New story: Splenda in the Grass

Splenda in the Grass Two score and three stone ago, I was a young college student at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. It was there that I tasted love for the first time. I spent my first two nights on … Continue reading

Kirkus Reviews Gives Nice Review of My Humor Book

Kirkus Reviews just gave I Talk Slower Than I Think a very nice review.  Check it out. When it comes to painkillers, the range of viagra samples australia drugs is the same in Europe and america this most seen disease. … Continue reading

New Poem: Please Pass the Sweet Milk

  Please Pass the Sweet Milk 2021, Dean Bonner   Unpasteurized, no need to parboil To suit my idea of purity Or give predictable consistency Unhomogenized – no need to separate The cream that gives flavor One-dimensional, two…three…more? Not for … Continue reading

New Story: Open Your Heart

The Doomsday Diaries contest writing prompts were simply, “dystopian,” and “must include a heart-shaped locket.”  I had fun with it.

Open Your Heart

2021, Dean Bonner

 

“I’d like to teach the world to sing,” Caroline complained to her grandmother.

The old woman stopped stirring the pot for a moment.  “No one sings now.  No reason to.  Go on up and tend the sheep.”

“Sweet Caroline!”  The nervous sheep in the teen’s charge answered before she could, “Ba-ba-ba!”

Then Caroline saw why the sheep were skittish.  Two intruders in sheep skins were advancing on all fours toward the sheep and the huts beyond.

Wolves sprang from the tree line, taking the humans as the easier prey.  The white fleece turned deep crimson.  The wolves left with what meat they could carry.

The grandmother who had called to her caught up to Caroline.  She looked down at the tangled mess.  “Hmmpf.  It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

“Come home with me.  Shirley will stand guard.”

Caroline ducked under the flap of hide that served as the door to their hut.  She stirred the thin metal pot that an ancestor had hammered.  “Where’s the beef?” she asked Grandmother.

“The last of it is gone.  Your brother knows a guy he can trade knives with for some.  He went to Jared.”

Grandmother placed a hand on each of Caroline’s shoulders, looking her dead in the eyes, into her soul.

“I have something for you, Caroline.  Something ancient.  You have come of age.”

She pulled a chain from a leather pouch, careful not to tangle it.  She lifted it over Caroline’s head.

Looking down, Caroline saw a heart that shone like the full moon.

“It’s beautiful, Grandmother.”

When she fingered it, the heart opened.  The insides were dull and black, obscuring some symbols she couldn’t decipher even if the tarnish didn’t obscure them.

“What does it mean, Grandmother?”

“We don’t know.  It’s from a long time ago.”

A head poked into the gloom.  “The Chief summons Caroline.”

The bit of blinding light from the flap was gone before her eyes adjusted to see who it was.

Caroline stood before a thin middle-aged man sitting on a metal throne.  The elders said that the throne had been pried from a flightless bird, one left by Yusef.  A throne that had cost five hundred sheep when it was new.  It looked uncomfortable.

The Chief looked Caroline in the eye.  He sized her up.  A strong girl, just become of age, but not a warrior.  He shat upon the ground through the ring of a throne that indeed bore the name USAF.

“Girl, you’ll be a woman soon,” he boomed in a voice that shook the small crowd of villagers.  She looked like she had the mettle to make the journey.  And all the others were too old or too young.

Caroline drew herself up to her full height.  The Chief nodded to an elder, who brought forth some metal clothing.

“About a day’s march from here is the village of Datopia.  Some of our ancestors strayed there in The Troubled Times.”

Caroline wasn’t used to being the center of anything, especially attention.

“We need you to find your brother.  It is a dangerous trek over the mountain.”

As the Chief spoke, the elder strapped metal skin over her clothing.

“Find him and bring home the bacon.  And the beef.”

She was amply covered from ribs to ankles.  The elder snapped a breastplate around her.  He fumbled with something behind her, a lock of some sort.  “Chief, a bit less than a day.  Eighteen hours, that’s the best we can do.  After that it falls off, leaving her exposed and vulnerable.”  The elder slipped a hammer into her hand.
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The Chief continued, “The hammer holds magic.  It carries the name of Yusef on the handle.  That hammer alone cost The Old Ones a hundred goats.  Your forefathers took it from one of the birds before they became flightless.”

The Chief picked the wax from his ear.  “See The Oracle to prepare yourself, and good speed.”

The armor was light enough that it wasn’t uncomfortable.  Caroline moved a hand across its surface.  Her eyes widened.  “It has POCKETS!”  She felt ready to go anywhere, face any challenge or challenger.

She collected herself enough to ask the question.  “Chief, this place…Datopia-– is it real, or is it memories?”

“Oh, it is real enough.”

The Chief finished his bowel movement, and a villager brought him a drink as he sat.

“Should you encounter bandits along your path, know that the ones outside this village are set apart by their left-handedness.  Use your knife, and swipe right.  If all else fails, use The Hammer.  If you get injured, call upon Shunnarah.”

A worried Caroline ducked into the stone house of the Oracle.  “What will I do—what will I see?” she asked the old woman.

“Nice getup,” the old woman sniffed.  She read the bones of some mice and frowned.  She studied her reflection in the glass screen of an ancient box, wiping at the dust on it.

“To reach the place in your mind’s eye, you will cross a mountain.  But the journey is not that difficult.  You will come to a riverbank–there’s a ford in your future.  Your destination lies just beyond.  Bring me back some hamburger and some potatoes.”

“What of this amulet that Grandmother gifted me?” asked Caroline, fingering the heavy metal.  She shook her hair briskly about to untangle it.  In doing so, she banged her head on the wall.  “Oww!”

“To get from our Distopia to your destination in Datopia, you must pass through Fruitopia.  Buy me some of the rolls of dried fruit they sell there.”  The Oracle pressed a dozen corroded coins into her hand.  They bore the visage of a smiling rat upon their face.

Caroline’s head reeled as she set out.  She’d never been beyond sight of her village.  But they trusted her to make this important trip.

The journey was uneventful.  She passed grubby farmers toiling in their fields.  They waved at the strange girl and kept hacking at the soil.  The mountain turned out to be a big hill, really, and the ford was only deep enough to wet her to her knees.  She was careful not to fall on the slippery rocks in the metal suit.  She couldn’t swim.

Caroline saw the smoke of cook fires as she clambered into Datopia.  Her brother was chasing back and forth with some boys his age.  He ran to his sister, out of breath.  “Did Grandmother send you?  I’m about ready to leave, anyway.  Hey, what’s that around your neck?”

A smithy looked up from his work.  He walked over to Caroline and frowned.  He gently lifted the heavy locket, rubbing the heart between his fingers.  “Where did you get this?”

“From my grandmother, handed down from The Old Ones.  Do you know the symbols on it?”

Caroline opened the locket to reveal the tarnished inside.

The smithy’s eyes widened.  “I’ll get the descendants of Victoria to tell it to you.  It was her secret.”  He was visibly shaken.  “Have some bread while you wait.”

Caroline took the crust of bread from him and dipped it into a bowl next to the loaf.  Grease.  Yuck.  “I can’t believe it’s not butter,” she mumbled.  She spat out the bread and tossed the remaining crust into a bush.

He returned with a woman in close-fitting clothes.

“Let’s get it open and cleanse it,” the woman said.  The frail woman went to the maker of wine and returned with a cup of spoilt wine that had turned to vinegar.  She dipped the heart into the cup and rubbed the silver.  “I cannot say its meaning, but Auntie Millicent Goodreads.”

“Millicent!  Come look!”

A weathered woman arose from her perch in front of a hut and ambled over.

“I’ve not seen one in a very long time.”  Auntie gently opened the locket.

Millicent rubbed the vinegar against the metal, wearing away the tarnish.  The silver shone bright, but the engraved message was dark.

She peered at the first inscription through watery eyes.  “I’ve been trying to reach you, it says.”

Auntie studied the construction of the heart.  “But wait, there’s more!” she rasped.  “It’s in several sections.”

Millicent’s gnarled fingers were slow.  She rubbed and squinted.  Caroline wished she would get on with it.  She wanted to get home and fling off the breastplate.

Millicent took a thin knife and slipped it betwixt the grooves of the amulet.  Another section swung away, revealing another message.  She polished some more.

“About your car’s extended warranty.”

####

I’ll Fly Away

I’ll Fly Away 2020, Dean Bonner The spinning disc glided along the beach, caught an updraft at the hill, and came right back to the grinning thrower.  Just like the boomerangs we had heard about.  It was magical.  As quickly … Continue reading

To Bee or Not to Bee

To Bee or Not to Bee

2020, Dean Bonner

The people bunched up on the hill wanted to teach us to sing in perfect harmony.

The tarpaper shack was humming with activity.  The thin paneling that Daddy and his brothers nailed up had sealed out the wind pretty well, and now they let us kids paint the interior doors.  Jake and I  painted the vertical planks of our bedroom door in alternating colors.

The peach trees bloomed a fluffy white.  Short trees, about head high, the kind with small but sweet Georgia peaches that were only fit to each fresh.  They were too soft to cut and can.  Old Mrs. Brown in the farmhouse next door was planting peas in her flour sack dress.

Outside, a magnificent spring replaced the cutting winter bite.  It had been so cold that big oak trees along Davis Street split asunder as sub-zero temperatures caught the sap rising just as spring opened one eye to the alarm clock.

With the vines and bushes still bare, we stumbled upon a discarded can of powdered eggs at the barbed wire fence where the privet jungle that separated the shack from the landlord’s house over on Church Street began.  The can looked to be in good shape.  We had never heard of powdered eggs.  Maybe somebody bought them at an Army surplus store or something.  We had powdered scrambled eggs for two weeks from the nondescript can, a can the size of a big orange juice can.  They were quite good.

We had enough to eat then but were curious.  The first company Daddy worked for on a welding supply route paid regularly (the second one wouldn’t).  Mama stumbled into a job selling fire equipment.  She sold one LaFrance truck to the county but was stiffed on the fat commission.  Jake and I strapped a fire extinguisher onto each of the banana seat bikes we’d gotten for Christmas and rode all over town trying to help with sales.  None of the puzzled merchants wanted one.

With firetruck sales lagging, Mama loaded the trunk of a long Cadillac that a rich lumberyard guy on the welding supply route outright gave her, and she delivered tanks of oxygen and acetylene to customers for Daddy.

Money was a bit tight but we were doing okay.  The electricity was on, we had running water and indoor plumbing and a small TV.  Me and You and a Dog Named Boo and Midnight Rider blared from a portable radio during the day.  I scraped up five bucks for a used pocket transistor radio.  At night the local stations faded but then I could hear stations several states away, and even some in Spanish.

Not that we were rolling in dough.  We didn’t have the money to buy school clothes at the store or even the second-hand place.  Being the smallest, I was chosen to dive into the clothing donation box.  Classmates asked me if my pants were ski pants.  They were too tight but the best I could find in the bin.  I flushed and mumbled, “No.”  If I wasn’t being picked on for clothing it was for being born outside the county or having black friends.  Just one more annoyance among many.

A new song about apple trees and honeybees played every thirty minutes on the TV and radio.  I liked it.

A farmer on dad’s welding supply route had given Mama some runt pigs he was going to kill.  Two had died, two looked sickly, and two were healthy and growing.  Another farmer gave us a pinto pony, on the condition that if it didn’t work out that we return her to him.  We called her Baby.

We returned Baby after just a few weeks.  We had no saddle or tack, no barn.  She had never been ridden and was half wild.  We managed to ride her bareback a few times with just a rope bridle, but I stopped trying the fourth time I bounced off, landing this time right between her flying hooves.  It wasn’t fair to the horse to keep her.

We had a rabbit hutch out back until wandering dogs yapped at the rabbits until they died of fright.

We batted at the carpenter bees that were drilling into the soffits.

It was full-on spring when Daddy noticed the bees.

They were knotted up on a limb in the tree line at the end of Mrs. Brown’s garden patch.  Daddy had noticed a lot of honeybees about and found the forked limb about head high to him where the swarm wrapped itself around the queen.

Daddy walked us out to see them.  I’d never seen that many bees in one place.  They were quiet and packed tight, a group about two feet long and nearly a foot wide.

“We can catch them and have honey,” he told us.  “We’ll keep them in a  box until we make a hive.”  All four kids stood in wonder and apprehension.

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He returned with a rolled-up newspaper, a cardboard box slightly larger than the knot of bees, and Daddy’s Zippo.  Jake and I had buckets to stand on.

“Okay, don’t make a lot of noise.  I’ll hold the box.  Jake, you cut the limb off, real easy—don’t wiggle the limb too much when you cut.”  Jake held a handsaw.
“Dean, you hold the limb so it won’t fall, and you close the box once they’re in there.”

Little Rachel stood close by me watching.  Doris took up a position at a safe distance, almost in the Brown garden.

Daddy fumbled with the box flaps trying to get them to stay open.  He lit the newspaper roll, holding the smoldering paper a foot or two below the bees.  It didn’t make much smoke.
“Okay, cut it.”
Jake made three or four saw cuts before all hell broke loose.

A good number of the bees flew away from us, making a beeline down the garden.  Some clung tight to the crotch of the branch, and the rest spread out.

“Oww!”  Jake was hit first.  Doris yowled.

I took one sting to the arm and one to my bare chest but hung on, for a moment.

No one yelled, “Run!” until we were already sprinting and halfway back to the house.
Rachel was stung on both ears.

Daddy grabbed a garden hose at the back door, spraying a mist all around us.  It helped some.

The bees retreated toward the tree, then I saw the whole swarm rise up and move away.

Daddy and Jake were swatting and writhing in pain.  I brushed a few off of Jake, one in his hair.

We both brushed a few off of Daddy’s back, their venom spent, leaving their pulsating stingers behind in his skin.

It took a minute to part Daddy’s hair to remove four of five from his scalp.

Mama poked her head out the back door and couldn’t stop laughing.

Snow-white turtle doves would arrive in my life a hundred miles and fifty years away.  I wouldn’t complain about a late arrival.  No one ever promised when they’d come.

We never did become gentlemen farmers at the old sharecropper’s house.

####

Favorite A Huge Thank You for Camp Hill Food Pantry Assistance

 

A Huge Thank You to Everyone

Helping our Local Food Pantry

Pantry1            Thank you to the volunteers from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Camp Hill and the other volunteers from the community who pitched in to feed 70 Camp Hill families during a time of increased need on Friday April 24th.

We also thank the donors who used a substantial portion of their COVID stimulus check to buy a truckload of food from the East Alabama Food Bank.  And thank you to the drivers and others at the food bank who made it a butter-smooth operation.

A special thank you goes out to Amazon.com, whose donation to the food banks across the nation multiplied the contributions we received within our community to buy food from the East Alabama Food Bank to distribute to those in need.

Advance notice of personal protection precautions worked well.  People arrived by automobile, each wearing masks, and they made their way through a steady line of cars that volunteers loaded down with frozen meats, fresh vegetables, and needed dry goods.

One of our volunteers used his own truck to deliver food to the ill (including two under quarantine and a few more struggling with COVID), the elderly, and those who have a hard time getting around.

The effort helped our community’s elderly, children, our homebound, and the poorest among us. We are fortunate to be able to do it–many of our volunteers have been poor and hungry at some point in their lives and understand the need from personal experience.

All our best to everyone involved in these trying times.

Dean Bonner

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Book Review: Library Girls of New York

LibraryGirls

I recently enjoyed a really informative and fun read, Library Girls of New York, by Carolyn Rhodes.  I highly recommend it.

 

Library Girls of New York by Carolyn Rhodes entertained me for a whole weekend.  Her family’s experiences were unusual in themselves and are well told in an engaging way.  She grew up within the walls of the big New York libraries, and I was impressed with how her viewpoint gradually shifted from that of a knee-high girl to a young woman as the story progressed. The tales are charming and often funny.  I envy her many experiences, such as appearing in a film sitting on the knee of Carl Sandberg while he played ukulele and read his poetry.

 
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It is a pleasure to read, and I very much recommend the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Library-Girls-York-Carolyn-Rhodes/dp/1733916555

 

A Poem for the Season: The Dying Year

The Dying Year © 2014, C. D. (Dean) Bonner That bleak week The death rattle of the year Between Christmas and New Year A bin with rumbling wheels Carted the boxes away The bright wrapping paper carefully salvaged, Re-rolled for … Continue reading

A new memoir: The Heart Freezes Last

The Heart Freezes Last © 2019, Dean Bonner   It’s chilly here in the hallway office, maybe 55 degrees Fahrenheit.  I’ve not been able to get fully warm since my bladder cancer surgery two weeks back. Maybe that’s what set … Continue reading