These days, social media is full of parents bemoaning the bittersweet moment of driving away from colleges and universities that just six months ago they were bragging about joyously. This time, though, they leave without their child. I remember that acute pain. Walking by a bedroom that no longer vibrates with electric guitar or bass riffs rattling the door knob. “Oh, how I’ll miss this,” I thought more than once. I still do. No one asking for a clean shirt….
Yesterday evening, it was time to choose which book to read next. I select at least a few fancy Folio Society volumes each month, as the collection was lovingly built by my parents. As I open each new (to me) classic, I look for hints that Mom or Dad (or both) may have read it years ago. That just makes it more special. They were both tidy souls and so there aren’t any smudges or tears. But once in a…
Remember Edgar from the movie Men in Black? Gary and I thought of him the other day as we read up on the brew that must be mixed before it is carefully poured into a hummingbird feeder. “Sugar … in … water” is all he wants. And so, our first hummingbird carries the name E’gar. When I chose this particular hand-blown glass hummingbird feeder, it seemed like the decent thing to do. According to the online description: Blue: Represents resilience…
By sheer coincidence, all of July’s reads are also available as films or TV shows. From Where the Crawdads Sing to Hillbilly Elegy, they all moved from the page to screen. Which is better? I’ll probably never know, as I’d rather read than watch. But since I’m a member of “the book is always better than the movie” society, you know how I’d vote. (The one generally accepted exception, of course, being Jaws.) Book 1: Benjamin Franklin: His Life As…
Postcard 1: Six decades of hedgehog love As proof that memories and assumptions can be faulty, let me confess that I’d always believed my first encounter with a hedgehog was through Mom and her love of Beatrix Potter characters. We brought those tiny story books – just the right size for a toddler’s hands – home from the library every chance we got. I was just four years old when I met a hedgehog by the name of Mrs. Tiggle-Winkle:…
Each month as I sit down to write about the books I’ve read, I look for a theme. It’s never planned out ahead of time, but sometimes a theme does emerge. This time, it’s stories about the post-war era. Not all of them, but five (if you count The Longest Day) out of six is a theme, right? Book 1: The Diary That Changed the World by Otto Frank Over the years, I’ve read plenty of good books about Anne…
I heard from Mom’s cousin Patty this week. She lives in New Hampshire and emailed that they were under a weather alert to watch for tornados. Tornadoes in New England. Crazy stuff! Here in southern Indiana, we had some wicked thunderstorms a few days later. It’s been very hot and those pop-up storms came and went all night. “That Mother Nature – she’s sure in a mood!” I might have said to Farmer Gary more than once. As a Tiller…
The little red diary from my moving-away party in June 1970 is only two-thirds complete. Our family was getting ready to move from Pittsfield, Mass., to Fairfield, Conn., that summer. That diary gave me – a 12-year-old middle child – a place to be excited as well as miserable. Fifty-four years later (ack!), the diary is sitting on a shelf here in our home. I’ve been tempted to pitch it for years. Last night, I decided to take a look…
I’ve been thinking a lot about Mom and Dad these past several days, knowing they were just 14 years old when D-Day occurred on June 6, 1944. The 80th anniversary of D-Day commemoration brought tears to my eyes, watching news coverage of the war veterans – some of whom had stormed the beaches of Normandy – honored and paying tribute to those who filled the cemeteries after the horrific battles. While reading The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan over the…
This is a real head-scratcher. Whose ring was this? The story starts back in the 1960s. I remember Mom coming into my bedroom and giving me a little white plastic box. She told me it was Grandpa Vayo‘s childhood ring and that he wanted me to have it. It was a beautiful ring. Although I treasured it, I don’t think I ever wore it. Fear of losing a family heirloom was high up on the list, plus the worry that…