My brother and children seem to think they get treated unfairly in this blog, so this time it’s my sister’s turn. She turns fifty this week, so she is fair game. My sister was born when I was eight and a half. Too much younger to be a friend when […]
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Family Resemblances: The Dutch Boy Look
One of the pictures I found when I made the slide show of my mother’s life for her funeral was this photograph of her as a small child on a pony. I don’t recognize the building behind her, so I don’t know where the picture was taken. I have no […]
Continue readingA Picture I Wish I Had: Licorice Ice Cream
A high-school friend of mine had only one older sister and didn’t understand the pains that younger siblings could be. She seemed to like being around my little sister and brother. In the summer of 1972, my friend drove over to my house. She decided we should take my younger […]
Continue readingA Picture I Wish I Had: A Baby and Huckleberries
A friend of mine in Washington State recently posted a picture of huckleberries she had picked. Now those of you who don’t live in the West may not even know what huckleberries are. You’ve heard of Huckleberry Finn, but did you ever wonder where the Huckleberry in his name came […]
Continue readingUntold Stories From Pictures: A Brother-Sister Relationship
One of my tasks before my mother’s recent funeral was to put together a slide show of her life. I’ve mentioned in an earlier post that my father and maternal grandfather both took many photographs over the years, so the problem was not finding pictures of my mother. She lived […]
Continue readingDon’t Worry, Be Happy
My maternal grandmother was always happy. At least that’s how I remember her. Her birthday was in mid-March, so I think of her often this time of year. As I’ve mentioned before, we called her Nanny Winnie. She was too light-hearted for “Grandmother,” though she could have been a “Granny.” […]
Continue readingWinter, Wind, and Tumbleweeds
Did you see the story last week about tumbleweeds taking over the town of Clovis, New Mexico? The pictures of the piles of tumbleweeds as tall as tractors brought back childhood memories for me. The house my parents built in Richland, Washington, in 1962 was at the end of a […]
Continue readingPlaying Board Games With Adonis
My siblings and I spent much of our holiday vacations playing games. No one in my family is particularly athletic, but we are cutthroat at cards. And board games. None of us likes to lose. Because the age difference from me to my younger siblings was pretty wide, we had […]
Continue readingThe Good Big Sister: Family Myths From Generation to Generation
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 readingWater 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 […]
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