Jason S. Harry

The picture above is a gigantic frog on a spool of thread that stands at one corner of a bridge spanning the Willimantic River in downtown Willimantic, Connecticut. There are identical frogs on the other three corners as well, each one costing a cool fifty-grand. It’s a newer bridge; it officially opened back in 2000. I’ve always wondered what the story was with those frogs. I had some extra time this afternoon so I stopped by the local library and spent a good thirty minutes researching it in an encyclopedia I found.  One night back in 1754 the good people of Willimantic awoke to a terrible noise. I mean EVERYONE woke up, that’s how loud it was. Some folks ran into the streets carrying muskets, others prayed and a few probably ran around shouting, “Oh my God, the Russians have arrived!” The source of their rude awakening could not be determined. After the chaos had died down, everyone went home and back to bed, except for a few who saw no point in trying for more sl...

 Monday’s travels in New York State brought me through the tiny hamlet of Kinderhook . Kinderhook is probably the first small town I fell in love with because of its name alone. I think it’s because “Kinder” is part of the name, which in German means “children”, as in kindergarten, which is literally “Children’s Garden.” Kinderhook, also a German name, translates to English as, “Children’s corner.” That’s a lot of youth, this “kinder” stuff, a good time in the human experience for sure. So I like Kinderhook quite a bit. I’ve only been up and down the main drag on route 9. Lacking verse in architecture, I can’t say if it’s filled with neat Victorian homes or spectacular Susanian homes. The center of town is a block or two long, tiny indeed with only one traffic light. But if you look at all the cool things that call the eye, you might miss a turn or accidentally blow through a red light. There are lots of neat old pads on both ends of town- that’s how I can say it safel...

My first stop this morning was in Rochester, New York. I had not been there in many months. I drove right by the Kodak compound which consists of many structures including some very cool-looking old brick buildings. I happened to notice an open lot that had plenty of room to park my rig so I could walk around and snap some pictures. I didn’t stop because I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to take pictures of a Kodak institution with a Nikon. The last thing I needed or wanted was to be thrown in jail on a Monday morning. When I backed into the dock at my first delivery, I was greeted by a man slightly older than me with a flowing mop of hair that is a certain shade of gray that I don’t how to describe. I always think he could pass for Santa’s brother, maybe cousin, if he ever decided to grow a beard. He’s a pleasant individual which was good. Everyone likes pleasant people on a Monday morning.  As we were unloading, I heard an announcement over the public address system...

Life is a lot of things strung together. I could use the word “experiences” but that is far too fancy a word for me. We see things, we have things happen, and at the end of our life all we will have is a [hopefully] long string of things. It’s a very basic thing. I took a trip up to Dunkirk, New York this week. Dunkirk sits below Buffalo, a slightly greater distance north of Jamestown than back to Buffalo. I had a thing happen to me up there in Dunkirk one time, a few years ago, five at least. It all started with a routine delivery to a rental store on the corner of East 4 th and Main Street. I pulled up in front of the store, along the curb of a medium-size shopping center. It would be a quick in-and-out delivery since they were only getting six pieces, maybe less than that, I cannot exactly recall.  Two people came out of the front door. One was a man, the other, a girl. I could not tell you anything about the guy, but the girl, I can tell you about her. She was...

F orty-one years after showing up, our universe continues to astound me. (It might be longer if you want to consider past lives- a completely different story for another time.) The previous week is a fine example of the ongoing astonishment. Wednesday evening I was heading north on I-79 in Pennsylvania, back to our remote yard just due west of Pittsburgh. In the final hour of that drive, my thoughts began to wonder. I was thinking about a chapter of my book, “Lessons From The Road” that I have been working on. I wondered if it was a necessary chapter. Should I bother to include it? It involves a girl from my distant past, when I was around the ages of 14-15. She was the first girl to break my heart. I see no point in writing the chapter here, but I will say that my thoughts turned to her and our time together. Not many people, not even my wife, know much of that story. I cannot remember her name after all of these years, but I can still remember how she made me feel- a state...