Pleasant Living Magazine

By Kathleen Brooks

Mineral, Virginia

It had taken her three years to come this far, but there she was sitting quietly cleaning her face and paws.  I was amazed watching her.  Every few minutes she’d stop and look at me as if to ask; what are you staring at?  Haven’t you ever seen a cat take a bath before?

She’d arrived three years ago, early one spring morning.  I noticed her sitting on the handrail on my back deck as I was preparing to feed my own cats.  She was a tortoise shell cat and as soon as I put my hand on the doorknob she dashed down the stairs and out of sight.  Must be the neighbors’ cat I thought.  That evening she was back, but once again, she skittered away as soon as she saw me.  This went on for several more days.  I’d asked all my neighbors if they were missing a cat, but it seemed all of their cats were home.  By the following week I’d started putting an extra dish of food out.  She’d creep up the stairs to eat once all my cats were done and we were back inside.

By Jean Harper

“We grow too soon old and too late smart,” was a quotation on an ashtray a friend gave me after I complained of getting old.  I was middle aged, but was I too late smart?  Sometimes I thought so, as I looked back at my “cart before the horse” life.

I quit high school at fifteen to run away and marry, skipped college and career to have and raise eight children before going for education and career.  When most of my children were grown, I began a career as a freelance photojournalist for the Northumberland Echo, a weekly newspaper.  With help from editor Hugh Ferguson and his wife, Anne, I learned how to develop and print my pictures.  My husband helped by encouraging me and helping with the dishes when I was on a deadline and it was after midnight.  He also helped me get news pictures.  As a Callao Volunteer fireman, when the siren went off, he jumped in the car and took off.  I was sometimes in the car before he was and often got to fires before other reporters.  I won my first newspaper award with a photo of the Warsaw theater fire.  Photo awards and story bylines quickly hooked me on newspaper work.

By Mary "Sam" Wheeler

Irvington, Virginia

When I was a kid, my sister had a pet chicken.  For the life of me, I cannot remember her name, but I remember her.  She was mostly gold in color with a little red on her wings and she made those wonderfully silly sounds chickens make when she strutted through the yard looking for bugs and other little tasty morsels to sample.  She would tilt her head just so to get a look at us as we approached to pick her up.

She was a bantam hen, small and easy to carry, and carry her we did.  She tolerated me, but adored my older sibling.  It’s funny to think of this now because this particular sister can be quite prissy, and to think of her toting a chicken makes me smile.  This little bird followed my sister Lyn like a puppy.  She even roosted on the front porch railings in order to be closer to our bedroom where my sister and I shared a big old bed.

Penny Candy and a Cold Drink

By Mary "Sam" Wheeler

Irvington, Virginia

I love country stores.  You know, the kind that have pickled pigs feet and boiled eggs floating in something that looks like vinegar but could be formaldehyde.  These stores are usually out in the middle of nowhere and always right in the nick of time when you need a Dr. Pepper and a bag of cheese doodles.

As a teenager, my nephew and I used to take cruises all through the countryside.  We were never in any hurry on these long summer days, the memory of school far behind us and the worries of the new school session weeks away, too far off to realize.  We always had a little money- enough to get us some delicious junk food from one of these now almost extinct stores that have been replaced by Get n Zips and Wawas.  What a dumb name Wawa is.  I won’t go to one because the name irks my liver.

I can see in my mind’s eye just how the old stores were.  The floors were wide planks that squeaked with the strain of a person’s weight.  The shelves were spare but adequate with the basics:  Spam, toilet paper and cheap dog and cat food.  There would be a magazine rack close to the front door and a penny candy counter with the store’s proprietor behind it waiting for us to pick out a half dozen or so treats before heading to the drink box and rows of salty snacks.  Those drink boxes would be filled with mostly water because the ice had melted and boy were those sodas cold.  Hurt your teeth cold.  And then there was the smell of the place.  It cannot be explained so I will stop here only to add that it was wonderful.  Those of you with experience know what I mean.

If it happened to be a local store, one close to our home, we would know everyone there.  It could take a good fifteen minutes just to get in and out of there after you had spoken to everyone and told them that your mama was fine and daddy had work.  Even if it was a store we’d never been in before, there would still be a friendly conversation.

I still take drives on most weekends with no destination in mind.  I just take off and go.  I can’t find many of these old stores anymore and to me that is sad.  Even though I don’t eat cheese doodles very often and have limited my sodas to about two a year, I would still like the option to step back in time into one of these old relics instead of into the brightly lit space of a super fast paced store with a dumb name.