Steven Howell Wilson's Blog, page 5

Shipping now! Hobnail and other Frontier Stories

Last year my friend and mentor Howard Weinstein floated me a call for submissions for an anthology. Then untitled, it was to be published by Five Star Press, who published Howie’s excellent first Western novel, Galloway’s Gamble. The deadline was short, but it was a good opportunity. I dropped everything and wrote “Boxcar Knights,” a story set shortly after the civil war, in which two Confederate orphans hop a freight to go west in search of their fortunes. I love railroad stories, and I got...

The Colonel’s Plan – Catching Up

April 2, 2019

Dear Daddy–

So much has happened in the last six weeks, it’s been hard to keep up. Mother was in the hospital… Jim Heller died… Christian got a car… Tax season hit…

I already talked about Jim. That was a blow, and really got me thinking about my career and what I want out of it. Still thinking, so I won’t say a lot about that.

Mother’s hospital visit and aftermath… I wrote about her homecoming already. Since she’s been home, things have been stable, but our lives have changed a...

The Colonel’s Plan – You’re Under a Lot of Stress!

March 6, 2019

Dear Daddy–

A friend asked me recently, “You’re under a lot of stress, right? Like, all the time?”

I had to say, “Yes.”

I am under a lot of stress all the time. Maybe it’s been that way my whole life. Maybe I do it to myself. I used to ask Ethan, when he was little, “What’s the going rate on trouble?” To which he would respond with a blank look in his little, blue eyes. And then I would explain, “Because you’re borrowing a lot of it.”

My little future economist would not then ask me to explain usury...

Life Without Lazarus – Day 4

He pulled the legs off crickets, just one per customer. The crickets would hop in circles, suffering.

He would torture, but not kill, a mouse; and he usually let it escape. We had maimed rodents in the walls.

He would sleep on top of books, because a book with a body on it was less likely to be picked up. A book not picked up was less likely to siphon attention away from him.

If a book was in active use, he bashed his head into its corner rhythmically, until threats of exile and violence ensued.

...

Life with Lazarus – Day 725

Thursday Night – looking drained.

October 17, 2019

You get that feeling that you’ve heard this story before…

Almost two years ago–shy five days–I posted that Lazarus (the scruffy, orange fellow pictured above) had liver cancer. And then he didn’t. He had pancreatitis. Still, we were told he was going to die. Soon. And then he didn’t.

Two days ago, we were once again told that Lazarus probably had liver cancer, and we began mourning all over again. And now he doesn’t have liver cancer. Honestly, I think the bo...

Remembering Lew Aide

At 1701 hours on September 26, my old friend Lewis G. Aide, West Point graduate, IT Wizard, Convention Magician and actual magician, first responder, senior center volunteer and NeighborRide driver, left this life.

And he left it better than he found it.

I met Lew in 1986, probably at a committee meeting for our Star Trek convention, ClipperCon. I don’t recall the exact circumstances or what we talked about. I know I first heard his name on a phone call with Marion McChesney. I was doing th...

The Colonel’s Plan – Snow Day

February 21, 2019

Dear Daddy–

It snowed yesterday, and pretty much everything shut down. I suppose, if you could plan a snowstorm, this one would count as being pretty well-planned. It started before rush hour, on a day just cold enough to keep the snow from melting. Roads had been salted, but snow accumulation out-paced the chemically induced melting, and my street, which is normally kept plowed clear throughout a storm, was snow-covered for most of the day. Because of the timing–we were exp...

The Colonel’s Plan – What’s So Wonderful About FEELINGS?

Dear Daddy —

I wrote this entry in a time of turmoil. Your house was suddenly ours. Mother was still in the nursing home. My employer was still settling into a new office building and adjusting to a new leader. There were frustrating family issues. As I publish this, a good friend is in the hospital, dying, there are still work frustrations and family frustrations. There are still bills that I’m trying to figure out how to pay. In all of this, a friend of mine wrote today, it might be best to...

The Colonel’s Plan – In Deed

January 23, 2019

Dear Daddy —

We’ve come to a crossroads. Is that the right turn? Maybe it’s a fork? Anyway, we’ve decisively chosen a path.

The document begins, ” – Witnesseth – That for an in consideration of the sum…”

It continues on to say a lot of other things, including, “Beginning for the same at a nail now set in the center of a thirty-foot-wide right-of-way of the county road known as Simpson Road… “–a description of the landmarks and boundaries that define the 13 acres that you boug...

The Colonel’s Plan – A Year Passes

January 2nd, 2019

Dear Daddy —

Our first full year without you has come to an end. 2018 was, well, an adventure, I suppose, as every year is. It’s become popular on social media to declare an entire year a “fail,” or an “epic fail,” meaning that that year is somehow cursed, and that either the population of the universe should be given another year to replace it (the logistics of this are not discussed), or that it should be wiped from the history books. Such declarations usually begin on abo...