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Reading the language of jackets (7/6/03)My little, midsized and larger helpers here at the R&R spread flit in and out of my room as silent as butterflies. If I didn't have my eyes open, the only way I could tell they'd come in is by a slight passing breeze. But I like to have my eyes wide open so I can see what jackets the helpers have on that day...
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The scholar and the sage with a biscuit (6/29/03)Every family or extended family has its scholar. This is not by election or appointment. It is by conscientious appraisal and acceptance by all others. Next to her dad, granddaughter Lauren is that person in our family. Ever since her rendition, explanation and insight into the story "The Velveteen Rabbit," she has held this exalted position...
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Newcomer likes one-two dance step (6/22/03)Victoria Marie Collom made her way into our war-weary world May 3, 2002, daughter of Ellie and Glenn Collom and granddaughter of Viney Mosley, that dedicated destroyer of darkdom. I think there is no such word as darkdom, but it sounds dreary, doesn't it? And Viney is just the one to make it disappear...
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Queasy stomachs beware (6/15/03)It was the noon hour break at our eighth-grade, one-room schoolhouse. A few of us were still standing in a semicircle around Yearbo Job Teateser listening to him tell about his family. According to Yearbo, all of his family, including two babies, came from the Old Country. He said his daddy was the best railroad tie cutter anyone had ever seen and that they had crossed oceans, rivers and mountains to land smack dab in the middle of our community because railroads were so important to us...
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Who will pay $50 for your rags? (6/8/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published June 9, 1991. Rip, rip, rip! That's the sound of tearing cloth. I'm the tearer. Jean the Ripper! No kin to Jack. This is not an old biblical tearing of cloth at some outrage, sorrow or sin. It is a sort of coming full circle in a certain facet of my life. I'm making carpet strips. Ever hear of 'em?...
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Three kinds of ladders to climb (6/1/03)When one is young and full of idealism, there is no reason for anything that smacks of the trite. Everything is bright and new and shiny. So it is with the high school graduating classes this year. When I reflected upon my class motto, "We build the ladder by which we climb," I thought there were never more meaningful words. There it was, in blue letters, on white paper, forever stamped in our memory...
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The day I thought I was pretty (5/25/03)It was Sunday morning, late in June. I was 12 years old, walking along a woodland path to neighbor Freemon's home to catch a ride to Sunday school. A wood thrush was flying in the leafy ceiling above me, sounding its inimitable golden notes as if to guide me along the way. But I knew the path, every little twist and turn, every wildflower that bordered both sides...
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Magical power of books (5/18/03)My books! My precious books. I would like to hug every one of them and once again thank all the authors and publishers for their life-enhancing qualities and the ability they have given me, through character identification, to live life on multiple levels...
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Directions from Grandma II (5/11/03)"Lydia, did you hang up on me yesterday? Lightnin'? Weren't no lightnin' here. Well, anyways, where did I leave you? At the end of the pecular fence? All right, you go a piece and you'll see one of them there mountains I've been talking 'bout. ...
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Precise directions by Grandma (5/4/03)Unless well acquainted with all the back roads and where to ford the creeks and river, one would have a difficult time finding our early farm home. Grandma was always willing to give precise directions. When Aunt Lydia called, said she was coming to visit us, and needed a reminder as to how to get there, Grandma was more than willing to be helpful...
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Pear blossoms and butterflies (4/27/03)Spring came in through my 16-paneled window on little pear-blossomed cat's feet. I didn't know she even wanted to get in. A visitor, looking out the window, exclaimed, "Oh, what beautiful pear trees!" "Where?" I demanded. "Right there." She pointed at them and looked at me with alarm, no doubt thinking I had lost the rest of my vision...
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Listening to the lilies as we pass (4/20/03)Jerusalem Nisan, 3791 Dear Salome, I know you have heard what happened in Jerusalem last week, but I want to tell you about my part. I had gone to the well on Friday morning to get our daily supply of water. There were more women there than usual, all talking loudly and emotionally...
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Bee skep (4/13/03)One of my favorite flower-garden ornaments was a bee skep. Skeps were the first kind of container for honeybees to occupy and make honey. The only kinds of homes for the bees to now occupy are square or oblong wooden boxes on legs. They, no doubt, are much easier for the beekeeper to handle...
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Bits of news from the Leadbelt (4/6/03)A niece and nephew, Ann and Charles Wichman, who live in Doe Run, Mo., send me copies of the newspaper, The Farmington Press. Doe Run was my last home before I departed for college, teaching, marriage and Cape Girardeau. Doe Run was once a thriving little town, headquarters for St. ...
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Young Jeannie's rambles (3/30/03)In our pre-teen years my sister and I enjoyed a card game known as "Authors." There were pictures of our early America writers -- Hawthorne, Longfellow, Alcott, etc. Underneath the pictures were the titles of some of their well-known works. One of these titles was "Little Annies Rambles." I read it but don't remember the story. ...
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Math trivia to pass time at the RRR (3/23/03)In my home away from home, I spend hours staring at the ceiling. There is no Michelangelo painting there, nor any by Jake Wells or Grandma Moses. It's just one of those paneled ceilings, the panels being of different dimensions, with little black holes or depressions in them...
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Following well-worn footpaths (3/16/03)I have always had a love for footpaths. Old dirt paths. A network of such paths held our early community together like so much featherstitching. Research tells me that the earliest footpaths were made by wildlife -- deer hunting for salt licks, others making their way to the rivers and streams in search of food and drink or just to play in the water. ...
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Rattle seed packets and watch life go (3/9/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published March 10, 1991. Rounding the end of a high-shelved store aisle a day or two after the war's end, I ran into an old friend, the revolving seed rack. My mind has been so recently full of war thoughts and concerns, early planting time had slipped up on me...
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A crow is a crow is a crow (3/2/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published March 3, 2000. My curiosity prompted me to wonder if birds of the same species, living in different geographical locations, have a different accent as do humans. Editors of the bird books are silent on this subject although they are careful, by way of shaded maps, to show us where what species can be found. I have not dwelt anywhere outside the Midwest long enough to draw my own conclusions about this far-out matter...
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Putting the right accent on the day (2/23/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published Feb. 24, 1991. A person should declare for himself, every once in a while, an Aunt Polly Day. Such a day isn't noted on a calendar nor does it appear in any book describing holidays or any other special kind of day.Only a few people scattered up and down the river valley community knew, first hand, what such a day would be like. They were Aunt Polly's contemporaries...
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Making signs of love at home (2/16/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published Feb. 13, 2000. When it was time to purchase valentines and get them in the mail, there was snow on the ground, the sidewalk and driveway were slick and my gait was somewhat wobbly. So I missed that annual adventure...
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Taking time out for sentiment (2/9/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published Feb. 9, 1997. There are two things that happen in February that always give me a thrill. They aren't big things, they're free, and they always come as a surprise. First are the stubby green shoots of the daffodils showing above ground along the flower border. ...
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At the low ebb time of living (2/2/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published Feb. 3, 1991. Well booted, mittened, coated and capped, I ventured over to the creek recently to determine if I could see any form of wildlife. At least that was my stated purpose. I think, in truth, I just wanted to get outside for a little longer time than it takes me to go to the garage, the mail box or to take the garbage out. Our outside existence is at low ebb in February....
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Pieces of a winter day in January (1/26/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published Jan. 28, 1996. There is nothing like snow or a frigid morning to bring the birds to the feeder. I wondered if something strange had happened to the goldfinch, house finch, chickadees, pine siskins. ...
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Off to see the queen in London (1/19/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published Jan. 23, 2000. So, little Lauren, now half a head taller than I am, is off to London to study at one of the colleges there. How can this be? A time warp? Why, only a few months ago she, breathlessly, told me the story of the Velveteen Rabbit as we walked through the park. It took the whole former racetrack and several side roads...
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This old wintertime house (1/12/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published Jan. 12, 1997. It is always somewhat surprising to me that in January the coldest part of winter descends upon us. It seems that with the days becoming infinitesimally longer, the rising sun starting back up the northern horizon, that we'd be over the cold. ...
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Staying 'neat' as time marches on (1/5/03)Editor's note: This column originally was published Jan. 7, 1996. During the recent holidays I received an unexpected and unintentional gift from a youngster who was totally unaware of the intangible present she bestowed. I'm not sure I've used the right adjectives describing the gift, so let me explain. ...
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Rivers as tourist attractions (12/29/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published June 20, 1993. Of all the Missouri rivers I have seen, swam in, floated on, fished from or at least crossed over once, my favorite is the St. Francis. This is not surprising since I was reared less than a quarter-mile from its fresh, clear, flowing water. At least it was fresh and clear then. We thought nothing at all about cupping up a handful of its water to drink, or even, if a place was handy, to lie on our stomachs and sip the cool water...
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A letter from Rachel, dated 6 B.C. (12/22/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Dec. 22, 1991. Bethsaida, Galilee Chisleu, 3761 My dear sister Anna, It was good to visit with you recently in Bethlehem. As you know, we went down earlier to enroll for Caesar's census than most of the House of David families from Galilee...
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Stuffed toys and old memories (12/15/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Dec. 16, 2001. If you have an old dresser or chest of drawers you are about to discard, here's something you can do with it for Christmas, if you have the time: Paint it, if you wish, in Christmas colors. ...
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Making the tree stand up straight (12/8/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Dec. 5, 1999. The morning after Thanksgiving there was the first ice of the season in the bird bath. New, deeper bath bowl too. All ruffled around the edges like a fancy concrete pond lily. Bob and Doris helped with seeing that it wouldn't be turned over and broken so easily. The birds liked it too...
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Can anyone picture a time continuum? (12/1/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Dec. 2, 2001. In former creative writing workshops I have stressed the value and craft of making your reader See, Hear and Feel. Feel, as in some emotion -- joy, sorrow, laughter, compassion, etc. The easiest of these guidelines is, at least for me, See. ...
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Short twilights, return home (11/24/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Nov. 26, 2000. Twilights come early now, and they don't linger like they did a few weeks ago. They are short and sweet and full of a different color. By four o'clock in the afternoon one can see, if it is a clear day, that the nearer the sun gets to the horizon the faster it seems to travel...
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Holiday shopping tests abilities (11/17/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Nov. 14, 1999. Just as I had honed my tactics for gaining attention while shopping in the larger stores, I now find such help and attention almost at arm's length. Without any help from reminders of what season we are entering, I can tell by the attention I get as soon as I step through the stores' doors. ...
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Seizing golden moments (11/10/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Feb. 18, 2001. Many years ago I ordered, from the American Home magazine, a clock-making kit. Oh, I didn't have to make the internal parts of the clock with all the little cogwheels. I had only to embroider on linen what was to be the face of the clock, attach it to a piece of plywood and fit it into the shadowbox frame. ...
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Ink spill makes for new wrinkle (11/3/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Nov. 5, 2000. The ink was cleanly processed. The writing table was cleared. A few of my proposed notes were written. Then, from some unusual jar of something, over went the opened bottle of ink. Maybe a door was slammed. ...
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Purple words get quick attention (10/27/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Oct. 29, 2000. Early one recent morning there was a timid knock at the door. When I opened the door, there was the lady with the pokeberries. We had talked about them over the telephone a few days earlier, swapping tales about our experience with pokeberries. ...
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Taking a century by the book (10/20/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Aug. 1, 1999. It took me more than half a year to read an account of the major happenings of the past 100 years. Put that way, it doesn't seem I'm such a slow reader. The book, "The Century," by Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster was a Christmas gift from Steve and Viney. ...
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Fall's love affair with leaves (10/13/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published Oct. 17, 1999. Dr. Leo Buscaglia, teacher, author and lecturer, speaks of his love for leaves, especially when they are dried and rustling. He took big bags of them from east coast to west coast on airplanes! I, too, love leaves, especially during this season...
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How far back do makers of lists go? (10/6/02)Editor's note: This column originally was published June 6, 2001. I don't know when, but at some point in life one begins to make written lists of things to do. So far as I know, no one has ever made a study of this. Why would they? It's such a bit of trivia...
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Garden dig renews ground, soul (9/8/02)Editor's note: This column originally appeared on Sept. 10, 1995. Now I divide and transplant the iris, working slowly in the September sunshine to hug the dreamy day to my heart. Long strands of floating spider webs catch in my hair and across my face -- Lilliputians trying to tie me down...
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Back-of-the-book answers lose meaning (8/25/02)Dad and I got home at the same time that September afternoon, he from harvesting in the cornfield, I from my first week in fourth grade. He had waited at the door for me and stooped to give me a hug. "Look, Daddy. We got new arithmetic books and the answers to the problems are in the back of the book."...
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Market for my special real estate? (8/18/02)My intangible, non-fungible real estate gives me pleasure. I began investing in it long ago. No down payments. No abstracts of titles. No taxes. They are literally little dream houses built in pleasant non-places. I should give the subdivision a name. Escape Manorettes. The little houses give me the comfort, rest and inspiration I need for a particularly sour, wordly moment...
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Missing out on summer events (8/11/02)I missed the departure of the purple martins this summer. Heretofore, this has been the time when all the locally housed martins got together and had what might be called a departure party. With all their springtime verve they would dip and sway, chuckle and chortle and do show-off air maneuvers. The party lasted for several days, then the visiting flocks began to go back to their base and make ready for their southern journey...
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Reluctant summertime babies (8/4/02)Great granddaughter Victoria was the first one who was not anxious to enter into our limping world. Who could blame her? Multiple, horrific, worldwide crimes dominating the printed news, made visible on TV and furnishing the main topic of human conversation?...
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What would Strunk and White think? (7/28/02)William Strunk's and E.B. White's little book "The Elements of Style" has stood the test of time. It was copyrighted by Strunk in 1918. In 1919 it was required reading at Cornell University. It has gone through several revisions. E.B. White (remember "Charlotte's Web" and "Stuart Little") says that the little book should still be required reading for anyone who deals with English words...
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Remembering the rocks in the river (7/21/02)In Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, "The Lamplighter," he says, "For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door, and Lerry stops to light it as he lights so many more." I venture to make a parody: For we were very lucky to have a river flowing by, with rocks and gravel and reflections of the sky...
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Open the door and walk out (7/14/02)Lillian was the calm, sensible, soothing sister standing there, in age a year or two ahead of Lou and me. She was a source of strength and information, a bulwark of defense against boo-boogles that lived in the attic at night, a calming influence for the whole family whenever disaster descended...
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Going from column to column (7/7/02)In 1950 I wrote this for my "Dawn to Dusk" column: "Picking up one of my new magazines the other day, it fell open to a page that headlined 'Let's make this the happiest fall.' Good, I thought, I'm in favor of that. Before I read the article my mind got busy with how I might make this the happiest fall. The project seemed to fall into three topic heads: Things outside the house, Things inside the house, Things inside of me...
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Everthing from ice to terrorism (6/30/02)On Wednesday of this week, 80 years ago, I'm sure this was what happened: Up before daylight, with all farm chores done, Dad, Lou and I climbed into our Ford touring car with a brass radiator and made our jerky way over the river and through the rocky hills to Elvins, Mo., about 10 miles away as the crow flies. Nothing was ever as close as the crow flew...
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Bushwacker Hildebrand still bugs me (6/23/02)My friend Dorothy called to say, "Jean, I have a new book I think you would like to read." I have a lot of friends named Dorothy. This one is Dorothy Miles who emigrated from St. Francois County to Cape, as did I. Knowing I had a stack of unread books on hand and not wanting to duplicate," I said, "What is it, Dorothy?" "The Rebel From Shepherd Mountain," she replied...
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Some trading cards are out of bounds (6/16/02)Outrage and enrage are strong words. One becomes enraged over an outrage. Not everyone agrees on what an outrage is in these days when dozens of them are described in the morning papers. I experienced that semi-wild stage of rage a long time ago. Maybe about 80 years ago...
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'Swingeing' the Sunday chicken (6/9/02)Have you heard? They've bred featherless chickens! What next? Skinless pigs? De-whiskered cats? My question is, why? A flock of featherless chickens would be downright ugly. Maybe they would save Tyson, the big Arkansas chicken processors, a step in their production. But think of the by-products that would be wasted: feathers...
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Baseball memories stirred up (5/26/02)With Steve's recent induction into Central High School's Athletic Hall of Fame, both as an individual and as a member of the 1962 state baseball champions, old memories of baseball came pleasantly to my mind. Such memories go way back to the time Dad purchased our first radio. It was an Atwater Kent that we powered by a Delco System since we were still on the farm without electricity. It was the heyday of the St. Louis Cardinals' Gas House Gang at Sportsman's Park...
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Spring things happen (5/19/02)"Springtime, sweet springtime, we greet thee with song!" That is a line from the song we sang at my high school graduation. When the birds are singing the day in now, I fancy I can hear echoes coming from our music practicing room. There were not outstanding singers, but the robust exuberance we felt for the new season made up for any musical flaws...
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Fanning the embers of dreams (5/12/02)I stood on the back porch observing the early morning scene. Pink and white dogwood, glowing in the sun's first rays, ringed the back yard. All manner of azaleas in the neighbor's yard to the right were in full vibrant bloom. In the yard to my left was a privet hedge bush that has grown to tree height. In full white bloom, it looked like a little white cloud had dropped down from the sky. In the distance the sweet locust trees were in bloom, releasing their inimitable perfume on the breezes...
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No time for anything (5/5/02)You won't have time to read this column because I don't have time to write it. I'm afflicted with a new syndrome. It has a lengthy title -- We-have-only-30-seconds-we're-out-of-time-that's-all-the- time-we-have-we'll-take-this-up-again-sometime syndrome...
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Children of the universe (4/28/02)There has been a bunch of little twisty winds around my digs lately. It's as though March felt she didn't get her share of winds and has come back in April to settle the score, with interest. These winds come in the night when, with storm doors and windows still tightly in place, I can't hear them...
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Getting into April's drama (4/21/02)April is a stage play with many acts. The props and characters change with every shower. Just when you think you have discovered the main characters and the story line for the present act, along comes the silvery, slanting rain which, like a misty veil, obliterates the current scene. It lasts just long enough for the producer to get all the new things in place for the next act...
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Making sense of time (4/14/02)So, here we are, this very morning starting a second week of living daily with another acronym, DST. I'm still upset from the recent change, else I'd be writing about my beautiful viburnum bush in full and fragrant bloom or the satisfactory progress of many hollyhock plants from last summer's split seeds...
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Waiting for Easter to come (3/31/02)Easter slipped into March this year by the skin of its teeth. That seems an almost sacrilegious statement for describing the most holy season. But I'm speaking calendar-wise. I know how its coming is reckoned, according to the first Nicene Council -- the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21...
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A day to proclaim hosanna (3/24/02)The following is a selection from my biblical novel, "The Crosses at Zarin." Salome and Zebedee, parents of James and John, the apostles, have gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover: --- Jerusalem, which had been relatively quiet over the Sabbath, began to stir early on the first day of the week. ...
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Welcome harbingers of the gentlest season (3/17/02)First, a visitor said he had sowed lettuce seeds. Then I read a notice of a coming plant sale. Mary said that behind the little garden seat the house leek (Frog's Tongue) was up, looking like a cluster of little cabbage heads. Hey, I thought, time, which seemed to pause for long periods during the cold days, was moving right along...
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Taking a whack at entrepreneurship (3/10/02)To get us out of our many-leveled, muddled, mental woes, the battle cry of those who make suggestions to out-of-work workers is "entrepreneurship!" I've been out of nine-to-five, wage-earning work for 59 years. Fortunately, after that last paycheck with all its multiple deductions, I stumbled, surprisingly, into the field of writing...
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Upon first looking into Grisham's 'A Painted House' (3/3/02)Perhaps it took me a little longer than most people to read John Grisham's "A Painted House." I carry some slow-down baggage with me as I read. Not only do I follow the narrative, I study the techniques of the author. When I ventured into short story and novel writing I meticulously studied how the author put the story together. ...
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Journey of knowledge starts with 'aardvark' (2/24/02)I know a lot of about aardvarks even though I've never seen one and don't expect to. Explanation: Early in my school life, when the Loughboro rural school could afford it, I had access to a particular 20-volume set of encyclopedias. They were beautifully bound and had many illustrations. ...
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Rooster crow stirs chicken memories (2/10/02)A couple of days ago I heard a rooster crow in broad daylight. My heart leaped up as if I'd seen a rainbow in the sky. What's the big deal, you ask? Hearing roosters crowing was a great part of my youth. The roosters were the first live things we heard of a morning. ...
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Snowflakes, no two alike, boggle the mind (2/3/02)First snowfall came in on tomcat feet rather than Sandburg's delightful description of fog coming on "little cat feet." My helper, Mary, and I lay down in separate places to window-watch its arrival. Predictions had been numerous. When, outside my window, the first flakes began to fall I began to recall my favorite snow poems. I pretended to be Robert Frost's character who stopped his little horse beside the "lovely woods, dark and deep" to watch them fill up with snow...
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Whence cometh the food and how was it cooked? (1/27/02)Fourth-grader Tyler asked, "How did you cook all that good food?" He was referring to the food we ate while my parents, grandparents and sisters lived on a farm in the second decade of the last century. Ooowee, that sounds like a long time ago. Tyler and his classmates had followed the serialization of my book, "Wide Meadows," in the Southeast Missourian...
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Notes from fourth-grade readers welcome (1/20/02)Dear Heather, Crystal, Jade, Barbie, Brittany, Chase, Caleb, Dustin, Melissa, Amanda, Michael, Alex, Tyler, Laura, Marissa, and Courtney: I enjoyed receiving and reading your notes to me, and learning you had been reading the serialization of my book, "Wide Meadows," in the Southeast Missourian. Many of you asked the same question: When did I start writing for publication and what inspired me?...
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Finding wintergreen and other things to do in January (1/13/02)Wintergreen, anyone? I don't mean chewing gum, flavoring or tooth powder. I mean do you know where the shrub grows? Encyclopedias say that it grows in almost all of the Northern Hemisphere. How have I missed it? I know where the yahoo and other lesser known shrubs grow...
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Epiphany, old Christmas or Grandpa's birthday (1/6/02)When Christmas and New Year's Day were over, the trimmings all down and we were back to our usual routine, our early household, represented by three generations, still looked forward to another excitement. On the morning of Jan. 6, Mama, calling from the foot of the stairs, would say, "Get up, kids. It's Epiphany." It always sounded like "Efifany" to me and that's what I called it for many years...
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Resolve to carry over your unkept resolutions (12/30/01)New Year's Day will dawn just like any other winter day. The sun will rise at the appointed time the almanac indicates. The clock will tick off the measured seconds. The seasons will stay in order. But there will be a difference. Everyone knows it is a day for new beginnings. Not that we can't have new beginnings any old day. This day, however, you will join much of the world's population in making resolutions to make or do something better. One almost feels a tangible energy in the air...
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Again, again and again, 'Merry Christmas' (12/23/01)Writing instructors and those experienced article writers in the trade magazines, "The Writer" and "Writers' Digest" say, "Avoid repetitious words and phrases." It's a good rule. How tired we got and still do at the repetitious spoken expressions, "you know," "basically," "awesome" and the like...
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A chest full of stuffed toys and memories (12/16/01)If you have an old dresser or chest of drawers you are about to discard, here's something you can do with it for Christmas, if you have the time: Paint it, if you wish, in Christmasy colors. Pull the drawers slightly out, beginning at the bottom and stairstepping them up to the top. Into these partially opened drawers put anything you like -- dolls, stuffed toys, Christmas ornaments, peppermint canes, sprigs of holly and evergreens, or all of the above...
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Want to relieve stress? Watch a sunset (12/9/01)A published article about how to deal with stress gives a lot of pointers. One that caught my attention is, watch a sunset. I agree. We are coming from the season of beautiful sunsets. It is not just that the leaves are off and we can see better; winter sunsets are altogether different. ...
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Can anyone picture a time continuum? (12/2/01)In former creative writing workshops I have stressed the value and craft of making your reader, See, Hear and Feel. Feel, as in some emotion -- joy, sorrow, laughter, compassion, etc. The easiest of these guidelines is, at least for me, See. With an abundance of legitimate adjectives, as well as some made up, one can make the Peace Rose or a red apple still hanging on a tree branch, come pictorially alive in the reader's mind's eye. ...
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A letter to Mama carried on a sunbeam (11/25/01)Mama Mansion SE Heaven Dear Mama: I really don't know your mansion number so have just come up with SE. Down here we have so many acronyms standing for multiple worded organizations. Shorthand writing, geared to save space on the printed page. So my "SE" stands for "Somewhere else."...
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What should we be thankful for this year? (11/18/01)Short-sighted or downright moronic is the person who, because of our national tragedies, fears, headaches and heartaches, querulously asks, "What have we to be thankful for this year?" I'd like to take such a one by the collar and mesmerize him/her as did the ancient mariner when detaining a young man on his way to a wedding feast...
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The view through windows that aren't there (11/11/01)Sometimes, when we strive for wider visions, to get around the troubles of the day, we must construct unusual windows. Windows that aren't there. Let me tell you again about our old kitchen cabinet that had a window in it! The cabinet was like one you might see now in an antique store. ...
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Reconstruction days all over again (11/4/01)My Grandmother and Grandfather Bell were born in the mid-1850s. It boggles my mind to think that Abraham Lincoln was their president for a number of years. It's like looking backward through some telescope. Both, born in Virginia, may have had parents who were Southern sympathizers, but I'm not sure about that...
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What shall we hoard? (10/29/01)Hal Borland, my favorite nature writer, author of many books and former columnist for the New York Times, describes so well the hoarding instincts that touch all life at this season. One can just mentally see his squirrels digging little pantry holes in the ground to drop in an acorn, even patting the ground around as if putting on a lid or a sealer. Perhaps his footprint is meant to be a label, "Property of Squirrel No. 6."...
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A live building for all time (10/21/01)For those of us who remember the days when the Pentagon was built (ground broken Sept. 11, 1941, dedicated Jan. 15, 1943) it has become an almost living structure. We hear that the Pentagon says this, reports that, as if really speaking. In my mind's eye, I see how the editorial cartoonists would draw their bubbles above to enclose whatever the Pentagon was saying on a particular day...
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Leaf time- A personal season (10/14/01)Despite the fact that our seasons are known as spring, summer, autumn, winter, and are dutifully marked off in our almanacs and calendars, we can give them our own names according to our whims and impressions. Thus, I'm now living in my own Leaf Time season. It started way back when the tiny leaves of the pussywillow and "Frog's Tongue" leek started to unfurl but I probably called it Tulip Time...
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Textures of earth offer healing (10/7/01)When I looked at the unfamiliar wall calendar, I noted it stated that the date was Sept. 22. For one who has been a careful and interested watcher of the seasons, it came to me slowly that this was the beginning of Autumn. In normal times for me, I would be thinking of all the joys of the seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness -- C.S. ...
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Walking in the valley (9/30/01)Sometime in everyone's life I think he or she forms some kind of overall mental picture of how things eventually work out. A durable picture for me was formed in long ago grade school geography class. In a recent protracted hospital stay while I was walking in "The Valley" I was eventually jarred back, in the most harsh and abrupt manner, to the world of reality, by turning on the bedside TV to see what was going on in New York and Washington D.C. ...
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Different meanings of 'there you go' (9/16/01)The expression, "There you go," has reached the ranks of the ubiquitous "you know," and "basically." But because of its several meanings and different word accents it is more tolerable. In fact, it can be welcomed to hear. When someone says, "There you go," when he/she has witnessed some minor or possibly major achievement it is good and satisfying to hear. ...
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Vivacious, versatile, victorious Viney (9/9/01)I called her the Bag Lady at first. Affectionately, of course, for she is my dear Viney. When it became too difficult for me to carry the weekly groceries up the back walk, up the five steps, across the porch, into the kitchen, she volunteered. She is a prime example of one who sees a need and fills it...
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Where have chicory flowers gone? (9/2/01)I have lost my chicory patches. Why did they get up and go from their old familiar places? Did the heavy truck pulls and fair traffic pulverize the roots to extinction? My patch of chicory grew in the gravely roadside at the south end of the park. Every year, on my former daily walks, it caught my attention when the first blue blossoms presented themselves to the world. ...
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'WIDE MEADOWS': BLUE-CHECKED LINOLEUM (A CONTINUING SERIES) (8/28/01)Editor's note: This is a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Sometimes we went into a regular orgy of "fixin' up the place," small areas at a time. Grandpa traded a neighbor out of a glass doorknob and put it on the inside kitchen door where none had been for a long time. ...
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COMMENTARY: KNEE-DEEP IN TOMATO TIME (8/26/01)Here we are in the month of the big, colorful garden jewels. Like second cousins to Christmas trees adorned with baubles, the tomato plants, with a little support, stand erect and say to the world, "Look here! See what we offer ..." Their offerings make the summer menu delightful as well as colorful. The wintertime and even summertime things called tomatoes, at the grocery stores are just that, "Things." Hard, tasteless, with a definite core. Pardon me, Produce Departments...
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'WIDE MEADOWS': THE PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH (A CONTINUING SERIES) (8/21/01)Editor's note: This is an installment of a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book that was first published in 1960. Lou and I were the only ones enjoying the benefits of the professor. After the new pump was installed we could fill the trough in five minutes. "And look at the time we've got left for other problems!" Lou teased Mom...
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COMMENTARY: STRANGE SUMMERTIME TRAVELINGS (8/19/01)I strained to see the ER doctor. I could hear clearly what he was saying: "You broke your hip! It will require surgery." What a firm, crisp economy of words! I fluttered around in my brain for a like word-thrift reply as I felt he was awaiting one. My first thought was to say, with a paucity of words, and a touch of facetiousness, "May I have a second opinion?" But it didn't seem time to introduce any smidgen of levity. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH (A CONTINUING SERIES) (8/14/01)Editor's note: This is an installment of a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book that was first published in 1960. Nevertheless, Grandpa thumbed through the catalogue in the pump section and one Saturday, when Lou and I were along, we went by the hardware store and had a look at the pumps...
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'WIDE MEADOWS': THE PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH (A CONTINUING SERIES) (8/7/01)Editor's note: This is an chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book that was first published in 1960. Our barn was sturdy and roomy and comfortably cobwebbly, but not the biggest one in the valley. Our cows were just placid, old, cud-chewing cows. Even the hound dogs couldn't boast a pedigreed hair on their black and tan sides. ...
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'WIDE MEADOWS': SURPRISES AFTER THE AUCTION (A CONTINUING SERIES) (7/31/01)Editor's note: This is an excerpt of a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. In the meantime the bidding had resumed. "Twenty!" the woman said, looking unruffled but resigned, as if she were prepared to go on to a hundred or more...
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'WIDE MEADOWS': BIDDING ON A BRASS BEDSTEAD (A CONTINUING SERIES) (7/24/01)Editor's note: This is an excerpt of a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Granny stopped to rest often. She was old -- near 80. Where the path came out on a clearing she shifted her quilt to the other side and stood looking out over the valley a long time, we thought she was catching up on her memories...
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'WIDE MEADOWS': AUCTION SALE! (A CONTINUING SERIES) (7/17/01)Editor's note: This is an excerpt of a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Britts' bull was a brindled, curly, thick-necked tormentor, who roamed the pasture on the neighboring farm, bellowing profanely, hoisting his pedigreed tail arrogantly, and pawing the ground viciously when anyone came within range of his dark, evil, thick-lashed eyes. ...
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'WIDE MEADOWS': THE WEALTH OF THE WORLD (A CONTINUING SERIES) (7/10/01)Editor's note: This is an excerpt of a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. "Lonnie," Mama explained to Mrs. Britt, "I've done an awful thing and I want to use your phone." "It's out of order, Myrtle."...
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WIDE MEADOWS: THE TREASURED WEALTH OF THE WORLD (A CONTINUING SERIES) (7/3/01)Editor's note: This is an excerpt of a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. "Naturally," Mama replied, picking up another book and thumbing through it. "Myrtle!" Aunt Grace demanded. "Do you know how much they cost?"...
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COMMENTARY: NOUVEAU ART VIA THE GARBAGE CAN (7/1/01)In the midst of a quiet meditation when I can see clearly in my mind there came a vision of a long ago waste basket I had made from a bean basket. How account for the pictures that come into focus mentally? Remember bean baskets? They were tall, about two feet, wood slated and shaped like a flat bottomed ice cream cone. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: TREASURED WEALTH OF THE WORLD (A CONTINUING SERIES) (6/26/01)"Jeanie," Mom asked, turning from the telephone, "have we got the P' book?" "I don't know," I said, glancing at the bookcase. "No, Clem McDowell has it," Lou volunteered. "He just got through giving a report on pigmies at school." "Lonnie?" Mom turned back to the telephone. "Lou says McDowells have it. Their phone's out of order, though. I'll have the kids stop by when they go after the mail and pick it up for you."...
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COMMENTARY: TWO FISH MAKE 5,000 MEMORIES (6/24/01)"Once upon a time...." That's the way the old stories always started. And I think that's why they stay with us so long. They are not anchored in time, not bound by specific dates, but just float around in space like some nebulous white cloud that dissipates in the wind and then comes back together again, strongly...
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WIDEMEADOWS: WHO SHALL WE BE TODAY? (A CONTINUING SERIES (6/19/01)Editor's note: This is a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Dad waves to us from the camp site where he is just putting the finishing touches on the rustic chairs, and we wave back, wondering what queer peasant that could be, for we are Helene and Sylvia, skipping across the greensward of our stage, deftly avoiding the crawdad holes and other impedimenta of a cow pasture...
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COMMENTARY: HOW FAR BACK DO LIST MAKERS GO? (6/17/01)I don't know when, but at some point in life one begins to make written lists of things to do. So far as I know, no one has ever made a study of this. Why would they? It's such a bit of trivia. I've been wondering at what time in life the change from only mental lists to written lists occurs. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: WHO SHALL WE BE TODAY? (A CONTINUING SERIES) (6/12/01)Editor's note: This is a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Left to our own impulses and ingenuity, Lou and I devised our own diversions. Some called it deviltry. When the role of being the Bell young'uns began to pall, we were never ones to take it sitting down. ...
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COMMENTARY: JUNE IS A MONTH WELL WORTH THE WAIT (6/10/01)I waited 365 days, that is 52 weeks and 12 months, for June to come again. So now it is here and has been worth the wait. First, even before June, came the rains to wash the face of the earth "behind the ears and between the toes" as Mama would describe a proper bath...
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WIDE MEADOWS: MOLLY IS WHERE SHE BELONGS (A CONTINUING SERIES) (6/5/01)Editor's note: This is a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. The next time Molly and I went up to clean Jeem's house we could tell he was carving again, and it was Janice, all right. He had started with the head...
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COMMENTARY: SIPPING THE SWEET NECTAR OF LIFE (6/3/01)A few butterflies have fluttered in. It makes my heart happy. Little marvels of tissue-thin, painted flappers they are. So delicate. So dainty. So dear. I've been saddened by the growing scarcity of butterflies. But I was heartened by an article I read in a recent edition of our daily paper. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: FINDING A WIFE FOR THW WHITTLIN' MAN (A CONTINUING SERIES) (5/29/01)Editor's note: This is a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Everyone wanted Jeem to haul it all down to the festival sometime, or put it on display over to the city, but Jeem, never in a hurry, said it wasn't finished yet; and by that we knew there was someone else to go in Jeem's dooryard before he would call it complete. And after Molly and I took Miss Kate up, Jeem started whittling again and what we saw of it, it sure looked like Miss Kate...
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NATURE AIDS AND ABETS LANDSCAPING (5/27/01)Much of my landscaping efforts are helped by nature. Sometimes it may take me a year or two to discover the little plantings that have been made by the squirrels, birds, wind or other things that move over my yard. A few years ago I discovered the little six-inch plant that was growing by my south steps. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: A WHITTLIN' MAN (A CONTINUING SERIES) (5/22/01)Editor's note: This is a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. On winter evenings a frequent visitor around our fireplace was Jeem Hollister. Jeem lived at Laurel Cove, far up the mountain where the mists were last to disappear of a morning and where his cabin remained in sunlight long after the evening shadows had crept over the valley below. ...
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MAYPOLE DANCE POSTPONED (5/20/01)Alas, another May is slipping away, and I haven't followed up with a long-ago maypole dance I once thought to conduct for the little local boys and girls. There were plenty of them around then. They are grown now and, I suspect, regard a maypole dance as too quaint a custom to indulge in...
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WIDE MEADOWS; THE DAYS GO BY (A CONTINUING SERIES) (5/15/01)Editor's note: This is a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. "Got a calendar today," Grandpa announces. A calendar! Next it will be, "Heard frogs last night." "Here's the sassafras roots." "Saw a robin today." And so on through the year. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: PROMS: SPRINGBOARDS TO SOCIAL REALITY (5/13/01)The appointment for my haircut fell on the day a lot of high school seniors were there to get their glamorous hairdos for the prom that night. Some had even brought pictures of how they wanted to look for the Big Night. I closed my eyes and listened to the happy chatter. It reminded me of the cheerful twittering of the finches when they find the feeder is newly filled. These little birds dance around the feeder with every feather in place always...
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WIDE MEADOWS: GUEST AT TEA PARTY TURNS OUT TO BE COUNTY THIEF (A CONTINUING SERIES) (5/8/01)"A tea party," Mom said softly, almost reverently. "A tea party," the rest of us echoed. "I'll get the tea," Grandma said, practically, hurrying to the pantry. "Do you have a lace cloth?" Mr. Sheckers asked, helping to clear the kitchen table. "Oh, no," Mom said, sadly, like it was all off...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: 'TIS THE SEASON TO OBSERVE THE PUSH FOR LIFE (5/6/01)Out the back door, across the porch, down the steps and about 15 feet out the back walk is an upheaval, a sort of benign volcano of low but ever increasing height and crumbling texture. In the presence of everything around it which resembles a stab of neatness it looks out of place. Neighbors and I traversing around it wonder why I don't fix this "wart on the nose of the walkway."...
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WIDE MEADOWS: STRANGER LEFT HIS TRAIN AT THE WRONG STOP (A CONTINUING SERIES) (5/1/01)"Who is he?" Mom asked Dad as we made our way back up the stairs. "He didn't say," Dad replied, scratching his cheek slowly. "We, he didn't, did he?" Mom remarked, somewhat surprised. "But then, he didn't ask who we were either, did he?" She laughed softly at the strange state of affairs...
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JOH ALONG THE WAY: MAY DAY EVOKES MONTAGE OF MEMORIES (4/29/01)Although I'm not quite through with April, May Day is upon us real soon now. May is a montage of happy memories and a looking forward to the joys of the gentler season. Way back, Mama taught us how to make a May basket out of paper. She cut a large fan-shaped piece from a study brown sack that had once held something from the grocery store. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS; WINTER VISITOR: A STRANGER ARRIVES DURING A SNOWSTORM (A CONTINUING SERIES) (4/24/01)On a cold winter night when snow lay drifted in knee-deep banks and sleet rattled bleakly against the windowpanes, there came a sudden knock at our door. It was not a timid, hesitant, halfhearted knock, which, half waking, one would think was only the loose shutter or the maple limb that rubbed against the house, but a bold, decisive, imperative knocking, one that brought the family bolt upright in bed with no intermediate stage between sleep and wakefulness...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: GOOD COVER-UPS FOR BAD HAIR DAYS (4/22/01)When a woman says she's having a bad hair day, one somehow gets the impression that it is something that happens only occasionally. News Alert! I have a bad hair day every day. Oh, for the good old Buster Brown hair days -- parted in the middle with bangs coming down to a little above the eyebrows. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: WATCHING GRANDMA COOK ON CHRISTMAS DAY (A CONTINUING SERIES) (4/17/01)Lou and I, who have seen to it that the wood box is filled and spilling over with good dry split wood, pulled from underneath the pile, are allowed to lean our elbows on the table and watch the proceedings. Into the big blue crock Grandma drops a cup of butter, and over this she sifts a cup of sugar. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SCENIC VIEW NO. 65 IN THE MAKING (4/15/01)In early spring there comes a day in my life that is special. It is not a national, state, nor local holiday. It is not marked on the calendar. Not my birthday. It has no set date at all. It is somewhat like those old fairy tales that begin, "Once upon a time ..." So dreamily unfettered. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: TREASURES IN THE KITCHEN (A CONTINUING SERIES) (4/10/01)The kitchen was the hub of our lives. From it we went forth, and to it we returned. The front door was used only by strangers -- or when it was known that Mama and Grandma were having Ladies Aid. The kitchen was big senough (once it had been a single-room log-cabin home) for one to carry on an industry of dressmaking, or reading, at one end, completely undisturbed by the rest of the activity going on, yet be pleasantly aware of the nearness of loved ones and the hum of homey occupations...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SAMI GROWS GREAT THINGS (4/8/01)Last summer my "growing-up" neighbor, Sami, creator of the city's children's flag, decorated a miniature flower pot for me. With some kind of fast-drying paint/glue she had written my name on it and added little colored dots all around it. It was filled with potting soil and, as she said, was sown with wildflower seeds. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN (A CONTINUING SERIES) (4/3/01)Editor's note: Jean Bell Mosley's book was first published in 1960. Everything would have been lovely that Christmas if only the Claytons and the McClanahans would make up and start speaking to each other. Their long-standing feud was an awful bother. You had to remember it even when you had your mind on more pressing matters...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SMALL VICTORIES LAST FOR LIFE (4/1/01)"Listen!" my sister, Lou, said, pushing back the bed covers and holding up a hushing hand. I listened. All I heard was the early morning farm sounds. "Hear it?" Lou demanded I sat up, shaking the sleepiness away and listened more intently. "It's the waterfall!"...
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WIDE MEADOWS; A GIFT FOR MOLLEY: PICTURED IN THE QUILT (A CONTINUING SERIES) (3/27/01)Editor's note: This is an installment from a chapter of Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Last week: Molly arrived. So Molly stayed for the canning, and then the threshers came and she stayed on to help cook, and then it was time to put up the peaches. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY; THINK ON THE THINGS YOU DO WELL (3/25/01)"God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well." Romans 12:6 Some friends and I were at lunch in one of those places where a whole loaf of warm bread is brought in on a slicing board, accompanied by a sharp knife. The bread was placed before one of my friends who laughingly said, "Not I" as she slid the bread board over to the one on her right. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: A GIFT FOR MOLLY (A CONTINUING SERIES) (3/20/01)Editor's note: This is an installment from a chapter of Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Winter comes down from the mountains in a white fury and locks the valley tight in its icy grip. The river slows and comes to a frozen stop. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: MORE THOUGHTS FOR THE LENTEN SEASON (3/18/01)"... a little lower than the angels." Psalm 8:5 The Taum Sauk Reservoir, a hydroelectric pumped-storage power plant is a marvel of engineering. Simply put, the top of a 1,550-foot-high Ozark mountain was sliced off, the rocky insides partially blasted out to form a 55-acre, concrete-lined and rimmed bowl that holds 1.5 billion gallons of water. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SOME THOUGHTS FOR THE LENTEN SEASON (3/11/01)This is the day the Lord has made: Psalm 118:24. On summer mornings I am in my daylily garden at sunrise. Most of the lilies that will bloom for that day have already opened. The colorful waxy petals have turned back in perfect symmetry to reveal, the, as yet, undisturbed pistil and stamens...
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WIDE MEADOWS, A CONTINUING SERIES; PORK ROAST AND SNIPE: PREPARING TO BUTCHER (3/6/01)Editor's note: This is an installment from a chapter of Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Last time: Preparing for the butchering. This year we will butcher a hog for the Kotiskis, a new family in the cabin on Gillman's Hill. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SEARCHING FOR GRACE NOTES IN LIFE (3/4/01)In instrumental music, they are called grace notes, those little runs and trills of notes between the main notes that define the bare melody. Perhaps jazz music is a good example. They are like happy little sideroads before you come to the destination...
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WIDE MEADOWS: PORK ROAST AND SNIPE (A CONTINUING SERIES BY JEAN BELL MOSLEY) (2/27/01)Editor's note: This is an installment from a chapter of Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. The one remaining major undertaking before Christmas is butchering. In the spring the hogs were turned loose in the hills, their ears marked with varying notches for later identification, and cautioned to "Root, hog or die." In the late summer or early fall, they were rounded up, penned and fattened with corn and other supplements...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: VISIT WITH A PHI BETA KAPPA MOLE (2/25/01)What does J.K. Rowling, William Hardwood and Louis L'Amour have in common? Well, they are writers of fiction: bestseller fiction. J.K. Rowling has had as many as four of her Harry Potter books on the bestseller list at one time and for a long time. L'Amour, in his day, was on that bestseller list many, many times. Hardwood probably was too. Not only in the U.S. but his native England...
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WIDE MEADOWS: A CONTINUING SERIES; LIGHTS FOR THANKSGIVING: THE NEIGHBORS ARRIVE FOR A MEAL (2/20/01)Editor's note: This is an installment from a chapter of Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Last week: After buying the lights, they were returned to pay for other purchases. Mom and Grandma were silent about the lighting system, which made it look more than ever like they didn't expect anything Dad planned to come about. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SEIZE THE GOLDEN MOMENTS IN LIFE (2/18/01)Many years ago I ordered, from the American Home magazine, a clock-making kit. Oh, I didn't have to make the internal parts of the clock with all the little cogwheels. I had only to embroider on linen what was to be the face of the clock, attach it to a piece of plywood and fit it into the shadowbox frame. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: A CONTINUING SERIES; LIGHTS FOR THANKSGIVING: HEADING TO TOWN FOR THE PURCHASE (2/13/01)Editor's note: This is an installment from a chapter of Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Last week: The family prepares for new gas lights in the kitchen. Lou and I went to town with Dad in the big wagon and actually saw the exchange take place. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: LOVE EXPRESSED IN PERSONAL VALENTINES (2/11/01)I didn't participate in sending my valentines until I started to school. But I helped my sister Lou, three years ahead of me, make her many. First we made sure that Mama or Grandma had ordered a wallpaper sample book from Sears Roebuck. These books were about the size of an ordinary 6 by 9, 150 page book, each page a sample of the wallpaper that one could order through the mail...
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WIDE MEADOWS: A CONTINUING SERIES; LIGHTS FOR THANKSGIVING: PREPARING FOR A BETTER COMMUNITY (2/6/01)Editor's note: This is an installment of Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Dad was always full of plans and projects. Once he took a look at the old kerosene lamps and said, in the broad expansive manner he employed when launching his many and varied campaigns for the betterment of his family, "These old lamps have to go." His white hair swept back neatly from his forehead and his stance was like Washington crossing the Delaware as he stood there in the old kitchen surveying the lamps. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY; DOVES ANNOUNCE BETTER THINGS TO COME (2/4/01)The only thing I can say now about my back yard, front and side yards is that they look drab. After leaf raking in the autumn when all the neighbors are tidying their yards, I have mine cleaned up too, testifying that I want the neighborhood to always look clean and neat. ...
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WIDE MEADOWS: A CONTINUING SERIES; THE SILVER SPOON: SPECIAL MEANING IN A KITCHEN UTENSIL (1/30/01)Editor's note: This is a chapter in Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. Near the close of a cold November day, old Mr. Scroggins stopped in to warm himself by our kitchen fire. He had been chopping wood up in Gold Mine Hollow and was on his way home to his shack down by the river...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: REMEMBERING WARMTH OF STOVE (1/28/01)What are folks talking about these days? The Inauguration? Speeches full of hope? John Ashcroft? Laura's beautiful ball gown? Arrivals of 1040s? Jesse Jackson? Yes, all of these. Most of all, though, they are talking about the high dollar amounts seen on utility bills. ...
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WIDE MEADWOS: A CONTINUING SERIES; CHAPTER 2: GATHERING THE CORN: JOB OF TOIL, SWEAT ENDS WITH FUN (1/23/01)Editor's note: This is a chapter from Jean Bell Mosley's book "Wide Meadows" that was first published in 1960. All the other harvesting efforts pale in stature in comparison with the gathering of the corn. Now we are getting down to business. This is the stuff which will fatten our hogs and feed our chickens and mules, and make nice dents in our debts...
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WIDE MEADOWS; WINTER PREPARATIONS: DAYS GROW SHORT ON THE FARM (1/16/01)Editor's note: This is the first chapter in the book "Wide Meadows," by Jean Bell Mosley. The book, first published in 1960, is being reprinted in serial form each Tuesday. In October the purple grapes hung high and the hazelnut bushes turned yellow, announcing their gifts were ready. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS BECKONS (1/14/01)One of my treasured Christmas gifts is an updated edition of the "Guinness Book of Records." Treasured? Why? Partly because the effect it has on the whole room, lying there on the coffee table. The hardbound cover is in no way demure. Rather, with its psychedelic blue and silver coloring, it seems to move with a life of its own, inviting the observer to run a hand over the cover to see if it is, indeed, three dimensional as it appears to be. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: LONGER THE DAY, DEEPER THE COLD (1/7/01)In the cold, deep, winter days when the rivers and creeks were frozen and icicles fringed all the roofs, there was nothing more welcome and satisfying than to step into the warm kitchen after our long walk from school. Mama would examine our fingers, nose and toes for frostbite then huddle us in warm quilts up close to the fireplace, mugs of hot chocolate in hand. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: CALENDARS SHARE DETAILS (12/31/00)My stack of incoming 2001 calendars grows higher and higher. It used to be the seed catalogs that began coming in at this time of the year or a few weeks later. Since I haven't ordered many seeds or bulbs for years, I'm gradually being dropped from their mailing list. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: CHRISTMAS DONKEY TELLS GREAT TALE (12/24/00)Neither biblical Matthew nor Luke tell us that Joseph and Mary had a donkey with them to make the time-dividing trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Common sense tells us they did. Artists, biblical commentators and countless other writers also tell us so. No one states it more plainly than Barnard Youngman writing in "Land and People of the Bible," published by Hawthorne Books. He says with such economy of words, "Mary rode a donkey. Joseph walked."...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SWADDLING CLOTHES SPARK CURIOSITY (12/17/00)Few persons will remember when they first heard the term swaddling clothes. The best bet is that it was when they first heard the Christmas story read from Luke. Did they wonder and stop to ask of the reader? I'm sure I didn't, but as the years went by and I heard that term over and over I asked Mama, "What are swallowing clothes? "Swaddling clothes," she corrected. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: LOOK IN KITCHEN DRAWER FOR LOST ITEMS (12/10/00)Everyone has a kitchen drawer that contains thrown-in oddments from Band-Aids, to a chisel, to a half-filled package of zinnia seeds, and maybe a neatly folded dish cloth and a hundred other things, counting all the nails and tacks. When I lose something that I know could possibly fit into such a kitchen drawer there is where I look first. At different times I have found my pearl beads, a right foot insole. Also toenail clippers, stapler, paper napkins, Three-in-one-Oil can, etc...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SHORT TWILIGHTS SIGNAL A RETURN HOME (11/26/00)Twilights come early now, and they don't linger like they did a few weeks ago. They are short and sweet and full of a different color. By four o'clock in the afternoon one can see, if it is a clear day, that the nearer the sun gets to the horizon the faster it seems to travel...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: BASKIC NEWS GRABS ATTENTION (11/19/00)When readers slip the daily paper from its waterproof covering, unfold it, glance at the headlines, they are members of a vast union of people who approach the paper in this way, but from thereon they follow diverse and personal habits of ingesting the news. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: FALLING LEAVES SIGNAL INDOOR WORK (11/12/00)When I look around at the tattered shrubs, half their leaves gone with the wind or caught, untidily, in the lower branches, the trees in much the same stage of undress, the grass dying in fence corners, milkpods gaping openly, I am prone to announce, "The whole world has gone to seed!" The statement has two meanings. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: INK SPILL CREATES NEW WRINKLE IN LIFE (11/5/00)The ink was cleanly processed. The writing table was cleared. A few of my proposed notes were written. Then, from some unusual jar of something, over went the opened bottle of ink. Maybe a door was slammed. Maybe a bird flew into a cleaned widow. After 64 years maybe the house is still settling. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: PURPLE WORDS GET QUICK ATTENTION (10/29/00)Early one recent morning there was a timid knock at the door. When I opened the door, there was the lady with the pokeberries. We had talked about them over the telephone a few days earlier, swapping tales about our experience with pokeberries. She remembered how she and her sister had made polka dot spots all over their arms, legs and faces with the lovely magenta juice of the pokeberries -- just before their mother told them to get ready to attend an important public meeting they had forgotten about. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: HOMECOMING DAYS STIR OLD MEMORIES (10/22/00)There is nothing like college homecoming days to make a member of the alumni reminisce about college days and drag out old yearbooks to refresh memories. My college loyalties are divided between Flat River Junior College, now Mineral Area Community College (MACC), and Southeast Missouri State Teachers College, now Southeast Missouri State University...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: NO PACKING OR RESERVATIONS FOR THIS TRIP (10/8/00)"Hello." "Hello. Is this the office of the Highly Feathered Airways Controller?" "Yes. What can I do for you?" "This is Rob Robin. My friends and I are getting ready to make our annual trip to the South. Are the airways reliable this year?" "Robin, our airways are always reliable."...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: REARRANGEMENT COURTESY OF EQUINOX (10/1/00)So the autumnal equinox has come and gone that time in the year when the daylight and night hours are equalized. Did you see it? This year's September happening, always around the 23rd of the month, had a wet look. Its garments were tattered by time and dripping with rain. A few falling leaves were rain-pasted on its visage. It left a calling card in my back yard, a tossed-off limb from an elm tree and a multitude of spent leaves and twigs...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: ANOTHER WHIMSICAL NATURE BALL (9/24/00)I'm not finished with the goldenrod. They will have an afterlife. Last autumn I purchased two baseball-sized Styrofoam balls. With the help of Samantha I collected pretty molted bird and chicken feathers. The bulk of the feathers came from the cages where the exotic chickens were displayed at the Southeast Missouri District Fair...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: GOLDENROD RUSH IS ON EVERY SEPTEMBER (9/17/00)"The goldenrod is yellow!" So goes the old, beloved September poem, remembered by many who had to memorize it. Those memorizers were the ones who took great bouquets of the yellow flowers to their returning teacher or to a new teacher with whom they sought to find favor...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SETTING PRIORITIES FOR THE NEW SEASON (9/10/00)From overuse, the phrase, "first of all," threatens to become one word, "firstofall." "Sick and tired," has already slipped into "sickandtired" status, though not yet in the dictionaries. Naturally we hear a lot of rhetoric this presidential election year. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: EARLY INVITATION TO THE GYPSY BALL (9/3/00)I received my invitation to the Fall Festival of Gypsy Colored Leaves early this year. Being still bemused by the pink and white patients and Heavenly Blue Morning-glories, I almost missed it. But there it was, hanging in the pink dogwood tree. I was just sitting on the porch watching the day come in. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: PEACH COBBLER WITH A SURPRISE INSIDE (8/27/00)We speak of cobbling something together, usually meaning that we take different materials and put them together in a rather clumsy fashion. The early shoemakers were called cobblers. Are they still? A friend has told me that he has filled in the blank asking for occupation with "cobbler," having recently changed it from "shepherd." With no perfected pattern to shape something to fit a foot it must had resulted in a clumsy looking article...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SHARING MENTAL PICTURES WITH READERS (8/20/00)In past decades I gave talks on things to keep in mind if one wished to write something he or she hoped others would read and enjoy. Although feeling like an impostor, daring to give out such advice when I needed so much advice myself, I did fashion a sort of formula which I called the Big Three make your readers SEE, HEAR and FEEL. The first two are easy with well chosen adjectives. Arousing an emotion, that is, FEELING takes longer...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY; SMALL GESTURES CAN HAVE EXPLOSIVE RAMIFICATIONS (8/13/00)The smallest action can sometimes change the course of your whole day. On my way to pick up the morning paper I pass my sweet basil patch -- two plants. Usually I just bend down and flutter my hands in the plants' purple foliage which gives them a pleasant fragrance for a couple of hours. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: THE SWEET SOUND OF SUMMER RAIN (8/6/00)I heard, in the night, the announcement that the rain was coming. There was a neat comforting package of thunder. Not cracking, nor bold, just murmurous rolling as if apologetic that it might be disturbing your sleep. I must have smiled sleepily and murmured a thank-you in response...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: REMINDER FROM ABOVE BY WINGED EXPRESS (7/30/00)"The heat index for today is in the high 90s," the weather reporter droned on as if some needle was stuck and the voice was coming through a miasma of foggy humidity and week-long weariness. It wasn't even 9 a.m. Already I was tired and listless. As usual, I read from my daily devotional booklets, stacked them neatly on the nearby table and leaned back in my chair with an almost audible sigh...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: MOTHER ASSIGNS ARTWORK FOR HOT SUMMER DAYS (7/23/00)"Now for your First-Day-of-School dresses, we're going to trim them with soutache braid," Mama told her eight and ten year old girls, Lou and me. "Soo what?" we asked in unison, big eyed and alert. "Soutache," Mama repeated. "S-O-O-T-A-S-H." She didn't spell it right but how did we know or care? We sensed something new...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: PAEAN OF PRAISE FOR GREEN BEANS (7/16/00)Not to brag, but I know a lot about beans. That's not one of those statements that calls for a rebuttal such as, "Oh, you're full of beans." I know that right now is the time to indulge in the gustatory delight of green beans. Fresh from the garden, still damp with morning dew and, no doubt, inspected by bees, honey and bumble, they are at their best. A bit of the dried blossom that precedes the formation of the pod might still be clinging to that pert, tuned-up "string."...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: THE EXCITEMENT OF LITTLE, EVERYDAY THINGS (7/9/00)At a recent all women's party, I sat listening to the gaggle of voices, so strident and intermingled it was almost impossible to hear what was being discussed. But, in a rare clarified moment, I heard the distinct statement, "Every day is exciting." I looked quickly to identify the speaker of these words. I wanted to converse later with her when I had the chance...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: ROBINSON'S RENDEZVOUS AT THE ROLLING RIVER (7/2/00)It has been my privilege to have a sneak preview of a plan to enlarge and enhance a site for an unobstructed view of our treasure, the River. When the flood wall went up our intimate, romantic relationship with the River seemed to have been cast into the waters and floated off downstream...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY; SCORING ANOTHER NEW AND COLLECTIBLE SIGHT (6/25/00)Always on the lookout for new and unusual sights, I was treated to one last week. A full-grown rabbit came hopping purposely across the yard. It made two or three stop-look-and-listen breaks in its journey toward what must have been the destination point in its mind...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: LIQUIDATING THE RICHES OF JUNE (6/18/00)I've been withdrawing big fat checks from the Bank of June every day. On the endorsement side there is that familiar description of the month in little flowery letters, "What is so rare as a day in June when if ever come perfect days..." I boldly endorse the checks by looking and listening and seeing all that is glistening...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: BIG BIRD, NOT YELLOW, ON CAPE LACROIX CREEK (6/11/00)June. Time for my summer report from the creek banks. I have often complained about the sad condition of the banks that stretch off Cape LaCroix Creek from the old troll bridge to the new one and even farther up and down the stream. They have been caving in, big time, for years. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: WHAT WOULD GUTENBERG THINK OF E-PUBLISHING? (6/4/00)I hope that I shall never look Into a glassy screen to read a book, A book upon whose shiny pages Will lack the romance of the ages. They tell me it is coming, yea, is already here -- books you read on the computer screen. I try to imagine how starkly clinical Joyce Kilmer's poem "Trees" might look on a "page" of an electronically published book. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: NOTHING DISAPPEARS FOREVER; ONLY CHANGES AND RENEWS (5/28/00)The weather vane was gryating furiously, the windchimes going balistic and hanging pots of petunias swinging like pendulums at 150 arcs. Apprehensive by past years of dread, I automatically looked in the direction of neighbor Richard's mighty American elm which, for long years, was a leaning catastrophe about to happen. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: TROUBLESOME TELEPHONE ELECTRONIC CONVERSATIONS (5/21/00)I do most of my telephoning with my cordless telephone. When I can find it. Once it was tangled in the clematis vine where it had fallen from a porch railing. Again it was found in the garbage container, having been hidden in a roll of the big, perused, Sunday paper and, unknowingly, thrust there. Even with the finder ring it was hard for me to locate it that time...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: CURRENT SHOWINGS IN OUTDOOR THEATER (5/14/00)There are three noticeable things going on in my Eden theater right now. A robin, building a nest in the big oak tree, is nipping pieces out of my tall white irises and flying them up to incorporate into her fresh new nursery-to-be. I wonder what is going on in her mind. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: CREATE A PLEASANT AMBIANCE AND THOSE FINE FEATHERED FRIENDS ARRIVE (5/7/00)The old, sweet smelling, profusely blooming, pink rose bush is as good as any seasonal calendar. If there weren't one or more roses in bloom on May Day I would think something in the progression of the seasons was out of whack. Even before the pink petals emerge, the bush is lovely to look at with its hundreds of perfect buds. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: ABUNDANCE OF ADDRESS LABELS OFFERS IMPETUS FOR LETTERS (4/30/00)Today I made an inventory of a different kind. I counted the number of return address labels I currently have. The total is 931. Tomorrow it may be increased by 33. In making my inventory I noticed 33 seems to be the favorite number for one sheet. I probably will have four letters to mail. So?...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: MORNING COFFEE NICER USING CUP WITH FLOWER INSIDE (4/23/00)My morning coffee is sipped (it's hot) from a blue and white cup that must be over 50 years old. The outside bottom of the cup says that it is ironstone, detergent proof, oven proof, that the name of the blue design on white background is Ming Tree. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: INVISIBLE BLUEPRINTS FOUND IN EVERY SEED (4/16/00)'Tis the season of seeds; sowing of them, that is. I stand before a tall, cylindrical, revolving seed stand and become enraptured, enchanted, entranced. My grocery shopping cart is stilled as I gaze at the hundreds of colorful little seed packages. The old affirmation that seeds are the stuff of new beginnings rises to the top of my mind. Hold a handful of the little brown things and you have the visual manifestation of hope and faith...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: LAMB'S ?, PIGWEED AND GOOSEFOOT SALAD SAYS SPRING (4/9/00)Thomza and I were reminiscing, over the telephone, about spring things. We talked about the old Easter lilies (daffodils) and colorful tulips that came back year after year, unlike so many of the modern bulbs that produce more beautiful flowers but tend to mysteriously disappear in a few years. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: BRINGING TOGETHER OF ALL SENSES TO START A FIRE (4/2/00)I don't remember who showed my sister, Lou, and me how to make a fire on a sunshiny day with the glass lens removed from a flashlight. I'm sure it wasn't any of the adults in the family for we had frequent conferences about being careful with fire. The house, barn, chicken house and other assorted buildings were all wooden, old and dry and out of the reach of any fire department. But, someone did show us. Probably some school classmates...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: SPRING THINGS VS. FORM 1040: THERE'S LOTS TO APPRECIATE (3/26/00)We used to dread March 15th, the last day to file income taxes. Now that the IRS has given us an extra month, we can turn our attention, briefly, to other things for 30 days. What other things? The usual. Are the wren houses hung in their accustomed places? Do I need new ones? I think the latter is in order...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: EARLY ALARM CLOCKS OF SPRING ALREADY RINGING (3/19/00)Spring's alarm clocks have gone off before what man's calendars had set as the time for them. Winds swish around the house corners and across the yard, vacuuming leftover debris from last Fall's cleaning. They seem to say, "Remember us? We're always here in March."...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: IN MEMORIES, TREE FRIENDS AS LOVELY AS POEMS (3/12/00)I suppose everyone has a special tree he or she remembers. Maybe two or three. God forbid, could there be one person in these United States who has never seen a tree? Only pavement and brick walls? My first favorite tree friend was the black walnut tree in our front yard at the farm. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: HAVE YOU WONDERED? A CROW IS A CROW IS A CROW (3/5/00)My curiosity prompted me to wonder if birds of the same species, living in different geographical locations, have a different accent as do humans. Editors of the bird books are silent on this subject although they are carefully, by way of shaded maps, to show us where what species can be found. I have not dwelt anywhere outside the Midwest long enough to draw my own conclusions about this far-out matter...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: ARRANGING SOME PROMISES OF SPRING (2/27/00)I have a new floral arrangement to perk up fickle February. That is, if you can call two little yellow blossoms a floral arrangement. More properly it would be called a stick arrangement. Following is how it came about: I thought it about time to take some clippings from my forsythia bushes to force the buds into early blossoming. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: QUILT MAKES A VERY SATISFACTORY TABLECLOTH (2/20/00)For many years I've used an old quilt for my dining room tablecloth. It has many good features for this use. First, it is the right size. Mama made it for a twin bed. In fact, she made a set of them when, once upon a time, I felt the need for twin beds. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY; CLIPPINGS OF LOVE: HERE'S YOUR VALENTINE (2/13/00)When it was time to purchase valentines and get them in the mail, there was a snow on the ground, the sidewalk and driveway were slick and my gait was somewhat wobbly. So I missed that annual adventure. "Shoot, I can still make valentines," I said. So, from basket and box, even an old barrel, I sought the makings...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: LISTENING TO WHERE THE WIND BLOWS ON HIGH (2/6/00)Last week we had one of those winds which I call a high wind. I don't mean a fast wind but one that is literally high. You can hear it, way up in the sky, as it goes roaring along but you can't see nor feel any effects of it on the ground. No trees around here are tall enough to be affected. It is an auditory puzzle, surreal. I describe it as nature laying a sound blanket over us...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: EXAMINING JOURNAL ENTIRIES: PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE (1/30/00)Another joy of keeping a daily journal has been realized these past weeks as our daily newspaper has been bringing to us the feature, "Millennium Notebook." I read it with interest and then, wondering what I was doing that day the paper has chosen to record, I pluck the proper year's journal from my bookshelf to see if I made note of the incident or ignored it completely...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: PUSSY CAT, PUSSYCAT: OFF TO SEE THE QUEEN OR FRIGHTEN A LITTLE MOUSE? (1/23/00)So, little Lauren, now half a head taller than I am, is off to London to study at one of the colleges there. How can this be? A time warp? Why, only a few months ago she, breathlessly, told me the story of the Velveteen Rabbit as we walked through the Park. It took the whole former racetrack and several side roads...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: 'SCIENCE, HOW SOON BEFORE WE ABSTRACT BODILY BATTERIES?' (1/16/00)Nearly every gift giving season we find that we have to purchase batteries to accompany the gifts, either for those we give or receive. They are nearly always of the AA or AAA strength. By the time we get all the holiday things put away for another year, I feel it would be nice if our bodies came with little extra compartments or zippered pockets which we could open and slip in some Energizers, Ever Readies or Duracells...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: UPGRADING MY ROUTINE: REFLECTION IN A COFFEE POT (1/9/00)Some of my friends often say, "I'll be glad when things get back to normal." After hearing this several times, I began to question, what is normal? I agree, there is a satisfaction in routine unless we let it become so deadly we no longer notice life's little extras along the way...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY: WHERE HAS THE SIMPLE SCENT OF VIOLET GONE? (1/2/00)Vanilla Fields, White Shoulders, Obsession, Windsong, etc., are all perfumes. Lovely names, but whatever happened to just plain Rose, Violet, Lilac, etc.? Especially Violet? I visited the city stores before Christmas and nowhere could I find anything -- soap, lotion, perfume -- with a violet scent. ...
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JOY ALONG THE WAY; WEEK BETWEEN HOLIDAYS ONE OF SWEETEST TIMES OF YEAR (12/26/99)The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is one of the sweetest weeks in the year. The great rush of purchasing, wrapping, trimming, baking is over. One can temporarily sit back in an easy chair, take a deep breath and relax. I like to spend a portion of this time going over the Christmas cards I have received. ...