Sharon J Mondragon, Author at Sharon J Mondragon

A Feathered Thunderbolt

Sharon J Mondragon — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 16:09:12 +0000

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I recently made a pair of prayer shawls for my cousin Cindy to use in her addiction counseling practice. After I finished them, I took them to church, where my pastor blessed them. Each member of the congregation laid a hand on them in prayer on the way to the rail for Communion. The next day, I tucked them into a box and mailed them off to my cousin.
I was just starting to wonder if the box had arrived safely (and discovering I’d misplaced the tracking number) when Cindy’s letter arrived. Not only a thank you card, but a two-page letter to go with it. She wanted to tell me about her experience when she put the pink and white shawl around her own shoulders:

“When I wrapped myself in it, a jolt of energy (like a feathered thunderbolt) rushed through me, my inner core was enveloped in intensifying warmth, the color pink shot through my mind, swirling around my thoughts, then blue covered me, leading off into the most beautiful cloud of green.” She went on to explain that for her the pink symbolized love, the blue protection and the green was for healing.
“Once I caught my breath,” she continued, “prayers of gratitude verbally took over, leading to humbleness of my whole heart, my spirit and mind. I felt that I had transcended into a realm of blessings, grace and deep understanding of all the love and intention of every knitted pearl…Know that the use of these shawls are indeed an inner miracle awaiting the client, offering a bestowed gift of pure healing, courage and strength. Wow!”

I, too, say, “Wow!” This is the first time anyone has told me that a prayer shawl I made had this effect on them. And yet, why should I be amazed? In my blog entitled, “Your Two Hands,” I wrote about how each shawl comes through the shawl maker from God, how His love, compassion and His own experience of suffering are poured into each stitch. Every shawl I make is steeped in prayer, but the ones I sent to Cindy are more personal than most. For many years I could only watch and pray in anguish as one of my sons pursued a life of addiction. The heartbreak of those years is knitted into those shawls along with my longing for all the sons and daughters enslaved by drugs to be free. Please pray with me for these folks on their difficult journey.
Cindy says, “I’ve yet to experience the power in the second shawl. I’ll write you when I do or watch when the client does!” I’m excited to see how God’s going to show up in Cindy’s practice. I’ll keep you posted!

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The Story Behind the Story: THE SEVENTEENTH CHRISTMAS TREE

Sharon J Mondragon — Wed, 01 Jan 2020 13:42:04 +0000

Christmas Day has come and gone. I hope it was meaningful and has provided you with memories you can tuck away and ponder during the coming year. THE SEVENTEENTH CHRISTMAS TREE was drawn from memories of Christmas with my husband’s family last year. It happened like this.
My mother-in-law loves to decorate almost as much as my character Noelle Sinclair. She is not shy about enlisting the help of her large family to transform her house into a Christmas wonderland. I spent one afternoon last year visiting with one of my nephews while he decorated the Christmas tree in the formal living room. She’d had him lug six totes of ornaments up from the basement. When she wasn’t looking, he put four of them back, but even with “only” two totesful of ornaments, lights, and garland, the tree was packed with decorations. It swayed dangerously when my nephew brushed up against it while putting on the finishing touches.
“Whoa,” I said. “We’re going to have to be careful on Christmas Eve. It could fall on the little kids.” As Christmas Eve at Mom’s is a grand free for all with kids diving for packages and wrapping paper flying everywhere while one of the aunties tries to catch it a trash bag, this was a distinct possibility. My mother-in-law’s solution? Remove some of the ornaments? Perish the thought! She roped someone into tying the tree to a hook in the wall.
This got me thinking. What if there was a woman who decorated even more extravagantly than my mother-in-law, one who did not have a family of minions to make her vision a reality? What if she insisted that her husband do it all? What if he finally got fed up? What would push him over the edge? And–what if there was a cat? You get the idea.
I hope this story made you laugh, but also to think. Are you running rough-shod over someone, like Noelle did Nick? Or do you need to stand up for yourself, as Nick finally did with Noelle? Or do you need to put your cat on a diet?
Thanks for coming along for the holiday ride and may your life, like Nick’s, change for the better in this new year!

Mom and her Christmas tree!

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THE SEVENTEENTH CHRISTMAS TREE Part 5

Sharon J Mondragon — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 12:56:50 +0000

Shortly thereafter, the guests started to arrive. Nick took coats while Noelle drew their friends in to enjoy the refreshments and the decorations (not necessarily in that order). Soon the house was filled with laughter, the clink of glasses, and exclamations of delight over Noelle’s adorable canapes and lavish holiday decorations.
“She’s outdone herself this year,” Bob Noyes said to Nick as he swirled the ice cube in his Scotch and soda. Bob lived down the street with his wife, two kids, and no cats. He was in insurance and tended to view the Sinclair’s Christmas party as a business opportunity.
Nick swirled his own ice cube and rocked back on his heels. “She sure has,” he replied, then looked Bob right in the eye. “How about you just enjoy the party this year, eh?”
“Huh?” Bob’s eyes widened, as if he had no idea what Nick was talking about. “I always enjoy the party. So does Jean.” He waved his glass at his wife, who was twittering with a group of her friends over a tree that featured angel ornaments.
“I mean,” Nick said with a steeliness that surprised him, “Please remember that my guests are not here to buy insurance.”
“Noelle never seems to mind me drumming up a little business at this shindig,” Bob countered.
“Well, I do. Cool it this year.”
“Okay, okay.” Bob put up his hands in mock surrender. “I can take a hint. Can I at least tell people what I do for a living, Your Highness?”
“Only if they ask,” Nick growled. Inwardly, he grinned. He rather like the sound of “Your Highness.” Up until now, it had only applied to him when he was wrestling the jolly old elf and the reindeer up to the very top of the roof. Tonight, however, it meant that he was in charge for once. He surveyed the guests milling around the refreshment and drinks table. These were his guests, the people he’d put up the trees for, the people he was defending from Bob Noyes’s sales pitch. He began to have a slight misgiving about what he had planned for later in the evening.
“I just don’t know how you do it,” Marguerite Finberry shrilled at Noelle on the other side of the room. “It must take weeks.”
“It is a great deal of work,” Nick heard his wife say. “But I just love doing it.”
“You wouldn’t if you actually did it,” Nick muttered into his Scotch, where the ice cube was melting right along with his qualms about going through with his plan.
The Grand Tour began, of course, in the front hall, where all the women agreed that the foyer decorations were now perfect. All the men nodded and sipped their drinks while their wives snapped photos on their cell phones.
“Do you really think it’s perfect?” Noelle asked her friends on the way to the downstairs powder room where tabletop trees adorned both the counter and the back of the commode. “I was thinking I might–”
“It’s perfect,” Nick cut in hastily. “Absolutely perfect. You don’t need to add another thing.” And you won’t, after tonight.
After the powder room had been duly adored, Noelle led the way up the Persian-carpeted staircase that curved grandly up to the second floor, with Nick bringing up the rear. He watched her dress sparkle and flash as she climbed the steps in the ridiculously high heels that matched her dress perfectly. On the third tread from the top she turned her head to speak to a friend on the step below. Her face was radiant, her eyes bright as a child’s on Christmas morning. But at the moment of turning, one of those ludicrous heels caught on the edge of the next step. Noelle lurched forward, swayed, tottered, flailed, screamed, and then toppled backwards. For a crazy moment, Nick thought his heart must be in his throat, because he couldn’t breathe. Then it must have moved up, because he could breath again, but now there was a roaring and pounding in his ears. The next thing he knew, he was taking the stairs two at a time to catch his wife–but he was too late.

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The Story Behind I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

Sharon J Mondragon — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 11:41:47 +0000

Thank you to everyone who took the time to visit this blog and read I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS! Your comments were encouraging and I was happy to make so many of you laugh.
If you’ve read my Home and About pages, you may be wondering how a “nice lady who knits” came to write about George Leroy’s stint in the county jail. Funny you should ask. My life is not nearly as sheltered as my knitting would imply.
It happened like this. My husband was deployed to Iraq, and, as usual, Murphy’s Law of Deployment kicked in. It left the washing machine and the cars alone, and did not, for once, send me or any of my five children to the emergency room. I even had one less child at home, our oldest having moved out several months before. Unfortunately, mere weeks after waving good-bye to my soldier, I was visiting our oldest son in the county jail. Jail visits are difficult experiences. There are rules to observe, not the least of which is to make sure you know where the end of the line is as you wait to sign in. There are some folks you definitely do NOT want to cut in front of. I saw all kinds of people. There were buddies of the incarcerated, some of whom got picked up on outstanding warrants when they presented their driver’s licenses to the guards. Others were law-abiding parents like me, bewildered and out of place in our Sunday clothes, hoping no-one thought we were criminals, too. And then there were the wives and girlfriends, young children in tow. Watching the little kids who came to visit their dads in jail was even harder than seeing my own kid behind the plexiglass. Many of them misbehaved, not because they were ill-mannered, but because their worlds were turned upside down by their father’s incarceration. Their noise bounced off the cinderblock walls of the visiting area, while their mothers tried to talk to their dads through the grilles set in the plexiglass about how they were making ends meet now that he was in jail.
One evening I met one of my son’s friends from his high school days as I waited in line at the jail. She held her newborn baby in her arms. She was there, she explained, to visit her husband, who had been picked up on a DUI right before the baby was born. My heart, previously filled with sadness for such situations, caught fire. I got mad! I wished I was on that young father’s visiting list so I could tell him that it was time to stop messing around, grow up, and be a dad.
Of course, I wasn’t on his list. All I could do was make an admiring fuss over the baby and give the beleaguered mother a hug. And say some prayers when I got home.
My experiences at the county jail stayed with me long after my son moved on. I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS was written to process what I saw and felt in that place. It helped me to say, in story form. the things I want people to know about the impact of a dad’s incarceration on his children. Please be kind, like the baseball moms, to families like the Marlins.

This is an evaluation image and is Copyright Acclaim Images LLC. Do not publish without acquiring a license. Image number: 0071-0901-2001-1623. http://www.acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_pages/0071-0901-2001-1623.html

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I’ll Be Home for Christmas Part 4

Sharon J Mondragon — Wed, 09 Oct 2019 10:57:02 +0000

The week before Halloween, Sunny and Junior sat on the stool together. George Leroy could hardly understand them, they were so excited about their costumes. Their mother had found directions in a library book to make costumes out of boxes, paper bags, and paint. Junior was going to be a dragon. Sunny was going to be a hula girl.
“I’m gonna be scary,” Junior boasted. “Scarier than any of the big ol’ guards here.”
“You think they’re scary?” George Leroy asked.
“They’re big and they got muscles and guns,” Junior nodded.
“You scared to come here, Junior?”
Junior’s eyes narrowed and his chin jutted out. “I ain’t no chicken.”
“Never said you was, boy. You’re only chicken if you let bein’ scared keep you from doin’ what you have to do.”
“Then I ain’t no chicken.”
“Fair enough, son.”
“Then Mama wasn’t chicken about her job,” Junior mused.
“What’s that you say, boy?” George Leroy thought he must have heard wrong.
“I heard her tell her friend Charlene she was scared about getting a job ’cause she hadn’t worked since she was sixteen burnin’ fries at the Dairy Queen. But she went anyway and she’s a real good library lady.”
“Run and tell Mama it’s her turn, kids,” George Leroy said quickly.
Marlene settled on the stool with a steely look in her eye. George Leroy lit into her right away.
“You workin’? At the LIBERRY? Who’s takin’ care of the kids? The house?”
“It’s the school library,” she answered evenly. “The kids help me with the house. I like working at the library. I like paying for groceries with money.”
“You think you’re wearing the pants now, Marlene, just ’cause you got you a job?!” George Leroy’s face was turning a dangerous shade of magenta.
“Just because you don’t want to make anything of yourself doesn’t mean I don’t.” Marlene’s eyes blazed. George Leroy caught a glimpse of the captivating spitfire he’d married ten years before. “For your information,” she continued, “working at the library is making me better in lots of ways. For one thing, I say ‘library’ now, not ‘liberry.’ And for another thing, I’m learning to cook from library books.”
George Leroy snorted.
“I know my cooking was bad, exceptin’ fish.” She tossed her head. “All I needed was a good cookbook, which I got at the library.”

The next week, Sunny tried to get a definitive answer.
“When you comin’ home, Daddy?”
“Like I keep tellin’ you, sugar, I ain’t got a court date,” her father sighed with exasperation.
Sunny, however, was more exasperated than he was. She put her fists on her hips and replied. “You missed the Fourth of July, the play-offs, the first day of school, and Halloween. You’ll prob’ly miss Thanksgiving and it’s going to be real good this year. Mama’s been reading cookbooks and the church is giving us a turkey and fixings. Are you gonna miss Christmas, too?!”
“You’re right about Thanksgiving,” he admitted. “But I’ll be home for Christmas.”
“Promise?”
George Leroy gulped. “I promise.”
As Sunny slipped off the stool and turned to go, George Leroy called to her. “Wait a minute, honey. You all are goin’ to church?”
“Yup,” she replied, and skipped away.

Charmaine never did post bail for Bobby Lee. His mother wouldn’t do it, either. Finally his Uncle Jimmy put up the money. He had been young and in love once himself.
George Leroy’s new cellmate was a punk kid, barely seventeen, in on drug charges.
“Don’t know why you kids do that stuff,” George Leroy grumbled. “There’s better things to do with your time.”
The boy snorted. “Like fishing?”
“Fishin’ don’t mess with your mind.”
“Fishing or dope, we’re both in jail.”
“I told you–I wasn’t fishin'”
“Yeah, and I was holdin’ that dime bag for a friend.”

The blow came the Monday after Thanksgiving. On Sunday the kids had described Marlene’s turkey dinner in mouthwatering detail. It sounded lots better than what George Leroy had had in jail. George Leroy’s lawyer stopped by Monday morning.
“Good news, Mr Marlin. Your trial has been set for January 16th. There’s light at the end of the tunnel!”
George Leroy groaned. “Yeah, it’s the lights of a train that’s gonna throw me right off the tracks!”

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I’ll Be Home for Christmas Part 3

Sharon J Mondragon — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 10:20:32 +0000

Junior’s team won the play-offs, even though Junior missed every ball that came his way. Sunny settled into school quickly. Marlene settled in quickly, too. One of the baseball moms suggested she apply for the library aide job at the kids’ school and she was hired.
Marlene liked working at the library. She learned fast–how to check books in and out, how to reshelve, and how to help students find books for reports and projects. She even checked out a few books herself. The first one was Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls. The chili con carne came out so well Junior had two helpings.
By October, Marlene had progressed to The Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook and she started to enjoy cooking. She and the kids talked and laughed over dinner.

George Leroy was also having some new experiences. He had always prided himself on his capacity for idleness. He left sweat, toil, and frenzied ambition to other fools. Why knock yourself out when the blue sky and a peaceful lakeshore called your name?
In the county jail, however, there was no sky, blue or otherwise, and definitely no peace. In the day room, the TV blared and inmates argued over what to watch until the guards threatened to turn it off altogether. Needless to say, no-one wanted to watch fishing shows.
George Leroy had never had absolutely nothing to do. He had been lazy, but never bored. He was sorely tempted to get a pass to the jail library or even go to the weekly church service, he was that desperate for something to do.
He took to pacing his cell and sending messages to his court-appointed attorney, pushing for a court date. It was the most work he’d put into anything in a long time.
In vain, the lawyer tried to convince his client to at least plead “No Contest.”
“What, I don’t say I did it, but I don’t say I didn’t do it and I still got to pay probation? That don’t make no sense.”
When George Leroy put it that way, it didn’t make much sense to the lawyer, either. That, however, was beside the point.
“Mr. Marlin, it’s clear that you intended to fish without a license. Why else would you have a pole, bait, and a bag to carry the fish home in?”
“I carried the bait can in that bag,” George Leroy explained. “Besides, whatever I was gonna do, I wasn’t fishin’ when the warden found me.”
“But you were going to fish!” The lawyer’s face turned an alarming shade of magenta.
“But I wasn’t fishin‘.” George Leroy crossed his arms and stared the lawyer down across the table.
“So you insist on a trial. The courts are really backed up, Mr. Marlin, with cases that are far more serious than yours. It could be November before your case is heard. I really don’t think a jury is going to appreciate having to take off from work to consider your ridiculous argument. I will do my best for you, but I can’t hold out much hope.”
George Leroy had never thought of himself as a stubborn man. He saw himself as a creek in midsummer, just going with the flow, a leisurely flow at that. Somehow, though, he felt duty bound to take a stand. Why did you have to have a license, anyway? Fishing should be free.
He tried to explain this to his cellmate, Bobby Lee Boykin. Bobby Lee was in on a drunk and disorderly and disturbing the peace. His case was not one you could argue away. The whole neighborhood had seen him staggering in the middle of the street at four a.m., belting out “Because you’re mine, I walk the line,” at his girlfriend, Charmaine’s window. He was waiting for her to post bail, but she didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry over it.
“I dunno,” answered Bobby Lee. “If everybody was like you and only took what they needed, I guess that’d work. But some folks is so greedy, they’d fish everything up just so’s nobody else could have any.”
“You got a point there,” George Leroy conceded. “I never thought of it like that.”
September and most of October wore on while George Leroy paced, nagged his lawyer, and thought long thoughts that had never crossed his mind before.

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I’ll Be Home for Christmas Part 2

Sharon J Mondragon — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 10:22:12 +0000

“When ya comin’ home, Daddy?” Junior asked through the grill as he bounced up and down on the stool.
“Judge ain’t said yet,” George Leroy answered.
“It’ll be by the Fourth of Joo-ly, won’t it? We got to go to the stand and get sparklers and snap-pops.” He bounced confidently.
“Well, no, boy, it ain’t gonna be that soon.”
Junior stopped bouncing and stared through the glass at his father.
“Why not?”
“Judge says I broke the law and I say no, I didn’t. We got to have a trial to find out who’s right.”
“Like on TV?” Junior resumed bouncing. “With ‘I object’ and ‘Overruled’ and all? Can I come?”
“it won’t be that exciting, buddy. It ain’t no place for you,” his father answered.
Junior stuck out his tongue and said, “Well, jail ain’t no place for you!” He high-tailed it off the stool just in case his father could figure a way to come after him through the glass.
Sunny took his place and climbed up on her knees on the stool so she could reach her mouth up to the grill.
“Come back home soon, Daddy,” she whispered. “Mama cries every night.” She climbed back down and joined her brother by the door.
“How are you, sugar?” George Leroy asked as Marlene took her turn on the stool.
“I’m holdin’ up,” she sighed. “Junior’s been real ornery, like you just saw, and Sunny’s bein’ way too sweet. There ain’t much food in the house, neither.”
“That’s what them food stamps is for, Marlene.”
“I know, but I hate the way folks look at me in the store when I pay with ’em.”
“Forget those folks,” George Leroy said. “You and the kids got to eat. Can’t believe they’d begrudge you some Hamburger Helper when you got kids to feed.”
“Oh, all right,” she sighed, “but I still don’t like it.”
“That’s my sugar-pie.”
Marlene looked down at her hands, examining her short-bitten, unpolished nails. “Are you sure you have to go to trial?”
“What? You have to talk into that metal thing or else I can’t hear you.”
She raised her head and said into the grill, “Can’t you plead guilty and get probation or something, honey?”
George Leroy smacked his hands down on the counter, making Marlene jump.
“I told you, Marlene. I wasn’t fishin’ when that warden come down the bank. The pole was on the sand and I hadn’t caught anything yet. We got precious little to pay probation with anyhow. I ain’t pleadin’ guilty and that’s that.”
Marlene’s blue eyes filled with tears and her shoulders slumped. It tugged at George Leroy’s heart.
“I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle of this, darlin’,” he said gently. “But I ain’t guilty and I ain’t gonna say that I am. Even if I did, it’d still take a while to see the judge again. You wouldn’t believe how busy this place is. I’ll be here a while, anyway, seein’ as we don’t got money for bail. But it’ll be all right, you’ll see.”

Sunny was the first one on the stool on the third Sunday in July.
“Daddy, I got reg-is-tered for school on Thursday. I’m going to go to all-day kindergarten!” Her blond ponytail bounced.
“School? All day? Ain’t you gonna miss Mama?”
“I don’t think so,” Sunny whispered into the grill. “School’s gonna be fun. But don’t tell Mama, ’cause it might hurt her feelings.”
“Okay,” George Leroy whispered back. “So, you think you’re ready?” he said in a louder voice.
The ponytail bounced some more. “I can count to twenty. I know all the letters and I can write my name–Sunshine Louise Marlin. I know my address and phone number, too.”
“Well, ain’t you smart. I’ll bet you’ll be the smartest in the whole class.”
“You’re going to be home for the first day of school, right? To put me on the bus?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. I ain’t got a court date yet,” George Leroy had to answer.
Sunny’s face fell. She slid off the stool and went to stand by the door with Junior. George Leroy gestured to Junior to come and talk, but Junior shook his head and fixed his father with a stony stare.
“What’s eatin’ Junior?” George Leroy asked Marlene as she settled on the stool.
“His coach-pitched team is in the play-offs. You’re gonna miss it and he’s mad.”
“He’s playin’ at the Rec Center?! We can’t afford that, Marlene!”
“He got a anonymous scholarship. Some of the other moms passed down pants and cleats and a glove. The baseball moms are real nice.”
“His team’s in the play-offs?” George Leroy shook his head in wonder. “Is he any good?”
“He can whack it pretty good when he gets a piece of it. Can’t catch good yet, though.”
“If I was home,” George Leroy mused, “we could play catch and he’d get better.”
“Yeah,” Marlene replied, looking her husband straight in the eye. “If you was home.”

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I’ll be Home for Christmas Part 1

Sharon J Mondragon — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 10:25:23 +0000

It was June 22nd and George Leroy Marlin was not thinking about Christmas. With a name like Marlin, you can bet he was thinking about fishing. Not deep-sea fishing, though. The family finances wouldn’t extend to that, or a bass boat, or even a fishing license, truth be told. This is why George Leroy was not thinking about Christmas. He was thinking about what he was going to say to the game warden scrambling down the bank of his favorite and most secret fishing hole.
The game warden slid down the last few feet of scree to the bottom. He regained his footing and said, “George Leroy, you know I got to ask you for your fishing license.
“Warden, you know I ain’t got one,” George answered. “I just got to catch dinner for the family.”
The warden sighed. “You know you can’t fish here without a license.”
“C’mon, Warden, can’t you let it go this once? I ain’t takin’ more than three or four, just enough for me and Marlene and the kids.”
“Not this time, George Leroy. It’s always the same old story. Steal hungry or steal full, it’s still stealing. I gotta take you in.”
So on June 22nd, instead of getting half a dozen catfish to fry up for supper, Marlene got a call from the jail.
“Sugar, I’m sorry. I’m not going to be home with supper tonight. Warden thinks I got to talk over the license situation with the judge.”
Slightly hysterical squawking poured out of the receiver, peppered with some choice cuss words. “Now, honey, it’ll be straightened out by tomorrow.” More squawking. “Darlin’, you know you can make a great supper no matter what we don’t got. You’re that good.” The squawking died down to a coo as the two exchanged endearments and hung up.
George Leroy enjoyed a jailhouse supper that was a good deal tastier than most of the meals Marlene fixed him at home. He had been stretching the truth when he encouraged Marlene about her cooking. The only thing she could cook was fish. She cooked fish well enough to explain George Leroy’s reluctance to give up fishing just because he couldn’t afford a license. George Leroy was reluctant to give up fishing period; he like it better than working, any day. Sometimes he wondered if he was a lazy, lying thief, but most of the time he saw himself as a misunderstood man who was meant to spend his life with a fishing pole in his hand.
After a breakfast that rivaled all of Marlene’s efforts except cereal, George Leroy tucked in his shirt and went before the judge.
“How do, Judge Conyers,” he said, respectfully removing his fishing hat.
“Good morning, Mr. Marlin,” the judge answered. “You are charged with fishing without a license. Failure to show an officer your license is a Class C misdemeanor of the Parks and Wildlife Code. How do you plead?”
“Your Honor, you know I need that fish to feed my family. You know I ain’t got money for a license.”
“Were you, or were you not fishing without a license, Mr. Marlin?”
“I ain’t got no license, but I dare anybody to say I was fishing!” George Leroy puffed out his chest defiantly.
The judge sighed. “You’re pleading ‘Not Guilty,’ then?”
“You bet I am, Judge!” George replied.
“George Leroy,” the judge said, “This is serious. You can be fined as much as $500.”
“It might as well be a million, Judge, ’cause I ain’t got that kind of money, besides the fact I wasn’t fishin’.”
Judge Conyers lowered his reading glasses from the top of his shiny bald head to the end of his nose and pored over the game warden’s report.
“Says here you had a pole and a can of bait.”
“Layin’ on the shore. I wasn’t fishin’.”
“But you were going to fish,” the judge insisted testily. “Besides, the warden asked you for your license and you didn’t have one.”
“Why would I need a license if I wasn’t fishin’? You answer me that, Judge.”
“But you were going to fish.” Judge Conyers’ face began to turn an alarming shade of magenta.
Leroy folded his arms across his chest and said, “Can’t prove it.”
“Then you’re going to trial! Bail is set at $200.” The judge relieved his feelings with a sharp rap of his gavel.
“Two hundred dollars?! Where’re me and Marlene gonna get $200?! How long before the trial? This ain’t fair! I wasn’t fishin’!” George Leroy protested as he was led away to the cell that looked like it was going to be his home away from home. But not for long, surely.

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An Early Christmas Present for You

Sharon J Mondragon — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 18:57:56 +0000

Over the years that I’ve been writing and seeking publication, lots of people have given me encouragement and support. It’s a long road from first line to published book and y’all have stuck with me, asking me how things are going and telling me you can hardly wait to read my books. I can’t tell you how much that means to me! My agent is diligently submitting my books and getting requests for full manuscripts. Several editors have championed them, but the books haven’t made it through at their publisher’s Acquisition meetings yet. And you, my family, friends, and fans are left still waiting to read what I write.
Therefore, as my gift to you for your love and encouragement, I’m going to be posting some of my short stories here on my blog in serial form. By serial, I mean I’ll post part of the story each week, short enough that you could read it over breakfast (eating cereal, if you want!). In the first story, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” you’ll meet George Leroy Marlin, a man who would rather go fishing than go to work. But when he gets caught fishing without a license one too many times, he finds himself in jail with a choice to make: tell the truth to the judge (and himself) or break a promise to his little girl. A tall order for a man given to fish stories!
Can a tale set in the county lock-up make you laugh? Tune in on Wednesdays to find out!

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In the Shelter of a Shawl

Sharon J Mondragon — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 17:20:10 +0000

My cousin Cindy is an addiction counselor. During a recent visit, I listened to her tell about her work with addicts. I was struck that one of the most important things she focuses on in counseling is honesty. I know this is important, not only for addicts, but for those who love them. I know this because one of my sons began his descent into addiction as a teenager, still living in our home. For families, the early years of addiction are a dance of denial. We really don’t want to see the truth, refuse to believe it’s happening in our family, to the child we have loved and thought we were raising well. If the whole thing is hard for a family to admit, it’s doubly hard for someone abusing drugs and/or alcohol. It becomes a vicious cycle, because those substances allow the user to run away from whatever is troubling him or her, at least for a little while, instead of admitting, facing, and dealing with it. To hear Cindy tell it, a lot of addiction counseling deals with honestly facing reality. My hat is off to any addict who does this, as reality is difficult for all of us. My son, who is recovering now, recently told me, “Life is hard sober.” “Life is hard, period,” I told him ruefully.

I’ve thought about the daunting and challenging journey of recovery, how scary and painful it is to face the truth from which drugs have provided a respite, a fleeting escape. I’ve thought about what I can do to help. I don’t think I’m called, as Cindy is, to be a counselor, but there is something I (and you) can do to support those who are engaged in the daunting work of recovery. Below is a picture of the shawls I sent off this week to Cindy to use in her practice. My hope and prayer is that people facing hard truths and struggling to be free will sense God’s presence giving them courage and strength in the shelter of a prayer shawl.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1

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