*Artwork by me. I don’t have any photos with Stan Lee. I was never lucky enough to meet the man in real life – So, on top of that, I also don’t have any touching anecdotes about how I met him in an elevator once, or how I sat down next to him at a convention, or anything else I’ve been grateful to read about him on the day of his death. Stan Lee never encountered me once during the 95 years he roamed our Earth – he didn’t know I even existed. And yet the mark he left on me was indelible, and though he didn’t know I existed – he knew lots of people LIKE me. I was an archetype in…

Categories: Away With Words, Creative Non-Fiction, Opinion

Tagged: Anecdote, Art, Artwork, Author, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Books, Cameo, Captain America, Childhood, Childhood Story, Comic Books, Comics, Comics Industry, Death, Drawing, Entertainment, Excelsior, Faith, Family, Geek, Heroes, History, Hulk, Humanity, Ideas, Inspiration, Internet, Joseph Carro, Legacy, Life, Lifestyle, Loss, Maine, Marvel, Marvel Comics, Marvel Heroes, Marvel Superheroes, Marvel Universe, MCU, ME, Media, Mourn, Movies, New England, New England Writer, New England Writers, News, Opinion, Peter Parker, Portland, Rant, Rest In Peace, RIP, Spider-Man, Stan Lee, Stan the Man, Story, superheroes, Traditional Art, Tribute, True Believers, Wordpress, Work, Write, Write Life, Writer, Writers, Writing, Writing Life

Ludo

joecarro

Posted on November 3, 2018

I’ve always had a soft spot for cats, dogs, and other household pets. When I was just a boy, we had a black cat we’d named Blackie (I know that sounds racist, but he was named actually after a local Frenchman who ran a convenience store right next door to us – the store was named “Blackie’s”). Blackie was my first ever pet, and as such – he earned a particularly love-filled spot in my heart that never completely healed when we were forced to get rid of him. I was only four or five years old when we did. Fast forward to me now in my thirties, and I have yet to have a pet to call my absolute own, though I now…

Categories: Creative Non-Fiction

Tagged: Away With Words, Black Cat, Blackie, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Cats, Commitment, Cry, Cute, David Bowie, Death, Divorce, Dog, Dogs, Ex-Wife, Failed Relationship, Failure, Humanity, Ideas, Inspiration, Jetta, Joseph Carro, Life, Lifestyle, Little Dog, Loss, Ludo, Maine, Marriage, Muppet, My Life, New England, New England Writer, New England Writers, Opinion, Pet, Pets, Portland, Relationships, Saco, Sad, Story, Wife, Wordpress, Write, Writer, Writing

Mental Illness

joecarro

Posted on October 14, 2015

Mental Illness is not something to be trifled with. It’s often silent, it afflicts more of us than we all think, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. Mental illness is the elephant in the room which nobody wants to talk about and it’s one goddamned big elephant, too. I’m no expert in psychology or mental illness – so let me put that right out there. However, I am definitely not a stranger to the ways in which mental illness can negatively impact family, relationships, work, etc – because I have experienced many different forms of it over the years and have been subject to psychoanalysis and treatment, including a brief stint in the “crazy ward” of a hospital. While I am not…

Categories: Away With Words, Opinion

Let Me Put My Poems In You.

joecarro

Posted on August 21, 2015

At some point, I think everyone dreams of being a poet. It’s one of those classic romantic things that you’re supposed to like if you’re a lady and supposed to be good at if you want to get the ladies. Or maybe I’m still stuck in the 1800’s. I can’t tell anymore. In any case, I was that little dreamer who felt poetry coursing through his veins. I was that kid with the bright sparkle in his eye and the contempt for his own existence simmering just below the surface. I remember the first time I tried to write a poem. I was in English class, and Mr. Noonan had us all create a poem using words cut from papers and magazines. To my…

Categories: Poetry

Nana

joecarro

Posted on July 27, 2015

Her name was Bertha Mae Coombs, but we called her Nana. Sometimes we used to call her “Westbrook Nana” because we had another great grandmother we referred to as “Norway Nana”, but most of the time we simply called her “Nana”. Nana lived, for as long as I could remember, in Westbrook, Maine – right next to a church. When I was little, Westbrook was home to a functioning paper mill – and upon entering the city limits, my siblings and I would grimace and plug our noses and say “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeew” in the car with our aunts or our parents due to the rotten egg smell of the mill. We would park in front of Nana’s place, walk up the steps to the apartment hallway…

Categories: Childhood Story

Tagged: 1950's, Annie Laughlin, Away With Words, Bertha Coombs, Bertha Mae Coombs, Blog, Burial, Cemetery, Daughter, Death, Depression, Diabetes, Family, Grandmother, Great Depression, Great Grandmother, Irish, Joseph Carro, Life, Loss, Maine, Matriarch, Mother, Nana, Old Lady, Patrick Laughlin, Portland, Post, Rememberance, Sad, Standish, Story, Tradition, Wake, Westbrook, World War II

The Stone House – Farewell And Reflections

joecarro

Posted on January 23, 2015

“So I went on softly from the glade, And left her behind me throwing her shade, As she were indeed an apparition— My head unturned lest my dream should fade.” -Thomas Hardy In 2012, I was introduced to the Stone House during my first semester with Stonecoast; a low-residency MFA program that sits in the top ten MFA programs for writing in the entire country. It was July, and in the summer seasons the students stay at the Bowdoin College campus in Brunswick, Maine. Bowdoin is a beautiful campus with many things going for it, not the least of which is a bevy of old buildings (I’m a sucker for old buildings) to photograph or explore. The sleeping can be a little rough…

Categories: Write Life

Ramblings Of A Man Named Joseph Carro

Posts tagged “Loss”

Excelsior: My Tribute To Stan Lee

joecarro

Posted on November 13, 2018

Ludo

joecarro

Posted on November 3, 2018

Mental Illness

joecarro

Posted on October 14, 2015

Let Me Put My Poems In You.

joecarro

Posted on August 21, 2015

Nana

joecarro

Posted on July 27, 2015

The Stone House – Farewell And Reflections

joecarro

Posted on January 23, 2015