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…
“The Spirit of ’76.” That was the name of my high school graduation class. Yes, 1976 was a long time ago, but I remember it well. We all went a little nuts celebrating our nation’s bicentennial. By the end of 1976, the uber-patriotism fatigue was real. We were all more than a bit relieved when the calendar moved on to ’77. For two entire years, we gathered ’round “the tube” each night to catch that evening’s Bicentennial Minute. The pre-cursor…
“You’ve got to pay more attention to current events – today is HUGE!” It was August 8, 1974, and my friend Jenny was beside herself with glee. Although just 16, she followed politics closely and was overjoyed that President Richard Nixon was about to resign in disgrace, following the Watergate Scandal. Despite Jenny’s urging, I simply wasn’t into politics – or current events for that matter. The “news bug” would bite me in college as I took journalism classes, but…
Along with many others in July, we hopped onto Disney+ for a month to take a look at the film version of the Broadway smash Hamilton. It was phenomenal. Memories flooded back as I thought back to my early teens, Girl Scouts, and a community service project at the Burr Mansion. We moved to Fairfield, Connecticut, during the summer of 1970. In the fall, I joined the local Cadette Girl Scout troop and started working on badges. For the “My…
Back in the ’60s, I was a Junior Girl Scout from the fourth to sixth grade. This was at Sacred Heart Elementary School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. No matter what you’ve heard about Thin Mints, let me assure you that back then Scouting was all about filling up that green sash with badges. Any girl with a drop of competitiveness in her soul worked every angle to earn more badges that her sisters in green. I scoured the thick blue Girl…