Poetry

My Dear Boy Ronald,I realize you are laboring to solve one of the problems of life.I trust your strength of character and manhood to guardagainst the temptations of the social life, you are entering.I will leave it to you when you see immorality and immoralinfluences coming through the dance to cut it out. Orwhen you […]

Will IT publish scurrilous verses? We sang this as kids, to the well-known tune of Dvorak’s Humoresque: “Passengers will please refrain/ From flushing toilets while the train/ Is standing in the station la de da; Little men with gunny sacks must pick the refuse off the tracks/ So please don’t complicate their situation!” Jacqueline Jackson

SSU Professor J. Jackson’s fantasy class spent a crampedevening recently, and in the dark, underneath severaltables pushed together, and draped. The studentscrawled to the warren by means of a long tunnel madeof over-ended classroom chairs. At the break, bucks anddoes were allowed to go up to pass hraka. Carrots, lettuceand pellets were provided for a […]

In the 1980s a Super Cow was bought for a million dollars.  Her superness was the amount of milk she produced each year. Now there is word of a second Super Cow,  which was bought for four million dollars. It looks like my  family was in the right business at the wrong time or just […]

We were loaned a lovely temporarily vacanthome for our stay out west, but we addlepatedadults had forgotten to retain the key, so we werelocked out. Rather than break a door or a double-glazed picture window we tried this solution: wesent our three-year-old, well instructed, crawlingthrough the cat hole. We watched as he emerged,found his way […]

I was at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factoryin Vermont. I saw a small boy about to losethe scoop atop his cone; he was holding ittipped. I caught the scoop as it fell, pressedit hard into his cone, straightened the cone,and sent him on his way. His parents neversaw how a major catastrophe was […]

As kids, my sibs and I spent many summer weeks on a small nearby lake. One day, alone in the rowboat and lying across the prow, looking down into the shallow water,  I saw a sight I have never forgotten: an inky  mask that was moving! Startled, I peered closer. The mask was made up […]

Ron Dougan writes of a tripdown Turtle Creek; “Perhapsthe high point of my grandkids’visit was a canoe trip down TurtleCreek from the Shopiere Dam to Colley Road. The banks enclosedus, we were in another world. Turtles,Carp, Little Green Heron, Great BlueHeron, Kingfishers, Cedar Wax Wings,and Ducks galore – a wilderness areaat our door!” 2026 Jacqueline Jackson

As one who viewed the world by candlelight Seeing all objects dimly wrapped in shade, Their changing with a feeble flickering made By unexpected gusts of winds at night As if a veil were lifted from his sight Sees suddenly the mighty sun arrayed In blinding beauty; awed yet unafraid Goes forth to claim the […]

“At the risk of establishing a precedent,I take my pen in hand! About detasseling,we are letting out most of the boys but keeping on 7 or 8. They are older this year,high school seniors. The corn has come outall at once and we are getting it detasseled cheaper and better than usual. There is nothing new of course, […]

Radio introduction to Jackie’s writing show for kids: My co-teacher and friend said he long thought “Tizzathee” was the name of our country, for he sang My country Tizzathee in school. “Today let’s write on Tis of Thee, what it really means to you.” Linus says in Charlie Brown “I love mankind, it’s people I […]

I was an only child for a year during the War.Big sisters in college, brother out west for hishealth. I went to a farm auction with my dad;the farmer had died, and the wife was sellingeverything. “Do you want a horse?” my dadasked. “Sure!” I replied. So, my dad paid $100,and put me in the […]