Write the opening sentence (25 words or fewer) to a story based on the photo prompt below.  “I’m not kidding Bill; it felt like it was this big.” 11 words  “Okay I give; now you can take that gun out of my ribs … er … that’s not a gun.” 20 words …

I was a Marine. I am a Marine. The United States Marine Corps is a brotherhood that comes with lifetime membership. Once you go through their rigorous training and share their values, you’re in it for the long haul. You’ve all heard the expression: there are no ex-Marines ― only old Marines. Well, I are…

I’m no political scientist, in fact I find politics so uninteresting that I place politicians on my list somewhere between used car salesmen and born-again evangelists. If I pay any attention to what’s going on in Washington I just get angry and who needs that. We used to be the greatest country on earth and…

Who invented this damn language of ours and why do we insist on speaking it, or in my case, try to write it? I know. I know it wasn’t invented, it just kind of evolved. Our funny language evolved from the West German that the invaders spoke when they kicked butt in Britain a long,…

I find the old and often charming words we use to describe undefined quantities of things interesting. And even more interesting that that word is often unique to that thing or class of things. When we use the word batch we immediately know that this is a quantity of baked goodies, cookies, brownies and such…

Antoine Barada and My Search for the Truth “It was a spring day in Paris in 1780, and Michael Barada, was 20. As he sauntered along a fashionable street, very gay in the silk, ribbons and ruffles of a young French gallant of the court of Louis XVI . . .” So begins the charming…

How are we going to deal with our ever rising national debt? What can we do to lower unemployment and get people back to work? What’s our plan to wrap up things and get out of Afghanistan? Is there a fix for our broken healthcare system? How will Greece fare when they go off the…

The Winona We Never Knew I’ll bet you didn’t know that Winona Ryder was born Winona Horowitz and she was named after the town where she was born, Winona, Minnesota. And, that she grew up in a hippy commune in Northern California with no electricity. Her Godfather is Timothy Leary and her parents were close…

The English don’t eat English muffins, the Russians laugh at what we call Russian dressing and the French wouldn’t recognize a piece of French toast if you wrapped it in a crêpe and threw it at ‘em. Why is that? Because we just make this stuff up, that’s why. Nothing illustrates our pseudo-naming practice more…

Haiku is an important form of traditional Japanese poetry. Modern day haiku is a 17-syllable verse form consisting of three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables. I’m no poet, haiku or otherwise, as you’ll soon see. Life without good wine a novel without a plot so hard to endure When I drink too much…