What are your future travel plans? There is a town I used to live, Where I nearly lost my mind. I took a chance on leaving there To a place I’d never find. Once unbound, I found my heart Was truly what I left. I took a chance on going back To where my mind … Continue reading The End of the Road
I lost it because I didn’t know where it was. I didn’t know where I wanted to be so I left. I went to the mountains to not ride my bike there, same as at home. Drove to San Francisco, ran out of gas on their bridge, then got gas and left without visiting the … Continue reading “Travels With Charley” at home on your lap
I’m tired of restless encroaching settlement of a frontier that may have the beguiling of a sought after imperfect mastery of tranquil effervescence, rambling incongruent wasteful morose standards while pitying the ever complacent end of a note. Read by a peasant who is worn by a sweater, that clings like a roving, hacking, never reluctant … Continue reading A Peasant’s Presence
The freedom to drive 2500 miles and dip my toe in the rivers of Yosemite Valley, turn around and drive home to the Great Lakes knowing that I never really had to leave to find security or recovery, to me is the ultimate defiance of privilege as an American because leaving home is the hardest … Continue reading The Pursuit of Home
A highly riddled man walks into a restaurant in America for a bowl of curry. He is seated at a table by the front door. A door he has walked through a dozen times before. So many times that he notices the menu has changed, not the food but the format. He is visiting the … Continue reading The Nice and Quiet Bigot
It’s 95 degrees in the shade and I’m zooming through the desert where there is no shade. The side of the road is whipping by but the sun just sits there all high and feverishly hot over here, not moving. It seems to not be moving any place with the perception of my eyes but … Continue reading Fifteen Hundred Miles from Here
So now back to Europe, Switzerland to be exact. It’s Christmas Day and I’ve decided to climb the foothills of a mountain to perch somewhere and reflect on the full year. I packed some bread, wine, and calamari in American sauce, my go to for a growling stomach and bored headspace. The foothills were open … Continue reading Switzerland – The Other Fellow First
I told my closest friend the other day that the more I like my own writing it seems the less other people like it. This is far from true since I really absolutely adore my writing and I am the only one who reads it. His response was interesting to me as he stated that … Continue reading Faces of Your Past
“I can’t think,” is what an elderly lady was saying over and over in the hospital that first time which I like to call the Big Blink. That is where I bit my tongue, literally, for hours before I fell into a state of catatonic slumber for a week, not able to remember a damn … Continue reading The Big Blink
Now that I had arrived back home it seems I would now be able to move on with my life, maybe go back to school, get a job - rather than lay around Albuquerque trying to fit in with punk rock artists but falling short by drawing help with rent from a few Marilyn Manson … Continue reading Home Again
I haven’t left the boundaries of Michigan for more than five days in over fifteen years and I have no plans to do so. Writing about my trip to Europe is really reliving my glory days when I was more spontaneous, adventurous, and brave. Rome was the most glorious of all places I’ve been because … Continue reading Rome – Bending the Rules
I headed north towards Colorado, stopping in Taos where I got half a haircut for free because I wouldn’t let the butcher finish the job. After several years of free flowing hair I shouldn’t have stopped at a barber shop staffed by old men who probably nip the bottle between shavings. I mean in the … Continue reading Home I – Delaying Fame
As a young man I broke away from my sheltered upbringing by leaving the lakes and beaches of home, heading to the ruins of Dresden with a notebook and a backpack sized for a mule. I met a premature mentor carrying a guitar and possessing a shaky voice. With the promise of hat money, and … Continue reading Dresden, Germany
Francis Erich McElroy 