All Posts By

James Schaap

Blog

The Obdurate

Perhaps it was more typical than not–that night, I mean. The guy worked a high-crime district, West Palm Beach, where being a cop meant hot

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Blog

A Love Story

If you look closely, you can tell it’s not the Great Plains. That big tree is too perfect; prairie trees get mauled regularly by incessant

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Blog

Comfort to Spare

There isn’t much we know about Aunt Gertie’s death. It happened on a foggy night in November, 1949, along a lakeshore cloaked in a mist

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Blog

Witnesses

“What places do I really have to see when I’m here?” I asked the woman behind the desk at the Osage visitor’s center. “You must see

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Blog

The Story at Devil’s Gulch

If the place sounds cliche-ish, you can’t blame Garretson, SD, because doggone it, not every Siouxland burg has a tourist trap built in. Seriously, Garretson’s

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Blog

Just another word

On my mother’s side, my Dutch-American ancestry has been here since before the American Civil War. My people were among the first immigrants from the

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Blog

What to see at Little Big Horn

“When you get to the Visitor’s Center, look for the blue dress–it belonged to Judy’s grandma,” she told me. “Judy” is her friend. I’d just

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Blog

Agency stories

Maybe it was the little chapel she’d insisted on showing me, a place she thought any visit to the Northern Cheyenne mission wouldn’t be complete

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Blog

First Cry in a Stable

It’s not a new story. I wrote it more than a decade ago, so it may well show its age. But I thought I’d try

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