Story Telling

Part 1: The Red Lettering The two-cup measure lived in the second drawer of my grandmother’s kitchen, under a stack of paper napkins from a Christmas that happened before I …

The Notch Line Read More

Part 1 I knew that box. I’d thrown it at him once, laughing, at the Dairy Queen in Norman. The doctors at the hospital called me Olive Oyl for thirty-eight …

My Father Undid My Marriage Six Days After the Wedding Read More

Part 1 “Hey, Grandma. What was your rank back in the Stone Age?” I did not look up. I had driven forty minutes for that chili. “I’m talking to you, …

He Told Me I Had No Right to Wear My Pin Read More

Part 1 I drove a school bus in Holdrege for thirty-eight years. I count heads every time I walk into a room. I can’t help it. Forty-two kids, every morning, …

He Told the Boy I Raised That I Didn’t Want Him Read More

Part 1 My father’s company celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on a Saturday so dazzlingly sunny that every window in the banquet hall shone like a warning beacon. I stood near …

He Called My Twenty-Two Years Playing at Being a Sailor Read More

Part 1 My name is Colin Parker, and I live in a working-class neighborhood just outside Columbus, Ohio. I work as a warehouse supervisor for a construction supply company, and …

I Came Home to My Unconscious Wife and Newborn Son Read More

Part 1 The summer I turned seventeen, a ranch boy from out in the valley taught me to drive his daddy’s hay truck. His name was Dewitt, and he laughed …

My Sister Married the Boy and Hid My Letters Read More

Part 1 I carried the mail on a rural route out of St. Maries for thirty-one years. I know every dog, every mailbox and every pothole on that road. Gus …

My Son Left His Daddy’s Birthday and Never Spoke Again Read More

Part 1: The Cabinet in the Sacristy The sacristy of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Tolliver, Alabama, smells of beeswax and wet wool on the first Sunday of Advent, and on …

The Advent Wreath Read More

Part 1 My name is Robert Mitchell. My wife, Evelyn, had been the kindest woman I’d ever known. Losing her to cancer left me barely able to breathe. Yet at …

My Son Cut Off My Allowance at His Mother’s Funeral Read More