A Good Day For A Hanging

    As summer waned, and the WNAX weatherman Whitey Larson

forecast a respite from the energy-sapping heat and humidity,

Ma tackled wallpapering.

    In anticipation of the day, she had wallpaper on hand,

having chosen it after poring over sample books at Walton's

Furniture store. The first step involved us kids, enlisted to

remove the old paper. We'd start at the top, where winter's

dry heat had loosened the paper, and slowly pull, trying to

take a strip all the way to the floorboard without a tear. In

the dining room, the walls had wainscoting half way up, so

the vertical strips were shorter than usual. Ma worked at

the stuck paper, wetting the dried paste and scraping with a

putty knife.

    The next morning at the crack of dawn, it seemed, we awoke

to the sound of voices downstairs. Ma had assembled her crew:

her sister Goldie and my sister Lorey. They marched into action,

moving furniture, setting up stepladders, chairs, and sawhorses

with planks laid across them.

    Madonna Dries Christensen has won awards and accolades for

her writing. Her first published fiction garnered a nomination

for the Pushcart Prize. As a novice, she didn't know what that

was and had to look it up. Two other nominations followed, one

for fiction, one for nonfiction.