Heartland Memories from David Lewis

Down and Dirty http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/AugustAfternoon.mp3

It was hot, heavy, and humid at about three o’clock on that August afternoon. The air was totally calm, the sky slightly hazy, and I crouched in the dust, sweat rolling in muddy trickles down the back of my neck, a mask held tightly to my face by straps over and […]

Blackberry Bruin http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/CultureShock.mp3

In 1975, my wife and I moved from a small cosmopolitan city to almost-Arkansas, Missouri. In some ways it was de-evolution, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. From Greek bakeries, Jewish delis, jazz concerts, and Broadway quality theatre, we came to Myrtle’s Eats, grabbing suckers, Porter Wagoner, and drive-in movies. Being […]

A Gift in the Fog http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/BrownCounty.mp3

In the early spring of 1975, I quit my job, and my wife and I filled a Volkswagen Thing with us, camping gear, a giant Schnauzer puppy, and took to the road with no destination in mind. A few days later we found ourselves in Brown County, Indiana, a […]

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/EataSandwich.mp3

I’m going to date myself horribly in this piece, so let me admit the disgusting truth up front: I’m old. I have worked hard to reach this age, and the exertion required to continue climbing the ladder of years gets more and more difficult as time goes by but, I suspect, it is not […]

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/HowFarWeveCome.mp3

I remember my 10th birthday – and not only because birthdays that end in zero are milestones, but because it was one of the few times I actually went anywhere with my mother. On the evening before that auspicious day, she and her husband loaded me, Merv Fritz, and Wes Roy in their car […]

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/DoortoDoor.mp3

I stopped by to visit the young woman I was dating and found her sitting on the couch with a dejected look on her face. She was just 20, fresh out of Medical Secretary School, and had moved to the city to take a job at a local doctor’s clinic. She looked at me […]

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/TheGhostWhoWalks.mp3

He wore black horned-rimmed classes, a subtle smile, and a deeply bent sense of humor. His name was Dan Rhineholt, and he and I were cops on the same department. Dan had been a deputy sheriff in my county for over a year, but had transferred to our city department out of boredom with […]

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/Boom!.mp3

In the midst of exquisitely brutal training to become a Navy Seal, a young man was asked why he persisted in the face of such agony. His reply?

“Because I get to blow stuff up.”

Ah, the fascination with making things go “boom”. Even in my advanced years, I have still been known to […]

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/TheOffering.mp3

Sunup was over an hour away when I crawled out of the tent onto the dew-slick grass. Stretching my back, I slowly walked to the remnants of last night’s fire and poked at it with a stick, stirring some feeble coals to the surface on which to place some kindling, needing warmth and not […]

Invincibility Lost

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/SilverPigeon.mp3

Way back in 1962 when I was but a slip of a lad, I became the proud owner of a Rockford Holiday 76 Silver Pigeon motor scooter. The over-$200 price tag was a bit daunting, but I had been working since I was 8 or 9 years old, and acquired […]

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/ThePrincipalOfFighting.mp3

Theo Vitali was a wild man. Greek and Italian, his passions ran nearly as high as his blood pressure. He was a screamer, a thrower, a man so driven that, while he was the high school football coach in my hometown, we lost only two games in 6 years. In the noisy and crowded […]

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/MySoul.mp3

I must warn you that in the upcoming vocalization, I am going to use the term “God”. I use that term in the broadest possible sense – the power of the universe, the Force, Wakantanka, Earth Mother, whatever. I do not align with nor do I endorse any particular version of the concept. If […]

http://heartlandmemories.com/bits/GreenBeret.mp3

I am a member of the Vietnam generation, a survivor of the draft, Johnson, Nixon, Bundy, and MacNamara’s band. I didn’t go to Vietnam. My service consisted of only one and a half days in the military – expelled from uniform because of a knee ailment common to growing young men – but I […]