Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Category: Writing
Red Letter Guy
This guy is crazy. He is crazy. He’s been crazy. He’s made a career out of being crazy. Developed it into an art form. And this chick with the long black/henna’d hair in the red commencement gown is Exhibit A on the evidence table.… Continue Reading “Red Letter Guy”
Slow Scab: Adopted Kids Don’t Forget Being Left
A few weeks ago, a two year old girl was found alone at a McDonald’s on Milwaukee’s south side, no parents or relatives around; police were called and her picture was put up on the evening news. Because she looked amazingly like our older… Continue Reading “Slow Scab: Adopted Kids Don’t Forget Being Left”
I Saw This Boy
There were children sleeping in trees. I saw them myself, riding around Managua after dark with my comadre Christina and our dear sponsor, Miriam, in February 1994. During the day, the kids rushed cars stopped in traffic, crawling up on hoods to squeegee the windshield, hawking gum and cigarettes… Continue Reading “I Saw This Boy”
Mistaken Identity
You might have heard — there is a lot of controversy in Wisconsin right now about the collective bargaining rights of public employees. I’m not a public employee but I’ve often been mistaken for one. Various people have assumed that I was a social… Continue Reading “Mistaken Identity”
Joe
Monday was my #2 son’s 24th birthday. When I first met Joe in 1988, I had no idea he would morph into this. Or this. I had no idea that the place that he would end up feeling most at home would be on a… Continue Reading “Joe”
Golly.
Last night I had a dream that featured my balancing on a tall pole holding my 6-year old daughter, discovering that her leg was made of balsa wood, seeing that her leg had burned and needed repair, looking for someone to fix it, meeting Jimmy… Continue Reading “Golly.”
Nobody Would Pick Us
On Facebook today, Adoption Resources of Wisconsin posted a link to a young couple’s adoption recruitment site. So I clicked on it, looked at their happy pictures and their essays about what good parents they’d be. They had an 800 number for pregnant women… Continue Reading “Nobody Would Pick Us”
Just Another Weird Thing
Tomorrow morning, I’ll get up, go downstairs, and make a pot of coffee. I’ll ground beans out of this bag and, like I have dozens of times, I’ll look at the name Zeledon and like it. The name Zeledon. I like it. It’s the… Continue Reading “Just Another Weird Thing”
The Cousins
These are my kids’ cousins. Their parents are my in-laws. Not really. But it sure seems that way. Of all the things that we maybe did not so well as adoptive parents, we did one thing really right. Our community – the bunch of… Continue Reading “The Cousins”
Birthday Boy #1
Nelson Ernesto Bravo Snyder, born January 6, 1985, in Managua, Nicaragua, is 26 years old today. Our Sandinista baby. He’s here because of a chance conversation in the old Wales Wool Store on Downer Avenue when a friend mentioned she was going to a… Continue Reading “Birthday Boy #1”
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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