My Review of Freshwaterboys by Adam Schuitema

Well, Litstack went live on Monday and my first review went live today. You can find my review of Adam Schuitema's wonderful collection of short stories here.

Freshwaterboys is a fantastic read that I heartily recommend.

You can also find a short blurb about my favorite novel as a fourteen year old. You can find that here. My entry is number four.

GO check out LITSTACK. Not just my stuff, but all the content. I am very fortunate to ave been asked to fall in with some amazing writers. My time at LITSTACK will be time well spent. Same goes for you.

Stay thirsty, my friends...

A Life Ended Far Too Soon

There is something morally repugnant about someone being "taken before their time" as the saying goes. Not that we can truly know when someone's "time" is "supposed" to be up, but we can nevertheless feel shock and anger at the height of the unfairness of a life lost at a young age, under circumstances that are anything but natural.

Early Saturday morning a good friend lost his brother in just such a manner. Chad Richard Litchford, a thirty-one year old father to be and a combat veteran of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was killed when his truck, which he had pulled over to the side of the road because it was having mechanical problems, was struck by a vehicle being driven by an allegedly drunk driver when it drifted over the white line and onto the shoulder. The truck slammed into Chad's truck and moments later his life was ended.

I was fortunate enough to have met Chad a few times. I recall speaking with him and listening in a kind of awe as he recounted to my stepfather and I some of his stories from his time in Iraq. He spoke of dangerous environments and daring actions with a casual air, as I would of a typical day in the classroom where the greatest danger I face is maybe having to take a late lunch. He didn't put on airs or puff out his chest. He was doing his duty. It was as simple as that.

The absurdness of what happened early Saturday morning on an anonymous stretch of Texas roadway cries out for understanding, for some sort of acceptable clarity. How can it be, we are left to wonder, that a man can spend years in some of the most dangerous and violent of places on the planet, where the very uniform he voluntarily donned each day made him a target of violence, that a man who was willing to lay down his life to protect the flag I salute each morning with my students, to protect the very freedoms scores of men and women who had gone before him had given their lives to enshrine and protect, did not face his final moments on a field of battle, but on a deserted Texas road.

Not at the hands of a confirmed enemy he had been trained to engage.

But at the hands of a citizen of the very country he fought to protect, whose mind and driving reflexes were most likely dulled by excessive amounts of alcohol and the lateness of the hour.

We cry out for understanding...but there is none to be had. Sometimes life simply defies any attempt at understanding.

So we remember. We remember the life of a man who served his country, willingly and repeatedly. We remember the life of a soldier, a brother, a father, a son. We remember the laughter, the fun times, a history shared and yes, even the tough times. We remember that we were privileged to have known this man. We wrap our arms around a family that is in pain, that struggles to deal with the hole that has been punched into the fabric of their reality. We remind them that they are surrounded by many who are ready at the drop of a hat to do whatever they need at this difficult time.

Though Chad's time on earth may have been short, the memories of his life will not be. The memories of those who we have lost stay with us. Though we age, they do not. The joy and the pain, the laughter and the tears, the good and the bad. Our memories become a part of our soul, stitched there to remain forever. And though life will continue to swirl about us, though events will still occur for which we have little or no understanding, the memories that become a part of us will never leave.

My thoughts and prayers are with the entire Litchford family.

Chad Richard Litchford 1980 - 2011

It's Nice to Have Talented Friends - S2JVox

I have many talented friends. Some I have known for years, some I have met only within the last year or two.

One of those i have met recently is an awesome guy named Sean. He is one of three of a talented group called S2JVox. They combine one female and two male voices to create beautiful music. They have a facebook page and a twitter page. Check out the videos below and give them a follow. You won't regret it.









They also have their own YouTube channel. Find it here.

Go check them out. Tell them the Chalkboard Dad sent ya!

Homecoming

The following is my entry for the Best Damn Creative Writing Blog's second Flash Fiction challenge. I hope you enjoy it and as always, welcome any comments you might have.

The first thing I become aware of is the feel of the rocks. I look down at my feet and note with some alarm that they are shoeless. I flex my toes and feel the pressure of several small stones that I am standing on. My eyes rise slowly and follow the path of a dirt road, dotted with the same small stones and pebbles. From my vantage point the road seems to stretch on into forever in both directions, a landscape resigned to sameness.

I begin to walk.

Standing tall on either side, a wall of corn stalks moves with the road, a perfectly parted sea of green. A gentle breeze stirs the long leaves, the sound of rustled pages in an old library. I look up into a sky of clouds, an iron gray shield through which the sun is powerless to penetrate.

It suddenly dawns on me to wonder exactly where I am. I have no memory of where this road began or even how I came to be on it.

I continue to walk past the stalks of the whispering corn plants. There is no other sound. The clouds move slowly overhead. I walk for a time. It is impossible to know how long exactly without the benefit of the sun. The landscape around me remains unchanged, the corn my sole companion.

Still, I walk.

That’s when I spot a figure standing in the road up ahead. Too far away to make out a face or any other defining characteristics, the figure stands still in the middle of my road. Anxious to speak to another person, to find out where I am, I pick up the pace, my bare feet sending up small puffs of dust that the constant breeze tosses into the corn behind me.

As I get closer the figure’s face comes into focus.

What I see stops me dead. I stare, the only action I seem capable of.

The man in front of me, perhaps sensing the shutdown of my mental circuitry, closes the gap between us. Impossibly he stands before me.

“Josh?” I whisper, shock robbing my voice of any real strength.

My brother nods and smiles.

My mind screams that this cannot be. The last time I saw my brother’s face was when I said my goodbyes, when I laid that photograph of the two of us at the old lake house when we were kids beside his still body as it lay in its casket, clad in his finest military dress uniform.

“Josh…how…” I begin, trying to make sense out of what my eyes tell me I am seeing.

Suddenly the clues fall into place in my mind, like so many dominoes pushed by an invisible hand. Understanding floods my soul with a peace so complete no words ever uttered on this Earth would ever do it justice.

My long lost brother raises his arms, tears beginning to spill from the corners of his hazel eyes.

“Welcome home, brother.”

Happy Father's Day (It's the DAD Life)

As Father's Day 2011 comes to a close I leave you all with a great video.

Word.

The Twenty-Six Year Old Hug or Why One Should Never Laugh in a Deserted Funeral Home

At around 4:30 AM on Monday, May 30, 2011 my grandmother died.

If it hadn't been for the keyboard, I would have missed what occurred at 9:45 AM on Friday, June 3, 2011.

That's when, five days after she died, my grandmother spoke to me for the last time.

The Magic of Books or What I Have in Common With Bastian Bux

I'm sure you've seen the movie. A mouse of a boy runs down an indifferent city street, three larger boys in pursuit. They had recently tossed him into a dumpster because he had no lunch money to give them and after he climbed out covered in garbage, they are trying to catch him to toss him back in. To escape his tormentors he ducks into a dusty old book store, great ratty-edged tomes scattered around, the shop owner sitting in a tall backed leather chair with a large book in his hands. The boy, an avid reader, asks the shopkeeper what book he is reading. The old man does not answer, instead he cryptically warns the young boy to stay away from the book as it is not "safe" as the other books he has read are.

Towel Day 2011 or Dude, What's With the Towel?

I was a gangly sixth grader when my dad took me to Captain Blue Hen Comics and introduced me to the prodigious talent that is Douglas Adams. I'd told him earlier in the day that I wanted to read a new author and he knew right away what the correct choice would be. We piled into his dark green Ford pickup and made the ten minute drive, the death rattles of the ancient muffler sending vibrations through the floorboards and into my sneakers as we drove.

We walked into the store, passing wall upon wall of comic books, and made our way to the back where they kept the books. My dad walked straight to the 'A' section and after a moment, plunked a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into my eager hands. I looked uncertainly at the cover. A man's hand, thumb extended in the classic "Hitcher's Pose", a green orb with arms sticking its tongue out at me.

Quick Review - Short Story Month 2011

I have a quick review up over at The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog in celebration of national short story month. Go check it out.

SSM 2011: STORIES - All New Tales

Have a favorite short story collection, or just a single favorite short story? Let's talk about it in the comments section!

My Wife, A Mother Without Peer

Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.

- William Makepeace Thackeray

Six years ago I witnessed you perform the most amazing feat I have ever beheld another human being accomplish. After nine months of lost sleep, heartburn, tired feet, exhaustion, an aching back and a body that changed on a daily basis, you brought into this world a remarkably beautiful baby girl. You performed this momentous accomplishment with no desire for recognition, no want of any accolades. I remember like it was yesterday. As you lay on that hospital bed, tears mingling with the sweat on your face, holding our newborn miracle, I asked you how in the world you had managed to pull it all off. You looked into my eyes and with a gentle shrug and a soft smile you murmured, "I am a mother. It's what I was meant to do."

Since that chilly November day, when I didn't think I could ever possibly be more in awe of you, you have consistently shown me that what I had observed was simply the beginning of an amazing journey.

Harry the K - Has it Really Been Two Years?

Unbelievable. I can still hear the voice, as clear today in my mind's ear as it was pouring out of the radio in the humid summers of my youth. I wrote the following piece the day we lost him. Phillies fans have missed Harry every game since that dark day in DC when The Voice was silenced forever.

Godspeed, Harry the K

It is cliche at times like this to say that life is uncertain and that it turns on a dime, but many cliches become so designated because they are true.

I, like many of the Phillies Phaithful, watched Matt Stairs crush that pitch last night into the visiting team's bullpen to give the Phills a two run lead. I whooped and hollered as the voice of springs and summers without number serenaded the ball with the immortal call as it soared over that Colorado fence. Had I know it would be the last time I would hear that call live, the rich bass elevated to a higher level in direct proportion to the flight of the ball, I would have paused.

Daylight Saving Time Once Again - With Bibles!

As today is the time of year to set the clocks ahead one hour in honor of Daylight Saving Time (Thanks Ben Franklin, for more summer time to be outside) I thought I would pull out a post on the topic written two years ago. Would love to have you opine in the comments. This post was originally written on March 9, 2009.

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME...WITH BIBLES!

As we cruised up the highway on the 40 minute commute this morning, the wife and I were having a discussion concerning daylight saving time. It went something like this...

Wife: (yawn) I am really super tired this morning.

Me: Hrmm. (While driving and reading a Tweet on the phone at the same time...an activity I don't recommend)

Wife: I said, I am really super tired this morning.

Me: (Putting the phone down and concentrating on the road before I plunge the three of us into a fiery death) Why is that?

Wife: Well the clock on the dash says that it is 7:00, but the internal clock in my body is telling me it is really 6:00 so I am pretty tired.

Grooming Future Scribblers or Kids, Writing Doesn't HAVE to Suck!

I have been a devoted fan of writing since my heady days in the third and fourth grades when a few friends and I took pencil to paper to create our own (illustrated!) series of Choose Your Own Adventure stories and Doctor Who fan fiction (chicks dug us...HARD). It is an activity I have continued to enjoy (and even make an infinitesimal amount of money at) ever since.

Because of this long lasting affection for the written word, I take particular joy in the teaching of writing to my class of fifth graders. They come to me in late August, almost always completely united in their collective hatred of the craft I myself enjoy so much. If given a choice between writing a page long story or having a few cavities filled, many of them would gladly pull up the dentist chair, attach the little blue drool-bib themselves, and open wide.

With the fervent desire of the rabidly fundamentalist, I see it as my duty to change as many of these minds as I can over the course of the school year. To get my students to see writing not as some brutal holdover from the medieval torture chamber days, but as a worthwhile, artistic (they don't call it language ARTS for no reason), and dare I even suggest it, FUN, way to express themselves.

The Duck Defines Me - The Lie

I don't know why I chose the occasion of my first Crusader Blogging Challenge to write a fictionalized account of myself waking up on a mysterious beach and hallucinating a conversation with a duck. It just happened.

I am sure that says something about me, but I am not sure what. If you have an opinion, comments are open.

I got a lot of positive comments about my strange entry. Thanks to those of you who read and commented. Comments are to bloggers what crushing unions is to Tea Party funded governors (What? Too soon??).

Crusade Challenge #1 - The Duck Defines Me

My entry for the first crusader challenge over at Rach Writes is finished. I had to introduce myself in 300 words or less within the following parameters. I had to tell one secret, one lie, one personal quirk, one annoying habit, one of my best character traits, and one of my most favorite things in the whole world. I also had to work in the inclusion of four words; bloviate, fuliguline, rabbit, and blade. It was a lot of fun to write. If you can find the lie, drop it in the comments section.

The Duck Defines Me

The first thing I became aware of was the sound of the waves as they fell upon the shore. Then the smell of salt on the breeze. I lifted my head, cracking open one gummy lidded eye, and winced as a blade of bright sunshine shut it tight. I opened the other eye and sat up.

One Family's Tragedy - A Plea For Help

I have previously written on this blog about the cliche that declares life can turn on a dime. I think a lot of cliches catch on because at their center rests a seed of truth. This seed tends to be a truth that is fairly universal, thus leading to the birth of the accepted cliche.

On Christmas Eve 2010 here in Delaware, life once again performed its cruel dime trick. The Haxton family, Paul and Trina, along with their two daughters Lyndsey and Hayley, were traveling to see family for the holidays. Sadly, they never arrived at their destination. They were involved in a horrible accident en route to their family celebration. Both Paul and Trina were thrown from the vehicle. Paul Haxton lost his life. His wife Trina was flown to a trauma center in Baltimore, her condition desperately critical. The two girls, ages six and four, escaped the accident with minor injuries. Nearly two months after the accident Trina remains at a rehabilitation center in Maryland. Her recovery has been long and arduous, yet she has been making great progress.

Writing - It's a Love/Hate Thing.

"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible."       - Vladimir Nabokov

"Writing is easy. All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." - Gene Fowler

The act of writing is a strange beast. A creature to love and to loathe, quite often at the exact same time.

It can be an act whose very execution causes the soul to feel at one with the universe. The writer can almost feel the wind blowing full-on into the sails of the story, mother nature herself dotting the i's and crossing the t's. The act of writing becomes a journey to a mythical land, where mysteries abound and the unexpected can happen at any time. A tantalizing feeling of creative freedom unlike any other.

It can also be a real soul-sucking, spirit-crushing, pain in the ass.

Reality is Broken - My Review

My latest review is up on Book Dads. 

In Reality is Broken, world-renowned game designer and futurist Jane McGonigal, PhD asks the question "What if we decided to use everything we know about game design to fix what’s wrong with reality? What if we started to live our real lives like gamers, lead our businesses and communities like game designers, and think about solving real-world problems like computer and video game theorists?"

It is a VERY interesting read. Check out my review here.

A Bitter Cup of Joe or Beware the Evils of Facebook!

I woke up this morning at my usual ungodly hour to my daily helping of Morning Joe on the television. I keep it on most mornings as I prepare myself to face the day. As I wiped the sleep crud form my eyes and attempted to arrange my thoughts in some sort of cohesive order, Joe Scarborough was talking about an editorial he wrote about the dark, civilization crushing side of Facebook for Politico.

You can find the rant, I mean editorial, here.

The thread of contention that intertwines Mr. Scarborough's piece is that Facebook is "cynically feeding the narcissistic appetites of a self-consumed culture that is populated by teenage vulgarians, desperate housewives, and bored men."

Does he have a point? Maybe. Is it fantastically overstated? Definitely.

The Writers' Platform-Building Crusade or Should I Bring My Sword?

Community. A word that in some circles gets more overworked than Lyndsey Lohan's legal defense team and in others gets twisted and warped to mean things it was never intended to. Crusade. A word in the exact same boat.

I first started writing this blog a few years back simply because I enjoy writing. Always have. I thought it would just be a place to record my thoughts, write a story or two...just be an outlet to scratch the writing itch. I didn't tell many people what I was doing. I was a bit embarrassed at my own perceived pretentiousness of it, wondering if the world would demand of me what in the hell I thought was so important to say that I had the temerity to put it out on the Internet. And that, aside from some throat clearing, a few ahems and an um or two, I would have no reply.

I let my wife read of course, and a few close friends and family.

The Daily - As If You Really Needed Another Reason To Buy an iPad.

We picked up our first iPad a month ago and haven't been able to put it down since. Be it streaming Netflix, surfing the web, bombing annoyingly smug pigs into oblivion with several species of "Angry Birds", balancing the bank accounts, arranging laws of physics defying globules in "World of Goo" (and swearing profusely when our designs don't go as planned), selecting programming to record on our DVR, or any one of a hunderd other things, we have logged more hours on the iPad than on our Palm Pre Plus phones, and we have had those for almost two years. You do the math.

The iPad is one of those rare pieces of equipment that falls into the category of "as good as advertised"...and I believed that before they released The Daily app yesterday. Now, with the addition of The Daily, the iPad has passed from the hills of "as good as advertised" and into the mountains of "how will I ever live without one again?"

Against All Odds or My First Couples Only Skate

A few days ago The Wife and I took The Peanut roller skating. It was the first time I had entered a roller skating rink in more than twenty years. Being on skates again (I didn't even hurt myself!) brought back a lot of fun memories. One of them grew into this piece...

Her hair was curly, shoulder length, so red it seemed to glow with its own inner flame. Her eyes were green, the rich color of the Irish hills. I had noticed her before as she skated past with her friends, her blue and white checkered dress ruffling as she passed. As a child of ten, my radar for noticing members of the opposite sex was still brand new, awkward, hard to understand. Most girls flitted by without even a second glance, the barest hint of any sort of consideration. But this girl was hard not to notice.

The DJ at Spinning Wheels, the premier roller skating destination of my childhood, had just issued the call for a couples only skate. This call usually signaled a retreat to the arcade games for my friends and I. We were all about skating as fast as the attendants would let us, not skating while holding hands with girls. For some reason on this particular day I left the skate floor as usual, but instead of following my friends to wait in line to play the new Spy Hunter game, I lingered, watching the older kids and a few pairs of adults link hands and begin to skate. The first few bars of Phil Collins' song Against All Odds began to pour forth from the speakers.

The Bond Between Father and Daughter or I Never Thought Phil Collins Would Make Me Cry

Most nights, when the inevitable bedtime rolls around, I lay down with The Peanut for a few minutes. We talk, we giggle, we say prayers. Sometimes she will pepper me with questions about any one of a thousand random topics, sometimes she will debrief me on her day at school, who was a good listener and who was not, who had to sit in the "thinking chair" and the unfortunate choice that got them banished there, and sometimes we just lay there, enjoying a few quiet moments as our hearts beat close together. I do not exaggerate when I say that these few minutes are the highlight of my day. I treasure each one of them because I know that one day, all too soon, they will come to an end.

Last night, after all the night time routines had been completed (the running of the bath, the brushing of the teeth, the reading of a story, and the fetching of the glass of water) we went into her room. The Peanut hopped into bed, American Girl Doll and newest Build-A-Bear (we have so many of these bears I think our house could get federal funding as a preserve) in hand. I performed my duly appointed duties, turning off the overhead light, switching on the Nemo night light, and turning on the radio. Much like her father, The Peanut loves to drift off to sleep listening to music. My mother-in-law is a loyal listener of 99.5 WJBR and my daughter insists on being able to listen to "Grammy Music" at night.

The Barnes and Noble Peeper or I Am One Nosy S.O.B.

If you have been to a Borders or a Barnes and Noble lately, you've seen them. They stand in line like regular people. They linger at the shelves, seemingly engrossed in their perusal of the titles. They pace past the couches and amble slowly through the cafe. If you haven't seen them, then surely you have felt them. Their beady little eyes always roving, sliding over your personal topography where they don't belong, leaving a slug's trail of violation in their wake. You can almost feel it when their gaze falls upon you and you can almost see the gears in their slimy minds begin to turn, smell the noxious fumes of their thoughts. You've seen them, haven't you?

The Barnes and Noble Peepers. That despicable class of individuals who wander the carpeted aisles of the book store, spending an unhealthy amount of time checking out what other people are buying. With no regard for personal privacy they shove their metaphorical noses into the heart of your impending purchases. With a raised eyebrow, a knowing smile, or a disgusted smirk they pass judgement on your personality and the fortitude of your character based solely on your choice of reading material. They are the scum of the literary world and...I have a confession to make...a realization I just came to today while standing in line to purchase a book.

Kids As Goal Posts or Please God, Don't Ever Let Me Be This Dad!

Though I have yet to perform such a singularly moronic paternal act, I am sure my time is coming. Think I will just laugh at this guy in the meantime.

Taking My Students Back in Time or Why I Love Being a History Teacher

As a teacher of United States civics and history to fifth graders, I have one of the most uniquely joyful, interesting, and awe inspiring jobs in the world. To be able to expose fresh and (no matter what popular perception may have to say otherwise) eager to learn minds to the men and women who have had a hand in bringing us to where we are today as a nation, in the case of most of them for the very first time in their young lives, is not only an honor and a privilege, it is also a real blast!

Take today for instance.

In class this afternoon we got into a fifteen minute long debate about who was responsible for the firing of the first shot of the civil war, North or South. The most conventional answer tends to say South. After all it was a South Carolina man (in defense of a state that had, four months earlier, dissolved her bonds of union and seceded from the United States of America), Edmund Ruffin (possibly, but not definitively) who fired that first shell at the men huddled in the cold darkness of Fort Sumter in 1861. But, when one considers the fact that Lincoln notified the South Carolina legislature that he was sending a ship laden with fresh supplies for the men who were running out of food, water, and even fuel for their lamps, that he notified them openly, knowing full well how they would receive the news, perhaps the answer is not so conventional...or obvious.

Tangled or Why My Daughter Wants a Horse and a Chameleon.

Today was the last day of my glorious eleven day winter break. To finish with a bang The Wife suggested we grab The Peanut, throw her in the car, drive down to our local multiplex and pay a small fortune to take in a matinée. I thought the idea sounded just spiffy and I told her so (yes, I used the word spiffy and yes, I did get smacked for it).

The Peanut got a digital camera from Jolly Old Saint Nick last week and ever since has slowly been gathering a photographic record of every corner of our house from every conceivable angle. 'Studies in Dust Bunnies' I call it. When I tracked her down she had her new LaLa Loopsie doll suspended in midair over the open toilet bowl, attempting to snap a shot without getting her fingers in the frame. It would have made, I am sure, quite a surreal photograph, the interpretation of which would have been up for some serious debate. As much as I hated to interrupt my own little Andy Warhol, I called her out of the bathroom and asked her what movie she wanted to go see. The answer was as loud as it was immediate.

"TANGLED!"

The New Years Resolution or Why I Happily Lie to Myself.

"To lose those ten pounds...or fifteen...or twenty...or fifty."

"To read more than just the spare magazines in my doctor's office."

"To be a better person by spending time with my annoying ____________ (fill in family members name)."

"To give more to charity and less to the guys at Saturday night poker."

"To stop stalking housewives shopping at the local mall in their pajama jeans."

"To learn a foreign language so I can understand the Independent Film Channel."

"To finally get that weird boil that keeps changing colors on my ass looked at."

"To read my Bible, Koran, Talmud, Satanic Scriptures, copy of The Wiccan Rede, Book of Mormon, or Whatever Athiests Choose to Read, from cover to cover (whichever applies)."