Thursday, March 25, 2021

Marathon



 

Six months goes by so quickly. I leave the dentist’s office, appointment card in hand, with every intention of flossing daily. I mean, religiously, every darn day, until my next visit to the crucible of terror. And I keep my promise for about three days, part of a morning ritual until the pain of my most recent cleaning subsides and I no longer respond to my alarm clock.

 

I am not a morning person or a night person really. A similar lack of discipline is at play when I walk into a Mcdonald's to order a salad and walk out with a Big Mac and large fries, or when I truly believe I can stretch time after I lollygag, repeatedly touching the snooze button, during precious moments set aside for things like, well, flossing. In the rush to begin a day of retirement, the floss gets left in the drawer just behind the nail clippers and extra combs.



To read the rest of this story and more than seventy others, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories on Amazon. Click on the image below.


 


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If you like fiction and you're in the mood for over 50 short stories, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.


Or if you'd prefer seventy non-fiction stories inspired by a town in Illinois, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories also on Amazon. Click on the image below.


 



Friday, March 5, 2021

Hot Dog Day

In a few days, we would empty our tilt-top wooden desks of the accumulated contents from a year known as third grade. The remains of number two pencils, crayons, assorted scraps of red, blue, and green construction paper, solidified mucilage, red rubber erasers worn stubby at both ends, safety scissors, a wooden ruler with our names carefully written on the back in dark marker, plus a variety of other detritus from our year of learning, all stuffed into a brown paper grocery bag we would carry home the few blocks we walked to school. And what a joyful walk it was!

The timely arrival of sunshine and warm days signaled the beginning of our yearly break from regimen and crowded classrooms. We didn’t realize how we had grown since that day in September after Labor Day when we trudged off en masse to nine months of childhood drudgery, reading, writing, social studies, science, sports, music, arithmetic, crafts, and special celebrations. We didn’t know how good we had it, until many years later those of us blessed with children of our own vicariously enjoyed it all once more.

 

Several days before our summer exodus we gathered on the playground in back of James Madison Grammar School for lunch. It wasn’t just any lunch; it was the yearly event known as Hot Dog Day! 


To read the rest of this story and more than seventy others, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories on Amazon. Click on the image below.


 


😎


If you like fiction and you're in the mood for over 50 short stories, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.


Or if you'd prefer seventy non-fiction stories inspired by a town in Illinois, please consider buying Park Ridge Memories also on Amazon. Click on the image below.