Tag Archives: memoir

Street Talk

Turner and Bobby by Debra King

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Photo of child's hands drawing
 

When I was a toddler, I named my hands “Turner” and “Bobby.” Turner was my dominant right hand, the one used to access closed doors and cupboards. My parents say I blamed “Turner” when I spilled a glass of milk. “Bobby” was the diminutive for Robert, my father’s name. He would take my left hand when we walked or crossed the street. It is debatable whether this phase of early childhood can be remembered by a child of two, or if it is imprinted because I have heard more than once the story as told … Continue reading Turner and Bobby by Debra King →

Essay/Memoir

The Stairway by Thomas Laver

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Photo of stairway leading up
 

The visit was long overdue. At my wife Margie’s suggestion, I decided to do something about it. So, on a summer day that was forehead-dripping hot with a steely blue sky, the two of us strolled in shorts and sandals up the Toronto street where I first lived. The cicadas sang lustily. Did they remember me? We walked past Charlie Haskin’s house. It hadn’t changed as far as I could tell. I recalled sitting in the back seat of his big gray Ford Tudor sedan in 1946 while waiting for my mother to emerge from … Continue reading The Stairway by Thomas Laver →

Street Talk

A Plague Tale by Trudy Hale

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Profile view of woman wearing plague mask
 

I run a writers’ retreat in a nineteenth-century farmhouse on the James River in Norwood, Virgina.  My quarters are at  the rear of the three-story house and consist of a large country kitchen with a woodstove, a mudroom, and a staircase leading up to my bedroom and small office. On the morning of February 7th I pick up my sixteen-year-old nephew at the Charlottesville airport. I spot him waiting at the baggage. He has grown taller since I saw him last. A lean boyish body and freckled nose, his light brown hair in a Westside … Continue reading A Plague Tale by Trudy Hale →

Essay/Memoir

A Birth by Jess Williams

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Photo of newborn baby
 

Daniel and I had done a lot of preparation for labor, I thought, but I never considered that it would start during the night. I had pictured it many times and it was exclusively a daytime event. In fact, it started in the morning, like most civilized activities. Like a workday. But that wasn’t how it happened. I spent the night of October 15th-16th intermittently awake with contractions. I didn’t wake Daniel up to tell him the news, though, because I’d read a passage in a birthing book about some Amish woman who didn’t tell … Continue reading A Birth by Jess Williams →

Essay/Memoir

Full Circle by A.R. Bender

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Photo of Tacoma
 

Not long ago, I walked along a rustic road that wound its way through a thickly forested area, taking in the sounds and sights of nature. Eventually the growth of trees thinned out and I came upon a somewhat ramshackle building situated behind a gravel parking lot. There I stopped, as if waking from a trance. Just a short time before, I’d been strolling in a neighborhood of stately, craftsman homes that were built during the time when Tacoma was first being settled in the late 1800s. From there, however, I must‘ve followed a road … Continue reading Full Circle by A.R. Bender →

Essay/Memoir

Side Effects by Philip Lawton

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Photo of spines of books on shelf
 

The day before I turned 40, a Sunday toward the end of the merry month, we went for a drive from our home in West Hartford to the town of Litchfield, Connecticut. I was at the wheel, my wife navigating, our children, a thirteen-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl, on the back seat of a dark red minivan. I had a lot on my mind, my job was exceedingly demanding, my father, gravely ill, but it was a glorious afternoon for an unhurried Memorial Day weekend trip to that scenic part of the state. We … Continue reading Side Effects by Philip Lawton →

Essay/Memoir

The Fairest of the Fair by Anthony J. Mohr

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Photo of Hollywood sign
 

Not until age seventy did I recall a place I’d never been—the Teenage Fair. Launched in 1961, it became a so-called “mini world’s fair for teenagers” which featured, according to one of its newspaper ads, a “battle of the beat, model cars, drag strip racing, dance contests, custom car caravan, surfing movies, Miss Teen International Pageant, harmony folk festival, movie, TV, radio, and record guest stars, judo, beauty clinics, thrill shows, photo and home movie expositions, fabulous fashion shows, dream cars of the future, bands and drill teams and nonstop record hop.” Also, someone told … Continue reading The Fairest of the Fair by Anthony J. Mohr →

Essay/Memoir

The City of My Birth by Margaret Erhart

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Skyscrapers against blue sky
 

The city of my birth, as seen from above, is a ragged landscape of canyons. Highrises, lowrises, the steeple of an old brick church. Streams of yellow taxicabs where forests of hickory and chestnut once grew. To the north lies the green rectangle of Central Park, the woody heart of this metropolis. There, red-tailed hawks and peregrine falcons prey on pigeons and squirrels and sometimes an errant Chihuahua. To the west, across the Hudson River, the fair state of New Jersey. To the east the bridges that stitch the island of Manhattan to the boroughs … Continue reading The City of My Birth by Margaret Erhart →

Street Talk

A Late Christmas Gift by Miles Fowler

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Wrapped gift with ribbon and bow
 

Like most people, I have done things that I wish I had not done, but it seems rare that something I am sorry I did is linked inextricably to something else I am glad to have done. Growing up in a middle-class family, I lived in material security. My mother and father saw that my brother, sister and I were always clothed and fed. At Christmas, that festival of food and gifts, there would always be lots of presents. Most of my early memories of Christmas are extremely pleasant, beginning with the enormous conifer in … Continue reading A Late Christmas Gift by Miles Fowler →

Essay/Memoir

On Arizona Highways by Jennifer Cummings

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Photo of empty road, going toward mountains
 

There’s a scuba certification center in the middle of the desert, promising a deep heated pool. There’s a billboard with a picture of an elderly couple smiling for the camera, the woman wrapping her arms around the man’s shoulders from behind, with bold white text declaring, “E.D.? Keep the love going!” There’s a prison complex that’s all dirt and barbed wire, directly across from a shopping center advertising multiple designer brands and large stores with mission-style architecture. I stare from the window of a bus as they pass. I’ve driven this highway—which connects my college … Continue reading On Arizona Highways by Jennifer Cummings →