Tommie Wendall

Tag: #amwriting

  • Small Town Quirks

    It’s like those situations in life when despite all indications to the contrary, most people would sooner tolerate the bully than risk even social death. 

  • Happy Holidays!

    I tuned in to 99.9 this weekend to find the non-stop stream of Christmas music. This song, sung by the lounge singing great, Frank Sinatra, came around. How many people know the song “Happy Holidays!” is the flagship song of a movie called Holiday Inn starring Bing Crosby, Fred Astair and Margorie Reynolds? It was…

  • Social Survival

    No one who sat back and simply waited for rescue got it.

  • A 130hp GoCart

    A 130hp GoCart

    Sometimes I wonder if Buck likes my little car. He’s a straight-up, V8, American Muscle kind of guy, and he gives me a hard time about my Celica. It doesn’t help that I woefully miscalculated the horsepower to weight ratio for it when I agreed to drag race it against his 1969 Dodge Charger. I…

  • Wearing A Uniform

    A senior park ranger I worked with years ago told me that how you dress, especially in uniform, is a sign to visitors of your skills. “If you wear your uniform like a slob, chances are your skills are sloppy,” he said.

  • Adventures in Mowing

    Adventures in Mowing

    I kick back in the seat of my mower and just cruise. I escape into another world for a few hours with half my brain lost somewhere in Owen Wister’s Wyoming and the other half harmonizing with the harnessed power of internal combustion, steel and the raw noise of a two cylinder engine.

  • Graduation: Welcome to Adulthood

    Graduation: Welcome to Adulthood

    “You’ll take more from speech, debate and acting with you into adulthood than you will from sports,” I told her. “Trust me. I did both and the only thing I learned from sports is no matter how hard you work or how talented you are, if you aren’t from the right part of town or…

  • Burning Fields

    Burning Fields

    The scent of grass smoke mixed with tinges of hot ammonia from the tractors parked beside a small stack of haybales has my adrenaline pumping Firefighters never die. They just wait their turn to make entry.

  • Short-Leash Marriage

    His comment awakened my curiosity. By no means was I ready to feel sorry for him. A man should be able to make his own decisions and deal with the consequences, but something in his tone told me Bud’s story contained more than the usual, “My woman doesn’t like me drinking.”

  • Seasons Shifting

    Seasons Shifting

    Years after finishing college, I still got a sense that I should pick up a few notebooks for school.