Upon learning, last month, that my DNA blesses me with 17 percent Scottish heritage, it was time to do a wee bit of reading from the land of haggis and bagpipes. Book 1: The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey This was not the first – nor will it be the last – Josephine Tey mystery to grace the shelves of our Folio Society library. Discovered after Tey passed away in 1952, the manuscript was published that same year. It is…
Another sweet surprise. This time, I’ve come across a poem written by Dad. In 1943, when his family moved from Lowell, Massachusetts, to New Haven, Connecticut, Dad was placed in Mom‘s eighth-grade class at Saint Francis School. As told in greater detail in this earlier “Angels and angles” story, Dad was kicked up to ninth grade in a different school after inadvertently correcting a nun during math class. But before the transfer, Dad wrote a poem. It was included in…
A horrifying fact is that pianos aren’t worth much anymore. Used pianos, that is. If you look on any “Buy/Sell/Trade” pages these days, there’s nearly always a lovely piano or two: Free. Pick-up only. Electronic keyboards are excellent. I remember my brother Dave getting one when we were in high school. Apparently they were invented primarily for apartment-dwellers, so that pianists could play (using headphones) without disturbing the neighbors. They’re also less expensive and easier to move around. Still, it’s…
As I continue to dig through Mom’s archives, I’m finding messages from her. Hints from the past. First of all, Mom was definitely not into being called a “poetess”: This news clip is from 1976, which was smack dab in the middle of the Women’s Liberation Movement. I think, though, Mom probably claimed the title “poet” over “poetess” decades before, as far back as 1938, when she wrote her first poem. In one folder, I found a program from the…
Back to four volumes this month, my minimal commitment for retirement-era book consumption. Three of the four came from our collection of Folio Society books (which has grown past 700 titles this month, thanks to eBay). But first, a just-released heart-wrenching memoir caught my eye. The title is so disturbing I can’t even bring myself to type the words. Book 1: a memoir by Jennette McCurdy I remember so well watching iCarly on TV with James. The character of Sam,…
Since retirement three years ago, it’s been fun to dabble in genealogy on Ancestry.com. Our family tree, at this point, looks much wider than tall. Geez, there were some huge families just a few generations back! The DNA tests that Farmer Gary and I took some years ago involved spitting into small tubes and mailing them off to Ancestry. My saliva was bubbly while Gary’s was flat. (I still wonder what that means.) Every so often, Ancestry emails with the…
Mom absolutely loved being a grandma. Over the years, she and Dad were blessed with seven grandchildren. Many summers ago, they enjoyed hosting five of those little varmints while vacationing in Ogunquit, Maine. (James and Lucy weren’t born yet.) Here’s a story Mom wrote 30 years ago, remembering that special time. Half a Hot Dog with Johnny It is October and three of our grandchildren are in school and thriving. I think of last August and the various times the…
This is a story that took 46 years to tell. The year was 1976 and our family lived in Carmel, Indiana. This was a tough time in my mom’s life, what with living in the Midwest (so very far from New England) since 1973, two of her four children off to college (I was to follow that fall), and the confusion of the burgeoning women’s movement. One bright light was the writers’ conferences she attended and the friendships she cultivated…
My middle brother, Dave, wove together this remembrance of family and friends returning to Madison a few months ago to honor Dad’s memory in a heartfelt Celebration of Life: On June 11, about 40 family members and friends gathered at my parents’ spiritual home, St. Margaret’s Catholic Church in Madison, Connecticut. Dad had passed away in April of the previous year, before the risks COVID posed had diminished significantly, and this had limited the number of people who attended his…
When I picked up a century-old cookbook we’d brought home from my parents’ house and saw it was published by a baking powder company, I could hear one thing. It was Dad’s voice from the 1970s: “Keep your powder dry!” as he tried to calm whatever situation was erupting in our house full of teens. When I mentioned this to Farmer Gary, he quickly explained the source: “Actually, that’s a reference to gunpowder.” Indeed, it’s credited to Oliver Cromwell, advising…