But the placeful quality of the stories has to do with something more significant than the fact that my interest in them has been more geographical than historical.

The line was built by navvies using little more than wheelbarrows and shovels, with whatever material was close at hand, and the railway suffered from earthworks problems right from the start.

Even if you've missed the Halloweekend memo, putting together a last-minute costume can still be easy and cheap.

The next people I ran into were my gorgeous sister-in-law Vicky, Mrs. Mike Mulvaney Jr. with the caramel-colored hair—very pregnant—again—and her little girl Chrissy, my firstborn niece, for whom my heart always gave a lurch.