Oregon Literary Review

From the current issue. Click link for more.

clipped from www.oregonlitrev.org Andrew Coburn COP TALK Personal Essay Words of wisdom from a Boston police detective some years retired:             “A guy living alone will go to the same place to eat every day just so people there will get to know him.  It’s an identity thing.  Keeps him from being nobody and almost makes him somebody.”             “Most things you do in life don’t count for nothing.  Let’s say you go fishing and catch a really big fish.  What does it mean?  Nothing--unless you’re starving.  The things that do count are in the way you react to people you got some kind of influence over, like your wife and kids.  When the kids are young, practically everything you do with or to them is significant.  You kiss a woman, usually it counts if she thinks anything of you.  But a cruel word--one word, mind you--can cut her to the core.  That’s why I wish I’d been better to my family.  But there are no second chances.  The kids are grown, and the wife’s gone.  God rest her soul.”