Category: Time
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A Rock, A Pumpkin And The Grateful Dead
“May I top you up?” –Anonymous bartender. “You can’t top that!” –Patrick Egan People like to put things on top of things. Nature likes to just leave things where they were put originally. I remember one afternoon, in mid-October, 1997, (if you…
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A Night At The Opera
I sat in the Amargosa Opera House. Half the seats were filled with ticket holders. I looked around at the fantastic murals, I moved one seat away from the heat of the pot-belly stove and I watched the red curtain. It was 7:05 pm on Saturday night. There would not be an opera here tonight,…
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The Road To Zzyzx And Down The Boulevard Of Dreams
I wrote a version of this post several days ago, before I went to this Place of Healing, before I walked along the Boulevard of Dreams. After the visit, I deleted most of what I had written…and began again. Yes, I began again when I made the right turn off I-15 and took the…
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Unfortunate Souls
One afternoon, in the late 19th Century, the fifteen year old brother of Maria Moreno complained about the way she was dancing. She got angry. His response was to say: “So, shoot me.” Maria, who was sixteen went into her house and brought her father’s rifle. She shot and killed her brother. He should have…
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At The Alamo: All The History I Needed Was On My Pajamas
[Source: Google search] I grew up in a time when kids had heroes. Mythic heroes. These days, it seems like anyone who performs his or her duties is a “hero”. It’s fair to say that most children, throughout history, had their own heroes. The ancient Greek boys had their Spartans and the Irish youth had…
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A Silent Eulogy: Late But Heartfelt
Is it possible that a eulogy can take forty-one years to deliver? The dreaded answer is yes. I know because I spoke that eulogy…silently, silently so that only I heard the words. It was a rambling prayer over a heart-breaking death. I knew the young man who had died. In truth, I was with him…
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Every Grain Of Sand
“There lived a singer in France of old By the tideless dolorous midland sea. In a land of sand and ruin and gold There shone one woman and none but she.” –Algernon Swinburne “I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me.…
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My Grave Nightmare: A Halloween Story
Was it a day in full blinding sun or a night in deep gloomy shadows? Was I asleep? Awake? I don’t remember. No, it was both. I wandered about in my dream with my eyes open, my dream that quickly became a nightmare. What I looked upon were reflections of my darkest thoughts and fears.…
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Evening Reflections On The Fountain Of Youth
[Ponce de Leon seeks the Fountain] Tomorrow, October 31st , I’m going to post my Halloween blog. I’ve been saying it’s going to be scary. I hope it is. It is a description, mostly fiction, of my fear of graveyards and the hours after midnight when dreams go dark as ink and visions are bleak…
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Forever I’ve Dreamt Of Sailing Away
One day, several decades ago, I sat down with a book by Captain Joshua Slocum. It was titled “Sailing Alone Around the World”. Capt. Slocum published the book in 1900–it was a bestseller–and it made him a Superstar of the Seas. His boat was named Spray. Nearly ten years later, Slocum disappeared aboard the Spray.…
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