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LIGHTEN UP
I’ve spent a lifetime as a mom and teacher taking myself too seriously. I thought it was my job to try to keep kids on the straight and narrow pathway, always wanting them to learn and do the right things. Somewhere along the way, I realized I didn’t have much of a sense of humor. I kept things so serious because I felt I was put here to balance out the ridiculous. To right those who never took a thing seriously. To be ready for a heavy dose of reality or common sense smackdown wherever I saw it lacking. And believe me, there were often those lacking any kind of…
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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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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…
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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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Win Big at the Raffel
Looking out the superintendent’s office window, our science teacher asked me how to spell raffle. Being a sucker for spelling, I spelled it–r-a-f-f-l-e. He smiled wryly and said, “That’s what I thought–it’s misspelled on the marquee outside.” Attempting to protect the school’s image (and let’s face it–I’d probably go into your yard and change a “For Sell” to “For Sale” sign or climb a billboard with a bucket of paint if it were misspelled), I went out to transpose the letters. The sign had been up for days. The message was announcing a softball tournament fundraiser and “raffel” for a former student who’d had a horrific motorcycle accident. The softball…
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Work ‘n Roll
Foreshadowing was there from the beginning. About ten years ago, a new Asian buffet was getting ready to open in a nearby town and the humongous bright yellow sign out front boasted “Work ’n Roll”, instead of “Wok ’n Roll”. That should have been our first clue. It was unwittingly being established as either a place of hard labor, a comedy club, or both. And we were about to find out. After eating at the new restaurant, I felt like we ripped the place off–maybe we should have gone to the cashier and insisted we pay more money. For the entertainment. First, our son warmed us up by opening for…
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Memphis Truck Stop
Several years ago, my sister, mother, and I made a trip to Memphis, TN, and ate at a truck stop . . . no, we didn’t purposely go there to eat at a truck stop, but it was the highlight of that two-day trip to our mother’s eye surgeon. We really enjoyed going to Graceland too, but since we measured our fun by tried and true scientific methods, it just didn’t live up to our “fun standards”. Reaching the top of our fun scale depended upon 1) how long and hard we belly laughed, and 2) how close any of us came to peeing our pants. While Graceland was a great time,…
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My Lucky Rock
After hearing all Jim’s childhood stories, I teased him that he was raised by the idyllic Ozzie and Harriet. Ozzie and Violet (their real names), provided a comfortable, suburban, middle class life for their family, and didn’t seem to make many child-rearing mistakes. The time Jim was at a Sears store playing on the escalator while his mother shopped nearby, was the only questionable parenting decision I am aware of (sister Joanne may disagree with this). It was winter and Jim was five. He was going up and down the escalator like his mother told him not to, and his heavy coat became stuck in the handrail. Before he could…
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Why Isn’t She Normal?
We are spending this weekend in Minnesota to celebrate our first grand baby’s first birthday. He is a joy beyond measure. My mother always said, “If I’d had these grand babies first, I’d never had you girls!” Now I understand. Greyson is perfect, incredibly smart, and the happiest baby I’ve ever seen. We can’t get enough of him. I suppose my grandparents must have felt the same about the little curly-haired toddler I was. I’m thankful things have changed so much from then to now and there aren’t cigarette ashtrays on every table, because although I’d be curious to know if my DNA runs deep in Greyson, I am hoping…
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Intellectual Ditz
One day while I was sitting at a table in my university’s student union trying to read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a fellow environmental biology classmate came over and introduced himself. It was hard to miss how tall, good-looking, and well-dressed he was–the distinct opposite of me. The crazy thing was, about a month prior to this meeting, I had broken my wire-framed glasses and had literally taped the earpiece onto the frames with black electrical tape. My long hair was in two braids hanging down my plaid flannel shirt, topped off with a bandana spread over my head and tied at the back of my neck. No makeup, ragged jeans,…
