2007 Essay Contest Third Place winner

Submitted by Louise Ransom of Waldo

My dad died when I was 14 yrs old. That left me and Mom to do everything, turning me into a tomboy. I learned to do almost anything including wood splitting. I was good at the wood splitting, or so I thought.

I was 15 the day my boyfriend came by, saw me splitting wood and offered to help. I say, “No. I can do it.” To prove my point, I swung the ax, missed the wood, the ax went in the ground, I stooped to pull it out, missed it and fell backward. My dress flew up exposing my too big panties. He reached down, trying his best to keep a straight face, and pulled me up. I let him have the ax.

We later got married, had 3 kids and stayed together 49 years until his death. He never forgot to tease me about that incident. He’d say, “You still know how to split wood?”