This 'n' That, According to Abby

Ole Gus Hagaard and I were nitpicking our substitute teacher one Friday morning during recess. With both thumbs thrust under his overall galluses, Gus rolled his mouth into a spitting mode then spat a gob of slimy Mail Pouch tobacco down on the ground at my feet. “I wonder why Miss Newberry’s eyes always...
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It didn’t take long after high school for Billy Joe Klagmire to discover that work of any kind ‘sorta’ gets in a person’s way of living. Even as a child he despised work with a passion and would always digress from the subject whenever it was mentioned. Billy Joe only held one job after...
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When most of us kids heard that the stock market had crashed, we just assumed it was the old auction barn across the river. There had been high winds the day before and severe damage was reported. After the fall of the stock exchange, the depression began to rise. It hovered over our little...
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One Sunday morning Frankie called asking me to walk her to church. Her parents had already left picking up youngsters for Sunday school. She also reminded me it was her birthday and wondered if I’d forgot. When I knocked on the back door she yelled for me to come on in. Before opening the...
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WWII changed a lot of people’s thinkin’ – sorry to say, “none for the better.” Before the war, when kids came home from school, they could always find their ‘mommies’ at home, not out working or gallivanting around somewhere. When we got home each day, it never occurred to us that our mothers were...
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The story that’s ‘bout to unfold all happened long after cloches were in style and worn by most young flappers. It was also about the time when life dealt Frankie and I several bad hands and we were always out of aces. While playing on each others’ sympathy, we searched fervently for sage advice...
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Frankie had recently joined the girl scouts’ camera club and had accepted an assignment of getting a close-up picture of a “horned owl.” How dumb. It was actually her problem, but she quickly made it mine. “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done,” I told Frankie. “Owls are only out at night, so just...
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One day during the great depression, the summer air was unusually warm and a musty smell hovered far and near. While meandering along the banks of the old beaver pond, Frankie let out a yell that traveled all the way to “Timbuktu!” She had dropped one leg down a beaver hole and was becoming...
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For years I’ve derived pleasure from daydreaming. I find undisturbed relaxation from reliving my childhood in memory. Daydreaming provides an escape from the present and it’s a tonic for whatever ails you. Daydreaming can be likened to calls of the night birds, drifting across the flowering fields of spring. These dreams can open up...
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When I was in grade school, most all us ‘younguns’ would take turns at having the mumps, chicken pox, measles or whooping cough, but scarlet fever was what we feared the most. Our small town made a special effort to avoid that one. If someone in the family came down with any contagious disease,...
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