Choice Morsels

      The Mama Kat prompt I chose today is to write a post using the word: final. For this one, I turned to my collection of writers prompts in Pinterest: "the last entry of an explorers journal" and thus this short  fiction was born: The Final Report by b.nickerson. Allen turned on the logbook and rapidly began tapping keys, composing his final report, quite certain he would not survive the night.      “ Of the seven of us, I alone am left,” he typed, then paused to reflect on events since they landed on this planet. Ethan had been the first to disappear. Right after they landed and were hacking their way through thick jungle. Ethan had been in the rear, but then suddenly he wasn't there at all---and they hadn't heard a sound.             They called for him and scanned around, but nothing. The Ship wasn't due back for four days to pick them up, so the Captain ordered they proceed. They had surve...

Today's chosen prompt is to share a memory from 12th grade and of all my years o f high school, 12th grade has some nice memory highlights. Probably one of my best memories of 12th grade is writing fanfiction  with my friend Cheryl. We became friends in 9th grade and I got her hooked on my interest in it. There was a masked-hero show called "The Green Hornet" in re-runs then and I fell in love with writing script-like fanfiction for that show. Cheryl liked the idea and started writing similar fanfiction for her favorite show, Mannix. We both even had an original character we added into the mix.  I remember many a study hall period, us sitting side-by-side, talking in hushed whispers about whatever we wrote the night before.  Having someone to share a common interest with was super cool. The other highlight of 12th grade was having a boy actually ask me to be his experiment partner for a Psych class project. I'd known him since 10th grade, but I was just ...

The Mama Kat topic of choice today is, "Summer Camp Memories." My sisters and I were in 4-H many years. Our parents were also  4-H leaders for the our local club many of those years as well. A perk of being in 4-H was the annual summer 4-H came held at Lake Shakamak State Park, Indiana.  We'd meet up to board a school bus, then enjoy a jostling hour and a half ride to the park. My memories of 4-H camp are from the 70's. Some things, like the Mess Hall (pictured) look pretty much the same. There's actually a wide circular field of grass in front of this Mess Hall with a ring of cabins that were pretty utilitarian. Just bare cement floors, unfinished walls with 2 x 4's visible  and rows of metal frame bunk-beds. I have two high-light memories of 4-H camp: the Mess Hall singing and evening entertainment at the Vesper Bowl. In the 70's, the Mess Hall was filled with long lows of tables with long wooden benches for seating and every meal in...

Today's post is another notably amusing memory from my childhood visits to Grandma Robbins house. Our house in Indiana, where my sisters and I grew up, had windows and curtains and that was it. We'd never seen a pull-down window shade in person, but just  on cartoons where the characters were always pulling them down, then letting them snap up to roll crazily at the the top. (Amazingly, I couldn't find a single window shade gif of Looney-Toons or Tom & Jerry, pulling down window shades, though it was pretty common on those shows.  So I drew one.) But our Grandma Robbins had real window shades on her windows---the old fashioned vinyl draw-down kind with a pull-string. I recall that string had a ring on the end  that was encircled with pretty ecru colored crochet and that the shade had a floral print. I was probably trendy decorating for the early to mid-20th century.  But because my sisters and I had only ever seen window shades on cartoons, w...

Next in my series of memories about Grandma Robbins house is "Grandma's Staircase." Grandma's house in Mantorville, Minnesota was built sometime around the turn of the 20th century. It was a spacious two-story house with stairs: eighteen narrow, good quality hardwood steps that ran straight up to the second floor, with "straight" being a key word. Their upward angle was very steep, steeper then an average staircase. No carpet or covering. Just plain maple or oak wood steps worn  smooth from like 50 years of use. (It was the 60's and early 70's when we were visiting.) It wasn't like the average staircase with rails so you can see the floor below. Nope, this staircase was installed between walls. No hand-rails. I'm not even sure it was a whole 30 inches wide--maybe just 28 and the individual steps were below average width as well, so it was very easy to take them two at at time. If you needed support, you just used the wall.  N...

The Mama Kat blog writing prompt today is a quick little fiction ending with "I should have known."  It's from a writer's prompt idea to write about a world where everyone gets a super power on their 18th birthday and your character gets one no one would ever want.         Ned woke up early, excited. Today was his 18 th birthday. Today he'd found out what his super power was!      Everyone on the planet got super powers on their 18 th birthdays--ever since the manned mission to mars came back with some unknown micro-organism that mutated the entire human race. That was 40 years ago.      Ned jumped out of bed and dressed quickly, eager to find out what his was.  He wondered what his gift might be? His Mom could see through walls. His Dad could speed read and could read through a 1000 page book in a manner of seconds.       Would he fly? Ned gave a little jump to test it. Nope.   ...

Today's Mama Kat prompt I chose was to write a post inspired by the word: dark. I've been saving creative writing prompts on my Pinterest board. (You can read the ones I like.)   One suggested rewriting a fairly tale with a different ending.  My favorite author, satire writer James Thurber, was very good at those, so I decided I'd try my hand at it by rewriting a well-known Mother Goose nursery rhythm with a dark twist. The Woman In A Shoe Once upon a time, There was a little old woman who lived in shoe, Who had so many children she didn't know what to do. But the crotchety old man living in the Cowboy Boot next door, Got tired of the little trespassers playing on his lawn, So he called the County Family Welfare office, Who came out and cited the little old woman for operating a Day Care without a license, And  took away all the children. So, unemployed, she sold her shoe to a young couple looking for a fixer-upper And moved t...

Today's Mama Kat prompt I've chosen the option to write about something "creepy"---in this case, something creepy-cool: The Indianapolis Children's Museum Guild's famous "Haunted House!" It was started by the Children's Museum Guild in 1964 in order to raise funds for special projects & exhibits and housed in a large gingerbread-looking two-story house in front of the museum called the Dreyer Building. I remember Mother taking us there as children in the mid-60's. We waiting in a long, long line of people that wound from the parking lot to the front, then, once inside, we wound through two stories of scary fun! Volunteer Guild members dressed as witches strolled along the line, greeting guests.  Inside, this Haunted House was painted black and on the floor, we followed a trail of glow-in-the-dark footprints that guided us on our creepy journey from room to room, upstairs, then down. Each room held a spooky theme and more disg...

T he Mama Kat blog writing prompt of chosen today is, "Write a post inspired by the word: Late." I think everyone has their own preferences for when being late or being on time matters. As I general rule, I like to be on time. Old habit from being in the military. For Hubby, too. However, if it's a large group event where seating is involved, especially if it involves tables full of people for a conference meal or celebration, I absolutely never want to arrive late.  I must arrive 15 or 20 minutes early, so I can be sure to have my pick of where to sit and I can possess a spot. Then I can be the one in control and others, who arrive late, have to ask me if they can join me at  my table.  I  don't prefer the reverse. I dislike having to search for a seat among strangers, asking for a place to sit, It reminds me too much of my school years riding the school bus.  We lived way out in the country and the school bus picked me and, later, my sisters...

The Mama Kat prompt I chose today is to write a post inspired by the word: fall. I grew up in central Indiana, that part that's more trees and hills.  Our property was heavily forested and the area around the house full of trees with large leaves: White Oak, Pin Oak, Red Oak, Red Maple, Silver Maple and Tulip Poplars, to name a few. In Autumn, all of them would turn vivid yellows, oranges and russet red and drop there leaves thickly on the ground, which necessitated raking. So, we'd do what kids always do with fall leaves when they have to rake them: make big piles and leap into them! Us and the dog, too. Dry fall leaves have a crisp fragrance all their own. We'd also use those leaves for playing house with our dolls. We'd rake those colorful, crunchy leaves into narrow rows in the outline shape of the dimension of a "house" with 2 or 3 rooms and  doorways. We'd identify which room as living room, bedroom, kitchen and so on. Then we'd pla...

The Mama Kat blog prompt I've chosen today is to, "share how I met my best friend in High School." It was 1972 and I was in 9th grade, the era of bell bottoms, platform shoes and long hair. The Vietnam war was still in full swing, but no one talked about that. The high school needed more space, so they'd added temporary buildings in back, outside to provide 3 additional classrooms. These looked like small houses on mobile-home type frames, called "Re-locatables." I was taking a class called "General Business" being held in one of those Relocatables the semester I met Cheryl, who later became my best bud. We were in desk chairs side by side and struck up conversation, I guess.  I knew who she was. I'd seen her around school. She was in both Marching and Jazz Band, always on the high honor roll, in the Sunshine Club, in the National Honors Society and a volunteer in the school office for an hour daily. Quite the busy. I, on the other ...

Wiener roasting, roasting marshmallows for S'mores & running through the dark with sparklers was what our 4th of July celebration was like in the 60's and early 70's. We lived on heavily forested property just off a state road in Indiana, where gun-powder based fireworks are illegal. We usually just purchased the legal ones sold in the grocery stores that contained assorted large and smaller sparklers, glow worms and smoke bombs. Our "fire pit" we used for roasting wieners was usually 6 cinder blocks stacked as an open ended rectangle and we'd build a fire in the middle. Being made of cinder blocks, it could be moved, so our "fire pit" enjoyed being in several locations. Since we lived in the country, sticks and branches were readily available, so we 3 girls would search along the edge of the woods, collecting armfuls.  We were experts at building fires, criss-crossing small tinder first, then adding sticks of increasing size on top....

Wringer Washing Machine I remember while growing up in rural Indiana in the 60's and 70's, doing laundry was an all day event. My clearest memories of  "laundry day," come from summer time, when we were out of school.  Mother had a certain day of the week she did laundry usually. I liked to sleep in and I recall waking up around 9:30 to the chugging rhythm the wringer washer already at work.  I'd see all the dirty laundry sorted into piles around the utility room floor: whites, light colors,  medium colors, dark colors and heavy darks, like jeans. (The photo is one I found online of a Kenmore wringer washer quite similar to the last model I remember Mother having in the 70's.) You have to understand, wringer washers only do the washing part. S he'd start with whites, then once the washer finished it's wash cycle, it would stop. Then she'd, by hand, pull each item of clothing out of the washer and feed it through the wringer rollers ...

The Mama Kat blog writing prompt suggestion I'm doing today is, "tell us about the last time you went ice skating." Last time I went ice skating....? How about somewhere in the range of 45 years ago. I only ever went once. Once was enough. The Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis on the State Fair grounds hosts events and entertainment all year round ranging from concerts to livestock shows to Hockey. I remember seeing the Shrine Circus there a couple times  and Holiday On Ice performances several times. Winter is Hockey season, though and the Coliseum floor gets a iced and is available for public ice skating during the day, skate rentals included. I think it might've been a 4-H club trip outing with several club members the time we went, since Mother & Dad were the leaders, plus my sisters and myself.  I was in my teens.  I did know how to roller skate well enough to mostly stay upright and circle around the rink with the rest of the crowd....

Today's Mama Kat is to share, "A Back to School Memory."      The scent of autumn was in the air and golden rod was in bloom when I started school in 1963.  I wore a dress, since dresses were what all girls wore to school back then, and carried a red & black plaid book bag, such as the one pictured.       I carried all my books back and forth to school everyday. Initially, I don't recall we could leave books in the our desks and I remember not enjoying how heavy trundling that loaded book bag back and forth was.  At some point in grade school, we had assigned desks and could leave our stuff there. I think desk styles changed maybe, though I can't remember. I do remember I wasn't carrying that thing back and forth in 2nd grade. 50's/60's Book Bag      I would wait for the bus at the end of the driveway and on this particular day I recall going sitting at the very farthest back seat. The bus's next stop was at ...

I my growing-up era was the 60's and early 70's. I had two younger sisters and one of the many things we enjoyed doing was playing board games. We had a closet full of games to choose from, but one of my personal favorites was my "Barbie Queen of the Prom," game! It was a little like Barbie Monopoly. The game was for 4 players, who moved around the board earning money to buy a prom dress, earn a school club pin, get a sweet-heart ring and choose a boyfriend. Whoever got to the final "Prom" space with all 4 items won the game. The thing was, how fancy a dress you got or which boyfriend you got was first come, first serve. The first player, of course, could pick the best dress and best boyfriend (which was Ken). The last player usually got stuck with freckly-faced ol' Poindexter for a date and who wanted that? It's funny I was just thinking about this very game today, how much fun I got out of it. I remember was generally particular about th...