I’m not good at remembering summer birthdays. Maybe it’s because there’s too much else to do. Maybe it’s because summer was never birthday season in my family. Growing up, my family’s birthdays were either in the spring or the autumn. We had birthdays in March, April, and September. The last […]
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Random Photos: When the Cares of the World Hit Hard
As I scrolled through old photographs recently, I came across pictures of my father taken on the beach at Port Townsend, Washington, in August 2006. This was my first visit to my parents’ new home—what would be their last home—in Port Ludlow, Washington. What strikes me about these pictures is […]
Continue readingGrandpa’s Stories Still Sustain Us
I’ve spent most of my Thanksgivings since 1979 with my in-laws, and most of those in their home. Occasionally, I prepared the Thanksgiving dinner at our house (typically with my father’s help, when he visited) and my in-laws joined us. But most of the time, we had our holiday meal […]
Continue readingPool Days . . . Guilt-Free
My in-laws put a swimming pool in their back yard the summer after my first child was born. I’m not a good swimmer, but I love hanging out by pools, at least until my fair skin starts to burn. It was wonderful to have a place to go to relax […]
Continue readingJim the Wonder Dog
I wrote last time about Marshall, Missouri. Marshall does have one claim to fame—it was the home of Jim the Wonder Dog. Owned by Sam Van Arsdale of Marshall, Jim was a Llewellin setter (an English setter) that lived from 1925 to 1937. Jim could allegedly understand human speech and […]
Continue readingThe Haunted Doll House
I’ve written before about the times I built Barbie houses with my father-in-law. The second house we constructed was my daughter’s Barbie Magic Sounds House, which she received the Christmas when she was four. When the holiday celebrations at my in-laws’ that year were over, we brought the house home and […]
Continue readingPlaying Santa with Grandpa and Barbie
Only my father-in-law and I were at my in-laws’ house late on Christmas Eve 1984. All the Methodists in the family except Grandpa had gone to their midnight service, which began at 10:30pm. Early to bed, those Methodists. The three grandchildren – my nephew, niece, and son – were nestled […]
Continue readingMy Father-in-law and the Fireflies
Fireflies don’t live in the western United States, and I never encountered them growing up in Washington State. I didn’t see my first firefly until after I was married and moved to Missouri. We were in my in-laws’ backyard on a hot, humid evening in June. It might even have […]
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