“Oh, boy! Stinky cheese!” Dad sure knew how to clear a room. He was crazy about pungent cheese and all the drama his eating it entailed. Maybe it was the Frenchy-Frenchman side of him? We kids would run for cover while he all but inhaled chunks of Camembert, Munster, and Feta. Phew! As a child, I remember begging Mom to let me wait for her outside of a food shop in Pittsfield, a store that specialized (or so it seemed)…
I have a feeling this is going to bug me every November for the rest of my days. I can’t find the recipe card Mom sent me with the simple instructions for pie crust. Forty years ago as a young bride, I asked Mom to send me some of her favorite family recipes. We talked on the phone at great length and built our list: Meatloaf, Potato Salad, Surprise Pie, Mayonnaise Cake, Banana Bread, Three-Bean Salad, and … pie crust….
Mom absolutely loved being a grandma. Over the years, she and Dad were blessed with seven grandchildren. Many summers ago, they enjoyed hosting five of those little varmints while vacationing in Ogunquit, Maine. (James and Lucy weren’t born yet.) Here’s a story Mom wrote 30 years ago, remembering that special time. Half a Hot Dog with Johnny It is October and three of our grandchildren are in school and thriving. I think of last August and the various times the…
My middle brother, Dave, wove together this remembrance of family and friends returning to Madison a few months ago to honor Dad’s memory in a heartfelt Celebration of Life: On June 11, about 40 family members and friends gathered at my parents’ spiritual home, St. Margaret’s Catholic Church in Madison, Connecticut. Dad had passed away in April of the previous year, before the risks COVID posed had diminished significantly, and this had limited the number of people who attended his…
When I picked up a century-old cookbook we’d brought home from my parents’ house and saw it was published by a baking powder company, I could hear one thing. It was Dad’s voice from the 1970s: “Keep your powder dry!” as he tried to calm whatever situation was erupting in our house full of teens. When I mentioned this to Farmer Gary, he quickly explained the source: “Actually, that’s a reference to gunpowder.” Indeed, it’s credited to Oliver Cromwell, advising…
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….
My dad likes ice cream. Back in the ’60s, he’d take us out for a family drive around Berkshire County on hot summer Sunday afternoons. Chances are, we’d end up at Dairy Queen. We’d each get a dipped cone. Back then, there were two choices: vanilla soft serve, dipped in chocolate or cherry. Chocolate for my brothers. Cherry for me. Dad always had a plan. He wouldn’t order anything for himself, but was at the ready to “help out” when…
Gosh, I miss Robin Williams. He’s been gone for nearly six years. But today is his birthday, so let’s celebrate his life. What an amazing actor and improviser! What a comedian … and humanitarian. My brother Dave’s daughter, Becky, met Robin by chance back in 2002. You know, she’s really not a pushy dame, but she couldn’t pass up the chance to meet him. Here’s Becky’s recollection of that day: I met him while traveling to San Francisco with my…
Does anyone still watch for “the first robin of spring”? That was a game, of sorts, growing up in western Massachusetts. Winters were so long that even a whisper of spring gave us a real lift. Sidenote: I fondly remember the annual family activity of clearing the driveway of the half-foot or so of packed snow and ice. It was genuinely fun chipping away the giant chunks during the February thaw and again in the spring. The only other chilly…
Gosh, I remember that day. We were at Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy’s house for a visit. This story centers around their kitchen. And eggs. I loved that kitchen, and the adjacent pantry. The kitchen included a dinette set, pushed up against the wall. That wall featured a Murphy bed-esque ironing board – it folded up and all but disappeared! The room also included a gas stove and a tall white cabinet that was freestanding. I’m sure that cupboard housed a…