Small Scribbles

When I was a kid and my siblings were in the thick of learning safe driving skills, one of them rolled the van. The van with the automatic transmission and the windows. Our only vehicle. We all payed for that error in the form of the replacement vehicle. A navy blue stick-shift cargo van that had windows only in the places where it is customary for a cargo van to have windows. My dad had it customized; he added in a few rows of seats in the cargo space and pronounced it fit for our annual family vacation. The eleven of us loaded up and headed to Gettysburg. Mom and Dad enjoyed the view; the little ones wrestled in the middle seats and we teenagers in the back griped for a good share of the trip. The griping appropriately reached its climax on the Gettysburg Battlefield. Mom and Dad, long on enthusiasm for history and short on wisdom for vacationing with a carload of teenagers took us...in our nearly windowless van...on an autotape tour of the battlefield. With time (twenty yea

There is illness in the house, a hacking cough deep in the chest, a general lethargy. Six of us are inflicted. One is healthy. One has a weird rash. It's nerve wracking but there is some humor mixed in as well. These chuckling scenes played out in quick succession and begged to be recorded in pixels. I broke out the camera to dwell on the joy, minimize the pain. One coughs and the healthy one cowers. Let's hope he stays healthy, he's on a plane in the morning. Synchronized coughing on the sofa designated for the plague. This needs a skull and crossbones. Sign on a bedroom door. It should really hang on the front door. And this. Whatever this is. We're going through rolls and rolls of the stuff. Ah, well. March in the Northeast is made for colds and misery. Who are we to escape unscathed?