Gerald Thurmond

"Eating Buzzards"

Gerald Thurmond teaches English at Westbury High School in Houston, Texas and instructs teachers for the Rice University School Writing Project. He publishes SLUMMIT, a quarterly literary magazine for student and teacher writing, and edits SWIPE, the Rice University anthology of teacher writing. When not in the classroom, Gerald leads a high adventure Explorer Post for urban students and plays guitar with tolerant, tone-deaf friends. He is hoping that life will only improve with his June marriage to Shannon Butler, a social worker and fellow dog lover. His dog Blue loves to go camping and catch frisbees.

"My grandfather's stroke loosened his imagination and memory. We would sit in the basement of his Atlanta ranch house and watch Braves games while he chewed tobacco and exercised his paralized arm. The arm was nerve-dead, but he kept working it with a homemade rope and pully system we had bolted to the ceiling. With Red Man juice jetting from his lips he would tell stories of his fictional heroism in World War II. I was about 15 before recognizing his stories as the TBS war movie of the week. One story that was true was of his drunken, railroad engineer father calling in sick the day his train wrecked in Signal Mountain. Before learning that his Dad was "laying out" in a bar, my grandfather -- then 15 -- had walked the railroad pass looking for the dead body. At the wreck scene he was told the 'good' news. "'Eating Buzzards' explores what my grandfather could have been thinking about as he walked the tracks. The only truth is of his searching for a dad who had never left Atlanta. What went through his head I can only imagine."

"Eating Buzzards" | eSCENE 1996
cappuccino contents | espresso version | decaf version