Dill Pickle Pike
Author’s note: This story appeared in The Adirondack Almanack’s Friday, August 13th, 2021 online edition. “While many pickled pepper’s Peter Piper may have indeed picked, I sometimes ponder: How many pickled pecks would have Piper picked if perhaps Peter were instead picking dill pickle pike.” My first youthful...
Read More
Weather Permitting
Author’s note: I penned this story several weeks back, right after my son RJ & I came out of what (as can be seen in the photo above of RJ kayaking into camp) after a very wet start, turned out to be a great 4th of July weekend in...
Read More
Hearty Hunter’s Stew
A Great Pre-Cooked First Night Camp Meal ********** *Author’s Note: As we all eagerly look forward to packing our gear and heading into camp, I thought I’d share a Monroe family “1st Night in Camp” meal tradition: “Hunter’s Stew”. I first drafted this piece shortly after my “Cliff...
Read More
Serenade of the Loon
(All Loon Photography Courtesy of Peggy Ivimey) *An edited version of Serenade of the Loon appeared in the Adirondack Almanack’s April 12, 2021, on-line edition. *A Brief Author’s Note: I first drafted “Serenade of the Loon” several years back. I had plans to submit it to Adirondack Life magazine,...
Read More
One Eyed Jacks
Author’s Note: This story was published in The Adirondack Almanack’s December 3, 2021, online edition. It was getting late. Time measured by the near empty whiskey bottle and battalion of “dead soldier” beer bottles standing in neatly rowed formation on the floor in one corner of the cabin....
Read More
Lemonade Bass
********** This was actually the last in a series of stories I submitted to Adirondack Life Magazine. They declined it. Their staff’s advice to me at that point was, “Dick, you should take all your fun tales and stick them in an album to share with your grandkids.” I...
Read More
The Canoeist
“Beware! He’s Watching.” ********** His ears suddenly perked up. He lifted his head, put his nose to the air. He could smell it almost as soon as he heard the boat’s engine cut off. “Humans.” His keen nose soon confirmed it. The mixed aroma of campfire smoke,...
Read More
The Hunter
Beware! He’s watching. Author’s Note: This story appeared in The Adirondack Almanack’s Sunday October 31, 2021 on-line Halloween edition, making it my 1st published fiction short story. ********** “What was that noise I just heard? Was that just a squirrel or a chipmunk? Or is somebody watching me? Are...
Read More
Adirondack
Author’s Note: I never know when or how a story or verse will arrive. They always seem to appear out of nowhere and catch me off guard. This poem originally came to me while I was standing in my kitchen making a big pot of wild turkey soup, which...
Read More
OUTLAWED
An Adirondack Outlaw’s Confession: Where Truth & Fiction Join Forces to Outwit the Law “Sometimes An Outlaw’s Best Hideout Is Right in Plain Sight” ********** Saranac Lake, New York – 1978: No one paid any attention to the slender blonde t-shirt clad teen walking casually down Woodruff Street,...
Read More