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fiction
edward w pritchard

The Postman
Pete was a post man and after walking 20 miles delivering mail in the August heat he wanted nothing other than to sit in his chair and watch the precision of the Rams high school football team. He lived over off Brown Street at the extreme north end of the Garfield practice field which sank like a bowl in front of his house and along Brown and the nearby streets. It was about 100 feet from Pete's house to the north goal and from his second story window he had a perfect view of the football field. The Garfield Rams were consistently the best team in the City Series throughout the 1960's and Pete would sit up in his window, eat supper and watch the second practice of the day, of the dreaded August two a days that made men of teenage boys.

The windows of the second story room each opened fully outward away from each other, like swinging doors in a western saloon, and by 7PM there would be a nice breeze where he was but not for the young men sweltering on the field below. After dinner Pete would treat him self to a large tumbler of Mogen David wine. Watching the drills and scrimmages through powerful binoculars Pete would try to forget his aching feet and sore back until he slipped off to sleep in his chair around midnight. From 9Pm after practice ended if it was a clear night the postman would watch the moon or the stars as he finished his second glass of Mogen David. While he slept his wife would come in, close the windows to keep out the mosquitoes and put the food and wine away until tomorrow night.

Our neighbor with Muscular dystrophy
John liked to sit on the small intimate boat dock in the rear of his house. It was a very small house, less than 750 sq feet, and opened on to busy South Main Street and through a series of steps and drops descended to one foot above water level on the portage lakes. Previous wealthier inhabitants had used the rear boat dock along the lake for elaborate parties but after John got very sick he would sit out there and watch the boats go by or look far across the lake to the tennis courts and watch the racing players. The deck faced dead west and was a perfect place to watch the sunset.

John's neighbors as they became aware of his illness would often bring him fresh caught fish or maybe just a cold beer from one of the nearby taverns on the water. John's wife would be very happy, maybe for several days, after someone dropped off a present for John. She cleaned the fish and fried them in a special batter from her home country for she was not a native American and had a little trouble with her English. She also would often finish the beer for John couldn't have much because of all the medicine he took. She didn't much like American beer but she always drank the rest of the glass or bottle. Sometimes before John died after her work around the house was done she would sit out on the boat deck with John and try to find a few of the planets in the sky that her Dad had taught her to find back in her home country.

The weight lifter
Lon had built a room over the garage to accommodate his passion for lifting weights. The garage was bigger than the house and in time there was over 3,000 pounds of weights up there on the second floor where Lon spent all his time.

Both of Lon's daughters were very beautiful and when a young man came to take one of them out he had to go up to the second floor and spot a while as Lon benched pressed three hundred fifty pounds and simultaneously got to know the gentleman caller.

It took Lon two or even three hours a night to finish his weight workout and even after he was done it took him another 45 minutes to clean up and re shelve all the weights.
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