MMMMmmmmmmmmMmmMmMmmmM
By ice rivers
- 1275 reads
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmMMMMMM
While passively paying my penance in graduate school for teaching with the temporary certification that I had earned after four years of “study” I...
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- 822 reads
Moa Less, More or Less
*/ If you go deep into the Hobbitland now known as New Zealand and listen carefully, you might hear the deep resonant howl from the wildly elongated...
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- 278 reads
Debating Waves
After spending 54 consecutive years in a school of some sort, first as a student and then as a teacher, I've raised my hand a lot and have called...
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- 423 reads
My Corona
I've upgraded from coffin to coughing but still feeling under par which is much better than my golf game. If I'm in China now, I'm quarantined. I had...
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- 324 reads
Sing Singing the Blues
The world is always moving. We become so used to planetary rotation and revolution that only rarely do we become aware of our personal world moving...
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- 441 reads
Spring Panic Shop
March 12, 2020 was a wonderful day to panic shop. Since the 13th would fall on a Friday, nobody wanted to take THAT risk when it came time to break...
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- 1447 reads
Buxom Beauty
Last night at a 64th birthday party, I heard Susan complaining to her husband (Matt) about her perception that Matt was oblivious to her and never...
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- 642 reads
Refrigerator Hum
Earlier in the conversation before arriving on the subject of masculine insensitivity, the subject of refrigerators had been the focus of discussion...
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- 314 reads
An Immodest Proposal
Phillip one of my great friend on Facebook suggested that "washing our hands" was not enough and more stringent applications of social separation...
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- 631 reads
Sunken Galleons
Imagine a fleet of sunken galleons stretching along the bottom of the ocean as far as the eye can see. Each galleon is loaded with diamonds. You've...
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- 675 reads
After Concluding The Plague
Not only do we have an opportunity to explore the treasures of our own submerged galleons but we have time to appreciate and collect the diamonds of...
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- 505 reads
The Joy of Breathing
I can breathe without a rattle for the first time in twenty days It's so easy to take breathng for granted as it becomes something that we can not...
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- 996 reads
Writing and Drumming
I'm not a drummer although I consider myself to be one because I was one once upon a time. Here's the thing though, a drummer's got to drum and since...
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- 365 reads
Letter to Corona
Scientists measure the spread of an epidemic by a number called R0, or “R naught.” That number is calculated this way: for every person who develops...
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- 692 reads
Bang Bang Thank You Ma'am
Tuesday afternoons have been special times for Lynn and me since we moved down South. We visit the mall town of Birkdale and go to a matinee then we...
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- 3145 reads
Final Fudge as Birkdale Becomes a Ghost
Birkdale is described as a village. I went to college in a village so I've always enjoyed the village vibe particularly the Main Street. If It wasn't...
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- 1208 reads
Wowsky
When I imagine pandemics past, the sky is like granite with howling winds drizzling rain and catcreeping fog. Today we are in the latest pandemic...
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- 485 reads
Misfire
The outstanding recurrent mechanism within my dreams has to do with my camera. Like all of us, my dreams are overloaded with spectacular vistas,...
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- 323 reads
That reminds me........
“That reminds me…..”is the great mechanism that fires up many a story from our story tellers and from those of us who turn the reminder into words...
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- 680 reads
Ready everybody, Filler Up
Well, this whole thing is real after all. I got my author's copy sent to me yesterday. Yup there's something magical about getting the publication in...
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- 1391 reads
A Good Walk Ruined
Golf has been described as a good walk ruined. Golf has three basic difficulties; 1) hitting the ball 2) finding the ball after you've hit it and 3)...
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- 827 reads
Groomin' in Progress
Let’s go back five million years or so to the moment when the first alpha monkey learned to voluntarily contract the small muscles at the base of his...
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- 324 reads
Old Betsy
Let's get back to the present for a moment. I went down cellar and grabbed our family heirloom, an ancient rifle called Ol Betsy. Supposedly Ol Betsy...
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- 389 reads
Slobs Clobberin' Sobs
Okkay, this is the third part of the Groomin series and would be indecipherable withouththe preceding parts. This idea just keeps growing in my imagination during this pandemic and it's taken control over my typing. It keeps making progress and could go all the way......but let's stop here for today to either go forward or to go back and catch up.
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- 278 reads
Laff Without a Preposition
Along with the Hubbs who did the hunting so that Sobbs could cook for the Slobbs and Bobbs who did not yet have Jobbs and were thus part of the Mobb...
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- 349 reads
Farbs and Fobbles
Laffs caught on quickly with the Slobbs and the Bobbs. They took a little longer to catch on with the Hobbs and Hubbs. The Sobbs were the first of...
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- 432 reads
No Picnic For Kibbs and Wobbs
Although most meals were consumed outdoors, life was no picnic for the females....the Wobbs. For millions of years the Wobb simply cowered in front...
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- 297 reads
Easter Tears With Genesee Johnny
When Genesee Johnny was a young whippersnapper, he kept signing up for my classes. He took all of my electives including Creative Writing which he...
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- 678 reads
The First Written Words
Snobbs increased the awareness of Clabb which fostered increased competition, jealousy, contempt, envy as the Wobbs tried to emulate the Sobbs, the...
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- 306 reads
I'm Gonna Be Rich, Rich I tell you
It's such a simple idea. Every time I go to the card section I see a plethora of birthday cards. Having assisted in several births, I am very aware...
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- 349 reads
Progression (The First written words)
Let’s go back five million years or so to the moment when the first alpha monkey learned to voluntarily contract the small muscles at the base of his...
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- 315 reads
Wordsmith Wife
Because we duel on a daily basis I have come to appreciate my wife as a wordsmith and phrasemaker particularly when she avoids profanity when...
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- 256 reads
Reverential Reading
Lots of reading before during the pandemic...... Last December, I started to get re-interested in Camus so I read The Plague. Wow. In January, I...
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- 745 reads
Lysol Under Black Light in the Cellar
We had a black light gimmick going in the cellar. It made our ruined teeth look white. We were all smashed on Genesee Cream ale when somebody lit up...
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- 475 reads
Learn To Love Your Mask
At first blush, I embraced the idea of mask wearing but with the added innovation of wearing Halloween masks instead of surgical masks as the country...
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- 340 reads
Happy Hair
On the bright side of all this darkness stands my hair. Usually by this time, Lynn has chopped it all off in what we call the "insane asylum" look...
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- 637 reads
Distance Further than six feet
The distance is much further than six feet between us as we wallow through Wal-Mart...masked and masquerading or maybe it's only me who's hiding from...
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- 359 reads
Flyweight Dream of Silk
Smitty was a flyweight with dreams of becoming a middleweight. He had made his way out of the Black Bottom of Detroit into Harlem but far from Duke...
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- 520 reads
Quarantine Cut
Right off the top of my head, I want to discuss a matter that is near and dear to me; my hair. Although bald is now in fashion, I consider myself...
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- 540 reads
So Long Richard
Twenty years ago, we had the pleasure of seeing Little Richard at the Highland Bowl. His band had taken the stage and everybody was waiting for...
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- 1111 reads
Birkdale Awakens
Even though the contagion continues to increase throughout the South, North Carolina rescinded our stay at home order. We decided to take a short...
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- 594 reads
Eternal Reward
My oldest former students are approaching 70. My youngest former students are turning 30. I am in touch with many of them on Facebook. I am in touch...
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- 588 reads
On A Loss Of Balance
I'm old and I've lost my sense of balance. I tend to forget that I'm old until that moment when having lost my sense of balance, I lose my actual...
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- 279 reads
On the Couch Beneath the Waves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MDiZZsgMcI&list=PL0jp-uZ7a4g9sB9aKc954gRHxjYhBpUSf&index=11&t=0s Back in January, when the Roku aquarium...
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- 537 reads
Books in the Background
Yesterday I heard someone complaining about liberal know it alls who always make sure to have books in the background when they skype on teevee. The...
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- 488 reads
Fern is fine
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. George Fern felt fine. His feeling of fineness was not dampened in the least by the sobering...
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- 519 reads
Johari Windows
Everybody knows about Joe and Harry, right? Phil Andreano, one of my mentors told me about Joe and Harry and the Johari windows. Seems that Joe and...
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- 1289 reads
Calling Crayon
Mark Crayon had several outstanding abilities. Mark was an excellent brainstormer. He was an idea generator with a profound ability to defer...
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- 552 reads
200,000 milestone review
Yesterday when I was off line, I reached a milestone. 200,000 reads. Thanks you all and particular thanks go out to the 16 who have read almost...
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- 270 reads
Mandella Man
The Mandella effect is a syndrome in which a large mass of people believe an event occurred when it didn't. Every time I see a clip of JFK arriving...
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- 660 reads
The Courage to Linger
Is there a more resplendent cadaver Than the magnolia transpired on the vine? Still sprouting fading plumage In the easy Ellington elegance Of pod...
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- 661 reads
Prior to embracing Ambiguity
I remember a time before I decided to embrace ambiguity and make it my life work that I felt a weird sense of relief that Albert Einstein had come up...
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- 1362 reads
Smartfellas
Remember Goodfellas, the scene with Joe Pesci, as Tommy, terrifying Ray Liotta as Henry Hill? "But I'm funny, how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I...
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- 657 reads
Twine Time and Suzie
Shotgun Shoot 'em 'fore he run, now Do the jerk, baby Do the jerk, now Yeah! Put on yo' high-heel shoes I said, we goin' down here An listen to 'em...
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- 534 reads
The Sudden Sweet Death of Jimmy Doyle
His last name Delaney wasn't Irish enough for James and neither for that matter was his first name. He changed his name to something that sounded...
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- 347 reads
A Blizzard of Joan in Carolina Heat
In North Carolina It's already 90 degrees. it's not even noon. I need to cool off. Throw on some Miles Davis. Birth of the cool. Think back twenty...
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- 453 reads
Space Junk Fever
I have a dear friend who was born on the day that Sputnik first orbitted the earth in 1957. She was born. We were afraid. I remember the excitement...
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- 471 reads
Ups and Downs of Retirement
Whereas before his retirement from his Wonder Bread delivery truck on its seemingly endless route, George Fern had the semi-attractive appearance of...
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- 466 reads
Master Baiter
If Shawn Shannon wasn't the biggest pain in the ass pupil I ever encounterred he was, as they say, amongst them. Shawn was passive agressive and...
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- 714 reads
Hollywood Boulevard......A Ghost Between Stars
It was my first walk on Hollywood Boulevard as I passed Grauman's Chinese Theatere. Enter the Dragon was on the marquee. I remember thinking how...
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- 447 reads
Drum Dream
Music was my final merit badge. I decided that my attempt to trail the Eagle was running out of enthusiasm. I quit Boy Scouts the same day that I...
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- 639 reads
Shooting The Engineer
I keep shooting the engineer. He laughs and pulls his bullet ridden body off the linoleum tiles and says, "one more shot". When I paginated my...
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- 1537 reads
Wild Pair
He was a real prince of a guy, misunderstood yeah but occasionally appreciated especially at the Wild Pair. When Marketplace Mall first opened, it...
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- 7 comments
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- 1693 reads
Ain't Virgil's Theory (Ghostwritten)
Virgil Kane ain't my name but it's close enough. Ya see, Kane wasn't the only one hungry and barely alive after Richmond fell in the winter of '65. I...
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- 453 reads
Petrified Pioneer
Funny how the circle comes around. Once again, my age group is at risk while we await a serum. This all happened before, when I was a child........
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- 543 reads
Band-Aids and Bayonets
A hundred years ago, the Johnsons stole an idea from one of their employees who had a temporary solution to the problem caused by his wife...
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- 543 reads
Step-Father Complex Sentence
On this Father's Day, I celebrate 44 years of being a father and a step father. Aside from the issues of blood and stereotype, there's not a lot of...
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- 270 reads
Under and Above Village Influence (Oh Yeah)
I've been digging some jazz lately on record, on tube, on Spotify and in person. I got my first taste of jazz in Greenwich Village in the sixties...
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- 1574 reads
More Oh Yeah
Yeah If jazz contains spontaneous composition that encourages the closing of eyes, well I may not be as far off as I thought. The question is at what...
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- 901 reads
Activating Adrien
Everybody is looking to learn something. Some people are searching to learn everything. To those searching for everything, I have this advice. Start...
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- 662 reads
L'eau Sous Le Pont (Water Under the Bridge)
I was very poor in French in high school so I decided to make the most of my ultralimited French vocabulary by inserting everything I recalled into one story. Inspired by Insertponcyfrench and inspirational lock down.
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- 390 reads
French to Me Part One: The Breakers.
The last time that I saw Les Eleves was when I passed our broken classroom. Les Eleves was sitting at the desk, looking forlornly at the dark clouds...
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- 566 reads
French to Me Deux ( Lay Zay Lev)
We knew one another. We knew how to break. We all knew that Toddler was a sleeper so we slept. Out and out, passive aggressive sleeping was the...
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- 373 reads
Three Men and a Ghost
Very rarely have I been "scared" at a movie. I'm good at suspending disbelief and I have an active sense of empathy yet I'm always aware that I'm...
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- 934 reads
Three Feet and Three images
During my first law class in graduate school. our teacher made this point about legal, individual rights. "I have the right to swing my fist until my...
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- 786 reads
French to Me Part Three....Weapons and Vulnerabilities
We had several reliable weapons in our arsenal of ball breaking. Let me describe some of them. 1) Cupping.....curve your hand into a cup and then...
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- 227 reads
Food for Thought
When I sat down to type this morning, food was the last thing on my mind as I had already consumed my breakfast, the same breakfast that I have every...
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- 742 reads
Father Farr
Father Phineas Farr was a small man with a large whistle. Somewhere he had learned the art of the little finger pull the lips apart, stretch out the...
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- 1318 reads
Porches, Cats and Covid Oh My
In our neighborhood we have a cat that roams around the block . We see much more of the cat than we do of the people who own the cat. After six...
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- 541 reads
The Best I Can Do While Lost
Before we armed our vehicles with dashboards, speedometers and GPS; distance, location and destination were continually problematic to vehicles...
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- 796 reads
No More Rootin' for Seymour
Me and the first wife, we bought ourselves a little piglet. We brought it back to our place. We put the piglet in a horse stall. We went up to the...
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- 497 reads
Walking Down Serenity Street in July
If you're gonna walk down Serenity Street in July, you better start early before the heat arrives. I was on such an early walk as I passed a braid...
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- 953 reads
The Wasp Woman, The King and the Dwarf.
When truth is stranger than fiction, it becomes difficult to know where to start so let's begin with the cryptic. Once upon a time....... Down the...
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- 559 reads
A Comfort on the Way to Hell
One afternoon under a cerulean sky, my wife surprised me with an offhand comment when she said, "I'm going to hell." She didn't seem particularly...
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- 346 reads
Baseball 2020 (Love is Strange)
I've loved baseball for 65 years. Strangely, I didn't miss it when Covid eliminated the first three and a half months of play. The game returned a...
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- 887 reads
Seven Hundred and Counting
Is the mike on? (tap tap) Let me adjust it.....okay that's good. Can you hear me? Is the light on? We recording? Lights on.....mike works....gonna...
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- 706 reads
Radar Readar Reader
Take out your radar guns and stop watches. We're about to discuss baseball, speed and reading. If you wanna be a major league batter, you need to be...
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- 749 reads
A Missing Youth
Plaid waves without the wailing, motor boat sailing, water circles weaving, summer starts to fall, the laughing love we cry for, the living lights we...
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- 409 reads
Petting Yeti
You never know what's gonna happen when you're searching for furnace filters in a Home Depot moments after stepping out of the furnace that is...
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- 300 reads
FLASH-BANG in the Blue
75 years ago yesterday, my father was a GI stationed in Manilla. He was preparing for the land invasion of Japan that would never happen. The baby...
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- 664 reads
Kinky Brainwash
https://genius.com/The-kinks-brainwashed-lyrics
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- 424 reads
Brides and Grooms....Husbands, Wives and an Aardvark
I love the English language. I asssume this love affair is what propelled me into my career as an English teacher. Makes sense to me. Two words...
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- 404 reads
A Human Response
In my very first year of teaching back in '68, i was shutting a classroom window when somehow I cut my hand. I didn't want to look at my wound...
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- 624 reads
Filler Up With Rosebuds
What would our lives look like if we eliminated all of the filler that we've forgotten anyways...all those times when we were busy doin' nuthin yet...
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- 493 reads
Gladys Judges Elvis Etc
The world went into mourning on August 16, 1977 when we learned about the death of Elvis. A couple of months before Elvis appeared at our Rochester...
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- 515 reads
Back to More Perfecter Normal
Today, a summer rain has fallen in Vermillion. Lynn walks with her friend Peggy on Friday mornings but not this Friday,,,,,not today. Too much rain...
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- 338 reads
Learn More or Ignore On the Row
One of the most influential albums of the twentieth century is Highway 61 Revisited recorded in 1965 by Bob Dylan. Many of us, including Dylan were...
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- 565 reads
Post Conventions Post
Real quick. Here's the deal. No Democrat has won a majority of the white vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Kamala Harris isn't gonna bring in a lot...
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- 349 reads
Systems Real Quick
Real Quick all isms are systems all systems begin with an idea Nobody's born capitalist communist Buddhist fascist feminist sexist feminist hedonist...
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- 273 reads
Lifesaver
Bad ideas? I've had more than my share. Some of them became actions which have turned into attitudes, fears and biases. Here's my recollection of a...
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- 336 reads
Claudia and the Cut Throat
I’m no fisherman but I have a fish story. The story takes place in the mountains of Montana, the last of the big time splendours. My companions were...
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- 753 reads
The Best Cell in the dungeon
We were at a restaurant awhile back. I was impressed as I always am by the politeness of our waiter. I started wondering what it would be like if that "politeness" were extended in an area of exceedingly less ambience. I recalled a scene from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein when Victor finds himself in the presence of a magistrate in Ireland. From that inspiration point on, the best cell began to write itself
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- 341 reads
Remembering Secretariat at Belmont
T'was twenty hours before I observed a primeval, confrontational force of nature appear at precisely the right juncture in my adult development arise...
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- 398 reads
Dusk of Another 25 Hour Night
A few years ago, the United States sent a mechanism to Mars. The landing was perfect but something went wrong with communications. We never received any signals back from the machine. I tried to imagine what was going on with that mechanism and realized it had a lot to do with the fears that most of us have....alone.....not doing the job......self-disappointed......misunderstood....far, far from home....not as good as we thought we were etc.
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- 490 reads
20 Cartoons Not Downtown
Once upon a time, Downtown Rochester was a wonderland. We had first run distributor theaters like the Loew's, The RKO Palace and the Paramount. We...
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- 378 reads
A Six Pack of Beer
A six pack of beer is a wondrous commodity The amount is balanced to preserve soberiety. When you learn to pace When we were young and hated the...
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- 292 reads
Knockouts and Knockdowns
After Gene Fullmer outpointed Sugar Ray Robison in their first fight, Gene was favored to win the rematch. He was ahead in that fight entering the...
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- 357 reads
To Unfreeze In The Future
Saturday night, twenty years past. I was on the couch filling time in the cave when my daughter Mary came down to join me. Mary was eight years old...
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- 607 reads
Mahoney's Office
I was shocked if not surprised at the death of Mahoney. I learned about it last week. The last time I saw him, he didn't look good although he was always too closely resembling (in his own words) either a "young Peter Lorre or an old Orson Welles". One thing he had was a hand that was perfect for holding a glass of beer no matter what size. We used to drink together when we were young and have the most confounding of conversations which always made sense to us but were threatening/infuriating/hilarious to others. I dug his massive vocabulary and he dug mine. We didn't get a chance to use them as much as we would have liked, so when we got together, we jazzed it up. We often talked of baked otters and black out shades and redundant ethnic quips. I've been trying for the last couple of days to write something about Mahoney when I came to inspiration point and tried to imagine the kind of conversation/ observation/dissertationwe would have shared on the available topic had we had another chance to kick it around and chop it up. I'm gonna name this "piece" Mahoney's Office after him and bid my bud adieu.
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- 358 reads
Contrasts at Target
We drive a Cadillac and I'm getting cataracts. The decision about cataract surgery is when not if. I decided to get one more pair of glasses and put...
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- 620 reads
Unbidden Memories of Disgrace
Here they come, uninvited Wounded, splattered, slighted stumbling out of their shallow graves, awakened again by the thirst for hearts and brains...
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- 767 reads
Elderly Couple Down the Street
Lynn and I were cooling off on our front porch after a 3 mile walk. We were sipping on a bourbon inspired mixed drink. We noticed a family heading up...
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- 212 reads
Bella Lugubrious
I vivdly remember the days when I "met" two of my favorite words; superfluous and lugubrious. The day that I met superfluous, I was doing some...
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- 243 reads
My next job
I've been itching to get back into the wilderness so I may be coming out of retirement. I've just learned of a job opportunity that may be available...
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- 656 reads
Prophet and Loss
I have been without honor in my native land for quite awhile. My name is Jeremiah. I'm thinking in my next job, I ought to be a prophet. The pay for...
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- 384 reads
4 Way Stop
I'd like to be the guy standing at a four way stop sign. I point to the driver who is the next one to go through the intersection. Let's face, every...
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- 540 reads
Scratching for Cherries
My latest strategy for making money on lottery scratchoffs is this: check out the odds of breaking even posted on the back of the ticket. Look for a...
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- 378 reads
Berserk
The first time that I ever heard the word "berserk" was in relationship to a professional wrestling match between bad guy Fritz Von Erich and good...
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- 523 reads
Bangers at Galway Hooker
I was leaving my doctor's office and feeling pretty good. My blood test numbers were safely in bounds. The only concern was about my heart, some test...
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- 1326 reads
Biden's Hidin'
The latest skinny on the 2020 election as we go into tonight's final presidential debate is this: Biden's been hidin' There is some validity to this...
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- 459 reads
After the Brawl
Late in the debate, Biden glanced at his wrist watch. How do we interpret this body language or is it so insignificant that it is not even worthy of...
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- 575 reads
Don't Butt Heads with the Goat
After knowing each other for two months and while playing pool at the Cottage Hotel in Mendon, Cindy and I decided to get married. We had been living...
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- 298 reads
Woman Drivers on Election Day
My Uncle George was a huge hulk of a man who dressed like a bum except when he was on the job. When George put on his cop uniform, he became a...
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- 493 reads
Walking a Mile in My Shoes Searching for Empathy
I've been waiting for the past four days. Waiting for an idea. It's not writer's block because I am sure that the right one will come along as it...
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- 454 reads
Anticipation
Nobody would ever confuse me for an apple pie kinda guy. I much prefer cake to pie and I prefer chocolate devils food to vanilla. Some folks say that...
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- 736 reads
Merle Seton on The China Flu
Attention you bat biting, snake chewing, hedgehog gobbling, turtle dove devouring Orientals in the wet markets of Huanan, thanks a lot. Same to you,...
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- 222 reads
A Stranger While Scratchin'
I am scratching a $5 lottery ticket. He passes me on his way to the Food Lion. His jeans fit him a whole lot better than mine would fit me if I were...
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- 215 reads
Punk Bucket
It was the season of the deactivated, the disconnected, the disinterested, the discouraged, the dissociative and the disagreeable. It was summer...
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- 429 reads
Untied States; Thanksgiving 2020
I was doing the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. The first clue I looked at, 1 across, was “loosened shoe”. I looked down at my Nikes for a...
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- 561 reads
The Presents of John and Soren
John Lennon, rock idol and smart guy, once asked “how can I go forward if I don’t know which way I'm facing?” I’ve got an answer for that one. We’re...
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- 988 reads
Annie Got Her Gun
I want to be a six foot three, 235 pounds, barrel chested, handsome, baritone singing specimen of masculinity I want to be Howard Keel. How did one...
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- 312 reads
Acting Mature
Unlike his mighty Samson pulling down the walls or his noble Demetrius facing the lions, Victor Mature in his acting days was the epitome of timidity...
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- 897 reads
Adolf Shitler at The Barking Moon
The Barking Moon was having trouble drawing a crowd on comedy night thanks to the Covid. So they hired a tragedian named Adolf Shitler to entertain...
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- 366 reads
Lawn Rolling Here
Last night we watched the latest episode of The Crown in which Margaret Thatcher is betrayed by Geoffery Howe. The episode portrays Howe's decisive...
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- 512 reads
Saved by Nothing
Lynn had gone shopping for the afternoon when I got a call from my pal Stan whose wife was also out for the afternoon. Stan asked me what I was doing...
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- 272 reads
Split Screen
I've seen a lot of significant split screens on my teevee over the decades but yesterday was a standout not only for what was being shown but also...
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- 745 reads
Over Here
We’re all binge watching The Crown, researching Matilda, Profumo, Aquitane et al while transforming once again into Anglophiles. Thank God for the...
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- 516 reads
Numb and Number (the ultra comparative)
We're getting numb over here. Still we manage to smile 3300 Americans died of Covid yesterday More than Pearl Harbor More than 9-11 Very sensitive...
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- 608 reads
Libraries
Hey, C'mon in. Remember the days when we would show off our album collections. The days when we were expected to look at the collections when we...
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- 318 reads
Black Killers
White Killers No almost Black Killers that's it that's the answer to everything I've been thinking (well what have you been thinking that led to...
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- 212 reads
Mary Christmas
I got my best Christmas present 100 years ago today when my mother Mary was born. Her parents had come across the ocean from County Cork, Ireland to...
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- 639 reads
Sunday Character
One Sunday morning, I was walking down by the old grave yard in the morning fog when I began to think about the question of character and how...
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- 542 reads
Crossing the Mersey Part 1.....The Village
Spring 1965 I'm barely eighteen and I'm taking my first trip to New York City without my parents. My traveling companion is good looking guy named...
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- 443 reads
From the Gate to Gennyland to Mersey
We were coming from Geneseo in upstate New York. The Campus was alive with music. Folk, rock, blues and jazz. Evrey style had its zealots. I liked em...
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- 714 reads
A Bad Idea Minutes Before Insurrection
Return with me now to the days of old, five minutes before the insurrection when Ted Cruz was undermining our electoral process and referring to the...
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- 1357 reads
A Well Lit and Modest Proposal
Since 2016, I've been brushing up on my Russian Lit including Tolstoy and Dosteovsky..... War and Peace ..... Crime and Punishment ..... The Idiot as...
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- 239 reads
First Fall of 2021
I took my first fall of 2021 yesterday. Falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries for older Americans. Falls threaten seniors’...
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- 754 reads
The Inaugural Sorrow of Franklin Pierce
As we await the most dramatic inauguration day in American history, let's go back 170 years to the saddest inauguration day. The North and the South...
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- 428 reads
Tippecanoe and Who?
When we talk about great presidents or when we talk about shitty presidents or when we talk about just plain presidents....two names that rarely come...
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- 462 reads
Tinkering with Tyler Too
History is written by winners. Winning means being on the right side at the right time. If History was written by losers, John Tyler might be rated...
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- 420 reads
Stray Cats and Streetlights on a Saturday
It was an unusual Saturday. It was the first Saturday in the history of the USA that a guy named Joe was president. Also unusual because Lynn was...
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- 260 reads
50 years of masochism
The next day. Well Doc, the last thing I remember is the Bills had just scored and we were up 9-0. I went into the kitchen and grabbed a brew. I...
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- 189 reads
Seventeen Eggcorns
After our walk yesterday, Lynn and I were relaxing on our backyard lanai when the Donovan song "Catch the Wind" started playing through our Sonos...
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- 360 reads
Covid Comeback at Panther Stadium
The virus needs to spread to live and it lives to spread. In order to live to spread, the virus needs to mutate. With its spreading and mutating, the...
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- 248 reads
Asking a Strange Woman About My Shoes
It's not everyday that I ask a strange woman how she likes my shoes. This was an unusual day and an unusual woman. The day was the day after...
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- 423 reads
Upfront or Pushed Back?
My first job was the most appropriately job titled of all possible jobs. I was hired as a page at the Sully branch library. A page in the library,...
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- 613 reads
Orbisonly and Everly
It surely wasn't a candy colored clown that came into my room in my coulaphobic dream last night, more of a drunken punchinello who manipulated me...
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- 220 reads
Baker Street
I just heard Baker Street and remembered like I always do every time that I hear Baker Street what I thought the first time that I ever heard Baker...
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- 470 reads
Talking Eggs
I’ve always been over-awed by those folks who could draw faces in such excruciating detail that the output looked photographic. One of my dear...
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- 271 reads
A Brief Pause in the Inaction
Haven't we all been playing with ourselves a little too much since we've been cooped duped and quarantined? Haven't we become a little self-indulgent...
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- 349 reads
Apollonia
I don't have a toothache today. I rejoice. During my last tooth emergency, I promised myself and God that if this pain went away, I would remeber and...
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- 611 reads
My Pal, Jack Dempsey
Just North of Times Square and a little further uptown from Tin Pan Alley is where I met the Manassas Mauler, Jack Dempsey. Before Joe Louis, before...
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- 340 reads
Not Cricket
I've never played cricket nor have I ever seen a game of cricket played but I'm very familiar with the phrase "that's not cricket" which figuratively...
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- 248 reads
Lent
Even though I'm excommunicated from the Catholic Church, I still cling to some traditions while other traditions that I want to get rid of cling to...
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- 427 reads
Lazarus
The longest journey is from life to death and then back to life again. Besides Jesus himself, only one traveler has made this pilgrimage to and from...
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- 182 reads
Uncle Phil Memorial
It's Memorial Day again when we remember the sacrifices made by those who lost their lives in battle in service to their country or whatever. File my...
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- 110 reads
Jay in Jeopardy
It wasn't that Jay was losing his hearing, he was losing his sense of what somebody was about to say and once they started saying it he got lost...
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- 140 reads