Beyond 20 Gallons of Milk

Somedays, I promise you, I need stretching exercises for my attitude as much as for my body. I understood perfectly when my cousin said, “Most mornings I grab the wall for a few steps after a  night of sleep,” I am there with her.  It didn’t used to be that way. At 23 I scampered…

Grandma came fussing out the door when she saw her grandsons fighting in the yard. “Make them stop,” she turned to my father helplessly. He looked at the elementary aged cousins tousling in the yard, remembered being a kid with his twin brother and said, “They’re all right. Boys will be boys.”The fight finished and…

If I kept every bit of fabric I received or found at yard sales, the sewing room would overflow, I don’t. I pass most along to sewing ministries or other seamstresses. If we kept all the Bibles and Christian literature we collected, our house would be packed to the brim. We don’t. Every few months…

So this just happened…pull off 5th St exit on my way home from work and this guy is slumped in his seat at the stop sign. I pull over and call 911 and give them all the details: vomiting, convulsing, unconscious but breathing. I’m on the phone with 911, directing traffic around this guy’s truck…

Nothing like the school of hard knocks to get an education. My son Mert nearly has his master’s degree in air travel. At 18, he flew for the first time. “I was sitting in the Little Rock Airport waiting for my flight. I did not realize you had to line-up before getting on the plane.…

My cousin Stephen Hibbard gave me a family genealogy of the Hibbards in America from the mid-1600s to 1900. There I found family stories. Nothing long, just a few lines or a page written when folks took the time to record a noteworthy event or person. For instance on page 97 Robert Hibbard, a minister…

The message waiting for me at 4 a.m. had been sent two hours earlier, “Eli was in an accident with a drunk driver going the wrong way down the divided four lane. We are at the hospital.” By then they had returned home to sleep. Eli recalled what happened around 10:30 that night near the…

God does not make ‘throw away’ people, but Brian Kilmeade disagreed when he said that “homeless people with severe mental illness should face involuntary lethal injection.” He then added, “Just kill’em.” I don’t know this guy. I have never listened to him. However, his comment went viral so I heard him say it. Those words…

Cats. My daughter can’t live without them and last week she wondered if she can live with them. Sharon has always had a cat or two until one day her last cat departed to a home that allowed him to stay indoors only. After a period of time without a pet, Sharon offhandedly commented on…

The lady rounding the corner of the clearance aisle saw me adding more Crayola Crayons to my shopping cart. She asked, “Shopping for Operation Christmas Child?” “Yes. Stock up on school supplies now when the price is 70 to 90 percent off,” I said and picked up boxes of colored pencils. “I like to get…

A reader requested a cat story. We no longer have cats, but my friend Gordon Bell does. This is his story. “I do not kill spiders, including the wolf spider. It eats bad bugs. That changed the night I had two kidney stones competing to see which one could make me scream louder. Tossing and…

Something special happened between Shelley Hergett and her grandfather. She attributes that to their personalities, the timing of family events and chewing tobacco. She knows he online invited her to watch Disney on his (then rare) color TV. He made her popcorn and let her sit on his ottoman – the only person allowed to…

Fifty-five years after high school graduation, I went to my first class reunion for a high school I never attended. My parents moved so often that I attended three elementary schools, two junior highs and five high schools. I went to the reunion of the Jasper Central High School class of 1970 in New York…

We visited Fallingwater, a Frank Lloyd Wright home in Pennsylvania, during our recent trip to see family and friends in the East. In the 1930s the owners of the largest department store in Pittsburgh, Edgar and Lillian Kaufman, contracted Wright to build a country home. Kaufman wanted his home built with a view of the…

Leadership brings honor, problems and, often, overweening pride. Take the Biblical character Moses. He pretty much knew from childhood that he would do something great for his people. After 80 years he led the Israelites out of Egypt. Such a victory, followed by complaints about everything. After one more whine for water, God told Moses…