by MarianBeaman | Mar 24, 2014 | Uncategorized
Author and blog friend, Merril Smith writes about what happens when opportunity knocks: Be prepared for romance, inspiration, and an introduction to the Dabba Wallahs!
by MarianBeaman | Mar 22, 2014 | Education, Gratitude, Literature, meditation, Memory, Purple Passage, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
Purple Passages with a Fish & a Kiss, March 2014 Edition Winter Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. Willa Cather, My Antonia If winter comes, can spring be far behind? Percy Bysshe Shelley “Ode to...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 19, 2014 | Amish, book review, Coming of Age, Conflict, Education, Literature, Uncategorized
This evening my alma mater, Eastern Mennonite University, is hosting author Rachel Held Evans, one of the foremost thinkers and writers in evangelical circles today who has appeared on Oprah and The View and spotlighted by NPR, the BBC and The Washington Post. Her...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 17, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, Literature, Nostalgia, Quotations, Tips, Uncategorized
Writing a blog post is magical–right? Words appear in the right order and photos sift down from above and settle into a nifty niche between paragraphs. Well, sort of . . . When I created the post Mennonites, Ventrlloquists, and Memoir, 3 things happened in...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 15, 2014 | Conflict, Education, Family / Nostalgia, neighborhood, Neighborhood / Environment, tree surgery, Uncategorized
This post first appeared March 15, 2013 now published again to celebrate the wearing of the green! It’s a long way from Lancaster county, PA to Jacksonville, FL, but years ago our family moved into a neighborhood called Killarney Shores with street names...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 12, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, Lists, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Reflection, Uncategorized
10 ways I’m like (or unlike) my Grandma Longenecker 1. She started fancy and turned plain. I reversed the cycle, plain to fancy. 2. She always wore black laced-up shoes with heels to do housework. For me, it’s tennis shoes in winter and sandals in the summer. No...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 8, 2014 | Amish, Conflict, Education, Mennonite History, Uncategorized
When I bring 5-pound bags of Wenger’s famous ham-loaf frozen from Pennsylvania to Florida, the plastic-coated tubs of meat are wrapped in newspaper and then shrink-wrapped in plastic. The wrapping on one of the packages (we need two to feed the clan now!)...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 5, 2014 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Reflection, Uncategorized
Looking at indistinct footage from 16 millimeter home movies of the 1950s has invited me to examine from a distance the much younger, and in many ways different, version of myself. Not surprisingly, I appear in the “mothering” mode in many of the shots. I...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 4, 2014 | Education, Family / Nostalgia, Literature, Uncategorized
There are several childhood books in my library that are in the I’ll-never-part-with category, except maybe to pass on to grand-children. One of them is Come to Storyland with pages missing and others as brittle as autumn leaves. Here is blogger friend and...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 1, 2014 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite Lore, Neighborhood / Environment, Nostalgia, Reflection, Uncategorized
The wild, permissive Rentzels with a red porch light live next door to our family, the Mennonite Longeneckers, one of several plain families that live on Anchor Road. In their parlor, the Rentzel’s old Emerson black & white TV has introduced me to the...
