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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…
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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…
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PEE-YEW!
Each time the stench wafted up my nose in an intermittent wave, I furtively sniffed around me. It had to be me. I was the only one sitting on that end of the couch. Once, twice . . . my nose quickly scanned each armpit as I reached up into a yawn or pretended to pull my hair back. My alarm didn’t go off, so arriving at my cousin’s house late for brunch was a given. There was no time to shower, pick out clothes, or put makeup on. I hurriedly scrubbed a toothbrush around in my mouth, put clothes on from the night before, and combed my hair…
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One Tiny Breath
The baby was battered black and blue and thrown on a table for dead. My mother always said thrown, but it must have been for effect; she wasn’t even there. Well, she was in the room, but she still wasn’t all there. My mother had been so heavily sedated, she missed all the excitement. When she woke two days later, she felt like she’d been hit by a Mack truck. The story was pieced together for her. She remembered going to Lightner Hospital to give birth to her second baby. The baby was not positioned correctly and was coming arm first. Many doctors and nurses were called to assist and at one point my father…
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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…
