Monthly Archives: March 2016

Flash Fiction: Muddy Waters

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antiques-along-the-mohawk

* * *

Muddy waters, what do they hide
Currents flowing, boat traffic, stirring the water
Car carcasses, a child’s bike, household detritus; bodies

Muddy waters, obscuring the truth
Bottom feeders, sludge and slime, parasites
Stories lost, identities stolen, dreams afloat

Muddy waters, muddled, befuddled
Living longer, living lonely, expectations
Age advancing, deterioration accelerating, death at hand

Muddy waters, clearing slowly
Light upon us, eyes wide open, hands reaching
Hands held, sweet kisses, comfort given

Muddy Waters, music sublime
Guitars twanging, blues in rhythm, stories shared
Mississippi rolling, swampy puddles, dreams realised

Muddy no more, long way to go
Hopes and dreams, highs and lows, love and friendship
Sun through the trees and hearts singing

* * *

This is a Friday Fictioneers 100-word (or so) short story based on the above picture provided by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Growlers – and a Modest Woman

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Lucky Bay Brewery

Do you know what a Growler is? Well, I thought I did – and it was embarrassing for this ‘modest conservative lady’ to think about.

Growler

Growler 😀

In Australia, colloquially a ‘Growler’ is a very hairy bush. And if you still don’t know what I’m talking about – a very hairy bush on a lady! Got it now? No? Hmmm – lady parts, that are very hairy! I will go no further ….

A friend of ours has dreamed big and made his dream come true by opening his own Brewery in Esperance, Western Australia – Lucky Bay Brewery. You have to be impressed with this fellow – one day it was a dream and (seemingly) the next it was reality – simple beer from local barley. And it seems to be really ticking along – and is well supported by the locals.

Anyway, there are many types of beers (says I, ‘guru’ that I am not!) and different ways of drinking and Lucky Bay Brewery Growlerscarrying it – glass, bottle, keg and growlers.

I heard about these ‘beer’ growlers from my lovely husband who has taken to buying these 2L steel canisters to give as gifts – particularly to clients that he is saying goodbye to, as we have recently moved from Esperance, WA to NSW.

Anyway, one day he’s talking on the phone to me and suddenly he keeps saying ‘growlers’! I’m sure that I’m mishearing him. And I’m giggling … like a girl! Like, hee hee! What are you saying? 😀

Eventually, I get it, but I’m not comfortable. I’m home alone (as he’s in WA) but I’m blushing anyway. And in all future conversations, I can only refer to them as ’growlies’ 😛

As I said, modest! And clearly, adolescent. It’s okay; I can take it!

Where did the name ‘Growler’ come from?
Well, I’ve stolen the following words from the article The Growler: Beer-to-Go! on the website The Beer Advocate, for some background. (See: http://www.beeradvocate.com).

  • In the late 1800s and early 1900s, fresh beer was carried from the local pub to one’s home by means of a small-galvanized pail. Rumor has it that when the beer sloshed around the pail, it created a rumbling sound as the CO2 escaped through the lid, thus the term “growler” was coined.
  • OR
  • George Bulvas III, brewmaster at Water Street Lake County Brewery, WI, suggests that growlers are named for the buckets of beer once given to factory workers before their stomachs began to “growl” from hunger.

So, I guess my husband will continue to buy Lucky Bay Brewery growlers – and eventually one might find its way home. They do seem a great idea and look very spick. And how does the beer taste? Well, next time you’re Esperance way – go and try for yourself.

Lucky Bay Brewery at Esperance Stonehenge

Beware the Clowns – Donald Trump

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[Update July 2020] And now we have COVID-19 Trump and it just looks like such a mess in America. The man talks foolish every day. He does himself no favours in the wider world. And while I know that he will have his supporters in the US, because we are all different and entitled to our opinions, hopefully many are ready for change – and that change may be Joe Biden. In my opinion, that seems like a bloody good idea!

{Update 1 September 2020} And the race is on to see whether America will vote Donald Trump back in – or take on someone in a new costume; statesman, not clown! I am always wary of commenting on the politics or culture of somebody else’s country, as I don’t have to live it. But as raised in the original article above, the POTUS is a world leader and therefore the rest of us have expectations. And the look for America is bad with Donald Trump at the top. 
Good luck to America and my friends in the American writing community. I hope you get who you vote for in November 2020.

{Original Post}
I’ve just finished reading All the Stars in the Heavens, by Adriana Trigiani and while reading it there was a scene where the protagonist (Loretta) and her friend were visiting Italy. This was in the 30s and Mussolini was the leader. Loretta, an American, asked the family what they thought of Mussolini? The reply was that the mother thought him ‘a braggart and no one takes him too seriously.’

Loretta said she’d been at a dinner party and a famous author she met said “Beware the Clowns.” The leaders who start out as jokes – people make fun of them, they’re caricatures, cartoons in newspapers and people decide they are harmless. Those men are the most dangerous. The day comes when they use their power against their own people.

Well, that struck a chord. I’ve been wondering for weeks what America (the few who come out to vote anyway) see in Donald Trump as a potential POTUS. It is okay that he’s a successful businessman – if it works for him whatever he does – then okay. Do they seriously think he’s the man they want to represent them to the world?

I first began to worry when he came out with his infamous comments about proposing to ban Muslims from entering the USA.

Trump Time Cover

A couple of days ago I was getting groceries and saw Time’s cover page and they used TICK boxes (see above) – bully (tick) showman (tick) party-crasher (tick) and demagogue (tick) with the box for 45th President of the United States (unticked). The man is a loose cannon and a hatemonger. The author/s of the article in Time (Australia) suggest that he is working on fear ‘… fear in the pit of millions that globalisation is a rigged game … Americans are the mark’.

He comes across as a bombastic buffoon and and a horrible person. It is unbelievable to me that he could even be a possibility to lead America and the world (because seriously, the American President does (traditionally) have that standing). Compare him to President Obama and it’s not just chalk and cheese – but I can’t think of a clearer way to express the difference here.

Obama is humble, intelligent and compassionate. He is respectable and respectful. He has ideas and ideals and seems to be a genuinely good person. He has tried very hard over his terms as POTUS to the do all he can for his country – and the reality is that he couldn’t please everyone. Also, as politics goes, to achieve much in the way of progress you need the opposite political party to be willing to cross party lines and vote for sensible policies. That is not the way of modern politics. There are so many agendas that a political leader has to try and work around, that it is amazing anything is achieved.

President Obama is a leader and a steady hand; a family man and a patriot. Mr Donald Trump ‘leads’ with bluster, babbling, bluffing, bullying and stirring the cauldron. And the mixture consists of fear, hate and intolerance. Are the people coming out in support of Trump only those that believe they are hard done by, being taken over by other countries, losing work to ‘lesser’ people, paying for the rich. He is counting on fear holding the key to his political success.It is hard to imagine that sensible and ‘sentient’ Americans are going to vote for him.

And the Republican party – in the interest of having ‘somebody/anybody’ from their party in the race – are turning a blind eye, essentially. Their lily-livered lack of action, their ‘sit back and watch’ attitude is not a party with an eye to the good of their country. They are for the good of their party – and that means their own riches and success.

It is a pity that Obama can’t be re-elected – even though he could be tiring by now and ready for a change. He’s probably devastated at the possibility that a Donald Trump would be his legacy. He would surely want to leave the White House and the most powerful leadership role in the world in ‘capable and trustworthy’ hands.

Ha! Is the nightmare of Donald Trump as leader of the Western World a real possibility? Let’s really hope not! America could never be taken seriously again. It would be close to Armageddon. In my opinion. And all of this and all my posts are only opinion – I’m not an academic.