R is for Romance—And the Kindle Under My Pillow

Why did they put all the hard letters near the end of the alphabet, making the A to Z Blogger Challenge harder as we go along? My prompt word for the letter R was an easy choice, but looking ahead to V, W, Y, and Z has me shaking in my proverbial boots. You may have noticed that I overuse the word proverbial. But then I also lean on trite little sayings like “shaking in my boots.” So the root solution is for me to quit being lazy in my writing.

Okay, I’ve filibustered enough. Time to explain why I picked Romance for my word prompt. I have three answers.

One: I was boy crazy in my teens. I mean really, really boy crazy—so much so that if one so much as looked at me, I’d break into giggles that telegraphed the fact that I was jailbait. I’m sure my mother appreciated that.

Two: I was hooked on reading romance novels in my 40s and 50s. I don’t remember how I found my first one, but I do remember being shocked at how fast I could read in my 40s compared to college. My mom always had Regency romances in the house, so maybe that was my gateway “drug.” But that sub-genre reminds me of Hallmark movies where the main characters don’t kiss until the last five minutes. I quickly moved up the sensual ladder where I discovered historical romances. (Don't tell anyone but I even tried writing a historical romance once.) 

Like men who claim they bought Playboy for the articles, I was quick to say I liked historicals for the history. But all kidding side, they often sent me to the library to fact-check because I didn’t always believe what I read. Soon I learned which authors did solid research and which ones didn’t. When I downsized nearly five years ago, I had hundreds of romance “favorites” to dispose of. I kept only three: Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer, The Outsider by Penelope Williamson, and The Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux. The next time I downsize, I’ll only keep the latter. Not that I’d need to—I have it on my old Kindle, which I keep under my pillow. 

Until recently, I used to listen to bits of that book to fall asleep. I’d set the timer for a half hour, and when I got up in the night to pee, I’d reset it for ten minutes so I wouldn’t start thinking about the day past or the one ahead. I’ve logged so many hours on that book that Amazon sends me emails that translate to: Hey, lady-in-a-rut, Jude wrote other books. We think you’d like such-and-such.

Three: While I might be old, I still enjoy looking at eye candy in the form of good-looking men and occasionally daydreaming about what it’s like to be young and in love again. I blame it on being artistic. In college I had to take a lot of figure drawing classes with nude models. Now, I might admire a man’s chest or well-chiseled arms, but only because I can imagine drawing his form in pastel chalk. Are you buying that? You should, because I’m not a cougar type who wants to touch what catches my eye.

And please know that the ages of my preferred eye candy have changed over the years. When I was in my teens, any male over twenty scared the pants off me (another overused expression). And here’s where I should probably admit that eye candy has more to do with sexual attraction than romance. Oops. Forget I wrote this paragraph.

That was fun. Now I need to get serious and explain why I have such fond memories of reading romance novels and how I owe the genre for giving me an amazing turnaround in my love of reading. I shared in my post for E is for Education that I’m mildly dyslexic, and although I still won’t read in public—some words still don’t compute in my brain—I’m no longer ashamed to admit my past struggles with the written word. And maybe that’s the real gift romance gave me. I may not chase romance anymore, but I still chase stories to blog about — and that’s enough of a happily‑ever‑after for me. © 

Q is for Questions—The Ones I Wish I’d asked my Mom

Thanks to fellow blogger, Beth, for suggesting this topic, I have something to write about for this edition of the A to Z Bloggers Challenge. My mom was in her early seventies when she died and I’ve written about that before so I won’t go into detail. But I will quote myself below so new readers will understand why it was traumatic, and why it left me with no time to ask the questions I didn’t yet know I’d want answers to.

“She’d been going to the doctor every week for a dozen weeks complaining of pain. Near the end my brother started going with her to get some answers about what was going on and the doctor told him Mom was just getting old and looking for attention. Mistakes one through ten. Unbeknown to anyone she had a small hole in a kidney and blood was slowly seeping out and filling up her body cavity. Mistakes eleven and twelve came the day she died and the ambulance got lost trying to find my parents’ house. (They lived on a lake in a rural area where the township didn’t keep their maps up to date.) Mistake thirteen through fifteen happened on the way to the hospital when the ambulance caught on fire and they had to wait for another. She died of septic shock ten minutes after arriving a the hospital and a doctor told me later that dying that way is very painful. Her death was a series of human errors and oversights and it was filled with the kind of shoulda, coulda anguish that only comes with hindsight.”

My mom had a way of answering questions that didn’t really tell you anything. (Remember me writing about how when asked what's for dinner she'd say things like, "An old dead cow.") Another example of her non-answers was when I asked her where I came from and I thought I’d get the birds and the bees story I heard rumors about. The idea that the daddy bee stings the mommy bee with his—gasp!—penis was so outlandish that I counted on her to set the story straight. She did. She told me she found my brother and me under a pile of rocks. A few years later she finally did set the story straight—not with a conversation, of course, but by handing me a pamphlet from the health department.

One of those things she didn’t want to talk about was a screw-back, silver and blue Air Force wings pin that I found in her jewelry box. I didn’t have any uncles or grandfathers who served in the Air Force. Where did it come from and why did she let me wear that pin to high school during the period when I had an imaginary boyfriend named Roger who was off serving our country? And did she know about Roger? Did she read my diaries when I was at school? Years later I thought she might have had a boyfriend before she married my dad who died in a ‘dog fight’ in the air space over Europe during WWII. In my golden years I still think she had that boyfriend, but if so, why was she willing to let me wear that keepsake? I would have snatched it out of any daughter of mine’s hands and locked it away. Maybe she trusted me more than I realized. Or maybe she didn’t think of it as a keepsake at all. Maybe she found it under a pile of rocks.

After she died I went through her cedar chest and another mystery was discovered among the mostly photos and knickknacks. A pair of soft pink satin and cream-colored lace panties that buttoned down the side. 1940s boy-cut style. Why did she keep them for thirty odd years? Who does that? My parents were married in the late ‘40s so maybe it was her version of keeping a wedding dress? She was married in a drab gray suit trimmed in brown fir over a weekend spent in Chicago. I have pictures of that trip and she and my dad both looked really happy. Oh, and that drab suit? Mom cut it up to make a coat for a doll I got one Christmas and I still have them both.

What did I do with the panties? You ask. I put them in a fresh plastic bag with a note about when and where I found them and put them in a small trunk that is earmarked to go to my oldest niece. She still has the cedar chest I found the panties in and I suspect they will end up back in that chest for my great-niece to discover one day. Some families hand down grandfather clocks and quilts. I’m thinking I might be starting a tradition of handing down underwear.

In all seriousness. The questions I wish I’d asked my mom before she died are about gaining more details of her childhood and her parents. I know the basics of how her own mother died when she was nine and all seven siblings where separated and sent off to various places. It was like an informal foster care known as ‘farming children out’ that was arranged between families rather than the state. But knowing my mother, she probably wouldn’t have told me very much. Her childhood ended too soon, when she went off to live with a grandmother who ran a boarding house where she was expected to work for her keep. In her teens she was working in other people's homes as a housekeeper and by the time she met my dad she'd been a waitress for several years. 

My mom was not a reminiscing type like I am. Maybe the past held too much pain? She focused on the future, always planning and plotting for ways to hedge her bets against bad luck and foul play, so to speak. We all leave a few blank pages behind; but with the brief outline she did leave, I’m pretty sure I could flesh her story out. But I know the important part: she was a strong woman who loved her family and I wish I'd have told her more often how much I loved her. ©

Photo at the top: Mom and dad on their honeymoon. 

P is for Philosophy— Lessons from my Dad

I’m going to live dangerously here for this edition of the A to Z Bloggers Challenge and try to form a picture of how, why and where my interest in philosophy came from. Hopefully it won’t look like I’m bluffing my way around a topic I once knew something about...more than a half a century ago. Any "book learning" I had decades ago is running for the hills as if Godzilla just stomped into town. If the Blogging Police want to tisk‑tisk me for bluffing, I can live with it. But stick with me to the end and I may eventually write something profoundly philosophical—and I don’t mean a review of the perfume by that name. (Which I do like, in case anyone wants to know.)

AI defines philosophy this way: “The systematic study of fundamental questions concerning existence, knowledge, ethics, reason, and language. Derived from the Greek for ‘love of wisdom,’ it uses rational argument and critical analysis to understand the world, rather than relying on empirical observation alone. It analyzes concepts like truth, reality, and morality.”

My ideas on philosophy are deeply rooted, and they got their start at my dad’s side. I absorbed them by listening to his Will Rogers‑style way of viewing the world. I don’t know how he picked up his respect for knowledge and education. He dropped out of school in grade school. Except for the newspaper, he wasn’t a reader. Yet when I was in college taking classes in philosophy, world religion and logic, we could discuss those topics and he held his own talking about Socrates, Plato, mythical utopian cities, and the origins of our values and laws.

Life was his teacher. He’d witnessed Ku Klux Klan hangings while hiding in the woods as a kid. He saw the unfairness of Blacks, Italians and Irish getting paid less than whites in the coal mines while they all worked side by side. And I’ll never forget the look of horror and disgust on Dad’s face on Bloody Sunday in 1963 when the nightly news showed fire hoses and attack dogs turned on the peaceful marchers in Selma.

I’ll also never forget the look of sheer happiness that lit up his face when Tiger Woods won his first PGA in 1999. He was proud of Tiger for breaking the color barrier in a game Dad loved his entire life. I’m glad he isn’t here to see how far Tiger has fallen, but Dad was the most fair‑minded person I’ve ever known. He’d probably express forgiveness. Why? Because he knew Tiger spent his whole career carrying a heavy load as a role model for an entire generation of dark‑skinned kids. Dad always looked for the story behind the actions of others, and the story usually came with an empathetic twist.

Case in point: decades ago my cousin and brother took my dad to a strip joint, thinking they’d shock him and prove how “grown up” they’d become. After the stripper did her act, my cousin asked what Dad thought about a woman who’d do that. He expected a lot of things, but not Dad saying, “Well, she probably has a baby at home that needs milk, and this is the best job she could get.”

When I downsized nearly five years ago, twenty‑seven books on philosophy and religion made the cut. And I’ve read every single one cover to cover. I can’t say the same about all the other books on my shelves. Some of the titles range from the Bible and The Good Book (aka The Humanist’s Bible) to Aristotle Would Have Liked Oprah, Working on God, The Idiot’s Guide to Philosophy, Seinfeld and Philosophy, Man’s Search for a Soul, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, The Nature of Man, and The Republic of Plato.

Many of my books aren’t hard‑hitting textbooks. But books like Seinfeld and Philosophy (by William Irwin) can teach concepts in a way most of us can understand. One blurb on the back says the book “nicely illustrates how the comic can illuminate the profound.” Yup. Jerry’s constant questioning of everything is very much like what Socrates did to teach. As the book puts it, “Both Socrates and Jerry Seinfeld manage to make something considerable out of seemingly obvious questions and trivial subject matter.”

Kramer, in the same book, is portrayed as being stuck in Søren Kierkegaard’s aesthetic stage of life. In case you’re rusty on your Danish philosophers, Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was the father of the Three Spheres of Existence: the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. The first stage is marked by pleasure‑seeking. Kramer is in constant pursuit of whatever interests him, and what interests him changes daily. He has no ability to commit to anything.

If I believe in the three spheres — and I can certainly name long periods when I was stuck in the aesthetic stage — then I can also pinpoint when my ethical stage began, when I started taking on more responsibility and living a more purposeful life.

But Kierkegaard believed it takes a leap of faith to enter the third stage, and that most people remain in the ethical stage, never taking that leap to fully commit to God. Think nuns‑and‑priests‑level commitment. You can be a steady churchgoer and still not be in the third stage if you’re not willing to give up your creature comforts.

Right about now, if anyone is still reading, you’re probably asking what does it matters what some old Danish dude thought. To answer that, I’ll share a quote from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Philosophy: “Kierkegaard’s work gave rise to the major trend in twentieth‑century philosophy known as existentialism, a philosophy that focuses on the meaning of existence for the individual.” And I dare say nearly everyone reading this flirted with that branch of philosophy in the late ’60s and early ’70s—the counterculture years—when we were all searching for meaning and purpose. Some of us still are. I know I am.

Maybe that’s why the recent Walk for Peace fascinated me so much. It reminded me that there are still people willing to give up their earthly comforts to reach a higher plane of faith.

Sometimes life is a gentle ride in a canoe, and other times it’s like riding in an overloaded ferry boat while holding your breath until you reach the other side. Have you ever written or said something, then Googled it to make sure it originated in your own brain and wasn’t something your subconscious coughed up like a cat with a hairball? That’s what I did with the first sentence in this paragraph. I wrote it as a reply to a comment on my blog, then deleted it because it seemed too richly philosophically for me to have “invented” it. Google couldn’t find anything remotely similar, so I’m pretty sure I can claim the line as my own.

And with that, my promise to write something philosophical is fulfilled. © 

Note: The painting at the top was by Raphael and its titled The School of Athens. I still have the term paper I wrote in 1961 about the gathering of philosophers portrayed in the piece. It's the only term paper I've kept all these years. I read it very few years just to remind myself that I once knew things. 

O is for Overtime—When Work Was Just What You Did

 

A few posts back in this A to Z Blogger’s Challenge, I wrote about my dad working long overtime hours during WWII, and that got me thinking about all the overtime Don and I worked over the years. At no point in my adult life did I ever have a tidy nine-to-five job like Dolly Parton sang about in her 1980 movie song with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.

I never “tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen” to pour myself a cup of “ambition” before heading off to a predictable shift. In the floral industry, where I worked for twenty years, there was no such thing as nine to five. We worked when there was work to do. Funerals, holidays, and weddings didn’t care what time the shop or greenhouses closed. Brides often needed evening appointments, and grieving families needed casket sprays and pedestal pieces with gold-foil letters proclaiming labels like “Mother” or “Grandfather.” Those letters are still the same fonts they were sixty years ago. And yes, I still have the same hand-held Clipper #700 stapler I used back then. The letters, however, now come with sticky backs.

Funerals were unpredictable, but weddings guaranteed overtime on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Not ideal for my man‑hunting days. (Girls who met their spouses in high school or college missed the era of wondering where on earth you’d find a decent man.) Most of the guys I worked with were either married or gay. One was deep in the closet, circa the ’60s. With my hours, my default social life became Sunday skiing or after work bar‑hopping with two single co‑workers—a gay girl and a gay guy. None of us ever found what we were looking on those after work bar hops. Surprise, surprise .

We did have some fun after hours, the kind you can only have when management is nowhere in sight. Flowers came in from all over the world, and once in a while cockroaches hitched a ride. One shipment must have included a pregnant one because they multiplied fast. When we told the boss, he said the monthly spraying would take care of it. We didn’t want to wait. So we trapped a dozen in a jar and planted them in his desk drawers. The next morning, he walked into his office with his coffee and came shooting right back out like the hounds of hell were after him. That night the chemical guy was waiting for us to punch out. The boss? We didn’t see him again all day, and he never found out what we’d done.

Holidays were the worst for overtime. My bosses did wholesale as well as retail, so we prepared artificial arrangements by the hundreds to ship to four states before switching to retail fresh flower orders. We also decorated houses—inside and out—for wealthy clients and big parties. Twelve-to fourteen-hour shifts weren’t unusual. I learned early on to finish my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. I also learned that if I wanted a break, I had to learn to drink coffee, because my boss didn’t like the image of someone sitting in the break room “doing nothing.”

When I left that job, I started my own weddings‑only service out of my home. A one‑woman operation with part‑time help from my nieces, my mom and Don. Anyone who’s ever had their own business knows who ends up working the longest hours. After ten years of that—and more than a few Bridezillas—I gave it up and went back to college, which I wrote about in E is for Education. At the same time, I worked part‑time for Don, plowing snow in the winters and doing parking lot maintenance the rest of the year. He had five or six part‑time workers, but it was he and I who worked the most overtime. Exhausted was our default condition during the nineties. Oh, and did I mention he also worked a full time job at GM where, went we first met, they had a lot of mandatory overtime?

Those years blur together now—the late nights, the early mornings, the holidays spent working instead of celebrating. At the time, it all felt ordinary, just the way life was for us. Maybe that’s the thing about overtime—you don’t notice the hours until you finally step outside and see how far they carried you. ©

N is for Nieces and Nephews—The Long Arc of Family

This is probably going to be the hardest post I’ll write for the A to Z blog Challenge. Hard partly because I want to protect their privacy and not reveal details they haven’t shared publicly. And that’s not my natural style. I have a tendency to beat small observations to death.

So I started by asking AI to define nieces, and I laughed out loud when it told me: “Nieces are cherished family members who bring joy, sunshine, and love, often described as angels or little princesses who rule the heart.” My brother’s daughters (and son and step‑son) are cherished family members who have brought joy, sunshine, and love into my life. But “little princesses”? Not even close. Growing up, tomboys probably would have been far more accurate. I’d be shocked if there were any glitter‑covered tiaras or net tutus in their box of memories. I’ll have to ask.

AI had this to say about nephews: They “celebrate the unique bond between aunts/uncles and their nephews, often highlighting joy, mentorship, and unconditional love.” The unconditional love part is certainly true for me, and I’m pretty sure my nephew would agree my husband could claim a spot on the team that mentored him—considering Don taught him how to plow snow, and Jesse went on to start his own lawn‑care and plow service.

But even before Don came into my life, Jesse and the girls brought joy. I didn’t see them as often as my folks did when they were growing up, but when I did, it was always playtime. And yes, I apologized to my sister‑in‑law and my mother’s ghosts for leaving all the cooking and cleanup to them at family dinners and holidays while I played with the kids. I was deep into photography back then, and those years are well documented. There’s no denying I was the fun aunt.

My two step‑nephews came into our lives with my brother’s second marriage, and by then the “golden years” of bonding had passed, so I’m not as close to them as the others. But they turned into a solid, caring and productive human being anyone would be proud to call family.

All five of them did, and the bond between them is warm and full of love, once you scratch through the surface-stress left behind from caring for my brother during his dementia years. Those of us who've been through that know there is a period of healing that has to take place after adult kids buries their parent. And they seem to be right on schedule in the healing process.

Their growing up years: My heart still smiles at the memories of building forts, swimming, walking in the woods, and doing crafts with my “three musketeers.” In their teen years the girls even worked for me. I had a business making flowers for weddings, and in the summers—when I was busiest—they each spent week days with me in the city. As we sat making corsages and bouquets, I introduced them to Young and the Restless. Or was it As the World Turns? I’m too old to recall the details of long-ago habits and secret pleasures.

If nothing else, I taught the girls that when you have a clean house, you treat yourself to fresh flowers. Both have mentioned that to me recently. I need to revise that directive for myself, though, to: Anytime I go to the store, buy flowers, because my opportunities to do so are getting farther apart as I age.

I’ve watched my brother’s kids grow, learn and weather hard times when their parents divorced. I’ve watched them settle down, raise children of their own, and become productive human beings anyone would be proud to have in their family tree. And I’m pretty sure they’d agree that in addition to being kin, we’ve made the transition to being friends on equal footing. They grew up, and so did I, in all the best ways.

To paraphrase a Hallmark card, “I may not be their mom, but I’m definitely their biggest fan and cheerleader.” 

 

M is for Manuals—Notes for Whoever Draws the Short Straw

 “Manuals?” you ask. How does that word fit my theme for the April A to Z Blog Challenge? At first glance it might seem like a stretch, considering I’m supposed to be writing about the humans, habits, hidden joys and heartaches that shaped my world. But this post is my attempt to write a manual for my own care—just in case, near the end of my days, I can’t communicate with the caregivers and family around me.

Yes, I know none of us can orchestrate how others will treat us when good health leaves the building. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try.

This isn’t my first rodeo with manuals. After my husband’s stroke, I volunteered at a large website for stroke survivors and caregivers. It didn’t take long to work my way up to the management team, even had a seat on the board. With so many people trying to navigate chat rooms, blogs and forums—many of them brand‑new to computers—I asked my boss if I could write a how‑to manual.

And I did. Clear, step‑by‑step directions for people who were overwhelmed, grieving, hopeful and learning to double‑click all at the same time.

Meanwhile, on the home front, I wrote another manual—this one for how to care for Don and the dog if something happened to me. Neither of them could talk, and someone needed to know things like, “Don’t feed them spinach unless you enjoy cleaning up vomit.”

Some might say it was busywork, a way to feel in control while life spun wildly out of it. Maybe. But it was definitely true that I hated the way people made assumptions about disabled people like Don. Too often those assumptions included a belief that a lower IQ comes bundled with a wheelchair and a limited vocabulary.

Depending on where in the head the stroke occurs, that might be true. But my husband’s stroke was smack dab in the middle of the left frontal lobe which is where speech sentences and grammatical structure is produced, causing what is known as non-fluent aphasia aka difficulty getting words out. It’s akin to having a car where the motor and wheels work fine (Don’s brain and lips) but the transmission that makes the wheels turn (or the words to come out) is broken. He knew exactly what he wanted to say but in the 12 ½ years after his stroke and after six years of speech therapy his vocabulary never increased beyond a core of 25 hard earned words.

But his intelligence was untouched, and his desire to communicate never dimmed. He was a born storyteller and he found a way to still be one. That way was to put me in a position where I had no choice but to explain what was on Don’s mind. Like the day he parked his wheelchair right in front of the door to a cigars and cigarettes store and he wouldn’t let anyone in or out. In a militant way only an x-smoker on a mission could do, he held up three fingers while repeating the word “three!” over and over again. This forced me to tell Don’s story to the gathering crowd about how he used to smoke three to six packs of cigarettes a day and he blamed the habit for earning him heart by-pass and a stroke.

 His special shorthand for all he'd gone through since the stroke was to hold up two fingers and say the word, "two then look up me which was my cue to explain that two neurologists had told the family he’d be a vegetable for the rest of his life. The universe response was usually the same: “You sure fooled them!” And it was true.

To friends and family who spent time with Don after the stroke, it was clear that despite his disabilities he was still the same, intelligent and caring person he’d always been. Before the stroke, we used to tease him that we should number his stories because we all knew the by heart. After the stroke that's exactly what he did.

Only someone who knows you deeply can speak for you when you can’t. I don’t have that person in my life, which is why the idea of a manual keeps tugging at me.

It’s embarrassing to admit I’ve already written a 'manual' for what to do after I die—complete with pictures of who gets what—so why not take it a step further and write one for any future caregivers who might cross my path before I kick the proverbial bucket?

A few sample entries:

• Don’t call me sweetie or dear.

• You can never feed me too much ice cream, but never—ever—try to feed me liver unless you enjoy having it spit right back at you.

• Don’t talk religion at me. You take care of my body; I’ll take care of my soul.

• If you set the TV to an old‑people black-and-white channel, sports, or a game show, I’ll consider it waterboarding. If you must leave me with a fictional character as a distraction when you leave, choose the Hallmark Channel so I can binge on happily‑ever‑afters. (I’ll explain why when we get to the letter R.)

So that’s the starting bones of my manual—I’ll finish while I can still boss people around. And if it also reveals a few of the humans, habits, hidden joys and heartaches that shaped my world, then I’d say M for Manuals earned its place in the alphabet. ©

L is for Letters —And Not a Love Letter in the Bunch

 

For the letter L in the A to Z Blog Challenge, I had a hard time choosing between Love and Letters. I wished I had a stack of love letters tied with a satin ribbon—something I could pull out and sigh over, combining both words into one tidy topic titled L is for Love Letters. But alas, while I’ve written and received hundreds of letters in my lifetime, not a single one qualifies as a love letter. 

I did once get a letter asking if there was any chance we could get back together—written a full year after a guy broke up with me. I kept that letter from the late ’60s until 2022, when I was downsizing for my move to Independent Living, what I called The Great Purging Project. A week later, I saw him for the first time since the breakup, at a funeral. How’s that for the universe laughing at me? We didn’t speak. I doubt he even saw me, and if he did, he probably wouldn’t have recognized me. He hadn’t changed a bit; I, on the other hand, had gained a lot of weight.

My first real letters—aside from those to Santa—were exchanged with a summer friend I met at the cottage. We were pen pals for four years. Another pen pal from my high school years was a boy I also met at the lake. During my downsizing, I became convinced he’d grown up to be a famous movie star. He lived in Georgia, I lived in Michigan, and after several years of writing, he moved and we lost touch. We were just friends, not boy‑girl friends, if you know what I mean. I thought about contacting the movie star, but what would I have said? “Hi, remember me? I’m the girl you sat in a tree with sixty‑plus years ago at your grandmother’s cottage.”

Another letter-writer from my past—a soldier in Vietnam—turned up living less than fifty miles away when I went looking. We had a brother/sister kind of correspondence, eight-to-ten-page letters about everything under the sun, including Twiggy. He had a girlfriend back home planning their wedding, and near the end of our exchanges he was giving me dating advice. (Apparently I wasn’t giving guys a fair chance. Who knew.) When I found his address in this century, I decided a voice from the past might cause trouble—especially if his wife was the jealous type. And, really, what did I expect? That I’d gain another brother figure in my life?

His letter bundle was part of a larger collection of letters I had to downsize out of my life, correspondence between me and 50—yes, fifty—G.I. Joe's stationed in Vietnam, circa 1967. I even had carbon copies of my own letters and index cards to keep track of everyone’s details. It all started one Christmas when I was in college and the local newspaper printed the addresses of servicemen who would welcome holiday cards. Over fifty guys wrote back asking about the perfume I sprayed on my envelopes. It was Avon’s Unforgettable, and I could probably write an entire essay quoting their comments. One guy said that at Mail Call the others passed my letters around before he could even open them. Another said any girl who “smells like that and has such beautiful handwriting has to be pretty.” Several said they carried my letters in their helmets—one to drown out the smell of jungle rot, another to “remember what girls smell like.”

What triggered me doing a deep dive into all my old correspondence was one of those serendipity moments that makes you believe the universe occasionally nudges things into place. During my Great Purging Project, the local senior hall hosted a speaker from The Million Letters Campaign, a museum collecting letters from servicemen from all the wars. During the Q&A, I asked if they’d want my whole collection or just the interesting ones. “Absolutely the whole thing,” he said. “Would you feel comfortable donating your copies too?” I told him I wanted to read them one last time, but yes—I’d donate everything. After spending winter nights reliving my life through those letters, I packed them up and sent them off. It felt right. As I often said during the Greats Purging Project, I wasn’t just selling and donating a lifetime of possessions—I was running an Antique and Collectibles Adoption Center.

I could go on writing about the decade of Christmas letters, the round‑robin chains, and the various pen pals who drifted in and out of my life but it seems enough to say that it wasn’t important who wrote to me, but who I became in writing back. By the time I discovered the blog community, it felt like another serendipitous pairing from the universe. Blogging is simply a bigger envelope to send off into the world. ©

K is for Toby Keith—For Writing the Soundtrack of Us

Did you ever have a theme song? I did—for 12½ years. And before that, Don had one from 1993 until the day he died in 2012. Both were born out of Toby Keith’s prolific songwriting, which is why K belongs to him in this month‑long daily A to Z Challenge.

According to Rolling Stone, Keith wrote 45 Top‑20 Billboard hits, “many written entirely on his own,” and who knows how many more he might have pulled out of that magical place where songs come from if stomach cancer hadn’t taken him at age 62. If I could have been a songwriter, I’d want to write in that same slice‑of‑life, down‑to‑earth style. If you liked his brand of testosterone, you couldn’t help liking his honest portrayal of the type—a good‑old boy “looking for love in all the wrong places,” to borrow Johnny Lee’s iconic line from Urban Cowboy.

From Keith’s debut single, Should’ve Been a Cowboy, Don and I became hardcore fans. Anyone who knew Don wasn’t surprised that the song became his theme song. From the time he was a little boy, Don loved western clothes—Stetson hats, Frye boots, boot‑cut Levi’s, Pendleton shirts—none of which were common attire in West Michigan. One of the best gifts I ever made him was a hand‑tooled leather belt and gun holster, his pride and joy on his annual hunting trips to Colorado and Wyoming. When Should’ve Been a Cowboy went into the cassette player, even the dog knew it was time to stop what we were doing and sing along with Toby.

In 2008, Toby starred in Beer for My Horses, the only film he produced and co‑wrote. I wasn’t the only person crazy about the song by the same name from that movie. It was his longest-lasting number one hit—the 2003 version sung with Willie Nelson. Nelson was Don’s favorite country western singer and Keith was mine. But I loved that ong for another reason: it reminded me of one of my dad’s stories about a bar where men occasionally rode their horses inside and the horses got served a pail of beer. My grandfather worked in the coal mines, and my dad—still a kid—would meet him at the mine entrance, grab his tin lunch bucket and run it to the bar, get it filled with cool beer and meet his dad at home. It’s also the same bar where my dad, at ten years old, played piano for a quarter a night. (He was self-taught and played by ear.) Try letting a kid do that today. I’ve often wished I were a cartoonist so I could draw that scene: a grinning little boy at a piano, glancing over his shoulder as a horse comes through the swinging doors.

Keith’s song, I Wanna Talk About Me has a punchy rhythm that begs me to crank it up and sing along when it's on the radio, but that’s not why I adopted it as my theme song. It came out the year after Don’s massive stroke, and as any caregiver of a seriously disabled spouse knows, the first words out of everyone’s mouth are always, “How is he doing?” Don was right‑side paralyzed and had only a 25‑word vocabulary for 12½ years. When the song came out I was falling apart—taking him to therapy appointments four days a week, living in a one‑bedroom apartment while trying to sell our two non‑wheelchair‑friendly houses, incomes gone, the dog was spending too much time alone. And in the middle of all that, I was designing a wheelchair‑friendly house and working with a builder to bring it to life. I’d wanted to be an architect since before my teens, and in a strange twist of fate, Don’s stroke gave me a small taste of that dream.

The first time I heard I Wanna Talk About Me on the radio, I cried, “That’s what I need—someone to ask about me, me, me for a change!” Every time it came on after that, I’d turn the radio up and sing along while Don stared at me like I’d lost my mind. This week, driving home from the sleep lab, the song came on again. I hadn’t heard it in years. And just like that, the universe handed me my muse for the A to Z Challenge.

There are other Toby Keith songs I love, but these three will always have the power to take me back—to the years when I laughed, cried, and lived my life the best way I knew how. Funny, isn’t its, how a few old songs can still tap us on the shoulder and say, “Remember?” ©

 Photo: Don as a little boy 

J is for July Fourth —The Year the Celebration Never Ended

The Fourth of July used to be my all‑time favorite holiday. Family parties with star‑spangled tablecloths and food of every description, parades where half the town’s children marched down Main Street while the other half sprawled along the tree‑lined route—those are pleasant memories now, tucked into the scrapbook of my younger days. Days when Don and I always had someplace special to go. Even before I met him, the Fourth meant a party at my folks’ summer cottage. My good memories of the holiday are endless, including the night I got my very first kiss from a boy—under a fireworks display, no less. Sweet.

Time marches on, and the only thing certain is that nothing stays the same. People move. People die. People divorce. People marry into new family units and spend their holidays elsewhere. The big family parties I loved for so many years petered out decades ago when the ones who organized them left this earth and no one stepped into their shoes. Such is the natural order of things. Whoop‑de‑do. Happy fricking Fourth of July.

If it sounds like I’m feeling sorry for myself, I’m not. I’m gearing up for a walk down Memory Lane to the happiest, biggest Fourth of July of my life—1976, the Bicentennial. Don and I were six years into our relationship then, still acting like kids even though we were in our thirties. I remember that summer as a blur of bluegrass festivals for us and the Ford administration for the nation. It was the year Rocky came out, along with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, one of our all‑time favorites. Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” topped the singles chart, and Barbara Walters became the first woman to co‑anchor the network news.

And then there was the spectacle: more than 50 tall ships from 20 nations filling the Hudson River for the celebration. A laser beam—via satellite!—cut a star‑spangled ribbon to kick off the nation’s two‑day party. That was a huge technological marvel back then. And for every dignified event, there was something quirky to balance it out—like guys sporting red, white, and blue dyed beards, or the landing pads built for UFOs that never bothered to show up. I was so disappointed!

Don and I threw ourselves 150% into the Bicentennial spirit. We went a little crazy buying ’76 souvenirs, convinced we’d someday get rich off our collection of commemorative coins, china, jewelry, McDonald’s containers, and even dry‑cleaner bags wishing America a happy birthday went into a wooden Anheuser-Busch commemorative beer case. I made myself a long, flowing hippie‑style dress out of Bicentennial fabric, and I loved wearing that thing. When I downsized to move to my CCC, I discovered—duh!—that the souvenirs weren't worth much because everyone had saved them. But remembering our enthusiasm still makes me smile. We even signed a copy of the Declaration of Independence that now sits in a time capsule. That was also the summer several nearby towns opened their 100‑year time capsules, and of course we attended those too. I loved 1976.

I wish we could stay young and carefree forever. I wish people didn’t have to die or move away. I wish our country didn’t feel so fragile right now. But since those wishes can’t come true, I’m grateful for the memories that keep me company. ©

I is for Independent Living—Where Choice Still Matter

I doubt there’s much about living in an Independent Living facility that I haven’t already written about over the past almost five years. But I’m old, and old people are known for repeating ourselves, so if you’re a long‑time reader and have already heard what I have to say today, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. 'I' is a hard letter for a lifestyle blogger to work into the A to Z Blog Challenge.

Although now that I think about it, I’m not sure “lifestyle blogger” fits me anyway. AI defines a lifestyle writer as someone who: “...creates engaging content focused on daily living, trends, and personal experiences, covering topics like fashion, wellness, travel, food and home décor. They produce articles, blog posts, and digital content designed to evoke emotions, offer practical advice, and help readers live well.” If that’s the standard, I checked the wrong box when I registered for this challenge. “Memoir Blogger” would have been more accurate. 

If I influence anyone at all, it’s usually about whether (or not) buying into a Continuum Care Community is right for them. It’s a huge decision, and in my opinion it’s one you should make for yourself—not wait until your kids are forced to do it because you shouldn’t be living alone anymore. And since most of these places have waiting lists measured in years, starting early isn’t a bad thing. The sales crew here tell people to begin the process five years before they think they’ll be ready.

So what’s it actually like living in an Independent Living apartment with an Assisted Living and Memory Care building just down the road where you could end up someday? I can tell you what it’s not like. It’s not like the stereotypes in movies such as Queen Bee or The Inside Man. At least not in my experience. And it’s not like high school, despite what one snarky commenter once suggested. I did a lot of soul‑searching after that remark, wondering if I’d been writing about my life here in a way that made us all sound silly or shallow. My reply to her was that the same personality types and situations exist anywhere a large group of people interact—schools, workplaces, neighborhoods. And I gave a silent apology to the residents I’ve never written about: the ones devoted to serious causes, like the man who won a national physics prize for a book he wrote while living here, the woman who teaches OLLI classes at a local college, the woman who founded and works at a church that serves a large immigrant community and the woman who helps out at the humane society's neutering clinic. 

But from that high‑school comment I learned something important: I’m no better than the creators of Queen Bee or The Inside Man. I choose the low‑hanging fruit when I write about my daily activities. Sure, there’s gossip and misunderstandings in my blog. Sure, there are 'portraits' of people I don’t like and people I fan‑girl. But that’s on me—not on the environment I live in. I like using self‑defeating humor where I can and observational humor where I can’t. 

But here’s the bottom line: I love living in an Independent Living facility. I have all the privacy I want, and when I want to be around people, they’re right outside my door. There’s intellectual stimulation—book clubs and serious discussions in my Tuesday night group. And lectures, like the one on Nellie Bly we had this week. We have good food in our restaurant, but when I get a kitchen itch that needs scratching, I have a full kitchen where I can make my own comfort foods. I get to laugh every day. And I love having a maintenance crew and an IT guy as close as my keyboard. 

(Tip: it helps to keep your computer skills up—checking schedules and menus, signing up for events and dinner reservations, ordering take-outs from the dining room, and putting in work orders online keeps you more independent than having to depend on someone else to do these things for you. We do have a concierge who will help with these things BUT my theory is the more independent you are the less likely your family and the management will put their heads together and proclaim it's time to ship you on down the road to Assisted Living or Memory Care.)

Yes, it was hard leaving a house I designed and built, a house full of memories and possessions that were difficult to part with. But I wanted to be the one to make those decisions. I didn’t want to end up like a close friend, who was given less than a week’s notice that her sons were moving her to assisted living. She was so shocked she stayed in her bedroom the whole while they packed her up. When I talked to her last night, she said she was surrounded by things her family thought made her new assisted living space pretty, but few of the things she wanted. 

I’ve heard versions of that story from others here—people whose families strong‑armed them into moving before they were mentally ready, and who had no say in the place chosen for them or the stuff moved along with them. Those are the people who struggle to adjust, who hide in their apartments, who find the transition hard. Finding your tribe and a new rhythm for living in a CCC is so much easier if you do with a free will.

When we’re growing up, when we go off to college, when we get married and move into our own places, we’re generally in control of our own destinies. Moving to an independent living apartment—for me—was just another station along the way. It took several years of visiting places like this before I found one where I wanted to sign on the dotted line. Then another couple of years of purging and downsizing a huge amount of stuff. But I’ve never regretted the decision. Not even once. Independence looks different at every stage of life; this just happens to be the version that fits me now. ©

 Photo: One side of my living area in my Independent Living apartment

H is for Happiness—a Colorado memory that never dulled

If you’ve been following my A to Z Blog Challenge posts, you might recall in E is for Education I ended with a teaser about me writing about the happiest day of my life for the letter H.  I first wrote about this topic back in 2012 and a few people might think I shouldn’t be recycling an old post for this month-long writing event. But for selfish reasons I wanted to wallow in old memories. So here it goes, my recycled post with additional text at the end….

I wish I had a better memory or I would have had the foresight to keep travel diaries when Don and I took vacations. In my defense, I never needed to keep track of the pesky details of our trips because Don could be counted on to be my living, breathing encyclopedia. If he was here right now, for example. I’d ask him if it was in Central City, Black Hawk or Cripple Creek Colorado where we found ourselves on a Halloween night with nothing but fumes in the gas tank. It was one of those little boom and bust towns high in the Rocky Mountains back in the days before they became tourist destinations. That happened more recently after the state legalizing gambling in their historic goldmine districts.

Whatever town we landed in on Halloween, back then there was only three ways to get to that town: a narrow gauge railroad, a two lane road that wound its way through horseshoe curves with a mountain on one side of the road and a deep drop off without guard rails on the other side, and a far less dangerous road going out the other side of the town. We were young and stupid back then or we never would have taken that mountain pass---especially after dark----and we never would have driven past a sign by a gas station proclaiming it was the last chance to buy fuel for x number of miles. 

Let me tell you, we were never so relieved to see a gas station in our entire lives and as far as Halloween memories go, that night and the next day created some of the best. Inside the station was a table full of popcorn balls for trick-or-treaters and when Don tried to buy one, the lady explained they had 27 kids in town and only 27 popcorn balls. ("No popcorn for Don!" as Seinfeld's soup Nazi might have said.) We had a 50 gallon auxiliary gas tank on the pickup and it took a long time to pump 49+ gallons so we were there a long while, and as we waited Don handed out popcorn balls while the proprietor took Polaroid pictures of the kids for their bulletin board. That was small town America at its very best.

Our next stop in town was to the only other business open that night---a bar inside of an old three story hotel built in the 1800s that no longer rented out rooms. It was a beautiful building with ornate carved wood everywhere and it had a staircase winding upward to a sky light framing a full moon. No amount of talking on Don’s part could get the owner to let us stay in one of those rooms upstairs but he did get us invited to stay overnight in the private home of a patron of the place. Don would have taken up the offer, I’m sure, if he’d been alone but all I could think about was the Bates Motel and getting killed by a psycho while taking a shower. No, that night it was sleeping bags under the stars for us.

The next day we spent roaming around the town, talking to the residents and soaking up the history of their heyday of gold mining. We even spent a fair among of time sitting on a huge pile of dirt at the mouth of an old mining shaft, sifting for gold that some how—we thought—had escaped the eyes of hundreds of other people in the hundred years since that mine was active. It doesn’t sound like much to tell the story but that afternoon, sitting there in our flannel shirts and jeans, the sun overhead and the smell of fall in the air was the happiest time in my life. We were young, crazy, newly in love and we didn’t have a care in the world. We were letting our imaginations run wild picturing ourselves alive and living a hundred years ago and also trying to figure out how we could buy that old hotel in town that was up for sale for ridiculously low price, especially considering what has become of that place since casino gambling gave the area another boom. Back home we'd been looking for a vintage house to restore.

People in the widowhood circles I’ve come to know all seem to name their wedding days as the happiest day of their lives. And of course, everyone else immediately understands the reference—the emotions and commitment a day like that represents. I usually don’t say anything when this topic comes up because there is no shortcut to understanding how sitting on a pile of dirt in the mountains of Colorado could be the happiest day of anyone’s life. But it’s the day I keep coming back to when I think about Don and myself starting out life together. Even when people see the gold miner’s pan filled with rocks, fool’s gold and unpolished rubies sitting on the dining room table no one could have ever guessed that it’s the equivalent of having wedding day flowers pressed between the pages of a book. They’re the souvenirs we brought back from a trip we took to heaven on earth.
Back to 2026: I didn’t change a word since I first wrote the above. Visiting that post still has the power to bring back those Zen-like hours we spend panning for gold and day-dreaming of the futures we could have had, if we could have found a way to live in that area. After we got back home we did give it serious consideration but in the end we didn’t have the assets to buy that old hotel and restore it, not to mention at the time there was no way for us to make a living out there. For anyone, we thought. This area was not even in the sight-line of the deep-pocketed people, back then, who later came along with bigger dreams than we had. From all reports, they turned that dying town and the hotel into something uniquely Western and profitable. But we were always afraid to go back again because in this case, Thomas Wolfe was probably right. You can’t go “home” again. Seeing the town spit-shined and full of tourists would have destroyed the feelings of total solitude, peace and love we experienced that day.  © 

When I downsized to move to Independent Living the gold panning tin got sold and its contents ended up in this fruit jar. Note to Nieces: Be sure to move it with me if I end in Assisted Living or Memory Care.

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G is for Goofs — Life’s Built‑in Comic Relief

I struggled to find a topic for the letter G in the A to Z Blog Challenge. My original prompt word—gullible—just wasn’t coming together. I picked it because if my nickname growing up wasn’t “gullible,” it should have been. To this day, someone can tell me something totally off the wall and I’ll believe them, which usually ends with me becoming the butt of their joke.

After staring at a blank computer screen long enough to drink two cups of lemon tea with French vanilla creamer, I finally resorted to asking my MS AI copilot for suggestions. I have a love/hate relationship with how AI can spit ideas out so fast that it makes me feels like my brain could break, trying to keep up. Jasper (because I insist on personifying my copilot) gave me twelve possible G‑words.

Grace, Grit, and Glimmers, he said, have “hidden depth.” 

Grandmother, Games, and Gatherings “lend themselves to storytelling.” I didn’t tell him I’m not a grandmother nor did I have any in my life, and I’m saving Games for the letter M. As for Gatherings, long‑time readers are probably sick of hearing about the events we have here in my Independent Living building.

Goofs, Gumption, and Gaps, Jasper claimed, are “words with winks.” I didn’t ask what that meant because he can get long‑winded with explanations—like every professor I ever had who thought we should care about the boring stuff he was going to put on a test. 

Growth, Goodbyes, and Guidance rounded out his list, and he claimed they echo my overall A to Z theme the best.

In the end, I chose Goofs because I’ve had plenty of them, and many of my best ones came right out of my mouth.

Like the time I spent two hours manning a refreshment table at the senior hall. After many times repeating, “What can I get you? We have coffee, tea, and water,” I was absolutely shocked when, out of nowhere, the words “We have coffee, tea, or me” rolled off my tongue. It was embarrassing, of course, but I laughed it off. That didn’t stop the phrase from popping out two more times. By then I was mortified, though thankfully half the people in earshot were hard of hearing and probably thought they misheard me. Needless to say, I didn’t volunteer for that job again.

I did have a revelation that day: the old guys who wanted to be friendly or flirty all used the same opening line—“Did you girls make all these cookies?” I’m guessing they didn’t notice the gray hair and the orthopedic shoes that no “girl” would be caught dead wearing. Girl, gal, lady, woman—pin a pronoun on my back and see if I answer.

“Coffee, Tea or Me” was the title of a book in the ’60s, and it became a pick‑up line back in its day. It was a flirtatious code for “If you ask me out, I’ll go.” Those were the good old days when girls were still halfway coy and boys didn’t shout about our body parts as they drove by. “Nice rack!” “Bodelicious butt!” And they wonder why older people get flaky as we age. We have decades of memories merging with our present‑day adventures to form a perfect storm of confusion.

There’s no confusion about another goof that came out of my mouth in my late twenties. It was at a family Christmas party. We were all opening gifts when, for reasons I no longer remember, I said the F‑word. Loud and clear. If you knew my mom and dad, you’d know they kept swearing out of their vocabularies. You’d also know why the proverbial pin dropping could be heard in the silence that followed.

My nieces and their boyfriends stared at their hands, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. My shocked mom’s mouth formed a perfect O. My dad stuck a finger in his ear as if trying to clean it, probably hoping he’d misheard. My brother’s wide grin made it clear he was delighted to witness me screwing up in front of our parents. The silence dragged on for what felt like an hour before someone finally picked up a gift and thanked the giver. In all the years that followed, not one person—NOT ONE—ever brought up the F‑Word Christmas, but it lives in infamy in my memory bank.

Swear words are as rare as ten dollar bills growing on trees in my continuum care community. But one day another resident let the F word slip and immediately slapped her hand over her mouth, eyes darting around to gauge the reaction. I laughed—at her, and at the memory of the day I made the same goof in public.

Sometimes I think my word goofs are just life’s way of tapping me on the shoulder, reminding me not to take myself too seriously. They turn into stories, and the stories turn into the glue that holds all the years together. ©

 Note: If you normally get email notices of when I publish, you won't be get during this April, daily Challenge. I have the free service which limits how many times a month they send them and I've reached my limit for April.

F is for Friendships— The Company we Keep Along the Way

 Writing about friendships for the A to Z Blog Challenge shouldn’t be much of a challenge, says the woman who has only typed eleven words on the topic so far. Still, I can think of many sitcoms built entirely around friendships—Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and the City, How I Met Your Mother, and The Big Bang Theory to name a few of my favorites. (That should tell you something about what I look for in a friend.) The characters in those shows are flawed and quirky, but sitcom writers don’t create them in a vacuum. They pull from real life and enlarge the flaws so we can’t miss the stereotypes we might meet in our own lives. Somewhere in my archives I even compared fellow residents in my continuum care community to Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha (Sex and the City.) I could easily do the same with the other shows.

Jess C. Scott wrote, “Friends are the family you choose,” and it would be hard to disagree. But since moving into my CCC, I’ve noticed how loosely some people use the word friend. I’ve been introduced that way by people who don’t know the first thing about me beyond the fact that I started the First Thursdays Desserts Only Club. If I were introducing someone here, I’d probably say, “This is so‑and‑so. She started the line dancing group,” or whatever fact I can tag the person with. Hearing “This is my friend, Jean,” never fails to make me wonder what makes us friends. If you don’t know a person’s last name, that’s an acquaintance in my book. But I suppose it would sound cold to introduce me to someone’s son or daughter with, “This is my acquaintance, Jean.” Not that I would care.

Experts say there are four types of friends: acquaintances, casual friends, close friends, and lifelong friends. I’d add situational friends—work friends, school friends, neighborhood friends. People we don’t see outside the bubble where we’re thrown together.

Verywellmind.com defines a good friend as “someone who respects your boundaries, supports you, and brings out the best in you.” I agree, and I’d add that a good friend is someone you can laugh with, cry with and trust with your secrets, knowing they’ll keep them in a vault. I’ve been lucky enough to have a lifelong friend since kindergarten, and I’m guessing that’s rare. Had she not moved 656 miles away after college and getting married, we probably would have driven our husbands nuts with our giggle‑fests. Distance changed the way we interacted, but not the fact that our roots are tangled from growing up within view of each other’s houses. After she married, we became avid pen pals. Then when cell phones came along, ending long‑distance charges, we kept in touch that Way. Recently, after her sons moved her into assisted living, Nancy asked them to bring her some stationery and stamps so she could write to me again. Everything old is new again.

A few years after Nancy was no longer part of my daily life, I met my husband, and Don took her place as my best, best friend. We were together for 42 years, so I’m calling him my half‑a‑life‑long friend. (Take it up with the management if you think that’s absurd.) We knew each other’s faults and strengths and supported each other through thick and thin—an overused phrase, but I can’t think of a more poetic way to describe our relationship. And with him came a group of neighborhood friends. We could laugh together over Saturday‑night pizzas, but sharing secrets or sensitive information? Not on your life. But on the surface, I suppose, we looked like I sitcom.

One reason I’ve always loved sitcoms built around a group of friends is because I could live vicariously through them. Only once in my life did I have a friendship circle like that. After my husband died and I was spending time at the senior hall, they held an event called “Looking for Friends,” or something similar—an event that, under different circumstances, would have falsely marked anyone attending as an apathetic loser. (Think teenagers with fragile egos.) But we were widows, and we started meeting for lunch, then movies—yada, yada, yada. We shared a sense of humor, laughed at the same throw‑away lines and could toss our own right back. Then Covid came along and nearly dealt a death blow to the group. As they say, friendships change over time, and even the good ones have expiration dates.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include another kind of friendship: the ones that grow across generations within a family. I’ve watched my two nieces become wonderful mothers and grandmothers. I’ve watched them grow into remarkable human beings. And I’ve been privileged to watch our relationships shift from niece‑and‑aunt to equal adults who are also friends. I’ve seen a few mother‑daughter duels that eventually make that same transition. It’s a wonderful kind of bond to have in one’s life.

Whatever form they take, friendships have a way of evolving right along with us. They change shape over the years, but they never stop shaping us. ©

Photo: The Gathering Girls trying to teach each other new tricks on our cell phones. 

E is for Education—and the Lessons That Stick

Using the letter E for the A to Z Blog Challenge was another hard choice for me, but I settled on writing about education. It fits with my overall theme of things that have shaped me. But then, can’t we all say that about our education, or lack thereof, to one degree or another?

My mom and dad never made it to high school, but they were both well educated in the ways the world works. Their generation were avid newspaper readers; my mom also read a lot of fiction. My dad was self‑taught, mechanical and could fix anything. That doesn’t sound all that impressive to the Google‑it generation, who can get how‑to directions or step‑by‑step videos for things Dad’s generation had to figure out by instinct, logic and trial and error.

In my generation, finishing high school was more the norm, and I did, but I’d be the first to admit I didn’t do all that well in school. In grade school I struggled with mild, undiagnosed dyslexia paired with being left‑handed in a school where a couple of teachers tried to change the latter or pronounced me “stupid” because of the former. Today schools don’t do that, and I’ll let AI explain why: “Forcing a left-handed child to use their right hand disrupts natural brain development, often causing emotional distress, academic confusion, and neurological stress. Common consequences include reduced coordination, stuttering, dyslexia-like issues, shyness, and lower self-esteem. Handedness is rooted in brain wiring, not just habit.”

I struggled with reading and had a hard time keeping up in classes that required keeping my nose in a book. Thankfully, I excelled at art, mechanical drawing, home ec and math, so my average got me accepted—probationally—into college. There, I had to take what we students called Dumbbell English.

Something happened that summer between high school and college. It was as if the two sides of my brain quit warring over control, and I aced both semesters of Dumbbell English. It might also be because the class gave us all a fresh start without the preconceived opinions of our intelligence or lack thereof. I’ve had two outstanding teachers in my life, and the woman who taught that course was one of them. I still have the worn and tattered books we used those semesters: Basic Composition and Clear and Correct Writing.

Note to my nieces: If you ever have to move me out of Independent Living and into Memory Care, make sure these books go with me. They’ve always been my benchmarks, reminding me that I’m not stupid or dumb—words no child should ever hear an adult, much less a teacher, label them.

One of the guys who lives in my building offered me a watercolor set of his wife’s shortly after she had to go to Memory Care. “She doesn’t use them,” he said. I told him to leave them in her room unless she asks him to take them away. “She’s been an artist her whole life,” I went on. “On her good days, she probably still thinks of herself as an artist, and seeing the watercolor set could help with that.” I’m a firm believer in keeping benchmarks around for people struggling to remember who they are.

The other outstanding teacher in my life taught a class called Women in Transition that I took twenty‑three years later. It was a required, no‑credit course for—yes—older women going back to college to finish their degrees. Had I stayed in college back in the ’60s, it would have taken only a year to graduate, assuming I didn’t flunk out, which was a possibility given the fact that I had left all the heavy‑reading courses for my senior year and was still struggling with the slow-reader bugaboo. But between the ’60s and the ’80s they added a bunch more required classes, so it took me two years to finally graduate. The day I walked across the stage to get my diploma was one of the top two happiest days of my life.

If you want to hear about the other happiest day, you’ll have to come back on the 9th, when the letter H will be my muse. And no, it’s not about my wedding day. ©

 

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D is for Dogs—Love, Loss, and All the Pawprints Between

 

Dogs, Dad, Don or dyslexia. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. What should I write about for the letter D in the April A to Z Blog Challenge? Since my theme this month is “The humans, habits, hidden joys and heartaches that shaped my world,” I could cheat and pick all four—Dad for the humans (the best person I’ve ever known), Don for habits (he chain‑smoked three packs a day and I’ve got stories), dogs for the joys, and dyslexia for the heartaches that followed me far beyond school. But if I start cheating this early, by the time I get to K the Challenge Police might kick me off the spreadsheet that tracks how often we comment on other bloggers. As I understand it, that’s half the point of this yearly event—discovering new blogging voices. So welcome if you’re new here, and if you’re a long‑time reader, thank you for sticking around.

I’m choosing Dogs for my D topic because most of you don’t know that back when blogging was at its height, I kept a blog in a large dog‑blog community—large as in roughly 700 dog lovers. Most of us wrote in our dog’s voice. I loved it. My dogs could say things I couldn’t, or add a humorous twist to the antics all dog parents recognize.

Here’s something Levi “wrote” in The Levi and Cooper Chronicles when he was a puppy: “Wednesday me found Moomie’s boobie hammock hanging in the bathroom. Levi is smart. Me figured out how to get it off the hook and mes turned it into pull‑toy for my stuffie, Mr. Goose. He was having so much fun riding through the living room and Daady was having fun watching us until Moomie came along. End of fun. End of Daddy, Mr. Goose and Levi being happy.”

Six years later, Levi had learned proper pronouns but not how to soften a blow: “Something happened I want to share with the world because it hurts so much. My daady died! My human daady died and I’m so worried because he went to the Rainbow Bridge without his wheelchair. He needs that chair and Moomie just took it to a place called Goodwill. If they really have good will they’d bring it back and bawl my moomie out for leaving it there.”

In this blog alone I’ve written seven posts dedicated to the dogs in my life, and there are countless others where they wander in and out of the narrative. They’ve been shaping me since the beginning—from Blackie, the puppy who shared my playpen and grew into my babysitter and protector, to Levi, my last dog, who died just before I moved into Independent Living nearly five years ago. They’ve been confidants, companions and stand‑ins for the babies I never had. They’ve made me laugh, cry, brag and shamelessly use them for blog fodder. I worried over them, cleaned up after them, and I was, admittedly, a helicopter pet parent.

Don, my husband, spoiled them in the classic good‑cop way, while I was the bad cop in charge of training them to be good citizens and housemates. I loved him all the more for the way he treated my poodles. Before we were married, I gave him a document proclaiming him to be 49¾% owner of Cooper, and you’d have thought I’d handed him the keys to a mansion. On his birthdays and Father’s Days, “Cooper” would tape a quarter inside a greeting card and deliver the cards mouth to hand. When I was cleaning out my husband’s stuff during a move I discovered that he’d kept all those cards and quarters. They were the same quarters Don had dropped into Cooper’s piggy bank every time I let him take the dog along while he plowed snow. They were crazy about each other.

John Steinbeck once wrote, “I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.” Most dog parents know that look. They judge us, and sometimes we come up short. But we also know their look of pure devotion, and the one they use when they’re trying to sweet‑talk us into shelling out a treat.

I miss having that co‑dependent relationship in my life. Truth be told, I probably needed my dogs more than they ever needed me.

And that’s my wrap for the letter D. ©

Photo at the top: Levi, the only Schnauzer I ever had. The rest of the dogs in my adult life were poodles (3). In childhood we had collie and two Belgium Shepherds and one dog of questionable breeding.