Mother died in January 2013. Since it was winter, I didn’t pull a Meursault. Even if I had random murderous urges and revolver handy, I couldn’t. What two strangers would be strolling on a North Atlantic beach in winter? One? Okay. But two? Please. Continue reading Cool Tours into Evening
Unlike morally smug, ethically deficient conservatives and the Scripture misinterpreting evangelicals who enable them, the rest of us have had no hand in our own conception. Randomly created, we are born. Inevitably we die. If we’re lucky we begin enjoying semblances of control several years into seeing first light until our mortal forms lose vigor, and blindness begins the cascade rendering us past tense.
I read somewhere sight is the first of our senses that extinguishes; hearing the last. Maybe it’s apocryphal but Lillian Hellman yelled final tender endearments to Dashiell Hammett just as he succumbed on his deathbed. Seems right. The two writers were true to their beliefs as well as one another in a fashion that flouted convention.
Besides, who among us wouldn’t prefer going out hearing how we were adored? Loving phrases over a corpse comfort mourners but do the dead derive any benefit from them? Doubtful. Continue reading Our Time on Earth
The tough part of winter has arrived. Late fall through early January at least offered a succession of holidays to dread. The only promise to be kept from now until late March is gray and frigid. Naturally there are attempts to alleviate Northeastern nature. Mostly radio stations playing Beach Boys’ tunes. As if reminders were needed of what we’re missing. And while Miami is a direct flight away, there’s always soldiering those returns to LaGuardia parts.
The only beneficial aspect to shorter colder days is optimum conditions to think, to contemplate. Or if one is so moved, brood. Or if mired, mope. Continue reading Andy Hardy Meets Maigret
One of those hoary proverbs came alive for me recently. “If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.”
Alibi wasn’t an enemy. Just a mean piece of man.
A lifetime ago we’d known each other. Or to be apt circled one another. Among the few things we shared was mutual wariness. As well as his sister Kari.
Since our last brush Alibi’s condition had deteriorated severely. Good. We crossed paths inside the same rehabilitation center where mother underwent physical therapy. One cannot thwart old age. We may only develop methods to temporarily blunt its more debilitating effects. Continue reading Merciless
Despite the sad circus my place of employment has become, there’s still work to be done.
On what would’ve been singer-songwriter Buddy Holly’s 75th birthday I kept an appointment in Saratoga Springs. While I wished we could’ve met at the horse track, preferably between educated selections of The Racing Form (a publication whose pages are prayed over more than any evangelical’s Bible), alas, the clients preferred wagering on whether our company could fulfill their request.
One puckishly hopes we labeled the Saratoga Springs job “Longshot” and not “Out of the Money.” Continue reading Down the Line