Pictures In The Sky

My earliest memory is of sunny summer day with Mom and me sitting in our shady backyard. I was four years old, and she was holding me in her lap. Casually, she pointed and said, “Jerry, look up in the sky. What do you see?” I looked and said, “Umm, clouds.” “Right, honey,” Mom said,

Ice Skating On Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve the two brothers got together to go ice skating. Once young and full of pep they were now old and just this side of decrepit, not to mention both being widowers and grey bearded for longer than either of them cared to remember. That was okay. Skating was something they’d enjoyed all

Home Is Where The Heart Is – Part 4 of 4

Satisfied Little Lisa was sleeping comfortably, Megan put the book in the zip-lock and stored it back under the seat. Then she moved her hand around until she felt the envelope in another zip-lock that she kept hidden there. She thought of it as her ‘Special Envelope’ because it contained her savings. She got paid

Silent Night

Ralph Kaczynski had been a salvation army bell ringer for seventeen years and was by far and away the coldest and the snowiest winter he could ever recall. In spite of wearing long underwear, jeans, two sweaters, three pair of socks, heavy boots and a thick, insulated snowmobile suit, he was still cold. It didn’t

Twas The Night Before Christmas

With five year old Stacy and three year old Dale nestled snug under the covers beside him, Peter was the happiest he’d been in months. He opened his treasured book, one passed down from his grandmother to his mom and then to him, and began to read, his voice quiet as a whisper, drawing his

Home Is Where The Heart Is – Part III

Megan’s shift at MacDonald’s ended at eleven. The night manager, Kevin, a skinny white guy around thirty with a bad complexion and a pleasant disposition had a philosophy that Megan liked: he didn’t mind if Little Lisa stayed while she worked. ‘I don’t mind at all,’ he told Megan four months earlier when she’d been

Nacho Cheese Doritos

A little bit of heaven right here on earth, that’s what it was, my love for Doritos, specifically Nacho Cheese. But that little bit of heaven came crashing down hard the day doctor Anderson gave me the test results. “Sorry, Jay, it’s bad news. You’ve got celiac sprue, a gluten intolerance. You can’t have any

Footprints In The Snow

Out for a winter’s walk I came upon some footprints in the snow. Whose were they? I wondered, and paused for a moment, thinking…Coming up with no answer, I impulsively decided to follow them. As I walked, I began remembering how much I enjoyed this, walking outside like I was, not up and down those

Home Is Where The Heart Is – Part II

Donny Eisenberg was with security and had been watching the young woman and her little girl ever since they’d entered the store. He’d seen her slip the doll into her purse and almost grabbed her then, but held back. He’d been a Floor Walker for eight years now, ever since he’d retired as a bus

Old Man Jasperson

Ambrose Jasperson looked at himself in the mirror, fluffed out his full beard and pronounced to his wife, Emma, “Alrighty, then. Looks like Santa Claus is all set.” He smiled at his reflection. From his natural beard, curly and white, to his cheeks rosy from a lifetime of dairy farming, to his belly jolly from