Pickleball Journal - Entry 12 (Short Story) - 8/17/2026 10:01:22 AM
Thank you for introducing me to pickleball with your first journal entry, years ago.
Since I quit swimming in 1980 and long walks in a state park in 1990, the only sports recreation that I recall from my youth have been on my radar all these years in a wheelchair and confined primarily to work and home, except for brief travel excursions where I found pool tables and shuffleboard for elderly residents of a retirement community.
In the years right after losing my arms and hands to paralysis, I learned that I could still play a fairly good ping-pong game switching from my right hand to my left hand with the paddle so that I could grip it. I could not play with expert players because my reaction time, while still fast, was off by lack of muscle to get the job done.
In pool, I could only hold the queue with my left hand, again not my right. But I played a pretty good game of eight ball…just straight shooting with no ability to put any English on the cube ball. Beat two sharks six games in a row.
I tried tennis once or twice. When I swung to hit the ball, the impact was so great, that the racket was wrenched from my hand and fell with a racket to the ground.
But I could still play a very good game of badminton. And probably wiffle ball, but I never did.
I remember one time with a bunch of faculty members on a picnic. Everyone got on the volleyball court except me. While they played for about an hour I drank wine and got drunk, to my girlfriend;s anger.
I might've, could've, been a contender when it comes to pickleball, if only it had been available when I was still able and my legs still moved quickly.
I've learned to give up gracefully all of those sports, but not pickleball.
Ron
Pickleball Journal - Entry 10 (Short Story) - 8/9/2025 4:51:34 AM
This story is so perfect. You have captured the thinking process of the game of Pickleball. 12-0-1
...Michael
Pickleball Journal - Entry 10 (Short Story) - 6/28/2025 11:27:35 AM
I hadn't realized how widespread and popular pickle ball was until I started reading you writing about it and then found out in the media here and there.
Back when I was able, soon after my paralysis, when I would take a swing with a tennis racket in either hand, hitting the tennis ball would knock the racket out of my hand. But, I could play badminton quite well, but not volleyball. Even played a bit of ping-pong. Did quite well switching from right to left playing pool. Although I couldn't put any English on the ball, I won matches from some sharks that were dumbfounded that I could.
Now that I think of it, I probably could have played pickle ball when I could still move pretty well on my feet without running, scooting back-and-forth to keep from tripping.
Very well written as well as describing, in detail, all of the psychological aspects of competitive sport whether it be professional or just among friends. Enjoyed reading about how intense some people take their games. I was always rather lackadaisical. Played hard, but if I lost, it didn't bother me.
Ron
Cupcake (Short Story) - 5/7/2025 3:13:41 PM
It's hard to write from a woman's point of view in first person if you are a man. But Eva's exclamation is good reason to think that she believed your portrayal. As a non-reader of horror, but having grown tired of watching horror movies, I found that the story really lacks the type of fear that sometimes a really good horror story in video can produce with its music and suspense.
So I won't judge whether it was a good horror story or not. Just that it didn't scare me like a couple of instances in an old movie I saw with Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman being harassed by a savage murderer, Alan Arkin. Made me jump from my theater seat twice.
Ron
Cupcake (Short Story) - 4/22/2025 3:19:15 AM
Loved it! I'm wondering if Alana will pick up the pieces with Troy or move on. Why stick around to see if he is a lady killer too.
Dark fiction - excerpt 3 (Short Story) - 7/2/2023 1:25:46 PM
Thrilling suspense. It reminds ne of old horror movies where you don't get to see what's going on, but it is building up fright as it goes, holding a few jump-scares without actually showing a clear picture of the beast. Well done!
Dark fiction - excerpt 3 (Short Story) - 7/1/2023 11:10:01 AM
A gripping rendition that keeps one reading. You are describing Renee's emotions very well as she tries to find Paul, figure out where she is, and escapes this apparition that may or may not be real. Good work.
The only thing you left wanting was why she was there in the first place, 30 feet off the interstate. A car wreck? They ran out of gas? Why else would she be in unfamiliar territory.
Most Interstates have traffic day or night. You didn't describe any sounds of cars and trucks going by on this interstate, so close. So desolation and quiet may have been just her state of mind. The monster may have just been her imagination. We don't need any more BigFeet stories.
Ron
Dark fiction - excerpt 2 (Short Story) - 4/24/2023 1:23:45 PM
Certainly very intense. But even with Darren being a crazed monster in human form, some of the obstacles didn't work well and a bit repetitious. She doesn't have a name and that might help alleviate all the shes, but that's your choice.
Darren certainly is more dangerous than any of those other phobias. I assume later she wakes up from the dream.
The impossibility of Darren turns me off. I would prefer he was a real man/monster. You seem to allude to that with his inability to do some things a monster would find easy.
Ron
Dark fiction - excerpt 2 (Short Story) - 4/22/2023 4:01:26 AM
A gripping excerpt. I'm wondering if the light ahead of her bodes more ilk.
The Prick at Table 28 (Short Story) - 3/16/2023 2:21:01 PM
A very interesting read. And a great play on the characters' thoughts and conversation. I have had to wait on a waitress/waiter if I asked, it was quickly corrected. One time, at a restaurant in Corpus Christi, the fancy seafood place didn't have scallops on the menu. When I asked, the waiter brought me a huge platter of scallops at a lower cost than anything on the menu!
But, as far as the way some people perceive themselves, I recall quite a few at work, who didn't have time to learn new things that would help them work more efficiently, but lots of time to talk rather than working and make sure they picked up their paycheck for not working promptly.
And then, there is my tenant. She is clean, and always pays her rent on time. Kind and sweet when she wants something from me, but she is often very sullen and unwilling to even return my "hello" when I see her in the kitchen. Always complaining profusely about every little thing instead of just asking for me to do something about it. I usually buy or fix whatever is necessary, promptly. As a waitress, I can picture her being Helen. She has told me she had trouble at work, while they seem to value her as an employee, giving her overtime when not giving it to others.
In the beginning, I thought that Ernie might be a restaurant critic, taking notes. But, he turned out to be a regular customer making a serious effort to use his notes of bad/good service to determine his tips. Something that I rarely did, just giving a 15% tip unless I got bad service and gave something like 10%.
Ron
The Prick at Table 28 (Short Story) - 3/11/2023 2:56:08 AM
This is so accurate in describing how some people think. The waitress thinking she’s a victim of outer circumstances, not seeing her own role in what happened to her, even when she was quite friendly given good feedback on it. And Ernie on his hand, knowing he has a part to play in making his and other customers service better. I like the title and the way it sets up the readers mind for disliking Ernie, only to find he is not the prick at all. Very clever and enjoyable read!
Dark fiction - excerpt 1 (Short Story) - 1/14/2023 11:38:32 AM
A great lead in for those interested in what is going on with Mike. Psychologically, it appears that Mike might be the murderer with the knife. But it's hard to tell at this stage. For me, a case of too much information on one hand, and too little of the other.
Ron
Twitch (Short Story) - 1/6/2023 2:42:17 PM
I love the story. If only I could write like Dean Faller. "Pumping them out."
But I have seen many with cerebral palsy. They twitch a lot. They have a great deal of difficulty communicating by voice, let alone writing anything down.
I twitch a bit myself. Leg spasms mostly, but an occasional body spasm nearly throwing me out of my wheelchair or keeping me awake. But my paralysis affecting my muscles around my waist resulted in the inability to even write my signature in 1998. Before that with my rigid hand splint grasping a Flair pen I once told people, "I can keep three secretaries busy with my architectural lettering."
It wasn't a psychiatrist that I needed. Just what I call, "just-in-time technology." I am writing this with Dragon for the Mac that is now obsolete because it was discontinued in 2016 on this 2009 iMac because Dragon works badly on my newer iMac that is up to date. I am now able to write about 100 words a minute, but constantly have to stop and make corrections because even with a very good microphone, my words are often misinterpreted by the machine.
As result, your story has a special significance for me. I'm now 80, writing back about my life experiences before I became a recluse, but still writing gripping stories about the human condition, medical or not.
Continue writing this well. I am as best I can.
Ron
Whispering Steel, Rolling Thunder (Short Story) - 12/18/2022 1:50:50 PM
You reminded me of a couple of steam powered trains I got to ride. The Amtrak ride I got from Grafton West Virginia to Washington DC in 1973 for Transpo 73 and the one I took from Trenton New Jersey to Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan on the day before Thanksgiving, 1977.
Regardless whether I was on the train, plane or bus, the two things that I favored were a window so that I could see the world passing and a friendly stranger seat mate that I could talk to as we enjoyed the trip for what it was. Just like you seem to in this brief love for leaving an Amtrak station with all your rich language describing it. Our electronic devices and even the old newspapers and books, while they while away the boring hours, do not enrich travel like conversation with strangers.
Trains have squeaking brakes, not breaks.
Ron
Whispering Steel, Rolling Thunder (Short Story) - 12/17/2022 3:37:29 AM
I've always found train rides exhilarating while taking in the quickly receding scenery. Nothing like it.
A Different Tune (Short Story) - 12/7/2022 10:32:09 AM
At first I thought it might be good for my writers' music anthology until I realized it was a great expression title for what the story was about.
I believe fathers these days have a harder time than in the past. Here are a couple of my experiences when I dated in the dark ages. I recall dating a high school girl one time. Our date was a dud because she wasn't very interesting. But when I brought her to the front door to say good night like I always did to my dates, the door opened and her father grabbed her and pulled her inside before I could say a word.
When I was recovering at home from being paralyzed, my father, a trucker, thought that it would be nice for me to have a date. So he fixed me up with another trucker's daughter. We went to the drive-in theater and my dad insisted that she drive because of my paralyzed hands. Although I had to drive into town with our Buick station wagon so that she could drive. ;-) When we left the theater, she turned left into the speaker post and put a big dent in the driver's side door. I took over and drove her home. As we said goodbye to one another on her front porch, she complimented me on something, but then said, "You are in college and way above me, I don't know why my dad wanted me to date you." I drove home and tried to explain to dad what had happened to our Buick.
You made Terry into a very guilty and guarded father. On my first engineering job, a fellow engineer my father's age, took me into his home like a family member. He had a 16-year-old adopted daughter that I think he wanted me to be interested in. I wasn't. But my impression of him was that he wouldn't even allow her date any of the guys in her high school. He had recently had an affair at work. But after the affair he and his wife had three boys in like, five years. He probably remembered his years as a submarine sailor in many ports. No sailors for his daughter! That's why he picked me. ;-)
The second husband of my beautiful and very smart niece confided in me, "I took your niece out on our first date and was scared of your twin brother and what he would think of me. Instead, he took me out of the house into the garage and showed me his cars. I'm so glad we got together again after her divorce."
I think you overdid Terry and gave Alex too much courage. But that is the nature of fiction, to make your stories strong enough to be interesting. The hero and the antagonist.
Ron
A Different Tune (Short Story) - 12/6/2022 3:30:15 AM
Good for Alex in standing up to his date's overbearing father.
A Different Tune (Short Story) - 12/5/2022 7:52:37 PM
The father is being too protective and became overbearing. My parents were protective of me too. Whenever I went out to a movie on a date, I would find my mom waiting outside of the theatre for me when the movie was over. When I went to parties, they would know where the party was held and would be waiting for me when the party was over. I have never even thought anything was wrong. They've never asked me any questions, they were just there, and I never thought anything they did was improper, I just knew they were there. Guess I was not thinking any bad thoughts when I was at that age.
Sandie
Purpose (Short Story) - 12/1/2022 11:01:15 AM
While I started creative fictional writing earlier than you, in 1997, it is obvious that you have delved deeper and have come up with more success as a result, than I have. That job in a haunted house surely would put you in touch with others of like mind, sharing ideas that you could produce stories from that they would want to read.
I admire the breadth of your talents, your hard work, and your success, so far. May they continue onward.
Finally, as a technologist, ever observing changing technology, it is interesting when we, as writers refer to "manuscripts." Literally, handwriting on paper. Even though very few of us write like that anymore, except perhaps, our notes. And another problem is how do we refer to movies? While movies are still, "moving pictures," films are those photographed on celluloid and then, developed chemically so they can be edited, frame by frame, by cutting and pasting. Sometimes leaving the best on the cutting room floor.
In the digital age we are in, most of the still viewable film has been digitized, but we still refer to it as still being in its celluloid form. Proving that archaic English usage dies hard.
Ron
Purpose (Short Story) - 12/1/2022 3:17:39 AM
May you keep channeling your energy and creativity.
Inception (Short Story) - 11/28/2022 3:06:41 AM
Although your job had its own inherent dangers, your Walter Mitty moment elevated the drudgery to penning your creative thoughts. Your stranded motorist "jumpstarted" your imagination.
Inception (Short Story) - 11/22/2022 11:37:55 AM
Remarkably well written. The snowstorm was a great start to your inception into the writing world. Only I would've drank that coffee while it was still hot and got back on my duty or fallen asleep with perhaps, dreams of writing what had happened, but not actually ever writing it.
I feel the same passion and energy when it comes to writing, especially about personal experiences that are so interesting to me and also interesting to my readers. The best line in the whole first chapter was what you described as the, "kiss of fate." So often that's all it takes.
My only concern would be that you break up your long paragraphs into smaller ones. I wrote that way for a long time until I noticed that I could read smaller paragraphs much faster with a little breather in between.
Ron
White Memories (Short Story) - 11/19/2022 8:43:10 AM
This essay of the experience you had late at night in a snowstorm is peppered with literary similes and adjectives that great writing seems to require. The need to emphasize the common experience that I experienced during my young life in Wisconsin where snowstorms were more common.
When I think back on experiences like that, when I was 17, I recall leaving the Catholic Church bowling alley to walk the half-mile home in 20 below zero, when I looked up in the sky was exploding in color of aurora borealis streaming from the Zenith like I'd never seen before. I called my friend to tell him about it, and he told me he had been photographing the scene for two hours already.
Thank you for posting this wonderful slice of winter wonderland. Brought back many memories.
Ron
Pickleball Journal - Entry 1 (Article) - 12/5/2023 1:10:33 PM
Sounds like you had a lot of fun, got a great workout, and left satisfied with all the good humor and socialization that goes along with the game.
Ron
Aphorisms on Writing (Article) - 2/21/2023 10:33:17 AM
Good work! I relate to most of these and find writing easy, topics too numerous for me to write and set aside time to write every day, but not a quantity of words. Since 1997 I write a poem every week and post it here and on my website. That's the only discipline that I adhere to. Every time that I think it's time to slow down, I get a passion to write something new. And when I get an idea in my mind, I usually write quite quickly to get to the end of the work.
Find it hard to understand people who say they have writers' block or say they have something they really want to write but never start writing.
Ron
Dear Readers (Article) - 2/13/2023 11:08:15 AM
As I read your letter, it reminded me of my journey that started around 1997, although I had been typing away on my autobiography from 1992. I have had a few small successes along the way that I'm pleased with, but nothing like two film opportunities.
I'm curious as to why you left Facebook. I have a page there that I have not cultivated. Couldn't seem to get involved in all of that. So I have stayed here and been able to collaborate with many others on the writing journeys.
Ron
Acclaimed Horror Film “Friday The 13th” Slashes Its Way Into Roy’s Hall (Article) - 1/11/2023 10:05:04 AM
I go back a few more years. Early attempts at horror movies use older classic written stories and were often badly propped and portrayed. Some became "camp" and ridiculed. By the 1950s, great stories like Edgar Allen Poe's, The Telltale Heart and The Pit and the Pendulum became outright comedy and Boris Karloff growled the Monster Mash, "a graveyard smash."
When movies like Friday the 13th came along, it was all about gore, the bloodier the better. The shock factor getting at our innate fear of loud noises and scary visual surprises. The forerunner of which was the shower scene in Psycho, with Norman Bates modeled after Ed Gein, a farmer who lived only about 30 miles from where I lived at the time.
I guess young people like to be scared and like you described in your story of Blairstown, like to get together with other people who like horror movies and have a fun time like so many other followers of different genres like Comics and Star Wars with their conventions and get-togethers for fun with all of the disposable income that people have.
I read recently and I have found that many authors like to write more stories about their favorite genre. To me, it's all same old, same old. To write for those genres requires staying strictly to the borders of the storyline. That's why I write all original material with no reference or little reference to other stories. While I've dabbled in watching many of these long-running fan filled, sequel after sequel movies like Friday the 13th, I will never become a fan. Especially if something having fun with blood and gore. If it ever really happened to you or those you love, it wouldn't be the same as going to a movie. It would be real.
Modern Jasons, usually followers of some sort of genre, go to public places or even schools and commit suicide by police while killing lots of their supposed, enemies. Maybe, like in the Purge, Congress will pass a law allowing horror fans to act out their fantasies for real.
Ron
Disconnected (Article) - 11/19/2022 9:17:31 AM
As I read this essay with its reference to you, but disconnected from what you actually experienced, but rather, what the neighborhood children experienced. I found it not much different from my childhood 20 years before. And, in rural areas and small towns throughout America today I still believe that those experiences that you described and I have described, still exist.
But America's population, seeking good jobs with higher pay, have left small towns and rural America for the city where different rules apply and have always applied. When I go back to my hometown, it has changed little in all these years.
I recently wrote a book of my childhood memoirs. But I was more specific about what my twin brother and I experienced personally--Midcentury Tales: Unfettered Youth. To the point of having one reader tell me that he thought it was fiction. It made me chuckle to think that real life is often better than fiction.
Unfortunately, I find your lament unfair to today's youth. My grand nieces and nephews have experienced full lives 40 years after mine, but a bit different, that's all. I think it is a disease of aging where the elderly think that their lives, softened memory from time, were better than the ones they see happening around them. I know my grandparents complained. I read somewhere that Socrates complained that the youth were going to hell in Greece. Perhaps a reason why the Romans conquered them?
Ron
Diamond Spring Park (Poetry) - 9/5/2023 10:36:22 AM
What a lovely poem, David. You took me there.
Diamond Spring Park (Poetry) - 6/3/2023 12:00:01 PM
You took me there and I enjoyed it, even the ice cream sandwich. I hope not offered by a stranger. But if it was a kind stranger, okay.
Ron
Diamond Spring Park (Poetry) - 6/3/2023 7:36:08 AM
Strong imagery where one can enjoy the peace within. Great job!
Sandie
Mirror (Poetry) - 5/13/2023 9:18:36 AM
Looking at a mirror too much can cause real problems. Why I stay away from the mirror as much as I can.
Ron
Mirror (Poetry) - 5/11/2023 10:22:34 PM
A nice description of quiet contemplating. That’s how I read it. Very well written.
Writer (Poetry) - 1/21/2023 12:25:57 PM
This article speaks of passion. Writers certainly need passion to go as far as it takes not only to write, edit and admire, but to publish and promote.
In my own writing, I certainly have passion, and some of my stories and poems flow like a whim from my mind. But when I look at them later as an editor, I find many problems that need to be resolved before I publish or posted on the Internet.
Thanks for the encouragement… The boost in the rear… To go on beyond where others have stopped. Like Ed Minus that I never knew. I will probably be writing the day that I die. Focusing on getting the next one out on the Internet.
Ron
