Cuppa Coffee

“Just gimme a cuppa coffee,” he muttered. We called him Zorro because he wore a black hat and an oversized black duster every day of the year—hot or cold, it didn’t matter.
Some days Zorro had a few bucks and ate eggs, pancakes, bacon. Some days were just coffee days. I gave him a full pitcher [...]

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Hate crime

I propose that campaign ads should only contain documented acts the candidate has done for the good of the people. Any campaign ad that points out the horrors of the candidate’s opponent should be outlawed as a hate crime or something equally dire.
Negative ads are confusing. Okay, so you don’t like the opponent. But what [...]

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Jump Rope Rhymes

Ronni over at Time Goes By got me thinking about childhood rhymes today. Remember all those jump rope rhymes that supposedly determined how many children you would have or the first initial of the person you were bound to marry? Dick and Jane sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.
Everyone says kids grow up too fast today, [...]

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Embrace

“Embrace your blessings,” I said, “and get off your pity potty.”
She wiped at the tears coursing down her cheeks as anger flashed in her eyes. She didn’t want to be reminded that she was wallowing in self-pity.
I had little hope of changing her lifetime pattern of doing nothing to change her situation while feeling [...]

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Gravel

I hid from the storm in a covered shelter with a concrete picnic table. It did no good. The wind blew sheets of water under my roof. Water ran down the mountain. It carried gravel from the trail with it, fast moving rocks and sticks obeying the laws of gravity while I tried to stay [...]

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Laundry

After Teema joined the time-travel club she learned about books. They were her favorite part of the past. She loved the big buildings with nothing in them but books. The thrill of walking in a place with so much paper, paper you could touch and feel without being arrested for having an endangered resource—that’s what [...]

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Worms

What’s your irrational fear? If you don’t have one yet, maybe you could share my friend’s fear of worms. Even dead ones littering the sidewalk after a heavy rain are more than she can manage. If you want to bring the world to a screaming halt, show her a worm.
I’ve always like worms, myself. Little [...]

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Autumn

The chilly autumn air made me shiver as I stretched outside my door. I would have stretched inside if I’d known it was this cool, but a few minutes of jogging would make my sweats feel too hot. Enjoy the goose bumps, I told myself.
I started slow while on the pavement, and when I [...]

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One idea

All it takes is one well-expressed idea to change the world. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and things changed completely. Paine wrote “Common Sense” and again things changed completely. Modern examples might include Friedan’s “Feminine Mystic” or King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Time will tell if Al Gore’s recent “An Inconvenient Truth” is [...]

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Modern

Gerald was the kind of guy who wouldn’t look funny saying, “he was the very model of a modern major general,” or other rhythmic lines from Gilbert and Sullivan. He wore a vest and a bow tie. Every day. He wore starched shirts with the sleeves always buttoned, never rolled up.
He was the first of [...]

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