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
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Dark Tree
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
The Night all of my Candy Bars Burned
The heavy brocade living room curtains felt cool. I pulled one panel aside and slid between it and the window. This was like being invisible because no one could see me. I was neither inside the house, nor out in our dark, snowy winter yard. Out on the road in front of our house, a car slowly passed. I watched its headlights probe the silky, slippery snow and ice covered road. It went up the hill toward our neighbor’s place where it turned in. Continue reading
Working at Play
At first my playmate and I were content to trample the weeds to form the halls and rooms of our imaginary house. Pointing to a tall skinny sapling growing closest to the gray weathered boards of the machine shed, I announced with imperial grandeur, “Between that tree and the shed is the little girl’s bedroom.” Continue reading
An Apple A Day
Thick gray clouds hung low over the fields and farmyards that my bus rumbled past. I leaned my head against the cold window glass, enjoying being alone with my thoughts. One of my favorite songs was playing on the radio, a man singing the words, “From a Jack…to a Queen,” The drama in his beautiful voice, and the emotions his words conjured up in my twelve year old mind made me sigh deeply. Continue reading
Rock Pile Archeologists
I studied the straight lines of the newly sprouted oat plants beside the cow lane as I walked. Barb, my neighborhood cousin jolted me out of my reverie by exclaiming, “Kathy! Watch out!”
