In my function as iconoclast – one who, for example, would pull the smug Marlboro Man off his horse – and a person intent on living a singular life, I thought I’d sit down to write a poem of death. A death poem like Uncle Walt. Or Bob Frost. Or Dylan Thomas. But I realized I could write nothing different,... READ MORE >
The oldest possession of mine still extant, that is, still mine and still in my possession, is a Little Joe Red Devil spinner – a walleye snell. I actually have a couple left from a gift of around a dozen from my grandfather Jim to me when I was about nine. A snell is a live bait system composed of... READ MORE >
There are the birds. The seagulls, as always, are everywhere. Not many, but singles, and in the vastness you can see one, then another, and another. They ride the cold wind on their boomerang wings, hovering up and down, sometimes diving. It is windy so the great shucked wild rice stalks bend to 60°, and bend further to 45° under... READ MORE >
The number of boys – and to a lesser extent girls – who were teased to trauma in school is legion. I mean teased in the worst sense. That’s the word we used to use. Others would say bullied or ridiculed or picked on. The sense I’m using is where you, standing by, could’ve cried yourself because of the pain... READ MORE >
Our tight little hidden home in the woods is very small, just half a room or so, and always a little dirty – grimy dirty and not just disheveled. Everything is especially dusty this year, maybe from the drought or wildfires up wind. Inside there’s not much airflow, though; only the front door and the stove flue. The windows do... READ MORE >
It is October, so today is cooler than yesterday. I change over from cotton flannel in greens and blues to wool knits in reds and greens. It’s warmer today than it will be tomorrow It’s mist and fog season. Early in the darker morning I go out with Foxy, who is still wetting the dog bed, to relieve us both,... READ MORE >
We would be out, my old man and I, at a boat landing, or along a riverbank, along a fenceline, at a trailhead, and he’d bend over to pick up a discarded aluminum can – this being before plastic bottles were widely used and discarded – and he’d smile and shake his head, and say under his breath, “Sportsmen…,” so... READ MORE >
This is a meritocracy. We are rewarded for our greater contributions; promoted according to our competencies; awarded for outstanding productivity; demoted for our poor performance; demerited for our negative influence; punished according to the seriousness of our transgressions. The third Saturday of September is the hunting opener for ruffed grouse, and it begins the season of one of my favorite... READ MORE >
We were lucky to have an aunt who lived for much of our young lives in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York, New York, the city so nice they named it twice. Which meant we, my brother and I, had an inroads, a gentle introduction, to the Big Apple just following its great years of crises – the Summer of Sam... READ MORE >
I’m a Wood Duck again. I found myself back in a college class for the first time in a quarter century, taking one class this semester at one of my old alma maters, Century College (nee Lakewood Community College), home of the Woodies. This classroom was virtual, but there were still the faces and names of twenty one other students... READ MORE >
