Life is a Jagged Journey! Throughout history people have dreamed about what their lives would be like. Rarely did those dreams and reality line up. The comfortable, happy, everything-go-smoothly life described in many success seminars and books doesn’t exist for the majority of us.
Life is unpredictable. Disasters strike. Bad choices lead to unintended consequences. Others do things that affect us. Even the weather doesn’t always cooperate with our plans. There are a myriad of possibilities—good and bad that can’t be anticipated.
We can learn so much about life, relationships, and even ourselves from history and those who lived it. Outwardly, life has changed immensely. We can send or receive information, images, and sounds across the planet in a split second. It is possible for us to communicate with more people in an hour than people a hundred years ago could in a lifetime. We can also experience a vast array of activities, events, cultures, and relationships, unlike most people in previous generations. But, there are still a lot of factors out of our control.
In spite of all these changes, inwardly, people are still the same. We hope, dream, love, and fear. We still must find ways to provide for our physical, social, emotional, and spiritual needs. No matter the culture, we still struggle with poverty, injustice, crime, the desire for friendship, family relations, meaning, and purpose.
For thousands of years people have faced hardships and the unknown with hope and perseverance. They pressed ahead, reinvented themselves, fell into depression, or a life of crime. What makes one person rise above adversity while another crumbles beneath it? That is a question for exploration.
Fiction allows us the opportunity to explore these questions in the safety of our home. As we read fiction we grow in our understanding of ourselves and others–making us better people.
Hi, I’m Ida Smith and I’d like to Welcome You to Ida Smith Books. I write stories of everyday people confronted with the unexpected or making choices that lead to surprising results.
Come with me as we meet a myriad of fictional characters and join them on their jagged journeys.
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By the 1950s, the wild west was no longer filled with gunslingers, desperados, and bands of raiding Indians, but it was far from refined, as Bev was learning.
The smell from the outhouse assaulted Bev as she exited the small cabin she and husband, Horace lived in. Horace promised to take care of the problem. He would make everything smell, “As sweet as posies.” But, could she trust him?
Little did she know, that the stench from the outhouse was only the beginning of her problems.
Please enjoy this humorous short story of a couple homesteading in north Idaho in the 1950s.