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There is something about time travel that excites the imagination and brings joy to one. Maybe that is why I love fiction so much. I can live vicariously through the characters in the books. Recently I have been embedded with Cork Corcoran in the William Kent Krueger series of mystery/detective stories. They take place in the Midwest, Minnesota specifically, so it’s old home week. In the last book I read all of this series, a key character is murdered. Such a shock and disappointment! But since I’m reading them out of ord...
Music has always played (pun intended) an important role in my life. We sang as kids to my Dad’s ukulele, my Mom’s favorite rounds, like “White Coral Bells” and “Frere Jacques” and “Three Blind Mice.” My parents even claimed that I sang before I talked. The song was “There’s a Great Big Turkey Down on Grandpa’s Farm” which I sang wordlessly but in the right tempo! The words were: “There’s a big fat turkey down on Grandpa’s farm who thinks he’s really gay. He spreads his tail in a great big fan and he struts around all day. Y...
For ongoing impact on my life, my sisters, who are twins, probably win the prize. I was three years and two weeks old when they were born. Life has never been the same since. I was the apple of my parents’ eyes before they arrived. How did I cope with losing center stage of their attention? I became the “little Mom” fetching and helping in any way possible. I developed a special love of holding babies, always sitting on the floor, with supervision, of course. I basked in the reflected glow, and enjoyed their miniature sizes....
As a child, I looked forward to Fall for school starting, and for seeing my friends, and for my birthday, which meant presents and a cake and ice cream, and two parties, one for friends and one with relatives. Living in Madison also meant the start of football season for the UW Badgers. I remember feeling the brisk cool air, excitement filling the air when there was a home game. Randall Stadium would fill with fans, the bands would play, and the noise could be heard throughout the neighborhood. It was thrilling, even if I...
My story comes from the distant past, so I apologize for any mistakes of memory or misrecollection or misinformation that may occur. Any errors are my own. My eldest daughter was always keen to grow up fast. It was not surprise that she eagerly awaited her 16th birthday to get her driver’s license. As soon as she qualified, she and I were headed to the Department of Licensing office, located inconveniently far from our home with hours not compatible to my work schedule. Nor was the organization of the office particularly p...
I am a curious cat, and I need to I know things. My nose is acute and accurate, sometimes too accurate. Every night I get to go into my room and have my food. The door slides closed and I am safe. In the morning, if someone doesn’t open it, I am forced to scratch and meow for release. If it isn’t all the way shut, I can squeeze my paw around the edge of the door and lever it open a bit, then insert my head sideways to pull on it with my chin. I’ll get the opening just wide enough to push on through. If She is watching, there...
I remember my grandparent’s farm in Magnolia Corners, Wisconsin, near Evansville. We often drove down from Madison on Saturdays to visit. When I was young, it was still a working dairy farm, with a barn full of cows, a radio playing music to keep them contented, and a hay loft full of hay for jumping in. Even when grandpa retired from the dairy business, the barn was rented for horses or available for playing in. He used it to build child-size chairs for outdoors, something my Dad thought would help handle retirement. They h...
I made a list of creatures bigger than a dog, thinking the list would spark my imagination about what particular animal to choose to write about. The prompt focused on size, thus so did. I. My list stuck first to typical large creatures, often found in zoos or the wilderness, then to aquatic life, and finally too farmyard animals. When you think about it, there are a lot of really large creatures that share the Earth with us. It is a privilege to see them in their natural habitat, and a danger too—both to us and to them. M...
