I, Eye, Aye by Sharon Sherman  2015

What's in an eye? Aye, I'll tell you!

With a nip and a tuck, it can change your whole view.

Most people 'cept me generally have two.

It's been said they're the windows straight to the soul,

one ruse of many, so I am told.

I use mine to admire the natural beauty

of wind, sea, and sky. That is my duty!

Billy here cries when onions he chops.

Or when a fine plate he covets, he drops.

Grumpy here frowns, his eyes all ablaze

when Benji has stole his last donut glazed.

Benji lies down, his eyes looking up

to see if we've noticed his quiet hiccup.

Murphy's eyes crinkle with merry and mirth

to see his fair home, this side of Perth.

McDougal, he flops when he's down in his cups,

eyes all glazed over, cut off from his sups.

Mary stands hearty, she's one of the guys.

Her love for us surely comes straight from those eyes.

When all's said and done, the 'ayes' have it now.

If you look in each eye, they go down with a bow.

Poverty by Elsie Lois Kolbasa

"The state of being poor or without competent subsistence" is the general definition given by the dictionary. To someone who has lived in such a state, it is much more than second hand clothes and an empty stomach.

Migrant workers who go from farm to farm to gather the crops at harvest time, live under these substandard conditions. So does the share cropper in the Appalachian area who moves from farm to farm to till the soil for the land owners. Some land owners give two-thirds of a crop a share cropper raises on his land, and some give only half of the crop. If the land is in poor condition and does not yield a good crop, he could end up with less from the land owner who gives two-thirds of the crop.

There is also the house to consider, as the sharecropper has to live in whatever house the land owner has to offer. The house that has broken windows and loose floor boards and no doors between the rooms means a drafty, cold house in the winter. So the share cropper moves from farm to farm in search of more food from the crops and a better house for his family.

Moving year after year is wear and tear on the already meager furnishings. It constantly uproots the family and changes the children from school to school. Adjustments to the new teacher and classmates are made more difficult with the shabby clothes and bare feet, and the laughter and snickers of the other children.

There are the times of sickness when there is not any way to go for a doctor, or any money to pay him. So the family turns to home remedies such as castor oil, turpentine, catnip tea, kerosine oil, and sulfur and molasses. Sometimes, the remedy is worse than the sickness. For example, kerosine oil for the sore throat, which can make one so violently ill, the sore throat is forgotten.

There are the times when the home remedies fail to work and the doctor gets there too late. A beautiful little baby is claimed by death, and is laid out in a rough hand-made coffin of one-inch boards and two-by-fours covered in a remnant of satin. The helpless, empty feeling that washes over the body after such an ordeal is never forgotten.

Poverty is something more than an empty stomach to those who have to live in it.


Elsie Lois Kolbasa, or Lois Kolbasa, or Elsie Lois Rice is my mother.  She was born and raised in the Appalacian Mountains of North Carolina. She told stories of growing up there and in her later years, courtesy of a writing class at the local college, put some of those stories to paper. This is one of those stories. For her dad was a sharecropper and her youngest brother, William, died within days of his birth.

Twas the Day Before Christmas by Sharon Sherman

Twas the day before Christmas, the house was a mess.

My hair was all frizzy, this must be a test.


My husband's still sleeping, I just didn't care.

I tripped on a truck and flew up in the air.


On doll shoes, on marbles, on tea sets and crayons.

On blankies, on Legos, so much to lay on.


I dropped on them all like a mother of four.

I'll not have another, by God, this I swore.


I stomped to their bedroom by this time a fright,

swung open the door. What I saw wasn't right.


No clothes on the floor, no shoes in the bed.

No baseballs or footballs. Just neatness instead.


Away from the room, I flew down the hall,

threw open a door and gasped at it all!


Their t-shirts were folded and placed on a shelf.

Ribbons and bows they'd collected themselves.


One more I would try as I crept down the hall

and opened the door, making sense of it all.


One grinning husband, so handsome, so bright,

"We waited until you had gone nighty-night."


I brushed my sore elbow and smoothed out my jeans.

The spirit of Christmas was here, so it seemed.


Life is a gift that always surprises.

It twists and it turns. It brings many crises.


But when you're not looking too closely it brings

the love of a family. The sweetest of things.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Rarely has a book moved me so.  Rarer still, it is a non-fiction book. In Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin marvels as a storyteller, much like her hero, Abrahm Lincoln.

Knowing how this famous story ends, I still shed a few tears. Ms. Goodwin brings both Mr. Lincoln and his rivals out of the legend and into our lives. Each with their own tragedy and humor, ambition and loyalty. We sympathize with the setbacks, rejoice with the victories, and, yes, cry with them as they are torn apart by grief.

Mr. Lincoln's great feat was to assemble a cabinet that was politically balanced. He managed that balance through humor, wisdom, ambition, and sensitivity. Ms. Goodwin wove those traits into a compelling account of an awesome individual we were lucky to have for our sixteenth president of these United States.

No spoiler alerts here as this story is eye-opening even for those who studied the facts. Yes, I knew Lincoln was shot at Ford Theater while watching a play. I knew he was the president that presided over the civil war. I knew there was sincere tragedy in his life. But there is much I didn't know.

By gleaning perspectives from the diaries of Lincoln's family and friends, Ms. Goodwin, master storyteller, gives you a ringside seat in history as she tells the rest of the story.

My Pixie Girl by Sharon Sherman

I love my little pixie girl.

When I come home, her tail's a twirl.

Her little paws reach toward my chest.

Her legs, her nose, her ears attest

to love returned. I'm back home now,

I never left. I'll tell you how.

I send my love into her eyes.

She sends it back, there's no surprise.

From tail to tongue, by me she lies.

Comfort comes from those brown eyes.

It's What We Do by Sharon Sherman

A silver moon casts its frosty shadow on the chilly water.
The hoary frost blanketed the twigged countryside.
He frosted his acquaintances in both deed and word.
Frostily, he explained the punch line.

We join each one over nouns and verbs.

We help with adjectives, too. 

And if the verb needs our assistance,

we're there with voices true.



Though soft on placing commas there,

The m-dash makes us blush.

We're never sure, though check it twice,

Which one has our trust.



The action verb escapes our pen,

But not the wise, old owl's.

And if stray "that"s begin to show,

We'll strike them out with howls.



We don't forget the rule of three

or making subjects follow.

"Repeat me not!" we say again.

It makes the meaning hollow.



Add a space or make a typo,

Those we can amend.

And when the last of thought dost show,

We make our periods . . .

                                         end.

The Forgotten Presidents by Michael J Gerhardt - Review

Our formative years are spent absorbing everything we see and hear. Then, we spend the rest of our lives discovering the origins and reason for what we have seen and heard.

Michael J Gerhardt provides some of those origins in The Forgotten Presidents. He teaches us the great constitutional legacies of thirteen presidents whose imprints upon the American people was less than stellar. Historians brush these men aside as inept or inconsequential, yet each has made their impact on future generations of Americans in ways we see today.

While we remember the deeds of some presidents due to scandal, war, or notoriety, we remember little of those who served in times of peace and complacency.

Mt. Gerhardt describes the world of each of these thirteen leaders; we learn what each faced, what their values were, and what they believed constitutionally. Some, with the ideals of the brightest star and the purest heart, delved into a world they had no experience in, not knowing the rules of the game of politics. These became prime examples for new ideas and new disasters. Others came in with high expectations and few personal skills. Many came in on party lines, only to discover themselves when they reached their destination.

The 'aha!' moments are many as we finally understand a phrase or a policy indentured to our way of life. I might argue that a more intense knowledge of the constitution is necessary to understand much of the ideas demonstrated by Mr. Gerhardt, but in the end, we grasp his ideas through context and the subsequent political biases we have brought with us.

Mt. Gerhardt's book is an intense read, but well worth the effort.