Joanne

Sometimes serendipity takes over and you find stories and storytellers who, in quiet but brilliant ways, illuminate the gentle humanity of their own corner of the world.

Joanne is like that. A born storyteller, she is. Every time she puts pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, she creates stories that absolutely charm me. The old expression "warming the cockles of my heart" applies to how I feel about Joanne's folksy writing style.

I don't know all that much about Joanne. I don't know her last name, even. She drops by my blog all the time and offers a kind or sly comment on some drivel I've written. Her profile says she is "past retirement age but has a few good licks left" and she lives in a small town somewhere in northeast Ohio, U.S.A. That's all I know, really, but it doesn't matter. What matters is every time I visit her blog, Cup on the Bus, I am smitten by her stories of real life.

Yesterday she posted Small Town Memorial Day about the tenacity of a sunflower growing out of a crack in the concrete and of a roads superintendent who saved it instead of plucking it out. I was so charmed that I posted a link to her blog on Facebook. And I just smiled inside and outside when I read Two Old Ladies Sell Rugs and Pander to Fowl. And then there's the story of her Uncle Bill. Heartbreaking, really.

Joanne doesn't have many followers. She doesn't make a fuss. She just tells stories from her life – quietly unassuming stories, that make me want to curl up in a comfortable chair and listen.

I just think she is the loveliest person and thought you might think so, too.