Blasphemies and Bloviations
is a collection of eleven short stories, ranging in length from a single page to fifty-two pages. Though humorous in tone, the stories reflect the writer's thoughts on subjects of great or not-so-great importance, such as as life-and-death, or the soul—as distinct from the corporeal self.
Doctor Smithers’ Groupie: Doctor C. Hadley Smithers entertains an unexpected visitor.
Chaos, Cosmology, and Classic Cars: God seeks advice from an unlikely source.
Waiting for Ms Right: Surely she will someday come along.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow . . . How did Private Billy Bindleshaft get from that hell-hole in the Pacific to this bucolic setting? And what happened to Hezzy ?
Sanctuary: Harry had escaped from the brothers and their lazybitchy wives into a tropical paradise, but he can’t escape the feeling that he has left something important behind.
Butterflies and Bludgeons: There are words that one does not use in what one writes.
Perpendicularity: The boy discovers new dimensions and goes exploring.
Guardian of the Green Door: Mrs. Phoebedeau expects her borders to obey just one rule.
Parting Out: A menu of body parts suitable for transplant.
Somebody Died: Somebody doesn’t understand the situation he finds himself in. And he doesn’t like it one bit.
Three days Hence: Share the agony of the expectant duelists, Ezekiel Qweeze and Major J. P. Staggerholm, as they await the appointed hour.
Afterward: A bonus speculation on the nature of time.
Snoose Boulevard
and Points North
is a collection of short stories set mostly in the Snoose Boulevard (Cedar Riverside) neighborhood of Minneapolis roughly from the 1940s through the '90s. The stories are populated by an assortment of winos, hobos, bag ladies and art students. A few of the stories, featuring children and adolescents with a few adults in supporting roles, are set in the logging communities in northern Minnesota during the '40s and '50s.
World Enough and Time
Haskell and Jennifer, childhood sweethearts separated by tragedy, are reunited after twenty years through a second tragedy, only to have their lives ripped away through divergent time streams and alternate realities, in which anything that can possibly happen cannot possibly not happen.
I really hope that you will not be discouraged by my hypothesis of multi-dimensional time. The concept is not difficult to grasp. My granddaughter, an eighth-grader, had no problem understanding it. She now has a working knowledge of the Many Worlds Interpretation, and she reports that she enjoyed the book immensely.
CONNIPTION CREEK
Saint Birdie Twine maintains a direct line of communication with The Almighty through her visions, which she facilitates with the aid of a child’s western saddle and a treadle sewing machine. And, when Saint Birdie proclaims that she has received His holy word that the rising waters of Conniption Creek have crested and are even now receding, well, no righteous resident has cause for concern. To question Saint Birdie’s proclamation would be blasphemy and possibly damnation-worthy.
Besides, folks have more urgent matters to occupy their minds.
Mayor Mitby Sather is seeking higher office—governor or president or something. In addition to the official responsibilities of his office, he has funds to raise and speeches to write', to memorize, and to deliver in order to raise more funds.
(Self-proclaimed) Bishop Obediah Twine had filled an inside straight in a poker game with her father, thereby winning the hand of Saint Birdie as well as a partnership in The Church of the Flowing Blood of Christ. Now, he has set his sights on the Papacy. Since he isn’t a Catholic, he reasons that he will have to perform a miracle or something to make God really sit up and take notice.
Mrs. Molly Herkimer, a free-thinking widow, bootlegger, and owner of the Sanitary Café, doesn’t remember when her husband died or how. She knows only that she once had a husband, and now she doesn’t. She;s okay with that.
Molly Herkimer’s husband has discovered the secret of invisibility: You simply have to give people a good reason to not see you. He will wait out the flood up in the hills.
Though lithe of limb and attractive, the Red Cross representative, Miss Sympathy Jane Johansson, is approaching her fortieth birthday, and she is eager to surrender her maidenhood.
Newlywed Merrilee Mattson knows that her sexual responses to the urges she feels for her husband are sinful, and she seeks guidance from Saint Birdie Twine. Saint Birdie convinces her that Onie is to blame—it’s always the man—but to receive absolution, she must charge him with rape, which is a hanging offense in Conniption City.
Onie Mattson is under arrest for the eighth time. All he wants is to get out of jail before the rising waters of Conniption Creek come pouring in through the window.
Now that he has a wife and 7 children to support him, Constable-Jailor Hjalmer Kelliher would like to retire. Unfortunately, the City Charter contains no provision for retirement or, for that matter, resignation or even dismissal with cause.
Fourth-grade teacher Leona B Grundy loves children—all children—Ann Shirley, Dorothy Gale, Wendy Darling, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—all the children in her favorite books. Unfortunately, she has lost control of the little monsters in her class.
Meanwhile, the Spirit Lake band of Nimi’ipuu waits patiently in the hills for the Lake that No-Longer Remembers its Name to expel the interloping demons from sacred ground.
Conniption Creek
The Swing Time
Soda Emporium
“Funny thing about watching your body float away down the creek; it commands your full attention.” So Poppy Jablonsky didn’t notice who it was that had killed her.
The Swing Time Soda Emporium is a coming-of-age novel set in a small Idaho town during the 1940s. It follows an intimate coterie of swing-dancing friends through high school, college, marriage, and beyond. Since kindergarten, Poppy has been the same-age surrogate mother to the artistically inclined Cinderella Killian and sex kitten Trixie Brickel.
Cinderella, though a product of a dysfunctional family, will do well. While she was just a tyke, she and Sly Willy James, the proprietor of the Swing Time, had more-or-less adopted each other. But Trixie, also an abuse victim, has relied entirely on Poppy to bolster her self-esteem. Without help, she will never make it through nursing school.
In the sixth grade, Poppy had chosen her future husband, bookworm Throckmorton Dalrymple Pennington-Jones (Morty to his friends), whose one ambition was to win Poppy’s love. Since their marriage—and especially since her death—Morty has been navigating uncharted waters with neither compass nor rudder. Now, whatever will he do if he has to do without her?
So Poppy’s death doesn’t absolve her of her responsibilities as president and de facto housemother of The Bare Ass Society. Though, as a ghost, she can visit her charges during waking hours, she would rather appear to them in their dreams to avoid any unnecessary flipping of wigs. As she continues to mature even in death, though she might rather be an avenging angel than a guardian angel, others will profit from her benevolence.
But, as she takes on increasing responsibilities, the time she has to spend with her friends diminishes. She may have to abandon them completely. Then, whatever will Morty do if he has to do without her?