Blog Posts from Chats with My Muse (also available at www.slidingotter.wordpress.com)
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A Major Decision
Holy Cross Chapel I became quite involved with my duties as an altar boy. I got out of class for funerals which took place during school hours. As I mentioned earlier, I was also receiving tips for such special events as funerals. In the process I also became familiar with the assistant pastors in St.…
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Making a Contribution
As I moved to the upper grades, I started to think that there must be something of consequence I should be doing. At the time, I had no name for this feeling and could not have replied intelligently if someone asked me about it. I had a sense that I should be making some sort…
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Old Friends
Image Courtesy of Pixabay When I lived on Rainier Street, I saw an older woman sitting on her front porch. I walked past her house on the way home from school and said hello to her in passing. Over time I continued to greet her. I knew her as Mrs. Muckle. She invited me to…
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The Cat Lady
Cat Lady One day after school, my friend Gene and I spotted a kitten with the same markings as one which had gone missing from his house. We followed it down a side street and into the yard of a house several doors from the corner. We could not see where it went, so we…
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The Portable
I survived my two-part fourth grade despite my move in the middle of the school year from Rainier Street to Maiden Lane and continued to struggle toward producing any intelligible writing with pen and ink. In fifth grade, the attempt to switch me to right-handed penmanship was abandoned. I was allowed to return to left-handed…
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Dirt Wars
I mentioned before that our home on Maiden Lane was in the fifth house from the country, mostly consisting of farmland and woods. It did not stay that way very long. Heavy equipment arrived and huge shovels began digging holes for house foundations in almost every direction. Trees were cleared from the woods behind our…
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Back to School
Image courtesy of Pixabay I was at a disadvantage in school for several reasons. Most of my classmates had known each other since they began school. In addition, I transferred to St Charles School in the middle of the first semester of fourth grade. I felt like a “fish out of water” or would have…
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Review of Oath and Honor by Liz Cheney
Before I started reading Truth and Honor, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the issues involved with counteracting Trump, the issues involved, the people charged with resolving the issues related to Trump’s attempt to seize continued presidential power and the process of doing so. While reading Liz Cheney’s book, I discovered that…
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Saint Charles School
Image courtesy of Rudi Suardi (Pixabay) We moved to Maiden Lane when I was in the middle of fourth grade. When we lived on Rainier Street, I attended Holy Rosary School. I have only two memories from that time. One is around the time of my circumcision when I was around seven. (See my previous…
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Family Feelings
Image courtesy of Pixabay Family atmosphere surrounds related people and is characteristic of them. My mother’s mother had clear expectations and made them known in a loving way. A family story summarized my maternal grandfather. One of my relatives recalled an instance of one of my uncles as a child chasing his brother through the…