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The Leprechaun A tale of things much older and deeper in the earth. The air in Hazleton, even here along the Stockton Mountain road, always smells of two things: wet pine needles and the faint, cold scent of pulverized coal. Much like the early autumn air, it clings to everything. Come sit on this weathered grey wooden bench and let me share a seasonal tale I gathered in these hills some time back. Many years back, I was sitting on this very bench, the same creaking slats, the same faded green paint watching the dusk fall over the ridge when Liam stumbled out of the roadhouse yonder. He was a middle-aged man then, but the memories he was carrying seemed centuries old. He was swaying slightly that evening, his canvas overalls thick with the black, greasy dust of the deep tunnels. He saw the silver gleam of my flask and made a beeline for the bench, sat right were you are now. “A drop o’ that good water for a story, mister?” he slurred, that thick Irish brogue of hi...
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Savior in the Sagebrush

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Savior in the Sagebrush Here is a story, as told to me by an old rogue trader. A man who looked like he'd seen a thousand sunsets and twice as many sunrises, with a shaved head, piercing blue eyes, and a neat gray goatee that seemed to hold stories of its own. He had a timeless quality about him, rugged and weathered, as if he’d simply stepped out of a bygone era and into the present, carrying the dust of ancient trails on his worn boots. He told it to me one night by a sputtering fire, the wind whipping at the canvas of his makeshift tent, his voice a low rumble, like distant thunder. It was late spring, or maybe early summer, the kind of time when Wyoming truly begins to stretch its limbs, shedding the last vestiges of winter’s grip. The sun, a relentless, brassy disc in the vast, unblemished sky, beat down on the endless expanse of sagebrush and dry grass. I was deep in it, mind you, the kind of deep where the nearest paved road felt like a myth and the only comp...
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  The Lads of Christmas A story of a child's "friends"    Alright, friend. Pull up a chair, warm your hands by this imaginary fire, and let an old road dog tell you a tale. This one… this one stuck with me, same way that fine dust of the open road clings to your boots. It’s a story told to me by a friend of mine, by the name of Kenny, though he was just a boy when it happened. And the key to it all, the little trinket that brought us together, were these. A pair of miniature wooden clogs, intricately carved and painted, resting on a worn velvet cloth. “Northern Michigan, he said, picked up by his old man, driving truck along I-80. Ornamental, pure and simple. But to young Kenny, back in '74, up in the foothills of Willard, Utah, nestled against those jagged peaks of the Rockies… well, to him, they became a doorway.” "Kenny, all of nine years old, maybe ten, wasn't much for sitting still. Not with a whole world of snow-covered pines and brit...
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  slowing down and savoring Christmas: reclaiming the magic in a hurried world A retrospect in pros It seems this year, somehow more than most, we feel it don't we? It's an invasive, persistent, low-humming vibration that suggests the world is moving just a little too fast, just a little to intense. Its a feeling, like a sensation of standing on a platform as a high-speed train roars past, except, in this case that train is our daily lives, and the platform is getting smaller, and smaller every year. In this hyper-connected, hyper-efficient era, the perceived speed of life is a phenomenon that touches every corner of our experience, making us feel perpetually behind, like we've already missed the train. And when the calendar flips to December, this feeling doesn't just intensify; it seems to become a full-blown, raging torrent of life, sweeping us uncontrollably toward Christmas at a dizzying pace. The Holiday Rush: A Tyranny of "Must-Dos" Stanza...
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'Twer the Eve Before Christmas A Christmas out west  'Twer the eve before Christmas and all about the ranch,                                                                                 not a tree undecorated not even a branch. The wind howled a tune, a lonesome old song,                                                                                            As the snow drifted deep all the cold night long.  The cattle was bedded down snug in the stalls,                          ...
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The Dugway Incident A Dinner Tale of a youthful encounter on the Flats... The green vinyl bench of the over-sized booth in Virge's Diner is comfortable, worn smooth by decades of weary travelers and local gossip. The Rogue Trader, shaved head, full white beard, eyes that seem to hold the glow of a distant campfire, pushes his empty Coke glass aside. He gestures to the magnificent, half-eaten Virge Burger and the pile of hand-cut fries you just bought him, then taps a long, scarred finger on the item resting between you: a soiled, reddish-brown fox tail attached to a tarnished brass chain "Much obliged for the fuel, friend. Everything has a price, and sometimes that price is just a good meal and an open ear. This little relic here? It's not worth much in coin. But the story attached to it...” He tapped a beefy finger to his temple then continued, “that’s something you can't buy." "I collected this from Jimmy years ago, right here.” He looked...
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  Area 52: The Utah Desert's Deepest Secret "Forget Area 51, man. That's the old news, the tourist trap. The real secret? It's right here in our backyard, out in the deepest, loneliest stretch of the Utah desert. It's called Dugway Proving Ground, near Tooele, Utah. But the locals? They whisper it's the new home for the things the government doesn't want us to know about. They call it Area 52." The Desert's Unnatural Canvas "But it's not just the name that sets this place apart; it's what happens after the sun sets. When the darkness is so absolute it feels like velvet, that's when the real activity begins. People driving the lonely stretches of Highway 6, or those tough enough to camp out in the alkali flats, they talk about the sky being wrong. They see silent, sweeping beams of light that don't belong to any tower or search party, cutting across the basin like slow, luminous scythes. Then there are the co...
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