have cookies and milk while I did my homework, and that memory has become a part of our guests’ experience.”

That sense of continuity isn’t accidental. “We’ve always tried to embody a timeless aesthetic, authentic local character, and quality finishes that patina and improve with age,” Harrison says. “Crafted brass belt buckles have all those qualities, which is what led me to start collecting them. I’m happy to share something personal that can help our guests have a more memorable experience in Jackson Hole.”

What’s in a Name?

Like most things at the Rusty Parrot Lodge, the hotel’s name reveals a piece of Harrison family history. The official rule for curious guests is simple: “You have to ask a Harrison,” meaning only a family member can tell the full story. In practice, though, you’ll often find a staff member willing to share at least part of it.

The name “Rusty Parrot” functions a bit like an Easter egg, something guests discover as they settle in. The name itself feels a little quirky at first, more like something a pirate-themed hideaway in Florida would be called, rather than a lodge in Wyoming, but that’s part of the appeal. Look up from the front desk and you’ll spot it: a rusty parrot, unexpected and slightly out of step with the rest of the decor. Somehow, it just works.

That subtle quirkiness is part of the appeal. The more time you spend at the hotel, the more those small, personal details come to light.

More Than Just a Box of Buckles: Why These Small Touches Matter

What the Rusty Parrot Lodge is doing with its belt buckle library isn’t really about accessories; it’s about becoming part of the story. Increasingly, travelers are looking for experiences that go beyond aesthetics, something that allows them to engage with a place rather than simply occupy it.

That shift is changing how hotels think about hospitality. Instead of competing on scale — bigger lobbies, more amenities, more everything — many smaller properties are trading scale for soul, focusing on details that feel rooted, specific, and human.

A borrowed belt buckle might seem like a tiny gesture, but it changes the experience. It invites guests to step into the culture of a place, even briefly, and the small-town innocence of handing over a treasured object to a guest, albeit temporarily, is part of what makes this so memorable.

How Other Hotels Are Doing This

While a belt buckle library may be unique — the Rusty Parrot Lodge is likely the only hotel formally lending out buckles and belts — the idea behind it reflects a broader shift in hospitality.

Hotels are increasingly looking for ways to connect guests to their surroundings through small, tangible experiences that tie in to history and culture, rather than standardized amenities.

Hotel Emma, San Antonio

Hotel Emma takes a similar approach, grounding the guest experience in the building’s past as the Pearl Brewery. Rather than erasing that history, the hotel leans into it, weaving industrial elements into everyday spaces. Guests can browse a thoughtfully curated library or settle into Sternewirth, the hotel’s tavern, where former fermentation tanks have been transformed into intimate seating and some of the most sought-after spots in the room, if you know where to look for them. These aren’t just design choices; they’re small reminders of the building’s former life as an industrial powerhouse, repurposed to combine the feel of a lived-in space with luxury.

Hotel Distil, Louisville

In Louisville, Hotel Distil leans into this idea with a daily ritual that connects guests to Kentucky’s bourbon history. Each evening at 7:33 p.m. — a reference to the year Prohibition ended (7:33 p.m. = 1933 in military time) — guests gather in the lobby for a bourbon toast. It’s quick, a little ceremonial, and an easy way to connect with the city’s whiskey culture, even if you didn’t plan your whole trip around it. Guests even receive a “prescription card” at check-in, a lighthearted nod to the Prohibition practice of dispensing alcohol for “medicinal purposes.”

The Details That Stay with You

At the Rusty Parrot Lodge, connection might look like something as simple as a belt buckle.

Worn for an evening, returned the next day, it’s a small, temporary thing that changes how a place feels while you’re in it. And increasingly, that’s what travelers want: not just somewhere to stay, but somewhere that leaves a mark.

Cover: The Arrow Collar Man’s Girlfriend

J.C. Leyendecker produced 322 covers for the Post — one more than Normal Rockwell, who greatly admired the older artist. In addition to creating the iconic Arrow Collar Man, the beau ideal of masculine beauty in the ’20s, Leyendecker created covers for the Post from 1903 to 1943. Many of these featured holiday themes, including his series of New Year babies, which appeared on the Post’s first issue of the year for 35 years. He also painted 27 Easter covers that allowed him to indulge his sense of elegance and his appreciation of fashion, like in this March 23, 1940, cover
titled Easter Fashion.

 

This article is featured in the March/April 2026 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.

News of the Week: Apple at 50, Restaurant Dress Codes, and Do You Know How to Pronounce Thoreau?

Read This!

Here are five new books to read this spring (or at least buy – you can read them when you want to).

Apple: The First 50 Years by David Pogue. A stunning, in-depth look at the company as it hits the half-century mark. This isn’t just for Apple geeks; it’s an interesting look at personal computing history in general.

Pogue also did a feature on Apple for CBS Sunday Morning.

Uploaded to YouTube by CBS Sunday Morning

America’s Founding Son by Bob Crawford. According to Crawford, bass player for the Avett Brothers, John Quincy Adams doesn’t get enough credit.

Ghost Town by Tom Perrotta. The new novel by the acclaimed writer is about eighth-grader Jimmy Perrini, who experiences a tragic event in 1970s suburban New Jersey that changes his relationship with his family and friends.

How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay by Jenny Lawson. The subtitle of this book from Lawson, also known as The Bloggess, is “Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself.” Sounds like something we should all read.

The Writer’s Room by Katie Da Cunha Lewin. A look at where writers did their work, including Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Ray Bradbury, and Harper Lee.

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Steak

One of the benefits of getting older is that you’re more comfortable with your decisions and your stances, even if they do seem a little strict and/or stodgy.

Case in point: Ruth’s Chris Steak House and their dress code policy. They don’t want you coming in with your sloppy attire and baseball caps, and it has caused a big debate online.

This is the official policy as to what is not accepted at their locations, as stated on the chain’s site:

Gym wear, pool attire, tank tops, clothing with offensive graphics or language, revealing clothing or exposed undergarments. Kindly remove all hats when entering the restaurant. Guests wearing ball caps are asked to dine in the bar/lounge.

Who would take issue with that? Is it that unreasonable? We’re not talking about Chili’s or Dunkin’ Donuts or your local dive bar (though if you also dressed nicely for those places I wouldn’t see anything wrong with it). We’re talking about a nice steakhouse, and would it kill you to, at least for one night, leave the ripped shorts and belly shirts at home?

I’ve always wondered about the name, Ruth’s Chris Steak House. It has an interesting backstory.

Barbie’s Nightmare House

This Barbie event in Florida didn’t turn out the way fans expected, but it did give us the great phrase “that terrible niche fandom of failed events.”

You Don’t Know Thoreau

You know how to pronounce Henry David Thoreau, right? I’m sure you have the “Henry” and the “David” part down pat, but what about “Thoreau?” Are you like me and you pronounce it “Thor-ROW?”

Well, that’s wrong!

According to the people behind the new PBS documentary series about the man with the cabin, Henry David Thoreau, everyone in the world has been pronouncing the name incorrectly for as long as The Saturday Evening Post has been around. It’s “THU-ro.”

Nothing makes sense anymore.

Happy 100th to Gene Shalit!

Now there’s a name you probably haven’t heard in a long time. The former Today film critic celebrated his 100th birthday last week and got a Smucker’s jar honor from Al Roker.

RIP Dash Crofts, James Tolkan, Mary Beth Hurt, Tracy Kidder, Chip Taylor, and Marcia Ann Burrs

Dash Crofts was one half of Seals & Crofts, known for such songs as “Summer Breeze,” “Diamond Girl,” and “We May Never Pass This Way Again.” He died last week at the age of 87.

Uploaded to YouTube by Seals and Crofts

James Tolkan played Principal Strickland in the Back to the Future movies and also appeared in Top Gun, Dick Tracy, Serpico, Love and Death, and WarGames. He was also a regular on TV shows like Nero Wolfe, The Hat Squad, and Cobra, and was in the original cast of Broadway’s Glengarry Glen Ross. He died last week at the age of 94.

Mary Beth Hurt was an acclaimed Broadway actress who also appeared in such films as The World According to Garp, Interiors, Chilly Scenes of Winter, and Six Degrees of Separation. She died Saturday at the age of 79.

Tracy Kidder won a Pulitzer Prize for The Soul of a New Machine. His other works include House, Among Schoolchildren, and Good Prose. He died last week at the age of 80.

Chip Taylor wrote such songs as “Wild Thing,” “Angel of the Morning,” and “(Try) Just a Little Bit Harder.” He was the younger brother of actor Jon Voight. He died last week at the age of 86.

Marcia Ann Burrs was a character actress who played Mrs. Claus in several TV movies and appeared on such shows as Mad Men, Moonlighting, Grey’s Anatomy, and How I Met Your Mother. She died last week at the age of 85.

This Week in History

Robert Mitchum Released from Jail (March 30, 1949)

Mitchum was arrested in 1948 for marijuana possession, along with actress Lila Leeds. He served time at two different facilities and was released after 50 days.

RKO stood by Mitchum, and his career didn’t suffer at all. The same couldn’t be said of Leeds.

Falkland Islands War Begins (April 2 1982)

After Argentina invaded the British territories, the United Kingdom mounted an offense via air, land, and sea. The conflict lasted for 74 days. Over 900 were killed and more than 2000 injured.

This Week in Saturday Evening Post History: Kodak Cameras (April 1, 1961)

If you’re going out to a restaurant or to church for Easter, make sure you dress appropriately.

Easter Dinner

But if you’re staying home for Easter dinner, here are some things to make.

Instead of choosing one ham recipe to link to, here are 21 recipes from Delish, including Pineapple-Glazed Ham, Mustard Baked Ham, and Root Beer-Glazed Ham. It’s Always Autumn has these Easter Bunny Rolls, the New York Times has this Hash Brown Casserole, and Food Network has Spring Peas with Dates and Walnuts.

And for dessert, Click Americana has an Easter Bonnet Cake, The Pioneer Woman has Carrot Cake Cobbler, and Sally’s Baking Addiction has Easter Sugar Cookies.

Next Week’s Holidays and Events

Women’s Final Four/Men’s Final Four (April 4-6)

TNT, TBS, and TruTV will have the men’s final four games on Saturday starting at 6 p.m. ET. and then the championship game on Monday at 8:30 p.m. The women’s final four games air tonight, Friday, at 9 p.m. on ESPN. The championship game airs Sunday at 3 p.m. on ABC.

You might also be able to watch the games on Paramount+ and HBO Max but everything about TV and streaming is so confusing right now I’m not really sure.

Winston Churchill Day (April 9)

The proclamation was made by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966.

Promissory Lives

Truman Ward was 19 when he read his first Wallace Henneke short story, “That’s Who We Are,” found in an anthology published in the mid-1970s. Smitten with the story, with Henneke’s style, Truman went looking for more, found some, and eventually discovered Henneke was alive, living little more than an hour away. Ward wrote him a letter — a fan letter — and a few weeks later was elated when he received a handwritten reply.

Your comments are very kind. Thank you. My best.

Below that: Wallace R. Henneke

* * *

Ward’s parents divorced when he was 15. Both were university faculty: father, Business, mother, English. During the divorce, they went to great lengths to explain how the dissolution of their marriage would not affect their love for him. “It’ll be all right,” they both said, too often. At 15, he couldn’t put his feelings into words. He was angry and frightened and his parents wouldn’t stop trying to reassure him. When they remarried a little over a year later, calling the time spent divorced “a year of genuine growth,” they asked, too often, what he was feeling. His reply: “Pretty much the same as when you divorced.”

At 16, a handsome boy, he thought his parents were self-indulgent. Tired of their attempts to comfort him, he waited a couple months after the remarriage and, one evening after dinner, both of them asking, again, how he was doing, said: “Wake up, please. Quit acting like you don’t know how I feel.” Their stunned expressions emboldened him. “Quit acting like you’re surprised by life all the time. Act like adults, for Christ’s sake.” He got up, started to clean the table, and when they tried to help he told them to go for a walk, together. “Here’s an idea,” he said, “talk to each other. Listen to each other. That might work.”

* * *

“That’s Who We Are” chronicled the lives of Benjamin and April Willis. Sweethearts throughout adolescence, Benjamin and April produced two daughters and a son. They fought. They had jobs, pinched pennies, took their kids on vacations, had aspirations and dreams and shared them with each other. They occasionally attended church, paid their bills, fed and clothed their kids, painted the house, mowed the lawn, did the laundry, and demonstrated to their offspring how to live. When they talked to each other — this fascinated Truman Ward — when they talked to each other, their conversations were almost inconsequential. The language — the unadorned language they used, the unadorned language of Wallace Henneke — Truman Ward found it compelling. The story ends: Benjamin and April have died. Their children mourn them and then go on with their lives, and all the while Henneke’s writing has been making it clear that the going-on with their lives has been specified by their parents as what to do. They’ve been taught to do that. Someone passes, life goes on.

* * *

There were six letters, six each way, between Truman and Wallace Henneke before Truman got up the nerve to ask if he might visit. Truman was 22, a senior at Eastern, a business major/English minor. He’d found stories by Henneke in magazines, college quarterlies, and anthologies. A visit with Wallace Henneke reeked of adventure.

Henneke’s reply, written in the same black ink:

I’m retired. Call first. Afternoons are best.

A phone number below the signature.

* * *

“Take a seat,” Henneke said. He pointed to a chair, and was sitting down on the couch when his wife walked into the room, nodded at Truman Ward, leaned toward her husband, and cocked an ear. Henneke pointed to her and said, “My wife, Liz.”

Ward, in the process of sitting, straightened up, stepped over and extended a hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Thank you for allowing me to visit.”

“My proofreader,” Henneke said, “editor, too.”

She smiled, shrugged, then pointed her chin at her husband. “I’m going,” she said. She tipped her head to Truman Ward, said “nice to meet you,” and departed. Henneke slapped his hands together, sat back and motioned for Truman to make himself comfortable. When Ward was seated Henneke said, “Okay, go. What brings you here? I’m curious. What do we talk about?” Henneke touched his chin, then rubbed it. “It’s the writing, I suppose.”

Truman Ward rolled his shoulders. “Well, yes. The stories, I guess. I suppose I just wanted to meet you and tell you how much I enjoy your writing.” Eyes on Henneke, he mugged, folded his hands together and sat back. “The stories are wonderful.” He paused, one thumbnail digging at the other. “They’re deceptively simple.” Truman had shown Henneke’s stories around campus, shared them with students and faculty. Not a single person had heard of him. His English-professor mother had never heard of him. “Is that okay to say?”

“They’re literal,” Truman continued, and he almost laughed, not out of embarrassment but because the idea of simple stories being so intriguing, he couldn’t find words for that. “I think this is right …” He paused, leaned over and scratched at an ear. “They’re almost whimsical.” He’d been worried he’d be embarrassed, but felt no embarrassment at all. He smiled, then, “They are whimsical and …,” he searched for a word. Charming? Not charming. Not enchanting, not magical, not delightful. Henneke’s prose — sans formal rigor — it was …

“So, do you write?”

Truman was surprised by the question and shouldn’t have been. He’d made attempts. He’d piddled with poetry since high school, results mortifying. He’d never shared a word with anyone. Prose, the same. He’d write something, think it impressive, then watch it wither away. “I don’t think I have what it takes,” he said.

Henneke didn’t respond and it went quiet, Truman feeling, for the first time, discomfort. Henneke, lips slightly parted, leaned forward, put a hand down on the couch, and said, “If you came to find out what it takes, I can’t help. But advice? Here’s some: Don’t think so much.” A wry grin. “Do you think about eating when you’re eating?”

Truman laughed. “Well …”

Henneke held up a hand, eased back into the couch. “Just write,” he said. “It’s only typing, or scribbling. Really. Typing or scribbling with a purpose.” He paused. “Most of my stories have not been published … they were rejected. I knew that, but submitted them anyway, hoping for luck. Then, there are some stories — stories I worried over — I never submitted. Writing them was just me putting in my time. I didn’t know it when I was writing them, but afterwards, I’d wait a couple days and read them again and see that they weren’t much more than exercises. So, after all my years, I guess around 40 of my stories made it into print, and I imagine I was paid for — I don’t know — maybe half.” Henneke rubbed his forearm, eyes down, thinking, then laughed. “I’m submitting stories and I’m thinking, ‘What’s with these editors?’ I’m wondering what they’re after. I read all the time and tell myself, ‘Hey, I’m as good as that.’ And I keep sending stuff out and telling myself I’m good. I’m serious. I mean it. My stuff was good, okay?” Henneke paused, nodding to himself. “At least my good stuff was good.” Another pause. “But I knew all along, publishing is a business. Anything with dollars involved is business. Editors and publishers, they have a bottom line, right? They have to know their business. There’s always somebody they have to keep happy, and it’s probably not writers.” Henneke paused, lowered his eyes and puffed his cheeks. “When a story got published, that meant something to me. Some editor must have figured my story was right for the market.”

Truman smiled. He was thrilled just sitting there, listening to Henneke make sense.

“I felt vindicated,” Henneke said. “That’s the truth. I felt like I belonged, like I’d achieved something, and I needed that.” He paused, a finger to his lips, then laughed again and looked at Truman as if he’d been sharing secrets, which, in fact, he had.

They were in Henneke’s living room: a TV set, a couch, a chair with an ottoman (where Truman was perched), a chair without an ottoman, an end table, and a coffee table. Framed photographs. A couple lamps. Hardwood floors and a rug. Light from a bay window. Not a book in sight. They talked two hours plus, and then Truman Ward stood, thanked Henneke, and told him he had to be on his way. He’d gone in with jitters and came out beaming. He’d met Wallace Henneke and his wife, and sat in their living room. Wasn’t that something?

Henneke revealed he’d made a living in printing his entire life — a union printer — and he swore he loved every single day of it. When Ward asked if he’d ever been interested in writing as a profession, Henneke laughed. “Oh, come on … try to make a living as a writer? Sounded impossible. I was around real writers a couple times. Teachers and writers, academics and so forth. I was invited to some events and went. University campuses, usually. I enjoyed those but was never sure why I was invited or where I stood. I didn’t have the background. The conversations were above my head, everybody talking about literature … I should have known that going in. Truth is, I was lost in most conversations. I wanted to talk about printing but nobody seemed interested.”

The day they met, Wallace Henneke was 72 years old. His wife was 73.

* * *

The next day, the day after he’d visited Henneke, Truman Ward dialed the Henneke phone, listened to it ring too long — thought about hanging up — should he do that? Hearing Henneke answer, he said “Mr. Henneke, this is Truman Ward again. We met yesterday. I’m sorry to bother you, I hope I’m not imposing but …”

“You’re not,” Henneke said, then a pause. “Not at all.”

“Well, I wanted to ask you something yesterday and I forgot about it and I hope I’m not bothering you …”

“It’s okay,” Henneke said, “you’re not.”

Ward paused, took a deep breath. “I’m curious. Are you still writing?” Hearing it, Truman thought the question undiplomatic. Invasive. Stupid, even.

“Sure,” Henneke said. Another slight pause, then: “Not every day. That’s what I should be doing, I know, but yeah, I’m still trying.”

Silence at both ends.

“I was just curious,” Ward said.

“Well …”

“Mr. Henneke, I want you to know …”

“Wallace,” Henneke said. “Call me Wallace. Everybody does.”

“Okay.” Truman ran a tongue over his teeth. “I’m sorry for bothering you. You’ve been very generous.”

“You’re not bothering me,” Henneke said. “Time I got plenty of. Let me tell you something. I haven’t talked about my writing with anybody in a decade. My wife, she looks at the stuff and we talk about it. I get her opinion. Besides her, nobody. So now there’s you. Call whenever, but early afternoon’s best for me.”

* * *

“Roscoe’s Catapult,” published in 1983, was one of Truman Ward’s favorite Henneke stories, a quasi-fable about a junkyard owner and the machines he invented; some large, some larger, some small. They buzzed, whirred, rattled, chugged, backfired, and smoked. Henneke told Truman he’d modeled it on stories from the golden age of science fiction, referring to that stuff as “whiz-bam” science fiction. Roscoe’s machines were powerful. Some were handheld, some anchored, some on wheels, and some hung from wires and frames. They’d drag, push, lift, tear, claw and crush, all smelling of oil and rust. In Roscoe’s eyes — in Wallace Henneke’s words — everything in the yard, everything dubbed “junk,” everything was in transition, on its way to becoming something else. Maybe something important.

Roscoe’s catapult, anchored in the rear, pitched heavy items around the yard, half for Roscoe’s amusement, half because it beat dragging or pushing. A local constable passing the junkyard sees something in his peripheral vision, something flying through the air and landing with a crash. He stops, turns around, and drives back into the yard, discovering the catapult. He watches Roscoe load it and hurl one more mass of something through the air and, being somewhere between annoyed and angry, the constable spends the better part of an hour in Roscoe’s cramped office, lecturing the junkyard owner on public safety. He is stern, sanctimonious, and while he rambles on, Roscoe remains standing, head nodding, dressed in stained coveralls, boots unlaced, cap on his head, listening as if he were a child who’s ridden a bicycle through the neighbor’s flowers. When the constable finishes, Roscoe thanks him for stopping and promises to be more restrained in the future.

In the future he is not more restrained. He builds a smaller catapult and employs it, too. The constable never returns.

“Our Diner,” from 1991, centers on a husband and wife who run a diner in a rundown neighborhood in a large city. Living in a trailer behind their Morning Star Diner, Possum and Martina (no surname given) are generous to a fault, allow the less fortunate to run a tab, help some with a job and, when pressed, offer laconic advice. The diner has strict rules: no foul language, no loud talking, use “please,” “thank you,” “pardon me,” and “excuse me.” Wash your hands, sit up straight, chew with mouth closed. Cash preferred, no checks. Credit cards accepted reluctantly. Take a mint as you leave. The diner is spotless, no stains on menus, no dried catsup or mustard on dispensers, no spilled sugar, salt, or pepper. Behind the counter — all that moving around, handing off plates, silverware, coffee mugs, cups, glasses, ice — that goes on without incident, as if choreographed.

Not much happens in “Our Diner.” A pair of motorcycle riders are asked to apologize to the other customers for their bad language. They do. A drunk is primed with coffee and offered a free meal. He takes it. A storefront preacher worries about the lack of attendance at Our Lord Will Return chapel, which in better times was a shoe store. The story ends with a conversation between Martina and a neighborhood girl, unmarried, pregnant and afraid.

“Honey,” Martina says, “you’d be crazy not to be afraid.” The girl leaks tears. “Here, stand up for a second,” Martina says, and she gets the girl to stand up.

“Go on, feel your tummy,” Martina says.

The girl puts hands on her abdomen, inhales and shivers.

There are two women at the far end of the diner, ears cocked. Martina touches the girl’s arm, motions for her to follow and walks down to where the women sit. When the women look up, Martina says, “How many children you two got?” She already knows. Mrs. Bradley has four, one dead from drugs. Mrs. Henry has two daughters and is a grandma three times. Mrs. Henry stands up, reaches for the girl’s hand, and pats it. “You Miss Irene’s granddaughter?”

The girl nods.

Mrs. Henry looks at Mrs. Bradley, looks at Martina, then raises a hand to the pregnant girl’s shoulder. “You staying with your grandmama?”

Whispered: “Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Henry stands up straighter, pulls her shoulders back and shakes her head. “You tell Miss Irene that you need anything, Mrs. Henry and Mrs. Bradley need to know … hear me? Right away, understand me?”

Mrs. Henry looks to Martina and smiles. “This baby just one more mouth to feed,” she says. “Ain’t that what you all want?” She bursts out laughing, and Mrs. Bradley laughs and Martina puts her head back and laughs, and the pregnant girl feels her swelling belly and smiles.

Truman Ward’s mother read “Our Diner” — her son insisted — and found it “simplistic.” Her son didn’t argue. He agreed. “Whatever do you see in this?” his mother asked him.

He shrugged, and a day later he thought about it and came up with his response, never delivered: “Well, it was a half-hour or so, well spent.”

* * *

“My son is — well — he’s just starting,” Beth Ward said, glancing at Truman as she was speaking. “He admires your writing, I’m sure you know that, and I suspect he’s wanting to develop something that is his own.” She paused.

At the table were Truman, his mother, and Wallace and Liz Henneke. They were in Charleston, off campus at a small restaurant/bar where Truman worked a few evenings a week. The Henneke’s hadn’t known Beth Ward would be in attendance when they accepted Truman’s invitation to celebrate his first publication, two poems in the campus literary magazine.

Wallace Henneke smiled, his wife raised her eyebrows.

“I remember the first story I had accepted,” Henneke said.

His wife lifted her fork, pointed it at him, finished chewing and said, “Lemonade.”

“That’s it,” Henneke said.

“Where?” Beth Ward asked.

Henneke shrugged. “God, I don’t know. Lost to time, I’d say.” He paused and looked at his wife. “Do we have a copy?”

She shrugged.

“You didn’t keep a copy?” Beth Ward, on the offensive.

Her son dropped his hands into his lap, looked at his mother, and frowned.

She turned to him. “What?” she said.

Truman turned to Henneke, lowered his chin, and said, “I know this is putting you on the spot, but can I ask you what you think?”

Henneke looked at his wife, rubbed his nose, looked at Truman. “You can.”

Beth Ward straightened herself, chin up a bit.

“First,” Henneke said, “I liked the poems because they were written by you, and don’t consider that faint praise before I finish, okay? I like them because you worked on them and it shows. They’re economical. That’s what I think. They were finished. They had a finish. And …” He paused. “They were metrical. And they were reasoned. Does that make sense?”

Beth Ward was listening intently. She’d given her son a line-by-line review of the two poems, an academic review; he’d known it was coming. It was neither helpful nor unhelpful, basic classroom jargon.

“Secondly — we do have some knowledge of each other — so you know where this is coming from: I like convention. Rhyme. Meter. Metaphor. I know we’ve not talked about poetry that much, but I do read poetry on occasion and I find a lot of what I read — I don’t know — lacking.”

Beth Ward blinked. Did he say what she thought he said? What was he reading?

“You used an onomatopoeia.” Henneke smiled and watched Truman Ward smile. “I liked that a lot. Sounds engage, don’t they? At least that’s what I think. And this nice phrase: ‘pathological pronouns.’ I laughed out loud at that. I did. And I agree with you — all this ‘I’ ‘you’ ‘me’ stuff? We’ve talked about that, right? Can’t stand it. Pronoun salad.” Henneke watched Truman, waited, then said, “Be happy, that’s what I think. Be satisfied. The writing was clear, I was engaged, I understood. That’s the deal, isn’t it?”

Truman Ward nodded. “Yes,” he said, “that’s the deal.”

Beth Ward chimed in. “It’s too early,” she said. “It’s way too early to say where this is going.”

Liz Henneke looked over at Wallace Henneke and Wallace blinked at her, looked at Truman Ward and shrugged. Was there more to say?

“I’m happy,” Truman said. “Thank you all. And if you want to know what I think about the poems — this is me, having rewritten them any number of times — here’s what I think.” He looked at Henneke, his wife, then turned to his mother. “There were no blunders, nothing weirdly out of place. Nothing clumsy.”

Truman’s mother was leaning back, face screwed up, trying to understand. Wallace Henneke leaned out over his plate, raised a finger to point it at Truman. “Exactly,” he said. “We’ve talked about that, I know we have.”

“We have,” Truman said. Henneke laughed out loud and slapped the table.

“Wait a minute,” his mother said.

“You know,” Truman said, “every time I worked on one of those, it mutated. Everything was in play. The words and the ideas. It wasn’t starting over, it was a reset. I was chipping away at something.”

His mother had come up the day before, late afternoon, and they’d gone to dinner, where she graded his first published poems — at length — and he listened carefully. When he walked her back to her hotel, her telling him on the way that she and his father were having problems again, she got to the edge of being weepy. He walked her into her room, let her go on a bit, and finally asked, “Do you love Dad?”

The hurt look she gave him pissed him off.

“Do you tell him? Say it out loud?” Her eyes widened. “Do you think he’s always sure of himself?”

She waved her hands at nothing, scrunched up her face. “Mom,” he said, “how can you be so smart and yet …”

“You don’t listen to me,” she said. She looked old when she said that.

“Look,” he said, “say what’s on your mind. I’ll listen. Tell me. I want to know.” She tightened her jaw and glared at him.

“Whatever it is, say it so somebody can hear it,” he said. “That’s how it works.” She looked away. “I love you, you know,” he said. “Dad does, too. That’s the good news. The bad news is you act like that’s not enough. That’s how I read it. I imagine that’s how Dad reads it, too. So, if it’s not enough, what’s missing?” He turned and opened the door, speaking over his shoulder. “You know, I’ve inherited some of your tastes, some of your drive and your ambition, and I’m glad of that. Really, I am.”

She looked startled, then hurt.

“I’m not going to be a writer,” he said. “I know that. I don’t have the motivation.”

* * *

By the time he was 30, Truman Ward had married, finished his MBA, and was working in publishing. If he’d ever written another poem, no one had seen it. Now he negotiated, wrote, and reviewed contracts, sat in meetings centered on money, marketing, production timelines — what was selling and what wasn’t. The writers he met were intelligent, engaging, and, for the most part, easy to work with. He wrote Wallace Henneke on occasion and usually received a reply. After his daughter was born he wrote, telling the Hennekes he’d become a father, inquired about their health, and when he finally received a letter back from Elizabeth Henneke, she said her husband was not doing well, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and was still trying to write, hoping that would hold the disease at bay. Truman wrote back, sending condolences to Elizabeth and a note to Wallace, asking if he might visit. It was months before he received a reply, written in Wallace’s shaky hand, thanking him for his note. No mention of a visit.

He let more time go by and finally he called. There was a waver in Elizabeth’s voice when she answered, and it took a moment for her to connect Truman’s voice and name with someone from her past. When she made the connection she sounded winded. “Oh my God, yes, Truman, yes, how are you?” When he asked if he might visit, she hesitated, then, “Oh, maybe that would be all right.” Spoken like she was unsure about just what she was agreeing to.

He mentioned a date, two weeks away, a Saturday.

“Yes,” she said. “That would be wonderful. And…” She paused and he could hear her breathing, imagined her concentrating. “I’ll write it down and remember,” she said. He pictured her blinking, hoping she was getting everything right. “Wallace has some problems, you see. His memory.” He could hear her breathing. “He’s trying,” she said

“Well,” he said, “I’ll see you in two weeks, okay? I’ll be there and I’ll phone before I arrive. Will that work?”

“Oh, fine, yes,” she said. A pause, then: “I’ll let Wallace know. He might — I don’t know — he has good days. Let’s hope for that, shall we?”

* * *

He was greeted by an old man with drooping eyes, a few days’ growth of stubble, wearing khakis, house slippers and a sweater over a sweatshirt. Wallace Henneke stepped out onto the porch, holding the screen door open behind him. “Hello there,” he said. He cocked his head, looked over Truman Ward’s shoulder, then shifted his gaze and studied Truman’s face. Truman said nothing. Henneke coughed and lowered his eyes. He’d lost weight. He licked his lips and took one step, adjusting his balance, and then, without making eye contact said, “I’m okay.” He was shaking his head, as if admitting a mistake.

Truman Ward felt an urge to touch Wallace Henneke, put a hand on his shoulder or on his arm. Were they friends? They’d only ever shaken hands. “Mr. Henneke — Wallace — it’s Truman Ward. Remember me?”

Henneke inhaled, turned, and stared back into the house, turned back to look over Truman Ward’s shoulder, then made eye contact with him again. His gaze held little effort and little intent. Truman waited to speak.

“Okay,” Henneke said, “I think I remember,” and right then his wife came to the door and reached up and touched her husband’s hand, still holding that door open, and he looked at her and beamed. “It’s him,” he told her. “He’s come about the story.” She touched her husband’s shoulder and brought him back into the house. When she got him on the couch, she sat beside him and he looked at his wife, turned his entire frame to her, smiling, then slowly turned to Truman Ward, still standing. “Your story was very interesting,” Wallace Henneke said.

* * *

The drive home seemed long. Beside him, a folder Elizabeth Henneke had thrust into his hands as he was leaving. “Most days he just sits at his computer,” she said. “He turns it on and sits.”

The visit was hardly a half hour — an uncomfortable half hour — before Henneke looked at his wife and said, “I’d like to lay down now.” She helped him from the room, and when she returned she seemed penitent, like there was something to explain and she didn’t know where to start. “We’ve got someone coming in now,” she said, and she looked down at hands clasped in her lap, thumb rubbing thumb. “A nurse comes mornings and some afternoons.” She swallowed, avoided looking at Truman Ward, and when she finally did she said, “I’m afraid.” That brought a lonely smile to her face. “I know how this is going to go and I’m lonely already.” She huffed, inhaled, raised her chin in an attempt to hold something back. “I’m mad at him,” she said. She leaned forward, toward Truman Ward. “Isn’t that awful?” Brow furrowed, rubbing her hands, she said, “It is, I know it is. It’s just awful. But I can’t help it, I am just so mad at him.”

* * *

In the folder was what Truman assumed was Henneke’s last attempt to write a story. Three versions, three attempts, three different titles, each with Elizabeth’s red ink circling and underlining, with questions and comments in the margins.

In “A Promissory Life,” a young boy writes notes in lieu of speaking, and grows to be a man who does the same. What’s in those notes? That’s never revealed, and when “A Promissory Life” dead-ends, Liz writes: is this it? circled in red.

“Dear Serendipity” focuses on the notes again, content still not revealed, and a boy grows up to be a man, and throughout his life, boyhood to manhood, he writes notes, drops them in random places, tapes them to light poles, hides them in library books, staples them to community billboards, leaves them on church steps. People discover these notes. Some discard them, some are amused, some are curious and one becomes obsessed. Liz Henneke’s running comment: What do these notes say? Wallace, what do they mean?

In “I’m Ashamed to Admit This,” the notes are confessions written by an old man who mails them to names picked at random from a phone book. Much of the story is combing through the phone book, the old man, pencil at his lips, addressing his unrevealed messages.

In red, over and over: Why? Wallace, why is he doing this?

* * *

When Wallace Henneke finally died at 83, his wife boxed up all his manuscripts — finished and unfinished, published and unpublished — and put them in the basement, and that is where their son found them after his mother passed.

The Henneke boy, his two sisters, they worked their way through those boxes, marveling not so much at their father’s stories but at the red ink their mother spread across them, flagging typos and grammatical errors, making comments on content and leaving messages in the margins: I love this, Wallace or This makes no sense!

The eldest daughter took those boxes home, stored them in a closet, promising herself she’d get to them some day. Nothing like that happened. The two boxes held something their parents did, that’s all. She didn’t actually forget, she intended to get around to it; she said that to her brother and sister and that was good enough for them. The intending was plenty enough. Then her brother died early; he was single, and his sisters wept and said it wasn’t fair. The sisters clung to each other until the youngest moved to Florida. It was the weather, she said. The eldest stayed just outside Rantoul, never forgetting, always intending, promising herself she’d go through the boxes in her closet … if for no other reason than she’d see her mother’s handwriting, read her father’s words, and she’d promised herself.

 

 

 

In a Word: That Blazer Is Fire!

Senior managing editor and logophile Andy Hollandbeck reveals the sometimes surprising roots of common English words and phrases. Remember: Etymology tells us where a word comes from, but not what it means today.

It has been said that English can be a difficult language to learn if it isn’t spoke at home, in large part because it’s so often inconsistent. Even native English speakers complain about how illogical it can be. If infants are babies, for example, why do we have infantry in the Army? If octo- indicates “eight” — as in octopus and octagon — why is October the tenth month? And why do we call mixed drinks cocktails when they contain neither tails nor … well, you get the picture.

You can imagine, then, the confusion that might arise when a student of English learns that blaze is another word for a “fire” or “flame” but then hears about stylish men and women going in public wearing blazers. Is being on fire in fashion now?

These English oddities always result from centuries of language change, and often from blurred lines between concrete and metaphorical uses of words. Blazer is no different.

The word blaze has been part of the language all the way back to Old English (blæse). Then, as now, it meant “flame” or “bright fire.” That “bright” part is meaningful here — taking the word’s history back even further, the word stems from a Proto-Germanic root that meant “white” or “shining.”

Fast-forward to more modern times (linguistically), and that sense of white or shining is still in use. As far back as the 17th century, in a northern English dialect, blaze was what people called a light spot on the face of a horse, cow, or other farm animal. From this sense, and not much later, it applied to white marks left on a tree to mark one’s progress through an unknown area — normally, by cutting off some bark to expose the white wood underneath. This is what is meant be “blazing a trail.”

So blaze had a long history relating not just to flame but to things being bright, and being noticeable or notable because of that brightness. And that’s how we get to a nice, fashionable blazer:

In 1825, the first college boating team in Cambridge was formed at St. John’s College. The Lady Margaret Boat Club — named for the group’s benefactress — began wearing loose-fitting jackets made from a bright red fabric. Though they were primarily intended to keep the rowers warm during morning practices and competitions, they also served as a uniform that allowed spectators to identify the team from a distance. Because they were bright and stood out, they were said to “blaze.” After a few decades, the jackets themselves came to be known as blazers.

Those jackets caught on — both in style and vibrancy (or garishness) — with other rowing teams. Those teams were relatively small, making membership somewhat prestigious, and so rowers wore their blazers around campus as status symbols, similar to letter jackets today. Soon, students both on and off the boating teams were sporting them.

And from those on-campus beginnings, the blazer, you might say, set the fashion world ablaze.

Review: Fantasy Life — Movies for the Rest of Us with Bill Newcott

Fantasy Life

⭐️ ⭐️

Rating: R

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

Stars: Amanda Peet, Matthew Shear, Judd Hirsch

Writer/Director: Matthew Shear

 

Any film with a cast that includes Amanda Peet, Judd Hirsch, Bob Balaban, Andrea Martin, Holland Taylor, and Jessica Harper is going to have a whole heap o’ goodwill going for it from the get-go. Perhaps that helps explain why this underwritten, too-casually directed comedy won the prestigious Audience Award at the SXSW festival and the Best Ensemble prize at the San Diego International Film Festival.

Still, even at a fleeting hour and a half, Fantasy Life had me wishing just about every single character would just get on with their lives and, please, leave me out of it.

Writer/director/star Matthew Shear (very good in 2024’s Between the Temples) plays Sam, a sad-sack failed accountant who, while visiting his oddly dismissive therapist (Judd Hirsch, playing Judd Hirsch), gets roped into becoming “nanny” to the doc’s three granddaughters. Yes, this may constitute medical malpractice, but it is just one of many plot devices here that seem engineered solely to move the story along. (Would any cognizant mother, for example, place her children in the care of a guy she knows suffers debilitating panic attacks?)

The girls’ mom happens to be a once-busy actress who, after stepping out of the spotlight to raise her children, is now attempting to reassert herself in the business. Amanda Peet, making her first movie in a decade, tackles the role in a pleasantly earnest manner that reflects the meta-ness of it all. Peet is, in fact, the only cast member called upon to actually act here, and she acquits herself admirably, embodying the cruel combination of self-assurance and insecurity that dogs so many folks in show biz.

The rest of the cast simply occupies slots required by the narrative. Shear’s Sam is hopelessly reactive, annoyingly incapable of initiative. As his own director, Shear allows Sam way too much time to sit in silence, seemingly processing situations while never emerging with a cogent way forward. Along with Hirsch, Balaban, Martin, and Harper are asked simply to play loud-mouthed relatives. Sitting around a dinner table in the Hamptons, they chew and jump up from their chairs and yammer dialogue that confuses “pithy” with “shrill.” It’s always good to see Holland Taylor, but here she seems to have been available for a single day of shooting, and so was inserted as a cameo, playing a substitute shrink for Hirsch’s character (who’s been sent off on vacation for no reason that otherwise serves the plot).

Shear is a protégé of the formidable Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Marriage Story), whose earliest work could be similarly loose to the point of languid. He has a nose for quirky characters and directs children particularly well – a valuable skill set, as too many directors seem intent on portraying kids as little grownups.

With luck, Shear will build on his strengths – and keep inviting such marvelous veteran players to help him along.

Lost and Found: One Woman’s Struggle to Help Her Neurodivergent Brother

When I take my 69-year-old brother to lunch, I already know what he will order: steak, onion rings, and a large mug of beer. With a shy smile, he shares corny jokes with the waiter and orders a brownie sundae, which he devours with childlike glee.

As I watch him relish his favorite meal, which we share about once a month, I am grateful that he is happy and safe. It wasn’t always that way.

Mom described Ben’s birth in 1956 as traumatic, a double breech with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, depriving him of oxygen. She’d been heavily sedated, and the doctor chose forceps over a C-section. She’d told her harrowing story many times, but rarely acknowledged her only son might have suffered lasting damage.

In the 1960s, few children without extreme disabilities were classified as “special needs,” and there was no school intervention. No one used the term neurodivergent. When Ben was held back in first grade, our frustrated father shouted at him while Mom stood by. Watching my little brother sobbing at the kitchen table, I felt helpless.

As time passed, while his peers were joining sports teams, leaving for college, and marrying, Ben stayed home and became my father’s helper. Dad — an Italian immigrant who built a cutlery ­service — taught Ben to sharpen knives, hoping the skill would secure his future.

At 31, with a toddler on my hip and pregnant with my second child, I put it to my parents bluntly: “What’s going to happen someday to Ben when you’re not around?” They dismissed my concerns — a reckoning seemed a long way off.

When Mom and Dad passed, Ben was on the cusp of 60, alone in their four-bedroom home. Neighbors we’d grown up with had long since gone. Sleeping in his clothes, he rarely left the house, playing video games and combing newspapers for celebrity articles — slipping further into his own world.

My role as executor was clear: I had to sell the house. But what about Ben? The reverse mortgage had depleted the equity. There was no life insurance. And Dad’s business had fallen into shambles after he became infirmed.

I called a county caseworker.

“What’s his diagnosis?” she asked.

“He might be on the autism spectrum, but was never diagnosed,” I said. “Is there anything you can do?”

She gave me a list of agencies to call: same questions, same results.

“He’s not my problem,” some said.

“We can’t leave him on the street,” I insisted.

My own therapist agreed that I was not responsible. Still, I was ­unwilling to abandon him.

The more I researched options, the more discouraged I became. The population of older adults in America with an intellectual or development disability numbers over one million, almost double that of 20 years ago. When parents of a special-needs adults die without a plan, many ­become wards of the state with an appointed guardian making life decisions. Some end up in homeless shelters or subway stations. Both possibilities were terrifying.

As the closing loomed, I confided my panic to my long-time hairdresser, Kelly, who jumped into action.

“I’ll bet we can find a place for him,” she said. We scoured listings at over-55 communities with affordable condos and went for a look.

Digging into my savings, I put a deposit on a small unit. Then I rented a U-Haul and, with the help of two volunteers, moved Ben in. This way I knew he’d never be homeless.

The gated community’s winding paths were tranquil, and the community room with pool tables and a television was a hub of activity. But I was still uneasy. Perhaps a companion would help.

After checking the pet policy, I went to a shelter and asked for a gentle, trained dog. They brought out a Yorkie mix, a bony ragamuffin with bright eyes and unruly hair — no chip, no collar, no response on Facebook. “I’ll take him.”

When I showed up with my furry surprise, Ben broke into a goofy smile and cradled him against his chest as I unpacked food and a dog bed. A week later, my brother announced he’d named the pooch Little Bennie, after himself.

On my next visit, Ben alerted me he had to be back by 4 p.m. for Little Bennie’s walk. Never had I known him to be aware of time or schedules.

Months later, a round furball scampered up to me.

“Looks great,” I said. “But he’s so fat! What are you feeding him?”

“Oh, just his dog food,” he said. “And whatever I eat. You know, Cheerios, soup, spaghetti.”

As we walked Little Bennie, everyone seemed to know him.

Within a month, Ben landed his first real job, rounding up shopping carts part-time at a nearby store. My brother spoke of his work with pride. He paid his electric bill and bought groceries, while I covered the property taxes and the water bill.

For the first time since our father died, Ben was not surrounded by boxes, and there were clean sheets on the bed. He delighted telling stories about his best friend.

“Every night, Little Bennie jumps on my bed,” he said. “Then he goes to sleep.”

I tried to prepare him for the day that Little Bennie, an older dog, might fail to greet him at the door.

When Little Bennie’s health failed three years later, Ben called me. I could hear the fear and drove an hour to accompany him and Bennie to the vet. Ben, who never cried at our parents’ funerals, was stoic. I was concerned he might regress, especially after the store he’d worked at closed.

But the routines and lessons he’d learned taking care of Little Bennie endured. It took months, but he landed work at a movie theater, checking tickets and cleaning up.

When I asked if he wanted another dog, he said Little Bennie could not be replaced, and besides, he was out of the house too much to take care of a new pet (exactly what I’d hoped would happen).

On his dresser, I saw he’d placed a paw print and lock of Bennie’s fur.

 

The Ruth Bonapace’s work has appeared in many publications, including The Southampton Review and American Writer’s Review. Her debut novel, The Bulgarian Training Manual, was published in 2024.

This article is featured in the March/April 2026 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.

When Box Office Bombs Become Blockbusters

Since the dawn of Hollywood, watching for impending box office bombs has been something of a spectator sport. Whether it’s wild rumors or mother nature playing havoc with sets or just plain overspending, we’re fascinated by what seems like a disaster in the making. However, some movies that seemed doomed to fail not only emerged as good, solid films, but landmarks in movie history.

Jaws (1975)

Jaws trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers)

Steven Spielberg’s Jaws broke ground (or is it waves?) by being the first major motion picture to film on the actual ocean. That bold step turned out to be an enormous pain. Aside from ongoing mechanical problems with the sharks built for the production, the unpredictable nature of the ocean caused filming delays and budget overruns. The original shooting schedule target of 55 days turned into 159 days. Even Spielberg thought his career was doomed. However, the delays allowed for the script to be refined, and Spielberg worked around the malfunctioning sharks by limiting how much time “Jaws” was seen on screen, a decision which had an enormous impact on inflating the tension. Though many prognosticators saw doom for the difficult project, it was so successful that it ushered in the age of the summer blockbuster.

Titanic (1997)

One of the major rules of Hollywood at this point should be: Don’t bet against James Cameron. From 1984 to 1994, he had a stunning run that included The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and True Lies. Despite all of that, there was doubt surrounding Titanic. Some of that centered on the difficulty of shooting with water (something Cameron experienced with The Abyss), and some was the hyperfocus that the media placed on the very large budget. So large, in fact, at $200 million, that 20th Century Fox partnered with Paramount Pictures to share the burden. Some critics predicted that the film was going to be a costly boondoggle. And then it opened as a worldwide phenomenon, eventually pulling in over $2 billion and earning 14 Academy Award nominations; it won 11, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Song for Celine Dion’s omnipresent “My Heart Will Go On.”

The Godfather (1972)

The Godfather ran into all kinds of obstacles on the way to the big screen. Paramount approached several directors who passed because they feared they would be romanticizing the mafia. Sergio Leone simply opted to make his own crime film (Once Upon a Time in America). But the studio finally locked in with Francis Ford Coppola. However, the shoot was not all sunshine and roses. Fights over budgets, scheduling, and even how much Coppola was shooting each day were the norm. Finally, studio exec Robert Evans intervened, allowing Coppola to fire both the editor and assistant director that were at the center of several clashes. By the time that the movie was finished, Coppola delivered an Oscar-winning American classic.

John Wick (2014)

John Wick trailer (Uploaded by Rotten Tomatoes Trailers)

No one outside of the creators and craftspeople who put together John Wick thought that it was going to be a hit. Star Keanu Reeves was seen as a weak box office draw, and co-directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch were dismissed by some because they were rookie helmers from a stunt background. After being passed over by other studios, Lionsgate Films picked up distribution. Unexpectedly, Wick opened with a bang, and word of mouth fed its rapid ascent.  After that, it was multiplication; the first film made four times its budget, the first sequel doubled the take of the original, the third film nearly doubled that, and the fourth Wick made $100 million more than the third.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

The notion seemed silly on two fronts: Pirate films after the 1940s had a history of tanking at the box office; and the very idea of a major motion picture based on a theme park ride was preposterous. It was considered a big risk for Disney, given its $140 million budget. Word on the inside was that Johnny Depp’s performance was, well, weird. And yet, when the first trailer dropped, featuring a mix of humor and horror with Depp in full Captain Jack Sparrow mode, buzz built. The film ended up netting over $654 million at the box office and set off a string of sequels.

Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Books have been written about the crazy production stories behind both GWTW and TWOO, but possibly the craziest thing is that both films were (mostly) directed by the same person. Victor Fleming came on board Oz to steer the ship and had to leave early to rescue Wind. Oz famously had many issues, including Buddy Ebsen’s withdrawal from the Tin Man role after the make-up made him sick and Margaret Hamilton’s severe burns during an errant effects scene that forced her off the set for weeks. Prognosticators eyeing the two MGM productions thought that disaster was in the offing. Wind, however, was a box office juggernaut upon release, and Oz emerged as one of the most beloved family films of all time. The lesson remains that making any art of value is frequently messy.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Critics called it “Walt’s Folley.” The very notion that someone would make a feature-length animated film and expect the audience to sit for it was widely derided when Walt Disney announced his ambition to make Snow White. However, all the naysayers were silenced when the instant classic lit up the screen. Walt proved that not only would audiences sit for feature-length animation, but that they would do it in larger and larger numbers over the decades.

And One More . . .

Fifty years ago in March, filming got underway for a risky project in Tunisia. The director had one hit under his belt, as well as one weird arty, experimental thing. The studio considered the project something of a longshot, and much of the cast didn’t really understand the script. From the beginning, the production was plagued by weather delays and important props that wouldn’t work. When the filming shifted to Britain, the crew often clashed with the director over work times and his seemingly odd way of doing things. By the time that principal photography was done, the director was mortified that the special effects team he had assembled barely had any usable stuff. He had to reorganize the department and drive the crew to get everything done. The first assembly cut was a mess, so the director had to get three editors, including his own wife, onto the assignment to make a coherently structured piece. Facing cost overruns, the studio reluctantly gave another million dollars to get the movie finished. Nobody behind the scenes really got it until they saw the first scene with completed effects and music. The seemingly doomed project didn’t just resonate with audiences; it became a cultural phenomenon. The name of that movie with the $11 million budget? Star Wars.

The original Star Wars trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by The ReDiscovered Future)

Our Better Nature: Legs May Limit Love

When it comes to warm and fuzzy critters like dogs and cats — the number one and two most popular pets, respectively — it’s natural for us to develop warm and fuzzy feelings toward them. This is because when we pet and snuggle with animals, even small ones like bunnies and gerbils, it elicits a rush of oxytocin, a natural hormone associated with feeling secure and content. Sometimes called the “cuddle chemical,” it is also released when parents hold their newborn child and when romantic partners spend quality time together.

I have a theory that there may be a limit to this oxytocin effect, and it’s based on legs. Well, really it’s a hypothesis, as a theory is entirely fact-based, like the theories of gravity and evolution, but when I say “hypothesis” I sound like Daffy Duck. So this conjecture isn’t about whether legs are beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder anyway, even though “best legs” contests, mostly for women but now also for the guys, go back decades.

Million Dollar Legs competition, 1968 (Uploaded to YouTube by British Pathé)

Curiously, one such contest was called “Million Dollar Legs,” which kind of relates to my theory that cuteness may depend on leg count. Most pets are four-legged, while birds have two, and fish (outside of sea robins and a few others) have zero – all acceptable numbers. But I think that most people’s warm and fuzzy feelings toward animals would evaporate pretty fast if they were asked to cuddle with a critter having over a thousand legs. The exception might be entomologists and a few nature-nerds like me. Let’s delve into my leg hypothesis.

Insects, which have “only” six legs, don’t usually register on the cute index. I mean it’s rare for folks to get doe-eyed over a mosquito, yellow jacket, or cucumber beetle. On the whole, though, insects are nowhere near as creepy as eight-legged beasties.

The term arachnid, I’m pretty sure, is Latin for “things with too many legs for my comfort level,” as all arachnids have eight legs. This category includes ticks, which can transmit at least a dozen serious illnesses to humans, as well as spiders. Spiders, of which most humans have a biologically based innate fear, seem to be equal parts legs, eyes, and hairs. Of course there are those who keep tarantulas as pets, although some experts warn of risks like severe allergic reactions and urticating hairs that can require surgery if they get in your eyes.

As if eight appendages weren’t enough, the forces of nature saw fit to make invertebrates with loads more. Centipedes are a great example of un-cuteness. While their name means “hundred legs,” they can have anywhere from thirty-something to just under 300. They have one pair of legs per body segment, and reportedly all have an odd number of segments. This means you’ll never find a centipede with exactly a hundred legs – so much for truth in advertising.

Carnivorous, venomous, and fast-moving, centipedes score way up there on the creepiness meter. However, they pose no danger to us. These soft-bodied predators sometimes invade homes, and will rid your living space of things like spiders and cockroaches, which sounds great. But for the average homeowner, they tend to rid one of peace of mind and restful sleep. If you find centipedes indoors, the best way to get them out is to eliminate the bugs or other crawly things they are eating.

At the time when biologists named millipedes, a word meaning “thousand legs,” it was believed that these elongate, slender, hard-shelled arthropods did not have quite that many limbs. It’s just that there wasn’t a concise Latin term for “several hundred but they’re real small and we keep losing count.” Unlike the bloodthirsty centipedes, millipedes are detritivores, eating rotten stuff like decayed leaves and wood, and fungi too. They are highly beneficial in gardens and compost piles. Once in a while, millipedes briefly show up in houses during weather extremes, especially in times of drought, and conversely, after extremely rainy periods.

In the northern states, millipedes are typically quite small, from less than a half-inch long to perhaps 1.4 inches (three centimeters). But in the mid-Atlantic states and the Southeast, the American giant millipede can reach about four inches (ten centimeters) in length. Not surprisingly, this species is moving northward out of its historic range due to warming temperatures.

Five years ago, a fossilized millipede dating back 326 million years to the Carboniferous Period was found in the UK. Researchers estimate that the individual they unearthed was about 8.5 feet long (2.6 meters), and in the flesh would have weighed approximately 110 pounds (50 kilograms). For sure this thing would make a real dent in the average compost pile.

In terms of living novelties, a millipede actually having a thousand legs was discovered in Australia in December 2021. This newly found species, Eumillipes persephone, is only about 0.04 inches (0.9 mm) wide and 3.74 inches (95 millimeters) long, but they win the stride prize. After taking enough Adderall (I assume), a researcher was able to count all 1,306 legs on a single specimen.

The blind, fungus-grazing millipedes were found far underground – as deep as 197 feet (60 meters) – in a number of exploratory boreholes drilled by mining companies years ago. As organic matter falls down the boreholes and decays, Eumillipes persephone munches the fungi that colonize the detritus.

In an interesting twist, giant millipedes now have a niche market as pets. To my knowledge, no one has yet studied whether millipedes cause an oxytocin rush.