Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from March 6, 2022

E: Eagle

Another excerpt from my soon-to-launch collection of mini-memoir, The ABC's of Pandemic Parenting : The eagle is the symbol of the Unites States Postal Service. It is emblazoned along the side of each mail carrier’s truck. When my father returned from military service first in Germany he floundered for his next role. When we landed in California, the land of his and her families, he found himself a job as a postal carrier. Highlights of that job were the cookies left for him at Christmastime. The Halloween my brother dressed up as a postal carrier, wearing my dad’s oversized uniform, we got to trick or treat along his route. I, always less clever, insisted on being a princess and in turn got way less gushing notes of adoration from the route’s inhabitants.  My father’s departure from the postal service upheaved my childhood townlife to Southern California where he entered seminary to train as an American Baptist pastor. Each church he served had flags inside the building, adorned w

B: Bird

Another excerpt from The ABCs of Pandemic Parenting , out soon. Bird is a bit of a cheat, now isn’t Eric Carle? And the world thereof? Because later you’ll be more specific about types of birds, when you begin encountering the more difficult letters.  The birds of Golden Gate Park seem to be having a glorious epidemic. Even before the virus there were coyotes. The coyotes infringed on the local feral cat population (infringed is a kind way of saying they ate them). The feral cat population was infringing on the local bird population. But now that the coyotes are widespread through the park the birds are having a renaissance.  During the pandemic I’ve been in the park almost daily and often twice daily. To walk the then-baby, now-toddler. To walk myself into any sort of calm. To run the trails that criss-cross. To write at a picnic table under a tree until all the picnic tables were moved from that field because the coyote pups were close and the coyote mommas were threatened. To lay on