“Ma, we’re leaving for Sunday school,” cousin Ollie yelled as the two of us 9-year-old boys bolted out the back door of the farmhouse. “I have a bad feeling about this grand plan of yours,” I puffed as we ran to the barn where we left the bicycles. “I ride to church all the time. ...
It was a lovely day and I was spending it productively, reading the big volume of Donald Duck comics I’d checked out of the library when — while turning a page on a very important storyline involving Uncle Scrooge — my eye caught sight of the calendar. “Wait, what day is it? Oh, no ...
Never walk barefoot through a cow pasture. That’s one of life’s lessons that I learned growing up on a farm — but not for the reason you might think. One bright summer day as a kid, I gingerly combed my toes through the grass at my cousin Dale’s farm. Why I was barefoot, I can’t ...
When I grew up, I wanted to be rich. Really rich. So rich that my house would have TWO TVs. Both color, of course (rich kids didn’t have to suffer with black-and-white sets), and both with those massive cabinets and 25-inch screens. That’s how rich I wanted to be. It was my goal. I ...
Where are my elves? In the fable of “The Elves and the Shoemaker,” a poor shoemaker had only enough leather to make one final pair of shoes. The poor guy — let’s call him Harold — cut the leather and went to bed. According to the news report from the Brothers Grimm, when Harold and ...
It is my household duty to take out the trash. I don’t. I let our “trash panda” do it for me. The trash panda is the roly-poly raccoon that lives in the woods outside our rural home. He probably would move inside if we invited him politely. His bags are packed, ready to take up ...
