I picture her in a squat, stony house on a Portuguese island, stepping up on a stool to grab this bowl or that salt to help her mom cook. Because it's what my grandmother, the cook, told me about her little helper, my mother. I picture her in Puerto Rico on her honeymoon in some … Continue reading Happy birthday
I had this sort of slight condition, let’s call it. I mean, anytime it ever came up, Rebecca, my girl, put it all to rest of course. I was just shy was all. That’s what she’d say. “Besides,” she’d say, “you know it wasn’t your gift of the gab I fell in love with. If … Continue reading As Good as Your Last
There's a scene in the movie Boondock Saints when Willem Dafoe, who plays an FBI agent, is standing in the middle of a neighborhood where a gun fight happened. It’s a crime scene. There’s carnage everywhere. Dafoe, or Agent Paul Smecker, plays back to all the forensics guys and others what he thinks took place … Continue reading ‘I don’t have AIDS’
I was fresh out of Quartermaster school and everything, and I'd write him letters in morse. Dit-da-dit kind of stuff. He corrected me. In morse. It had to be close to fifty years for him since his last time talking to ships via morse off the Island of Sao Miguel in the Portuguese Azores, and … Continue reading Only man I ever kissed
It's official. You can leave the house now and rent your own apartment. Order up a tattoo and put it anywhere. You can vote. Drive for Uber (in that thing?). Okay, maybe not. So many more things now. Not to mention hair everywhere, spriggin', sproutin'. You could pass for one of the young revolutionaries. You … Continue reading 18
I cried Monday. A lot. It was at my home parish decked out in Christmas celebration. Poinsettias and glittery Christmas trees and a standalone, gazebo-like structure with cream-colored silks for a cover, while underneath a nativity scene. I cried for the baby who would just wind up getting insulted and berated His whole adult life. … Continue reading Here’s to a snot-nose Christmas
In retrospect, I never should have put that snake in Annemarie Kitsap’s mailbox. It wasn’t like it was a rattler or cottonmouth. Nothing that would jump out and fang you. Just a big bull. Ferocious-looking, but harmless. Prized in these parts for their propensity to devour rodents and truly dangerous reptiles. In my defense, … Continue reading A Hillbilly Love Story
I can’t tell him it’s just a charley horse. That’s about as quack advice as, Guess what, Dawg, there’s much much worse on the horizon--mom and dad going tits up, an injury, take your pick--and that's gonna be the real weight that'll take the air out from under your stride someday. This ain't nothing but … Continue reading On being a king
So many thanks to Mike for letting us share this incredible, life affirming story with our readers. Cheers, Homie.
(This is part I of II. Meet part II here shortly )
Things Men Carry 