My Dear “Kindred Spirit,” I have a 6 pound rump roast staring me in the face every time I open my freezer, reminding me that I need to cook it and invite some people over to help me eat it. Or, better yet, I need to invite it and myself over to someone’s house and … More For the Love of Beef
Right now, I’m remembering early mornings around the breakfast table every time I visited you. You and Bopie sipping cups of coffee while I – one of the few non-coffee drinkers on the Rothrock side of the family – sipped orange juice. As Bopie ate his oatmeal, you would read the daily devotional to us … More Dear Bema,
You’ve all seen this scene in old comedies: One of the characters asks a question. He is given a completely unexpected and/or ridiculous answer. He accepts the answer very matter-of-factually, then a split second later screams: “Wait! WHAT?!?” This scene happens all the time in our house, with one small difference. We leave out the … More BUBBA
My family has this thing about nicknames. We use them. A lot. We have nicknames for food – from the Chinese food we order in for supper, referring to the different dishes as “Slab of Lab,” “Poodles with Noodles,” “Chunks of Skunk,” and other such appealing names, to the “Stray Cat Stroganoff” that mom used … More Nicknames
I guess every family has their quirks. Maybe some people don’t spend a half hour to 45 minutes deciding what pizza to order for lunch. However, I have gone through this procedure more than once. It is one of my grandparents’ quirks. (You don’t want to know how long it takes to decide on having … More Lunchtime!
Nearly every year we butcher chickens. It’s one of my mom’s hobbies, and that should scare you even though it doesn’t scare me. I just figure that she saves up all her anger and frustration, and gets it all out of her system once a year by viciously slaughtering a few helpless chickens. Better them … More Butchering Chickens
I guess jalopies are something of a family tradition around our house. I’m not sure why – maybe it has something to do with that old proverb about how carpenters’ roofs always leak and doctors’ wives die young: my dad is a mechanic, so maybe for us to drive reliable cars would be a waste … More The Death of a Car
I got the impression that they were enjoying themselves a little too much. Maybe it was because of that fiendish look on Luke’s face, or the way he was gleefully putting about three rounds a second into that old piano. Or the way Joe was using the first .22 he ever owned, saying that it … More To Break a Piano
I’ve been thinking about how the bathroom situation at our house has developed over the years. For 10 years or so we only had one bathroom for 11 people. It wasn’t that bad during the day, but near bedtime you’d have a whole line of people stretched across the kitchen. Rush hour, we called it. … More Bathroom Stuff
You may have heard the Ray Stevens song The Streak. If you haven’t, you should go listen to it. It’s a great song – a typical Ray Stevens song. Anyway, in my family, once in a while someone will use the line from that song – “Don’t look, Ethel!” – kind of as a way … More Don’t Look, Ethel!!
My Dear "Kindred Spirit," 