Year: 2019

Bits and Pieces

Well, here we are, about to shut the door on yet another year. When the curtain falls, when the shouts, applause, laments and music of the year-end fade into a distant echo, what’s left? You’ll find it lying there, scattered on the floor of yesterdays, the bits and pieces of it all. ********** Christmas is …

Waiting in Line

It’s a week before Christmas. I’m standing in line at the post office, waiting. I’m not alone. Others stand silently in a long queue that snakes its way outside. They wait, too. It’s an understatement to say Americans enjoy waiting in line anywhere. Or, for that matter, waiting for anything. We’re used to instantaneous fulfillment …

Just Right

“The coffee was hotter and blacker than the sins of the devil himself. But it tasted just right, you might say.” Louis L’Amour ********** Life demands verbal responses. The choices are many, from the crude to the superlative. Finding the appropriate middle ground is a challenge. ‘Just right’ might be the perfect choice for you. …

Saving Face

“When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.”  Lec ********** There’s a lot of need for face saving in these times. Impeachment hearings may have been the best thing that’s happened in America lately. Such gushing rubbish is entertaining the wrong people and making the right ones …

Ashes of Love

I’m sitting in the Snip and Clip Hair Emporium, a fancy name for a ‘beauty parlor.’ I’m waiting for my turn for a haircut. It’s weird, sitting in the midst of women who can both talk and hear at the same time. Times have changed. Everything is unisex now. Old stigmas are gone. Men are …

The Kiss

It begins harmlessly enough, the first kiss. Who really knows what to expect? Only that it won’t be the last. ********** They were young, the night was dark, the Senior prom was over. They sat in his car in the moonlit parking lot behind the school auditorium while the crowd thinned out. Intensity filled the …

Resting on our Laurels

The older I get, the better I was.”  Anonymously inspired. ********** Laurels…we’ve got plenty of ‘em. They cling to our walls and clutter our closets. Our photo albums bulge with them. Metals and badges occupy vases, shelves and cabinets. Storage units overflow with yesterday’s cast offs. Out of sight, out of mind. Why do we …

Batteries

What’s in a man’s pocket? Does anybody really want to know? ********** Men walk around with their hands shoved in their front pockets all the time like they’re trying to hide something. Or maybe they just simply don’t know what to do with their hands. Pockets are as good a place as any to stash …