Monthly Archives: February 2017

Save a Tree

Who writes about a tree?  If my GoodSearch results were any indication [over 76 million items], quite a lot of people and one of them is my Dad.  In fact, he’s written a couple of stories about them but in this initial installment of “QuotaBills“, I’m only sharing from one.

In “A Tree for Tomorrow” dad tells a little of who he is and maybe, more than that, gives us a glimpse into this thing called humanity.  After recounting a visit to the home of his youth and finding it being razed, he longed to know that something other than memories of his birthplace would survive, but expected nothing would, not even the tree he and his father had planted.  Here’s the rest of the story

It was several months before a business trip afforded me a viable excuse to revisit my place of birth.  With each passing mile the need to prepare myself became more acute.  It is one thing to consider the inevitable, but being face to face and forced to accept it, can be difficult.  Then, with a final click of the turn indicators, a slight hiss from the brakes, I was there.

It may be for the eyes to collect images, the brain to decode them, and the mind to classify and store them; but it is the heart that interprets.  In what my eyes perceived, my heart found the true bittersweet: The most depressing low, the most exhilarating high.  Tears of joy mingled shamelessly with those of sadness, for there, surrounded by several hundred square feet of sterile concrete, standing in serene majesty was my sycamore tree.

There’s more to this story and other tales of trees in the future but for now, I’d like to hear from you.  Have you experienced one of these disheartening lows followed by a most exhilarating high?  What has being all too human looked like in your life?

Fictional Female Children

The main character in “Rowena” is introduced as a child, not yet five, being given away by her father to another family, shortly after her mother has died.  Children living without their natural parents is a common theme in literature and in this first “Counterparts in Literature” posts, I’m going to be testing your knowledge of fictional female children.

Match the story descriptions below with their respective novel and then head on over to the answer page and to see how you did.  Ready…Set…Play!

Want to read another article about Rowena?  Check out this ‘interview’ I did with her as an adult, about an embarrassing childhood moment.