Some months ago, in Ketchikan, a 92-year-old driver struck and killed a woman in a crosswalk. The state’s consequences for the driver were to rescind his driver’s license. What, I wonder, have been the extent of the natural consequences for him and his family? Somewhere, somebody is thinking, if only I had taken Dad’s keys […]
Author: Evelyn J. Willburn
“I gave you the grouse!”
Soon after my husband and I met, he brought me a feisty calico kitten, who grew up to be a feisty calico cat. One summer, we worked at a tree nursery/landscaping business, and we stayed on site in a small pickup bed camper. More than once I found birds in various stages of disassembly. One […]
Mother’s Day
This picture shows me sitting in the family cemetery at Judes Ferry. The date is January 21, 2018, just after we had buried my father. To the right of that fresh patch of red clay is my mother, buried in October of 1994. Further still to the right is my baby brother, born and buried […]
Pay attention. . .on purpose. . .to this moment. . .right now
I brought this phrase home with me today from a presentation on mindfulness that I otherwise half-listened to. It reminded me of a moment when I was about fourteen. I was walking up that part of the driveway that we called the Gray Hill (couldn’t tell you why, as it was all red clay). It […]
Adventures in making toast
When I was a kid we had this old propane stove that worked fine, albeit without the benefit of pilot lights. Starting the burners was no big deal; you just held a match alongside while turning on the gas. The oven/broiler was a horse of a different color. You had to open the broiler drawer, […]
Ewww, gross!
I suppose we all have our culinary Achilles’ heels. For sister Mary, it was wheat, due to an actual allergy. Being the youngest, I have hazy impressions of certain things that are no doubt much clearer to my sisters. One such example is my childhood impression of “cereal,” which I always equated with “Rice Krispies,” […]
In which Dollop, the meanest cat alive, retreats to the attic
Many thanks to my sister Laura, lifelong advocate and servant to the feline tribe, for providing the raw material and the photograph for this story. I may have already written about Dollop’s general attitude towards life. His full name (A Little Slice of Pumpkin Pie with a Dollop of Whipped Cream) makes him sound all […]
All good medicine
When I was a child, I didn’t mention a sore throat to my mother unless said throat was really, really sore. This is because of the magnificent procedure she had adopted in treating such maladies. This approach was known colloquially as “painting your throat.” Step one: get a right-sized twig off the forsythia bush out […]
In which I cut my own hair
So, here I sit on the stoop of my little apartment in Aniak, sipping my coffee and looking cool. Check out the hair. Before I left Craig for my two-month stint as a fifth-grade teacher, I forgot to get a haircut. For most of the past ten or so years, I kept my hair cut […]
“Hold still, boy.”
When my father was three years old, he followed his older sisters and parents up the steps of a house. On the porch was a large German shepherd, and he happily reached out to pet the dear puppy. He told me that the last words he heard before the huge jaws closed on his face […]