Alice's Traditional Thanksgiving Pizza
Normally when I told this story, there was a classroom of students who were thinking more about the break in classes that was about to begin. I knew better than to attempt serious discussion on the last class before the Thanksgiving holiday and instead focused on communicating traditions rather than the traditions of communicating. This story...
Another Kind of 4th Of July
Back in 1976 my husband and I were lucky enough to be able to go on a trip to Scandinavia. We flew to Denmark and boarded a small ship for approximately 100 people and proceeded to travel around until we got to the famous fiords of Norway. We were in Bergen at Edvard Grieg’s home for a piano recital when it dawned on me that we really should be...
Elf in Georgia
Jeffrey knew Santa Claus was watching. He knew because there was an elf in the den, watching, making sure that Jeffrey was worthy of the Christmas surprises. Every morning the elf was in a different location, levitating from the top of the kitchen cabinets to a spot up above the nook's windows, levitated by a mother's love and a father's much...
Father's Day Tornado
The phone companies and florists have done a wonderful job in creating Mother's Day. Before cell phones it was easier to trace long distance use and get an idea of how many people were getting in touch with friends or family on particular days of the year. Mother's day was always the winner in the long distance toll charge sweepstakes, an annual...
First Christmas Together - 1944
It was our first Christmas together. We had been married four months and were so “in love”. We decided to send out Christmas cards and have a Christmas Tree. We had been lucky to obtain a darling two bedroom apartment in St. Augustine, Florida. It was nicely furnished except for linens and silverware. We took care of that problem by Harry steeling...
Halloween
When we were small, in the fifties in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., Halloween was a magical affair. My mother did not allow us to buy costumes. We concocted our own, some she had to sew, which she did with a perfectionist's precision. We were fairies and princesses, hobos and cowboys and I was especially jealous the year that my older...
Holiday Memories
Holidays were very quiet when I was a growing up. It was just the three of us to enjoy a delicious dinner and during the day or evening some friends or a relative might stop by to see us. As a young child on Christmas Eve I was put to bed by seven-thirty and then my parents would put up the tree and decorate it. In the early morning we would all...
Hot July 4th
The fourth of July one hell of a hot time of the year. So three if us devised the idea to go to the river where we could drink, smoke and float in a cold river, the Guadalupe. Being a typical Texan I had two friends that were as big as I was the three bears, so we gathered our camping gear, coolers, snorkel gear and headed south. Dale had made us...
Mrs. Santa Claus
It may be that the appeal of trains goes back to when I was a boy and the true sign that Christmas was around the corner was when we got the request to design the annual train layout. What a production! We all drew designs of how the track would carry the train around all the little bits of scenery, tunnels, bridges and switching yards while our...
My Parents' Generation
I don’t know much about my Father’s family. He was brought up in Western Kansas on a farm where many Czechoslovakian families settled. Many stayed in that area and experienced the terrible “Dust Bowl” years. Somehow my father settled in Perry, Iowa working on the Milwaukee R.R. as a freight conductor. He was a veteran of World War I but never...
Packing for the New Assignment
Not too much is changing right now. We just are kept so busy. I’ve started packing because Peace Corps is taking over half our stuff and shipping it via plane or bus to our sites a week before we get there. Thanksgiving was amazing. I was cranky for most of the day because I took my malaria meds but I pushed through it. If anything makes me go...
Seven Reasons to Avoid Holiday Travel
Before Interstate highways, piling into the station wagon for a trip from the suburbs of Washington, DC to Reading, Pennsylvania was something akin to an adventure. It usually only took five minutes of fighting over who got to sit in which seat before the conversation turned to how long it would be before we encountered the “roller coaster” road....
Thanksgiving Memory
We always had the typical Thanksgiving dinner at our home in Iowa. However, this particular year Dad announced he was going pheasant hunting in Northern Iowa with friends and that we would have pheasant instead of turkey. Dad was a good marksman and indeed he brought home pheasants not only for us but special friends. This was only the beginning....
The Beatles Concert 1
The first records I bought were 45 rpm vinyl with tunes from Buddy Holly's group, the Crickets. After the plane crash that took his life, I do not recall buying any other music until I started my collection of folk music, Peter Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Tim Hardin. When British pop music began to make its way into the American...
The Pink Christmas Dress
This memory is etched into my mind but the exact year is lost to the thief of memory. I believe that this Christmas was when I was 12 or 13 years old, so the year was either 1955 or 1956. The place is our living room on Neipsic Rd. in Glastonbury, CT. Gathered around the Christmas tree on this Christmas morning are my 4 brothers and one sister, I...
They Lived Happily Ever After
“What can we do for Valentine's Day that would remind you how special you are to me, every day?” “That's a tough question. I never really had a Valentine's memory to hold up as a benchmark.” “Well, let's create one.” The Hallmark holiday; well, maybe it is one of several. An obscure saint or maybe three that has become a cash cow for the greeting...
Tragic Holiday Away from Home
After Christmas update: 12/28 The past few weeks have been a blur. I am not sure if I you by chance saw it on the news but two girls from my group were killed in a car accident. There were three injured and have been released from the hospital, I think both will be going back to the states and they have 45 days to recover before they have to...
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