The Mama Kat Thursday blog prompt link-up topic is: "You won an award at some point in your life...what was it for?" I'm terrible at sports. I don't like hitting or chasing or bouncing or catching balls of any sort. I also hated games like "steal the bacon" or "kick-ball." At the age when one is playing such things in school and developing that skill set, I lacked eye-hand coordination. However, with age, and eventually a little depth perception correction with glasses, that changed. I had one occasion to go into a batting cage in my late 30's. Bat in hand, I swung the bat at balls the machine was throwing at me and enjoyed the great satisfaction of actually hitting every one. It was a redeeming moment. But I didn't really find my niche until Hubby and I took a 6-week beginner foil fencing class. Now, technically, fencing is a martial art and like other martial arts, it's not about size or strength, but speed, skill--a...
My first car waa a baby blue 1978 Ford Pinto Hatchback, 4-speed standard transmission just like this. I bought it after I got out of the Air Force and returned home to Indiana. It was 1980 and I was planning on going to college. I saw it advertised for sale by an individual in the local paper. Price was great and it was in great condition. It got 45 miles to the galleon on the highway--which actually puts modern, lighter gasoline burning vehicles to shame, considering that blue body was all metal. Heavy, too--on a good downward hill in neutral it could coast 50-60 miles an hour flat out. It took me to college the next years and was our primary vehicle after husband and I got married for another year or so. I looking back, I regret we didn't keep it after we bought a new car. It would've been smarter to have kept it.
“ This Christmas,” our Mother firmly and unexpectedly announced, “there will be NO chocolate.” My sisters and I stared at her incredulously. What, no chocolate? It was inconceivable! You see, every year, for as long as I could remember, there had been chocolate on Christmas. Not just a little chocolate, but an opulent extravaganza of chocolate that would've made even Willy Wonka blush. Empty decorative bowls would be laid out on Christmas Eve, enough to cover our 7 foot dining table, only to be “magically” filled by morning with Hershey’s Kisses, Hershey's Mini-bars, chocolate peanut clusters, chocolate turtles, chocolate cremes, M&M's of both types, chocolate stars, chocolate-covered cherries, Tootsie rolls and candy bars of every type. It was a veritable chocolate feast the Ghost of Christmas Present would surely admire. How...
T he Mama Kat writing challenge today is a "College Memory." After 4 years in the Air Force, I decided I was ready for college, so I was older then most of my fellow students, who were right out of high school. My first semester of college was in the fall 1980. The year John Lennon died. That alone sent a memorable wave of grief over the school population. I was enrolled in a 2-year Commercial Art program. It was a small country college. The class wasn't big. Maybe 20 students in my graphic art classes. I remember this one guy was obsessed with the band "KISS" and, anytime he could, he made them the center of his art. He was apparently great at drawing KISS; less great at anything else. My instructors were both commercial artists who'd worked in the field before becoming college teachers. Brad Rock was one of them. He was new that year. A blond, forty-ish guy taking on a room full of greenhorn artist wannabe's. One day that first semester,...
It was the winter of 1944. Dad was a young sailor home on leave, his first leave, after having spent the previous 18 months on a Minesweeper in the Pacific. He happened to be on a street car riding back to Minneapolis from roller skating at a rink in St. Paul, when my Mother and her friend, Kathy hopped on. Mother just remembers being face to face with this cute sailor in his dress blues, Navy pea coat and smoking a pipe with his Navy cap at a jaunty angle. The three of them had a pleasant chat during the 40 minute ride and he said he'd be going back to the South Pacific soon and would they care to write? It was widely regarded as patriotic duty to write the servicemen during World War 2, so both girls quickly agreed and he jotted down their addresses. He had to write first, since he didn't know his ship assignment yet. Dad/1944 He did write both girls and, for a time, Mother and her friend, Kathy would compare & discuss his letters together. ...
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