The year was 1929. That fall, the stock market crash set off The Great Depression. Also that fall, the mothers of two cousins-to-be found out they had identical due dates: April 6, 1930. And so began The Great Competition. I’ve never thought of my mom as a competitive sort. Well, all except when it came to her poetry. The Great Competition involved Grandma Cassidy and her sister-in-law Ethel Cassidy Hungerford. Both babies would be the first born to each couple….
When you grow up in New England, you come to crave lobster. By-the-seashore lobster, that is, not the ones in a large fish tank as you enter a national restaurant chain. When Thomas was a little guy, he even included a lobster in the family crest he designed in art class. Our family Christmas tradition the past half-dozen years or so is mid-afternoon Lobster Grilled Cheese Sandwiches shipped frozen from Maine, thanks to GoldBelly.com. And so, when Gary and I…
No, not that Jack Cassidy. But yes, Mom had an uncle named Jack whose gregarious personality both flattered and flustered. As girls, Mom and her sister, Bunny, would scurry into the pantry to hide from that big personality. I did the same years later. As a child, I cowered from my uncle John Cull’s Eugene Levy-esque eyebrows. We shy lasses eventually grew up to appreciate these fine gentlemen. Mom wrote this poem about her uncle Jack Cassidy, a steamfitter, 13…
The usual meaning for the term “keyboard warriors” is those angry trolls who make sure social media is always stirred up with arguments and untruths. For our purposes, though – and during Teach Music Week – we’ll look at the keyboards that tie our family together. Piano keyboards. Dad remembers taking piano lessons when his family lived in Lowell in the early 1940s. He was ten or 11 and would walk just a few blocks to get to Mrs. Salmonson’s…
Today is Grandma Cassidy‘s birthday. And it’s Poetry Day. Born in 1903, Grandma wouldn’t have permitted us to calculate her age, had the luck of the Irish kept her with us all these years. Saints preserve us! Me sainted Grandmother has made her home in heaven since 1991. I was “great with child” at the time, with middle-son John on the way and couldn’t travel to attend her funeral in New Haven. I’ve always believed her blithe spirit lives on…
Fact: Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. To make it easier to remember, the Boomers time frame basically started with the post-war “boom” (which had nothing to do with the Manhattan Project) and ended with the launch of Beatlemania (I made that last part up). So, yes, I’m a Boomer. We ate very differently back then. We nearly always dined at home. Slowly, as the ’60s progressed, stay-at-home moms discovered simpler recipes to make than what their mothers…
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…
Bill’s wife, Barbara, whipped up another batch of comfort food over the weekend. She made several loaves of Cranberry Nut Bread, using Mom’s tried-and-true recipe. Bill brought a loaf with him to this week’s visit with Dad. They chuckled about a favorite Bob & Ray comedy routine that involved a “fast-breaking news” interview with The Cranberry Man: Mom and Dad loved Bob & Ray, and delighted in all the ridiculous characters and parodies they developed over the years. My parents…
With all the talk of viruses in the news lately (and a century ago), I think back to the comfort, warmth, and healing provided for many years by the cherry spread. Mom only used the cherry spread when we were ill. The cherry spread plus slowly-sipped ginger ale took care of any number of tummy aches and “bugs.” (To this day, ginger ale tastes like medicine to me.) In many hours of digging, I’ve only found one photo that includes…
There are 29 days in February this year. It is nice to have an extra day to read. Especially since we have gallons of new books. My parents planned last fall to move their bedroom from upstairs to downstairs, into what was then the library. In doing so, they needed a new home for their impressive book collection. Dad says Gary and I were the natural choice, since we have room at our house. I thought it was because I…