By: Don Tassone

     Bone-tired and drenched in sweat, the old man sat down on a landscape boulder under the cool shade of an oak tree in his backyard.

     Catching his breath, he looked down at his dirty hands and the tiny grass clippings plastered on his arms and legs.  He thought back to all the yard work he’d done as a boy, long before he’d become a man of the world, and how that hard work had formed him.

     He felt grateful for his expansive life.  But he was also grateful, after so many years, to still feel the rough stone beneath him.

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Don Tassone is the author of two novels, one novella, 11 short story collections and one children’s book.  He lives in Loveland, Ohio.