As the calendar rolls into the tenth month of the year, the trees in our backyard are just beginning to turn golden and orange. And so, I went looking for a poem from Mom. She wrote this in 1950, early in her junior year at St. Joseph College in Hartford. Ever-Green Follow me, Sunberry,Mine is the rootThat steps into oceansWith one white foot. I hold a moonstone:A boon for the childWho sings in the jungleAnd never grows wild. Here is…
Another piece of paper so old it’s turning brown and brittle. It’s newsprint, which seems to age as it comes off the press. But still, 1980 was 46 years ago. This is a poem Mom wrote in 1977. When her alma mater asked for a poem to print in the Summer 1980 edition of their Alumnae News, I’m not sure they expected this: the cold eye the cold eye sleeps on sunday the devil turns his back the witch sits…
Did your yearbook include a “class history”? I’ll have to go back and check mine from high school, but I don’t think we had one. Dad wrote the class history for his college yearbook when he was a Senior. Although the work is uncredited, he mentioned it in an autobiography he wrote in 1954. The Class History is an interesting compilation of facts and figures, sports and dances, from the earliest days until graduation. As you can see in this…
I thought of Matt the other day. We were great friends in college – both performers in the Singing Hoosiers (think Glee, but in college). I can hear his booming bass voice to this day. Just this past Saturday, there was a note online that it was actor Michael Caine’s 93rd birthday. There was a story about how he and Quincy Jones, working together on The Italian Job movie, suddenly realized they were born on the same day – making…
The news in the registered letter Dad opened on February 7, 1951, was something no college senior should have to receive. That same day, Dad wrote to his future wife: My Darling, I got an awful shock this morning. I got a registered mail letter from dad. He’s lost his job. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read it the first time. For a while I couldn’t move or think. Golly, you never realize the blessing of security until…
While digging around recently in our greeting-card drawer, I came across several colorful choices. I flipped them over to check the artist’s name and realized the cards must have been a long-ago gift from Mom and Dad, as the illustrator was their “neighbor” Jacques Pépin. They weren’t borrow-a-cup-of-sugar neighbors (although both parties would surely have been generous with their sucre); they lived about a mile apart. My parents were delighted to stop for a casual chat with Chef when they…
One of these days, I need to pull out Mom’s “rejection folder” for a blog post. Yes, she kept the rejection letters she received from magazine editors over the years. Rejection. Who needs that?! But Mom never gave up. She kept mailing out those hand-typed poems, knowing her work was good. Once in a while, there’d be hand-written feedback in the margins of those letters, written by kind editors who no doubt understood the pain of rejection. Back in the…
One of these days, I’m going to figure out the story behind my maiden name: Vayo. Stepping back three generations on Dad‘s side, one family spelled their surname in three ways: Veilleux, Vayo, and Veayo. Just now, I double-checked all of great-grandpa George Vayo’s siblings and parents and there is, frankly, no rhyme or reason that I can find. Several family members – including his parents – changed their surnames from Veilleux to Vayo, while a few of George’s siblings…
Oh, how I miss talking politics with Dad! At least once a day, I’ll hear or read a news story and immediately think to call Dad – or at least text him the link for later discussion. Here’s an example: Did you hear about the Benedictine nuns in Erie, Pennsylvania, accused of voter fraud this week? They’re not taking it lying down. Dad would have gotten such a kick out of reading about their leader’s barely contained furor. When I…
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….