Category: Holding onto the Past
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The Girls of the Corn
The scene was something like the photographs of Dust Bowl Oklahoma. But there was so much current reality around me, it made a jarring juxtaposition. Fifty feet behind me the SUVs, the pick-ups and the Greyhound size RVs roared past on the paved road. A few feet in front of me was a nearly extinct…
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Now Arriving…
[“Oh, yes, I remember it well.” -Maurice Chevalier] I do remember it. How often does a boy get his first kiss (and not from Mom) on an afternoon, after a remedial math class taught by a nun? My guess is that it’s not that often. However, that ‘kiss’ has to happen somewhere, sometime in a…
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Boy, You’ve Got To Carry That Weight
It’s been said that the human soul weighs 21 grams. A gram is equal to the weight of a standard paper clip. So, if you hold 21 paper clips in the palm of your hand, you’re hold what amounts to the heft of an eternal soul…a soul that will spend all of time in eternal…
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The Clock On The Wall: A Play In Eight Acts
Act 1: Sitting at an IBM workbench. I knew the call would come soon. I was soldering diodes onto a computer chip. The resin smoked. The phone rang in my manager’s office. Go home to your wife, he said, she called and said it’s time. I pass by the electronic parts window. A guy says…
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Gone and Still Forgotten in God’s Acre
“When out of sight, quickly also out of mind.”–Thomas a Kempis They’re everywhere, like abandoned cars in the South Bronx (ca 1972), only you don’t see them on your way to the Bodega. No, these are found in the verdant fields and well-kept lawns of cemeteries in counties like Westchester, NY or Crittenden, VT. They…
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Where Are You Going, My Brown-Eyed Son?
Oh, where are you going, my brown-eyed son? There you were, a small shadow on a monitor. Small and washed by changing shades of black and white amid countless lines that made watching difficult. The Technician slowly moved the grey piece of equipment around the oiled skin of your mothers swollen abdomen. There. Right there.…
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Last Stop: Tir Na Nog!
Hardly a mythology exists that doesn’t include a “Land of Eternal Youth” tale. It could be a Shangra-La, isolated in a mountain valley somewhere or Ultima Thule for those brave souls who travel to the Northern Realms. There are Gypsy versions and Japanese variations, but, for my money, the Irish story is the most haunting…
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Are You Somewhere Up Above?
That’s right. It’s class reunion time again. These events come around so fast these days, it’s like speed dating. The years are passing rapidly now. It seems like I was looking forward to my 20th just a short time ago. Now, I’m dreading the approaching 50th. So, one more time, I’ll sign up, send in…
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A Story of Christmas and Coal
My father grew up poor. Not the kind of poor where he would walk through ten inches of snow barefoot or go from house to house asking for bread. His parents provided the best they could, but, by his own admission, he grew up poor. My grandfather and my grandmother should be telling this story.…
patrickjegan 