It’s pretty much the same every time. “Daddy, there’s a boy I want you to meet. Can he come over?” It starts with a 30 to 40 minute interrogation about who he is, who are his friends, where’s he go, how do you know him, what do his parents do, does he have a prison record, etc. I usually get his height and weight too, just in case I have to dig a shallow grave in the woods.
If he makes it through that hurdle, then I’ll get, “Well, Daddy” – blink, blink and a puppy dog expression – “Can he come over?” I put my hand on my forehead, not to be dramatic, but because a major headache is setting in, and I blurt out a foolish, half hearted, “Ahhhh! Yeeeees. He can come over.” And with that, another one of Beelzebub’s workers has an appointment to “hang out” with one of my daughters. Continue reading Beelzebub’s Workers→
Some asthma as a kid along with a few bad respiratory infections as an adult and wala, it’s the perfect potion for a phobia fear! I hate, hate, hate not being able to freely breathe. Even with that, it never crossed my mind that snorkeling entailed semi-restricted breathing through a tube, and that maybe, just maybe, I ought to think twice about putting a mask over my eyes and nose so you can only breathe through the tube just above water.
Even on the boat ride out to a volcano rim off the Hawaii island of Maui, it never occurred to me that breathing is restricted in snorkeling. Continue reading Rookie Snorkel Vision→
Mango, my black mouth curr dog, has a staring problem. It’s hard to be stared at. It’s even worse when it’s a longer than average, full fledged, laser stare, the kind where every move you make is calculated and the pupils of the eyes follow you, anticipating every move you make. It gives a shiver down my spine!! A stare like that from a person or stranger can start a fight, and one like that in a dark alley is why there are concealed handgun laws.
On the other hand, even if it’s a stare full of hope, love and adoration, after the initial amusement, it can get almost spooky, to the point you want to close the curtains and hide.
There’s a teenager I know who recently turned 92 years old. You have to do a double take when you learn her age because she looks twenty years her junior.
Her hair is grey, with a smidgen of blue from her hair coloring. She walks with a little limp, not much, just enough to know that her hip bothers her sometimes, even though I’ve never heard her say a word about it. She has lines of time’s grace around her eyes and cheeks, and her hands and fingers show the wear of work over the Continue reading 92-Year-Old Teenager→
A co-worker came and stood in my doorway and started talking, fast, really, really fast. This lady is excellent at her job and has a good sense of humor. She is normally somewhat reserved and by all accounts is a highly ethical, together and classy person. She was going office to office handing out a pile of new phone books. Normally, she is NOT a morning person and certainly not a big talker early in the morning. In fact, she usually has an invisible wall around her until about 9:30 AM when the glaze disappears from her eyes after having a cup of coffee or two.
She was wearing glasses, which I’d never seen her wear before except to read. As she talked in NASCAR Jimmy Johnson speed, she asked, “Do you wanna a new phone book?”
I was about to answer, but she started talking at 70 mph and gathered speed. “I don’t know why they print so many of these phone books because I have three different ones Continue reading Maybe It Runs In Their Family→
Our town is a place to love! It’s beautiful, but more importantly, it’s unique. It’s the people that make it unique, and nowhere else will you see that more obvious than people watching…or just driving down the road.
It’s probably a politically incorrect thing to say, but I do wonder sometimes if there are more “special” people in our neck of the woods than other places. By special, I don’t mean extraordinary intelligence. I mean Mama dropped them on their heads too often, from a two-story building special! Continue reading My Town→
Stories about family, faith, friends and funnies. Pull up a chair. Grab a cup of coffee and laugh, cry, ponder and inspire about ordinary events of this wonderful, ever changing, bubbling pot that we call "every day life".
RabBits 