Contents
A Note to Readers about What You’ll Find in This Book
A Sampler
Aquila Non Capit Muscas: Puttin’ on the Drake
Positively 4th Street: Where Mothers Rule
Great Aunts: From the Family Tree, Georgia Branch
Cardiac Dreams: In the Heart of the Heart of the Country
The Old Neighborhood
King of Scrounge: Intimations of Immortality
Hornet Wars: My Father Strikes Back
Paradise Lost: Half a Lesson from Uncle Bud
Old Country, New Country
What’s in a Name: The Ellis Eggs
Photo Opportunities: Memory Takes a Better Picture
Now There Is a Miracle, and Don’t Matter What
Theories of the Self
The Right Clothes: Finding Yourself in the Fitting Room
Are We Really Worth It? On Coloring One’s Hair
Take Me Out to the Ball Game: I Don’t Care If I Ever Get Back. Really I Don’t.
Exercising Options
The Porridge Club: “First We Swim. Then We Eat.”
In It for the Long Haul: A Bicycle Meant for Me
Night Swimming: When the First Shall Be Last, or Vice Versa
Outside the Comfort Zone
What Did I Say? Fear and Babbling in the Speaker’s Corner
Where the Girls (and Boys) Are: Just Call Me Coach
Scuba: Do? (or Don’t)
True Perils of Parenting
The End of the World as We Know It: Little Girl Lost
Mother and Child Reunion: What I Did on My Summer Vacation
Sitting in the Lonely Seat on the Long Way Home
On Baby Watch: Waiting to Take the Plunge
In a Class by Itself
Who Cares, Anyway? Diary of a School Age Romantic
Role Models
Infrequent Flier: Airborne in the Dairy Section
Remembering Ellen: The Porridge Club Never Forgets
Saturdays with Sarah: What We Learned from Our Friend
From the Locker Room: Living Your Life in Technicolor
Travels
I Love New York: A Cornhusking, Cheese-Headed Hawkeye Bites the Big Apple
Tales of a Happy Traveler: From the Chunnel to Sunny Florida
I See London, I See France: On Missing Our Date with the Ducs de Joyeuse
If It’s Tuesday, This Must be Hong Kong
Critters
Philosopher Cat for Sale: The World According to Miz Franklin
Squeaky Bites the Dust: Legacy of a Yorkshire Terrier
Ducklings on Dodge and Other Rescues
On Squirrels: A Not-So-Lyrical Essay
Big Ideas
David the Deconstructionist: Signs, Snorts, and Supercats
Unnatural Selection: Regrets of a Spider Killer
Against Multitasking: Why a Day’s Work Is Never Done
Here Comes the Sun! Time for a Little Order and Beauty
On Location: Iowa
Once Upon Linn Street: The Burg and I
Driving Iowa: Where the Hills Are Alive
In My Own Backyard: All the Little Dinosaurs
Booking It
Booking It, or Bon Voyage!
I’m Nobody! Who Are You?
Giants or Windmills? They Might Be Both
Hysterical Preservation
I: How to Bite Off More Than You Knew You Could Chew
II: Foundations 101 or Surprise, Surprise
III: Interior Demolition
IV: Boards and Circuses
V: Which Does Not Contradict What Is Known
My Brain Event
I: Let’s Make a Deal!
II: Dire Straits (and Rolling Stones)
III: The Final Episode
Writing Prompts: Write Your Own Six-Minute Memoirs
Acknowledgments
Bibliography