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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Thursday, March 18, 2021

The little business on the block

 

March 18, 2009  (I was 64)

 

The little business on the block

gave its name to the neighborhood

The canned goods required dusting

two or three times before they were sold

The National Cash Register was mechanical

and ornately clad in leafy brushed brass

the wood floor swept and polished by the boys

Everyone in the family stayed out of the service

so we must have gone there for ethnic reasons

The guy who owned the store

also ran the one where you came from

You remember

He was never that friendly

as if he knew customers were inevitable

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