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Review of Raised in Ruins
Many of us have dreamed of escaping the stressful demands of our current life with the wish for a simpler one, surrounded by a breathtaking view. How far have you gotten? Me? Well, we did downsize three years ago. We moved into an almost tiny home (at 753 sq. ft.) on a little hill in rural America after bringing a 30 Yard dumpster to our backdoor, having a garage sale, and giving away the rest. And then just this year, we bought a very small camper to pull behind a larger car so we could have new adventures. All this was because Alzheimer’s forced us into a new reality. And…
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How to Survive
Every time I step out the door I’m thinking about what I need to do to stay alive. It’s not a dominating thought, it’s a comfortably familiar awareness that has been with me ever since my parents moved my family to a remote part of Alaska when I was six years old. Our first home in this new, raw world, was a floathouse. In this case, it was a regular wood-frame house that had been winched aboard a raft made up of massive logs, formerly ancient trees. It was of the “shotgun” type with one room seguing into the next in a straight line from front door to back door.…
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Paranormal Memoir
I was four years old when my dear grandpa “Poody” woke me in the middle of the night by sitting on my bed. My four-year-old mind didn’t wonder what he was doing at my house or why he wasn’t at the hospital. Instead, I listened to what he had to say. We adored each other. When I was at his house, I followed him around while he dug potatoes, painted, or organized his immaculate garage workshop. Every tool was in its place and nuts, bolts, and screws were carefully sorted into jelly and baby food jars, then screwed onto their lids which were nailed into the workshop walls. He would…
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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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My Dad, My Adversary
My four-year-old was sitting on a board hooked over the barber’s chair to make him taller. We had recently moved back to southern Illinois from Kentucky and I was reconnecting with people in my hometown. Monk the barber knew everyone and everything going on in the village boasting a population of 2,000. When he realized who I was, he switched the conversation. “How is ole Duck doing?” With nicknames like Monk, Duck, and Butt-cut, I didn’t know where this may be headed. I knew my daddy (Duck, short for Donald Duck) and Monk had some kind of history together from way back, so I wasn’t sure what he wanted to…
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Happy Mother’s Day
I took my mother for granted. I thought she would always be here. Her mother lived to be 97, so why wouldn’t her mother’s daughter? My mother lived 25 years less than my grandmother and her death hit me hard. It hit us all hard. Fifteen years ago tomorrow, Mother’s Day. I lived in a grievous fog and thought depression and sadness were my new normal. Until they weren’t. Two years later I realized the veil had slowly lifted, although I didn’t recognize when. It finally felt good to remember happy times and her ridiculous “Rubyisms” without that gut-wrenching longing for her. This Mother’s Day, I am grateful for a…
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Not Mad as a Hatter, Yet
“I’ll be there God willing and the creeks don’t rise,” said Mother for the hundredth time during my eight years. And she added, “If nobody’s sick.” She was on the phone talking to only God knew who, but it was definitely someone from the George Hart Post 167 VFW Auxiliary. It could have been one of her sisters. All seven of the Short girls belonged to the women’s auxiliary and I’m sure each of them had held multiple offices at some time or another. My mother was a natural born secretary/treasurer for every organization to which she ever belonged: VFW Auxiliary, PTA, our village township. At one point, she was…
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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…
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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…
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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…
