Random Acts of Kindness

The Coroner's Report has been around for some time now and through the havoc of the past couple of years, I've fallen off of a pattern.

Time to change that.

In 2009, I did a series of blog posts titled "Moving Polaroids" and they all seemed to hit a nerve with people in a good way. Each post was based on a childhood memory.

I've decided to bring those back as a weekly installment. So from now on, each Thursday, there'll be a new Moving Polaroids blog. I invite each of you to share as you will. Not all childhood memories are good. Hell, a large portion of my readers had some fairly rough times as kids. You'll be reading good and bad from me because I know you wouldn't expect any less.

On Mondays, I'll be posting blogs designed to ignite discussion. You tune into see what I'll be writing about, and believe me when I say I'm just as interested to hear your thoughts and opinions. That's the situation of writers and readers; we have a symbiotic relationship and I'm perfectly happy with that.

Coming up on Thursday - the first installment of the ongoing Moving Polaroids.

•••

In the past, I've asked what's the worst thing you've ever seen. The responses varied widely, and I have to say it's a miracle most of you aren't in therapy or in a tower with a rifle by now. Either way, I appreciate the responses.

Today I'm asking from the different perspective. Let's put a positive light on things. In your entire life, what's the biggest act of kindness you've ever witness personally? Some selfless act done for the sole reason of making someone else smile.

I'll tell you mine.

My crew and I were in Florida because John, one of my brothers, was getting married to Becky. Granted, you need to understand, he's not a blood brother. I have three best friends I've know for over twenty years. They're brothers in all ways. I'd lay down in traffic for them, take a bullet, hide the body... you know what I mean. Their names are John, Doug, and Tim. They are all geniuses, retards, rock stars, and morons in their own right.

One of the things I think that has kept us friends this entire time is that we all have our own blends of sarcasm. We are loyal to each other to the letter. We have no problems throwing down if need be, but we all have big hearts - though we reveal it on our own terms.

So, we're all in Florida, having a grand time of things. We ended up going to Universal Studios to hang out and see the evening parade.

To say it was crowded would be an understatement. Everyone gathered there for the parade. The music was jamming, the parade floats started coming by and the crowd was cheering and clapping.

When they started throwing out beads, children ran to the edge of the line to catch them. People were reach and grabbing like it was a bouquet at a redneck wedding.

In these moments, I tend to pause and take a look around at my boys. I watch their faces, their expressions. I take notice of the things going on around us all. I caught Doug's line of sight and noticed him watching an older woman in a wheelchair near the back of the crowd. She had someone behind her wheelchair, helping her. She was smiling a little at the madness of the crowd and I wondered, briefly, what she was thinking about all this.

Doug worked his position toward the front of the crowd a bit. Some other float came by and tossed out a handful of beads. I saw Doug jump to catch one (that's saying a lot, you see, as he's roughly the same height as a yard gnome). Then I saw him fight his way back through the crowd.

He leaned down toward the old woman and she looked up at him. Then I saw him place the bead necklace around her neck. She smiled wide as if they really were jewels he'd given her.

She thanked him, her words lost among the noise of the crowd, and Doug smiled to himself and joined us again. I caught his gaze and gave him a nod. He returned it with that "Yeah, I know I'm the shit." expression that only he can generate properly.

We left not too long after that but the memory has stayed with me for years. I hope it stayed with the old woman too.

I wondered about her more. I'd watched her expression change. I wondered if she was thinking of her life, of another time when she was younger and a love of her life had done something sweet and kind and selfless. Had he made her smile like that?

I hope so. I think so.

I know so.

•••

So, dear readers. Tell me yours. What's the act of kindness that stays with you?


•••
Currently reading: A Boy's Life by Robert McCammon. I've read McCammon before and enjoyed everything, but somehow this book never made it into my hands. It's one of the best things I've ever read and it fills me with inspiration to achieve something so beautiful.

Currently listening to: My usual mish-mash. The Dead Weather (kind of an edgier Black Keys), some Patrick Watson (I heard a track called Tracey's Waters on a skateboarding video and fell in love with it). The new Eminem release Recovery, which I am digging the hell out of.

Currently watching: Saw Splice and enjoyed it. Still thinking about the dangers of cloning and screwing around with DNA.

Moving Polaroids Part III

I considered telling you about the first beer I ever drank in my life (Miller Pony Bottle) while fishing with my father and listening to Fleetwood Mac's Rumors and Steve Miller jamming Fly Like an Eagle on 8-track from the open doors of my father's pick-up.

It crossed my mind to tell about how my father convinced me that rubber gloves would prevent me from getting shocked from an electric cattle fence, but those are other stories for other times.

What I'll tell you in this last installment of Moving Polaroids is one of my earliest memories. When I was five, we lived in a small, run down house in Sparks, Maryland. Times were very tough and while my mother worked nights, my father worked swing shift. Often, they would meet on a parking spot along Route 83 and just pass me, still in my pajamas, from one car to the other.

But this one particular morning, I was home, standing on the front porch while my parents said their good-byes. My father was heading out to work and even though the sun was shining, there was a light drizzle coming down. The morning had an odd light to it and there was a thin low mist hovering beyond the house. My father took a drink from his coffee cup and handed it to me. His mug was that old school drippy brown style, thick-handled and too heavy for my young hands, but I always got the last sip (hmmmm... perhaps THAT'S where my coffee addiction came from? Thanks Dad, I love you for it).

I can't tell you what my parents were talking about; grown-up things I suppose. Probably discussing moving elsewhere or that I needed some new sneakers or where the money for the next electric bill was going to come from.

But while they talked, I held my now empty mug out into the drizzle and caught some sun-touched rain drops in it. When I took a drink of rainwater, my mother, as mothers do, lightly scolded me for drinking it.

And my father just smiled at me. He leaned in and kissed my mother good-bye and smiled at me again before he went off to work. I don't know if he remembers that or not but I often wonder what he was thinking that day.

***
Thanks for staying with me while I walked down Memory Lane for a while. This was fun and I hope, at the very least, it stirred up some happy memories for you as well.

There'll be a mini-update later this week, but right now I need... NEED to dive into some work-related nastiness.

Be good.
b

Moving Polaroids: The In Between is Mine

"They may look grown up," she continued, "but it's just a disguise. It's just the clay of time. Men and women are still children deep in their hearts. They still would like to jump and play, but that heavy clay won't let them. They'd like to shake off every chain the world's put on them, take off their watches and neckties and Sunday shoes and return naked to the swimming hole, if just for a day. They'd like to feel free, and know that there's a momma and daddy at home who'll take care of things and love them no matter what. Even behind the face of the meanest man in the world is a scared little boy trying to wedge himself into a corner where he can't be hurt." She put aside her papers and folded her hands on her desk. "I have seen plenty of boys grow into men, Cory, and I want to say one word to you. Remember."

"Remember? Remember what?"
"Everything," she said.

excerpt, Robert R. McCammon's Boy's Life


In January of 2009 I started a series of blogs titled "Moving Polaroids". The idea began because, at heart, I'm a nostalgic bastard beyond belief. I hold onto little things - an origami swan made by a friend. A river pebble from a lake. The ticket stubs of a movie.

I don't live in the past, but I relish great memories. I remember.

Right now I'm reading McCammon's Boy's Life. I'd read a bunch of McCammon years ago, but somehow I'd missed this one. That was rectified when one of my good friends, Ron Dickie purchased it for me during one of his frequent visits to the States.

It's one of the most poignant and beautifully written books I've ever read. It captures - perfectly - the mindset of a young boy growing up and seeing drama and mystery and adventure in his hometown. And magic. So much magic.

The passage I quoted above struck me when I read it and has hung with me long enough to prompt the relaunch of Moving Polaroids today. It kept pestering me because I wondered about the truth of his words.

As a child, I felt that magic. The farm I grew up on had rock caves and old dump piles and rusted out carcasses of cars hidden in the woods from the previous owners. There were new crops and livestock each year and old ghosts that stayed around to keep watch over things.

I reveled in all of it.

But the clay of time... yeah, about that.

As I've grown older, the clay of time seems to have taken hold. Mortgage payments, car problems, relationships, children, running a business, responsibilities...

Yes. Sad to admit, but I believe McCammon's words may be true.

I've been thinking about this blog for the past few days and as I write this, I'm still not sure what my answer is going to be to my own question. I'm not sure of the last time I felt magic.

Oh, I'm not talking about synchronicity. I witness that all the time. I see things line up the way they're supposed to be... or don't... and I can usually see why the tide flows either way.

I've witnessed magic... been in the presence of it. I see it through my children's eyes. Watched the beauty of it when my children were born. I see it in the imagination of lots of my friends and in that regard, I suppose I have it within myself as well. After all, magic is what kicks the muse in the ass and gets writers to create worlds and weave stories and plant the beans that grow above the clouds for our readers.

I guess one of the reasons I am so nostalgic is that I do remember. If I close my eyes I can recall the smell of fresh cut hay in the barn. I can see the golden beams of dust after corn's been harvested and loaded into the corn crib. I remember how cold the water of our springhouse used to be and the little orange and black salamanders that used to live in it's shallow depths.

Yes, I remember.

But magic as an adult? I don't know. I suppose I could say it was the day I saw orbs playing over a cemetery or the circle where the priest is buried that even I won't walk near after dark.

But I don't know. I suppose as we grow older, it's our definition of magic that changes. The veil of childhood lifts and we have new fears and different responsibilities that alter our perception and change our view. The thing I've been considering though is the clay of time. If that metaphor holds true, then clay is malleable and if it's malleable... we can form it as we see fit. We can get it back. We can catch magic when we want to.

At least, I sure hope so.

*******

I've been considering it for days now, trying to figure it out, and I think the last time I felt magic as a child I was out hunting with my father in the dead of night.

When I was a kid, my father saved up his money and sent away for a Kentucky pedigreed Black and Tan 'coon hunting hound. Times were tight and I guess my father thought a hobby that could result in making money from hides (as well as keeping the raccoons from eating the chickens on the farm) wouldn't be a bad thing at all. A few days later, "Joe" arrived by train and my father went to pick him up. He'd been shipped in a large wooden crate and apparently, hadn't eaten for quite some time as his ribs were showing.

After my father fattened him up a bit, we started going hunting at night. There's something very cool about wandering around in the woods at night with the moon and stars overhead, waiting to hear the staccato barks of a hound tracking a scent. At night, you hear very different sounds than during the day. The creeks look like silver mercury flowing and burbling through the woods. Owls hoot and bats squeal and in the distance you hear branches snap and wonder what's the cause behind it. It's very different than hunting during the day.

On this particular night, my father and I had trekked all over hell and back. Joe had trailed and lost a few times and we were about done for the night due to a vigorous journey through a briar patch. It was time to head back home, grab a bowl of Lucky Charms and watch The Twilight Zone (this came to be a nightly habit for my father and I after our nighttime journeys). We had circled back around from the river and were headed back toward Valley Mill Road when we stepped free of a patch of high weeds and saw up ahead of us, about twenty feet away, a long line of glowing light.

We stopped and stared and the hackles on the back of my neck rose up. The lights weren't as bright as fog lights or anything - they were low to the ground and stretched out in a ragged horizontal line of yellow-green.

"What the hell is that?" My father asked.

I had no answers to offer, but my mind raced with the possibilities. I'd seen Tales from the Dark Side often enough. I'd stayed up late watching Rod Serling preach about stepping into alternate dimensions. I expected this was alien goo left in the woods and the creatures had already marched off to start world domination. Maybe it was a plant that had gained awareness and discovered how to bait humans in before it ate them.

This was great. I grinned to myself and my father and I walked ahead.

The closer we got, the brighter the glow became, until we were right up on it. A fallen tree was stretched out on the ground and all along its length was phosphorescent wood.

"I've never seen shit like this before." My father is a man of brevity. He bent down and turned his head lamp onto it and it looked just like normal wood again until he shut the light off and it was back to martian material. We reached out and touched it. The wood wasn't damp or moist at all. It was dry and crumbly.

I broke off a small handful and stuffed it into my jacket pocket and by that time, Joe had come wandering back to us. My father leashed him and we headed on home for the night.

I kept that wood in my room for a few days and each night the glow got dimmer and dimmer until it finally died out completely.

It wasn't until years later that I understood it was phosphorescent lichen or moss that my father and I had come across. But for a brief moment, I had something from another planet in my grasp.

I had magic in my hands and it felt amazing.


***
Back in the saddle and scribbling away. Yes, the in between is mine.

Moving Polaroids - Falling Like Rain

I once wrote a series of blog entries called Moving Polaroids. They were some of my most popular blog posts and I've been meaning to get back to them but life and time and... well... everything else just seemed to keep getting in the way. 

They were simple blogs about some favorite memories of my childhood and how they may have shaped me. Or not. Some were only what they were... good memories of better times.

Recently I was in a discussion about earliest memories.

I have a fleeting memory - my earliest one - that my mother has argued in the past, that I can't possibly remember, is one of me around three years old, crawling peek-a-boo from beneath a blanket. But I mildly digress.

My earliest "real" memory is of me in the first house I lived in as a child, in Sparks, Maryland. It was an old house, prone to cold drafts and wrapped in gray, weathered siding with beautiful wooden details inside. There was a thin, marshy stream behind the house that attracted swamp rats larger than most small dogs. 

Though it had plumbing inside, there was also an old outhouse on the property (where my father {and I say this because I love him dearly, not to pick on him} drunkenly passed out one night. Why he was even in the outhouse instead of inside the real house is still up for debate). 

My earliest memory is of standing on the front porch of that house. At the time, my parents were working different shifts for their jobs. My father would take me in my pajamas in the morning to a gravel parking lot to meet my mother, on her way off of work, and I'd get out of his car and into hers, go back home and the day would start its cycle all over as my father went onto work. It was a situation a lot of young couples find themselves in, and though I'm sure it was tough, somehow they made it work.

At some point, for some reason, my parents were both at the house in the morning at the same time and my father was headed off to work. It was drizzling a light rain that morning and my father had stepped out onto the porch and set his empty coffee cup down on the porch railing, taking his last drink before heading to his car.

I can still remember that mug. It was a big-ass ol' 70's style coffee mug. Dark, chocolate brown with a drippy looking top edge and felt like it weighed 5 lbs. I picked it up as my parents talked to each other and tried to catch rain water in it. I don't remember what was on my pajamas... only that they felt soft and flannelly to me. 

I remember the weathered gray wood of the porch. The earthy but not unpleasant smell of the marsh behind the house, and the sound of the stream, burbling louder because it had swelled a bit from the rain. 

The gray siding on the house was catching the rain. Near the tin roof, it had dripped to make it appear as if the rooftop was weeping. 

Cars drove by the front of the house - people on their morning commute - spraying a fine mist over the front yard, the static noise of them as they drove by.

I held my father's coffee cup out and caught rain drops in it... taking a sip when I could. The water tasted sweet and fresh and... pure. Clean.

I kept sipping the rain falling from the skies overhead until my mother noticed and told me to stop drinking the rain. I suppose she may have thought I was catching it from the rain dripping from the tin roof and didn't want me drinking dirty water.

My parents talked a bit more, briefly, and my father drove off to work and I was shepherded back inside to morning cartoons.

I think back to that memory often. 

Not a lot of pure things in my life right now. My stone walls are a mess. My garden has a lot of weeds in it.

My children... they're probably the purest thing, though my daughter is a young woman now and changing. The dynamics of our relationship are changing and though I realize that's inevitable, she still makes it a point to tell me she loves me as I do the same for her.

My son... he's on his way to being a young man. He's got a sense of humor I can't deny is my fault or my gift, I'm unsure of which yet.

I have friendships that are pure. My brothers... though even those relationships have been affected by time and distance and... life. 

I think back to that early memory - more than thirty-five years ago - and I wonder if the falling rain still tastes as pure and untainted as it did back then.

Will it ever again?

Moving Polaroids Part IV

All right... I lied, but I hope you'll forgive me. This moment came to me and I just had to write about it as one last installment of Moving Polaroids. Next blog will get back to our regularly scheduled programs of mayhem and madness.


------

I had my first girlfriend when I was in kindergarten and her name was Lisa W. She had a cute, pixie face, dirty-blonde hair and dark eyes that always made me laugh.

It was puppy-love, of course, but when Lisa leaned in close to me and whispered in my ear that she loved me, my heart sky-rocketed and I'm sure I turned all sorts of red. When she moved away right before the end of kindergarten, I was heart broken. But then school let out and summer came and I filled my days playing in creeks and building hay forts in the barn and pretending I was Bruce Lee fighting off twenty ninjas at the same time.

In first grade, I met Ruth. And Ruth... well... Ruth eclipsed Lisa by a mile. I was absolutely smitten with her. Her hair was shoulder length and curly in the style of Charlie's Angels and her eyes were blazing chunks of ice that turned me into a stuttering fool whenever she looked at me. I was head over heels.

The fact that she didn't feel this way about me at all didn't deter me at all (yes... even in those days, I was a poetic, yearning fool that pined away for what he could never have). I wrote love note after love note (note: Ruth... if you do happen to come across my blog, and for whatever reason, you still have any of those notes... you might want to save them for Ebay later. They just might fetch a decent price as some of my earliest writing samples) and it didn't matter to her.

This heart-wrenching crush continued on through the sixth grade and that year I did something foolhardy and pound foolish and utterly spur of the moment.

It was the sixth grade talent show try outs and the gymnasium was filled with students watching the auditions. I had no plans - none at all - to try out for this show. I was perfectly happy sitting back and watching my fellow classmates fumble their magic tricks and play their clarinets or trumpets or whatever.

But then... the gym teacher called the next try out and I saw Ruth and four of her friends start walking toward the stage. Things suddenly got extremely interesting for me.

The five of them were on stage and the gym teacher pushed play on a cassette player. Ruth sang The Rose (and yes... I completely laughed my ass off during that scene in Napoleon Dynamite when he does the dance skit to The Rose... hey, it was the seventies, what the hell do you want from me? I was still wearing flair hippie jeans and silk shirts). Maybe it's my almost 40-year old memory, but looking back, her voice was angelic. Mesmerizing. Rose petals fell from the ceiling and I felt hot all over.

Her audition was over and the kids erupted with applause. Their act was definitely in.

The teacher asked if there was anyone else who wanted to try out and hadn't signed up yet. And somehow... my hand raised of its own volition. The gym teacher called me and I rose to my feet in a fog and started floating toward the stage like Bugs Bunny.

I had no magic act. I played no brass trumpet and didn't have a clue how to tap dance. I was just some little kid who grew up on a farm and caught crayfish and spring frogs and helped bale hay and attempted to ride a pig once in a while and I had absolutely no fucking idea what I was going to...

Wait... I could sing.

Hell, I'd been doing it at every family gathering for as long as I could remember. I once sang while sitting on my grandmother's lap when I was so young I could barely pronounce the song lyrics to John Denver's "Grandma's Feather Bed" (yes.. John Denver... piss off, I was little and I'd seen him on The Muppets and thought he was cool).

So I walked onto the stage, grabbed the microphone and explained to everyone that I was going to sing a song I'd learned from my grandmother and it was going to be without music.

The song I sang was "Bringing Mary Home"

No real surprise it's a song dancing around a dark topic, eh? Even then my true colors were starting to show. I sang the shit out of that song and when I was over, there was a beat of silence in the gym and then a huge round of applause. This made me a happy boy, because I looked into the crowd and saw Ruth smiling and clapping.

Oh yes. This was indeed a good day for young Master Ford. After all, I'd pulled this stunt to impress her.

The gym teacher caught me as I stepped off stage and told me right away that I made the cut but asked me if I knew anyone who could play an instrument to accompany me.

As a matter of fact, I did.

When I got home, I told my mother she'd been volunteered to play guitar on stage with me. My mother does not do well in front of large crowds. My mother is full of piss and vinegar. My mother was going to strangle me.

After I told her how many people would be at the show - only the kids themselves and their parents.. a hundred or so... maybe a couple hundred - she turned a pale shade of green and nodded her head and bit her lip and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette.

I think she went upstairs to lie down after that.

But she came through for me in flying colors. The night of the talent show came and we were ready. My mother had her Gibson 12-string acoustic ready and we'd been told the order of acts, so we knew we were coming up next. I know she was nervous and it made me giggle a little inside because I was nothing of the sort. I had the verve of the Incredible Hulk, the courage of Perseus and the heart of Bruce Lee.

Then I stepped up on stage again and damn near wanted to piss myself.

The lights were dim but I could see the dark sea of the crowd. Holy hell. Had I thought there would only be a hundred people? There must have been thousands of faces out there, all expectant, smiling, waiting. And looking at me.

My mother strummed the opening chord to the song and I looked over at her. She smiled a tiny smile at me.

And I promptly forgot every single word of the song I was supposed to sing. This revelation did very little to help my bladder condition. Mom strummed again and I saw her raise an eyebrow slightly, questioning. I turned back to face the crowd and my head snapped back into place. Lyrics slammed home and I began to sing.

My mother and I rocked the freakin' house that night. People clapped their asses off when we were done. More than one person came up afterward and thanked us, shook my mother's hand and gave me a pat on the back.

On the ride back home, we smiled and giggled and talked about my momentary stage fright. My mother teased me and slapped and told me she really would strangle me if i volunteered her for that again. But I know she was happy. I know it's something she would have never attempted by herself. I was proud of her and I know she was proud of me.

After all that, I'd love tell you that Ruth was so impressed that she planted a kiss with her bow-shaped lips and we rode off on a white horse into a fiery sunset.

I'd like to tell you that, but that ain't how it went down. My little attempt didn't make a dent in Ruth's attention. But I'll tell you what did - when I finally stopped giving a damn. The following year, in seventh grade, I threw myself into classes and went to dances and had great times with girls named Sunny and Jennifer and Barbie and Angie (and actually danced with those last two at the same time. Oh yes... I was the envy of many a wall flower. The only thing that could've improved my status was having them get into a cat fight while ABBA's Dancing Queen played as background music).

I didn't so much as forget about Ruth, as I left her go. My parents decided to move at the end of that year and I suppose the news hadn't circled back around to Ruth yet. I'd only had one class with her that year and we hardly ever talked. A week from summer vacation, she stopped me at my locker one afternoon, smiled brightly, and asked me teasingly "How's it going? You don't say hi anymore?"

Well, I'll be damned.

I smiled right back and told her that I was going to move in another month or so. It's been years since that moment and I still can't adequately describe what I saw move across her face that afternoon. I just remember her looking down and pausing for a moment, then locking her sapphire gaze on me again. She leaned over and kissed my cheek and left my life without a word.

But I still hold all those pictures in the scrapbook of my mind.

We Now Interrupt this Broadcast...

I've been laying kind of low lately, and I know it.

I've spilled blood, sweat and tears here, so no point in stopping now.

Over the last couple of months, my wife Jennifer was diagnosed with stage II Hodgkins Lymphoma. To say that it has been a whirlwind doesn't do the situation justice. She's been undergoing chemotherapy and this week we'll be getting scans done to check the progression of treatments. There's been huge advances in nausea medication, and overall, that really hasn't been a factor yet. Each time she gets another round of chemo, she has to have an injection the following day to boost her white blood cell count and kick those little guys off their lazy asses into production again. The shots make her bones ache but have been very effective. The main things that have gone down are extreme exhaustion and the various mental side effects that chemo brings along for the ride. Yes... to say it's been a whirlwind doesn't do it justice. It's stage II but it's a very treatable condition and everything the oncologists and specialists have been saying are very promising, though there's roughly another four months worth of treatment involved.

Today just happens to be her birthday.

Jen has started a blog to document what she's going through, and you can check that out by clicking here

She's a very talented and creative interior decorator by trade, handling all matter of accessories, faux and regular painting, furniture, and designing custom murals for both home and commercial use. The murals she's done on several churches, both interior and exterior, are beautiful and amazing work.

On her blog, you'll see that Jen has recently been creating custom knitted hats and scarfs. Her goal is to take this to a point where she can also donate some to children with cancer. So, if there's anyone you know who has been affected by cancer, please spread the link around... never know what karma will bring.

Likewise, my day job is as partner in an ad agency. We handle all manner of creative, both for small companies and Fortune 500s. Logo and brand identity, ad campaigns, brochures, packaging... ahh... if you know someone who might be interested in working with us, go check out our site by clicking here.

Thanks to everyone who stops by. You keep reading... and I'll keep writing.

Tune in tomorrow... next post is "Moving Polaroids" and I think you'll all like it.

be good,
b

Moving Polaroids Part II

I'm seven years old and it's the week of Halloween. This was in the late 70's and schools still had things like costume parties and handed out trick-or-treat candy during the school day. It was my favorite time of year and the costume party was the next day.

I got off the school bus and walked up the long driveway to my house. My father wasn't home from work yet. My mother had left only moments before to handle the night shift, and my grandfather was most likely puttering around the barn or feeding the animals.

I walked over the small culvert pipe bridge with the stream babbling beneath (always, always, always making me think of the Three Billy Goats Gruff), past the springhouse, where the water was ice cold and so pure and fresh it almost tasted as if there was sugar in the water. I walked up the stone steps winding through the rose bushes and trimmed lilacs and up the stairs into the house.

In the kitchen, I slung off my backpack and grabbed some chocolate milk from the fridge and a handful of cookies from the cabinet. I set them on the kitchen table and turned to switch on the tv, and stopped dead in my tracks. My stomach turned to mercury and the hair stood up on the back of my neck and arms.

There was a monster in my kitchen.

Its head was enormous, its four-inch jagged teeth brilliant white rows framed in thick, blood-red lips. A black mustache curled, Dali-esque, at least a foot wide, and eyes the size of grapefruits rested beneath furrowed brows. Its expression was fierce and full of rage and I know I jumped backward, almost falling on my ass in the middle of my own kitchen.

And then I began to giggle.

All alone, in the middle of the kitchen, I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt and my ribs ached. I think if my grandfather or either of my parents had found me there, they'd think I'd gotten into the cough medicine.

My loving mother, during her hours before leaving to work the night shift, had taken an oversized brown grocery bag and created a monster worthy of battling Jason and the Argonauts.

The artwork had been done in felt marker, and the teeth had been colored in heavily with white crayon. The thing was hideous. It was terrible. It was scary and enormous and eclipsed the monsters I'd read in The Wild Thing.

I absolutely loved it.

I took it to school with me the next day and brought home a prize ribbon (oh button your lip... I was seven. ALL the parents did their kids costumes) and I'd like to think that as happy as I was, it gave my mother some pride to know that she truly pulled it off with her creativity.

I inherited my mother's streak of mischief... her slightly twisted sense of humor (all right, all right... so mine's a bit MORE twisted) and her sense of play.

I still have that monster mask... I just wear it on the inside now.

Moving Polaroids

You can see children's faces light up when they get a birthday present or open Christmas gifts. The toys are shiny and novel and keep their attention for a while (unless it's a Wii system, and then apparently it's electronic crack, as it is with my own kids). But over time, most toys are forgotten. Their entertainment value isn't lost, but unless it's a favorite stuffed bed time animal, or a touch-worn blanket, there's usually no emotional attachment.

I look back on my own childhood and remember only a few favorite toys. A red and black Team Murray bicycle. My first Atari system (Megamania ring any bells? Cause that was MY electronic crack as a kid). A Rubik's cube that drove me to the brink of a padded jacket and then made me cheat and break it apart to put it back together again correctly just so I could find some mental peace. And... and... I don't know. I'm sure if I took some time and did a little mini-mediation I could come up with more, but the long and short of it is that any thing material isn't what makes me smile and look back on my childhood with fond memories.

It's the spaces between... it's the things that didn't cost money that are indelibly etched in my mind.

And I'll invite you to do the same. Have a favorite childhood memory? Think for a bit and put yourself back in the moment. What were the little details you thought you'd forgotten? They're there. Let me hear it...


I've got a few moments I'll share with you over the next couple of days, but here's the first...

Eight years old, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, a bowl of Lucky Charms in front of me and Tom and Jerry playing on the black and white 13" tv in the kitchen. My father has already gone off to work and my mother should have been gone too. By this time of morning I should be dressed and waiting at the end of our long driveway, waiting for the screeching brakes of the school bus to announce its presence.

But this morning, my mother is still home. She's standing at the front door, sipping her coffee and smoking a cigarette, while thick heavy flakes drift down from the sky.

My grandfather is already outside, most likely tinkering in the barn or sitting on an overturned 5-gallon water bucket and watching the snow come down too.

I tilt my bowl of cereal, slurping down the last of the milk, turned a robin's egg blue, and turn to my mother... who is smiling at me. She doesn't say anything... just stubs her cigarette out and slips her feet in a pair of my father's work boots. She shrugs on her coat and pulls a knit hat on, then reaches beneath the kitchen sink for a can of Pledge and tells me to get dressed because she'll be back soon.

I watched her through the side window of the kitchen as she made her way toward the barn. The snow was already deep, easily seven inches or so (and looking back, it makes me think that times must have been a bit tighter than I thought... what the hell was my father doing out driving for?) and it took my mother some effort to make her way toward the barn. I had no idea what she was up to, but usually when she got one of those grins on her faces, it was something to look forward to.

I ran to my room, threw on some clothes and raced back downstairs. By the time I pulled on my gloves, hat and boots, my mother was back at the front door, her grin even wider, and she motioned for me to come with her. She withdrew the can of Pledge and coated the sheet from top to bottom. The air was thick with the smell of fake lemons and the metal glistened.

The house where I grew up was a farmhouse over a hundred years old. It was surrounded by cedars and oaks and walnut trees and rolling hills and the valley that everything rested in was bookended by a humongous tin-roofed barn.

My mother, full of mischief, had a 3 foot x eight foot sheet of roofing tin, and she had curled the end up toboggan style, punched two nail holes at the corners and knotted a rope as a harness at the sides.

We trekked out into the snow and stood at the crest of the hill in front of our house. It was a long stretch, leading out about fifteen feet to a four foot berm, and then another ten feet to a deeper drop and continued on for a good forty feet. Mom giggled to herself, sat down on the tin and made me sit Indian style in front of her. It took a few pushes and jerks to get ourselves started, but once we hit the crest of the first hill and gravity took over, to say that we hauled some serious ass would be an understatement.

That slicked roofing tin cut through the snow like it was soft butter, and it only got faster as we forged a path and packed the snow down hard. I think we spent the better part of three hours out there in the cold, playing like children with not a care in the world.

Rosy cheeked and frozen, we finally came inside to warm up. I'm sure I had hot chocolate and my mother had coffee, but I don't truly recall. What I do remember, even is flying down that snowy hillside with my mother, arms raised high as if on a roller coaster, giggling and laughing as the snow drifted down on my face and open mouth. I remember my mother's arms around me.

I remember.

Moving Polaroids - Michael Myers and Deadly Fireworks

"That what you fear the most could meet you half way."

- Crazy Mary - Pearl Jam

Whew. Pretty damned dusty in here. Sheets on all the furniture. Feels like I'm revisiting an old cabin I haven't seen in ages – familiar, but a little disturbing as well. 

A lot's happened since I last visited. Wrote a new novella, "The Last Firefly of Summer" and released it at Scares that Care convention over the summer. My live reading there scared the hell out of the audience (and I enjoyed that immmmmmensely), and the reviews on it at Amazon are still coming in hot and heavy with praise. I'm glad people are enjoying the tale.

I'm still working on the sequel to Samson and Denial and the title for that is The Crimson Sisters. Feedback on what's done so far has been promising and I think you'll all really enjoy what Samson has been up to since leaving the City of Brotherly Love.

I've got pages and pages of notes on a new novel that... is going to be extremely disturbing to say the very least. I've got a title for that one too, but I'm not sharing publicly yet. But it'll be worth the wait, I promise. Your nightmares will thank me for it later.

We're in the season of Halloween and all around, the leaves are already starting to turn. The air is brisk and the chill gets under your skin and into your bones, whispering that it's going to be a cold winter. 

I recall an October when I was young – probably about 11 or so. I was still at the farm I grew up on in Maryland and it was night time. My father had gone out hunting that night with his hounds and my mother and I didn't expect him back until 11 or so. It was long before smart phones and weather apps and there was an impending storm that none of us knew about. (Guess my dad didn't catch the weather that night on the evening news either).

So, like any loving mother with affection for Halloween and horror movies, we sat down in the living room and she (well... I suppose my mom didn't sit down just yet. This was pre-TV-remote era, so she probably stood or kneeled and changed the channel to do the surfing) found the movie Halloween. Not wanting to miss any of the movie, my mother avoided popcorn - there was only Jiffy-Pop back then and that shit takes too long to make. I'm pretty sure she ran downstairs to the kitchen and brought back some kind of Little Debbie snacks.

My mother and I had yet to see the movie and was pretty damned excited about it, even though I knew being aired on TV would edit out the "good parts". 

So there we were, curled up on the couch in the living room, watching the horror Jamie Lee Curtis was dealing with unfurl on the mammoth floor set TV and my mother and I were in our glory. This was some good shit as far as horror went.

Jamie was getting the shit choked out of her by Michael Myers and she grabs a crochet needle and stabs him, blood spurting out of his neck. HOLY SHIT! My mother and I were on the edge of our seats when...

All of the lights went out in our house. Power knocked completely out.

As you may imagine, this real life event coinciding with what we were in the middle of watching couldn't have been more perfectly timed. I think both of us made a yelp in the darkness. 

But then, from outside, we heard loud, angry sizzling. There was snapping and fireworks going off at the end of our driveway and though it was clear now, we hadn't realized the storm had hit full force. The electric lines had been hit and a line was down, spitting fire and hell as it wriggled with a deadly, raging life of its own. 

Dad got back home and not long after, a group of repair trucks from the power company were lined up along the road. I was ushered off to my bedroom that seemed much darker than I remembered it ever being. I watched through my window for a long while before crawling beneath the blankets and drifting off into a sleep void of Michael Myers and electric lines trying to kill people.

The next morning I remember standing at the end of our driveway, waiting for the school bus. There was a shallow hole about the size of a dinner plate completely burned out of the old asphalt there. Even young, I remember being completely amazed that was even possible. The air still smelled crispy and burned and I could hear a new humming noise from the round electrical box at the top of the pole.

I back-stepped to the other side of our driveway, keeping my eyes on the line in case it decided to jump free and attack me.

It was a few more years and a move to Pennsylvania before I ever got to watch the rest of Halloween with both of my parents and somehow, in between seeing the first part and finally the ending, the movie had lost a bit of magic in there for me. Maybe it was because of that damned electric line. I think, looking back, it was because that real life thing could kill me. Myers was just a made-up fear on screen. Don't get me wrong... it wasn't that I didn't enjoy watching it. It's just that real life fear outweighed the fabrication of imagination. 

I think I'm still trying to get that back, though I don't know if I ever will. 

Moving Polaroids: Post Time

My grandfather worked at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.

So did my father and a handful of my uncles and so it was a natural that I would work there when I turned sixteen.

But first I had to go to the track itself and experience it in all its glory. My dad first took me to the track when I was about eight. This wasn't your run of the mill small county fair with corn dog stands and a rusty Tilt-a-Whirl. Oh no. This was the State Fair; the Metropolis of junk food and kiddy rides and jellies and jams and pies made by little old ladies. Towering bulls and bright white sheep and livestock of all variety scrubbed up and glistening to see if they'd win a ribbon.

But that wasn't the reason we were there.

We walked in and went straight to the horse track. The fair runs at the end of summer, so it's always blistering hot. The grand stands offer cool comfort among its concrete walls and hidden coves with vendor stands offering the usual fair food and tall brown paper cups of draft beer. My dad let me sip from his cup - the beer icy cold and bitter against my tongue, but all in all I liked the lemonade he'd bought me better. He bought a racing form and we found what would become our usual spot near the show circle, where we crouched down along the cement stairs. My father grew quiet for a bit and started jotting down notes in the margins of the paper.

I studied the crowd around me. Quite a mix. Old men with short filtered cigars puffed away as they studied the forms like ancient religious tomes. Frail looking women with bright red lipstick, too much perfume and wide brimmed hats heatedly discussed numbers and funny sounding names.

Over the loudspeaker a man spoke: "Ten minutes til Post Time." I didn't know who that man was but he sounded important. He must've been because everyone glanced up at the lit board showing all the horse numbers and went back to furiously writing on their racing forms.

Then they started to line up at the window booths, money in their hands, most with a drink in the other. My dad stood up from his crouch, gave me a friendly swat on the top of the head with the rolled up racing form, and we walked over to stand in line.

He placed his bet in vernacular I didn't understand and tucked the piece of paper he got back into his shirt pocket. We walked out of the cool recesses of the Grand Stands out into the September sun and toward the show paddock.

The horses were being led around the circle and out onto the track.

I'd never seen such a thing as a thoroughbred. The ponies we occasionally had on our farm were wiry bristly things that were full of spunk and rolled in the dirt sometimes. They were more like bratty little children than anything else.

But these creatures... these were gods.

Long legged lean animals, towering up over me, muscles rippling beneath their well-brushed hides. Their bodies were shimmering obsidian come to life. Their manes were slicked back, their eyes sharp and watchful. When they walked, they pranced with an heir of pride. They were walking beings of enormous power, just waiting to be unleashed.

The horses were all led out to the racetrack. The jockeys took their saddles and they were trotted over to the starting gate.

"Five minutes til Post Time." I heard the man say and watched some of the crowd scurry back to the Grand Stand to place their bets.

My dad gave me another sip of his beer and grinned as he looked out over the infield. He stuffed the rolled racing form into his back pocket.

The excitement started to build all around us. The tension was palpable.

"They're all in line."

The crowd scurried out from the Grand Stands to line the chain link fence around the track. I stood in front of my father against the fence, looking in at the furrowed dirt track. Across the infield the view shimmered with the heat.

"It's Post Time."

My dad, along with the rest of the crowd, turned toward the starting gate.

"Annnnnnnnd they're off!"

A bell rang and metal gates flew open. A line of horses shot out of the gates like lightning and the crowd around us exploded. All around us I could hear people yelling "Go baby! C'mon baby!" Others were cussing as the horses rounded the first turn.

My father was smiling to himself and nervously took the racing form out of his back pocket. He was tapping it against his leg as he watched the horses circle around.

The announcer was reeling off the horse's names, letting us all know what order they were in. The screaming around us grew even louder, building to a crescendo. The people all seemed to be leaning toward the track, on the edge of their seats.

And then the race was over and the screaming crowd died down.

My dad kept grinning and pulled the ticket from his pocket with a nod and a wink at me.

Around us, I saw a large portion of the crowd crumbling up their tickets and tossing them to the pavement. Some shook their heads. A few gave low whistles and mumbled to themselves. Most all of them flipped open their racing forms and started looking forward to the next race to start again.

My dad and I walked down to the ticket booths and he collected his winnings. We spent the next hour or so much like that. Each race we'd sit down and plot out the race and then check out the horses as they were led onto the track.

Each race I felt the crowd surge up above and beyond themselves as a group...trying to edge their horse to the beginning of the line up through belief alone.

Some races my dad won, others he didn't. But at the end of the day, we walked away tired and smiling, with a bit of sunburn on our faces and a few extra dollars in his pocket. My father always knew what he could bet and what he could stand to lose and the two never met on the course of a horse track in his life.

I'd been through the initiation of the track. It was an odd sort of rite of passage of manhood in my family. It was a great day to experience.

A great day to remember.