Tag Archives: memories

random musings

Palindromes

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When I was in 3rd grade (I think), we read a short story in our reader called “Hannah is a Palindrome.” I did a Google search for that story, and all I really found were blog or message board posts by others commenting that they too had read the story in elementary school.

I am not entirely sure why that story has stuck with me the way it has through the years. I just remember really liking it when we read it. I also remember a couple days after we read it, we had a substitute teacher. I’m pretty sure she went home in tears that day, and when our teacher returned she made us write a paper about what happened when the substitute was there. For some reason, I clearly remember describing the chaos in the classroom as being like we were living in the world of Hannah in “Hannah is a Palindrome.”

Funny the things that stick with a person. I can’t tell you what I ate two days ago, but I remember that paper vividly.

Ever since then, though, I’ve known what a palindrome is, and I’ve taken great pride in that knowledge.

From Merriam-Webster:

pal·in·drome
noun \ˈpa-lən-ˌdrōm\
a word, verse, or sentence (as “Able was I ere I saw Elba”) or a number (as 1881) that reads the same backward or forward

As a result, I found this Pin on Pinterest to be a lot funnier than I probably should have. I seem to recall laughing a good five minutes when I saw it, and then another five when I repinned it.

I’m such a nerd. And I know it. And here I have shared it… my love for Palindromes.

I did, did I?

memories

Like old times

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106: Rolling into Nashville

What a lot of people don’t know is that a big part of how my husband and I moved past just being friends to “something more” was thanks to hours on end talking on the phone as he drove a tour bus from one venue to another.

He was, at that time, the only bus driver for the artist he was also playing keys for… which made for long days! So as he drove through the night, to help the time pass and to help him stay awake, he’d put on a headset and call friends from the road. Being the fellow night owl, I was the last person on that list and we’d end up talking for hours through the night. It wasn’t unusual for us to talk three to four hours, only hanging up because he had pulled up to his destination.

The thing that blew us both away was how in those hours, we never got tired of talking to each other. Some nights it wasn’t much more than what he was seeing from his driver seat, but we had no interest in hanging up  the phone. Some nights, we’d share stories about our pasts, and others we’d have a lively debate about a topic. It didn’t matter what we talked about, and we never sweated what we’d say. We just fell in line with each other every time, night after night.

Married now, we thankfully still never tire of talking to each other. However, over the last several years, the opportunity to talk all night like we did back then hasn’t presented itself as much. (Oh don’t get me wrong, we could talk all night in person, but the old way of “on the phone while he drives” is the way I mean.)

Lately, though, my husband has been doing more driving than playing, which has provided us that old way of visiting again. Take the other night, for example. We talked for about four hours on the phone. At times, we sat in silence — him watching the road come at him, me playing solitaire on my laptop — but it never took long for something to hit one of us that we just had to share.

I loved it.

I couldn’t hold my eyes open any more when we called it a night. He was stopping to fuel the bus, and it was time for me to fuel my body with sleep. We said good night, his with a “rest well,” mine with a “be safe.” I fell asleep with a smile on my face… knowing we’d do it all over again the next night.

Just like old times