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Essay Archive - Creative: In The Lamp Light
Creative: In The Lamp Light
    After my first evening at Pine Vale, I decided I'd never tell Howard
   I was sitting on a stone bench under the evergreens in the darkening
twilight, inspecting the piece of wood that I'd been carving.  It was going
to be a dog--maybe a German shepherd.  I liked to shape things, not just
whittle.
   I thought about smoking.  Not thinking of actually doing it, mind you,
only remembering.  Over the years, liver spots had replaced the nicotine
stains on my fingers.  I'd begun carving a set of chess pieces to occupy....
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