Meredith Harmon
Bio
Mix equal parts anthropologist, biologist, geologist, and artisan, stir and heat in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, sprinkle with a heaping pile of odd life experiences. Half-baked.
Stories (211/0)
It's Only Superstition
I'm about to out some family members. Luckily they don't read my stories, because otherwise I'd be in a lot of trouble. But I'm not here to mock them. Just the opposite - I want to show how things can shift from one generation to another, and its long-lasting effects.
By Meredith Harmonabout a year ago in Families
The High Cow Story
Happy meal, anyone? I grew up in a tiny town where everyone knows everyone. Well, more correctly, everyone was related to everyone in some way. And when your mother's a school teacher, and the town is divided between not one, not two, but three different school districts, you can't get away with jack over diddly. Everyone's a gossip.
By Meredith Harmonabout a year ago in Families
Penalties Incurred for Inappropriate Use of Hot Sauce
Another tale of Crazy Friend John, when he lost to a bottle of hot sauce. To be fair, honestly, losing to a bottle of hot sauce could happen to anyone. But when your nickname is, in fact, Crazy Friend, you know there's a story lurking somewhere under a shimmering red oily surface.
By Meredith Harmonabout a year ago in Lifehack
- Top Story - April 2023
HusbandryTop Story - April 2023
Bear with me. What I thought was a chance encounter with a fellow toddler turned out to be more important than I ever thought at the time, and even for the first sixteen-plus years of my life, didn't fully figure out. I'll tell it to you as I remember it now, not as my tiny brain recorded it then.
By Meredith Harmonabout a year ago in Families
Don't Tick Off Pele
Author's Note: These stories took place long before the ban on taking sand from Hawaii's beaches was enacted in 2013. And my sand collection is kept in gem capsules, which are the size of six or seven quarters stacked on top of each other. We're talking amounts equal to two spoonfuls as a labeled sample. As with the rocks and shells, I only collect and have my friends collect from places where it's legal. Both collection sites were public beaches, and never in national parks. It is illegal to take lava rocks off Hawaii, but other volcanic rocks - breccia, tuffra, etc. - are okay if it's personal collection and not for sale. But no black sand, no green sand, no coral live or dead, no lava rocks. Any extra sand I'm given is used in the glass beads I make, as pictured above. It works better if the sand is mostly quartz, not broken shell, so I may have to do some sifting to get a good sample that won't break the protective layer of glass I put over the particles to keep them safe. With all that said, on to the stories:
By Meredith Harmonabout a year ago in Wander
Aileron
"A martlet in English heraldry is a mythical bird without feet that never roosts from the moment of its drop-birth until its death fall; martlets are proposed to be continuously on the wing. It is a compelling allegory for continuous effort, expressed in heraldic charge depicting a stylised bird similar to a swift or a house martin, without feet...The Common Swift rarely lands outside breeding season, and sleeps while airborne." -Wikipedia intro for "Martlet"
By Meredith Harmonabout a year ago in Fiction
In Flight Movie
I was smuggled aboard the regular way. But I was not expecting so many others to be my secret companions. Normally, I work alone. I'm good at my job, thank you. My specialty is creeping through duct work, sneaking along like that character in that Christmas movie. I even call myself that name when I'm on the job. Yippee-ki-yi-yo, you know?
By Meredith Harmonabout a year ago in Fiction
- Top Story - March 2023
ShardsTop Story - March 2023
"The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own." I saw the scrap of paper at the top of the desk drawer. I squinted at the crabbed writing, so like mine, but definitely not my hand. My aunt and I were very similar in a lot of ways, and our lefty scrawls were near the top of the list. I sighed as I put it in the box with all the other papers. This box would go in the van with the others, to go through when the loss wasn't so raw.
By Meredith Harmonabout a year ago in Fiction