Secrets in My Hatbox
Just behind my desk, a wicker table holds three hat-boxes: One is floral, another has a repeating Tuscan scene and the third is transparent, the contents held taut by pale blue gossamer fabric. All are chock full of memorabilia from days gone by. All three, a type of...
Moments of Discovery # 1: How Do You Furnish a House?
According to The Huffington Post, the median home price in the United States (2014) is $ 188,900.00. Even adjusted for inflation over the years, housing prices have increased enormously since the 1940s. My parents were married in 1940. Until they bought their first...
Family Dinners: Keeping the Spark Alive
Are family dinners important? What about empty nesters? Families of one? Do family dinners protect against the effects of teen drug use and cyberbullying? Writer Melodie Miller Davis in her recent blog post “How do you keep family dinner?" got me thinking about recent...
Way Back in the Day…
Did Granny or Mom make clothes out of feed-sacks? Did you wear outfits with rickrack or smocking? Blog friend/author S. K. Nicholls reminisces in this recent post.
The Million Dollar Baby: Ian’s Miracle Birth
Since my mother’s death in July, I have written several posts of her home-going including A Grief Observed: Missing Mother and Crossing the Bar. This time I’m focusing on a birth, our grandson Ian’s miraculous birth in 2007, seven years ago this week. According to the...
10 Things My Family Did or Didn’t Do on Sunday
You must not work on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday You must not work on Sunday because it is a sin. But you can work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday till Sunday comes again. Sung to a melody with a 4-note range similar to "Here We Go Round the...
Milk Toast: Good for What Ails You
Diners at the Bâtard, an upscale restaurant in Tribeca, NYC can enjoy a dessert dish called milk bread, "A Christmastime treat from Germany," says the September 1, 2014 issue of the New Yorker. The article goes on to describe this milk bread as having crème-brûlée...
Purple Passages and a Mirror
The earth laughs in flowers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson MIRRORS Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it. – Ernest Holmes Mirrors can both reflect and distort as Tennyson suggests: And moving through a...
The Beach at Sunset: Crossing the Bar
Sunsets, especially sunsets on the beach are # 1 on the list of clichés to avoid in photography. Yet beach sunsets persist on Instagram and Facebook because they are breath-taking, evocative. . . . the gauzy hinge between sea and sky, the limitless horizon...
The Wonda-Chair and the Heirloom
Did you as a baby sit in one of these? Did you buy one for your child? Produced by Babyhood Industries of Shrewsbury, MA, the Wonda Chair was "a do-it-all, all-in-one, convertible wonder. As the seller mentions, the multi-piece furniture/stroller kit mixes and matches...
Come to the Storybook Chair, the Storybook Chair . . .
So now it matters almost not at all to any of them except as a storybook matters; loved in childhood but outgrown in adolescence, it still matters, still instructs, still is part of what the adult becomes. Phyllis Tickle, The Graces We Remember: Songs in Ordinary Time...
Dancing to a Different Tune: Kathy Pooler’s Memoir
Kathy and I are not old friends. In fact, our friendship is rather recent as we have explored each other’s blog posts early this year, discovering that we both were developing our writing skills after long, satisfying careers, hers in medicine and mine in education....
Moments of Extreme Emotion: Meet Me Under the Bougainvillea
I have had many moments of extreme emotion. Some you may know about like flunking my driver’s test, an explosion in the curio cabinet, and a broken piano leg -- and some you may not. According to my journal, this particular moment lasted almost an hour and happened in...
I’m All Ears!
A Fable A tortoise had become friendly with two geese who promised to take it to their home in the mountains. The plan: The geese would hold a stick in their beaks while the tortoise would grasp it in the middle with his mouth, but he must be careful not to talk....
Purple Passages and Feet in the Creek
Dreams Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. – Langston Hughes in Dreams Dreams always come in a size too big so we can grow into them. – Josie Bisset . . . if one advances confidently in the direction of...
Root’s Country Market & Auction: Your Personal Tour
Are you hankering for chocolate-covered bacon, do you want to buy a rooster for your flock? A hat for the next Downton Abbey gala? Welcome to Root's Country Market and Auction, a fixture from my childhood my sisters, husband, and I re-visit near Manheim, Pennsylvania....
Fishing on the Delaware 1950s
Daddy was an avid hunter (pheasants and deer mostly) and an eager fisherman. The outdoors took him away from the stresses of his business, Longenecker Farm Supply, and helped him literally recharge his batteries. I never went hunting with him, but he invited me once...
A Grief Observed – Missing Mother
We’re having lunch at Mother’s house today: home-grown tomato sandwiches, Silver Queen corn on the cob, and fresh tossed salad with a wrapped-up cucumber found left in her refrigerator. There is also a boiled egg she cooked recently, but Mom is not here. She is gone,...