Stories

Bull, Mr. Billy, Daddy, and Poppa Bear were all names for my father, William Homer Saunders.  The nickname Bull was given to him when he played football in high school and came from his tendency to put his head down and push ahead no matter...

My mother, God rest her soul, always had a closet full of shoes. From early childhood this was a source of fascination to me. There was every kind of shoe one can imagine: athletic shoes including walking shoes, running shoes, tennis shoes; sandals...

I loved to climb trees when I was growing up. It turns out that I still do, but my current tree-climbing is greatly limited by social expectations for people of my age (late 60s) and a body that is increasingly assertive about protecting its chronologically...

My first sight of a mountain in North Carolina around age 11 was a wondrous experience. I couldn’t believe how the land rose up and was framed by the sky. Our family made many more trips to the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina, Georgia, and North C...

Inspired by overhearing her granddaughter, Rebecca, telling her younger sister, Crystal, “You can’t put a frog in a book bag.”  You can’t put a frog in a book bag‘Cause in there he really can’t seeThe grass and the pond and the sunshineHe ...

For me summer begins when the hummingbirds arrive and ends when they leave. I remember seeing my first hummingbird feeding at a Mimosa tree blossom in the backyard when I was a child. I marveled then, as I do now, at what wondrous creatures they are,...

Saunders Family Recipe for Homemade Ice Cream Few memories are more delicious than those of home churned ice cream in the summertime. Here is the Saunders family recipe as recalled from my childhood. Ingredients 3 packages of vanilla...

It doesn’t take much imagination to know the outcome of my first and only fly-fishing outing in a boat: I hooked Daddy in the back. In the long view, no harm was done, and it is amusing now. But it was not funny on that hot summer afternoon with Daddy b...

The nearly flat soybean field surrounding our childhood home was bounded on its lower side by a drainage canal, fondly known as the “big ditch.” The clear, still water in the canal created the ideal habitat for toads at all stages of their life cycle. The...

During high school summers I began learning about characteristics of my preferred occupation by experiencing jobs lacking these features. It was like having to find the puzzle pieces before being able to put them together. At first, I thought being able...