Scooter?
People ask: why do you go by the name Scooter? I mean, you’re an old man, not a dog or Barbie’s younger sister’s friend!
Photo of my baby self most likely by (Uncle) Jerry Martin.
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new media and the written wordCategory: Memoir
Gloria Mills Smith
Being nice is underrated as a virtue. Yet, offering kindness to everyone often gives the comfort and strength that helps someone make it through the day.
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Hog Wild and Dotty
This memoir relates a few experiences with wild pigs and one very close call. My photo is of our dogs, Dotty (left) and Mabel, waiting to go, just go please, in our utility vehicle. Mabel is cute and shy, but Dotty wielded an outsized personality that shone as fearlessness and an endearing elan. At the end of the story you’ll find two links to segments that further illustrate some of its elements.
“Along the way, I began to notice a lot of fresh pig tracks of various sizes and caught the smell of their feces. Unlike other animals, hogs defecate where they sleep. So, clues like that usually meant a sounder, numbering anywhere from a handful to many dozens of swine, camped here for a day before continuing to forage after sundown.
Then we came upon a fresh pile of scat. Somehow, I made it fit the narrative in my head: they were here last night, not now.”
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An Education in Feral Swine
My wife, Amy, and I decided to convert some heavily wooded and creek-cut acreage into an ecological haven of renewed tallgrass prairie and protected species habitat. Serious about our goals, we took classes from the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. We learned about Blackland prairie botany and biology, erosion control, and best practices for farm and woodland management. And feral pigs. Drawing at left from a 1921 Collier’s via Wikicommons, artist unknown.
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The Power of Hug
I wrote this essay/memoir in mid-2019 as a reaction to the shaming and derision Joe Biden was receiving for caring enough about people to love them; to hug them. The photo of my father was taken by an unnamed friend of his in Sasebo, Japan, 1945.
“My father chose to be a hugger, but behavioral norms change. Today, our culture is flirting with the idea that people who hug others, regardless of intent, should suffer societal censure. While there are justifications for this, I sense a net loss for humanity.”
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Satin Jacket
This is an anecdotal memoir about the sex lives of techies in the film and video business in the 1980s. Well, kinda. My photo at left is of the logo on the back of my satin jacket.
“I was short, losing my hair, and sported a large Seventies mustache. But with this jacket, suddenly I was a thing.”
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