Use Your Words
When my daughter asked for help getting two Christmas casseroles out of the oven, I was more than happy to assist. She had the baby strapped to the front of her, after all. I stood in front of the oven for a moment, looking to either side for something to use in handling the hot dishes. “Use your words, Mom,” Jen said, as she removed two potholders from a hook above the stove and handed them to me. “Thanks,” I said, grateful for her help, but a bit surprised that she would give her mother the same instruction she might give her two-year-old son. It was some time later that the word, potholder, came to me, a word I’ve known for well over half a century. On that particular day, though, this sixty-two-year-old couldn’t use her words because, unlike the two-year-old...
Gatlinburg
My memories of Gatlinburg go back more than fifty years. My first visit was in the early sixties, when I was seven or eight years old. On later visits, we always camped in the Smokies, but that first time we needed a hotel. That’s when I learned what the word vacancy meant, as Daddy instructed us to look for hotels that displayed only that word (without a no in front of it). I was snacking on Bacon Thin crackers at the time and kept thinking how similar vacancy sounded to bacon. When we discovered every hotel was full, Daddy went into one and pleaded for help in finding a place for our little family to stay. The manager directed us a block off the main street to a home whose owners occasionally rented out rooms. The people gave us an upstairs bedroom from which...
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