Doug Bybee

Untitled Document One last shot at the Great American Novel, and I need help. I’m taking an online writing course from a university. It’s a simple agenda: Students are given a writing task, after which we write, we submit, and edits and advice are returned. It’s not going well. “Fritz” continually tries to broker my […]

Untitled Document It’s Tour de France time, but we’re not interested here, because no Americans are in the hunt — but I’m looking for a new sport to watch, because football, baseball, and basketball no longer fill up all my free time. Last Tuesday I came dangerously close to reading a book. I dismissed NASCAR […]

Untitled Document He hadn’t always been handsome — indeed, until the age of 15 he was average-looking — but then Tony “Mole” McMurphy set him straight. Mole was called “Mole” because he looked like a mole, and yet the girls hung on him like ornaments on a Christmas tree. “How is that?” asked the average-looking […]

Untitled Document She lived in the four-room house her father built. She had been away from home only once, 37 years ago, one year in college. She came home pregnant. The baby’s father did not step up. Sara’s mother’s dementia started the year Sara returned from college and ended 10 years later; her father’s ended […]

Untitled Document It’s a beautiful day, normal people are doing normal things, and I’ve just finished a three-hour online debate with five twentysomething college-student slackers in their seventh year of undergraduate study. I’m 66 years old, and I’m basking in the glory of victory. I won the day with my answer: “The funniest thing on […]

Untitled Document He has a commanding presence and deep rich voice. He speaks, and no one listens. The grandparents here have heard it all in another time; they have heard everything in another time. They do not listen. They do not listen, because of all the afternoons that have gone before. The parents here look past […]

Untitled Document One upon a time when honesty was prized and a man was defined by his work, Mort the Barber stopped cutting hair. As far as anyone knew Mort had been cutting hair in our small town since hair was called fur — but no more! The town had slandered him, publicly accused him […]

Untitled Document My wife, her brother, sister-in-law, two nephews, and a niece-in-law are hiking the Grand Canyon. It’s down, around, exploring, then up and out — four days of walking narrow ledges. I am not walking narrow ledges. My excuses are reasonable — age, plus a back that only works after epidural shots — but […]

Untitled Document I’ve been asked to explain away a family gaffe. Follow me, please, down to the basement, back to the irregular room where we handle “these matters.” The quickest way is straight on through the great room, but let’s take the scenic route, through the small door, into the cartoon-rat room, past Cyrano de […]

Untitled Document The Tillerman is gone, but more on that subject later. I write stories. Some are published. One reward of publication is meeting new people. Strange people. E-mail people. They tell me information I’d otherwise not know. For example, after I wrote that God would come to Earth in June and declare ballroom dancing […]