John Gould still waits to welcome you home

Here’s how I came to love John Gould.

I first encountered his “Dispatches From the Farm” on my grandmother’s refrigerator door – a sure signal to a kid that whatever was under that magnet would make you laugh, especially if someone reads it to you.

Those early Gould stories felt to me like home, even if home was nothing like a farm in Maine. Each column invited me into Mr. Gould’s life and made the smallest detail of a day worthy of attention: why oatmeal long-simmered in an iron pot beats “instantized” rolled oats; why apple pies must have lard crusts; why you wrap a hot brick in flannel on a cold night and put it in your bed.