“They had it coming.” It’s a taut line of string that rewinds, snap, so quickly that I question the convention of time. They had it coming, a memory like my body telling my brain that there are some things I simply should not eat. My body gives it to my brain and my brain says, “Give that some thought,” They had it coming.  Everywhere I look, “They had it coming,”  And now, at the end of this human unlikeliness on a planet too beautiful for us, that sentence appears on some m

Sid Shroyer, author, When Once Destroyed, the story of the destruction of a small town It’s hard to see a criminal when a criminal is dressed like a hero,  Dressed like those guys who run toward the disaster in the ads that encourage enlistment in the Army and the Marines on TV. Hard to imagine that the guys dressed like those guys who run toward the disaster in the ads on TV could be the disaster.  The criminals who are dressed up like the heroes who unfurl the flag for the

Two days after his fifth birthday I told Vern that Santa Claus is real. That was the end of December in the finished rec-room basement of his Minneapolis home where he likes to assemble the dinosaur, Spiderman and Batman Lego kits, following the directions, one bag at a time. Me, of all people, just told him that Santa Claus is real.  He took me by surprise, but what is this? He took me by surprise. “Grandpa,” he said, “Is Santa Clause real?” With no time to think, I only fel