Shortly after Christmas last year, my father commented to me that it was the first Christmas in sixty-six years he had not spent with my mother. “Ever since I took her to the Snow Ball when we were sophomores in high school,” he said. They started dating as fifteen-year-olds, “went […]
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Share a Diet Coke (or Pepsi) with Dad
The Coca-Cola Company has an advertising campaign underway using the slogan “Share a Coke with . . . .” Their bottles and cans are labeled with such suggestions as “Share a Coke with a VIP,” or “Share a Diet Coke with your Soulmate.” A few days ago, I picked up […]
Continue readingStories I Couldn’t Tell Before: The Communion Host
I’ve known since I began writing this blog that there were stories I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell until after my parents were dead. But I thought it would be many more years before I could tell them. A year ago, both of my parents were alive (though my mother’s Alzheimer’s […]
Continue readingDaddy’s Date . . . No, Make that Grandpa’s Date!
The church where my sister was married had a very firm rule that any children who were members of the wedding party had to be at least five. My son, at age six, qualified to be a ring bearer. My daughter, who would turn three just days before the wedding, […]
Continue readingA Kitchen Bargain
My father liked to cook, but my mother did not. Cooking was required of a good homemaker, and she vowed to be a good homemaker. So she prepared the meals all the years her children were growing up, and did so reasonably well. But her heart was never in it. […]
Continue readingThe Tax Man Cometh Thrice This Year
I hate the weeks leading up to April 15 when I have to prepare and file my tax returns. I start worrying about taxes in January, but don’t start doing anything until February. Or maybe March. Then the days between the Ides of March and Tax Day turn frenetic. In […]
Continue readingHappy Birthday (and Easter) to me!
April 5 is my birthday. This year, for the first time in my life, my birthday was on Easter. The date for Easter, as most people know, floats around during the spring. In theory, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. But the […]
Continue readingMy Father’s Bookcase: A New Family Heirloom
When I was a very young, my father made a bookcase. It’s made of a pretty wood (maybe oak?), and it is solid. It has a curved lip on the front facing at the top of the bookcase. I thought that made it a fancy piece of furniture when I […]
Continue readingOn Birthdays and Owls: Remembering My Mother
Today would have been my mother’s 82nd birthday. One of my most popular posts on this blog is the one I wrote to mark her 80th birthday. By that time, she was in assisted living because of her Alzheimer’s, and she could not really celebrate her birthday that year. Last […]
Continue readingMy Grandfather’s Clock
When I was in second grade or so, my class sang the old song, “My Grandfather’s Clock,” by Henry Clay Work. The lyrics to the first verse are My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf, So it stood ninety years on the floor; It was taller by half […]
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