Story by Pete Shaw A year ago, almost exactly to the minute of my typing this, I came home from the gym and said to my better 99%, “Do you think I am smart if I say I should not be going to the gym anymore?” While lifting weights, I had noticed on one of…
Story by Pete Shaw The idea of Thankfulness this year may seem a bit odd, and certainly for many, a clear-cut case for the glass being “half-empty” as a default position. Yet here we are again, most of us if not all, which is worthy of appreciation and gratitude. And for those who have against…
Story by Pete Shaw Four years ago in these pages I wrote, “I held my nose and voted for Clinton, and as the returns came in Tuesday night, I was not pleased. But it really didn’t change a thing in my calculus as it were because I see voting as a tactic and not an…
Story by Pete Shaw It is a little early in the Summer for such things, but the lilies are blooming. In the front of my house, there are about 30 of them, some reaching over 12 feet tall. The trumpet varieties reach toward the sky, their flowers blaring unheard but not unnoticed. I am not…
Story by Pete Shaw A month ago I attended the 10th anniversary memorial for Keaton Otis, the young Black man executed by the Portland police near the corner of Northeast 6th and Halsey. That corner has become hallowed ground. For an all too short spell, Otis’s father Fred Bryant held a monthly vigil at the…
Story and photos by Pete Shaw Call me Plum. Golden Plum. My Friend’s four year old daughter, Grape, declared it so. As did her mother, Pear, and her 17 month old brother, Lemon who, holding on to Mother Pear’s leg, looks upon me with wonder and smiles. For a time, I had been Peach. I…
Story by Pete Shaw Although it is not often listed in podiatry and infectious disease journals, one of the primary attributes of erythrasma is boredom. Erythrasma is a superficial skin infection caused by a bacteria, Corynebacterium minutissimum, that we all have on our feet, but most people can fight it off. However, in July of…
“Everybody’s doin’ somethin’ I heard it in a dream But when there’s too much of nothing It just makes a fella mean” –Bob Dylan Story by Pete Shaw September 10, 2019 Epigraphs, I suppose, should have some meaning regarding the text that follows them. And I also suppose that with an artist like Bob Dylan,…
by Pete Shaw The Denville Public Library, my father tells me, is the only one around. This is no surprise as Denville, a small town just off Interstate 80 in upstate New Jersey, had a population of 16,635 according to the 2010 census. Next to the library is the Denville Historical Society. There is a…
Story by Pete Shaw Power and control of narrative are deeply intertwined. The United States, the narrative goes, does not invade countries, but rather seeks to spread the blessings of freedom, liberty, and democracy. We know this to be true because the purveyors of our capitalist imperial violence have said so. Those who die and…
