Writing Life

Our Writing Lives On

They always say a book lasts forever. Apparently, so do poems written to a newspaper nearly 30 years ago! Back when I was in my late 20's to early 30's, I was really into writing poetry. Some of it was serious, and some, like: The Outhouse of Doom and We the Knights of the Loft, were fun. I sent them off to the local rag, and various books to have them published.

I had two big hits at the local rag: The Outhouse of Doom and Millie's. The outhouse poem brought back lots of fond memories of trips to the outhouse in the middle of the night by a lot of people and they wrote in sharing their own experiences.

Millie's caught on like wildfire! You see, Millie's is a local restaurant on a farm and everything is made from scratch. The homemade pies are a treat, but you have to get there early or they'll be gone. You walk through the door thinking you'll have her famous coconut pie, only to find a waitress erasing it from the chalkboard. So, the poem was all about the Millie's experience.

On it's first release to the press, someone cut it out, framed it, and took it to Millie's with roses. It hung on the wall for years. Fast forward nearly 30 years, and I run into our local printer at Tractor Supply. He said someone had come in the day before and asked to have a copy made of my poem. I knew it had to be the one on Millie's and it was! Yesterday, my mom called me. She was all excited, and said, "Someone's typed up your poem, put it in a lovely frame and it's hanging on the wall at Millie's again!"

How on earth they came across it after all these years I'll never know. But it's a super cool feeling to see it's still around and still bringing smiles.