I remember when

When I was in 7th grade I attended a private Christian school in McHenry, IL. That has it's own memories saved for another date. THe fact that I rode a bus home comes with it's own set of stories, which I am also storing in a special spot to unload later.

On this particular freezing cold Chicago suburb day, my bus driver dropped me off two streets early and I began to walk home. About half a block down I noticed two doberman pinchers who at the same time noticed me.

I think they owned that street.

They for SURE thought they owned that street. They took off after me and I took off into a nearby yard. Without thinking, I opened the first door I came to and ran inside the house.

An elderly woman in curlers came into the living room.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

I explained about the dogs and she looked out the window to see them panting at her door. Those dogs wanted to eat me for dinner!

The lady, who seemed awfully nice gave me some lemonade and called animal control. It was the last bit of niceness I ever saw in her.

She proceeded to curse at the person on the other end of the phone and when the dog catcher finally arrived (too late for her approval) she cussed at him and threw a house-shoe at his head.

I was a determined little missionary even at that time in my life and I promptly invited her to church, which brought on a new onslaught of foul language all aimed at me.

She called me "Nasty-Girl" every time she saw me after that, and every time I saw her, I asked her to church.

She never did say yes.

I remember when

I can remember the time my sister sheared off her tongue with a popsicle.

We lived in Illinois, in the cottage on the Fox River. Renee would lend us all money (she was the family banker) and we would all buy popsicles.

One day she tried to take a lick of hers and her tongue was stuck fast. That popsicle was so frozen that even when we ran water over it, it would not come unglued from her tongue.

Eventually she just pulled that sucker right off. And there we saw part of her tongue hanging from the side of the cherry popsicle.

Serves her right for charging us 50% interest.

I remember

I remember when I was a little girl and was living in Memphis and my mother would hand my sister and I glasses of ice-water to bring out to the garbage men.

It was hot in Memphis, and my mother appreciated having the smelly bags of trash removed. She showed her gratitude for this often thankless job by offering ice water.

I think it was my first taste of what compassion tasted like.