I wonder if trees ever want to run. Are they discontent with staying put? A nice gentle breeze that rustles through their leaves feels good. But does it bother them when fierce winds buffet and they can’t duck? A gentle rain is refreshing but are they frightened for life and limb during perilous lightning striking […]
Author: sharonstories
Cruising
My mother and sister paid for a cruise to Hawaii. The two of them, me, and my niece. We thoroughly enjoyed one another’s company. But the cruise? I felt like I was trapped in a hotel/mall. There was a lot of water, a ton of mediocre food, and plenty of schnorrers. At our first island […]
Office Party
Watching a rerun of Monk. It’s August so naturally, a Christmas episode is on. It starts out with an office party at the precinct. I’ve been to a few office parties. They weren’t as good as the ones on tv. They were mostly boring. Not much fun and no murders. But then I thought of my mom […]
My Mother’s Magic
My mother has a knack for whipping up a bit of magic now and then. Or is it a bit of whimsy? When I was young, most people in our town were doing well financially and many had pets – pedigree pets. We and some others had mutts and whatever the equivalent of that is […]
The Other Side
The small home I spent my youngest years in had a narrow field behind it. A macadam path cut through it horizontally, extending behind our row of homes. It went nowhere, apparently a remnant of some ancient civilization. Beyond the path was a hill, perfect for sledding in the winter and rolling down on a […]
One Night
One late night my friends dropped me off at home. My house was dark. In fact, all the houses were dark. But I wasn’t tired. I assumed it was around midnight but it was at least an hour later. I was sixteen, undisciplined and not having the curfew of most sixteen-year-olds, in fact not having […]
Progress
My grandmother had a monster of an old black stove. The kind with the fat chimney going into the wall. There was a small round area that looked like a tiny manhole cover on the stovetop. She had a tool to hook into the little cover to lift it. Small pieces of paper and string […]
Luck of the Polish
My grandfather walked to and from his job in a coal mine. When the shift was over, women in the area would be out and about to meet up with some potential boyfriends/husbands. Alice was Polish, poor, and miserable. Her mother previously made a match for her with a man she never met and didn’t love. […]
Red, White and Blue
Driving back from Trader Joe’s after a downpour, I saw a large bird perched on a rickety chicken wire fence post. I was driving slowly because it was one of those back streets with road bumps. It borders a residential area but the street itself doesn’t lend itself to pedestrian traffic, so why the bumps? […]
Longevity Diet
My grandmother died when my mother was very young. I’m not sure what her diet was like when her mother was alive, but it took a varied, erratic, turn afterward as her father took over. Sometimes my mother would be in charge of breakfast for herself and younger brother. One favorite creation de jour was […]