Addicted to Lists...

Here goes...

My last twenty first lines (sort of)...most recent first (and then it gets messy).

1. The old man shuffled down the cracked and crooked sidewalk, cradling something in a crumpled sack. ("Stash")

2. I’d worked with Helen for a few years before her father died. ("Daddy's Touch")

3. Gabe would start kindergarten soon, so his father, Howard Larson, thought one last trip to McDonalds—the new one south of town with the big tunnel playground—was in order. ("Tunnel Vision")

4. Three pale nurses wheeled Mike Lanley onto the third floor of Bloom Memorial Hospital on a Saturday night, just about half an hour after the police found him sprawled near the ditch about two miles south of town. ("Room 342 has a Long Memory")

5. The search beams crossed in front of the gate when my buddy Dan, broad and strong like a spit of granite, hunched over on all fours and made a little scaffold out of his back for me to climb. ("The Way of Things in Fly-Over Country")

6. The day had not gone as planned, and Allen was happy to just sit under the shelter and guard the goodie bags for his son’s guests. ("Cookies")

7. I’d had my fill of hospitals before Dad collapsed in front of a classroom full of eighth grade history students. ("Bleeding")

8. A letter came in the mail the other day from the class of 1988 reunion committee at Springdale High School. ("Barrel Two")

9. They schemed in Jack’s small two man tent one clear and chilly night in late September. ("Empty")

10. Calvin sat at his computer with his face bent toward the flat screen, watching as an arrangement of glowing dots came together in the image of a young woman. ("Passing Visions")

11. The man who ate eyeballs rattled into Black Mountain, Tennessee on a dusty Tuesday in the summer of 1897. ("Seeing Things")

12. On a soggy afternoon in late July, Ben Mosley lay on his bed and flipped through the pages of Carnage Corps #1 for what felt like the millionth time. ("Admiral Atlantic's Guerilla Marketing")

13. Guiding his mom’s old sedan over the Broughton River Bridge was a simple task, especially for a drunk. ("Reciprocity")

14. Until we were twelve years old, Billy Wilson and I searched for the Ox-Cart Man during our summer vacations in New Hampshire. ("The Ox-Cart Man")

15. Desire to prove our courage drove us to ride our bikes to Potter’s Pond on the morning of October 31st, 1987. ("The Scavengers Lying in Wait")

16. Some places were just born evil, and the Old Flat Mile slid easily into that description. ("Care and Feeding of the Old Flat Mile")

17. Harvey Newsome stumbled, almost tumbling head first onto his porch, because of the first unexpected box. ("Cut and Paste")

18. They came to the field of broken junk as three curious boys in need of something to fill a Saturday afternoon. ("Junk")

19. I looked through the tall plate glass windows as dusk spread a thick blanket over the September sky, thinking about how all the cute girls really went for pirates. ("The Grocery Peril of Bagged Cereal Mascots")

20. Tic Toc started his life as a small pile of discarded cogs, springs, and brass fittings that had bounced around inside a wooden box for weeks. ("The Brass Menagerie")

Thanks to all who have posted lists before...I kind of like this addiction.