The Legend of Carpie

This is a chapter from my new book coming out next year...Living at the Lake. Enjoy! -Kenny

The Legend of Carpie

By Kenny Miller

He could see the golden glow on the top of the water. Dawn was coming to the lake and it wouldn’t be long until he got his early morning marching orders.

            Even though he was just a little minnow size fish, he had little time for play. There were some predator fish out there looking for breakfast and if he wasn’t careful, he might be on the menu.

            “Get going in there,” came the first call from his mother. She was a big fish. Most carp are. She was already stirring up the bottom of the lake to make it easy for him to get a good nourishing breakfast of plants and other stuff on the lake floor.

            Carpie flipped his tail and started to move around under the overhang near the bank. It was safe there. The bank and the overhang offered protection from the predators but his mom knew they were close by and there was not a minute to waste. The sun changed from the morning softness and gold to a bright yellow and along with it, the water became lighter. That meant danger. The lighter the water got, the easier it would be for hungry eyes to see movement.

            Carpie looked out from under the muddy ledge and looked at his mom. She had sure stirred things up! Breakfast was plentiful and Carpie made the best of it. He zoomed around and picked off some of his favorite bottom foods. He attacked them like a prize fighter shadow boxing. It wasn’t long before he was full and nose-to-nose with his mom.

            “Enough of this buster,” she scolded. “We need to get to deeper water and find some good cover or a hungry bass of walleye is going to be licking his chops over you!”

            “Awe Mom,” Carpie protested, I can out-run and out-turn any minnows in the lake.

            “You’re dreaming young man,” she said as she pointed a flipper down toward the deep. “Now get.”

            “But Mom, I want to swim with the other guys today.”

            “The only way that is going to happen is if you find yourself in the middle of a big school and you are the little one,” she said. “I repeat, git!”

            Carpie did as he was told and swam down to the deep. Even though dark water offered protection, it was also scary for a little guy. He was still developing and his eyesight and reaction times were not what they needed to be. That was also true of his other young friends. At this stage of the game, there wasn’t much difference between his friends. They bodies were almost transparent and their features were not all that different. He felt safe with all his friends even though his mom had told him that some of those friends would turn on him as they became adult fish.

            His survival would depend on putting a lot of weight and size and not eating any of those tempting treats like corn, worms, and balls of some kind of stuff others told him about that might be found on the lake bottom. There were too many stories going around about carp who took a bite and suddenly zoomed toward the surface, never to be seen again.

            Finally, he arrived in the safety of total darkness. The bottom of the lake was nothing more than mud and lots of garbage. There were rotting skeletons of the dead. There were old logs that finally got too water-logged to float.

            Carpie killed time waiting for his friends to show up. As he waited in stillness, he could sense something close by. He turned just in time to miss the open jaws of a monster walleye who had his eye on Carpie for breakfast. Carpie dove for the closest log. He needed some cover because the monster walleye could turn on a mini bobber and be right on him. He could slip under the log and be safe.

            Just as sudden, the log moved. Carpie could see a big eye open and look through the stirred-up bottom at him. A long spear like object whipped through the water as the big object moved.

            “Pretty close call there youngster,” the blue catfish said as he turned and slowly zig-zagged his way across the bottom. This cat was one of the  biggest fish in the lake—a real rod bender. But he was also one of the smartest. You don’t get to be a fish or this size without being smart.

            “Hey Carpie!” a voice called out from a school of minnows. The crowd had arrived and they were ready for a little fun. They all looked about the same at this stage and they were all still friends. Someday, some would hunt the others but not today. Today they hunted for fun.

            Life changed for this bunch. The bass boy’s bodies stretched out into sleek swimming machines with large mouths and sharp teeth. They, like their walleye friend, would evolve into expert sneak attackers. They would break the lake surface and catch a fly or moth. Minnows didn't stand a chance. So much for the promise of youth that they would never attack and eat a minnow friend.

            The catfish developed into monsters. They had a mouth full of teeth but the bigger they became, the bigger the prey. Even birds were on the menu of these big guys.        

            Fish, unlike humans, didn't start their day in front of a mirror so it was difficult for them to observe the changes going on.  Carpie became a monster in his own right but he had no idea. He was just a fish who lived under the bank during the night and grazed the junk on the bottom during the rest of the day.

            His mouth, unlike his sport fish friends, did not push out in an almost submarine look. His mouth turned down. It was round. There were no big sharp killing teeth like some of the other fish. He didn't need much of a mouth to sort out and eat the garbage on the lake bottom. It was starting to take a mental toll on him.

            “Is this it?” he wondered. “Is this all I am going to be known for?” He took notice of how the other fish respected the bass brothers and his walleye friend. They moved aside when the catfish cruised by. They darted with fear when northern pike came to call. But Carpie? They paid him no mind and in some cases, he could see the snicker bubbles rising toward the surface.

            The other carp felt the same way. They all were depressed. They needed a champion—someone who would do something so unusual and bold that the rest of the fish would raise a fin when he swam by.

            But what could a toothless carp with big lips do to impress anyone?

            The opportunity presented itself on the surface one nice warm summer day. A young girl was getting set to water ski when Carpie put his plan into action. Carpie put his fears behind him and swam into action as the stunned fish community watched. He left the murky bottom and like a sub-launched torpedo and took aim at the unsuspecting young girl.

            Just as she was getting ready to ski, something splashed up between her legs and kissed her on the butt. She screamed. She jumped out of the water and tried to stand on the skis. It was too late. The water was calm and Carpie was gone.

            It wouldn't be the last time Carpie ruled the lake. Other skiers got kissed and terrified. The sport fish bowed as Carpie swam by. Even the biggest of the catfish had a big smile for him.

            Some of the smaller carp tagged along with the lake hero. They stayed close like those little fish that stay close to the big sharks. They didn't want to miss a minute of the action.

            They would have stories to tell their grandfish and great grandfish about their legendary hero. The legend of Carpie.

If you liked this story. check out Kenny's kindle books. Here is his author's page:
http://amzn.to/2hHdMcI

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That Christmas

People sometimes ask me what was my most memorable Christmas. It wasn’t a Christmas in Hartington with all the gifts, Rudolph with the taped on red nose blinking on the porch, relatives coming and going, and the singing Rossiter family standing outside singing Christmas carols. Those are all lasting, loving and good memories but it was not the Christmas that reaches out and grabs me to this day.

I wasn’t in the United States on that Christmas. I was trying to make a career out of flying and had taken a co-pilot job on a Lear Jet 24. That jet had cameras in the belly and we were doing a mapping project in Africa—Liberia to be specific.

Liberia was a hell hole. There was such a divide between the rich and the poor and anyone making $100 a month was rich. The rest of that population ate rice and beans when they could get them.

An old woman chased me down the street one day. She pulled at my arm and hollered “nicka, nicka.” I had no idea what she wanted but I assumed she wanted money. She was dirty and in rags. She was Black and maybe she weighed fifty or sixty pounds. She was skin and bones and my guess was, she was starving to death. I had five bucks in my pocket so I gave it to her. She screamed, looked at me, and ran away with her arms waving in the air and her rubber flip-flops slapping on the dirt road.

When I got back to the hotel I asked what “nicka” meant. The desk clerk told me it meant a nickel. Can you imagine your life depending on five cents?

Monrovia is Liberia’s capitol city. It is full of people who have nothing to do but sit around and watch life go by. At that time, the Tolbert regime was in control. We were there on a contract with the Liberian Department of Forestry. Our task was to fly the country and take detailed photographs. From those photographs they would try to finds valuable stands of Ebony. Liberia was not the Africa of lions and giraffes and other great beasts. Liberia was the land of big snakes and dense jungles.

We couldn’t take good pictures even though we had some of the best cameras in the world. There was a brown layer of smog about 5,000 feet and the cameras couldn’t penetrate it. The sky was a bright blue above that layer but it was only after the greats storms came through and cleared out the atmosphere that the people in this country ever saw those blue skies. Liberia was also the birthplace of many of those depressions which became monster Atlantic hurricanes.

Raw sewage ran along dirt roads. The poor cooked using open charcoal fires. The humidity held and the smog layer kept those smells close to the ground so opening a window to get some fresh air was out of the question. Liberian life soon closed in on you. Life didn’t mean much over there.

Aid groups such as CARE and church groups send tons of clothes and food over there but as soon as that aid hit the docks, those donations was impounded by the authorities and found their way to the local bizarre as merchandise for sale. The profits went to the favored class and the poor got little or nothing.

We were supposed to leave Liberia and were scheduled to be home for Christmas but because of the obscured sky, the company amended our contract and extended our stay for six more weeks. That would take us into the new year.

We flew less than once a week, and when we did, we climbed up to 41,000 feet and came right back down so we didn’t produce anything usable.

We went two weeks without a break in the weather and my boss wanted to do a run-up just to make sure the engine seals got lubricated. After starting up, we taxied out to the end of the runway, set the brakes, and ran both engines up to 100% for a few seconds and then back down. On the third run-up the crash truck came roaring down the runway toward us. They were waving their arms at us so we shut down. I thought maybe there was a fire and we couldn’t see it.

There was a problem all right. We didn’t notice the tin shacks about 50 yards behind us. The blast from the engines sent the tin and the palm constructed suburb skyward. We created a homeless problem.

I let mom know about our change in plans.  She was disappointed Mr. Adventure would not be home for Christmas. She knew I was depressed about my job. I didn’t get to fly that often and I didn’t get along with my boss. Nobody did. And nobody was getting a holiday plane ticket home.

Mom sent me a letter that a care package of her Christmas cookies was on the way. I couldn’t wait. But, they never made it. Like everything else in Liberia, those cookies didn’t make it out of customs.

I made friends with a ten-year-old boy when we arrived. He was a light skinned black kid with reddish black hair. He was living in a tree outside of the Monrovia Intercontinental where we were staying. This Intercontinental was not your average Intercontinental. It was run down and lost water pressure and air conditioning on a regular basis.

The restaurant daily special was always rice and fish. Hamburgers smelled rotten when you got one about an inch from your mouth. Eating was always and adventure and if it wasn’t for a daily trip to the American Embassy cafeteria, I would have lost more than the 25 pounds I did lose.

My young friend hollered at me on day two of this adventure. I looked around trying to locate where the calls of “hey, white man” were coming from. Finally, I spotted him lying over a tree limb like a leopard right above me. He wanted me to hire him to watch our Land Rover for a quarter a day. He explained that vandals would let the air out of the tires if I didn’t pay him. He was constantly trying to scam me out of money so I named him Angles. He always had one.

A week before Christmas, he presented his Christmas list. “You buy me shoes,” he said.

“Shoes?” I questioned. “Just shoes. No socks.”

“No No,” he piped up. “Shoes and socks.” 

He smiled. He always put on the greatest smile after a scam. He was the product of a white American sailor and a local woman which explained his light coloring and his red hair. That coloring also made him an outcast. He wasn’t black enough to be accepted by blacks and wasn’t white enough to be accepted by whites. Both parents had abandoned him. The hotel cook left food out for him at night and he had also raped him. That’s why he lived in the tree. In spite of that life, his personality was funny and I liked him. He was the bright spot in my Africa trip.

He had a dark brown patch on his cheek that I was a little concerned about so I wrangled an appointment with the embassy doctor.

The Marine doctor took one look at the cheek and then looked at me.

“Worms,” the doctor said. He had a pocket of worms under his skin.

The day before Christmas, we went to the bizarre and shopped for shoes and socks. All the goods were laying on the top of old plywood boards on sawhorses. I let him pick out his shoes and try them on. The big grin said it all. I also gave him a bonus of two new used t-shirts and a new used pair of shorts. Total, $10. There was no need to wrap anything. He put on the big smile on his worm-free face and scampered off into the crowd.

Sometimes a smile is enough. He had never owned a pair of shoes.

As Christmas Eve darkness fell over Monrovia, I went to the bar and order a big glass of Jack Daniels. No ice. Just whiskey. It was a warm sticky night so I walked out to the pool area and looked out at the harbor and the open sea. I love the sea and on that night, a couple of ships lay at anchor.

Somewhere out there was home. Even though I was alone, I knew I had plenty of company. Soldiers, sailors, Marines, and others serving the country were also looking the same direction. Somewhere out there in the darkness of night was the warm glow of home and family and friends.

I knew Mom was rushing around getting things ready for the family dinner. Uncle Bill was sitting at the kitchen table in his dress bibs and stain-free Dekalb hat pulled down to the top of his nose. No doubt he had pulled a can of Velvet tobacco out of one of the bib pockets and a cigarette paper out of another and rolled a cigarette. She would give him hell about coughing and blowing lighted tobacco all over her kitchen. There would be big plates of cookies all over the house. Some were hers. Many were gifts from the neighbors.

I laughed when I thought about it. You can spend Christmas when nobody is around.

That’s when I heard it. It sounded like Silent Night but it was in very broken English. I went to the edge of the pool and looked down at the houses below. The hotel was located on the highest point in the city so it was on a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff were a bunch of houses. Huts, really. They were having Christmas.

The broken song drifted up to me. I was having Christmas, too. I couldn’t help but wonder, if they were grateful and praising the Lord for their lives in this place, what was wrong with me? They had nothing but everything. That was the message from the first Christmas, wasn’t it?

Christmas changed for me that night. I still like to spend Christmas alone and remember that night in Africa and remember that the gift of life is the greatest gift of all.

Merry Christmas.

A Small Town Christmas

From Kenny Miller's Kindle book
The Heart is Where the Angels Sing


"Go down and get the deer head" she ordered her second son seated at
the kitchen table.

"Awe Mom, you aren't going to put up that stupid deer head
again?" the boy pleaded.

"Get the Santa suit, too!" she ordered.

He hated to go down in that basement. There we're all kinds of
threats down there. There were shelves of old canned goods the family
would probably never eat. Occasionally, he spotted a mouse or lager.

And of course, give a cricket a quarter of an inch around an old
warped wooden basement window and a tribe of the damn things would
soon be jumping around and making their knee scratching noises.

The head was a magnificent buck with a five-point rack and was
no doubt the bragging prize of some hunter of years gone by. The
taxidermist mounted the prize deer's head with a slight proud
uplifted turn to the right.

No doubt he envisioned his handsome work would be prominently
displayed over the fireplace hearth of somewell-to-do hunter. Little
 did he know it would be the seasonal prize decoration of a Christmas
loving housewife.

"Did you get the Santa suit?" she asked her young son as he
struggled through the basement door with the musty old deer head.

“Awe Mom, you aren't going to do the Santa bit are your?" he
pleaded again.

She didn't steal the mount from someone's mantle, she discovered
him on top of the beer cooler in the Chief Bar, a local business her
husband once owned. She also discovered an intriguing piece of
electronics compliments of a liquor company. The flashing light
display was designed to catch the attention of the bar patrons and
suggest they buy a bottle of cordials, a line of after dinner sipping
liqueurs made from everything from apricots to raspberries.

This wife saw instant possibilities in the flashing lights,
particularly the large blinking red one in the center of the
cardboard display. Take one moth-eaten deer head and tape a red
blinking display light on the old deer's nose and you have nothing
less than "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer...." hanging on the front
porch of the small town Christmas wonderland house.

“Listen,” she said as she and her son stood on the front porch
ready to put up the Christmas display. “Can you hear the wind?”

“What wind, Mom?”

“Listen to the Rossiter pines,” she said as she pointed across
the street at the tall pines, which dominated the huge front lawn of
the Rossiter house. “The trees will tell you when the snow is
coming.”

“Is it going to snow?” the boy asked as he looked at the big
pines and listened to the wind gusts as they whistled through the big
trees.

“It will snow soon,” she said. “Let’s get the old boy up and
blinking.When we’re finished with this, we can start on the cookies.”

The boy smiled at his mom now standing on a folding chair with
the deer head over her shoulder. She soon found the big nail and slid
the mount on it. Next, she taped the red bulb to his nose. “OK,
honey,” she said to her son, “plug him in.”

He plugged the cord into the outside electrical socket and the
red nose started to flash.

“There,” she said. “It’s Christmas.”

She had become a famous cookie maker in this small town. She
made them to share them so her cookie trays were welcome holiday
gifts. There were always her seasonal usuals. Divinity, a wonderful
white type of fudge. Fudge with walnuts both light and dark
chocolate. Mice, a little licorice flavored crunchy cookie about the
size of diet bread stick cut into half-inch chunks and date bars covered
with powdered sugar. She also made a special bar made of chocolate chips,
coconut, and dates baked into a light brown crust of brown sugar.

The favorite of the complaining, but helping deer head-hanging
son was her sugar cookies. She had every cookie cutter ever known to
K-Mart, Sears, or any other store.

When she finished making the greatmound of sugar cookie dough,
she took her prize rolling pin, carefully dusted it with flour, and rolled
the now floured dough out on her large flour covered, only-for-cookie-cutting,
heavy cloth.

Once perfectly rolled and perfectly floured, she stepped cautiously
back a step of two and let her perfect little darlings sons take over
the cookie cutting and decorating process. The three boys attacked
the waiting dough like feeding sharks.

Another favorite, which required the help of her three little
angels, was a sugar cookie, about an inch and half in diameter, with
a special chocolate mint center. Only those mints would do and if it
meant driving the 120-mile round trip to Sioux City to find them, so
be it. It would not be Christmas in this house without these special
sugar cookies with the hard-to-find, chocolate mints baked inside.

The boys would gladly give up the deer head and the stuffed Santa but
it would never be Christmas unless they had a good fix of their mom's
famous mint cookies.

The dog jumped and barked as the young boys teased her with
rolled up pieces of cookie dough. Great cookie dough from the dog's
point of view but it was a little hard on the Scottie's system. She
especially liked a little hunk of warm fudge when one of the boys
stuck it on top of her very active little black nose. Her red tongue
went crazy and her head bounced wildly trying to reach the sweet
prize.

"Look what he did to my Christmas tree, Mom!" protested the
older son as the little guy decided his older brother's Christmas
tree looked good enough to eat without baking and promptly did so.

"He got more that I did!" hollered her second son as he tried to
push his bigger brother out of the way.

"Mom, make him give me the Santa cutter!" The little brother
wanted to eat his brother's cookie and have his the cutter, too.

"Someone go find Uncle Bill and tell him to come up here," she
ordered.

Her bachelor farmer brother had to be ordered or invited to the
house. He was the family historian and guardian of ancient family
tradition. Their roots went to the small town of Bergen, Norway and
her bachelor brother knew the traditions and the roads that lead back
to Norway.

She worried about her bachelor brother living on the old farm
place. Nothing had changed at that old farm since she lived there as
a girl. He wasn't a good housekeeper and she worried about what the
neighbors would think. He didn't give a damn about what people
thought of him as long as they were friendly enough to take time to
visit.

"What is that smelly stuff?" the middle son asked as he entered
the kitchen, climbed up on the footstool and looked at the boiling
pot on the stove.

"Lutefisk,” came the quick answer from his Uncle Bill as he sat
at the kitchen table patiently waiting to be served his part of the
traditional dinner. "It's what your ancestors had for Christmas
dinner."

"This ain't no fish Uncle Bill, it's square and hard as a rock,
and it ain't got no fins or head," he said with ten-year-old
authority.

"Why sure it is. It's just been cleaned, cut up, and dried in
the sun out by the sea,” his uncle carefully explained as he pushed
his Dekalb seed corn hat toward the back of his head. He reached into
the top part of his overalls for his can of Prince Velvet leaf
tobacco and a cigarette paper.

"Your ancestors were mostly fishermen and they had to dry the
fish because they didn't have ice boxes like we have today,” he
explained as he held out the cigarette paper in front of his chin and
carefully poured some strands of tobacco on the paper. The boy sat at
the table with his uncle, grabbed a cookie, and started to munch as
the family history lesson unfolded.

"When they got ready to eat the fish,” the uncle continued as he
licked one edge of the paper and formed a cigarette, "they soaked the
dried fish and then boiled it in great big pots to make it tender,
just like your mother is doing."

The boy listened and watched as his uncle pulled a wooden match
from one of the many pockets found on the top of a good set of
dress overalls, struck the match on a brass button, and lit the
loosely packed cigarette.

"In order to have fish for Christmas dinner, the fish would have
to be dried to preserve it so they could save it from the fall to the
winter," the wise uncle continued. "It had to stay out in the sun for
days to get that hard, and the dogs might come by, have a little
sniff, and pee on it."

"Mom!" the boy protested,"I ain't gonna eat any smelly fish
that has dog pee on it!"

By then, the beloved Uncle was laughing so hard that small
strands of lighted tobacco were being pushed out the business end of
the home-made cigarette like a Roman candle, landing and burning his
only good pair of overalls.

“What’s in the sack, Dad?” one of the boys asked as his father
came into the kitchen balancing a couple of brown grocery bags.

“You dad is going to make his Christmas concoction,” the boy’s
mother said as she knew it was time to give up her kitchen to her
husband.

He sat the two bags on the counter, took off his coat, and
started to unload his groceries. The first items to come out of the
brown bag were eggs--dozens of eggs. The next items to come out were
bags of powdered sugar. Then came pure creamery butter and finally a
few bottles of vanilla extract.

“What are you going to do with all of those eggs, Dad?” the boy
asked as he peered around his father.

“Crack them,” he said.

“Why? You making cookies or something?”

“No,” the father said as he opened the cardboard egg container.

“I am making a drink.”

“What kind of a drink, Dad?”

“An adult drink.”

“The one that makes Uncle Jelly’s nose all red?”

“Yup,” the father said as he chuckled. “That’s the one.”

He wasn't very concerned about the clean kitchen floor or the
spotless counter tops as he started to crack the eggs and pour the
egg back and forth between the two shells until most of the white was
in one half and the yoke was in the other half. Some of the whites
didn't make the pass and ended up on his shirt, the counter, or the
floor. The trusty dog helped clean the floor.

"Where's the nutmeg?" he asked his wife as he continued to trash
her kitchen and ransack her cupboards.

He dumped the whites into the sink and put the perfect, unbroken
yokes into a mixing bowl. After a dozen or so crack and sorts, he
added his next ingredient, a few cups of powdered sugar. A measuring
cup wasn't necessary. A coffee mug would do just fine. Last in was
the butter and vanilla extract. Then, using his wife's magic wooden
spoon, he blended all of the stuff into a smooth, yoke yellow batter.
Next, he filled the whistling tea pot with water and put it on the
stove. Out of another tall skinny brown paper sack came a quart of
Old Crow.

There was a special set of matching white mugs that she stored
on the top shelf of one of her cupboards. She knew what was going on
so the cups were washed and ready. As the teapot whistled away, he
carefully measured a tablespoon of the secret stuff into each of the
white mugs.

Next was a shot of Old Crow. He then filled the cup with boiling
water and stirred the magic mixture until it was nice and smooth.
When it passed his smell test, he dashed it with a little nutmeg.

Presto! His famous Tom and Jerry known from downtown Hartington clear
out to Bow Valley. A much different smell now filled the house. And,
before long, so did a bunch of much happier looking neighbors,
family, and friends. To bad the old deer couldn't have gotten a
snoot-full of his Tom and Jerry adult delight. His musty smelling fur
coat would have a much different smell and the snarling grin might
have turned into a Christmas smile.

The boy's father made a roaring fire in the fireplace so the
scene would be postcard perfect. He added a little color to the fire
with a wax disk he bought in Sioux City. When he tossed one of those
disks into the fire, the flames changed color. The jumping flames of
green red and gold fascinated his young sons.

At the other end of the room, was the family Christmas tree.
The tree had to be at least a six footer because that part of the
living room had a little alcove of windows, which faced the street.

It took some doing for the boy's dad but he managed to arrange
for Santa Claus to make an appearance on Christmas Eve. Santa
never missed an appearance in those believer years but he put off most of
the neighbors until later that night or sometime in the wee hours of
the morning.

This Santa was a little different from
the one the boys visited at the big Sioux City
department store a little earlier in the season.
He wasn't as fat. His voice seemed familiar
even though the boys couldn't quite place it.

And, this Santa didn't wear wire rim glasses.
Santa did have a bettermemory and knew
the boy's names without being told. The other
department store Santa had to ask. This Santa knew exactly what the boys
wanted and delivered right on the spot! He was in and out with a flash.

In the blink of the old deer's nose, the Christmas season was
over. The long Nebraska winter lay ahead with the mountains of snow
still to come, announced by the talking wind from the Rossiter trees.

New sled tracks cut through the fresh snow on the golf course
hills. New ice skates cut some clumsy curves across the rough ice on
Little Creek.

Bunnies ran from the bad shots from would-be young hunters
and their new BB guns. And the short-legged Scottie made
valiant attempts to make it out of the snowdrifts she was tossed into
by her young keepers.

The deer head went back to the basement shelf.And one boy would
never eat fish that didn’t come with fins.

Did you enjoy this story? If you did, check out Kenny's Kindle book,
The Heart us Where the Angels Sing now on sale for only 99 cents.
It's great read for those long winter nights ahead!

Merry Christmas!

How about a FREE story break?

My name is Kenny Miller. I am a writer and photographer with a computer full of stories and pictures and I have decided to share them...for FREE!

There. The price is right, isn't it? Most of my writing is about life in the great state of Nebraska but I bet you will relate to a lot of it. I go after life. Some of my stories are interviews. Some of them are more like memoirs. Some are goofy and cute. Some are kids stories.

They may make you smile. They may make you cry. They may make you laugh. But, I hope my stories make your day. If you like my stories, and have a kindle, check out my books on amazon. They won't break your budget.

What the heck, maybe something good will come out of this for both of us. Enjoy!