The Cat in the Table
My sister had a gray toy cat as a kid, but she wanted a real kitty. Our dad asked around and found a charcoal-colored kitten with a white spot on his tummy. My sister...
My sister had a gray toy cat as a kid, but she wanted a real kitty. Our dad asked around and found a charcoal-colored kitten with a white spot on his tummy. My sister...
When people ask me where I’m from, I never quite know what to say. I was born in St. Louis but I grew up in Illinois. I went to high school and college in...
We worked flea markets for a while. The whole family was involved. My mom made costume jewelry on a workbench in the basement. She took apart old watches and used the clockwork for broaches...
While writing a recent article about a childhood trip to Springfield, Illinois, I had an idea for a postcard. I was originally going to include it in the article itself, but as sometimes happens,...
Many years ago, my dad and I were walking along a sandbar in the Mississippi River. The river was unusually low, and there was quite a bit of detritus washed upon the sandy shoals....
When I was eleven years old, we lived on a farm in rural Illinois. My dad worked for a law firm in Missouri, and one day he had to drive up to Springfield, Illinois...
In the fifth and sixth grade, I went to school in East Carondelet, Illinois. It was a small town of 600 sandwiched between the Mississippi Levee and the MoPac Railroad. I loved my teachers...
The greatest breakfast of my life was at a Holiday Inn near Midway Airport in Chicago. It was a continental breakfast buffet, and it wasn’t the food that was so great. It was the...
It was an odd winter. Every day above freezing. Every night below. The sleet and freezing rain came, melted a little, and refroze. Soon the whole St. Louis area was covered with three or...
I used to blame the eye doctor for my bad vision. You see, I was born with amblyopia, which is a fancy way of saying “lazy eye”. From what I understand of ophthalmology (which...