Omaha WordSowers Writing Fun

To hobnob with other authors brings enlightenment, encouragement and laughter. Last night Jon Miller (17) drove me to Garden Café at Rockbrook Plaza for food, fellowship and fine tuning our writer skills.
Eight out of nine attendees brought a short article about a driving experience. The idea about the exercise was to fool our fellow authors, don’t write in your “usual voice.” I purposely took time to look up current slang. I’m posting my delightful piece here for posterity sake, even if it didn’t fool even one of the other writers.

East Cupcake Driving

My Best Friend (BF) drove from my house to the tullies and then said, “It’s not that hard. The gear shift shows you the direction.” We changed seats. I felt nervous and excited.
“Put your left foot on the clutch and the right on the gas,” BF said. I had to look at my feet to figure out the difference between the two. I let out the clutch too quick, the vehicle bucked and died. I felt sweat bead on my forehead and apologized.
“Now don’t pull a quebby,” BF said.
I didn’t know what a quebby was anymore than I knew how to start a stick shift. I let out on the clutch once more, hit the gas. Zero to twenty-five in one lurch.
“Take a right at the light and drive to East Cupcake, its safer thata direction,” BF said. “Easy, easy. Don’t hit the lagger. Turn, turn, turn quick.” Before I turned BF grabbed the wheel. “Shift, shift. No, not that way.”
“Don’t be haggin’ me,” I yelled at BF, placing my sweaty palm on the gear shift. “I’m not a schmuck. I can see the car ahead is slower than molasses.”
BF’s nagging subsided until we hit the dirt road of East Cupcake. “Stop. Now hit reverse?” BF instructed.
“Reverse? I don’t know how….”
“Don’t be a Palooka, look at the gear shift.”
I managed to not only reverse the vehicle I parked, stopped, started, turned it off and managed to drive the freeway in fifth gear on the way home.
“That was truly san frantastic,” I said to BF when we arrived home. “You’re a great teacher—or maybe I’m a great student.”
I felt really really proud when BF said, “Off the hinges, my friend. Off the hinges.”

HE TOOK TIME TO COUNT FISH

One of the first stories taught to children is about the fishermen. Preschoolers love to catch fish. Give them a toy boat, a make-shift net, fish crackers and have someone read the story in John 21:5-14. Many teachers read, “throw your net,” and then encourage their students to catch and scarf down their gold fish crackers.

But read on. When Jesus said, “Bring some of the fish you just caught,” Simon Peter climbed aboard, dragged the net ashore. “It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.” (John 21:11 NIV).

Most fishermen are like Peter and John, they see the importance of the catch—they count, weigh and photograph for posterity sake.

Add trivia to your day. Also visit www.caringbridge.org/visit/kat2009 to stay up to date with Kat's journey