Dinner in the Field and other stories
I find you can discover your strengths at any age. For example, I find I’m a better writer than I am an editor. I have a full-length draft of a memoir that I’ve devoted countless hours to, and it’s finally finished. I’m anxious to move on to new material. But finishing the book is not the same as completing the project. Doing it right, I’m told, entails a less than...
Santa Showed Up at Thornton's
After Christmas, I went to one of my favorite eating places, one I hesitate to mention lest it becomes mobbed with customers. Although I think this one is fairly safe. A short drive from my house, inside Thornton’s gas station, they have a small table with three chairs by an emergency exit. This tiny sit-down oasis is framed by a long rack of potato chips, pretzels, and other salty stuff...
Ted's Last Christmas
I posted this story before Christmas years ago in a longer form. These were two pieces recently in our local paper, published two weeks apart to conform with their word limits. Still shorter than it used to be. I think this condensed version is better. In late 1976 I came back from South America completely broke. I took the first job offered to me, an aide in a nursing...
I Have a New Gig
If you read Dave in the Shack by getting this email, you’ve not heard from me since September. Here’s what is going on. I have a new gig. I’ve been writing for the local paper in a program called the Write Team. My article appears every two weeks and is read by people in the Illinois Valley in their local Shaw Media publications; The News Tribune in LaSalle-Peru and the...
Fishing in the Wilderness
Face Book sends me pictures from my past. During late August in one (it’s a blur) of the pandemic years a photo I posted years before took me, in a rush, back to a jewel of a lake I’d fished with friends during the same late August week years ago in Canada. I stared at the image on my phone and wondered if I would ever be there again. For...
Baby in the Sun - 2011
Note to readers old and new. Before Dave in the Shack I wrote a weekly blog at work, as the director of a youth service/child welfare agency, Youth Service Bureau of Illinois Valley (YSB). I wanted to explain to board members, donors, referral sources, staff, and the community what we did, why we did it, and how we felt in the process. Writing that blog became all I wanted to do....
Minutiae
I changed my computer equipment in the shack. A young guy came from out of town to help me set it up. He’s a whiz at hardware and software and helps me remotely through a program called Team Viewer. He upgraded my computer to increase its operating memory and fixed me up with a much better monitor. It makes a big difference. I’ll share his name and contact info if...
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words?
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words You’ve heard it right? Ancient Chinese saying, from Confucius perhaps? That would be wrong. Modern use of the phrase is generally attributed to advertising executive Fred Barnard in a 1921 trade journal article promoting the use of images in advertising on streetcars. Fred Barnard is later quoted in 1949 as saying, after the phrase had gone as viral as it possibly could before...
Metz and Mannington
Leaving Cameron West Virginia, heading east on Route 250, I had a lot on my mind. I kept the radio off and the CDs in their brown paper bag. Driving is good for thinking. Solo road trips are usually good for long deep thinks but driving Route 250 through the West Virginia hills requires a lot of attention. I paid close attention to rectangular speed limit signs, those diamond-shaped signs...
The Talk Turned to Politics
There in the Bridge Street Restaurant, I had a feeling my new friend was about to send me to school on West Virginia politics and while I had asked for it, I was a little wary about the next part of our conversation. I thought maybe dessert would help the conversation remain civil. Besides that, I saw a sign when I walked in saying they served homemade pie. That doesn’t...
Bridge Street Restaurant
Bridge Street Restaurant in downtown Cameron, West Virginia isn’t much to look at, but I wasn’t going there for ambiance. I needed food and a table to spread out my Rand McNally Road Atlas. You may think you don’t need paper maps anymore but try planning a route across several states using the screen on your I IPhone. I needed to see how far east I wanted to go before...