Peter E. Greulich's Fiction Articles
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Published June 9, 2021
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Not for Twitter, Two-Hundred-Eighty-Character Characters
No, these old men don't use twitter, but they are amazing producers of twitter fodder: one-liners of wisdom and insight learned over a combined millennia of hard knocks, great loves found and lost, knock-down, dragged-out battles fought but always - - when won - - won through respectful disagreement.
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It is hard to say when this group of old men first met. When one of Rudy’s employees asked, for a bemused moment they all strained to recall, but then they decided it wasn’t really that important. It was though; it was one of those nagging questions that if not answered supposed that they were too old to remember.
So ever since, one of them would bring to the meeting a new remembrance—a selective remembrance, an imprecise remembrance, a remembrance tainted by time. They knew their memories were fallible; old men blur reality with wishful ruminations like the too-often-told, one-that-got-away fish story. With each new recollection, they positioned the memory as if it were a piece in a puzzle, using their communal timeline to see if the edges fit.
They believed that their joint memories would eventually uncover that initial conversation that made Rudy’s 360 what it was today: a breakfast-home away from home and a reenactment of an old Texas settlers’ tradition, a gathering of old men discussing life with all its twists and turns.
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They were hard fought battles, but battles fought with respect.
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Ol' Men Talkin' Series
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“I thought I knew what you taught me.
"But what you taught me before anything else was how to love a son. I forgot that. I’m sorry. I remember now.” He then politely excused himself, “Pardon me. I have a son to call.” He lifted his light, tough but now less rigid frame from the earth and journeyed across a desolation that suddenly didn’t seem so arid. |
"Great love keeps on loving no matter what."
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Mike had been driving a county trash truck for most of his adult life. For four decades he had come home from work smelling of humanity’s waste. …
But as his kids grew older, they understood what the smell meant … their “father” was providing for them. From their “dad,” though, they learned that it isn’t the job that matters so much as how well you do the job. |
Mike's "work handle" was "trash man"
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Ol' Man's Philosophy Sitting Under a Tree
The man who does his best, gits more kicks than all the rest
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I ain’t, ner don’t p’tend to be, much posted on philosophy,
But thare is times when, all alone, I work out idees of my own. And of these say’in thare is a few, I’d like to jest refer one to you, Pervidin’ that you don’t object, to listen clos’t and recollect. Its natchurl enough – I guess, when some gits more and some gits less, Fer them-uns on the slimmest side, to claim it ain’t a fare divide. And I’ve knowed some to lay and wait, and git up soon and set up late, To ketch some feller they could hate, fer goin’ at a faster gait. The signs is bad when folks commence, ta-findin’ fault with Providence, And balkin’ ‘cause the earth don’t shake, at ev’ry prancin’ step they take. No man is grate tel he can see, how less than little he would be, If stripped to self and stark and bare, he hung his sign out anywhare. |
My doctern’ is to lay aside, contentions and be satisfied,
Jest do your best, and praise er blame, what follers counts jest the same.
I’ve allus noticed grate success, is mixed with troubles, more er less,
And it’s the man who does his best, that gits more kicks than all the rest.
Jest do your best, and praise er blame, what follers counts jest the same.
I’ve allus noticed grate success, is mixed with troubles, more er less,
And it’s the man who does his best, that gits more kicks than all the rest.