Slackjaw's Forum

I’m outside in my bare feet. It’s really too cold for that but I’m out here anyway. The sun has just come up and my coffee cup poised at my lips has me looking past the stand of cedars that mark our property line. The grass is still wet from last night’s rain, but there’s also a touch of warm sun on my toes and that’s what’s making the difference I guess. The difference of me standing here versus going back inside and forgetting the whole damn thing. The paperboy is back to playing the game of Hide the Paper and I’ve decided that on this morning I’m going to accept the challenge. “Bring it on,” I said in my most Sly Stalone Rocky II tone of voice. (Or was that Rocky IV, with the Russian?) No mater, because coffee cup in hand, I am determined to bare footedly battle the elements to read the morning headlines. Where could it have gone? I have, in the past, found its tattered remains strewn amongst the woodpile or in a far off corner under the cinderblock supports that shore up t...

An exchange of  letters to my good friend the Reverend Trotter. Dear Reverend: There was this article in today’s paper on the front page, the mental health issue, and I thought of you over coffee this morning. I didn't read it or anything...just saw it and said, "hmm, another article about the crazy people in Washington that the good Reverend Trotter works with." I like the fact that the articles in regard to your livelihood find their way on the front page of the newspaper from time to time. That seems to happen less frequently with my livelihood; likely due to the fact that we have our own section I suppose. The fact that we do should make me feel proud about the profession that I've chosen, but somehow it doesn't really. My section seems out of the way and cold, buried near the K-Mart inserts and the classifieds. After the comics but before the junk. And here is where you say..."What about Enron, Bill Gates, NASDAQ's decline, Pioneer closing...

This Saturday night, the 16th of March, my band The Prairie Dogs are playing Kings Coffee again. We played there back in January and had a pretty nice time all in all. I think they liked the size of the crowd we pulled in since they were quick to book us for another show. We’ve spent the last two months working on a CD that we can sell to family and friends and the like. We finely finished it last week and the picture above is the cover. We’ve also worked up a bunch of new stuff so even if you’ve seen us before, we have lots of new songs to offer. Doug Mackey, of Mr. Blackwatch said he’d warm us up again and things should get under way right after 8 PM. Kings Coffee doesn’t sell alcohol but there’s a bar right next door where I grabbed a pint before the last gig we played even though the coffee house makes a nice latte if that’s more to your liking. Other stuff this last week, our littlest one had his second birthday on Thursday and we had a small get together with family ...

This is an extraordinary week by any measure. On Tuesday night Sweetie and I will be celebrating the twentieth anniversary of our first date and on Thursday, the littlest one will have his second birthday. What makes them both so extraordinary is the improbability of those events happening at all, much less in the same week. When most of the time life feels like driving with your hands off of the wheel, it’s always a surprise when you keep winding up mostly where you wanted to go in the first place. That inexplicably, all roads do lead to the proverbial Rome and that elusive thing we call happiness is found in the most unlikely of places all along the way. Twenty years ago I started to fall in love with a beautiful, blond haired, blue-eyed girl that had the lead in the school play. She had the one quality that I couldn’t resist: she laughed at my jokes. Twenty years later she will still laugh and as I’ve gotten older I find that that’s all that matters. Two years ago this T...