You thought you knew her. She thought she knew you. Neither was true but this happens at times at Happy Hour on Fridays after a long week of work. The rapport was strong. Amazing, you thought. She might be someone you’d see more than once. She had a nice apartment or maybe it was a condo a big double bed […]
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I died from a rattlesnake bite and found myself in line with other zombies in front of a bank of elevators, the doors opening and closing as if by metronome. Every time a door opened a voice called the names of 12 zombies who boarded the elevator single file. As the doors closed, Led Zeppelin or Bing Crosby played in the background depending on whether the […]
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Homer’s never owned a gun, thinks they should be banned along with bombs and missiles. Doesn’t need them in the river that flows between his mind and his emotions where every now and then he pushes someone in for some untoward remark. He points to the sky first, says that’s where heaven is and gives a push […]
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A Sisyphus Moment There’s a force that makes a boulder hard to push up a hill. And there’s always a boulder and always a hill when it comes to helping the poor find something to eat, somewhere to live, a job they can go to every day. Sometimes the boulder slips and rolls back downhill and Sisyphus jumps aside. Accidents happen. […]
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A Husband Falters Better take his wife to lunch after what he said yesterday. A slip of the tongue. But where to take her? The Chinese buffet? The Indian buffet? Maybe the Japanese place. She likes sushi and tempura. But when he asks about lunch she says not a chance. She has to clean the house. Cleaning lady comes today.
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High Tea in Missouri They’re the oldest couple my wife and I know and we’re no pups either. Peter out for a walk leans on his cane often to admire my wife’s garden. The English roses remind him of home, he says, and one day he invites us over for tea at the civilized hour of 3. That day at 3 we enter an old world in […]
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American Innocence, Our Children Now and Then By Donal Mahoney As we know, sometimes we can see the big picture by peeking through a keyhole. And in America today perhaps we can see better the state of innocence among young children by looking at a recent incident in middle America. A retired grammar school teacher, Thomas Thacker, is surprised […]
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Freckles They Called Him Walter Branham, a retired teacher, and his wife Victoria went to Applebee’s, the chain restaurant, for lunch one day last week. First time they had gone there. Usually they go to an ethnic restaurant but Victoria wanted a salad. Walt as always was obliging. The restaurant host was a young man who as a […]
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A Good Customer I saw Al once a month for 30 years, maybe more, doing business together. He retired to hunt bear in Alaska, hook Tarpon in Florida, golf in Scotland. He had it all planned. Nothing would stop him. Months later I learned doctors said he had cancer of the blood. The outlook was bleak. I called Al and he said six months, […]
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Every summer they come, a ballet over the border, without papers, a mass migration of ruby-throat hummers, beautiful birds that devour millions of flies in North America, birds we welcome because we love their beauty and their ballet. We do everything to help them, hanging and cleaning feeders of nectar to plump them up so they can feast on flies until October when they have […]
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