Blog

Farewell To A Dream (This is the first in a 4-part blog series)[su_button url=”https://terrywinckler.com/subscribe” target=”self” style=”default” background=”#2D89EF” color=”#FFFFFF” size=”3″ wide=”no” center=”no” radius=”auto” icon=”” icon_color=”#FFFFFF” text_shadow=”none” desc=”” onclick=”” rel=”” title=”” id=”” class=””]Subscribe[/su_button] For 3 years I had a dream commute: a ferry ride between the island of Alameda and the emerald city of San Francisco. But, it wasn’t THE dream…of sailing around the world. That dream was tied at dock, as unable to break free as my wife Laura and I. And now that dream – The Boat as we still call it since we never came up with a name …

  Help me out, friends. My 18-year-old son Casey was sucker-punched yesterday by Trump’s assault on two national monuments: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. He needs your advice on how to handle this first, devastating blow to his ideals. Casey, a freshman in env. studies at Univ. of Montana, spent many days and weekends knocking on doors and chatting up people on the street – to build support for keeping these monuments and other public lands free from exploitation. He did this as a volunteer intern with Montana Public Interest Research Group. He called me frequently with updates – including …

I expected the rejection letter and put this notation at the top of my to-do list for last Thursday, when I knew it would arrive: “Weep, then move on.” Instead, when the rejection came, I went back to bed, pleased that the morning was gray as my mood. Thirty seven minutes later, the sun burst through the bedroom window and chased me downstairs. Grabbed the car keys. Like it or not, I was moving on. Outside, I stepped on a dead mouse in a rain puddle. Just how I felt. Got in the car, drove to my favorite downtown cafe …

I was cleaning a spider web off the mailbox last week when its angry builder popped out of a crack and glared at me with all eight eyes. Spiders usually win staring contests with me, but not this time… not after what happened this summer. I fought a bigger, better one than you, I warned the creature telepathically. He kept staring as I recalled the great encounter. My son Casey and I were in a tall, thin hotel built on the edge of a great lake in Guatemala. It is made mostly of rock chipped into blocks on site and …

“I SAW YOU KICK THAT DOG!” My hand froze on the open door of “Feel Good,” a bakery shop that my wife and dog and I had walked to with happy expectations. “You should be ashamed!” I turned to see the glaring face of my accuser, a white-haired woman standing next to the passenger side of a black truck. Instantly, I knew what she thought she had seen. My poor dog – tortured by rich odors pouring from the bakery into his nostrils – had lunged as the door opened. I barely had time to swing my leg around and …