By A.C. Cargill Memories from our childhood can last a lifetime. Mine was of Grandma’s braids. And on this warm summer day, that memory came back most vividly, for that was when I had first seen them. Grandma was half Irish and half American Indian. Which tribe was never known. […]
Childhood
32 posts
Little Girl Lament “But Mommy, I love these shoes,” six-year-old Laura cried as I was getting ready to throw them out. “But Sweetie, they’re too small for you now. It will make your toes scrunchy and hurt you.” With giant tears rolling down her cheeks, she sat on the porch […]
Oh, How I Love Thee What is it about chocolate that makes me salivate? Is it the creamy texture, the sweetness, the endorphins it produces? Chocolate has been a part of my life since I was a little girl. In elementary school, we enjoyed Hershey bars (plain and almond) and […]
I ran the Charm City Reptile and Amphibian Rescue for 14 years (no longer in operation). Here is a story about one of the rescues. We had several snakes, as we always do, in the rescue. A young boy scout named Matt called me and told me he wanted to […]
Much has been written about professional sports and traumatic brain injuries (TBI). For example, “The National Football League (NFL) in particular has long been blamed for glossing over serious injuries, especially brain injuries. A recent study linked football to dangerous head injuries. When scientists conducted autopsies on 202 deceased football players, 99% of […]
As a child, living in the small town of Cumberland, Maryland, an animal control facility opened in our neighborhood. By zig-zagging our way through overgrown back yards, ducking under barbed wire and climbing over chain link, my friends and I could make it there in a matter of a few […]
Traveling with kids is never easy. But times sure have changed. Then When I was a kid, every summer my parents piled my two sisters and me into the car for the three-day road trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to visit the grandparents. We left at the crack of […]
It is a cold winter evening in 1944. A group of farmers sits around the kitchen table in Chyliczki, a small village near Warsaw. Even though it is only four o’clock, it is already dark outside. This is the only heated space in the two-room wooden farmhouse. During the day, […]
Learning to Learn “Learn something today.” This is the first thing I think of when I think about my dad. Every day, as my siblings and I would leave for school, he would say these words. And the thing is, he meant it. Each night as we sat around the […]