Category: Relationships

Save the Animal Kingdom! #8

Here is installment #8 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … most of them now endangered or vulnerable. See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. The roll rolled up tight.
  2. The flight took flight.
  3. You don’t want this wake at a wake.
  4. We spotted three stands standing on the beach.
  5. The parliament looked parliamentary and regal indeed.
  6. The risk risks being turned into dinner.
Parliament, Madeira

Answers:

  1. Roll of armadillos [1]
  2. Flight of butterflies [2]
  3. Wake of buzzards
  4. Stand of plovers (on land) [3]
  5. Parliament of owls [4]
  6. Risk of lobster [5]
Flight, back trails Cranberry Lake, Adirondacks USA

I’m beyond dismayed – I am furious. The Trump administration is gutting environmental protections. Take action. Volunteer. Speak up! Write letters, make phone calls, donate to organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace.

NOTES: [1] Giant armadillos are listed as endangered and may go extinct. Zoo Conservation Outreach [2] “Bumblebees, beetles and butterflies are at greater risk of extinction than lions and tigers, according to a global study by the Zoological Society of London.” www.telegraph.co.uk [3] While Piping Plovers have increased in number in recent years, the species is still listed under the Endangered Species Act. It is considered Endangered in the Great Lakes region and Threatened in the remainder of its U.S. breeding range. The species is also listed as Endangered in Canada. [4] There are 227 species of typical owls, 24 of which are Vulnerable, 13 Endangered, and three Critically Endangered birdlife [5] On September 28, 2016, Food&Wine Magazine wrote that Maine lobster are in trouble thanks to global warming. © Jadi Campbell 2025. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.  Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. Recent awards include Finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award for The Taste of Your Name and Finalist for Greece’s Eyelands 11th International Short Story Contest.

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New Zealand’s Pancake Rocks

look at that gorgeous clear blue sky!

While we were in New Zealand in February we stopped at Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes Walk, South Island. It was a gorgeously sunny day and a pod of Hector’s dolphins were cavorting off shore!

 

The Pancake Rocks are eroded limestone rock formations, flat and compressed. The Tasman Sea has eroded them into blowholes and caves. It’s a great spot. We visited it for the first time 20 years ago… when the weather was cold and wet and rainy. We did manage to get a photo between showers.

 

I wanted to use this photograph for our annual Christmas card that year. Sadly, for some reason, Uwe nixed the idea. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! xo

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2025. To see Uwe’s pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. Recent awards include Finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award for The Taste of Your Name and Finalist for Greece’s Eyelands 11th International Short Story Contest.

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Save the Animal Kingdom! #7

I present to you installment #7 from my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page. (I’m especially proud of No. 5 on this week’s list!)

  1. Their knot knotted in the mud.
  2. He heard the murmuration’s murmurs.
  3. Unblinking, the stare stared back.
  4. The dole didn’t look doleful.
  5. The earth’s earth was in the earth. ***
  6. Stuffy noses don’t suit a sute.
Stare, Raptor rescue center, Australia
Dole, Wong Tai Sin Medicine Temple, New Territories, China

Answers:

  1. Knot of toads [1]
  2. Murmuration of starlings
  3. Stare of owls [2]
  4. Dole of turtles [3]
  5. Earth of foxes; place the vixen (female fox) searches out to raise her kits; ground she finds the earth in. ***3 uses of the word! [4]
  6. Sute of bloodhounds
Knot member, back trails Cranberry Lake, Adirondacks USA

I’m beyond dismayed – I am furious. The Trump administration is gutting environmental protections. Take action. Speak up! Write letters, make phone calls, donate to organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace. Volunteer.

NOTES: [1] In the last 30 years the toad population in England alone has plummeted 70%. www.telegraph.co.uk [2] Around one-third of owl species in the world are endangered or at risk. Owls reference page [3] “Of the 207 species of turtle and tortoise alive today, 129 of them are listed by IUCN as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered.” Tree Hugger [4] In 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Sierra Nevada red fox under the Endangered Species Act. Trump wants to remove the Endangered Species Act. ©Jadi Campbell 2025. All photos ©Uwe Hartmann or Jadi Campbell. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.  Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. Recent awards include Finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award for The Taste of Your Name and Finalist for Greece’s Eyelands 11th International Short Story Contest.

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The Ghastly Ghost Writer

MAYDAY is an online cultural magazine produced by New American Press and I am very proud that they accepted my piece for their Culture column!

The Ghastly Ghost Writer is my takedown of Philip Roth, who tried his hardest to erase Anne Frank…. When I happened to stumble over his book I was appalled and disgusted. A year later I was still disgusted, enough so that I wrote about it.

MAYDAY agreed with me. I hope you will, too. Follow this link to read my essay in MAYDAY Magazine: MAYDAY Magazine: Culture

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2025. I’m a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. Recent awards include Finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award for The Taste of Your Name and Finalist for Greece’s Eyelands 11th International Short Story Contest.

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Save the Animal Kingdom! #6

Yet another addition to my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals! … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. A rookery will hardly rook you.
  2. The cast cast out sand.
  3. The quivering quiver swayed and waited….
  4. Culture doesn’t care about culture.
  5. This lounge member lunged!
  6. The swarm swarmed my sandwich and I couldn’t eat it.

Answers:

Quiver, Snake Farm (Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute), Bangkok Thailand
  1. Rookery of gooney birds [1]
  2. Cast of crabs
  3. Quiver of cobras
  4. Culture of bacteria
  5. Lounge of lizards [2]
  6. Swarm of flies [3]
Lounge member, Khao Lak National Park, Thailand
Cast, Khao Lak, Thailand

I’m beyond dismayed – I am furious. The Trump administration is gutting environmental protections. Take action. Speak up! Volunteer. Write letters, make phone calls, donate to organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace.

NOTES: [1] Ah, the gooney bird… now better known as the albatross. This magnificent bird’s wingspan can reach 11 feet! Status: 19 species of albatross are threatened with extinction. Environmental Watch. Two-thirds of the world’s albatross species are globally threatened because of human action, with up to 100,000 birds killed annually as bycatch. www.birdlife.org [2] This particular lizard is a waran. It was bigger than me! Go to my earlier posts Warning: Waran!! and The Outback for more on my encounters with these critters. The Komodo dragon is classified by the IUCN as Endangered and is listed on the IUCN Red List. [3] Nothing compares to the Hell that is a swarm of flies in Australia’s Outback. Nothing. © Jadi Campbell 2025. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.  Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. Recent awards include Finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award for The Taste of Your Name and Finalist for Greece’s Eyelands 11th International Short Story Contest.

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Eva Herlitz + Her Oversized Bears

Eva Herlitz was born on July 28, 1952 in Solingen, Germany. She was a teacher and interior decorator, and a visionary. Eva Herlitz and her husband Klaus created the wonderful United Buddy Bears. The couple invited artists from every country in the world to decorate oversized bear statues. The Buddy Bears are placed in circles side by side, in exhibits that tour around the globe and are always free to the public. Donations are raised for UNICEF and other charities for children. According to the Buddy Bears website: “Since 20th June 2001, when the Buddy Bears appeared in Berlin’s streets and squares for the first time, Buddy Bear activities and help for children in need have formed an inseparable unit.” In Eva Herlitz’s honor here I give you the post I wrote after The Buddy Bears came to downtown Stuttgart. – Jadi

Many people feel Berlin is now the cultural heart of Europe. Creative impulses come from Germany’s capital and spread from there. One of the quirkiest is the Buddy Bears.

Circle of United Buddy Bears, Stuttgart
Circle of United Buddy Bears, Stuttgart

The Buddy Bears creators were  inspired by the cow parades in New York and Zurich. Eva and Klaus Herlitz of Berlin wanted to initiate a similar street art project. The bear is the icon of Berlin, and thus in 2001, the Herlitzes created the first bear with a sculptor named Roman Strobl.

United Buddy Bear New Zealand
New Zealand

Their projected expanded, and in 2002 it went international. They had a bear created for every country the UN acknowledges, designed by artists native to each country. The bears have their arms raised as if they’re holding hands. (This can also be described as the laughing Buddha pose.) Each bear is painted with images of the culture, history, landscape, economy, art and music of its country.

The first display took place in a circle around Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. The circle symbolizes the Art of Tolerance. One and a half million people saw the exhibit, and since then, they’ve toured 5 continents and stood in an alphabetical circle in the centers of host cities.

Uzbekistan and Uruguay
Uzbekistan and Uruguay
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Panama

I saw the Buddy Bears in 2008 when they came to the Schlossplatz in downtown Stuttgart. They send a message about peace, understanding, love and tolerance among the world’s nations, cultures and religions.

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When new bears are commissioned, the older ones are auctioned off. All monies go to UNICEF and other childrens’ charities. As of September  2018, 2,300,000 Euros have been raised for charities such as Eva Herlitz’s Buddy Bear Help!

Over 240 artists have been involved in the project, and more than 30 million visitors have seen the United Buddy Bears. A smaller circle of United Buddy Bears-The Minis (1 meter high) also tours.

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South and North Korea, side by side

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Brazil and Bulgaria

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The United Buddy Bears exhibitions are always opened by national and foreign dignitaries. After he saw the bears in  Berlin, actor Jackie Chan made sure they came to Hong Kong.  When UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Sir Peter Ustinov saw them, he insisted that Iraq be represented.

IMG_2464

There is one very special grey and white polar bear. He has the image of Albert Einstein and the following quote: ‘Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding’.

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Kirgyzstan, Columbia, Congo and Congo-Brazzaville

It’s fascinating to consider that United Buddy Bears change their order as they travel. The circle is always organized in the language of the host country. Buddy Bears may suddenly hold hands with distant or hostile neighbors…

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In memory of Eva Herlitz,  28 July 1952 – 26 February 2021

Selected Bibliography:

Herlitz, Eva & Klaus, United Buddy Bears — Die Kunst der Toleranz. Bostelmann & Siebenhaar Publishers, 2003. ISBN 3-936962-00-6.

Herlitz, Eva & Klaus, United Buddy Bears — World Tour. NeptunArt Publisher, 2006. ISBN 3-85820-189-8.

Herlitz, Eva & Klaus, United Buddy Bears — The Art of Tolerance. 384 pages, English/German, December 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-029417-4.

NOTES: Photos and Text© 2013 Jadi Campbell. Previously published as The United Buddy Bears. To learn more:  Buddy Bears website. I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My award-listed books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book, The Taste of Your Name, was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award. Follow these links for Amazon.com or Amazon.de.

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s Birthday: Colleen Margaretta McCullough

Author Colleen McCullough was born on June 1, 1937 in Wellington, Australia. She wrote a highly regarded series on Rome; she taught and did research at Yale’s Medical School Dept. of Neurology. And while she was working at Yale – because neurology and a position at an Ivy League university somehow didn’t take up all her time – she wrote The Thorn Birds. In her honor I give you the post I wrote after visiting the Outback. —Jadi

In The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough vividly depicts a turn of the century sheep ranch in the Australian Outback. The hardships of working an unforgiving landscape, conditions that seem too extreme to be real, and the isolation are all accurately portrayed.

You’re already yawning, right?

All right then, how about this? In The Thorn Birds, young heroine Meggie and the priest Father Ralph de Bricassart, many years her senior, fall in love. Their life long passion is both forefront and backdrop to the fates of a family in the Outback.

That caught your attention!

I’m not usually one for the guilty pleasure of romance novels, but this one works on so many levels that it’s irresistible. Whether as romance, family saga, or historical portrayal, The Thorn Birds is a great read. It’s also accurate to a fault. As you read this book, you experience Australia’s hard climate along with McCullough’s characters.

Uwe and I drove through a small portion of the Western Australia Outback. Our goal was the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and we had a long, stop-every-3-hours to stretch our legs drive to do. The Coolgardie-Esperance Highway goes on with no bends or turns (and very few trees).

We halted briefly in Norseman

Norseman, Western Australia

and purchased sandwiches and drinks for a planned picnic stop. But there was a problem: no picnic tables anywhere. We drove and drove. Why, on such an endless highway, were there were no facilities?

We finally gave up and pulled over to the side of the road.

At least there was a tree and some shade
Note the deep red soil

I got out of the car and spread lunch on the hood. I was too hungry to wait for Uwe, so I unwrapped my sandwich and yummy cake, and gazed out into the endless empty brush.

The Indian Ocean is somewhere on the other side of those mountains

Every fly in the endless empty brush left wherever they’d been snoozing. Within seconds my eyes and mouth, my hands and arms, and my lunch were engulfed with fat hungry insects. My sandwich was rendered way beyond salvaging; it had vanished under layers of crawling flies. I wrapped everything back into a bag to throw away later and contented myself with a piece of fruit (eaten in the car, with the windows all closed).

In case you’re eating your own lunch as you read this I won’t tell you what it is in The Thorn Birds that’s covered in flies. But man, that McCullough sure can write!

In memory of Colleen McCullough, June 1, 1937 to January 29, 2015

NOTES: Copyright © 2013 Jadi Campbell. Previously published as The Outback. To see Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. PS: In the last thirty years, I’ve read The Thorn Birds four times. I’m sure I’ll read it again….

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My award-listed books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book, The Taste of Your Name, was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.

Follow these links for Amazon.com or Amazon.de.

 

 

My Imaginary Friends: #13 Brian Klevenger

Maybe it’s weird, but I know more about people in my imagined universe than I do about the real people in my life. I figure real folks are entitled to their privacy. But if I thought you up and wrote you down, I DO know and WILL share salacious and embarassing details.

I create back stories for all my characters. People in my books reappear in later works. I take characters who showed up in an earlier novel or short story and fill in their profiles – sometimes against their wills.

Which brings us to Brian Klevenger. He made a brief appearance in Tsunami Cowboys, remember? Brian is Scott McCreedy’s best friend. He’s an only child, the son of alcoholics, and spends as much time as possible at Scott’s house.

Brian takes center stage in my most recent novel The Taste of Your Name. He’s fled to Germany where he does reminiscence therapy with dementia patients. He’s sleeping with two sisters. And (because I wrote his story) I tell the readers his most secret inner thoughts and emotions (because getting to do so is one of the great rewards of being a writer).

Brian is one of the most complex, complete human beings I know. You can meet him here:  Amazon.com. Available around the world as eBook, hardcover, and paperback.

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2025. To see Uwe’s pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book with Brian, The Taste of Your Name, was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.

 

Save The Animal Kingdom!

I’m beyond dismayed – I am furious. The Trump administration is gutting environmental protections. As The Los Angeles Times reported, “Repealing key protections could erase $254 billion in annual benefits for public health and the environment, compared with $39 billion in savings for regulated industries.” [1]

To quote blogger Curtis Mahon: “To my many friends who thought it wouldn’t happen, guess what, it has happened! Donald Trump has dropped the environmental destruction nuke of an EO, planning to sunset ALL environmental regulations made in the last 100 years. And I mean ALL. https://www.whitehouse.gov/…/zero-based-regulatory…/

The Endangered Species Act. Gone. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Gone. The Marine Mammal Protection Act. Gone. The Anadromous Fish Conservation Act. Gone. The Bald Eagle Protection Act. Gone! You name it, it’s gone.
To remind those friends why we have these laws, I’m going to try to put them into terms which anyone can understand, money. The Endangered Species Act is literally the founding, central pillar of modern conservation globally. It’s hard to list the accomplishments of this act as it is so vast. It directly protects and calls for plans to raise the populations of rare species. It’s directly responsible for the comeback of many iconic species, such as the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, the California Condor, and a host of others. Talk about return on investment, the amount of money spent vs the amount gained from people wishing to just see iconic rare species is in the billions of dollars. For what would a visit to the grand canyon be without seeing a condor soar over or a visit to Yellowstone without seeing wolves and bison. People do whole drives across the country just for these experiences and that’s what the ESA is about. Lots of revenue there. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was one of the first environmental laws every made, and bans the harm or collection of all non-game birds in America. It was implemented in a time when hunters we shooting everything to turn them into hats, from songbirds to puffins to herons to albatross. The banning of this and subsequent restoration efforts lead to dramatic increases in bird populations and continue to protect them from harm. In just one example, consider a puffin. In Maine, every tourist I talk to wants to see two things, lobster and puffins. They were once hunted to near extinction in the US and are now a central pillar to the economy of an ENTIRE STATE. Thousands of people a DAY take expensive boat trips for puffins and that’s at risk without these regulations, not to mention cuts to NOAA. The Marine Mammal Protection Act protects whales from being killed or harmed and lead to the global war on whaling. Now because of it, America watches whales! You can go on a whale watch in nearly every coastal city in America and it generates HUNDREDS of millions of dollars in tourism and employs thousands of people. We hurt whales, we hurt our pockets and jobs.
The Anadromous Fish Conservation Act allows the government to enter agreements with states and plan and fund ways to increase the populations of migratory fish. It has direct benefits to anglers across the country, funding 50% of initiatives for things like stocking and habitat restoration in major fisheries such as both Atlantic and Pacific Salmon, Trout, Striped Bass, American Shad, and Sturgeon. And removing the Bald Eagle Protection Act! I thought we loved eagle guys? What’s more American than a Bald Eagle, and they want to remove protections for them? Many older Americans can probably remember a time when they never saw Bald Eagles. Now you can see them commonly in nearly every state! That’s a direct result of the Endangered Species Act and Bald Eagle Protection Act. These are just a few of the laws the Republican party wishes to remove. All have proven track records of benefiting Americans, both monetarily through supporting major American industries worth billions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands of Americans and spiritually as corner stones of the country’s wilderness. The removal of these protections is peak short term gains over long term profits.”

 

I’m going to repost a blog thread I wrote ten years ago. I wrote it to honor my entomologist father Bobbo and inform readers in a humorous way about animals that are on the Endangered Species List.

Now it’s going to be all of them. We won’t take long to end up on that list too. For these posts I updated my information on endangered species. Most of the news is grim. Take action. Volunteer. Speak up! Write letters, make phone calls, donate to organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace.

NOTES: [1] https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-04-05/trump-is-gutting-the-nations-environmental-programs-heres-how-much-it-will-cost-americans © Jadi Campbell 2025. To see Uwe’s pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.

Follow this link for Amazon.com.

A Love Letter to Elvis Aaron Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi. He recorded when rhythm and blues was moving into the more mainstream rock & roll, and ‘Elvis the Pelvis’ brought rock & roll into scandalized living rooms across America. His long string of hits began with Heartbreak Hotel and include the exquisite Love Me Tender, his final hit Burning Love, and of course, Return to Sender. (I don’t have room to list all his hits and the influence he had!) Elvis sold 146.5 million certified album sales in the U.S. alone. He is among the best-selling singers of all time. In his honor I am reprinting the post I titled Return to Sender. – Jadi

One year in the middle of the month of April, not one but two Christmas cards I mailed off (both on the 17th of December) came back to me.

They carry yellow stickers. Return to Sender. Not Deliverable as Addressed. Unable to Forward.

One is a card for a friend I worked with in San Francisco in the early 1980s. We were secretaries in the Marketing Department of what at that time was a national-wide not-for-profit insurance company. Those were heady days, of alcoholic lunches when the bosses took you out at noon and you returned to the office several hours and many rounds later. After work, life meant meeting friends for drinks or beers at the neighborhood bars, and more restaurants and cultural events than you could count. I was in my twenties and living in ‘the big city’ for the first time.

San Francisco was a candy store, and I was a wide-eyed child with a big appetite.

The second returned Christmas card is addressed to the retired librarian from the University of Washington Health Services. I worked at UW in the late 1980s. I was going to massage school in my spare time, and my friend was keenly interested in what I was doing, as she was in anything to do with the world of healing. Traditional or alternative medicine: she always wanted to know more. She suggested we do a trade. I gave her massages right there in her office at lunch time. [1] She did document searches for me, tracking down peer-reviewed medical journal articles about massage in the days when massage was still a dicey career choice. (I was asked more times than I care to count what the name of the massage parlor was where I planned to ‘work’.) (Hah. Hah. Hah.)

My friend the librarian ran a working farm. We also traded those massage sessions in her office for packages amounting to half a lamb each spring. Once she snuck in a package of goat meat. “But how do I cook goat meat?” I protested.

“Really? Congratulations, Jadi. This is what people eat in a lot of places in the world. Figure it out!” I passed THAT package along to friends when I went to visit them. The husband is one of the best cooks I know, and Jim would have a solution. [2]

So here I am, firmly settled in Germany with my Swabian husband. I send out yearly Christmas cards along with a letter and a current photo taken by Uwe [3]. It’s my annual production, each letter hand stamped with glittery snowflakes. Because my mom made the most wonderful Christmas cards in the world. She had a husband and three very active little girls, and her cards were magic.

Mom would recruit us to help her color in the cards. I don’t know if this hand-painted card smeared then or later

My own, less clever Christmas cards are a way to remain connected to my mom’s tradition. And the cards are my way to remain connected, if I can, even if just one day out of the year, with the people who were in my life in various places at various times. Each of them helped me with their friendships more than they’ll ever know. Each year a few cards come back, and another friend has dropped from my life.

I still miss and love them all. [4]

In memory of Elvis Aaron Presley, January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977

NOTES: [1] I clearly evolved from those boozy San Francisco lunches. But man, I miss them! [2] Jim braised the goat meat and made stew. It was yummy. [3] Every single year, shortly before December, you will hear me mutter this: “God damn it, Uwe! I ask you on every vacation to ‘Take a photo that will be perfect for my Christmas letter!’ Just once I’d like to have a photograph from one of our trips picked out and ready to go for Christmas! Just once!” [4] Now I know what to tell people in next year’s cards. All photos and images © 2021 property of Jadi Campbell. Previously published as Return to Sender. To see Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.

Follow these links for Amazon.com or Amazon.de.