It’s “Take Your Poet to School Week,” which seems like the perfect time to share this letter of recommendation from 46 years ago that recently resurfaced. We lived in Indiana at the time and Mom was stretching her wings as a poet now that her four chicks were all in school fulltime. Mom attended workshops and seminars for writers. She learned, she shared, she made lasting friendships. Eventually, she hosted poetry readings and workshops of her own. One friend from…
Mom‘s fable about two soldiers and an old bear is best read aloud, to a child or a child at heart. Or anyone who questions war. Bear, Who Would Not Be a Soldier There was once a bear who lived in shabby comfort in the heart of an old forest. He had been a woodcutter, other times a guide, but never had he worn a uniform or joined a society. Now he was old and heavy like a grandfather tree,…
I’ve been thinking a lot about Tevye lately. Tevye. The protagonist in the Tevye the Dairyman stories. The pious, irrepressible lead character in Fiddler on the Roof. When we moved from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1970, we were suddenly just a quick train ride from New York City. And Broadway. Dad took that commuter train into Manhattan every weekday. One Friday, he brought home six tickets to a hit musical called Fiddler on the Roof. I haven’t come…
On this rainy New Year’s Day, let’s dust off this poem of Mom’s from the start of another year, long ago. The year 1973 was one of great change for our family. Oldest brother Harry graduated high school and headed to college. Dad was offered a job transfer to Indianapolis. We packed up the house and moved nearly a thousand miles away. We buried a beloved cat. But that was all months later. On January 1, 1973, Mom looked lovingly…
Back in June, as Gary and I cleared out my parents’ home for sale, I phoned my cousin Suzanne about one particular wooden chair. “The chair with the lions. That was from Grandma and Grandpa’s house, right Suzie?” You mean the Frankenchair? Up until that moment, I hadn’t realized the chair in my folks’ music room had a story behind it. Our grandpa was a policeman in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1926 through 1952. He loved to walk the beat…
Mom would be pleased that her poems – even those from long ago – are causing her children to research and reminisce. This poem was written in August of 1977 following the death of someone named Madeline. A friend? A relative? I checked first about a certain writer friend, but she spelled her name Madeleine and lived for three more decades. A search on our massive family tree on ancestry.com brought me – at last – to Madeline. Madeline Sturmer….
I’d never heard of Tollund Man until yesterday. Soul Man, yeah. Iceman, sure. Even Slender Man (thanks to Law & Order SVU). But Tollund Man? It took one of Mom’s poems to awaken my interest: Remarks upon reading a chapter on the Tollund Man, found preserved in a Danish bog in 1950 Only the head preserved in glass now, but the face tells all, or did, until the lump of peat fell from the neck, showing the rope there.Gentler than…
It’s that time of year again, as graduation ceremonies commence at schools all across the country. Back in 1975, I was a junior in high school. My middle brother, Dave, a senior, was at the top of his class. He was destined to be valedictorian. But toward the end of his senior year, there was an unexpected complication. Since we’d started high school in Connecticut and were finishing it in Indiana, a few classes didn’t match up. To be more…
“Wherever life takes you, make sure you have good neighbors.” Mom preached that to me repeatedly over my childhood years. Luckily, it was in reaction to a kindness shown by a neighbor. We did okay over the years. More than okay, actually. Mom and Dad lived in Fairfield, Connecticut, twice – with four Indiana years in between. I lived in the first house as a junior-high schooler. By the time they moved back, though, there were only two summers left…
The other day, it occurred to me that Mom lived through a lot of wars. As a child, she wrote poems about the soldiers in World War II. Her uncle Pip and other fellows from the neighborhood were called up to service. It clearly weighed heavy on her heart. She and Dad married while he was on a finally approved three-day leave. When he returned to his barracks, Dad found orders to ship out on his bunk. He was on…