G. K. Wuori

Cold Iron consists of random bits of irreverence, surliness, and contumely; sometimes it's even funny. Reading it is entirely optional.

...the iron monger and rusticater himself

Cool Iron
(archive)

"Never hit someone over the head with a hot iron. Wait until it cools so you don't burn them."

...the source of my ideas

Celebrations

June 29, 2023

Cold Iron – 249

I would like to celebrate –

· Illinois for passing a law forbidding libraries from banning books

· People with differences who refuse to be marginalized

· My tax accountant who swiftly and accurately helps me to fund this country

· That nice worker at Lowe's who puts heavy bags of salt in my car

· My daughter and son-in-law who put water dishes out for neighborhood dogs being walked

I would like to celebrate –

· Newspapers – struggling though they are, they are still our last bastion against ignorance and corruption

· Stage Coach Players – our local theater company that gives us exposure to terrific talent and entertainment

· My grandchildren, who take no guff, reject stupidity, and know compassion

· the four trees we planted six years ago that are now healthy and full and tall and shady

· labor unions, whose excesses annoy us, but whose existence is the only protection workers have against ruthless corporate exploitation

I would like to celebrate –

· Protestors – in an information-glutted world they show us where we're right or wrong or at least where we need to give serious thought to something; I see them as the town criers of modern times

· Books – the kind you hold that don't need to be recharged and that smell good and where you can make a note in the margin or even throw at a protestor coming through your door

· This goofy country which, despite its current tendencies toward cannibalism and contumely, manages to keep the bulk of its citizens alive and well

· Our massive technologies that allow us to be marvelously efficient and amazingly stupid at the same time – I want to run away with Siri (don't tell my wife)

· Our water department that fixed a broken water main on our street in record time and kept us informed of their progress

I Would Like To Celebrate –

· Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert for teaching us to be really careful with respect to our voting choices

· Jefferson Starship, Air Supply, Fleetwood Mac, and Meat Loaf because they're all just so damn good

· Clean air, having just experienced a lack of it due to the Canadian wildfires

· The Southern Baptist Church for having just told us what they really think about women and their place in the evangelical world – it's good to know, you fucking hypocrites

· Myself, for getting the job done

G.K. Wuori © 2023

Photoillustration by the author

Selected Works

Novel

HoneyLee's Girl

I think this book would appeal to anyone who likes a dark crime story set in a rural, somewhat remote part of Maine in a time when the radicalism of the nineteen-seventies was sweeping the country.

An American Outrage

Ellen DeLay, an upstanding citizen of Quillifarkeag, Maine, suddenly and unpredictably leaves her happy, twenty-five year marriage for a lonely cabin deep in the Maine woods, where she makes a living dressing hunters' kill - bears, moose, deer. It seems an idyllic life, punctuated only now and then by rifle fire as she shoots into the air to scare off cheeky teens who come to taunt "the crazy woman."

Novella

A small-town lawyer in the middle of a gruesome murder case finds salvation in the world of a homeless woman and her daughter.

Now That I'm Ready To Tell You Everything

A young woman's morning walk through her small town finds her immersed in a small tragedy, an indifferent government, and the "science gone mad" of her best friend's husband. Quirky, goofy, nutty - yes, but a gentle look as well at some of the values that keep us from falling off the planet

Essay

Reflections In A Keyhole Eye

A hint of generally true autobiography, this piece is part of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill's "How I Became A Writer" series.

Stories

Quillifarkeag is a state of mind, one marked by innocence and regret, by guile and sympathy. The people there will let you into their lives - but not very far. Go too far inside and things start to echo, people get close. Honesty becomes negotiable. Bare all and someone might still say, "Were you naked or nude?" It's an important distinction. In a small place like Quilli the naked truth is hurtful. The nude truth is not so bad.

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