A Word is Not the Same

 

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Junie is a published author!!!!!!

Junie is the author of an article on the front page of the Bay View compass that comes out today. Very exciting!

Displeased

I'm a little perplexed that YaYa  didn't even place this year in a fiction contest she won in 2016 - the new story was tight, well crafted, and far superior to the winning entry last year. Frankly, I'm sure it's better than anything they chose.

A Guest Teaching Opporunity

This morning I was proud to be invited to speak about column writing to the AP English class at Milwaukee High School of Arts.  I filled the 50 minute period with what I hope was good advice.

A Great Great Thought

The homily tonight at Mass centered on a quote from Chesterton: "Whatever is worth doing is worth doing poorly." Meaning that if it's important to do, get up and do it, because whatever you accomplish, no matter how little, exceeds what you'd do from your couch.

Proud Papa!!!

Earlier this month I entered a short story in a writing contest YaYa suggested to me, and tho I urged her to enter too she said she'd pass. Uh-huh. My girl can fib with the best of them: my story got zilch, but the one she secretly sent in won FIRST PLACE! 

There's a prize ceremony this weekend, and I'm one proud papa!

A Nice Day

LuLu spent the evening dyeing Lisa and Smiley's hair, then attacked the gray in my beard with some Just for Men. YaYa spent that time watching my Mom (she finally retuned home this week). Junie  played La-Tee-Da, then bought YaYa a balloon to congratulate her on winning the writing contest. A nice day for #TeamSlap.

A Pet Peeve in Movies

Nothing in fiction (especially movies) annoys me more than when the hero gets the jump on the bad guy and knocks him out, then grabs the girl and says "Let's go!" 

Let's go? Let's go and leave the psychopath who wants me dead alive and well to finish the job? 

The hell with that. You've got him down, now cut his throat. #EndTheThreat

I finished my sci-fi novel!

At 3:40 this morning I finished the first draft of a novel I've been puttering around with since 2012, although the idea first came to me way back in 1986. I'll need to fine tune and polish it, but if I drop dead right now the story is there, on paper, and finally out of my head. I am relieved, and proud.

Wise Words

I hope so

Smiley's Valentines Day Poem

This is a poem Smiley wrote and included in a Valentine's Day card:

"Roses are red, bees make honey, give me a kiss and I'll give you all my money!"

Sounds like he's ready for marriage already.

A Shadow of a Distant Life

This is the story that won me a public reading at a local library back in 2009.



It was three in the morning when the ghost  returned to visit Steven.

At first, shortly after moving into the house, there had had been  only the sound of heavy, careful footsteps in the night. Alarmed, Steven would leave the imagined safety of his bed and venture down the hall, terrified of finding an intruder. But it was always the same; the kids asleep and unaware, the doors bolted, the windows locked.

In the morning he and his wife found it amusing, a curiosity to liven up the anecdotes they told about their new home. Neither, of course, believed in ghosts.

That was how it started.

What followed was a lull, two weeks of undisturbed and blissful sleep. Then, an escalation: the footsteps again, this time breaching Steven's room and stopping just beside his bed.  After that the mornings brought no peace. The restless nights made tempers flare, and he grew angry each time his wife blamed it all on the shifting frame of a century old house.

Steven, for his part, was no longer sure what he believed.

Soon his wife let the news 'slip' to his mother. "I don't understand why you're worried," his Mom said, scolding him. "Our family has owned that house since it was built. The only people to pass away there are your great-grandparents, and even if they could come back, you know they would never hurt you."

They were words meant to comfort, but did the opposite. He felt no kinship with a couple dead and gone twenty years before his birth. Nor could he fathom caring about his own descendants, at least those he wouldn't live to see. If there were angry spirits in the house, why would they be obliged to tolerate him? For the sake of a relationship four generations removed?

That was the night the figure appeared. There were footsteps of course, loud enough to wake him but no one else (although, to be fair, he never really slept well at night anymore, surviving on catnaps scattered throughout the day). They came forward slowly but confidently, as if the spirit no longer cared to mask its presence, and again, they paused by the bed. Ignoring his fear Steven opened his eyes.

Before him stood a shadow, a man-but-not-a-man. While there was no physical form, the shifting darkness  worked to craft an illusion of strength and bulk. Remarkably, through the pressing, physical weight of his fear Steven felt himself begin to climb out of bed.

Not yet, a voice said, and he had no doubt it echoed only in his mind. Not yet.

That was the beginning of the end.

In the weeks to come Steven would stop trying to sleep at night altogether. His work began to suffer; his children, sensing something wrong, grew distant, and his wife, concerned, begged him to seek help. When he refused her pleas he found himself banished to the living room couch. For Steven it was a hidden blessing. His few nights on the couch gave him his first true rest in months.

                                                              A Shadow of a Distant Life  pg 2


On the night the shadow returned it there was no sound, only an icy shiver that wrenched Steven awake with a stunning abruptness. The figure stood at the head of the couch, leaning over and staring - if it had eyes at all - directly into Steven's face.

Now, it said.

The figure walked away, heading for the kitchen. Steven's mind and body screamed caution, and he resolved to stay where he lay. To his surprise  he found himself following the shadow.  They entered the room together, and in time it took Steven to blink his eyes the figure disappeared.

Once again Steven's head screamed retreat, but instead he searched frantically around the room, as if instead of vanishing he'd simply lost sight of the figure in a crowd. After a moment he heard the familiar footsteps coming from the basement stairs that lay off the pantry.  He followed the sound without thinking, and without bothering with the stairway light.  His eyes had grown accustomed to picking out human forms in the dark of night, and they came quickly to rest on a figure below.

At that same moment he noticed the broken basement window, the strangely unfamiliar shape of the shadow, and the glint of a knife in its hand as it rushed up the stairs. Before these thoughts could raise an alarm the intruder slammed into Steven, slashing at him in a frenzy. The first blow missed and struck the wall, but the intruder never hesitated.  A second later the man was on him again, pushing him down against the stairs before raising the knife for a final blow.

Steven's eyes went from the knife, to the eyes of his assailant - and then to the familiar figure emerging from the dark behind him.

Pitch dark arms ignored the blade and encircled his neck, leveraging him up and off of Steven. It was then, only for a moment, that Steven saw the face of the shadow. It was no face as we know it, simply the impression of one, but in its imagined features was not one face but many; his great-grandfather and his father before him, his sons and his future grandchildren.

Even in the surreal chaos of that moment he knew that  in the end the fight would be his own. Now the shadow said, and Steven struck, knocking the intruder unconscious and sending him tumbling down the stairs.

He would see the shadow only once more in his lifetime. Many years later, babysitting his grandchild, Steven stirred and wandered into the baby's room, sitting in the  rocker alongside the crib. From the corner of the eye he noticed a shadow distinct from the darkness, but did not turn to meet it.

Together, the pair was content to admire the future in silence as it slept peacefully in the crib.

Little Einstein - an unpublished column

I wrote this in 2009, and I can't remember if I ever submitted for publication, or if it was just rejected for one reason or another. I also can't remember if I've ever published here. If I did, I apologize for wasting your time. :)

When my nephew was born fifteen years ago I wasted no time in trying to secure his future. No, I didn't run out and buy stocks or bonds  in his name, none of which I could afford as a college student. Instead I drove to the bookstore and scooped up anything with titles like "Your Baby Can Read!" and "Teach Math to your Infant!".

I remember knowing, with a faith bordering on the religious, that these tomes would give my nephew the head start he'd need to succeed in life.

Did it work? Well, no actually.  He didn't read a book or do long division  until elementary school (gasp!). While  he's a bright kid, I'm afraid  the only way he'll qualify as the next  Edison is if the definition of 'genius' expands  to include  World of Warcraft acumen.

I thought of those books when I read that the Disney corporation was offering rebates to customers who purchased their popular Little Einstein videos between 2004 and 2009.  The videos feature simple images of toys, colors and shapes accompanied by music, and Disney shrewdly chose to market the product as educational for infants. That led to a a group called the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood filling a complaint with the FCC in 2006.  As a result, Disney complied with their demand and dropped the claim about its educational value.

According to the CCFC's own website, it wasn't enough. “We thought parents deserved better, “ the website said. And so, under pressure  Disney agreed to a rebate for customers who bought the films “mistakenly believing the videos would make their baby smarter.”

Let's gloss over the fact that the 'rebate' only seems to encourage an investment in the product line, seeing as it primarily comes in the form of coupons or exchanges. What bothers me is the fact that this argument got any traction at all.

By the era of Little Einstein I was a parent myself, and yes, I bought a few of the tapes. I no longer had any illusions about tweaking IQ's, but my daughters found it fascinating and , if nothing else, it exposed them to classical music at an early age. Or so I said at the time. If I'm honest, it also kept them out of my hair for a few minutes, which made the videoes worth every penny. If most parents were as blunt, I'd think they'd concede the same thing.

 As for the 'rebates', argue an objection to “screen time” for infants, and I might concede your point. But to base the objection on a failure to make a baby  “smarter” strikes me as ridiculous. More so than even my thoughts that day at the bookstore. My goal wasn't to raise his intelligence, it was to jumpstart his education. Tomatoes/tomatoes? I disagree.

How do you define “smarter” in an infant? What standards constitute success or failure? And smarter than whom? Mom? Dad? The neighbor's cat? Remember, these are babies we're talking about. If you express  disappointment that they 'only' possess their native intelligence – to the extent you ask a corporation for a refund based on that fact -what kind of message are you establishing for the next eighteen years?

There will always be products that cash in on our desire to help our children. Some will be sincere, some will be nothing more than patent medicine. Shut them down when they encourage harm, but I'd  be careful about being smug when you do. Remember: in the end, they do nothing more than fill the need our own egos demand. 

Disappointing News

More sucky news. A writing class I was scheduled to begin tonight (focusing on feature magazine articles) has been cancelled due to insufficient enrollment. :(

In yet another switcharoo, the Waukesha Freeman wrote to say my column should run tomorrow (Friday). It will also run Saturday, as scheduled, in the Milwaukee Post. Please pick up a copy - and note that the Freeman website is behind a pay wall so you won't be able to view it online (for free, that is).

 Some disappointing news today: the Freeman wrote to tell me my column is in limbo, as they will not be the first paper to print it; that 'honor' belongs to the weekly Milwaukee Post which will publish it on Saturday. They may still run it Tuesday morning, on the day of the primary, but I wouldn't bet on it.

 Whoa - big news: I wrote a piece about Romney, but instead of sending it to the Journal-Sentinel I decided it was time to be bold and try to get my name better known around the state. I submitted it to two newspapers. Today, the response: both(!) wish to print it, and the editor of one *will contact the other* to see who gets dibs. Hot dog!

Update: The Waukesha Freeman has told me they'll be printing my column tomorrow *if* the smaller paper agreed to hold off running it until after the Freeman published. That was still up in the air as of a couple of hours ago, so . . . I may be in the Freeman tomorrow. Or not. Take a look in the morning and let me know one way or the other.

A Response to my Column

This morning's Journal printed a response to my column by a Capt. in the Waukesha County Sheriff's Drug Unit. This evening I am pleased to see that his letter was skewered quite effectively by readers, all of whom seemed to recognize that his argument was . . . poorly thought out, to put it mildly. Your income directly depends on the continuation of this law, be it right or wrong; to me, that eliminates you as a reliable source of information on its validity.