December 15th, 2022 | Family, Friends, Genealogy, General, Holidays
Best news first. my Dear One’s grandson Miles proposed to Holly, apparently in a New York City photo booth, and she said yes! While last year’s missive announced the nuptials of my nephew Dan (a brother’s middle son) and Lish out in Minnesota, this year I am...
August 5th, 2022 | Family, Genealogy, General, Health, Memory
Sometimes a book seems like it was written just for you. A review of Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family (2020) by Robert Kolker caught my eye. Perhaps it was in The New York Times, maybe The New Yorker magazine. The book seemed like something my...
August 3rd, 2022 | Family, Genealogy, General, Memory, Time Passes
Kate contacted me out of the blue. Her email said, I have just been given an old box with a label on the top with “Laura A. Wavle, 11 Story Street, Cambridge, Mass”. I’m wondering if you have anymore information about her and whether she lived her life in MA, or did...
December 6th, 2019 | Architecture and Design, Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Europe, Family, Genealogy, General, Health, literature and poetry, Travel, visual arts
My Dear One, noticing that we had a lot of empty calendar space from the end of October to the beginning of November, suggested that we fly off to somewhere in Europe. France? Italy? It took almost no time to decide on the Veneto. For ten days we nested in the...
September 19th, 2019 | Family, Genealogy, General, Indigenous Peoples
As the Reverend’s 80th birthday was coming up, her sister Belle called and asked a favor: would I be willing to print off a copy of the family genealogy for a gift? Like the one she had received from her kids on one of her own big birthdays? Reverend and Belle are the...
December 5th, 2018 | Canada, Europe, Family, Friends, Genealogy, General, Holidays, Memory, Travel
We flew off to Montreal in October for some poutine, some art museum and a ride on the Grande Roue Ferris wheel, and came back to strange goings-on in the climate controls of the car. The Scion’s fan hadn’t been working well, clacking on low, squawking on high. Then...