Ode to Tomatoes: Plant, Pick, Eat
I never think of myself as a Daddy’s girl, because I get along with Mom better. But there I am in plain daylight grinning as I ride the tractor with Daddy. We’re cultivating the 9 acres of land in Bainbridge for the next tomato crop. I stand on the tractor’s floor...
Breakfast is Served — with an Oops!
Before I dashed off to my college classes each morning, I had a 10-minute oasis of breakfast time around 6:30. With a modest-size repast of tea and lemon, bagel with peanut butter or cream cheese + a piece of fruit, I told God, “Thank you for this food and the leisure...
Splash: Another Time, A Different Tub
In Florida, most people take baths once a day. It’s too hot not to. And it's a safe bet most people in contemporary America take more than one bath a week. Not so in the olden days. Mildred Armstrong Kalish writes of her family’s once-a-week bathing in her...
Mennonite Flashback II: Circles and Tubs
CIRCLES: I am in a small room of our church standing in a circle of women and girls in the presence of our Bishop and Deacons who will ask each of us 2 questions: * Are you in harmony with the rules and regulations of the Mennonite Church? * Are you at peace with God...
Mennonite Flashback I: Rings and Gloves
Rings CareBear Cliff has given me a diamond ring for Easter, baked in a blueberry muffin with a plastic bunny-rabbit stick on top. It is my first piece of jewelry ever and I’m 25 years old. Imagining everyone is as thrilled as I am, I flash the sparkling stone in...
A Scrapbook: Bonnets, Bandannas, School and Sex Ed
Bonnets "Tie your head shut!" - An oft-heard admonition from my mother, my Aunt Ruthie, and Grandma Longenecker. Translation: If you tie your head shut, you won't get sick with colds, sinus trouble, what not. And so our heads are tied shut with bonnets and bandannas...
It’s No Secret: The Life of Bees and Beamans
Bee Video / Facebook The bees came the summer of 1964, the summer I turned fourteen and my life went spinning off into a whole new orbit, and I mean whole new orbit. Looking back on it now, I want to say the bees were sent to me. I want to say they showed up like the...
Purple Passages II with Pictures
Purple Passages made its debut on July 10. Here is the August 10, 2013 installment. Why people read 1.7.94 We read books to know we are not alone. William Nicholson Love to children 4.2.89 The love you give your children is like black paper: it absorbs and you...
Signs and Wonders
Central California Coast in Pictures SIGNS WONDERS Our wonderland along the central California coast was bounded by Monterey Beach, CA to the north and Pismo Beach, CA to the south. Succulents along the street on the way to the huge rock jutting as if out of nowhere...
In Praise of Tree Guys
3 Stories in One The certified arborist surveys the 16 tall oaks on our property in Florida and pauses at one: “I don’t like the looks of that tree,” he warns. "Its bark looks splotchy and the ground around it feels spongy.” He taps near the root with his steel-toed...
PT – Prolonged Torture – “freshly pressed” from Traci Carver
PT - Prolonged Torture. Wonderful post from a favorite blogger, Traci Carver. Check out her torturous visit to the physical therapist as she prepares for a trip to France.
Night of Joy
The whole family crams into the gray 1951 Studebaker: Our family of five, Daddy, Mommy, Janice Jean and I (Mark isn't born yet), Aunt Ruthie and Grandma--seven stuffed into an airplane cockpit, it feels like. We don't take two cars because we are frugal. It saves gas...
Mennonites and Uncle Sam
The Martin clan gathers together for large family meals at my Grandma Longenecker’s house because Grandma, the oldest in her family, is a wonderful cook and has an enormous kitchen. Everybody likes Grandma, my dad’s mother. Grandma Fannie was a Martin and the Martins...
Southern Friends Meet PA Dutch Dish
Plan A The sweet aroma of ham-loaf baking wafts through the house as I hurry to welcome my Southern friends at the front door. They are in for a real treat: ham-loaf from Wenger’s Fine Meats in Elizabethtown, PA brought shrink-wrapped in my suitcase on the plane, My...
Grandma’s: A Wedding under the Willow
Here we are, Juliets without our Romeos When Mom says "sca-doo!" at home, we know we can find amusement at Grandma's house. Aside from the mysteries of the woods behind her house, other attractions include a slope where lilies of the valley blossom in April. A...
Up and Down Anchor Road: Secrets Revealed
Thumbnail: Home is on Anchor Road, connecting our house to Grandma's house and neighbors in between. The story continues . . . . . . . As we drive from Grandma's past the Hoffers, I notice off to the right the weathered frame house of Mr. Heisey, who contentedly makes...
Up and Down Anchor Road: Secrets
Home for me is bracketed by the two houses we ping-pong between: our parents house and Grandma’s house on Anchor Road. Her house is at the bottom of the hill and ours at the top. Both houses are along side Anchor Road, between Elizabethtown to the west and...
Purple Passages
Debut of purple passages! A collection of lines from books I have read since 1989 when I began jotting them down in my journals, my 9 books of wishes, dreams, laments, and bursts of praise. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines a purple passage as one...