(re-run) My sister fell out of her recliner at her nursing home (board and care home, actually) and landed on her face and glasses. The glasses were badly bent, so I needed to go to Costco on the DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING to see if they would bend them back into shape with their magical optical… Continue reading Where’s the Beef?
Category: Iowa
Total Eclipse of the Date
(re-run) The last solar eclipse over the continental U.S. was on Monday, February 26, 1979. Claudette worked in the x-ray department at Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa. She and her co-workers took some x-ray film and went outside to look at the sun through the film. They were not in the path of totality… Continue reading Total Eclipse of the Date
A Great Dane Story
(re-run) When I was almost thirteen, I hung out at my neighbor Bonnie’s house, just one block away from mine, but it was different world. Both her parents worked full time, so we teens could hang there with no parental supervision. We were supervised, though, by the family’s Great Danes. I remember three dogs, but… Continue reading A Great Dane Story
Machu Picchu Before It Was a Thing
(re-run) It was 1977. I was finishing up ten weeks of student teaching in an American oil school in Caracas, Venezuela. My roommate, Christy, wanted to travel for two weeks before we went home to the states. She wanted to visit Machu Picchu in Peru. I’d never heard of it. “It’s the lost city of… Continue reading Machu Picchu Before It Was a Thing
My First Taste of California
When I was in college, the spring of my sophomore year, I saw a poster for a summer job – “Earn $3000 in just three months.” Back in 1975, that was a lot of money. I went to the evening meeting on campus and found myself in a room with a dozen other “applicants.” After… Continue reading My First Taste of California
The Day my Dog Herded Me to the ER
Way back when, I had two children and a rare free day. The kindergartener was going on an all-day field trip. The two-year-old was going to daycare for the day. I had hours ahead of me to do all the yard work and gardening that I could squeeze in. I put on some old tennis… Continue reading The Day my Dog Herded Me to the ER
The Navajo in the Room
My mother’s brother was a college professor at Shiprock College (now renamed Diné College) in New Mexico. He met and married my aunt Grace, a Navajo woman. This was exciting news in my all-white Iowa family. Uncle Jim was coming to town with his new bride. Uncle Jim was tall and slim, and had a… Continue reading The Navajo in the Room
It’s Easier to Ask for Forgiveness
(re-run) When I was a third-year teacher in 1979, I had a new school and a new classroom. One wall was white concrete blocks, cold and uninviting. Nothing would stick to it, so I couldn’t hang up posters, classwork, decorations, anything. That wall really bugged me. At the time, I was dating an artist, a… Continue reading It’s Easier to Ask for Forgiveness
Tone Deaf to Tone Deafness
I’ve been singing my whole life. I went to school when music programs in elementary schools still existed. My grandma taught me to play the piano. I would sing along as I practiced. I sang in the 6th grade chorus and sang in an octette at the Iowa State Fair. It never occurred to me… Continue reading Tone Deaf to Tone Deafness
The Beatles and Me
(re-run from 2021) I just realized the other day that the Beatles have been in my life for 57 of my 65 years. My older sis was a fan when they first played for America on the Ed Sullivan show. I was 8, going on 9. Little did I know that our bedroom would soon… Continue reading The Beatles and Me
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 