By Jamie Borgan
It’s two days after Christmas. I’m sitting at a dining room table that’s been stretched to accommodate my friend Teresa’s extended family while, half comatose from overconsumption of sugar, we try to corral fourteen people into playing Turbo Cranium.
From the story, When Murray Met Helen
One hard thing about losing an old friend is that the world moves on anyway. And in Helen’s mind, after Murray’s sudden death, her planet was circling the sun for no obvious reason other than the inexorable mechanics of creation. So whether it was divinity or just physics, it was now spring in New Zealand while, in Oshkosh, it was snowing lightly as Helen stirred her Grapenuts while sorting pills for her mother.
Continue reading Inexorable
By Tim Connor
Friday afternoon, as I was midway through reading the DOJ Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) report released earlier in the day, I flashed on a memorably funny line from a William Least Heat Moon article about beer. After he and a companion had traveled far and wide to sample the best of American micro-brews, the drinking partner takes a swig from a store-bought bottle.
“Did I miss my mouth?” he asks the writer. Continue reading DOJ Lite
From the story, When Murray Met Helen
Murray Rierson Genault died during his breakfast on a rainy Thursday, in mid-November. He had only recently turned 88. The paramedics found him that afternoon after Glenn, the postman, paused when he heard a repeating phrase of music coming from inside the house. The needle was bumping back from a scratch on an old record: Wynton Kelly and Wes Montgomery’s beautifully melancholic treatment of “Oh, You Crazy Moon.” 1965. When no one answered the door, Glenn, sensing what had happened, called 9-1-1 on his cell phone.
Continue reading Cinnamon
