A Little Yellow Candy

You recall Norman from NFL fame here and that is not the end of the story. When I coach writers to sell their work online, thet often ask what do I write about? Start with family. If yours is as wacko as mine, it will be a pretty good place to start. Norman loved his little yellow candies. He was an inveterate smoker who could never break the evil habit up to the day of his death and wasn’t apologetic about it. He simply hid the odor with the little candy. He had one in his mouth when he died. Norman loved his gambling in his final days and he and Florence escaped Scottsdale, not from the heat, but for the excitement of a new casino which had opened up especially luring Arizona residents who didn’t want to drive all the way to sin city to gamble. So one day Norman and Florence headed off to Laughlin and due to the irrepressible heat, dropped off his wife of near 50 years at the entrance to the grand casino. Then Norman headed off to one of the parking spaces in the vast lot. His last moment on earth was to put the car in park and enjoy the A/C as he deposited one final yellow candy in his mouth. He reached for the ignition, but a coronary seized him and took him on the spot, dead at the age of seventy. Florence, not knowing why her partner was late, but used to his silly interminable delays, finally threw up her hands and battled the heat as she investigated. She finally located their car and started beating on the window as she urged Norman to stop dawdling and get out of the damn car. Finally, she realized that the man she was looking at was a dead man sitting. She rushed off in a panic to find help. When they finally extricated Norman from his Cadillac, he had a slight smile on his colorless face and a little yellow candy in his mouth. Whenever I am troubled with a little tickle and accompanying cough, I buy the same little yellow candy---and I think of Norman and I always will.