by Kathy Trenfield-Raines Each one of the full-fledged adults in my family goes to the gym, once a week, a few times a week, or even twice a day. My sister-in-law regularly attends a 5:30 aerobics session at the gym, comes home, showers and starts her day, a pure amazement to me, my ritual being [...]

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by Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky So easy to kick feet up, The air working, so easy …. But four roses in thorns Under high sun; They’ll keep their red Until dusk, but some petals will drop. I settle deeper in the chair, My legs relax, but the roses, So close, even if in sun, heat … [...]

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by Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky Paperless, undocumented, illegal …and hardly limited to the United States, and in particular, Arizona. There are millions and millions more human beings waiting to leave poor lands for wealthier ones. Take all the corners of the World.

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by Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky …and I’d told her friend that I always liked her, since I met her in class. Maybe she told her, maybe she didn’t. But I saw her the other day, after she’d parked her van outside a church. I walked up to her and asked her if her friend had told [...]

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By Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky …and in the Brownsville Public Library Main Branch on Central Boulevard, babies scream, more videos are being checked out than books and crumbs from muffins; yes, eating in now fine in the library as long as you buy its food, fall to the dirty carpet …. …and in a restaurant, Winter [...]

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by Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky “…what a f—-’ day!” Renee yells at the US Border agents. “You’ve been to Happy Hour!” an agent says. Renee’s sister, Angie, is quiet. They, blonde hair shining yellow in the Matamoros cold and rain and puddles, were lost, looking for a cab. I told them they could save about ten [...]

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By Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky Off the all-night bus, She stands by the pay phone, Dials, drops coins and waits …. No answer, no one at the end of the phone line, No one at the end of the bus line …. The coins come back, Bouncing, and one drops to the ground When she takes [...]

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by Gene Novogrodsky With mushrooms, the omelet puffs, Yellow, with mushroom lumps …. Coffee from Chiapas, Oranges from Nuevo Leon …. Sun through the windows, The cathedral pointed and high Into the northern Mexico blue ….

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From Gene’s Notebook …by the mud and twisted limbs of the Red River in North Dakota, I come upon a couple with a big white dog. I ask about the Spring flood that left the the mud and twisted limbs. The man, in a thick East European accent, tells me that it was mighty flood. [...]

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Road stops …and the former West Texas high school footballer, now driving an 18-wheeler between Texas and the Pacific, rolled in around 5 a.m., 600 Christmas trees, each weighing between 80 and 90 pounds, each fresh, green and woodsy (piney, too), and crept into the back of his cab and went to sleep …. …about [...]

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Request for plant ID Our friend, writer and loyal commentator Jack King has asked for help identifying the plant pictured below. Mr. King writes, “About 8 years ago someone brought me a little potted plant about six inches tall from Colima, Mexico. The plant is now four feet tall and has produced its first fruit.” [...]

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by John Goggin I: Lore Somewhere, out there, there is a box Of gopher wood and cedar Inlaid with royal porphyry. It’s sealed with seven golden locks; inside are golden keys.

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from Gene’s Notebook …and she is counting money, and also using a Lone Star Card …. She wants to put her chicken back, and get a cheaper one. The cashier tell her that would be fine, but then adds: “The larger chicken, though it costs more, is tastier.” The woman listens and says, “Don’t put [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky Health and war. They connect. For millions in the United States, neither health or war are concerns. They have adequate insurance, and they do not know or have anyone involved in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Yes, self-interest …and if no one else is interested in me, then I must be [...]

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From the Edge Tales I walk into the North Dakota night. Below, in the American Legion, a young blues guitarist, fresh from the local blues festival, tears up the floor. I hear on the sidewalk, Spanish, a lot. It drowns the below blues and above US-Mexican border music. Yes, border music and Spanish in North [...]

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From the edge …and in Rensselaer, NY, a lay-over for more than an hour before The Lakeshore Limited leaves for Chicago, so an old man with his former mother-in-law’s cane – (I’m the old man) – and two young men and two young women from Detroit who had been to Boston for a week of [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook …trains and more trains, the Burlington Northern and the Santa Fe (BNSF), east to west with empty coal cars, and then back, the black coal heaped; the whistle blasts shake homes, cars, stores and street, but the grain elevators, bursting with last year’s what, corn and soybeans hold firm …. Eugene “Gene” [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook …the 83-year old soybean and wheat farmer, truck driver, too, is burning rubbish. “The doctors messed up my medication. I can’t walk without gasping. I’ve rented out my sections (640-acres per section), and this is the first year I haven’t driven a truck or put in a crop in decades, except for [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook …The Empire Builder – train from Chicago to the Pacific Ocean – drops me in Fargo, North Dakota, around 3:45 a.m., and in five minutes I’m speaking with two mildly drunk Indians who are sitting on porch steps of a falling house; they greet me, and then return to their beer; when [...]

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By John Goggin It’s chilly and wet in Lindau; a grey sky scudding overhead, light rain now and then. We sleep in, still a little lagged. I’m awakened by a tour group outside in the street below. Still in my sleep attire (i.e., nothing), I pop my head out the window, and see them all [...]

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By Kathy Raines Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Molly’s coughing bark smashed its way into a lush thicket of whorling dreams. Rather engrossed, I thought, I‘ll stay cozied up here, with the barking, mere white noise, a soundtrack. Then she stopped. Ah, blessed silence. Two-thirty a.m., read the clock. Let’s just ease on back into the dream. [...]

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By Kathy Raines “Thou shalt not suffer a roach to live.” (Exodus 22:18). All right, King James says witch, or evil sorceress. Different translation. At summer’s incipience, as per two-year tradition, I, like one of those rigid old Puritans, stamp out the crusty, scampering evil, my own private Inquisition. I am judge, jury and executioner. [...]

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By Jack Moffitt Bell Rings at 8a.m., last sale at noon! Vitamin pills– good? bad? I like to listen to Dr. Dean Edell, the talk radio doctor. The guy seems like he is giving an honest opinion when he talks, and he keeps his game interesting by stirring controversies like the vitamin pill controversy. He [...]

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By Gene Novogrodsky And when the Texas Eagle, late as always, snakes its way into San Antonio, there are women in their 50s who are meeting military men.They have served, and are now retired with full pensions and benefits in greater San Antonio. The women have met them, often on-line, and have agreed to marry [...]

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From Gene’s Notebook …eating at our favorite veggie restaurant, La Naranja, on First Street, south of Morelos, in Matamoros, we’re eating and talking, and two men at the table tell us that their electrical-component companies are closing in Matamoros and are moving to China; the men, as engineers, have a chance to go to China [...]

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