Slackjaw's Forum

As you can, or can’t see in the picture over there, I shaved my head this past weekend. Not all the way with a razor, but down as far as you can go with a pair of clippers. My mother in law had already lost her hair due to the radiation therapy she’s been receiving and I got it into my head that I wanted to get some pictures taken of us baldies in the family, what with the fact that one of my brothers in laws sports that cut already as well. Sweetie’s side of the family tends to make a bigger production out of Easter than my side of the family, in that they actually have a get together, so it seemed like the perfect time to get my hair cut and get all the pictures taken. I have for the most part, since the early 80’s, gotten my hair cut by Sharon, at Napoleon’s Barber Shop. Though Earl, the owner of the shop at that time, was technically the first person I allowed to cut my long hair off, Sharon was the one who perfected the mullet that enabled Sweetie to fall madly in love with m...

It’s been a while since Minnie lived out here. In fact for all the years I’ve known her, she’s been away from our corner of world far longer than she’s called it home. Her latest jaunt into the US midlands began more than five years ago, and though I do hear sparingly from her, I wouldn’t say that we’ve chatted on the phone once since Christmas. That’s not to imply that I don’t consider her a very good friend, as I have many good friends whom I haven’t talked to in a while. Sometimes life spins you out of the circle for a while, sometimes it’s for the rest of your life—but that doesn’t mean that they stop being what I would call very good friends. Very good friends leave traces of themselves all over, and in my book, it’s these traces that make the real difference between very good friends and everyday acquaintances. And this also brings us, strangely, to the proper amount of white button mushrooms to buy—especially the proper amount to buy when one is about to make pizza. You see, Min...

I could hear it the moment I got out of the car this morning. The mewling and meowing were echoing off the walls of the garage in the sort of frantic way a cat has of telling you it’s hungry or stuck or hurt or maybe just in heat and looking for a mate. The garage at the mill has large doors that close and I was thinking that perhaps it had been stuck in there overnight, but the more I looked for him the less I found him. It’s not the first time an animal has gotten stuck behind the great metal doors. There was, of course, the crow , whose dead body I found next to my car years ago, and whose means of death is still a mystery. There have been a few pigeons, who, under some mistaken pretense, decided the garage and its few exposed beams, held promise for a nest. In fact there was once another cat that had squeezed through a crack in the cement walls and then found it impossible to go back the way he came. I started looking under cars and in the corners, but every time I m...

The trailer has reached a new level of clean. There is fresh paint everywhere, Sweetie got down on her hands and knees to scrub the kitchen and bathroom linoleum. We bought mop and glow and now they shine like they never have—not in the five years we’ve owned the trailer anyway. Sunday I rented a carpet cleaner from the evil Home Depot—a place I vowed not to go since finding out they are as red as their logo and give money to the dark side. But you can rent a nice carpet cleaner there for only 15 bucks…so I broke my own guidelines and got one. The trailer sparkles now. Sparkles like it’s all shiny new, having just arrived, fresh from the factory floor. What is it that compels me to make the trailer look better than it ever has before, in those few weeks before we pack everything up and head down the road? I’ve become obsessive about it really…I wake up in the middle of the night making lists of things that I’ve somehow decided need to get done before it can sell. At lea...