Brian Doyle

My first date with the sweet, wild woman who eventually married me was as follows: We drove two hundred miles from Boston, at speeds exceeding the speed limit, because as usual we started late, and also because someone forgot her dress, which entailed retrieving it again at shocking rates of speed, . . . . Continue Reading »

One time I was driving very slowly with my oldest living brother Through an arboretum he loves, where there are ponds and foxes And owls and kingfishers, and all sorts of other holy amazements, And I asked him what was up with his wicked cancers, how much Pain was he in and what were his chances . . . . Continue Reading »

The day I was granted the Sacrament of Confirmation and was admitted with full rights and privileges to the Church Eternal got off to a slow start, because the bishop was late. There had been a rain delay at the Mets game, but His Excellency couldn’t just leave the stadium, because the Mets were . . . . Continue Reading »

The day I was granted the Sacrament of Confirmation and was admitted with full rights and privileges to the Church Eternal got off to a slow start, because the bishop was late. There had been a rain delay at the Mets game, but His Excellency couldn’t just leave the stadium, because the Mets were playing the Pirates … Continue Reading »

I remember walking home from grade school with my sister and brother on the day that my class had started discussion of the Sacrament of First Confession, and Proper Respect and Reverence for the Sacrament by Which Our Souls are Cleansed. It had been a day of capital letters like that, and stern and . . . . Continue Reading »

When I was a boy I had a friend named Dennis McCann Who was totally and utterly and maniacally in love with Surfing. He talked about nothing else and he said he did Nothing else on the weekends and he had ten surfboards Of various sizes in his garage, most of them scuffed and Worn and sandy and all . . . . Continue Reading »

He was, you know. Dried out and salted down By men who had carried his stuff all over their Country, for reasons they thought inordinately Silly, chasing after the birthplace of a big river. But when David died, they determined to carry Him all the way across several countries, a trip That took . . . . Continue Reading »

Probably an olive or acacia, as far as scholars can determine. Of course there are scholars who have poked into the matter. The Roman Empire sensibly used the most accessible wood. Me personally I would bet on the acacia which grows bigger And broader and quicker than olive. You wonder if someone . . . . Continue Reading »

As usual one story will have to serve for one million stories. That is the way of stories. You might think that a lone story Cannot possibly do that, and you would be right and wrong. So here is Ena Zizi. She is seventy years old. The house fell Down on her when an earthquake hammered . . . . Continue Reading »

Elk calf, first five minutes on four legs, the shimmy and wobble of her. The undeniable inarguable adamant lurid smell of a smashed pumpkin. Two basketball players helping up a fallen teammate, the braided grips. The infant Vaux’s swift that rocketed out of the fireplace one evening. The way . . . . Continue Reading »