They were tearing the old grade school down in the spring, and they hired me to pull anything worth money out of her before the dozers came, copper mostly. I …

They hired me to strip the copper out of my own old grade school before the dozers came — the box behind the boiler room wall sat me down on the steps Read More

We got our first house cheap, my wife and me, twenty-nine and thirty, been renting our whole marriage, and the reason it was cheap is the fella before us left …

We got our first house cheap because the family before us left in a hurry — what I found reaching blind into the attic froze me on the ladder Read More

I have coached the girls swim team at our community pool for seventeen years, and Maddie was always one of my first-in, last-out kids. A little fish. Loved the water …

I have coached the girls swim team for seventeen years — the little fish who started swimming in a baggy T-shirt finally told me why Read More

Bought a chest freezer at an estate sale over in Boone for twenty-five bucks, and I will be straight with you, I only went because my sister dragged me. My …

I bought a chest freezer at an estate sale in Boone for twenty-five bucks — the wire holding the bottom basket down sat me on the garage floor Read More

Called me out for the most ordinary thing there is, kitchen line draining slow, lady said it had been getting worse a month or so. I have run a drain …

A sweet old couple called me out for a slow kitchen drain in Odessa — what my auger pulled up forty feet down I could not make myself open alone Read More

After Dad passed I got it in my head I was finally going to learn his guitar. Sixty-one years old, never once picked one up, but he played on the …

After Dad passed I decided at sixty-one to finally learn his guitar — what was hidden in the lining of the case put me down on the kitchen floor Read More

Let me tell you something. Thirty years I have run a tow yard here off Linden Ave in Zanesville, and somewhere in there I quit feeling anything about the cars. …

Thirty years in a Zanesville tow yard and I quit feeling anything about the cars — the one that sat ninety days made me put the spare back and wash my clean hands Read More

Miss Ada across the way baked the best apple pie in the county for forty years, and she must have given away a thousand of them, to funerals, to new …

Miss Ada baked the best apple pie in the county for forty years — the spring the pies stopped and her son moved in, I finally tapped on her window Read More

Bought an old aluminum fishing boat off a fella who was moving out of the area, fourteen-footer, old Mercury on the back, perfect for chasing walleye around the lake on …

I bought an old fishing boat off a fella in a hurry to be gone — the false bottom in the storage box made me set the crowbar down Read More

Mr. and Mrs. Pickens came in for breakfast every Sunday after church for going on fifteen years. Same order every time, he would pull her chair out for her, they …

The Pickens came in for breakfast every Sunday for fifteen years — the Sunday their daughter left the table, Mrs. Pickens whispered the truth Read More