Patrick and Stephanie

| Letters, Patrick, Poetry

I have found myself of late with a sort of refrain in my head, often repeated aloud (when I am alone) “My heart” is the refrain, always seeing her in the garden, in the countryside, in the car.

Meeting Stephanie, the Story of Lois and her Boyfriends, and More

| Patrick, Patrick's Family, Recordings, Stephanie

This long recording (almost 20 minutes) from 9 November 2012 is too large to upload to this web site, but here is an imperfect transcription. UPDATE on 17 Nov 2022: I was able to use a different approach to upload the audio, so you can hear his voice once more, telling this story. The recording […]

Born on Borrowed Time

| Patrick's Family, Recordings

If you have read the earlier posting Our Stories Intertwine Like a Kitten’s Yarn, you know about Patrick and Donna’s trip to Cuba in 1955. In October 2014 during our trip to Prescott, we had a longer conversation about it, recorded in two parts. Here I’ve combined the two transcriptions into one. In this conversation […]

That Dog at the Corner

That dog at the corner. I always forget he is there, just about eye level, waiting to bark right into my ear, scaring the pants off me every time. Today as I started off on my walk, for once I remembered he would be there and I picked up a branch left by the crew […]

Floccillation

He does so much nit-picking he has been diagnosed with floccillation of the brain. Pat and Mike strode in step down the cobbled lanes of the hamlet. “Why does it have to be like it is?” Pat mused out loud. “Garbage on the streets. Garbage on the air waves. Garbage in outer space. Garbage in […]

Meeting Fred

Nobody said everything, or anything, for that matter, but we all tried. Fred, Zen, Robert, Milo, Barbara, Tony, Ruthven, Barry, Eivin, Alastair. Certain encounters change the course of one’s life. You might not recognize that until much later, but eventually, upon reflection, it becomes obvious. Such was that moment in the faculty room of the […]

Phil Anders

Phil Anders, now entering his eighties, often wondered whether his name had predestined him to the life he had led. Of course he was already in his late teens when he recognized the implications, but since then he had lived up to the meaning of the word philander. PatrickPatrick Meadows 1934 – 2017. patrick-meadows.com

Maybelle and Mr. Bob

| Autobiographical

I’m danged if I can remember how I met those two old drunks, Maybelle and Mr. Bob. Maybe hitching on the highway from Oak Hill to Fayetteville. It was the summer I quit school in Florida and took off for Oak Hill, homesick for my girlfriend. She was by then a mother, made pregnant by […]

Stephanie and I

Stephanie and I made a little world and we lived in it. A long goodbye. My life is in tatters. Yours has ended. So sorry. This short poem is from a collection Patrick called Scattered Notes.odt dated from 2014 to 2016. I’ll continue to add other segments as time allows. PatrickPatrick Meadows 1934 – 2017. […]

Bulent

| Autobiographical

It was inevitable, thought we didn’t know it at the time, that we should meet Bulent. Mari and I flew from Izmir to Ankara where we spent the night. Then the next day by bus to Adana. Sounds like a simple statement, but it was not so simple. The two-propeller plane took off from what […]

Sawing Trunks

Thursday I am pointlessly staring at my tea, now only a stain at the bottom of the mug. So I glance at my reflection in the glass door of the dish cupboard opposite the table where I am sitting already quite a while. Reflected is the window behind me, through which I see that the […]

The Joy Had Gone Out of Her Life

The joy had gone out of her life ten years ago already. Why pretend? Her friends tried to cheer her up, but stubbornly she held onto her empty life and empty house and empty bed. In fact she came to resent the happiness of others. Only the firmest of old acquaintances persisted, inviting her twice […]

Marvin Introduced Me

| Autobiographical

In this excerpt, set in Tampa in the early 1970s, Patrick describes how he first learned of Dr. Weightnovel, which turned into a writing project he worked on for the rest of his life, but never finished. I’ve made only minor edits, primarily fixing typos and punctuation. Caution to the reader: this story includes a […]

Mem-Mari