The waterline crew is replacing temporary asphalt with a more durable patch, compacting soil, applying tar, and refilling with asphalt. The focus, however, is on the crew’s adeptness with the shovel.
Knights of Shovelry
Lars Peterson
Posts by Lars Peterson:
The Saving Lemon
A couple weeks ago on a warm May afternoon we attended a baby shower in the beautiful backyard of a stately old South Pasadena home. On the way in somebody had left a basket of lemons under a sign that read “Free Lemons. Take One.” I took one thinking it was part of a baby shower game—count up the seeds, squeeze the most juice. Baby showers always have those awkward fertility ritual games. Well pretty soon I found out the lemons were just lemons. One of the guests had had a surfeit of them, and brought them along to share. [Read More]
A Milestone
This week’s 150 word story is a first for Storyweek—it arrived “over the transom,” out of the blue, unasked for, and certainly unexpected. Nobody we don’t already know has ever sent us anything. We have no idea how its author, David R. Topper, of Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada), found us (we were too stunned to ask during our exchange of emails), but we are happy he did. Conversations between dentist and patient are so one-sided. If you’d like to send us a 150 word story (or a longer one or pitch a serial), drop us a line at queries@storyweek.com. The slush [Read More]
“San Lorenzo” and the Real San Lorenzo
Thursday’s Storyweek story — Old Man Bobo’s Mandy — written by Englishman Horace Annesley Vachell, sent us scurrying down an internet rabbit hole after an idyll. Where in California, exactly, did Vachell find the inspiration for the fictional town of “San Lorenzo,” the setting for his collection of stories Bunch Grass: A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch? Vachell’s Wikipedia entry shed little light on the writer’s life on the land, noting only that Vachell “went to California where he became partner in a land company and married Lydie Phillips, his partner’s daughter. His wife died in 1895 after [Read More]
All About Amy
Whenever we publish an old story from the public domain, we like to include a note or two about the author and a link to more info — usually to Wikipedia. Unfortunately for us the ‘pedia has no entry for the author of today’s story — Amy Wentworth Stone — and we linked instead to an archive of her correspondence with the Maine State Library, which collected works by local writers (“Maine Writers”). More on that in a moment. A deeper search brought us to a couple of old Kirkus Reviews of two of her works (Treasure for Debby; Let [Read More]
Here, Have a Cobweb Valentine
The description accompanying the featured image attached to today’s Valentine’s Day story (John Hartley’s Valentine Day), notes that the card is a “Cobweb” or “Birdcage” Valentine card in which a secret image or message is hidden beneath an intricately cut and embossed top or front image. To reveal the secret image, the recipient must unravel the puzzle of the first, often with a piece of attached thread: This is an exceptional Valentine, with the central design being a twisted paper confection which looks like a morning glory, and when untwisted, reveals a fine cobweb device, and both have been applied [Read More]
She Used To!
I was the night shift cashier at a gas station/mini-mart in Bridgeport, California one summer. Ours may have been the only gas station or store open all night on that stretch of 395 between Mammoth and Topaz. Not too many people pulled in, but we got enough to make it worthwhile to the station’s owner. One night in late August, just before four a.m. when the chill was really beginning to set in, an old MG roadster bounced up to the pumps. It was top down and stacked with suitcases, crushed u-haul boxes, picture frames, a bit of old carpet [Read More]
The Death of Sears
Years ago my dad bought a refrigerator for like $800 and paid for it with a check and then a couple months later I overheard him complaining to my stepmother that that goddamned check hadn’t cleared yet and it was screwing up his checkbook. This went on for months until he finally called the bank who told him to call the Sears and they told him they didn’t have any record of that transaction whatsoever. “Well now what am I supposed to do?” he said. “Enjoy your free refrigerator.” Which he did, but only because he kept that $800 on [Read More]
If a Famous NYT Restaurant Reviewer Sidelined as a Private Eye
The woman who arrived for the appointment was a sigh of silk and tall brunette as she slid into the booth for her free consult. The waiter appeared a moment later, before we’d had a chance to introduce ourselves properly, perhaps a touch too prompt and efficient for the siesta service, but maybe he’d been short-tipped one time too many by young money boys who hadn’t earned their lunches yet. He smiled and greeted us with a trio of small plates: an amusing salmon croquette, two shining slivers of smoked trout, a dollop of crab leg meat and mayo. “That’s [Read More]
Remember When Amtrak Let a Bunch of Writers Ride Free?
Wouldn’t it be great if lots of government orgs did that, too? US Postal Service “1 pm. Lunch over we set out to cover the southwest corner of the 90803, a route no carrier enjoys due to its paucity of shade trees and its plenty of hounds. My carrier quips that he spends his days in a haze of barks and yelps, and indeed, the barks and yelps do seem to follow us up and down the sunbaked blocks.” US Forest Service “3 pm and the fourth pot of coffee of the day. Before I agreed to accept this residency [Read More]