Dads snow plow

 I remember snow days when we stayed home from school. And I'll always recall one in particular that turned into a week. I remember staying up late pretending to be asleep, but actually looking out my second-floor bedroom window at black, not white. When sleep took me and the long hours of darkness woke me up, I had to squint my eyes from the brightness that invaded my bedroom. I looked out, and with my mouth wide open, I couldn't believe what I saw. It wasn't a blanket of white; it was a monster that buried everything I couldn't see but knew was there. Drifts so big that only the tips of telephone poles were visible, and dozens of cars parked on the street were just gone. Somehow, a big drift missed my window, letting me see the carnage below as an eerie silence filled the air, broken only by my mom's voice downstairs, shouting for a flashlight. I got my Batman flashlight and headed downstairs, guided by the cape crusaders' light straight into the darkness.

Power was out, and the house was growing colder by the minute as Dad built a fire in the fireplace, saying he was glad he had just brought in more wood the day before. My sister turned on her transistor radio to a news station, listening to the announcer talk about the massive storm and what people should do. Lists of places that had closed, seemingly endless, were broadcast on the hour, and emergency services were tasked with getting their equipment out into the neighborhoods where senior citizens and other people in need were told to sit tight as they made their way to them. Plows were out, slowly cutting through the huge drifts with everything they had, but it wasn't enough. The call went out to anyone with a snowmobile or a Four Wheel Drive truck to help, and they responded in the hundreds.
On the second day, Dad decided to head to the garage at the back of the house, where he kept his pride and joy, a 1957 Dodge Power Wagon. It was his project ever since I could remember, and he was very proud of it. He even entered it in car shows, where he won a trophy for the best restoration in the truck class. But that day, it was just another piece of equipment needed to help those in need. He told me to dress extra warmly if I wanted to ride along, and before you could say "snow," I was ready to go. The power wagon was equipped with a six-foot plow that Dad tested, making sure the hydraulics were working, and with the heater blasting hot air, we inched our way out of our driveway and into banks of snow we pushed aside to clear the streets. It was a long and tedious task, as we were joined by others who wanted to help.
Then a call came from the news station that medications needed to be delivered to folks stuck in their homes and couldn't get out to refill them. And everyone with a powerful enough truck to get through to them was to go to city hall, where they'd be given plenty of medicine and the addresses of those in need. " Looks like a job for the power wagon," Dad said as he blasted through drifts and plowed driveways for waiting people, some of whom offered us coffee or hot cocoa, which we usually accepted. Dad and I worked into the night, losing count of the people we helped, but come sunup, the power wagon headed back to our garage, where Dad took care of some minor problems, making sure the old truck was ready for more.
I spent three days with my dad, slowly clearing the streets and helping deliver needed medicines to shut-ins affected by the storm of all storms. I was just a kid, but I felt like a grown-up as we finally finished and went home. A week later, Dad received a letter from the city thanking him for all he had done to help. There was even mention of me that made me feel proud, almost as much as Dad did. Years went by without another mega storm, and the old power wagon eventually became mine. I treated it with the same loving care that Dad did, keeping it show-ready for years to come. But knowing if the snow came again, I'd be ready to roll. I had some pictures taken that day when everything was buried, which I displayed next to the truck, showing me and Dad plowing our driveway with the power wagon and powering through to a snowbound house, where an elderly lady, grateful for her medicines, offered us coffee or hot cocoa.

                                                                                  
Mike  2026

More than just a porch

 He sat alone on the front porch as he had for so many years. It was the one place where troubles seemed to disappear for a while, and the quiet could be broken by children's laughter. The porch was where you and your bride made dreams come true, and tears sometimes fell when a dream was shattered. It was where you had that talk with your son and gave advice to all your children. The porch was hollowed ground, a kind of neutral place where what was spoken remained when you went inside.

The porch had a swing you made when your hands were young, and your back was strong. A labor of love for one of many anniversaries you shared with the love of your life. You remember the sound it made as you slowly rocked back and forth, watching both sunrises and sunsets, holding her hand softly in yours.
The porch welcomed family and friends for no reason, just a place with a welcome mat that read all are welcome here. A half-dozen rocking chairs painted white to match the swing, and a bench for kids to sit on when mom called a time-out. Even the pets liked the porch where they found a ray of sunlight to fall asleep with a torn-up tennis ball close by.
So many memories of that old porch keep his mind busy as he fights hard to remember all it meant to everyone, with kids avoiding three little steps and older folks taking one at a time. The porch had a corner where the Christmas tree stood, waiting to be taken inside, and a place for sleds and bicycles, ready for action. It was where a wooden table was filled with plates of freshly baked cookies and, depending on the season, pictures of iced tea and lemonade in the hot months, and cocoa and coffee when the north winds blew.
It was countless times listening to a ball game on the radio, sitting on the porch as holiday festivities inside were in full swing. It was a place where you could be alone with your thoughts, or times when you hoped the porch would withstand dozens of your people to celebrate a birthday, and not collapse. The porch wasn't just another place to sit; it was an extension of the home and, by far, the choice for many to have a swing, tell a story, or grab a few winks after Sunday dinner.
Now, as he nears the time when all those children are scattered around the globe, and busy schedules prevent frequent visits, he sits alone, wrapped in a blanket she made. He closes his eyes and slowly rocks himself to sleep to the squeaky sound of the swing he never got around to fixing.

Mike  2026                                                       

My best friend

 These six legs have traveled together for a dozen years, slowing down now but still able to feel the ground beneath our feet and paws. We've braved all kinds of weather, always on a mission to see new things and familiar spots that we must stop to smell. I've tried many times, on walks around the pond, to count how many times he lifted a leg, but gave up after twenty.

We eat our meals together, and I'm aware I shouldn't be giving him people food, but he's more of a person than most humans I know, so people food it is. He knows that when I filled a paper plate with what I didn't eat, it was his for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Oh, he had a bowl of dog food I kept full, but he sometimes showed his dislike for it by shoveling the kibbles onto the floor and waiting for me to scold him with stern words that I knew made him laugh.
He's losing his hearing now, and I have to shout or give him a gentle nudge, so he hears me. His rear quarter is getting worse, and I find myself just handing him a treat rather than making him get up for it. I know he appreciates that. He's always been my shadow, no matter where I go, never out of my sight, even when he has to get up just to make sure I was close by.
He's the same number of years as me in dog life, a couple of senior citizens shuffling through our days, and grateful for each other's company. Did I mention he can talk? Especially when we have a visitor, he lets out sounds much like someone would to welcome someone into their home. He loves the attention, especially from my grandkids, who once threw him a ball that now sits in his toy box because his hips don't work too well. But he loves to be petted and his belly scratched.
I often find myself looking into his eyes, once vibrant and full of energy, now cloudy and straining to avoid obstacles. He means the world to me, and when he's gone, a part of me will go with him. I pray for him every night, asking God to look over everyone I love and care for, hoping he hears me and lets my shadow sniff a hundred more trees, throw his food to annoy me, and look at me through cloudy eyes, making sure I'm close by.

Mike 2026                                                      

Heart and soul

 He watched a spider in its web up in a corner, something he would never have seen without it being there. He watched as bits of dust were blown off a table as a springtime wind came through the window. He never would have seen it if he hadn't been looking out at the rain shower. He heard a cricket somewhere in the house and a frog out in the pond. He never would have heard them if not for the early hour when traffic was all but none.

He smelled the fresh-cut grass and the pasture full of wildflowers and windswept scents of a nearby woods that he never would have smelled living in the city. He heard the little things, like the buzzing of a single bee that had gotten lost and the cry of a baby bird high up in a tree calling for its mother.
He reached his golden years, which meant becoming a wise man with stories to tell to wide-eyed children and postcard memories he would have forgotten about if not for a youngster's voice asking to see what was in the old trunk sitting in a corner. His old Navy blues, some vinyl records of his youth, and sheets of yellowed paper with handwritten poems. His baseball glove and a box of checkers with a red one missing replaced with a red button. His high school yearbook with pictures he had circled for one reason or another, and a stack of postcards from his travels as a sailor, he sent home.
His life was one he was proud of, and although it was nearing an end, he still watched and listened, laughed and cried, sat and read, and wrote about everything he found interesting. He traveled the globe and walked in the footsteps of the ancients. He saw great monuments to heroes and colosseums still intact, as thousands of pictures were taken by those passing by. He saw a bull fight in Madrid and the Rock of Gibraltar. He sat at a French cafe wishing she could have been there with him, but a postcard would have to do. His heart was full of love for his family, their faces seared into his mind forever and a day.
Now it's just a waiting game to see when he'll leave this amazing place, and feel somewhat certain his next journey will be humbling, with a thousand questions finally answered.

Mike  2026                                                             

 

Blank screens

 I sat down in front of a blank screen, a cup of coffee now half-empty.Outside, the roar of a lawnmower cutting through the dirt as the draught continues, but he was paid to cut, so he cuts. Piles of dog droppings were pulverized into fertilizer as the blade cut through the air, sparing the weeds. The TV weather people tried to keep spirits up by saying there was a 20% chance of rain. I guess all that did was tell me there was an 80% chance it wouldn't rain.

There's a pond where I live, man-made years ago, with a fountain that sprays a cooling mist as you pass by and a population of koi and turtles always ready for a piece of bread or stale crackers. There is a walk bridge that passes over the pond where grandkids stand, throwing scraps of dinner rolls and stale bread saved by grandparents, hoping for a visit before mold sets in and they must be discarded.
There are times when words come to me without much effort, and stories are written as fast as I can type. Ideas clash, vying for the win, often leaving me to choose which thought to use. I reach deep inside to find the proper words lying in wait until they are one tap of a key and embedded into the story. But what about titles, you ask? Well, I usually am halfway through a story when I see a phrase or a sentence that seems to fit, and I go with that.
One of the bigger challenges is finding an illustration that conveys the words I've written. I Google a bunch of images for each story, then choose one. like an image of an old man on a bench. I look at dozens of pictures, then, once chosen, I simply copy and paste them into my draft, and that's that, another story was written and added to the many others sleeping until read.
I suppose a blank screen isn't something awful; it's just giving my brain a rest until the word faucet turns back on and flows like a river with the tap of my keyboard. I think my next story will be the lawn guy wiping dust off my new truck from his lawnmower, and me going through images to best show my reaction, like a man in his robe chasing a lawn guy down the street  as he sped away in a cloud of dust. I'll work on that.

Mike 2026                                                    

Long live Rock

 He put an album on the turntable he bought decades ago. It was part of the entertainment center, which also contained a television set and a small cabinet, usually used to keep alcohol of one flavor or another. There was a rack to store records, and with a touch, you could close it, leaving it to look like just another piece of furniture.

The television quit working years ago, but the turntable could still play, even though the sound quality wasn't all that good by today's standards. That was okay with him, as it was the sound, he grew to love, and nothing else could compare.
Led Zeppelin was playing "Stairway to Heaven " as he sat back in his recliner and drifted away to better days when peace was preached, and news was meant to inform you, not petrify you. He remembered when his friends would gather, bringing their own records to play on his turntable, since most of them had only a cheap player with little clarity.
He remembers standing in line, no matter the weather, at the record store on the first day of a new release by bands like Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, and many more that, after all these years, still hold a place in the rack inside his council. Many records had the lyrics printed on the back or on a separate page, so that they could learn to sing along with the music.
A lot of so-called hard rock songs were thought to be the work of the devil, which you could barely make out by playing the record on a slower speed. It was a great marketing scheme to sell albums.
He remembers putting two big box speakers in his car, which he had to camouflage so no one would walk off with them. He and his friends would drive into the country listening to a rock radio station that played hit after hit as they passed around a joint, their ears ringing from the hidden speakers. He smiled, thinking he actually did lose some hearing in his left ear.
That era belongs to those who listened to hard rock and still do. He believed they should call themselves the hearing aid generation. There were times they'd sit on top of a country hill where speakers would be set on rocks a ways from the car. They'd lie down on the soft grass, looking to the stars and pass around a bottle of boons farm, like strawberry hill, goofy grape, and an apple something. Clouds of pot slowly danced around them as they waited for a song, they knew the lyrics to, then they'd all sing along as a couple of guys played the air guitar, trying to capture the moves of Jimmy Page or Hendrix.
As he sits, afraid to look in the mirror, he tugs at his memory book, taking him back to those carefree times when tickets to a live performance were like winning the lottery. They counted the days until the concert came to town and spent hours getting ready, dressed in worn-out jeans and some T-shirts with the band's picture on the front. Their hair was long and usually needed washing, but that didn't matter that night.
They arrived early to the Zepplin concert, scoring some weed and plowing their way to the front of the stage, packed in like sardines. They got in the mood as the warm-up band played cover tunes blasting through the tower speakers, some bigger than a refrigerator stacked high above the stage. And then, behind the curtain, a familiar song began to play. Softly at first, the lights flashing with color as the curtain rises, and there stand the boys of Led Zeppelin. And nothing in his life ever prepared him for what was happening. The sounds were amplified a thousand times over his home system, a bug in a trap, screaming to be set free.
Sixty years later, he still plays his records, some labeled with a ticket stub taped to the album cover, a total of ten. His ears are damaged, his lungs smoked out. And his recollections of those years have all but bid him goodbye. But somewhere inside, he's still a guy who lived for the music and the music lived for him.

Mike 2026                                                        

Winter treats

 The woods were white with blankets of snow, the remaining leaves drifting slowly downward towards their final resting place. Silence filled the freezing air like a knife piercing your every breath and every step, the sound of crunching boots as you pushed forward to a valley where early risers grazed on the smallest patches of greenery.

You jump a little as you hear the snapping of a twig, then another closer to you, and you stop dead in your tracks, your undivided attention on high alert. Very slowly, you move forward listening, but only your own noise is audible as you shrug it off and continue.
Finally, the valley comes into view below, and you begin the descent, careful not to spill the cargo you've brought along. It isn't easy going, and you slip more than once, sending you downward much faster than you'd like. Two deer hear you and disappear into the cover of trees as you come to a stop, shaking the snow off  yourself, laughing at all the times as a kid you braved that hill  down to the valley.
It was years ago, and many winters, that you  first came here, walking towards the valley, your backpack bulging with snacks for the deer who called this place home. You unpacked your pack and set out two bowls that you filled with fresh greens you grew in your greenhouse, two apples, and two chunks of salt that they really liked. Then the waiting game began as you found the stump from last winter's visit, which you had to dig out from under the snow. It was maybe twenty yards away, so you sat and waited to see if they felt brave enough to get closer, and you didn't have to wait long.
You sat as still as a statue, even holding your breath as the deer inched closer to you. Very slowly, you held two apples in your outstretched hand, hoping they'd know you meant them no harm, just a winter's morning treat. As time passed, you tossed the apples a few feet ahead of you and put your gloves back on before frostbite set in. Then it happened: the deer walked slowly towards the apples, making a wide circle around you, sniffing the air, and finally realizing you were a friend. The munching of the apples was the only sound in the valley. You slowly got up and moved the bowls closer to them, and in seconds, they had their heads in the bowls, licking them clean, then disappearing back into the safety of the trees.
You sat for a while, the smell of the deer still in your nose, an earthy smell, a smell you liked. They wouldn't come back, he knew, not until you went back, which you did through the cold winter months. They would come out of hiding as they heard you sliding down the hill, avoiding fallen trees until you came to a stop. The deer showed themselves as they walked up to you, sniffing the pack until you opened it, giving them each an apple. They ate the greens and slowly walked to the salt licks, enjoying their winter treats.
Springtime took the snow away, and the woods were alive with the sounds of new births and lush fields of green. You set out on a springtime journey to the valley with your pack full of treats you hoped to give to the two deer you had gotten close to on their terms. You arrived at the hill leading down to the valley and stopped short of descending, as mud and more mud covered the hill. Looking down into the valley, you spotted two deer and their baby, who had gotten stuck in the mud and was calling out to his parents for help. You didn't hesitate; you hurried to the valley and, without hesitation, jumped into the mud and pulled the little one out.
Sitting on the stump, you reached into your pack and came out with two and a half apples. not knowing if the young deer was just drinking its mother's milk. The mother quickly ate the half apple, which told you the little guy wasn't doing grown-up treats. As years passed, you continued your journey to the valley, each year another baby and a growing family. Other animals who called the valley home came up to you, gently taking an apple from your hands and looking at you with big, round eyes as if saying thank you.
We buried you in that valley marked by the stump you sat on, as the deer families kept slowly coming out from the trees, looking for the man with the apples and a gentle, loving soul.

Mike 2026