Tag Archives: TRDC

Escape

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It is a time of transition: summer to fall, kids back to school, no more wearing white..

For this week’s prompt, write about a season of change for your character or you. It can be literal or metaphorical.

This is another installment of my Memoir story. I really should give this guy a name soon!

I’d love to hear your concrit on this and what you think I can do to make it better. I like writing this story and while it’s easy to hear the southern accent of him in my head it’s hard to get it written…. especially for someone who isn’t from the south!

Let’s see.. it musta been around 1902 when I fell in with the wrong group, but at the time they welcomed me as one of their own and didn’t think twice about me being from the south and all.

My goal of gettin’ lost in the crowd didn’t last to long with them boys. Nope… not at all. What did happen was a lot of attention and none of the good kind. The law was always gettin’ after us for one thing or another.

You see we were a bunch of low life’s who had no family other then each other and no real home to call our own. So ya see we did a bit stealing here and there to make ends meet. Nothing all that bad.

It wasn’t till one day that Joey came up with this grand scheme. He was planning for us to rob a bank! At first we was all scared… not one of us wanted to do it but Joey… he’s a sweet talker and soon enough we calmed down and were seeing things his way. After that all I could think about was that money and all the things I was gonna do with it.

I was gonna buy me one of them fancy suits and have me a fine dinner at one of them hotels downtown. Yup, that was the plan.

Joey was the smartest one of the group… or so I thought at the time. What he really was was conniving, manipulative and subtle. He could talk a bee out of his honey! But I was still young and wanted to believe he was right so I went along with it.

That night it was raining so hard you couldn’t see nothin’ but it wasn’t stopping us. We wanted that money and outta the city before we got caught, ain’t one of us that wanted to go to jail. The stories we heard… well, I can’t be repeating them.

We knew all the in’s and outs of the bank and how many guards was there so we was careful and watched for the flicker of the flashlights as we made our way inside.

I was getting nervous….real scared like. It was like all of a sudden things were gettin’ real clear to me, this wasn’t the life I wanted and it sure as hell what I ran away for. So I walked over to Joey and told him straight that I was out and man he got angry fast. I’d never seen someone turn that fast… not even my daddy. I told him the way it was and that I wasn’t gonna risk it anymore.

Joey grabbed me by the collar, he was a big guy, and pulled me hard against him so we was face to face. I wasn’t lettin’ on that I was scared because that woulda’ made him happy.

He just stared me in the eye as he shoved me against the building hard. I crumpled to the ground and was just barely able to get outta his way before he grabbed me again. The other guys was getting loud and Joey yelled at ’em to shut up or we’d get caught… course they stopped since they didn’t want to get beat up either.

While he was yelling at the others I made my escape. I ran and ran for I don’t know how long, but I finally made it back to where we was staying and was there long enough to grab my stuff and a few other things and then take off.

I was lucky enough to hop a train headed north. I was gonna get a job and do things proper.

 

Yahtzee!!

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This week, we want you to recall the games you played when you were young.
Did you love Monopoly, Yahtzee, or Uno? Or did you prefer backgammon, Trouble, or Scrabble?
Write a piece that explores one of your memories.

I’ve been missing for a while from TRDC prompts and really have no reason why, but I’m jumping back in today.

Many years ago when I was just a little girl my family and I used to take long weekends and go up north to St. Helen, Michigan to visit my grandparents on my moms side. I loved going up there for so many reasons, but most of all I got to spend some time with my grandparents and usually got away with a lot more than if I were at home.

Every evening after dinner (often polenta, sausage, and a marinara sauce) I would take a bath and use the Irish Spring soap, the traditional green and white marbled bar. Even today the smell brings back all sorts of fond memories of my grandparents house and the times that I spent with them. After my bath my grandma would french braid my hair into two long and really tight braids on either side of my head. I’m amazed at how tight she was able to get them! Seriously… sometimes it hurt. But I endured it because I loved the way they looked so much and my mom couldn’t braid.

Yahtzee

Image via Wikipedia

Once all of us kids were in bed the adults would all gather in the kitchen with their snacks and wine to play Yahtzee.

They would all take their seats at the table, passing out the score sheets, pencils, and gathering the cup and dice at first. And this is when the fun started. They’d shake the cup letting the dice rattle around a few times before letting them roll out of the cup and on to the table all in hopes of getting that elusive Yahtzee. Again and again the dice would be tossed into the cup, rattle around, and then fall onto the table.

So many times I would get up and tell them that I couldn’t sleep because of the dice, but really I just wanted to watch or even to play with them. Of course I was always sent back to bed where I would lay and listen to the fun.

As the night progressed they would laugh, talk, and carry on. Always having a great time and yelling out “Yahtzee!!” in a gleeful manner when someone managed to get the five dice to all have the same number showing. They would play well into the night it seemed or probably something closer to 10 or 11pm.

During the day my grandma would pull out that old Yahtzee box and play with us kids. I remember the box, it was worn very much use throughout the years and held shut by a single rubber band. We would have so much fun playing with my grandma.

As I think back of all the times that they played I can still hear the sound of the dice rattling and my mom laughing. Looking back things were much simpler then.

I remember this so well and it’s such a fond memory that even today my sister and I love to play it when we get together.