On the first Saturday in February, Mom and Dad and I arrived home from our nighttime cleaning job to the acrid odor of something charred. I walked in the door first. “What’s burning?” Chad was holed up in his room, but Jeffrey ambled from the living room, red-nosed and stuffy-looking. “Benny came in and asked […]
What to Do with Burned Birthday Cakes Read More »
I am fifteen, just admitted to the sacred precincts of my church’s Youth Group. My first official youth activity? A volleyball game with the Hayward youth–those cool, smart, and with-it people who live about an hour to the north and are driving down specially to play with us, the inelegant, un-cool Sheldon youth. We are
I have a picture of the two of us on my bookshelf. She is wearing her shiny blue windbreaker with the Wakarusa logo, her short hair mostly black, ruffled across her forehead, a little spiky. Me beside her, arm around her, grinning: deep-set eyes, hair parted flat against my head. I don’t pay attention to
The Things That Woman Gave Me Read More »
I made a promise once. I meant it with all my shaking soul. I think it would be difficult to say what an influence that promise has had on my life, impossible to count how many times I have read it again or remembered it, crying. I don’t remember the date or the time of
I Made a Promise Once Read More »
“Only Mennonites,” I thought Christmas evening, waiting in the food line behind an assortment of brothers and sisters, nieces and grandparents. Ham, turkey breasts, turkey with barbecue, dinner rolls, lettuce salad, cranberry salad, mashed potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, chicken noodle soup, cheese ball and crackers–all spread out on the cupboards of our farmhouse kitchen. In
Eat, Drink, and Be Mennonite, for Tomorrow You May Diet Read More »
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