Five Minutes explores five minutes of a life in one hundred words. Five minutes is edited by Susanna Baird, with editorial support from managing editor Maria s. picone, newsletter editor kate meen, and founding reader bobbi lerman, plus our rotating team of guest readers, who you can meet in the latest newsletteR. Five Minutes was founded in October 2020, with the Salem (Mass.)-based writing group Carrot Cake Writers supplying the journal’s first pieces. We’d love to read your five. Submit here

Coyote

A few years ago, I was volunteering removing ivy from an area around the tool yard of Tryon State Park south of Portland, Oregon. Two police cars showed up and informed me that they had a coyote with a broken back that had to be killed because the injury was fatal. It had been hit by a car about a mile away on Terwilliger Boulevard which borders the park. I heard more than one shot during the execution. Bad marksmanship? The police explained beforehand that there was no better place in the residential neighborhood for the killing than the park. 

Doug Hawley is a little old man who lives in Portland, Oregon, with editor Sharon and cat Kitzhaber. After early retirement from actuarial work, he volunteers, writes, and hikes. Find Doug online at sites.google.com/site/aberrantword/ and doug.car.blog.

Good Morning

Riverside Heights