There’s more than one way to skin a cat, my father would say. Sometimes he would say skunk. I never understood why anyone would ever want to skin a cat or a skunk, but that was how his mind worked. If he saw some skinny kid dripping wet out of a pond or river, he would say, he’s as wet as a lizard. Everyone told him lizards weren’t wet and slimy, but reality is a slippery thing, isn’t it? In the summer, when I was running around half-naked and as bronzed as a god in some mythology, he would say, you’re as brown as a berry. I remember pointing out once that if a berry were brown, that wasn’t a good thing. He didn’t care. He told me I wouldn’t make a pimple on a real man’s ass. He also told me to throw him in a ditch when he died. I don’t think he meant it, but now I think I know what he meant.

first light chicken feathers in the grass

Bio: Bob Lucky