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Tag: Mom

Kosovo child
Ex-president pleads not guilty

Ex-president pleads not guilty

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No, I’m not referencing the situation here in America. There’s another former president from a far-away land who also says he didn’t do it. This year is the 25th anniversary of the Kosovo War. That country’s former president pleaded not guilty at The Hague today to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mom had a way of deeply humanizing stories of political and ethnic conflict through her writing. From Paddy McCarthy’s part in Belfast’s Bloody Sunday in 1971 to the…

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1992 40th class reunion Saint Joseph College
Memories of Mary Fleming

Memories of Mary Fleming

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Mom had a really good friend named Mary. Two friends named Mary, come to think of it. Mary Donahue and Mary Fleming. Turns out they were the same person. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this is a recent discovery on my part. When they met in college, Mom was Joan Cassidy and Mary’s last name was Donahue. They were thick as thieves, those two, along with Gloria Dowaliby. Here’s Mary’s yearbook page from 1952, graduation year: Their final year…

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late 1940s or early '50s Mom & Dad by the Quinnipiac River Joan Vayo
Chester Yesterday

Chester Yesterday

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When your mother is a prolific poet, it may be best not to try and figure out too much about each individual poem. Mom loved words, the sound of words. And weaving them together into poems was one of her life’s great delights. Perhaps unfortunately, there’s something in me that is so literal, I have to spend at least a little bit of time to try and “figure out” each verse. As if it’s a riddle. Which I know it…

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1959 a Vayo Christmas
The cheap date

The cheap date

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Dad was not one to hoard receipts and other paperwork from his nearly 91 years. But he did hold on to reminders that brought back good memories. “You were a cheap date,” he said to me out of the blue when I was still in my teens. He quickly explained that he’d run across the bill from my birth. “Our insurance didn’t cover everything,” he said with a sigh. “I had to shell out $14.75 when we brought you home.”…

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Officer Frank Cassidy
‘Night Beat’

‘Night Beat’

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Grandpa Cassidy was a policeman in New Haven, Connecticut, nearly a century ago. Although he was trained to be a plumber, specializing as a steamfitter, he joined the police force when signs of the Great Depression started to loom. That way, he knew he’d always have a job. If only we had more stories to share about his years as a “cop on the beat.” Grandpa was the son of Irish immigrants and came by his storytelling talents naturally. While…

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1958 Kelly family ancestral home
‘The Stone’

‘The Stone’

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The paper has the look of parchment. But it’s not quite yet crisp with age. The story is two typed pages and is signed with Mom‘s married name, so that means she wrote it in the final weeks of 1952 or later. Reading it for the first time this evening, I’m reminded of an Irish folktale, and am grateful Mom’s lifetime of writing sometimes included prose. Maybe someday, as I finish sorting through her writings, I’ll find another copy bearing…

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Cardinal outside my window
Splat!

Splat!

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“Mom! Oh, no! Mom! Bird poop!” Growing up, Mom’s standing rule was for us to change out of our school uniforms just as soon as we got home. I don’t remember why I didn’t obey on this one day in the spring of 1967, but a big bird named Karma took care that I would never forget. We were in the backyard at our home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I remember standing near the large tree that shaded our picnic table,…

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McHale's Navy, with New Haven's own Ernest Borgnine and Peggy Mondo.
The actress

The actress

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The brain – or more specifically, the memory – is a magnificent thing. A few weeks ago, I saw mention of singer Peggy “Is That All There Is?” Lee and it flashed me back to childhood and the 1960s. “There she is – there’s Peggy!” They pointed at the television excitedly. Mom and Dad were proud of their classmate, who had graduated from St. Mary’s High School in New Haven and went on to perform on stage and screen (large…

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Christmas 1964 three brothers
‘The Call to Christmas’

‘The Call to Christmas’

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Cooking, cleaning, decorating, and wrapping presents took up much of Mom‘s time leading up to Christmas each year. Oh, and writing notes in 200 or more Christmas cards. One tradition that Mom practiced annually often happened after the rest of us were asleep on Christmas Eve. In 1983, she took the time to write about it: The Call to Christmas 12:30 a.m., the early end of Christmas Eve. We have trimmed the tree and adorned the house and the snow…

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1948 Yearbook Staff
Momoire

Momoire

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There’s a basket full of school papers to go through, and it’s hard to make much headway. That’s because they’re Mom‘s papers, presumably from high school and college. Some are easy to figure out, as they retell a current event, or show the results of comparing two writers’ styles. There are news clips, too. Other papers, though, will remain a mystery. No date, no teacher’s name. But as long as Mom’s name is there – Joan Cassidy – I know…

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