12 Write About a Memory about a Stranger You Met on a Trip

Shoes

You left the Ukraine in 1980

with nothing but the shoes

on your feet and a few rubles

and now you are

a millionaire again.

And when you returned

to see your family you found

they had named streets

after murderers and turned

the electricity on once a day

for 3 hours.

You live on a wealthy island now

but once you made 1000

pairs of shoes for the Soviet Economy

and 99,000 pair for your customers.

The lines stretched around the block

of your Kiev shop and when the last shoe

was sold your family had a pile of illegal cash,

So the party began.

And when I asked you

if today you invested

in the stock market

you looked at me quizzically

and said,

"What is stock market?

Stock is the shoes in my warehouse.'

And when you said that,

I thought about

how a happy life is

an investment of sorts,

and self knowledge

the main asset.

11 Write About a Time You Could Not Stop Laughing

7th Grade Truth

I never laughed harder

than I did in seventh grade

that time my best friend

Stuart Dunn and I

made fun of

our reading teacher

Mrs Dolson.

To this day,

I don't remember the joke

or why we laughed,

though it could have had

something to do with the corny stories

we read out of boring thick books,

or the reading machine

that made us track

sentences across the wall

without moving our lips

or turning our heads.

Laughter was release

from our 7th grade reading hell,

and our wild ,heaving, sobs

were the legs which fled

the dead questions

at the end of the chapter.

And decades later,

when I met Miss Dolson,

now a sweet old lady,

in the bank,

and told her I now was an English teacher,

she smiled blankly

and I felt a surprising shame creep

up my spine.

My life was a lie.

I should have been a comedian.

Write a Letter to a Family Cat

Bill Bob

It has come to our attention

you are a cat

who things he is a dog,

We know this

by the way you follow us

around,

butt us

with your big gray head,

paw at us

and beg

to sit in our lap,

even when we

are sitting on the toilet.

We love you very

much but are concerned

this behavior will

alienate you from

your cat friends.

Also please also note

you have grown 3 sizes

since the winter day

we found you starving

under the barn.Your

appetite is even larger

than your big round

20 pound belly.

With warm affection,

The Lap Folk

Barry Lane