As I looked through the photographs my father digitized, I came across this picture of my brother and me. I’ve seen it many times before, but this time I noticed my brother is holding a kitten. I’m pretty sure this is the cat we owned in Corvallis, Oregon. We don’t […]
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Vaccines Then and Now
As of early February 2021, the news is full of stories about vaccines against COVID-19, the pandemic that hit the United States early in 2020. For almost a year now, we have restricted our activities on almost every front. Working from home. Limited church services. No restaurants. Buying as much […]
Continue readingFirst Visit with Santa—Better on Zoom?
A couple of weeks ago a friend told me about her family’s experience setting up a visit from Santa for her grandchildren this year. Two of her grandkids are four-year-old boys. Of course, they need to see Santa, pandemic or no pandemic. So parents and grandparents are working on a […]
Continue readingDrive-In Movies
I’ve probably been to drive-in movies less than ten times in my entire life. But they have made an impression on me. Not for what movies we watched (other than Ghostbusters, I don’t even remember which movies I saw at a drive-in), but because of the experience. My parents took […]
Continue readingGrocery Deliveries Long Before the Pandemic
My parents had a stroller for me when I was an infant. I don’t remember riding in the seat, but there is a picture to prove that I did. Once my brother came along, he got the seat, and I was relegated to standing on the back of the stroller. […]
Continue readingWhat My Mother Read To Me: THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD
One of the earliest books that I remember my mother reading to me was The Little Engine That Could. I went online to see if I could find the cover of the edition she read to my younger brother and me, but I couldn’t be sure which one it was. […]
Continue readingA Childhood Epizootic
In these days of the coronavirus, every cough and every ache or pain makes us fearful. At least, that’s how I’m feeling these days. Spring is coming regardless of the pandemic, and I try to take solace in the warmer days, the brilliant sunshine, the greening of trees and lawns. But […]
Continue readingMemories of Thanksgiving and My Paternal Grandparents
Thanksgiving is behind us now, but just barely. I was thinking this past holiday weekend about my paternal grandparents. When I was growing up, we spent more time with my mother’s parents than my father’s, but we often did spend Thanksgiving with my paternal grandparents. As a small child, I […]
Continue readingRemembering the Old House: My Son’s Perspective
While he was visiting recently, my son posted a series of photos on Instagram with his memories of the house he grew up in. I took screenshots of his Instagram posts, asked his permission to put them on this blog, he agreed, so here they are. He had a child’s […]
Continue readingMemories of Childhood Fourth of July Celebrations
I don’t remember too much about Independence Day celebrations when I was a kid. I’ve written about the flags someone gave my brother and me when I was about seven, and the trauma that our misuse of those flags caused me. That year, the Fourth of July was more problem […]
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