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We’ve Got It Going Our Way Now, Sis
My daddy was a jack-of-all-trades. He always had a purple nail on one of his rugged hands, from smashing it between two objects or having his hammer come down on it of his own accord. If we were close enough to where he was working, we’d hear him murmuring and having full-out conversations with himself. When he wasn’t talking, he was chewing on his tongue and contorting his mouth in weird ways that surely helped him get the job done quicker and easier. I don’t think we saw him work on anything without something going a little haywire because he always seemed to throw a few more colorful words in…
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Northern Minnesota
We pulled away from our first night in our camper in that Walmart parking lot and went forward. We met one of Jim’s sisters and her family for brunch in Madison, WI because we could park on the street in front of our niece’s house. We stopped that same night at our son’s house south of Minneapolis because we could pull into his driveway. The next morning, we loved on our two beautiful grandsons for a few hours and left for northern Minnesota. After our son backed the rig out of his driveway. It felt uphill the entire way. The car pulled the camper well, and I was feeling very…
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The Adventures of Orville and Narvel
Many, many years ago, we were part of a band of free spirits who went to Big Bend National Park and spent the month between Christmas and college spring semester backpacking. We all had names like Orville, Narvel, Doc Emmit, Wandy, Hecker, and The Booze; names that were to be spoken with the longest, most drawn-out southern drawl one could possibly muster. We named our group the Big Belly Sunset Watchers Club and we watched gorgeous sunsets from the canyons and the Chisos Mountains in the Chihuahuan Desert. Fast forward 35 years: Orville and I (Narvel) bought a camper and new car to pull it. We are a long way…
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Dark Before Our Dawn
Last week, I didn’t have a thing to say here. It was a dark week and love compelled me to get to work heading problems off at the pass. It began when my husband Jim wanted to “have a talk” as we sat drinking coffee on the patio early one morning. A pit formed in my stomach and it ended up being accurate intuition on my part. He said, “I’m on an island and I’m drowning. I need to do something.” When he can string words together to convey his thoughts, it’s a good day. And after being together 41 years, I can often fill in the blanks when I…
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One Red-Headed Cuckoo in the Bush Worth More than Two in the Hand
While in college, my friends and I would take our Christmas break and spend a month in Big Bend, Texas, backpacking and camping. I’m not talking day trips up a little trail and back again. I am talking about carrying everything we needed to survive, on our backs–the guys would have packs ranging from 60 to 65 lbs. and my pack was upwards of 50 lbs. (not too lame for a 5’2”, 100 lb. girly girl). Because we were spoiled and accustomed to luxuries we just could not leave behind, we included things like toilet paper, toothbrush, novel, and flashlight alongside our necessities such as tent, warm clothes, food, water,…
