by Stacey Denny | Aug 12, 2025 | Plain Speech Messages
I had a neighbor growing up whose name was Roger. We were the same age, maybe 7 or 8, and we shared a sandbox, a sort of communal sandbox, which we shared with several neighborhood cats. Every morning we’d clean it out, then play cars, building highways, tunnels, and...
by Stacey Denny | Mar 25, 2025 | Plain Speech Messages
A year after I was born, my father was hired by Johnson Wax as a salesman, visiting grocery stores across Indiana, peddling his wares, mostly Raid bug spray and Pledge furniture polish. Then in 1970, the shaving cream world was rocked when Johnson Wax invented Edge...
by Stacey Denny | Jan 20, 2025 | Plain Speech Messages
Well, what a good Thanksgiving we had. It might be my favorite holiday. I like the constancy of Thanksgiving, the timelessness. Thanksgiving in 2024 feels like it felt when I was a kid in the 1960s, the same menu, some of the same people, the same conversations, and...
by Stacey Denny | Aug 6, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
Earlier this summer, Joan had gone with Madeline to the store, so I was lying on the couch, praying, when I heard a knock at our back door. No one we know ever knocks, they just walk in, or call out. We’re not long on formalities. So when they knocked, I knew it...
by Stacey Denny | Jul 8, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
Several years ago, a man I know was told he was dying, which of course we all are, but his death was sooner than he had anticipated. Though well-off, he’d always been miserly, to the frustration of his wife who wanted them to travel and see things and visit their...
