dirt don't hurt

When you write a weekly column, people are always tossing ideas at you.  Mostly they come in the form of, “oh no, you’re not going to write about THAT in the paper, are you?”  But sometimes, it’s not people supplying material.  Sometimes it’s something greater. It was a rather rainy weekday after a rather busy week.  Visiting my parents at a place we have been hundreds of times, we decided to do what most people never do—be a tourist in your own town.  We all fall victim to this commonality of never going to local attractions until someone from out of town visits, but once the clouds passed we piled in my jeep and hit the back, gravel roads in search of a couple of historical sights. We drove to a covered bridge that was built just before 1900, for the cost of $150.  The economical engineers of yesteryear figured that if they put a cover over their wooden bridges, the life of the bridge would be much longer.  Covered areas also served as places f...

For me, it’s a shot of myself around three years old.  I am standing on our back deck in the sunshine, and I’ve got a perfectly shaped black mustache, thanks to my short career of singing into the hose of the Shop Vac which was just used to clean out the fireplace.   I’m pretty sure I’m wearing a green shirt, but like most pictures from the past, the colors that were never that great in the first place have faded away over time.  The telltale while border around the outside of the square photograph is starting to curl and yellow from age, and the actual quality of the photograph pales in comparison to what we can do today, even on our cell phones. But there’s just something about those old pictures. Today, whether or not you are tech savvy, actual cameras are practically a thing of the past.  Ask a kid what “film” is and they’ll give you the same blank stare they give when you ask them what it means to “rewind” something.  The mere idea of having to take...

As a busy mom, I tend to lump seconds into minutes, minutes into hours, and then I just count the hours until they are all sound asleep and I can finally put up my feet without hearing “Mom?  Mom?  Hey Mom!  Mom!  Mom!”  We run from here to there and everywhere in between, filling our summer days with activities that capture the essence of childhood before it wisps away in a warm breeze. It is, quite frankly, exhausting.  My head spins.  I find myself buying energy drinks just so I don’t nod off on the washing machine holding a baseball uniform that had to be washed for the third time in as many days.  I sound too often like a drill sergeant, barking out chore orders and camp schedules until I’m hoarse, and I haven’t been able to read a children’s bedtime story in completion because the soft tone of my weary voice puts me to sleep long before the children.  It comes to no surprise to me that when I actually stop and listen to the childr...

It’s hard to be patriotic these days.  Our own government seems to divide us on more issues to list, and there’s a constant urging to remind us that we are more of an international planet than we thought.  So while on one hand we cherish our patriotic pride, on the other hand we relish the entire world and dine more on foreign cuisines than our own.  (Not that anyone could survive solely on hotdogs and apple pie, although we seem to give it our best shot come summer.) My family comes from Poland.  My great grandparents came to America and settled either in Cleveland to work in the factories or in Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines.  To this day, I still celebrate certain Polish holidays and treasure our traditions.  But for all of the pierogi and oplatek, I never forget that I am more American than anything else.  And there is no better time of the year to remind me than the Fourth of July, a holiday that rings as loud in my heart as the fire...

It never fails that at some point in your life, someone asks you what your most embarrassing moment is.  For 95% of my days, I couldn’t honestly answer this, because nothing ever seemed quite embarrassing enough to warrant a full confession.   Sure, there was the time in fifth grade that I neglected to wear underwear because I was so excited about the new outfit I was wearing for my field trip to the museum, but no one really knew.  There was also the time I caught myself falling asleep during a college class and the professor stopped lecturing and asked me, frankly and sternly, if I was trying to stifle a yawn, which I was, and I was as mortified as I should have been. But nothing compares to the story that pops to mind now, and I can not look at, touch, or even mention a wheelbarrow without snickering to myself.  Because really, if you can’t look back at your most embarrassing moment and burst into laughter, it just wasn’t that exciting and you need to work h...

In all my years of parenting, Since those babes came out of my gut, I never have been so exhausted. Yes, summer is kicking my butt. From the day they stepped of the school bus, They instantly started to run. How can they go all day without rest? Summer is kicking my bum. I go outside and they follow me I come back in and they’re standing right here. The air conditioning bill is enormous, Summer is kicking my rear. It seems each day is so beautiful With blue skies and the sun so shiny, Surely we have to go out and play. Summer is kicking my hiney. Off to the library, the zoo and the park, “No, you can’t bring a friend!” Sure, I’ll set up the sprinkler. Summer is kicking my end. Sunscreen all day, passing out snacks The dirty dishes pile is uncanny. How do three kids go through forty-five cups? Summer is kicking my fanny. Bug spray at night while we run around, “You’ve got to let those fireflies loose!” How many jars of dead bugs have I dumped? Summer is kicking my caboose. But summer ...

Dads and daughters are an interesting pair.  We daughters start off as “Daddy’s Little Girl” and steal their hearts, and before you know it we’re turning their hair gray.  In a blink of an eye, those dads are walking us down the aisle and giving us away, putting all of their trust in you that the lessons that they taught you will sustain you throughout life. My dad taught me many things.  He gave me my love for nature and music.  He taught me how to eat mushrooms and make a pot of soup the size of Texas.  He showed me how to drive a four-wheeler, be a dead eye with a shot gun, and how to use tools up and down the workbench.  For all of this, I am so grateful…and rather tough.  He gave me the confidence to do things I never thought I could do, and the desire to succeed at whatever I try.  (I think I inherited these things from him, which makes for very long games of Pinochle and Boggle.) But like most dads, he has gifted me a few token phrase...