 Since I moved this winter, my home is not in need of Spring Cleaning, but the urge comes anyway. That familiar impulse to clear the cobwebs and start afresh is something I look forward to. A renewal that will not be denied.  Clearing virtual cobwebs is almost as satisfying as literal ones. I’ve swept my computer files, and tax preparation has forced me to tidy my financial ones. I went through my cellphone, deleting countless un-photo-worthy pictures. Photography never held much interest for me, but with a phone in my pocket, I must think I’m Margaret Bourke-White and Ansel Adams rolled into one. I shudder to think they still exist in The Cloud, but I’m not taking that on. To read more click on the magazine cover image below 
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  Leaving my hometown one summer afternoon, I swerved into the drive-through at Dairy Queen to get a vanilla cone for my trip back to Athens. As I waited for the treat so reminiscent of my childhood, I noticed a car parked askew across the parking lot. The elderly driver had gotten out and was wrestling to extract a wheel chair from the back seat. I was about to run over and help when, lo and behold... To read more click on the magazine cover image below   Sticks ‘n stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. We can chant that little ditty ‘til the cows come home, but ‘tain’t so. Ask anyone who has ever been bullied. Per Dr. Phil McGraw: it takes 1,000 ‘atta boys’ to erase one ‘you’re an idiot.’ Now that I am older, and hopefully wiser, I pay more attention to the words I use. When I forget, a grandson at the age of inquisition, keeps me on my toes. He wants to know why I say “indeed.” I don’t know, but I’m suddenly aware that I do, indeed, say it often... To read more click on the magazine cover image below  One cold, rainy trip into town, I had to stop in a tight curve behind a county work truck blocking my lane. A man hopped out, grabbed a shovel from the truck bed, scooped a flattened 'possum from the road, and sent me on my merry way.  Since I couldn't thank him, I thanked God, along with my tax dollars. It's nice knowing, in freezing winter drizzle... To read more click on the magazine cover image below    Yellow is the happy color of sunshine and daffodils. But the experience of choosing the right shade of yellow for clothes and paint is anything but happy. I've found myself looking like a canary more than once. My beloved writing mentor, Harriette Austin, often wore a bright yellow blazer with black piping that made her as easy to spot as a highlighted sentence in a manuscript. To read more click on the magazine cover Image below   A fixture of Georgia landscapes for my entire life, kudzu softens the shapes of outbuildings and transforms trees into odd topiaries. Its vines climb utility poles on both sides of our highways, stretching out DaVinci-like fingers trying to touch above the road traffic. On the fence behind Auntie's clothesline, a tendril of kudzu grew five inches from the morning when I'd hang out wet washing 'til the afternoon when it was dry. Some call kudzu the "Santa Claus vine," saying it will come down your chimney. My nephew asked his mom to buy a packet of Jack-and-the-Beanstalk seeds for her garden, which she discovered in the nick of time was kudzu. To read more click on the button or magazine Image below  
   Genie Smith Bernstein is named Georgia Independent Author of the Year for her story collection Skating on the Septic Tank – Telling Stories published by Black Opal Books. Known for stories of growing up in Putnam County, Bernstein credits a decade of writing for Georgia Connector Magazine with her wide readership and thanks Southern Pen Bookshop for this award.
 
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