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.