L. E. Hughes
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: I Used To Think
When my daughter Holland was little she thought that two tiny men lived in the traffic lights. One man was in charge of the color green and one was in charge of the color red; they took turns changing the light. She thought that if one of the tiny men fell asleep the other man had to switch the light to yellow so he could take the time to run up or down the interior of the light (as the case may have been) to kick his sleeping colleague in order to wake him up. Kicking your co-worker if he falls asleep and slows down progress sounds reasonable to me.
Oct 10, 2006 - 11:18:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Falling Behind the Garden
I’m so busy these days with the fruits and vegetables that I don’t have time to feed my family. The garden, like life in these parts, has gone wild. The kitchen is jam-packed with black and blue berries, zucchini, squash, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, beets and the like so that there’s no room to sit down to eat anyway. I spend all my time chopping, shredding, canning, preserving, freezing and complaining to the family that they need to get out of my kitchen and my way. I pick and process only the vegetation I recognize, however. There is this greenish-yellowish-pinkish round thing growing out of an unmarked plot—which makes me think of an “unmarked grave” and that makes me nervous—so I leave it alone and hope it does the same for me.
Sep 26, 2006 - 4:12:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Carrots Sticks and Space Food
We lived on two things: the road and carrot sticks. The road because my father was in the military and we moved on average every two years; carrot sticks because carrots don’t make crumbs. Six kids traveling across the country with their parents in a Volkswagen van could not eat anything that made crumbs. Crumbs in your seat as well as in your britches made for itchy kids, and an itchy kid moves. A moving kid, even one moving across something as big as the continental U.S. in something as big as a 1971 Volkswagen van, is a bad thing, made worse when traveling in close proximity to siblings who were also moving.
Sep 14, 2006 - 11:07:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: A Story
“Grandmother!” Aiden’s muffled voice came to me from the back seat of my car. I looked at my grandson through my rear view mirror. He had his hand clasped tightly over his mouth.
Sep 4, 2006 - 7:30:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: In My Kitchen, Out of the Country
Even though I've been in my kitchen most of the week, just a few feet away from where I now sit writing this, I feel as if I've been out of the country.
Aug 2, 2006 - 1:00:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Me, Old
There is a collection of kindred middle-aged souls who have spent their lives setting an example of how a proper woman should conduct herself. Having outlived the responsibilities of wife, homemaker, career woman and cradle rocker of the world, they are now in need of leaning a little left of propriety. They call themselves The Red Hat Society and they celebrate fun, friendship and the coming of age for fifty-year-old and older woman. They base their name on Jenny Joseph’s poem Warning that states, "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple clothes with a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me." The Society, donning red hats and boas, travels in a boisterous entourage engaging in rebellious behavior such as telling jokes, playing kazoos, laughing and having a well-deserved blast.
Jul 27, 2006 - 11:21:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Belles Lettres
Someone in my neighborhood is cleaning house. They put a pink over-stuffed chair on the side of the road with a sign on it that reads “Free”. I almost stopped, but as much as I like pink things, especially free pink things, I simply don’t need another chair, pink or otherwise. Alongside the hand-painted word “Free” on the sign in the chair was an additional plea to “Please take”.
Jul 8, 2006 - 1:47:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Wander Lust
I went to all those places this morning, not by road, but by my Microsoft Streets and Trips software. My tour of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, the south and the Wild West put a wild idea in my head: I’m going to sell this big old house and buy a little camper.
Jun 27, 2006 - 5:37:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Scissor Skills
My daughter Holland has never been much of a student; she can’t help it, it’s her legacy, which means I’ve been called into the office for her nearly as much as I sat there myself back when it was me that wasn’t much.
Jun 7, 2006 - 9:54:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away with Words: Spoiled Yogurt
What do you do when you have only half of what you want? Obviously, you go get the other half, if that half means the difference between life and death or success or failure. Or if the missing half is a shoe and you have to go for a walk, or a mitten and it is cold outside, or you have your book, but not your glasses—you go get the absent half.
May 26, 2006 - 3:14:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Nutty Mothers
My mother is nutty. I guess all mothers have some degree of nuttism—a direct consequence, not necessarily of bearing children, but certainly of raising them. Mothers get weird as they get older; they go from rocking the cradles of the world to being completely off their rockers and my mother takes the nut cake.
May 9, 2006 - 7:30:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Cooking Chicken
Last night I was thumbing though one of my magazines when I came across a recipe for Potato Chip Chicken. That recipe reminded me of the Kellogg's Corn Flakes chicken my mother used to make for us six kids. She hated to cook, and often didn't, which is why at the age of twelve I had to learn to make Salmon Pea Wiggle for eight. Which is why to this day, even though I eat salmon, I never eat anything that wiggles.
Apr 26, 2006 - 6:33:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Dusky Mothers
The entire book, the stories of those first female settlers of our state, is fascinating, but the tale I like best describes Maine’s ‘Dusky Mothers’, the Native woman of Maine named so for the darkness of their skin.
Mar 27, 2006 - 4:45:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Just When My Day Was Going Along Nicely
I’m anti-American. I must be; I put the Statue of Liberty and American flag postage stamp on a bill up side down!
Mar 7, 2006 - 1:25:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away with Words: A Morning Thought
I was thinking this morning that I should write something – anything - even one small thought, because I haven't written much lately and the little guilt demon that sits behind my ear whispers into it, "You're forgetting how to write".
Feb 23, 2006 - 1:13:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Freaks
This is our habit when I visit, just to spend time together under the guise of house hunting and being nosy about neighbors in other neighborhoods.
Feb 6, 2006 - 6:14:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit.”
Forrest doesn’t know why that was the first thing his mother said to him on the first day of each month, other than saying it meant good luck.
Feb 2, 2006 - 12:30:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Living in Jammies
I have been invited to Israel, Germany, Rome, Italy and now, this morning via an E-mail, to California. These invitations are from friends who, having felt a hearty welcome here at my home, find it in their hearts to reciprocate.
Jan 19, 2006 - 10:52:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Traffic Noise
At 3:00 O'clock this morning the noise from the pre-dawn traffic was deafening, but not deafening enough to keep me in slumber.
Dec 30, 2005 - 11:47:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Welcome Winter
I have a friend who lives in the south. She wrote to me this morning boasting that the back of her legs were warmed by the sun as she strolled through her neighborhood.
Dec 21, 2005 - 8:08:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Extra Stuff
Forrest thinks my Christmas tree is phu-phooey. I say "my" tree because we each have our own. His is decorated with shotgun shell lights and fishing pole and Moose or Deer ornaments, while mine is a Victorian style tree done in mauve and cream.
Dec 8, 2005 - 12:37:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Having Guts
One morning last week my seventeen-year-old daughter, Holland sat on my bed chatting with me as I dressed for the day.
Dec 1, 2005 - 10:00:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Happy Thanksgiving
My mother turned seventy-three-years-old yesterday. I called her to wish her a happy birthday just after I had called Holland on her cell phone to remind her to call Mammy and do the same. The thing is Holland beat me to it. She called Mama before I had the chance and when Mama asked her, “Did your mother tell you to call?” Holland, who later claimed she didn’t want Mammy to know she had forgotten her birthday said, “Oh, no- I reminded Mom, not the other way around!”
Nov 23, 2005 - 1:25:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: A Wedding Story
I've just been to a wedding.
Nov 22, 2005 - 9:03:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away with Words: Carmel Coveyduck
Carmel Coveyduck of St. John’s Newfoundland has a picture of herself and her newly won Hummer plastered all over the walls of the Irving Stations in Maine.
Nov 15, 2005 - 11:15:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Ghost Story
There is such a thing as a ghost and true to typical ghostly behavior, you never know when one will appear. Their manifestation will not be frequent enough that it is something you constantly think about, and you won’t find yourself looking for them around each corner. It does happen though: ghosts turn up when and where you least expect them.
Oct 28, 2005 - 12:06:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Peace
I love these cold, quiet fall mornings when I get to stay at home. The moonlight without is brighter than the lamplight within and my wool socks and well-worn sweater keep me as toasty on the outside as my life here in the mountains warms me from within. I wish the day's beginning would last until noon.
Oct 20, 2005 - 10:59:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away with Words: Diversity
Marguerite is an executive for a think tank in Washington, DC. The goal of this pool of intelligence is to solve the problems of the world.
Oct 11, 2005 - 8:40:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: When Mama Works
I have just finished two and one half weeks of working as a nurse - ten hours days - two hours travel time. My schedule: get up, go to work, come home, go to bed.
Sep 29, 2005 - 3:40:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
My Old Rocking Chair
Azra and her new husband Dragan, and her brother Irfan (pronounced ear-i-fawn) were all recent guests here; stunning Bosnians with beautiful names. (Dragan is absolutely as hot as his name implies!)
Sep 16, 2005 - 11:14:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away with Words: Idiosyncrasies
Forrest won't use the garbage disposal. He says it's bad for the septic system and he cringes every time I shove foodstuff in it and flip the switch. I do not understand his logic because he shoves pieces of soap down the shower drain.
Sep 1, 2005 - 10:23:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Cogito, ergo sum thing
The greatest pleasure in life is taking time to think about stuff. Okay, the greatest pleasures are eating ice cream on a hot day or napping on a cold rainy one, but I think thinking ranks right up there.
Aug 3, 2005 - 8:44:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: A Little Batty
I've been seeing a lot of Mother Nature's babies this year.
Jul 21, 2005 - 6:06:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Ladybug Party
When the weather turns warm, the ladybugs turn out. I was cleaning one such day and had collected quite a few. I placed them in a group on the floor, with the intention of opening the window and setting them free, but before doing so I called to my seven-year-old grandson, Aiden.
Jul 13, 2005 - 11:07:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Minnows and Sieves
As I watched the daughter of a friend scoop minnows from the waters of Flagstaff Lake, it brought back memories of me doing the same along the shores of Moosehead Lake, a long, long time ago.
Jul 6, 2005 - 9:12:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Nice
We were warned. Can't say we weren't.
Jun 27, 2005 - 2:46:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Party Lines
Lonnie is the life of the party. She’s lighthearted, fun loving and in good spirits (especially when she indulges in the same), usually on Friday night, usually at Trails End Sports Bar up in Eustis.
Jun 23, 2005 - 10:22:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Benjamin T. Bunny: A True Story as Told by Andrea
Six year-old Andrea named her new pet bunny Benjamin T. Bunny. The “T” didn’t stand for anything; it was just Benjamin T., because six-year-olds do that sort of thing.
Jun 15, 2005 - 1:11:00 PM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Monster Ceiling Fan
I was in Home Depot shopping for a bedroom light. I happened to notice an older couple just down the aisle, looking up at the selection of ceiling fans.
Jun 10, 2005 - 10:10:00 AM
L. E. Hughes
Away With Words: Pictures
It’s a strange sensation, being on Native American land, especially when I remember that once past the access gate, I am in another nation - a sovereign nation.
Jun 2, 2005 - 7:51:00 AM
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