Tag: writing

The burning chair

An introduction to Steven Lynch

“T.J. Hooker was my favorite cop show growing up,” Steve said. “Did you ever watch that? Oh, and I loved The ‘A’ Team, too! I dunno what it was about those shows. I suppose if I think about it, I can see how Hooker helped train younger cops while making things right in his city, and the A Team looked out for the underdog wherever they went. I always liked seeing people receive justice when they were wronged and correction when they did wrong. Those shows focused on values I held, even as a kid, and you couldn’t pry me away when they were on.”

Cindy grinned at him from across the table. “You’re very passionate about fictional characters,” she observed. Before he could protest, she said, “I get it, though. They represented real-life values that are important to you. I felt the same way about Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting. I also appreciated their sense of humor.” Her eyes twinkled at her date. “I suppose that makes me passionate about fictional characters, too.”

Steve smiled back. “Those were good shows. They haven’t been off the air that long, but I miss them. It’s getting harder to find the reruns.” He paused for a sip of diet Pepsi. “I don’t watch much TV anymore. Most of my time these days is spent working or training for work. How about you?”

His date shook her head. “No, I don’t watch as much as I used to, either. I recently graduated from UMO with a degree in elementary education, but after all that work and student teaching, I’m not certain that I want to be a teacher! I’ve been thinking about becoming a social worker instead, but I don’t know which program I should attend: UMaine Orono, or somewhere else. In the meantime, I’m working two jobs to make ends meet, and when I turn on the TV, I usually fall asleep.” She laughed. “I’m only 22, and I already sound like an old fart.” 

Her date laughed, too. “If it helps you feel any better, you definitely don’t look like an old fart!” he said, with feeling. Then his face went crimson, and he grabbed his fork to stab at his cheesecake. A cool, gentle hand covered his, and he looked up. Cindy was smiling at him again, but there was no evidence that he had overstepped any boundaries with his comment. 

“I know we just met today,” he said, “but you’re beautiful, and a beautiful person, Cindy. I, I, I couldn’t help….” he stumbled. 

“Steve,” she said, with her hand still over his, “that was one of the sweetest things anyone has said to me in a very long time. Thank you.” She pulled her hand back and took a drink from her glass of iced tea. Looking back at him, she added, “I don’t want to embarrass you more, my dear young man, but you’re very cute when you blush.” Then she giggled as his ears turned pink. In moments, both were laughing and talking like they’d known each other for years. 

About twenty minutes later, he paid the check, and they left the cafe for a walk along the riverfront. The weather was pleasant, and a breeze blew just enough to keep the mosquitoes and blackflies at bay. As they walked, Cindy asked Steve what his career plans were. 

“This is gonna sound corny after our conversation earlier,” he said, “but I’m planning to join the Maine State Police.”

“What’s so corny about that? If you’d said you were going into farming, that would be corny.” Cindy chuckled. “Seriously, Steve, there’s nothing odd about wanting to be a state trooper. What brought you to this decision, though?” They stopped and sat on a bench as she asked her question. It was only then that she realized they’d been holding hands. Just our first date, and he already feels like home to me, she thought. He led me to this place, and I willingly followed.

Steve’s voice brought her out of her reverie. “My dad was an officer for many years. He was forced to retire for medical reasons, but he was my inspiration. He doesn’t expect this of me, Cindy. This is a path I’ve chosen on my own. He has always made it clear that my life is mine to live, and I’m thankful for that. Some of my school friends’ dads expect them to follow in their footsteps, and it has made my friends’ lives miserable. That’s neither here nor there, but Dad has been really good about supporting whatever career choice I make. I’ve already applied and been accepted to the next class of recruits. I have to pass the strength and agility training, plus the background and mental health checks. We’ll see. I want to serve the people in this state. I love Maine, and I love to see a balance between justice and mercy. If I can contribute to that in my work in some way, I want to do it.” 

“How old are you, Steve?” Cindy said with a smirk. “I thought I was going out with a twenty-one-year-old.” She giggled. “You seem to have an old soul.”

“Do I?” he asked, reddening again. 

She gently slapped him on the arm. “I don’t mean anything bad by that, sweet man.” Then she hooked her arm through his and leaned against him. “You’re very thoughtful and kind-hearted for being so young,” she said quietly. “I haven’t met a man like you before.” Cindy felt disappointed when Steve pulled his arm away from hers, but when he wrapped it around her shoulders, her heart melted a little more. 

“We’ll have to spend more time together, then, so you can find out if that’s the real me or not,” he said. 

“I’d like that,” she replied. They sat in silence for a few moments.

Suddenly, Steve pulled his arm back, put his face in his hands, and then guffawed loudly. 

“What is wrong with you?” Cindy asked. “What’s so funny?”

When Steve settled down, he said, “You know how this was a blind date set up by mutual friends of ours? And they told us to use first names only in case the date went badly?”

“Yes.”

“We haven’t revealed last names yet. How are you going to find my number in the phone book without that?” He laughed again. “Mine’s Lynch. Full first name is Steven with a ‘v’.” 

“Delighted, Mr. Steven Lynch with a ‘v’. I’m Cindy Anderson.”

Ounce A Pawn A Thyme

Misreading and Purposeful Humor

(This piece was written and posted first at vocal.media, a site I have been using for several years for regular feedback and interaction with other writers, many of whom are more mature and some of whom are less hobbyish than I.)

I can’t recall how I found Vocal Media. When I did, the stars shone brightly in my eyes. Dreams of winning challenges danced in my head. Cha-ching, cha-ching was the song they sang. Then I wrote my first piece, crashed to earth, oh dang. Tried again, burned up. Once more. Gave up. Glassy-eyed, I knew I’d never crack the top two, so what would I or should I or could I do?

To quote Robin Williams as the genie in Aladdin when he was trying to get the title character to act naturally for his best results, “Bee yourself.” It stung to learn I’m not a high-falutin’ writer who’ll win challenges and supplement my income via this platform. Well, it stung for a moment or two. I can accept reality rather quickly.

So, I moved on. I write what I want, how I want, and if someone else likes it, then hooray. If not, then that’s fine, too. I write because I like it. I write because I’m moved to express my mind. Sometimes, I’m serious or sad. Other times, I’m goofy or donald. At all times, I practice the idea that neither I nor anyone else should take me too seriously, especially when I’m clearly being tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic, or punning (the last of which is always intentional).

When I was a boy (in the pre-Internet era), I frequently misread words or phrases and discovered humor where none was intended. I often wondered if my misreads were carelessness or some learning disorder. I have no answer even now, for I still do it. I’m an avid reader, too, so seeing “touch” where someone wrote “tough,” or “I kissed my brother under the table,” where someone wrote “I kicked my brother under the table,” leads to deranged comprehensions. This often creates fun interactions on social media platforms, too. If I can comment to make others laugh, I will.

My wife is not enamored with puns. However, we were friends for five years before she married me, so she knew full well that plays on words, puns, and dad jokes would be part of her marriage. I may be sheepish at times, but I did not pull the wool over her eyes on that, no matter how baa-d my jokes may be. And as much as she ignores my jokes, rolls her eyes, groans, or occasionally growls at me when they become too much, she delivers some zingers of her own. Heaven help me if I don’t laugh uproariously at her puns!

On occasion, we will be of one mind in a situation that calls for humor, but nothing is forthcoming. We both begin a joke, but when we fail to succeed, we conclude with, “There’s a joke in there somewhere.” That’s when I know we are in sync, and it reminds me of the meme of the porcelain basin and stand on the doorstep with the caption, “Let that sink in.” Ba-dum, tss.

We have been married for more than 28 years, and to say that humor has been significant in the success of our marriage would be an understatement akin to saying that the public discussion of politics and religion can sometimes cause friction between people. Without humor, we’d have given up a long time ago. It’s not the most crucial factor for us, but it has made life much easier.

While I like puns and dad jokes, she’s into the snark and sarcasm. Our kids have struggled to know what’s what sometimes. Are we serious? Are we kidding? So, they’ve turned the tables on us as they’ve aged. When I’m about to blow my top at my younger one, he’ll say, “That was a joke, Dad. Not a dad joke. Just a joke, Dad.” Then it’s my turn to roll my eyes. Then I have to ask him to roll them back to me.

Our older son has some intellectual and developmental challenges, but he has grown into a snarky wit rather well. One of his best is when his mother said something to him several months ago, and he replied, “Yeah. I get that a lot…from old people.” Since then, whenever she or I says something to him, he tags his replies with the same comment. “I get that a lot from old people.” The last time he said it to me, I reminded him that he lives in my house, eats my food, and we drive him wherever he needs to go. He just grinned and chuckled. He’s 20.

The Mack S o H (Sense of Humor) runs in my family, though it’s strongest in my brother and me. Our sisters are not overly fond of it, but they can be counted on to contribute from time to time. Big Brother and I can start a thread of puns, needle each other with it, get in stitches, and sew it up in no time, when we’re bolting for the yard or telling a yarn. We make them up out of whole cloth, if necessary. It’s not for nothing that our nicknames are Big Bother and Little Bother.

All of this boils down to why I continue to write on Vocal Media. I have these gerbils, squirrels, or hamsters running on the wheels in my head all the time, turning the gears, and sometimes they squeak so much (the animals or the gears) that I have to release the thoughts I generate in writing. This is the only place I can do that consistently. (Lucky y’all.)

Whether it’s humorous, serious, ponderous, or otherwise all for us, my thoughts take a tumble onto the screen. You read them, or you don’t. You like them or hate them, or you are ambivalent. I preserve my mental and emotional health, and that’s my why, as the kids say these days.

God bless and be well. Thanks for stopping by. Till we meet again, I am affectionately and occasionally slightly addledly (I know that’s not a word) yours,

Mack D. Ames, erstwhile hobbyist writer extraordinaire, tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek

Small Victories

Raging River Rantings or Stream of Consciousness?

Some people write thoughtful, planned prose. Others express themselves through poetry that flows from deeply intellectual ponderings. Then there are writers like me. “Stream of Consciousness” is too gentle for my style. “Raging River Rantings” is more accurate. It is not that I write angrily, but that as a violent river flows unpredictably, so also my thoughts move to and fro in seemingly disconnected ways. They link but occasionally splash bystanders in the process.

On my drive to work this summer, there have been many small victories. First is the absence of various school employees who clog my route from September to June in their desire not to arrive at their respective destinations. The second is the lack of children boarding buses. More important is the vacancy of stubborn school bus drivers who refuse to allow commuters to overtake them following four stops within five hundred feet, frequently waiting minutes for students who are nowhere to be seen, delaying following drivers from reaching their destinations on time. These wins are summed up thusly: Lowered blood pressure.

You laugh, but you know it’s true. Shake or nod your head; you know this is real.

The river flows on. There are beautiful farmlands on my commute. We aren’t talking the American Midwest here. This is rural Maine. Hayfields. Pastures. On one stretch of road, I pass through a town with large fields on both sides. On my right as I drive north, there’s a field where fawns and does graze in early spring. As the grass grew, the deer continued eating, but the hay began to shield them. By early July, the hay was tall enough that the tan deer were almost indistinguishable from the brown grass. Yesterday morning, I saw one deer looking toward traffic as I drove past it. By the time I went home after work, the field was mowed. The hay is mulch, no good for feeding, and I’m a little sad that it has been cut. Observing the deer blending into their surroundings has been a small victory of interest and wonder.

For almost three years, I drove a 2007 Corolla that gets 35 to 40 mpg. That’s been awesome, because I live about 35 miles from work. However, in 2026, my son needed a vehicle for school and baseball, so he began driving my car, and my wife and I share hers. She rides with me to work every morning and returns in the afternoon to pick me up. That’s 140 miles of driving in her car, a 2012 Honda Pilot that gets just 20 mpg. Why don’t we use the Corolla? It’s not comfortable. I tolerate it well enough, but it wrecks her. Furthermore, the Corolla lacks air conditioning. The small victory this summer in my transportation is that while we pay more for gas, I get to ride in an air-conditioned vehicle.

The rideshare has provided a second small victory: Hubby-Wifey Time. For nearly an hour each morning and afternoon, my wife and I have one another’s attention exclusively. Although we can use the time for serious consideration of marriage and parenting issues, our more frequent topics touch on true crime podcasts she listens to, shared-interest TV shows she watches, political discussions, or humorous anecdotes from social interactions. I rarely watch TV, so she recaps episodes for me. I fall asleep listening to podcasts, so she relates details to me of Sword & Scale or family revenge tales. While our financial circumstances forced this situation upon us, we are both grateful for the time it has afforded us. Our kids are grown, but still live with us, so this time alone is rich, indeed. Recognizing this silver lining is a small victory.

Life continues in leaps and bounds. I have never been a physical leaper on purpose. Nor am I what one Monty Python sketch called “Bounder of Adventure.” However, in our 21st-century medical marvel of treatments for sleep apnea, I partake of a “bound” that is helping me shed some of my former self, if you catch my drift. I’ve shed about 55 pounds (27 kg for the metric folk) since I began treatment in October 2025. That’s a leap downward, I suppose. Each month this summer, I have seen an increase in energy and stamina for outdoor activity, and there’s no doubt this is a victory. I feel better and look younger, even as my hair goes grey and my goatee is white. Hahaha.

By no small miracle, our youngest graduated high school in June. He is looking for work. We’re willing to house him, but he needs a job. The idea of college intrigued him, but not the academics for it. This is the same son now driving my Corolla (the other one doesn’t drive). The small victory here is that he is beginning to recognize that actions have consequences. A speeding ticket from two years ago cost him a job already. Naturally, mom and dad don’t know anything, so all our cautionary words fell flat, but now that past actions have bitten him in the butt, we look like frickin’ geniuses. The wisdom gained by personal experience is starting to pay off.

May and June in Maine are beautiful months. The trees finally bud and bloom. Flowers and plants burst with color. The drab of winter fades away as grass and leaves green up and flood the landscape with lush layers of freshness. Breezy summer days keep mosquitoes and black flies at bay. July passes with national birthday celebrations, Old Home Weeks, cookouts, beach days, and camping trips. Baseball seasons rise and fall. Local tournaments excite young men and their families. Alternative Baseball offers America’s pastime to men and women with autism and other disabilities (alternativebaseball.org). Dreams are fulfilled. Hopes are dashed. In all of these things are small victories.

Where do you find your small victories?

“You need a cup o’ tea”

It’s midday Friday at work, and three men came to class today. Two are math students, and the third is their erstwhile tutor. I feel extra intelligent for using the word “erstwhile,” but then I’m uneasy about it, wondering if it means what I think it does.

Okay, I looked up the definition of “erstwhile,” and with a bit of digging, I came to the synonym, “sometime,” which is the feeling I was aiming for. I probably should have used “sometime” instead, but I couldn’t think of it when I wrote that sentence. All that came to mind was “erstwhile.” Sigh. Way to mansplain, Mack. Sheesh.

The Erstwhile Tutor, or ET, for short, works through math problems with B and D. ET doesn’t hold great mathematical knowledge for instruction, per se, but he’s good at helping others process their work. All three are good conversationalists, for the most part, and they get along well with each other. The drawback to this is that they frequently spend more time talking and less time mathing.

ET and B are soft-spoken individuals who watch their language carefully, which is rare where I work. Penal institutions are not known for guarded tongues, and the f-bomb is employed where “valley girls” are infamous for “like.” D is from Cali-f-bomb-fornia, and he falls into the category of using that bomb in place of “like,” “um,” “uh,” or any other filler word. I get on his case about it lightheartedly, but I also want him to learn to filter it.

Today, I offered cups of tea to the men. I happened to have some paper cups, tea bags, and stirrers in my classroom, and I have a hot pot. I added fresh water to the pot, heated it, and they enjoyed the drinks. They all said it relaxed them. I’m glad to share.

As they drank, D pressed me for details about a meeting I attended this morning that affected him. All I could remember was that the result was favorable for him and that no one said anything negative about him. He kept asking for more information, insisting that I knew more, but since I hadn’t taken notes at the time, I repeated my answer to him. He asked again, and I became a little annoyed. At that point, ET said, “You need a cup o’ tea!”

We all laughed. I said, “No, thank you. I prefer coffee, and I’ve already had mine for today. I don’t like tea.” What I really meant was that I don’t like the tea available, but I kept that to myself.

A chorus of dismay said, “You don’t like tea?? What’s wrong with you?”

I laughed again.

“You need tea, Mack. It’ll calm you down!”

Again, I just laughed. “I’m calm. Thanks.” Then I told D once more that the outcome of the meeting was positive for him and that all comments about him were positive. He finally accepted my answer and moved on with his day.

That was 90 minutes ago. Since then, these men have completed about twenty minutes of math work and seventy minutes of meandering conversation. I read this to them before they left the room, and they got a kick out of it. There were some protestations of, “We did some geography!” and “That’s not all we did!” But they also acknowledged that the day had passed less productively than usual. They bid me adieu and promised to study more next week.

I just laughed and nodded. Maybe I should have a cup o’ tea.

Frigid

It’s a frigid day. A hat and coat rest on the rack by the library door, and the few sounds disrupting my peace are the ticks of the clock behind me and the shuffling of papers on a desk fifteen feet away. The door opens, and a grumpy inmate scuttles in, stomping snow off his boots and grousing at everyone who’ll listen that he should be allowed to watch YouTube videos and waste his time while others are trying to study. I threw him out ten minutes ago for doing that.

He’s not a bad sort, as inmates go, but he’s short-sighted, narrow-minded, and fixated on the idea that the world owes him, even though he committed a crime that landed him here. Any attempt to hold the line with him becomes an existential threat to his humanity. He’ll acknowledge with his mouth that I treat all with equity and justice, but since others in authority here don’t, then we’re all lumped into the same crap pot. I’d like to feel some charity toward him for seeing we’re not all alike, but he’s still a cranky grouch. It’s a common theme around here.

A colleague retired a few days ago, and he got all choked up about this being the “best job I’ve ever had, hands down.” He’d been here more than two decades. Maybe if I’d been in his shoes, I would say the same thing, in the same way. He was never tied to a classroom, and he never had to run a dorm or a cell block. He was a middle-management kind of guy, tying up loose ends, making everyone’s day. The buck never stopped with him. Even when he was a less-than-stellar supervisor, which he certainly was, the buck went further up the food chain. On a personal level, we got on pretty well, but professionally, I was happy to bid him farewell. The supervisor before him fought for us. He rarely did, and I spent years feeling unsupported or stabbed in the back. He’s been gone two days, and work life’s no better. Seriously. Makes me wanna puke.

On this frigid day, the only people making me want to be here are the officers I had hoped to work with full-time when another friend retired a few months ago. Instead, the other teachers and I have to work on a rotation, creating more work for us and greater confusion for the inmates. Management does such a great job screwing up good things. Situation Normal, All Fouled Up.

Before I left home, I donned a shirt, my new alumni sweatshirt, my work vest (to cover up the alumni design that someone at work would have a problem with), and my hand-warmer half-gloves. I’m still shivering. I’ve even kept my cap on. The realization that my regular classroom isn’t any warmer than the chillbox I’m in now isn’t filling me with great desire to complete my workday. I’m tempted to call out the remainder and go home early. I’m truly disinterested in working this afternoon. I’d rather start with a fresh week. I want to be anywhere but this place.

Who am I trying to convince? I’ve already made my plans. Tomorrow’s a big day for me. It’ll be my first time volunteering with a political campaign, as I work with another man doing voter registration in support of Robert “Bobby” Charles for Governor. It’ll be frigid tomorrow, too, and no guarantee of friendlier people. But the climate here has become so toxic that I need an escape. There’s frigid air, and there’s frigid there. Which would you prefer?