The caretaker of the trees

 The shack in the woods, covered with vines, hadn't seen a living soul in decades until today. It sat nestled in a valley surrounded by Christmas trees, most planted years ago by his grandfather, who built the shack after his wife passed at an early age, and others were gifts from above as pinecones fell from the sky onto the forest floor. Over the years, as the trees grew and needed thinning, he had the idea of hauling fresh-cut trees, mostly pines, down the valley road to a crude roadside stand he would build a couple of weeks before Christmas.

People began showing up, mostly on the weekends, city folks stopping at the crude stand with a sign he made and hung from the stand simply saying Christmas trees, written in green paint left over from when he painted their house that has sat vacant since her death, and he built the valley shack where he would live until he joined her high into the sky where stars shone, and the moon guided him to wherever she may be.
He lived a simple life in the valley, tending to the trees, always saying a few words as he bent down to replace the trees he'd taken with saplings that, over time, would grow into trees of many shapes and sizes. In the days leading up to the start of his busy season, he'd make wreaths from the droppings of branches, each a little different than the others, some decorated with red ribbon he found in her sewing basket he had brought with him to the shack, never knowing when something would need mending.
He lived out his days in the valley, a man at peace with clear memories and a heart that never really healed. He spoke to his trees, and they answered as the winds whistled through the branches, thanking him for caring for a place he loved so dearly. Today the roadside stand is just a pile of wood scattered about, and the shack in which he lived, a reminder of a man who carved wooden animals, mostly reindeer, he'd give to the children when a smile on their faces was all the payment he required.
It gave me chills to see two large branches draped across the roof like they were protecting him, or maybe hiding him from anyone who wanted to take him out of the valley. But  I scattered his remains throughout the place he called home. I made my way back to the road, where, looking down, there was an old and weathered sign with the words " Christmas trees painted with faded green letters. As I began to leave, a sudden burst of wind touched my face, and I knew it was him saying goodbye and thanking me for bringing him home to his valley of trees. 

Mike 2026

                                                                                      

                                  

Mike 2026

Tiny dancers of candlelight

 My eyes slowly burn as I try to write by candlelight, forgetting for a while that with one click of a switch I'd be fine again. Still, the story wouldn't have the same meaning; the characters wouldn't stand out in my mind with fluorescent lights piercing the darkness, a direct hit on the monitor, while candlelight creates movement and a calm that lets me write words worthy of writing.

As I continue to write by candlelight, tiny dancers make their presence known as a result of the strain, and my eyes feel them as I try not to blink too often, at least until I finish this paragraph or two. I'll admit there have been moments when I stop and close my eyes, still seeing the tiny dancers in shadow form under my eyelids. I stay still, waiting for them to finish their dance before I continue writing.
Refreshed, I continue as the flames from the candle come alive again, more dancing, more shadows, and more images to capture as words flow like a lazy river. At last I'm finished, and I save the final draft of my story and put it away, hoping someday it will be read by candlelight as tiny dancers perform for you as they do for me.   

Mike 2026                                                         

Mike  2026

Growing older pros and cons

 Sometimes, growing older isn't always a good thing. We find ourselves remembering the past and those who've gone before us, leaving scars too big to mend. We look in the looking glass and smile a crooked smile at the face staring back at us, but can't be, as we aren't that old, are we? It's said youth is wasted on the young.

Growing older has no pause button we can turn on and off; it keeps on running until it just stops when we realize there is no going back. What we did in our younger years carved the path we follow today, and we hope we made a difference in the scheme of things. We hope our counsel has worth, as those we taught passed our knowledge on, never to be forgotten but admired.
Growing older finds us listening more than we speak, trying to grasp new technologies that often feel lost on us, and sitting quietly with a painted-on face. It's always been a mystery to me how an eight-year-old can navigate complex topics on complex devices. I remember when, back in my younger days, children learned from parents and teachers what we needed to know, and receiving a high school diploma was a major accomplishment.
To me, growing older meant staying mentally strong and physically challenged, and walking on a treadmill could end you. When growing old, the medications you take every day outnumber the days themselves, and you panic when trying to remember if you lost count and skipped one, which would haunt you all day long.
On the bright side of age, you have plenty of alone time to browse old photographs, and you stop to stare at one particular photo and relive the day it was taken. It amazes me that my memories still want to come out and play. Don't be fooled into believing eighty is the new forties, as that will only speed up your final destination.
Growing older can be a memorable time in your later years if you allow it to be. Just don't ever challenge your grandchild to a video game; they will smoke you every time. Don't feel left out of conversations; nod and smile like you understand everything, when in reality you're deep in your memories, trying to remember whether you shut off the stove and turned out the lights.

Mike 2026

                                                                              

The winter boxes

 Soon the ground will lie to rest as winter's breath blows across the land. Trees stripped of leaves; green is only a memory. Firewood is stacked high as winter knocks at the door like a cunning wolf—your first steps on frozen grass sound like firecrackers on the Fourth of July.

Inside, cedar chests: you open them to bring back winter's clothing, and fur-lined boots make an appearance for a fighting chance against the cold. Boxes come down from the attic marked as Halloween and Christmas, put in a corner as a reminder it's almost time to decorate.
You decide one cold winter's day it's time to splash colors around the house, so Dad climbs a ladder and hangs the holiday lights, holding off turning them on until the last piece of turkey is gone and the switch is thrown, to the family's delight. Nextdoor neighbors applaud your labor of love for the season, with hundreds of lights and figures on and around the house, as cars filled with families drive through neighborhoods and beep their horns in approval.
It's a time of year when world troubles stay hidden for the time being, and neighbors wave and smile a genuine smile they mean, not a fake gesture expected from them. Cookies and fruitcakes sit on porches with a note that reads, "Happy holidays from your neighbors." Holiday parties are open invitations, a time to reconnect with people who lived feet away but seldom spoke, as they do when they smile and wave when the trash goes out to the curb.
Moms are dressed in festive dresses, often getting approval from someone she didn't know but later learned to be a neighbor, the same one she caught staring over the fence as she sunbathed last summer. The alcohol flowed well into the late-night hour, and kisses on the cheek and many thanks for the invite ended the party, leaving you and your man to clean up the mess, but looking at it all, deciding to let it wait until tomorrow. Dad teased her about her admirer but agreed she did look darn good in a bikini.
The holidays passed too quickly, and the day arrived when Dad took down the lights and put the boxes back in the attic until next year. There was a sadness about it, but that vanished as a huge snowstorm came rushing in like a locomotive racing by on frozen tracks. When the darkness passed and the sun came out, a winter wonderland greeted you as you looked outside at a world turned white. With hot oatmeal gone in four bites, the kids put on their winter clothes, and the door opened to a dream day. Sleds were brought out of the garage, ice skates were sharpened, and a family of snow angels appeared all around the yard.
At dinner time, the kids came inside frozen to the bone, with ice crystals hanging from their frozen brows and pounds of snow that somehow infiltrated into every nook and cranny on their snowsuits. Rosy red cheeks and endless smiles as they swapped stories about a snowball fight with neighborhood kids and a six-foot-high snowman knocked over by a misguided sled racing down the hill, while the dog grabbed the carrot nose and ran to safety. Summer time couldn't hold a candle to winter's fun, at least not in that moment. But that would change when the first warmer days of Springtime said hello; they watched baby saplings grow as spots of green pushed through the thawing land, and they thought about fishing in the stream, camping outside in tents, and eagerly awaiting summer to come knocking. But somewhere in the cool months of October, they talked about more than one occasion, and that was winter and boxes pulled from the attic.

Mike  2026                                                                                   

                                               

Alone or loneliness

 Don't you get lonely? I was asked. I thought about that for a minute, then said that, at one point in my life, I was never alone. There were friends with friends drinking and singing karaoke and day drinkers hiding from the light. There were wives and girlfriends, not at the same time, that always had an agenda for things I was expected to do. Meet so-and-so for brunch, meet up with friends for a picnic, or a car full of kids headed for the beach. Decades passed, and I only experienced being lonely when someone dear to me found peace, bringing me closer to being alone but not lonely. I grew tired of crowds that seemed to choke the life out of me and the canned laughter my ears became deaf to. I found that by searching my memories, I could go back in time, choose where and who I wanted to be, and brush aside what held no meaning for me. The truth is, I didn't find peace until I was in my seventies, when I no longer needed alarm clocks or deadlines. When I quit drinking, I never heard from my fellow drinkers anymore, reading the obituaries daily to see who had passed on and taking a moment of silence to wish them a safe journey to the big bottle of whiskey in the sky.

Do I get lonely? Sure I do, but it passes quickly as I reach into my past and relive times that were, for the most part, happy and filled with love of many kinds. For some reason, unknown to me, I was given the gift of memories, which I decided would make for a good book if I could find a way to write, even though I'd never put pen to paper for any other reason than to see my words woven into sentences. Then the unexpected happened, and I found myself far from lonely as my words spoke to me, and any hint of loneliness vanished altogether. Writing became my friend, my editor, my peace of mind in a troubled world. It helped me find those bar buddies again, as I gave them places in my writing. As time went on, hundreds of people I once knew found themselves planted among others who had left their mark in my mind and heart, finding a place in my words.
So no, I don't ever find myself being lonely because I can always come up with new players with their own identities for me to greet and write into a story. I've been asked what I do for fun, and that's an easy answer: I write every day. I sit down somewhere, maybe the porch or in my favorite chair with a cup of coffee, and I let my mind and my heart go to work. No need for business attire or clothes, for that matter, just my desktop and me tapping the first key to what I hope will be worth writing. My current blog has over one thousand short stories, all conceived by my gift of remembering and a touch of fiction to make things interesting. That my friends are my joy, my happiness, and my fun, knowing someplace out in the world someone is reading my work and relating to my stories written by a man who's alone but never lonely. 

Mike 2026                                                     

Mike 2026

Rocking chairs and smoke rings

 He sat in the chair she used to sit in. Remembering the talks they had about life's happiness and sorrows. They talked about everything until the silence kicked in, and the only sounds were her rocking and him making smoke rings from his pipe on a still August night. In the distance, a train's whistle blew, and he wondered what his life would have been if he had pursued his dream of working on the railroad. He rocked in her chair when she wasn't there, hearing her voice tell him about the times they worked the land together and what it meant to her to be by his side through the good years and the not-so-good years. He heard her laughter and dried her tears when something broke her heart. He would kneel beside her chair back then and stop it from rocking, look into her eyes, and give her a tender smile, which she met with a smile and a squeeze of her hand in his.

When the snow began to fall, he brought her chair inside and sat it by the fireplace so she'd be warm, remembering how much she disliked the cold. He couldn't count the times he watched her rocking away and tending to her knitting, her fingers doing the work but her mind a thousand miles away. He remembered one such night when he stood up and asked her if he'd done something wrong, nervously watching his pipe smoke disappear into the darkness. She stopped her knitting and smiled at him, saying the only thing he was guilty of was being the best man she'd ever known.
Springtime arrived, and her chair went back outside where she could feel the warmth on her face and smell the flowers she'd planted everywhere. They ate almost every meal outside, laughing at times and other times as silent as the air itself, beckoning her to walk off the porch and dance in a valley of wildflowers. He clapped his hands and stomped his boots as he watched her spin around, her long hair swinging in the breeze and her laughter as pure as honey. Then she took a mason jar and chased fireflies, trapping them inside and lighting her way around her private dance floor.
They were as one, living their perfect life together through the good and the bad, the joys and sorrows that belonged only to them. Her chair quit rocking one summer day, the same day his heart broke into pieces. He spends most days now sitting in her chair, slowly rocking as smoke rings float up to the stars, where she will poke a finger through one and smile.

Mike 2026

                                                                                     

MIKE 2026

Only have eyes for you

 He knew this would be one of his last rides before the snow came. It was already cold enough that the wind froze his eyebrows and the heat from the pipes warmed his legs. It was early Friday night as he headed for the family-owned bar tucked away on a stretch of road just across the county line. That meant that while bars closed at two am in one county, we could stay open until four am. By two thirty we were at full capacity, and then some, as diehard drinkers came in for those last couple of drinks and hopes of a hookup for some lucky few.

His dad joined him behind the bar, serving up drinks as fast as they could pour while cutting some off and calling a cab, holding on to their keys until tomorrow. He'd just been discharged from a four-year hitch in the Navy and worked the bar until something better came along, but the months passed, and he found himself liking life as a bartender. There was no shortage of girls who came in, an assortment of just-legal to seasoned women who were always offering him a drink or a warm bed on a cold night. His sister told him his tough appearance and the Harley he rode made him desirable. He just laughed and kept on pouring.
Then one late Friday night she came inside, followed by a small group of friends, all good-looking and a little baked as their laughter filled the bar. He watched her approach the bar, her long jet-black hair halfway down her back and white slacks that spoke for themselves. Her smile hit him right in the heart as she leaned over the bar and ordered a drink; her perfume smelled like a siren's call as their eyes locked and every other woman in the place became invisible. A song came on the jukebox titled I Only Have Eyes for You, and he came out from behind the bar and approached her, asking for a dance. His dad threw up his hands and yelled for him to get back behind the bar, but nothing was going to stop him as she accepted. The crowd cleared out as last call was called, some heading for the 24-hour diner a couple miles down the road to drink coffee and sober up enough to drive back to where they lived.
He asked to see her again, and she told him maybe she'd come back, maybe not. A couple of weeks passed, and she came in alone that time, took a seat, and caught his smile as their eyes met across the bar. He asked his sister to watch the bar as he sat beside her, the smell of her perfume filling his senses as the same song played that had been playing when they first danced together. She stayed at the bar until closing, and he asked her to go to the diner with him, but she'd have to drive her car as it was way too cold for her on the back of his Harley. She told him to follow her to her apartment where she'd make some coffee, and he could warm up. The only thing was she lived on the second floor, which, of course, had steps, but he was determined and told her to open the door upstairs and stay clear as he revved the throttle and rode up the stairs straight into her apartment.
That was the beginning of something wonderful until a job offer took him out of town and away from her. Time marched on, and memories replaced being together; he heard she'd moved on, gotten married, and started a new life. When he did manage to come back for visits, he'd work a few shifts at the bar hoping to see her walk through the door, but she never did. Now all these years have passed, and life took the turns it was meant to take, leaving him with the smell of her perfume, long jet-black hair, and those white slacks that fit her so well.                              

Mike  2026