By Seán C. Malone and John Sweetman The origin of this story was probably about six years ago, when Seán and I were reviving a couple of old Motorola hand-held radios from his firefighting days. “Looks like we need batteries!” And Seán said, “Look in the freezer because I have several boxes of double A’s.”…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman August is the month that time pauses for 10-year-olds. Hitting a fly ball to left field? The ball seems to hang in the air forever, but maybe at 10 years old, we were closer to the ground than we are now. In August, a month with no holidays and nothing…
Seán Malone & John Sweetman Seán and I grew up on different islands, but shared so much of the same experiences. We always knew the “warning signs” of summer, which arrived in July, not June, which was typically a gloomy month. The signs of summer were not merely longer daylight hours, warm days, and the…
By Seán C. Malone and John Sweetman Seán and I have always had dogs of one kind or another in our lives, and we have a lot of “dog” stories to relate. Getting older, it would appear that we have “downsized” a bit, as we now both have members of the Terrier clan. Seán’s little…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman From John: We rarely write about contemporary things, but this story is now old enough to be a least on the edge of vintage recollections. Over 20 years ago, I had helped Seán return to the Island, and he had acquired a great place. An old cabin, situated above a…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman Seán and I have had many adventures on boats over the decades. Some involved fishing and crabbing, but most involved “outboard” motors which were always cranky and infused with “trouble.” Trouble starting, running, and just plain ordinary reluctance to do what they were supposed to do. Seán and I had different…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman Seán has always fed birds, and his deck has been full of them ever since he began to live in the cabin. At first, I noticed at least one crow would be very skeptical if Seán poked his head out the patio door. Seán’s story explains why. We were…
By Seán C. Malone and John Sweetman As very young children, Christmas was always an exciting and wondrous time, but not for the same reasons that adults experienced. We were totally taken in by the family and church gatherings. Religious rituals, stories, and experiences were just taken for granted. We did have the eminently logical…
By Seán C. Malone and John Sweetman “And let’s try a wee dram of Laphroaig,” I said to Seán. A rare bottle of this peaty, rare single-malt came about as the result of a trade between us. The trade details are obscure but somehow involved a battery for his vintage Ford for a bottle of whisky…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman Seán and I had just returned from an extended trip to Hunters in Eastern Washington where his brother Mike has a large ranch that we frequently visited as “unpaid interns” to work in various neat projects, such as restoring old fish runs from Lake Roosevelt. After a long drive,…