It’s one of the most popular burger places across from Stanford University in Palo Alto. I stepped in the long line to order and a woman with an 11-year old boy got in line behind me. She warned her son several times to be patient, yet she was a tad bit irritated herself. A mother-son verbal conflict arose, complete with that’s not fair versus a you don’t always get what you want speech.
At first, I just listened. The boy was on verge of a chaotic meltdown, and honestly, I thought she should make good on her promise to take him straight home if his impatience continued.
When he smiles, it is obvious he has only one front tooth on top. He has a pear-shaped body so his hips are wider than his shoulders, and he walks with a limp. He always looks sleepy, and the giant T-shirts he wears every day with his thick glasses give him the appearance of a dull wit.
The thing is, he’s not. He’s actually quite witty, charming too. And he’s smart. It’s not that he’s educated. He’s not. But he’s wise. Wise is better. Continue reading Mr. Willie→
She was a pretty kid, a high school cheerleader, who in most ways, stood out head and shoulders above the rest of the cheerleaders from both schools. She was cheering for the other team at a recent basketball game against our small high school. She was just like all the other girls, dressed in the same uniforms, except, she was in a wheelchair.
Kind. Gentle. Peaceful. Those are some of the most wonderful traits. When they are woven in a person and become intertwined in their soul, it’s more than wonderful, it’s beautiful.
So it was with my Great Granny. It wasn’t so much on the outside, at least not when I knew her, but on the inside. Her wrinkled skin, bobbing head, trembling hands, and even occasionally appearing to chew something that wasn’t there just wasn’t her enamoring factor. Even with that, in advanced age her outside was still just as cute as a button. Continue reading The Most Beautiful→
When he went at 9:00 AM for an angioplasty to clear a partially blocked artery, the doctor assured him it would all be routine, easy peasy. It wasn’t.
He was under a local anesthesia that kept him calm and relaxed, but quite aware. His give a hoot factor though was low, really low. When he heard the doctor say, “Oh no!”, Continue reading Longest Night of His Life→
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→
He had a headache, not bad, just one Tylenol bad. It didn’t stop, so he took two and went to bed. He felt funny the next morning, but did his regular thing. That afternoon he had another headache and grabbed a bottle of Ibuprofen and took 4. He still didn’t feel very well and thought he was coming down with something.
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→
Ten thirty sharp he was up front. This was the last thing he was going to do before walking out the gate. A few minutes of exit paperwork and his retirement officially begins. He was like a giddy high school student on the last day of classes of the senior year. He was there, physically anyway, but his emotions were already elsewhere.
Some family traits are passed down generation to generation as consistently as a calendar. From my life angle now, it’s fascinating to see traits in the grandchildren that my children had. Some could discount this as trite or trivial, and maybe it is just sentimental thinking that sees what I want to see, not what is. But then again, in some ways my oldest son, Blake, and his soon to be four year old son, Cooper, are remarkably the same!
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".
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