The Half & Half
Earl’s Half & Half was located at the border between Louisiana and Arkansas. The liquor half was in the state of Louisiana, and the grocery half, in Arkansas. Customers joked that you could go from one state to another in less time than it took to sign your name. The store had started out as […]
Shoot Me, I’m Online Dating (10)
I’m not proud about online dating. Why would I want to brag about trying to find loving companionship after searching through profiles and photographs and exchanging emails for much too long? The truth is that eight years ago I thought the kiss of joy had grazed my cheek. On that particular evening, I had sworn off renewing […]
From Pulp Into Paper
This is from my novel-in-progress, Pulp Into Paper. Brenda Shawn trained her flashlight on the ground and landed in the water on something soft and squishy. She shook her boot loose from gunk. Moving along like a small tractor, she checked the view between trees that led to the road. No one there. She put […]
Leona Canyon Open Space Preserve
Down the stairs of my condominium and across Campus Drive to Leona Canyon Open Space Preserve. In April and May, I canter past an expanse of wild radish and California golden poppies, and beyond a pond that is lined in cattails and home to a changing family of mallards whose ducklings hide behind the rushes. […]
1025 Gilman Street, Whole Foods Market
Vegetables were artfully arranged by size and color like models at New York’s Fashion Week. I wanted to eat everything. But this was not a farmer’s market or my friend’s kitchen. I’d happened upon the newest Whole Foods Market that had opened last year on Gilman Street in Berkeley, California. I’d returned to the store […]
Mustang
I’m on vacation from Chicago and visiting my girlfriend in Louisiana. Kathy and I met in college where we played on the same basketball team. This is my first time visiting the South. The plan is to drive to New Orleans the next day for the Jazz Fest. “Hey, Bev. Can you take the car […]
The Bottom Line
I will miss you the most in the evening after the dishes are put away and I’ve retired to the bedroom knowing there’s nothing on TV to hold my interest, pull back the sheets and expect you to enter the room holding a glass of something cold, jiggling ice cubes until you set them down […]
Change the Louisiana State Slogan
It seems odd that the Louisiana state slogan on its license plate is Sportsman’s Paradise. I am not a sport in the way that the slogan implies (hunting or fishing), nor am I a man. With such a gender specific state slogan, Louisiana has eliminated half of its population. But it’s not all about being […]
Stormy Weather
A storm begins as a harmless patter, a shuffle on the pavement, an occasional trip-trap coming down at the same tempo, target practice increasing in accuracy until its velocity becomes more insistent, a spring downpour, the ahhing of earth absorbing moisture, then rain plays a trick, comes down in lashes, a punishment for hours and […]
Making Friends With the Lawn
Lawns were work. Not only did people have to cut them, but just like in Ecclesiastes, there was a time to scatter seeds, a time to fertilize, and a time to spray for bugs. It seemed endless, a weekend ritual of cutting grass, grass that always grew back. It was like Sisyphus rolling a rock up a hill, and then it rolling back down again. Wby?