Hi, Coach!

connecting...a generation later I’ve known the family for what?...thirty years? Neighbors down the street. A shout and wave when the guy walked by and some fried chicken at the annual block party. Nice that he—and what’s his wife’s name again?—invited me to their 50th anniversary party. I probably won’t know anybody unless they included some …

Old School Names

I took a ‘roots’ trip through my old neighborhood a while back. I paused in front of the A.L. Holmes grade school. It wasn’t new when my mother went there 100 years ago. And it was older yet when I went there 75 years ago and played football on the front lawn and baseball in …

One Downsmanship

Martin strolled through the resort. That’s what it was called, a resort, but actually it’s a trailer park…a nice trailer park, for sure, on a canal to the Gulf but, most importantly, it gets him under the soothing southern sun after months of snow-blown Michigan. Down to his T-shirt to open his ‘fifth wheel,’ he …

A Quick Spark and Out

She leaned on the door frame to his office, lingering, reluctant to leave. Matt studied her. Different now from their discussion a few minutes ago on the flyer she had asked him to design. He’d worked with Julia for years saying ‘hi’ in the hallways, in cafeteria clutches, on projects. But they had never slid …

In Search of the Buzz

Did you ever walk into a room, maybe in an abandoned house, and feel a buzz, a kind of ‘ohmmm’? That’s what I felt standing in the middle of the Greek temple in Segesta. No roof. Fluted columns on all four sides, pointing up and out as much as around. A holy space, a launch …

Mixed Grampa Metaphors

Writers are counseled to avoid mixing metaphors. But becoming a grand-dad is to step into a swamp of cross-winds. Here are some of the similes, aphorisms and clichés that have helped me re-connect with my progeny-once-removed after months of Covid isolation. 1. My grandkids are not water barrels anxiously waiting for the steady drip of …

Locked in, Tuscany…Locked Down, Kalamazoo

Then and Now I study the part in the auburn hair of a taut young woman heading for the beach. The Riviera Versilia. She’ll disrobe in the transept formed by the aisle of beach chairs and the Tirennian Sea. Stretching out on the canvas altar, she’ll arch her back, baring her breast to her scorching …

Just Enough to Get Home

“Hey! I found a bulldozer on the internet!” I exclaim to my buddy Spalding. “And it’s free. We just have to go pick it up in Nebraska.” “What you mean WE?” Spalding mutters. To someone who doesn’t know him, Spalding’s reply would seem to imply a certain reluctance to drive across four states with his …

Alexa…put a sock in it

Did you ever hear someone talking to their dog? I am not a pet person, but I can imagine there is something plausible in all that. Us live-alones need to verbalize once in a while to keep the vocal cords operational. And while it’s true that older folks sometimes confuse inner voice with outer voice …

Anecdotal Tourette’s

My buddy, Lenny, mentioned that his brother was a civil engineer. Wham. My anecdotal Tourette’s syndrome kicked in. Do you remember the Groucho Marx show where if you said the magic word a bird dropped down? That’s the way my mind works—say the right word and a joke pops out. Anyway, back to Lenny’s brother. …