Kelly Learns
A compilation of my columns from the Sunday issues of the Daily Courier, Prescott, Arizona.
I’ve been writing an every-other Sunday column for the Daily Courier in Prescott, AZ since late 2020, thanks to the kind encouragement of long-time columnist Ron Barnes, who spent over 30 years contributing his wisdom not only to the newspaper but to many other people and organizations in the Prescott area. He put in some good words to the publisher and editor for me when he decided to retire from column writing. It’s one of those gifts you never knew you wanted and then realize how grateful you are to have it.
The Daily Courier has exclusive rights to my column for 60 days after publication, which is why you might be reading a Christmas column in February. I love writing but seem to need a project and deadline to do it. Hopefully this blog will inspire me to write more. Thanks for stopping by to check out my site!
Dirt room
I’m not sure what percentage of homes in Prescott have a dirt room, but when I ask people if they have one, I usually get a blank look. I don’t mean a mud room where you take off your wet shoes and mucky boots before entering the house, I mean an actual room with dirt floors, crumbly rocks, and gnarly tree roots poking through some areas. The first time we opened the door to the dirt room we weren’t sure what to make of it, other than to marvel at the immense amount of potential storage space. It was even two levels, with a back section five feet higher than the main room. It had an extra dose of creepy with a cool, musty smell of damp dirt, rafters with exposed insulation, an occasional centipede, mouse poop running along the cement foundation walls, plus a packrat nest in the far...
Taking the plunge
Last week, I found myself in a nostalgic email exchange with a woman named Julie from Nisswa, Minnesota, population 2,032. I’m sure she didn’t expect to get an email from a distant coworker in Arizona asking her weird questions about whether Deer Forest and the...
Blanketed in kindness
I didn’t expect to see a dozen neatly folded Army, Navy and Air Force polar fleece blankets on the table when I walked into work on Monday. Each blanket was surrounded by 140 hand-tied knots, patiently tied by members of the Air Force Junior Reserve Officers’ Training...
Memory garden
Every morning when I walk out my front door to work, I see a pinwheel spinning in one of my flower pots in the garden. Some mornings it is whizzing quickly, a purple blur of color with a backdrop of dark green tiger lily leaves. On still days, the five leaves stare...
Free to a good home
The elaborate black mailbox down the street caught my eye as I drove past on the way to work. One day, I decided to pull over on the way home and take a closer look. It wasn’t a mailbox at all, but a “Little Free Library” filled with books. According to the sign on...
What I did on my summer vacation
I don’t like to think that I’m middle-aged, but it’s true. Today, I got a telemarketing call wanting to talk to me about my Medicare Advantage plan. I made her repeat it before I realized what she was asking me. “I’m not that old yet!” I shouted and hung up the phone....
The only constant is change
I’m not one to quote Greek philosophers, but the words “the only thing constant is change” has been floating through my mind lately. I see it in the new old places we visit around town: a restaurant that used to be this is now that, a brewpub I used to love is now a...
Daddy’s girl
One of my earliest memories of my dad was waiting to surprise him when he came home each day from work. I’m sure he saw me way before I saw him, a wiggling 2-year-old trying to hide face down on the living room couch. When he reached the top of the stairs, he’d...
We’re not really strangers
I picked her up at the Phoenix airport around 9 p.m., this tall young woman wearing Converse high-tops painted two different colors, and pants with one leg black and one leg white. Her curly blonde hair was blue now, but I recognized her smile, and the hug felt the...
Sunday driver
It’s been 13,689 days since I passed my driver’s test. I remember how important it was to me to earn that freedom and the excitement of driving my parent’s station wagon into town on my own for the first time. This past week, we’ve been teaching one of our nieces how...
In a heartbeat
Life can be going along just fine and then you do something dumb, like not checking if there’s a toothpick in the appetizer you’ve just popped into your mouth and gulped down without really chewing. After quickly googling “what happens if you swallow a toothpick” and...
Mom’s the word
This is the 110th year that we’ve celebrated Mother’s Day in every U.S. state, according to Wikipedia. My earliest memories of celebrating my mom involved breaking off a few purple lilac blooms from the backyard and wrapping them in a damp paper towel to present to...