This clock is not an unusual one. Or is it? I remember it sitting on a shelf along with books in my parents’ library. Mom and Dad both passed away in that room, which seemed fitting, given their love of words, books, poetry, and plays. It’s a pretty clock. An anniversary clock. I assumed it was a family heirloom, thinking it was from Mom’s aunt May’s home. But no one else remembers that. At first, the clock made its new…
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…
Cooking, cleaning, decorating, and wrapping presents took up much of Mom‘s time leading up to Christmas each year. Oh, and writing notes in 200 or more Christmas cards. One tradition that Mom practiced annually often happened after the rest of us were asleep on Christmas Eve. In 1983, she took the time to write about it: The Call to Christmas 12:30 a.m., the early end of Christmas Eve. We have trimmed the tree and adorned the house and the snow…
It’s only just now occurring to me that Dad‘s love of the song “Waltzing Matilda” might be because his mom’s middle name was Mathilda. He’d sing over and over: Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabongUnder the shade of a Coolibah treeAnd he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled“You’ll come a Waltzing Matilda with me” If you’re not familiar with Australia’s unofficial national anthem, here’s a 1962 recording by Dad’s favorite folk musician, Richard Dyer-Bennett:…
Do teachers still send home a “reading list” with students over their summer break? I seem to remember a few lists coming home in the boys’ backpacks over the years, but never one as intimidating as this. Mom was an incoming freshman at Saint Joseph College the fall of 1948. As an English major, she was expected to read a lot. She wrote to her future husband (she and Dad had dated since they met at age 14 and were…
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…
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…
We heard it every Sunday whenever there was a chill in the air: “Who wants a fie-oo in the fie-oo-place?” Dad loved to build a good fire, hear the crackling sound of properly dried kindling, poking the coals together in the late evening, and maybe even taking a snooze in a nearby comfy chair. It was only this week that I realized his obsession with building fires traced back to his youth. Way back Ever since posting about Dad’s college…
Mom sure loved living in Pittsfield. Known as “The Heart of the Berkshires,” Pittsfield was our childhood home from 1962 through 1970. Located in western Massachusetts, Pittsfield is surrounded by the scenic Berkshire Mountains. This poem from 1972 caught my eye the other day. Even though we’d moved to Fairfield, Conn., nearly two years prior, Mom was still thinking about Pittsfield: Song for a Berkshire House There, in the snow-and-autumn house,early November blue and white feelingof frost, and sky of…