Mag 21

This one is a little different. It's actually a true story.

I lived in Mexico for nearly five years back in the late 1980’s. It was a great half a decade. Lots of parties, lots of new experiences, lots of new friends.

One of my best friends during those days was a guy from Harlingen, Texas, who spent probably 30 years before retiring to Mexico living in New York City. He’s gone now but he was the father of someone you may have heard about. My friend’s name was Walter Nixon and his daughter was Cynthia Nixon. If you don’t know the name, you’ve been off the planet for awhile. Cynthia is a New York actress who currently is best known for playing Miranda in the "Sex and the City" television series and movies.

But back to Walter. He had a love for language and loved nothing better than discovering a new word or phrase in Spanish. One day he was delighted to tell me he had discovered the Spanish word for firecrackers. It was, he said with a grin, triquitraque . . . pronounced tree-key-trah-kay. As Walter pointed out the word was perfect because it sounded just like the firecrackers exploding.

As I prepared to write this, I dug out my Larousse English-Spanish dictionary to verify the story. Firecracker, it said, could be translated as cohete or petardo. So then I went the other way and looked up triquitraque. Sure enough, along with "clickety-clack, bang, and boom" was the word "firecracker."

So thanks, Walter. Firecrackers will always be triquitraques to me.

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Political Pornography

Argggghhh! It's that time again.

The primary election is a month away. The general election is 4 months away. The cluttering of the landscape is well underway.

This is just a small sample of the hundreds of signs trying to convince the ignorant (?) voters to cast their ballots for this candidate or that candidate.

But pity poor Rusty Bowers. His signs just can't seem to stand up to the job.

A happy birthday song for everyone

Today is my country's birthday. What better day to re-play this great video.

Happy Birthday U.S.A.

Green Victorian

Prescott, Arizona is known for its Victorian houses. Most of them are located along both sides of Mount Vernon street. But I found this two-story green beauty a street or two away the other day.

O Canada

On Canada Day, Canadians celebrate the day the British North America Act created the Canadian federal government on July 1, 1867. This date was originally celebrated as Dominion Day up until the year 1982, when an Act of Parliament changed it to Canada Day.

I grew up in North Dakota, only about 50 miles from the border with Saskatchewan, Canada. I remember many happy trips as a boy to Lake Carlyle, where my dad would enjoy pulling big "northerns" (Northern Pike) and Walleyes out. Frequently evening meals would be fresh fried fish with lots of butter and lemon.

I always enjoyed adventures in the woods, sliding down the cliffs to the beaches and above all the candy. Maple sugar candy in the shape of maple leaves that could make your teeth start aching just by looking at it in the stores. And best of all those delicious Cadbury chocolates. It's been over 20 years since I last visited Canada and many decades longer than that since I was last at Lake Carlyle. But I still miss it. Great memories of a great place.

Mag 20

The Toothbrush

The toothbrush lay innocently on the mottled floor. It’s bristles were only slightly worn, as if it had not been used much to clean the teeth of its owner. Yet they were stained a dirty gray color, as if by repeated exposure to water not as clean or pure as it could have been.

The brown handle resembled quartz with the light from the window reflecting from it and penetrating it as well. That light coming through the handle left a golden brown glow on the floor’s surface. It was beautiful, somehow, resembling as it did an item of antiquity, a treasure from a much older civilization.

In a different setting one could even imagine the toothbrush as a wonderful exhibit in a museum case. Perhaps it had once whitened the teeth of a famous scientist or an artist or even a head of state.

But there was no such dignitary.

No such case.

No such museum.

You see, the other end of the toothbrush – the handle – had been drawn over time through the bars that covered the window in this room . . . this cell. Over months of the same repeated action, first one side of the handle, then the other, the material had been worn away until the handle culminated in a point as sharp as any dagger.

This end of the brush was now a different color. It was red with the blood of its victim. He was . . or had been . . a guard in this prison until the owner of the brush, maddened by years of confinement and cruelty, had plunged the sharp edge into the man’s throat, killing him in an instant.

The assailant sat quietly in his cell, waiting.

He had already been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

He had nothing left.

Not even a toothbrush.

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As you might expect, this is but a piece of fiction, part of a weekly writing exercise instituted by Willow, of Willow Manor. You can read other works by other writers at Magpie Tales.