Writing Reality

And just like that he'd passed. It's always those moments, you'd wondered how would it feel after someone you'd met once, yet held in high regard passes. Held in high regard not always for their leadership in office, yet their earnest drive to better humanity. I'd hoped he'd been able to vote in the 2024 election. I prayed for him to have the ability to vote in the 2024 election. I prayed in earnest. His living weighed heavy on my mind. Yes, I understood how important his ability to vote was important to not only himself but somehow to the country. It was his final public statement. And it mattered. In 2015, just months before I'd met him he was diagnosed with cancer. That day when I saw him move, it was as if the years he'd accumulated had fallen away as his stride with a pep in his step showing no sign of aging nor stopping. That same day my husband had marveled at Mr. Carter's movement with ease.  President Carter's books helped give me some g...

From "Picking Grapes", a Memoir Yes I picked grapes for nearly ten hours at age eight with my dad at a wealthy homeowner's property. They seemed kind. They had an English Sheepdog. We weren't picking the grapes for the homeowners. We were picking them so my dad and one our neighbors who'd just purchased a liquor license together could make their own wine. I can say at the time as well many years later I hadn't known anyone to pick fruit or any other gardened product till about 30 years later when I met the Grandfather of UltraRunning, Ted Corbitt. Ted and I chatted for over two hours in his Manhattan 9th floor apartment. He told me that he'd been born on a cotton farm in South Carolina.  Ted, a brilliant, kind soul told me he'd picked cotton for the first time when he was about age ten. He said his mom could out-pick anyone in picking cotton. Well over 100lbs of cotton in an hour with regularity. Although I hadn't known much of picking cotton on t...

Especially the ones that have helium in them. Balloons for some reason seem to be a sign of happiness. I remember as a child when our family would go to the annual Fireman’s Picnic near Labor Day weekend. It was an annual event put on by the volunteer fire department my dad belonged to. I can’t remember what I loved the most about it. Yet, I could say the helium balloons were in the top three items at that celebration of sorts for me. The hamburgers were a gift from God. Not the kind of food I saw regularly, because it was once a year. I can’t recall any other time I’d eaten a hamburger at home. We could afford chicken. We’d eaten squirrel, which had actually been shot by one of my dad’s friends when firing of what I believe was a BeeBee gun. And venison was had when one of my dad’s friends hit a deer with his late 1960’s early 1970’s suburban vehicle in Maine, totaling it of course. Too, for a few summers we’d received massive amounts of blue fish for free. It’s still my favorite food...