Google Like a Rock Star

“Meredith’s mom throws the coolest parties, don’t you think?”

I looked at the red-headed girl on my left and smiled weakly. Everyone had just finished singing “Happy Birthday,” and we were waiting on the cake and ice cream now.

“Yeah, this is the greatest,” I said with what I hoped was convincing enthusiasm. The girl giggled at me, so it must have been.

Of course, she might have been laughing because my eye patch slid down onto my nose while I was talking. I reached up and adjusted the tape as best as I could with only one hand. I winced as it ripped out part of my eyebrow. My right arm wiggled and itched in its temporary cast, but I knew better than to get it out of the sling. Meredith would see and pout and then probably post all over myspace how I ruined her whole birthday party.

The redhead giggled again. Her patch didn’t move at all. Not even when she cocked her head at me and shook her ponytail over her left shoulder.

“A trauma party! Isn’t that the neatest idea?” I didn’t say anything, so she asked, “Did Meredith do your patch?”

“No, her little sister,” I grunted. Talking and trying not to move your face muscles at the same time was hard. No one else was having any trouble. They were all just chattering away. I felt the girl staring at me, waiting for me to say something, I guess.

I asked her, “Um, who did yours?” Each party guest had an eye patched when we showed up at Meredith’s church rec center. Mine was on my left. The redhead’s was over her right eye.

She giggled and brushed her patch self-consciously with her fingertips. I noticed that her nails were painted pale green, the same color as her shirt. I also saw that both of her arms were free, and I was jealous. After the eye patch, we had to reach inside a medical kit and draw our next trauma. I drew the “Wiped Out While Skateboarding – Broken Wrist” card. I tried to get Claire to wrap my left arm – I’m right-handed – but she insisted it had to be the right. I argued until Meredith came over and told me to play nice. I’d been a sucker for her ever since we moved next door to her family, so I went along with the whole thing.

I know I was set up though. She knew I was nervous about not knowing anyone here, and she wanted to mess with me. She had an evil sense of humor sometimes. Just like having her mom assign me as the only boy at a table full of girls from Meredith’s private school. I knew that she did that on purpose just to embarrass me. And her sister insisting that the thick bandage “cast” cover my right arm? Probably just her wanting me to make a fool out of myself eating cake left-handed and one-eyed in front of these girls I didn’t know.

“No, one of the real EMT’s did mine,” the redhead was saying, gesturing at one of the uniformed men helping pass out cake to one of the other tables. “He did the IV, too.”

The girl waved her left wrist in front of me and giggled again. She giggled a lot, I had noticed. The IV line, though, I hadn’t seen until now. Its tubing only went to her elbow, so it really didn’t really stand out like my bright blue sling or the more obvious traumas of the other girls at our table. There was an athletic girl in shorts with one leg heavily bandaged and propped up on a chair, a short-haired girl had a head injury of some kind judging by the strips wrapped neatly around her forehead, and the one on my right beat us all by wearing a freaking neck brace. It didn’t bother her, though, because she’d been yapping the whole time to a fake burn victim at the next table. She looked anorexic though like most of these private school girls, so she probably wasn’t worrying about cake anyway, I thought ungraciously.

“He did a really professional job, I think,” the redhead was still talking. I looked at her wrist, pretending to care. I had to admit that Meredith’s mom did go the extra step to make the party memorable. How she got a real ambulance and real paramedics to attend was beyond me. I just hoped people weren’t bleeding to death somewhere because these guys were here entertaining us.

“I drew the Dehydration card. See my big bottle of water?” The girl pointed next to her chair at a liter-bottle with tubing taped to its cap. It had a little clip on its end where it was supposed to hook onto the IV tube. “I guess I’m lucky that I don’t have to carry that around, huh?” She giggled.

What was that now? The third giggle? Yeah, lucky you. You won’t have any problem eating cake, will you? All you have is a bit of plastic taped on your wrist. And it’s taped neatly on, too, with just a few little strips, I grumbled in my head.

I remembered Claire gleefully ripping off a huge strip to tape on my eye patch and imagined her wrapping tape around my forearm. I shuddered. The girl saw and raised the one eyebrow that I could see.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I lifted my bound arm slightly. “Well, I was thinking good thing I drew a broken wrist. It’s just wrapped with cloth bandages, but Claire would’ve used so much tape sticking on an IV that I’d rip out all my arm hair just getting it off.”

I felt myself blush. I didn’t mean to say so much. I was just irritated with Meredith and the whole party theme thing and not getting to sit close to my friends. I looked down, and the cotton wadding of my patch slid across to the center of my nose.

For the first time, the redhead didn’t giggle. She laughed for real.

“Stupid eye patch!” I groaned disgustedly and reached up with my free hand to adjust it.

“Here, let me do that, so you don’t jerk the tape.” Still laughing, she scooted her chair closer to me. She reached up with both of her hands and slowly began peeling away the tape from my left eyebrow.

Her movements were quick but gentle. It didn’t hurt at all. Or maybe it did, and I didn’t notice. She talked the whole time that she worked, so I focused on her words rather than what she was doing.

“Claire did use too much tape. And she used too much padding, so the patch is too heavy. See? That’s why it keeps slipping. I’ll take a little bit out, and it should be fine.”

Dangling from her left arm, the unattached end of the IV tube arm tickled my neck a little. I stared at her wrist with my good eye. Her skin was very pale and smooth with just a light freckle scattered here and there. The tube tickled my neck again. I heard a giggle and blushed when I realized it was me.

“There. All done. You should be able to eat some cake now without being afraid of going blind.” She leaned away and smiled. I noticed for the first time how pretty she was, and I felt my face get really hot. I was glad I wore my hair shaggy because I knew that my ears were blood red.

“Um, thanks. You’re really good at that … I mean, the way you touched me was good … I mean, it felt good the way you touched it … Crap … I mean the bandage … the way you fixed the bandage! It didn’t hurt a bit when you pulled it … Claire had to pull it five or six times, off and on, off and on, like it was really hard … um … not hard … I mean, difficult … the tape … I mean, the tape was difficult …”

I was rambling. I stopped. The other girls at the table were looking at me now. They were all laughing, too. Even the girl in the neck brace. The redhead – I really needed to find out her name – was laughing the most. I looked around the room frantically.

Where was Meredith’s mom with the cake anyway?

Cry Me a Google

“Harold, I gotta admit I thought you was crazy, but I was the one with a loose screw in the head! You had the right idea the whole time, you old rascal!”

Shawn Gosden had to talk a bit louder than usual so that his good friend of the past forty-some-odd years could hear him above the rock song blaring from the loudspeakers overhead.

Harold Tetter leaned both elbows on the counter and winked at his buddy.

“If it was such a good idea, then why ain’t you out there skating, huh?” he jerked his head toward toward the polished rink floor.

Shawn laughed and just shook his head. “Hey, I get around well enough in these work shoes without having little wheels stuck on them.” A hand calloused from decades of farm work motioned at the pairs of multi-colored skates strung up from the rafters over the front counter. “In my book, moving that fast is just asking for trouble.”

Harold laughed, a deep laugh from way down in his belly, and slapped one worn hand on the counter. “What you mean is that Becky’d skin you if you broke something and she had to take care of you all laid up in the house every day!”

It was Shawn’s turn to laugh then and pound the counter then. Harold picked up a dust rag and some Pledge and got to wiping the spotless wood counter. A lot had changed in the past eight months since he decided to retire and sell off most of his family farm. For one, his checking account was filling up much faster than it ever had with soybeans and calves. That’s why his old buddies kept coming by – to see for themselves what had the Tetters driving a new brand new, top-of-the-line truck to church every Sunday and eating at the Greenwood Theater House every Thursday night.

Harold kept shining the countertop and let his old friend look at what he’d done to his barn.

Shawn and his boy used to help him work on on his rundown John Deere tractor right in this same spot where Harold and his wife rented out skates. The fine red dust barn floor, hardpacked with decades of boots, hooves, and tractor tires, now had gleaming slick wood planks from wall to wall. Some of the forty years of tools and fencewire still hung on the walls and overhead but shared the space now with speakers, neon lights, and even a slowly spinning disco ball his nephew had bought from an antique mall two towns over. The feeding troughs and the cattle stalls in the back were now bathrooms and a snack bar his granddaughters were fighting with each other to run. The barn his grandfather had built was air-conditioned now and watertight and even had a brightly lit fire exit that led out to the parking lot where the chicken house used to be.

It’d cost more than he even liked to think about now, and he’d made so many changes to the old barn that his dad and granddad would have had strokes if they weren’t already long gone. The town had thought he was crazy, just like Shawn had said a moment ago. Crazy for giving up farming. Crazy for selling off his family farm. And crazy for turning his barn into a skating rink. But Harold didn’t care. His wife was glad to be done with canning, and she knew that farming hadn’t been good for the past twenty years, even if none of their old friends wanted to admit it. Why else had all the younger people gone to work in the city or in the factories springing up all around? Harold’s sons, though, came home to help with blueprints and building codes, and each field Harold sold off paid for the next piece of work the barn needed.

Now that it was, the Skate Barn was paying the bills, and not just for him, but for his sons, who had stayed on and quit their own jobs. The granddaughters, too, were getting to pay for their cell phones, and even the boyfriends were signing on to get date and gas money. Plus, he was going to bed each night, still dog-tired from a day’s hard work but not dog-tired from worrying over the family’s finances. The Skate Barn was a good trade for a farming career, he had decided, even one that had been in the family for three generations, and it was a good thing for the town, too, he figured. People came in every night and packed it full on the weekends, even two months after its grand opening. He couldn’t help grinning at his reflection in the shiny countertop as he kept polishing.

Shawn must have noticed because he laughed all of a sudden, saying, “Yep, Harold, you’re a smart one, you are. Why didn’t none of us come up with an idea like this, I wonder? Maybe I should turn my barn into one of those miniature golf resorts. This air conditioner sure beats running behind a haybaler!”

Harold laughed along with his old friend. A line of six locals skated by. They were all mostly in their thirties, all children of people Harold went to school with, and all working at the blue jean factory that had been built on the other side of town. They were skating the bunny hop and shouting along offkey with Joan Jett about how they loved rock and roll. Harold kept shining and grinning. He didn’t know about rock and roll, but he knew that he loved his new job.

Every Rose Has Its Google

“Always pass on yer left and always tip yer hat. Yer luck’ll be out, boy, if ya’s don’t!”

Old Gerd’s warning still rang in my ears even after I’d left my village far behind. The farmer had raised up from weeding his cabbage rows and leaned on his hoe as I drove my da’s cart past his farm. When I was nearly at the stone marker at the village edge, the old man had shouted his words at me. I had laughed and waved at him, but just before I was out of earshot, I heard him shout once more over the clopping of Dozie’s hooves on the hardpacked dirt road.

“It’s yer only life, boy, so don’t fergit it!”

I had laughed again and joked with my da’s old mare about the superstitious old folks. The sun was bright and the birds were chirping then, and Dozie had just chuffed and clopped on like there wasn’t a worry in the world. And there wasn’t then. True, it was my first time on the Town Road by myself and my first time delivering my da’s skins to the tanner at the Market, but I didn’t have nerves any more than Dozie did, no matter what Crooked Gerd hollered out over his cabbage heads.

Then, the Town Road drove into the Forest. Sure, I’d been through it with my da’ before, but the treetops seemed to block out more sunlight than I remembered. And the birds didn’t sing as much as I would have liked. I remembered squirrels and rabbits hopping about, too, but all I could see today was a dead crow lying feet up next to a bank of thorn bushes. I heard a fox bark once, but it cut off real quick and I never heard it again. I tried to joke with Dozie, but she just kept clopping and didn’t even chuff anymore.

So I tried singing one of my da’s songs, but it just seemed too loud, especially when the fog set in just before sundown. The forest wouldn’t last much longer. I had to be getting close to the other side, and I’d never heard any tales about bandits or bears or anything happening between our village and the Town. The only strange thing at all was the Grave, and that was just a made-up story old folks used to scare people who had more important things to worry about. I had a load of skins to deliver, and coins to collect from the tanner that would buy all the things we needed until the next visit.

And that’s why Old Gerd’s warnings just wouldn’t stop rattling around in my head, I guess. And that’s why I pulled the reins and brought Dozie to a stop when the wagon turned a sharp curve and the road split. It came back together after forty feet or so, making a little island of sorts in the road, a peculiar thing anyone would admit, and more so because a single old walnut tree reared up in the dead center of that grassy island. Beneath it was a worn, faded tombstone in a semicircle of tumbled, mossy stone markers. The Grave. The forest’s edge was less than a quartermile past it, and the Town just a shout farther.

Dozie was restless, but I let her stand idle for a bit more, just to rest her hooves, I told her. I needed to go over my lists once more anyway. I had my mother’s long one for the goods vendor and my father’s order for the blacksmith as well as the routine tanner business. That was a lot to keep in my head, especially when it was my first visit to the Town on my own. My da’ thought I was ready, and my mom said she was proud, so they knew I could do it. I’d ridden this Road a dozen times with my da’, and even if I hadn’t, I could close my eyes and let Dozie do it like she had going on for six years now. I mean, it sure couldn’t matter that much if I passed the Grave on the left or the right, could it? Of course not. How could it make a difference? And the tipping of your hat? How could that matter? What if a traveler didn’t even wear a hat? How could he tip it if he didn’t have one in the first place? Come to think of it, my da’ always did wear one when we traveled to the Town, and hadn’t my mother made sure that I had my hat on straight before I left? Where was it now? I didn’t have it on. I’d gotten hot, I remembered. Just before we’d come into the forest’s shade.

Dozie chuffed suddenly, making me jump and jerk the reins. She clopped forward. The Grave grew nearer, and I felt the mare veer slightly to the left all on her own. I relaxed a bit and remembered I’d tucked my hat under the wagon seat.

I tucked one hand up under the bench as the Grave came even closer. I only felt bare wagon boards. No hat.

Dozie kept plugging forward, drawing even with the tips of the walnut’s longest reaching branches. I twisted in the seat until my shoulder almost touched it. I stretched my arm every which way. Just more boards and no hat.

Dozie clopped on. I started to sweat.

Old Gerd’s final words boomed in my ears: ““Always pass on yer left and always tip yer hat. Yer luck’ll be out, boy, if ya’s don’t!”


The wagon passed the spot where the Road first split. The tumbled stones were right next to us. I clawed at the boards beneath my seat. A splinter dug beneath one fingernail. I kept reaching and twisting and stretching. My heart beat in my throat almost drowning out the farmer’s voice.

“It’s yer only life, boy, so don’t fergit it!”

The Grave was almost right alongside us. I saw the strange letters on its front. The pitted stone. The clinging moss. We were almost past it.

Then cloth hit my fingertips! My hat! I snatched it up and smacked it down on my head. I tipped it, just as Dozie drew the wagon past. I heaved a sigh and looked quickly back.

Before the walnut tree blocked it, I caught a glimpse of theGrave’s stone back. Something was there, a carving or some words. I couldn’t be sure.

But the Town waited. I straightened in my seat and sternly clucked at Dozie to pick up her pace. I flicked the reins a bit and kept my eyes fixed firmly ahead. Night was falling fast, and I still had work ahead of me before I could get room at the Town’s inn.

“No time for foolish superstitions, girl, we’ve got business in Town,” I said to the mare’s bobbing head. “It’s getting a little cool, I think I’ll keep my hat on for now,” I added, and Dozie rolled her head back, chuffed, and kept clopping on.

Jeepers, Creepers -- Where'd You Get Those Googles?

Dear Ranger Tom,

I’m ten years old, and three years ago my family built a house near Hatchifac Lake. Every spring, our yard gets full of these cute, tiny black frogs. You can see how little they are in the pictures my mom took for me. The frogs come out of the lake, I guess, but they only come to our yard and they stay all spring. They’re all over the place – but especially in the grass. Whenever my dad has to mow, I run around and try to get all the little frogs out of the way, but I know that a lot of them get sucked up in the mower. What’s the best way to save them and still get the yard mowed because my dad says he has to mow every week even if it kills the frogs? Help!

Friend of the Frogs
Hatchifac, Michigan

Dear Friend of the Frogs,

I am so happy to see that you care about your little neighbors in nature! Many young people would not think twice about squishing those tiny frogs and would probably even offer to mow the grass just to watch them get chopped into a billion microscopic pieces. Ranger Tom and his Critter Scouts are very proud of you for taking a stand!

The only way, of course, to safeguard the lives of those little amphibians would be to preserve their habitat. From your description and the photos that you sent us, I believe that your home is built on the natural breeding ground for the Michigan Teeny Peeper Frog (Peepus Minimus). As an endangered species, the Teeny Peepers are protected by international law, and your lawn, therefore, becomes a wildlife sanctuary for the duration of the Peepers’ visit. That means that everyone in contact with these animals is legally prohibited from endangering the lives of the tiny creatures. On the basis of your letter and the photographs, you and your family should expect contact from the International Wildlife Protection Agency within the next twenty-four hours.

Therefore, my answer to your question is simple. Your father must maintain the lawn in its natural state. He cannot mow the grass until the last Peeper leaves the habitat, which must be officially documented, recorded, and filed by an official habitat specialist from the IWPA. If your father insists on mowing, you are legally bound to advise him that he is violating IWP Law #2678 Section 80.4C (Endangerment and Extermination of Protected Species 7823). You then must immediately contact your local IWPA office, who will take your father into custody. Since damaging a protected habitat and destroying endangered animals are both class E international felonies, he will either pay a fine of $150,000 or face eighteen months to three years in international prison. If you fail to notify the agency and surveillance reveals habitat destruction and species deaths, then you become an accomplice and will be brought into custody with your father until the IWPA makes a decision regarding your prosecution as a juvenile and your own possible imprisonment or remandment into state custody.

As you can see, the Peepers’ presence in your yard is a serious matter. In fact, based on the evidence you sent us, several subsections of the international law mentioned above have clearly already been violated by your family. However, since you and your father were allegedly unaware of the species’ endangered status, imprisonment is unlikely, but a fine will definitely be collected for each breeding season affected by your family’s presence and for each amphibian potentially destroyed by father’s lawn mower. Other family members and neighbors may also face legal consequences if they were aware of the frogs’ presence and did nothing to intervene. Seizure of your home and surrounding property during the spring months could become a possibility, depending on the number of frogs the IWPA observes in the habitat. Ranger Tom and his Critter Scouts hope that your family’s homeowner’s insurance policy includes an addendum for loss of home and property due to endangered amphibian preservation. Otherwise, your eviction could prove to be quite costly during those spring months.

In any event, thank you for your letter and for being such a concerned friend to wildlife! Your free Critter Scout t-shirt and stuffed Ranger Tom and Rocky toys will arriving in your mailbox within seven business days. Keep Caring, and Remember that Nature is your Nicest Neighbor!

Sincerely yours,
Ranger Tom and His Critter Scouts

Googlier Than a Wet Hen

Of course, the drought would have to end on the day of the big sale at Kohl’s. And it wouldn't end with a nice, pleasant summer shower. Of course not. That wouldn’t have been dramatic enough, now would it? No, and a little sprinkle wouldn’t have interfered that much with Karen’s day, would it? And after all, the world is out to get Karen, isn’t it? If you’re not sure, just read her blog – she has lots of proof that she gets dealt more than her fair share of lousy days.

Take today for example. She’d known about this big sale before most people, all thanks to her friend Ann. That’s lucky, you say? Well, sure, but of course, she couldn’t take the day off from work like she wanted because the Small Breed Showcase started the same day at the fairgrounds. Her boss at the grooming salon said it was going to be a “high-volume day” and “invaluable expertise with Pomeranians” would be needed to “fully satisfy the clients.”

See how Karen’s luck turned for the worse? Well, her boss wasn’t completely heartless. “How about an early lunch?” was the peace offering, and Karen gladly took it. Of course, her car wouldn’t start on that particular morning – seems she’d left the overhead light on, and the battery had lost all of its juice. An elderly neighbor offered a jumpstart, which she eagerly accepted, but his eyesight was bad, and he connected the cables wrong. After the paramedics left, Karen was able to get a ride from the tow truck guy, so she was only a half hour late to work. Her boss was completely understanding and said she could still take that early lunch and even promised to drive her. Of course, just as nine o’clock came around, a lady brought in not one, but two miniature puggles, and who was the only person in the salon with any real puggle experience? Karen’s boss, of course. She offered to let Karen borrow her Beamer, but Karen couldn’t drive a stick.

“Kohl’s isn’t that far,” Karen said hopefully and set off on foot, determined to make it to that sale before all of the good stuff was gone. Anyway, her friend had said that on certain items, like some designer shoes Karen wanted terribly, Kohl’s was even offering rainchecks.

Maybe that was what brought on the storm. And the flash flooding. And the tornado. Karen didn’t stop though, not even when downed power lines made her climb down an embankment and scale a chain link fence just to make it to a safer route. Or when that safer route turned out to be a flooded and closed to through traffic. It wasn’t closed to pedestrians, she decided, so she just took off her heels, rolled up her pants legs, and waded on. And you know what? She got there. She made it to Kohl’s just as the storm broke and its power came back on. And she actually managed to snag the last pair of shoes in the exact color she wanted, and they were her size! Her friend Ann had even tucked away some jeans and a top – in her size! The bad weather had scared away everyone else, it seemed, and Ann had lots of free time to show her more great deals.

Karen couldn’t have been happier or luckier, especially when the mechanic called her cell phone and said that the damage to her engine had been minimal, and all still under her warranty, so there was no charge. He was even going to drop off her car at Kohl’s for her, since his garage was empty and he was bored. Her boss called and checked on her, too, and told her to take the rest of the afternoon off. Turns out the Showcase had been postponed and the Pomeranians had all rescheduled. Her luck was turning finally, she thought.

Ecstatic, she took all of her great bargains up to the register, just as a wave of shoppers burst in from the wet but now drivable streets. They snatched up all the rain checks and eyed her cart jealously as the cashier rang her up.

And that’s when the world had its final laugh. You see, she’d never noticed but she’d ripped the side out of her purse on that chain link fence. Not the side with her cell phone – no, that was still intact. It was the side where she kept her wallet, and it had fallen out when she’d waded that last street and floated right down the sewer drain while she’d persevered on to Kohl’s. Ann was Karen’s only hope, but of course, her friend had left as soon as the news came that her apartment building had been hit by the tornado.

She had no alternative. The cashier was sorry, but “store policy doesn’t allow us hold items for customers on sale days.” The other shoppers were sympathetic, but they snatched up everything once it went back on the rack since “you have such wonderful taste and are just my size, too!” The store manager was quite apologetic, but the rush after the storm cleared “caught us totally by surprise and cleaned out every last raincheck, can you believe it?”

See how much the world hated Karen? How fate just had it in for her? Not convinced yet? Well, Karen trudged out of Kohl’s, downcast and dejected, when her cell rang again. Her boss. “The Poms called. Showcase starting first thing in the morning instead of next week. I need you after all!” Sighing, Karen said sure and looked up just in time to see the mechanic’s surprised face as he hydroplaned on the wet parking lot, lost control, and ran her down with her Honda Civic.

What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Google

The first time I went back up the holler after our Ma died, my aunt Loo set me down at the old kitchen table and plunked a big plastic box in front of me.

“I know you’ll wanna go through these. Mom always said she was gointa put ‘em in an album, but she never got round to it,” Aunt Loo said. She sniffled and got real busy around the coffee pot. I sniffled a little too, hearing the words ‘before the cancer’ floating in the air even though my aunt didn’t say them.

The old house was a lot quieter without Ma’s joking around and her constant loud laughter, but at least the smells were all the same: Ivory soap by every sink and fresh coffee perkin’ on the stove. Ma drank coffee like other folks drink milk – even if you got up in the dead of night when you were visitin’, you could find her sippin’ a cup in the glow of the night light all by herself. “My throat needed somethin’ warm,” she’d laugh and then go straight back to bed and be snorin’ away in no time at all. Coffee just couldn’t keep up with her, I guess. She just kept herself too busy…before.

Aunt Loo turned from the stove and set down a big brown cup with the local electric company logo on it in front of me. Just like Ma, she’d already stirred the sugar and milk into the coffee, and I smiled at the coffee like a loony before I took a sip. It was way too hot and a little sweeter than Ma’s had been, but that was okay. It was still good coffee. I sipped again and burned my tongue.

Aunt Loo clucked her tongue as I squawked a bit. “Take your time. You’ve got lots of good photos in there to look at, so your coffee can cool a bit. Plenty more in the pot, too, so you don’t got to rush.”

“What kind of pictures are in here, Aunt Loo?” I asked as I popped the top off the big flat box. It looked like the kind that you might have shoved under your bed. Like she said, it was full of pictures – all sizes, some color, most not – but I also saw a lot of greeting cards and ripped envelopes all shoved crazy like in with the stacks of photos. It was really more like layers really rather than stacks. Other papers were stuck in there, so I wondered what Ma might have stored in this box. “Pictures of me when I was little?”

“Older than that mainly. Mom always stuck the ones of you grandkids up on the wall or on the dressers, so a lot of these are ones of me and your daddy when we were small. Some I remember seeing out when I was a girl, but some are older than that according to the dates Mom wrote on the backs.” My aunt had a cup of coffee, too, but she hadn’t drunk any yet. She just kept stirring it round and round with one of Ma’s pineapple-handle spoons. She’d always just looked like Aunt Loo to me, but I thought she looked old right at that moment, sitting there in Ma’s quiet kitchen. With my dad gone and now Ma, I guess Aunt Loo was feeling pretty alone. I felt sniffly again, so I hid my face with a long drink of coffee.

When I set the cup down, I reached into the box and shuffled a bit through the contents. The photos were old, like my aunt had said – smaller and odd-sized with crinkled edges and silvery handwriting on the back that looked about to fade away as I looked at it. One of the first ones I pulled out was of a young guy that looked a lot like other pictures I’d seen of my dad when he was my age. He looked a lot like me, I thought. He was kneeling outside this very house by a tree that wasn’t there any more with a big black dog close at his side. The back just had one word and the year 1946 written in Ma’s familiar handwriting.

I flipped it around and asked, “This is my dad with the dog, right? Was it his? It says ‘Gander’ and the year on the back but nothin’ else. ”

My aunt stopped stirring and took a drink finally. I held out the picture a bit closer to her, and she squinted at it. She smiled at me around the rim of her coffee cup.

“That’s Gander alright, but he was your granddad’s dog, not your dad’s. Your dad was just a baby back in ’46 and way too little for your ma to let play with any dogs as big as ol’ Gander. He wouldn’t have hurt a hair though. Not Gander. Your granddad loved him – the only time I ever saw him cry was when that dog got hit by the phone company truck. You ought to take that one. You always had dogs growing up yourself.”

I looked at the picture of my granddad and his dog a bit longer, sipping slow at my coffee. I looked like him, just like I looked like my dad, but had never known it till now. I only remembered Pa propped up in his bed, chewing his tobacco and making me sit on those scratchy wool blankets while the rest of the family told stories and cracked jokes. I remembered now that Pa had always asked about my dogs and how were they, but I had no idea that he’d ever had a dog he’d cared about enough to pose for a picture with. I felt warm all of a sudden, like the coffee went too deep and too quick. I set the picture of Gander off to the side near where I’d laid my keys and dug into the photo box again.

Gander was the start – I’d never known it but that dog had always been there. He’d been in that box under Ma’s bed, in my aunt Loo’s head, in my dad’s and probably my mom’s memories, even in my own as a kid sitting on Pa’s scratchy blanket – I’d just never heard him or if I had it didn’t stick in my head. That dog had been in my life all along, and I’d never even laid eyes on him until today.

Nearly two pots of coffee later, I had a sandwich-size stack of pictures and a kind of dizzy feeling behind my eyes. Gander was the start – but there were cars, cats, toys, fishing trips, birthday parties – so much that I discovered through Loo’s stories and my Ma’s silvery writing. I felt like I’d been squinting through some binoculars and spinning that focus wheel back and forth trying to get a good look at something that just wouldn’t stay still. I don’t know that I ever got a close look, but my aunt wrapped that bundle of photos with Gander on the top in a brown grocery sack and let me take ‘em.

I drove that winding road out of the holler with my right hand steadying that packet the whole way so it wouldn’t slide around. I didn’t want anything to get bent up or ripped, not when Ma had kept them tucked away for so long. I couldn’t help wishing that she’d drug them out one of those nights when I’d spent the night as a kid. My dad never was able to tell me about most things I saw in that box, and as busy as she was, Ma never got round to it either, before the cancer came and took her.

I needed picture frames, lots of them, and some paper to write everything down, so that my kids would know about all these things from the get-go rather than from the other way round. I wanted them to say mornin’ and good night to Pa and old Gander every time they climbed up the stairs. I patted the bundle of photos next to me and swore that what I got from that afternoon at Ma’s kitchen table wouldn’t get shoved to the back of somewhere in a drawer or box. My kids wouldn’t need binoculars to see these parts of themselves. I was going to put them right in front of us all.

Snap, Google, and Pop

Today, students at Orange County Culinary Institute proved that anything is possible with the help of a determined teacher . . . and forty truckloads of chocolate.

The challenge started two weeks ago when Chef Willa Torres brought her Advanced Baking class to a vacant lot here at Disney MGM studios in Orlando. It was there that she revealed her students next project – to recreate the famous Cinderella’s Castle as a baked good.

It’s been done, you say? Did we mention that Chef Willa’s students were instructed to bake the Disney landmark to scale?

Needless to say, Torres, a twenty-year veteran of teaching and a renowned pastry chef, had to overcome many obstacles in order to achieve her dream. Orlando city ordinances, recent heavy rainfall, and frazzled nerves threatened the completion of the cake version of one of the most-loved structures in the world. “Chef T is a genius,” described Yolanda Nimmons, an honors culinary student from Calista, GA. “Getting this massive cake to stick together in the heat and still be edible and at the same time follow all the building codes would be impossible if it weren’t for her expertise and her energy. I am truly learning how to be a better pastry chef and chocolatier from this experience.” Another sixth-year student, Michael Pansy said, “Chef T totally pwnz the dessert world and Cakezilla Castle proves it!” Cakezilla Castle is the nickname tagged by the Orange County Culinary Institute students onto the massive pastry, a name that has caught on in the local community. Airbrush It, a nearby printing company, even donated t-shirts, chef’s hats, and aprons emblazoned with C4 – Cakezilla Castle Construction Crew – to express their fascination with the project.

The original beloved theme park icon took eighteen months to complete. Chef Torres and her students put the final touches on the clock tower spire of its edible twin this morning, after two weeks of non-stop, around-the-clock baking, as an enthusiastic crowd of over two thousand well-wishers and dessert lovers looked on. With the help of Consolidated Crane and Scaffolding Corporation and Duncan Hines, the finished cake stands 189 feet tall, exactly the same height as its mode at Walt DisneyWorld, and required more than 400 gallons of chocolate icing to coat its exterior.

The giant pastry will be open for MGM Studios ticket holders until July 9th. At that time, the massive cake will donated to the city’s homeless shelters and children’s homes.