memory – Page 16 – Lemon Drop Pie

Our small, rural town did not have a public library. However, our small Lutheran school did have a library, and when I was old enough to go to school, I was thrilled to find this treasure-fold of books.

While the boys in my class were off in the corner behind a book shelf giggling at National Geographic magazine photos, I was inspired by the biographies I discovered. I read about Nellie Bly and Annie Oakley. Annie Oakley inspired this tomboy because of the image of the Wild West that she brought to mind. Not only did her sharpshooting skills impress me, but the fact that fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler wanted to marry her because she was better than him at shooting was an amazing thought.

During her travels as a sharpshooter, Annie Oakley met Sitting Bull, who gave her the name Little Sure Shot. Although she was a part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, she never ventured west of the Mississippi. She continued to display her sharpshooting skills well into her 60’s.

What an inspiring woman Annie Oakley was for this schoolgirl!

Did you write about a woman who inspires you? Link up your post below!

Women’s History Month continues all week at Lemon Drop Pie; be sure to come back soon for more posts about inspiring women!

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We always thought our next door neighbor was a crotchety old man. He told us over and over again to get off of his tamarack tree. Its low slung branch was so tempting to swing up on.

“Get down from there! You’ll break the branches!” he would yell at us. We would jump down from that old tamarack tree and run to the alley. We’d start climbing the huge pine that grew there, much to dismay of Mom. We would come home with sticky sap stains on our skin and clothes.

With two babies and two big kids at home, Mom had plenty of laundry to keep on top of. Not to mention the ironing she needed to do as a pastor’s wife. She had to stay on top of those wrinkles in the shirts Dad wore with his suits, and she dreaded the days he brought home his robes to be washed and ironed. So when we came home with sap on our shirt elbows and grass stains on our pant knees, she would just look at us and sigh. And out we would run, back outdoors, to find more trees to climb.

Our neighbor must not have been as crotchety as we thought. We would run across his backyard playing tag, and run onto his large front porch during games of hide-and-seek.

When the training wheels came off our bike, our neighbor was the one who took my sister and me to the alley. He held the back of our bicycle seats and ran next to us until we mastered the art of balancing on two narrow wheels without falling.

No, he wasn’t as crotchety as we thought. But we still couldn’t get away with climbing that old tamarack tree.

Written in response to the following prompt for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop: A memorable neighbor.

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Tag: memory

Turning Back Time: Inspiring Women

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Our Neighbor

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