(re-run) Holly moved from San Francisco to the East Bay and missed her old classmates. The smart kids and the popular kids had already established their cliques. She was an outsider. Holly had no close friends to share her excitement and concerns at Bishop O’Dowd High School, even though she was kind of cute, smart,… Continue reading His Baby, She Wrote Him a Letter
Category: relationships
Waitresses Make the Best Tippers
(re-run) After moving to Omaha and teaching for a couple of years across the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa, I grew tired of driving a car that smelled like a mildewed basement. My poor Chevy Monza had suffered through a Nebraska flood back at the farmhouse, and the car stank. I couldn’t afford a… Continue reading Waitresses Make the Best Tippers
Blind Date in a Castle
(re-run) Lynne was studying abroad at a university in Sweden. One of her friends convinced her plus another young woman to be blind dates. The friend’s boyfriend’s military school was hosting a fancy dinner and ball at a castle in Stockholm. The Swedish school was inviting guys from Denmark and Norway for the event, and… Continue reading Blind Date in a Castle
The White Album
(re-run) The last time I saw the Beatles cover band in the Santa Cruz mountains hippie town of Felton, I noticed that most of the crowd was coupled off, and most of the couples didn’t dance. They were too old, having been die-hard Beatles fans for fifty years. It was a shame. The floor is… Continue reading The White Album
Moon Over Lafayette
(re-run) Trudy worked at an engineering firm. Joe was the visiting copy machine repair man, or as her office mates called him, the Xerox guy. One day Trudy had to make copies. Joe was at the machine, repairing away. “Oh,” she said. “No copies for me!” “Hey there,” Joe said. “We should catch dinner sometime.”… Continue reading Moon Over Lafayette
The Weakest Link – my Low Back
(re-run) The good thing about the current Coronavirus Covid-19 lockdown is that I have a hundred projects to finish. Suddenly I have nothing but time to do it all. Everything was going along swimmingly yesterday. I exercised. I painted (spray-painted picture frames), I picked up dog poop. I did a heavy load of laundry. I… Continue reading The Weakest Link – my Low Back
Piglet in a Box
(re-run) Carin was working, cutting her stepsister’s hair at the salon her mom owned. Her cell phone vibrated. She never took calls during work. All of her friends and family knew that. It vibrated again, a second call from the same number. She picked up. It was her ex boyfriend, Rob. Rob was two ex-boyfriends… Continue reading Piglet in a Box
It’s a Jungle Out There
(re-run) I saw a coyote yesterday during my strength and training class at the senior center. There are so many people in the drop-in class that I have to stand right in front of the glass doors, with a view of the hills filled with wild turkeys, birds, and now Wiley Coyote. My back hurts… Continue reading It’s a Jungle Out There
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
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
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 