Category Archives: Lessons

Black Bug’s Blood

Posted on August 15, 2011 by sputterpub

I just killed a big fat fly. He’d been cruising around my cottage since last night but he didn’t annoy me to murder till this morning. I obliterated him with the back of my little spiral notebook, and then I … Continue reading →

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But What is a Backwards Dessert?

Posted on August 12, 2011 by sputterpub

I like to think I discovered the fact that stressed is desserts spelled backwards, even though I now see cookbooks with that title. I first wrote a piece using the phrase around 1995. But let’s look at what it means. … Continue reading →

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My Racist Confession

Posted on August 11, 2011 by sputterpub

One day, probably 20 years ago or more, I was riding a rowdy bus. I can’t remember if it was an AC Transit vehicle or a San Francisco Muni, but I recall it as an afternoon event, traveling eastward in … Continue reading →

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Sullied Soles

Posted on August 8, 2011 by sputterpub

I find it quite annoying when the bottoms of my shoes acquire stickiness. It can happen from picking up sidewalk gum, or if I pass under plum trees that have dropped their fruit (my brother Steve refers to those plants … Continue reading →

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Merge Memory

Posted on August 4, 2011 by sputterpub

It was back when I was early married, and we were commuting out of San Francisco in the Corvair, so it couldn’t have been later than the mid-1970s. Those were the old days, when bridge tolls were all paid in … Continue reading →

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TSA

Posted on August 1, 2011 by sputterpub

I had to pass through security at SFO on July 14. I was a little concerned about the two water pistols I was packing – sure they were bright plastic, obvious, empty, and bearing their “for ages 4+” labels, but … Continue reading →

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Reception

Posted on July 29, 2011 by sputterpub

For 50 years I drove myself to get a spouse and raise my kids and earn my keep and exercise and write. That’s when I set my course: I lost no time – I traded sleep if necessary to attain … Continue reading →

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Fair Market Value

Posted on July 28, 2011 by sputterpub

“The only place the word fair appears in the Internal Revenue Code,” Al intoned, is “immediately before the phrase market value.” Al has since retired, but I’ll never forget his words. He was responding to some complaint I voiced about … Continue reading →

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Characters

Posted on July 26, 2011 by sputterpub

It’s been said before and today it’s my turn. When you create fictional characters, they’re likely to make decisions and proceed in directions you didn’t anticipate when you started them. It isn’t that they act perversely – rather, you didn’t … Continue reading →

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Snubbin’ Cousins

Posted on July 25, 2011 by sputterpub

If you go back just a few generations in anybody’s family, the tree widens. Folks tended to have more babies last century, and even if fewer (percentage-wise) survived to adulthood, enough made it that everyone had cousins, and many came … Continue reading →

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