12,000+ Words

The Old Alma Mater

 GW and Nick took me to North Carolina one Saturday morning to get these apples...

Déjà vu

I walked into the gas station to grab a drink for the road trip to Virginia. It was late, almost midnight, and I have always had better luck staying awake with something liquid to keep me alert. I scanned the glass refrigerator doors looking for something high in energy and low in caffeine. But, alas, no such luck. So I settled for a cherry coke. After all, life is always better when there’s fruit involved.

I glanced at the other customers in the store as I turned for the front. An older gentleman with a ball cap was getting coffee. A mom and her daughter were up by the candy rack. The girl couldn’t have been more than eleven years old. These were the only people I observed on my way to the counter to pay for the drink in my hand. I hadn’t gone more than ten feet when it happened. Two hooded men with ski masks came bursting through the front doors, waving handguns and shouting for everyone to get down.


Have you ever heard about deja vu? It is the “feeling of having already experienced the present situation.” I was experiencing it.

A Fond Relic

When I was in the elementary grades my time outdoors was spent marching around with a toy rifle, shooting imaginary Confederates (the Civil War), Nazis and Japanese (WWII), Indians, Mexicans, and ruffians (Davy Crockett).

Those were the days. Running barefoot through the woods, my friends and siblings and I would while the days away marching from camp to camp. Pretend campfires, makeshift forts, actual foxholes, creek beds, open fields, dense woods, even a suburban backyard garden, all became distant far off places. All we needed was a good imagination, a friend or two, and our trusty guns.