Crazy Quilt By Terry L. White          When I was young my father would take me to the park to ride the roller coaster.          It was a mile long. Riding it was a little like being in love.          I remember how innocent and sleepy those pretty little trains seemed as they waited at the terminal to purchase the little yellow pasteboard tickets the thing fed on.          My father always chose the first car.          I remember that I always felt so safe with his dark, muscular body pressed close to mine in the narrow seat. I reached for the cold iron bar that locked us in and hung on for dear life.          The journey started with the slow chug of a hidden motor, a faint bump as the car's wheels attacked each rail beneath it's shining body. The departure was so gentle. The ground was still near, and I could smell popcorn and cotton candy, which always reminded me of how hungry I was - no matter how lately I had eaten.          We rose slowly to the skies, tenderly departing the tethers of earth and the milling crowd below, which was entirely oblivious of our journey. The first dip was shallow, hardly threatening, and then we rose higher and higher on the fragile network of wood and steel that reached toward the heavens toward the unknown.          "Open your eyes, Cookie." I would pry my nearsightedness open to peruse a vague blur of ground, and roof, of slowly moving mortals who looked like ants on a hill.          The second descent always took me by surprise because we came on it so abruptly. A strong, brown arm snaked around my shoulders by way of reassurance, but I continued to clutch the safety bar with white-knuckled fingers made potent by fear. Father's body was pungent with Old Spice and glorious in Hawaiian shirt and straw chapeau.          "Afraid?" He would ask.          I would answer," "No," and "Yes," and "I think I'm going to throw up."          But you can't get off the roller coaster in the middle. You have gone too high and the ride is not over yet.          Why did my father always choose the first car? Wouldn't it have been much safer to ride in the center of the train - with the protection of other brave souls before and behind? Let others own the anxiety of first place, the shame of falling last. Or, better still, couldn't we have stayed safely rooted to the security of the earth and not have taken the risk at all?          We teetered on the brink.          Then the track fell away from us in a rush of wind and we were hurtling towards oblivion amid shrieks and laughter of our fellow, somehow lesser, passengers. Author TERRY L. WHITE         Terry L. White, author of MYSTICK MOON, was raised in the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania. The eldest of eight children, she dreamed of being a writer and made up stories to amuse herself and her siblings. Of European and Native American descent, she grew up with the family legends of being Abraham Lincoln's relative; of ancestors arriving in the New World as indentured servants, and of abandoned coal mines that burned forever underground on the mountain overlooking her childhood home. Terry's fascination with history, folk art and ways, and New Age philosophy provide her with much of the material she incorporates in her work. She has published hundreds of short stories, articles, poems and songs. Terry is a long-time member of the International Women's Writing Guild and teaches a workshop at their summer conference at Skidmore College each year. Coming soon from Terry L. White will be HANG YOUR HEAD OVER; HELL OR HIGH WATER and THE LAST PRIESTESS. She can be reached at:www.sunweaver.com/stonesoup/.