Thursday, August 28, 2008

The Grande Dame of Chicken Land


This is Rocky, one of my two oldest girls. She is about four years old and still lays every other day.

Rocky may seem like an odd name for a chicken. It's short for Rocket Girl. She was the first in her run of six to learn how to fly - weeks before the others. She would fly in and out of the chicken run and sometimes just sit on top of the fence as the other chicks marveled at her accomplishment. She is a Barred Plymouth Rock, so the name also fits her in another way.

She is my favorite girl. I often carry her about under one arm and bring her out front or over to Bob and Virda Womacks' house to eat the bugs out of the garden. When I put her out in the front yard, people walking and driving by stop and tell me how beautiful she is. She is a classic Barred Rock and if I ever took her to a fair, I'm sure she'd win a prize.

Carrying her around is a job, though. She must weigh about ten pounds!


Here she is with her best friend Pee Wee. They are the same age. Pee Wee, a Rhode Island Red, got her name because she was the runt of the run. Look at her now - another classic beauty. Pee Wee lays the most beautiful light brown eggs.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Toronto

July, 2005


Getting the check

We don’t travel
like other folks.
We tour the world,
from one Chinatown
to the next.

Today, we’re upstairs
in a dim sum joint in Toronto,
eating the parts of animals
no one else will eat.
Trolleys rumble
in the street below.

The corner of Dundas and Spadina,
once the Glasgow of the New World,
is a Hong Kong so crowded,
sometimes you are forced to stop
and let life stream around you.

From the restaurant window,
I can see the world’s tallest
freestanding structure,
eighteen hundred fifteen feet
of poured concrete
rising above the squalor.

We ask for our check.
There is nothing left
on the table before us,
but empty plates
and piles of bones.

Remember this


April, 2007

Friday, August 22, 2008

On the closing of Antioch College

Snow is general
over the old campus.
It is a cruel dusk
to have come so soon.
Nothing glistens
on the frozen paths.
Save for what the deer have left,
there are no footprints
in the snow.
A soot-colored squirrel
climbs a dead tree.
An owl shudders
on its high perch
then falls back to sleep.
Ghostly voices drift
up from the glen,
past the darkened buildings,
and into the town.
Horace Mann walked here,
they whisper,
then fade
into silent awe.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Boxes

I kept an 18-year-old
from going to jail today.
The judge and DA couldn't understand
why I put up such a fight.

"It's only thirty days"
they told me. "He can do that
standing on his head."

But this was a good kid
who had never been in trouble
who had a lapse in judgment
and left the scene of an accident
but returned, within minutes.

"That's easy
for you to say,"
I told them.
"But things can happen
to you in jail, bad things
whether you are there for a year
or a day."

I prevailed.

In the lobby of my building
I held the elevator
for a man carrying
a heavy box.
He thanked me
then gave me the once over
him in flannel and jeans
me in suit and tie.

In Dreams

She was dressing for work.
I was laying there
watching, listening
to her early morning
bird song.

"I dreamed again
last night," she said.

"Another bad dream?"
I asked.

"No. You were in it
again. So many times
you've been in my dreams.
Do you dream about me?"

"Sometimes," I lied,
since I never dream.

"How do I look?"
she was curious.

"I can't remember,"
I lied some more.
"How do I look
in your dreams?"
I asked.

"Younger," she said.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Under construction

Pardon our dust!
Working hard to give the old place a new look...

Friday, August 08, 2008

New gossip blog

Local gossip, rumor and innuendo will now be found at:
A Yellow Springs Blog.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Ohio Secretary of State suing touch-screen voting machine manufacturer

Here is a follow-up to my article, "Electronic voting questioned," in the YS News last week. The link to my story is in the sidebar.

Read the article in the Columbus Dispatch.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Brownout

I flip on the bathroom light switch and am surprised by the weak orange glow from the three clear 40 watt globes above the mirror. The florescent light by the shower doesn't come on at all. I quickly turn them off again.

We had bad thunder bangers last night and again early this morning. We often lose our power here in Yellow Springs when that happens. But I have never had a situation where it appears that we have half-power or maybe less. I wonder if it is just my house or the whole town. I am worried about the appliances. I am sure that no power at all is better than just a little power.

I sniff the air for the smell of smoke. There is none. I call the police non-emergency number and the dispatcher answers. I recognize her voice. It is the tall auburn-haired, doe-eyed beauty I met yesterday, when I went there to do the police reports for the newspaper. Their computer was down then. So, I decided I would come back in the morning. Now this...

“The whole village is experiencing a brownout,” she says.

I go around the house unplugging most of the major appliances I think can be harmed by low voltage. Amy is up and boiling water on a portable gas burner. She is supposed to go to Miamisburg for a bank managers meeting, but she decides to stay in town to be sure there are no problems with the vault or the alarms at her branch. She leaves and I am at a loss for what to do next.

I hunt down an old transistor radio, put in a new battery and scan the airwaves for some news. Trees are down everywhere and there are scattered outages around the Miami Valley is the little news I can get. No mention of us. I can only pick up a few stations and now they are all playing music or talking about Jesus. I get 90% of my news from the Internet and the other 10% from television. I am at a loss. What would Jesus do?

There is no coffee. I can't even boil the instant decaf I found hidden away in a cabinet, because the gas cannister on the burner Amy was using has run out.

The power goes all the way out. I am relieved.

I have a vague notion that I should go to the police station. I have a noon deadline on the police report and time is wasting. I dress and drive through town. The usual characters are on the bench in front of Tom's Market. I yell at them, “Get a job!” They yell back.

“It's over on Snipe Road,” my friend Walter calls to me.

“That's Snypp,” another one corrects him. “They're working on it.”

Across the street, in front of the darkened Emporium a dozen people are standing around with paper coffee cups. They must have a gas stove, I think, making a mental note to stop there when I get done at the police station. I am blocking traffic. I move on.

The police station looks like a minor run on a bank. People have gone in person to inquire about how long they will be without power. Of course, no one can predict.

“Is there any chance I can work on the police reports?” I ask my new friend.

“The power is out,” she says.

I can see from the bright lights in the dispatch area behind the glass that they have generator power. I assume she means there is no power for the computer that I need to use. I have been dispatched. I am at a loss for what to do next.

I suppose I should go over to the newspaper, but first I stop at the Emporium. Walter is there.

“There's no hot coffee,” he says. “All they have is iced coffee and decaf. They have run out of hot coffee.”

“I think I'll make a run to Tim Horton's” I tell him. “Wanna come?”

Like the Springer Spaniel I had when I was a kid, he is always ready to go for a ride.

“Let me check to see if Amy wants coffee,” I say and head for the bank.

Walter plants himself back on the bench while I take orders from Amy and her employees. The list is substantial. On the way to Fairborn, I get a call on my cell phone. She wants me to stop at the Five Points branch and pick up some forms.

Back in town, I drop in at the paper. Diane is out of town and Lauren is in charge. The lights are out and the computers are down. She seems to be at a loss for what to do next.

“What's the latest I can get the police reports to you?” I ask.

“Four o'clock,” she says. “Does anyone know how long it's going to take to get the power back up?”

Dee brings her a breakfast burrito wrapped in foil. It's hot.

“Where'd you get that?” I ask.

“The Emporium,” she says. “They've got gas.”

“Hot coffee?”

“No, just cold.”

I take a sip from my Tim Horton's, satisfied that I made the right move. But now I am at a loss for what to do next. I decide to go home. The battery in my laptop is fully charged. Of course, the wireless is down, so I decide to write this.

And now for some solitaire.

(The YS News reported the next day that the brownout started at 6:30 am when lightening struck a power substation on Snypp Road. Full power was lost a couple hours later. Power was not restored until around 2:00 pm.)

Monday, August 04, 2008

A reading from Nothing Better To Do

Wherein I read all of Chapter One and parts of Chapter Two of the "largely unedited" Nothing Better To Do. These two chapters, however, have been worked over pretty good and probably contain some of the best writing in the novel.

And so the adventure begins: Harry is leaving New York for Ohio, meanwhile in Serena, Ohio, Phil Rowley and Marvin "House of Pain" Payne are headed for an epiphany at the Blue Moon Tavern.

If you don't like this stuff, no need to read any further...

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Characters Around Town IX

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 24-28)