Ray Maher

“Weird Band Chaperons” by Ray Maher

Submitted to Contest #149

Weird Band ChaperonsWe are close friends who were brought together through our repeated years of band practice. Meg is quiet and shy, with or without her flute. Dan, who plays trumpet, and Kyle with his French horn, are our loud ones. These two tall giraffes can be attention-grabbing fanfares even without their instruments. The other guy in our friendship gang is Dakota. He is short, intense, and as relentless as his drumming in the band performances. I am Dee, the last of our group, the other girl of our five, and I play the piano in our ba...

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“Never Too Old To Grow up” by Ray Maher

Never Too Old To Grow Up Once upon a time, about sixty years ago, my mother yelled in anger and frustration at me, “Raymond, you have to grow up and get up in the mornings. The school bus won’t wait for you to get out of bed. I won’t call you again!” My mother was true to her word as she was done with my chronic reluctance to get up when she called me. She got me an alarm clock and said, “Set your alarm and get yourself up.” In high school, getting up in time to catch the bus was hard to do, but I did master it with the help of my alarm c...

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“Never Too Old To grow up” by Ray Maher

Submitted to Contest #139

Never Too Old To Grow Up Once upon a time, about sixty years ago, my mother yelled in anger and frustration at me, “Raymond, you have to grow up and get up in the mornings. The school bus won’t wait for you to get out of bed. I won’t call you again!” My mother was true to her word as she was done with my chronic reluctance to get up when she called me. She got me an alarm clock and said, “Set your alarm and get yourself up.” In high school, getting up in time to catch the bus was hard to do, but I did master it with the help of my alarm c...

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“Ancestry.com” by Ray Maher

Submitted to Contest #130

Ancestry.com The last school research project Earc Hendric wanted was an ancestry assignment. “It sucks!” Earc complained, but no one listened to him. His dad had said to him without a grain of compassion, "Everything sucks for you, Earc; just do it and quit your whining and grow up.” His mother had said to him, “You may enjoy it, Earc; we have told you that your name is an authentic Celtic spelling of Earc, not Eric. Your roots on your father’s and my side are Celtic. You may find some interesting family history in your research that ...

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“A Matter of Survival” by Ray Maher

Submitted to Contest #126

A Matter of Survival After 48 years of marriage, some say I’m making a fresh start. If so, it is a forced start forward. Sadly, I'm being dragged into a new beginning with a hole in my heart. My wife Julie died in hospital three months ago. Her death tore my life apart, and here I am, facing the new year of 2022. There is no shouting, “Happy New Year,” for me. There may well never be happy years in my life again without Julie. We were one of a kind, as a couple. We had no children. We had half a dozen close friends who now comfort me an...

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