The book containing my short story is now available on Amazon.com

My first publication, but hopefully not the last!  This is a very fun book of horror with Utah locations.

My friend from New Zealand sent me this.

https://lithub.com/why-salt-lake-city-is-a-great-place-for-a-writer-to-live/

The Chase

 By Brenda Bowen Wright

March 2019

I sit down on the slippery restaurant chair and nearly miss the seat entirely. In the process of gaining control of where I was placing my behind, I upset the elegantly folded napkin, knocking it to the floor. Hoping no one saw this minor faux pas, I glance ever so casually to my left to see who might have been a witness. 

All seems reasonable to the left, now act casual by putting your elbow on the table and resting two fingers lightly on your chin. Now gaze demurely straight ahead. Great, no one is looking at me from in front. I shall tip my head as if stretching my neck and then I can gracefully gaze to my right.

What? Damn him. I put my head down and fiddle with my skirt. There's a man sitting alone at a table. His legs are cocked out in front of him and his arms are folded across his chest. Was that a silly grin on his face? Pretend you didn’t see him the first time and casually look in that direction again. Damn, he is still looking straight at me.

I will stare him down. I tip my head, turn and make my best what-the-hell-is-up-with-you look. He promptly chuckles and pulls his feet in towards his body. Then he leans forward onto the table with one elbow and rests his chin in the palm of his hand. Still staring, he raises one eyebrow? Why that saucy, smug, jerk. This one needs to be ignored.

I pick up my purse and rummage through it as if the answers to all my problems are right there, right in my purse. Think calmly, breathe deeply. What can I be looking for? If all else fails, always go for the lipstick. I open the tube and lightly dot my lips and carefully place all my possessions back in my purse. Yes, an old deposit slip. Where is my pen? That will make me look occupied. I put the paper on the table turning my back to him as much as possible and pretend to be very busy writing. 

After a few moments, I figure I better see what the man is up to. He does have on a gorgeous suit.

I look over his way once more. When our eyes meet, he lifts his wine glass and waves me over. I scrunch my eyebrows giving him my what-kind-of-a-girl-do-you-think-I-am look.

He laughs again and points to himself and then to the empty chair next to me. Then he does a sweet baby face and puts his hands together real prayerful like. My hell, is that a beg?

I shake my head quickly. Of course no. I’m not expecting anyone, but I will not give him the pleasure of succumbing to him. 

The waiter comes, and I do all my ordering taking extra precaution to act like I am an extremely confident woman and can handle everything. Nothing bothers me, I am in control. I resettle my napkin on my lap and think about another peek to see what staring man is up to. I turn my head, and no one is there. Seriously, he left? Ah well, so much the better, now I can eat in peace rather than play stupid games. 

I pick up my glass goblet for a refreshing game-over sip. 

“I’m right here, ma’am.” 

I flinch and let loose a scream launching the goblet. The glass shatters at staring man's feet. I open my eyes to see water and glass shards spray up the leg of his suit pants and drench one of his shoes.

 “Looks like you’ve marked your territory, ma’am.”

Water and my Thoughts-

By Brenda Bowen Wright

Anyone who knows me knows I do not like water. I prefer showers to a bathtub. I don't appreciate swimming pools. I will happily go to the beach and occasionally even don a swimsuit, but rarely will you see me in the water. My dislike or distrust of water comes from three incidents at various times in my life.

In Kearns, the first city I remember living in, I was the water sprinkler and cheap-round-plastic swimming pool queen. I loved to sprint through the sprinkler water, then lay out on the hot cement of our driveway or sidewalk to warm up and dry off. The whole routine would then be repeated over and over all afternoon. Like many children of the 1950s in Salt Lake, we couldn't play outside in the water until the snow was off the mountains. My older brother and I would beg Mom to please let us run through the hose. She would say nothing as she walked outside to look at the mountains. Yes, she'd look at the tallest peak, even though we tried to convince her that wasn't fair. My brother and I were expert snow-on-the-mountain watchers. I have often wondered if the height of our local mountains affected the start of water play day? Do kids in Nebraska get to start earlier in the summer? Or maybe they never get to play in the water because there are no mountains. 

One of the very first swimming pools I swam in was with my mother's sister, Aunt Lois and her family. I do believe it was the Crystal Hot Springs Swimming pool in Honeyville, Utah. This pool was very near my grandmother's home in the nearby northern Utah metropolis of Deweyville.
I was always and still am the shortest cousin, but I felt the need to try the deep end where my mother and Aunt Lois were hanging out. Thing is, I never learned how to swim until I was much, much older. My mother was a member of a synchronized swim team so you would think she would have taken the time to teach me to swim or at least to float or something. 

I remember venturing out to the deep end of this pool and I, of course, could not touch the bottom. I strained my toes trying to bounce off the concrete floor, back up to the surface and survival. Eventually, I was overtaken with water and sucked some into my lungs. I struggled so hard to breathe, struggled to see someone who would notice me and would help me. No one noticed. Everyone was busy talking and playing, but I was choking and bouncing as hard as I could off the pool bottom to reach some air and then back down I would sink. My head was just barely under the water before I reached the bottom, but definitely over my nose. Each trip to the cement I would slowly try to toe-walk back towards the shallows again. 

I finally made it back to where I could touch bottom with my toes and reach my nose into the air. I was choking and coughing almost to the throw-up stage. I was scared absolutely to death. The worst part was no one noticed, no one. The pool was busy, and I must have just looked like I was having fun bouncing. I was so humiliated at not being able to swim like everyone else. I crept to the shallow end and stayed there all by myself. That feeling of not getting any air, with water being sucked in with each breath, never left me. I distrusted swimming pools from that day forward.

I hung to the sides of any swimming pool I dipped into after that. I did teach myself to doggy-paddle but that was born of pure desperation, and it became embarrassing to perform when all I saw was the beautiful swim strokes of my friends. 

In high school, I would go swimming with girlfriends, and it was at that period in my life I encountered the first abuse concerning my body. My mother would make constant comments about me being over-weight, and I began to be extremely self-conscious. I purchased a swimsuit that I thought covered my large body as best as I could and it became a complete joke. It was thick cotton and looked like a sun suit with a waist and shorts for the bottoms. It even had a zipper up the back. No stomach showed on me during this era of the daring bikinis. I didn't have a decent one-piece swimsuit let alone a trendy two-piece let alone the anti-establishment string bikini that all the popular girls wore so beautifully. I saw people staring at me, and felt people pointing. I was humiliated. I never really swam again, mostly because we moved to central Utah after my junior year in high school and I had no friends. Besides, there was only a cold outdoor swimming pool in Richfield. Swimming is just too cold for me. I dislike being cold and don't get me started with the hair problem. I have a lot of hair, everywhere, and that is reason enough to hate water. 

Finally good news for a little break here. When I attended Utah State University, in my senior year, I needed one more physical education credit, so I signed up for swimming lessons. I learned to swim, barely. I learned enough to not be likely to drown, but I'm a terrible swimmer. Swimming just does not come naturally to me.

Lucky me, I married a former lifeguard who is an excellent swimmer, and he loves the water. We had a period of boat ownership, and I hated it. I hated being out on the water and not knowing what was under me. I have paddled in all the bigger lakes of Utah and did not particularly enjoy a single swim in any of them. I always want to get out of the water and back to the heat of the sun. 

So number one tragedy was nearly drowning at Crystal Hot Springs as a young girl. Second tragedy was being embarrassed in a swimsuit in high school. Now, the third event.

I am a very level-headed person, I don't get upset, actually staying pretty darn calm in stressful situations.  I had one and only one panic attack, and yes, it occurred in water.

While working for Eastern Airlines, my husband, step-son and I traveled to Saint Thomas in the Caribbean. Of course, my step-son is half fish like his father, and they both wanted to snorkel. I went out to the bay with them. My first attempt at snorkeling was while I was treading in the deep water of that bay. I put my head down into the water and saw everything down there. It must have been absolutely gorgeous with all the huge fish and all the sea plants reaching out trying to grab my legs, but I did not see the beauty. All I saw was that one colossal fish looking straight at me with its enormous mouth chomping open and closed. The giant sea plants were undulating close to my legs. I knew I would be tangled in the stinging, poisonous plants and pulled under and drown. I could not see the bottom where my dead body would be left to rot.

I came unglued. I  screamed and thrashed and lost all reason and all sense of decorum. I was drowning and being eaten all at once. This was a full-blown panic attack. Remember, my husband had been a lifeguard, thank goodness. He tried to calm me, but there was no calming me. I was grabbing on to him for dear life and could have drowned us both. His quick reflexes took over, and he flipped me on my back, put his arm around my neck and paddled me back to shore like a true Bay Watch hunk. Since that day, my hubby has never questioned my extreme reluctance to get into the water. I don't swim at all, at any time. Period. Hubby doesn’t push me to do it either, in fact he never even suggests I try to get in the water.

But, I am happy to report that I got over the swimsuit phobia. In my early marriage years, I did look fantastic, I am told, in my black string bikini, but it never got wet. I stay on the deck of all boats and all swimming pools, dry and warm to this very day. And there I shall stay.

What Treasure do I Possess?

By Brenda Bowen Wright, Jan 2019

            A wash bowl and a pitcher, pure white and very big are what I treasure most. At least I thought it was big when I first spied the set as a small child. The combination basin and pitcher sat on a dresser of the small bedroom at the end of a scary long hallway at my father’s family home.

            My father’s parents had a basement home until they could build another floor above ground on top of the basement house. It was a scary, dark basement with rough white-washed plaster walls. The small room housed all three of my aunts through most of their growing up. But, when I began spying into the hidden room, it had become a guest bedroom. 

            Through all my childhood years the wash basin and pitcher sat on the dresser like a glorious pure beacon. I was transfixed by its simple beauty and of course, its huge size. It was much larger than any milk or Kool-Aid pitcher I had ever seen.

            Over the years, it became a secret obsession to sneak into the forbidden basement and glance at the set. I played Mission Impossible and hoped to look at it every time I visited my grandparents. The basin and pitcher were always there. Also, I gave myself the task to spot all the wash sets in western shows or movies of the olden days that I would watch. I needed to compare Hollywood bowl and pitchers to the one in the scary bedroom. I never spotted another one of pure white like my grandma and grandpa’s. 

            When I was college age and older, there really was no time or opportunity to spy on things in grandpa’s basement. But the pure white set were enough on my mind that I described them to my husband. I must have brought them up many times because eventually my husband bought me a replica. He presented me with a basin and pitcher, very much like the ones I described to him but they were only half the size of the ones I craved. I loved the set he gave me and they are still on display in my own home.

            When my grandmother and then lastly my grandfather died, I found myself wondering what ever became of the gorgeous giant basin and pitcher. I asked every cousin from that side of the family, whenever we got together, but no one knew anything about what happened to them.

            My own mother was the first to pass away, my dad followed her three years later. It was now time to go through their house and claim or throw-away all the items my parents left behind.

            I had no children so taking mementoes of my parents’ life to pass on to posterity was not a reality for me. I took very little of what was left in the house—maybe a few books and pieces of jewelry I had given my mother. 

            My youngest sister had inherited the house so when everyone figured they had seen or taken all that they wanted, the job was declared finished and everyone began to leave. My older brother had traveled the farthest to accomplish this house cleaning and he seemed reluctant to leave the memories. He finally pulled me aside and said before you leave, please come back tomorrow morning with me to the house for one last look. So I did. We met early in the morning and Rex wanted to look in one last cupboard that appeared to only have old blankets in it.     As we pulled out the blankets to see if there was anything worth salvaging, I felt something hard inside the roll. I opened the blankets up and nearly fell down upon the shock of seeing my childhood dream. There before me were the pure white basin and pitcher set. They had magically reappeared after all these twenty-five years of figuring they had been destroyed.

I had no idea, nor did anyone else in the family, that my father had taken them after attending the death of his father. 

            On the bottom of the wash basin was written, “Ross’ – once his grandmother Bowen’s.”

That would be Edith Ellen Simmons Bowen, the third wife of Joseph Leonard Bowen. Joseph had buried his first and second wife, with only one surviving son. He then married Edith Ellen who was only nineteen years old at the time. Joseph Leonard was forty-two years old. 

            Edith Ellen had been born in Sussex, England, coming to America to join the Mormons in Utah in 1869 when she was only eight-years old. But I doubt it being purchased on their way out west.

            The bowl is marked, W.S. George on the bottom. This company was purchased by William Shaw George from the East Palestine Pottery Company and the Sebring Brothers in 1904. In 1910 the company opened a manufacturing facility in Canonsburg, PA. In 1955, the company went bankrupt. Edith Ellen Bowen died in 1929 after giving birth to nine children, the youngest of which was my grandfather, Clark Simmons Bowen. 

            The bowl and pitcher must have been mail ordered out to the west sometime between 1904 and 1910. I can’t imagine it was a wedding gift as they were married in 1880. My great grandfather, Joseph Leonard died in 1910 at age 60 so I am assuming that it was purchased sometime between 1904, the companies beginnings, and 1910, Joseph Leonard’s death. I doubt the widowed mother of nine children could have afforded to purchase it after her husband’s death. 

            My brother could see my joy at discovering the basin and pitcher, probably because I was screaming and crying. I explained how I was always sneaking to get a peek at it. He reminded me we weren’t allowed in the basement. 

“I had to be very sneaky, probably why grandma didn’t seem to like me, right?” I said. 

“Well I wasn’t supposed to climb down into the creek either, but I always did.” He replied. Rex then told me to just take them, he certainly did not want them and probably no one else even knew or cared about the set. 

So dang it—I took them without approval of any other sibling. I had not taken anything else of any sentimental or dollar value in my parents home so I figure we were all even. 

            The wash basin and pitcher, along with a pure white ceramic chamber pot my husband was given by his grandmother, are among the most treasured of all my possessions. I’m not really sure why they mean so much to me, probably their age, their simplicity or just the connection to a childhood obsession. But the fact that my wonderful father must have also connected in some way to the pure white wash set is actually enough to make them a treasure to me.

My Favorite Food and Why 

By Brenda Bowen Wright, Jan 2019

“What kind of pie did you just say was your favorite?” said my new husband.

I know it is a strange word. The spelling looks strange, saying it feels strange and the pie itself appears strange, but it is by far my favorite—my mother’s rhubarb custard pie. 

            “I’ve never had rhubarb pie. Is it seriously a pie?” hubby asked me.

            “You don’t know rhubarb? Have you never seen a rhubarb plant?”

            “No.”

            “Well, my dear, you are in for a treat.”

            This would have been the first Thanksgiving my new husband spent with my family. I couldn’t wait to introduce him to my family’s traditions. As soon as we got to my parent’s home, standing in the front room before all the welcoming was finished, I asked my mother, “Mom, you have rhubarb pie? right?”

            “Of course,” Mom said, “I made three big ones this year plus three pumpkin, a butterscotch for Wayne and a cherry cream I’ve been wanting to try.”

            “Hubby has never tasted rhubarb pie!” I blurted out.

            I have two brothers and two sisters so with all the spouses and maybe two grandchildren there were only fourteen people for Thanksgiving dinner. No one reacted to the fact my Mom had baked eight pies, that was common. But when they heard that hubby had never eaten rhubarb pie, the room exploded.

            “What?” And then a lot of “Wait until you taste it!” Until hubby was pretty excited to experience this new thing.

            Dinner itself was entertaining. No one had ever seen anyone put away such a large amount of food as my husband. He is hyperactive and burns through a massive amount of food. Everyone kept saying; “Save room for pie, don’t forget the rhubarb pie.”

            He wasn’t worried and neither was I.

The moment came and Mom personally served hubby his slice before anyone else. We all stopped to watch the reaction of his first bite. Thick sweet custard heavily spotted with disturbing hunks of red and green plant material—the pie unfortunately resembles a celery chunk quiche.

            I could see the twisting facial expressions as hubby cut the first bite and held the spoonful up to take a closer look.

            “Is this real? Are you guys pulling a joke on the new one?” he said.

Then a chorus of; “No it’s serious, it’s good, my favorite.” I finally had to take a bite of his pie before he did, to prove it really was edible. Even the sugar chunks on the top of the crust were mouth-watering spectacular. Mom had out-done herself.

            With his brow deeply furrowed, hubby put the morsel in his mouth and began to chew. On his face appeared the reaction of someone’s first experience with the incredible tartness of the rhubarb. Intense sour surrounded by sweet creamy custard, and the slight crunch of flaky crust, these flavors can’t be properly appreciated until chewed and mixed together well. Then when the mixtures seeps into the taste buds, the utter bliss of the pie explodes in your brain. He kept chewing, but by his face I knew it wasn’t going too well.

            “It’s ok,” he said after swallowing, “but not my favorite. Thanks anyway.”

            Everyone was a bit disappointed and we got back to our own devouring of favorite pie. Hubby, being the gentleman, and being a man who literally can and does eat anything—he slowly finished the whole slice, even after his two or three fillings of turkey and side dishes. 

            But as rhubarb does to those who aren’t seasoned regular eaters of it, the pie began to work on his innards. In the middle of the night, he had to get up and run to the bathroom probably a dozen times due to sudden mass evacuations of his bowels. I had forgotten to warn him of that little side effect.

            After a very cleansing evening, Hubby sworn to never eat THAT pie again. But, amazingly he did have more through our stay that Thanksgiving weekend and every Thanksgiving thereafter. In fact he began to ask my mom for it specifically whenever we were going to their home. And truly, for the rest of my mother’s life, she made a “This is just for Terry” pie every single time we visited. 

Within a few years, Terry found the absolute most flavorful plant to transplant into our yard, and I actually learned how to make rhubarb pie myself. I never did make the pie to perfection like my mother’s, but I made it quite regularly. Both the cuttings from the plant and the pie recipe quickly spread among all hubby’s family and friends. Of all the things we had to leave when we moved to a condo, the hardest next to my father’s roses, were those wonderful, tasty rhubarb plants and the thoughts of no more rhubarb pie. (Unless a niece or nephew reads this and feels pity on my soul and learns to make it. Hint, hint)

BEST JOB I EVER HAD

By Brenda Bowen Wright

            Well, let’s see. Which one would you guess I consider the best? I’ve had a lot of jobs, in fact I have worked non-stop for the last forty-nine years. 

I’ve been a nanny, worked in food preparation, and I was a hotel maid. I have been a forest firefighter, a sales clerk, a typist and key-tape operator and eventually became the supervisor in data entry. I’ve been a house painter and was an undercover narcotics agent for five years. The door-to door sales for windows and scientific furniture were my two absolute most hateful jobs. I cannot do cold-call selling. Period. I was a reservationist and trainer for the old Eastern Airlines, but they went bankrupt and laid me off so I sort of have to hate them. If we go by length of time at a position, then that would be a junior high school science teacher. I even had my own business making and selling recycled jewelry at fairs and festivals as a fun summer hobby-job..

            Just forget all those jobs. They were simply work--a way to earn money. None of those jobs were my best or most favorite. They, despite their differences, were either too stressful, too demoralizing, too all-consuming in their demands on my time, too dangerous, or the pay too ridiculous for someone to actually live on. 

I have always had the desire to support myself and being without children, why shouldn’t I work? I actually love many aspects of having a career. I wouldn’t not work. The growth that came from doing things extremely difficult and totally out of my comfort zone is invaluable. But, I have never found a job where I could say, “I can’t wait to get to work!” I have envied people who would say that, my husband being one of them.

So after thoughtful consideration, I have decided that my best job is always the one I am currently doing. Right now that means, hands down, the two jobs I currently have are the best.

At one job, I only work seven hours a week. I check-in and greet people at a WW studio, formerly known as Weight Watchers. 

            I do enjoy working for WW because I find great pleasure in greeting and hanging with people who I can help and who inspire me. And, I get to wear marvelous shoes. I have never had a job where I could wear gorgeous high heels. You girls know that after only a few hours your feet are dying. I work only two hours a shift then I go home and take the heels off. Plus, I can pair those great shoes with beautiful clothes because I also, for the first time, don’t have to worry about destroying clothing with the work I do. This job honestly feels like playing dress-up for a few hours, three times a week with my good friends. But even WW is not my number one best job ever because some days I really would rather do what I want instead of what I am obligated to do.

The best job for me, I am slowing realizing, is what I do in between the seven hours a week I spend in beautiful clothing. My favorite job is being a writer. 

At this point in my life, I finally have plenty of time to really write instead of scratching out something quickly in a few precious minutes snatched here and there. I have the pleasure of enough time to fully immerse myself deeply into a writers bubble with no interruptions.

It has only been for the last few months, but I now answer the what-do-you-do question with, “Oh, me? I’m a writer.” Last November I finished the first draft and am in the process of editing my young adult science fiction novel. Last December I sold a short story to a publisher for a horror anthology. 

Writing is still hard work and I am definitely out of my comfort zone. I wish sometimes, that I could allow myself to just read and lounge around all day, but I am loving the challenge. 

Best proof that writing is becoming my favorite job ever is that several times I have actually declined to go and do something fun because I would rather be at my desk writing. 

Best Christmas Ever

By Brenda Bowen Wright

            My best Christmas had to be the Christmas of 1978. I started working as an undercover narcotics agent, fresh out of the academy just three months earlier. One of the guys I worked with had asked me if I’d like to work after hours with him doing house-painting. Cops don’t make much money so everyone had second jobs. Besides, our shift was 6:00pm to 2:00 am. Why not work in the morning hours before you go hang out in bars all night? From painting together, Terry and I became best friends. We often discussed dialogs we would use in trying to get complete strangers to sell us illegal drugs. We called these our “Mutt and Jeff” routines, in reference to the famous comic strip of our parent’s era.

            By the end of the year, both of us have about a week of comp time built up and needed to use it before 1979 takes over. Terry asked me if I would like to go to Disneyland with him for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I was twenty-five years old and had never been to Disneyland so I jumped at the chance. It was no longer fun to sit at home alone with my parents in rural Utah for Christmas. I knew it’d miss the… nope nothing, I would miss nothing by going to Disneyland.

            We journeyed over the desert and found lodging the first night in Las Vegas. I had never seen Vegas. The lights were amazing, more beautiful than anything I had imagined. So many light bulbs, it truly looked like a shining star on the floor of the desert guiding each weary traveler into the city. When I descended into the lights of the city, my sense of hearing was bombarded by the mesmerizing and constant clanging of dropping coins from the old-time slot machines. The noise overwhelming me more than the lights. All the people appeared too joyous, too loud and too drunk. Las Vegas was definitely collecting a lot of taxes from the travelers that night.

Needing to finally escape all the noise and lights of the partiers, Terry and I humbly entered our dirty, animal smelling, worn-out sleazy stable conveniently located above the bar of some two-bit Fremont street inn. That was all we could afford during the holiday. The cigarette smoke wafted up unfiltered from the bar directly into our room. My eyes burned and stung all night. In the morning we roamed the strip sucking up every cheap shrimp cocktail we were offered as we moseyed through a few of the more famous and fancy hotels. Before long, we continued on across the desert to Anaheim and to hopefully a comfortable Christmas Eve.

            I had never seen the freeways of California. That evening they were shrouded in a heavy fog. We could hardly see where to go and had to focus on the steady stream of car lights in front of us. It felt spooky, more like Halloween than Christmas Eve and it was a weirdly warm Christmas Eve compared to what I was used to in Utah. The outdoor holiday lights glowed through thick layer of fog rather than a layer of snow as in Salt Lake City.

We were tired and ready for a rest. Problem was, we hadn’t eaten for many hours and the sun had set. Where do you find a place to eat on a sacred holiday in a huge, foggy, dark city you have never been to? Oh, great tides of joy, we spotted a bar! We knew taverns, worked in them all the time. One particular bar looked like not only a good choice, but the only choice! Hopefully there was room and food in the inn tonight!

            We crawled out of the car with sore butts and backs feeling like we really had rode a mule all the way across the desert to Bethlehem and were eager to relax and eat

The inside of the tavern was like walking into the bar scene from Star Wars. The first Star Wars movie had been released a year earlier and, I could have sworn that we were standing exactly in the middle of that famous bar. The inside was indeed populated with dozens of strange creatures from alien planets. Who seriously goes to a bar on Christmas Eve? Not the three wise men nor the humble shepherds.

            Eventually we were directed to an empty booth. I had a hard time scooting in as the seat was sticky and so was the table top. You had to chew the air in the bar, it was so heavy with smoke of all different flavors and textures. If we both hadn’t been so hungry we would have left but this was our last chance–and we knew nothing would be open on Christmas morning.

            While we are waiting for the waitress, one of Santa’s little elves, who was flying higher than a tree top angel, came bounding over and plopped down into the booth with us. He leaned in too closely and whispered into both our faces with a breath so full of decay it could have knocked over a full-grown reindeer. 

He said, “Hey guys do you want to buy some dope? I’ll give you a real good deal for Christmas.” 

Terry and I worked hard to get good dope deals, and good arrests. Only now, on vacation, does someone plop down next to us and, with no conversation, no planning, he just asks if he can sell illegal drugs to us. Please.

            Terry looked at me with one of those can-you-believe-this eye rolls. We both had our badges and guns, but seriously? I held back an explosive laugh while Terry diplomatically said, “No thanks dude, but we appreciate the offer.”

            When he left we both laughed until I had to wipe away tears. That poor boy would never know he is the luckiest drug dealer, at least for that moment. He had just propositioned two narcs but the star shone round about him and the glory was his. He got away scot-free. 

            I don’t even remember what we ate, I just remember it was greasy. And, for the rest of the journey, my clothes reeked of grease and cigarette smoke from the lousy mangers we were swaddled in, in Las Vegas and Anaheim.

            And ah yes, Disneyland was open on Christmas Day. We felt we had the park to ourselves. We guessed that only Asians, Mid-Eastern Indians and a couple of other non-Christians were all that dared to venture out to play on Christmas day. 

Terry and I started as just friends on this sojourn, so I was rather confused when he came running back to me after being away a minute, pleading, “Quick put your arms around me and pretend we are a couple.” I did and had to ask, “Why? What’s up?” 

He explained, “Some guy just put his hand on my butt and squeezed tight. I want him to see that I am here romantically with a woman!”

We floated along in the old pirate ride, by ourselves, at least a half dozen times and I may have gotten a good kiss then. 

We had a lot to reminisce and laugh about as we rode the metal donkey back to Salt Lake City a few days later with knowing each other a lot deeper than either of us had actually planned. It was an odd but magical trip that Christmas probably because we fell in love with each other during that first comical holiday together.

Being Lost

By Brenda Bowen Wright, Jan 2019

       I was very young, therefore being lost may be my earliest memory. And, it is probably why today, over sixty years later, I carry a great fondness for store mirrors.
There are three years between us three oldest siblings. If I was three years old, my older brother was six, and my mother would have had an infant in her arms. I don’t recall any younger sibling at all at this event, so that puts me between two and three years old. If Mom were holding a baby or just very pregnant, maybe that would account for why no one was holding my hand. Maybe my older brother was supposed to be watching me, I don’t know. I know my older brother and both my parents and I, at the least us four, all went together to the vast, modern Sears Store on 800 South State Street in Salt Lake City. This had to be in the mid-1950s.
I remember the terrifying vision of so many people squeezed into such a large place. People were bumping into each other and pressing to get passed others. The sea of people flowed all around me. From my point of view, all I saw and felt were the paddling of millions of legs. The chorus of voices became just noise as I couldn’t tell what anyone, in particular, was saying. Incredible things to stare at and wonder about were everywhere. I even remember the brightness of the store lights, seemingly brighter than outside. The entire store experience was a massive sensory overload for me.
I can’t really remember what happened but I just suddenly looked around and realized I did not see one familiar face. Not a familiar sight anywhere. I absolutely had no idea what to do or where to go. But there, right next to me was a floor length mirror and I could see myself. I remember the relief flood through me in seeing a familiar face inside the mirror—my own face. I’m not too sure I even knew the concept of a mirror when I found this life buoy in the store.
I sat down in front of the mirror and leaned in very close so I could put my cheek on my reflection’s cheek. There I sat, all bunched up so as not to be stepped on and I cried and cried. I remember looking at my crying reflection and being entertained strangely by it. I honestly figured I would never see my parents or my big brother ever again. I had not a moment’s thought of what to do, that was beyond my capacity to even consider. All I could do was cry and stare at myself.
I often wonder how long I sat lost and heart-sick over the loss of parents and brother. Of course, to me, it seemed forever. But, how long was it actually before one of them realized I was no longer with them? I will probably never know the actual truth as the only answer I got from my parents in later years was the usual, “It wasn’t long at all.” And then they never wanted to talk about it, just swept it under the rug as inconsequential. But it was a huge deal to me and I apparently never forgot the experience.
I have accepted that my parents were not the soft, touchy-feely kind. They never indulged in any overt display of affection between themselves or any of their children.  Maybe that was just the way parents were in the 1950s. But seriously, why was I not holding a parent’s hand?
With my own experience of being around nieces, nephews and friend’s children, I have felt and seen the extreme panic a parent goes through when they can’t spot their child.
I guess I would like to think my Mom and Dad were upset and scared when I went missing. It would have been comforting through all these years, to know they panicked and feared the loss of a treasured daughter.
But whatever the truth may be, I did eventually feel the gentle lifting as my father picked me up from in front of the mirror. I don’t remember a kiss or any comforting. But, it is the only memory I have of being carried by a parent. Soon I was set back on my own feet with the indelibly warning to stay close, or I would get lost again.
Believe me, I never became lost again, and I grew to become an extreme worry-wart over keeping track of my younger siblings and then my nieces and nephews. It even became a personal hell for me to have to be responsible for classes of students on field trips. I have an obsession with knowing where everyone is at every moment to an obnoxious point.
Thinking about losing people makes me anxious. That subject still headlines in my occasional nightmares.
I heard the Sears store on 8th South and State Street is slated to be torn down if it hasn’t been already. I hated that store and would not enter it for many, many years. My husband made me go into it, back in the 1980s, just to see if it still looked and felt the same. It did.
Although I never liked that particular department store, I still retain a fondness for each and every mirror I see in a store, especially full-length ones. I always find myself seeking the location of store mirrors, and I still feel comforted when I look into a mirror to see at least one familiar face staring back at me.
        

Satirical Science Fiction - how's that for a genre?

Imagine if you could take all the Gary Larsen cartoons and create novels from each one of them...

That sounds positively delicious to me.

Humans often are stuck in the belief that outside of human life, nothing has personality. If you are plant, you don't fall in love, you don't even communicate--Or do they? Maybe plant communication is  just on a level or in a form we are not familiar with.

What if bacteria have lives full of frustrations and desires and love, but we can't decipher their language.

I was a middle-school science teacher, who still wants to explain scientific facts in a fun warped as skillfully as Gary Larsen.

My books and stories will be announced as quickly as I can get them out. They will be STEM infused, fun, entertaining, thought-provoking and smashed full of learning. (Remember mom hiding peas in the mashed potatoes to get you to eat them? Yes, call me mom.)

Find samplings of stories on my web page: www.brendabowenwright.com