Rivercrest High School - grace grits and gardening

those first best childhood friends…

June 24, 2016 By Talya Tate Boerner

One of the best things I’ve done in a long while was spend time with these childhood friends. I consider myself sooooo fortunate to have attended school from Headstart through twelfth grade with many of the same people. (Headstart was a program started in 1965 for low-income kids who needed a “head start” before first grade, and we were those kids…)

There’s nothing like childhood friends—the folks we knew before we knew ourselves. We can sit together and reminisce and laugh and cry, and although we are fifty-something now, when we’re together, we are first graders. Or twelve-years-old. Or seniors in high school. Our memories have only become more vivid with age, hindsight, and a dose of humor.

We know the same places and people, and there’s a specialness to that.Continue Reading

there’s no place like home

February 12, 2016 By Talya Tate Boerner

There’s no place like home, that’s for sure. And oh my goodness, so far my week back home in Mississippi County has been so much fun and a whirlwind of activity. I was invited to speak at the Osceola Rotary Club on Tuesday and they fed me very well. They made me promise to return each time I publish a book, so I best get busy with my next one. Books = Rotary Spaghetti with a side of homemade blackberry cobbler, and that’s a yummy thing.

I met lots of people and saw a few folks I hadn’t seen in years, like my high school guidance counselor, Mr. Rogers Ford.

And speaking of high school, I returned to mine (Rivercrest High School, go Colts!!!) to present a book to the library. That was very cool because I spent so much time in that library.Continue Reading

Beware. The Ides of March.

March 15, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

So here we are. March 15. Beware the day after Pi Day. Also known as the Ides of March. Methinks of Shakespeare, et tu? Because for whatever reason, that Ides phrase introduced in high school stuck. Unlike Pi.

Oh Shakespeare…

via morgueFile

That honey-tongued poet who gushed drama and imagery with each flowery word.

In 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was warned of the Ides (the 15th, the full moon). We remember how that prophecy of doom worked out. Thanks to back-stabbing Brutus, he never made it to work.

Mrs. Key, one of my favorite high school teachers, brought Shakespeare to life in English class. Trying to twist our southern accents around those words was as challenging as trying to learn French.

“What language is this?” we protested.

“English!” Mrs. Key, vexed by our confusion, flung her multi-colored four-inch heel across the room and into the chalkboard. She belonged to another time, another place, and was as dramatic as Shakespeare himself.