Magazine / Pacifico Reflections

  • Take A Hike

    Mike McGough
    December 2018
    The hike was to take them through both familiar and unfamiliar terrain. They were all experienced hikers. They were confident in their skills, but because they were going to venture into new areas they hired a guide. Anytime he guided a group for ...
  • One Bad Horse

    Mike McGough
    November 2018
    The Homestead Act of 1862, the first of several such acts, opened up millions of acres of lands to homesteaders. Millions of Americans had the chance to grow and expand in the new lands of the west. There were also a host of difficulties and challeng...
  • Tying Their Shoes

    Mike McGough
    October 2018
    The first day of school was always special. As a kindergarten teacher, she was welcoming them into a new world, a world that would prepare them for the rest of their lives. There were always some tears, sometimes more from the parents than the kids...
  • Home Fries And Jokes

    Mike McGough
    August 2018
    For more than an hour, we had been discussing a manuscript that was in the midst of the editing phase of development. I appreciated my friend and colleague’s editorial advice and counsel both personally and professionally. His suggestions were sp...
  • Gloomy Gus

    Mike McGough
    June 2018
    He was reasonably well educated, enjoyed an upper middle-class lifestyle, and engaged in the typical range of professional and social activities in his community. He was a family man who had worked himself up through the ranks of local and state gov...
  • Big Trees

    Mike McGough
    May 2018
    It happened during a late winter storm. The tree had been a sturdy pine that would have easily measured more than 100 feet. Now it was a mass of bent and broken branches that covered about a third of their backyard. They had just moved into this h...
  • Goats And Thoroughbreds

    Mike McGough
    April 2018
    As the racetrack’s stable manager, he oversaw the stable hands, and when needed he recruited and trained new ones. He liked this phase of his job, and he was good at it. His experience served him well, and his affable manner made it easy for him ...
  • Two Bears

    Mike McGough
    March 2018
    His first trip to Alaska was during his freshman year of college on an ecological expedition for an environmental biology course. He fell in love with the place and promised himself that he would some day own a piece of this paradise. In time he di...
  • Conversational Grenades

    Mike McGough
    February 2018
    It was a large industrial plant with several unions representing different groups of workers in the plant. At times there was subtle competition between the unions over representation, but generally they respected their individual spheres of tradit...
  • Can Do – Must Do

    Mike McGough
    January 2018
    He sat at his desk looking tired and haggard. He was exhausted, and it was 9:30 on a Tuesday morning. A co-worker noticed him and asked if he had had a bad night. He replied that it was not a bad night but a bad month or maybe a bad year. “I ca...
  • Just A Penny

    Mike McGough
    December 2017
    As she and her Mother walked the busy streets, she spotted a penny. It shined through the icy slush along the curb of the street. She bent down, picked it up and dropped it into her coat pocket. It was not special in any way; it was just as ordina...
  • Professional Jealousy

    Mike McGough
    November 2017
    The challenge that came to the firm was a big one. It would provide them with an opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities and their potential in the field of contemporary architecture in a very real and enduring manner. The design team had bee...
  • Mirror

    Mike McGough
    October 2017
    It was a garage—nothing more and nothing less. But it was his garage, so he decided to personalize it. Over the past half century he had accumulated a great deal of stuff. He had a sense of history and he was a bit of a sentimentalist, so discard...
  • Accepting Me

    Mike McGough
    September 2017
    She had known her for years as a timid, pessimistic, unmotivated soul who wore her shortcomings like a lead weight. Then all of a sudden, she went through this metamorphic change. Her outlook was brighter, her level of initiative had soared, and sh...
  • Leading Or Performing

    Mike McGough
    July 2017
    Just like the folks in River City, Iowa, as featured in the Meredith Willson musical Music Man (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1962), folks in a similar small town decided that a town band was what they needed. It didn’t have to be a large band to fit the...
  • Caveat Emptor

    Mike McGough
    June 2017
    There were other restaurants in town, but none served breakfast. Folks who frequented the place had fallen into a rather predictable pattern. There were the early folks who had to be to work at 7:00. They showed up at six sharp right when Mae turn...
  • Drop The Shovel

    Mike McGough
    March 2017
    When confronted with what she had done, her first impulse was to try and cover. The embarrassment was great and fear of the ramifications that would surely follow produced a knot in her stomach. She was clearly outside the zone of comfort in which ...
  • Something Good

    Mike McGough
    February 2017
    It was an ugly scene. There was an icy coldness in the air. It was dark and ominously foreboding in every stark detail. Absolutely no one wanted to be there. It was horrible by any and all descriptions, and it was completely impossible to think...
  • The Do-Nothing Option

    Mike McGough
    December 2016
    The phrase, “Doing nothing is not an option,” has a long history. However, there is an assumption and a resulting misunderstanding to be considered when thinking about do-nothing options. Consider the following scenario. The Oakville Recreation...
  • Bungees And Other Kindnesses

    Mike McGough
    November 2016
    A hundred feet of steel cable to hang some outdoor lights was what I had originally stopped in to buy. This hardware has just about everything. It’s convenient, friendly, and right between my house and my cottage. More often than not, when I pas...