-
Writer’s Block
When friends and acquaintances ask what I’ll be doing when I retire, I almost apologetically say, “Writing.” I then add, “And hiking, taking care of my husband with Alzheimer’s, and traveling between our two boys in Minnesota and Missouri. I say almost apologetically, because “writing” doesn’t seem to satisfy some people’s need for me to stay busy. I’ve even had a few to offer for me to volunteer in areas they have interest in. I’m not looking for things to fill my time. Writing can be a full-time job. Just because a short story takes five minutes to read, it doesn’t mean it takes five minutes to write. Writers agonize…
-
Accumulation of Ridiculousness
It seems like yesterday, I was planning my first career: I’m in the bathtub rolling from back to belly and back again; water is up to my chin. With each roll, the water splashes as far up the side of the tub as it can, without spilling over onto the floor. I crawl backward as far as I can, scrunch my long legs up, then push forward, going the entire length of the tub back and forth in rapid succession, until finally forcing water up the walls and onto the rug. My little sister is being dried off because I can’t do the routine with both of us still in…
-
Full Moon
Yesterday was one heck of a day. Actually, when I came through the door at home and my husband asked how my school day was, I forcefully threw my things down. “It was one helluva day.” “Helluva good day or helluva bad day?” “Not good. It was weird.” I don’t know how much of my story he followed, because I saw him looking around me at an old movie on TV, but I told him about a disrespectful student before lunch and two students I thought were going to come across my desk and throw punches at each other after lunch. I already believed it must be a full moon…
-
Madman at the Wheel
The savage look in those eyes was enough to send chills down my spine; the kind of look one might expect to glare from behind the door of a padded room. From a birds-eye view, it must have looked like excited children playing with Matchbox cars, sending them into a chaotic frenzy, careening every which way. Cars were separating on the two-lane in front of us as if an invisible child’s hands were effortlessly pushing them to the left—into the highway median and into oncoming traffic in the other lanes, or to the right—straight into a steep embankment recently dug by heavy equipment. The driver of the old green car…
-
Fish Still Fear Him
I began immediately kidding my brother-in-law when I saw the shirt he was wearing the summer morning we were all heading to Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana with our families: WOMEN WANT ME, FISH FEAR ME. It was a cartoonish bass and buxom women. Too happy buxom women. “Are you really wearing THAT?” “Yeah, it’s my new T-shirt.” “I can’t believe you are wearing THAT!” “What? You don’t like it? What’s wrong with it?” He grinned. I didn’t think that question deserved an answer. It was obvious! And he seemed pretty proud of that stupid shirt, not embarrassed to have it draped over his chest in public. I was…
-
The Best Things in Life are Free
When I allow my mind to sift back to a time I felt the pure, unrestrained bliss of a child, there are two events that easily stand apart from all the others. It was a time when life was uncomplicated and safe, with the ugly of the world still unapparent. We lived in a little red, two-story sandpaper-like sided house beside the kindest people I’ve ever known. I’m sure they were middle-aged, but Maggie’s sagging folds of wrinkles and Claude’s slow deliberate gait made them seem ancient. They had little in the way of material things and had no children of their own. We spent warm days and cooler evenings…
-
My Very Own Avengers
I slammed the door and locked it behind me as I rushed into our apartment with a small grocery bag in my hands. Sobbing uncontrollably, I stood by the door, trembling. My parents saw the blood had drained from my face and knew something was terribly wrong, but all they could do was wait for me to tell my story. My mother took the bag from me, sat me on the couch, and waited for the waves of convulsive gasps and stuttering to calm. My parents had planned for us to move to the Chicago area as soon as I finished third-grade. When I told all my 8-year-old friends good-bye,…
-
My Sister Tried to Kill Me
It began like any other school day. We were both trying to hog the mirror from the other and tempers were beginning to flare. I’m sure it really wasn’t my fault. I had been the only child for four years and had gotten all the love and attention from everyone. When this tiny new creature came to live in my house, I noticed how everyone’s perspective immediately changed. “Isn’t she precious?” “Look at that perfect little nose!” “All that gorgeous dark hair!” And she was, dang it. She was a beautiful baby. I had been born bald and was wearing blue cat-eye glasses to correct a crossing left eye by…
-
. . . He Never Said He was a Killer
I was invincible. I had spent the last two years majoring in outdoor recreation at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and was mentally and physically at the top of my game. I had completed an internship at Touch of Nature Environmental Center assisting in leading hikes, canoe trips, rock climbing and rappelling, and educational programs all over southern Illinois, the Missouri Ozarks, and the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. My very naive, rural, small-town mind had been forever blown. There wasn’t anything I couldn’t do. My can of self-esteem had exploded and was overflowing. I took weight-lifting 101, became an American Red Cross First Aid and CPR instructor, and was certified…
-
Leap Year, 1984
When I met my husband in 1978 I didn’t like him very much. I wanted him to sign my petition so I could get on the ballot for our college’s student government. He asked, “ Why should I? Why do you want to run? What will you do to make a difference?” I turned around and walked away. I suppose I should have been prepared to be questioned, but I took him for a smart ass instead. I don’t need your signature, bucko. Sensing my frustration, he caught up to me and signed my petition. I soon found out he was absolutely the opposite of cocky–he was just being himself.…
