Two Is Enough: Ladybug

By Vic Midyett

For the last couple of months we have had a house guest living with us, or at least in our kitchen, mostly in the sink area. Right now it is on the frame around the window above our sink. We purposely don't clean up all of our bread crumbs, for it to graze on.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [34]

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Chapter 34. Timber War

As wars go, the Timber War was not a traditional war. There were no marching bands, no uniforms, and no cavalry charges. It was more of a guerrilla war, not unlike what the Indians waged in rustling cattle, as when the Kiowa Indians raided James and Goodnight’s herd on their drive to California. The Indians would come in small groups, take a few logs, and be gone before anyone got wise to them. They even stole the 14 logs James had left on the ground to rot after killing the four thieves. The other six were still stacked on the ground beside the road to the house.

Goines On: Stiff upper lip

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Mrs. Goines was reading a morning article about who was paying Trump’s lawyers. She reported that the White House lawyers were on the government payroll. His personal lawyers, whose identities were ever changing and their number lately expanding, were being paid from two or more Republican Party funds.
    Mrs. Goines snorted. “You know what government payroll means: They’re being paid by us, the taxpayers.”
    Goines said that Trump’s lawyers must be relieved to know there seemed little chance their client will be able to stiff them.

Copyright © 2020 by Moristotle

My Life [2]

High School Days

By Jim Rix

“After being graduated from TUHS.” I know that Chapter 1 said the next chapter would begin that way, but let’s pause a bit before we proceed to pick up with the autobiography I sent to the teacher who is writing her own biography of her days in Tulare. Maybe I shouldn’t have given high school such short shrift in what I sent to her.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [3]

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3. Shifting from first to second

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Goines On: Breakfast out

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A week after Goines’ 77th birthday, the Goineses had buffet breakfast in Chapel Hill at the Carolina Inn’s Crossroads restaurant. A friend had given them a gift card for dinner there, but they opted to use it for a couple of breakfast outings, so that they could overeat early in the day and not have to risk lying down on a fullish stomach. Also not have to drive at night.

All Over the Place: Fragments

By Michael H. Brownstein










1.
The dust on the path has not transformed itself to anything but dust,
no rain for a week, the sun a magnifying glass peeling back my skin.

2.
Rain into sand, sand scours the air,
the hem of earth begins to tear.

The Loneliest Liberal: Getting old

By James Knudsen

Well, it’s official, I’m old. It’s been confirmed, there’s no avoiding, denying, or thing to be done about it.
    I suppose each person arrives at this realization in their own unique way. For some it might be the issuance of an AARP card. That isn’t what did it for me. I was offered an AARP card before I was even eligible, so the whole enterprise loses legitimacy at that point. I mean, they don’t even know who is old, how can they know what constitutes old – or when it occurs, for that matter.

As the World Turns: Humana sucks

By Ed Rogers

I have gotten to the point of accepting things as they are – not that I feel good about it – but there is little I can do to change them. People have become so locked down in their own tribe that they have stopped noticing what is going on around them. For some reason, we are letting the stock market and unemployment reports trick us into believing all is well. Prices are going up while wages stay the same, so, while more people are working, they are working for less. I don’t own stock, but I know that the money stock owners have has to come from somewhere...that would be your pocket. The only reason I’m writing this is that the last straw landed on this camel’s back.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [33]

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Chapter 33. Spindletop

Spindletop was a hill just 4 miles south of Beaumont, Texas. It had long been thought that oil lay under the salt dome that had created the hill. A few wildcatters had tried to drill wells there, but the salty sand would plug up their drills. It wasn’t until Captain Anthony F. Lucas was hired by the Higgins Company that the tide changed. Lucas was an expert in salt-dome formations. His first drilling reached 575 feet before he ran out of money, at which point he asked a number of people for money, one of whom was Joe Cullinan.

The Ride Not Taken

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

When I settled into a relationship and gave up traveling the country and the world as a writer and photographer, one of the first – and most miserable – gigs I tried was co-ownership and part-time operation of an antiques & collectibles shop in a quaint, pseudo-historic village in central North Carolina. I quickly learned the mindset of “antiques people” is…unusual. In any other realm I worked, if someone had offered to sell a multi-million-dollar, 1957 gull-wing Mercedes for $10,000, everyone would have jumped at the unbelievable opportunity. But an “antiques person” would instinctively say, “How about $9,000?” Yes, unusual.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [2]

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2. That wasn’t so unusual though

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Goines On: Sinister influences

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Goines’ hours today seemed shrouded by a poisoned blanket. He felt no empathy or love for the woman he saw behind the wheel of a car approaching him as he walked to the gym, however outwardly friendly she may have intended her answering wave. More than one man at Walmart earlier had seemed to look at him with ulterior motives, one of them seeming to be trying to warn Goines off from further observation of what the man’s female companion might be up to.

All Over the Place: Mary Oliver of the City

By Michael H. Brownstein

Mary Oliver of the gray stones
facing the busy street
watched two squirrels Tuesday
chase each other tree to tree
and play again Friday
hopping between moving cars.

Boldt Words & Images: The Badger (a poem)

John Clare (1793-1864)

With apologies to John Clare

By Bob Boldt

[Note: As a professional filmmaker for more than half a century, I love juxtaposing images and sounds. I don’t climb tall buildings or hang out of helicopters anymore to capture sounds and images. Now I prefer to use words to make my movies.]

My father found a badger under our garden shed,
with a thick necklace of blood-black ticks
sucking the last life from his mute self.
One sad eye regarded us as if to say, resigned.

Two Is Enough

Let’s start

By Vic Midyett

Shirley & I were gratified recently when Moristotle asked us to please continue doing a column, maybe called “Thunder Up Over,” to carry on from “Thunder Down Under,” or something mentioning Oklahoma or Tahlequah, where we live in Oklahoma, back in our own house on our own acreage.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [32]

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Chapter 32. Great Storm of 1900

The century started out great guns with the promise of much change and much wealth. That is, until the hurricane on September 8th.
    Claude was making money but he knew oil wells could and would go dry sooner or later. He ordered three more rigs and equipped them with the new drilling platform called the Corsicana Rig. It used high hydraulics and was faster and easier to operate. They weren’t cheap, but he could afford the investment. The companies that were still drilling were the ones that had made it through the snowstorm and weren’t working on a shoestring; they had big money behind them and were there for the long run. A wildcatter would pop up every now and again but nothing like before the snow.

My Life [1]

Early lessons

By Jim Rix

Today is my 77th birthday, a week after Moristotle’s, and only five days after that of our Tulare, California, high school classmate Donald Richert. I mention Don because Moristotle – I’m going to call him Morris from here on because he hadn’t yet become Moristotle….I mention Don because Morris has told him and me (and more than once) that he can remember first meeting us, although neither Don nor I can remember meeting Morris. Don and I, Morris says, were playing Roshambeau (or Rock Paper Scissors) on a school activity bus the summer before we three entered high school. Maybe we were playing it with too much gusto to remember, but just enough gusto to make a memorable impression on Morris? Anyway, we have remained in touch for some of the ensuing 64 years. We remember each others’ birthdays.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [1]

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1. Erasmus Taft knew

[This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living, dead, or anywhere in between, is purely a figment of your own sick, twisted imagination. You really ought to seek professional help for that. Except for the cat, of course; that skin on the cover really is  t h e  Dead Cat, if that’s any consolation to you.]

Goines On: Christine’s gift

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Goines had had a small but slowly growing bump on his face for about a year (he thought). It had little concerned him until recently, when he sliced a bit of it off shaving, and so decided to make an appointment with his doctor – or rather with her assistant, John, since she was unavailable. Goines had a lot of confidence in John anyway (as did Mrs. Goines also, who had accompanied him on a consultation with John).

All Over the Place: Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

By Michael H. Brownstein

The person named in the title wrote my favorite volume of poetry, The Leaf and the Cloud.

She will always be the onomatopoeia of flowers,

the metaphor of fourteen-year old locusts and the old oak branch,

an alliteration of dogs, unleashed, exploring
swamp, puddle, briar patch, bramble of leaf, sieve of earth:

Poetry & Portraits: Physician

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Physician
By Eric Meub

Medieval garden-makers too had reigns
Of glory, like the priest who puttered at
Amboise’s house of kings and chatelaines,
Importing to the castle courtyard that

Goines On: Down with the king?

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Someone in a college email discussion group Goines sometimes participated in suggested that the latest whistle blown about Trump – that his Deutsche Bank loans were backed by a Russian state-owned bank – could be the end of Trump. Another participant said he was hoping that this might lead to Trump’s resigning, in exchange for a comprehensive pardon. Sure, Goines thought, if Trump could put in a fix for one. “But a pardon might mean we wouldn’t get to see Trump wearing a prison jumper,” Goines said.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [31]

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Chapter 31. José

José barreled out of James’ office almost running over Claude, who had been trying to listen at the door. He looked around until he spotted his wife in another room and headed toward her. Ricardo cut him off. “What happened? Are you all right?”
    José shouted to Sara, “Bring Maria, we’re going home.”
    Ricardo asked, “You mean back to the Pullman car for the night?”

Goines On: What calendar companies don’t want you to know

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After the business with his wife about reusing the 2019 Kew Botanical calendar, Goines looked for the table he had constructed eight or so years earlier. He had made it only for the years 2001-2028, so it didn’t even show when the Kew calendar could be reused. He decided to update it.

All Over the Place: The bone board

By Michael H. Brownstein











And if somehow, my friend, I do not have to be there,
I will come anyway.

Words are as plenty as leaves
Ready to fail

Boldt Words & Images: The Last Battle of Eddie Balchowsky (1916-1989)

A poem with background

By Bob Boldt






[Editor’s Note: The author’s short story “Elmer” is about Eddie Balchowsky. It appeared here on November 30, 2015.]

In Spain he lost his arm to the Fascist sniper’s aim,
shattered in a red arterial cascade in the warm Andalucían blue.
“Something for the pain, comrade.”

Goines On: Save for 2030

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As Mrs. Goines took the 2019 Kew Botanical calendar off the kitchen wall, she asked Goines whether they should save it, “because we probably won’t live long enough to use it again.” Goines told her the calendar would apply again in 6 or 11 years, depending on when the next non-leap year started on the same day of the week as 2019: Tuesday.

Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [30]

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Chapter 30. Family Divided

1900 was the beginning of the century that saw the Texas oil boom explode. Millions of dollars would be made and millions would be lost. By 1897 the State’s first refinery had begun running. Its first oil was shipped in 1899. Some people made money, others lost everything. But the Jaudon and Rodrigo families would still be standing when the dust settled – some of them anyway.

As the World Turns: For plenty to be thankful for in 2020

Collard greens and cornbread New Year

By Ed Rogers

I’ve got the blackeyed peas cooking this morning and later the collard greens and cornbread. I don’t know how many people do that each New Year’s Day, but it was a tradition in the South for my family and others, and it’s about the only tradition I carry on. In the hard times that was the only meal most people had down here, and it is said that if you honor the hard times on the first day of the year you’ll have plenty to be thankful for the rest of the year.

Copyright © 2020 by Ed Rogers

Father’s Art: Works of Billy Charles Duvall [2]

“Two on the Aisle” (detail)

Three Paintings as Reproductions

By André Duvall

The following three works are studies that my dad painted as “reproductions” of the works of other artists, working from photographs of them in art magazines. Dad had purchased several antique magazines at annual book sales at local libraries and estates sales, etc. Studying such magazines was one way he continued to learn about painting, expand his skill set, and refine his technique. Dad says, “I forced myself to get as close as possible to the painter’s original colors and brushstrokes,” based solely on his own “observations, experimentation, and trial and error.” He did not sign his name on these. He did not feel it was proper to do so, and he did not want anyone to misinterpret his intentions.