Not-yet-published pieces, stories, essays, rants, and random strangenesses

First my next-door neighbor, Bill, disappears. His health has been precarious for some time, but one could generally catch him early in...

April may be the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain,...

The original doorbell of this house was particularly anemic. It could be heard from the living room and the kitchen, but almost nowhere...

This morning I was awakened from one of the most comfortable sleeps I have had in recent memory to the sound of a cuckoo clock. Problem...

Somewhere around 1986, when Mom was considering the move to Florida, she and I came down to look for a house. The real estate agent took...

Let’s set aside, for the moment, the absurdity of your name. It’s your head that’s red; your belly only has a slight tinge of color, and...

Today’s thunderstorm came a bit earlier than usual, around lunchtime, and it was particularly violent for a while. I looked out the front...

The change of seasons brings a number of different birds to Florida. My favorite of these seasonal It catches them in a unique way: by...

Jim Morrison wrote “Strange Days,” the song, for The Doors’ album of the same name, in 1967. The album was considered an artistic...

You know it’s fall when the Gala apples are better than sex and the cinnamon brooms are back in stock at the grocery store. Now, it’s...

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Police in Port St. Lucie are on the lookout for a cross-dressing man who snatched a 74-year-old woman’s purse. As...

Fay has stalled once again. And she’s dumping water on us like crazy. Not as much wind as they expected by any means, but rain, rain, and...

For days, every local television broadcast and radio program, and every newspaper article, has been describing with increasing hysteria...

I know I badmouth Florida. A lot. But the thunder that moments ago shook our house and rattled our windows reminded me what a sincere...

No, this isn’t my video, but this fellow’s song is remarkably similar to the one my little friend has been singing outside my window...

Okay, I was being way too jocular yesterday. The brush fires are serious business, and tons of people in our little town have been...

It’s spring in Florida, which means temperatures in the 90s, high winds, and no rain whatsoever. And that, dear reader, means wildfires....

A substitute teacher in the town of Land-O-Lakes, Florida (just east of Tampa on the west coast, and one of the shooting locations for...

You say “central Florida” to most people, and they think of Orlando. Say “Orlando” and people think “Disney.” Fair enough. But most of...