Will Cantrell

Posts by Will Cantrell:
Reviews, Shared, Views
On Googling Gods…and Willie Mays
Never Google ‘Willie Mays’!
Just don’t. It ain’t right.
First of all, Willie Mays was a god and gods are … well dammit, they’re gods! They shouldn’t have to be Googled. We should just know that they “are” gods and why they have that status — like Zeus or Thor or Ali or Jordan or Tiger. Or Willie Mays. (And to be perfectly honest, it says more about you than it does about them if you have to go around “Googling” gods. If it were left to me, the '‘laws of lineage’' would include a requirement for elders to have an early, ...
Talk, Views, Voices
Please, Mr. Postman
This morning, Travis, my mailman, delivered the news to me.
“… it’s because of the economy, Mr. C. It's all over CNN, ” he said.
“Travis, you guys have threatened to do this many times before. ”
“Well this time we mean it. We really do. We just can’t afford to do Saturday deliveries anymore.”
“What do you mean ’can’t afford ’? How much are stamps these days? About $8 apiece? Seems like you guys should be able to afford to deliver the mail on Saturdays and Sundays too. I remember when stamps were a dime.”
“I don’t know what stamps cost these days, Mr. ...
Life, Play
Cahoots: A Southern Snow Plot
“What are you doing?
“Er, uh … nothing, just looking through the window. Looks like it's stopped snowing. Pretty while it lasted, though."
“I know that look on your face. I’ve seen it before. Plenty of times. You’re up to something, aren’t you? ‘Fess up. Aren’t you?”
“Well, if you must know, Missy, I’m waiting for Bradley. I’ve got a little surprise for him. Made it this morning when the snow was really coming down. This time the snow is the good ‘n' wet kind. Perfect for snowballs. I put it in the freezer while you rushed out to Publix all in a ...
People & Places
A Poll Dance
You go your whole life — your whole long life — knowing that the world operates in a certain way. You’ve definitely figured out a few things. Maybe you still don’t know how your ex-spouse’s mind works or even how to reset the car radio at "Spring Back/Fall Down" or whatever. Still, you know a thing or two about a thing or two. Or so you think.
Then, as always happens, someone comes along and messes up everything.
Take this morning for instance. Until then I knew with "absolute certainty" that extraterrestrials had never visited the Earth, that there were no such ...
Reviews, Talk
On Finding Salinger
Until his press agent announced his death a few days ago, I‘d thought little about J.D. Salinger these last years. I suspect you hadn’t either. He’d slipped to a distant corner of my memory. I doubt though that the notoriously reclusive Salinger — if a "successful" recluse can also at the same time be notorious — would be offended by our lapses. I am sure that’s the way he would have things be. (I must confess that I have this penchant for deeming the once famous but also very much “still with us” to be long in the grave. It’s ...
Rhythm & Dews
Nothing to Kick About!
America, it’s time to abolish the field goal!
A few days ago, I was an eyewitness to an event that was shameful, reprehensible, and quite frankly, unholy. I am sure that it might even be an unnatural act and illegal in many of the lower 48 states. After the incident — and even after a long hot shower — I felt used, cheap and quite frankly, dirty. After I calmed down, I thought of calling "the authorities" and filing some sort of complaint but then thought better of the matter. I did vow to myself to call my attorney in the ...
Life, Stories
The Grown Folks Table
"Your money’s no good here, son,” he said, looking down at the folded twenty dollar bill that I’d just slipped him. “One of your cousins just tried the same thing — with a fifty! It didn’t work for him either."
"But..."
"You guys know the rules. You gotta wait your turn just like everybody else."
"Listen, Tiger, if I take your money I gotta take the money from all of your cousins and they’ll all be expecting the same thing. You just gotta wait your turn. All of y’all,” he said. We were talking on the lawn of his small house located not ...
Rhythm & Dews, Shared, Views
Rushing the Obit
They’re dropping like flies. The formerly famous among us are dying. Lately, it’s been epidemic.
One morning a few weeks ago, my radio announced that yet another “use to be famous” person had just died.
“Jeez,” I said to myself, “that was the third one this week!” (I have it on good authority that death always "comes in threes.") Every day it seems that it's another one — i.e. some formerly famous person — who's gone.
I must admit that the recent revelation of the demise of Jack B. Famous caught me really off-guard. It was like a “bolt out of the blue,” ...








