Pumping tires 1/28/21

Quality reads from across the web

Howdy friends. I hope you’re all doing well, or as well as you can be, given the ongoing global circumstances.

I don’t have anything new for you. Instead, I’ve been trying to get outside as much as I can, soak up that deep winter sun and spent as much time in the snow and ice with my family as we can manage while the getting’s good.

So, I present to you a few pieces of writing I’ve come across from around the web that I have enjoyed greatly of late. Maybe you’ll dig them too? I hope so.

The Goalie - by Frank Reardon - Family, trauma, hockey, great writing. This piece has it all!

Billy ran back down the rickety wood stairs that led to Grandpa’s dark basement and ran back up with a baseball glove, leg pads and a goalie stick.

“No mask?” I asked.

“You don’t need a mask, Gerry.” Billy replied.

“You take slap-shots, what if one knocks me in the face?”

“We wont take shots at your face. I promise.”

I agreed because I trusted him.

The Necessity of City Walls - by Andrew F. Sullivan - Another story about family and the ties that bind, until they fray beyond repair.

Arnold was like this when I was young, but in the smaller ways you barely recognize. The rage over a parking spot snatched by another driver without morals. The anger that propelled him through crowds whenever we went into the city, a force that carried me in its unsteady wake. The fury at men leaning in doorways, barely contained within his polite excuse me on the way out. The seeds were always there, dormant. I thought they would mellow with time.

Mi Amigo - by Kevin Sterne - A touching piece of CNF about friendship, work, and value.

Each human is a different tree. Every ring is love. Have you ever tried counting the rings in a tree, like really tried? 

It takes a long time, but it’s worth it, to focus with all your effort on something other than yourself.