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Hippies and the Flood’s Receding Waters: To Be Transformed or Conformed, Just Ask Busby and Melody While on my way to the feed store, a time back, I saw a familiar sight. It was Busby and Melody's psychedelic-painted, micro-van on the side of the road, with the rear engine panel open-the engine was still smoking. I stopped to ask them if they...
Traveling On the Black Roads of Fear and Hope There is still a smile in their heart. But, I can see the fear in their eyes. It is not the kind of fear of the unknown. It’s the kind of fear you have of knowing. I am not sure which is worse. A couple of times a years I get a hankering...

Did Bambi Ever Give His Dad a Father’s Day Card? The American Guilt of Father’s Day-Just Ask Groucho Groucho Marx had a way of telling things the way they were. The audience always expected a less than gracious assessment of the human predicament-they usually got it. Yet most often he was all too painfully accurate. It wasn't a rarity when...

I Think I Might Be Pregnant-Again…I’m Pretty Sure It’s Mine It started off as a tiny shape. Then it grew. It grew a lot. I can now feel it squirming around inside-I think it wants to come out. I often think of the SW writing community like a laboratory, or maybe even a maternity ward. Writing is...
Creativity’s Door Game: the Difference Between Being Googled and Getting Googled I think I just got Googled! It happens all the time these days. Some might think of it as a good thing; like you are popular-folks are reading your stuff. But it can easily be an expression for the opposite. There is a difference from being...

Purple Ain’t My Favorite, But Those Girls Who Wear It Sure Are It’s that time of year; everything is in bloom and everything is in purple. It is time for spring and so it is time for the ‘Relay for Life’ cancer awareness season. Now I figure I can write a story about near anything…

Who’s Driving This Springtime Bus…and Is Ma Nature Really Chinese? The ‘Memo’ finally arrived, ‘ Okay guys, Ma Nature has given the word, GO! It’s a funny thing, but it seems spring is the only time of the year when you can discuss things like sex, and such, without folks thinking you...

Immortality and That Great One Match Campfire In the Sky Primitive fascinations can focus on things we modern humans don’t consider of much importance anymore. Yet, they are there, lurking beneath our consciousness, prepared to leap forward when the right moment occurs- like any night that yearns...
Crazy Ivan, Kobayashi Maru and that Dang Wedding in Idaho Chancey reminded me several times on Wednesday that he would not be able to make our regularly scheduled lunch at Bucky’s next week. He didn’t say why, at first, but I soon enough learned the reason. Chancey is not like one of those...
The Equations of Reality: Oh God, Another Cow Story I love living on a farm. It is a simple life, not one of complex abstractions where logic becomes something other than that which it was intended. Things are real, or at least as real as any of us ignorant human animals can ever comprehend...

FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW (Caution: This article contains mentions of animal fat) Every time the snows of winter become really deep, I think of Granny Profitt. Of course I never knew Granny, but learned enough about her to form an opinion from her grandson, Clay Profitt, who is now an old man. Sometimes it’s easy to...

You Can’t Put the Lime in the Coconut: A Political Recipe of Non-Cosmic Proportions Usually around this first part of the year, I hanker to write something that skews toward a more political nature. I do it early to get it off my plate because it usually takes a few months for folks to stop being mad at me. By the early warmth...

Toys are the Father to the Child of the Man About seven or eight years ago-I forget the exact date, but I think it was a week in the month of April-I had a perfect week. Every toy I owned worked properly; nothing was broke, in need of repairs or yearned for replacement-my world was whirling...

A Star Is a Compass Too, But It Is Not a Shark My wife asked if I was going to write a Christmas ‘thing’ –like real soon! I reminded her that I had already written a seasonal offering and probably was as much a holiday ‘thing’ as I was going be able to...
Quirky Rituals of Christmas: Past, Present, and Future Tis the season to be...quirky? The holiday season is upon us. For some, it is like a cozy, warm hug from the arms of traditions past, and for others, it is the weighty burden of embraces unfulfilled. To some it cannot arrive soon enough, for...
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Imagination of Unsolvable Problems There is the kind of article a writer writes without any intention of ever publishing. Often the words are composed to release anger, sometimes to clarify an idea and occasionally as some kind of farewell. Everyone has a need from time to time to...
That Other Woman Don't tell my wife but every day I have a relationship with another woman. Like most extramarital relationships it is only one dimensional; for me, a man, it is to satisfy a need, for her…I don't really know what she gets out of it. There...
Weeds are People Too Grrrrrrrr!!! The influences of dog-days summer are well upon us, transforming even the mildest of folks into irritable, feisty curmudgeons itching for a fight. You could blame summer solstice or weeds; either way it's something to take the mind...
Masters of Critterdom: Absence of Unnatural Politics Some say you can learn best from a child. Their innocence and simplicity can see truth in ways that more mature and experienced minds cannot. Same is true in animals. They don't seek absolute truth, they live it . I am not sure why God decided to...
The Difference between Flying and Falling There are moments in every person's life when they decide to do something, knowing full well they are probably going to die in the process. Publishing your first book is very similar in all ways. Professor Bently would understand. Her eyebrows...
Those Strings that Tie "Everyone has their own notions of the strings that connect them to whatever they want, or need to be tied to," Randy told me the other day. She said such in the context of trying to fix my truck and, how strings not only create a web in our daily...
The Unbroken Circle "SOLD!" Stanford slammed, punctuating the end of bidding and the lawful exchange of ownership from one person to another... from one generation to another. Ah, to experience an old fashion auction, to hear the stories they can tell if you give...
Who Are These People? There are invisible people among us who want to destroy us...I think...well, maybe it is only a paranoid illusion...but we all have them. They are our invisible victims, invisible heroes, invisible villains, all who grind and comfort us...
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The Fly and I: Answer to the Riddle of Immortality? This time of year flies rule. Suddenly, only primitive, animal instincts prevail and it's every animal for itself. At stake is the survival of the fittest and perhaps a glint into rules of the Afterlife. They say that for every task done, and...
A One-Eyed Rooster and the Mindset of Shaharazad Senator Milford died last week at the tender age of 107. Nobody noticed. Like Shaharazad, he had survived a very long time by telling the tales he told rather than the deeds he'd done. Uncle Irk and Aunt Sassy knew a bit about both characters....
Charity Comes Home He was as much a father to her as she had ever known. She was like a daughter he never had . Being a parent sometimes feels like an emotional version of professional wrestling, when those who you are responsible for are testing the waters of...
Political Nature of Bird Species and Other Radical Behaviors: A History This Article is dedicated to... well, everybody knows who this article is dedicated to. They're back! The birds have returned again. However, such was not always the case. In this full glory of the season it is hard to imagine anything better...
The Great ‘Forward to Your Ex-Friends’ Dilemma "How can you delete an E-Mail that you have sent accidentally to the wrong person?" Doc Markill, the pillar of our small community, asked frantically. He had crossed that cyber bridge earlier that morning. Along with it, any conduit connecting a...
Agony and the Ecstasy of a Poet- Gravity with a side of ‘Slaw Van Gogh: A Tormented Man, read the headline in the Arts section of a big city newspaper. "Duh, gee do you think?" Harry blurted out, "Join the dad-gum club!" Harry is a poet. "Being a poet ain't so easy," he once told me, "to survive you...
More Unsweet Tea Pleeeease! ...Dedicated to all of the many folks who create the comfortable tables of the heart...Thank you for all you do for the nourishment of the body and soul. In this dedication of his book, The Angel of Maryville , PD Curasi well understands that the...
The Bases Were Loaded With Angels It was the bottom of the ninth inning between the Rockets and the Cats, bases loaded, two outs, Rockets down by three runs and its best hitter was at the plate. A classic baseball scene-it's why I love the game. The pitcher sweated and squirmed...
Sex, Dragon Slayers, Killer Comets, Disney and More Sex We are all doomed. You each live every fleeting moment teetering on a precarious balance at the edge of the universe with little hope of earthly survival. Yet, for a small price you can be victorious against such overwhelming forces if you call...
The Grass Is Calling Every living thing, in its own unique style, has its own pastures and its own fences. Are we critters ever really satisfied? Just yesterday, the bull across the street broke through his fence in order to munch on our lush, green, un-mowed lawn and
Fish'n With the Stars It had been a long journey for the thirteen year old immigrant arriving in this country to become a contented old man fishing off the Crane Creek Bridge- still a dreamer. There aren't many important happenings in his life span that might...
Top 10 Farm Tunes Recently we fenced in a new pasture... it may not have been such a good idea. Of course the work was during one of the hottest stretches of an otherwise cool season. To make matters worse the ticks and chiggers were out in full bloom! Now with...
Ode To DeWalt I lost a friend today. They say that grief is a selfish endeavor; we hurt not so much on behalf of the departed but for ourselves-the part of us they occupied, and is now disconnected, vacant. It's like having an amputation of your psyche. It will...
Good, Evil and Such: A Romance She could not take it anymore, so she blew his head off... And the audience cheered! Story Dynamics are complex. There are so many levels of filtering and interpreting of story elements that only an academician would pretend to debate a formulaic...
Michelangelo, Leonardo and Soybeans "Art should speak on its own. It should be a synthesis between the artist, the observer and all the forces in the cosmos...It shouldn't be a crossword puzzle!" Boy could Buddy get worked up about this stuff. Now I know why he prefers growing...
The Short List The best compliment I ever got was never intended as a complement. It was in reaction to my announcement that I was leaving the corporation I had been with for twenty years... to do something else. The comment was conveyed to me indirectly. It...
Farm-Pod Audio Player "My universe is in my I-POD," a student once told me. I understand this notion and would not attempt to suggest any measure against it. I guess for me, my universe is in my Farm-Pod. Like most things in the rural countryside, sounds are not...
Henry Ford Ain't Feeding My Cows No More Sometimes it feels a bit lonely thinking like a Henry Ford these days. I am by nature a more Cause and Effect kind of guy. But in the American 21 st century that is not cool. Money is to be made best by talking a talk rather than walking a walk....
Bumps, Miss Beana and a Congressman’s Early Retirement It took some time but Miss Beana won. For awhile it seemed like the entire state was focused on watching her and the very powerful congressman Sam Gringle volley back and forth in the daily media. The Congressman had met his match with the...
Time Sharing and the Lessons of an Outlander I meet an outlander at Annie's Cafe' yesterday and we struck up a conversation. Nice fellow, not one of these - I am from the big city and my life-experiences make me so much smarter than you... or, I'll just talk nice to you so I can blend in-...
Grits and the Meaning of Life Carl Walkingbam, the rural postmaster here in Parrot County, figures there might be more in common between eating grits and the fragile nature of the cosmos than the average folk might admit. He often designs his ideas in an easy way so he could...
Add-Folks, Sub-Folks and Apple Pies Things don't change much here in rural, farm country. But last Saturday something happened that was so monumental the governor himself showed up to be part of it. While there he mentioned something that made a bunch of sense. It might not make...
If Only I Could Ask Caesar Julius Caesar and my Uncle Bill have something in common. They both imparted phrases added to my lexicon at youth that seemed to serve me well... at least until I published my first book; until I found out from my editors that I had the phrases...
Animal Frisbee Days of Spring It has been such a loooong winter for everyone, and everything. It seems that in the grand scheme of things winter and summer are always too long while spring and autumn are always too short. But no matter, it is the quest for the equilibrium that...
The Mayor, the Pastor and the Handyman After Jimmy Lee Jorgen became mayor folks soon found out the difference between the way he really saw things, and the way he really thought things ought to be. It was not unlike the mice problem over at Jed's feed store as I remember. Jimmy Lee...
The Lost Art of Arguments Someone once asked me to backup some point on a topic about which I had written, "What is your reference?" they questioned, and it was not stated in any casual tone. I thought it was a valid question, and I was determined to answer it; but not...
Mr. Simpkins Drunk Cows The economy is not going to get better any time soon. Because at the end of the day fixing the economy it is not about microeconomics, it is about macro-stubbornness. That was the same reason Mr. Simpkins cows got so drunk; it was not really the...
Two Diners and One Tomato It was the best of times it was the worst of times... Wait a minute. I think someone might have already used that opening line before. And although Dickens might not have been talking about the woes of a 21st century global economy, he easily...

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