Good Luck, Bad Luck, Dumb Luck by Ricki T Thures

 Good Luck, Bad Luck, Dumb Luck

by Ricki T Thues

 

I bumped into George at the University of Notre Dame. We were moving into Grace Hall residence dorm. George needed a hand moving his gear up to his room, which was down the hall from mine.

 

“Need some help?” I asked.

“Great. I’ve got some heavy duffels down in the car,” said George.

 

Down at the car were four military duffel bags.

“What are these?”

“I’m ROTC Army. This is my military gear.”

 

Back at George’s room I wondered aloud, “Have you been ROTC long?”

“This is my fourth year. I came to ND from So Cal and enrolled right away.”

“You look so familiar. Did you go to Servite High School?”

“Yes. Class of ’68. Are you Ricki?”

“Yes I am. George? George Gotsman! How the hell are you?”

“Great. We ran track together. I remember your hurdling style.”

“Yea. I was so short that I had to alternate lead legs in the high hurdles and when I grew taller I launched left footed because you taught me how to hurdle, you lefty.”

“What good luck to meet up with you again Ricki.”

 

We quickly renewed our friendship. George and I played cards in the evening. It was a great way to catch up.

 

“What made you join ROTC?” I asked during one card game.

“The Army pays for my education and all I have to do is some training and run some occasional drills.”

“What is your service obligation?”

“Eight years, but I start as a Second Lieutenant.”

“What about Vietnam?”

“I might have to go. It is my duty. Meanwhile, I’m getting a free ride at ND. Also, I won’t be subject to the draft.”

 

“I won’t have that kind of luck. I just heard that the college exception to the draft has been revoked. If my number is low enough they will pull me out of Notre Dame and send me to Vietnam.”

“That’s some bad luck, Ricki.”

 

The day of the lottery I got good and drunk on Harvey Wallbangers. As the evening wore on I felt better and better about the lottery. My number was 207. Only the first 100 would be subject to draft. Dumb luck served me once again. It seems like dead reckoning and dumb luck have always been at my side.

 

A pounding headache in the morning was a great trade off for service in Viet Nam. Unfortunately, or maybe luckily, I never drank vodka again.

 

We would make light of George’s ROTC life. We just did not grasp the importance of his training.

 

One night over cards George told me there would be maneuvers the next day in the north campus forest. George was going to lead a platoon of 16 infantry. It would be an intelligence gathering mission to survey and map the forest and fields north of the main Notre Dame campus.

 

Later that night I told my roommate about George’s mission.

“Let’s stage an ambush,” said Dylan.

“What?”

“Let’s sneak up on his encampment. Maybe we’ll throw some rocks to shake them up.”

“That sounds risky. They are well trained.”

Dylan gave me a sideways smile. “They don’t have live ammunition. Worse case, we get captured. It isn’t against the rules to be in the north 40. Besides, we will have the element of surprise.”

 

I reluctantly agreed.

The next morning we put on jeans, hiking boots, dark jackets and stocking caps. We made our way to the field adjacent the forest.

 

From a vantage point behind a large clump of brush we could hear George’s men going about morning breakfast preparations. There was the occasional sighting of a scout paroling the perimeter of the forest.

 

Dylan motioned to me, pointing at a closer stand of brush.

Luck was with us, we approached unnoticed. We were midfield when Dylan surprised me by pulling a M-80 out of his pocket and lighting the fuse. He threw the small bomb toward the forest. It landed in some dry brush and exploded.

 

The next few minutes changed our good luck to bad. What transpired was the consequences of bad planning and a flawed idea.

 

The platoon came alive with shouted curses. Someone, probably George, was belting orders. The bush caught on fire.

“FIRE! FIRE!”

 

Dylan turned and ran with me close on his heals.

“INTRUDER. ATTACKER. COMBATANT,” we heard from the forest.

We kept running.

Only dumb luck allowed us to escape.

The ROTC squad prioritized putting out the fire and did not pursue us.

We did not stop running until we were back in Grace Hall.

I did not reveal our stunt to my friend George.

 

The next year, George went to Vietnam.

He was put in charge of a large infantry platoon.

Luckily he saw little action as the war was winding down.

 

Another bit of good luck was his platoon received their orders to withdraw.

 

The bad luck was that George and his men were ambushed as they walked back to Saigon. Everyone in the platoon was killed except for George and one of his men. George threw his body over his comrade and played dead. In the fortune of dumb luck the enemy passed them over as they assessed the battlefield. George was hit with some shrapnel but was able to stand when the coast was clear. His compatriot was uninjured.

 

The two of them struggled back to Saigon where they were evacuated back to the US. George received a purple heart and served out the remainder of his eight year commitment as a Desk Lieutenant.

 

George and I have visited each other many times and have remained good friends. I have never brought up the M-80 ambush. George never speaks about Vietnam. 

We do not tempt fate with talk of luck.

Against Any Odds Don Taco

 Against Any Odds

Don Taco

 I played a game of Scrabble the other day.

 Now, I'm good with words. I'm good with games. I'm good with puzzles.

 What I'm not good with is luck.

 I began the game with seven consonants. My only possible move was to trade some of them in, and go second. That didn't improve things much.

 Three turns later, I had seven vowels. Five of them were Os. 

 I did try to play on an open R, and spell AROOOOO! (Werewolves of London.) But it's not in the official Scrabble dictionary. I'm going to complain to them. Many many much stooooopider words are in there. Fake words, that never appeared in a popular song. Or a real dictionary. Some of my friends say it's because it's spelled AWOOOOO! One of them claimed it's spelled AHOOOOO!  Gesundheit!

 I did play one sixty-five point word, which was about a third of my score.

 But I got my ass whupped by over a hundred points. Because it's all about luck.

 I'm going to re-design the entire game so it isn't about luck. 

 Look for it soon in a store near you.

 Allow me to demonstrate another example of my luck. My ex-wife had found the magnetic mini travel games that we took on the airline rides to Samoa. The long leg was seventeen hours, and the movies sucked. She had me over recently and got out the Monopoly game. Much nostalgia. So, there we are, playing Monopoly on a board the size of a postcard. On the first trip around, she lands on the most expensive spot, and buys it. I land on it and pay the six or eight dollars. Pass Go. Collect $200. Next trip around, she lands on its mate, and has the whole set. And I land on that first one again. Rent has doubled. Now, at this point, the only other thing we've done is to begin to collect a few properties, hoping for sets. Pass Go. She builds two houses, running her cash very low. I land on that same square again. Rent has risen. Pass Go. More houses. I land there again. I'm strapped for cash. Pass Go. Four houses on the mate, and a hotel on the one I seem to adore, and, honest to God, I land on it for the fifth time out of five chances. Mortgage everything, and lose the game. Worst game ever.

 My youngest brother decided to get married in Las Vegas, so of course all the family was there. This was during my time as a graduate student, so I didn't have money to fritter away, and I had assignments coming due. I was trying to study. I'd go outside and lean against the building on the sidewalk in the shade somewhere, and try to read, until I couldn't take the heat. Then I'd go inside and find a quiet corner with a chair and try to read, until I couldn't take the cold. Las Vegas is air-conditioned to near-Arctic temperatures. By my standards, anyway. They want you acclimated to the casino environment, so that if you go outside, you won't wander around and gawk at the beauty of the open sky, or the distant mountains, or even at the gaudiness of the Strip itself. They want you uncomfortable, so you'll rush right back into their establishments, where the lure of the gambling will soon set you back on the path of lining their pockets with your dough. Which is why you're there. 

 That isn't why I was there. I was just there for the wedding.

 The older of my sisters noticed that I wasn't at the tables and machines with everyone else, collared me, and sat me down with a twenty, next to her at a two dollar blackjack table. Ten hands later, that money was gone. She said, "I can't believe you lost that money that fast! You played every hand perfectly!" 

 So much for my luck.

 I learned my lesson at an early age, my second year of college. We had a weekly poker game going. No big stakes, but you could win, or lose, a month's rent on a bad night. The game at that moment was some proressive horror, barely worthy of the name of poker, where you turned up two cards, and bet against the pot whether the next card would fall in between them. If an ace came up first, you had to declare it high or low, taking your chances against the range between it and the next card. But if a second ace came up, that's two in a row in the shuffle, the odds are quite high against it, the second ace was automatically declared low. So it was generally best to call an ace high. I had done that. The second card was an ace. There are only two more aces in the deck, and about half the deck has been played already. The odds are spectacularly good. Any card in the deck should fall between the aces. So you bet the pot, win it, and that stops the game, you have a pocketful of money, and the next dealer can go back to civilized poker. I bet the pot. The third ace came up. Against all odds. I'm out a lot of money, mostly as an IOU, so I don't have the cash to play any more.

 And I took that as a sign, and I didn't play any more. I enjoy a good poker game as much as anyone, seeing the fall of the cards, and the luck randomly swirling around, but I approach the game as an opportunity to give money away, no matter how well you play, and only bet as much as I can afford to lose.

 Becasue I do.

 And I'm resigned to it.

 I'm actually quite popular at poker games.

Against All Odds Don Taco

 Against All Odds

Don Taco

  As far as I can tell, my thought processes don't tend to run down the same channels that average people use. If a sign can be interpreted more than one way, I'll see the wrong one first, and then have to say to myself, "Oh, that must not mean that, it must mean this other." Since I was always like that, it has become a habit. This isn't a flaw or a problem, just my norm, and it makes me an excellent proofreader, because a writer's goal should be clear and unambiguous communication, and ambiguity jumps off the page and slaps me in the face.  For example, if a sign says "Door is Alarmed," I immediately want to know what startled it. And those signs they paint on the street near schools that say "Slow Children" have always seemed condescending and rude.

  And so, when I see the writing prompt, "Against All Odds," my first thought isn't about statistics. My first thought is, "against all evens." Odds versus Evens. Who would win? No even number can ever be a prime number, so I'm guessing that the odds are stacked in favor of the Odds. But the Evens line up evenly in pairs, and have a regularity that should be a strength. On the other hand, they can always be divided. Is this battle a subset of Chaos versus Order? Energy versus Entropy? Can either side win  if both sides have an infinite supply of participants?

  These thoughts keep me occupied. That's why I never get any writing done.

"Oh My God!" By Don Taco

"Oh My God!"

By Don Taco

  Something brushed his foot. That's how it all started. That's what got his attention. It turned out to be a centipede. He spotted what he presumed was the tail end emerging from the lawn, and realized that it had crawled onto his foot, clad only in flimsy sandals. As that nether end appeared out of the carpet of grass, its business end encountered his pants cuff, and, in the manner of small mindless creatures, it chose a direction at random. 

  Recognition of the danger triggered his reflexes just as the tail followed the head under the cloth of his trousers and up the inside of his leg. At a surprising speed. Its movement reminded him of nothing so much as the awkward hurried progress of the rusty but functional electric toy train set that his father had set up for him in the garage every Christmas, the flimsy boxcars and caboose obediently attempting to trace the path of the overworked engine. He wonderd if his father hadn't actually set up the trains every year for himself, filling some childhood need that marriage and a career had never addressed. 

  A violent and almost involuntary shake of his leg failed to dislodge the poisonous insect. The same motion, and its lack of a satisfactory result, also brought forcefully to his mind other possible consequences of annoying the bug. He started anticipating the bite. Or sting. Did centipedes bite or sting? Did it matter? He didn't know either answer, although he rapidly began to worry that he would soon find out.

  His mind and body began to cooperate in the release of chemicals that would create a full state of panic, the better to fully appreciate and enjoy his experience. Time began to slow down. A prickly flush ran out to his nerve ends. His skin overheated. His gonads performed a distressing and uncomfortable animal dance, trying to crawl hurriedly back into the warm safety of his inner body.

  Another spasm shook him as he again attempted to throw the creature back to the earth it sprang from, or at least dissuade it from its present path. With his heightened frightened senses, he could now tell exactly where the centipede was, as the tiny pincers on its multitude of feet gripped, now here, now there, on their trip across his overexcited nerve ends. It had reached the inside of his knee, and exhibited no signs of changing course or of slowing down, although it did seem slightly hampered by the restrictions of his clothing, and was traveling nowhere near as quickly as it had across the open plains of his foot.

  A rapid involuntary extrapolation of its current speed and direction, and what lay there before it as a target destination, keyed his panic level a few more notches up the scale.

  He yelled forcefully towards the house for help, as he stamped his foot again, and and set his brain afire in a desperate search for some option to consider, some decision to make, some action to perform. A breathy adolescent squeak emerged from his throat instead of the enraged masculine roar he had commanded his body to produce.

  It was probably just as well, at that, since something about the unnatural tone and timbre engaged panic centers in his wife's brain, and elicited an automatic response that no amount of ordinary cursing or shouting could have drawn forth. There is still something of the wild animal deep within us that knows when another is hurt.

  As one part of his brain balked at admitting to himself that the awful squawk had really been him, his hands moved, as if by themselves, and grabbed for the cloth of his pants to halt the centipede's progress, at whatever cost. It had reached the folds of his pocket, and its direct movement was just beginning to be hampered, forcing it to take some other action than its straight line travel. He grabbed, and crushed, and pinched, and pressed, desperate to avoid an encounter between the creature and some precious nearby obstacles it seemed about to reach. All vanity fled. He howled wordlessly for help.

  The biting started. Frustrated in its forward momentum, and then rudely assaulted, the centipede retaliated in the manner of its kind, thrashing about for freedom, and biting again and again as the frenzy of its own brand of panic took over its actions. It was like dropping a burning match onto bare skin when the first bite came, but his handhold on the beast was so clumsy and tenuous, and the consequences of letting go so potentially damaging, that he could do nothing but cry out. 

  As the anger of the first bite increased, the next several bites added their own mindless agony. For a brief moment, he considered releasing his hold, to tear at his belt and remove his pants, but before responding to the rash impulse, he saw that his wife had arrived. 

  "Centipede!"

  "Oh my God!"

  She clawed at the hook of his belt. 

  He remembered a story one of his drinking buddies sometimes told, about the spring day that Uncle Henry decided it had thawed enough to begin to clean out the shed. Half of Henry's family was aimlessly watching through the kitchen window, dawdling over breakfast, as he came out of the barn, tugging his floppy old felt hat into place atop his exceedingly bald head. Henry took eight steps across the yard, and fell over dead. They found six black widow spiders in the hat, none of them large. Henry had been careless and hadn't checked.

  How poisonous is a centipede? He didn't know. It wasn't the largest he had seen, but it could not have been less that eight inches long, and by now it had bitten him at least five times.

  The belt came loose and the zipper tore as they frantically pulled the pants away and down. He danced away madly, searching himself to make sure it wasn't still attached, tears interfering with his sight, limping as the already puckering skin pulled tight against the still burning wounds. 

  The inside of his thigh swelled to the size of his fist before they reached the car. His wife drove. The thigh area  was larger than a pineapple before they arrived at the hospital, and lines of a fiery red and a vicious blue-purple were radiating from it as his body's mechanisms dissolved trying to carry away the poison. But by then, he was deep enough in shock to remain amost unaware of how much he hurt.

  How poisonous is a centipede?

  "Oh my God!"

  

  The doctor said there were a total of eight bites. He was sure there were closer to two hundred. He was home from the hospital three weeks later. None of his functions were impaired. He refuses to speak to anyone about the experience.

  

Against All Odds: Call *347 by Mark Farenbaugh

 

Against All Odds

Call *347

I was southbound on Florida’s Interstate 95, approaching downtown Miami. The highway

curves its way through the city, and once past it, ends at the coastal highway #1.

As I am nearing the city by 25 miles, I see a repeat of the very useful alert signs showing a Silver

Alert – missing old guy.

After about the third one, I wonder how I would respond: bla, bla, bla….tell someone about the

alert. Should be easy. I start memorizing the alert – Silver alert, Toyota Corolla, White, 2006,

license plate CFZ 152. Call -- *347.

The defect the system has is that it shows two pieces of information, and by the time you get

close enough to read the first one, you pass it. Overcome by car velocity. No idea what the

second part says. I start criticizing the system. Why don’t they just quickly show that there is

an alert, one second, then dwell longer on the pertinent information of the car? Geez.

“Okay, get over it and start practicing.” I say to myself. Someday you just might see something.

Be ready!…. first, where am I? No idea except that I can see the Miami buildings getting closer.

Useless.

“I expect better,” I mutter to myself. “This isn’t your first rodeo with operations,” I think.

I see a mile marker and start talking, “This is Mark. How are you?” What?! They don’t care!

Try again. “Hello, this is Mark. I am southbound on 95. I mean Interstate 95. Marker 15. I

mean mile marker 15. I see your car. I mean, your car on the alert system….” I stop talking.

I try again. Better.

And again. Better.

And again. Better.

Then, I see a bevy of motorcycles approaching in the rearview mirror. Lots of them. They are

closing fast. Shit, I better get over to the right. The slow lane is safer.

I make it safely to the right lane. I see a mile marker go by and start my verbal practice again.

Then, I stop. Another car has overtaken me and moved into the slow lane. Right in front of me.

It’s a white Toyota Corolla. License plate CFZ 152.

No way. What are the odds that I would see a Silver Alert car? Why was I preparing at this

moment in time?

I dial: *347.

Canva WAnon Book Covers by David Molina

Canva WAnon Book Covers

 

Against Any Odds by Don Taco

 

Against Any Odds

I played a game of Scrabble the other day.

Now, I'm good with words. I'm good with games. I'm good with puzzles.

What I'm not good with is luck.

I began the game with seven consonants. My only possible move was to trade some of them in,

and go second. That didn't improve things much.

Three turns later, I had seven vowels. Five of them were Os.

I did try to play on an open R, and spell AROOOOO! (Werewolves of London.) But it's not in the

official Scrabble dictionary. I'm going to complain to them. Many many much stooooopider words

are in there. Fake words, that never appeared in a popular song. Or a real dictionary. Some of

my friends say it's because it's spelled AWOOOOO! One of them claimed it's spelled

AHOOOOO! Gesundheit!

I did play one sixty-five point word, which was about a third of my score.

But I got my ass whupped by over a hundred points. Because it's all about luck.

I'm going to re-design the entire game so it isn't about luck.

Look for it soon in a store near you.

Allow me to demonstrate another example of my luck. My ex-wife had found the magnetic mini

travel games that we took on the airline rides to Samoa. The long leg was seventeen hours, and

the movies sucked. She had me over recently and got out the Monopoly game. Much nostalgia.

So, there we are, playing Monopoly on a board the size of a postcard. On the first trip around,

she lands on the most expensive spot, and buys it. I land on it and pay the six or eight dollars.

Pass Go. Collect $200. Next trip around, she lands on its mate, and has the whole set. And I

land on that first one again. Rent has doubled. Now, at this point, the only other thing we've

done is to begin to collect a few properties, hoping for sets. Pass Go. She builds two houses,

running her cash very low. I land on that same square again. Rent has risen. Pass Go. More

houses. I land there again. I'm strapped for cash. Pass Go. Four houses on the mate, and a

hotel on the one I seem to adore, and, honest to God, I land on it for the fifth time out of five

chances. Mortgage everything, and lose the game. Worst game ever.

My youngest brother decided to get married in Las Vegas, so of course all the family was there.

This was during my time as a graduate student, so I didn't have money to fritter away, and I had

assignments coming due. I was trying to study. I'd go outside and lean against the building on

the sidewalk in the shade somewhere, and try to read, until I couldn't take the heat. Then I'd go

inside and find a quiet corner with a chair and try to read, until I couldn't take the cold. Las

Vegas is air-conditioned to near-Arctic temperatures. By my standards, anyway. They want you

acclimated to the casino environment, so that if you go outside, you won't wander around and

gawk at the beauty of the open sky, or the distant mountains, or even at the gaudiness of the

Strip itself. They want you uncomfortable, so you'll rush right back into their establishments,

where the lure of the gambling will soon set you back on the path of lining their pockets with

your dough. Which is why you're there.

That isn't why I was there. I was just there for the wedding.

The older of my sisters noticed that I wasn't at the tables and machines with everyone else,

collared me, and sat me down with a twenty, next to her at a two dollar blackjack table. Ten

hands later, that money was gone. She said, "I can't believe you lost that money that fast! You

played every hand perfectly!"

So much for my luck.

I learned my lesson at an early age, my second year of college. We had a weekly poker game

going. No big stakes, but you could win, or lose, a month's rent on a bad night. The game at that

moment was some proressive horror, barely worthy of the name of poker, where you turned up

two cards, and bet against the pot whether the next card would fall in between them. If an ace

came up first, you had to declare it high or low, taking your chances against the range between

it and the next card. But if a second ace came up, that's two in a row in the shuffle, the odds are

quite high against it, the second ace was automatically declared low. So it was generally best to

call an ace high. I had done that. The second card was an ace. There are only two more aces in

the deck, and about half the deck has been played already. The odds are spectacularly good.

Any card in the deck should fall between the aces. So you bet the pot, win it, and that stops the

game, you have a pocketful of money, and the next dealer can go back to civilized poker. I bet

the pot. The third ace came up. Against all odds. I'm out a lot of money, mostly as an IOU, so I

don't have the cash to play any more.

And I took that as a sign, and I didn't play any more. I enjoy a good poker game as much as

anyone, seeing the fall of the cards, and the luck randomly swirling around, but I approach the

game as an opportunity to give money away, no matter how well you play, and only bet as much

as I can afford to lose.

Becasue I do.

And I'm resigned to it.

I'm actually quite popular at poker games.

Against All Odds by Ricki T Thues

 

Against All Odds

When my parachute opened on my last skydive everything worked as planned. I piloted the canopy safely to the ground and tip toe landed in the grass landing field at Skydive Perris, California.

I gathered up the parachute. 

As I collected the suspension lines into my hand the slider slipped from the steering toggles to the parachute.  I flung the parachute over my shoulder. Walking across the runway to the packing area I looked up and down the asphalt and into the sky at both ends. No aircraft was approaching.

In the packing area I dropped the parachute onto the packing mat and stretched out the suspension lines. Unlatching the chest strap and leg strap buckles of my harness I stepped out of the rig and placed it carefully on the ground.

For comfort and dexterity I removed my helmet, goggles, earplugs and gloves. I knelt over the rig. Pulling up the two steering lines I set the brakes and stowed them in their keepers. Setting the brakes slows the initial opened parachute speed by half. This reduces the tendency of the parachute to surge forward.

With a little grunt, because I am 69, I stood and picked up the suspension line risers, placed fingers in between the lines and walked my hands up to the parachute. The lines were straight and parallel. As I lifted slightly, the parachute swung around to its correct, forward facing orientation and I shook it side to side freeing the fabric from binding folds. 

This parachute is equipped with a retractable pilot chute. It will collapse in flight to reduce drag. The pilot chute MUST be cocked or it will likely malfunction. I cocked the pilot chute.

Packing the parachute was accomplished with the following steps:

Flake the fabric pleats.

Make the slider symmetrical.

Count out the air intake cells on both sides of center, stacking them in order.

Wrap the tail around the body of the canopy.

Stretch out the parachute on the ground.

Squeeze the air out of the parachute.

“S” fold the fabric so it will fit into the deployment bag.

Push and shove the folded parachute into the bag.

Stow the lines with rubber bands onto the bag, securing the parachute inside.

Place the bag in the rig.

Route the parachute risers and steering toggles over the shoulder straps of the rig and close the protective flaps over them.

Criss cross the container flaps over the bag with a pull-up cord and closing loop.

Secure the pilot chute bridle pin into the closing loop.

Route the pilot chute bridle under the flaps.

Fold the excess bridle into the pilot chute.

Insert the pilot chute into the BOC (Bottom Of Container) pocket assuring that the deployment handle is visible and accessible.

All these packing steps are critical and take about 15 minutes.

They must be done in the exact opposite order of the parachute opening sequence. 

The failure of any step could result in a total malfunction.

I am on my next skydive. 

Before boarding I checked pins, buckles, routing and accessories. 

We just completed a fun 16 person freefall. 

At break off my audio altimeter sounds. 

I am tracking away from everyone, flying my body at 120 miles per hour.

I stop my track at 3500 feet above the ground.

I wave my hands over my head in a warning signal, then reach back to the BOC.

I grasp the pilot chute handle, pull it out of its pocket and throw it into the wind.

In the next 3 seconds the following happens:

The pilot chute catches air, snaps open, yanks out the closing pin and snatches the deployment bag out of rig container.

The pilot chute holds as my body continues at 120 miles per hour. 

Suspension lines pop loose from the rubber band stows.

Lines stretch taunt, fully extracting the parachute and collapsing the pilot chute.

Air rushes into the nose of the parachute inflating its rectangular shape.

As lines separate, the slider rushes down the lines slowing the parachute opening.

With a “POP,” the parachute is fully open, on heading with no twists in the lines.

I reach up, unstow my brakes and steer the parachute to the ground.

A soft tip toe landing occurs against all odds.

Front Covers That Didn't Make the Cut by David Molina

The process of choosing a book cover for Matters of Life and Death was not at all a straight line - but rather iteration and reiteration. Here were some of the covers that didn't cross the finish line.

All these were created on Canva, a free app which is very user friendly, and surprisingly nimble. After a short learning curve, one can very quickly upload photos, change background colors, and titling. Once you get going, you can create a great cover in less than fifteen minutes. Then you can easily switch out color combinations.