Monthly Archives: April 2015

Mom’s Diaries

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A lot of my writing work lately has centered around my mother.

I recently finished transcribing her diaries onto my computer, a task that seemed more urgent as time sped by and my own age advanced. For more than fifty years she kept a day-by-day record of her life and our family’s life, usually in little five-year line-a-day diaries but sometimes in a one-year version and one or twice in a book that was also a calendar. I have all of the diaries in a small suitcase, and I know my daughters will take care of them after I’m gone, but I also wanted that record to be available to anyone in the family who cared to have it. Even if they never read the whole thing, with their computers they can search for a date or a name or a significant word and find a bit of forgotten history, or a memory of their own. Continue reading →

The House on Humboldt Street

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There is a snapshot of my mom, my brother and me standing in front of the first house I remember. I was two when we moved there, five when we left, and Jim was a year and a half younger. The place had an acre of ground with a little orchard of cherry trees, a chicken house and chicken yard, and right behind the house a huge silver-leaf maple tree, where my dad hung a rope-and-board swing for us. Between the tree and the house was a high cement deck that served as a back porch.

I have just fragments of memories from there.

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Wrinkles

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I’d like to see a magazine published exclusively for women from 65 on up to as old as women live to be.  It would be called Wrinkles and maybe subtitled “The Old Ladies’ Home Journal.”

Wrinkles  would be edited and staffed by women over 65.  It wouldn’t accept material by writers under that age and it would welcome articles by authors in their 70s, 80s and beyond. Continue reading →

Women and Men

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I grew up thinking men were superior to women.  I was taught to think that, not only by the way our entire society was arranged but by the way my mother treated my father, with trust, admiration, deference, and the best of whatever was on the table.   It wasn’t so much a power thing as it was a worthiness thing.  Girls of my generation were led to believe that men were wiser as well as stronger, that they would carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, fight the wars, make the decisions, and we women need only worry about matters of the home.  Men didn’t cry, men didn’t show neediness, men—the men in my life at least—treated women with gentleness and courtesy and an entirely different kind of respect from the kind they showed for other men.

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Best Card Game Ever

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The card game 500 has been a tradition in my family as far back as I can remember. A variation of whist or euchre, it has been around since 1904, according to Wikipedia. Apparently it was very popular until contract bridge came along, but I’ve only known two or three people outside of my family who have even heard of it. It’s easier to play than bridge, but harder than rummy or canasta and in my opinion more fun than pinochle. Fast-paced and challenging, it’s about equally dependent on luck and skill. The rules can be found in Hoyle’s Rules of Games and on the Internet but they’re not quite the same as ours, and we consider ours sacred.

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