Every Sunday morning the Story Lady would read the text of all the nationally sydicated comics over
the radio. I would lay the pages of the Des Moines Sunday Register out before me and do my best to follow along. I couldn’t actually
read yet, but I sure
wanted to.
“Love hurts”, the poets sing. Over and over they remind us that Cupid’s arrow pierces the heart.
We took a month-long vacation and went on a rambling tour of the Great America West. We didn’t have any real iterery, although we did have one planned stop. A vist to Les, who had finally made parole.
Knock briskly. Look straight into the narrowed suspicious eyes behind the screen door. Extend your hand as though to shake hands and say. ”Hi, got a minute”?
Three resolute watchmen patrol the echoing emptiness. Their probing flashlights scanning for any slight thing amiss. The silence broods heavily around them.
It’s the middle of May, the lilacs along my driveway are in full bloom and, as always, they remind me of Aunt Arlene.
I believe Steve King was the first to take the trail north in search of fortune.
By the time I was 6 or 7 years old most of my Shipley relatives had moved to someplace other than Mt. Moriah.
My Aunt Maxine has lived her whole life in the simple straightforward manner of children, animals and saints.
“Latin? “Why don’t we just say it in plain English”? Well Chris, we checked it out with six different focus groups. 80% thought the Latin phrase was better?.
That’s what we all called him, not Grandfather, not even Grandpa, but Grandad Bill.
My Grandma Ollie was the youngest of 4 sisters – Lesta, Lettie, Bessie, and Ollie.
The Shipley side of my family has a habit of saying, “Well…”, in a thoughtful, drawling sort of way as a catch-all response to almost any kind of conversational interlude.
Just because you can’t prove something exists, does that mean it doesn’t exist? It does not.
After 40-some years of hanging out on the planet it finally occurred to me to wonder where I came from.
Prose, Poetry, Song: three venerable envoys that carry words from our inner musings to the world outside.