by Mike Bendzela The funeral director is a good guy, both sedate and friendly. I wait for him to wrap up his service in advancing rain before driving up to the site to close the grave. The mourners depart the gravesite but do not leave the cemetery. They hang out near their pickup trucks, some…

by Mike Bendzela The idea that “the only intolerable thing is intolerance” wears its contradiction on its sleeve. It also violates the Golden Rule–to behave toward others as you would have them behave toward you. We all have limits to our tolerance–call them “intolerances”–and it’s not too much to ask others to tolerate them, within…

by Mike Bendzela “What genre do you play in, Mike?” “Old time.” “That’s rather vague, isn’t it?” [An actual conversation.] Old time music (some write “old-time” or “oldtime”) is where my interests in rural American folk history, cultural evolution, and language-play come together to form a most satisfying way to lay waste to time. Yes,…

by Mike Bendzela It took a couple of million years, but any careful observer could have seen it coming. One of the most destructive and invasive mammalian species in the world has been seen striding across the continent. This primate was recently spotted at a watering hole in the northern territories, confirming its presence in…

by Mike Bendzela [Part One of this essay can be found here.] Alexia, Redux Throughout the winter of 2017, as he recovered from the stroke, Don went through a battery of therapies, including walking on a treadmill with and without handrails; navigating the winding corridors of the rehab center and having to find his way…

by Mike Bendzela [This will be a two-part essay.] Ischemia When the burly, bearded young man climbs into the bed with my husband, I scooch up in my plastic chair to get a better view. On a computer screen nearby, I swear I am seeing, in grainy black-and-white, a deep-sea creature, pulsing. There is a…

by Mike Bendzela Narrative is the elucidation of backstory.  Thus, narrative partakes of other stories, is composed of them. There is no infinite regress of narratives, though. At the end lies a cosmology, which I use here to mean a master story, or, “a doctrine describing the natural order of the universe.” This the ground…

by Mike Bendzela While changing keys during a recent old time jam session, a friend asked for my thoughts about this new ChatGPT thing, seeing as I teach writing to college students and the fear is that this text-generating gadget will disrupt how such courses are taught. I had to answer that I did not…

by Mike Bendzela And on the pedestal, these words appear: . . . “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. —From “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley Prologue from Part One An investigation into the livelihoods of two great-great grandfathers, both oilfield workers in Ohio, has of necessity become a study in the…

by Mike Bendzela Sleepless one Christmas Eve . . . monkey brain, coffee at 3 a.m. . . . then back to bed to stare at purple and green fireworks on the insides of my eyelids. Meanwhile, my husband, the retired carpenter, saws wood loudly beside me. He is recovering from both cancer and stroke.…

by Mike Bendzela Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. —From “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley Prologue An investigation into the livelihoods of two great-great grandfathers, both oilfield workers in Ohio, has of necessity become a study in the nature of forgetting. I have sought one thing–my ancestral grandfathers’ involvement in the…

by Mike Bendzela Hannah was a wide-horned, burgundy-red American Milking Devon heifer, with bug eyes and such a timid disposition you got the impression of a creature permanently bewildered.  You could not approach her; she would just pace off to a corner of the barnyard pasture and stare at you from a distance. And she…

by Mike Bendzela How would you account for the following weird experience? Do you have a handy explanation, or do you dismiss it outright? When I was twelve, Dad used to drop me off in the twilight in front of the parish across town to serve Mass, usually a Wednesday before dawn, because that was…

by Mike Bendzela “I am not an animal! I am a human being!”–“John” Merrick, The Elephant Man (1980 film) “Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig; es ist nicht einmal falsch. [That is not only not right; it is not even wrong.]”–Attributed to Wolfgang Pauli  We get no traction on a problem until we develop a…

by Mike Bendzela Over thirty years ago, my then-partner-now-spouse, Don, began planting heritage apple trees on the small farm where we are tenants, in an attempt to partially restore the historical orchard of Herbert W. Dow, traditional Maine farmer and cider-imbiber. Herbert’s original, handwritten map of the apple trees he grew out back was still…

by Mike Bendzela One tedious outcome of the ascendance of the anti-abortion movement in the United States is having to listen to the tiresome arguments about “the beginning of [human] life.” It’s like being stuck in a dentist’s office waiting for an appointment while nauseating top-forty hits from the 1970s play on a hidden radio. Not…

by Mike Bendzela The Smiling Toads of Darwin's Bluff An obscure species of Bufo inhabits a remote point of land called Darwin's Bluff. Long ago, one of these toads learned to "smile," but this was a fluke: It was born with a congenital defect of the jaw. Like most toads, it spent its days in…

by Mike Bendzela Ants versus Termites Some ants (Formicidae) living under a certain wood stump were incapable of realizing that they didn't know anything. Their antennae were exquisitely tuned to find the airs of their own colony agreeable. The edicts that wafted down from their Queen filled them with an illusion of knowledge and reason.…