Category Archives: story

death, Family, Humor, life, story, Uncategorized

Selling Fire

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I sorted the large stack of mail on the counter: Jeff. Janet. Janet. Junk mail. Jeff. Junk.

My eyebrow raised involuntarily on the last piece. Janet, or junk mail? 

Janet.

I was wrong. Junk.

She opened it, shook her head, and laughed while tearing it in two. 

It was an invitation for a free Italian meal at a local restaurant!  Of course at first, I thought cheap date.

The catch though, and there’s always a catch, was you had to listen to a pre-pay your own cremation sales spiel!

No joke! 

Cremation is both a legit, and best option, for many. Recent studies show 50% of Americans and 70% of Canadians opt for cremation. In fact, it’s usually one-quarter to a third of the costs compared to a traditional funeral. I’ve had family members cremated. You probably have too.   

But selling cremation over a free meal, well that burns me up!

They even included the menu of “free” Italian entrees!

To keep in step with the delightful cremation dinner conversation, 6 of the 8 meals were “sauteed”, and a 7th was fried.  Kind of figures, huh!?

Continue reading Selling Fire →
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Faith, Family, Hope, kindness, life, mental illness, story

Blue Plastic Egg

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Saturday I was on a mission to pick up Janet at the end of the day at a Houston airport.  

I stopped to get her dinner and sat in front of the second Chick-fil-A drive through line waiting on my order. 

It’s always the same, no matter where you go.  They bring it out and ask your name to confirm the order while handing it to you.  I say, “Thank you.”  They say, “My pleasure.” 

Normally, I’m itching to get it and roll on.  This time though, I wanted to just sit and watch.

A guy walked out of Chick-fi-A with a coke in his hand.  His pants were a size too big, his belt missed a loop or two, and his shirt peculiarly looked like it was from the 1960s. 

He didn’t have on ear buds, and he wasn’t on a phone, so he was definitely talking to himself. 

He stopped at the crosswalk talking away, as if an imaginary person was sitting on his shoulder.  He didn’t bother looking either way. He just stepped out in the drive area, staring at the ground. 

Continue reading Blue Plastic Egg →
business, Employment, Family, Health, Humor, Medical, story, Work

Must Be Quantum Physics

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Saturday.

Work calls.

Never good.

Hurt employee.

Stuck finger where finger doesn’t go. 

Drive to work. 

No blood. No cut. No bruise. 

Young man.

He holds hurt fingertip tightly, only letting go to adjust the rubber band keeping his hair in a man bun.

Says, “Hurts really, really bad. Like on a one to ten scale, 10 bad.”

Load him up and start toward an urgent care clinic.

For five minutes he gives an instant replay, blow by blow, of how the injury happened.

When he finished I simply asked, “So, why did you put your finger there?”

“I don’t know.”

Continue reading Must Be Quantum Physics →
children, Dancing, Family, grandchildren, Grandparents, Hope, inspiration, Jesus, Laughter, life, music, story, Time

A Graceful Dance

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It was a Daddy Daughter Dance.  Unfortunately for my son, he had to work out of town.  Fortunately for me, I was the second-string back up for Grace, who is 6 years old, and in first grade.

The school dance was for elementary girls, grades one through six, at our local university Grand Ballroom. My only concern was that it was from 6 to 9 PM.  Having two left feet and the coordination of a one-legged giraffe, how in the world could I fake dancing that long?!  In the end, it didn’t matter.

What did matter was that my granddaughter had a good time. She was dressed in a light blue dress covered with tulle. (For the ladies, aren’t you impressed I know what “tulle” is, and for us guys, it’s said “tool”, but not spelled that way, so it’s not a skirt covered in crescent wrenches like I thought.)

Continue reading A Graceful Dance →
Family, ghost, ghost story, grandchildren, Grandparents, Humor, indians, story, tall tales, totem pole

Chief Katura

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The little boogers were back in the woods behind our house.   7, 8 and 9 year old grandsons would never admit it, but their expressions said they almost got lost. 

To implant a little raise the eyebrow caution in them, I whipped up a story of half-truth, half-lie, fabricated, made up, tall tale, umm, creative license story.

“Did y’all see any signs of Chief Katura in the woods?”

Like fishing for hungry perch with a worm, they snapped at the bait! 

 “Who’s that?”

“Chief Katura?”

I paused to look them in the eye for emphasis.

“Now, I’m not saying I believe it, but folks around here say Chief Katura was the bravest Caddo Indian to ever live! Even braver than Chief Nacogdoches, who the oldest town in Texas (where we live), is named after.  A lot of folks around here say the spirit of Chief Katura still roams these woods looking for his bow and arrow.”

They didn’t just take the bait.  They swallowed the hook! 

I robbed some local fore from ghost stories from the town I grew up in and went on.  

Continue reading Chief Katura →
coffee, danger, horror, Hurricanes, life, movie, storms, story

Hurricane Rest

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As I sit and peck on my iPad, the wind is beginning to blow, and the rain just started playing pitter pat on the windows.  Hurricane Laura makes landfall tonight.

We’re 3 1/2 hours drive from the beach, but hurricanes are non-discriminatory storms, especially the wind.  We’re lucky though. We’re west of the hurricane’s eye, the less destructive side.

Even so, trees will come down. Electricity will flicker, then fail.

Tomorrow afternoon the rain will wane, the wind will pucker out, and everyone will get on with things. Continue reading Hurricane Rest →

dreams, Family, Humor, Insomnia, Playground, Sleep, story

Dreamtown to Awakeville

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It was a crazy dream!

I was zonked asleep, which is important, because sometimes I daydream.  In fact, sometimes blogging is like daydreaming, except with words.

Anyway, I was asleep dreaming.

My dreams are usually weird — near sighted blonde unicorns with measles playing frisbee golf while carrying spittoons for their chewing tobacco weird.  Unless you’re deranged, my dreams seldom make sense!

I dreamed about being in an open country field with rolling hills and tall grass as a contestant in a show similar to Wipe Out.  The next task in the show was to ride a merry-go-round for children. Continue reading Dreamtown to Awakeville →

airline, Family, Humor, Laughter, movie, plane, story, travel

Throw Momma From The ‘Plane’

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Last week we flew to Rapid City, South Dakota to start a six state vacation tour. There’s always a variety of people on airline flights.  I catch myself evaluating everyone, particularly the men, just in case I have to fight.

Don’t call me paranoid. Call me, I don’t know, prudent. Maybe paranoid.  Mainly, prudent.

This flight though, I was more worried about a flight attendant than anything else! At first, I wasn’t completely sure if he was a she, or she was a he. It was she.

I’m figuring she could’ve retired in 1972, but has held on to working as long as she can. The airline must have great benefits! Hair styling, Botox and charm school, however, aren’t among them.

Her gruff, don’t make me slap you, matter of fact, I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day for lifer voice seemed disturbingly familiar. She even looked familiar, but patting my chin with my finger, I couldn’t figure out from where…

Then my mind started churning….a movie, maybe?

That’s it! That’s who the stewardess looks like!  She looked like mama from the 1987 movie, Throw Momma From the Train!  It was uncanny!!  Twilight Zone music started playing it was so eerie!! Continue reading Throw Momma From The ‘Plane’ →

Alzheimer's Disease, Family, Health, Hope, life, love, Marriage, Medical, story, tragedy

A Thought To Remember

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One of my sons, Todd, told me a story that still lingers several years later.

He had several jobs at once in college, but quit them all to work in a college intern. He continued to work, however, for a gentleman in his 80’s he’d met a couple of years before.  The man was in great shape, but hired Todd to do heavy labor work around his farm.

As Todd got to know the man and his wife, he really liked them, a lot.

Unfortunately, she had Alzheimer’s, and was getting progressively worse in the short time he’d known them.

One day sitting in the gentleman’s pickup, he told Todd he would need him to work more to help look after the place.

Staring out the front windshield, he spoke quietly, as if thinking out loud. He said his wife’s memory lapses were becoming longer, and more frequent.

Occasionally, she would snap out of it and be back to herself instead of the confused, absent minded stranger.  He was was forced to move her to a nursing home for proper care. Continue reading A Thought To Remember →

Bee Keeping, Bees, Family, Health, Honey, Humor, nature, story, Uncategorized

Welcome to the Bee Box

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It started as a wild hair.  I moved a swarm of bees at work to keep them away from some employees who are deathly allergic.

Besides, bees are important to the environment, so you don’t want to kill them.  I learned along the way how to get a swarm to relocate them.  At first, it was a fiasco, but after moving a few over a couple of years, I got better.

Not to be a braggart, although it’s bragging, but not a prideful bragging, just an accomplishment bragging….OK, so I’m tooting my horn with a fog horn beecause I did it beeuatifully!

And, (brag, brag) I’ve only been stung once a couple of years ago when one got under my hard hat.  That bee kamikazed its stinger right in the bald spot!  Yeah. It hurt! Big red lump on the bald spot for a week!

The wild hair (no pun intended) has turned into an interest.  I bought a bee box from a feed store and waited. Patiently. Continue reading Welcome to the Bee Box →