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Dogonomics: Bartering With A Bernese Mountain Dog

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For your reading pleasure, here is my latest bartering experience with a Bernese Mountain Dog. On our morning walk in the woods, I discover the big Berner has a freshly decapitated deer’s head. I don’t know where he found the head. It could be a coyote or cougar kill; it may have been from a bow hunter. I don’t care. These woods are full of deer carcasses. Drought. Bluetongue (EHD). Death. The deer population has …

The Bloomsday Campaign That Never Was

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I may have told this Bloomsday story before, but I’m old and I think I’ve earned the right to repeat myself. As a graphic designer, I created advertising for Bloomsday, a local 12k race known around the world (not an exaggeration). For twenty-five years I provided advertising and marketing materials for the annual race, held in Spokane on the first Sunday in May. At this writing, the 49th running of Bloomsday is in a couple …

Two young siblings

The Storyteller

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She was always the storyteller. She could make them up on command. Anytime. Anywhere. I remember one summer afternoon in 1968, we were waiting in the car while Mom was in the grocery store. It was warm and the windows were down, letting in a cool south Seattle breeze. “See that man right there?” she asked me. “The sweaty one with the blue shirt and the frown?” “Yeah,” I said. “He just came to the …

Hostage Letter

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It’s been sixteen days since we were taken hostage. This is my secret note to the outside world. Hopefully someone will read it and spread the word of our plight. Though I have little hope for ourselves at this point, it may help others who find themselves in similar straits. Our captor is sleeping at the moment, and I have to be very careful as I’m typing not to make excessive noise, lest he wake …

A big atomic explosion at sunset

The Suicide Bombers

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This is a very short story I wrote several years back. It seems appropriate to haul it out every time – in the words of a certain congress critter – “some people do something”.