writing
I am one of ten kids of Bill and Lorraine Durbin. My dad’s father died before I was born, but my mom’s dad, the remarkable James Kalish, was a regular presence in my life as a kid. In the 1960s, he and his wife Bernice lived in East St. Louis, Illinois, and we lived in … Continue reading The Resilient Jimmy Kalish
For the past few months I’ve been looking into my family history, posting here as I went. Now it’s all in a new section of this website. I’ve been curious about this story for more than fifty years. In 1973, when I was ten, I asked my parents if we had a family tree. “No,” … Continue reading My Family History
Finding America's Farmworkers: Reaching Out in North Carolina When I moved to North Carolina from Chicago in 2005, I had no idea that so much of our nation's food was still harvested by hand. Now, twenty years later, that hasn't really changed. Much of the produce in any grocery store--the peppers and melons and berries … Continue reading Finding America’s Farmworkers
Michael Durbin 