Tag Archives: christmas

Prose

Everybody Loves A Parade

Leave a comment

Apparently the dead mule is the hallmark of good southern literature. Don’t believe me? A professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill spent the better part of fifty years arriving at that conclusion. He read, analyzed, cataloged and then announced, with great confidence, that a dead mule within the pages was essentially a guarantee of top-notch work. Don’t believe professor Mills? Rick Bragg said it too. In my world that’s proof enough.

Let’s assume for a minute that a story with one live mule is half as good as a story with one dead mule. So one live mule equals half a dead mule. Couldn’t we also agree then, that TWO live mules equal one dead one? By now you probably see where I’m going, right?

My story has two lives mules. Continue reading Everybody Loves A Parade →

Life or something like it, Relationships

New traditions are good, too

Leave a comment

The holidays are all about tradition in my family. We visit one grandmother at one very specific time and the other side of the family at another. We eat the same dinner, play the same games, exchange the same gifts, tell the same stories. There’s something comforting about going into an evening knowing exactly what to expect, I suppose. But what happens when time or distance or circumstances threatens these traditional activities? Continue reading New traditions are good, too →

Life or something like it, Relationships

It’s Like, You Know…

4 Comments

I know it’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything here. I’ve been doing some re-grouping as most people do this time of year. And here’s one thing I’ve learned: posting here, perhaps, makes me a bit too introspective. I firmly believe that self-awareness is a good thing, but I need to better learn how to achieve that self-awareness without absolutely dwelling on certain aspects of my life that, more often than not, make me unhappy. So hopefully I will be able to post here more often, and actually make myself feel better rather than worse.

To catch you up… a few things that have happened during my AWOL period:

  • The dog has taken to running out the back gate every time I leave the house and it’s driving me crazy.
  • My grandfather passed away. He was 84 but basically in good health so it was a bit of a shock. He went in for some heart surgery, which he survived, but we lost him when they tried to take him off the machines in recovery. We buried him last week, complete with all the appropriate bells and whistles for an honored WWII veteran.
  • The wipers on my car have mysteriously stopped working. We had our first snow/ice of the season a couple of weeks ago and I thought they were just frozen, but it’s 70 degrees this week and they still won’t work. Of course, this is happening now, as my car is recently paid off.
  • There has been discussion of selling The Store. I really don’t want this to happen for several reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve had enough change for a while and I’d like things to just sort of “stay” for a while.

And because I was absent and missed the day we all did resolutions…
In 2005, I resolve:

  • to quit smoking. By June30th.
  • to lose 50 pounds. Which leads me to the next resolution
  • to run 3 times a week. Got new running shoes for Christmas, so I’m ready.
  • to increase my monthly billing for Kim’s Lilypad x2.
  • to learn how to do more with my beautiful guitar than just look good holding it.
Life or something like it

She

2 Comments

She always had a joke to tell and after she delivered the punchline, the walls would quiver from her hearty laugh. She worked long hard days hemming tee-shirts in a factory and never once complained. She was a mother not unlike my own. Selfless. Strong. Sympathetic.

Friday nights throughout my childhood were spent with her, making Coke floats and watching Dallas. Every fall she would take my brother and I shopping for “Back to School clothes” and every winter she would fill her tiny living room with Christmas gifts for us all.

She drove a simple gray car and lived in a modest, aging house. The floors creaked with every step she took as she prepared a feast for us every Sunday afternoon. When the February cold whisked through the thin walls, she would leave the oven on and open the door to supplement the heat from the wood-burning stove.

She smelled of almond bark and cherries.

I never heard her speak an unkind word about another living soul, even though life had given her just cause to do so. She was the woman I hope to be someday. She was everything a grandmother should be.

And today would have been her birthday.