Mrs. Custer's Daughters

(WASHINGTON, DC) - When Elizabeth Custer journeyed with her husband to the Dakota Territory in the spring of 1873, Army wives had the status of camp followers. Official regulations entitled servants and laundresses to better treatment than wives, as Mrs. Custer complained in her memoir, Boots and Saddles. During the Indian campaigns, the Army garrisons on the western frontier provided family quarters only for senior officers, and the primitive living conditions discouraged all but the most intrepid wives.

Eighth Grade Eskimo

(SHUNGNAK, ALASKA) - "We are going out hunting tonight, hunting muskrats, beaver, whatever. You want to?" Jamie Commack sat up in a makeshift canvas tent in front of his parent's cabin. "Let's go ask Greg if we can use our boat."

Bread Upon The California Waters

(SAN FRANCISCO) - Mark Dubois, chief friend and defender of the Stanislaus River, was wheeling the raft again. The racing water, the trees, the canyon walls, and the flecked sky whirred around in a languid blur. The universe was spinning and at the center was Mark, huge, bony, mostly naked, and grinning, each great paw gripping the handle of an out-sized oar, the arms penduluming mightily in opposite directions, making pirouettes in a sixteen-foot rubber Avon raft.

Israel: Revisionism Resurgent

(JERUSALEM) - It came so suddenly, this surge of power from the Revisionists, and no one expected it at all. Menachem Begin, their political leader for so many years, was an authentic hero of the war of independence. Vladimir Jabotinsky was Begin's intellectual mentor, the father of Revisionist thought. But for nearly thirty years, both were regarded as historical curiosities, of no particular relevance to contemporary Israel.

(NEW YORK CITY) - Booker has been a barber for nearly 40 years. Although he is officially retired now, he still drops into the small barbershop off Northern Boulevard in Queens, where he last worked. If one of the three regular barbers is absent he even puts in a day's work to help out. But he returns because of the fraternity he finds here, the chance to sit and talk and swap stories with a few of his old customers. In his late 60's, his speech is hesitant now, and he sometimes struggles to find the right words. When he gets into the telling of a yarn, however, a glint, almost youthful, seems to brighten his face. It's not difficult to imagine that, as his friends point out, 20 or even 10 years ago he was the best storyteller or "biggest liar" in the area.