an old writer and his words

  • A CHILDHOOD

    I have fond memories of a childhood I never lived. Those are the best childhoods from for they reflect life as you meant it to be lived. In this life my father is in his late nineties, still smiles when he sees me, not didn’t clutch his chest sixty-one years ago, didn’t fall to the…

    Lou Faber

  • WE CAN FIX THAT

    He is only four years old, has decided he will be “an X-ray doctor” in a few years because he wants to see broken fingers and legs, but if he sees bad things he can take them out and throw them in the trash. He is more perceptive that even he can imagine for without…

    Lou Faber

  • ARF, HE SAID

    Growing up my family always had dogs, only one at a time, of course, since we were a modern suburban family, which may be why we had a dog. It clearly wasn’t because they loved dogs, they tolerated them on good days, ignored them the rest of the time and the good days were few…

    Lou Faber

  • WHAT’S IN A NAME?

    He is four, he announces to all gathered at the extended family table that he will be five soon, in January. It is important that we know this just as it is important that he sit next to his cousin, for boys like he should always sit next to cute girls and sisters don’t count,…

    Lou Faber

  • SUSIE

    What do you say on the loss of a child? We sat in the lounge drinking a vile potion from a hollowed pineapple giggling insanely for no reason. We wandered the tunnels faces painted, clowns in bedlam. We lay together on a mattress on the floor and listened to Aqualung my arms around you both,…

    Lou Faber

  • ASHES

    When I die, my friend Larry said one morning in the third inning of a double header of stoop ball, I want to be burned, not that I intend it to happen any time soon, but when it does. They burned my grandfather I think it was Dachau, but unlike him, I want to kick…

    Lou Faber

  • A CALL

    The thing about it is it is so damn quiet I can hear myself think but I can’t think anymore. And I’ll tell you this box is so cold it just leaks air and water has seeped in. Somehow I expected more it isn’t at all what was promised and the stone is not set…

    Lou Faber

  • AGING

    He is four today. He’s been practicing being four, so it is somewhat second nature. But he made a decision. Next year he will be five. He was going to be 27 next year, but decided that can wait another year. I asked him why he was delaying, he said, “You get better presents when…

    Lou Faber

  • MAGIC

    The money wasn’t really real then, it came in a box with a board, dice and property deeds, and it was in colors, one for each denomination, (kind of like and Canada and other countries). It was fun having a lot of it until the first time I snuck some out of the house and…

    Lou Faber

  • LIKE DUST

    We are obligated to carry memories, and as we get older, the burden grows ever heavier, we bend under its weight, knowing we dare not lose even one for once cast off, the weight is carried off like the smallest feather on a storming wind. Soon enough it is we who Will become the burden…

    Lou Faber