Trish Hermanson's Blog: Croutons - Seasoned Bits of Life, page 20

When Your Dreams Burn Up

     I spotted these charred remains of a car in front of a house that was reduced to ashes. Someone’s dream home on an island off the Gulf Coast gone up in smoke in a few scorching minutes.
     I’ve had dreams turn to ashes, too. My dream of being a great singer - my voice didn’t cooperate with that. My dream of buying a house on a hill with a mountain view - the real estate market didn’t cooperate with that.
     Other dreams have come true. The dream of having a family - my husband wi...

Fighting the Fear of First Impressions

     Sometimes these days I’m a jumble of jitters because I’m meeting lots of new people and first impressions leave lasting impressions, right? I don’t want to blow it.
     So here’s a new person. I suck in a deep breath, tentatively offer my hand, and ask the woman her name. Now will I remember it?
     A week later I see her again and don’t. “I’m still Trish.” I say awkwardly, “and you’re still….?”
     She reintroduces herself. We make small talk. But nothing meaningful happens.
     I...

My Obituary?

     When I worked as a reporter, the tough but important task of writing obituaries sometimes fell upon me. Tough because it was unpleasant to think about death, yet important because I was compiling a summary of a person’s life.
     We journalists sometimes joked about writing our own obits: “After grabbing a coffee, Trish Hermanson was crossing Main Street when a beer truck hit her, wasting the beer, the coffee, and her.” Bizarre humor, I know, but meant to lighten the responsibility...

Not a Piece of Cake

    Jack Phillips’s life hasn’t been a piece of cake. Since he turned down a job to design a wedding cake for a homosexual couple, he’s been threatened to be shot in the head or ripped apart with a machete. That doesn’t fit with the Jack I know, a quiet baker in my neighborhood. When we needed a cake for a special birthday, I visited him at his obscure shop where Jack listened attentively to my wishes. Then he meticulously fashioned a moist carrot cake with rich cream cheese frosting th...

How Long Is Your Trail?

     After I wrote about signs that made me chuckle, some readers responded with their favorites: Stan said that a huge truck stop sign in Missouri announces “Clean Restrooms. Kids Eat Free.”
     Rachel said that when she lived in China, a sign in English in a grocery aisle announced “Inflated Food.” The section was filled with puffy bags of chips and other snacks.
     Mary told me about a Florida church sign designed to keep people from parking in a certain area: “Thou shalt not park.”...

Is there a Secret to True Beauty?

     I saw firsthand recently how early the focus on “looks” begins. When I arrived at a salon to get my hair cut, I spotted a young boy in a chair, his hair being styled so the number “1” would stand out on the back of his head. The grin on his face told me how important this was. Later, the stylist told me that young boys are even more conscious of their hair than girls.
     Body image among kids is a big deal. Take the issue of weight. I’ve read that 81 percent of ten-year-olds in Am...

Does Community Matter?

     We’ve never experienced the need for community more than these crushing days when our six-year-old granddaughter Lydia died. As one of the pallbearers observed, the coffin was light, but the burden was heavy.
     I thought about a man I knew who found that his best place for community was at a bar. Before heading for home after work, Frank often stopped at The Tap, lifted a longneck, and share some laughs. Everyone knew his name. Everyone accepted him.    
     Then Frank died.
     ...

How Do You Survive When You're Left Behind?

     How do you survive when you’re left behind after your older sister dies?
     That’s what’s happened to our four-year-old granddaughter Maggie last week. Her big sister Lydia died from a sudden, unnamed illness. Her bunkmate and playmate - gone.
     No explanations work fully for her, not even that Lydia has gone to Heaven to be with Jesus. That doesn’t work fully for us either. We can’t wrap our heads around it.
     My heart aches for Maggie because I was about her age when my momm...

My Ladybug Flew Away Home

     My little Ladybug unexpectedly flew away home.
     Ladybug is what I called my grandchild Lydia. For her six short years, she crawled into my heart with her singing and dancing and flirtatious grin, a princess who could turn birch bark into a crown.
     Then a slight fever, a seizure, a blaring ambulance ride, the whirl of a helicopter carrying her to another hospital. Days and nights on beeping machines. Tests, and more tests. Yet no name for what had attacked her brain and robbed...

When Politics Divide

    The three of us were so close in college that our closets became one. At the end of the year we weren’t sure who owned what. We had supported each other through midterms and finals. Cried through loves lost and found. Then we graduated and geography separated us, with the years bringing marriages, kids, and careers.
     We hadn’t been together for decades, so you can imagine my excitement when we gathered for a breakfast that lasted until lunch. Our table filled with stories of “rem...