I was 12 when it was time to learn how to ride a motorcycle. My father collected used cars, boats, motorcycles, people, accidents. Buying anything new was a foreign concept to my parents. They both loved to refinish antiques. Obsessive almost. I’ve always wondered what, exactly, they were trying to rescue, or buff out, or…
Month: August 2020
Story #2 – Mom
My mother made things: clothes, vegetables, furniture, houses, enemies. As a product of the depression, she was frugal to a fault. As absolutely annoying as this was, sometimes it was comedy gold. I grew up in the 1960s, a decade which, in and of itself, is fairly amusing. I was both awed and baffled by…
Story # 1: Men, Dogs, and Giving Up
I was five when my father threw me out of our boat into Lake Mendocino. It was time to learn how to water ski. Bobbing behind the boat with my lifejacket hovering over my head, my left arm got tangled in the tow-rope. I yelled “Hit it” hoping the rope would sort itself out. I…