The lobby of my YMCA was in full Saturday bustle. I chirped my entry card and veered to the right around the staircase. Parents herded their kids, trying to make an exit.
“I don’t LIKE salad!” I heard a toddler announce right before he almost ran into me.
I scooched out of his way and smiled. Honestly, it didn’t sound like he was throwing a fit. It was more an honest assertion.
I wanted to lean down and say, “I feel you buddy.”
Read MoreMy little VW Beetle was parked close to a curb at a friend’s house. Their grassy lawn sat on the other side. As I opened the door to get in, the sharp lime-green corner stuck in the earth. As hard as I pulled, I couldn’t get it free.
Read MoreThe cop took a U-turn at the light, following me in my lane.
“There is a police car behind me,” I explained to my sister on the phone. I put my blinker on and turned. “Oh no, they turned too.”
Read MoreEngrossed in a good movie, I didn’t want to leave. I cursed myself for chugging the large coke, waited until a spot in the movie that I could tolerate missing and sprinted to the bathroom. A line greeted me. I smiled at the people in front of me and tried to be patient. I was pretty desperate and didn’t want to miss any more of the film. What was taking so long? I didn’t want to appear pushy. So I waited just a little more.
Read MoreI met Trice at The Absinthe House on Pearl Street. The bar doesn’t exist anymore, but when it did they had weekly reggae nights. I spotted him immediately—that woven tam cap slouching over two kind eyes, those baggy jeans swaying gracefully to the music. He asked me to dance, and I asked him what he did—proving that first impressions aren’t everything. That sometimes, the soul’s story sounds like The Wailers when it sings.
Read MoreInside, 20 teenagers—many of them scarred, tattooed, broken-looking—talked in small groups. After I was introduced, the kids looked at me somewhat suspiciously. As I told them why I loved this incredible story of a young boy’s journey across the frozen Badlands of the Dakotas in search of his fugitive older brother, it occurred to me that I might not be able to give away any books at all.
Read MoreAfter family staycations at the Embassy Suites, my twin sister and I thought “happy hour” was actually called “happy time”. Often, we’d take these trips in the fall. Rachel, my brother Joshua and I would swim for hours. We’d leave the warm indoor pool only to procure Shirley Temple and popcorn refills. We’d sloth on the walls of the pool, shoveling buttery goodness into our mouths. As leaves crunch and the weather crisps, it’s easy to get nostalgic.
Read MoreOutside of Austin, about an hour away in Smithville, on a lonely, remote road that leads to an even more lonely and remote plot of land, there is a magical place called Scream Hollow Wicked Halloween Park. Like the fairy land of Celtic lore that reveals itself at twilight, Scream Hollow is only open to visitors during the most magical month of all. October.
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