BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… POETRY & FISTS. “Levitt’s swinging right caught him by the cheek-bone and he staggered, driven back by the force of the larger man’s onslaught.” — Louis L’Amour, Where the Long Grass Blows L’Amour was “America’s Favorite Storyteller.” I know that because those words are printed on the cover of all his books.…
BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… THE WINTER, LATE. “Do you ever have memories that are not quite your own? Moments in the mind’s eye that feel so real, but have never been a part of your own past?” The house still stands on the hill and it is late winter but the air is strange and warm.…
BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… WATER, INK, & STONE. The early rains came down again, like they always do this time of year. The grass greens. The daffodil blooms, reminder that no matter the crazy outrage of the day, there is solace in new life, again, and again. It seems the world begins anew each year with…
BEEN THINKING ABOUT… OUR DAILY BREAD. “Give us this day our daily bread….” The rains were heavy that spring of my 16th year, and the gooseberry brambles plentiful with green fruit. Dark skies blocked out the May sun and I kept my worn-out green flannel shirt close by, wet-tinged breeze still biting as I threw…
BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… THE END OF THE ROAD. The old road winds down the ridge and down through the holler. In the mountains of the South, “holler” just means “hollow” — like Sleepy Hollow — or, more specifically, “a small valley.” The word comes from the Old English word holh, meaning cave or hole in…
BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… JABBERWOCK FOG. The February rain came down, washing away the sky, washing down the dark. Fog rose in the hollers and crept up the mountains, cold wet breeze whispering in the oak trees, chill blanket on the rock bluffs dark and black with rain. Lonely piles of snow moldered. The roads slick.…
BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… THE MAN IN THE STORE. The old glass door opened, then closed. The air was air-conditioned cool, smelling faintly of mothballs. Long tables stretched far to the back, tables upon which were stacked work shirts, undershirts, slacks, work pants, blue jeans. The long-reaching walls of the store were lined with shelves —…
BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… BLEAK SUN. A winter sun set fire to the west and I stopped. For a moment, time stilled. The living room windows were dirty. The windows have needed cleaning for a season or two. Little time for that in the treadmill of surviving, responding, reacting. There are journalism notes to be thrown…
BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… BENDING MEMORY TIME. The white bread is nearly gone from the shelves, along with the cases of hamburger at the meat counter, the mounds of tomatoes and onions and peppers and avocados from the produce section, and the chili and pinto beans from the canned food aisle. Fortunately, I score a pint…
BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… OLD FRENCH BRICKS. I remember the summer’s light dappled through the urban tree canopy of maple and birch and ginkgo, the summer sky a patchy blue over St. Louis, the old doors blue, red, green and white, each stoop, each 19th century doorway, leading to another home, another series of lives and…