Random Thoughts – Page 56 – The ramblings of an addled mind.

The Adventures of Pizza Dude: Road Warrior

Long ago, when I was a young man (just after dinosaurs walked the Earth) I took a position that I felt would fast-track me to a lucrative position in business management. I answered a newspaper ad for manager trainees with Pizza World.

Pizza World was a spin-off (copy cat) of Domino Pizza. You’re probably more familiar with Domino than Pizza World, but in most respects they are the same. So much so that Pizza World was in the process of being sued by Domino for infringement when I came on board. It seems the Pizza World founder and SEO, Tom, had been a Domino Area Manager who decided he could do better by stealing Domino’s secrets and starting his own company. And he was doing quite well with it at that time. At the same time that Pizza World was being sued by Domino Pizza, Domino Pizza was being sued by Domino Sugar for their use of the domino logo, which the sugar company felt was too much like their own. It was a mess and in the end Pizza World came out of it OK. Continue reading “The Adventures of Pizza Dude: Road Warrior”

Things That Go Bump

My final offering for Creepy Tales month is a true story of a haunted house and the crazy people who lived in it: my family.

When I was young my family spent some time sharing a quaint old house with an elderly lady. She was cantankerous at first, but turned out to be nice enough once we got acquainted. The only problem with her was that she was dead.

Throughout my childhood my family moved constantly and, like a troupe of gypsies we dragged our house around behind us. Well, actually a big truck came and dragged our house away, we drove on ahead in the family car to prepare a place for it to be set up again in the new location. Continue reading “Things That Go Bump”

ON BEING HUMAN

A great lesson every Christian needs to learn is that it is all right to be human. Now this does not mean it is all right to be sinful. Sometimes we get the two confused as we minimize our sins by the fact that we are “just human.” We use the safety net of human frailty to rationalize our weaknesses. We almost blame God for our character flaws rather than assume any personal responsibility for our misdeeds. Although we are created in the image of God, we must address the weaknesses of the flesh with integrity and grace. Continue reading “ON BEING HUMAN”

Twist of Fate

For the month of October I’ve been posting true life tales of adventure, daring and creepiness. This one goes in a different direction from the last three: while a serpent is mentioned, it is not the main character. It’s a true-life story I first published in 1987.

Fate is like an overly long serpent, twisting and coiling back upon itself until it seems certain to tie itself into knots. Somehow, it never does. I found myself snared in a bight of this serpent a few years ago. I was late for work. I took a short cut past the old airport and pushed the accelerator closer to the floor.

car,automobile, thunderbird — My ’69 T-Bird

I drove a 1969 Thunderbird–then only five years old–with a 429 Thunderjet engine, high performance cams, valves and pistons. The car was too heavy to be any good at street drag racing but on a long haul it was one of the fastest cars around. I could make the long run to Chicago at 115 miles per hour with the engine just purring along. Twice–that I know of–I had flashed past a highway patrol car which was hiding off on the roadside. Neither time did they try to pursue. Continue reading “Twist of Fate”

Autumn Arrives

It’s late October; the mountains are splashed with autumn red, gold, yellow and russet as the hardwood trees settle in for a long nap. There is a bite of winter to the crisp nighttime air.

Most of the garden is slowing to a crawl if not wilting up entirely. But not everything in the garden is going dormant. I have a fresh crop of lettuce, beets, squash, chard, Brussels sprouts and onions that have sprouted and will continue to grow and provide us with fresh vegetables well into the winter. Winter gardening? Outdoors? Yes! Continue reading “Autumn Arrives”

The Second Snake

About this time three weeks ago I was dealing with a copperhead that came a-calling. Yesterday evening, Marie was out working in her flower gardens. I was inside reading. She stuck her head in the front door and said, “Snake!”

“Where?”

“Right here by the front steps.”

“Can you tell what kind it is?” By now I was up and heading for the door. Continue reading “The Second Snake”

Difficult Voices: First Person Plural

First person is a very common voice for writers to use in fiction, especially in mysteries and crime thrillers; this voice allows the reader to discover the plot as it unfolds through the protagonists eyes.

Harold said, “I never knew her.” But I knew he was lying. I knew for a fact that Harold and Liz went to school together, shared a few classes and even dated for a while after they graduated. Why was he lying? I decided not to press the point just yet; I’d dangle a rope and see if he’d hang himself first.

First person can be limiting because the reader can only experience what the POV character knows, or experiences. This means that the scope of the novel needs to be fairly tight. Using multiple POV characters (first person serial) can expand the view considerably. Generally this is done by letting characters take turns in relating events as the story unfolds. Sometimes someone does something unusual such as in Levi Montgomery’s The Death of Patsy McCoy where the same story is retold through the eyes of several characters and each retelling reveals new facets of the complete story. Continue reading “Difficult Voices: First Person Plural”

A Whisper or a Brick – Communicating with God

Last night Marie was coming home with a pick-up truck load of groceries. It was late, it had been a busy day for both of us and she knew I was tired too; lugging a weeks worth of groceries up to our house from the workshop was not something I would be looking forward to. She reached over and pressed the Four Wheel High button on the dash – and it ENGAGED! This was a great surprise since it had been fluky for a while, working sometimes, not working at others, but mostly not. She happily swung into our driveway and came crawling up the steep gravel grade. I was working at the computer in our dining area, the windows of which look out over our driveway and I wondered who had gotten lost – I sure wasn’t expecting it to be Marie! Continue reading

Encounter at Copperhead

Here’s another creepy tail of adventure for Halloween month.

I had completed my morning gardening chores, made my mail run, had lunch, gotten the riding mower out and was starting my mowing when I spotted a snake crawling out of a hole in the underpinning (skirting) of my workshop – a mobile home that was on the property when we bought it and served as our home until we were able to build a house. It looked a lot like a copperhead. Or at least what I remembered a copperhead to look like. But before I went into snake eradication mode I decided to do some fact checking: sometimes good snakes have coloring very similar to the bad snakes, and I don’t want to kill a King Snake because I mistook it for a viper. Continue reading “Encounter at Copperhead”