So much!

There is a pile of mashed potatoes calling you.  Mashed perfectly, with just the right amount of butter, salt, pepper, and gravy.  There is cobbed corn waiting to be boiled, just for you.   A turkey was raised from his egg, fed, housed, and killed, just for this meal.  He gave his life for your belly.  Someone woke up in the early hours of the morning, to get some rolls raising.   Pie.   There is Pie, a piece of pumpkin pie with your name on it,  also banana cream, waiting to fill the void we affectionately call, the pie hole.  So many pies, so little time.   Sides of green beans, beats, salads, some new dish, some ancient family dish, all waiting to be set on a massive table.   Eating will commence at 1 pm, and will continue for hours, then a rest, then some pie, then some left overs.

This is the holiday of eating.  

But really the food isn’t what makes it.  Imagine a feast such as this, in a lone room.  Eaten in solitude.  A place setting for one.    No, this holiday isn’t all about the food.  There is one final ingredient.   The people.  Family, friends, new or old.   A feast must have people to share in the abundance.   Find your people.  Whoever they are this week, and as you shorten your lifespans together, be thankful for the abundant life, most certainly evidenced by the mounds of starches, carbohydrates and proteins, but more importantly evidence by those who take devour the turkey, potatoes, yams, and stuffing alongside you.   That is where our abundance is most evident.     

Late for Dinner

Five miles in on a dusty dirt road, a young man walked alone.   It seemed a good thing to help the chap, so we pulled of and offered a phone,

Or ride, or food whatever the case we’d get him out of this dark night.   His smile had a catch, a pasted on look, his eyes never blinking or shuttered

“I’m seeking my friends out here in the dark” his voice was as smooth as a feline.   “will you give me a ride, up the road to my truck.  The engine last I heard did sputter”

We obliged, tis the way you treat strangers or kin who come needing your help in the country.   Man’s got a duty to help, another in need, in the dark wide expanse of Elberta.

Up the Slant road we drove, then I noticed the cold metal of a Mossberg pump action.   My foot pushed on the gas, the tires spun out real fast,  trying to gain enough traction.

“So what brings you here, out in the deep dark this night, your friends and you, what was your doing”.  My heart beat did race, but was beaten, and lapped, by the sprinting thoughts of my spooked mind contraption.

His lips barely moved, his words slithered out, “we’re hunting for sport and for game.  If we find ourselves enough we’ll be fed here for days.  Won’t need help from another faction”

We came round the bend, a red pickup sat there, I said “ I reckon this is the last I’ll be seein’ ya.” 

His famished eyes looked my portly body up, and down, then up again.  His finger left it’s rest on the trigger

“You’re a lucky man” he said.  I was still full of dread, “my people we don’t really like gristle.” 

Weekend Escape

Come friend. Follow me down the interstate as it switches from eight lanes to four; then onto the highway where goes from 4 to 2. As the lanes melt away feel your shoulders relax, your brow lighten. Come up the mountain side as you lose lane markings and pavement, see the gravel. then the dirt. Trade your lawnmower for four wheeler, Your shaving blade for a pocket knife. Billboards have been replaced with Deer crossing signs.

It is good here. Soon enough you'll be back in the valley. Soon enough you feet will miss the living sod. Soon enough your log by the fireside will  be an ergonomically correct office chair. Soon enough instead of counting stars you'll be counting calories

Free your soul in the land made by Providence for soon enough you will battle again in the jungle of Man.

Grandeur-

He felt himself a man, but merely a boy, if that.  

He strutted and preened on the open flat.  

The bear approached. He thought, i'm bigger than him,

the bear thought but little and made him his din

Passing Lane

Passing Gas in the elevator when you're alone 

seems like such a good idea at the time.

The elevator tempts you with it's feeling of seclusion. It's like a mobile bathroom stall just for your breaking wind pleasure.

but then, like the lucifer and all cruel mistrisses, she betrays you. She opens the door, and there is your director, who walks in and becomes intimately aware of the product of your inner workings.


you have no recourse, you may attempt to slide into obscurity, but he knows. and he will never forget

Woman of Stone

Who do you mourn, oh woman of stone; what pain, oh what sorrow, do you cry for?

Why do you mourn, oh woman forlorn; whose hand made your tears fall so lonely?

Who do you watch or'e full day and all night; whose corpse does your silence still call to?

When will you leave; from whence your reprieve? Your sorrow does serve you no more. 

But stay you will, cold quiet and still. Your wound is still open and dripping.

The pain stays with you. The sting becomes you and your choice to remain is eternal. 

The life that was lost should have been but one cost, but with you old man death got a couple.

Last day at the Farm.

It was good to be there.  The Farm.  One last time, with ma and pa and Zac.   Walking through the field, the tall grasses, the bushes, trees, riverbed of rock and sad.

Here, the cathedral.   Where movies were watched late at night powered by an old pick up truck.   

Here the field, barren as it should be in the dead of winter.   Yellow stubble is all that's there now.   Nowhere to be seen are the pipes thirty on each side of the riser, that we moved so many days, so many times,  in wheat, alfalfa, and some new fangled canola seed.   The vast expanse of the field cannot hold the memories and feelings of just one Packer, let alone an entire family.

Grandpa bought the farm to teach his kids to work.  His grand kids worked there, and played there.  Disc golf, camp outs.  My only memories of tin foil dinners are from the farm.  My first memories of dutch oven cooking, and at the old camp ground, that burned with the great fire, i learned that if you put water in a paper cup and put it in the fire, the cup won't burn.   Opposition in all things?  maybe.  Maybe just a cool science trick.  

The old campsite.  The old out houses.  The old trailer, with the flattened corpse of a porcupine.   just below the dike.   Which kept the flood waters from the old houses. 

Sucker fish in the ditches.

A pond.  And an old cabin.

Half of the farm was fun, exploration.  The other half was some errand for mother.   Usually getting rocks.   And on this day, we had one last task.  to haul wood from the old cabin, which Grandma Ruth said held the first white man born in Bingham county.   So we haul wood.   Dad says its enough, Mom says we need more.   We get more.  

My blue shirt has cockaburrs all over it.   this time i don't remove them.  I still haven't.   they are my last connection to the farm.  No annoyance, their hooks keep them in that shirt through washes.  Their hooks are like the hooks of memory.  The hooks this place has in my soul.  

And so as an accord has been reached between the parentals, and the wood we have is all we get, I snap a picture of dad looking across that barren field the stubble hiding the potential of the coming crop.  this land has been less than half my life.  It has been all of his.   

I let the hooks in my soul tare a little piece out.  And i leave some of my soul here, in this land, located between Thomas Lane and the Mighty Snake River, just down stream of Wadsworth island. 

Part of my soul will always be here.  If i ever drive past the curve in the road, where the Snake is closest.  I will feel it.  I will remember this space, where the old cabin's wood was stacked, where Grandma and grandpa made their own cabin, before the fire, and where i entered a car to leave this place. 

Good bye cotton woods.   Good bye river bottoms. Good bye Farm.    

True Yuletide Story

This is a Christmastime story, that for years i thought was cute. But in retrospect must have been scary for my parents.

One year when i was 3 or 4 my brother and i shared a bunk bed in a small house in western Wyoming. It was Christmas eve and we had already read Luke 2, and looked at the red light in the sky (from a radio tower) and confirmed Rudolph and Santa were on the way.

As visions of transformers and Legos and star wars toys danced in our head, you can't expect young boys to go immediately to bed. But i knew if Santa caught me awake, he wouldn't leave any presents, so when later that night i heard noises in the house, I peaked through the hole in my foot board to see what it was. To my young mind I saw Santa turn the corner of the hall with a wooden lantern and glance toward my room. Then leave. I stayed silent and tried to sleep, amazed that i had seen Santa.

Of course this all comes from the memories of two young boys. According to my mom we shared the exact same story, down to the lantern and other details. Mom treated it like a special event and always reminded us of the time we saw Santa, would even have us tell our other siblings when they thought they knew the truth about St. Nick. I have always wondered what happened. Was it my dad dressed up as Santa, did two boys just make it up with their late night talking. With the memories so distant, who knows what happened.

Years later when i was an adult, i asked my mom to tell me more. Finally she dropped the facade of it actually being the jolly old elf.

Even though we were safe, in a new house now, I saw a cloud come over her face as she recounted, how it had been a happy Christmas, with my parents spending too much money, on their children. Her two sons were playing with their new lego set, when we mentioned we had seen Santa. She thought it was just a funny thing at first, but when we described him, he didn't sound like Santa at all.

Separately we both described a man wearing ewok clothes, with a lantern. He wasn't fat, but was actually skinny. Why would we boys think this was Santa, except for the fact that it was Christmas Eve. My mom said she had been a little concerned, but when my dad found that he had left the back door unlocked, and footsteps leading to and from it. They both got pretty scared.

Mom said she didn't know what the guy was looking for. Nothing was taken or disturbed, but someone was in our house that night.

Happy Bday

A D20 is a  20 sided dice.   The numbers are what you roll on it.

I wrote this for a friends bday.  and thought it turned out well.  

Roll a D20

IF you roll a 20  Happy birthday,  the mountains shout and beautiful women flock to your house hourly bringing figs and wines and cute edible puppies.   You parents also just bought you an island, which, has a fully functioning armory and missile battery that can reach 4 of the seven continents.  

If you roll a 15-19   A talking horse, carries you away on a magical carpet ride.  You are treated to the sights of Indiana, you even have a variety of corn named after you.   Your siblings all become your slaves and you rename them after various scatological terms.  

If you roll a 11-14  fairly normal day, high lights include cake, ice cream, you get more facebook comments than ever, and a slightly better present than you were hoping for

If you roll a 10  cake, ice cream underwear, socks, and breakfast in bed.  

If you roll a 6-9  the cake made you sick.  Hence you spend the evening on the toilet.  Which coincidently has fungus on it.   You get many fine books and games… that you already have.  Also for some reason all the clothes you get are size xxl.  Someone writes a long facebook birthday message with very poor grammer and spelling, as if ! punctuation is an art^^form and not a science()

If you roll a 2-5 finally the recessive gene your parents both carry becomes manifest. .. unfortunately all it does is cause your appendages to fall off.  But at least torso boy is an attractive stage name for the circus.  You are strapped to the underbelly of a llama for transport.  While traveling you are kidnapped by a strange cult in the mountains who see you as the long promised liberator.  But when you fail to liberate they force feed you wheat and cinnamon until your gizzard is full.  Then they roll your limbless body down a stony hill into a fire pit.  As you begin to burn your cell phone falls out of your pocket and you see a text message from your mom “hey forgot it’s your birthday, is it ok if we have Spaghetti-o’s tonight?”

If you roll a 1  the planets aligned and you stumble into a time warp.  You find yourself in a small farming town a cool breeze blows.  The local theater is playing 3 men and a baby.   You walk down the street and notice a couple walking behind you.   The woman suddenly seems much more interested in you than her companion.     And starts following you.   She is oddly familiar.   She lays on the flirting quite heavily, you have icecream, and find yourself dancing to (I had) The time of my life, which everyone seems to know.  Half way through the dance, you feel your body start to lose feeling.   You look and appear to be fading out of reality.  The pretty lady withdraws in horror, everything is getting more and more blurry.  It’s as if your existence is being stripped away.  You fall to the floor.   As the dance floor clears you see a calendar on the Wall.  December 1^st, 1987.   One of the pretty ladies friends is comforting her, and you realize you never asked her name.  As you slip away from existence, you hear her friend say it.  “There there Leah.  It’ll be ok”

A new children's story

Jimmy was new to town

he didn't have any friends

he walked home alone every day.

poor jimmy, so sad

one day as jimmy was walking home, he saw a ball

it talked to him

"hey jimmy, you're awesome. lets be friends"

jimmy picked up the ball and took it home

he played with the ball all afternoon

later, that night jimmy's mom got mad that he didn't clean his room.

she locked him in his room

jimmy cried, and cried, til he fell asleep 

was awakened by his mothers screams

his ball had eaten her--

later when the cops came jimmy learned that his ball was actually the disembodied head of a sentient zombie serial killer.

jimmy learned never to play with strange heads.

Eulogy of A Blackberry

100 texts at once, to the frisbee peeps, that was your claim to fame.  And always i stood by your side when others called you lame.

Your keyboard rocked, for i could type without looking at the screen
and your games were classic, word mole soduku, they always made me beam.

I solute you for you tenacity, steadfastness, and your never ending  class
but now i bid thee fond fairwell, the time has come at last




What's that you say? what will i do? without you by my side?
Fear not old friend, i'll be ok.  I'll take it all in stride

New friend?  How dare you say i've left you for another.
What kind of shady miscreant would do that to his brother.

Well i've got to go, you know how it is, time flys by oh so fast
and No, there's nothing here behind me, in hands clasp

what was your name, i tend to forget, ol chap i used to know
well peace and joy and all that junk, i'fe really got to go

the precious is here, in my firm grasp, why must you stay and hover
brushed alluminum, and solid screen, i think i'll call him brother.

Beneath Asylum Lane

The Buildings themselves looked like ghosts.  A sickly green light, lit the two whitewashed buildings of the State Hospital for the Insane.  Abandoned for years, it was here i brought my dates.  It was here i'd tell them stories, it was here, they'd squeeze my arms, as tales of mental torture slithered from my lips.

Mad Doctors, inhuman therapy, possession rather than pathology, were the ingredients for my stories.  

Tonight my audience was one.  Myself.  My stage, not the steamed windows of my old ford pickup, but the grate found in between the buildings and whatever rested below.

I got to work using a car jack and a tire iron.  Leveraging the grate against itself.  I bent the iron, but gained admittance.  Now to see if there really was a network of tunnels under the old hospital. Where the most delicate work occurred.

I climbed down the rusted rungs, and easily jimmied the door.  Descended a flight of stairs.  There I was.  In a long tunnel, running farther than my light fell.  Water dripped, rats scurried, my breaths deepened.

First I entered what must have been an observation room.  Using my sleeve i wiped the grime off the one way mirror, to reveal a rusted chair, upholstery was either never there, or had been taken by some animal for it's nest.  Half moon clamps were on the arm rests and where ankles would have been.  A leather strap, with holes like a belt hung from the head rest.  

The room had chains along the walls, and a table with similar restraints.  I quickly left the observation room and entered the room proper.  I saw a mummy. No not the kind you'd find in a pyramid, but what appeared to be the remains of one of the former patients.  I gagged. His flesh was nearly eaten away by the smaller residents of this tomb.  He had on the remains of a jumpsuit, and the name Jones, over his right breast. "Well Jonesy, what brings you down here?” I told him my name, and stuck out my hand in a mock gesture. “Let's be friends.”

I swear I heard my name.  Not from the mummy, but from the hallway.  

I left my new friend in the floor where i found him and returned to the hallway.  A door shut farther down.  It was time to leave.  I returned to the stairs to get out, or at least where the stairs should have been, but there was nothing.  I searched in circles, wondering where they could have gone.  

The chains rattled in a yet unexplored room.  My head got dizzy.  I sat down.

The hallway got foggy.  Blurry.  I heard my name again, but just my last name.   I looked up and saw a strong man in all white grabbing me to my feet.  He and another equally strong man, drug me farther down the hallway, which was lit now.  The dripping was gone.  it was all blurry, i tried to speak, i tried to move, but i couldn't  We entered another room third man, in a long white coat ordered them to do something and i was strapped in a chair.  Non rusted.  Wrists, ankles and head were all restrained.

"what is your name"

I answered

"Why are you here?"

I just wanted to see what was down here?

The man in the long coat looked meaningfully at someone i couldn't see.

"are you sorry for what you've done"

yes, i'll leave

"you can't leave.  what if you hurt more people?"

i haven't hurt anyone, i swear.

"now we're back to this.  You must be sorry, we'll help you be sorry"

They all left, and a warm liquid started dripping on my hand.  A mild irritant at first, but as the minutes stretched on, it burned.  It rand down my hand, and dripped into a puddle on the floor.  within minutes my hand was on fire.  Hours the hand had been eaten away by whatever acid had been dripping there. I couldn't' see it, but i felt it was gone.  I felt the fingers fall off one by one, then the palm.

They returned.

"are you sorry?"

Yes, i pleaded.  I am so sorry, let me leave.

"Sorry for what?"

For whatever i did to deserve this.

"But what did you do?"

I came down here, i'm so sorry

"You didn't come down here.  We brought you here."

I was just exploring!

"I can see we have a lot to of work to do. Bring the drill."

The drill was brought, it slowly lowered down toward my nose.   

"Tell me why you're here.  I can save you."

I DON"T KNOW

"Tell me. This doesn't have to happen."

TELL YOU WHAT?

The drill was so close i could no longer focus on it.  I saw two drills approaching both noses.

"This is your last chance.  You can return to your family that's still alive.  Tell me why you're here"

I CAN'T I CAN'T I CAN'T I CAN'T I CAN'T

The drilled hit the cartilage.  I blacked out.

It wasn't very hard for them to find me once the started looking.  My car was feet from the open grate. I came to strapped into the old metal chair.  In the same room as my buddy the corpse.  The cops wanted to know who came down with me, who had strapped me into the chair.  I didn't know.  I didn't tell them what i saw.

As they freed me from the chair, i glanced over at the dusty old mirror, in a flash i saw the room, clean, brightly lit, and a man wearing a jumpsuit with the name Jones, written above the left breast, strapped in the chair, with a drill slowly inching toward his face.

Micro Story-Mine Hunting

Deep in the guttural bowels of the earth a light flashes, illuminating two faces, one expected, one unexpected. One confused by the look of horror on his photographer friend's face, and one blank, a clean slate devoid of flesh, muscle, and sinew; instead of eyes, empty sockets, unable to communicate murderous intent. The teeth rotted and cracked, full of disease the prey will not live to be victim to

The confused one falls first, never knowing the frozen fear of the witness. The witness fights back, but his blows fail to damage ancient bone. 

Outside the mine, perfect silence, for the wildlife knows to avoid this portal, inside the creature slowly ruminates over his meal, and dreams of the future search party.