Long Live Hansel and Gertie!

Tonight’s WPCA-FM broadcast of my stories featured Hansel and Gertie, another “mangled” fairy tale. Per usual, this story is larded with terrible puns and a few hidden chuckles (hidden, until you think about what was just thrown at you). I never know which stories WPCA will broadcast so it’s fun to find out and then to bemoan my sloppy diction, which was better years ago.

My in-person reading at the St.Croix Falls Public Library on September 21st went well. One attendee, Diane Dedon, who had attended my last reading there in 2017, said the two stories I shared “Brought us full circle, from tears to belly laughs.” I appreciate the comment. The first story, Lost Wax, brought me to tears the first two times I read it aloud in my office, so Marina thought it was a risk to read it in public. I got through it without tears, at least on my part. The second story, Snow Job and The Four Dwarfs, brought plenty of laughs, as it does every time I read it in public. Both stories are included in Six Short Stories, the book recommended as good summer reading by Mary Ann Grossmann, book editor for the St.Paul Pioneer Press. I treasure that praise, especially because someone who publishes independently does not have a publishing house to push one’s book and place it before book editors and critics. I find, though, that praise and a good review like Ms. Grossmann’s doesn’t necessarily result in huge book sales, especially if one is not well known.

The St.Croix Falls reading did not turn out a large crowd. Amery’s first poet laureate, LaMoine MacLaughlin, told me years ago that writers never seem to draw a crowd for readings. I knew almost everyone attending and I am grateful that they took the time to come. A couple of other writers were in attendance, including Lois Joy Hofmann, whose three prize winning volumes about their circumnavigation are beautifully written and photographed, and Shaila Johnson, reporter for the Inter County Leader.

Meanwhile, life goes on. Our Wolf Creek congregation lost an important member, Rick Davidsavor, whose funeral I will preside over on Sunday, October 8th. I saw Rick as a patriarch. Much of his life was devoted to helping other people through his involvement in being a first responder, Cushing Fire Department’s second-in-command fire chief, Polk County law enforcement, firearm safety educator, EMT and a whole bunch of other things. Last Sunday’s Epistle text was from Paul’s Letter to the early church at Philippi in which he exhorted them to put the concerns of others ahead of their own. Rick’s life was a great example of that. Why, he probably could not have articulated but he made a positive difference in our larger community and was honored for it by the State of Wisconsin just last year.

Grandson Hans and son-in-law Mark helped me pull the dock from the lake yesterday. We had beautiful, if unusually warm, weather for early October and the guys made it an easy job that took us just 15 minutes. That called for treats afterwards, generously supplied by daughter Britta. We’d seen Britta and her husband Mark the week before when I was chasing around in Minnesota for a medical consultation and testing that also gave Marina and me a chance to lunch with our younger son, John, who is someone we don’t see often enough. We ate at a Tibetan restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis. The food was fine but, truth be known, I’d like to find a cozy little French restaurant. Surely, a metropolitan area like ours should have a couple of those. Maybe they are a bit out of fashion today, but I liked them when I was young and wouldn’t mind finding at least one good one today.

The leaves are falling now and many of our trees have Fall colors. We have many maples on our property and the surrounding woods are beautiful in the Fall. Today, I took the first mower run through the yard to chop up some of the leaves. There will be plenty left to rake and take to the back. The mini-garden Britta and Mark created for us is producing a prodigious crop of beans and cucumbers and there are still a couple of tomatoes ripening in the sun. Critters took plenty of liking to our squash and zucchini, although I may be able to salvage a few before the frost hits. We’ve had record setting heat but things are supposed to cool down tomorrow.

Do Angels Dance On Pins?

Tonight’s WPCA-FM story broadcast was Annika’s Angel, a tale of a group of long-time friends that finds the conviction of one of them that she and her husband experienced an angel to be upsetting and even divisive. It’s a good little story with dialogue that opens up each character’s belief/disbelief in angels. There are some laughs in the story and the ending may even prompt a reader to tears.

I’m excited to be reading my stories at the St.Croix Falls Public Library on September 21st at 7 p.m. I’ll read from Six Short Stories, the book recommended as good summer reading by Mary Ann Grossman, book editor for the St.Paul Pioneer Press. I have a soft spot in my heart for the SCF Library because it was the first library reading I did back in 2017. That was followed by a series of library readings in Polk County and in Minnesota, as well as readings for groups, arts centers, on the radio (WPCA-FM that continues to broadcast a story of mine each month) and twice as a fund raiser for St.Croix Festival Theater.

Labor Day saw daughter Britta and her family joining Marina and me for a pontoon ride and picnic. We had the picnic but a dead battery put the kibosh on putting down the coast to show grandson Bjorn and his wife where he’d spent time growing up. Our weather of late has been quite hot, setting records and prompting warnings for heatstroke. Nevertheless, yours truly did some heavy duty log splitting of large logs donated by a neighbor. My woodpile is looking nicely prepared for winter!

August marked 55 years of marriage for Marina and me. In addition to an enjoyable dinner with daughter, Hannah and her family, we celebrated our anniversary a bit early by participating in a St.Croix River paddlewheel luncheon cruise. The details of this marriage were plotted on the St.Croix at the Afton House restaurant with my then-boss and his then-wife. Would I do it again? Yup! My best decision ever. An easy 55 years? Who are you kidding?

My near life-long friend Christina Capps sent me photos of an expansion under construction of the house in which I grew up. She took the pictures from the fire road that runs along the flank of Blackfoot, the mountain peak next to Mount Hollywood and must have used a very powerful telephoto lens. My parents bought the place just after WWII. It was probably the smallest house in the Hollywood Knolls,  a smart move for young couple aspiring to a good neighborhood and good schools. My back yard was undeveloped, as it remains today, an oasis in the middle of a major urban area, and a boy and his dog could roam and explore mountain-tops and small creeks, gather pollywogs and shoot a bow and arrow with not much to worry about except for rattlesnakes and poison oak. I’ve written about that in a memoir to my family. It was a remarkable growing up, extraordinarily privileged despite barely-making-it finances after my parents’ divorce.

Wolf Creek UMC now enjoys a nice rotation of musicians for Sunday services. Calvin and Karen Johnson returned to the area and have re-joined us. Karen plays and joins Deb Lind Schmitz, Cheryl Hustad, and Shawn Gudmundsen as our musical team. Each brings a special personal quality to their musical offerings and I think the diversity is something the congregation enjoys. Attendance is up nicely, too. I still don’t know who watches us on You Tube (Wolf Creek United Methodist Church services) but we do have viewers. And since we believe in the power of prayer and see prayers answered, we have a long list of names that we pray for, not just on Sundays but during the week as our members take the list home to pray for those on the list. Our list isn’t getting shorter; people know we will pray for them and we receive new names every week.

The Bike Is Nice

Last night’s WPCA-FM story broadcast was I Loved That Bike!, a tale about a guy’s love for two women and a motorcycle and how he ended up in a coma. The story was written a couple of years before my brother, Guy, ended up in a coma from a horrific car accident almost eleven months ago out in California. Irony. It is a good story and– modesty aside– it was read well. You can find I Loved That Bike! in the paperback Six Short Stories and online in the Another Four Break Time Stories collection. The paperbacks are available through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

Family-wise, the college crowd is sliding inexorably toward classes resuming the end of this month, while the school-age bunch looks forward to football practice coming soon and the end to summer canoe and backpacking treks, as well as free time for art. Me? I have some time to devote to catching up on needed stuff (like painting window trim at our  Luck property and digging out the many volunteer trees here at home) because Marina’s bum knee has been told to rest from swimming regularly at the Osceola pool. I’ve had an unexpected series of medical center visits for the pain in my side. A CT scan resulted in discovery of a rare inflammation in the lining of my abdominal wall. I’m not going to say more about it; I’ve always declared that I would not be one of those geezers who gives people an “organ recital” when asked “How are you?” Amid all this, our pontoon boat down at the lake suffers from neglect.

At Wolf Creek UMC, attendance is up consistently. That’s gratifying. Our new District Superintendent, Peace Kim, is proving to be the Servant Leader he hopes to be. We have good musicians consistently providing the music help we need during our services and we are blessed by having several members of the congregation that can take over a service in my absence.

I am scheduled to connect with the St.Croix Falls Public Library later this month to arrange a date for story reading, probably some time in September or early October.

What She Said

Writers yearn for professional acknowledgement of their work, so it was a delight to find St.Paul Pioneer Press’ Mary Ann Grossmann’s recommending my fourth paperback, Six Short Stories,  as good summer reading. Mary Ann is a regional treasure and has been boosting Minnesota and local writers for many years. Here’s what she had to say in the Sunday, July 16, 2023 edition:

The Headline: Three Books To Relax With

“It’s the time of the year for easy reading so today we offer three well written paperbacks that will entertain you on the screen porch, at the cabin or in a hammock.” She then summarized two books by women. When she got to me, she wrote:

“Six Short Stories by Mark Hayes Peacock (independently published, $12) “There had been a shooting, a murder, and both Charlene and Derek seem to be implicated, or, at least, both had motives for doing in Randall Dodge. And as a priest, I have an interest in honesty, truth and justice. Maybe it’s just that I’ve seen too many television movies about priests who somehow manage to solve mysteries, which, on the surface, seems way out of character.” – from “Six Short Stories”

“In his fourth short story collection Peacock, of Luck, Wis., introduces us to a variety of intriguing characters. There’s Bomber, who solves two problems at once by shooting a politician. There’s a paralyzed guy who listens to two women he loves argue about keeping him on life support while he thinks of how he loved the bike (motorcycle) that almost got him killed. A priest tries to find justice in a story with a surprise ending, and a letter from a man’s dead mother leads to bitter disappointment.A sweet story tells of how a devoted wife guides her husband’s career as a sculptor and the final story is a funny ‘mangled fairytale’ featuring the retired seven dwarfs.”

What a delightful and satisfying thing to come home to find! Marina and I had been to Minneapolis’ Caspian Restaurant to lunch with a former student of mine, his wife and daughter. “Fred” has become a very successful programmer, with some of his work rocketing into space. After 53 years, it is a fine experience to be able to keep in touch with people who fulfilled the promise we thought they would have when we admitted them to Macalester College. Back then, Mac was dubbed “The Harvard of the Midwest” and my job was to help people from 32 different countries succeed in a foreign and very high-test environment. Some of them give me more credit than I deserve for their subsequent success, but the truth is that I simply had scholarship money and a welcoming institution, as well as an International Center and an excellent orientation outline to help them as they began their college experience. (To the Middle Eastern students: “Hamburgers are beef!”) Also, I was not much older than most of my advisees so the age barrier was minimal: I was a lot like they were.

All in all, Sunday was a most satisfying day. I’d love to have more of them!

And The Livin Is Easy!

Summertime, and the change of pace sometimes isn’t easy. But warm and even hot weather is nice after a cool Spring. Heavy rains over the 4th of July apparently sent many of the cabin people home early; it was a fairly quiet Fourth, much to the relief of a few dogs I know. Marina’s current Seeing Eye Dog, Andy, is pretty calm about the loud noises; Gretel, his predecessor, was not. As Gretel said in her story that Marina is writing, “Andy is always so serious; I’m the cute one!”

Last night’s WPCA-FM story broadcast was The Duo, a tale from the Yet More Break Time Stories ebook that’s also found in The First Gathering Of The Break Time Stories paperback. It’s probably the most autobiographical of all my 27 published stories, although an author always takes something he’s experienced or heard or seen and lets the imagination take things from there. The story deals with a friend who, with his wife, forms a strong partnership that unravels after he gets elected to Congress. My lifetime friend Emily Adelsohn Corngold said the story is “Kafka-esque”. Again, I am privileged to be able to share my stories through WPCA-FM, whose 20th birthday I was able to help celebrate a couple of weeks ago.

Little progress for my brother Guy, who remains on life support out in California. I am grateful for the good care he’s getting.

Today marked the 55th Anniversary of Marina and my first date, a lunch atop a 13 story apartment building in Santa Monica. Gates Of Spain had booths facing the view of the Pacific Coast; you stepped up into the booth and, depending on which side you were on, you could see all the way south to Palos Verdes peninsula or north to a bit beyond Malibu. The restaurant was accessed via a glass elevator that ran up the outside of the building. Marina was pushing back against me as we ascended and I mashed myself against the elevator’s back wall. (My hero!) I still dislike heights. Today also featured a CT scan for me to try to figure out why the pain in my side that I’ve had since March 9th is so slow to heal. Nothing found out of the ordinary, says the report, so I guess I simply need to be patient. (Don’t ever pray for patience; you’ll find yourself in situations where you need to learn it.)

Tomorrow morning is our first Zoom session with our new District Superintendent, Park Peace Kim. His introductory email made an exceptionally good first impression and I’m hoping that he will have great success. Like his predecessor, Barbara Certa-Werner, he wants to be a servant-leader. We have one-on-one meetings with him later this month. One of my issues over the years has been, who pastors the pastor? Our District Zoom meetings these past several years have answered my concern: we pastor each other and there has been plenty of prayer for each other and other forms of ministering for the clergy in our District.

As for Wolf Creek, I’ve indicated my concern in the past about the difficulty of finding musicians for Sunday services. Well, so far, so good; we’ve been covered every Sunday. Deb Lind-Schmitz is a retired Presbyterian pastor who plays and sings well; Cheryl Hustad is my successor as president of the Osceola Seniors, still works as a pharmacist, and also plays and sings well; and Sean Gudmunsen, St.Croix Falls High School Choir Teacher and Music Director, plays well and sings superbly. I am grateful to God and to them for this answered prayer.

For several years now our 26 foot fifth wheel trailer has been sitting in the yard, going nowhere. I sold the old truck and we should have sold the trailer some time ago, but Marina had hoped that grandchildren would come to stay overnight in the trailer. Fat chance! So last week the trailer headed to the Two Harbors area to be Curtis K’s hunting cabin. He’s delighted and I’m relieved. Now, what to do with the rare runabout? But the pontoon is in the water, a little worse for wear over the Winter and with two things still not repaired. The repairs are not essential and it will be good to get out on the water again. The pontoon gave me a great front row seat for the annual Fourth of July boat parade, which this year seemed to be heavy on political statements, rather than straight patriotism.

Several of the students I advised 50 years ago have kept in touch over the years and I always enjoy catching up with them. Later this month Marina and I will lunch at a Persian restaurant with one of them who’s become a programmer with his work zooming around overhead in space. Many of those students have become very successful, as I knew they would when I was part of the decision to admit them to Macalester College. My job: do what I could to help them succeed in a foreign and very high test environment. Isn’t it nice to have your intuitive guesses turn out well? I applaud all of them.

No Cute Title

Tonight’s WPCA-FM story reading was a “mangled” fairy tale, Sinner Ella. I must confess: I found myself chuckling at Ella’s various transgressions, even though a few people might be offended by my lampooning of some church practices. Every fourth story in my e-book collections is a “mangled” fairy tale: Jack and the Bean Sprouts, Hansel and Gertie, The Many Trials, Little Red Hoodie, Snow Job and the Four Dwarfs–you get the idea. I’ve been asked where the ideas for these stories come from and the only answer I can offer is that I used to turn fairy tales on their heads when I told stories to my children when they were small. I mean, have you heard about the three little pigs that didn’t brush their teeth? (Find the teaching lesson in there, will you?)

For those of you asking, my brother Guy remains in what is mostly a coma in Los Angeles after a horrific automobile accident. There has been little progress in terms of improvement. I’d love to show him pictures of the house we grew up in and the changes that were made to the place–some good, some not so good. The house just sold for almost $1.5 million. It was a modest smaller house in an upscale Hollywood neighborhood, a smart buy for my parents, a young couple looking to move up in the world after WWII. My “baby”brother Greg sent me the link to the Zillow listing.

The Wolf Creek United Methodist Church that I pastor hosted its annual traditional Memorial Day lunch for the many people observing the day and its ceremonies at the cemetery next door to the church. Per usual, there were plenty of volunteers to handle the many hungry. This is a small congregation with wonderful people.

I’ve been working to sell our fifth wheel trailer. The unit carries with it many good memories, but the truck to tow it is gone and we are unlikely to travel elsewhere to enjoy the trees, lake and beauty we have right here at home. We have been getting lots of inquiries but it will take a special person to correct the few things that need to be done to make the trailer pristine again.  My grandson, Hans, helped me put in our dock two weeks ago. He’s 16 and eager. I enjoyed both the physical help and the camaraderie. We have had rain, including three inches in just a few hours, so everything is green, daffodils are done, as are the trilliums, tulips and lilies are up, the lilacs are just about done, and the long stretch of iris on the south border is just beginning to flower. The mosquitos have been in bloom, too. I’ve read that recent dry seasons have meant that the mosquitos have been able to hibernate, so to speak, and have emerged with the wet weather and late Spring this year.

I’ve been typing up Marina’s story of Gretel, her first Seeing Eye Dog. It’s told from Gretel’s point of view and in her voice. I think it’s quite good. We will leave it to Andy, Gretel’s successor, to tell the story of Gretel’s tick-borne illness.

My books have been selling lately, mostly in the retail shops and through Barnes & Noble Booksellers. When I’ve offered free books on Amazon Kindle, they’ve been snapped up quickly. (Those offers usually have just a five day window.) Some people will do anything to save $3.99. I’ll let you know about in person readings that are supposed to happen yet this summer, including one last-minute reading in Osceola for the Osceola Seniors. That’s tomorrow–maybe.

Maybe, Just Maybe, Spring is Springing?

With sun and temps in the high 50’s today, I was able to get outside and tend to some things that needed attention after a tough Winter. I’m thinking of taking tarps off outdoor furniture, filling the deep gouges dug by the LP gas truck when it foundered in my driveway, fixing the “dingers” in our several wind chimes, bailing water from the tub surrounding the solar system batteries, measuring for the wooden frame I need to build to shore up the small shed whose roof was flattened by the weight of this season’s heavy snow–and the list went on.

Tonight’s WPCA-FM story reading was A Cabbie’s Sunday Morning Soap Opera, a tale in which a cab driver’s imagination runs wild when an enigmatic statement made while he picked up his fare rolls around in his head and there is no radio reception to distract his thoughts. I think the story is better read than heard because it’s really three stories in one and the reader may want to go back a page or two to make sure he/she is tracking the plot. Also, one of the stories the cab driver imagines treads close to being an adult story; grown-ups may not want children’ ears to take it in. The story is found in my e-book collection, Yes, More Break Time Stories and in the paperback, The Second Gathering of The Break Time Stories. The paperback is available through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

Su Leslie, the Librarian at St.Crox Falls Public Library, tells me I will be scheduled to read there sometime in May or June, probably on a Thursday night. I have a soft spot in my heart for the St.Croix Falls Library: Sarah Adams, the then-Librarian, had me read there in 2018. It was the first of my library readings. Others that followed included Luck, Balsam Lake, Milltown, and White Bear Lake, Minnesota, as well as readings for groups, several readings at what was The Northern Lakes Center for the Arts, a fund raiser for resurrecting the old movie theater in Amery to turn it into a live entertainment venue, a reading at Osceola’s Art Barn, and two fund raiser readings (with LaMoine MacLaughlin) for St.Croix Festival Theater. I usually read a serious story and finish to laughter with one of the “mangled” fairy tales.

Wolf Creek United Methodist Church has a regular organist! Deb Lind Schmitz, a retired Presbyterian minister, who twice pastored United Methodist congregations, is also a skilled musician and is eager to keep her skills sharp by helping us in worship. She is an answer to prayer and a blessing to me. It’s nice to have someone working with you who understands the pastoral role as well. When Deb is unable to join us, we have been blessed by Cheryl Hustad stepping in. Cheryl is the president of the Osceola Seniors and my successor in that office. Like Deb, she is another supposedly “retired” person since she works consistently as a pharmacist. Shawn Gudmunsen also played for us. He is St.Croix Falls High School’s choral director and teacher, lives close by the church, and is one of the world’s generous, ebullient people. I see all of this as an answer to prayer in the light of the scarcity of people able and willing to play for church services. There are very few of them and every church seems to be looking. I thank the Lord.

We had the pleasure of having daughter Alice with us for a few hours last weekend. She had a show out in Delano, Minnesota and camped overnight with us after attending her 35th Unity High School class reunion. It was one of those brief-but-good visits: in the morning, I headed off to church, her sister, Hannah, came over to spend some moments with her sister, and then Alice zipped off to the airport to return to Ohio, home, husband and children.

My brother, Guy, remains hospitalized on life support in Los Angeles. This has gone on since September 6th. I speak with his caretakers every so often; improvement has been slow. We are in prayer, also, for my sister-in-law, Bunny Vreeland, who is fighting back against collapsed and collapsing lungs, the result of cancer. For situations like these two, I believe the story isn’t finished yet. An old Bishop told me long ago, “Always give God the last chance.”

A Shoutout

I thought I’d give some attention to local outlets that are handling my books. The first one on board was the Polk County Information Center, which since its inception hosts an annual 25,000 visitors who check in to see how to spend their time and money in Polk County. Colleen and her staff do a very nice job; just listen in sometime as they greet and help people who come through the doors.

Jackie is who’s left of the volunteers who manned the stand-alone gift shop at St.Croix Regional Medical Center, now re-named St.Croix Health. The gift shop has been moved to the pharmacies at each of the Clinics and the Medical Center in St.Croix Falls. The original thought was that people experiencing a hospital stay and their friends/families might get a lift out of reading Some Mangled Fairy Tales. That’s still a good idea.

Jane Mackie owns the Coming Home shop in downtown Osceola. She has created a bright, eye-candy store with a variety of women’ clothing items, some craft pieces–and my fairy tale books. It’s one of those places that delights your senses the moment you enter the door. I’ve experienced Jane as an encourager, which befits a former teacher.

New to retailing my books is Pure and Simple. Located on Highway 8 just east of the roundabout to Amery, Pure and Simple features good food and an eclectic array of things to whet the pocketbook. Wild rice? Got it! Organic flours and special products? Got them! Humorous signs and local crafts? Got them! Mark’s fairy tales? Got ’em now!

All four of my paperback books are available through Amazon.com. The Second Gathering  of The Break Time stories, Some Mangled Fairy Tales, and Six Short Stories are available through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

Blew Right By Me

I usually try to catch the WPCA-FM broadcast of my stories on the first Tuesday night of each month, but tonight it blew by me. It’s Marina’s birthday and we had fun happening. In fact, the past several days have had plenty of fun, what with family gatherings, musical jamming, and lots of laughter. Saturday, we enjoyed time with daughter Hannah’s family over in Dresser, which is about 40 minutes from our place. Sunday saw daughter Britta and her husband Mark here, along with a surprise: granddaughter Kaija and her fiancé Forrest Major. Forrest will be a great addition to our family: he’s bright and a very good musician to boot, so we had plenty of guitar music and a bit of drumming and clapping going on. Monday was recuperation day, shopping, car repair, and a good time spent by me with two guys in Osceola’s Senior Center’s chat group. Today it was phone calls from daughter Alice and son John, along with emails from grandchildren and more calls from friends. Aaron did up a very fine dinner with pork loin, asparagus and potatoes, in addition to whipping up good pancakes for breakfast. And, hey, no snow shoveling today!!!

My books are selling, but slowly, per usual. Anyone hankering to get rich by writing your way to it needs to modify expectations. As I’ve said, it’s one thing to write; it’s another thing to write and get published; and yet another thing to write, get published and get paid for it.

Wolf Creek UMC is limping along with occasional musicians at the keyboard. I wrote the Easter bulletin with the options of spoken words or hymns, depending on whether or not we have a musician. At this writing, we do not have a musician. I did 9 years with CD’s for music as a chaplain at Good Samaritan Care Center and found them restrictive and generally “blah”. One congregant proposes that we sing hymns we all know a capella. Another possibility is that I work to recall all the verses of praise choruses I led close to 40 years ago and employ them with my guitar. That approach would change the entire character and form of the Sunday service the WCR congregation knows. We may very have a mix of all of the above. Stay tuned. (Pun intended.)

Son Aaron has been in from Portugal and he did yeoman work shoveling heavy wet snow last week. That helped plenty after I’d injured myself, probably by piling snow into the 8+foot piles off our deck. I am grateful. He is lobbying hard for us to move; I’m too old for physical stuff, he says. (Me: “Oh,yeah?”)

I’m sorta tuned  into the election results tonight for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race. I’ve got to say that Wisconsin’s politics are shameful, especially in terms of the gerrymandering we experience. We are a state pretty well divided, politically, and we should be able to demonstrate the outcomes from that in our electoral results. Right now, the votes of many people are rendered void by the voting structure of the State. Honest people on both sides of the issue know that’s not how self-governance should operate.

We are into April now and the wood stove still works to take off the chill downstairs. I don’t mind the work involved with a wood stove. I can use the exercise and the old saying is true: wood warms you twice: once, when you chop and split it and again when you haul it and burn it. So let’s raise a toast to being warm and toasty!

Life Is A Series Of Changes

Tonight’s WPCA-FM story broadcast was The Eye Of The Beholder, a tale of several artists with talent and the hidden artistic purpose of one of them. Of course, I know the story’s outcome but it seemed to me that the mystery could be figured out without much trouble. Give the story a read and see if you reach the same conclusion as the story’s end. (You’ll find the story in the paperback book, The Second Gathering of The Break Time Stories and online in the story collection Four More Break Time Stories (available on Amazon.com). The paperback book is available through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

My latest paperback story collection, Six Short Stories, is available now through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble Booksellers. If you think a geezer can’t get excited about things, you just don’t know your geezers! I’m excited about this latest book. The stories include a hometown hero with some problems, a biker with even greater problems, and a tale of the proverbial Hollywood casting couch. Then, there’s a story about a priest who hungers for real justice, a sculptor pushed into success by a strong ally, and the mangled fairy tale is Snow Job and the Four Dwarfs.

At Wolf Creek United Methodist Church we are losing our long-time organist, who’s off to a larger congregation with a more sensible service time–and probably a lot more money than we pay. Musicians for church are near-impossible to find these days; everybody’s looking. I have arranged coverage for three of our coming Sundays but April has five Sundays and three of them are yet to be filled. We shall see. I’m hoping the congregation is praying as fervently as I am that we can field the right person.

As I’ve written, we have had lots of snow and too much ice this Winter, so–somehow–in dealing with that, I figure, I managed to injure myself. X-rays show no broken ribs or cracked hip, but prone on my back in bed and stretching high is agonizingly painful. The closest I can compare the pain is to a broken finger I experienced while low crawling in Army Basic Training. The doctors figure I yanked muscles and prescribe heat packs and Ibuprofin.

WPCA-FM’s broadcasts of my stories happen on the first Tuesday night of each month. For several years now the broadcast time has been 7:00 p.m. but beginning in April the time will move to 7:30 p.m. As I’ve said, I am grateful to Bob Zenk and LuAnn at WPCA for sharing my stories on the air; it is a privilege few authors enjoy. (And if the truth be known, some of those stories are read aloud quite well.)

Updating my brother Guy’s condition: he has oxygen during the daytime (that means his lungs are working) and life support at night. He is confused but does understand instructions from his nurses. He can get out a few words with a speaking device but cannot hold a real conversation. That’s not great progress since our last update but as my elder son Aaron says, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”