Posts
Saturday, August 29, 2026
Richard appears to have aged 20 years in two months. He was a tall muscular man in June and now he's a shriveled apple doll on a stick. He's a terrifying sight especially when you realize that it's Richard, that guy who was taking and selling drugs a few months ago. He was going strong until the Feds came and shut down the ring. He lucked out that day and was not caught in the sweep.
It will insist on being told
Sit and quiet yourself. Luxuriate in a certain memory and the details will come. Let the images flow. You’ll be amazed at what will come out on paper. I’m still learning what it is about the past that I want to write. I don’t worry about it. It will emerge. It will insist on being told.
FRANK McCOURT
Friday, August 28, 2026
a poem by David Shumate.
Passing Through a Small Town
Here the highways cross. One heads north. One heads east
and west. On the corner of the square adjacent to the
courthouse a bronze plaque marks the place where two Civil
War generals faced one another and the weaker surrendered.
A few pedestrians pass. A beauty parlor sign blinks. As I turn
to head west, I become the schoolteacher living above the
barber shop. Polishing my shoes each evening. Gazing at the
square below. In time I befriend the waitress at the cafe and
she winks as she pours my coffee. Soon people begin to
talk. And for good reason. I become so distracted I teach my
students that Cleopatra lost her head during the French
Revolution and that Leonardo perfected the railroad at the
height of the Renaissance. One day her former lover returns
from the army and creates a scene at the school. That evening
she confesses she cannot decide between us. But still we spend
one last night together. By the time I pass the grain elevators
on the edge of town I am myself again. The deep scars of love
already beginning to heal.
__________
Passing Through a Small Town by DAVID SHUMATE, from High Water Mark, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.
Thursday, August 27, 2026
Stories lightly disguised. If you see yourself here, you should have behaved better.
Motto on the town newspaper header.
Blackridge Massachusetts
In this area using a turn signal is a sign of weakness as if one's masculinity could leak out onto the road with each blink, forever depleting the driver. All the men drive trucks.
The women on the other hand always use their turn signals. Many borrow their husbands trucks or drive Dodge Caravans or Subaru wagons. They do not want to crack them up.
The town of Blackridge has no laws except one. You can't park on the dead end of Ridgefalls Road to visit the water. If you do the dozen suburban Ring cameras are triggered and the residents call the one cop, officer George Mink. He immediately drives down on his police issued Harley Davidson motorcycle to ask what you are doing.
The Blackridge residents are all escapees from nearby cities and fight hard for the illusion that they are in the wilderness. God help you if your dog barks or you put up a fence or hang out your laundry. If you break the illusion of wilderness you are scorned.
Some battles have gone on for generations. The Wilder's turned a paper street beside their house into their driveway, a common practice in a town with no laws. The kids ignored the change but Old Man Wilder would come out in his plaid bathrobe waving his shotgun over his head when he saw them walking up his driveway. They just laughed. The McDugal's claim it's still a real street and the battle is ongoing to this day.
Bovines are a Blessing
"I can't drink milk in a box. No way," says JP Sagahutu, who consumes about four 8-ounce glasses of milk a day. He tries to think of the best adjective to describe the beverage. "I don't know the wording in English, but it's something sacré," he says — using the French word for sacred. Many Rwandans speak the language because the country was a Belgian colony until 1962. Other customers nod in agreement: Milk is holy. In fact, as a sign of respect you must only drink it while sitting down. Bovines are a blessing The sentiment comes from the respect people here have for cows, seen for many generations as providers of sustenance and prosperity. "A very long time ago, there was no currency. To see if someone is rich, they were counting cows. If you have 10 cows, it means you are rich," Sagahutu says. So precious is the cow, that in Rwandan culture, when you want to wish someone well, you say "may you have a cow" — kajirinka in the local language of Kinyarwandan.
https://www.npr.org/2026/08/27/g-s1-139914/milk-rwanda-milk-bar
The Siblings
The siblings were in competition. They both thought travel was a virtue but it was merely a display of money spent. One more stamp on the passport, one more sticker on the suitcase. All for bragging rights. They never noticed anything when they arrived except how good the cocktails tasted. Secretly it was a pain in the ass and they couldn't wait to return and tell everyone where they had been. As if it mattered. As if it changed them. It did neither.