Hearty Laughs: Grandma Longenecker and Aunt Ruthie’s
Waiting in the sitting room for my dad’s truck to arrive for me, I was a spectator, looking through the mahogany-trimmed doorway into the kitchen. Women with prayer caps, Grandma Longenecker and Aunt Ruthie, were sitting at the gray, Formica-topped table facing...
Rhapsody in Breeze
Like a blushing bride, impeccable from head to toe and listening for the first strains of the Wedding March, works of art require just that: Work and time to re-work. Years ago, as a professor teaching English literature, I introduced students to examples of exquisite...
Take a Break with Liz Gauffreau’s Pleasant Haiku
I am pleased to be part of author Liz Gauffreau’s blog tour, Day 10. To date, I’ve read Distant Flickers to which Liz contributed a short story and reviewed two of her books, Grief Songs and now Simple Pleasures. Liz shows up regularly to comment on my blog posts....
Yummy Sandwiches: The Earl, a Marquee, and a Duke
The Earl It’s a fact! On August 6, 1762, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich asked for a meal between two slices of bread and thus, the sandwich was born. Legend has it that the Earl was a gambler so addicted to card-playing, he didn’t want to leave his card game to eat—thus...
A Heinz 57 Jar, a 57 Chevrolet, and a Wedding Anniversary
A Heinz 57 bottle, a 1957 Chevy BelAir, and a Jewish fable provide multiple metaphors for marriage. The first two proclaim the magic number 57, the number of years we have been married. August 5, 1967–August 5, 2024 which equates to our anniversary milestone this...
3 Miracles and a Cloudy Haiku
Behold, some miracles! SPEECH Skills learned in early childhood become more difficult to acquire later on, says the research. It seems simple to teach preschoolers any language they hear. In fact, they can learn it often without a trace of an accent. Why...
Flipping from Bad to Glad
In early May 2024, I discovered that the Contact page on my blog was not working properly at all. To my chagrin, since 2017 the messages of at least 17 people who tried to contact me through my blog failed to make a connection (GASP)! Why? The page on my blog where...
The Cartoonist and the Principal: Wordless Wednesday
Marian Meets the Red Queen
The Red Queen offers advice to Alice, who finds herself running intensely, but not actually moving forward: “Now, here, you see,” says the Red Queen, “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must...
Surprises of a Class Reunion
Time is galloping by! May 2024 is now practically history . . . and April is long gone. Looking back, the 27th of last month was a red-letter day for me. On that date I re-connected with some friends I had seen every day in high school decades ago in...
The Blowout: Part 2
Back-up to The Blowout, part 1: How last week’s installment ended: As the morning progressed though, Cliff and I wrestled with unspoken questions: Can we still enjoy a leisurely evening and supper, spending overnight in Valdosta? (We had packed suitcases in...
The Blowout
Out of the blue there was an ear-splitting BOOM above our heads. Cliff and I looked at each other dumbfounded, jaws dropping. Apparently, the shattering of thousands of glass shards followed the BOOM in the Subaru’s moon roof. We had traveled about seventy miles west...
Surprise Inside!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ2n3xsPQSo&lc=Ugzs31Z_TYkhjclEMVl4AaABAg Vintage card from the archives of Miss Ruth Longenecker I'll be taking a break now . . . back soon!
‘Tis Springtime with Sketchy Solicitations
Springtime At Rheems Elementary, a two-room school of eight grades, we observed a daily ritual: Bell ringing from the school-house steeple (always by a boy), Bible reading, the Lord’s Prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and then singing before morning lessons began....
Buds, Breezes, and a Blunder
Is it spring? Is it winter? As I write, the Weather Channel reports that a late winter storm is blanketing the Northwest and the Midwest while warm temps tease those in warmer climes. Author Kawaguchi of Tales from the Cafe expresses eloquently the fickle fits of...
5 Reasons Why I Blog
"Nearing 30 and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, Julie Powell reclaims her life by cooking every single recipe in Julia Child's legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking in the span of one year. It's a hysterical, inconceivably redemptive journey -- life...
Focus Your Gaze, Feel Renewed
When life speeds up, I want to slow down. As I change the tempo of my life, I notice my breath deepen, my pulse slow, and my gaze narrows its focus. I may fix my eyes for a while on something small that catches my attention: a lizard-y critter scampering along the...
Ted’s Wild Adventure in the Snow
Cold in Florida The weather has been rough this January by Florida standards. Not rough like in Winnepeg, Manitoba or Litchfield, Maine, but rough enough to potentially kill plants. At 31° Fahrenheit, the Beamans have had to cover their tender plants with tarps....