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Aunt Norie’s Sewing Room

By Eleanor Mckee - | Apr 5, 2006

Stop! Look! Listen!

That big “X” sign at the railroad crossing meant just what it said. As a small child I remember us (and I sometimes still do), counting the cars as we waited for the train to pass.

That one word, listen, it seemed was one of my dad’s favorite words. I remember as small child walking through the woods, across the pasture, just anywhere with Dad, he would stop and hold his finger to his lips. “S-h-h,” he would whisper. “Listen.”

It might have been a meadowlark, a frog croaking in the pond or a bobwhite, then dad would whistle “bobwhite, bobwhite,” and the bird would answer.

We would listen to the water trickling over the rocks in the stream, listen to the chatter of the leaves in the wind, to the stillness of the night as we sat on the porch.

Or as he helped us settle one of our quarrels — kid stuff — but so important at the moment. After hearing his “listen to yourself, what you just said,” it seemed we always ended up laughing.

I used to think I could write a story or even a book, just about listening.

It can be funny, shocking alarming, as you listen to a child or children at play, and we certainly need to really listen, really hear what children are saying, what they are learning, where they are coming from, where they are going. The world is moving so fast, and they are its future.

Listen. I think I heard thunder, and it does look like rain.

So stop, look, listen. And don’t worry so much. You don’t know what’s around the bend in the road until you get there (another of dad’s favorite reminders).

Pass on those hugs. God bless.
— Aunt Norie, P.O. Box 265, Tonganoxie 66086; auntnorie@bdc.net