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Storied Stuff - November 2024
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As kids we could see my dad’s amputated thumb, and knew that he had lost it in war.
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Drafted at nineteen, my dad, Private Landis, returned to the United States in 1945 after being wounded in a farm field in Germany. He was rushing to take out a German anti-aircraft gun.
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Story Craft Anthology - June 2024
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"You're obese," my internist warned during my annual check up. "Get more exercise."​​
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Obese echoed in my mind as I slowly climbed flights of stairs to the second-floor gym, breathing heavily while clutching the hand rail. The trainers’ heads turned in unison to check out the newest prospect prime for a gym contract.
10th Ward Lit - Spring 2022
The Climate Issue
The line was long. Miles long. People standing, waiting for admission. People of all ages. People of all colors. Hot, cloudless, smoke from recent fires hung in the air, causing the girl to gag slightly, her throat dry. Fear, anxiety and fatigue enveloped her.
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10th Ward Lit - Fall/Winter 2023
The Senses Issue
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Rain. Rain. The skies opened and spring showers fell steadily out of the heavens like a river current, washing away the last gray snow to showcase vibrant greens.
The vernal equinox, which usually falls on March 20, marks the start of spring according to the astronomical seasons, when Earth stands sideways to the sun. Every year, winter and spring battle until the season of new beginnings wins triumphant, as it always does, eventually, and temperatures warm. Hours of sunlight jump as shadows shrink and light intensity grows stronger. Showers are nature’s promise that winter is over and better weather is coming.
Storied Stuff - Feb 2022
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Some clothing encapsulates a moment, like Jackie Kennedy’s pillbox hat or John Travolta’s Saturday Night Fever white suit. To look at the garment is to remember the moment. For me, my 1970’s hip hugger, bell-bottom jeans recall such a certain time. My fashion, like the 1970s, was experimental and progressive, and I considered myself hot spit in those pants. I owned the jeans in high school and wore them with a fringed suede belt through college. No one else owned anything like them, flared from the knee down, frayed with fabric patches sewn on by hand embroidery covering worn areas.
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Storied Stuff - Sept 2022
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This verbiage is typed on a yellowed paper attached to the bottom of a wooden footstool made of hooked wool that my mother-in-law gave to me. The paper tells a history lesson.
“This Footstool is 112 years old. It was purchased in Wiminggton Del., in 1812, and carried overland in an old Conestoga wagon to Carlisle, Pa, where the purchasers settled. It was recently bot at a sale of one of the descendants.”
My Mother had Three Mink Coats
Storied Stuff - August 2023
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My mother had three mink coats, each from a different fashion era, but each worn to impress with style and prestige. Her first garment was really not a coat, but a blonde mink stole; a sleeveless rectangular wrap with a clasp in the front and her initials embroidered in the lining, “EBL”. In the 1950s and 1960s, a stole was the height of elegance and fashion.
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Want a fur stole? Just go out to eBay or Poshmark where you’ll find dozens for sale. My mother’s piece avoided online resale fate. It is now owned by my niece, who stylishly wore it to her own wedding.
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