Tag: childhood
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Shooting a Chickadee
George Orwell wrote an essay, set during his days as a policeman in colonial Burma, about having to shoot an elephant, a beast that, by the time Orwell arrived with his gun, was doing no one any harm. Orwell, as the armed white man representing the Crown, knew he must do something. He fired, repeatedly,…
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An Undelivered Speech at the Turkish Friendship Dinner–Along with What I Did Say
In a couple days, the Turkish Cultural Center in Manchester, NH, is giving me an award. This is very gratifying, if undeserved. They offered me three or four minutes to speak, and I will likely use that time. I don’t often speak from a script, so any remarks I make will be extemporaneous, entertaining and…
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Silence is Golden; Slumber is Final
The first time I went fishing with my grandfather was the last time I did anything at all with him, except for avoid his gaze, composed as it was of anger and disgust. I was about four, although physically I looked much younger. As a child, one of my goals was to be a midget…
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Wouldn’t It?—Notes on the Texas Church Terrorist Attack
I write this with shame radiating from my body and soul. As an American, as a veteran, as a human being, I’ve just committed an act I’d never ever pictured myself doing. Living in the Great North Woods in a Tiny White Box, I don’t have running water, so I can’t take the shower I…
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“But He’s a Muslim”
Next month I’m being awarded a prize, the Community Service Award, from the Turkish Cultural Center in Manchester, at their annual Friendship Dinner. I’m honored. I’m pleased. I’m flabbergasted. My first thought was they had the wrong man, but since they’d sent the invitation to my post office box in Pittsburg, that seemed unlikely. According…
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A Fable
A certain man was a gardener, specializing in beautiful perennial gardens. Discarding modern, efficient techniques like fertilizer, irrigation and rotation, the man instead relied on intuition, caring and a search for perfection. For miles around, people came to see each year’s garden, observing the beauty of both change and continuity. The man was pleased to…
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A Vietnam Veterans Death–“And of the dead, speak only truth”
How do you say goodbye to a drunk who didn’t get it? How do you pay proper respect to a man whose life seems to have been devoted to telling lies and manufacturing more lies to provide evidence for the first round? How do you miss a man whose corpse you discovered 10 months ago,…
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Tiny White Box Profiled in Vagabond Monthly–Libel Suit to Follow
I’ve always wanted to be interviewed by Rolling Stone, the New Yorker or, even, Foreign Affairs Quarterly. (In this last, I’d hoped to outline my vision for a future Myanmar that would begin with changing its name to WeUsedtobeBurma.) Instead, the home I live in is now featured in another, less well-known magazine—Vagabond Monthly: The…
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Art Fights Back: Chuck Palahniuk and Me
Life imitates art, but it’s not often art gets a chance to fight back. Here’s the true story of this picture. Chuck Palahniuk (pictured above in glasses) has written a number of books I (pictured above in terror) think are pretty great, including Fight Club (yes, THAT Fight Club), Choke and my personal favorite Survivor,…
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A Fairy-Tale Memoir
A memoir in sonnets would be a great thing. While I’ve written sonnets, both Petrarchan and Shakespearean (in form, not talent), 14 lines seems too short to explain a decision to leave a job I loved to live in a tiny white box, much less a marriage, its slow demise and its aftermath. Hell, I…
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Doing Time in Waukesha–A Prisoners Story
I’m not a for-real criminal, but I’ve done time. Three bids in fact. If being in a cell can be called a bid and if a total of about five hours in jail cells can be called time. Let me explain. I’ve been locked up three times. In each case, I was guilty, and in…
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If You Don’t Want to Think, Don’t Read This
A few weeks ago, I was a guest on Peter Biello’s public radio show. In this space I talked about how Peter, instead of asking to recommend five books, had asked me for some examples of writing prompts. It turns out the prompts, more than anything I said, were of interest to some folks. Full…
Tiny White Box--Thoughts on Life, Death, Recovery, and Other Mundane Topics 