READ 100w

Rebecca Kalin avatar by Harvey Redding

My LIfe in 100 Words

Writers are often asked where they get their ideas. Since I write only memoir–true stories from my life–they are what I write about: personal and shared experiences.

These stories from my childhood would likely be lost if not captured in my memoir, which is on-going, forever in-progress for as long as it takes. Every story has three acts and a tagline that taps into a universal emotion. Every story is exactly 100 words, not 99 and not 101. Some describe an ongoing situation. Some focus on an object, others on a moment in time.

MY MEDICAL CAREER • One summer, I was Director and Chief Medical Officer of a small hospital locatedin a dusty, unused backroom of our basement. Such a bustling place! There were beds everywhere: some as small as a Barbie, others big enough for a

MY MEDICAL CAREER • One summer, I was Director and Chief Medical Officer of a small hospital locatedin a dusty, unused backroom of our basement. Such a bustling place! There were beds everywhere: some as small as a Barbie, others big enough for a child since they were occupied by patients with paper-bag heads and bodies made from pajamas stuffed with rags. Scarcely a day went by without some kind of terrible emergency! Nonetheless, no patients died. (continue)

SILVER DOLLARS • My parents liked to cut and paste. They liked to make stuff. They had a lot of imagination. So, after they won the Best Costume Award at the 1953 NY Artists Ball, they brought home 200 silver dollars. Being good liberal parents, t

SILVER DOLLARS • My parents liked to cut and paste. They liked to make stuff. They had a lot of imagination. So, after they won the Best Costume Award at the 1953 NY Artists Ball, they brought home 200 silver dollars. Being good liberal parents, they let us, the children, play with them. We rolled them across the floor. Tossed them down the stairs. Hid them under cushions and behind radiators. In calmer moments, we used them as plates for dolls and stuffed animals. When it was time to pay a few bills, they rounded up what they could find: altogether, maybe fifty. (100)

GRAFFITI • My career as a graffiti artist never really got off the ground. Like Banksy, I was secretive and anonymous. But unlike Banksy, I never moved beyond a single signature image and no one ever paid me a dime. Armed with a pocket full of colo

GRAFFITI • My career as a graffiti artist never really got off the ground. Like Banksy, I was secretive and anonymous. But unlike Banksy, I never moved beyond a single signature image and no one ever paid me a dime. Armed with a pocket full of colored chalk, I would dawdle my way home from grade school, always on the lookout for a dull, empty stretch of sidewalk that I could dress up with a top-to-bottom, full color, life-size illustration of the human digestive track. I pulled it off dozens of times without ever once being caught by grown-ups, fortune or fame. (100)

THE STREAM * The stream was all ours. Adults stayed away. Before the hurricane, we knew its banks and bends. We knew which rocks hid frogs and which enticed lacewing dragonflies. It was a kids-only paradise. After the hurricane, snapping turtles th

THE STREAM * The stream was all ours. Adults stayed away. Before the hurricane, we knew its banks and bends. We knew which rocks hid frogs and which enticed lacewing dragonflies. It was a kids-only paradise. After the hurricane, snapping turtles the size of frying pans sailed through a breached upstream dam. I was standing on a submerged rock. My brother saw the open mouth stealthily moving toward my toes. He shouted. I jumped. The turtle disappeared. Someone tracked down him with a shotgun. Just as he was gone, so was our paradise, smothered by surging water. The stream was never the same.  (100)

FINGDALE • Here’s an unsolved mystery. I was four years old when my mother left for the grocery store without me because, she said, I was too dirty. I decided to find her and started walking. When the policeman found me, I was three miles from home

FINGDALE • Here’s an unsolved mystery. I was four years old when my mother left for the grocery store without me because, she said, I was too dirty. I decided to find her and started walking. When the policeman found me, I was three miles from home. He gave me a candy bar and a ride in his car. When the grownups asked how I got all the way to Springdale, I said, I didn’t walk, didn’t wide. I just disappeared to Fingdale. My parents never found out what happened that day and I never found out who ate the candy bar. (100)

ACCIDENTALITY • My familiarity with accidents began early. As a 2-year-old, I was hit on the head with a hammer by a 3-year-old. As a 4-year-old, I somersaulted off the bed and landed headfirst on iron radiator fins. As a seasoned 5-year-old, I cha

ACCIDENTALITY • My familiarity with accidents began early. As a 2-year-old, I was hit on the head with a hammer by a 3-year-old. As a 4-year-old, I somersaulted off the bed and landed headfirst on iron radiator fins. As a seasoned 5-year-old, I chased my brother through an open porch door, which he slammed shut before I could stop running. I picked the glass shards from my arm, wrapped it in a dish towel, and informed my parents that I needed to go to the hospital. There, the ER staff took one look and said, Haven’t we seen this little girl before? (100)

PEDAL PUSHERS • As a child, my wardrobe consisted mainly of hand-me-downs, clothes from thrift shops, and outfits I found in our costume room. Once a year my Oklahoma grandmother sent hand-sewn clothes for me and my nearby cousin. One summer we got

PEDAL PUSHERS • As a child, my wardrobe consisted mainly of hand-me-downs, clothes from thrift shops, and outfits I found in our costume room. Once a year my Oklahoma grandmother sent hand-sewn clothes for me and my nearby cousin. One summer we got matching striped, seersucker pedal pushers. She promptly pulled on her yellow ones, ran outside and rolled down the hill. My mother folded my pink ones and placed them neatly in a drawer, saving them, she said, for a special occasion. Admittedly, I was a no-holds-barred fort-builder and tree-climber, but a special-enough occasion never happened before I outgrew the pink pedal-pushers.  (100)

CREEDE • In Creede, Colorado, we stayed in a rustic cabin, took baths in a tub on the floor with water heated on a wood stove. When my parents went to the movies we tagged along in pajamas. After picking mouse droppings from the flour and tossing

CREEDE • In Creede, Colorado, we stayed in a rustic cabin, took baths in a tub on the floor with water heated on a wood stove. When my parents went to the movies we tagged along in pajamas. After picking mouse droppings from the flour and tossing them over his shoulder, my father made pancakes. In spite of 2000 miles sitting cross-legged on a wood platform perched where the car seat used to be, our first family vacation was a great success. For our second (and last) we drove to Florida, hoping to visit Cuba but the Revolution put the kibosh on that. (100)

GIRL SCOUTS • In order to be a Girl Scout, I needed a uniform and a handbook. At Goodwill Industries, my mother found both. Although worn and out-of-style, the uniform fit well enough. The handbook was out-of-date and its page numbers were out-of-syn

GIRL SCOUTS • In order to be a Girl Scout, I needed a uniform and a handbook. At Goodwill Industries, my mother found both. Although worn and out-of-style, the uniform fit well enough. The handbook was out-of-date and its page numbers were out-of-sync. While all the other girls promised to serve God and country and live by the Girl Scout Law, I scrambled to find those words, along with their meaning. Serve God and country? At my age? And what was this law I was promising to live by? The uniform and handbook went back to Goodwill before the cookie sale even began. (100)