by MarianBeaman | May 20, 2015 | blog, Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Uncategorized
Nose-to-the-Grindstone, that’s my dad. But I have proof in pictures that he once took a fling to Florida with his Lancaster County Mennonite buddies. Judging from the photos that remain and Mother’s comments, I can pretty much guarantee that there were no...
by MarianBeaman | May 16, 2015 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Reflection, Travel, Uncategorized
We pile into Heidi’s shiny black Toyota 4Runner in Jacksonville and off we go, zooming across state lines, first Florida, then Georgia, and finally South Carolina, our voices twanging to Doo Wop tunes of the 50s and 60s: All Good Vibrations as miles melt away....
by MarianBeaman | May 12, 2015 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, Nostalgia, Reflection, Travel, Uncategorized
Girls’ road trips are part of the landscape of American pop culture. Who can forget Thelma and Louise? Wanting to take a short vacation from their dreary lives, Thelma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Sarandon) head out from Arkansas to the Grand Canyon in a 1966 Ford...
by MarianBeaman | May 9, 2015 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, meditation, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Quotations, Uncategorized
This is my first Mother’s Day without my mother, Ruth Metzler Longenecker. To say I miss her is an understatement of the highest order. Technically, I could be considered an orphan with both my mother and father gone. However, with my own extended family and...
by MarianBeaman | May 6, 2015 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, Kiev Ukraine, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Recipes, Uncategorized
Yummy Recipe Last week I was in the kitchen with my nearly vintage Mennonite Community Cookbook (1978) creased open to page 155 where I checked out the recipe for sautéed (Okay, I’ll admit, it’s fried!) egg-plant. Hours later when my new and improved Mennonite...
by MarianBeaman | May 2, 2015 | blog, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Recipes, Uncategorized
Grandma and I in the Rhubarb Patch It’s me, pigtails flapping in the May breezes, skipping beside Grandma toward the rhubarb patch. Behind Grandma’s house toward the woods a thick nest of rhubarb stalks stands sentinel over a ridge facing the twelve sweet...
by MarianBeaman | Apr 29, 2015 | blog, Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, meditation, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
Lilacs in Washington State Earlier this month, my husband Cliff and family laid to rest his father Lee Beaman in a tiny urn above the coffin of his wife in the cemetery adjoining the church. Across the street from the simple, white-plank Methodist Church near...
by MarianBeaman | Apr 27, 2015 | Award, blog, Gratitude, Reflection, Uncategorized
Thank you notes are usually written privately, but this one is a public thank you to Carole Parkes, a writer friend who just recently nominated me for the Written Acts of Kindness Award, an award given from one blogger to another to let them know their words bring...
by MarianBeaman | Apr 24, 2015 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Folk Songs of the South, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Recipes, Uncategorized
Growing up in rural Lancaster County in the 1950s, I had very little opportunity to meet people of other ethnic groups, but I did have a Little Black Sambo book that introduced me to a culture different from mine. So, I have not always been embarrassed by this book....
by MarianBeaman | Apr 22, 2015 | blog, Education, Literature, Purple Passage, Quotations, Uncategorized
Spring cleaning! I have thrown out (read that, recycled) piles of files during the past two weeks. One I kept, though, was a Shakespeare file. I take my discovery of this file as an invitation to play teacher once more. Actually, another good reason is that tomorrow,...
