Sooner Recollections

     Since I will be away from the blogging world for a few days, here is a past entry you may find interesting. 
     There are a few more entries in the archives under the category of  'Oklahoma'. 

R.I.P.

Satchel

1997 - 2014

Full Circle

Here's my latest contribution to

       Five Sentence Fiction
(Other efforts are in my archives under Fiction)

This week's magic word is: 

            Wheels

You will find other writers at    Lillie McFerrin Writes

She would hold his small hands and together they would sing, ‘The wheels on the bus go ‘round and ’round. . “

Before long came the real thing, Big Wheels, their hollow plastic circles roaring through the neighborhood, turning on the early-morning Saturday sidewalk. A few short years and he was traveling farther with the spin of freedom-producing tires, first a bicycle, and then - too soon - a driver’s license and a car. She watched as the tires spinned faster and faster, from high school to college, finally taking him away into a world of his own making.

Today, it is he who is the ‘big wheel’, the VIP, but the wheels that once transported him away now carry him back to her, where he can recall simple childhood songs and the pure, quiet love of mother and son.

My Anti-Bucket List

Things I NEVER want to do

Own a sauna – after suffering through summer after summer of an un-airconditioned childhood in the south, it seems counter-intuitive to willingly shut yourself into room of 160 degrees.

Eat bugs – Fine, tell me that ants are spicy and praying mantises are a great form of protein, but I prefer my bugs either far away or flat, Anthony Bourdain be damned. Again, blame it on a childhood in the south, where it was a good idea to shake out your shoes before putting them on.

Line dance – Okay, I will admit to perhaps one wedding where I succumbed, but there is not enough Proseco in the world to induce me to again raise my elbows in the Chicken Dance or swivel my hips to the Macarena.

Zip line – Across the Grand Canyon, through a Brazilian rain forest, wherever. Not happening. Chalk this up to a healthy fear of heights with an overactive imagination (combined with a total distrust of whoever installed that line).

Travel to exotic, out of the way places – No interest here in visiting any country where public facilities require me to plant my feet in the designated spots and hope for good aim. There’s a lot to be said for the beaten track.

Stay overnight in one of those ice hotels – You know, where everything is made of blocks of ice and you’re issued animal furs instead of sheets. Midnight potty runs at such a place must be unimaginable. I’d be happy to hit their bar for maybe a vodka tonic, but that’s it.

Walk across country to support a cause – Couldn’t I just shell out some greenbacks? Finding comfortable walking shoes for a day in Boston (meet my friend, Mr. Bunion) can consume my thoughts for days. There are no shoes on the planet that would get me from San Francisco to D.C.

I may not have a secret desire to walk barefoot across a bed of coals, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a few things I’d still like to accomplish.

The thing about our society is that the expectations of us diminish with each passing year.

While some may see this as limiting, I prefer to think that attitude just makes it that much more fun to defy those preconceptions. 

Bumps, Bums, and Bugs

Yesterday was less about the utopia of being retired and more about the indignities that can occur in the course of a perfectly ordinary day.

Housing Development

According to Wikipedia, cluster housing is the grouping of residential properties on a development site in order to use the extra land as open space or recreation. 

Big Money

     We spent some time last week diving into the dust in the basement, the cobwebs in the garage loft, and the mouse nests in the shed.

Milestone

To say that numbers are not my strength is like saying that Marcel Marceau had difficulty finding the right word.

1440 Minutes of Fame

     The Great White Way has nothing on us in our small town. 

Portent?

     The rain of last night is gone and we have a cool sunny morning. I throw on shorts and sneakers, drink some orange juice and head out for a walk. The cool morning was disguising rampant humidity, so I return sweaty and tired. 

     I open windows, hoping to catch the remains of the cool night air from the woods. 

     I feed the 900-year-old cat and put the cat food back in the fridge. 

     I saute some mushrooms, beat up some eggs, and add them to the mushrooms. 

     I call my husband to come pick up his eggs and he opens the refrigerator for juice. 

     "Why are your glasses in the fridge?"

    Is this a sign of how the rest of my day will go or something larger?

Writing progress and golf status quo

     There’s spectacularly little to write about around here unless you’ve been waiting breathlessly for a report of my most recent trip to the grocery store.

The Kid in All of Us

A recent chronological event got me thinking about childhood.

Small Town Stroll

It was quiet out this Labor Day morning. 

This morning I didn’t have the excuse of rain or some early-morning errand to keep me from my morning walk.  If I don’t jump up and get out before I have time to think about it, I’d never get any exercise at all.

Come with me and get a glimpse of our small town.

This is one of the routes I take – right down Main Street.