December Birthdays
Mama asks if I’m having a good birthday. I nod. But I don’t mean it. I’m quiet. I’m always quiet. Ever since my father died several years ago, I just stay quiet. I don’t know why. Not much to say, I guess.
Children
Morgan’s Prayer
Dear God, I know you’re super busy. I know you have people bending your ear at Christmas. From every corner of the planet. Every second of the day. And I know how fussy people can be this time of year.
The Tyrant of Second Grade
I was scared to death. It was my first day of second grade, and I was terrified to the point of regurgitation. “Please don’t make me go to school,” I begged my mother.
How Amazon Stole Christmas
The Christmas season was the busiest time of year for delivery-persons. Drivers saw a major uptick in workload. This did nothing to improve John’s sunny disposition.
Letters From the Children of Christmas Past
Letters from the children of Christmas Past. RHINELANDER, WI—1933. Dear Santa Claus, I am sorry I haven’t wrote before but my pet dog got his leg broke and I thought we would hafta have him killed but he will get well. …I am nine years old and bring me, dear old Santa, what you think …
Sometimes You Just Have To Be an [Insert Slang Term For the Rectum Here] To Do Things Right
The tweet screen captured to the right is just one of hundreds, if not more than hundreds, aimed by the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas sympathizers and bots trying to pull on our heartstrings, at the plight of the poor, poor Palestinians, and the children! to generate relief aid and, of course, hatred of the Jooooos. I have …
The creepy songs of our youth
While today’s kids twerk to songs featuring men calling women bitches and ho’s and stuffy to nasty to post here, we baby boomers smugly tune in the oldies stations to listen to the wholesome, romantic songs of our youth.
The Tryouts
The Little League team was good. Really good. The nine mop-haired, lanky boys, clad in classic ‘70s harvest-gold uniforms, were undefeated this season. They had a shot at the pennant. But then, devastation.
Some Kinda Kindness
The mid-80s. Detroit. The boy didn’t have much. He was one of those teens most people won’t notice. Each day, he walked to and from school with a ratty backpack on his shoulders, containing a pitiful lunch he made himself, since he had no mother to prepare meals.
A Knitting Story
One day, a little girl visited the old woman’s house and asked for knitting lessons. The old woman was thrilled, of course. But the little girl was exponentially more excited—the child looked like she was going to detonate right there on the woman’s doorstep.
Be It Ever So Humble
The old man answered every persistent question with patience. Then, the conversation took a turn toward the philosophical. It is a well-known fact that 8-year-olds are philosophers.
Dear God
Hi, God, It’s me again. I know it’s been a while since my last prayer, so I don’t blame you if you choose not to listen to a hopeless fool like me.
Breaking the Cycle in Education
When I retired in 2017 and finally got settled back in Michigan around 2019, I decided to try something new — teaching. I earned my interim certificate and took a job in what turned out to be one of the poorest counties in the state, measured by home values and income. You could see the poverty in the houses, the roads, and, more than anything, the expectations kids had for themselves.
The Little Girl and the Gardener
The following is a true story. The little girl was walking with her mother. They were taking a stroll through the hospital garden, bathed in the dappled sunlight of early afternoon, looking at all the flowers in bloom.
Don’t Ever Grow Up
Dear Kid,
Don’t grow up. Don’t turn into an adult. That’s my advice. Resist adulthood. Be a kid forever.
Right now, a lot of adults are angry in America. To be fair, we have a lot to be angry about. But adults can behave badly when they are angry. So please forgive us.
The Story of Me
I sort of raised myself. My dad died when I was a kid. He died by suicide, shortly after he’d been released from county lockup on bail. His death was dramatic. It made the papers. On his final night, he almost took my mother to the grave with him.
Hybrid Homeschool. The Pythagorean Theorem Won’t Help You at the Gas Pump
The system brags about meeting “state standards,” but half those standards were written by people who couldn’t change a tire, much less balance a budget. So we end up with teenagers who can solve for x but can’t make change for a $20.
Mikie Sherrill Hedberg Believes You Can’t Handle the Truth . . . or You Might Not Vote for Her!
Remember the kerfuffle over former Vice President Kamala Harris Emhoff’s admission that she considered then-Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg as her running mate, but decided against it because he is openly homosexual? Mr Buttigieg admitted to being “surprised” to read that. The divergence comes as their party is grappling with its approach to diversity, as …
My Little School
It was late. I pulled into the campus after seven o’clock to attend my last class of the semester. My last college class. Ever. It was a night class. In America, most self-respecting people my age were finishing supper, settling down to watch “Wheel of Fortune.” But I was in school. I had been attending …
The Boy Who Was a Chicken
Nobody could explain how it happened. But one day, Willy sort of lost his mind. Namely, because Willy walked into the kitchen and declared that he was a chicken. Not a proverbial chicken, mind you. But literal poultry. The kind that go bawk-bawk, cock-a-doodle-doo, and all such manner of clucking.