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Game On
For years, the daily routine was Calen and Wyatt would come home from school and get a game on in the front yard. It didn’t matter if it was hot or cold, football or baseball, or two or more brothers, cousins, friends, or neighbors. It was most often some combination of the two Kirklands, the three Morgans, the four Johnsons, the two Gulleys and the lone Dillard . . . no girls allowed. The air would be full of voices and laughter wafting into the house through open windows. Balls were always bouncing off the roof or picture window. When a baseball hit the front window one day and he…
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Captain Mustard
Just like my kids only eating “magic carrots” at daycare or the luxury of having fried SPAM on a toasted bagel as a backpacking delicacy over a campfire, so it is with Captain Mustard, that rare annual treat while on vacation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Rainy day on Cisco Lake? No problem. Dock the boat. Stow skiis, kayaks, tubes, and head for town. The line of customers at noon, beneath the red canopy attached to the tiny travel trailer boasting signs painted red, yellow, and blue, is made up of tourists, locals, and laborers on lunch break. Reminiscent of the “Soup Nazi” of Seinfeld era, customers overlook the…
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RIP Lex
I’ve always wondered how the sun can continue to shine, birds and crickets sing, and people go on about their business when we feel the sting of the death of a loved one. Our chocolate lab, Lexington, isn’t lazing on the cool porch beside us as we have coffee this morning. Our oldest son, Calen, asked in the summer of 2008 if he could rescue a young puppy whose family had a new baby and couldn’t keep the pup anymore. He asked our permission because there was talk of him shipping off to Iraq with the Army Reserves, and we all knew who would really have puppy duty. He was…
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Mrs. Sharon
As I begin my last year of teaching, I am looking back on the last 25 years I have spent in the same district from which I graduated high school. There is one person I wish I could have shared the entire time with, but she is not far from my thoughts. My junior high reading teacher was one of the best teachers I ever had. I was scared to death of her those two years, though, because Mrs. Sharon demanded respect and didn’t take any bull off anyone, as she taught in what I thought was a most unconventional manner. It was really exciting to have a teacher work hard…
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The Sun Singer
The most common question I am asked these days (besides if I have a pencil a student “can” use) is, “How did you know your husband has Alzheimer’s?” Sometimes before I respond, the well-meaning person may say, “Did he forget where he left his keys or what he was going into a room to do, because I do that all the time?” Well sure, he has done those things, but haven’t most of us? No, it was much more dramatic than that. Jim’s mother had Alzheimer’s and her mother probably had it, since she was placed into a care facility at a young age. Like anyone in a family with…
