This week in my writing class we spent a good deal of time in workshop but spent most of today reading an essay that’s been with me for about twenty years, introduced—if memory serves—by the great Jesse Lee Kercheval at the University of Wisconsin. Jesse Lee had us read John McPhee’s Oranges, the first part of which was originally published in The New Yorker on May 7, 1966. Oranges lead him into a profound concern and respect for the lives of grove workers (to say nothing of his disgust for orange juice concentrate in its uniform “small, trim cans, about two inches in diameter and four inches high“). The essay also contains this line, among my favorites: “traveling Thais often blink with wonder at the sight of oranges the color of flame.”

The photo above is of a clementine I peeled and ate in Thailand.