Drippy Musings
59 Original Stories posts. Fiction and essays written here: the Decameron 2020 project, the Westenra Memorial stave, the ninth-anniversary novel post. The writer behind the repairman.
MR. HOBBS By Art Cerf This is a story about Mr. Hobbs. Not Roy Hobbs, the baseball phenom played by Robert Redford in “The Natural.” And not Jimmy Stewart’s Mr. Hobbs in “Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation.” Robert Redford is handsome. Jimmy Stewart was charming. Our Mr. Hobbs was neither. He was a solitary man,…
Author’s Note: A.) I’ve always enjoyed short-story contests of 50 words or fewer. B.) As of this writing, pangolins are one of the animals most suspected of giving humans this strain of coronavirus. The pangolin hunter smiled, looking at his wriggling snare. “Listen,” the defiant pangolin said. “I’ll make you a deal: Let me go,…
Even under the age of 10, I was one morbid kid with a dark sense of humor that would have suited me to be leading member of the Addams family. Among my youthful obsessions was the Bubonic Plague that wiped out a third of Europe in the middle of the 14th century. It terrified and…
We’ve all heard the cliché that the pen in mightier than the sword. Typically it refers to truth, ideologies, satire and propaganda changing the world. Rarely is the pen thought of as a tool for physical action and derring do. Buuuuut, today’s heroes are one tough pen and the man who wields it to save…
For all of our pen customers around the world who live south of what we, in the United States, call the Mason-Dixon Line, odds are you might not know the true joy of a “Snow Day.” As of sunrise, 5 of the expected 12 inches of today’s snow storm have fallen here in Chicago. It…
BOGOTA, DuPAGE COUNTY, ILLINOIS—-Every time I tell myself, “This is the last time.” It has to be. I can’t keep it up any more. I’m losing my grip. The cash transactions. The legal scrutiny. The surveillance. And all of that Coke! I don’t know how my old man can do all of that coke in…
Close friends will tell you that I’ve never been a food guy, but I love taking this day to reflect on the past year and all that I have to be truly thankful for. This year is an exceptionally thankful year. Part of my silence on the blog recently has been due to several severe and…
Here is the view of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak, after the lights have come on at night. This is on Hong Kong Island looking over Victoria Harbour and Kowloon, the mainland part of Hong Kong. This is the night view of the colorful lights on Hong Kong Island as seen from the deck of…
While riding in the backseat of our station wagon, my sister (then 6) and I (then 10), asked our parents a deeply philosophical question about St. Valentine’s Day and love. “If here’s an Easter bunny and reindeer and Santa at Christmas, what animal leaves us gifts on Valentine’s Day?” Happy St. Valentine’s Day! Every year…
Among the many great holiday traditions in the Cerf family is a contest to see who can come up with the most ingenius gift for another family member at Christmas. This is not a greedfest. The most expensive gift rarely wins. Hard-to-find and/or extremely clever often carry the day. The competition is fierce but loving,…
When I lived at 715 S. Phillips Avenue in Sioux Falls, S.D., there were all kinds of things that went bump in the night…and day. I’m not saying I believe in ghosts, but I’m at a loss for what to call what I experienced…and I wasn’t the only one. The desire to preface this story…
