*** RANT ALERT *** I am never quite as cynical and surly as I am at this time of year. From now until after New Year’s Day, I will be mostly snarling and resentful, morose and miserable — and will be trying without success to ignore it all by isolating myself even more than usual. … Continue reading It’s duck and cover till January 2
I just came across a Newsweek article about women changing — or not changing — their names when they marry. Having personally tried several of the options at one time or another, I was curious about what the author had to say. She describes all the different approaches women take, summarizes some statistics, and concludes … Continue reading The name game
I hate fires. I mean, of course, inappropriate, accidental, out-of-control fires. Cozy crackling fireplaces or outdoor cookfires or campfires have a special ambiance we all love. But uncontrolled fire raging in a forest or grassland or home is a fearsome, terrible beast. The current fires in California brought all this to mind. Thousands have evacuated, … Continue reading Burning hills
I’m going to be a terrible grandma if I’m ever caught having to explain any religious issues to the kidlets. Their mom started taking them to Sunday School a while back. One night they were in the back seat of the car after we’d all been to dinner together. Daddy commented on the full moon. … Continue reading Grandma doesn’t do church
It wasn’t easy — not becoming a writer. I worked at it most of my life. It started back in high school. One of my English teachers thought I showed some talent with a couple of short stories, and encouraged me to write. As it happened, she was also the sponsor of the school paper, … Continue reading How I never became a writer
The following is a year-old draft that I never got around to posting. I’m posting it now, before I edit out any more of whatever freshness it might have had or end up turning it into a novel:
“I am from … ” started as a meme that raced through the blog world sometime last year. It was supposed to be a relatively short piece, a poem of sorts. But it smacked of the kind of list-making that is a virtual compulsion for me, and my “poem” quickly got out of hand. We old ladies like to reminisce, you know.
So I put it aside, careful to save the memories and promising to get back to it someday to organize, clean up, edit, or whatever. Now, on a cold, overcast afternoon, I’m sitting here watching intermittent snow fall, hoping it doesn’t accumulate to shovel-worthy depths, and playing with my list poem again.
I am from …
The heartland, from Missouri stock, lovingly blended in Oklahoma with a little Old West spice, some Iowa sensibility, and a lot of Southern gentility
The land of Will Rogers, Boomer Sooner, wheat fields and hawks, tornadoes, Oklahoma!
A physician father, a lot like Marcus Welby, MD or Jim Anderson on Father Knows Best, in a Happy Days and Grease world
Feeling like the favorite, even with four siblings
Green-vaulted streets lined with sweetgum and hackberry
A white-painted two-story brick house, built in 1909, with foot-thick walls keeping heat, cold, and wind at bay
A huge old maple in the backyard that stood stoically with wood steps nailed up its trunk, a platform in its upper branches, and my plastic horses stampeding over its exposed roots
A pine outside my second-story bedroom bay window where cardinals nested every spring
Parents who permitted my long parade of pets: dogs named Bippy and Tammy, Penny and Pooch; a science fair rat named Charlie Brown; Easter bunnies, chicks, and ducklings; chameleons from the State Fair Midway; tanks of guppies and goldfish; two blue parakeets; and one white cat
I am from …
Before commercial jets, television, cordless phones, computers, transistor radios, TV dinners, garbage disposers, air conditioning, shopping malls, hair spray and hand-held blow dryers
Eating ice chips out of the back of the truck that delivered blocks of ice for our icebox (siblings argue I was too young to remember an icebox and must have just read about it somewhere; perhaps it was blocks of ice being delivered for use at parties)
There’s more, much more …
