A bored boy disappears into the racks of a Main Street institution, where jungle cats, the Wild West, and a chance encounter with a local legend turn an ordinary shopping trip into something worth remembering.
Category Archives: Analog Patience
Friday Night Atari
A Friday night in Syracuse, 1983. Pitfall gives way to Robot Tank, and a ten-year-old boy discovers a new dimension just before his own world is about to change.
The Ghosts of Skaneateles
A few notes from an old AM radio send me backward through three generations and seventy years of family history on the shores of Skaneateles Lake. From a frightened boy on a dock in 1976, to my parents in 1968, to a grandfather I never met in 1956, the ghosts of the lake were there all along.
Starboy
A forbidden basement room. A glowing stereo. An older sister with something to share. One side of 2112 later, music would never sound the same.
The Den
Hidden behind a forgotten hallway lies a perfectly preserved den where the television still glows, the radio still crackles, and the forgotten interstitials of Saturday morning patiently wait to be discovered once again. The Den is an exploration of memory not as an archive, but as a living place where the overlooked moments of childhood quietly shaped who we became.
The Cr’apple
Some lurked in closets. Others scratched at bedroom windows during summer storms, fed by half-heard conversations and imaginations running far ahead of reason. The Cr’apple is the story of one such creature, and the quiet revelation decades later that transformed a family tree into a family legend.
Ghost Runner on Third
There were never quite enough kids to fill every position, so imagination did the rest. Ghost Runner on Third is a tribute to sandlot baseball, unwritten childhood rules, and the quiet code of honor forged on long summer afternoons behind a weathered barn, where friendship always mattered more than keeping score.
Grand Central Station
For decades it was just a phrase.
Then one day, standing in Grand Central Terminal, the connection finally clicked. A meditation on memory, distance, and the lessons that sometimes take a lifetime to arrive.
Potsy Gopher
Potsy Gopher is the story of a childhood imaginary friend who felt every bit as real as the world around him. Born from Saturday morning cartoons, spinning vinyl, shortwave radios, and basement adventures, he became a collaborator in wonder, a defender against shadows, and a companion through the analog landscapes of youth. Though time eventually carried him away, some friendships never truly disappear. They live on in memory, imagination, and the dreams that time cannot betray.
Analog Girl
“Analog Girl” steps outside the childhood lens of Analog Patience and into the present, exploring what it means to navigate a world where everything is instant, connected, and endlessly available. Through her resistance, frustration, and eventual return to something more internal, this piece reflects on the quiet value of imagination in an age that rarely asks us to wait.
Sometimes the most vivid images aren’t on a screen at all.
Mannino Acid 