Many Ways To Go

My loyal readers, last night during fiction writer group meeting we were given a writing prompt for next month that dealt with the end of human existence on this planet.  

Here is my personal thought on the subject. We as a species are mortal. We all will eventually meet our personal demise, whether alone or in some horrendously dramatic public spectacle that will be viewed by millions of people around the world. That being said our experiences of the past tells us that the end of the world has come many times to many people throughout history. 

I wish to gauge from you three stories that I will write and the most popular I will present to the fiction writers’ group next month: The first one I’m going to call Asteroid. These of course will be something might occur in our future, though the dinosaurs experienced their extinction from such an event over 60 million years ago. The second I will name Pompeii that historically dealt with the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the pyroclastic flow that killed hundreds of people in 79 AD. Finally, third story will be about the tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011. 

Since it is fictional, the characters are products of my imagination, and with the exception of the first story, will be nearly as accurate as I can make it using search engines and other reliable resources. So, with further ado, let’s begin with the first story. 

Asteroid 

I awoke from a terrible dream. I can’t make heads nor tails of it except I felt myself flying and the exhilarating feeling suddenly turned to terror as I saw a deep cavernous hole suddenly appear and I was sucked inside Earth itself. 

I’m Michael Cunningham of Rochester New York. I live in a basement at my mom’s house after Dad left. I work at McDonalds and don’t own my own car. I don’t even drive, relying solely on public transport to get me to work and back. My gen z architype, maybe even stereotype is me to a tee.  

I reached beside my bed and opened a gallon jug of water and drank down a goodly amount, spilling some onto my t-shirt and mouth. My hands still shook from that dream. I crawled out of bed and went upstairs, grabbing my I-phone 14. The house was dark. Mom was at work working for the hospital as a lab technician or something of that sort. 

I turned on the app and watched Sports Center on ESPN. The talking heads spilled double-speak monologues of this team or that team or that sport or this sport, using platitudes, witticisms, quips and simple phrases to keep us dummies entertained and describing the play-by-play highlights as if our teams were the most important in the universe. 

I was about to nod off when someone else suddenly and for no rational reason began telling us of an asteroid coming here to this planet called Earth. It had somehow ricocheted off one of Jupiter’s moons, and like a careen of a cue ball off the six was barreling toward this planet at four hundred times the speed of sound; really fucking fast. 

“Is this for real?” I asked myself. I was thinking but not fully aware of what in the hell I was supposed to do. I wondered briefly if this was what those poor dinosaurs must have felt or thought just as the asteroid that slammed into the Gulf of Mexico. It had to have sucked to be them on that fateful day 65 million years ago. 

“Where is this supposed to hit? Do I have time to pack my bags? Will The Russians launch their nuclear missiles at this thing? Do they have time? Do we have time? What time is the dooms day clock set at?”  

I asked myself all these questions while this talking head journalist with his sober expression sat behind his anchor desk and calmly told us we were all going to die in a manner of hours if not minutes. 

I called Mom to see what she wanted me to do.  

Obviously, cooking chicken soup was out of the question. 

“Mom,” I called her in a frantic, nearly panic-stricken voice. “Have you seen the news?” 

“Are you smoking pot again? I’m at work, in a lab in a basement. I don’t have time to watch TV.” Then there was a brief pause. “Why? What’s going?” She read my voice like a deaf person read lips. 

“I just saw this special report of an asteroid coming to Earth.” 

“You are smoking pot. I knew it! Do me a favor, quit that shit and get yourself a real job. You’re wasting my time with…” The connection went suddenly dead. For some reason I glanced outside through the bay window that faced south on our east to west street and saw this wonderful sunrise. The prettiest sunrise I’ve ever seen… 

Say Hey Kid 

“When I broke in, I didn’t know many people by name,” Mays once explained, “so I would just say, ‘Say, hey,’ and the writers picked that up.” 

The world lost another icon of sports and our own collective memories. Willie Mays died on Tuesday and as Barry Bonds stated on X, “I’m speechless and devastated.”  

For people in my generation, he was the greatest, Tom Brady had nothing on him. Only a select few players could imitate or by some fluke of fate come close to catching “the catch.” Even he didn’t think that was his greatest catch back in 1955 against the Cleveland Indians during game two of the World Series. 

What seemed to set him apart from others of that time period was his charisma, his personality, and his humanity. Though he could have been as bitter as any black man born in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow segregation. He chose not to be that way, which made him such an incredible human being. 

This weekend the Giants are playing St Louis at the ballpark Willie got his feet wet, Rickwood Field. That I’m sure will now be as much a memorial honoring Willie, as it had planned to be to honor the legend himself, who on Sunday declined the invitation to attend because his health was failing. 

However, the outcome of the game, whether St. Louis or the Giants prevail, it is more than apparent we all lost the greatest of all time. I will remember him up to the day I breathe my last breath. 

Happy Flag Day 

There are things—historical facts—overlooked by the dusty books of American History that even I didn’t know about Flag Day. 

A teacher from a small town in Wisconsin asked his students to draft an essay of what they saw in the American flag back in 1885. After that it took two Presidential orders from Woodrow Wilson and Harry S Truman to make it something of an observance, though for many, it’s overlooked. 

Like many who went to elementary school, the notion that Betsy Ross designed and created the first “Old Glory,” is a great American myth. Francis Hopkinson, one of the delegates of the First Continental Congress was actually the person responsible. 

Flag Day is as much about we view our country and ourselves than about a piece of cloth stitched together to form our national symbol. After all, all flags around the world are symbols of each country’s national pride. We Americans have a different view, as I’m sure those citizens there view our flag for good or ill. 

For me, I grew up pledging allegiance to the flag. Every person in this country has done so. Our Constitution doesn’t mention that in their articles, yet it is one of many things in our collective nationalism that we adhere to because it’s expected of our citizenry to honor our symbol that represents so much to so many. 

Being a veteran and older and wiser, I have a view of our flag that might differ from others. When I see that flag, I remember those who fought and died for what it represented, a choice of freedom or despotism when we had to fight for democracy in two horrific world wars in the twentieth century.  

I also remembered how we had to fight to save the union from forces of slavery and what they thought was the right path for our country. The move westward that for right or wrong gave us the land needed to prosper and grow. 

I remember after 9/11 the destroyed World Trade Center Buildings, turned to rubble and yet our flag somehow still survived, as we all did. Do I need to say more? It’s not nationalism that moves me to look at our flag as it’s being raised that I salute it with pride, but the honor I have of serving this country because it’s my patriotic duty to do so. 

The Price of Patriotism 

Back when I was in the Army National Guard, which seems like a lifetime ago, someone asked me how I could be in the military and still call yourself a democrat. At that time, I couldn’t tell him what Adlai Stevenson so eloquently expressed. I actually told him then that I joined not out of a sense of patriotism or call for service but as a way of making money part time while going to college. 

But, as the years rolled by and I left college, pursuing my writing career, which took various turns along the way, I got promoted, demoted and promoted again, and this journey lasted twenty-three years.  

The weekend following 9/11 we were fundraising for the victims, one of my compadres expressed that country western musicians were more patriotic than rock musicians. I wasn’t in the mood to argue his point or opinion. I just thought that maybe he was dropped on his head too many times when he was a kid. 

I didn’t think of myself as a flag waving, jingoist who looked at others with disdain and thought only of my country alone. I always looked at other nations and their people as a place to go and visit someday, take in their beauty, culture and sights that makes them proud of their land. 

I also read a lot of history and learned about others’ societies and had more cosmopolitan belief than many of my brothers in arms or even fellow countrymen I worked with or came in contact with. 

There is confusion between what one considers patriotism and nationalism. They are not the same. Nationalism is where one’s belief is rooted in their country no matter what. It’s a take or leave it attitude. Something I don’t agree with. Patriotism is an idea where we cherish our country, right or wrong because we who have served know the great sacrifice involved.  

Patriotism is not a political ideal or a philosophy of conservative regularity in their cause. When someone else asked me why I joined the Army National Guard years later, I told him I felt it was a way of proving my duty to serve even though I’m a democrat. Patriotism is a credo to serve. 

Recently, within the last twenty years my attitudes have changed to one that sees love of country as, like Stevenson stated, “steady dedication of a lifetime.” It isn’t flag waving in the back of lifted four-wheel-drive trucks that displays not just their belief in country but belief in a single man. 

I don’t know if their patriotism is rooted into something of a knee-jerk response or a culmination of years of living here and seeing its greatness through many lenses. While I watched those true patriots stand at attention on Normandy beach eighty years following that fateful landing, their weathered and worn faces show us what patriotism is truly about. 

A Two State Solution 

Let me see here, since I was born there was one Israel, and the bad people were the Arabs and the PLO who demanded a free and independent Palestine. So, then we get all of these talks and bargaining, and one thing leads to another where finally something tangible appears accomplished and then consequences, both covert and overt happen that derails this entire process. 

It makes perfectly good sense that a deal of a two-state solution become a reality, but Extremists Israelis and Palestinians do not want this to happen. It has become apparent by the timeline of the past eighty years that peace is only an illusion that the extremists wish to avoid.  

Both sides, the extreme right represented by Hamas are hell-bent on the destruction of Israel. Members of the extreme right in Israel have same opinion about those who live in West Bank and Gaza, seemingly prefectures of what could be a Palestinian state.  

Moderation apparently has no voice in this discussion, although moderation would eventually bring about peace this region needs, but unfortunately are silenced by those radicals who speak loudest. 

The adage that one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter holds quarter here where it has been a contentious ongoing conflict, not just recently but going as far back as Biblical times. Their voices scream and they pound their chests because now in the extremists’ mindset, there must be only one nation: Palestine without Jews or Israel without Muslims, Palestinians, or anyone else not Jewish. 

I want the two-state solution, but as I stated earlier after the October 7th fiasco—one man’s massacre is another man’s victory—I am neither Arab nor Israeli, Muslim or Jew, my point of view is moot to those who are and look upon us Westerners with contempt and scorn. 

Awkward Times 

As I have mentioned in previous blogs my personal growth was retarded, not because I had a mental condition where I was incapable of learning, but because of my speech impediment and sheer laziness on my part that before I knew it, I was three years behind in my schooling. 

It wasn’t bad, especially when I finally got out of the Special Education program, I had spent a good portioned of my early learning at, to find myself in regular school with “normal kids.” 

Here’s where it became interesting and awkward for me in that time when at twelve years old, I entered fourth grade and also started puberty. Can you imagine my embarrassment upon going into the restroom and seeing preteen boys who weren’t blessed as I was when I noticed I had hair down there and they didn’t. Needless to say, I went last or used the toilet stalls for privacy. 

There were more disadvantages later on, especially junior, and senior high schools where I could not ask a girl out on dates because I was already legally an adult. The girls were at least fifteen to eighteen years old, and anything more than a casual get together at the local Dairy Queen, was more than likely illegal, so I never bothered. 

That of course, caused another issue that plagued me later, rumors that I was homosexual because I hung out with guys and not girls. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. I was and still am 100 percent heterosexual. The rumors, I suspect were created by those who didn’t like me and considered me lacking somehow because of my cleft lip and pallet, my age in relation to everyone else in my class, and my own awkwardness, lack of confidence with the opposite sex that most likely motivated these buzzes. 

As Goebbels, Hitler propaganda chief famously stated, if one told a lie enough everyone would believe it as truth. Hence, years after I had graduated from high school, and even after coming back from college, the gossip of my sexuality persisted. Out of both frustration from these allegations and my own conflict with my roommate of that time—also a man—I moved away from West Richland, ending up in Pasco and later, Kennewick before ultimately coming up to Spokane in 1998. 

Cactus Flower 

I lost my cousin Ron yesterday and I will definitely miss him, not for his life experiences, though there were many, one experience that we shared in 1969 while visiting our grandmother, a movie we went to called Cactus Flower. 

Uncle Hal had brought Ron with him. I can’t recall if he brought his daughters too, but at any rate there we were two cousins related by the blood of our grandmother who gave birth to Hal and Mom, staring at each other, a pair of toe headed boys. I had crew cut blonde hair and his was only slightly longer brown hair. He was a couple inches taller and looked stronger than me. Upon the introduction he cut the ice by asking, “You wanna go for a walk?” 

He of course, like all my Easley clan had a distinctive southern drawl that definitely made it known how his cornbread was buttered. 

“Sure,” I replied, and we walked together into Childress, a small Texas community set near the panhandle. 

“Pa said y’all from Warshington?” 

“It’s pronounced ‘Washington,’” I corrected. 

“What part?”  

I glanced at him before replying, “The eastern part, called East Wenatchee. We don’t live in the capital, you know.” 

“Pa said you probably talk funny too. He said you was born with a hare lip like your ma?” 

I didn’t like admitting that part of my life. The cleft lip and pallet made me talk in a nasally tonal sound where my esses sounded like a lazy Esh-like sound. “Yeah, that’s right,” I admitted. 

“You talk funny, but I think I like you.” 

“It’s hot out here, isn’t it?” 

“Sure is, but it doesn’t get hot up there in East Wenatchee?” 

“No, not nearly as hot up there,” I replied as we continued going into town and along the main street where we happened inside a store. I never paid it a Nevermind as we wondered about the shelves and then went by a grandfatherly looking man wearing glasses standing behind an antique cash register that I figured was as old he was. 

“How old are you?” I asked Ron. 

“Twelve, how about you?”  

“I’ll be eleven on September 2nd.” 

“No kidding?” 

“I don’t kid about that. You got brothers or sisters?” 

“I have two sisters. They’re both younger than me.” 

“Same here. One is adopted and the other Mom had almost two years ago,” I told him as we left the store and continued down the street, purposefully missing the cracks on the sidewalk we walked on. 

“What grade are you in?” 

Again, another personal question I didn’t feel comfortable about answering honestly. “They have a movie theater here too?” We stopped at the marquee of a theater with the colored illustrated cinema advertisements showing us young and impressionable boys promotions of upcoming movie fare.  

“Y’all wanna go see one?” 

“You think our parents will allow it?” 

“All we got to do is ask,” he replied logically. 

“What movie do you think they’ll let us watch?” I saw one that seemed a bit risqué as the advertisement showed what appeared protests and white woman wearing only a bra and a black man apparently manhandling her. The other showed Goldie Hawn and the movie Cactus Flower. “I like her,” I exclaimed. “She’s funny on ‘Laugh-In.’” I pointed at her. 

“It’s playing tonight,” Ron stated as he read the billboard. “It starts at 6:30.” He stared briefly at the billboard, then announced, “Well, let’s get back to Grandma’s and see what Pa and Aunt Mary says.” 

His use of him titling my mom and aunt took me aback briefly. I nodded and we headed back. Just before we reached the house, hearing the blowing fan of the swamp cooler, we got sidetracked by a young neighbor girl, wearing shorts and light red polka-dot blouse and flip-flops. She was about my age, and he was as smooth as Robert Redford when he said, “Hey there, what’s your name?” 

“Sue Ellen, what’s yours?” She smiled coyly. I felt like odd kid out here as I bashfully took a step back and they proceeded to talk. 

“Ron Easley, and this here is Jerry. He’s from East Wenatchee, Warshington. Don’t be shy! Say hey to her.” 

“Hi,” I said with my head down, feeling many shades of red flash upon my young face. 

“Y’all related to Ms. Lulu?” She asked. 

“That’s our grandma,” Ron exclaimed. “Where you live at?” 

“Right here. That’s my house,” she replied. 

“We’re gonna ask to go see a movie. You want to come too?” Ron was all over this and I just let him be the man about town with this cute little girl. 

“That’ll be fun! Wait here and I’ll go ask my ma.” She then ran up to the porch, through a screen door that slammed with purpose and her screaming “Ma! Can I go to the movie with Ms. Lulu’s grandsons? They’re cousins!” 

“So long as it’s okay with Ms. Lulu,” we heard her mother reply with just as loud a voice as her daughter’s. 

I looked side-long at Ron a moment hoping his assertive personality carried over to his father and my mother. Dad wasn’t a problem. He rarely said no. It was Mom I had to curry favor with to be given permission to go anywhere. And this adventure would be a first for me. I never went to a movie at night with kids my age. 

“Hey Pa!” He called out just as we walked inside Grandmas cool house. Not only was the swamp cooler going hundred miles per hour, but she also had portable fans blowing and circulating in all directions. 

“What is it?” Uncle Hal asked. 

“Cousin Jerry and me and Sue Ellen, a girl across the street want to go to a movie at the theater. Can we go?” 

“You gonna be in charge?” He asked. 

“Yes sir,” Ron replied puffing out his chest. 

“Mary Jane, are you okay with this?” 

Mom seemingly took humor in this for some reason and giggled before telling me, “You do what your cousin tells you. Don’t be naughty or you’ll get a spanking. Am I clear?” 

“Yes, mom,” I replied soberly. After all, she showed me the paddle hanging on hook near the pantry the first time we came here in 1966. 

After dinner, we dressed in our clean pants and t-shirts and cleaner sneakers. Sue Ellen showed up around that time and we sat in the parlor. I had by this time relaxed my disposition and was teasing the young girl while Ron told stories of how many different bases he and his family had gone to since he was born. 

Then, Uncle Hal and Dad took us to the theater, giving each enough for the movie and an extra dollar for snacks. I watched the movie and though there were a few funny scenes, most of the dialog went over my head, and I’m sure over the heads of my cousin and our girl friend. We sat through and left the theater. Outside was still hot though it was dark. 

A car horn blasted, and we turned to see Mom and Grandma sitting in Dad’s car waiting for us to come out. We piled into the car and none of us knew the future ahead of us or what fate awaited us. 

Sue Ellen died fifteen years ago. Breast cancer took her and yesterday Cousin Ron went to see our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Rest in Peace, cousin.

Writings Update 

My loyal fans I’m giving you an update on my writings thus far. I’m slowly making progress on my African American cowboy western, Nate Turner. He’s done the runaway slave, worked as a stevedore at a Cincinnati dock, joined the Civil War, became a cowboy herding cattle up the Chism Trail to Kansas City and is now making his life as a family man in Miles City, Montana. 

I received some good news from another hybrid publisher called Atmosphere Press. They want to publish Dog Named Boo.  It’s the first book of the Mark Marteau Mystery Series, which has as the protagonist a young man who has a past that’s coming back to haunt him big time. Mark Marteau is an FBI agent who handles this case that starts years earlier as the shooting of this man’s dog named Boo. 

I’ve been working on editing my manuscripts now since this new project has taken so long. The last one I sent back to my beta reader to check is called Deitrich. This one is about a German expatriate living in Cuba framed for assassinating the head of Cuba’s State Security. The Tequila Sunrise detectives of Pedro Lopez, Manuel Morales, and Rachael Brodzinski are asked to solve this murder. 

That’s about it for now my loyal readers. Hopefully, in a few months I can update you some more on my progress. Thank you all for your continued support. 

Red Dress Event

Today is Missing Indigenous Peoples’ day. There’s a display dedicated at the casino I work for. There are red dresses hanging along a wire line that gives homage to all the young girls and women murdered or missing in the United States. In Washington State alone there are seventy-three such victims. 

I have a manuscript that deals with this very topic, called Luke Warm. The premise is that the main character stumbles upon a murdered woman. She was a Native private detective and her partner Nick Roberts helps Luke Warm, a local television reporter investigate who done the murder. Later it’s revealed that a Native Elder is responsible for having young girls abducted and auctioned off to become sex slaves. 

Human trafficking is plain wrong. Slavery in any form has been banned worldwide, yet unscrupulous people with amoral beliefs system continue doing this because it’s another way for them to make money off the suffering of others. It is hoped that those of us with the moral resolve will help in some way to alleviate this spectacle forever. 

Another Incident in Northern Idaho

Excerpt from A Man’s Passion: “Passion, if used wisely, is a good thing, but Pa, his passion was sinful and hateful, as you shall see.”

My loyal readers I brought up this passage from the book I wrote, not because I take pride in my literary deeds, but because an incident occurred last week that pretty much reinforced how many people who don’t live in this part of the Pacific Northwest just assume is par for the course. Trust me, it’s not.

On Thursday, March 21st, a group of University of Utah women basketball players walked to a local restaurant to dine when a pair of men, driving lifted pickup trucks, revved their engines and drove passed them yelling out racist language at these young student athletes.

I’m an adamant anti racist and antifa as well. I don’t ever condone narrow minded and bigoted people who express hateful language, especially toward young ladies who don’t deserve such abuse. I wish I could have been there on that street witnessing this childish behavior. Of course, I also wish I had Shaquille Oneal’s or Mike Tyson’s size to match my bravado so that I could have told those two individuals what I thought of their behavior.

As it is, I doubt they can read past the fourth-grade level so that they could not read my own disappointment in their juvenile behavior. Granted, they are the minority here, yet these kinds of people get most of the press around here too.

These kinds of people aren’t representative of North Idaho or Eastern Washington for that matter. All they represent, will ever represent is pure and unadulterated evil. It is my deepest wish these kinds of people didn’t breathe our air or polluted our airwaves with their hate.

But it is this attitude, this passion that inspired me to write A Man’s Passion in the first place. I wanted to expose to the masses this minority view of hatefulness. I hope that one day these kinds of people will never be a problem again.