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Amy
He called me Pilgrim. We shared a love of peach milkshakes, pickles, peanut M&M’s, home grown tomatoes, blueberry anything, and we’d fight over Shirley Pitner’s stack cake. He taught me how to throw a frisbee, cast a line, shoot a variety of weapons, train a dog, clean my glasses, and identify trees in any season. Oh, and the best advice he ever gave me that I evoke multiple times a day (and it shows): “Eat all you can, every time you can, ’cause there ain’t no tellin’ what might happen before you can eat again.” We listened to Rush Limbaugh and Patsy Cline when I rode in his truck. We watched Star Trek and The Twilight Zone when I stayed with them when I was young. He bought me a microscope, and my first sleeping bag, but not the My Little Pony kite from McDonalds. And we have never let him forget it. My first (and last!) deer hunting trip was under his watchful eyes and sharp tongue. I couldn’t do anything right, but he’d sometimes concede that I was doing alright for a wimpy little girl. This was said in jest, and primarily to get me riled so I could do whatever it was I thought I couldn’t.He thought I should wear heels to work every day and that I should stay redheaded.He mowed my yard and…
I am sitting here, before this device, wondering how to say it. There are times in your life you live outside yourself. Some take you by surprise and take your breath and you wonder how it could be happening. Other times you know the day was inevitable and unavoidable but you still kinda float along, above and on the periphery. That’s where I am now. Today was the first day of deer season (muzzleloader). Today, and all first days of deer season for the last sixty or so years, you could find my Uncle Dale (“Tiny” to many) in the woods. “The deer woods”, he liked to say. And so my uncle spent his last day on this Earth where he was happiest. It is difficult for me to be SAD, because he passed away exactly where he wanted to, doing what he loved best. I cannot be angry, because he taught me to have respect, and he’s not here to argue his case. He would win, regardless. I will not be resentful because God took him, I will be grateful he didn’t languish in a hospital bed. He’d spent his due time in those over the years. I am broken-hearted and disappointed I didn’t get more tales on video. I am bewildered that the man lived through what he did and found a way to spin the incidents into a spellbinding story isn’t here to keep telling all he knew. My…
Princess Glitterpants tells me this is my special day. It’s all about ME!! I thought every day was about me, but evidently today really is. So far I have had bacon and a biscuit. Not those hard little cardboard ones, but a human biscuit, fluffy and buttery and delicious. I have been permitted to sleep in the Kingdom of Fluff and Squash this whole month!!! PGP snores, but that’s ok. I like being close to her. She says I get away with murder as it is, so she’s not sure how to top a regular day today. I take special offense to this mention of murder, ’cause I ain’t murdered nobody. And if I did, wouldn’t it be preferable that I got away with it? She’s very confusing sometimes. She says nobody would be brave enough to break in on us since I live here with all my scary teeth. I think this is amusing. She’s way meaner than me!!! But back to my day. After breakfast, I got new toys. I got two new bones, a beaver, a cheeseburger in lieu of a birthday cake, and, best of all, a Sebastian 3.0. He’s an exact replica of the Sebastian that was my very first toy, ever. I don’t know how PGP got him, but I’m sure glad to see my old friend. This is me with my…
Once upon a time, in a small white house, in a tiny little town, at the foot of some very old mountains, lived an extra large dog named Chester.Chester was the color of chocolate pie filling just before it boils. He had white toes like he had walked through a shallow pail of paint. And maybe he had. Chester had a vicious bark and a vigorous wagging tail and he was very, very loved. He was also very, very spoiled, because the Princess who “owned” him had been very, very spoiled when she was a little girl.When he wanted to go get a fluffcup and he used his very scary big britches bark to get her attention, the Princess would tell him, “Chester, the Rolling Stones taught me you can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” And then the Princess would go and make them a roast or meatloaf, or sometimes a barbeque sandwich.And Chester loved the roasts and the meatloaves and the barbeque sandwiches.And he and the Princess lived happily ever after.Especially when she scratched his belly when he was full of meatloaf…
You aren’t supposed to talk about your good deeds. And I know a man who didn’t. I once had a friend who was into saving dogs. She was a little overzealous about it, honestly, going without provisions herself just to help another dog. You have to draw the line somewhere, and that’s why I only have Chester. He’s all I can afford when I give him the life I feel like he deserves. I’m off track. So I had this friend. She was overrun with dogs and it got to where she couldn’t feed the ones she had. I put on here she was needing some help, she’d gotten in over her head, and she was having a yard sale if anybody had stuff to donate to go towards the care of the dogs she’d rescued. My friend and neighbor messaged me and said for me to bill him a bag of dog food to give to the lady the next time she came in. He couldn’t stand to see an animal hungry. There is a special place in Heaven for animal lovers, I feel sure. He fed me, too: bags of cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, and I don’t know what all from his garden. He was always friendly, encouraging me to come visit him and his wife, Mary, as they just lived over the hill. It was always a good…
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I’m not crazy, I’m just bored. Allow me to explain how this “seed” was planted: a few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend. She was leaving work early that day to go home and can beans. This is a pretty common reason to miss work around these parts, at least in my circle, this time of year. Whether it’s harvesting hay, soybeans, tobacco, or canning, farm work won’t wait on office work. ‘Gotta make hay while the sun shines’ as the saying goes. It would be more accurate if it was ‘while the sun beats down and tries to kill you’, but close enough. So anyway, I was telling her I still have beans my grandmother canned, and she died in 2008. I wouldn’t be scared to eat them; they look alright and have been kept in a dark cabinet upstairs where the temperature doesn’t fluctuate. My friend said that one of her wedding presents from her in-laws was several jars of green beans. They’d been stored in the basement, wrapped in newspaper. And it got me to thinking about the life of a green bean. Some country music artists have written songs about teardrops, and I don’t see much difference. So here goes. I am told that my mother plant was designed and cultivated on a vast farm in Oregon, among many other certified seeds. I only remember life since I became packaged with roughly 400 of my…
It began with the song Hot Rod Lincoln. Ronnie Brackins was my friend, although he would have never admitted it. But the crowd in the parlor testified to Ronnie’s overall likeability. I was outside, marveling at his John Deere parked at the porte couche, and every time the attendants opened the glass doors I could hear the laughter and boisterous conversation inside. I signed the book and added ‘Co-Op’ in parentheses. I never really knew Ronnie’s children, so I didn’t go up front, instead slipping into the pew beside Robin and Jerry. It is the official Co-op pew. As we sat there, I remembered well another funeral we had attended for another tire shop employee years ago.And then I had to grin, because I remembered the more recent time I’d sat here- the funeral of Joe Woods. That was the time I’d got in the wrong car, mistakenly thinking it was Robin’s, and instead it was piloted by a guy with a nose ring and a young lady with some pink hair who were horrified that a stranger was attempting to climb in their backseat at Food City soon after they parked. I was even moving their Christmas presents out of my way. I digress. So here comes Margaret, and boy was I glad to see her. She is one of the sweetest women to ever work at the Co-op. I haven…
You ask me what I’m doingBut if you’d think you’d already knowI’m watching the world wake upFrom my porchI’m admiring the sparkle of the dew in the grass like forgotten jewelsAnd counting birdsAnd listening to water dripThe locusts are gearing upAs I sip my coffeeWhile Chester makes his roundsThe tiny lizard darts among my flowerpotsOld Glory At half staffIs still proudNot beatenJust a little brokenFor a little whileNo breeze stirs her this morningA few bees out already Seek nectar from my petuniasI watch the chickens compete for bugsJerking their heads, their keen eyes zero in on their next victimAnother leaf drops from my redbudsTraffic is increasingAs the sun gets brighterAnd I suppose I should get upBut I’ll miss all thisSo instead I write a poemThat doesn’t rhymeThat most people won’t understandAnd I tell you simply, “Sittin’ on my porch…
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