I was nine or ten when my mom took me and my younger siblings downtown to a place to get some free food for poor people. Our dad was out of work for six weeks. My mother was humiliated. We waited in line until it was our turn. As the worker handed Mom her block… Continue reading Government Cheese and Pinto Beans
Month: August 2021
A Mouse in the Bed
(re-run) When my oldest was in 4th or 5th grade, she told me one morning that there was a mouse in her bed. “There’s no mouse in your bed!” I said. “There is,” she said. “I felt it crawling over my leg.” She went off to school, and I told my mother, who was visiting… Continue reading A Mouse in the Bed
My Favorite Oak Tree
I can’t stop my neighbors from making bad decisions, like three years ago when the neighbors kitty corner and below me cut down five large pine trees and changed my back yard forever. I lost a number of plants to the afternoon sun, plants that had established themselves in shade. My own small pine tree… Continue reading My Favorite Oak Tree
Peace Corps Fail
(re-run) It was in the spring of my first year of teaching when the call came. I was at Greenwood Elementary in Greenwood, Nebraska. I had applied to the Peace Corps the year before. They had just seen my application. They wanted to fly me to Chicago for an interview that weekend. They gave me… Continue reading Peace Corps Fail
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my Match Date
(re-run) Ingrid had been on the online website for a little over a month. She had tried meeting a few guys but only if they were willing to email back and forth and actually pick up a phone and call. Fred had flirted and called, and now it was time for them to meet. He… Continue reading He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my Match Date
Betting on a Jersey Girl
(re-run) He was working in Pittsburgh, auditing Gulf Oil for Price Water House. One of his married buddies approached the crowd at the water cooler and asked a guy, John, if he wanted a blind date with his wife’s friend from dental school. “Wait!” Arthur said. “You already have a girlfriend, John. How about me?… Continue reading Betting on a Jersey Girl
Daisy’s New Perch
(re-run) My suburban house is dumb. The small bedrooms are on the front of the house, with the family room tucked behind the garage. There are no good windows for Daisy to see out of, no couch to jump upon to watch the street. Until the day I cleaned my office. I ended up pushing… Continue reading Daisy’s New Perch
Mr. No Class
(re-run) They met online through a singles website (not the swiping one). Tom lived and worked in Napa. Carin lived less than an hour away in the San Francisco East Bay on a horse ranchette with her seven horses. She ran a small upscale hair salon. After much texting and talking, they got together for… Continue reading Mr. No Class
Mountain Lion
(re-run) The latest mountain lion attack got me to thinking about how we humans hike, bike, and enter into cougar country and should know what to do in the event that we run into one. The newspaper article today tells about the two mountain bikers in Washington this past weekend that encountered a mountain lion.… Continue reading Mountain Lion
Grandma’s Basement
(re-run) My grandfather and his dad built a house into the side of a hill. The main floor had three small bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room and stairs to the kitchen below. The kitchen looked out over the hill down to the creek and had windows and a back door with a screen door.… Continue reading Grandma’s Basement
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 