T-Bone and the Jeep

T-BONE AND THE JEEP I started my 18-month Army hitch at the 564th MP Company in Massweiler, Germany as a tower guard, wearing a helmet and carrying an old M-14 rifle and two clips of past-use-date ammunition. But after a few months the CO, Captain “Jumpin’” Jimmy Fine (the “Jumpin’” adjective was because he kept

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Donald Trump’s poem There was a man of double deed Who sowed his garden full of seed; And when the seed began to grow, ‘Twas like a garden full of snow. When the snow began to melt, ‘Twas like a ship without a belt. When the ship began to sail, ‘Twas like a bird without

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Which Way To East Vassalboro? Another “Bert And I” Story Bert was setting in the rocker on his porch one fine fall morning when he heard what sounded like a whole hive of angry bees buzzing. He looked down the hill and there was one of those foreign convertible sports cars, painted bright red, moving

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Splat

Splat Humphty Drumphty wanted a wall. Humphty Drumphty had a great fall. All the right wing-nuts and White-Power men Couldn’t put Humphty together again.

Hooking Up

Hooking Up The Bar None was always lively on Friday nights, but because it was Halloween, the joint was really jumping. All the tables were taken by people in costumes: glamorous witches in pointed silk hats, wearing black lipstick and eyeliner, sat with elegant vampires in white tie and tails, their faces dead white, some

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Oldie

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by

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Hooking Up

Hooking Up The Bar None was always lively on Friday nights, but because it was Halloween, the joint was really jumping. All the tables were taken by people in costumes: glamorous witches in pointed silk hats, wearing black lipstick and eyeliner, sat with elegant vampires in white tie and tails, their faces dead white, some

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Siri Strikes “In one point five miles, take a left onto R.T. 7,” Siri said. The driver of the 2019 Subaru Outback passed the intersection as if she hadn’t even spoken. “Recalculating route,” she said patiently. “At the next roundabout, take the first exit to the left onto Elm Street.” The overweight man behind the

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Socialism

The following is another excerpt from “Bert and I,” a collection of Down East stories collected and written down by Marshall Dodge and Bob Bryn in the 1950s and 1960s. With all the blather from self-appointed political explainers about Bernie Sanders’ Presidential bid as a Democratic Socialist, I thought it might be useful to hear

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