The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: RIBBON

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?

For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on The Butterfly Hours tab above.

This month's prompts are pipe, playground, prayers, recipes, ribbon, rice, road, saltwater, sandwich, school, sewing.

RIBBON

Mama with her (many) ribbon-winning
Jersey cow named Penny.

My mother was quite the 4-H ribbon queen for sewing, public speaking, dairy and beef cattle. Alas, I did not follow in her footsteps! In 4^th grade I won a blue ribbon for my science fair project on Mendel's theories of genetics. My display board was homemade (by my father), and heavy, thanks to plywood and quality hardware. With my mother's help, I covered it in purple felt (my favorite color). A poem I wrote about a different aspect of this experience appears in the Poetry Friday Anthology for Science -Fourth Grade published by Janet and Sylvia of Pomelo Books.  

Science Fair

The graphics
I created and pinned
to the felt board

explain why my eyes
could never be brown,
my hair only blond.

I wonder if Mendel's
theory of genetics
also applies to why

I'm shy
and can speak
to the judges

only in a quavery voice
that betrays my shaky
hands and knees.

- Irene Latham

My senior year I earned the Social Studies ribbon, which was awarded to the student with highest grade average across the school year. I've always felt it's somewhat revealing, as I've always enjoyed learning about history and culture, and also somehow prophetic, in that I went on to earn degrees in social work and to write books about experiences around the world.