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…
When I wrote about my godfather, Bob Caplinger, last year (“The West Virginia Hillbilly”), I had a feeling there was something more. There was something else my parents had saved and I just had to find it. There it was, in amongst our family archives. In 1991, Bob wrote an autobiographical short story, dedicated it to my parents and younger brother, and dropped it in the mail to them. Here it is: SATURDAY NIGHT IN CAPITALS A short story by…
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…
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…
Our siblings and cousins are checking in this afternoon, asking each other how the blizzard is treating them. Here in southern Indiana, we did not have snow in the forecast. Yet, yesterday and today, a few flakes managed to blow around. Very few. Connecticut and New York are getting hit hard, with heavy snow and high winds. True to form, Harry’s wife, Linda, good-naturedly grumbled about only getting a few inches in Maine. This doesn’t exactly meet the “historic proportions”…
I was really hoping to find out “turnabout is fair play” was coined by William Shakespeare. Alas, its earliest application may be lost to history, but Abraham Lincoln was an early user of the phrase, so we’ll keep it in play with today’s story. As you may recall, my father‘s entire life of home ownership was tortured by squirrels (see Nuts to you! from 2019). He and Mom loved to feed the birds in their many backyards, from Massachusetts to…