A.G.E's Joint

[The scene is a trailer park. The units are older, but in good repair. Children play tag in the dead end road. A pudgy woman with a mass of salt and pepper curls is holding court on the wooden stoop outside her home. Clothed in a T-Shirt and faded jeans, it’s obvious she has been drinking for a while] “My name is Krystle Gayle Tomley, but my friends call me Miss Piggy. I’m 46 years old, a mother, grandmother and soon to be great-grandmother. They say I’m the third generation Tomley here at the trailer park. But that’s not important. What’s important is that you know my story" [Lighting a cigarette, she coughs briefly and continues] “How we Tomley’s got here was Granddaddy come down from Villanow to work in the bomber plant just after he got back from Korea. But he wasn’t the first Tomley. That’d be Uncle Rufus. That’s his picture there on the table, the man on the motorcycle. He’s probably more like me than any of my direct kin. He came equipped with a wild streak ...

He wasn’t that talented. He said so himself. A third rate guitar player with a knack for lyrics and the ability to transport an audience into a new world. You could tell he was happiest on stage, watching the faces rise and fall with the tenor of his scratchy voice. We laughed along with the easy banter of the band. Whether it was the prairie scenes of “Mail Order Annie” or the mind at the edge of adultery in “Halfway to Heaven”, you could forget your own foibles for a while and have sympathy for the protagonists. An experience that when it ended, you always came in with a smooth landing. I was in my office balancing a store inventory when the news that Harry had died came over the radio. It felt like a door slamming closed on a significant part of my life. I met him at an after party at the Fox Theater in March 1978, where he invited the attendees to participate in a World Hunger Year event that was coming up. I did and it started a long association with homeless servic...

I thought I would join in this week. This is a project of  Jolene Naylor , and gives the reader a chance to see works in progress. This one is from a three part serial story I wrote several years ago, Streetlights . I am the process of consolidating the parts into a single piece. Damn, the cramps were starting again. Kari hated driving with them.   As the muscles tightened, it reminded her of her boss. “Charlie Cramps”. A fitting nickname, she thought.   Only he was messy and a pain 24/7, not just once a month and a tampon in the mouth didn’t shut him up.    If you want to join in, put your link in the comments below. If you have editorial comments, those are welcomed, too. 

  "Why do the Heathen rage? And the people imagine a vain thing?" The above is Psalm 2:1, for those of you who are not familiar. It seems to be appropriate for today's world. All sides appear to be heading for a collision, each side vainly thinking theirs is the only true and right way. Some using outright violence, others implied fear. The rest of us sheep stuck in the middle hoping not to get caught in the crossfire. Let us pray. EDIT: After I posted this, I found this little gem. Ann Coulter Interview Mind you, it is third party edited hearsay. But it really does illustrate both the rage and the vanity of the political class. Pharisees...all of them.

      The bandstand was deserted hours ago and almost everyone else had gone home. A red, white and blue neon sign screamed BBQ, Babes and Beer! The screens above the bar were silently running the day’s latest tragedies. But Jack wasn’t having any of that. That all smacked of celebration. This was a vodka and depression kind of night. A wave brought the bottle and the glass was emptied and slammed back as soon as it filled.    “Damn, man. You hardly let me pull up.”   With a sigh, the glass was filled again.   “But this is your last one. Got it?”   “Sssurre.” Came the slurred reply. Using the edge of the bar for balance, Jack slowly stood up. Picking up the glass, he stumbled over to the jukebox. A dollar in the slot brought solace.   The bars are all closed…It’s four in the morning and I must have shut them all down…   He had enough. Or could he really get enough? Damn woman took off out a word, change...

I don't normally do politics in my blog. As a former government worker, I avoid it like the plague simply because I don't want to relive dealing with pompous, entitled folks without the skills to hold a legitimate job. And talking politics generally devolves into a death spiral, each side getting more and more entrenched with each rotation. Like the Middle East. Like the current crop of displaced refugees. There seems to be two sides of thought on these folks. Either, they are enemy agents and should be repelled immediately, or they are total victims that will die if nothing is done. I fall into the second camp. 95% of the displaced people are exactly that. They lost their homes, businesses, farms, etc due to the political turmoil. And because most don't subscribe to the particular brand of Islam that ISIS champions, they are considered to be blasphemers and apostates and should be exterminated without mercy. And as such, they are deserving of a safe harbor. Howev...

So, the other day I got home from picking up my wife and picked up the mail. Most days, it is ads, bills and other items that frankly they shouldn't have bothered with. Just think of how many trees died for that slick coupon sheet advertising house cleaning services and what not. And this batch of mail was similar, except for one envelope with a laser printed address label. I shrug, guesses it is a dinner invitation from a stock broker wanting to "invest" my non-existent money in a fake warehouse scheme, or maybe for some inaccessible land in the mountains. The shredder is hungry, but I stop.What really is in there? Ripping the flap open are vouchers to a local restaurant, and then I notice who sent it. A local funeral home. Great! Now, I know I'm getting old. I mean, I've been getting crap from AARP for at least ten years and now someone wants me to face my own mortality, probably on the monthly finance plan. I showed it to my wife and she laughed. ...

It all started when I met Charlie Balczak at Mess. Who’s he? An E4 grunt I’d bunked with. A short, wiry guy from Ohio, he could drink guys twice his size under the table and then hold his own in the fights that followed. Oh, he was alright for a Marine. Not quite as crazy as most of them, but he did have his moments. And this was one of those moments. We were assigned to a demolition unit at Ft. Bliss and had just gotten our deployment orders. Yippee. We get to do our jobs for real and get out of this Godforsaken desert. Still a desert, just not this one. This was my first deployment and Charlie’s third. He had warned me that fun was not allowed over there, so we drew overnight passes to get our kicks out before we left.  A good thing was there were no girl friends or wives to answer to. And for what we were planning, that was a very good thing. Butterbar told us Juarez was off limits again, but we’d been 86’d out of every bar in El Paso and Las Cruces was a dump. We h...

The picture sat on the desk mocking him from behind the screen. It was a simple thing, really, a sketch of an old cigarette ad. The vested sax player stared at him across time and space, playing some silent tune, a memory that was happily slumbering two hours ago. But it sprung out from the holiday decorations box and onto the floor. Honestly, he had thought the picture was lost two or three moves ago.  What does she look like now? A homely girl that everyone ignored, the only reason he even met her was passed out at a party that had already died. He would have been just as happy for her not to have woken up. But, no, his buddy threw his empties at her, and he had to open his mouth. So began the four year odyssey of drama and pain.  It was fun at first. Impulsive and spontaneous, she would chide him for public displays of affection and then pull him behind a car to have her way. Emotions more changeable than the weather and more powerful than the tides buff...