Day: November 12, 2021

#writephoto — Stones

Fandango22 Comments

When I was in high school, one of my best friend’s parents built a house way out in the country. Shortly after the house was finished, my friend invited me and another guy to join him for a weekend at his folk’s country house. He told us that it was in a great area on a hillside with beautiful, panoramic views, and the only way to get to it was on a dirt road. As a 17-year-old boy, I thought going to a hillside house in the country accessible only by dirt road for the weekend sounded like quite an adventure.

Bright and early on Saturday morning, my friend’s father picked up me and another friend, Greg, and the four of us — my best friend Joe, his father, the other guy, and I — drove to Joe’s parents’ country home. It took around four hours, including about a 30-minute stop for breakfast at a diner along the way, for us to get to our destination.

Joe’s parents’ country house was impressive. As we got to the end of the dirt road and I saw the place, I whistled and said something like, “Cool house, Joe.”

The four of us got out of the car and Joe’s father asked if anyone needed to use the bathroom, and, of course, we all did. Fortunately, Joe’s parents’ country house had four bedrooms and three bathrooms, so that was convenient.

When we were done taking care of business, so to speak, we all went back outside and saw Joe’s father driving down the dirt road away from the house. “My dad will be back tomorrow afternoon to drive us all home,” Joe said. “And there’s plenty of food in the refrigerator to tide us over until then.”

“Cool,” I said. Then looking at Joe, I said, “So what’s on the agenda?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Joe said. He handed Greg and me metal rakes and said, “Get to work. My old man wants all these rocks and stones to cleared out for ten yards all around the house by time he gets back here to drive us home tomorrow afternoon.”

Needless to say, the weekend at Joe’s parents’ country home turned out not to be the adventure I had anticipated.

Written for KL Caley’s #writephoto prompt built around the photo above and the word “stones.”

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — November 12th

Fandango18 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 12th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on November 12, 2017

A Simple Question

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“It’s a ‘yes or no’ question, Mr. Avery,” the lawyer said.

Beads of perspiration were forming on Tom Avery’s forehead. He looked helplessly at the judge, who was sitting at the large desk on his right.

Having run out of patience, the attorney also looked up at the judge and said, “A little help, your honor.”

“Answer the question, Mr. Avery,” the judge said sternly.

Tom sighed. “It’s not a simple question.”

“Yes, Mr. Avery,” the attorney chided, “It is that simple. Yes or no?”

Tom cleared his throat, looked up at the judge, then over at the jury, and finally at the lawyer. “It’s not just black or white. There are gray areas. It’s complicated.”

The lawyer threw both of his arms up in the air out of frustration. He didn’t want the members of the jury to think he was badgering the witness, but he needed an answer. “Your honor,” he said, pleading with the judge.

“Answer the question, Mr. Avery,” the judge warned, “or I will hold you in contempt.”

Tom was now sweating profusely. He weighed his options carefully. Finally, he looked past the attorney at the plaintiff sitting at the table behind the lawyer.

“Okay, fine,” Tom said. Focusing his eyes directly on the plaintiff, he said, “Yes. My answer is yes.” A murmur ran through the courtroom. “Yes, Amanda, those jeans do make you look fat.”

Written for today’s one-word prompt, “black.”

FOWC with Fandango — Cavalier

Fandango16 Comments
FOWC

Welcome to November 12, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “cavalier.”

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.