When I was a kid I enjoyed going fishing. My favorite fishing hole was Mosquito Mill. It was a large pond. It had northern pike, bass, perch, catfish, and bluegill. I’d ride my bike a mile to Mosquito Mill. My favorite lure already on my fishing line. My fishing pole held tightly across the front of my bike with my two hands. I tmust have been quite a scene to passerbys. Here I am pedaling like crazy, a fishing pole extending on either side of my handlebars, and a grin a mile wide. I’d escape from home before my mom gave me chores to do. The chores would fall to my brother. Served him right for getting into my baseball cards. LOL. I’d stay until the mosquitos got to me. Usually about an hour. Maybe I could quietly sneak in, grab my ball glove and head to the park and see if there were enough guys to start a pick up game. That’s a good memory. I hope you have good memories of your childhood as well.
childhood
Poem for Today ~ Sick
Sick
Shel Silverstein
“I cannot go to school today,”
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
“I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I’m going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox
And there’s one more—that’s seventeen,
And don’t you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut—my eyes are blue—
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I’m sure that my left leg is broke—
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button’s caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,
My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is—what?
What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G’bye, I’m going out to play!”
Poem of the Day ~ Return
Return
Sterling A. Brown
I have gone back in boyish wonderment
To things that I had foolishly put by. . . .
Have found an alien and unknown content
In seeing how some bits of cloud-filled sky
Are framed in bracken pools; through chuckling hours
Have watched the antic frogs, or curiously
Have numbered all the unnamed, vagrant flowers,
That fleck the unkempt meadows, lavishly.
Or where a headlong toppling stream has stayed
Its racing, lulled to quiet by the song
Bursting from out the thickleaved oaken shade,
There I have lain while hours sauntered past—
I have found peacefulness somewhere at last,
Have found a quiet needed for so long.
