Five Pieces You Will Love on this Miraculous Autumn Monday (Nov. 13)

Veterans' Rights, Bad Dates, Disappearing English Pubs, Horror Films, and Generations Walking Under Mother Pines.

Friends, please enjoy these great pieces to start the week.

— Ben

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Will Selber

penned the best and most moving piece I have read in a very long time on Substack or otherwise. Others here agree. His What Our Veterans Need and Deserve covers myriad topics:  

Patriotism. Service. Violence. Betrayal. Rage. Camaraderie. Healing.

It’s all here. 

Will, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, opens our eyes at

The Bulwark

.  

Don’t miss this must-read.

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Rosana’s Substack

takes us On a bad date. The sort of really bad, (un)memorable date through which we’ve all suffered.

Poor Rosana, stuck on a first date with, well, . . . a tool.

I could not stop laughing. I could not stop reading. I emphathized. I wanted to go back in time to those moments with my own small notebook, like Rosana, but without the pain and suffering. 

Then I laughed more.

This is a riot.

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Fear not death announced prematurely. Following the closure of his local pub,

Harry Watson

takes us on a noble adventure to find a new one in the town of Winlaton (UK), which dates back to the early Anglo-Saxons. Yet Harry is no easy mark.

He writes in The Death of The English Pub:

It was Falstaff, known to like an ale or two, who offered in Shakespeare's Henry IV that "The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life." [Harry], therefore, decided on discretion. . . . 

Harry’s trials elicit various “what are you doing in our pub?” receptions that reminded me of renowned veterinarian and author James Herriott, who encountered similarly rough customers in All Creatures Great And Small as he began his practice in the Yorkshire Dales (UK) from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Does Harry succeed? As he learns, his quest is no easy feat.  

I highly recommend this thoroughly enjoyable adventure.

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John Hawkins

presents his 40 Best Horror Films of the Last 20 Years. A great collection.

I missed this at Halloween, but fright is fright, so choose your night.

I’m keeping this list in a lock box in Malaysia.

Many thanks to John for the obvious effort it took to put this list together.

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Natalie Ward

brings us a beautiful piece about the serenity of generations of her family – “Caretakers” –  having walked under the same pine trees where she now takes her son and dogs. On the things we leave behind is charming and tender. I really enjoyed this great short read. 

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PHOTO OF THE DAY

My dog Bodhi dreams. Weekends can really catch up to you by Sunday afternoon.

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