Poems, stories, and reflections
Alabama
The Pill Hill Road Sewing Club
My parents moved with their litter to Rockhill Road in the 1960s. The neighborhood was so new that red dirt covered the road and most of the lots remained wooded. An unintentional colony of doctors sprang up: six surgeons, a pathologist, an eye doctor, and a dentist—all within shouting distance. Pill Hill Road quickly became […]
MoreIn the Land of Snow
Another snow fell on top of another snow. They piled up in Iowa, late November until April. The first blanket was light, soft, and clean until muddied and grayed by the roadside, where snowplows threw grit, sand, and ice in the raw morning. By mid-February, the dirty drifts packed down in rough-hewn walls no shovel […]
MoreMom: Wonder Woman without the Skimpy Suit
Peggy, my younger sister, wept bitterly on her first day of school. “Honey, don’t worry,” my mother reassured. “You’ll be home before you know it.” My sister cried louder. “You’ll love school. You’ll read and color.” “But you’re so old!” Peggy squalled, tears of shame on her face. Mom, her hair already turning fine silver by […]
MoreYou Say “ca-MEE-lia”; I Say ”ca-MELL-ia”
The camellia, the Deep South’s winter belle, freshly accents the dormant garden. Its Asian invasion long forgotten, the camellia japonica is Sweet Home Alabama’s beloved state flower. No matter how you drawl it, this flower is a cold-weather keeper. Speaking of pretty blooms and soon-to-be spring . . . now is the time to think of […]
MoreFarmer Leon Goes Squirrely
My dad’s garden mania shot up when his children-sharecroppers (forced labor until their early teen years) scattered. He doubled the crop when the next-door neighbor gave him permission to plow through the lower end of their backyard. These events forced Dad to double his hours in the garden. My mother never commented, but she developed a blank stare […]
MoreBlooming on a Delayed Timetable
Catching a man couldn’t begin too early in the South. Not that mamas coached their babies in helpless sighs, arch glances, and pretty pouts. Those charms came naturally—at least for a few girls who budded early, their hot-pink and lime-green dresses giving the dusty playground a lush look. Their hair, parted precisely in the middle, rippled long […]
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