Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

drove across the mountain
looks like fall
smells like fall
but this is Arizona
seasons measured by thermometer

we ain't there, yet

Summer’s clothes in August A faded green dress, ragged at the edges What an old woman might wear Respectable, yet somewhat forlorn Sad reminder of the promises Of youth and love and life forever That May had made with her sweet breath And her bright, verdant gown Gone now (as promises must go) And ...

there's nothing
quite so satisfying
as crushing the can

In July, 1964, I was a new Navy Ensign, and the gunnery officer in USS Picking (DD685), one of several WW II-era destroyers on a six-month deployment in the Pacific. Our primary assignment was to patrol the Taiwan Strait, the narrow strip of sea separating Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. It was a ...

And she still does...

First light, the gray light, Light that makes no shadows Nor relieves the darkness, Not the light of the new day But ashes of light from the old. Gray light is a memory Of a time when things were done In a distant land, Things best done In gray light, things that shun The true light of day, things ...

The barber’s face shows no expression. He is older than I by several years And a native of this village, Nothing in common with me, The foreigner, the Dai Uy in his chair Nothing in common except this haircut And the dead woman in the square. The barber glances toward the square As his scissors work...

The road to this place is long Although you never count the miles For the first one-fourth of the journey, Content to ride in the back seat Counting only the passing telephone poles Shrieking with delight at the Burma Shave signs Chanting the words to the immortal children’s song, “Are We There Yet...

Perfect example of redneck engineering. I'm still a little dizzy from the ride!

Warning! Politically incorrect statement follows!

I can't help but recall the words of my first father-in-law, about 1963:

"I married a dishwasher, I raised a dishwasher, I bought a dishwasher, and I'm not washing a dish in this house."

Nota Bene: The incident was real, the ship (the destroyer USS Picking) was real. The cloud, which I didn't know at the time, was a lenticular cloud. This happened in 1964 in the South China Sea on my first deployment as a new Navy ensign. The ship, by the way, unlike most old ships that went to the ...