Salad Days
"I hope ya feel as good as ya look to your gal Sal" Gail and I smile at each other, because we do feel good! It's around 4:30 pm on a wintery afternoon about 1958, and Gail and I are watching The Sally Starr Show with our Patty PlayPal dolls. OUR GAL SAL is wearing a shirt with sparkles and spangles and stars, and a white cowboy hat. I know that this particular day I recall was in winter because in the summer we were not allowed to sit inside watching tv. We would be outside swinging on the swings singing Yippee Aye A Cay AYE! Yippe Eye OH! in our cowboy hats and spangly shirts, firing our cap guns into the air to add emphasis. I love Sally Starr so much that I am pleased that my ini

Mother Hens

The Edge
Charles has been dead three years, soon, and all my knives are dull. When Fred came to visit with his family, I bought a beautiful roast of beef - something I do not do very often. He trained as a butcher and he loved these big cuts of beef, slowly, barely cooked, with rosemary and garlic pushed in. I was sure he was not getting such things in Iraq, and that he would appreciate that I remembered his preference.I even had a chat with the butcher at the grocery store when I was picking it out, something else I do not do often. I wanted the butcher to pick out a really pretty roast, something another butcher would like. These cinematic moments only ever roll out in m

The Whoopie Bridge
A fine fall afternoon, a Saturday, I am sure. The top is down on the little blue Fiat Spider and I've loaded my son Mike and two golden retrievers into the jump seat. Everybody is excited to be going for a ride. We are getting ice cream. The sky is blue, the trees are gold and the car is biting the wind like it is a crisp apple. We round a corner and I position the rearview mirror so I can see my happy son. Downshifting, I pick up speed and the asphalt sings. Why isn't every car a convertible, I think. Two sets of ears flapping, my son's parka flying out behind him and my hair standing straight up with only about 400 feet to go, our speed is exa