What stories will be revealed as I go through this bag of receipts? The clear plastic bag was in among the family archives we brought home from Mom and Dad’s house in 2021. With the initials M&D written on a card in Dad’s handwriting, I expected it to be filled with his parents’ paper memorabilia. It was soon clear Dad labeled the bag to show it contained odds and ends from his long life with Mom. And it was meant…
In this 2004 poem, Mom remembers her youngest child’s return from the hospital as a newborn in 1964 and again from serving overseas in the Marines. Homecomings Soon after you were bornyour Father took your brothers sister berryingyour Grandmother steadied the housefor your homecoming and for the berry pickersthe two of us took off to bed after the admiration partyand the blueberries went into piesa succulent sleep in a hot ovenon a summer afternoon Years later on another summer afternoonwe…
Another September has come and gone – and with it, four more books. Book 1: Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre This is one wild tale – and it’s a true story: Still a year away from D-Day, the masterminds at Britain’s MI5 were determined to dream up a scheme to convince Hitler that the Allies had changed their plans regarding Italy. The team – including future Bondsman Ian Fleming – came up with a plan that was so detailed and…
One hundred years ago, Grandpa Vayo was counting down the days until he married. He’d already moved to Paducah, Kentucky, and started his new job in advertising. He even authored a daily poetry column, Songs of Life, in The Paducah Sun newspaper. I wonder if he warned Grandma (his betrothed, Lucie Plante) how often her new surname would be misspelled and mispronounced. After all, “Vayo” rhymes with “mayo.” Sometimes, the condiment won out: This poem of Grandpa’s caught my eye…
Mom and Dad had distinctly different sleep patterns. Dad was the early-to-bed, early-to-rise type. I wondered what type of feathered friend an official Early Bird might be. Judging from the above picture, maybe a goose? Mom, on the other hand, loved to stay up late. She was the ultimate Night Owl: Reading, chatting with her adult children when they visited, even writing poetry: Warm Where You Were The early riser leaves meto a later hour You crest in morningwhile I…
Well, look at that – this month we have books from Ireland, England, the U.S., France, and Denmark! Book #1 Land by Maggie O’Farrell After reading Hamnet earlier this year, I knew Maggie O’Farrell’s work to be irresistible. Yes, Land is a novel, but it’s based on a mapmaker ancestor from her family tree. Generations of loss and love unfold over the chapters. And there’s a villain I’ll never forgive! While reading Land, I missed my red-haired mom so much….
It was always a treat to visit Grandma and Grandpa Cassidy when we were growing up in the 1960s. The drive to New Haven, Connecticut, took about 2.5 hours. Sometimes we’d stop at a breakfast diner and Dad would cough up a few nickels for the booth’s jukebox so we could play a song or two. Most often it would be On Top of Spaghetti, that old classic. It was always a thrill when Dad started pointing, “There it is…
My brother Dave continues to delve into his storage box of childhood memories. Some are delightful, others bring a tear. This one makes me cringe. It’s a poem from the literary annual our high school produced each spring. Either I didn’t give it a title or there wasn’t room for one … so let’s call it “The Terrible Teens.” This is from 1975, my junior year. P.S. I really couldn’t care less about “our team” winning or losing. But it…
There’s a handy-dandy feature on Ancestry‘s app that keeps the user up to date on birthdays and anniversaries. As long as the person is in your family tree, their name will pop up a day or two before that special day to remember. Noticing that Grandma Vayo‘s maternal grandparents’ anniversary was today, it felt like a good time to write about them. Only their anniversary was yesterday. That’s according to one document: Onze Juillet. Another marriage document: Douze Juillet. Onze…
When Dad retired in the late 1980s, he was determined to collect and read more books than his career had allowed. After sorting through ads for book clubs and societies, he decided Folio Society was a good match for him (and Mom). And so, six years ago, we inherited about 450 volumes, mostly classics. Since then, we’ve doubled the size of the collection. I try to read at least two Folios each month, but decided since May is the month…