My Heart’s in the Highlands – Part 4

Inverness, Culloden & Edinburgh

By James T. Carney

Inverness is a pretty town, and I was glad I stayed there so as not to hold my fellow hikers up (as I said at the end of Part 3). Among the things I saw in Inverness was a monument to the Scots who had died in the two World Wars and in wars since. The number of names from World War I was almost twice as great as the number of names from World War II. In some ways, Great Britain never recovered from World War I, and the memories of it were partly responsible for the appeasement policies the British government followed in the 1930s.

My Life [8]

Coping with COVID-19

By Jim Rix

Boldt Words & Images: The First of Many

Fiction?

By Bob Boldt

[Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this short story appeared on Moristotle & Co. on August 29, 2015. The author has revised it for our world four and a half years later.]

Overhead, bullets whistled past me in the cold dark amid the falling drizzle. Some shells made a complaining, metallic clank as they struck the side of the overturned dumpster I had scrambled into. I was trying to dodge the first barrage that had made the street a sudden killing zone. In the process, I smashed my head on a large hook that protruded out of the side of the damned thing. Doing my best to ignore the stinging pain, I cautiously ran my hand up the side of my face, hoping for the best and dreading the worst. Moisture. Not the wet of the rain, but a thicker substance. Blood? I licked my probing fingers, and the warn, salty, iron taste on my tongue confirmed my fears.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [15]

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15. The bats always came slapping

[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.]

My Heart’s in the Highlands – Part 3

Some hiking trials

By James T. Carney

The first day of our hike, we covered 14 miles of relatively level but gradually rising territory. We probably gained a total of 800 feet in elevation but it was so gradual I didn’t feel it. I did feel the 14 miles, however, and I was overjoyed when we reached the headquarters of the Cameron Clan and picked up the van to go back to Alltschellach. We were scheduled to return to the Cameron headquarters the next day, but we would first visit the statute to the British Commandos (akin to our Special Forces) who had trained in the Highlands before going off to fight in World War II.

All Over the Place: Welcome to the Masquerade Party

By Michael H. Brownstein












There is no element of surprise with a quarantine,
No understudy to take your place,
Masks and eye protection have been ordered.
They lay in cartons on warehouse shelves,
They have been here for months – perhaps years.

Acting Citizen: Sightseeing

Road trip

By James Knudsen

With the exception of some twelve months in the 1980s, equally divided between Tennessee and Okinawa, and a similar amount of time in 2001-02, spent in Korea and Thailand, I have lived all of my 55 years in California. One would assume I know the Golden State quite well. I don’t.

My Heart’s in the Highlands – Part 2

Assembling at Alltschelach

By James T. Carney

The history summarized in Part 1 was far from my mind and from the minds of my intrepid companions as we assembled for our first trip as a trio on a wet, rainy day in Glasgow. My long-time friend Detmar Straub had accompanied me to Montenegro and the Pyrenees, and my local friend John Shortridge had gone with me to Machu Pichu, the Grand Canyon, and Zion National Park. We would now go on the epic Great Glen Way, which crosses Scotland from the Atlantic to the North Sea through a geological fault that is clearly visible on any map of Scotland running northeast from Fort William to Inverness.

West Coast Observer: A slap against Devin Nunes

By William Silveira

The title of a March 14 article in the Washington Post asks its readers to “Raise your hand if you have not been sued by Devin Nunes,” implying, of course, that Congressman Nunes has sued a lot of people. Columnist Dana Milbank states that “The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee has, aided by a lawyer with a colorful past and a flair for invective, sued just about everybody who criticizes him.” Everybody who criticizes him. Well, that includes me, and he hasn’t sued me yet, so I guess I need to raise my hand. Or, maybe I’m next.

My Heart’s in the Highlands – Part 1

The author on the trail
[September 2, 2019]

Some history before hiking

By James T. Carney

The Scottish Highlands have always been considered the heart of Scotland even though only a small percentage of Scotland’s current population of some 6 million live there. About 600,000 live in Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, and most live in the Lowlands of the South. Who are the Scots and how do they relate to the rest of the British?

Goines On: Holocaust Remembrance Day

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A poet friend of Goines reminded him that April 21 was Holocaust Remembrance Day and asked Goines to write a poem for the occasion; a poetry website was soliciting poems for its “Yom HaShoah” observation.

Side Story: You knew Paul Newman?

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

Paul, you or someone said you used to know Paul Newman? There is obviously a story here. Tell!
—Chuck Smythe

Reply by Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

Most people think of Paul Newman (1925-2008) as a famous American actor. I knew him as a race car driver. Preparing for the 1969 movie Winning, Newman took a driver’s course on the famed Watkins Glen road course in the Finger Lakes region of New York. From then on, acting may have made him rich and famous, but racing was arguably what inspired him.

All Over the Place: Compassion Moves the World

By Michael H. Brownstein

After the sculpture “Compassion Moves a World,” by Julie Rotblatt-Amrany^*

In the days that followed
The blue ink of sea broiled over

A child, a vulture, a lack of seed.
Everything spreading outward.

Boldt Words & Images: Coincidentally

Composed on Friday the 13th of March, 2020

By Bob Boldt

[Preamble: If a poem requires explanation, then it is a failure. Of course, even “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” still remains opaque to many (if not most) readers. I had hoped that, if the reader were unable to draw any connection between the images in the poem below, they might at least be entertained by its juxtaposition of images and my take on appearance and reality and how the effigy of a woman’s torso can house a scorpion. I will say, though, that the “Marienbad” reference is to the 1961 film Last Year in Marienbad by Alain Resnais.

Goines On: World project

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Goines sat alone idling, motors purring, /Engines of both mind and body conferring, / The body’s awaiting mind’s to spur him / To whatever allurements might bestir him.
    Goines tried to remember the name of the woman who lived with that other woman whose name both he and Mrs. Goines could remember. Goines was finding that many names once familiar to him had faded and maybe entirely disappeared, though sometimes some of them seemed to flicker anew and sound their presence.

Side Story: California versus Colorado

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

What besides snow drove you from Colorado to California, Shirley Skufca? My wife and I both love Colorado.
—Chuck Smythe

Reply by Shirley Skufca Hickman

The Old Me

By Kyle Conley

[When this poem was  originally published (on April 15, 2020), the lines between “Life’s too short to pick out flaws” and “Yes I stole a pill...” were inadvertently omitted. With some embarrassment, we apologize to both author and reader for this egregious mistake. The omitted lines were restored on May 12.]

Woke up just now to the sound of pouring rain
my mind racing and I can’t relieve the pain.
Things aren’t the same. Looks of disdain
everywhere I look, with their feeble minds focused
on the trash you think I took.
They bit your hook.

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [14]

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14. Of course, now, as he fishtailed

[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: Loose ends

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Goines had decided that morning, urged on by Mrs. Goines, to stop going to the fitness center for a few weeks, or for however long the coronavirus threat continued. But while he could substitute home push-ups and other physical activities – “I could move furniture!” he told Mrs. Goines – he was worried that the Silver & Fit wellness program he participated in through his Medicare PPO health insurance might stop paying his monthly membership fee at the fitness center. Mrs. Goines told him to call the program and ask.

All Over the Place: The Shunning of Stanley McTick

By Michael H. Brownstein

Sometimes a wind is but a breeze and all of the birds twitter fretfully across branches, fish swim to the surface and study the weight of their skin, and dogs circle tightly in place before they stretch their long noses as far as they can stretch, their faithful tongues loose and hungry.

Poetry & Portraits: Rose

Drawing by Susan C. Price

Rose
By Eric Meub

[Originally published on May 10, 2014]

Today I found the body of the deer
who used to eat my garden rose by rose.
I recognized her by the ragged ear
she flared once when I sprayed her with the hose.

As the World Turns: Golden Years

By Ed Rogers

“Golden Years” is what they call this time in my life. I sure don’t understand where, or who came up with that name. I know David Bowie sang a song about it^*. I liked the song but never really understood how it related to me.
    I’m also not sure if your Golden Years start when you go on Medicare at 65 or when you retire at 67. At any rate, mine started with colon cancer at 64. I turned 65 the following January the 3rd and Medicare paid for my last chemo. We were lucky; my wife, Janie, who worked for cancer doctors, had very good insurance. So, along with my life insurance, I had a cancer policy that covered everything.

Penny for Her Thoughts: An explosion heard ’round the world

By Penelope Griffiths

I was all set to write a piece on Brexit, since Britain had at last left the European Union. But Nature had other ideas, and “boom!” COVID-19 exploded in the world.
    The first we knew of this new viral threat were the headlines of a flu-like disease in a particular area of China that was infecting people and killing many old ones.

My Life [7]

In healthy retirement

By Jim Rix

I now reside in South Lake Tahoe, where I manage my 5-unit apartment building (formally SoftRix’s offices) and my house in Tahoe Keys as a seasonal vacation rental.
    My older son, Leland, and daughter, Vanita, live just 30 minutes away, over the hill in Carson Valley, south of Carson City, Nevada. Both are teachers. My youngest child, son Marlon, is an accomplished woodworker/cabinet-maker in Clovis, California. From them I have one grandson and five granddaughters.

Postscript to 99.915 (a viral poem)

Especially for those who read only email notifications of postings here (and don’t read the comments)

By Moristotle

The comments following the publication yesterday of motomynd Paul Clark’s “viral poem” were almost as interesting as the poem itself –maybe even more interesting, actually, however brilliant the poem was (to quote one commenter).  So...
    I’ve selected and assembled some of the comments here. Let this be a lesson to those of you who generally read only our email notifications of blog postings: maybe you should change your ways and start visiting the blog itself...and reading comments....

Fiction: Drinking Kubulis at the Dead Cat Café [13]

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13. “Charlie Dayton, he come to Dominica

[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.]

99.915 (a viral poem)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)


Like most things, it starts overseas
before we know it, people dying like fleas
funny name, but a hellish disease
99.995 chance we survive

Goines On: Masked man

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To shop for bananas and bread and frozen vegetables, Goines wore the mask Mrs. Goines had made for him. Even though the five or six shoppers he saw entering Lowe’s Foods as he drove up were unmasked, he put his mask on before he entered the store. He was relieved that he was able to tie the four draw strings behind his head on the first try, for he had exhausted his arms trying to do it the first couple of times at home.

Morning Bathroom Manifesto

By Cory Adamson












There must be more to suffering
than grey Monday. Knife wounds.
Or when parents can’t help kids
with homework. This toothpaste
tastes grainy but biography helps
me forget sex appeal and the great,
golden “I.” Brush the tongue and

Ghost Fish (Part 6 of a Story for My Son)

Me, in a boat, obviously still
excited after almost stepping on a
sleeping 1,000-pound class brown (grizzly)
bear on Admiralty Island, Alaska

Conclusion

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

On a trip to Canada, in August 2000, I stopped to fly-fish a small stream while my hiking companions trekked back to camp. I was catching and releasing trout on a Royal Wulff dry fly when what looked to be maybe a 350-pound grizzly materialized out of the brush and stood less than 20 feet away, just across the narrow creek. We had been in the area several days without seeing any sign of black or grizzly bears, so I had carelessly left my can of bear pepper spray in my backpack, which was leaning against a tree several strides behind me. The bear could get to me before I could get to the pack, so I tried to stay calm and develop a plan. As luck would have it, I had just made a cast when the bear showed up, and a trout struck the fly, hooked itself, and jumped into the air. The bear became animated and jumped into the creek, same as the Chesapeake Bay Retrievers I used to raise would dive in and try to land fish for me. With the bear now barely 10 feet away, and its wet hair clinging to its ribs, I noticed it had a surprisingly rangy build: it looked and acted hungry. I landed the trout and heaved it across the creek; the bear spun, clambered back up the far bank, pounced on the flopping fish, and quickly devoured it.

Interview: Autobiographer Shirley Skufca Hickman

Shirley Skufca, in her years
at Tulare Union High School
(1958-60)

On the 4th volume of her life story

Interviewed by Moristotle

Early on, as I luxuriated in reading Shirley Skufca Hickman’s Rocky Road Is More Than a Candy Bar, I determined that I had to interview Shirley, if for no other reason than to try to find out how she could remember so much of her life of 60 years ago – even stuff about me that I don’t remember. Yes, I am mentioned a few times in the book, which includes the story of her two years as a new teacher at Tulare Union High School – my junior & senior years and, more prominently, William Silveira and Jim Rix’s as well. Bill & Jim have already announced and written about Shirley’s book on Moristotle & Co.
    And as I continued to read, even more intriguing questions arose than how she could remember so much. Let’s see what the questions were, and how she replies to them. They are in italics.

Rocky Road Is More Than a Candy Bar (Excerpt 2 from an autobiography)

Chapter 3 concludes

[Editor’s Note: The first day of the author’s first week as a new high school teacher appeared on Monday.]