ENTRIES:
Close Encounters—The Interview
Commencement
Putting the Bite into Cowboy Poetry
Newsflash: 01-13-08
Newsflash: 11-28-2007
Proclamation/Preview
Newsflash: 10-04-2007
Making Wood
Postscript to Making Wood
Tom Russell/Cowboys & Indians
Western Horseman review
Tom Russell review
Ray March review
Red Shuttleworth
Happy Birthday Paul!
(News?) Flash: 4-24-2007

© Paul Zarzyski. All rights reserved. These words may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.

Spent a week in mid-July visiting my parents on the ol’ homeground in northern Wisconsin. My Dad and I put in some good shifts “making wood”—cutting cord after cord they’ll burn in the basement furnace to heat the house through another long Midwest winter. Mom and Dad have lived at 505 Poplar in Hurley since their marriage on April 12th, 1947. My Mother was born next door at 507 Poplar—yup, same street for 86+ years. And I actually slept in the bunk my Dad built for me when I was 4 or 5 (same twin mattress I’ve affectionately dubbed “The Crippler”).  Talk about your Time Machine equipped with just one gear—Reverse; talk about a half century of flashbacks; talk about Vicodin-Leinenkugel Red Lager dreams to the Paul-Bunyon-‘n’-His-Blue-Ox-Babe nth power—after tripping thick-boled oak, maple and ash snags, bucking them into 16-18 inch rounds, wrestling them up into the box of the ¾ T ‘67 International (with 18 inch wheels), running them through the splitter Dad built and then stacking it all. We worked like teenagers—1960’s teenagers, that is. Could’ve wrung a gallon of sweat out of my t-shirt at the end of each humid day. Been a long long while since I’ve felt a greater sense of accomplishment—maybe the 80’s, after making a winning spur-ride on a good bronc. In any case, here’s a couple snapshots, as well as three poems (Tracks, The Hardwoods With Dad, Firewood) with connective tissue to my upbringing in the hardwoods of northern Wisconsin.