Andy Waddell
Bio
Retired teacher, aspiring novelist, amateur actor in Santa Cruz, California.
Stories (9/0)
Strange Disguise
Charley Parkhurst was a badass, no one disputes that. In California, during the gold rush, few professions garnered more respect than that of stagecoach driving. Only an elite cadre of skilled professionals had the dexterity to drive teams of six horses (or mules) on mountain roads that were more like trails, crossing flooded rivers and skittering along cliff edges. “Mountain Charley,” also known as “One-Eye Charley” after being kicked in the eye by a horse, was one of the best.
By Andy Waddell2 months ago in Humans
This Is What We Talk About When We Talk About Children
I hesitate to say this – because it sounds disloyal to my wife, even to my dear, departed mother – but I honestly feel that I didn’t know what love was until I became a father. The intensity of emotion aroused by that squalling creature who – let’s face it – could not have picked me out of a line-up, pierced me more deeply than anything I’d ever experienced before. Above all, I was shattered by this realization: “I would die for this person.”
By Andy Waddell2 months ago in Confessions
LUCKY
This is a new low for me, and I once passed through the entire digestive tract of a full-grown Schnauzer. But even in those dark hours, I never felt as terrified and lonely as I do right now in this dim, damp hole, peering out at the distant world through iron bars.
By Andy Waddell3 months ago in 01
Gandhi Lied To Me
I’m grateful for Facebook. That’s not a popular sentiment nowadays, not since we’ve all awakened to the fact that it’s nothing but a soulless corporate entity whose algorithm of artificial rage may have been instrumental in the insurrection at the Capitol. I’m not grateful for its data mining skills or its propagation of click-bait links. I’m not grateful for the pictures of people’s food or their political opinions. But I am grateful that it has allowed me to reunite with people who otherwise would have faded into oblivion.
By Andy Waddell3 months ago in Confessions
Gandhi Lied to Me
I’m grateful for Facebook. That’s not a popular sentiment nowadays, not since we’ve all awakened to the fact that it’s nothing but a soulless corporate entity whose algorithm of artificial rage may have been instrumental in the insurrection at the Capitol. I’m not grateful for its data mining skills or its propagation of click-bait links. I’m not grateful for the pictures of people’s food or their political opinions. But I am grateful that it has allowed me to reunite with people who otherwise would have faded into oblivion.
By Andy Waddell3 months ago in Fiction