Friday, July 22, 2011

Yellow



The Prompts:
1.) The simple things…
2.) Write an entry inspired by the word: Yellow.
3.) A memorable sporting event.
4.) Sex education! How old were you when you learned about the birds and the bees? Who taught you? Describe that experience.
5.) This month the theme of Oprah’s magazine is intuition…write about a time your instincts were wrong.
6.) Create a video where you share your opinion on when bloggers should stop blogging about their kids.

Yellow

The little old lady stepped out the front door of her brightly painted house (some might call it mustard; she just called it sunshine)and closed the door behind her.   On her porch, the afternoon sun is bright and it takes her back to her happy childhood days.  As a young girl, she loved to walk through fields of wildflowers to pick and arrange them into bouquets for her Mother…dandelions, brown-eyed susans, and yellow daisies were some of her favorites!  She would have picked sunflowers too if they grew wild around here.
Things in this cheerful little town have changed so much since then, she thought to herself.  There was a time when the round yellow warning sign and the striking sound of the train whistle meant great things for the town.  Corn was the key money producing crop and the trains helped carry it to other towns.  Town citizens fueled the local economy further through their grist mills and corn by-products. 
Thirty years ago, two unusually mild summers, followed by a drought the next, all but ruined the town.  Many families moved away, the farmers rotated to other crops or changed occupations all together.  
The old lady smiled as she remembered what her Mother always said: “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!”
Mother was always such a practical woman; nothing was ever wasted in her house, but always repurposed.  Butter wrappers were saved to grease cake pans or slide over the tops of freshly baked biscuits; milk cartons were turned into pots for her and her siblings to plant beans in; leftover potatoes or grits were made into potato or grit cakes the next day. 
A buzz nearby brought her back to the present. The old lady smiled as she watched and listened to a bumblebee zoom by the porch railing. When she lost sight of him, she figured he’d disappeared into the tulips she’d planted along the walkway.  Yellow and red were her favorites and, next to roses of the same colors, she thought tulips were the prettiest perennials. They just seemed so poised and cheerful!
A breeze blew across the porch drifting over the water of the pond down the hill.  She turned her attention that way just in time to see a Mother duck with several new chicksDowny, soft, and butter yellow they swam behind their mother in a misshapen formation.  They looked so sweet and gentle and, just as human babies have a captivating scent, she imagined these babies smelled like clean towels dried on the line on a sunny spring day.
As they swam out of sight, she heard a familiar rumble.  She watched as the school bus turned onto the lane and slowly made it’s way along.  Finally reaching her house, the bus cruised to a stop and the doors began to open.  Her favorite person in the world stepped down from the bus and began running in her direction.  As she walked down her porch steps to meet her granddaughter, she could almost envision a halo atop the child’s head! She was the sweetest, brightest, happiest child and her smile could light an entire room!
As they met in the middle with a sweet embrace, the little old lady said out loud, “I love you, Buttercup! How was your day?”

3 comments:

  1. very sweet....a smile on my face....thank you;)

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  2. How sweet! I really enjoyed reading your Yellow post.

    Thank you so much for visiting my "Birds and Bees" post.

    Have a great weekend!

    Your sis in Christ,
    Suz

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  3. I love all the optimism in here. Such a feel good read! I write over at Faithwriters, too. Have you ever checked that out?

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