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 […]
Opinion
Posted inOpinion
Resumé padding
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
Man talk
Untitled Document It’s a perfect night for a ballgame, and I’ve lucked into box seats only five rows behind the Sox dugout. The young couple to my left is discussing his annual night out with the boys, 10 hours’ worth, and yet he cannot recall a thing that was done or said. She’s more irked […]
Posted inOpinion
Getting it right
Untitled Document Long, long ago, I was the host of a public-access cable-television show in St. Louis, a boring gabfest about world affairs. We had a panel of regulars — academics and journalists — and guests, most of them foreigners: An anti-Marcos Filipino. An Iranian whose father had been a general. A Sandinista official from […]
Posted inOpinion
A speech for the ages
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
The name game
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
Vacationing on the edge of reality
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
Squeeze play
Untitled Document Two seats have opened up in a Las Vegas poker tournament, and Mookie and I have locked in over the Internet. No time to drive; we have to fly. Mookie doesn’t fly well, and, of course, he’s nuts. The fat man between us won’t trade seats — he needs to overflow both ways. […]
Posted inOpinion
A family matter
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
The last word on ethics
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 […]
Posted inOpinion
The Great American Novel
Untitled Document THE$5 MAN Chapter 1, page 1. The Spinster Goode Hatbrow raised pigs instead of children. She . . . Page 102. The man with all his parts replaced is tethered to Harry Wonder III by feeding tubes. They’ve just escaped Bob Walnut Hospital No. 6, and they’re heading south down Route 55 in a […]
Posted inOpinion
Revised ethics testing
Untitled Document The story: A $100,000-a-year state boss, with many Social Security numbers and youthful misdemeanors, tried to force her $70,000-a-year “chauffeur” to sleep with her. It could be true — or not. Either way, the confused woman should be cut some slack, because the situation was not covered in the state’s ethics test. How […]
