an old writer and his words

  • ROUND ABOUT

    The great minds in Transportation have decidedthat the answer to all traffic problemsis simple, you replace troublesome intersectionswith traffic circles, but you call them roundabouts.They know that the young and wish they werein their muscle cars will avoid them like the plague,for even they cannot defeat centrifugal force,and inertia is one thing they never lack.And…

    Lou Faber

  • THE REST OF THE STORY

    It should be the storiesbehind the stories that get told.We have to blame the songwritersI suppose, telling only the partof the story they choose, leaving usto sit and wonder, no answers, forthcoming.We all know what happened to Billie Joeand the damned Talahatchee Bridge, but howdid Becky Thompson snare the brotherand for that matter, why Tupelo?And…

    Lou Faber

  • TUESDAY TRUTH: BROTHER JOHN

    Are you serious? You have the temerity to ask me if I am sleeping? Seriously? If, for a moment, you thought that I was sleeping, why in hell would you jostle me and then ask me if I was sleeping? And how many times do I have to tell you that I never liked the…

    Lou Faber

  • ON THE BEACH

    It washed up on the beach this morning,stopped right at my feet, as Istared down at it, examining it carefully.It message was clear at first, a taletoo hard to swallow, of creaturestossed about by a storm that no onesaw, from an age in which no onenow alive could have experienced.The message described a magic landof…

    Lou Faber

  • TUESDAY TRUTH: THREE MICE

    Good lord, people would you get your facts straight. Yes, there were three of us, but one is now gone. He disappeared one night, though I think the cat got him. But that is as close to accurate as you got. Okay, we were all severely myopic, or I was, and they said they were…

    Lou Faber

  • TEMPUS

    He divided time into neat,well organized segments, eachprecisely the equivalent of each other,some the perfect sum of lessers.This is how it should be and must behe thought, and it made thingsso much easier for him.He knew when to arrive, andalways knew precisely whattime it was and would be.He couldn’t understand whyothers couldn’t seem to arriveon…

    Lou Faber

  • TUESDAY TRUTH: THE SPRATTS

    I mean, seriously, did anyone really think that the Spratt marriage would ultimately last? Sure, the first couple of years were imagined bliss. And sure, their dietary desires did help them avoid almost all waste. But that big a difference, even if only seemingly in eating habits, foretells differences in other areas of life. He…

    Lou Faber

  • FINALS

    It was approaching the end of another too long semester and the sign-up sheet for office hours was getting fuller with names I didn’t recognize, or did and not in a way that would please the student. It was always like this, the two weeks after it was too late to do anything, when the…

    Lou Faber

  • SCRIVEN

    “You know,” she said with a smile, “that you are going straight to the infernal regions when this is over and done with, no doubt.” “I can’t imagine,” he replied, “that He who is all knowing and all powerful would ever let that happen to me.” “Be serious,” she added, “you know that the nether…

    Lou Faber

  • WAITING GAME

    He had been there for days although he’d stopped counting since it didn’t ultimately matter. He would leave when the time was right although he had no idea how he would know when that moment arrived. Some things you do on faith he assumed, and this had to be one of those things. He wasn’t…

    Lou Faber