I don’t know if it’s what you’d call a treasured possession, but it was at the time. I was about, oh, fifth grade or so, and my parents finally agreed to let us have a dog. They got that way because the neighbor’s dog had puppies and we were pestering them to get a dog, so you know how that goes. So we walked over to the neighbor’s and picked out a puppy. It was some kind of collie…
This was difficult for me. Everything that I have is a treasured possession. Everything I see, I can think about making something out of it, or working with it, or creating something in some way. So I guess the possession I have that I should be talking about is creation. I’m always wanting to create something. Every house I’ve ever owned has needed to be rebuilt, so I’ve set about doing it. It’s everything I find: “I could use that…
Well, I keep a small black stone in a creature bag at home. I found her illegally on a mound in 1992, and what I love about her is she sits in the palm of my hand if I hold her and—it’s a her, the stone—I get it out of the bag anytime I need a mother. My mother’s long gone, but I call this my mother stone, and she just sits there and I think about it for a…
Describe a treasured possession. I’ve got all kinds of stuff. Tools, things I’ve had for years, so I just grabbed something off the top of my head. I picked this mayonnaise spatula. My parents had a sandwich restaurant back in the ‘70s and I think I just got it out of Mom’s drawer before any of the other kids, and I don’t know if they would have wanted it or not. But, you know, it’s just been around for so…
I think my prized possession at the moment is probably a notebook that I’ve had for a really long time, and it’s small and just…it’s pretty simple. Our neighbors who live up the street who we don’t know very well had kids, and they’re grown up now, and they had a whole box full of various school supplies that were never used, and they gave it to us. One of them was this notebook, and I used it as my…
When I was younger I got a peacock feather quill for my birthday, and I really liked writing with it a lot. I loved birds when I was younger, I think it reminded me of Harry Potter ‘cause they always write with quills.
I remember some of those bright red and yellow records, too [from the previous story]. I think some of them were even my mom’s that we still have at her house. She plays her old Woody Woodpecker records for my kids now; they think it’s awesome. The treasured possession I was going to talk about is my banjo. I’d wanted to learn to play the banjo for a long time but I kind of never got around to it, and…
My prized possession is the old Zenith record radio console my parents had—they bought that before I was even born—and the records. I had brothers, so they bought a lot of these red, yellow, orange, black, children’s records. And I learned very early on how to stack those things and just let them plop onto the turntable. And I even remember some of the titles; there was The Duck With Big Flat Feet, Henny Penny, Early to Bed Early to…
Describe a treasured possession: It’s a picture with me and then-running-for-president Barack Obama. I think it was taken in 2008, the first time he ran, and it was in the Press-Citizen after he made a stop in Iowa City. I was telling him that I was a patient at the VA Veterans’ Hospital, and I thought it was great. And he said “The problem was not the care you receive once you were there, it was getting in to the…
I wanted to play the accordion, but I was told it was only for boys. So I was given a clarinet. I played it half-heartedly and quit. Now I play what I want to–drums–in my 70’s.