You left on the eleventh day, the eleventh month, poppies keeping watch, the rails holding their breath beneath the town. Feisty Belgian lady tempered between two wars, hammered and quenched until steel learned the patience of lace, the small, stubborn stitches along a hem. Family legend says at seven you climbed a step in Dinant, while the sky rained iron and noise, the Meuse slipping past like unspooled ribbon. Doors slammed; couplers caught; the carriage shuddered. You l

My Introduction Into The World of Tom Waits — Mix Tapes, Tim Inwood & STAR Inc. Back in my social work days at STAR Inc. , my colleague Tim Inwood handed me a cassette tape — his own curated mix of Tom Waits favorites. That tape changed everything. I started with Nighthawks at the Diner and the smoky 1970s Waits era: small-café stories, late-night characters, and his uncanny ability to find poetry in cigarette smoke and loneliness. From there, I dove deeper — Heart of Saturd

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