Each year the SCWC*SD has a writing contest in which all conferees are invited to participate. The rules are simple: Write a piece in any form you wish of no more than 250 words based on the topic announced Friday night. The topic for the 21st annual San Diego conference was "Mourning/Morning." Gene Kaster of Orinda, CA is the writer of this year's favorite entry.
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"Heather, you cannont wear the pink dress."
"Mom, you like that dress!"
"This is a funeral, honey. Wearing black shows sadness for the loss of the person who died. Everybody will be
wearing dark clothes."
"Well, daddy was a writer and he didn't like to do what other people did. He would like that I'm being a free
thinker."
"Honey, God rest his soul, but your dad only liked other free thinkers who thought exactly like he did."
"And that's what I'm doing, Mom. Julie Schmidt helps her dad at the funeral home and she told me that Dad's will
said his undershorts in the casket had to be the red, white and blue ones that list fifty different ways to do
it in gold letters."
"She told you that?"
"Uh-huh. And she told me you were mad about it."
"Well, that girl has some mouth on her."
"Know what else she told me?"
"Oh, Lord, what?"
"Dad had a tattoo on his bottom that said, 'Screw everbody and you, too.'"
"Well, that girl. I am going to have a little talk with her father."
"And Mom, Dad also had a tattoo on... you know... his thing..."
"All right, Heather. Wear the damn dress."
| Copyright 2007, Gene Kaster. Used with permission. |
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