Whenever teenagers ask me what it was like learning to drive when I was their age, I tell them, "There were few rules of the road. Often there wasn't a road. I just had to remember to hold the reins loosely and try to keep the wagon wheels out of the ruts, because it might…

According to George Bernard Shaw, "The test of a man or woman's breeding is how they behave in a quarrel." Scientists and psychologists have long understood that anger is a powerful motivator of human behavior. It takes a long-married couple several decades to realize that body language can be just as effective and a lot…

Said my friend Wanda, while hiking in the woods, "Have you ever had a peacock s*** on your chest from three stories up?" "Excuse me? What?!" As someone who often hikes the countryside alone, I had been thrilled when Wanda offered to join my friend Marlene and I one afternoon. At last, I thought, the…

I haven't had a good night's sleep since I moved from a busy subdivision to a semi-rural area. In spite of what you may have heard, there is nothing tranquil about nighttime in the country. When I moved here, I anticipated quiet nights of restful slumber, leaves rustling in the gentle breeze through an open…

My mama taught me that if a lady finds it necessary to visit the ladies' room, she never should allude to the true purpose of the visit, but should quietly mention that she needs to powder her nose. However, by necessity, medical professionals have a deep and abiding interest in personal bodily functions. I knew…

Just like in the 1980s movie Poltergeist, "They're b-a-a-a-ck." In the mid-1990s, there was a trend in lawn decor which consisted of life-sized silhouettes of plywood people (often painted all black), leaning against trees, bent over flower beds, or just captured in mid-stride across the yard. Occasionally, there was a bear or other animal. It…

At first, I couldn't imagine who might have stolen my pig. It was of little value. It was just a small, pink, squeezable, stuffed pig, made of vinyl and stamped with the name of the local meat processing plant. As a secretary at a large high school, I sometimes was so stressed that if it…

When I was a little girl, baby dolls didn't "do" anything. We dressed them in frilly clothing, carried them around (often by an arm or a leg), and pushed them around the neighborhood in a stroller. When we got bored with them, we tossed them into the toybox. In later years, manufacturers added features making…

I should have suspected that Mom had an ulterior motive when she suggested a ladies-only trip with my two sisters and I. "I'll drive," chirped my sister Susie. "Won't this be fun? It'll be just like all those family trips when we were growing up. Two adults and five children in the car for nine…

If worrying were an Olympic sport, I'd have a good shot at the gold medal. I worry a lot, not just about reasonable or feasible misfortunes, but also about random or weirdly unlikely possibilities. For example, does the turkey vulture that has been perched in a dead tree in my yard know something I don't?…