Jose Padua: Train in Vain
When I lived in New York the landlord of my building on Avenue B always called me “Jose Baby,” while the woman in the apartment above me who always got … Continue reading
Jose Padua: The Beautiful Thing
In Virginia this fat southern kid sits by me on the bus and starts talking to a man wearing a baseball cap who’s sitting across the aisle from him. “My … Continue reading
Jose Padua: That Certain Kind of Light
In high school it was the son of a congressman from Texas who seemed to have the most fun ridiculing my Tourette’s tics. I’d shrug my shoulders, blink my eyes, … Continue reading
Jose Padua: The Idea of Order Near the Exit to the Interstate
This morning when I got to my local big chain coffee house I ordered a breakfast sandwich and the woman behind the counter asked me my name and I said … Continue reading
Jose Padua: Revelation at a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and Restaurant on a Sunday Night
We’re waiting for the cashier so we can pay for dinner after eating at our local Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and Restaurant when my wife looks to our four-year … Continue reading
Jose Padua: On the Particulars of Absence
There’s nothing as round as this flat horizon that stretches before us like a runner before his run, nor anything as deep as this valley that dips then rises like … Continue reading
Jose Padua: Interview with the Mountain
When I first came to interview the mountain it said the hour was late, that it was too tired, that it doubted it had anything of significance to say, anything … Continue reading
Jose Padua: American Sadness
Of all the sadness in the world there is nothing that can compare with American sadness. When America is sad the whole world weeps. Whenever one American is sad, at … Continue reading
Jose Padua: Legends and the Way We Used to Live
When I was young they told me the legend of the spontaneously combusting hogs. How they’d burst into flames and become roast pork right in the middle of the road, … Continue reading
Jose Padua: In the Season of Blue Afternoons and Starry Starry Nights
. It’s 1979 and I’m just out of college and loving the landscape doing the only kind of traveling I can afford when the Greyhound bus stops along the highway … Continue reading
Jose Padua: Love Not Money
The first time my three-year old son said the words I Love You was when my ten-year old daughter, his big sister, was away on a school trip, and when … Continue reading
Jose Padua: And This is Where We Lived When We Lived in the City
He used to panhandle on Dupont Circle in the early 80s. That was where I’d get off from the subway at the end of the day when I worked at … Continue reading
Jose Padua: Watching Television with my Mother
Watching television with my Mom sometimes it was professional wrestling and she’d go one two THREE whenever the bad guy heel got pinned by the babyface hero. She always liked … Continue reading
Jose Padua: On the Sunshine of Our Lives and the Beauty of These Summer Days Spent in the City
At the Port Authority bus station in New York City my daughter watches as the tall strange man with the tin foil wrapped around the short braids of hair on … Continue reading
