(Click here to see the larger scrapbook image;
use the back button to return to this scrapbook article page)

I Could Never Do That!

(Scrapbooking is Easier Than You think)

by Star Geisz

When you consider the above picture, what goes through your mind? Maybe you think “I’d really love to do a scrapbook for our family, but I just don’t have the time.” Or maybe you feel you’re not creative enough. Or perhaps you worry that your energy level would never permit you to complete albums. Or maybe you even feel that the monetary investment is more than you can afford.

The benefits of creating scrapbook albums are many, and vary with your family situation. If you have children, creating scrapbooks about and for them is a way to give them a sense of belonging and value. They know they are special ~ you cared enough to scrapbook about them. If you’re single, scrapbooks can connect you to the people in your life that you love. You’ll have pictures and memories to reminisce about whenever you get together.

You may think that your story isn’t worth telling, but it is. My mother has Lupus, as well as a condition called Torsion Dystonia. This condition causes her head to be turned to one side, and it is only with great effort that she can almost hold it straight. My children know this, but when they look through their scrapbooks and see pictured of my mom and all that she still accomplishes, it gives them a sense of balance (“My life isn’t really that hard!”) and hope (“If Grammy can do all that with what she has to deal with, I can do it, too!).

(Click here to see the larger scrapbook image;
use the back button to return to this scrapbook article page)

One method of creating scrapbooks that is sweeping the album-making circles right now is known as “naked albums.” It takes very little creativity, is cost-effective, and the time and energy are invested in journaling, rather than deciding which sticker is best or what paper works with the pictures.

(Click here to see the larger scrapbook image;
use the back button to return to this scrapbook article page)

On naked pages, the decorations are kept to a minimum: no fancy paper or cute stickers or layered die cuts. You will notice that the focus is on the photos and the story behind them, which is, after all, the reason for creating the scrapbook in the first place. These photos were printed at the developer with the white border. By placing them on pages that aren’t white, it appears that they were matted; an eye-pleasing arrangement with very little time or creativity involved. If you like color, it can easily be added by choosing a colored pen with which to journal. And you have kept the cost at a minimum by not purchasing all the extras.

Be encouraged! You CAN scrapbook! Just keep it simple and you will have a beautiful album, focused on the important things: your photos and your words. It can be done without a huge time or monetary investment. And by working slowly and at your own pace, you can write a lasting story about yourself and your family that can bring joy and hope to those around you!

Copyright © 2005-2008 Star Geisz
All rights reserved.

Author Bio:

Star Geisz is the busy mother of four children. She is active in “support the troops” organizations such as ProudPatriots.org.

Scrapbooking is Easier Than You Think is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When our children were young, I had a friend who told me that it was time for her five-year old son to go to school — she had taught him everything she could.

I looked at it this way: the teachers could teach my daughter all of that 3-R stuff — I was never good at it anyway. I could teach her about fine literature, art, the history of oriental carpets — and how to make tiny guest soaps from little plastic muffin pans and a microwave.

Okay, so all we did was buy the book with the soap recipes. We never actually got around to making the soap. It’s probably still on a bookshelf somewhere next to the books on One Hundred Ways to Braid Your Hair and How to Have an Archaeological Dig in Your Own Basement.

When she was about eleven, we reached a point where she had her own ideas, so her father and I invented mini-scholarships that we tucked into her Christmas stocking. I think that most of the money went for sheet music, extra flute lessons, and Judy Blume books. She still had plenty of time leftover for camping and fishing trips, cooking lessons, and documentaries on PBS.

There did come a day, when she was a senior in high school, that she said she’d learned all she could from me. It was time for her to move on. From what I could tell, she’d moved on to big hair, frosted eye shadow, and boys.

No! She couldn’t quit on me now, I still had so much to share with her! I was already looking into opera tickets, museum passes, and jazz concerts.

I was on the county art commission at the time. Each day, my mailbox was filled with colorful brochure from art galleries. I wanted to share them with her, but she couldn’t work me in between her hair curling and phone calls from boys. Stacks of colorful pamphlets stacked up on the windowsill of her room. Unread. I knew they were unread because they were covered with dust. Any parent who knows her stuff can tell you that printed materials in a teenager’s room that are actually being read are covered in food crumbs.

I had to do something fast. The stacks of art brochures were beginning to block out the light in her bedroom. Since the bedroom was already facing north, it got too little light to begin with. If one of us didn’t back down, she could be facing a health problem.

I made a mental note to start slipping vitamin D into her colas.

Each morning she sat cross-legged on the bathroom cabinet for at least thirty-minutes while she tortured and sprayed those straight locks into curls tight enough to last through outdoor gym class in the rain. There was only one curling iron, one electrical outlet, and one mirror. Desperation spawned inspiration. Maybe I could make that big hair work for me.

That night, I sat down and cut out each little picture from the brochures and taped them to the mirror right in front of where she sat to curl her hair. Some were beautiful. Some were funny. Some were just plain weird. Each day, after she went to bed, I put up new pictures. Each morning, she’d go into the bathroom and while the curling iron heated up, she’d take down the pictures — one by one. Over and over she asked me to put them someplace else. She never did catch on that they were just where I wanted them. In her way. Soon, the stack of art brochures on her windowsill was gone, although I noticed that it was still dusty.

She’s older now. Styles have changed. The hair is much shorter and less time consuming. The garish eye shadow has been replaced with more subtle colors, and the boys have been narrowed down to two: a husband and a young son.

She really has moved on, but I’ve kept those pictures in a file. Someday I might use them again — when my grandson decides that he’s learned all he needs to know from me. I’m thinking I’ll glue them all over the backboard on his basketball hoop. Now if I can just figure out how to get up there — and back down!

Copyright © 2002-2008 Janelle Meraz Hooper
Used by Permission
All Rights Reserved

Author bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

How to Fight Big Hair (Adventures in Raising a Teenager) is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Kids these days really have it made. I know this gets said a lot, but it’s the truth. They have it made, and then some.

I walked in on my two grocery killers yesterday afternoon, and they were talking about how they might spend the evening. Their conversation went something like this:

“I don’t know if I want to go see that movie. Maybe I’ll just stay here and surf the internet.” said Will, my son. My daughter Alison responded,

“My boyfriend Dave is coming over to get me. We’re going to a video arcade, then head out to the mall.”

Sure is a far cry from the entertainment activities I had available to me when I was growing up in suburban Juliette. Coming of age there, you really had to get creative when thinking up ways of entertaining yourself. In fact, one of my most vivid memories of this came when my brother Ernest and I began an ant war.

You heard me right – an ant war. They’re really not that hard to do, once you get the hang of them. Let me explain a little further.

I guess I was eleven or twelve, and my brother Ernest maybe ten when we found ourselves late one summer afternoon wandering around in our cow pasture. After kicking around for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, my brother stumbled into this big old mound of red ants. They weren’t fire ants or anything, just plain ole red ants. After watching them scamper around for a few minutes, we moved on. We hadn’t gotten fifteen feet further when we discovered yet another hill, this one full of black ants. Ernest, who knew lots about nature, told me that the sparks would fly if those black ants bumped into those red ones. I asked, “What do you mean, the sparks would fly?”

He replied, “Edward, two opposite tribes of ants like that will fight to the death if they meet up with each other. And you figure with two big hills like those, it’d be an out and out ant war if they discover each other.”

My mind started racing, and I wanted to see if he was right. I asked him,

“Ernest, anyway we can help that war get started?”

He smiled, nodded, and walked over to a honeysuckle vine loaded with blossoms. Pulling a piece off, he handed it over to me and said,

“Just swish it around in that red ant hill.”

I figured there was nothing to lose, so I walked over and brushed those blossoms all around that hill. It didn’t take any time before red ants covered those flowers. When they were full, Ernest said,

“Now, air lift our troups over to the black ant hill.”

I did exactly that. I walked over and put that honeysuckle stem right down into that black ant hill.

Ernest turned out to be one hundred percent right. The red ants came off the stem and immediately started fighting the black ones. It was all very exciting, but the black ants had greater numbers, so the red ants started wearing down. When Ernest noticed that, he ordered me to airlift even more red ants. So I did, going back and forth several times with reinforcements.

It did the trick. The red ones slowly overtook the black ones, and finally they evacuated their own hill. The red ants had won!

Ernest and I left feeling pretty satisfied, and over the next several weeks we had even more ant wars. Before long, red ants were all over the place, and the black ones had all moved to a singular new hill. And then one day, the strangest thing happened. We noticed the black ants had taken over a couple of the red ant hills on their own. Ernest said that happened because the red ants were strung out all over the place, had too much ground to cover, and the black ones hit them when they were weakest. It made perfect sense, and I had to agree with him. And then it hit me that those ants were behaving a lot like people do – we seem to have our worst problems when we’re too spread out, and then we have to pay the price, just like those red ants did.

I wonder if my kids learned anything like that at the video arcade last night….

Copyright  2002-2008 Ed Williams
Used by permission.
All Rights Reserved.

Author Bio:

Free Wheelin’ is a weekly humor column from The Monroe County Reporter, and now syndicated to other Georgia newspapers. Ed Williams is the author of Sex, Dead Dogs, and Me: The Paperback. His second book of humorous essays is Rough As A Cob: More Juliette Journals. You can learn more about him by visiting his Web site.

Free Wheelin’ is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I don’t watch the news; it’s boring and takes up too much of my precious time. I don’t read the paper; it takes way too much time and has too much useless crap in it. So how do I stay in touch with the world? I listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered on NPR. It’s always top-notch reporting and relevant news. Every morning on my way to work, and every afternoon on my way home (to the bar) … I listen to my NPR.

I used to, anyway … before they went on strike. Except they have a special name for their strike: It’s called a “Spring Fund Raiser.”

Whatever.

When you refuse to work until you get more money, that’s a strike, baby.

It takes me on average 45 minutes to get to work in the morning. I turned on the radio this morning, and was greeted by the lovely sounds of Bob Edwards’ voice reading some headlines. Yeah, for about a minute! After that I spent 44 minutes listening to him and others beg me for money.

Now, I’m no business major, and those guys on NPR always seem a whole lot smarter than I, but this just can’t be a good source of income. Last time I checked I was broke. I hear them all the time, at the end of the show, where Bob will announce, “Morning Edition was brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and General Electric.” I’m pretty sure Mr. Edwards is never going to say, “Morning Edition was brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Dave.” Maybe they should stick with GE; they seem to have a whole lot more money than I do.

So what is a morning commuter to do? I think about it, then it hits me. I’ll listen to that new 80′s station that Atlanta just got, WMAX. I’ve listened to it before and it was awesome. They play music just like in the 80′s — the good, the bad, and the ugly (e.g., Depeche Mode, Tiffany, and Steve Perry). I start to get really excited as I tune into it, and….

Oh sweet Lord, no. It can’t be. It is! The only thing worse than morning shock jock talk radio: syndicated morning shock jock talk radio!

It’s always the same, too. One raging moron who happens to be louder than anyone else, surrounded by 12 guffawing yes-men. Constantly making inane jokes about Robert Blake and whatever reality-based TV show came on the night before. There’s got to be some kind of FCC regulation against morasses of asininity such as this.

It’s bad enough that I’m going to start my day completely uninformed of the world’s events, now I have to start my day missing a few more IQ points. To give an example of their gross lack of intelligent and relevant discussions, they brought up an intern who, as is any reasoning member of society, is afraid of clowns. These bozos (no pun intended) couldn’t even comprehend why people are afraid of clowns!

Clowns are scary because they’re freaking clowns, man, CLOWNS. Any man who wears makeup and tries to get close to children is a freaking monster. He should be locked up in a padded room only to have company with the phallic balloon animals he creates.

I absolutely love zombie films. They’re great. Movies about undead corpses that eat living human flesh. Oddly, that’s not scary. Why? Because I can walk. Oh no, a zombie that wants my brains is coming, what do I do? I walk away, that’s what. A zombie can only crawl at a pace of a half mile an hour. Therefore, a zombie is only a threat when I’m sleeping and I’m too busy trying not to think about clowns and Muppets to sleep anyway.

Yeah, I said it, Muppets. They’re the most horrible things to ever walk the earth, ever. And they’re REAL. People always tell me, “But Dave, how can you be scared of Elmo? He’s so cute.” First off, because I don’t trust anything or anyone with a lisp that bad, and secondly, because he’s friends with the cookie monster. Good Lord, what happens when the cookie monster gets burnt out on cookies and decides to become the flesh monster?

And how in the world do you stop a Muppet? At least with zombies you can split their heads open (Dum-dum bullets and shovels both work nicely, too.) and they’re dead. A Muppet?!?! Shoot, man, a Muppet is made of plush! Shoot it all you want, it loses a squiggly eye and some stuffing and it’s still coming to eat you.

There should be a federal mandate that requires all Muppets to be made out of the most flammable material possible, so when they turn on you, you can kill them with a cigarette butt. Yeah, non-smokers are screwed, but that’s none of my concern. However, I bet Jim Henson made them out of asbestos, not only to resist fire, but also to give children cancer.

The scariest thing is that somebody in charge of creating educational kids’ television programming decided instead to create unstoppable killing machines. You know why Jim Henson’s dead? Because the Count sucked the blood out of his veins and then ate him! On a side note, the Count enjoys counting the number of victims he’s consumed.

Holy crap! I just came up with a solution! Bury all the Muppets in a cave in Afghanistan, cancel Sesame Street, and use the proceeds to put NPR back on the air. The only thing scary about Morning Edition is host Bob Edwards’ face.

Damnit, now I’m gonna be scared of NPR.

Author bio:

Dave Maez is a freelance hacker, aspiring social commentator, and self-denying imbecile. His weekly column, Idiocy, appears in more than 4 email inboxes nationwide. You can reach the author by email.

NPR Goes on Strike, Dave Runs from the Muppets is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

“We don’t need a pool table!” my wife told me, after I’d mentioned that there was a good deal on a slate-bed, eight-footer in the classified ads.

“I know! I was just making an observation while reading the newspaper. If I saw a Mercedes Benz in here for a hundred bucks, don’t ya think I’d mention it? It doesn’t mean I’m gonna run out and buy it!” I assured her.

The truth was, I just wanted to run it by her and see if she’d give me any indication that maybe, just maybe, there might be a possibility to squeak one in here.

But, alas, it wasn’t going to fly today. It just seemed like such a shame that we had that big, beautiful basement, and no pool table. How sad for me.

I loved the game. I spent many an hour at the bar shooting stick and had become quite the talented amateur. I didn’t play the big money games, but I’d win my share from time to time.

However, once I quit drinking and got married, hanging out in bars didn’t fit with either of those life changes. So, my best shot of ‘running the table’ would be to have my own. My wife’s argument (and a darn good one) was that they were just too expensive. Even a good, used one would run about six-hundred bucks! But I kept my eyes open and scanned the pool-table section every chance I got.

When we’re least expecting it, that’s when our elusive dream can fall right into our laps. Here I was checking out a garage sale for hunting gear when I spotted my golden opportunity to once again ‘shoot ‘em up’!

A pool table! Leaning up against the wall of the garage. It was in pretty rough shape and had it’s share of nicks and gouges. The felt was torn in a few spots and there were some obvious beer stains, but I had a place downstairs just waiting for her! Besides; the sign said: $35.00!

As I stared at the table, I started to run down the list of people I knew with a truck. Then, I narrowed that down even more, when I considered which ones would want to take this on.

The man who lived there seemed to sense my dilemma and walked over. He was an older gentleman dressed in khaki shirt and pants, wearing an old fishing hat. “Are ya interested?” he asked, taking a drag off of one of those thin cigars.

“Yea, I’m just trying to figure out how I’m gonna get it home.” I told him.

“Well, we figured that might be a problem for the average garage saler. Where do ya live?” he asked.

“Just over in Cedarville. I could almost tow this thing if it had wheels,” I joked.

“Tell ya what.” He said; like a seasoned used car salesman ready to close the deal. “My boys got a truck! If ya throw in another twenty bucks, they’ll deliver it!” he suggested.

Fifty-five bucks was still within my price range to make this dream come true. Normally, I would have tried to knock the price down a tad but this was a divine gift from the heavens! Who was I to quibble?

“That sounds more than fair to me!” I told him, trying to contain my enthusiasm. He yelled for the boys to come out and help load the table onto the truck.

Two big guys came stumbling into the garage. They weren’t overly excited at the prospect of hauling a pool-table but the old man was boss, and they didn’t argue.

As I watched Homer and Jethro following me in the rear-view, bumbling along in a beat up, old-Ford; I could feel the chills! I had finally found my pool-table! And at a price that I could afford! This was one of those once in a lifetime deals that many people never live to see. I couldn’t wait to break that first rack of balls! Testing out my old bank-shot skills, (although the rails may have lost some of their bounce over the years), seeing if I still knew my old W.C. Fields’ tricks, powdering my hands like Jackie Gleason in The Hustler before taking on any and all challengers!

I pulled up to our house and looked back to see that Jethro and Homer were gone! Where did they go? I was driving slow enough, they shouldn’t have lost me!

I did a U-turn and went back to look for them.

When I got about a half mile back, I would discover why they never made it. There was my pool-table. Laying all over the road. In splintered pieces of wood and green-felt and the assorted screws that had once held it together! I jumped out of my car and screamed, “What happened!?”

“I guess we shoulda roped it in!” Jethro said, as Homer just stood there scratching his head looking at the pile of lumber that only minutes earlier had been my beautiful, beer-stained, thirty five dollar pool-table!
I picked up what was once part of a bumper rail and began to sob. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around to see the local police had arrived.

“You guys wanna get this mess picked up, and off the road, like, right now!” said one of Cedarvilles finest.

“Yes, sir.” I cried while I worked.

‘The boys told me that they’d haul it off to the dump and gave me back the thirty-five bucks but kept the twenty. I was too distraught to argue.

Another half a mile and it would have been home. Life can be cruel. With tears in my eyes, I drove home muttering that it wasn’t meant to be, but having a hard time swallowing my cracker-jack philosophy. It was meant to be, if only Homer and Jethro had used some rope!

When I got home, my wife was waiting for me.

“I thought you’d never get home! Where have you been?” she asked.

“Oh, just checking out some garage sales.” I said, not wanting to go through the whole story.

“Can you run down and get the laundry?” she asked as she went through the morning mail.

“Yea, sure.” I said. After my horrible morning, now I had to go get the laundry. Oh, well, back to reality.

When I got downstairs, I saw that there was no laundry in the dryer. I checked the washer but it was empty too. That’s when I saw it. A pool-table! An eight foot, Brunswick, slate-bed!

My wife had come up behind me. “Surprise,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“Where did this come from?” I asked in stunned disbelief.

“My uncle’s job relocated him to Kansas. He asked me if I knew anyone who wanted a pool-table. He had to empty his place out and didn’t have a lot of time. I told him you were looking for one so he let us have it for three-hundred bucks! Him and some of his buddies hauled it over here and set it up. I couldn’t wait for you to get home and surprise you!”

All I could say was, “It’s beautiful!”

I surveyed the pristine felt and rolled the cue ball against the rail and saw it spring back with the bounce I would need for those three-rail bank shots.

I had a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. There was a reason for the old, ratty pool-table to take a header off the end of that old Ford truck.

I got to do my Jackie Gleason imitation after all. Except it wasn’t Minnesota Fats, it was Ralph Kramden:

“Baby … you’re the greatest!”

Copyright © 2002-2008 John Fern
Used by permission.
All rights reserved

Author bio:

John Fern  lives in Minnesota with his wife, Peggy. He’s written articles for Grapevine and Aalst magazines and a feature column for the Sun-Post newspaper.

Nothing Worse Than an Empty Basement is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

School vacation was already one week old, and nothing exciting had happened. My new Buck Rogers rocket watch said it was at least nine o’clock, and my cousin Billy was still slopping down breakfast. I made tons of noise while waiting outside on the back steps hoping that would speed him up. Already too late to go fishing, but we probably would try anyway. We hadn’t caught anything but bullheads so far, and they were the only fish I couldn’t eat, even if I had both caught and cleaned the ugly mud puppies. Billy would and did, though. He would eat anything yet he was as skinny as I and almost as tall. Except for Eunice and Mirabelle, I was the tallest kid in sixth grade in Le Center, Minnesota.

“Billy! That’s enough cornflakes. You’ve had two bowls already, and your Dad will want something to puke out, if he ever gets up. Put your bowl in the sink, and go try to wake your Dad,” said my Aunt Mary, very crabbily. I stopped whistling, and whittling with my new boy scout knife, and hunkered down quiet.

“Crap!” Billy’s Dad had been on a toot, again. Usually, he just fell of the wagon on Saturday nights, but this was Saturday and a half workday for Uncle Boog at the Le Center Creamery where he was the newly promoted, Chief Cheese-maker.

Our Grandpa Kelly was an Irish bartender and that made him an expert on boozing. Grandpa always said that no one was a drunkard unless they got drunk two days in a row. I hoped Uncle Boog wouldn’t qualify, drunk again on Saturday.

It seemed like hours and still no Billy, but time passed slow waiting but time was flying where our short and precious summer vacation was concerned. The screen door finally banged open, and Billy came out quietly, followed by his surprisingly healthy father, Boog Kelly, who should have been at the creamery.

“Well, now who’s this bum sitting hungrily on my steps, waiting for a handout. Damned if it don’t look like me brother’s child, Gary.” He tousled my hair affectionately and said, “But Gary wouldn’t prefer to sit on the back stoop, like as if we wouldn’t want him at our table.”

Billy winked, and started unlocking his bicycle tethered to the porch railing, as if somebody would steal his rickety hand-me-down bicycle.

“Hello, Uncle Boog,” I said, hoping for a quick and uncomplicated get-a-way.

“Tell your Mom, don’t buy any cheese dated, June 6, 1951, as it won’t be Le Center’s finest. I took the day off to mourn and bury Dad and my helper ain’t quite got the hang of cheesemaking yet.” It was then, I noticed the large stoneware crock he was holding. Grandpa had died last fall, racing the Great Northern Streamliner to the Lexington road
crossing. Because the impact caused Grandpa’s home-made Irish whiskey to explode, cremation was the family’s only logical choice for his remains — which was unfortunate because most Le Center Lutherans believe that you arise from the grave on Judgment Day, just as you are.

I was curious why Uncle Boog waited until today to bury his dad’s ashes and why he chose a Friday night for mourning, instead of Saturday, when he could sleep late. I was curious enough to ask, “Where you going to put Grandpa?” not at all sure that I wanted to know, or that Uncle Boog would tell me the real truth. He was always teasing, like Grandpa did in his saloon, where everyone came to hear his wild stories, even those listeners who only drank Kelly’s home made genuine Sarsparilla and Nerve Tonic, thinking that it was alcohol free.

That locally famous drink was Billy and my main source of income, until Dad started teaching me the value of a dollar by working for him at Gunder’s Cosmetics and mail order house. Grandpa bought the bottles for his elixir from Billy and me. We gathered empty bottles, getting two cents for beer bottles and a penny for ketchup or pop bottles. Grandpa bottled his elixir only in bottles Billy and I supplied. He brewed it in a large cauldron, just like witches use. Some folks said, it was mostly Catnip and Indian Hemp, but Grandpa never let anyone watch him mix his drink, so one could only guess.

Uncle Boog, took a long time to answer like he was just deciding.

“Grandpa, always wanted to travel, and never did. He loved to visit with people, really get inside them and see what they believe. I think I will go to the creamery, grind up his ashes with the peppercorns for our pepper cheese, and let him travel everywhere we send our cheese.” Then Uncle Boog paused, looking a bit pale and strained. He set the crock down on the top step, and ran back in the house.

“He was teasing, wasn’t he?” I asked Billy, remembering how Uncle Boog fooled you except when you thought he was, he wasn’t. “Remember when he said he tanned your butt for selling Grandpa that case of beer bottles, and we thought he was teasing?”

Billy rubbed his butt, while remembering that walloping, “He said he was sorry afterward. Just the thought of all that beer going to waste made him temporarily mad at me.” The case of stolen beer Billy and I had found hidden in a culvert under the tracks to the lake, had no value to us, except as empty bottles worth two cents, and we had uncapped and emptied the whole case, taking the empties to Grandpa’s Bide-a-Wee Tavern.

Boog caught Billy returning the borrowed bottle opener to the kitchen drawer, and insisted on knowing why it was borrowed. Billy was not a good liar like me, though I sure have coached him. Grandpa had thought Boog’s outrage was funny, and told everyone. Uncle Boog
didn’t laugh or think it funny at all.

“We can’t let him do it,” I said. “Maybe that would poison people, or make their teeth fall out like Grandpa’s.”

Billy nodded in agreement, shushing me, and grabbing hold of the crock.

We carried it back to the woodshed and garage, at the end of the lot, then returned and started a game of mumbledy-peg with my new knife, while we waited for Uncle Boog to reappear. I had Billy forced to pull the almost buried peg with his teeth when we heard the telephone ring, and soon Uncle Boog came out, almost running.

“Tell Ma, I’m at the creamery; my assistant walked off the job.” He loped down the alley toward the creamery on B street, totally forgetting the crocked remains of Grandpa.

Learning responsibility, I worked Saturday afternoons at Gunder’s. I swept the floors while everyone was off, and the plant empty. I hated working when others weren’t but my Dad wasn’t like his brother Boog at all. Dad wanted me to learn the work ethic and the value of money. I had only a couple of fun hours ahead before my janitorial chores, but I had a grand inspiration. Work wasn’t too bad if you had company.

“Hey Billy, I know where to put Grandpa, and he will absolutely love it. Gramps will travel all over the world and will have intimate contact with lots of beautiful girls. Absolutely love it.” (I had deliberately used one of Billy’s favorite words, since we had looked it up in the school library’s big Webster Dictionary)

“Oh, and where’s that, pinhead?” he said, casually but I knew I would have him helping me sweep floors in the dusty mixing room, just as surely as Tom Sawyer had Huck’s help painting fence.

“At my job! There’s a big tank they keep the talcum powder in. We can drop Grandpa’s ashes in and the vibrator will mix him in with all the other stuff they blend in the face and body powders. Gunder’s ships that stuff all over the world. Gramps would love being slathered on a lot of pretty girl’s butts. He never could get close enough to those huge, old ladies that hung out at his tavern.”

Without even asking about the work we would have to do first, Billy had agreed. We scrounged around in the woodshed for something to put grandpa’s ashes in. We needed a handled container so could carry him on our bikes. We found an empty pail that once held three gallons of pickled pimentos, flavoring for LeCenter’s finest pepper cheese but now gathering dust under Grandpa’s old workbench. Without spilling any of Grandpa in that dirty old shed, we got him in with the residue of a million dried pimentos. Someone sneezed and I thought it was Grandpa, until I saw Billy backhand the snotty remains on his jeans.

Gunder’s was closed Saturday’s but us important personnel knew a spare key hung on a nail under the loading dock. I opened the door and said, “Let’s do sweep-up first, so we can include Grandpa when we dump the sweepings in the mixer.”

Billy, just laughed and said, “I knew there was a reason you didn’t sprinkle Grandpa out the pail while we rode out to the lake!” I forgot to tell you, that was his brilliant plan. Sprinkling Grandpa all over town, like the water they used to settle the dust on Le Center’s streets during summer would be an insult to a man never ever found laying in a gutter, like his youngest son Boog often occupied.

“Okay, we’ll mix Grandpa in the powder, first. You can go fishing alone while I do the sweeping. I grabbed the pail from Billy and walked to the ladder to the steep steps that went to the platform surrounding the top of the powder vat. “You can come up, Billy, but don’t make any sparks. No smoking because this fine dust is explosive like gunpowder. That’s why my clean up job is so important.”

Billy mumbled something I didn’t catch. He didn’t smoke but he always had candy cigarettes he’d selfishly suck on without sharing. I think cigarette companies made them so kids would think it was cool pretending to smoke. Ma wouldn’t let me have them, so I didn’t get any when they closed Grandpa’s place. Boog and Billy got most of the goodies.

We went to the top, about sixteen feet above the floor where a noisy belt conveyer brought up big sacks of finely ground flour, stinky flower parts, and powdered rock. A slick vibrator and air pump was used to mix the ingredients and fluff it up. I turned it on so Grandpa would be spread thoroughly through the gigantic vat, and soon the level of fluffy powder rose near to the top, though it had been less than half full.

“Pry off the lid, Billy. Be careful of the powder, it’s really slippery stuff and look how far down it is.” Billy looked dizzily down, handed me the un-opened pail, and started back down the steps.

I stood, looking at the powder fluffing, prying off the lid, and must have pried too hard, slipping sideways on the powdered steel grating. Taking three small steps, to regain balance, one of my feet went over the edge where I teetered, one hand grasping for the opened the safety railing, grandpa’s pail handle firmly held in the other.

I did not float in the fluffed up powder, but grandpa and his pail did, a full arm’s length over my head at the powder’s surface. The vat full of suffocating powder was much deeper than I could survive, and it was many seconds of frustrated kicking before I realized, what held my right arm erect. Grabbing the pail handle with both hands, I reached the surface and by wrapping my arms around the buoyant pail, got my head high enough to breath.

“Billy, shut off the vibrator,” I yelled but my voice was stifled by a mouthful of powder. My vision was blocked by a pasty coating of powder. I yelled again, a little louder but Billy did not answer.

Just a little calmer, I realized the seriousness of my predicament, and thought of how I might survive. Firmly holding the can of Grandpa’s ashes, I tried kicking to the side of the bin, but swimming did not work in the fluffed up powder. Blinking did not clear my eyes, so my fate was in the hand of rescuers that would come only if they knew I was there.

“Billy, please get help. You won’t be in trouble. Please get help,” I said in my Sunday company voice. He did not answer. I hoped that he had gone for help, but knew that was a long shot. Billy would not want to be a part of my predicament because his Dad was extra mean when he was sick. He was usually just sick Sundays, but this week, Uncle Boog had a head start.

I thought the can holding me up was sinking, fine powder sifting in past the lid maybe. My dilemma was getting worse and then the plant’s fire alarm began warbling. If the flames reached the powder vat, I would escape, but in a ball of flame, streaking across the town like a sky rocket.

I could hear the siren of LeCenter voluntary Fire Department’s big American-La France fire engine, and it was coming closer. I sniffed for tell tale smoke but could only smell the lilac smell of the powder clogging my nostrils. The siren grew louder and louder.

I heard Gunder’s front door burst open and Le Center’s Fire fighters burst into the mixing room, and clambered up to my mixing platform area. They had came for me and I was never so glad to see anyone. Even Uncle Boog in his yellow slicker and big fire hat looked good to me.

“Where’s Grandpa?” Uncle Boog asked.

“Mixed in the bath powder,” I said, worrying whether he would punish me for losing Grandpa’s ashes, or just Billy, for calling the fire department. Instead, Uncle Boog totally surprised me.

“You and Billy come by the fire station. Soon as I get out of my gear, we’ll go to Whelan’s Drug Store and get us all a double size chocolate sundae. We’ve got to do something important so we will always remember the day we buried grandpa.”

And, of course, we still do.

Copyright © 2002-2008 Gerald Bosacker
All Rights Reserved.

Author Bio:

(Author bio not available.)

Burying Grandpa is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I had plowed through an endless sea of dirty used Toyotas when I saw her. She crouched in the corner of a used car lot like a big navy blue crab on the bottom of a dusty ocean. This car was so dirty I couldn’t even tell she was a Mercedes, but I could tell she was special. She had a style the new Mercedes didn’t have. To me, the new ones just screamed money; this one purred class.

And I needed some class. Desperately. I was having a heck of a time! My body was already busy fighting off a full frontal attack of arthritis when a Mack dump truck lost its brakes and totaled my Toyota Celica. This unpleasant encounter left the only parts of my body that didn’t already hurt from my chronic illness with a totally new kind of physical pain.

I also had a third kind of pain, centered in my pocketbook that was almost as severe as the first two: the insurance check to replace my totaled car was only $7800. Although it was more than the original purchase price ten years before, it was only about half of the replacement price of the new cars on the market.

My husband needed the other family car to commute in, so I had to find another vehicle as soon as possible. Since I didn’t have the option to wait until I felt better, I bundled up all of my aches and pains—especially the big one in my wallet—and started making the rounds of the used car lots.

She was squarish with four doors. Her color was a few shades lighter than true navy blue. I called it Mercedes blue. Her chrome headlights were big and round and gripped the sides of the biggest chrome grill I’d ever seen. The dash was part polished wood. Real wood. I had never been attracted to luxury cars before, but I was in love with this one from the moment I first saw her.

I called her Sadie. It was short for Mercedes. Sane people looked at Sadie and saw a 1973 car that had 160,000 miles on her. I looked at her with my right brain (the creative side) and what my right brain saw was pure style.

The left (and logical) side of my brain screamed, No! No! She’s just a piece of junk! Look at her! She’s a big blue hole you’ll throw piles of money into, just like your friends who fix up old yachts. At least they can fish!

The right (and creative) side of my brain sung this is it! This is the missing link! If I can just have this car, I can survive the crooked bones. I can endure the humiliation of my hair falling out in chunks from the lupus. I’ll get a turban! A turban would look GREAT in this car! Obviously, the right side of my mind was out of control. How else could it determine that a Hispanic woman who wore an East Indian turban would look more appropriate in a Mercedes than in a Toyota?

My husband of over twenty-five years didn’t share any of my enthusiasm for my choice. Both sides of his brain shouted NO! and he tried all kinds of arguments based on logic to talk me out of buying Sadie…that was his mistake. Logic is useless when the right side of someone’s brain is panting, “Come to me! Come to me!”

As a stalling tactic, he insisted that we have the car checked over by a mechanic. Much to his chagrin and my delight, he was forced to abandon mechanical problems as an argument; Sadie was in good shape. Sure, she was old and would require some repairs down the road, but nothing to be concerned about, they assured us.

My husband knew he was losing ground. In a less than enthusiastic gesture, he made a ridiculously low offer on Sadie — $3,500 — that the dealer immediately accepted. I never knew whether they were more delighted to get rid of Sadie or their daily visits from me. But for whatever reason, Sadie was mine.

Had I been as much in tune with my husband’s vibes as I was with Sadie’s, I would have noticed that I was becoming less and less his loving companion and more and more his big pain in the neck. My only excuse for my denseness is that I was so busy trying to survive a devastating illness that I didn’t have the energy to notice the relationship that I treasured so dearly was crumbling fast. All of my strength was going toward finding a Band-Aid for all of my physical pain, and I found one — a big blue one.

I can hear you sniffing, “All this excitement over such an old car?” I know. I can’t explain it. She lifted my spirits when very little else did. It was the only car I’ve ever loved. It also turned out to be the only car I’ve ever washed at least five times a week…even when it snowed. My other cars were lucky to be splashed with water from a puddle at an intersection.

I marveled at the polished wood dash, the little lock with the tiny key that secured the radio antenna, the Mercedes leather (actually Mercedes vinyl) seat covers, and the magical carpet on the floorboard that refused to pick up dirt and stains. This car was pure magic. Expensive magic, but magic.

With a sense of stewardship I bought parts for her and made sure she saw her mechanic regularly. If I had two dollars in my pocket, I would swing by our local Mercedes’ dealer and invest it in Sadie. I stocked up on little things like fuses (I had a whole baggie full of these in my glove compartment), knobs for the radio, and door handles — all of which were constantly falling off.

My increasingly grouchy husband shelled out for bigger ticket items like transmissions, exhaust systems, and radiators. Once, I called him away from work to come and rescue Sadie and me after she lost a thirty-cent gasket that cost over three hundred dollars in labor to replace because the mechanic had to take off the whole bottom of the car to get to it.

On the plus side, he was also beginning to socialize in parking lots with other Mercedes’ owners. He found them full of information on how to save money maintaining Sadie. For instance, one fellow Mercedes owner showed him how to adapt regular windshield wipers to fit on a Mercedes, a savings of about forty dollars. The man with two left brains and the empty pockets to go with them was thrilled, at least with the car.

After he borrowed Sadie one day to pick up some businessmen at the airport, he discovered the back window never seemed to get wet when we were going down the freeway in the rain. Then he discovered that the tire jack fit into a metal slot under the car so it couldn’t slip out, even on a hill.

“Do you know that that Mercedes’ mechanics make marks on the engine when the automobile has been in a collision?” he asked me one day.

“A very handy thing to know if we ever buy another one!” I answered. I didn’t have a clue as to how unhappy he was with me and that he had no intention of making any more joint purchases. After all, we’d been married for almost twenty-five years. How could anything go wrong now?

Sometime during all of this, his affection for Sadie grew. Even he started to call her Sadie; his previous names for her were largely unprintable. Conversely, I can only guess that his names for me became less and less endearing — and most likely unprintable.

Well, all this was years ago. At the end of our marriage, my husband was a lot more enthralled with Sadie than he was with me, a fact that is a lot funnier now than it was then.

As I adjusted to my new, much poorer, economic station in life, I had to face the fact that I could go back to college on the money I was using to “restore” Sadie. She had to go.

I’d been married a little over twenty-five years the day my divorce was final. I went straight from the courtroom to the car lot, kissed Sadie goodbye and bought a new, reliable Toyota Camry. It was silver. After all, it was my silver anniversary.

My eyes still mist up when I think about my Sadie. But I had her when I really needed her. The only time I felt safe was when I was surrounded by all of her navy blue steel. She was the perfect car for that time of my life. Too bad I didn’t have a navy blue steel heart to go with it.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Janelle Meraz Hooper
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

Arthritis T-Shirts and Gift Ideas Designs

Lupus Awareness and Support T-Shirts and Gift Ideas Designs

The Big Navy Blue Crab is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I am not at ease giving advice.

I’ve made too many mistakes and most of them I keep repeating.

Recently a friend gave a commencement speech. She asked a few friends, including me, just to be polite, I think: “What words of advice would you give a high school graduate?”

I really had to think about that one. I don’t do very much deep thinking . I’ve always skittered on the edge of intense “What Is The Meaning Of Life?/Follow Your Bliss” conversations, because I just don’t know. If this sort of topic came up at a party with people earnestly and passionately stating their earnest and passionate opinions, I would make a beeline right to the kitchen, refresh peoples’ drinks, put out some more chips, and then try to change the subject: “Hey! Speaking of whether animals or trees have souls, a squirrel fell down our chimney! Smack into the fireplace ! He wasn’t hurt! It took us two hours though to….” my voice trailing off, ,people uncomfortably staring or uncomfortably looking away.

For my friend’s speech, all I could come up with was: “When in doubt, throw it out.”

My grandmother used to say it, referring to leftover, “iffy” food.

I suppose you could apply it to other problems or situations in life, but I’ve never given it much thought.

I do have a few stock bits of wisdom I try to give my kids. I mean, besides the Parental Basic Hygiene Rules (wash hands, brush teeth, etc.) and the Drugs, Sex and Alcohol Mandate ( DON’T!). I say “We will just have to make do” a lot. This is not a command to use the bathroom. It means, well, this is all we have to work with, so use it, make the best of it, and just do it.

I also say: “Things you do come back to you”. Very karmic, that one and I like the way it rhymes like “when in doubt throw it out” does. I say “Life Isn’t Fair” all the time; but, if you think about it, it’s not true. Life is fair in its unfairness.

My friend used the “when in doubt ” one. It was funny, she said, and it got some laughs, which are always needed in the midst of seemingly endless graduation speeches.

I’m going to go clean out my refrigerator now. And think about a certain “iffy” relationship I am hanging on to….

When in doubt….

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 C. Stell
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Ms. Stell is a teacher who lives in the Midwest with her two children.

Advice is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Author of:

One of the best things that can happen to a serious writer is to find an active, supportive writing group whose members have goals similar to yours. At their best, these writers will listen to your query letters, synopsis, and chapter problems and be able to offer constructive advice. Chances are, it’ll be much more satisfying than asking the plumber who thought he was just there to fix the leaky faucet. Or, the glazed look you get at the dinner table at home when you ask for your family’s help.

Don’t think your family’s reluctance to critique your writing as being abandoned in your time of need by the people you’ve loved, supported, and fed all their lives. After all, there was that time they actually had some ideas and you burst into tears over your meatloaf. No one in your family wants to go there again. Do you?

Sometimes the people around your dinner table are silent because they have no advanced writing skills and they hate to be wrong. Don’t we all? So, most likely, they’ll hem and haw until they get their dessert, then they’ll leave you little sticky-notes on your computer behind your back. More about those notes later.

Better to take your questions to some people who will be more objective. Your family will be happier (relieved is more like it) and you’ll be happier and further along in actually fixing the problem, whatever it is.

Your fellow writers will also be a valuable resource when you have to make other decisions like: which writing conference is worth the time and money and which isn’t. Who’s buying the kind of stuff you’re writing? What’s new on the Internet?

A serious organization should have set times to meet in a dry place with tables and chairs. It should be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. A circle of writers that hopes to be productive should have a moderator who’s there on a regular basis and appoints someone to sit in her place when she’s absent.

Luckily, the group I’m in has a published writer who’s also an editor at the head of our table. She doesn’t just maintain order and make sure that all members get a chance to read, she can offer legitimate help on any writing project, big or small. Maybe her best quality is she’s so tactful. Every meeting, we tax her critiquing skills more than once or twice. I’m sure one of us could read aloud from one of Nixon’s old speeches, and she’d think of something encouraging and constructive to say.

Sometimes the perfect collection of writers to encourage your creative flow isn’t easy to find. If you don’t feel comfortable with the first writers you visit, try, try again, until you find your “writing home.” For instance, I knew that a group I visited wasn’t a good fit when I was the only writer at the table who didn’t have on a marijuana tee-shirt. The second bunch was okay but too far away to get me off my couch on stormy winter nights. My next “home” was perfect, and I’ve been there for several years now.

So, get out there and find some other writers you’re simpatico with. Either that, or get used to coming home to find that your family has left notes stuck all over your computer with messages like these:

• Mom! I had a few minutes before baseball practice, so I made a few improvements on chapter seven for you. Hope you like the scene I added with the giant spider. -Ritchie
• Dear, your editor called and said you needed an “expendable character,” so I murdered your protagonist in chapter three. Hope that was all right.-Mike
• Sis! I went through your new Thesaurus and underlined all the literary-sounding words in red. If you’re more literary, maybe you can be on Oprah. -Molly
• Mom! I thought your Times Roman was looking a little flat, so I changed everything to Ravie. It’s way cool, and added another fifty pages to your book. So I solved your page-count problem, too! -Kandy

Well, you did ask sometime over meatloaf for their help, remember?

Believe me, you’ll be much happier if you find a good writing group and make a commitment to it. If you want to become a better writer, you have to set aside the time to make it happen.

Members also have an obligation to be there to help their fellow writers, cheer when the news is good, and lend encouragement when needed. I should also add: be nice. Some of your fellow writers will be there for the camaraderie, so spare them the twisting knife in the ribs after they read.

. . . Wait a minute. I just found another sticky-note. This one says: “Hey, lady! What’s with all that back story in chapter two? Ya’ gotta get that stuff outta there, else you’ll slow down the pace.” Signed: Joe the plumber.

It was bound to happen. A plumber who writes. Turns out, he was right. Maybe I don’t need a writing group after all. Maybe what I need is another leaky faucet.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Janelle Meraz Hooper
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

Get Thee to a Writers’ Group! is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

There’s a place here in Columbus. Our family considers it Mecca. It is an important place. It is a place of many visits, a place of celebration and of solace.

What is this place, you might ask? Is it a church, or a park, or some other such place of meditation and beauty?

No.

It is an ice cream shop.

It is a small place–one of those outdoor stands with a walk up window (and a drive up, but we ignore that as often as we can). It has tables outside with big umbrellas to keep the sun off. It’s open and clean, and makes its ice cream there on the spot, serving three or four main flavors a day because (I assume) that’s all they can set up for. In short, it is the perfect ice cream place. Sitting with your family at one of those big stone tables on a Saturday in June with the big high sky and white clouds and enveloped by the smells of vanilla and cream is about as close to the apex as life can get.

Unfortunately, since it’s an open stand, the place closes for the winter.

In itself, maybe this is good because it provides for the annual rite of the November rush. Mecca is closing! We must go to Mecca! Mecca is closing soon! We must go to Mecca!

Personally, I begin to use this excuse come about August.

But is also gives rise to that great institution of Opening Day, which is better than baseball’s opening day in my book, though not quite so steeped in tradition.

Yesterday was Opening Day.

I had suggested that we camp out there Sunday night to make sure we were first in line. I think I had Brigid on my side, but Lisa got one of those “You’re so insufferable” looks on her face, and I knew I was doomed to not be first.

Still.

The day dawned. It was cold.

Snow actually fell in the afternoon. My spirits drooped. What if Lisa and Brigid decide they don’t want to go? What if they figure it’s just too cold? We’re out of Mecca shape. It’s Opening Day. What if they decide to postpone due to excessive intelligence?

I stayed later at work than I normally do. It’s that dedication thing biting me again.

What if they think it’s too late? What if they get tired? What if we’re not hungry after dinner?

The phone rang at quarter to six.

“Where are you?” Lisa’s voice was firm and direct at the other end. “Dinner’s ready and it’s Mecca night.”

My heart soared. That’s my girl, I thought. Back in the saddle again.

“I’ll be right there.”

So I dropped everything, hopped in the car, and raced home to scarf down enough food to make it look good but ensure that I would have room left. Can’t be too careful, you know? A quick check of the e-mail, and I was ready to go. (Hey, you’ve got to have priorities, you know? E-mail above all. Ice cream Mecca a close second).

It was dark by the time we left.

Cold.

Still, we made it there. It was open, lights splaying over the open concrete porch, kids in their uniform shirts manning the counter, drive up window doing a great business. “Drive up’s fine with me,” Lisa said. I considered the alternative and quickly agreed. We ordered. Ice cream arrived. I paid. We sat in the car in the parking lot. Yes.

Snow swirled around us in the lights–little silver motes like ice cream fairies dancing on the wind. Cars drove past the drive up. A few teenagers actually went to the window.

We talked. We laughed. We ate ice cream.

I hit bottom first, so I drove home while Lisa and Brigid finished. Occasionally Brigid doesn’t complete her ice cream and I get he leavings. Eating your daughter’s left over ice cream is a tough part of being a dad. But a tougher part is dealing with it when there isn’t any left over. Brigid finished it all as we were nearing home. The saddest sound you’ll ever hear is the sound of plastic spoon on Styrofoam cup. It is the sound of perfection slipping into the past.

Or, perhaps, instead, it is the most satisfying sound of all. Perhaps that sound signifies the end of a perfect moment, and as such comes with that gentle feeling of understanding something too deep to put into words…

I can’t tell which is right. Saddest? Most satisfying?

I guess it’ll take a bit more experimentation.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Ron Collins
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Ron Collins is a prize-winning author of speculative fiction who lives in Columbus, Indiana, with his wife, Lisa, and their daughter, Brigid. You can learn more about Ron by visiting his Web site, Typosphere.

A Trip to Mecca is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.