The following is Chapter One from my new book WE STILL REMAIN, which comes out at 12:01 AM on 2/27/24. Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/We-Still-Remain.../dp/B0CVZJ1G18 FATHER RETURNED FROM CASHTON AN hour before I thought he would. Trips to town for him were rare and only done when he had business to conduct, but whenever he went, he made it worth his time. Usually, he liked to stop into the feed store and catch up with some of the fellows who worked there, maybe stop into the little grocery store on the main drag and get some staples. He would often return shortly before evening chores if the gossip and politics talk was good. Instead, he came back early. This was odd because he had not been to town since mid-April, and it was already mid-May. I would have thought he would have had lots to discuss and debate with the men there. Father drove the black hack into the yard and stepped out of it before the horse even stopped. I wondered if I should ask why he was back so early, but he was my father, and it was not my place to question his actions. If he wanted me to know, he would tell me. I watched him fly into the house like Mother’s life depended on it. Father almost never hurried like that, not even at harvest time. The horse, well-trained and inordinately lazy, stopped himself and waited for someone to undo all the harness straps so he could go to the paddock for the remainder of the day. The buggy horses knew their work was over when they returned to the yard. My brother, Zeke, came out of the barn to tend to the horse. Zeke was three years older than I was. He was a man now, just past twenty. He wore no beard because he was unmarried, but if his situation with Penny Shrock kept progressing, and if the families agreed upon it, I would be willing to bet he’d greet the New Year as a married man. I turned to the clothesline in the corner of the yard farthest from the barn. My sisters, Faith and Charity, were hanging the day’s washing. The winds were cold for early May, but it was well above freezing and the clothes would dry just fine. Faith and I exchanged a puzzled look. She glanced toward the house, and then looked back at me. In the unspoken language of looks and gestures siblings share, her message was clear: What was that about? I shrugged. I turned my attention back to the pair of draught horses in front of me. They were waiting patiently for the command to begin the next row of plowing. I anchored the big tooth of the plow into the soil and slapped the reins lightly on the horses’ rumps. The pair leaned into the leather collars and strained. The big steel tooth overturned the stubborn sod in a big, wide strip, and we were off and running down another long length of field. The dirt in the field was turning over in swaths and filled the air with the rich scent of wet loam. I loved that smell. It smelled like the end of a long, cold winter. It smelled of future promise. I thought nothing else of Father’s strange return. I had the plowing to take up the majority of space in my mind. The coming spring filled the rest of it. There were still some patches of snow in the woods north of our fields, but it was rapidly receding. I was hoping for some warm weather soon. I liked the cool part of spring just fine, but when the needle climbed on the thermometer by the barn, that was when it really felt like summer was coming. Summer was always grander than winter. It meant chores intensified, what with the fields and the farming needing constant attention, but it was a long sight better than the middling tasks we were bound to in the wintertimes. I know the Amish life isn’t for everyone, and many think it’s madness to eschew modern conveniences. To be honest, I harbor a lot of those same thoughts myself, although I would never voice them to Mother or Father, or even Zeke, who returned from his rumspringa with a newly dedicated devotion to our community and a newly refurbished distrust of the English. Faith had spoken to me about her dislike of our ways, but only in low tones when she knew no one else could hear. Charity was still young enough where she had really no opinions one way or the other, or at least nothing she bothered to bring up among us. Those of us who felt as Faith and I did rarely broached the subject amongst mixed company. It was better to smile and play along with the faithful rather than make people upset or speak to the wrong person who might blab your feelings to the bishop which would mean re-dedication sessions. I spent the afternoon plowing fields. I managed to clear the spring weeds from several acres, making them ready for planting as soon as the weather was warm enough, probably in the next two weeks, although Wisconsin’s spring could often be unpredictable. Father and Zeke had been watching the thermometer carefully, and Father had been talking with the other men in the community. All I had to do was wait for Father to tell me to start the planting. In the meantime, I just had to prepare the land for seeds. MOTHER RANG THE OLD IRON bell hanging by the back door of the house when it was time for supper. Zeke and I were in the barn doing chores. Dinner would wait until chores were done. Chores always came first. What was surprising was Father was not there. After an hour in the house alone with Mother, he went walking over the hill to where the Schrocks lived. Then later, I saw him and Augustus Schrock walking toward the Stoltzfuss house. Peter Stoltzfuss was our bishop, and he usually presided over our church services on Sundays. No one in the community made any big decisions without hearing Peter Stoltzfuss’s thoughts on the matter, first. Zeke finished milking the last cow, stripping the final drops of milk from her udder by hand. He carried the steel pail to the larger milk can and poured it in. I was finishing feeding the calves. The greedy black-and-white Holsteins always reveled in the liquid calf feed from the bottle and the attention they got during the hand feeding. I loved feeding the calves, even though I knew enough not to get too attached to them. Faith did it once when she was younger, even though Father had warned her repeatedly not to. When the poor creature’s time came, the little bull calf she’d treated like a pet was butchered as we all knew it would be. Faith cried in her room the whole day and refused to eat beef until she knew for sure none of the beef we were eating was from the little bull calf. She never let herself get attached to the calves again. Zeke waited in the doorway of the barn for me to finish. He leaned back against the frame and stuck his hands in his coat pockets. It was too cold for straw hats, so he wore a knitted cap Faith had made from wool we took off our own sheep. We had a very small herd of sheep, so there was only enough wool to make good outerwear like hats and mittens. Zeke and I both wore black boots we had gotten from the Farm & Fleet in La Crosse last fall when our neighbor, Jack Worthy, had driven us there to get the essentials. Mother made our shirts and overalls from fabric she bought at the fabric store in La Crosse, but our underwear, boots, and socks were all boughten. Our winter outerwear was boughten, too. Simple, practical coats which protected us from the cold without being ostentatious. Some Amish orders did not allow for worldly coats, and they made their own, but thankfully we were not that regressive. My black Carhartt coat kept the wind at bay during the winter far better than Mother’s modest handmade coats we wore in the late spring, summer, and early fall. Zeke was a handsome man, I guess. He had a square jaw, like Father. He had Mother’s striking blue eyes that crackled like fire when he got the devil in him about something. I was his opposite. I had Mother’s dumpy chin and Father’s brown eyes which failed to spark or show much reaction, no matter how angry I was about something. Zeke had blond hair like Mother, too. I had Father’s dark brown hair. It was no wonder I saw the teenage girls huddle whispering and giggling when Zeke walked past them during community gatherings, and it was no wonder they largely ignored me. “Did you see Father today?” Zeke shrugged and looked toward the house. “A little.” “Why did he come back so early from town?” Zeke shrugged again. “Who knows?” “Seems weird he and Augustus went to Peter’s house, doesn’t it?” If those men had been in front of us, I would have had to call them by their formal names, Mr. Shrock and Mr. Stoltzfuss, because I wasn’t eighteen, yet. “Maybe he’s talking to them about your upcoming rumspringa. You and Elden Stoltzfuss are about the same age.” I supposed it made sense, but why would he take Augustus Shrock with him, then? “Maybe Father and Augustus Shrock spoke of you and Penny. That would mean a visit to the bishop to inquire about marriage, wouldn’t it?” Zeke’s eyes flashed with a crackle of lightning, and his cheeks lit up with a red blush. “Shut up, stupid.” He gave me a shove toward the house, but it was more playful than mean. The house smelled like roast chicken, the air fragrant with thyme and rosemary. A large, browned bird was resting in the roasting pan on top of the potbellied wood cook-stove. A smaller pot held a pile of mashed potatoes, and an even smaller pot held a steaming bath of green beans and onions. My sisters bustled around preparing the long wooden table where my family took their meals. Faith was a little copy of Mother. She looked like Mother probably did when she was Faith’s age, blond and blue-eyed. Faith wore a black kapp on the back of her head to signify she was unmarried, while Mother’s kapp was gossamer white. Charity was the anomaly in the family. She had brown hair so dark it was almost black and green eyes which listed toward hazel in the right light. Charity had not yet taken up wearing the bonnet indoors, although she should have by now, but as the baby, she was allowed to get away with it longer than she should have. Outdoors, Charity wore the slat bonnet most young girls wore, but she was of the age where she should transition to the kapp. Faith was hustling pots to the table and Charity was setting places with a practiced hand. Mother was standing at the counter slicing a fresh loaf of bread with the large, serrated knife. She was the only one of us who needed glasses all the time and they perched precariously on the end of her nose while she worked. “Wash up before you sit down.” Mother’s voice was sharper than normal. Something was bothering her. Faith and I exchanged another glance. In our silent language her look said plainly, She’s been like that all day. Zeke and I went into the bathroom down the hall from the kitchen and washed our hands and faces. Unlike many Amish orders, our community thankfully did not eschew indoor plumbing. Our water came from our local well, not the larger community supply, and we had a solar well pump for refilling our toilet and running the water. We did not, however, have a hot water heater, so basic washing was always done with cold water. Bathing was done with pails of hot water heated on the stove. It was the little things like this which made me really question the tenents of our religion. If we could have a solar well pump, then why not more solar power? Why couldn’t we have electricity if it came from solar panels? If one large solar panel for running water was not breaking our faith, then why would several for electric heat and light do so? It didn’t make sense to me, but I said nothing. Mother and the girls were waiting at their seats when Zeke and I emerged from the bathroom. Father sat at the head of the table, of course. Mother at the foot. Zeke and I sat on either side of Father. Faith and Charity sat on either side of Mother. Zeke was always at Father’s right side to symbolize his position as Father’s first son. Father’s plate and utensils had been set for him, even though he was not expected to join us. It was to show respect for his position as head of the household. Mother bowed her head and clasped her hands beneath her chin. We all followed her lead. Mother asked Zeke to lead the family in prayer. Zeke took a deep breath and spoke the words simply. “For the bounty laid before us, may the Lord make us thankful, and ever mindful of the needs of others. Amen.” We rose from our prayerful positions, and Mother began ladling the food onto our plates. The first serving went to Zeke, since Father was gone. The next, to me. Then she served herself, then Faith, and finally Charity was served her plate. Charity used to complain about being served last until I reminded her it meant her food was the hottest, and she seemed to like that. Zeke and I tucked large cloth napkins into our collars. The girls were wearing aprons over their dresses. We ate in silence. Usually, our dinner conversations were led by Father, mostly about what chores needed doing beyond the usual daily tasks, and sometimes he spoke about community plans like who was going to marry who and when there was a possibility work with one of our English neighbors which might get us some good money. Without Father, it was Mother’s place to begin the conversations, but she looked like she was elsewhere in her mind. She ate lightly, picking at her chicken thigh and beans. Zeke and I, both hungry from a full day of chores, ate heartily. We finished our plates, accepted a second plateful from Mother, and eventually we split the remains of Mother’s plate, too. After dinner, Mother excused herself to her bedroom. Faith and Charity began the dishes and preparing for the next morning’s breakfast. Zeke and I retired to the large living room. We had a nice boughten couch, two large recliners we’d gotten in trade for helping a neighbor, and a nice love seat Father bought at an estate sale not long ago. We had no modern amenities most people would have had like a television or a computer, of course. We had lanterns hanging from the ceiling for general light, and if one wanted to read the Bible, there were lamps on end tables. Other than that, we usually busied ourselves with tasks like sharpening knives or fixing cracked leather until it was bedtime. I was working on restoring an old harness Father had gotten for free from an English neighbor. It had been in a barn for years, but once I got the leather reconditioned, it would be useful again. Father came home shortly before the old grandfather clock in the hall struck eight. He looked grim. Mother emerged from the bedroom when he did. She was wearing her nightgown and had her hair tucked up in her sleeping bonnet. She hurried into the kitchen to fix Father a plate of food, but he waved her off. “I’m fine; Laura Stoltzfuss insisted on feeding us.” “Well, that was nice of her.” Mother started putting things back in the icebox. “How was it?” Zeke and I got up from our chairs and wandered down the hall to the kitchen. We waited in the dark of the hall near the doorway, knowing it was not really our place to intrude on our parents’ conversation. Charity had already gone to bed, and Faith was knitting in the living room, but I could see her leaning toward the kitchen, her ear cocked to listen. “It went well enough, I suppose.” Father sat at the table and rubbed his face with his hands. He looked exhausted. Father saw Zeke in the door and beckoned him to sit at the table, too. Zeke did as he was bid. I lingered in the doorway, leaning against the frame. “Zeke, do you wish to be married to Penny Shrock?” Father was never one to beat around the bush. Zeke blushed again. “I guess so. If it is Penny’s wish as well, that is. I am not twenty-one, yet. I thought we might have to wait until my birthday.” “Augustus and I spoke amongst ourselves today, and we spoke to Peter about it. We will have a wedding this summer, maybe sooner than later.” “Goodness, why the rush?” Zeke was dumbfounded. Mother went back to the bedroom for her robe, but she emerged tying the sash around her waist. Father looked down at the table, trying to form his thoughts cohesively. “There is something bad happening to the English.” “Bad, how?” I was confused. I was also confused about the division Father put between our community and the English, like we were somehow absolved from all evils of the English world with a magical Amish shield. If something was bad for the English, why wouldn’t it be bad for us, as well? Father waved his hand. “They have some sort of sickness going around. I just learned about it today in town. Apparently, scores of the men and women in Cashton have had it, and they died from it. Dozens upon dozens more also have it, and I’m told it does not look good for them.” “Oh, my.” Faith had crept up behind me. She held a hand to her mouth in shock. “That’s terrible.” Cashton was a town of barely 1200 people. The loss of even a dozen people would be a terrible devastation, let alone several dozen. Father continued. “The men in town say it’s really bad. They say tens of millions of people around the world have already died from this new virus, whatever it is, possibly hundreds of millions. Reports coming in are grim and unreliable. People just call it The Flu. They say it’s terrible. I rushed home as fast as I could to tell Augustus and Peter. We convened a council with several other men at Peter’s home tonight. We have decided, as of now, our community is no longer to associate with any of the English. We will turn them away at the bottom of the driveway if they come to trade or look for help with work. We are isolated to ourselves, and ourselves alone. No one from outside the community is allowed in until we know more about this sickness that is reaping the English.” Mother’s face was dark and worried. “If you feel it’s for the best, then so be it.” Father’s face matched Mother’s. “We think it is. Hopefully, this is just one of those things they are blowing out of proportion, and all will be well in a few weeks. Until then, we are a closed community. We went around to all the homes tonight and told them so. We will not even engage with other of our extended Amish communities at this time. If they are not part of our immediate community, they are verboten. Understood?” “Understood, Father.” Zeke spoke for all us children. We would not willingly disobey Father’s orders, especially for something with this sort of magnitude. There was a grave seriousness in his eyes which meant he was not joking. I had never seen my father this worried before. Not when there were storms or cold, not when the cows were sick with mastitis. Not when lambs were stillborn. His mouth was pressed into a thin line above his graying beard. “We will persevere.” Father stood. “We will pray, and we will persevere. Now, let’s all go to bed. Without the English, we will have to rely on ourselves and our farm even more than usual. This may be a long and difficult summer before us.” We went to our beds somberly. Zeke and I shared a room, as did Faith and Charity. Zeke and I climbed into our beds without speaking. It was not until Zeke turned down the wick on our bedside lantern and plunged the room into the ambient moonlight did he say anything. “The English are always ginning up some silly crisis or another. This won’t be any different.” I did not answer him, but I hoped Zeke was correct. Sadly, he was not. Here's three things that I've seen, done, or been thinking about this week:
1) WE STILL REMAIN: My next novel is coming out on Tuesday, Feb. 27. I'm excited for people to see it, but at the same time, I'm terrified that people will hate it. That's the double-edged sword of releasing a new book. You are excited that you have created, but you live in obstinate fear of having created and dread being subjected to ridicule. Anyhow, the link to the Kindle pre-order is in the hypertext of the title. 2) PORCUPINE TREE: Last weekend I stopped by Half-Price Books and found the double-live CD/DVD set of "Octane Twisted" by Porcupine Tree, a live concert of their enigmatic British progressive band. I've long enjoyed Porcupine Tree from afar due to their workings with Marillion over the years, but this is the first PT album I've owned. Gotta say, I really enjoy their stuff. It's much darker than Marillion, but Steven Wilson is a genius. Highly recommend. 3) Alan Tudyk in RESIDENT ALIEN: Give the guy an Emmy already. No one is doing better acting than Alan Tudyk in SyFy's brilliant Resident Alien. It's a quirky, fun little show, and I can't get enough of it. Great cast, great writing, great time. I look forward to it every week. So, as we build the hype for the Tuesday release of this new book, I wanted to take a minute to tell you about the weird connections from whence this book originated. A couple years ago, I met a guy named Dean Hershberger. He was about my age. Drove a truck for a living. Heckuva nice fella, but he had kind of weird mannerisms and a strange way of speaking. He kind of talked like you'd think an alien pretending to be human would talk, and he had a sort of goofy naivete about him. Like, I'd reference a movie from the '90s, and he would have no idea what I was talking about. I made a reference to "Wayne's World," which was required viewing if you're around the age of 50 like me, and Dean never saw it. I said, "Dude, were you living in a cave in the '90s?" He said, "More or less. I grew up Amish. Didn't leave the community until 1998." Well, now I've got to know everything. Dean told me about his upbringing, and how weird it was. And I was fascinated. It's such a weird way to live. You're using a horse and buggy on the county roads while F-150s are blowing by you. You're tilling soil with draught horses while you can see a John Deere on the next hill over. It was just crazy to me. I met Dean right around the time I was finishing the Survivor Journals, and I remember thinking that an Amish post-apocalypse survivor would be a cool story because they're basically prepared for it already, aren't they? Dean didn't think so. He'd read AFTER EVERYONE DIED, and he agreed with me that loneliness and depression would be the real enemies in an apocalypse, and it didn't matter if you were Amish or not. If you buried your family and your whole community was dead, then there wouldn't be much to look forward to, and you'd probably just as likely end yourself instead of trying to continue on despite having all the resources and abilities to do so. So, I wanted to write an Amish post-apocalypse story, thanks to Dean's insight and wild stories. Benjamin Borntrager, the narrator of WE STILL REMAIN, is loosely based on Dean. The second half of this story is that I wanted to write something about a family conflict. You can't beat the same drum over and over again (despite how successful Dan Brown has been at it), so I knew I didn't want a solo mission like Twist's again. There had to be more characters. And I knew that sibling dynamics would provide the most bang for the buck. Now, I don't want to give away too much or spoil anything, but that's the basis of the story. This tale is set in Cashton, Wisconsin, which is not quite two hours northwest of Sun Prairie. It's very rural. If you get a chance to drive around Cashton, you'll see some Amish people. You'll see a lot of them, actually. On my research trip to get insight into the little town, I drove along Highway 33 at about 8:00AM one day. There were dozens of Amish kids hiking along the highway to their little one-room schoolhouse. There were Amish men and women doing chores at all the farms. There is a large and vibrant Amish community around Cashton, and there are several large Amish communities stretching from La Crosse to Fond du Lac, with center points being places like Viroqua, Cashton, and Adams-Friendship. There are also some communities farther north, like in Chetek and around Rhinelander. (For the record, Dean was from a community near Adams, Wis.) I also wanted to surprise people with this book, so I really only told two people about it. I didn't mention a word of it to anyone until it was written, and then I got feedback from two people. One is a longtime trusted reader, and one is someone who volunteered a while back to be a reader, and since I found out she grew up in Sparta, Wis., just north of Cashton, I figured she'd be perfect for taking a gander. Her review: "This was really good…sufficiently compelling to have me read it in two sittings! Also pretty disturbing at many levels beyond the familiar setting. I suspect disturbing was a goal, so well done!" In a lot of ways, this is a darker book than the three previous ones, but family drama will do that. I really hope you enjoy this one. I enjoyed writing it. I'm off to mail out the first batch of paperbacks to people who ordered last night. If all goes well, they should arrive no later than Monday, which means those people will get them before the eBook goes live. Thanks for reading. -s So, I wrote a new book.
eBook available 4/27/24. Pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVZJ1G18 For a personalized paperback copy: https://py.pl/dRqdHGjncw General paperback distribution through your favorite local indie bookstore and online retailers coming soon. Let's have a shortened Three Things this week, because I churned out a large post on Thursday night. So, without further ado: 1. Masters of the Air: I was a big fan of Band of Brothers and The Pacific, so when you get that team back together to tell a story about the bomber pilots of WWII, it's a can't miss scenario. Riveting television. Brilliant aerial scenes. Great attention to detail. Plus, that Austin Butler kid is a helluva actor. I liked him in Elvis, and I like him in this. Dude has a bright future if he stays grounded and humble. 2. Secret Menu - "Irish Goodbye": Saw a post about this local Madison-based band the other day. They shot a video for their song "Irish Goodbye" on the frozen ice of Lake Monona. Really cool video. Really solid song. I hope these guys have a good career. 3. "The Beekeeper": Watched this movie the other day. It was a standard Jason Statham offering, but the script had some seriously unforgivable sins of bad screenwriting. The movie itself is watchable. The action sequences aren't going to blow your mind. In the annals of action films, it's pretty low on the bar, but I'd recommend you watch it for the incessant references and puns to bees, hornets, and wasps. The screenwriters busted out every bee-related pun in the book for this one. Until next week! YouTube is TV without gatekeepers. Speaking as someone who had had conversations with TV producers about trying to get a book turned into a TV show, it’s apparently harder to get a book made into a show than trying to get the book published in the first place. Most creative industries are filled with gatekeepers. Gatekeepers have no scientific measurement on which they can base what will or won’t succeed. They go with their gut, or they chase a trend, or they just beat a dead horse (Marvel, Star Wars) and force it to produce content for the masses. Sometimes they’re right. Often, they’re wrong. Sometimes their content finds a niche audience. Sometimes it Big Bang Theories into popularity. It’s all just a numbers and luck game at heart. YouTube eliminated gatekeepers. You can make anything you want to make, put it up on YouTube, and hey—you’ve got a TV show of your own. Some people have used this unlimited power for good. Some for evil. For every successful YouTube-based show with a lot of followers or views, you’ve got some tinfoil hat nutjob in his basement raging about politics, the weather, and how cucumbers are actually out to destroy masculinity. But much like publishing or music, POPULAR does not necessarily equate GOOD. Often in publishing, TV, film, music, etc…things get popular because of gimmicks, or they are trendy at the right time. It has a lot to do with luck, placement, and having the right people believe in it. Most of the time, creative industries push out what they feel will appeal to the most possible people at once, often to the detriment of better pieces. I always reference Fox’s mishandling of FIREFLY, which turned out to have a rabid fanbase, in favor of pushing reality TV on people because it was cheaper to make and had a massive novelty factor at the time. Firefly cost $2 million an episode, which was a ton for a show back then. It was a lot more effective to push out a reality turd for $200K and spend the remaining $1.8 million on convincing the American public to watch it because avalanche marketing is really where the heart of what’s successful on TV lies. So, here comes YouTube. It has no gatekeepers. Record a show on your phone. Edit it on your cheap laptop. Upload it on your lousy internet connection. As long as you have the basic parts, you can create a career with them. It’s the same with publishing and music. As long as you can put stuff out there, you can compete with the big boys. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it doesn’t. But no one is telling you that you can’t. You absolutely can. You might find an audience, you might not, but at least you can try. This is the way it should be. One of my favorite YouTube channels is Mythical Kitchen, a spin-off of Good Mythical Morning, an insanely popular channel that was founded around the dawn of YouTube when two friends from North Carolina started making funny videos. Now, Rhett and Link are a powerhouse of internet content, and they oversee a many-headed beast. Good on them! They cracked the code and made it a success. Mythical Kitchen is basically like the Food Network on a mild hallucinogen. Centerpiece and slightly chaotic main host Josh Scherer and his “mythical kitcheneers” crank out two episodes of quality food programming per week (Tuesdays and Thursdays), and they have done so for years now. This is a ridiculous amount of programming for food production shows, and they do it without taking themselves too seriously. One of the new things Mythical Kitchen has been churning out the last year or so has been a program they call LAST MEALS. This is a great gimmick where, instead of cooking hot dog wellingtons made from 7/11 ingredients, or making Flamin’ Hot Cheetos chicken wings, a celebrity guest comes on, gives a menu of what they’d like to eat on their final day alive on Earth, and then Scherer sits down to interview them about life, the universe, and everything while they consume the guest’s meals and dissect the reasons why they chose what they did. It's clever, sometimes poignant, and entertaining in a way that a lot of chat shows aren’t. It’s often revealing and intriguing. It’s the kind of show everyone would like to be a guest on whether or not they admit it to themselves. Now, knowing that I lack the publicist or PR team to get me on Mythical Kitchen so I can shill my books and break down the intricacies of life and death with Josh, I’ll just do it here with you now because selling books requires content, and content is not always easy to do. So, should tomorrow be my final day on Earth, here’s my menu (wheat allergy be damned because I’m dying anyhow…): Breakfast: A bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Country-style benedict with hashbrowns An English muffin with crunchy peanut butter A big glass of Sunny D Lunch: A slice or two of sausage pizza (probably Godfather’s for the nostalgia, maybe Casey’s because I’m cheap) A Big Mac Three cheesy ground beef tacos from Gloria’s in Sun Prairie A large Coke Zero Dinner: Culver’s Bacon Double Deluxe with fries A slice of homemade lasagna A couple slices of turkey breast with gravy and cornbread stuffing Dessert: As many friggin’ Oreos as I can shove in my stupid facehole I think having the foresight to know you only had twenty-four hours left, you’d try to taste your favorites one more time. It’s your last go-round, and you’d want to remember the things you enjoyed most. I love Cinnamon Toast Crunch so much that they’re banned from my house because a box is a single serving to me. I worked at McDonald’s for longer than I’d care to admit, so a Big Mac is pure nostalgia to me. I’m not eating it because it’s good, I’m eating it for the memories. Gotta have one last hit of Culver’s, too. I’m not going to face the Great Beyond without the lasting taste of bacon on my palate. While it’s never fun to remember that we’re here for a limited time, and eventually all of our numbers will get pulled out of the Great Bingo Ball Tank in the Sky, and whatever we’re doing here will come to a sudden stop, it’s nice to remember the things you loved while you were here and remember what made you love them. It’s nice to remember the good times you had, and often our good times are food-related. What’s your last menu going to be, if given that chance? What makes you choose that item(s)? What’s the good times you have associated with it? Let’s hear ‘em in the comments. And, if you get a chance, feel free to check out Mythical Kitchen. They’re amusing, if nothing else. And sometimes amusing is all you really need. Hey, look—it’s the second week in which I’m doing the thing I said I was going to start doing last week. That makes this a streak. I’m two for two! I’ve got three new things to share with you this week. Ignore or partake as you see fit for your life. 1. The Union Hockey League. I’ve already posted about the UHL and my local team, the Sun Prairie Killer Bees, but this is just a lot of fun for not a lot of money. We have a problem in America where people tend to support things at the highest level but ignore the stuff on lower levels. They’ll go see a one single NHL game and drop $500 on tickets, parking, food, merch, and everything that goes with it, but for far less than that $500, you could have season tickets, multiple merch items, better seats, and do the noble thing about supporting your local community. Going to an NHL game is an experience, no doubt, but so is going to low-level games. And it’s the same game. You’re just closer to it, and it means something when it’s your local team. I’m looking forward to the 48-team expansion of the UHL next season, and there’s still plenty of hockey to be played yet this year. 2. Old Gods of Appalachia podcast: I started listening to this podcast a while back, but it’s become one of those things that I look forward to, and when it shows up in the podcast feed on Thursdays, I know it’s going to be a good day. Steve Schell writes and narrates an ongoing serialized story about the goings-on in rural Appalachia, and the local citizens who have to battle the forces of darkness. Each season encompasses a new story with new characters, and it’s just great fun if you like horror stories. Steve’s got a great narrating voice and his command of the language is worth a listen. 3. Oreo Space Dunk cookies: Oreos are the best cookie in the prepacked, poison-that’s-killing-you aisle, and I always enjoy when they bust out new flavors. The newest one is the Oreo Space Dunk. It’s the standard Oreo chocolate wafers with some ungodly pink-and-blue filling. It’s no better or worse than a standard Oreo, but for some reason, the pink-and-blue filling just makes me feel like a kid, when you’d happily stuff your face with anything as long as it was labeled “candy” and had neon colors. (Hi-C Ecto Cooler, anyone?) There is nothing noteworthy about them, other than they brought me about 1.5 seconds of joy this month, and I will take any moments of joy I can get. Okay, that's three random things for this week. If you didn't catch the very nice review I received from Kirkus for the fourth Abe & Duff book, Bought the Farm, please check that out. Basically, if you're going to get a review, I recommend Kirkus because it seems to carry the most weight with libraries and bookstores. I received a really lovely review from Kirkus today about Bought the Farm. On a frustrating note, I also got another agent rejection this morning in the email over the very same book. This is part of the reason I just keep my head down and continue to publish myself. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sean-little/bought-the-farm/ I didn’t wake up and plan to write about hockey today, but then the Union Hockey League dropped a bombshell announcement on the ol’ social media feed, and now I feel sort of compelled to at least make note of it. The UHL announced plans to expand from 12 teams to 48 next year. They will have four divisions of twelve teams (north, south, east, and west). This is not just a hard slapshot of a play, but a mighty clapper from beyond the blue line. This is a major move for a league that has just begun, and honestly, it’s kind of messing with my head a little bit. Already, I’ve seen the naysayers and negative Nellies online talking about how this is too big, too fast. They might have a point. It’s a lot of activity in a brand-new league. It might drain the talent pool. It might result in too much, too soon. But on the other hand, it’s a bold move, and for something like the Union Hockey League, it might just be the correct move for this time. Let’s look at some possible specifics for why. Senior AAA hockey is a draw across Canada, but it’s relatively under the radar in America. A bold forward push like this will make people take notice, and in the end, that’s the name of the game. You need people to notice this thing exists, know that it’s making a big push, and see that it’s getting a head of steam while moving forward. Marketing is a difficult thing to do in this day and age. We are inundated with content on every platform. It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. Marketing is about getting as many people as possible to know about the product to spread the word as far as it can go. It’s a numbers game. The more people who know about something, the more likely you will be to find an audience for the product. It’s brutal, but a sudden influx of a 48-team league will at least establish a wide enough base that it should create enough media throughout social media and local networks to make people sit up and take notice. That’s a win. Not to mention, broader exposure could lead to things like more merchandise sales and the potential for a larger sponsor base. National sponsors will be more likely to jump on board when they realize this league will dot the county instead of being localized to the Rust Belt. Let’s face it, nobody wants to work for free, so everything comes down to money, and a bold move like this expansion has the potential to start a real sponsor funnel to help the teams grow to their potential. A massive expansion like this will help teams with simple geography. Already, having a travel league like this where teams have to drive ten or more hours to some games can be brutal at this level. No one is chartering G6’s for these road trips. It’s done by turning tires on the interstate. And hockey is played at a volatile time of year, weather-wise. It can make some of those road trips a little iffy. By having four divisions with twelve teams each, you can localize the travel better, and the teams won’t burn themselves out on the road. Large conferences will also lead to a more meaningful and exciting postseason. Everyone wants to play for hardware, and if you rise to the top of a 48-team pile, it means a little more. That’s a long way for a cream to rise, and it provides the potential for a lot more upward and downward movement in the standings throughout the season. This keeps the stat-watchers engaged, and it will only ramp up excitement down the stretch toward the postseason. I’m not an expert in any of this—just a fan hacking at a keyboard. But I would like to shrug off any potential negativity toward this move and focus on the potential positives. I see this expansion as being a big, broad, bold boom of a decision, and I think it could work out if people get behind this league. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Hockey is the best sport to watch live. Especially in smaller venues where UHL teams will be playing. For not a lot of money, you can go to the barn in Sun Prairie, where there are no bad seats and everything is literally rinkside, or for a much bigger headache in terms of travel and parking, and for twice the money, you can go get nosebleed seats at the Kohl Center, where you need a pair of binoculars to distinguish the live game from bubble hockey. I know me—I’d rather hang out with some of the locals and support the hometown team. This expansion could be just the thing to help the Union Hockey League announce its arrival with authority. I think it’s good for the league, good for the Killer Bees, and good for Sun Prairie. Let’s go, Bees. It’s not often you get a chance to get in on the ground floor of something. Back in November, I saw an announcement on my local paper’s Facebook page linking to an article about how my little town of Sun Prairie was going to be the location of a brand new semi-pro hockey team in a brand-new Senior A league. The Sun Prairie Killer Bees were going to be part of the new Union Hockey League. The Union Hockey League is a blue-collar, middle-class league that claims it’s focused on a love for the game and community. The teams would be made of local players, guys from around the area. Wisconsin is a good hockey state. I had no doubt they could find dudes who could skate in the vicinity. As a longtime hockey fan, I was in. I was never much of a skater growing up. My little town didn’t have any sort of youth hockey program. I liked to skate, but I never had the wheels or ability to play the game. My big hockey memories were of listening to Paul Brown call games on the radio with my dad and going to the occasional UW hockey game. Sometimes, my dad would let me stay up until 10:30 p.m., when the UW game from earlier that evening would be broadcast on our local PBS affiliate. Still, it was enough to make me enjoy the game. Hockey is one of those games that’s better in person than on TV. It might be the only game that’s better in person than on TV, too. When I saw the announcement about getting a local team, I realized this might be the chance to do something I’ve always wanted to do and become a season-ticket holder for a professional sports franchise. Last night was the home opener for the Sun Prairie Killer Bees hockey team. They hosted the Pittsburgh River Monsters. It was my first chance to see this team which I had already committed to for the entire season. I’d already bought merch. I’d been spreading the word, but still—it was an unknown quantity. Would people show up for this? Would it be good hockey? It was all unknown. The Bees had already played their season opener on the road against the Motor City Generals in Royal Oak, Mich. (which the Bees won handily 11-3!), but this would be my first chance to see this team in uniform on home ice. I didn’t know what to expect. Luckily, the Killer Bees lived up to the hype, and we were treated to a great hockey game in Sun Prairie’s hockey palace, a nearly capacity crowd, and a high-scoring slugfest that saw the home team come out on top. Bees win! The hockey was a good brand of hockey. It was fast-paced, with some solid stickhandling and shots from all over the ice. There were some good breakaways, some hard checks, and even a few moments of chippy scrapping that resulted in penalty minutes. It was everything you want from hockey. I get to go back to the barn today for a second bash between the River Monsters and the Killer Bees. And later this month, more hockey! The Soo Nordiques of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. will be town next weekend to take on the Bees, and we’ll see some more teams from the UHL throughout March and April. It is a great thing to have a team like this in Sun Prairie. Too often, sports franchises like this might focus on Madison as the centerpiece of the area, and it’s understandable why, but Sun Prairie is 40,000 people and rapidly growing. There’s no reason this town shouldn’t be able to make something like the Killer Bees franchise a viable team in the Union Hockey League. It’s an easier drive than getting to downtown Madison. The rink is a quality piece of ice. And if the people who showed up last night are any indication, the fan base is already there, and it can only go up. Looking forward to the future of this team and this league. Let’s go, Bees! |
About the AuthorSean Patrick Little is a writer, speaker, editor, educator, and general literary dude from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Click the pictures below to purchase books!
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