Tax Bill December 2017

By Bellator Senex

I had my first job when I was eleven years old. I set pins at a blowing alley on Harlingen Air Force Base, in Texas. Even though I made little to nothing, my employer took out for Medicare and Social Security. From that day, until I retired from business about five years ago, I paid into those government programs.

Fiction: Dancing at the Driftwood Hotel (#13)

A novella with some real characters

By Roger Owens

Louise Dedge stood with the dual rear wheels of the school bus behind her legs to help shield her from the blasting wind. She huddled between the buses with Jim and about a dozen Navy men and their girls, along with one civilian male and his girl: Horace Ball. Horace had astonished her by showing up at Excilencio and Healy’s bungalow, and he continued to surprise her now. He and his gorgeous Cubanita clung together as he calmed her with his fluent Spanish. He told her, Louise gathered, that they would stick with the Navy hombres because, after all, it was a sea storm and they of all people should know what to do. Horace spoke with confidence. The frightened girl nodded numbly, dripping wet and shaking in the cold wind, wanting to trust him. The white girls gathered while their men shouted in each other’s ears, trying to form a plan in the screaming gale. They ignored Horace’s lady until Louise grabbed her by the arms, pulled her into their group and hugged her close. The other girls hesitated for only one second, and then closed around her in a cooing mass, all arms and love, while she sobbed with fright. In the rain her tears poured unseen across Louise’s shoulder. Sand and seashells, tossed by the wind, battered the far side of the bus.

The Old People Party

By Bellator Senex

I have news for people over 65 or those coming close to it. You are no longer a Democrat or a Republican, or members of any of the other known parties. You, my friends, now belong to the party of old people.

Susan’s Stuff: for december

Detail

tell your children the loud booms are thunder

By Susan C. Price

the painting is large, on two panels, total 60" x 44", 12-2017. the title is from some quote earlier in the year, when a foreign attack appeared imminent.

Sankt Nikolaus im Kindergarten

By Rolf Dumke

As another Christmas approaches, I want to share three of my own, very personal experiences of Sankt Nikolaus. The title refers to the third of them.

Sheep No More?

By Sharon Stoner

Ever ask yourself why people have “overlooked” the sexual misconduct of powerful men?
    Has it been out of respect for their positions, admiration for all they own, a hope someday to acquire similar power and wealth?

Fiction: Dancing at the Driftwood Hotel (#12)

A novella with some real characters

By Roger Owens

Louise Dedge was in heaven. The New Year’s Eve Ball was a huge success, in spite of the storm. Not just the students but their parents, the teachers, and even some grandparents were still swirling about the polished wood floor to the music of a band that were in no hurry to load up their instruments in a pouring rain. Mr. Thompson had come, hovering near the punch bowl everyone knew had tropical rum in it. And to top things off, Ernest Hemingway had given the dance a pass. Chalk one up for Captain Niko. Louise had danced the entire evening with Jim, already a graceful and accomplished footsman, without a single interruption. Quite a few other Navy fellows were there, but they all had their own sweethearts and were not interested in cutting in. And no high school boy would have dared risk his life by horning in on a military man’s date. The one man she had noticed other than James Donald Owens had been, of all people, Horace Ball, who danced with any girl he could coax onto the floor and turned out to be astonishingly good. When the music played, Horse Balls lost his stoop, his hesitant nature vanished, and he became smooth as ice cream, gliding across the hardwood floors wearing an outdated brown suit and vest like an actor from Hollywood.

Penny for Her Thoughts: The State of Man

By Penelope Griffiths

Every day it seems that some rich or powerful, or both rich and powerful, man – on both sides of the pond that is the Atlantic Ocean – is being outed for sexual harassment or worse! It is never acceptable to be exposed (sometimes in more ways than one!) to a sexual advance that you don’t want. But what I can’t understand is why these women (or men, in a few cases recently reported) have left it so long – sometimes for decades – before reporting these heinous events, which, according to media reports, have greatly affected their lives.

Delay (a sonnet)

By Eric Meub

[Originally published on June 11, 2016]


 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
The plane has just left Denver, so they say
at six. At eight, The crew are on their way.
A surly rabble mills about the gate:
I’d lose my job if I was always late.

Thunder Down Under: Delinquent Crows

By Vic Midyett

Over the last couple of months, two crows have made me laugh at their behaviours. Their actions have caused me to assume they are young, although they look fully grown.

Citizens Again

By Bellator Senex

I don’t know when it happened, but at some place and time in our history, we forgot we are all American Citizens. Being a Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Jew, or Muslim is your religion, not who you are. Any more so than being a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or Socialist is who you are. It is only how you vote or voted or where you go on a certain day of the week. You are first and foremost an American Citizen. When in Mexico and asked who are you, your answer is not Baptist or Democrat, it’s, “I’m an American.”

Fiction: Dancing at the Driftwood Hotel (#11)

A novella with some real characters

By Roger Owens

Well, we’d been fishing for shrimp for a couple of months in the Straits and out in the Gulf, and we hadn’t done that bad. Blackie spent some money refitting the Horny B. with the trawling booms and nets, and cousin Lester had proven his mechanical abilities many times over. He did most of the welding himself, after careful calculations as to the weight and drag and so on, and I gather it was a painstaking job to weld those booms in the right places. Engineering was never my strong point. Then it was Joe Hook who once again showed us how things worked, operating the diesel-powered compressor to let out and retrieve the nets like he was born to the job. How he knew stuff like that was beyond me. Blackie mutely shook his head when Lester asked him how Joe might have learned how to trawl for shrimp in upstate New York. In any case, we would load the hold with shrimp and pack it in the ice Blackie bought in Key West, and every week or ten days we would pull in to the port and sell it all at a nice profit.

Senate Republicans meet in secrecy to address their President’s mental instability

Satire in the style of Andy Borowitz

By Moristotle

A handful of Republican Senators met behind barred doors this week to detail their plan to contain President Trump, remove his access to weapons, and have him evaluated.

Boldt Words & Images: History’s Rhymes 9/11/73

Convergences

By Bob Boldt

[The poem below comes from a portfolio of poems that I submitted during fall semester for the “Poetry Workshop” at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. I hope in the coming months to publish a few more of these poems on Moristotle & Co.
    As a frame for today’s poem, I have adapted from the essay that accompanied the portfolio some hopefully relevant reflections on poetry and a poet.]

Fiction: Dancing at the Driftwood Hotel (#10)

Photograph of autographed
copy from author to editor
[cover slightly curled]

A novella with some real characters

By Roger Owens

James Donald Owens was sweating more than usual as he headed up Roosevelt Boulevard, the warships at the base standing on the skyline behind him like ugly grey buildings. It was rarely so cold you couldn’t take a swim anywhere in the Keys, even on Christmas Day or New Year’s, but this still, silent heat was oppressive. It felt more like August than December. The south-east wind, which folks considered more or less permanent in these parts, seemed to have died an unfortunate death. It would be sorely missed, he thought with his normal good humor.