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No Pain No Gain

Last night, I gathered with twenty two other Jacksonville writers. We had a party. Hosted by Brad and Darlyn Kuhn, at their Trout River Home, it couldn’t have been better. It was a comfortable setting, with a beautiful view.

Our motive for gathering was to meet each other, and to read our writing.

Most there were professionals, all were talented. It was an enlightening experience.

After committing, to this party participation, I believe writers are a somewhat like skaters. You put yourself out there. Getting up to read is like climbing up the pipe, knowing your getting ready to make the drop. If you don’t climb, if you don’t go, there’s nothing. But if you do, and you take that chance, you can fly. And like the skaters, the writers have bit the dust and practiced enough, to be able to put on a good show. Each take their turn. They support one another, and have fun, including ups and downs.

JaxbyJax.com is community. It’s about Jacksonville, Florida. It’s about making our hometown a better place. It’s a gathering and it takes heart!

One must be strong ~ to be a writer.

This is the advertisement for the event which is happening next week, October 15th and 16th, at the Jesse DuPont Center, which I am fond of calling, the old Haydon Burns Library. 40 East Adams St.

Come out and support your local writers, watch them skate. They make some tricky turns. It’s heady and colorful. It’s art and it’s free!

Open this link for particulars ~ https://www.jaxbyjax.com

We Are Gifted With Their Stories

See you at the park!

My Two Dannys

I was 16 years old when I met Danny Bass. Kenny, a friend of mine, and I were sitting by the Jax Bch Pier, when Danny passed in front of us. Kenny called out, and Danny came over and talked with us. I immediately liked him. He had stellar mannerisms. He smiled, chatted with ease, and had an award, winning smile.

Kenny and I were the odd couple. He had muscular dystrophy and I had a car. That day, those moments, were the beginning of the end.

I had spent the last 5 months, picking Kenny up; driving to the beach, where his sister lived and smoking copious amounts of pot. I’m sure we were in blue jeans, t-shirts and tennis shoes, when that chance meeting occurred. Soon after, I saw Danny at school, and we became fast friends. He introduced me to my new, and peculiar, Westside group, which was to become known as The Funk Crew, Kenny included, as well as Rooster, Mark, Friz Whiz, Chuck, Deena, David, Lil Deb, Danny, the Session brothers, and more. We all stayed “friends”, for years, until we weren’t anymore.

Danny was the hub.

When Danny graduated, he wanted to go to college. He had his own apartment, in high school. I can remember seeing him at his kitchen table. He had tried to get into FCCJ, and couldn’t. He had a job, throughout the twelfth grade, supporting himself. He was a dock loader at UPS. He didn’t know what he was going to do. I told him I could get him a job, no problem. He went to work for my Father’s company, and he became, one of us. All of my family took him in; my Dad, my brother-in-law, my sister, everyone liked him. It would be hard, to not like Danny.

Continue reading My Two Dannys

Pick Your Poison

I was working on my smile…..

I have. And I’m still standing. I look at this portrait and remember. Khaki shorts, a red hoodie with the sleeves cut, always a back pack. Pencils, sketchbook and a book in tow. Cruising A1A, in the morning hours, the marsh washed, in an array of pastels. People. Louise Freshman Brown, Paul Ladnier, Judy, Biz, the woman that I pushed into tears. Trips to New York. Getting off The Path in New Jersey. it was slightly snowing. I was hoping someone would attack me. Kind of the same feeling I would get in Publix, only more intense. I use to leave my pocket book, in the cart, a little open. And hope someone would try to steal it, so I could chase them down and beat the hell out of ‘em. Bernard Marco, and his insanity. His money and his good taste. His fireplace that he had reworked, into a polynesian face, with a mouth, wide open. Cleveland Brown, his eighteen year old friend. He was eighty.. We did a photo shoot. My photos are somewhere. He changed my world, as many people did. I drove his BMW. We sailed on the river, Bernard, Rooster, Cleveland and myself. The captain’s wife said,”oh it’s nice, you brought your granddaughter.” He was a bit of a last straw. He had found a gallery for me, in New York. The same one I saw, and said, oh that’s where I would like to be. He told me how to paint, and what to paint. I was advised to do the dog and pony show. Hell no. That’s not my poison. If life is a trail to an end, why would I want to do that? My life is my own; his poison would kill me. Poison is personal.

Continue reading Pick Your Poison

I Am Old

And I Don’t Care

Aging has its advantages ~ I use to be angry. Now I’m just old. In my younger years, no matter how kind I wanted to be, I had a seething underlining. I would think I was smart and then I would think I was stupid. I re-acted to every thing. Kind of like I’m doing now.

Skinning Cats

Out with the Old – In With ?

I suppose it’s a matter of perspective. – Today, I was headed to Jacksonville on A1A. There are now, “don’t bother the birds” signs, on the best beach, for flounder fishing. Another spot gone.

If you’re new here to Amelia Island, you are surely calling it paradise. Jetting around in your new car, that you bought from your northern sale, profit. Good for you. You also complain about the slow cars. You’re on an island. Slow the fuck down, dumb ass.

The picture above is, of a building; a place where we use to get our tires fixed. It’s being demolished. Now you can go to Tire Kingdom and get ripped off. I took my truck to them and said, no thank you. They just weren’t qualified to touch my truck. I have to go to Yulee for good service. But there’s a long wait.

One mile up the road, across the street from Winn Dixie are hobo camps. They hide by the CSX tracks and shoot fentanyl. It’s a sad world out there. But they too have discovered paradise. The word is out!

Everybody wants what they want. From high rise condos that are apt to collapse over time, to lost souls deteriorating amongst brown, fallen palm tree fronds. I just want to fish, and be in unpolluted ocean water. Sales and marketing didn’t bring me here. Neither did the whispers of the Jacksonville junkies.

I’m the kind of person, that runs ahead of the crowd. My good fortune has been my love of nature and dislike of pretentious bullies.

So, I will rely on my years of patience and perseverance.

I will skin this cat.

Meeeooowwww!

Now What ~

I woke up feeling heavy. I don’t write anymore. It’s too much. It’s too personal. It’s too prickly. It’s too opinionated. So I feel it inside. I don’t write anymore. I eat more. I don’t visit my friends anymore. I wonder what they would write about, if they felt like they lived in an ant bed. If they become volatile, at least once a week. If their family is something that they have to believe does not exist, to survive. I should say most of the family. Fuckers! If their daughter had died with cancer. If they had been married to a deceitful, manipulating, physically and emotionally abusive man, who had only married you to begin with, because you were the bosses daughter. If everyone around you wants to talk about illness and not wellness. If they lived by a mill, that when the west wind blows, it has an incinerator smell. If your whole body hurt, from seven minutes of wall balls and burpees. If someone had kidnapped their dog in Costa Rica. If their daughter had managed a meth lab, that seemed sanctioned by the county officials. If they see a man on a bicycle, who looks like an alien, because his being has been ravaged by chemicals, and he is on a mission. If you’re cut off from your fishing places, the ones you have enjoyed your entire life ~ now there’s a chain. Fuckers! If your husband gets hit by a car and has to pull the bike out of a bumper, only for the car, to speed away. If your last post wouldn’t upload. If a huge white truck, almost t-boned your little Toyota and your adrenalin shot through the top of your head and you jumped out of the truck, screaming, “Are you crazy!”. If you walk around wondering why are you so re-active. If you cry at a group function, appropriately explaining your feelings, concerning your daughter’s death and are told you should be on psychotropics. If Covid was here, but now it’s not. If that seems weird to you. If you can’t be vaccinated because you have a conflict of interest, concerning bouts with shingles. Fuckers! If you have to pull off the side of the road, approximately three times a day; sometimes once, sometimes, five times, because some fool is two inches off your bumper, and you are the only two people on the road. If your mind was recently tortured by your life, your parents lives and the lives of your ancestors. If you haven’t seen your friends, in a while.

Hello ~ Good-bye

I feel better now.

Cookies

Today, I threw away some cookies. They were vanilla and chocolate. They sit out on a counter, where people fix their coffee. I was hungry, so I grabbed two. They were awful. They were stale. I’m sure they would never be threatened by ants or roaches.

I need to replace the cookies. I would prefer, they were not there at all. They are processed and cancer producing. Who really needs that? But none the less, there they are.

Continue reading Cookies

Family History

Ancestors Ancestors and more Ancestors

Mary Frances Lowe Peterson was my great – grandmother. She lived on Blair Road, on the family farm. She was born and raised on the families land tract. She was there, when my mother woke up, as a five year old, smelling smoke and hearing a crackling noise.She alerted the family, saving their lives, from a fiery death. A night they never forgot! They lost everything, but themselves. The little, curly haired cherub, became an instant hero. Mary also lived with my Grandmother, Elizabeth Peterson McInarnay, on Phyllis St. The family had built a house there, following the farm house burning to the ground.

They rebuilt the farm house.

Continue reading Family History