It’s up to us to live it

I'm posting the entire text of the Declaration of Independence here on Independence Day because it's the reason for the season. This is why the United States of America exists. The men who signed this document did so at great personal risk, knowing that they were committing themselves and everyone in their state to war....

9 reasons why cowboys are better than superheroes

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy superhero movies and even (at a safe distance) comics. But the Avengers and Wolverine can't hold a candle to the Sacketts and the Man With No Name. When I want to relax and immerse myself in a heroic movie, I don't go looking for a Marvel flick. I...

Superheroes: No school like the old school

I don't know how many people even remember the old Marvel Super Heroes roleplaying game anymore. It's old-school -- published by TSR in 1984 and updated with an advanced version in 1986 -- and also short-lived, as was already out of print by the time I found it in the early '90s. It had been...

Sea serpents! Mysteries!

It's 1899. A tramp steamer rides out a tsunami in the South Pacific, and then visits some of the devastated islands in search of news and cargo. On one particularly remote island, the natives tell of a gigantic two-headed sea serpent that washed up on a beach in the tsunami's wake. The steamer's captain is...

Boomtowns and newspaper men

I tumbled headfirst down this historical rabbit hole thanks to my mom, who reminded me during a conversation about the abysmal state of news journalism that we have an ancestor who was a newspaperman back in the mid-1800s. Back in those days, it was a given that every newspaper covered what was most valuable to...

Short Story Thursday: Nature Calls the Lookout Man

Here's the very first story for Short Story Thursday. I started this story at the end of National Not-Novel Writing Month in November and finished it in December. Nature Calls the Lookout Man Sunny Jim watched enviously as his two companions worked. He had thought he could ride and rope -- and he could, well...

Christmas at the sawmill: A true story of the Old West (and a ghost of posts past)

Merry Christmas, everyone! Since I don't have any new Christmas content, I'm reposting last year's. I hope you enjoy this ghost of a Christmas post past. Benjamin F. Johnson, 1818-1905. Salt Lake City and the growing settlements  around it desperately needed lumber, and it was Benjamin Franklin Johnson's job to provide it. More than a...

National Not-Novel Writing Month, day 21: Return of the Silent Kid

This is a followup to The Silent Kid, which is the first Not-NaNo story I posted three weeks ago. I wrote this on Nov. 21 at a NaNoWriMo write-in I went to with my daughter. She's doing the regular NaNo, while I'm doing something a little different. A ghostly smile flitted across Sunny Jim's face...

Maps in roleplaying games: Unexplored opportunities

Tabletop roleplaying is a game that revolves around maps. If you're not placing figurines on a map surface, you're navigating a mental map that has been provided to you by the gamemaster's description. There's a sizable cottage industry in map illustration in the Tabletop RPG hobby. But often, beyond providing the locations of things that...