Little Girl Scared

She sits pressing down her crinoline skirt with her sweaty palms and leans back on the slatted church chair. She waits. There is no air in this fellowship hall, so she swings her legs back and forth and looks down at her new black shoes. The boy next to her turns roughly and nudges her. […]

1932

Penmanship Hell! a barely legible scrawl.

My Stars Are On a Different Orbit

“I knew as soon as I said it I was being an ass,” so I apologized and hugged her.

1932, Part 1

The day of my mother’s birth

My Stars Are On A Different Orbit

As i stood on the porch, sweaty and miserable, I let the tears roll down my face as they wished. And something dark and small felt like it was beginning to grow deep inside me.

The Irvin Effect

The only time I saw him stay awake during a sermon was one July…

Indiana Part Two

As I was thinking about Indiana, I realized I hadn’t addressed the old adage, “You can’t go home again.” Well, that’s pretty much crap because we are a mobile society, and of course, you can go home again. It’s what you may find changed you have to be ready for. At seventeen, I wasn’t. I […]

Second Home in Indiana

I just returned from a few days in the Midwest, that part of the country that startles you as you’re driving toward it and all of a sudden everything you can possibly see in any direction is FLAT. The first time I saw it I was sixteen-years-old, riding with my family on our way to […]