Ron Franscell's Blog, page 21
January 1, 2016
A new year already? But …
Ready or not, a new year has begun, even though it doesn’t seem like that long ago when the “old” year started. An amateur philosopher friend of mine has two theories about why time passes so much quicker as we get old. Theory No. 1: Every year is an incrementally smaller fraction of the life…
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December 21, 2015
Welcome home!
For more than 12 years, you’ve watched Ron’s career blossom right here, growing from just two books when we first launched in 2003 to 15 (and counting). Now, www.ronfranscell.com is blossoming, too. Welcome to our newly redesigned website! You were the driving force behind this redesign. We know you’re coming to us from all sorts…
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16 Pages of Shocking Photos! (Did you peek?)
WARNING: Some morgue and crime-scene photos appear in this essay. Funny story. Not long ago, I was telling a fascinating little yarn about the autopsy of a deranged killer whose body was riddled with more than 200 bullets after pursuing police cornered him at the end of one of modern America’s bloodiest massacres. Then my…
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December 18, 2015
The radicalization of Luke Skywalker
A long time ago in a library far, far away, a mythologist named Joseph Campbell conceived the notion that all of humanity’s stories—from cavemen’s fire pits to religious myths to fairy tales—had certain similarities. They often shared reluctant heroes on quests that seemed slightly out of reach, thresholds to be crossed, mentors who guide us,…
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December 16, 2015
Never lost. Always home.
We have lost the sense of story in most of our mass media. We express every unfinished thought, take pictures of our food and our cats and ourselves, share other people’s aphorisms. We convince ourselves that all we must know can be summarized in 144 characters. So when a genuine story comes along, it feels…
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December 5, 2015
Miracle on County Road 34
The end of the year always inspires me to put things in order. Last night, I was rearranging the scattered piles of books and papers in my office when I came across a rather ratty Christmas card from an old friend, a country acquaintance up north from back in another life. I thought I’d share…
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November 30, 2015
Crime buffs only!
If you’re into true crime and history, you’ll love Ron’s Crime Buff’s Guides! There’s no better way to explore the crime history of places like Texas, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Maryland than following your GPS to the scenes of a thousand crimes. Coming in 2016—Outlaw Los Angeles!
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November 29, 2015
The Ladder Guy
A long time ago, my parents were visiting for an early December weekend, a rare occasion since I’d moved north. But I had already committed to hanging the Christmas lights before the weather turned bitterly cold – which is when I normally put up my Christmas lights. My father asked if he could help and…
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November 28, 2015
In defense of Ebenezer Scrooge
This essay originally appeared in 1998. It appears here today with a few minor but festive updates. No businessman in the history of literature has been as misunderstood as Ebenezer Scrooge. His very name is now a synonym for pinch-fisted churlishness and humbuggery. Why? Certainly because that was Charles Dickens’ aim when, in his classic…
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The origin of “hunker down”
Every hurricane season, two words pop up like a tropical depression in the Cape Verde Islands: hunker down. As a survivor of Hurricane Rita, which smashed into Gulf Coast Texas in 2005, those words became as natural to me as “please” and “thank you.” We hunkered down and prepared to cover a storm that promised…
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