Category Archives: Memories
When Heartthrobs Need Pacemakers
In honor of the 80th birthday of my first serious crush…. Here is a reprise of my ode to the aging heartthrob: WHEN HEARTTHROBS NEED PACEMAKERS In September of 1964, my heart did a pitty-pat. Oh sure, I had been swooning over The Beatles for six months already, but I loved them in that screaming …
Do-Over
Every September, as I watch the kids go back to school, I get the same yearning. I wish it were me packing up Dad’s station wagon to go off to college. I’d take my favorite pillow, and those narrow twin-bed sheets and an Indian batik bedspread. I’d bring my popcorn popper to warm a can …
Sheep Rapport
In honor of Labor Day (because I don’t want to perform any actual Labor) – and in celebration of the start of Country Fair season in New England, here is an encore presentation of my Labor Day post from two years ago – when I first started blogging. ** This weekend I went to the …
The Patron Saint of Nonbelievers
I used to describe myself, as “Spiritual, but not religious.” That sounded so nice, but it really had no meaning. I wasn’t a worshipper of spirits or a believer in any other-worldly things. I guess that, loosely translated, it meant that I was a moral person, because I knew that I was happier good than …
I Get To Be A Princess
A couple of months ago, I reminisced about being eight years old and wanting to be Miss America. (When Nineteen Was Far Away.) I wanted to wear a gown and a tiara, and I thought that just maybe 2013 might be my year. And I was right! Last week my grand-niece (or is it great-niece? …
The Popular Table, Part 2
In the summer of 1969 – the summer between high school and college – there occurred an event so enormous it changed my life forever. I know what you are thinking – Apollo 11 – the moon landing! The triumph of science and exploration! Umm. No. Woodstock! I wasn’t there. In fact, I was so …
The Popular Table, Part 1
I had excellent friends in high school. They were smart and funny and generous. We went to basketball games, and talked about boys, and complained about parents. We sat at the same lunch table every day and laughed and cried over our tunafish sandwiches. But still, there was this tiny disloyal part of me that …
The Horrible, Though Imaginary, Family Secret
My maternal grandparents came to the US from Poland before World War I. They came separately – they didn’t meet until they were here for several years. As a matter of fact, my grandfather met and married someone else first, a young woman who died in the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. I don’t know …
Eureka, Sort Of
Today I will meander through a couple of little stories, but eventually I will stroll on over to the point. When I was young I had a secret ambition (which I still have but I’m not young and it’s not a secret) to solve some great mystery. This desire started of course with Nancy Drew books. …
notquiteold 