My Mom Was NOT Old!

By Jacklynn Winmill-Lee

As I quickly approached age 60, it was impossible to feel old with a mother around who was going on 93 and still super active. In fact, when we walked together – she using her walker and me my cane for bad knees - I constantly had to call out to her as she'd get so far ahead, "Mom, wait for me!.” She’d just stand there chuckling until I caught up.

Late last winter, Mom had a bad spell and her health started to fail. She started having falls and she stopped going to her social get-togethers. One day, Mom finally admitted she was feeling a bit "off" and that she didn't feel like going out to lunch with her grandson.

This was not Mom!! Mom never stayed home when there were activities to go to - especially when it involved spending time with family!

My sister went into the doctor's with Mom and told him flat out that she was not just another senior to have every ache and pain dismissed because she's OLD. The doctor was rude but finally compared the list of medications he prescribed with the printout from the pharmacy. Lo and behold, there was a pill in Mom's daily batch that didn't belong! It was what was making her so sick!

I had lost my job so over the next couple of months, while she recovered, Mom started staying at my place every weekend and sometimes longer. Spring brought nice warm weather so we would sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. Mom would smile and greet every neighbor that passed by and they soon started coming to join us - young and old alike.

Some evenings there would be quite a number of us congregated all around my door. Everyone brought their own chairs and we all contributed something to snack on or to drink. I had lived there for almost nine years but had never had a conversation with any of them - until Mom happened.

Everyone loved my Mom and she fit right in. They all called her Nana. As many of my neighbors were middle-aged or older and living alone, Mom also gave advice about avoiding loneliness by staying active, socializing and doing what you can to help those less fortunate.

By the middle of May, she started feeling better and her energy level increased so she was raring to get back to her apartment and her independence. Mom was herself again - a 4-foot, 9-inch ball of fire! So home she went.

One day a month later, Mom got up from her computer and called an ambulance to take her to the hospital as she was having terrible chest pains. My sister and I were with her when the doctor told Mom that she probably wouldn't survive the night as she had a massive blood clot in her heart.

Mom said "I'm ready. I've lived a good, long life but I wish I could have made it to 97.” She was 93.

We asked her, "What's so special about 97?"

Mom explained that an aunt in her family was the one who lived the longest and she was 97 when she passed away and Mom had wanted to beat her record. She then smiled and closed her eyes and started humming. Mom was never silent for long and always had a song to sing or hum. It was what brought her comfort throughout her life.

Mom lasted another 24 hours which enabled most of the family to get in to see her including her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren and even her newborn great-great-granddaughter whom she hadn’t yet seen. She was lucid and aware the whole time and made sure to give a piece of sage advice to each one.

This full-of-life, incredible woman left us gently, as she deserved. I can only hope to be half the woman she was, as she was one-of-a-kind. But I will always strive.

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]

The Blue Schwinn Bicycle

By Lyn Burnstine

I was privileged to spend glorious summers as a child of nature at my grandmother’s farm where I roamed the woods, fields and side roads freely and safely.

In the winters, I lived in an upstairs Main Street apartment shared with my father’s photography business, Schroeder's Studio. There, the opportunities for physical play were limited: I could roller-skate on the sidewalk below or in the nearby library park or walk to friends’ houses. None of them had swings or playground equipment, not even the school.

I could play in the grassy, railroad right-of-way behind our apartment but the slope of the only safe part of it made any kind of ball game difficult. Most of the active games had to be postponed until summers or week-ends in the country.

When I was six, my world opened up when my father surprised my sister and me with a brand-new blue Schwinn bicycle. It was the grandest, most expensive gift we had ever received.

I learned to ride, with my father holding me up, on the path right next to the railroad tracks. (Of course, I knew never to go that close to the tracks without him.) By the time the next summer in the country rolled around, I was a pro, although I remember taking my first bad spill on the rough, pebbly road —skinning knees and elbows in the process.

The neighborhood children lived miles away down those hot, dusty southern Illinois roads. Now I could play with them more often with the wind cooling my face as I rode, even though it meant racing furiously past a mean old bloodhound that I was sure would eat me up if he caught me.

Other than the ferocious dog, those country roads were completely safe for little kids. I doubt if even one car a day traversed it — a tractor or horse-drawn hay wagon maybe.

My sister and I would plunk ourselves down in the middle of the road, squatting on our haunches, to sift through the gravel for hours at a time. We were searching for, and found many, “Indian beads” — actually fish bones that probably were never touched by a Native American, but fascinated us with the exciting possibility.

On the rare occasion that a car came along, we had time to get to the side of the road; in that deep rural quiet we could hear a car motor from a mile away and see the dust plume that surrounded and announced its approach.

In early June, we had to forgo our riding for a few days while the road was paved with hot black oil sprayed out of a row of narrow spigots behind the sprayer truck. We were stuck at home while it hardened, then was covered with gravel.

We learned the hard way to keep the cat inside. Sometimes even little girls’ tarry toes had to be scrubbed with kerosene, from where we had tried to stay on the grass alongside — but slipped.

Soon, our father bought an old used boys’ bike, repaired and spruced it up with paint, a new seat and chain. My tomboy sister preferred it to the “sissy” girls’ bike, so now we didn’t have to share.

We sometimes rode together. I rode with friends as my childhood years flew by, but more and more, as I grew into my teens, bicycling became a solitary activity that I loved.

By then, my family was living full-time in the central Illinois corn-country. I would ride the three-and-a-half miles to the town library, put three books in the handlebar basket and ride home reading the fourth one. On those arrow-straight flat roads, I didn’t even need to steer so the book would be half-read by the time I got home.

My greatest joy and comfort came from riding my bike during the last half-hour of fading light when the evening became a bit cooler and I could capture any stray breeze. I rode back and forth to the corner crossroad dreaming of the exciting life I was going to have somewhere far away.

One of the few times I rode a bike in my adult years, I was, indeed, living far away on the Gulf coast. I was all of 20, married and pregnant with my first child. Two young boys rode past and I overheard one of them say, in his cute little Mississippi drawl, “I never saw an old woman ride a bike before, did you?”

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]

Best Laid Plans

By Mary B Summerlin who keeps a photostream at Flickr

The last six months have been a difficult period for me. I have had many health issues that have been difficult, painful and limiting in what I can do. Just now am I beginning to make a few choices of venues to attend.

Yesterday was a big day at my UU Fellowship. Our new minister was to be installed. I had not attended many events at the Fellowship for the last six months so I was excited that I felt well enough to attend this event.

Now I wanted everything to go smoothly so I made plans accordingly. It was to begin at 4PM and I live about 15 minutes away. Nevertheless, I decided to leave at 2PM so that I could stop at Staples, get new batteries and a new memory card for my camera. I wanted to be prepared to take pictures, both of nature on the way to and from the event and who knows what else.

I also wanted to make sure I could get a handicapped parking spot so that my walk inside would be slow and easy. I wanted to get inside and not be out of breath – I wanted to be able to talk to people I had not seen for some time.

Okay, I go over all possibilities and decide that I have all bases covered. Everything should go smoothly.

I set out on time – slow and easy, no pressure. I’m dressed in my “good clothes” and am feeling like I look and feel good. I stop at Staples, get my supplies and insert them into my camera. It’s ready to go.

I continue on to the Fellowship stopping along the way for beautiful flowers and/or birds. I get to the Fellowship very early, about 3PM, find the perfect parking spot, get out and begin walking around the building taking pictures of the beautiful flowers. Much time and effort has been spent making the grounds shine.

It is a lovely day. There are three benches sitting in the sun and they are very inviting since I am in no hurry, have no pressure and can relax and enjoy people coming and going. I go over, chose one and decide to sit near the end because there is more support there. I sit down and!!!???&&**(*&??.

Yes, it dumped me on the ground, sprawled out, pocketbook askew and bench collapsed.

My immediate reaction was - oh please, I hope nobody saw this most ungraceful event. My next reaction was – oh please, I hope somebody saw this awful event and can help me get up.

Evidently nobody saw the happening and I was left to my own devices to figure a way to get up.

I had knee surgery in the middle of January. This is not the time to be testing the strength and agility of the knee.

The mother of invention can force one to be very creative. I manage to get on all fours and use all my strength and get up. Of course, I’m left breathless and red faced. There’s no way I can go inside and be presentable.

I take a few minutes to take pictures of something (whatever) to give me time to catch my breath. Then I go inside and luckily people are distracted by something else and I sneak into the bathroom.

There I catch my breath, rearrange my clothing, gather my wits and make a calm and cool entrance. As I leave the bathroom I let out a sigh of relief and remember the old saying “the best laid plans...”

A good evening was had by all except that half way through I began to feel vague aches and pains. Oh well, I’ll survive.

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]

Welcome to Summer

Well, for friends in Australia, New Zealand and other places in the southern hemisphere, it's the beginning of winter. Nevertheless, where I live, today – Memorial Day – is the unofficial beginning of the summer season.

It's a three-day weekend in the United States and with all the family gatherings, backyard barbecues, beer and all, I wonder if sometimes we don't pay enough attention to what this holiday is for.

On Friday, Vice President Joe Biden spoke to a group of Gold Star Families - those who have lost a loved one in war. Poor ol' Joe is often chastised for speaking out of turn, of putting his foot in his mouth, of being a reliable gaffe machine. But not on this day.

Biden's extraordinary speech, in the words of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, was "raw and emotional" and, I would add, personal and wrenching and true and good.

As far as I can find online on Saturday (when I am writing this), Maddow's show is the only place where Biden's speech was broadcast in full, if at all. Please watch. It's only about five minutes and you will be glad you did.

New stories from Elder Storytelling Place contributors will resume tomorrow.

To Belong

By Lia Hirtz

The jacarandas are in full bloom. They spread their color plumage of violet-blue against the backdrop of a cobalt sky. Through the open window of the moving car, I see the blur of color brush my eyes. I am a girl of six, full of childish innocence and amazement.

My name is Rosalia. My face is sweet and placid. I have thick, dark brown hair that my mother braids with shiny colored ribbons. I am bright and chatty with a slight overbite and a large, red birthmark on the right side of my body.

There is no work for my father and in search of a better life, our family is moving to California. We are leaving behind our familiar town and happy home in Coalcoman, Mexico.

As we drive away, I see the slight silhouette of my beloved grandmother, sadly waving goodbye. The pain on her face is fierce, but she does not cry. I feel a lump in my throat, keenly aware of our separation. Quickly, I lose sight of her as we drive faster and faster towards our new home.

After what seems an eternity of driving, my mother turns and smiles at me, a wide, happy smile that makes me want to hug her. “We’re home,” my father says as we arrive in San Juan Capistrano, California.

Soon after our arrival, it is my first day of school. I have been crying for days in anticipation. I speak no English and I am mortified.

My mother dresses me in my best and I look nothing like the other girls in school. I am wearing a puffy, red dress, long braids with shiny, colored ribbons, and a red birthmark around my right eye, chin, neck, arm, hand, thigh, foot – “a gift from Jesus,” my mother says, but I feel like a piñata in the middle of an alien party.

In class, the teacher calls me Roxilia and I want to cry. Blue-eyed girls with soft yellow hair and sweet smiles lead me to a chair where they slowly dissect me. They undo my braids and remove the ribbons; they fuss with my dress and tenderly caress my birthmark while excitedly conversing.

They speak, but I cannot understand them. I can hear my heartbeat like a roaring ocean in my ears. My breath is caught in my chest as I understand, “this isn’t Coalcoman anymore, Rosalia.”

Time passes and every day I practice English. The sound of “th” and “tion” are especially difficult for me to pronounce. I intently study my classmates’ mouths when they speak. Their tongues twist and curl as the words easily dance on their lips like colored serpentines.

I am no longer frightened. I am home, here to discover, to learn, to speak, to communicate, so that I too, may belong.

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]

How Do We Appreciate The Arts?

By Jackie Harrison

I am not a music major but I love music, almost any kind. Pieces without words can affect my mood but those with words, especially the words of religious songs, stir my emotions the most.

I marvel at the genius of composers like Beethoven, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner and Mozart during their time and wonder why we have none like them today. It boggles my mind to think that Beethoven, when he was completely deaf, composed his last work.

When I think these opera composers could tell a story through music, writing every vocal and instrumental note, I am in awe. I played memorized pieces on the piano but even though my fingers played each note and chord automatically, I could not recite the individual notes I played. The mind is a marvelous thing!

I try to figure out how music and other arts are judged. Is a painting of penguin feet walking across a canvas selling for hundreds of dollars good art? Is a photograph of an ugly old sofa in an austere room worthy of first place in an art show? Are clever metaphors, often used by the news media, and lofty descriptive words by writers really good?

Do some people fake appreciation, trying to appear elite? Perhaps being different, often called original, is the key; yet many prefer the accepted "norm" or works of the ancient artists.

I can do without the current singing fad of what I call screaming and warbling up to the pitch. Once the high pitch is found, the singers hang onto it forever like they are proud they found it. Rap music, even though I can't understand half the words - and I am glad- fascinates me only because it is difficult. I've tried doing it and I can't.

It is strange to me that nowadays most performers can't sing a song in a simple way and have it appreciated. I liked the Frank Sinatra and Karen Carpenter styles. We watch and listen to blasting sounds, falsettos, strobe lights, sexy gyrations from half-nude or weirdly dressed bodies and call it good. What happened to shows like The Lawrence Welk Show?

I like country western music, the real kind, not the "Hollywoodized" versions. Many are "hurting" songs like Ruby and even Goodnight Irene. When I taught DUI classes, I warned the students who liked to drink not to drink and listen to country western music. It would make them drink more.

Even though his contemporaries didn't think much of Rachmaninoff's music ( probably jealous because his pieces were too difficult for them to play ), I appreciate his music. I can always recognize his music by the heavy octave chords, followed periodically by soft melodious tunes. His Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, from which the popular song, Tonight We Love, was taken, is a good example.

I must say I like George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue. I love the section where one can actually experience the wheels turning on the train he reportedly was riding in when he wrote it.

When I listen to unfamiliar classical music sung or played by professional musicians who seem to want to show off their skills by performing odd pieces during their concerts, I don't always enjoy it. I would much prefer my favorites, at least one or two of them. However, I can still appreciate the skills, techniques and interpretations.

I guess it is good thing that I am not a professional critic.

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]

The War of the Mashed Potatoes

By Deb who blogs at Simple Not Easy

There was a mashed potato war at our house. On Sunday after church, the aunties and uncles and cousins would arrive at our house laden with chickens and roasts, salads and jello, cakes, pies, green bean casseroles and the ubiquitous cornbread, red beans, bisquits and red-eye gravy.

(The uncle's pockets also usually held small silver flasks of whiskey which they hid from Grandma and from their wives.)

The house and porches overflowed with arguing and laughter, smoke curled up from the men's cigars and tantalizing smells of frying chicken or roast beef made our bellies growl as we waited for 2PM.

Finally the aunties would begin to scurry in and out of the steaming kitchen to load the trestle tables Dad and his brothers would set up, inside or out, depending on the weather. Once we all were seated (kids had to sit at a smaller table), Grandma would stand at the head of the big folks table and say an extended thank you to Jesus.

When the smaller kids started to cry from starvation, she'd quit so we'd sometimes pinch a little one to make them bawl. She'd pause, everyone would give a hearty "AMEN!" and fall to and start filling their plates.

The mashed potato war between my Mama and Daddy's Mama was over two things, consistency and the Bible. Mama's potatoes were not so much mashed as pureed. She went at a pot of cooked and steaming potatoes with all the fervent zeal of her religion.

Mama had always been a bit of a thorn in Grandma's side and seeing as how my late Grandaddy had been a Baptist pastor and the whole family was Baptist, Mama did the worst thing possible. She went and got herself converted to Seventh-Day Adventist, kept Saturday as the Sabbath and claimed Baptists worshiped the Pope, which really got Grandma's back up.

Butter, milk, salt and good hard exercise was what Mama used to whip five pounds of potatoes into a bowl of cloud-like consistency that rarely passed around the table before it was emptied at Sunday dinner.

On the other hand, Grandma's potatoes were (Mama said dismissively) lumpy. She liked to leave little chunks of potato in them so they "don't feel like wallpaper paste in your mouth," she'd say a bit sourly, passing on Mama's potatoes.

The Bible part of the potato war was in how Grandma "seasoned" hers with bits of fried bacon and bacon grease, and served them with red-eye gravy. This meant of course that Mama would not eat them, as Seventh-Day Adventists believe it is sinful to eat the cloven hoofed pig or the succulent catfish, squirrel, possum, or rabbit that occasionally turned up for Sunday dinner, courtesy of my brothers, uncles and cousins who had long guns and spent Saturday afternoons in the woods.

And of course, Grandma would no more leave the bacon grease out of her mashed potatoes than she would make a pilgrimage to Rome. As far as she was concerned, if God hadn't meant for her to put bacon in her mashed spuds he wouldn't have made the pig so tasty.

Grandma's bowl of "lumpy" potatoes would be passed around and Mama would hand it on, lips pulled tighter than a banker's purse strings.

While I was a little Adventist child on Saturday morning, on Sunday afternoon I had a Baptist stomach. I loved Grandma's lumpy potatoes and the red-eye gravy dumped over them but if I got any, it was a quick mouthful off the spoon from Grandma in the kitchen after a round-the-corner check to make sure Mama was arguing Sabbath Day religion with one of the aunties.

At the table I ducked my head and passed on Grandma's potatoes or there'd be righteous hell to pay later.

One week Daddy would make an enemy of Grandma by scooping up a huge portion of Mama's potatoes and practically licking the remnants from his plate. The next Sunday he'd made an enemy of Mama as he dove into his mother's dishpan-sized bowl of "lumpy" potatoes seeking here and there a ribbon of grainy bacon dripping among the white hillocks.

For Daddy was a Baptist and as he was fond of saying, "One good thing about being a Baptist is a man can eat whatever he likes."

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]

What Makes a “Readers' Writer”?

By Stroppy

Have you ever read an article applauding a newly acclaimed writer or even an old master and failed miserably in an attempt to read more than a few pages? I certainly have.

I have picked up a number novels written by so-called noted authors, over a long period of time, only to discard them a short way in. “Why?” I asked myself, as the writer was purported to be one of the best.

One such failed author for me was Australia’s own, Patrick White. Recently I was delighted to read a short article in a Saturday newspaper by Blanche Clarke about this apparently well-known problem with “many readers confronted with White’s fiction that is so impenetrable for the average reader.”

This unpretentious, well-written column reignited my desire to have another go at an old master.

vThe book hailed as the saviour of readers smarting at their own lack of understanding the writer’s world is, The Hanging Garden, a previously unpublished novel.

White's literary agent, according to Blanche Clarke, Ms Barbara Mobbs, was instructed by White to destroy the manuscript. “Not in a blue fit,” said Ms Mobbs.

“Ms Mobbs acting on behalf of the charities named in his will sold White's manuscripts, 32 boxes in total, to the National Library of Australia in 2006. She pursued her idea that ‘The Hanging Garden’ was good enough to publish in 2010. A team of academics transcribed the hand written manuscript.”

The Hanging Garden, set in wartime Sydney, is a tale of two children who, having each lost a parent, forge a strong relationship, and are forced into a difficult living circumstance. “The main characters, Eirene and Gilbert, live vividly in your mind’s eye, their vulnerability, curiosity, angst and hints of arrogance and sexual wakening give them depth and dignity,” says Blanche Clarke. She also says White was at one time in his life, “labelled a misogynist because of his depiction of women in his writing,” however this is not the case with Eirene.

Clarke continues, “the narration slides effortlessly, between first second and third person view.” This synopsis of the story, and the manner in which the novel was saved from destruction and eventually printed has whet my appetite.

I have only one question left to ponder. How will I feel if I fail again to read Patrick White, Nobel Prize winner for literature, 1973? Definitely an Australian literary genius, but is he a “readers' writer?”

Will I skulk away and whimper quietly into my pillow? Or will I be changed as a reader if I find, this time, I am won over by Mr. White? Will I then scorn Fuentes, Follett, Cussler, Cornwall and Mankell and other regulars in my hands. No. I don’t believe I will change my reading choices.

However, a chance reading of a Chekhov short story, The Kiss, has now placed Anton Chekhov as another challenge on my new reading list. But first, Mr. White awaits. My last hurrah.

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]

The Girl and Her Dad

By Diane Linch who blogs at Small Thoughts

If you were there, you would know she was skip-dancing through the water and getting lost in the reflections in the puddles.

If you were there, you would also remember he had to remind her several times that the ultimate objective was not to dance in the cold but to move out of the drizzly, English afternoon and into the small craft show in the leisure center.

And if you were there as I the grandmother was, you would know both of them were enjoying this tiny moment in time, the added bit of warmth the hand-holding provided, the security of each knowing the other was safe and close.

And then you would know what happiness is.

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]

The Great Sauerkraut Fiasco

By Marcy Belson

I asked my cousin Katie if she remembered this day. She said no. I didn’t think there was anyone in my family who didn’t remember that day; it surely made a lasting impression on my young mind. This is how it happened.

Summer in the desert, that day was probably 90 degrees, maybe closer to 100. No air conditioning in our home, it was 1946 and it was Canning Day. Cabbage in a box from the field, a couple of pressure cookers, huge pots to boil the glass jars after they were filled.

Six women, young, old and in between. Katie’s grandmother, Mittie McAdoo, her daughters, Helen and Ruth, my grandmother, known as Peg, her daughter, Maxine and my mother, the in-law to all of them. Plus me, age nine.

I was banished from the kitchen. Everyone knew how dangerous pressure cookers were - why, the lid could blow off at any second. Best to keep the children out of range!

I have no idea why it took six women to can the sauerkraut, but it was an assembly line production and they proudly took their share of the finished jars when they left for the day.

After the jars cooled enough to be handled, I helped my mother carry them out to the back sun porch, called a patio in that area. It was a big screened in room with a red concrete floor and it was where my upright piano stood as well as all sort of fishing gear, a sewing machine and an electric mangle.

The mangle is another story, the story of my mother buying and mastering the art of ironing a shirt on a mangle. For a short time, she even ironed the sheets, our underwear, the dishtowels. That didn’t last long and the mangle became part of the patio lost-leftovers of our life.

Back to the sauerkraut story.

We placed the quart glass jars along one wall next to the steps into the house. There were two concrete steps, cool in the summer and the preferred spot for a nine-year-old girl to read a book or listen to the adults in the dining room - a forbidden offense, but doable.

It may have been two or three days before the first explosion. Kaboom! My bedroom was at the back of the house and the noise was enough to awaken the entire household.

I was told to stay in my room, my father took his trusty 38 pistol and prepared to shoot the intruder. It was sauerkraut, of course. Everywhere sauerkraut plus fragments of the glass jar. The mess was cleaned up the following day.

But before the day ended, another jar exploded, then another. Boom, boom, boom. No one was allowed to enter the screened porch. Ha ha. I didn’t have to practice my piano lesson.

I was expected to sit at the piano for 30 minutes every day but Sunday. I was about as thrilled as my mother was with the mangle. So the sauerkraut explosions were not only exciting, but truly had saved me from the hated task of doing what I was learning to despise.

It went on for about two weeks. I believe my mother finally built up her nerve, took the wheelbarrow to the back door of the patio, loaded the intact jars and dumped them by the trash in the alley.

I was totally deflated the day I came in from school and was told to resume my piano work. To put the icing on the cake, my father would tell me to play a few tunes whenever my parents had company for dinner.

I would march out there to the piano and struggle through whatever the nun music teacher had managed to drum into my head. A later teacher told me to give up the music quest that, as an adult, I was determined to conquer. He said that I couldn’t chew gum and work the foot pedals. I digress.

My mother said the sauerkraut blew up because her husband’s family of women must have done something wrong during the canning. It wasn’t her fault!

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[INVITATION: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Please read instructions for submitting.]