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Gross Songs Kids Love
The first book I ever wrote was a collection of lewd songs children sing in grade school called Gross Songs Kids Love. However, due to file mismanagement and The White Album Problem, I no longer have the book. It was originally written in PFS Write on a Zenith personal computer with a 5 MB hard…
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Who is Roger?
Roger got up to go to work, just like he does every morning. The sky was still dark, but there was a hint of gray as the sun was rising far away from his east window. His wife made him breakfast as he put on his shoes. He always kept them by the front door…
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Kite – How I Got Fired from My First Writing Job
Ryan Zimmerman owned more computers than anyone I knew at the time. He was 14 and ran his own bulletin board server from his bedroom via an ISDN line in a time when most people only had dial-up. Our high school had just got it’s first T1 line the year before, a connection that’s slower…
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Blueberry Morning
The year I entered high school the administrators changed the rules regarding letter jackets. Instead of getting a free jacket after 3 “letters”, you had to pay after at least one letter. My older brother caught the worst end of this change, having to buy his own letter jacket after his third letter. I wanted…
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King’s Island
I had been dating Jessica a little over a year when she broke up with me the day she graduated from high school. I had driven down from working in Michigan to see her graduate and on the way to her friend’s house she told me it was over. That night we went to a…
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Silver Beach
It was unusual for only two of us to be at the lodge at any one time, and strictly speaking, it was not allowed, but that’s the predicament Denise and I found ourselves in that weekend. The year was 1999 and gas was high at $2 a gallon. We were both working at Michiana Christian…
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Things Change
After making fun of his mom (like kids in 6th grade do) he stood up, pushed me, and we both ended up in the principal’s office. That summer Joey Harless stole his dad’s car, wrecked it, and killed himself with his dad’s gun. My sophomore year of high school Molly Gibson dug her fingers into…
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Facebook: The Journal of Our Times
Before Facebook, unless you kept a diary or wrote a blog, there was little recording of day-to-day events in most people’s lives. Some people made baby books for their children, but mostly just for their first or second child. But now, the combination of smartphone cameras and mobile apps, documenting our lives has never been…
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Sometimes I Worry
Sometimes I worry about people. There was a guy who went straight into the military from high school. I think about him every now and then and wonder if he’s okay. Today I looked him on Facebook. He’s got 4 kids and he looks like he’s doing okay. Now I don’t have to worry about…