Tag: family
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Getting Rid of Bumper Stickers
A while back I did something I rarely do. I let critics read my writing. Well, there are always critics, but I don’t have to know about it. With some sturdy brick and mortar, I cautiously erected a fortress around myself while waiting for a response. The responses arrived. The walls were clearly not as…
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Cathedrals and the Cornerstone
Occasionally I attend the Cathedral of the Murder-She-Wrote-Opening-Credits-Theme-Song which has the most amazing re-centering, calming effect on me. The experience lasts a predictable 47 seconds and I’ve never nodded off nor fallen out of my pew throughout the service. Entirely by accident about 20 years ago when the phone rang just as I was punching…
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Five Pairs of Pants and One Shirt
“Life is complicated and not for the timid. It’s an experience that when it’s done, it will take us a while to get over it.” Garrison Keillor from Leaving Home When circumstances are happening fast, situations unfolding in real time, and decisions are being made without the full engagement of sufficient brain power, sometimes you…
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Veer
It’s a little foggy as to when I determined to start practicing laughing like my Aunt Vera, though I was certain at the time I must attempt to give it substantial effort. It was just the best. I coveted her ways. So practice I did. But you don’t need to tell anyone . . .…
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Putting a Pin in Hope
Over your lifetime, whether long or less long, how many staff meetings have you sat through? This is not an attack on staff meetings . . . they are (usually) a necessity. I’m just curious as to the nomenclature of the room according to the decade in which you sat/are sitting. It’s been a while…
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Dera Lee and the Fish Knife
Of all the stories I could tell you about a mother on this 25th anniversary of her sudden death, I will choose it to be about the fish fillet knife she carried for protection. You’ll have to wait though, because there’s a prologue. You’ve heard folks talk about “karma” and the concept of “what goes…
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Meat Hungry
When you tell life stories to people do you wonder if there’s any common thread between the teller and the listener, the writer and the reader? I do. Can you relate to me? Can I relate to you? Do my words speak your language? Certainly we are not all the same age (stop clapping your…
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The Streets of Laredo
Question for you: What’s more important, striving to be the descendant that previous generations would be proud of? Or working every day to become an ancestor that future generations would want to claim as theirs? You think on that for a while and we’ll circle back. Very briefly I’d like to sum up what’s been…
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The Homestead of Hope
Entering the world at the tail end of the Baby Boomers and growing up in the 60s and 70s, my decorative surroundings were very much oriented to flower power, wood paneling, wicker swag lamps, and David Cassidy posters. Strangely though, my wandering daydreams often took me to a time a hundred years prior when life…
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Beulah Land and Betty Lou
My blessed mother-in-law started talking about her funeral somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years ago so we “kids” became accustomed to nodding and smiling and “mmhmming” when that inevitable topic came up. Now we’re all sitting around on couches holding cups of cold coffee staring blankly at each other wondering what to do because…
Beyond Lashley Lane 