Category Archives: Family

Mt Hood Scenic RR

Posted on June 13, 2025 by sputterpub

I bid the kids to photo what they tookfrom chugging gently on this slope today.The five of us were seated for a lookat Hood and its environs. I’ll conveysome words, but they could try to make a bookof this experience. … Continue reading →

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Presbycusis

Posted on June 9, 2025 by sputterpub

Refusing hearing aids (we don’t know why),the conversation suffers even morethan when it simply angered me to cry(unfiltered and so harsh she was before).No matter how on telephone we tryto garner sense, it’s ever trending poor.In person even we can’t … Continue reading →

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Chew Chew

Posted on May 25, 2025 by sputterpub

A train of thought has left the roundhouse now –the pistons slowly push connecting rodsas someone reading journals ponders howmalfeasance rose so steadily, and nods,connecting episodes. Did school allow,by triggering contempt? What are the odds?The train accelerates with fuel to … Continue reading →

Posted in Cognition, Family, Poetry | Tagged | Leave a comment

Smarmy

Posted on May 23, 2025 by sputterpub

When both the kids were ordered to the shrinkbecause of misbehavior school-detected,the first psychologists they came to thinkmoronic and dishonest. We expectedmuch better then we found, and soon rejectedthe ones who self-described as “special friend,”the ever-sympathetic and affected.It’s rare to … Continue reading →

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Defiance

Posted on May 22, 2025 by sputterpub

Rereading what I wrote when he was bornand till he left our home, I see how sweethe was before preschool. They set to warnus then of angry fits, when he’d defeattheir socializing systems with his scorn,rejecting time-outs like an obsoleteresponse. … Continue reading →

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Presentation

Posted on May 19, 2025 by sputterpub

Cut flowers haven’t charmed me for a while;they seem an offering that’s bound to die.Perhaps it’s how she lifted them – that smileof affection, toddler-voicing “hi,”but I was glad to take them into mysmall place. I may be entering a … Continue reading →

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Eugenics

Posted on May 17, 2025 by sputterpub

She chose the father with some care, and yetit’s evident he came with temper flaws.For decades she has chosen to forgetsome coldness and obtuseness, giving pausein early scenes, but the genetic setwas never viewed as dominant, becauseshe favored nurture over … Continue reading →

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Memory Test

Posted on May 14, 2025 by sputterpub

We didn’t mean it as a recall test.I showed her mail postmarked in ‘69,the subject a close friend of hers, distressedby teenage kids. We watched her read each line,but grasp no recollection to assignthose characters. We shifted then to seekher … Continue reading →

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Strange Estrangement

Posted on April 4, 2025 by sputterpub

I’d rather you not tell your partner my negative news.But I don’t intend to request that you muzzle your speech.So I guess I’ll keep my own counsel, and play my own bluesso softly no murmurs your brotherly eardrums will reach.

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The Witness

Posted on April 1, 2025 by sputterpub

The birthday gifts two weeks ago, too muchto be acknowledged by a 4-year oldwho only longed to play with each, were suchan overload that no adult controlled,that this one was ignored – it felt no touch,got set aside. While shapes … Continue reading →

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