Recent Posts

  • Ripe

    My loneliness had reached a point where I no longer acknowledged the dull pain of it in the present moment.  I feared the future, if to go there meant going […]

  • The Next Breath

    Once, in the sixth or seventh grade, my father took me to a high school football game. We stood in the end zone watching the last gasp of another gridiron […]

  • Center of the Heavens

    All I wanted in high school was a date with Francine Little, the Pekingese puppy. An inexplicably magnetic agglomeration of parts she was. Seemingly mismatched parts if viewed separately, and […]

  • Granddaddy Grandeur

    My grandfather came to Myrtle Beach in 1902. First hand, I don’t know much about him. James Edward Bryan, nick-named “Big Jim” died a good ten years before I was […]

  • The Measure of Wealth

    In my hometown, real estate is the only wealth proper to a man. The same is said of oil in the Middle East. Cattle and horses were more valuable than […]

  • Garden of Fire: Myrtle Beach 4th of July

    The gunpowder flowers bloom just after dark, MYRTLE BEACH FOURTH OF JULY. A display of fireworks UTTERLY UNIQUE, miles and miles of gunpowder flowers ABLAZE: flaming roses, orchids of white […]

  • Maybe Next Time

    I never liked roller coasters that much. Anymore, I’m too old to ride them without fear of a heart attack, even though I know the odds are pretty good, the […]

  • My Pillar Fire

    It was the year everything changed. Childhood was ending. We were leaving the elementary school that had been our winter home in daylight hours for seven years. The school building […]

  • Boys and Their Toys

    My most frequent companion in high school was an automobile, a 1965 Mustang. Not one of the hot ones, only a six cylinder. Aside from the hours of sleep, and […]