In this group of writings authors reflect on everything from a hunting trip to the childhood experience of a bully. This section is called Reflection on Life because in  life beams through each writing.

The Cells of My Life

By Chris Burge

So much we command

Yet life itself

Is elusive.

I want to be a captain, momma,

To recognize distant shores.

I want to be a captain, momma,

Free of everyday chores.

I want to wrestle nature’s seas

And bring my momma home

The chalice and the golden fleece

That no man’s ever owned.

I want to be a soldier, momma,

And conquer foreign lands.

I want to be a soldier, momma,

And fight with soldier hands.

I want to wrestle from all men

My momma’s love and care

The love that has been given them

The love they could not share.

I want to be a doctor, momma,

To play at giving life.

I want to be a doctor, momma,

And lead a humble life.

I want to look at all the scars

My momma’s had to bare.

Take all prescriptions near and far

And soothe them ‘till they’re fair.

I want to be somebody, momma,

To fill this empty whole.

I want to be somebody, momma,

And add some to the world.

I want to understand myself

And other people too.

Don’t want to be placed on the shelf

That’s labeled “He never knew.”

Teddy Bears and Bullet Holes

By Jean Riva

Two little brown bears with black eyes and shinny noses sit in a basket near by, laughing. And that gets me to thinking… If they can put devices in teddy bears that say sweet things in children’s ears, why can’t they surgically implant a couple in my husband? The company that makes those things could get Bill Gates to figure out a way to interface Don’s aphasiac brain and download a couple of his pre-stroke stories. Then, they could program a couple of voice boxes for bears to put inside of Don. To hear one of his favorite tales, we’d simply push his belly button or tweak his ears.

The first memory that Don would put in his bear voice box is an accounting of the time he and his friend, Ron, went out west antelope hunting. Here’s how the story goes: They had left our state a couple hours after Don had taken delivery of a brand new, 1984 Chevrolet pick up truck. And once they hit the state of Wyoming, their first stop was at a western clothing store where they outfitted themselves like genuine cowboys. The guys looked cool for a pair of 40ish city boys on a holiday. Western boots, belts, felt hats and plaid shirts cut to make any guy look like he had broad shoulders.

Now, this is where the story gets good. Don and Ron were out in the boonies trading shots, trying to site their rifles in before the hunt, when Ron innocently inquires, “Did you see where that last shot went?” Don, he gets this menacing look on his face and points to the hood of his brand new truck. There, right in plain view of the passenger’s side, is a bullet hole.

Ron levels a disbelieving stare at the hole in the truck, hoping it’s an illusion. It's not. Then he scans the brooding face of his friend and he starts doing the apologizing friend dance all over the place and promises to have it fixed as soon as they get back to town. Don, he’s not a violent man but this is the first time anyone has shot his truck and Ron’s not quite sure what to expect. And I’m not even going to mention the fact that Don was decorated from head to toe with guns and ammo.

Slowly, Don lays down his rifle and draws his 38 from the tooled, leather gun belt strapped to his hips. Ron is quivering in his boots. Don takes a step closer and snatches the ten gallon hat off his friend’s head, throws it in the air and uses it for target practice. It was just a fluke but when the hat reached the ground it had both an entry and an exit hole at the very top of the crown.

“Hey, that was a brand-new hat!” Ron cried.

“And that was a brand-new truck,” Don barked back as he shoots the hat one more time.

This would be a pretty good story if it ended here, but it didn’t. Everywhere the guys went that week people asked about the bullet hole in the truck, making Ron feel so bad that he finally covered it up with a band aid. Don, he’s not too happy about that and he threatens to stop at ER for an emergency bullet removable if he didn’t get the darned band aid off his brand new truck. For months afterwards, Ron kept begging Don to get the hood fixed, but by then my husband was enjoying the tale so much that he never did fix it. The bullet hole was still there, years later, when he finally sent the vehicle to pickup truck heaven. Before that happened, though, he’d taken a torch, cut a square out of the hood and immortalized the bullet hole.

Some day, when we’re dead and strangers are wandering through our estate at auction, they’ll see that piece of metal with the bullet hole and the CSI generation will assume it’s a piece of evidence from a grisly crime. They’ll never know that it tells the story of two life-long friends who dressed up as urban cowboys and bagged a Chevy on a hunting trip.

I sit here lost in this memory when two tiny voices catch my attention and I look up at the two brown bears in a basket. I pick them up, swing them back and forth just so I can hear them giggle and squeal. The boy bear winks at the girl bear and says, “That Jean, she’s crazier than a loon.” I put them back on the shelf, their little brown faces toward the wall as punishment for their disrespect. If they can make teddy bears talk, why can’t my aphasic husband have little bear voice boxes implanted inside of him?

Lad of Sixteen

By Lee Kenaga

When I was a lad of sixteen, I followed a pair of grey Missouri mules around the field holding on to the handles of a John Deere plow, one foot in the furrow and the other one out of the furrow the plow made. It was just a small part of a day's work.

In the evening there were multiple chores that had to be done. There were cows to milk by hand, hogs to be slopped, and eggs to be gathered. Most of the chores were done by faint lantern light. Some evenings when the chores were over and dad was home---he was away most of the time at sawmill camp---we would find ourselves sitting on the front porch talking about some of the day's news.

This was back in the year 1938. I still recall a remark that he made on one occasion, "I'm afraid that the paper hanger Hitler is up to no good over there in Germany." He didn't live to witness his prophetic words, for he died of a heart attack that October.

In 1942 I enlisted in the Army Air Corps and found myself as a pilot of a B-24 Liberator and went off to fight Hitler and his legions.

Decoration Day

By Mike Dooley

Why are those flags on the graves, mother?
To honor the fallen heroes, daughter.
Is Daddy a fallen hero, mother?
Yes he is, my daughter.
 
He fought for his country to keep us free,
To make the world safe for you and me.
It wasn’t the Washington bureaucrats brave
It wasn’t peace marchers who rant and rave.
Only your father and his comrades true
Stood in the battle line for you.
 
Honor the soldiers, Oh so brave!
Put this flag on your daddy’s grave.
 

Death of Redemption

By Ronnie L. Jones

Machete Eddie Porter was not only the coolest nickname in the world, but he was the real deal. He was the hands-down toughest kid in my high school. He was bigger, stronger and meaner than any of the would-be street fighter types strutting their colors and scars like preening peacocks. Although, when Eddie was around, they didn’t do much of it. The one thing that would cross his wires faster than anything else was another kid trying to be something more than subservient. Unfortunately for me and many other non-confrontational types, Machete Eddie was also a completely non-penitent bully. He picked on everybody; Mexican gangsters, karate trained Japanese and Filipinos, big muscled athletes, everybody….When Eddie’s big, scarred hands became fists, nobody was safe.

The completely unfounded rumor was that the brown jagged scars across his left cheek and above his eyebrows came from a machete fight with two Hawaiians. It seemed to fit and nobody dared ask him if he had ever even been to Hawaii. Eddie had no real friends. A few lackeys hung around trying to give the impression that they hung out with him and yet they never spoke. The one thing we did know for sure was that attendance office papers indicated he transferred from a high school in Chicago and he was twenty years old. That was the reason he had a lot more hair on his body and bigger genitals.

I, on the other hand, was the polar opposite of Machete Eddie --130 lbs., 5’ 11”. I had never been in a real fight in my life. Didn’t even know how to fight except what I observed when watching others. One thing I was good at was avoiding contact with others and that one thing put me on the varsity basketball team. I was very good at dribbling the ball and still managing to cut around opposing players like statues. These days I would be called a non-shooting point guard. Then I was a “skinny white kid that can dribble around anyone.”

So, came a fateful day when I was teamed up with “Squeaky” Romero against Machete Eddie. It was a shirts and skins game, just something to keep us exercising. Eddie decided his team would have first outs and keep their shirts on. Immediately I was deflated. My white, bony body now didn’t even have a shirt to hide my defined ribcage. Eddie dribbled with two hands like a gorilla trying to kill the ball. His fifth attempt under the hoop went in. Squeaky took the ball out and passed to me at the top of the key. Eddie stood directly in front of me, gritting his teeth.

I faked left, then right, then left again. My first fake hadn’t registered. So, I backed away and shot over his head. I knew it was in, but I never got to see it.  All I saw were swirling colors and lights. I wound up on two bleeding elbows with a throbbing jaw.

“Get up Punk!” Eddie screamed.

I stood up slowly, never letting my watery eyes travel higher than his tightly doubled fists. They were quivering with tension. I knew if I moved, I was toast. Eventually he figured out that he would get no response from me. He grabbed the ball and bashed it against the backboard. The chain net flew up so hard it stuck on itself.

“Our ball” he yelled. He then began his two-handed pounding of the ball toward the basket, thinking to lay it in. The first two attempts didn’t draw iron. He turned to see if we were laughing.

Fat chance. I wasn’t even going to rub my jaw as it might be misinterpreted.

Squeaky rolled the ball to me. I passed back to him. He passed to me and made a move toward the hoop. Eddie chased after him so I was left with nothing between me and the basket but space. I responded to years of pick and roll practice, took one step and laid it in.

Eddie brought both arms down on my shoulders, driving me to the asphalt. Then with legs spread and fists clenched. He said, “Big basketball player,

huh?”

Squeaky ran over. “That’s a foul, man. Leave him alone. He doesn’t want to fight.”

The period bell rattled. Everybody on the courts scattered like quail. I hobbled on bloody knees to the showers.

I managed to stay out of Eddie’s way for my senior year. The memory of that day stuck in my guts like an inoperable tumor.

Four years at the local state college including two years of varsity wrestling and hundreds of hours in the weight room, two tours of duty with the S.E.A.L. teams and, brown belts in tai kwon do and judo transformed me into two hundred twenty pounds of confidence and military trained muscle. Still the cancer clung tight.

A notice came in the mail.- Twenty year class reunion. I felt like the Count of Monte Cristo.

Two months to prepare for that moment when I would break Eddie's jaw in front of everyone. I practiced in front of the mirror every night. No words, just a bone breaking overhand right. Perfect!

Nobody recognized me. I knew they wouldn’t. But I was just looking for one person. My hands trembled. They hadn’t trembled since high school.

I wove and nodded my way through the crowd trying to look casual. No Eddie. I know he graduated, barely.

I spotted Squeaky Romero. His face lit up. He had aged well. We hugged, shook hands and laughed.

Squeaky eyed me from top to bottom. “Dammit, man. You have really, really changed. You feel like a rock.” He pulled me close and whispered. “I bet I know who you are looking for, amigo.”

I nodded. The trembling started again.

“He’s not here, man. He’s not anywhere. Somebody stuck a knife through him in prison. Sweet justice, huh?”

I mumbled something, and then walked to my car. The cancer that gnawed at me would be with me always.