Farmer Gary and I have a tradition. Each evening, he asks me to look up how many readers visited this blog over the past day. It ranges greatly, depending on whether I’ve added a new post that day. Then comes the really good part. “Where are they from?” Blog analytics are fascinating. I haven’t splurged on a deep-dive system (yet), but the one I use lists readers by their nation. Gary never tires of it. Of course, the majority of…
I’m not sure exactly when I realized my parents were born just a year after Anne Frank. History can be confusing that way. World War II and the Holocaust seemed so long ago and far away when we studied it in high school. In actuality, only three decades had passed. As saber rattling sets the world on edge once again, I came across a journal Mom kept from 1944 through 1948, her high school years. In total, 65 poems. Here…
Who writes a love poem from her hospital bed? My mom, apparently. The year was 1982, the month was January. The hospital was Yale – New Haven. (“This should fix her plumbing problems once and for all,” Dad explained with his usual delicate word choice.) The love poem was a Valentine to her youngest child. Valentine for Bill Our last son is the Red Fox.My pen becomes the glass blower’spipe as I sing of him withincandescent love beyond myunderstanding. Somewhere…
January was a good month for reading books. A very good month. Farmer Gary and I enjoyed a couple of overnights with grandson Cameron, who was delighted to write up the following after he and I finished reading Stuart Little together: Bonus Book: Stuart Little by E. B. White A mouse of adventures, Stuart Little is a brave mouse, always thinking of ideas, and has cool adventures. One weird thing is that he was born by a family of humans…
What do you use to save your place in a book? A piece of scrap paper? An old photo or business card? A piece of toilet paper (we know where you’ve been reading!) or paper towel? Maybe a bonafide bookmark? As long as you don’t – gasp – fold, spindle or mutilate the page of your book, nearly anything will do. While cataloging the hundreds of inherited books from my parents’ collection, I’ve come across many bookmarks. Some stir a…
My middle brother, Dave, sent me this list of “favorite reads from 2021.” He and his wife, Marie-Susanne, put together these recommendations from the books they enjoyed over the past year. Without further ado: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb So what happens when a therapist hits a personal rough spot? For example, being dumped by the boyfriend she thought she was going to marry? Gottlieb, the therapist in…
Pages held together by a rusted paper clip. Paper not exactly crumbling, but after seven decades, it’s discolored and brittle. A short story, written so long ago. Long hidden in a mountain of college papers, here’s a six-page class assignment. A short story, neatly typed, with a few pencil scratches. Probably a “final draft,” as there’s no grade or notes from the professor. I can only imagine Dad’s reaction if he were still here to reminisce. He loved it when…
Mom’s cousin Patty sent me a wonderful photo via email this week. The (unfortunately) undated photo shows their Aunt Marguerite (a nun my generation knew as Sister Amabilis) outside with a group of children, looking at a birdhouse. No doubt they were her students, as Sr. Amabilis taught first grade for 58 years. (That’s right – nearly six decades!) Mom adored her aunt, and wrote to her regularly. Sr. Amabilis saved the letters all those years and they were eventually…
I didn’t sleep last night. Not a wink. Not sure why, other than one of the challenges (and great pleasures) of retirement is not having a schedule set by anyone but yourself. James is back at college, so there wasn’t a school-aged son to stand at the darkened window and ask repeatedly, “Do you think we’ll get a snow day tomorrow? Just in case – can I stay up late?” It was always such a temptation to let the boys…
Shakespeare. Near the top of the list of topics I wanted to talk to Dad about for this family blog was his – and Mom’s – love of Shakespeare. Over the months following Mom‘s passing in 2019, I found it best to introduce a potential story topic to Dad during one of our nightly calls, with the intent to bring it back up three or four times. As Dad reminisced, I scribbled notes madly. Alas, we only talked about Shakespeare…