High school graduation, I lost my university scholarship and I needed to figure out what to do with my wide-open future. Thus, I applied for an internship in Chicago to work with a nationally-known broadcaster. I did well in the first two interviews. The final interview was in San Francisco. It was more of a…

As little old men went, Johnny had seen nearly everything – except for what he’d beheld only moments before. He had to shake his head and blink twice after seeing Mary Poppins, the newest Governess, draw a lengthy coat rack from her carpet-bag.  “Odd,” he muttered as he leaned over to have a peek inside…

Sigmund Freud believed flying dreams were a means of sexual release. But he thought that about everything. For me, taking flight begins with the ‘hop, skip, jump,’ like in track-and-field, ending in a gentle landing, running as if I were using a ram-air parachute. A friend of mine claims flying dreams represents freedom, hope, control,…

Awoke bone-stiff – old age perhaps – and there’s nothing I can do beyond remain mentally and emotionally young. The morning’s air is chilled, and I inhale it slowly, recalling the day’s chores ahead of me. The stars are unbelievable, glittering across a blackened sky. It was supposed to rain today, turning to snow –…

Recently, I met a Grunt who survived seven tours, three in Iraq, four in Afghanistan. During his last tour he got dysentery, but not quite bad enough to be sent home. The Skipper called him a malingerer, yet on his next ‘walk outside the wire’ he saved his squad from an ambush. Got a Purple…

“When you say ‘dog-speed,’ what do you mean?” I asked in response to her strange ‘good-bye.’ All I can think of are our dog’s. The eldest is 11-year’s old. He’s not as spry as he once was, enjoying sleeping on the couch and not being outside running with the others. Then there’s the middle dog,…

At the end of summer, a few days before the new school year would start, came the Del Norte County Fair. One of my favorite’s things was the ‘mystery grab bag,’ where for a quarter I could select a brown paper bag full of stuff. Sometimes it was full of crap, which was disappointing. Sometimes…

It’s been said that you shouldn’t buy a book in which the story begins with the weather. I don’t know why, because without the weather – what would any of us have in common to complain about. It would be a rare thing if we all agreed on the weather. The best example is the…

For the third time in eight years, I found myself sitting on the floor in the veterinarian’s office in tears, saying goodbye to one our dogs. I had to have our Yorkshire Terrier, Trixie, put down this morning. It was time, she was very old as dogs go, 17-year, one month and 18 days old…

A human being cannot find a better teacher than the average dog, who knows the full meaning to a natural life: ‘If you can’t screw it or eat it, then piss on it.’ Their definition of a door is that something he’ll find himself on the wrong side of every time. Finally, because of his…