i may or may not come back to this over and over and over til its a story. Notice, my dear, and especially eager blog readers (Noga, Lucy, etc.) that I make no promises! Hold me to nothing! Anyways, here's part one:


After three long months of hot sun, the earth was so dry that it had begun to crack this way and that in patterns similar to the lines on my Great Grandma Edith’s forehead. When the first rains finally came on that quiet October evening I swear the crisped ground was so thirsty that it swallowed up those droplets before they even had a chance to make a landing. It was still raining just as strong when the sun came up the next morning. I suppose the earth had drank all it could drink by that point because out by the telephone pole where we used to make like we were in the movies and build forts out of cardboard boxes, there was a great big puddle. I reckon it was so big I could have stripped down to my boxer shorts and gone for a swim right then if I had wanted to but I knew that would have upset my mother a whole lot so I just walked back inside.

I told everyone in the kitchen that the earth had clearly had enough to drink because now there was a great big puddle out there and pretty soon it would be a pond if it didn’t stop coming down. I also told them that I thought that maybe if it was still raining when I got home from school and Dad got home from work, we could go fishing because I have heard that the fish bite a lot after the first rain. I guess those are the kind of things that aren’t very interesting to people maybe. Dad said “Not now, Daniel” because he was reading the paper which he did every morning, and my mother told me that if I didn’t hurry and eat my cereal, she would leave for school without me which she said almost every morning. I always think it’s funny when she says that though, because after she takes me to school every day she just comes straight home, so why would she leave without me? That would not make very much sense because then I would still need a ride to school when she got back. And anyways, where would she go when she left without me?

Mama started spending all day at home when Mr. Shepardson closed down Shepardson Motor Sales and Service because he was getting too old and his son didn’t want to be the new boss. Instead he wanted to move down to the city because he got a job on Wall Street, which is a very bad place full of crooks trying to destroy the American Dream, according to Dad. Anyways, Mama used to like working for Mr. Shepardson because he always gave her little presents to bring home for me and my brother Nick and he paid her very well even though she only answered the telephone. Mama is hoping that there will be a new job she can find soon but Dad keeps talking about the economy being bad. I think he is worried about a lot of things right now, because he stopped reading the sports section in the morning, which used to be his favorite part of the paper. I hope Mom finds a job soon. I think that would make him a lot happier.

To be continueddddddddddddddddddddddd.