By Joy Lynn Clark December 10, 2021 Since I was a child I followed the soap operas. Grandma always had them on in the afternoons. Grandma’s TV would be on anytime we were inside. In the mornings grandma would work in the garden and I would swear they were too many worms. By noon we are back inside, soaps are on, and we and by we, I mean grandma, are doing laundry. Up and down the basement steps. Sometimes I would look at the, cheap, old, Bach Bust by the piano that needed a tune. Grandma’s not really into cheap things but, we ain’t rich folks. On the TV, soaps.…

By Joy Lynn Clark December 7, 2021 As a child, some of the kids from my block in U.P. And I played, “whoopin Mama”. We would select a player as the whoopin mama and they would grab their belt. We then would chide them – hard. We would make faces, turn around and shake our butts, and if we were in the garage we would even make a mess – just to unleash the whoopin mama. “You bad kids!”, hollers the whoopin mama. “Clean up this mess,” yells the whoopin mama. “OK mama” answers the good kids. But one kid always has to be a smarty pants. Whichever kid was…