(re-run) It was senior year in high school. I was on my last semester of PE, my least favorite class. I maintained a straight-A average in all other classes. But not in PE. It alternated between a B and a C. I was feeling good. We were in our next-to last unit, the physical fitness… Continue reading The Tennis Shoe and the Broken Window
Category: Iowa
Feeling Better
(re-run) I have some down days once in a while, but mostly I don’t. I know I’m lucky. I have aligned my life to feel better. Coincidentally, a relative’s therapist told her the five things she needs every day to get out of her funk. Then, if you still feel like crap, go see a… Continue reading Feeling Better
A Corny Tale
(re-run) Knee -high by the 4th of July It all started with a post on Facebook, showing how your average American doesn’t know how to shuck corn. If you are from Iowa in the 60’s, then you know how. We weren’t well off. As a matter of fact, people would give us bags of food,… Continue reading A Corny Tale
Pennies from Heaven
(re-run) When I was sixteen, I saved my babysitting money and went downtown to Cottage Grove Avenue in Des Moines, where there was a head shop filled with incense, hanging beads, roach clips, black light posters and tie dye. Although I wasn’t a pothead (I didn’t smoke cigarettes either), I enjoyed the ambience of the… Continue reading Pennies from Heaven
Getting a New Perspective While Getting There
(re-run) I am retired, two years away from the big 7-0, flying for the second time in two months, a record for me. Traveler’s Tip: Don’t fly in the summer if you can help it. EVERYONE is flying, and the weather across the U.S. can be bad and will delay your flight. My daughter drove… Continue reading Getting a New Perspective While Getting There
Easy Rider
(re-run) – Today we shopped at a different Trader Joe’s and the clerk told me, when I said she looked familiar, that she had a Midwestern face, and I said I did, too, and she asked where I was from and I said Iowa, and she said, Me, too, and she’s from Adel, and I’m… Continue reading Easy Rider
Three Donkeys – Halfway There
The drive from 105-degree weather in my town to 60-degree weather in my other town takes two hours, door to door, if I go during non-rush-hour times. I leave around ten and get to the other house by noon. It’s 120 minutes, unless there’s an accident, like a jack-knifed semi trailer or a church bus… Continue reading Three Donkeys – Halfway There
Trading Up in Omaha
(re-run) Alice got a teaching job in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She decided to live across the Missouri River in Omaha in an old Victorian that had been converted into apartments. A military guy from Maryland moved in upstairs. She ran into him in the hallway after a bike ride one evening when he was coming… Continue reading Trading Up in Omaha
Government Cheese and Pinto Beans
(re-run) I was nine or ten when our 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… Continue reading Government Cheese and Pinto Beans
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
(re-run) It was a few days before the kids would come – 7th and 8th graders. I left my job as a high school Spanish teacher and would now be teaching English to middle schoolers. It was a way to get out of a podunk town in Nebraska and into a big city in Iowa… Continue reading Self-fulfilling Prophecy
