My Sister And I Fought Over Mama’s Recipe Box For Four Years Until We Read What She Wrote On The Backs
The recipe box is a green tin one with a hinged lid that does not close all the way anymore, and for four years it sat in the middle of […]
I Accidentally Added My Two Ex Son in Laws to the Family Christmas Chat and What Happened Healed U
I am seventy-one years old and I have a flip phone in a drawer that I miss every single day. My granddaughter Mara talked me into the smart one. She […]
I Stopped Praying the Year My Wheat Burned Until Forty Trucks Came Up My Lane at Dawn
The drought broke me before it broke the wheat. I want to start there, because most people who knew me back then would have said it the other way around. […]
My Father Left Us One Cabin and One Condition None of Us Saw Coming
For nineteen days my brother Thaddeus would not say my name. Not once. He would say “she” and he would say “your sister” and he would say “whoever decided that,” […]
Nobody Knew Who Paid Off Their Layaway Until They Walked Into My Mothers Funeral
The first time I caught my mother stealing, she was seventy-one years old, and she was stealing from herself. I want to tell you what I mean by that, because […]
He Called Me A Sweet Old Woman Who Couldn’t Count While He Stole From My Store
The first time Royce Tillman called me sweet, I should have counted my fingers after he let go of my hand. He came into Hapgood Feed and Seed on a […]
She Told Me My Work Belonged in a Barn Not Her Boutique So I Let the Whole County Decide
The first time Odette Marchetti made me feel small, she did it with a smile and a pair of reading glasses she did not need. I was sixty-one years old […]
The Brides Mother Crossed My Name Off the List and My Grandson Sat Me at the Head Table Anyway
For forty-one years I cut hair in the front room of my house on Sorrel Street, in a town in central Nebraska so small the welcome sign and the goodbye […]
My Grandkids Built Me a Dating Profile as a Joke and the First Woman Who Wrote Back Was the Neighbor I Had Dodged for Ten Years
I am seventy-one years old, and until this past spring I believed I had reached the age where nothing new could happen to me. I want to tell you how […]
They Called Me Just The Waitress Until The Day I Bought The Man Trying To Bulldoze Us
The first time Sutton Vance walked into the Bluestem, he wiped the seat of the corner booth with a paper napkin before he sat down. I watched him do it. […]