When I logged on to Amazon (on the customer-facing side) today, I noticed a new John Grisham short story, “The Law Student.” The short story is a standalone prequel to one of Grisham’s novels. “The Law Student” is about 5,000 words long.
This seems to be a trend in New York publishing of late: novelists publishing short stories that are either based completely in standalone narratives, or are lead-ins to novel-length works.
I’m personally a fan of short stories, both as a reader and as a writer. I recently finished reading a Tom Clancy doorstopper of a novel from the 1980s: Red Storm Rising. Published in 1987 and weighing in at 725 pages, Red Storm Rising was the perfect thick-spined novel for the mall bookstore era. But Red Storm Rising was also at least two hundred pages too long.
There are many perfectly serviceable story ideas that simply don’t require or justify those massive lengths. Consider, for example, my horror tale Family Secrets. This one came to just under 16,000 words. Technically speaking, Family Secrets is a novelette. You might also call it a “long” short story.
Family Secrets is a very gripping story at 16,000 words, if I may say so myself. I would not, however, have wanted to expand the story to a typical 60,000-word novel length. Family Secrets is based on a nightmare I had back in April. Stories based on dreams, even horror stories, are seldom the stuff of full-length novels.
Needless to say, short stories should be priced appropriately. This is a rule that I always follow. I also place most of my fiction in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, where you can read it for free.
Last night I went out for a walk in my neighborhood around 7 pm. (We’ve had an unseasonably warm spell here in the Cincinnati area.) I didn’t take into account how quickly the dusk settles in this late in the year. I was only halfway out when it suddenly became very…well, dark.
I therefore walked back to my house in the dark. The houses around me were festooned with various Halloween decorations: skulls, black cats, and even some cool Halloween projector lights.
I love Halloween. For me, Halloween is the time when we mortals come to terms with two constants of human existence: a.) the unknown, and b.) the inevitability of death.
The celebration of Halloween is an act of acceptance. Our lives will always contain tragedy, dissatisfactions, and uncertainty. But we cannot allow ourselves to paralyzed by fear…or by sadness.
Halloween is a time when we laugh at death, and embrace our mortality.
A few years ago, I wrote a Halloween novel called 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN. This nostalgic, coming-of-age horror tale is set on Halloween night, 1980. Check it out here.
I was a teenager during the 1980s. Where drugs were concerned, this was the era of “Just Say No.” This was little more than a decade into the so-called “war on drugs”
Adults were concerned that we were going tobecome potheads—like one of the characters in a Cheech & Chong movie—or, perhaps, like Jeff Spicoli in Fast times at Ridgemont High.
Even the well-heeled suburban kids in The Breakfast Club indulged in weed on the sly in those days. But if you were caught, the penalties could be severe—in theory, at least. In the 1980s, simple possession for personal use could result in jail time.
Once again—in theory. The legally stipulated penalties were often applied unevenly, based on racial and economic factors. The law was not color-blind. Nor was it money-blind.
The legalization boom
All of that changed in the early 21st century, when the mood regarding marijuana decisively shifted. This was the era of legalization. Washington and Colorado were the first U.S. states to legalize recreational cannabis in November 2012. Other states followed suit to greater or lesser degrees.
Before long recreational marijuana use became not just something that was tolerated, but a full-fledged industry. People weren’t just growing and purchasing pot for their own personal use. Now they were growing and purchasing it to sell to others at a profit. Marijuana had gone from a forbidden activity to one that was more or less encouraged by the new legal framework.
Massachusetts has never been a state to miss out on nitwittery. So of course, Massachusetts voters approved recreational marijuana in 2016. The marijuana industry has grown in Massachusetts since then. In September of this year, the state’s Cannabis Control Commission reported that recreational marijuana sales had surpassed $10 billion in the Bay State. It takes quite a few potheads to reach sales figures like that.
The wrath of unintended consequences
But not everyone in Massachusetts has been happy about this outcome.
This brings us to the concept of unintended consequences—something that those pesky conservatives like to bring up. It is ironic that Massachusetts, one of the most left-leaning states in the USA, has come to the realization that legalizing pot—and turning it into a full-fledged industry—has brought some unintended and undesirable consequences.
There have been concerns about an increase in marijuana use among young people. If weed is legal—and the government practically encourages it—why shouldn’t young people use it, after all?
There have also been concerns about impaired driving. One of the things you might remember from those 1980s movies is that people don’t drive particularly well when they’re high on weed. This is a lesson we learned long, long ago with alcohol.
And speaking of old lessons… Massachusetts was one of the first states to ban smoking in public places, because cigarette smoking isn’t good for you. It turns out that marijuana is also bad for your health—especially when you smoke it. It’s not particularly good for your focus or your mental health, either.
All of these things are true—and have been true forever—even if you happen to think that marijuana is some cool new hipster drug.
Question 8
This has led to Question 8, an effort to repeal most aspects of Massachusetts’ weed legalization framework. Question 8 is on the ballot in the Bay State this election season.
Question 8 would eliminate recreational marijuana sales, along with the accompanying tax and regulatory framework. In other words, all the things that make recreational marijuana an ordinary business activity.
This wouldn’t be a return to the harsh anti-weed laws of the 1980s, though. Adults twenty-one years old and above could still possess up to one ounce without getting into trouble. Medical marijuana would also remain legal.
If approved, all of these measures would take place on January 1, 2028. Massachusetts would thereby become the first state to repeal a voter-approved recreational marijuana market.
There would be winners and losers, of course. There always are when laws change. If you’ve recently invested in a recreational marijuana-related business in Massachusetts, you might or might not be willing to make the personal financial sacrifice for the sake of public health.
The challenge of victimless crimes
We tend to veer from one extreme to the other where victimless crimes are concerned. Victimless crimes include weed use, gambling, and prostitution.
No one thinks that these activities are socially beneficial. But should they be made illegal? Should consenting adults be prohibited from participating in these activities when they directly harm no one, at least in theory?
Victimless crimes are not always victimless when practiced at scale, though. Widespread marijuana use can endanger all of us when we’re forced to drive alongside intoxicated drivers.
Commercialized sex is another tough one. Although there is an effort to portray all instances of commercial sex as victimization, there is much evidence to the contrary here. High-end sex workers like Alice Little and Meida Marek are clearly women with options, who have chosen sex work for reasons of profit—not coercion or desperation.
That said, no one wants to see a brothel in the local shopping mall. No one would welcome sex workers speaking at the local high school on the next career day.
We have many choices on a continuum between open encouragement of a socially deleterious activity—and ruthless, uncompromising prohibition. One option is to allow these activities to take place on a small scale in private, but without the legal and societal stamp of approval that a formal regulatory framework brings. This means that the government can’t tax these activities. But the point is to keep the total revenue generated by these activities low to begin with.
Another option is selective enforcement. In Ohio, where I live, it’s legal to gamble so long as the government gets a piece of the action. Ohio has a state lottery, and we also have legal casinos. It is, however, illegal in Ohio to organize an unregulated poker game for money in your home. Employee betting pools are also technically illegal.
But authorities in Ohio aren’t going out of their way to search out such instances of unregulated gambling, not even with Republicans in charge. Restrain your home poker games to a small scale, and you probably won’t get in trouble.
I would argue for a similar approach to commercial sex. In 2013, authorities in Kennebunk, Maine, jailed Zumba instructor Alexis Wright for selling sexual favors to men from the privacy of her exercise studio. Wright was not coerced, nor was she coercing anyone else. Alexis Wright was a 30-year-old woman selling a voluntary service to adult men in their 40s and 50s. Yet they arrested her and put her in jail. The libertarian in me bristles at such authoritarian nonsense.
At the same time, I don’t want brothels in the local shopping mall, or sex workers speaking at the next career day at my local high school. In other words, I come down in the mushy middle where commercial sex is concerned, just like I come down in the mushy middle where recreational marijuana is concerned.
A more nuanced, more ambiguous approach to victimless crimes won’t please purists at either extreme. But from a societal perspective, ambiguity makes sense. There are certain activities that we don’t want to encourage at scale among the general population—especially where children and minors are concerned. At the same time, however, consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want with their own resources and their own bodies, so long as they aren’t directly harming others, and they’re mostly keeping their activities to themselves. The mushy middle is not a perfect approach to victimless crimes, but it’s better than either of the alternative extremes.
Both my bartending friends and the media tell me that Gen Z is drinking much less than previous generations did. Gen Z’s teetotaling ways may even have a long-term impact on the alcoholic beverages and bar industries. We shall see.
Not so with my generation, Generation X. My generational cohorts were drinkers from the get-go. Now, in their late 50s and early 60s, they haven’t stopped. Ours is the generation keeping bars and distilleries alive.
But not all of us Gen Xers are drinkers. I underwent an early period of experimentation with alcohol, and quickly determined that drinking was not for me.
As a result, I did much more drinking when I was underage than I ever did as a legal adult. In fact, I did most of my drinking during my eighth-grade year. How did I acquire alcohol at the age of 13? You’ve heard those stories about unsupervised Gen X kids in the ’80s, right? Well there’s definitely an element of truth to them.
As an adult I have consumed almost no alcoholic beverages. If you could assemble all the beer, booze, and liquor I’ve consumed since age 21, it would definitely fit on a single tabletop.
The last time I consumed an alcoholic beverage was in Detroit in September 2002. I was in the Motor City for an automotive industry show. My colleagues and I were waiting for a table at a crowded restaurant. The logistics of the situation required us to wait in the bar area.
While I don’t care for alcoholic beverages, I’m not an ideological teetotaler either. I decided to take advantage of the situation to have a rare tipple. Since this was a rare occasion I decided to get something off the beaten path.
I purchased and drank a dark Guinness.
I found the taste of Guinness to be not horrible, but definitely not something I would go out of my way to drink.
And I definitely did a more manly job of finishing off my Guinness than did Mark Zuckerberg. The Meta CEO and founder was recently filmed drinking a glass of the stuff with an unmistakable grimace. Zuckerberg, born in 1984, is neither a Gen Xer nor a Gen Z, so we can only wonder if he’s a habitual drinker otherwise.
I agree with Matt Walsh on certain issues, but I have never really been a Matt Walsh fan.
It’s the old saw of the stopped clock that tells the correct time twice a day. I also agree with Bernie Sanders on certain issues. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to join the DSA.
Like many youthful commentators in the political arena, Matt Walsh likes to interpret everything as an oppression narrative. Most recently, he has decided that the average Boomer is stealing from 35-year-olds in order to blow their Social Security checks on slot machines. (I’m not exaggerating here. Walsh actually makes this assertion.)
This no doubt relates to chagrin over the fact that millennials and Gen Zs are not reproducing at the expected rates. Matt Walsh, like JD Vance and other right-leaning social engineers, wants to redirect both public and private funds in order to encourage more marriage and childbearing. So the hobgoblin of the greedy, grasping 70- or 80-something fits neatly into this narrative.
I remember the 1980s; Walsh does not. (Walsh was in diapers in 1986.) I was a teenager back then, and my Boomer parents had noticeably fewer assets than my WWII-generation grandparents—who were also drawing Social Security.
Matt doesn’t seem to realize that this is the way Social Security has always been.
And this brings us back to a fundamental problem with Matt Walsh. Walsh is no dummy, but he has always been callow, petulant, and an aspiring authoritarian. Walsh has never been anything but a political commentator. He decided to start explaining the world before he had lived enough to fully understand the world.
You can challenge the premise of the Social Security system, if you wish. But to turn this into a “Boomer plot” is just silly.
You might have noticed that we almost never hear any positive news stories about fraternities and sororities.
Yes, I’m alluding to the recent “Cornell 7” case.
But the details of that case are not what I’m going to discuss here—as the relevant facts are still coming in, and everyone else is talking about that incident.
Instead, I’m going to begin at the University of Cincinnati, in January 1982.
Before many of you were even born.
***
On Sunday, January 17, 1982, the University of Cincinnati chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) held what it called a “Martin Luther King Jr. trash party.” The event was held the night before UC’s observance of King’s birthday.
Guests were encouraged to bring items such as canceled welfare checks, boomboxes, and crowbars. Ku Klux Klan hoods were welcome. Invitations for the party also suggested that attendees bring photos of James Earl Ray—Martin Luther King’s assassin.
According to contemporary accounts, one partygoer wore a Martin Luther King mask with a bullet hole in it.
All that happened back in 1982.
***
I was not a student at the University of Cincinnati in January 1982. I was an eighth-grader in the nearby suburbs. Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s “Martin Luther King Jr. trash party” was a local source of ignominy in Cincinnati that winter. The incident was a common topic on local TV and radio channels.
The scandal eventually received national attention, but this was limited. (Remember: there was no internet back then.)
In February 1982, UC president Henry Winkler ordered a two-year suspension of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. That suspension has long since expired, of course. Sigma Alpha Epsilon has a chapter on the University of Cincinnati campus today. Some of the current members’ fathers, one imagines, had not even been born yet in 1982.
***
Alleged gang rapes, and incidents like the Martin Luther King Jr. trash party, are sensational events that linger in the media for months or even years. Far more common are the comparatively mundane stories of a new pledge dying from alcohol poisoning after drinking himself into oblivion as part of the fraternity’s hazing procedures.
What about sororities, though? Where sororities are concerned, the news stories are usually a little less toxic. The big problem with sororities seems to be the incredible amounts of money that parents will invest trying to get their daughter into a very specific sorority. Often this involves spending thousands of dollars for sorority rush consultants and various designer brands.
But back, briefly, to the Cornell 7 case. The alleged perpetrators were all members of the Chi Phi fraternity chapter at Cornell University. The alleged victim was a member of a sorority. Frat boys and sorority sisters tend to hang out together, attend the same parties, and hook up together.
***
None of the above implies that every member of a fraternity is a racist or a rapist. Nor can we conclude that every member of a sorority is a hapless ingénue, ready to fall for any proposition presented by the right fraternity brother.
But we can make certain speculations. There are people who have a deep emotional need for group affiliation. Such individuals have a strong tendency to merge their own identities with the identity of a particular group—a group that gives them a sense of acceptance and social standing.
Such individuals are often attracted to fraternities and sororities. People with low degrees of personal independence naturally gravitate toward these organizations. This is the selection effect in action.
Members of fraternities and sororities are not necessarily any more malevolent or gullible at an individual level than members of the general population. They are, however, arguably more susceptible to peer pressure. The need to be liked and accepted by a particular group can override individual codes of ethics—and even self-preservation.
Consider the Sigma Alpha Epsilon “MLK trash party of 1982.” Attendees at this event could not reasonably have expected to acquire conventional rewards such as sex, money, or career advancement. They could, however, acquire more peer group approval.
Ayn Rand once wrote that the word “we” is the root of all evil. I wouldn’t go quite that far. Moreover, excessive contrarianism—when practiced for its own sake—can become counterproductive.
But college fraternities and sororities do seem to bring out the worst in people who suffer from a strong need for group affiliation. Adulthood is supposed to be about personal growth and independence. Fraternities and sororities encourage exactly the opposite—even when tragedies and public scandals aren’t their result.
This past weekend I mowed my lawn and my dad’s lawn. This is something that I do practically every week during the spring, summer, and early fall.
Far from being onerous, lawn mowing is an activity that I moderately enjoy.
Lawn mowing provides an aerobic workout, and I utilize the time productively by listening to audiobooks or foreign languages. (Sometimes I listen to podcasts, too.)
But there is another benefit to lawn mowing. Lawn mowing is a finite, clearly definable task, and its completion provides a minor sense of accomplishment. When one mows a suburban lawn, one has brought a condition of order out of chaos.
Is that reflection a little too “zen” for a weekly household task? Perhaps. But lawn mowing is something that I enjoy more as I get older. When I was a young fellow, I never understood older men who enjoyed cutting the grass. (My maternal grandfather was one of them. That man loved to cut grass.)
I recently produced a story for my YouTube channel called “Ohiosaurus Rex.” This very short piece depicts a married couple’s encounter with a dinosaur during a drive through the Ohio countryside. I explain this unusual event with a time slip.
Then, lo and behold, I find that Warner Brothers Entertainment had a similar idea. A new movie called The End of Oak Street, starring Anne Hathaway, is about dinosaurs invading the suburbs.
No hard feelings. I didn’t plagiarize Warner Brothers and they didn’t plagiarize me. The idea of modern-day humans coming face-to-face with giant carnivorous reptiles has been a universal story concept since dinosaurs were first discovered more than one hundred years ago. This is the basis for the entire Jurassic Park franchise. But maybe Michael Crichton got the idea from Land of the Lost, a TV series I remember from my childhood.
No one owns the idea of “dinosaurs versus humans.” Every creator leaves their unique stamp on the idea. The End of Oak Street promises to be a very good movie, based on the online clip. And it will be a very different movie from any of the Jurassic Park films.
Why do dinosaurs fascinate and scare us so much? They tap into a primeval fear, that of being prey. Modern humans are at the top of the food chain. Yes, we may become prey in very specific and rare instances when we encounter polar bears, great white sharks, or Nile crocodiles. Those are predicaments that most of us can easily avoid.
But what about a giant reptile that crashes through a fence? There is nothing quite like that anywhere on Earth—nor has there been, since the dawn of humankind.
I’m looking forward to seeing The End of Oak Street. I would also speculate that I’ll be returning to dinosaur stories myself. There are just too many possibilities to pass up, where dinosaurs and humans are concerned.
Esme Gordon-Craig is a twenty-something contributor for the Times (in the UK). She recently wrote a piece about falling for “negging”.
Negging is a manipulation tactic. Negging is frequently employed by pickup artists, pushy salespersons, and even itinerant preachers. Your nosy neighbor may employ it too.
Negging consists of using subtle insults and backhanded compliments to shame a person into a desired outcome.
Non-drinkers like myself are frequently on the receiving end of negging. When I decline an alcoholic beverage, I am occasionally asked if I am a Baptist. I reply deadpan that, no, I am an idolatrous Roman Catholic. That usually puts an end to the interaction.
Ms. Gordon-Craig relates how a group of older men approached her and her Gen Z girlfriends at a bar in the UK. (Since she was in the UK, it was probably a “pub”.) The older men (I’m guessing they were in their late 30s or early 40s) offered a round of drinks.
One of them became specifically interested in her:
“One bought my friend a drink and another offered to buy one for me. I politely refused but he persisted. In all honesty, even if I wasn’t done for the night, I doubt I’d have accepted the drink — he wasn’t really my type or anywhere near my age.”
Then the man uttered the words that flustered her and broke down her defenses:
“You need to stop being so uptight… You need to let loose… Learn to express yourself, be more open.”
With the 25th anniversary of 9/11 this past week, I found myself confronted again with the personal stories of some of the ordinary people who died that day. Many were pressed by circumstances into acts of heroism. Their names include: Todd Beamer, Brian Sweeney, Mark Bingham, Betty Ong, and Lauren Grandcolas, among many others.
While the 9/11 attacks did have elderly victims, it seems that many of them were young people in their prime years: their twenties through their forties. That is the nature of air travel, perhaps—especially on a workday. (September 11, 2001, fell on a Tuesday.) Most of the WTC victims were at work.
All of those people’s stories, compelling as they are, were cut short twenty-five years ago.
I was not anywhere near the events of 9/11 on the morning of September 11th, 2001. I was working at an office building in Erlanger, Kentucky, hundreds of miles from all of the horror that was taking place.
By that time, the internet was commonplace and ubiquitous (though social media did not yet exist). My colleagues and I became aware of what was going on in more or less real time, as it was being reported on the various news sites.
But I went home that day. Many people did not.
All those lives were cut short on September 11, 2001. I, meanwhile, have had 25 years since then—25 years of joy, sadness, disappointment, and triumph. There have been good days and bad days since then, and—I dare say—some good years along with some not-so-good ones.
But those 25 years were mine. That’s a lot of memories. On 9/11/01, I was 33 years old. I’m now 58.
Twenty-five years is an entire generation of time, a generation of time that was given to me, but not to everyone. Even as I mourn the deaths of inspiring, ordinary people whom I never knew, and (in all likelihood) never would have known, I’m compelled to reflect on my own mundane life.
I should be more grateful. I should be kinder and more considerate toward the people around me. I should make better use of the time I have been given, time that was taken from so many others.
The other day I came across a news story on Facebook about a contentious local issue. Against my better judgment, I ventured into the comments section. (Nothing good ever comes from reading the comments on Facebook.)
A woman in her early 50s (born in 1973) expressed an opinion that conflicted with the views of many of the younger commenters, who were mostly in their thirties.
Rather than answering her argument, the younger commenters replied with a string of denunciations of “Boomers.”
One even typed, “I can’t wait till all the stupid Boomers die.”
Source: Facebook
There are a number of problems here—the gross generalizations and hopes of mass death aside.
First of all, a person born in 1973 is no Boomer. A person born in 1973 is solidly in Gen X (born 1965 to 1980) territory. So insulting a Gen Xer by wishing death on all Boomers is kind of like insulting a person from Germany by saying that you want to exterminate all the citizens of Denmark.
I have noticed this tendency among some Millennials and older Gen Zs on the internet: They define “Boomer” as anyone ten years their senior who happens to disagree with them. At best, this is a scattershot approach to being an insufferable boor on the internet. At worst, it is a display of rank idiocy.
For the record: a “Boomer” is someone born between 1946 and 1964—i.e., someone between the ages of 80 and 62 at the end of 2026.
If they don’t fall within that age range, they aren’t a Boomer—just like a hummingbird isn’t an armadillo. You can’t use these words interchangeably just because TikTok has told you that Boomer = “bad.”
If you’re going to be a jerk, at least get the terminology right.
Students in Asian countries—China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan—score higher than their US peers in reading, math, and science. CNN, whose writers apparently fell off the proverbial donkey cart yesterday, describes this as“a troubling trend.”
This is, however, a trend that goes back at least two generations. In the early to mid-1980s, when I was a high school student, there was a panic about US students falling behind. (At that time, we were probably more concerned with US student rankings vis-à-vis West Germans and Finns.)
On January 28, 1986, teacher Christa McAuliffe died along with the NASA crew when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded over the Atlantic Ocean.
Why was a teacher aboard the space shuttle? The Reagan administration, alarmed over falling US scholastic rankings, hoped that the presence of a teacher aboard the space shuttle would increase US students’ interest in science and math.
Despite the presence of so many world-class universities within our borders, America has never been a scholarly, literary, or test-acing nation. Well into the nineteenth century, the most popular English-language writers in the United States were British writers like Charles Dickens.
In more recent decades, there are worries that Asian students are too far ahead of our kids in math and science. These fears have been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. In the past, we could steal the best and brightest from Taiwan, South Korea, China, and India. That may become more difficult in the near future.
Why are we such second-rate students? Historically, America was a frontier nation that was stubbornly obsessed with the practical. During the Industrial Revolution, education was tolerated if not necessarily prized. Could an education help you build a better steel mill? That was the relevant question.
The modern era, with its industrial-model grade schools and high schools, has shaped our indifference toward education in a different way. In recent decades, the obsession with competitive games and other extracurricular activities in school environments has far eclipsed the interest in competitive GPA rankings. At least, this was the way it was when I was a suburban high school student in the 1980s.
(The American obsession with watching grown men play boys’ games continues well into adulthood for most of us. This week I have heard little on the news but chatter about the start of the NFL season.)
One of my coworkers from Taiwan, a man I worked with in the late 1990s, was particularly baffled by this. He told me that in Taiwan, sports are seen as little more than something you do to blow off steam and keep your body limber when you’re not studying for the next exam.
All of these criticisms of American priorities are fair game and worth noting. I have noticed them for years and I haven’t been the only one.
But the proof is still in the pudding. The U.S. is still the top economy in the world, the country that draws the most immigrants. People aren’t flooding into Taiwan and China from other countries, despite these nations’ superior math scores.
All of this means that we’re doing something right, and we have been doing something right for decades now, even if we could genuinely use some improvement in our scholarship.
Imagine if we could raise our test scores to the top international levels and maintain the dynamism and competitive spirit that has always distinguished America from its Old World and Asian counterparts. Now that would really be something.
Actor Ryan Reynolds is drawing some criticism for his negative characterizations of the 1980s.
The remarks came Tuesday night, September 1, at the New York premiere of Mayday, his new Cold War comedy set in 1987. Reynolds was criticizing the tendency to romanticize the 1980s. Speaking to journalists, the Canadian-American actor said:
“When you get far enough away from a time period that’s quite distinct, there’s always a lovely feeling associated with it, almost like you pave over all the trauma with puppy dogs and ice cream.”
“The 80s was a brutal, brutal time for people. It was a fucking mess and people forget that.”
“It was a tremendous strife. Sociopolitical tensions everywhere. We were still pretty fresh off the Cuban missile crisis, which was only 15–20 years before. It’s a tumultuous period, but you look back at it now and you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. Top Gun. Cocaine!’ Like, ‘No!’ It was really scary.”
Ryan Reynolds says ’80s nostalgia “paves over all the trauma” of the “tumultuous” decade:
“The 80s was a brutal, brutal time for people. It was a fucking mess and people forget that. It was a tremendous strife. Socio political tensions everywhere. We were still pretty fresh off… pic.twitter.com/CvNE3KLfff
It’s an ordinary spring afternoon in suburban Cincinnati, 1980.
Eighteen-year-old Michelle Blevins is home with her younger brother when a stranger rings the doorbell.
The stranger is wearing a blazer, tie, and aviator sunglasses. He says he represents a local law firm. He says Michelle’s parents are in trouble.
And he really wants to come inside.
That’s the setup for “The Door-to-Door Man,” my latest original short story for YouTube.
Those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s will remember that this was the era of “stranger danger.”
In some ways, the world was considerably less connected than it is today. There were no cell phones, doorbell cameras, GPS trackers, or Internet searches. If a stranger appeared at your front door, you couldn’t pull out your phone and immediately find out who he was.
At the same time, people were becoming increasingly aware that the world wasn’t necessarily as safe as they had once imagined.
Serial killers, violent crime, and mysterious disappearances regularly made the news. Parents warned their children about strangers. And yet it was still perfectly normal for unfamiliar people—salesmen, repairmen, deliverymen, religious solicitors, and others—to simply walk up to your house and ring the doorbell.
That combination provides the backdrop for “The Door-to-Door Man.”
I’ve been experimenting with writing very short fiction specifically for YouTube: complete stories that can be read or listened to in a single sitting, accompanied by atmospheric visuals.
“The Door-to-Door Man” is one of these stories. It’s a tale of suspense rather than supernatural horror. There are no ghosts, monsters, or paranormal forces here. Just an ordinary young woman, an ordinary suburban house—and a stranger at the door who may not be what he claims to be.
You can watch and listen to the complete story in the video accompanying this post.
If you enjoy “The Door-to-Door Man”…
You might also want to check out my DEADLY BYWAYS series.
Deadly Byways consists of six novels set in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Like “The Door-to-Door Man,” these stories explore the darker side of an era that many of us remember with nostalgia—but which had plenty of dangers and shadows of its own.
If you enjoy suspense stories about ordinary people confronting extraordinary dangers—especially stories set against the backdrop of America several decades ago—DEADLY BYWAYS may be for you.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy “The Door-to-Door Man.”
And remember: be careful who you open your front door to.
Rick Springfield is touring this summer, apparently. That alone is newsworthy, given his age. But the 77-year-old performer is also making headlines because of his physique.
There can be no hedging or prevarication here. This guy is in amazing shape for 77. He probably has good genes. But he also works at maintaining this degree of fitness. (I’ve seen some videos about his fitness routines on YouTube, and they’re definitely worth watching.)
From a personal perspective: I’m 58, and Springfield is three years younger than my dad. I can remember the girls in my junior high class, back in 1981, having crushes on him.
It’s all about maintaining good habits as you age.
One more personal note: I might be able to outrun Rick Springfield, but I definitely don’t have his degree of leanness. Now excuse me, while I head to the gym for an extra workout.
