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| BETTY SUE O'DELL SIMONSON ~ In Memorium | | |
| Confession of a Pack Rat (excerpt) | | If you have moved twenty-two times as my late husband Ray claimed, you have lost many valuable possessions. You may no longer have your baby shoes encased in bronze, your high school yearbooks, or your first clip of hair from the barber. All of your grade school art work has been trashed for sure. You probably won't bother to save the button that just fell off your shirt. You have eliminated all but the bare bone necessities. That is good. Always good to lose weight!But there are a few of us who got stuck in a rut of never leaving our hometowns. It is up to us to save every meaningful thing that ever came our way, and it is also a plus that we have never had to pay the big prices charged by a moving company. It makes us an enabler of junk. Somebody has to do it!How about those cocktail napkins that say, "Hello" from our junior year in high school, the most important dance of the year? While the dance and date are long forgotten, the napkins are faithfully preserved in my scrapbook right next to the formal picture of me with "What's His Name?" I don't remember ever dating a guy who looked like that, but there he is, stuck in my scrapbook! I think maybe he went to Missouri Valley. Do you need to know the middle name of the guy who won pole vault our senior year? Well, I can tell you. It was so smart of you to ask the right person. I have every calling card from every senior member of our class all engraved on fine linen, with each person's full given name, all glued in alphabetical order of course, in that same scrapbook. |
| | Betty Sue O'Dell SimonsonWrite On! Fact and Fiction | Past and Present © 2018 |
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| Life in the Slow Lane on Main Street -- SOMETIMES (excerpt) | | Our house, in the village of Arrow Rock, Missouri, is on Main Street, just two houses west of the Boardwalk. It is situated close to the street, which makes it perfect for people watching and affords a front row seat to all the village happenings, both planned and unplanned, in season and out.Observations: The entire village population has to pick up their mail at the post office, so that is the big event for the day. The post office is the heartbeat of the town. There you can learn who has had a baby, who has passed away, when the next potluck supper will take place, and in summer you can leave your unwanted extra zucchini or cucumbers to give away.Every day some of the scenes are repeated -- there is the old guy with the two corgis walking to the post office to get the local county newspaper, and any mail, mostly bills; the polite man on the next street over that wears red sweat pants and funny hats; or the sweet little lady in her late 80s that wears her cataract sunglasses on bright days. There is a retired school teacher that always seems to be getting her exercise while on the way to collect her mail. A couple of people stroll by reminding me of times past when life was more leisurely. Back then people would stop and visit if you were sitting on the front porch. A few people walk down the middle of the street on their way to the post office, as that is the easiest area to navigate, and they don't have to worry about speeders, at least not often.Then there are the people that are less interested in getting their exercise, or maybe they are in a hurry as they live at the outskirts of town (eight blocks max), and feel that it is just too far to walk. Most of them wave as they drive their SUV or pickup truck by the house. One comes by on a John Deere Alligator. Golf carts are popular, too. |
| | Betty Sue O'Dell Simonson in On the Street Where You Live in Saline County © 2015 |
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