A Phoned-In Podcast by Bill Chalmers
Cozy, cold-warm late fall snowflakes, using puddles as their mirrors,
gently fall with sounds so soft that no one out there hears.
Dripping eaves-drops plunk the puddles standing straight-line neat to ease.
Soggy trees drink deep the rain flakes to replace their fallen leaves.
In this first warm snow of winter, in this last cold shower of fall,
we hear soft the death of autumn and Babe Winter’s infant call.
My dad, Bill Chalmers of Juneau, Alaska, was an English teacher, author, poet, football enthusiast, raconteur... a wonderful, warm, and giving person. Inspired by his locally-legendary answering machine messages, we gave him a phone number he could call to leave a message, a poem, or a story. Each call became an episode of this podcast. He died on September 30th, 2026, and these recordings are just a small refraction of the light that he leaves behind in all of our hearts. –- Devin Chalmers, October 2026