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The Task At Hand

In my wanderings through small villages around the world, I have often sat and marveled at how people in other cultures perform their daily work. There is an acceptance of the tasks at hand and a pride in exerting excellence. At the end of a day their harvest is contentment and sweet sleep.

Sunbeams

Contrary to what many of you might imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks — chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write.

Fran Lebowitz

The Secret Of My Success

For me, the answer to the question “When do you write?” is easy: I write when I’m avoiding some other important task.

Excuses

A leaf floating and swirling in a breeze, the Reading Club, a chipmunk

The Designated Marksman

A second is how much time it takes a .50 caliber bullet to travel six hundred meters, and what a lot of people don’t know is that there is a momentary ghost image as the bullet disrupts the air in the focal plane above the target. It’s just science, but I could see it through the scope, and it looks like a soul, a soul that departs the body before the bullet strikes.

Hod

My first day on the job, Uncle Pat teamed me with a wiry little bricklayer named Shotty Montileone, who had learned the brick trade at Thorn Hill Reform School. Shotty talked like a gangster, syllable by syllable, in that halting, mannered clip, so you never really knew when he was finished.

Wasting Time

Saucer-shaped rocks, a bicycle-courier business, roller skates