Category: random

It was a simple three-story one-room walk-up with a small interior bathroom. Terry Sutherland had lived there for nearly a decade.

He was comfortable with his batting-stuffed bed, an oversized wingback chair, a few old books, and an antique clock. He did not have a kitchen in his room.

Terry’s life was simple. His clothes hung in a narrow closet built into the wall along the narrow hall to the “water closet,” which consisted of a small sink and toilet.

He kept his life uncluttered out of necessity, as his obsessive-compulsive disorder could get out of hand. And he no longer had access to the medication he once used to control his condition.

As of late, however, the old mechanical clock was giving him fits. Five times since mid-June, it had fallen behind by a minute and no longer synched up with his pocket watch.

He recalibrated the two to match, only to wake up and find it had slipped back by that minute.

“What in the hell?” Terry said after getting up.

Once again, the clock was a minute off. After resetting it, Terry showered, dressed, ate the biscuit he purchased the day before, before leaving for the factory.

There he was considered an enterprising, clever, and hard-working man. Recently, Terry had earned a small raise after showing his inventiveness in repairing a faulty light switch in his boss’ private office.

Down the three flights of stairs, he walked to the front door. The knob rattled noisily in his hand as he twisted it and opened the door.

Beyond the threshold, it was still 1921, and still, he found himself trapped in the time loop. He had hated his life before, but other than the problem of the wind-up clock, his new life was perfect.

My Cousin Elmo says, “If I had a dollar bill for every woman who found me unattractive, I’d have enough money that every woman would find me attractive.”

Not once have I posted a story to this blog about an unknown person, save for a historical figure. However, while researching a news article for Dayton, Nev., I found this obituary from Fort Dodge, Iowa, newspaper, “The Messenger.”

I decided to only post a snippet of the obituary before I quickly don’t explain why I find it fascinating…

“Edith Ruth Bloomquist, 98, of Nevada, and formerly of Dayton, went home to be with her Savior on June 30, 2021. This is also the date, June 30, she married Paul Bloomquist in 1945.

Edith was born on her family farm south of Fort Dodge on April 16, 1923, to Anna (Jondle) and Laddie Fiala. Edith graduated from Otho High School in 1941, attended Iowa State Teacher’s College, in Cedar Falls, and then taught country school at Elkhorn #5 for three years.”

My dad was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, like Mrs. Bloomquist, and Dayton, Nev. is part of my primary beat as a news reporter. These two facts simply moved me demonstrating how the world has become such a small place nowadays, and I have to wonder if perchance they knew one another.

Many condolences to Mrs. Bloomquist’s loved ones.

“You’re the rudest motherfucker ever,” Mr. Black said to Mr. Pink.

“Why?” Pink asked, “Because I said what everyone was think, but didn’t have the guts to say?”

They were sitting outside, talking, enjoying beers, the night filled with glittering stars and a waning half-moon. It was Mr. Green that started the conversation.

“Have any of you seen the movie ‘Inglorious Bastards,’ by Quentin Tarantino?” he asked.

Some of us had, some had not. Black hadn’t.

“That movie gets me,” Green added, “After all, I’m the son of Polish-Jews who survived the Nazi death camps. Makes me wonder where he gets his ideas.”

“I can tell you,” Pink said.

“No you can’t,” Green said. “He doesn’t even know where he comes up with some the shit, himself.”

“What was the story you were telling us before you changed the subject?” Black asked.

“You mean about exterminating ground squirrels?” he said.

“Yeah,” Pink said.

“What about it?” Green said.

“You have a six-million dollar contract to kill them,” Pink said, adding, “How do you kill them again?”

“Dude,” Black said, “You ain’t going there, are you?”

Pink ignored him.

“We capture them in cages,” Green responded. “Then we empty the cages into what amounts to a garbage can, put the lid on it, and hook the can up to the exhaust pipe on one of our service trucks and gas them.”

“There you go,” Pink said.

“There I go what?” he asked.

“You’re a Polish-Jew that uses the same friggin’ method of killing squirrels that the Nazis used on your people,” Pink said. “Where do you think you got your idea?”

“Man, that’s some heavy shit,” Green said.

“Your jus’ like Quentin Tarantino  and you don’t even effing know it,” Mr. Pink said.

“Wow, thanks for the compliment,” Mr. Green said.

That’s when Mr. Black chimed in, “You’re the rudest motherfucker ever.”

Icarus’ cause of death was always a lie.
He did not die flying too close to the sun.
Icarus was shot out of the sky.
His frightened death-screams long faded.

An ambitious dreamer dashed violently to the ground.
His drifting feathers meant to frighten us.
Icarus’ murder is a powerful message:
Dreams have a power of their own, even in death.

Daily, I earned slightly enough to buy groceries in the evening. Each day went by quickly.

But now it was October and getting much colder in the nights. The family next to my tent had a woodstove. I had nothing, and besides my tent and what was in it.

Bitterly I decided to leave. Soon the weather would change from cold to deathly freezing.

Returning to the highway, I passed water towers, homes, outbuildings, and a factory, then hitched a ride to Reno. The driver dropped me off in front of a Walmart.

Inside, I bought bread, baloney, and a beer, then sat on the low retaining wall in the back of the store and made a couple of sandwiches. As I ate in silence, I knew this was the end of something worth noting.

I could feel the pull of my own life calling me back.

When the sun grew high and the day too hot, we trudged to the end of the field. There we unloaded our burden and picked up my day’s wage.

Back across the highway, I borrowed a bicycle and rode to a mom-and-pop grocery store. I bought cans of Spam, Ravioli’s, baloney, bread, instant coffee, and a case of water.

On my little hiking stove, I warmed up the Ravioli’s, made instant coffee in the now-empty ravioli can, and ate one of the best meals of my life. Hunger satiated, but still, achingly tired, I reclined on my bedroll, sighed, and drift in and out of dreamless sleep.

Dogs barked in the distant cool of the night. Music twanged, vibrated, and carried across the fields.

All was right with me.

That morning I got up, put on my pants, which were all torn, went to the blockhouse to wash, came back, put on an old nearly worn-out straw hat, and went across the highway. Every muscle and bone in my body screamed for surrender.

In the morning, I got up, washed, and took a walk around the place because the work had not begun. That night I went to bed in the sweet night air beneath a dewy tent.

Three days and nights: no work, little food, warm beers, all freely given to me by others in the same shape as me. We huddled around a bond fire each night, where I would listen to their stories and the songs of a hard life.

Finally, we began working.

In a large tent near mine lived a family. They consisted of the grandfather, his wife, their son and daughter, their spouses, and half-a-dozen children.

Each filed every dawn across the highway to the field and went to work. And each morning, I followed behind them.

We bent down and began picking. Soon my hands began to cramp, fingertips to bleed; I needed gloves or more experience, and my back ached.

Each day I strived to catch up to the children as they moved along the cultivated rows. Each day, I fell behind and was never able to match their speed or skill.

But I never surrendered to the feeling of defeat that often overcame me.

The truck dropped me off in the early hours of dawn. I got out and roamed the quiet town of Yerington.

I chuckled about having talked of this place, actually making fun of it when I worked in radio, calling it Yeringtonburg, without ever having set foot inside the city limits.

As dawn began to break, I lay flat on my back on the lawn near the old courthouse. I could lie there all day but finally decided I should look for that farm labor job I felt I needed to be a man.

Along Highway 95, I went to find the mythical farmer and his fabled farm. The fields all looked long and wide, filled with clots of dirt, each growing vegetables and lonely.

He pointed me to a small, cement block building. Behind it was trailers and tents.

I set my tent up, and by nightfall, guitars tinkled, and harmonica hummed as I gazed at the stars.

My Cousin Elmo says, “Sometimes I make a joke in my head, and we all laugh.”