Coloma, Wisconsin 1978 There is not much left to do today. This morning we were replacing fence posts. Bob and I have pulled stumps all afternoon, he driving the tractor, I tying off the thick chain around what’s left of the dead trees. Right now I’m in the brush surrounding the house, cutting some tall…

He’s always thinking about other people, more particularly, what he can do for this family. Barbeque perhaps, bake some muffins, rake leaves, wash car, babysit, give lychee, mangoes, avocados. Every morning he watches their house while he sips his coffee, catching snatches of their lives through the windows. How they are so busy, making breakfast,…

The Brakes Near seven decades of run on, sentenced to a worn and hazy neatly there you go, so you’ve slowed, you slowly, give up to the end of indecision always anyway, come to a creeping standstill, your appointed hour quavers at stasis, the surrendering admit yourself to the final mystery of what you wanted…

I’m eating dinner in Liliha Pizza hut last night. A guy, younger, comes in. I call out to him. I haven’t seen him in years. We say hello, he sits. I find out he’s got a degree in English too. From Michigan. His brother, also a Lab Schooler, went to Washington, majored in Anthropology. “Say,…

I’d just been in Shanghai a month earlier. There, most people know what decaffeinated coffee is. Here in Seoul, fewer seem to understand what it is, and those that do, I guess, only do if you can speak the language well enough to explain what you’re after. Having arrived at Incheon Airport near ten the…

“Eventually, everything will be funny.” We were eating breakfast in the Palmer House. “It’s no gimme, it won’t just happen.” I’d lost my appetite. “It takes work. Listen to funny people, Bob Newhart, Steve Martin. Write out their jokes. And you take yourself too seriously. Write funny. Try self-deprecation. Exaggeration’s good. ‘This is taking a…

“I think we’ll postpone the exam. Instead of Friday, we’ll have it Monday.” There was a general collective groan. “That way you’ll have the weekend to study.” More groaning. Contrary to what they may have believed, he didn’t love to spoil their weekends, be it having them study for an exam or write papers. He…

Relatives On this, my first trip to Korea, I thought I’d seen all of my relatives except one. Then yesterday, eating dinner in Busan, although it was very dark – the lighting in restaurants here is usually quite dim – I thought I saw my grandfather drinking soju with his friends across the room. I…

I’m holding a candle. When I open the door, although there’s no breeze, it begins to flutter, casting odd shadows on the wall as I descend the stairs to the basement, but it burns well enough to blunt the darkness as I step down into it. Nearing the bottom, I can see someone’s standing there,…

I’ve just come from listening to Robert Cazimero do a show at the Blue Note nightclub. I’m sitting at the Moana Hotel’s Beach Bar, checking email on my phone. At any bar, I like it when the seats next to me are empty. The young man playing solo guitar is singing quite the diverse song…