On boots and bars and motorbikes...

It’s almost that time again, boys! No, I’m not talking about Superbowl LVII, set Sunday, Feb. 12, in Glendale, Arizona; the 65th annual Daytona 500, coming Sunday, Feb. 19, live from Daytona Speedway; the gravity-defying Winter X Games, scheduled Jan. 27-29 in Aspen, Colorado; nor even the John Beargrease Marathon, which as everyone knows is the grueling 400-mile race for the finish line held the final week of January along northern shores on Lake Superior that serves as a major qualifying event for the incomparable Iditarod, the most famous of the sled dogging events starting the first Saturday in March and running almost 1,000 miles from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. No, we’re not talking about any of those. Sadly, we’re not even in the same neighborhood of TV channels. No, gentlemen, we’re talking about Valentine’s Day— which by the way, fellas, that falls on February the 14th, a Tuesday this year—and that’s press day for me, which means I’m already in the doghouse. But it’s her...

That little light-haired kid is me, a recurrent character in the book I just finished, just behind Major, this ancient German Sheppard we had on the farm when I was young, and my Grampa driving what I thought was a jalopy of a tractor because it needed a hand crank to start (and would probably hand over what's left of my teeth to get back again as a restoration project). But like that tractor, those bright white locks are long gone. What's left of my hair is mostly gray now, and sadly, there ain't much of that. But that's not why I write today. Rather, I'm hoping perhaps some of you can help me with something... At my gramma's funeral services last week, several people commented about things remembered from the eulogies I wrote for Viola's husband, Victor Konvicka, (my grampa, someone I was very close to and the first person I ever wrote parting words for) and her daughter, Lillie Horecka (my mom, who despite seeming a healthy woman at the time of his ...

Somewhere between teaching summer school college classes, working on book edits, wrapping up my electrical classes and otherwise riding life bareback, trying hard to hang on, I almost forgot about it.  You might recall, perhaps, me mentioning a few weeks back that three publications had chosen to publish things I wrote- -Bluestem (from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill.), with my story "Mr. Man Candy" (which I'll be publishing here soon, in its entirety with audio); the new Havik anthology Rise (from Las Positas College in Livermore, Calif.) ran my poems "Hap. Haz.Ard" and "Hipster Jesus," the latter even claiming a surprise second place win in the school's poetry contest along with a $75 cash prize (but that's another story for another day). And finally, there was Alchemy from Portland (Ore.) Community College, which published two more of my poems, "My Little Girl," shown above, and "Why You (dis)sin?...