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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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Game On
For years, the daily routine was Calen and Wyatt would come home from school and get a game on in the front yard. It didn’t matter if it was hot or cold, football or baseball, or two or more brothers, cousins, friends, or neighbors. It was most often some combination of the two Kirklands, the three Morgans, the four Johnsons, the two Gulleys and the lone Dillard . . . no girls allowed. The air would be full of voices and laughter wafting into the house through open windows. Balls were always bouncing off the roof or picture window. When a baseball hit the front window one day and he…
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Captain Mustard
Just like my kids only eating “magic carrots” at daycare or the luxury of having fried SPAM on a toasted bagel as a backpacking delicacy over a campfire, so it is with Captain Mustard, that rare annual treat while on vacation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Rainy day on Cisco Lake? No problem. Dock the boat. Stow skiis, kayaks, tubes, and head for town. The line of customers at noon, beneath the red canopy attached to the tiny travel trailer boasting signs painted red, yellow, and blue, is made up of tourists, locals, and laborers on lunch break. Reminiscent of the “Soup Nazi” of Seinfeld era, customers overlook the…
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A Thief Amongst Us
My dad’s last two surgeries, months apart, brought about some interesting antics. He always carried a lot of cash in his wallet–too much cash for his own good. My sister Geri and I worried he’d be knocked in the head and robbed. And my mother worried the same thing, for decades. It was a terrible habit and I think it had something to do with all the many times he struggled for cash, so that when he had it, he wanted it with him. Upon admitting Daddy for a heart catheterization, the hospital made sure Geri and I had taken all his belongings: watch, ring, wallet, keys, change. We wouldn’t…
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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,…
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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…
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Tornado Alarm
The blasting siren traveled to my six year-old ears, reverberating in every direction inside my skull. Maggie looked to the sky, pulling a Pall Mall out of the tanned, ancient folds protecting her toothless gums and declared, “There’s a tornado com’n!” Terror filled me. I ran in high gear, next door to my two-story red sandpaper-sided house and straight to my personal fallout shelter. Sitting on bathroom scales stuffed between the pipes of our small sink and stained bathtub, I clasped my ears and sobbed, knowing I would be blown to bits. I was a dramatic child. Like “the chicken or the egg” question, I’m not sure which came first:…
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Mrs. Sharon
As I begin my last year of teaching, I am looking back on the last 25 years I have spent in the same district from which I graduated high school. There is one person I wish I could have shared the entire time with, but she is not far from my thoughts. My junior high reading teacher was one of the best teachers I ever had. I was scared to death of her those two years, though, because Mrs. Sharon demanded respect and didn’t take any bull off anyone, as she taught in what I thought was a most unconventional manner. It was really exciting to have a teacher work hard…
