Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

by Kathy Waller

I wrote the following for my personal blog nearly a year ago. Rereading it today, I decided it’s worth sharing again–not for my words, but for those of Jane Clemens. She must have been an exceptional woman, and she reared and exceptional son.

*****

Mark Twain chose his words carefully: Pa’s boot with a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end; a sow lying in the middle of the street, looking as happy as if she was on salary; and Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on.

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word,” he wrote, “is really a large matter – ’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.“

And, “Use the right word, not its second cousin.”

In his autobiography, he tells the story of a time his mother…