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Hats Off to Dad!

by MarianBeaman | Jun 14, 2014 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized

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...

Moments of Extreme Emotion: A Broken Leg & Ecstasy Expressed

by MarianBeaman | Jun 7, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Nostalgia, Tips, Uncategorized

Moment of Exasperation One of the mysteries of life is how things happen at our house. Specifically, how did the leg on this piano bench break? We still haven’t figured out the answer for sure though we have speculated on some possible explanations. How did this...

The Good Ole Summertime & the Simple Life

by MarianBeaman | Jun 4, 2014 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized

“In the Good Old Summer Time” shares nostalgic space with another old, familiar tune of the season: “Summer time and the livin’ is easy.” Summertime for the Longenecker family may not have been easy in the 1950s what with tomato field...

Home-grown Miracles: See, Taste, Touch

by MarianBeaman | May 31, 2014 | Gratitude, Literature, meditation, Memory, Nostalgia, Tips, Uncategorized

e   EGG Reader, in your hand you hold A silver case, a box of gold. I have no door, however small, Unless you pierce my tender wall, And there’s no skill in healing then Shall ever make me whole again. Show pity, Reader, for my plight: Let be, or else consume me...

Two Vignettes: Mom’s Green Stamps & E-town’s Rexall Drug Store

by MarianBeaman | May 28, 2014 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized

“Mare – yun,” my mother calls (yells, actually), “It’s time to lick the green stamps again. The books are on top of the kitchen table.” Mom likes to interrupt my reading. To me time with my books is serious business but to her it’s play. Not working. Wasting...

Two Mennonite Nonagenarians: Mother Ruth & Aunt Cecilia

by MarianBeaman | May 21, 2014 | Education, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Tips, Uncategorized

Here is my mother’s family of four brothers and one sister in a farm meadow in the 1940s. They are children of Abram Hernley Metzler and Sadie Landis Metzler, a Mennonite family of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Standing in birth order are her brothers Landis,...
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