In case you’re reading this years in the future, let me just say that the spring of 2020 is one we will most likely choose not to look back upon with fondness. A frightening pandemic swept the country, while calls to stay home and “flatten the curve” were, by all too many, ignored. Some in self-isolation rediscovered the joy of reading. Gary and I settled in, each with a pile of books, to stay safe and healthy. And well-read. It…
“I live for death.” Gary says that with a twinkle in his eye, when he tells me he’s heading to a funeral home yet again. He never misses the local radio newscast, which ends with obituaries. It’s the first page he turns to when the newspaper is delivered. Always has been, Gary wants to know who died. He wants to pay his respects. He wants to tell stories. My husband will go to the funeral home when so many others…
No, not that Jack Cassidy. But yes, Mom had an uncle named Jack whose gregarious personality both flattered and flustered. As girls, Mom and her sister, Bunny, would scurry into the pantry to hide from that big personality. I did the same years later. As a child, I cowered from my uncle John Cull’s Eugene Levy-esque eyebrows. We shy lasses eventually grew up to appreciate these fine gentlemen. Mom wrote this poem about her uncle Jack Cassidy, a steamfitter, 13…
My fondest memories of my aunt Barbara (the youngest of Dad’s three sisters) involve a hook, an ocean, and a ball of yarn. Barbara taught me to crochet back in the late 1960s. I’d learned how to knit (and purl) in Girl Scouts, but there was something about using one crochet hook (rather than two knitting needles) that appealed to me. Barb taught me how to crochet an afghan blanket. After that, a poncho. With fringe. The timing was perfect,…
My paternal grandfather played piano by ear. He also played guitar. Incredibly, he had a Martin guitar from the 1870s. My brother Bill “found” the guitar in a coat closet the last time he visited our grandparents in Lowell. (Grandpa Vayo passed away in 1993; Grandma two years later.) Bill’s daughter, Lucy, wrote a school paper about the guitar a few years ago, when she was a junior in high school. She’s a freshman at the Fashion Institute of Technology…
The usual meaning for the term “keyboard warriors” is those angry trolls who make sure social media is always stirred up with arguments and untruths. For our purposes, though – and during Teach Music Week – we’ll look at the keyboards that tie our family together. Piano keyboards. Dad remembers taking piano lessons when his family lived in Lowell in the early 1940s. He was ten or 11 and would walk just a few blocks to get to Mrs. Salmonson’s…
Today is Grandma Cassidy’s birthday. And it’s Poetry Day. Born in 1903, Grandma wouldn’t have permitted us to calculate her age, had the luck of the Irish kept her with us all these years. Saints preserve us! Me sainted Grandmother has made her home in heaven since 1991. I was “great with child” at the time, with middle-son John on the way and couldn’t travel to attend her funeral in New Haven. I’ve always believed her blithe spirit lives on…
Are you getting choked up about poor Princess Beatrice of England, who may need to postpone her wedding yet again? Me neither. We’re all figuring out this new Coronavirus lifestyle. And a good many of us are doing what we can to make the best of it. Take John & Aubrie, for example. They’ve been planning their April 18 wedding for nearly a year. Very traditional, very sweet. No one could have guessed COVID-19 had other plans in mind. After…
Okay, so this made me cry. Saturday night, the hashtag #HighRiskCovid19 started trending on Twitter. I know, I know, I’ve heard over and over, “I don’t get Twitter. It’s stupid.” Well, use of hashtags is where Twitter truly shines. Trust me. Hashtags may not have taken off on Facebook, but they just work on Twitter. Reading these #HighRiskCovid-19 testimonials is heart wrenching. Only the nastiest trolls can take a look at these posts and not get choked up. This coronavirus…
Fact: Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. To make it easier to remember, the Boomers time frame basically started with the post-war “boom” (which had nothing to do with the Manhattan Project) and ended with the launch of Beatlemania (I made that last part up). So, yes, I’m a Boomer. We ate very differently back then. We nearly always dined at home. Slowly, as the ’60s progressed, stay-at-home moms discovered simpler recipes to make than what their mothers…