WINGSPREAD Zine for July, 2026

Spreading your wings in a postmodern world
July 2026             James P. Hurd

The world is a beautiful, mysterious, and sometimes disappointing place. This zine is dedicated to helping navigate the journey.

Contents

  • This month’s puzzler:
  • Writer’s Corner
  • Blessed Unbeliever novel
  • New story of the month
  • WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
  • Wisdom

Please forward and share this zine with others. Thank you.

I welcome your memes, quotes and story ideas. Please keep ‘em coming. I’ll use some of them in my zine! Hurdjames1941@gmail.com

This month’s puzzler. thanks to NPR’s “Car Talk”

Last summer I was driving cross country from the east coast to the west coast and I was somewhere in Kansas around noontime. For miles, I am surrounded by farms that are raising a single crop. It’s beautiful to look at but confusing to understand. When I look to my right, I see fields of yellow. When I look to my left, I see fields of green. And yet, a single crop is being grown. Explain.
(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)

Answer to last month’s puzzler: 

So, why could a locomotive handle eighty cars, but not sixty cars on this particular route?

Here is the answer.

It wasn’t that the engine was weaker with fewer cars, and it wasn’t a limitation of the locomotive at all.

It’s because the extra cars actually helped push the train.

The real reason is that the route had a series of closely spaced hills.

And when the train had only sixty cars, the engine had to pull all of them uphill at once, and it struggled as it reached the top.

But when the train had 80 cars, the last twenty cars were still going downhill on the previous hill.

And because of gravity, those cars were actually pushing the rest of the train forward.

So instead of just pulling, the engine was getting help from behind.

That extra push made it possible to get over the hill.

So, strangely enough, a longer train worked better than a shorter one.

Writer’s Corner

Dedicated to the world of words and the people who use them.

Want to browse archived WINGSPREAD stories? Click under “archives” at https://jimhurd.com/   These stories include memoirs, stories about bush flying, and personal essays. You can type keywords in the webpage “search” function.

Here are a few samples:

The Snow Sermon       https://jimhurd.com/2025/05/01/the-snow-sermon-2/

Get Thee Behind Me, Satan—and Push         https://tinyurl.com/ykpu6mpp

Retirement Surprise                                        https://jimhurd.com/2015/11/

NEW BOOK!

Forthcoming―a new book of my stories, blogs and essays, new and old. Some samples―”Egg McMuffin Miracle,” “Churched Atheists,” “Gaming Airport Security.” I’ll keep you posted on the release date.

Writer’s tip: Never lose the reader. If you use backstories or flashbacks, clearly signal this time change to the reader. Give them a map, a bright blue line, that guides them through your story.

Word of the Month:  THROATCLEARING This refers to the common practice of writing a throw-away “warmup” paragraph before jumping into what you wish to write about. My favorite example was an editor’s critique of the first paragraphs of a book draft. The book was the story of immigrants who settled in Wisconsin. It begins with their arrival in New York and their train trip to Wisconsin. The editor: “I feel like I’m on a train traveling to where the story begins.” Here are other examples of throatclearing: “I think that . . .” [Of course you do; you’re writing the essay] “It seems to me that . . .” “The thing is that . . .”

Metaphor of the month:  “His face asked a question that had no answer.”

Digital resources: Say you’re writing about your life thirty years ago and you can’t remember or don’t know something, like, “When do Bougainvillea bloom in Southern California?” Don’t worry; AI will tell you! You don’t want factual or chronological anomalies in your memoir—it distracts your readers.

TV series of the month: Miss Marple (Britbox)The adventures of an elderly spinster (Marple) as she quietly and brilliantly helps the police solve murders in a small village in Cornwall. Also on Britbox: All the episodes of Father Brown, based on the novels by G.K. Chesterton. (I like the movies better than the original written stories.)

Task for you: Scour your whole piece for passive verbs.  (e.g., “has been duped,” “was tattled on,” “truth is spoken”) In fact, I scan my whole piece to identify the following verbs and try to replace them with more active verbs: is, was, were, has, had, have, be, been, etc. You don’t want your characters being something; much better to have them doing something.

BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel

#hashtags:  #blessedunbeliever #christianwriter #babyloss #southerncalifornia #planes #aviation #humanist #pilotlife #religion #travel #aviationgeek #orangecounty #godless #atheism, #latinamericaAn Excerpt from Blessed Unbeliever

Late one night Sean McIntosh sat alone, gazing out the window of Norbert dorm prayer room, trying hard not to pray. Why am I in a prayer room? he asked himself. I don’t even believe God exists—I’m like a Nazi in a synagogue. He smelled the humid carpet and a chill gripped him—was the radiator working? I guess you don’t ever become a perfect atheist; you just work harder and harder at it. Am I working hard enough? He slammed his fist down on the table. “Damn it—tonight I’ll burn some bridges.”

He walked in stocking feet down the hall to fetch the steel wastebasket from his dorm room along with some bath towels, a paper bag, a jar of water and a book of matches he’d picked up from a restaurant. And his Bible. Propping a chair under the knob of the closed prayer room door, his hands trembled as he picked the Bible up and opened to the inscription on the flyleaf: “For you, Son, on your twelfth birthday. God bless you. Love, Mom.” This black leather Scofield Bible symbolized his fundamentalist Christian life. But tonight he was leaving it all behind. Why couldn’t he just throw it away? No, he had to do something more, something to make a clean break with his past.

His heart faltered as he heard footsteps outside, probably someone going to the bathroom. Grasping his Bible by the spine, he struck a match and held it under the hanging pages. When they curled and blazed into flame, he dropped the burning mass into the wastebasket. He stuffed some towels in the crack under the door. Coughing, he ran over and opened the window, hoping no one would smell the smoke. It seemed to him that the smoky smell, along with his childhood faith, was pouring out the window and disappearing into thin air. He felt the loss but at the same time felt empowered by his action.

When the smoke died down, he poured in the jar of water, heard the steam hiss and then sat a long time in one of the wooden chairs trembling. In his desperation he’d done the deed, committed the sacrilege, put into action his atheism—the boldest thing he’d ever done. And he’d done it in this sacred place of prayer. Henceforth his “Christian faith” would only be an act.

He scooped out the sodden mass and put it in the paper bag, trying to wipe the condemning wet ashes from his hands. Opening the prayer room door and looking both ways down the hall, he walked down to the men’s bathroom and stuffed the bag deep into the trash can. Just then he looked up at the mirror and saw a bulky form walk in and enter one of the stalls. Dean Winters! He must be on overnight duty this week. Sean panicked. He quickly washed the stains off his hands, hoping no lingering smoke smell would betray him, hoping Winters wouldn’t notice the soggy, burnt mass in the trash can. Then he crept back to his dorm room, threw himself on his bed exhausted and said out-loud, “I’ll never believe in God again. . . .”

Available in paper or Kindle version at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o, or order it wherever good books are sold.

New story: Pilgrimage to Holystone Spring

Just a small spring, oval-shaped and rimmed with stones. And yet when our friend Rachel’s husband was dying of cancer, they would visit this spring and walk around its rim.

Rachel is the admin in the Department of Anthropology at Durham University, England, where I was a visiting fellow. She suggests to Barbara and me that we take a Saturday ramble to Holystone Spring. For her, this little pool represents peace amidst her grief and she is kind enough to introduce us. She and her husband were self-described agnostics, and yet, this spring became for them a sacred place. . . .

To read more, click here: https://jimhurd.com/2026/07/22/pilgrimage-to-holystone-spring/

Leave a comment on the website, subscribe and share with others. Thanks.

You can also access my postings on Substack: https://jameshurd.substack.com/

If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread zine, send an email to hurdjames1941@gmail.com  and put in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.

Wisdom

  • The guy’s pants were so tight it looked like he’d been vacuum-packed into them by an Italian with a grudge.  (Thanks to D. Breneman for this one.)
  • Abraham Lincoln (defending his appearance after being called two-faced):
    “If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”

Justice & Wisdom

  • Micah 6:8 – “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
  • Galatians 6:7 – “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”
  • Ecclesiastes 3:1 – “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

Writers’ Humor

  • Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
  • Mark Twain: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
  • Dorothy Parker: “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

Wisdom & Perspective

  • Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
  • Albert Einstein: “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
  • Confucius: “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

Resilience & Action

  • Winston Churchill: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
  • Nelson Mandela: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Famous insults

  • Oscar Wilde (on a fellow writer):
    “He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
  • Mark Twain (on the death of a politician):
    “I did not attend his funeral, but I wrote a very nice letter saying I approved of it.”
  • Truman Capote (criticizing Jack Kerouac’s writing method):
    “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”
  • Dorothy Parker (on an actress’s emotional range):
    “She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.”

Shakespearian insults

  • Henry IV
    “You starfish, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish!”
  • King Lear:
    “A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave!”
  • As You Like It:
    “I do desire we may be better strangers.”

Comfort & Peace

  • Psalm 23:1 – “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
  • Matthew 11:28 – “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Love & Compassion

  • John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
  • Luke 6:31 (The Golden Rule) – “And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

Faith & Guidance

  • Proverbs 3:5 – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
  • Romans 8:28 – “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good…”
  • Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
  • Matthew 6:34 – “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.”

Pilgrimage to Holystone Spring

Grey towers of Durham,
Yet well I love thy mixed and massive piles,
Half church of God, half castle ‘gainst the Scot,
And long to roam these venerable aisles,
With records stored of deeds long since forgot.

―From Sir Walter Scott,
etched on the Prebends Bridge, Durham

Just a small spring, oval-shaped and rimmed with stones. And yet when Rachel’s husband was dying of cancer, they would visit this spring and walk around its rim. Both were self-described agnostics, yet Holystone Spring became for them a sacred place.

Rachel, admin in the Department of Anthropology at Durham University where I was a visiting fellow, suggests to Barbara and me that we take a Saturday ramble to the spring. For her, this little pool provides peace amidst her grief, and she is kind enough to introduce us.

She drives us along winding roads through pasturelands of sheep and cattle bounded by dry stone fences. She points to a cave near a river. “That’s where Cuthbert, a seventh-century Celtic monk, used to live and pray.” We eventually leave the paved road and drive through a cattle gate and across a field to stop near a small wood. This is not a tourist spot―we see no one else. Exiting the car, we walk to a stone fence and open a gate. Walking into the wood, we enter a circle of seven large beech trees and come to a small, oval pool that holds the waters of Holystone Spring. I dip my hand into the cool, clear waters. On the margins grow bright yellow monkeyflowers, watercress and celandine that flourish in this cool shade. A Celtic stone cross rises out of the waters, placed here in Victorian times to honor early Celtic missionaries. On the edge of the spring stands a gray stone statue of Bishop Paulinus that was carved in the fifteenth century. Legends tell of him baptizing thousands of Northumbrians here in this place where Roman cavalrymen used to water their horses.

We circle the spring in silence, enjoying the coolness of the wood, seeing the sun’s sparkle on the still waters, examining the cross and statue, honoring the memory of Rachel’s husband and respecting this place holy to her and to the thousands of pilgrims who have visited over the centuries.

In the early twelfth century Holystone became the home of a priory of Augustinian canonesses. They took charge of the famous spring and christened it “Lady’s Well,” after the Virgin Mary. But in 1541, Henry VIII abolished their monastery (along with many others all over England) and ordered their buildings razed during what became known as the “Dissolution of Monasteries.” All that remains today is an excavated site that reveals the thick, ancient walls.

So can we call Holystone Spring a “sacred site?” It is a place where pilgrims come to meditate, a place of great spiritual importance over the centuries. Ironic that it lies here hidden, a silent witness to the men and women whose lives were changed here forever.

As we depart, I smile, thinking back to my fundamentalist childhood in California. I treasure the Bible knowledge I gained, the orientation toward Christ and the gospel, the moral guidance. And yet we had no holy objects, no “saints,” no pilgrimages, no treasured studies of church history, no sacraments and no sacred places (we used to play chess on the communion table). Fundamentalism was evangelizing and missionizing, Bible- and doctrine-based, accompanied by strict lifestyle prohibitions (no smoking, drinking, dancing or going to movies). I treasure that early formation, but if I had only one day to live, and could choose one place in all the world to visit, I would choose Holystone Spring.

WINGSPREAD Zine for June, 2026


Spreading your wings in a postmodern world
June 2026                  James P. Hurd

Please forward and share this zine with others. Thank you.

The world is a strange, beautiful, mysterious and sometimes dangerpis place. This zine is dedicated to that mystery.

Contents

  • Writer’s Corner
  • This month’s story
  • This month’s puzzler:
  • WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
  • Wisdom

Writer’s Corner

Dedicated to the world of words and the people who write them.

Want to browse archived WINGSPREAD stories? Click under “archives” at https://jimhurd.com/   These stories include memoirs, stories about bush flying, and personal essays. You can search for keywords in the webpage “search” function.

Here are a few examples of the stories:

Fundamentalist Sundays        https://jimhurd.com/2016/09/

Valentine’s Alligator Hunt     https://jimhurd.com/2015/02/09/valentines-alligator-hunt/

The Pilot Tells Himself Lies   https://jimhurd.com/2018/01/23/the-pilot-tells-himself-lies/            

Writer’s tip: Should I use a colon or an em dash? Write out numbers larger than ten? Use italics when writing people’s thoughts? Many, many decisions. But on all these issues, and many more, usage differs. AI can be very helpful. But the main thing is to be consistent—follow the same pattern throughout your piece. You may wish to create a style guide to remind you of the decisions you have made.

Word of the Month: SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL   Adjective meaning 250 years. E.g., the U.S. semiquincentennial

Metaphor of the month: “His cynicism was so toxic it would strip paint off a wall.”

Digital resources: If you’re writing, and searching for a quick fact, use AI to find it. E.g., when did streetcar service end in Orange, California?

TV series of the month: FOYLE’S WAR. A police detective and his young, attractive driver solves crimes in the midst of the Blitz and England’s mobilization for WWII.

New story: Visiting Bishop Sam Yoder’s Farm

. . . I imagine they all wondered why we “English” were there. I was having second thoughts. The men eyed me carefully, sizing me up. How could I tell them I wanted to “study” them, as if they were butterflies pinned to a board? They’d probably never heard of “anthropology.” I wanted to collect demographic data on their families, study their marriage patterns and understand the many divisions the church had suffered since the 1890s. But how to explain this? I expected they were sensitive about the church divisions and secretive about the inbred marriages. So I told them, “I want to study White Buggy family histories.” . . .

To read more, click here: https://jimhurd.com/2026/06/12/visiting-bishop-sam-yoders-farm/

Leave a comment on the website, subscribe and share with others. Thanks.

You can also access my articles on Substack: https://jameshurd.substack.com/

This month’s puzzler. (Thanks to Car Talk Puzzler Archives)

Years ago, when railroads still ran steam locomotives, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had a busy freight line running south from Rochester. On that line, they used a 2-8-2 steam locomotive — two wheels in front, eight driving wheels, and two trailing wheels.

A locomotive like this could normally pull a train of 80 fully loaded cars. No problem. But on this particular run, something strange happened. If the train had 80 cars, it could make the trip just fine. But if it had only 60 cars, it couldn’t make it at all.

It needed more cars to succeed. Not fewer; more.

And the hint is: there was something unusual about the route south of Rochester.

So the puzzler question is:

Why did the locomotive need 80 cars to make the trip—but fail with only 60?

(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)

If you wish to unsubscribe from this Wingspread Ezine, send an email to hurdjames1941@gmail.com  and put in the subject line: “unsubscribe.” (I won’t feel bad, promise!) Thanks.

Wisdom

21st century words

  • Intersectionality          how an individual’s overlapping social identities (e.g., race, gender, class, sexuality, and ability) combine to create unique forms of discrimination, privilege, or inequality
  • Cancel culture            publicly boycotting or withdrawing support for individuals or groups because they have said or done something socially or morally unacceptable, especially in social media
  • Othering                      the act of treating a person or group as fundamentally different, alien, or inferior to the mainstream or dominant social group. It creates a rigid “us vs. them” mindset
  • Deadnaming               using a former name of a transgender or non-binary individual
  • I can’t remember how to write 1, 1000, 51, 6 and 500 in Roman numerals. I’M LIVID!
  • The guy’s pants were so tight it looked like he’d been vacuum-packed into them by an Italian clothier with a grudge.  (Thanks to D. Breneman for this one.)

Chess humor . . .

21st century words

  • Intersectionality          how an individual’s overlapping social identities (e.g., race, gender, class, sexuality, and ability) combine to create unique forms of discrimination, privilege, or inequality
  • Cancel culture            publicly boycotting or withdrawing support for individuals or groups because they have said or done something socially or morally unacceptable, especially in social media
  • Othering                      the act of treating a person or group as fundamentally different, alien, or inferior to the mainstream or dominant social group. It creates a rigid “us vs. them” mindset
  • Deadnaming               using a former name of a transgender or non-binary individual

Visiting Bishop Sam Yoder’s Farm

Like the traditional missionary, an anthropologist strives to find a people group to live and work with, a people group alien from his own. But what group? The bad joke among my Penn State graduate colleagues was, “You need to find a group that hasn’t yet been exploited by anthropologists and study them.” I thought of the Yanomamo Indians in Venezuela. Barbara and I and our daughter, Kimberly, had lived there three years and my thesis advisor specialized in the Yanomamo, a Venezuelan tribe. And yet, three years after we had left, it felt daunting to take our family of five back to Venezuela to live for at least a year, plus they could not live with me in the tribe―I would frequently be separated from them for long periods.

Just thirty miles away from our Bellefonte, Pennsylvania home was a large Amish community. I wanted to learn more about them. But how would that work? I couldn’t afford a motel in the area (grad school was our poverty time). I made a few forays into the community but the people did not seem welcoming. I talked to our friends, Shirley and Joe Renno. Joe’s father Erie was a Mennonite Bishop whose family had left the Amish church years before to join the Mennonite church.  Erie had an uncle who was bishop in the “White Buggy” Amish church (nicknamed “White Buggy” because of the unpainted canvas tops on their buggies). When Erie agreed to take me to visit Sam Yoder, this proved to be the turning point that gained my entry into the Amish community.

On that cold winter night we drove along PA 655 to Reedsville and into the farmland beyond, turned left on Church Street, then turned right into a long snow-covered lane. The machine shed appeared in our headlights with the unpainted barn behind it. We parked in the dark farmyard near the large, white “big house.” Erie Renno’s cousin Eli walked out to meet us and led us to the “dawdy house” where Bishop Sam lived—a bedroom built on the side of the big house. We walked in to see white walls with blue trim, and an unpainted pine plank floor.

Bs. Sam was in his early 90s, sitting near his cast iron potbelly woodstove in his big rocking chair. He did not rise to greet us. We sat down around the stove’s welcome heat—Joe Renno, Erie, Eli and Sam.It was not a warm family reunion, but people were cordial. We all spoke English, although Sam’s first language was Pennsylvania German. He sat close to the stove with a quilt over his lap. Snow white hair and a long white beard covered most of his face. Like all Amish, he had no moustache. Nearby stood a single bed and a small table with a candleholder on it. The only light while we talked was a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling that enclosed us in a circle of light. Sam explained that he and his wife had slept in this room until she died, several years before. Now, he was eating all his meals with Eli’s family in the adjoining kitchen/dining room in the big house. He smiled and explained, “I’m collecting interest on the mortgage.” 

I imagine they all wondered why we “English” were there. I was having second thoughts. The men eyed me carefully, sizing me up. How could I tell them I wanted to “study” them, as if they were butterflies pinned to a board? They’d probably never heard of “anthropology.” I wanted to collect demographic data on their families, study their marriage patterns and understand the many divisions the church had suffered since the 1890s. But how to explain this? I expected they were sensitive about the church divisions and secretive about the inbred marriages. So I told them, “I want to study White Buggy family histories.”

When I got up to find the bathroom, they gave me a small candle to carry. I walked through the big house, feeling like I was back in the 1800s. Kerosene lamps. No running water. A “dry sink” in the kitchen that held two big porcelain bowls but no water faucet and no drain. The water came from a handpump in the pantry that pumped water up from a cistern. They would carry the water over in a pitcher and pour it into the bowls where the women (never the men) washed the dishes. No rugs on the floor, no pictures on the walls. The bathroom was a few steps outside the kitchen door—an outhouse that stood next to a huge brick oven where Barbara Yoder and the girls baked bread.

As we left, I had the impression that I could visit occasionally, but they had said nothing about overnighting. I was discouraged, wondering if I should choose another project. A couple weeks later I stopped again to see Eli and Barbara. Eli was out in the barn, so I talked to Barbara. I had never exchanged more than a few words with her. English was her second language and most of the women did not speak much with English people. I was complaining, “I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t stay in a motel and I’ve checked with several families here in the valley. Shirley and Joe Renno would let me stay with them, but they’re too far away from the community.” I waited as she became silent. Finally, she said, “Well, Eli says you can stay here.”

The Yoders probably never anticipated that over the next two years I would visit a couple times a week, eat with the family at their large dining room table and sleep upstairs in son John’s bedroom. I milked a cow, walked the cornrows picking ears of corn and spent my days talking with people. This home base allowed me to collect data on eight White Buggy congregations and compile demographic records on 900 men, women and children. I will never be able to repay them for their kindness and hospitality.

WINGSPREAD Zine for April, 2026

Spreading your wings in a postmodern world
April 2026                               James P. Hurd

Please forward, and share this zine with others. Thank you.

The world is a strange, beautiful, mysterious and sometimes disappointing place. This zine is dedicated to that mystery.

CONTENTS

  • Writer’s Corner
  • Blessed Unbeliever novel
  • This month’s story
  • This month’s puzzler:
  • WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
  • Wisdom

WRITER’S CORNER

Dedicated to the world of words and to the people who love them.

Writer’s tip: If you’re writing fiction or even memoir, remember—if you don’t have conflict, you don’t have a story. Think Downton Abbey. There’s always a problem—shunned love, dangerous secrets, great loss, unwelcome change, upstairs/downstairs troubles, money problems, legal problems. You get the idea—if there’s no conflict, you don’t have a story.

Want to browse archived WINGSPREAD stories? Click under “archives” at https://jimhurd.com/   These stories include memoirs, stories about bush flying, and personal essays. You can typeany keywords in the webpage “search” function.

Here are a few examples:
“Once Again to Colombia” (mission trip to Cartagena) https://jimhurd.com/2016/02/08/once-again-to-colombia/   

“Brave New World of Cooking” (single again; how does one learn to cook?) https://jimhurd.com/2025/03/

Word of the Month: SANEWASHING

The act of minimizing the perceived radical aspects of a person or idea in order to make them appear more acceptable to a wider audience. His loyalists constantly sanewashed his comments and actions.

Metaphor of the month: “He was the kind of man that destiny had a serious grudge against.”

 Digital resources: Use AI to do background research for your stories and memoirs. E.g., “What were the streets that ran by the old Madison Elementary School?” “What are the trees native to northern California?” “What was the date John F. Kennedy was shot?”

TV series of the month: OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. Based on the eponymous book by Charles Dickens. Greed, treachery, death, young love, charity, secrets, beauty. Follow John Harmon as he conceals his identity and pursues the beautiful yet prideful young Bella. Four longer episodes on the BBC streaming service. (The BBC streaming service is wonderful! Christie’s Piorot, Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Chesterton’s Father Brown, Jane Austin’s stories, Shakespeare and many others.)

Task for you: Start a list of metaphors you have heard or read that you love. When you write your next story, glance over your list and see if you can use any of them. Send me your best finds.

BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel

An Excerpt from Blessed Unbeliever

Late one night Sean McIntosh sat alone, gazing out the window of Norbert prayer room, trying hard not to pray. Why am I in a prayer room? he asked himself. I don’t even believe God exists—I’m like a Nazi in a synagogue. He smelled the humid carpet and a chill gripped him—was the radiator working? I guess you don’t ever become a perfect atheist; you just work harder and harder at it. Am I working hard enough? He slammed his fist down on the table. “Damn it—tonight I’ll burn some bridges.”

He walked in stocking feet down the hall to fetch the steel wastebasket from his dorm room along with some towels, a paper bag, a jar of water and a book of matches he’d picked up from a restaurant. And his Bible. Propping a chair under the knob of the closed prayer room door, his hands trembled as he picked the Bible up and opened to the inscription on the flyleaf: “For you, Son, on your twelfth birthday. God bless you. Love, Mom.” This black leather Scofield Bible symbolized his fundamentalist Christian life. But tonight, he was leaving it all behind. Why couldn’t he just throw it away? No, he had to do something more, something to make a clean break with his past.

His heart faltered as he heard footsteps outside, probably someone going to the bathroom. Grasping his Bible by the spine, he struck a match and held it under the hanging pages. When they curled and blazed into flame, he dropped the burning mass into the wastebasket. He stuffed some towels in the crack under the door. Coughing, he ran over and opened the window, hoping no one would smell the smoke. It seemed to him that the acrid smell, along with his childhood faith, was pouring out the window and disappearing into thin air. He felt the loss but at the same time felt empowered by his action.

When the smoke died down, he poured in the jar of water, heard the steam hiss and then sat a long time in one of the wooden chairs trembling. In his desperation he’d done the deed, committed the sacrilege, put into action his atheism—the boldest thing he’d ever done. And he’d done it in this sacred place of prayer. Henceforth his “Christian faith” would only be an act.

He scooped out the sodden mass and put it in the paper bag, trying to wipe the condemning wet ashes from his hands. Opening the prayer room door and looking both ways down the hall, he walked down to the men’s bathroom and stuffed the bag deep into the trash can. Just then he looked up at the mirror and saw a bulky form walk in and enter one of the stalls. Dean Winters! He must be on overnight duty this week. Sean panicked. He quickly washed the stains off his hands, hoping no lingering smoke smell would betray him, hoping Winters wouldn’t notice the soggy, burnt mass in the trash can. Then he crept back to his dorm room, threw himself on his bed exhausted and said out-loud, “I’ll never believe in God again. . . .”

#hashtags:  #blessedunbeliever #christianwriter #babyloss #southerncalifornia #planes #aviation #humanist #pilotlife #religion #travel #aviationgeek #orangecounty #godless #atheism, #latinamerica

Available in paper or Kindle version at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or order it wherever good books are sold.

NEW STORY: AN AMISH DEATH

White buggy at the Belleville auction

Melinda Yoder, sister to the Amish bishop, has died. Since the church does not practice embalming, she must be buried within twenty-four hours. I have never met Melinda, but I have been living for several months in the home of her nephew, Eli. Today I go to her funeral, accompanied by Shirley Renno, one of her distant Mennonite relatives.

We drive into the barnyard on a bitter cold day to find some snow on the ground and many white buggies parked near Melinda’s farmhouse. The smell of tobacco drifts over from where some older men stand near the barn, rolling cigarettes and smoking. They all wear black hats, long-sleeved pullover shirts and brown pants and coats. Lacking suspender or belt, the pants are snugged with lacing in the back. We walk into the house to see a wooden coffin resting in the middle of the living room on two saw horses. I remove my hat. The Amish are a closed society, but sometimes a funeral draws many English (non-Amish) people. In this case, Shirley and I are the only outsiders. . . . 

To read more, click here: https://tinyurl.com/5xnwpxfk

Leave a comment on the website, subscribe and share with others. Thanks.

You can also access my articles on Substack: James’s Substack | Substack  

THIS MONTH’S PUZZLER, THANKS TO “cAR tALK”

This story is “The Bridge of Tom and Ray.” Here we go.

In Borneo, there is a bridge connecting two islands constructed of bamboo lashed together with hemp.

It’s been used for hundreds of years, pedestrian traffic, vehicular traffic, both directions. It’s four miles long.

Now this bridge has a weight limit of 20 tons.

One day, a truck filled with pigs pulls up to the bridge. Officials stop him and let him know they have to weigh the truck, due to the weight limit.

So the truck drives onto the scale. Turns out that with all the pigs, and the driver, this truck weighs exactly 20 tons. 

The guy at the other end gets the signal and he stops all other traffic. Everyone has to stop.

The bridge is emptied, and this guy is allowed to drive over the bridge alone.

He is right at the limit, at 20 tons, so he has to drive over completely alone. 

As he drives across, a sparrow begins to follow alongside, flying in the air along with the truck. 

The sparrow begins to hover over the truck, flapping its wings. When he’s a little beyond the halfway point, the sparrow lands on the truck.

What does the driver do at that moment to keep the truck from plunging into the water? 

(Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)

Answer to last month’s puzzler: 

Okay, so, what quick adjustment did the mechanic make that enabled Jeffersonville Fire Department to take home the trophy in the race?

Because they were racing counterclockwise around a track, he wanted to make it so that the Jeffersonville truck would be able to negotiate those constant left hand turns easier than the East Norriton truck.

So without using any tools, he simply let a little air out of the left side tires of the Jeffersonville truck. 

Because if you have low pressure in one of your tires, your car will tend to pull in that direction.

So since they are going counter clockwise, that means a lot of left turns. And with the tires just a little light on the left side, the truck wants to go in that direction anyway. 

And this way, they were able to win their competition.

Not sure that is truly legal, but we are going with it anyway!

Subscribe free to this Ezine  

Click here https://jimhurd.com/home/  to subscribe to this WINGSPREAD ezine, sent direct to your email inbox, every month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

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WISDOM

I will go out and carve a tunnel of hope from a mountain of despair.
                                                                        Martin Luther King Jr.

The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.                                                                                                                                                                                    Albert Einstein

We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.
            Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

The nice thing about egotists is that they don’t talk about other people.
                                                            Lucille S. Harper

Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
                                                            Frank Leahy

On the outside, even donkey droppings are shiny.
Old Chinese folk saying

Nothing human can be strange to man.
Claude Levi-Strauss, anthropologist

Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage. He didn’t have to hear about all the men she could have married, and she didn’t have to hear about the way his mother cooked.

…Out of self to love be led…
            John Greenleaf Whittier, from “Andrew Rykman’s Prayer”

An Amish Death

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

         Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

         The short and simple annals of the poor.

From Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard,” 1751

White buggy at the Belleville auction

Melinda Yoder, sister to the Amish bishop, has died. Since the church does not practice embalming, she must be buried within 24 hours. I have never met Melinda, but I have been living for several months in the home of her nephew, Eli. Today I go to her funeral, accompanied by Shirley Renno, one of her distant Mennonite relatives.

We drive into the barnyard on a bitter cold day to find some snow on the ground and many white buggies parked near Melinda’s farmhouse. The smell of tobacco drifts over from where some older men stand near the barn rolling cigarettes and smoking. They all wear black hats, long-sleeved pullover shirts and brown pants and coats. Lacking suspender or belt, the pants are snugged with lacing in the back. We walk into the house to see a wooden coffin resting in the middle of the living room on two saw horses. I remove my hat. The Amish are a closed society, but sometimes a funeral draws many English (non-Amish) people. In this case, Shirley and I are the only outsiders.

People line up to view the body—men walking along one side, women along the other. Melinda’s ninety-year-old brother, Bishop Sam S. Yoder, sits hunched in a corner chair, silent, holding his wooden cane. Because he is bishop, he wears gray pants and a gray frock coat with tails. Sam lives in Eli’s “dawdy house” (a built-on room) since his wife died, and eats at Eli’s table, as I do. Sometimes I visit him in his little apartment and watch him stoke the fire in his potbelly stove with dried corn cobs. He smiles when he says, “I’m collecting interest on the farm mortgage.”

In Melinda’s living room, I join the men’s line that slowly moves toward the coffin. It is a diamond-shaped, unfinished pine wood box, made by a member of the church. Half of the lid is folded back to view the body. As is customary, Melinda is dressed completely in white, including her full white prayer covering neatly tied under her chin. The mourners pass in silence.

After viewing the body, we sit down for the service, men on one side, women on the other. A deacon “lines” the first line of a German hymn, then the congregation joins in a capella, slow-paced singing using the Aiusbund, one of the oldest hymnals still in use. Then another bishop, John J.S. Yoder, rises to preach in German for forty-five minutes. He’s had no special training— he was selected by lot from the men of the congregation to serve as their bishop, an unpaid, lifelong post.

After the funeral service, we file out into the cold courtyard and form a large circle. Some of Melinda’s relatives walk around, serving each person a glass of homemade dandelion wine and a slice of homemade bread topped with a thick piece of cheese. Shirley and I eat, shivering in the cold. After about half an hour, the men start hitching up their horses to form a funeral procession. Melinda’s coffin lies on a John Wayne-style buckboard with a brown canvas thrown over it. Eventually, the slow procession exits the farm and winds their way to the cemetery, following back roads. We drive along behind at five miles an hour.

It takes almost an hour to arrive at the cemetery. It sits in a bare patch of land on a low, windswept hill and is only distinguished by its fence and a few small limestone markers. I see no grass or trees, and no flowers are allowed. People are buried here, not in family units but rather in the order in which they die. The men who act as pallbearers lift the coffin from the buckboard, carry it over to the gravesite and set it down on two-by-fours that have been placed across the grave hole. Men hold their hats vertically on the side of their heads to shield their faces from the bitter wind as Bs. Yoder speaks a few words in German to the shivering mourners who stand around the grave. Then some men place ropes under the coffin, lift it gently, slide the two by fours out of the way, then slowly lower it until it rests at the bottom of the grave. There is no cement vault. Then they take shovels and begin filling in the grave, mounding up the dirt. When they finish, we all depart.

As Shirley and I drive away, I have much to ponder. Who is a funeral for? For the deceased, of course. Every person is loved by God and all persons deserve to be memorialized. And it provides accompaniment and comfort for relatives and friends. But it also serves to put on display some of the deepest values of a culture—in this case, the value of the gathered church community and the beauty of simplicity.

Most funerals I have attended display the body in an elegant casket covered with flowers. The horror of death is masked with artificial grass and a tributary gravestone. People leave before the grave is filled in.

But here, in death as in life, simple custom, sparse appointments and sober ritual underscore Amish values. The plain coffin (they never call it a casket), the stark graveyard, the buckboard-hearse—all these proclaim a simple life lived out in a close, caring community.

I reflect on the meaning of this death. It is a profound tribute to Amish faith and strength in the midst of a loss of one of their own.

WINGSPREAD Zine for March, 2026


Spreading your wings in a Perplexing world
March 2026                  James P. Hurd

Please forward and share this zine with others. Thank you.

The world is a strange, beautiful, mysterious and sometimes disappointing place. This zine is dedicated to that mystery.

Contents

  • Writer’s Corner
  • Blessed Unbeliever 
  • This month’s story:
  • This month’s puzzler:
  • WINGSPREAD Ezine subscription information
  • Wisdom

Writer’s Corner

Dedicated to the world of words and the people who write them.

Want to browse archived WINGSPREAD stories? Click under “archives” at https://jimhurd.com/   These stories include memoirs, stories about my fundamentalist childhood, bush flying, personal essays and other topics. You can type keywords in the “search” function.

Here are a few samples:

“Why Do I Make Stupid Mistakes?” https://jimhurd.com/?s=stupid+mistakes

“The Snow Sermon” https://jimhurd.com/?s=snow+sermon

“Identity Crisis” (Who am I?) https://jimhurd.com/?s=identity

Writer’s tip: Practice the pause. Set your piece aside for a couple of weeks; then come back to it with fresh eyes and ideas.

Word of the Month: LOOKSMAXXING.
Majoring on hair, skin, clothes—striving for “the look.”

.Metaphor of the month: “He’s the kind of man that destiny had a serious grudge against.”

Digital resources: If you have a question about your writing—character development, plot, paragraphing, grammar, word use—first try querying an AI site such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini or Perplexity. You can even ask, “Critique this story.”

Task for you: If you have something you wish to submit for publication in this WINGSPREAD Zine (a good quote, maxim, meme, humor or a reflection), send it to me for consideration. Hurdjames1941@gmail.com Thank you.

FORTHCOMING BOOK!

Forthcoming―a book of my stories and essays, new and old. Some samples ―”Egg McMuffin Miracle,” “Churched Atheists,” “Gaming Airport Security.” I’ll keep you posted on progress.

BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel

Sean’s serene childhood turns to tortured adolescence as he leaves for college and finds himself telling people he’s an atheist—.at a Bible Institute! What could possibly go wrong?

#hashtags:  #blessedunbeliever #christianwriter #babyloss #southerncalifornia #planes #aviation #humanist #pilotlife #religion #travel #aviationgeek #orangecounty #godless #atheism, #latinamerica

Available in paper or Kindle version at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon https://a.co/d/9su5F3o or order it wherever good books are sold

New story: “Garage-Saleing Through an F2 Tornado“

Sunday, 11 Sept. 2005 Barbara’s garage-sale weekend has ended, an event to remember, that kicked off with an F2 tornado.

The preparation started months before, with Barbara collecting, sorting, repairing, and labeling. She recruited three neighbors to contribute, thus increasing potential sales. A spirited debate ensued over financing, timing, duration, organizing, advertising and recruiting the required labor. About one month before, the garage’s primary purpose was violated when our car was banished to the street. In its place grew a flea market filled with small appliances, kitchenware, clothing, books, magazines, furniture, boxes of miscellanea and knickknackery (I know―knickknack looks wrong but that’s what the Oxford Dictionary says so I’m stickin’ with it). We begged and borrowed tables to display stuff. We hung a pole across two step-ladders with room for a multitude of hangars for blouses, skirts, pants shorts, shirts and jackets. . . .
To read more, click here: https://tinyurl.com/2wxwzp34

Leave a comment on the article, subscribe to the webpage, and share with others. Thanks.

You can also access my stories on Substack: https://jameshurd.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/191488384

This month’s puzzler, thanks to Car Talk: “The Firetruck Race”

This one is a classic. Here it is. 

Many years ago, there was an intense but friendly rivalry between the volunteer fire departments of two nearby towns, Jeffersonville and East Norriton.

Pride was at stake as their rivalry climaxed each year in the Fireman’s Competition at the county fair. So closely matched were the two fire brigades in skill and experience that the preliminary hook and ladder events were virtually a tie, leading up to the final showcase event of the race of firetrucks.

This race would consist of twenty laps done counterclockwise around the quarter-mile dirt track at the fairgrounds.

Both fire brigades drove identical pumpers, scrupulously maintained and adjusted to peak performance. The rules required that they be set to factory configuration, fully loaded and equipped, and the crews identical in total weight to the nearest ounce.

Both drivers were skilled and experienced, wily veterans of the road, so they were very evenly matched in skill. 

The Jeffersonville team had come away disappointed four years in a row, having lost the final event by the closest of margins each time, so the stakes were high this year. 

Jeffersonville appealed to Gus Wilson, automotive legend from the Model Garage, to provide them with some small competitive advantage. Gus took a look at the high-wheeled pumpers and the dirt track and mused while he knocked the ashes from his pipe.

He then stepped forward, and without tools, without violating the rules, and without even opening the hood of this firetruck, he makes a quick adjustment that enabled Jeffersonville to take home the trophy that year.

What did he do?

Good luck.
 

 (Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD zine.)

Answer to last month’s puzzler: 

 So how could the auto racers possibly finish in the same time? Without using any clocks or timepieces of any sort?

The answer is, they used the timing of the windshield wipers! 

Using the same amount of wiper strokes means the same amount of time. Very clever indeed. 

Subscribe free to this Ezine:

Click here https://jimhurd.com/home/  to subscribe to this WINGSPREAD ezine, sent direct to your email inbox, every month. You will receive a free article for subscribing. Please share this URL with interested friends, “like” it on Facebook, retweet on Twitter, etc.

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Wisdom

Obsolete Words

  • fopdoodle – foolish or insignificant person
  • beadledom – petty, fussy authority
  • zounds – exclamation (“God’s wounds!”)
  • gadzooks – mild oath (“God’s hooks!”)
  • smock – woman’s undergarment (now mostly archaic in that sense)
  • flapdoodle – nonsense
  • truckle-bed – a low bed stored under another

These are classic:

When I was young, I was told that anyone could become President….
            I’m beginning to believe it.

—–

When I was young, I prayed that I’d grow up to be somebody. Now I realize I should have been more specific.

—–

I didn’t realize how unsocial I was until there was a pandemic….
            And my life didn’t really change all that much.

—–

Don’t wear headphones while vacuuming; I’ve just finished the whole house before realizing the vacuum wasn’t plugged in.

—–

I gave all my dead batteries away today … free of charge.

—–

I just ordered a life alert bracelet. If I ever get a life I’ll be notified immediately

—–

To the guy who invented “zero” … Thanks for nothing.

—–

The Disappointment Club is pleased to announce that the Friday meeting is cancelled.

—–

Self-esteem is the feeling which makes us attribute our failures to bad luck, and our successes to good judgment.

—–

I was looking for that thingy that peels potatoes and carrots. I asked the kids if they’d seen it.
          Apparently, she left me a week ago.

—–

A woman adopted two dogs and named them Timex and Rolex.
Her friend asked her how she came up with the names.
She replied, “They’re both watch dogs.”

—–

Doctor; I’m afraid your condition is fairly advanced.
Patient; It was in its early stages when I first sat down in your waiting room.

—–

How does my doctor expect me to lose weight, when every medication he prescribes says, “Take with food.”

—–

Me: Doctor, I’ve swallowed a spoon.
Doctor: Sit there and don’t stir.

—–

I was walking past a farm and saw a sign that said: “Duck, eggs!”

I thought: “That’s an unnecessary comma.” Then it hit me.

      Baby needs a mommy face

Here’s a gem from C.S. Lewis, writing on love:

Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last.

If the old fairy-tale ending ‘They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,’ then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love.

Love in this second sense — love as distinct from ‘being in love’ — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. it is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.”

―C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

            Stonehenge at solstice

Garage-Saleing Through an F2 Tornado

Sunday, 11 Sept. 2005 Barbara’s garage-sale weekend has ended, interrupted by only one F2 tornado.

The sale started months before, with Barbara collecting, sorting, repairing, and labeling. She recruited three neighbors to contribute, thus increasing potential customers. A spirited debate ensued over financing, timing, duration, organizing, advertising and recruiting the required labor. About one month before, the garage’s primary purpose was violated when I was instructed to park our car on the street. In its place grew a flea market filled with small appliances, kitchenware, clothing, books, magazines, furniture, boxes of miscellanea and knickknackery (I know―knickknack looks wrong but that’s how the Oxford Dictionary spells it so I’m stickin’ with it). We begged and borrowed tables to display stuff and hung a pole across two step-ladders with room for a multitude of hangars for blouses, skirts, pants. shorts, shirts and jackets. Each item for sale needed to be labeled with the name of the seller.

I asked myself, Who would want any of this stuff? Apparently, the overall objective of the garage sale was that we should not make any money. Barbara marked most of her items for cheap or free, and marked items went to half price on Friday. A brown shoebox with a slit in the top featured the label “Samaritan’s Purse.” It sat hopefully on one table where it awaited contributions for Franklin Graham’s world relief charity.

Barbara insisted on eight huge Garage Sale signs―they must be created, not purchased―with bold arrows and “Huge Block Sale” printed on them, to be installed at strategic corners in a half-mile radius. Most had a horizontal metal bar that one stood on to press the vertical steel tubes into the ground. Others needed a hammer to drive in the steel pole or a stapler to staple it to a telephone pole.

On Wednesday evening a borrowed frame with a white canopy covered the driveway. We spent nearly two hours hauling everything out and arranging it under and around the canopy, then collapsed into bed, exhausted, by 9:30 p.m.

It started g to rain immediately so we got up and got soaked when we dragged a few things into the garage. But before midnight, an F-2 tornado with 125 mph winds ripped through our neighborhood touching down four blocks away at 105th and Terrace where it uprooted 30” trees and damaged houses—one was completely destroyed and the walls blown apart. The heavy rains, winds and hail whipped off our canopy and soaked everything beneath it.

I was sad for those who suffered the damage, yet secretly relieved that the garage sale could now be canceled and we could just call the Salvation Army to come and pick up the soggy stuff.

But no; Barbara was adamant. “I already advertised it,” she said. Thus, we arose at 5:00 a.m. and before I left for work, we began carrying things out again, organizing, sweeping up the water, trying to dry out what was waterlogged. We rolled out a wagonful of partially-emptied paint cans. Hung ittle pink baby dresses. Set up five cardboard file cabinets (waterlogged). A box of children’s books (waterlogged). Back issues of Christianity Today and Better Homes and Gardens (waterlogged). Files of materials for teaching kindergarten from Barbara’s schoolteacher days 45 years ago. Broken toys. Empty flower pots (standing and hanging). A wooden drop-leaf table with a broken leg I’d mended twenty years before. Dishes, plates, cups, and boxes and boxes of books, most unlabeled and free for the taking. Then, Thursday night, we had to haul lots of stuff into the garage because rain was again forecast. I was instructed to tour the neighborhood to see if the sale signs were still standing. I was relieved that most of them were.

It rained most of the day, but Barbara stood indomitable, aggressively lowering prices, urging people to walk away with free stuff and happily chatting up the folks who stopped by. She opened her house for bathrooms and drinking water. Meanwhile, most of the neighborhood children had discovered the sale. Jake roamed about, asking where the free stuff was. His five-year-old sister, Lexie, exclaimed “Oh; there’s something for ten pennies!” as she counted out ten coins (mixing pennies and nickels). A non-stop talker, she went on about her family, the neighbors, anything. Then she paused, with one finger on her lips. “I can’t think of anything else to talk about!”  Several of the kids ended up downstairs watching TV.

On Friday, a man turned up his nose at the donation box—“I never give donations; people just come to Minnesota for the welfare.” Our 85-year-old bathrobed neighbor pushed her walker over to check out all the stuff. A native American mother of four stopped by and picked up free toys and books for the kids. A pastor’s wife was here for an hour, regaling Barbara with the problems at her husband’s church. A woman stopped by and asked, “Is all this stuff really free?”

On the last day of the sale, a cool Saturday morning, Lexie appeared again at our screen door. “It would be thoughtful if you would ask me in. It would be very thoughtful.” At lunchtime Barbara dispensed homemade sandwiches and drinks to all her helpers and miscellaneous children When the last customer had left at about 4:00 p.m., we observed that only half the stuff had disappeared. I was disappointed and sad for Barbara who had worked so hard on this sale, ruined by wind, rain, hail, and tornado. And the canopy still needed drying out, the frame disassembled, borrowed boards and tables returned and the remaining stuff disposed of.

But Barbara was ecstatic. ”We made $90.00 for Samaritan’s Purse, $50.00 for Kimberly, $30.00 for Jeny, $15.00 for Brandon and $90.00 for me.” In spite of all the challenges, the garage sale was a huge success

Thus it was that an F2 tornado disaster turned into a smashing triumph―an opportunity for neighborhood bonding, a channel of good will to the whole community and a demonstration of Barbara’s generous heart.

WINGSPREAD Zine for February, 2026


Spreading wings in a perplexing world
February, 2026                  James P. Hurd

Please forward and share this zine with others. Thank you.

The world is a strange, beautiful, mysterious and sometimes disappointing place. This zine is dedicated to pondering that mystery.

Contents

  • Writer’s Corner
  • Blessed Unbeliever novel
  • This month’s story: “Colombia: A Severe Mercy”
  • This month’s puzzler:  “No Time”
  • WINGSPREAD zine subscription information
  • Wisdom

Writer’s Corner

Dedicated to the world of words and the people who create them.

Want to browse archived WINGSPREAD stories? Click here, then click under “archives” at https://jimhurd.com/   These stories include memoirs, stories about bush flying, personal essays and other topics.

Here are a few examples:

“All Hallows Eve: A story for October 31” (October, 2015)

“Reggie Radcliffe and the Fundamentalists” (October, 2018)

“The Returning” (October, 2025—carrying Barbara’s ashes back to Pennsylvania)

NEW BOOK!

 Forthcoming―a book of stories and essays, new and old. Some samples―”Egg McMuffin Miracle,” “Churched Atheists,” “Gaming Airport Security.” I’ll keep you posted on the launch date.

Writer’s tip: Scan your piece for “out-of-order” sentences. They may flow better and make more sense if they’re rearranged.

Words

.Sanewashing  (v.) Normalizing and rationalizing outrageous, extreme or false behavior by a public figure. “The commentator sanewashed the bizarre speech, arguing, ‘He’s just being honest.’”

Kavanaughing (v.) Getting targeted because of your appearance. Origin: Brett Kavanaugh (SCOTUS) wrote a recent opinion in support of using physical appearance to identify criminals and undocumented people. Example: “Even though he was a U.S. citizen, ICE Kavanaughed him because of his dark skin.”

Favorite metaphor: “He’s the kind of man that destiny had a serious grudge against.”

Digital resources: AI is a curse and a blessing. The creators never tell you what algorithms they use. However, I have found it useful for critiquing pieces I have written. Ask AI, “Critique the following essay.” It will give you several suggestions.

TV series of the month: POLDARK. On Netflix. A British soldier returns to England after the American Revolution and confronts a new life in Cornwall where he runs a copper mine, deals with threats of war with France and negotiates complex relationships with his relatives.

Task for you: If you have something you wish to submit for publication in this WINGSPREAD Zine, send it to me for consideration. (Humor, pithy quotes)

BLESSED UNBELIEVER novel

Sean’s serene childhood turns to tortured adolescence after Reggie steals his girlfriend, Kathleen. He leaves for college, shaken and losing his childhood faith. and finds himself telling people he’s an atheist—.at a Bible Institute! Parts of the novel draw deeply on my own life experiences, but I’m not telling which parts!

Available in paper or Kindle version at Wipf and Stock Publishers, Amazon
(  https://a.co/d/9su5F3o ) or order it wherever good books are sold.
Hashtags:  #blessedunbeliever #christianwriter #babyloss #southerncalifornia #planes #aviation #humanist #pilotlife #religion #travel #aviationgeek #orangecounty #godless #atheism

New story: “Colombia: A Severe Mercy

Except for the burglaries, Land Rover crash, airplane crash, typhoid fever, a murder and getting kicked out of our rental house, bush-flying for MAF in Colombia was great.

Within a few weeks after checkout, I was flying solo into the small bush airstrips located all around Montería. Muleticos had a hill at one end, making it a one-way strip―you could only land to the west and only take off to the east. This day I’d just cleared the boundary fence when two pigs breached the fencing and darted across the runway. Too late to go around. I touched down and stood on the brakes. Bam bam! I tore them both  in two with the left wheel, knocking out the left brake. At that point I could keep the airplane straight or brake to a stop, but I couldn’t do both. The plane swerved violently to the right, took out some fenceposts and came to rest after severing a six-inch tree trunk, throwing the airplane down on its left wing. Thankfully no one was hurt. After we traveled several hours by mule and jeep over dirt roads, I arrived home tired, dirty and discouraged. I collapsed into Barbara’s arms―“I crashed the airplane!” . . .

To read more, click here: https://jimhurd.com/2026/02/11/colombia-a-severe-mercy/

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You can also access my articles on Substack: https://jameshurd.substack.com/publish/post/164503545

This month’s puzzler. thanks to NPR: “No Time”

In qualifying for a Trophy Off Road Race, potential drivers and their teammates were told that they had to traverse a course in as close a time as their partners without the use of time pieces like clocks, watches, or anything like that. 

For example, the first person of the two-person team would drive the course through the woods, over bridges, through streams and then return to the starting point and give his vehicle to his partner, who would then drive the same course and try to finish it as close to the time of his partner. So if the first partner finished in four minutes and 25 seconds, the other guy would try to duplicate that time.

But how could he do that without the use of any kind of clock or timepiece?

How could he possibly finish in the same time? That’s the question. So the guys that won the race figured out a way to finish in the same time.

How did they do it?

Good luck.
 (Answer will appear in next month’s WINGSPREAD newsletter.)

Answer to last month’s puzzler: 

Find the homophones that are opposites in the following sentences:

1. The model wore a timepiece on her ankle. (war/peace)
2. Who will underwrite the cost of the sarong? (right/wrong)
3. This is a rare Bolivian diamond. (live/die)
4. The customer got a souvenir from the pharmacy. (near/far)
5. Let’s celebrate by throwing a party. (sell/buy)
6. The stoker must reignite the furnace daily. (night/day)
7. Can buffalo experience hypertension? (low/high)

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Wisdom

Medieval Liturgy of the Hours

Monastic life followed a disciplined schedule.

  • Matins (during the night, at about 2 a.m.); sometimes called Vigil and composed of two or three nocturns
  • Lauds (at dawn, about 5 a.m., but earlier in summer, later in winter)
  • Prime (first Hour = approximately 6 a.m.)
  • Terce (third Hour = approximately 9 a.m.)
  • Sext (sixth Hour = approximately 12 noon)
  • None (Ninth Hour = approximately 3 p.m.)
  • Vespers (“at the lighting of the lamps”, about 6 p.m.)
  • Compline (before retiring, about 7 p.m.)

Computer error messages as Haiku poetry

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft Error messages with Haiku poetry. Haiku poetry has strict construction rules. Each poem has only three lines, 17 syllables – five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third.

Haikus are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning, and powerful insight through extreme brevity. What better answer for th  impersonal computer? Here are some samples:

The Web site you seek

Cannot be located, but

Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.

Reflect, repent, and reboot.

Order shall return.

Windows NT crashed.

I am the Blue Screen of Death.

No one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.

 Today it is not working.

Windows is like that.

First snow, then silence.

This thousand-dollar screen dies

So beautifully.

Stay the patient course.

Of little worth is your ire.

The network is down.

A crash reduces

Your expensive computer

To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:

Death, taxes and lost data.

Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,

But the water has moved on.

This page is not here.

 Serious error.

All shortcuts have disappeared.

Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

ABORTED effort:

Close all that you have.

You ask far too much.

The Tao that is seen

Is not the true Tao, until

You bring fresh toner.

Out of memory.

We wish to hold the whole sky,

But we never will.

Having been erased,

The document you’re seeking,

Must now be retyped.

Rather than a beep,

Or a rude error message,

These words: “File not found.”

With searching comes loss

and the presence of absence:

“My Novel” not found.

Colombia: A Severe Mercy

Except for the burglaries, Land Rover crash, airplane crash, typhoid fever, a murder and getting kicked out of our rental house, bush-flying for MAF in Colombia was great..

Within a few weeks after checkout, I was flying solo into the small bush airstrips located all around Montería. Muleticos had a hill at one end, making it a one-way strip―you could only land to the west and only take off to the east. This day I’d just cleared the boundary fence when two pigs breached the fencing and darted across the runway. Too late to go around. I touched down and stood on the brakes. Bam bam! I hit both of them with the left wheel, knocking out the left brake. At that point I could keep the airplane straight or brake to a stop, but I couldn’t do both. The plane swerved violently to the right, took out some fenceposts and came to rest after severing a six-inch tree trunk, throwing the airplane down on its left wing. Thankfully no one was hurt. After we traveled several hours by mule and jeep over dirt roads, I arrived home tired, dirty and discouraged. I collapsed into Barbara’s arms―“I crashed the airplane!”

“I’m so thankful no one was hurt!” she said The next day, I and Bill, the other pilot, returned to Muleticos. We spent three nights eating the rural food and drinking the water. Bill used a piece of hardwood to patch the aluminum strut and used bolts to reattach the left landing gear to the plane. The propeller was a full inch out of track but Bill decided to fly it out anyway. I opted to travel home again by mule.

Two days after returning home, I developed a high fever. The fever would rise, then break suddenly leaving me shivering in a cold sweat. After an hour it would start to rise again and the cycle would repeat. Had I picked up something on our overnights in Muleticos? I thought I had malaria but the doctor diagnosed it as typhoid fever. I was in bed for a month.

We lived in a rented house, prepaid for a year. One day two guys with a typewriter sat on our front porch and announced they were going to embargar the house. Turns out the homeowner wasn’t paying his mortgage so the bank was going to repossess the house and kick us out. We lost all our prepaid rent.

Barbara single-handedly found another rental home in a fairly affluent suburb. We moved. Early one morning Kimberly (our three years old who we had adopted in Costa Rica) came into our bedroom trembling, just as Barbara and I were waking up. “Mommy; who cut my screen?” I jumped up and went over to discover the cut screen frame sitting on the bedroom floor. Some of the jalousie windowpanes were removed. There were bars on the window but now two were pried apart. Easy to see that someone had broken in during the night. Timothy was still asleep in the bedroom. Thankfully neither woke up when the intruder was inside the house.

I walked out to the dining room and discovered our tape player was missing. And the typewriter. Someone (had they used a child?) had squeezed between the bars, stolen the stuff and exited through the front door. “Well, there’s two things we won’t have to pack when we travel back to the States,” I told Barbara. We were happy neither child had woken up during the burglary—Jeny, our third child was an infant and was sleeping in her crib in another room. I could see the fear in Barbara’s eyes, fear for herself and for her children’s trauma.  

This wasn’t the only time we were robbed. A few months later we were in Bogotá when a guy ripped my watch off my wrist. I turned to chase him but the knife in his hand made me abandon the chase. Later, at a park, someone else stole money out of Barbara’s purse. Back in Montería, a thief pulled up decorative shrubs in our front lawn and someone else stole a large can of weedkiller out of our Land Rover. We felt vulnerable, even at home.

A few months later, I was flying the mission plane back to Montería when the control tower operator called me―“Capitán, your wife and kids were in a car accident!” I I landed, jumped on the mission motorcycle and raced over to the accident site. A loaded dump truck had lost its brakes and slammed into the left rear side of the Land Rover, narrowly missing a fifty-five-gallon drum of aviation fuel sitting in the rear of the truck. Barbara was in tears, feeling the danger to herself and to the kids. If the truck had hit just a couple of feet to the right, the fuel drum could have exploded and killed them all.

Another night we awoke to the sound of gunshots. They seemed to be coming from the house behind us. A woman screamed, “Jairo; Jairo!” Then more gunshots. Then we heard someone running down a narrow passageway outside our bedroom. They jumped into a car in front of our house and drove away. We later learned that “Jairo” had murdered his wife whom he’d caught with another man.

Was Colombia a terrible mistake? Robberies, airplane accident, car accident, typhoid fever—Colombia seemed to be conspiring against us the whole time we were there. And yet, Colombia gave us two precious adopted infants—Timothy, and later, Jeny. We have much to be grateful for. Who can discern God’s plans for our lives? “We trust in thee whate’er befall . . .”