My Son’s First Birthday Party

Today my son turns thirty-seven. As I’ve been going through boxes, trying to declutter, I found some pictures of his first birthday party. Obviously, I would never throw these pictures out. In fact, I find it very hard to throw out any pictures. Finding these snapshots completely stopped my decluttering […]

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A Belated Veterans Day Post

It seems that in over five years of writing this blog, I have never written about Veterans Day. This year, I am finally doing it, albeit a couple of days late. I never expected to be part of a military family. I didn’t have any veterans among my relatives. Neither […]

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The Summer of ’64: Pacific Grove

I’ve mentioned spending summers with my grandparents in Pacific Grove, California. It seemed like I spent several idyllic summers there, but there really weren’t that many. Only twice did my brother and I spend long vacations with our grandparents. In 1963 we spent a month there, but our mother was […]

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No More Libby Jacksons

My kids and their cousins often visited their mutual grandparents (my in-laws) when they were children. When it was time to leave, my father-in-law would call them aside and hand them each a $20 bill. I told my children not to expect Grandpa’s generosity and to thank him when it […]

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Retelling Tales: My Grandfather the Salesman

I’ve written before that my paternal grandfather, Laverne Ernst Claudson, was the grandparent I knew the least. Both of my grandmothers overshadowed their husbands in my young life, and I spent more time with my maternal grandparents as a child than I did my father’s parents, so I never felt […]

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