Bernie’s writing club shares a randomly selected list of six words each week. The members have a week to write something using those six words. It can be a sentence, a poem, a story or anything else. Writers can use plural and alternate tense forms of the words. Club members suggested Bernie publish his stories, so that is what you’ll find below. The six words appear at the top of each story. You can try it yourself.
Six Words: executive, tiptoe, genetic, jelly, commission, theorist
by Laraine Kentridge Lasdon
To tiptoe quietly is not my style.
I think it genetic that I am frenetic.
Not a theorist, a realist really.
Especially when stealing the last jar of jelly.
When I took on this theft,
this heinous commission,
It wasn’t at all an executive decision.
My brother and sister decided
I should take on this trick
or, they promised,
I would get not one single lick.
Six Words: executive, tiptoe, genetic, jelly, commission, theorist
When Jeffrey was asked to be a member of the commission, he didn’t know where the investigation would lead. As one of the leading genetic theorists in the country, he was used to being asked hard questions. His skill at dealing with those questions was the reason he was invited. He had an ability to address questions in ways that the public could understand, without tiptoeing around the issue.
I won’t bore you with the details of the commission’s report. The executive summary will more than suffice. I am embarrassed to share even that with you. The reason that so many Americans were suffering a sense of malaise, even depression, was not because of the political environment, nor from worrying about climate change. The reason for a sense of doom and gloom, the reason that people aren’t smiling enough, the reason for the longing for bygone days is, quite simply, because they are not eating enough peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!
Six Words: reluctance, on, responsibility, harmony, drown, leave
Carl, James and I were the shortest students in our 7th and 8th grade class at Richard Yates Elementary School. When it was time for music, Carl was known as the best soprano singer in the class, probably in the school. I was not.
At least twice a year, each class in the school participated in an assembly in the school auditorium in front of all the other classes. Parents were also welcome to attend. Because of our heights, the three of us, Carl, James and I were always placed in the front row when our class went on stage. The music teacher was very reluctant to have me singing next to Carl, afraid that I would destroy the harmony – or even worse – drown him out. Never-the-less, she had a responsibility to have everyone participate and couldn’t simply leave me out. The solution was to have me mouth the words while Carl and the rest of the class sang. On reflection, I think that was a wise decision. It didn’t kill my enthusiasm for singing, just a recognition that I should never be a soloist. Andrea Bocelli’s career is still safe.
Six Words: factor, calendar, responsibility, fall, artist, perfume
Fall colors were the biggest factor in the timing of our road trip to Lost Maples State Park. The calendar only hints at the right time for such a trip. The artists that paint the leaves shades of yellow and orange and red each year do it on their own schedule. They feel no responsibility for accommodating visitors’ preferences for weekends or any particular date. The best thing to do is to check the park’s website. The rangers monitor the colors and let the public know the status of the fall colors.
The park limits the number of vehicles each day, so you do need to make a reservation in advance to be sure there will be room for you. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to go on a day when colors are peaking, the sun is bright, and the crisp, cool air smells like perfume. The day that we went had all of those conditions – but the day before, it had rained. Some leaves had fallen. There were signs posted about being careful because trails might be slippery. Lying on my back looking at the sky because my feet had slipped out from under me was testimony that the signs were, indeed, correct.
Six Words: bare, thaw, expect, chaos, flexible, exploration
Beaches and harbors,
Battered by the chaos of waves
That roiled and rolled
Before the harbors were there,
When the beaches were bare.
In winter
The waves lose their flexibleity,
The cold gets colder,
The shoreline freezes,
Briefly, the waves are calmed.
Beaches bide their time,
Expecting the ice to thaw,
The waves to renew their exploration.
Chicago looks on.
Six Words: behave, session, inspire, act, laundry, sink
(a true story)
When I was in eighth grade, among the classes that I took was Home Economics. It must have been an option, because most of the students in the class were girls. I may even have been the only boy. The things that I do remember about the class were learning to sew, and learning to use measuring cups and measuring spoons. I do not know what the girls sewed, but I sewed a tool belt – not that I needed one as a 13 year old boy living in an apartment.
In one session we each made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We’ve all done it, but I’ll bet you never made one like the way we did it that day. Let me tell you how, in case it inspires you to try this approach too. Since I don’t remember the teacher’s name, I think it’s OK for me to share this bit of dirty laundry.
Don’t get grossed out by the appearance. As eighth graders, we all tried to behave ourselves and tried to act like this is a normal way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I don’t know what happened to the tool belt, I’ve never made a PB&J sandwich like that again, and I don’t think I learned anything in that class, but I did get a story to tell.
Six Words: disappointment, quantity, stay, ex, harsh, fairy
Is there a difference between a fairy and an angel? It is a question that I never thought about before getting this list of words, but now I stay up at night thinking about it. The quantity and quality of my sleep has been impacted. I’d like to just ex the thoughts out of my mind, but it doesn’t work that way. You can’t just make yourself stop thinking about something.
It has gotten worse as the days went by. Is asking “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” the same as asking “how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin?” Would the quantity be the same? And remember Tinkerbell? If people didn’t believe in her, she would fade away to nothing. Would it be harsh of me to stop wondering about fairies? Would they fade away too? I don’t want to be the source of disappointment for any of you that do believe in fairies. But I also need to be able to sleep at night.
Six Words: skilled, continuous, moon, inspiration, gem, vision
The moon has revolved around the earth continuously since it formed, perhaps by being a chunk that broke off from the Earth in some cataclysmic collision. A collision so cataclysmic that it is hard to envision. Since time immemorial, the moon has not only affected the tides, it has also affected creatures on Earth. Many people are affected emotionally, but as far as I know, there are only a few creatures that are affected physically. We’ve heard wolves or coyotes howling at the full moon. If we haven’t heard them ourselves, we’ve heard about it.
Men are affected by the moon, and so are women, but they are affected differently. Some of those differences have changed as people changed, from being roaming hunters and gatherers, to shepherds and farmers, to gathering in towns and cities. Some of those differences go back to our earliest beginnings, before people wrote poems and songs or looked through telescopes. When did ancient humans first notice that the moon shrinks and grows and shrinks again about every 28 days? When did people, especially women, realize that the moon isn’t the only thing on a 28 day cycle? Only a few other mammals have such a recognizable experience. The great apes do, and so do some monkeys. So do bats, elephant shrews, and spiny mice. Gravity explains why the tides have a 28 day cycle, but why mammals? It’s not going to be important to this story, but why don’t lions, or tigers or bears react to the moon. Or birds? Or fish?
Men are affected by the moon in a way that doesn’t occur on any regular cycle, nor even to all men. Some – and not only men – skilled and unskilled, write poetry about the moon. Some men see the moon as an inspiration, as a gem floating in the sky. John F. Kennedy inspired the nation in a speech to Congress on May 25, 1961. You will all remember the words: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” At the same time, he asked for increased funding for defense and foreign aid; and for economic recovery, including job training programs and measures to combat unemployment – things that help people. Later that year, at Rice University, he said: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
He wasn’t the last president to lay out bold and noble challenges. There have been others since, and there will be again. I can hardly wait.
Six Words: forget, sculpture, army, praise, boat, waste
The weather was beautiful the last weekend in June. We were able to spend all day out on the lake in our boat. The slow moving clouds were striking, looking like sculptures in the sky. The slight breeze was comforting. The boat is big enough so that Aunt Jean and Aunt Beth were able to grill hot dogs right on the boat, and we all praised the two Aunts for how good everything tasted.
After several hours in the sun and an occasional dip in the water, we headed to shore, packed everything up and headed home. The aunts don’t always come with us, but that last weekend in June was so good that they came with us again the following week. We started transferring things from our car to the boat, and that’s when Aunt Jean yelled “whoops” and ran back to the car. She discovered that we’d forgotten to take the waste off the boat last week and our Aunt wasn’t the only one that got on the boat. An army of ants were already there, cleaning up what we had forgotten.
