Steven Howell Wilson's Blog, page 9

The Colonel’s Plan – Back to the Junkyard

June 20th, 2018

Dear Daddy –

The 1982 Impala leaving its yard-mate, the 1981 Chevette.

Last time I talked about the cars you let leave here under their own steam. As your dementia set in, you did let some others leave, on tow trucks presumably. One of them really annoyed me. 

There was “a man” that you “hired” to work on landscaping the property around the house. “A man” is in quotes not because I doubt his gender, but because that’s all he’s ever been called in my presence. I don’t know his...

The Colonel’s Plan – The Junkyard

June 4th, 2018

Dear Daddy –

Christian unearths the wreck of the Chevy Malibu

The green bathroom is well underway. I have only the section of wall with the actual shower plumbing on it left to tile. I hope to accomplish most of that today. After that, I still have a list of things to do that are drywall and electrical. And I need to floor the dressing room and get the cabinets put in for the sinks. 

Susan’s bathroom shouldn’t take long. I have to get the floor down, and, honestly, can probably...

The Colonel’s Plan – Water, Water Everywhere

May 30th, 2018

Dear Daddy –

Happy Memorial Day! 

Well… not really. I spent most of Memorial Day weekend at Balticon. Balticon is Maryland’s oldest science fiction convention. It is always as old as I am. The first one was held in 1967, months before my second birthday. So the number of the con is always my age when it’s held. This was, then, Balticon 52. I missed Balticon 51 because you had just died. I missed Balticon 50 because, well, it wasn’t well-planned. They only offered me an hour in...

The Colonel’s Plan – Well, Well, Well…

May 23, 2018

Dear Daddy –

As I said above, well, well, well…

I’m talking about the actual well, the one you had dug in 1967. Recently, the faucets began spitting air. The toilets were making awful noises when they filled. I thought it happened once because I’d washed the bed of the truck for about an hour, flushing it out with the hose. (I said “recently,” and I now realize that that was before I turned the outside water off for the Winter—so probably October, 2017 at the latest.) I thought I...

I Believe

Sunday I saw Superman: The Movie in the theater for the second time. The first time was the year it came out—1978. It was December. I was 13. I was there with my best friend, and we had both been reading about the production of the film for a couple of years in special update pages in the back of every issue of DC Comics. Some lucky kids about our age had won cameo appearances in the film, the result of a much-ballyhooed contest. At that point in my life, I had only seen about a dozen films i...

The Colonel’s Plan – A Day Off

“Come walk with me on a backwoods road, Where few tracks, if any, are found…” My Aunt Frances Wilson HIggins’s poem seems appropriate as unexplored roads lay ahead.

November 22, 2018

Dear Daddy —

Simply too drained, after these past few stressful, disappointing weeks to think of what to say to you. There are many opportunities on the table. There are certainly life changes coming. I need to process all of that. But, right now, I need to not work. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

Love, Steven

The post Th...

The Colonel’s Plan – Inspection

May 16, 2018

Dear Daddy –

I took this week off to work on the green bathroom, among other things. It’s Wednesday at 2:52 in the afternoon, and I wish I could say I had gotten more accomplished. I suppose I’m too demanding of my time. So far this week, I’ve met the inspector for the new air conditioning system—more about that in a minute—I’ve bought window facing, because we were out of it again. I furred out the rest of the studs under the window, so the tile would have a 3/8″ overlap where i...

The Colonel’s Plan – Working it Through

May 10, 2018

Dear Daddy –

A few years ago, I called you one evening and asked how, in all your years of working with people, you had managed to not lose your temper—and probably your job—when confronted with outright stupidity and obstinacy. I don’t remember what event sparked my question. I think I remember who had upset me—well, I remember that it was one of two people—and I won’t name names. Both of those people are gone from my professional working days, and good riddance. 

But people sti...

The Colonel’s Plan – Fighting Entropy, Stopping and Starting

May 2, 2018

Dear Daddy —

Entropy. Let’s talk about entropy.

The first definition is right up your alley. In physics, entropy is “a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.”

In colloquial speech, it’s “a lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.”

When I decided, last week, to talk to you about entropy, it was with a more...

Election 2018 – Please Join Me

Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a political curmudgeon. I’m usually outspoken supporting underdog candidates—like Gary Johnson in the 2016 Presidential election. My underdog streak goes way back. I was a John Anderson supporter in 1980, three years before I could vote. That might give some of you the idea that I only support lost causes. Not this time. 

This Thursday, I voted in the mid-term election. (If you live where I do, you have three days of early voting opportunities left. Do it....