run on sentences

A friend of mine has a blog about underpants.  You can take a peek at it  here.   I don't mean to steal her ideas, but it started me thinking about the one defining moment in my life that had anything to do with my underpants or my underwear in general.    Of course I also started thinking of other defining moments like how I moved to Utah and why I stayed.  That's yet another blog post that I am actually surprised as hell that I haven't written about yet, but the gist of it is that I moved to Utah because my mom said I wouldn’t do it, and also because I read that the world would end in August of 1978, and the safest place to be would be Provo, Utah.  The world didn't end and I didn't move to Provo either - I chose Salt Lake City instead.  Okay, here's another one (we aren't to the underpants story yet).  When I was 13, I lied about my age so I could get a job as a waitress at Wager’s cafe. I made 75 cents/hour and got fired when I asked for a raise.

Last week on one of the days when it was not winter in my little town, despite my sister's warning about wolves, I ran up to the little church on the hill.  This was after running about a mile which took me a little ways out of town on US 45 - as far as I dared go, past the Michigan Dam and the site of now closed mines, back past the current Methodist church, and up Price's hill where we used to sleigh ride during the long winter months which stretched from October through May.   The road to the little church begins at the top of Price's hill and only snowmobilers go there in the winter time. A few days before I ran up there, the road to the little church looked like this.  On the day I decided to run up there, most of the snow was gone, but replaced with mud and the usual deep ruts kept me watchful.  It's a rocky terrain for anyone but especially one like me who broke a leg the year before so I was careful to watch where I stepped.  I didn't really care if I g

Today in my little town,  it was 18 degrees outside and I ran about 4 miles at about 930 AM.  My Ipod kept me entertained with songs from the early and late 60's and many Johnny Cash songs that were a favorite of my daddy.   I am pretty much the only person that ever runs in this town.   At least, when I am here running I never see anyone else.  People ask my brother "Is your sister home?"  They see me running and figure it has to be me.  It is nice, cold, and quiet and my mind can roam freely in my memories of this town that I grew up in. I thought about days and people gone by and Tupsi the cat at my sister's house who today would join those no longer here.   I take pictures a lot of times - like I did on this day. This is on the top of the National Hill - Duchies dam - we used to go on picnics here when we were in grade school. the Michigan Dam - a lot of mine shafts in this are where we used to play - and collect copper.  My mom admits to climbing in

I am spending a few weeks in my little town visiting my sister and Siggie.  Just for the hell of it I  brought my brother a book on how to cure yourself of alcoholism.  I haven't seen him sober since he was maybe 13 or 14 - at least not for any amount of measurable time.   My parents, and my sis and I both have served as enablers over the years.  My mom and dad are both dead (yeah I could have said "gone" but some smart ass would have said "gone where?").  Maybe out of a sense of guilt, my sister and I have allowed him to live in the house we bought for our parents a while back - we justify it by having to keep the place heated anyway.  And we both talk about how our mother would come back and get us if we didn't take care of her baby boy.   Even when our parents were alive, we would ask him to help out and he would say "What do you think I am, and Octopus?  I am always on the job, 24-7. Anyway I have adopted the attitude and words of the addiction ser

As long as I can remember, my mom had a box of 6 glasses sitting in a glassed built in cabinet in the old house.   We never used them and my mom was even reluctant to let us handle them.  They were never used on any "special occasions" at our house and they sat for a long time, unnoticed in their pretty box. Because my parents burned wood in that house, we always lived in fear that it would burn down.  My mom was very depressed I think and was drinking heavily before she moved (and for a time afterward) before she moved over to the new place my sister and I got for her and my dad.  It seemed she had given up on the house and it became an increasing hazard - she seemed oblivious and it was sad.  There wasn't too much of value in that house but there were a few items of sentimental value.  I told my sister to take those glasses home with her for safekeeping and she did. The glasses were in a beautiful old fashioned box.  On the back of the box in barely visible pencil,

My sister sent me these pictures a few days ago: The back door of our old house.   There used to be a shed on it that my brother recently tore down.  The back door was way above  the ground at one time.  We used to pile wood under the steps. My dad, lying in a wheelbarrow probably after chopping a lot of wood for us to pile in the back shed.   This picture says 1956 so I  was only about 3 years old.  Look how much higher the door was here than in the picture below. This is before it got torn down.  Just a few years ago - the little door is where we used to throw the wood in and pile it.  No one had lived here for several years when I took this and it was on it's way to dying. That back shed was such a big part of my childhood.  I remember my dad bringing home huge loads of wood and dumping it in the backyard.  He would then split it with my sister and my brother's help - I wasn't good at it.  There was a wedge that you put in the wood and then you would hit the