Three Word Wednesday - "Service, Opportunity, Quarrel" & 55 Flash Fiction Friday - 4/29/09

Once again, I have combined today's prompts of "service, opportunity, and quarrel" from 3 Word Wednesday with the constraints of using only 55 words from 55 Flash Fiction Friday. Those prompts led immediately to this thought.

They had just had another, alcohol induced, quarrel. He retired to the couch and she flew solo in the king-sized bed. A foreboding thought flashed into his mind as he gazed longingly at his service revolver. He had investigated enough cases to know he could never get away with it. Opportunity, means, motive. The trifecta.

3 Word Wednesday - "Deceit, Indulge, Oath" & 55 Flash Fiction Friday - 4/22/09

I have combined today's prompts of "deceit, indulge, and oath" from 3 Word Wednesday with the constraints of using only 55 words from 55 Flash Fiction Friday. This is the first thing that came to mind.

He had taken an oath…....”until death do us part.” That was nearly fifty years ago. Who knew she would live this long? That he would? They had both outlived passion and attraction. He considered indulging in an illicit tryst, but he didn’t have the energy for the dalliance, or the memory for the deceit.

55 Flash Fiction Friday - "Bang" - 4/17/09

The challenge from G-Man at 55 Flash Fiction Friday is to write a story using exactly 55 words.

It was heavier than it looked. He could hear his brother, Jerry, coming down the hall towards his parent’s bedroom. He pointed at the doorway and said “bang,” but the noise did not sound like bang at all. He would never forget the two simultaneous explosions. One in his hand, the second was Jerry’s head.

My grandson Carson - Carrying the Wainright Mantle - 4/13/09

The vast majority of people that share my family name spell it Wainwright. My clan does not include the second ”W". I have been told by a reliable source that the second "W" indicates wholesale inbreeding. I get annoyed when people insert it automatically. Even when I spell it out carefully to them, they throw in that infernal “W’. My name has been misspelled so often that I am certain I have an AKA on file with the authorities. I recently noticed that my mother’s name is spelled wrong on her death certificate. You would have thought they could have taken the time to get that right.
I tell you that to tell you this. There is only one person charged with continuing my particular Wainright family line. I have a half-brother, Chris Wainright, who has only daughters. My oldest son, Rick, has only daughters. My other son, Josh, has no children, though he desperately wanted kids. But the more he and his wife, Tia, are subjected to children of friends and family, the less desperate they are to procreate. That leaves my grandson Carson, the son of my daughter Carly, with the awesome responsibility of insuring a Wainright branch on our family tree. I remain optimistic. What do you think? Should I bring my swimmers out of retirement?

Wordless Wednesday - Splash Mountain - 4/8/09

My grandson, Carson, reevaluating his decision to go on Splash Mountain.

Sunday Scribblings - Celebrate - 4/4/09

I didn't think there was going to be a Sunday Scribbling this week so I didn't write anything but when I saw the prompt was Celebrate I was reminded of a video clip I saw recently. You can see it here. Wouldn't sports be a lot more fun if this type of celebration was embraced? In golf, most players are boring, emotionless, robots. About the only player who shows any emotion is Tiger Woods and he is sometimes criticized for it. More people would tune in if the could expect him to respond to a made putt in this manner. I don't like, or understand chess, but I would watch chess masters play if there was any chance of the victor providing post-match entertainment. I actually react in a similar manner when I beat my daughter at Cribbage.

55 Flash Fiction Friday - 4/2/09

I have been labeled lately by my 55 Flash Fiction Friday readers as the Prince of Poignant and Pathos, so I thought I had better change it up this week.

At the mall in front of Starbucks
Sipping six dollar brew
A fragrance wafted by
It was Estee Lauder Youth Dew
It stirred both a pleasant rousing in his fruit of the looms
And the memory of 40-year-old heartache
As his mind recalled this very scent on her young skin
He couldn’t help but smile

Wordless Wednesday - 4/1/09

Sunday Scribblings - "Aging" - 3/29/09

The first thing that came to mind when I saw the Sunday Scribblings prompt of “Aging” is a line from Jeff Dunham’s very funny ventriloquist act: Jeff: “Women age like fine wine.” Walter (dummy): “She ages like milk.”

I think that 2008 was the year that I became aware I was curdling. I have always been reluctantly aware of aging, but last year it became impossible to remain in denial. If I were an automobile, every warning light would be illuminated and all gauges would be pegged to the minimum values. My doctor started using words like biopsy, nodule, mass, cyst, polyps, etc. And what is up with skin tags? I am getting so many of them I am starting to look like a Trill. I had x-rays, cat scans, and MRIs of body parts that doctors had never had any interest in before. Every time they ask my family history my response is met with a slight grimace and a worrisome amount of medical transcription. Both my parents died of metastatic cancer, origin unknown, at a fairly young age. I am careening towards that age.

The older that I get, the faster the months of the calendar tear off. Years, sometimes decades, pass without me really noticing. I have been divorced for over 22 years, much longer than I was married. I have been retired from the Air Force for over 16 years. I still have nightmares about both tours of duty. But most shocking to me is that the final episode of Seinfeld was broadcast 11 years ago. Of course that doesn’t stop me from watching reruns every day. I am certain that when the poet, Virgil, coined the phrase “tempus fugit” he was in my demographic.

Some of the aging signs are physical and some are mental. Some are subtle and some are dramatic and undeniable. As a very corporeal person, who considers himself ten feet tall and bullet proof, physical corrosions are the most obvious.

Not long ago, Skooter and I were walking on the beach. Some guys were tossing a football and it got loose near us. I picked it up and elected to throw it back to the guy who was about 30 yards down the beach. One thing I was blessed with was a very strong throwing arm. So I gauged the effort required to complete this pass with a tight spiral would be little more than a flick of the wrist. I cocked and fired and it flew like a duck that had been hit by anti-aircraft fire. Not only did it not make the 30 yards, it went end over end and did not fly out of my shadow. I think, even my dog was embarrassed by my futility. The only thing that could have been worse would have been an attempt to kick the ball and add a groin pull to my damaged pride. There was a similar event featuring an alligator and a golf ball that my son, Josh, revels in witnessing but I will not detail here.

My golf game has lost 50 yards of driving distance in recent years but I have not yet achieved the “old man” accuracy that usually replaces it.

There has been an irrefutable loss of mental acuity. I often enter a room without any knowledge of a reason for being there. I have often read several chapters of a book before realizing I had read it before. These small, seemingly insignificant, lapses are actually more disturbing than the expected physical deterioration. How close am I to being the guy who forgets to put his pants on before leaving the house?

But the most disconcerting indication of my aging is that I have reached that magical point in my life that a woman I find attractive and desirable may be interested in me as a dating possibility…………….for her mother. Stop laughing!!

55 Flash Fiction Friday - Test Results - 3/26/09

The doctor gave him the results, casually, as if he had done it many times before. Perhaps he had. What remained of his stomach tumbled and he suddenly retasted his breakfast. A second opinion? This was the third opinion. They didn’t necessarily agree on the unpronounceable name, but they were unanimous as to the prognosis.

Wordless Wednesday - David and Goliath - 3/25/09

This photo was taken by Brianna at the Myrtle Beach Bark Park. The little fellow is Shooter and the big guy is ShoDon. Shooter does not know he is the little guy. As Mark Twain once observed: "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."

Sunday Scribbling - "Where are you from?" - 3/21/09

I have traveled to quite a large portion of the world and met a lot of people. One of the first things I am asked when I meet someone new is “where are you from?” When someone asks that, I don’t respond immediately. I hesitate in order to assess whether they can relate to a response of “near Spokane” or “west of Missoula”. Sometimes it is enough to say, "out west."

Most people take pride in where they come from: “Don’t Mess with Texas.” Those from a complete shithole like Oklahoma beam with pleasure at the mention of their home state. It was even celebrated In a fantastic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. No one is more fiercely loyal to their home than a New Yorker. "Forget about it." Even the most inbred proclaim their pride in being from Tenne-damn-see or West-by God-Virginia. North and South Carolina combine to become the Carolinas. Carolina is revered in many great songs. A Carolinian radiates with pride when they tell you where they are from. They could be living in a camp trailer and dining on roadkill, but they love Carolina. I cannot conjure up that feeling for my home state of Idaho. The only song I know about Idaho is “And Here we have Idaho.” The chorus is:

And here we have Idaho
Winning her way to fame.
Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze,
and romance lies in her name.

It sounds like it was written as a fifth grade class project. It is a dreadful song. Idaho evokes neither fame nor romance. Idaho has no native sons like James Taylor or Charlie Daniel to glorify it. I think I have found a song more representative of Idaho. Here it is. If you listen closely, it is supportive of Idaho, trying to keep the developers out. Perhaps there will be a grass roots movement to adopt this as the state song.

I try to avoid claiming Idaho, as one of two things occurs when I have slipped up and admitted my association: If they are familiar with Idaho, their first response is “oh potatoes”. That is infuriating to anyone from the part of Idaho that I grew up in. To me it is no less offensive than someone saying they are from Nevada and the response is “oh whorehouses.” Potatoes are not grown in northern Idaho. In fact the part of Idaho that I grew up in, nothing grew, not even grass. But I have already talked about that in a previous post. The second common response (particularly by the aforementioned inbreds) is a blank look while they call up images of the Midwest, where all of the other “I” states are located. I just noticed this: check this out
How sad to be from Iowa that is so obscure it doesn’t even get recognized as a state by the source of all knowledge, wiki.answers.

Idaho has become a punch line. I remember when Al Bundy said that they should send all pregnant women to a state no one cares about and call it Pregaho. The only notoriety it received was from an excellent documentary on Idaho life called Napoleon Dynamite. Any national news article about Idaho is always about the capture of some miscreant, white supremacy group, serial murderer, a senator performing reach-arounds in public toilets, or some other negative imagery.

I have recently reconnected with several of my classmates from high school through Facebook. I have found very few who still live in Idaho. It is a good place to be from. Far from.

Jeff, I am not implying that everyone in Tennessee is inbred, but some of them are.

55 Flash Fiction Friday - 55 Chevy - 3/19/09

There is a classic car show in Myrtle Beach this weekend and seeing those old cars and their owners made good fodder for my 55 Flash Fiction Friday. I think G-Man can relate.


They call it vintage so they can charge more

Same car he cruised in
When Buddy Holly "Raved On" the AM dial
Getting to second base was something special

Before he’d ever heard of cholesterol
Or erectile dysfunction

They are both antiques
But he just felt vital behind the wheel
He had to have her

Wordless Wednesday - Nap Time - 3/18/09

55 Flash Fiction Friday - A day late - 3/14/09

My 55 Flash Fiction Friday has turned into a Sad Saturday Soliloquy.

He snickered at the beer commercial promising drinkability
He would drink yak urine to erase the pain
Flavor was not an issue
Booze was now just a means to an end
But they are correct; it won’t get better than this
He knew he was on a down-hill spiral
like a turd in a Kohler

Wordless Wednesday - The Disciple - 3/11/09

My son, Josh, took this photo of his niece, Kendall, and his monster Lab, Bob. It looks like a Norman Rockwell painting. I entitled it "The Disciple".

Heads or Tails - "Springtime Memory" - 3/10/09

Today's Heads or Tails prompt is "Springtime Memory." I grew up in northern Idaho and the first sign of spring was always a joy after a long, cold winter. I also lived in Wyoming for about ten years (seemed like longer), where winter is even more relentless and severe. I wrote down a few thoughts about early spring in the mountains. If you are curious as to how this piece sounds in guttural monotone, you can hear me read it by clicking here.

Springtime in the Rockies

Vernal sun erases winter frowns as surely as a drug expunges pain
Hearts encumbered by cabin fever released into the warmth
Optimistic blades of grass poke through stubborn snow remaining
Children kicking through the slush, parkas retired for at least today
Skinny deer seeking feed long buried, nourished and hopeful

Garages reorganized, snowmobiles for motorcycles and skis for golf clubs
Windows opened that had been frozen shut, fresh air in, stale air out
Birds arriving from their hibernal roost, voice their delight in song
Their melodies bring welcomed joy to the tomb like silence of arctic cold

Squirrel gangs emerge from their winter hole in the wall hideout

A single flower risking exposure, banking that it is truly spring

A wire brush to the Weber grill, search for “Kiss the Cook” apron
The marshmallow world becomes colorized in growing earth tone plots
Dry creek beds overflow with runoff, water much colder than the springtime air
Audible crazing as ice gives way, the sound of winter retreating
Budding renewal as life emerges from winter kill, a rebirth
Ecstasy in the mountains as survivors gambol in the healing balm
Hibernation ends jubilation begins, forest families take roll
Natural adversaries postpone conflict to revel in resurrection

Before hunger and temperament set Darwin’s laws into motion
All life that lay dormant, rekindled by nature’s new beginning