The Real Fast Sooner Hound

The Real Fast Sooner Hound A traveling salesman was on his way to Tulsa when he saw a man standing by the highway with his thumb out. The man had a scruffy, raw-boned long-legged dog with him, but the salesman liked dogs, and there was plenty of room for the animal in the back seat

Guns

GUNS At a November benefit auction awhile ago in New Hampshire I paid $300 for a morning of shotgunning followed by what was billed as a gourmet lunch. The auction was in a good cause, and unfortunately there was an open bar. In my defense, the kayak we’d bid on went for more than we

The Land

The Land The dream companion, me, but more persuasive, whispered the cantrip on the first night I was afraid to sleep, after my sixtieth birthday when my final friends, all aging, all some way bereft, came down, a-down a-down-o mocking me, gently, but mocking all the same. “Come on,” he said, this voice from the

Dead Low Water

Dead Low Water It was September 8th, my birthday, and I was spending it at my family’s rambling old hilltop vacation house on Cape Cod. I got up very early and descended the two flights of back stairs from the attic bedroom that had been mine when I was a child. Arthritis had recently begun

What The Dead Don’t Know

Abigail Shatten was losing patience with her brother Nathaniel. It was getting on for winter, and the old fool hadn’t begun to split fresh stovewood. “Cold snap comin’”, she said. “If you don’t get crackin’, we’re gonna freeze by Christmas.” “Quit your naggin’, Abby,” he grunted. “Plenty of time for that. We got enough for

The Land

The Land The dream companion, me, but more persuasive, whispered the cantrip on the first night I was afraid to sleep, after my sixtieth birthday when my final friends, all aging, all some way bereft, came down, a-down a-down-o mocking me, gently, but mocking all the same. “Come on,” he said, this voice from the

Casting Couch

Casting Couch Back in the Sixties, when I was starting out as an actor, I’d certainly heard of this particular piece of compromising furniture. But as I made the rounds of auditions, I had never encountered it, even metaphorically. The producers and directors I met were thoroughly businesslike: a glance at my photo and résumé,

More Bad Jokes

MORE BAD JOKES Dave Gardner, originally from Tennessee, was a comedian who specialized in southern vernacular humor, and enjoyed considerable popularity during the 1950s and early ‘60s, due to the recordings he made of his routines. Many of his stories haven’t worn very well, because he was a thoroughgoing racist, and eventually became a sort