Pinto Man

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

PINTO MAN

Mark Sliwa

     The television and VCR were on the blink. I’m a firm believer of selling things while they still work or move. A newspaper ad and I was $700 richer. 

     Three newspaper days later my brother, Brian, said, “Hey, look at this. A 1977 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV. And it’s only $700.” 

     God forbid keeping that money in my pocket. At the time, my brother and I shared an apartment in Raleigh, North Carolina and the vehicle for sale was only one town away. Being a mechanic, he convinced me to take a look.

     One should always be wary of vintage Italian cars. Remember what Fiat stands for:

A Beanery Writers Group Homage to Bob Sanzi

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

A BEANERY WRITERS GROUP HOMAGE TO BOB SANZI

Beanery Writers Group

I looked for your car when I arrived at the June 24, 2010, Beanery Writers Meeting.

            I hadn’t heard…You were gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Bob, you left too soon. Some of us needed to learn more from you. It’s hard to believe that you only joined us on June 12, 2010. At your last meeting, June 10, 2011, you were so excited about the new car Nancy bought and allowed you to drive to the meeting.

      We all heard your gruff, commanding, voice, and experienced your unique bombastic manner, at the first Beanery Writers Group meetings you attended. Some of us questioned whether we could tolerate you. You were opinionated, certain you were right, and felt you had to talk and talk and talk to push your point, even after everyone had “gotten it.” You were so certain you were right.

     Your identity was enmeshed in cars—you were quite animated and willing to share a multitude of car stories. After all, you were a car guy who even amused us by turning a prompt on the Kentucky Derby into a car piece. You didn’t seem to understand that

Red, White and Blue Dreams

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

RED, WHITE AND BLUE DREAMS

Diana Reh Hunt

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Red, white and blue dreams

born in sandbox games,

rocked to stars ‘n stripes lullabies

in cradles of freedoms to come.

Young hopes fly high on tire swings

when the dreamers’ smiles outshine the sun.

 

Red, white and blue dreams

come from family farm to

What Happened To Old-Fashioned Love?

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

WHAT HAPPENED TO OLD-FASHIONED LOVE?

Fran Welts

     I’m reminded of the song by that title when having a conversation with a woman I’ll call Jane. We met at a cancer center in Pittsburgh. Our situations made both of us tired, just going along, but still enjoying the good times wherever we find them.
     As we waited in a very crowded room, she asked me why I was there. She told me how she had remarried at age seventy-three years old, just six months ago, after a long forty-five year marriage to her first husband. Joe, her husband now, had also had a long first marriage. They believed in marriage so after a short courtship, they wed.
     At this point there were several heads turning in our direction, many of them young—or young to us!! They had laptops, I-phones, I-pads, and whatever else is new and modern, and were busy typing or texting. But they paused long enough to listen. Like all of us, it’s human nature to listen when someone is telling a story.
     Jane explained that sixty-three days after they married Joe was diagnosed with cancer of the jaw and throat. He underwent removal of his lower jaw, and needed a trachea to breathe and a feeding tube to eat. He cannot close his mouth and he cannot speak.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

     Around the waiting room you could see

The Sunshine State

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

THE SUNSHINE STATE

Mark

     Through the dark night, cement highway strips marked time with a rhythmic clump-clump. Stuffed near the back of the bus in an odorous sea of musty upholstery and unwashed humanity came one thought: Go Greyhound! I made the mental note of the $15 remaining in my wallet as we crossed the Florida state line as I curled up in my seat. For further comfort, a small portable radio pressed closer to the ear.

     Two months earlier, in snow-bound Pennsylvania, I had attended a college job fair. Recruiters from Disney World Orlando were there and a paid gig in sunny Florida didn’t sound like a bad idea. They promised an intern sales host position plus lodging for a six month term.

     My new home was Snow White Village. We new-hires got to reside in a park of fourty-eight trailers, fenced into a tidy rectangle. Each trailer’s walls were

Let’s Get Dirty

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

LET’S GET DIRTY

Sally Martin

     In our long years of competitions, Chas and I have amassed bushels of tee shirts. The most prized of these trophies is the pair that extols the virtues of playing in the mud. 

     We had run in cross country meets at Schenley Park in Pittsburgh, a lovely run. Cross country has ambiance. You run through fields and forests, it can be a jog in the woods.  We found one in Ebensburg and at that very simple run through fields and forests we found an ad for Lets Get Dirty at Slippery Rock State College (now University). When we arrived at the college, there was a trek through parking lots to a small ski hut building on the edge of a creek. Not Slippery Rock Creek, thank goodness.

        The participants were mostly a few of us sane adults and many wildly enthusiastic students. There were about six hundred who showed up to either laugh or compete. There were clowns, a group in kilts, and other groups in unusual but matching outfits that defied description.  

     Runners have things called “Fun Runs” but running is rarely fun.  Well, the one in Regent Square through Frick Park is pretty and tries hard with jazz bands and champagne.  But  Let’s Get Dirty was truly a producer of whoops, cheers, giggles, guffaws, and more cheers.

     But first, there was a run for the serious: it showed really good runners competing over the quite questionable course so we could see where they went and therefore opt in or out of the madness. The winners got precious few cheers. The crowd was waiting for us “Fun Run” types.

      The experienced participants had special preparation: duct tape.  

     Their shoes, not necessarily running shoes, were duct taped to

The Kentucky Derby & Flat Track Motorcycle Racing: Horses and Motorcycles

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

THE KENTUCKY DERBY & FLAT TRACK MOTORCYCLE RACES:

HORSES AND MOTORCYCLES

Bob Sanzi

To make sense of this little short piece an explanation might be helpful. The Beanery Writers Group meeting our facilitator and co-founder sends us a weekly prompt to assist us with writing something for the meeting. For the first May meeting she offered the recent Kentucky Derby as the subject. She asks us to think about the subject, formulate a piece and write the results in just seven minutes. This is the result.     

     The second hand will be up to the twelve in five seconds. There it is—so now seven minutes to write. The Kentucky derby is the subject, but I have no interest in it. Nancy (my partner) is into the whole thing though. She watched it off and on through the day.

     I thought the track was perfect for a

The Ghostly Hoosac Tunnel

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

THE GHOSTLY HOOSAC TUNNEL

Kathleen Clark

“This ride into the tunnel is far from being a cheerful one. The fitful glare of the lamps upon the walls of the dripping cavern – the frightful noises that echo from the low roof, and the ghoul-like voices of the miners coming out of the gloom ahead, are not what would be called enlivening.” —The Hoosac Tunnel, Scribner’s, December 1870

     The ridges of the Berkshire Mountains, located in the Deerfield Valley, stretch across western Massachusetts. The Hoosac Tunnel located in North Adams and known as “the Bloody Pit,” winds through the mountain base. I was fascinated by the many first-hand accounts of ghostly hauntings that surround the tunnel‘s construction. It provided a difficult and troubled challenge to the men who worked it.     
     Almost every tunnel bored through the mountains during the early 19th century posed problems particular to its location. Starting at the East Portal side, barely ten feet into the proposed Hoosac route, the specially made seventy-ton steam-driven boring machine cut a perfect hole . . . then stopped forever. The workers resorted to hand-drills and gunpowder, but couldn’t exceed sixty feet a month on either end of the tunnel. Boring on the West Portal side, drills hit soft rock, mica schist and water resulting in a soupy mixture referred to as “porridge” and prevented further penetration.    
     Thus a second tunnel was begun immediately to the right of the abandoned tunnel, using the new compressed-air Burleigh Drill invented by Charles Burleigh of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. This four drill contraption that could be pulled along the tracks as the men worked, in tandem with the introduction of Nitroglycerine explosives, finally resulted in the tunnel’s completion in 1875. Although only 4.82 miles long, the Hoosac took an unprecedented

DAVID: Part 10 of a 10 Part Romance Story

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

DAVID Part 10 of a 10 Part Romance Story

Jane

 

This is Part 10 of a ten-part romance story, David. Each Wednesday evening a part of the story is being posted.  Writer Jane is a long-distance member of the Beanery Writers Group, participating via the Beanery Online Literary Magazine. To start at the beginning of this story click on: DAVID Part 1 of a 10 Part Romance Story  

 

     The days flew by for us, and I have to admit it was much better spending my time with David than it was at work. Most of the time I stayed the night at my “suite” at his home, rather than the long drive home. Who am I kidding! It wasn’t the drive home that kept me there.

     With “The Event of the Century” under control, and with me confident that our guests would be well taken care of there was a little more time to relax and just enjoy the approaching winter. There was also the Thanksgiving feast to prepare for. David’s mother would be coming up from Texas to prepare the meal. This was her tradition and I didn’t mind one bit not having that to contend with.

     Every morning we would take his two dogs out running, and usually go to the stables down the hill at the back of the house. He kept a black stallion named Satan in there, and we would let Satan out to walk, and later run. Sometimes David rode him. I would watch and my breath would catch in my throat. What a beautiful site it was.

     As Thanksgiving neared, his family began to arrive and the house became full of sounds. The kitchen more often than not was the meeting place in their morning, and everyone would discuss

Have I, a Caregiver, Failed??

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

HAVE I, A CAREGIVER, FAILED??

Fran

I sit, watching him sleep,

watching his peaceful, even breaths

that include, every now and then, a long pause. 

I think I hold my breath too, when he gasps.

Then he breathes evenly once again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

     It’s been a difficult twenty-four hours. For a caregiver this is really not a surprise, but for this household, yes, this is a surprise. 

     Most days have moments to get through, things to ignore, things to do, and things to undo. But still, they are just moments.  And then………..
     Yesterday, in a split second, he bent over, got dizzy, hit the floor. I
moved, quickly, but not quick enough to catch him. On the bright side those of you who know us know that he is 225 pounds, and I am 96 pounds. Perhaps my moving quicker might have resulted in injury to myself. Still, instinct says try, and this I did.
     The damage is not too bad. He has a pulled abdominal muscle, two pulled muscles in his chest, whip lash of his neck, a bruised left hip, deep bone bruise of right wrist, and a two inch section of missing skin on his forearm. Movement of any kind is now painful to him, and the night was a very long one. Still, we are grateful nothing is broken. I must