A rusty old nail sticks out of a post Sticking out of the ground in Dad’s field. Its work is done, the cows are gone Yet it refuses to yield. Does it recall its younger days When it was tall and strong? And kept the cows from wondering Where they…
When I was sixteen, Mr. Buckley, my tenth grade English teacher—a portly, middle-aged bachelor who wore thick, black-rimmed glasses over his dark eyes, shabby shirts and jeans, and a black tam over his balding head—brought a grocery bag full of paperback books into our classroom and dumped them on his…
I’m a sailor on the Edward L. Ryerson. A ship called the Queen of the Lakes. I work every day in the engine room. I work as my broken heart aches. We sail from Superior to Hamilton. We pass through the famous Soo Locks. I stand on the deck of…
Purple light filters through sharp barbed wire fences holding two spotted ponies captive to their own loneliness and the whims of man. Freedom descends at twilight, steps from the sky, reaches a welcoming hand through the fence, beckons them to join her. Their flight is fast. Bucking the day’s heat…
I close my eyes and see my future. Like a rubber band, miles of years stretch before me. I see horses hitched to plows turning over the rich earth. I see full seeders making the length of the fields and waves of ripe grain awaiting harvest. I see winter’s gentle…
I have a little voice That goes ’round and ’round in me. And sometimes I don’t like it For it makes me mind, you see. It tells me when I’m being mean To others in my path. It tells me when I lie or steal Or refuse to take a…
The 1970s did me in. All my troubles began with the seventies and their strobe lights and burned draft cards and 99 cents a gallon gasoline and the relentless Viet Cong who didn’t know they were defeated but just kept coming and coming, garbed in twigs and mud, too stupid…
The joy of my youth was picking berries. Summer brought strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. The fields around my house were abundant. When dew left the grass, I grabbed a glass, Ran out the door. Ran to the fields. Not to pick fast, but to savor each moment. To dream of days…
On this special day perhaps we should pause and remember that life is a journey and with the passing of each step, we walk closer to our final destination. This poem, written by Christina Rossetti in 1858, is a reminder that how we labored in life may decide our final…
Hot August sun burns into my pores. I’m in the sandbox with my twin dolls, Molly and Polly. I finally got them to sleep. It wasn’t easy, what with little black ants crawling over them. I swished them away without hurting them. Except the leader. I always kill the leader….
Farm Life A kid on the farm with only her imagination as playmate gets up early on summer mornings, pokes her head out bedroom windows, checks to see if she’s beaten the cows. Nope! Silver’s leading the pack, clang, clang goes her bell. Daisy lost her bell last week so…
judge Luttig is an intelligent, articulate conservative who almost single-handedly stopped Mike Pence from doing the unthinkable on Jan 6. Do yourself a favor & listen to this interview:
By Sharon M. Kennedy When all the general election votes are counted, we could be heading for a non-democratic republic because some contenders believe democracy, as we have always defined it, is on the line. According to various candidates, our current system squanders money on people who won’t work and…
By Sharon M. Kennedy With the national political scene changing at lightning speed, anything I write will be outdated the minute I hit “send.” So what did I decide to do to be more relevant? Why, what any 77-year-old single woman with one cat should do. I threw my hat…
by Sharon M. Kennedy Recently I read a story in the Sault News about a teenager who started a fundraiser for his father, Tim Hawthorne of Gaylord. The Hawthorne family is not well known. They’re not wealthy or major players on the political stage. Their skin is not the right…
By Sharon M. Kennedy In 1919, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote this Opinion in Schenck v. United States: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic….The question in every case is whether…
By Sharon M. Kennedy Emotional terrorism is a term not often heard in our society. I became aware of it last week while having a casual conversation with a friend. As soon as I heard it, I thought it perfectly described a majority of Americans. People unconcerned about this type…
This is my prediction of what might occur in 2025 if DJT is elected and gets another swing at the Presidency. I’m going to cut it out and stick it on my fridge. As the months tick along, I’ll see how well I’ve done without the aid of a crystal…
By Sharon M. Kennedy The day Teddy threatened to kill my mother was the day I realized how dysfunctional our family was. I was upstairs when Teddy pulled his 1958 Oldsmobile into our front yard. Mom and Dad were in the kitchen. Usually I would have listened to their conversation…
By Sharon M. Kennedy For many years Mom’s brother, who lived in Dafter with his wife and children, stopped by our place every Sunday afternoon. Steven was one year younger than my sister. Jerry was a year older than I was. Those visits weren’t particularly memorable with the exception of…
by Sharon M. Kennedy Dad and our neighbor, Bill Sarley, are stripping the bark from logs that will be turned into slabs and buzzed up for our woodstove. In the 1950s, Dad didn’t own a chainsaw so he rigged up the buzzsaw to his tractor and somehow ran the logs…
By Sharon M. Kennedy For a gal who was raised on a farm, there’s nothing quite as silent and nostalgic as an empty barnyard. The barn in these pictures, once so full of life, no longer exists. When I took these photos in the 1970s, the milk cows had been…
by Sharon M. Kennedy Dad with grandkids Alan and Emily On this day (September 12) in 1983, Dad didn’t know he had one week left to live. He wouldn’t get a chance to give my daughter rides on his tractor as he had my brother’s children. He wouldn’t even be…
by Sharon M. Kennedy Every year after Labor Day Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 comes to mind because it signals the end of summer. Even the swings at Brimley State Park are silent as children return to their classrooms. Some are pleased to be back among friends. Others wish summer would never…
by Sharon M. Kennedy I was eight years old in 1955. I don’t remember much about the parade and festivities associated with the centennial celebration of the Soo Locks. What I do remember is men were encouraged to grow beards, something Dad would never do. Women got out their sewing…
