Colleen Goodwin and Michelle Brown were best friends, and two sides of my second grade love triangle. They looked remarkably alike in a coarse sense: both brown-eyed, black-haired girls in knee socks […]
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Smooching)
On Big Bad Wolves and the Proper Application of Cootie Spray
(I wrote a handful of pieces for a Why It Matters manuscript that I never posted here.
The Day After Christmas
No day in the life of a kid is more exciting than Christmas Eve.
The Year of the Big Brown Beaver
Not all children are innocents, but I was.
1,000 Dandelions
There were several ways to tell big kids from little ones during the ’70s.
The Blue (Almost) Stingray
Larry wasn’t the coolest kid in the neighborhood, but he owned the coolest bicycle.
The Rusty Rat
My first bicycle was dragged home by my father, a papa cat bringing his cub a wounded mouse to hunt.
The Little Kitchen With the Sad Telephone
My mother held the telephone to her ear and sobbed.
The Road Trip
Four a.m.: The big V-8 growled to life and the speakers blared:
A Memorial Day Story
They were a typical 1920s Iowa farm family with a bumper crop of sons who someday would provide free labor:
