When your mother is a prolific poet, it may be best not to try and figure out too much about each individual poem. Mom loved words, the sound of words. And weaving them together into poems was one of her life’s great delights. Perhaps unfortunately, there’s something in me that is so literal, I have to spend at least a little bit of time to try and “figure out” each verse. As if it’s a riddle. Which I know it…
Grandpa Cassidy was a policeman in New Haven, Connecticut, nearly a century ago. Although he was trained to be a plumber, specializing as a steamfitter, he joined the police force when signs of the Great Depression started to loom. That way, he knew he’d always have a job. If only we had more stories to share about his years as a “cop on the beat.” Grandpa was the son of Irish immigrants and came by his storytelling talents naturally. While…
The paper has the look of parchment. But it’s not quite yet crisp with age. The story is two typed pages and is signed with Mom’s married name, so that means she wrote it in the final weeks of 1952 or later. Reading it for the first time this evening, I’m reminded of an Irish folktale, and am grateful Mom’s lifetime of writing sometimes included prose. Maybe someday, as I finish sorting through her writings, I’ll find another copy bearing…
There’s a basket full of school papers to go through, and it’s hard to make much headway. That’s because they’re Mom‘s papers, presumably from high school and college. Some are easy to figure out, as they retell a current event, or show the results of comparing two writers’ styles. There are news clips, too. Other papers, though, will remain a mystery. No date, no teacher’s name. But as long as Mom’s name is there – Joan Cassidy – I know…
This selection of Mom’s prose from 40 years ago captures memories of the Quinnipiac River, located just down the hill from her childhood home in New Haven, Connecticut. Here’s a photo of her dad, Frank Cassidy from around that time, heading home on Chatham Street after one of his brisk walks. That’s the Quinnipiac in the background. The river has had good years and bad. My memories of it are from the 1960s, when it was befouled by industrial waste….
As we finish up the first week of December, the sudden appearance of Christmas trees is pleasantly common. Some folks put theirs up over Thanksgiving weekend – or even before. Others wait till closer to the big day. Mom loved everything about Christmas, but waited until the night before for the tree. Although Dad usually picked out their live Christmas trees over the years – and placed the lights, she was in charge of the decorating of each season’s beauty….
Do teachers still send home a “reading list” with students over their summer break? I seem to remember a few lists coming home in the boys’ backpacks over the years, but never one as intimidating as this. Mom was an incoming freshman at Saint Joseph College the fall of 1948. As an English major, she was expected to read a lot. She wrote to her future husband (she and Dad had dated since they met at age 14 and were…
This year, Thanksgiving falls on the third anniversary of Mom’s passing. Anyone who’s grieved a loved one’s death knows the sadness is unpredictable. Sometimes it sneaks in with a sigh; other times it clobbers you like a mallet and takes your breath away. But you learn, bit by bit, to “carry on” and do your best. And so I dug around this week for a Thanksgiving poem, knowing how Mom loved the holiday and the gathering of family and friends….
It’s been exactly 155 years since a wee fellow named Joseph Malachy Regan was born in Belfast, in what is now Northern Ireland. Although I’ve blogged about him several times already, it seems only right to let his youngest daughter, Cecelia, have her say. Grandma was crazy about her father. She was the only one of the Regan girls to marry, and he gave her away in full regalia: Thanks to my middle brother, Dave, who was working on a…
This postcard is nearly a century old. Postage was a one-cent Benjamin Franklin stamp. The cancellation mark includes not only the date, but also time of day. It was sent from Milford, Connecticut, to New Haven. A young father on religious retreat dashed off a note to his first born. The postcard was cancelled at 3:30pm on July 8, 1931. A Wednesday. On the back, Grandpa wrote this note to Mom, his toddler daughter: “Be a good girl, and be…