General Ray Maxwell Pinnacle. It’s rare, but sometimes reality dwarfs imagination. On the bad side, D-Day was a thousand times worse than Ken ever dreamed while lying on a cot at night in England. On the good side, the night of the Spring Celebratory Ball is better than Ken ever imagined an evening could be: […]
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Chapter 7
Carlo Rocca Nights Out. Continued. It’s time for the Thanksgiving potluck, so the wife and I excuse ourselves, pay our bill at CJs, and then we’re out and walking. My mind is on that idea, “maybe you’re the villain,” and I wonder if Ken Halberson has the self-awareness to consider that sort of thing. We […]
Chapter 6
Verne Powell Nights Out. I’m sitting here writing the Nowhere story in a town that is not my home, in a borrowed apartment surrounded by thousands of pages of Halberson’s notes that he wrote in a rented room, far away from his home, surrounded by the same, exact pages. Both of us are immersed in […]
Chapter 5
Mr. Copeland The Bistro District and Downtown. I pulled under the covered entryway at the Vacation Motor Inn to surprise Leon and Carol and they came running out of the office squealing and applauding like I was a fifteen-year-old who’d just passed his driver’s test. Clapping me on the back, shaking my hand, and saying […]
Chapter 4
Steve Durant The Difficulty of Automobile Travel in 1954, and a New Theory. After almost a week of hanging around at the Vacation Motor Inn, writing and transcribing the extensive notes that became the chapters you have already read, Ken decided that he needed an automobile. He’d spent most of the week in his room […]
Chapter 3
John Lee Danner The Brick House. Later that night I met John Lee Danner and heard the weirdest theory of Nowhere yet. John Lee was a fabulous conversationalist, a bit effeminate, or maybe artsy, casually funny, and possibly insane. Despite the warm day, it was cooler after sunset, and I wore a sport coat and […]
Chapter 2
Leon McClain and Carol Cole A Day Trip. Leon McClain was a pleasant looking fellow in his early forties, solidly built, with hair graying at the temples and a habit of cracking his knuckles now and again when he was trying to emphasize a point. He was the manager of the Vacation Motor Inn. Despite […]
Forgiveness
***I have chosen not to quote a lot of scripture in this article, not because there aren’t a bunch that support exactly what I’m saying here. There are plenty. But Jesus and the Apostles, though they were often quoting directly from scripture, did so merely by saying “you have heard.”*** This is not directed at […]
Chapter 1
Abe Mendoza The Legend of Nowhere. When Ken Halberson arrived in Albuquerque it was just after 5:00 p.m. local time and the weather was cold. An icy wind cut through from the desert valley to the west, swirling against the Sandia mountains up against which the tiny Albuquerque Municipal Airport was built. New Mexico had […]
Introduction
Nowhere, New Mexico A trip to Nowhere. The town of Nowhere popped up out of the high desert in post-war New Mexico and marred the face of imperfection forever. That was it. That was the hook. The line that was supposed to snare you into reading the book. First lines are critical in novel writing, […]
Bunker Logic and Reason Lessons: The FRAMING EFFECT
Today’s Bunker Logic and Reason Lesson is a cognitive bias called the FRAMING EFFECT. The Framing Effect cognitive bias, often combined with others, is one of the primary ways that information is presented to you today. So, let’s get started! The Framing Effect can become complicated, but simply stated it describes a specific bias in […]
Bunker Logic and Reason Lessons: Cognitive Dissonance
Today’s Bunker Logic and Reason Lesson is on a Cognitive Bias you may have heard of or have a loose knowledge of, but which actually affects the way you gather and assimilate information. It is called COGNITIVE DISSONANCE. Some may know of Cognitive Dissonance merely as the way sometimes some new information can throw you […]