Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Category: Marriage, Family, Dogs, and Cat
Happy Anniversary
When you are married 30 years, people clamor for the secret. That’s not true. No one’s asked. You have to be a 115-year Russian guy living in a sod hut on the windblown steppes to make folks curious about your claim to longevity. Yogurt,… Continue Reading “Happy Anniversary”
My Mother’s Thunderbird
My mother drove a 1962 black Thunderbird with red leather interior. It looked like this. The car magically appeared after what seemed like years of scraping by, all of us working in our family’s dime store, eating a lot of bean soup and 29… Continue Reading “My Mother’s Thunderbird”
Beaten
Sometimes, when you are driving at night in the rain, wipers flapping, you remember feeling snug and happy in the backseat of your parents’ car, and sometimes you are just wet and tired.
Describe It to Me
If I had to choose a child’s drawing or a photograph of a special night, I’d be torn between wanting to see exactly how we looked and learning instead how we were seen. _________________ Love trying to say something in just 33 words.
When We First Met
I still have those earrings. And the son. But not the t-shirt or white skirt, sad because the white skirt was part of my fancy wedding ensemble when my husband and I were married in the local courthouse a few years before. In Nicaragua… Continue Reading “When We First Met”
Inexplicable Them
If you’re not careful, you can see Phillip Seymour Hoffman in every addict and alcoholic you know. Don’t know any? Don’t be so sure. The trick about addiction is that you can analyze it but not explain it. You can never figure out why… Continue Reading “Inexplicable Them”
Wishing for More Weeds
In the hottest part of the summer August when our lawn turns brown Unwatered and drier than sand My mother pulls weeds Working her way up one side And down the other of the gravel driveway Pulling each dandelion growing along the Edge of… Continue Reading “Wishing for More Weeds”
A Man, a Train, and an Onion
The efficiency of a train’s dining car can be frightening for the introvert. All the seats are filled at a table, by friends and family or strangers. It’s the way it is. It’s the custom of train dining. No wasted chairs. No being alone… Continue Reading “A Man, a Train, and an Onion”
How Sad Do I Want Them to Be?
Wearing black for a year is a quaint custom but that’s what I think my husband should do when I die. I think he should wear black, eschew festive occasions, and only watch black and white TV, just the network stations, no cable, for… Continue Reading “How Sad Do I Want Them to Be?”
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
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