Stories
I cleared out a box of diaries I kept wayyyyy back to June of 1982. nine-year-old Luke wrote some interesting stories, and i decided to draw characters for each one.
Read what you wrote as a kid. That is all you need to be. Before you were hurt, before you shut down the artist in yourself.
moose & moose
This is a story about Moose the Cat, whose joy in life was to kill and eat birds. One day Moose spotted a tasty looking bird, but he realized he couldn’t kill the bird when he heard his name was Moose. Same as his.
otis and his Lotus
I learned about a bird named Otis
Crying in a lush lagoon
Underneath a glowing moon
Grieving on a midnight hour,
He had lost a special flower
Loss was when he stopped to notice
How he loved this precious lotus
Gail and the Zombie
A friend called the other night and asked me to tell her daughter one of my silly stories so that she would go to sleep. The daughter didn’t like the story I started to tell, and told me she wanted the story to be more like my other stupid stories. This is the story that resulted: One day after dinner, a kitty named Gail made friends with a zombie the size of her tail. Zombies are normally too big for cats, but cats can measure things with their tail. So Gail found a zombie friend by finding one that was the size of her tail.
carl & franklin
Carl decided it was time
Chose a tree he sought to climb
The one he couldn’t see above
And where he chose to give up love
Toss his heart and rearrange
But....
All of that would quickly change
Just when Carl turned up a frown,
Carl met Franklin upside down….
Grow My Heart
I should tell the stories behind some of these pictures, no matter how embarrassing they may be. This is another story that I zoomed to a six year old to help her go to sleep.
Once upon a time, Uncle Luke went to sleep after a long day, and the sleep was so deep, he got caught up in a dream. And while he was dreaming, his heart jumped out of his chest and turned into a chipmunk. And, like a chipmunk does, he bounced and jumped and ran about with the cats and escaped to the woods, hoping to meet his true love and give him a kiss! (Kids laugh at that line, especially if they think a kiss is icky and you say the line with the right vocal inflections.) And sure enough, he spots his true love, a bird with beautiful black feathers. They gave away some smooches, and the chipmunk asked the bird “is the heart you are broken?” And the bird says “isn’t the heart you are broken too?!” “What should we do?” asks the chipmunk. “We just have to go out in these woods and find forgiveness. It will help untie us from the things that hurt us.” And off they went into the woods, smooching the night away.’
Six-year-old rolls her eyes, but giggles (thankfully!). Meanwhile, her mom gets on the zoom with me in tears. “Okay, Luke. Open up and talk to me.”