"Australian Aborigines say that the big stories ... the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life, are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush."
-- Robert Moss
You’re invited to share your stories … preferably tiny. Incidents related to your life and maybe had something to do with who you became. … poetry, song, art, old family recipes, or words of wisdom that came your way and made a difference. Best if accompanied by a photo or piece of art and max out at around 500 words (shorter is even better). Send your stories to info@gratitudemojo.com in pdf form for text and jpg for images. Family friendly, please.
To launch this, I’ll share a true story from my childhood:
Tweet-Tweet and Shorty.
One summer, my grandmother came to visit with a pet rooster and a pocketful of Cotton Boll chewing tobacco. The rooster would sit on her lap and peck tobacco bits out of her apron pocket.
We had a dog named Shorty, a beautiful English Shepherd that wasn’t short at all. For some reason I’ve never understood, Shorty, the dog, was named after Shorty, my grandfather, who was quite short. Anyway, Shorty, the dog, got along fine with Tweet-Tweet, the rooster, until …
My Uncle Donnell was an odd character, one of the early proponents of the healing powers of vinegar and honey; he came up with a treatment for his epileptic wife. She died. However, that’s beside the point of this story. One day, Uncle Donnell decided that Tweet-Tweet, being a rooster, needed some hens. So, my folks brought home six hens. Good for eggs, they said.
Not good for peace in the yard we found out. The minute those hens stepped free in our yard, Tweet-Tweet realized he was a rooster and became their Big Daddy Protector. It started with attacking Shorty, the dog, and progressed to attacking anyone who trespassed on his yard, which had been our yard. Turns out, if we wanted to walk through the yard, we had to sick Shorty, the dog, on Tweet-Tweet, the formerly pet rooster.
It was sort of a game until my mom was crawling through the fence row to pick blackberries on the other side. Tweet-Tweet caught her in the behind. My mom was red-headed and lived up to the red-head reputation for temper. She straightened up and chased that rooster until she caught him. She couldn’t kill him, but she tied him up until my dad came home and did the deed.
Later, she boiled Tweet-Tweet but none of us could eat him. Even Shorty, the dog wouldn’t eat the boiled remains of my grandmother’s pet rooster. Why? Did he know the boiled chicken was his former sparring partner, probably the main excitement in his days? I think that may have been one of my first puzzlements in what would become a life filled with mysteries and wonders.
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Sharing a friend's memories expands our own storehouse of experience. Now I'll go find one of my own to add to your story Stone Soup.
Sure, it's now Friday, but the story this prompted was about Cindy, the neighbor girl, my age, whom my mom cared for. When a slippery step caused me to fall on my 6 year old bottom, Cindy laughed. Never had I seen my mom defend me in public. Never had Cindy's bottom paid the consequences of her unchecked amusement over the misfortune of others. Later, mom found another job not caring for the neighbor's kids