Home Beckons

I looked into the mirror one dark and dreary day, And suddenly discovered I’d aged along the way.   My hair was grey and thinning, my wrinkles clear to see, Brown spots upon my saggy arms, an urgent need to pee.   Another sleepless night has passed, I’m ready for a nap, It’s time to […]

I used my kerchief to wipe the sweat off my face, but the back of my shirt was soaked as I leaned against the hot adobe wall. We were sitting side by side in the shade while the afternoon sun beat down on the poor woman sitting against the opposite wall of the compound. She […]

When I passed the little white Methodist Church in downtown Hollenback yesterday, I began to think back on Vacation Bible School in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. My brother and our friends gathered there each summer to read short stories of Jonah’s whale, Daniel’s lion, David’s slingshot, and Mary’s Miracle. We worked on art […]

“I dare you to lick its tongue!” My cousin Tracy is fifty days older than me, so he should have known better, but … The crab apple tree stood in the front yard of our farmhouse on Sugar Hill and threw off gobs of yellowish-red apples not much bigger than golf balls. Every year without […]

I picked up the greasy old frying pan, blackened all over and beyond help from years of hot bacon and butter. Dropping it on the counter, the pan careened in two full three-sixties before coming to a wobbly stop like a child’s toy top. Curious, I picked it up again and held it at eye […]

At any moment, I expect a Publix employee to approach and ask me to kindly move on or at least to ask if there’s a problem. Ten minutes and twenty customers have passed since I stopped in front of the shelves overloaded with a dizzying array of olive oil bottles. Five times I’ve placed a […]

“We should get someone else to help us,” I said as we went out the door … That’s me talking when my husband decides that he’ll make do with me as an assistant; like the time he convinced me to climb to the peak of our house roof to help with the TV antenna. “Hold […]

Image by dok1 Yes, Americans can produce products that are both good and cheap, and I mean cheap in a good way!  I recently stopped for the first time at Hilsher’s General Store in Port Trevorton, along the Susquehanna River about eight miles south of Selinsgrove.  I’ve gone past it hundreds of times, never realizing […]

Image by catd_mitchell With less than an hour left before the sale-ending noon deadline, I rush toward the dressing room, trying to beat the grey-haired lady who is heading there from the opposite direction; trying to beat her there, that is, without actually breaking into a run.  With a sharp turn left, a tight squeeze […]

Image by roboppy I thought of my great-Aunt Belle the other day while frying Spam. She spent all of her long life in the northeastern hills of Pennsylvania busily cooking, gardening, teaching, living. Starting when I was about six and continuing for the next seven years, I made an almost daily trek the half-mile to […]