Now that we have a sunroom, Farmer Gary and I notice daily we have several new patches of disturbed earth outside. It’s time to decide what to plant there. We brought up the topic while visiting with John, Aubrie, and Cameron last week. Aubrie loves to garden and is always great with gentle advice – be it regarding fruit, vegetables, or flowers. It’s always fun for John and me to observe our spouses dig in and discuss fertilizer, alkaline levels…
Mom was an apron wearer. She wasn’t a messy cook. Not at all. The wearing of the apron may have come to pass due to a combination of tradition and an attempt at preserving her clothes from showing wear as she leaned against the edges of kitchen counters and tables. I think she also liked finding interesting designs and patterns. Mom had a Christmas apron or two, plus at least one apron to represent each season of the year. Apparently,…
Books make wonderful presents. Books for birthdays. More books for Christmas. Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. Farmer Gary and I take it to the extreme, with books for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter … you get the picture. Around our house, most books are one-and-done. Upon completion, the volume goes back on the shelf or, occasionally, into the donation basket. But once in a while, there’s something about a book that is almost haunting. A single reading is not enough….
We moved around a lot when I was a kid, so I never got attached to any particular home or community. Not attached enough, anyway, to consider any of the houses a homestead. In these past several years as I’ve sifted through generations of family photos, I’ve seen my maternal grandmother’s handwriting referring to her parents’ New Haven house as a homestead. That was technically correct, as the Lombard Street property included a house, a barn, and (if memory serves)…
There is something about the English language that is so delightful, yet infuriating. In particular, I mean the sometimes opposite definitions we Americans place on a British word. (One example, which I won’t detail completely, involved me complimenting a TV producer’s fanny pack. Well, she and the executive producer were fresh off the plane from England. They enjoyed a fine giggle at my stunned expense.) Here’s another example: Scheme. Scheme is a perfectly fine word in England, and presumably the…
It was close to midnight the other evening when I heard it. A train whistle. In the far-off distance. I love the sound of a train, especially at night. It’s so comforting. I asked my musical brother Dave if he knew exactly what chord the whistle plays. Here’s his reply: I’ve heard a lot of different chords from train whistles, but my favorite (which I’ve heard quite a bit) is a major chord with an added 6th, like F-A-C-D. The add-6 chord…
It’s such a great feeling to think of Mom so enjoying a new (to her) author that she just had to pause her reading to write a poem in tribute to him. Paul Horgan was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author (twice; both times for history) who leaped from genre to genre. From poetry and drama to novels and historical fiction, from biographies to children’s literature. Often his work centered around southwest America. I read one of his books last month, from…
Farmer Gary loves to read the newspaper. Always has. In fact, he’s declared Wednesday to be Newspaper Day each week, as that’s the day most of the weekly papers arrive in the mail. Each Wednesday, Gary dashes out to check the mailbox, then takes over our breakfast bar with his stack and works his way through the periodicals. Sadly, many of the dailies and almost-dailies he grew up reading are no longer … well, appealing. … but there are still…
How far back can you remember? My earliest memories (as told here) involve brother Dave dropping eggs on the floor, and the arrival of my first feather pillow. As of a few weeks ago, I can piece together a third: My first taste of maple sugar candy. This memory’s missing piece surfaced in December, as an early gift, when I found this: Oh, boy! Dad and Mom were planning a getaway to Vermont! Back in 1961, there were no websites…
The latest batch of memories from Mom and Dad‘s house includes an armful of folders with brochures from a series of vacations they took. Once-in-a-lifetime trips to Ireland, Nova Scotia, England, an Alaskan cruise … One destination, though, was a repeat. When youngest son Bill, a Marine, was stationed in Hawaii, they decided to visit him. For the next decade or so, they returned each winter – even after Bill had completed his time in the military. After many winters…