Author: Vic Socotra

The First Rough Draft

Mac was a little late getting to Willow- but there was a reason. He was getting suited up for a portrait. He drove over from The Madison and parked his champagne Jag in the garage under the restaurant, and arrived just about the same time as I did, shortly after five. John-with-an-H and Old Jim […]

Life and Island Times: Motel

It was getting darker by the minute. Steve pulled his bike alongside Augustus, turning and asking “Do you think we oughta stop for the night soon?” “Yeah, I do. If it gets much darker, the road surface and direction might begin to get too hard to see for us to get along safely.” As they […]

You Have No Idea

(Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson playing “Going Home” as FDR’s body leaves the Warm Springs Institute for the train station.) The Willow bar was bustling. There were some very attractive ladies at the bar, and some very self-important young men attempting to chat them up. Sara the lovely Lebanese waitress was smiling her perfect smile […]

Heresy

Mac took a sip of his Virgin Mary and scowled. “I think there are only two olives in this one.” He peered into the dense red of the contents of the pint glass before him, rheumy blue eyes squinting behind his silver-framed glasses. The long bar was filling up nicely. Old Jim was in his […]

Life and Island Times: Hill Climb

The sun had passed overhead and the afternoon had turned pleasant. The road was fairly straight almost placid. The motorcycles were running fine with engine RPMs lowering after each upshift. The feel of the road started to take hold of the bikes and then their riders. The sound of the tires on the pavement was […]

Operation Starvation

Editor’s Note: I had a rare opportunity to see something completely new in Washington. Retired CAPT Ted Bronson took me on a tour of the Cold War Museum at the Navy Yard. He has been instrumental securing the funding and obtaining the necessary permissions to modify the history structure that houses the collection of artifacts. […]

Iron Pants And Cherry Pie

Editor’s Note: I am stunned this morning. Not that the condition is either unexpected or unusual, but this morning features the weirdest ‘news’ and a special hour last night curled up with the most surreal farewell address I have ever witnessed. I don’t know which of the two was more disturbing. It is a comfort […]

Life and Island Times: Vanished World

After Ricetown, their route took the bikers further off the beaten path on narrow two-lane roads connecting various settlements in the coastal low country. The roads wound through seemingly endless green hills, past occasional working farms and several stone churches perched on small rises. Their path became increasingly tree-lined and woodsy as they rode north. […]

Life and Island Times: Liberation

Four motorcycles pulled into Ricetown. It was a discouraging place, typical of remote small towns. The long term effects of the modern world’s uncaring showed with weed-fields abounding to the edge of the two lane road that had led them there. There were no souls in evidence. It was on the edge of a small […]

Pear Pie

10 January 2017 Editor’s Note: The President is jetting off to Chicago to give what many are hoping is a glorious speech of farewell, accounting for his eight years in the Oval Office. I have come around to the idea that the Brits might have this better than we do. It was in the middle […]