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His skin glowed the color of mocha cappuccino, his muscles tapered into drawn bows and steely arrows, and his long, flowing locks took flight and landed in rhythmic accompaniment to his pounding legs and buttocks. “Fergus Falls,” he whispered. The woman, a strawberry blonde, writhed somewhere underneath him. She was visible only in splotches of feet, hair, and hands, the latter clasped against the middle

My grandfather graduated from Purdue in 1921 and worked his entire life as an engineer for the Indiana Bell Telephone Company. That’s how we came to have an antique box telephone in our basement. The telephone was a rectangle of polished oak, about twice the size of a shoebox.Two round bell-­eyes stared from the top of the rectangle. The side-­mounted crank fired up the electricity that connected this telephone to th

I have the lab results, Mrs. Nussbaum, and the news is mixed. As we thought, your levels of thyroid hormone are a little low. We could supplement, but I recommend we watch carefully for now. I am more concerned about your cholesterol. It really is too high. Aarrgh! Me beauty! I’ve seen me years in ships at sea and none be as fair as yer lovely self. Avast, Dolores, come sail with me and me hearties! I swear, if any m

There you are, Teri Garr A dancer in a leotard, Keep the time, step on target, Frug with Elvis and Ann-Margret. Breathe the air, lift leg to bar. Fame so near, and yet so far. There you be, Teri G. With Sonny and Cher, on TV. Joe Namath at the laundromat. Freddie Prinze in a silly hat. Say your lines then step aside. Buy the ticket, take the ride. Acting lessons, anyone? Life is good, and life is fun. Who’s kis

  Jerry Herald had been the president of the company, but when our paths crossed his title was Vice President of Internal Corporate Communications and Blah Blah etc. etc. None of us knew exactly what Jerry Herald did all day, although he did seem to do a lot of it. He was always in the building, looking dapper in a three-piece business suit of a kind that no one else wore even in the 1990s. Rumor had it that Jer

With the encouragement and financing of my employer, the hospital, Twice a year I haul tail to a physicians’ convention. Usually I choose the thing for the gland and kidney crowd, Of which I am a member, but sometimes I’ll take in a Shindig for cardio or pulmonary or gerontology, Especially if it’s held someplace warm and fun, And with lots of direct flights. You’d think My husband would come

In the movie “Jaws”, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider slice open a shark’s alimentary canal in search of human remains. They find a few fish, a tin can, a license plate from the state of Louisiana, but no undigested parts of people. Throughout the scene Richard Dreyfuss holds his nose and makes faces, conveying the idea that the shark’s insides stink to high heaven. The shark in this scene is

On a cold morning in January, in a year that most Fergus Fallsians had assumed lay only in the distant future, Mayor Mingalone sequestered himself in his sumptuous, mahogany-paneled office, where diligently he attempted to ignore the electronic sign blaring his city’s name through the window and instead to concentrate on the question at hand, which was whether or not to run for another four-year term. |||Fergus Falls

On the forgotten windowsill Glimpsing the heavens Through cloudy plastic Should only I bother To look up. We are saving pocket change For a new dishwasher Instead of repairing That old, broken-down thing. So for now I carry on dutifully With suds and towel At the sink. Once I danced And my heart beat proudly And I sang giddy tunes With my beloved in my arms As waves pounded the sandy beach In the moonlight. Shed no t