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A Friend's Blog


If you have found occasional enjoyment in reading some of my work, I would like to suggest a blog by a writing friend. She possesses a contemplative mind, and writes both essays and fiction pieces.

Her blog is entitled When I Come To Be Old: Thinking About Aging, Literature, and Life. Her writing is more philosophical thank mine. She writes with file and scissors, where I rely on a sledge hammer and chisel.

Her blog also appears on a secure site and contains no advertising. It may be accessed at https://whenicometobeold.com/ .

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Christmas 2009: Does The Garden Smell Fishy To You?

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A Writing Exercise: Write A Short Story From God's Point-Of-View

It was a scene from years past. The toddler was fearless, and I saw no impropriety as he slipped onto Andreas Bauernsohn ’s lap. Although in his late eighties , he remained big-boned after decades of heavy labor, clutching the arms of his chair with fingers as round as hammer handles. His fingernails, trimmed with a jack-knife, were nicotine stained and thick as a leather belt. I appreciated his sturdy plainness. As a great-grandfather to the little boy among that gathering of children, parents, and grandparents, he smelled of kindness, bath soap, and . . . mothballs. Mothballs! By the gods of the ages. I was there to judge his worth and he assaulted me with mothballs. Holy oracles with stone tablets! Other than house flies and mosquitoes, mothballs were one of my few failures; they pained my ethereal nose so much I wanted to go old-testament and smite the old man dead. Hellfire and damnation! Sometimes my job was tougher than being a Presidential spokesperson. Smite? Don’t smite?...
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Schrams' Christmas Letter 2008

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