August Wedding: Love Over Time
During the first week of August Cliff and I celebrate three wedding anniversaries, our son and daughter and their spouses along with our own. Our children are beginners at marriage (sort of), but for us it’s # 47, three years away from golden. Our romance was of the...
Fond Farewell
One of our beloved cast of characters on this blog has gone home to be with the Lord this week. Following the publication of Saturday's edition, postings on this blog will be suspended for a time.
The R-Word and You
A grande dame of British theatre, Judi Dench, spoke with Anderson Cooper just before the release of the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in 2012 making crystal clear she has no plans to rest...
Birthday Butter Shake: A Sequel
You may remember when I visited Pennsylvania last month we made butter the old-fashioned way, my mother, sister and I shaking cream in a 2-quart jar. This week my Southern friend Carolyn threw a birthday bash that included friends making butter together. We did...
Happy Birthday to My One and Onlies
My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it. - Boris Johnson * * * July is the birthday month for four our immediate family. If you count our extended family, there are three or four more birthdays this month. This month I celebrate the birthdays...
Just for Fun: Signs around E-town
In June, my sister Jan and I visited our Longenecker kin in Elizabethtown and the village of Rheems close by. One morning we took a stroll around the square in E-Town and found that though the town clock was still planted in place, the merchants we knew had...
Purple Passages with a Camel
Birthdays The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. – Madeleine l’Engle The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm. – Aldous Huxley There are...
Laundry at the Longeneckers
We have to try it again. Here’s another shirt,” Jane said as she plucked one of Dad’s blue work shirts out of a plastic bag full of shirts—clean, sprinkled and rolled—all ready to iron. “Start with the yoke,” she directed. I grabbed the damp shirt out of her hand...
Marriage to a Difficult Man: Part II
Sarah's Flair for House-keeping She was the kind of woman who took the trouble to tie her hair with a ribbon for breakfast when many wives came down tousled; who spent an extra minute to stamp a design on a block of home-churned butter; who knew how to give a flourish...
Marriage to a Difficult Man: Part 1
In case you thought I would be writing an exposé about my difficult marriage to artist Cliff, you'd be wrong. I may write about my own marriage at some point, but it would have a different title. The marriage under the microscope is that of Sarah Edwards to the famous...
Mennonites at the Beach 1950s style
Atlantic City, New Jersey was the beach mecca for vacationers on the East Coast in the early 1900s. Still dressed in fancy Victorian formality, vacationers caught the salt air as they strolled along the famous board-walk at the Steer Pier, a combination theatre and...
Home-made Butter: 3 Easy Steps
This week at Mom's house, I attempted to re-create a scene from my childhood - in the same house, on the same chair, with one of the same Ball-Mason jars from the mother's stash in the cellar. The kind with tiny bubbles crystallized within the glass of the jar. Mother...
Remembrance of Things Past: She Kept His Sweater
Jane Martin Walters never attend another Elizabethtown High School Class Reunion, and Dr. Norman P. Will no longer attends college graduations as a president emeritus at Florida State College at Jacksonville. Yet, they both linger in my memory though Jane died in her...
Anna Mae and Hiram: A Mennonite Wedding
This is the wedding portrait of my mother and father Ruth Landis Metzler and Ray Martin Longenecker October 26, 1940 June is the month for many American weddings. And so is August. Because many Mennonites were farmers, Mennonite weddings often took place in October,...
Face to Face Encounters: The Very Best Kind
Author Kathy Pooler invites her readers to gather "around her kitchen table" for weekly discussions on her blog post. Readers of Laurie Buchanan's blog know she usually posts on "Tuesdays with Laurie." Most bloggers publish posts on specific days of the week...
Visit My Writing Space
Here is my study. When the magic happens, it happens here. Actually, it might happen in the flower garden just outside my window in the form of a thought or image which gets transferred from my head to my fingers at my desk. . . . Every once in a while, fellow...
Hats Off to Dad!
My father wore many hats. Work hats mostly, but also a goofy blue derby hat I faintly remember stashed high up on a closet shelf, and a fedora reserved for Sundays or other special occasions. Through his long history at the shop, Daddy sold a wide array of tractor...
Purple Passages with a June Bride
Creativity You can't use up creativity. The more you use the more you have. ― Maya Angelou [Hear her read her valiant poem "Still I Rise" here.] Creativity is intelligence having fun. ― Albert Einstein Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work...