Summer haiku

Poet Kwame Alexander issued a call this morning on National Public Radio for haiku inspired by summer memories, but without using the word summer. As Alexander was finishing up his segment on NPR’s Morning Edition, I was just pulling into the parking lot of my office building, and the opening line “Watermelon drips” popped into my brain. I forgot it for the duration of my (11 1/2-hour) workday, but after coming home I opened my notepad and started playing.

Here are my three offerings. Continue reading

Free association

Driving home from work tonight I heard the word “copse” in the audiobook that’s currently keeping me company in the car, and my mind set off on a path of word association that took me deep into my childhood.

I grew up in the rural Midwest, roaming 300+ acres of pastureland owned by my family and my best friend’s family. “Copse” immediately took me back to the wooded alcove set between two hills in my grandmother’s pasture, near the creek that ran in summer and froze in winter, a place where I played and rested and read, both alone and with my sister and friends, for hours and hours on end. Continue reading

Father’s Day: The memory that haunts me

At the risk of calling down calamity on myself, I will say that I have been in three, or maybe two, car accidents in my life. (Knock wood.) The least serious was a minor collision in the parking lot of my office building on the afternoon of 9/11, when probably everyone in the United States was too upset to be behind the wheel of a car. I definitely was. The most serious happened when I was in high school, and a drunk driver blew through a stop sign at high speed, hitting the car in which I was a front-seat passenger.

Neither of those is the one that haunts me. Continue reading

Branding help for the Girl Scouts

It’s not because I was a Brownie as a child, but because I am a writer turned content strategist as an adult. Bear with me while I offer some free brand advice to the Girl Scouts. I’m compelled.

Unless you live far from civilization and any sort of elementary or secondary school, you’ll be familiar with the proud signs that parents skewer into their front lawns, or display in windows, boasting of their children’s accomplishments. They’re handed out by school clubs and sports teams everywhere: Continue reading