Meanwhile with Mckiever: A Collection

By Tonya Farnsworth McKiever

Tonya Farnsworth McKiever has the unique ability to tell the story of every kind of personfrom dignitaries to convicts. Her columns are not easily characterized because they cover such a huge variety of interesting subjects. The proverbial slice of life might be the most appropriate description of her work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Mar 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466915381

Tonya Farnsworth McKiever

Through her brief columns, McKiever engages her audience completely. Some of her award-winning writing is funny and some is not, but each story is thought provoking. Her accounts often lingers with the reader long after the book is closed.

Book preview

Contents

Create good times today to have good memories tomorrow

A trip to camp filled with 

 sickness for home

Chubby Checker, the Twist and the Fifties revisited

Spring brought story times in the storm cellar

Injured sparrow taught a valuable lesson

We want to see them start the game over, win a round or two

Wild boy sighted in Texas— 

 a true story

Reunion points out that home is where your roots take hold

Believe it or not, Buddhist monks are people, too

Daughter thankful for mom’s enthusiasm

We all should be trying to not be judgmental of others

Hitting the jackpot a 

 second time

Christmas changes over years but memories remain

Love of children goes beyond language barriers

Granted wishes sometimes cause heartbreak

A thread of goodness binds all of humanity

Could the congregation sense my insecurity when I first sat in the pew?

Slow down, stay in your lane and good luck

First grade memories often last a lifetime

Let’s remember why we celebrate Memorial Day

It was hot, the candles drooped, but a marriage was launched

Funding tactics and pagan babies can make the difference in raising money

Mrs. Rogers’ summer gift is lifelong memory

Bow season brings back Sherwood Forest memories

Family vacation with teen often more enjoyable on home movies

Memories of that 

 ‘polio summer’

Poetic obituaries reflect ancestors’ biographies

Life’s meaning often found in unexpected places

A letter to my dear father

Snowstorm conjures up a family that fun built

Our gardens can grow much more than potatoes and onions

Teacher was a bright spot during the insecurity of adolescence

The sad tale of how my pride forced me to eat humble pie

Three-o’clock-in-the-morning friends are a special group

Little things may mean a lot to someone you know

Fall reminds us that all things are passing

A history of mistletoe and me

‘Why upset someone over something when you don’t 

 have to?’

Family presents opportunity for bragging

Old wounds that didn’t heal, departing friends can touch you deeply

Confessions of a proud mother—me

Sad news brings back warm memories

Teachers come in many different forms

All she wanted was a happy family

Christmas decorations— 

 old and new

Woe be unto those who fail to rest today

Confusion caused by a homecoming mum

Wisdom shared at 

 ‘Shoot for Success’

Learning to hear that still, 

 small voice

Names provide something to talk about

Sometimes you win, 

 sometimes you lose

Trusting and following our intuition

Citizens must unite to unlock door to ‘Tolerance’

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of a favorite cowboy’s birth

Before we knew it could be dangerous

An unplanned elopement

Eighteen days and counting until Christmas Day

Thinking of Anne Frank

A short collection of misleading headlines

Victim of joking, 

 not discrimination

Reliving research center job puts me to sleep

More than a football star —

 a real hero

Some situations can surprise us

Through thick and thin

Two-year old children may be on to something

‘Progress’ makes its appearance by way of answering machines

Words of wisdom from Tonya the Elder

We are lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives

The power in positive, common visions

This collection is dedicated to my parents— 

 Bill and Gerry Farnsworth 

 —always my biggest fans.

Acknowledgement

This material originally appeared in The Benton County Daily Record, Bentonville, Arkansas and is used with permission.

Create good times today to have good memories tomorrow

This is the first of a new weekly column. My name is Tonya Farnsworth McKiever and I’ve lived in Bentonville exactly 20 years this month. My childhood and youth were spent in Texas. Please don’t hold being a Texan against me; I traded in that hook ’em horns thing a long time ago. I call the Hogs with the best of them now. Still, it’s only fair to let you know I grew up in the Lone Star state. In fact, I’ll just get honest with you. My hometown is Anson—that’s Jones County. The masthead on the four-page weekly newspaper there, The Western Observer, states in black and white they are serving the Heart of West Texas. So, I grew up in that flat, dry region where sandstorms and tumbleweeds are as common as green hills and streams are in northwest Arkansas.

Unlike our area, Anson is losing population. There’s nothing to keep people there—no new businesses and certainly no new airports for miles and miles in that part of the country. A few folks still farm cotton and run cattle, but it’s hard to depend on finicky Mother Nature for your income. Some seasons bring just the right amount of rain for acres that produce bale after bale of beautiful, white cotton.

Other years, like the summer just past, find farmers plowing under crops that withered in the drought. Those are the nights they sit at their kitchen tables with a pencil and scratch pad wondering how in the world they can survive such a setback. That’s the downside.

The wonderful part of growing up in a small, rural community for me was knowing every family in town. It was sitting in booths at the drugstore with friends sharing cherry coke after school each day. It was walking a couple of doors down from J & H Drugstore to see my dad as he worked at the family grocery store. It was the friendliness of people and the sheer delight in eating pomegranates and yelling until I was hoarse at high school football games. And watching newborn, white-faced Hereford calves trying out their wobbly legs.

It was living next door to one set of grandparents and only a few miles from my other set. It was feeling happy and loved and safe and secure. Well, I’m convinced I had about the best childhood of anyone. And I hope you feel the same way about yours, wherever you spent your earliest years.

As the song goes, "The Times They Are A’Changin’. They have and they are. I wonder sometimes if kids today are as happy and carefree as I was. Maybe they are. They still laugh and play and have terrific imaginations. They have access to technology and information that was nonexistent when I was a kid.

Those same youngsters I wonder about would probably feel sorry for my deprived youth. I remember going to a neighbor’s house to watch the first television set in Anson. Their living room was packed and as silent as a tomb. None of us wanted to miss a twangy sound coming from Slim Willett’s guitar. A local celeb-Willett was a country singer performing on the only television station we could get. Don’t let the stars get in your eyes, don’t let the moon get in your heart, Slim nasally crooned as he self-consciously stared at the TV camera.

Memories are being made right now. I guess it doesn’t matter if they’re musically accompanied by a big-bellied man in a cowboy hat or hip-hopping rappers seen on a 60-inch screen television with surround sound. The key, I think, is that the memories are made.

It’s easy nowadays for all of us to be so busy and self-absorbed that we go through several days and weeks without slowing to recognize that this is it. Whatever is going on in our lives today creates tomorrow’s memories. They can’t all be blissful, but they help shape who we are and how we treat each other.

On my to-do list for next week, in bold letters I wrote, Take a little time each day to reflect on the previous 24 hours. Oh, and the second thing I wrote is a reminder to go see some new calves I heard about. They were just born a couple of days ago and they’re white-faced Herefords, my favorite.

* * *

A trip to camp filled with 

sickness for home

It’s almost time to start labeling shorts and T-shirts for summer camp. Most kids headed to the wilds in a couple of months will have the time of their young lives. Unfortunately, my one and only stint at Camp Fire Girls’ camp was about as much fun as major surgery.

I was 11 years old and didn’t want to go. My parents felt it would be good for me, so they sent in the check and filled out the forms. I had to get a couple of shots—tetanus and polio booster—before leaving Lubbock, Texas, for Antonito, Colo.

For some reason, I had developed a tremendous fear of hypodermic needles and was strongly opposed to shots. My mother thumbed through old magazines in the waiting room while I went in alone for the dreaded inoculations. The nurse led me to the exam room. I followed and sat where she directed. But the minute she left to get the necessary vials to fill the needle, I made a run for it.

I didn’t go far. I just dashed out the back of the clinic and locked myself in the car. It took them a long time to find me. I guess they checked all the exam rooms before looking outside. By the time they discovered me, my mother was furious. I can still see her knocking on the car window and loudly instructing me to, Open this door and I mean now. Right now.

As terrified as I was of shots, I opened the door. I could tell she meant business and, sure enough, I got the shots. See what I mean? Camp, for me, was unpleasant before I even left town.

A few days later, I boarded a chartered Greyhound with all the other local Camp Fire Girls. They seemed so excited. I cried. I didn’t want to go.

It was a 10-hour bus trip to the foot of the Rockies and it was a beautiful setting. Small log cabins were scattered near a clear stream that ran close to the big log house, which served as a mess hall. We were assigned counselors, cabins and horses. My counselor was a college student named Elizabeth. I was in cabin No. 8 and my horse was named Splinters.

Camp was the longest week of my life. I cried a lot because I was so homesick. I made up this story about having an eye infection since I didn’t want everyone to think I was a big baby. I told the counselor my eyes just watered a lot.

I participated in all the activities. I swam and rode Splinters and ate s’mores around the campfire. I even won the arm wrestling championship, but I couldn’t wait to get home. The only time I remember feeling happy that long week was Saturday morning boarding the bus back to Lubbock.

Of course the other girls cried as they hugged the counselors goodbye and I felt obligated to shed a few tears then, too. But I really had to work hard to get the old eye infection to kick in that morning. I couldn’t wait to get home.

The bus driver must have had a nerve wracking trip and not because of all the verses of Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall or Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. It was a treacherous trip because of the terrible storms we drove through the last couple of hundred miles. By the time we pulled into the bus station in Lubbock, the weather was ferocious. There were no parents to meet us. They had all taken shelter, since tornadoes were touching down everywhere.

My parents,