He sometimes buys flowers for his wife, the mixed batch at Safeway. He speaks mostly in declarative sentences. His car lacks navigation but has Bose. Every January he checks his Social Security payout for age 65 and then 72. After dinner, if he hasn’t had too much to drink, he walks the dog, sniffing the evening, searching for the wind in the trees. As a boy, he had been intrigued by the ocean: a thing so vast and dark, so full of secrets. He thinks his car is safe enough; he can buy maps. He likes his coffee with half-and-half.
Alan Humason started writing poetry in 9th grade and hasn’t stopped. He has published poems in Country Journal, The Yolo Crow, The Reed, and elsewhere. Today he works as the executive director of the Yolo County Visitors Bureau. In his early career, Alan worked as an editor and publisher for several consumer magazines including Sunset, Pacific Northwest, Civil War Times, Home, and British Heritage. For most of the 1990s, he ran a family-owned John Deere/Caterpillar farm implement dealership in rural Idaho, and later worked as a sales and marketing executive in the legal services industry. He grew up in Santa Monica, Ca., and received a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from U.C. Santa Barbara.
Photo credit: Allan Foster
He sometimes buys flowers for his wife, the mixed batch at Safeway. He speaks mostly in declarative sentences. His car lacks navigation but has Bose. Every January he checks his Social Security payout for age 65 and then 72. After dinner, if he hasn’t had too much to drink, he walks the dog, sniffing the evening, searching for the wind in the trees. As a boy, he had been intrigued by the ocean: a thing so vast and dark, so full of secrets. He thinks his car is safe enough; he can buy maps. He likes his coffee with half-and-half.
I enjoyed your 100 word story. I hope you submit more! Loved reading about your career journey… Wow the jobs you have had. ☺️