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Posts published by “Eleanor Cooney”

No Country For Old Women (Part 1)

2008: I'm driving a stolen car. Not technically stolen, but it feels stolen. My guilty conscience clatters along everywhere I go in the car, like the tin cans and old shoes honeymoon-bound brides and grooms…

Bad Boys

The Time: Autumn, 1958. The place: the playground of the Washington Consolidated School, Washington, Connecticut. A big crowd of kids are in a circle around two fighting boys. Jimmy Tompkins has his arm hooked around…

Teenage Wasteland

When I was a teenager, older men followed me on the street, offering me drinks in the middle of the day, occasionally muttering obscenities in my ear. Something about me, some kind of vibe I…

Strangers On A Train

We first spotted him when we came up the stairs to the second deck. He was hard to miss. We were still in the station in L.A. on a gorgeous sunny morning, all-aboarding the Coast…

Requiem For A Pasha

The year is 1990. I'm standing on the Amtrak station platform in Lafayette, Louisiana. We'll be here for ten minutes and then roll on to New Orleans. I sniff the air and wonder which direction…

Kemgas? Thanks, But No Thanks

November 28, 2012, morning: I'm sitting at my desk working. Along about 11:30, I hear the front gate click, and onto the property walks a man. Instant assessment: not a Jehovah's Witness, not a Mormon,…

The Real Jihad

I'm an atheist.  There, I've said it. You want to make something of it? I know a guy who's a bit of a bible-thumper. He's accused me of being "militant" about my nonbelief. I disagree.…

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