herbiehancock

Last night, a little after 11:00 pm, we heard sirens.  They seemed very close, perhaps even in our neighborhood, but we didn't know where exactly they were or what was going on.  This morning, we heard on the news what had happened.   Part of the children's playground called the "Imagination Station" had burned.  This playground is in the middle of the park where I take my walks just a couple of blocks from my home.  I go by this playground nearly every day. Hearing this news was incredibly sad for all of us here in my town.  Perhaps some will think that it was just a playground and it is no big deal, but to the people who live here it WAS a big deal.   This was a big deal because it was a community project.  The money ($130,000) was all donated from private funds to build this playground, and it was built by the people of the town here themselves (2,600 volunteers).  It was designed from ideas that were contributed by area school childr...

Chris from the blog, At Home At Last , recently wrote about her first memory. I thought it was an interesting thing to blog about, so I thought I would write about mine here. * * * * * Until I was around the age of three, I lived with my family in a house in the town of Marion, Ohio. I have two main memories from that long ago time in my life. The first memory was of a fire that we had there. My mom was cooking something on the stove in the kitchen in a big iron skillet. I don't remember what she was making, but she must have been frying something in the skillet in oil. The oil got too hot and caught on fire. (With three children all under the age of five at the time, I imagine she had gotten distracted by one of us which kept her away from the stove too long.) I was in the living room and heard my mother let out a sort of half scream, half yelp kind of noise in the kitchen. I wandered in there to see what was going on. My brother and sister showed up there, from w...