November 2021 – Phil Cline

The Alumnus, a Novel by Phil Cline,

November 28, 2021 by philcline in Blog / Literary Writings / Novels

Chapters 44 though 46 Chapter Forty-Four “I think how she treated me was rather shabby.” Wanda glanced at me but returned her eyes to the road and kept driving. I waited for her to say something, either agree or not agree. She didn’t reply. I noticed there was a slow shaking of her head almost imperceptible. “What?” […]

The Alumnus, a Novel by Phil Cline

November 25, 2021 by philcline in Blog / Literary Writings / Novels

Chapters 41 through 43 Chapter Forty-One I was back at the base infirmary. But unlike the first time, I was not the lone patient. The Base commander’s wife was ministering to the wounded. She was extremely busy, and I observed none of her previously demonstrated sadistic tendencies with the sailors and personnel she was tending. There were some […]

The Alumnus, a Novel by Phil Cline

November 22, 2021 by philcline in Blog / Literary Writings / Novels

Chapters 37 through 40 Chapter Thirty-Seven “There is something I don’t understand.” Big Wanda and I were in her brown, unmarked police sedan. She was driving. We were headed back to my condo. “Just one thing?” I didn’t’ reply to that. Evidently that caused her to decide to drop the sarcasm before she got carried away. “Okay, what don’t […]

The Alumnus, a novel by Phil Cline

November 19, 2021 by philcline in Blog / Literary Writings / Novels

Chapters 34 through 36 Chapter Thirty-Four The military could be extremely efficient when they had a plan in place. At least in peacetime. In war, plans seldom lasted past the first infantry engagement, but that never prevented generals and admirals from laying out several elaborate plans while they waited for the first shot to be fired. And in […]

The Alumnus, a novel by Phil Cline

November 17, 2021 by philcline in Blog / Literary Writings / Novels

Chapters 31 through 33 Chapter Thirty-One “When I woke up, I was wearing a mask.” “A mask?” Wanda looked at me impatiently. I resolved to make a better attempt at fulfilling my promise to hold my lawyerly inquiries until the whole story had been told; all the testimony had been taken as it were. For me, a […]

The Alumnus, a novel by Phil Cline,

November 14, 2021 by philcline in Blog / Literary Writings / Novels

Chapters 28 through 30 Chapter Twenty-Eight Ten minutes later we pulled up and stopped in the abandoned parking lot of the high school. We were just outside the administration building. I never liked going back on campus. It was so much smaller, less impressive than when I roamed these halls twenty-five years earlier. Then I had all the delusions […]

The Alumnus, a novel by Phil Cline,

November 12, 2021 by philcline in Blog / Literary Writings / Novels

Chapters 25 through 27 Chapter Twenty-Five Back in my law office, I searched through the pile of messages I had discarded on my desk looking for the one from Wanda. I would try calling the number again on the oft chance she would answer. I listened to the ringing for long minutes before I returned the receiver […]

Cline on the Constitution-Property Rights

November 10, 2021 by philcline in Bill of Rights / Blog / Cline on the Constitution

The power of government at every level is wide, intrusive, and growing. In the last 18 months, cloaked in a doctrine of necessity justified by a pandemic, the expansion of governmental power over our lives has been unprecedented and unchallengeable. Should it be restrained? Can it be? Absent a wholesale turn-around in how government officialdom […]

The Alumnus, a novel by Phil Cline

November 10, 2021 by philcline in Blog / Literary Writings / Novels

Chapters 22 through 24 Chapter Twenty-Two I sat in a quiet office staring at the file folder in the middle of the desk before me. It was thick and looked like it would take a few hours to review. I put off opening it. Procrastination was not unusual for me. Especially when faced with a large unpleasant task. I left […]

The Alumnus

November 9, 2021 by philcline in Blog / Literary Writings / Novels

The Alumnus, Chapters 19-21 Chapter Nineteen Like any good lawyer I checked off in my mind an array of threats I might make. And like any good lawyer I knew that in this, as in most situations, threats of legal action were empty. Logically I next thought of threatening to call the authorities, but my belief in […]

Month: November 2021