Day: April 8, 2021

Thursday Inspiration — Them’s the Breaks

Fandango8 Comments

“Those are some prodigious waves, aren’t they?” I said to my little girl on our weekend trip to the coast. “Do you see how that giant wave breaks against the rocks?”

Debbie looked at me and asked what ‘prodigious’ meant.

“Large,” I said, “remarkably so, titanic in size.”

“Titanic?” she asked. “Like that famous ship that sank?”

“Sort of,” I responded. The Titanic was a very large ship for its time. I doubt that there were any larger back then. Where did you hear about the Titanic, Debbie? Did you learn about it in school?”

“No, Daddy,” she said. “I watched the movie with Mom, silly.”

“Oh, she didn’t tell me that you watched that movie together.”

Since she threw you out of the house,” Debbie said, “you two barely speak to one another.” She let out a deep, disquiet sigh.

“The issues between your Mom and me have nothing to do with you, sweetie,” I said. “We both love you very much.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what your relationship coach told you to say, right?”

Written for Jim Adams’ Thursday Inspiration prompt and for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (prodigious/coach), The Daily Spur (weekend/doubt), Ragtag Daily Prompt (titanic), MMA Storytime (school), and Your Daily Word Prompt (disquiet).

Three Line Tales — A Tidy Profit

Fandango4 Comments

She invested her inheritance on a three-building, nine unit complex right on the canal in the seaside resort town.

She spent some more money sprucing up the tired interiors and painted the three buildings, one orange, one lime green, and one salmon.

She put the two of the three buildings — the orange one and the lime green one — up for sale and they sold quite quickly, earning her a tidy profit on her investment, and a place for her to live essentially for free in the salmon-colored building.

Written for Sonya’s Three Line Tales prompt. Photo credit: Cristina Gottardi via Unsplash.

G is for “Gunsmoke”

Fandango32 Comments

“Gunsmoke” was an American television western that aired on CBS for 20 seasons (1955–75), becoming the longest-running prime-time television western in history. The series was the top-rated show from 1957 to 1961 and maintained excellent ratings throughout its run.

The western was broadcast during what is often thought of as the Golden Age of TV westerns. Other popular westerns of that time included “Bonanza,” “Wagon Train,” “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “Rawhide,” “Maverick,” Kung Fu,” “The Rifleman,” “The Lone Ranger,” “Death Valley Days,” “The Life and Times of Wyatt Earp,” “Tales of Wells Fargo,” “The Lawman” “Wanted Dead or Alive,” “The Wild, Wild West,” and a whole host of others.

“Gunsmoke” was set in Dodge City, Kansas in the 1890s. It actually began as a radio program that CBS broadcast from 1952 to 1961. Like the radio version, the television series centred on the character of Matt Dillon (James Arness), a U.S. marshal charged with maintaining law and order in an American frontier town. The supporting characters included Miss Kitty Russell (Amanda Blake), owner of the Long Branch Saloon, which doubled as a bordello, Doc Adams (Milburn Stone), the town’s adept and respected physician, and Deputy Marshal Chester Goode (Dennis Weaver), Dillon’s loyal sidekick. When Weaver left the show in 1964, his character was replaced by Festus Hagen (Ken Curtis).

Much of the series featured Dillon and his allies battling bandits, robbers, or other threats that blew in from the prairie. Most conflicts emanated from an outsider’s entering the small, tight-knit community and causing some form of tumult.

True to its name, the show did feature shoot-outs. But the program’s enduring success resulted largely from the psychological drama and tense situations that were resolved with moral ambiguity rather than with a showdown at high noon.

Previous BATZAP 2021 posts: A B C D E F

FOWC with Fandango — Prodigious

Fandango21 Comments

FOWCWelcome to April 8, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “prodigious.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.