My Life So Far
Featured Submissions
Johnny Cash Killed My Cat
Now that I’m a dad I have been trying to follow the path of truthfulness. It’s a process. In full candor, it is not one without a few detours. For example, once I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. I knew it was wrong but if you’ve ever been to Reno you will understand my inability to suppress the urge. Of course, then I compounded the offense by telling everyone that Johnny Cash did it. Johnny wrote that song about it and made a lot of money. I see now how wrong that was.
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Twisted Sister
As a young girl bearing the trifecta of awkwardness—baby fat, curly hair with freckles, and a mouth full of metal braces—all I wanted was to fit in. So when I was faced with a serious spinal deformity at 13, I made the decision to protect what little normalcy I had, even if it meant secretly risking my health.
It started in the seventh grade during a routine scoliosis screening. You remember the drill: girls in one room, boys in another, each told to remove their shirt and bend forward while Read more
Laurel at Woodstock, 1969
"Laurel is on the pages of Life magazine!” Roger shouted. It was days after Woodstock and celebrity was in the neighborhood.
Laurel was our celebrity. She didn't just GO to Woodstock - she was memorialized in the pages of Life. No one was surprised. Like a celebrity, Laurel was also a stranger.
Whenever and wherever she appeared, Laurel smelled like fresh sex in broad daylight. Laurel was gloriously wanton, whorishly flush when she'd smile at a new man. Meeting up with Laurel was like walking into someone's bedroom unannounced.
Laurel was at least 25 years old, the first old hippie Read more
Milk Run
MILK RUN
Back at home a young wife waits.
Her Green Beret has met his fate.
He has died for those oppressed . . .
—Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler (1966)
Captain Bracey, Mr. Stephens and I were headed home to Vung Tau after a day-long parts route or “milk run.” I had finished putting the emptied cargo compartment of the Caribou in order, stowed my cleaning supplies, and laid back to relax. As I reread my latest letter from Myra Faye, I hummed words from a recent Righteous Brothers song, You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’, oh-oh that lovin’ fe-e-elin’ . Read more
July 20, 1969: Searching for Eagles
Early in July of 1969 I proudly suited up in my blue blazer and bow tie for my very first airplane flight—a family trip to Miami from which I brought back pilot’s wings and my first case of sunburn. Only a couple of weeks later, Apollo 11 and its three astronauts would win the Space Race. This week, as pundits wax poetic about the cultural significance of the first moonwalk, I recall a slightly fussy and fastidious five-year-old who found three heroes in a time when they were in scarce supply for a future gay kid enthralled with the Huntley/Brinkley Read more
Tough Call (Part 2)
But no one seemed to notice my heroic effort. Fabrice marched inexorably off the front, and Terri, Louise, Nancy and Frank passed me one by one. We breasted a ridge and Camp 2 came into sight across a basin of deep snow. I glanced behind me, gulping for breath, and realized with satisfaction that I still led three people: Marshall, Dmitri and a new, enthusiastic guide we’d acquired named Pinky. On this section the strangest thing happened.
My one-step-one-breath rhythm, a pace that had served me well on every mountain I’d ever climbed, was suddenly no longer adequate. As the Read more
Tough Call (Part 1)
I moved toward the roof of South America with the tiny, shuffling steps of an old man, looking down at the bootprints my so-called friends had left in the snow. The sight filled me with gloom. Yet it was more appetizing than what loomed above: an old volcano about 100 stories tall, the summit of Mt. Aconcagua, the object of my sweaty desire for the last two weeks, a brutal thumb of rock that was my only hope of saving face.
The only sound was the uneven rasping of my breath and a faint, chilly breeze off the Andes. Then, Read more
Breaking Up with My Mother
When I was six months pregnant with my son, I broke up with my mother. We were standing in her kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. It was almost nine o’clock in the morning. It was almost my third trimester.
Up until two days earlier when Michael, the father-to-be, and I left our home in Brooklyn for my hometown in Louisiana, I’d been in a state of bliss. I never left home without my ultrasound pictures, like a Jehovah’s Witness wielding Bible scripture, proclaiming proof of God in our midst. No one was exempt from blow-by-blow reports on the baby’s every Read more
Kidnapping, Torture and Penile Implants
There are true stories that are unfortunate. Then there are true stories that are really really unfortunate. I was kidnapped, tortured, robbed and released while traveling on business in Shenzhen, China, exactly 5 years, 21 days and 14.5 hours ago but who’s counting. At this pt in time feels like it happened to somebody else.
I’m a bona fide New Yorker with street smarts so it is embarrassing to say I was mugged in China where muggings are rare. Anyway, on my 2nd day in Shenzhen, a city of 12 million, I was casually walking Read more
The Shack
No one had to tell us we lived in a shack at the bottom of Chestnut Hill. We knew we lived in a shack but it was our shack. We loved it and were happy in it. All around us there were beautiful houses with large manicured lawns. Mom said they were old Victorian houses with warm fireplaces and indoor toilets and bathtubs. Some houses even had gorgeous race horses fenced in and grazing in their backyards. Mama said the rich people wanted our shack condemned and torn down because it was an eyesore. Pop said we will live in Read more
More SMITH Story Projects
What can you say about love and heartbreak in six words?
Everyone has a story. Can you tell yours in six words? Submit yours to be considered for SMITH's next six-word memoir book. The first book, Not Quite What I Was Planning, is a NYT bestseller featuring more than 800 writers, famous and obscure..