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JOHN W. PINKERTON

oldjwpinkerton@gmail.com

A few years ago, I thought it would be amusing to write a group of essays which I would collect into a book to be given to my pallbearers. Hmm, some explanation seems appropriate: when I was a kid, I always thought it odd that most famous folks did not have final words. Of course, as I became a big kid, I realized having final words was an option for very few of us. Well, the essays are my way of having final words, even if I’m not famous, for people I care about. But now that I have a website, I think I’ll share them with whoever chooses to read them whether I care for them or not. The pallbearers will have to settle for the good thought or maybe a nice sandwich.

To encourage folks to write fiction for the site, I created my own short story, “Phineas T. McGregor: the Great Bank Robber.” I discovered the following: non-fiction easy; fiction hard.

I’ve even wandered off into the world of poetry. I discovered the following: prose easy; poetry hard.

As you probably know, I’m old. Writing is one more way for me to keep myself occupied in my “golden” years.

MY ESSAYS

2 The Picture Show

3 Dogs are Chosen: Cats Choose

4 My Dog: My Hero

5 Fantasy Football

7 My Friend Jim

15 Flying Is for the Birds

16 Big Changes Little Noted

17 Religion or Not

18 Farming Bad: Gardening Good

19 The Horse and Other Ways to Die

20 Art: It’s My Nature

21 Intelligence

22 A Curmudgeon’s Report

23 Counting Cats

24 Weird Physics

25 What’s All This Israel Stuff?

28 LSU and Other Things I Don’t Lose Sleep Over

29 Did I Mention It Was Hot?

31 Social Changes

33 Senior Status

36 Death and Other Humorous Parts of Living

37 End of the World... or Not So Much

39 I’ve Seen Enough

40 My War with the Army

41 Oops, I’m a Collector

43 You’re Not the Boss of Me

44 Friends Misplaced But Not Lost

46 Beauty and the Beast

50 Public Education

53 The One-Eyed Man

54 I Am No Artist

55 Essay on Essays

56 Holy Moly! We Went to the Moon!

57 On Turning 70

58 Children’s Games

60 I Missed the Memo

64 Glossophobia

66 Stupid Norwegians?

68 The New Telephone Book’s Here!

69 I Guess I’m Just a Bad Person

70 Sundays, the Sabbath, and Blue Laws

71 The Sweet Science

72 The Day I “Met” Robert Penn Warren

73 The Ol’ Double-L: a Sovereign Nation

74 Cowboy Bob Steele

75 How to Nod Knowingly

76 Who Are These People?

77 Dear Dallas Cowboys

78 The Academy Awards

80 Discussin’ Cussin

81 Billy Goes Home

82 Same-Sex Marriage

83 Time or Maybe Not

84 Spring Arrives with the Masters

85 Hucklebuckle

86 The Most Interesting Man in the World

87 Funny Folks: Stand-Up Comedians

88 H. L Mencken

89 The Silent Generation

90 The Crazy Old Man

91 GTT

92 Ronnie June “Tumble” Terry

93 How Old Art Guy Became an Online Magazine

94 Cattywhompus

95 Useless Memories

97 Who or Whom?

99 Email Dilemma

100 Baseball: Things Change

101 The Battered Wives Club

102 Salt

103 Bathroom: the Horror, the Horror

104 The Upside Down and Backward World of Languages

105 High Self-Esteem and Expectations

106 Dang It, Darwin

107 An Ode to Ripple

109 How I Became a Prince

110 Aaron Edward Hotchner

111 I Am a Little Erased

112 Old Minds Wander

113 Night to Day: the Transition

114 The Bug That Bugs Me

115 Listening for the Mockingbirds

116 G. K. Chesterton

117 Bad Luck Bill and Other Superstitions

118 Azalea Pinkwater

119 Hobson’s Choice

120 Evangelist for Writing

121 My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma

122 Work, Work, Work til Your Ass Falls Off

123 Finley Peter Dunn

124 The Moon and Green Cheese

125 Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

126 The Power of Positive Thinking

127 Southern Waving

128 To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

130 Your’re Getting on My Last Nerve: Quotation Marks and Italics

132 I Don’t Know My Colors

133 Transcendentalism

134 Jaguar XKE or MG Midget?

135 Nancy Said: Quotation Marks

136 Fifteen Minutes of Fame

137 Creepy Places

138 An Open Letter

139 Know Thyself

140 My New Old Cousin

141 Bobby Hebert

142 Top Ten Dead Folks

144 Wilbur Shaw

145 The Art Accident

146 What a Strange World

148 Jousting with Windmills

149 Old Age and Nursing Homes

150 Language Matters

151 From Alvin to Yogi

152 Impossible?

153 Let’s Talk about Hats

156 This Is an Intervention

157 Cool

158 Twenty-four in One

160 Drinking, Camping and the Presidents

162 A Remarkable “Insignificant” Person

163 Frog or Toad

164 Give Me a Damned Break

165 Let’s Talk about Goats

166 Possum, Linda’s Cat

167 Harrison Barron

168 Linear Week

169 Maybe Folks Just Don’t Like Art

170 New Years Resolutions or Lies We Tell Ourselves

172 Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum

173 Shakespeare’s Man

174 ...and I Ain’t Too Sure About You

175 Name Change Head Explosion

176 It’s a Ding Dang Miracle

177 Hang Those Deniers

178 Beards Are Trending

179 We Call Our Daddies Daddy

180 Richard Milhous Nixon

182 Grandma Barron

185 Mrs. Marguerite Miller

186 Flyover County

187 No Apocalypse: Off to Work

188 Duke Ellington

189 Kiss My Grits

190 If You’re a Man over Thirty

191 The Bee Man Cometh

192 I’ve Been Spammed

193 I Ain’t No Graduation Speaker

194 Applause, Please

195 The Real Rocky

196 Roll Dem Dice

197 They Come for the Wine

198 The Death Sentence

199 Where’s My Theme Music?

200 J. W. Pinkerton, Author

201 I Ain’t No Dancer

202 I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Technology

203 I Am a Lucky Man

204 Same Man: Same Problem

205 Small Scenes, Big Memories

206 It Was Never Your Team, Les

207 First, Do No Harm

208 Irish Fathers and Automobiles

210 Speakers’s Corner

211 Enemies Can Be Blessings

212 You’re Still Not the Boss of Me

213 Old White Guy Speaks

214 Meaning of Life

215 What’s Under Your Bed?

216 Wallowing in Grief

217 Movietone News

218 Addition and Subtraction

219 George W. Bush

222 Will Rogers: Renaissance Man

223 Family Is a Choice

224 The Don Quixote of Donkeys

225 Shoot the Art or the Artist

227 The Romance Is Over

229 Philosophy: Yeah, That’s the Ticket

230 Francis and Friends

231 Anti-intellectualism My Butt

232 I Ain’t Dropping My Pants

233 Gravity’s Pull on Me

234 Okay, We Need to Talk

237 Fog

238 P. G. Wodehouse

241 The Great Turkey Debate

242 College Degrees:

Look before You Leap

243 Amos ‘n’ Andy

244 Breaking the Code...Maybe

245 I Know Nothing

249 Saki

252 What It Is Is Baseball

253 It’s a Freakin’ Miracle

255 Suicide Happens

256 My Pallbearers

257 Not a Wizard

259 The Old Guy Card

260 Bringing Gusto to the Game

261 The Cool Kids’ Table

262 Trismegistus

263 Jim Was a Good One

265 Different Times---Different Standards

266 Icons and Judgments

267 My Front Porch

268 Paul Harvey: American Hero

269 Hell, It’s On

270 Poodle Skirts and Ike

273 I’ve Run Out of Stories

274 Archie: What a Guy

275 The Bevish and Other Ways to Goomberdock

276 Difficult Problem: Difficult Solutions

277 The Mystery of Electricity

278 So...You Have Six Friends

279 I Hate Trump

280 Don’t Want to Be Too Ambitious

281 This Ain’t Brain Surgery

282 The Perfect Crime

283 Bubba Does Standup

284 Out of Office Replies

285 We Bought a Car

286 A Charming Couple

287 My Old Brain

289 What Art Education?

290 Hell, I’m an Entrepreneur

291 Happy Pessimist

294 Hold My Beer

296 Jack

297 My Eulogy, a Work in Progress

299 Hate

300 300

301 Bob and Silent K

305 No Mahatna Ghandi, I

306 They Called Me Dumbass

307 Cemetary Bargains

308 My First and Best Principal

309 “I Like Rich People

310 “Dumb Aliens

311 “Stephen Hawkins without the Brain

313 Christine’s Dopplegager

314 Scraps of High School Memories

315 It’s My Birthday

316 I’m Cured...I Guess

317 Lonely Artists

318 Hardware, Software, and Life

319 Man Plans, and God Laughs

320 Apathy---Not Always a Bad Thing

321 I’m a Capitalist

322 Deaf, Dumb, Blind Old Kid

323 I Collect People

324 I Want My Spaces Back

326 Berkeley PC Police Save the World

327 Do Aliens Have a Sense of Humor

328 Beer for All

329 It’s Football Season and Fall Can’t Be Far Behind

330 God Hates a Straight Line

331 Magical Thinking

332 Oh, Yeah...and I Had a Heart Attack

333 Heart Attack Leftovers

334 Not a Chance from the Get-Go

335 A Mulligan, Please

336 Slogans You Remember

337 Just Not Funny

338 Good Luck, Dems

339 Lawsuit...Really?

340 Country Inn---Gone

341 Javelina Yawns

342 Too Dumb to Know

343 Well Done, You Arrogant Bastards

344 Inez, Buck, and the Whoop

345 Our Big Oak: Hard Times

346 Rosie Orozco

347 The Smells Are Back

348 Uh...Bad News and More Bad News

349 Golf---Oh, Well

351 Ya’ll Come Back, Ya Hear

352 Ya’ll So Silly

355 The American People Have Spoken

356 The Class of 1960

359 Novelty Songs

360 Essay Inspirations

361 My Friend Grady

362 Late Mention: LSU Wins National Championship

363 The Funny Hat Solution

364 I Miss Myself

365 I Know Nothing, Nothing!

366 I’m Very, Very Sorry...

367 Hunter the Artist

368 Square Roots

369 Problem Solved

370 Cock Fighting

371 My Friend Jay

372 Buyer’s Regret

373 Blood Simple

374 Coersion Versus Persuasion

375 Tears---Knock It Off

376 We Must Speak for Them

377 Cheap Lessons

378 Covid and Common Sense

379 Globes and Common Sense

380 Slapped by Facebook

381 Luck or the Clever Monkey

382 Still Got My Compass

383 Living to 130

384 Felon Friendly

385 Pumpkin Fraud

386 Manure Shoveler

387 Chiropractors

388 Ex-Students

389 Bill Neinast: My Hero

390 My Friend Joe

391 Trump’s the Devil

392 The World According to John

393 One of My Better Qualities

394 The Insurrection

395 Objective Observer

396 They’ve Checked Out

397 Youth and Driving

398 And Gawd Said

399 I Sneered at my Fantasy Analysis

401 Get Use to It

402 Okay, I Said It

403 Less is More

404 Just Minding My Own Business

405 Tis But a Scratch

406 Falling...a Lot

407 What a Country!

408 European Statue Haters

409 Barbecue Secrets

410 An Invitation to My Show

411 Birthdays---I’ve Had a Few

412 Knowledge Is Power

413 I Had a ‘Theeling’

414 Liberals and ‘Free Speech’

415 Fantasy Football: Year 100: Part Deux

417 Billy Bob Jumpback

418 Dogs, Fish, and Birds

419 The Naming of Cats

420 Behind Closed Doors

421 What Do You Say to a Dying Friend?

422 You’re Late, Damn It

424 Somerville Progress

425 Good Angel/Bad Angel

427 Blue Bell Cantaloupe

428 Billy Bob Speaks on ‘lectric Cars

429 Cart before Horse

430 Fantasy Football: Year 100

431 Eighty Ain’t No Party

432 Bobby Joe and Bubba Debrief

435 Shallow John

436 It’s All about the Hair

438 Going Home Again

439 Why Essays?

440 The Great Divide

442 Who Killed JFK?

443 Churches, Work Harder or...

444 I Ain’t No Worrier

445 Open Letter to the Class of ’60

446 Stanford Retards

447 The Library of Unread Books

448 Bobby Joe and Bubba and Fission and Fusion

449 Hospital Vacation

451 Onward and Upward to Hospice

452 Equity and Equality

453 Insults Are Us

454 Bobby Joe, Bubba, and Dylan Mulvaney

455 Bubba and Bobby Joe Solve a Plethora of Problems

456 Christians Redefined

457 Clear Eye on Taiwan

458 It’s Not All about You

459 Magic Words

460 Weaponization of the Federal Government

461 Linda and the School

462 The Zodiac and Me

463 A Complaint from a Loyal Texan

464 Artificial Intelligence and HAL

465 Boom

466 Colleges: Perceptions and Realities

467 Just Too Damned Big

468 Square Pegs and Round Holes

469 Talking to Men

470 Mayberry and Human Value

471 I Fell Again

472 White Dog Showdown

473 Stick It Where the Sun Don’t Shine

474 When I Become Smaller

475 Thanks, Mate

476 Bubba and Bobby Joe: Friends

477 Bubba and Bobby Joe and Dylan Mulvaney: the

478 Ball Lightning

480 Giant Brains and Camouflage

481 Stuff I Miss

483 Walk It Off

484 The JP Awards

485 A Tableau without Hope

487 Metaphysics

489 Hospice and Death and Stuff

491 Bubba, Bobby Joe, and Waldo

492 Mass Murders

493 Poetry: Odd and Pretenscious

494 Book Burnings and Censorship

496 Not Much Interested in Your Soul

497 Feeling Like Oneself

498 Golf: a Metaphor of Life

500 500

501 Not So Fast, Old Friend

502 Uncle Sam, You Got a Lot of ‘Splanin’ to Do

503 Little Prayers

504 The Kiwi Man

506 You’re a Jet

507 Eddie Faust

509 Laugh Damn It

510 Boy Was That a Mistake

511 The Wonderfulness of the Moment

513 I’ve Never Had a Mentor

514 Circle the Wagons

515 Never Give Up

FICTION

1 Phineas T. McGregor: the Great Bank Robber

2 The Country Club

4 My Name Is Ismael

5 Sundays Smell Different

6 Catch Any Bad Guys?

7 Bobby Joe Does Polling

8 James Meets a Chimpanzee

MY POETRY

See “The Poetry of John Pinkerton”

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