Parents Night Emma used to do real good in school her mother tells her new teacher. It’s Parents Night at Ryland Elementary. Mostly mothers in attendance. What’s the problem, her mother asks. Fifth grade shouldn’t be hard for her. Emma’s never had a grade lower than a B, her mother says. Teacher says Emma doesn’t do her homework and talks a lot in class. Her mother can’t believe it. Says her […]
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Fifty years ago Jane got on a plane and flew away without saying good-bye. Her parents took her, I know. She was only 14 but she could have said good-bye to me, the swain who saw her through our last three years of grammar school when she wore braces, the only girl who had them. Fifty years later at our […]
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A Stationary Bicycle The doctor tells Phil and his wife he’s in pretty good health for a man his age but he needs to exercise. And Phil says he agrees and then goes on to explain his faith in recliner therapy. He sits in a recliner for hours, watches TV or reads the paper and wiggles his toes at least three […]
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Plain Girl Pretty Rose was a plain girl from a small town. She sang in the choir, never missed Bible study, left for the big city after high school. She worked nights in a shanty diner next to a bar where working men gathered. Depending on how much the men had to drink Rose looked appealing but she ignored […]
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A New Etiquette “One stall for all” is a new scenario for Wilbur. Thanks to his wife, he knew in the past the right thing to do but now he doesn’t know what “one stall for all” calls for after he’s through: Is it toilet seat up or toilet seat down? Author Bio: Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has […]
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Remembering His Third Wife Never speak ill of the dead, his father always said, and his father was a pastor who preached from the pulpit. That’s why whenever he thinks of his third wife, and he does almost daily, he never says anything bad. Instead, he sends himself an email and records for history yet another evil deed she managed to […]
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Daily Paper on the Lawn An hour before dawn the paper is out on the lawn white in the moonlight a trumpet dozing after a long night in a jazz bar tired from playing but willing to play a last set for me not knowing I read only sports and the obits two riffs in the paper anyone can believe Author Bio: Donal Mahoney lives […]
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Answering Machine My wife’s upset because I won’t answer the phone in the middle of the night even though the phone’s on my side of the bed. And I say that’s because after all these years we both know whenever the phone rings in the middle of the night, someone we know, maybe someone we love, has […]
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A Husband Falters Better take his wife to lunch after what he said yesterday. A slip of the tongue. But where to take her? The Chinese buffet? The Indian buffet? Maybe the Japanese place. She likes sushi and tempura. But when he asks about lunch she says not a chance. She has to clean the house. Cleaning lady comes today.
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A Sisyphus Moment There’s a force that makes a boulder hard to push up a hill. And there’s always a boulder and always a hill when it comes to helping the poor find something to eat, somewhere to live, a job they can go to every day. Sometimes the boulder slips and rolls back downhill and Sisyphus jumps aside. Accidents happen. […]
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