Suprise Me

Without A Word   Warm muzzle Cold nose Contented purr Protective bark Joyous wag Tempted twitch Raised eyebrow Leaned into leg Animal aromas Soft fur comfort Welcoming greeting Apprehensive parting Soundless song Intertwined with mine     Constant companionship Chores of service Enigmatic puzzles Bewildered apology Comic curiosity Demandless conversation Provocation of patience Eager pleasing… Read More

I always loved to dance, but was a sickly kid, so my mother withdrew me from dance lessons. I came back as an adult beginner to ballet class in my early 20s. Though never great, I truly enjoyed it. I have a wonderful sense of rhythm, can dance modern and “pop” very well, but enjoyed… Read More

Any half-century anniversary sparks big questions. Even once inattentive high school history students are nudged into a perspective more sweeping than personal status and sentimental relations with peers. Too, self-important Boomers have always had a habit of “scaling up” the primarily personal into generational (and national) significance. Read More

David came home for Christmas break from Stanford freshman year and announced he was going to join the band. I scoffed. He had played piano in elementary school, so perhaps remembered how to read music, but knew no other instrument that would help in a marching band. “What will you play,” I queried, “the triangle”?… Read More

As I’ve been following the young activists today who are taking a leadership role in a fight my generation seemed to have given up on, it brought me back to another time when young people felt both helpless and passionate about a cause. In our day, it was the anti-war movement. What is tragically similar… Read More

As Best Man...I was an ideal chauffeur. Read More

This time, the only thing missing is the piglet. Read More

Judging by the stories that have been posted so far, this is a pretty non-druggie crowd. My experience is quite different. I am going to take Retrospect up on its offer to publish this anonymously, even though I know that the statute of limitations has long since passed for anything I have done. I remember… Read More

Many years ago when I was a very young man, I was in Mexico fulfilling what was then one of my greatest bucket list dreams; trying to catch a giant Marlin. As a boy, many times while laying in the tall cool green grass waiting for a Rainbow trout to take my bait I closed… Read More

Revising the editor Limits, rules, restrictions, guidelines, walls, trigger my auto-response of arising fierce Kali-spirit that demands the shaking off of the yoke burdening my shoulders, spitting out the bit between my teeth, severing the ball and chain cutting into my ankle, and pulling the barbed wire from around my throat, to run wildly into… Read More