I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


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Monday, February 3, 2020

I saw a guy shot on TV last night


February 3, 1968  (I was 23)

I saw a guy shot on TV last night
It wasn’t Gunsmoke
Or I Spy
just the news
nothing really dramatic
I was half asleep
when a news-filmed Viet Cong kid
was led down the street
by two ARVN soldiers
to an officer
who immediately raised a pistol to the kid’s head
and fired
The kid dropped right on his ass
to the road
and the screen faded to Imperial Margarine
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