All That Silk and Satin Gear

2015

Springtime is the season of the Cinderella gown. My main task when helping my daughter prepare for her high school prom was to take her shopping for that one magical dress.

Upside Down

2015

Quiet and complacent; that described me in high school. A campus planning mishap catapulted me from my insular high school persona into one boisterous, self-assured college student.

Prom 1999

2015

When you asked me if I wanted to go to prom,
I was filled with excitement, until you requested if my date could be your brother; my 1st and last ex-boyfriend.

Osceola, Osceola

2015

We were moving to Saint Paul after a year in Ireland, all ten of us packed into a tiny Fiat station wagon for the drive from New York to a big house on an even bigger hill set on Osceola Avenue.

Van Gogh Appears at the Café Amore

2015

No chairs fly through the air tonight, no linseed oil drips from a homemade brush, no argument ensues over process, for Gauguin does not appear,

First Kiss

2015

Amid the ransacking rumble of semitrailers, we stumbled the sloped hill of Pierce Butler, the truck route near the train tracks.

A Copy Boy’s Tale

2015

It was a little before seven on the morning of June 1, 1966, when I entered the stately building at 55 East Fourth Street and hurried up the stairs.

Round Earth

2015

MARY STUCKY GOES around the world. The journalist knows the earth is round, and what goes around comes around, so she has been going around and around.

Immigrant Status

2015

We were ice cream truck connoisseurs
And knew which Popsicles would stain our tongues. We were rich in playground sand And told one another, if you step on it, you’re it.

Inchworms and God

2015

When we were ten. We saw a country called Viet Nam on WCCO as we ate dinner on our TV trays from Shell Oil, but that country would go away at the turn of a knob.

I Only Wanted Chicken

2015

I always like to think about the fun one could have around the late 1960s. We could dance the night away. The clubs you could go to if you wanted to dress up or dress down.

A Garden That Changes

2015

Even though it seems like the economy has gone through the wrong tunnel, we as a community have to keep going through the right tunnel. We come together as one, to a place where everyone can pitch in and get something in return.