Credit: Getty Images A legendary singer has left us. Tony Butala, acclaimed singer and co-founder of the iconic group The Lettermen, died at age 85. The Lettermen were once one of the biggest vocal groups in the United States. Now, their founder and lead singer, Tony Butala, has died. The group announced his death in…
The Promise in the Chrome I stood in the doorway of my workshop and looked at the empty space where my father’s 1952 Vincent Black Shadow had rested for forty-three years, and my mind refused for a long moment to accept what my eyes were showing it. The concrete floor still held the shape of…
The Treasure Behind the Candy “Grandma, look! Somebody left a treasure!” Ellie was holding her hand up to me in the candy aisle of the Walmart on Route 50. Her little palm was open. Her eyes were huge. In the middle of her palm sat a ring. Gold. Old-fashioned. With a diamond in the center…
The road home was quiet that evening. I had the windows cracked open about two inches. One hand rested loose on the steering wheel, and I was humming along to some old pop song on the radio that I didn’t even like. The air coming through the gap smelled like dust and cut wheat. I’d…
Pen Fourteen Part One: The Parking Lot I found out in a parking lot. It was a Thursday in late October, a little after four in the afternoon. I was at the MFA feed store in Clinton, Missouri, loading two sacks of mineral into the back of my truck. The wind was coming hard out…
The Empty Chairs I woke up from heart surgery alone. The first thing I saw was the ceiling. White tiles with little holes in them. The second thing I saw was the window, gray Seattle sky pressing against the glass. The third thing I saw were the three chairs lined up against the wall beside…
Ninety-One Thousand Five Hundred Pennies Part One: The Buckets Dale Heckert tipped the last bucket at four o’clock on a Friday. I heard it before I saw it. A sound like hail on a tin roof, except it didn’t stop. It went on and on, a rushing, rattling roar, and then a heavy slithering thud…
I stood frozen beside the kitchen table, staring at the sealed cardboard box my father’s best friend, Frank, had just delivered. Dad had recently passed away from cancer, and our relationship had been strained for years. Ever since my eighteenth birthday, he’d demanded $250 a month in rent, even while I worked grocery store shifts…
What He Sewed Inside Part One: The Couch For twenty years, I begged my husband to get rid of that couch. It was brown corduroy, the color of wet tree bark, with a sagging middle that swallowed you whole. The left armrest was worn through to the stuffing, and I’d patched it three times with…
The Arch My name is Will Mercer. I’m thirty-two now. But I was thirty-one when my little sister told me I wasn’t good enough to attend the wedding I’d helped make beautiful. I’m a welder outside Georgetown, Kentucky. I build gates. I repair trailers. I make railings for porches and churches and the steps of…