10 short stories, fiction
published by Face to Face Books, Milwaukee, WI, 2000
Kunkel’s stories are rooted in the farms, villages, churches, and outdoor life of Wisconsin with characters and predicaments which could easily be yours… Kunkel does not shield the reader from the hardness of life but often reveals a bit of grace in the commonplace events of a card game or whitecaps slapping the side of a boat.
Harvey Stower, Mayor, Amery, Wisconsin
Beginning of the story, Good Morning, Mr. and Mrs. America and All the Ships at Sea
from Bless Ewe – More Stories for All Seasons
Edna stood at her mother’s kitchen counter, buttering a thick, soft slice of potato bread for her father’s lunch, thinking about what to do with her life now that her high-school diploma was taped to her bedroom window and her classroom days were behind her. In the front room, her parents stood next to the floor radio, their quiet voices mingling with the radio announcer’s morning banter. Just after the seven o’clock tone, her father turned up the radio volume, and the family listened to the voice known to all Americans by its staccato delivery, patriotic commentary, and distincitive sign-on, the voice of a Hollywood gossip columnist turned news reporter: “Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea! This is Walter Winchell reporting from New York. Today is Tuesday, June 24t, 1941. Flash! – Hitler betrays his nonaggression pact with Stalin and marches across the Bug River into the Soviet breasbasket!” Without pause, Winchell jumped from reporting to commentary: “The Hun and his Nazi princes want to feed their war machine with Russian oil and wheat!” Edna’s father, Frank, looked at his wife, Sofya, and said, gravely, “Hitler won’t stop unless somebody stops him…”