I’ve written before about family myths (see here and here). A recent family reunion brought more some of our myths to mind. Growing up, I was the Good Big Sister – at least that’s how my parents perceived me. My siblings probably always disagreed. I was the oldest child. One brother […]
Continue readingTag Archives: brother
Water Sports, Card Games & Airplane Letters
As Memorial Day approaches, I remember long summer days of swimming and waterskiing until we were exhausted, followed by cutthroat card games in the afternoons and evenings. My family rented a cabin on Coeur d’Alene Lake in northern Idaho, beginning when I was thirteen or fourteen, until my parents bought […]
Continue readingWorking Through the Generations: Happy 80th Birthday to My Father
I’ve written before that I am a lot like my mother. But I developed my attitudes toward work by watching my father. My earliest memories of my father at work date back to when I was in pre-school. When he was in graduate school earning his Ph.D. in metallurgy, he […]
Continue readingInnocence of Christmases Past
I wrote today’s post before the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday. As I upload the post now, I recognize in sorrow that many families in Newton, CT, will not be able to pose their children under the Christmas tree this year, nor in future years. All […]
Continue readingMemories: In Song and Words
We don’t know what will suddenly bring a dormant memory to consciousness. For Proust, it was the taste of madeleines. For me, it was a hymn sung in church. “Whatsoever you do” was the song sung after communion at Mass a couple of weeks ago. “Whatsoever you do to the […]
Continue readingMemories of Desert and Lakes . . . and Our Rainy Respite
As a desert-born girl, I hate the rain. I don’t like it dripping on me. And I hate the Midwestern humidity – I’ve never adapted to it in 33 years of living in Missouri. This hot, dry summer of Midwestern drought has brought back many memories of the hot, dry […]
Continue readingFamily Pictures: Capturing History As the Mind Cannot
Both my dad and my mother’s father took lots of pictures over the years. As kids, my siblings and I were always smiling at the camera for my father or grandfather, and often both of them at the same time until my grandfather died. There were four standard poses for […]
Continue readingAnother Pie Story
Readers liked my gooseberry pie post, so here’s another tale about a summer pie – this time a banana cream pie I made myself. You’ll see I had issues with it, just like with the gooseberry pie my future mother-in-law and I made together. In 1969, Home Economics was a […]
Continue reading