Archives

Unidentified Party Guest

Oct28

When the doorbell rang, I glanced around the room and counted. I had a clown, belly dancer, hobo, large mouse, a gypsy and Carmen Miranda. All of our invited guests were present. Who could be at the back door? Assigning my twelve-year-old daughter the job of passing glasses of vile-looking green punch to our guests, I went to see.

Standing on the deck at my back door was an old woman dressed in a long, colorful skirt and shawls. She stood so hunched over a black cane, it was hard to see her face. Despite that, I was able to tell that her long nose and wrinkles were soft rubbery plastic. Wisps of gray hair stuck out from under the babushka that she wore on her head. She spoke no words, but motioned to indicate she desired to enter my house.

Mesmerized by this mysterious stranger and sensing only benevolence radiating from her, I stepped aside. The unidentified party guest (UPG) hobbled into the dining room. My two daughters and our guests all fell silent. After greeting each costumed child with a one-armed hug and motions to indicate her approval of them, our UPG finally retired to a chair in the corner of the room. Continue reading →

October Wedding

Oct14

Bright afternoon sunshine slanted down through colorful fall foliage, blinding me for a moment. I impatiently pulled down the sun visor. Spotting a place to park directly in front of the school door, I swiftly pulled into the space and immediately jumped out of my vehicle. I had a dozen errands to run that afternoon and I intended to get every single one done as quickly as possible.

Next to the school door was a huge planter filled with salvias. The plants were tall and ablaze with vibrant red blossoms. I skidded to a stop. My feeling of being rushed and overburdened fell away, replaced by a sweet childhood memory filled with nostalgia and a sense of timelessness.

Fall was a season of celebration when I was a child. Red, yellow and orange trees were flames of joy, announcing that the bounty of summer was ready to be harvested. Mom and my siblings gathered apples from the orchard and made them into apple sauce and pies. Daddy spent warm days and cool nights in the corn fields making silage so the cows had more than hay to eat during the winter. Continue reading →

Dude Ranch

Sep16

By the time I wandered from my bed, everyone else had been up working for hours. I heard the wringer washer humming in the basement and remembered that it was washday Monday. Finding a slice of Mom’s home baked bread in a bag on the kitchen counter, I slathered butter and jelly on it and went to sit on one of the basement steps.

When I sat down, Mom looked up from feeding soggy clothing to the washing machine’s rollers. She said, “So, you finally decided to get up?” I grinned at her and continued to nibble on the bread. Eyeing my summertime uniform, shorts and a sun top, Mom said, “Good. You dressed for the day.”

I popped the last bite of bread into my mouth and frowned.  Last summer my big sisters made a fuss about how I wore my nightgown well into the day and refused to comb my own hair. Pictures that they took showed a fluffy tangled rat’s nest of hair on the back of my head. Now that I was eight and a half I dressed when I got out of bed and even combed my hair. Continue reading →

Facing the Truth

Feb4

I stood in the dim hallway outside our farmhouse bathroom, alternating between knocking on the door, and noisily snuffling into the door frame. On some basic, instinctive level, my five-year-old mind knew that when a little sister pounds on the bathroom door long enough, big sisters usually forgo their desire for privacy. Continue reading →

Snowy Winter Sunday

Jan28

Wind howling at the bedroom window woke me up. I turned over, unwilling to open my eyes so early. Surely it wasn’t time to get up! The morning light filtering in through the screens and my bedroom’s net curtains was gray, cold, and unfriendly. Just as I was drifting back to sleep, another arctic gust howled around the side of our farmhouse. Continue reading →

Devil or Angel?

Jan21

I staggered into my daughter’s kitchen balancing a stack of gift-wrapped presents. Perched at the very top was a small brown paper sack. As I turned to set them down onto a kitchen cupboard, the bag began to slide. I stopped its rapid decent by using my right elbow to clamp it against my side. Hanging sideways, the sack disgorged an avocado and three tomatoes. They gracefully rolled out onto the counter without a single bruise. Continue reading →

My Y2 Missle

Jan7

A pre-holiday malaise had settled over my sixth grade class after lunch. Our teacher worked up a sweat just trying to make everyone open the right workbook. When we filled out of the school building for our last recess of the day, we gasped at the unexpected chill in the air. Like sheep and goats, we separated into groups predetermined by our adolescent hierarchy. Continue reading →

Birthday Buddies

Dec31

I reached into the fragrant green tree and hooked a mirror ornament onto a branch. Then I stood back to see how my addition looked. It was perfect! An hour before, my brother had authoritatively deemed that since I was ALMOST ten-years-old, I could help trim our Christmas tree. My cheeks hurt from smiling, but I couldn’t stop. I felt so happy. After weeks of waiting Christmas was finally here…and this year I could enjoy it with special privileges. Continue reading →

One Day Closer

Dec24

The train of days slowly chugged along toward my favorite holiday…Christmas. Along the track ‘Santa anticipation’ grew inside my seven-year-old head. November’s snowy Thanksgiving meal inched toward a candy-sweetened Saint Nicholas day. Even if there hadn’t been a calendar in our house, my internal clock told me that the time was drawing closer and closer. Continue reading →

Dark Tree

Dec17

The food probably tasted great. But today I was too excited to notice, or even to remember what had been on my plate. I watched Mom eat the last of her buttered bread. Although it was a small slice, it seemed to take her a very long time. Eventually she licked a smear of butter off her finger and said, “Well, now that we have had our noon meal…let’s put up the Christmas tree!” Continue reading →