Kimberly Campbell invited me to her house for lunch. We had absolutely nothing in common, but we lived on the same street. Proximity is everything when you’re five years old.
Continue reading “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands by Bonnie Veaner”
Tag: childhood
Lessons by Gigi Papoulias
The first time the piano teacher walked up the two flights to our apartment, my mother rushed to help him. “Thank you, but I can manage,” he said as he tap-tapped his way up. He wore the thickest glasses I had ever seen. His eyeballs, massive behind the lenses, wobbled and darted – not quite focused on anything in particular. Tallish and round, he always wore a suit. His big shoes were shiny. Before he even entered the room, I could smell his cologne – heavy and manly. When he opened his mouth to speak, he sounded airy, womanly. Sometimes, when I’d play, he’d sing along in a shrilly opera-singer voice. I’M a yankee doodle dan-DEE…
The Precipitous Writing Career of Evelyn Jones by Bruce Levine
From the first thing of recorded history, that is, the first thing he could remember, Evelyn Jones wanted to be a writer. He didn’t know what he wanted to write and, at not quite two years old, that was to be expected. But he’d seen people writing things. Adults, his older siblings and anyone else that happened to hold a pencil or pen and place it against paper was fascinating. The mere act of passing a writing instrument across paper seemed so extraordinary that he felt he somehow had to try it.
Continue reading “The Precipitous Writing Career of Evelyn Jones by Bruce Levine”
Savage Country by Anderson Ryle
“Do you want to play guns?” he asked me.
This was a complicated question, and while I stood not knowing what to say, the summer heat beat down through the cloudless Virginia sky. Twenty years has gone by now, and each summer heat wave brings back this vivid memory. It will forever be with me, as clear as it was that day when I was eight.
Imaginary Friends by Julianne Carew
Auburn hair and freckles sprinkled across his face, a red hat that he was never without and grubby sneakers that were ripped and torn, I first met Alvin when I was say, three or four. Alvin simply emerged in the middle of the grocery store parking lot that was really a sandbox that only I could see. He tapped on my shoulder as my mom was loading bags into the backseat of the car and from that moment on, from the second I laid eyes on his crooked teeth and goofy half-smile, we were inseparable.
The Islands of Bluebell Meadow by Paul Thompson
We reach the housing estate by mid-morning.
The site office is closed for business and surrounded by construction vehicles long since abandoned. Buildings hide behind frameworks of scaffold with empty windows and hollow interiors. Here the recession has spoken with confidence. Construction work has ceased and the estate is destined to stand empty and unfinished.
Continue reading “The Islands of Bluebell Meadow by Paul Thompson”
The Boat Song by Tobias Haglund
“Dad! Dad! Are we there yet? Are we?”
“No.”
“But we’ve been driving for-EVER!”
“Quiet back there!”
Frida held her breath. Jack looked up in the rear-view mirror. “What are you doing?” He turned to Hanna. “What is she doing?”
Hanna turned around. “Are you holding your breath to be quiet?” Frida nodded her head enthusiastically. Hanna held out her hand and gave Frida a high-five. “I’m also going to hold my breath. We can’t disturb Jack!”
“Alright, ladies. I get it. Should I turn on the radio? Will some music make you happy, honey?”
…at an age of seventy-five. We celebrate his memory with a song Robert Broberg crafted in 1967. Here it is. The classic; ‘The Boat Song’.
One of the sailboats said, to the other that, you are lovely,
we should be boarding in hand, courting far from land,
sailing off unmanned, like only sailboats can,
Bada-bam-bam-bam-bam, bada-bam-bam-bam-bam…
