On my second day after returning from the first Gulf War, I was walking across across the common grounds of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment when an authoritative voice presumably shouted to me. “Hey there, soldier! What the fuck you wearin’?” I looked around and saw The Sergeant Major and snapped to attention and waited […]
I arrived at Fort Bragg on a C-5 Galaxy from Fort Benning, and within two days I had been given every vaccination and preventive medication known to the army in an endless series of shots and pills, and they gave us an experimental pill to prevent certain death from nerve agent and reduce it to […]
I left MawMaw’s house and didn’t know where to go. I was upset and overreacting, like many 17 year olds do, but I was calm enough to know I would have to sleep somewhere that night, and eventually I’d return to school; I didn’t have to now that I was legally able to drop out, […]
I entered the 1990 Baton Rouge City Wrestling Tournament with a record of 54:13, including 34 pins. I had been pinned six times: four times by Hillary, twice by the Jesuit 145 pounder, and twice and random matches in the fall of 1989. The coaches convened, and I was seeded third. Frank Jackson was seeded […]
“Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.” ― Ronald Reagan She held the pistol in her tiny hands carefully, her slightly oversized bright red ear muffs looking ridiculously cute against her blonde hair. Behind her safety glasses, she squinted her left eye squinted and with through her left eye; […]
In November of 1989, the Belaire High School Bengals battled the Central High School Lions in the Lion’s Den, a nickname for their multisport gymnasium. They laid out their maroon colored mat between the basketball goals, and filled their side of the stadium seats with enthusiastic fans. Hillary was somewhat a local hero, an undefeated […]
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” – Revelations 21:8
My grandfather was released from prison early because his health was declining and he wasn’t expected to live much longer. He had developed diabetes and what was generalized as a heart condition, and, because he had remained addicted to amphetamines and a few depressants in prison, his overall health had deteriorated and he was thinner […]
In 1985, the summer before the space shuttle Challenger exploded, my dad picked me up from Wendy’s house and drove us to Clinton, Arkansas. The trip took three or four joints, about eight hours, and we’d pick up groceries in Clinton before driving the final 30 miles down the winding State Route #1 to his […]