A MIDDLE SCHOOL DREAM

Chapter 4

A MIDDLE SCHOOL DREAM

As the saying goes, "Time waits for no man."  In this case, no child either.  Could it be possible that I was thirteen years old and entering the seventh grade?  I will never in a million years forget my first day of junior high school or what we now refer to as middle school.  I still had not acquired a taste for breakfast, so I gulped down my cup of cream and sugar with a little coffee.  I said my goodbyes to my grandma and grandpa and emerged from the house that morning wearing one of my new dresses.

The dress I chose to wear for my first day at school had short sleeves that were gathered together with elastic, and the waistband had an attached nylon petticoat that was gathered together with elastic too.  I guess the elastic bands were sewn into my dress so that they could accommodate my forever-growing waistline.  That morning when I boarded the school bus, it didn't take me very long to realize that I definitely did not look like the other girls on the bus.  Some of the girls stared at me and rolled their eyes around in their heads, like I was from some planet in outer space.  A few of the girls turned their heads toward the bus windows, probably thinking that I wouldn't notice them giggling at me.

My face felt hot, and I knew that it must have been turning bright red.  I felt sick to my stomach, like I might vomit up my cup of coffee.  Oh, how at that very moment I wished my grandma had said it was okay to ride to school with my cousin Freddie in his brother's new car.  But she didn't, and now I was stuck on this yellow submarine being submerged deeper and deeper with no way out.  As I frantically looked up and down the aisle for an empty seat, I...

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

How about an easy recipe?

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

1 package Moist Deluxe Pineapple Supreme Cake Mix

1/2 cup butter 

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 (20-ounce) can pineapple slices, drained

Red maraschino cherries, drained and halved

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter in ungreased 13x9 - inch pan.  Sprinkle brown sugar evenly in pan.  Arrange pineapple slices on brown sugar.  Place maraschino cherry halves, cut side up, in center of pineapple slices.

Prepare cake mix following package directions for Basic Recipe.  Pour batter evenly over fruit in pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 43 to 48 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool 5 minutes in pan.  Invert onto heat resistant serving plate.

WEARY TRAVELERS

Chapter 3

WEARY TRAVELERS

My new friend sat on our backdoor steps staring at the baseball field for a long time.  I guess he didn't have anything else to say, so I just sat beside him staring at the baseball field too.  Then he stretched out his long legs like a spider, stood up, and tapped on the secret window in our back door.  My grandma came to the door, opened it, and took the dinner plate from the hobo.  He thanked her for the food and said it was the best food he had ever eaten.  My grandma gave him a quick nod of her head, as if to say thank you, and then she told me that it was time to come into the house.  I told my friend goodbye and walked into the house with my grandma right behind me.  She closed the back door and walked over to the kitchen sink to wash the dinner plate.

I stood on the tip of my toes with my face pressed against the back door window, trying to catch a final glimpse  of my new friend and to see if he was going to walk back to the train tracks.  But much to my surprise, he didn't walk away.  He stood on the bottom step of our back porch, looking out over the baseball field like he was searching for something or someone.  He then glanced toward the side of our house like a secret agent in a spy movie.  I held my breath as I was afraid he...

SEASONING WITH SALT AND PEPPER

Chapter 2

SEASONING WITH SALT AND PEPPER

My first encounter with the men my grandma called the hobos was from a branch on a lone pine tree that loomed over our garage like a giant octopus stretching in all directions.  I wasn't allowed to climb the pine tree, as it had sticky sap oozing from every branch.  My grandma would yell at me whenever I attempted to climb the tree.

     "Tonia Kay, I better not catch you up in that pine tree."

     But my grandpa finally gave in to my persistence and nailed an old piece of pinewood between two branches as my perch.  I would sit on my perch with the sparrows and blackbirds and listen to them sing.  What I really enjoyed, though, was waiting for the afternoon freight train.  The railroad tracks were so close to the pine tree that the ground beneath it would start to rumble and shake before I could even catch a glimpse of the train.  Then I would sit very still and wait for the whistle.  Once I heard the train whistle, I knew that at any second the clanking of the steel wheels would roll by on those skinny rails, squeaking and hissing, and then I would...

ITS ME, THE KID

Chapter 1

ITS ME, THE KID

Our house was shaped like a cube of butter and was even the same creamy, yellow color.  It had been built on the far left hand side of a corner lot on Fourth Street.  It wasn't just any corner lot either.  Adjacent to it was a gigantic dirt field.  At least it looked gigantic to me.  I was in the third grade.  The year was 1959.  Every Saturday afternoon, that field played host to every kid on the block.  We would play as many baseball games as the weather permitted on a field of rock hard dirt, surrounded by salt cedar trees.  Tall clumps of weeds with foxtails stuck to our white socks.  Our house was pretty modern. The outside walls were made of something called stucco, and the inside of the house had shiny hardwood floors.  I especially loved lying on the braided oval rug in the living room.  I would pretend like I was lying on the beach in the warm summer sun, compared to the coolness of...

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Our vocation is an asset to prayer because our work becomes prayer.  It is prayer in action.  

The artist, the novelist, the surgeon, the plumber, the secretary, the lawyer, the homemaker, the farmer, the teacher, the student- 

All are praying by offering their work up to God.

Merry Christmas!  God Bless Us, Everyone!

THANKSGIVING EVE

On one Thanksgiving Eve, I heard

a knock upon my door.

I knew this man had seen hard times 

by the tattered clothes he wore.

He asked if there was a place to stay

up the road ahead.

But with some hesitation, I asked,

"Come be my guest instead."

We had a simple meal,

and warmed up by the fire...

It seemed we talked for hours,

 then agreed to retire.

In my great excitement,

I awoke before the dawn.

But sometime in the night,

my new found friend had gone.

And he'd left a little note

just for me to read...

"As you've done it to the least of these,

you've done it unto Me."

I wondered for a moment

just what this message meant,

Then, suddenly, I realized

my guest was heaven-sent.